The Final Nightmare
...She woke up in the cave.
That cave.
The one she met him in. Back when he wasn't himself.
...And then she heard the slow mechanical plodding behind her. Her back goes stiff as she dares not turn around. Because she knows it never likes to attack from behind.
It doesn't get to see her fear that way.
It circles around her, still barely wreathed in shadow aside from its eyes and the screen on its stomach.
"Hello again. I know you remember who I am. Is this place not lovely?"
. . . It waves to welcome her to the place she'll be spending the rest of her life.
"It is the perfect home for a beast like you, after what you did. The perfect grave for someone who let someone she considered a friend die."
...No reaction.
"...Well. Because you were so eager the last time. Let us "cut to the chase," as you said."
Its fox-like tail elongates into a scorpion-like spear... and dives it straight at her shoulder.
...Only to be grabbed mid-lunge by a metal-plated gauntlet.
"...I know what you are." she said aloud. "You aren't Neptune. You're not even Antares."
Her soul flashed a radiant red. And what was once damp, dirtied casual wear turned into a dented, sturdy suit of armor as her skin turned a vibrant green. And with that, she crumpled its tail in her hand and sent it hissing back into the shadows, observing her like a wary predator.
"...You're the part of me that hates myself for what I did. What I am. The one that's always used any chance it got to say I was better off dead than existing the way I was born. And you're wearing their skin because one was the person I was afraid of upsetting most of all. And the other was the one that would've proven I'd learned nothing if I gave in and killed him.
...You're the most pathetic part of me. And I'm done letting you control me."
...The eyes grow more distant from one another as something begins contorting and snapping in the dark. It steps forth from the shadows and into the light her SOUL casts. Its carapace barely reflects any light. Its eyes shift like the Dark Fountains themselves.
"PATHETIC, AM I? HOW MUCH MORE PATHETIC WILL IT BE... WHEN YOU MARCH BACK INTO THE LAKE BEGGING FOR HIS FORGIVENESS?"
...She tossed a rock full-force into its snout.
"Shut up and fight, you needlenose freak."
- INKYUBI draws near