Clack. Clack. Clack. The usually hushed tapping of footfalls becomes magnified dozens of times over as the sounds of your descent into the manor's heart echoes off the cool stone walls. The passage into the dungeons possesses a singularly eerie stillness reminiscent of the kind in Cloud One's empty neighborhoods. It makes every breath, every brush of clothing from the three behind you seem as though the Enforcer could be amongst you, its spindly fingers reaching for your throat.
Mercifully, before long, the steps end. Stretching out before you is a narrow hallway, mossy, dank, and several degrees cooler than the air above. The beam of Nisekao's flashlight falls on a low archway at the end, beyond which the corridor veers left.
"Guess we still have a ways to go," you say, indicating that you'd like to keep moving with a flick of the flashlight.
[Rather. These passages are more vault than dungeon, in actuality,] says Bifrons. [As such, you would be wise to be cautious down here. There are many...security measures in place to ensure the safety of the Lady's idol.]
[You mean traps.]
[Err...yes. While they are quite effective at dispatching those who are unaware, you should be fine so long as you keep your wits about you, Master.]
[Wouldn't it be easier to just tell me where they are?]
[You do remember that I said it had been some time since I last attended to the idol...]
[So you don't remember.]
[I have full confidence in you, Master.]
"Stunning," you grumble. "Hey guys, heads up - Bifrons says this place is booby trapped."
"What? Where?" says Hayate, leaping sideways as if he had stepped on something.
"Well, don't do that, for starters. If you'd triggered one, you'd know. Anyhow, he says we should be able to spot them if we're observant. So just...watch where you step."
Sure enough, every now and again your flashlight sweeps over little anomalies in the passages' architecture: a raised flagstone here, a tripwire set ankle-height above the floor, suits of armor posed with swords raised instead of pointed at their feet that swipe at anything that passes. With four sets of eyes sweeping your path, you manage to either trigger them harmlessly or avoid them altogether.
Eventually, the winding corridor emerges into a wide, empty room with high, vaulted ceilings. You figure you must be at least a hundred meters beneath the manor at this point. On the other side, another arch, and another hallway.
"Tetsuo? Tetsuo, are you there?" your earpiece crackles to life with Nisekao's voice.
"Yeah, what's going on up there? You all right?"
"We're okay - for now," says Mariko's voice. "The Enforcer came by not too long ago and forced us out of the entrance hall. We only just got back. But we wanted to let you know to be on guard - we came back and found footprints tracked through the blood leading to the dungeons. Something's gone in after you."
Instinctively, your head whips around to check behind you, but there's no one but the two Shadows and Hayate there. Nevertheless, something about that report strikes you as odd.
"Footprints, huh? I don't think it's the Enforcer, then. It's got nothing to leave footprints with. Probably just another Shadow looking for somewhere to hide."
"I sure hope so, but between the Enforcer sweeping through and us coming back, they would have had an awfully small window of time to work with. Just be careful, all right?"
"We'll be fine. Be back soon."
Hayate shakes his head. "Man, I don't care what it is, I don't like the idea of something following us around. Let's just keep moving, okay?" he says, taking a step forward into the room and vanishing into thin air.
"Hayate!"
You make as if to go after him, but your first step into the large room finds no purchase, and your foot sinks into thin air. Fortunately, the skull-faced Shadow keeps the rest of you from following suit, grabbing you by the shoulder and heaving you bodily backwards.
"Coulda just let him go," says the blue-faced Shadow, earning an indignant look from you. Her partner ignores the remark.
"Weren't you just telling us to keep our wits about us? It's going to be difficult to stay alive if you lot keep trying to get yourselves killed."
"But Hayate-"
"Hey! I'm not dead yet! Gimme a freakin' hand, will ya?" comes a voice from near your feet.
The effect created by the illusion is bizarre. From where you're standing, it's as if a set of white-knuckled, disembodied fingers are tightly gripping the stone floor. But as you lean your head past the archway and into the seemingly empty room, it transforms into an endless, gaping maw seeking to consume a precariously dangling Hayate.
Dropping to your knees, you extend a hand to him, which he grasps in his. With some help from the skull-faced Shadow, you're able to yank him up out of pit and back onto solid ground. You expect him to make some dramatic complaint about how much he doesn't want to be here, but he's surprisingly quiet as he sucks greedy lungfuls of air to steady his heart.
"Are...you okay?" you ask.
He raises his gaze to meet yours, but only briefly.
