Just trying to survive here! (SI/Multicross)

[ObsidianNoir]

Intermission 2.1

You know, some people say writing was easy. Just put some words about what you think on paper, or digital document, and boom, writing done.

In theory, they were right. Writing was easy.

However, the multiverse did not only function on theory.

I tried.

Keyboard in front of me, a normal keyboard, since I was more used to that.

My eyes were glued on the screen, in front of me the document. Dialogue was already written.

But those damn descriptions in between didn't want to come out.

No, they would be coming out usually. It was rather easy once I got going.

Once I got going, that was.

If only, I didn't touch the mouse and moved it around, clicking on the internet browser (or whatever the hell it was called in the UFO) to switch tabs.

Moments later, I let out a deep, suffering and frustrated groan.

Why the hell did I switch tabs again on the browser?

I know there was nothing and would be nothing, considering I did this the last twenty seconds non-stop!

Alright, click back on the document and do not touch the frigging mouse, Sid.

With that in mind, I bit my lip, fighting against the urge to search for distractions.

It would be more impressive if I didn't do that routine the last hour.

Apparently, Chrome began to notice that whatever I was doing was weird and looked up from her book as she was sitting on the couch.

Something about Carl Gustav Jung. I think it was Jung's Map of the Soul.

"What are you doing?" She asked in a quiet tone.

My body turned around a bit too quickly, eager to take the distraction.

Still, I tapped my chin for a moment, thinking about how to phrase it.

What was I doing?

It's been one week since we left the GoH-Verse and all of a sudden, I felt the urge to do something else besides training, eating and whatever the internet sucked me into.

Which meant for me, writing.

"Oh, just...diary I guess?" I asked more than said. I shrugged, when I glanced back at the screen.

Yeah, I just began to write down whatever came to mind, which meant my first day in another universe.

So theoretically, it was a diary.

I nodded to myself, arms crossed and eyes closed.

Good deduction, Sid. Have a mental cookie.

Opening them again, I saw Chrome raise her eyebrow at me.

Right, we were still in a conversation.

"Keep track of our journey, so to say," I said casually, waving my hand a bit as a gesture. It wasn't a big deal and it was pretty self explanatory.

"Is it fun?" She asked, as she put her book down.

I put my chin on the back of my spin chair, humming in thought as I swung left and right in a lazy manner.

"Kind of? I mean, it isn't as bad as pulling entire human beings and universes out of my ass, but it's still hard to put it into words sometimes." I chuckled dryly and averted my gaze from Chrome. "Also, the common drive of a writer to do anything but writing."

The girl blinked and tilted her head when we looked at each other.

"Is that why you stood up repeatedly from your chair, only to sit back down?" She asked, minor amusement in her voice.

I hung my head low, causing her to giggle.

"Yes." Taking a deep breath, I then smiled softly at what I've written so far. "Still, it's a hobby like to do. Kills time as well."

Chrome made a "hm" noise, before silence fell back into the space ship, with me typing some descriptions in, feeling a new drive to do this now.

Huh, if this went on, I might get done with this before dinner-

"Do you think I should keep one too?"

Hearing her quiet voice, I turn around again after a small pause. Raising an eyebrow, I looked at her face.

She stared back, innocently.

An honest question, to which I never believed I had to deliver an answer.

I decided to shrug.

"Sure, if you want to." Tapping my chin, it did interest me how she would write a diary. "Helps to keep past events in mind and might show what you thought in the past. You don't even have to use the computer, you can write on paper. I just do it on here because I am more used to it."

The girl nodded and I returned my attention back to the document, believing she didn't say anything more.

Though I did slow down my writing when I hear her shuffle around behind me, before I hear the old, familiar sound of a pencil against paper.

My mouth thinned slowly over time, the more I heard the writing. At the same time, my pace became slower and slower, until my fingers stopped moving.

…

I was too curious.

Carefully standing up from my seat, I turned around to walk towards her.

But right after I took my first step, the teenager looked up and stared at me, pen still in hand as she leaned over her notebook.

The two of us froze in mid motion.

We blinked at each other.

Then, I awkwardly cleared my throat.

"Can...I see what you wrote so far?" I asked, straightening up in order not to look like I was frozen in mid walk.

Chrome blinked for a moment, before nodding with hesitation.

Sitting down next to her on the couch, I leaned over what she wrote.

With Ken and Chikusa, we met Obsidian Noir.

I call him Sid. Later.

We talked.

Training and socialising.

Go to meet Kyoko Sasagawa and Hana Kurokawa.

Sid informs them about mafia. Drink tea.

Girls decide to learn. Happy.

Leave. Get scared by Kawahira, old being of Earth.

Gives credit card.

Later buy clothes. Didn't want girly ones, got comfortable ones.

Went back to school.

I blinked at the first page.

"Huh."

"What?" Chrome asked innocently at my intellectual response.

I slowly nodded with a deep breath, trying to find words to describe what I was seeing.

"It's...very simple," I said in a careful tone.

However, my friend either knew me well enough or heard the underlying tone of her lack of skill, because she frowned slightly.

"Shouldn't I stick to facts?"

I scratched my neck, wondering how to phrase it.

She wasn't exactly wrong, but…

I slowly gestured with my right hand, making a spin motion with it.

"Well, yeah. But in my personal opinion, adding some flair would be more fun," I explained in a patient tone.

Chrome only tilted her head.

"Flair?"

"Descriptions, personal comments, synonyms. All that," I counted, while wiggling my hands towards her, imagining the words getting released from my fingers.

Don't ask me why I did that, I always did when counting stuff.

Luckily, she ignored that little quirk of mine, instead focusing intensely on my words.

After a small pause of silence she bit her lips with hesitation.

"Can...you teach me?"

I grimaced slightly, but when she lowered her head, I quickly spoke up.

"I would like to, don't worry!" She lightened up and looked back up. I sighed in relief at seeing her happy.

Then however, I grimaced again.

"But...teaching writing...Not sure how to do that." I crossed my arms and my forehead wrinkled in thought. "Just keep writing and try to get a feel for it? Oh, and read a lot are the only tips I can give."

"Oh..." Chrome said quietly, her head down like a sad puppy again.

Goddang it.

"I can review it if you want to, giving some pointers if I can," I quickly said with an attempt to sound cheerful. For a moment, Chrome only stared at me. Then she smiled softly.

"That would be nice, Sid." Then she glanced at the computer screen and pointed towards it while tilting her head at me. "I can do the same, if you want to."

I shrugged.

She would need reading practice anyway.

With that decision done, the girl walked over to the computer, while I went through her pages.

I wasn't sure how much time went by, but considering I managed to rewrite the entirety of her whole first "arc" so to say (more like writing enough notes of tips and the like to fill the same amount of pages), it must have taken a long time.

Hell, even with the short, report like writing, I could see read some personal opinion out of it.

Like the reason she decided to go with me.

It was eye widening and warmed my heart.

I was right with my previous assumption she came with me for purpose.

But there was more.

Said I would still go with him.

