"Mortal, do you want to live?"
Izanami sagged down to the ground, her divine presence seeping into the world around her, manifesting as a forest of grasping arms. In my chest I could feel the swell of Izanagi-no-Mikoto, the words and encouragement of my friends and family still ringing in my ears. For some reason, the question struck me as kind of a no-brainer.
"You have proven that mankind desires more than annihilation. More than entertaining falsehood. You, and your friends, have embraced the truth as fully as your feeble minds could bear."
... Thanks for the encouragement, crazy lady. It'll comfort me late at night when I think about how all my friends are dead, because you killed them.
"Do you wish for your friends to live?"
... Why do you keep asking stupid questions?
"Strike me down now, and I shall retreat from this world, taking the souls of your friends with me, but allowing the rest of the world to survive."
No, you won't. I'll drag you by the hair out of the underworld until you let them go. I promise.
"You have proven that even a few, if they desire the truth strongly enough, are equal to the desire of the unenlightened masses for destruction and deception. I believe that I can give you a way to save your friends."
I'm listening.
"The desire for humanity's destruction reached it's peak two years ago and six hundred thirty seven kilometers from here, in a location named Tatsumi Port Island. In that time, though the desires of the masses of humanity cried out for the death of all life, a select few managed to come together and save the world. They were not so different from you and those you call friends."
... So they're all dead now? You have about a minute to get to the point before I kill you.
"However, they were deceived by one they trusted, and forced to make great sacrifices to seal away the negative aspects of humanity." All of a sudden, the world around us halted. The fog, which she had been emitting throughout the course of our previous fight, froze in midair. Each individual particle of water orienting itself to stare directly at me, as though it were a microscopic eyeball. "Souji Seta. I harbor no ill will towards humanity. I am a goddess that desires to grant the wishes of humanity, and since that time two years ago, humanity's desire for destruction has been curtailed, but not defeated. There is one who wishes to correct the events of that year, and because of it I have the ability to send you back in time, to give you the ability to assist those who would protect humanity from its own self-destructive impulses."
I cleared my throat. I preferred to let my facial expressions speak for me, but this was too important to leave to chance or misinterpretation. "I do this, and my friends come back?"
"I would be sending you back to a time when they are alive," she said, her voice sounding like the smell of rotten meat buried under honey, "Though they will no longer know you, as their younger selves will not yet have met you. In the fullness of time, you would meet them again."
And have to befriend them again. And keep my cool around them, try not to come on too friendly, try not to reference events that hadn't happened yet. Fun.
As if sensing my reluctance, Izanami spoke again. "I would be willing to restore their memories of you once you met them again. It would give you, in essence, another year of time with them. And give you the opportunity to prevent the actions of the other Fools. Should you survive to make it that far, of course."
A chance to undo Adachi's murders, and to stop the people of Inaba from going crazy? That actually... didn't sound so bad. Which meant that it was probably a trap.
"What happens if I don't? What happens if I take the power they've granted me to blow you away?" I asked, feeling the tempest of Personae inside of me rise to a fever's pitch. Izunagi-no-Okami in particular I could feel reaching out to the bodies of my friends, wanting to exercise his gift of life, and I could feel - just beyond my grasp - the ability to undo what Izanami had done.
"Then you will defeat me. My fog shall be scattered, humanity's wish to merge truth and lies unfulfilled. And then in a few years, the death-urge of humanity shall rise again, and a new saga shall emerge, a new Fool, a new journey, a new cycle fraught with peril and with the chance of failure at every turn. If instead you take me up on my offer, sacrifice your family, your friendships in order to discover the truth of Tatsumi Port Island, I feel that the worst that can happen is that you fail to change the course of events in any particular. The world will continue in an anticipated way, and in two years your younger self will defeat me again, with the help of the same friends that you have already made. Should you be willing to take the risk of failure, I will grant you the possibility of accomplishing so much more - a way, perhaps, to seal the death-wish of humanity away from the world."
"So all of this... even Nanako... this was all just a test? A way to find a champion, to represent you in the past?"
