Chapter 40

Why.

Honestly, just… why?

After Mitsuru's proclamation, Hamuko could only raise her eyes to the heavens and question what, exactly, had befallen S.E.E.S. to curse them with such rotten luck. Mitsuru had told them the bare minimum details about her situation, but the rest of the group had gotten the remaining information from the media itself. Hamuko was confident that no one in S.E.E.S. actually believed the rumors - everyone knew Mitsuru too well to think otherwise - but everyone had to agree that the universe truly had a funny way of messing with S.E.E.S.

Silence reigned in the room before Mitsuru broke it after a handful of seconds.

"Unfortunate placement," Mitsuru said, keeping her emotions tightly under wraps as always (though, Hamuko was ever so slightly starting to read her – seeing the normally-absent tenseness of her jaw, and the faintest traces of stiffness in her movements). "But regardless, we must move out. Myself included." She turned one sharp gaze towards Minato, and then Hamuko. "I will not be taking any arguments about this."

Hamuko blinked, before turning to Minato and meeting his gaze, as he had already turned towards her, his usual flavor of subdued amusement on his face. But one look from him was all Hamuko needed to confirm that:

"Er, I don't think either of us were gonna argue against you coming, Senpai." Hamuko turned back towards Mitsuru, cracking a small smile. "Certainly not if you want to come, too."

"…Whether I wish to come is irrelevant," Mitsuru replied, somewhat briskly as she put her hair up into a ponytail. "I must come – how else will you get your Shadow analysis?"

"Totally agree," Hamuko said as Minato nodded to her side. "But we appreciate it regardless."

"Excellent. Now, shall we go?" Mitsuru quickly walked past them, past the others in the room and towards the door. "There is no time to waste – I have a suspicion that this will not be an easy operation for us."

"…Not sure why," Minato muttered to Hamuko as they followed in her footsteps, along with the rest of S.E.E.S. "The rest have gone swimmingly."

Hamuko swatted him on his shoulder as they left the room and the door clicked shut behind them, with the dull tromps of heavy boots and the harsh clattering of sheathed weapons echoing into the room as S.E.E.S. departed – out into the waiting night.

Mission Start

DH:30 (30 Minutes into the Dark Hour)

"Do you see it?"

Mitsuru's voice rang in Hamuko's head. She was staying close to a wall in Shirakawa, with S.E.E.S. all approaching a single, enormous golden door. That door led to the premier room of Shirakawa Boulevard, and even without Mitsuru's "big old Shadow" readings (those may be Junpei's words, not Mitsuru's) pointing them directly to the room, Hamuko would've guessed that this is exactly where evil lay.

She could practically hear the boss music.

"Its hard to miss," Hamuko replied. She tried to relax and leave her stress at the door, but she was back in the saddle for another Full Moon mission and everyone's lives were riding on her and the last time it happened-

Hamuko closed her eyes, exhaled, and forcibly unclenched her fist.

"Hamu-tan," came Junpei's voice. Re-opening her eyes, Hamuko glanced behind her to look at Junpei, who wore the same combat outfit as the rest of S.E.E.S. but with fewer extraneous attachments, instead using most of his straps to keep his broadsword firmly strapped to his back. "What're you thinkin'?"

"...Approach with c-caution," she said, mentally slapping herself at the stutter. As she took a step forward, something small and furry brushed past her legs: Koromaru, trotting forward in a little dog-sized version of the combat gear.

(He had resisted wearing the gear initially, before being bribed by Minato with treats as Hamuko and Junpei fitted him. But to keep some manner of his pride intact, he had refused to wear the small helmet that had been specially made for him, instead going au naturel from the neck up.)

In addition to the combat gear, he also wore a silver collar with a blue dome on one side - a doggy evoker. Mitsuru had surprised them with it just the other day, and Koromaru had seemed very pleased with it, though they had yet to actually see it in use. Frankly, Hamuko had a few doubts about how well it would work… but, time would tell.

Koromaru also had sheathed daggers strapped to him, one on each of his shoulders. They were easily reachable by twisting his head to one side, clamping down on the handle with his teeth, and yanking it free of the velcro straps which secured it. Seeing that made Hamuko think of her own dagger, now shattered and useless, and dammit she really needed to stop thinking about emotional things-

Hamuko unclenched her fist again.

"You ok?"

The only reason Hamuko didn't flinch from Minato's voice was pure willpower. He had spoken off-link, and when Hamuko flipped around to see him, he was staring straight at the door, adjusting the straps on his pack while Koromaru arrived at the door and began to paw at it.

"...Yeah," she said. Then, with more emphasis, "Yes. Yes, I really am." Minato glanced over, and she gave him a smile, surprising herself at how easy it was. "It's butt-kicking time."

Minato huffed a quiet laugh, closing his eyes and shaking his head a bit. "Then go lead, butt-kicker."

Not bothering to respond beyond another quick half-smile, Hamuko straightened herself and strode forward. The smile dropped from her face as she and her companions came face to face with the golden door, as ominous and foreboding as the silence around them.

