Summer, 2017

"Did you send the flowers?"

"No."

"Do you have a guess who did?"

Ren kept his mouth shut. The man who sent Makoto the flowers was his atomic bomb; the ultimate trump card over the psychiatrist. It turned everything Maruki thought he knew about Ren on its head, and that was precisely why Ren would bide his time. Makoto's flowers would have to wait for Ren to take his sweet time telling his story. "No. I was too worried about, you know, the war to think about anything else, much less some flowers."

"You didn't care about Nakajima?"

Ren paused. In retrospect, Nakajima meant a lot, but a year ago? "Not at the time. I was too worried about the immediate future."

"It sounds like you care more about him now."

"His involvement was unnecessary, but I'm happy for him. He got out easier than the rest of us."

"From my perspective, you've had the easiest exit of all. Just look at Sakamoto and Kitagawa." Maruki's pen hovered above his notepad, ready to take in anything Ren said in response to the bait. Like when Maruki called him Akira, it was a ploy that Ren wouldn't fall for. He gave Maruki silence. "Work with me, Ren. I know more than you think, and hiding the truth helps nobody.

"I've been honest, but you want me to cooperate more. You don't trust what I'm telling you?"

"I've just wondered if there are some… Gaps to what you've been telling me." Maruki's pen hit the pad. His confidence in Ren's need to confess did not go unnoticed by the inmate. "Context, if you will, to the Aka Handan Ikka… And to its more important members."

Ren scoffed. "Ryuji would want to be left out."

"But he's essential to your story?"

"He is. That doesn't mean he wants to be in my story."

"Then tell me his."

Ren sighed. To his left, the fireplace crackled as wood splintered and fell to the ash-covered bottom. "I met Ryuji on my first day at Shujin." Seeing Maruki raise an eyebrow, Ren elaborated on his former school. "Shujin Academy, in Aoyam—"

"Shujin Academy was an employer to me for a year." Maruki pointed his pen at Ren, stating his former profession matter-of-factly as if he was a teacher.

Ren was genuinely surprised. There he was, thinking of Maruki as a respectable psychiatrist deployed on a terrible job when he was actually a hack given the opportunity of a lifetime. "When'd you work there?" Ren asked.

"Back in… 2001, I think. Maybe '02."

"So you haven't seen my shrine."

"Excuse me?"

"I left my mark on the school, I should say."

"Only through charitable donations and volunteer work, I hope." Maruki's sarcasm brought a smile to Ren's face. They both knew that donations were the last thing Ren would consider, even if Maruki knew nothing of Ren's time at Shujin. It was not a place for the faint of heart—a fact that was known but unspoken.

Ren shrugged. "I kindly asked the principal, and he obliged me.


Spring, 2004

Ren glanced down at his flip phone. The same red screen had been flashing all morning, not letting Ren close it or delete the application from his phone, which happened to be brand new. Kaneshiro bought it as a gift to celebrate Ren's enrollment at Shujin Academy. It was also to, "Make yourself some fuckin' friends, dammit." Kaneshiro must've been annoyed with Ren staying in reading all the time, unintentionally leaving him as a witness to every incriminating conversation the man ever had.

Shaking his head, Ren put his phone away and kept walking. Shujin's distance from the station was an inconvenience, but the worst part of the walk was seeing his new classmates. He had the courtesy to not pay them any mind, but they had to give him all the attention. Eyes followed Ren from every direction as he walked and he didn't quite know why.

"Hey!" a voice yelled from behind Ren. He didn't pay attention to it because, well, who would be talking to him? Shujin's students were on-looking gossipers, not confrontational extroverts. "Hey! New kid! Don't walk so effin' fast!"

Who else could they be talking to? Ren turned around, seeing a fellow student that most noticeably had dyed blonde hair. He told the Shujin uniform to fuck itself by wearing a bright yellow shirt and giving his pants just enough sag to be considered lazy, but not enough to get a suspension for violating the requirements.

