Last Words (Part One)

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It was like a dream in that I couldn’t remember the events leading up to the current moment. My thoughts were an incoherent mess. Half-remembered faces and sounds came and went as I struggled to clear my head. The ringing in my ears did nothing to facilitate the process.

A crimson sunset hung high above the sky, past the ruined skyscrapers, residential buildings and crumbling monoliths that had once been the city of Akumachi. An entire city left naught but a barren wasteland. It was almost beautiful in a tragic sort of way. But that wasn’t me talking as much as it was the urge to just lie down and never get up again.

Yeah, right.

Dirt and rubble shifted underneath me as I scrambled as fast as I could to my feet. It was my instincts more than anything else that was making me move.  Danger, they screamed. Something terrible was about to happen. What little I was able to remember was that I was fleeing.

The mental noise in my head was slowly clearing itself out, and I could feel myself thinking clearer. This wasn’t the Blackened Void. I remember enough of the Forlorn Abyss to know that this wasn’t some kind of construct. Was AETHER behind this? It was the only logical conclusion.

I had to find the others, if they were here. There’s no way I would’ve come alone-

The sudden taste of ozone in the air was my only warning. A brilliant flash, followed by the sound of the world coming apart. The wall I was leaning against came apart with a thunderous BOOM,

If this was a cartoon, my jaw would’ve been on the floor. I was already wiping the dust out of my eyes, desperately trying to confirm that what I was seeing was actually in front of me. I had to have been dreaming. There was no way the facts could reconcile themselves.

She was supposed to be dead.

But the pain hurt too much for it to be anything but reality.

Kaede Kurusu, the Last Word. My predecessor and the one who gave Wild Cards and Fools an eternally bad reputation in the eyes of the world. Silver-blue hair, golden eyes, and a school uniform that hadn’t been in use since the last goddamn century. She didn’t look a day over sixteen, eighteen at the most. It was hard to tell.

I forced my thoughts away from her appearance. My mind was racing at a near break-neck speed. She didn’t even use her Persona for that attack. Casts spells without manifesting a Persona. Lightning based. Zidoyne. Doubtless she had many more to call on, more spells to use. Demiurge was just one of a near infinite number of Personas she could call upon as a Wild Card.

I was horribly outclassed, but that didn’t mean that I was going down without a fight.

“Ippon-Datara!”

There was an instant of weightlessness, the sudden splash of liquid entering my mind. Then, the familiar sensation of power emanating from within myself, seeking a way out, begging for release.

The blacksmith god of ancient Japan manifested with a guttural roar, balancing itself on its leg and awaiting my orders. Its single eye stared menacingly at Kaede, who didn’t even flinch at the gaze. All she did was continue to walk towards me at a leisurely pace.
Smug bitch.

“Agidyne!”

No holding back. Go big or go home. Trump cards right out of the gate.

Ippon-Datara obeyed with an affirmative grunt, smashing its tools together to create a giant ball of fire. With a gleeful howl, it swung its hammer in a wide arc, launching the searing projectile at desperate speed. She didn’t even have time to move before it came into contact with her, engulfing her entire body in an explosion of flames.

I tried not to smile as I started to dash away. Should be enough of a distraction to keep her occupied, even if she was resistant to fire magic. It isn’t all about heat as much as it is about impact. Add into the sudden flare of light, and that Agidyne was just as much of a flashbang as it was a fire spell.

The smoke was still there, but it eventually broke apart on the wind…

...only to reveal Kaede without as much as a scorch mark on her clothing.

“Oh fu-”

That was all I was able to get out before another explosion went off, this time aimed at the base of my feet. There was no warning for a tilt of the head and a gesture with her hands. It literally threw me into the air. My Persona shattered into a million blue fragments with a howl.

There was no sharp smell of smoke, of open flame. That wasn’t fire magic, but a Megido spell. It was too weak to disintegrate flesh, but it was still strong enough to cause terrible pain. And she knew it.

That fucking bitch.

I might have blacked out. One moment, I was dimly aware of hitting a wall with a nasty crack, and the sight of Kaede at least thirty feet away with an impassive look scrawled across her features. The next time I opened my eyes, she was suddenly standing above my body, foot firmly planted against my leg.

No amount of moving could throw her off. Whatever Persona she was using to augment her strength, the enhancement Ippon-Datara gave to me was unable to even come close to cresting it.

“How does it feel?” Kaede whispered, almost tenderly as she slowly drove the heel of her foot into my groin.  In spite of the nerve-wracking pain coursing through my limbs, I couldn’t completely stifle the noise that came out of my throat as she started moving her foot along the length of my thigh. “Broken and bloody before your clear superior, completely unable to resist? You really are a fool to have ever believed that you stood a chance against the Last Word.”

I couldn’t help myself. I spat out a string of bloody saliva and retorted, “And you’re…a real…stuck-up bitch…who just couldn’t…have done the world…a favor and stayed…in the fucking coffin.”

That was the wrong move. What little pleasure was there suddenly gave way to pain as her heel pushed straight into a nerve. I choked back a scream and gritted my teeth as hard I could in a defiant snarl. “You presume much to think that Death can stop me,” she replied. “Not when its master shows deference to me.”

