"Blood for blood. If need be, his head must be served on a platter.
Nothing can be solved by restraining yourself."
///
4 / 15 / 2016
Courtyard, underneath a canopy, next to some vending machines.
"You have a criminal record...?" asks Sakamoto.
"My second day here," Yoshizawa began, "Kamoshida and Principal Kobayakawa spoke to me about you."
"They did?"
"They said you were trouble, and not to associate with either you or Sakamoto-senpai. They told me you had a criminal record...but they didn't tell me what for."
"Must've thought the word criminal would've been enough to deter you. And yet you still wanted my help?"
"To be fair, a lot of rumors circulated throughout the school. Didn't know which was true from false. They said you dealt drugs, killed someone, stabbed a guy, shot a guy, and for some reason word got round you were also into elephant tusk trafficking."
"As if I'd nothing better to do," I shake my head.
"You assaulted somebody?" Sakamoto cries out. "With a deadly weapon? And he's in a coma?"
Takes me a while to face either of them. When I do, I make my eyes firm. "Yes, I did. Yes, he is."
"Why...?"
"I wanted to protect somebody. I went too far. That's all I'd like to say about it."
"You for real...?"
"I believe you," says Yoshizawa. "You don't peg me as someone who'd do something like that without a good reason."
"Reasons don't matter, I still did it."
"Y'didn't think to tell us this beforehand...?"
"Well, we're not exactly close. And besides, I thought you'd have at least heard the rumors."
"Nobody said anything about this around me..."
"Look, we can either spend the next few days deliberating on how much of a criminal I am, or we can get down to brass tacks and look for ways to get to Kamoshida. Now we have a time limit."
"Wait, wait--"
"What?"
"You've done this before. You--this whole changing hearts thing, right? You said you and Morgana had a mission and it went wrong...then...did that have something to do with your assault case?"
"That depends on something." We hear the cat's voice, and it leaps from seemingly out of nowhere to atop the vending machines. "You gonna tell them? Best to get everyone on the same page, no?"
I grab it by the scruff of its neck, "Shut the hell up, or I'm gonna swing you by the tail into a tree."
"They deserve to know. They're gonna be working with you."
I throw the cat behind me, causing Yoshizawa to wince. "Full disclosure. I knew someone two years ago. She and her mother were being harassed in the street by some drunk asshole. I intervened and things escalated. I beat that man to near death and spent a year in juvie. Afterwards her mother died, and she fell into a deep depression, and I tried to save her by changing her heart. It didn't work."
"What do you mean, it didn't work?"
"It. Didn't. Work."
Yoshizawa purses her lips, "I'm so sorry..."
"I don't need your pity. I need you to know that the same thing might very well happen to Kamoshida. And that if we go into his Palace to steal his Treasure, that'll be on all of us. Are you willing to put that on your conscience?"
Sakamoto's eyes fume, "That asshole needs to get what's comin' to him."
"You didn't answer my question. If he dies, or suffers a mental shutdown, are either you willing to accept the fact you both helped make that happen?"
"That's why you didn't want us involved in this," Yoshizawa says. "You knew about all this and what it meant, and you tried to push us away...?"
"The police can't help. No evidence. The students won't help, and neither will the teachers. So it's up to us three. Either we steal the Treasure and he maybe dies. Or we don't, and more girls like Shiho Suzui will jump from the top of the school building. Your choice."
It takes them a moment for them both to respond. Yoshizawa's more sad and horrified than anything else; Sakamoto's expression is nigh-indescernible. Of course, the latter's the first to speak up.
"I don't care. I don't care what happens to him. Let him jump off a cliff. Don't matter. None of it does. He deserves everything coming his way."
"What about you?" I turn to Yoshizawa.
Her hands shake. Then, they ball up into fists. "I have a twin sister."
"A sister?"
"She got into a car accident a few months ago. She'll be holed up in the hospital for the whole school year. We were supposed to share a grade, share the same class. We're...we're honor students. Gymnasts. She and I were gonna train together in the school gym. And we would've done it under Kamoshida's supervision. If she had been here, she'd have been here with him, looming over her and watching her every move. That's why I was so intent on putting a stop to him. I couldn't imagine my sister going to this school and having to deal with somebody like him. I still don't. As much as I hate the idea of him dying...I don't think there's any other option left than to steal whatever Treasure's inside his Palace."
"Then it's settled," the cat smiles visibly.
"By the way...," Sakamoto says, clearing his throat, "you've done this before...is getting rid of a Palace hard?"
"Extremely."
"Goddammit--"
"Is it true you're getting expelled...?"
That semi-familiar voice makes everyone stir. They turn, and they see a woman with platinum-blonde pigtails looking at them sadly.
"Everyone's talking about it," Ann Takamaki continues, her eyes kept on Sakamoto most of all.
"At it again, huh...?" then he turns to face Takamaki head-on, deciding to be abrasive once more. "You came all the way here just to tell us that?"
"You're gonna deal with Kamoshida," she says pointedly, causing Sakamoto's cold exterior to falter. "It's more than obvious. Everyone knows you two and the new honor student have been dogging him. Lemme in on this, too. I can't just stand back, not after what happened to Shiho."
