I walked back into the castle, fruit gummies in pocket and backpack on my shoulders. With any luck both would come in handy by the time the day was done.

I jumped off the staircase and into the first room to find it the same as how I left it. The same went for every room until I reached the center. The chest still even had the empty juice bottle.

I took it with me this time, stuffing it into my backpack with the intent of throwing it out. As I put my bag back on, I felt a tiny amount of guilt throw itself off my shoulders.

The less said about the other chest, the better.

I made it to the center of the castle and walked up the stairs into the room above.

I set my bag down as I walked up onto the platform in the dead center to look at the two emblem sections placed inside.

"Wait… that's not right," I looked at it again and sure enough, there were two sections filled in. Instead of the one that I had left earlier, a twin had appeared to its right. It was yellow and had a blue dragon on it. I followed the center and sure enough, it was pointing right at the dragon statue.

I thought back to my idea of just breaking the mirror entrance and threw it right in the trash. There was someone else in here with me and the last thing I needed on my soul was to accidentally trap someone else in here.

At least it saved me the trouble of having to get one of the emblems. And now that I knew that the dragon was the yellow one, maybe I could narrow down my choices a bit.

I had green and white to match to a turtle and a tiger…

I glanced back down at the emblems and noted that the dragon was blue even though it was on the yellow plate. The animal didn't need to match up to the plate in color. Another point towards the color being an element.

I could see a dragon either being either wind or thunder, especially since the bird took fire.

If white really was ice, then maybe I should go after the green emblem.

I went back downstairs and located the door with the green emblem above it. I slowly pushed it open and looked inside.

A green cocoon right in the center of the room. Looked like I was going to have to deal with monsters.

I set my backpack down at the entrance of the door and walked up to the cocoon and waited for it to shatter and reshape itself into a monster for me to fight.

It only took a few seconds to get what I wanted. The monster I got was new though.

Instead of a single armored knight or a pair of cupids, I got a strange dog-like creature. I say 'dog-like' because I was pretty sure most dogs weren't bright green with the top of their heads replaced with a giant gem. The four part emblem was on the dog's flanks along with a band of gold that wrapped around its body.

It growled at me and rushed forward.

"Come Persona,"

Lamia appeared in front of me, looming over the dog and slashing at it with purple nails.

It fell back with a sound that made me feel bad for a second before I hardened my heart. I ran up to the downed dog and brought down Lamia's fangs on it.

The dog faded away, leaving some cash and a fang that looked just a bit too big for the dog that I had just gotten it from.

I put it all in my bag and kept going. If I had known what I was getting into, I might have given up and just turned back.

The next three rooms were all cocoons. One armored knight followed by another dog and finished off by another armored knight.

Needless to say my magic reserves were almost empty by the time I made it to the end of the gauntlet.

"Not even a chest," I wailed in despair as I fell to my knees at the sight of the last room.

It was completely empty except for the open door leading into a stairwell. Looked like I had made it to the corner of the castle. All that was left now was to go up…

I quickly glanced at myself and looked at the two circles that controlled my life in here. The green was almost full. Made sense, I had only gotten hit once when one of the cupids had gotten lucky and grazed me with an arrow on my side. I had done more to myself using blight fang then the monsters had done today.

The yellow one, on the other hand, was maybe half full at best. If I wanted to keep fighting I would either have to rely on my daggers, keep going with blight fang, or really hope that my magic worked well on whatever was going to be at the top of the stairs.

Maybe I should just have the gummies now. With one last glance at my stats, I knelt down and got the fruit snacks out from my bag and chowed down. Even if they didn't do anything at least the surgery snack cheered me up.

Of course if I died and my last meal turned out to be a bag of fruit gummies, I was so coming back as a ghost and haunting the vending… was the yellow circle getting bigger.

I munched on one last gummy wand carefully watched it as grew once it went into my mouth. I had enough in the tank for a few more Agis if I needed them or maybe even a Rakunda if I really needed it.

Alright, now I could maybe do this. I got to my feet and started climbing up the stairs, watching the sky outside every time I passed by one of the windows. It was clear and insanely high off the ground like always.

"Who even builds a castle in the sky and design it so that you can barely ever see the sky?" I grumbled as I kept climbing up. "Why go through all the trouble if you can't even get a good view without climbing up all the way up to the towers?"