Izanami laughed. It was like fingernails on a chalkboard heard murkily, as though from the bottom of a festering swamp. "If so, it was a test that you passed. Souji Seta. Will you go back in time? Will you pit yourself against the ill will of humanity? Will you find a reason for the imperfect creations of mankind to rebel against their artificial natures, and to find new ones? Will you, greatest of my Fools, risk everything to assist another Fool like yourself?"
For a second, I thought... but my decision didn't take long. "Yeah. I'll do it."
My eyes snapped open. I had been awakened by the familiar sound of the announcement system on the train. "Services today will be delayed due to an unfortunate accident. Thank you for your patience." Which was interesting, because a second ago, I had been talking to an ancient goddess of the underworld. Instead of being clenched around a sweat-slick sword, my hands were now loosely grasping a manila folder full of documents and papers. Instead of wearing armor, poorly hidden under the school uniform of Inaba High, I was wearing a somewhat fashionable white shirt, a charcoal grey jacket, a lighter grey chinos and glossy black shoes. I checked the pockets - I had a wallet, and I had a phone, which I immediately proceeded to pull out. As Izanami had hinted, the time on its internal clock read 11:42; April 9, 2009. It was an older model than I was used to, but since I had just traveled back in time almost three years, that probably just meant that it was brand new.
The wallet had quite a few yen in it, but while the id card in the front had my face, it didn't have my name. Apparently I was now somebody named Yu Narukami. I suppose it made sense. Souji Seta was still alive in this world, had just turned fifteen, and was going to school in Tokyo. It made no sense for him to be in - I looked out the windows of the train, still stopped and replaying the same announcement every few minutes, and checked the station signs. Looks like I was in Iwatodai. That made sense; Izanami had said that the world ending event happened at Tatsumi Port Island. Well, I guess it wasn't the worst place to be. Our class had gone here for our class trip after all, so I knew my way around at least a little... wait, wasn't that a bit too much of a coincidence? Had Izanami manipulated our class trip so that I would be familiar with this place?
I picked up the manila folder, and the papers inside confirmed my suspicions. It was transfer paperwork for Yu Narukami, son of Nagi and Nami Narukami (both deceased), soon to be attending Gekkoukan High School. Cute, Izanami. Real cute. It also had a map to the Iwatadai dorm, with railway stations clearly marked. Looked like I wasn't far, though the actual Tatsumi Port Island station would be closer. It didn't look like the train would be moving any time soon, so at this rate walking would be faster... and it would mean I wouldn't have to listen to the automated message thanking me for my patience over and over.
As I stood up, I folded the manila folder so I could put it into the inside pocket of my jacket, but I stopped when I noticed that the pocket already had something in it. I pulled it out. The key to the Velvet Room, and the glasses that Teddie made for me. For a second, I just stood there looking at the glasses, but instead just seeing him throw his cartoonish body into Izanami's grasping hands, in order to buy me a few more seconds to keep attacking. Sorry, Teddie. I'll make sure that things work out better for you, this time. You deserved better. Thinking this, I went ahead and put the glasses on. The world around me didn't change, or suddenly become easier to see, but it made me feel better as I set out alone into the moonlit streets of Iwatodai.
I was halfway to the dormitory when time stopped. Everything around me was cast in a sickly green light, puddles of blood began seeping out of the drains and sewers, and the few people I had seen walking about the city had been replaced by coffins. It felt sort of like the world inside of the TV, but somehow unfamiliar; possessing a grasping, cloying spiritual pressure that made me feel like I was breathing soup. I felt like a high-altitude runner who had suddenly been thrown into the ocean and asked to swim for his life - fitter than the average person to be there, perhaps, but trained with a physical build and a set of skills that was almost completely useless for the situation at hand. In my peripheral vision I saw movement, and I had the sinking suspicion that whatever had happened to the world, it was probably similar enough to the TV realm to harbor Shadows.
... Good thing I'm completely unarmed. Thanks, Izanami. I held my hand out and focused, trying to call my Personas... really, Izanami? You couldn't even leave me those? Or maybe it was that I still had them, but they didn't work in this shadow realm, or they didn't work outside of Inaba; I could still feel their presence in the back of my mind. Either way, I was defenseless, and probably about to be eaten by Shadows, so I started jogging towards the Iwatodai dorm. I didn't know if there would be any particular safety there, but staying on the move to avoid Shadows was probably safest. It wasn't long before I saw one - a disembodied hand, scuttling across the street like a spider. It seemed to be heading northeast, towards the dorm; I gave it a wide berth, and waited until it had passed out of sight completely before following. A few minutes later, another one crawled out of an alley in front of me, heading the same direction as the previous one. Curious, I looked in that direction. After a few seconds, there was a flash of lightning.
