Persona 5 is owned by Atlus.
All characters and names are used only for creative purposes.
This story is a work of fiction.
Similarities between characters or events
to persons living or dead in your world are purely coincidental.
The world is not as it should be.
It's filled with distortion,
Vice and depravity rule over the faceless,
"Ruin" can no longer be avoided.
Those who oppose fate and desire change
From time to time, they were referred as "Tricksters".
…
Now is the time for them to rise against the abyss of distortion.
The alarm was ringing across the building.
The vices of the modern world in the lower levels were being interrupted by the uproar.
Uncertainty fills the atmosphere and it's demonstrated by the faces of people who are constantly looking above their heads, waiting for a punishment that's about to befall them.
"Huh?"
"There's something here!"
A man that was back pedaling his steps is pushed aside by a man in black, as he looks to the rooftops, he signals the men beside him to move to different directions.
The place he was looking at…
A figure quickly rushed through the chandeliers of the casino, as if he was being pulled by a strange force, with catlike agility, that figure jumped again and again through the structures that were holding the roof and lights, the people were getting more and more nervous.
"Good now get running!"
A boyish voice said.
Through the crowd another figure landed, white pants and black boots, neck-long brown hair turned his back to the agglomeration of people who were looking up.
"This is our only chance!"
He claimed before running to the door in front of him.
A room full of machinery.
There, two juvenile figures were running away from two black suited guards.
One of the runners was wearing a white collar and a dark blue outfit with light blue gloves, the other one a had a glowing green figure wearing a black body suit, with their faces covered in the shadows.
They stop their march on a corner.
"Stay calm, you can get away now"
The girl says with her hand over her ear.
The guards were closing in…
Both get out of their hiding in unison.
The guards aim their weapons at them, they're about to give a warning command.
But as soon as they aim their guns at them a smirk splits the girls mouth, followed by a bright light and smoke... They're gone.
Steps are heard through the halls full of graffiti.
At another side of the building, a shadowy figure of a woman wearing a black and blue body suit with spiky shoulder pads is poking out of a wall.
"We'll retrieve the briefcase on our end."
After that claim the girl proceeds to run towards a door close by, she's out.
Back on the roofs of the main hall, the initial coated figure is moving on through the glass ceiling over the gambling machines. He enters the ducts and again and goes back to the metal steps.
"Hey… Up there!"
"He's here. Move in immediately."
The figure is fully visible now, a boy wearing a black coat, holding a white briefcase. He has a white mask, frizzy hair, and a big smirk on his face.
"…suspects… not… confirmed… hold your… positions…"
He hears a distorted communication.
"What was that?!"
He hears the voice of the girl leading his way.
"Don't worry about us. Just concentrate on getting away Joker."
said the boyish voice again.
Stylish.
Aesthetically perfect.
Every jump that followed was intentionally looking to attract more looks and calls for a nosey heed, and most importantly, for the guards that were standing on his way.
"You won't get away!"
The eyes through the white mask are looking for another exit, only to find more figures reaching closer…
A couple of guards are covering his exit, and two more are getting closer from the side. Since he landed from the roofs to a balcony, he's surrounded by the guards who entered the scene from a higher ground.
Suddenly a figure lands behind him, it's another casino guard.
He was following him through the roofs no he finally seems to have cached his trail.
He looks at him without losing his calm.
Suddenly the guard starts to tremble, the same thing with the two guards closing his way off the front door. Their bodies start to shudder as well, as if being possessed. Or more likely, as if they were morphing and melting at the same time.
"Take 'em down, Joker!"
A smirk
"Heh"
Black chains and blue fire start forming behind the boy's figure.
"Ravage them!"
PERSONA 5: ROUGE
Security Alert level 99%
"He's not alone, find them and kill them all!"
That was what the man in a suit in the security cameras room was shouting through his phone.
-Glass shattering-
The phantom boy comes out through the giant glasswork window spinning midair as if he was less heavy than a feather and as agile as a cat.
"Huh. What a show off"
Claimed a girly voice.
"You're so reckless, you know that?"
Noted another easygoing female voice.
As he was getting close to the floor, the boy started to roll in the air while shrinking his body in a fetal position so he could land by the top of his toes, then proceed to roll down until he could regain his balance to reduce the speed of the fall.
He stays there on his knees, the remaining glass falls short after his perfect landing.
He can now proceed to the next stage of his plan, or so he thought.
Lights, blinding lights and stepping noises
The phantom… Joker, is surrounded by hundreds of special tactical police officers with cars and guns aiming only to him.
'This bad, huh?'
"These readings. Huh? An ambush?"
"It can't be"
"What happened?"
"Joker, can you handle this?"
"Joker!"
"Oh no!"
He can hear the cries of his comrades while looking for a way out, an escape route.
So far he, always managed to get what he wanted.
No matter the obstacles presented to him, since the day he stepped foot on this city… The phantom... Joker, always got away with his hands full and his objectives fulfilled.
