Chapter two

Ren was surprised when the door opened and it wasn't Maruki who opened the door for him. By what made him even more surprised was who it was—it was Rumi, the ex-girlfriend of Takuto's past. He staggered back, and tried to gather himself in front of her growing concern.

"Takuto said you were coming over...Amamiya-san, was it? Are you okay?" Rumi asked, and Ren shook his head in affirmation.

"Ah, I'm...I'm alright, thank you." Ren smiled in a way that he hoped conveyed anything other than disbelief. Before he could step forward into the house, another presence joined them.

"O-oh...Amamiya-kun, you're here! I'm so glad you were able to make it." Maruki was very disheveled, which Ren saw as typical—he was adjusting his glasses and moving his hand through his brown curls nervously. Ren grinned. Meeting an old friend was always a good thing, and he drew comfort from it—even if the two of them had a little scuffle half a year ago.

He sobered up quickly and reached out to shake Maruki's hand firmly. He had a job to do. "Maruki, I have a bit of a favor to ask." he said as he walked through the threshold into the apartment. Morgana took the liberty of jumping down from Joker's shoulder onto the carpet, pawing at the ground satisfyingly.

"That's a very pretty kitty you have, Amamiya-san," Rumi remarked, and before Morgana could even react to what she called him, she was already looping her arms around him and pulling him up into the air.

"Joker! Tell this lady to let me down already!" Morgana hissed wildly, squirming in her arms, but Ren was laughing.

"Joker! Joker, I swear to—mrghhh," Morgana got cut off by his own purring when Rumi started scratching him behind the ears, and Ren felt like he couldn't breathe with how funny this was.

"Oh yeah, he's a pretty kitty," He encouraged, eyes laughing. Morgana's were full of murder in response, but he didn't protest, lest the headscratching stop. Ren slipped off his shoes and finally took a look around the apartment for the first time. It was a quant thing, almost symbolic in Maruki's return to humbleness after getting his ass beat in february.

"Would you like a snack or something?" Maruki asked from a distance away, from what Ren recognized to be the kitchen; a little farther from that was the living room. It was arranged almost exactly like Maruki's old office back at shujin—two loveseats perpendicular to each other, with a coffee table in the middle. The only differences was the homey backdrop and TV in the room, as well as the windows.

Ren made his way towards it, shooting Maruki a thumbs up—he needed an apple juice if he was to explain his current story with the nuance it needed.

Once the snacks were set out and ready to go—juice, cookies, some apple sauce—the four of them all sat down, with Maruki and Rumi on one seat with Ren and a very ruffled Morgana on another.

"So, you said you had a favor you wanted from me?" Maruki asked while rubbing his glasses with his shirt.

Ren nodded. "Yeah, something I need your help with." He reached towards the cookies and took a bite—fell apart in his mouth, which was promising.

Maruki cocked an eyebrow upwards, waiting for elaboration. Before Ren answered, he looked at Rumi and back at Maruki. He made a complicated face, miming ripping a mask off while pointedly looking at the doctor. In response, Maruki blanched, and looked at Rumi with trepidation.

"Um, Rumi, hon? Can Amamiya-kun and I talk alone for a second? I promise I'll—I'll try to explain it all when we're finished." Maruki squinted his eyes shut, waiting for a response very nervously.

She pouted, but when she looked at his pleading face, she relented with a glare. "Fine, but I'm taking the cat with me, Takuto." she declared, enunciating the last syllable in his name. Morgana shot up from his lulling sleep—he was very enchanted by the scratches he was getting, to Ren's amusement. The Magician looked panicked, but Ren, staring silently back, hoped he got the message to just go with it.

With pointedly slowly stomping, Rumi left the room with Mona, and The Fool was alone with The Councillor.

The first thing that Ren asked was purposely off-topic. If he wanted to get to the heavy stuff, he was going to have to work up to it. "So, I've been meaning to ask. That...Rumi-san's the one from…"

Maruki nodded, and a small smile grew on his face. "You would be correct, Amamiya-kun. She's the very same Rumi from my memories. But she doesn't know that—and that's fine with me. I consider myself lucky enough that I'm able to know her now."

Ren smiled back, and pushed up his glasses. "That's nice, Maruki. I'm happy for you, if that means anything."

The doctor's smile only grew. "It means the world to me, Amamiya-kun."

A beat passed, and Ren cursed himself for not being as good at small talk as he thought he was. Stuttering awkwardly, he asked another icebreaker. "Are you planning on being a counselor anymore? Or are you…?" his words trailed off, unsure as to how to finish.

