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Kotone stepped out of the train station, marveling at how different it was from the ones she was used to. For one thing, the Yasoinaba station was tiny; just a few steps off the train and she was out. For another, there was the view beyond it. Instead of Iwatodai’s skyscrapers, this town had hardly any buildings above two stories. And that meant she could see well past the small town to the waves of greenery beyond. It was different from the more literal waves of the ocean that surrounded Tatsumi Port Island, but just as pretty.
As Kotone turned to take in a panoramic view of the rolling hills, she couldn’t help thinking, Makoto would have loved this. She immediately shook her head, trying to banish the thought. No, she couldn’t get bogged down thinking about him now. She had a job to do!
Trying to think only about her totally real independent study project for the summer, she hauled her suitcase down the steps of the train station and started walking toward the town’s only inn. It wasn’t a terribly long walk, but the bright, humid day meant that she was sweating anyway by the time she got there.
The hotel was just as picturesque as she remembered from that time her high school tennis team stayed here. When she stepped into the blessedly cool lobby, a young woman in an elegant pink kimono was manning the reception desk. The woman bowed her head at Kotone and said, “Good afternoon, how can I help you?”
Kotone smiled brightly at her and answered, “Hi! I’m signing in, under Kotone Yuki.”
The woman checked something behind the desk and replied, “Yes, I see your reservation, Yuki-san. Welcome to the Amagi Inn. My name is Yukiko Amagi. Would you like me to show you to your room?”
Kotone agreed, and followed Amagi down the hall. As they went, Amagi commented, “I see you’re booked for an extended stay.”
Seeing a chance to start laying groundwork for her “project,” Kotone answered, “Yup! I figured I’d use my summer break from college to take a little trip. And since I’m doing an independent study project on local legends, it seemed smart to stay a while and gather stories from the area.”
“How interesting,” Amagi said politely. “If you’d like, I can suggest a few places where residents of the town gather, where you might be able to speak with them.” That sounded good to Kotone, so she happily agreed.
Amagi had some helpful suggestions, and the conversation lasted until Kotone was settled in her room. Then Amagi bid Kotone a good afternoon and returned to the reception desk.
It didn’t take Kotone long to get her belongings unpacked in the room, and then she needed to figure out what to do with the rest of her day. It was still the middle of the afternoon, so it was too early to go to bed. Besides, she didn’t want to waste any time. Mitsuru was counting on her. So she decided to try one of the places Amagi suggested for meeting people and headed for the inn’s hot spring.
At this time of day the hot spring was pretty busy. There were several women there, including a white-haired woman with a stooped back. As Kotone slipped into the hot spring, she sighed at the soothing feel of the hot water.
When she heard the old woman chuckling, Kotone turned a sheepish smile her way and said, “Nothing beats a dip in a hot spring, am I right?”
The woman looked surprised to be addressed, but after a moment she nodded and answered, “Yes, that’s quite so. I do like to soak here now and again to ease my tired joints.” She squinted at Kotone for a moment, then added, “I don’t think I’ve seen you here before. Are you here on vacation, then?”
“Sort of!” Kotone answered cheerily. “I’m partly here for school break, and partly here for a school project.” Leaning towards the woman eagerly, she continued, “I’m in college studying legends and mythology, and right now I’m working on an independent study project to gather local legends from a bunch of areas in Japan. So I figured I could use my summer break to go out and do some field research!”
With a wry twist to her lips, the old woman asked, “And your ‘field research’ requires you to relax in a hot spring, does it?”
With mock seriousness, Kotone straightened her back and said, “Of course! If you want to gather stories, you need to talk to people. To talk to people, you need to meet them where they are. And there are people at this hot spring!” Then she grinned and added, “Besides, I have a hunch I picked well. I bet you know all kinds of stories about this town.”
“Well, I suppose I do,” the woman conceded. “I’ve lived in Inaba all my life.” From there she needed very little prompting before she launched into a story about the local shrine.
Kotone tried to remember all the details, in case any of it proved relevant. But by the time the rambling story finished, she sheepishly admitted, “I wish I could have taken my notebooks in here so I could take notes.”
“I suppose not everyone has a mind like a steel trap,” the woman said. “Well in that case, would you like to share a meal with me? The inn makes excellent food, and I could tell you more stories while we eat.”