"Yeah. Sorry."
"You sure?"
"No, don't worry about it, it's…fine."
The skull-faced Shadow steps past you to peer into the enchanted room.
"Hmm...I see. Quite a bit cleverer than the rest. Meant to lull us into a false sense of security, perhaps? Well, regardless, it seems we'll have to hug the walls to reach the other side."
The rest of you crane your necks around the threshold to see what it means. It's just barely there, but there is a thin slab of stone tracing the edges of the room.
"I'll go first," says Hayate. You and the Shadows (at least, they seem to) look at him.
"Really?" you say. He nods.
"I'll see if it's safe."
Taking a deep breath to steady himself, Hayate points one quivering toe towards the ledge. Then, as gradually and gingerly as you've ever seen him move, he puts his weight on it. The ledge remains firm. Emboldened, he brings his other foot over, and begins inching along the wall, his entire body pressed flat against the stone like a life-sized gingerbread cookie.
"I think it's okay," he says, with a tinge of fear in his voice that suggests the exact opposite. So, with a fair amount of trepidation, you attach yourself to the wall and follow suit.
The ledge seems even more slender when you're standing on it, and at times, your foot feels like it's about to slip over the edge and take the rest of you with it. It takes all of your waning willpower to keep yourself from staring into the pit and imagining the sensation of falling without end. But within a few minutes, the four of you have wriggled your way to the other side. Looking over your shoulder, the room looks as nondescript as ever. The blue-faced Shadow, having had the hardest time out of all of you thanks to its thicker, wider frame, slumps against the wall in relief.
"Come now, I hope you're not getting exhausted. We still have quite a bit of work ahead of us," the skull-faced Shadow says to it, pulling it to its feet.
Motioning the others forward, you take point again and leave the enchanted room behind.
As you proceed, the passages begin sloping upwards again, taking you up several short, spiraling sets of stairs.
"Did we miss it or something?" says the blue-faced Shadow, voicing your worry. If the dungeons just spit you back out into the manor again, either Bifrons wasn't being honest, or you'd have to go back and canvas the area for a hidden passage. Neither possibility appeals to you – you simply don't have the luxury of leaving Mariko and Hayate for that long.
However as you round a corner, you see something that lifts your spirits. The hallway you'd been wandering ends in a door guarded by thick, iron bars.
"This must be it, eh? Rather different from the rest, at least," says the skull-faced Shadow. He reaches for an iron ring on a chain suspended from the ceiling next to the door.
[Wait! Stop him!] calls Bifrons.
"STOP!" you shout, and the Shadow freezes in place, its fingers clamped around the ring.
[If that fellow pulls that, you'll be dropped into the manor's boiler,] he says. You to cringe at the thought.
"What?" it asks.
"N-Nothing. Just…don't pull that," you respond. [So then how do we get in? Do you remember this one?]
[I do, as a matter of fact. From the bottom of the gate, push the second stone up on the left.]
You crouch down to press the stone Bifrons mentioned. It gives gently under your hand and slides into a shallow alcove carved into the wall. And as promised, the bars slide up and out of the way with a quiet whish.
"Impressive," says the skull-faced Shadow, stroking its chin. "Bending a Cloud's Shadows to your will affords you a tremendous advantage indeed."
"Dunno if I'd call it that," you say. Seems like a weird thing for a Shadow to mention. Grasping the rusted iron latch on the door, you pull it open and step into the room beyond.
You find yourself in a small space only a little bigger than your room at home. Old-fashioned torches flicker in wrought-iron sconces along the wall, casting a pale, orange glow over the room's contents, which rest on a modest, stone pedestal.
"Is that…" breathes Hayate. He steps forward, picking up a small object and turning it over in his hands.
"What is it?" asks the blue-faced Shadow, shoving forward.
Resting in Hayate's hands is a round, toy cat - plastic, but painted so that it looks gold.
"A toy?"
"Yeah…we were about to meet for our first date and I realized that I didn't bring anything with me. I spent almost 5000 yen trying to win something good from the gashapon machine outside the café." He shakes his head, chuckling to himself.
"But why would this be the idol? I kinda thought you guys hated each other," you say.
"Probably to remind her of how much of a fuck-up I am. Guess nothing's really changed, huh? I've done nothing but step on you guys' toes this whole time, haven't I?"
"Hayate, don't worry about it. This really isn't the time or place for this, anyhow."
"Agreed," says the skull-faced Shadow. "Now give us the 'idol'."
