Chapter Text
A week has passed since recruited both Ken and Homura. During this time we did our normal routine. We defeated Shadows, we helped the people who were controlled by them, we talked with Mitsuru more, and we introduced Homura to Mitsuru and explained to her what the Shadow Operatives did.
To say that last part did not go well, would be an understatement. If she was guarded around us the first time, then when she was talking to Mitsuru she more like a knight fully on the defensive.
She never said anything unless she was asked, even then she only said a few words, she was also quite evasive when some awkward in regards to her health were asked.
All in all, it wasn't that great. Thankfully, we soon were able to get away from that time bomb.
We then went to Shadow hunting, or we would if we could have located a single one.
"I am not sensing any Shadows at the moment. Do you want to do something else or..." I trailed off.
This caused Alice to get excited for some reason.
"I think—we need to spend some time relaxing." announced an excited Alice, who looked she would jump all over the place.
I shot a curious look at her.
Takashi, meanwhile, cleared his throat as he asked, "You want to, 'cause that new game came out in the Arcades which you want to see, right?"
She sputtered at that remark and threw a glare at Takashi. "I'll have you know I wasn't thinking anything of that sort, I just wished to get to know our two newest teammates, the fact that you think so lowly of me already shows how you…"
He showed her a message from her.
I tilted my head to get a good look at it, it was a message just day before my my transfer.
Alice: hey next week theres gonna be a new game me and youre gonna come with me thats an order btw
Homura, who just finished reading it, threw an unimpressed look at her, which the girl quickly noticed.
"C'mon, all work and no play makes Homura a dull girl."
Homura's unimpressed stare deepened.
"I am not sure about this…" trailed off Ken uncertainly.
Alice deflated a bit at that, then she quickly knelt down to the ground to Koromaru. "You would like to go to the Arcades, right Koro-chan?"
Koromaru let out a bark and Alice began to gently pet him. "Yeah, you do. Who's a good boy."
"I don't think Arcades that accept dogs exist in Mitakihara," countered Ken as Koromaru trotted over to him.
"Naw, they do."
I cast a quick look at her. I was quite sure that those did, in fact, exist, but definitely not in Mitakihara.
But, seeing as Alice being outnumbered was a bit unfair, I decided to side with her on this. "I actually agree with Alice on this. We should relax as a team sometimes."
Alice grinned at me and turned back to Takashi. "See? Naoki gets it," she started to drag Takashi and me along. "Now, off we go to the Arcades."
"You two are literally outnumbered in this..." muttered Takashi, but he allowed Alice to drag him along.
I let myself be dragged along as well while Ken reluctantly started to follow us. Alice quickly noticed that someone wasn't coming with us, and she turned around to see Homura walking away.
"You promised us that you'll take part in team building. Well this is just that." I said; Homura narrowed her eyes as she grit her teeth and glared at me.
"This is going to be a waste of time."
All things considered, this whole trip ended up being a lot more fun, than I thought it'd be; even Ken started to play some racing game with Takashi.
And somehow we found an arcade which allowed animals in—I didn't think they existed here—so Koromaru wasn't left outside. Still he just relaxed near the entrance as he didn't have anything to do.
What further shocked me was the fact that Homura, in spite of her constant objections, was also playing the Dance Dance Revolution game.
So, I made my way to the DDR machine, where Homura was playing.
"For someone who said that this would be a waste of time, you are certainly enjoying yourself," I remarked at her.
Once Homura was finished playing she turned around and stared at me dead in the eyes with a deadpan look. "I consider this to be less waste than the other games."
I turned to see her score and noticed something interesting; she had played here before, and her scores were among the best, with only on other person coming near her scores.
"You have something against this Kyoko girl?" I asked as I looked over the leader board.
"Yes, I do."
I raised my eyebrows hoping that she reveals more, unfortunately, she didn't say anything further.
Then Alice appeared by our side. "Hey, Naoki, do you wanna play a game against me. I'll promise I'll go easy on you."
"Sure," I shrugged as I went with her to one arcade machine; Homura was not far behind us.
I, then proceeded to get absolutely demolished in the shooting game which she picked, with my score being three times less than hers.
Going easy on me my ass.
She was literally preening and smirking as she showed me her score, that being Nr. 1 in this game.
This girl is truly...unique...
Homura them straightened up. "Toudou Alice—", "Just call me Alice.", "—you wouldn’t mind if I played against you, right?"
