How do I say goodbye?
It's always the good ones that have to die
Memories in the corner of my mind
Flashbacks, I was laughin' all the time
I taught him, all about the bees and birds
But I wish I had a chance to sing these three words
///
6 / 11 / 2016
Maruki crying out "Sukukaja!" is the first thing I remember—
"There was no NEED FOR THIS!"
Baal Zebul rears back as a he opens his thorny mouth and breathes a bright blue nuclear light. He fires upon us and the light is sure to swallow us until we're nothing but bones but Niijima and her bike dash between the blue light and the beam and she shouts "Frei!"
The ensuing shockwave carries me back about ten feet before I smash into the safes behind me, along with everyone else—Niijima included.
Baal Zebul, as though he were a thousand-pound statue, hasn't budged an inch and just lets out another fucking laugh. He digs his fingers into the eye that Niijima had shot, tearing out the bullet along with a string of bright red blood. It clinks to the ground, corroded as though it'd fallen into a pool of acid.
"Calm yourselves. What good is a hunt if my prey lies right in front of me, from the very beginning?"
Fuck this—"Hell Biker!"
Roaring confidently into the battle Hell Biker lets loose a cackle of his own as he raises his bike upwards and wheelies his way into Kaneshiro—
BOOM
-the impact sending him flying into the wall so hard blood dashes outward in a circle from his back. Baal Zebul lurches his fat ass forward, keeling over and coughing up blood as his spine resets itself with snaps and kkrches and he says, "Boy, if that is your best, then this will not end well for any of you."
Yoshizawa. "Mist! Pin him down!"
"Cendrillon!"
Twelve swords scramble downwards in a flurry and run right through him, much like they had with the others, but of course Kaneshiro doesn't stay down, of course despite being a fucking sword-pincushion he stands tall, even though blood pours and blades stick right out of him he just won't fucking stay down—
"Sumire," Yoshizawa mutters on the verge of tears, "I'm so sorry…"
"What're his weaknesses!?" Takamaki cries out.
"None! He has resistances to most spells, especially Nuke! Not even Kaz'll be able to kill him quick! We'll have to get him by inches!"
But that isn't possible. The instant he so much as touches one of us that person's dead. He can shrug off unbelievable amounts of punishment. Even if Satanael debilitates him for a little bit he can come back and burn my fucking bones to cinders if he really wanted to.
He wants to, doesn't he?
He's looking at me, at all of us, right fucking now, with a shit-eating grin on his face but he's not doing shit but looking big and scary and why?
What the fuck is wrong with him?
He has come to desire a Hunt that would assuage his basest gluttonies, I remember Baal Malage say. "You sick bastard. You wanna chase us."
"Poor little pig. Have you finally understood?"
"Bishop! To me!"
"No, Joker-"
"Maruki he will kill us if I don't! Bring him out now!"
Takes Maruki a second to kill all his fear but when he does he shouts, "Adam!"
"J-Joker…?" Niijima murmurs.
"Satanael!"
"Sukukaja!"
"JOKER!"
Niijima's cries don't mean fucking shit anymore as Satanael raises his gun and BLAM BLAM BLAM drowns out everything else in the world except for his laugh, his fucking monstrous laugh that burrows through my goddamn eardrums. Satanael blows his fucking shoulder off, shoots him right in the fucking chest, causes his belly to burst open in fucking slow-mo and still he marches forward, even though Maruki's made me fast enough to shoot five times in less than half a second, he just sits there and takes the shots and even as parts of him fucking explode he laughs—
I realize far too late what a shitty fucking idea it was to try and just pile on the agony until he dies, because him and his fucking ego won't stand for him dying here, at the hands of gawping little shits he's planning to fuck up in ways we won't even be able to imagine until it happens to us and he opens his mouth and bright blue emanates and flickers and flares, and he'll kill me and I keep shooting because I'm fucking stupid and terrified and God, Kana, I'm so fucking sorry, I fucked up bad, I'm so goddamn stupid and sorry and I wish you never fucking met me—
"Cendrillon!"
And the lights impale him right through the goddamn eyes—and he's blinded again.
He screams again, clutching at his eyes as his opened intestines wriggle and writhe, everyone runs over to me as Satanael's eyes flare open and I fall to my fucking knees—
The cat looks at the blinded and screaming Kaneshiro, and its already wide-eyes widen even more. "Oh no."
"What now!?" cries Niijima.
"H-he…he's healing."
"What!?"
Baal Zebul's screams turn into laughter once again, as he rises up from his bloody fucking crumpled self. His guts shift into twenty-foot long serpents again, but his shoulder's healed, the gaping hole in his chest winds itself back into shape—Cendrillon's swords get pushed right out of his flesh before dissipating entirely, the wounds sealed up like they'd never been opened at all and I want to do so much fucking more but my brain won't do what my heart tells it to so I remember what I'd done back in Kana's Palace, I remember a spell I'd performed fucking ages ago that just might do the goddamn trick now-
"MEGIDO!"
Feels like I said that word before; felt a lot longer, back then, too.
A bright purple light flashes above us all, swirling in the air in a motion I'd consider captivating if not for all the memories of giant jaws being shattered into nothingness, even Niijima can't help but watch as the light shoots forward like a star.
BOOOOM
The explosion doesn't send us flying but it sends Kaneshiro's parts scattered across all the world, splattering the lot of us in thick red blood as his fat and his flesh and all his parts flop and land and crash into pieces that'd be excessive in a goddamn meat-packing plant.
"Kazuya, are you okay!?" Maruki cries, kneeling down.