Maruki looked to the ceiling, suddenly very uncomfortable. "I don't know where I'm going at all, and at this pace, that might be all my life's gonna be spent doing. I'm still at a cab agency from when we last met. But it's enough for me, at least now."

A beat.

"Anyways!" Maruki laughed awkwardly. "I suppose we ought to dive into it, then? I noticed the Phantom Thieves are back at it again—that was quite the spectacle you guys pulled off in Osaka, I must admit. To think the notorious Phantom Thieves would make the national news again after everything."

"What can I say? I have a talent for that kind of thing, you know." Ren remarked, grinning slightly. Unconsciously, he started twisting a cable from Kotone's headphones around his forefinger, still tossed around his neck. "But...the thing I need help with...it doesn't have anything to do with the Thieves. I'd rather not drag them into this."

Maruki leaned forward, beckoning Ren to continue. If The Phantom Thief was a touch more perceptive, he would have noticed the blue butterfly flickering in and out in the corner of his vision.

Joker sipped his juice before he resumed talking. "This will take a while to explain...But, essentially, the metaverse wasn't always the way you or I know it. Do you...do you know anything about Apathy Syndrome?"

Joker didn't know anything about Apathy Syndrome. It was a small thing that happened when he was very young, and almost immediately after it, only a couple years later, were the three murders that happened in his home town of Inaba. But he wasn't concerned about either event at the moment, because right now, on the day of December 24th, 2019, he was faced with a god.

He needed a strong persona, and had his eyes set on Messiah—a persona of a different story. It was sitting in his compendium, summonable for a tantalizingly cheap zero yen. And it was powerful—the holy grail was going to get his ass kicked.

"Oh...you wish to summon that persona, Trickster? That was the persona of a very special guest indeed." Igor's high-pitched voice was still something Ren was never going to get used to, but at that moment it was the flash in the Nose's eye that should have worried him the most.

Even the deferential Lavenza—a kind soul whom Ren had only just gotten to know—had gotten very excited when he asked if he could summon the judgement persona. "I'm grateful to you, Trickster," she mentioned, which only confused the wild card even more.

But still, he shrugged off the velvet room residents' strange behavior and went forward with the summon. A flash of blue and white light, and Messiah was before him. He was a tall persona, and Ren couldn't decide if he was dead or alive—the persona stared at him with his red eyes, and it felt like he was staring right into Ren's soul.

"I am Messiah. From here forward, I am together with you…" He said, towering over the Phantom Thief. Another blue flash of light, and a masquerade mask was flying towards Joker, ready to bind onto him. The boy smirked, ready for the rush of power that came from summoning a persona of this caliber.

It reached him, and a second passed. Then the world changed.

Pain, not power, reached him instead. Joker buckled to the ground, feeling his mask dig into his skin like a knife. His head felt on fire, and he instantly let out a scream.

Well, go on. A voice echoed around in his head.

Joker bit his lip, drawing blood. Igor and Lavenza were silent—unless they weren't; Ren could only hear his own heartbeat slam through his body, like an earthquake. He brought his hands to the edges of his mask, desiring the pain to stop, and he tore it off. He felt the hot stickiness of blood covering his face, like the first time Arsene answered his call. The world shook, and Ren felt his vision go black for a split second.

When the second passed, Ren wasn't in the velvet room. He was in Tartarus.

Not that he knew that name, it was only a dark hallway to him. "Wha—what the hell?" he muttered, feeling his way through the blackness. It had all happened so quickly, and he was still feeling very dizzy.

He got his bearings, but it was still hard to see. He let his left hand graze the wall—from the feeling he got, he was still wearing his gloves, so he was in the metaverse.

It was a much drearier metaverse than he was used to—the atmosphere was much more oppressive, and he felt less like a free spirit here. It was almost like an extension of his prisonlike Velvet Room, where he was weighed down by a ball and chain. It was all cold too, and in the distance he saw green light leak out the side of a wall—a window, perhaps?—so he made his way towards that.

He activated his third eye, and the topography around him revealed itself—and lots of shadows. All around him, all glowing an angry red. Alarmed, he reached for his knife. There was one right around the corner, and he flattened himself against the wall, slowing his approach to a snail's.

His mask flickered with blue fire at the edges, indicative of his body tensing up. With sure quickness, he leapt towards the shadow in his mind's eye, hands moving to rip off its mask.

"Show me your true form!" he cried triumphantly.

