"You ready Eri?" Ren asked the small girl, as they once again stood outside the Tomb of the Shoe Has Sakai.
Eri nodded and took Ren's hand. And without further delay, the two entered the tomb once more.
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BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
As the two continued, going deeper into the tomb than before, they encountered more bird-masked cultists, and quickly took care of them with a combination of gunfire and actual fire from Eri's persona.
The Tomb seemed structured like a maze, with multiple twists and turns leading to nowhere, however, Eri's familiarity with the place made it a bit easier.
Eventually, they reached another distinct room.
This room was filled with torture devices. Iron Maidens. Stretching racks, etc, and blood stains littered the floor.
Standing in the center of the room were two more giant birds.
One had long black greasy feathers, and wore a fur necklace, with bottles tied to it. It smelled so strongly of alcohol that even just standing on the other side of the room from it, made the two of them nauseous.
The other one had on a black hat and a long black cloak. A much simpler, but still unnerving design.
"Well well, hic, look who's back." The drunken bird said as they came in.
"So the eternal sacrifice has returned. Tell me, are you ready to make up for your sins?" The hatted bird asked.
"No!" Eri shouted, finding herself answering without meaning to. She also found herself getting dizzier and dizzier, as it became harder to focus.
Ren was also being affected by this dizziness, but he quickly took out his gun, and fired at the birdies, only to miss every shot. "Crap."
"Rahhh!" The drunken flew up and then shot vomit at them.
Eri summoned her Persona, grabbed onto Ren's leg, and teleported them both away.
Into the air, a few feet to the left, causing them to fall on their faces.
"Ugh, sorry." Eri groaned, it was hard to know where to teleport to when the room was spinning.
"It's fine," Ren assured her.
"Is it? Your carelessness has gotten people killed before, hasn't it Eri?" The hatted Bird asked.
Once again, Eri was forced to answer. "Y-Yes!"
Tears poured out of Eri's mind, as the foggy memory of killing her own father played through her head.
"And do you remember how old you were, Eri? How little control you had over that?!" Ren asked her. "Have you ever! Even once! Thought of using your quirk to hurt someone for the sake of hurting them!?"
"...No! Never!" Eri shouted, as she slowly managed to stand back up, using raw determination to compensate for her lack of balance at the moment. "Not even once! I want to use my quirk…to help everyone!"
"What a load of bull, hic!" The drunk bird shot out another shot of vomit at her.
As the vomit approached her, Eri closed her eyes and focused on her quirk and her spirit. Forcing both to surface, as her quirk activated, and her persona came out once again, shooting out a fireball at the vomit, while her quirk cleansed her body of any ailment.
Free of the dizziness and nausea, Eri teleported above the drunken bird using her persona and threw down a fireball at it, and the bird's greasy, alcohol-filled body immediately burst into flames. "KAWWWWWWWWWWWW!"
"Gah! Killing again Eri! Do you really think that that curse is yours! Can ever do anything but destroy!?" The hatted bird asked before Eri teleported in front of him, and Dantes shoved his arm into his mouth.
"I don't know!" Eri answered honestly, with a determined look on her face. "But I'm going to try! Now shut up! Please!"
BOOM!
Eri's persona shot fire directly into the bird's maw, and then after a few moments her persona vanished, smoke flying out of the bird's mouth, before it disappeared.
"Ugh." With the shadows dead, Ren was finally free of the drunken status effect, and after taking a few seconds to get himself back together, he turned his focus to Eri, who was struggling to try and turn off her quirk again.
She breathed deeply, as she pictured a dam, stopping a river. And slowly, her horn started to shrink, as her quirk finally turned off.
"Whew." Eri breathed a sigh of relief, and touched her horn, reassuring herself that her quirk was in fact off.
"You did good Eri," Ren said. He knew better than to touch her so soon after she used her quirk, so he just smiled.