"You killed him…," is all Niijima can find within herself to say. She looks like she doesn't even know how to feel or what to think. To be furious or to be relieved.
"And thank God for that," exhales Takamaki.
"Are…are you alright?" Yoshizawa asks, wiping some of the blood off her face as well as my own.
"I'm fine…," I growl, trying to stand on my own two feet, only to tremble at the knees—the only reason I'm still able to stand upright is because Niijima catches me before I fall.
"Hikawa."
"I'm fine, I'm just, I'm—I'm tired."
Neck's burning up. Eyes watering. Feels like walking would turn my shins to rubber. Only felt this fucking way once before—when I wandered round Shibuya, after Niijima had awakened to her Persona. Shit. God fucking shit, damn. I feel awful again.
Only thing keeping me even remotely conscious is the anger. I see where his body had once been, I see his parts everywhere, and it doesn't quite hit me yet that this is the first person I've deliberately, viciously murdered since Kana—
Then the cat's ears twitch. Its yellow eyes glow and flash in the darkness, and it turns all around itself. "Something's wrong."
"What?"
"The Palace should crumble, if its Ruler is dead. Oh shit. Guys!"
All that's left of Kaneshiro is a bloodstain and some shredded bits of meat—but I recall what had happened to the cat just earlier this evening. Much like then, the pieces and the bits of flesh all begin coming back together again and everything reforms from the bottom fucking up, from the bones to the muscle to the veins to the arteries to the flesh, they rise up in mounds of black like they're fucking goddamn flies—
Within seconds we see a skeleton of his whole fucking upper body, about twice as large as it had been last time, its beady red eyes rolling around in their sockets before looking right at us.
"How the hell is he not dead…!?" I growl.
"I get it now."
"What!?"
"It isn't a spell," says the cat. "It's part of his cognition of himself. He's come so far and has been practically untouchable all this time…so whatever we do to him won't take."
"I shot him twenty fucking times—"
"You can shoot him a hundred times, but he'll come back."
Goddammit. "Get into the Safe Room, now!"
And we all fucking run, we run as fast as we possibly fucking can to the hazy door right behind the reforming Kaneshiro, we're close, so unbelievably close—
But Yoshizawa falls flat on her face, breaking her nose, because Kaneshiro's skeletal arm has fucking grabbed her by the leg and raised her up into the air.
"No, NO-! NO PLEASE WAIT DON'T-!"
It happens in less time than it takes for you to have even read this sentence up to this point, but to Yoshizawa it must've felt like hours. The teeth sink into her thigh, and the pain only hits her a few seconds in. Her screams drown out the sound of her blood lapping down, as he pulls her away from him while keeping her thigh pinned inside his mouth. She kicks and thrashes with her free leg, she's screaming her Persona's name but she can't focus well enough and how the hell could she? First her leg dislocates at the hip with a sickening crunch. The skin and fat off her thigh don't come off easy, there is ripping and tearing of muscle and the teeth take special care not to bite through the bone until her knee-
There isn't much that I'll carry with me to the day I die. I'm not one for sentimentality. But Yoshizawa's scream of agonized terror, as the fat on her left thigh gets stripped right down to the bone in an instant, shall remain with me for as long as the others do.
Takamaki cries, "YOSHIZAWA!"
"ADAM HA-RISHON! TARUKAJA!"
"Why're you looking at me like that, I haven't even finished-"
Suddenly my bones feel like they've been electrified and my heart practically scrambles within my ribcage. Before I'm even aware of it I've summoned Satanael, and he charges right forward, stabbing Kaneshiro's massive skull right in the eye. With a twist of his wrist he raises his blade upward and the skull is split open once again, letting Yoshizawa loose into Niijima's arms—the girl's carried away on the bike as the cat scrambles after the two of them and Takamaki, Maruki and I face the bloated giant before us all.
"Fear. That's what you give me? Now, of all times?" His wide mouth heaves out clouds of mist through his needleteeth and he sounds both disappointed and furious at us all— "Do you realize what I have given you?" His lower half bursts outward, legs unfurling and flopping outward like walrus flippers but they soon regrow thigh muscle and shin bones and fucking massive bare feet with black nails- "Perhaps I've presumed too much of you."
It's a sensation I haven't felt in the longest time—not since witnessing Kana's Manikin of myself. It's gripped my arms, my legs, my throat. Satanael disperses because whatever I know I'm capable of doesn't matter because I can't feel my legs or my arms and my heart won't stop reverberating.
He growls, actually sounding fucking pissed for the first time since I've been in this shitting place, "I've given you the path to my Treasure several times over. I've watched you slaughter my men, prove yourselves worthy of being food. Any other child would have fallen, broken and bruised and wanting to die. You've all proven you're more, yet you look upon me with those wretched pitiful fucking eyes. Do you not see what gift you've been given? You face me, now. You've come so far, and yet you still feel fear?"
"S-Salome-!"
She dies as soon as she comes—though she charges, Kaneshiro's newly-formed fist clenches Salome's head and crushes it as if it were a soda can, and Takamaki crumples as she experiences the worst headache of her goddamned life. I hear Maruki crying out at me, as he rushes to Takamaki and kneels, holding her close as she shivers and screams and I'm too seized up to do a goddamn thing.
"How long I have waited for one whose hunger matches mine. I thought of you as tigers but in truth you are piglets. Fucking teacup pieces of shit that get crushed if someone so much as steps on you hard enough."
"KANESHIROOO!"
