To Live With Freedom Is To Struggle Eternally - A Persona 5 Quest

"Being taken to another location against your will is one of the most dangerous situations you can be in," Amasawa-senpai spoke one day after class. "It is absolutely vital for a detective to remain calm and observe their surroundings in such scenarios."

While you still felt your heart race at the danger of being in another place, you tried your best to make your senpai proud. Your still-broken glasses were of little help, but you got a picture of your situation soon enough thanks to pulling out your phone.

No signal, no internet, no wifi, nothing. Any useful apps didn't seem to work at all, the rest weren't worth trying. The only thing that turned on and worked was the flashlight. Small victories, but an important one to help look around.

This space was large, very large, with wide walls and a high ceiling. The blue that seemed to consume all other colors did have its interruptions, though it took a moment to tell where they were. Streaks of red traced across the walls of the cavern and ran down to the floor in an uncoordinated mess of random patterns.

It took just a few seconds more and some squinting to tell that the red was pulsing and that the lines you observed were some sort of fluid tube.

Or veins, like the giant disembodied body parts from around town.

In a way, that comforted you. The knowledge that this likely was connected meant that there wasn't some mysterious third party kidnapping you, just the one that you apparently already escaped, at least to an extent. It wouldn't do to get your hopes up, however.

With a step, you finally got the last piece of info needed to put together what this place was meant to be…by tripping over it.

Your knees and palms stung as you fell, catching yourself and holding back a yelp of shock out of an instinct to stay quiet. The new position left you looking straight down at the floor, as well as the subway track you tripped over. This whole thing was some sort of giant subway tunnel. A quiet one, luckily. You hoped that meant there were no trains preparing to run you over.

Luckily again, you noticed that one of the railway ties between rails was partially broken. As you stood up, you stood up with something of a heavy stake in your hands that made you feel far more confident about your situation.

(Akiko gained a weapon in the shape of a large wooden stake! It is unwieldy, yet it is heavy and sharp enough to be dangerous to a human.)

(Due to your success in observing the area, your Knowledge has grown! Progress is made toward the next stage. Currently: Learned+, +11 to rolls)

Now that you got a hold of your surroundings better, you needed to figure out where to go next and how to approach it. A few thoughts jumped to your mind at once.

[X] Shiho First (DC ??): Shiho might be somewhere around here. Finding her could be important for her safety, but there are no guarantees that she even ended up anywhere near here.

[X] Dude, Where's That Car? (DC 40, Proficiency Check): While there are no sounds of trains, there are others. Something almost like the sounds of a car can be heard occasionally, and that might be worth investigating.

[X] Give Me A Sign (DC 60, Knowledge Check): Finding an exit might be more vital than either of those, though. What point is there to find other people if all of you are trapped? Maybe there's a map or something.

Of course, each of those thoughts came with its own dangers as well. You hear another noise, something that came alongside an unnatural gust of wind that chilled you to your bone. A wail, though you have no idea what it came from. Nothing human, at least. You needed a plan in case you came across something.

[X] Just run away from anything clearly not human. The best way to stay alive is to make sure that the opposition is nowhere near you. The use of smart and quick path-finding through this place would help lose anything chasing that isn't just far faster. And you hope monsters don't have guns. (Success varies on Proficiency Check)

[X] Hide from whatever you come across. Between corners, rubble, the massive veins, and your jacket blending in, you might just be able to hide in plain sight from anything looking around. (Success varies on Composure Check)

[X] Fight it! Amasawa-senpai tried to teach you a bit about self-defense, even if using it was never really an option before. Armed and facing demons? Might be a decent time to try it out, especially armed with this make-shift weapon. Might be a terrible time. (Success varies on Guts Check)

[X] Write-In (Must seem viable for the character.)

Hopefully, you ran into nothing and didn't have to test out that plan. The thought of running into anything other than Shiho or another human, even if they weren't outright hostile, was terrifying. But…maybe risking an encounter was worth it for the right benefit.

You needed to decide whether or not it was worth it to call out for anyone as you walked along the tracks.

[X] Shout Out: Calling out for Shiho or anyone else would make it easier to find them. It would make it easier for them to find you, too, as well as any monsters around. (Lower DC on possible Shiho First or Dude, Where's That Car? success, a higher chance of being Spotted.)