“What a great idea!” Kotone cheered. Figuring now was a good time for it, she said, “My name’s Kotone Yuki. What’s yours?”
The old woman nodded and answered, “I’m Hisano Kuroda. It’s lovely to meet you, dear.”
Over dinner, Kuroda shared a variety of stories, from the fox who lived at the shrine and granted wishes, to the old house on a hill that was said to be haunted. As they were relaxing with an after-dinner cup of tea, Kuroda eventually said, “Oh, here’s one that might be more interesting nowadays. About once a generation, Inaba starts seeing unusually thick fog for about a year. People used to say that it’s the work of an angry god, and someone needs to appease it. Though I never heard any suggestions of which god, or just how someone is supposed to appease it.” With a chuckle, she added, “Nobody seems to be mentioning gods any more, though. Still, the fog’s been thick lately, so you make sure to take care, dearie.”
The mention of a god caught Kotone’s attention, and she asked, “If it’s once a generation, do you remember the last one? Did anything happen to make the fog stop?”
Kuroda nodded at the first question, then shook her head. “Oh yes, I remember it. I was still a young woman then. But it stopped as mysteriously as it started.” Unfortunately, no follow-up questions Kotone asked could tease out any of the kind of details she was really looking for.
After returning to her room, Kotone gathered her laptop and notes, then started typing up anything that sounded like possible Shadow activity. The mention of an angry god caught her attention the most; that sounded like just the sort of thing the Shadow Operatives would need to investigate.
Once she got her notes together, she called Mitsuru. When the head of the Shadow Operatives answered, Kotone said, “Hi, Mitsuru! I’ve got a good lead already, I’m sending it your way.”
As Kotone emailed the file over, Mitsuru said, “While I appreciate your speedy work, don’t you need time to get settled in? You’ve barely been there two hours.”
“I’m fine,” Kotone insisted. “If our suspicions are correct and the unexplained deaths and disappearances in this town really do have something to do with Shadows, we need to investigate before there’s another one, right?”
“That is true,” Mitsuru said reluctantly. “But there is no reason to run yourself ragged. You’ve done enough for one day. Why not rest-”
“There’s no time to waste!” Kotone interrupted desperately. “Three people are dead already! I refuse to let anyone else die! This time I need to figure out what’s causing it, before it’s too late!”
Silence rang out across the line, and for a moment Kotone was afraid that Mitsuru was going to retread an old, tired argument. But eventually she sighed and instead said, “I do wish I could send someone along to assist you.”
Eagerly latching on to the change in topic, Kotone said, “We’ve gone over this already. Inaba is the kind of small town where anyone new stands out. And considering how colorful most of the Operatives are, they’d just put people on edge.” Grinning, she continued cheerily, “But who’d suspect a friendly college student on vacation? I’m our best chance at getting people to open up, and gathering stories about legends for a class project is the most unobtrusive way to look for signs of strange events.”
There really wasn’t anything Mitsuru could say to refute that, so eventually she just told Kotone to call for help if she needed it. She promised she would, but she privately doubted that she’d ever do so. She had to prove she could handle this.
Over the next week or so, Kotone was busy scurrying around town to wherever people seemed to be gathering, asking around for local legends or any stories of strange happenings. Since it was summer break, there were a lot of bored kids around who were eager to tell her whatever they could think of. That meant she got a lot of minor stuff like the high school’s “seven mysteries” and stories like “They say if you confess to your crush under the oldest tree in the schoolyard, they’re sure to go out with you!” But the really juicy bit was the Midnight Channel.
According to the urban legend, on rainy nights if you watched a turned-off TV exactly at midnight, you’d see your soulmate. Normally, Kotone would consider that to be the kind of baseless schoolyard rumor as the “confess to your crush under the tree” story. But anything to do with strange things at midnight set her on edge. She noted it down among all the other rumors she gathered, but it was hard to tell if it was a credible threat or not. Still, at least that one was easy enough to verify. She just needed to wait for it to rain.
This town must have been so quiet that the local news was scrambling for stuff to report, because eventually a reporter came to interview Kotone. She was happy to tell the reporter all about the (real) college she was attending and the (fake) independent study project she was working on. She finished up the interview with a cheery pitch: “I’ll be staying at the Amagi Inn for the rest of the summer break! If anyone wants to tell me about any local legends, you’re welcome to come find me!”
