For Master Minato

The wind blew.

Storm had arrived.

A girl slowly walked through the beating rain under a black umbrella. Her school uniform was neither drenched nor were they frayed by water and wind. With the crowd of people that walked all around her, she blended in as if she was there from the start.

But she wasn't.

She was an outsider.

Now on an open field, she looked around Yoyogi park. In the rain there was none to meet and greet, but curiously a small girl walked toward her with gait and confidence. She wore a dress of bluish lavender. Her blonde hair complimented the looks along with her blue eyes.

"You don't belong here," Lavenza informed. Her face made a stern expression. It was something that no other people save a few had seen before. "Leave this place immediately, child of shade. Give my regards to your spouse, the one who sowed chaos and anarchy."

If he was even her spouse

With that thought, Lavenza assumed battle position. Her book in hand, she was ready for a beatdown. It was a great chance for her to stretch her sore body. Going all out for once in a while would be good for her bored body.

"Don't worry, dear Velvet Attendant," the child of shade as Lavenza named her spoke. It was a soft voice, refined like a lady. It sent chills to the layman, though Lavenza had realized her false attempt of provocation. "I am not here to battle you for now. My spouse, as you said, had a slight problem recently. It was something along the lines of a Godfelling. He didn't quite like that, you see, so he said to give the man who did it a few greetings."

"...So you're targeting my client."

"Quite."

"I can't allow that," Lavenza opened her compendium and unraveled Yoshitsune from its riffling pages. "Cut her, Yoshitsune. Hassou Tobi!"

Eight sounds of furious steel permeated the living world. Caught by the storm were people unaware. The clash happened in almost a fraction of an instance. The duel had ended as fast light had traveled.

An umbrella flew into the air and slammed rudely against the grass. Yoshitsune's swords had pierced the girl, or so it looked. The child of shade had stuck his blade in between her index and middle finger. A childish smirk was smeared across her face.

"Pathetic. I've seen velvet attendants more powerful than you." The girl, the child of shade, scoffed.

Her mockery didn't faze Lavenza in the slightest, but the child of shade was right. Lavenza needed to muster more of her innate powers to equalize themselves in battle. She needed to be a bit more creative, it seemed.

"Blow her away," her compendium rifled once more. What appeared this time was a skeletal figure floating on a pair of angelic white wings. In its hands were a trumpet, which it blew toward the child of shade. "Trumpeter!"

"Come then!" The child of shade was now playing defense. A spear was planted into the ground as she trudged against the howl of heavenly winds. Against the might of the velvet room, the child of shade continued her battle.

When your mask is cast, when your disguise is lost, when your spirit withers.

What will you fight for?

The dance of the dying spear, the lost sword, the buried axe.

Tokyo, the city of the lost. They said that one out of ten people had mental baggage; depression, stress, sociopathy, and the whole package. In a congestion of space filled with humanity's cesspool of ideas, where information traveled faster than light in the digital space, a lone soul had manifested itself.

Though she was there from the start.

She was born out of nothing. From the void she materialized out of thin air outside of everyone's view. She looked around listlessly as the door behind her closed on her. She knew full well where she was; information had been flowing non-stop inside her mind. On the rooftop of a tall skyscraper the woman looked down below with her empty gaze, where scramble crossing was packed to the brim with life.

She jumped.

Her schoolgirl outfit billowed as her body grazed with the air. She leapt with a purpose, now a large-bladed spear appeared and in her hands from the darkness, only one in her mind at this instance. Eyes widened and pupils shrunk, she was waiting for her target amongst the flock; a raven-haired boy surrounded with a colorful cast of characters.

In an instant, the sky darkened, the people disappeared, and time seemed to stop. The girl pulled back her naginata, waiting for the right distance to strike. She had the momentum of gravity carry her as she cleaved what was now a boy under a dark robe. It was now or never that she had to strike, at the moment Akira Kurusu and her cadre of friends were left unaware; in the split-second where he was caught by surprise.

Her empty eyes normalized, as she realized she had not split the boy's body in two. Her steel clashed with his; her naginata's blade smashed against the boy's dagger's. The impact between the two sent shockwaves throughout the streets and cracked the glasses of buildings around them.

