Chapter 40 : Rise Kujikawa(2)

# I suck at multi-person scenes. And I don't think I did a good job today writing. I'll fix it up if there are any glaring mistakes. Anyway here's me wishing you have a nice day, stay hydrated and to do something productive.

--

Yu's POV:

The place Rise fell into was quite frankly a strip club. Me, Yosuke, Yukiko, Chie, Teddy, Kanji and surprisingly Sakamoto are trying our best to navigate through the TV set.

"Is it always like this?" asked Sakamoto while slicing a shadow in half using his persona, Tsukuyomi. His persona looks like my Izanagi, but with robes instead of a trenchcoat, it uses a sword with black flames.

"Not always, the place usually changes depending on the person. Kuma" - says our adorable bear, teddie. He is a round anthropomorphic bear with blue fur. He wears red and white jumpsuit-like clothing. I should kidnap him sometimes to show Nanako and Haruka a talking bear. Yup I'm sure they'll love it.

"Yu, watch out!" I heard yosuke shouting at me. There's nothing to be worried about though.

As a shadow approaches me from the rear, I've already moved Izanagi in place to intercept the shadow's advance.

*clang* it seems weak, with just a fist, Izanagi managed to destroy the shadow. We continue advancing just like that.

"Do you guys need to rest?" I look towards the rest of my friends, we had been advancing quite quickly, it's been 10 floors. If Teddie's nose is to be believed the next floor is where Rise should be.

"Maybe…*huft huft* just a minute….*huft* " Yosuke seems out of breath. Since we're in a room with nothing but a stairway we might as well rest.

"Let's take a 15 minute break, I'll be on watch with Sakamoto."

"Okay"x5

--

"Sakamoto, I didn't know you also had this power."

I try to open up a conversation with Sakamoto.

"So do I to you, Yu. but still, to think that there's a world like this just behind the TV huh. How long have you been doing this? From what Aniki told me I thought you're crazy."

"Hmm, what did Akira say?"

"Oh that I should help you in finding Rise-chan, her mother's scary even the old-man keeps his distance."

"You don't say." him mentioning obachan sent shivers down my spine. (WN: body aching all the time.)

Wait did he say Akira ask him to help me, but does that mean?

"Hey by any chance did Akira know about this?"

"Hmmm, he saved me from Tsukuyomi here, so it's safe to say he knows about this."

I can see Tsukoyomi shivering for some reason, I suddenly felt a sense of comradery from Sakamoto's persona. Because that feeling I knew too well.

Anyway he knew about shadows and the TV world, it's safe to assume that he has also awakened his persona. But if he did, why didn't he help us from the beginning?

"Hey, are you thinking about why Aniki didn't help us today?"

"Yeah."

"Me too. But I don't want to risk getting beat up by Aniki again. So if he asks you about it, then we never had this conversation."

---

At the 11th floor we found Rise along with her shadow.

"Ah you're all here!"

"Rise!"

Sakamoto shouted as he moved closer to rise!

"Ah ah ah! What's the rush?" said the shadow as a wall of fire burns surrounding the stage. "Look other me, What a lively crowd we have here!"

"Please stop."

Plead Rise weakly.

"Since they're all here, let's start the show." as the shadow let loose her swimsuit. "There's no such thing as Rissete you know, all those times on the stage it's me. There's only me, Rise, Look at me! Look at my," as she throw her swimsuit my way "--Body"

"STOP! You're NOT ME!"

"Ooooh, can't you see, this naughty body, this curves, surely you know it more than anyone. This body that makes those ugly fat directors fawn all over me. I hate this body, always giving me trouble with those old geezer. But I love my curves. I work so hard to maintain them! So tonight I'm laying it bare so you all can see! hahaha" she covered her exposed breast with one hand as she emphasized them with the other.

"SHUT UP! You're not me!"

"HAHAHAHA!"

The short exchange managed to rile Rise up, and with that she denied her shadow.

"I AM THE SHADOW THE TRUE SELF!"

Shadow Rise transforms, her shadow form is a tall humanoid with a satellite receiver as a head.

"Damn!"

"This one's strong, be careful!"

Suddenly a wave of green energy washed towards us, bracing myself, I sent Izanagi forward to block it, but surprisingly, the green wave just passed through us.

"Huh what's that?" Yosuke asks.

"Think later, fight first" Chie responded, as she sent out a kick, with her persona following closely behind.

Surprisingly, Shadow Rise dodged the kick, sending out her own counter attack.

"Agilao!" a fireball is sent towards chie, her persona shielding her from the attack, but she is sent towards the wall.

"Ah! You can look, but you can't touch" taunted the shadow.

"[Persona!]" Kanji sent out his persona, but the same thing happens, Shadow rise simply dodges Kanji and sends out a [Garudyne] towards his persona, don't tell me.

"WATCH OUT! It knows our weakness!" I shouted out, I made eye contact with Sakamoto, as he nodded seemingly knowing my intention. He rushed towards Rise, as I rushed towards the shadow.

I switched out [Izanagi] with [Black Frost], while I rushed forward.

[Mind Charge!] I felt power surging through me.

I saw the shadow is aiming towards rise.

[Bufula] I sent a freezing spell towards the shadow, successfully stopping it from attacking Rise.

"Oh what's this? So eager to see all of me?" It seems that I have the shadow's attention.