[X] Keep Quiet: The chances of a monster hearing you are more important to think about than getting to someone a little faster just because they heard you. (Normal DC on both checks, lower chance of being Spotted.)

At the same time, you needed to figure out whether you should keep using this flashlight or not.

[X] Keep It On: Yeah, some things might see you, but this will help you find stuff as well. (Slightly Lower DC on possible Shiho First or Dude, Where's That Car? success, a slightly higher chance of being Spotted.)

[X] Turn It Off: There is some light here, and your eyes can adjust to it over time. Not to mention it would help you hide. (Normal DC on both checks, lower chance of being Spotted, bonus to Hiding check.)

[X] Plan Find Friend
-[X] Shiho First
-[X] Reasonable approach
-[X] Keep Quiet
-[X] Keep It On

(Akiko will make a series of Find Shiho checks as she explores her surroundings with a bonus to each check thanks to having her phone out.)

As far as you knew, you only had one ally in the whole world right now. Before anything else, that meant you needed to keep that ally alive and by your side.

You also wanted your currently only friend to be safe, that would be nice.

Gathering yourself, you made your choices about how to approach the situation and took a breath. Time to get going.

Just from your current point, you could see the train tracks split off in multiple directions either way you could go. While your knowledge of Japanese rail lines wasn't exactly something special, you could tell that places like this didn't exist along with them. You didn't feel safer knowing you were somewhere that shouldn't exist.

That said, it helped you figure out how to navigate this place. Until other clues popped up or more info came to light, it was labyrinth rules; hold the left wall and keep track of everything to make sure you could always find your way back, especially anything that might work as a landmark.

Thanks to Amasawa-senpai's habit of writing notes down on everything, you ended up picking up that habit as well during mental exercises. In addition to keeping your phone out for light, you pulled up a notes app and pulled out your stylus while holding your stake awkwardly under your armpit. It may just be a nearly indecipherable mess of lines to most people, but a map was a map.

(MRC Member Bonus: Having a map will make the Find Shiho DC lower on each attempt due to knowing what you have or haven't explored.)

(Find Shiho Check DC 85: 26+4=30 Significant Failure)

A left turn, another left turn, a dead-end corridor with an empty…box? A glance inside showed nothing of value.

Other than a box being empty, nothing around here even indicated that anyone had been here before, let alone Shiho. Frustration and worry bubble up inside you, wondering where she could be and having no idea for an answer for it.

As you turn back around and leave the corridor, you almost missed another tunnel to the left. The sharp angle needed to turn into it made it nearly invisible at first glance. You needed to be careful not to get lost or miss anything.

Back around that corner, left again, and suddenly you entered a massive room.

By all means, it appeared that the subway tunnels suddenly ran into the massive underwater discharge place over in Saitama. The room was massive, with concrete structures reaching so high up to the ceiling that your phone couldn't fully illuminate it when pointing up.

You shook your head, not time to be marveled at architecture. Instead, you made your way around the room holding the left just as with the rest of the tunnels. The same lights on the walls lit up this room as in the tunnels, but they didn't do much outside of a small cone. With how massive this room was, having your phone out was valuable to scan the floor between lights that would be otherwise pitch black.

No part of you wanted to miss out on finding Shiho just because you didn't check close enough somewhere.

(Find Shiho Check DC 80: 41+4=45 Moderate Failure)

Unfortunately, just because you were thorough didn't mean Shiho was actually there to be found in the first place. By the time you rounded your way back to the entrance of the room, you found nothing on the floor but some tire tracks stirring up the gravel, presumably from the car you think you heard earlier. Unfortunately, the gravel ended at the exit of the room, giving you no assistance in finding that, either.

Time to continue on, you head back out to the intersection leading to the room. Only one other path split off from it into a nearby dead-end, and a quick check showed nothing to be there. It was time to head back closer to where you started.

(Enemy Spotted Check DC 30: 44+4(Light) Light Success)

Rounding the corner to look at the spot you woke up, you take a few steps down the tunnel before you notice it. A figure, one that screamed inhuman to your brain immediately. Even through broken glasses, you could tell that the thing was at least over two meters tall. You didn't want to mess with a human that tall, let alone some sort of monster or demon. Something that much taller could easily outrun you, let alone whatever else it could do. You needed to hide.

(Hiding Composure Check DC 45: 35+10(Keep Quiet)-4(Keep Light On)+7(Shaky++)=48 Bare Success!)

