Persona: Solar Soul

[GoldenKitten]

A haze like an infinitely thick veil of fog begins to lift from your mind. You're unsure of where you are, or how you've come to be there. Yet despite the fact that your surroundings are darkened and foreign you feel no need to flee or concern yourself with your safety. A soft turning motion eases your mind into a half-sleep as if a child rocked in your mothers embrace. It is through this serene calmness you begin to ascertain the area around you, your eyes adjusting to the dim but encompassing pale blue illumination.

You find yourself sitting deep within a cushioned chair made of the finest materials, the backside stretching several heads taller than you could ever accommodate. A quick scan of the room indicates that it is circular in nature with a high domed ceiling adorned with a crystalline chandelier that is alight with otherworldly blue flame. The room extends several feet behind you and the walls are made of glass allowing you to see outside, though calling it that is an uncertainty. You're unsure of what lays beyond the glass as much of it is black and empty, almost as if there is nothing but a wall. But here and there sparkles of light shine through like stars and you begin to realize it must be the night sky, though how it surrounds you on all sides you are unsure. From the way these points move along the horizon you believe the room itself must be spinning...or possibly the sky is spinning around you?

As for the furnishings of the room itself it is widely empty though you can see several other chairs of the same make arranged in a circle, each with someone else in them. At the time you can see their faces quite clearly, but later you would find them impossible to recall such being the nature of dreams. You are unable to note exactly how many there are but they are numerous and all are turned to face a single chair in the middle of the room. It is far less ornate than the rest, instead made of simple if eloquently sculpted wood, the figure of a small hunched over man sits in it, his hands crossed and his eyes toward the floor. Leaning against the side of the chair with his arms crossed looking quite bored and lackadaisical was a somewhat fetching man with a well manipulated goatee and slicked hair in a suit more at home in a office cubicle than anywhere else.

Despite having taken all this in it took several moments to “feel” them, as if nobody was there and then all at once had appeared despite some phantom of their nature being present from the start. Though you knew not where you were or for what reason you instinctively understood that the men were waiting for the rest of the chairs to be populated. And the second you spotted the last individual, their features now warped in your mind, the small man in the chair raised his head. Exposing his large bulbous eyes and sharp long features.

“Welcome to the Velvet Room. My, my this is an astounding situation we find ourselves in.”

He paused and gave a light chuckle, perhaps to himself more than anyone else.

“My name is Igor. Do not fear for you are perfectly safe, this place exists between your dreams and reality. It is a place only seen by those bound to a particular contract, a particular fate. And perhaps it is why you are here. First though, why don't you introduce yourselves?"

Though you haven't the slightest clue what the man spoke of, and in any realistic situation you'd have far larger concerns than a polite conversation you feel no urgency to disobey. You've no desire to learn about anything more than what this man has to say, and indeed feel compelled to answer. You give your name and in the back of your minds-eye hear the rest of those present give theirs at almost the same time, though despite your overlapping walls of speech the man simply nods as if he caught them all at once.

“Interesting. When I and Loki, the man standing next to me, felt the issuances of the Velvet Room we knew we were in for an extraordinary set of circumstances, but for so many to answer the call of Fate,” he paused briefly, “Now tell me, do you believe it fortune telling?"

Several in the circle made their affirmation or denial heard, but he responded to neither. Passing his hand through the air there was a flash of light and then four cards were floating in the air before him, as he motioned and the first turned to face him he spoke; “Though there are a limited number of Arcana there are nearly endless results for what they might tell or do, much like you will come to find yourselves will be in the coming days. The first card is the tower in the upright position, a burden and catastrophe of some magnitude will be forced upon you all."

He flipped his hand again and two of the cards turned over, “Followed by the Lover in the upside down position, standing above the Magician in the upright. It symbolizes that to overcome this situation will require you to take the initiative, but to do so as a cohesive whole, something you may at this time be incapable of doing. But to succeed it will be necessary. Given the unprecedented nature of your arrival as a group this does not surprise me...and finally..." he made one last gesture and the last card flipped.

“The Sun, on its side. As the position suggest this means it could go either way. The Sun signifies continued life, that it appears instead of Death tells me that should you succeed in this ordeal the gift you offer will be the joy of existence, instead of the relief that you succeeded Death. The question of course is life for who? Or for what? And, barring that can you succeed?”

He gave a straight stare seemingly at all and nobody at once, the man named Loki beside him chuckled. It was the first time some sense of dread filled you, as if you understood this was not a man who was just bluffing like your average TV psychic, he was powerful and knew things. That he was telling you this was worrisome and even in your state of surreal sleep you knew to be concerned. But shortly after he clapped his hands together and the cards disappeared, in their place a number of sheets of paper on clipboards appeared and a single one floated out to each person sitting in the circle.

“But, that is why we are here, to give you the highest possible chance of grasping victory. The contract now laying before you is very simple, it states only that whatever happens in the coming days, you will take responsibility for your own actions. If you sign this contract you and I will be bound very closely, and I will do everything in my power to help you succeed. For that is the purpose of all denizens of the Velvet Room. Now, will you agree?”

Looking at the paper floating before you it is a rather plain object with no extraneous verbiage or clauses, quite the opposite in fact. It states simply, “I chooseth this fate of my own free will”[/i][/color] with a place for you to sign below. Though still not sure what you have found yourself in you instinctively know your own safety, and perhaps that of others if you care for such things, relies on your decision here. And so tentatively you take the parchment out of the air and write your name out in longhand like any other legal tender.

Your ears pick up on the scribbles of those around you, and as soon as you finished the document disappears from your hands. Looking forward the man gives a bow.

“Well then, we shall speak of the particulars at a later date. Right now they would be meaningless words that told you nothing. But know that in the coming days the contract you have signed will manifest itself as a power you will put to use toward what future you desire, just remember when that time comes that you have accepted your own fates responsibility."

Igor bowed without getting out of his chair, and Loki brought his hand up to his forehead in a halfhearted salute.

“Until then, farewell."

Whether you wished to leave or not, whether you had questions or simply wanted to explore it did not matter. The world around you began to grow fuzzy as the room seemed to spin faster, or maybe it stopped all together? It was difficult to tell, whatever the case moments later you found yourself staring at the ceiling of your bedroom, your alarm clock alerting you to awake for the days activities. You are left with the feeling that you dreamt of something very important, but the details and particularly the individuals present are little more than a blur.

----

The first day of the new school year had begun, due to the previous years tsunami and nuclear crisis the start date had been been pushed back into the winter months for the affected areas. Where our scene decides to focus the prefecture of Tawasashi was one such location. Home to one of the countries most prestigious academies the Tawasashi Elite Learning Center was, despite its open door policy, widely known for being home to the future business leaders stemming from a homeward supply of old money given the ridiculous entry fees. This didn't stop a wide range of families even from the lower part of the upper class from procuring the funds simply for the sake of appearances, and the Learning Center's giant (and newly renovated) lands were bustling with a class repertoire one-thousand four-hundred strong.

Settled directly between the Rimu-tagashi cityscape district and the outlying suburbs of Hakurin to strike a balance of ease of access and “old world charm” (as the pamphlet put it) the Learning Center was a gleaming beacon of wealth. Four-stories high and appearing more a castle than a school it was recognizable from just about anywhere in the local surroundings. Built on the outside of white stone with the front opened high set on grandiose pillars it looked like something more at home in the Victorian-era, or even some old Greek Pantheon than in a moderately sized but otherwise indistinguishable town in Japan. The school was also known for its expansive outdoor gardens though like everything else this was likely more for awing the parents that would be sending their children there than the overprevileged youths themselves.

Though the middle of winter only a light cover of snow touched the ground, many leaves still clung to their branches with life, and the temperature was a chilly but bearable fourteen Celsius.

The day was the Twenty-First of December, the year; Two-Thousand-and-Eleven.

The end is but a moments breath away...
When it comes all shall be treated equally regardless of innocence or crime...

Not all ends come at the hand of man...
And not all can be avoided no matter the toil...

But if you wish to challenge the natural order...
You will be given one year...

For a singular chance...
To voice your own will, for benefit or not...
On the day of Judgement.[/size]

12.21.11
Takarashika Rimimuraran stood out like a sore thumb as she sat on one of the park benches in the front garden of the Tawasashi Elite Learning Center, thumbing through the days newspaper. She, and her friends (though she had none here) called her Rimi and Rimi, put bluntly, was not where anyone wanted her to be. The introduction for first years like herself was concluded in which she and the other top two scoring individuals on the National Exam had been called to the front and expounded as paragons to which the others should live up to in the coming days. Rimi might have been annoyed at being made such an obvious target but honestly all these rich fuss buckets were about as concerning as a toothless kitten. It had been three weeks since the National Exam test results were released and the venom directed her way had been ceaseless, but by comparison to the cold streets she had grown up on their insults weren't much more chaffing than a five-year-olds insults.

For Rimi was one of the incredibly rare individuals that had gotten into the Academy on a scholarship. She soaked up knowledge like a sponge but for all its use it got her nowhere. When she'd grown-up in the back alleys of Arakawa-ku her only remaining relative was a drunkard of a father who could have cared less, and most of the locals her age were more interested in the one profitable business in such areas, joining crime gangs (and it didn't take a genius to realize the few options left to a girl there).

She had taken it upon herself to try and work out of that squalor, but where those in the Danchii just looked at her dreams like she was crazy, when she succeeded she was simply looked at with a different kind of disdain. Rimi had scored the highest on the exam anyone had in almost ten years, she had beaten the sons and daughters of the elite members of society and individuals who had been professionally trained from birth to take the test. What she got for it was loathing, vehemence; people used to getting what they wanted and only willing to interact with others that had it the same way, not someone who had earned it.

Perhaps they were frightened of her, or simply ignorant. It didn't matter, whatever the case ever since she got the scholarship and had been making the rounds in society before arriving at the academy it was clear she was not wanted. She made good TV for a week or two, but at every banquet or press conference for the winners she had quickly been pushed to the side in favor of the well postured noble youths of old money. It didn't bother her in the end, she had still opened countless opportunities she never would have had before, but that didn't mean she enjoyed being endlessly harassed and ostracized for being smart for a totally different reason than she had spent being so through her youth.

She was reading an article in the newspaper about the strange weather, it was indeed warmer than usual, but was more focused on the girls surrounding her. She was not oblivious to the platoon of girls each made up to look like a little princess slowly encircling her, their looks of disgusts and veiled whispers had hardly been stealthy through the morning speech, and now before the bell rang for the first class they had their opportunity to accost her. If they became violent she was not worried, these hair pulling divas wouldn't have stood a chance for five minutes on her streets, she might have been smart but she didn't survive unscathed this long based on brains alone. Of course she knew this was a last resort, she couldn't afford to get in trouble if possible since students weren't the only one's who disliked her, many parents had voiced none-to-subtle opinions about a “lesser” being allowed into the school. Scholarship program or no it had rarely been allowed and had only come about when the media stations got hold of her scores and story, which had then forced the Learning Center's hand.

