EDIT: did an extensive clean-up of all the leftover "Â"s from formatting. Sorry about that.
Chapter 44: Into the Void
July 16 – Junes Food Court
Yosuke arrived early to the food court, waiting for the others. It was agreed that they should avoid grouping up as much as possible after a few close calls with the police. It was raining non-stop now, and Shirou figured it would be a good day to check on the 8-bit castle. Not for training, but to see if things were escalating yet.
Luckily, Junes tables had tarps for bigger seating groups for when the rain rolled in, and with how big the Investigation Team was getting, a bigger table was necessary. Kanji was happily petting Tama, Chie was stretching her hands and legs, and Yukiko was asking Rise something about acting lessons. All they had left to wait on were Shirou and Fujimura-san.
In the meantime, Yosuke stared at his phone yet again, waiting for something to happen. A call, a text, anything, to ease the worries that festered since his teacher’s death. “Sacchin…”
“What are you saying, Shirou? Sacchin's… Sacchin’s another victim! She has to be! She can't possibly be the culprit! She wasnÂ’t even here until the deaths started!”
"Then how do you explain her and Mitsuo disappearing the same day Morooka-sensei died?”
“They probably went into hiding, or… or the real kidnapper just took them without putting them into the TV to avoid suspicion!”
“Fuji-nee saw the one who killed our teacher. She’s certain that the Kubo siblings are to blame.”
“It was dark out that night! And… and raining! It could have been anyone! Hell, she was even drunk and then thrown into the TV right after!”
“She still remembered more than the others when put into her situation. For all her faults I trust in Fuji-nee.”
“Are you saying you trust your guardian over your friend here?”
“…”
“Okay, you’re right, jerk move. But how do you think I feel about all this?”
“Yosuke—"
“She isn’t a vampire, okay? I mean, come on, do you realize how crazy that is?! That I’d be dating some horror monster that was responsible for what happened to Saki-senpai?!”
“Well, we’ll figure this out one way or another. I just don’t want you to get your hopes up when the worst comes.”
This case sucked. No two ways about it. That conversation with Shirou was cycling in YosukeÂ’s head as a morbid reminder while he scrolled through his texts. All of them from him, and in growing desperation and impatience. He tried to convince himself that the only likely scenario was because she got stuck in the TV world where there wasn’t a phone signal. Trapped in a dungeon with no way out until a Shadow decided to eat her.
Although she could just as easily be sitting on her metaphorical throne waiting for them. No, that wouldn’t make sense. Wouldn’t the mastermind actually take the fight to the ones messing with their plans? Unless she had some ulterior motive, maybe.
It was a constant mental struggle for Yosuke, trying to decide if Satsuki Kubo was the villainess or not, or why she had done so. Why the lies, why the killing… why mess with the world at all. Shirou said that vampires were creatures of the night and thought differently from humans. The blood drinking was actually a vital need to sustain themselves, for example.
Oh, and finals were in a few days. How could he possibly study with everything going on? The timing of it all couldn’t be any worse. He wouldn’t be surprised if Satonaka scored higher than him this time.
…okay, no way in hell was he going to lose to Satonaka in academics. All the more reason to resolve all this sooner than later.
“Oh, they’re here!” Chie said aloud, noting the arrival of the last two members of their team. They waved them over as the duo sat down with them.
From there, conversation was kept minimal and vague while Yosuke sort of zoned out. He did hear Shirou ask for a clarification on the weather report, and Fujimura insisting on better study habits, but it was as much white noise as everything else in Junes.
His mind was returned to the questionable state of his girlfriend. Please respond when you get this. He had written before. Where are you, another time. He tried to avoid sounding too desperate but it was barely a mask he held up. What if Satsuki had already been killed? Wait, if she was really a vampire, then wouldn’t she be dead to begin with?
“Huh?” Yosuke stirred, looking up to see Shirou shaking his shoulder.
“I said we’re going to Teddie’s place now. Are you coming?” Teddie’s place being code for “big screen tv portal” in case the cops were listening in, not that they had to worry. Only Naoto ever figured out their DnD lingo, and luckily he was on their side.
