"Damnit!" Dojima groused as the second top button of his shirt refused to stay closed. Nothing seemed to fit right anymore. He'd tried three different shirts, and this was the only one which he'd had the best luck... Except for this stupid button. He really needed to cut back on the takeout...funny, after Chisato died, he'd forgotten to eat so many times he'd been swimming in his clothes. It wasn't really until Yu came to stay that they no longer hung on him, like a child pretending to be a grownup. Though, right now it felt less like he was play acting and more like someone switched his wardrobe with his daughter's. Though he was pretty sure she didn't own any gray dress shirts….

The button held for a moment, and he sighed in relief. That sent the button flying into some unknown corner of the bedroom, never to return. The curses that followed it were enough to make Izanami blush.

Admitting defeat, the detective cocked his tie hurriedly to hide the offending gap and made a mental note to stop by Junes on his way home. Just one more thing to add to the shit pile that was this week…

Dojima sighed, shifting his hand roughly through his hair, staring at his reflection in the mirror. He didn't look any different than he had a few days ago, even if he felt like someone had disassembled him down to his atoms and slowly started to rebuild him. 'Ryotaro 2.0'... he snorted at the thought; his breath fogging the mirror with its heat.

Heat…

That fire in the pit of his stomach still licked his core; sometimes an ember, or sometimes a low, steady flame. It made him feel constantly on edge, like he was on a permanent adrenaline rush. Maybe the damned dragon -something shifted inside him and he corrected himself, Kohryu- wanted him to be elsewhere, doing something a bit more valuable with his time than reading reports and babysitting rookies.

Not surprising, with Adachi still on the loose.

The others thrown in from the riot were spread out through this strange world, but none so deep as he had been. Several of the convicts were in a nightmarish version of a prison, their shadows and other terrors acting as their sadistic jailers.

They'd split into two groups of four, with Kujikawa acting as their point person and main go between. Yu had insisted his uncle stay with him, along with Haramura and Satonaka, and Dojima didn't question it...openly. He may not have believed this place existed until an hour ago, but it wasn't that piss poor of a detective.

...No matter what his inner demons said.

To be fair, if the roles were reversed, he'd have made the same call, if not have ordered his just-freed ass to stay by the entrance. Yu was caught in the middle of being a good leader and deferring to his elders; something that always left you with a bad taste in your mouth. Dojima knew his nephew wanted to keep him safe, and he was glad for that; he also suspected Yu wasn't entirely convinced on his effectiveness in such a brand new situation.

Dojima splayed his hand across his abdomen again, willing the flame to subside, but there was no reasoning with such a force. His blood simmered, his grip on the bat was making his knuckles go white. He needed to hit something badly, and with no outlet for this strange aggression gripping him, he was left with the pressure built so high…A morbid part of his mind wondered if smoke was going to start pouring out of his mouth if he kept burning like this. So caught up in his thoughts, Dojima didn't even see the shadow in front of them until he practically ran into one; a grotesque mockery of a police officer stared down at him, its hand raised to shoot.

The real cop didn't bother hiding the smirk on his face as he swung the bat hard into the monster's torso. Finally, he had a release to all that aggression, his blood practically singing as he struck hard and fast at each oncoming wave.

The shadows never knew what hit them (In reality, it was a baseball bat, with a few punches thrown in, as well as a lightning bolt or two for good measure).

He dusted himself off, and Kohryu faded back into the space inside him. The flame in his core kept continuing to eat at him, but a little less intensely than before. Still, how long could he burn before there was nothing left?

He sighed, and overheard the Hanamura kid bouncing nervously behind.

"Dude, I'll be the first to say Dojima-san scares the fuck out of me on a normal day… are we sure we picked up the right detective from that warped police station?" Yosuke whispered to Yu as they progressed down the hallway, Rise's scans showing it safe for the moment. Yu hid his own worry by a shake of his head.

"Hanamura." The older man stopped in front of them, and Yosuke instinctively tried to hide behind Yu's shoulder.

"OhgodheheardmeI'mgonnadiiiiie…"

Dojima snickered. So did Yu. Chie did too, after realizing what had happened.

Yosuke was trying not to pout.

"Hana...Yosuke, sorry... I don't mean to sound like this is some sort of interrogation; if we're going to work together that probably won't help. I'm...just a bit riled up at the moment. Got some energy to burn." He tried not to wince at his own use of 'burn' just then.

His nephew blinked, shifting his gaze directly at Dojima. Damn. He'd caught that. Sometimes, the kid knew better than he let on.

At least his nephew had the tact to wait until they truly were out of earshot to ask. "Uncle...are you sure you're alright to do this? I know you said you feel alright, but… something's been worring me. Every time someone's mentioned something like fire..." Dojima flinched at the word, unable to stop himself, "...you've made a face. Are you worried about what Margaret said? We don't have to do this…"

"No, I have to-" Dojima sighed. The last thing he needed was to give this place more secrets and issues to throw back at them. "Yu, look… you're right, what that woman said…"

"I'm not going to lie; whatever that…'shadow' did to me...or this place...something put me on edge, got me bouncing off the walls like a kid on a sugar high. Too much energy building up, like a powder keg about to go off at any second. The only thing keeping me in check is letting it out. I don't know how, or why, but something's telling me if I stop right now…I'd turn to ash."

