AN: This is by far the most ambitious individual chapter I have written. I'm still trying to find my voice when it comes to combat scenes, so I hope you enjoy.


Bastard. Shinjiro wiped the blood off his cheek. Chariot got up and meandered its way out of the mess that used to be the playground monkey bars, slowly taking its time to shake off the chunks of metal and readjust itself. He held up his Evoker once more. "Leader! I'm ready!"

"Right!" Kotone shakily held up her Evoker to her head and summoned Elea.

The biggest problem with this thing was simple, they couldn't hurt it. Shinjiro barely did any damage even with his axe, Castor had no magic attacks so the most he could do was try and wrestle Chariot to the ground or keep its mouths shut. Io's wind attacks were as dangerous as a summer breeze, and Elea's light attacks were only marginally better. All the while, being as big, slow, and lumbering as it was, once it started running, it accelerated fast and hit hard.

"Reaggghhh!" Shinjiro ran towards it with Castor, preempting its mad dash at them. The right and middle heads bit into Castor's head and his horse's neck, their sharp teeth and vise-like jaw strength cracking his body, while Shinjiro simply held the left one's jaw open with his bare hands. He could feel its teeth digging into his palms, as the blood trickled down into the Shadow's mouth.

But all of their failed attacks were aimed at Shadow's hide. And if hitting it from the outside didn't work, then hitting it from the inside would.

"Hamaon!" Just narrowly scraping by him was Kotone's blast of light, straight down its gullet. The other two heads roared in pain, while the right one groaned and slumped down. This momentary distraction let the two of push the Shadow back and jump on top of it. Castor wrapped his arms around the middle one's neck while Shinjiro did the same to the right one.

Chariot began bucking, desperately trying to throw the two off. It writhed in place, spinning around, even whacking them with its tail, while they held on as best as they could

Up on the roof of the shrine, Yukari took aim with her bow. "Alright, one more time Fuuka, where did you say it was? The left one's neck?"

"It's not just the neck." Fuuka said. "The left head's weak spot is halfway down its neck on both sides. The circumference is only about half of a centimeter, but that spot is much softer and weaker than the rest of him. It should be a little bit darker in color."

"Right." Io appeared before her. "I can see it." The left head coughed and groaned, slowly lifting itself up and trying to bite Shinjiro. "I can see it in my mind's eye." It stopped thrashing and chomped Castor, holding in place. "I can see it."

With a blast of wind from Io, her arrow shot straight through the left head's neck, and lodged itself into its throat. It let go of Castor, gurgling before falling lamely and limp, as Chariot threw Shinjiro off. The Shadow's two remaining heads barked and howled, as the left head drooped uselessly.

"Gotcha, you son of a bitch." Shinjiro muttered as he ran around it and regrouped with Kotone.

Chariot's right head growled and barked at the middle one. The middle one roared, silencing it. The right turned away and whined, while the middle one began to bark at it as the right one whined.

"The fuck?" Shinjiro narrowed his eyes. "Are...the heads fighting each other?"

As Elea began to heal him, Kotone looked back at it. "Looks like they are."

"But why would-"

"Lets focus on just the one we know we're gonna fight," Akihiko said, "reversed Chariot, it represents..."

"A lack of, or misapplied, ambition, focus or drive." Makoto said as it moved to the corresponding slide.

Shinjiro snorted. "Of course. At the end of the day," he flexed his fingers as the feeling returned to his bloodied hands, "Shadow or not, this thing is just a stupid goddamn animal."

"Be careful." Fuuka said. "I'm sensing a change in it."

Chariot turned to the shrine building. The two heads aimed directly at it, jaws clenched shut. Their growls slowly increased in volume until they reached a pitch, and with a deafening roar, unleashed a radiant white blast of fire that instantly destroyed the building

"Yukari!" Kotone screamed.


What happened? Her body ached, she could feel bruises and gashes all over her legs, her arms, a throbbing in her head, and a tightness in her chest.

Mitsuru rolled off her back and onto her side. She blinked rapidly.

Upturned concrete and pavement all around her, smoke and fire in every...

Fire...

Fire...Persona...Shadow...Yuki.

"Yuki!" She forced herself up, and immediately fell back down as her legs gave way. The Shadow – Justice – Yuki – Agilao – Impalement – Explosion. Everything all at once came back to her. I-I must have passed out. Where is he? Where is Justice?

