Jump 11: Persona - Nevermore, Shall I Forget My Memories of You (Finale)

New Year’s had come on gone, and Valentine’s Day was quite eventful for all of the guys. Attacks from Shadows were waning in intensity, and the lull of the daily life of a high schooler was beginning to get to everyone. However, even though the Shadows weren’t attacking at full force at night, the people of Inaba were becoming more and more susceptible to acts of violence.

The group had gathered at Junes fairly early in the morning on the Sunday after Valentine’s Day.

“I’m starting to get worn out.”

“It’s got to be rough dealing with so many thugs almost every day.”

“Although it was pretty funny when two entire gangs came to give you and Sora gifts on New Year’s.”

“That was not funny Alice. Those poor guys actually fell for us. I hated having to break their hearts.”

“Talk of romantic feeling aside, it is strange that so many of them come to Inaba. I wonder what draws them to come all the way out here.”

“It’s most likely the same phenomena that’s caused this peaceful town to become violent. The fact that I didn’t consider that sooner upsets me.”

“What I’m upset about is that February is more than halfway over and we haven’t had this ‘final battle’ yet.”

“We’ve got no other choice but to wait. Whatever it is that’s causing this has made it clear that it won’t show itself until it’s ready. We just need to stay on guard until the end.”

The conversation returned to lighter fare before a stick was thrown at Alice. Bruce put himself in front of Alice, punched it out of the air and stared the culprit down. It was a small child around the age of six, standing in front of a group of several more children of a similar age. There was a haze over all of their eyes, which the group didn’t miss noticing. The group of children produced more sticks and some rocks and looked prepared to throw them.

“Sagitta Magica.”

King summoned arrows of light that surged forward, knocking the would-be projectiles out of the children’s hands. By this point the other patrons had taken notice and risen from their seats.

“I don’t like the looks of this…”

“It’s bad enough these brats came out of nowhere to bother us.”

“Alice, that’s rude. These kids probably had no intentions of doing this themselves.”

“You’d think after what happened before we wouldn’t have to fight possessed people”

“So what’s the plan? We can’t just hurt these people.”

“Perhaps King and Shock can give them a non-lethal electric shock.”

Just as she said this, a number of people had grabbed their chairs and charged at the group from all sides. Karen and Psyche were quickly in front of the group and before the small mob converged on their position they joined hands to combine their powers.

“Dual Ninja Art: Vanish In the Mist”

The group became obscured by the appearance of a large cloud of mist. A strong gust of wind came and swirled the mist around until it dispersed, revealing that they had vanished within the mist.

*                                                                    *                                                                  *

      “I’m not really one for sneaking around. Can we really avoid the entire town until we have to fight?”

“I must second Leo’s sentiments. I doubt that we’ll reach a proper conclusion to this if we continue to hide.”

“God, you two are making this worse to go through. If you’re going to complain do you have any suggestions?”

“Alice, please don’t be that way. I might be able to do something to the next group of possessed people we encounter.”

“You were holding out on us? That could have helped back at Junes girl.”

“I don’t know how effective it’ll be though… It’s meant for exorcising demons and attacking spirits. It might not work.”

“I think we should try anything at this point.”

“If we can make some sort of progress we might be able to force a final confrontation.”

“Alright, I’ll give it a shot.”

“Let’s stop hiding then. Shock, call Electra and get her to monitor the situation. Psyche, come with me. There’s something I want to find out. Everyone else, try to stay out of trouble.”          

“Are you sure you want to split up now of all times?”

“Let him be as stupid as he wants.”

“I think want she means is, ‘keep him safe Psyche’.”

“Yeah, don’t let him make any more rash decisions.”

“Electra’ will be ready soon. Have her let us know the second you’re in trouble.”

“That’s the plan Shock. We’ll meet up with you guys later, hopefully with good news.”

King and Psyche left the rest of the group and hurried towards the direction of the school. It appeared that most, if not all, of the town had been corrupted and turned against them. It wasn’t a big problem until police officers started showing up and firing at them. It would have been a simple if the throngs of people weren’t trying to surround them from all sides. King was forced to either catch of block the bullets so that the possessed civilians wouldn’t be injured.

When they got to the school, the gate was locked, and the building presumably empty.

“I assume we’re going over?”

“Exactly.”