Just before the girls tightened their noose completely there was no better sign of their difference than seeing them next to each other. The four girls teaming up on her were decked out in the finest white furs though the temperature hardly called for it, perfectly seamed together, with crystal and silver bobbles adorning zipper tassels.

Meanwhile Rimi looked ready for a hiking trip and was wearing an aged and faded jacket with enough patched holes there was surprise it kept the cool out at all. Five times too large she wouldn't say so even if asked but it had indeed been her fathers, after all she'd never had the money to buy more than a few outfits before and certainly not winter wear. She was cute with button-like features though hardly beautiful and her hair was cut like a bowel to frame her face with no accessories to “pretty her up”, quite the opposite she was wearing a simple pink pineapple hat pulled over her ears. This had never bothered her before, it didn't bother her now, but she was quite aware of how visible it made her and how it was only making the situation worse. Regardless she continued to pretend she was reading the paper.

She was going to try and be as civil as possible but that was cut short when the head girl whose status was surely based on her financial well-being began aggressively, “Are you trying to ignore me you little brat? They say you did alright on those test so I'll assume you've got enough knocking around up there to understand your situation. If we can't be rid of you then from now you'll work for me, Rukeimei of the prestigious Kura household. Do my homework and such and I can get you in good so you can avoid all these nasty rumors and intents.”

Still looking at her paper Rimi turned her head to see the three other girls who had blocked her way off the bench on each side, all were dressed as if to mimic the lead girl Rukeimei. After giving them a once over and judging their character (and ability) she decided there was no concern and replied simply, “No, thank you.” before returning to her paper.

No sooner had she done this than the girl grabbed it by the middle and ripped it in half, some bits falling to the ground. Rimi met the girls vicious eyes lackadaisically and then crossed her hands into her lap to see where this went since the girl hadn't instantly struck her...guess as a “noble” she had to watch her manners too, even when talking to one of “them”. After the brief moment of anger passed her eyes refocused and she began, “Well then I've an idea-”

Before she continued Rimi moved to incite her again, “Must have been a long and lonely journey.”

The girls eyes bulged but she collected herself before the hand she began to raise could come forward. Recomposing her stance she stood tall over Rimi and stated in an authoritative tone, “You know dear, you catch more flies with honey. You could try to be nicer considering what I'm offering.”

Tilting her head slightly Rimi rubbed her right temple her eyes focusing on nothing in particular, “Very well, I'll attempt to be nicer if you try to be just a teensy bit smarter and less entitled, deal?”

That did it, she'd had enough and let out a growl totally unfitting her “station”. Reukemei got in Rimi's face aggressively though she continued to keep a stalwart brick for her own visage, it wasn't that she wasn't worried, she just knew the sooner they got this out of the way the sooner they could proceed to veiled hostility instead of open mocking. After the girl stomped her feet a few times and continued her low growl like some sort of chanting ceremony she backed off a bit and held her finger out, pointing and yelling, and of course by this point a crowd was gathering to watch. From the looks on their faces Rimi was forced to assume she was facing off against something of the schools “Queen Bee”.

Finger still in her face Rukeimei screeched, “You'd turn me down after I made the time-”

Rimi interrupted, “Yes, I see you've made the time to humiliate yourself in public. Self-depreciation of someone at your level, refreshing to say the least.”

She'd done her job then, she was quite convinced the girl was going to try and hit her now and the giggles this had elicited from those listening in probably would tip the girl over the edge. Shifting her weight she was ready to push herself up and to the side, there was another girl in her way but she could easily topple that little flower if need be. Those close enough to hear the chiding had gotten a giggle and that had froze Rukeimei up for a moment, likely equal measures of humiliation and anger going through her head. Of course some might say Rimi wasn't doing herself a favor here but she'd known the bullying was coming from the day she learned she'd been accepted. Better to get them worked up and worked out now than let them think it bothered her and endure it for the remainder of her stay.

But before the other girl could make up her mind an adults voice carried out across the growing crowd, “That's enough! Break it up, what's going on over here?”

As a well built and quite attractive man in the attire of the schools staff passed through into the opening he took stock of the scene. Rimi could tell from the reaction of the surrounding girls this teacher was something of the local heartthrob, she wouldn't deny he was attractive but she was hardly interested in such flights of fancy when there were more important missions in her life currently. Whatever the case his appearance forced Rukeimei and the other girls to straighten up their act quickly. Turning their backs to Rimi she went about collecting the still readable bits of the newspaper from her feet and folding them up for later, she listened to what was being said but wasn't particularly interested.

“But she was the one-”
“Now we've been through this before Rukeimei-”
“It isn't my fault!”
“What would your father say-”

Amongst the back-and-forthing and the rest of the students going on-and-on Rimi almost missed the ghostly voice. When she first heard it her initial thought was someone had a strange voice indeed, poor bastard considering how unmerciful these children could be. But it began to grow louder and she started to realize she could hear it clearly over the rest of the speech, and it wasn't so much a voice as an alarm. A low wail that wavered in-and-out, it seemed to be coming from everywhere and yet her instincts told her to look up. It only took a moment to find, her eyes quickly set on a small point of flame at the edge of vision, like those images you'd see on TV of the American and Russian shuttles being launched into space.

Only...only she started becoming aware that it was getting larger as the wailing in her head got louder, it felt as if it were draining the thoughts from her head and she found herself like a pyromaniac transfixed. It was not until the flame had grown to five times the size it had begun that someone else noticed it and yelled out to the others, causing a sudden silence amongst them. It only took a brief moment beyond that to realize the speed and size of the thing, it had started as barely a flicker and was now as large as a plum held up in the sky, growing by doubles with every second.

Someone had the presence of mind to yell, “IT'S COMING STRAIGHT DOWN ON THE SKYLINE!!!”

And then the panic began as everyone yelled and screamed to get inside the building. But Rimi was in a vogue, she saw the problem before her but she wasn't afraid, the wailing siren was still there and she was convinced it was talking to her. She had mind for nothing else, it was like a possession, an aware possession as the siren moans tried to become words. She was only shocked to true reality when she felt someone grab her around her midsection, instinctively she whipped her head around to see the teacher whom had been lambasting the bully, he had her locked in his arms hard and was flying toward the nearest open entrance to the school.

Just before they reached the entrance Rimi gave one final look back at the sky. A massive fireball half as large as the city it was above and only miles away moved faster than anything that large should have. The teacher had hardly taken two steps with Rimi into the doors opening before the...whatever it was made contact with the city.

But Rimi didn't see flames, or feel the massive explosive force that surely would have followed. She, like every other member who had signed the contract that fateful night in the Velvet Room now found themselves in the pitch black of the unconscious. And when they awoke, they would find themselves not just somewhere unexpected, but somewhere that would bend their very belief in the real.

[Jukuma]

12.21.11

The cold water hit against Ryota’s face as he let his body travel through the air for a few meters before hitting the surface. His hands cut through the clean stream and the rest of his body followed. As if electricity had traveled through him, he worked himself into an aggressive motion as he made his way through the liquid. The coldness of the water revitalized his senses, his head became clearer and his mind was awake. This cold punch that brought him back to reality had been a routine for many mornings during many years and now it was something he couldn’t really work without. Besides, it was a good time to disconnect and meditate.

That was definitely the reason why he had always enjoyed such a generally regarded as boring sport as swimming and nowadays was the captain and ace of the team in his school, the highly prestigious Tawasashi Elite Learning Center. He was actually quite proud of that; true, this school wasn’t precisely one oriented towards sport clubs, nor did it foment them any more than other schools did. However it still held true that the facility had an image to maintain, and even if everyone knew that the biggest factor in getting in was money, you also needed to meet some other high standards, so there was a lot of competition involved. Even more so, there were people who got in solely on scholarships, and there were a few who had obtained it through sports. This was not Ryota’s case, as he did indeed come from a family from a considerably high standing, but he never the least was considered to be on the same level as those individuals.

Today, however, wasn’t really being his best practice session. Normally, the blurring blue world his eyes perceived while swimming and the incomprehensible sound were enough to make his mind get to work and follow many branches of thought, but this time something was bothering him. Something had happened yesterday, or was it today? Even after having the aid of the pool’s freezing touch, he still couldn’t remember what was bothering him, as if there was some sort of mental wall preventing him from doing so. He was under the impression that what was bothering him had only been a dream, but he couldn’t even remember what he had dreamt that night, or whether or not he had dreamt anything to begin with. It was incredibly complicated to put in words what kind of confusion he was going through; the closest he could hope to say is that he somehow knew there was something to remember, but some sort of higher force was keeping him from doing so.

For some reason, when he couldn’t get his mind sorted out, he didn’t do well during practice. Mind and body are even more connected to each other than most would think and apparently this wasn’t just a matter of concentration. When Ryota noticed he was already in his last couple of meters, he made one last powerful stroke and stretched his other arm as far as he could, touching the border of the pool and ending there his 100 meter dash. A girl with two braids of hair falling towards the front wearing a sweat-suit pressed a button on a chronometer in synchronization with Ryota’s hand and looked at the number the small machine showed in its tiny screen.

“55.33 seconds”, the girl in the sweat-suit said, she had a nervous smile as she continued. “Well, that’s even closer to your record, Sempai.”

Ryota didn’t react in any way to what the girl said; he simply continued to breathe in and out in a fixed manner as his lungs stabilized. He had done this innumerable times and he didn’t really need her to be telling him his time, he was well aware he hadn’t reached his goal in this instance. Nonetheless, even he had realized that the girl had been having a hard time trying to cope with him since she became the team’s manager; when she complimented him, he would simply dismiss what she said as uninformed and empty compliments and if she remained quiet, the motive for her presence would be questioned. She had earned a break from time to time.

“That’s it for this morning”, Ryota declared simply as he pulled himself out of the pool and lowered his goggles, revealing a pair of intimidating, gray eyes. Next he turned to the rest of the swimmers in other layers, who had stopped after they had finished their cool-down laps. “We’ll continue after school, and remember we are having morning practice tomorrow as well.”

And with that, everyone crawled their way out of the pool and went to the changing rooms, girls on one side and boys on the other. His speeches after practices were normally longer, but this time he really didn’t feel like extending the practice too much; he wasn’t sure whether it was because he still couldn’t remember the important thing he had been trying to reveal in his head earlier or if it was that, because of it, he hadn’t been able to do very well in the exercise, but the bottom-line was that he was pissed about it and just wanted it to end. Opting to take a shower to try to relax himself a bit more, he went to the changing room as well.

As he finished changing into his clothes and just quickly brushed his light brown hair (he had grown tired by now of having to brush it three times a day) he gathered his things in his bag and went outside of the changing room.

“What the hell came up his ass?” a voice sounded next to the exit door of the room. As Ryota came out of his spot without really hiding his presence even though he suspected he was the topic of conversation, he confirmed it was two male members of the swimming team. None of them had noticed him yet. “Not only morning practice, but he also extended the after school schedule. As if this was the only competition we’ll have during the year. Dude, it’s almost Christmas, I have a life and a girlfriend!”

“Maybe that’s what he should be looking for as well, huh?” the other team member said as he laughed at his own joke.