She hurriedly looked around, and couldn't see anyone, friend or foe.

"Damn it." Mitsuru spat out. She pulled out her Evoker. With unsteady hands she brought it to her head and fired. She breathed a sigh of relief as the pain slowly stared to fade away. In the distance, she heard a familiar voice shouting.

"Zionga!" Akihiko roared. Justice bobbed and weaved between blasts of lightning as Akihiko kept putting on the pressure, alternating fisticuffs with Polydeuces' barrage of physical and magical attacks.

Justice roared as each of its wild sword swings were met with equally ferocious, but much more measured, counterattacks. As Mitsuru walked forward, carefully using the upturned concrete as cover to avoid detection, she realized that Akihiko had the advantage. The Shadow's movements were no longer as slow and methodical as they were a bit ago

Come to think of it, she narrowed her eyes, is it bleeding? A splotch on its back looked about where it impaled itself. As she readied her Evoker, she realized that Justice was no longer carrying its scales, and that both of its horns broken off. Its face was mangled and caved in, or at least she thought as much from this distance and considering its disorienting coloration.

Akihiko pulled back his right arm and swung hard with a haymaker, aiming for a knockout, only to narrowly graze Justice as it pulled to the right and lifted up its sword. It flipped the sword in its hands and stabbed down, attempting to hack his arm off.

"Mabufula!" A tidal wave of ice cascaded just over Akihiko, and smashed into Justice, throwing it back.

Akihiko turned to her, eyes wide. "Mitsuru!" His smile quickly vanished once he saw how injured she was. "Are you alright!?"

She attempted to say something, but fell forward, falling into his arms. "S-Sorry." She said. "I thought I would be able to do a bit more than that."

After helping her to her feet, he asked, "where's Yuki?"

Mitsuru bite her lip and looked back, and then all around her. "I-I don't know. With Penthesilea I may be able to find him."

"Right." He spun around, the two of them standing back to back as she summoned her Persona. "We heard a few explosions, but it wasn't until that big one that really messed up the bridge that Junpei insisted I go over here."

"I see...wait," she turned her head back, eyebrows raised, "Iori wanted you to come?"

Akihiko turned back and grinned. "Believe it or not, he insisted I go. Said he could handle the mob of Shadows on his own. Him and the other juniors, they're good."

With a chuckle, she turned around. "OK, I found Yuki, he's-" her eyes went wide and she spun around and withdrew her rapier. "Shit! Up there!" She pointed up at one of the suspension cables. Justice, with its upper body bleeding and covered in frostbite, was holding its golden scales once more.


Chariot bellowed as it unleashed another stream of fire at them. Shinjiro and Kotone narrowly dodged, using their Personas to throw them out of harms way as it melted the entire street. The Shadow stomped forward as its two remaining heads began to gasp for air.

"You're right, Fuuka." Kotone pulled out her Evoker. "The heat is making it crack apart."

With every blast, Chariot's body not only radiated more heat, but it also accumulated more cracks. First a small one near the top of its middle head. Now, after five blasts, they had spread down its body all the way to its tail. Not only that, it had to pause for increasingly longer periods between attacks. First a few second, then nearly half a minute, and this time well over a minute.

In theory this meant they could simply wait for it to tire itself out and defeat it that way, at the cost of it destroying the entire block.

Chariot stomped forward, each step leaving molten footprints in the street, its very body flickering, shimmering even, with the intense amount of heat it generated. Shinjiro shed his jacket and threw it over his shoulder as he prepared to sent out Castor.

In practice, they were likely going to melt before it would overheat.

"Kotone," she turned to him, surprised he called her by her name, "I just want you to know, regardless of what happens," he grinned, "I'm proud of you kid. You're braver than most, sticking this far."

"You moron, have you never seen a TV show before?" She swung her naginata in her hands, pointing it blade-first at Chariot. "The guy who says that kind of stuff dies in the end. Wait until we win to get sentimental."

Shinjiro snorted. "Right." With a grunt, he hefted up his axe.

"Ten seconds." Fuuka said.

"This time," she said, "I'm going to be the distraction. You see if you can shove Castor down one of its mouth and rip open its jaw."

"Right."

