pheasantboy | [ic] shadow pheasant's mementos inbox

"You're all so intent on bringing me shit. Which one are you again?"

He knows exactly who she is, of course.

Indignant little shit it is. Fine. "I can leave the books and leave you be. If that's what you really want." But she gets the feeling that he doesn't want to be left to his own devices.

"I heard you tried to make a scene in Tartarus the other day." Pissed someone else off so bad they turned into a monster, she very specifically does not say. She'd heard it from Crow but she'd rather hear it all first hand. And for as dickish as the Shadow could be he was also honest to a fault.

Oh, that... yeah, that gets him. "Wonderful. I'm a topic of conversation again."

He leans against the tunnel wall, glaring. "Yeah, I went to him when he came out. I was going to take him out, but then a whole lot of shit happened. Did you know that piece of shit is a Shadow?"

"So there's a Shadow that isn't bound to the cognitive world?" Well she thinks about that a moment. "Is it possible that he's not anyone's Shadow?" If there was no human counterpart that had ever existed then maybe he wouldn't be bound by the rules of a normal person's shadow.

"Crow passingly mentioned it because Crow is in everyone's business," she reassures him. "He told me about Maruki's palace as well. It's not the same in his reality so he had to have gotten that information second hand." It wasn't like Akechi himself was a hot gossip topic so much as the fact that he had let a lot of other shitshows come to light.

"Right. Crow." He scowls; they've never met directly, but the Shadow still resents that copy for his interference.

"So you tried to bribe me with books I won't read"—he nods at them—"so you could pump me for information about that fucking thing. I get it. I take it nobody upstairs will talk to you for shit."

"I don't give a shit about the stupid Shadow." Sumire is going to make that absolutely clear right now. "I just wanted to know if you knew anything since you were actually there."

As for the books..."If you really don't want these I can take them back with me and give them to an Akechi that would read them. I just thought it got lonely here." She was going to Maruki's palace to try and find a way to undo what Maruki did to Sparrow or see if there was a way to separate the two but the Shadow assuming she's just here for information like nobody else will talk is a line she won't let him get away with.

"Lots of people were there. The only reason to come down here and ask me is because you think I'll run my mouth. Which is true, of course."

He's watching the books with a bit of a pout. He won't read them, but he could tear them up, or eat them. Either would go a little way to filling that gaping void inside him.

"I could have gone to Haru." She won't bring up her other self because of course she wouldn't talk to Sumire. Nor would Sumire get an accurate picture from her. She's not sure where to find the Shadow boy everyone keeps mentioning though. "I know you don't believe me but I do care to hear your side of things." And it was more accurate than anything that her other self would tell her.

Sumire realizes how intensely he's staring at the books. She holds them out to him because she won't withhold them if he does want them. "If you don't want to keep talking about it just tell me that." She won't pry or get him to run his mouth about information he doesn't want to divulge.

His lips draw back in a snarl at the mention of Okumura, at the suggestion that Sumire wants to hear him talk.

"You all keep coming. And you're all liars. You tell me all this shit because you know I'll say anything."

"Just say the word and we can talk about something else." She means it. "Even if it's just about how horribly you're going to kill me." Which he won't and they both know it. She's still holding the books out for him to take if he wants.

"Or tell me to fuck off and I'll be gone and I will talk to someone else about what I want to know." She knew that he was difficult but she was going to get it through his thick skull that she cared what he wanted. Even if she wouldn't do the dirty work of putting him out of his misery.

But no; his snarl deepens, and he growls like a wounded animal, but he never moves to attack her—nor to take the books. He wants to tell her, and to know what she might know, and he hates himself for it.

He folds his arms in a very Akechi-like snit.

That's exactly what she thought. He does actually want to talk about it. "All I was told is the Shadow you threw a fit about turned into a monster. And something about Midnight using a power she seemed to have gotten from her Maruki."

She'll have to see if her suspicions about Makoto Yuki not being a Shadow the way Akechi was were correct. Then Akechi and her would share a goal of getting him divorced from Sparrow's existence entirely. Not that she was sure that was possible.

As usual, his eyes flash at the mention of Maruki; he turns away from her, rage as good as tossing him in midair, dispelling in a wave of power the way lightning strikes the ground.

He hits the wall instead of her, one fist after the next, hissing impotent hate. "Fuck him. Fuck him. World-ruling worthless piece of shit bastard."

Probably he needs keeping on task.

She's a little surprised he doesn't try to send a shockwave in her direction to scare her for daring mention his name. "Hey, we're only talking about him because I want to get rid of the power Midnight got from him." She's glad he's open enough to make it clear he won't hurt her but she does need him to focus. "So please tell me about her power. What happened in Tartarus?"