Hayate glances up at it. "Why? We're supposed to destroy this thing, aren't we?"
The skull-faced Shadow sighs. Something's not right. It snaps its fingers, and in an instant, the blue-faced Shadow darts forward and chokeslams Hayate to the floor.
"Hey! What is this?" you shout, summoning Launcelot to your side. Launcelot thrusts its lance towards the blue-faced Shadow, forcing it to release Hayate and spring backwards onto its feet.
"Oblivious to the end. Not that I should complain, though – it's made things much simpler for us."
Straightening themselves up, the Shadows reach up and grab hold of their masks. With one almost rehearsed motion, they whisk them off and toss them to the floor, revealing human faces beneath the façade – the Yatabuya gangsters, Taishi and Chikara.
"'Bout damn time," says Chikara, cracking her knuckles, "I was about to lose my mind."
Taishi rolls his eyes. "Yes, you showed remarkable restraint on your part for sure. Nevertheless, Chikara, we finally have what we need right here. I believe restraint will no longer be necessary."
"What are you doing here?" The question leaps out of your mouth unbidden - or perhaps it was forced out by the suddenness of it all. Hayate's eyes flit between the tattoos on their necks, widening with realization. He's never met these two before, but you can tell that he understands who they are. Taishi shakes his head and shrugs in bemusement.
"Stunningly naive to the last, Katsuji. To be blunt, we're here to dispose of you," he says, adopting the disaffected tone of a teacher lecturing a stubborn child. Not that that part was news to you or anything; you'd figured that.
"No, I mean what are you doing here?"
The two exchange a look that you don't care for in the slightest, one that positively relishes your ignorance.
"Are you some kinda idiot or something?" says Chikara, grinning from ear to ear. Likely at the opportunity to say that to someone herself for once.
"I have to agree, you're startlingly slow on the uptake for someone with of your ability. You didn't suppose the Clouds were your personal playgrounds to vandalize as you pleased, did you?"
"That's what this is about? This is why you're after us?" you say, but then another thought springs to mind. "Are you responsible for this?"
"Ah, now you're starting to want answers that you simply don't have the right to," says Taishi, his expression growing more disturbingly snakelike by the moment. "But, dead men don't gossip, so the most I'll say is this: we're quite heavily invested in the world of Shadows. So, when you decide to go running around jeopardizing that investment and sticking your noses where they don't belong, it becomes our job to protect it. At all costs."
Hayate steps forward, his eyes panicked, voice shaky. "Y-You think your shitty little threats matter? You guys talk big, but you have n-no idea what this guy's capable of!" He points towards you with a dramatic flourish. A grimace etches itself across your face, but Hayate has a point. Sort of. You can summon Personas. For once, a Cloud might actually prove to be an advantage.
However, the cackle that rips out of Chikara's throat smashes that confidence into a thousand tiny pieces.
"Do you hear yourself, dumbass? How fuckin' pathetic is this, hidin' behind your friend while you talk shit? You've been doing this the whole damn time, too, pissin' your pants every time things get too scary for you. It's about time you just shut up and wait your turn."
"Indeed," says Taishi, "you'd do well to keep that bravado in check. Admittedly, things would have been much simpler had we just been able to strangle you and dump your bodies off a cliffside like we'd planned. After all, people go missing in the mountains all the time. I'm sure no one would bat an eye at the disappearance of a few idiot teenagers. We're keeping the police too busy for that to be a priority, believe me.
"Nevertheless, what happened, happened. An unexpected Cloud manifested right on top us, and what's more, the Dreamweaver didn't seem to recognize who we were. I suppose then, that it's fortunate that we ended up joining forces - albeit temporarily. We'll use this toy as a bargaining chip to coerce the Dreamweaver into freeing us, and we wouldn't have been able to do it without your assistance. In that sense, you can consider me grateful."
Hayate then draws himself up straight, and Chikara drops into a threatening stance. At this moment, you realize something - you've never been entirely in control here.
"You're talented, for sure. But if you believe that being able to summon multiple Personas will help you escape this Cloud alive, you're gravely mistaken."
Hearing him say that word rattles your assurance. "How do you...?"
Taishi' mouth twists into a deranged grin. "My dear Tetsuo...how do you think we know? Chikara!"
"Yeah?"
"It's time these fools bore witness to the Yatabuya's true strength!"
And together, they shout it, betraying the power you'd thought special and sacred:
"PERSONA!"
