Author's note: Well, I said Persona 4 in the notes for the last chapter, but I think I need to broaden that a bit to include Persona 2, too. Again, there aren't any spoilers for the games; I'm just borrowing and tweaking some ideas.

Thanks for the reviews. I'm glad to know this idea isn't too off-the-wall.

The Eye of Truth

"This is... This is insane."

I glanced out the window again. I'd had enough time to fill Kafei in on the basics -- mainly the part about how Dark Link was my Persona -- but there still weren't any police around. Did this mean no one heard the screams? That was... weird.

Maybe the Shadow did something. After all, I'd never heard anything about something like that, but if Dark Link knew what they were, that couldn't have been the only one. Did it have something to do with the Midnight Channel, too?

"Link... does that mean the Keaton I saw is my Persona?"

I shrugged and turned around. "Probably. Our stories are the same, after all. We both tried the Midnight Channel, and we both saw something. If they both said the same thing, then it's safe to say that you might be right."

"And you said that the man -- I mean, Dark Link -- reached out of the screen and touched you..." Kafei shook his head. "The Keaton reached for me, too, but I jumped out of its reach. Maybe I shouldn't have done that..."

"You didn't know, and I don't blame you." I forced a laugh. "I almost jumped out of my skin when he touched me, after all." Besides, I thought, things didn't normally reach out of TVs.

Kafei laughed a little. "Yeah, I bet you did. Hey... it's getting late. Do you think we could try the Midnight Channel tonight? I mean... it should show up more than once, right?"

"I... think so?" How was I supposed to know, honestly? Until Kafei mentioned it, I didn't even know the Midnight Channel existed at all. And all I knew about Personas was what Dark Link had told me, and that wasn't exactly much.

He nods. "It's worth a try, if nothing else. Maybe the Keaton will try to touch me again..."

"Maybe. At any rate, it's not midnight yet. Want to grab something to eat?" I didn't know about him, but I was hungry. After all, I'd been asleep almost since I got home.

"Yeah, that works. I don't really feel like going out right now, but is it a good idea to have someone come by? I mean... that thing was outside..."

He had a point; what if there was another Shadow out there just waiting to attack someone? There was an easy way to check. All I needed to do was go outside and look. If there was one, well, Dark Link could kill it.

I reached in my pocket, feeling the already-familiar shape of Dark Link's card. "We can call for pizza or something, and while we're waiting, I'll go check the parking lot."

Kafei looked at me and then nodded. "Okay. I'll stay in here, then. Oh, hey... do you have any beer or anything like that? I really need a drink right now."

"There's some in the fridge."

"Good." He stood up and headed toward the small kitchen. "I can call it in, if you want. Same as usual, right?"

"Yeah. That's fine. If you've got that under control, then, I'm going to go have a look around."

"Be careful, all right?"

I nodded and stepped outside, making my way carefully down the stairs.

The parking lot was empty, even more so than usual. It was a Friday night, true, but there was normally someone wandering around outside. It felt odd. Still and calm and... Where had that thing come from, anyway?

I ran a finger up and down the card in my pocket. "Dark Link, what do you know about Shadows?" I asked softly.

Not much, really. They attack anything that gets in their way, and they fight to kill.

"Then... you mean... if I hadn't stopped it, that Shadow would've killed Kafei?"

Kafei or some other human it came across, yes.

I sighed, reaching up and rubbing the side of my head. "But how did it get here?"

I don't know.

That wasn't a comforting answer at all. I shook my head. "Might as well go back inside, then; there's no point in standing out here in the dark."

Dark Link didn't answer. I wasn't expecting him to, really. What could he possibly say? If he didn't know, then he didn't know. I'd just have to find someone who did. In the end, it didn't really matter what a Shadow was or where it came from, just so long as it didn't get a chance to hurt anyone.

"See anything?" Kafei asked as I went back inside.

"No."

"So just the one... weird. I've never seen anything like it before."

I forced out a quick laugh and sat next to Kafei on the couch. "I've never seen any of this before, Kafei, but apparently it's all real."

He nodded. "Either that, or you and I are sharing a hallucination."

"Let's see what happens at midnight," I said. "Maybe then things will start making more sense."

xXx

"It's almost midnight."

I stood up and stretched before walking over to the TV and turning it off. "All right. Let's see if the Midnight Channel comes on again."

Kafei walked over to stand beside me. "Yeah."

At first, nothing happened, but then an image flickered into view. Dark Link and a large Keaton stood side by side, staring towards us. The Keaton was sitting and Dark standing; the Keaton's head came up to Dark's chest.

"See?" Kafei gasped. "I told you I saw a Keaton!"

