"Over here…"
"Hurry…"
The air was dense, and my lungs felt like they were on fire, but there was no fire anywhere near me. My head was light, I barely paid attention to my surroundings. I stand in the middle of the wreckage. What's been wrecked? A house, made for a simple family. Everything has been destroyed, unsalvagable.
Voices paired with fire alarms and police sirens blaring. Heavy footsteps run across the wreckage, coming closer as I stare blankly at the sky. It was so wonderfully blue I almost lost myself in it. The thought of looking down entered my mind, but everything inside me told me not to. If I did, I would regret it for the rest of my life.
"...Are you okay?"
A kind voice tries to divert my attention, however, I ignore him. Was it because I didn't like how he looked, or maybe his attempt at sounding kind was fake? No, it was from what I was holding.
"Oh my God!"
His kind voice reflected untold horror. He cast a disgusted gaze at me, saying everything he needed to say without uttering a word. I wanted to understand why he was petrified. Against my body's wishes, I looked down… That day, the wonderful blue sky above me turned gray, and my world inverted.
Iwatodai dormitory - Kazuki's room - ?
I wake up with a start. Darkness covers every inch of my room. My heart races a mile a minute, and my brain pounds against my skull. That dream... Was it a dream? It was too vivid for a dream but as fleeting as one.
Suddenly, as if to tell me to stop thinking, the building shakes. What the hell was that? An earthquake?
I jump out of bed. My uniform is lying on my desk chair. If I'm going out to see what's going on, it won't be in my PJs. I change into my uniform as the rumbling intensifies, each one stronger than the last. By the time I finish changing, a loud bang on my door makes me jump back toward my bed.
"Kazuki-kun, please open up! We have to get out of here!" Yuka-chan? "I'm sorry, but I'm coming in!"
Before I can respond, she opens the door to my room. Yuki-kun is behind her, acting as if nothing is wrong here. Hold on, how did she open my room? I'm sure I locked it. More importantly, she has a bow slung over her shoulder with a quiver filled with arrows strapped to her back. I know she's in the archery club but I don't think they allow members to take home bows. Yet here she is, wearing a real, traditional bow over her shoulders. I'd say it's cool, but she's freaking me out right now.
"Kazuki-kun, follow us to the roof!"
"Hang on a second! W-what's going on!?"
"I don't have time to explain. Just take this."
Yukari hands me a slim hilt. There's a button on the side of the hilt. Pressing it brings out a blade 10 centimeters long. I freeze… This…this is a knife. Why did she hand me this? The blade is real, it feels real. What's going on?
Glass shatters from outside my room, taking me out of my head space. Yuka-chan's grave expression catches me off guard.
"We need to go, now!" Yuka-chan grabs me by the sleeve of my jacket, dragging me outside. We hurry upstairs, the tremors grow worse with each floor we reach. More of the windows continue to shatter without rhythm or reason as if something from the outside did it. This isn't normal, none of this is normal. If it's an earthquake, it sure as hell isn't any earthquake I felt.
Yuka-chan swings open the door to the roof. We barrel through the doorway before she closed and locked the door. "Okay, we should be safe here."
"Safe? From an earthquake?" I ask her. "...Shouldn't we be…"
Having a better view of the city, there are no light. Even if it's late at night, there should be a building or two with lights on, so why is the city dark? And this green hue…
"Everything's green, no lights. This is...!?"
The building shakes as if a bulldozer is knocking the building on the sides. I lose my sense of balance for a second, doing everything I can to keep myself on my feet. Something damp echoes from in front of us, beyond the edge of the roof. I move to see what that sound is, urged on by my curiosity.
Right as I'm about to peer over the edge, a bundle of black hands grabs onto it. A face springs up in front of me, catching me off guard by how freaky it is. Its body is black, holding no physical body, save for hands that stretch far enough to scale a building. I scream my lungs out, my heart nearly explodes from the look of this monster that came straight out of a nightmare. I fall on my ass as the monster shows more of itself.
Move! I need to move! If I stay here, I'll die! My legs tremble as I make a mad dash back to the others.
Yukari runs in front of us, taking out the gun she had from the other night. "Both of you stand back!"
She points the gun to her head.
"Are you crazy!? Point it at that thing!"
Her labored breathing shows hesitation as she slides her index finger to the trigger. My body keeps screaming at me to run the hell away, not to look back, or else I'll end up dead, too. Then, the image of Yukari's body, lifeless, without a pulse, leaking a familiar red crimson, flashes in my mind, stirring a strong feeling within me.
