I'm back!

So, before anyone do anything, I'd like to point out One thing;

Yes, this is a Ryomina fic. Of course some tooth-rotting fluff will be in, but there are plots and stories, don't worry :)

I have proof-read my work many times, but as they say, you tend to not see your own mistakes. So if there are any Typos still, I hope there won't be too many of them to strip thee of thy enjoyment!

Here goes!

Chapter 2: Where They Shouldn't Be

Makoto quickly gathers his thoughts.

He sees, from the corner of his eyes, that Ryoji is trying (and failing miserably) to do the same; keeping his shock and disbelief and fear shut tight within his heart as his eyes dart around the empty train car, then up and down the strange girl's form to try to find out who in the world is she—

It is a pleasure to finally meet you, dear one, a voice calls, feminine and soft, burning like a warm ember during a cold winter's night. Makoto freezes, letting the warmth rolls down his back and settles deep in his stomach. He tastes the words, and listens closer, with Orpheus' presence now a constant reminder that he is connected to the Sea of Souls still, even though all of this—

She is my muse, little one, Orpheus says, plucks a tune from beyond time – a tune that exists in the future that Makoto could never see, that Makoto knows never come to be – and sings words that means nothing and everything into his ears. Eurydice is her name, and she is as I am; a mask born from within the Sea, the mask who is but an expression of one's ego.

A Persona.

That voice is a Persona that is not his, that he has no control over, that he could never call – a Persona that is tethered to another, unable to be pulled into the world through the shards of his psyche. And when he looks at the girl, her eyes still on the papers as the train rattles forward, he instinctively knows that the owner of that voice – Eurydice – is hers.

She is a Persona User.

She is a Persona User, and—

"What are you staring at me for, Makoto-nii?"

Another voice – the strange girl's – cuts his thoughts off completely, shattering them through the teasing tilt of her words, and Makoto finds himself biting the inside of his cheek hard enough for the taste of blood to register, for his fingers to twitch and for his mind to reel. Makoto thinks quickly – despite the constant pull of exhaustion accumulated through eons of going through the same year over and over – and comes up with a hurriedly-crafted explanation—

"Nothing," he quickly says, adding a careful tone of faked innocence into his voice. His brain then manages to connect two dots together; she called him Makoto-nii, which means that she either sees him as a brother, or they are actually brother and sister by blood— "…Was lost in thoughts."

She giggles, Eurydice's presence flickering through the edge of his soul like dying embers, before pulling off her headphones and putting the pamphlet away from his sight. "You do that all the time, huh. So… what about that guy? You know him?"

She points, and Makoto turns to the still thoughtful Ryoji, whose attention is solely pointed inside him and not out; a trait they both developed after some time stuck in the cycle, as a way to cut off the world to think (as a way to keep all the pain at bay), and now that trait is being seen – by Makoto's rough estimate – as something rather strange.

He quickly kicks Ryoji's shoe, enough for the boy to jolt out of his own head, and his sapphire eyes trail upwards to Makoto's, then to the stranger (not stranger? He doesn't know her, but she knows him, what the actual hell). He looks to Makoto again, and he mouths back, silent but with enough care for the other boy to actually catch his meaning; she's asking if I know you.

"Oh! I'm sorry, I was just admiring your beauty," Ryoji flashes the girl an easy smile, one he has repeatedly trained to near perfection after many meaningless cycles, as a way to entertain himself, Makoto supposes. He still finds it as endearing as it is infuriating. "I'm a close friend of his."

"Why have I never seen you before?" She tilts her head, but smiles brightly in the end, her own question discarded. "But, oh well! Not like Makoto-nii is the most open person. I'm surprised he even has friends."

"I know, right?" Ryoji plays along easily – flashing him one cheeky grin too, the bastard – as he bows his head and offers the girl his hand. "I apologize for the late introduction. My name is Mochizuki Ryoji. A pleasure making your acquaintance, miss—?"

Makoto has to admit, that is a very smooth way to gather information.

"You didn't even mention me?" The girl huffs, hands on her hips, mild irritation coming out from her in waves, but not one that is hostile. Makoto decides to do what he does best; staying cold and aloof, a craft he has perfected as much as Ryoji does with his flirtatious nature. "Oh well. Name's Kotone! Yuuki Kotone! This guy's twin sister!"

Makoto nearly splutters, but covers up by instead coughing – and oh, when he glances to Ryoji, he could see just how much that information shakes him up, too, with how wide his eyes are blown, and how much confusion Makoto could feel radiating through their bond, now made near indestructible with time that doesn't have a beginning nor an end—

"I see," Ryoji recovers quickly, enough for his moment's worth of shock to be missed, as he shakes her hand once before pulling back then leaning into Makoto's shoulder – a welcomed sensation, even after all this time – with one hand dug into his pants' pocket. "Forgive Makoto. He's a really shy one."

Makoto tries to hit Ryoji – and misses – before hissing out lowly. "Oh, for the love of god, shut up."

Don't tease me in front of a stranger.

Ryoji only grins as he pulls out something. It's the same damn pamphlet, one that Ryoji quickly hands over for Makoto to take a careful look at; and, sure enough, it is the same as ones that he and this person – Kotone, he corrects himself, he really needs to get used to her name (and soon) – have, an invitation to the Iwatodai Dorm—

"Looks like we're going to be dormmates from now on!" Ryoji says brightly, but it is there, Makoto could hear it, could feel it in the way Ryoji's fingers twitch lightly over his own; the fear of the unknown, of the unwelcome surprise that has greeted them this time around. Ryoji's voice then tilts into the gap between being carefree and being thoughtful, with a smidge of confusion laced into it. "Let's get along, Kotone-chan!"

