The AU

 The Fall: A Persona 3 AU

Basic premise: What if The Fall actually happens?

 

Set-up A: 

 

The protagonist chooses to kill Ryoji. This results in everyone forgetting (except Aigis) and the Dark Hour seemingly ceasing to be. Or at least it ceases to be experienced by anyone. But as for Ryoji/Nyx/etc., it really only results in destroying Ryoji's physical form, and the pieces of him eventually do reform in time, called by the despair and misery and death wish of the world. Nyx Avatar makes its appearance eventually, and The Fall happens without anyone having a chance to stop it. 

 

 

Set-up B:

 

The protagonist gets killed. Could be that Jin and Takaya are very successful in their attempts to impede you in climbing. Or maybe Nyx Avatar was just too charming powerful. Whatever the case, the protagonist is killed before The Fall begins and so is unable to become the Great Seal. There is no one else with enough potential to do this, either.

 

 

(A sidenote: an explanation about Nyx and Shadows and such can be found here) 

 

The result and the aftermath:

 

Every single conscious being - with the exception of the robots Aigis and Labrys (who is locked up in stasis at this point) - has their shadow pulled out of them and the piece of Nyx that gives them consciousness returns to her. Everyone and everything that had conscious thought is now a mindless, apathetic shell - everything has Apathy Syndrome.  Everyone will die of pure neglect.  (Unless, say, Aigis makes an effort to keep them alive by forcing them to eat and take in liquid and such.)

 

With the consciousness gone, the desire for death would be gone, and so Ryoji is able to take conscious control over his form and his actions. However, he is still of course under the influence of Nyx, and there still remains a task for him to perform to completely reunite the pieces of Nyx. Each Evoker, all special items that were functional during the Dark Hour, and also the Anti-Shadow Extermination robots - every single one has a piece of Nyx in it. Ryoji begins to collect these things and retrieve the piece of Nyx. Once she is whole, again, his task will be done, and he can fade. Even more than that, perhaps Nyx can again resume traveling the stars.

 

It's relatively easy to collect inanimate objects, even if emotionally it's very difficult for Ryoji. But nothing is as hard as taking the hearts of Labrys and Aigis. In the end, however, it's more of a mercy killing than anything else... It is kinder to them to end their existences than to linger on alone in a world they were unable to protect...

 

It is Aigis' heart that Ryoji takes last...  Perhaps he draws her into am embrace and kisses her gently fairwell as he pulls hear heart out to reclaim the last two of Nyx's feathers. "I'm sorry," he whispers, as her gears whirr to a stop.

 

Ryoji remains on earth for just a little while longer. He is sure to give Aigis and all his friends the best burials he can, and he leaves his scarf on the grave marker he makes for them. And then, he lets himself fade away back into Nyx, crumbling apart into feathers and blue butterflies.

 

 

 

Special notes: I am still undecided as to if Labrys gets woken up or if Ryoji simply takes her heart while she is still asleep as well as other specific details.

 

For example, with Aigis, he can either simply take her heart in the end by force or by trickery, or he can ask for it directly. Whether she would give it to him or whether she would blame him and fight him is something I'm still debating. If she refuses but doesn't try to fight him, then he will simply linger with her, keeping her company whether she wants it or not (he wants it, at least), until it becomes too much for her - she cannot find enough power sources to maintain her charge, perhaps, or psychologically she gives up and is ready to die. I don't think Ryoji would want to take her heart without permission, but it's more her reactions I'm still pondering in this scenario.

AU Draft Sequence of Events

December 31st: Ryoji Mochizuki comes to SEES one last time to offer their leader a choice: live on and face Nyx's coming directly or kill Ryoji, delay The Fall a little while longer, and gain blessed forgetfulness and a return to a normal life. After talking things over with the group as a whole, he retreats to their leader's room to await the verdict. When the leader follows, Ryoji makes one final appeal for death and the forgetfulness and peace he can grant to them, and... the leader agrees. Ryoji smiles sadly as his friend summons a persona (maybe it's even Thanatos, for bitter parallels) and kills him. It's swift, and Ryoji puts up no resistance.