“Nah, what he needs is to…”, the first one caught off as he suddenly realized Ryota was passing them by. As soon as he realized he wasn’t going to continue what he was saying, the captain decided to say something first.

“You can always leave the team”, he commented without much concern. His expression didn’t seem to be of anger, nor did he seem annoyed by what the team members had said. Once he had confirmed that the only response he would get would be an awkward giggle of embarrassment, he continued walking towards the main building of the school, where classes would start soon

This didn’t really come off as a surprise to him, he was well aware that the impression his fellow team members had of him was along those lines for the most part. The truth was that, even though he didn’t tend to hang out that much, he was quite well-known around the school, both by underclassmen and the ones in the same grade as him. Being his class’ representative, captain of the swimming team and still managing to maintain quite a decent grade average (not on the top fifteen, but still a good number, mind you) that didn’t really come as a surprise. As far as that went, it could even be said he was popular, as most people had a good impression of him. However, he was a cold and serious person and no one had been able to really get close to him; those who could have a conversation with him were already very rare and if he was asked how many close friends he had, his sincere answer would have to be none. It was interesting to see how people’s perspective changed as they met this side of him.

Most were under the impression that he was passionate about swimming to the point he trained excessively, but the truth was that wasn’t really the case. He would be kind of bothered if they lost miserably in the upcoming competition, but he wasn’t aiming for the first place, and if his teammates didn’t improve their times, he wouldn’t really lose any hours of sleep over it. He didn’t really have much else to do beside it and he certainly didn’t enjoy the time spent in his house, where the environment varied from lonely to cold. He only had one sibling, who had left the house many years ago and had called Ryota and their father once a year. To Ryota this was a mystery, but his father didn’t want to even touch the subject.

“Ah, if it isn’t Fukuto-san”, a voice came from behind Ryota, who turned around to see who was calling his name. Though judging by the voice and way he was addressed, he had a pretty good idea of who he was already. A tall man with rectangular glasses raised a hand while directing him a calm smile. He had black, plain hair that opened to the sides in the front and his face showed some sharp features that matched his glasses.

“Good morning, Kazoru-san”, Ryota greeted the other student back. That person was Kazoru Yuuto, the captain of the karate team; he had never really exchanged many words with him, but he had seen him many times in clubs meetings and recently had been seeing him during morning practices as well. “Did you club just finished morning practices?”

“I’m not sure I can call that a practice” Yuuto responded as he rested his chin on his hand; he seemed genuinely distressed when the subject came up. Once he caught up with Ryota, they both continued their way on par towards the main building. “We were defeated quite exaggeratedly in the last competition, so I was hoping this would make us improve a little, but sometimes I wonder if they are even trying.”

As they continued their way towards the main building, they maintained a light and uneventful conversation. Their attention was soon moved towards the presence of a large group of people who had gathered around a few girls. There seemed to be some kind of discussion involved in the matter, and it had to be serious if people were attracted to it and even a teacher had decided it was necessary to step in and stop whatever was going on. The group was large enough that even Ryota, who stood a tall 6’1’’, could not clearly see who were the ones in the center at first sight. For a second, however, it was possible to see a pineapple hat stand out from the people in the center of the crowd, and that seemed to be enough for Yuuto to figure out what was going on.

“Apparently there’s some trouble with that girl again”, he mentioned in a casual manner, and it seemed like the matter annoyed him to some extent; for what reason, however, Ryota didn’t know.

He had already heard a few things about ‘this girl’; if he was guessing correctly, it was the genius Rimi, the girl who had gotten in this elite school on a scholarship by getting the highest score on the exam in the last 10 years. He heard she even appeared on TV, but since he no longer watched it, he hadn’t seen her there; in fact, he didn’t even know what the girl looked like. He had only peripherally heard things about her, like how the way she dressed gave away her low-standing or that she had no friends in Tawasashi, but he never really paid attention to what people wore nor did he tend to dig into this kind of matters. The only things he knew about her were that she wasn’t in his class (an unlikely case given he was a 3rd year while she had just taken the exam, making her most likely a 1st year, 2nd at most) and that she wasn’t exactly Mrs. Popularity around there. Bullying was a matter Ryota found no sense in, he didn’t understand what pushed people to lose their time in such things and then hide in their number, only showing how cowardly they are. However, it seemed like that girl (be her Rimi or not) didn’t need help from anyone, and if she did, there was already a teacher there, so whatever kind of meeting they had going on there was most likely about to end.

It was right there, before he had even passed by the group completely, that something resounded inside of his head. An eerie sound that actually took him a while to identify as a voice; at least it seemed more like a voice than just his ears ringing. He looked around for the source with a puzzled look without even knowing where to look exactly and, as it grew louder to the point it became obnoxious, he came to the realization that this sound was not the voice of any passenger, and that it was actually in his head. He didn’t really realize why, but this sound was really building up some nerves inside of him, as if he was being informed of something important by it but couldn’t make out what; if the fire alarm had sounded at that moment, it wouldn’t have made him nearly as anxious as this sound was making him. He was thinking about that when suddenly, without any reason other than a reflex, he looked up to the sky as if his body was telling him that would finally calm the voice down.

“Eh?” was all that came out of his mouth as he realized the presence of the ball of flames coming down on them.

Was that a meteor? If it was, then the entire building…no, the entire city was about to be completely obliterated in just a few seconds. Forget about meteors, anything that size falling at that speed would be enough to make a crater several hundreds of meters deep; hell, it even seemed to be going towards them. Ryota’s body was completely frozen and his mind was blank, he couldn’t even think of moving at all, and even if he could, he was pretty sure his body wouldn’t have responded. His surroundings seemed to have quieted down all of a sudden, he thought for a second that the maddening voice had made him go deaf, but suddenly realized, when he thought about it, that people were indeed screaming and trying to run to safety.

“Ryota-san!! For the love of God, Ryota-san, MOVE!!!” Yuuto was pulling on Ryota, trying to make him move, but he didn’t give a millimeter. It was as if something was forcing him to stay in place, and Yuuto wasn’t strong enough to make him move.

However, he wasn’t afraid. He could recognize fear and what he was feeling at that moment wasn’t it; had he realized and accepted that no matter whether he ran or not, he was going to die? If so, he surely was surprising himself in his last moments. Maybe it simply didn’t seem real to him, but that most likely wasn’t exactly it either, as he was actually feeling the presence of that ball in his flesh, even if he wasn’t in contact with it yet. Whatever the reason, when the flames coming down on them finally hit them, he hadn’t moved an inch from his spot. And like that, with his eyes wide opened in surprise and his mouth only half shut, everything suddenly became black.

There was no pain and no sound, all that surrounded him was nothingness. Although he waited for it, he realized that he wasn’t suffering. He wasn’t dead either. Allowing a few seconds to calm down and readying himself, Ryota opened his eyes.

[kensei]

12.21.2083[/u][/b] (Give or take a few decades)

Bahh..Bahh..Bahh..Bahh..

[/b][/center]

Thud./[/b]

The alarm finally stopped as a single limb protruded from a mass of covers. A long, low moan was muffled by the thick quilt that covered the teenager’s head as he slowly started to stretch, annoyed that today was indeed a day of school. One of the many things Mashiro Togo hated in life was mornings, and school.. “Mashiro! Breakfast is ready!” Another thing he hated was the morning breakfast call by his annoying step-sister.. With a long exaggerated sigh Mashiro slowly made his way out of bed and into his school uniform which looked as if it had been simply wadded up in a drawer for the last few days.

Mashiro made his way down the two flights of stairs to the main dinning room where his family was sitting, with the noted absence of his father. The family maid had made waffles and eggs, trying to please his American step family. He had to admit he did love the taste of them, but a year ago him and his father and mother would have had a far more traditional breakfast together.. He passed a slight glare at his step-mom and sister before grabbing a waffle and heading out the door. “I’m going to be late for school.” He whispered as he walked out.

His father had left his mother a year ago for the Americans. To be honest he wasn’t shocked when he heard that they where going to get a divorce, to say there marriage had been strained the last few years would have been an understatement. The family was separated by an entire story most of the time, only spending time together for family meals, which in retrospect where probably as much for appearance as anything else. But despite all this, he still couldn’t stand them. He had learned English in school, but his step-mom refused to learn the basics of Japanese, and refused to even call Japan by its proper name of Nippon. But even so, they weren’t the reason he felt so… off.. Something was nagging him in the back of his mind, like as if there was something important he was suppose to do but couldn’t remember. His entire mind was clouded, to the point he had even forgot to grab a jacket, and the cool winter day didn’t even register in his mind.

The walk to school was a blur, he was so lost in thought that he hadn’t noticed any of his friends shout at him as they passed by in there car. A few of them where driving, but most of the people who went to Tawasashi had there own driver take them to school and wherever else they wanted to go afterwards.. In fact it was to the point he could probably count on his hands how many students actually decided to use there legs in this school, every single one of them seemed to be skating by on there families wealth. Not Mashiro, he had decided long ago that he wasn’t going to just be a puppet of his father’s money, he was going to be independent and his own man. He had even gone so far as to get a part time job during the summer. But now with school in fool bloom he couldn’t afford the time away from his studies, as he had a hard enough time maintaining a decent GPA and staying active in the Karate club.

Before he knew it Mashiro had found himself inside the Karate club, and getting ready for the morning practice session. Yuuto-sama had been all over them for not performing well in the last tournament, and had ordered morning practice every day as well as after school practice. Most of the members had been complaining about the extra time, but he didn’t really mind. If nothing else it had provided him with something other to do then waist his savings playing at the arcade and whatever other pastime he decided to partake in..

On a normal day Mashiro would consistently be one of the best members of the club, and in there ranking he had managed to take the sixth slot. However the veil of confusion and frustration he felt for a reason he couldn’t quite figure out was still there. But, slowly and surly it started to lift more and more each time he found himself thrown on the mat by those of a lower rank. It had taken nearly four practice matches before he finally reached the tranquility of pure muscle memory he sought in every fight. His mind was as empty as it should have been at the start of the day, and he finally managed to get the pin.

Yuuto-sama sighed before clapping his hands together and shouting. “Alright. That’s enough for now, let’s get ready for class.” Mashiro stared at him dully as Yuuto’s disappointment in there performance today was incredibly obvious. He didn’t honestly care what Yuuto thought, but Mashiro was a competitive man and in the back of his mind he chastised himself for being so lost in thought earlier on. He was use to only a few things in his head, anger, illusions of grandeur, and a healthy dose of blankness. Burning questions and uncertainty just weren’t something he could process easily, and today that had shone..

Mashiro cursed his forgetfulness as he stepped outside. Normally the weather wouldn’t have been too bad with just a light jacket, but without it there was a noticeable chill in the air. He rubbed his arms slowly, before making his way across the school ground towards the campus. He looked at the gathering of students but decided to pay it no heed as it was probably just a bunch of stuck up bitches going at it over one another’s sense of fashion or some other unimportant factor. He shook his head at the thought, every woman in this school acted like a god damn diva, and where insulted when the men didn’t absolutely worship the ground they walked on. Such shallow and pathetic fools, he hated there kind. They where the poison in the world he tried so hard to separate himself from, the people who would skate by on the previous generations hard work and never lift a finger so long as they could help it. They made him sick to his stomach..

