Chapter Text
The cell door throws itself open. When its metal bars crash against the neighboring wall and weakly stagger back again, she startles awake. Her back is cold, having been pressed against the dank, half-cushioned wall.
She was having a dream…but now, she can’t recall a mere image of it.
Grogginess lifts itself off of her eyes and up from her shoulders, and Ann only needs a pair of seconds to pull herself forward and up. This time, she comes to where she had passed out.
But how long has it been since she got here? That time, she didn’t even fall to and rise from sleep—instead, she and her friends were disintegrating. Mementos had mutated Shibuya into a bloody tangle of urban and eldritch. Thousands of pedestrians and hundreds of cars stumbled on without care. They could never see the cyclopean bones scraping at the citywide display screens.
So the near-infinite strangers couldn’t care less for the teenagers fading away at the center of Station Square, writhing on the ground in sorrow and horror.
Ryuji was the first to leave them completely, his guttural scream denied even the comfort of a resounding echo. Ann called after him, just to be assimilated into the same void, mindless and senseless.
For all that she knew, everyone else must have followed after the pair. Yusuke, Makoto, Futaba, Haru—even Ren and Morgana—fell into the throes of death.
Or was it death? She had felt her mortal body as it ever was when she first awoke in this jail cell—and she was tired. When she couldn’t make sense of why she would be here—neither Heaven nor Hell, or any other afterlife, should look like this—she slumped back down against the wall and passed out.
The dark blue walls look to be of a cushioning pattern, like they were built of sturdy pillows. When Ann pressed her back against them, it felt cold and rock-solid; they might as well be made of cracked, decaying concrete.
So she finds herself awake again here, for better or for worse. She isn’t dead, and the door to her prison has been slammed open. Nobody else is in sight, regardless.
Only after she recalibrates her bearings does an approaching presence disrupt her curious composure. In the dark navy-blue outside of her cell, the shadow cast against the wall is a flimsy silhouette with ghostly transparency. The footsteps are cautious, slow but uneven, as though their source requires intense focus to slow down.
“Ann?” Ryuji’s voice is quiet.
Ann could understand why, but—
…Ryuji.
It’s Ryuji! She needs a few seconds to let the excitement sink in for her.
Are they both alive? The first and second to go, leaving their friends behind to experience the same fate, just to find each other again?
“RYUJI!” Taking his place to be the more loud and rash one, Ann barrels into him as soon as his maverick, still handsome face falls under the dim light of the cell.
Caution is thrown to the wind, but she can feel his body, squirming and warm (if faintly cold-skinned) as he stumbles back a couple of steps to make way for her weight.
We’re all okay, she truly begins to believe, trying so hard to not wail like a baby against the collar of his graphic tee. They need to confirm where the others are, and she can’t deny that, either. But her final moments amidst the bloody sky and the clash of sinew and concrete—the death sentence that the evil of the Holy Grail threw onto all of them—must be coming undone.
At least Ryuji—someone she has come to love quasi-bickering with but ultimately confides in and cares for—is okay. He’s still a friend she could finally keep, even when the world has nearly taken away so many others in her life.
If everyone else had merely followed into the temporary oblivion that he and Ann were first fed to, then they must be alive, too.
Ryuji gingerly grips her arms to push her off of him, but takes a good look at her visage. Ann realizes that she only needed so much to know that he was alive, but he must need more. Not that she could even poke fun at him for it—he couldn’t have even an inkling of what it was like to watch any of them be snuffed out.
So when recognition molds itself into reassurance and flickers across his eyes, his wide “puppy-boy” grin is as bright as it ever was. His oak-brown eyes widen with vindication, tears seeping out at their rims.
“‘The actions of the Phantom Thieves show no sign of stopping.’”
It still feels like a dream.
The fizzing liquid in his skull isn’t scalding anymore; the numbness it administers is quite calming. Meanwhile, the god-hand clinging to his heart is gentle. If they’re calming and gentle, he feels good. It tells him that he’s doing good and is safe.
If it tells him that, then he feels that way. What else would he need to prove it?
“‘Change-of-heart police reports have already surpassed one-hundred cases.’” All the newscaster does is relay what the ordinary, blissfully dumb masses can surmise of his work. They can’t know—and don’t need to know—of who he works under.
That doesn’t stop a weak nudge from manifesting inside him…again.
As it has done every time it starts up like this, the urge objects to reality. Does it think there’s more for even these bumbling idiots to understand of him and Yaldabaoth’s work?
Or is something else wrong? Is something missing? Is the hole at the core of his consciousness “bad” for a reason?
He starts to feel his limbs more vividly, and they ache; he might call the searing “exhaustion.” The rosy filter of a dream starts to burn away.
This impulse inside of him was about to obstruct their justice. No! He couldn’t let that happen!
Little bats flap against his brains. A viper wraps itself around his chest cavity, sinking its fangs into the flesh at his core. His skull is buzzing, and the serpent’s serum lulls him back to how he has been—how he should be.
Already, the traps laid out by his god overpower the insufferable nerves.
“It just means that more cases are being exposed thanks to the Phantom Thieves!” An ordinary passerby relays the obvious to another of their ilk.
That means that it’s working, but of course it is working! Justice is here to stay. Only through Yaldabaoth will the filth of their world continue to be washed out by the Phantom Thief.
Or…Phantom…Thieves…
…as is the ruse he’s been keeping up for the masses. There is nothing else to see in the plurality of his pseudonym.
So the latest bud of revolt is fruitless, too. As with every other that’s come before, it dies in vain. The wasps that had been pricking his head collapse into sleep again. The chains binding his chest cut themselves loose. Yaldabaoth’s guiding strings don’t suffocate his insides anymore—they still hoist his body upright, but tenderly.
The sensations are supposed to keep him focused, his god has decreed. It isn’t supposed to hurt him. If it is made so by Yaldabaoth, then he does not feel pain.
The hazy blur and oversaturated colors return to his vision. He stares at an ordinary patch of the evening sky. Pride pulls his lips into a smirk.
When trading anecdotes with Ryuji, Ann remembers that she had been dreaming of Morgana.
They sit on the floor of her cell (as cold as it and the walls are, the hallway outside was no better), confounding themselves in how long it took for their subconscious to relay this to their waking minds. Of all the loved ones they could have seen in their lucid dreams, the talking cat was the one to run up to each of them and rouse them back into reality. Wouldn’t they be seeing him again if they got out of this?
With Ryuji, Mona insisted he hold onto their shared moral compass—justice etching itself into their lives, one way or another—when no one else agreed. With Ann, of carrying her light along while it grows stronger, to guide and to inspire others like her, rather than accepting loneliness and withering in the misery.
When both of them were coming to their senses, Morgana vanished…and they each woke to their cell doors slamming open against the wall.
Ryuji needs a minute to collect himself.
“I still dunno how we got here,” he sighs, stopping to let Ann nod sheepishly in sympathy. “I should’ve asked Morgana…sorry.”
A cold sweat breaks open under Ann’s blonde bangs. Her mind still half-dissociates from their bleak predicament, but she can’t ignore the red flag that stretches across the talk of their “little guy,” their paradoxical mentor and younger brother.
“B-before you woke up—” she stammers, her voice still drained by the horrors of their initial final mission (hollering for Ryuji would only have been, at most, the insult to the injury on her throat). “Did he just vanish in front of you, too?”
Ryuji’s little brows furrow.
“Yeah,” he answers reluctantly. He is much quicker to follow-up. “But we still don’t know if that meant anything, right? Maybe not totally…b-but like—”
“No, I feel the same,” she insists. “So…yeah, let’s not jump to anything yet.”
Sure, the last of both their sleeping moments was Morgana’s tangible (and, therefore, ever-still huggable) body petering out into otherwise, but there is nothing they can find to prove that it was an omen. Ann won’t cling to any conclusion, even those where they find Morgana alive.
Some say that people should hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. Ann would like to think that even the worst isn’t so bad.