"I see that..." I leaned in a little closer to the screen. "I don't get it. If the Keaton is your Persona, then..." Dark Link was my Persona, and he looked like, well, a darker version of me. But the Keaton wasn't even human. How could it be Kafei's Persona?

"I don't know," Kafei replied, tapping the screen. "Yours looks human, but mine doesn't... Maybe it's not my Persona after all."

"Maybe," Dark Link said from on the screen. "And maybe you two are focusing too much on the obvious."

Kafei sighed. "What are you talking about?"

The Keaton laughed. "A Persona is a mask of sorts, yes? Then why must we all be human? After all... humans project their traits onto animals. Why can we not return the favor?"

Kafei leaned back. "I... I don't see how this could work."

Keatons were intelligent beings known to grant knowledge and other abilities to those capable of seeking them out and answering their riddles. The myths I'd heard also said they were fast as the wind and fond of pranks, but they were also known to protect those who'd earned their favor.

"Oh, ho... perhaps you aren't ready after all," the Keaton said.

"And maybe we just need to be a little more direct," Dark Link replied. I saw motion and turned back to the TV just as Dark Link reached out and grabbed me by the arm, pulling me towards the screen.

My arm went straight through. There was nothing more than faint resistance, almost like parting a curtain. I felt a second hand on my arm; he was pulling me into the TV!

"Whoa!" I snapped my other arm out, trying to find something -- anything -- I could hang onto. The only thing I could hang onto was Kafei.

"Holy...! What's going on?!" Kafei yelled.

I tried to yell an answer, but I never got the chance. My head and shoulders passed through the curtain of the screen, and then Dark Link grabbed me by the shoulders and yanked me the rest of the way inside. I tumbled forward and then downward, landing on a smooth, cool floor.

There was another yelp, and someone landed beside me. "Ow..." Kafei muttered. "That hurt..."

I sat up slowly -- yeah, that did hurt a little -- and looked around. I couldn't really see where we were; there was plenty of light, but it was really foggy here for some reason. The floor was the only thing I could really see; it was smooth, like tile, but it seemed to be one large piece of something.

"Wh-where are we?" Kafei asked. "Are we inside the TV?"

"You could say that," Dark Link replied, kneeling down next to me and holding out a hand. "Are you all right?"

"I think so..." I muttered, taking his hand and letting him pull me up to my feet. "What was that about, anyway?"

Dark Link laughed. "I was being direct. Maybe now that you're in here, a certain pair of someones will go talk."

"Wait, what are you talking about?" Kafei asked.

Dark Link turned towards Kafei and laughed again. "You and Keaton need to talk. Don't worry; there's no hurry. But while you do, Link and I are going to take a look around."

I waited until we were out of sight of Kafei and Keaton before leaning in. "Are we looking for anything?"

"Not really. We're just taking a look around to see what we can find." He smirked. "Besides, those two need to talk, and I doubt they want us listening. And I don't really like standing around doing nothing, so I'm doing something."

I could see his point; it wasn't like I could help Kafei out, after all, and some things were just personal. There were some things I didn't want to ever tell others...

For a little while, we walked in near-silence; the only sound other than our footsteps was Dark humming a song I only halfway remember. This was comforting, having him here. I wasn't sure why, but I didn't really care.

Paper rustled under one of my boots, and I looked down. Sure enough, I'd just stepped on a sheet of paper. What was something like this doing here? I knelt down and picked it up.

"'My secret confession'," I said, reading the paper aloud. "'One of the guys in my building comes in really late and makes a ton of noise with his car. I want to sneak down there sometime and tear his car up for him, just to shut it up for good.' What's this about?"

Dark shrugged, his armor clinking with the motion. "I don't know. Someone apparently hates some guy's car."

I shook my head and folded the paper up, sticking it in my pocket. It was just some weird piece of paper in a weird place; I'd throw it away when we got back. Speaking of which, "Dark, where are we?"

"What do you mean?"

"Something tells me this isn't just inside a TV."

He laughed. "Yeah. All I know is that this is another world, and that here I don't have to rely on your strength of will to manifest like this. I like it."

"My strength of will?"

"You haven't noticed? That's why you had to call me out to fight that Shadow -- I can't take form in your world unless you give me form."

"Which means that it's possible that I can't call you when I need to?"

Dark Link wrapped an arm around my shoulders. "Considering how stubborn you are, I doubt that'll happen. Besides, it's not like --"

"Who's there?" a man's voice called out.

Dark Link and I looked at each other before I called back: "We're just looking around."

I heard footsteps, soft footsteps, and then the voice asked, "Is he your Persona?"

