You fight. You fight, and rip your own mind apart in search of victory. You scream and you wail and you dredge up the last reserves of your strength to kill kill kill!! the boy in the mask. Loki's Call of Chaos rips through your mind and obliterates anything you might have felt before, removes any hesitation, removes the need to protect yourself in favor of destroying everything in your wake, including yourself.

But even still, it's not enough. Weary, broken, defeated, injured and aching and near whatever passes for death in the Metaverse, you're left on the cold metal floor waiting for their judgement. Their jury, their execution. Ren Amamiya, Joker, the boy in the mask, the boy who called himself your rival, the boy who could have been your friend if you weren't such a fucked up excuse of a human being, defeats you anyway. He and his stupid friends extend their hands in forgiveness, something you've never experienced and certainly never offered. It's so tempting to reach out and take their hands.

A puppet wearing your face enters the scene and points a gun. Shoot them, he says. You were nothing but a puppet from the very beginning. Your plan to kill your father would never have worked. You'd never live long enough to see it. He knew.

They're too strong to fight. You and the boy in the mask and all of his friends are exhausted from battle, from the slog through the palace, from going strike for strike with all the killing intent you could muster. Shido knew.

You push yourself to your feet, legs shaking, voice cracking with desperation and shoot the boy with your face. You're good at shooting. You hit him, you turn, you shoot the bulkhead door, slamming it shut between you and Ren. He and his friends are safe. The boy with your face dies here. Agony, white-hot, spasms through your whole body, and you almost collapse, choking on your own blood. This isn't a movie or a video game. You don't live through things like that, not even in the Metaverse.

You make a promise with him. There are tears in your eyes as you point your gun toward the boy with your own face, see him do the same. So, you manage, fighting past the bile in your throat. My final enemy is a puppet version of myself. I...!

Before you can finish that thought, he fires. You fire. You feel pain, cold, metal and gunpowder and blood all mixing together. And then, for the first time in your life, you feel nothing.