A/N: I am so, so sorry for the unusually late update. I've been busy with school and super distracted by Pokémon, so I left this chapter hanging for quite a while before I got back to it... So I really appreciate all the support you've been giving this story, even though updates are so sporadic... Thank you all very, very much.
Oh, and there's a new Persona that hasn't appeared in the series before, so it's kinda like my creation. "Kinda", because I based the design off an already-existing Persona in the series. The answer is in my AO3 A/N for this chapter, but do have a little fun guessing before you check! ;)
April 27, 2013
"…And that is all I can remember at your command."
"Thank you, um, you were a big help. Later, when I'm out of your sight, please forget that we had this meeting, and return to class as quickly as you can."
"As you wish, Mother," a girl who had her black hair tied in a bushy ponytail and was wearing the Raira Academy female student uniform – and whose eyes were glowing bright red – said, bending over in a full ninety-degree bow.
Sonohara Anri, whose eyes were no different from the girl's, made sure to return it. As she turned and left the washroom, which she had made sure was empty save for the other student and her, she gave the demonic presence in her mind a small, polite push, and it backed away obediently, restoring Anri's normal eye colour.
As she had done for the previous students she had approached, Anri went to the nearest hiding spot she could find and waited until the girl left the washroom and went back to class properly with her eyes back to normal. Inwardly, Anri thanked the students she had asked for help again and apologised to them while making her own way back to her classroom.
It wasn't like she felt particularly bad for making use of them in such a manner, but she wouldn't say it didn't make her feel the slightest bit uncomfortable. And besides, it wouldn't feel right to not apologise, either.
If she had a choice, Anri would avoid this form of dependence and reliance on other people. She might view them as her means of getting by life, but it didn't mean people could be reduced to mindless slaves that obeyed her every command and showed her utmost reverence just to protect herself. She might not be able to love humans, but she understood well enough to respect them.
However, when it comes to Mikado and Masaomi, there is no such thing as a "choice".
'...Why is it that they don't remember?' Anri thought to herself, lowering her melancholic gaze to the floor. 'It's not just them, too… The people I asked all have an impression of the things that happened two years ago, but that's only when they're under the influence of Saika. They even said that if I didn't ask them for it, they wouldn't be able to recall anything at all.
'…Does this have anything to do with Harima-san not remembering Yagiri-kun?' Anri pondered further, remembering the day when Mika returned to school with no memories of the past two years. The similarities were there, but soon after realising it Anri shook the likelihood away; Mika's condition was even more extreme, when Anri compared it to everyone else's. Mika's was more like selective amnesia to forget about the pain of losing Seiji, while everyone else's seemed more like their memories had been changed in some way or another.
Rather than say that they lost two years' worth of memories, like Mika did, everyone else had two years' worth of memories that were different from Anri's own.
How and why this had happened were still a mystery. However, one thing seemed to be clear, after listening in on Mikado and Masaomi's conversation and asking around the school.
The man who was responsible for the disturbances in her life two years ago, the only human being whom Saika detested…
The man who went by the name Orihara Izaya was definitely involved.
'Mikado-kun and Kida-kun don't remember him,' Anri continued to give it more thought, slowing down her steps without her realising it. 'And the point when other people remembered things differently from me…is when Izaya-san had a hand in making those things happen.'
And with everyone's memories of the two years changed, it almost seemed as if, even though that very idea was far-fetched by itself, that Izaya didn't—
[Anri-chan.]
With a soft gasp she couldn't suppress in time, Anri halted in her tracks when the PDA screen flashed before her eyes.
"C-Celty-san?" she said, relaxing when she recognised the figure clad in black standing in front of her.
Ordinarily, Celty would've been flustered and worried over surprising Anri like that, but the Celty Anri saw now was still composed and typed on the PDA calmly. However, when she held it up again for Anri to read, Anri couldn't help but notice that Celty's fingers were trembling.
[I'm sorry for surprising you.] The screen read. [And I'm sorry for springing this onto you. As far as possible, I didn't want to get you involved… But I was told that I might need your help, no matter how much I don't like involving you.]
"Oh, it's fine, Celty-san. I-I don't mind it at all," Anri was quick to respond. "Um, what can I do to help?"
