The air in the cavernous, cathedral-like chamber where the Great Seal is contained hangs heavy with the scent of aged stone and the faint, metallic tang of eternity.
Stained glass windows, fractured and dim, cast prismatic shards of light across the floor, their colors muted as if time itself holds its breath here.
At the heart of the sanctuary stands Makoto's petrified form, a statue frozen mid-stride, his face serene yet etched with the weight of a sacrifice older than memory. Dust motes drift lazily in the pallid light, settling on the grooves of his stone jacket, his lifeless fingers, the hollows of his unseeing eyes.
Elizabeth's boots click softly against the marble as she approaches, the sound swallowed by the silence.
Her platinum hair gleams like moonlight caught in silk, framing a face of porcelain resolve. Her golden eyes, bright against the gloom, linger on the statue with a mix of reverence and aching familiarity. The blue of her stewardess-style dress, trimmed with black-lined circles and gold accents, seems to pulse faintly, as though woven from the heart of a glacier.
She reaches out, gloved fingers trembling imperceptibly, and brushes them against the cold curve of Makoto's cheek.
"It's time to wake up, Makoto" says Elizabeth, and soon the whole place begins to tremble as the statue slowly starts to gain life.
The chamber shudders. A low, resonant hum vibrates through the walls as cracks spiderweb across Makoto's stone skin, glowing faintly gold.
The petrification splinters away in flakes, revealing flesh beneath, pale at first, then blooming with warmth. His chest heaves suddenly, a ragged gasp tearing from his throat as color floods back into his eyes, transforming dull marble into vivid blue.
He staggers, muscles seizing after eons of stillness, and Elizabeth catches him, her grip steadying.
"Easy" she murmurs, her hand pressing gently between his shoulder blades. "We have all the time you need".
Makoto's first breath is a shuddering thing, his throat raw as if lined with ash. He coughs, the sound echoing too loudly in the hollow space, and manages a weak smile. "Liz…" he rasps, the nickname a fragile thread of sound.
Her answering smile is radiant, though her eyes glisten. "I missed you" she says simply, as if those three words can span the chasm of years.
He straightens slowly, joints protesting, and she steps back, though not far, her presence a lighthouse in the dim.
When he reaches for his SEES uniform, she hands it to him without a word, the fabric crisp and familiar, smelling faintly of old battles and Aigis's meticulous care. His Evoker, cold and sleek, fits into his palm like a forgotten piece of his soul.
'...' Makoto's thoughts stops as he looks at his weapon, he takes a deep breath slowly, his lungs readjusting to be... alive.
"Do you know what comes next?" he asks, thumb tracing the grooves of his MP3 player, a relic of his former life: paused, interrupted by the cruelty of reality.
Elizabeth's smile turns sly as she flips open her compendium, its pages glowing with arcane script. "Master Igor sends his regards" she says, her tone dancing between solemnity and delight. "And a challenge. The path ahead… well, it's one only you can tread".
Makoto rolls his eyes, but the corner of his mouth twitches. "Starting to sound like him, Liz".
"A high compliment!" she snaps the book shut with a thud, her golden eyes narrowing playfully. "Now focus. The Universe within you it's the key. Think of the tarots. The Hermit's lantern in the dark…"
He closes his eyes. Nyx's voice echoes in his mind, ancient and starlit: 'It requires great courage to look at oneself honestly, and forge one's own path...'. The Evoker rises to his temple, cold against his skin.
"Mercurius!"
The air splits with a sound like shattering glass. Above him, the Persona materializes in a whirl of emerald light, a divine figure clad in flowing robes, wings of iridescent feathers unfurling like dawn breaking storm clouds. In its hands, the Caduceus staff glows, its twin serpents twisting around a shaft of pure gold. Makoto loads a black cartridge into the Evoker, the click reverberating like a heartbeat.
Elizabeth steps closer, her boots brushing his, her breath a warm whisper. "Don't leave me behind, dear guest".
The trigger pulls.
Mercurius's staff spins faster, carving a helix of light that warps the air itself. The chamber dissolves, stone, dust, memory, nto a vortex of cerulean energy.
Elizabeth's soft chuckle rings bright and wild as the light swallows them, her hand gripping Makoto's sleeve like an anchor.
