Chapter Text
Drip. Drip
Kirigiri opened her eyes. She rolled onto her back and took a deep, shuddering breath. The damp surface of the rock underneath had soaked through her clothes; her shirt clung to her as she groped her way upright. As she did, she gasped at the pins-and-needles eating their way through her marrow. What had happened? She couldn’t remember, but she certainly felt like someone had grabbed her by the foot and used her as a makeshift flail. The soreness enveloping her body didn’t originate from a place she could pin down; it was everywhere. Between layers of skin and inside her bones. At the center of her mind and within each exhale. She could see no injuries, but maybe that had something to do with the way she felt like she had been flayed, and someone had used the sharpest needle they could find to sew her back together.
While the soreness was everywhere, there was one spot that felt especially bruised. With weary but steady hands, she peeled down her waistband. She already knew what she would find, but it hit her a like a punch to the gut: the tattoo of Hope’s Peak.
It didn’t rattle her. Not really. Even before looking, she had resigned herself. What did surprise her was she was still within the altar cavern. The only difference was she had been moved to the edge of the chancel and at the chancel’s center, there was something waist-height, stone and round.
No one stopped her as she walked closer. Coming out of the round container was a chain attached at one end to a stake driven into the hand-like chancel’s palm. The other end ran into the container and underneath the water within. Even with the red flames and the blue lanterns lighting the room, the angle made it hard to see what laid beneath the still surface.
And suddenly, she saw something: a pair of bright, yellow circles.
She scrambled back. Moments later, something breached the surface. The first thing she saw were limbs, two slender limbs that might have been arms that were attached to long claws. The claws flexed and then sunk into the side of the basin’s walls; when the claws were torn out, water gushed through the holes. The head came next with glowing yellow eyes and a snout-like jaw that didn’t have enough skin to fully hide the teeth. On each side of its neck, three large gills gaped in confusion at the sudden change in environment.
Kirigiri stared.
“Makoto?”
He was both recognizable and completely unrecognizable. His skin had darkened into an onyx with a touch of bronze. Save for his ahoge, the water had calmed and slicked back his usually unruly hair. He still had clothes, but they were soaked and riddled with rips that looked like they came from both tooth and claw. He hadn’t kept his shoes, though. That she learned when he hauled himself out of the water. Naegi didn’t really stand; he straightened up halfway. She stood there, frozen with fear shock as he got closer. . .
He yelped as the chain yanked at the collar around his neck. He stood there, seeming confused. He tried to approach her again and yelped again as the same thing happened. It was such a nonthreatening display, such a pathetic display, that it staved off her panic.
“Makoto?” she said again.
He reacted, although she didn’t know whether it was to his name or her voice. He went up on the tips of his toes, torso bouncing back and forth as he fought the chain. He made tiny, high-pitched sounds that could only be interpreted as distress. Despite his monstrous appearance, she immediately responded to it and reached for him. . .
Just as he screeched. He whipped around so fast that the wake of air it created felt sharp enough to cut. The chain slammed again and again against the ground as he sunk his fangs in and whipped it about like a dog. Just as he seemed to settle down, just as the ghastly racketed quieted and she could think, he suddenly launched at the stake. Sparks jumped as his claws raked against metal and he snapped at it. Finally, he gave up. He flopped off the stake and laid there on his stomach.
She croaked his name once more and he perked up. He half-crawled, half-scampered toward her, settling a small distance away in an uncomfortable-looking crouch where his knees were nearly at the height of his shoulder. He made noises, lots of them. They were nonsensical, but the rhythm to them told her what he was trying to do.
“I can’t understand you,” she said quietly.
Naegi had quieted while she had spoken. He stared at her, cocking his head from one side to the other. Then, he made the noises again. There were no real changes, as if he hadn’t heard her say she couldn’t understand.
. . . Because he hadn’t. Just as she could not longer understand his speech, he could no longer understand hers.
The lack of an understandable response stressed him. He made more noises, weird ones that were giving her a headache. His ahoge began to glow just as Kamukura’s had. It was a soft blue reminding her of morning skies and baby blankets. Oh. He was closer. She couldn’t remember him moving. Or had she moved? Oh. He was even closer.
Suddenly, the blue light faded. Naegi arched his back, hissed, and then there was a splash as he retreated into the pool. She could see him peering at her right above the edge.
A hand closed around the back of her neck.
“Neat little trick of his, isn’t it?” Komaeda said. “I’m jealous I don’t have that ability. I suppose the gene skipped a generation.”