"Thank you." Eri smiled back, feeling a little better now that that was dealt with. And all the fatigue she'd built up from all the walking was gone as well. She was back in top condition, all thanks to her quirk. "Let's keep going please."
"Alright but first…is there any place in here that'd be safe enough for us to hide so I can take a break." While Eri was back in perfect shape, Ren was not. And while he loved Eri's enthusiasm, he didn't want to end up failing her in a dire situation because he was tired. Best to take their time.
"Oh sorry. Um…" Eri tried to think about any place she'd consider safe in this heckhole.
After thinking for a little bit, she grabbed Ren's leg again and teleported them away.
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The two of them reappeared in a new room.
It was dark, but Ren could still make out the details of the place.
In the center of the room was a child-sized, empty coffin, with the lid on the side.
Surrounding the coffin, placed in what looked to be some kind of ritualistic pattern, were toys, all of them having bloody handprints on them.
Given the toys, it was rather obvious what this room was.
"This is your room. Or at least how you envisioned it." Ren deduced.
Eri nodded. "They won't come for us yet. It was dark outside, Overhaul never took me out at night."
"I see, then we should be able to rest here for a bit," Ren said as he took a seat on the back of the wall.
Eri decided to take a seat a couple feet away from him, and the two sat in silence for a little, before Ren spoke up. "So what do you wanna do when we're done?"
"Huh? When we're done?" Eri repeated, before taking a moment to think. "I think I want…to get some apple juice."
"Hmm. I was always a cranberry juice kid." Ren admitted. "You gonna have anything to eat with that juice?"
"...I don't know. I'm not really hungry right now." Eri said as she looked at the warped reflection of her old room.
"Fair, fair," Ren said. "So you watch anything good last night?"
"Umm. I watched a concert." Eri said. "The singer had such a beautiful voice! It makes me wish I could sing like that."
"Well, why don't you?" Ren asked. "I'm sure your sisters would let you join their band."
"I'm…I'm not sure if I can actually sing well," Eri admitted sheepishly. "I don't want to be a bother."
"I'd think it'd bother them more to know you're holding yourself back over something like that," Ren told her.
"...Hey Mr Akira? How do you know when you're being selfish and when you're not?" Eri asked. "Sometimes I think some things are selfish, but then everyone says they aren't and I don't know how to tell."
"Well, there is no surefire way to know. Everyone has their own sense of right and wrong. But there are two good ways." Ren explained. "The first is to put yourself in their shoes, and ask yourself, do YOU think what you're asking or what you're doing is annoying, or bad, or unreasonable. And the next best way is to just ask. As I said, neither of these will work 100% of the time, sometimes you'll just have to guess, but so long as you don't do anything with overly selfish or harmful intent, then even if you do ask or do the wrong thing, so long as you apologize and learn from your mistakes, it should work out most of the time."
"Mmmmm." Eri didn't get a direct response, instead choosing to sit and silence, and let those words sink in.
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After a few more minutes of rest, they decided to go a bit deeper into the tomb.
"Um, Mr Akira? Maybe I should just teleport us to my Shadow." Eri said offered as she and Ren kept marching on.
"I don't think that's a good idea," Ren explained. "Normally getting to the ruler shadow is the important part. But this place has other boss shadows as well. It'd be best to take them down now before we try and confront your shadow."
"Ok," Eri said before they finally made it to another room.
This room had square shaped arena in the center, with bleachers on either side, filled with bird-masked cultists.
And in the center, were 3 more birds.
Well, one of them was a bird, the other two were massive muscular men, with bird heads, and one of them also had brown mane-like hair.
The bird wore a robe, and seemed to have his eyes closed all the time.
As Akira and Eri jumped into the ring, the bird cultist roared.
"Rough her up!"
"Show that brat who's boss!"
"Beat that freak within an inch of her life!"
While the spectators shouted, the brown-haired bird man spoke up. "So little Eri finally grew a spine? Well, let's see what you're made of! Try and make this fun for me!"
"We're gonna crush you!" The largest of the birdmen shouted.