Niijima rushes again, coated in Yoshizawa's blood as she screams bloody murder but what happened last time she charged happens again. A giant hand swats her aside now, causing Johanna to be shattered into gears and rubber and steel plating and Niijima's carted ten feet in the air.
Headfirst she lands with a WHAM and she's virtually knocked out cold and I'm terrified she might've been paralyzed like Kamoshida had been-
"You come here and lash away at me, yet when the time comes to fight and fuck and die you flee from the food presented right before you. You are not worth even the scraps that fall from my table."
I want nothing more than to rip my mask off my face and blow his fucking massive skull open again but I feel her, I feel her wrapping her arms over my shoulders, I feel her legs coiling around my waist, I hear Masako laughing as she clings to my head, covering my eyes with her hands and strangling me with her legs and I'm breathing like I don't even know how and by the time they've left me I'm lifted up by my shoulders.
"I would so have loved to have chased you round this place. It filled me with joy to think you could come even remotely close to my Treasure. But you are just another child, like all the rest. To chew upon your bones would be an act of mercy. I shall let the acids consume you."
With all my strength, all my will and fortitude, everything I said about doing what needs to be done and yet all I can do in the end is scream. Maruki cries out for me as Kaneshiro's mouth widens, opening far and wide into a pit of endless gnarled and yellow teeth, and a darkness that stretches for centuries.
.
.
.
She's lying in my bed now, desperately lonely, even though I'm right across from her in a chair. She's asking me if I meant it when I said I'd never leave her, and I'm saying yes.
When I pull myself awake I'm burning up again, and I'm utterly immersed in a goddamn mire of thick red blood. Takes all my strength to lift myself up out of the muck, the dark sludge clinging to my clothes in viscous clumps. Simply walking forward puts enough strain on my calves to make me feel like I've run a thousand miles.
Smell's fucking unbearable, like an entirely new chemical gas all on its own. This whole fucking sub-dimension is about as wide as a parking lot, the walls coated in pulsating masses of pink and purple flesh. Blue veins charge blood through the meat as red sludge slides down over the intestinal walls. Eyeballs hang all over the place, looking down upon me with bright yellow pupils and darting themselves in every which way.
Too exhausted to summon anything. Too humiliated to be anything other than fucking furious. The terror I'd felt just moments ago has faded at least somewhat, my chest turning cold as my breaths let loose a thick cloud of air. The temperature's below anything my body can handle for longer than a few hours. Gotta find my way out of here and kill this fat cunt.
In the center of this world of viscera and blood lies a stomach in the shape of a heart. It beats like one, it pumps blood like one, it bears the same veins and reddish flesh but make no mistake it is a stomach. It hangs from the ceiling by tubes and root-shaped structures that look to be thick as branches.
I'm in his stomach. Holy goddamn shit I'm in his intestines.
Lost my nerve there, left him with the others, left Yoshizawa without a goddamn leg and oh my God Yoshizawa doesn't have a leg anymore, goddammit, I heard she was a fucking gymnast or something, fuck, fuck, fucking hell I'm so goddamn ashamed I let her come along with us, that I let this go so far.
Noises rise up behind me as my breaths hitch and my eyes burn, got barely enough energy to fight, not even enough to see clearly, let alone use my Personas—
They're a dark shade of green, boiling and bubbling with bright red or golden eyes. Living piles of muck that groan like goddamn zombies, their eyes fixed on me and I feel like the second they so much as touch me I'll lose things I need to survive—
Slime, my mind repeats, Slime, Slime.
No time to lie down—"Hell Biker!"
The act of ripping the mask off sends me to my knees, too goddamn careless and stupid—Hell Biker cackles again and performs a fucking flaming wheelie and whatever lies ahead is utterly squashed under fire.
Seems to work—the Slimes actually let out screeching noises that sound like children's voices in unison, broiling and letting out unmentionable stenches that I swear will remain lodged in my nose for the rest of the week.
But I've likely signed my fucking death warrant because Hell Biker disperses after just a few seconds and I'm so fucking out of it I can't even think up the name of my other one and my guts grind against their walls and I'm almost about to puke and I'm so pissed and scared and angry and goddammit Kana why even now won't you just leave me the fuck alone—
So fucking stuck I am on myself that I don't notice the moving sludge jumping upon my back and pressing me into the mud. I scream and rage and I cough out the murky shit welling up in my goddamn throat, but the Slime on top of me weighs a ton of fucking bricks and it's in my teeth and my eyes and my ears, I thrash about and flail in the goddamn filth and within moments I can't breathe can't see can't feel anything except the fucking horrible taste of blood in my fucking mouth—
"HRAGGGGHHHH!"
Satanael burns through them, blowing them to smithereens and in the haze I can't fucking see shit but a few seconds pass and they flee, they flee and wriggle away from me and though I'm pretty sure I can't just blow them to bits—being living piles of filth they would likely reform and reform again. But hell, I'm happy they're leaving and I'm too fucking tired to go after them.
My shoulder's been eaten away; I can see my collarbone, my shoulderblade, the meat that makes up my trapezius. The slimes had eaten past my fucking Thief clothes and I don't have enough energy to even think about using Victory Cry but that doesn't matter. None of this fucking shit matters. Even as my shoulder and chest bleed through fetid skin. Exhausted I feel Satanael fade away as an unstoppable urge compels me to look at the fucking stomach-thing that lies before me.
The stomach hums and throbs, sparkling and reaching something raw within my nerves. It's a familiar sensation, one I recall having felt back in the gym of my school. I reach outward, almost unconsciously, before I realize what the hell I'm doing. But then I make myself reach forward, I tell myself I have to try fucking something before whatever else is in here strips my flesh away from me.