"Strange," the unknown girl pondered, now about ten meters back from Akira. Her voice was innocent but her tone was malicious. She had regretted not killing the man, moreso by not injuring him at all. "I was sure that I was in your blind spot. Was it truly the devil's own luck that saved you?"

"Who the hell are you?" Akira growled. He looked around him. His friends had transformed into their phantom thieves outfit, all of them just as confused as he was. Around him were distorted cognitions everywhere. They were now standing in the midst of an urban battleground littered with chained black coffins, with a single green circle that was the moon which hung atop the lonely sky. Green hued and enveloped inside an unnerving darkness, they forgot that just a second ago they were just walking home from school in the middle of the day.

The contrast was not the only thing that was unnerving. In-front of the phantom thieves stood an unknown girl that was seeping in darkness. Her presence was massive and her existence was repulsive. Just looking at the girl before them had Akira feeling sick in the stomach, as if a thousand butterflies had thrashed around his organs.

It was not just Akira, but his friends felt that sensation too. Futaba was the first who panicked when she tried to read the unknown girl's status, mentioning something incoherent about power levels. Ann and Yusuke wanted to back away out of fear, but held on with cold sweat falling down their cheeks. Ryuji had readied his weapon and was ready, but Akira held him back knowing fear. It was Haru and Makoto that had convinced them to retreat with Morgana transformed into a car.

"Everyone get in!" Akira readied his dagger, though he was unsure where to strike. He had to buy time for them to escape. The unknown girl only wanted him, and he was all too ready to reply. "You wanted me, right? Then come get me, demon!"

That word.

It was that word again which echoed inside her mind.

Demon

She was unsure whether or not she was a demon.

However, if she was called a demon, maybe she was a demon. She didn't remember how many memories she had lost since she had existed. Everything came back as easily as it went away. Her friends, her loved ones, her one and only lover. Maybe those and that name was nothing but a fleeting dream of a butterfly.

"Very well then." The unknown girl readied her weapon. It was a spear with a gigantic blade. The girl wanted Akira to fear her, and she succeeded. Akira had felt the power of that weapon before. He felt nothing of weapons before, but with the unknown girl who wielded it the weapon felt like his guillotine. As his eyes were glued to the unknown girl's sight, the girl had taken her first step. "Let us play tag. I'll be the demon."

A large slash from above.

Had he not dodged to the left, his body would split into two just like the ground below him.

A powerful swing from the left going for his shoulder.

Had he not dodged by ducking under it, his upper torso would splatter all over the building to his left.

However, what Akira did not see was the follow-up to the previous swing. With stepping technique as if she flowed on water, she used the centrifugal force and spun for another swing from Akira's side. The three strikes were calculated. She had accounted the habits of a trickster into her strikes. The best way to surprise a trickster was to play the play like a trickster, and the feint to a roundhouse swing was perfect to lop Akira's legs off.

"Arsene!"

With a glass-shattering sound, Akira took to the sky. He had not jumped, but his persona who carried him to the air did. It was a great split-second decision, that much the unknown girl could award Akira.

However, he was not the only one who had that power.

The unknown girl placed her index finger to her head with its end against her temple. Her finger was the barrel and her thumb was the trigger. With shadows emerging under her, a manifestation was fabricated into reality. What she had sown and produced into the world was a blithe and a curse that haunted the world.

"Y'houndeh."

A bullet passed through her head. At least that was what Akira had seen. Yet the unknown girl was unhurt.

However, Akira's problem was not over. Before him was now a gigantic shadow that seeped out of the girl. A being made of withered thorns and dead branches. It was bathed in toxins, covered by mud, and filled with rotten flesh and putrid blood. It took the form of a woman, a goddess, a demon, and what appeared to be three eyes protruding from spikes that were her face were looking straight at him.

Then there was her command. Up in the sky her words were silenced to Akira, but he knew what she had said with one-hundred percent certainty.

"Kill Akira."

A thousand spikes from the woman's body popped out and protruded toward Akira. Each and every one of them were spears that homed at him. They were blades launched to pierce and end him. Now, when everything before him looked like a blanket of lightless space, was when he was truly afraid.