She was feeling pretty good for the rest of the day. She’d collected a lot of stories by then, and Mitsuru was saying that some of them bore investigating. And she’d just spread the word of her project even more, so she might get even more stories soon. Best of all, it was going to rain that night, so she could finally try out that Midnight Channel rumor. She made sure to turn in early that night, eager to start pursuing her most promising lead on Shadow activity.
By morning, she was feeling far worse. While she knew the inn’s traditional breakfast was delicious, that day it just tasted like ash in her mouth. Every time she thought about what she’d seen, she felt faintly ill.
The Midnight Channel was real. Or at least, something did appear on her room’s TV screen at midnight. The image had been obscured by heavy static, but she could still make out the figure of a person. It was a silhouette she knew by heart. While it could conceivably be her own, she swore she saw Makoto. They always did look similar enough; they were twins, after all. And if that really was her soulmate on the screen, it only made sense for it to be Makoto. Why else would it feel like half of her was missing now? She’d never been the same since he…
With a groan, she abandoned any attempt to eat her breakfast. She just wasn’t up to it today. Instead she spent her morning fixing on her mask of cheerful friendliness. She had a lot of practice at it. If it hadn’t been perfect enough to convince Mitsuru, she never would have been allowed out on this mission.
That day she decided to stick around the inn. There were still people there to talk to if she wanted, but she ended up just taking time for herself. It was relaxing to soak in the hot spring and stroll through the inn’s beautifully landscaped grounds.
By evening she was feeling well enough to take a light meal. She was even able to convince herself that she must have been mistaken about what she’d seen on the Midnight Channel. Surely it had to have been someone else. Anyone else. Her brother was just never far from her mind, so of course she’d interpret a vague humanoid blob as him. She’d just have to watch the Midnight Channel again and prove herself wrong.
Unfortunately, it didn’t rain again that night, but it would the following night. She just had to be patient.
Kotone woke slowly, trying to fight through the gray haze that seemed to be clouding her mind. She blinked several times, squinting in an effort to make the yellow-green blur around her resolve into anything that made sense. The only thing that got slightly clearer was the thing literally in front of her nose: the ground. Which looked like asphalt. Not the tatami floor of the inn, which she would have expected to wake up in. Something wasn’t right.
Despite her aching head, Kotone managed to sit up and look around. She seemed to be outside, with a yellow-green fog obscuring the looming shapes of what must be buildings. They were far too tall for anything in Inaba. When squinting through the literal fog didn’t make anything clearer, she shook her head to try and clear the figurative fog from her mind and remember how she’d gotten here.
The last thing she remembered was walking through town. She’d gone out to get some lunch, and…her eyes grew wide as memories started to return. That’s right, she’d been grabbed from behind! She’d tried to fight back, but years of combat experience against Shadows apparently didn’t translate well to self-defense against humans, because she quickly had a bag thrown over her head and her arms pinned behind her back. Things were still fuzzy after that, but somehow she’d been dragged off and ended up wherever this was.
No amount of wracking her brains brought back anything else, so she eventually decided to figure out where she was. Stumbling to her feet, she tottered over to a building to get a closer look. At first it seemed like any generic apartment building, until she realized she couldn’t find a door. And that the building merged directly into the one beside it. And the next one did the same thing. As she continued down the endless row of them, she found it looked more like a giant wall made out of buildings.
Confused, Kotone wandered down the street, looking for anything that made sense. Eventually the fog thinned a little, enough for her to make out a bright light in the sky. She squinted up at it for a moment. Then her blood ran cold.
It was a full moon. A bright yellow moon, looming far too large in the greenish sky.
She wanted to say that was impossible. The Dark Hour had been gone for years. But the air had an oppressive weight she’d been ignoring, and now that she was paying attention, she could feel her Persona more clearly than usual.
“Is it really back?” Kotone whispered hoarsely. “But that means…”
As if on cue, she heard the gurgle of a Shadow, off in the fog somewhere. She stumbled back, then turned and hurried in the opposite direction. This was bad. She was in an unknown place, with no backup, weapons, supplies, or even her Evoker. Her best bet was to try and avoid the Shadows as much as possible and hunt for a way out.