My hand sinks into a soft lump of flesh that looks like a tumor with an eyeball, I feel an invisible force pressing its thumbs into my eyes—
—and I see things that I will take to my grave.
The memories of this monster come at me suddenly, rushing through everything at a rate that's all too impossible for me to keep up with, and I collapse to my knees before I'm capable of even comprehending it all.
But within seconds, I rise up from the lake of blood, utterly invigorated.
Junya Kaneshiro's hunger is not one out of necessity.
It is a hunger, born of grief.
I know now. I know exactly what his Treasure is.
A name hisses into my brain, right then, Baalial.
Baalial.
Baalial.
And I hear a horrid moaning noise come from behind me, rising up from the lake. It is a creature covered in warts and boils, rising as high as ten feet, spanning a length of fifteen. The body consists of the united upper bodies of a man and a woman, joined at where their waists would have been. The half that faces me is a male body with a gaunt face, covered in cancers and lesions. The half that faces away from me is that of a woman, her face rotted to the point of having fallen off in ages past. Both of them bear arms as skinny as twigs, with elbows that would be crushed under even the slightest pressure beyond what they endure already.
With toothless mouths the faces roar upon me, letting out a scream that half-sounds like a cry. From open pores in their flesh, from their mouths, from their eyeholes they drip a steaming red liquid that would boil my flesh if it so much as touched it. And after having bore witness to Junya Kaneshiro's memories, I am well aware of just who and what these sick motherfuckers are.
It rushes at me and there's no Maruki to make things slower, no time for me to pry the mask off my face again, no time to even call out my Persona because I'm too tired and it's too fast, and when it grabs me and opens its mouth all I get is another world of hurt.
The vomit pours over my face and upper body and within seconds my nose and lips and eyes begin dripping away from my head. I feel it seep into my chest and my lungs and it's fast enough to burrow into my skin in seconds but slow enough to get me to feel it, slow enough to compel me to scream through vocal cords that have liquefied, slow enough for me to lift up my hand to my eyes and though the acid dashes upon my knuckles and fingers I make myself rip what's left of my face off.
By the time I've summoned him, I have enough left in the tank for two shots.
BOOM
Satanael's first shot goes through Kaneshiro's birth parents, from his father's mouth to out his mother's, causing their insides to explode the whole way through.
BOOM
The second shot goes in the big bulging sparkly organ that contains his and his siblings' childhood. The waters below me broil as the walls tremble, the eyes all over look wildly in every direction, widening in fear as the red beneath my feet rises higher and higher and very nearly drowns me, I hear Kana laughing and Masako crying and Niijima calling out my name-
I'm covered in blood and vomit. Drenched in piles of shredded meat. Most of my face and chest are gone, leaving bone; I can hear, but only just so. I can see, but only from one eye; the other had been dissolved entirely. I can hear Maruki, somewhere in the distance. His voice is but muffled noise and I wonder why I can't hear him as well as I should, and then I realize that along with my face, my eardrums have melted. Most of my coat has been fried away, exposing gristle and muscle I would touch what's left of my head on impulse but my left arm has fallen off entirely, and I can't feel my right arm. My legs are numb below the knees but somehow I still stand, even as pieces of me fall away.
If I had thought up Victory Cry just a few seconds later, I'd have been dead. But as it stands my scalp and hair regrow and reform. My ears and eyes re-emerge and I'm able to speak with a voice I'd lost all ability to use just minutes ago. Blue flames cover my body and my clothes reform utterly.
I turn around and see Kaneshiro, hunched over with red and green foam spreading outward in a pool, from his mouth. He's holding onto his fat gut with both arms, groaning in sheer pain. He sounds like he wants to laugh, he wants to keep rubbing it in our faces how utterly screwed we are but he can't even muster the strength to tear his head up at us, and I can't muster the strength to do fucking anything more.
I'm stupid enough to think I can summon my Persona one last time, and the second I lift my hand to my mask again a stream of red pours out my nose. Then my ears, then my eyes. I collapse to the ground, my face pouring from every orifice as a headache splits my goddamn skull in half and I can do little else but growl at myself and my pain, the red even jettisonning out through my sweat glands.
I hear the sound of Niijima, barking orders. Rushing footsteps, shapes in my periphery scrambling to get to the Safe Room. Can barely even see, let alone move; someone grabs me by my arm and pulls me along with her, shifting my left arm over her shoulder and I see her face. Though obscured by her large mask I see tears stream relentlessly down her eyes as she drags me to the only safe place we have-
-and I do everything I can to remember what I've learned about this fucking fat piece of shit, before I lose the will to even see.
.
.
.
6 / 12 / 2016
"Kazuya? You okay?" is the first thing I hear when I so much as stir awake.
Sunday evening, the cat's in my bedroom and as per my request it tells me everything that happened while I was asleep.
It took the cat an hour to heal Yoshizawa's gaping thigh. By the time it was over, it tells me, everyone was utterly dishevelled. Takamaki wept inelegantly, loudly, trying to stem the bleeding as the cat worked its paws. Maruki kept Yoshizawa still but by the end of it was drenched in her blood, such that he maintained a thousand-yard stare even while driving my dead body home. Niijima would help when requested, but would apparently remain in the corner, as though afraid anything she'd do would have made the situation worse.
Yoshizawa's eyes had apparently looked drained and dead throughout the entirety of the healing process but by the end of it she did end up closing them.