That was a Zio spell! I'd recognize the color of that lightning anywhere - I'd certainly used it myself, enough times. And if Shadows were fighting? That meant a Persona user! Which meant that maybe now I'd be able to get some answers. At the very least, I'd have someone nearby who could protect me from Shadows. I quickly headed in that direction, keeping an eye on the street around me for incoming trouble. As I got closer, I could hear the shouts of battle; it sounded like just one person, his voice raw with anger and fear. Behind me, I heard a clang, and whirled - one of the hand-shaped Shadows was sneaking up behind me! I broke into a sprint, heading for the voice I had heard, and started shouting. "HEY! HELP! SOMEONE, HELP ME!" ... It was a little embarrassing, to be honest, but better to be embarrassed than dead.
We saw each other at about the same time. Him sprinting, a grey-haired teen like me, wearing a red vest and armband over his school uniform with ichor-stained gloves on his fists and a handgun in a holster by his side. Me, stylishly dressed and running for my dear life, pursued by a bodiless hand. For a second I almost ran straight for him, but then I saw what he was running from. It reminded me of Izanami, though far cruder and less oppressive than her terrifying presence. It was a being composed entirely of grasping hands at the ends of long arms that moved spiderlike down the street with a series of heavy thuds as each hand-foot fell. One hand carried a blue mask with the roman numeral "I" blazed upon it, which if everything in this world held true to what I knew from the TV Realm meant that it was of the Magician Arcana, but I had never seen a shadow of that size before that wasn't a reflection of someone's soul. As it approached I made a quick turn to the right to run parallel with the other teen, my breath coming fast in the thick, soupy air. "What the hell is that thing?!" I shouted. "And how do we get away from it?!"
"They're - " he gasped for breath between each word, like he had been running for a while. " - called Shadows! And there's a safe place this way!" His eyes widened, and he looked behind me. Crap, with the size of the beast behind him, I had forgotten about the Maya behind me, and something told me it was gaining. Without breaking stride, the grey-haired guy in the red vest pulled the handgun out his holster, but rather than turn it on the thing chasing me, he put the barrel to the side of his head. What? This is no time to commit suicide!
"POLYDEUCES!" he shouted, and shards of psyche like broken glass erupted from the opposite side of his head, as though he had shot through it to release his Persona. It was a muscular blue golemlike figure, its hands and feet almost comically tiny, save for its oversized right hand. That hand crackled with lightning, and with another shout, this time of "ZIO!", the Persona released a bolt of lightning into the thing chasing me. The evil hand erupted in a shower of shadowy ichor, and I did my best to pick up the pace.
Saving me cost him, however, as the multi-armed beast behind him lunged forward and managed to catch his heel. The red-vested guy fell with a shout of fear, and the handgun went flying, skittering across the street. I lunged for it, managing to wrap my fingers around it just in time to see the giant Shadow pick the man who had saved me up by the ankle with one hand and wrap another two hands around his body. Like hell I was going to let it just squeeze him to death! I put the gun beneath my chin and pulled the trigger.
THOU ART I. AND I ART THOU. The familiar words echoed through my soul, but it was an unfamiliar voice. I had expected Izanagi. Instead, I got... "ODYSSEUS!" I see. When I arrived in Inaba, I was the given the power of the embodiment of Hope, and a Persona that symbolized one who ventured into the Underworld to retrieve one who he loved. Now I was a person who had recently completed a war, lost in a realm not his own, who entered the Underworld to seek knowledge, and who would have to undergo many trials to return to his home. These were the thoughts that flew through my head as I summoned the famous hero of Athens, who appeared in a burst of light.
