Chapter Text
This isn’t the first time he’s been pulled out of reality in his sleep.
The first time was when Ren was plucked out of his sleep and into a prison cell. By the sides were twin girls with tempers far too short for their age and a warden with a nose far too long. The first he heard about shadows, Metaverses, Personas, games, rehabilitation; so much information that he’d been contemplating how many times he had to pinch himself to wake up out of this dream.
And normally, dreams are simply that. They have endings, they are just images and emotions that go through your unconscious mind while you sleep because they have nowhere else to go.
While the Velvet Room was the first out of body experience he’d ever felt, this one felt stranger. Completely different in feeling.
The Velvet Room’s blue were some sort of calm. Ren could imagine that whatever being that created the room did so with that color in mind; it was soothing and comforting. Enough that even though Ren was in chains, his first instinct wasn’t to run, but to explore.
Wherever this is, the first instinct he has is to run.
This is no welcoming place.
Ren did not lay in chains, he lay in his Phantom Thief attire: his longcoat and mask, his bright red gloves. He lay in a pile of sand, face first, but the grains do not move when he does. He moves his gloved fingers across the ground and can feel the texture, but nothing moves as consequence.
Ren lifts his head and sits up. The sky is red, like it was in Kamoshida’s Palace. Everything else is different. The skyline is not dotted by the modern buildings of Tokyo, there are not stone walls surrounding him, there is no comfort of the blue shine of the Velvet Room’s door.
There are stones, there are rocks that dot around him like a cage of their own. The red sky has individual streaks of darker and brighter red across the sky, like the trail of something moving. Even smaller are smaller white streaks of something tiny, minuscule to the naked eye, moving across the streaks.
Every so often, the red of the world is shaken by the appearance of lighting. They never make any sound when they strike, they just appear like they were always mean to be.
Ren stands up and dusts his coat off on the instinct of laying in sand. It goes over his head that there is not even a speck of dirt on his coat. He looks around, starting from his side, then behind him, and finally to the front.
Where the only being in this plane exists to greet him.
The thing across from Ren stares at him. Not like someone who isn’t where they should, no.
Like a kid looks at a bug for the first time. Watching it crawl on the sidewalk and goes to somewhere it’s never been before.
Truth be told, that much is accurate.
The thing across from Ren stands from his crouch and approaches him. Ren feels the instinct to run get stronger and stronger as it approaches him. Thankfully, he stays a bit aways from him; far enough that Ren can stop shaking enough to look at it.
The thing across from him resembles a boy, two or so inches shorter than him. He wears shoes and shorts, nothing else. He doesn’t have a shirt, but tattoos run over his entire body in black and green lines. His eyes glow a dull yellow, like a dimmer version of the shadows that he’s gotten to know over this past month. His hair is short and black, and there’s a presence of something on his neck that he can’t see from this angle.
The thing tilts his head, enough for Ren to see that the something on his neck is a small horn introducing away.
“You are not a demon.” It says. His voice is younger than he expected, light but gravelly.
Ren stares at him for a few moments while he processes that observation. “…no, I’m a human.”
It straightens it’s tilted head. “…odd.” He moves around Ren, like a predator around it’s cornered prey. “How did you get here?”
Ren gulps. “I don’t know,” He says. “I was asleep in my bed, and I woke up here.”
It stops in front of Ren again. “What’s with the outfit?” He asks.
Ren blinks. “It would take a long time to explain. Longer for you to believe me.”
It lets out a breath. “I have eternity.” He nods. “Go for it.”
And Ren does.
He explains the Metaverse, what he understands, anyway. He explains shadows, what he understands, anyway. He explains Palaces, what he understands, anyway.
The thing in front of Ren listens, unblinking and without interruption. When Ren finishes his explanation, it scratches its forehead and sits down onto the unmoving sand.
“You sound unsure.” It says.
Ren takes the gesture as a signal that he won’t kill him and does the same. “I am. This whole thing started a month ago. Every answer I get, I get three more questions.”
The thing makes a hum. “That’s how things like this happen.”
Ren tilts his head and raises an eyebrow. “You’ve got experience in this?”
The thing bobs it’s head side to side and crosses it’s arms. “Something like that. The way you describe shadows, they’re like my demons. Your… Metaverse… is like my Vortex World.”
“So… you have your own Persona?”
Ren’s question makes the thing slowly smile and laugh. It’s high-pitched. “No, I don’t have something like that.”
It’s tattoos glow and it’s eyes glow and shine a brighter yellow.
“I am a demon.”
Ren grips his pants, his eyes wide to match the slits on his mask. Before he can do anything else, the thing’s tattoos and eyes fade back to their normal matte appearance.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve needed to introduce myself.” It says. “My name is…” It trails, his eyes squint and he rubs his head and ruffle his hair. “…Naoki. Just Naoki.”
