The walk back down to the village was a quiet one. No animals, other people or strange creatures in sight. Only the sound of wind gently blowing the tops of the trees, and freeing the snow piled up on leaves and pine needles.

This gave me plenty of time to think about what had just happened, particularly as I walked past the spot where it had occurred - the path leading up to the Netherworld portal. It still struck me as very strange that such a portal, which would surely allow spirits to escape and roam free across the land, could exist in such a place, much less play host to a palace location.

I also thought about the Persona I had just awakened - one based on the secret agent, James Bond. He was unlike my two prior Personas - certainly awakening him was much more painful than either of those two, since I did not recall tearing the skin off of my face when I awakened either Robin Hood or Loki. I thought about my shadow's words - how this new Persona represented my true, innermost thoughts and feelings. My true conviction toward justice, not the superficial lies of Robin Hood, or the complete disregard Loki displayed. Not just one single part of my personality, but all of it, repressed and choked by years of self-loathing, sadness and hate, the hope which still lived in my heart.

In addition to my own Persona, I had also managed to take in that Pixie as a mask - something which only Ren before was able to do. I knew I had the Wild Card, but perhaps now that I had fully come to accept my flaws and desire to bring about supreme justice was I able to unlock its full potential. Or perhaps it was because I was forming bonds, real bonds, for the first time in my life…

These thoughts circled around in my head as I made my way back down to the square, heading straight toward the Kirisame shop. That's when I noticed a crowd had gathered; curious, I made my way past it to try and see what it was. There were murmurs in the crowd, some talking about a possible incident, others simply fretting or praying that nothing would happen. Once I got to the center, I found the Dragon Statue, and the reason for the people gathering around it:

It had red eyes. According to Reimu, that meant an incident was forthcoming.

But while other people in the crowd gossiped with each other about what this would mean, my expression was blank. Inside, though, I was smirking. I had no way of knowing for sure, but I was certain that the palace we had discovered had something to do with it. It gave me a certain amount of power, knowing who or what was causing an incident, and knowing that I could do something about it.

I left the crowd behind and returned to the shop. Just outside the shop's door sat a basket with a large amount of fruit, vegetables, grain and chicken within it, as well as fertilizer for growing crops. It was quite a lot; I wondered who could have simply left it all out here.

I got my answer when the door opened, and a girl with white hair and a black headbow, dressed in a long green coat, emerged from the shop with a dull garden trowel in her hand.

"Hello there," I greeted her.

"Hey," she sighed. She sounded tired, and I could see on her face that she wasn't getting very much sleep. More curiously, though, was the small, ghostly orb which tailed her, as well as the scabbards on either side of her hips, one long and one short. She hoisted the basket up onto her back, and trudged away through the streets and toward the path I had just come down.

I entered the shop just after, where Masato was busy rearranging some things on the shelves. He turned to look at me, and asked, "how did things go? With Reimu, I mean?"

"Quite well," I smiled. "We talked about a number of things. In fact, she wants me to come to the shrine tomorrow as well so she can teach me about 'Spell Cards.'"

Masato lowered his glasses. "Oh? You mean Spell Card duels?"

"I guess," I shrugged. "She didn't demonstrate them for me or anything."

Masato smiled. "That's pretty cool. She must see something in you if she wants to teach you how to fight using the Spell Card system. She's pretty lazy, so normally she doesn't like to teach anyone anything. Even if she did, I can't say there's ever been an Outsider that I've seen who uses them, other than perhaps that Sumireko girl."

"Sumireko?" I asked him.

"Oh, Sumireko Usami. Strange girl. She lives in Kyoto, but she can come here in her dreams. The first time she came here, she caused a real ruckus by trying to tear a hole in the barrier by using these things called 'Occult Balls,' but Reimu and her friends managed to set her straight. She stops by this village sometimes to check it out. She's fairly nice, but I'm afraid that her habits and mannerisms will get her into trouble someday."

Sumireko's name rang a bell for me: her name came up about a year ago during a conversation I had with a detective from another town, Naoto Shirogane. The reason for the meeting was because I was aware she and a group of her friends were Persona users, and I had been asked to monitor them by the conspiracy. I was meeting her under the pretense of investigating a series of thefts in the area, and during the visit she told me about a girl from Kyoto named Sumireko Usami, who maintained a very active Instagram account filled with strange pictures of otherworldly things. She explained to me that she was planning on interviewing her at some point to learn where and how she took the photos, since she suspected Sumireko might have something to do with the psychotic breakdown cases, not knowing she had been talking to the real culprit the whole time. At the time, I didn't think much of it. But if that Sumireko Usami and the one Masato here was talking about were the same person, then perhaps those strange pictures were the first clues I had ever gotten of Gensokyo's existence.

