Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/ works/11445945. Rating: Explicit Archive Warning: Rape/Non-Con, Underage Category: F/F Fandom: Persona_5 Relationship: Shadow_Niijima_Sae_noncons_Niijima_Makoto Character: Niijima_Sae, Niijima_Makoto, Takamaki_Ann, Persona_5_Protagonist Additional Tags: Forced_Orgasm, rape_&_recovery, Sex_to_Pay_off_Debt Collections: Nonconathon_2017 Stats: Published: 2017-07-09 Words: 2205 ****** High Limit ****** by Gonzolidation Summary The Phantom Thieves, at the end of their strength, are granted egress from the House of Darkness in the sixth Palace by Shadow Sae ... in exchange for Makoto. Notes Noncon as a window into the broken family dynamic that exists between Sae and Makoto. "H-Hey." No one at Leblanc but Ann and Makoto, seated at one of the booths. Rain drummed against the front of the café, dotting the windows and dripping from the awning. "Do you ... wanna talk about what happened? I mean, you don't have to, but —" Makoto looked down at the tabletop, her face neutral, both hands holding a full mug of coffee, her knuckles white. She took a long, shuddering breath, but said nothing. "I think you should. You can't just ... sit on this. It's not like you." And Makoto said, her voice very soft, "No, it's not. Because nothing like this has ever happened to me. I ... don't even know where to start. I'm so lost right now, Ann." Eyes full of tears, face pale, but she maintained her control, not letting a single tear fall. "So ... just talk. About anything. I think you'll find where to go if you just —" "If I just – ?" And she thought back to that night at the sixth Palace. * * * * Shadows lurking in the darkness. No abilities left to use. No magic left to cast. Only a deep and primal fear, perhaps of the dark, perhaps of dying. Personae had great power, but they also had limits, and the Phantom Thieves had reached theirs. A voice – female, familiar – had come from overhead: "Can't solve the puzzle? I'm a little disappointed." A dry chuckle. "But the house is generous. I'm willing to let you out of the House of Darkness and go home for the day –" A long pause for effect. "– if you leave Makoto here for the night. Don't worry." They could almost hear her smile. "She'll be returned to you when you come back. I'll even let you mount a rescue. She'll just be a little –" Another pause. "– less than she was before. Think it over for a bit." They gathered to discuss the issue in a corner of the maze that seemed more or less devoid of Shadows, looking for a consensus, as the Phantom Thieves always did, but Joker immediately refused to abandon any of his teammates, and he looked up at the black ceiling, asking Shadow Sae if he could take the place of Makoto. Her response: "Admirable, but no. I'm not interested in having just any Phantom Thief. It's got to be her, and that's the only forfeit I'm willing to accept." Her voice had a hard edge to it, one that Makoto recognized as a refusal to budge on the issue. "It's all right, Joker," she said, bowing her head. "You can't always be the one to put yourself on the line. Not this time. I'll ... do it. I'll agree to it. You can come back." She forced a smile. "Even if she didn't say it, it's implied. You'll be able to return." He nodded, and Shadow Sae said from above, "It's a deal, then. You all go. Makoto, stay where you are. I'll be down as soon as I'm satisfied the others are gone." Ann was the last one to leave. She turned and looked over her shoulder one more time. A silent understanding passed between her and Makoto in that instant. I'll be all right, Makoto wanted to say, then, but she did not know that for certain. * * * * "I ... thought it'd be something like that. I don't know why, but I did." "But you do know why, Ann. Don't you?" Makoto took a breath. "Because of what happened with Kamoshida. Because of your friend Shiho. Right?" "I – yeah. But this wasn't the same. I mean, she's your –" She did not say it. "It was her Shadow. That's how I rationalized it to myself. She is, and yet she's not. I thought about ... all the ways it wasn't her, even if it really was her." * * * * A voice in her ear, then, as soon as the Phantom Thieves departed. "Your friends have a debt to pay. Are you really sure you know what that means? After all, you're the one who's going to have to pay it, and you've got a long night ahead." The voice dropped almost to a hiss. "You never do weigh the consequences of your decisions." "I'll do whatever you want. I-I mean it." "Do you really? I bet you're asking yourself how much pain you can handle. If you know me, though, as I'm sure you do, then you know it isn't about pain. It's about winning." A note of desperation in her voice – alien, yet intimate. "I want to win. I want to defeat you. Utterly. Completely. I've had to compromise so much to get where I am, but you –" Hatred. Jealousy. Venom. "– you've never had to sacrifice your integrity, your ideals, so many things. Pure as the driven snow. When I'm done with you, you won't be." Makoto, since becoming a Phantom Thief, had learned the meaning of fear, but she had never before felt it all the way to the core of her being like she did in that instant. "First things first. You're not a Phantom Thief any more. Here, tonight, that's not going to be there to protect you any more." And Makoto felt a wave of nausea pass through her as her costume disappeared, leaving her as only herself in her school uniform. "That's the symbol of what you believe, after all. I don't want that between you and me." "What do you want, Sae?" "On your knees." Makoto complied, unable to shake the cold feeling that had settled in your stomach. "Look at me." She did, looking up at the Shadow of her sister as it stared back at her, yellow eyes glowing like the lights of the casino. "I've always cared for you." Makoto blinked, not expecting the change of tone from harshness to kindess. "I've always looked after you. I'm your guardian. Aren't I?" Makoto nodded. "I've hurt so you wouldn't have to. But now you're going to feel all of that hurt for yourself." Shadow Sae touched her face, her black-gloved fingers brushing her cheeks as Makoto said, swallowing hard, "I-I'm ready. You don't have to hold back if you —" "No, Makoto." From kindness to deep cold. "You're not ready." A hard slap, and Makoto