"Thank you for everything, and best wishes in the New Year," is the last thing Ryoji says as he melts into nothing, and everything changes.

January 1st: No one remembers, except for Aigis. Perhaps some may sense something missing, but it's easy to dismiss in the face of the cheer of a new year and the drudgery of going back to school. Ryoji remains dissolute amid the darkness, and the approach of The Fall slows. The victims of Apathy Syndrome are not all cured - after all, Shadows have not vanished, and people still at times cease to resist Death, but no new cases occur for a while, and Ryoji's promised peace lingers into spring.

March 5th onward: The Promise Day arrives at midnight. Maybe everyone remembers just in time. Or maybe it takes everyone by surprise. Either way, there is no stopping it, as Tartarus forms anew, and Ryoji as Nyx's Avatar stands atop it, bringing her here and acting as a beacon to call all the fragments of Nyx out of everyone's minds. Aigis watches in horror and anger and grief as her friends crumple to the ground, stripped of their consciousness and left to simply die from neglect.

For a time, it is as if the Dark Hour is always, as Shadows the world over flock back to Nyx. Perhaps Aigis tries to fight them - tries to find a way to bring the spark of life back to her friends. Maybe she attempts to keep their bodies alive...

But whatever she does is in vain.

With everything set in motion, and the Shadows returning to Nyx, Ryoji is in some sense free from his primary duty. He is able to resume whatever form he chooses, and he shifts between all three to an extent depending on his needs at the time. Some Shadows require more proactive shepherding to chase them home, after all, and it is easier to fly than it is to walk. But even so, Ryoji prefers to walk at times, and he prefers to take on his human form, when he can - or something like it. He doesn't always remember to remove his wings.

But even if he is free from the business of actively bringing Nyx down, he is still her avatar upon the earth and is there to carry out her desire of becoming whole again. And besides, not all pieces of her are Shadows. There remain her feathers - plumes of dusk - isolated and used by scientists of the Kirijou group (and possibly others) in various experiments. It is up to Ryoji to track them down and retrieve them.

However, there is no rush. Nyx has slumbered in the moon for millennia now, and she is patient - if it takes Ryoji a few centuries to comb the planet and find every last piece, then so be it. She will wait.

Ryoji isn't in much of a hurry, either. He grieves for this planet - for humanity and for his friends. He grieves for the protagonist - whether Minato or Minako - most of all. And when their bodies finally expire, he does his best to give them whatever semblance of a funeral he can. It is not hard, after all, to call forth flames to cremate their remains. He returns periodically to tend to their graves - cultivating a garden, if he can. Assuming, of course, Aigis allows him. It is possible that she might fight him - refuse to let him near their bodies. After all, this is his fault.

... and he wouldn't press the issue with her. If she fights him, he will defend himself, but he goes out of his way to try not to damage her or let her be damaged. Until he discovers Labrys, after all, she is his only company, even if she tries to take out her anger and grief on him.

They meet from time to time and perhaps they clash. Ryoji tries to tell her what he's doing, and maybe she listens. But she will not help, and she is not ready to die - she will not give to him her heart. But all the same, perhaps... perhaps they never get along, or perhaps she tolerates him, if only so she won't be alone either. They meet sometimes. And Ryoji continues his slow search.

[CANON POINT A = here, with Ryoji wandering and dealing with Aigis and perhaps Labrys, or perhaps he simply lets her continue to sleep and gently removes her heart. This needs decided upon and/or discussed.]

Time passes, and even robots cannot last forever. Even if physically she could be repaired and have parts replaced and keep on running, Aigis mentally grows tired. She can endure much, but she cannot endure eternity. And besides, with time and contemplation, she has grown more at peace with herself and what happened to the world. She has mourned and perhaps she still mourns, but she is finally ready. Ready to rest. Ready to die.