But right before he was about to enter the main campus, he stopped. A buzzing in the back of his mind that brought with it the same veil of confusion he had only just rid himself of. His eyes started to search, as he felt the noise was more then that.. And there he stood, his eyes fixated on the ball of flame coming straight for the city. His mind was blank, he felt nothing, and heard only the buzzing in his ears as it became louder and more distinct. He wouldn’t move until the crowd surged into him, pushing him inside the campus.. He hit the floor hard, blackness surrounded him, he wondered if it was because of the impact or not.. He didn’t feel any pain.. But still, the darkness was there. A never ending sea of black..

[GoldenKitten]

Rimi didn't know how long she was out. It felt like she had simply blinked but when her eyes opened she found herself face down on the ground, her surroundings exceptionally dark and murky. Despite this her memory was vivid and her senses keen contradicting her current sense of place and what had happened. At first she lay still, slowly pushing up on the hard floor made of red brick. But after a split-second of leisurely pushing she became unconsciously aware that the voice that had held sway over her was no longer present. Without its sirens call numbing her thoughts the massive fireball in the sky filled her mind and pushing hard she flipped over on to her back with a grunt and an expectation that she was about to be crushed...or burned....or likely a combination of the two.

Instead she found a ceiling made of the same red brick above. Instinctive fright still held sway and she continued to expect the coming explosion for several seconds, but her mind soon began to realize far to much time had passed and with it a regular sense of calm and curiosity returned. She was smart but that didn't mean her brain operated differently from anyone else, her first priority was ascertaining her location. But it didn't take long for her to realize she wasn't coming up with much more than what she had in the first place.

She found herself in a long tunnel of the width of your average school or office corridor only it was made entirely of red brick. It was sparsely lit at random intervals of twenty meters or so by what appeared to be electric torches, long sticks drilled at an angle into the wall, only instead of flame they gave off low-orange illumination from opaque glass cylinders. Though she'd of course never been there she was reminded of the dungeons or sewers of old Medieval European castles that had since been wired with modern day electricity. Of course try as she might no amount of wracking her brain could find a place that matched that description anywhere near Tawasashi.

Perhaps more importantly the question of why she was there surfaced. Was it a dream? Were your thoughts this vivid in a dream...she didn't think so but then maybe you forgot after the dream? If so did that mean the fireball was real, or was that the dream and this was real? She had to consider than if the massive falling object had been real she was dead, but did that make this the underworld? It's what she'd imagine if it was though she had long ago discounted things, hah, maybe that was why she was here? Though it crossed her mind she ruled out kidnapping, she was of no worth, there were certainly girls more attractive than her, and she wouldn't have been left in an open space if that were the case...she thought.

Far to many questions, no answers. Having gotten to her feet she had proceeded to spin in slow circles and scan her surroundings but nothing popped out to give answers. And, the more questions that surfaced the quicker she found herself losing her cool. Rimi was not a nervous or easily frightened individual by any means, but she was no hero or bastion of courage either. This was especially true when she could not come to a determination of her surroundings, obviously priding herself on knowing just about everything she was at a loss when she was faced with that which she did not understand.

With no other options she looked both ways, in one direction the hall stretched on for as far as she could see, the other was equally as long but she could make out light from an intersecting hallway some ways away. Though there might not be answers to be had survival instinct kicked in and logic dictated that going in the direction where there might be something different was the correct choice. So she set out toward this light source at a quicker gate that she intended her nervousness showing through in the speed with which she tried to get away from where she currently was.

Along the way she noted how the temperature had changed drastically. It wasn't scorching hot but it was warm, not in the same way as when a heater was on during the winter, but rather a natural warmth like a summer day. Before she marched a dozen paces she already felt beads of sweat boiling up on her brow, thoughtlessly she removed the hat and put it in her coat pocket. She'd have removed her coat but then she would have to carry it, and carting something that big and heavy around in her arms would be as tiring as simply wearing it. Taking her hat off made her features far more recognizable having given her something of a giant puffy snowman look until then, now allowing you to see her dark black hair and hazel like brown eyes, all together rather banal and generic if not necessarily unattractive.

Almost upon the corner she found herself running only to come to an abrupt stop where she almost face-planted when she arrived. The groan she made was incredibly audible when she realized the hall now stretching before her was as identical and long as the one she was currently on. Having seen this she was now aware that nowhere she knew of, even in Japans many old estates, fit this make-up. Yet here she found herself and with nothing else to go on she came to the conclusion that it must be a dream. Even so sitting down and waiting for it to end hardly struck her as a bright idea, the ever present realization that it might NOT be a dream keeping her moving.

And so proceeded her next fifteen minutes of walking down the hallway, finding a turn, realizing it only opened into another hallway, and taking a fools bevy of increasingly confusing turns. Even as she tried to remember the task became overwhelming, half because there were simply far to many halls that all looked the same, and in part because she was becoming increasingly panicked. At first her surroundings hadn't bothered her, perhaps because it almost seemed like a relief from the imminent destruction that had been present in...whatever it had been before she was here. But the longer she was here the more aware she became of just how dark it was and with the adding sense that there was no escape she was becoming paranoid that she was being watched. Or, at least, she hoped she was just being paranoid about being watched...

It was at nearly the twenty minute mark that she came upon a differentiation in the hallways structure. The single path she was on continued straight ahead but was divided into two halls by a brick wall, the left was lit by a torch and immediately turned left a dozen paces in, the right was pitch black and no features beyond could be made out. She tried to squint for some time but all she got was an ominous feeling of being dragged into the endless darkness, after she'd finished freaking herself out that something was going to jump out at any moment she tore her eyes away.

Laughing nervously and moving toward the lighted hallway she joked with herself though her growing trepidation was obvious even to her, “Ha-ha, the ominous dark hallway of doom or the nice lighted road, there's a tough choice. Oh yes, ha-ha...ohhhh dear...”, and so forcing her legs she began to walk down toward the turn in the hallway.

She hadn't stopped thinking about where she was but with every step she had simply become more confused. Honest to truth she didn't believe in the afterlife but she'd run through her mind with a fine tooth comb and there was simply no fit, add to it her last memory from school and wild flights of fancy were replacing cold logic quickly. The isolation wasn't doing wonders either, she was hardly a people person but few realized that even when they weren't with somebody they were still with people just being around, her she was truly alone. And though she'd always known she'd had some degree of lygophobia and claustrophobia it had never been more than a slight impediment. But with nobody present, no idea of where she was, and there constant presence the pressure was growing increasingly heavy; pushing out intelligent dictation in the process.

She'd hardly taken four steps down the hallway when she heard a clicking sound, the sound was foreign and the brain couldn't make a visual stimulus connection but in this hall of silence any noise was immediately evident. And with her brain in overdrive it was also true that any sound not of her own making had a malicious air to it. Stopped in her tracks she listened closely but was unable to hear anything more, her ears told her the sound had come from the other side of the wall she had just walked past but with how a sound could easily echo in here there was no telling. She made a nervous chirp and tried to take another step, forcing herself into a slow waltz after a second or two, but she'd not even made it to the corner when she heard the clicking sound again. This time however there was no question about where it was from, the sound had clearly and with precise direction come from right behind her.

Wasting no time in spinning around she at first saw nothing there. However as her eyes became accustomed to the light she made out a figure standing roughly a head taller than her peeking out from around the corner where it then stayed very still. Despite the butterflies in her stomach she was about to try and say something when a massive bulbous shape descended from above the figure and slammed into the floor with a bang. With some degree of shock Rimi took several steps back, almost tripping over herself as the figure used its new leverage to pull itself forward into the light. What had first appeared to be human in size and shape was instead just the front of a massive jumble of flesh on centipede like legs, only with two huge club like appendages in front, a humanoid white mask set in the center, despite the mask though there was certainly nothing human behind it.

Mind in no fit shape to make rational decisions Rimi reached into her jacket and withdrew a small switchblade she'd had most of her life. True she hadn't needed it once she'd come to Tawasashi and she could get in a lot of trouble if it were ever found, but on the streets it was a lifeline and she had been for want to give it up. As it popped up in all of its four-inch rusted glory Rimi's eyes moved from it to the creature slowly encroaching on her position as it reared up, head almost to the at least twelve-foot ceiling, and gave a nervous and exasperated, “Ha...ha...haaaaaa....” that she continued without meaning too. In response the creatures mask flipped back to expose a whole in the center of its head and the next moment a fountain of black liquid, thick as blood, came spewing in her direction. She had jumped back on reflex and as she observed the liquid melting the ground where it had hit she founder herself lucky to have done so.

Backing away with her blade raised half-heartedly Rimi began to breath at a quickened pace that verged on hyperventilating. Being brave had nothing to do with confronting complete bloody nightmares and she couldn't even process what she was seeing to formulate valid questions. All she knew was that she was about to run as fast as she possibly could. And so with all the strength she could muster she spun on her heels and made to run for the corner. And as her breath caught in her throat she found herself face-to-face with a second masked entity, this time a pile of liquid in the rough shape of a human. At barely a half arms length it struck out with its amorphous black arm and as pain ripped through her body she was slammed into the nearest wall, crumpling to her feet, attempting fruitlessly to get back up.

That was when the “voice” that had called out when the flaming inferno had been descending made itself known once more. But unlike then when it was a faraway message lacking any distinction besides warning, it was quite clear now.

[Jukuma]

Bricks. What Ryota saw once he opened his eyes was walls made of red bricks. No, it was the ceiling. He didn’t know at what point, but apparently he had fallen down while the giant blazing sphere had fallen on them. He tried to pull up his body, expecting to have some kind of resistance, but other than feeling kind of sore in his head, he was in perfect condition. Slowly, he stood up and supported his body on the closest brick wall, putting his hand on his head and trying to remember how he had ended there. It took him a few seconds, but he remembered. He remembered the growing ball of flames, the screams of agony and Yuuto trying to make him move to a safe place without meeting any success. His eyes widened, he began to experience the uneasiness that he had been able to ignore before; his heart began racing so fast that he felt as if it was about to jump out of his chest and crash against the opposite wall, and his hand began to tremble.

Realizing that he was beginning to lose his cool, Ryota quickly held his hand powerfully with the other one, closed his eyes and inhaled a big breath. Slowing his pace little by little, he began to do the same fixed breathing exercises he did after the workouts in both swimming or when he went to the gym. They were usually intended only to regulate breathing and stabilize the lungs after they had been overly active, but to him, this seemed to do the trick to calm down, or at least kept him from getting overly excited. It took two minutes for his pace to normalize again, but eventually he was able to settle down. His hand has stopped trembling so what was left was to open his eyes and move on.