Despite my griping, the castle stayed silent as I climbed its steps. I glanced up after a while and saw the wooden roof above, as well as the end of the stairs.

Well, here I was. I finished climbing the stairs and quickly scanned the room. It looked pretty empty, not even having the other door to the outer walkway like the bird room had.

There also wasn't any sort of monster of the turtle or tiger variety that I could see… But I could see an emblem on the floor. A green shield fragment with a white tiger on it.

I walked forward to feel the floor again. Maybe it would give me a hint as to what element I was up against. I slowly made my way to the center of the room and knelt down and placed one hand on the floor.

The other hand already in the process of crushing Lamia's card.

I glanced up to see a white tiger getting a fireball in the face.

I didn't even have to look up to figure out what the tick was going to be. Of course the tiger was going to waiting for me in the rafters, looking down at me and getting ready to pounce at the right moment.

Instead the white tiger with black stripes landed on its side, its big white mane getting a bit singed by my flames. It got to its feet and growled at me, letting me know that my boss fight has begun.

It startled circling the room, me following its stride as we made a circle. It was walking towards the stairs, it wanted to cut me off from my escape. Well I guess I was going to have to show this oversized cat that I didn't need it in the first place.

"Burn them Lamia!" I called as my persona formed a fireball and sent it straight at the tiger.

It jumped out of the way, leaving a green trail of air in its wake. When it landed, a small whirlwind appeared around its feet.

Well that was one mystery solved. I took note that green apparently meant wind and filed away the information for later.

The tiger roared at me as a burst of wind came towards me.

I crossed my arms in front of my face only for the wind to smack me right in the stomach.

I felt myself coughing up all the air in my lungs as the tiger ran forward at me with claws bared. Somehow I had a feeling that unlike the bird, this thing had more up its sleeve then magic.

I forced myself out of the way of the tiger's leap, cutting into his flank with my daggers as he sailed past me.

Tiger got the last laugh of the exchange though. As soon as he went past me, I felt something cut my shoulder. I glanced to the side and the green trail it was leaving cutting into my shoulder.

Trying to dodge and counter wasn't going to work… this might have to be a magic fight.

I had Lamia fire another Agi at where the tiger landed only for it run out of the way, leaving nothing but singed wood.

Magic wasn't going to work either, not with how fast it was going. So far I had only gotten one good hit on this thing and that was when…

"Oh,"

I sighed and dismissed the daggers before spreading my arms out.

"Come and get me kitty cat," I taunted even as I held Lamia's card in my hand.

It growled for a second as it watched me carefully. For a second I was almost worried that the cat wasn't going to fall for it.

It made one last growl before it pounced right at me. Lamia fired another Agi, heading straight to the tiger.

I watched as the flames were about to hit it, only for the wind trail behind the tiger to come forward and create a platform. The tiger landed on the wind and jumped to the side as the Agi flew right by it.

I snapped my head towards the tiger which had landed on another wind platform and was now coming right for me.

I shirked as the tiger landed on top, sending me to the ground with its paw on my shoulder. It opened its fangs wide and I had one of Lamia's fangs in my free hand in an instant. I thrust it up, stabbing its neck just as it was about to bite down on my neck.

It shrank back, letting go of my shoulder as I used my other hand to summon Lamia and have her create an Agi in front of us. I didn't even want to hit the tiger, I just needed to make space for myself. The tiger backed off and I got to my feet. I glared at this stupid cat.

Who did it think it was? Trying to crush my neck. All right, if it wanted to play like that, we'll play.

This was going to be my last fight of the day right? Which meant I had no reason to conserve my resources right?

If this tiger was so good at dodging one Agi, let's see how it did with a bunch. But before that there was one small thing I had to do.

"Come, Persona," I glowed as Lamia appeared to wave her arm at the Tiger. As fast as it was, even it couldn't avoid a Rakunda curse. I watched as the tiger started to glitch out, the signal that the curse had taken hold.

The white tiger must not have appreciated my curse with the way it was openly roaring at me now. It lounged at me again.

I shot an Agi at the approaching monster and once again it jumped to the side with the wind platforms.

My eyes were already following it as Lamia prepared another Agi.

When it landed on its second platform, it already had another ball of flame coming its way.