…Silence. How curious.

The Dark Hour was much quieter than the "normal hours," of course, but there were still plenty of occasional noises. You could go several minutes without hearing much of anything, but inevitably, you would hear the drips of blood-water falling to the ground, a Shadow's faint (or nearby) scream rending the night sky, fell air sweeping by your ears like a hoarse curse or your own footsteps crunching through the unnatural stillness.

But in Shirakawa, there wasn't a sound. Even S.E.E.S.' footsteps were muffled by the grand carpeting, seemingly leaving the group in a vacuum. And in front of the ominous door, the silence finally became too loud to ignore.

They knew something was here. Something knew they were here.

"Everyone ready?" Hamuko said, turning to look each of her current teammates in the eye. Each of them gave a nod (even Koromaru bobbed his head, Hamuko noticed with amusement), and Mitsuru replied with a "I am."

"Alright. On your guard, everyone."

Stepping forward, Hamuko pressed her hand against the door. She found herself wholly unsurprised that the door was absolutely frigid, but she winced as a static shock stung her.

"Heads up," she murmured on-link, "I have a feeling that this Shadow will be electricity oriented."

Her team took the comment in stride as she pushed open the door, and a cold wind whipped by her, rushing outwards into the hallway. Blinking her eyes quickly, Hamuko cast her gaze inside.

The room was exactly what you would expect to see behind such a ridiculously large gold door: Gaudy with a capital G. The main centerpiece of the room was a circular bed, only slightly larger than a car's length in diameter. Just like in Tartarus, the lack of electrical lighting did not signify a lack of mystical mood lighting, and every corner of the room glowed with a foggy purple hue, the light bouncing off the mirrors hanging from the walls. The floor was carpeted in a once-pretty beige circular pattern, while the ceiling was dressed in scarlet, with velvet frills hanging from the fringes. It was also absurdly high, nearly… twenty-five feet tall, it seemed?

Whatever the initial purpose of the stupidly tall ceiling, it was now serving the current tenants of the room very well. There were no people in the room: zero coffins were seen hovering above the ground. But the room did handily accommodate - without any property damage - a Full Moon Shadow, resting on top of the bed.

As Hamuko stared up at the Shadow, she could feel her heartbeat pounding through her, a specter of horror howling like a demon in her mind. But for some reason - one she couldn't quite figure out right now - gone was the sheer dread of the impossibility of squaring off against it.

No longer did she feel so helpless - even standing before a Full Moon Shadow.

Hamuko supposed that it showed just how "normal" this Shadow business was getting that she had assumed she would be prepared for this Shadow. After all, she was ready for it: she knew one was coming, and good grief, she had already seen so many other weird Shadows. What else could this one do, even if it looked like a man, sitting on a chair that had legs, but like, leg legs, and sprouting from its back was a woman, but instead of a head…

...Okay. It turned out, Hamuko was not ready for this Shadow.

The Shadow was several things in one being, and the more she looked, the more Hamuko felt her sanity slipping away (thankfully in a figurative sense). The central part of the Shadow was an amalgamation of an incredibly overweight man, a lithe woman, and a chair. The man sat in the chair, but noticeably had a small and worryingly blue head. It was intensely neon - the man's head probably would have worked as a blacklight (and in this room, that could be a problem). The rest of his body was abyss black, but he wore an approximation of a clergyman's uniform, with a bright red collar and cream-colored shirt with gold trimming running down the front where his buttons held the shirt together. He was nearly bursting out of his clothes, the shirt's buttons bulging as his large belly tested the absolute limits of Shadow seamstress skill.

Behind him rose a tall, slender woman. Her arms, hands, and entire torso (what was visible behind the man) were colored white and gold, and her skinny waist and breasts were… let's say hard to miss. She would be quite the candidate for an old school modeling agency, if it weren't for the unfortunate fact that her head wasn't all there. In fact, it wasn't there. In lieu of a head, there was an abstract gold ornament (with dull red gems at the edges), bent and twisted like it had been forgotten and melted in the sun.

Though the main Shadow body rested on the bed, there were also objects around it. Four Greek-styled columns stood at each corner of the bed, all adorned at the top with a statue of intertwined gender symbols - one male symbol and one female symbol per column. There was also a golden chair beneath the duo, mostly obstructed from view by the man. Of everything in the room, the chair was the closest to normal - so close! - but instead of chair legs, it had human-shaped legs, each as black as the man's body, with each of its four feet wearing little red heels.

(Upon seeing the heels, Hamuko had the unfortunate realization that the chair was likely the lower half of the woman. She almost cringed.)

Finally, rounding out the Shadow were two distinct figures just barely in front of the main body, each being a paper-cut approximation of a human. If you took the silhouette of a human, made it a foot or two taller and wider than normal, made all the edges square, and ensured that it was still 95% two-dimensional, you'd have an exact replica of the two things in front of the Shadow's main body. The only thing separating one from the other was a small symbol on their chests, each slightly different - one was a red rose, and the other was a black… star? It looked like a Star of David with a tail trailing down beneath.

