A/N: Sorryyyyyyyy. I feel bad you guys had to wait for so long. My bad guys, really. I'm back though. And I'm here to write. My spark is back anyways, so that's a good thing. Anyways, enjoy this chapter. It's my favorite so far!

We fought as hard as we could, and that's when I realized that I was an idiot. My shadow had spent his time kicking me in the ribs, cackling and going on about how much I hated myself. To be completely honest, every word he said was damn near true. I couldn't say the same for Naoto however, she'd spent a good long time kicking her shadow's ass.

Again, I wasn't in as good of shape, and was regretting this idea. It was suicide, and I guess that's what I wanted.

"Fight back, coward!" My shadow screamed as hard as he could.

"Bite... me..." He was stomping on my head, my retorts weren't going to be top notch.

That's when Naoto turned, and shot him in the shoulder, sending him flying off of me. I stood with her help, and brushed myself off. I turned to her, and smiled. "Ha, all good no-,"

I felt cold steel on my forehead as my vision blurred. She'd just struck me as hard as she could with her pistol. Blood leaked from the gash on my head, as I laid on the floor. As I started to loose consciousness, I saw her shadow in the background. It laid there lifeless, but did not dissolve like the other beings we'd fought. Blood leaked out of its head... her head. Naoto had been... shot?

I stood. My vision was blurry. Shadow Naoto put her gun to my head. "Now you die."

"Fuck..."

I grabbed its shoulders.

"YOU!"

I pulled. I pulled as hard as I could have, until I heard a snapping sound, and bleats of pain. I still have no idea why it didn't shoot me. Maybe it was the shock. But after I'd so easily broken it's arms, I felt something swell in me.

Narukami...

Calling to me. I asked it, "What are you?"

I felt a sensation of heat well up within my stomach. Of darkness swirling around me. Then, I heard a gunshot. Shadow Naoto had pulled the trigger, sending a bullet into my side. I could feel it lodged into my flesh, as no entry wound was apparent. I dropped her, as the voice in my head screamed in frustration. If that had gone on any longer, I might have let that dark sensation take me. But now I had to deal with the bullet in my side.

"No!" I heard. Naoto sat up, and unloaded her entire magazine into the shadow. It collapsed, and let out an inhuman growl. I noticed that her ear was bleeding badly.

I stood, very shaky, my vision absolutely clouded by pain. Naoto stood, and tried to run to me, before my shadow came from out of nowhere, and kneed her in the stomach. "Enough of the games..." He sounded exasperated. Looking at his companion, she nodded. "They have not denied us, so we can't transform, but if you and I..." He smiled.

Shadow Naoto rose her arms up, mirroring my shadow, as their eyes and mouths opened wide. A disgusting gurgling noise was heard as shadows poured into their open orifices. "Now, you will see what being powerful really is..." They spoke in distorted unison. I clutched my side, looking at Naoto with horror in my eyes. She did the same.

Our shadows grew larger and larger, until, finally, the mist exploded bombastically, revealing a true Eldritch Abomination. The monster was more than a few hundred feet tall, destroying the ceiling as it grew. Its torso was planted in the ground, and resembled Izanami's final form. Unlike Izanami, however, was the hair and body. The hair was bright white, the bones blue and black, and the gown shimmering silver. Its hands were replaced with what looked like roots. The most horrifying part, however, were the three corpses hanging from its rib cage.

"You ignored us! We hate you! Don't leave us alone, just like they did! WE HATE YOU."

"How can you hate yourself?!" Naoto spat.

I shook my head. Without Rise here, this was going to end very badly...

I'm here, World.

I gasped. "U-universe?"

I heard a chuckle from my mind. Yes, I'm here. I will provide back up. You can also use one of these, if you like.

A blue card floated down in front of me. A picture of a robotic, long haired man shone on the front. I said, instinctively, "Orpheus... okay. Let's do this..."

Naoto nodded. "I'll cover you, and distract it. Blood is in my eyes, so I wont be very accurate!"

"Don't worry, we've got help." I crushed the card. "Persona!"

We've got a big one here, so take it easy and find it's weakness! Heal yourself though. It has Dia.

"Gotcha!"

Orpheus first healed me, then flew at the shadow as I started to circle it. Naoto gave suppressing fire as I approached it with the pocketknife I had on me. "Knew this thing would come in handy!"

"Focus, senpai!"

"Okay, okay!" I nodded. "Agi!"

Orpheus pulled the harp off of its back, and strummed it violently. Fire burst upon the shadow. "Damn, only the weak spells like this on him?!"

It was my first persona, what do you expect, Metatron?!

The shadow roared, and lunged backward, crushing even more of the building. It released a wave of darkness, not unlike-

"Senpai! That's Deathbound, get out of there!"

"Shit!" I turned and ran from the wave. Orpheus tried to block me, but was overpowered. "This persona isn't going to do it, got another one?"

