Together, we Conquer

An Ice-Cold Heart

As the group went on, the floor went from pure white, to normal, to icy and slippery. The background also began to change into a bright blue, and Madran turned to Maya.

"Hey Rumor, are you ready?"

Maya nodded and stayed silent. The group, after slipping a bit on the floor, made it to another memory room, and Margaret looked to Maya.

"Only when you say so, Rumor."

"You can activate it."

Margaret started the memory, and Madran saw that they were back when Tatsuya's group were facing Maya's shadow. It was right when she had been defeated and Joker was revealed to be Jun, and Shadow Maya glared at her counterpart.

"YOU... you were all so eager to die..."

Maya shook her head.

"Jun, please... come back to us..."

Shadow Maya dissolved in a mist of red and black, and Joker vanished. Then, it showed Maya's group in that odd ring dimension that Nyarlathotep had fashioned, where Maya and Baofu faced their shadows. They had also just been defeated, and Baofu walked up to his shadow.

"It was never my fault that Miki died. It's about time you'd understand that."

Shadow Baofu made up with his counterpart and vanished, going into him. Then, Maya simply backed away, shaking her head. Shadow Maya made a twisted smile before fading away into a black and red mist like before.

"I... was afraid to accept her... I was so ashamed. All of my lies that I had along the years... all of my despair..."

Margaret's face turned to one of shock.

"You... you never accepted your shadow?!"

The rest of the group mimicked Margaret's reaction. The memory then became Maya, who was past the Nyarlathotep era and sitting at her desk at work, calling a friend.

"Yeah, I read a book by that Lovecraft dude. Gosh, he was messed up. It mentioned a buncha things, like Nyarlathotep and Cthulhu."

"Hmm... wait, Nyarlathotep?"

"Yeah?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, I have to go."

Maya hung up and instantly looked troubled.

"Where have I heard that name before..."

The present Maya spoke up again.

"I also broke the one rule that Philemon gave us... to not remember. Eventually, everyone did once more, and we hatched a plan. All that we had remembered of Philemon was his supposed treachery, so..."

The memory swapped to Maya sitting in a large circle with all of her friends. Eriko spoke up.

"I know this one spell that can bind us from speaking their names until we see them again, which will possibly be never."

"What was it?"

"Hold on..."

Eriko grabbed some things, and with some help from Apollo, set them on fire. It began to make a dark green smoke, and Eriko began to chant something in a different language. After she had repeated the same chant multiple times, the smoke suddenly went into everyone's mouths. Eriko, after coughing a bit, continued.

"There. Now, try speaking about what they might have done."

Eriko smiled when Ulala began to trip over her words.

"Wow, where did you learn this?"

"In my off time. Now, we can live knowing that the Other..."

Eriko got a troubled look on her face and mouthed a few things.