The feeling of a splitting headache was not unfamiliar to Ren.
Cold, hard dirt partially stained with blood had been his resting bed for… how long exactly? With a clouded mind and sore muscles he was incapable of moving and if it weren't for the familiarity of the experience, he would be incapable of reasoning too. God how much he wished for a simple Bead, or even just a mere Dia. Perhaps Patra would have been of use too.
His thought began taking a proper form once again, his mind gained once more the ability to recall. The questions that surfaced painfully stabbed in his skull like a curved dagger making the whole process even worse.
"We're heading out to check a thing, we'll be back in a minute." He told Sojiro. It was more of a friendly formality rather than anything else, they were most likely going to come back immediately anyways.
He heard the door's bell as the door closed, fitting perfectly in its usual door frame. Door. Door. Door.
Blank.
"-ys, we don't have much time!" Blond hair occupied his view and his lack of commands ended up in tragedy. Instant regret and confusion were already drowning his other emotions, letting Ren sink in their vast lake. Why wasn't he saying anything? Did he actually want to risk opening the door like that?
"Wait, RYUJI DON'T!" screamed Morgana, but either by Ryuji's absent mindedness or by the furry companion's lateness, it was all in vain. The door slid open from the magical door frame, and as it did it disintegrated in a bright light, which trailed off from the door knob. The screams he heard didn't terrify him as much as they worried him.
The door's light consumed them.
The door.
Door.
Door.
The door.
His eyes shot open, the screaming echoes somehow penetrated his vision and he found it hard to look around. The clear sky was recognizable, yet for some reason he always seemed to appreciate it a lot more after almost dying. Speaking of… had he wounded his head? He touched his scalp and quickly flinched at the disgusting sensation. A quick look at the palm of his hand revealed trails of blood although there wasn't too much.
With the miraculous and precious little energy he had he managed to get into a sitting position, legs slightly bent and elbows onto knees.
What he saw was definitely not the Metaverse. First of all, was he in a playground? A medieval playground? A monstrous playground? The main attractions seemed to be the fortress at the center of the area, which was peculiarly shaped to say the least. It was divided in two parts: Fortress and Monster. The fortress part stood on gigantic bones, something you'd see at an archeology museum, and the cone roof seemed to be constructed out of actual bricks. The monster however was the unsettling part: The purple shell, the sickly detailed teeth, the gigantic horns. Heck, was this supposed to be for children? It was making HIM uncomfortable!
His head scanned the playground once again. The rest seemed fairly normal, despite the pointy spikes on the border of that sandbox. The children inside were- hold on, were they staring at him?
It took him way too long to notice, and once he did he realized that the furniture wasn't the most unsettling thing of that place; The children were. From the kid with three eyes and a beak to the red demon who was probably capable of eating his soul, it was all so nightmarish he summoned his Persona out of reflex.
But he didn't possess any Persona. He wasn't even in his phantom thief attire, they were just his normal summer clothes.
"Sir? Are you ok?" For what looked like a 'child' (?) the red demon's voice was rather deep in tone.
"Did you rain from the sky?" The little girl with the unibrow asked. Had he? He sure felt like he did.
"Your glasses!" The weird children approached him and he had to use all his guts that he had slowly evolved during the years to stay calm at the discomforting sight. In his little hands were the fake glasses he always wore, or in other words: His mask. They seemed to have been crooked and dirtied with the fall, but they weren't cracked.
"Thank you." He hastily replied as he picked them up and put them back on. He immediately noticed how they failed to fit properly on his head. That was a minor annoyance. Getting up from the dirt floor he found that the bizarre theme of the playground had somehow plagued the entire town around him. It was so surreal.
"I'm fine, I was just… trying something." He hoped that would quench the children's curiosity enough and quickly tried to flee the scene. No one opposed him, but he could pretty much hear their 'whispers' behind his back.
"His ears!" He immediately stopped to touch them. He wasn't bleeding, and they didn't hurt. What was wrong with them exactly? Sadly he made the mistake of letting them know he heard. The children refused to speak more and he was forced to leave empty handed.
It was time to focus. First of all: where was he? This place was definitely not Japan, and it certainly didn't look like any place in the Metaverse he had ever seen. Could it have been an enormous palace? That seemed unlikely. He looked around, and the scenery was something you'd find in a fairy tale, the grotesque kind. Young witches flew around on staffs, each one of them wearing what looked like a differently colored uniform. It was unclear to him what the color specifically meant. As he walked down the street the penetrating gaze of pretty much everybody made the experience a lot less magical, so to speak.
It made him wonder, From weird mystical creatures to the antique architecture it was somewhat of an amazing sight, he wondered if Yusuke would enjoy such a place. Hold on, why was he alone? Where was everybody else?
Ren finally managed to break out of the thought prison his mind had put him in. Looking around once more he finally realized that his team was nowhere to be seen. For every corner he looked in there was just another nightmare staring back at him. He felt so hazy too… was it the consequence of the wound he had?
He stumbled and found it hard to stay upright as he had to balance himself on the brick wall. The nauseating feeling of being stared at intensified once again and all he could do was stare back at the monsters and humanoids that plagued the place. What was he going to do? The wound was certainly taking its toll on him and although nobody seemed to want to approach his faltering body the risk was still very real.
Steps by step he managed to reach one of the only seemingly monster-less alleyway. Only then did he manage to relax even if for a brief instant. His hand once again moved to his ruffled hair which was now greatly stained with blood. He glanced back at the streets, examining the few humanoid people he could see. Something seemed off about them however. A clear distinction between what made Ren human and them alien: the ears. Pointy, elfish ears. The children must have been referring to that.