“What about the others?” she asks.
“They gotta be here, right?” Ryuji’s tenor voice isn’t quite as worn as Ann’s, but he takes surprising care to keep it down. “I thought maybe Ren would’ve found us by now. Makoto or Futaba could suss us out, too. My ass was locked up right next to you, and I couldn’t see a thing out here, but—” He stops himself, massaging his half-healed leg as he forces his lips to stick together.
“Hold on,” she finally intervenes. “I’m sorry, I…didn’t realize that you’re as confused as I am.”
The young woman also doesn’t realize she is taking him by the hand through this, rather than them claiming equal measures to understand their situation and sleuth out everything else. It’s more pressing to her that the atmosphere of confusion and dread is starting to broil him inside.
Ann hates her own cluelessness. She also knows it won’t be solved if she doesn’t begrudgingly accept it first. It’s not easy—if the stakes are high and enough fragments of preconceived “fiction” become real, the desire for answers and resolutions will instigate madness and impatience in anyone.
Ryuji’s fist trembles, and his glowering eyes heighten the visage of someone ready to snap. He snapped once before, when the Phantom Thieves had a bounty thrown over their heads. This time, his lips are pursed together as he focuses a part of himself on deepening his breath.
Ann finds it encouraging to see him take control of those impulses. By this point, their way out of this ought to be in reach.
“Let’s go find everyone ourselves,” she beseeches Ryuji. “They can’t be too far from here…and we still have a mission to finish.”
The dissolution of his exasperation is almost tangible. His shoulders relax and confidence recolors his face. It’s…adorable, even if she and their friends ought to be used to it. His growing, plucky smile sets her chest aloft with a fire that she didn’t realize had still been missing.
“Yeah, we can’t give up here.” As the volume of Ryuji’s voice grows from pure excitement, Ann feels her dissociations finally unravel. “If we did, what’d we take down any of those douchebags for?! Shido, Madarame, or—or—”
“Kamoshida.” Ann gravely nods, steadily returning to her feet.
The name still boils in her veins—no matter the implications of his likeness imprisoned in the depths of Mementos, that would never change. To this day, Kamoshida is nothing more than a noxious bully and abusive thug. All that has changed is that he’s had months to not hurt anyone else, to finally understand what kind of bete noire he is.
If anything, it makes it easier to stand on her feet again. Ryuji looks on at her, his excitement curbing to sincerely drink in her every word.
“I could never forget how I felt that day,” she seethes, “when Shiho jumped. When I forced myself into his Palace, you and Ren had to watch me put together what was already obvious—nothing I did could stop him. And no matter how hard I wish, I can never undo what he did to Shiho, to Mishima-kun…to you.”
The scorching, but refreshing embers that glaze her spirit are familiar. Her friend is a rapt bystander before her.
“I never want anyone to have to go through what I did, either!” The hoarseness of her voice, if only for a moment, cannot deny the ferocity of her return to strength. “I’m going to keep looking forward. All that matters is that I don’t return to my old self.”
Ann’s aqua eyes glimmer with that renewed ferocity. Her varsity jacket burns away for a certain red suit she has come to grow confidence within. Her head turns upward so the capri-blue fire barely grazes her face. She can still feel Ryuji’s honeyed oak eyes on her, equal parts relating and beholding.
“I’ll never make a mistake like that again, Ryuji. I promised Ren and Shiho—and I promise you, too.”
Her head returns from the clouds to the earth they walk. She exchanges Ryuji’s smile with her own. Any time now, those invisible flames will spark to life in him.
“I get it now, too.” Sure enough, he chimes in. “We’re doin’ this to make sure people don’t gotta go through the same crap we did.”
She doesn’t need to say anything when he lights the fire under his own ass. He could make more effort to be gentler on himself, but Ryuji props himself off the ground, anyway.
“It doesn’t matter if they think we’re just or not,” he says. “We gotta do what we believe in!”
"Meanwhile, there are reports that the rate of crim—”
He can’t hear the broadcast drone on again.
Yaldabaoth’s guidance isn’t firm anymore. His head and heart are stripped of his presence. The space they once occupied is empty.
Sparks ignite in Ryuji’s heart, his chest warm but weightless in his rejuvenation. Ann presses a hand against it and another to his back, steadying him as his armor appears and extinguishes the blue flames.
They scurry out of Ann’s cell when they realize that the bars that once sealed her in are gone. Further beyond, from where Ryuji initially stumbled out to find her, the same door has vanished. No bolts or hinges could have been undone since they slammed wide open…
But in any case, they were free to go. The pair turn to one another, able to meet each other’s eyes in the darkness.
“Ready?” Ryuji asks, giving Ann the flashiest grin he can muster.
Misguided despondency had soaked Yusuke’s pale face. His conflicting self-dialogue for Madarame—maybe once an honest teacher and foster father, before he slipped into a vile counterfeit of himself—had let the self-doubt and exhaustion reign, lacing itself into his deep voice.
Then Ryuji and Ann find him behind bars and under another barely useful ceiling lamp. As gloomy as his cell is, it’s nothing new from what the pair had broken themselves out of. And just as Panther and Skull have pushed aside their doubts of Kamoshida’s fall starting to heal themselves and others victims, they know that the better road for Yusuke to travel entails that a similar justice was cast onto the old man. After all, in the midst of his meager funds, Kosei High’s full arts scholarship stands where Madarame no longer does.
With the confidence he needs to bring him to his senses, Yusuke comes around again.
“Just as art is meant to break boundaries,” he finally proclaims, “people should be saved even if they frown upon it.”
Ann smiles sagely from the other side of his cell.
“If you could’ve left on yer own,” Ryuji asks gingerly, “you would’ve, right? You even knew you’d have to get away from him, right?”
“I have said that before, yes,” Yusuke laments, his head downcast. “Not that it would have been easy. That was why I allowed myself to turn away from the truth set before me. There would never be much that we could undo, yet many of his transgressions were brought to a close by the Phantom Thieves.”
He turns from the ground to the two outside of his cell, meeting them with piercing, freezing eyes.
“My course is set again,” he growls. “I won’t allow the justice I believe in to be shaken any further!”
Tranquil fury holds Yusuke’s slender frame steady. He closes his eyes, still at peace when the same blue fires consume his body.
In their wake, he is draped in his own exquisite costume—the hallmarks of the Phantom Thief “Fox”—in lieu of his street wear.
“You’ve grown a lot, Yusuke,” Ann muses, her voice coated in pride. “We didn’t meet you on the best of terms, but I’m glad we got to know you, anyway.”
“Yeah,” Ryuji barks eagerly. “I learned a lot more from you than I thought I woulda.”
Though Yusuke holds a steady composure, the tail at the end of his belt faintly wags, as if to match Ryuji’s perkiness.
The bars closing his prison pulsate with a blue glow, forcing the pair outside to shuffle backwards. As soon as they fade into nothing, Fox saunters forward.
Everything has stopped. He’s the only one sprinting back towards Station Square, effortlessly phasing through the darkened, static silhouettes of the masses.
Something is wrong, and he needs to know what to do about it. But Yaldabaoth hasn’t stepped in yet…
His name brings the feeling in his limbs to life. He falls onto the concrete pathway, but it doesn’t burn nearly as much as the soreness that already perfuses his body.
Yusuke, Ryuji, and Ann backtrack to pick another hallway, and there they find Makoto in a cell of her own.
Their failed battle with the “Holy Grail” still weighs on all of them, but it looms over Makoto’s head even worse.
“I think I finally understand the pain my father and my sister were burdened with,” she scoffs morosely. “Victory against a single criminal is meaningless.” Her slender frame trembles, and she looks ready to fall to the floor and cry. “The true enemy is society itself. And even against that foe, you still have to try to somehow emerge victorious.”
For a moment, the masked trio on the other end have nothing to say.
“I don’t know what to do,” she bemoans, two streams of tears finally slipping from her eyes.
