Author's Note: I've been sitting in quarantine plotting this story for…lord, it's got to be four months, now. I miss people ,but I'm getting to replay all the persona games, so that's a treat.

WARNING: This story will contain significant spoilers for Persona 3P, Persona 4 Golden, Persona 5 Royal, and probably several other games. This story will contain dangerous situations, aggressive language, and queer sexual content, including discussions and depictions of heterosexuality, homosexuality, asexuality, etc, as well as the potential for major character death.

Iscariot

By C. C Capricorn

Hell is empty, and all the devils are here.

William Shakespeare, The Tempest

Prologue – September 1, 2020

Ten years after the murders, and five years after the end of an interminably dull sentence for Complicity to Commit Murder, Tohru Adachi was living a comfortably, disgustingly bored life as a professional recluse on the very outskirts of Inaba.

Nothing ever happened in Inaba, and nothing ever happened to Adachi, unless he counted all the times that he'd been stopped by a taunt, a sneer, or a genuinely terrified shriek from a passerby when they'd met on him his way to the grocery store or the train station. Just at first, he'd gotten a kick out of grinning evilly at people he'd seen on the streets, sending crowds of twittering housewives into a panic, or taunting groups of high school jocks into cursing and threatening him for getting too close.

That fun had all dried up a long time ago, now. Nothing was fun anymore, and, what was worse, he was starting to get old. He knew he was starting to get old, because three days ago, he'd found his first grey hair. He knew he was starting to get old because he was almost starting to enjoy being bored. The world had nothing to offer him, nothing to take away from him, nothing to threaten him with, and, on some days, he felt almost a grudging relief. Most people didn't even know he was anymore, or remember him at all, and so no one expected him to do or say a damn thing, and therefore…he could do whatever he wanted, which was, most of the time, nothing at all. What was the point? There was nothing to do.

He figured he'd probably live that way forever, or until a delivery truck hit him and put him out of his misery, or something lucky like that.

Adachi was, therefore, surprised and chagrined when he closed his eyes one night after a long day of doing absolutely nothing, and then opened them again to find himself in a deep blue room suffused with unearthly light.

"Fuck," he muttered.

At the other side of the room, against the blue, back wall, someone laughed. It was a kind of a low, distorted giggle, and it sent a nasty, unsettled feeling across Adachi's shoulders and down his spine. Adachi looked up to see someone, or maybe something, with its body completely swathed in deep blue cloth. It was bound to the wall by thick coils of chain attached to its neck and wrists, so that it swayed slightly back and forth but couldn't fully raise its face, which wouldn't have helped Adachi much anyway. The face itself was covered in an oversized, almost creepily comical white plague doctor mask, like the ones Adachi had seen in all the advertisements this year for the "fun adult Halloween costumes," that Junes was offering for curbside pickup.

"Welcome," it said, again in that weird, deep, bubbly voice, "to the Velvet Room. I've been excited to meet you."

Adachi let out a short, frustrated breath.

"Yeah," he muttered, "sure, thanks. And who the hell are you? Tell me I'm dreaming. I've got to be dreaming, right? Crap, am I having a panic attack?"

"Don't freak out, you're safe here." The thing sounded like it was smiling. "This place exists between dream and reality, mind and matter, so you're…half-dreaming. Unfortunately, you're also half-awake. Does that make any sense?"

Adachi just snorted a laugh, which didn't seem to bother the creature at all. "I wish it didn't," he sighed.

"Oh...so you've been here before?" The thing nodded slowly. "Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Anyway-!"

"Look," Adachi began again, "before this gets any stupider, I think you've got the wrong guy. This is some heroic shit, right? You're gonna offer me a chance to change my fate, make a sacrifice, save the world and restore, uh, hope and truth to humanity or some shit like that. Yeah, well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but, been there, done that, and I'm the bad guy. I'm pretty great at being the bad guy, too, I only sort of even got caught."

"Is that fun?" The thing still sounded like it was smiling, totally unfazed, and that was starting to piss Adachi off. "Are you proud of that?"

"My point," snarled Adachi, "is that I'm not the droid you're looking for, get it? Now fuck off so I can go back to sleep, or wake up, or…whatever."

The thing just gently shook its head, the chains clinking as it tried to move.

"Oh, no, I don't think I've made a mistake. You, uh…haha, you're exactly the 'droid I'm looking for.' Nice Star Wars reference, by the way! Episode 4 is the best, always has been. I'll die on that hill…uh, metaphorically, of coures." Again, it laughed, and this time it was a soft sort of gentle laugh, almost human. Alarm bells started going off in Adachi's head, and he glanced quickly over his shoulder, just making sure that there wasn't an obvious way out.

Of course, there wasn't. He hadn't really expected one. He was stuck in here with a monster that liked classic pop culture references. He shrugged.

"Sounds to me like you've got nothing to lose," the thing went on. "That's why I need you. You don't care about this world, right? You're just bored and you need something to shake things up. I bet you'd actually enjoy causing a little trouble, wreaking some havoc, getting back at the ones who've driven you to this. Wouldn't that be fun?"

"Yeah, like I said, been there, done that," muttered Adachi. "Not interested. The hell is this all about, anyway? Who are you?"

For a moment, the thing didn't say anything. It just cocked its head very slightly to one side, the chains pulling at its neck. Adachi could feel its eyes through the mask, watching him, considering him. Finally, it sighed, and seemed to perk up again.

"Hey," it asked brightly, "do you want to see a magic trick?"

Before Adachi had a chance to respond, there was a low rumbling from the walls all around him, and he crouched down instinctively, steeling himself against whatever was coming. Unconsciously, his lips began to form the word "Persona," but the breath caught in his throat and he couldn't speak the word aloud.

As he watched, the creature slowly wrenched its right arm from the wall, the chains creaking and snapping all around it, falling away with a clatter. The thing shook the blue cloak off of its now free arm, revealing a long, glittering white glove that extended all the way up to the elbow.

Adachi took a step back, realizing that if those chains would break that easily, the creature could attack at any moment.

The creature touched its gloved hand gently to its chest.

"Who am I? That's kind of a complicated question. I'm nobody anymore. No, I guess I'm…well, I'm the Messiah, I'm here for the end of the world."

Adachi barely had time to process that stupidly grandiose response before the world around him began to swim, and suddenly the Velvet Room disappeared, leaving him tumbling back into the merciful darkness of sleep.