Chapter Text
"So, given all of that, I would conclude that this 'Philemon' is the one most likely behind the barrier," said Minako as she finished explaining to Ken. "Well, what are your thoughts?"
They had started to discuss the barrier again, with the information that Philemon provided to Takashi, Alice, and Naoki.
Ken scratched the back of his head. "Well...it's probably true..."
Aigis, who was sitting next to Minako, replied, "Indeed, it is most likely the correct anwser to out question about the barrier; however, I should also note that the way Akemi Homura described Igor's behavior to you was also quite suspect, with supposedly granting Homura the power of the Wildcard just because she could remember her name, which is something he has never done before.
"Not only that, but the fact that there was no music in the Velvet Room is also not normal. I suspect something nefarious is going on with the Velvet Room and Igor as well."
Minako frowned. "That's true...it's really suspicious that the Velvet Room disappeared five months and when it comes, Igor's behavior is vastly different. Do you think that the Igor, Homura-chan interacts with is actually impersonating Igor?"
Aigis was thinking about it. "Some parts of his behavior do lend credence to the hypothesis; however, there also a few things which hold it back as well."
"Is it the fact that Igor is helping Homura with Persona fusion?" asked Ken.
Aigis slowly nodded. "Among other things."
He let out a deep sigh. "Everything is so confusing about this entire case. First, the barrier around the city. Second, this 'Philemon' character. Third, the Velvet Room's weird behavior. And last but not least, Homura-san's and Naoki-san's suspicious knowledge of things they shouldn't know."
Minako frowned. "The events around Mitakihara feel like a prelude to something massive," she took a deep breath. "Anyway, we theorized about Igor and Philemon enough, let's talk about those two teammates of yours."
"Naoki-san is less suspicious than Homura-san, that being said, there are still things which he just shouldn't know. For example, the day before yesterday he explained to Alice-san and Takashi-san how Shadows and Personas are the same thing."
"He could have got that information from Philemon," Aigis reminded them.
"He could've gotten it from him, yes—but that's just it, he could've gotten everything from Philemon," said Minako in her serious voice. "The fact is, that according to Toudou-kun and Kido-chan, Philemon doesn't hand out any information to them; this should raise a few eyebrows about why Kaname-kun got all that info from Philemon.
"This leaves us with few remaining theories, it could mean that Philemon is only handing it out to Kaname Naoki specifically for whatever reason—and that alone would make this 'Philemon' way more suspicious—or it could mean that he, Kaname-san, didn't get the information from Philemon."
Ken cleared his throat. "So we are currently stuck in an impasse, if Naoki-san isn't lying, then that means that Philemon is most likely trying to manipulate him; however, if he is lying, then that means that he learned that information from somewhere else."
Minako hummed softly. "By the way, Ken, how are you handling being the leader of this group?"
"It's certainly a lot of work, that I will say. Thankfully, they do listen to my advice and order most of the time, but sometimes I feel like I am herding a bunch of wild cats, especially with a certain member."
Minako-san snickered a bit. "Yeah, that's normal, and in any event, you have Koro-chan with you, so herding will not be difficult."
The dog in question stood up when he was addressed and barked at the screen.
"He says that he will always assist you in herding them," said Aigis.
"Aw...I would have totally given you scratchies for that comment, Koro-chan, Ken, can you scratch him for me, please."
He obliged and starting scratching him behind his ears; Koromaru, in response let out a happy bark.
"I think we discussed Kaname Naoki-san enough for today, let's talk about the other suspicious person in the group of yours," stated Aigis.
Minako threw a quick glance at her but didn't say anything.
Ken noticed this and asked, "Minako-san, during your talk with her, did you learn something new?"
"I did; however, it was nothing that had anything to do with Personas and Shadows; she wasn't willing to talk about her life personal life that much."
Ken sighed. "Let's just go through what we know about her past then. She suppose was part of team who was investigating these Shadows, that team, however, ended up betraying her? I think."
Aigis nodded along. "I suppose the question then is, when was she investigating these Shadows?"
Minako hummed as she listened to them.
"She was hospitalized for several months from heart disease; that doesn't give her much time to investigate these Shadows..." muttered Ken.
"Perhaps she was investigating them prior to being hospitalized?" wondered Aigis.
Minako suddenly perked up. "I think you maybe looking at it the wrong way. What if Homura-chan wasn't hospitalized due to a heart disease, but became of what her previous teammates did?"
Ken rubbed his head. "That could explain why she doesn't seem to have problems with her heart now; however, that still leaves with the question why isn't she telling us more about these 'teammates' of hers."