"Wow, first name from the get go. I like that!" Kotone – fuck, this is so different and so strange and he feels like he wants to throw up – grins back, equally bright, like the sun itself. "Let's get along, Ryoji-kun!"

Makoto decides to squirm away from their conversation, instead leaning towards the familiar hum of his earphones, of the songs that he now knows the beats and the lyrics by heart, enough to count the flow of time with them if he so chooses.

(He also isn't willing enough to look deeper into this yet and let Ryoji does all the talking in his stead – one of the few things the boy always loves doing whenever they're together. And he knows that his already shitty, crumbled and broken sanity will do him no good here – Ryoji has much better control over his own thoughts than Makoto ever will, so he supposes Ryoji is just the man for this job – gathering information they need to further find the root cause to it all.)

Pharos doesn't exist for Kotone; instead, the contract is laid bare for her – and him, too – to sign on the table.

It's the first sign (aside from Kotone's very existence) that this timeline, this cycle, is much more different and mysterious from the hundreds that exist before it. And, since Makoto knows that his gut feelings is the last thing he should overlook, he also knows that this is not a good thing.

The unknown is never a good thing. The unknown that could tip the balance towards the better or the worse (more the latter than the former) is never a good change—

"Makoto," Ryoji breathes from beside him as the Dark Hour fades, with Yukari and Mitsuru coming down from the stairs to confront them and their wakefulness during the time that shouldn't exist. Makoto looks his way, stepping back and letting Kotone take the lead – and the brunt of their distrusts – as he leans his attention towards Ryoji's voice. "Is she—?"

"—marked by Death? I don't know," Makoto replies, eyes carefully gauging the other three's reactions – or lack thereof from Mitsuru, always so cold and collected – before humming into the air between them quietly. "We'll talk more later."

"It's alright, Takeba," Mitsuru says, in that same cold, commanding tone Makoto has come to both love and hate after hearing it over and over for hundreds of times. When Yukari stands down, but not without shooting the three of them a careful, almost afraid, look first, Mitsuru continues. "They're the new students being assigned to this dorm temporarily."

A conniving lie born from Ikutsuki's twisted goal to call for Death, Makoto stops himself from saying. Ryoji catches on – of course he would, after so many times of Makoto retelling the exact sequence of events that Ryoji had missed – and smiles instead, using his rather light bearings to dispel at least some of Mitsuru and Yukari's distrusts of them. "Oh my, two other beauties in the dorm! I'm so blessed."

—If Makoto doesn't know any better that Ryoji actually swings his way and no one else's, he would have believed that wholeheartedly.

He notices the slight frown on Mitsuru's face, and a twitch in Yukari's brows, but doesn't think too much on it as the former sighs, glancing towards the three of them once more before patting Yukari's shoulder lightly. "…I apologize for the late introduction. I am Kirijou Mitsuru, a third year. And right here is Takeba Yukari, a junior just like you."

"Yuuki Kotone!" Kotone says, smiling brightly against the heavy atmosphere that has settled down into the dorm's lounge, dishearteningly empty and devoid of life Makoto has come to look forward to more (even if he refuses to forge his bonds back up the same way he did anymore because it hurts and—) "And here's my brother, Makoto! And that is Mochizuki Ryoji!"

"Nice," Ryoji whistles, placing his arm on Makoto's shoulder. His protesting growl goes unanswered as Ryoji speaks up in his place. "There's that, ladies! Hope we get along!"

Yukari hums, reluctant, before she whispers something towards Mitsuru (something along the line of are they supposed to be here, if Makoto remembers correctly), who only says something back at her before declaring to them with a small nod, "Takeba will show you to your rooms. Yuuki Kotone, your room will be on the third floor. The two of yours will be on the second."

Makoto resists the urge to walk up to the place that he has spent most of his looped life in – one he could recall every little detail down to the spec of dusts by the windowsill – and forces himself to fall behind Kotone and her footsteps, one that has springs and enthusiasm that Makoto always lacks—

"Makoto-nii!" She calls him when he's about to enter his room, with Yukari hanging slightly back, waiting for the girl to accompany her. When Makoto turns, the girl waves at him, "See you tomorrow!"

Makoto decides not to reply as he hurries into his room and closes himself off from the rest of the world.

Ryoji waits for exactly an hour before joining him, sitting on the bed next to Makoto like he always does.

"So," Ryoji begins softly, discarding his flamboyant mask away into the abyss, leaving nothing but his genuine smile and the gentle edge of his voice for Makoto and him alone to see and hear.

"So," Makoto echoes, thrumming his fingers on his knees, the initial shock now subsiding into something much more manageable within his chest. Orpheus stirs, the feeling of his flame – bright and soothing and kind – shifting from how he's felt it times before, into something stronger, into something more whole. "I don't know where to start."

"We still have time, don't we?" Ryoji says, taking Makoto's hand into his own, mapping it out with soft, gentle fingertips, the cool winter's wind dancing along the edge of his sensation. When Makoto hums – to acknowledge his words rather than to agree to it – Death laughs, lightly, softly. "Don't be like that, Makoto. It might be different from before, but we have time to think about it."