The main body of the Shadow sat on top of the bed, which Hamuko could hear creaking and groaning even from across the room. The man trembled in pleasure - his legs kicking like a petulant child - as the woman's hands stroked his shoulders and caressed his head, while the two paper-like figures quivered in front like they were fighting (and very possibly losing) a battle with a strong gust of air.

Hamuko didn't want to tempt fate, but she had to say: even though the sight was pure madness, after the fight from last month, this particular Shadow did not strike fear into her heart.

However, that didn't mean that it (they?) should be taken lightly. Drawing her sword, Hamuko called through the link. "Everyone, do not engage yet! Mitsuru-Senpai, please scan the Shadow-"

The male Shadow turned its blue head towards Hamuko.

"-and everyone take cover!"

Only after saying that did Hamuko whirl around, scan for cover (noticing her teammates doing the same in her peripherals), and realize that there was none. Shirakawa had blown all their budget on bed and left none for literally any other furniture. (Well, there were those columns, but they were right next to the Shadow, and honestly Hamuko was fairly confident that they were part of the Shadow.)

Minato surged forward, evoker already in hand. He snapped it to his head and fired, glass bursting from his temple as Icarus materialized and flapped its wings, in front of both Hamuko and himself.

"Get your Personas out!" he said, voice ringing with confidence. "Cover yourselves with it!"

As the Shadow before them raised a chubby hand (the female Shadow also tilted its not-head towards them), Hamuko snatched her evoker from its holster and prepared to follow Minato's lead. She heard Junpei's Persona explode into the air, but she was mostly focused on the fingertip of the Shadow, where a small flash sparked.

In the past, Hamuko would compare electricity spells to particularly painful static shocks - short, straight, and to the point. One-and-done.

But not this time.

After the spark flew from the Shadow's hand, Hamuko felt a light pull in the air, like energy being drawn to a single point. On reflex, Hamuko drew one arm back to cover her face - a moment too late, it turned out - just as a flash of electricity shot out of the Shadow. The bolt arced, twisting and turning like it had life of its own, connecting with Icarus' chest. In the same instant, the Persona shattered and Minato stumbled backwards, almost tumbling to the ground as his knees wobbled. Hamuko snapped her arm out to steady him in the crook of her evoker-carrying arm, wincing from the momentary blindness and the loud BOOM caused by the Zio-type spell.

"You ok?" she said, ears ringing, blinking away the blinding flash in her eyes and willing herself to not tremble as she held her brother.

Minato grunted as he righted himself, sounding more annoyed than hurt.

"The Shadow is called the Hierophant!" Mitsuru called through the link. "It repels electricity, and nullifies light and dark spells!"

"Any weaknesses?!" Junpei yelled, readjusting his grip on his broadsword.

"There are none!"

Koromaru growled through the link. Stepping forward, he glared at the Shadow, hackles raised. Then he howled - and from the ether arrived an enormous dog accompanied by the familiar shattering of blue-tinted glass bursting out of his back.

Hamuko needed no extra knowledge of mythology to immediately recognize the new Persona, although it boasted a more... avant-garde design than Hamuko expected. The new Persona - rather unsurprisingly, a dog - had three heads, likely identifying it as Cerberus. Each head was similar to a Doberman, though it had bright yellow, pupil-less eyes. Its back was jet black, while its underbelly was an oddly haunting shade of bright blue. Its necks were collared, and each had a chain running to one of the Persona's shoulders, which were adorned in bat wings. The tail trailing off its rear was long and metallic, easily as long as the rest of the Persona's body.

Oh, and its legs? They were tridents from the knee down. Why, for god's sake, couldn't the universe just let some Personas be normal?

Junpei, though, had no problems with the Persona's looks. He whooped as Cerberus charged forwards, trident-feet scratching through the velvet carpet and probably making a huge mess for housekeeping.

"Hell yeah! That's what I'm talking about! Koro-chan's in heat!"

"Packing heat!" Hamuko automatically corrected (and might have laughed if she weren't trying so hard to keep track of everything and not panic). "And we need to strike! Go!"

Cerberus was a step ahead of Hamuko. Before she even began speaking, it smashed into the Shadow's main body with its shoulder and one head, while the other two heads sunk their fangs hard into the Shadow's "chair section", ripping and tearing away chunks of Shadow muck. (Hamuko's jaw nearly dropped when she saw Cerberus bite down hard onto the woman's shoulder before tearing away the entire damn arm, black gore splattering in a wide arc around them.) Then Junpei joined the fray. He dispelled Hermes as he charged (shoving his evoker away), hoisting his broadsword up before smashing it down in a giant cleaving motion into the Shadow's distended belly. It sank in part of the way, and black gunk oozed out of the wound, leaking around the blade.

