"You look like you tried to have a boxing match with a blender and lost." Takeyoshi commented, one eyebrow raised as he unwrapped a roll of gauze, freshly dipped in holy water. Thankfully, my injuries had stopped bleeding by now, and were healing surprisingly quickly, but they still hurt like a motherfucker. Making my way back here took the whole day, even at a sprinting pace- I could definitely stand to get used to the ability to sprint around seemimgly to no end. Apparently being a metaphysical entity brought with it more than just hassles.

"Geeze, thanks for your concern." I glared at the kid- and seeing him with "anime glasses" on, as I'd come to refer to my new type of vision was a peculiar experience. So many details were just… gone, but at the same time, his previously next-to-nonexistant eyes, so small that they were behind his hair, had become large. Uncomfortably so.

"You're welcome." He just replied back evenly.

I rolled my eyes. "I finally managed to make some sense of the ghost situation. Sorta. I still don't know what you did to me for me to end up in this situation- wait, actually. You said you were putting together some sort of analysis on my situation, right? How did that come along?"

He hummed thoughtfully. "Well, thank you for finally asking about the thing I spent the last week researching while you were out and about getting cut up. And... well, so far all evidence seems to point towards the idea of you either being a benevolent spirit" I snorted, causing him to sigh. "Yeah, that's what I figured as well, and it's not like any religion that I could put my hands on would create symbolism to repel benevolent spirits. So instead, the other idea is that you're just some sort of soul, a conscience unbound by a body... but of course, it's just a theory with no real evidence beyond vaguely agreeing testimonies."

I glanced at the multitude of religious iconography he had ordered on his bed, sorted in two piles. "But is it from any one specific religion?"

He shook his head. "No, and that's kind of the thing- rather than only one or no symbol or holy item having an effect on you, it was multiple. Of course, this effect only really chalked up to you being able to touch them, but it's more than what I imagined, especially from conflicting spiritual beliefs." he sighed, rubbing his forehead.

"And lastly, the symbols that didseem to work all belonged to either religions that are widely known, even if not practiced, like the Ankh, or to religions that are extremely practiced, such as the trio of Christianity, Judaism and Islam, Buddhism, and so on..." I just kept on looking at Takeyoshi with wide eyes, as he turned to me and seemed to notice my expression. "Are you even following?"

"I wouldn't be so fucking impressed if I wasn't." He made some sort of pleased noise at that as I thought on what he said. That... checked out with what I knew of the game. "And I actually can shed some light on things. First of all, what's publically available about-"

Takeyoshi's expression grew pinched as the previously normal conversation between the two elderly japanese people downstairs turned heated. "Your grandparents are really going at it. What they say?"

"Unflattering things about my mother's influence on me I would rather not repeat." He sighed bitterly. "And grandfather specifically is being rather racist towards Americans."

I winced. "Yikes."

"Just... go on. Ignore them."

"Right… as I was saying, what's publically available about cognitive psience?"

"Cognitive science, as in… perception, emotions, things like that? It's a field of science like any other." he turned around to show me his monitor which had, unsurprisingly, a Wikipedia page on cognitive science.

I shook my head. "Psience. I'm not sure what the P stands for, but it's a different thing entirely."

"Then, nothing."

"That makes explaining things... both easier and harder." I rubbed my forehead. "Ok, so. Where to start from..."

"The source of your injuries, perhaps? I assume you didn't fall into a priest's razor collection."

"Right. Overlapping with your reality is a collection of... personal realities, I guess you could call them, called Palaces." I could already see his brows furrowing in confusion. "Basically, a place where reality is warped into what an individual perceives it to be like."

"Does everyone have one?"

"Good question. No. Or rather... there's a palace, if you could call it that, which houses collective unconscious of people is, and it houses all of the normal people, and then there's actual palaces, which are formed when someone's perception of reality is intensely skewed from what is normal."

He snorted before replying bitterly. "Well, wow. I would not have expected reality itself to treat neurodivergent people differently."