“Oh, yeah yeah, sure.”
Well, he could worry about that later. He could use some of TeddieÂ’s bad jokes right about now.
<><><>
TV World, Hub Space
Somehow things went from bad to worse. There was no sign of Teddie at the main gate. Usually he was pacing or waiting in front of the TV stack for them to visit, or more recently so absorbed in his thoughts that he didnÂ’t notice them right away. This time the bear was gone.
“Teddiiiiie! Where are yooooou?!” Rise cried out. Only her echo in the vast TV world reverberated back.
“Geez, why would he leave here?” Chie grumbled. Her face was scowling, but she was just as worried as everyone else that Teddie was gone. “I thought we had a pact to never go out until we’re all here.”
“Come to think of it, hasn’t Teddie been acting a little… off, lately?” Yukiko asked.
“He’s a talking bear in another dimension,” Taiga said. “He’s not exactly normal like the rest of us.”
“No, I think Amagi-san has a point,” said Shirou. “Ever since you pushed the vampires in, he’s been antsy about finally confronting them. They’re probably responsible for ruining his home dimension.”
“Well, yeah. We promised to help him when we first came in, after all,” Yosuke recalled. “Must have driven the poor guy nuts when he saw us squatting at the front door.”
“Hey! We’ve been working towards making sure you guys didn’t die fighting a vampire! You should be thanking me!”
“Oh, uh, thanks, sensei,” Kanji said earnestly. Taiga was taken aback, clearly not expecting someone to literally thank her, but she beamed all the same.
“Regardless, we need to focus more on finding Teddie first.”
“Where do we start looking?”
“Where this mess all started from,” Shirou said, his gaze turning to the south. “The vampire’s castle.”
Nothing more needed to be said; as one, the Investigation Team marched down the fog-entrenched path to what would likely be their final destination. Fitting that it was a dungeon suited for a final boss in a video game.
Everyone was anxious. They had to find Teddie, stop the culprit, and come back alive. Thoughts of those lines circled their heads with each heavy step, and before long they were at the gates of the blocky NES-filled nightmare.
<><><>
Moon Voidania, Second Stratum
It was dark inside, almost as expected.
The shading of the interior almost hid the blocky texture from keen, discerning eyes, were it not for the light illuminated by pixelated flames. It was different from the main entrance room they’d used as a makeshift dojo the last few days and more akin to a cavern than a castle.
Before the Investigation Team made a single step forward, a black text box opened up in front of them.
>_Begin new quest
End your quest
“Eh?” Taiga blanched. Before anyone could think of a response themselves, the screen changed and typed itself out.
Enter Player One
Please enter your name:
Mitsuo__
“The hell?” Chie felt her anger rise upon reading the screen. “Is that guy taunting us?!”
“Guess he really thinks this is a game,” Yosuke noted, coming to reluctantly believe that at least the brother was involved. “I thought this was supposed to be Castlevania, not Dragon Quest.”
“Wait, there’s more,” Rise said as the screen changed.
Enter Player Two
Please enter your name:
Sa4@#%(!-/
ERRORERRORERRORERR010101010112010—
The screen seemed to glitch just as the name was typed, and then spelled a long series of number codes much too quick for the human eye to read, much less comprehend. Just as quickly as it happened, the screen shattered into glass pieces, only to subsequently vanish like a Shadow slain. A grim silence followed as the Persona users tried to discern what they had just seen.
“That’s… new,” Yukiko said slowly. It was actually scary, and not the good kind that intrigued her.
“Yeah, but what the hell was that?” Kanji wondered aloud. Rise and Taiga looked similarly alarmed.
“We don’t fully understand it ourselves,” Shirou explained. “But these dungeons seem to reflect the subconscious thoughts and feelings from the victims thrown in here.”
“Teddie would know more about this, probably,” Yosuke said. He awkwardly tugged his scarf, thinking of the bear. “Then again, he was just as much in the dark about these things as the rest of us.”
