VIII

Monday

April 8, 2013 — Late Night

Overcast

"Ah. Welcome back . . . to the Velvet Room."

Once more, Shou found himself in the strange, blue-draped train car. He could feel it moving beneath his feet. But how? Before, he'd come here in his dreams, so he hadn't thought twice about that. Now, however . . .

"Do not be alarmed," Igor said. As before, he sat at a table at the far end of the car. Isabelle sat beside him, her hands folded in her lap. "You have arrived through a portal in the waking world. From this night forth, you are our guest in this Velvet Room."

Isabelle smiled. "Your key is proof that you have entered a contract. From this point forward, you may come and go as you please."

Come and go as he pleased? That was all and good, but why would he want to?

"I can see that you're confused," Igor said. "Not to worry. All will be explained." He motioned for Shou to sit in the chair in front of him.

Cautiously, Shou proceeded through the car, his feet padding on the soft, blue velvet carpeting. Above him, a single chandelier shed a soft, azure light. Every now and then, one of the blue curtains shifted enough for him to get a view of the window beyond, but all he saw was darkness. Briefly, he glanced back at the door he'd entered from. It wasn't the door to a train car. It was the same as the door he'd stepped through to get here.

For a moment, he thought about leaving. But he couldn't. He wanted answers. All of these strange things had begun with his first visit to the Velvet Room. If Igor could tell him anything, it was worth it.

He sat.

"First, congratulations are in order," Isabelle said. "You subconsciously heard the call to awaken, and you chose to follow the destiny of your inner voice, thereby enacting your glorious awakening to your power. Not everyone has the strength to do so."

"But your destiny will require you to hone your power further," Igor said. "And for that, you will inevitably require our help. There is but one price for this assistance . . . You must abide by your contract and assume responsibility for all decisions you may make."

There was that word again. Contract. He remembered hearing a voice in his mind. A deep, inner voice that had emerged from the sea of his soul. The voice of his truest, inner self. It had come when he'd promised to get to the bottom of the Shadow World within the Morigami Metro. When he'd sworn that he wouldn't stop until it was all finished.

Yeah, he could abide by that. In fact, he couldn't imagine doing anything different.

"The Persona you have acquired," Igor continued, "is a side of yourself that shows itself when you face the world around you. Perhaps you can think of it as . . . a façade of determination you wear to face various difficulties in life." He grinned, half his smile hidden behind the back of a white-gloved hand. "You Persona ability, however, is that of the Wild Card."

"Compared to that of others," Isabelle said, "it is very special, and very rare. Consider yourself lucky. It is like the number zero . . . empty, yet holding infinite potential within itself."

Wild . . . Card? The number zero? Infinite potential? He wasn't sure that he was following.

Isabelle laughed, pressing her fingers to her lips. "Your bewildered expression is so amusing," she said.

"Now, now, Isabelle," Igor said, "be patient with our guest."

"On the contrary," Isabelle said, "I think I might grow to like him."

Igor chuckled.

Now Shou was feeling even more confused than before.

"Understand," Igor went on, "that the Persona ability is the power to control one's own heart . . . And the heart is strengthened through bonds. As you form bonds by becoming involved with others, your own Social Links will gradually develop. The power of these Social Links is what will determine your Persona's abilities."

Social . . . Links? Shou was starting to feel like he needed a glossary to keep track of all these different terms. He seriously hoped he wasn't going to be tested on this at some point.

But there was one thing he understood for sure. If he was going to have the strength to see things through to the end, he had to embrace the connections to the people closest to him. People like Emi, like Kouta. Like Sato-san, and Hasumi-sensei, and little Yuto . . . By choosing to develop his relationships, his bonds, he could strengthen his heart for the challenges ahead.

"Social Links are necessary for more than strengthening your Persona," Isabelle said. "At times, they will help light the way to the truth you are searching for."

The truth . . .

Yes. He had to find the truth.

"Where will your awakened power of the Wild Card take you?" Igor asked. "I look forward to traveling the road of your destiny together." He chuckled. "Till we meet again . . ."

Crrreaaaaak . . .

Shou heard the sound of the Velvet Room's door opening behind him.