"This has nothing to do with you...," mutters Sakamoto, cold and heartless all over again. "Don't butt in."
"Senpai--"
"Of course it does, you asshole, Shiho's my best friend!" Takamaki exclaims, marching over to Sakamoto, who rears backwards from seeing the veins in her eyes. Takamaki seethes for a moment, trying to breathe and regain herself. She inhales deeply then, caling herself down, before turning to me and coming clean. "You've heard the rumors. About me. About Kamoshida. All three of you. I know it."
I nod simply, keeping my eyes on Takamaki all the while.
Takamaki asks, looking over her shoulder, trying to see if anyone else is in the vicinity, "Can we sit down for a sec?"
I turn to the cat, then to Sakamoto, then to Yoshizawa. Then back to Takamaki. Yoshizawa gestures to a nearby bench and says, "Of course."
.
.
.
Yoshizawa and Takamaki are now sitting on said bench, Sakamoto cross-legged on a patch of grass. The cat at his side. I'm standing behind Sakamoto, hands in my pockets.
Takamaki leans forward in her seat, sighing. "Started in the eighth grade," she said. "At first it was just looks. He'd eye me weirdly, and I'd never be able to really confront him about it 'cause he'd just give me the creeps. Ninth grade, he began talking more. Talking to me, to the other girls whenever we'd do PE...but he'd talk to me the most. I'd be nice, I'd be courteous. Because I was too young to know what any of it really meant, even when I felt uneasy."
Sakamoto can't help but cringe as he glares into the blades of grass at his shins, feeling worse than he'd ever had.
"Everyone says we're getting it on, but it's so not true," she says, sickened. "I don't like him. I don't want to be anywhere near him. He would and still does creep me the hell out, but I'd try convincing myself I could endure. I just started justifying myself. It's just advances, nothing more. And I'd never be convinced, but I felt I had to convince myself. Shiho was on the volleyball team, and...I didn't know what he'd do to her if I didn't get on his good side. So I endured. The rumors, the advances, everything. I just endured, and I tried to tell myself none of it'd matter in the end. If I could just keep my head down for the rest of my school days, nothing'd happen. But I was...more wrong than I ever thought I could be."
"Takamaki..."
"One day, he called me," she continues. "A day ago. I avoided giving him my number for the longest time. He told me to go to his place, after school. I knew exactly what he wanted, and when I turned him down, he said he'd take Shiho off as a regular on the team. I've been kissing up to him, keeping all this up for her sake, been telling myself that it'll all be okay if it's for her, but it's not, it's not, and it never will be ever again. It's all the same, every day. Same looks, same insults, same everything. It doesn't matter what happens. Shiho was all I had left in this sorry excuse of a school. So I will help you, in whatever you're plann ing against Kamoshida. If it helps end his career, end his life, end him, I'll help. I'll do anything, I don't care. I'm sick of the rumors, I'm sick of Kamoshida's face, I'm sick of never being able to do anything for anyone, and I'm sick of always putting my face against the ground. You can't take me away from this."
Sakamoto's the first to speak up, "I can't imagine what you must've felt under him, but...I...I dunno if that'd be a good idea."
"I think she could help us a lot," says Yoshizawa.
"So you think she wouldn't be able to take it?" I chuckle at him.
"It's not like that! It's dangerous as hell, I don't wanna risk her life--!"
"But you're risking yours," she cuts in. "All three of you."
"I think it'd be great if she'd join," Morgana says. "Another helping hand'll always be useful."
Takamaki frowns then. "Wait, who else is here?"
"Wh-what?"
We three turn to the cat, who brings a paw to his mouth.
"Wait," Takamaki says then, "did the cat just talk?"
Sakamoto and Yoshizawa face her, Sakamoto being the first to vocalize, "Oh, man...!"
"It could talk the whole time...!?" exclaims Takamaki then, standing up from the bench.
"H-hold on, wait," Morgana says, lifting his paws upward at her, "I-I mean, this can all be explained if you could just calm down...!"
"And you three could hear it?" Takamaki blurts out.
"You just had to open your big mouth," Sakamoto grunts, picking up the cat by the scruff of its neck.
"W-wait...!" cries Morgana then, "Whenever I talk while I'm around and about the school nobody pays attention! Everyone just says they hear meowing! Only you guys can understand me!"
"You're serious," replies Sakamoto.
"I wouldn't joke at a time like this! We're so close...!"
"W-wait, so only we can understand the cat!?" cries Takamaki. "What's even, what's going on!?"
It all clicks into my head right then and there. There is only one thing I, Yoshizawa, Sakamoto, and the cat all share; and it is something that we must have shared with Takamaki, as well.
"Check your phone," I say to Takamaki, pulling my own phone from my pocket.
"Wh-what for...?"
"For this," I show her the screen, and point to a large app that looks like a bloated red eye. "Is it in your phone?"
Takamaki clutches my phone and her jaw turns slack, "I've had this in my phone since the day Shiho...," and she clutches at her head, "I-I've tried to delete it several times, but it'd always come back. Why is it in your phone? What's going on...?"
"She has a Persona...," says the cat.
"Are you certain?"
"I-if she doesn't, then she very well can have one...," Morgana looks like he doesn't know what to say, but then quickly recovers, "Anyone can...if they're willing to face themselves."