She gasped as he nearly cut off her air flow.
“I should kill you,” he said softly. The tips of his claws dug into her skin. “I intended to. It would have been a shame since you were one of my favourite Kirigiris but after what you did, that was the only option.”
His grip tightened. She couldn’t breathe.
“Did you think that I would ignore someone who came into my home and attacked someone who was mine? Did you think you were going to walk away from that?”
She was going to die. She twisted violently in his grip, desperately searching for a position that would allow her to draw breath. Her lungs were trying, trying to inhale, but they weren’t expanding with air, but with pressure. They were on the brink of rupture, but she kept trying anyways.
“You’re very lucky that your reaction to Atua was to pass out. That was the only reason I didn’t kill you on the spot – what’s the point if they’re not even awake? I waited for you to wake and that meant I had plenty of time to think.”
He dropped her and she slammed hard into the ground. She hadn’t noticed she had been lifted off it.
“I have a question for the world’s greatest detective,” Komaeda said. “Let’s say I had a guard dog, and I trained it to attack everyone who came into my backyard. Then, let’s say one day, I have a kid who tries to sneak into the house through the backyard. Whose fault it is when the dog mauls the kid?”
On her hands and knees, she coughed wretchedly. Komaeda waited for her answer.
Shakily, she said, “He knew the dog was there. He shouldn’t have gone into the backyard.”
“And if he hadn’t known it was there, it would be my fault for not telling him, right?” He stared at her. She nodded. “Ah, I got the Kirigiri stamp of approval. How wonderful! You see what I’m saying, right? In both scenarios, it isn’t the dog’s fault. No matter how much I want to blame you, it wasn’t your fault. You did exactly what I programmed you to do.”
She looked up. “What are you saying?”
“While I was down here licking my wounds from that fight with Tanaka, you were without a master. Obviously, you would revert to your base instincts. You thought Makoto was in danger, so you went after the threat. It was inevitable you would attack someone,” he said with a sigh. “Obviously, I should have added a caveat that you didn’t need to protect him against his own family! ”
Her heart thudded like a rock skipping across water. Komaeda read her face and frowned.
He said, “I told you at the beginning, didn’t I? We’re not a religion. We’re a family.”
Her eyes widened. “All of you . . .”
“Hajime’s my son. Junko, the one you attacked,” For a few seconds, his eyes were pitch-black, “will be my daughter-in-law. Atua is my cousin, but I think he’s only here because he wanted Angie to have a human friend. Makoto’s my nephew.”
“And what am I?” She didn’t want to know. She didn’t want to know, but she needed to know.
He smiled down at her. “You were the nanny, of course.”
Nanny? She couldn’t help but flash back to her nocturnal activities with Naegi. Those were not the actions of a nanny and their ward. She clung to that thought, raising it like a shield against Komaeda’s onslaught.
“I don’t usually ask my Kirigiris to take on that sort of responsibility,” Komaeda said. “But with Makoto, I had no choice but to give him to you. All because of one pathetic human.”
She shrunk away from the look on his face.
“You know what Ohori did, right?” She didn’t say anything, but he nodded. “Good. I don’t need to explain that. I’ll admit that I wasn’t paying much attention to Makoto that day. It was Hajime’s birthday – I’m sure you understand. I think Makoto manifested something in front of the human. Whatever happened, it turned that human against him.”
“So, you killed him,” she finished.
He nodded. “Yes, I ate him.”
“You . . . ate . . .?”
“Just the body,” he said in a tone that suggested he was offended if she had thought otherwise. “I tore it apart and ate it so I could get to the soul and then hung onto that. After that . . . Makoto’s real father got a brand-new toy.”
She remembered that tortured spirit pleading with her to die. She should have done it. She should have killed him.
“And that’s where the whole problem started. Makoto wasn’t as unconscious as I thought he was,” Komaeda said regretfully. “It broke him. They’re not supposed to reach twenty without discovering some of their abilities and realizing they’re special. But Makoto was so afraid of me, of himself, that he stopped himself from developing. He’s a chick that refused to crack its shell. Even worse, I couldn’t watch over him anymore because he would sense me and panic. Yes, he had his mother, but you humans leave your parents before the age that our children begin to mature. Someone needed to keep an eye on him during those years.”
“. . .Me.”
“Exactly. Someone human who wouldn’t trigger panic, who I knew would die for him and I could trust utterly with his safety. Someone who knew nothing of me so that he wouldn’t catch on. For all Jin’s insistence that he didn’t want to join us, he still served my cause in the end by providing me with you.”