"After I don't know how many lives, time seems both irrelevant and a vice to me," Makoto shrugs, glancing towards the camera hidden at the corner of his room. And with the lights off, he sighs in relief to himself once more; they're not being watched right now, at least… but it might not remain so for the next few days, and would remain so for at least until the Magician Shadow comes—

"Five hundred and seventy nine lives, including this one," Ryoji replies to his rhetoric question, and when Makoto turns to look, the boy is smiling, dotting a soft kiss to his forehead as he continues. "You've lost track, but I didn't. Couldn't afford to."

"Why?"

"I want to be your anchor through all of this," Ryoji says, the note of sadness clinging to his feature as he shifts on the bed, allowing the mattress between them to dip and pulling them a little closer. And oh, Makoto never thinks that being able to be with Ryoji here in April, with months still ahead of them yet, would feel so subtle but so fulfilling, as if that void in his heart left by the pain of making the Seal with his broken bonds is being mended— "And while keeping count is insignificant, I thought you might want to know eventually."

It is just as Ryoji's said – the numbers of lives lived in muted solitude and pain and despair amounts little to nothing to Makoto; but the moments he shares with those who remember – with Igor and his always cryptic yet kind and sympathetic smile, with Elizabeth and her eccentricities, and with Ryoji (who is his everything) – are not.

Makoto hums, leaning his head into Ryoji's shoulder, no longer ethereal but solid and warm with life that he both does and does not have. "…Thank you."

"It's the least I can do," Ryoji says with a sigh, kissing Makoto's knuckle softly before murmuring against his skin. "So… You have a twin sister."

Makoto groans, finding the idea in and of itself ridiculous, not to mention what it could mean, what their presences here would mean for this timeline, this cycle. He takes a few moments to arrange his thoughts, to allow his mind to wander briefly into the dark and twisted unknown, before he brings it back and bites at his lips until he could find his voice again.

"I don't remember much of anything before the car crash," Makoto says, tasting the words on his tongue and the thoughts in his head. And when they appear mostly harmless, he allows himself to continue. "But I think… in the ashes of it all, before Aigis sealed you in me… there weren't two people in the car. There were three."

Even with a few centuries' worth of time between that memory and this very second, Makoto could still recall it quite vividly the very moment that marks his heart and makes him cold and apathetic, the very moment that makes him shut himself off completely and almost absolutely.

He doesn't remember much of them, but he knows that he loves his parents – even now, with them long since gone, with their faces fogged and forgotten – and that love is the source of the pain of losing them to the flame of the burning car, of that fateful day where he was marked by Death and sealed his fate to bonds that he would (and have) die a countless times for, for a life tied to his other half, to Ryoji for all eternity to come.

And now that he thinks back, towards the Moonlight Bridge ripped apart by the beginning of the Dark Hour, he remembers not just his already deceased father in the passenger's seat, nor just his mother's final smile before the flame engulfs her. He thinks he might've vaguely remembers something warm on his hand before he was ripped out from the door by the force of the impact, one that sent him careening out of the burning vehicle. And he thinks he might've remembered another person who he no longer knows within the car as it burned to ashes—

"Makoto," Ryoji's voice spurs his thoughts away from the images of burning steel and scent of decay and rots that reeks through the gaps between the car's door— "Makoto, are you okay?"

Ryoji reaches up a hand to his cheek, wiping a single trail of tear that Makoto has only noticed just now. He blinks, swallowing back a foreign emotion he hasn't allowed himself to feel for eons and exhaling into Ryoji's palm. Leaning his cheek on the other's boy softness and warmth of life, Makoto lets his thoughts cool down inside the pit of his stomach and hums one of the many songs Orpheus has introduced him to softly onto Ryoji's snow-white skin.

After a moment, he nods – reluctant and barely noticeable as it may – before clearing his throat. "…I will, eventually. But, yeah… when I think about it, there's… three in the car. Not two."

"…That means that, in other timelines and in our original one, Kotone-chan—"

"—died on the Moonlight Bridge, ten years before all of this," Makoto finishes.

Which means that either we both survive in this cycle, or that I died, and I am not supposed to be here in the first place, is what Makoto has left unsaid, has left strung between them like banners of their agony, the testament of their still ongoing nightmare festering inside their shadows.

"Makoto," Ryoji murmurs again, taking both his cheeks into his hands and forcing Makoto to look into those sapphire blue eyes, wide and dark and beautifully lit with the glow of the midnight's moon. When Makoto breathes, forcing the air in his lungs – air that he's unintentionally trapped within him for far too long – out and filling the gap between them, Ryoji smiles, pressing his forehead on Makoto's own. "Don't think like that. If you're here now, that means this world is yours, too, isn't it?"

Makoto is not convinced in the least, the thought that he shouldn't have been here still lingering at the back of his mind, that whatever kind of clusterfuck has forced the both of them into these endless but constant and predictable loops has now thrown a wrench into their supposedly unchanging sequences, and might've doomed everyone and everything else to fates irreversible—

But when Ryoji smiles at him and dots another careful kiss to the corner of his eye, holding him close against his yellow scarf that smells like fresh fallen snow and the moon's light, he allows himself to believe in those words. "…If you say so."

