Author's Note: So when my roommate was playing through P4 Dancing All Night, we made a suddenly realization halfway through the game. Persona 4's OST is canon to their world. Every song is presented in that story as being the songs the cast used to practice and train their dancing skills. If the logic of the Persona Universe is consistent, then that means that Persona 3 and Persona 5 music is likely canon to the world as well. This is doubly interesting in the fact that all three of the main games feature a character commonly depicted with headphones (Minato, Yosuke, and Futaba). So yeah, fun fact. So enjoy that tidbit while you read, cause I know I certainly enjoyed that information when I wrote this chapter.

Yu stood silently in thought as he considered his next course of action. Rise would likely be emotional but more devastated by the fact that she was once again held captive by someone, even if only mentally this time. Yukiko was unpredictable. On the one hand, her life was probably the least affected by the illusion; that also meant that she had the least to lose if the illusion were dispelled. But Teddie and Yosuke were both the big sticking points in this whole operation. Yosuke was a great ally, but his reliability was compromised with Saki back in the picture. How could someone ask him to let her go again? No, Yosuke was the last person that Yu wanted to encounter at this point. Teddie was limitedly knowledgeable on shadows and that would also be useful, but in this reality he was a human through and through. No blank x-rays, no missing personal history, and a kind and loving upbringing. The poor bear would be crushed to lose a normal human life.

"So what's the next move, bossman?" Minako asked him, snapping him from his mental warfare. Yu looked over at her.

"Thinking that Rise is the next move," he said idly. There was something about Minako that reminded him of something that kept evading his mind. He thought it the moment he saw her in the Velvet Room and it was beginning to bother him. It was in the briefest moment of putting herself together that he saw it the most, but she was very good at staying put together. Was that the way he looked to his friends?

"Narukami," Naoto said aloud. "Rise texted me recently, we were going to meet at the station, she wanted to go to Okina."

"Right, let's head over there," Yu announced. Minako was enraptured by the small dog in her hands and Chie playfully teased Kanji about giving it to her in front of Naoto.

"Yu, can we talk?" Naoto asked.

Yu looked at her and saw a semi-serious look on her face. He nodded and gestured for her to continue.

"I think it may be useful for you to know about the current state of affairs for Rise," Naoto said professionally. "You should be aware that you and Rise are officially involved in this version of reality. In her ideal life, Rise was never bullied, so she never felt the need to become an idol. Because she didn't become an idol, her personal life was never as managed as her professional one. So when she came back to Inaba the two of you still had chemistry and you began dating. So if she gives you a quick kiss, don't worry about her career."

Yu listened and nodded. After she was done, he asked, "You told me that with so much care and nuance. I take it you are aware that Rise and I are seeing each other in the regular reality too?"

Naoto nodded. "Rise is not great at keeping secrets when she wants to share them with someone," she explained. "I was aware of it about a week after you two made the decision. Rise has a certain energy to her when she really wants to tell me something. But then it falls to me to force her to tell me. I think she just wanted to make sure that somebody knew. But she also needed someone who would keep that information discreet."

"Really?" Yu wondered. "A question then. Do you and Rise hang out often?"

"Surprisingly, yes. She is probably the person I spend the most amount of my time socializing with. It certainly helped that she and I often found ourselves traveling between Tokyo and Inaba for work. But to be honest, she may be my closest friend," Naoto explained. This earned a smile from her upperclassman. "What?"

"It just makes me happy to know that you two have gotten close," Yu replied. "I mean, Chie and Yukiko have always had a friendship even before I showed up. Yosuke gained Teddie as a roommate and practically a younger brother. You and Kanji warmed up to each other immediately. Rise always felt a little out of place. I mean, yeah she and I are close, but we can't always be. So having you around will make sure that there is always someone in her corner, y'know?"

Naoto was quiet. Yu looked at her and saw an expression of deep contemplation. The look she gave him afterwards surprised him. Naoto was not one for smiling often, so when she did smile, it was always special. "Rise is lucky to have you, Yu. I hope you know that. For as long as I can, I will make sure Rise always has backup. And of course, your secret is safe with me."