Suddenly, Shou found himself standing in the square in front of Morigami's classroom buildings. The door to the Velvet Room hovered in the air in front of him. The blue key was in his hand. For a moment, he thought about going back inside, asking Igor and Isabelle to explain more to him. But he had the feeling that he'd learned everything he could for the moment.

He turned, looking up at the statue of Morigami Yoshinori.

A blue butterfly hovered in the air in front of it.

Shou stared. Hadn't that butterfly . . . died? Or disappeared? Or . . . something? He looked at the blue key in his hand. It pulsed with a faint energy.

He found himself overcome by a sense of profound wonder.

Why had he been chosen for this mission? Why was he this . . . Wild Card?

He didn't know, but all he could do was try to fulfill the expectations that had been placed on him. A great responsibility had fallen on his shoulders. All his worries about school and grades and tuition costs . . . it all felt so shallow now. So completely inconsequential.

He still wasn't sure where his life was going. He didn't know what college he'd go to, what he would do for work, or any of that. But none of it was important now. None of that mattered. This, here and now, this contract . . . That was what was important. That was what mattered. He had a powerful intuition that this was the single most important thing he would do in his entire life.

His head filled with those thoughts, he began his walk back to the dorm.

Emi and Kouta were waiting for him in the common room. The place was otherwise deserted, the rest of the dorm's inhabitants long gone to their beds. Emi looked exhausted from her ordeal earlier; her face was pale and drawn; her movements slow; even so, she managed to smile when Shou entered.

"Hey, bro, there you are," Kouta said. "We were starting to wonder if you got lost or . . . uh, got eaten by Shadows or something."

Shou chuckled, and bowed his head in thanks for their concern.

"We were just talking about what we're going to do tomorrow," Emi said.

Shou nodded, and took a seat on the couch next to Emi.

"Well, first thing we should do is make sure we got the right gear," Kouta said. "I got my shinai, but I'm sure you guys could use some weapons. Maybe some armor, too. That . . . Shadow thing looked like it hit pretty hard, bro."

"That's not a bad idea," Emi said. "They have a lot of things at the school store, you know, with all the clubs and everything. I'm sure we can find something to defend ourselves with."

Shou knew they were right, but inwardly he groaned. He'd already spent ¥3,500 on a bowl of ramen. Now he was going to spend more on a bunch of equipment that was way outside his budget. He was going to need a job, and soon.

"So, whaddya say we all meet up outside the school tomorrow, after class," Kouta said. "Oshima-san can take us to the metro and we can go from there."

"There's one thing I'm worried about, though," Emi said.

"Oh?" Kouta asked.

"We don't know for sure that the train will bring us to Haruo-niisan's Shadow world again," she said. "We're just assuming it'll take us back, but . . . what if it doesn't? What if we can't get back there?"

"Let's try our best," Shou said. He hoped the words sounded reassuring. He couldn't think of anything else to say. The fact was that Emi was right; there were no guarantees they'd be able to go where they wanted to.

"Yeah," Emi said. "I guess that's all we really can do."

"Man, I'm waitin' for all this stuff to make sense," Kouta said. "Shadows and Persona . . . This is all pretty crazy. I still haven't figured out what all that even means, yet."

"If I had to guess," Emi said, "I think the Shadows come from negative thoughts and feelings. My Shadow embodied all my . . . worst fears." She looked away.

Shou felt a pang of sympathy for her. Even though she'd accepted her Shadow, it still must have hurt, sharing her innermost weaknesses. For her sake, he tried to change the subject. He brought up that mysterious girl, and the unknown organization called "Hope/LESS."

"Yeah, that weirdo," Kouta said. "I wonder what the hell her deal was."

"She said they were working with the Shadows," Emi said.

Shou shook his head, and explained. The girl hadn't said that she was working with the Shadows, exactly. She had said that attacking the Shadows would be attacking their cause. As if they were protecting the Shadows for some reason. But that didn't necessarily mean they were responsible for what was happening. It was possible, of course, but they couldn't discount the possibility that there was something else going on.

"Let's go over everything we know," Emi said. "First, that humans are drawn into the Shadow world by a desire to create a new reality."

