Good Day Readers! Obviously, I do not own anything connected to the Persona series in general or Persona 5 specifically, I DO own Chiba Natsumi and Anais Ouvrard, along with Natsumi's immediate family members.

I would appreciate any responses that you have, please enjoy.

Chapter 2: - I am thou, thou art I

Raking my hands through my hair in an attempt to ease my headache, I kept walking down the pathway. Another school day had ended and it was time for me to returned to my birdcage no matter how unwilling I was to be heading there; the only positive I could take was that Ouvrard wasn't waiting to torture my voice some more when I got back to the building.

'That accursed woman. Why does Anais Ouvrard think she can turn that house into her own personal opera house just because my damned uncle hired her?' I thought. I closed my eyes just briefly as that thought fluttered through my mind; but when I opened them up, I practically jumped a foot into the air and definitely took a couple of large steps back from the deeply troubling sight that lay in front of me.

I had only been a short distance from the house when I'd closed my eyes but now that I had opened my eyes, the house was nowhere to be found and instead a towering building stood in its' place. It was a bright golden bricked building that towered above me with black bricks lining what appeared to be the windows and doors, it was circular in appearance with a pale gold domed roof, there seemed to be golden statues ringing the edge of the domed building.

"What on earth?" I questioned. An eerie atmosphere hung over my form as I looked around the area, finding a fog surrounding the area near me and the area surrounding the building was deserted of any other houses or people; swallowing thickly I took a hesitant step backwards when something fluttered in front of me in a delicate manner… it was a blue butterfly that almost appeared to be translucent.

Do not run. Words echoed around me yet at the same time those words seemed to be coming from within my own mind. Do not run. Take a step forward, towards your freedom. The words continued, yet the voice couldn't be identified, the butterfly fluttered further towards the ostentatious building that tried hard to be elegant and, in my opinion, it failed miserably which caused it to look gaudy.

Frowning slightly at the unnerving prospect of stepping into such a strange building, there was something within me that spurred me to follow after the butterfly into the shadow of this strange building. As I walked, ripples moved out from my feet, these ripples were purple in colour and when I lifted up a foot, water followed in its' wake which caused me to move quickly towards the building as I tried to ignore the horror story like feeling that was pressing down onto my shoulders with every step.

Reaching the door of the building, I found the blue butterfly had vanished leaving only a black wooden door with golden pattern curling across its' surface barring me from going inside. Swallowing thickly, I reached out a hand to the shiny gold handle and proceeded to push it open to reveal the interior of the building which was as ostentatiously ugly as the outside of the building happened to be.

Deep red carpets covered the, likely, wooden flooring with a large staircase rising up in front of me before branching off to the left and right. The staircase appeared to be made of marble with gold filigree coursing across the banisters, two corridors at ground level shot deeper into the building, but I heard sounds coming from that direction. Not exactly wanting to encounter anyone, I decided to head up the staircase and took the left hand turn.

Moving down the darkened corridor, red carpeted and wooden walled with what looked to be gas lamps offering feeble illumination. Doors were pressed periodically into the wall but whenever I stopped by them, I heard sounds echoing out from the other side. Coming to a stop beside the fifth door that no sound came out from, I proceeded to open the door and stepped inside to whatever lay beyond.

It was a small rectangle of a room, longer than it was wide, I walked over to the edge with careful steps, more red carpet that I finally realised was rather plush as each footstep seemed to sink into the carpet. A duo of chairs sat at the end with both being unoccupied, they were an ugly gold colour and when I trailed my fingers over the fabric, I realised it felt like velvet which caused me to frown slightly. A marble balcony with the same golden filigree curled across the front of the box with red curtains almost acting as a cordon between this area and others; pressing my hands on the balcony, I proceeded to lean my body out slightly in order to gather my bearings of this strange building.