She didn't die, thank God. But she did lose a lot of blood. Enough to keep her bedridden; apparently Maruki had to make up some bullshit story to her parents about how she'd fainted in the middle of the street. They bought it. She's now being kept in the same hospital as Sakamoto, for checkups. Apparently she still hasn't woken up. Takamaki has vehemently refused to go to the Palace since then, and when the deadline was brought up to her she said she didn't care, that she didn't give a shit, that she was scared and angry and still blamed Niijima for goddamn everything.
"You were right about me and Shiho!" she said. "I was her best friend. I knew her more than anyone. I loved her little laugh whenever I'd say some stupid disparaging remark about one of our schoolmates, I loved the little caricatures she drew whenever a teacher'd piss her off, I loved talking to her about clothes and food shops and the new sweets out on the menu in that little store in Shibuya and she—she was the only reason I had to actually want to go to school every fucking goddamn horrible morning. Everything I did to Kamoshida I wish I could do to myself. But you, you didn't know anything about us or anything that we knew or what we even goddamn did, and yet you decided to march your pretty little ass off and act like a smug stuck up fucking bitch, blackmailing us into getting rid of this asshole and that would've been shitty on it's own! But then you went and put a goddamn time limit over our heads because I called you exactly what you were. The only reason Hikawa trusts you to lead us is because he hates himself more than he hates you, but no matter what happens next I swear to God—I will never forgive you for this."
And yes, the cat remembered all that and recited it to me from memory. Even said it with Takamaki's voice, and every exact shift in her tone.
Niijima, apparently, just stood there and took it. She had no more tears to shed, no more apologies to offer, no words of comfort that could possibly provide anything even remotely capable of simmering everything down. All she said in response was, "He was hurting people. I didn't know what else I could have done," and then she picked up her bag and left.
I leave my room and I see Maruki lying on the floor of his living room, bottles of booze littered all around him. He's in his underwear, wine stains on the carpet and on his shirt, below his chin. Tears stream down his eyes as he mutters names, all of which I'd never heard before save "Rumi."
"What do we do now?" the cat asks me, eyes wide as it stares upwards.
I ball up my left hand, the trembling ceasing once I've made it into a fist. "We go grab the untouchable man by the throat."
"You think we can?"
"Absolutely," I smile at it, "his stomach had a Will Seed."
The cat smiles widely then, and we both get to work.
Junya Kaneshiro's hunger is one out of grief.
Prison holds no terror for a man like Junya Kaneshiro. Neither does torture. Nor does death.
How do you make such a man afraid of you? How do you trigger all his deepest and darkest memories, and drive them to the forefront of his mind? How do you even talk to him?
You speak his language.
So I search the name of a Japanese pornstar named Airi Minakata.
I see her pictures.
All the right words come to mind.
I spend an hour torrenting Photoshop and a few minutes making some edits here and there.
Then I descend upon the city come the wee hours of the early morning.
I know that God doesn't exist. But I like to think my mother watches me, sometimes. I was everything she could have ever wanted her son to be.
I doubt she would say such a thing, were she alive right now.
.
.
.
6 / 13 / 2016
They will take it down because it counts as vandalism, and Kaneshiro will know. He will know because his informants will tell him, and his informants will tell him because the addresses to all their drug and money stashes are now exposed for all Shibuya to see.
The pictures lie in Central Street. All over lampposts and walls. They can be found in the subway, in the underground mall. Anyone and everyone sees them. The woman known as Airi Minakata is dressed in a tasteful white gown; makes her look graceful, and demure, and super-fucking-cute. Anyone who'd actually look her name up would find her involved in various unmentionable scenes, though, scenes I've chosen not to use as photos.
Upon each picture lies just a few words. Stark, blood-red, written in Comic Sans, in English. Despite the large and fat and bold capital letters, I am certain that nobody, not even his own men, would understand. Nobody but Junya Kaneshiro.
I deliberated for a few hours on whether or not to have it signed. Decided, yes. Not for the sake of theatrics. He needs to know people are coming after him. He needs to know that someone out there knows every single little inch of the black hole of bugs he has for a heart. That he's nowhere near as safe and secure inside his own mind as he thinks.
The funny thing is, when it came to signing my excuse for a calling card, I wanted to just write Joker. But the cat suggested this asshole knows that it isn't only one guy lunging after him.
"He needs to know that there's a whole host of people out there, ready to destroy him and everything he'd ever built."
"You think we'll be able to destroy him, now? Just the both of us?"
"Positive. You put this out there, everything he thinks about himself will be ripped away from him. Wouldn't be surprised if he could be as easily taken down as Kamoshida. That said, if we do this...there is a chance he might go overboard and make things a whole lot harder on us. You think it's worth the risk?"
"Nothing short of extreme prejudice will do us any good."
"Alright, then."
Cat gave us a bit of a cheesy name, but oh well. For the first time since Kana, I'm not doing something just for myself anymore, so I'm willing to go for a little flair this time around.
For Sakamoto, Takamaki, Yoshizawa, Maruki, and Niijima. Here's to them.
FROM HELL
TO JUNYA KANESHIRO, AKA SAKAHAGI, AKA THE YAKUZA PIECE OF SHIT WHO FUCKED HIS SIBLINGS ON CAMERA
1036-2, Kanda Surugadai 2-chome, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo
243-1084, Higashikojiya, Ota-ku, Tokyo
7-1, Nishi Shinjuku 3-chome, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo
29-1, Dogenzaka 2-chome, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo
DECADES LATER. HOW DOES IT FEEL KNOWING YOUR SISTER WASN'T THE ONLY ONE WHO DIED GETTING SCREWED BY YOU? ALL YOUR MONEY, ALL THE KIDS YOU'VE FEASTED UPON, AND WHAT DO YOU HAVE NOW? A HOLE IN YOUR GUTS AS BIG AS THE WORLD. PREPARE TO HAVE EVERYTHING YOU'VE KEPT INSIDE YOUR HEART EXPOSED, FOR ALL THE WORLD TO SEE. ALL YOUR DRUG DENS, ALL YOUR CH1LD P*RN DISTRIBUTORS -- WE WILL UNDO THEM FROM THE BOTTOM UP, EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM.