As Junpei tugged at his sword, Minato snuck in. His visible eye narrowed as he ran, keeping his body low to the ground and his sword steady in one hand. As he ran, he struck a quick blow to one of the paper-like figures, his blade smoothly slicing through it. Then he twisted and grasped his sword in both hands, whirling around and throwing his weight behind his blade as he swung it sideways into the Shadow-chair. The sword smashed into one of the chair legs, and the Shadow listed like a drunken ship as the leg buckled.

Hamuko smirked and summoned one of her Personas - a relatively new one, Rakshasa. As it smashed into the corporeal world, Hamuko briefly glanced up to check its appearance: a red-skinned humanoid, with occasional spots of similarly colored armor sparsely covering their body. Two massive horns sprouted from the top of its head, though its face was covered by a mask. In each hand it wielded a sword with an intricate curved edge at the tip of its wickedly sharp blades… one of which it gave a quick spin.

Rakshasa stared emotionlessly at the Shadow, tilting its head for just a sliver of a second. And then it was gone. It flew through the air, blades outstretched and slashing through another leg of the chair, only turning back around when it was fully on the opposite side of the Shadow. Hamuko could almost feel the wide grin coming through its mask.

There was a brief pause where the Shadow balanced on its two remaining chair legs, bravely wavering as they strained against the mighty weight of the Shadow. A valiant effort, but to no avail. A second later, the Shadow began to careen over, and the boys (including Koromaru) leapt back.

Cerberus, however, did not.

As the Shadow began to keel over, Koromaru barked in the midst of his leap backwards. Cerberus immediately dug in with its four legs, scrabbling for purchase on the carpeted floor, while its tail snaked to the side and wrapped around one of the columns. The three heads bit deeply into the Shadow, before beginning to simultaneously rear up and backwards, lifting the Shadow bodily upwards.

Hamuko's jaw did drop now as Cerberus reared back - the Persona's body straining with the motion - and flung the Shadow backwards, straight off the bed, smashing right through one of the columns with a thunderous crash.

It hit the ground hard. Rolling a few times before landing in an undignified heap on the floor, the female Shadow held tightly to the male Shadow as he floundered, his stubby arms unable to right himself, giving desperate (though, if Hamuko was being honest, also rather whiny) cries.

"Tear into them!" Hamuko yelled, ignoring the bruise spreading across her arm from her earlier spell as she shoved her evoker back into its holster. Charging forwards, she flicked her blade to the side as Rakshasa faded into her mind, and she watched the action unfold ahead.

The boys of her team, already converged on the Shadow, wasted no time. Junpei's sword hacked into the Shadow's side with brutal swings. Koromaru tore into the Shadow's side with teeth and fangs while his Persona bore its whole weight down, audibly crunching through another of the chair legs. Minato's fast, elegant swings left thin, deep wounds all over the Shadow's gut.

Though she was late to the party, it was only by a few seconds: Hamuko bore down on the Shadow fast. Taking a page from Minato's book, she put both her hands on her sword, weaving between Cerberus' paws (and hopping over his serpentine tail), before she found the small, blue head of the Hierophant. Narrowing her eyes in grim determination, she stabbed her sword downwards, impaling the Shadow's head, gouging its eyes and sending black ichor spurting upwards. It sprayed over Hamuko, covering her combat gear and her face in black gunk.

Hamuko was undeterred. With a heave, she lifted her sword and stabbed again.

The Shadow reeled back and screamed, writhing in pain as S.E.E.S. continued its assault unabated. Then Minato jumped back, grabbing Junpei's arm and yanking him off balance mid-swing. Hamuko whipped around to look.

"Hey!" Junpei yelped. "What g-"

BOOM!

Hamuko was so focused on attacking - and on Minato's sudden moves - that she had completely missed any telltale signs of Shadow attacks. For her, there was no warning before the spell (a Zionga, probably) fired. The bright, searing flash of lightning blinded her, and the booming crash of thunder deafened her, and she stumbled back with two senses utterly overcome.

On instinct, she raised her sword in front of her in a rather pathetic attempt at a block. The Shadow did not seem to find it a hindrance.

Before she could regain her sight, something struck her. Hard. Hamuko had never been hit by a truck, but she could imagine that it felt slightly better than this. She slammed against the ground with the wind completely knocked out of her, her eyes squeezed shut and her ears still ringing. Belatedly, she realized that her sword had been knocked out of her hands, and she glanced up with blurred vision.

The Shadow was hovering now - hovering, because sure, that was necessary (and for some reason all these Shadows were doing it nowadays) - moving out of melee range in what seemed like an instant. As it rose, Hamuko could clearly see each of the chair legs that S.E.E.S. had broken, each snapped or twisted at odd angles, with ichor running down and spilling out onto the floor with wet, thick splashes. Both of the arms of the man were missing; only one of the woman's remained. The man's red shoulder-covering now was in desperate and urgent need for repair, with multiple deep slash marks gouging into it, and black ooze spilling out onto it and running down the man's body.

On seeing this, Hamuko couldn't help the small smile across her face, even with the wind still knocked out of her.