Just a few, try this!

Another card, I didn't have time to read it. "Persona!" Tam Lin appeared in front of me. "Really? Tam Lin kicks ass, what's with not giving me this one?!"

I'm panicking, haven't done this before!

"Stop with the banter and fight, Senpai!" Naoto shot a few more times at the beast.

"Okay, alright! Tam Lin, Ziodyne!"

The persona grunted, as it lifted its spear into the air. Lightning struck the shadow, making it reel backwards even further, knocking the wall down. It was fully into the courtyard now. "All right! Give em another!"

The persona obliged, launching another assault. The shadow screeched. "Enough of this NONSENSE! How are you in possession of a PERSONA?!"

"Frankly, I don't know how it's possible." I grinned. "But it's enough to wake myself up!"

I rose my hand into the air. "Give em HELL, Tam Lin!"

Tam Lin actually smiled as it used power charge. It then rose the spear in attack, and rushed at the shadow.

"Now!"

"YOU WILL NEVER ESCAPE US!"

"Deathbound!"

The entire building was completely leveled. Rubble littered the shadow world. I rose from a pile of bricks, cuts and bruises matted my face. "A-ah, damn... that hurts." My arm was limp, falling to my left side. I noticed the hole in my gut had stopped bleeding, and was actually closed up. "I took the liberty to have Orpheus heal you again, before calling him back. Naoto is to the south. She was pushed back very far. She didn't have a Persona during all that, so I'm quite worried. I'll be there soon though, so if she's hurt I'll heal her." I ran to the southern are of the battlefield. There sitting in a pile of rubble, was a beaten and tattered Naoto. She was unconscious, blood trickled down her face from her mouth. I quickly went to her side, and lifted her off of the pile. I set her down on the cold ground, and proceeded to check her pulse. Heart beating, she was okay. I just ran my hand through her hair as she laid unconscious.

I sat like that for a few minutes, before hearing slow walking behind me. "... Yu?!"

I was expecting the blue-haired man, but instead, Yosuke stood behind me, glasses, kunai and all. Of course, he wasn't wearing a high school uniform. He had on a casual blazer, jeans and a white collared shirt. "H-holy crap! Did you do this?!"

I nodded. "Not sure how though. All I did was power charge Tam Lin..."

"B-but why?!"

I told him that both mine and Naoto's shadows attacked us. "They... I don't know, they morphed together, I guess."

"That's weird... A-anyways, nice to see you too, partner."

"Ha, sorry. How have things been?"

Yosuke and I caught up for a few minutes, before another came running over. There was blue. He wasn't wearing the mask, however, and his face was pretty plain. His cobalt eyes looked into mine. I looked at Yosuke. "So, partner, this here is Universe."

"Wow, that's conceited." He joked.

"Actually, my name is Minato Arisato, nice to meet you formally, Yu Narukami. And this is...?"

"Yosuke Hanamura. You must have saved this one's ass during the fight." Yosuke motioned to me.

"He told you?" Minato sighed.

"Well, you took a while. Like I'm not going to explain what happened here."

"Y-you did... take a while." Naoto's voice coughed, as her head rested on my lap. She sat up slowly, and moved to stand. "I-I'd like... some first aid... if you don't mind." Her sarcasm dripped, jokingly but venomously.

Minato flinched. "O-of course, sorry." He focused as a blue light was seen to glint in his eyes. "Angel, Dia."

Naoto gasped for a moment, twitched, and her wounds seemed to disappear. We all knew, however, that they healed slowly, and one of the points of the spell was to fool the enemy into thinking you were at tip top shape.

As she was healed, someone else approached. Two in fact, dark figures walked to us, holding hands. Yosuke's brow furrowed as Naoto and I approached them.

"That was one hell of an ass kicking you gave us." I joked. My shadow smiled.

"It was to see if you were still worthy. It was also to release the anger I've had against us for so long."

I laughed. "You don't have to tell me. I understand. You are me after all." He nodded, and floated into the air. He morphed into Izanagi once more. "Thou art me, I am thou."

Smiling, I turned to Naoto. "Your turn."

She laughed. Looking to her shadow, all she had to do was smile. "He wouldn't want us to fight."

"Yes..."

"We should say goodbye to him. Honestly, this time." A tear ran down her face.

"And I will be there."

"Because you are me..."

Her shadow did the same as mine, lifting into the air. It transformed into Yamato Sumeragi. "Like an old glove..."

"Or a hat." I chuckled."

She laughed at that. Turning to the two, my fingers laced in with Naoto's, we walked to them.

"Dang, some stuff went down, eh Narukami?"

"You don't know the half of it. These two are practically falling apart." Minato joked.

"Yosuke, I take it, since your dad and mine did business together, you know." My face grew stony.

