Sorry this chapter is out so late. I wanted it to come out yesterday but of course, the site had to have connection problems. Also Kyoukai no Kanata and Durarara are really addicting shows so that part is my fault. Anyway, enjoy. Cheers :)


Friday/April 15th, 20XY/Evening/Niijima Residence

Even as the creature continued to slowly drag itself towards the house, Makoto was unable to move, frozen in dismay. Even if she did run, the house would most likely be torn to pieces, killing her grandparents in the process. The humongous yet somewhat lanky creature stared her down with a pair of glowing yellow eyes. The teenager was merely an ant compared to the entity.

The creature eventually crept its way to meet Makoto's gaze, bending down a small bit in order to meet her completely eye to eye. Upon closer inspection, the creature's face somewhat resembled that of a skeleton. Its eyes expanded, causing the pupils to turn into slits and the iris to break off the pupil and expand as well. The creature then began to pick up its bony arm and bring it up to Makoto's sight. Its long and sharp fingernail tapped on the glass once with very little force, causing the window to crack significantly. To Makoto's luck, it halted its movement, appearing injured or feeble in the process. Makoto could see a bright blue light materialize outside from the very corner of her vision. Again, the creature appeared weakened. It then slowly turned its attention to an unknown force behind it, causing a slight dust cloud to be made from below. It possibly also damaged a few buildings in the process.

The light appeared again and soon after, the creature appeared weakened. The inexplicable blue light was the last thing on Makoto's mind. She felt relieved after the entity turned its attention away from her, however, the shock from her experience just moments ago still maniacally boiled through her. She still felt a slight urge to run while she had the chance but she kept herself from doing so. The question of whether that would even save her or not loomed in her head. The creature was undoubtedly distracted by something possibly on her side but the creature still had Makoto's entire street occupied. There was nothing she could do other than stay where she was and wait for the creature to be taken down. It was difficult to see out the broken window but she did her best to keep an eye on the struggle unfold before her. Another blue light materialized outside, seeming to be caused by something much smaller than the creature. Upon closer inspection, the creature was weakened by what looked to be a tree of ice materializing and enveloping a portion of the creature's body, only to then shatter into thin air. It was a persona.

The user stood in a poised position, facing off the creature. They looked to be a woman most likely a few years into their twenties. It was hard to completely make out her appearance from where Makoto stood but from what she could see, the woman wore a long black trench coat unbuttoned, gray leggings, a pair of black leather thigh high boots, a lightweight white blouse with a large bow tie of the same color, as well as a black gun holster and sheath both tied loosely around her hips. Her long wavy crimson hair reached down to around her lower back. The right section of her bangs completely concealed her right eye while the other was left alone. A long single curl was kept over her right shoulder. She held a rapier with a red blade pointed down the to the ground. Much to Makoto's shock, the woman put the gun to her head instead of shooting it at the creature. Makoto's mouth gaped open without her realizing it. After the young woman pulled the trigger, the same blue light from before materialized behind her, causing her persona to take shape.

The woman's persona had a medieval knight look to it. It looked to be a tall feminine entity with the head of a medieval knight helmet and a small crown atop its head. Adorning its slender figure was a blue metallic leotard, a pair of gray thigh highs kept up by a garter belt, a black long sleeved blouse with a collar tall enough to cover its neck. It also wore a pair of white boots halfway unbuttoned. In its right hand, it held a rapier and in the other, it held a scabbard.

"Penthesilea! Bufudyne!" The woman yelled, causing another ice tree to materialize, aggressively twisting a portion of the looming creature's shadowy flesh and eventually breaking away into nothingness.

Bufudyne. A word Makoto never thought she'd hear ever again. It felt nostalgic to hear words beckoning an elemental attack to occur, but it was still a little bit frightening to have to hear it when used against a very real threat. Yaldabaoth and the shadows were supposed to be gone so in theory, this thing shouldn't even exist. Whether it was a shadow or not. The problem was that this woman could use a persona to kill it: conveniently familiar yet inconveniently disturbing and confusing.

"Marin Karin!" The woman commanded before her persona could dissipate. In response to her words, a mid-sized magenta light appeared out of thin air and enveloped a portion of the shadow yet seemingly had no effect whatsoever. The woman growled at her failed attempt, only to be knocked back a large number of feet away by the creature's fist. She fell back first on the cement once, flipping back onto her feet and regaining her balance only to then stumble back. She still kept on her feet as she re-brandished her rapier. The creature charged for the woman as fast as its large body could carry it, attempting to smash its bony fist into the woman from above. She just barely dodged it and was sent flying back again, tumbling a few feet away and then quickly recovering.

"Concentrate!" The woman commanded, pointing the pistol at her head and causing her persona to appear again. She was then enveloped by a blight blue light, swirling around her in a ribbon-like formation. "Bufudyne!" With that, another tree of ice enveloped a certain portion of the creature's large hand which was now stuck in the concrete. After the aggressive twisting of the skin, the creature let out a brief yelp of agony. The woman then took her chance and leaped up onto the creature's hand, darting up the arm with somewhat impressive speed up the long bony arm. Each quick step the woman took, the creature's flesh would splash outwards as if she was running through a series of puddles. The woman then made her way to the shoulder, stumbling a slight bit in order to catch her breath. The creature then struggled to pry its hand out of the rough concrete below, causing the woman to almost lose her balance. She then dug her rapier into the side of the creature's head to regain her rightful position, the flesh of the creature splashing a little outwards. When the creature did manage to pry its hand out of the concrete, the woman could just barely manage to hold on to her rapier in time for the creature to put its arm back in place. When it did, it used its other arm to lash for the woman. In response, she just barely pried her rapier from the creature's head and as the hand came down on her, she quickly jumped out of the way and landed on the hand, barrel rolling as she did. The creature then attempted to toss the woman off its hand by lashing it to the side and scraping some of the tile roofing off of an innocent civilians household. This gave the woman the perfect opportunity to leap for the creature's head. She somewhat succeeded in this, however instead of landing on the creature's head with a splash and a thud, she instead found herself impressively high in the air, directly above the creature.