I squinted. Where had *that* come from? "No, that's... I mean, I guess. But I was referring more to rapists, assassins, CEOs, people generally out of touch with reality."

He coughed into his fist. "Right, of course. Continue."

I was about to resume before a thought came to me. "...I'm surprised by how well you're taking to this."

"I am talking to the intangible manifestation of a soul who is not falling through the floor only because it was recently waxed." He deadpanned. "But I'm not yet believing you, just... taking it all in before judging."

"Continuing on..." I squinted. I was about to enter the realm of technically speculation, but in general, it was pretty weird how unacknowledged in the game it went that the personas the protagonist welcomed were, presumably, human souls. "In general, this place is also where people go to back to after they die and go to the Sea of Souls, I think. And they manifest in the form of monsters from mythology, folklore and general belief called Shadows." His eyebrows shot up farther.

"So dying turns people into monsters? And you went up against one of them?"

"Not quite. I'm not suicidal, and without gear I'm definitely not winning that fight."

"But something did happen."

"Getting to that. Talking about how to defend oneself from those monsters... the entire alternate dimension is, as far as I'm aware, not conducive to continued human survival, though I'm not entirely sure why. That's where Personas come in." I raised a finger to stop the incoming question.

"A persona is also a monster of sorts, harboring from mythos, fiction, et cetera. However, rather than being the way a soul presents itself, it's a manifestation of your ego. Typically the two ingredients to make a Persona appear while in a palace are an outstanding sense of self and..." I was about to say desire to rebel, but even that seemed too specific to me. Besides, weren't there more persona games? I'm pretty sure those didn't have rebellion against society as a theme. "A trigger. I'm not too sure, but I imagine danger, stress, et cetera will do. The will to rebel against the circumstances." There, slipped it in, just in case. "Together with the persona typically the person obtains clothes and weapons that can defend them."

"But you don't have a persona." Takeyoshi noted. "So how do you know all this?"

"Because while stalking someone who does and was journeying through a palace, I accidently startled them and had a brief tussle. I ran away. Because ghost powers, and though I'm not keen to try, I'm pretty sure they can't harm me in this place." Unsaid went that Morgana turning back into a cat made him rather unconcerning in terms of threats to my life, but then again, that would require explaining that my assailant was a talking cat.

"Fair enough… are these persona users common?"

"Not really. Especially because things would be a lot worse if they were…" I sighed. "Uh, I assume you've been following the news about the mental shutdowns?"

"Yes- are you implying that-" I just nodded. "...is it a situation where if the version of them in that world dies, they also die in real life?"

I blinked. "Yes. You have to kill the actual shadow of the person, rather than just any manifestation of them, but that's pretty much it."

His gaze steeled. "I see." He was deep in thought, for a while, before sighing. "Despite my excitement for what this might entail, do you have anything that I can have as proof of what you say?"

"Didn't you say-"

"Oh, believe me, I want this to be true. But, well. 'The ghost that only I can see told me about a whole dimension lying right under our own and I can summon a monster fueled by my desire to rebel against society like some sort of isekai anime' won't fly, well, anywhere, and I'm admittedly a little skeptical, if only out of self-preservation instincts. Admittedly, I'm also not sure why you're telling me all of this." He paused, before pointing the pencil he'd begun twirling in his fingers towards me. "By the way, this Sea of Souls which you say all souls come from before going to the alternate dimension. Is that where you come from?"

I scowled. "No. I just overheard the shadows talking about it. And they can't exit palaces anyways."

"Fair enough…" Takeyoshi sighed. "Well, I'm still grounded so it's not like I can be any help. But it's not like you're pressed for time, are you? I mean, we're wondering how to get you back to wherever you came from, but aside from that..." he asked, though his question wasn't rethorical.

He didn't know about the potential end of his world, of the Phantom Thieves that were yet to be a thing, about… well, everything. In hindsight, I'm not even sure why I told him anything- I guess not talking to anyone for days on end was getting to me, and I just ended… getting everything out.