It felt like worms were burrowing into her brain, that Komaeda had pried her skull upon and was stroking her cranium with needles. No, no! Komaeda was a liar, dammit.
“Nothing you said makes sense.” She scrambled to her feet. Her arm swiped through the air. “Why allow him to be separated from you in the first place? Why hybridize your kind with a human? Why wouldn’t you take him in like Kamukura and Enoshima?”
“I didn’t raise Izuru in the church,” Komaeda said. “Izuru was raised by his human surrogates until it was time for him to hatch. Then I brought him here just as I brought Makoto here. It’s standard. There simply aren’t enough of us in this universe that can breed– of course, that’s all about to change – so many of us use lower species as incubators. It cuts the number of us you need in half, you see.”
Incubator. It was a disgusting word with even more disgusting connotations.
“Is that what you think of us? As carriers for your spawn?”
“That is one of your only uses,” Komaeda said cheerfully. “I did say you were one of my favourites, but you are . . . human. Your kind isn’t very useful, but at least your species’ inadequacy means that it’s easier to raise our young here. Oh, and your kind is delicious.”
His voice twisted on the last word, like a video whose language had switched for a single syllable. Her lungs rolled up like a ball of yarn to hide. Her eyes unfocused; the image of Komaeda licking his lips split into two identical pictures that circled each other before remerging. From within his pool, Naegi hissed.
“I’m not going to eat you, Kirigiri-san,” Komaeda said. It was hard to believe when she could smell bloody flesh on his breath. “You had another question, right? I’m sure you understand by now just how simple your species is. My kind is much more sophisticated. By the time you humans are fully developed in the womb, we have barely begun. It’s unfortunate, but it means our children are born human; someone like Junko, one of us from birth, is exceptionally rare. And as humans, our young aren’t ready to come face-to-face with their own kind. It’s much safer to allow surrogates and nannies to raise them.”
“So, that’s it. That’s why you brought us together,” she said hollowly. “I started dating him. . . because it was your will.”
“It’s your purpose,” Komaeda said with a bright smile. “To protect him. To nurture him. And when the time came, to bring him to us and make him stay. If you hadn’t there been, he would have fled. I’d be chasing him across the ocean. But the moment he thought I wanted you, he completely forgot about running. He could never leave you in danger.”
She frowned. “He’s hiding right now.”
Komaeda glanced back. He shrugged. “Oh sure, he still loves you in that instinctive, animalistic way of his. But he’s having trouble remembering who you are. We shed most of our lower memories when we hatch.”
He’s . . . forgotten?
She fell to her knees.
Komaeda took a few steps toward Naegi, who dove into his pool. “Usually, there’s three steps we take to break that human shell. The baptism was easy. The tattoo was trickier, but all Hajime had to do was turn on his deadlight and that kept him subdued. Though I am glad I put you in the cavern during that time. He was still frightened; you would have gone berserk. Drinking our blood. . . that was the tough one. I tried easing him into it by mixing it with his food, but a little bit here and there wasn’t going to do anything. . . Unless they’re eating your food for days in a row.”
This . . . this is my fault . . .
“I do appreciate that you got him away from that friend of his, as well. I was going to take him back either way once they separated, but it was nice that I didn’t have to wait!”
My fault . . .
She was cold, so cold she had grown numb. Her tongue was thick and heavy in her mouth, her stomach churning violently as numb lips struggled to form proper words. “You’re lying. I never tried to help you. I didn’t do this.”
He patted her back. It felt like razors. “This must be confusing. A few months ago, you didn’t know who I was. You can blame Ohori for that, too. If you two had started dating and then Makoto found out you were working with us, he would have left you and I’d be back at the beginning.”
“Because he was already too afraid of you,” she said. “He couldn’t remember you, but he would have instinctively known to run.”
The pieces were coming together. It was a heavy truth that pressed down on her, made her want to lay down, close her eyes and never open them again. Naegi was attacking the chain again, and she watched him without emotion like he was another piece of the background. This truth, it was all new and yet it felt like she had known all along. Like she had been there with Naegi to watch the aftermath of his father’s horrible decision. . .
Naegi’s father had tried to kill him when he was five.
At five years old, Kirigiri Jin abandoned his daughter.
“This is why chased off my father,” she said. “Because you needed me.”