"Punishment!" The woman exclaimed, pointing her gun to her head once more and admitting her persona to appear above her for a moment and a large and bright orange light to envelop her rapier, jetting out in random directions. She spun herself around to get slightly higher into the air and gain momentum, the light growing even larger. Eventually, the light had grown incredibly large. As the woman began to plummet down to the creature's head, she pointed her rapier, along with the energy harnessed in the dead center on the creature's skull. She fell nonchalantly downwards into the creature's head, the rapier piercing it and causing a great deal of the creature's flesh to splash outwards aimlessly. The creature writhed in pain for a brief moment only to then close in on itself and dissipate into a collection of black particles. The woman then began to plummet downwards towards the beat up concrete road below, however, she landed on her feet with an imposing amount of refinement. Sighing, the woman inserted her rapier back into her sheath. Makoto let out a sigh of relief she wasn't aware she was holding. Even though no signs of casualties were caused in the struggle, it still didn't excuse the amount of property damage this caused.

Don't let another sigh of relief escape you yet. A familiar soft voice rang in Makoto's head. It seemed to be the same cloaked girl from before. Remember now, nothing you do will stop you escaping your predetermined destiny.

As soon as those words were spoken, more shadowy creatures began to materialize out of nowhere and surround the woman. These ones looked to be much more tame, however even if that were the case, the woman would most likely still be fatigued from her previous battle. Although the creatures themselves looked fairly easy, their constant spawning became overwhelming.

"Are you the one causing all this?" Makoto asked, frantically. "What are you anyway?" No answer came. Instead, the woman began to become overwhelmed by an infestation of monstrous creatures. Their pitch black figures were lanky and spirit like, their eyes glowing yellow. Their arms extended and retreated smoothly with every few seconds.

"Mabufudyne!" The woman commanded with her gun to her head, allowing her persona to appear behind her and for a series of identical ice, trees to enshroud each and every creature around. The attack clearly damaged them, but not enough to finish them all off. What was even worse was that their attacker seemed to be almost drained of energy, most likely caused by that ultra-powerful attack from moments before. Soon after, even more, began spawning at random.

Are you just going to stand watch? The same voice asked Makoto. Don't allow yourself to become useless. Isn't that what you fought to avoid? Makoto narrowed her eyes at the situation and nodded her head. Good. Your will of rebellion cannot falter. That isn't what fate had in mind. Even with all the shock moving through her, those words still got to her and convinced her staying a state of shock wasn't going to help solve this problem. Even aware of the immense danger she was about to put herself in, she did fight to take a stand against bystanding and tolerance to anybody venomous inhabiting the world. Makoto started off running towards the exit of her grandparent's residence, her adrenaline beginning to kick in as well. She frantically slipped on her boots just as she was about to leave and abruptly slammed the front door open. Once she was by her side, the exhausted woman looked over at Makoto with a mix of confusion and shock.

"H-how…?" The woman mumbled under her own breath. She then shook her head at herself and put on a more stern expression. "What do you think you're doing? And more importantly how?"

The woman's words became nothing but white noise to Makoto as she stared down the constantly spawning creatures surrounding them. Just seconds later, an excruciatingly painful pulse suddenly burst its way into Makoto's head. She grasped both sides of her head one after the other and stumbled around for a few seconds. Makoto gritted her teeth as bullets of sweat began falling from her forehead. She then felt something metal latched onto her face from the side of her hands. It was familiar; a mask. Knowing what to do, Makoto aggressively tore off the steel mask, causing blood to spurt outwards. Before she had time to register the pain, a massive amount of blue light enveloped her and then burst outwards. Soon enough, Makoto was sat atop her motorcycle shaped persona, Johanna. That's it. Now let yourself run free.

Then, as more shadowy creatures began to spawn, a few of them jumped in for a preemptive strike. One of them was able to slash the woman's arm just before Makoto was able to ward them off with the threat of Johanna running them over. The woman grasped her arm in pain, gritting her teeth. She then put the gun to her head again and murmured, "M-mabufudyne." It worked, and soon every single entity was in fact damaged. However, it still wasn't enough to kill even one of them.

"Mafreidyne!" Makoto commanded, causing each and every one of the creatures to become enveloped by the bright blue nuclear attack.

"A nuclear skill…?" The woman murdered in shock, the pain of her wound interrupting her. When the woman lifted her hand from her arm, she realized large amounts of thick crimson blood stained her palm and was quick to cover it again.

Makoto reached her hand out to the woman. The woman looked at her for a moment and then slapped her palm into Makoto's without any more hesitation, grasping her hand tightly as she tightened her fingers around Makoto's wrist.


Thanks for reading!