[ic] shadow pheasant's mementos inbox

[pheasantboy]

Feel free to tag here, if you want to run into Shadow Pheasant in Mementos.

He doesn't have a phone, and must make his own fun. Be warned that he's level 99 and will attempt to eat all Akirens (and probably many others) on sight.

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[pheasantboy]

"Listen to you damn yourself. Do you even realise it? Even I felt pity, from time to time." Like he'd felt it for her—or no, for Oracle. You really said you'd remove a man's parental rights...?

"I'm not scared of pain. I don't care if you set me on fire, melt me with acid. Whatever. Not to say I have to sit still for it. But I hate him for what he is! Mindless, a fucking puppet again, worse than ever!

"Maybe it would be better if he was like that. Nothing but a drooling shell. I did it to so many others, after all, and maybe he really would die. But then, we'd never be that lucky." Astonishing to hear him say we.

[cybermask]

She shook her head. "I'm not pitying you. Just like I don't pity any of the others." Though he truly didn't have to sit still for dying, he had enough fight that maybe he didn't want to.

She didn't know where the leap in logic was, for him to say like he should be like that. There was something ringing in her about being lucky. She laughed again, that manic, that pained laugh. "It's what we deserve isn't it. Maybe that luck will pass to me."

"I think I'd be in the same spot if I saw myself like that, but maybe I already am. I mimic what others what to see. I live up to the perfect straight a student who never misses a beat, then I'll switch and be the worst person who has to beg for help all under the preface of what they want to see. I beg for people to like me, and yet I'm a ticking time bomb."

[pheasantboy]

Such a confession to hear. It pulls at one of those little puppet strings, the ones he hates so much, the ones that have kept her alive. His little laugh is barely more than grit in his throat, and harsher for it.

"Well. Stay on the path you're on, and perhaps one day you can be a Shadow trapped in Mementos, hm? Just like me."

[cybermask]

"Maybe I will be," she laughed sadly. "Certainly would be nicer than what I'm sure is waiting for me."

"I'm fully expecting death, I think it's what I deserve. Funny how I went from crying about shooting the guy off the roof, to this. Someone who flayed a man, someone who shot someone on stage, someone who's a copy of those around her, someone who's finding themselves with you."

Her laughter turned sour again, "I don't even know who I am."

[pheasantboy]

He shimmers a little, and when he reforms he's standing above her, considering her where she lies on the floor. "So much self-pity. But there again, I'm in no position to judge you on that."

[cybermask]

She smiles up at him. "I guess, though you have to have somewhat of an idea of yourself to have that."

Should she be laying on the floor with a shadow above her? maybe not. but she wasn't scared either. When was she scared with shadows? It's hard to have fear when you don't care.

[pheasantboy]

His face wrinkles up, very much in a way she might recognise. "Of course I do. I'm a Shadow."

He shimmers again, and when he reforms, he's sitting against the tunnel wall, beside her. He doesn't feel very much; doesn't feel anything much of anything good. He's still looking down at her as if he's not sure whether to talk to her or eat her.

"You said you were my sister?"

[cybermask]

Interesting topic change. "Yeah, I am?" Where was he going with this? He at least seems a bit more at ease.

[pheasantboy]

"You sound like you could be my sister. Murderous, pathetic. Desperate for some self-worth. Cherishing a sick little sadistic streak." He says none of these as if they are bad things, or as if they might not be entirely true.

"But Oracle was nothing like you. It would be fallacious to say that proves anything. Perhaps my counterpart just ruined you with his presence."

[cybermask]

Ouch, even if somewhat true. "Oracle might have been. I wouldn't put it past the guy who could," she gestured to the all of him.

She sighed, "Fuck him."

[pheasantboy]

"Who are we fucking? Anyone in particular?"

He sounds absolutely exhausted, and drops his head back against the tunnel wall. His eyes flash momentarily, and an Eigaon impacts on the tunnel wall in a flash of red fire.

[cybermask]

"Everyone I guess, people suck." she sighed. Yeah, go ham buddy. She wouldn't say the guy who did this, though he probably would get drug down here. The shadow deserves his revenge.

[pheasantboy]

"Each and every one of them." Another Eigaon impacts on the wall. It's better than television used to be, that's for fucking sure.

"I can still do that, you know. Look into people's souls. Used to think it made me so important, so much better than everyone else. The worst thing is I still rather think I am." He lifts a handful of rocks from the tunnel floor, and hurls them after it.

[cybermask]

"What do you mean look into people's souls?" That wasn't something she had known about before. She peered at him curious. It might make him important and better, was certainly a skill she didn't have.

[pheasantboy]

"You don't know about that?" He's relaxed enough to trace with his fingers in the grit and dust and bits of bone between them, as he speaks. It's rather odd to see.

"My ability, Glitch. The only one that's mine alone—though I guess there are countless versions of me with it. All thinking they're so damned special."

[cybermask]

She rolled to face him, eyes sparkling. "I don't know about that. It sounds so cool. Tell me more!" She was very very interested to hear about this. "I can tell you that you're more special than the ones I know with a cool ass ability like that." There was no hint of just inflating his ego, it was truly her own thoughts.

[pheasantboy]

Heh. Heh heh... what a strange, rusty little sound. Beside her, half-drawn up into a ball, the Shadow is laughing.

"Don't give me that shit. I've been manipulated by experts, you know."

[cybermask]

Her eyes widened as he laughed, he actually laughed at her, strange. She frowned, "I wasn't manipulating you." How horrible were people to him that he felt like that when she had genuine interest. She added a little huff. "I really don't know anything about it. It sounds cool."

[pheasantboy]

The laughter comes to a slow, gritty halt. "Are you really telling me your Akechi doesn't have Call of Chaos?"

Because that... even now, it's so critical to how he conceives himself. Without it, what would Goro Akechi ever have been? How would he have held on to even the ends of sanity?

"So what does he have? What does he do? I suppose it's going to piss me off again."

[cybermask]

She shook her head, "as far as I'm aware, no he doesn't." She couldn't place why call of chaos sounded so familiar.

"He's just a guy? I don't know what he's supposed to do? I've never seen him use something out of the normal." Granted she hadn't been around a lot of persona users.

[pheasantboy]

Okay, no, there's no way that can be as it sounds. "He has a Persona—but not Call of Chaos."

It occurs to him she hasn't named him, either, as any of the Personas he also was. "What Persona does he even have? I suppose he's as different as you."

[cybermask]

"Hereward?" She tilted her head. Why was he acting so strange? This was really strange to her, but she hadn't discussed personas with others yet, only the other Futaba had seen Necronomicon.

[pheasantboy]

It's all just so puzzling to him, the difference of it. The lack of that one thing he feels defines him.

"So he's entirely different. Or"— and he falters, so strange to see from him; even though the name rings true and pure inside him, he was never Hereward; rather than beginning to trust, he was betrayed.

"That's what I do. Instead of skinning people alive, you understand. I send their Shadows for a little rampage in the surface world. All but one, that is." He scowls.

[cybermask]

She snorted at the little joke. She knew better than to ask who the one was. "I wonder how that feels," she hummed, more pondering out loud than anything else. Her eyes were back to sparkles when she focused on him again. She was so happy discovering more about him. "I think that's really cool. Do you get tired using it? What are the effects it has on you? Can you use it on yourself or just others?"

[pheasantboy]

But the scowl deepens, as he contemplates it. "I can use it on myself. It was the first thing I tried, when I understood my situation. It didn't work."