"Yo! Wassup, man?" The blonde teen extended a hand to Ren as he finally caught up. Ren still couldn't believe he was being talked to and didn't finish the handshake because he never even considered it. "Uh… you alright?"

"Fine." Ren turned and began walking again. The kid seemed like one of the loud ones; the kind who would chat in the back of the class nonstop about whatever they could.

The blonde didn't give up so easily. He kept pace with Ren, smacking his lips while fitting words in between right next to Ren's ear. "Man, come on. We're both first-years!"

"Not looking for any friends."

"Sheesh, one of those types?" The blonde whistled but kept trying his luck. "Eh, that just means I gotta do more talking. I don't mind."

"What do you want?"

"I don't want anything; just thought you could use someone to talk to. The name's Ryuji. Most of us—the first-years, I mean—all went to the same junior high. Everyone knows everyone and you're the new kid. I don't want you to be left out of the loop."

"Make sure the loop's tied real tight and I'm on the outside of it, okay?" Determined to not create the possibility of losing something again, Ren accelerated his already furious pace. Still, the blonde matched him.

"It's a shitty loop, ya know. I'd rather be left out of it, but some of us need to be social."

"I can tell."

"I'll be friends with you by the end of the week. I guarantee it."

"I'll bet you the first semester's homework that we won't."

Ryuji laughed. "Nice try, but I don't plan on doing any of that shit, legit or otherwise."

With his proposition to give himself an advantage shot down, Ren stayed silent. There didn't seem to be anything to be gained from talking to Ryuji more.

"But I'm not hating if you're into that bookish stuff, and y—" Ryuji stopped walking. The sudden change stopped Ren as well, and he turned back to look at his not-friend. A grin widened across Ryuji's face. "Wanna meet my police friend?"

Automatically, "Fuck no."

"Oh, sure ya do. He's right over there!" He pointed across the street, giving Ren no time to look over the cop before he began calling the officer over. "Sanada-san! Sanada-san!"

A silver-haired cop in uniform across the nearest crosswalk glanced over, smiling when he noticed Ryuji. Not even hesitating to leave his post, he began crossing the street without even looking. He brought one car to a honking stop with his hand, and another did so without him having to order it. In a few more seconds, the cop made it to Ren and the blonde.

"Sanada-san, meet the new kid!" Ryuji excitedly said. With his animated behavior, it wasn't hard to believe that he had been a middle-schooler just a few months prior.

Sanada playfully rubbed Ryuji's head and gave Ren a once-over. "First day at Shujin, huh? I promise it's not as much of a prison as everyone says it is. It's where I went and I miss it every day. You'll learn to love it." Sanada turned to Ryuji, cracking a smile. "Ryuji here, on the other hand… School's not his thing."

Ren didn't miss a beat. "I couldn't tell." A bit mean, but that was always the point, wasn't it?

Either Sanada didn't care or he didn't notice. He just continued to talk about Ryuji to Ryuji. "But Kobayakawa will whip 'em into shape, I'm sure."

"Candidate found."

Ren felt his head pulse. He doubled over, grabbing his temple to minimize the momentary shock, only for the feeling to be gone. Ren looked down at the ground, blinking to make sure his head hadn't fallen off. When his vision remained normal, Ren slowly righted himself.

Ren began to make his exit from the conversation on his way up. "Sorry, but I…" He was talking to no one. Ryuji and Sanada vanished along with everyone else on what had been a crowded street. Ren blinked his eyes again a few times but the results didn't change. The street was abandoned, he was alone, and the sky was purple. A car must've swerved off the road, hit him, and sent him into what had to be the afterlife, right?

"The fuck…?" Ren looked straight up at the imposing shade of royalty. A cloudy Monday morning on psilocybin was what it looked like, the sky swirling in different spots. There wasn't even a sun to project light, yet everything stayed properly illuminated.

Ren pinched himself. He wasn't dreaming, but he still could've been dead. But where did one go when they were dead? Ren didn't have the slightest clue. The goal from his life would guide him in death. He put his head down and continued to where Shujin Academy was supposed to be.