With his mind now cleared (or as clear as it could possibly be given the situation), Ryota decided to first check that he was fine physically as well. He had just been hit by a big ball of flames falling from the sky, and if that wasn’t the case and it had been an illusion, he had fallen and didn’t remember anything, including how he got there and it could perfectly be because of a hit to the head; not to mention that he could’ve probably been taken there by someone, and if he had been stolen a kidney or something, he’d rather know now. He shook his arms one by one doing different kind of movements and then repeated the same for the legs, switching the weight from one to another and doing some stretches while he was at it; he had no broken bones in the limbs. He bent his back in different directions, but none of them seemed to cause any sudden pains, so he most likely hadn’t been hit severely anywhere or had any internal damage on his body. Finally, he made some small but repeated jumps in place to see how his reflexes were and how his body reacted to it; but again, there was no response out of the ordinary. If he had fallen on the ground, it was clear it had been a smooth fall; maybe he had been able to lessen the impact with his hands before losing consciousness. Other than his head feeling as if he had just woken up from a long nightmare, he was perfectly fine, which he didn’t know whether to interpret as something good or bad. Sure, he was healthy and could move just fine, but how in the world was that possible when a giant ball of fire had fallen on him?

“… am I dead?” Ryota questioned himself in a whisper, though in reality he was half expecting someone to answer him and clear his doubts. Where had that annoying voice gone to now?

He shook his head aggressively as he realized what he was thinking. He couldn’t be dead, he could still feel everything he could before, he was breathing and his heart was beating. What was the point of any of those things if he wasn’t alive? It would be more accurate to say he didn’t want to believe that he was dead, but what was clear is that thinking about it would only lead to him freaking out again. All of his questions would be answered if he was able to find an exit to this place, so he just needed to try and think only of how he could get out of there. That was much easier said than done though; he had a lot of self-discipline when it came to enduring anything physical like pain or tiredness, but that didn’t help him too much when it came to trying to completely ignore the question of whether he was alive or not. He wasn’t like those Shaolin masters that could think only of a white screen and find peace. The first step was to explore his surroundings, so he decided to focus on that.

Other than bricks, there wasn’t really much more to the place he found himself in now; right now, he was in a hall that extended forwards and backwards, but they both looked pretty much the same: long corridors of walls made of bricks with orange electric lamps illuminating the path every couple of meters. Ryota was reminded of an old game from he was a kid, where the goal was to get out of a labyrinth that had a similar look to this one, albeit darker and less eerie. Though the idea of having to walk around somewhere like that didn’t sound very appealing to him, he had to admit the place really did look a lot like a maze. He tried to reassure himself by remembering that the game was quite easy, and he actually had to be thankful that the space there was much wider than in the videogame. He wasn’t really claustrophobic or anything, but he had already heard of how people without that kind of phobia could freak out and get nonetheless when getting stuck in an elevator or something along those lines.

He kept looking around and his face lit a little when he noticed that the backpack he was carrying with him was lying next to where he had fallen moments ago. He grabbed it and checked inside, confirming that he had a nearly full bottle of water in it; he didn’t plan to stay there very long, but the temperature wasn’t as low as in the outside and it would be uncomfortable if he got thirsty along the way, and the last thing he needed was another freak-out. He took out his jacket, put it inside the bag without even bothering to arrange it properly and finally began walking along the corridor on the first path he had seen.

He kept walking through the middle of the corridors with decisive steps (mostly just to fool himself into believing he wasn’t nervous at all) and thinking which side he would take next time had found a bifurcation. He knew that he should take the one in which he felt more air or light coming from, but the issue was that he couldn’t detect neither in any turns. Learning from the game he had recalled earlier, he had taken a marker from his backpack and was marking with an arrow which side he was taking every time he found himself having to take a turn. Of course, this was mainly to know which side he had taken before if he found himself walking in circles; if the labyrinth wasn’t too big, this would be enough to pretty much cover all of the options in half a day, which he was trying to accept would be the case to be ready for the worst scenario. There was another reason, however, for him to be doing this: he didn’t want to be alone. Clearing a maze required a lot of mental concentration, and he already had his hands full in that aspect with trying not to wonder what the hell had happened to him; if he was with someone, he could both distract himself more effectively and hear second opinions when he encountered bifurcations, as the truth was he didn’t really have much confidence in his method. With arrows all over the place, if there was someone else trying to get out of there, they would probably follow them and eventually catch up to him.

Ryota wasn’t ok though. He could use as many tricks as he wanted to try to get out of there, but his mental stamina was dropping rapidly, how could it not when he had never had to face anything like this before? The closest experience he had to this was when he once got lost in a supermarket when he was nine and couldn’t find his sister among the sea of people in the area; odd enough, this felt somehow similar, only no one was going to come running to find him this time. Every few minutes he would again begin to lose his cool and experience the same symptoms as before, which forced to repeat the process of inhaling and exhaling slowly to calm down repeated times, but he doubted something like that would keep him going for too long. He always considered himself to have a strong mind, and it could be argued that most people wouldn’t have taken the situation as well as he was, but he was beginning to break down little by little.

“Shit!” he murmured to himself as he encountered another junction with two identical paths. It had been about half an hour since he started walking and he had lost count of how many times he had had to choose a pathway basing his decision entirely on ‘I’m feeling this one’. This was exactly why he wanted someone else to be around; if that was the case, he was convinced that, whether that person was a coward or not, he would be able to keep himself calm, even if it was only for appearances. That’s when he heard something coming from the corner of one of the turns.

He instantly looked towards the place where the sound came from, as if light had come from that spot just to call his attention; the movement was so fast that he actually felt as if his neck would snap because of it. There was someone in the corner, spying a look at him and studying him, though it didn’t seem to react to the fact that Ryota was now aware of his presence. Because the light was not hitting the person directly, he couldn’t really provide much of a description of the person, but he was able to make out some facial features; it was a person, probably a male, and judging by the height, he was most likely a freshman. Ryota sighed in relief as he turned his body towards the boy, who had yet to show any kind of reaction.

“Hey, are you trying to find the exit as well?!” he said as he still tried to make out some more of the person, but with no success. It certainly didn’t seem like he was the one who had orchestrated this. He still got no reaction. “Don’t worry, I also don’t know what is going on, I’ve been looking for the exit for a while.” Even then, he still didn’t get much of a reaction other than a slight tilt of the head; sure, the boy could doubt him all he wanted, but he could at least say something. “Is there anything on that side you just came from? ‘Cause there’s nothing on that one”, Ryota insisted, pointing with his thumb the way he came from. Again, nothing; the hope he had felt when he realized he wasn’t alone began to crumble, and it was slowly replaced by the previous extreme uneasiness coming back to haunt him one more time. “Will you at least answer me?!” he finally shouted at the boy, and this time, he did get a response.

The ‘boy’ revealed a dark hand with too many fingers for Ryota to count and no nails on any of them, that supported itself on the corner it was hiding behind, and slowly began to pull it’s body on the light. Ryota started to slowly back away from the thing while its amorphous body plastered a face of utter surprise and a hint that, as soon as he took conscience of what was happening in front of him, desperation would take over. The creature had a weird body as black as the hand, and its overall shape could be somehow compared to a human with many deformities, and its body seemed to be made out of a semi-solid material. With slow steps, the creature approached Ryota, who still tried to force his body to back away at a faster pace, and once it was facing, he realized that what he had thought was the face of a boy was actually a mask. The creature stopped on its tracks once it realized that Ryota was too paralyzed to run away, and its body began to stretch upwards, making the thing, which was previously shorter than Ryota, grow up to two and a half meters. The part of the creature the mask was plastered on moved up to the top and hunched over to close up to the man.

Something snapped inside of Ryota’s head as he realized something; he was sure that, if he stayed still, he would surely die. Clenching his teeth and biting down on his own tongue in the process, he jumped backwards a few times and threw the bag he had been holding at the thing with all of his might. The creature, which had seemed like some sort of lazy entity before, suddenly sped and reacted by growing countless spike-like protuberances that were apparently extremely pointy, as they easily pierced through the bag. Taking the chance, Ryota turned around to go back the way he had come from, but it seemed like his heart stopped completely as he noticed that he and the creature weren’t the only ones in the hall. In the distance, in the exact same pathway he had walking on a minute ago, there was another thing identical to the one devouring his shoulder bag waiting patiently and cutting the way. It was probably behind for him to let his guard down, because the moment it realized that Ryota had noticed its presence, it started to move at great speed at him.

With no other choice, Ryota turned around once again and, before the first monster had finished entertaining itself with his backpack, he ran towards the only remaining corridor he could take. He was no longer trying to keep his cool nor his stamina, he was running as fast as his legs allowed him to, but apparently, it wasn’t enough. He was too afraid to look back at the creatures following, but he could somehow feel their presence, probably because the adrenaline was heightening his sense. Either way, this time there was no running away from the truth, he couldn’t keep running for too long, he knew these things could catch up to him at some point, and that was only assuming he didn’t run into a dead end first and there was no need for them to do so. His breathing was heavy and uneven; at that rate he would probably be able to run for two minutes at most, and he would begin to slow down sooner than that. Although he kept running, he had to say it. This was it.

“Tho… rt… I.” a sound came to Ryota’s ears while he ran that distracted him for a second. Was that coming from the creatures? No, it sounded very similar… no, the same as that voice he had heard before, he appeared in this weird maze. “… nd… am… u”, the voice continued, but Ryota still couldn’t understand what it tried to say.

“What the hell are you trying to say?!” He covered his ears as he kept running, and if it wasn’t because he was afraid to fall or crash against a wall, he would have closed his eyes as well. And yet, he hadn’t seen the end of it. He turned to the left in one corner and what saw made him freeze one more time. “You are kidding…”

He walked for a while as the momentum of his dash went down. There was no reason for him to run anymore; this was as good as dead end. He could hear the other two monsters closing in.

[kensei]

The black and fuzzy world was starting to come to as Mashiro let out a low groan, whipping a bit of drool off the side of his cheek as he slowly pushed himself off the ground. His ribs where hurting from the awkward position he had been laying in, and the hard ground beneath him was less then accepting of his body. With another groan he moved himself into a sitting position, bringing his hands up to his eyes to wipe the sleep from them before finally opening them to the world around.

He blinked a few times as he stared at the unfamiliar wall of red brick. Questions of his location started to pass through his mind, at least until he remembered staring at the meteor that was heading straight for the town. In his surprise at this remembrance he bolted to his feet, expecting to be dead any second now.. Or was he already dead? His eyes glanced over the surroundings he found himself in, it was unlike anything he had ever seen in his life, and that didn’t bode well for the still alive theory. It didn’t take him long to revert to his nervous habit of biting on his nails once the thought had sank in. “No no no.. You can’t be dead Mashiro. Snap out of it.. There has to be a way to test it right?? Okay do you still feel pain?” He said to himself before slapping himself across the face and pinching his cheeks before pulling hard. “Ow fuck! Yes.. You still feel pain.. Alright.. Ghosts can fly and go through objects so..” He inhaled as a small alarm went off in his head tell him this was indeed a very bad idea, however he had to make sure he wasn’t dead, and so, he ran towards the wall, jumping with all of his might as he envisioned himself flying straight through it.