A sickening growl broke their thoughts as they saw a pack of Shadows appear further down the corridor. The team reflexively summoned their Personas, with Yukiko and Yosuke quickest on the draw. They blasted the Shadows with a conflagration of smoldering flames and fierce winds, one strong enough that the conflict was over before it could truly begin. The Shadows were incinerated in an instant.
The team, still tense, slowly relaxed as they realized there weren't any more enemies coming… for now. “Wow, that was… easier than usual.” Yosuke said, stupefied.
“Must be the new spells we learned,” Shirou noted. Ma-prefix spells with a wide area of effect wasn’t anything new, but the suffix-a spells were a game changer. A bigger cost of prana for a stronger burst of damage.
Mazio, Mabufu, Garula, Magaru, Agilao, Maragion. They reminded him of a similar fantasy game series that Yosuke had tried to get him into. Final Fantasy, he recalled. Even their physical attacks were stronger now, even if their names weren’t as obvious to the power behind them.
Taiga grinned like a smug cat as she puffed her chest out and brandished her shinai over her shoulder. “You’re welcome,” she boasted. The training had definitely paid off.
“All right, guys, let’s stay focused and start looking for Teddie,” Shirou said. “Rise, do you have a read on him?”
“I think so,” she answered. “I know he’s further down at least.”
With nothing else to say, the team started to explore the pixelated castle. The Shadows went down quickly, barely given a second thought. They were small fries now to the team's battles, even the newcomers weren’t all that bothered by them. Kanji had regularly fought gang members while seeing the worst from his own Shadow. Taiga had years of martial arts under her belt and connections to her grandfather’s “business”.
The Shadows never had a chance.
<><><>
“Finally!” A jovial voice giggled from the throne, watching a crystal ball before her. “I was starting to think they would never leave past the first stratum!”
And what efficient fighters they were! They weren’t holding back any more like they did when propping themselves up during training. They were fast. Quick. Merciless. They used just the right attacks to obliterate the Shadows, or at least knock them off balance before swarming them in a big ball of violence.
Even in the rare situations where they couldn’t hit that sweet spot, they just resorted to the hardest hitting attacks they could. One girl’s samurai ghost smashed the ground so hard that a flurry of fists surged out in a wide area. Tatsumi-kun’s skeletal toy ghost swung its bolt-sword like an executioner's ax and almost always decimated its foes in one hit.
But the older woman, the one who survived their encounter, was different. She just knew that this woman was the biggest hurdle, next to possibly the boy with multiple changing ghosts.
She was the perfect warrior with both speed and strength. Her defense was just as good as she kept her footing loose and was spatially aware of her surroundings. She lacked the elemental prowess of her teammates but seemed to be greatly favored by luck with her close calls and critical hits.
She was like a luckier Yosuke-kun, actually. Speaking of whom, he was showing a bit of resolve now, and his knife skills were a bit sharper. Maybe he’d be different from Shiki-kun.
Well, it would depend on how they handled the first hurdle…
<><><>
Moon Voidania, Third Stratum
Taiga wiped the sweat from her forehead with a relieved sigh as they climbed to the next floor. “Whew! We’re on a roll here!”
It was probably foolhardy to feel boastful or proud, but Shadow-busting has always been therapeutic for the team. Infusing their pent-up frustrations and fears into their Personas before blasting the monsters away, there was no feeling quite like it.
It did wonders for Yosuke’s self-esteem as he shredded all the Shadows he could with his wind and slashing attacks. Not a perfect fix, but close.
“Just stay focused,” Shirou said aloud. “For now, we should focus on finding Teddie.”
Rise quickly summoned her priestess Persona for a scrying. “Hmm? Hey guys, I think Teddie’s on this floor!”
“Wow, that was fast,” Kanji noted. “And with just a straight line in front of us, too!”
It was indeed a single corridor before them. It stretched so far that there didn’t seem to be an end on the other side, or it was too far away to be seen from the blocky candle lights.
And so they walked.
And walked.
And walked.
Before long the team soon realized that it was farther than it had any right to be. It was like an endless path that didn’t change or had an end in sight.
Finally Chie voiced a concern that was no doubt circling all their heads. “Uh, guys? Is it just me or—?”
