April 21st, 2014

Yu Narukami's Apartment

Yu made his way into the bathroom to take a shower. As he undressed, he took note of all the scar tissue that his lean and built body had attained over the course of the previous year. And yet, even the scars that ranged from a gunshot wound to being sliced by what looked like abnormally sharp bear claws paled in comparison to what was on his back.

Once he had undressed, Yu turned on his shower. While he was waiting for it to warm up, Yu took a moment to steel himself against the inevitable agony that was coming. Once the shower was warmed, Yu entered and hissed and growled in pain as the water trickled onto the mass of Lichtenberg scar tissue that comprised a large amount of his back.

An eternal reminder of how he had once let his crew, his friends, the family he had built for himself, not counting his Uncle Dojima and Nanako, die…

Unbidden, Yu's mind drifted back to that day…

March 20th, 2013

Yomotsu Hirasaka

Yu could smell the sickly sweet scent of rot and decay. He felt the intense pressure of Izanami-No-Okami bearing down on him and his friends. He could smell the smoke of flames from Yukiko blasting the creature. Felt the cold from where Chie had tried freezing it.

"You cannot compare! I am a Goddess above you mortals! Your pursuit of the Truth ends here!" Izanami snarled as she swung her skeletal arm at Yu.

"Yu!" cried a voice from nearby.

Yu could only stare helplessly as Yosuke, his right-hand man and the first real friend he had made in Inaba, slammed into him, pushing him to the side, causing him to fall on his ass and bruise his tailbone. A glowing portal with black and red skeletal hands appeared under Yosuke, and began to pull him down. Yosuke tried to fight, summoning Takehaya Susanoo and slashing with his kunai all for naught as he was inevitably pulled under by Izanami's Thousand Curses.

And it was the start of a cascade of failures, as Yu was helpless to watch as Chie, then Yukiko, then Kanji, then Teddie sacrificed themselves to Izanami's Thousand Curses in some vain attempt to keep him alive. Even as the battle continued on and Yu scrambled to his feet, it seemed Izanami would try again and someone else would take his place.

"You need to live Yu-Sen-!" Naoto screamed at him as she pushed him over again. But as she went down, she raised her revolver and took shots at Izanami, even as she was dragged down, skeletal hands tearing at her clothes, covering her mouth to silence her. He could see the blood on her cheeks where they dug in sharply.

Yu had gotten up, tears in his eyes as he fought on. Izanami then took to toying with him. Healing him when he was on the brink of death, taunting him over his failures to save his friends. She pierced through the armor on his back and plucked the flesh from his bones like one might pluck the strings of a guitar. Then she'd heal him and start again, able to dedicate the entirety of her attention to him.

Even Rise was powerless to help and was eventually consumed by the Thousand Curses. Yu had lost track of how many times he should have died, only to have the Goddess cruelly bring him back. But even she grew tired of her game and forced him to succumb to the Thousand Curses.

Darkness had swallowed him. He had truly ended up in Hell. But from that darkness, he heard his friends, his family, his confidants. Over and over and over they told him the same thing. Get up. Get up. Rise! Stand and fight! Once more into the breach!

"You need to get up Yu-kun. Please. One more time. For me?" said the voice of Naoto, which finally gave Yu the strength to stand up once again. But, what good was it to rise up. He was just some dumb kid from the city going up against a Goddess, and Japan's co-creator on top of that. He was alone, a mere ant to be crushed under a boot.

Yu suddenly felt like he had been struck through the heart. In that instant, he realized a very great and powerful truth. He was never alone. He had forged unbreakable bonds over his year in Inaba. He thought of everyone, even the traitorous Adachi who had given him the final clue he needed to realize the truth behind the Midnight Channel, and that he couldn't just go home without pursuing the Truth one last time.

A foot fell and Yu pushed himself to stand. He squared his shoulders and licked his lips, tasting copper on them as he thought back to his trip to Port Island. Izanami and Izanagi, and his first Persona, warrior of lighting and blade.

From thin air, a blue card appeared began to spin in front of him as a familiar raspy voice echoed throughout the area.