Mind over matter was what was important here! And it would be faith that set him free from the confines of mortal physics. Well.. At least until face met brick, and in the chorus of there union they gave birth to the most mortal and living of things.. Blood.. And at the end of there union the joyous couple had spawned a list of curses far to long to record. But the question had been satisfied well enough for Mashiro’s liking, he was indeed, still alive. So with that small comfort he rose to his feet once again, examining his surroundings as he took off his shirt and wrapped it around his forehead to stop the bleeding from the cut he had created. “Its kinda warm in here.. and stuffy..” He said as start to slowly spin around, indeed seeing that everything looked identical.

“Okay so you’re not dead.. And you’re not at school.. Which means that you where most likely taken here… Now to figure out where here is..” He said as started biting his lip before picking a random direction and walking down the corridor. The length of the hallway was astonishing, nearly a city block from where he had start from what he presumed was the middle of it, but when it ended it only broke into another group of hallways that appeared equally as long as the one he had just walked down.. He couldn’t think of any building of this size in the town, much less one made with so much brick. “Okay.. So pick a random direction and hope that you find a way out and stumble around like a rat in a maze.. Or..” He gulped slightly as his eyes traveled to one of the weird electric lights mounted into the wall. That was when it really hit him, the only way he could have gotten here was through abduction, and if that was the case then whoever abducted him would most likely want to be able to keep his eyes on him..

He let out a low growl as he walked towards the light, sticking his face right in it before pointing at it as he yelled out. “You think you’re so fucking smart hiding cameras in the lights don’t ya? Well to bad you’re not going to get your sadistic pleasure from watching me stumble around aimlessly in some underground dungeon! No! You can go fuck yourself! If you want to see a show how ‘bout you come down here yourself and see just who you are messing with! I’ll crack your god damn skull against the brick when you do! Cause I am sitting my ass right here!”

Right now logic was dictating that wherever he was it had to be underground as no one would build a house like this with no doorways, which probably meant that whoever ever had abducted him had to have brought him in from some sort of staircase which he guessed was above a section of near by brick in the ceiling, much like an attic would be. With all of that in mind whoever did it wouldn’t feel the need to drag him very far from where he had originally come from so right now he had to be closer to the exit then if walked anywhere. Or so was his thinking as he sat down and leaned against the brick.

Despite not being dead, in truth Mashiro was freaking out at the concept of being abducted, especially when there where far richer families attending the “Learning Center.” His family was the low class of the high class, well enough off to be considered rich by most standards, but still the bottom of the barrel of high society. And so him being targeted had to be some kind of personal attack against his father’s company or something along those lines. His attempt at meditation as he had been taught throughout his years of Karate was the only thing stopping him from breaking down completely in either non stop screaming or endless tears.

He sat there; trying to keep calm for what seemed like hours to him, but in reality was maybe thirty minutes at best. His body was trembling, and he just couldn’t sit still any longer. He began to pace up and down the corridor, staring at the ceiling, looking for any marks to indicate a place where the stairs to the surface might be. His head was foggy from the injury he had sustained in his attempt at flight, and he was still yelling at himself mentally. He was filled with fear, and as his eyes traveled to the lights he channeled that fear into anger as he began shouting at the lights yet again. Falling into a sense of false bravado was all he could do to keep himself from tears now, putting on that fake courage and tough guy attitude, barking threats with no backing whatsoever. The thought that this little charade had been played out time again for his abductor never even occurred to him, he was simply in the stage of denial, still thinking he might have some small amount of control over his situation. But how long would this strength hold up? How long could he march against the facts, how long could he truly stay sane? Long enough to know the face of the devil it would seem…

Another hour passed of him sitting and pacing, cursing and punching the wall. In a beautiful display of stubbornness Mashiro had managed to channel all of his fear into pure rage. His bare chest was soaked with sweat from the anger that boiled in his veins, his shirt was ruined from the bloodstains, but by now the bleeding had stopped and it was wadded up by the wall. His forehead still throbbed from the wound, but it was just one of many reasons for the headache he now had. And that was when he heard it, a sort of clicking sound, echoing from the distance. His heart start racing like a warhorse’s, he knew instinctively that it must be the sound of his abductor coming down. The click went off again, and he dashed to the side of the room he thought it was coming from, though it was more him guessing with how all the sound echoed in this room.

That’s when he saw it, some sort of face peering around the corner of the hallway. Mashiro was confident enough in himself in a physical encounter, especially with his life on the line, and so without hesitation he picked up the pace, running as fast as he could to the end of the hall. But what he found when turned the corner… Was an evil nigh unspeakable. The face he had thought he saw, was a mask attached to a massive demon like creature. It’s arms and legs where as long as a man, and its neck and head where every bit proportional to its long body. Long thick claws where attached to its hands and feet, and when it opened it’s mouth, a layer of fangs where all one could see.

Mashiro stood there, frozen in fear as he peered into the eyes of death itself. His mind screaming as he realized he had to be dead. That this thing was a demon sent to drag him to the depths of hell he didn’t understand why though. He had been a fairly decent human being, why was this his fate? What had he done to offend god in such a way? His body screamed for him to run, but he was paralyzed, after all, what would running do? The beast raised one of it’s hands, swiping toward’s Mashiro…

”AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!”[/color]

[GoldenKitten]

Rimi had tried to keep herself awake but when she'd struck the wall her head had smacked it hard. Falling to her knees on the ground her vision was already fading and her last sight was that of most of her right half covered in blood. The whole time the seemingly familiar voice was screaming at her but it had chosen to wait to long to make itself known, as her surroundings faded she could make out the words perfectly though they were confusing and did her little good now. And as her awareness passed and all sense of urgency, or fear, or curiosity went with it; it seemed likely to be the last thing imprinted there with no answers to formulate its reasoning. But even as her physical surroundings left her, a different type of mental surrounding awaited instead of the cold black she'd expected.

A calm spinning motion greeted her, and like a childhood memory made fresh by a picture her dream of the night prior came back to her in full as her eyes opened. It'd gone completely forgotten as most dreams do upon waking but here, now, in this place it was clear as could be. It was the same as it had been the night prior, a large circular room, spinning in an unidentifiable black abyss, multiple chairs surrounding a single more plain chair; the Velvet Room. There was a difference though, there was nobody else sitting in any of the other surrounding chairs, and rather than two men in the middle there was only one.

The younger of the men in his day-job suit, good looks, and perfectly groomed facial hair like a half-hearted Yakuza sat in the seat in place of the older man. He sat far back with his legs kicked up on a stool he had produced from somewhere, casually sipping a glass of some type of alcohol and ice in one hand, and reading an unidentifiable book raised above his head in the other. At first he seemed to be ignoring her, but ever so slowly his right eye fell without turning his head to look, and she saw genuine surprise in his features. Despite the sudden change in location, the imminent peril she had faced, and not really knowing what this place was she felt comfortable regardless. She also knew two things about this man; his name, Loki instantly came to mind as if it was placed there by an outside source, and the overwhelming sense that he could help in some way.

This despite the fact that as his head turned toward her completely she became aware that from head-on his eyes glowed a deep red, but for some reason she felt no threat. He seemed to size her up for a moment before he spoke, “I've no idea why you're here so early, you aren't supposed to come of your own free will until you understand your place. Oh well, it's intriguing and normally I like intriguing but Igor isn't here right now, and you're far to early for my help. Back to your world with you.

As he said he looked like he might be really interested as he eyed her, she didn't quite understand why though she got that she'd done something unexpected...though her mind was far to fuzzy to tell her how she'd even done it...if she even had. But more importantly as soon as he turned her away she was filled with dread, she didn't know why but something told her she was here for a reason and failing it would have dire consequences. Already her vision was pulling away, the room growing smaller, and her vision growing dimmer. She tried to call out but she found her voice caught in her throat, she had no ability to make noise much less formulate words, and as the world began to disappear and a familiar heat began returning to her she panicked.

And it was there in the interim between the real and the metaphysical that he appeared. Though he'd been sitting lazily in his chair as of the last time she'd seen him Loki had now crossed the distance between them and stood before her with his hands in his pockets in the black abyss where consciousness was returning. Despite not seeing or feeling like she was in a chair anymore she found herself stuck in the position she had been while seated; floating, unable to stand up, which gave the impression of him towering over her.

His head cocked and a wry grin on his face he stated, “It really is curious, and what are you being so blasted noisy about?” She didn't know how but it seemed he had somehow heard her despite her inability to speak, or maybe, and this only crossed her mind later, he could feel everything that happened in the Velvet Room perfectly as an occupant there much like she could feel things a slight bit after being there twice.

Again she wanted to speak but found herself incapable of even moving her mouth, which was incredibly distressing. However, Loki did not seem deterred by this and instead looked over her as if he was seeing something far in the distance. He ran his hand over his dark slicked-back hair and then returned his eyes to her, kneeling down to her level, “I see. Well then just this once I'll help out ahead of time. Now watch closely, and show the others if you wish, the rest I'm afraid is up to you.”

Loki held his right hand up and extended his pointer finger, then pushed it toward her. She didn't react until he placed it directly in the center of her chest and even in this dream world she could feel herself attempt to shirk and blush. But this normal response was almost immediately overtaken by a sense of wholeness. A golden aura began to emanate from her body but in particular around the chest area, focusing until it came to a point at Loki's finger. Then Loki, still in the same pose, began to grow further away without moving, the empty space between them growing on its own. And in his place a massive golden globe expanded from the point he had touched, she somehow understood that back in the real world this wouldn't make much sense, but for a few moments she was utterly aware of what this was and what she was meant to do with it, such was the purpose of the Velvet Room.

Rimi was shocked awake as if she'd just had a powerful dream, maybe not a nightmare, just something incredibly exhilarating. With her eyes closed she took gasping breaths like a fish out of water, confused and uncertain of what had happened or where she was. As she tried to pull air in she realized that each breath hurt tremendously and she absentmindedly groped at her side instead preoccupied with the feeling that she had learned something important. Unlike before she remembered the room from her dream but it was difficult to place what had occurred. Her mind went blank however as she felt liquid running down her hand as she fumbled at her side which in itself was causing knife-like pains every time she prodded; and, as she slowly stopped poking at the spot her current real situation sprang back to mind like a hammer.

Eyes open in a flash Rimi took a single inhalation of breath and then proceeded to let out a scream that everybody in the whole bleeding labyrinth probably heard. There were a collection of no less than six masks leaning over her, each attached to a hulking or at least inhuman creature. Her right hand clasped hard and recognizing that her blade was there she sprung forth. It didn't matter that a thousand spikes of pain hit her when she did, she was instantly revived by adrenaline and bolted directly in front of her into a tiny gap between the large forms before here. She didn't know what they had been planning to do but whatever the case her sudden vitality took at least one of them off guard and she found herself slamming into the far wall behind the creatures.

Hurt ricocheted through her as she left a large blood smear on the wall she ran into. But without a moments pause she spotted the closest empty hallway and was on her feet and moving. She could hear the gurgles and growls of the creatures behind her though how far nobody knew, her unexpected movement had bought her a few seconds but honestly who knew how fast they were? Add to that, that she was certainly far from an athlete and things were not looking up. Regardless she refused to look back and instead was going full steam forward, but it was only now she realized something important.