"I'm definitely not going against shadows on my own. But I also don't have money to buy myself any equipment…" What could I do? Palaces seemed to be the only source of wealth, but again, practically suicide. And again, I could only interact with the "meta" part of this metaphysical world.

"Tell you what." he said, interrupting my thoughts as he fixed the glasses on his face with a devious grin. The glasses actually shone to cover his eyes, much to my amusement. "You work on getting me the proof that I want, and by the time you're back, I should have gotten rid of my grounding and some equipment ready for you. Besides, you have a phone now, so we should be able to stay in contact, right?"

"...you know we're talking about like, melee weapons, guns, possibly body armor…" I trailed off. "They don't necessarily need to be real, but they do need to look the part."

"If they don't even need to be real, that'll be twice as easy. I can picture it already, and the costs shouldn't be too prohibitive."

I squinted incredulously at him. He could throw around that kind of money? "Just what kind of twelve-year-old are you?"

"The type that talks to ghosts, obviously."

My wariness did not last long- not too long, anyways. Perhaps I'd ought to have been more careful in my approach- but truthfully, despite my words on the matter spoken with Takeyoshi, I was raring to have another go.

Being to Kamoshida's palace was… frightening. It was even more disgusting than I'd seen in the game, though still under the protective layer of low poly PS3 graphics. Following Morgana around, escaping the shadows, the tussle was probably the scariest experience in my life.

It was also… fantastic. The adrenaline rush was like no other- sure, I'd gotten thrown out of a window, and had a gale blast me while cutting gashes into my arms. But I'd survived! I'd healed! And I didn't even break anything in the first place, skin aside. Maybe I was extremely lucky, or maybe there was a reason that I didn't get hurt that much, but… I wanted to be there again so badly.

It was probably- no, surely because of the fact that I could have so little real world interaction. There was only so much harassing a twelve year old that I could do before feeling like a bully, and no one else saw me. Besides, plans were forming in my mind.

I did have the Metaverse app now, thanks to my brief jaunt inside of it. That made a world of difference- I actually had no luck whatsoever figuring out what Morgana's method was, I just… well, followed him, abusing the fact that you just need to be in proximity with someone doing the transport in order to follow them.

A hop, a skip, and a keyword away from reality, I now stood in a creepy, corrupted version of the subway system. Absolutely jamming with its theme.

Now Playing - Mementos

This place was massive. It was already completely oversized for a bus- couple that with the fact that I was not, in fact, a cat and thus had no ability to transform into one, made travel all the slower. Still, I was not deterred. Being smaller- and most definitely more silent- could only serve me, as while this place was the stomping ground of low level personas such as Pixies and Jack o' Lanterns… well, I had no Persona at all.

Thus, I made my way, a small stolen side purse at my hip. I was a bit sad to be stealing from a priest, but at least I only stole that, rather than the whole thing with his documents and money?

I'd wondered how Joker carried so many items into battle, attributing it to just being video game logic… but then again, this was a video game. And I was proven right- the satchel was like a bag of holding, stretching on further than what was reasonable of it.

Shortly after beginning my trek, I encountered what I was looking to find- random junk. It wasn't floating cubes as in the game, but it was still what I expected. Balls of yarn, small tin and copper objects, fruit and stones.

Being quite literally starved, I was perhaps too excited about this sort of thing, especially picking up fruit off the ground. At least it didn't look like it'd gone bad. I began eating any fruit I found off the ground, looking to keep my strength up- especially as I began feeling a milder version of the headache I'd felt when I first found out about this world's nature.

The shadows here were massive. Sure, Kamoshida's palace had seven feet tall knights- but these massive hulks made of black matter and masks? Easily over ten feet. Yikes.

Hard to believe that a Pixie could hide behind all that.

Of course, I didn't stick around to find out- waiting for it to run its patrol, I clung to the shadows, making myself as small and non-visible as I could.