“I’m Ren Amamiya.” He says. “Nice to meet you.”
“Yes…” Naoki says. Ren still finds it hard to discern whether this thing is a ‘boy’ or a ‘thing’ in his head, but he supposes boy is the best thing to go with, for now.
“You said that you use this… Persona, to fight… shadows, yes?” Naoki says.
Ren nods.
“Can you demonstrate?”
Ren looks at him, unsure as to the reason, but resigns. He stands up and dusts his dustless coat and raises his hand to mask. Naoki has his arm crossed with expectant eyes.
“Persona!”
Ren’s mask turns to blue flames until all you can see on his face are his eyes. Behind him the chained figure of his Persona, Arsene, floats behind him. The demonic version of a famous gentlemen thief. His wings are like a feathered bird, his body is like a demonic red suit, his top hat is as long as his torso and his mask is longer version of Ren’s own.
Naoki stands up again. He circles around Ren and Arsene like he did to Ren on his own minutes before.
“Interesting.” He says. “Similar, but not the same.”
Naoki stops moving at the side of Ren’s vision. “Indulge me, if you would.”
Naoki raises his hand and a light shines out of it. The light moved to the sand in front of Ren without him even noticing. The light dissipates and in it’s place floats something that Ren has seen before.
This particular shadow he’s known to be called Bicorn. A black horse with a white mane and two horns. One of the first shadows that Ren saw in Kamoshida’s Palace, and a common one at that. It showed up all the way through until he stole the treasure yesterday.
“Do you recognize this demon?” Naoki asks.
“Yeah,” Ren answers. “Bicorn.”
“Good. Kill it.”
Ren paused at that. “What?”
“Kill. It.”
Ren didn’t need to hear anymore to figure out that Naoki wasn’t taking no for an answer.
“Arsene, Eiha!”
Black fire summoned from Arsene’s clawed hand and was thrown from it. The Bicorn did not look shaken at all from the impact; in fact, it just looked more pissed off. It roared and charged Ren. He barely dodged it in time.
Ren looked at Naoki while the Bicorn slowed down. He had his arms crossed, his face locked in a frown.
He couldn’t explain why he felt like it was a bad idea to disappoint him, but that’s what he felt.
He brought his hands to his face. “Pixie!” He yelled.
Arsene’s monstrous form faded into the smaller fairy, his second Persona.
Naoki titled his head.
“Zio!”
Pixie shot lightning from the sky and knocked the bicorn down to it’s knees. Ren rushed forward, drawing his knife and stabbing the horse in the eye.
It did not fade into dust like the shadows he normally fought, it crumpled to ground and lay on it’s side. The rise of it’s body stopped. The body did not move at all in anyway; like it was an actual body.
“Pixie.” Naoki said.
In a flash of light, another Pixie came, idetntical in every way to the one Ren had.
“Something I can do for you Mr. Demi-fiend?” Her voice was high pitched and two-toned. Not unlike how shadows spoke.
“Heal him.”
“Okie-dokie!”
The Pixie fluttered down on her wings next to the Bicorn and reached her hands out. Ren had seen Dia casted before but this was so, so much bigger. The dim green light that had been used on him many times was not here; this light was like a searchlight, almost blinding.
The Bicorn’s chest rose again, but did nothing else.
Naoki flicked his hand around and the Bicorn went in a flash of light. He nodded to the Pixie and she did the same.
Naoki turned to the other. His arms fall to his sides. “It was stronger than what you were used to.” He noted.
Ren let in a breath. “Yeah. He was one of the first shadows I came across.”
Naoki does not say anything for a time, only staring. He speaks again after 30 seconds. “Is using more than one… Persona, normal?”
Ren shakes his head. “No. In fact, it’s been drilled into my head how special I am.”
Naoki scratched his forehead. “You sound annoyed at that.”
“I guess.” Ren shrugs. “I’ve… had a rough couple of months.” He said. “All this Metaverse shit has done is make me more and more annoyed.”
Naoki let in a deep breath and let it out just as slowly.
“I may be a demon, now, but I can sympathize.”
Ren tilts his head. He just realized his mask wasn’t on his face anymore. “You can?”
Naoki nodded. “I can. I was human, once.” He sat back down again. “Then, I was half-demon. Now, calling me human is a… stretch.”
Ren sat down, too. He sat closer to Naoki than the first time they did this. “What… happened, to you?”
Naoki’s eyes lifted ever so slightly as a breath of amusement left his nose. He did not smile, that was no longer in his nature; it does not happen often. “That is a story much longer than yours. I have all the time, you do not.”
He crosses his arms. “I suppose I can tell you the beginning of it, of how I became a half-demon.”