"Thou art I, and I am thou. From the sea of thy soul, I cometh. From the very moment of my emergence, I have been a guiding light shed to illuminate thy path. I am the original God. My name is…"

Yu opened his eyes to stare at Izanami's form. He hefted his sword and tightened his hand on the grip. He would not fall again. Not until Izanami was defeated and Inaba, if not the world, was safe from her machinations.

"Even now you spurn reality!?" The Goddess demanded, completely offended by Yu's stubborn refusal to expire. "The Truth you fought for is pointless! Humanity wishes for this fog!" she declared as she swung her arms again to summon her Thousand Curses.

With tears in his eyes at thought of his fallen friends, Yu stepped from the portal to death, ripping his legs from the grasping hands and swinging his sword with determination.

Izanami's arms crossed and she swung them out. Clouds crackled to life above Yu and lightning came striking down upon him. He grit his teeth, even as his body was racked with pain. He exhaled as the blast ended and he continued staring up at the incensed Goddess with fury in his eyes. Another blast racked through his body and he dropped the sword to the ground. He almost fell forward onto his face but he roared his way through the pain, stepping forward to better stabilize himself.

"Go to Hell! Humanity doesn't want your damned fog!" Yu snarled, pouring his soul into those words as the defiance he needed to command came flowing from his lips. He was usually better spoken, but in that instance he felt simple was necessary.

"How?! Why?! Fall, damn you! Succumb! How can your powers rival mine?! How does the will of the few outweigh the Will of Humanity?!" Izanami screeched as she continued to blast Yu with torrents of lightning.

Yu stared up at the Goddess. The large, still rotting skeletal figure did nothing to intimidate him. The one that had brought the damned fog. The one that had turned Adachi and Namatame into people similar to him. The entity that had taken his friends from him.

He reached up to grab the silver glasses on his face and he pulled them off. He didn't need them anymore. He tossed them to the side and forced his body to stand up straighter. He raised a hand up at Izanami. "Perhaps I didn't make myself clear. Go to Hell," Yu reiterated. The spinning blue card appeared before him, and he crushed it with one hand.

"COME FORTH… IZANAGI-NO-OKAMI!" Yu roared, letting the name of his ultimate Persona bellow out and sound out across the pillars in the depths of the hellish realm that Izanami had dragged his friends to.

The Persona shot into the air behind Yu, sword held in hand. Dressed in a white suit, complete with a white duster that billowed. The mere presence of the Persona shoved the fog back in all directions. Lightning flashed across the endless skies. It arced across the Persona's body, even across Yu, but it didn't hurt him.

"Does thou recall our final parting, beloved?" Izanagi-no-Okami asked as he spun his sword around, causing what looked like Almighty energy to build up. "Thou swore to me that thou would curse a thousand humans every day. In return, I vowed that I would give life to a thousand and five hundred humans every day. Today, I make a new vow. For every thousand souls thou ensnare in a beguiling fog of lies, I will shine the light upon ten thousand Myriad Truths!"

On that note, Izanagi-no-Okami unleashed the Almighty energy he had been building up, dealing the killing blow to Izanami, who faded away into nothingness with a final screech. The battle was over.

But Yu… he fell to his knees and punched the ground. It didn't matter. It didn't matter that he won. It didn't matter that he summoned Izanagi-no-Okami to defeat the Goddess. None of that mattered. His friends were gone, and he'd never hear their voices again. Yosuke talking about getting motorcycles. Chie talking about grilled steak or training martial arts moves. Yukiko talking about the people at the Amagi Inn with such passion. Kanji's embarrassed talk regarding the plush toys he made. Rise coming to the conclusion that every aspect of her was her. Teddie about what it was to be human. Naoto, his love, about the Tools of the Detective.

Yu punched the ground again, this time hard enough that he felt something crack. It hurt. It definitely hurt. Even more than the lightning that had surged through his body.

Suddenly, there was a sound and Yu forced his head up. The ground shifted nearby and he forced himself to race towards it. He found it soft like soil and actually began digging at it, until, much to his surprise and astonishment, he found Naoto Shirogane's face buried underneath.

"Yu-Senpai," the blue haired girl said, coughing a bit. The glasses were askew on her face, and the hat was off, but it was her! Yu set to work digging her out.