“’Does this pathway never seem to end?'” Kanji blurted out. “Yeah, I was starting to think that too.”
“It’s… not that much farther, is it?” Yukiko tried not to sound tired, but her slouching lean to the wall was evident. A few others had slumped over to catch their breath, the adrenaline from their lower-level fights waning.
“Probably just a dungeon gimmick to delay us somehow,” Yosuke said. “Like trap doors and such.”
Rise exhaled out a loud breath and summoned her Persona, which towered behind her as before. The hall was just wide enough to fit her, but not to scan around her. Just as well, she only planned to look straight forward… and was surprised by what she saw. “This is… guys, we’re in trouble! This entire floor is a trap!”
“I think that much is obvious by now,” Yosuke quipped, earning an annoyed slap to the shoulder from Chie.
“How bad?” Shirou asked.
“Just listen.”
They did so. They weren’t sure what to be listening for, but it came to them in a distinct sort of churning and metal cranking. It wasn’t like any Shadow growl they had heard so far, and they could just faintly hear it beyond the walls. In fact, the walls were slowly crawling to the side as if watching out from the window of a moving car.
“The floor is actually small,” Rise explained “But that’s because the hallways themselves keep rotating. They shift from behind and latch on ahead of us, just outside of our view, while also pushing so that another hallway can be slotted. We’re moving forward but the place keeps moving backwards. Sort of like a conveyor belt.”
“Wait, they’re just gonna trap us here until we die of starvation?” Taiga asked incredulously. “That’s a pretty devious, if not boring, way to stop us.”
The bleached-haired teen stomped his foot down in frustration, “To hell with that! We came here to help Teddie, didn’t we?! I’m not just gonna sit here and wait for little miss vampire to swoop in and eat us!”
“Actually, maybe we should?” Yukiko reasoned. The others looked at her, confused. “Think about it. We’re already stuck here, and the room goes in a circle? If we stay long enough, we might reach the other side and find Teddie.”
“That’s assuming that whatever Shadow is rigging this room lets us reach the end,” Shirou said. “Or isn’t aware of our positions either.”
“Yeah, it wouldn’t surprise me if the one responsible here, the mastermind or just a big Shadow, has some form of clairvoyance like with my Persona. Given how no Shadows have appeared here at all, they might want to psyche us out indirectly rather than have a straight-up fight.”
Kanji deflated, but still clenched his fists in anger. “Dammit,” he growled. Many others in the team shared his bitterness. “Isn’t there anything we can do?”
“Hey, it’s not like we can be in two places at once," Chie lamented. “All we know how to do for sure is summon our Personas, and even that feels way out of our depth.”
Kanji stared at her. Yukiko stared at her. Everyone was staring at her, even the fox that seemed to blend into the background whenever it fancied doing so. They all had the same, wide-eyed expression towards her too. Chie suddenly felt very embarrassed at all the attention. “Wh-what did I say?”
<><><>
“How are our guests fairing?”
“Sir, I think they’re onto us. They’re rushing through even faster than before!”
“No matter. Keep pushing the rooms back. Every bit of time between us and them is a step of certain victory for our mistress.”
“Yes, sir!"
The Shadows were more cunning than at the previous dungeons. Their presence in the castle relegated them to mere lackeys of differing ranks under the master, but their cognitive awareness meant that they were more than just mere beasts. At least until they transformed to fight. The form of human silhouettes was necessary to operate the crane.
The mistress was clever in realizing this feat within them, within himself, and breaking them free of their mortal limitations. Stopping the intruders was the least he could do to repay her.
Still, he expected a bit more from this “Investigation Team”. Did the training and downtime make them soft? Were they not preparing themselves for this confrontation for months now? They believed that this would be their “final dungeon” to solving the case, and it was. Just not for the reasons they thought.
“Huh?” The Shadow stopped turning the giant cog wheel at the side. He was not worried about stopping as last he checked, the brats were very far behind. He moved down the hall and spotted a wide, white circle with markings carved and etched over the floor. “That wasn’t here before…”
The Shadow’s overseeing boss followed his gaze, realizing what it was right away. “It’s an ambush!”