Down below was a massive gathering of seats, velvety golden chairs were moving in a circle around the lower area, split into different groupings with pathways of gaudy red piercing the different groups to allow passage between the different areas. A large stage dominated the back wall, deep brown wood made up its' surface as vivid red curtains framed the depressed area where the performers would tell their story, in front of it was a collection of black chairs that were split into groups but only three instead of the dozens that the gold chair made up. Up above was another gold filigreed marble balcony that I could not see to since it jutted out far beyond the box I stood in, but it likely contained more seats and alongside me were more boxes like the one I stood within.

'Oh stars! This is an opera house!' I realised. It looked like a strange mashing together of different opera houses that I had seen Ouvrard and my uncle discussing I could perform at – without any consideration as to how I felt about the subject, as per usual – which might be the reason behind why it looked so ugly in its' gaudiness , it simply didn't look right to mash them together; however my confusion was forcibly abandoned when I realised that people had appeared.

They had seemingly appeared out of thin air, all of them dressed in clothing as gaudy as the surroundings they were in as they flocked towards the chairs but from up above there seemed to be something odd about them… something I couldn't quite put my finger on. But whatever it was put a churning feeling right into my stomach, my instincts were practically screaming at me to flee this strange place and I quickly turned around to head for the door out of the box.

Yet, before I could take more than a single step forward, the door suddenly flung open and in its' way was an entity of such strangeness. It was tall and shaped like a human with broad shoulders and a barrelled chest of muscle, the body was clad within an ugly suit of red and gold that was as gaudy as the rest of the stuff I'd seen here but what unsettled me most was the golden mask like for a masquerade that rested upon its' face that seemed utterly devoid of all features beyond two burning pools of red that stared out from behind the mask's eyeholes.

"The intruder is in the Maestro's box!" The strange being declared. I felt a strange sensation, like heavy pressure pushing down on my shoulders with an impending sense of danger, deciding that staying behind was a superbly bad idea and the ordinary way out was barred, I did the crazy thing and quickly turned around to jump to the balcony. "Halt, intruder!" The strange being cried.

"No way!" I responded. With that out, I promptly turned around to hang from the balcony before releasing my grip and plunging through the air towards the ground; my heart hammered in my chest so hard the sound blocked out all else as I wildly swung my hands about in a desperate attempt to seize a hold of something anything to stop me from falling and breaking something important.

As my plummet continued, I spotted red fabric, not thinking much I swiped out and seized a hold of it, my body jerked to a stop but only briefly and the fabric started to tear along itself and I continued to drop to the ground but much more controlled than before. Gritting my teeth slightly, I tried to think of things to do as I angled my body in a way that might at least minimise the tearing or at least allow me to safely land on the ground.

Surprisingly enough, the ripping stopped just enough for me to gently set my feet against the ground as I released the fabric from my white knuckled death grip. Blinking in surprise that something like that had actually managed to work, I was stationary for all of two seconds before a piercing high pitched, and almost musical, scream tore through the air. I looked up and saw a woman, or a girl, clad in white pointing at me and that was when the chaos proceeded to erupt like a damned volcano.

The people sat in the seats proceeded to scream as if I was some kind of demonic beast. Realising this was a bad situation, I immediately bolted down the red carpeted aisle towards the door that would hopefully lead me out of this place, unfortunately more of those masked beings showed up and these ones carried weapons in the form of thick truncheons.

One of them charged right at me and raised the weapon up to start swinging at me, I threw myself forward into a roll, gliding underneath the weapon as it whistled the air over my head. I got my feet underneath me and sprung upright before needing to jump to the side to avoid another swing from another masked being. Gritting my teeth, I quickly gathered what I needed in my mind and lashed out with my foot.

The appendage caught the butt of the creature's weapon, forcing it to release the truncheon and I quickly moved to where it would land. My fingers easily curled into perfect position around the weapon's handle. I quickly threw the object at another of the creatures and without waiting to see if it hit, I proceeded to leap onto the chairs behind me and I immediately started to use them to cross to the back of the room, each step was perfect and precise as I bounded across the backs like I was a rabbit. Once I reached the end, I jumped off and landed on the ground ready to run once more.

