Chapter Text
She had tried everything, every single solution, every method, every idea. And each and every one had failed, no matter what she did, he remained trapped, keeping humanity safe from itself, she often came to observe the door on occasion, but now it just felt like it was taunting her, reminding her of how every single plan she tried wound up fruitless, whenever she believed she would make progress, she found yet another hurdle to jump over, yet another trail, more hoops to jump through, to any human it would be infuriating, and to herself, she found herself frustrated as expected, but she could not give up, she would find something… despite how tricky the situation was… wait… tricky… trick… trickster. As she pondered the title for a moment and a light went off in her head, that was it, it was risky, and if it was mismanaged, she could cause severe damage to the flow of events, and the punishment would be severe, but, she had to try, for him. she had to give this a go.
Find the Twins
Change their fates
Prevent the tragedy
Change the world
??????????????
Ren heard those words before he began to wake up… coming to he found himself… definitely not in a cell, the surrounding area was… alien to him,Put a full stop here The floor he found himself laying on was made of stone, the walls were lined with wires of various sizes, all of which had the same purple glow emanating from them. Ren quickly got up on his feet and with no other idea, began to move forward with caution. He soon found himself blocked by weird tendrils that blocked off a part of the path ahead, but before he could consider climbing over them, they simply went up on their own, without any provocation. The pathway fed into a cross road, with the route on his left leading into more of the same… while the one on his right showed a staircase with an ethereal green glow. Facing him was a face sculpted into the wall, which only served to further disturb him.
Looking at himself he realized he was wearing the clothes provided to him while in prison, instead he was wearing his late-winter clothes, the white v-neck, black blazer, brown shoes, and denim pants, however it seemed that wasn’t all. Looking at his waist he saw two holsters, with one on his waist, and the other on his thigh, grabbing the one on his waist he recognized what it was immediately, his silver dagger, his preferred melee weapon which they found in Kamoshida’s palace. Holding it however it no longer felt like a model, or a cognition given physical form once they left the metaverse and into the real world, the weight of this dagger was now far different, and inspecting the blade closer, it looked far more real than the one he had as a Phantom Thief. This was confirmed when he tapped the tip of the blade with his finger. Putting the dagger back in its holster for now, he soon realized what the holster on his thigh was. Once he gripped onto it he could hardly believe what he was holding, in his palms was the Tkachev, the model was based on a Type 54 semi automatic pistol, or he would at least have called it a model if it didn’t feel completely different. He held the firearm in both hands and inspected it, he turned the safety of the gun on, and then checked the magazine, and it was easy to confirm, inside the magazine it held 8 bullets inside. Ren could feel his arm shake as he held the pistol, in spite of the number of times he held a shadow at gunpoint in the metaverse, it was always tempered by the knowledge the weapons he and his allies used were not real. But now in his hands, was a very real gun. He quickly made sure the safety was on once again before he put the gun back in its holster, and began moving forward though the hallways of… where the hell he was.
Just… where am I, this isn’t the metaverse, I don’t have my outfit… and I don’t feel… any of my persona’s present at all… and these weapons are… very real. The atmosphere is different, I feel like… like I’m being pushed down on, not only that but it’s… hard to breathe, just what is going on?
He traveled up the stairs into what turned into more of the same as the floor he was on previously, just more face-walls, wires, and stairs, he traveled up 2 other floors with nothing new in sight, before something else caught his attention, a commotion that left him confused, against what was likely his better judgement and instinctive self-preservation, he began approaching, until he heard a familiar voice.
“Show your might!” The familiar high-pitched cry made him start running in its direction, he heard the familiar sounds of gusts of wind, and the high pitched grunts, could it be? No, there is no way… He found himself looking into an open part of the hallways he had seen previously, and found himself facing the back of a large figure, wearing brown boots, blue denim pants, a white shirt that covered a ballooning chest, on the wrists the cuffs were a light blue with a black floral pattern, and a back and green striped coat flowed behind it like a cape, Ren immediately recognized the form, it was Morgana’s ultimate persona, Diego.
“Mona!?”
“Joker?” The large figure dissipated into a puff of bright blue flames, and Ren looked to his feet, and roughly to the height of his knees, stood Morgana, his team's mascot, medic, and in many ways his little brother.
“Mona!!!”
“Joker!” Morgana jumped in Ren’s arms and the two hugged, enjoying each other’s embrace before Ren finally pulled the cat off him.
“It’s so good to see you!” Morgana said, before looking back to him. “But… where are we?”
“I have no idea… I just woke up in this place a few minutes ago, I started exploring and ran into you.” Morgana began to think, the two wasted no time after their reunion, taking stock of their new situation, Ren informed Morgana of everything he had, from his new clothes, a weird message, and now he had very real weapons.
