The next morning is quite uneventful. As Dojima hasn't left for work quite yet, I find it okay to leave for school early with the hopes of seeing Chie. Instead, however, a headphoned boy comes in her place. "Hey Naoto-kun, have you talked to Chie today?"
"No, I was actually hoping I could meet her here before school begins."
"Okay, I'll wait too. I'm kinda worried about her. She seemed fine last night, but I can't be too sure." As if on cue, a green figure is appears father down the road. "Oh, there she is."
"Oh, good morning," she says.
"Good morning to you as well, Chie-senpai. I hope you slept well." I don't want her to know I'm worried about her. She may be offended.
"Are you kidding me? I was out cold all night." Her energetic attitude slowly piped down. "Um, so, um… Thanks for helping me yesterday. I'm still kinda embarrassed, though."
"There is no need for that. I can assure you no judgement will come from our end. It would be rude to judge a person based on one side of them alone. Also, if you had forgotten, Yosuke-senpai has gone through a very similar ordeal."
"Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Oh, I wonder what your shadow was like."
"Oh, um…" Yosuke seems to have no interest in expanding further. "Oh, yeah, none of this happened for you, did it? That seems kinda unfair."
"Oh, well, um…" How am I supposed to respond to that? He is right, though. It is unfair. "I don't truly have an explanation for that. I have no idea where that power came from."
"Yeah, I didn't expect you to have an answer. But hey, maybe that's just because you have nothing to hide."
"I can assure you that that is not the case." The others give each other a weird look. "I'm not implying that I am hiding things from you, it's just that I'm quite certain that even if I were such an open book, there are problems inside of everyone that even they don't know about. I highly doubt there is single person in the world with nothing to hide."
"Well, your right about that," Chie says with a slight chuckle. "Anyway, we need to focus on saving Yukiko right now."
"Exactly," I agree. "That is why I opt that we visit the shadow world after school. That is, of course, only if you are both okay with that."
"Yeah, we should get her out as soon as we can," Yosuke says. "Even if she'll be fine until the fog comes, I doubt she exactly likes it in there." A loud bell rings over the speakers.
"Oh, we should head to our classes now. I shall meet you after school."
"Yeah, we should all head to Junes right when school gets out." With a sharp nod, I enter the school building and travel to my classroom.
Following a growing trend, my classes today are once again tiresome and uneventful. In a way, I am slightly excited to be exploring the shadow world again. After the final bell rings, I quickly grab my things and head to the local department store. Upon my arrival, I see the two people of interest sitting at our normal table.
"I apologize for making you wait," I enter in on their conversation.
"Oh, hey Naoto-kun," Chie says in her normal, energetic voice. "Don't worry, we just go here."
"In any case," I continue, "now that we are all here we should enter the television immediately and get Yukiko out as soon as possible."
"Agreed," Yosuke nods. On that note, the two of them exit their chairs and follow me the electronic section and into the TV. Once inside, Teddie greets us instantly.
"Hey, you're back! Great, let's go save that girl!"
"Wow, you seem excited," Yosuke commentates. "What's got you all excited?"
"What, is it a crime to want to save a lady in distress now?"
"Not really, but-"
"Okay then, let's go!" On that note, we follow the bear back to Yukiko's castle.
"Alright, let's do this!" Chie exclaims before racing towards the entrance. Before she can enter, however, Yosuke grabs her arm.
"Dude, you promised to not run ahead this time."
"Right, sorry."
"Anyway, I have a gift for you all," Teddie says while pulling something out of his pocket. "It's a Goho-M. If you get stuck, you can use it to come back to me."
"Thank you, Teddie," I gratefully accept it. I turn to the others. "Alright, now we can go. Please remember to be careful. Last time we were lucky enough to not run into any shadows on the way to help Chie, but this time we may not have such luck. Be on high alert.
"Understood!" They both say in unison. I enter the castle first, followed by the other two. We start off again on the first floor. We make it to the second easily enough and then on to the third. So far we haven't had to fight anything, but I have a feeling our luck will soon run out.
As predicted, it wasn't long before we heard a desperate call in our head. "Ah, two shadows!" the colorful bear screams. Sure enough, right around the corner we are met by three strange creatures. One of them I recognized from my first battle as the shadows with the really long tongues and zebra strips. The others are what appear to be a black raven and a table with a cup on top and a mask on the side.