He was not triumphant by any means. There was no mask to grab; the shadow wasn't even humanoid. It was dark and inky, like the Mementos shadows, but much less composite. He tumbled through the shadow and felt his body slam against the ground in front of it.

"Damn it," he cursed, and the shadow began pulsating in front of him.

When he stood up, the shadow stopped writhing, and in its place were four more creatures—although these weren't shadows that he recognized at all. They seemed monstrous in the most literal sense—hold ups were probably not an option here, he surmised—and before he could react, he was nearly hit by a fireball shooting his way.

Shit, why am I so weak? It was true. He felt almost sluggish as he spent more time in this place, and he was finding it increasingly harder to keep up with the shadows' movements.

"Damn it! Persona!" he growled, throwing his mask away in a blaze of fire. It was Arsene, not Messiah, who answered his demand with urgency. The legendary thief rose out of his psyche and floated in front of him, pompous laughter filling the hallway with a heavy echo.

Not stopping to register the erroneous summon, Joker felt Eiha blaze in his head and shoot out towards the enemy in front of him. The Thief closed his eyes in pain—why was an eiha this taxing?

His knees cried out that they needed to fall, and fall now, or else he was going to regret it. A sick chill shook him from where he stood, and he decided he needed to take evasive action. A sukukaja leaked out of Arsene with a considerable amount of effort, and Ren hated the way that it made him run out of breath.

Regardless, the speed boost was enough to help him dodge the bufus and agis coming from the shadows on his tail—the one he hit previously wasn't even dazed, which made Ren even more frustrated. Recalling his persona, he shot his grappling hook towards the upcoming window, and it broke through the glass without resistance, grabbing on to the outside.

He tugged hard and desperately. As he shot down the hall, the wind chopped past his face like a swarm of needles, and he felt the sweat cooling on his forehead. His shins hit the wall underneath the broken window with a crunch, and Joker felt the line lose tautness as he tumbled headfirst into the world outside.

"Shit," he muttered, clenching his teeth. He thought quickly, and aimed the hook back towards the window before he fell too far out of it, and with a quick snap of the rope going taut, he was now dangling by quite literally a single thread, peering out into the world below.

The city underneath him looked familiar—Tatsumi Port Island, he recalled. As a Yasogami High student, It was the place he was going to go for a school trip in his second year if it wasn't for his prohibition. Pictures were everywhere in the school during that time of year, and Man-made islands were always recognizable. It looked very tiny from where he was in the sky—actually, everything did, and suddenly Joker was extremely aware of where he was.

He was hanging from a tower—a sinister looking one, protruding from very far below. Looking up, Joker noted that there was much, much more of it. It seemed to glow in a way that only important things glowed, and the clouds circled around it like the moon circled the sun.

Speaking of the moon—it was huge and green and close. Joker wondered if you could reach it by getting to the top of the tower. It was almost full, filling Joker with dread he couldn't explain.

What does this mean? The tower didn't look natural or manmade—its architecture didn't seem structurally sound, but the tower stood nonetheless. Is it—is it some kind of Palace?

A particularly strong breeze whistled by, making the hook sway dangerously. Remembering that he was in mortal peril, Joker threw his weight backwards, trying to swing back towards the side of the tower. He planted his feet against the ground, and with a shaky step, he started the climb back towards the window.

"Oh, damn it." Joker hissed, feeling himself grow weaker still. It didn't help that the side of the tower was so offensively built—it protruded out awkwardly from every step he took, almost like it was alive, but that couldn't be right.

Eventually he made it back up to just a few steps before he was within reach of the window. Taking a deep breath, he leapt through it and with what strength he had left, he called Arsene to cleave anything directly in front of the window with a flourish of his mask, but there was nothing, thankfully.

He collapsed against the ground, finally having a chance to catch his breath. His eyelids fluttered, and he wondered if a nap was really that harmful.

There's someone on this floor! A worried-sounding voice echoed through his head and just like that, he was alert. The feeling that he felt from hearing it was a lot like with Oracle's voice—but it wasn't, and that's what concerned him. He summoned the last of his strength and got up, hoping to sneak past whoever else was here.

"Hey!"

The voice was a girl, like the one in his head, but not the same person. Joker stopped his sneak and whirled around—or at least he tried to, it was more of a sloppy spin—and faced her.

She seemed his age, wearing what he assumed to be a school uniform with a red band on her left arm. Her hair was up in a messy ponytail, and she carried herself with a certain confidence. But what was the strangest thing about her was her eyes.

Red orbs, almost like Messiah's, that seemed to pierce into his soul like the naginata in her hand, ignorant of whatever mask he could don. Ren stumbled back, startled.