Reasoning.

Lord Mukuro dead. Important to me.

Possibility of organs from other illusionists likely.

Still wouldn't change decision.

Sid is a friend. He needs me. Saw loneliness.

Just like Lord Mukuro saw loneliness in me.

Him giving me organs is not a big reason.

Friends should stick together.

Can find new purpose together, until Lord Mukuro returns.

Maybe can speak to him on even terms then.

I stared at the segment longer than I should.

And Chrome was okay with that. She knew I would read this and didn't think it was a big deal.

Covering my mouth, I suppressed the urge to cry.

I did her a disservice. And to our friendship.

She was way too good for me.

Letting out a shaky breath, I determined to be worthy for her care. Calming down, I wrote some tips next to the page.

Just when I started however, my friend decided to speak up all of a sudden.

"You are a good writer."

I turned to her, as she stared at the screen with an unreadable expression.

I chuckled awkwardly, shrugging it off.

"Eh, could be better."

"Do all artists say that about their own work?" She asked and spun around to me with a raised eyebrow.

"Pretty sure we do," I said with a wry smile, then noticed how she stared at me with a...melancholy expression, I guess.

My smile wavered.

"Something wrong?" I tried to ask casually, but her face worried me.

Especially since she only stared at me in silence.

I raised my eyebrow.

Was she gonna say anything or-

"You aren't a bad person."

I froze.

She read the killing part.

Her words had no ill intent. She sounded like she believed it, her soft words meant to reassure me.

After what felt like an eternity, I chuckled weakly.

"Oh, read that part, huh?" I leaned forward and folded my hands with a wry smile. "People normally don't feel indifferent at killing."

"It reads more like you enjoy it on first glance," she muttered, but at seeing my wince, she quickly shook her head. "But you know it's bad. So you aren't bad."

"Eh, it's complicated," I said in a quiet tone, before letting out a dry laugh.

I shouldn't argue with her. She only wanted to cheer me up.

But, I couldn't let something slide I believed was wrong.

"Let's say I have low self esteem and killing is an effective, but morally monstrous way to proof myself. Still bad." I let out a deep sigh and stared at the floor with a frown. "Really need to distance myself from that."

"I can try to keep you to the ground."

Her words made me look up in surprise, just in time to see her smile.

I couldn't help but smile back

"That would be nice. Don't wanna go murderhobo," I joked, but against my expectations, she looked at me with a serious, determined expression.

"You won't. Again, you are a good person." Something like a sad smile appeared on her face "I didn't feel anything at killing either and you don't think I am a bad person, right?

I nodded slowly with a stunned face.

"Right...thanks."

Chrome nodded back, satisfied with the result, before spinning back to the screen.

I however, only stared at her back, with a pitying expression.

She had way too much confidence in me.

There was no way we wouldn't kill more people on this journey.

And she was not the same level as me.

All I could do was prevent her from ever falling down on that level.

 

[ObsidianNoir]

Intermission 2.2

I took a deep breath, a frown on my face as I stared at one of the biggest necessary challenges to mankind.

Cooking.

It was important for people to know how to cook.

However, the knowledge was not always there.

Luckily for me, I knew at least somewhat what I would be doing.

Somewhat.

With a simple, yellow t-shirt, there was no need for me to roll up my non existent sleeves, so I had step one done.

Normally, Chrome would do the cooking, because she always volunteered and seemed to be rather good at it.

However, the girl was taking a bath and I felt I should do something nice for her.

So, it was my turn to cook dinner.

Then I remembered that my cooking was not exactly the nicest thing I could do for her.

Oh well.

Considering I never really "cooked" back home in the traditional sense, it would be interesting. Mostly because my father prepped most shit beforehand and I only had to do the simple stuff.

Still, I could make something very basic. Probably.

Anywho, let's focus on what's important.

Food.

Since I was limited at what I knew, I was gonna go with the KISS rule.

Keep it simple, stupid.

Therefore, the lifeforce of every Asian, that was so easily done that a ten year old should make it.

Rice.

All you needed was a pot of rice, wash it, then fill it with water until it had one to two centimeter water over it, then start boiling it.

It even got easier with a rice cooker, which we had.

Washing the rice, put them into the cooker, switch on. Easy.

Now I could focus on other stuff while it did its thing.

Like cutting the broccoli and the salmon.

Because that was the only stuff I ever handled. Well, the former.

I only roasted the latter in oil.

Anyway, on the cutting table, knife in hand and-

I blinked.

...Did I switch the rice cooker on?

I clicked my tongue.

Damn it, every time. It became so routine in my life, I didn't pay attention whether or not I actually did it.

Looking at it, I saw it on "cook" mode.

Alright, my subconscious did do its work.

Now where were I?
Right, cutting.

Cutting broccoli was rather simple.

Cut the pieces of, while slowly spinning the vegetable, then wash it a bit, before putting it into the pot.

Gonna put it in later though, the fish had priority. Besides, I needed to let the water boil up first anywho and it would only take a minute in the water until it was edible. For my standards at least.

With that preperation done, next up was the salmon.

I frowned as I stared at the fish. Or what was left of it.

It wasn't a complete fish, more like the boneless ones you can buy from the supermarket.

Not sure how to get rid of the scales, so I remove the skin entirely. Always liked to eat it, but if you didn't know what to do, better stay away from it.

Then, I cut the fish into long, thinner pieces. About three centimeters thick, I assumed.

It was rather slimy, but I grit my teeth and suppressed the disgust in me.

Anyway, when I got done with that, I had to season it.

Pretty much everything needed oil, as far as I know, so I poured some onto the salmon and into the pot in which the vegetables were going to go.

Salt. Salt was never wrong. A spoon into both pots.

And…

I nodded slowly.

I could add soy sauce to the vegetables after it was done boiling. Other than that, I had no idea what else I should use as seasoning.

Well, as long as I didn't puke from it, I could eat anything.

Besides, the fish should have good enough flavor by itself.

To be honest, I should probably make a sauce.

Too bad I had no idea how to make one, so the method my father told me should work.

Though the vegetables never had much taste with that way…

Eh, just use soy sauce and it should work.

With that in mind, I started frying the fish in the pan, not forgetting to add some more oil on it. The hot fluid was a bit annoying since it pricked my hand more often than I liked. Still, it was not very hard.

Fry on one side, turn it around, rinse repeat until I didn't saw any pink left.

Once I got done with that, broccoli into boiling pod of water, wait a minute, get it out and boom.

With the rice, low budge, low skill food that should be at least meh.

Considering that when Chrome returned from her bath and looked at the food with that meh expression, my prediction was pretty spot on.

Speaking of the girl, she wore her hair down, a bit wet, while wearing a purple and black striped sweater and some white shorts, if anyone wanted to know.

Anywho, I chuckled awkwardly as I put the rice into the small bowls and bowed slightly.

"Sorry if it doesn't have much taste," I said in a somewhat embarrassed tone.

Chrome poked against the salmon, seeing the oil seep out of it with ease, and frowned slightly.