"If you surrender now, we can end this peacefully." The eyes closed bird said calmly.
"No!" Eri shouted.
"Well then let's get to the action!" The huge birdman said, before charging at them.
Ren and Eri opened fire, shooting fire at it using their Personas, but it did very little, as the huge bird man reached Eri, raising his foot to try and crush her, but Eri teleported behind it just in time.
BANG!
"Gah!" Ren shot the birdman in the eye blinding it.
Eri summoned her Persona and sent it to grab onto the massive birdman, so she could teleport it into the pit, but the moment she did, she stopped and her Persona was unsummoned, as she felt her energy get drained. "Ah!"
"Careful Eri! You're Pesona is attached to you! If either of you touch him, he'll drain your energy!" Ren warned her and then had to jump back to dodge a punch from the brown-haired bird.
"Ha!" The brown-haired bird lunged forward and launched a flurry of blows at Ren, and this time he couldn't dodge them,
"Gah!" Ren gasped as he felt his stomach nearly get caved in, and he was sent flying into the wall, cratering it.
"Mr Akira!" Eri cried out in concern, getting distracted for a moment, letting the massive bird land a kick on her sending her tumble off the ring and into the void. "AHHHHHHH!"
Eri quickly summoned her Persona and teleported back into the center of the ring, where she saw the brown-haired bird standing over her, arm cocked back.
Ren shot his grappling hook, aiming for the birdman's leg, but a barrier popped up, blocking it from reaching it.
The brown hair bird sent a flurry of punches down at Eri, but she teleported away just before the attacks could reach her, appearing behind the eyes-closed bird.
She sent out a fire attack using her persona, but the bird put a barrier just in time to block it.
Ren jumped back into the ring, and shot at the massive bird, the bullets doing nothing but get its attention as it charged towards the therapist.
That's when he pulled Ren pulled out a flash bang, tossed it up, and then closed his eyes before dashing between his legs.
BANG!
"KAWWWWWWW!" The bird man cried as he was blinded by light.
"Eri! Now! With me!" Ren shouted.
"Yes!" Eri summoned her Persona, and both she and Ren shot a fireball at the massive birdman's back, the balls combined together made a larger one, which slammed the massive birdman's back, sending him flying off the edge of the arena, and into the pit.
'One down. Two to go." Ren said as he looked at his two remaining opponents.
The brown-haired bird man charged at the both of them and unleashed another flurry of blows.
Ren jumped back to avoid it, while Eri teleported away, appearing behind the brown-haired bird man, and grabbing his leg, before teleporting them over the pit, and dropping him into it.
"Damn it!" The bird man shouted as he fell into the abyss.
Eri teleported back onto the arena, and she and Ren turned to face their last opponent.
"S-Stay back!" The bird stuttered as he put up a barrier around himself.
Eri looked at Ren and nodded, before teleporting in front of the barrier, touching it, and then teleporting the barrier away.
"What!?" Before the bird man could put up another barrier, Ren shot him in the head, killing it instantly.
"Hmph, amature," Ren said as blew the smoke away from his gun, and holstered it in stylish fashion.
"Whew. We did it." Eri said, breathing a sigh of relief.
"BOOOOOOO!" The audience shouted, as they started jumping out of their seats and into the arena, while even more cultists rushed into the room.
"Looks like it's time for us to go!" Ren said, as he grabbed hold of Eri, and the two teleported out of the palace.
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"Well, it seems like we've made good progress," Ren said.
"Y-Yeah," Eri said, looking a bit apprehensive.
"What's wrong?" Ren asked, knowing that she probably knew something he didn't.
"...The other eight bullets were always with…him," Eri said. "And he's probably with my shadow."
"I see. So the next time we head in there, we'll have to be ready for the final confrontation," Ren said. "Are you gonna be ok, seeing HIM again."
"..." Eri took a deep breath, before responding. "I will be."
Ok almost done with Eri's first Palce.
Please review and have a nice day.