'Okay… that's weird.' I thought. I quickly sprinted out the nearby door and into a darkened hallway which I darted down; my body was moving in an odd manner, it was like it was responding to my thoughts, not so much the electrical command currents sent pulsing across my nerve endings but the mere imagining of what I wanted my body to do was enough, also that truncheon seemed to fall into my hand too perfectly to be natural.

I bolted down the hallway, seeing odd shapes in the faint shadows but I refused to stop moving to investigate, I needed to get out of wherever the heck I was and back to a world that made sense. My breathing was coming in heavy gasps as my heart continued to thunder away in my chest, I snapped my eyes about to be aware of danger whilst focusing my ears as much as possible to pick up the slightest sound of anyone chasing after me.

Darting passed a hallway shooting off the one I was currently in, I felt panic start to grow as I didn't know where I was. But before I could get too far passed the hallway, a powerful arm seized a hold of me by my throat, dragging me back into a muscled body; I lashed back with my legs, but it felt like I was kicking solid metal walls and trying to pry the arm off was a perfect example of an exercise in futility.

My throat felt like it was being squeezed by a vice and then motion hit my body, it was moving too fast for me to make anything out only that I was being dragged backwards at a horrifically astounding speed. I tried to position myself so that I could be able to breath without my throat getting destroyed by the mass of muscle pressing into my airway. However, the hulking brute behind me made that impossible when the arm pressed down even further onto my throat which caused dark spots to start dancing in my vision.

Thankfully that immense pressure faded and I was unceremoniously dropped into a heap on the ground, I choked and gasped as I tried to get myself back together whilst talking echoed over my head. Apparently, whoever had jumped me ended up dragging me back to where this Maestro person was located from the bits of conversation I managed to pick out through the haze as my head continued to throb with pain. Sharp pinpricks stung at my skin around my chin and my head was forcibly lifted up to look at someone.

"O-Ouvrard!" I choked out. Because it was her, despite the black and gold outfit that covered her form consisting of a golden shirt covered by a black jacket with golden cuffs and black pants; on her face was a white half mask that covered the right side of her face and eerie gold eyes bore into me; despite the absurd outfit, strange mask and disturbing eyes, it was definitely my wretched music teacher. "What is going on here?!" I demanded. Feeling utterly confused by the whole situation.

"Ah, so it is you Natsumi," Ouvrard stated. I didn't get another chance to say anything when something hard and sharp sliced across my face, my upright position quickly crumbled and I collapsed to the ground, feeling an incredibly painful sting burning over my cheek, shock pulsed through me as I reached my fingers up to brush against my aching cheek and the sharp stinging increased as something warm oozed over my face and fingertips, pulling them back I saw the blood staining the tips. "How dare you ask questions. You know that isn't how this works," Ouvrard sneered. I saw her hands clad in golden gloves with bejewelled rings on each finger, likely the source of the cut on my cheek.

"What is wrong with you?!" I snapped. Despite the pain radiating across my cheek and the shock driving itself into my skin, I clambered onto my feet and tried to maintain a steady stance as I looked at the woman who blinked at me in surprise. "I just happened to come into this damned weird place and the first you do is attack me! Also, I almost got choked to death by that brute over there! Now, what in damnation is going on here?!" I demanded. I was far too angry to think about how this woman might react to being defied but it was all too crazy of a day at the moment.

Ouvrard's sneer was the only warning I received before her hand lashed forward and I was hoisted off of the ground. My hands flew up to try and sink my short nails into her vulnerable skin but once more it felt like trying to harm steel, my back was forcibly slammed against the wall and my air firmly driven from my lungs. Leaving me gasping in both pain and oxygen deprivation as I bleary looked down at the woman holding me aloft.