Skull’s grip on the metal bars begins to loosen, and even Panther’s head bows while her eyes dart away.
“You say that as though we never grappled with uncertainty for so long at a time,” Fox is calming and discerning at once. “If the rest of us couldn’t find a way, then you did, Makoto. You ought to believe in yourself.”
“He’s right, yanno,” Skull chimes in. “And you’re not alone in this. I’m shit at tactics, but I’ll back you up if you need anything.”
Makoto looks up at them in awe, her body jolting from the mesh of a sob and a laugh that barely escapes her throat. As the sheepish chuckles of disbelief follow, Ryuji retightens his grip on the bars. Ann reaches up, however, and clasps one of his hands.
“Give her a second,” she whispers to him.
“That’s actually a bad habit of mine.” Before Ryuji can back away from the cell door, Makoto finally musters her answer. “The more critical the situation, the less I want to rely on others. But Yusuke’s right, too. If we had frozen up and given in like I have, we wouldn’t have stopped Kaneshiro, Haru’s father, or Shido.” She presses her hands to both of her eyes. “You all wouldn’t have stopped Kamoshida and Madarame, and we might not have been able to save Futaba or…or Sis.”
Ann releases Ryuji’s fist, but she never takes her eyes off their upperclassman.
“We’re going to figure this out,” she insists. “We don’t know how to stop this ‘Holy Grail’ yet, but we can find out, and we will take it down.”
“You’re right,” says Makoto. “It’s just not going to have a straightforward answer.”
Her tears finally dry, and her demeanor becomes familiar again for the friends who, as close as they may be, had never seen her cry before.
“But even if there is no clear solution,” she is quick to add, “I’ll just have to make one…with my own two hands. Before you guys came along, my life was defined by rules, set on a path of someone else’s choosing.”
“And you have no obligation to live like that anymore,” Yusuke affirms.
Makoto smiles sagely. “Only a true loser would live so rigidly. So I’ll win…”
As she speaks, the waver in Makoto’s voice slowly dissipates.
“Even if it means going up against the entire world.”
Like clockwork, a bright combustion returns her into her spiky armor. The door fizzles into oblivion, slipping through Ryuji’s fists before he can let go.
“...That’s right. I was foolish to think you should abandon me.”
Haru gently hugs the coat on her body. But, still understanding the folly in her meekness, her poise still evokes the mature and confident woman that she’s become.
“We’re not going to do this without you,” asserts Makoto, already back to working hard for her codename “Queen.” “But after everything we’ve been through, you control your life now, Haru-chan.”
Haru smiles serenely, removing herself from the wall.
“You said you were gonna make somethin’ good outta your family company?” Ryuji asks. “A cafe, right? Ren said you’ve been good at just keepin’ Okumura Foods on track.”
Even in the dim lighting, a soft pink can be seen brushing the third-year girl’s pretty face.
“Then I’ll have to continue to live up to yours and Ren-kun’s expectations, Ryuji-kun,” she coos.
“I’m also sure you’ll be exceptional,” concurs Yusuke. “But if we are to see that future, we need you to come back with us.”
“Then that settles it,” she finally decrees, arms falling to her sides as she faces the other five with stern triumph. “Even if there are times where I think there’s nothing I can do, I’ll never stop fighting. Just as I betrayed my distorted father before, I will betray my boring former self now!”
Haru’s presence becomes only more refined as she proclaims herself. As soon as her costume returns, the door to her prison vanishes.
Panther is the first to draw closest to her, gently but snugly throwing her arms around Noir.
“Joker…”
A different voice reverberates in his head. It isn’t Yaldabaoth, but it’s still familiar.
“Ren…no…”
It trembles with weakness, barely managing to croak after all the agony its owner must already be sustaining. He wishes he could hold them close, give them a good headscratch while taking care of—
…Ren finally remembers.
Beneath his crooked glasses, the gold-dusted cunning fizzles out from his charcoal eyes.
The train of thought he will need to run through is long. So when the last of these rose-stained memories catch up, his brain will already be too overloaded for them to make a difference.
“Morgana?” Ren Amamiya scurries to his feet, clumsy and painful as it is. Though it wouldn’t last forever, at least he can center himself on something outside of himself.
“Morgana!”
All he needs to do is focus on finding a friend, and one whose whimpers have wriggled into his head.
“Ren…stay back…”
Of course he couldn’t do that.
“Mona, I’m coming!” The aching across Ren’s lanky body draws itself back, his mere intentions keeping it at bay.
The world is still frozen in place while he hurries ahead. The crimson skyscape and its wispy dark clouds push him to sprint faster than he thought possible of himself.
A certain friend of his would be amazed—but Ren doesn’t want to think of anything beyond Morgana, lest his brain finally overwhelms and destroys him from the inside.
“I just wanna go home, but even that would be tough now.” As everyone else had before, Futaba’s spirit wilts. Her voice is about as worn through as Ann’s. “Giving up would be too painful.”
Wordlessly, those crowding around the outside of her cell—even Haru, who hadn’t joined their group until after Futaba’s heart was healed—all make the same inference.
“You really have changed, Futaba.” Yusuke is the first to speak up.
“I guess so,” Futaba snorts morosely. “All of this is too much, but I ca—...I can’t let people suffer like this. Even if I don’t know them personally.”
“Your empathy is something that many people could stand to learn from, Futaba-chan,” Haru says softly. “You should look to it for encouragement, not to scare yourself.”
“You’re right, but,” Futaba replies, “I’m not even scared. Or if I am, I just…don’t know what to do about it. It hurts. It’s a lot. And if I fail you guys, what then?”
“Ya can’t fail us if you even just try.” Yet again, Ryuji is quick to answer. “We’re better off dyin’ from givin’ that Holy Grail our all, and we’re not even gonna die from that stupid thing.”
“If you know you don’t want others to suffer, Futaba,” Ann interrogates, “then I think you already know what to do. It’s going to hurt, and nothing good from this will come painlessly…but we’ll be with you, anyway.”
Makoto nods. “We’re going into this together. If you’ll still guide us, we’ll still fight on the frontlines.”
A pause intercepts their exchanges. It lingers a moment.
“Yeah,” Futaba releases a long-held breath. “I’ve known the right answer from the very beginning: I don’t want to run away from this. I ran from my mom’s death for so long—I misunderstood it…”
Futaba takes a moment to stop, clumsily but steadily rising to her feet.
“Everything was just too painful for me to handle,” she then laments. “But…I won’t be left in the dark again. I’ve come this far, so I’ll follow you guys wherever you go!”
Though she was always somewhat pale, a healthier glow returns to Futaba’s face as her body is set ablaze in blue.
Her black and green suit is left when the inferno is extinguished. At last, her cell door fades away.
Morgana finally rouses to the distant sound of Ren calling his name. He finally came to his senses, he thinks to himself.
Then he realizes that it still wouldn’t be so easy for them anymore. Lavenza and Master Igor would know what to do, but even they knew they were charting a course across rough terrain.
“Mona?!” Ren’s voice is closer now.
Morgana only loathes how awful his final moments are going to look to his friend. He should have been more careful about wanting to see him again. He never had any choice in the way that Yaldabaoth would snuff him out, but he dreads that they can’t get it over with before Ren finds him.
Though most likely, they could finish this sooner. Perhaps even right now, the god of control could get it over with.
But Yaldabaoth didn’t want to. He brought himself into power as a cold, sanctimonious voice, and somehow he could be even crueler.
Now, he could personally torment Morgana and his dearest friends.
The “Magatsuhi” numbs his little body now. He squeezes his eyes shut, tired of the wispy red light-show that has been growing steadily. The fur of his rotund “Metaverse body” must look disgusting, if there's any difference at all.
At least he’s come to embrace who he is in either world, knowing his purpose—and oh, how close the Phantom Thieves were to seeing his purpose through to the end.
He can hear this so-called “Amala Network” calling for him, watching him float over its pool. Gripped by an invisible force over one of his hind legs, he hangs upside-down and lopsided. As soon as the evil god of control lets him go, it would be the beginning for those responsible for saving the world.