She looked to her allies. It seemed that Hamuko herself was the only one who had been hit… although Cerberus was now gone, and she could barely make out a few glass shards floating away into the air. Movement caught her eye, and she noticed her sword rolling on the floor in the place Cerberus had previously occupied, tilting back and forth on the ground before finally coming to a halt.

"Help her!" Mitsuru's voice ordered, oddly clear. Penthesilea's mind link was strong, even though Hamuko's hearing was still recovering, and honestly, the dissonance nearly made her head spin. "Is anyone's Persona strong against lightning?!" Mitsuru continued, her words tense.

Koromaru whined through the mental link (and yes, that was weird enough on its own, thank you), and Hamuko saw Junpei shake his head as he moved to stand in front of Hamuko, sword at the ready and facing the Shadow. "That's a no for me, Senpai," he replied. "And I'm guessin' same for Minato-kun, since that spell took him for a ride a second ago."

I… I have a Persona strong against lightning, Hamuko thought. I have one!

But the words wouldn't come. Still dazed, Hamuko couldn't bring her mouth to work, her face numb and every part of her body just… tired. Willing her mouth to move so she could speak her thoughts aloud and get them to appear on her mind link, Hamuko moved her hand down slowly - too damn slowly! - towards her evoker. However, her desperate words just couldn't make it past her lips, and did not find their way onto the mind link.

"Alright," Minato said, sliding into place next to Junpei, also facing the Shadow. "We'll have to make do. Everyone, prepare yourselves! Let's-"

He didn't have time to finish. A shattering crash erupted from behind him, and he whirled around.

Hamuko watched as Minato whipped around, his visible eye wide. She had hauled herself up to a halfway sitting position, and though she was still halfway dazed, her eyes were furrowed in deep focus. She hadn't had the time to pull her evoker up to her head, but she was able to fire it. Her evoker was jammed against her stomach, its tip pointing upwards, directly towards her heart. The glass shards of her Persona weren't flowing from her head, but rather from her back, floating upwards and coalescing into a form that moved forwards in front of all of them.

"...I have one," Hamuko rasped, coughing, her thoughts finally - finally - able to be spoken aloud. "I have a Persona strong against lightning. Omoikane."

The ever-memorable brain-jellyfish-hybrid Persona became fully corporeal, wobbling and gyrating as it took its place between S.E.E.S. and the Shadow. Meanwhile, Hamuko rose to her feet. Slow, but steady. Her evoker hung loosely in her hand as she rose up to her full height, back straight, and blew a piece of her hair away from her face, her expression full of pain and determination.

She looked up at Minato, and almost smiled… until she noticed that the air was already very charged with energy.

Her hair stood on end, and her eyes snapped back to the Shadow as it rose high into the air, visible even above Omoikane's wobbly form. Hamuko grimaced and guided Omoikane upwards, and from the corner of her eyes saw Minato quickly turn around too, facing the Shadow. His eyes widened as he flipped his evoker to his head, while in the same second stepping in front of his sister. Hamuko's eyes widened, Minato fired his evoker, and Icarus shattered into existence just ahead of him, between Omoikane and himself.

Then:

BOOM!

Lightning crackled and arced from the Shadow, firing into Omoikane, who seemed a poor conductor. However, sparks and lightning still cut through Omoikane and struck Icarus. Icarus was abruptly pushed backwards from the shock, and its wing bumped into Minato's evoker, still held above his head.

As one might recall: An evoker is made of metal.

In a heartbeat, the electricity leapt and sprung through the evoker and into Minato. Crying out, Minato writhed and twitched as his evoker fell from his numbed hands, clattering onto the ground as he bent over.

As the two Personas shattered out of existence, and Minato knelt on the ground, Hamuko suddenly had a direct line of sight to the Shadow. Still hovering in mid-air, the male Shadow preened, wobbling its head back and forth while its shoulders wiggled up and down. A sickly, snide giggle, far too high-pitched for comfort, squeaked out of the Shadow, while the female's remaining hand gave off the tell-tale spark of the start of another Zionga spell.

Hamuko merely stared at it, taking a deep breath. She could still feel all her fear, her uncertainty, her wild doubts clamoring in their cage. But she refused. She refused to let them out right now. She refused to acknowledge them, or answer the pain erupting from her side, or do anything but raise her evoker to her head.

"Everyone," she said. Her voice was still thin, but her tone was confident, and she did not waver as everyone - even Minato, picking his evoker up from the ground - looked to her.

She smiled, baring her teeth at the Shadow with its black gore still speckled on her face, and her eyes narrowed to slits.

"Blast that bastard."

In hindsight, she really should have been clearer. Maybe, "Use spells!", or "Attack it with long-range attacks!" or something along those lines would have been more helpful.

Thankfully, S.E.E.S. figured it out just fine.