"If she still exists on the Outside, then perhaps I should visit with her if I ever get the chance."

"Not a bad idea," Masato said. "Probably be good for an Outside person like you to have a way to keep up with what's going on out there." He looked out the window; the sun was setting below the horizon. "Looks like I'll have to get some light going. Would you mind going around and turning on all the lamps?"

"Absolutely," I bowed.

"Thanks. I'll go close up shop, then after that, I'll give you your first cooking lesson."

The first thing Masato tasked me with doing was grabbing a kettle out of the cupboard and dunking it into the water barrel before placing it atop the oil-heated stove, which I did. He explained that it would be for the tea we would be having with dinner.

For the actual meal, Masato decided to keep things fairly simple, having me boil rice while he cooked up some chicken and vegetables. He explained to me how to watch the rice and tell when they were done.

"Now," he showed me, "you can tell when it's done by taking one of the grains and sliding it up the side of the pot like this. If it sticks, it's done."

"I see, I noted."

"Good. Now just watch the rice while I cook up the rest of the food."

Masato went over to the other burner on the stove. In the skillet was cut-up pieces of chicken and various vegetables, all mixed together and sitting in a thin layer of vegetable oil. Flaring the burner up with a match, I watched him adjust the heat, sprinkle some seasoning on top of it from high above the pan, then shake the pan, tossing and turning the food until the chicken was fully cooked and the vegetables had black char marks around the edges.

It was about that moment when the kettle started whistling, so I cut the heat and moved it to the only other unused burner. "Goro," Masato asked me. He pointed to some jars on the counter and said, "take some crushed leaves out of the red one, measure out this much," - he handed me a small measuring cup - "and put it on one of the strainer bags next to the jars. Drop it in the kettle, pull it out after forty-five seconds. No more, no less."

I did as he asked and opened up the red jar, which was labeled "Genbu Ravine Ryokucha," a type of green tea. There were four other jars, labeled "Konacha" (like what they serve at most sushi restaurants), "Kukicha," "Tamaryokucha," and "English-Style Black." I wasn't the most tea-literate person in the world, and the mind-numbing nomenclature seemed overwhelming. I figured I could ask him the difference later. So for now, I just measured out a scoop and steeped the tea until forty-five seconds had passed. Dinner was now complete.

We were just about ready to dish up, when we heard a knock on the door. "Hold on," Masato said. "I'll go see who it is."

"Isn't the store closed, though?" I asked.

"It is. But this IS also my house, so it's probably just a visitor. Don't usually get visitors this late, though."

Masato went to the front to go greet our visitor, so I took it upon myself to lay out dishes, cups and chopsticks. I had just finished doing that when he came back, with a familiar face next to him.

"Good evening, Akechi-kun," Keine bowed.

"Ah, good evening," I smiled. "...it's okay if you just call me Goro."

"Ah, very well," she said.

"Keine said she wanted to come by to check on you and see how you were doing after your first real day," Masato explained. "I also invited her to dinner, since we have enough for her to have some."

"I see," I replied. So I set out another set of dishes for Keine, and took it upon myself to dish everyone one.

Over dinner, we made some more conversation, with Keine in particular wanting to know how I was adapting to my life so far. I told her so far, so good, although going from my modern life to essentially Medieval times was a big adjustment for me to have to make.

"I would imagine," she said. "I've helped a couple outsiders before you, and they each had a very difficult time adjusting to Gensokyo's way of life. It's much slower here than in the hectic, demanding city for sure, there are no modern conveniences, and you have to watch out for youkai to boot. But on the flipside, there have been cases of villagers managing to leave Gensokyo and struggling to adapt to life out there. People here are also much more friendly, and not chronically stressed out."

"But surely people here live in constant fear of youkai and incidents?" I asked.

