Chapter Text
“Do you want to live?”
Whispered a disembodied voice from somewhere out in the darkness. Causing Narukami Yu to blink (or gave the impression of blinking because, oh wow. He's now a soul floating in this vast expanse of nothingness) in apparent confusion. What is this place? Where did everyone go? Did some idiots decided it would be a splendid idea to kidnap some random silver haired guy from the streets? What were they thinking.
“I will ask you again, Child. Do you want to live?”
Once again, the disembodied voice raised his question, earning a rather uncharacteristic frown from our Wild Card. Just listening to the way the disembodied voice phrases that one specific question irked him somehow. The voice was talking as if the man named Narukami Yu were already buried six feet underground, or vaguely something along those lines. ("I don’t remember dying…”). He thought with no small amount of trepidation. Yu cannot recall anything past a dizzying collage of blurry images and broken pieces of conversation. ("There was a party commemorating Nanako getting into Middle School but other than that...Nothing.")
Like a disgruntled cat with its hackles raised, the silver haired Wild Card felt all sorts of wrongness, not true, lies emanating from the Unknown Entity in waves. Just breathing (He can breathe. He's alive. Right?) near close proximity of the creature felt like drowning in a pool of bubbling poisonous miasma. Schooling his expression (even though he didn't need to) into a blank poker face, Narukami Yu decided that the best approach this problem is through a calm and civilized manner (the kidnapers should be grateful he did not outright summon Helel to smite them with a Morning Star. Lucky bastards).
It prompted the silver haired Wild Card to force the corner of his lips to rise into a saccharine smile.
“Nope.”
("Too bad I can see your intention...). Narukami Yu chose to answer the Unknown Entity with denial. Clear and simple. Because if he had truly ‘kicked-the-bucket’ so to speak, then Yu will gladly embrace this fate with open arms (no…please, no…I don’t…). Though he suspects there was something...more...to this strange, unnatural, freak phenomenon than what the voice truly was letting on.
After hearing his answer, the disembodied voice fell silent. Retreating. Leaving Yu alone with his mind to face the darkness. Instead of being overwhelmed by the silence, Narukami Yu calmly retreated to his safe space. Feeling slightly vulnerable and every bit like a helpless child seeking protection from his guardian angel, which in his case, might be more literal than metaphorically speaking because deep within his mindscape. In the depth of Yu's Sea of Soul lies hundreds of his Persona. His Mask. The personification of legendary figures, cryptids, and myths brought back to life.
Watching. Waiting. Observing Yu's every move with vigilant eyes as him and the Unknown Entity engaged in a trying back and forth. They were playing a demented version of twenty-one question, where one kept asking and one kept repeating the same answer over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over again. Like a broken record. Everything was in repeat.
“No.”
“Sorry…”
“Try again.”
Firm and resolute like an immovable mountain, Narukami Yu stubbornly resisted the Unknown Entity's temptation. The day bleeds dry and since his initial imprisonment in this god forsaken place Yu had not seen another human or creatures in that matter, aside from his Persona. How long has it been since he held a decent normal conversation with anyone other than what essentially is himself?. The teeny tiny part of his sanity that was slowly being chipped away by this place had this craziest idea. What if... What if it is better to end this pathetic façade once and for all eternity?
Sigh
“I miss everyone…”
Now that he’s more or less desensitized to the darkness, Yu can fell the slightest hint of a sinister force at play. He shows no discomfort towards the Being that held him captive. Narukami Yu ignored the bruising pressure that tried to crush his soul (every damn time) when he refused to bend to its will. Oh, how this evil, evil thing wanted nothing more than to snuff Yu's bonds like a candle and the longer it was left unrestrained, the more Yu’s chest--which was usually filled with small tingles of warmth from his bonds--felt oddly cold and empty as if the damned Mysterious Being is highlighting what the Wild Card is currently missing because where is everyone? .
The malevolent energy lurking just beyond his reach is slowly but surely losing grip on its temper. Waiting for the perfect chance to strike at a moment the Wild Card showed any sign weakness.
A chance that he would forever deny.
It didn’t take long for the Unknown Entity's patience to snap. Honeyed words dripping with barely concealed malice turning into a shrill cry of outrage as the Being took Yu’s nonchalant dismissal as an insult. Tendrils of sickly orange tentacles writhed to life as the disembodied voice took his bait.
Hook-
“Insolent worm! How dare you mock ME! How dare you refuse MY benevolence!”