"Thank you, Naoto," Yu replied.

The group made their way to the train station in relatively high spirits. Despite the looming threat, breaking free of the illusion and being on their way felt good. Yu made a quick move to the front of the group as they approached the station.

"Guys, wait out here, I think it might be best if we don't ambush her with this," Yu announced.

"Huh? Why?" Kanji asked with a somewhat vacant expression on his face.

Naoto chimed in, "Rise may not appreciate finding out that she has once again been made victim to the schemes of an outside force. Much like in the Grand Prix. Rise hated finding out that she had been used as a bargaining chip. I agree with Yu's assessment, this would be best handled by him alone. We don't want to overwhelm her."

"Makes sense to me, you go make sure she's ok, leader," Chie said cheerfully.

"Yeah sure, we'll wait out here for your signal then," Kanji added, still not fully on the same page.

Minako nodded with a confident grin.

Yu walked into the station. Down the platform, he saw her. The summer garb she wore agreed with her in all the right ways and he simply looked at a Rise completely unburdened by the stresses of her idol job. An orange tank top showed off her soft skin that he could still feel in his memory. Tight white pants that ended just above her ankles hugged her form. Yu finally had to shake the thoughts away and steel his resolve. He loved this girl wholly and truly... and now he had to go destroy her world. With a faint sigh, he walked forward and found that he lost his voice. No way to announce his presence to her, he simply walked over to her and waited for his approach to be noticed.

His eyes met hers when Rise turned to acknowledge the approaching figure and Yu's heart broke. The deep brown eyes that he adored were absent of strain. No stress controlled her features, no storm raged in those beautiful eyes. He suddenly felt hesitation squeeze his chest. How could he come here and destroy this pure happiness before him?

"Yu?" Rise said excitedly, clearly surprised. She practically pranced towards him and pounced upon his shoulders, wrapping her arms over them and placing a loving, simple kiss on his lips. Yu's mind focused on the sensation of them pressed against his own and he felt comfort in the fact that they still felt the same. The pressure in his chest subsided some as he realized that it was true that Rise would hate to learn that she had been tricked. But this Rise did not love him through a bond forged in hardship. This Rise loved him, because his Rise loved him. The woman he loved was currently trapped. And it was in this knowledge where he found his courage to speak.

"Rise," Yu spoke softly. "It's so good to see you again. I know this is a bit of a surprise, it definitely wasn't planned."

"Oh silly," Rise replied with a happy squeal. "Impulsive acts like this are just as romantic as the planned ones. But why are you here? Isn't school starting up for you soon?"

"It is," Yu replied sadly. "I just missed you. I still do."

"Aw, that's so sweet. But why do you seem so sad?" Rise asked. Her bright and bubbly personality leant itself so well to her caring nature.

"Rise," Yu started with a whisper. "You need to remember something for me, ok?" She nodded, her features began to turn further into worry. "We met for a reason, y'know? The Midnight Channel brought us together. Do you remember?"

"Wh-what are you saying, Yu?" Rise asked as her expression changed to confusion with a hint of denial.

"You came back here for a reason too. Your career as a teen idol and your fears about lacking an identity. You came here for your hiatus. Yosuke, Kanji, and I came to warn you about you being kidnapped," Yu continued on steadily trying to ignore the clear attempts on the illusions part to keep her in the dark. "You told me something once. That you had me and you had us, that you didn't lose everything. That you had people who needed you. Rise, I need your help, more than ever now. Please remember."

Rise tears began before she could register that she was crying. Yu watched as the memories came flooding back. He took her bag from her and like he had many times before, retrieved a little music player from it. Any time she had been stressed or worried, he would do this for her. He placed the headphones over her ears and changed the song. It was one of the songs that she never got around to assigning as a practice song to any of her peers. The bittersweet melancholy of the song called Never More began to play in her ears and she leaned forward and cried into his shirt. Yu paused for the briefest moment before he slowly raised his arms and wrapped them around her. His grasp was gentle but firmly locked in place. She cried until finally tears ceased to pour from her.