03/31/2012, Kuoh Town, Night.
Makoto's eyelids flutter open, the world swimming into focus like ink bleeding through water. Cold concrete presses into his back, its unyielding bite seeping through his jacket.
He lies there for a moment, disoriented, the aftertaste of Mercurius's failed Theurgy still crackling on his tongue, a metallic tang.
Slowly, he pushes himself upright, palms scraping against grit, and scans the dim expanse of the warehouse he finds himself in.
Sunlight slants through fractured skylights, carving dusty shafts of gold that catch motes of rust swirling in the air. The place reeks of decay: oil-stained floors, corroded metal, and the sour musk of abandonment.
"Elizabeth?" His voice echoes hollowly, swallowed by the cavernous space. Only silence answers, thick and suffocating. 'She'll find me' he tells himself, though his pulse quickens. 'She always does'.
He fumbles for his earphones, fingers trembling faintly as he jams them into place. The opening chords of Deep Breath Deep Breath thrum in his ears, the bassline steadying him like a heartbeat.
He moves cautiously, shoes crunching over debris, shattered glass, twisted nails, the skeletal remains of machinery. Darkness pools in the corners, dense and watchful.
'Universe'.
A voice slices through the music, sharp as a blade, in his mind. Orpheus Telos's tone is melodic yet urgent, strings humming beneath his words. Makoto freezes, one hand hovering near his Evoker.
'Orpheus? You can… speak to me?' asks Makoto thinking his question.
'The Sea of Souls here is fractured, not even formed. Its absence grants us clarity and more freedom of action and the Universe Arcana avoids us from losing ourselves'.
The Persona's presence unfurls in his mind like a scroll, ancient and luminous. There is a presence outside. Malevolent. Not Shadow. Not human.
Makoto's breath hitches. He scans the warehouse again, eyes narrowing. The rusted shelves loom like sentinels, their jagged edges clawing at peeling walls.
A draft whistles through a broken window, carrying the faintest whisper of laughter, cold, mocking.
'Where?' He inches toward a collapsed stack of crates, the music's rhythm syncing with his steps.
'Close, just outside this building. Be cautious' Orpheus's voice tightens.
Above, a metal beam groans. Makoto tilts his head, squinting into the gloom. For a heartbeat, he swears he sees movement, a flicker of something solid in the shadows, there and gone.
His grip tightens on the Evoker.
Makoto's fingers flex at his empty side, the absence of his blade prickling like a phantom limb.
'I'd love to' he replies inwardly, gaze sweeping the warehouse's sagging ceiling beams and buckling walls.
'But Liz forgot to give me my sword. And I'd prefer not to bring the whole place down on us if I summon you'.
Orpheus Telos's laughter resonates like plucked harp strings, soft, discordant and rhythmic, yet wise.
'The Universe bends to your will, Makoto. Need and blade are one'. A pause, then quieter, as if sharing a secret, Orpheus Telos adds: 'Remember your life Makoto'.
Makoto hesitates, then closes his eyes. The Arcana's power hums in his veins, a constellation unfurling behind his eyelids. He envisions the Deus Xiphos, its white hilt, the blade's edge shimmering like fractured starlight, and pulls.
Cold metal materializes in his grip, its weight familiar. He opens his eyes. The sword glimmers faintly, as though drawn from Heaven itself.
'Handy' he thinks, tightening his hold. The warehouse creaks in protest, but holds.
Outside, the alley stinks of rotting garbage and stagnant puddles, the air thick enough to chew.
Crumbling brick walls press close, plastered with peeling concert posters and graffiti that reminds him achingly of Tatsumi Port Island's grime.
For a heartbeat, he's sixteen again, stepping into shadows to meet Shinjiro's wary glare for the first time.
"What a pleasant surprise."
The voice slithers into his ears, honey-sweet and venomous. Makoto turns slowly.
She looms at the alley's dead end, her form a grotesque tapestry of beauty and horror.
A woman's torso rises from a scorpion's segmented body, her skin the sickly white of a cave-dwelling creature.
Six spindly arms claw the air, each tipped with talons like rusted scalpels. Where legs should be, a serpent's tail coils, its scales iridescent under the flickering streetlamp.