Again and again it jumped, the room getting filled with a storm of flames.

I refused to let up, not caring how low my magic reserves probably were. I was going to outlast this thing, I could already see it. Its landings were getting noticeably sloppier and its dodges getting closer and closer. Soon it was getting its fur singed with every attack.

As the tiger landed on another platform, a felt a surge of information filling my brain. A new spell, a new way to shape my magic.

"Lamia, Maragi!"

Instead of a ball of flames, an entire wall of fire appeared in front of me. Lamia and I pushed and it sailed forward.

The tiger never stood a chance, the flame wall leaving it no place to dodge.

It roared as the flames met its weakened, curse riddled state. The force of the blow was enough to knock it from the air and send it crashing to the ground.

I wasted no time. Lamia hovered over the wounded tiger and brought down a purple-glowing claw onto its flank. It cried down in pain as the slash left a sickly purple wound.

Poison, just as planned.

The tiger struggled to its feet as I had lamia prepare another Maragi. The wall of flames met the tiger just as it got to its feet.

It let out one final roar, and then nothing more.

"Ugh," I collapsed back, landing on my behind and stretching my legs out in front of me. "That was way too close,"

Just for the sake of it, I checked my own stats for a second.

"Oh… yeah way too close," On my stats I could clearly see a near-empty yellow circle. I had enough in me for maybe a single spell.

And that was a big maybe.

I collected my breath for a second before breaking Lamia's card again. I looked up at my other self looming over me and smirked at the sheer abuse of magic I was about to perform.

She stretched her hand down, and then I used my fire and curse wielding snake lady version of myself to pull myself to my feet.

"I feel like I just broke a rule doing that," I chuckled before walking over to the spot that where the tiger had been. On the floor was another emblem piece, green with a tiger on it.

Into my backpack it went before I started heading back down the stairs towards the room in the center again. Once again the way there was clear, with all of the rooms just the way I left them.

Once I got the emblem room, I placed the piece down so that it would face the tiger and watched as it slotted into place. There were now three pieces on the board, and the only one left was the white piece held by the turtle.

With that done, I left the castle as quickly as I could. There was no way I was risking any sort of fight in the state I was in now.

I made it home and promptly crashed.

The next day I went out of my way to relax as much as possible. I didn't talk to anyone, and put the bare minimum into class.

…Well I suppose that first part wasn't too different from what I usually did. It was weird, ever since my interaction with my Shadow self, I knew what my problem was.

I was too scared to talk to people and so I kept to myself.

But ever since then, I hadn't really made much progress. I had Zach, which was nice. And I also met some of Robby's boys more often than before ever since the incidents started… but was that enough?

It felt like there was still more missing. I still hadn't found any friends on my own. With Zach I had just gotten lucky that I was reading the same book that his aunt recommended to him. I didn't do anything except not scare him away.

I grumbled to myself as I reached the art room. Maybe I could just ask Zach what he thought… Was that someone else in there?

I looked through the window in front of the art room and saw Zach standing in front of a girl. He was next to one of his older paintings and he was saying something while pointing to it.

Was he… was he selling. Oh my god, he was following my advice.

Best to leave him too it for now. I backed away and headed back to my old spot on the bench to spend my lunch reading.

I sat down and started going through the first few pages when I noticed someone walking up to me. They were a bit unfamiliar, even more so than usual.

It was a girl wearing a green furred jacket over a black shirt and matching yellow pants. She had blond hair cut down to her shoulders with blue eyes and a nervous grin.

"Ugh…" She nervously stammered as she stood in front of me. "Hey there why don't you ditch the book and talk to me?"

What?

She followed up her rude question by actually pointing two finger guns at me. Her smile quivered as she had the audacity to actually wink at me.

"I'll think I'll pass," I told her as their head hung low in disappointment.

"Alright, I'll just leave you alone," She walked away, leaving me by myself again.

Now that I thought about it, her voice had had a slight accent to it. Not enough to really change how any of her words sounded, but it was there. Maybe that was the transfer student that Zach had been talking about earlier?

Well if she was then hopefully she would transfer back.

Okay that was a bit rude, especially from me. But she had been pretty rude first.

Maybe I would give her another chance if she came back to talk to me with a bit more Kindness. Enough to at least appear empathetic.