Swinging its sword, a ball of heat suddenly appears at the tip of the sword. It grows as heat amasses, expanding the flames. Without warning, they're hurled at Yukari, who couldn't move out of the way in time.
"Yukari!"
On instinct, I go after her. I dropped to my knees when I got next to her. Pressing my thumb against her wrist, a pulse comes through. Thank God. But with an explosion like that, she should be dead. It only singed her clothes, somehow. The monster throws four swords at us. Relying on nothing but my best judgment, I get us out of the way. A dull sound echoes into my ears. The blades tore through the ground like paper mache. Holy shit…If we were still there, we could've... died! Oh God, we really could've died! Not a sound, not with a fight, but two humans being torn to shreds in a matter of seconds. A despair I've never felt before washes over me. The idea of me dying in the blink of an eye…it terrifies me!
"Huh?"
Makoto picks up the silver gun, gazing at it as if he were fascinated by its design. He slowly lifts it to his temple, pointing the barrel to his head, and tracing the trigger with his index finger.
"Per-so…"
"Stop!"
"...Na!"
A gunshot akin to glass shattering rings inside my ears. Blue wind swirls below Yuki-kun's feet. Beautiful blue shards piece themselves together, forming a being from those shards. A humanoid figure, wearing a lyre on its back, appears above Yuki-kun.
"Thou art I, I am thou. From the sea of thy soul, I cometh: I am Orpheus - Master of strings...!"
With a speaker booming from its chest, and a red scarf draped around its neck. It somewhat resembles Yuki. It's a beautiful sight that calms my heart, lighting hope through the despair inside me.
But, like dreams, it ended quickly, and a nightmare began to unravel. Something starts to rip it apart from the inside, folding in its form, as if something is desperately trying to escape. Yuki's agonizing screams rip out any hope I had of living through this.
A ghastly roar emanates from the thing ripping apart the other being. Terror is all I can feel from whatever that thing is. Finally, breaking out, a Grim Reaper, carrying a sword with coffins chained to it. Its eyes are filled with death, and the air it produces is dizzying.
It dives at the enemy with a battle cry that shakes my soul. With one slash with its sword, it cut off several of the other monster's arms. It slams the blade at the monster, over and over again, without any grace or technique to be found in its method of fighting. Each time that sword crushed the monster, a nasty crack followed. No matter how you looked at it, this thing doesn't care how it wins the battle, it simply wants to savagely crush it with all its power.
Using its mouth to crush the mask on the monster, it chomps it, splattering more of that black substance all over the roof. In a moment of pause, the killing ends, and the monster in front of me lets out an ungodly roar, celebrating a successful hunt. Yuki-kun, who had gotten through his screaming fits, collapsed to the ground right when the monster vanished from existence.
"Is it...over?"
Please tell me it's all over. I can't…that was… No, I just… Oh God, what was that!? These monsters, that power coming from Yuki-kun. All of it is spinning my head around in circles. Is this just a nightmare, or is this some kind of messed-up reality…? A dry laugh, that's all I can manage at this point… I think I'm going insane.
"Huh?"
A wet sound catches my attention. The black monster, something is coming from it! A piece of it separates from the main body, wearing half of the mask that the other monster bit into. Using the swords as a crutch, it worms its way to me.
"N-no! Stay back! Get away from me!"
I'm going to die, I'm really going to die! Why me? What did I do to deserve all this!? I…I just wanted to…
Lost in my fear, I press up against the door to the dorm. I can escape. Yeah, I can if I run inside…! But what about these two? If I leave them, they'll die… An image of the two of them being stabbed and mangled rushes through my head. No, I can't let that happen, I can't! They've been nice to me, and Yuka-chan tried to take things on her own just to save my skin, and here I am, ready to duck and run. I'm pathetic!
I still have my knife. Yuka-chan gave me this knife to defend myself, but If I use it, maybe I can kill this thing… If I'm going to do this, then hitting the mask is all I need to do! That's basically its face, so it should work.
"...Okay, I can do this, I have to do this!"
Honing all of my courage into this, I dash off, pressing the button on the side of the knife. I don't know the first thing about fighting, but if I get hit with those swords, then I'll die. This knife probably won't be enough to guard against anything like that, and I sure as hell can't deflect attacks. So my only option is to dodge without sacrificing my forward momentum.
The large swords swing with enough force to cleave me in half. One hit, that's all it'll take to kill me. Collapsing from above, I jump forward, barely evading the diagonal slash. I'm alive!? I'm still alive!