Three Personas tore into the air, spells already gleaming around them. Cerberus and Hermes sparked with Agi-type spells, while Icarus' Sukunda (as she would later confirm) was already fired off, the air around the Hierophant shimmering with magical haze. (Hamuko hesitated, wanting to give the boys' spells a moment to fire away before she followed suit.) Less than a second later, the two fire spells launched through the air. Hermes's spell exploded in the male Shadow's face (Junpei gave a whoop! in celebration), while Cerberus' larger spell glanced off the outstretched arm of the Shadow, ricocheting off to land directly on one of the paper-like figures, which began burning and smoking. But the blow also had shifted the position of the main Shadow - and so, when its finger gave the telltale final spark, it was no longer pointed at S.E.E.S.

Lightning fired, Hamuko's hair again stood upright, and an earth-shattering BOOM deafened her once more. But when the blinding light disappeared and Hamuko's vision returned, she saw that there was a blackened, charred hole through the chest of the second, previously-unharmed paper-like figure.

It flopped over like bad origami as its companion continued to smoke and sizzle from Cerberus' Agilao. The Shadow's main body froze, seemingly horrified as it watched its companions fry.

But it wasn't horrified, Hamuko realized. The female "head" was pointed downwards, eyes directed towards the male head. Or, at least, where it used to be. In place of the male head was a charred hole, one of the boys' Agi-type spells having burned straight through the Shadow's head and tearing through the female body behind it, gouging out a gaping wound. As S.E.E.S. watched, the Shadow suddenly fell from the sky, crashing into the ground with a heavy thud, multiple parts of its body immediately squashed into black goo with the force of impact. More and more globs of Shadow gore fell off, evaporating into the air, while the two paper-figures in front also dissolved.

A few moments later, all the black gunk had disappeared. Every last drop. All that was left was a bed, three columns, and four members of S.E.E.S.

Hamuko just stared at the place where the Shadow disappeared for several long seconds, while Minato stumbled to his feet, glancing around with frenetic energy. Ignoring Minato's oddly frantic scanning, Hamuko looked back to the rest of S.E.E.S. Koromaru, with not a piece of hair out of place, was wagging his tail. Junpei heaved his sword over his head, not-so-gently slamming it on his shoulder (Hamuko saw him try to hide his wince as his sword roughly landed, thankfully with its flat side down). "Is…" he huffed for a moment, before looking at Hamuko. "Is that really it?"

Hamuko didn't have an answer for him. It didn't feel like the Shadow should already be taken out… but, also, it certainly seemed to have been heavily damaged by the time it began hovering. Maybe they really had just gotten stronger than they realized?

Still a bit confused, Hamuko looked back over to Minato, who she expected to be looking back. He wasn't. Instead, he had stopped his agitated search, and was now frowning at a large mirror on the wall. Seeing her move, he swiftly glanced back at her, giving a quick nod, before continuing to glare at the mirror, his eyes appearing to rove around its edges rather than looking directly at the mirror itself.

Hamuko would have continued thinking on that, but it was then that she had a realization: Mitsuru hadn't said anything for a while.

Hamuko's heart leapt forwards three beats. Adrenaline fired through her veins. She whipped around, her grip on her evoker tightening until she was practically choking it. "Senpai!" she yelled. "Are-"

"I am fine, Arisato," came Mitsuru's voice over the link, somewhat confused. "Apologies for my delayed response, I am… trying to determine something."

Relief washed her terror away. She breathed out a sigh, and closed her eyes.

Every single person had made it out. Not fully unharmed - she needed some healing, and had a feeling Minato did too - but there were no clearly permanent injuries. Junpei and Koromaru seemed to have barely been hurt at all. She opened her eyes, a tremulous smile on her face… before movement from the corner of her eye caught her attention.

Whipping around, she saw the golden door leading back into the hall trembling in an absolute frenzy.

It was shuddering, vibrating strong enough that it lightly rattled and squeaked against its hinges. And yet it did not move an inch, due to a simple wooden door stop wedged in its bottom, making progress impossible - the more the door tried to close, the further the door stop got wedged firmly into place. Movement in the opposite direction was also impossible, because there was another doorstop wedged into the door from the opposite side. The door was well and truly stuck.

She recalled that they never actually closed the door, so it would have been easy enough for anyone (or anything) to quickly slip a doorstop or two in, but… that didn't explain who put those doorstops there, and why. And none of this explained why the door was, you know, moving-

"Everyone!" came Mitsuru's voice over the link, alarmed. "Keep your guard up - there is another Shadow in the room!"

Junpei and Koromaru straightened in surprise, readying their respective weapons. Hamuko froze, the whiplash of terror, to relief, to terror again paralyzing her. It took several seconds (and Junpei looking at her with his face morphing with mounting concern) before she was able to shake out of her stasis and get back to some semblance of leadership.

She threw her gaze around the room, looking for any signs of the Shadow, and it didn't take long to find one: the three remaining columns with intertwining male and female symbolisms at their top. Those columns were still here - they hadn't dissipated into gloop. She narrowed her eyes, swallowing as she tried to tamp down on her fear. "Is it... that?" she asked over the connection.

Koromaru's hackles raised, and Junpei hunched his shoulders, readying his sword in both hands as he faced it down. The three of them glared, ready to-

Before anyone moved, Minato glanced over at the columns. "Not that. Those columns are just Shirakawa decor."