"It's pretty oily," she said in a quiet voice, sounding bit judging as well.

"Too much?" I asked with a small wince and she shrugged.

"Could be worse. Not as bad as fries or the like..."

I raised an eyebrow as I calmly ate the fish.

Hm, did need more seasoning. Oh well, I tried.

"So you don't like junk food?"

Chrome nodded, tasting the broccoli I made. She frowned as well and reached for the soy sauce.

"Pretty much. And pineapples," she said, before focusing back on eating.

I nodded slowly and not so subtly stared at her hair.

She appeared to notice and pouted after swallowing her food.

"I know. And I don' want to hear it." When I raised my hands in mock surrender, she huffed quietly, before glancing back at me. "Do you dislike something?"

"Well, dislike is a big word..." I said slowly. Then I shoved down a good portion of food down my mouth, before putting my bowl down and scratching my chin. "I dislike bitter stuff? There was also a bunch of stuff my father cooked and I almost had to puke. Half of it, I didn't even know what it was in the first place."

"So he cooked a lot?" She asked with a bit of interest, eating much, much slower than I did-

"Cook as a job." I shrugged and reached for a second portion of rice. "And didn't really teach me much. Well, I didn't ask, so there is that."

She hummed, acknowledging my words, before focusing back on eating.

Not much happened while we ate and before we knew it, there was nothing left.

As Chrome wiped her mouth, she stared at the empty plates and bowls.

Then she looked up and shrugged casually.

"Hm. It was okay enough, I guess."

I laughed awkwardly, crossing my arms as I leaned back on my chair.

"Pretty honest there, hm?"

Chrome's mouth twitched slightly.

"I do cook better," she said, sounding rather smug in my opinion. I shook my head in amusement.

"Right..." I leaned forward and smiled at her. "Care to teach me sometimes?"

"Sure," she said with a nod, before helping me to get all the dishes over to the sink.

As she washed the dishes and I dried them with a towel, I decided to do some small talk.

"Where did you learn how to cook anyway?" I asked in a lazy tone.

I flinched back when she stopped moving for a moment and had an unreadable expression on her face.

After what felt like an eternity, she slowly continued to washing.

"Was often alone...had to learn how to do it myself," she muttered quietly and I took a deep, awkward breath.

Right. Parents didn't like her and often left her alone as far as I could remember.

Which meant I shot that landmine with a rocket launcher.

Congrats, Sid. Have an extremely awkward atmosphere.

Suddenly, a "ding" noise toned in the UFO and the two of us turned to the computer screen.

Mentally, I celebrated.

Hurray, a distraction!

What I saw then, made me raise an eyebrow.

"Since when do we get E-Mail?"

Indeed, there was a big letter sign on the screen.

Directed at my name.

I put the plate down from my hands and hurried a little bit too fast to the computer, swiftly sitting down.

Some clicking later, I opened the letter.

What I read was...unnerving and unexpected.

"Final warning. One world."

It was from Kawahira.

I stared at it in silence.

What the fuck, Kawahira, what the fuck.

I didn't even know what it-

My eyes widened slightly and I covered my mouth with worry as I closed the small window.

Oh shit, I forgot my debt for the interior of this UFO and everything else.

I took a deep breath and tried to calm down.

Well, thanks for the warning, I guessed. It wasn't like there was anything to get in the last Universe.

I turned around and saw my friend stare at me with worry.

Might as well share the story.

"Chrome, we gotta loot everything we can in the next universe in order to pay my debt," I said in a grim tone. For a moment, she looked confused. Then, realization dawned in her face, before she tilted her head innocently.

"What if there is nothing to loot?"

I snorted dryly at her comment and leaned back in my chair with loose arms.

"Then I'm probably dead," I replied in dark humor.

Chrome sent me a pitying glance, before focusing back on cleaning.

Guess she assumed I exaggerated.

I sure hope I did.

I buried my face in my hands.

Damn you, Capitalism!

 

[ObsidianNoir]

Arc 2: Shadow Run​

Chapter 11.1

Taking a bath right after a warning from my personal tax collector was probably not the most effective way to deal with the problem.

However, it was the most effective way for me to relax and distract myself.

Sinking into the hot water in what could easily be a public open bath, I let out a deep, relaxed breath.

It wasn't like I didn't spend any thoughts to the money problem. If the next world worked on RPG mechanics, great, I could loot people.

If not, it would be a tad more different.

Wouldn't know it until we got there, so bath it was.

Never really took a lot of baths ever since I was a child.

Probably because the old bath tub we had just had to be positioned were the ceiling went down.

Well, it was worse showering while hunching over until the actual shower was done, but I guess it turned me off on baths ever since.

However, the bad experience made me appreciate the hot bubbles on my skin a lot more.

Even if the space made me a bit uncomfortable. Felt stares where there shouldn't be any stares. And my breath made echoes.

Oh well, relaxing was the important thing here. I was at it for ten minutes, might as well take more time. Maybe even make a few rounds of swimming. Didn't do that a lot since childhood as well.

Of course, I didn't get the time, because fate was a bitch.

The instance I began to let my thoughts drift away from mortal worries while musing what I should do, the door opened.

The next moment, Chrome peaked into the room with a neutral expression.

I raised my head and raised my eyebrow slightly.

Having my attention, she nodded, before starting to talk softly, her voice ringing through the big hall.

"We landed somewhere. Looks like a big city this time. You want to go out?"

I hummed in thought for a moment. Then I shrugged and leaned back, head towards the ceiling with closed eyes.

"Sure, I'll be out in a few minutes," I said relaxed, waving my hand.

"Take your time," the girl said before she closed the door.

Hm, better stay awake then, I mused.

Sighing and crossing my arms behind my head, I wondered where we landed.

Well, wherever it was, a hood was always a good cho-

My eyes snapped wide open, the previous situation dawning on me.

I raised my head, then stared at the door.

Hold on.

She just barged into a man was busy bathing.

…

I bit my lip and nodded slowly, before sinking back into the water.

Yeah, gotta warn her ahead to at least knock. It didn't bother me, but ey, twenty first century customs, right?

Just should watch out not to make a big deal out of it. She only saw my upper body anyway. Which she saw often enough during work out sometimes.

Wow, I was not a good adult for not realizing the situation sooner.

Well, learn from mistakes, they always said.

After five minutes or so of bathing and getting into my clothes, a dark green hoodie with jeans, I walked out of the bathroom, completely dry thanks to using the dry function in the bath.

Dunno why Chrome didn't want to use it, but ey, her decision.

Anyway, time to be a responsible adult.

I cleared my throat and the girl turned to me as she sat on the couch, waiting idly while doing nothing.

She wore knee long black skirt this time, with a white shirt and a red, wool vest over it.

"Just as a friendly reminder, knock first," I said in a casual tone. When she blinked at me in confusion, I gestured with my hand between Chrome and I to elaborate. "Girl running into a man bathing, not so great. Also, politeness and all that."

For a moment, she stared at me with incomprehension. Then, it dawned on her.