But not this time.
This time, he was the pray, this time they all have been waiting to put their hands on him.
To take him down.
There is no escape route, there is no way to talk his way out of this. He's completely surrounded. But that doesn't mean he won't try.
"CAPTURE HIM!"
He ran to his right side, there is a ladder that way. A fire exit that leads at the top roof he knows so well.
As he starts running, 80 police officers run after him.
The rest stay on position waiting for any chance to open fire, resistance to arrest has been confirmed.
The target is now on his way to the roof as he sees the chance to jump to the fire escape ladder on the side of the building.
But they weren't shooting, they were aiming but they wouldn't open fire.
The objective was obvious.
Taking him down was not the real goal here. To these men, he was the source of everything that was wrong with society these last months.
No. More accurately, he was the source of the lack of faith from the general public for the law enforcer organizations.
This guy who was running away from a crowd of police officers was the cause of such disruption. He was such a pain for them that every single one of them wanted to make him pay.
For that they should take him into custody, and make him feel the consequences of defying the law in a society abided by it.
Even so…
This is going well enough, his incredible agility seems to be paying off.
Days of training and an exceptional extra source of stamina and strength gives him the advantage against a bunch of adult police officers that even if they were trained to handle situations like this. They don't have the speed and youth of the young masked criminal, besides the obvious plus of the source of his agility, he had the edge over them.
But even so, the only way for them to catch him would be….
"Huh?"
As Joker looks up he finds out that a boot is coming to his direction, he has no time to react. Was he foolish to think he was getting away with it?
He falls. On the top of the ladder several more police officers were waiting for him, there was no escape...
The Phantom was finally cuffed, every single one of the 80 police officers that were following him before surrounded him as soon as he touched the floor.
His fall was rough, normally he would have a bunch of broken bones because of it.
But his incredible resistance allowed him to endure it.
Although he did get hurt, the swatting team who were cuffing him didn't bother to spare an effort to be gentle during the arrest. After all he was trying to make a mock of the police once again.
"Suspect secured"
A dark figure closes by.
An law officer wearing a business suit.
No, he's not a police officer anymore… Joker and this man knew each other, but the man in a suit was playing dumb…
He wasn't the man he used to know anymore…
"Didn't expected to find some kid. You have your team mate to thank for this,"
The man grabs him by the hair, as to reinforce the arrest and show a little more dominance towards him.
"You were sold out"
"…"
The boy closed his eyes, showing his resignation.
Day of reckoning: The phantom thief.
The screams and hits were heard through the empty halls of the police station underground.
A lone guard was nervously sweating as he tried his best to filter the screams of agony from the teenager inside the room.
"GIVE IT UP"
"Ugh"
…
"Sign here, it's a confession under your name"
The voices paused… he could clearly understand what was going on, it was all this boy's fault.
All the animosity the police had to deal with these past months, the mistrust of the common citizens, and most importantly, those paranormal events that lead to tragedy last month.
"..."
"I see"
"I need your hands to sing, but..."
"Argh"
"I wouldn't mind if you end up losing a leg!"
The guard could hear the elevator's ring as somebody else had arrived to the scene.
"We're going to make you understand, that one must take full responsibility for their actions..."
After a brief silence a man in a suit came out of the room accompanied by a couple of other police detectives.
He was fixing his tie and had a smirk on his face.
"Keep your post, now we just have to wait for a couple of hours..."
His tone changed and a grin was showing on his face.
"Before the transfer"
He said that and then turned around after hearing footsteps closing by, it was the sound of high heels hitting the ground of the silent uniform hall. The sound came from an elegant woman on her mid 20's, wearing a black business suit, she had gray-blonde hair and a serious look on her pale but overly good-looking face.
"Sae Niijima"
"Director Kamiya"
"I thought I told you that you were out of this case"
"What you did was assign me as the new probation officer for this boy's sentence."
She takes out a file from her purse and shows it to the tall man.
"The only thing I'm doing now is fulfilling my duties as such. Besides, I'm still a district prosecutor, and the last person assigned to this case."
"Fulfilling your duties, Huh? if that was the case, you wouldn't have allowed any of this to happen, at the very least you would have known better"
She lets out a gentle but controlled sigh.
"With all due respect sir, the same can also be said of you…"
The animadversion was evident by looking at their incriminating stares, the guard and the detectives that were looking at the two exemplar agents of the law found themselves wordless as they awaited for a resolution in silence.
"Tch. Very well, you'll have your talk. Although it's not really your place to do so at this stage. You have one hour and 30 minutes, probably a little more if the transport for prison get's delayed"
As if a weight was let out of her shoulders, she sighs in relief.
"Thank you, sir."
The Police officers step aside and let the tall woman enter the room behind them.
"She's really a handful to the very end..."
Kamiya said before turning to the police officer behind him.
"Let her know when her time is up, I'll tell your commissioner how things are going now"
"Yes sir!"