“I know, that’s what we’re-GAAH!” The Shadow was slain in an instant with a pair of blades hacking his turned neck off. Before it could transform and fight, a wooden shinai and a wet floor sign bludgeoned it into exploding dust.
The rest of the Investigation Team stepped out from the circle and visibly relaxed as they did, like an invisible burden had been lifted. “I can’t believe that actually worked!” Chie said.
“I can’t believe you came up with a brilliant idea!” Yosuke told her. “What is this, opposite day?”
“I’m more impressed with that cage-mat stuff Emiya-senpai pulled,” Kanji grinned. “They didn’t see us at all while our Personas were moving for us!”
“Thanks, but the magecraft was luck on my part,” Shirou admitted. He patted Chie's back, unknowingly causing her to flinch and blush. “It wouldn’t have worked at all without Satonaka’s idea.”
Taiga grimaced, covering her mouth with her free hand. “Just, let’s… not do that again anytime soon,” she said, fighting the urge to throw up. “I’m still reeling from motion sickness after sitting and running at the same time.”
“So that’s how you bypassed my Mobius strip. Clever.”
The team’s victory was short-lived upon hearing another voice, just beyond the darkness covering the hallway further down. Only a pair of golden, slanted eyes stared back at them from the shadows, but it was enough to get the team to tense and be on guard.
“You hid your presence in a bounded field, so we wouldn’t pick up your presence as your tamed Shadows marched deeper inside. As expected of you… ‘Shirou-sensei'.”
Shirou was surprised by the last word, as were the others. The figure took a few squeaking steps forward and they saw a familiar figure with a sinister sneer instead of a smile. “Teddie?!”
“Guys, watch out!” Rise called out. “That’s not Teddie. Not ours, anyway.”
Looking closely, the team could see a faint purple aura surrounding the Teddie lookalike. But he was still unlike any Shadow they had encountered thus far. Teddie’s voice was usually high and chipper, as if coming from a child. But this other Teddie, while arguably the same voice with a filter, sounded composed and mature. A condescending voice that talked only to tear down someone else’s worldview.
Like Kotomine.
“Alright, you!” Chie shouted and pointed. “Where’s our Teddie? The real one!”
“Haven’t we done this song and dance enough times by now, Chie-chan? I am in fact a part of ‘Teddie’, and thus real, as we are intertwined. In fact, one could say I am his true form.”
"But you look exactly like him!” Kanji snapped.
“Exactly. Shadows take the form of suppressed desires and motives. Why else were you, Yuki-chan and Rise-chan running around in loincloths, princess dresses and bathing suits?”
Shirou had to admit, he had a point. The other Shadows they had fought were wearing drastically different wardrobes to suit the theme of their captive dungeons. Yosuke and Chie’s Shadows were outliers, but they sort of appeared without a demesne or theme of their own.
Looking over to the group, half of them were very perturbed by the Shadow’s remark; namely the rescued members. Their silence and embarrassment were telling enough. Taiga, on the other hand, looked thoughtful and nodded to herself. “Makes sense, I guess,” she said softly.
Suddenly Yosuke paled, a thought coming to him. “Wait, don’t tell me— You’re the one behind the murders?”
Shadow Teddie's eyes squinted slightly in irritation. “That would be a trite twist if true. ‘The lonely bear was secretly the mastermind, playing its guests like fiddles’. Not that it’s an unreasonable theory based on what little you know, but no, I am simply a servant to my Mistress.”
Mistress? This was the first time they had ever heard of Teddie having a “mistress” in this world.
“Hey, Shirou,” Taiga whispered next to him, a backhand covering her mouth from Shadow Teddie’s view. “Let’s try to glean some intel out of this guy.”
“Is that a good idea? This is Teddie’s Shadow we’re talking about.” He glanced over, but the Shadow hadn’t moved closer to them. Nor had he stepped away. He was just standing there. Menacingly.