She was certainly fearful and scared, but since reawakening she was no longer so out of control that she couldn't form coherent thoughts. In fact despite the situation it was probably the clearest her mind had been since her awakening in this place. She tried to understand why even as she ran, and that was when she realized the entire time she'd been awake the same shrill whining was going off in her head, only now it wasn't an alarm, it was a clear voice in the form of words. And though she hadn't the slightest idea why as she was in mortal danger they brought her peace, but despite this she still had no idea what they meant even if they were words.

Taking a moment she looked over her shoulder for the first time overcoming her fear. Sure enough the monsters were right behind her, they weren't quite fast enough to catch up immediately but despite her recent burst of energy it was fast waning and they didn't seem to be in any hurry to slow down. Regardless she tried to ascertain ways of survival and the first was to identify her injury, she knew she was bleeding but this was the first time she had thought about it directly. So, breaking off down a hallway and hoping it bought a moment or two as they turned she slowed just enough to look down at her body and her breath once more caught. Her entire right side was bright red from her legs to her upper-torso, and it looked like there was a massive gouge right through her abdomen.

Until that point her drive had almost been unstoppable but upon seeing the actual extent of her injuries the energy she'd had was almost drained immediately. She instantly felt like collapsing at the very sight of it as the pain she'd been blowing off as minor tried to come on in full force and she yelled half deliriously, “Wow, that's blood! That's a lot of blood! Ooooh dear that's my blood!”

She just about fell into a lump then and there as her knees gave out, but just as she was about to the voice spoke in her head. It edged her on and though she wasn't entirely certain she hadn't just gone completely insane it somehow revitalized her enough to proceed forward, catching herself on her hands and scrambling to her feet clumsily. In the back of her head she kept wanting to just stop there, the realist in her saying it was futile; but whether it was survival instinct or something else all-together she wouldn't let herself.

Turning around the next corner she almost felt herself give out a surprised laugh had her body let her as she found something unlike anything else here. A massive open room, made of the same materials and lighting as the hallway but infinitely larger. Countless other halls filtered into it but it wasn't that, that interested her. Far to her left a bright glow that could only come from the light of the sun shone in from a much larger corridor opening than any of the others. Despite the sounds of the creatures calling out behind her she couldn't help but feel elated as she struck out in that direction, but her joy was cut off almost as quickly.

Her head turning to ensure a straight shot she became aware that there were more black figures skulking out of the various crevices around them. She became instantly aware that the calls of those following her must have alerted the rest to her presence. Even so with an objective finally placed before her, and the voice within her, she summoned the strength to push forward and was rushing toward her destination when the room shook with a tremor hard enough to almost capsize everything moving. She managed to stay aright but stumbled to a stop as she witnessed an arm the size of five full grown men reach through the large hallway, the body it was attached to followed and proceeded to block out almost all of the sunlight in the process.

The strength and mental fortitude she had mustered were gone. It defied everything her mind told her was logical, whether it was a dream, or it was real, or she was dead it honestly didn't matter; she simply lacked any way to surmount this obstacle. What stood before her was a humanoid but slightly reptilian figure that caressed the open rooms roof of almost ten meters, its snout ornamented with a humanish crested mask. The probability of its existence was unimportant, the fact remained that a human, ANY human, was simply incapable of dealing with such a threat as even escaping it seemed an impossible task. As if in slow motion she took in her situation, counting the now dozens of monsters pouring in from the hallways, ready to turn toward the approaching behemoth when she saw something she couldn't believe...

From one of the hallways another figure came running, but unlike the many others it had color to it and more importantly moved in a very human way. It took her a moment for the finality she had clouded her thoughts with to drop but when she did she shouted without a second thought. She pointed back the way he came and yelled for him to run. She didn't know why, she didn't know who he was, and indeed she had never cared much for people. But she was being faced with something that went against everything that had made her who she was to this day, and it was resulting in responses she had never thought were in her.

However, even as a glimmer of hope appeared in the form of the possibility of another being here it was shot down. Even more creatures than he probably assumed were behind him exploded from the hall he had exited. She didn't bother observing him any more than that, she had been moving to run in his direction but now just piddled to a slowing stop. She took a deep sigh and was a hairs breadth from falling to her knees and sobbing in hopes that she'd maybe wake up as a last option, but even as the thought crossed her mind someone spoke to her and she looked up to find herself looking into the red eyes of a younger man.

“...Now watch closely...the rest I'm afraid is up to you...

Try not to die kid, this is a pretty interesting crossroads we find ourselves at. So, you just going to lie down and die, or accept that life as you knew it ends now?”

The figure disappeared from her mind, but though her eyes appeared dull and her movements sluggish, her mind was sharp. She remembered it, she remembered it all. And all at once she knew exactly what she needed to do, her eyes traveling around the room until she set them on a large group of the approaching monsters who were nearest to her.

The voice in her head spoke, “Oh, ready to listen now are we? Well then...”

Spinning her body toward the creatures she could feel the warm, comforting golden glow even before it manifested visibly. As it did it began to outline her body but focus in her chest just as it had when Loki had drawn it out of her as an example. Rimi had never believed in ghosts, the afterlife, or gods but she couldn't deny that she knew exactly what it was even if it sounded ridiculous as she said it, it was the power of her soul.

Just as she had been shown she reached up to her chest and gripped it mid-turn, though it appeared as energy it was quite physical as she grabbed hold of it and pulled. One would think that pulling on your soul would hurt, but quite the contrary it offered a sense of peace and release she had never felt. And as she pulled the yellow energy formed into a sphere in her hand as she brought it up before her, pointer extended like a handgun in the direction of the encroaching beasts and spoke. As the memories of the Velvet Room had returned to her much of what she was meant to do was clear to some extent, but even so how she knew the name for those beings within her soul she hadn't the slightest clue.

“Persona.”

There was a pause as the ball of energy moved to the tip of her finger silently, and then exploded in a flurry of fire like energy and sound, a miniature sun in front of her. And as its brightness dissipated it was instead replaced by a massive figure as inhuman as any of the attackers, but possessing of an entirely different aura. Where the black ones were of darkness and despair the creature now above and in front her was one born of hope from the soul, hope was embodied differently by all people, it meant different things to them all. But there was one constant among them, it spoke of survival for the future.

Possessing both biological and mechanized features the Persona had nothing that suggested it was in a human form in even the most distorted regard. Centered around a yellow globe dozens of metal plates with various colorations and shapes hung below and above in an armoring pattern, as well as an ornamental one. Dozens of various sized tubes and pipes extended from its backside possibly feeding it energy or anchoring it, but whatever the case they disappeared into the air around it and their original source was undecided. But its key point was a small hook on its lower half and a massive spear like cone extending from the upper part, dotted and lined with red stones that actively emitted what anyone nearby could tell was incredible power.

Though it possessed no mouth it spoke.

“Thou art I.
And I am thou.
From the sea of thy soul I come forth.
I am The Invincible.
Well of Mímir.
Master of Wisdom, and the Unknown.”

As soon as it finished a high-pitched electrical sound pierced the air around them as an electrical arc formed around its conical barrel. The stones upon it filled along the lines as they began to glow a high red, the creatures now advancing more slowly or not at all. And then in an instant the energy released from the tip of the spear and a red lighting arc filled the room, branching out into a thousand strands, piercing everything before Rimi in an instant. As the energy ran through them the monsters would stop in their tracks for a brief moment, and then explode into a thousand shards of energy instead of a bloody mess like a human might have. In less than two breaths the entire area before her was cleared, and the two or three monsters still near her began retreating into the shadows.

Energy still coursing through her, energy she neither understood nor currentely cared to understand; she turned around. Though it had been given pause the largest of the creatures blocking their path to the light beyond began to progress toward her, if more tentatively now. She looked to her side and was surprised to find the boy was ok, but as she looked at him she suddenely realized that she recognized him. At first she thought it was from school but as she saw a creature, disimmilar in asthetic but identical in “feel” floating above his head she placed him. He was one of the faces she had seen in the dark of the Velvet Room; and the pieces sunk into place.

The slowly approaching monster began to circle them both curiously now, and as she turned back toward it she smiled. It wasn't really her, it was as if someone else was giving her strength and emotions that were not her own. And as The Invincible turned toward the creature, and her eyes glowed a red that was not her own, she was revitalized as she felt her wounds mending themselves from the power of Persona. Then she raised her blade...it seemed far more adequate now.

[Jukuma]

Strength left Ryota’s body completely; he didn’t even know how he was standing anymore, it was as if he was being held only by slim and fragile strings coming from the ceiling.

The sight in front of him was that of a huge room very similar to the corridors he was now tired of seeing, but hundreds of times larger, both in how wide and long it was, but mainly because of high up it stretched. This would have been an encouraging sight in probably any other situation, as to him, it seemed like some sort of clear in a forest, but this time, what he saw could not possibly be any further from that. The room was mostly filled with more of the same monsters that were following him in different kinds of shapes and sizes, and they had all noticed his presence from the moment he set foot in the area. That was definitely enough for Ryota to lose all hope he might have been able to gather before; but what scared him the most was not the amount of monsters in the area, nor the fact that more of them poured in one after the other, it was the massive monster making its way into the room with slow movements. The creature was many times larger than any of the rest; in fact, it almost seemed that, if all the other monsters were put together, they still wouldn’t be as large as the creature. The giant eclipsed all sources of light and, from where Ryota was standing, it seemed like the room had gone almost completely black once the thing was standing on its feet.

It took a while for Ryota to notice, as he lowered his eyes in surrender, that he wasn’t the only human present. There was a girl in the room who he didn’t know and seemed to have arrived just seconds before him; however, if his condition was bad, hers just couldn’t be described. Blood poured out of a wound in her abdomen and she seemed to be struggling to even stand anymore. However, the most horrible thing weren’t her injuries, but rather the fact that, when she noticed him, her face seemed to lit a little. He understood right away what her situation was: she had also been followed by monsters and had ended up there because of a stroke of bad luck. If that was the case, as it seemed to be given the creatures following after her, then it was understandable that she would find hope in another human coming to sight; she probably even thought that the hallway he was coming from was a safe place too. However, as he already knew, it wasn’t, and he couldn’t find it in his heart or the energy to even give a signal to her that she was completely mistaken, and that he was in the exact same situation as her. He just couldn’t bring himself to turn off the light at the end of the tunnel she had seen. With the slow and unmotivated mannerism of a person that had given up on fighting for his life, Ryota turned around to face the tunnel the other creatures that followed him would come from any second now; he felt that if he saw the desperation in the girl’s face, he would no longer be able to keep himself remotely rational anymore. Why he wanted to cling to something as useless as rationality (or even sanity) in a situation like this was a question he himself could not answer. If he had to choose a response, he would probably say that at least that way he could claim to have died faking bravery quite well. His mind was apparently stronger than he himself thought.

There were so many things he was sad to leave behind, so many things that he felt he still had to do and so many things he had to fix. As the monsters began to close the distance that separated him from them, the world around him grew ever slower; he imagined this had to be pretty much how people with a death sentence on them felt and it was driving him anxious. He was supposed to have abandoned hope entirely by now, but every single millimeter the creatures walked was like another dagger to him. He wouldn’t cry, but his head began to hurt with an excruciating pain that took him a while to identify.