"Satanael!" Arsene disappeared in a blinding light and in its place was a towering giant. It was bigger than Y'houndeh by three times its size and a single squashing by its feet would render the unknown girl's persona defeated. In its right hand was a gun, a rifle, which it aimed at the impending darkness from below and shot it in a laser of blinding light that exploded at the epicenter of the encroaching jet black shadows. "Rays of Control!"

Satanael stopped for one tic before emptying a whole clip to the damned. The barrage was so severe that the building behind the shadow was obliterated to bits, and so were the buildings behind the first one. In a matter of minutes, what was left behind became a sea of annihilated ruins and a pool of blazing flames.

Yet the unknown girl was still there, even after Satanael had turned back into Arsene that floated behind Akira. She was standing still, her body unhurt, with a barrier of faint color that protected her in a dome. The dome slowly seeped into the ground as if it was never there in the first place. It had blended with the unknown girl's shadow once more.

"You're strong," the unknown girl chuckled. "Strong enough to take down Y'houndeh's strongest attack."

It was a compliment, but Akira wondered if he could accept that as one. He was spent. Belting out Satanael and his ace in the hole was not something he could do twice in a row. He had done his body of energies for a whole week, leaving him just strong enough to put up his guard and Arsene. Fighting the unknown girl was not a joke. She was too damned strong, like something out of his worst nightmares.

Then, something that had tied the unknown girl's hair back had snapped. Her hair was now let down. It was long enough to reach her elbow. She then slowly placed her hand on her forehead, where her second accessory was still there.

It was then that the air around Hamuko changed considerably. What seemed like a well of shadows before had become an erupting wave of darkness. Though she felt as normal as an embodiment of blackness would be, the air that came from her was like an array of small blades that prickled Akira's skin all over.

The atmosphere of this place had been eating on him too. He felt both threatened, conflicted, and disheartened just being inside this hellish place. What even were these landscapes? It was abominable, full of death, with everything and everywhere in its surroundings absolutely cursed and demented. It made Akira sick to his very core.

Then something welled up from inside him into his throat and out of his mouth. Akira's legs lost their strength and he was forced to kneel. Without warning, Akira had vomited living butterflies. Each butterfly let out childish giggles as they flew toward the unknown girl's outstretched hand. As they touched the tips of her fingers and thumb, they too went inside the girl's skin as if she had absorbed them.

He hacked and coughed, spit and drool mixed and left his mouth. He was utterly repulsed from the experience. His sanity was slowly drained as if a pump had been placed inside his brain and sucked his gray matter out of him. All Akira thought of now was how he would defeat the foe in-front of him.

"You're disgusting," was what Akira mustered with his bated breath. "Who-no, what the hell are you?"

"Am I not a demon?" From her stoic expression came out a small smirk. Akira had truly amused her. Something inside her was rustling, and it was not the butterflies in her stomach. What shred of emotion that was left in her heart began to resonate as her gaze was now absolutely focused on Akira. "Am I not the catcher in our game of tag? Or were we now playing red light green light? You were not moving for a while there, Akira-kun."

A tinge snapped inside the unknown girl's brain.

With her newfound talkativeness came a newfound sensation inside her. The unknown girl herself wasn't sure what it was. She pressed her palm against each other and felt nothing but coldness. It was the same as the other times, but this was new even to her.

Or to be exact, it felt new, for she thought she had realized this feeling before.

Her smirk then turned into a grin.

And from her grin came out her chilling voice.

"Hamuko."

She licked her dry lips. It felt as if her lips had never been this wet in years. She slowly placed her hands against her rosy cheeks, which blushed at Akira's sight.

"That's my name, you know. I'm Hamuko."

It was not through happiness that she said her name, her identity, for it was sadistic intrigue that moved her. Every fiber of her body itched and ached for Akira to respond. Reflected inside her eyes were someone else entirely. A man with grayish hair under his black beanie who was tall, rough, and heavily-built from top to bottom under his red duster coat. Though it was only for an instant, Hamuko had seen someone else in Akira. Someone he was truly and heartfully unfamiliar with.