"Oh. Sorry," she said, bowing for a moment, before standing up in her usual blank manner.

Guess she didn't really saw a problem, but accepted my reasoning anyway.

Most I could ask for.

As I walked to her right, I glanced at her as we walked to the hatch.

"Any idea where we are?" I asked casually and Chrome shrugged.

"I think this is Tokyo. Or a version of it."

I hummed in thought.

I never was good with locations, so I wouldn't have known from the cameras.

Tokyo could have been a lot of things, so no purpose in thinking up all the possibilities. I never was there, so getting lost would be a problem.

Hope for the best, expect the worst, I decided my motto was going to be.

"Where are we getting off?"

At my question, Chrome pressed the button to open the ramp, before glancing at me.

"Back alley. No one around and I think the ship gives of some sort of 'notice me not' field, so we can safely exit."

"Harry Potter style?" I asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Harry Potter style," Chrome replied back, mouth twitching a bit.

I smiled back, before we walked down the ramp.

Indeed, we were in some back alley. Dirty, trashcans, dark.

By all means, I should have questioned how the UFO fit in here, but then I remembered I should expect anything out of it.

Anyway, while the UFO vanished from the world, we stepped out into the light.

Covering my eyes for a bit, I let them get adjusted to the brightness.

When they worked again, I had to stop myself from gaping.

It was a big, drastic change from the small town of Namimori and the damn mountains.

Il-Tae's home was somewhat similar, but what I saw didn't even compare.

Gigantic skyscrapers, shining brightly in the sunlight. Streets filled with people and cars, the former passing by us in masses. A loud commotion created by said people and cars, on top of the advertisements on some buildings.

Everything looked so...clean. Advanced. Futuristic even, compared to what I experienced before.

It was kind of overwhelming.

Considering that Chrome was hugging my left arm for comfort, she probably was worse off.

"You okay there?" I muttered to her, giving her a concerning glance. She took a deep breath and nodded with hesitation.

"Mh. Just...have to get used to this."

"We can go back if you want to," I said in a gentle tone, but she shook her head after biting her lip for a moment.

"Let's have a look around."

I frowned with some skeptic, but considering the heat in her voice, I guess she wanted to break out of her comfort zone on her own will.

Fine by me then.

"Let's follow the crowd then."

Making sure she kept holding on my arm, we carefully looked for an opening in the human river, then slipped in before letting us get carried by it.

I made sure not to let my discomfort show on my face, considering that I felt squished, but I needed to play the confident adult here for Chrome.

Even though we both knew it was fake, it still helped. Her hold on me didn't feel like a press machine anymore.

I didn't know how long it took, but after what felt like a quite long marsh, with the crowd thinning slightly, something caught my eye and I stood still because of it.

Tokyo Solamachi.

Looked like a neat shopping mall. You couldn't go wrong with shopping malls to kill some time.

"Wanna check it out?" I asked Chrome, who shrugged.

Going in it was then.

With her in tow, I entered the hall, politely greeting the employees and took the area in.

Well, it was pretty much what I imagined it would be, but it was still impressive.

A mix of chaos and order, so to say, as small shops were scattered along the path, while giving off the impression of a lot of color, even though it was rather white.

There was a lot to sell, ranging from toys to food and I clicked my tongue in slight irritation.

If it weren't for my debt, I would totally buy some of it.

Still, looking around was still fun. Normally I didn't like malls, but seeing Chrome stare at everything with wide eyes, taking all in, was worth it.

I was happy for her.

Sadly, happiness was not allowedon this train.

It happened in an instance.

From one moment to the other, the air took on a greenish color. At the same time, the atmosphere began to almost suffocate Chrome and I, as we gasped for air and hunched over slightly at the same time. It was, as if someone made dread a substance and sprayed it all over the air.

I had a bad feeling about this.

The bad feeling turned into terrified realization when I looked up.

Coffins.

Coffins everywhere.

And they were bleeding red, just like the floor.

"Sid, what's going on?" Chrome asked with wary, but instead of answering I took a deep breath.

Then I dropped on the ground with my knees, spread my arms and turned to the ceiling, before letting out an enraged scream.

"Jung, you ugly son of a BITCH!"

 

[ObsidianNoir]

Chapter 11.2

No. No, fuck no.

This was not happening.

I paced around, walking past Chrome for the twentieth time probably, as I literally seethed out rage.

Said girl was rather calm once she got past the initial shock and was rather busy following me with her eyes, standing around and waiting idly.

However, I didn't care and was more busy trying to walk off my anger.

It did not work.

I mean, come on. The Dark Hour? It wasn't even midnight or something.

I swear if this was some bullshit AU scenario, I thought with gritted teeth, I was gonna snap someone's neck.

Neither Chrome nor I were equipped to deal with this crap. Shadows, ideas manifested into reality, the Collective Unconscious of mankind overlapping with the real world…

And for all that, a Persona was needed to face them.

Since I didn't feel much different besides the air trying to choke me, I assumed we did not have that fancy weapon.

I seethed again.

Damn it, I did not get any calmer.

No, I actually got angrier, because everywhere I looked, there was a fat reminder where I was.

"Of course, the Dark Hour..." I muttered in a livid tone, before I raised my voice, anger filled smile on my face as I threw my arms open, as if expecting a hug. What's next, Lucifer crashing the party?! Come on, bring it!"

By the end of it, I breathed heavily because of my yells, but the silence only made me pissed even more.

I kicked against the wall with my right leg, then noticed that Chrome was still staring at me.

"What?!" I screamed at her, frustrations boiling over.

Then I realized who the person in front of me was and I lowered my head in shame.

No, she didn't deserve that.

Hell, I didn't deserve that. Blind rage wouldn't help.

I took a deep breath, slowly counting to ten. When I was confident in my tone, I scratched my head with a flushed face.

"Sorry, I just..." I took another deep breath, before looking up to her and gesturing around. "This is one of the places that scares me. Like, it always did. Dark Hour always looked creepy and Collective Unconscious of mankind going to kill us makes me nervous and pissed, so I apologize for yelling at you and..." I trailed off, my tired, apologetic expression changing to confusion.

The girl barely blinked as she kept staring at me.

With not a single twitch.

I began to sweat.

"How long are you going to stare at me?" When no answer came, I waved my hand in front of her with squinted eyes. "Hello? Everything okay?"

As she finally reacted, in form of a frown, I let out a breath of relief.

Okay, she did not get her brain eaten or similar. Good.

"Did you calm down?" She asked, face softening slightly.

I raised an eyebrow, before realizing, yes, this distraction of hers actually poked a big hole into my body and letting all negative emotion out with ease.

Closing it, I made a vague hand gesture to her.

"Somewhat?" I said with a questioning tone. Then, I put my hands on the hips. "That blank look was a bit unnerving."

She shrugged nonchalantly, not caring a lot about my opinion apparently.

"I always do that when people have a fit. It usually works," she answered quietly.