Suddenly he felt his phone vibrate, and when he looked down he saw a message from Naoki asking to meet at his place.
He then informed Aigis and Minako about this.
"I guess we'll talk later, for now please keep a close eye on both of them," said Aigis.
Minako waved him goodbye. "I swear the first thing I'll do when I get in is to slap the person who put up that barrier and put you in danger."
Ken laughed a little. "Bye Minako-san, can you also tell Shinjiro-san that I miss him as well?"
Minako smiled softly at him. "Yeah I'll do that. He also misses you as well."
Soon the call ended and after around eight minutes they showed up
"I am sorry for suddenly texting you, but according to Homura this is urgent..." Naoki trailed off.
In response Ken shook his head. "It's no problem."
He motioned for Homura to say what she found important enough to have this meeting called.
"I am sorry for having kept this from you all; three weeks from now, a really powerful Shadow named Walpurgisnacht will appear here," said Homura with a serious voice.
Another point making you look suspicious, Homura-san...
"Walpur what?" asked a confused Alice.
"Walpurgisnacht, huh...?" muttered Naoki as he stared at Homura, "the night of the Witches, an interesting name.
This also makes you look suspicious as well, how do you know...German?
"Just how powerful are we talking about exactly?" asked Ken after he focused his attention back on Homura.
Homura seemed to be a bit unsettled at the fact that Naoki knew what Walpurgisnacht meant, but she soon answered, "Walpurgisnacht will destroy this entire city if we don't do something about it."
Good. If it's not any reality warping god, then this team could still be trained to defeat it. If Homura-san said that it is as powerful as Nyx's avatar, then I would start panicking.
Ken stretched his arms as he said, "Then we'll handle it. However, I do have a question, for you, Akemi-san. How do you know that it will come here?"
"Statistics," was her short and simple reply.
"Have you encountered it before, Homura?" asked Alice with a concerned voice.
"I have."
That's...concerning...
Naoki also looked at her with obvious concern.
This "Walpurgisnacht" could also be the cause of her hospitalization and the reason why she doesn't talk about her teammates...
"When will this "Walpurgisnacht" arrive in Mitakihara?" asked Ken as he was thinking about way to deal with it. I mean the way she phrased it's not in Mitakihara, so that means that the Shadow Operatives might be able to target and defeat it...that would be really good—but I doubt that it'll be that easy.
Homura looked at him before replying, "It should be around 15 days."
"That doesn't give us much time to get ready for it, but I'll do my best to prepare you all for it in any case. Thankfully, all our weapons arrived, so we can start with training you all with them."
Ken went to retrive the packages in which the weapons arrived, and he soon unboxed them on the table.
Homura looked between the weapons with a critical eye before she grabbed the bow. When it was Naoki's turn he looked hesitantly between the spear and the sword before ultimately choosing to use neither, and selecting the naginata.
Then it was Alice's turn and she didn't hesitate to grab the spear, leaving Takashi with the sword.
"Alright, 15 days is not nearly enough time to train you with these weapons to be masters with them, but it should make you all somewhat competent on how to use them. Tomorrow after school we'll start your training with them," said Ken as he looked at everyone in the room.
Koromaru barked in affirmation as well.
"Tomoe-san, can I talk to you for a minute or two?" called out Ken to his classmate during lunch break.
He needed to have a talk with her in his responsibility as Student Council President, and he figured he should get this over with quickly, after all he still needed to train the others on how to use their new weapons today.
The blonde haired girl immediately got defensive, and Ken hurried to explain. "This doesn't have anything to do with your school performance."
He had to say this because he had spoken with quite a few students with not that great grades last week already.
Tomoe was, still evidently warry, but she soon acquiesced.
So, Ken lead her to the student council room. Thankfully, no one was present there.
"So..." began Ken, "..our homeroom teacher is a bit worried about your interaction with others in class."
She raised her eyebrows. "Is that so?"
"Yeah, I know that this can be quite awkward, but Sato-sensei is quite concerned about the fact that you haven't participated in any extracurricular activity in school since you started coming to this school..."
"I don't really have time to start participating in a club now; I have the exams that I must prepare for, and I spend time outside of school with my friends, so..." she trailed off.
"I understand, in that case I will tell Sato-sensei that you're focused on your exams," said Ken
Sato-sensei could have done this entire conversation in a minute or two... thought Ken to himself.
Ken didn't really understand why he had to have these conversations with third year students who choose to quit club activities; most of them did so because they wanted to prepare for their exams. Tomoe's was a bit different because she didn't attend any clubs in the three years she was here, but Ken didn't see a reason why he should even have this conversation now; it would have been better if it had taken place in second year, but now it was pretty much useless.