"Now, let's resume our game again, shall we? Last I checked we were playing tag."

She walked toward Akira. With each stop, Akira's head felt as if it would split open in a burst of spiders and moths. Knowing what he had thrown up beforehand it ought to be just that which would emerge. Akira moved his body back reflexively. His entire survival instinct was now moving him in full force. He knew if he was touched then and there he would die.

No, it would be a fate even worse than death.

It was then that something hard had slammed Hamuko from the side. The impact was hard enough to knock Hamuko a few meters back. She rolled on the ground listlessly, before she stood up as if she had strings on her back. Morgana had rammed his every existence against the darkness and paid the price dearly as he instantly transformed back into his normal form, but with a big bump on his head.

"Smash her dead, William!" A yacht suddenly appeared before the leaping Ryuji which rammed Hamuko square in her stomach. It ground her against the ground as her flesh skidded against the asphalt and straight into a coffin. Without pause, he leapt forward with his hand pulled back with his persona now behind him. Synchronized with his other self, he slammed his fist straight toward Hamuko with an unbelievable force that had shattered mountains. His God Fist was unmatched, but now it met its match when Hamuko didn't flinch from the impact. Ryuji's hand, however, became sore just from one punch.

"Come with me, Haru!" Makoto commanded as she rode Agnes toward Hamuko. She made a slight detour by circling around Hamuko with Haru ready to support her by standing before Hamuko. Revving her persona, she blitzed toward Hamuko's back, grabbed her by the leg, and swung her toward Haru who was ready with her axe raised. "Make it count!"

"I got you... covered!" She held her breath as she unleashed a single crackle of dawn toward the flattened Hamuko. She aimed straight toward her neck for decapitation. Her swing was mighty, and its impact was explosive. It was then that the phantom thieves had considered about murder. When they saw Hamuko, now she was standing and cracking her neck as if her muscles were sore, all bets were now off.

Haru had the right idea, but placing herself in Hamuko's reach was her mistake. Hamuko reached for Haru by the collar and lifted her easily as if she was made out of feathers. From her hand she materialized her naginata, blade pointed toward Haru, and thrusted it toward her neck.

Had Yusuke not parried the blow with his sword, Haru would have been decapitated. He turned around to unleash another slash, but Hamuko was not where she was anymore. She had released Haru and side-stepped Yusuke's attack to his right side. Then, Yusuke fell onto the ground face up. Hamuko's leg had swept him off of his axis and was now defenseless.

Hamuko raised her naginata. Its blade was aimed at Yusuke's neck. Like Haru's attack, it was a downward swing dedicated to decapitation.

This was Ann's cue to wrap Yusuke by the leg before pulling him with just enough distance that he had dodged the attack with just a hair's breadth. Additionally, Ann summoned several flames all around her and launched all twenty-five of car-sized balls of flames toward Hamuko. It resulted in a spectacle of explosion and fireworks that culminated into a pillar of flame thirty meters in diameter that pierced the cloudless green sky.

And yet, even still, with all that firepower, Hamuko was left unscathed.

With a piercing glare, she looked at all the floozies who had circled around her.

"Are you done?" She said as she dusted her shoulder. "If that was all you could muster, I must say I'm utterly disappointed."

She placed her index finger toward her temple again. Her gun was cocked and ready to evoke. The darkness in her shadow had manifested once again into a form that the naked eye could observe. Akira knew by sight alone that what she was about to summon was not what she had summoned before. It was something else entirely. Something even more sinister and wicked.

"Everyone, step back from her!" Akira commanded. "Stick close to me. This next one is dangerous!"

Everyone nodded and hurriedly did as they were told.

"Here it comes, guys," Futaba had looked through Al Azif and recoiled in terror. Her power level had surpassed her infinity scale and reached negative zero. An imaginary number had presented herself with an imaginary being. What Hamuko was about to release on the phantom thieves was something that was theoretically impossible in this dimension. "This attack comes from somewhere that's not our own plane of existence. Whatever it is, brace yourselves!"

"The Door to Saturn."