"So you basically mean Ken?" I asked in dry amusement and her mouth corners twitched. After that however, I narrowed my eyes when I remembered something and pointed at her. "Wait, why didn't you do that in the last universe?"

"I didn't think the soldiers would be patient enough for me to do that," she replied in a deadpan expression.

I opened my mouth to object.

Then I remembered that I had no right to do that, considering what went down and closed it in concede.

Despite her neutral expression, I could feel her smugness radiating from her.

How cute.

On a side note, how come she was easier to fluster in normal, daily life while those life and death situations barely faze her?

Wait, what was I talking about, it did faze her. She just wasn't as much of a pussy as I was and sucked it up instead of bitching around.

I should follow her example and suck as well.

…

Two words, Sid. Two words, and you made an unfortunate mistake.

Shaking my head, hoping that Chrome did not acquire the ability to read minds, I walked towards the entrance, having to squeeze myself through some narrow spots due to the coffins and tried to open it by shoving them aside.

It didn't even budge.

I sighed and snaked my way back to Chrome.

Of course it was closed.

And I had a feeling that even illusions or Dying Will mode wouldn't help.

Because fuck the Dark Hour.

When I reached the girl and she tilted her head, I raised my hands while shaking my head.

"Nope. Not that way." I rubbed my forehead and frowned in thought. "That ain't good. Doesn't surprise me, but still not good."

"What now?" The girl asked, glancing behind her with caution.

Following her gaze, I bit my lip.

This was not the smart thing to do.

But when was I smart, really?

"Only way is go further in," I said with a deep breath, gesturing down the path.

Chrome only hesitated for a moment, before nodding in agreement. It kind of warmed my heart.

With that, we walked deeper into the prison.

Or more like, sneaked through it, due to the amount of coffins in the way. I didn't use my hell ring yet, but I kept my senses sharp.

I was no navi but I had confidence in my scanning.

As we made our way through the coffins, avoiding the escalators for now, we carefully checked into every shop.

Since we were the only ones "awake" at the moment, I was tempted to grab some stuff for myself.

Then I reminded myself that this would be a douchebag thing to do, so I suppressed the desire.

Thankfully, the girl that was with me distracted me.

"Could you explain what is currently happening?" She suddenly asked quietly, clutching her trident in her hands.

I hummed in thought, while my body was still tensed, ready to move.

Whether to attack or to run the fuck away.

"Well, it's been a while since I played the games, but frequent internet usage should have my knowledge going..." I peered around a corner and when I saw nothing, I motioned for Chrome to leave the clothes shop with me. "First things first, how much do you know about Carl Gustav Jung?"

At my glance, she stared back in a blank manner.

"I read a book about him. Back when you were writing," she said, before looking behind us.

I blinked.

Right, she did, I remembered now.

Keeping my gaze ahead, I continued to explain.

"Well, that makes it easier. This universe is basically relying on a lot of his theories, as well as Tarot cards. You know, the cards for fortune telling and all that?" When she nodded, I continued on. "Good. Anyway, let me start from the beginning...There are two forces, two sides of the same coin. Persona, the mask and representation of your ideal self, which in this world translates into summoning a ghost based on mythology or similar and let them beat the crap out of other persona and shadows like a Stand."

"Stand?" She asked quietly and I waved it off as we entered a small shoe shop and carefully opened the back of the place.

Looking in, there was only another coffin.

With that done, I carried on while we left it.

"Not important right now. Anyway, shadows are the opposite. They are what you repress, and obviously you don't wanna show them around like your Persona. Which in turn however leads to a build up and if you do not face yourself, so to say, it can create a monster." As a demonstration, I raised my both hands, shaking around with my left hand on a higher level than the right hand. "Similar to a Persona, only less heroic. Ugly side of yourself and all that. This is all thanks to Nyx."

Chrome narrowed her eyes as she followed right behind me, while checking our back once every while.

"What is Nyx?"

"Basically an alien," I replied casually. When I heard her suddenly stop and saw her stare at me with some disbelief, I nodded with exasperation. "No, really. It arrived here on Earth, orbiting in the moon or something ever since. Its...or her, I guess, presence created the 'fear of death', which in turn prompted intelligent life to spawn." I shrugged and waved towards the ceiling. "You could say she is the creator of this whole place and humanity as a whole."

Chrome slowly nodded, still a bit skeptical about my words.

"That...sounds a bit over the top. Even with all the stuff we went through," she said quietly.

I raised my hands in mock surrender, knowing how ridiculous it sounded.

"Aliens be overpowered. I mean, it's fiction. You have to read some other crazy stuff," I said with some amusement and Chrome giggled a bit at my antics.

However, when I turned back to the front, I was doing anything but laughing.

Nasuverse Types, Worm Entities...

Sure hope we did not have to deal with them because they made everything so far like a children coloring book.

I cleared my throat and hunched over slightly, peaking through the glass of a restaurant.

"Anyway, Nyx technically created mankind and with that the Collective Unconscious just by floating around up there." I made a roll motion with my right hand as I distanced myself from the glass. "Skip forward thousands of years and we have the Kirijo Group, who wanted to learn how to time travel." At Chrome's flat stare, I chuckled a bit. "Yes, I know, stupid idea."

As I was about to turn around a corner, I had to stop and clicked my tongue.

Great, a literal wall of coffins. Why did they have to stand so close next to each other?

We could climb over, but squeezing through gaps was honestly less exhausting.

So, I ignored that path then and pointed at another way, with Chrome following suit, before I went on with the lore of Persona 3.

"In order to do that, they researched Shadows, repressed emotions of humans. Since they had a lot of energy and all that mumbo jumbo, scientists thought it was a good idea." I took a deep breath and rubbed my throat. Too bad all liquid was blood, I needed something to drink. "Through that, they found out about the prophecy of the Fall."

"Didn't you just say they were scientists?" Chrome asked with a raised eyebrow and I shrugged in ignorance.

"Guess they got desperate or something. Anywho, the prophecy was that once humanity lost its will to survive, Nyx was gonna come down and kill of everyone." The girl blinked for a moment, then gestured for me to go on. "Some scientists thought it was an awesome idea and wanted to get Nyx down because...reasons. Apathy, suicidal thoughts, hate towards humanity, whatever."

"Something went wrong?" She asked, seemingly not fazed by this information. I let out a sigh in response as I peaked down on the lower floor just for general reference.

"Not exactly. Everything went according to plan." I gestured around with my hands. "They got a big mass of shadows together, mixed them around and boom, Death was born."

"As in the Grim Reaper?"

I shook my head at her question.

"No, as in the Death Arcana. Or a representation of it. Anyway, obviously humanity is still alive here and that is thanks to a man with a conscience and common sense called Eichiro Takeba." I paused and rubbed my chin thoughtfully as we took a break at a random wall near a restroom. "At least I think that was his first name..."

"Isn't that important to know?" Chrome deadpanned as she sat on the ground, hugging her legs. I sent back a flat look.