After a few more blocks of emptiness, Ren turned. He knew that he had a long walkway to Shujin, but he should've been able to see the school. Ren had a good view of the skyline and a towering pillar of a building, just no Shujin Academy.

The tower building seemed unnaturally tall. Compared to everything else in sight, it quadrupled the elevation of any buildings nearby. Ren made out little black dots along both of the visible sides he could see, some illuminated with yellow light.

An empty walkway, pointing straight towards the front gates of the tower, laid in front of Ren. There were no people, no parked cars, no abandoned bikes with missing wheels or handlebars. Not even litter made it into whatever hallucination Ren was experiencing.

Suddenly, Ren's head throbbed all over again. His eyes scrunched and his hand found his pulsing temple, only for the pain to stop as soon as it arrived.

Walk.

After a hesitant step, the ice broke and Ren fell in completely. He walked towards the black tower without enough caution for a lost high-schooler. As it got closer, the tower's dark shadow grew. Lights along its front side shimmered on and off, some going out completely while others turned on for the first time. Ren saw shadows dance in one window. Whatever was happening inside, Ren couldn't decipher it.

Ren reached a steel black gate, much like the one shown to him on Shujin Academy's brochure. It was the one landmark he knew the building by, so the tower had to have been the right place, real or not. The gate even had a crest on it.

"Shujin Reformatory, Home to all Fools," Ren read from text encircling Shujin's crest. As soon as he finished the last word, the gate screeched as metal scraped metal. Slowly, the gates opened inward to allow Ren forth. A small courtyard, consisting only of grass on either side of a stone staircase revealed more of itself. Planter's boxes rested within the grass as trees grew in their centers.

Yet again, Ren's head throbbed but without the knee-buckling strength of before.

Enter.

Ren took the stairway one step at a time. By the time he reached the top, he breathed in a celebratory breath of relief and turned around. The dark street he walked down was barely visible, almost completely shaded into nothing by the massive tower.

Behind him, the doors of the tower opened. Unlike the scrape of metal from a minute prior, stone dragged on stone and cold air rushed at Ren. He stepped back momentarily as the slow mechanism took its time.

With newfound distance, Ren stared into the empty void before him. The inside of the tower was completely dark. Whether it was the design of his hallucination or just the Shujin administration not paying electricity bills, he didn't know. What he did know was that he was curious. Things weren't going right; how wrong could he make them?

"Intruder!" a voice hissed. Light blinded Ren and his vision swam with blurry objects. The room around him grew clearer as he did a three-sixty to take in the details, along with the figures that arrived from every direction. Finally, Ren stopped turning just as the figures stopped forming a circle around him. "State your business here, or be at the mercy of our warden!"

Ren's eyes focused on the chief figure before him. Its head had about two feet over him while its body, despite having an impossibly thin torso, had more muscle than him. Each figure wore dark red coats and pants while their skin, or lack of, was a black void of shadows.

"I'm looking for Shujin Academy."

The voice came again, an indefinite whisper that had no visible source. Ren only knew it came from the figure before him because, well, he just knew. "Academy? The Reformatory is not for learning, boy," the figure said. It took one step towards Ren. "What is your name?" A black clipboard appeared in the hand of the figure.

"Kurusu."

The figure pointed its featureless face down at the clipboard. Could it read? Ren tried to gauge this by looking more closely, but worried about inciting a reaction. Ren felt nothing in the face of the figures, not even fear. He considered the validity of the figures as real, or of the tower itself.

His dreams grew strange as of late. More surreal, yet alive visions came to him, and more often. A particularly strange creature spoke to him in his dreams, its body masked by a mass of red and black shadows. Ren could discern nothing except the massive size of the being, and that it possessed a viscous growl of a voice.

That was why Ren obeyed the voice in his head—he recognized it.

Tell the truth.

"Amamiya, I mean." When the figure glanced up in a way that must've been annoyed—though Ren couldn't tell for obvious reasons—Ren bowed his head. "Sorry."