They dashed forward in two directions, both summoning their Personas the second before it fired. The right head fired directly at Kotone, who had Elea toss her up into the air, while the center head didn't fire at all. Instead it twisted around, aiming at something behind it. As Shinjiro got closer, he kept waiting for it to turn back, until-

"Fuck it!" As the center head fired behind itself, Shinjiro changed his aim for the right head. Kotone hurled her naginata like a javelin, landing straight down its throat. Shinjiro swung his axe into its mouth, stopping it from snapping her weapon as Castor grabbed it and rammed it further down its throat. Even just standing this close was like being next to a boiler.

"AROOOOOOOO!"

In the blink of an eye, something flew by Shinjiro, and the left and right heads of Chariot fell to the earth. His eyes went wide, and he stumbled back. "What the-"

Standing on the sidewalk behind the Shadow was a slim, three-headed dog with yellow eyes, a black body, and a blue underside. It hovered over a much smaller, and much angrier, white Shiba Inu.

"Koromaru!" Kotone yelled.

Shinjiro's eyes went wide. "A dog with a Persona!?"

Chariot roared and turned around, charging at Koromaru.

The dog rushed at Chariot, dodging its bite and running under it. He deftly hopping around its legs as it attempted to trample him, while slicing its underside with his Persona. As it tried to fall on top of him, Koromaru jumped out of the way, peppering it with his Persona's own blasts of fire.

"Looks like Koro-chan arrived in the nick of time." Fuuka said.

"You know he was here!?" Kotone yelled.

"Sorry," her voice sounded sheepish, "he's the one who pulled Yukari out of the wreckage a little bit ago. I needed you to focus on the task at hand."

As Shinjiro watched, he was astounded by not just how well the dog fought, but how much it had the advantage over the Shadow. Both he and his Persona were so much smaller, but that meant they were much quicker and far more maneuverable. Koromaru bravely returned to strike the Shadow despite its visible discomfort from the ambient heat. Every attack from the Shadow was too slow, too telegraphed, and that allowed Koromaru and his Persona to slice it apart, to bite off chunks of its body, and to smash into its body with little repercussion.

"Ah yeah!" Kotone cheered. "Looks like we got the better Cerberus, you son of a bitch!"

Chariot fell on all fours, panting and struggling to stand. Two of its heads were now gone, its body was practically melted, and slowly it stopped breathing as the red "VII" carved into it began to dim. It simply stopped moving, and heat stopped emanating from its body.

Koromaru ran over to them, barking happily as Kotone lifted him up in her arms, praising him and hugging him.

Shinjiro wiped his forehead. "Is that it? Did-Did we win?" He asked with bated breath. "Yamagishi, tell I'm not-"

"Be careful!" Fuuka yelled. "Something's about to happen." A loud crack, like breaking glass, echoed into the night.

"Huh?" Kotone dropped Koromaru and held up her Evoker, as Shinjiro prepared his axe.

Blue light poured from the back of the Shadow's neck. The crack spread down its entire body. Chariot shattered apart, bits of its body flying out in every direction. From its body emerged a red hound with a yellow underside, two tails, and a spiked collar. It wasn't even half as tall or wide as Chariot, and only possessed a single head, but the look in its golden eyes told Shinjiro this thing was ready for round two.

In the blink of an eye, it lunged at them. Koromaru growled as he ran forward and summoned his Persona, the two smashing their heads against each other. Chariot roared and jumped back as it began to pelt them with fireballs.

"Chariot has assumed a new form." Fuuka said calmly. "It has shed its body, its mobility and magical power has increased exponentially!"

Shinjiro and Kotone pulled out their Evokers, and prepared to fire.


"Ahhh!" Akihiko was thrown back, rolling across the pavement as his Evoker slipped out of his hands. Mitsuru fired as many blasts of ice towards Justice as she could. It leisurely walked towards Akihiko, holding up its scales as each and every one of her attacks missed it. As soon as it reached him, it slammed its foot into the back of his head, smashing his face into the concrete.

"This is our family's sin to bear." Her father said, as his cold, metallic hand cupped her face. "You must be strong, Mitsuru."

"Shut up!" She screamed, hands clutching her head. "Shut up! Get out of my head!"

"This is for your own good, Mitsuru" Kouetsu Kirijo said callously, as another needle pieced her skin. "The world is a cruel and unforgiving place. You will understand when you're an adult. You will thank me for it."