"Yu, what happened?" she asked softly. So Yu explained to her the situation. This Maruki character who has inadvertently doomed humanity and the other Persona users that will be helping them try to fix the world before all of humanity gets wiped off the face of the planet. Rise finally separated herself from him as she finished cleaning the tears from her cheeks. "So this was an illusion?"

"Yes," Yu replied. "Since you never expressed antisocial tendencies as a child due to your lack of bullies, your family never signed you up for the idol industry. This was the way the illusion interpreted your desires and idealized your existence."

"So then, how about you?" Rise asked.

Yu gave a strained look as he replied, "It gave me a functional relationship with my parents."

Rise gasped. She leaned forward and hugged Yu. She had been the person that he had been most upfront with about his less than ideal homelife. It was part of the reason that he never wanted to leave them all behind, they had become part of the most functional family that he had ever had growing up. To Rise, she found the source of his independence, many of his skills, had all originated in attempts to make his parents proud. But that would have required that they were ever home to see it. Yu may have cried about it when he was young, but when it came to his non-existent relationship with parents, his tears had dried up years ago. It had been the start of his drive to prevent himself from becoming empty. Unknown to Rise, it was also the moment that turned him into the perfect Wild Card.

The two of them headed towards the exit and Yu's attention was caught by the station's train schedule. A single train was scheduled to come in a couple of hours, then it would leave an hour later. If this continued at this rate, then they could all be leaving Inaba tonight to meet up in Tokyo with the others.

Rise suddenly latched onto his arm as they arrived at the exit. "Yu, can we enjoy this reality a little bit and just act like a regular couple?" she asked him cutely.

"Well, it does mean more people will know about us when we get back to the regular reality. Are you okay with that?" Yu asked seriously.

Rise nodded and he smiled in return. So the two of them walked out of the station with Rise pressed directly into his side with his arm in his embrace. They stepped into what was now an overcast day in Inaba. Yu looked around and saw that Chie was currently practicing her kicks while Naoto and Minako both talked animatedly on a bench nearby. Admittedly, Minako was much more animated than Naoto. Kanji was nearby shaking a vending machine which seemed to have stolen his money.

"Yu, who is that?" Rise asked, gesturing to Minako.

"Her name is Minako Arisato. She is an alternate version of the leader of a previous Persona Team," Yu replied.

"Shadow Operatives?" Rise guessed.

Yu nodded and replied, "From what I can tell, Minako and Minato are two sides of the same coin. They just never existed in the same… I guess timeline would be the way to describe it?"

"Pardon me Yu, but I think it might be more accurate to call it an alternate dimension," Naoto said aloud. She and Minako walked over to them. "Timeline differences suggest that their fates were decided in a moment that could have just as easily happened in either direction. From what I know about Minato and could compare to Minako's notes about her own experiences, they are both single children from the same set of parents. No reports of other siblings for either of them. So in one dimension, they have Minako and in our dimension they have Minato. Those are just the small differences but it would be safe to say that there are probably other differences, for instance they likely had different friend groups outside of their team based on differences of available club activities separated by the sexes."

"So what would that mean about her fate when this is all over?" Yu asked. "If she goes back to her own dimension, then she'll be out of our reach."

Rise raised an eyebrow at the comment but decided to keep listening. Naoto replied, "Ah, yes the promise Chie mentioned. Unfortunately, based on everything I currently know, then there really isn't much we could do."

"Well what about theoretically?" Yu asked.

"I suppose Quantum Mechanics could be at play, but that is so far into theory we are talking about the level of thought experiment. And even if those experiments can be trusted as mechanical truth, such an answer would require the ability to manipulate the actual workings of the universe," Naoto replied disheartened.

"You mean like Schrodinger's Cat, right?" Minako asked with a small tilt of her head. Naoto nodded. "You know that is actually not a terrible place to start. Afterall, the Cat is both alive and dead until you observe it and know for certain, but realities can exist simultaneously. If Minato and I are the two options of quantum mechanics at the time of our conception, then in theory anything that fixes his world could also still fix mine."

"If you are in fact tied together at all," Naoto warned.