His fists slam into the tunnel walls, alongside the odd burst of red curse-looking fire. Eventually he stops, not so much for breath as because he's worn out his anger, and half-glances back.

"You want to fix Midnight? And me as well, I'll bet. All of you so generous with your efforts."

"I want to fix her because Maruki stole everything from her much like he did to you. I have very little tolerance for it." She wants every trace of that fucker gone from Midnight's identity. "I care about fixing this shit because it's wrong it has nothing to do with generosity." She sounds far more like Goro than she ever thought she could. Livid with the idea of being someone else's puppet and willing to do whatever it takes to show her other self that a puppet was exactly what she was treated like.

She exhales. "Sorry. I didn't mean to snap too. I want the full story because I'd like to know what I'm getting into if I go too far into the Palace." She hadn't gone very far when she awakened to Cendrillon. Plus there's a chance that she'd have to fight her other self exactly like the Shadow wants. "And the Shadow boy might not be like you but I have to know the full story before I jump to conclusions."

"Cute. You want to do the right thing. I won't retread the altruism debate, though, since it's pathetic and boring as shit."

She'll have some tedious form of self-interest in play; they all do; even he did. Even when it was just an image of himself that he could live with. Yet is it possible it could be in his interests to cooperate with her on this?

A greedy, conniving look creeps onto his face; Shadows are never subtle. "But in short: you want to fuck up Takuto Maruki, by fucking up Midnight. And to that end, you want information from me."

Oh Sumire isn't doing it for any altruistic reasons either, don't get her wrong. She's doing it because the efficient thing to do would be to skin Maruki alive until he undid all the bullshit that he'd done, however there's no Maruki here to un-actualize things so. Difficult- and infinitely less cathartic- it would be.

"If that's the way you'd like to think of it. There's no version of him here to pull his teeth until he un-actualizes anything so I figure his palace might have answers I can't beat out of him," she has no problem admitting that. Akechi's Shadow might even get a kick out of it.

Oh, people can be skinned alive with any number of excellent justifications—he may never have explored such depths himself, but he's an expert in what you can make yourself do. And while skinning Maruki sounds tempting, it's unlikely the former counsellor would have time for more than a gormless stare.

"I don't want him deactualised. I want him dead. Not that anything I want will mean a shit. It's only my body, after all."

"I know. Just tell me about the palace." She's not going to reiterate that if he gets separated from Sparrow or rejoins Sparrow and dies that's his choice. "My main concern as far as the deactualization goes is Midnight." It's absolutely repugnant that she walks and talks with Kasumi's face and name without any cognizance of what she was doing.

"I do want to find out how to separate you from Sparrow too but that's going to be a hell of a lot harder." Not that she thinks the Shadow will be reasonable about that but maybe he can agree with her that things would be better off for both of them if Midnight couldn't be Midnight any longer.

"You want to separate us?" He steps forward, eyes suddenly greedy, covetous.

"It shouldn't be possible to separate the ego from the Shadow. We are one, much as I loathe it. Kill him, and I go with him. Kill me... and much the same occurs."

But the Metaverse is vast, and it never pays to say never. He should know that. He'd known it before.

"Yeah I figure that's the best way to go about this since you don't want to be him." And Sumire can't bring herself to kill Goro. Even if it's not her Goro there's still part of her that feels like if she kills him she'll have nothing left.

She sees too much of Kasumi's Shadow in him to make that mistake again either. "If Maruki can take a Persona from its user it has to be possible to separate the Shadow from the person somehow." It only seems logical that there has to be a way to go about it.

"Or you could kill him. Summon up what you want people to think you are and kill him! What's wrong with all of you? You can't tell me that!" He loses it for a second, discorporating, shrieking as he goes, then collapsing into a heap on the floor. "I hate him. Fuck. I hate him!"

His shoulders tremble, like a bird's wings. "Shit. What do you want to know about the Palace?"

Sumire pauses for a moment. She can't kill him because he's the only person that she really cares about. Goro Akechi in her world is the only person she has left.

"What's in the palace? Anything that he's been using to alter reality?"

Another shudder goes through him, as he lifts his head to stare at her. "Not—not so much the Palace itself. That was just a representation of his bullshit, except for the fact that he"—and he struggles with himself, blurring out of sight before he reforms—"was there.

"No, everything important was..." He stares around at the unimpressive-looking tunnel. "Here. In Mementos."

Edited 2024-02-01 02:42 (UTC)

[ic] shadow pheasant's mementos inbox

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