"Yes, he is."

A laugh. "I've never met anyone with a Persona before!" Someone walked out of the fog. It was a little boy, light brown hair hanging in his face, wearing a worn pair of jeans and a faded blue shirt. He wore a mask, a pale mask set in a serious expression, red paint curving along its cheeks. I couldn't tell how old he was. An older child, probably, judging by his height.

"Hello," I said, smiling. "Who are you?"

The little boy looked up at me, his hair moving back to show the blue V on his mask's forehead. "I'm Nobody." His voice was the man's voice we'd heard before.

"You're nobody? But everyone has a name." Then again, I gave Dark Link his name, didn't I? But no, this boy wasn't a Persona; he was just a boy. People had names.

"I don't. I don't have a name. I'm Nobody."

This was strange. What was a boy with no name doing in a place like this? And why did he have such a deep voice? "Are you lost?"

"No. I live here."

"Someone lives here?" I heard Kafei ask from nearby.

The boy turned his head to look at something off to my right. "You have a Persona, too!"

I turned, but I couldn't see anything through the fog. How could the little boy see? "Kafei, are you all right?"

After a long moment, Kafei and Keaton walked out of the fog, stopping next to me. "I'm fine," Kafei said, giving the little boy an odd look. "Who is this kid? I didn't think anyone lived here..."

"I live here," the boy said again, looking up at Kafei. "I've never met anyone else with a Persona before."

"Who are you, though?"

The boy sighed. "I've already said. I'm Nobody."

"Look," Kafei snapped. "Everything has some kind of title. 'Nothing' is exactly that: no thing. You're here and you're a person, meaning you can't be nobody."

"Kafei..." I said softly, though I doubt he heard me. He had a point, but at the same time, this wasn't our world. We couldn't assume things worked the same here.

Dark Link stepped closer to me. "Something's moving around over there." He was looking into the fog behind the boy.

"I don't hear anything," I replied.

"Hm. Maybe it's nothing, but... I'm not taking chances."

"I told you!" the little boy said, his deep voice practically growling the words. "I'm Nobody!"

Kafei strode forward. "We're going in circles. Take that stupid mask off and talk to us already!" He snatched the mask off. "Holy shit! What's going on here?!"

The boy had no face. No mouth, no nose, no eyes. It was almost like someone wearing pantyhose over their face -- there were the vague suggestions of features, but nothing more. How could someone not have a face? Was this why he said he was Nobody?

Nobody felt his face -- or at least what little he had of one -- and then started waving his arms frantically around, kneeling down and feeling the floor. He was... looking for something, looking for his mask? He couldn't see without the mask on, could he? I started to step forward, but Dark Link grabbed me and held me back.

"No; something's coming."

I could hear it now: slow, steady footsteps approaching us from behind Nobody.

"Give him back the mask." The voice was Nobody's, but it wasn't coming from the little boy. It came instead from a tall, broad figure -- easily head and shoulders over me -- who strode out of the fog. All I could do was stare and try to make sense of him -- hair white as snow, a massive sword made of two twisted blades, jet black armor that looked like leather but gleamed like steel... And his face; his face was identical to the mask that Nobody wore.

Kafei yelped and fell backwards, the mask clattering to the floor. The tall man's eyes -- white and empty and piercing -- narrowed, and he put a hand on Nobody's shoulder.

I knelt down and picked the mask up before walking over and kneeling beside the little boy. "It's okay. I've got your mask, see? It's right here..."

Nobody felt around and finally found the mask, and I helped him raise it to him face. Poor little guy; I felt sorry for him. No name, no face, living in a strange world full of fog...

"It's okay, Kishin. I'm fine now," Nobody said softly, putting a hand on the taller man's hand and then looking up at me.

"He has no right to touch you."

"It's okay! He didn't hurt me. And maybe... maybe now he'll believe me."

Kafei shook his head wildly. "I'm sorry, really sorry! I - I didn't know!"

"See?" Nobody said softly. "They're from outside. They don't understand the way it is here."

"They have Personas," Kishin replied; the only change was the direction the voice came from. "So you and I aren't the only ones of our kind."

I turned towards Kishin; this all made sense now. There was a reason Nobody's mask looked like Kishin's face. "You're his Persona, aren't you?"

Kishin merely nodded.

"How long have you been here? Can you leave?"

"Why would we wish to leave? This place is our home."

"It's quiet here," Nobody added, "except for when the Shadows get scary."

I turned back to Nobody. "Shadows?" The thing in the parking lot... Dark had called it a Shadow. "Do they attack you?"

"For the most part, they keep to themselves. We stay away from them as much as we can."