"Are you—are you okay?" she asked, dropping her weapon and approaching him.

"Leader, stop." A second voice commanded. This one was from a white-haired older boy, who emerged from the darkness. He wore the same uniform as the girl, with that red band on the left arm. "This is Tartarus, that could be a shadow for all you know."

The girl whirled on him, cheeks puffed out rather cutely—"are you joking? He's clearly a person! And Fuuka did just say someone was on this floor, remember?"

"With that getup? Like hell that's a person." A new voice, one that sounded spunkier, came into view as another youth. Ren could barely see him from the corner of his blurred vision, but was that a goatee?

He shifted himself, momentarily losing balance. He supposed if he had any dignity left he would have lost it at that offending comment, but for now he was busy making sure he wasn't falling over.

Unfortunately, His stumbling only seemed to make the boys more hostile. "Shit! Kotone, get back." The first one hissed. The girl—Kotone, was it?—looked indignant and was about to protest, when the boy put a gun to his own head.

"Persona!"

A hulking monstrous man materialized in front of him, and Ren recognized it as a persona—at the same time, he recognized that he was in deep shit.

Still, he managed to grin ruefully at his future attacker—if he was any less dazed, he would have been alarmed at the summon method itself, but he simply said, "If It's a fight you want, then it's showtime! Arsene!"

His mask gave way to his persona, and he took a certain pride at the others' sudden, widening eyes. Eiha bounced around in his head like thunder, violent and painful, before blasting out in a rush. At least, that was how it felt to him.

The black bolt of curse was feeble and it fizzed out before it landed anywhere, and Ren swore. He felt himself buckle to the ground before the group. Meeting eyes once more with Kotone, his own rolled to the back of his head and the world went black.

The headache he felt when he awoke was astronomical—it felt like he was getting hit with a megidolaon on every side. His arms were sore, and his eyes hurt to open. It also didn't help that he could hear people arguing a few feet away.

"What do you mean you...found him? That doesn't make any sense!" Female. Older than him, probably, and very stern-sounding. From his half-lidded gaze, Ren figured the voice belonged to he tall young woman a few feet away from him.

"Senpai, it's true! He was in Tartarus, and he had a persona and everythin'!" that was the goatee kid, Ren remembered.

Where was he, anyways? Looking up and down from his side-lying position, Ren noted he was laying on a couch; from the lighting and the big counter-desk a few feet away from him, it looked like a hotel of some kind. Perhaps a dorm? The group arguing in front of him hadn't noticed he was awake—he stayed quiet, hoping to just listen and find out information.

"As much I agree with you, Mitsuru, Junpei's right—we found the kid in Tartarus last night, just like he said." Ah, that was the white-haired boy. Wait.

Ren's eyes widened. Shit—last night? That was the Day of Reckoning—did they lose? Where the hell were the Phantom Thieves? All of these questions piled up in Ren's head all at once, causing him to roll over and fall onto the ground with a painful oof.

Ah, damn it.

"Somebody's up!" That was Kotone's voice, sounding effortlessly cheerful. She came into view from his right, squatting down to meet him eye-level. Her red eyes were soft with concern.

"More like down." Ren remarked, not being able to help himself.

Kotone froze, and then started giggling. "Oh, so you're quite the joker." she grinned at him, and Ren's eyes widened for a split-second, before he let it go.

"Yeah..you could say that." he affirmed.

"You got a name, Joker?" she asked, and Ren had to bite back the grin that was forming from the irony.

"Ren. The name's Ren." No harm in being honest right now, he supposed.

"Well, Ren-san, we have a few questions for you." The assertive girl from earlier walked over to him and held out her hand—with a grunt, he grabbed it and pulled himself back onto a more respectable sitting position on the couch. He shifted his hands in his lap, suddenly awkward.

Her eyes were sharp—there would definitely be harm in being dishonest right now, Ren figured. But first, he needed to know something.

"This may be a weird question to ask, but." he paused for a second, unsure as to how to continue. Most people were unaware of the mementos fusion when it happened, and he might look like a total idiot if he brought this up, but he needed to know. "Was the sky...red, yesterday? And was it...raining blood?" even as he said the words they felt wrong, tumbling out of his mouth like bad food.

A moment of silence passed by, and all four of his onlookers looked at him like he was delusional. If he had the strength, he would facepalm right then, but luckily the goatee kid spoke up. Junpei.