"What are you talking about?" Takamaki asks then.
"Let's bring her to the entrance of the Palace! Just the entrance!" Morgana encourages. "There, she'll decide whether or not she wants to go through with it."
"We can't bring her to a place like that...!" exclaims Sakamoto. "It's not...!"
Yoshizawa sighs, turning to Takamaki, "Listen to me. Takamaki-senpai. Do you really want this? We're going to bring you somewhere, and it'll all be extremely confusing and scary the first time. If this goes belly-up, your life'll be over. But if it works, we can stop Kamoshida, and end all of this. Are...you willing to make it happen?"
Takamaki for a moment looks like she doesn't know what to do, or what to say. Then she looks at her knees, and her eyes shine the way eyes would when a person would recall something unfathomably precious.
"I'll do anything."
Sakamoto's mouth gapes as he lets out a hard breath. Yoshizawa breathes, closing her eyes.
I then hold out my hand to Takamaki, "Come with us."
.
.
.
"Lucky for us Kamoshida's lazy ass decided to cancel practice today," I grunt.
We're right outside the gymnasium.
"Why are we here?" asks Takamaki.
"Same," says Sakamoto.
"If Kamoshida views the school as a castle, he almost definitely views the gym as something. Probably help set us, in some fashion, close to the Treasure."
"Good strategy," says Yoshizawa.
Takamaki shakes her head, "Wait, hold on, what's going on here? What's this got to do with--?"
I pull my phone up, show her the screen with the PALACE LOG.
"Suguru Kamoshida. Shujin Academy. Castle."
Red and black fill the world.
By the time it's stopped, the gym's become an extension of the castle; a chapel so massive and so ornate that it'd put the Sistine to shame, with spires that nearly reach the skies, and gargoyles in the shape of young and buxom girls. Above the massive wooden doors is a large carving of Kamoshida's face, smiling widely, crookedly, madly.
"Course he would..."
"Dear God."
Knew it.
"Wh-what the hell is this...!?"
"This," Cat says to Takamaki, "is the world of Kamoshida's desires--"
"Oh my God, a monster cat!!!"
"How rude! I'm not even a cat."
"Calm down!" Sakamoto cries out. "You keep on screamin', the Shadows'll come and--"
"What are you all even wearing--!? What's happening right now!?"
Yoshizawa grabs her by the shoulders, "Takamaki-senpai. We'll explain everything, but before anything else. Please. Calm down."
She shakes and trembles and her eyes are wide, but she breathes deeply multiple times and manages out, "O-okay..."
.
.
.
"So he views the school as his castle...and the students as slaves."
"Yes."
"And there's a Treasure at the core of this world which is the basis for all this messed up shit."
"Yes."
"And if we steal the Treasure, then his desires will disappear, and he'll feel so much remorse that he'll just turn himself in."
"Or kill himself. But yeah."
Takamaki reiterates these things, keeping her eyes on the cathedral the whole time. "I could have done something."
Yoshizawa tells her, "No. You couldn't have."
"Shiho was suffering under him. I knew it all along. Whenever Kamoshida called her to practice, I could've been there. She'd barely tell me anything about what was going on, but I knew well enough. I'm putting up with Kamoshida's shit all for her sake, that's what I'd tell myself. But she was going through so much more than I ever did, and I just let it all happen."
"You had your own problems to deal with, too," Sakamoto tells her, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Blamin' yourself can't possibly help you or Suzui now. Kamoshida had you both up against the wall."
She just stares at him like he doesn't even know what he's talking about. "Let's go in."
"Y-you sure?"
"I want to help you, however I can."
"There're monsters inside the rest o' the place," cat says. "Lots of them. You could be killed or worse."
"I promise I won't slow you down."
"Not just that," Sakamoto tells her. "You're prolly gonna see another you in there."
"What?"
I tell her, "People who've made an impression on him, for better and for worse, have their own unique versions of themselves, inside the castle. Based around his perception of them, of course. Considering the fact he's after you, it's doubtful there isn't a version of you inside that place."
She grits her teeth, "Is there a version of Shiho in there, too...?"
"Hopefully not. That said. We haven't explored it deeply enough. Do you still want to go in?"
"Absolutely."
"Alright then. We'll form a circle around you."
"Still think this is a bad idea," Sakamoto says. "Look. I know I've been a shithead to you these past few days, but I dunno if you'll be able to handle what's--"
I tell him, "You weren't able to handle it just a few days ago. Now you have a Persona."
"Persona?"
"It's different, I--"
"He beat you. Humiliated you. Made you a pariah. He had his way with her best friend, and would almost certainly do the same to her if given the chance. She has just as much a right to this, if not moreso, than you or any of us here."
He doesn't respond to that, and no one else does, either. But before we can enter, we see the cat's bobblehead pressed up so hard against the doorframe its face is flattened, and we hear some pretty loud SNFF noises.
"Uh...what's wrong with him?"
I narrow my eyes. "Cat. What's happening?"
It pries its head off the door, half of its head now flat as a board. "Sensed something back there--" Its face pops back into shape, its eyes dangling out their sockets again from the sudden motion, before the cat shoves them back in. "Something super important."