Celty glanced around, which Anri presumed to be making sure that they were alone in the corridor, before she requested for Anri to lead her to the nearest and most secluded window they could find. Having no reason to decline other than mild suspicion, Anri obliged, and when Celty tapped on the glass and asked for her to look out the window, Anri did as she was told, and what she saw made her eyes widen slightly.
[Can you see him?] Celty asked.
Anri nodded, but she was uncertain of what – or whom – she was seeing. "Is… Is that—?"
[It's Izaya.] Celty answered, the trembles now extending to her arms and shoulders. [I-I'm glad. I know I shouldn't be saying this, for so, so many reasons, but… I'm glad… I'm not the only one…]
"Celty-san…what is going on?" Anri said, unable to erase the things she had heard today, unable to erase the image of the man she had believed to be dangerous and linked to all the recent strange happenings crumpled lifelessly in a dark heap over Celty's motorcycle.
The demonic sword within her, however, shuddered. Not with anxiety, but with what seemed like excitement.
Celty steadied her fingers before she began typing. [It's…a really long story. And I wish I could explain, but there isn't much time left. I know this is really unfair to you, so if you don't want to get yourself involved in this, I understand. I don't want you doing something you think you might regret.]
Anri stole a glance at her shoes. "Mikado-kun and Kida-kun don't remember," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "I'm…worried…something has happened to them. S-so, if there's anything I can do to help them, even…even if it's something I might regret…I'm fine with it."
The Dullahan lowered her "head", appearing to consider this. Then, she tapped on the screen of her PDA.
[Thank you, Anri-chan. You're very brave.]
'Am I?' Anri had wanted to ask. No matter how she looked at it, there were a lot more people who were braver than she. Celty-san and Heiwajima-san, who would do anything to help and protect their friends without any hesitation; Mikado-kun and Kida-kun, who had the strength and courage to take responsibility for their actions, and continued to regard her as a friend even though they knew she was anything but normal; Harima-san, who stood up for her and talked back at the bullies in middle school... Even Niekawa Haruna-san was brave in Anri's eyes, for being able to love someone so deeply that she could overcome and take control of her own Saika which everyone else succumbed to.
In comparison, there wasn't anything special about what Anri was doing. There was nothing commendable about the lifestyle she led, nothing noble about her decision to involve herself in something that she might regret. She was just lending any help she could offer to give, like what any ordinary friend would do. And it was for a partly selfish reason, too.
"Um, well… What can I do to help?" Anri asked.
Celty erased the previous message. [There's a place I need to go to.] She began to explain. [It's only when I'm there that I can help make things normal again, according to the person who's guiding me. But… With the way I am right now, I can't do it alone.]
"'W-With the way you are'? You mean…?"
[…My head has all of my missing memories.] Celty typed slowly. [That's why, I think, if I had it, I would be able to do this by myself. But I haven't the faintest idea where it could be to begin looking. And…I'm still not so keen on the idea of taking it back just yet.]
Celty waited until Anri was done reading before she continued typing. [That's why I need your strength, Anri-chan. Not Saika's, but yours.]
Anri blinked. "My…strength?"
[That's right. It's your own strength that allows you to have complete control over the original Saika, Anri-chan. Not just anybody can do that.] Celty replied, nodding.
Anri was inclined to disagree, but it wasn't the time for that.
"I understand," she said. "Where are we supposed to be heading to?"
Celty wasted no time in answering. [To Raira. Raira University.]
Ever since the shadowy thing's words made him black out, Shizuo felt like he was living in a dream.
He wasn't sure if it was because of this world and its never-ceasing thick fog, but for some reason Shizuo wasn't quite feeling like himself. His body was his own, yet not his own at the same time; his thoughts were fleeting and didn't weigh down on him like they usually did, and when he spoke, the words sounded lifeless and distant.
There was a strange sense of emptiness somewhere within him, like the feeling he normally got if he left home while forgetting to drink his daily glass of milk, or getting Kasuka some pudding from the convenience store and accidentally missed out on getting one for himself. And it was this strange sense of emptiness that made him feel like he was detached from the reality around him.
So when Hachimenroppi showed up and Shinra speculated about and explained who he was, Shizuo found that he wasn't as astonished as he thought he would be, when the initial surprise wore off. Shinra made it sound complicated, but somehow it made sense. When the kids discussed further and talked about the fortress Shizuo had never seen for himself, they made even more sense.