A hand came out of another spot and he raced over and set to work unburying Rise. One by one, he helped his friends out, each of them gasping for air and none the worse for wear. A little scuffed, some torn clothes, but they were alive. Relief flooded his veins and suddenly all Yu felt was tired. He actually fell on his ass and stuck his head between his knees, chuckling as tears streamed down his face. It was over. It was finally over…

April 21, 2014

Yu Narukami's Apartment

After his shower was completed, Yu got dressed and made his way over to a trunk at the foot of his bed and opened it, revealing his second-year Yasogami High School Uniform, the Jersey he had been given by the late Kinshiro Mooroka, a Phoenix Ranger Featherman suit, a Gekkoukan High School uniform for some reason, amongst other things. However, Yu was interested in two things in particular, both of which he had won from what he could only assume was from Death itself, that being his sword, the Blade of Totsuka, and a powerful piece of armor called the God's Robe, even though it wasn't anything remotely close to a robe.

After some rummaging, he found them both. The blacksmith back in Inaba had done the best he could to fix his armor after Izanami tortured him, and in Yu's opinion, he had done a pretty good job, as one could only notice the signs of damage and repair if you looked closely enough at it.

As for why Yu was pulling out his old sword and armor, if he recalled correctly, those thieves would attempt to storm that strange castle again today, and Yu still had next to no information on them or even what this "Metaverse" actually was. Moreover, with Shadows guarding that place, he needed to be adequately protected, and while he had been fortunate enough to have been given a katana and a gun when he'd stumbled into the Metaverse he hadn't been given any form of protective equipment, and he didn't want to rely on magically getting weapons every single time he went there.

Yu then turned to grab a sporting goods bag from his closet to carry his equipment, and when he turned back, he found himself staring at a familiar-looking blue butterfly that seemed as though it was glowing and was sitting on top of a pair of gadgets that Yu knew for a fact didn't belong to him. But, that was completely irrelevant when one was thinking about how they even got there in the first place, or how the butterfly even got into his apartment.

Before Yu had time to properly ponder these questions, there was a bright flash of light, and where the butterfly had once been, there was now a note of some kind. Blinking his eyes to help him readjust, Yu made his way over to the note and picked it up.

If you are going to poke around the Metaverse, then you and your beloved are going to need these grapple devices to access higher areas. Be forewarned, you will not be able to go in guns blazing around the Palaces the same way you did the Midnight Channel. You will need to rely on stealth to traverse them. Being detected too often will only cause problems for you and your successor, and neither of us wish for that.

We will speak again soon. Until then, may the cards be ever in your favor.

-Philemon

Yu frowned as he read over the note's contents and examined the grapple devices. If he had to guess, that butterfly and whoever this Philemon was had something to do with the Velvet Room, the denizens of which were fairly friendly if mysterious and enigmatic. To that extent, Yu was fairly certain that he could accept their assistance and anything that they gave him.

Once Yu had all his equipment packed up, all that remained was the hard part. Waiting for Shujin Academy to let out so he could keep tabs on those thieves and have something to report to Naoto when she finally arrived.

Later That Day...

Yu stood outside Shujin Academy, his back pressed to a wall of an alleyway. He glanced out to see the trio of students coming out, heading for a spot where they could then watch everyone else. They seemed a bit more oblivious to the people around them than the Investigation Team had been. Then again, the Investigation Team had to crawl in through a TV in the middle of a department store, while these three had that strange app on their phone.

"Alright, security should be light enough for us to go back in. Remember, we need to be careful," Mona said from Joker's bag.

Yu, for his part, was going to have to get used to that. Hearing a cat talk was just bizarre.

"Relax Mona, we've got this," Skull said, sounding completely carefree as he pulled out his phone. "Alright then, Suguru Kamoshida, pervert, Shujin Academy, and a castle."

"Beginning navigation," said an automated female voice from the phone.

Yu felt that jerk and then the weight of the distorted world pressing upon him before his attire erupted into a burst of blue fire, leaving him clad in the same outfit as last time. A part of Yu wondered why exactly his clothes changed here when they stayed the same in the TV World, but that was irrelevant. He had more important things to take care of at the moment.

