Makoto was violently shoved to the left. She caught a glimpse of Ryuji's grimace of effort as he flung her, then he turned towards the shikigami and Makoto instinctively looked towards the metal floor rushing up to her face. She brought her arms up. Tumbled and rolled. God, Ryuji was stronger than she thought!

"Kidd!" yelled Ryuji from behind her.

"Carmen!" yelled Ann.

KZZACK!

FWOOSH!

A terrible shriek chilled Makoto's heart. She rolled up to her knees, head whipping around to see what had happened behind her. Ann was clutching her left side, a torrent of blood was leaking through both her hands, her eyes amazingly wide, her face alarmingly pale. She fell to her knees, still clutching herself.

The paper man was smoking from two new burning wounds, but its blood-stained claws were raised for another attack.

"Ann!" yelled Ryuji, his voice taking on a hysterical tone. "KIDD!"

A blinding light forced Makoto to close her eyes and look away.

BOOM!

Makoto forced her eyes open, blinking away an arcing after-image. The shikigami's right arm was gone, as was half its shoulder; but, if that was a true injury to the creature, it didn't show it. The paper man only seemed off-balance, and it stumbled backwards a few steps. Meanwhile, Ryuji staggered on his feet, defiantly between the shikigami and his sister. But he was shaking all over, and Makoto was sure it wasn't fear; Ryuji's persona attacks were using him up, draining him just as effectively as Ann's wound.

Settling itself, the shikigami moved forward again, clearly intending to finish off the Sakamotos, its remaining arm already rising in anticipation of a strike. Makoto raised her own arm, aiming her gun at the creature's remaining arm. It wouldn't work, but she had to do something! Maybe the force of the bullet could deflect the blow just enough to-

"Zorro!" yelled Morgana.

A gale of wind roared past Makoto, knocking her forward onto her hands and knees. The wind reached the shikigami; it staggered, then disintegrated into a swarm of ofuda papers, dispersing upon the wind as it roared around the walls of the room.

Makoto glanced to the wind's source: a gasping and grimacing Ren, on his knees near the far wall, bleeding profusely from his chest, was lowering his left arm. His agonized eyes met Makoto's. She knew the look. She'd seen him grievously injured before- just because he could heal didn't mean he couldn't feel the wound.

"Help the girl!" said Ren, coughing briefly. "It's not dead!"

Not dead! But it was just a swarm of paper! Makoto's eyes tracked the ofuda flying around the room, and now that Ren mentioned it, they seemed to be moving with more purpose than inert litter should show. It wasn't just billowing about- it was gathering. It was reconstituting itself. God!

Makoto couldn't do anything about it, but maybe she could do something about Ann! She scrambled on hands and feet, half-crawling and half running over to Ann, who was still kneeling, clutching her side, eyes wide and unseeing, her breath short and sharp, a large pool of her own blood gathering around her knees.

"Ann!" said Makoto. "Hold on."

Makoto skidded to a stop on her knees, hands nervously hovering near Ann's blood-drenched hands. What was best to do? Makoto was no doctor, but she'd read a few books, and the obvious first step was to stem the bleeding. Makoto reached up under her own breastplate, under her corset, and she gathered up fist-fulls of her own sweaty undershirt and tore with all her strength, splitting the fabric up the middle to her neck, and then wrenching as much as she could back out from under her armor.

Makoto wanted to use the cloth to stop the bleeding; Oh! And she needed to elevate the wound, right? But it was in Ann's middle!

"Ann! Ann, listen to me," said Makoto, laying a hand on Ann's cheek, finding the skin to be cool and sweaty. She leaned in suddenly, trying to get the attention of Ann's staring eyes. The girl's pupils were large and dark. "Ann, you need to lay on your right side!"

Ann's eyes twitched only slightly at Makoto's touch, her breathing shallow and sharp. She didn't respond. Lacking any other option, Makoto pushed Ann gently to the ground, laying her wound up. She pushed Ann's hands away, blood pulsing rivers through the shredded leather of Ann's inadequate leather armor. Her hands had not been doing much to stop the flow. Makoto crumpled up her own shirt shreds and stuffed them atop Ann's wound, hard.

Ann blinked and screamed. Makoto's left eardrum almost popping. Ann struggled, her eyes now fully awake and intent on what Makoto was doing, her bloody hands coming around to instinctively fend off Makoto's efforts.

"Ann, don't!" said Makoto, resisting Ann's desperate clawing. "I have to stop the bleeding! Hold this! Do you hear me! Hold this!"

Ann's eyes were no longer dilated, though she wasn't looking at Makoto. Ann's hands stopped trying to interfere, but they didn't try to hold the cloth to her wound, either. Ann instead propped up her own head, as if intending to curl up for a nap. The blood of her hands staining her cheek.