“I see, and you said you just woke up here… well whatever this place is, I don’t think it’s the metaverse, even if I look like this, it feels completely different, mementos felt like moving through water, this doesn't feel like that at all, the closest thing I can compare this too is… the part of Mementos we found after Maruki took over.” Morgana said.
“Agreed, but even then… I don’t feel the headache like I did in there, it just feels hard to breathe.” Ren said.
“Oh! Did you check your pockets?” Morgana asked.
“Why?”
“Because maybe whatever brought you here left us with more than a knife and a gun, maybe some kind of clue.” Ren checked his pockets, and felt nothing in any except one, which held a wallet, opening the wallet he found only two things of note, seven thousand yen, and an ID that had a picture of him, although his name was completely different, labeling him “Akira Kurusu”. “What the hell?” Aside from the name everything else on the ID is the same, so why the different name?
“That’s weird..”
“Yeah... but it's probably best to keep that on us until we can find a way out, at least it has money on it.” Morgana got up on his feet, Ren doing the same.
“Yeah, you’re gonna have to run on point for now, I… don’t feel Satanael or even Arsene.”
“What about your other personas?”
“Nothing.”
“Crap, and Diego feels pretty weak too, if I had to guess, he’s at… maybe the strength Zorro was before we started going into Madarame’s palace.”
“So we’re both essentially back at square one with no backup, or idea where we are.”
“Yep”
“Fantastic…, well lets get moving, no use dwelling on that.” And with that they began their trek through the winding halls, taking comfort in the companion they had in each other.
Ren and Morgana ventured though the halls of this mysterious labyrinth, fighting other shadows and trying their hardest to remain stealthy, however the layout of this new area led to conflict with that, as cover was hard to come by. The two had started the grow into aa rhythm, of Morgana using his wind magic as the primary offense, with Ren using his new gun to shoot at shadows when the opportunity arose, although with the gun being real, he now had to concern himself with ammo management, a luxury the metaverse had, that this place did not. However it seemed their commotion had attracted attention.
“Who-who are you? Are you… human?” A voice called out, definitely belonging to a girl, roughly their age, both Ren and Morgana stopped moving immediately.
“Who’s there?” They called out at the same time. After a brief moment, footsteps were heard, and from out of the corner, they saw a girl, shorter than Ren by a notable margin, with teal colored hair, and dark brown eyes. She had a timid nature to her as she held both her hands close to her chest.
“Ah…”
“Who are you?”
“M-Me?”
“Who else would I be talking to?” Ren raised his eyebrow.
“O-Oh… no one I suppose. Uh… m-my name is Fuuka Yamagishi.” The girl responded, Ren went though this mental cabinet, but the name was unfamiliar to him.
"I'm surprised to see another human in here.”
“A-A monster cat!?” The girl now named Fuuka exclaimed, much to Morgana’s dismay.
“Are you serious- NO! I am not a monster cat! I’m just a regular cat, and my
name
is Morgana!” Ren’s companion exclaimed offended at Fuuka’s remark.
“O-Oh, I’m sorry…”
“Hmph, at least you have manners, well then Fuuka, can you tell us anything about this place?” Morgana said.
“I uhh… I don’t know anything, I’ve been stuck in here for a long time, just hiding, with no idea how to get out.”
“So the same as us, we both just woke up here with no idea where we are.”
“I see…”
“Did you see any of the monsters roaming around?”
“M-monsters? So there is something dangerous inside here…”
“Wait, have you not seen any?” Ren questioned her.
“No.. I’ve gotten by with them not seeing me so far, I can sort of… tell where they are.”
“Woah, that’s amazing.” Morgana said, his eyes going wide.
“T-thank you so much, I was so worried I’d be stuck in here all alone.” Fuuka fell to her knees in relief, before Ren helped her back up again.
“You can thank me
after
we find a way out.” Ren clarified.
“R-right”
“Hey Mona, lets try and find a way out-”
“Wait…” Fuuka interrupted.
“Huh?” Ren heard he confused
“There's… someone else here… three others, actually.”
“Wait, do you think others have gotten trapped in this place too?” Morgana's eyes widened. Ren immediately turned to Fuuka.
“Can you tell me where they are?”
“Y-Yeah this way!” Ren and Morgana began to follow Fuuka, going at a brisk pace, investigating the other humans she had detected. Meanwhile in his head Ren just sighed deeply.
Just me, Morgana, and a complete stranger, in who knows where, with real weapons and shadows, great… it’s at least more interesting than prison… I guess.