The thieves made their way towards a hole in the wall that looked as though it was a ventilation shaft. Mona leapt up first, followed by Skull, Joker, then lastly was Panther.

So that was how they're coming and going, thought Yu as he held his sword and headed towards it, arriving just as the sound of a door closing was heard on the other side.

Yu counted to ten before he clenched his sword tighter. He took a moment before scaling the brick wall and catching his hand on the ventilation ductwork. He then slid the sword in before climbing up to crawl on through. He definitely preferred the TV World entrances. True, he had to run for what seemed like miles at times, but that was hardly an issue after a while.

As Yu made his way through the castle, he tried each of the doors, and as he did, he eventually came to one that sickened him. It was full of girls from Shujin Academy in various states of nudity, all of them swooning over Kamoshida, begging to be used, no doubt as a sexual outlet. There was even one of Panther in there. Talking to them proved pointless. It was like they weren't Shadows or actual people, but rather, were simply part of the decoration.

As Yu made his way through the halls, he got into a few fights with the guards, but the Shadows were no more difficult than those he fought in Yukiko's Castle. Dangerous to face when he was outnumbered, but if he could get them one on one and was strong and skilled enough, then they hardly posed a problem. And he was more than strong and skilled enough. Most of the enemies he had come across were utterly bested when he broke a Ziodyne off.

But as he went through the castle, stepping carefully, he ultimately came to the conclusion that Kamoshida was a sick and twisted individual, a demon possesed by a disgusting lust. And these thieves were after something important to him, a Treasure. While he wasn't necessarily against bringing Kamoshida to justice, in fact he wholeheartedly agreed with the idea, the methods these thieves were using seemed to suggest something else.

Regardless, the fact of the matter remained that Yu didn't have enough information about the Metaverse or these thieves to fully understand the whole picture.

Yu had also practically ran over the kids twice, as they had apparently taken a break in two different rooms, which Yu had checked out after they left. Seeing the world he was in morph towards a classroom of some kind before turning back again was a little disorienting. He took a moment to just catch his breath and stretch his sore muscles a little bit. He was definitely not used to running through large areas again.

So far, the information that Yu had collected was pointing towards Kamoshida abusing the members of the volleyball team, both boys and girls. It was hardly the sort of person that Yu would be looking to protect. Yu couldn't help but frown in anger as his hands clenched into fists. It was almost like Adachi all over again. Kamoshida was doing it because he could, because he wanted to, because it was fun.

Yu eventually came to a banister overlooking the Foyer, shadows milling about and looking through every nook and cranny. He could probably get through them, especially as equipped as he was, but the matter was that he really didn't want to take that risk. He had almost been put to sleep by an earlier Shadow. He had barely shrugged those effects off. But a sound caused him to look up and he could see the chandeliers moving like something had recently disturbed them. He glanced over to a bookshelf and saw how he could get on top.

As Yu made his way across the chandeliers, he was careful not to make too much of a sound. And he didn't look down at the ground, as he was rather high up. He wasn't scared by any means, he just had a bit of an issue with heights.

Oh if only the Investigation Team knew… thought Yu as a smile crossed his face at the heyday his friends would have if they ever found out that tidbit. Granted, they had been miles above Inaba during the confrontation with Ameno-Sagiri, but he hadn't much time to dwell on that fact, as he had been occupied with the battle with the aforementioned disco eyeball.

I really need to meet up with Yosuke and the others again soon. And when I do, I need to come clean about everything, thought Yu as he arrived at a room that looked like some sort of chapel, complete with pews just in time to see Mona slam into a pillar and slump over. He snuck to a pillar and used his grappling hook to ascend to a higher vantage point. As he glanced about the battlefield, he found that the thieves were fighting an armored figure with wings and a sword that looked eerily similar to Archangel, one of his old Personas of the Justice Arcana.

"Panther, can you do something about Mona?!" Joker shouted as he dodged a sword swing from the Archangel-esque Shadow. He pulled a pistol and cracked off two rounds that practically bounced off the armor.

"Ma ha ha ha… you dare?!" the Shadow taunted, clearly amused by the attempt.

Panther dove out of the way of an attack before ripping off her mask, causing her Persona to appear. "Carmen, Dia!" she called out, looking at Mona, only for the healing spell to have no effect. "Sorry Joker, it's not working!"