Her face is all wrong, too symmetrical, lips blood-red and split by a forked tongue, eyes lidless and glowing sulfur-yellow.
"A prey wanders into my lair" she purrs, the snake tail lashing behind her. "And such a tender morsel…"
Makoto doesn't flinch. His breath steadies, the Deus Xiphos held loosely at his side. 'Calm' he tells himself. 'Breathe. Wait'.
The creature lunges without warning, her tail striking like a whip. The serpent's maw on ber tail snaps where his ribs had been, but he's already sidestepped, movements fluid, almost bored.
"Cat got your tongue?" she hisses, talons raking the air.
He tilts his head, meeting her gaze. "Just waiting" he says, voice flat. "You're slower than I expected".
The scorpion woman's arms blur as she strikes, twin spears whistling through the air like serpents.
Makoto dances backward, the Deus Xiphos always in his hands. Steel clangs against steel, sparks erupting like fireflies in the alley's gloom.
Her tail lashes, the serpent's maw snapping at his ankles, but he pivots, fluid, unhurried, letting the blade's edge kiss the shafts of her spears. They splinter like dry bone.
"Stop moving!" she shrieks, sulfur eyes wild. Her breaths come ragged, claws trembling. "Let me feast!"
Makoto's sword halts an inch from her throat. The blade hums faintly, its holy aura searing the stale air. "I don't want to kill you" he says, voice flat, unwavering.
Her pupils shrink to pinpricks. The sword's light reflects in her lidless gaze, and she recoils as if scalded.
"H-Holy Sword…?" she stammers, voice cracking. Her tail curls protectively around her torso, scales rattling. "Y-you're an exorcist—!?"
"No?" He lowers the blade. "I'm looking for a friend. A woman, white hair, blue dress. Have you seen her?"
"N-no! Never!" She scrambles backward, claws scraping grooves into the asphalt. "I swear on, on Lucifer's throne!"
Makoto nods, sheathing the Deus Xiphos. The alley seems to exhale. "Don't attack anyone else" he says, turning away.
Her whimper follows him as he walks, swallowed by the tinny rhythm of Deep Breath Deep Breath flooding his ears.
'Alive'. The word pulses in Viser's skull like a drumbeat. She staggers into the warehouse, bile rising in her throat.
Her talons clutch at her chest, where the sword's aura still burns phantom holes. 'That blade…' she retches, acid splattering the concrete. 'One glance and my blood turned to ice. What kind of human spares a devil like me?'
Her legs buckle, and she collapses into the shadows, consciousness slipping like sand through fingers.
'Makoto. The attendant is near' alerts Orpheus Telos.
Makoto freezes mid-step. The sidewalk ahead shimmers, air warping like heat haze. A door materializes, tall, ornate, its surface lacquered midnight blue.
The door swings open. Elizabeth steps out, her platinum hair glowing like a beacon in the grimy street.
Her blue velvet dress rustles as she spins, arms spread. "Found you!" she trills, golden eyes crinkling with delight.
Makoto blinks. "How is the Velvet Room here? I thought-".
"A new iteration!" She twirls, gesturing grandly at the doorway. "No longer bound to dreams or elevators. This one is yours, physically yours, anchored by the Universe Arcana!"
Inside, the Velvet Room unfolds like a the usual dreamy place, but more opulent. Gone is the sterile elevator; in its place sprawls a speakeasy of impossible geometry.
Velvet curtains cascade from a ceiling painted with swirling nebulae. A mahogany bar gleams under chandeliers of crystallized light, bottles of whatever kinds of liquids Elizabeth brought glowing softly on shelves. A spiral staircase winds upward, its brass railings entwined with gilded vines.
"I finally have the Velvet Club!" Elizabeth declares, walking past a grand piano where a shadowy figure plays a sonata only Makoto can hear.
"We have all that we need! Music! And-" she flings open a door to reveal a bathroom lined with marble and steam. "hydrotherapy!"
Makoto stares, exhaustion weighing his bones like lead. "Is there… a bedroom?"
Elizabeth pouts. "You slept for two years, Makoto!"
"I wasn't sleeping. I was holding back the apocalypse". He trudges upstairs, each step heavier than the last.