As she hurried down the mazelike, fog-shrouded streets, she grimly muttered, “Well, I found the Shadows. Now I just need to survive to tell Mitsuru.”
As the rain pattered against the window, Yu stood in front of a blank TV, waiting for midnight. He’d seen someone on the Midnight Channel two days ago, but it was far too blurry to tell who it was. While he never wanted there to be a new target, he hoped today the image would be a little more clear, just enough to figure out who it was so his team could protect them.
However, when the TV screen lit up, there wasn’t a hint of static. Instead, the image was like nothing he’d ever seen before.
A young auburn-haired woman ran through fog-covered streets, glancing once over her shoulder. She skidded around a corner, only to come face-to-face with a Shadow. When the black blob reared up to lunge at her, the girl didn’t panic or run. Instead, she swung at it with something she was holding - a broken broom? - and managed to smack it aside. The Shadow didn’t particularly seem hurt, but she didn’t stick around to let it recover, just rushed on past. The Shadow was turning to pursue her when the screen shut off.
For a moment Yu could only stare at the TV, which now showed only his own wide-eyed reflection. Then, as usual, his phone rang. When he answered, he didn’t even have time to say hello before Yosuke shouted, “What was that? Why were the Shadows attacking her? Aren’t they not supposed to attack normal people?”
“Calm down,” Yu said. “You can ask Teddie, right?”
Before Yosuke could even say anything, Teddie piped up in the background, “Yosuke’s right! Shadows only attack normal people when the fog is gone from that world!”
Yu pointed out, “Yet we can see there’s no fog here, and it was visibly foggy on the Midnight Channel.”
“Which is why I don’t get it!” Yosuke yelled. “All I know is she’s being attacked. We gotta save her right now!”
Yu agreed, “We will, but we can’t get in the TV World right now. I’ll call everyone and make sure they all know we’re going in first thing tomorrow. As soon as Junes opens, we’ll be there.”
Yosuke wasn’t happy about it, but he had to agree. Then as soon as he hung up, Yu started calling the rest of the team. He really didn’t like the delay either, but they couldn’t exactly break into Junes at midnight. He just hoped they wouldn’t be too late.
Kotone turned yet another corner of these endless streets and found she’d come to a dead end. She didn’t see any Shadows, and when she listened there didn’t seem to be any nearby. So she sighed in relief and slumped in a corner for a short break.
She didn’t know how long she’d been running. These streets - or hallways, or whatever - were like a maze, with seemingly random passages and turns. She tried to explore them systematically, but couldn’t find anything identifiable to mark her route. For all she knew, she was running in circles. Without Fuuka to keep track like she had in Tartarus, Kotone was completely lost.
If that was all, Kotone probably could have figured out how to get out. But there were Shadows scattered around, and without a way to fight back, Kotone had to avoid them. The “city” did have piles of garbage scattered around, and she’d managed to dig out something to use as a makeshift weapon, but it was only really good for giving her a little more reach. She was effectively helpless.
Not for the first time, she wished she’d learned to summon without an Evoker. Fuuka had managed it a long time ago, and Mitsuru had pulled it off recently, too. She tried to remember how they’d described it, and tried mentally reaching out for her Persona. “Please, I need you,” she muttered.
But the only answer she got was a persistent whisper. The voice had been following her around since she got here, and seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. Sometimes Kotone thought it was inside her head. You would have been able to do this already if you’d just have gotten over yourself and practiced, it hissed. But instead you were a dead weight, draining everyone’s resources while you wallowed in guilt. They never should have put up with you.
She gritted her teeth and growled back, “They’re my friends! They wanted to take care of me.”
Did they? it asked, its tone mocking. Or were they just taking pity on you, for your brother’s sake? You know everyone liked him better. They all wish you’d died on that rooftop instead of him.
Kotone lurched to her feet. She was still tired, but she needed to get moving. It was easier to ignore the voice when she was focused on staying alive. As she pressed on down the endless passages, she could have sworn she heard the voice laughing at her.
About half an hour before Junes opened, Yosuke managed to get all of the Investigation Team in through a staff entrance. Then they gathered in the TV World while Rise tried to scan for the woman who’d been thrown in.
