Persona 3: Never To Leave

Major Patchwork

Dark Hour, Full Moon

“Is this the last Shadow?” Minako asked. She might have seen my memories but it’s not like you could get absolutely everything from that convoluted explanation for everything that I’ve been doing up until now. And that was one confusing explanation.

“Yeah, it is,” I answered with a slight smile. I wasn’t just smiling out of anticipation of the battle that was going to come up. But defeating this Shadow meant that I could meet up with Nyx.

There were still things that I was worrying about, of course. No plan of mine is ever fool-proof and this one was no exception. In fact, this was probably my craziest plan yet. Not to mention my longest running one and the most tiring one that I had ever been through. Though there was one thing for sure: I was nearing the last stretch of my long journey and I was damn well going to make the rest of it count. After that… I could finally take a good, long rest.

“Alright,” Minako smiled. “Go get them nii-san!”

I nodded back and snapped my fingers, ending up again on the Moonlight Bridge. The air that filled this area was filled with the stench of rusty iron, as was the smell of blood. That scarlet liquid had replaced the once blue seas which were near stagnant as there was barely any wind during the Dark Hour.

Well… it was something I was long used to. After this long, I wasn’t going to get squeamish from this smell. Especially when I had painted the alleys red with this stench before with my own hands…

I sighed and looked up to the sky for any sign of the Hanged Man Shadow. Glancing over the familiar sight of the yellowed moon, I finally found my target. A small black spot hovered in the distance, not above the bridge like I had expected. Hm…

Snapping my fingers again I teleported to the tower where the Hanged Man was, eyeing its form. Scanning momentarily, I tried to look out for the statues that held it up and… they were there. But they weren’t on the ground like I had expected. They were actually suspended, in mid-air just below the Shadow. This is not going to be a fight that will let me get off easy. I can tell.

If this Hanged Man was the last part of Death’s Shadow, it seemed to be reflective of how I felt about being chained down and not being able to do anything. Hmph. It doesn’t matter to me right now. Right now, I just want to want to enjoy this fight.

“Let’s go,” I smiled before teleporting just in front of the Hanged Man’s pale mask and getting ready to dig my sword deep into its head. However, my blade wasn’t able to connect and soon enough I found a white statue slamming right into my chin, throwing my body back into the tower; hard.

Fuck, that actually hurt a bit. It must be a lot more powerful than I had been thinking. I’m more surprised that the building hadn’t been damaged… Oh, there were a few cracks in the wall. Okay, that makes more sense. Wincing a little from the slight amount of pain, I teleported again, landing on top of its back.

Immediately, it tried to shake me off but I stayed strong. What I didn’t realise was that the white statues were starting to close in on me. Damn, that’s not good… I cast a Tetrakarn spell to cover my fists and I attempted to smash the statues as they came towards me.

Unlike before, when the Hanged Man was relying on the statues to keep it afloat this time the Hanged Man was manipulating them; almost as if he was manipulating Fate herself. Sounds just liked me. The Hanged Man wasn’t the one hanging anymore. Fate was. I might change this meaning of mine.

There was something else, because I knew that the Hanged didn’t always mean being caught between opposing forces. Honestly I didn’t really want to admit it, but I just didn’t want to let go. The Hanged Man’s force was strong enough to at least scathe me a little, but considering how much power I actually have… It was quite a lot. I didn’t want to let go of the emotions that were lighting the flame that I had for Nyx.