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XIII: death

They are timeless, suspended in space; the Seal is absolute, and as Pharos-Ryoji-Nyx struggles for consciousness, the only thing they know is that they will never be free again.

Ryoji knows this, and rejoices in disbelief. Pharos knows this, and mourns. Nyx knows this only objectively, and feels nothing. Emotions are an extraordinarily human tendency, after all, and the incarnation of death has little do with such things. If Nyx were aware, perhaps it would worry that its other manifestations were acting so very like the creatures it is fated to destroy.

Pharos was a perpetual child, the creation of happenstance when Death itself was sealed in a little boy's body. Ryoji was a young man, who loved to flirt and loved to laugh and enjoyed every moment of the life he was given before he remembered his true calling. Pharos was only ever a figment of Minato's imagination, a manifestation of Death's presence in his soul. Ryoji was…

Well, maybe if he lies to himself enough, he can pretend that he was human for those few short weeks.

("You're our friend—we're not going to kill you!"

"I'm not your friend. I'm not even human. I'm just here to end the world, and there's nothing any of you can do to stop it.")

Minato seemed convinced, for whatever reason, that Nyx could be stopped if they just tried hard enough. Ryoji had wanted to cry at the desperation on all of their faces—what could a group of six teenagers, an android, a child, and a dog hope to do against the most constant force that humanity has ever known? What could they have done when Death had already taken so much from all of them?

What could they have possibly done to stop the Fall when the billions of other people on their Earth were calling out desperately for its coming?

It's a long time, he thinks, before he realizes the answer. It is when he wonders how a single human soul could stop the power of Death itself that he finally starts to understand.

The bonds you have created are extraordinary, a strange, otherworldly voice echoes in his mind, and Ryoji tries his hardest to remember. Because of your friends' belief in your power, you have qualified for a miracle.

Ryoji met precious few of Minato's friends. The young man at the shrine who radiated Death and Hope in equal measure; the boy at school who enjoyed knitting even more than he did; his dormmates, of course, who looked to that young, quiet boy as their leader without question—the boy who could, right from the start, put a gun to his head and pull the trigger.

Before he remembered, Ryoji knew nothing of Shadows or Evokers or the Dark Hour. Now, he knows everything, and knows it is his fault that Minato and his friends were forced to take up arms against the impossible. But he also knows, suddenly, that despite all of this, he had a hand in Minato's miracle as well.

By all rights, humanity should be gone. The Fall was imminent and unstoppable, and Ryoji had begged them to give up hope so that they could die peacefully and without fear. Nyx does not have the capacity for cruelty, after all; in one moment, they would be celebrating the end of their school year, and in the next, they would simply cease to exist.

It would have been so easy for them, and Ryoji—with his human emotions and arcane knowledge muddled together—could not understand their desperation to fight on. There was nothing they could do. They would die in terror, in agony, in uselessness as the Earth disintegrated before their eyes.

And then it didn't happen. Ryoji, somewhere in the depths of Nyx's being, remembers Pharos giving a sharp cry, and remembers hope blooming in his heart like he has never felt before. He remembers a blinding white Persona, and remembers his friend, and remembers thinking that he has never believed in anyone like he has Minato.

Erebus, always close by, has been shoved to the other side of this impenetrable barrier, and Ryoji knows that it will never draw close again. He knows this from the moment he is aware, but it is a little longer before he knows how this has happened.

He knows Minato's soul just as well as he knows Nyx, after spending ten years inhabiting it. It is not difficult to recognize. Ryoji feels its presence here in the abyss, and for a moment does not understand what it is doing here.

The Seal is solid, strong, beautiful, sad. If Ryoji were corporeal, he would wish to reach out and touch it—but instead he can only contemplate its existence, wonder why he feels drawn to it just as he did Minato.

When he realizes what his friend has done, if he were human, he'd be sobbing.

Sacrifice—he has thought he understood humans, at least at a working level. He thought he was one, after all, for a precious few weeks in November, and though there were some things that escaped his grasp, he understood enough that he never questioned it too deeply.

Never did the thought of giving up one's soul for the sake of an entire planet cross his mind.

