[When you're busy trying to essentially conquer your own nation through politics, life is busy and filled to the brim with endless things to do. Through hard, dedicated work and executive planning, the hours melt away as quick as seconds, days flashing by in what feels like minutes. Soon, all that work would come to fruition. Soon, he would be Prime Minister.
When his heart was changed, the world came to a stop.
The days that had passed by since then were each an eternity. Each hour, an eternity within an eternity. Each second... well, you get it. In a complete reversal, time dragged on as though it were moving through tar, and he was painfully aware of every second. It felt like he was in a never-ending shock, constantly reeling from just how far he'd sunk as a human being as he clawed his way to the top. Lives snuffed out like insignificant candle flames. Thousands more, ruined. He relived his heartless commands and brutally ordered executions every waking moment. And without the sleeping aid he usually took... his dreams were frought with...
With people bleeding their shadows out their eyes and nose and mouth, black goop dripping out of them as their eyes rolled back, holding their heads as they screamed with agony and frothed at the mouth like rabid animals, before they finally collapsed on the ground, convulsing wildly, until their bodies became still.
And that's exactly what he's living through now as he sits in the forest. Horror colors his eyes as the illusions cry out and writhe around him. The CEO of a major company... a father, gurgling as his own shadow fills his lungs. A cognitive researcher, a mother, her eyes rolling back into her head, legs giving out under her, sending her into a traffic-filled crosswalk. So many people, dying, crying out, howling in pain.
He's not sure what it is that causes him to throw up violently; the sight of so many people dying a terrible, horrifying, agonizing death, or the fact that he was responsible for every single one.
And then he hears the cocking of a gun.
He looks up, face pale, at the young man with empty blood red eyes and perfectly imperfect hair, pointing at a Shadow that was begging for its life.]
Akechi? [He goes pale. He hadn't been able to get a hold of him since his heart changed, but... he was alive? His breath shakes, and he swallows.] Akechi-san, stand down.
[The manifestation looks at him with a lifeless gaze. It lowers the gun, and he sighs in relief.
And then the tree next to him covers him with leaves, and swallows him. Shido's pupils shrink.]
NO! [He screams the words out in horror, and doesn't even think; he scrambles from the ground and charges like a bull, then turns on his side and slams into the tree.
Nothing happens, of course, except for him reeling backward from the opposing force as he turns a furious, teary-eyed gaze on the tree.]
Give him back. Give him BACK!
[And he starts clawing madly at the tree, ripping up the tips of his fingers and his fingernails in the process in his blind panic at trying to get his son back.
He can't die like this, he can't. He has so much to live for...!]
Masayoshi Shido | Persona 5 | cw: gore, emetophobia
When his heart was changed, the world came to a stop.
The days that had passed by since then were each an eternity. Each hour, an eternity within an eternity. Each second... well, you get it. In a complete reversal, time dragged on as though it were moving through tar, and he was painfully aware of every second. It felt like he was in a never-ending shock, constantly reeling from just how far he'd sunk as a human being as he clawed his way to the top. Lives snuffed out like insignificant candle flames. Thousands more, ruined. He relived his heartless commands and brutally ordered executions every waking moment. And without the sleeping aid he usually took... his dreams were frought with...
With people bleeding their shadows out their eyes and nose and mouth, black goop dripping out of them as their eyes rolled back, holding their heads as they screamed with agony and frothed at the mouth like rabid animals, before they finally collapsed on the ground, convulsing wildly, until their bodies became still.
And that's exactly what he's living through now as he sits in the forest. Horror colors his eyes as the illusions cry out and writhe around him. The CEO of a major company... a father, gurgling as his own shadow fills his lungs. A cognitive researcher, a mother, her eyes rolling back into her head, legs giving out under her, sending her into a traffic-filled crosswalk. So many people, dying, crying out, howling in pain.
He's not sure what it is that causes him to throw up violently; the sight of so many people dying a terrible, horrifying, agonizing death, or the fact that he was responsible for every single one.
And then he hears the cocking of a gun.
He looks up, face pale, at the young man with empty blood red eyes and perfectly imperfect hair, pointing at a Shadow that was begging for its life.]
Akechi? [He goes pale. He hadn't been able to get a hold of him since his heart changed, but... he was alive? His breath shakes, and he swallows.] Akechi-san, stand down.
[The manifestation looks at him with a lifeless gaze. It lowers the gun, and he sighs in relief.
And then the tree next to him covers him with leaves, and swallows him. Shido's pupils shrink.]
NO! [He screams the words out in horror, and doesn't even think; he scrambles from the ground and charges like a bull, then turns on his side and slams into the tree.
Nothing happens, of course, except for him reeling backward from the opposing force as he turns a furious, teary-eyed gaze on the tree.]
Give him back. Give him BACK!
[And he starts clawing madly at the tree, ripping up the tips of his fingers and his fingernails in the process in his blind panic at trying to get his son back.
He can't die like this, he can't. He has so much to live for...!]