Yu nodded in understanding, but the worry didn't quite leave his eyes. Who could blame him? Dojima wondered, briefly, what had it been like for his nephew, the first time he fought the shadows in this place. Was it anything similar to what he was going through, now?

He mentally noted that they needed to sit down and a have a nice, long talk. One where he'd actually listen to his nephew's tales about this world inside the televisions... But that would have to wait.

They had had people to save.

Eventually, after the demons of four convicts, two guards, and a countless shadows, everyone was exhausted, drained and battered. Even Dojima, whose fire had finally ebbed to a single spark, knew they were all at their limits. Still, they'd managed to find everyone…

...except Adachi.

"Anything, Rise?" Yu asked, as he and Tatsumi carefully laying the unconscious prison guard to the floor of the main stage, next to the rest of the collected victims.

The girl sighed, her Persona dispersing into a shower of sparks. "He's back in his old space….I can tell the shadows are still avoiding him, like last time...but it feels different, somehow. Like, he's trapped there for the time being, but I don't know if that's a permanent thing."

The group sighed. "We'll have to hope that holds for now, as even with a requisite amount of healing, we'll have our hands full just getting these victims back to the prison." Naoto sighed, weariness tinging her voice. "it's going to be very hard to explain how they all ended up in Junes…"

"I might have a solution for that… I may be able to use one of our delivery trucks." A keychain jangled at the end of Yosuke's fingers, their shine mirrored in his grin. "We can at least get them back to the prison site… though I don't know how we'd get them back in- particularly with all those cameras they have set up around a place like that."

"I think I can help with that; not that they'd ever admit it, but there's some holes in their security system that haven't been fixed yet. Part of the reason I've been visiting Adachi is to make sure the bastard hasn't figured them out yet." A sigh rattled in Dojima's chest. "I suspect, though, when you caught him the first time… you made him agreed to stay, didn't you?"

Yu nodded wordlessly. He watched his uncle closely, hoping whatever had possessed him before was finally doused for good. He had promised Nanako to bring her father back safe.

Despite his assurances to the kids, Dojima had been surprised at how easily it had been to put everything back in place when they returned, unobtrusively, to the prison. The kids had thankfully acted fast, apparently; Teddie had felt all the intruders as soon as they'd fallen in. Apparently Adachi's monsters were hard to forget. It had only been a few hours since he and the others had fallen in.

The power hadn't even been restored to building yet when they pulled up quietly to a side gate of the yard. One buzz of a guard's badge-card (at least that still worked - probably a separate system), and everyone was back inside. In the end, no one had questioned Dojima's story that they'd been pushed into the corner of the yard in the confusion. After all, they still had a few escaped prisoners to worry about.

With his presence at the riot and his connection to one of the escapees, Dojima wasn't allowed anywhere near the case, of course. It'd have been nice for the change of pace, and a way to burn off some of this newfound energy of his. That would have to wait until tomorrow, when the kids were ready to go after Adachi in his little hideout. Still, there was plenty of work to be done, if he could sit still long enough to go through it.

"Hey, Dojima, what happened?" Dojima started at the voice of his sergeant behind him. "Did your little girl finally make you go cold turkey?"

Dojima's brow furrowed, confused. What was he on about?

"Hey, no need to get upset; I know how hard it is to try and quit. But whatever you're doing must be working; I haven't seen you take a smoke break in almost a week!" The sergeant thankfully was too busy slapping Dojima's back to notice the look of shock on the younger man's face.

The old man was right… when was the last time he'd smoked? Not since the whole mess inside the tv. He didn't even feel a twang of craving, which he normally suffered from within an hour of his last cigarette.

Damnit… what was going on here?

"Sorry, sir, I just…. didn't want to jinx it. Do you mind… my head's pounding...I think I need to leave…" The sergeant nodded, probably thinking it was the effects of quitting, and not the sudden terror of realizing something was terribly wrong with himself.

Dojima's head swam as he walked out to the garage. His gut ached; the fire was growing again, blood pounding in his ears. "God DAMNIT!" He swung a punch at a nearby pole, frustrated and needing to just let it out. He connected solidly, and for a moment he thought he'd broken something.

His breath rattling in his chest, his eyes traced down his arm to his clenched fist. The metal sign he'd hit was crumpled around his hand like a tissue, the cement behind it cracking and crumbling from the impact. He withdrew his hand quickly, and the sign clattered to the floor with a tinny clang. A 'no smoking' sign, as if to mock him.

The detective stared at his hand, fingers still curled, as if there'd be an answer on it.

What the hell was happening to him?