WE WILL BURN EVERYTHING THAT ENABLES YOUR HUNGER, JUNYA-NO-BOCCHAN.
- SIGNED, THE PHANTOM THIEVES OF HEARTS
.
.
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Would've just gotten a piece from my Kingdom. But I didn't wanna drag the cat into my psyche and have to waste time explaining shit.
From Untouchable I spend all my shit on another fucking minigun and I bring it with me and the cat to the Palace, unboxing it in the middle of the Safe Room in the goddamn Third Tier. Once we're done, I kick the fucking door open and open fire upon everything in sight.
The Palace shudders in rage, a red alarm blaring out across the entirety of the Third Tier as the shelves of saves rattle to the point of falling out of their slots and causing hundreds upon hundreds of bills to fly all over the goddamn world like a tornado.
The minigun I bought from the airsoft shop unloads upon everyone inside, making my own personal fucking Normandy landing as all creatures, great and small, are shredded by automatic fire that for once does not come from one of my Personas. Many of them shift and transform and bloom into atrocities that are far larger and grander than they have the right to be, a RATATATATATA drowning out the squeals and the wails and the cries for mercy.
A Shadow with a right arm that looks like a bag full of rocks comes in and hits my face. Before I hit the ground I feel three teeth fly out of my mouth, and two more I have to swallow down my throat. Eye's already blackening. I get up before they can kick me while I'm down and another Shadow's face folds. Fire hits my back, through my coat, and the slash is such that even if I were wearing heavy steel armor I'd have a wound that'd take months to heal. I whip around to see the winged angel again and it lifts the blade up, about to impale me and I remember Kana—
She's lying in my bed now, desperately lonely, even though I'm right across from her in a chair. She's asking me if I meant it when I said I'd never leave her, and I'm saying yes. I'm coming, I tell her now. I'm coming home.
Explosion here, explosion there. The back of my head's wet and I feel like I'm missing most of my insides when I realize they've cut my stomach open again. Victory Cry, Victory Cry, how much longer now, how much longer before it's my time.
Kana and I are dancing now. I'm wearing a suit, and she's wearing a dress as white as ash. It's a waltz, and I don't even know how to dance, but in the end every step is perfect. She's smiling and laughing, taking the lead as I clumsily try to make the whole situation work.
Blood smatters across my eyes as my ear and most of my scalp are ripped off the top of my head. Hair and flesh and cartilage reform as Satanael blasts another fly away and carves open a thousand beasts with a slash. I keep firing the minigun and emptying holes into these beasts, ventilating their bodies until they're nothing but paint along the walls—
Then she and I fall in bed together, and I'm happy to the point where you could think I'm delirious. I'm embracing her, and my face is in her neck, and I hear her let out a cry as we tumble and I wish we could stay like this for the rest of eternity.
—before Satanael fades into shards completely his blade sweeps forward, keeps more Shadows off of me for just a bit. Something hits my right shoulder and soon I'm only able to swing with my left arm, I'm in the air and blood's leaking out of me, and I don't know from which organs but it's leaving a long trail, and when I hit the wall I feel as though I'm coughing up something that's too large to not be important and someone's calling out my name but it isn't Kana, it isn't her voice—
"I came to you because I know that you're more than what you believe you are!"
Satanael mows them fucking down and my face reconfigures itself and I can't die here. Mustn't die here. It's not over. It'll never be over. Always another one out there. Always another Shido. Always someone wanting to piss on the whole goddamn planet.
I am the Devil and I have come to do the Devil's work.
I will never ever stop, not until the end of the fucking world and beyond.
Junya Kaneshiro will die. I will tear his Palace in two and rip out his heart from his chest, with my teeth if I have to. After that I will go everywhere else I need to. I will find them all, somehow someway, and send them to their graves before any of them can even think of attacking us or anyone else ever again. I will smash their skulls, break their spines, bite out their eyes, rip out their guts, throw them into traffic, flatten them, mutilate them rape them dismember them eat them eat their families eat their children until their fucking legacies are ash and bone and dead bodies—
—or maybe I could just be honest with myself and just take this bastard down along with me.
The map that Kaneshiro fuckin' handed to us last time through one of his men is beyond useful. As the cat and I ventilate and perforate every creature standing in our way we use the map to reach every red dot and open all the goddamn floodgates. One by one by one. So vulnerable is his goddamn Palace that the soldiers "guarding" the Treasure are weak enough to be utterly decimated in a single slash. Within like a fucking hour or so the keyhole is laid bare and all that is needed was to fuckin' get in there, so the cat and I do. We do and we mow down every single fucking monster in our way and by God it feels unbelievable to have all these creatures look at me with fear in their eyes.
The center of the Third fucking Tier is an elevator that takes us even further down, if you can believe it.
We make it down there and we see red diamond lights peering from the walls. A bridge leading to a platform where he stands. Already in his oversized and obese self, he just stands there, guarding a massive silver safe that stands at his back.