"Hey, he appeared by name like...twice." She rolled her eyes and I shook my head before craned up a bit. "Where was I? Right, hero of the day. He objected to the experiment and sabotaged everything, making Death split up into twelve pieces, the first twelve arcana cards so to say."

"Why only twelve? There are more," the girl interjected with a raised hand.

"I dunno. Gameplay limitations or something?" I lowered my arms and crossed them. "However, the whole lab blew up and caused this phenomena."

"Dark Hour," she muttered quietly and I nodded.

"Exactly. It's basically a state where the Collective Unconscious overlaps with reality for an hour and it's basically nightmare fuel pure."

"Because of the shadows?"

I gestured towards the area in response to her question, before my finger rested on a random coffin.

"And everything around us. These coffins? These are people."

This time, her eyes widened, then stood up and put some more distance between her and the nearest coffin.

"Are they okay?" My companion asked in a whisper and I put a reassuring hand on her left shoulder, smiling gently.

"As long as they are in there and nobody forcefully opens them, they are safe." However, my smile fell when I remembered the other part and let out a deep breath. "For people who wake up and don't have the power to...withstand this place...They would lose their shadows, or look like they transform into ones, and then when the hour is over..." I softly let my fist fall down my left open palm and made a quiet explosion noise with my mouth. "Apathy Syndrome. They are basically brain dead, unless this place is gotten rid of."

Chrome nodded slowly, processing all the information in her head. We stood in silence for a moment and I squinted my eyes slightly when they became a bit more hazy.

I clicked my tongue.

Damn it, I had no idea how long we were in here. However long it was, this place was starting to take its toll.

The girl next to me had to blink a few times more than normal as well.

With that in mind, I pushed myself of the wall and made a head movement towards my friend, before the two of us began to explore the area again.

"So...this Dark Hour is caused because of the experiment and Death?" Chrome asked after we made some distance. I frowned at her question, looking into one of the shops, this time a game store.

"I don't think so. As far as I know, the…main cast should have dealt with this already. It took place in 2006 or something. And we have..." I trailed off and blinked.

Thankfully, Chrome paid more attention than me, because she finished it for me in a helpful, neutral tone.

"2016."

I pointed at her and nodded in appreciation while wetting my lips.

"Yes. So either some machine found after the canon timeline is responsible for this, or this is alternative universe material and Dark Hour is at whatever time we had before this started."

I sure hoped it was the former, because I couldn't do anything with the latter.

Before I could ponder more about it, Chrome tugged at my sleeve. Turning to her, I saw an expression of discomfort on her face.

"Sid," she hissed with some caution, face frozen in focus as she stared at the end of the path in front of us.

Before I could ask what was wrong, I heard heavy panting and foot steps, followed by...slime noises.

My eyes widened in realization.

Shadows.

Swiftly, the two of us utilized the movement technique of Ssamsu Taekkyeon, Ssamsu Step, to appear behind a corner. Both of us flinched at bit in pain. Bodies still weren't used to the martial art, something we had to fix later.

For now, we grit through it, before peaking from behind the wall, with my head over Chrome's head.

Well so much for my pride in my sensing. I was so immersed with my explanation I didn't pay attention to anything else.

Thank fate for Chrome.

Maybe I should pet her.

No, not now. Observe situation first, pet her later.

The moment we took cover, a man in a black suit, barely in his twenties, stumbled over his own feet, before turning around and scrambling away in wide eyed fear.

Moments later, dozens of black mud blobs with different eye colors slowly emerged after the man, before beginning to surround him from two sides, from the front and from behind.

To be honest, I was surprised it took so long to hear a victim, much less find one.

You may ask why we didn't help him?

Well, for one, it could have been anyone, maybe an enemy or something, so we had to be cautious.

For two, the guy was pretty much dead anyway, even if I wanted to help him, so need to risk myself or Chrome.

Why I was so sure?

The man felt too much like the shadows already.

Now, it would have been bad enough of the shadows actually ate the guy.

But no, apparently humanity subconsciously despised me, because they wanted to make me puke.

The reason for that thought of mine was the fact that the man was dissolving into a black, muddy liquid.

I bit back the urge and saw that Chrome was very pale as she covered her mouth in wide eyed shock. I pat her back, wincing at the event in front of us.

It didn't last long, until the man completely became a black smudge as well, becoming one of many in this place apparently.

Though I did wonder why they seemed so...organized.

At least they weren't looking at us.

Of course, the moment I thought that and motioned for Chrome to slowly back away, Murphy must have had a bad day.

Because when we turned around, there were a bunch of shadows as well.

And they were looking straight at us.

The two of us blinked.

Okay, maybe not get so mesmerized by man dissolving and focus more on aura sense to prevent ambushes like these.

Future self, appreciate your past selves mistakes.

With that in mind, I cracked my neck with a groan.
"Chrome, time to earn us some money," I muttered.

"Are you sure we can fight them?" Chrome asked with much less ethusiasm than I had, glancing at the front and then to our back.

"If my hopes are correct, yes. Worst comes to worst, we got better at running," I replied with a small laugh and Chrome heaved a sigh, before holding her weapon ready.

I felt my pipe reassuringly in my pants.

I shook my head and stood back to back with my friend, staring at the monsters of mankind in defiance.

Gotta ration my stamina out, so no Dying Will mode.

Old fashioned way it was, I thought grimly.

Then, we charged at them.

///

AN:

This was it for today's episode of "The more you know".

Anyway, as a fore warning: Next week begins college life for me, so I may not be able to squeeze out that many updates.

Or any updates at all, we'll see how I'll get by.

 

[ObsidianNoir]

Chapter 11.3

The moment Chrome and I moved towards our enemies, the blobs seemed to recognize a battle when it was coming. I assumed this, because of the simple reason of them transforming.

It only took seconds and I came face to face with one of many different colored, striped balls with long tongues.

It was not the weirdest type of enemy, considering the masked, black skinned pro wrestlers behind them or the literal rock towers.

Wide variations. Oh joy.

"Is that normal?" Chrome asked loudly behind me, as I ducked under the saliva stained attack, making sure not a single drop hit me.

"Yes, they always transform when fighting!" I yelled back before quickly spinning to my right on the spot and smashed a heel kick into the flying ball.

Now, before you asked, a persona was usually needed to have any hope for physical attacks like mine to affect a shadow.

Because of that, normal human beings had no chance against shadows.

Thankfully, neither of us were normal to begin with. We were illusionists, armed with bullshit martial arts.

Therefore, the kick actually worked, as instead of bouncing off harmlessly, it carved its way into the shadow, before it was sent flying.

Of course, I was not done yet and it was not the only enemy.

I took a deep breath, and just as my right leg landed on the ground, I exhaled before smashing my left knee into another ball that came at me.

It bounced away with great force like a pinball, hitting the other shadows behind it, just like its predecessor.

I grinned widely.

My theory was right! Well, half right.

Now for the other half...

One of the wrestler shadows dashed towards me, arms spread wide open.

If it was that welcoming, I should give it a gift. Taking a deep breath, I focused my mind, before pointing my hand in a claw like form at the enemy.

