With Shadow Mori Minami's intelligence, of course she understood that Toyokawa Sakiko and the others could not possibly kill her.
Because as long as she, the Shadow, died, the real Mori Minami would instantly lose all drive and desire, becoming like a vegetative patient.
And Mori Minami was not only tied to the interests of a massive conglomerate and an extensive social network, possessing extremely high social status, but more importantly—
She was Wakaba Mutsumi's biological mother.
Besides, setting aside their great power and all kinds of strange encounters, Toyokawa Sakiko and Nagasaki Soyo were ultimately still kind-hearted young girls.
No matter how dissatisfied Toyokawa Sakiko was with the current situation, personally turning her friend's mother into a vegetable and triggering social turmoil as a result would always be a messy problem to handle.
Thinking this, Shadow Mori Minami, whose limbs had been severed as she lay on the ground, moved her eyes slightly. Her gaze passed over the tip of the naginata blade close at hand and landed on Shinobu Kocho.
This girl was an exception. Her world was extremely cruel, and she would not hold back against enemies, nor would she consider the consequences of her actions.
If this were her world, that naginata would have already cut off Shadow Mori Minami's head cleanly.
However, this was Toyokawa Sakiko's world. It was not Shinobu's place to overstep and give her opinion.
Therefore, Shadow Mori Minami was quite certain that the worst-case scenario for her was being forcibly corrected of her distorted desires, then returning to the sea of collective unconscious like countless other ordinary people's subconscious minds.
Of course, this was like the Ship of Theseus.
If a ship kept replacing its old planks during its voyage, once every part had been replaced, was that ship still the original ship?
And going even further, what if the old parts that had been removed were reassembled into a complete ship and placed beside it?
Which one was the true Ship of Theseus?
Under normal circumstances, people would think this was a subjective matter, depending on one's needs and thoughts. It was just a game of words and logic for philosophers to discuss.
But the painful part now was—
This was the goddamn cognitive world.
In this world, cognition was everything.
Once those distorted desires were corrected, would she still be the current her?
Probably, the moment her desires were stripped away, the current her would already be dead.
However, in Toyokawa Sakiko and the others' eyes, perhaps this was merely "returning to normal."
After all, according to ordinary people's values, a Shadow like herself, whose distorted desires had even produced an independent palace, was an aberrant thing that should never have existed in the world to begin with.
But for Mori Minami herself, this was indisputable annihilation.
"Forget it. There's nothing I can do now."
Shadow Mori Minami looked at the dim sky and silently sighed in her heart.
Having the self forcibly altered and reshaped was better than having her consciousness utterly scattered into nothingness and becoming a muddle-headed empty shell.
A bad life was still better than a good death.
After mentally preparing herself for the worst, Shadow Mori Minami outwardly maintained a relaxed, self-mocking expression.
Even with all four limbs cut off, lying face-up in the ruins, she still tried her best to preserve the last shred of dignity.
Nagasaki Soyo's Hariti maintained its blade-ready posture and made no further movement.
Nagasaki Soyo tilted her head slightly and looked toward Toyokawa Sakiko, clearly asking what they should do next.
Meeting Soyo's gaze, Toyokawa Sakiko took a small step forward and calmly observed Shadow Mori Minami.
She confirmed that the other party truly had no intention of resisting.
Then she lightly nodded toward Nagasaki Soyo.
After receiving a clear instruction, Nagasaki Soyo moved her will slightly.
The enormous Hariti floating behind her steadily raised the arm holding the naginata, moving the blade tip away from Shadow Mori Minami's nose.
At the same time, Shadow Mori Minami felt the sharp power that had been lingering in the wounds at her severed limbs, blocking her from mobilizing cognitive energy to restore her body, finally dissipate.
Instantly, the black sludge-like cognitive energy that had only been able to writhe weakly at the cuts became active. Like living octopus tentacles, it suddenly shot outward and transformed into dozens of thin black threads, precisely wrapping around the severed limbs scattered around her.
Those limbs were violently dragged back into place and fitted perfectly against her torso.
Black sludge flowed rapidly at the joints. In only a few breaths, her four limbs were restored as before, and even the cuts and damage to her clothing vanished.
Shadow Mori Minami pressed both hands against the ground and slowly stood up.
As if nothing had happened, she straightened her slightly messy collar.
Then, with a somewhat resigned attitude, she looked helplessly at Toyokawa Sakiko and asked:
"What do you… intend to do next?"
Toyokawa Sakiko lowered her eyes and fell into brief thought.
A moment later, she opened the chat group and sent Wakaba Mutsumi a message.
Then the expressionless Wakaba Mutsumi appeared beside Toyokawa Sakiko through the group teleportation function.
Her gaze swept over the collapsed ruins and Toyokawa Sakiko's group without showing any surprise.
Finally, her eyes landed on Shadow Mori Minami, who had just stood up. Her gaze did not waver at all.
When Shadow Mori Minami saw Shadow Wakaba Mutsumi appear, only a faint trace of complexity flashed deep in her eyes. She did not react much either.
According to the rules recorded in the Otherworld Navigation app, returning a Shadow that had been completely twisted by its own desires and constructed an independent palace back to normal was not something that could be solved by simply beating them up.