Yu thought for a moment before he said, "Well that is promising. We'll keep this in mind and approach the subject once we meet up with the other teams."

Kanji finally stopped shaking the drink machine and walked over to the rest of the group, looking defeated. "Dumb bear eats too much damn icecream that I'm actually out of money, and that's coming from me," Kanji complained half-heartedly. He looked at the serious faces around him. "Ah did I just walk in on something important?"

"Not terribly," Minako said with a big smile. She really took a shine to him, Yu noticed. Then again if she's a fan of stuffed knit animals, then that made a lot of sense. Yu figured that he should probably broach the subject of following up with Yukiko next, until he suddenly heard a voice that had long since been a distant memory for him.

"Oh wow, Yosuke, you never mentioned that Yu was back in town for a visit," the familiar female voice said. Yu slowly turned to see a ghost from his past standing there in the flesh. Saki Konishi. She had her hair tied back and it looked like she may have just finished a shift at Junes since she was still in her work apron. Yu could see that Saki had shortened her hair and seemed to just be generally more happy. Standing next to her, hand-in-hand, was Yosuke. He looked just like the normal Yosuke that Yu remembered. But he could also see the darkness had cleared away from his best friend and that made a world of difference for him. He wore a salmon pink shirt and white pants, his trademark headphones notably missing.

"Hey partner, whatcha doin' back in Inaba?" Yosuke called out as he ran forward.

It was specifically this moment when Yu realized that he had no idea what he was going to say to his friend. All this time, Yu had been worried about what waking him from the illusion meant taking from Yosuke, but the actual words had never even crossed his mind. It had been so much easier with Rise, practically natural.

"Y-yeah, it was kinda not planned," Yu replied uncertainly.

"Sensei!" Yu heard from behind himself.

Yosuke leaned around and saw Teddie running in their direction. "There's that dumb bear, we were headed over here to meet up with him. Thinking about a trip out to Okina. You game?" Yosuke said excitedly.

Yu shook his head and said, "I don't think there is a train headed out to Okina today. The schedule inside was only showing an inbound train from Tokyo that would head back out to Tokyo."

"What? But I checked the schedule," Saki said disappointed. She pulled the printed schedule from his bag. "Oh, oops. It looks like I was looking at tomorrow's schedule."

"So no train ride?" Teddie asked as he arrived. "How un-bear-able."

This pulled a groan out of most of the people there, except Minako who gave a slight giggle. Teddie noticed her and seemed immediately enraptured.

"Oh right," Yu said suddenly. "Yosuke, Teddie, this is Minako Arisato. She's a new friend of mine."

"Hey there, Mina-baby," Teddie said in his not so suave voice. "My name is Teddie."

"Nice to meet you Teddie," Minako said trying to not laugh at his sudden personality change.

"Can it bear," Yosuke and Kanji both called out.

Minako felt the laugh begin to overpower her will to not embarrass the blond boy but it was starting to become a fruitless endeavor when Teddie winked at her. Minako let out a full laugh. After a brief moment she said, "It is nice to meet you Teddie."

Chie came over when she realized that Yosuke had shown up. With Saki in tow, there was no way they could talk to him about Persona stuff. Yu had to figure out both a plan to get Saki away from Yosuke, to say all the right things to get Yosuke on board with letting her go, and then they would just need to go fight multiple gods. The pressure was beginning to get to him a little as he realized just how tall of an order this actually was going to be for him. Just divide and conquer, he decided. One thing at a time.

"Oh, and you must be Saki," Minako said as she held her hand out to the other girl. Saki took it and they shook. "Yu has told me about you. Said he hasn't hung out with you as much though."

"Oh you know how guy friends are," Saki said. "Who knows how many hours they've hung out without thinking about involving any of the girls."

"Yeah, boys are complicated," Minako replied. Yu noted that this was the second time she mentioned something like this. This got him to thinking, what would being a female Wild Card actually be like? I mean, he remembered how intimidating approaching Naoto had been as she was a total intellectual giant. Rise approached him, but Chie and Yukiko were kinda weird games of cat and mouse back before Yu became more confident around other people. Was that what interacting with guys had been like for her?