With her Persona in place around her, Rise asked rhetorically, “Her name’s Kotone Yuki, right? She was on the news the other day.” Nobody really needed to answer, and a moment later Rise said, “I can tell she’s in here, but I can’t pinpoint her location. I need more information on her.”
Chie groaned, “Augh, we don’t have time to go out and ask around. She’s in danger!”
Yosuke fidgeted with his headphones as he said, “Maybe we can remember something that’ll help? I know I’ve seen her pretty often. She’s been in Junes a lot, mostly hanging around the food court and talking to people. She’s a real social butterfly.”
Kanji nodded and added, “Yeah, I saw her around the shopping district a lot, too. She came in to pick Ma’s brain about old stories, and I saw her talking to Old Man Daidara. She seemed real friendly, like she got along with everyone.”
Rise hummed thoughtfully for a moment, then shook her head. “No, that’s not enough. Does anyone know anything else about her?”
Tentatively, Yukiko said, “Well…like she said in the interview, she’s been staying at my family’s inn. I actually checked her in when she arrived. I did notice that usually she acts the way everyone described, but she was different two days ago. She stayed in her room all morning, spent most of the afternoon wandering through the garden, and barely spoke to anyone. I heard the kitchen staff say she barely touched her breakfast, and only had rice and miso soup for dinner. I was starting to get worried about her, and wondered if she was getting sick. Or even if she was depressed.”
Abruptly Rise gasped, “That’s it! I found her! There’s a new area that popped up, and I can lead you right there.”
Instead of celebrating, the group of teens cast uneasy glances at each other. Finally Yosuke asked what they were all thinking. “So…does that mean she really is depressed?”
Only Teddie looked confused, and asked, “What’s depressed mean? Oh! Is it like pressing the button for the elevator?”
Yu shook his head and said, “No it’s not like that at all. We’ll explain later, but it’s not good. We’ve gotta find her before her Shadow shows up.” Everyone nodded grimly and hurried off into the fog.
Being almost constantly on the move started to wear Kotone out, and it got harder and harder to evade the Shadows. It didn’t help that she could barely see the other side of the street through the fog, so she couldn’t tell if a path was safe until she took it. Finding a safe route came down to luck, and eventually her luck ran out.
While trying to run from one of those tough-looking red Shadows, she was darting around turns at random, only to skid to a stop when a tall wall loomed ahead. A dead end. She spun around to look for an alternate route, but the Shadow was swarming steadily towards her, blocking the nearest intersection. The only way out was past it.
Kotone gripped her broom in both hands, instinctively falling into the pose she used to wield her naginata. As she studied the Shadow to see if there was any chance of smacking it aside, the ever-present voice suddenly picked up in volume.
You should give up already, it insisted. Just let it kill you so you stop wasting everyone’s time and money.
With nothing else to look at, she glared at the Shadow and snarled, “I refuse! No matter how much I’d like to just lay down and give up, I won’t!”
Why not? the voice mocked. Everyone will be glad when you’re gone. They all know it’s your fault he’s dead, anyway.
Kotone felt the blood drain from her face. A rushing in her ears drowned out the distant sound of footsteps, and she stuttered, “N-no, they don’t! They’ve told me over and over it’s not my fault he died. None of them realized he was dying either.”
Only because none of them remembered anything about Personas before graduation day. But you remembered the whole time. You should have been paying more attention. The mocking voice shifted to a growl as it pressed, But you didn’t. You failed to help him, and now he’s dead. Everyone wishes you would just die too. Then you would finally stop tainting the memory of the better twin.
Kotone wanted to clap her hands to her ears to block out the voice, or for the Shadow to just attack already so she had something else to focus on. But it was hovering warily out of reach, and the voice had been ringing through her head. There was no escaping it. So for possibly the first time ever, she had to really think about what it was saying.
None of what it was saying was new. She’d been thinking pretty much the same things for the past year and a half. She couldn’t really deny any of it. But other people already had. Throughout the months where she could barely talk without crying but couldn’t articulate why, the members of SEES had patiently tried to console and reassure her. She had never believed what they were saying, even though she learned to act like she did. But with death facing her and a voice in her head urging her to give in, she finally started to consider their words for real.