Another green wave is emitted. Shit. I hurriedly changed my [Black Frost] into [Neko Shogun].

[Mahamaon!] the shadow casts a light based spell towards me, which Neko Shogun easily blocks.

But I can't say the same for my friends, as a few of them are knocked out because of that.

"Shit. " I hear a curse as I look at my side finding Sakamoto, his leg bent in a weird way. This is not good.

"I hate naughty audiences. You see other me, I would love to continue the show, but everyone's spent. "

"Please… stop…."

"OH IT WILL STOP" the shadow's voice turns sinister as it prepares another attack, it seems the target is Rise.

"Then this is goodbye. [Megidolaon]"

I immediately jump towards Rise Shielding her with my body.

*bang*

I hear a dull sound of something hard hitting one another.

"Is that all you got Yu? Even with Isshin's training?"

--

Akira POV:

So this is the scripted fight huh? No wonder they can't win. They're all under leveled. *sigh*. They should pick up the slack. Looks like nobody's dead yet, which is good.

"So another eager customer huh? Sorry, but it's closing time."

It seemed to be charging itself for another [Megidolaon].

"Ah, don't be a killjoy, I've just got here, at least dance for me a little."

A green wave washes over me.

"What a demanding customer you are."

So she scanned me huh, no matter.

"[Persona!]"

I crushed a card that materialized itself in front of me.

A metallic figure stands behind me with a majestic red body, equipped with a mono-eye sensor, a metallic wing-shaped backpacks containing 3 funnels each. With a shield in one hand and a tomahawk in the other. A Mobile-Suit materializes behind me.

"What the hell is that !?" shouted Kanji as he looked at the mobile suit behind me.

"[SAZABI!]"

Responding to my cry, the mobile suit's tomahawk produces beams which are green in color on both sides of the blade, then it slams it's glowing axe down with a speed unfitting of its size.

*Bang*

"WHAT ?! YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO SWING IT VERTICALLY WHY AM I --" as it looked towards it's stomach where a huge hole has opened up courtesy of the funnels flying around us.

---

"Ah uh… where am I … ? "

Rise slowly regains consciousness.

"You ok?" Yu asked Rise.

"Yeah…" she looked towards her other self.

"I get it." She said. Rise's own problem is, her losing her identity throughout years of acting. If I remembered correctly she is insecure about her individuality. She had enough of her career as it made her think that she had no 'true' self, only the Rissete the general public perceives. So now she's coming to terms on that, well at least she didn't deny her insecurity, I'll leave the rest for Yu to solve.

Speaking of Yu. He's been checking on everyone since the battle's over. Sakamoto is the worst out of the bunch, but nothing that a little healing magic can't solve. And by healing magic I mean knocking him out before snapping his legs back in place, waking him up again.

As Yu's having a heart to heart conversation with Rise, I finally have time to observe my own persona. It's Sazabi no doubt about it, the only thing that's regrettable is it's size, it's just a puny 5 meter tall mobile suit a ⅕ replica of the original, but it does offer it's original firepower, only with a smaller package. My only lament is that I cannot ride it. shame.

To be honest I have no idea how Romulus managed to change himself to a STAND and give me this as a persona. But I have no complaints. There's a certain charm to Zaku's mono-eye-sensor that I can't explain.

"YOU ARE NOT ME!"

I almost forgot there's a shadow Teddie boss fight right after Rise. and so a large teddy bear, with its face clawed off, materialized itself. It's as big as my Sazabi. As almost everyone is either tired or out of commission, I guess it's my stage.

"You are nothing but emptiness, no matter how much you run away from it. You don't belong anywhere and you know it."

Said the giant Teddy bear. It stood 5m tall, just like my [Sazabi].

"Now return to nothingness!" as it swung down it's paw.

"Shit are we going to die here?" - Laments Yosuke.

Hey hey hey have a little faith in me why don't you.

"[Sazabi]"

I called out to my mobile-suit. Sazabi is one of the few mobile suits that have direct connection to the pilot's brainwave, knowing what to do, it responded to my calling by raising it's shield.

The giant paw attack came, Sazabi's shield crashed towards it head on. Parrying it.

"Not ---" as he was opening his mouth, I ordered Sazabi to shove it's beam rifle towards it's opened mouth. Sazabi's beam rifle is special as it has 2 chambers. One fires off a normal plasma shot, another fires off a scattered plasma shot similar to a shotgun. So without waiting for another beat, I ordered Sazabi to fire off multiple consecutive shots from both chambers. Emptying the energy clip.

Not taking any chances, after clearing the clip, Sazabi kicked the shadow away, to then draw out beam sabers located on both of it's forearms. With our mind linked, I simply guide sazabi to slice the giant bear up.

And with that my adventure with Sazabi came to an end. Or will it?

--

#Sooooooooo, yeah. I ran into some problems, I have like a TON of ideas to write, like a whole lot, but the problem is there's little to no time for me to write, and when I do find time I'm either dead tired or something came up. so would you like me to breeze forward or just take it slow.

I was actually trying to give him Maria of the clock tower as a persona, but it seems too vanilla. So here I am with Sazabi. Why Maria? Because… P5 has a Cthulhu theme for those who are directly linked towards the [Cognitive Psience] research (I watch this from a youtube) which I think is a cool coincidence or a lot of bull-.

Hmm what else? Oh do you want a spoiler for my plans forward? oh and happy zaku day!