"To an extent, yes," Keine replied. "But fortunately, there are rules here in Gensokyo that help to keep everyone in line, and if you step out of line then the shrine maiden, the sages, or one of many vigilantes will step in to set you straight. Gensokyo used to be a far more dangerous and foreboding place, but ever since the implementation of the Spell Card Rules it's been easier to settle disputes without getting needlessly violent. Despite the incidents recently, it's much more peaceful now than it's ever been. Besides, here there's no war, no pollution, no big companies who exploit you as much as possible to increase their profits. It's a good place to be if you're trying to leave everything behind."

Leaving everything behind… Honestly, losing things like TV, trains and internet was nothing compared to cutting every tie I had with Shido and the conspiracy, my miserable lonely childhood, and the pain and anguish which both of them brought to me. It was like a gilded cage: my fame as an ace detective and power as a Persona user gave me everything I wanted, except the two things I never grew up with: a loving family, and friends. It might not have been what I wanted or expected, but being here was a great second chance, and I would be foolish to squander it. Just as a malevolent god or demon gave me the power of Persona back then, so a more benevolent force granted me a second chance when I should have died.

"There are things I miss about Tokyo," I conceded, "but you're right in that this place doesn't seem to have the kinds of problems that we deal with out there. I'm sure there ARE problems…"

"Oh, there are," Keine said, a little glumly. "Bigotry and racism? You bet we have it; youkai looking down on humans, humans looking down on youkai, gods looking down on both, and among the youkai a lot of species bicker and fight with each other. Some species can't even get along with members of their own kind, like oni for instance. Religious skirmishes have been a big part of our history as well, and they still crop up here and there, with the biggest factions being the Shintoists, Taoists, and Buddhists; most of the time they coexist peacefully, but sometimes they don't."

"And given how magical this place is, I would imagine religion is a much bigger deal here than Outside," I surmised.

"Absolutely," Keine affirmed. "And all that's just what we still have lingering around. Back in the day, youkai would openly hunt humans in large parties, and religious wars were near-constant. If not for the Barrier and the Hakurei Shrine, this place would probably be inhospitable. Even now, there has to be some kind of youkai-human conflict, and faith in gods, for this place to continue existing."

"Why is that?" I asked.

"Well, it's a little complicated. But for the most part, youkai live off of things like fears, rumors and hearsay. Gods, of course, require faith. The problem with both is that humans now are constantly innovating, losing their fear and losing their faith as they find other explanations for why stuff works the way it does. Basically, mythical beings shape the world, until they don't, which causes them to disappear. Gensokyo exists as a bulwark against that, by freezing this place in a sort of stasis so that it's now a last bastion for all things magical and mythical, protected from the poison of the Outside world."

I thought to myself about all this for a moment. "Fascinating," I said. "So what you're saying is that the whole world is a product of human cognition and belief. Things come into existence because humans believe them to be so, then stop existing once humans no longer believe in them and instead, start believing in other things."

Both Keine and Masato were visibly impressed at the conclusion I drew, not knowing about my own prior experience with human cognition.

"Wow," Keine smiled. "I'm amazed. I never thought someone like you from the Outside could wrap their head around it that quickly."

"Well, I am a detective after all," I chuckled. "Making deductions is what I'm best at."

"I can tell," Keine said. "I wish Reimu and her friends were as good at deductions as you are. Usually, when they go solve incidents they just beat up everything in sight until they find the culprit."

"Reimu-san did say she wanted to teach me spell cards so I could help solve incidents. Perhaps I could use the opportunity to bring some more method to her madness if that's the case."

Keine laughed. "Yeah, keep telling yourself that, but I bet that soon enough you'll get to be just as belligerent and rude as all of them, especially if you start going to their parties." She stifled herself and regained her composure. "Still, if you can manage to do that, then maybe you could help bring common sense to this asylum of a valley. I feel like it would become more peaceful, and more people would get along with each other, set aside their prejudices, if people around here learned how to talk out their problems."

Keine made an interesting point, I realized. If there was conflict, strife and bigotry between people here, then it could hardly be considered any different from the myriad issues the Outside faced, other than perhaps just being microcosms of those issues. Just as much as I wanted help overcoming my own problems, perhaps a good way of doing so would be to help walk others through their own, become a listener, and be empathetic.

So why not try? I had nothing to lose and everything to gain.

"Well, I certainly wouldn't mind doing that," I smiled. "But I might need some help doing it."