Saki then thought for a moment and said, "You are friends with Yu, right? Is he complicated?"

Rise seemed to grip Yu arm slightly closer as the conversation continued.

"Surprisingly no," Minako commented. "But the taken ones usually aren't, am I right, Rise?" Minako joked. Yu felt the grip on his arm loosen.

"What can I say, I know how to make 'em listen," Rise joked back. The three girls all laughed. Their conversation continued and slowly began floating away from the guys, even sweeping Naoto and Chie with them. Wait, Yu wondered. Did Minako do that on purpose? She was some kind of mindreader.

"So, whatcha doing back in Inaba, bro?" Yosuke asked.

Yu paused a moment before he said, "I gotta talk to you about something. Mind if we step inside the station, want to talk away from the girls, y'know?"

"Sure," Yosuke said with a questioning tone. Yu, Yosuke, Teddie, and Kanji all made their way into the station. Then silence as Yu continued to struggle to find the words. Kanji tapped his foot impatiently before he finally decided to just force the subject.

"Dude, do you remember how you and Saki got together?" Kanji asked. Yu looked at him and realized that Kanji was going to make him try to remember on his own. That was the same strategy Yu had used for Chie. It worked well for her.

Yosuke seemed to pause, before his expression changed to a disturbingly neutral state. Why was he looking at his friends like that?

"Yosuke, what is he talking about?" Teddie asked.

"Teddie," Yu said suddenly. "Tell me about your childhood." This seemed like the safest approach for the time being.

"Wha-?" Teddie stuttered. "I-I-I-"

Yosuke stepped forward and asked venomously, "What are you doing, Narukami?" Yu was taken aback by this. Yosuke was almost always referring to him as Partner or by his first name. Come to think of it, Yu could not even think of a single time Yosuke had ever referred to him by his last name. "I was warned that you would try to do this, y'know? But I just can't believe that you would be this coldblooded."

"Wait, you know?" Yu asked suddenly.

"I was told, yeah. You do best to ignore him, Ted. He's just going to try to harm you," Yosuke replied. "How could you, man?"

Kanji however suddenly said, "Wait? The hell you sayin', man? You want to live in this fake-ass reality?"

"Why not?" Yosuke asked. "Think about it, we could not have to live with all the bullshit that we went through in our real lives. And not just with Saki, but that all of us can have the world we wanted to live in. That we deserve to live in." Yosuke presented his argument with resolution and confidence. "Maruki isn't happy that people are trying to mess with his reality."

"Yeah?" Kanji asked "Well how does that self-righteous prick feel about the fact that he's about to cause the extinction of humanity?"

Yosuke looked at Kanji with a side eye. From what Yu could tell, Maruki did not seem like he was fully aware of why people were rebelling against his version of reality. That might be something that could be twisted to their advantage in the long run, because it also means that he did not warn Yosuke about it beforehand.

So Yu decided to add, "I know you think that this world is worth trying to preserve, Yosuke. Even if it brought back Saki or other people that were lost. But those people wouldn't want us to all die for them."

"Assuming I believe you," Yosuke replied irritably.

"Why would we lie, man?" Kanji asked.

Yosuke looked at him and said, "I don't know, and yet you are so desperately trying to get me to let go of Saki. Why can't you just let me be happy? No one should be forced to grow up that fast!"

"No one should, you're right," Yu replied. "But does that really mean that we should compromise the human experience because of it? If you take away our ability to make choices, then you are just stripping away our humanity."

"Then what good is it to be human?" Teddie suddenly yelled.

Kanji shook his head and said, "We never told you that being human was good, Ted. You decided that you wanted it because of what you saw through us. That included the good and the bad."

"So what, are you saying that Teddie isn't good enough to be human?" Yosuke asked as he got in Kanji's face.

Yu pushed his arms between the pair and pushed them apart. "That isn't what he said and you know it. Maybe aspiring to be human is what drew Teddie to us in the first place. Don't either of you realize that you are willingly blinding yourselves? The Saki out there isn't the one you fell for, Yosuke. The one you truly and deeply cared for despised you. How can you be okay with corrupting that reality?"