“He wasn’t one of mine. He’d get in the way,” Komaeda said with a shrug. “Fuhito told me it be much harder to groom you while the other human was there.”
“To groom me into Makoto’s bride.” Her words had inflection this time, but she herself felt nothing.
Komaeda’s lip curled into a sneer. “Don’t give yourself that much credit. You’re a human. Your kind is just a stepping stone for our growth.”
“Is he one of those Elders?” she asked quietly.
He looked at her for a long moment. “Is that a real question? Wow. I’m disappointed. You have Elders, too. Like, you know . . . your grandfather?”
“Yes, he is. Then these Elders are just . . .”
“Those who are older than me,” Komaeda finished. “I’m the oldest of my family in this universe. It’s pretty sad.”
“You’re a Deep One,” she said.
Komaeda looked at her for a long time. “I really am disappointed if it took you this long to realize that. Obviously, I am the only reason you became a detective.”
It stung, but not in a painful way. More like a spike of pure pressure was being driven into her chest and her organs were listlessly shuffling out of the way. It was an odd feeling that made her touch the spot above her heart.
“Who am I?” she whispered.
Komaeda sighed heavily. He muttered, “This is the level you can expect from smart humans. You’re Kirigiri Kyoko, my human proxy. Do you need me to explain where you are, now?”
“I’m a puppet.” There was no substance to her words, no force, and yet they echoed. “Everything I did was because of you. Everything I am is because of you.”
“And there’s the greatest detective’s brain at work.” Komaeda’s voice dripped with sarcasm.
She wasn’t a detective. She wasn’t a human. She wasn’t even alive. She was a hollow shell waiting to be filled with her master’s will so that she may have enough mass to move. That was the truth.
Naegi barked. Loudly. Enough to draw both their attention. He froze when he did as if he hadn’t expected that to work. She could see things writhing in the air around him, things that sprouted from him that no human possessed. They rose off his back like a like dorsal fin, standing on end as Naegi glared at Komaeda and deliberately hissed. Komaeda responded with sounds that grated against her eardrums.
“Amazing. Hatched just a couple of days ago and he’s already picked up so much profanity,” Komaeda muttered. “I knew Junko was up to no good. I’m glad he hasn’t figured out dimension-slipping yet.”
Makoto. For all Komaeda’s talk of family, his insistence that Kirigiri had gotten into her relationship as an extension of him, Naegi was very insistent he loathed Komaeda and only Komaeda. She clung to that, the only contradiction to Komaeda’s fairy-tale of a happy family.
“He hates you,” she said and she didn’t care if it offended Komaeda; she hoped it did. “Look at him: he despises the air you breathe.”
“Yes, he does.” Komaeda was silent. Then, he said the last thing she expected: “Good. I need him to hate me. I need him to fear me if we’re going to break down that gate.”
“You want him afraid?” She could feel some lost emotion finally stirring, but was it her own emotions that her feelings reflected, or Komaeda’s directive to protect Naegi?
“He has to be,” Komaeda said. “It’s the only way to get his father here.”
Before she could ask, the chancel pulsed. The purple-black vines flashed fuchsia. From the roots upward, they turned a sickly red, the color of blood.
“The time is near. Do you see that?” Komaeda pointed up where the vines overlapped each other to form three interlocking rings. “That is the mark of Yog-Sothoth. He who is the gate, He who knows the Gate, and He who has marked this place because He knew the Elders would break through here. The Elders are on the other side, locked out of this universe as they have been for billions of years. I won’t bore you with the details of why. All you need to know is they were asleep for a long time with no exercise, no food, and it left them too weak to break the gate down. Those of us on this side are their children; we’re not powerful enough to break through the gate either. Nothing is. Except for Makoto’s father.
“Every twenty-five years, the energy here peaks and his father can project part of himself through the gate. It’s not enough to anchor himself; he’ll be pulled back once the night is over. But it’s enough of himself to be seen, to be worshiped, and to sire an heir. On this day twenty-five years ago, Makoto was sired. For once, his father didn’t grow tentacles halfway through or eat the female after they mated!”
Suddenly, the chain flew out of the pool, dragging Naegi with it. Some unseen part of Komaeda was reeling him in and although he fought it at first, Naegi abruptly calmed and let it pull him. She knew why: he was planning to attack.
“Makoto, no!”