It would also be the end for the world until then, and Morgana himself would already be dead.
“Mona, where are you?!” Ren calls again. His words are slung in rapid succession. He must have dashed down several blocks already, given that even the echoes of his voice are haggard and cracked.
Great, Morgana groans in silence. He probably looks like an idiot right now, and the evil god is really going to let Ren run in on his sacrifice.
Juuuust neat, he further bemoans. Ren made his single worst lapse in judgement to save his friends but to continue being a Phantom Thief. Yaldabaoth took the privilege to brainwash him for it, but has come to know and emulate sadism just to torture this poor boy.
This…hurts, he finally admits. Morgana did what he could before he let himself get caught, and he is still going to die with little peace to cling to. He has to leave a lot more unsaid, unseen, and undone—what he was able to do couldn’t bring him as much serenity as he would have liked.
Then again, for a gentlemanly, guarding, guiding, and still annoying…thing like Mona, a dim ray of hope can either say everything or nothing. Maybe he is better off giving more power to that sliver. He can’t spend any faith on himself now, unable to revive any morsel of self-esteem when he’s going to die soon.
If he could peek into or through this ray of hope, he might see his friends—his and Ren’s. For that matter, when he’s been brought so low, “Joker” could really use the sight of his beloved confidants coming to save him.
He’s almost here.
Ren Amamiya is quiet and awkward, yet cool and calculating. His humor is drier than the sands of Futaba’s long-vanished Palace, though the musings in his head run deeper than Mementos. Above all, his heart is bigger and prettier than any Shadows’ treasures, and that was before considering how a castle’s worth of gold and jewels wouldn’t come close to the altruism and compassion of any and every last other Phantom Thief.
But even the greatest spirits, Morgana has realized, can fall to temptation. To expect any of them to never stumble in their life, not even when perfection mattered the most, was to defy a basic fundamental of humanity. The Phantom Thieves of Hearts were always prone to crucial mistakes, even Ren himself—but they were never critical. They could always recover, and they always did.
So was it irony or bitter poetry that their leader made their first critical mistake? That he’ll have to bear most of its consequences? Morgana can’t tell.
He has the sinking suspicion that someone will need Ren, anyway. It would likely be Yaldabaoth, even if that didn’t negate anyone else who may survive the approaching apocalypse. But if the poor guy can’t fend for himself at all times, someone who knows what he is capable of (or was…depending on where the Metaverse or the Velvet Room would be) may use him.
In that way, he might very well follow Morgana into the afterlife, and their souls would be stuck in limbo until the “Conception” sorted itself out and chose where they would go. Even at best, this was where the stupid, worthless abomination of a talking “cat” was going to be for a while.
In spite of this, he is glad that the greatest odds would never stop the Phantom Thieves from trying. The world could be remade into something new, or it could be returned to what it was. If the humored “Reasons” are too flawed, too arrogant to see fruition, then maybe the powers that be have to undo everything.
It will be a perilous journey to reject “why” the Conception falls upon a universe. Even so, peril hadn’t stopped the Phantom Thieves from taking on and changing the hearts of crooks and abusers alike. A great divide sits between the nigh calamity and the combined malice of every Palace ruler.
…They’re still trading one series of atrocities for another. Only this time, there is no denial of everything and everyone depending on them. The literal extreme to it is almost funny.
Then again, if Ren had kept his wits about him on that day, they would be saving the world another way.
Ann Takamaki, Ryuji Sakamoto, Yusuke Kitagawa, Makoto Niijima, Haru Okumura, and Futaba Sakura—because of them, when the Vortex World arrives, it’s not over.
“...Mona?”
Having kept his eyes closed this long, they stay screwed shut as a cold, suffocating power brushes behind the little creature.
Maybe Mona will be back when their friends restore the world—perhaps Ren’s spirit can be mended before then, too. Maybe the talking, walking, shape-shifting cat won’t remember any of this, the blur between Christmas and the new year being some incomprehensible mess that at least ended well. Or maybe still—
The air suddenly rushes over him, almost shooting skyward as he falls through. His anxiety can’t decide if it’ll climax or subside while his time has come, so instead it opens his eyes wide. He just wants to drink in what little of the world he can see before he goes.
He dives through the water before he has the chance to look out.
Goodbye, Joker…
Seconds tick on. The pool is as refreshing and stimulating as any other.
I’m sorry…
When the pain finally manifests, he is no longer bracing for it. A woeful blight pulls him every which way, ripping apart every fragment of body and soul. Every fragment is further torn apart. The microscopic remains are of no mind, forgetting how or why they have become more raw, uncultivated Magatsuhi.
Please save him, everyone. Save the world.
With what little mind he has left, a kaleidoscope of friendly faces and beautiful sights overtake his mind’s eye. Whatever happens, he is glad to have been alive for them. At least he could be there for, in spite of everything, some of their happiest days and their greatest achievements. They’re still Ren’s friends—and they’re Morgana’s, too.
Every fragment of him is further torn apart.
Thank you…Love you…
Those microscopic remains are of no mind. They’re just more raw, uncultivated Magatsuhi.
Haru…Ryuji…Fu…taba…
…A…An…n…Yu…s…uke…Ma…ko…t…o…
…
“Now we just need to find Ren and Morgana.” Makoto excitedly turns to Ann and Ryuji, then remembers to refocus her composure. “Panther, Skull, we’ve been down every hallway except for the one at the very end, right?”
“Yep,” Ryuji nods. “The other hallway over here is where me and Ann came from.”
“How did one of you manage to free yourself and find the other?” Yusuke inquires. “Given how we’ve had to rouse and free one another, I’m curious how it first came to you.”
The two blonde teenagers side-eye one another.
“Would you believe us,” Ann sheepishly mumbles, “if we said that our cell doors were slammed open?”
“Then they disappeared,” Ryuji corroborates (and rather overexcitedly so), “and then we figured out our plan. Oh, that also got our Personas back…”
As the other four absorb this, Ryuji’s face reddens and bows. He turns to Ann, who swings her torso in antsy, stumped half-circles while she glares back at him.
“Let’s be honest: this place isn’t normal at all,” Futaba sighs. “Even for the Metaverse, the readings on this building are weird. Soooo ‘untilfurthernotice,’ I’m gonna chalk it up to RNG being what let you two out.”
There is no moment for Yusuke, Haru, or Makoto to decide where they stand.
“I can provide a simpler explanation for that, and I must speak to all of you about the path that lies before you.” The pleasant young voice turns their heads toward the one tunnel not taken.
A soft blue light shimmers at the end, and a little girl with long hair steps primly into the dimness.
“My name is Lavenza,” she begins. “My master and I have been aware of each of you through the Trickster, Ren Amamiya.”
Haru’s gasp rises faintly above a whisper. “So you’re close to him?! Has he already been waiting for us?”
“He is still a guest of the Velvet Room,” the girl answers, “yet I’m sorry to say that he is not with us. Morgana is also absent at present. The two of them have entrusted you all with what has become a gravely important mission.”
“That’s takin’ down the ‘Holy Grail,’ right?” Ryuji pipes up.
Lavenza takes a moment to think.
“That may still be a key part, Sir Ryuji,” she clarifies. “But I have to insist that all of you follow me. My master and I shall explain it in full—and we must also welcome you to the Velvet Room…”
Ren can’t accept that Morgana is…gone. Not even the entity made of wiry, metal disembodied limbs lingers here.
As clear as the implications should be, the agony they would cause could cast Ren against the ground, never to get back up. So much to think back on, so much with which to drive himself past the irreversible…
The well itself is inexplicable enough to clog his thoughts. It must have dug itself several feet deep in the concrete of Shibuya’s Station Square, stretched out so as to fit several hundred replicas of the nearby Hachiko statue. A few of the still and shadowed bodies were once walking above the area it subsumes.
Is this the Metaverse? Or, is this Mementos in its fusion with his world?