"Whoa, what the hell is that!?" Yosuke screams as the zebra striped on moves towards us.
"Hey, I've got this one," Chie says with an adrenaline filled smile. "Tomoe!" She sends her Persona at the shadow with an ice attack. The hit kills the enemy instantly.
"Whoa, nice one Chie!" Yosuke cheers her one. He glares at the table. "Let's do this, Jiraiya!" He cast Garu on the enemy, knocking him down. This is easier than I anticipated.
"I'll handle the next one," I declare. "Come, Sukuna-Hikona!" My blue persona sends a lightning strike at the raven, knocking it down right next to the table.
"Now's our chance!" Yosuke says, signaling the rest of us to charge the two remaining foes. Our final efforts keep them down for good. "Yeah, awesome!" He cheers.
With the battle won, the world suddenly freezes around me as three cards appear in front of me. What is happening?" Out of curiosity, I reach out to one of the cards around me, causing the others to disappear. Flipping the card over, I see the face of the Devil Arcana. The card materializes into a new persona. This one resembles a combination of a troll and the Devil carrying a spoon with the end on fire.
"My name is Ukobach. I hope I can be of assistance to you," it says before fading away. Out of nowhere, the world around me moves again. It seems the others have no clue what just happened.
"Ha, that was easier than I thought," Chie laughs excitedly. "It didn't even hit us once."
"Yeah, well in case you didn't notice those were a hell of a lot weaker than the shadows we fought earlier," Yosuke points out. "But anyway, it's probably a good idea to have more fights like that for training. Right, part-" He cuts himself off upon looking at me. "Hey, are you alright?"
"Huh?" Oh, I must have been zoning out. "Yes, I'm fine. I also agree with you. We have no idea what to expect when it comes to Yukiko's shadow. We should prepare ourselves in any way possible."
And we do just that. As we climb floors and explore more of the "fancy" castle, we encounter more and stranger shadows ranging from two humanoid creatures with metal bars attaching them together at their neck, wrists, and ankles to a creature that appears to be a hand with a head where the wrist should be walking on its fingers. After some of the battles, I am met once again by some cards. Each time I grab one and sometimes gain a new persona. Other times my current persona will get a stronger from it, or sometimes even give me a key for the chests we occasionally find. In those we will find various things that I have no idea how to use. The others have no clue as well. Perhaps it will come to us naturally during battle.
Throughout all of our fights, I refused to switch personas. If they felt inferior due to the fact that I didn't have a shadow, then there is no way they would be okay with this. I know I will need to switch at some point, but I only want to do it in an emergency.
As we begin exploring the fifth floor, Teddie continues to give us assistance inside our heads. He keeps track of different weaknesses for each enemy we face as well as warn us about incoming shadows. Though he may not fight, it is still useful to have him around.
About half away though the floor, a more anxious voice rings inside our heads. "Guys, I smell a huge shadow in that room. Be careful!" We all glance around to see a door slightly larger than the others.
"What, you mean this one?" Chie asks.
"I would guess so," I respond for him. "We should go in. For all we know, Yukiko could be in there."
"Yeah, let's go!" With a nod of agreement from the rest of the team, I swiftly open the door, gun at my side.
On the other side of the door, we are greeted with shadow Yukiko with what I can only assume is another shadow besides her. The other shadow is a humanoid dressed in full medieval armor riding a horse also dressed in medieval armor.
"Glad you could make it," Yukiko's shadow says with a chuckle.
"What the hell does that mean!?" Yosuke shouts.
"Where's Yukiko!?" Chie demands with fury flooding her voice.
"'Where's Yukiko' you ask. She's right here, of course."
"No, I mean the real Yukiko! What have you done with her!?"
"No, sorry, but I won't be answering any more of your questions. Now, you must fight this beast if you want to continue. My prince wouldn't lose such a battle, would he?" With one last laugh, the princess shadow disappears leaving us with the large, armored knight.
"We have to beat you? Fine, anything to save Yukiko!" The Chariot Arcana card appears in front of her. "Persona!" She screams while kicking the card. Tomoe attacks with an ice spell. To her dismay, it has little effect.
"Here, let me take a shot," Yosuke announces as he casts a light spell. This does almost nothing.
"Sukuna-Hikona!" I scream causing my persona to cast Zio. It has a similar effect to Chie's attack.
Finally ready to attack, the knight charges Chie sending her flying at the wall behind her. "Chie!" Yosuke screams, running towards her.