"But sometimes they get scary and go looking for things to attack."

"We think that someone is making them act this way. There was a time when it wasn't like this."

Kafei climbed to his feet, glancing at Nobody, then Kishin. "If the Shadows are here, then how did one come after me?"

"We don't know. We've been trying to investigate that --"

"-- and find out why Shadows leave and humans come here. There've been others --"

"-- but they don't have Personas. They are humans, in small groups, with strange devices."

"Some of them kill the Shadows. Some of them catch the Shadows and take them somewhere."

Kafei looked at me. "Sounds like two groups, then."

"Maybe," I replied. "And maybe they're just doing different things." I didn't like this. The Shadow had clearly been trying to kill Kafei... but if it came from this world, how did it get to the parking lot at my apartment complex?

I shook my head. "Have you seen anything odd, little guy?" Even if it was the closest thing he had to a name, I just couldn't bring myself to call him 'Nobody'.

"Yeah. There are weird papers talking about confessions. What's that?"

"Every time new papers appear, the Shadows start hunting."

Confessions...? Like that weird paper Dark Link and I found? "How often do these papers appear?"

"Time is hard to measure in this world."

"But sometimes it gets less hazy here, and we hear voices in the distance."

"Then more papers show up, and I have to drive the Shadows away from him."

I don't like the sounds of this. Though this would explain why the Shadow was so relentless. "Does this mean someone's stirring the Shadows up? Confessions... Did someone sent that Shadow after you, Kafei, or did you just happen to be the unlucky person in the parking lot at the time?"

"What?" Kafei gasped. "But wouldn't that mean... someone might be trying to kill me?"

Keaton paced a quick circle around Kafei, wrapping its tails around him. "Do not be so quick to assume. It is possible that these are all unrelated."

"Besides," Dark Link added, "we don't know who's behind this, so we don't know who to go strike down."

I felt a tug on my sleeve and looked down at Nobody.

"Are you going to help us?"

I glanced over at Dark Link -- who winked and cracked his knuckles -- and then nodded. "Our Personas let us fight the Shadows, right? That means that if someone's trying to use the Shadows to hurt people, we might be the only ones who can stop it."

There had to be a reason we had this power, right? Besides, I couldn't just walk away, not if people were getting hurt. Not if I had a chance to stop it.

"Very well, then," Kishin said with a faint smile. "We will do what we can on this side, while you do what you can on your side. Perhaps when we put both sides together, this will start making more sense. Come. I know where the exit is. You shouldn't stay here long."

"Wait... before you go, promise you'll be back."

I nodded again and smiled. "We'll be back, little guy. We're working together now, right?" It had to be so lonely here with only his Persona for company... even if I never found the answers to our questions, I'd come back. I'd come back and visit just so he wouldn't have to be alone.

"Okay!" Nobody laughed, and then he started digging in one of his pockets. "Then I have a present for you, Link!"

"You do?"

"Yeah! It might be able to help you." He pulled a monocle out of his pocket and held it up. "See? It's an eye that can see the truth. You can have it."

I took the monocle and held it up. It was metal, though I couldn't tell what kind -- I didn't know of any metal that gleamed purple in the light. The lens itself was tinted purple, except for a lighter, almost pupil-like pink area in the center. I'd never seen anything like it before.

"An eye to see the truth," I said softly, closing my eyes and putting the monocle on over my left eye. The monocle suddenly felt warm, and I felt something gently gripping the bridge of my nose. Weird. And even stranger, there was a faint tingle around my eyes. It didn't hurt; I barely even felt it.

"Uh, Link... Are you sure that's a good idea?" Kafei asked.

I opened my eyes. The fog was gone, for the most part, and for the first time I could see where we really were. It looked like... No, there wasn't really a single word I could attach to this. The floor, smooth and gray, stretched in all directions, though in the distance I could barely make out what looked like a railing and a few scattered gates. The sky was a dark, dark blue, and all of the horizons glowed with what looked almost like twilight.

"This is your world...?"

"You can see now!" Nobody said with a laugh. "Yes, this is home."

"Link, what does he mean that you can see?" Kafei demanded.

"The fog... I can see through the fog now." I kept looking around, noticing what looked like a large TV sitting against the railing not far from us. "That must be the exit..."

Dark Link put a hand to his head and closed his eyes, growling softly. I reached over and put a hand on his shoulder. "Dark, are you okay?"

"Yeah..." he said softly, opening his eyes and blinking several times. For a second, his eyes looked almost purple, but then they changed back to red as he started looking around. "I can see now."

Nobody laughed. "Of course you can. Now that Link can see the truth, you can, too."