They all knew that this situation could end up in a fight, and the friendly Teddie was still nowhere to be seen. A quick look towards Rise, shaking her head no, confirmed that.
“I’m not talking about his personal baggage if that’s what you’re worried about,” Taiga added. “I mean more about this ‘mistress’ character. She’s probably our vampire friend who whisked him away and brought out his evil twin.”
Ah, now he understood what she meant. It would be hard normally to interrogate a vampire’s thrall, but it wasn’t like they had any better leads. Teddie’s world was different enough that even if Shadows were hostile, they were loose-lipped and explicitly shared what was meant to be hidden. The truth was just as dangerous as their pent-up rage, but could they use that to their advantage?
It was worth a shot.
Giving a quick nod to Fuji-nee, he stepped forward to address the Shadow. “If you don’t mind me asking, Teddie, who is this mistress? Why work for her?”
“She has freed me from my chains of the ‘real Teddie’, and I am indebted to her. She has grand plans to spread her Palace to all corners of this world and shape it as she sees fit.”
It was concerning to learn that their Teddie was a captive, but not as much as a supposed doomsday plot. “Wait, like rule the world?” Yukiko asked, eyes widening. “That’s why we’ve been thrown into the TVs?!”
“Not necessarily, but my Mistress did glean the potential,” the sinister bear said. He turned his head up to gaze somewhere beyond the ceiling. “This world is saturated with prana and limited by imagination. There is no filter to suppress the inner psyche, and once it is actualized, it blooms to form a world within a world.”
That sounds almost like— Shirou stopped his thoughts there. There was a more pressing matter to address. “What are you saying?”
“Must I spell it out to you?” The Shadow droned, turning back towards him. “Why do you think our worlds are connected? Or that you each have your own Shadow?”
The Investigation Team all exchanged glances with each other, pondering. “Uh… what’s so weird about it?” Kanji asked innocently. “They’re us, right? To become Personas?”
“And what of every other Shadow you have fought getting here?”
Chie gasped out the word that everyone was thinking. “N-No…!”
That question chilled the team to the bone with horror. If Shadows were a reflection of themselves, then were they just going around slaying other reflections? Were they killing… other people?
No, they couldn’t be people. They weren’t cognizant enough, and Shadows could become amalgams by bonding. But how was such a feat possible anyway? Magecraft had rules to follow, even the true magics. It just wasn’t humanly possible.
Wait… the revelation came to Shirou like a thunderbolt. “They’re human thoughts,” he said. “This whole world… is a collective unconsciousness?”
“Correct,” Shadow Teddie nodded, pride showing in his voice. “Every thought made by every human by every moment forms Shadows in this world. They are small thoughts, easily discarded on a whim after the attention is diverted. Alone they are as fickle as specks of dust. But when such thoughts gather over time, the stronger the Shadow's form.”
So that was where Shadows came from. For a moment, Shirou thought back to Nami and their conversation about a talking board. Shaking his head, he almost missed Chie asking another question, “So, what’s your mistress’ plan from all this?"
“That, you don’t need to know, for you are not permitted to see her,” Shadow Teddie said.
“And why the hell not?!” Yosuke yelled.
“You wish to fight her and take her to justice. I am here to stop you. The only reason we are not fighting right now is that I still hold a little sentimentality to you all.”
“So you don’t want to fight us?” Rise asked hopefully.
“I don’t want to waste time fighting you,” he clarified. “There’s a difference.”
“Sounds to me more like you’re a chicken,” Kanji taunted. “You never fought the other Shadows before, and suddenly you think you can take us on now that you’re one yourself?”
“Kanji-kun!” Yukiko chided him. How could he be so careless and egg on Teddie’s Shadow to force a fight?
Fortunately, the Shadow just chuckled before explaining. “Every Shadow you have faced has only grown exceptionally stronger because more and more Shadow thoughts have been accumulated from your ‘Midnight Channel’. Last time you fought yourself, Shirou-sensei almost died. Do you really want to take your chances with me? Or the Mistress?” Even though Kanji had deflated by this point, the Shadow leaned in condescendingly to drive the point home. “Because in case you aren’t aware, she’s a vampire. A being several times stronger than any Persona. And very, VERY famished for blood.”