"Is that all? Will you really just tell him that?" asked Tomoe with some uncertainty in her voice.
"Yeah, this will be all. You can go back to lunch break now," replied Ken as he sorted some papers out.
The blonde haired girl bowed and left the Student Council room.
Two days in, and the training was going quite well all things considered; they were advancing far faster then Ken expected them to, especially Homura, somehow she was almost as good as Yukari towards the middle of Tartarus, which meant she pretty rarely missed a moving target.
So, he arranged for them to train against the Shadows in these Shadow Nests.
"Huh? What's this?" muttered a confused Alice as she stared at the writings on the wall where the Shadow Nest was.
It looked like some kind of poetry, but Ken didn't understand the language it was written in, so he couldn't make many assumptions other than that.
Naoki took a closer look at it. "Old German poetry of some kind...maybe even from Goethe, but I can't tell you much beyond that.
"I guess I could try to translate it, but it'd be a pretty direct translation, which will most likely strip away some important things away..."
Homura, who so far hasn't uttered a single word about this, spoke up, "It's from Goethe, more specifically his work, Faust."
Ken didn't know much about old German poetry, so he wasn't surprised to not know either this "Goethe" person or his work "Faust", and it appeared that neither Takashi nor Alice knew anything about it either, with Alice muttering a weak, "Weird," before moving away from the wall.
Naoki, on the other hand, seemed to recognize that work as he started to frown when Homura mentioned its name. And he stared at the wall intently.
But he didn't say anything more as they proceeded to ventured into the labyrinth, were they started to train more on the larger Shadow.
Soon enough the large Shadow ended up being defeated, with it dropping the same thing that most of these Shadows have dropped so far.
He looked around waiting for the Shadow Nest to dissappear, but it didn't seem like it would dissappear.
This ddoesn't feel right, something's off.
Ken eyed it for a couple of seconds before he went to retrive the Grief Seed, and then he handed it over to Homura. She somehow arranged things with Igor to take those Grief Seeds off her in exchange for things that these Shadows didn't drop.
"We're done for today. We'll aim to get more of those Grief Seeds tomorrow, so that they can be traded in in the the Velvet Room," said Ken.
"We can't allow that!" yelled a voice from behind them.
They turned around to see three girls wearing some sort of cosplay outfits. Ken recognized one of them fairly quickly though.
"Sayaka?" Naoki muttered in confusion as he stared at the blue haired girl, and at her weird outfit in confusion.
Alice and Takashi stared at her curiously and in confusion.
The red haired girl grinned at them as she brandishing her spear.
In contrast, Tomoe regarded them with an indifferent expression and said to them, "I am afraid to say that you all will have to leave, or we'll have to drive you out of here!"
Ken tried to play diplomacy with the girls. "We don't need to be hostile, Tomoe-san. We just want to deal with these Shadows. There's no need for this to come to blows."
The red haired girl sneered at him. "Look, pretty boy, we know what your kind does. And this is our territory!"—her sneer turned into a feral grin—"If you don't listen to us, than we'll put you out of commission...permanently!"
Naoki took up a defensive position, and Ken hoped that Tomoe would calm her companion down.
Suddenly, Homura's eyes widened, she then said to Ken, "Something came up that I need to deal with, I trust you all to be able to handle these three by yourselves."
She then disappeared which shocked all of them, well...exept for the red haired girl who started to laugh.
Wait, what? Where are are you going, Homura-san? Ken wondered to himself.
Sayaka grinned when Homura disappeared. "Heh, guess Miss Transfer Student was feeling scared of us."
Naoki, then decided to try the diplomatic route himself. "Look there's no need for us to fight, I am sure we can work out some sort of agreement."
The red haired girl's grinn widened. "Not happening, as I said to the pretty boy, this is our territory."
"In that case..." muttered Ken as he went to summon Kala-Nemi.
Tomoe's eyes widened as Ken pointed the evokes at himself, and...ribbons erupted from her hands?
What?
This, however, proved to be too slow as Ken was able to call out Kala-Nemi.
The large mechanical Persona blasted those ribbons away with lightning. Ken ordered them, "Spread out, I'll handle Tomoe by myself. Take them on two on one!"
He soon cut through a few more ribbons with Kala-Nemi.
"Alright Takashi and I will take on Sayaka, and Koro-chan and Alice will deal with red hair," ordered Naoki.