A large door fell down from the sky and smashed itself crudely behind Hamuko. It was more of a double-doored gate than a door. Its existence was shrouded in golden debauchery and grandiose sin. It had tilted from the fall, but still the gate opened to reveal the putrid cosmos behind it. What was behind the door was clearly alive, even if what the phantom thieves could see were the entire universe itself.

It was maddening. Everyone began to scream uncontrollably. Akira grew paler by the minutes as he saw his teammates fainting left and right. Futaba was the first to fall, her entire mind unable to fathom the constructed magnificence before her. Then it was Ryuji, then Yusuke, and lastly Morgana. Somehow, by sheer will and pure drive alone, Haru and Makoto had managed to step before the gate and slammed their weapons against it, which closed it promptly without further interruption. Ann, who had hung in there just barely, threw a bead chain toward the sky which revived everyone who had fainted.

Hamuko chuckled, then giggled, then laughed, then cackled.

Her shrill tone and voice disgusted Akira.

"That's great, that's really great!" Hamuko's face was distorted as if it had melted into a cacophony of twisting and swirling emotions. "You phantom thieves sure are a bunch of tricksters! Entertain me more. Make me whole even more. More. More. MORE!"

"You bitch." Akira aimed his gun toward Hamuko. "Just what do you want from us?"

"That's not for you to find out now, isn't it?"

Akira emptied his whole clip on Hamuko's face. Everything hit straight in-between her eyes. The bullets, however, just passed through behind her as if she was a spectre.

"Damned demon."

Then everything around her became wavered and distorted. The landscape was slowly turning back into the scramble crossing that Akira was familiar with. It seemed that both of them were out of time as reality itself started to break down all around them.

"I'll leave you be now," Hamuko said as she bowed courtly. "Look forward to the next time we meet, Akira-kun. It was fun today, though it wasn't for long."

"Damn you," Akira stood up on his wobbling leg. He was close to passing out. "What is your aim? What do you want from us? Who sent you?"

"I'm in no obligation to answer any of them, Akira-kun. All you needed to know is that we are always watching you and your paltry pals of phantom thieves. You have caught our unending gaze, you see, after you went and tricked the whole reality with your hands." With that the figure of Hamuko slowly dissipated, as if the air was eating her bite by bite. Her auburn hair and her smiling face were the last thing that Akira saw.

Then everything went black.

He felt his body weakening as he fell lifelessly against the ground. Around him, everyone began to scream for him. They all were calling for his names, his body felt himself being shaken, but he was just too tired to respond.

And so he slept.

The room was dimly lit, though bright enough for everyone inside to not damage their eyes. It was a room filled with bizarre equipment shaped like normal computers. Each of them were state of the art, complete with many digitally-manifested touchscreen that lit on empty air above those complex machineries.

A single human being sat on a reclined chair made out of metal. Her teal hair shuffled ever so slightly with the whirring of the machinery she sat on. As it did, information began to flow outward from her to the machines all around her. It was simply her informational retention that did it, with everything else transmitted directly through the neurons in her brain down the circuit of nerves linked to her devices.

"The result has come, Mitsuru-senpai," the teal-haired girl said. "It is undoubtedly her. Our hunches were right afterall. What should we do?"

Fuuka Yamagishi was unsure either of what she saw. However, the Juno system had no margin of error above zero point one percent. The scale of truth had tipped on their favors, though the truth was sometimes merciless. Although they had grown older, their friend had stayed as young as they had left her.

When she reviewed the recordings there were nary any mistakes. Facial recognition had a one-hundred percent match. For an instant, from a remote camera recording of a building, Mitsuru Kirijo saw Hamuko.

Even if it might not be the same friend that she had known.

"Aigis," Mitsuru hesitated as she called her through the earpiece. "Prepare Labrys for sortie and contact Akihiko Sanada, Ken Amada, and Shinjiro Aragaki. We shall move out in thirty minutes. I'll see you in the hangar."

As Mitsuru walked out of her control room, Fuuka soon followed.

