Once Zenkichi had arrived back at the office, the moment he walked in the door, he was greeted by a shrill, "Inspector Hasegawa!"

Zenkichi tried to keep a straight face as his boss came storming towards him. "Commissioner Kaburagi. Is something the matter?"

"What the hell happened yesterday!? Where the hell have you been!? And what in the name of God did you do!?" Kaburagi was practically screaming at him.

Zenkichi placed his hands in his pockets and willed himself into his Phantom Thief attire. The spear-nosed hat and black tasseled coat materialized around him in a flash of blue fire, and the other officers in the room scrambled back in fright and alarm. "Are you referring to this, Commissioner ma'am?"

Kaburagi faltered at the sudden change, but recovered when Zenkichi spoke. "Yes, that! How do you suddenly have supernatural powers!? What did the Phantom Thieves do to you!?"

"This attire and my powers are a mere side effect of facing my own weakness," Zenkichi said casually. "The power itself is called a Persona. It's what happens when someone within the dimension known as the Metaverse accepts the parts of themselves that they hide and siezes them for the sake of protecting the things they care about." Zenkichi released his Phantom Thief attire, and his clothes returned to normal.

"When did this happen?" Kaburagi demanded.

"The day after Miss Niijima had me released from custody last year," Zenkichi replied easily. "The other Phantom Thieves had been trapped in the Metaverse and my awakening allowed me to free them."

"You should have told me!"

"Oh? Why is that?"

"Zenkichi Hasegawa, I am your boss! If something important like this happens, you tell me about it!"

"Would you have believed me?" Kaburagi paused with her mouth still half open. "I didn't think so. I mean, if one hadn't seen it for themselves, who would believe that there's a dimension parallel to this one where monsters of human cognition roam and people can awaken to supernatural powers?"

Kaburagi recomposed herself. "I suppose that's fair. You have a lot of explaining to do, Inspector Hasegawa."

"I don't deny it," Zenkichi replied easily. "I just got back from a meeting with the other Phantom Thieves, and they have some very interesting theories as to what is going on at the moment. I will be sure to explain all that I can, and I think that most of this should probably go public; it could help preserve a lot of lives."

Kaburagi gave in. "Fine. Come to my office. I'll have my secretary join us and we can figure out what to tell the media."

The city had been in chaos for the last few days. Shujin had had reduced periods the first couple of days after the first Shadow outbreak, much to Sumire and Futaba's delight, while the university, which had been a fair distance closer to the carnage, sustained enough damage that classes were canceled for an entire week after the outbreak. Zenkichi had managed to get a decent amount of information about the Metaverse, Personas, and Shadows out to the media through his connections in the police, and it was all over the news for several days. In the meantime, the Phantom Thieves began to monitor the continued appearances of the Shadows.

Futaba, with a little help from the internet and her Persona, had pulled three all-nighters in a row monitoring the situation, something that was only possible because exams had been pushed back due to the Shadows. During this time, she confirmed several things. First, the Shadows tended to appear most often at night or in dark areas, and weaker Shadows like Pyrojacks and Pixies were most common, with the Valkyrie Joker had destroyed the day of the first outbreak being the strongest Shadow she had detected so far. Also, from keeping an eye on the internet, she confirmed that the Shadow outbreaks were occurring all over the world, most commonly in areas with high population densities.

Beijing, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Mumbai, New York, Moscow, Paris, and pretty much every other major city in the world was hit by Shadow outbreaks in the days following the outbreak in Tokyo. China and the US had been hit especially hard, China due to its lack of both warning and Persona-users, and the US due to several members of the government vehemently insisting that the whole thing was a hoax. A particularly powerful Shadow then attacked the US capital a few days after the Tokyo outbreak and killed a number of executives and legislators who had refused to evacuate.

Morgana had predicted during their meeting the day after the Tokyo outbreak that other Persona-users would be appearing, and of course there were also those such as Detective Shirogane and Chief Sanada who already had Personas from events of years ago. Futaba had expected more of them to begin seeking out the Phantom Thieves, and she was not disappointed when on her last day before exams, she detected through Al-Azif that a group of Persona-users were arriving in town.

Phantom Thieves

Futaba: Heads up, guys. We've got a group of new Persona-users arriving in town.

Ryuji: Shit, rly?

Makoto: Where are they now?

Ren: How many are there?

Futaba: Seven of them just appeared somewhere in Shibuya. One navigator, one wild card.

Makoto: Then they probably know where we are as well.