He falls to his knees, his glasses finally collapsing against the earth. A glaring sunset—crimson mist melding with the brassy tangerine—hovers over him, no towers or bridges impeding even one of its rays.
There really is no trace of Morgana in the water.
The memories churn his stomach, even as they wait their turn in the forefront of his mind’s eye. In the very room of his skull, the largest elephant shoves its way forward to be addressed.
Yaldabaoth—the god who took control of humanity—had pinned Ren against the back of this very same brain. The abomination had filled his insides with gilded, glowing adoration for his own machinations. The whispers of gibberish or lies were sweet, and they soothed Ren whenever he wanted out. But they were distractions, forcing him to ignore the “demiurge’s” lacerating hold on him.
The rest of these foggy memories force themselves up to the helm.
This is all because he wanted his friends safe and their justice to continue.
What has he done?
No, it can’t be his fault! Yaldabaoth must have already wormed his way into him. His friends are still okay. They can fix this together. They can make this right. Ren never had a choice in the initial matter—
…Yes, he couldn’t have let this happen. Is he telling himself the truth? He has to be.
If he were wrong, the burden could be so corrosive, his flesh and spirit might just rot alive.
Time suddenly awakens from its stasis. The red sky and the dismal well are gone.
People start walking again. The city’s cacophony sustains its average loudness (and a crowded metropolis like Shibuya could put other great cities to shame in sonic chaos) like nothing ever stopped it. Ren is all that has changed since time went still, kneeling on the ground with his back turned right before the crosswalk. If anyone is staring or wondering what he’s doing (or how he suddenly got there), he can’t feel their eyes on him.
So he must have been hallucinating? Then Morgana isn’t gone?! There’s much more he needs to puzzle out, but it would mean such a vibrant nightmare was just that.
He has no time to submerge himself in relief.
The colors of Shibuya’s populous streets black out. The exquisite sunset shrinks and shrivels out in the blink of an eye, leaving the world in a starless pitch.
The sounds quickly rise to a deafening peak. Ren can only press his hands to his ears, and he might as well when his vision is helpless. The air resembles that of the “outside,” but never before has the night been this pitch-dark, like he trapped himself in a lightless closet and in the dead of night.
Though his ears wouldn’t ring through his hands now, more than enough sound leaks through.
Cars and trucks clash, tires screeching and metal clanging. Tremors thunder under the earth, and even Ren starts to lose his balance.
“W-what the—”
“Oh shit, oh fuck, what the—NO WAIT—“
“Where’s the sun?!”
“OUT OF THE CROSSING! GETOUTTATHESTREET—“
These last pleading roars cease from where brick and metal fall to the ground. Ren could swear that had come from just the other side of the crosswalk.
“What’s going on?!”
“Help!”
“Papa! WAIT!”
“I’m going to die…”
“Mom!”
“What’s happening, Babe? Aika? Baby?!”
Never before has Ren heard the ground rip apart, let alone a mere block or two away from his feet.
“Ah–uh, AGH, AHHHHHH—“
“Nuh-NO-NO, U—“
He can only pick out two or three distinct voices before they’re cast into where the cracks were carved into something bigger.
It must be a sizable chasm now, because they’re followed up by countless more shrieks, blending into nauseating discordance before it yanks them all underground and into silence.
“MAMAAAAAAAA!”
“Mamoru? Nanba?! No, no, don’t go—“
“DAD! DAD WAS JUST RIGHT NEXT TO ME!”
An indecipherable plea. An off-key hymn that prays for protection. Another volley of cries, more calling the names of those whose lives have already fallen into the earth’s fissures. A skyscraper groaning as it is cleaved in half and it slams into the earth. A sightless explosion of automobile and aircraft. A ship colliding with a harbor and ramming into gravel.
Another fissure in a nearby road shakes the earth at large, yawning into a great chasm. Somehow, even more screams—as if their volume wasn’t already close to infinite—jut in, then fade out, only for another round of shrieks to take their place.
Ren’s lungs struggle to catch and release the air. His heart needs to pump stronger, but it only ever musters a primal, weak, terror-stricken beat. He shivers violently, barely withstanding the cold that combs through him and spins around him.
At length, the sounds blur into an aural hurricane, which rams past him at the peak of its power. He can feel his whimpers vibrate within his throat, even as his voice itself is drowned out. Uncovering his ears may very well hurt them, as tensing their muscles and retreating his focus inward only makes each moment less deafening.
No sirens wail or speakers call for order. The screams and rants rise from the dimmed cityscape—and somehow, even further beyond. Overseas and across countries until it wraps back around to where Ren is standing, the world shrieks in asynchronicity.
He throws his arms over his head, waiting for it to end. Any time now, he’ll wake up in his bed, or on top of his homeroom desk. Maybe it’s still Christmas Eve—now he knows how to do their mission right.
He commands himself to retreat to somewhere else, anywhere else…
Hell’s great soundscape ceases.
Something hovers high above his head. The young man uncovers himself and opens his eyes, slowly and shakily drawing his face skyward.
He can see again, useless as it is now.
Through the limitless horizon—now blue like glacier ice, in limbo between day and night—a glowing white beacon pulsates in cerulean and silver.
All around him, the silhouettes of flailing bodies mesh into one uneven, gap-infested partition that boxes him in.
With each heave of the living orb, a flash of dark lightning bolts strike down. The frozen human bodies of Shibuya vanish instantly; two by five, four by one, the lights are indiscriminate in wiping out everyone except for the boy who was brought to his knees. Nobody moves, no one makes a sound before they go. The masses might as well have died before they vanished. The bolts spread themselves for what looks like thousands of kilometers out, hissing and roaring from miles beyond what he can see.
The sole survivor, already barricading evocations that demand to be let in and to have his attention, loses his grip on the shock that kept him quiet (more or less).
Sojiro—the most patient “cynical guardian” that Ren could’ve ever had—might already be gone. Maybe the storm has already taken Kawakami-san or Mister Yoshida? Maybe Chihaya from Shinjuku, or Doctor Takemi down the street from Leblanc? What about his parents, as little as he likes to think of them anymore? What about Suzui or Yoshizawa? Mishima? Togo?
And what would they think of this?
Were they even still alive anymore?
The ruins of skyscrapers and wildly-colored landscapes begin to form a dome above him. The apparent ends of the earth—land and water alike—come together at the breathing, blinding light. The cities and countries that hang upside-down now are flat and meek in his eyes. Their towers and mountains only begin to reach down to him.
Was Yaldabaoth capable of this, too?
For the first time in recent years, Ren scares himself with the hitch of his own breath. He begins to cry, the tears soaking his face in seconds. He can barely hear his own sobs, even as the piling guilt has them rise into screams.
This god of control is such a blatantly arrogant “idol” that demands the title of a god—and Ren still humored him? Even after everything that they had all been through…
A collage of more familiar faces take root in the front of Ren’s mind. Their names echo in the distance, as if they come from outside of him.
Would this cataclysm have taken them, too?
And Morgana…Ren had seen him fall and fade away, denying it as he might. He might have been spared this calamity just because he was gone now.
Morgana is gone forever.
Ren’s fears and desires had gotten the best of him when it mattered the most that they didn’t. He betrayed everyone, and his own magical pet is dead for it.
Accepting the deal was his gravest crime—but the entire world was also being punished for it.
“In exchange for the release of the six human souls sharing my power of the Persona, for that of the master and assistant(s) to this realm between mind and matter, and for the world’s existence as it once was—
“I hereby relinquish the self-destructive agency of ignorant humanity, as well as my own allegiances as the Wildcard, to Yaldabaoth, the Demiurge that the masses long for. I pledge to uphold the God of Control’s continued security of the foolish masses’ desires, and to provide Him my power and service to see His world furthered.
“Signed, ___________”
Lavenza scoffs at the contract laid out on the floor in front of them. Did this interloper think that such a hasty addendum would take back the trickster’s firm declination?
