Chapter Text
Can anything get worse?
That was what Masayoshi Shido, aged sixteen, thought. The last month had been horrible.
One moment of trying to be good had turned his life into a living hell. He was framed for assault, had everybody he know turn their backs on him, and was sent off to Tokyo, even though he’d never so much as set foot in a city before. He had lived in Inba. The first day he was there, he was so overcome by sensory overload that he even hallucinated some kind of fiery demon thing standing in the middle of the street for a moment. To make things worse, pretty much every authority figure already hated his guts. The faculty at his new school made it abundantly clear that they considered him a piece of shit, and were more than willing to flush him away the second he started to stink. To add insult to injury, Shido was being forced to live in the attic of a coffee shop like he was Cinderella or something. At one point he joked to himself that maybe a fairy godmother would show up to whisk him away to a greater destiny, but between that hallucination he’d had, strange dreams involving a creepy long-nosed man, and some creepy piece of Malware that kept downloading itself onto his phone, Shido thought that maybe it’d be best if whatever supernatural entity that had taken an interest in him just stayed away.
It was gonna be tough, but he could do this. That thing with the guy who had him framed for assault was really the first time Shido had ever been in any kind of trouble. For his entire life up until then, he had been a well-behaved kid who kept his head low and his nose clean. All he really had to do was be himself for a year, and his probation would be over and he wouldn’t go to jail. And yeah, having a record would probably make it harder to get into colleges, but it probably wasn’t the end of the world or anything. Who knows, maybe somebody would even be impressed by his “reform” and it may prove to be in his favor in the long run. And hey, in spite of everything going on, it was a nice and sunny spring day in Tokyo when he arrived. The city itself, while totally overwhelming for a kid from Inba, was pretty cool. Maybe it was a sign that things would get better. Maybe he should see all this as an opportunity.
The rain felt horrible.
Shido was on his way to school.
He wore orange sunglasses, and the Shujin Academy uniform: a red-buttoned black blazer with Shujin’s emblem on the pocket, a white turtleneck shirt with chevron detailing on the collar, and red plaid trousers. The skies had been grey when he stepped out of the café, and he just hoped it wouldn’t start raining soon. Sadly, by the time his train had arrived in Aoyama-Itchome, it was coming down pretty heavily. And he didn’t have an umbrella. Though he wasn’t alone in that. A bunch of students were running down the street with newspapers or some other odd item over their heads. Shido considered using his schoolbag as an erstwhile umbrella, but felt it wouldn’t be particularly effective. At best, his face and maybe part of his chest would stay dry that way. And he really didn’t want to be late to his first day of school, especially considering his circumstances, but he really didn’t want to get drenched either. He had a feeling that if he got a cold, his new “caretaker” Sakura would be less than sympathetic.
He tucked a lock of aquamarine hair behind his ear.
As he contemplated what to do, a boy appeared next to him, emerging from the subway station. He had brown hair and was wearing a modified version of the Shujin Academy uniform. Instead of the blazer, he wore a magenta hoodie and hiking boots.
The boy introduced himself as Junya Kaneshiro.
Inside Shujin Academy, Shido met two more people. A brown haired boy in a blue tracksuit - called Suguru Kamoshida - and a young man with bleached blonde hair, a black and red tennis uniform, and sneakers. This young man was Ryuji Sakamoto, tennis coach of Shujin.
"To be frank, Shido," Kamoshida said as they walked through the corridor. "Welcome to a prison where Ryuji has long served as jailkeeper."
If Shido didn’t have his phone on silent, he would have heard a “Beginning navigation.”
Then Shido and Kamoshida found themselves in a prison.
[OST: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eumw6ApX3H8]
"Huh?!" Kamoshida said.
"Where the fuck are we?" Shido asked.
Prison guards chased them, and then they heard a familiar yet distorted voice.
"Stop there, scum!" There stood Ryuji. But it wasn't. Well, it was Ryuji, but he was barefoot and clad in a prison jumpsuit. "You have no rights being here!"
"What will happen?" Shido asked.
"No-good scum like you deserve to die like dogs!” "Ryuji" said.
"I DON'T WANT TO DIE!" Kamoshida screamed.
Shido's head was telling him to run, to get the hell out of there before things got worse, to fly instead of fight. But he heart forced it down, and he stood his ground.
"I don't want you to get hurt, Kamoshida!" Shido said. "Leave my friend alone! DO YOU FUCKING HEAR ME, YOU PIECE OF SHIT?!”
[OST: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTQoFPmC7ZA]
Are you ready to begin?
"Ugh!" Shido cried out, a mighty aching overtaking him.
You want to protect your friends, don't ya? The power of friendship can do anything?
"You d-don't… have to… tell me… twice…" Shido grunted out, feeling a mask appear on his face. The mask was colored in black with ruby-red accents, looking similar to something out of a masquerade party.
Are you a coward? If you are, that can change if we form a contract…
Shido clutched his mask.
I am thou, thou art I… it's your time to shine; show everyone what you're capable of!
"Kill them!" "Ryuji" ordered in a shrill voice.
A Shadow raised a gun and fired just as Shido ripped his mask off. The bullet melted away in the pillar of flame that rose from the ground. Twirling, swirling, whirling, it morphed into a man wearing a deerstalker hat and a trenchcoat.
Shido himself was reoutfitted. He was dressed in an outfit that looked like Tuxedo Mask's from Sailor Moon, but the white mask was gone (for obvious reasons) and it had the black and white inverted save for the dress shoes and bowtie. In addition, his gloves were dark purple.
"Holy shit! Damn, uh, you look really..." Kamoshida trails off, looking rather uncomfortable as he glances at Shido. "...outta an anime, I guess?"
"Ryuji" screamed.
"Yeah," Shido said. "Let's show them what's it's worth... right, Sherlock Holmes?" He asked his Persona.
Sherlock Holmes threw a smoke bomb to the floor, covering the room in smoke.
"That's our cue to get outta of here!" Shido said, as he and Kamoshida made a break for the exit and didn’t look back.