"He's on the list!" The figure's head rose and turned to face the figures all around Ren. "Seize him!"

"Wait, but—" There was no time to object. Quicker than they turned on the lights of the empty room, they closed the distance. The last thing Ren saw was a baton falling into his line of sight, then it all went black.


"Welcome."

Ren's eyes shot open. He stood in the middle of an empty Shibuya Crossing, one covered in layers of jagged ice. It shot up from its flat surface in many areas with spikes and edges forming at random. Traffic lights were covered in ice as well and Tokyo's usual pedestrians were trapped beneath the surface. Thankfully, one thing escaped the chilled apocalypse: no cars littered the streets or filled the intersections.

Ren shuffled his feet as he took in the full spectacle, but that gave away the state of reality. Ren's first step landed firm and strong, and any weight he put on it didn't give way to the power of slipping.

"Ren."

He turned around. There, just below the largest display in the Crossing, was a massive ball of ice encasing a black and red mass. Streaks of red swirled around the blackness, forming and dissipating without any struggle for light. The ice around the mass held strong with no reaction to whatever went on inside it.

Ren walked toward the landmark.

"I have chosen you, Trickster," the voice gurgled, echoing through Shibuya Crossing. Ren expected the ice to crack and the dream to shift into something less creepy. He faced disappointment head-on.

"Chosen me for what?"

"Power is a great burden, but it has its costs. Your worth is your strife."

"What…?"

"Worry not, Trickster. I can grant you this burden, this power, if you perform a simple task."

"What's that?"

"Make the fat man sing the song of anguish with the might I grant you."

"I— Wait, hold on… I'm not—"

"You'll see, Ren."

What terrified Ren the most wasn't the blood-gurgling voice or its cryptic invitations to power—it was his name. Kaneshiro's false name assimilated itself so thoroughly in Ren's head that his dreams respected it.

Red light burst forth from the ice, quickly rushing past Ren with a wave of heat.

Once again, his eyes opened, now to a much different sight than the dream world. His face was sticky with sweat and hair clung to his forehead. His back stung with the weight of an uncomfortable nap on a hard stone floor. He sat up, placing his hands behind him to support his weight.

"You! Y-you're finally awake!" Ren blinked the sleep out of his eyes as he looked right. A cat, standing on its hind legs while possessing a head larger than Ren's, stared back with cartoonishly giant eyes. "You—"

"What the fuck are you?"

"What's it look like?!" Ren blinked a few times to tell the cat that there weren't many other ways to see it. Nonetheless, the cat had a different answer. "I'm a human!"

Ren scanned over the cat, looking from its furry head to its padded paws. "Uh-huh…"

"And my name's Morgana!"

"Is that so?" Ren turned to his left, away from the cat. He faced the bars of the jail cell he'd been thrown into. On the other side of the bars was a similar sight; two teenagers imprisoned in a cell of their own. Both of them sat on the ground with their backs against the cell wall, neither of them noticing Ren. Ren turned back to Morgana. "Where am I?"

"You don't know? How'd you get—wait, wait wait, are you Akira?"

No.

"Nope."

"Agh, dammit. I'm supposed to find Akira, but if you're not him…" Morgana looked down, his feline brow drooping into a frown. "Then… Who are you?!" With newfound energy, he pounced toward Ren. "How'd you get here?! Why are you in this cell?! Wh-"

Ren reacted quickly. With his feet, he scooted himself back across the floor, doing so fast enough to slam into the stone wall and whip his throbbing head backward. The impact stopped his retreat immediately as he went to rub the back of his head. "Ow…"

"Answer me!" the cat demanded, standing at Ren's feet with a paw pointed at his face.

"I don't know… I was walking to school and the sky changed. I came to this tower, then they threw me in here."

"Hm…" Morgana brought a paw to his chin as he turned his side to Ren. "Let me see your phone."

"Why?"

"So I can figure out why you're here!"