"Mhm," Ryoji hums, eyes shining with sorrow and hope – he knows what Makoto was and is thinking, just as he always does, and will continue to know – before he closes them and holds Makoto closer once more. "Let's think more about this tomorrow, okay? For now, let's sleep."

"Can you stay?" He mumbles quietly. Hundreds of cycles, and never once were the first night of each cycle filled by Ryoji's presence. But now that the boy is here, alive and tangible and human, Makoto does not want to waste even a moment they have together. If this is going to be their last one (he both hopes that it is and will not be), he sure as hell will not waste any more seconds being apart.

Ryoji smiles and nods, carding his fingers through Makoto's hair as he breathes. "Of course. I'll stay here for as long as you want me to."

As long as I could, remains unsaid, but always understood, as Makoto lets himself relax into Ryoji's arms.

He wakes to the knock on his door, a familiar yet missed weight on his body, and to the glare of the morning sun – always so bright, and always so unwelcomed.

"Makoto-nii! You're going to be late for school!" The strange girl – Kotone, he corrects himself, fuck – calls from beyond the wooden door. And without Makoto's consent, the privacy of his room is breeched when she casually unlocks it and swings it open. "Get up already, sleepyh— oh."

She stops mid-track, eyes wide and looking at him like he's sprouted out another head. Makoto, in his still sleep-saturated mind, doesn't know why she would stare at him that way, so he mumbles with as much feigned closeness as he could've mustered, hand absently pushing a mob of midnight black hair away from his face. "I'll be there. G'out of my room—"

"I thought you two were just friends," is what Kotone ends up saying, and that is enough to make Makoto backtrack into himself, with his mouth hanging slightly agape and his thoughts drifting from her words to the weight on his chest. Holy shit— "So you're actually gay, huh, Makoto-nii?"

He groans again, hitting Ryoji awake – not hard enough to actually hurt, of course – before sitting up fully and glaring at her, hand absently rubbing at his eyes then patting down his crumpled pajamas, and yep, his luck just never runs better. Now he's seen on the bed, with Ryoji… by a stranger on the very first day of a new cycle, and oh, how he wishes he hadn't forgotten to lock the damn door— "Bisexual. Now scram and leave. Me. Alone."

"Oookay. I'll see you down stairs! Don't be late!" She says with more cheer than she should, and as she sidles away from his line of sight, she shouts back. "Good morning, Ryoji-kun!"

"M'ning," Ryoji murmurs, still nudging Makoto's hip with his head like a cat before blinking to full alertness in two seconds flat. Makoto waits for Ryoji to actually realize what had just happened, and once he does – with his face flushing red and him bolting up with an indignant yelp – the boy exclaims, "Holy shit did she just saw us—"

"—cuddling on the bed? Yes," he says, not so much with spite but with annoyance; he has never held his relationship with Ryoji a secret, not ever since the second cycle, and he doesn't intend to start doing that any time soon. But the way his privacy is intruded by an outsider so carelessly makes the nerves in his body zing, and it makes him feel sick. "Now get up and go get dressed."

"You are way too composed, you know that?" Ryoji comments as he hops down, hand snatching his scarf, draped over the headboard, before leaning in to kiss the crown of Makoto's head softly. When he bats the boy away, Ryoji just smiles – with an edge of shyness after being discovered so early in the way his lips quirk – before winking at him. "See you downstairs, Makoto."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever."

Once Ryoji leaves, Makoto exhales and pushes his hair away from his face, for a moment focusing inward and to the Sea of Souls that he has strengthened his ties with so absolutely that he could reach out and tug at the strings of his bonds with each and every Persona, and call them out at will, even without the aid of an Evoker. But when he notices some of these golden threads leading deeper into the Sea, into an uncharted territory that shouldn't exist, he frowns—

Orpheus suddenly plucks a warning tune that he has to resume his normal schedule, at least for the day. He shakes his head and rids himself of the thoughts. He could ask Igor and Elizabeth later into the month. For now, school (and Ryoji, who is now right here with him) awaits.

Yukari and Kotone hit their friendship off immediately, a stark contrast to his previous experiences.

He's been listening to Kotone since the commute, and through the morning right before the first class; she is a chatterbox, opening her heart half-bared for all the world to see, with her emotions worn on her sleeve without fear or reservation. She is his exact opposite, a fiery soul to his cold one, a flaming beacon to his gentle shadow.

Despite himself, despite everything, he could feel a stab of jealousy; Makoto has tried to be like that a few times, but he found himself suffocating on the vulnerability of being seen, so he simply stopped after a few attempts, after a few tries of wearing his heart on the surface for all the world to see. And Kotone – someone who should not exist. That, or it's him who doesn't belong (and he's more inclined towards the latter) – just does it, so casually, so freely. And seeing how calm and at ease his one-sided family are around her, he couldn't help but feel like she really belongs there, and not him.

(Makoto also notices the way she cares, in the way that she keeps her morning discovery to herself. No one is asking them about it, no one is saying anything about it. And it hurts as much as it heals, the thought of having a family who knows and cares, something he has intentionally discarded many lifetimes ago.)

And it's fine by Makoto. While the pain of not being seen as family that they used to be would linger at the edge of his soul like parasite latching onto its prey, he's fine with this. When he dies (not if, when) again, and if this is truly the final time, that would mean that she will live past the making of the Seal, would mean that he'll be the only one who disappears from memories, with the bonds he's kept close to his heart without looking at them for centuries and the connection he shares with Ryoji as the Seal's guards and cornerstones.