Everybody just winces at that.
"The Treasure?"
"Surprisingly, no. But it's kinda close to it, I guess you could say."
"Close to it?"
"Help me open these doors and I'll show you. I don't sense any Shadows inside, so we should have at least some time to steal the Will Seed!"
Will Seed? "Never told me about--"
"I'll tell you about 'em in a bit! But let's get in there!"
"I'm ready," says Takamaki.
I crack my neck, "Alright then."
.
.
.
We enter the cathedral and it's every bit as gaudy as you could imagine. Pillars rise higher than any contractor would be willing to pay for. Ceiling and walls have got paintings each done with the skill and precision and realism of Michelangelo, each loaded with hundreds of naked women, dancing and frolicking in the clouds; none of them bear faces, nor even colors in their hair. At the center of the ceiling lies The Creation of Adam, featuring a muscle-bound Kamoshida in white robes, reaching out to yet another faceless girl with colorless hair.
At the very end of the hall lies an altar. At the center of it all stands a statue of Kamoshida that rises to the ceiling, nude and chiseled to the point of having Herculean musculature when the real one's got a little flab hanging under his arms. He's got that goofy crooked smile on his face and carries under his arm a volleyball, stretching out his other arm like he's a goddamn Nazi. At his sides are statues, again of girls, but these have faces. Dozens of girls, none of whom are our concern now.
What is our concern is the girl prostrating at the foot of Kamoshida's statue. Dressed in the white robes of a Catholic nun.
Suddenly, she turns to see us four.
"Ah! New visitors!"
She has black hair. Small, warm, dark eyes. She's smiling happily, a far cry from the girl whom I'd seen just a few days ago.
I turn to the cat, "You said there weren't any enemies."
"I said there weren't any Shadows! Didn't sense her!"
"You can't sense Manikins?"
"I can't sense Manikins when they're non-hostile!"
"Dammit."
"Oh my, please do refrain from using profanity here," the Manikin pleads, placing a hand to her chest. "This is a holy place."
Why the hell does this nun have a cleavage window.
"That sick fucking bastard...," Takamaki shakes her head.
"My name is Shiho Suzui," she says with a smile. "Very pleased to meet you all. Did you come here to bear witness to the Sugurine Chapel?"
"Fucking hell--"
Yoshizawa stops Takamaki then, "Y-yes, we did, actually! We've come from a faraway land, and have heard tremendous tales of the Great Kamoshida! W-we came here because we've heard it was a place where we could appreciate and stand in awe of his accomplishments!"
"How splendid! I simply must bring King Kamoshida here now! He would love to give you a tour of the Chapel--!"
Sakamoto freaks the hell out as Yoshizawa blurts, "A-actually, we, er...!"
I step in. "We know that King Kamoshida is a very diligent man who spends his every waking hour working for the betterment of those who live within this castle. We would hate to intrude. We are simply here to appreciate the glory that is the Sugurine Chapel; King Kamoshida's precious time is far too valuable to waste on strangers. Wouldn't you agree?"
"My, not at all! King Kamoshida loves visitors! He will drop everything he's doing if only to ensure that everyone from far and wide would know of his name! Why, I was but a humble street whore who knew nothing of him, and yet when I asked for his mercy he took me into his fold of Sisters!"
If looks could kill, Takamaki would cause a crater in this place three miles wide and seven miles deep. "What."
"In my former life, I had few friends," she says so sweetly she could give you diabetes. "But one. She is a wonderful girl. Lovely and beautiful and everything I ever wanted to be. Yet she drew the attention of the King, when I could not. And the stress would build up, so profoundly that I'd never be able to face myself. He would hurt me, he would bring me pain and wounds, all to reiterate the truth that deep down, my soul was lonely without his guidance. Alone and afraid, there was nowhere I could go. Yet King Kamoshida found even in someone like me--me!--something worthy of his love and adoration. I am embarrassed to admit it to his face, indeed I am, but I do genuinely hope to serve him as best as I could. I could never be at his side, not like Ann, but I could at the very least pleasure him in my own way."
"Stop, please," Takamaki begs, but she just keeps on talking.
She says dreamily. "He held me so closely and ran his lips along my neck so gently. He was firm and he was kind and he was everything a man ought to be. He was the best I will ever have; simply no other man could possibly compare--"
"Eff this."
Sakamoto brandishes a shotgun seemingly out of nowhere and points it directly at the Manikin's head, causing her to raise her arms. "Oh-oh my...!"
"What--what!?"
"Senpai, when did you bring a gun!?"
"Collapsible. Hid its parts in my bag."
"Oh, good sir, please do slow down! If I've said something that's offended you, then I sincerely--"
"Shut the hell up. Now. Tell us where the Treasure is, or I'm gonna--"
BANG
Suddenly Suzui's head explodes into a flurry of blood and gore and there's a hole right where her face used to be, pouring out bits of blood and bone as she collapses to her knees. Luckily none of the gore gets on us but judging by how Yoshizawa and Takamaki are freaking the hell out it might as well have.
"Shiho--SHIHO OH MY GOD!" Takamaki drops down, her hands raised up to her mouth in horror.
The girls scream their goddamn lungs out as Sakamoto drops the gun, "H-holy shit...!"