Naoki breathes in and out, his eyes do not close; he keeps his vision directly onto Ren. He has to shift and wiggle into his ‘seat’.
“I was a high schooler, same as you. Same age, I think. I was visiting… my… teacher.” He squints while he speaks, struggling to remember a distant memory. “I had… two… friends,” The word ‘friend’ does not come off his tongue easy, it comes off his tongue like it pains him to say. “With me, when we visited the hospital. Couldn’t find her, none of us could. There weren’t any workers there, either. I went into the basement by myself, one of my… friends, suggested it.”
Naoki’s eyes burn a little brighter as he speaks. Ren does not need to guess that he does not hold his ‘friends’ in a high regard.
“What’d you find?” Ren asks, trying to keep Naoki talking.
He looks to Ren, and then back down at the pit of sand in between his criss-crossed legs. “I found Hikawa. He was reported missing, just before. A… TV producer? Maybe.” He shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter. He called me a… something, summoned a Baphomet, a demon, to kill me. Teacher stopped it. She saved my life.”
“How?” Ren asks. “Can’t imagine she fought a demon.”
Naoki raises his eyes. “She didn’t. She said that I wouldn’t matter.”
“I guess she was wrong.”
Naoki smiles. His mouth moves on it’s own, eyes staying wide-eyed and no wrinkles on his face. “She was. They all were.”
Ren desperately wants to ask who ‘they’ is. So much so that his mouth opens. It closes quickly.
“I met her on the hospital roof, followed her. We talked. She said that the world would be born anew, and to find her when all was done.”
“…and?”
“…and the world was born anew. The world… imploded. Like the world condensed and exploded again.”
“Into the… Vortex World? You called it?” Ren asks.
Naoki nods. “Yes, the Vortex World.” Naoki uncrosses his arms. “I awoke sometime later, I do not know how long it was. I was… somewhere else. He… turned me into a demon, with a parasite, a Magatama. He called it the ‘essence’ of a demon. That it would let me survive the Vortex World.” He closes his eyes and holds them shut. “Looking back, I think that was one of the last times I felt pain.”
Ren holds his question on who ‘he’ is. “Really?”
Naoki nods. “Yes. If you want to try, you can stab me with your dagger. I can count the times I felt pain on one hand since becoming a demon.”
Ren holds his silent gaze. “Think I’ll pass.”
Naoki smiles. His eyes squint a bit. “Suit yourself.”
Ren’s turn to cross his arms. “That’s all you’re gonna tell me?”
“Yes, unless we meet again.” Naoki says flicking his eyes between Ren and something else. “How did you end up here?”
“Like I said, I dunno.” Ren answers, shrugging and fixing his hair out of his eyes. “I was asleep and woke up here. Only other time I’m like that is when I end up in the Velvet Room.”
“Velvet Room?”
“Oh.” Ren didn’t mean to say that, but no harm, he supposed. “It’s the first place that I heard about everything; shadows and Personas and all that. It’s a…” Ren rubs the back of his neck, choosing to gloss over the fact that it’s a prison with two little girls with nightsticks and Frankensteins assistant. “It’s the place where I fuse Personas and stuff like that.”
Naoki hums. “Interesting. You use a compendium, too?”
Ren squints and furrows. “Yes..? You have one, too?”
“Yes, It was called the Cathedral of Shadows. A man named Mido ran it. He fused demons.”
“The Cathedral of Shadows.” Ren says this slowly, to himself.
“Where demons gather.”
Naoki and Ren sit in silence for a minute. They sit on the motionless sand in varying states of anxiety. Naoki’s vision does not shift from Ren, and Ren has a hard time figuring out where he should be looking. He does not know if he should hold the staring contest or look away.
“If I can ask, why are you here?” Ren breaks the silence, his arms crossed and his head slightly forward. “This is… an odd place.”
Naoki still does not look away from Ren, but his arms cross as well. “True. This is the place where I wait.”
“For what?”
“For the time where I’m called.”
“…by who? For what?”
Naoki blinks, slower than Ren’s ever seen anyone blink. Ren realizes here that he has not seen Naoki blink naturally, only in reaction. “You would have to hear the rest of my story to understand. And you are not involved. You should stay that way.”
“For which question?”
“Both.” Naoki says. “I could tell you, but you might try and stop me. I’d hate to have to kill you.”
Ren knows this is not a joke, but he can’t help but notice that less hairs on his body stand up when Naoki says something like that; something, anything that resembles a threat. Ren does not say anything, Naoki has drawn his line in the sand and Ren will respect it. He stays quiet. The both of them do.
Naoki’s eyes move from Ren’s face for the first time in a while. He looks away and stares at something else outside of Ren’s field of vision for a time. Naoki does not look back, but he does stand up.