“I will only yield thus,” warns the maleficence wearing Igor’s form.
The young girl scowls, a small “Hmph” accentuating her bafflement. She had only just been restored to her former powers and identity, but she knew well that Ren Amamiya could say “No” one more time and be done with this. The false god would be forced (whether or not he’d act accordingly) to retreat, too. But her real master would still be set free, the trickster’s friends unsealed from their prisons. If that wasn’t enough somehow, then their justice would still be shown through to the end, only then with humanity’s freedom intact. So why—
Joker’s quiet chuckle is bittersweet. “So they’re still alive? You’ll keep them out of this?”
“Indeed they still breathe,” is the god’s answer, “but I cannot guarantee their safety outside of their prison; they may very well take sanctuary here. Still they may continue to live as you carry out their mission as ‘Phantom Thieves’—under my command against the ignorant masses.”
His coattails almost flutter on their own, but the trickster’s masked head hangs low.
Lavenza’s indignant poise is thrown to the wind. “Why…? Trickster, why are you hesitating?”
“Now, once more,” the god of control hisses. “What say you?”
The small attendant clutches her grimoire tightly.
Ren’s red-gloved hands curl together, trembling from the force.
“Whatever happens to you or me,” he growls, “we’re going to keep them and Lavenza out of it. And you’re going to let Igor go, too. You’re not ever stepping back inside the Velvet Room, and you’re not going to lay a finger on my friends. Is that clear?”
The facsimile of the “long-nosed master’s” smile widens. “Indeed, we shall migrate elsewhere, for overseeing this foolish human race need not be relegated to a single other realm.”
“Trickster, NO!” shouts an indignant Lavenza.
Ignoring her, Yaldabaoth points back to the pen and sheet of paper on the floor. Ren follows the long finger’s trajectory.
“In exchange for the release of the six human souls sharing my power of the Persona, for that of the master and assistant(s) to this realm between mind and matter, and for the world’s existence as it once was—
“I hereby relinquish the self-destructive agency of ignorant humanity, as well as my own allegiances as the Wildcard, to Yaldabaoth, the Demiurge that the masses long for. I pledge to uphold the God of Control’s continued security of the ignorant masses’ desires, and to provide Him my power and service to see His world furthered. In doing so, this realm and its indigenous inhabitants shall be wholly abandoned to their own devices. The six souls in fellowship with me, should they continue to dwell within the Velvet Room, will be uncontested by Him. They may also live beyond this realm, unpunished, so long as they do not arouse His Wrath.
“Signed, ___________”
“Trickster, we can still—” the pale girl protests, “what are you doing?! My master and I may still live, as would your friends!”
Joker looks down at her, awe-struck as though he were looking up instead.
“Do not interfere,” the floating disguised god retorts. “If the Trickster allows me to provide you such grace, then never again shall I strike down upon you.”
“You still look down upon all else,” Lavenza seethes, “although it was still this place that allowed the Trickster to come this far.”
A strange, disarming shimmer flashes across Yaldabaoth’s eyes. It silences the young attendant in the middle of her objection.
“Sign your name, Trickster,” he hisses, “if you wish to grant your confidants such mercy.”
The phantom thief has already turned and knelt before the contract.
Lavenza’s soul lurches, seeing the same shimmer under his mask.
“Trickster, PLEASE!” She manages to get his attention, given a morsel of agency as his eyes return to her.
They’re still dark and warm, if faintly clouded. He drops the pen on the contract.
“If I couldn’t get so far without them,” he murmurs, “you can rely on them, too.”
His smile is sad, but he gazes hopefully upon her—
“Signed, Ren Amamiya”
—as the life in his eyes fades away.
When Lavenza finishes talking, all is silent. Even Igor is quiet, watching patiently as the six remaining Phantom Thieves drink in what his assistant has relayed to them.
Now they knew the source of Ren Amamiya’s powers, yet also of Yaldabaoth’s hand in his life—and their own. Even Goro Akechi had been a pawn, and was not only strung along by his own father, but also by a higher entity that deluded him with a chance at vengeful justice.
And after all that they had been through—after “Joker” made it a habit to spit in the face of corruption and cruelty—his greatest mistake would sacrifice the same free will that gave each of them their Personas. It would also bring about an apocalypse that no one in their “real world” could prophesy, let alone fathom.
Lavenza and Igor are unsurprised when Ryuji falls to his knees.
“I don’t—” he stammers, “I dunno how to believe that. It sounds like bullshit. It ain’t the Ren that I know, but he’s not here, either. Damnit…” His torso violently shudders.
“I share your grief, Sir Ryuji.” The girl is stoic but solemn. “I had seen him give in with my own two eyes…and still, I wanted to deny it. Even if he followed his rebellious will to the end, we may have still rescued all of you.”
“The only real difference, then,” reiterates Futaba, “is that ‘Yaldabaoth’—uh, ‘scuse me, Holy Grail—had purposefully left us alone?”
Lavenza hums in affirmation.
Igor’s fingers intertwine, hiding his permanent, glistening smile right behind them.
“But instead of seeing our vigilante justice to the end, he wished to keep his powers, even under this god’s rule,” Yusuke shudders.
Lavenza nods.
Ryuji bows his head. “Fuck…I wish I saw this coming.”
None of the other five reply. As much as they want to tell Ryuji it isn’t his fault, regret burdens each of their shoulders, and none of them are any different from him in this scenario.
“Do we know why ‘Yaldabaoth’ got its way with him?” Makoto still questions. “I remember Ren was just as ready as us to reach the Depths of Mementos. What changed, and how? Was it something after we disappeared, and he was brought back here?”
“An interesting line of thought, Miss Makoto, but I’m afraid that is beyond our knowledge,” Igor calmly admits, politely keeping his “smile” behind his folded hands. “It is unfortunate that I must tell you all that we have thus lost contact with him—and with Morgana.”
Yusuke’s head perks up.
“If I may,” he inquires, “may I ask how the two of you know Morgana?”
“Of course, Sir Yusuke,” Lavenza is quick (and rather eager) to say. “Actually, my master was the one who created Morgana. It was just before the ‘demiurge’ would have seized our realm.”
Igor lays his hands flat on his desk. “In truth, I created Morgana as an amalgamation of humanity’s collective unconscious, that which inhabits what you call the ‘Metaverse.’ He was a Shadow infused with the masses’ hopes, and their desire for liberation.”
Igor falls quiet. His head turns slowly upward.
“Is that how his—“ Ann starts to speak, but she trails off when she recognizes that Igor’s attention had fully taken to something else.
“My apologies,” Igor drones, contrasting his pertinent smile. “Your reality seems to have changed drastically—it gives quite a…potent stimulus.”
Lavenza’s exhale is shaky. She hugs her book close to her small body.
Igor’s head faces their guests again and bows; his smile and even his nose hide behind his folded hands.
“I’m afraid that the Conception has finally passed.”
To Igor’s news, the six Phantom Thieves are initially silent but stiff.
“Just like that?!” Ryuji cries, finally breaking the pause as he scrambles to his feet.
“No!” Ann gasps, pulling her mask over the top of her head. “You mean…the end of the world?!”
Lavenza holds her book horizontally before herself, clutching both covers as it opens itself.
“I’m afraid it is for now, Miss Ann,” she says hastily, letting the pages rapidly flutter over on their own. “But we knew that the rites to its conjuring were underway, and this is when only the six of you can change the fate of your world.”
“Only us?” Haru mewls. “Will we not find Ren-kun in this ‘Vortex World?’ Or Mona-chan?”
“Perhaps you can,” the little lady sighs wistfully, “or perhaps not. Not unless you succeed in undoing this calamity. In spite of his own falter, time and again, the trickster alluded that we may yet turn to all of you.”
Blazing, glittering blue magic crackles throughout the room as a bright light flashes and forces the six friends to slam their eyes shut. As soon as they feel they can open them again, the light molds itself into a recognizable mask, floating over the space between them and the two residents of the sapphire-blue “Velvet Room.”