Already below it, I leap at it, plunging the knife into its face, and pushing the knife into the mask. There's no resistance when I drive my knife into it; like it's made of styrofoam. Black ooze leaks out the hole my knife created. Is it dead? The black hands from before act as a response. It throws me off by the back of my jacket. I'm sent hurling across the roof. My back crashes into the door. Pain sparks in the center of my back and that knocked the air out of me.
Gotta get up…have…to… Shit, It's no…use! I don't have enough strength to move my body. Pain howls all over my body, my bones feel numb, and my head is throbbing harder than any headache I've ever had before. The monster aims its swords at me, lifting them into the air... Is this…how I'll...die? On a rooftop…? I guess it doesn't matter.
Actually, the idea of death doesn't scare me to begin with. Why would I be scared of it, me of all people…? But if that's true, then why is my heart racing faster than it ever has before and why is my blood pumping with every inch that blade draws closer…? Am I afraid to die?
"That makes no sense. Why am I afraid now?"
I don't wanna die, I don't want to die! The bones in my body quake from the idea of dying. "Why am I afraid"? The question repeats in my head repeatedly, desperately trying to come up with an answer… As if to answer my question: Fuu-chan's face runs through my mind… Ah, that's right; I made a friend.
I'm not scared, I just hate this! After all this time, I made a friend, I could finally feel normal, and for what, so a monster could kill me!? That's bullshit! Why the hell should I be killed? There's no goddamn way I'm dying here! Anger boils over within me as I lift myself off the ground with all my strength. I'm not gonna, no way I'm dying here, not now, no goddamn way!
These feelings of contempt and hatred build, swirling deeper from my gut. This feeling burns hotter. Power engulfs my body, giving me the strength to stand on my feet. Then, striking me like lightning, a word appears in my head, and that singular word is brimming with a power beyond my comprehension.
"Persona!"
Everything goes quiet. Even the wind that was blowing against my ears fell silent. I'm…alive!? I'm still breathing! The monster is on the edge of the building, trying to climb back up. Pieces of its body splattered all over the roof, painting the floor black. I did that?"
"Kazuki-kun, your Persona...!?"
Yuka-chan's words snap me out of my stupor. Two arms that have no design to them. They're covered in a dark hue that meshes in with the blue energy swirling around me. The name is not clear to me, but I can tell that it and I have an inseparable connection.
"So, this is mine…"
The monster in front of me gets back up to the roof, its swords used as extra arms to crawl with. These feelings I accumulated until now are at their peak, making my determination to see this thing destroyed stronger.
"Wanna fight, then bring it on!"
Immediately, the monster jumps at me, pointing its swords at me. My Persona punches the monster's hand with a precisive and swifter-than-thought blow. Its swords clatter to the ground, producing a loud, metallic ringing that hits my eardrums.
"Oh yeah!"
I pump my fist into the air. The monster gets up again, squirming over to me. "All right, round two!"
A series of clashes between swords and fists erupt, shaking up the wind from our bout. My Persona is attacking quicker than the monster can respond. Unfortunately for the enemy, my Persona destroys all of its swords and delivers a decisive blow. The attack splits the monster apart, going down the middle. That's it! I wi–
One of the broken blades flashes across my chest. It ripped through my shirt, cutting open my chest. Fresh blood gushes out of my wound, painting the sky red. I lost my voice just when I wanted to scream.
"Kazuki-kun!" Yukari yells.
As the monster melts into nothingness, I hit the ground like a wet piece of paper.
"Kazuki-kun, are you okay!? Come on, say something!"
My hearing is going in and out as Yuka-chan is yelling my name. The wound on my chest is burning as blood leaks out. The door to the rooftop is forced open, and two sets of footsteps rush over to me.
"Takeba, turn Kazuki over! We must treat his wounds immediately! Akihiko, you'll switch in to heal Kazuki once Takeba runs out of energy." I want to call her name to show her I'm alright, but nothing is coming out, not even a cry for help. "Kazuki, We're going to get you to a hospital!"
A soothing wave of comfort eases the intensity of my wound. Yuka-chan's hands are covered in a glowing aura, hovering over my injury.
"Akihiko, get Yuki," Kirijo-senpai commands.
"Got it."
My consciousness is beginning to fade. I feel scared although calm at the same time. It's funny, comical even. I fought so I could stay alive, but I don't even know if I'll be alive in the next few minutes… What a joke.
Setting my eyes on the moon is all I'm good for at this point. You know, despite it all, how scary it looks, the moon hanging over the city, brimming with a majestic glow as it shines down on me in a pool of my own blood… Tonight is truly a beautiful night.