"Yosuke, heal her!" Teddie orders.
"Right. Jiraiya!" He cast Dia on her, healing her to almost full health. "You okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine." Yosuke helps her up while I try to think up a strategy. So far we know that he is not weak to light, electricity, or ice. The fact that is not weak to light makes me doubt that he is weak to dark spells. This leaves Wind and Fire.
"Yosuke-senpai, try Garu!" I order.
"Right." He complies, receiving little payoff as this attack does little to nothing. It must be fire then. This is a huge problem as none of us have any fire attacks. That is, my current Persona has no fire attacks.
While I am thinking to myself, the shadow runs at Yosuke this time. No, I need to do something. All hesitation vanished as I pull out my gun and summon a new Persona. "Ukobach!" Upon my call, this troll/devil persona casts Agi. To my relief, the enemy collapses to the ground. "Yes, fire works." I make eye contact with my two comrades to find them both frozen.
"W-was that a different Persona?" Chie struggles to say. This is about the reaction I expected, but we have no time for it.
"Yes, but please save questions for a later date. Our sole priority at the moment should be killing this shadow."
They both snap out of it and bring themselves back into the fight. "Right, let's kill this thing and find Yukiko." Chie runs up and attacks the enemy with Yosuke close behind her. The shadow soon gets back up and forms a red forcefield around himself.
"Oh no!" Teddie cries. "Fire attacks won't work anymore."
"No if I can help it." I cast Fires Break on him causing the shield to shatter. I follow my attack with Agi, once again knocking him down. "Now's our chance." On my command, we all charge the creature once more.
The remainder of the battle runs smoothly as we maintain the simple strategy. I continue to constantly knock the foe down with Agi while my friends help me maintain focus and power by boosting my attack and healing when necessary. The knight would mostly either use Skewer or Fire Wall but did sometimes try Mudo. This thankfully failed every time.
As I give my final attack, the enemy falls one last time and never raises again. "Hehehe, it seems you truly are my prince," Shadow Yukiko's voice rings in our ears before fading away.
"It seems she is keeping Yukiko-san elsewhere," I commentate. "Right now, the most plausible course of action would be to-"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, don't try to change the subject," Yosuke cuts me off. "Since when do you have more than one persona? You've only used the one until right now." Right, it was wishful thinking to think they wouldn't ask.
"I'm not entirely sure why I have such an ability, but it seems I can use multiple personas."
"Yeah, we got that. What I'm asking is why you suddenly switched Personas now!"
"I have no real answer to that. It just happened when I realized our enemy might be weak to fire. I don't have any real explanation for it," I partially lie. I should avoid informing them of anything related to the velvet room. They would have too many questions that I have no answers to.
"Well I think it's cool," Chie intrudes. "If you have a bunch of different Personas, you could become more powerful than any shadow in this place."
"Yeah, I guess you're right." Yosuke sounds defeated. "I was just surprised by it. Anyway, um…" He still sounds a little angry (maybe even jealous) but nevertheless he moves on. "What were you saying before I cut you off earlier?" he turns to me and askes.
"Oh, right, yes. I was only going to suggest that we rest until tomorrow. Though we won that battle with little difficulty, our Personas have weakened tremendously."
"What!? But-" Chie interjects.
"At this rate, we will have no chance of saving Yukiko today. I believe that it is safe to assume we are more than halfway through this castle. If we leave and come back tomorrow, we will have a much greater chance of success."
"But..! No, you're right. I just don't like Yukiko being trapped in here all alone."
"None of us do, Chie," Yosuke comforts her, "but we need to do this right. If we can't save her, then who will?"
"I know, I know. But we need to save her tomorrow."
"Right, of course," I say. "We need to save Yukiko-san and any other victims there may be in the future quickly." On that note, I take out one of the Goho-M's and return us to the entrance. Teddie, as expected, is there and leads us back the Shadow World entrance.
Seeing that is getting dark out, we all agree to go our separate ways. As I travel down the road, I feel a pair of eyes staring at me. I glance around but see nothing. Deming it my imagination, I carry on with my journey. Walking again, the feeling soon comes back and stronger than before. I look around once again to receive the exact same outcome as previously. Perhaps this is just exhaustion. I should hurry home and rest. I begin once more until the feeling of uneasiness returns along with the sound of footsteps. No, this is real.