I shake my head at him, "Who the hell gave you a shotgun?"
"It-it's fake! I got it from a gun shop! I-I just wanted to scare her a little, I didn't think I'd have blown her head off!"
"It's fake, huh?" Cat asks. "Well. It looks real enough."
"Wh-what...!?"
"In this cognitive world, this Manikin thought your shotgun was real. So when you accidentally pulled the trigger, real bullets came flying out."
"Oh my God," Sakamoto cries out, looking on the verge of puking.
"Sh-she's not real, right!?" Takamaki cries, "This-this is all just Kamoshida's idea of who she is, right!?"
"Relax. She looks real, but she's just a Manikin. Like that big ape version of Sakamoto in that cell."
"Oh thank God...!"
"Oh," he breathes. "Oh. Okay. Well. I, er...ahhrmm, sorry about that. It, er, finger slipped."
"The sooner we leave this place, the better...," Yoshizawa grunts, shaking her head. "Morgana, why did you tell us to come through here, again?"
"I sense a Will Seed!" it sniffs. "Right at the center of the altar, there!"
There's a large podium underneath the altar. The book at the center of it is as tall as your arm and as wide as your torso. On the black leather cover, in stark golden Times New Roman text, reads CODEX GIGAS - THE LEGACY OF KING SUGURU KAMOSHIDA.
"Never mentioned what Will Seeds are before...," I say as I grab the book; from its size, it ought to weigh near half as much as I do. Yet I'm able to carry it in my hands, as lightly as I would any other book.
"They're extremely distilled distortions!" says the cat. "Think of them like a...mini-Treasure."
"Wait," says Yoshizawa, "so, will stealing this affect the real Kamoshida's cognition?"
"Not really. If you steal these things, they'll just respawn when you leave the Palace."
"So how's this supposed to help us?"
"To beat your enemy you gotta know your enemy. Will Seeds contain a Palace Ruler's memories."
"No way," says Sakamoto. "Their memories...?"
"A distortion like this doesn't come outta the blue. It's something that's fed, something that grew over time. Unconsciously, of course. Safe to say if you opened that book, you'd all know more about Kamoshida than he ever did about himself. You'll probably know what caused the distortion in the first place. Give you an edge in both the real world and in here."
"Kinda memories you think are in here...?" I narrowed my eyes."
Shrugs Sakamoto. "Guy's got a frail ego somehow. Keeps himself all tough and whatever, but he can't stand it the second someone talks shit."
"Open it," says Takamaki, stepping over the bloody corpse of herself, "I wanna know."
"Are you sure?" Yoshizawa mutters.
"Gotta take this bastard down."
"I don't know about this, guys...," Yoshizawa winces, "this feels a little wrong, somehow..."
"What do you mean?" asks Sakamoto.
"Don't you think there're some lines we shouldn't cross? I mean, these are his memories, here. I don't know, shouldn't some things remain private?"
Takamaki growls, glaring at the book, "I stopped caring about his privacy when Shiho jumped off the roof."
"Stopped caring when he broke my goddamn leg," says Sakamoto.
"And I never cared in the first place." I open the book and I feel suddenly like hands are grabbing my brain, piercing their fingers through my eyeholes--
All of a sudden, I see him as a child. He's running around, in some playground. Children his age, all around him. Screaming his name, but only his surname. He's up on the monkey bars, climbing the jungle gym. Getting his shoes caked in sand, throwing mud at other kids. Laughing with them like he's one of them. It's something precious, something pure. When they call his name out, he feels like he's on top of the world. Like it's the greatest moment of his life, when he makes it to the very top of the jungle gym and stands over everyone and everyone acts like he's some sort of king.
When grade school happens the trend continues. Little girls and their little crushes; when they give him their notes he's mostly elated that he's even received notes at all. He turns them down, all of them, but he doesn't try hurting their feelings when doing it. But they cry anyway, and he doesn't know why. He doesn't know how to make them stop crying. He's doing well enough. Well enough that his parents praise him, urge him to keep at his sports activities. They tell him he can become someone. That he can become something amazing. He could live like a king, with the money he'd make.
When he gets to high school, things get slightly more complicated as Kamoshida finds out nobody interests him. Nobody except those slimmer, more innocent, younger. But he shelves that side of him, figures it's not gonna be too bad. Everyone talks, but nobody says anything that matters. So he shambles, he walks, he talks here and there, but the real him is out there on the track field. Or playing volleyball, or basketball, or football. It's when he runs.
When the wind's blowing through his hair and nothing seems to matter in the world. When the crowd's singing and the opponent's struggling to even catch their breath. Ball bounces and everything goes silent. Foot plants itself in the ground and the planet just disappears, it's just him and this moment. He's out there, he's going to win. Every time he tells himself this, it comes true.
It happens for the first game, then the second, then the third. Before he's even aware of it, he's playing nationals. Everyone's cheering on him then. His parents watch his every game, even when they get too old to even remember his birthday. His friends come around from time to time, congratulate him on his wins. He makes some new friends in his teammates, some even on opposing teams. A nickname goes around, one only his closest friends know: "King Suguru."