There is fury in his eyes, unabashed and untamed. If you could hate someone to death I'd be disintegrated by now. I toss the minigun off the edge of the bridge, glaring directly towards this oversized piece of shit.
He's the first to speak. "The SIU uses your father's tech. Hence why he's such an important business partner. I really did consider letting you fuckers off the hook. But now? After the shit you pulled? Bringing my fucking sister into this bullshit, who the fuck cares what they're gonna do to me?"
Cat cuts in, smirking, "Aww, Junya-no-bocchan gets a rush of blood to the dick and decides he can afford disobeying his fucking bosses."
"The only reason every single fucking family under my banner even remotely keeps in line is because I'm in charge. They know if they stir up too much shit they have to get through me. The only reason they haven't goddamn tried is because I'm here running their goddamn product for them. You know how many people depend on me? You know how much blood and dirty money run this fucking city? They can take me out if they want but they'll have to clean up a fucking mess they can't be asked to wipe away. The SIU obviously won't want me stirring up shit, but what the fuck is some asshole who makes cellphones and security cams gonna do to me that I can't do to him?"
"If you so much as touch my father I'll boil you alive-"
"I'll admit it isn't about the money. The fact of the matter is I want to kill you. I've put in blood and sweat into this organization and you fucking Shido up cost me far too much. Families that once bent the fucking knee have the perfect reason to collude with each other and have me whacked whenever I least expect it. Will killing you solve anything? Of course not. Will it make things harder for me? Most likely. But honestly? Whatever happens next'll be all worth it."
I smirk, "Can't say the feeling isn't mutual."
"You think you'll actually change fucking anything by putting me down? There're already those out there taking full advantage of what Palaces have to offer."
"What?"
"Scared shitless yet? You should be. They're using other people's Palaces however they damn well please, and they've been at this shit for years, now. They don't give a damn about consequences. Psychotic breakdowns, mental shutdowns... anything goes. They put me to shame. They'll make you go fucking crazy, your eyes bleeding all over the fucking place as you kill everyone within a few feet o' you. If you want to live in this world, if you want to destroy me and everyone like me then you have to give all your heart and soul—"
I don't know exactly what happens after that.
But by the time I can see again, I'm standing above Kaneshiro, who has been reduced to just a severed head on the floor. The whole arena is thick with smoke and ash and fog, steel panels dripping down from the ceiling and walls. The red lights have all been shut out, leaving me mostly in an impenetrable darkness which I can see through quite clearly.
"K-Kazuya...?"
I turn to the cat, an expression on its face that doesn't know whether I am a monster or a god.
A Persona I had never used before hovers above me and I recognize it, I had seen it, somewhere before; like Satanael it bears six wings and its arms are spread wide. Seeing it again forms a pit in my soul I crave and despise at the same time, and as it scowls with me with brilliant blood-red eyes, it fades just as quickly as it had come.
I look at the ground, unable to process much of what's just happened. Then I whip out my gun, and I point the barrel directly at Kaneshiro's face.
"Perhaps you-have what it takes, boy," Kaneshiro laughs, almost sounding impressed. "At least one of you might change the world after all..."
"Who are they?" I growl at him. "What are their names?"
"What...?"
"The names of those who cause mental shutdowns."
He snickers, "Why the fuck should I tell you—?"
BANG goes the gun and it just barely misses his head, crashing into the ground just less than an inch away from his cranium, "You're not untouchable anymore, you stupid fucking fat cunt. If I shoot you here and now you and I both know that the you in the real world is screwed. So you will tell me their names, OR I'M GONNA BLOW YOUR FUCKING HEAD OPEN!"
"WE DON'T KNOW THEIR NAMES!" he roars. "We never fucking knew their names! They kept them fuckin' classified even before Shido got his head caved open! When he told us about this shit, way back when, he told us he'd found a guy, someone who could train fuckin' kids to become our goddamn assassins-"
"And you don't know this guy's name, either?
"No. No, he never did - the only name he gave us was Shijima. All we had to do was put in a request for fuckin' Shijima to work their magic and get rid o' whoever we thought was getting too fucking pigheaded, the names were all confidential. Not even the fucking head of the SIU knows their names! Shido kept them under wraps!"
"Shido's in a coma, asshole."
"But that never fucking stopped them. They seized his assets, all of them. They've grabbed us by the balls and if we so much as talk back we lose fucking everything!"
"Who did?"
"I don't fucking know, but it's someone, someone fuckin' powerful, he's in control now and can't nobody fucking touch him because if we do he sends us into fucking comas too, or has us kill our fucking children, or makes us charge our fucking cars into a goddamn bus, we don't know him but if you kill me you will very, very soon...!"
The fury and the hatred and the absolute euphoria curls my mouth up into a smile, "Then I've got a lot of work to do, don't I?"
"Whether or not you kill me I'm already fucking dead! If I confess or show any hint of remorse they'll fuckin' shove my head in a goddamn toilet till I drown and get someone else to pick up where I've left off! They'll go fucking berserk, my people'll run around the place like animals and whoever the fuck Shijima is will come after you. If you decide I'm worth all this fucking blood, if you decide the whole of Tokyo is worth all this horror, then you and everyone you know and love is gonna be six feet under the ground before you've even gotten your fucking driver's license. You will start a war."
"A small price to pay for emancipation."
And I step on his fucking face and he shuts up - not enough to crush it to pieces, though hopefully enough to kill him. The safe door opens up and the cat and I make our way forward, a blinding white light emanating from within and I see them.