Ann: Can you tell where they're headed?

Futaba: They're all headed towards the University. That's where most of you are, after all.

Yusuke: It would seem they plan to catch us as we finish classes and leave

Ren: When everyone's done with classes, split up and head in different directions

Ren: I'll meet up with Futaba and track down the leaders as Joker

Ren: Only meet back up at the hideout after I give the signal

Ryuji: Making sure you maintain the upper hand?

Ren: Something like that

Sumire: I'll back you up, Futaba-chan

Futaba: Thx Sumi

Rise now looked confused. "What? They're splitting up."

"What?" Kanji demanded. "Whaddya mean splitting up?"

"I mean," Rise grumbled from under her sun hat, "All the Persona-users I've been detecting at the University just split up and started heading in different directions."

"Any chance we'll be able to track them down?" Yu asked.

"Not all at once," Rise complained. "I'd never be able to concentrate on guiding you each after a different person when we don't know what they look like, and it would take forever to track them down individually."

"Then that leaves us with two choices," Yu reasoned. "Wait for them to meet up again, or track down their leader."

"Wait," Yosuke cast his vote first. "In the meantime we can check out the sights. It's been forever since I've been to a big city."

"Ah, hell no," Chie countered. "We should get going. We'll have an advantage in negotiations if we corner their leader."

"And let the rest of them get away so they can take us by surprise?" Yukiko asked. "I say we wait."

"I'm with Chie," Kanji growled. "Sittin' around makes me antsy."

"Well, I'm with Yosuke!" Teddie proclaimed. He had thankfully agreed to leave his bear costume in the hotel with the rest of their stuff. "I would love to see the sights of Tokyo with some lovely ladies!"

"Yu? What's your call?" Rise asked.

Yu was silent for a minute. "We should split into two groups. Rise, you're with me. We're going after their Wild Card. They should be the leader. The rest of you can split up around the city, but be ready to come running at a moments' notice. Don't go too far from each other. If I give the signal, meet up with me and Rise as soon as possible."

Phantom Thieves

Futaba: Joker, two signals split off from the rest of the group and they're following you.

Futaba: The Wild Card and the navigator

Joker: Perfect

"Two more signals coming in," Rise reported, her eyes squeezed shut as she concentrated. "Fast. At least one of them is a navigator."

"And the Wild Card?"

"Moving to meet up with them."

Yu cracked his neck. "Let's move."

Rise led the pair through the winding streets of Tokyo until they were almost out of breath. Yu had thought that they were both fairly fit, but clearly the Phantom Thief they were tailing was a master of evasion. Twice, Rise almost led them down a dead end, so intent she was on following the retreating Wild Card, but it oddly didn't seem to be trying to lose them. Whenever they started to pull too far ahead, it paused, waited for them to start to catch up, then continued the chase.

Whoever this person was, Yu was already annoyed by them.

"Down there," Rise pointed down a nearby alley. "The signals converge down there."

"You ready?" Yu asked his fiancé. Rise set her jaw and nodded. "Then let's do this."

Yu unzipped the top of the long bag slung over his shoulder, revealing the hilt of a katana. Then the two of them stepped into the alleyway.

After about fifty feet, they didn't encounter anyone though. Strange. Yu had thought they would be right on top of-

"I saw you coming, Yu Narukami," came a female voice to his left.

Yu spun, one hand on his sword. Sitting on a dumpster in the shadows was a short, orange-haired high school girl wearing a one-piece black suit with green techno-lines and a nightvision goggles headset. Screens and lines of code swirled around her.

"How do you know my name?" Yu demanded.

"It wasn't too hard to figure out who you were once we learned other Persona-users existed," the girl said easily.

"You're the navigator of the Phantom Thieves," Rise stated.

The girl smiled and stood, the code lines and screens vanishing. "Oracle of the Phantom Thieves of Hearts. Nice to meet you."

"So where are the other two?" Yu asked, removing his hand from his sword hilt.

There was a thud behind them and Yu spun to confront this new arrival. He was bent over with one red-gloved hand on the ground like he'd just jumped from the roofs above, which he probably had. The figure stood, and Yu felt a shiver run down his spine. This man wasn't like anything he had faced before. He wasn't as blatantly powerful as Izanami had been, but his entire aura was wreathed in shadows. Yu had no idea what he was capable of.

"The Wild Card," Rise whispered.

He smirked before bowing mockingly. "You may call me Joker." A mischievous grin split his face. "And I would like to know why you've been following me."