The Kirijo Group had expanded into a lot of future-proofed organizations for the survival of humanity. When her group had detected abnormalities in Tokyo, somewhere that was too risky and congested for her influence to subtly take place, she had her doubts that the phantom thieves were able to save the world. She had her sources. The yakuza was one of them, some of the politicians being the other, and ultimately, a certain cheap-looking site called the Phansite was all she needed to affirm her logical deduction.

Inside the file she brought and opened as she walked toward the hangar of her underground operation, Mitsuru Kirijo shuffled through the names of potential phantom thieves. Akira Kurusu, Ryuji Sakamoto, Ann Takamaki, Yusuke Kitagawa, Makoto Nijima, Futaba Sakura, Haru Okumura, and two others that had evaded full evaluations.

What awaited Mitsuru at the end of her walk was a private jet on an airfield. The whole lot was her property, so she might as well create an entire airport out of it. Beside the exorbitant tax she had to pay, there was no problem in procuring its maintenance, fuel, and reparation. She had to help everyone in need of her organization from across the globe, and this would be the fastest solution.

She had the resources, so she ought to.

Current destination: Tokyo.

Current target: Hamuko.

She was truly gunning to fast end the entirety of this incident. The time limit would be two weeks. That would be for the best. In thirty minutes, her friend and closest aide would appear before her to be debriefed.

Her only hope was that they would take the news well.

In midsummer's dream the poet woke

In the cradle of Earth does the people yoke

Though father fate and mother time had only but joke

Akira woke up on a hospital bed.

He held his head as he woke up. This headache was the worst one he ever had so far. He looked back into his mind and then toward the past. His memories unraveled in bits and pieces, with something missing like a movie reel that was edited and cut. He was walking home with his friends. They went through the Shibuya crossing before his memory abruptly ended then and there. Afterward, he was here.

What the hell just happened?

He looked for the buzzer. He needed a drink and there was none in his sight. Not a bottle, a glass, or a vase filled with water. If he asked nicely, maybe the nurse could bring some water for him.

Found it. It was to his side and hanging on the handlebar. Naturally he pressed it, and then he waited.

Ten to twenty minutes had passed before the nurse finally came to his room. The nurse was a woman in her early twenties, as if she had just graduated high school. Her auburn hair was striking. A bright accessory on her bang complimented the hue of her hair nicely. The tied up ponytail looked fresh in Akira's eyes, but he found himself in awe when he locked eyes with the nurse. Her hazelnut-brown eyes were mesmerizing, enchanting even him who had known more than one pretty girl in his life.

It was as if light had blanketed the room.

The nurse tilted her head. She was confused. Her eyes looked like they were asking Akira what he was looking so intently at.

"Umm, dear sir," the nurse started. "I see that you have woken up and I will bring out your doctor in a few minutes. However, what else do you need from me?"

Akira took a second to process the information before he answered.

"Oh, uh,"with a stutter, he botched his way into something that seemed coherent. "Some water please."

"In a glass?" The nurse further asked. "Or would you rather I'd bring the whole pitcher and that?"

"Yes please," Akira held his throat. It felt parched, as if he had not drank any water in years. "I would like that. Thank you."

"No problem sir. Always happy to do my job." The nurse bowed before she went out of the door.

As the nurse went outside the room, Akira felt a headache coming. It came as he predicted, and this time it felt as if he was stung by something with a needle deep inside and pierced his skull. Whatever this pain was, he hoped that it went away soon.

At that moment, the door to his room had opened once more. Returning back was the auburn-haired nurse and with her a listless doctor looking behind the shade of his glasses. It seemed the nurse also brought a tray with a pitcher of water and a clear glass that accompanied it, just as she promised.

"Kurusu-san, I brought your water and your doctor. Would you like to hear from him first or would you rather drink the water before his diagnosis?"

"I'll take the water first," Akira said. "I'll listen to the doctor while drinking, if you don't mind."

The doctor nodded. The nurse poured the water inside the glass and handed that to Akira, who drank the water slowly so as to not let it spill. While he did that, the doctor began to relay his diagnosis onto Akira.

What had happened was a compilation of cases of freak accidents between dehydration and overwork. It was as if he had drowned in water made out of fire. That description made as much sense to him as what the doctor had garbled and gargled out of his mouth next. There was a weird virus inside him that seemed to infect his intestines, but when scanned and researched with the little time that they had it went away as if it was never there at all. It seemed that it had caused Akira's present circumstances, but not even Akira was sure if what he had heard was proper language at all.