But he couldn’t understand her and her shout only made him more eager to fight. Naegi sprung across the last bit of distance and lunged. It ended with Komaeda’s arm around Naegi’s waist and Komaeda balancing Naegi on his hip like he was a toddler. Komaeda reached over, grabbed Naegi’s chin and yanked it toward him. She bit back a cry; despite everything she had learned, despite knowing he had power leagues beyond her, her weight was on the balls of her feet in anticipation of starting her own fight.
“It hurts seeing him like this, doesn’t it?” Komaeda asked. Naegi was kicking and trying to pry his chin free and it did hurt, it did. “Kirigiri-san, if there was a door between you and you could hear Makoto crying out in pain, how long would it take you to break it down?”
Her mouth was too dry to answer.
“I’ll be honest with you: my brother is an idiot. If he really tried, he could break down that gate anytime, but he’s not motivated. But hearing his real son – not that human shell – crying out in despair?” Komaeda stroked Naegi’s cheek with his thumb. “That will motivate him.”
Komaeda laughed. He set Naegi down, patted his head, and then cursed and shook his arm loose when Naegi’s teeth clamped down on it. What looked like green slime dripped from the wound. Naegi bared his fangs. Komaeda scowled at him and then pulled out a knife.
“Don’t!” she cried out when Komaeda turned sharply toward Naegi. She didn’t know if she should act on her fear for Naegi, didn’t know whether that part of her was real or Komaeda, but she did anyways. “Don’t hurt him.”
“Hurt him?” A low growl split from Komaeda’s throat. “What do you think I am: a kin-slayer? I wouldn’t hurt him.”
“You said you needed him in pain.”
Komaeda smirked. “Oh, Kirigiri-san. . . I never said the pain had to be physical.”
He stepped toward her. She couldn’t move. The weight of his gaze pinned her to the spot, covered her ears so she couldn’t hear Naegi’s frenetic protests. She should run, shouldn’t she?
(But even as she thought that, it felt like some astral form of her was waiting with its arms held wide, because this was destiny.)
“You won’t be dead forever – not if you choose not to be.” The knife twirled between Komaeda’s claws fingers. “You’ll only be dead for a little while.”
Although she stared directly at Komaeda, it felt like her eyes weren’t working. One moment he was five steps away, the next four, then three. “Is that what you do: kill your servants when they’re no longer useful? Did you kill Ikusaba because she failed to stop Tanaka?”
“Yes, thanks to you again, Ikusaba-san’s still dead,” Komaeda said, annoyed. “Junko was going to revive her, but that’ll have to wait because she’s in recovery. It makes an interesting test of faith though. Will Mukuro’s ghost wait long enough for her sister to return? The silly thing must be wondering if Junko forgot her.”
He was in front of her, breathing her air. (Did he even need to breathe?) The tip of the knife rested against her sternum.
“Why?” she whispered.
“Why? You’re human. Oh, right. You’re human. I do need to explain.” Komaeda carelessly let the knife drop to his side, nearly cutting her as he did. “Do you believe Atua loves Angie?”
“The evidence suggests that.” Evidence. It felt like a pathetic attempt to reclaim her detective heritage; pathetic because it was meaningless, because she was nothing.
“Then why did he allow her to be killed?” Komaeda asked.
It felt like her answer dripped from her mouth like molasses as Komaeda touched her cheek. “I don’t know.”
“It’s because you humans are so fragile.” He flicked one of the fingers on her cheek and it sliced through her flesh. “See? You can’t even go into space without your lungs exploding. Your physical forms are completely unsuited to serve us, so we tear them down and rebuild them. So, if Atua loved her, then Angie had to die. Atua would have killed her himself if those humans hadn’t done it for him.”
“When I wake up, what will happen?” she asked.
“You serve my family into eternity.” His arm dropped. Her blood stained his claw. “It’s the highest honour we can offer to such a lowly species, but you did a good job with Makoto.”
The highest honour we can offer. . .
Offer. . .
“. . . N-no.”
Komaeda frowned. “You don’t want it?”
“I don’t. . .” Why live? What purpose would my life have? “Don’t bring me back.”
“Funny. Hajime said that about Nanami,” Komaeda said. “Are you sure? There’s no second chances.”
“Don’t bring me back.” The only thing she could feel was the freezing touch of the tears running down her face. “Let me die. I want to die.”
Because what would she be if she woke up afterwards? What was she now? Nothing. She was nothing and had always been nothing. Nothing in her life was real and nothing about her was real. Nothing would be lost if she disappeared. In fact, the world would be better off without her – better off with one of Komaeda’s limbs severed.