"UNLIMITED! POOOOOWAH!"

As I let out the scream, the effect I imagined occurred just like I wanted it.

Lightning flew out of my fingers and it electrified the wrestler shadow. And the shadows behind it.

Lightning for everyone!

I kept the current up for a few seconds, until the shadows began to lose form and dissipate into the air.

Only a couple of shadows were left and that was probably because of resistance or some shit.

Anyway, I could not help but giggle in a cheeky manner.

Theory proven.

A persona was a manifestation of mental energy. The closer you were to the Collective Unconscious, so to say, the easier it was to use them as weapons against shadows.

Illusions could be considered manifestations of mental energy as well, however.

Therefore, we were technically using persona powers without a persona to do persona stuff against shadows.

Time to share my discovery with Chrome!

Turning around slightly, I saw her waving in between the shadows, using her weapon to keep her distance.

Huh, guess she wasn't confident in her martial skill and if our schtick worked.

Well, I could solve one of her worries.

"Illusions are working! And I'm not even using the Path or any flames!" I yelled in excitement, before elbowing a tongue attack away and using my left palm to push another ball again.

The girl glanced at me for a moment after cutting off a wrestler's arm that was reaching for her.

"How does that work?" She asked after turning her attention back to her enemies, rolling away from a rock tower castle shadow thing that jumped up and crashed down on her previous position.

"Consciousness of mankind! As long as you use mental energy, if it looks real, it is real! Kinda like using a toy gun and it shoots bullets anyway!" I explained with a wide smile, while imagining a pillar of ice to spawn underneath a similar tower shadow, this time activating my Path of Naraka at the same time.

As expected, the effect became even stronger than before. If I had to put it in level terms, the lightning of mine was rank one while this one was rank two.

Wow, the shadows had to be of the weak sort or I would not be knocking them around that easily.

Anyway, Chrome's answer to me was rather simple.

"Convenient," the girl replied in a neutral tone, before ducking away from a wild swipe of a wrestler.

Making some distance between her and her enemies, she twirled her weapon around and jammed it down on the ground, before flaming pillars erupted from beneath each shadow.

Since she could handle herself, I started to make pew pew noises with my mouth as I formed my hands into playful pistols and shot lightning out of them.

Haha, this was fun!

Also, I noticed, there was a lot of items dropping from the "corpses" of my enemies.

I had to maintain tradition and pick that up. Not only because I was drowning in debt.

Before that however, clearing the area.

It didn't take that long though, since with wide scale illusions, we burned and electrified our surroundings until there was nothing left but the items and money they left behind.

Wiping some sweat of my forehead, I grinned despite my exhausted breath and raised my thumb at Chrome, who nodded with a small, exhausted smile as well.

Anywho, time to carry all that shit.

Sadly, I noticed, there was only so much I could carry with me. So besides a few medicine bottles and a bunch of money paper, I had to leave the weapons and similar sized items behind.

I should have get that infinite sized item bag for the loot!

Chrome giggled at my antics and I think she thought that I was being ridiculous.

Whatever, she did not understand money yet at her age.

The two of us quickly lost our amusement however, when we felt more ominous auras approaching.

A lot of them.

I gulped.

I forgot that shadows had an infinite spawn rate.

Because, you know, humanity's collective consciousness was kind of infinite in a sense.

Which meant fighting was getting us nowhere.

I made sure to make my opinion loud, with a dry chuckle.

"Okay, not so unlimited power."

"Run?" Chrome asked quietly and I raised my eyebrow incredulously.

"Natürlich!" I responded and frantically looked around, ignoring her small pout.

So, they were basically coming from all sides, so had to find an escape quickly.

My eyes rested on the glass from which one could look down on the lower level.

A moment later, I grabbed my friend's hand and ran towards it. Then, I jumped. At the same time, I grit my teeth, my hell ring igniting, and erased our presences.

I left the landing to Chrome, which was a wise choice, because she quickly conjured up a soft, big pillow underneath us, which reacted like jello.

Bouncing on it, we swiftly got off it and jumped into the nearest shop, hiding behind a counter with heavy breaths.

Hugging our legs, I felt like we were children in a horror movie, trying to hide from the bad monsters.

...

I clicked my tongue with worry.

On second thought, that image wasn't that far off.

Hiding in a restaurant, surrounded by shadows was not good on my mentality.

Speaking of mentality, I began to notice my head began to hurt faster than normal.

I forgot that despite the ease to use illusions, this world was still unnatural for the human mind to handle for a long period of time. At least if continuous combat and constant "magic usage" were involved.

And keeping up presence concealment was "magic" in my opinion.

Well crap, in all my excitement I forgot that the Dark Hour was still a death trap.

A death trap you couldn't leave, unless you found the source.

The dilemma made me began to mutter to myself a frantic manner.

"Too many, no idea what is causing this...we will run out of juice eventually and this will be like a death by a thousand cuts...Not gonna go back to hell, fuck you, fate...Come on, there had to be a-"

Before I could go on and hyperventilate, I felt something soft, warm and wet on my right cheek, making my brain restart for a moment.

When it did, I turned to my friend, who blinked at me innocently.

We stared at each other in silence.

"Did you just kiss me?" I hissed incredulously.

To my question, she just nodded in a neutral expression.

"Did it calm you down?" She asked quietly and I opened my mouth to respond.

Then I closed it again with a frown.

I had a weird sense of deja vu.

…

Hold on.

This was the third time.

I thought that was a one time thing in the manga, but apparently she always did that for certain scenarios? I remember she did that in God of Highschool as well.

Okay, I had to ask.

"Why do you always kiss me on my cheek to calm me down?" I asked and she tilted her head in confusion.

"Don't people...do that usually for these...situations?"

We stared at each other in silence.

I nodded slowly, processing her words in my head.

Then I blinked strongly and decided to get a grip of myself, in order to be a responsible older friend.

"Not...really. By all means, you can keep doing it, but..." I heaved a sigh and pat her on the shoulder with a wry smile. "Let's say friends only and only after asking for consent. Okay?"

She nodded after a small hesitation, apparently not seeing the big deal.

I nodded in appreciation, then stopped and narrowed my eyes.

"Wait, I thought the staring was your calming down method," I asked as I put my hand away, crossing my arms with a frown.

"Staring is the slow method, kissing the quick method. More efficient to have several options."

At her explanation, I only let out a small "hm" before staring back at the soft drink machine on the employee counter.

I could not argue with that logic.

For a while, we sat there in silence as I maintained the stealth field as best as I could. After a while however, I began to squirm around with my legs, as no ideas came to me on how to stop this.

Noticing this, my friend apparently thought it was best to distract me.

"I know it's bad that they outnumber us, but...what is making this so much worse than the last world?"

Her curious question was justified.

I let out a deep sigh, hanging my head low.

"Last world had arguably normal human beings and we weren't alone." I gestured around in a tired manner. "This time, we have to deal with mankind's monsters, literally, and are alone. And they are pretty much endless without us knowing how to get rid of the Dark Hour."