Before it could turn your way, you tried to scramble back around the corner you just came from. The click of your shoes on your first step sent terror through your frame and the amount you had to slow down to prevent more noise from following screwed up your anxiety even worse.

By the time you cleared the corner and pressed your back to the wall, you could hear it. Some sort of squawk, followed by a high-pitched shriek that lasted only a second. Then, footsteps. The sound of feet walking your way.

It was going to find you, there was nothing you could do. You didn't even remember to lower your damn phone light! There was nowhere to hide, no way to fight it, no way to survive-

And then in your panic, you glanced just a bit further down the corridor. A larger knot of tubes than most clumped around each other near the bottom of the wall. It had a space underneath, just a few inches. If they had any give, it just might work to hide in. You hoped any luck was on your side.

By the time the creature rounded the corner, movements swift as it screeched further, it saw nothing of note other than a piece of wood left still on the floor. It let out a longer, angrier screech at the lack of a meal. Massive wings of teal and gold splayed out as it cried out.

Suddenly, the air chilled and a crash sounded out through the tunnel. Things went quiet except for the huffing of the creature, tired from its actions. Within moments, it gathered itself and started plodding back down the tunnels in the hopes of finding something to eat.

A few minutes later, you slowly climbed out from your hiding spot, still shaken by what you saw. A seven-foot-tall owl man with red skin? Not what you imagined demons would look like, yet somehow far more terrifying to see in person than the images of oni and ghosts in your head.

The fear of the near encounter at least made it easy to dismiss the grossness of your hiding place. As it turned out, they were veins, and they were even slimier to touch than you thought they would be. Unfortunately for your uniform, your hair, and your everywhere else, the blood coating and dripping from those veins wasn't nearly so fake or watery as the ocean of blood you walked through on the way home. It was fine, you just needed to find Shiho and get out of here ASAP.

(You have now explored half the floor, Find Shiho DC reduced significantly!)

Grabbing your 'weapon' on the way, you make your way back to where you first saw the creature. Nothing else of note appears to be around, including any signs of Shiho. Three more paths as far as you could tell from here, hopefully, none of them split too far themselves.

(Find Shiho Check DC 50: 35+4=39 Slight Failure)

As you made your way down the new tunnel, you almost saw nothing of note until…there. Something crumpled up on the side of the track. You walk quickly toward it, checking around to make sure nothing will sneak up on you as you investigate it.

In the blue light of the entire subway system, it wasn't until your phone's light shined on it that you could tell that the thing on the ground actually was blue, and not just lit by the surroundings. Your breath picked up as you instantly recognized it. A jacket, identical to yours but discarded for some reason.

Unless someone else was down in the tunnels that happened to be from the same school, that meant it was Shiho's.

Picking it up, you found out why it was discarded. A giant hole was burned through the back of it, leaving it a singed mess. None of that boded well in the slightest. There was no point in wasting more time investigating the jacket, you dropped it on the floor just the same as Shiho must have. There were only two more paths to check since this one was a dead end not much further down. She had to be somewhere.

(Find Shiho Check DC 40: 64+4=68 Success!)

You were almost running down the tunnel, trying your best not to trip again when you heard her. A scream of pain, a high-pitched cackle, and a yell of anger. It was Shiho!

…And something else.

Breaking into a sprint, you came around the corner and froze as you saw the tunnel light up in bright orange and yellow as a literal fireball flew out into the air.

Luckily for you, the brightness of the fire let you see all the occupants of the tunnel just fine. Just two, one of about your height running toward the source of the fireball and the source itself, some sort of flying pumpkin creature with a lantern.

You watched with horror as Shiho tried to dodge the fireball and failed, hitting her shoulder and making her scream in equal parts pain and frustration. The hit seemed to dissipate instantly after hitting her, thankfully not lighting her on fire as you feared, but it didn't seem like that would have stopped Shiho either way. Hit or not, she just kept on charging.

"Just go down you stupid! Pumpkin! Bastard!"

With that shout, you watched with wide eyes as your friend got close enough to the creature to make it try and dodge, foolishly choosing to fly upward to avoid her. Without a moment's hesitation, Shiho sprung well over two feet into the air and slammed her hand down on the thing's face with a heavy smack of her palm, sending it careening into the wall with a thud.