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Penthesilea rammed her blade into Mitsuru's forearm and dragged it against her flesh, forcing her back into reality. Mitsuru stood up and glared at Justice, shaking and breathing heavily as Penthesilea steadied her. "You-You bastard!"She spat out with all of the venom she could muster.

It paused, carefully turning around as she steadied herself. It held up the scales once more, the right bowl tipping downward to no avail.

"You think you can force me down? You think you can drive me into despair with your petty whispers!?" She held up her arm, the gash bleeding profusely as Penthesilea flickered in and out of reality behind her. "You Shadows have taken everything from me! My childhood, my grandfather's humanity, the lives of so many innocent people! So long as I have blood in my body left to spill, I will never stop, I will never surrender, not until I kill every one of you!"

Justice jumped back. It held up its right hand, beckoning its sword to fly to it. As it caught the blade and held up its scales, a familiar figure sliced apart its left arm, as well as its scales.

"How you like that you bastard?" Junpei declared from on top of a mound of concrete, as Hermes flew behind him.

Justice looked at its mauled stump of a hand, tilted its head up, and screeched. It screeched so loud the two flinched back. Junpei sent forth Hermes, only to be intercepted by another Shadow.

"More of them!?" He yelled as Shadows began to appear from around Justice, and from inside it. They crawled out of its arm, its stomach would, and slithered their way out of its mouth.

Mitsuru rammed her blade through one's head as Penthesilea encased another in ice. "Damn you! Just die already!"


From the moment Chariot shed its old body, it never stopped moving.

"Hamaon!" Kotone yelled as Chariot shot another volley of fireballs at them. Her blast of light engulfed its attacks, but failed to hit the Shadow.

Every attack was dodged and met with either a rapid series of fireballs, or its teeth and claws.

"Awooo!" Koromaru's Persona ran at an almost parallel speed with it, desperately trying to land a hit on it as it kept swatting him away.

Its body was no longer falling apart, and while its fire didn't burn as hot, it was able to use it in rapid succession.

"Castor!" Shinjiro send his Persona forward, attempting to intercept the Shadow and impale it as it ran towards him, only to have it curve around his Persona, and slash his thigh with its razor-sharp tail. He fell to the ground as Chariot quickly reversed and lunged at him, teeth bared.

None of them could secure a clean hit, not until-

"Garula!" A blast of wind smashed into Chariot, sending it scrapping against the road. From up above, she stood with her bow and Persona at the ready. "Yo." Yukari, covered in nicks and bruises, flashed them a smile. "Sorry I took so long."

Kotone shook her head. "Don't even worry about it." She spotted Chariot rushing back at them. "You ready to finish this thing off?"

She nodded and took aim. "Garula!" Chariot countered not by shooting fire, but by alighting itself on fire and rushing through the blast. Fire spread all over the street as it pushed through, only to be met by Koromaru's Persona. Chariot bit the center head by the throat, while the three heads sunk their teeth into its burning neck and face.

"Now!" Kotone screamed. "Hamaon!"

"Garula!"

"Fatal End!"

Even as the other three Personas blasted it and slashed it into the ground, its refused to let go of Koromaru's Persona. Even as Castor stabbed it repeatedly and stomped it into the ground, Chariot held on. The fire around it burned hotter and brighter with each passing second.

Koromaru panted, falling to the ground with a pained whine. "Koro-chan?"

"Oh no! Get out of there right now!" Fuuka yelled. "It's going to explode!"

"It's going to what!?" Shinjiro yelled as the Shadow's light turned a blinding white. And for a moment, that was all he saw. Koromaru's Persona and Castor took the full brunt of the explosion. All Shinjiro could feel, even more so than being thrown back and rolling around like a ragdoll, was the sensation of his flesh boiling.

He could hear Fuuka trying to tell them something, but every one of his senses took a backseat to the sheer stinging pain his body felt.

Eventually, he couldn't tell when, he could hear something. Whining, soft, pathetic whining. He tilted his head up and saw Chariot, now a dull black and beige, weakly holding Koromaru's throat in its jaws. Neither Kotone nor Yukari were in sight.

His arms were almost completely numb. He laboriously pushed himself off the ground and stood up. He took a tentative step forward. Chariot tilted its head towards him, blood dripping out of Koromaru's neck. Its dimmed yellow eyes staring him down, promising one thing. That he was next.