For all that my core Persona was somehow no longer Izanagi, he was still a reflection of my soul, which meant that when he appeared, I was shocked by how similar he looked to my previous Persona. Like Izanagi, he was a slender figure with a sharp, angular look about him; like Izanagi, he wore a dark coat that flared out at the sides, though the silver buttons down both sides and the blood-red tie reminded me more of what Izanagi-no-Okami had worn, a design that was called an admiral's coat. However, instead of razor-edged geta, his feet ended in horse's hooves, and instead of flaring out to the sides, the razor-sharp bands of metal attached to his head came down the back of his spine like a horse's mane. The biggest differences were the flowing cape that billowed like a sail behind him, and the halberd that had been modified to look like an anchor, or perhaps an enormous crossbow.
As the Magician began to squeeze the red-vested boy, I willed Odysseus forward, and with a shout of "CLEAVE!" his razor-edged anchor slashed through its wrist, forcing it to drop its prey onto the pavement. I dashed forward behind my Persona, and darted past the grasping hands to drag the other Persona-user to his feet. Odysseus continued to fend off the Magician with sweeping strikes, but he was as weak as I remembered Izanagi having been at the beginning of my sojourns into the television, and once the Magician started using Bufu spells, the referred pain that I felt through the Persona bond forced me to dismiss him. Without Odysseus holding it back, the giant shadow gained fast, but I had bought enough time that my new friend and I were able to limp to a sturdy-looking building, a quasi-military installation cleverly disguised as a dormitory.
Together we burst through the doors, pivoting and locking them behind us with a sigh of relief. "Akihiko!" Someone shouted. So that was his name. I turned to see a trio of people rush down the stairs towards the two of us. First impressions - the redheaded woman was stunningly beautiful, with a sharp, piercing expression; the frightened-looking brunette next to her was similarly attractive, but in a gentler sort of way. Only the redhead was armed, but both were wearing holsters for gun-shaped devices that matched the one which I was still carrying. Nice job, Izanami! Putting me someplace with two genuine beauties isn't enough to make me forgive what you've done, but it's a start!
"I'm all right." Akihiko said. "It nearly got me - if it hadn't been for this guy here..." The redhead looked like she wanted to say something, but she was interrupted by the last of the three people to have rushed towards us. He was older and kind of unprepossessing, with a goatee; unfortunately for me, out of everyone he was the first one to turn his attention towards me.
"Who are you?" the old guy asked. Well, that was straightforward.
"Sou" - I coughed. I almost gave him my actual name! Wouldn't that have been fun to explain later? "So not the time for introductions right now! I don't know what the hell it is, but it was right behind us!"
As if on cue, the dormitory shook. The redhead took the opportunity to take control of the situation. "Mr. Chairman, get to the control room! Takeba, go upstairs and wake up Arisato. You'll have to escape out the back. Akihiko? Since you led it here, you're going to have to help fight."
Akihiko swung his arms back and forth, testing them. "Like I had a choice! Trying to fight it on my own nearly got me killed! This guy managed to use his Persona and got me away from it before it could do too much damage, though, so I'm ready for some payback."
She looked at me curiously, but now was clearly not the time for questions. "If you just summoned your Persona for the first time, you're probably exhausted. I'm impressed you're even standing now. I promise, we will explain everything later. For now, just follow Takeba and escape out the back." As little as I wanted to admit it, she was right. The way I felt right now, I would be completely useless in a combat situation. Even after a few seconds rest, my heart was still hammering like I had run a marathon, and the method that they used to evoke their Personas had left my skull feeling like it had been used as an enormous drum. I handed Akihiko's gun back to him and looked him in the eye.
"Make sure you survive. I'm going to want those answers." With that, I turned and ran for the stairs, my legs burning with the exertion. I got to the top of the first flight just as the brunette in the pink shirt came out of a nearby room. Being led behind her was a boy with blue hair and a pair of headphones, who somehow managed to look almost bored despite the way the building was shaking. He looked at me with a faintly curious expression, but didn't say a word. "We need to get out of here!" I shouted. "Which way is the back entrance?"
The girl - Takeba, her name had been - looked almost startled that I had spoken to her, as though she had been too busy focusing on the danger outside to register that she was supposed to be leading us to safety. "The roof," she said, her eyes darting nervously around the room. "There's a fire escape." My thigh muscles groaned in protest.