Alice scratched the back of her head. "Naw. But I doubt that you'll even come closer to topping my score."
She then handed Homura that toy gun, which we used to play the game; Homura stared at the gun for a couple of seconds, then the game began.
Homura looked like she was having a bit of fun with the shooter game. She was quite literally killing it.
My eyes went to Alice and I noticed her staring at Homura's score in terror as her score was surpassed in real time.
Once the game was finished Homura had a small smirk on her face. This was one of the few times she has shown emotions during the time I knew her.
"H-how…how are you so good at this?!" shouted Alice after she finished processing everything that happened to her 1st place.
Even Ken was impressed by her reaction time. "That was really good Akemi-san."
"I can't allow this! I must defend my Nr. 1 spot!" yelled Alice as she took the toy gun from Homura.
She put up a good fight, beating her previous score, but in the end she wasn't able to overcome Homura.
The girl flopped to the ground in defeat. "How? How?"
Takashi petted her back as she let out obvious Crocodile tears. "There, there."
"Well, anyway, I am done here, do you guys have anything else you wanna do 'round here?" asked Alice as she got up, no longer doing those fake crocodile tears.
I shrugged. "Eh, no, not really."
Koromaru walked up to us and whined, he was starting to get bored most likely. "I think Koromaru, also doesn't want to stay here anymore," said Ken.
"Well then, do we anything else we may want to do? My dad has been kinda worried about the time I spend outside, due to the dissappearances," said Takashi as he looked around after we left.
"Eh...we can check in on with Philemon," I said when I saw the shrine in the distance.
Ken was curious about meeting Philemon, so we decided to go there. Homura, too, was feeling curious and accompanied us to the temple.
When we entered the shrine, the weird masks littered the room, and we waited for the butterfly to appear.
Then, all of a sudden we found ourselves in Philemon's realm.
"How are you all?" asked Philemon as we were transported to his domain.
I looked around and noted that neither Ken nor Homura appeared with us.
"We would like to ask a question..." I said as I pulled out one of those egg like things. "Could you tell us what these are?"
Philemon threw side glance at it. "The rules of this game don't allow me to." He paused, then I felt something change, it was almost like he was draining the energy of it. "That being said, I would be more than happy to take this off you."
He sounds way to eager to do that...
"Eh...we'll just hold on it and have a Shadow Operative deal with them..." I said as I pulled the egg back into my pocket.
"If that's what you want, then so be it," he said in neutral tone, but I could tell that he was somewhat judging my choice.
I scratched the back of my head. "I have another question. Can you tell us about the barrier that surrounds Mitakihara?"
He gazed me for around 10 seconds before he replied, "Those were set up, so that the game would not be disturbed by outside Persona users and/or other factors."
Okay...thanks Phil... I thought sarcastically, that's so considerate of you, just like that time you stopped Nanjo from assisting Maya and the others.
"And how long will it last?" asked Takashi, "just how long will the barrier be up?"
Philemon turned to look at him. "For the duration of the game."
Alice huffed. "How long is that exactly?"
Instead of answering, we found ourselves back again in the shrine. I get the distinct impression that Philemon doesn't like Takashi and especially Alice.
Ken and Homura were watching us with worried looks, surprisingly Homura moreso than Ken.
I guess this is normal for him, with the twins using the Velvet Room in Tartarus.
Ken was the first to ask us something, "So, how did your talk with this Philemon go?"
"About as well as our last, which is to say—" I was about to continue to say that we barley had any talk with him, but Alice cut me off, "Terribly. He didn't anwser any of our questions."
"Yeah, that..." I finished trailing off.
Ken frowned. "Minako told me that Igor would mostly provide vague anwsers as well. Does this Philemon do something similar?"
Takashi took a deep breath. "Not really, he doesn't provide any answers most of the time unless it's Naoki asking the question, and even the he barely says anything that we could use. The only thing he really talks about is this 'game', but he never elaborate on what it even is."
Huh...I thought that I explained what the game was when we first talked with Phil, did I not? Well...anyway, I don't think they need to know that this barrier will stay up for almost an entire year, besides what the worst that could happen from not telling them? Knowing all that makes me look suspicious.
We wandered around some more till I felt something weird, which Alice and Takashi also felt.
Homura, Ken, and Koromaru seemed to not be able to sense whatever we were sensing, which was quite natural for Ken and Koromaru, but Homura not being able to was definitely weird.