Making their way past the gate and into the school, King made a beeline for the stairs. Climbing them up to the roof, King found what he was looking for, an ornate, blue door seemingly not connected to anything else.

“A door?”

“Looks like I wasn’t just dreaming. Wait here for me. This shouldn’t take long.”

Before she could respond, King was already at the door, turning the knob. There was a white flash of light, then the door vanished without a trace.

“Psyche, how long has it been?”

“Only a couple of seconds, why?”

“I guess it really was between consciousness and unconsciousness, mind and matter…”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’ll tell you later. We need to regroup with the others. I finally know what’s been going on.”

“Electra hasn’t contacted us yet. Something may have happened again.”

“I’ll talk to Alice and see what’s going on.”

*                                                                    *                                                                  *

“Zanmaken Ni-no-Tachi!”

Karen focused her chi and sent a wave of it at an oncoming crowd of people. While not currently being used with a sword, the technique was no less effective at sparing the innocents from harm. An almost tangible flow of greyish energy was expunged out from the people and dissipated moments later. The people collapsed, but seemed no worse for wear. Karen breathed a sigh of relief and Sora gave her a thumbs up.

“Awesome! Now we don’t have to worry about the possessed people as much.”

“I wouldn’t be that relieved just yet.”

“You guys don’t think Mheni was possessed too, do you?”

“If you weren’t, then I think she’ll be fine.”

“It’s a good thing their aggression is turned towards us, and not each other. I don’t think we could stop the entire town from attacking each other.”

“King? We haven’t used telepathy in months, what is it? Crap, we forgot to tell you. Electra’s fine, she’s with us. We saved her from a small mob and took her with us. Use our Personas? You’re sure about this? Alright, we’ll give it a try.”

“So what did King say?”

“We can draw out the Shadows possessing people with our Personas apparently. We need to free as many people as we can before the sun sets.”

“I take it that means we should split up then.”

“Are you sure? You guys have never gone in less than pairs of two before.”

“We’ll be fine Electra. Karen hasn’t been training us for nothing.”

“Well then who’s baby-sitting Electra?”

“Me, obviously. It’s my job to protect my sister.”

“You need to be even more careful then Shock. Don’t let her be hurt.”

The group summoned their Personas during the day for the first time, looked at one another to convey their final words, and parted ways.

*                                                                    *                                                                  *

Throughout the remainder of the daylight hours, there was a constant battle between everyone and the Shadows. Things looked to be easy until dungeons began appearing as the day wore on, which turned freeing people into searches through mazes and battling waves of Shadows in their element. Eventually, the sun begun to wind down, and everyone had regrouped at the shrine.

“Something tells me this is where it’ll all end.”

“Did the ominous, giant, demonic door where the shrine is supposed to be not tip you off?”

“Now, now, no need to fight each other before we go in there.”

“What am I supposed to do? My operator stuff is still at home.”

“Sis, there’s not much you can do at this point.”

“This sucks. I watch over you guys and help out every night, but can’t do anything when it really counts?”

Sora stepped over to Electra and gave the despairing girl and tight hug.

“The fact that you want to help us this much is enough this time around. What we need from you the most right now, is your continued faith in us.”

“Are…are you sure?”

“We’re sure Electra. Don’t allow yourself to give in to despair now.”

 “Nothing we say will convey how much we’ve truly appreciated how much you care.”

“You’ve been an older sister to all of us.”

“And you’re the best older sister we could have asked for.”

“I guess you’ve been alright… I can’t say you could have done more.”

“Thank you.”

“Now you’ve got to believe in us. When we come back we’ll tell you all about it okay.

“You guys…”

Everyone joined the hug that Sora had started, and held it for around a minute.

“It’s time. We’ve only got one shot at this guys, let’s make it count.”

With nods of affirmation, they all passed through the door. What awaited them on the other side was a familiar looking cavern. It was swarming with Shadows of all kinds, and once they noticed the group, it wasn’t long before they started charging at them. With little choice in the matter, they all met the Shadows head on to push through them all. Swords were slashed, claws swiped, fists flew and spells were cast. Fighting past what must have been hundreds if not thousands of Shadows they found a way downwards.

“Are those steps?”

“Looks like it to me.”

“Seems kind of odd for a cave to have stairs.”

“Don’t sweat the small stuff. We need to keep going before the Shadows catch up.”

Not wasting any more time, they descended the stairs to the next floor. There they found almost every giant Shadow they had destroyed wandering about.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Can we even beat them all in time?”