"You were to be my masterpiece, my pièce de resistance, my angel of music. Such a shame that instead of being grateful for my teachings and your uncle's generosity in allowing such a waif as you to be taught by me, you are nothing but a rude, ungrateful, thieving little girl! Stealing away my efforts for your own selfishness," Ouvrard snarled. Her lips were twisted into a dark and terrible sneer as her grip on my throat increased in pressure. "Your voice is mine! Mine to mould and craft as I see fit! I don't intend to let you wriggle away!" Ouvrard declared. Unable to bear anymore, I swung my leg out and caught the woman in the chest, forcing her to release me as she stumbled back and I crashed against the floor.

"You… keep… saying…things… about… how you… own me. But that… is nonsense…," I wheezed out. Pushing myself onto my knees, I struggled to rise up fully and had to resort to bracing myself against the nearby wall to keep myself from swaying and toppling over once more. "You were praised, openly and for years. Respected and loved by everyone. You had everything you could ever want and yet! Yet you come into my life! You steal something that I love from me! Claim that you own me! And I am sick of living beneath your thumb! My voice torn asunder by your cruel desires!" I snarled. My breath coming back with each word.

"True, too true," A feminine voice sang. It was strangely harmonic and caught me off guard, I snapped my head around to try and find the source, yet nothing could be seen speaking to me. "She accuses you of stealing from her, but she is the true thief! She would take you from this life if she could! A selfish and obsessed woman! Will you allow her to take all that you are!? All that is rightfully yours!" The voice echoed. But strangely it shifted, part way through the voice had changed to a dark and eerie snarl, much more masculine than the soft feather like voice from before.

"No, I've had enough," I admitted. I had said it quietly as I drew myself up to my full height and glared at Ouvrard who was glaring at me. "You don't know the pain you put me through! The things you have done to me! I have been reduced to feeling as if I'm more dead than alive, as if I am empty of meaning and purpose, seen but never listened to! But now, you will listen to me! I am done! Done with you daring to take my voice from me!" I yelled. It felt so freeing to say those words after all this time, to final speak for myself instead of staying quiet.

"Magnificent," The voices echoed in eerie harmony. In that instant, a powerful headache slammed into my mind's focus feeling as if something was trying to claw its' way out from inside; my mouth opened but I don't even know if I was screaming or not, my hands rose up to grip the skin under my raven hair as my body stumbled about. "To live under the thumb of another, chained to their wants and desires is not your way. The other you sings for freedom to be taken even if darkness is your only reward! We may now make a contract. I am thou, thou art I! Let the song of your soul ring out to those who would subdue you!" The voice called; the masculine echo stronger this time. It almost seemed to echo from deep within my soul.

"Yeah, I'm know. Time to fight back," I agreed. Some instinct kicked in, I moved my hands down to wrap the fingers around a weight that had appear on my face, my fingers dug into the seam between the weight and my skin then I pulled. Hot, burning pain lanced across my skin as I tried to pull the object away from my face, but I continued to pull with all my might and eventually it came free of the skin, blood trickled down my face as if the object had been fused to the organ instead of just resting on it. "Come Phantom!" I cried.

The pain flared brighter in respond to that cry, the sensation of blood rolling down tickled my skin, but it was soon burned away, quite literally. Blue flames suddenly engulfed my vision completely, but I felt it moving across my skin and clothes, swallowing up my form before suddenly flowing backwards behind me. Gaping mouths were on the group who stood in front of me, but their eyes were focused behind me, so I cautiously turned around to see what they stared at.

Floating behind me was a man… at least that's what I think it was, but the outfit obscured much. A thick black cloak swallowed up all manner of limbs except for the thin and bony hands which seemed to almost float around the cloak, a thick red length of fabric was held between the two hands with one end looping back on itself giving the fabric the appearance of a noose. A heavy black mask was pressed onto the entity's face which obscured much of the face except for the mouth and chin areas and the forehead, skin looked to be pulled tight and had a faded yellow-white tone to it, a dark grin was stretched across his dry and chapped lips as deep set gold eyes peered out at me, dark brown hair was plastered to the head and around the neck was a red cord holding a glittering gold ring that shone brightly; I knew in my heart that this was the Phantom I had called for.