Jesus Christ. On one hand, I could easily see how she could be the master of Death, commanding various gods and figures associated with dying. But all I saw was an arrogance that bordered on a god-complex.

“…where the hell are the others?” If this really was a part of AETHER, then I would’ve have come here alone. I would have at least brought someone else. Celeste, Akikazu, even Fumika. “…what’ve you done to them…”

“Your friends?” She repeated in a mocking tone. “Please. Even if they were here, why should I concern myself with those of limited potential? You are the only one that has my undivided attention.”

I was torn between relief at their safety from Kaede, and a growing doom that I was all alone with her. “Okay…” I growled. “Since you’re in such a conversational mood…then what the hell do you want from me? Why am I here?”

I didn’t expect for her to start laughing. It was a high-pitched, throaty laughter, undoubtedly feminine in its undulations. There was no way that I could deny its charm. But it was beautiful in all the wrong places.

Eventually she calmed down, her laughter subsiding into a quiet series of chuckles. But then she suddenly lunged forward, staring at me with golden eyes alight with an unreadable emotion.

“You came searching for answers,” she hissed, “About your great predecessor. Everything you could ever want to know, what little scraps you could find. Driven to such lengths to find me…you are the only onein a long time to approach me such a manner.

“I want to bask in your hatred,” she started, a wild, rapturous look in her eyes. “Shower me with all your loathing; give me all of your spite. Direct every ounce of your body, heart, mind, and soul to breaking me, destroying me, crushing everything that I hold dear. Devote yourself to me and me alone. And if you can’t do that…then I’m more than willing to help you begin.”

My eyes widened as she suddenly pressed her lips against mine. I felt tiny hands grab the back of my head, locking me into place with an iron grip as she went about her work. I couldn’t breathe. I tried opening my mouth to draw in a breath of air, but all that did was let her tongue slide right past my teeth.

For a moment, I just lay there, stunned at what was happening. The footplay, I could’ve attributed to her being an arrogant bitch with a god-complex the size of the Earth. That much was within feasible reason. Or at least was from what anime and TV shows had taught me about sadistic villains.

But to kiss me?

This was a kind of fucked up that I wanted absolutely no part of, regardless of how receptive my cock was responding.  I’m a second-year Japanese high school student whose only sexual experience was with the occasionally hentai and box of tissues. This isn’t as much about standards as it is getting the fuck away from this deranged madwoman.

I moved to shove her off, but a terrible weight pinned them to the ground. Out of the corner of my vision, the leering, four-eyed face of Demiurge loomed above us as I struggled against its white-haired master. The pressure of its great limbs against my arms teetered precariously at the threshold between immobilization and crushing pain.

The touch of Kaede’s skin was unbearable, a burning fever that threatened to consume the both of us in carnal instinct. She tasted of the sweetest ambrosia, forbidden fruit and the smoldering ashes left in the aftermath of war.

The sudden taste of copper suddenly renewed itself my mouth, intermingling with Kaede’s saliva. Was it my blood, or hers? Where did it come from? From the way she was using her teeth in conjunction with her tongue, it wouldn’t have surprised me if she bit one of our lips in reckless abandon.

But she didn’t care. She was too busy grinding her hips against my groin.

After what seemed like an eternity, Kaede pulled away. Sputtering and gasping, I struggled to put air back into my lungs as my vision blurred, then sharpened as it focused on the girl straddling my chest.

She was likewise breathing hard, her cheeks flushed red from exhaustion and arousal. A thin sheen of sweat clung along the exposed skin of her nubile body. Her arms were too busy pressing against my chest, not even bothering to hide the hardened nipples straining against the thin fabric of her blouse. A thin string of saliva hung from her lips, dribbling down the side of her mouth.

The sight tugged at my groin, and I felt my resistance slowly crumbling. The rational part of my mind was screaming at me to find some way to flee, to run and never stop running. Take some time to figure out what the hell was going on. And maybe, maybe, find some way out of this fucked-up situation.

But the horny, seventeen-year old side of my mind wanted nothing more than to lay her down, in the ruins of this blasted wasteland under a crimson sky, and run my lips all over her feverish skin and set myself on fire – to know her completely, inside and out.

Just as quick as it came, the instinct fled in the face of my fear, and I once more returned to the unwilling, scared and terrified participant in this hedonistic act.

The sight of her enigmatic smile was enough to drive a man insane as I felt delicate hands slowly undo the belt around my pants, casually tossing it to the side without a second glance. No amount of struggling was able to slow her down in the slightest as the slacks came off, followed by my boxers.

Within less than a minute, my hardened length was exposed for her to see. I couldn’t hold back the sudden flush of crimson that broke out across my cheeks. I wanted to turn away, to close my eyes shut at what was coming next as she slid her skirt off and pushed her panties to the side. But I couldn't.

“I take what I want, when I want it, however I want it, regardless of why I want it,” she whispered. The heat of her skin was feverish, but it was if a sun burned inside of her as I felt her slowly lower herself down on my cock. “Just like Korea…just like you…Takashi-kun…”

(To be continued…)