Rather, there was an extremely complicated process.
First, one had to explore the cognitive world and find the Treasure—the source that had caused the Shadow's desires to become distorted.
Because the Treasure was cognitively regarded as something inviolable, it could not be taken directly after being found.
One had to return to the real world and, in some form, send a calling card to the person in reality, declaring that their distorted desires would be stolen.
Only when the real self became aware of the concept that their desire was about to be stolen, producing intense emotional turmoil and cognitive change, would the Treasure in the cognitive world truly manifest as a physical object.
But from the bottom of her heart, Toyokawa Sakiko felt that this process was far too troublesome.
She had always been thinking about whether there was a simpler method. Ideally, they could resolve everything directly in the cognitive world without affecting reality.
At first, she had wondered whether she could directly construct a rule through her own willpower: after completely defeating the opponent, she could use the victor's will to forcibly correct their psychological distortion.
However, progress had never been smooth.
But over the past two days, through her insights into Domain Expansion and Binding Vows, especially after personally witnessing Shadow Mori Minami and Shinobu Kocho forcibly overlay their mental landscapes onto the cognitive world during the battle just now, she finally had some idea.
And the reason she had called Wakaba Mutsumi over now was that she wanted to test whether the innate technique of Mutsumi's possibility avatar—Cursed Spirit Manipulation—could directly strip away Shadow Mori Minami's distorted desires.
Toyokawa Sakiko explained her idea in concise terms.
After hearing Toyokawa Sakiko's thoughts, Wakaba Mutsumi nodded lightly.
She turned to face the target, showing not the slightest hesitation about attacking her mother's Shadow.
On the contrary, Shadow Mori Minami, who had already completely given up and calmly accepted her fate, hurriedly shouted:
"Stop! Wait a moment, Sakiko!"
Then she keenly noticed something and glanced at Hariti, who had silently raised the naginata in her hand by a few degrees.
She quickly raised both hands in an extremely standard surrender gesture and continued:
"I'm not trying to resist. I just want… to state my own request."
Nagasaki Soyo's brows furrowed almost imperceptibly, and she curled her lips without saying anything.
Although she felt a burst of displeasure at Shadow Mori Minami trying to close the distance and intimately call Sakiko by name, the other party was, in reality, an elder who had watched Sakiko grow up since childhood. Soyo could not really say anything. She could only stand there coldly.
Wakaba Mutsumi turned to look at Toyokawa Sakiko.
Toyokawa Sakiko did not speak. She merely watched Shadow Mori Minami with a calm gaze.
After confirming that there was no problem, Shadow Mori Minami lowered her hands, looked into Toyokawa Sakiko's eyes, and said:
"According to what you just said… you want me to return to the sea of collective unconscious?"
Toyokawa Sakiko nodded lightly.
After receiving confirmation, Shadow Mori Minami's expression became more serious than ever before. She stared straight into Toyokawa Sakiko's eyes and said:
"Could you… not send me back? Instead, could you try taking away most of my distorted cognitive power, while still leaving a little behind so that I can continue to exist independently outside the collective unconscious?"
After she finished speaking, Toyokawa Sakiko did not answer immediately.
Her eyes narrowed slightly. A sharp glint flashed in her pupils as she asked:
"You're probably… not just afraid of death, are you?"
Having her thoughts directly exposed, Shadow Mori Minami first gave a bitter smile and nodded helplessly.
"There is indeed a part of me that fears my own disappearance. After all, once my distorted desires are forcibly erased, will I still be the current me? No, I should say that I definitely will not be the current me anymore. Any existence with self-awareness would instinctively resist that kind of erasure. That feeling is even more terrifying than physical death."
But when she reached this point, she took a deep breath, restrained the bitter smile on her face, and became serious once more.
"But the main reason is actually that I don't want to follow the collective unconscious back into Mementos. When I was defeated just now, I originally thought there was no room to bargain. The victor is king, the loser is a bandit. Either I die, or I get dragged back. But after hearing your idea about using Cursed Spirit Manipulation to erase my distorted desires…"
She glanced at Wakaba Mutsumi.
"I thought perhaps we could attempt a method that achieves your goal while also letting me retain some power, so I don't return to the sea of collective unconscious."
Toyokawa Sakiko's gaze never left Mori Minami's face. Her brows rose slightly, her expression solemn, her tone grave as she asked:
"You mean that even for ordinary people, blending into the sea of collective unconscious with the masses is not necessarily a good thing?"
But Shadow Mori Minami shook her head. Her voice carried a barely concealed tremor.
"I don't know. I only know that the instant I awakened an independent self, I felt fear toward the existence in the deepest layer of Mementos."
She raised her hand and pressed it firmly against her chest, her gaze seemingly passing beyond the boundary of these shattered ruins and looking into some extremely distant darkness.
"The reason I desperately used desire to distort myself was to escape the sea of collective unconscious and avoid being carried by the torrent of the collective unconscious into the deepest layer of Mementos!"
Nagasaki Soyo furrowed her brows. She did not quite understand what Mori Minami was saying. A thoughtful look flashed through Shinobu Kocho's eyes.