She and Ryoji have a long talk, and he is perhaps a bit reluctant at first, because he wants to know she is sure (and because... he knows it will be terribly lonely without her and the last two Plumes of Dusk she has in her heart). But she is ready, and when she asks, he cannot refuse.

Gently, he takes her into his arms and apologizes to her for all the suffering he has caused her. Maybe she tells him that she forgives him. With tears in his eyes and a soft smile on his lips, Ryoji gives her a farewell kiss as he removes her heart. Maybe in the end, as her gears wind down, her lips are left in a smile of her own, as she lays upon his lap - like how in another life many years ago, she might have held her protagonist on the rooftop of a school that is now naught but dust.

Ryoji buries her, too. And he marks this last grave with his scarf tied about the marker.

And with that, there is nothing left for him, either. If he is Minako's route, however, he lingers on for a time. Seeing the world his dearest had been a part of one last time ere he lets himself go. If he is Minato's route, is is now that he lets himself fade once more, dissolving back into Nyx and letting his own consciousness fade.

[CANON POINT B = here, after he has buried Aigis. This would be the canon point used for Tower of Animus; the other canon point would be for most anywhere else.]





PERSONALITY AT CANON POINT A:
Ryoji at this point in time would be defined chiefly by his resignation. He is still more than capable of smiling and laughing - in memorial of those who can no longer, if nothing else - but he does so rarely. He has lost his innocence and does not get as caught up in the wonder and beauty of the world and of life as he once did. He still appreciates beauty and does find wonder in new things he discovers in his travel - buildings he's never seen before, books he finds and reads, beautiful view of the ocean or of a valley or a mountain - but his ability to feel joy is muted, tempered by the knowledge that there is no one for him to share these things with save for Aigis.

He is usually very calm, and like his canon self, not particularly prone to anger, though unlike his canon self, he is also no longer prone to quite the same exuberance and excitement. He does, however, carry with him some self-hatred and a lot of guilt both for having had to bring the world to an end and for the continued suffering inflicted upon Aigis by being aware of all of this. And he is still very much mourning the death of humanity and especially the ones he cared about most - the friends he made during his brief time living as purely human. At the same time, however, he is glad that they all died peacefully and had a last few months of joy instead of dread. So really... he has mixed feelings about it all.

He still has a long way to go in terms of coming to terms with everything, all the same. And quite a ways to go before he can find his own inner peace and really be ready for not only Aigis' but also his own end.

If thrown into a game setting, at first he might be a little shell-shocked at suddenly being surrounded by life, again, after so long with stillness, but he would also be joyful to know that there are worlds full of life and a desire to keep on living. And more than anything, he would revel in no longer being alone. If there were canonmates, he would ... be somewhat awkward around them, of mixed feelings whether he should even approach them or not and if so, what he should say to them, but a lot of that would initially be washed away by the simple joy of seeing them again.

He would be amazed to hear of a world where the protagonist chose not to kill him, and he wouldn't understand the decision, especially when he hears about The Seal. He would be upset at the thought of the protagonist dooming him or herself to a long time alone like that, stuck protecting everyone, and it would take a while for him to come to terms with that idea and to accept that the protag'd be okay with that for the sake of everyone else getting to live.

The problem is, though, Ryoji has been comforting himself with the knowledge that no one will suffer any more. There will be no more pain from humanity, no more desire for death because there is nothing left to hurt or to die. Except Aigis, and that kills him to see her suffering too. But... such is how it is.


PERSONALITY DIFFERENCES FOR CANON POINT B
At this point, Ryoji is much more at peace with himself. And he is ready for his own end, now. He has reached a point where he can let go of the guilt and the self-hatred, because everything is at peace now. Everything is dead, and it is time to move on. However, such things may be reawakened with the right triggers - for example, being brought somewhere new and told he must keep on existing.

What he's left with at this point is a 'what now'? What is left for him, now that he has completed his appointed task? The interest of taking him here is to explore how he'd deal with a place where there is nothing but suffering. How does he react? What does he do? How does he find a new identity for himself, when his primary purpose has been fulfilled?