“Well, it would be terrible if I denied you after all your help.” He tilted her chin up. Her breath hitched as the knife rested against her throat. “Thank you for your service, Kirigiri Kyoko.”
Bang.
The knife was still at her throat, but it didn’t press against it when Komaeda looked behind him. Naegi was on his stomach. The collar lay on the ground a foot behind him.
“Oh, he’s figured out dimension-slipping,” Komaeda remarked.
It took Naegi a couple of tries to get to his feet. She saw him shake off his disorientation. He puffed out his chest. Komaeda stepped back as he charged, like someone casually getting out of the way of an irate kitten. The knife was suddenly yanked out of his hand and tossed across the room. Naegi’s cold scales rubbed up against her.
Naegi. Naegi. The one she had thought could bring her perfect happiness. As it turned out, he could, but only because Komaeda had programmed it to be so. Naegi, who she had thought she had loved, who had turned out to be the reason for everything.
“Did he. . . did he ever love me?” she asked as tears ran down her face.
“Did you get your question backwards?” Komaeda asked. “You should be asking whether you loved him. Obviously, he loved you. Otherwise, none of this would have worked. I wouldn't be killing you in front of him if he didn't love you. He wouldn't have ever hatched if you weren't there as leverage. I couldn’t even get his gills to grow in properly until I threw you off a cliff. It’s unprecedented! It's disgusting how attached he is to a lower species!”
“He loves me?” she said quietly.
Everything about her, everything in her life had been a lie. Everything.
Except. . . Except this.
Except that he loved her.
She bawled.
She clutched him to her as tightly as she could, ignoring the inhuman parts she could feel wriggling and twisting around her. She sobbed into his shoulder as snot ran down her face. Cautiously, he licked at her tears and she leaned into the hot touch because she needed his affection, she needed him to love her. He loved her, he loved her and who cared if her feelings for him were her own because his feelings for her were real.
Komaeda studied them. His lips twitched into a smile. “Do you still want to die, Kirigiri-san?”
“No! No!” She could say nothing but that word. A voice in her head reminded her of why she had refused, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was the choice that would allow her to stay with him forever, to preserve the part of her was was truly real forever.
“Excellent!” Komaeda said. “I’m glad you changed your mind. I’m not sure how I would have gotten back in Makoto’s good graces without bringing you back. Then let it be so. Honour this day, Kirigiri-san: this is the day you were truly born.”
Komaeda laughed and. . . and she did, too. Naegi looked at her with concern as she laughed and laughed and couldn’t stop. She rested her forehead against His and ran her hands down His face.
“What happens when the gate falls?” she asked.
“His father will be the first to cross,” Komaeda said. “The others will sense the fall and come rushing through . . . right onto this wonderful planet full of food! The congregation is upstairs; they get the mercy of being eaten first. Ah, death will truly be a blessing for them. Atua’s collected his chosen and the others we owe and has brought them to his preserve, so everyone left is fair game! After that, the Elders will spread out through the universe and my kin will reclaim their rightful place.”
“How wonderful,” she said, not actually caring. Naegi sniffed her and hooted. “I suppose His father would be grateful.”
“Of course, he will be. He’s got to be. I am tormenting his son, but I’m sure once I explain why, he’ll understand. He was very angry about the confessional. . . but I’m sure he’s forgiven me. I just wanted Makoto to see his real father. . . and almost broke him because he wasn’t ready.” For the first time, Komaeda seemed uncertain. “Maybe he’ll knock me around a little, but I’m his little brother. I’m sure he won’t kill me. . . Of course not . . .”
She nodded, not listening.
Komaeda grimaced. She could see it even as his body swelled. “Let’s get this over with.”
Komaeda’s titanic shadow fell over them, blotting out the ceiling. Naegi craned His head up and He went stiff. Try as He may, even Naegi was no match for the clawed wing that swooped down and split them apart. A scaled hand closed gently around Him, the eight claws careful not to brush against vulnerable skin as Komaeda held Him back. Kirigiri felt something brush against her throat.
“We’ll see you in a little while,” Komaeda said.
It didn’t hurt.
She fell to the ground. Komaeda released Naegi and He ran over. He dropped to his knees next to her, shouting, pressing His hands against the huge gash on her neck. She wanted to tell Him it was alright, that they would be together soon, but she was no longer capable of words. He was crying.
Colours faded bit by bit as did the sound of Naegi’s scream. Yet, she still heard it before everything disappeared:
Somewhere far, far away, something had answered Naegi’s scream with a roar.