"Basically, Kurusu-san," the nurse interjected. "You're pretty much overworked and tired. A few nights rest might be the only thing you need after all. Isn't that great?"

The doctor nodded to the nurse's explanation.

"Still, that doesn't mean you should be going out of your room for today. Your uncle, Sakura-san, had already paid the advance payment for your stay if you needed it." The nurse pointed toward the dresser to his side, which was made of stainless steel, and continued. "Inside the top shelf are your belongings. We found a phone, a wallet, and a few more nifty toys in there. I didn't know you were such a child, considering how cool of a vibe you give off."

With the nurse's laugh, the doctor excused himself out of the door.

"Don't worry about your doctor," the nurse said. "He was never a people person. But he always does his best. Honest."

Akira affixed his gaze toward the nurse. It was as if he was glued to only watch her. This sensation was new to him, something that not even he knew he had the capacity for. It felt sinful, but the more he looked at her the more joy and warmth bubbled and welled inside his heart. It was a weird feeling of infatuation for sure, but he didn't find it bad at all.

"Hamuko."

"I'm sorry?"

"My name," the nurse pointed at herself with her pinky. An odd habit to pick for sure. "That's my name, Kurusu-san. I'll let you call me Nurse Hamuko if you'll let me call you Akira-kun. How's that?"

"That sounds..." Akira hesitated, but something inside his brain clicked against his fair judgement. "That sounds great. Delightful even. I'll be in your care, Nurse Hamuko."

Akira smiled. His cheeks became a bit rosy as he blushed his way into the conversation. Then, Nurse Hamuko moved her index finger toward Akira's nose and booped the tip.

"Smooth, aren't you?" She smirked, though her cheeks too were faintly red. "But you'd need more than that to steal my heart, Akira-kun. But good luck nonetheless."

I am thou. Thou art I.

Thou hast acquired a new vow.

It shall become the wings of rebellion
that breaketh thy chains of captivity.

With the power of the Harvester persona
I have obtained the winds of blessing that
shall lead to freedom and new power...

He felt something new inside his heart. His selection pool of arcana had expanded by one. A new bond had formed between the two; one was a phantom of a man and the other one was a nurse of a woman. He looked deep inside his heart, wondering what new potential had awakened inside him.

What he found shocked him, however.

He wasn't able to. The arcana was unnumbered, and anything that would be personas he could summon to his call was naught but an empty list of garbled letters. Not only that, there were bits of pieces of letters in other arcanas that he had acquired who had smears on their letters. It was as if Akira had forgotten something crucial about them; their shapes, sizes, abilities.

It felt crippling.

But, with Nurse Hamuko.

If he had known more of Hamuko, he ought to be able to return what he had lost. That much he was very sure of. His conviction was unyielding and his heart was set.

"Well then," Nurse Hamuko bowed once more. "If you need anything else, be sure to call for me, Akira-kun. See you soon."

Akira nodded. He watched as Hamuko walked out of his room, leaving him alone in his single hospital bed. His thought wandered once more as he wondered about what had happened to him before he was hospitalized.

He opened the drawer and looked for his phone. He booted it up and went straight for his group chat, where he found a lot of messages from his friends and confidants. Ryuji, Ann, Yusuke, Makoto, and Futaba. His uncle, Sojiro, had three missed calls in his name. Then there were the women he had known in his few months living in Tokyo. Ohya, Tae, and Sadayo had evidently been worrying sick about him.

He bit his lips as he raised an eyebrow toward his phone.

The light of his phone contrasted against the darkness inside his room, which had blanketed him since he awoke.

Nurse Hamuko

Arcana: Harvester

A Nurse who had affection toward her patients. Her first meeting with Akira was short but succinct. With a call from his buzzer, Akira would be able to meet her again.

Rank 1:

The nurse was enchanting and calming to look at, lifting Akira's spirits. She had called Akira by his given name, establishing an endearing relationship between a nurse and her patient.