Koromaru barked affirmativelly and Alice nooded and they quickly dashed towards the red haired girl.
Ken then turned his attention back to the blonde haired girl.
He would have liked to describe it as some sort of epic fight, but he wasn't a liar; he was on the defensive against Tomoe's ribbons, and he couldn't do much to her with Kala-Nemi and his spear.
Thankfully, the others seemed to be fairing far better, with Takashi and Naoki quickly disarming the blue haired girl, Sayaka.
While, Koromaru and Alice were not doing quite that well, they were still putting the red haired girl on the defensive.
So Ken believed that they will be able to do...
Ken wasn't sure what he wanted to do to them now that he thought about. Maybe make them listen?
In any case, he focused his attention back on Tomoe and her ribbons.
If ribbons is all he has, then I will be able to handle her quite easily until the other subdue her friends.
"Hastur!" shouted Naoki who started to run up to the two of them. He let Takashi take care of the disarmed blue haired girl, and ran to help Ken.
Unfortunately, Ken thoughts looked like they were tempting fate as Tomoe's eyes turned serious and she summoned an old gun of some sorts and shot at Naoki who summoned his Persona to deflect the bullet.
"Stay away!" shouted the blonde girl. "Or I'll be forced to injure tou permanently!"
Ken took a step towards her. "Look, I am sure there a reason why you might think we might be dangerous, but can't we just talk this out, we don't want to fight any of you."
Before Tomoe could respond, the red haired girl jumped in front of him to the side of Tomoe, and in her hand she was carrying the blue haired girl in a princess carry. Alice muttered a short "Sorry..." which was followed by one from Takashi as well.
"Hmphhh, as if!" scowled the red haired girl. The girl in her arm quickly scrambled to her feet while she turned to adress them. "Yeah, we would never make a deal with you, Shadow users!"
Shadow users? I mean she's not technically wrong, but still...it's a weird term to use...
Suddenly loud claps rang out form behind them. Ken slowly turned around and he froze. Something about this person unsettled far more than even Erebus did, it was Minato Kaname, Naoki's cousin.
"Such an breathtaking sight. This was truly worth every miserable second amongst you, humans!"
The girls took up defensive positions as if they they were afraid of whatever Naoki's cousin was.
"What are you doing here?" asked Tomoe in a forceful tone.
"Hoh?" he asked while he transformed into a man who looked somewhat familiar to Tomoe; same blonde hair, same eye color. "What I am doing is merely playing a game; just little one between the parent and the child."
"Y-y-you're not my dad!" shouted Tomoe as she wrapped up the former Minato in ribbons like a Christmas present.
He merely smiled at this and soon teleported out of the bindings. "You're the one who desires for your parents to return. I am merely fulfilling your desires, am I not? I don't get it, you humans are always contradicting yourselves."
"What are you?" asked Ken with a forceful tone.
He grinned at him maliciously, then he transformed into his mom.
Ken tried really hard to make it look like he wasn't bothered by this, but it was easy to tell that this was causing him distress with how hard he tightened his hand on his spear.
"What I am, you ask, well let's just say that I draw my strength all the negative emotions of Humanity."
"Are you saying that you're some sort of Shadow of Humanity itself?" asked Ken with narrowed eyes.
"That's right! I am the Humanity's Shadow, as long as there's evil in your heart, I'll always exist within you," he started to laugh.
"And what do you want from us?" asked Ken in an agitated voice.
He smirked at him. "Oh nothing more than the destruction of all of Humanity, but for now the destruction of this city will do just fine."
Ken tightened his hold on his spear even further.
The blue haired girl shouted at him, "We're not just gonna let you do that!"
He, in turned, only laughed aloud more. "You think you foolish girls are able to stop me?! That's almost as hilarious as thinking you even have a future!
"The fate of this little system of yours has already been decided, all that matters is whether the ruin of Mitakihara could he avoided, if you defeat Walpurgisnacht, then Mitakihara will have a future—but you will certainly not have one!" laughed the Shadow of Humanity.
System?
"So we just have to beat you in this game of yours?!" asked the red haired girl angrily as she jabbed her spear into him.
His smirk widened. "That would be correct for them." he then motioned to us. "However, as I alluded to previously: You three will not play any part in that."
Tomoe surrounded him with ribbons once again. "What do you mean by that?"
"It's quite simple, you three will be turned into Witches by yours truly!"
"W-what do..." before she could even get out her question she started to scream.
"Tomoe-san!" shouted Ken as he ran up to her. But before he could reach her, he was pushed back by the Crawling Chaos.