The only two things the flea was ever good at were running away and making trouble, after all.
'In a way,' Shizuo realised, giving a mirthless, inward chuckle, 'the flea's kinda like me.'
Running away from himself, and causing the people around him trouble – those were things that Shizuo could relate to, things that he viewed as burdens, though the latter might not be as such for Izaya. From what he heard so far, Shizuo started thinking of Izaya as a person who, as a result of running away, ended up creating trouble for everyone around him, unlike his earlier impression of the flea as someone who got good at running because of the trouble he liked to cause.
For Shizuo, that was how he would describe himself, except that he never liked troubling other people. He had a power that wasn't fully under his control, and because of that, he had hurt people without intending to. Knowing this made him frustrated, but the more that happened, the more blood he found on his hands. It was something he couldn't live with – didn't want to live with – and so Shizuo once decided it would be so much easier to just stop regarding it as his own.
Even after what happened with the Slasher incident, it was still difficult for Shizuo to wholeheartedly accept such a power. He had been euphoric when it finally listened to him for once, but he couldn't guarantee it would always happen whenever he used it.
The flea was somewhat similar, Shizuo thought. If, for Shizuo, it was the unnatural strength that he had been trying to run away from, then for Izaya, it must be Hachimenroppi – his heart.
And, for reasons Shizuo couldn't explain, the more he thought about himself and Izaya in the same frame…
…the more that emptiness seemed to be filling up.
But this realisation didn't make Shizuo any less pissed about the injustices Izaya had done to him. Neither did it mean Izaya's shitty flea behaviour could be excused.
"W-well," Chie was saying to the flea's heart, "he has a Persona…?"
'…Persona…' Shizuo numbly slid one hand out of his pocket and slowly clenched it into a loose fist.
For some reason, that word no longer sounded the same to him.
'…Why?' Shizuo wondered. 'Why do I feel less strange when I hear that word and think about the flea? What is it about the two that I'm not remembering?'
"Dammit," Shizuo muttered under his breath. He could feel a pair of eyes dart towards him, but when Shizuo turned to find it, Shinra had already looked away and was answering Hachimenroppi's question.
The red flea looked furious and annoyed, things that still looked alien on the flea's face. But somehow Shizuo couldn't shrug off the feeling that there was something familiar pulsing in those murky yellow eyes as the Shadow coldly laid out the accusation towards Psyche. It resonated with him, or maybe it was his own Shadow that the flea's own was linking with, like how this place – this place called Niflheim, a word that was supposed to be unfamiliar to Shizuo – was shaped mostly by the both of them.
Shizuo made another curse under his breath as he pinched the bridge of his nose. Forget the milk and pudding analogies – he felt more like he had just woken up from a dream he was struggling to remember; like his mind was a jigsaw puzzle that was desperately trying to find the piece that had been taken away from him. There was "Persona", and there was "Izaya", and they were standing on two opposite ends of a bridge that was shrouded in thick, heavy mist.
"Heeeeyyy!" a familiar scratchy, high-pitched male voice yelled out, disrupting Shizuo's thoughts and sending them plummeting even further into the abyss of the fog. The squeaks came to a clumsy halt as Teddie stopped by a nearby tree and waved. "Thank goodness you're all here! Sensei's not too far away with—"
"Teddie, get the hell away from here!" Yosuke cut in, with Kanji instantaneously diving for the bear with his shield covering as much of his back as possible.
"Oof!" Teddie coughed as the adolescent fell on top of him. "H-hey, what's the big idea?"
"You heard Yosuke-senpai. Now c'mon!" Kanji exclaimed without much explanation, jumping straight up on his feet and giving Teddie a firm kick to set the bear's body rolling across the snow.
"W-wait, whyyyyyy—" Teddie's voice cried out before fading into the distance, with Kanji tailing right behind him.
Not long after, Hachimenroppi clicked his tongue, his brows furrowing so tensely that a shadow loomed across his features. Without muttering even a single word, he took slow steps forward, and then shoved the kids aside even as they tried to block his way. He lurched, and hunched his back, keeping his narrowed eyes on where the trail that Teddie and Kanji had left behind as he pounced.
Shizuo instinctively moved to pull him back while Naoto was about to pull the trigger when someone else had already flown in and knocked into Hachimenroppi with all his might and pinned him to the ground.