Toyokawa Sakiko, meanwhile, fell into a long silence.
"The thing in the deepest layer of Mementos…"
Toyokawa Sakiko murmured in a nearly inaudible voice.
Previously, she had not been interested in the subway-like Mementos because there had been no need to investigate it.
For her and her companions, that place had merely been somewhere to acquire resources, test abilities, and solidify power.
In her common sense, that was the destination of all ordinary people's subconscious minds. Logically, it should have been an absolutely normal region. She had never thought about putting effort into actively investigating its full scope.
But now, a powerful Shadow capable of manifesting a palace was telling her—
The reason she had spared no effort to distort herself was actually to escape from there.
If Mori Minami was telling the truth, if the deepest layer of Mementos—the final convergence point of humanity's subconscious—really hid some indescribable terror…
A chill quietly rose from the bottom of Sakiko's heart.
Was eliminating those Shadows' distorted desires actually a mistake?
If it were strangers with no connection to her, that might be one thing. But if there really was a problem, Mori Minami was Mutsumi's biological mother. And beyond that, what about Sakiko's own father, Toyokawa Sakihiko?
Before long, she was destined to personally erase her father's distorted desire for decadence and self-destruction, returning him to the state of a normal person.
And after he lost that distorted desire, would he too drift with the torrent of the collective unconscious toward the deepest layer of Mementos?
Not only her father.
Many of her friends, everyone in CRYCHIC, the members of Ave Mujica, and her grandfather… their undistorted minds were also currently drifting within the sea of collective unconscious.
One day, everyone she cared about would be swept down into the bottom.
She could not possibly make all of them awaken Personas and become Persona users, could she?
She had to figure this out. Before she understood the truth of Mementos, every correction might be murder in another form.
Toyokawa Sakiko took a deep breath and forcibly pulled her somewhat scattered thoughts back to reality.
But no matter what lay beneath Mementos, that was a problem for the next step. Right now, she had to first resolve the situation before her.
After thinking for a moment, she glanced at Wakaba Mutsumi, who was waiting for instructions, and said:
"Let Mutsumi try first… We'll see whether she can extract those distorted desires without harming you. That is the prerequisite for everything. If Mutsumi can't do it, then everything we just discussed is meaningless."
Shadow Mori Minami was silent for a moment. Finally, she slowly nodded, knowing this was the best chance she could obtain.
"I understand. Go ahead."
She said nothing more, closed her eyes, spread her arms, and completely gave up resistance.
Join here to read ahead.
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 178)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 180)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League ( 126 )
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter110)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl 285
"Is this chat group even serious?" 150
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Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 77
From Kiana, Lord Ravager, Onwa 255
Warhammer: My Primarch Is Remi 210
From Demon Slayer to Grand Ass Volume2/20
Uma Musume, but My Cheat Power 305
Zenless Zone Zero, but Kamen R 76
Multiverse Crossover: The Perf 66
My Cyberpsycho Girlfriend 65
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Uma Musume: A Calamity Born fr 154
I, a Reincarnation-Loop Player Volume4/40
The Violent Girl Group Is Beat 130
Uma Musume: The Horse Girl Who 67
Uma Musume: From Beginner 155
Becoming a Horse Girl, I Will 85
Uma Musume: I Want All 120
I Can Copy Unique Skills 120
Summoning an Evil God, but the 75
Supernatural Multiverse 155
My Harem Is Indescribable 105
Jujutsu Kaisen: Heroic Spirit 110
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The Most Filial Son Under Heav 95
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Reincarnated as a Demon, Skill 80
Hell-Difficulty Dungeon? 55
Transmigrated as Sukuna 105
Checking In in Demon Slayer 95
The Reincarnating Trainer of Tracen Academy 105
I Refuse to Become a Heroic 95
My Best Friend Into a Slime? 80
A Saiyan Stands Above Marvel (This matter is completely finished.)
What Do You Mean by Using a Lab Mod to Be the Hero? 95
Tanya Starts from Re:Zero 90
Why did they assign me to Uma 80
MYGO Beauties 75
DanMachi: Emiya the Giant Hero 80
The Gacha Merchant Who Started 100
Honkai's Otherworld? Wait—Who Are You People?! 120
Emiya Shirou, Determined to Slay Every Curse and Evil Spirit 65
The Uma Musume Who Became 70
I'm Definitely Not the King of 105
After Maxing Out Every Class 110
Honkai: World Modulation Mode 95
I, the Elden Sword Saint 60
Dio Brando Is Challenging FGO 60
No One Knows Pokémon Better 60
I, Sakazuki, Won't Go Down Tha 69
From Trilobites to Titans 57
Chainsaw Man: Contracted with 75
DanMachi: My Party Members Are 86
An Anime Heroine Darkened 60
Yu-Gi-Oh!: Duel Links 70
Honkai: The Fire Devil 70
Honkai Transformation Cards Volume2/30
Age of Heroes, I'm Just a Back 60
Uma Musume Has No Weird Fan Le 74
At age 8, she co-starred with 45
Honkai: Schicksal Media 53
An Extremist in a Slice-of-Lif 30
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