He's alright with that. He's died half a thousand deaths expecting things to change when they won't. If he could die once more, letting another live in his place and forging bonds as golden and as warm as the sun's aurous ray, letting another stay in his family's hearts instead of being ripped away and tearing their souls to pieces, then so be it. Makoto is tired, but that doesn't mean he doesn't love his family, his friends, those who give his life its meaning, those who build him up from the ground and mold him into who he is today with their loves, their cares, ones that he's shunned away after cycles and meaningless cycles—

"Makoto," Ryoji hums, hand reaching under the table to take his into it. Makoto turns away from where Kotone is, in the seat that was his lives ago, and to Ryoji, who's smiling warmly and sadly at him. He could feel their bond shifts and ripples, kindly and gently— "Please don't think like that."

Ignorance would be the last card he could play, Makoto supposes; the bond between them is tempered since time immemorial, hardened through the harsh winters and heated through the blazing flame of hellfire that is his own perpetual purgatory, so it would come as no surprise that Ryoji would know what he thinks, even when he says nothing, even when he keeps words locked inside his mouth and clamps it shut, keeping them away from the world.

He squeezes Ryoji's hand back lightly, smiling and pulling back, opening his textbook – one that he has gone through more times than mere ten thousand, simply because of the boredom and the lack of early challenges that come with his powers transcending the laws of time itself – and biting into the end of his pen. "You know why I'm thinking this way."

Ryoji sighs, nudging Makoto's shoulder with his own before opening his book, too. "I do. But I don't want to see you thinking that as the only option."

"Do we have another?" Makoto asks, and Ryoji's continued silence is all the answer that he needs – they do not. They don't even know if Kotone is touched by Death or not, and chances are she wasn't, since Ryoji is here with him and not bounded to her, not marked by her humanity and given heart by her soul. And without Death's power, she won't be able to forge the Seal. "I thought as much."

"…I suppose only time will tell," is what Ryoji decides to say at last, his voice surprisingly leveled, even when their bond rises and falls like the tides upon a distant shore. "At least, let me stay with you."

"Haven't you always?" Makoto teases, drawing out a forced laughter from Ryoji. And that is enough, perhaps, for now. When the class slowly settles into a rhythm, as Toriumi starts to take charge, he hums softly. "And I'll always be grateful to have you here."

"I know," Ryoji breathes, with love, with affection.

"Mhm. You always do."

"Makoto-nii!"

Kotone waves, stopping him and Ryoji from crossing the school's gate. He exchanges a look with his Death as she runs over, with Junpei and Yukari trailing behind her. "What?"

"Let's go eat dinner together!" Kotone beams, expectant and without a shred of nervousness. It must've been something the Makoto she knows does, something she shares with her only family that has survived the explosion, the only one who might've been her only anchor, someone Makoto doesn't have, and someone Makoto cannot be— "Junpei said he really recommended Haga—"

"Not interested," Makoto cuts her off, not with disgust nor hate, but with fear. It is only here, where she's talking to him as if she's known him while he knows nothing about her, that he realizes one glaring fact his presence brings with him; that he's robbed her of her possibly well-loved brother, instead replacing that person with a cynical death-seeker who couldn't be bothered to reforge old bonds because of the pain he's had to endure. "I'm going with Ryoji."

Subtly, Ryoji squeezes his hand. You don't need to do that, his eyes seem to say, as he turns to greet Kotone, who has somewhat deflated from her previously energetic attempts at connecting with him. "Sorry, Kotone-chan. We've made plans since yesterday, and he's really grumpy right now."

If Makoto hadn't been spending years after endless years observing people and their expressions, taking notes of the way their faces or bodes shift with emotions, he would've missed it; a slight twinge of sadness in her smile, one that she completely wipes away with a bright, childish laughter that sounds forced to Makoto's ears. "I see! Welp, see you at the dorm then, Ryoji-kun! Makoto-nii!"

They watch as Kotone half-forcefully skips away, Yukari and Junpei restarting their discarded conversation and following closely behind. Makoto waits until he's certain they're all out of earshot before he turns to Ryoji. But he's not fast enough – Ryoji has already opened his mouth to speak his mind. "You don't have to shut her away like that, you know."

"I do," Makoto says with a small shrug, frowning at the floor as he nudges Ryoji's foot with his own. When Ryoji doesn't move, he says, "I might not want to, but I have to. For their sakes. Hers."

I'm not the brother she knows. It's better she starts getting used to losing him now, remains in his heart.

Ryoji gets it, like he always does, as he squeezes his hand lightly once before intertwining their fingers together, spreading warmth into his marrows and silencing the wild thoughts marring his mind like the plague. "I don't really agree to your plans, but I understand it. I really do."

"When have we ever been in agreement with what I do?" Makoto muses, recalling back to the very day that Ryoji asked him to take their memories away during the first New Year's Eve, with his eyes glowing like sun-blessed lapis lazuli. They understand and love each other as they are, but they've rarely agreed on what they think is best – Makoto values the fight for the right to live (now for the right to die), values friendship (now cold solitude and silence), values bonds above anything else, while Ryoji values him above anything else in the world, values his painlessness over the world, over Makoto's sparks of determination.