Two little kids, sitting atop a small pedestal. At the foot of the pedestal lies a dinner table, with clean plates and forks and spoons. The whole room, matter of fact, is pure, spotless white. Not even a speck of dust or dirt. The two children are naked, with skin so pale you'd think they'd never seen the sun. Sores across their elbows, scars at their wrists and legs, and welts on their faces. Where their eyes should be instead lie two black holes, rotting and infested with maggots.
Junya Kaneshiro had been born and raised in America, by a Japanese man with a drug problem and a white woman with a gambling problem.
Deadly combination meant he and his family often starved and lived in burroughs and hoods. His family had to make ends meet and despite everything they knew that was wrong they decided, fuck it. Nobody else cared about their children, so why should they?
Even pedophiles have preferences; big bro Junya, his little brother, and his baby sister made pretty big sales among those who wanted a look at mixed-race, asian-looking kids. They had been recorded on tape, for the most part. Remember, this had been in the seventies.
Of course little Junya would fight back like a good older brother but so would his father. The videos would feature them with black eyes and bleeding asses more often than not. The mother would often slap his sister in the face, blaming her for stealing away her husband from her. Many many nights he'd see his little sister crying and holding her stomach and pouring red between her legs.
Junya, age ten, beat his mother's face in and stabbed his father in his chest and his testicles and ran away from home without giving a shit what would happen to his siblings. Made his way to Japan on a boat and from there he ripped and raped and killed his way up the ranks to get where he is now. Killed many people, many many people, traded his oyabun's secrets for cash and credit and prestige and nobody wanted to say a word against him or he'd cut open their necks and stuff their tongues out through the holes.
A slow day occurred and he decided to browse the net for anything worth seeing and with his dick in his hand he saw a woman under the stage name Airi Minakata getting fucked while being hung from leather straps and he recognized her immediately as his little sister Kyouko.
All grown up.
He got a conscience and went back to America to try and get her out of the business but she wanted nothing to do with the older brother who left her behind to get tossed around foster homes with guardians that had molested her and pimps who'd slapped the shit out of her and "friends" who'd only wanted to fuck her. Their brother had died in a DUI years ago and to cope she'd gotten addicted to cocaine and alcohol and as she relayed all this to him her eyes bulged practically right outta her head and she poured out basically everything she'd eaten the past few days on his lap.
She was OD-ing right before his eyes and he was still reeling over the fact that his brother's dead and he couldn't have saved him, either. So he wanted to save her he dragged her to a hospital but she died coughing foam and blood and vomit in his arms, she died laughing and crying and telling him how much she hated him and he loved her anyway and he still loves her now-
-even though he left her behind and couldn't give a fuck about literally anyone else in the goddamn world he has the audacity to still want her alive again.
Enduring the same hunger that made his sister skin and bones. The hunger his parents had felt, the hunger they used to make him and his siblings fuck each other in their basement in front of a goddamn tape recorder. The hunger that he will never ever satiate until he takes all his self-hatred out on the whole world.
He will escape starvation. He will escape a state of destitution and shame. He will not suffer a drug overdose, or die while driving drunk, or let his guard down like his parents had.
When his time comes, he told himself, he will fat and full and unafraid, and nobody in the world can ever put a stop to him.
Nobody but me.
And as Satanael raises his gun at the two naked corpses of innocent children who deserved none of the horrors they'd experienced at all, I think of the horrors I shall unleash upon this Shijima, and all who serve him.
But of course, it isn't that simple.
BOOM goes something behind us and I whirl around and I see it-
I
AM
A
SHADOW
A pair of massive fat hands pull myself and the cat away, ripping us from the Treasure and throwing us back upon the platform. When I pull myself up, I see Baal Zebul again in all his adipose, staring blankly at us with a jarring expression. His jaw hangs low, as though lolling open, exposing all his multiple rows of teeth. His red eyes are but small red dots now, barely flaring in anger or any other emotion, really. He is not proud, he displays no fury, his shoulders hang low, and tears of blood have begun gushing from his eyeballs.
THE
TRUE
SELF
It is his jaw that falls, first and foremost. Then the skin off his chest sloughs off, tearing and stretching and ripping open to expose innards that didn't need to be. Creaking and crunching noises fill the air, like bones bending and snapping into themselves as out his back explodes a pair of gigantic shimmering wings in a wash of blood. His eyes melt into little red meat clumps and fall right out of his head as the flesh around his collarbone decays and rots in instants. Within moments the fat that's defined his form has become little more than extremely large strips of flesh that hang from his truest self.
It is a gigantic beast with bulging red eyes, standing little more than sixty feet tall. Its arms and legs are long but within each of them contain the strength of a hundred men. Its wings shudder and flare wide and carry it high, high up into the air as its dark body encompasses all the world and I hear a name and a title rage inside my skull:
Beelzebub, the Lord of the Flies.
there is no god
there are no souls
all there is is your hunger.
i will feast and i will feed, from now until Kingdom Come.
The first thing I hear before I go unconscious is an unbelievably loud explosion. The second thing I hear is Kaneshiro laughing hysterically and loudly. The third thing I hear is EASY VICTOR and suddenly the whole world turns sideways-
-and the bank starts falling from the sky.
///
After laughter, comes tears...
- Wu-Tang Clan, Tearz
///
NoRoleModelz Chapter Notes: Next chapter we face Kaneshiro for real. And Kazuya pretty much just screwed himself over. Also I'm thinking of adding pictures to this story; wanna draw these characters in my own style. Feel free to check out my deviantart if you're interested in how that might look: deviantart dot com / chiaroscuroforever/ shop
Also, watch Cronenberg's The Fly. It's super good