In its hand were three distinct jewels, which were turning dark at extreme rate, then the jewels shattered into those "Grief Seeds".
The three girls' bodies flopped to the ground like puppets whose strings have been cut.
Three Grief Seeds floated around it.
Naoki clenched his fists as he shouted at him. "What did you do!?"
It laughed loudly. "I just made then fulfill their destiny, this is just what they were made for. We'll see each other soon, at the end of my part, for now I'll take my leave."
Ken quickly got hid spear in his hand and tried to rush him.
However, he disappeared before he could reach it.
He took a deep breath and turned back to the others who were checking on the the bodies of the girls.
Naoki frowned as he checked on Sayaka. "They are dead..."
"What do you mean?" asked Ken in a alarmed tone.
"They are dead!" he shouted, then he took a deep breath. "Their consciousness was linked to those jewels, I am not sure how. But with whatever he did to them, they can no longer control their bodies, and I am not sure how conscious they'd be..."
Ken took another deep breath, this whole thing was quite stressful. "You sensed all that?"
"Yeah, after the Crawling Chaos started doing what he was doing to those jewelries."
Ken looked around noting the absence of one person. "Can you sense Homura-san? I am worried that she still hasn't come back."
Naoki nodded and concentrated on sensing her, and after a minute his eyes widened.
"Naoki-san,what's wrong?" asked Ken in worry.
"Madoka's in this world and there's a strong Shadow near her. I need to go!" he shouted started to run to the right. "You three take those three out of here, while Koromaru, Homura—who is also nearby—and I deal with the Shadow."
Ken wanted to say something against that, but he was already gone from the hearing range. Koromaru whined looking him and the disappearing figure of Naoki.
"Go, with him," urged Ken as she scooped up Tomoe in a bridal carry.
The dog barked and started to run after him. He then turned to Alice and Takashi. "You two take uhh..."
He tried to remember if any names were mentioned.
"Miki Sayaka, and I also don't know the name of the red haired girl," said Alice as she picked up the blue haired girl, which going by the process of elimination was named Miki Sayaka.
That left only the red haired girl whom Takashi had picked up.
They eventually left the Shadow Nest and headed to his apartment. They laid the bodies of the girls down on the couch.
And he went to contact Mitsuru. Unfortunately, she was busy with other Shadow Operative business, so they talked with Aigis.
They explained everything that happened, and she got quite worried about them, so much so, that she contacted Minako, who quickly made her way to the Shadow Operatives HQ.
"What is this that I have heard from Aigis, Ken?" she asked in a fake innocent voice.
Due to feeling fatigued from everything that happened today, Ken let Alice and Takashi explain everything time time, only correcting them on some things.
"The Shadow of all of Humanity..." trailed off Minako, "this all seems to be spiraling out of control..."
She sounded very worried. "I'll talk with Mitsuru about doing more about that barrier..." she sighed. "Anyway, what are your current plans to deal with this 'Crawling Chaos'?"
Ken frowned, he tried to think up ways to deal with it; however, nothing came to his mind.
Then Alice suggested something, "How about we talk with Philemon? Maybe he would be able to help us?"
Minako-san glanced at him from the side. Evidently, she was still not trusting this, 'Philemon', and if was honest with himself, he didn't trust it fully either.
"In any case, we should wait for Naoki and Homura to contact us," said Ken as he checked his phone hoping for a message, but there were none.
Minako-san sighed out loud. "I'll contact Theodore and Marie in the meanwhile, they may know something about the Crawling Chaos."
Ken nodded and then he felt his phone vibrate. He looked down and saw that Naoki sent him a message...requesting they come to Homura's place.
He also sent them the address. Ken was reluctant to agree—mostly because of the three girls in his apartment—but after some pestering from Alice, he folded and agreed.
And after wandering around some time, they found Homura's apartment.
They were let in by an exhausted Naoki and an also tired Koromaru.
"Wow..." muttered Alice-san as she looked around the Homura-san's room.
Ken also had to admit that the layout was certainly breathtaking, especially whatever she did to make it look like a Shadow Nest.
"So, what did you call us here for?" asked Takashi as they walked over sat down on a couch.
Ken noted that Naoki's cousin was also present. "Also should she be here? I don't think you need us all here to explain what's a Shadow Nest is, unless..."
Naoki only nodded. "Madoka accepted her Shadow and gained her Persona."
"Right. Is that why you called us here?"
Naoki shared a quick look with Homura. "Among other things."
He beckoned Homura forward, the girl in question, stood up and said, "I would like to come clean about some things.
"What I am talking about are Magical Girls and the system behind them."