"People should be allowed to be wanted," Teddie suddenly cried out. He ran forward and planted his hands against Yu's chest and pushed him. Yu stumbled backwards before barely catching himself. He looked up and saw Kanji pick Teddie up as he was only two thirds his size. Yosuke, however, leapt forward and jumped on Kanji's back.

"Guys!" Yu called out. "Knock it off!" But they were not listening. Soon after, Yu realized that they were not alone inside the station. He looked past the fighters and saw Yukiko barely peeking around the corner. How long had she been there? What had she heard?

The three boys in the center of the station seemed to become more violent and less aware of their surroundings as Kanji was eventually wrestled to the floor and Yosuke and Teddie began raining blows down on him. The punches did not seem to have much of an effect other than make Kanji mad as he tossed Teddie to the side and in an impressive feat of strength, seemed to lift Yosuke off of him and stand up from a near flat on the ground position.

"The hell is your problem?" Kanji shouted, holding Yosuke by his shirt. Before the confrontation could continue, a fan flew through the air at high speed and slammed into Kanji's wrist that was supporting all of Yosuke's weight. Kanji's grip slipped and Yosuke landed with his on the ground. He immediately charged his shoulder into Kanji's gut. Teddie attempted to leap up onto Kanji's tall frame, but Yu caught him by the back of his shirt.

"Knock it off, all of you," Yu shouted with a commanding tone. Kanji attempted to back off, but Yosuke was not having it. As Yu's gaze finally took in the fact that a fan had been thrown earlier he saw Yukiko standing out in the open. Her eyes aflame with anger and passion. This combination sent shivers down his spine as she readied her fan for another attack.

This could not be happening. Not like this; not after everything the Investigation Team had been through. A faint buzz in his pocket caught Yu's attention.

Pulling out his phone he saw a strange icon on his flip phone menu, it looked similar to the app that Ren had on his own phone. This had to be the program for the metaverse right? But what was it on his phone now?

Teddie suddenly roared as he turned face against Yu and leapt at him. Yu stepped out of the way while maintaining a grip on the puffy white shirt. Another leap was met with another dodge. However, with his back to the rest of the group he did not see the fan coming for him, but he felt it make contact with the back of his head and his vision suddenly darkened at the edges and seemed to slowly become consumed for a brief moment. That was a direct hit to his vision center. As he vision returned, Teddie was upon him and with his rabid thrashing, knocked Yu to the floor.

"Please, stop," Yu managed to say as his flight or fight response started kicking in. He did not want to fight, but at this point it seemed like he was being left with no real choice in the matter. He got his legs up and under Teddie and then kicked them forward sending Teddie sprawling to the ground. Why did all of his bad feelings have to come true? Only now, since he wished for the girls to separate from the conversation, it was left to him and Kanji to go three on two, in a fight where the point was not to defeat but to deter. But why did it have to go down like this? Yu got his feet under him as he and Kanji backed off for a moment to regroup. Their three misguided friends looked at them menacingly as they approached.

"Sorry, Yu," Yukiko said finally. "But I can't let others suffer if I'm not going to lose anything. Their happiness has to be more important to me."

Yu shook his head and said, "Their happiness is only guaranteed until the world ends, Yukiko. And right now, the end of the world is on that bill."

"They ain't gonna listen, Senpai," Kanji snapped at him. "All we can do now is knock 'em out and keep them out of the way."

Yu could not believe it. How had it gone all so wrong? He promised himself after the grand-prix that he was done fighting his own friends. How could they be pulled apart like this? Yu looked out and with one last desperate plea he yelled.

"Stop! Everybody stop!"

But no one was listening.

"What's going on in here?" Chie's voice suddenly called out. The girls from outside had overheard the fight, it seemed because they had all come running in to see Yu and Kanji cornered by their friends.

"Guys," Yu said in warning as he retrieved his phone from his pocket. "Let's take this somewhere more private." He pressed the enter button, the air warped and then went still.