One night he's out drinking with them, relaxing in some bar, getting wasted and getting high on himself. One of his friends brings in a girl who looks like she's just turned sixteen, I see it through the makeup. The girl is in way over her head but she doesn't know it, she doesn't know it because she's a kid, and she's stupid and she's trying to look like a grownup to be better than everyone else in her school.
Not before long I see someone crying in an alleyway, someone far too young to be curled up in a ball, stuck behind a garbage bin, with her clothes ripped apart. Kamoshida's standing over her with two of his buddies from the bar, and they decide to walk away after deciding to schedule another get together at the bar tomorrow night. They leave her there they leave her there and when Kamoshida realizes that they've left her there, he's already at the front door of his apartment. Kamoshida looks at himself, looks at his unzipped pants, then runs in his bathroom and holds himself throughout the whole night.
He doesn't tell anybody. And life goes on, as it does.
He doesn't go back to those friends of his, and he doesn't ever go to that bar again. Every time he closes his eyes he sees the girl holding herself. Every time he shuts his ears, he hears her weeping noises. Every time he punches something, punches a wall, he makes himself remember how much of a terrible person he is. But in his most private moments, all he can think of his how pretty she was, and lets himself be an animal.
He's not like everyone else. He's not. He's a good man. He's supposed to be.
When he wins the last big game of his senior year the crowd cheers him, calls him out, treats him like a king. He's supposed to be happy, why isn't he happy? Everyone's voices all coalesce into one big cheer and it shames him, it shames him deep inside. It's something twisting and turning in him, and it's burrowing into his heart his lungs his guts.
He thinks of telling everyone right there what he's done. Right there, on the spot, just vomiting out all the words. But he likes it. He likes hearing the crowd. He likes how they cheer his name. And of course he does. He's a king. Why shouldn't he like it? What does he have to feel bad for? What could possibly be wrong with him, with all these people cheering out his name?
He can't be a bad man. He isn't. He knows he isn't.
When he goes to college, he goes to one far away from his old friends, far away from the bar and the noises, and lets himself just be silent in everything except sports. It's in his nature, he can't stay away from sports. He's too good. The girls fawn over him, like they always do, but he still turns them down. They're too old for him, and he still has bad thoughts every now and again to that one night in the alley. The boys talk to him and he even trains some of them, they love how he drives them to be better than they are.
He doesn't tell anyone about what he did, or why he did what he did. The bigger part of him doesn't even know why he did what he did. But the smaller part he keeps locked away knows exactly why.
It's the same small part that drives him to look at things nobody should, to enter places nobody ever must. When he discovers the deep web from a friend, he looks for it because he knows the things that ebb away at him lie there. When he sees small, thin bodies like the ones he sees he's disgusted and he's enraged but at the same time he can't stop licking his lips and feeling so hollow yet so full.
Then the blood comes. Then he sees the red, he sees the kids with their eyes blown out and their bodies all mangled. And he knows that he is a better person than whoever posted those pictures.
With that knowledge, he can sleep.
He's an Olympian by the time he reaches his mid-20's and when he's up there on the stage again in front of all those people, the thought crosses his mind once more. He can't stop it from burning into himself. He wonders why? Why is he still thinking the things he's thinking? It was all in the past, there's nothing he can do, he doesn't even remember the girl's name. Why should he try to remember? Why should he try to fight it all? He's a king, he's loved by all the people. When he cries onstage on the day he wins, he ultimately passes it off as tears of joy when really he doesn't even know if he wants to keep on living.
But why should he not want to keep on living? Won't they be sad? Won't, won't his fans, his parents, his friends miss him when he's gone? Won't he be remembered by them? Won't tears flow at his funeral? He doesn't see why not. He's done a lot of bad things, and he knows it, but in the end he's no better than anyone else. He's done so much good. People love him. He's not a bad person, he knows he can't be. What makes him so upset about all this? What makes him so scared, so sad? So empty about just everything?
He has a medal around his neck. He is a symbol of success. He alone is a standard that people can aspire to be. Why should he feel bad over some stupid thing he did when he was drunk? And you'd think, you'd think the girl would speak up to someone in the media, after all this time. But he hasn't heard a thing. He hasn't heard a thing at all, so the girl most likely got over it by now.
It doesn't matter, none of it matters. It's him, it's all him. People love him. So why can't he?
When the high of the win dies down, he realizes just how quickly people forget. And it's all a shame. The years roll by and sooner or later another man comes in and wins the world. Wins praise, wins trinkets. And it doesn't matter, it shouldn't matter. It shouldn't itch at him the way it does. It shouldn't make him remember how he used to be up there, as often as it does.
They tell you, when you're a child, to just be yourself, and everything will be fine, right?
So why shouldn't he just be himself? Why can't he just be proud with himself? Why does everyone have to smile at him, force him to fall to their expectations like they do? Them and their smiles, he sees his parents and hears them talk about how proud they are of him. He sees the crowd and he can't bear to see the unrelenting horror on their faces. They don't deserve that, they deserve better.
They deserve a king, not a monster.
He's a king, he tells himself. He's a king. He's a king.
He has nothing to be sorry for. As long as he has that medal around his neck, it's a sign that everything he's won up to this point will be for nothing if he just gives up now. He's himself and he loves himself and he will never be anything other than what he is.
