Amu. Listen.
She almost jumped, tense all over. Exa was back? Just in the nick of time, too. Thank the gods…
One of which she was looking at. She knew that, as a simple, unquestionable fact, but she hadn't processed the implications yet. Her family had never been very religious.
She put those thoughts on a shelf for the moment, though. Exa was still talking, and Nyarlathotep was
looking at her—she listened as carefully as she could, without daring to take her eyes off it.
An argument based on intellect and morality will have no impect upon Nyarlathotep. Such emotions are beyond him in his current role, and attempting to force him to comprehend them anyway will require him to divert more of his attention here. His consciousness becomes increasingly unstable when he does this, leading to his increased belligerency.
Reason with him? She… hadn't really considered it. Probably the only reason she hadn't run away, besides Fumi, was that she was afraid to show her back—actually, she didn't have
any arguments. Exa would tell her what to do, right?
He is desperate, but he seeks your assistance. He will not deliberately destroy you, but may do so in his attempts to empower you, as I cannot predict how his power would interact with mine. Remember however that he has come to you
for assistance. Ask it for clarification on how it expects you to assist it—as this should pacify it—and do not succumb to fear, treating with the mighty is as much the role of a Solar as is beating back the darkness.
Its voice was as flat and emotionless as always. Amu felt a growing sense of horror. This was advice, yes, but—
I have the utmost faith in you.
—That made one of them!
She had to do this on her own? Without even Ran?
She hadn't been this scared last time she'd faced Nyarlathotep. She didn't
want to be this scared. She'd say something wrong—
again!—and it'd make the thing stop holding back. This wasn't like facing a demon; Maya hadn't been so scary, and had turned out to be nice enough after waking up. Dubhe… she'd never gone close to Dubhe. Samael had been scary, but just in the physical sense… she hadn't felt it, the way she could feel Nyarlathotep's regard, and it had been a physical being that could be hurt…
…even if Nyarlathotep had been something like that, she didn't think she could hurt it. There was so much darkness, it'd be like boiling an ocean…
But she couldn't let it know how scared she was, either. She kept every muscle frozen by an effort of will, though she knew anyone looking would see what she was doing.
Pointless…
Is this an emergency situation?
She'd never felt this helpless in her life. Not even when Yui told her she was moving away, probably the worst day of her life before… two days ago, and then yesterday, after the end of the world. She remembered that, like it was happening all over again; feeling parts of her
mind burn away under Kagutsuchi's assault, holding a live wire with her bare hands.
Amu, hold. Nyarlathotep is—
She didn't want to feel like this!
Filtering mediator connections.
And then she didn't.
Amu lowered her hands, which at some point she'd raised in front of her face. Only a few seconds had passed, and nothing had really changed; Nyarlathotep was still hanging over her, pressing against the Chaos-Repelling Pattern like some kind of dark fog cloud, Fumi was still deeply asleep, and seeing more than a meter or two in front of her was—except for the area around Nyarlathotep—still impossible.
On the other hand, everything had changed. She was still scared, sure, because she wasn't enough of an idiot not to be, but Nyarlathotep's pressure against her mind had abated. She hadn't even realised it was doing that, until suddenly it wasn't. She could think again.
Thanks, she told Exa.
I'll take it from here. I don't know what I'm doing, but…
Eh. She felt almost calm again. She'd figure something out.
She looked up. This was just like facing a school bully… right,
no it wasn't.
"And that's why I don't want your power unless I have to," she told Nyarlathotep, narrowing her eyes slightly. "Advise, sure, I'll take that." And dump it. "But first, what exactly do you want me to do for you?"
Though, if grabbing its attention was inherently bad, wouldn't asking it something like that also be bad? That made sense, but there was no way to avoid it. At least previously she'd been able to feel its attention, even if it had been completely overwhelming… Hmm.
Hey, Exa, she thought.
Is there any way you can let a little bit of its thoughts through? Just enough so I can get some idea how much of it is here.
———————
That request poses a problem, as you are in fact not responsible for filtering out Nyarlathotep's assault. If assault it is; the closest match is to Amu's own passive fear aura, an irony which isn't lost on you. At the very least, between the two of them, nothing else is likely to show up.
[Filtering incoming mediator connections: 1/5 filtered]
A glance at the fungus' debug output confirms that it's still doing so, but although it seems happy to keep you informed of what it's doing, it's neither answering queries nor allowing you to issue orders.
So far, you've been able to prevent Amu from noticing its presence; as preventing external influence on your exalts is one of your primary functions, and realising it's there would be influence, this was the necessary and obvious thing to do. However, it is likely that only Amu is capable of issuing orders for it to follow.
Assisting Amu in whatever way she deems necessary is also one of your functions. For a conflict like this, where the consequences are imperfect for both possible choices, the choice of outcome is left to the judgement of higher functions.
[ ] Tell her a partial release is impractical.
[ ] Let Amu know the details, including the fungus' existence.
[ ] Write-in
A/N: You have eighteen hours!