Eyebrow raised, Ren slid his phone out of his pocket and tossed it to the cat. Despite its claims of humanity, its lack of opposable thumbs forced it to catch the phone in between both paws. "Let's see…" Morgana happened to know how to work a phone. He swiped with his hairless pads a few times, then his eyes widened once the truth showed itself. "A-ha! I knew it!"

Ren caught the phone on a poor toss from Morgana. "What?"

"You have the potential. That's why the Meta-Nav installed itself!"

"I have no clue what you're talking about."

"You know that app that's been giving you problems all morning?" Morgana waited for Ren to nod, then he continued his explanation. "That's the Metaverse Navigator. It lets you travel in between the real world and the Metaverse—where we are now."

Ren was unimpressed. If the only thing the Metaverse did differently was change the color of the sky, then he wanted out.

"Let me put this simply: you're here because you have the potential for a Persona, a manifestation of your other self."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning that you use your Persona, your other self, to safely journey through the Metaverse. You can steal treasure from the core of a Palace, and change the Palace-owner's desires!"

"I think you're glossing over some things."

"Hm? Whaddya mea—oh! Right!" Morgana sat down as soon as he realized that it would take a long time to explain everything to Ren. "We're in a Palace right now. It's a manifestation of the distorted desires of someone and it only exists in the Metaverse. Using the Nav, you can go to different Palaces by giving the person's name, location, and the distortion of the location. For instance—"

"Whose Palace is this?"

Morgana cleared his throat. Ren would've scooted backward to avoid a potential hairball until he remembered that Morgana wasn't a cat. "As I was saying, to come here again, you need a location—Shujin Academy—a distortion— prison —and a name. Any guesses who would see Shujin as their prison?

It took Ren a moment to remember the name set to greet him as soon as he arrived at school that morning. "Principal Kobayakawa."

"So that's his name… Anyway, that's where we are. Your principal sees you and your classmates as inmates in his prison."

"I wouldn't know. Today's my first day."

"Wow, some luck you have." Morgana walked over to the bars of the cell. "At least your awakening will make everything worth it. Then, you can help me to the bottom of Mementos and—"

"Mementos?"

"The center of the Metaverse. It's where everyday peoples' desires manifest because not everyone is distorted enough for a Palace."

"Makes sense."

"We'll go there as soon as we bust outta here. Whaddya think of that?"

"Eh. I'll pass."

Morgana looked over his shoulder from the cell bars. "Pass? Ren, this isn't something you pass on. This kinda power is world-changing! Think of all—"

Ren spent too many nights awake and holding his pillow over his ear, trying to sleep through Kaneshiro's diversions and business dinners. The Metaverse seemed like another thing to keep him up at night. "Save it for someone else. I just wanna be normal."

"Nuh-uh. Too late for that. You got to me before Akira, now you're the one who's gonna help. I didn't tell you all of that just to—"

"Kobayakawa-sama! The favor is this way!" a guard yelled from outside the cell. Morgana stepped back from the bars and Ren sat up straight, craning his head to see out the bars. Nothing could be seen except the disheartened teens across the walkway. Not even the presence of the guards, or the warden, could motivate them to get off the wall.

Ren hated feeling the same way as them. He scraped his back against stone as he forced himself to get up. His legs ached and his head swam, but he used the wall to keep his balance. "They're coming!" Morgana hissed as he backed away from the bars. Ren held firm against the wall, still looking out the bars to see the warden.

Kobayakawa couldn't be shit. He must've been an insecure shell of a man if he felt this way about the school he ran. He had all the funding in the world and he still felt the need to exert extreme authority over his students. Ren hated him before he even shook his hand.

One of the figures from earlier, a guard dressed in crimson, came into view. "Behold, prisoner!"

"That's a shadow," Morgana whispered from Ren's right.

"The Keeper, Kobayakawa, first Warden of the Reformatory and first of his name, lord of the—"

Ren his hand up towards the shadow. To his great surprise, the shadow respected his wishes and shut its invisible mouth. "Can I just see him already?"