“Stand, Ren.” He says, the first time Naoki has said his name, Ren noted. “I want to… give you something.”
Ren stands as Naoki asks.
“I do not have the power that Mido and the Cathedral, or what this… Velvet Room has. I do hold power over demons, though.” Naoki raises his hand and it lights in a small flash of light. In his hand lies a small gray stone, a visage of skull in it’s center. “This is a deathstone, it is something that I used on my journey. When you fuse your… Personas, add this to the fusion process. It will break in the process, but it will change the fusion to something different, something greater. The first great challenge I’ve ever faced.”
Ren takes the stone and rubs the stones’ skull. It feels like an old, weathered rock, much older than him and much older than this thing looks. He lets the stone fade into wherever his items go while in the Metaverse. He doesn’t question it, but he cannot deny the convenience.
“Thank you, Naoki.” Ren says. “But… not to look a gift horse in the mouth or anything, but I’d like to know, why?”
Naoki holds his stare that Ren has figured out is when he’s thinking. “I wish that when I started, that I had someone to help me. I did not. I learned everything myself. Struggled. It is what a demon must do, I thought. But you are no demon, you are man. I am only doing what I would do for myself in the past.”
Ren nods, smiling. “Whatever the reason, thanks.”
“Do you wish to go back? I can send you back.”
Ren raises an eyebrow. “You can?”
Naoki nods. “I can. I can’t send you wherever, but I can send you back from where you came.”
“Yes, please.” Ren nods. “Thanks, Naoki. For everything. I would say that I would come back when I can, but I’m not sure if I can.”
Naoki does not smile, but he does smirk. Just barely. “Yes, I would like that, too. It’s been a long time since I talked with… something not a demon.”
Ren returns his smirk with a smile of his own.
I am Thou.
Thou art I.
It shall become the wings of rebellion that breaketh thy chains of captivity.
With the birth of the Fiend Persona
I have obtained the winds of blessing that shall lead to freedom and new power.
“Are you ready?” Naoki asks.
Ren nods.
Naoki raises a hand. “Loki.”
He summons another demon in another flash of light. What he summons is a tall man with purple skin, long blond hair, clad in a white cloak.
“Trafuri.”
Loki nods and raises his hand towards Ren. Ren’s vision fades to a white light that he’s gotten awfully familiar with while visiting this plane. Naoki watches the boy disappear the same way that his demons do whenever he summons them.
And Naoki is alone, once again.
It is some time before Ren is able to visit the Velvet Room. It is not until he goes into the Palace of an artist by the name of Madarame that he next wishes to fuse his Personas. Ren walks into the Velvet Room through the ghostly blue doors in front of shining golden towers and spotlights that dot the stars themselves.
Ren grasps the bars between him and the residents of the Velvet Room. He’s already decided that he wants to fuse his Pixie with an Obaryion for a Slime. He’s outgrown their strength and wants something new; the whole point of the Velvet Room and fusion.
But as he’s about to ask Caroline and Justine for the help, he remembers his visit with Naoki. More specifically, he remembers what he was given.
Ren wishes for the stone and fishes around in his prisoner’s uniform’s pocket. Retrieving the stone and noting how could it is now compared to when he first got it.
“Hey, Caroline, Justine.” He asks.
The twins turn their heads towards him, ready to spew an insult that he’s gotten used to received. He ops to not give them the chance.
“I’d like to fuse Personas.”
“Which ones?” Justine asks, flipping through her clipboard.
“Pixie and Obariyon.” He sticks the deathstone between the bars, through the space where a lunch tray would go. “Add this, too.”
Caroline takes the stone out of Ren’s hand and runs her thumb over it, squinting at it. “What… is this?”
“I got it from a… friend. He said to add it during fusion.”
The twins look at Igor, whose been watching with intrigue the moment that Ren took out the stone. “By all means,” He says, deep voice and all. “I am curious as well.”
And Caroline and Justine do their thing. The stuff the two Personas in body bags and add them to the guillotine, adding the deathstone into the part of the machine that combines the two.
The guillotines fell and the electricity that would normally combine the two into Slime ran as usual.
But the deathstone changed it. The electricity changed from the blue that it normally was the the yellow that Naoki’s eyes glow.
From the smoke that came, hid behind it not a Slime, but something else entirely.
The smoke cleared, and revealed a tall figure, a tricorne hat on it’s head, holding a cape and a sword; a skull for a face.
It twirled it’s sword around and fixed his hat. It speaks, directed completely at Ren, in a dual tone, accented voice.
“I am the Fiend, Matador! Supreme power is out of my grasp, but my capote and espada are yours, as they were the Demi-Fiend’s before you.”