Nevertheless, they all agreed with us to track this weird anomaly we were sensing. And we soon found ourselves at the entrance to Mitakihara's Central Hospital.
In the entrance I spotted something glowing with darkness. As I moved closer I recognized it for what it was.
It was one of those weird egg like things which these Shadows drop for some reason.
It was pulsing and without even sensing I could tell that this was bad news.
"Uhhh? What do we with it?" asked Alice as she took a small step towards it.
Homura stared at the egg with guarded expression, but by how she was clenching her fists I could tell that she also didn't like this.
"Well, I am not sure what it's doing, so we should..." I racked my brain on what to do till an idea came to me. "How about we take it with us to the city limits where we give it over to a Shadow Operative agent with no Persona, and they take it outside the city, where the Shadow Operatives take it and examine it."
Homura frowned at my plan, while Ken nodded and went to call Minako.
However, before he could even unlock his phone the world around us started to change and we soon found ourselves in a Shadow world.
I looked around somewhat frantically. "Alright this is...concerning on a few levels."
"You don't say..." muttered Takashi sarcastically, "Homura did you know that this could happen with those eggs?"
We really should come up with a name for them...
Homura shrugged. "I did."
I shifted around to get a better look at her now, and she was still wearing that apathetic mask. Homura, this whole thing is making real suspicious...
We then proceeded to venture into the Shadow World till we encountered the Shadow. However, something wasn't right—we found no Shadows, not even the smaller ones—that is till we found something in the center of the world.
That was until we found that weird looking egg again, it was still glowing then it started to glow.
Huh...now that I am thinking about it, didn't something similar happen with the first Shadow we encountered? It definitely emerged from the egg.
Then darkness erupted and in the eggs place was something else.
Well this certainly is different, we stared at the puppet looking Shadow. It was looking really harmless, but I had some trouble sensing it.
"Be careful, it's deadlier than it looks," said Homura as she stared at the puppet.
Takashi stepped forwards. "Alright, I'll just end it then, here goes. Persona, Megido." The almighty spell struck the puppet and normally would have been quite an overkill. However, a giant worm like thing emerged from the puppet after being struck.
It crossed the distance between us in a matter of second and then it was in front of Takashi, who froze with fear, with its jaws opening up as if to take a bite.
"Kala-nemi!" shouted Ken as his Persona the Shadow away from Takashi who fell to the ground from shock.
"It's weak to ice!" I yelled as I was finally able to scan it.
"Got it,"—grinned Alice as the card appeared in her hand—"Victoria! Bufula!"
The attack was super effective against it, and it weaved around the air; trying to get away from the ice attacks. However, Alice wasn't letting up.
Just as it was looking like it had shaken of Alice; Homura appeared in its way.
"Jack Frost," said Homura as she summoned the Jack cutting of the Shadow's escape attempt.
Alice and Homura continued to blast it with ice attacks till it couldn't take it anymore, it started to shrink smaller and smaller.
And when it died, it dropped the same egg, which spawned this whole thing around and the Shadow.
"I think I saw my life flash before my eyes…" muttered Takashi somewhat shakily as the world around us went back to normal.
I frowned. "Are you okay?"
He took a few deep breaths while he stood up. "I…am fine…just in a bit of a shock."
I frowned as I glanced at the weird egg like thing before turning Homura. "I think now is time for you to tell what you know about these things."
She grimaced before she muttered, "I suppose so..."
We all sat down at a table in Ken's apartment.
Homura took a deep breath. "These Shadows draw their energy from grief of humans, when enough grief gathers in that Grief Seed—that is the name for those things—then emerges and it starts to eat people in order to gain more energy and to spawn those smaller shadows in order to protect themselves."
Takashi narrowed his eyes. "Why were you even hiding stuff like this?"
"There is a reason. I wasn't sure whether I could trust you or not."
"Hmm?" Ken hummed as he prodded her to continue.
"I was once a part of a team who hunted these Shadows, however, I was almost killed when I revealed this along with something else."
I was conflicted, I didn't think she was lying, but she was definitely not telling the whole truth either, I was sure on that. In short, she was most likely doing an Obi-Wan aka telling the truth from a certain point of view.
"Well, in that case, would you be able to tell us more about that team?" asked Ken, as he wrote it down on a notepad.
Homura shifted from one side to another. "I'd...rather not..."