The only thing they ever agree upon is valuing the unique, ever-growing bond that they share, tempered through time that would not march forward, strengthened through their love despite the way that Fate dictates they be separated forevermore.

"There are some," Ryoji hums, amused, even though what he means isn't exactly what Makoto does. They do agree about many things – trivial ones – like what to eat, what to do for the night. But they could rarely agree upon the hardest and harshest of decisions that involve his life and death, his wellbeing and his mental health – something that Ryoji loves and cherishes, but Makoto readily discards for everything else. "Don't say it as if we bicker all the time."

"We never do that," Makoto corrects him as they continue to walk past the sunset, through the buzzing streets of Iwatodai and towards the Paulownia mall. "Or have we?"

Ryoji pauses to think, matching his longer steps with Makoto's own, before he hums with a small, almost surprised shrug. "We never do. Huh. That's a surprise—" at this, Ryoji trails off, tilting his head to the side before looking at him "—what're we going to buy? Guitar?"

"Guitar," Makoto nods, feeling Orpheus hum in contentment within the cavity of his chest, singing the song from beyond time into his ears and plucking his bonds into the tune that sounds sorrowful yet marked with the light of hope for him and Ryoji to hear. "You can hear Orpheus, can't you?"

Ryoji tips his head up, mimicking the song Orpheus is singing and smiling slightly at the tune, foreign yet so right, as if it belongs to this world, and not the one beyond from where they could see. "Mm, this is a new one for me. Do you want to play it?"

"Yeah," he nods, squeezing Ryoji's hand again before letting go when they've reached the mall. "But, first thing first – we meet with our old friends."

Ryoji smiles simply at that, eyes so soft, so warm, so kind. "First, we meet those who remember."

"Welcome – ah…"

It is one of the few times Makoto has ever seen Igor pausing in his first welcomes, the tilts of his voice and the softness of his words well remembered by Makoto's ears. He only smiles as he lets Elizabeth comes over and hugs him, laughing lightly when she squeezes him tight – something he would only do with those who remember, those who are trapped in this hell with him – as she says. "It is good to see you again, no matter how many times it has been, or however short or long it has been."

"It's good to see you, too," Makoto says as she steps back before he greets Igor with a small bow. And Igor, after a short pause, smiles back at him. "It's good to see you as well, Igor-san."

"It always is a pleasure, Makoto-san," Igor echoes, his eyes trailing towards Ryoji, who only waves at him as he bows deeply towards Elizabeth – who plays along and bows back. "I had not expected this, but it is a welcomed surprise all the same to see you within the Velvet Room so early, Ryoji-san."

"Likewise," Ryoji says, waving for Makoto to sit down. When he does, the boy takes the same place he always does whenever he's drawn into the Velvet Room along with him – something that rarely happens, but something he always looks forward to, one of the few surprises within the endless cycles that is the sequences of his lives and deaths – which is right behind him, with his arm rested on the back of his chair. "I don't think we've ever met each other this early and with my consent before."

"Indeed," Igor agrees, pausing briefly as the elevator that is the Velvet Room – one that has stopped at the top floor, with nothing but gentle rays of lights at the other end – slowly shifts and melts away into something immaterial, turning the room into nothing but smokes and a table with a pair of chairs that they're sitting on. "…I do not rightly know what had happened this time, but do be cautious in your endeavor, Makoto-san. The world has changed, and I do not think that the events will play out like it did before. Not with the presence of Kotone-san."

Makoto bites his lip. He wants to ask if he really has just robbed an innocent girl of the brother she loves, wants to ask if he had just ripped away the first bond she's ever made and spat it back into her face, hurting her more than he should, harming her in ways he shouldn't have. But he stills his tongue – this isn't the question he should ask, since his heart already knows that those things are exactly what he had done by coming here, even if it was out of his control, even if it is against his own will.

He breathes, taking in the shapeless form of his Velvet Room, noting the ways he could see dots of stars that adorn the darkness like the ephemeral canvas that used to greet him whenever he stared into Nyx's ever roaring blood-red eye. He then looks at Igor, exhaling briefly, before humming. "She is a Wild Card too, isn't she? Kotone, I mean."

"She is," Igor confirms, hand clasped in front of him, smile dotted with a slight frown, the unease born from facing the unknown. Something he's shown during the earlier cycles of Makoto's plight. "I cannot inform you of any more. She is in charge of her own fate, as you are to yours. But know this; that your fates are intertwined, just as yours is with everyone else that you've come to love, come to bond with."

That sentence is soothing, for Makoto; it means that he could die to let her live, could sacrifice himself like he did so many times before for the world to live on, for it to march over his cold grave and leaving him with only silence and the brilliant bonds that he has made and kept close to his heart. So, despite the new development, the unexpected circumstances, he allows himself to smile. "That is good to hear."

"But be warned," Igor suddenly sounds more serious, enough for Makoto to look up into those unblinking eyes, and he has to force down a gulp as Igor continues through the silence. "Don't let the darkness runs too deep. And don't lose your heart."

"I never will," Makoto declares. "I have nothing more to lose, have I? I won't lose heart simply because something's changed. Dying a few months earlier than I used to or dying for one last time won't make much difference to me."

"Wouldn't it?"

That simple question forces him to stop, to stay his thoughts and to frown over his own words. But, not yet – he's not willing to look into it, to explore the possibilities, to question himself, not just yet. So, he only smiles and shrugs, deciding to borrow Ryoji's words to describe his own state of mind; "Only time will tell now, wouldn't you agree?"