"Y-yeah. I didn't want to bring it up straight into a message. That's why I was trying to wait for you to send me back. What, am I gonna open a message with, 'sorry about that dude, yeah lol that sucks,' that'd be... well, more than shitty of me."

I smiled. He knew how to cheer me up, just like Naoto, even if it was some twisted, off color humor. "We should go. I have a feeling this place isn't going to stay quiet for much longer..."

"Good idea partner."

"Yeah, sounds good." Minato nodded.

"Yes." Naoto also agreed.

"The studio back lot is still there, so we have a way out. It's been like this for weeks, y'know, all twisted and dark. I wonder what happened to the good old TV world? When it was all sunshine." Yosuke started, as we walked to the back lot. "I mean, we beat Izanami."

"Yeah, but maybe she's back...?"

"Perhaps, she is testing us again?" Naoto queried.

Minato walked ahead of the three of us. "I can answer all of your questions, just come along with me, and we can discuss this."

"Good idea. Another question, Minato. Who are you, really?" I asked.

He was silent for a moment, before answering. "I was the great seal, until a friend of mine came to relieve me of that seat. Unfortunately, in the process of doing so, she failed. Part of her soul is now stuck in the seal, and she's no longer omnipotent. She's a person like us two."

"Whoa whoa, great seal?! The hell is that?" Yosuke asked incredulously. "You saying you locked some demon in a seal or something?"

Minato nodded, not looking back. "You could say that. I'll explain in greater detail once we leave, but for now, all you must know is that the quintessential apocalypse is coming. And I need Narukami-San's help."

I looked at Naoto, her eyes full of worry. If this guy, a powerful Persona user with control of the universe, could only seal this enemy away, I wondered how we'd be able to do anything more than seal it once more...

All of us returned to the real world, into Junes. Minato went through the TV like an expert, like it wasn't his first time. To both mine and Yosuke's surprise, the electronics section was completely empty. We heard sirens in the distance, so we turned to see the news on the TV. Apparently, part of the practice building of Yasogami High was obliterated. The school however, was still mostly intact. Naoto deducted that we had caused that, since the TV world so closely imitated Inaba.

Our team left Junes, tired and sweaty, all except for Yosuke. He informed us that he checks the TV world while he works, doing quick scans for any energy nearby. His analysis power wasn't anything like Rise's as any Persona use can sense another, Rise could do so with the thick fog. Her persona was made for that. He sensed us, faintly, and made his way to the area, however, he was doing books, so he couldn't see us to the Dojima's house. Minato would do so instead.

We walked quietly to the house. My shirt was stained with blood, so Minato offered his coat. Naoto's wounds had healed, and she'd washed up in the lavatory back at Junes, but her hair was slightly matted with blood, and her face was flecked with it. We looked odd, two blue-haired young adults and one albino, wearing torn up clothes and slightly bloody. We would have been screwed if some police officers wanted to have a word with us.

As we arrived at the Dojima household, I noticed right away the absence of either Dojima, elder or younger, so after we bid goodbye to Minato, whom told us he'd explain it all soon, we made for my room.

Naoto was the first inside. "I have to shower, and get this blood out of my hair."

"Yeah, just make sure it goes down the drain good. Last time I bled from battle, during the investigation, Uncle found it and questioned me for an hour. Was not very fun."

Naoto chuckled. She removed her dirty, torn up pea coat she'd had since high school, and started to unbutton her undershirt. "I'll only be a minute."

"Take your time." I gave her a quick kiss. Blush dusted her cheeks as she proceeded, not very flustered, to the bathroom.

I sat on my sofa, tired and dirty. I pulled off Minato's coat, and removed my shirt. Cuts littered my body. Thinking to myself, I started to wonder about Minato. "I wonder why he could only heal me from far away, but not Naoto...?" I placed my hand on the healing wound that was the bullet. It was starting to scar. At least I'd have a cool story to tell my kids.

I heard the shower start, as I rose to turn on the TV. Uncle had refurbished the room after he was promoted to district chief. A new, 32" TV sat on the dresser, the wire shelf replaced with a wooden one. The sofa was a larger, three cushioned fabric one. It also folded into a mattress, so the futon was gone. The coffee table was now a glass one, and the desk was pushed up against the far wall. Now this is pretty much what my room at home had looked like.

After reminiscing, I'd heard the shower stop, and a few seconds later, Naoto entered the room, wearing a loose grey tanktop, and pajama pants. She said she'd look for a movie, as long as I took a shower. Couldn't argue with a good night. She then informed me that she was not involved in any cases at the time, and had stopped in Inaba for a break. She was on leave for another few months.

"And we can spend all of that time together. I'll always be here." She sat next to me on the sofa, placing her hand on mine, as we watched the Sherlock Holmes reboot. As Naoto talked about how much she loved the combat scenes in it, I couldn't help but think of the future...

And what was in store for me.