tasted blood on her lips. She immediately thought of the only time her sister had slapped her in the real world – years ago, for talking back. About their father. The physical sting of that had not compared to how it had hurt her in her heart. As herself, she did not have access to her Persona. By submitting to Shadow Sae, she had closed that aspect of herself off, and the powerlessness that welled up inside her reminded her of how deep the waters of fear could run if they rose up over her head. The Shadow did not give her a chance to recover, to reflect. She tossed her effortlessly across the room, only to appear before her there and pick her up again, needing only one hand as she said, "You've never been in any real danger before. You've always been safe. Secure. That's an illusion, and I'm going to show you that now." The tear of fabric. Makoto wanted to raise up her hands, ward her off, but the Shadow was too strong, rending her clothes as if they had been made of paper, not stopping until everything she wore lay in tatters at her feet, until she stood naked before her. "What are you willing to give me now, Makoto?" "I don't have anything to give you." "You and I both know that isn't true." And Shadow Sae held her, her embrace like steel as she used two fingers to stroke her sister in a place that no foreign hands had touched. "And you're going to tell me what you can give me that's precious to you." "I-I –" She wanted to tell her to stop, knew that she could not make her stop. "– my virginity. Is ... that what you want?" It made her sick to her stomach to say it. "It's more than just that." Her two fingers came away wet before she returned to her ministrations. "I want you to thank me. Thank me for doing this for you, just like I've done so many other things for you. Taking care of you has become my life." Her voice dropped to a hiss again. "The least you owe me is this. So ... thank me." "U-Uh –" Expert touch. Warmth started to build between her legs, flowing up into her insides as Shadow Sae stroked her, worked her clit, made her body shiver. "I-I –" "Is it so hard to say?" She had a pleading note to her voice. "I've done everything for you. What's wrong with giving something to me in return?" No longer pleading. "What's wrong with giving everything to me? Including this? You need to thank me, Makoto." "I d-don't –" She moaned, and it mortified her to make the noise. "I –" Her knees weakened, her breath shortened. "I can't. Please. I –" She was already about to come, and there was nothing at all right about it. "I can't thank you. I just can't. I –" She gasped, trembling as her sister brought her to orgasm. Too easily. Too quickly. "That's right," the Shadow said. "You can't. And that's why I'm going to make your body thank me on your behalf. Over and over. All night. You're going to pay for all those years of ingratitude." Her voice distorted, those yellow eyes the only light in the room. "That's not what you give someone who loves you. You can't even thank me?" Makoto remembered very little for a long time after that first orgasm, only a haze of being forced to the floor on all fours, of being pleasured until her voice broke, of being told to offer thanks, praise, but being unable to do so, being barely able to speak, let alone put words together. She remembered crying, sobbing until she almost choked, until she started begging, pleading, trying to ask her sister to stop hurting her. But the hour did come when Shadow Sae relented, holding Makoto close, stroking her hair, singing a soft lullaby that their mother had taught her long ago, rocking her back and forth for a long time before she said, her voice turning calm and undistorted for that moment, "I've won. You don't have anything else to give me." She sounded almost like her real self. "You're stronger than you know. If you'd just show that side of you to the Sae you know on your side, then –" She trailed off there, saying no more. Makoto lay there in the darkness, alone. Afraid, too. But it was shortly after that she heard footsteps in the silence, approaching at a slow and careful pace. * * * * "I told them to let me be the one to go back in there for you. I didn't want anybody to see you ... like that, you know. That's why I brought clothes and a blanket." "Thank you, Ann. That means a lot to me." "But you're not okay, are you?" "No." Makoto stared down at what little reflection she had in her coffee. "And I'm not going to be, not for a while. I don't know what I'm going to do when I go home." "You can't look her in the face yet." "N-No. We've got to get her Treasure. That's all there is to it." "It's not her, you know. I mean, it's like you said: It is, but it's not. Her Shadow's all of her pain. Her anger, maybe. It's all these things she can't express, and she took them all out on you. You've got to remember: Out here, she's still the person you love." Ann sighed. "I know that sounds really dumb and hollow, but I know it's not wrong. And when we go back to finish this, you'll be a Phantom Thief, you'll have your Persona back, everything will be all right. You won't be helpless there ever again." "Ann." "Yeah?" "Can I ... stay with you until we get all of this done? I don't want to go back yet." "Sure. I mean, you're going to have to deal with it eventually, but you won't be alone." Ann nodded emphatically. "That's a promise. I won't let you down." "I know you won't." * * * * When the Phantom Thieves defeated Shadow Sae, and when she looked up at Makoto from within the giant armor she had used to defend herself, Makoto thought she saw relief in her eyes. Understanding, perhaps. But she also saw a long road ahead, not only for her, but for both of them together ... as a family that needed mending. What happened before ... was because of all the hurt you carried inside you that I didn't know. Just like the real you will never know what happened here, how this you hurt me. But I know now that the two of us are still a family. I've just got to put that back together. Awakening to her true self had been one thing. Awakening to the needs of the person she cared about most had been another thing entirely. She intended to work harder for that thing than she had for anything else. END. Please drop_by_the_archive_and_comment to let the author know if you enjoyed their work!