Unfortunately for Shiho, her landing wasn't quite so smooth. Whether it be exhaustion, an uneven floor, or something off about the force of her hit, she crumpled to the floor the instant she came down. Panic flowed through you, you needed to get to her immediately.

Shaking off your dazed state, you sprinted down the tunnel as fast as you could, the couple dozen meters between you feeling like miles.

You were just a few meters from your friend when you saw it; the creature was getting back up. In an instant, it went from shaking itself up on the floor to flying up with terrifying speed, aiming straight for Shiho. You needed to stop it.

(Combat Roll DC 30: 47+10(Makeshift Weapon+Scenario)+5(Milquetoast)=62 Great Success!)

The demon only had eyes for its target, it had no chance of seeing the teen girl ambushing it from the side. You made no shout, no call out to Shiho, you focused only on stopping it from hurting your friend.

As you tried to figure out the best way to stab it with your stake, something spoke to you in your mind. No words, nothing explicit, just a feeling. One second, you were holding it with both hands and charging wildly, only focused on making sure you got there first and stabbed it at all, and the next, you had an elegant form.

Jump, shift it to one hand, plant your foot on landing, and twist to put every bit of momentum into the motion!

And by the time you realized what happened, it was dead. Dead, and four meters away from you, the stake buried so deep into its pumpkin head that it stabbed through the other side and split the thing half-open in one go after it went flying.

You panted, catching your breath as you tried to add up your actions and figure out what happened. A cough from below you instantly put all those thoughts to the side.

"Shiho!" You shouted.

In an instant, you were on your knees at her side, slowly propping her up and holding onto her.

Shiho looked terrible, and you could tell that even in the odd blue light of the tunnel. Her body was covered with different singed spots, and her face was covered with sweat and grime. It took her a moment to realize what she was looking up at, at which point she tried and failed to say something before her body was wracked with coughs.

You held her tight through it, keeping her close and letting her hold onto you in return.

After a few more coughs, she managed to speak. "What-what happened to pumpkin face?"


"I…don't think he's getting up," you replied. Glancing over, you saw him still in the exact spot he landed a moment ago, yet something changed. The entire thing was starting to dissolve, bubbling into sludge before evaporating into the air. It was already half gone by the time you noticed it. "We're safe from it."

"That's…that's awesome…" Shiho said with relief. She buried her face in your stomach, clearly uncaring about the red slime on your uniform. "We really need to get home…"

You looked up at the tunnel you were in, then thought about the map on your phone. Unless the last off-shoot opened up into a whole other region, you knew where to go to get both of you out of here.

"Don't worry, Shiho, I'll get us out of here."

—

OOC That's it for this update in reaction to the plan, I should be able to put out another update tomorrow going from here!

It took some time since Shiho was a fair bit heavier than you thanks to being far more fit, a fact that earned a weak slap to your shoulder when you finally had her up and walking.

Leaning heavily on you, she did her best to not keep things too slow as you led her back the way you came to walk down what would hopefully be an exit. You and Shiho had similar hopes, that the exit would be nearby and that no other demons would show up. Neither of you had the energy to walk that much further, let alone fight something else.

Luckily, what appeared once you both turned down the last hallway was a subway platform with a large escalator leading upwards. Your knees almost bucked in relief at the sight, and Shiho's nearly did the same.

Getting onto the platform was…a task. The waist-height difference between the platform and the rails wouldn't normally be insurmountable by any means, but helping push Shiho onto the platform and then having to mantle it yourself left the both of you panting with exhaustion.

(Knowledge Check DC 50: 6+7(Learned+)=13 Significant Failure)

You tried for a moment to think about…about… Nothing. You were far too exhausted to think, let alone to try and think about all of the wild happenings going on around you. Breathing felt like it took an infinite times more mental effort than normal, leaving you sucking in air with a desperation that ended up leaving you coughing for a minute before you got it under control.

Shiho, for what you assumed could only be related to why her arms felt twice as hefty as yours and her legs could take her three times as high into the air as your max, recovered much faster. By the time you were trying to climb onto your feet, she was already propped up and much more even-breathed than you. You tried not to let jealousy burn through you, then failed spectacularly at it.

"Were you…sports?" You asked while lifting her back up, legs shaking.

She nodded as she stood, then grimaced as the motion gave her vertigo. Only your hold on her kept Shiho upright.