“No, we can’t. And something tells me if they’re not distracted then they’ll cause problems if we continue.”

“So we’ve got to do this already?”

“I guess it was inevitable.”

“What do you two mean?”

“This is where we start to split up. Sora, Shock and I will take the giant Shadows on while the rest of you go on ahead.”

“Are you three crazy? We can’t just let you fight all of those Shadows without us.”

“I don’t think we have much of a choice Karen. King, what do you think?”

“Even if any of us die we’ll come back, so it should be obvious.”

With a sigh, King came to a decision.

“We have to keep moving. Sora, Shock, Psyche…don’t lose.”

“Wasn’t planning on it boss.”

“You can count on us.”

“Please keep yourselves safe as well.”

They split off into the two groups and separated. The ones moving on found the path to the stairs without any trouble, and before they went down further they heard the sounds of the battle starting.

One the next floor, they found a collection of humanoid Shadows awaiting their arrival. They didn’t speak like their predecessors, and simply started to cast a gravity spell on the group.

“Tch. Guess we can’t catch a break can we? Bruce, you ready for our training to pay off?”

“I’ve been waiting for a time to test it in battle since we made it.”

“What are the two of you-”

Before King could finish his question, Leo and Bruce summoned their Personas.

“Odysseus!”

“Anhur!”

The two Personas raised their weapons in the air and began to glow with red and brown auras.

“Warriors Vow!”

The gravity spell was broken by a wave of power emitted from Leo and Bruce. The two of them were covered in the same auras as their respective Persona.

“This is just like the last floor.”

“We’ll clear a path for you and handle things here.”

Before any arguments could be made, the two were suddenly in front of the Shadows and started to knock them away. Being left with little other choice, King, Karen and Alice followed behind them until the way down was found.

“Good luck. It isn’t much farther. I can feel it.”

King looked as if he wanted to say something, but left it unsaid as he led Karen and Alice down the next set of stairs. What met them there was something none of them wanted to see. Shadow copies of the entre group were lined up, staring at them with yellow eyes.

“Whatever this thing is, it sure isn’t original.”

“This is probably the last thing obstacle.”

The eight Shadows summoned their Personas, dark versions of the originals with a menacing dark aura about them. Alice sighed and summoned her own while casting a spell.

“Agneyi! Ensis Exsequens! (Executioner's Sword)”

Alice’s right hand became enveloped in magical energy that stabbed out, forming a blade. The temperature dropped noticeably around her as she looked at Karen. Understanding what Alice was implying, Karen grabbed King and threw him over the Shadows before he knew what was happening. To stop the Shadows from intercepting his trajectory, Alice and Karen charged at them to occupy their attention.

“We leave it up to you King!”

“The quicker you end this the sooner we can go home.”

Righting himself in the air, King used void instant movement to get to the door the Shadows had been guarding. He cast a glance back to see Alice and Karen fighting the Shadows with all of their strength, then continued forward.

“So you’re here all alone. Fitting for such a worthless leader. Sacrificing your friends just to reach me. Oh how I can’t wait until I show you your place and lead humanity down their destined path!”

King was in what appeared to be a throne room, only almost everything was cast in shadow. The throne his foe sat upon, the treasure and tapestries littered about, and most of the walls. King looked what appeared to be himself in the eye and proceeded to respond.

“Nyarlathotep, I didn’t give you permission to look like me.”

“You think one such as myself needs your permission? I’m the Crawling Chaos, Dweller in the Dark, and the Faceless God. You’re so far beneath me that you should feel honored that I would even deign to take on your form.”

“Save it for someone that cares. I’m taking you down and freeing Inaba from your influence.”

“And you still fail to realize that it’s pointless. Understand that there is no point in living. Cry, that there is no answer! Where there is darkness, there are shadows. I, myself, am all of you humans! Narmer! Odysseus! Agneyi! Cleopatra! Anhur! Sophia! Shai! Hecate!”

Once more King bore witness to dark copies of the groups Personas be summoned in front of him. Nyarlathotep laughed maniacally as the eight Personas rushed to attack King. Drawing his sword and sending electricity through his gauntlets, he parried a slash from Odysseus and caught Anhur’s spear before it impaled him through the face. Pushing Anhur back he narrowly avoided an icy slash from Odysseus powered by Cleopatra. Narmer, Hecate, Shai and Agneyi were combining their magic together for a fusion spell, but King was unable to interrupt it due to Odysseus and Anhur’s continued assault. They two Physical Personas seemed to be striking faster, and with more force each blow. Shophia was continually strengthening them beyond their limits.