"I'm the girl to ask," Keine smiled back. "I'll tell you what: you use those detective skills of yours to help people resolve their problems, and I'll work on getting you all the knowledge there is to know about Gensokyo and its history. I think having some context would be helpful when addressing people's issues, wouldn't you agree? Plus, this place might end up being your home, so why not learn about it?"

I reached out my hand. "I see no downsides."

"Then it's a deal." Keine took my hand from across the table and shook it.

And so I made a deal with Keine…

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 birth of the Empress Persona, I have obtained the winds of blessing that shall lead to freedom and new power…

Eventually, Keine left to return to her house. I helped her out the door, and just as she stepped out into the frigid night air, she turned to me and said, "I'll make sure to check in with you frequently to see how you're doing."

"Thank you," I bowed. "I'll try my best to settle into my new life."

"Don't forget that you're not alone," she told me. "You have support whenever you need it." She then turned away and walked into the snowy night.

I took those words with me to bed. How I wasn't alone, and how I now had the support of others who wanted to help me.

I couldn't help but be suspicious, but not because I thought Keine, Masato or anyone else were conspiring against me or trying to use me.

I wasn't used to not being alone.


When I opened my eyes again, I was in front of Igor's desk in the Velvet Room. He was already there, and Lavenza was at my side.

"My master has summoned you here once more to speak with you," Lavenza bowed.

I looked at Igor again. "Good evening," I said.

"Welcome back," Igor replied. "It seems we meet again."

I looked around the room briefly, before asking, "tell me, why have you brought me here again?"

"To congratulate you on the start of your journey," Igor said. "Not only have you awakened to your true power, you have established three new bonds. A fine start, if I say so myself."

"My true power…" I looked down and held out my hand, before clenching it into a fist. "My new Persona, you must mean."

"You have finally reached the innermost feelings within your heart," Lavenza explained. "By awakening your true Persona, you have cast aside the bindings through which others controlled you. In addition, you have demonstrated your ability to take in the shadows around you as new aspects of your character."

I looked at her, and asked her, "but… does that mean…"

"By awakening your new resolve and forming new bonds, you have discarded your old Personas, and can no longer call upon them. In essence, you will be rebuilding your power anew, through the bonds you forge and the experiences you embark on. It will present a drop to your immediate power, but your skill remains, and over time you will replace that toxic, corrupting power with even greater and pure strength."

So both Robin Hood and, more importantly, Loki were gone for good. Now, there was only Bond, plus whatever shadows I managed to recruit. On one hand, it meant all that raw, sheer power I used to possess had evaporated, and I was now back at square one. On the other hand… it felt as though I had broken two chains holding me down from my true potential. And now it was up to me to get my power back, this time without wallowing in darkness and filth, and following the Justice I held so dear.

"I see," I said.

I sensed something on my person, and when I reached for it, I pulled out the gold key. I held it out in front of me and inspected it, wondering how it had followed me here.

"This key," I asked. "I'm assuming it has something to do with this place?"

"This is your key to the Velvet Room," Igor explained. "It is given to all guests who come into this place. It is also your key into the cognitive world."

"My master designed your key to take up the functions of the Metaverse Navigator," Lavenza added. "I'm sure you're familiar with its use, so no further explanation will be given. Various fortresses formed by the distorted hearts of individuals exist within the cognitive realm. How you choose to deal with these fortresses, if at all, is up to you and how you choose to exact your Justice."

I looked at Igor, who added "of course, going into the realm alone is dangerous, and you would benefit from adding friends to your team. Should you encounter individuals whom you believe would be worthy allies, they will manifest Cognitive Keys of their own, but only you can enter this place."

Teammates… what I said back in Shido's Palace, in my insanity, about how I didn't need teammates, how I was extremely powerful on my own and could crush any single member of Ren's team, but in the end couldn't overcome all of them at once. It made me realize the value of having people on my side fighting with me, as well as forming strong bonds with them, not just superficial alliances. If all my old power was gone, that left me with just my expertise and knowledge of the Metaverse - not enough to make it through a palace or 'fortress' alive without power, but perhaps I could employ it to guide people through them and help them develop their powers and skills.

I had to give it a try, I resolved. It was what Ren would do. It was what Ren would want me to do.

"I shall do my best," I bowed.

"Magnificent," Igor smiled. "I will be watching your journey with great interest. Create your own path, and realize the Justice within you."

The door behind me opened, again revealing a white void. I was dismissed. I thanked the two for their time, before exiting the Velvet Room once again.