"I'm sorry," said the person who managed to stop Hachimenroppi. It was somebody Shizuo had never seen before, and neither did the kids, if their blank looks were anything to go by.
The voice was soft-spoken and tender, but undeniably a male's, and its owner had a long and slender body, so much so that it looked like a twig or a branch that was on the brink of snapping at any moment. It was adorned with a black, tight-fitting jumpsuit that looked no different from the kind Celty wore, and where it ended at the middle of his neck Shizuo could see pale, almost paper-white skin. The head, too, was narrow and angular, like the shape of a diamond. Where a person's eyes, ears, and hair would be was replaced by an elaborate mask that had the shape of the underbelly of an insect and vast butterfly wings that were coated with nothing but black with a violet sheen, and all Shizuo could see was the lower half of the stranger's face.
With fingers that looked like the needles of a cactus, the stranger pulled Hachimenroppi into an embrace, lifting the other man's body slightly.
"I'm sorry," he repeated, just as quietly and gently as before. It was then that Shizuo realised that the voice was ringing in his head and that nothing physical was even spoken, even though the stranger's lips were moving.
Hachimenroppi bared his teeth, seething. "I don't—" he stopped to force his way out of the horribly thin man's grasp, but failed to do so. "I don't want to hear that from you."
"I know," the man said, his lips trembling. "But, Rocchan… Roppi, the person you want to hear those words from…is gone."
Hachimenroppi froze, and so did everyone else when the realisation of the stranger's identity dawned upon them.
"Psy… Psyche-san?" Yukiko breathed.
The masked man hesitated, then nodded numbly.
"How's he able to…to do that?" Chie wondered aloud. "It feels like…"
Naoto, saying nothing, simply glanced over at Rise. Her suspicions were confirmed when the brunette said, "So Psyche-san wasn't wrong about the similarity between my Shadow and Orihara-san's, after all. But, to think that Psyche-san is the one with that kind of ability…"
"I think I know what you mean," Yukiko said.
From the ground, Sakuraya gave an unimpressed scoff. "Amagi-san and Kujikawa-san think too highly of me. Do you not recall what I mentioned to you before, Amagi-san? I am 'Perception'. For one to perceive one must be able to see or observe something or somebody else. However, Psyche-san is 'Adaptability'. To adapt means being able to acclimatise oneself to one's surroundings, and perception is but a mere step towards taking that sort of action."
"An outlet, in other words," Shinra took a guess, with that perpetual smile of his that was almost as annoying as Izaya's no longer present on his face. "More importantly, though, Psyche-kun mentioned something interesting. 'That person is gone', or something? You can't be referring to Orihara-kun by any chance, right?"
The man who once took the form of Psyche, Mengdie, curled his unnaturally thin fingers into Hachimenroppi's coat, which had been slipping off since being knocked into the ground, and remained silent. The lack of a verbal answer, or any form of physical confirmation of Shinra's question, elicited widened eyes from the Investigation Team kids as well as Shizuo.
The former bartender clenched his fists. "I thought just a while ago you were saying that the flea isn't dead."
"He's not," Mengdie replied quietly, earning him confused instead of shocked stares. "Iza-chan isn't dead. If he were, we wouldn't be ourselves right now. No, he's gone…to a place he shouldn't be at. A place that's even more dangerous than this world…and it's all because of us." Mengdie paused, giving a bitter smile. "Because of Iza-chan himself, more like."
"Psyche-san…" Tsugaru whispered forlornly, taking slow steps towards them.
"How do you even know?" Yosuke asked, folding his arms across his chest. "I mean, you don't exactly have the most reliable memory. Can we even trust you on what you're saying?"
"Hanamura," said Chie, before she elbowed her former classmate.
Mengdie shook his head. "It's fine, Chie-chan. Yo-chan's right." He took another pause here to lower his chin slightly, until it was buried in Hachimenroppi's shoulder. "It's true. I didn't remember properly all this while, and because of that, I got you all into trouble. Especially Shizuo-kun. But, when Rocchan called me a liar, and told me what my purpose was, I suddenly remembered everything. Because, see, the one I've been connected to all this while…when I said I knew all of Iza-chan's memories, thoughts, emotions…that's because I'm connected to Iza-chan's heart. To Rocchan."