It wasn't long before Ren began realizing that he was stranded in that alleyway. Too tired to move, too confused to act. Was he just going to… take a nap? In a time like this? It felt like an immediate urge was taking hold of him. Something dragging him in the deep slumber. This hellish feeling made him almost want to plead, plead to be spared another beating, for the interrogation to stop, for them to stop drugging him.
Just a nap, that's it. He was going to be feeling ok.
A really good afternoon in the boiling isles, wasn't it? It was always good when Amity would get to see her awesome girlfriend. Black vest, red pants and her adorable cat palisman in tow she was free to fly around
the streets towards the owl house. Surprising Luz with a visit was the sweetest idea she had conjured that day, so why not give in and fly over? Even for just a minute.
Passing over the playground she waved at the distraught children although something immediately put her off. No sand fortresses were being built, no game of tag was being played, no toy was being touched. The once lively children now just… talked. Worry overtook her, and as the leather boots made contact with the dirt ground she thought to herself 'Luz can wait for a bit more.'
"What's wrong?" Her soft voice was instantly recognized by the kids.
"Miss Amity!" they screamed in unison as their little feet treaded their way to their favorite storyteller. She herself embraced them in a warm hug. They were so adorable!
"A human fell from the sky!" a frickin WHAT?! Her eyes widened like a pair of oracle spheres, and her ears raised in surprise at Braxas' testimony. The other children nodded in agreement and Amity found herself releasing them from her loving grasp. They weren't lying were they? Was this some kind of game?
"Oh, really? You have a really fervid imagination!" She complimented the children, surely they must have been joking.
"It's twue!" The lisp impeded the child's words.
Amity backed a bit. Maybe she was worrying too much about this whole ordeal. "What did the human look like?" The unorganized children immediately clashed as each of them tried to describe the human's appearance.
"One at a time, ok?" The children obeyed.
"They had rwound human ears!" Started the first.
"They had a black shirty human thingy!" Continued the second.
"They had weird glasses!" Added the third.
"They rained from the sky and fell on the top of the slide! I think they're hurt!" Finished the fourth. Amity turned around and immediately noticed how on the brick roof traces of blood were present.
No, something was wrong. The children wouldn't lie to her and if this was a prank then it was too elaborate for these young witchlings to execute.
"Where did the human go?" She posed the final question.
They pointed towards the street.
"Thank you." a flick of her wrist and the staff was back in her hands. The description didn't feel like Luz, and the blood certainly was something to worry about. Would the children even recognize Luz? They may have seen her around sometimes at the library but she doubted they paid her any attention.
With her staff she walked her way down the street and her popularity always found a way to hinder her casual walks. Everyone glanced at her in some form or another, no matter what they were doing. Waiting for the egg bus, eating trash, catching scoundrels and buying eye-related snacks: Everyone took their time to look at her even if for a short second. Being the Blight's youngest was an experience akin to having some weird uncurable hex.
It was weird however. Emperor's Coven guards were fairly common recently but something seemed wrong today. Usually they'd just be patrolling but a whole squad of them was chasing someone.
"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT FROM ME?!" Their scream could be heard from the other side of town and although they were chased by the guards no one else dared try and catch them. Their fleet footwork made the procedure a lot more tricky as their running speed was nearly unbeatable by most other creatures.
Wearing a yellow tank top, baggy shorts and bearing a white belt the blonde sped past Amity in an almost terrorized fashion.
"That certainly didn't look like a witch." She thought as she watched them turn the corner, the guards soon following.
The snickers of fellow witches caught her attention and immediately made her realize that oh no, they were here!
Boscha, that triple eyed annoying witch and her somewhat cooler friends just kept on snickering and joking about something. She dreaded approaching them for fear of another tremendous and annoying interaction but if she wanted to get to the bottom of this new "human invasion" then she would have to act.
One step forward was all it took for them to be alerted, like a drone swarm surveilling whoever dared approach them.
"Hey Amity, has your human nerd friend invited their family over?" She was already regretting the idea of confronting them as Boscha preemptively began with a stupid joke, which the other witches laughed at. Weird, she hoped at least Cat would have more brain.
"Cut the jokes, have you seen an human wearing glasses around here?" She asked, and the other witches delivered.
"Yeah, they limped into that alleyway. I don't know what for, there's quite literally nothing there." Amity stared at Bo, wondering about a couple of things.
"If they were limping then WHY DIDN'T YOU HELP THEM?" The thought of this other human being anything like Luz made her feel the injustice in the witches neglect.
"Chill Amity, they're fine! If they're anything like Luz then they could probably take a shooting star to the face and survive!" Amity turned around, immediately heading for the alleyway. She couldn't believe the sheer idiocy of these… of these idiots! Even her thoughts struggled to express how dumb their reasoning was. Who cared about saying bye to them anyways, they certainly didn't since all they could do is giggle.
Slowly she stepped into the darkness of the alleyway, her palisman's eyes lit the way forward, trails of blood ventured deeper into the corridor between the brick walls. Where were they? They couldn't have left, there was no exit out of this place!
An obstacle at her feet was enough for her to trip to the ground, her only saving grace being her palisman who helped her avoid falling face first.
"Thank you, Ghost." She quietly said as the staff floated her back to her feet. Just what had- ?!
The cat's eyes lit the human. It seemed not too older than her siblings, the description even matched perfectly to what the children told her, and she was shocked to see the blood trailing down his shoulder, staining his clothes.
The human was unresponsive, completely out cold. She could only hope they weren't dead as they were vigorously shaken.
What could she do? Bring him to the healing coven? Would they even know how to heal a human? The differences in anatomy didn't seem many but she was unsure if they would be able to do something for them. What should she do…?
Her hands moved to her abomination in a bottle, and her mind finally made a decision.