Ken looked at her critically. "In which case, how about...you have a talk with someone I know who is similar to you? Minako was hoping to talk with you, and I think now us the best time to have that talk."
Homura was informed by Ken what being a Wild Card meant, and that there are others like her. But she had never talked with either Minako, Aigis, or even Yu, whom the rest of the group other than Ken and I knew very little about.
Homura threw a glance at the projector, then she turned back to Ken. "I believe that would be for the best, but I'd prefer if it was a private talk, would that be fine with you?"
Ken frowned, he didn't look especially pleased with that, but he, eventually, relented. "That's...fine, I'll set up the projector, but I do think it would be better for you if you, eventually, told us your secret when you trust us..."
"Am I the only one who doesn't like where everything about Akemi is going?" asked Takashi as we exited the apartment after Ken set everything up.
We agreed for Homura and Minako to have a roughly a half an hour talk.
"I don't think she was lying about what she said, that being said, I also don't believe that she was telling the whole truth either," I said as we made our way to a nearby park. "I believe that we should give her some time..."
Takashi groaned. "I get that, but it's just...she's still way too suspicious..."
Alice, who was playing Koromaru then turned to us and said, "I am sure that Homura has reasons for being so secretive, I don't think she wishes any harm on us."
Ken shrugged at her. "I think that we'll just have to trust her for the time being."
Soon Ken got message from Homura saying that her talk with Minako was done, so we made our way back.
"Homura-chan, it was good to have this talk," said Minako in a friendly voice, "however, there is still quite a we need to talk about in this group, so thanks for calling them back."
"We do?" asked Ken in suprise.
Minako twirled a finger in her hair. "Yeah, mostly about this 'Philemon' character. First, can the three of you—and by that I mean, Kaname Naoki, Kido Takashi, and Toudou Alice—tell me more about him that you know?"
"Sure, but if you don't mind me asking what got you this curious about him?" I agreed and asked my question as well.
She frowned then thought about something deeply before she anwsered, "I asked an old friend of mine called Theodore who knows a lot more about the Collective Unconscious and its various deities, and he was very tight lipped about this 'Philemon' this got me more curious about him."
I, then, again, explained what I knew about him—that I learned in this life—with occasional comments from both Alice and Takashi.
We also told her about our recent visit to him, and his "answer" to our questions.
"So, he claims that that barrier to keep experienced Persona users out from this 'game'?" muttered Minako in a dark tone as soon I finished telling her what he said in regards to the barrier around Mitakihara.
Minako let out a loud sigh. "Did he tell you how long this 'game' of his would last?"
"Zilch, nada, zero!" said Alice in a loud voice, "He pretty much told us nothing!"
"And what about those 'other Forces' he mentioned?"
Alice, Takashi, and I shared eye contact for a couple seconds till Takashi said to her hesitantly, "We...actually didn't ask him anything in regards to that."
Minako just waved it off. "He's most likely referring to other Cognitive Beings/Deities, but you can ask him the next time you three see him.
"In any case, I'll just ask around some more. Marie might know something about Philemon, and if she doesn't, then I guess I'll have to go find Elizabeth, she'll most likely tell me what I want to know...well I should also mention this that the Shadow Operatives are treating this case with special care.
"So, tomorrow you will gain access to weapons, and fund for healing and other items. Ken will instruct you on how you'll use your weapons, and..."—she let out a hum as she looked over me and Homura—"...Homura-chan will be placed in charge of securing healing items, while Kaname-kun will be in charge securing other items, is this fine you all?"
Alice tilted her head. "That means I'll not have to do anything other than listen to Ken-senpai's instructions, right? In that case I'm in."
Takashi nodded slowly with a frown on his face. And Ken soon followed, leaving only me and Homura who haven't said anything in regards to Minako.
She most likely choose me to get those other items was due to my stronger familiarity with how Personas and Shadows work. Though, I am not sure just how I'll get things like the Ring of Darkness, but I am sure it will work out just fine.
"It's okay with me..." I muttered.
"I am fine with it as well," said Homura.
Minako smiled. "Well then, I suppose this would be a bye from me, Ken I will contact you later to arrange everything—but for now you can hang out with your friends."
She then disconnected and there was a moment of silence till someone decided to ask, "Hey, can we wanna go back to the arcade?"
All of us quickly voiced our opinions on that, even Koro-chan joining us in being against it.
The person who suggested it deflated and let out a small "Agghh..."