"Shut up…" Hachimenroppi breathed, but it didn't deter Mengdie any.
"So when I said Iza-chan can't be dead because I can feel him, it's actually because I've been feeling Rocchan, and Rocchan's here." The masked man pulled Hachimenroppi closer. "And just now, Rocchan's thoughts… They reached me. They cleared up the jumble my mind was in. That's why, I knew, what I – what we – have to do to bring Iza-chan back."
Hachimenroppi's blazing gold eyes shone brighter as he started struggling in Mengdie's hold. "I don't want him back," he spat acidly.
"Rocchan, calm—"
"I don't want him back, you hear me? That bastard deserted me! Treated me as if I'm not a part of him! Thought he could reach the heavens or some—some stupid Valhalla place and continue loving humans from there while ignoring that I exist! And look at what we have here, the bastard ended up abandoning all of us!"
Hibiya let out a tired sigh. "Hachimenroppi, you know that is not so."
The Shadow hissed. "I won't let you lock me up like that again. Even if it means being trapped in this shithole forever." And then, the shadowy tendrils surrounding him burst in a flare of dark, suffocating aura.
Yosuke and Chie cursed under their breaths, with Yosuke reaching into his coat to take out his kunai, while Yukiko and Naoto silently followed his cue and readied their own weapons. Rise looked on determinedly, and mentally summoned Kanzeon into manifestation. On Yosuke's commands, Shinra and Shizuo stepped further away until they could feel the stifling effect the aura had on them weakening.
Mengdie, Hibiya and Sakuraya recoiled and let out shaky gasps before biting down on their lips and tongues. Blocks of static quickly encroached Mengdie's entire body, which was close to fizzling out as Mengdie whimpered telepathically. Tsugaru hurriedly stepped in, a flash of something that looked like apprehension clouding his features, but was pushed away with a strong Garudyne that was conjured by one flap of Mengdie's butterfly wings.
"Tsu-chan, go! Take Shizuo-kun and go!" Mengdie yelled, shifting back into the form of Psyche whose eyes were unwavering and without any of the prior doubts and confusion that had been burdening him so heavily before.
Shizuo startled. "Wha—"
"Psyche-san…" Tsugaru murmured as he returned to his feet.
The smile on Psyche's face was wry yet hopeful. "We'll meet again soon, Tsu-chan. In that vast and endless Sea, where we first met."
Sky blue eyes widened slightly before the blond broke into a pleasant, soothing smile. Without a reply, and without any anxiety or worry in his movements, Tsugaru hurriedly made his way over to Shinra and Shizuo, and politely tugged on Shizuo's sleeve, motioning for him to follow.
"What's going on now? Why did he ask you to do that?" Shizuo questioned, not sure if he ought to comply when the flea's Shadow was behaving so erratically.
"While a fight is about to take place here, yet another is close to breaking out somewhere else," Tsugaru said. "We can't have that happening without us there."
'…Oh, that's what he means,' Shizuo thought, as he recalled what they were even running in this direction for. He took a moment to glance at the four fleas, then at the kids who were getting ready for the fight that Tsugaru had referred to. It was only when he saw Hanamura's firm nod that Shizuo nodded himself. "Alright. Lead the way."
"Hey! Wait up!" Chie called out, rushing to join them. "I'm coming with you."
Shizuo raised a brow. "You sure your pals are okay with that?"
Chie waved it off. "Sure it's fine. They need another fighter over there too, since Teddie might need to focus on scanning whatever he can, as Hanamura and Naoto-kun just told me."
"If you say so, I guess." Shizuo didn't know all of the details about fighting Shadows, so there wasn't much else he could say about a decision the more experienced kids had made.
"Hold on, then what about me?" Shinra said, pointing towards himself.
Shizuo tossed his childhood friend a glance before pushing his shades up the bridge of his nose, shrugging. "Don't ask us. Isn't that the kind of thing you decide on your own?"
Shinra gave a slight frown before crossing his arms. "You put me in a tight spot, Shizuo-kun. How could you ask me to choose between you and Izaya like that?"
Shizuo said nothing, and simply rolled up his sleeve.
"Okay okay, I'll go with you," Shinra hurriedly replied, raising both arms in surrender. "It's not everyday I get to study you on a personal level in greater detail, after all."
