The shadows retreated, peeling off the walls and floor into one side, bringing itself together. It shifted and stretched, forming two massive arms that dragged its dark mass forward along the metal towards them, the expanse of blackness below its glowing yellow eyes separating into a great mouth that strikes down on you to swallow you whole, just like the dream. There is no blue light. Igor does not welcome you to the Velvet Room. There is nothing but darkness and the inevitability of death.
Eber heard himself scream out, a scream of defiance and disbelief. This morning he'd been a high school student. Now he was meat for a ghost--a monster?! He did not want to die here, because of this base creature! As the Shadow engulfed him, he cried out words, foreign words that his tongue ought not to have known.
NE-ZHA!
He heard the sound of something shattering inside him, something being released that had been sleeping in his soul since his inception. His breath left him and a bright light pierced the creature and drove it back with a sharp, gargled scream. Above him was a figure, humanoid. Lotus petals shielded his face like a helmet, and six arms held weapons of increasing viciousness. He shared its senses, knowing what it would do as it did it. It was an extension of himself.
He cried out another word as he stood and a blast of wind threw the Shadow into the back of the car.
The being vanished, but he knew where it slept.
------
Isoroku: With another shriek the serpent releases you, its body sinking down, coiled loosely around your body. Its head hovers just above you, wavering to and fro, the gaping wound through its head clearly the mark of its defeat. It speaks to you, the words garbled in its reptilian throat, "We are one."
You flinch at the words, looking over its repulsive form, but you consider it: to accept yourself is to accept all parts of yourself as one. Without Leviathan, you will be incomplete. Your weapon vanishes, as it is unneeded now. You have mastered your Persona. As you acknowledge the beast, it gives a rumbling groan and begins to shift and distort. Renewed by its contact with you, it becomes the noble dragon you remember from your dream. And it, too, disappears. But you know where it sleeps...
Wake up.
