Persona - Mask of Origins

"He's not coming back." Yuki said.

 

Ari stopped, "Wh-what? N-no...Ari doesn't believe you!" Nicholi sat up and snarled, "He's gone, Ari. We all knew he'd die one day. Humans don't live as long as us. You and I will live longer than Yuki, Toji and all the other humans we know."

 

Yuki sighed and dozed off, wrapping her wings around herself.

 

For once in her shadow life, Ari started to cry. It was foreign to her as she slid down to the floor and Nicholi studied her, "Perhaps, not so emotionless as I thought. Ari, even though you are a shadow, you loved Zain." She nodded, her tears ending and curled up close to the couch and Yuki. Nicholi picked himself up and ventured off to the graveyard.

 

Yuki cried as she slept.

 

Nicholi met with Daieko's shadow form, "You hurried the process to make him accept his destiny. Why is Bartandelus so important to you?" "Orphan must kill Cara for the years to come. Without all the chess pieces how can the games begin?" "You sicken me."

 

Yuki woke up and dried her eyes.

 

"That was your plan when you met him wasn't it. You saw he wanted the cure, you tried to cure yourself but when that failed and he cured himself, you knew he'd forgotten something in that cure. Something not even you knew about until it was too late. What was it?"

Daieko chuckled maniacly, "Cocaine." "You really do sicken me." Nicholi said as he subtly slid his clawed hand through Daieko's body. "And now you will rot in Hell for eternity. The betrayal of your kind, does not go without punishment."

 

Yuki went upstairs to Zain's room and looked at his things.

"It's gonna be a while before I can get used to being alone here again."

 

Nicholi returned home, he could hear Yuki from in the bathroom, where he washed off Daieko's blood, "Who said you were alone, Yuki?" he whispered to himself. In Zain's place, he'd have to take care of her as much as he could.

 

Yuki put all of Zain's things away and went to her room.

 

Nicholi stopped his wandering at Yuki's door. He knew his boundaries and would not cross a line he shouldn't. If there were something I could say. What would it be? How should I act when she comes out? Perhaps I should confide in Toji. He turned on his heel and headed for Toji's lab.

 

Toji was hard at work on one of his experiments.

 

Nicholi slipped in, trying not to disturb Toji's work, "Is there a right way to precieve your girlfriend's sorrow and not offend her?" he tried to out-right say it.

 

"Probably not." Toji said as he looked up from his work.

 

"I see...that will become troublesome. Well, we could always call Zero to come back. Though I dislike the idea of having my brother back in this house. His knowledge of Zain's death would bode ill for an already dead creature." he said, refering to Daieko.

 

"Give Yuki some time. This is just something she has to cope with. She's taking it hard on herself because she knew there was nothing she could do for him besides watch him die, just like her parents. His death sparked some very bad memories for her."

 

"Hmm, right..." Nicholi sighed and dropped his head to his chest.

 

Yuki laid on her bed, depressed and not knowing what to do.

 

Flashes of Zain's consiousness flickered around Yuki. A conversation he'd had a long time ago, moments before Yuki had asked him to live with her and be her family. "What do you want me to say?! That I'm tired of living? That I'm sick of looking at their sad faces?! Dammit, I won't let anyone else suffer this way! Not for me..." "No, Mr. Menlow, that's not what we're asking of you. We wanted to know if you had put any thought into it. This research is worth more than all those children's lives. You could be making-" "'Worth, more than all those children's lives'?! Can you hear yourself!? You sound insane! Those children mean more than my own life to me. I won't let them, or anyone else suffer because they knew me. Hell, I'd rather be dead than let them cry."