Hamuko blinked, then had to forcibly stop herself from gaping (even through her fear) at the preposterous, wholly unnecessary architectural stylings. To what gaudy depths would Shirakawa not fall?

A nudge from her foot made her look down to see Koromaru, looking up at her as she continued to stare uselessly at the columns. She cleared her throat, and tried to prevent her voice from cracking as she spoke.

"R-Right. Sorry. M-Mitsuru-Senpai, where's the Shadow signature coming from?"

"I am not positive yet," Mitsuru replied. "It seems to be exuding from the entire room, but it might be located in one area."

"Senpai," Minato said, cutting off Hamuko's reply. "Could you scan that mirror in the corner of the room?"

"Certainly, Arisato." A pause. "May I assume this is one of your moments of… intuition?"

Minato gently shrugged. The motion was so small that Hamuko wasn't sure if Mitsuru could actually see the action, but the slightly wry tone of the question told her that Mitsuru probably didn't need a real answer.

Regardless, during the pause while Mitsuru was scanning, Hamuko redrew her sword, then glanced at Minato and drew her evoker, too. Swallowing, she stepped up to stand beside Minato, while she felt and heard Junpei and Koromaru do the same - four member of S.E.E.S., staring at a mirror, which seemed foggy, almost like-

"Do not look at the mirror!" Minato barked, the sudden increase in volume shocking each of the present members of S.E.E.S. into looking away. "If a Shadow's controlling it, looking into it is probably a really bad idea. Look above it."

Just as Hamuko followed his instructions, Mitsuru's voice rang through once more. "The Shadow signature does indeed appear to be slightly stronger in the direction of that mirror. ...I appreciate you sharing your ideas early this time, Arisato."

"Well," came Minato's reply as he stepped forward, eyes clearly far above the mirror. "Someone smart told me I should, once."

"Of course," came Mitsuru's amusement-tinged reply.

Before Hamuko could think further on anything (both on Minato walking up towards the Shadow-mirror, and on his… Banter? Flirting? Whatever with Mitsuru), he had already gotten his evoker out. Holding it by his side, he looked over to Hamuko.

"Everyone…" he hesitated for a moment, before his eyes ever so slightly narrowed. "…I need your help. We all need to use our strongest spells on that mirror, so we can do as much damage to whatever's waiting for us."

Hamuko nodded, looking over to Junpei and Koromaru. They nodded in return. Then, four shattering noises rang through the air in short succession as four Personas burst into existence, with Hamuko choosing Fortuna this time (the girl with the wheel for a stomach – and yes, she probably could have found a more powerful Persona, but she was looking for more variety at the moment, since she knew that Koromaru and Junpei would be using Agi-type spells.)

"Everyone ready?!" Hamuko shouted. As she mentally prepared a Bufu spell above her, the air cooled so fast that she felt the sweat on her brow start to freeze. She shivered, before quickly glancing to her sides. As expected, Junpei and Koromaru were preparing fire spells, but Minato was preparing a damage spell of his own – some variant of a Garu-type, wind-based spell.

He was trying to hide it, as usual, but he looked inordinately pleased with himself.

Hamuko stifled a small chuckle at that – even in the midst of this situation – before turning her eyes forward again. She took a deep breath, then:

"Go!"

Three spells rocketed forwards. Koromaru's Agilao sizzled past faster than anyone else's, the huge fireball exploding against the mirror and sending it swinging on its hinge, a crack snapping across the mirror's face. Then Junpei's Agi arrived, and it burst against the top of the mirror – snapping it off its hinge, and sending it crashing down roughly to the floor.

The mirror shattered. Shards of sharp metal scattered from the point of impact across the floor. But more noticeable than that was a deep groan of displeasure coming from the center of the mirror's shards, as something erupted from it – rising into this dimension, globules of black shadow gunk coming together to form something large and red and-

Unfortunately for the Shadow, it had not fully formed yet when it got hit with Minato's Garu-type spell.

It seemed to be a multi-hitting attack – a Magaru – but Minato had done his best to direct his attack to hit one target. Several wind-based projectiles impacted the Shadow, striking its center, its top, and one of its sides – though a few of the missiles struck off to the side of the Shadow, missing it entirely. They did, however, strike near to parts of the wall that had small flames flickering from the two Agi attacks… and now, with the wind strikes near them, one of the walls actually caught on fire.

Hamuko's eyes widened, and she fired off her Bufu spell.

Upon seeing the flames growing on the wall, she changed her target – instead of hitting the Shadow, she directed her attack to hit the flames. The chunk of ice lodged itself roughly into the wall, putting out the flames immediately.

But no time to celebrate. Hamuko's eyes snapped over to the now-fully corporeal Shadow, smoking with flames dancing across its body and seemingly staring down at S.E.E.S.