I don't want to die here. I can't die here. I-I-

Shinjiro chuckled.

Chariot dropped Koromaru, fangs bared. He slowly stumbled forward, never taking his eyes off of his enemy. The moment he was halfway to it, he held his arms out as wide as he could. Shinjiro smiled as hard as he could, showing every one of his teeth as blood tricked down his face.

"Come get some!" He roared.

It roared and lunged at him, closing the gap in the blink of an eye and sinking its teeth into his neck and shoulder.

"Senpai!" He heard someone – he couldn't tell which of the girls it was – scream. It didn't matter who. Only one thing mattered right now. Shinjiro looked down at the Shadow, this miserable, burned out husk of an opponent, and with a low chuckle made his declaration.

"I win."

Castor's lance pieced through the back of Chariot's neck. Shinjiro grabbed the Shadow's neck and squeezed it until he heard it snap. It growled and moaned, desperately trying to kill him first. He grabbed it by its snout, and ripped it off of him.

As the Shadow disintegrated in his hands, Shinjiro stumbled backwards, blood gushing out from his wound, face bright red from his own blood, the heat, and pure exhaustion. "Sorry, Aki, forgive...me." He fell backwards, landing on the road with a thud.


Too many of them. Junpei swung his blade through a crowd of blob-like Shadows as Hermes clashed swords with a Shadow in samurai armor. There's too goddamn many of these things.

Justice slunk around the edges of combat, occasionally taking cheap shots with its blade, sometimes slashing through its own minions to hit Junpei. Every time he saw it, it would sneak back into the crowd. He couldn't hit it, but it would always be ready to hit him.

At some point, Junpei realized, to his horror, that it was just a numbers game. These Shadows were a lot weaker than the ones that him and Akihiko had fought on the mainland, but they were also too damn many of them. He'd killed twice as many in half of the time, but they kept pouring in. Eventually one of them was going to inflict a critical injury, and lights were out for Junpei Iori.

Think Junpei, think. How the hell am I gonna get out of this one. OK, there's at least three options here. Firstly, I, the brilliant Junpei Iori, will come up with a brilliant counter-attack.

His body felt like lead. He must have been fighting tonight for a half-hour straight. Even the worst nights in Tartarus were rarely this grueling. With each passing second, it was getting harder to materialize Hermes. He was tired, mentally and physically. There would be no grand ideas.

OK that won't work. Option numero dos, my friends will come rescue me.

Akihiko laid unconscious in the rubble while Mitsuru was left fighting off her own swam of hostile Shadows. For every one she and Penthesilea slashed, another two appeared around them. Makoto was nowhere to be seen. The other half of SEES were probably still fighting the Shadow at the shrine.

Hermes incinerated a wave of Shadows around him, trying to create a buffer zone, and start carving a path out of here. Instead one Shadow simply walked through the fire, and attacked him with its blade. Junpei clashed his sword against Justice's, but the sheer difference in the size and weight of their weapons meant even though it was fighting one-handed, it still was able to push him around. He summoned Hermes, sending it to slash at its neck, only for his Persona to be unable to cut it. His eyes went wide, and it sucker punched him with its stump of a hand, knocking him back.

Option three then, I...I...

I won't. I won't escape.

I'm going to die here.

He exhaled softly and, looked to his battered and bloodied senpai. She screamed at him to run as she valiantly fought. What did she say that one time? C'est la vie? Yeah, Junpei smiled as best he could, with warm trails of blood trickling down his forehead and onto his cheeks, and gave her the two finger salute.

I guess life isn't always that kind. Sometimes...the hero don't make it out alive, and there just ain't a happy ending.

"Thanks guys." Junpei whispered, as he closed his eyes and waited for Justice to finish him off. "It was fun knowing you, and being with you."

Justice lifted its sword high in the air, only a few steps away.

Maybe we'll meet again, in another life.


For a moment, he could see them, at the end of a long dark hallway. His father in the same red wool coat he'd always wear, his mother beaming the warmest smile on her face. He knew that one day he would see them again, and in his younger years he prayed it would be sooner rather than later.

"..emp...hinj..."

He reached out to them. "Dad. Mom." He weakly mumbled out as he stepped forward and-

"Senpai!" Kotone yelled.

He jolted up and flinched, shrieking in pain.