Quietly, she said, “None of my friends actually think that. They’ve all said repeatedly that they’re glad I’m still alive. That they’re grateful for everything I’ve done, and relieved that Nyx didn’t claim more lives, and I’ll always be their dear friend. Nobody actually wishes Makoto was here instead. Except me.”
Tightening her grip on her broom, Kotone went on, her voice starting to rise. “I should have died instead of him. He was always the better of us. That must be why he sacrificed himself for the sake of the world. He would always step in to make the hard decisions when I was struggling to find a way to please everyone.”
That day on the roof was forever burned into her memory, when she held his hand as he whispered his last words, breathing out a wish just for her. That memory gave her the last push she needed. Holding her head up defiantly, she announced, “But I didn’t die! He died and I’m the one that lived. So I’m going to carry on his wish and keep on living. For the both of us!”
As Yu ran down the passage, the rest of the team on his heels, Rise called, “You’re almost there, she’s just around the next bend! But be careful, there’s a strong Shadow right by her.”
Yu tried to push himself to move just a little bit faster, praying they would arrive in time. He skidded around the corner and finally spotted the missing woman, who was cornered by a large Shadow. As he raced towards her, he could see her mouth moving, but the pounding (and squeaking) of half a dozen pairs of feet drowned out whatever she was saying. Just as the Shadow reared up to lunge at her, Yuki raised her head and shouted something.
For an instant a figure of a human appeared behind her. Yu couldn’t quite get a good look at it; it flickered rapidly between resembling Yuki herself and a person with shorter, darker hair. At the same time, a blue card appeared in front of Yuki. She looked surprised for a second, then her eyes narrowed in determination and she swung her makeshift weapon to shatter the card, shouting, “Persona!”
The figure behind her began to glow, then rose into the air before being engulfed in light. When the light cleared, a new form was in its place. The stately Persona was mostly white and silver, its long limbs bracketed by a swordlike spire rising behind its back and metallic wings circling its hips. The one dark spot was on the chain wrapped around the Persona’s arm, which had black coffin-like objects trailing from it.
The Shadow had seemed to hesitate when the Persona was forming, but it quickly rallied and started to lunge forward again. Yuki took up a fighting pose and shouted, “Get ‘em, Messiah! God’s Hand!” The Persona - Messiah? - raised the arm with the chain, then slashed it down. The chain whipped through the air, sending all four coffins pummeling the Shadow until it collapsed into goo.
Yu’s jaw dropped. He stood motionless, gaping at the spot where the Shadow had been moments before. He only realized that the rest of his team had frozen in shock too when he heard Yosuke ask in an awed voice, “Dude…it looks like she just Awakened, right? I wasn’t seeing things?”
Kanji muttered, “If she did, how’d she pulverize that Shadow in one hit?”
Before anyone would come up with an answer, Yuki turned their way, squinted through the fog they couldn’t see, then grinned and waved a hand over her head, shouting, “Hey, you’re real people, right? Know a way out of here?”
Yu collected himself enough to walk closer so she could see the group properly, saying, “Yeah, we’re real people.”
As everyone trailed behind him, Yukiko called, “Yuki-san, are you alright?”
Yuki turned her squint towards Yukiko, then cried, “Oh, Amagi-san! Yeah, I’m fine.” With a breathless chuckle she added, “Just a bit worn out. I think I’ve been running a while.”
Chie sputtered, “Wha…a bit worn out? How are you still standing after Awakening a Persona like that! And why aren’t you freaking out?”
Grinning, Yuki answered, “Oh, I didn’t Awaken just now, and this is hardly my first rodeo. I’m a semi-professional Shadow hunter! I just don’t have my usual gear, and I couldn't summon the way I’m used to.” Dropping the end of her broom to the ground so she could lean on it like a cane, she said, “I’d be happy to tell you more, but can we get out of here first? I could really use a nap.”
The middle of a dungeon full of Shadows really wasn’t the best place for a conversation, so Yu pulled out a Goho-M to get them all to safety. His mission was to rescue the person thrown in the TV, and getting her to safety took priority.
But once she was safe and rested, he did really want to hear her story. He had a feeling it would be stranger than any tale she’d picked up around town.