"You talking about the Dark Hour? That's when everything turns green, not red. Wait," He seemed to ponder something. "Are you colorblind?"

Assertive girl looked positively enraged. "Irori!"

"What? Is that rude to ask?" Junpei seemed genuinely confused.

The white-haired boy slapped the back of the younger guy's head. "No, dumbass! Why the hell are you bringing up the Dark Hour?"

Junpei glared back. "You saw him! He had a persona...he's gonna remember that shit!" Beside the three bickering kids, Kotone looked positively exasperated.

That was another thing. These people knew what personas were, which was alarming—and yet they had no clue about the Day of Reckoning. Slouching, he sighed and took another look around the building. Everything looked dated...the TV, the headphones dangling from Kotone's neck..but not old.

Wait a minute.

"What year is it?" he asked with rising panic, causing the three to stop fighting.

"2009? Do you have amnesia or something?" Junpai supplied tactlessly.

The world seemed to slow down. Remlooked at a clock on the wall, eyes widening all the while. Kotone tilted her head, mouth opening to ask what was wrong, But he couldn't hear anything over the single phrase echoing in his thoughts.

10 years in the past.

"No I...no I need to use the restroom." Ren needed a place to think, somewhere to gather his thoughts. "Do you know where it is?"

Junpei pointed him towards twin doors across the room, a little further down, and Ren began stumbling towards the doors, only partly faking his sudden sickness.

Closing the men's door behind him, he paced around, feeling very, very panicky. "Alright. Ten years in the past, ten years in the past. Why?"

The first thing he needed to do was answer that question. Looking at the mirror, he played with his hair while he organized his thoughts. The last thing from his...timeline, he guessed, that he remembered, was summoning Messiah, and feeling like he was awakening to Arsene again.

Then he woke up in the tower—what they called Tartarus—and was soon discovered by the group of persona-users.

Persona-users...another group of persona-users...why was that making him feel like he should remember something? Ren cursed, punching the mirror. The glass held steady; was he really that weak?

Another group of persona-users...another...persona…

A persona of another story.

"Oh, damn it." Ren whispered to nobody, suddenly understanding what happened. He still had no idea why it did, but it was clear how. Was this why Igor and Lavenza were acting so weird right before the summon? It was just his luck, really. Sighing, he walked out of the bathroom and towards the waiting group.

"Alright." he sat down, back on the sofa, running a hand through his raven hair. The four of them looked at him expectantly. "I suppose you have questions."

He tried answering them to the best of his ability, but there was only so much he knew about his situation, having only been thrust recently into the past himself. He was vague on a lot of the details he knew as well; he was a little worried some space-time continuum collapse would happen if he said anything too in-detail about the future. He also didn't say anything about the Velvet Room, he felt that would be its own can of worms to open.

The four were very attentive listeners, with Junpei and Kotone laning in rather excitedly, like he was telling some fantasy story.

"But is time travel even possible?" asked white-hair, whom Ren had learned was named Akhiko after a brief round of introduction. And yes, Ren realized that the inclusion of such a feat poked a major hole in his story, but it wasn't like he hadn't recounted incredulous stories before with a high level of convincing.

Mitsuru tilted her head. "He's not lying." The certainty in her voice was a strange one—it wasn't due to Ren's charm stat, he could tell. From the way she spoke, it felt like she knew more than she let on. Interesting.

"Really?" Kotone this time, voicing her own disbelief at the situation.

"Trust me on this one, please. I just...I can tell." Mitsuru looked rather spooked, and nobody questioned her any further.

"Whatever you say, Senpai. But what do we do now?" Junpei made eye-contact with Ren, sizing him up. It was clear he was distrustful of the former Phantom Thief, no that Ren blamed him.

"Knowing my luck, I probably have to get to the top of that tower. That's my ticket home." he yawned, feeling exhausted.

Kotone smiled brightly in a way that made Ren want to smile back. "That's what we're trying to do too! Senpai, do you think we should let him join SEES?"

Mitsuru didn't hesitate. "Honestly? I was going to suggest that myself. Although..It may be a bit...difficult to explain things to the chairman. We would have to do something more than just let him stay here as a member. But I may have an idea."

Ren squeezed the juice pouch in his hand, slamming it down onto the coffee table. "And that," he told Maruki, who was listening intently, "was how I became Ren Kirijo, newest transfer student to Gekkoukan high."

Da-da-da-da! I updated a WIP, unheard of! Anyways, this chapter probably answered a lot of questions you may have had. This was a lot of fun to write, and I hope you enjoyed this chapter!

-DFTBA

Nate