Of course it wasn't, thought Yu bitterly. They needed to patch the cat up after the fight, which they were losing. True, these kids were rookies in this Persona and Shadow business, but Yu noted that they had the beginnings of what his team had once had, and probably still did. That coordination of a team that knew the abilities of the others, with their leader acting as an anchor that could help everyone.

Skull rushed up to the Archangel, pulling a shotgun up by the sling as he did so before unloading two rounds of buckshot and barely ducking under a blade aimed to take his head off.

"Captain Kidd, Zio!" Skull shouted, turning around as he leapt backwards, away from the Archangel.

Yu was interested to note that his Persona was one of a pirate riding a ship like a skateboard. He was also interested to note that they had yet to figure out they didn't have to call out their Persona's names in order to use the skills.

"So did Thou, if thy recall," said Izanagi from within Yu's mind, which caused him to smile.

True enough, Yu told his Persona. Indeed, it had taken him until he fought Kanji's Shadow before they had figured it out. He had been desperate and on his ass before he summoned a Mabufu to deal damage without summoning his Persona.

Yu frowned as the Archangel shrugged the lightning off. While it had certainly done some damage, the creature was still healthy enough that it could take the blasts still. They weren't doing enough damage. He glanced over to the cat Shadow, Mona, and for an instant, he saw the bear form of Teddie. His hand tightened around the hilt of his sword. No, he couldn't just stand by and do nothing, but charging in guns blazing wasn't in the cards glanced down at the door he had come in from. After this, he'd have to beat a very hasty retreat while the thieves were distracted from what was about to happen.

Izanagi's card materialized into existence right above Yu's open hand. "Megidolaon," the silver-haired man said as he crushed the card. Nothing resisted Almighty damage, not even Izanami, and this Shadow should be no exception.

As the Megidolaon detonated in a tremendous explosion, Yu quickly got back down on the ground and made a beeline for the castle exit. Once he had finally made it back to the front gates, Yu took a few moments to catch his breath. True, he had been keeping up with his kendo and staying physically fit, he hadn't had to run that hard in quite some time.

As Yu made his way back towards the alleyway, he decided that it was best that he waited for the kids to come back out. After all, he still lacked sufficient information about why they were doing any of this, so he would need to keep tabs on them, and to do that, he needed to know when they would make their next venture into this Metaverse.

It was about thirty minutes later when Yu began to hear the voices of the thieves approaching.

"Joker, we could keep going," said Skull. Yu still didn't know why exactly, but his voice sounded really familiar, and the fact that he seemed particularly eager to take Kamoshida down served to increase that sense of familiarity.

"I know, Skull... I just don't like it." Joker said as he pulled his mask off and rubbed his eyes. "We were on the ropes, then out of nowhere, that explosion took out that guard captain. Let's regroup, let security loosen up again. We got reckless and Mona almost paid the price for it."

"Alright leader, your call," said Skull as the four thieves made their way to the alley one down from where Yu was at.

"It's a good call," said Mona with a nod. "Besides, we don't know if our savior is truly a friend or foe, and from what you guys described, he used an Almighty skill, and there's no way any of us would walk away from something like that as we are now. The real world is probably safer than in here."

"Agreed, Mona," Joker said as he pulled out his phone and pressed a button.

"Would you like to return to the real world from the Castle of Lust?" the automated voice on the phone said pleasantly.

"Yes," replied Joker.

"Returning to the real world from the Castle of Lust. Thank you for all your hard work," the automated female voice said before u felt the world spin and his attire returned to normal. Yu picked up his sports bag from where he'd hidden it, placed his sword in it, and started to move off. It had been a long time since Yu had felt this drained. Right now, he wanted to get home, eat something, and go to bed.

Yu's phone buzzed in his pocket. Pulling it out, Yu saw that it was a text message from Naoto.

MEET ME AT TRAIN STATION ON SUNDAY. PLZ. A:Y/N? Yu smiled at seeing Naoto's typing before he nodded to himself and sent a simple 'Of Course' to her. He'd be seeing Naoto soon, the very thought of which excited him. And all he had to do was wait a few more days.

After that, though… the real work would begin...