And of course Minato would be the one to do so. The boy with too many friends whom he managed to balance flawlessly around his Tartarus trips—the boy who could summon Death from his soul without batting an eye. The boy with infinite potential, said the peculiar man with the long nose and the tarot cards. A curiosity, said the woman in blue beside him.

A hero, Ryoji thinks, and he wishes he were human, if only so he could thank his friend for everything he has done. The Great Seal, impenetrable and absolute; a teenager who changed the world, because no adult had the courage or the will to do so.

A friend who made the incarnation of the apocalypse feel welcome on the very planet he was meant to destroy—and Ryoji retreats into his own consciousness, exhausted, distressed, and wishing this could have ended any other way.

Minato performed a miracle, on the night of January 31—but Ryoji thinks his friend's life, his soul and kindness and love, were a miracle unto themselves. With such things heavy on his heart—with an infinity to ponder them—he thinks that even if the circumstances are tragic, he's selfish and grateful for the fact that his dearest friend is so close within his reach.

XXI: universe

The Great Seal is a miracle, and the figure hanging atop it weeps, and Elizabeth is leaving the Velvet Room.

"What do you think you're doing?" Margaret demands. "There are better battles to be fought," Lavenza argues. "You're making a mistake," Theo says, shaking his head.

"If you leave, you may never be able to come back," Igor says quietly. He stands before her in this stationary elevator, but he does not stop her.

"I don't care," she says, and grips his Compendium tighter to her chest. This is the one thing she must do with her existence, if she is to justify her power and her pride.

(Minato Arisato was a guest in this Room for less than ten months, and his story is already finished. Margaret is impatient, and looks ahead into humanity's future; she sees a boy who must seek the truth, at any cost. Lavenza looks further, curious, and sees nothing but ruin. Elizabeth instead considers the past, and thinks that if Minato were alive, he would be able to help in the coming wars.)

(Perhaps she is fooling herself. Perhaps she is being selfish.)

(Perhaps she doesn't care.)

"He doesn't deserve such a fate," she says sharply to the group before her, and four sets of piercing eyes stare back. "If there is a way to retrieve his soul without breaking the Seal, I will find it."

"There is not," Igor says, his voice low as he bows his head. "His contract states clearly that he would accept responsibility for his actions, and he has done so. Who are you to break such a bond?"

He wants to speak of bonds? Elizabeth thinks of the countless strange items that he brought her without question, a little smile on his face as she marveled at them. She thinks back to the times they ventured together into his world—the fountains of water calling for a donation to their gods, the moving stairs that presented a trial to anyone who wished to cross them. She knows she only saw one city among thousands—millions, perhaps. She never thought to ask how large the human world is. Maybe, now, she'll find out.

"You promised him a miracle," she shoots back, and has never once been so rude to her Master. Perhaps it is because he is her master no longer. "Instead, you gave him a death sentence."

"He chose this path," he says, staring at her levelly, "because he was strong enough to do what he must."

"That wasn't a choice," she says, sharper, and Margaret's frown grows deeper. "It was his life or the end of the world—he wouldn't have given it a second thought!"

Lines form on Theo's face, and Elizabeth glances to him. She wonders whether the Wild Card that never was, the girl that Theo could have attended, would have made the same choice. "Regardless, it is done now," Igor says, sweeping his hand at nothing. "Our Guest gained the Universe Arcana, and cast the Great Seal. I understand your feelings, Elizabeth, but there is little for you to do now."

She glowers, and shakes her head. "You're wrong," she says. "I will find a way to free him, because he is my friend, and I promised to help him in every way I could."

Igor sighs, and gestures toward the door. "May you have good luck in your travels, then," he says, though there is a small, enigmatic smile on his face. Elizabeth does not care to decipher it.

"I will," she says, and thinks of Minato: his kindness and courage and charm, the dozens of friends he made around the city—the time he carved out to show her his world, between every other busy moment of his life.

She knows Minato better than anyone, perhaps, except Igor; after his incredible display of power at the moment of the Fall, after she saw the infallible bonds he shares with his friends, she knows he deserves a life unfettered to Death and its followers. She knows that of every human in the world, Minato is special—and he does not deserve the fate to which he has resigned himself.

The others' gazes follow her out the door, but Elizabeth does not look back. She steps into Earth's blinding sunlight, and thinks only of the boy who did not hesitate to save the world.