I'd see him in one scene just standing in a single room, a girl right in front of him and no one else. A girl my age, one I do not recognize. She's wearing the Shujin female uniform and Kamoshida's just looking at her impassively, calmly ordering for her to strip. I recognize the room they're in as the nurse's office of the school, and though the girl looks unfathomably disturbed by what he's ordered her to do she does it. And he buries himself into her neck, her hair. Then the memory ends and we shift to somewhere else.
Another girl, someone a little older, but not by much. She's wearing leather, her skirt is short, her heels are high, and her face is thick with makeup to make her look far older than she actually is. This one actually looks consensual in a way, from the look in her eyes to the way he props her up to the way her legs lock around his back as he lifts her up and down in repeated motions. But in the end, minors can't consent. And more to the point I do not recognize this girl either; they aren't even in Shujin, they're just in some random back alley against a wall, somewhere that resembles Shinjuku.
Another girl, wearing a soccer uniform. She's from Shujin, but even this one I don't recall seeing; she's got short hair and hazel eyes and she's looking at Kamoshida bashfully. The next moment I see her trying to compose herself in a gym locker, Kamoshida pushing her out as he tells her to go home. He retracts when he sees how roughly he's handling her and his voice turns calm even as she continues to cry and grip the sides of her arms.
Too many to count. More than you can imagine, it seems for a moment. Names, I hear, passing like clouds. Hikimura. Yamagata. Tanaka. Mimura. Takagawa. Ogata. All these scenes pass by and none of them stop the bitter hole in my heart from growing wider and wider. The spiral continues on, as does the madness. There's tears often, from the women; when there aren't tears, there's restrained rage, and when there's not rage there's resignation, and when there's neither there is simply pleasure and debauchery and depravity. All of these, after the first girl, the one with the tattered clothes in the alleyway. The first one he...It is at this point that I see him alone, in an empty faculty office. He's sitting in a chair and waiting for someone to come through the door. His heart is pounding, racing. His pants are tight and his hands are sweating. I can't tell if he's enraged or if he's aroused. His body is warm and he sees someone come through the door. Someone younger than he, someone my age.
Someone from Shujin.
He's looking at her, eyeing her bruises on her face and on her neck and in her eye and on her knee. He's looking at her chest now, as she turns uncomfortably. Then her waist, then her thighs. The girl is holding her arms and she's turning away from him. She doesn't want to look at him, she doesn't even want to be in the same room as him. So she asks why she's needed, she wants to go home, she can't stay here. And all he can think of is how much he can't stop seeing her squirm. He loves the way her eyes scrunch up and how she purses her lips when he comes closer, when he gets up from his seat and comes closer.
His nose is in her hair and his lips are merely brushing against her neck as he whispers to her how much he cannot understate the importance of the both of them keeping quiet. She nods, but she trembles and she's cringing as she nods, his voice is hissing with intent and though he tries to sound cordial she knows that every intonation is punctuated with relentless want.
And then he says, "I promise I'll be gentle with you," in a soft voice, and she wants nothing more than to leave at that very moment, and he knows she wants to leave. He knows she's being resistant. "This is all your friend's fault," he says. "Don't blame me. Just close your eyes. It'll all be over before you even know it."
I drop the book right then and there, and I'm lucky it didn't hit any of our feet.
"What happened?" Sakamoto asks. "Y-you okay, dude?"
"What...what the hell did I just...!?"
"So you were the only one who saw his memories?" asks the cat. "Interesting."
"I saw...him as a kid...up until he grew up, and..."
Sakamoto grunts, "How come we couldn't?"
Cat shrugs, "How should I know? I could see their memories in an instant."
I put a hand to my head. "I saw Suzui..."
Takamaki's eyes snarl open wide, "In his memories?"
I face her, "She was terrified of him. He buried his face in her hair, and he...he said it was all her friend's fault..."
And at that moment, her face becomes unlike a person's face.
"AAGH! Get offa me!"
And we see the corpse of the Suzui Manikin grabbing onto Sakamoto's leg, her face is still gone and there's blood continuing to pour down the gaping hole and yet her voice comes out clear, clearer than ever, even though she has no mouth or jaw with which she'd be able to talk--
"You are all a danger to King Kamoshida! None of you can leave here alive! You must all be caught and executed at once! Each and every one of you must be put down like the dogs--"
BANG
Takamaki blows her skull open again, and again, and again, the shotgun in her hands. She starts blasting everywhere, every inch of her, blood splattering all over our clothes, gunshots ringing so loudly we all have to cover our ears. Within minutes, the cognitive Shiho Suzui is left with all her parts in pieces, her white gown now completely soaked in red.
"You did it, you did it, please stop!!" Yoshizawa grabs onto Takamaki's arms and pushes the shotgun down. "She's dead."
"Not for long," Cat says. "If we don't steal the Treasure, she'll just keep on coming back."
With red streaking across her face, Takamaki remains seething, glaring at the gore spread out all over the ground.
Suddenly the doors to the chapel burst open. A woman approaches, three or four knights at her back. Blue eyes and blonde hair, kept in a bun. She wears the outfit of a medieval Pope along with the bizarre headpiece and her expression's as dumb and dull as the Suzui Manikin's was.