"…On second thought, Shinra, I think you should stay."
"Ehh what's with that indecisive—I'm sorry I said anything," Shinra corrected himself the moment he noticed his childhood friend's death glare piercing through him.
With that settled, Shizuo gave his lookalike and the Satonaka girl a quick nod which they returned. Then, the three of them started running in the direction of the marks and footprints that Kanji and Teddie had left behind, and they were about to melt into the shadows of the woods when somebody called out Shizuo's full name.
The former bartender halted in his tracks and turned swiftly on reflex. Hibiya – as were his "kinsmen" – was enveloped in a corona of shadowy aura with wisps of maroon, obscuring him from Shizuo's view; it was like straining to see through a thin curtain of black mist, and Shizuo couldn't even be sure if the gold he was seeing belonged to the prince's eyes or crown or robes. The same gold that had made even someone who looked like the flea appear so majestic and gallant when Shizuo first met him in full view.
"Heiwajima Shizuo," Hibiya uncharacteristically yelled again, though it was a tad bit more distorted and muffled than it had been before. "Before you depart, it is of utmost importance that you at least know of this. I haven't the time to elaborate, but I am certain you will have the opportunity to ask later." He paused when the gale dragging him into Hachimenroppi intensified. "Heiwajima Shizuo, Orihara Izaya—we—I… Though it might be saddled with imperfections, and though it might be for a mere moment…there was a point in time when I looked upon you as any other human being. A point in time when I…when Orihara Izaya saw you as no different from regular human beings. Do you comprehend?"
Shizuo's eyes widened, and he couldn't stop himself from choking on his own breath. The sharp intake of cold air felt like a ball of needles rolling down his throat and eventually tickling his chest, which Shizuo lightly patted so that he could cough the cold out, but it did nothing to distract him from the unexpected revelation no thanks to his natural disposition for unnatural pain tolerance.
"…The flea…thought of me as human?" The words that left Shizuo's lips were quiet and tender, despite the earlier choking. 'Wait, doesn't that mean… The flea – the Orihara Izaya – who wouldn't stop calling me a monster or protozoan or Neanderthal and trying to ruin my life and stir up shit and always said he hated me…loved me? Like he loves humans?'
"Now go," Hibiya ordered, not offering to repeat his words, "and do not forget. Leave the questions for when you return to the land from which you hailed."
Shizuo blinked. "O…oi, you can't just—"
"Come on, Heiwajima-san!" Chie interrupted. "We need to leave while we still have the chance."
The fortissimo of Ikebukuro turned around sharply and was close to barking a gruff, defiant reply to tell her that he couldn't just do that when Hibiya dropped a bomb on him like that, but held himself back right before those words left his lips when he noticed a pair of serene, sapphire blue eyes peering at him. Tsugaru didn't say a single thing, but somehow Shizuo knew – "This isn't the time to get angry, Heiwajima-san. Please, hold your temper", was what the other blond wanted to tell him.
Shizuo sighed, which came out in the form of a mix of a growl and a groan. "Alright, alright. Let's move on already, then." Then, he added as an afterthought, "But when we finally get this shit storm cleared up and settled, I'm gonna pound the answer out of the flea and nobody's stopping me unless I say so."
"Get ready, guys," came Rise's warning once Shizuo, Chie, and Tsugaru had finally left the area.
Throughout this entire time since Hachimenroppi snapped and started sucking in the nearby Shadows – which happened to include Psyche, Hibiya, and Sakuraya – Yosuke had been splitting his attention back and forth to make sure Heiwajima-san could get out safely while ensuring he and his friends weren't caught unprepared by any sudden attack at the same time. It was a real drain on his mental strength, which Yosuke thought was already nothing commendable or worth boasting about, so when Hibiya the prince said something about Orihara-san seeing Heiwajima-san like he did any other human, Yosuke caught onto the underlying meaning in shock and creeping horror and couldn't erase the image of that particular Midnight Channel surfacing in his mind.
Naoto had to specifically point out to him, "It's not what you think it is, Hanamura-senpai. Orihara-san's 'love', if I may boldly term it in that manner, is not…the usual definition of love, as you may already be aware by now," before the brunet could calm down and focus on the impending fight. Just a little, though.