"U-uh… Please welcome, Juro Kobayakawa!"

From the left side of the bars, a massive man came into view. His escort of guards wore armor-plating over their fashionable suits of blood, all of it the same color. Kobayakawa himself cast a shadow over the cell. Not only was he tall—at least seven feet—but he was wide. He had at least four-hundred pounds over Ren.

"Don't just stand there, inmate! Introduce yourself!"

Ren took his first step off the wall. He didn't stumble or slip, only standing up straight as if the several blows he took to the head never happened. He felt none of the fatigue he felt upon waking up when he stared down Kobayakawa, even from a foot below his eyes.

"Ren Amamiya."

"A pleasure," Kobayakawa said. "Now, Amamiya-kun, tell me: will you be a good inmate—or a bad one?"

Ren leaned to the side. He looked past Kobayakawa's fat body, past the armored guards, to the cell on the other side of the walkway. The students still had their heads lowered. They were so utterly defeated that they couldn't even watch the scene Ren was about to make.

"Both of us know that question doesn't matter, Kobayakawa-sama." Ren poked fun at the fat man with the honorific. Kobayakawa thought he deserved that level of respect—Ren just wanted to point out how dumb that was. "I'm here under the sponsorship of Junya Kaneshiro. You remember the favor you're doing for him, don't you?"

Kaneshiro told Ren about the arrangement many times because of how much money he spent on it. Upon growing tired of Ren staying inside reading all the time, Kaneshiro decided that he wanted Ren to be a well-educated bastard. He found the top private school that would take Ren, paid however much they wanted—even if outside of realistic boundaries—and sent Ren off with everything he needed to succeed.

Doing all of that required Kaneshiro to be on "good" terms with the principal. To Ren's understanding, Kaneshiro never met Kobayakawa, but he sent soldiers to do the meeting for him.

"Oh, don't worry. I understand plenty. Why do you think I made it my first priority to visit you, the intruder who wants to ruin the Reformatory's top-notch reputation?" Kobayakawa waved his hand at the guard, prompting the minion to step up to the bars and unlock the cell door. "You're in for a long first day of school, Amamiya-kun. That'll teach Kaneshiro-san some respect, don't you think?"

"I dunno. Kaneshiro likes being the only fat fuck in charge of me. I'm not sure how he'll take to you bossing me around."

Kobayakawa's nostrils flared and that was exactly what Ren wanted. If Kobayakawa was the kind of man Ren thought he was—one who refused to acknowledge his flaws or let others speak of them—then he'd done enough.

"Seize him," Kobayakawa ordered. Two guards rushed in, immediately grabbing Ren by the arms and forcing him back into the wall. For the third time, his head was bluntly hit. He felt warm moistness on the back of his head, but strangely little pain erupted from the gash. Ren looked up as Kobayakawa struggled to fit through the cell door. "Fucking thing… Guard! Make these bigger when the next round of funding comes in!"

"Yes, Kobayakawa-sama!"

"Now…" Kobayakawa finished his squeezing and turned on Ren. In the back corner, Morgana helplessly hid under the bed. Ren knew that the cat had been seen by Kobayakawa, they just didn't care about him. "Time for you to learn some respect."

Ren desperately wanted it to be the other way around. He wanted to make Kobayakawa kneel, to plead for his life with tears streaming down his face. He wanted his foot to crush the fat man's throat until—

A punch to the stomach sent the murderous thoughts out of Ren's head. Spit exploded from his mouth along with the last breath he heaved, pouring out onto the ground. "Would you like another, Amamiya-kun, or do you know who your warden is?"

Fight.

"I think…" Ren's chest contracted and wheezed for air, but he mustered enough to look Kobayakawa in the eye and spit. "You'll regret doing that."

Kobayakawa laughed, closing his eyes and throwing his head back. Ren watched as the man's body shook with delight. He watched until something far more interesting came into view: a blue butterfly, shimmering with particles of light, flew over the fat man.