I continue picking up random objects until I come across just what I'm looking for- a chest. Its bizarre, stocky appearance does nothing to dissuade me from letting out an eager giggle at the fact that I am in an actual dungeon opening up an actual treasure chest.

Beneath an impressive layer of dust and grime that had me scrunching up my nose, I managed to fish out… several items, actually. The clothes inside were absolutely unsalvageable- I think you could put them in the laundromat in the game, but… no, just no. Maybe once I had a more reliable access to cleaning supplies, but not right now.

More interestingly, I found a dagger. A blue blade and cool to the touch, it was wicked sharp. I'd actually never held a weapon prior to this, only kitchen knives, and this was no kitchen knife. Way longer- maybe like a gladius.

It was also pleasantly cool to hold, and a flurry of snowflakes followed in its wake when I tested out a swing. Huh.

Sheathing it again, I put it in my purse. While I would extract this again if forced to fight, I lacked the skill to use such a thing.

Admittedly, I wondered how exactly the party learned how to fight. I don't really remember, though I think Makoto mentions being trained in Aikido, Morgana is an exception, and I don't believe that swinging a blunt object around is the epitome of difficulty, so Ryuji is also explained. Akechi, ironically, is also part of the "I get it" gang, if only because the way I remember him fighting with his sword is sticking it point first into bad people.

But Joker's acrobatic footwork and CQC skills despite not knowing how to punch a drunk guy? Yusuke, the guy with not even enough money to buy himself food knowing how to hold the edge alignment on his katana? Ann being able to kill shadows with a whip?

Those are definitely skills that they didn't have prior to the Metaverse. And definitely something I'm not able to replicate. So yes, the dagger is definitely better than punching shadows, but only just, and whenever it's not in its sheath, I feel as though it might be an attention sink to make sure I don't accidently stick it in myself.

I'm, admittedly, more than a little scared of sharp objects.

As I hum to myself, eager to move on and find more loot, I notice in the distance something peculiar. A shadow, running full tilt. At first my heart leaps in my throat because it's running towards me, before it rounds the bend, ignores where I am next to the chest, and moves on towards where I came from.

A moment later, my unspoken question is answered by the sounds of chains dragging, and after a moment, I can barely hear it over the sound of my heart pounding in my ears and my breath speeding up.

The… the reaper.

It wasn't supposed to be here- I'd even considered his presence. But he- you don't- he's supposed to be there from the second set of levels onward. Of course, telling that to the black silhouette with blood-red flames dancing around him might be slightly difficult.

But… it's okay, I can just run, he doesn't start-

I scream as he points one of his guns at me, the only thing protecting me being the chest which gets blown to bits, stony debris raining around me. A dark, chilling laughter fills the halls as he raises his other gun.

I don't wait for him to shoot me this time.

Running full tilt, headache making my head swim but not daring to slow down for even a moment as my ears start ringing- whether it's from the fact I'm not breathing properly or the gunshot unknown right now.

I don't stop when I hop up onto the platform and out of the railroads.

I don't stop when I'm up the automatic staircase that leads outside.

Honestly, I don't even stop when the distortion fails to hold around me as I get too far from the subway system for me to still be in Mementos.

I only stop when I quite literally run into a wall.

Heart pounding in my chest that's threatening to explode, I feel my knees give out.

Right.

That's… quite literally death. The reaper.

As my senses slowly come back to me, I can only think one thing.

Fuck Mementos. Fuck Yaldabaoth. Honestly, fuck even Igor for playing this stupid game to begin with.

But most of all.

Fuck the Reaper.

Niles bites off more than he can chew. It's almost as if exploring the Metaverse without a Persona at your side is dangerous.

Also, I have two new fics now! If you like Pokémon or Monster Girl Quest, I recommend you check them out. The latter, of course, is 18+.

If you wish to support my writing, you can check me out on the place of patrons where I post five chapters ahead. Alternatively, you can always PM me in private if you wish to commission something written where we can hash out the details. Otherwise, a review is still more than enough, and I can't be thankful enough for it.

Drink water, stay awesome. Nick of Name, out. :)