“The Shadows you have faced before,” Lavenza still serenely decrees, “are at once unlike and alike to the ‘Demons’ that have begun to roam the Vortex World. I will have to explain how you may perform the same fusions and rituals as the trickster on your journey, but for now, all of you will share his powers as the Wildcard.”
One of the six utters in surprise, but falls silent again when the mask combusts into ethereal streams of blue that spring out and fall into the floor. A warm beacon—like the power behind each of their awakenings is made greater and without the agony that preceded it—combusts within each of them.
“So you didn’t know?”
Ren doesn’t recognize exactly whose voice it is, or whether he had only conjured it for himself. He knows who this is…or so it should.
How long has he been hunched over, weeping silently and faintly rocking himself? Seconds? Hours? Days?
When he looks into the sky, the beacon still watches over them all, and Earth has already reshaped itself into a blurry, inside-out globe.
He looks down…then ahead…back to the sky…and ahead again. Still, he is no more assured than when he had awoken amidst the cataclysm.
Nobody or nothing remains before him but an alien, sand-like ground. Several stretches past him, some of it gives way to lakes of thick, putrid, black and red miasma. Still, some of it curves into jagged valleys and indescribable canyons.
“This is the Vortex World, according to all the demons and other creatures taking up residence now.” The tone of Doctor Maruki’s voice is sheepish to continue against Ren’s stunned silence, but his words and their cadence are confident and unhesitant.
It’s as if he were reading from a script that he had rehearsed enough, having finally ironed out any “um” or “uh.”
“That calamity we just survived?” He presses on after a beat. “That was the Conception—and now, until Kagutsuchi is met with a Reason that will reshape the new world, this is what remains of the old world.”
Ren finds it ridiculous. His former school counselor was always eccentric, but he never quite achieved the same levels as Dr. Takemi or Yusuke—not until now, anyway.
“It should go without saying how unfortunate this still is,” the psychologist rambles. “To tell you the truth, Amamiya-kun, I wanted to bring an idealized reality into our world. What you and I have talked about remained an ambition of mine long after I left Shujin. And with the Metaverse being as it is—or maybe was, but I couldn’t say—my ambitions might have seen the light of day. If only I had just a little more time, Yoshizawa-san would’ve only been the beginning.”
The boy’s stomach churns.
“K-Kasu—” he manages to croak, slowly but surely, “...Kasumi?”
There’s a moment of silence that takes shape in the air around them. The young boy can’t find the strength to just turn around, let alone to look his former counselor in the eyes.
“What happened to her?” For all the countless other questions that broil behind his lips—many of which still wouldn’t be answered if Maruki repeated everything he’d just said of this oppressive wasteland—he can’t help but want to know if the poor girl somehow survived this nightmare.
It must be better to rip the band-aid off and know who he might never see again, but also who is still out there…even though Ren can’t even begin to tell if this “Vortex World” is survivable or not.
“...’Kasumi.’ Right.” Maruki draws out a second to pause himself. “I’ve been looking for her, too, as a matter of fact. For what it’s worth, I’ve heard that she’s still alive, too.”
He clears his throat and continues, “As I was saying, thanks to you, I could’ve made that dream a reality. You would’ve been able to see a world where people’s wishes are made manifest, where I undo their hardships and their suffering. The only cost is anything that wasn’t congruent with those ideals—such as certain memories or, of course, any other thought patterns—but that’s easy to give up, or even to make someone believe was never there, right?”
Ren finally forces himself to turn around and look behind him. He forcefully bottles up the reflexes that insist he vomit up this rotten, acidic disbelief.
“Doctor,” he growls, “what…are you talking about?”
The psychologist holds still and quiet, like he wants his former client to have a very good look at him.
Of course his slicked-back hair and pressed, spotless white suit are substantial differences from the man that gave out uniquely random snacks and habitually smacked his head on the school assembly microphone. There shouldn’t be anything wrong or unnerving about his makeover. It should also be encouraging to see that, after all that sheepish brilliance, his smile exudes so much confidence and pride.
But the curve of that confident, prideful smile is the issue. It sets off the alarms in Ren’s conscience that this familiar figure is too different, too righteous-looking to be trusted. It isn’t the smirk of a once-mistreated innovator coming into the greatest heights of his work.
Such benevolence and brilliance has mutated into something different.
“Azathoth never truly manifested,” Maruki laments coldly, tugging a white glove firm onto his hand. “At least, not in our world as it once was. I’ve had his power for some time now, and I would often hear his voice. But truth be told, I never really got as far as I wanted. It only ever worked a few stark times, and just on one person each.”
Ren’s myriad of questions grows by the second.
“Because of Kagutsuchi,” the older man goes on, “Azathoth and I may see our reality come to fruition yet—I only wish we could’ve seen it done before the Conception ever happened.”
The younger boy summons the will to turn his whole body to face the psychologist.
“You don’t look very happy to hear this, Amamiya,” Maruki observes nonchalantly. “Unless I’m mistaking your shock and trauma from the Conception for your thoughts.”
In truth, Ren would love to live in a world that truly heals mental and even physical wounds. To grant the wishes that would do just that would be wonderful…except—
“You can get rid of memories and thought patterns?” he presses weakly, barely inching ahead with the slide of his pants over sand. His hands plant themselves firmly, taking the weight off his head so he can keep his eyes up.
The doctor frowns.
“You know the daughter of that cafe owner. You live in Leblanc, actually, right?” he says. “How can she accept her mother is still alive if she remembers what had happened to her? What of Okumura-san and her father, for that matter? How would she reconcile that her father is a good man when he really wasn’t while alive?”
Ren needs a moment to think it through, having been so close to jumping at the chance to make life easier for two of his friends. But when he forces himself to swallow every implication behind his words—
“Or how about Sakamoto-san and Takamaki-san? His track team that kicked him to the curb, too? Her best friend bearing so much damage and having to move away because of it? How can they keep those old friends and heal themselves if Kamoshida had never met any of them?”
Ren wants to give his first two friends just that peace, too.
And yet, he had seen and heard Ryuji make peace with walking away from track. They weren’t really kind to him, anyway. Instead, he can continue physical rehab and heal his leg, understanding that his initial speed may still never return. He could be a great coach, or pursue something else entirely.
The last time that Ren had asked Ann about her best friend, their bond was still strong over a long distance as it was in-person. Shiho has settled into her new school quite snugly and, like Ryuji, will do everything she can to heal and to discover (and just maybe rediscover) what she’s good at.
Life for his two friends wasn’t any easier, but within these two school semesters, Ann and Ryuji have tapped into a strength and resilience that he was so close to coveting.
He still wishes they never had to deal with a possessive, violent creep like Kamoshida, but something about Maruki’s proposal felt—
“Even if I can’t put their friends right in front of them,” Maruki adds, “Azathoth and I can make it so that it’s like Suzui and the track team are right there with them. As if Sakamoto’s leg was never broken, or Suzui’s coma never happened. You can meet them all for the first time again, too, if you’d like!”
“So they’re all illusions,” Ren accuses. “And what we fought for becomes a big waste of time.”
“Yes and no,” comes Maruki’s placid sigh. “They’re illusions in a way, but in my ideal reality, even you and anyone else could see them. You could talk to them, touch them, lead or follow them like they were real. The same would go for Mister Okumura, Officer Niijima, and Ms. Isshiki, as though they were with us the whole time. And speaking of the former, he and Madarame would’ve always been exemplary people and proper father figures. Do you not think Kitagawa-san and Okumura-san would be grateful for that?” He clears his throat, and Ren wants to call out the smirk that briefly crosses his face. “That is, if my actualization didn’t alter their memories, wouldn’t they be thankful?”
He hasn’t even answered Ren’s latter accusation.
Trying to ignore the drop of his churning stomach, Ren finally stumbles to his feet. His legs burn as he rises to stand again.
“Maruki,” he finally snaps, “that’s not healing people—that’s brainwashing them!”