"Whoever is following me should seize doing so immediately," I warn whomever may be my stalker. "I would like to inform said person that I am a member the police force and am allowed to carry a gun."
"Alright, alright, no need to be so protective. I just want to talk," a familiar voice says behind me. I turn to face the man to recognize him as Detective Adachi. "I didn't mean to scare you."
"I was not scared. Now, what is your business with me?"
"Wow, all business, huh." He chuckles. "Man, you've got to cool down. Geez, what is with kids today?"
"Listen, sir, with all due respect I have no interest in speaking to anyone tonight. If this is important then please tell me quickly. I will also excuse you for your attempts to follow me."
"Okay, fine. It seems you don't want to talk tonight, but I do have a deal I would like to make. Dojima told me that you really want to get on this case and I can help you with that." He pulls out a piece of paper and hands it to me. It's his phone number. "You can call me whenever you want more information on the case."
"While I do appreciate the offer, I fail to see why you would do this. What is it that you have to gain?"
"Really, I'm just bored. We've been on this case for a while now and still don't have any leads. So far it's been nothing but paperwork."
"So in other words, you plan to use me as a source of entertainment?"
"Yeah, but hey, what do you have to lose?" He raises a good point. It would be helpful to know police inside information.
"Okay, we have a deal. For now, however, I would like to return to my home."
"Okay, that's fine. I'll see you later then." He walks away victoriously. That was quite a strange meeting.
I make it back to the Dojima Residence without any further trouble. I am gratefully surprised to see Dojima actually home and not working. He sits that the table reading the newspaper. "Good evening, Dojima-san."
"Oh, hey. You're home late."
"Oh, I was just with some friends. I apologize if I worried you."
"Oh, no, it's nothing like that."
"Good." On that note, I try to walk upstairs before he stops me.
"Could you tell me more about what exactly you were doing?"
"Oh, yes, of course." Where did this sudden interrogation come from? "I was at Junes."
"Really, because I've heard that you've been over there quite a lot lately. No that there is anything wrong with that, but that doesn't mean it isn't suspicious."
"Listen, I can assure you that I am not doing anything worthy of such interrogation."
"I'm not accusing you of anything, I just-"
"Stop fighting!" a small voice shouts from behind my guardian.
"Nanako, we aren't fighting. We're just talking."
"No, you're talking loud and that means that you're fighting and I want you to stop." Oh, Dojima-san and I must have been making her uncomfortable.
"I'm sorry, Nanako-chan," I say as softly as possible.
"Dad, why are you always fighting? You never talk to me. You're home now, but most of the time you're at work and never play with me." Wow, I'm quite surprised she is saying this. I expected her to be more like me and keep this inside. Perhaps she's stronger than I gave her credit for.
"Look, I'm sorry I can't play right now but it's late. I'll play with you later."
"When is later?" With that she storms away to her room.
We both sit in silence for a while until I finally say something. "I know it's hard, but you should try to spend as much time as possible with her. She's lonely."
"YOU THINK I DON'T KNOW THAT!?" he screams, causing me to noticeably flinch. "Sorry, I didn't mean to yell."
"No, it's fine. I don't blame you. I understand your side just as much as I understand her's."
"You're right, I should play with her more. It's just… since her mom-" He stops himself. "I don't know what to do."
"I understand."
"No, you really don't. Just… Just go your room or something. I- I just…"
"Are you sure you're alright, Dojima-san?"
"Yeah, just…. Thank you." For what? I almost ask. I shouldn't stay don he much longer. It seems he wishes to be alone. Despite his interrogation before, it seems that he truly cares about me.
To my great surprise, a voice enters my head.
Thou art I… And I am thou…
Thou hast established a new bond…
It brings thee closer to the truth…
Thou shalt be blessed when creating
Personas of the Hierophant Arcana…
That was unexpected. I wouldn't have thought this would be worthy of a social link.
Reluctantly, I return to my room and lay down on the futon. With one final thought, I fall into a deep slumber.
Tomorrow, we WILL save Yukiko.
Author's note
Alright, I have a couple of announcements
1. I will officially be doing Margaret's social link as one that progresses throughout the story.
2. The next chapter will be the team saving Yukiko. The one after that will be Yosuke's social link.
Yeah, this wasn't anything major; I just felt you should know about it. Sorry if the battles in this chapter (or any previous chapter) sucked. I am obviously not the best at writing that kind of stuff.