“Tho… rt… I” again, the voice from before came back to Ryota’s head for one last display of aggravation. There was no time for him to curse the damned voice before another one, sounding exactly the same as the first, spoke out. “..ou a… I” a third one joined the concert, and soon a fourth and a fifth followed. Many more tagged along; Ryota wasn’t able to keep up with the voices joining in to the task of driving him insane, and soon he even forgot about the scenery of madness revolving around him. As the volume of the voices increased, Ryota’s headache became worse and worse to the point that he eventually fell to his knees, holding his head with both hands. Even though the volume grew, the words still seemed impossible to make out completely, since they all interrupted each and tried to go over the rest. The heated fight of sounds in his head seemed to him like a radio trying to catch a hundred stations at once, all with heavy interferences. “Ngh…” Ryota couldn’t stand anymore the riot in his head and responded with a cry of his own, although whether he was actually screaming or not, he wasn’t sure. He couldn’t even understand his own thoughts anymore, so how could it be possible to know anything for certain anymore? Without notion of time, or space, he kept trying to get a grasp on reality again.

“Eyesores…” a voice resonated over all the rest, quieting all down and also making Ryota cease his attempt at screaming. The voice sounded cruel, cynical and authoritarian, and yet it managed to sooth Ryota completely, captivating him in a trance-like state and making him listen to it faithfully without wanting to miss a single word. “I shall burn all eyesores to be the lanterns to light thy path…”

That was all Ryota needed to hear. The voice had only said a sentence which could only be interpreted as a delusion, but to him it was so much more. Information had entered his head in huge amounts and now he could understand everything; if asked, he wouldn’t even be able to answer what exactly it was that he had come to comprehend, all he knew was that he did. With slow movements he began to stand up once again, but with a sense of confidence that had been absent all that time; he stood tall and straight and his usual challenging expression had returned to his face. The monsters kept crawling their way towards him at a fast pace, but it was as if he had come to believe that an invisible, unbreakable wall had been formed between him and them. He was still afraid of them, but he no longer had a reason to run away from them, nor the necessity to avoid them. All of that had been erased thanks to the word that had been planted inside of his head. He knew all of his questions would be answered once he spoke that word. The first monster was already two meters away from him.

“Per-so-na”

Something inside of Ryota’s head seemed to have cracked; he felt as if a mirror that had been blurring his vision had been broken into tiny pieces and a sense of liberation filled him. He didn’t even realize how his voice had resonated with the girl’s or how a powerful light was engulfing his chest. The shining glow made its way towards Ryota’s hand, and just when the creature was about to fall on him with a claw ready to crush his skull, he opened it and an explosion of light emanated from his palm. Before the beam completely dissipated, a human giant shape had emerged from it, weapon first, and had taken the monster with it, raising it in the air for a second and then pressing it against the floor, cutting it in half and making it dissipate into specks of energy with what seemed like a huge axe. Ryota, however, was not interested in the monsters anymore, and he couldn’t care less about how they couldn’t even bleed; the thing that had answered his call now stood between him and the rest of the fiends.

Its basic shape was indeed reminiscent of a human, but it couldn’t be called so at all. The Persona had the overall look of a slim man, but its limbs and neck were too elongated for human proportions. Moreover, its entire body seemed to be covered with a thin layer of an onyx black substance (it looked like a metallic material, but the being was moving without any kind of difficulties, so that couldn’t be it) and carvings of beautiful and complicated patterns of olive leaves could be made out on its entire self. It was impossible to make out many facial features on its head, even though it seemed to had had them at some point; a nose could be made out and there seemed to be cavities where the eyes should be, but it was all covered by the black, metal-like layer. It had huge nails protruding from it index fingers and feet (which didn’t have fingers), but if one looked upon closer inspection, they were more like huge curved knives rather than nails. It was dressed, but its garments were difficult to describe, to say the least. Its head had what seemed to have been intended to be an olive crown, but it was at least six times longer than the usual ones and it spun around its head, tangled and hanging below its chin. Something that could very loosely be a toga covered its body; it couldn’t really be called a toga because it had long, spinning sleeves and covered its entire chest, but the base did seem to be the same. The article was dark blue and had yellow flame patterns going up from the lower part. Finally, upon inspection of what at first would seem an axe, one would be able to tell that what the Persona was holding was not that kind of weapon; this couldn’t be considered exactly accurate either, but it loosely seemed like an electric guitar. However, the sides of it were bladed with one side quite bigger than the other, and the opposite end terminated in a broken Christian cross; overall, it looked more like a giant poleaxe with strings and roman-looking decorations rather than an instrument. This was the shape of Ryota’s Persona.

“Thou art I, and I am thou.
From the sea of thy soul I come forth.
I am Nero, the Lawless King.
The Persecutor.”

As the Persona spoke, Ryota’s expression slowly went from that of utter shock to the beginning of a grin. It wasn’t only because of the shape that was in front of him, he had remembered everything, including his visit to the Velvet Room last night, the memory that had been bothering him so much until just a while ago. But that didn’t matter to him at the moment; all of the questions that had been bothering so much before could just wait, as he had something more important to take care of before. His sight went towards the monsters in front of him, all of which had become paralyzed at the sight of the one his Persona had destroyed. They didn’t seem to be willing to take the initiative so, before he had even finished the thought of attacking, his Persona was already charging towards them at incredible speed and with its weapon readied over its head. Once it had cleared the distance between them in just seconds, Nero lowered the poleaxe with strength completely unbecoming its slim body hitting the ground and none of the creatures. However, once it came in contact with the floor, the weapon produced a huge shockwave of pure heat that dragged all the monsters with it as if a vicious hurricane was pushing them. Unable to defend, all of them were carried by the force towards the closest walls and crashed against it with enough strength to be crushed and dissolved in the same manner the first one had. Many more monsters waited in the entrance, but once they had witnessed the brutal spectacle performed by Ryota’s Persona, they quickly turned around and tried to make their way towards the grim corridors of the maze. However, he wasn’t willing to let any of them live anymore, and his thoughts were quickly translated to Nero. The Persona responded by spinning around the weapon and taking hold of it in the same way as if it was an actual guitar, and with a quick and powerful swing of its right arm, it used the knife-like nail on its index finger as a pick to perform a downward strum of the strings. There was no sound produced by the weapon, but instead, a huge explosion of fire engulfed the passage the creatures tried to escape from. For a second, the flames made it impossible to even see the interior of the hallway, but once they dissipated, one could see that there was absolutely nothing left alive in there and the walls had become black from the fire.

By now, Ryota’s face had already fully transformed into that of a confident and big smile, with his eyebrows drawn down and his eyes now more calmed. Right now, the notion of him being scared just seconds before seemed almost laughable to him. A thought came across his head and he quickly turned around to see what the situation was in the rest of the room. There were no monsters left and the girl, far from being in the same hopeless state, seemed to be the one responsible of taking them out, as a being incredibly similar and yet completely different from his Persona stood beside her. This hardly came as a surprise to him though, as he now remembered that girl was not unknown to him; he had met her before in the Velvet Room, which meant she also had the power of Persona.

The giant monster still remained in the room, but it had grown wary of them now. Ryota decided to leave the matter of the girl for later and looked back at the monster, his confidence still made evident in his face. His Persona stood beside him, with its weapon held as a poleaxe again and awaiting its cue to move once more.

[kensei]

At what point do instincts take over and cognition fails? When do you start to move in the face of all reason out of your primal desire to survive? The power to keep oneself alive in the face of danger and death itself is powerful, one of the greatest powers of living creatures. Doing super human feats via sheer willpower, such things are always talked about in human lore. But this was the first time Mashiro had experienced such a thing. Time had seemed to slow to a crawl as that monstrous hand crept forward towards him. He knew he couldn’t block or deflect it, and moving backwards didn’t seem to be the answer either. And so he took the only option before him.. He dropped to the ground as the claw flew above his head, and in the position of a sprinter at the start of a race, he jumped forward, before moving his body into a roll as he went under the creature.

Somehow his body had cleared the length of the monster. He tried to pick himself off of the ground as the beast let out a roar and kicked with its hind legs. A set of claws sliced through the top layer of skin on his back, causing him to gasp in pain as he lost his footing and fell to the floor. But he couldn’t just stop here.. In a show of will he pushed himself off of the ground, dashing down the hall like a madman. The sting on his back started to fade under the power of adrenaline, he could hear the heavy footsteps of the monster behind him, but he dared not spare it a look, he didn’t want to know just how close it was.

He eyed the next corner, and when he was little more then a half dozen meters out another monster, though this one more humanoid and stockier in appearance, rounded the corner. Mashiro’s feet took him up the wall, he made it up two steps before he pushed off, connecting a kick with the masked being, causing it to stumble into the far wall. As Mashiro landed he carried the momentum into a roll before running past the monster. He looked down both ways on the corridor for a split second before choosing the side that didn’t have monsters coming down it already. Somehow in little under a minute he had managed to get six demons on his trail, and with each step it seemed like another found its way to the pack.

Every step down this hellish hallway led to more and more disappointment, every single monster, ever single corner, it was like a little hope that he might make it through this vanished. Until finally there was none, for the second time in under an hour he had given up on his life.. His soul was filled with a sort of darkness as he dropped to his knees, tears wheeling up in his eyes as the heavy breathing of the countless demons started to surround him. They where coming from both in front and behind him now, there was nowhere to go, there was only death to greet him in this place. Soon he would be embraced by the warm grasp of hell..

Pathetic worm.. Rise to your feet and wield the power of the void.[/i]

And then in that instant, all that was lost had been returned.. His mind was filled again with the knowledge he had lost. As clear and as obvious as if he knew every bit of it and had never lost it.. It was there. He knew what he had to do in order to survive, he had to listen to the voice inside him.. His feet came back under him as he pushed himself forward. Tears still streaming down his face as a calm expression came over him. His arms extended out towards his side as he whispered..

Persona..

There was no light in Mashiro’s soul. Instead a thick black veil slowly grew out around his body. The being took no form, instead it simply grew as a thick black mist, both solid and not at the same time. It seemed to wrap itself around Mashiro, before two thick black columns flew outwards. The blackness spanned the entire length of the hall in an instant, and then, small points moved all across its form before expanding rapidly into hundreds of different spears, impaling everything in the hallway all at once. But that was not the end, the black mist formed itself around all of the monsters, extinguishing all light in the process. With the laziness it had exhibited when it first came from his soul, the formless darkness receded, becoming a mass of nothingness in front of him. All the monsters where gone, as if they had been eaten, or simply removed from this plane.. And then it spoke..

”Thou art I.
And I am Thou.
From the sea of thy soul I come forth.
I am Amatsu-Mikaboshi.
I am the seed of Evil.
I am the king of Stars.”

Mashiro eyed the seed of his soul, the demon god he had summoned. A small grin touching the corners of his lips before he bowed his head slightly to it. “Let them taste our might..”