"Just lay down." Yukari calmly ordered as Io continued to heal him. "It's a good thing you're as big as you are, I'm pretty sure anyone else would be dead from all that blood loss."

"What is wrong with you!?" Kotone yelled, tears flowing down her face. "Why did you think that was a good idea!?"

Shinjiro bashfully looked away. "S-Sorry. It uh, it worked didn't it? All's well that end's well right?" He said weakly.

"No!" Kotone screamed. "No it is not! We already lost Koromaru, how do you think we would have felt if we lost you too!" She yelled.

When his eyebrows curled up in confusion, Yukari silently gestured to in front of him. Shinjiro lifted his head, and saw Fuuka, quietly cradling Koromaru's small, mangled corpse.

"Oh hell." He laid his head back down.

"I wasn't being facetious." Yukari said quietly. "My powers can only do so much. Once you're gone...you're gone."

"I-I'm sorry." He whispered. "It was the only way I thought to get the last blow on that Shadow. I had to- if I didn't-" he paused. "It was do or die. There was no way I could've summoned Castor and gotten the killing blow on him if I didn't..."

She wiped her eyes. "Stupid senpai. If you weren't so hurt I'd hit you."

He snorted. "Aki and Mitsuru are going to have my ass for that, don't you worry."

Yukari sighed. "I'm glad to see you're lucid enough to joke around. Once I'm done patching you up, Fuuka and me are going to go to the bridge and provide assistance. Can you wriggle your fingers?"

Shinjiro tried closing and opening his fists. They felt absolutely numb, like they weren't even there. But he could see them, he knew they were still there, and after a few tries he was able to do it consistently. After a few more he could move the individual fingers.

"Good." She stood up. "Let's go."

The green-haired girl didn't move.

"Come on." Shinjiro said solemnly. "We don't have the luxury to mourn him right now. We gotta do what we gotta do."


All around him was darkness. A miasma of despair and melancholy. He wasn't falling, it was more like he was...floating. Floating in a void of darkness. Surrounded only with the faintest whorls of indigo and violet in this pitch-black abyss.

Pitch-black except for himself and...himself.

This figure in front of him was him. It wasn't an impostor. He could feel it in his soul. It shared his clothes, his hair, the same wounds and healed skin. Almost everything about this Makoto was identical to him.

But it lacked his face.

It lacked any kind of face. No eyes, no nose, and no mouth. Just smooth flesh.

"Am I dead?" He sullenly asked his other self.

"Perhaps you are," a familiar voice echoed out, not from the figure in front of him, but from everywhere around him, "and perhaps you are not."

Makoto scoffed. "Damn it. I don't-I don't want it to end like this. It can't end like this. My friends are still out there fighting. I don't even know if they'll be OK without me. There's so much I wanted to say to them, so much I wanted to do..."

"Then why did you not?" The other him brought his hand to his chin. "Have you not had plenty of time, and have you not had plenty of chances? There was no one in your life who was stopping you, was there?" The other him asked rhetorically.

Makoto looked away.

The other him leaned back and pointed at Makoto. "To take up arms and risk thy life so valiantly, yet a few words are too much?"

"It's...different." Makoto mumbled out. "I like picking my sword. I like fighting. I love cleaving these Shadows to pieces. When they make me bleed, I don't want to run away, I want to make them bleed. I want them to suffer, for what they do to other people...for what they did to my mom and dad."

"And yet?"

"...it's easier to fight. With my friends, it's...I'm a coward." Makoto confessed. "I just don't want to rock the boat. If I just went along with they wanted, the conversations they wanted to have, the places they wanted to go, the foods they wanted to eat... if I don't push them, and go with the flow, there would be no issues."

"But there were." His faceless head began to crack open like a porcelain vase. "Many times you have seen calamity approaching, near or in the horizon, and did naught to stop it." As it crumbled away into nothingness, familiar gray skin, red eyes, and white hair emerged. Soon the rest of Orpheus emerged from the other him. "Is that not correct?"

"I knew they were suffering, I knew I should have pushed them, but I didn't. I just thought that...if I gave them time, things would work out on their own." Makoto scoffed. "I'm a bad friend."