"Yeah," she said after a second. "Volleyball. I was good at it, but… I transferred in December."

"No tryouts before the change?"

"No tryouts before the change."

That made sense. It would be weird to join a team of people that weren't quite present, and impossible to bond with them and have any good times playing even if you did well. The Botany club wasn't made of the most social people in the world, so it was easy to imagine handling that well even when just joining, but the MRC?

…Thinking of an Amasawa-senpai merely going through the motions rather than getting into trouble every other day did not sit well with you at all.

Shiho groaning in frustration drew you out of your thoughts, only to do the same when you realized why she groaned. The escalator was off. The very tall escalator.

You think you found an opposing argument to Shiho's theory that you weren't in Hell. At least, it felt like you were in Hell now, if maybe not before.

——

Relief came at the top of the stairs in the form of a rest area. Just a little alcove with some benches. To sit on instead of walking or running for your lives.

Was it the smartest idea to stay put rather than leave the place filled with demons? No.

Did either of you have the energy to actually move on without the break? Also no. Rest stop it was.

Shiho didn't try to start up any conversation as you two sat by each other, and neither did you. Resting against each other's shoulders was already draining enough, especially while fighting of the urge to sleep. Taking a break when monsters were around was one layer of stupid. Actually sleeping was a whole other one.

After about twenty minutes or so, or at least what you hoped was only that long, you got up and helped Shiho do the same. You felt slightly better, and Shiho looked marginally worse. As far as you could tell, none of her burns were all that serious despite coming out of some form of literal demon, but that didn't mean that they would feel better after just a short rest.

You were so caught up in worrying about Shiho on your way to the next escalator that you almost missed the elevator to the side just before it.

"Akiko, even if you're lying, I need you to tell me this thing works."

You pressed the call button. After a few painful moments of anticipation, the light turned on with a 'ding' and opened up.

"It works!"

You figured it was the friendliest thing you could do to pretend you didn't see the tears in Shiho's eyes as you got in.

There were sixty-seven floors when you got in according to the buttons, starting with 'S' at the top and going all the way down to sixty-six. You really hoped 'S' stood for 'Surface.' Being on floor four currently meant that you were lucky for the elevator since neither of you could have made it up that many more stairs.

Waiting, waiting, waiting for the elevator to rise, you hoped for nothing else but a normal view of some place close to home.

Stepping out of the elevator into the middle of the night-time Shibuya Crossing was not the 'normal' you were hoping for.

"How the heck did we get to Tokyo?" Shiho asked.

Your shrug gave your answer. Mustering up anything more was impossible for the moment.

The view appeared the same as Yokohama, if not a little more extreme. Watery blood still pooled at waist level and structures of bone and flesh still sprouted from random locations around the world. They seemed bigger than in Yokohama, but the same in appearance.

"Hey, Akiko, what do you think is up with the 109?"

It took just a second for you to recognize what she meant thanks to the darkness of the night, then shock registered that you hadn't noticed it earlier with all the building lights seemingly highlighting it. Rather than the randomness of all the other structures, what led to the 109 building was some sort of path of flesh, like a giant staircase ascending to the highest points of hell.

Just looking at the thing made your head ache with pain, and the wounds on your arms started to scream with a fresh burning sensation. You had to look away immediately.

"I-I don't know," you answered after a second. "But we need to stay away, I think."

"Yeah, yeah…" Shiho agreed. "Good idea. I get bad vibes from that."

It took just a minute to look at your phone and determine that yet, it did work now that you weren't underground. It wasn't like you could call for help, but that did leave you with some other options, though.

[X] Go Home. If there's some way to get on an actual subway line and get out of Tokyo and back to Yokohama, you would really like to get back to your bed now.

[X] Get some medical attention. Your phone shows some nearby clinics and hospitals, not to mention calling 110, should still work even if the EMTs are a little…spacey. You and Shiho could both probably use it.

[X] Arm yourselves. One of the random pop-ups on your maps app showed there was some sort of weapon supply store near you? Shiho did say some demons could show up on the streets, it might be smart to arm up.

[X] Ask Shiho. Maybe she has an idea of where to go, and what to do? She was hurt more than you, her opinion mattered.

[X] Write-In. Maybe there was some other idea you hadn't thought of yet. Anything would be better than standing around.