" You've been dealt a losing hand, Trickster, " a girl said. No one else reacted to it, so Ren assumed it was just another one of the voices in his head. They were becoming too normal. " Your chances of winning are almost none."

She doesn't know your odds…

The butterfly hovered above Kobayakawa as the laughing ended. "Such a pitiful kid. I mean, your guardian is a fucking crimelord. How much worse can it get for you? How shit were your parents to give you to him?" the fat man taunted. His hands found Ren's face, pinching Ren's cheeks as they continued their standoff of eye contact. "Eh, what do I care? They must've been junkies that traded you for a fix. No matter. You're just another inmate for me to break."

"Akira Kurusu, do you wish for more?" a new voice said, this one much deeper than the others. It sounded like someone Ren knew before, a figure with authority and guidance, but he couldn't place a face to the voice. "What do you need to change the hearts of the despicable villains you always find?"

You need more. Accept the offer, then you will have it all.

Kobayakawa cocked back his arm for the next gut punch. Ren hated the man with every ounce of his body to the point of not even remembering why. He wanted to cast the guards from his sides and lunge at Kobayakawa, teach him the true meaning of respect, and tear the prison to the ground. The inmates inside would find their freedom in Ren's fury.

"Your will is strong, Kurusu. Very well." Ren's head throbbed, a pain so much stronger than anything else he felt that day that he forgot the situation around him. " I am thou, thou art I… Thou who art willing to perform all sacrilegious acts for thine own justice!"

Ren screamed as the pain erupted across the rest of his body. He was stabbed from every direction with fiery needles, each one pricking his skin and digging into the flesh beneath it. His blood curdled and his muscles began to melt, all the pain traveling back up to his head.

"Call upon my name, and release thy rage! Show the strength of thy will to ascertain all on thine own, though thou be chained to Hell itself!"

Ren's head pulsed as a gust of wind exploded from him. The pain vanished instantly and everyone in the room backed away, including the guards that once held Ren in place. His head hung forward and his limbs swung limp, his body almost devoid of energy after the pain he just experienced.

His face grew heavier as a metal mask replaced skin.

"Take it off, Ren!" Morgana shouted from the corner. A guard ran over to silence the cat, but he didn't make it in time. Morgana leaped out from the bed with surprising strength. "Zorro!" Another gust of wind, this one stronger than Ren's, blasted the shadow off its feet and onto the ground. The cat jumped atop the shadow, then looked at Ren. "What're you waiting for?!"

Remove it.

Ren brought his bony, pale fingers to the edge of the mask. He started to peel the mask from his face, taking skin along with it. Pain was no longer an issue—Ren felt worse than that. Blood poured as the mask separated flesh from his face, then it was over.

The mask came off.

Ren looked upward with eyes of enlightenment, power coursing through him more than the blood he used to consider so important. Blood turned to fire as Ren's body abandoned its previous rules. His clothes were consumed in the blue fire as they changed into a black coat, sharp on its edges and flowing in the back. His undershirt transformed into a plated vest, giving his chest some protection if he would ever need it.

Fire burst from him, transforming into a massive nine-foot figure in front of him. Kobayakawa backed away, eyes wide at the sight of true power. "Arsène!" Chains appeared in the fire, holding Ren and Arsène together with divine might. "Ravish them!"

Arsène lunged forward. One arm sent a guard flying into a wall followed by immediate dissipation. His other arm, this one wielding a knife, sliced clean through the middle of a guard. Again, it gave no fight as it vanished from existence. Only Kobayakawa, Morgana, Arsène, and Ren remained.

This was it—his Persona. It would be his way to a new life for himself, to make things better in the shithole he called home. Maybe he could even—

"I will have your head!" Kobayakawa yelled. He reached into his pocket, surely to procure his own weapon, but Arsène didn't give him the chance. He swiped upward with his knife and the fat arm fell to the butcher's floor. Kobayakawa screamed and backed away, his shrill howl echoing through the prison. Ren looked across the walkway to confirm what he already knew—the defeated students in the neighboring cell gave him their full attention.