Kouta nodded. "But they're not always strong enough, so they can get a twisted reality like that messed up orphanage."

"That girl made it seem like . . . whatever happened to Haruo-niisan wasn't automatic," Emi said. "She made it seem like he lost to his Shadow somehow, and became like that."

Shou nodded, thinking of Kudo-sensei's near-comatose state.

"Y'know, now that I think about it, that seems kinda familiar," Kouta said.

"Oh?" Emi asked.

"You guys ever heard of Apathy Syndrome?"

Shou and Emi shook their heads.

"There was an outbreak of it years back, around Tatsumi Port Island, off Iwatodai," Kouta said. "People losing the will to live, basically becoming living, breathing vegetables."

"Don't say that!" Emi looked at him in horror.

"I . . . Damn. Sorry, Emi-chan. I wasn't thinking," Kouta said.

She took a deep breath, and shuddered. "No . . . It's okay," she said. "I . . . I have to accept the possibility . . . that it's really too late for onii-san."

Shou wanted to say something to make her feel better, but he wasn't yet good enough at expressing himself.

"Go on," Emi said to Kouta.

"Well, eventually something put a stop to it. No one knows what. But what I do know is during that time people were reporting all kinds of weird things, monsters and stuff," Kouta said. "And . . . there were rumors of high school students with, like, special powers or something. Really vague stuff, but . . ."

"You think maybe they were dealing with Shadows? And the high school students were Persona users?" Emi asked.

"We can't jump to any conclusions," Shou said. "But let's check it out."

Emi nodded. "I know Tatsumi's owned by the Kirijo Group, and I've heard that they've had dealings with the Morigami Company in the past."

"You think there's some kind of connection there?" Kouta asked.

"Could be," Emi said.

"So what're we gonna do, just, like, call up the Kirijo Group and ask them about Shadows and stuff?" Kouta asked. "Like that's gonna work."

"Do you have any better ideas?" Emi asked.

Kouta shook his head.

"If they blow us off, no harm done," Emi said. "But best case, maybe they have some information that'll help."

"Worth a shot, I guess," Kouta said.

"This is just the start, guys," Emi said. "We're gonna have a lot more work to do if we're actually gonna get to the bottom of this."

"Morigami Exploration Team, here we go!" Kouta shouted.

Suddenly, there was a sound in Shou's head, like the noise of glass shattering. He looked at Kouta and Emi, but neither appeared to have heard it. Then a voice said: Thou art I . . . And I am thou . . . Thou hast established a new bond . . . It brings thee closer to the truth . . . Thou shalt be blessed when creating Personas of the Fool Arcana . . .

Shou blinked. Was this what Igor had been talking about?

Social Links? The power of the . . . Wild Card?

"Hey, Shou, you okay, bro?" Kouta asked.

Shou realized that Kouta was waving a hand in front of his face. Sheepishly, he laughed, and gave a quick nod.

"Okay, good," Kouta said. "Looked like you spaced out there for a second."

"I think we could all use some rest," Emi said. "It's been . . . quite a day."

"That's an understatement," Kouta said.

"I'm gonna head off to bed," she said. "See you in the morning? We can walk to class together."

"Sounds good, Emi-chan," Kouta said. "I was so distracted, I left my bike at the school anyway." He chuckled.

"Good night, guys."

"Good night."

Left alone, Kouta turned to Shou. "You think she'll be okay?" he asked.

Shou shrugged. The truth was he really didn't know. It was hard to tell how Emi was holding up.

He yawned.

Kouta yawned too. "Oh man, I think Emi had the right idea. Let's get some shut-eye, bro. We're gonna need it if we wanna go back into the Shadow world tomorrow."

They rode the elevator up to the guys' floor and parted ways. When Shou reached his bed, he felt like it had been years since he'd last slept. He thought that maybe he should study, but he was having such a hard time keeping his eyes awake.

Shadows. Persona. Social Links. Wild Card. Apathy Syndrome . . .

What did it all mean?

Shou didn't ponder long, because soon he was fast asleep.

Thankfully, this time there were no nightmares. Only regular, restful dreams.

He slept, completely unaware of the tragedy tomorrow would bring.

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