Even if Ren’s voice is almost gone, the doctor’s frown is too mild, too understated. Evidently his mind wouldn’t change, even if the young man limps ahead and grabs him by the collar of his suit…maybe shakes and yells at him…just something to bring this strange new madman back down to the desolate remnants of Earth.
And his Persona…at least Arsene could very well scare the crap out of the man.
So that’s just what Ren is going to do. He limps ahead—
His voice can’t form even a decibel of a sound as sharp pressures dig into his back. He stumbles forward, only for the dusty earth to sink below him.
“No, stop,” he can barely croak after the impact. “Let me go. Get off me!”
He turns his head to peer at the figure carrying him.
A Shadow taking the form of Garuda—a Hindu avian deity that seems to be a favorite among the latest denizens of Mementos—must have dug its talons into him. He can’t see those limbs, but the big, sweeping flaps of its wings lift him into the air as it casts its glare down at him.
As soon as Ren realizes that it’s got to be like any other Shadow, his muscles tense as he retreats inward.
Persona, he chants silently to himself. Persona, Persona…
No Arsene, no other Personas from the “back pocket” of his power. There is no chance he could access anymore in the Velvet Room’s compendium.
The tired muscles in his neck turn back around, facing Maruki right when his gloved hand reaches up to his neck. The gentle piercing of his skin doesn’t hurt, and he can’t register it as easily as he does the panic that starts to simmer.
The light of “Kagutsuchi” gleams—almost blindingly—against the freshly-used, dripping syringe in the doctor’s gloved hand.
“It’s not gonna hurt you,” he coos, as earnest as ever. “Did you know that the way sedatives are used and their instant effects in movies isn’t nearly the same in real life? So that’s a ‘magical’ substance. It should calm you down and put you to sleep in seconds. No side effects or overdosing, just—”
When those few seconds run out, Ren is given no grace. He simply fades out.
The six Phantom Thieves leave through their hosts’ vibrant-blue door, and the windy Vortex World receives them when the door disperses quietly.
“I guess I didn’t think it’d be breezy out here,” Ryuji wonders aloud. Someone else hums in agreement.
Igor and Lavenza have given them what they need, and the team just has to make do. They wouldn’t be seeing any shelter or food (as Lavenza insisted would happen when they next met) from the Velvet Room until at least five full cycles of “Kagutsuchi’s light.” They were told they would have to see it themselves, but the phases of its ever-shifting radiation would fly by rather quickly—what could feel like twelve or twenty hours to them would see a full cycle to completion.
Their missing leader never truly met the beings that facilitated his remarkable powers—one being separated into two other people, and the other imprisoned by his own imposter—but they’ve done more than enough to prove to Joker’s fellow thieves how useful they could’ve been.
Therefore, it still stirs dread within a few of them that Igor and Lavenza wouldn’t be in reach for a while anymore. Maybe it gets easier once they acclimate to the journey, then their limited contact isn’t so bad. If they succeed, none of this will last long, anyway.
But to cope with this quest is to either ignore or accept that everyone they’ve ever known is gone, as are many more that they will never know. No luxurious amenities or infinite blessings could change that every life that was just walking this obliterated earth (if not the whole universe) is depending on six teenagers.
They are still teenagers with the magic, weapons, and wisdom (more or less) to put up a fight against the Conception’s remaining atrocities. That didn’t change how audacious fate must be to place such crushing, unfathomable weight upon their small backs.
Makoto, whether or not she truly realizes this, emits a long and steady exhale while stuffing a small parcel into Futaba’s open backpack.
“Igor wanted us to bring that to the ‘Cathedral of Shadows,’” she says. “If we’re to use Joker’s ‘Persona Compendium,’ we’ll need to work with the ‘demons’ that gather there.”
“Are we not back in Shibuya, then?” Ann gazes worriedly into the dusty, lifeless horizon. “I don’t think we’re standing on the city ruins, but I thought we’d be right back where we disappeared.”
Yusuke, peering in the direction opposite of everyone else, speaks morosely. “If demons have already infested the city, we might not have been able to spawn therein.” He points ahead, everyone’s attention wordlessly falling in the same direction. “It doesn’t seem to be as far-gone as other parts of the world might be.”
Sure enough, miles ahead, there lies a familiar clustering of otherwise withered buildings. The remnants of Shibuya are washed-out and dilapidated, yet taller than all the stretches of rocky monoliths and broken former towers scattered further out.
Shibuya is ruined—but like Yusuke believes, it might somehow be in better standing than most other cities that once illuminated their world.
“We’ll find that ‘Kathy-droll’ in there, right?” Ryuji pipes up excitedly.
“It’s supposed to be,” Makoto specifies, “just one of the entrances to it. I don’t think this ‘cathedral’ is a normal building, what with so many ‘doors’ that are to be found all over.” She pulls her signature metal mask back over her scarlet eyes. “Still, it seems that the quickest way to get there is in Shibuya. If we can at least make our way there, we’ll have made good progress to start out.”
Ann fiddles with the almost matching red strap she has slung across her body. The first-aid kit that falls against her other hip holds any and every essential that could be necessary for their trip. Although Ryuji and Haru would know how to use it the most effectively, she had insisted on carrying the box for them. Haru wouldn’t have to have it swing about with her axe, and if Ryuji were to sling it over himself, he might easily forget it while he takes on a bold stunt that it would disastrously hinder.
“Are we ready then?” Haru beseeches them.
“As ready as we’ll ever be,” answers Ann. “We get in there, and we’ll be on our way to saving everyone.”
When she says it so casually—as honest as it is—the cosmic consequences don’t sound as insurmountable as they really are.
Jan. 1 (Rough Estimate)
Even though I shouldn’t have breached my responsibilities as school faculty to have done what I did for Amamiya, I truly think those were net positives.
In a similar fashion, I hope the poor boy will forgive me for what I must do now.
He’s still asleep…the shock and trauma of the Conception must’ve been bad enough on their own. I imagine that the “drug” I administered still has more of its work cut out for it. He also doesn’t agree with mine and Azathoth’s actualization. I empathize—but the time for hesitance is up.
Yoshizawa has been spotted, although we’ve yet to find her ourselves (the Demons who came back to tell me ran right back for her…she was already gone by then). Amamiya still believes she is “Kasumi.” I wonder whether or not she sees herself the same way anymore. If she remembers who she is, however, she might stand even less of a chance out there.
What I did for her, however, can be done again: my actualization shall become my Reason. Its name and exactly how it would shape the new world are still pending, but it shouldn’t be far behind.
All that leaves is the Magatsuhi I would need to summon Azathoth in full—either by collecting from the Amala or, in my case, generating new quantities through a sacrifice.
(Thinking of Azathoth again, the Phantom Thieves or “Metaverse” denizens might have called him my “Persona.” That could still hold true, but by this point he’ll be closer to any other demonic “Sponsor” that the Reason-bearers require.)
There’s myself, but also the “God of Control.” There is at least one other Reason-bearer we haven’t identified. I already have a minimum of two rivals—and no matter who they are, I WILL need to strike them down for the sake of my ideal reality.
For collecting Magatsuhi, all of us have several options…the one I have chosen is the one that, according to my spies, all the Reason-bearers have been “gunning for.” With help from the Demons supporting my cause, I have a vast lead in the “race.”
The Phantom Thieves’ leader is mine, and now it’s only a matter of time before his powers are put to good use. Before my new world is accepted by Kagutsuchi, if his ghost lingers in some form, I hope Ren Amamiya sees what good his sacrifice brings. I’m sure he’ll forgive me then. I’m grateful for what he’s done for me, too. I won’t let it all be in vain.
(Just received word from some scouts while writing this: the other Phantom Thieves are alive! The demons here in the Vortex World are saying that they aren’t forming any Reason…It’s definitely strange. I wonder who else is against Yaldabaoth and me, if it’s not them. Oh well—I only hope they also forgive me for what I must do.)