"Perhaps you are, and perhaps you are not." Orpheus said, floating opposite him in this black pit of nothingness. "Sometimes you must lay thy blade down by the ash tree, and other times you must ram it through the head of the serpent before it strikes. You know when to pick up the sword, but too often you chose willingly to let it sit there, gathering rust. You knew that even as disaster for them approached again and again."

"If I had been a better friend...if I had been more forceful about things...would they have suffered as much?" Makoto asked. "Kenji, Kaz, Kotone, our senpai...I'm going to die without every finding out why Tartarus and the Shadows even exist." He scoffed. "I'm going to die with so many regrets, I'm pathetic."

"Perhaps that is true, or perhaps different action would have simply lead to different ruin, if not worse." Orpheus mulled. "But of course, you've mulled over that, time and time again, have you not? What you know and what I know are much the same."

"I know." Makoto spat. "I'm a coward and a fuck up, I get it. You don't have to remind me."

"And what do you intend to do about it?" Orpheus stated as his face and body began to crack apart once again. Bits of his body splintering and falling off. "To assault thyself time and time again with these words, does that accomplish anything? Does that assuage thy guilty conscience?"

Makoto balled his fists until his knuckles went white.

"Do you intend to lay down and die pathetically?" Orpheus asked him in a defiant tone, light pouring out of his wounds. "Or will you stand again and suffer the consequences of your decisions, whatever they may be? Tell me, speak Makoto!"

"I-"


Junpei and Justice looked back at the rampaging inferno. A conflagration that spiraled up into the night sky near the center of the bridge.

"-will." Makoto emerged from the fire, eyes glowing with a piercing blue hue.

It was only barely audible, but Junpei could hear a hissing coming from Justice.

"You have braved many perils to stand on your own two feet, and to walk beside your allies as an equal." The feeling in his legs slowly returned, and the pain in Makoto's stomach disappeared as the wound closed. "No longer shall you shirk from the challenges life present you. Stand tall, and call my name so we may stand together and sing the hymns of victory atop the corpses of our enemies!"

Makoto closed his eyes and softly exhaled. "Come forth, Bragi!"

Ashen skin with golden runes engraved on them, long hair and a flowing beard made of fire that burned white like the sun. Sclerae as black and wide as the moonless sky, and pupils as blue as the depths of the sea. In his left hand, he held a simple wooden harp the size of his torso. In his right hand, a sword drawn from a simple leather scabbard on his side. With a bare chest decorated in scars, wearing breeches and leather shoes that were matted with dried blood, this was Makoto's Persona.

Justice growled and sent all of his remaining Shadows at them as it rushed forward.

With aged hands, Bragi strummed three notes and hummed. "Agidyne." Makoto said calmly as the fires around them were all absorbed into a ball above the skald. This amalgamated sphere burned as bright as the sun, and stood taller than Makoto.

And with it, hundreds of Shadows were incinerated as it shot concentrated rays of fire through them all. Justice roared as its red sword was thrust straight for Makoto's throat. Makoto met it with his own sword, smacking it away with ease.

"It's time for you to die, you little troll." Makoto said with quiet fury. Bragi strummed four notes, and its body shook uncontrollably. With a single slash, he cut off its one good hand. With another three notes, it fell to its knees. Makoto held his sword high, and rammed it through the back of the Shadow's head.

"...h-hey! We did it! Alright!" Junpei yelled out. "We won!"

Makoto didn't say anything, instead simply looking down at Justice. Its body twitched, and something pushed up against its back and clawed its way through. A small, diminutive humanoid figure, no more than half of Makoto's height jumped out. Its skin was purple and scaly, its hair a sickly green, and the only thing giving it any modesty was a white robe.

"No more tricks." Makoto announced. "We're finishing this now."

It hissed at him and attempted to create one last Megido in its hands. Smaller, weaker, and using the last of its strength.

Makoto simply pointed at it and, as the magic attack was fired at him, said a single word. "Ragnarok." With a glorious blast of white fire from Bragi's hand, the attack and Justice were annihilated.

For a moment, all was quiet.

He turned to Mitsuru and Junpei, a smile on his face. "That was some hot stuff, huh?"

Mitsuru stood quiet for a few moments before she laughed and fell to her knees, utterly exhausted, while Junpei just chuckled. "Alright funny man, help us out now, will ya?"


AN: I will be taking a week off from updating Katabasis. Updates will resume in two weeks. Thank you for your patience and your patronage.