"What does that mean?" Kafei asked. "Then the fog isn't real?"

Kishin crossed his arms. "The fog is real, but it isn't truth."

"What?"

I shook my head. "We can worry about that later, Kafei. For now..." I was starting to get tired now, really tired. How long had we been here? "For now, we should probably get back."

He sighed. "You're probably right."

I nodded and headed over to the TV. "So just step through here, and we'll be back..." I turned to Dark Link and smiled at him. "See you later."

He smiled back. "Whenever you need me."

"I'll be waiting for you to come back!" Nobody called.

I turned around and waved. "I'll see you then!" Then I stepped through the screen and back into my apartment. I took my monocle off, since I didn't need it here, and slid it into my jacket pocket next to Dark Link's card. It made sense to keep the two together.

After a moment, Kafei stumbled out behind me, looking around as if trying to convince himself he was back. "Did that really just happen...?"

I pulled Dark Link's card out of my pocket and held it up. "Yes, it just happened."

He fumbled in his pockets for a moment and then pulled out a card of his own. I didn't need to see it to know what was on it: blue and white border ringing a picture of Keaton.

"Holy... This is crazy. This is all crazy. No one sees anything like this, Link! They all think it's some stupid urban legend! What are we going to do now?"

What could we do? "We're going to just go on like normal, but we're going to keep an eye out for anything strange."

"Normal? How is this supposed to be normal, Link? Normal people don't have Personas!"

"I know that! Still, what good will it do us to overreact, Kafei? We can't explain this. We don't even know for sure that there's anything happening besides some weird coincidences. Just... Just keep an eye out for anything that seems weird."

He sighed. "Yeah, you have a point. Besides, we work at a school, so we might overhear something there."

I nodded. "That's how we learned about the Midnight Channel, right? Don't worry. We'll figure something out." I hoped that was true.

"Sorry, I just... It's a lot to take in all at once."

"I know." I glanced at the clock -- just after one. Somehow, it felt like we'd been in the TV for longer than an hour. Did time work differently in there? That was possible.

"Hey, Link? Is it okay if I just sleep on your couch or something? I don't think I trust myself to drive home now."

"Sure. Then I guess we can talk more about this in the morning."

xXx

"Link!"

I groaned and rolled over, trying to remember why Kafei was yelling at me. Wait, he did stay here, didn't he? "What is it?"

"Come here!" He sounded a little freaked out. Was he all right?

I staggered into the living room. Kafei was on the floor in front of the couch, staring at the TV.

"...a horrific scene at the Crestfield Heights apartment complex this morning. A man was found dead in the driver's seat of his parked car. Police have not released his name or any details, but one anonymous source has called it a car accident..."

Kafei looked over at me. "...does that make sense to you? That doesn't make sense to me. If the car is parked, how could it be an accident?"

I sat down on the couch. "That does seem pretty weird..." Wait... I pulled the confession out of my pocket and looked down at it. "'I want to sneak down there sometime and tear his car up for him, just to shut it up for good.'"

"What's that?"

Interesting...

I handed the paper over. "Something I found in the TV last night."

Kafei looked at it and then up at me. "Nobody and Kishin said the papers seem to be connected to the Shadows, right? Does that mean that this..." His eyes widened. "Does that mean that he was killed by Shadows?"

"Maybe it does... but there's something we're missing, isn't there?" Missing... I grabbed my jacket and pulled out my monocle, sliding it on and looking at the paper again.

There was more text there now. Above the words "my secret confession" was a symbol I didn't recognize, ringed by the phrase "release the darkness and emerge the pain." I told Kafei what I saw.

"What does that mean, though?"

I sighed. "I don't know. And we don't even know for sure that there's any connection at all..." I shook my head and took my monocle back off. "Still... pay attention to the news and see if there are any other weird deaths."

He nodded. "And listen to the school gossip and see if anyone's talking about secret confessions. There has to be a source for this, right?"

"Yeah, there has to be. We just have to find out what it is."

Kafei stared off into space for a second. "Keaton says the same thing. We need to just observe for now and not jump to any conclusions."

Keaton is right. Rushing in is dangerous.

"Right. So, then... since we can't really do any of that right now..." This was a strange idea, but...

Nothing wrong with working off the stress, y'know. Besides, I like to play.

"What is it, Link?"

"How about we just go do something today? Something that has nothing to do with this, just to get our minds off everything that happened last night for a while."

He seemed to think about that, and then he nodded. "Yeah, that sounds like an idea. Last night was really crazy. A break's probably a good idea."

"Good. Then let's get ready and go... before something else goes crazy."