Line-
“I Curse you! I Curse you to a life full of suffering and pain! You will taste my wrath and hatred! Get on your knees to beg for MY forgiveness, MY Mercy, MY---ARRGGHHH!”
Sinker-
“Thank you for offer, but my answer is still no.”
Yu was ready, despite not having a corporeal body. The time he spent clashing against supernatural creatures in numerous battles had honed his reflexes. The Wild Card swiftly dodged the first incoming tendrils of sickly orange flames lashing at him on a whip-like speed, followed by a barrel-leap to avoid the second, and a jump-twist that narrowly missed the third yucky tentacle aiming to punch a hole right to his brain. The Unknown Entity bellowed in anger as none of its attack hit.
Honestly though, these tendrils of goopy, disgusting, mucus-like flames nauseated him so much he almost passed out. That…thing gave off a rather sharp and pungent smell. Like the odor blood, rotting flesh, and sickness. It was wrong for something so revolting to try and steal Yu’s—no, everyone’s--warmth
This game of Whack-A-Yu only lasted for fifteen minutes before he grew bored batting away the wriggling sickly flames determined to latch onto him like a parasite. To chain him down. Restrict him. To destroy everything he had ever hoped and lived for. So that the parasite could continue to exist in a mockery of those who were sacrificed behind to fuel its twisted desire for immortality. It was a crude attempt at Alchemy at best. A botched experimentation doomed for failure. Narukami Yu did not know where these random thoughts came from as he batted a giant sucker-like mouth with a bitch-slap.
Everything about this...this abomination was Simply. Unacceptable.
“Izanagi-no-Okami! Let’s go! Myriads of Truth!”
So with an exaggerated sigh, Narukami Yu summoned forth his Ultimate Persona. Squeezing the ever-loving magic out of the floating tarot card that burst into thousands of mana particles swirling in a vortex around him. Like a phantom appearing out of thin air, the Shinto Deity of Creation materialized in all its metallic glory above Narukami Yu, brandishing a giant sword shining in prismatic rainbow color. The Ultimate Persona announced its arrival to the mortal coil with a single almighty roar that was effective in driving away most of the darkness.
As his eyesight returned with the light, it enables Narukami Yu to catch what otherwise would be a rare glimpse of the surrounding area. His incorporeal body was caged within what was once a grandiose great hall of an ancient-looking temple. The interior has now fallen into decay from the passage of time, and along the floors, walls and heck even the goddamned ceiling, pulsating blobs of fat and flesh ridden with lumps and disgusting pustules covered most of the temple's surface area.
Also, much to every viewer's scalp numbing horror, there were so, so many human faces growing out of the lumps. Crying, and screaming in silent agony as their soul got tormented in whatever rendition of hell is this nightmare fell into.
“Fuck. Why didn’t I do this much more sooner!”
Human and Persona fired the shot, sending a single glittery rainbow beam towards the center mass of the writhing orange flames, snarling as the sickly, sickly parasite tried to resist. Hitting bullseye, the Unknown Entity screeched on its dying breath, with the last thing it saw before its existence is forever erased from the Universe was those inorganic yellow eyes belonging to construct of the God of Life.
(Deep inside Giglio Nero territory, in Italy. Inside the Castle belonging to the Main Branch of the Giglio Nero Famiglia, a blood-curdling scream was heard as Grand Lady Luce and Donna Aria began to bleed from every pores of their skin. The Matriarchs, both the elderly and the young, wail and thrash around in pure anguish when their vision of the Future was slowly, agonizingly, being torn to shreds like paper; their own feeble Sky Flames rose in vain to resist the offending Sky that brutally rips through Strings of Fate within the Tri-Ni-Sette without mercy, before leaving nothing of their presence behind.)
(Separated only by a few thousand of kilometers between them, in the Vongola and Gesso territory, the Vongola Ring and the Mare Ring started to burn. Forcing their wearers, Don Timotio Vongola and Don Leonel Gesso along with their Guardians, to pry it off their fingers in panic. The rings would then remain burning—turning into nothing but smoking chunks of metal that cannot be extinguished—for months to no end and even when it did cool down at one point, the rings gave off searing residual heat that makes them simply unbearable to wear for a long period of time.)
Halfway across the world, hidden in a mist-constructed room on a fortified underground base, a relic of a long forgotten past felt a foreboding chill on his spine.
--FIN--