The upper level is quieter, bathed in the warm glow of gaslight sconces. Three doors line the hallway. He opens the first.
"I don't require sleep," Elizabeth says, peering over his shoulder, "but the other rooms include everything a guest could nee-".
Makoto collapses face-first into the bed. The last thing he hears is her sigh, before sleep drags him under, a tide as deep and dark as the Sea of Souls itself.
04/01/2012, Kuoh Town, Morning.
Makoto stirs, the soft embrace of the navy silk sheets reluctantly releasing him as he wakes.
The room is bathed in a muted, predawn glow, the faint scent of cedar and something faintly floral lavender, perhaps, lingering in the air.
He sits up, running a hand through his disheveled hair, and takes a moment to survey the space. It feels familiar, yet undeniably grander, like a dreamlike upgrade of his old room at the Iwatodai Dorm.
To the left, three towering white wardrobes stand like sentinels, their polished surfaces gleaming faintly in the dim light. Their stark whiteness contrasts sharply with the deep blue walls, which seem to shift subtly in hue as the light changes, like the surface of a tranquil ocean.
On the right, a stately a walnut desk commands attention, its surface smooth and uncluttered save for a sleek, modern lamp and a small, humming fridge tucked neatly beneath.
The desk faces a wide window, its view currently hidden behind heavy velvet curtains that pool luxuriously on the floor.
Makoto swings his legs over the side of the bed, his feet sinking into the plush carpet. He glances at the clock on the nightstand, 7:00 a.m., its numerals glowing a soft, unobtrusive green.
He takes a deep breath, the air cool and crisp, and stands, stretching the stiffness from his limbs. Crossing the room, he reaches for the curtains, his fingers brushing against the rich fabric. With a gentle tug, he pulls them aside, and the room floods with the golden light of morning.
However he gasps at what he sees outside.
"Elizabeth, why is Tartarus outside the Velvet Room?" asks Makoto calling for the attendant.
He then opens the window and looks up seeing the top of the Tower of Demise under a shining full Moon. 'It's bright as day but the Moon is still up' thinks Makoto before exiting the room and searching for Elizabeth.
"Good morning Makoto, I see you've noticed the Velvet Room is at the new base of Tartarus" says nonchalantly Elizabeth who's sitting on a chair in front of the bar's counter.
"Yeah, why's that?" asks Makoto while exploring the bar. "This Velvet Room is strongly linked to you, so it has moved inside the Universe Arcana" explains Elizabeth looking at the boy who's inspecting the small kitchen behind the counter.
"So we are inside the Universe Arcana?" Makoto asks with a satisfied look after seeing the furniture of cooking tools the bar has.
"Yes, we are" Elizabeth then stands up and heads towards the back door door near the stairs.
"This door leads to Tartarus, don't worry there are no shadows in there" says Elizabeth as she watches Makoto boiling some water in a pot.
"What are you doing?" asks her giggling. "I'm preparing some miso soup for breakfast, want some?" asks him without leaving his look from the pot. "I'm obliged" says the woman with a smile sitting back on the counter.
As the two of them have breakfast Makoto hears Elizabeth's voice resounding in his head.
'I am Thou. Thou art I. The bond thou hast nurtured hath finally matured. The innermost power of the Fool arcana hath been freed once again. Thee now hast the might of the ultimate form of the Fool within the infinite expanse of the Universe'.
"Liz? What happened?" asks Makoto confused. "Oh, it seems that being in a new world makes your old bonds not as useful as they should be. Luckily our bond is already strong enough" answers the attendant with a look of satisfaction.
"I think I understand... So all my bonds are to be replaced?" says the Messiah with a bit of sorrow in his voice.
"Replaced is not the right word, Makoto. Those are irreplaceable and their power is still in you. You just need new ones and after all, not all your bonds are useless here" explains Elizabeth as she finishes the soup.
"It was delicious, you have my thanks Makoto" before she can say anything else Makoto stops her.
"What do you mean by not every bond is useless?" he asks. "Death is still within yourself".
At the exact same time Makoto hears this he runs towards the door leading to Tartarus opening it and going inside. Only a name resounds in his mind 'Ryoji'.