With that the suited man starts leaving the scene.
"So, it's really you…"
The boy looks over the woman, he was sitting with his elbows resting on the table and one of his hands covering his face, he had a gloomy look on his face, as she gets closer and takes seat in front of him with a somewhat sad look on her face, she takes her time to take a good look at him.
Bruises on the face, and the cuffs scars showing over his wrists, as an evidence of him being manhandled and dragged around, probably even shoved to the floor, as she looks at the small drops of blood on the room's floor.
"I wonder… Had I accepted to be your probation officer from the start…-"
"…"
Her words only meet a hurtful silence from the boy, he wasn't going to raise his head, as if he was embarrassed of the bruises the policemen let on his face before she entered.
"Those bastards."
Even so, he notices that the woman eventually finds out by just looking around the room, the boy takes a look beside the table to notice a syringe lying on the floor.
The woman in front of him presented herself as a prosecutor to those officers, but even so, those men didn't bother to hide the evidence, as if his wounds wouldn't be enough evidence of torture, he knows they could have just alleged that he was resisting the arrest.
But maybe, that syringe was let lying on that spot, for a very specific reason.
To send a message to him, or to whoever was meant to enter this room next.
"We have time, not as much as I would've wanted, but I need you to listen, most importantly, I need to know..."
She gets closer to the boy, trying to make him look at her with a concerned look on her face.
"But first. You realize what the situation is, right?"
"The camera was probably plugged the whole time, but they still can do whatever they want, even after I pulled so many strings to get in here, they can still get back and do whatever they want to you at any time, and I can't do anything to stop them."
"…"
"So, what I'm doing right now, is giving you a chance, I must ask you to answer my questions."
"Chance?"
The boy said, shaking his head and moving his hand to cover part of his face again, his eyes meet hers for a moment.
The prosecutor was always wondering what the motives behind this boys actions were, even before finding out about his real identity, but right now, she had a very precise query.
'Can he really answer my questions in this state?'
"What do you want to know, Niijima-san?"
Her doubts were meeting with a satisfactory answer for the first time.
She calmly got closer to him as to look straight into his eyes, a technique that invades private space that is usually used to intimidate people into giving honest answers.
But not this time, the voice that came from her the moment after was soft and somewhat begging.
"I want to know exactly what happened, from the very beginning. I know all about your supposed parents, how your father works overseas and his past working with government organizations, that's at least as far I can know, I also know they were an influence to your arrive to this city, but more importantly they couldn't do anything else for you, is that right?."
The boy doesn't react to the prosecutor bringing up the situation with his parents.
He doesn't really seem to mind it at all, but then again his hair covered his eyes as he lowers his head a little, his state of mind can barely be read through the eyes of the prosecutor in front of him.
His parents, what would they think if they know he was under arrest? ...Again
Aria of the soul
"Tell me Ren-kun…"
This is truly an unjust game
Another voice was filling the room...
"Tell me everything"
The chances of winning are almost none
Or was it coming from his head?
"from the very beginning"
Was he hallucinating?
"Please"
Please...
-"Shibuya, reaching Shibuya"-
He woke up!
Prologue End
Note:
Update 21/02/2018: More grammatical errors fixed, sorry about that.
Update 01/11/2018: Welp. First of all happy new year, second, Persona 5 anime has been announced with a release date by the time of this update, even going as far as the main character canon name being published.
The thing is, the protagonist name is kinda of a big deal in this story, and I certainly really liked the name Akira Kurusu. Yet as you can see from the end of chapter 1, the name becomes an important plot point, but considering the story path I was trying to set up from the very beginning, the name Ren Amamiya actually became somewhat more relevant to me after finding out the meaning behind it. (Look it up, it's certainly quite a fitting name.) So I decided to go along with that name instead, since its more promising for the story I'm trying to write here, regardless of the first intention of this fic was making use of an interesting fan theory, this is an obvious not canon story, and since it began publishing before the Anime began its broadcasting, there's no purpose on going for that road, yet the amount of sub plots and fan theories I had in my head (with scenes developed and written down already) by the time of the announcement, I decided to continue this story, trying to keep it as true to the main game story as I could while using those arguments and speculations to continue it given how much time I was investing on it.
And finally, I've been told these chapters kinda drag on a little too much sometimes, given the amount of verbatim I chose to use for certain scenes. Because of that, I decided to fix some of those dragging scenes and try to be as concise and to the point as I could, I'll probably even fix more of those eventually. But the reason I chose to do that in the first place was because I wanted to expand the characters personalities and motives as much as I could during those specific events during the game, you know, characterization, so I'll probably keep doing a little of those, but not as much when it comes to the same dialogues in the future, and I also decided to split the original chapters dividing them into two parts each, more than anything, I did it having the reader's time and patience in mind, I apologize for those long reading sessions and I hope you continue following this story.
And if there's anything else you feel I should change, please let me know, your feedback really helps me as someone who aspires to be a proper writer.