Easily rivaling the Hierophant in size, its main body was a dark red heart with a thin line of gold-colored metal bolted across it vertically and horizontally in two places. (One line down the middle, Hamuko noticed, had small heart designs running down its side.) On several points along the thin metal line were outwardly-pointing spikes, and extending out to both sides were blobs of reddish liquid in the form of abstract wings. At the very top of the Shadow was a comically small head, with the features of a stick figure looking rather put out. Globs of red liquid hung down from the Shadow's main body, swaying as the Shadow moved.

It was then - a moment too late - that Hamuko realized something else. The air around the Shadow was shimmering and shining.

It was already casting a spell.

Fear roared through her. "Everyone, it's casting!" she shouted, tensing her legs as she prepared to leap to the side.

Everyone around her also tensed up. Hamuko kept her eyes forward - watching as the shimmering air seemed to split up, and four lines of shimmering air seemed to fire forwards, towards each member of S.E.E.S.

Hamuko opened her mouth, another warning on her lips… however, at that very moment, something else happened.

A voice suddenly appeared in Hamuko's head, and it was definitely not Mitsuru's voice. It was a voice which she assumed also appeared in everyone else's head, though she couldn't immediately confirm that. The voice wasn't sultry, nor angry. It wasn't bland, or sad, or even mysterious.

It was a plain, normal voice.

In fact, Hamuko recognized it.

"D-Do either of you have i-ice spells?"

It was Fuuka's voice.

Hamuko froze in shock, mind whirling. She knew that Fuuka still hadn't begun her Persona training yet – so, how was she communicating with them? Had she decided to try out using her Evoker tonight? Was her Persona able to scan things? Had it already scanned the Shadow all the way from the hospital? What the hell was going on?

Movement immediately in front of Hamuko caught her attention – it was the air. The shimmering air, approaching rapidly. Her eyes widened, adrenaline fired through her, and she dove out of the way. She somehow felt the shimmering fly over her head – the air felt charged with energy of some kind as it whooshed by. She saw Junpei yelp as he spun away from the shimmering, and Koromaru leapt away with an easy grace. From her side – out of her field of view, and slightly closer to the Shadow - she heard Minato's feet scuff the ground, and she heard a muffled, abruptly-ending, "Shi-!"

As soon as the shimmering passed over her head: "Fuuka-chan!" she called out, keeping her eyes on the Shadow. "Are you-?"

"Arisato, Yamagishi is not connected to this link, and so I cannot reach her. I do not know what that was about, but everyone here must be very cautious!"

Mitsuru's warning, nearly yelled over the link, snapped everyone to attention… everyone but Minato, Hamuko realized, who had seemingly been frozen in place.

"Senpai-" Hamuko began, before Mitsuru cut her off.

"Your brother has been Charmed by the enemy!"

Eight simple words was all it took. Right there, in the middle of Shirakawa Boulevard, in the middle of an incredibly important Shadow operation, Arisato Hamuko felt her heart nearly stop completely.

Almost against her will, her eyes snapped over to her brother - and to the Shadow in the background, rising into the air. The Shadow had righted itself from its previous menacing tilt, and now seemed almost lazy - maybe smug - as it hovered. Minato was still turned away from S.E.E.S., slightly in front of the rest of them, with Icarus still summoned. The Persona was hovering, Hamuko noticed, directly in front of where one of the lines of shimmering air had been. After an interminably long second, Icarus was dispelled, and Minato turned to face S.E.E.S.

His sword was loose in his hand. So, so loose. His feet slid uncertainly as he turned, awkwardly skidding and bumping along the carpet. His head tilted awkwardly to one side, and his hair shifted.

Hamuko's breath caught in her throat.

Minato's hair, normally parting to cover his right eye, had switched sides. Now it covered his left eye, revealing the macabre marking across his right eye: an old scar, faded with time, but clearly visible tearing across from his eyebrow to just below his eye socket.

"Uh, wait, what-" Junpei began, before Koromaru barked and growled.

Minato stumbled forward another step, sword held awkwardly at his side.

Hamuko, hating herself, hating the situation, hating every fucking thing at the moment, drew her sword.

"Junpei, Koromaru, get behind me - get into the hallway if you need to!" She cried. "Mitsuru-Senpai, how do we remove Charm?!"

Sadly, she could not wait for Mitsuru's answer. Minato had stumbled his way forward to almost be within striking range of her… which meant that she was almost in striking range of him.

Hamuko swallowed and forced herself to act. She pushed the two non-Charmed members of her team behind her. She kept her eyes on Minato: his azure hair swirling and eyes unseeing, bearing down on her with glazed eyes and a raised blade. She pushed down the scream of frustration and fear threatening to erupt from her throat.

Then, raising two shaking hands, she grit her teeth, prayed to every god, and pointed her sword at her brother.

Shout outs to:

Raiden77830, Divine Blizzard, and sokmonint for following;

Raiden77830, Divine Blizzard, and sokmonint for fav'ing;

Guest for reviewing;

and as ever, my spectacular beta Disasternoj for editing!

Thanks for reading, and I'll see you in the next update!

[Next chapter drops on July 30th, 2024!]