After a second, the blue-haired kid started moving towards the stairs at a quick jog. If anyone asked, I wasn't dragging myself up the stairs with my arms to follow him; I was just holding on tightly to keep from falling as the building shook. "There's a lot of little ones following it," I managed to get out as I made it to the next landing, "Do you have any weapons? Something we could use to defend ourselves?"
Takeba reached down to her side, and to the pistol-looking device holstered there. "The Dark Hour is nearly over. I should be able to hold them off with my Persona until then." Her voice shook as she said it, and I winced. Somehow she didn't fill me with confidence. I really wish I had a sword... then again, I would have had to carry it up all of these stairs.
By the time we finally made it to the rooftop, I was dripping with sweat, a condition that in the green twilight of the Dark Hour made it look like my shirt was dotted with bloodspots. Takeba looked to be hardly in better shape. Though she wasn't as physically drained as I was, her panic made her breath come in short, quick gasps. The only one that looked as cool as a cucumber was Arisato, the blue-haired bastard. Oi! We're running for our lives! Try not to look like you're about to fall asleep!
When the girl in pink said "We should be safe for now," I suppressed a wince. That was the sort of thing that never ended well in the movies. Sure enough, the multiple hands of the Magician started appearing over the lip of the rooftop. I clenched my fists. Takeba turned to look at Minato and I. "Should we run back inside?" She asked.
I shook my head. "No. It'll just give it the height advantage when it comes inside to find us. We should hold here until Akihiko and the girl in charge come to back us up. What can your Persona do?"
She swallowed heavily as the Magician lifted its mask above the edge of the roof and turned it towards us, as though it were staring us down. "Wind... wind and healing."
"Great. When it tries to come up, blow it back off the roof. You don't need to put it down, just keep it away from us until the others make it to us. Think you can?" She unlatched the Evoker and took it out, pushing it to the front of her head with shaky hands. In front of us, the Magician suddenly conjured long knives from nowhere, and began heaving itself up and over the lip of the roof. It hadn't done that when it was fighting Akihiko and me, so why was it taking us seriously now all of a sudden? I didn't know whether to feel confused or insulted, but Takeba definitely needed to strike... "NOW!"
Reflexively, her fingers convulsed around the trigger, and glowing shards of broken glass flew into the air. With a shout of "IO!" from Takeba, a feminine figure formed in the air, chained to a chair that appeared to have taken the shape of a cow's head. Wind flew from the hovering figure in a sharp gust that threw the Magician back, but didn't push it far enough to throw it over the edge. Takeba sagged for a second, and I reached out and snatched the Evoker from her suddenly nerveless fingers.
For a second I was tempted to put the device to my own skull and pull the trigger, but I could see that the Magician was clearly not vulnerable to wind, which was the only elemental spell available to me at the moment. Hopefully Arisato would have better luck. I passed it off to him as the many-armed Magician skittered forward, the swords in its hands sounding like cymbals as the hands that carried them struck the ground. It was a terrifying spectacle, but at that moment the thing that scared me more was the expression on Arisato's face. His eyes were wide, with an expression that almost resembled bloodlust, and he had a faint smile on his face which only grew as the barrel of the Evoker grew closer to his temple. When he finally pulled the trigger I almost expected a monster to come out! When he shouted "ORPHEUS!", and a silver youth with a lyre appeared, I practically sighed in relief.
My relief was short-lived. Though Orpheus had been born from Arisato's head, the black monster appearing now was clawing its way out of the forehead of Orpheus, as though it were a summon's summon. Even as unfamiliar as I was with the strange twist on Personas and Shadows that I was finding here, I could feel the power coming off of it in waves. This thing, whatever it was, was a powerful Persona of the Death Arcana, possibly even more powerful than Mahakala! It was an enormous black figure, roaring like a demon, with a series of coffins spreading from its shoulders like wings. The black beast held a long sword that shimmered in the moonlight, but when it struck at the Magician it did so with the brutal efficiency of a butcher rather than any particular swordsmanship.
Yukari and I both backed away from Arisato as he began to collapse with the pain of channeling the monstrous... whatever it was. The sight of this Persona ripping through the Magician like it was made of wet tissue paper was awe-inspiring, and I was left with little doubt that this blue-haired boy was the person I had come back in time to assist. Izanami, you could have told me that he was going to be terrifying.