Ren stepped off the wall and walked towards Kobayakawa. Arsène stood behind him, forcing Kobayakawa to scoot back into the stone wall just as Ren had earlier. The fat warden clawed at where his arm used to be, but it did nothing to quell the screaming, the cries of pain, the songs of anguish that came from his mouth.

A sickening crunch came from behind Ren. He spun around, looking up at his floating Persona. "Arsène?" The Persona's neck broke with another stomach-churning noise, then the rest of his body followed suit. Each limb contorted itself in its most disturbing way. Arsène's arm bent around his back, splitting open at the elbow. Legs folded up and inward, cracking along their jagged joints. His head writhed around his shoulders as his neck continued to break itself as if it had a will of its own.

The crunching stopped and Arsène floated still, his body a tortured mess of limbs, blue fire, and fashionable clothing. "Akira… Kurusu… You—"

A bundle of barbed spikes shot out from Arsène's stomach. The opening went upward, his entire chest revealing its innards and something far more sinister. A metallic black thorax forced its way out, jutting from the disgusting stomach of Arsène. The thorax consisted of shimmering rows, so black that Ren could see the light of the blue fire reflecting off of them.

Arms sprouted from the thorax, grabbing onto the sides of Arsène's gaping wound and pulling more of the thorax from the flesh. As the wound got wider, more and more began to seep from it. Flies started to erupt as Ren could finally see through Arsène at the wall on the other side of the cell.

Each time a fly escaped the wound, two more began their journey outward. And so, they multiplied enough for a swarm to cover the grotesque display from Ren's eyes, blocking the rest of Arsène's death. Exponentially, the flies continued to muster.

"I don't know what's happening, Ren! You have to try to—" A new swarm shot towards Morgana, enveloping him in buzzing silence. Ren reached an arm out to the cat—a caring act that surprised him—but it failed to change the cat's fate. Almost as soon as the flies were on Morgana, they were gone and so were the remains of the cat.

Morgana vanished, consumed entirely by the swarm.

Ren looked back to Arsène, who seemed to be receiving the same treatment. His stylish clothes and fire were quelled by a swarm for each limb and body part. The only thing they didn't cover was his center, where two giant eyes, both orange and crackling with sinister energy, sat ready to awaken once their host was truly overwhelmed.

More crunches brought two see-through wings rising from Arsène's back, showing a massive wingspan of at least fifteen feet that struggled to expand within the confined cell.

The flies disappeared from where Arsène used to be. Where the cocky gentleman thief once stood now belonged to the hulking Lord of the Flies. Multiple jagged arms and legs protruded from the thorax, one bearing a scepter with a skull at its top.

A name appeared in Ren's consciousness. "Beelzebub," he whispered. The fly vanished with a burst of flame, and Ren was all alone with Kobayakawa, just as he wanted. He spun around to tower over the pitiful man. His coat danced across the bloody body, then fell still on the moist stone floor.

Ren crouched down to look Kobayakawa in the eye. The formerly-proud bully sat whimpering, his eyes clenched shut and his hand stuck to his empty arm socket.

"Did you think I was lying?"

He stood from his crouch, promptly kicking Kobayakawa's head into the wall with his pointed black boot. It knocked consciousness from the principal, sending him sliding down the stone wall and onto the floor. Ren grabbed the key that one of the guards dropped on the ground, exited the cell, then locked it behind him.

Truthfully, he wanted to explore—to experiment with his new power—but he knew better. If the cat wasn't lying, he had spent his morning in an alternate dimension. Best not to test his limits, especially when he felt so exhausted. He reached into his new pocket, a leather pouch on the inside of his coat. Surprisingly, his phone remained when his clothes changed. He withdrew it and opened up the so-called Meta-Nav.

All it took was a press of the big red button, and the same head-pounding pain from earlier that morning returned.


A/N: Need a little more time to finish the second chapter. It'll either be uploaded later today or early tomorrow morning. Thanks for reading!