"Changed," Crossover, Digital Devil Saga/Persona 3, Shinjiro/Heat, hunger
The new information hasn't come from the Karma Temple, or if it did then the Temple has turned on them. Shinjiro doesn't care which, at this point. The brand on the inside of his right wrist throbs -- he knows Akihiko has a matching one on the left, his...mirror, he thinks the word is, though he doesn't know what (else) that means. And he knows hunger, which is a word that must have come with the light, with the strange data that loops at the periphery of his attention all the time now. It feels like damage of some kind, but he wasn't injured in the skirmish with the Vanguards, so --
"Shinji," Heat says -- growls, is the word, and he has no context for that -- and when Shinjiro looks up the Embryon's right-hand man (what does that mean?) is watching him, eyes bright as -- as fire? -- and blood splattered on his hands, on his uniform, on his mouth.
"Sir," Shinjiro says. His eyes track the movement of Heat's hands, the fresh bright blood on them. It makes the hunger worse, and the mark on his wrist aches.
"You changed too, didn't you?" Heat says. He holds up his arm, and there's a blackened mark there, too, outlined in red, glowing.
Shinjiro's hackles rise, and he wants to bare his teeth, wants to lunge -- the new data screaming, threatening to overwhelm his conscious thought. "Yes," he says, and his own voice sounds strange in his ears, harsh and too low, too raw.
Heat laughs, and the sound is a challenge. "Hungry?" he says. He lifts his hand to his lips and licks the blood from his fingertips, his teeth flashing white, his tongue raw pink. The thing in Shinjiro's blood twists and burns, and --
And Shinjiro can't stop himself, the drive in his limbs stronger than the commands from the temple (-Do not turn on your own- -Obey the word of your leader-) and he lunges, catching Heat half by surprise -- he must -- with both arms around his middle, knocking them both to the concrete. His hands scrable for purchase on the smooth plates of Heat's armor, and he claws his way up to bite at Heat's face, licking, the blood copper-sharp on his tongue and he's snarling, and Heat growls back. The taste is everything he has ever craved -- what does it mean to crave? -- and it jolts his entire body, richness and power. Heat shifts, twists under him, like he's trying to buck Shinjiro off, like -- the musculature in his chest and shoulders is changing, heaving, splitting as he turns into something monstrous. The alien thing in Shinjiro's head roars, and his limbs shudder, burn, spasming and shifting and -- his name is Castor, and he wants, baring his fangs at the thing that Heat has become. Beneath the plates of its armor he knows he will find warm flesh and more bright copper blood.
They grapple, rolling, and not-Heat sinks claws into Shinjiro's, Castor's, arms and it hurts and he craves and the scent of his own blood makes both of them fight harder -- and then there's the sound of a girl's voice
-Light shines on Heaven-
and the craving fades, bleeds away from their limbs, leaves them trembling and bloodied and -- the word for it, Shinjiro knows at once, is peaceful.