Igor returns his statement with a smile, one that seems sad, much sadder than it should, to him.

It is almost eight in the evening when they get back to the dorm.

Makoto does what he's always done, ignoring the various greetings from the lounge – and catching the way Kotone frowns and saddens at his lack of response to her – while Ryoji replies to each one with delight and energy. They all ask about the newly purchased guitar, something that Makoto doesn't even deign them with a word, before he excuses himself back to his room first, with Ryoji following right behind.

"The Full Moon is tomorrow," Makoto says once Ryoji enters and he's made sure the recording of the room's camera isn't on. When Ryoji hums, Makoto sits down, crossing one leg over the other and probing the guitar down into his lap, feeling the cold woods and the hard strings on the pads of his fingertips. "We have to be prepared in case things change."

"I can't test if I have my powers during the Dark Hour or not, since it's certain they'll be watching us today during it, but I think it might've been safer for me to act like Ikutsuki anyway," Ryoji breathes, sitting down beside him and humming the soft tune of Orpheus' lyre for them to enjoy together. "What about you?"

"Eurydice is Orpheus' muse, so I assume she would be just as fiery in spirit, and as kind in the heart," he says, more about Kotone than Eurydice herself. At this, something stirs, edge creeping into his conscious and blowing a soft, calm gale into his heart, filling his heart with the winds of delight. And oh, he realizes that it isn't just Eurydice who's celebrating his return. Io, too, it seems – something he finds rather odd, when hundreds of lives before they remained silent and detached from him, leaving him alone with his amalgamation of masks— "But her power would be only at the very start."

"And she doesn't have me," Ryoji finishes, recalling the way Thanatos – the very being born from their souls intertwined, a being that isn't reachable by anyone else – ripped Orpheus apart with an unearthly cry that fills the air with decay and death. "Eurydice at her first appearance might not be strong enough to take the Magician down."

"I'll be there," Makoto assures, even if he doesn't want to form more bonds (because he knows how painful it'd be if he lets his budding bitterness reigns, and he's sure that he'd let himself slip eventually, like he'd done so many times before—) with anyone, because he doesn't want to see them ripped apart and torn to shreds. "As a failsafe. If she can't take it out, I will."

"Would you be put as the leader, then?" Ryoji tilts his head.

Makoto shrugs. "I'm being as antisocial as I've always been. That alone will dissuade Mitsuru – ah, Kirijou-senpai," he corrects himself, still tasting the bitterness of their now nonexistent familarity on his tongue. He frowns and decides to push the thoughts away (he doesn't want to feel this, not again, never again, it hurts so much and he couldn't—) before slapping the body of his guitar once. "If that doesn't, I could always decline. She isn't the type to put commands in the hands of someone who doesn't want it."

"Maybe that's the best we could do for this particular Full Moon," Ryoji says, and Makoto agrees by strumming a single, melancholic chord softly, feeling the familiar bite of the strings on his fingertips. "Are you sure you're ready?"

I never will be. "I am."

Ryoji smiles, but doesn't say anything to his silent denial of the truth as he sits back and closes his eyes, allowing Makoto to strum the strange song from Orpheus' memories to life on his fingertips.

When the Full Moon comes, things don't go as planned.

When have they ever?

Makoto silently curses himself as he sits up; one moment, he was in his room with Ryoji, ready for the night to come, his mind at a set and Orpheus' power running at a ready at the tip of his tongue, like a prayer ready to be said to the wicked and the cruel. And in another, after but a slip of his concentration, Makoto is greeted by nothing but the expanding darkness and wisp-like shadows beneath him.

He looks around, and sees nothing; not Ryoji, not Yukari, not even a Shadow. He's utterly alone, and this reminds him of that final moment before the making of the Seal, where only darkness embraces him and his bonds, ones that are shaping his soul into the gate that should've separated Death and humanity's pain and suffering for as long as it is needed—

"Little one," a voice calls, soft yet firm, authoritative but with care. Makoto doesn't feel the need to be alarmed by it, to be startled by it. And when it rings from everywhere and nowhere, from inside and out, he doesn't turn his head to try to find the source, instead closing his eyes and listening intently. "Fate has been quite cruel to you, and this one is no different. It has dictates you going through another trial, one that is radically dissimilar to those you've gone through before."

Makoto nods, even if his thoughts stray briefly to the Full Moon, to the lonely roof and the masked Shadow that represents the reversed Magician. Even if he tries, he won't be able to go back – not yet, not when something in him, a golden thread of bonds he's kept close to his heart, pulls him back here, urging him to stay and listen close – so he breathes into the airlessness before him. "Who are you?"

"I am Thou, Thou art I," the familiar phrase registers, and a thread spins, pulling him towards the feeling of darkness, one that is gentle and warm, one that is not oppressive. He breathes again, seeing the eyes of the entity, the right bright red like blood, like life, the left jade green like the midspring's canopy. And then, he could feel the thread being pulled in return. "I am but one of the many who would aid you yet. Call for us whenever you are in need of aid, Death-Seeker. My name is—"

The reverberating roar of the void silences the voice, but the feeling of the name has already been etched into a part of his soul, and it sings in exultation, and in appreciation; of the powers born from his ties with time itself, or from his imprisonment inside it. Makoto doesn't let his mind wander too much, doesn't let the opportunity slip away from his veins, as he looks around once more.