"They died like this?" mumbled Ann, as Makoto desperately reached under her armor again for more cloth. The previous scraps were already dark red and saturated, blood still gushing from underneath.

"All those girls... sliced open like this? While people watched… laughing and drinking…?"

Ann was becoming delirious. She was losing too much blood. She needed a doctor, but there wasn't one. And what would a doctor do? Makoto wasn't entirely sure. It probably involved sewing? But all Makoto had was torn cloth, and Ann's blood was soaking it, dripping from it, dripping all over the stone floor, already funneling into the strange grooved flooring, all of it streaming away to whatever device collected it.

"Zorro!"

Makoto glanced up. Ren had regained his feet and advanced to the center of the room, his left arm held out before him. A thick swarm of ofuda was again swirling in the air. The shikigami must have rebuilt itself enough to require another gust of wind. Morgana was keeping the creature at bay, but how much stamina did the symbiote have? Did it too have blood of some sort to power its own persona? Did it use Ren's energy? Makoto had no idea, but it surely wasn't infinite. They were only buying time, but Ann didn't have much of that.

Meanwhile, Ryuji was bent over, hands on his own knees, gasping for breath. If he had the strength for one more persona attack, it would certainly be his last- he looked like he could barely stand.

Makoto felt Ann move under her hands. She returned her attention to Ann, and found the young woman struggling to stand.

"Ann, you need to stay still and-!" Makoto's voice died in her throat as she saw Ann's expression: A twisted snarl, veins bulging under pale skin, and flame dancing within the native blue of her eyes. "Ann! What-?!"

Makoto felt a slight tug upon the hand she was using to hold Ann's side together. She glanced down. Blood was going back inside Ann's wound. The torn cloth, previously dyed dark red, was lightening, part of it already returning to a pristine white. Shocked, Makoto withdrew her hand, and even the blood dripping from her palms, instead of falling to the floor, fell into Ann's open wound.

Now filled with wonder, Makoto helped Ann gain her footing, and as she did so, saw that the blood flowing along the rivets in the metal flooring had also reversed course- it was flowing towards Ann's feet, a steady stream already traveling up her legs, back up to her side.

Meanwhile, Ren and Ryuji were both taking weary steps back from a reforming shikigami. It was nearly whole once more, though notably shorter, perhaps reduced by whatever amount of ofuda previously destroyed. Both men were oblivious to Ann's astounding miracle. Ren needed to see! He might know what was happening!

"Ren!" shouted Makoto.

Ren's left arm sank slightly off target. (("Hey!" said Morgana.)) But Ren's head turned sharply at Makoto's tone, his eyes first going to hers, then shifting slightly to Ann. Ren's mouth opened slightly, his eyes going wide with surprise and- fear? His left hand dropped, Morgana's impending air blast forgotten. His other hand suddenly moved to the long cuts in his chest, apparently trying to stop the bleeding, though it already seemed to have significantly slowed. But whatever suction Ann's body was exhibiting must then have reached Ren, as droplets of his blood suddenly began drifting through the air, floating rapidly towards Ann.

Ren grew more panicked, his hand leaving the wound in a futile effort to scoop back the droplets already floating through the air, but now his wound was bleeding more and even more droplets were beginning their flight.

"Makoto!" shouted Ren, his eyes wide. "Get down!"

"What?!" shouted Makoto, as Ren suddenly sprinted towards Ryuji and tackled the oblivious young man to the ground. What the hell was he doing?! The shikigami was almost atop them! And-!

Makoto's arm suddenly felt very, very hot. She looked back at the young woman she was holding, and instead found a human-shaped fire. Makoto took a shocked step back, jerking her body away from the heat, which was growing as Ann's fiery form grew brighter.

Makoto dove for the floor.

"Dance, Carmen!"

Ann's form exploded outward, a burst of light, heat, and boiling fire. Makoto's eyes closed instinctively, she buried her face into her own arms, curling her hands over the top of her head and feeling her fingers begin to burn. The armor all along her body grew hot. Above the roar of fire and the hissing of unseen things surrendering to the heat, Makoto heard a keening scream that was just barely recognizable as human.

God! Ann was going to cook them all!

Makoto, alone in an inferno, lost herself to panic and fear. She screamed, her voice lost amidst the cacophony surrounding her. She screamed her lungs empty, her lips seeming to sear, her teeth feeling hot from the brief exposure to air, but when she tried to inhale for another scream, her lungs seemed to fill, but they were somehow unsatisfied. She was breathing but not breathing. The hot air hurt in her chest, but Makoto could do nothing but gasp, breathe out, and attempt another inhale, but again, it was as if the air held no substance.