“Let’s see how the so called “King” handles this. Ultimate Meteor Storm!”

Odysseus and Anhur vanished, leaving just King in the range of the falling chunks of burning rock. Closing his eyes briefly, King activated his Mystic Eyes of Death Perception. Channeling his chi and the electrical current running through his body thanks to his conduit powers, King prepared his counter.

“Instant Art: 1000 Slashes.”

There was a flash and the briefest moment of halted time where unbeknownst to Nyarlathotep, two bars of King’s energy bar were used up. In what could truly be called an instant, the meteors were falling to the ground in harmless pieces as King deactivated his Mystic Eyes. Nyarlathotep took advantage of the time it took King to refocus his attention, and summoned Ahnur back to stab him. King took the hit, but sent a barrage of magical ice arrows and electricity at Anhur as a sort of cross counter. The arrows pierced through and started to freeze him as they continued on their path to Agneyi, the spells true target. While Anhur faced enhanced electrocution, Agneyi attempted to burn them, but there were too many, and she was overwhelmed.

Removing the spear from is shoulder, King’s arm began the process of repairing itself as he was forced to dodged another slash from Odysseus, this one imbued with a wind that would have cut him had he not maintained his magic barriers.

“Vertatur tempestas aestiva, illis carcarem circumvertentem. Flans Carcer Venti Vertentis! (Oh surging storm of summer, surround them in a prison. Flowering Whirling Prison of Wind!)”

A sudden tornado erupted and surrounded Odysseus, trapping him within the eye. Anhur and Agneyi were still encased with ice, and Nyarlothotep was looking annoyed at the transpiring events.

“This display of tenacity shows how much you really are like a cockroach. I’ve grow tired of this, I’ll take you out myself.”

Nyarlathotep rose from the throne and with a wave of his hand, dismissed his Persona copies. Pointing his hand at King, he smiled sinisterly before he made his move.

“Unperishable Black!”

The shadows that permeated the area began to weave their way around King. No matter where he went, there were more shadow waiting for him, and he was eventually enveloped. King’s visage visibly struggled against the shadows that encased his being and when he finally broke out, Nyarlathotep had already prepared his next attack. Swiftly moving in, he conjured a sword of shadow to cut King down. Instinctively raising his own to block it, King was surprised that a gash appeared on his torso. Nyarlathotep grinned evilly at the results.

“Guard Punish.”

King created some space between himself and Nyarlathotep, his blood dripping to the ground. Clenching his teeth, Kingused instant movement to get behind the Faceless God and slash at him. It took the hit, but no blood oozed from the wound like King’s. In a flash of curiousity, King reactivated his Mystic Eyes to discover that Nyarlathotep had not a single line of death.

“Tch. You’re faster than I gave you credit for, but now you’ve lost. Omega Cluster!”

King was assaulted from all directions by an immense pressure that seemed to squeeze the very life out of him. Unable to even move, pain racked his very being and seemed to be unending. Nyarlathotep simply cackled at the ease with which he disposed of the biggest hindrance to his plans for humanities fall. When he released King from the attack, he dropped to his knees, barely able to keep from falling to the floor.

“You really are a cockroach. Nobody’s ever survived without immediate healing before, but you’re something else. Too bad you have to die like the rest of your pathetic species.”

As King kneel there, his lips began to mouth a slight semblance of words. Nyarlathotep took no notice as he rambled on about his victory until King had the energy to properly vocalize what he was saying, although it came out too faintly to make out still. Nyarlathotep’s glee at his victory quickly faded and he lifted his blade for the final strike. Bringing it down swiftly, it was surprised that the blow had been bocked by Odysseus. And this Odysseus was no fake.

“You didn’t think we’d let you win that easily did you?”

The Howler in the Dark frantically searched for Leo, but there was no sign of him. Odysseus began to fade and was replaced with Anhur, who sent a flurry of stabs at Nyarlathotep. Unprepared for this new assault, it took the hits and stumbled backwards from the force.

“King isn’t a man that goes back on his word.”

Anhur faded as well, and Sophia was next to appear. She helped him to his feet, and healed his wounds.