And of all things, a voice with a distinct British tinge pierces through the air, as she approaches the mulch that was once Suzui. "Murdering thieves. Do you realize what the you've just done? It was one thing to kill the guards. Another to kill the Vulgar Ape. But her? You'd kill a nun, one that the King himself had chosen to service him?"
Takamaki's eyes twitch with rage, and she says not a word as she raises the shotgun right to her face.
But the Manikin, like before, keeps fucking talking, "You Thieves have driven the King into such an intense fear that he has holed himself up in the highest room of the tallest tower in this castle. And now, you murder a defenseless girl? She was my dearest friend, you monsters!"
"Shut the hell up right now," she seethes, tears streaming down her eyes.
"I had failed to service him!" the Manikin cries, tears gushing from her eyes. "I'd failed, and he'd found satisfaction with dear Shiho! He'd loved her and cherished the time he'd spent with her, and now you've thrown another of his precious followers away!" she wipes her face and concentrates her rage on Takamaki, "I, as Arch Priestess, cannot abide by this sacrilege. Every resource must be expended. These blasphemous thieves ought to be drawn and quartered, their wounds salted until--"
BANG.
Ann Takamaki's Manikin is left clutching her quarter-face, blindly grabbing at the blood and the meat flopping down from her skull.
.
.
.
"My...it's taken far too long."
Ann Takamaki is a coward. She knows it, deep in herself.
She's long stopped caring about the insults the girls sling at her behind her back, and has heard enough rumors to last a lifetime. But she hasn't said a thing, hasn't told anyone, hasn't wanted to. She doesn't need to, she'd reason. She doesn't need anybody's pity.
She'd say she'd be okay, as long as she had Shiho by her side. That nobody else would matter, not the girls who take digs at her appearance, not the boys who try to woo her with fake smiles, not Kamoshida and all the horror he's got inside of him.
But in the end, like always, she's alone.
She didn't want to confront Kamoshida. She knew she couldn't, not directly; and yet she wanted to, more than anything else in the world. She was willing to take whatever chance would present itself to her, all because she was just that desperate to make a difference. But a difference for what, exactly?
This question kept her awake, most nights. Was she afraid because of what Kamoshida would do to her? Or was she afraid for Shiho, and what she would have suffered under him? She didn't even know anymore. Was she even fighting him now for Shiho? Or just to salvage what wounded scraps of herself she has left?
But she's not questioning anything anymore. She knows exactly what she's meant to do. And why all this madness just has to stop, here and now.
"Are you to remain standing there, gawking at what you've caused like a foolish whore?
There is nothing to be gained from mourning your failure."
She remembers holding Shiho in her arms, that day she jumped from the school building. She remembers everyone over her shoulder, watching the scene unfold. Some taking pictures, others just talking amongst themselves. None of them lifting a finger, none of them wanting or caring enough to intervene. Because why should they? What would the point be?
Shiho, to them, was just some other girl. Shiho apologized to her. She apologized to Takamaki, as she faded into unconsciousness. Shiho shouldn't have. If anything, Takamaki should have been the one.
"Forgiving him was never the option;
Such is the scream of the other you that dwells within."
At once, she begins to understand. The fire burns through her body and makes her everything tremble and trill with pain and pleasure, excitement and agony. It burrows into her brain and eats at her eyes, but it feels too good to want it to stop. She can feel her wrists purple as she pulls at the locks around her hands, and something red forms over the surface of her eyes.
"Blood for blood. If need be, his head must be served on a platter.
Nothing can be solved by restraining yourself."
She remembers laughing. She's a child now, one too young to know about sex or coercion or molesters or anything that vile. She's with Shiho, not with anyone else, because everyone else looks at her like she's some strange entity from another planet. But Shiho doesn't, Shiho outright tells her her drawings are terrible, or that she doesn't look good in blue, or that she's gonna be her friend forever and ever.
Shiho's in a hospital bed now, and Takamaki's holding her hand. Hoping for her to wake up. She stays in the room, and the minutes feel like days, and though she stays with Shiho's parents and though Shiho's parents consider the girl as family, Takamaki has to leave. She has to, Shiho's parents tell her to come again, they tell her she can visit tomorrow, that she has to go home, that she must rest herself up, that she doesn't have to do any of this.
Takamaki remembers kissing Shiho's forehead before leaving. And she doesn't know if she did it out of a particularly friendly sort of affection, or if it was something more. But it's all she needs.
"I hear you...Salome."
"Then I'll gladly lend you my strength."
She glares at her Manikin with a red mask on her face, and prying it off takes all her energy as blood blasts out her eyes.
The blue fire emanates from her as a woman twice her size barrels out of her head. The woman is wearing a large dress, frilled in blood red and a deep purple; the dress is semi-transparent and thus exposes the bareness underneath. Her skin is white as snow and her arms and legs are adorned with jewels. Her eyes glow a brilliant shade of blue as golden hair billows out the back of her head. Her left hand carries a metal plate, while her right hand caresses the severed head lying in said plate; the severed head is of a bearded man, wearing a frozen expression of rage.
"I am thou, thou art I. From the Sea of thy Soul, I cometh.
I am Salome, the Prophet Slayer."