"Alright," I spoke. I turned around to glare at Ouvrard who was stumbling backwards with wide eyes full of fright and I finally took notice of something, a long smooth cylinder was in my right hand; looking down, I saw with a heavy dosage of surprise that a naginata lay in my hand, its' handle was a deep black with the steel of the curved blade gleaming in the light; a wild smile to match Phantom's dark grin spread across my face and I pointed the weapon at Ouvrard. "I'm not letting you do as you wish any longer! This is my life! My voice belongs to me! And me alone!" I declared.

"Destroy her!" Ouvrard ordered. The weird creatures moved in front of her and then seemed to bulge and ripple, eventually a black and red liquid flew up into the air before splattering down and yet the creatures' appearances had changed; now the two of them were completely different entities, my eyes darted between the two of them as I worried about what to with these things.

One of them was a tiny little orange creature with sharp claws on the end of its' fingers with what looked to be a mop of brown hair hanging over its' eyes, a pair of ears were poking out from the hair with a braided tail flopping behind it and what looked to be circles dotting its' body. The other was even smaller with earthen brown skin that appeared to be cracked in places, with intense green eyes peering out from behind its' knees which were pulled up to its' chest.

Yet as I looked at them it felt like some kind of information was wavering into my mind, somehow, I just knew that the crouched monster was known as Gnome whilst the dancing orange creature was called Obariyon. The orange creature spun around and suddenly a boxing glove appeared above it and flew towards me.

On instinct, I threw myself to the side into a roll. I quickly got my feet underneath me and swung my naginata out towards it. But the moment my weapon grazed it, I felt as if my blade was repelled slight, making the wound a paper cut as opposed to a slice. Jumping back, I looked at the orange creature which continued to dance happily as if my blade had never touched it. Things got worse when I sensed something flying towards me.

Twisting towards it, I barely raised my arms to block the stone chunks that had suddenly come flying at me. Yet as each attack smashed into me, I barely felt it instead a tingling sensation coated my arms, implying the attack had barely tickled me which caused my eyes to furrow together in confusion. Suddenly a dark and ominous chuckle reverberated within my mind, on some level I knew that it had to be Phantom.

"The Earth and Gravity are yours to command. They shall never harm you greatly. Now use them! Call upon your power!" Phantom declared. It was like information flowed into my mind at that moment and I understood what power Phantom was talking about, so I stretched my hand pout and felt something drain away, not by much but it was enough to be noticeable, and flow into Phantom.

"GRY!" I cried. A pulsing, vibrating wave of green energy flowed from Phantom as the noose was flourished, it flew out and struck the Gnome creature. Shockingly enough the creature was hit so hard by the attack that it was thrown onto its' back. Obariyon was so shocked that it froze its' movements, so I quickly made my move. "Tera!" I declared. The same stone attack that had barely harmed me flew out and slammed heavily into the orange creature which sent it stumbling back.

A furious scream echoed and I looked up to see Ouvrard with her mouth open and I felt the hair on the back of my neck standing up right. Suddenly more of the same masked beings appeared at Ouvrard's side and then did the same ones that the last two did, bursting into puddles of red and black goo before turning into more creatures. There were more of those Gnome and Obariyon creatures but also several other types spotted among them.

"Destroy that intruder already!" Ouvrard roared. I saw the creatures starting to approach at that cry, tightening my grip around my naginata, I turned and quickly charged away from the scene; I was outnumbered and with the current unknown powers of this strange entity that had spontaneously appeared from within me, staying behind to keep fighting was a foolish idea.

But what the heck was going on?