The ground shakes, the smell of toxin and vileness invading his sense and burning his very core, making him sick and forcing him to gasp; the airlessness that he could somehow breathe is no longer breathable, the atmosphere turning dark and repulsive. And when Makoto feels something looming from behind him, he turns, fingers twitching at a ready, pulling at the bonds long formed, at the power newly acquired—

What stares back at him is nothing he has expected, and something he fears the most; the body made out of dark ooze that forms itself into a beastly physique, with red glowing eyes that whisper curses and damnations into his ears and driving his mind to the very edge, pulling his nerve taut and making every bit of his skin singe.

Erebus, Makoto breathes silently, remembering the brief, infinitesimal gap of time that he had seen the thing, hundreds of times prior, as he erected the stone gate; a beast without voice, a monster without sentient, one that is doomed to reach Nyx repeatedly, and once that the Great Seal was supposed to keep away from reaching Nyx for all eternity. And here, with a glance, Makoto could feel it in his veins, a feeling he never before felt whenever he looked at it before shattering his soul to pieces to make the gate.

It has thoughts, and goals. Sentient. Something that it shouldn't have.

Erebus, with its bone-white rows of teeth sharp as blades, smiles, red eyes angling up, as if to look down at him, as if to mock him and his failure. And instead of being angry, or being disgusted, Makoto is afraid; it is the form of primal fear that clenches into his gut and squirms its way into his brain without pause, without a way to separate it from his soul—

"We shall meet again, Great Seal," the thing says, mocks, as crows of laughter ring loudly inside his head, drowning out everything else but the lingering dread that has settled deep into his bones. "And when we do, your death will be absolute, and I will be victorious."

Makoto gasps, and bolts—

"Makoto!" Ryoji's voice derails his thoughts from their fear-stricken stupor, and he glances to see Ryoji grasping both of his shoulders tightly, the heat of his touch fixing him to the earth. Makoto blinks away the feeling of intense fright as Ryoji murmurs, "What happened? Are you okay?"

No, he mouths, glancing to the side to see what he thinks is Kotone, leaning on Yukari's shoulder, the latter with a large cut on her thigh. They're on the roof, his mind registers, with embers scattering around the place, and a distant gleam of the dissipating Shadow's mask coming into view— "Y-yeah, I'll be. What happened?"

Ryoji pauses, looks back, before squeezing his shoulder subtly – I'll tell you everything later – and pulling him shakily to his feet. "Kotone-chan, uh… dealt with the monster on the roof. We need to go, though, because they're climbing up here."

"I can still—" Kotone begins, before stumbling further into Yukari. "I can help, I can—"

"Nope, none of you are going to fight any more of these craps!" Yukari declares with finality, her eyes lingering on Makoto a moment longer. "Yuuki-kun, are you sure you'll be alright? You blacked out the moment you locked eyes with that thing."

She makes a point to gesture towards the now empty rooftop, and Makoto figures that he just had a retrograde amnesia, of all things, with a part of his memories prior to his confrontation with – what was it again? – muddled up by something he couldn't quite name, and it leaves a foul taste in his mouth. But he decides to think about that later as he nods, inhaling sharply the familiar scent of cinders and burnt flesh. "I'm fine, I'm fine. How long until—" the Dark Hour's over?

(Something tells him that he's starting to forget an important detail, a face he's seen now having no name in which he could recall. Something urges him to look deeper, something tells him that the name is far too important than to be forgotten just so, but… he couldn't. He couldn't remember anything except for rows of white teeth and vile shadows in the back of his eyelids.)

"Roughly ten minutes," Ryoji answers, bowing to Yukari lightly once. "I've been counting."

"That's a little too long," Yukari murmurs, biting on her nail, before she quickly gathers her thoughts as dark tidings squirm their ways up the side of the building and onto the rooftops, ignoring what Makoto assumes to be Eurydice's sparks left by her initial summoning. "Holy shit, now we really need to go—"

And when they turn towards the back, the door is already blocked by Shadows – Mayas, to be exact – with their laughing masks flickering in the dim moonlight.

Surrounded. Kotone out of commission, Makoto notes with a frown, and takes a single glance towards Ryoji, who nods in return. I have to fight.

"How did Kotone deal with the thing?" He says, even if he already knows the answer to that question. He couldn't afford to let it slip that he knows more than he should, at least not yet – or suspicions will be placed on him, and he won't be able to move too well.

"The gun, um," Yukari says, fingers trembling around the object, her frown growing as seconds pass. She doesn't seem like she could fight, and she's not mentally strong enough to pull the trigger – yet. "It's – it's not a real gun, but you mimic dying by it, and then you can call out what we call Personas—"

"Good enough explanation," he cuts her short, snatching the Evoker into his hand, pressing it deep into the side of his head as his eyes scan the roof once more. He breathes deep – while the Evoker is no longer a necessity for him, the feeling of putting it where it belongs is always a welcoming sensation – and reaches deeper into the Sea, to the many voices that await—

Let me show you my new form, tempered through time and your strength of heart, little one.

And who is he, to deny such a request from his mask, his true expression, his other self?

So, Makoto grins, pulling the trigger and calling for the name that has always felt like home on his tongue.

"Come, Orpheus!"

See you next time!