But it was the intensifying gales whipping around the now indistinguishable figure of Hachimenroppi that demanded his full attention, and Yosuke hurriedly shook all distracting thoughts off his mind as he laid his eyes on the sight before him. The thick, stifling shadowy aura now took the form of a spiralling pillar that pierced through the trees and touched the upper canopy of the forest, possibly even beyond that which Yosuke could not see. During this familiar moment, all was silent except for the sounds of rushing zephyrs; the shapes, colours, and voices of Psyche, Hibiya, and Sakuraya long drowned in the sea of coal black and spots of blood red.
Yosuke hadn't been close to any of them – heck, he barely knew they even existed, save for Psyche – but it didn't take Souji's genius to know his friends weren't exactly happy with the way things turned out. Amagi looked like she would've gotten along pretty well with the one in the pink kimono if there had been more time, Rise probably bonded with Psyche over their somewhat similar identity issues, and it was more likely than not that Naoto found in the prince a certain flair of intellect that only she could fully appreciate. In contrast, Yosuke never really managed to get that kind of interaction with Hachimenroppi, and while part of him was glad about it, he still couldn't help but feel a little left out.
'But, then again, they're all the same person, aren't they?' Yosuke thought. 'Even if it didn't seem like I could get a real conversation going with that guy with the freakish mood swings, no thanks to that damn Fear spell…at least I managed to talk to him, I guess.'
Yosuke came close to snorting aloud, but managed to stop himself before that happened when the dark pillar dissipated.
"Incoming!" Rise exclaimed.
Almost instantaneously, a black, messy blob swung down and hung from a branch of one of the trees where the pillar used to occupy. Strands of silk, with the appearance of bunched up black hair, from the cylindrical blob swayed in the chilling breeze of endless winter. Then, it gave a violent shudder, and a diagonal line cracked across the dull coating, like a cocoon ready to burst and let loose the metamorphosed creature that had been anticipating this moment.
"…I am a Shadow," whispered the voice Yosuke and the others had known all too well by now, as a pair of bat-like wings spread out from the crack, revealing a shrivelled humanoid figure with marble white skin and long, tangled black hair that was wet and dripping maroon liquid. Its entire body was draped with a thin piece of black cloth that had grown mouldy and was torn in various places, locked and bound to it with rusty metal chains wrapped around its body. Only its bare feet was free for the transformed Shadow to cling onto the tree, and its face, too, which the present members of the Investigation Team noticed with gradual alarm as they found themselves staring into a pair of empty eye sockets. "The true self," it ended, its cracked, blue – almost violet – lips that had been horrendously sewn together struggling to speak.
"Gross," Yosuke couldn't help but whimper. Satonaka would've elbowed him for making that tactless comment; Rise didn't do too bad of a job as her substitution.
"…So," the Shadow muttered, "it seems we've finally come to the end of the first round of our game. Though, I must admit, I hadn't intended for you to have gone to so deep an extent into it."
"Hold on, a game? All of that…was just a game?" said Yukiko, almost sounding like she was demanding for an answer. "Setting the fortress on fire, making us run around aimlessly… That was just a game to you?"
The supposedly berserk Shadow gave one flap of its wings, sending a ridiculous amount of shoddy, silky hair falling to the ground as if it were moulting. "Well, talk about taking things seriously!" It chuckled – or, at least, if something that sounded like a thin piece of glass shattering could be considered one. "Perhaps you're lacking in your understanding of a 'game' somewhat, Amagi Yukiko-chan. Or, to be more precise, you're all misunderstanding what a 'game' truly means."
"What's there to misunderstand?" Rise folded her arms. "We're talking about lives here, mister. We're not in here to let loose and have fun when people could be in danger."
"'Specially not when people have literally died from being in this place," Yosuke added, glaring at the Shadow. "Even if kicking Shadow butt can be fun and stuff, that's not the point in us being here."
Naoto nodded curtly. She didn't mention anything else, but it was clear from her silence and the way she stared at the grotesque human-like creature that she didn't take its comment too lightly.
The Shadow grinned. The chains wrapped around its body shook and chimed in a series of what sounded like claps as it wobbled about the branch. "Excellent answers! They just proved to me that you all really don't understand how a game truly works."
Yosuke blinked. "Wha…?"
"So I'll show you," the Shadow continued, "by commencing Round Two."
Then it broke itself off from the branch and dived straight for them.