Cutscene: She Hates The Mirror

MONTHS IN THE PAST

It's been two months since she's slept in a real bed, and fuck the guy who last invited her into one. But she looks good, god damnit, she looks fine -- in her stolen coat and her combed hair you wouldn't even think she slept on rooftops and in alleyways, because there's plenty of pools and bathhouses around, and shit, even if you can't find some asshole to mug so you get into one of those, we live on the motherfucking coast, you pampered little cunt. She looks good. She looks fine. She's five feet four of imposing Yankee bullshit, she'll rip your heart out--

She saw one of those SEES retards hanging out at the station a few days back. Almost fought 'em, until she looked down at the gun in her hand.

FURTHER IN THE PAST

"Lynette!"

Shatter.

The meddling demon screamed as an Athurian sword bit into it, the weapon almost as large across as her chest. She bled. She died.

And Lynette turned to look at her. Stared.

"... what the fuck," Miya snapped, "are you looking at?!"

(you|i) am (cold|untouchable)

Lynette had never spoken to her before.

Lynette had never stuck around before.

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?!"

(you|i) am (reaching|piercing)

(you|i) am (fighting|fading)

"Gh-- you -- you're not supposed to talk! I fucking control you, so just -- just go away!"

And Lynette went away.

But Miya couldn't shake the feeling that she'd said, in her own mystical-bullshit way, precisely what her owner been thinking.

AGAIN TOWARDS THE FUTURE

She had to tell her to go away all the time, now.

And sometimes she listened too well, and she wouldn't come even with the motherfucking Evoker.

Miya took to yelling at mirrors -- "You're not supposed to do this! What sort of bullshit copy-protection is this shit?! 'Bail on us and you can't use our shit any more', huh?! Fuck that! Listen to me! LISTEN TO ME!"

People looked at her like she was crazy. She smashed their faces in, but it didn't stop the memory of their expressions as they regarded her as the boorish gaijin they thought she was.

Because she was.

Hadn't they known that from the start? The Aikawa family hadn't wanted anything to do with her, but that stupid sense of Japanese politeness wouldn't let them say 'no'. Probably because her mother was a fucking whore or something -- some piteous scum-skimmer with a sob story the size've fucking War of Peace. Couldn't even take care of her own fucking daughter, dropped her in with a bunch of lily-skinned assholes who never, ever, not once--

Sometimes she smashed those mirrors, too.

AND A LITTLE CLOSER TOWARDS THE PRESENT

Her gang wasn't around any more. Her fault, of course. There were others, and some of them tried to get her to run with them. She wasn't that stupid any more.

She didn't want to talk to anyone.

She didn't even want to exist around them.

They might look past her fist and her rage and see--

A MONTH AGO

-- Miya Aikawa was crying.

She'd gone into the Abandoned Factory to kill something, make something scream and beg so she wouldn't have to think about her own shitty life, but Lynette wasn't fucking answering. Neither were the demons, which just pissed her off even more. How was she gonna get her big-dick psychological cleansing shit out of the way if she didn't do nothin' to get rid of all this pent up rage?! Fucking Christ, it's like the universe hates her or something.

She threw her evoker against the wall and something tugged at the edges of her memory, the little voice of deja-vu, and she didn't even realise it until she went to go grab the offensive firearm from the floor because she still needed it even though it ate at her like fucking acid.

She'd done this before.

When that fucking worse-than-a-demon creepy-ass boy snapped her like a twig, and --

It was pretty funny. There'd been someone to save her, then. And he told her she was strong, and she could be stronger, and all she had to do was accept a bad part of herself. But didn't he fucking realise she'd have to go back to her FUCKING exile to do it?

No. Fuck Inaba. Fuck everything about it. Going there would be an insult to her pride.

(It's definitely that, not how thinking about those things she'd never admit about herself -- those things she'd have to accept with impunity -- was impossible because her faults were without end. That she was a shitty human being whose desire for companionship was way more pitiable than anything her birth-mother might've done. That she'd failed anyone who even got close to putting faith in her. That she was boorish and stupid and everything a gaijin really ought to be.)

Not that it bothered her.

It didn't bother her!

It was just so fucking funny. He failed her. She never did find him again after that day, even though she tried.

But she was the one who'd listened to his empty promises.

"Yeah, well, it's not like I fuckin' need him--"

(i|you) are (aloof|alone)

-- Lynette was there.

She hadn't fired the gun.

Lynette was just there.

Miya wasn't sure what to call the anger which boiled inside her throat. It was more than rage. Hot like bile and heavier than steel, it made her want to rip into the courtly woman in front of her.

So she did.

"And what the fuck would you know, you stuck-up bitch?!"

(i|you) are (daft|misbegotten)

"You don't get to just fucking show up and mock me!"

(i|you) are (forgotten|forsaken)

"Well you..."

"... well, you..."

"... why don't you just fucking die?!"

Miya raised her evoker like a gun, fired on her own soul. And there was a shattering sound -- a shattering which spread over her Persona's body like spider-cracks on glass, and she splintered into a thousand hedgehog daggers, and she died.

It didn't matter. It didn't matter to Miya, who pulled the trigger again, and again, and she screamed, and it was hoarse and inhuman. She screamed and she screamed and she screamed and finally she whirled and slammed her evoker against the wall, and again, and again, and again, and she screamed. And the cracks were on her skin, and she screamed. And she gave in to her grief, and she screamed.

The evoker didn't break.

And the bellow which echoed through the factory was not human at all.

And the beast which stormed out of the factory was not human at all.

PRESENT DAY, PRESENT TIME

Some people are doomed to mediocrity. Talented enough to enter the esoteric world, yet too unskilled to contain their power, they struggle to control themselves until the burden grows too great to bear.

But she tried. She did try.