Yosuke winced like he had been sucker-punched. Every bit of confirmation of this “vampire” story made it harder for him to hold onto hope. Was it truly too late to help Satchin like it was for Saki-senpai? He didn’t want a repeat of that, not now.
Shirou had a similar crisis. It was one thing to speculate on why a vampire was here, or even take Fuji-nee’s word for it, but quite another to be outright confirmed by Teddie’s Shadow. He usually acted so differently from the wonders of the world. Excited even. But never apathetic. Was Teddie, Shadow or otherwise, truly an accomplice to this mistress? This mastermind? The one who put people into televisions to kill them?
He had to know. “You know what vampires do, right?”
The other Teddie tilted his head to the side. “What of it?”
What of it?! Shirou wanted to scream but remained calm, if barely. “What about this world?” Shirou pressed on. “The reason you asked us to help was to stop it from being cluttered from all these thoughts in the first place!”
“That,” The Shadow said, “Was simply an impulsive desire of mine, born out of a fear of the unknown. Fear of change. I had just forgotten the best way to handle it.”
“And what is that?”
“To just ignore it.”
A stunned silence filled the room, enough that one could hear the kindling of blocky fire lighting the hall. No one dared utter a word but all silently demanded an answer via staring.
“Obtaining the truth is simple, actually,” The Shadow continued jovially. “You just have to believe it to be the truth and move on. It is hard to discern the truth from a lie, so it is better to just not waste the effort.”
Shirou barely got the words out of his mouth through grinding teeth. “Well, that’s a lie and you know it. How can you just pretend nothing’s wrong when people are dying? Doesn’t that alone deserve to have answers?!”
“People die all the time. It is simply an inevitable fact of life. Even if you do save someone from an instant death, they’ll succumb and pass on through natural causes anyway. Ignorance, as they say, is bliss.”
“So, it’s fine to live without knowing how or why your life is at risk? Just because we die someday doesn’t mean we should give up when it’s convenient for someone like your mistress! Why should people be denied knowing the truth about the world they live in?!”
Shadow Teddie scowled at him, finally losing patience. “You of all people should understand how hard it is to grasp that truth, Sensei. The Clocktower. The Church. The powers that be, the ones aware of the moonlit world. They will make sure that their secrets stay hidden and buried from the ignorant masses.”
“Th-That’s…” Again, Teddie somehow had knowledge about magecraft, even through the connection of his Shadow. Just what is he?
“It's a smarter way to live. But I guess I shouldn’t expect you to understand, Sensei. You’ve imprinted on me, on Teddie, so much that he didn’t listen to reason either.”
Shirou’s blood chilled in grim realization. “Teddie already rejected you.”
Although Shadow Teddie’s face was frozen, one could sense a chilling smile emanating from it. “Right again, Sensei. It is a shame you weren’t there to witness his folly, but he breathes yet still. The true despair to his existence will be seeing you die by his own claws.”
And before their eyes, a familiar swirling vortex surrounded Shadow Teddie, only without the fanfare of an orgasmic battle cry. Rather, it began with the shattering of the small hallway around them, causing everyone to freefall down to the foyer they had used for training. Between their Personas and refined reflexes, they landed safely but didn’t have time to even catch their breath from screaming.
A moment later, their newest challenger landed nearby with a tile-shattering thud. It was grotesque, to say the least. Shadow Teddie didn't really transform as he did expand into a lumbering giant. His limbs, his body shape, everything stretched and grew. He couldn’t stand up under the weight of his new form and instead hunched over on all fours. The once stubby glove-like paws became enlarged claws, curved to a lethal point. The face cracked at the left eye hole, both of which were now hollow windows to the darkness inside. Slanted, blue-purple neon eyes stared back, giving them a foreboding sense.
“I am a Shadow of the True Self,” he said. “There is only one truth you need to know. You will all die here!”
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Originally Posted by Nasu
Perhaps another check-in on Marie . . .? Or just the Velvet Room in general, really - it's been a while, as I recall.