Then the bright red heat on the other side of Makoto's eyelids faded to darkness. The heat faded. But Makoto's mind was fixated on her own lungs. They weren't working! She gasped uselessly again. Then the air billowing through her arms felt markedly less hot upon her cheeks, and her next gasping breath took. Makoto's lungs filled with satisfaction. Finally. She gasped, coughed, gasped again. Fresh tears streaming down her cheeks. And she suddenly felt damp all over, her body catching up with the times and beginning to sweat, trying its biological best to combat the rise in temperature.

The roaring inferno was gone, but an orchestra of intermittent hissing and popping noises assailed her ears. The super-heated arena was cooling. But what of the battle? Was it over? Makoto raised her head cautiously.

The octagon was pitch black, the ceiling lights apparently a casualty of the inferno.

"The fuck...?" coughed Ryuji's voice from somewhere in the dark. He was obviously alive.

"Reh-" Makoto coughed, too. Her throat was surprisingly dry. "Ren?"

"Here." Ren's voice was nearby, but Makoto's eyes were useless in the blackness. Then a faint green glow briefly formed in the dark. Makoto saw a glimpse of Ren kneeling over Ann, his left hand pressed to her side, and then the vision was lost to the darkness. Ren was checking Ann's wounds. He was pressing Morgana to Ann's side?

Makoto scrambled to her hands and knees, desperate to help, but realizing she could do nothing while blind. She froze and simply stared into the darkness where she'd seen Ren a moment before, resisting the urge to grope out in the dark with her hands. If they were attacked right now, they were totally defenseless!

"Ren, the-?"

"Destroyed," said Ren, "This room is slagged, and I don't hear anything nearby. We're safe, for now."

Makoto let out a sigh of relief. That was certainly an improvement.

"Ann?" called out Ryuji.

"She's here, Ryuji," said Makoto, "Ren is helping her."

"She okay?"

"She needs Dr. Takemi," said Ren, which wasn't the most comforting thing to hear in the dark.

There was a scuffle in the dark, perhaps Ryuji attempting to stand. Then a thumping noise, a hiss of pain, and some muttered cursing. Ryuji had injured himself on something, they really needed some light. Oh! That was something she could do, obviously! Makoto groped at her hip lantern and shook it. She felt the sloshing of liquid inside. Lucky the thing hadn't exploded during the inferno. Makoto found her flint in her pocket, cursed herself again for not thinking of mechanical firestarters. After three strikes, a spark landed upon the wick and the lantern warmed to light and life.

The small globe of light revealed Ren nearby, still kneeling over Ann, his face grim and intent on his efforts to wrap Ann's wound. Ann was incredibly pale, her breathing seemed light, even her hair seemed lighter blond than it used to be.

Ryuji limped into the light, his face red and burned, his expression a mixture of pain and worry. "Did she go too big? Did her persona hurt her?"

That was a good question. Persona magic utilized the user's blood, and the more powerful the effect, the more blood was used- or so Morgana had explained. But Ryuji had blown up a table and passed out from the effort. Ann had just slagged an entire arena of stone and metal- was she just more powerful than her brother; or? Makoto's recalled the strange suction of blood back towards Ann's body, and Ren's odd, panicked efforts to contain his own blood, to keep it from reaching Ann... Questions boiled up in Makoto's mind, but she bit her lip and held them back. Now was not the time to bombard Ren with questions.

"It didn't kill her, but she can't afford to lose any more blood," came Morgana's muffled voice. Ren's left hand, Morgana's usual home, was pressed against Ann's wound, apparently interfering with his ability to talk aloud.

Ren glanced at them both. "Why don't you two do something useful and find a way out of here?"

Makoto felt chagrin at the tone. It was true, she was being useless again. Losing herself to panic. Groping in the dark. "Right. Ryuji, you can light your lantern from mine. Let's search the room."

"But we already tested all the walls," said Ryuji.

That was true, but it had been a hurried search, so maybe they'd missed something. Maybe Ann's inferno had changed something. And Makoto had a nagging thought about Ann's fire and her own inability to breathe...

Once, as a child, she had placed a jar over a small candle because it smelled nice and she'd wanted to capture the smoke to give to Mother. She'd become captivated by the rise of the smoke to the top of the jar and how it had pooled up there.

But then the candle had gone out. She'd wondered about that, but since her goal had been to capture smoke, didn't pursue the mystery. But now, after breathing in air that was not air, and having a room full of fire go out: this room was like a jar, and perhaps the fire used something in the air- something that people also needed, and when it ran out, the fire died.

If this room were a jar, then it was a very big jar; and Ann had become a very big candle. The fire ate the invisible thing in the air, ran out, and died. But after it died, Makoto and the others were soon able to breathe again… which meant more of the stuff in the air had entered the jar, which means there was a gap somewhere.

Makoto didn't want to explain her rapid-fire logical process, so she simply said: "Maybe the fire changed something. Let's check the walls again. Carefully this time."