“He’ll mop the floor with you now that you’re out of tricks.”

“I’ll show you tricks!”

Nyarlathotep leapt at King before slamming to the ground. Hecate had replaced Sophia.

“The only possible outcome is your defeat.”

The increased gravity faded, but was replaced by a massive stream of lightning as Shai made his appearance.

“A being as alone as you can’t match the strength of our bond.”

Ice began to encase Nyarlathotep with the advent of Cleopatra’s arrival.

“He’s more than capable of stopping you.”

The Faceless God broke free of his icy imprisonment only to be met with a torrent of fire from Agneyi.

“Understand that there’s no point in trying anymore. You lose.”

As Agneyi faded a blue butterfly flew past King as he called out the name of his Persona.

“Ramses, come forth.”

With a flash of light, King summoned his Ultimate Persona, one of Egypt’s greatest pharos. Nyarlathotep bellowed in rage and once more summoned the fake Personas from earlier, only this time it fused with them. Forming a giagantic, amalgamation of the groups Personas (still using Narmer for King) Nyarlathotep prepared to unleash his trump card. Without missing a beat, King combined most of his abilities together for his own final attack. Letting the cosmic energy within his body, his full energy meter, the power of the Overlord and his magical energy flow into his sword, King utilized his Persona’s abilities to power this attack.

“Pharaoh’s Decree: Overlord’s Cosmic Slash!”

“Emperor’s Orders: Cosmic Crash!”

The abomination Nyarlathotep had become created an enormous sphere of dark energy that was feeding off of the shadows that encased the room. King’s sword crackled with electricity before becoming engulfed in an almost blinding light that extended its length to what would be absurd levels under normal circumstances. Focusing his ki, King jumped at Nyarlathotep as he brought down the Cosmic Crash. The two attacks clashed with an immense wave of energy, King’s energy bar cracking, then shattering from the power his poured into the slash. Pushing himself far beyond his limits, King began to cut through the Nyarlathotep. The dark energy he pushed through lashing out at him, but not enough to end the attack. In a sudden swift motion, King was behind Nyarlathotep and landed on the ground. He stood back up and released the energy as humanity’s collective Shadow began to erupt from the inside before exploding in a violent burst of energy.

King stabbed his sword into the ground to keep upright as the remaining bit of Nyarlathotep was lying on the ground in shock at being defeated. The throne room began to shake and started crumbling without the energy Nyarlathotep was providing.

“It seems you never learn, Nyarlathotep. Humanity can rise above their current state and attain enlightenment. Just as when you were defeated that day, once more I shall banish you to the far reaches of the universe. And this time, you won’t be coming back so soon.”

The blue butterfly had returned and transformed into a man wearing a mask with a violet butterfly on the right side. Dressed in a white suit with a black undershirt, he seemed extremely out of place in the crumbling throne room. Nyarlathotep was enveloped in a white light, and ejected outward to parts unknown.

“As for you and your friends, as thanks for calming the collective unconscious, the least I can do is bring you all to safety.”

“Just…who are you? And why did you help me?”

 “I am Philemon, a dweller in the rift between consciousness and unconsciousness of all souls... I am you. You are me... I shall always watch over you from within. Farewell, traveler from another world…”

As King’s consciousness faded, he noticed a group of golden butterflies flying past him to the sky.

*                                                                          *                                                      *

“It’s too bad we can’t stay another year to graduate. I really like this place.”

“You’d say the same thing in another jump, stop complaining.”

“Will you two never learn how to get along?”

“It seems rather unlikely at this point. We may have to deal with this until the end of time.”

The eight members of the group were gathered at the train station with their respective guardians and family.

“Do you really have to leave Sergei?”

“Mheni, don’t make it harder on him than it already is… We’re going to miss you little bro.”

“I’m going to miss you all too. I love you guys.”

Shock was spending the remaining moments before the train arrived with his family, tears welling up in his eyes.

“Do you have a plan for where the train will take us?”

“We never did ask you what the plan was after the school year ended.”

“I need to do some soul searching in another place. By myself. I’ve got something in mind that I want you all to handle before I get back. Jump-chan shouldn’t have any issues with it.”

The various conversations were brought to an end as the train arrived in the station. Everyone said their goodbyes, some more tearful than others, and boarded. The train heading to a new world with its own adventures waiting for King.