Chapter Text
Yukari’s heart kept pounding as she looked through the dorm’s windows and saw the night turn from the sickly green of the dark hour to the midnight blue of reality. Even as the last vestiges of the Dark Hour slipped away, Yukari couldn’t help but feel like something was wrong. Normally, the Dark Hour made her skin crawl, and the distortion made her vision fuzzy, but what she was feeling now was completely different. It was like she had done something horrible and gotten away with it. Guilt weighed heavy in her stomach.
“It seems the transfer student hasn’t turned up yet.” Kirijo’s steps carried deliberate weight as she made her way down the dorm stairs. Her eyes surveyed the dorm before settling on Yukari.
“A transfer student?” Something about that phrase triggered flashes of memory within Yukari. A blur of images ran through Yukari’s mind. A cold hand, a whispered promise, and crushing, heart wrenching pain. Yukari felt her knees grow weak as a throbbing pain just behind her eyes began to form.
“I’ll have to let the Chairman know,” Kirijo’s voice cut through the fog in Yukari’s mind. “Hopefully he’s just lost, but it is possible that he was waylaid by the dark hour.” She threw a cursory glance at Yukari, noticing her discomfort. “Make sure to get some sleep. It would be a problem if you were late for school.”
“Oh, yeah sure” Yukari could barely get the words out before Kirijo left for the command room. Taking a deep breath, Yukari turned to climb the stairs. There really was no point in staying up any longer. Hopefully, her headache would go away in the morning. She already had too much on her plate, dealing with a random transfer student. Just behind her a sheet of paper signed with long dried ink vanished into thin air.
Time never waits.
It delivers all equally to the same end.
I hereby agree with the statement above,
and I chooseth this fate of mine own free will.
Makoto Yuki.
“This wasn’t how it was supposed to go!” Yukari yelled, leaping away from a hand that nearly caught her leg. She thought back to the evening, where Sanada had convinced her and Kirijo to let her ‘see the dark hour in action.’ The way the upper-class students made it seem like she wouldn’t be that far from the dorm. Even Kirijo approved the excursion as a training mission to find the transfer student and get her used to the dark hour. But all notions of safety flew out the window when a huge mass of shadowy arms appeared out of the darkness and attacked without mercy. The thing was a terrifying monster, with hundreds of grasping arms, one of which held a blue mask.
“It’s a big one Mitsuru, it’s going to take all three of us,” Sanada dodged another one of its grasping hands, delivering a hook to one of its arms. The shadow recoiled in pain, and in an instant, needle-like blades appeared in each one of its hands. “So, it has more tricks, watch out Takiba-Ugh!” His voice strained as he blocked a sword on his knuckles.
“Hold on you two, I’m on my way!” Mitsuru’s voice cut out as the transmission shut off. Without hesitation, Akihiko rolled under the sword and in one smooth motion, pointed his evoker to his forehead and fired, “Polydeuces!” Yukari flinched as a bolt of lightning struck the shadow, and then another, and another. Sanada was giving it everything he had. He ducked under another blow and unleashed a flurry of strikes against the shadow. Just as quickly, one of the shadow’s arms wound up, and in an instant, struck Sanada with a sickening crunch, sending him flying into a building.
Yukari felt her heart stop, she needed to move, she needed to help Sanada. Raising her evoker, she saw the shadow turn its mask towards her and slowly crawl forward. Trembling with fear, Yukari pointed the gun to her head and tried to summon the will to fire, her breathing shook, and her blood pounded. She needed to pull the trigger now, Sanada needed her, she couldn’t die here!
Suddenly, the shadow’s slow lumbering crawl came to an abrupt halt, as if its hands were glued to the ground. The mask lowered, a strange, humanlike inquisitiveness present in the motion of its arms. The roar of a motorcycle engine cut through the eerie silence of the dark hour. Kirijo had arrived, and the shadow turned its mask towards her, as if in challenge.
“Get Akihiko to safety,” Kirijo shouted, as she stepped off her bike, her evoker already drawn. Yukari nodded, sprinting to the rubble where Sanada had landed. The shadow roared, shattering the ice that held it to the ground and scuttled towards Mitsuru.
Steading herself, Yukari looked at Akihiko, his elbow was bent at an awkward angle, his vest was ripped, and a large gash in his side was visible. “What are you doing, Mitsuru needs help” Akihiko’s voice was quieter than Yukari had ever heard it, but his eyes were still bright. “I’m fine, go help her, she can’t beat it alone.”
“Stop talking nonsense, we need to get you out of here!” Yukari tried lifting Sanada’s good arm onto her shoulder to carry him but fell over almost immediately. “Geez, how much do you weigh-” A scream of pain came from Mitsuru, Yukari looked in horror to see that Mitsuru had been knocked down by the shadow, its blades moving in to deliver a killing blow.
Sanada at her feet, his blood staining her shoes. Kirijo, on the ground, the shadow’s blades hanging above her. And her, powerless to save them. Hesitation forgotten, Yukari drew her evoker, turned it to her own head, and fired.
A voice whispered in her mind, “I am thou, thou art I”. Yukari felt her mind split in two as a being was pulled from the depths of her soul. Shards of blue and white light gleamed, forming into a figure riding the head of a floating horned cow. The figure raised its arms, creating a gust of wind that stopped the shadow’s attack on Mitsuru. The shadow screeched, turning its mask to face her. It took one step, and then another, and then moved with inhuman speed, its swords at the ready, but Yukari could feel her persona in her mind, filling her with power.
“Io!” she cried, feeling her persona summon a gale again to blow the shadow back. Behind the shadow another voice shouted, “Penthesilea!”, frigid ice pelted the shadow from the rear. Roaring in pain, the shadow found itself buffeted on both sides by wind and ice. Screeching, it stretched its hands in one direction, then another, turning its mask back and forth between her and Mitsuru, as if it couldn’t tell who to attack first. Finally, the shadow came to a decision. With a surge of power, it extended multiple arms to strike at both of their personas simultaneously. With only a single slash, Yukari felt Io shatter, as pain flooded her body. Through the corner of her eye, she saw Kirijo collapse, falling motionlessly onto the streets.
The shadow gave off a triumphant screech as it slowly began to drag itself in Yukari’s direction, its blades scraping across the street. A faint surge of pride welled up in Yukari as she saw that some of the shadow’s arms were limp and unable to support its weight. Yukari raised her evoker again, but even as she pointed it towards her head, she could feel exhaustion overtaking her. The battle had drained her, even still being upright was a challenge, let alone summoning a single gust of wind with her persona. Still, she pulled the trigger, there had to be a way through this, she couldn’t die here. Io appeared in a flash of light between her and the shadow’s raised blades. Yukari braced for impact, maybe if she could block this attack, she could find an opening to run and lure the shadow away from Sanada and Kirijo.
Before the shadow could prepare its final attack, its arms froze. Slowly, it turned its mask to face the full moon. Then, without warning, its surface started to shake violently, as if the darkness was trying to escape its many limbs. The mask split in two as if cut from ear to ear. A strange keening sound emanated from the body as the blades fell from its hands. The body began to dissolve, first from its fingertips, up its arms, and unto its core, leaving only a sliver of dark mist and… a butterfly?
Yukari’s vision started to blur, her eyes could barely track the butterfly, but something deep inside her kept her eyelids from closing. The butterfly’s wing beats slowed, as it collided with a one-eyed silhouette, shattering into a thousand pinpricks of light. She could barely keep her eyes open, the last thing she saw was the person walking towards her, and then the earth rushing up to meet her.