She made an "ah" sound, before blankly staring at the wall again, hugging her trident a bit more.

Well, since she already started, I might as well continue the twenty questions game.

"I noticed that you tend to make fire illusions. Any reason?"

"The mist flame makes it easy to visualize," she replied and shrugged. "Also, I like to see stuff burn."

I stared at her with small worry and suppressed the urge to put some distance in between us.

…

Hokay then.

Good she was more focused at staring at the wall to notice my weirded out reaction.

Anywho, I let out a small hiss as I rubbed my forehead and she glanced at me with worry.

I clicked my tongue in irritation, not liking what I had to do.

"Okay, on the count of three, get ready. I have to drop this or I'll waste too much energy I need for later fights. Let's hope that this place is good enough to hide," I explained with gritted teeth and Chrome nodded in response, taking a deep breath before opening her eye again.

"Ready."

I nodded back and closed my eyes, focusing on my hell ring.

"Alright...Eins...Zwei...Drei!"

On the last number, I let the field down and we held our breath.

When nothing happened, we let out a sigh of relief.

Alright, shadows didn't jump us yet.

So we were safe for now.

Question was, for how long.

This place knew we were here now, in the Dark Hour and awake.

They would hunt us down like any good guardsman. And if we stay here for too long…

If I heard chains, I didn't care how tough the walls were, I would rather fight with them than a damn Reaper.

Or hope there was a teleportation function of the UFO I missed.

Not sure if one would appear, but they were stupid Counter Guardian rip offs anyway, who didn't get they weren't completely in the Collective Unconscious.

"Why German?"

Chrome's quiet question threw me out of my thoughts and I shrugged.

"Felt like it."

Before she could reply however, something unexpected happened.

"Hello? Can you hear me?"

Out of all the things I expected, I did not expect a new, female voice sounding in my head.

Suffice to say, the two of us jumped a little and I feared we would have given away our position.

Since nothing happened like that, we breathed out in worry.

As if hearing this, the mystery voice sighed in relief.

"Oh thank god. I thought the worst happened when you suddenly vanished..." For a moment, the voice paused, before it sounded again, this time with more authority and seriousness. "Anyway, I need you to go exactly where I tell you to go. I can promise you, you will be safe if you do."

Normally, I should be more wary about a random voice I did not know telling me it could bring us somewhere else.

However.

The voice was familiar.

Rather young, not too young however, a bit soft spoken...

If this was who I thought it was…

"Sid? Can we-"

Before she could finish her question, I nodded at her sharply.

"Yes, we can trust the spooky voice in our heads," I quickly said, before staring up the ceiling. "Ready whenever you are.

"Am I that spooky?" The voice muttered in a rather sad tone, before it seemed to sober up quickly. "Nevermind that, follow my directions!"

With this, we stood up and began to walk, with the voice guiding us.

And boy, was it a good decision.

Every time we made a "weird" turn or had to wait suddenly around corners and shops, we narrowly avoided squads of shadows.

After some time, we reached what I assumed was a "backstage" area for deliveries or something, because it looked like a generic cold, white looking and empty hallway.

Then, a door opened and Chrome and I didn't even wait for a second to jump in.

The moment we did so and the door closed behind us, the great pressure of the Dark Hour vanished from our minds and I felt a lot more energetic than before.

I looked around for a bit, breathing heavily as I sat on my butt, while Chrome was in a kneeling position.

It looked like a breakroom. Some stools, tables, coffee machine, all the jam. It could fit in ten or so people in here.

At the moment there were three and the third person leaned over us in front of the door?

"Are you alright?" She asked with concern, yet with a warm smile.

I laughed weakly and shook my head at the teal haired young woman with the braid.

If I would know any better, her white shirt would make her look like an angel.

Well, I was gonna think it anyway.

Fuuka Yamagishi be praised.

 

[ObsidianNoir]

Chapter 11.4

SP restoration items. They felt blissful on my mind and I let it show on my face as I leaned back in my chair and let out a relaxing breath.

Only now did I realize how bad the Dark Hour in this place affected me. And I did not only mean the physical, technical side of more SP consumption and all that.

I was scared.

I was afraid for my life once I realized that my actions were futile. Well, futile in the sense of unending waves of shadows coming my way, with me having no idea what to do against that.

Helplessness at its best.

Shaking my head, I rid myself of these thoughts.

Even if I was useless back then, no need to keep thinking about it. Because of that, I looked around to distract myself.

Or rather, looked at someone.

Fuuka Yamagishi.

Calmly, she gave Chrome some tea with a warm smile, giving off a big sister vibe.

Couple that with her appearance and I was pretty sure this was post Persona 3, maybe even Persona 4 Arena.

Anyway, when she brought the tea to me and then sat back on one of the many chairs, I cleared my throat after taking a glance to my left seat neighbor. When she sipped her tea and nodded, I turned my attention back to Fuuka and the two of us bowed slightly.

"Thanks again for the save," I said respectfully and the adult shook her hand after raising her hand in a placating manner.

"No need. It's my job." Then, she bowed for a moment. "Fuuka Yamagishi. Shadow Operative."

"Obsidian Noir. Multidimensional traveler."

"Chrome Dokuro. Same."

The young woman blinked at our somewhat professional and neutral introduction.

"Multidi-" She stopped herself and blinked again, staring at the floor with a thoughtful look. "That could explain how you are awake and were able to fight shadows without a persona."

"Exactly," I replied, happy that she believed it so easily, though I did look around with some worry. "You sure this room is safe?"

In response, Fuuka nodded with a reassuring smile as she pointed at a weird looking silver box on the table.

"For situations like these, my leader made sure to give me this machine. It makes a specific area be shadow free, in a sense."

I let out a "hm" noise and turned my attention back to our "savior".

"Miss Yamagishi-"

"Please. Call me Fuuka," the young woman interrupted me with a raised hand and I weakly chuckled.

"Alright then. Fuuka." He folded my hands on the table with a serious expression. "As you are already aware, I'm aware of all this. Dark Hour. Nyx. Et cetera. Though there could be some changes I don't know of from the...source material."

"Book?" She asked with an amused raised eyebrow and I shook my head.

"Video Game, actually." I paused and frowned slightly. "You are awfully calm about this."

Not that I had anything against that, but I did expect some more disbelief. Judging from Chrome's nod, she agreed with me there.

Fuuka in response let out a sigh and wryly smiled at us.

"After what I went through, not so world breaking. I mean, I do use a representation of the Goddess Juno."

"Point," I said after a small pause and leaned back on my chair. She giggled a bit, before repositioning herself on her seat.

"Still, I am interested what you do know. We could share notes."

And boy, did we share notes.

Good news, this was the Persona canon I could remember from the games.

I got everything right, so to say, even the sex of the main character, Minato Arisato.

Thank fate for that, because it would have caused some very unfortunate difficulties if there were differences.

Shinjiro was dead, sadly, as well as Mitsuru Kirijo's father. The fall was stopped because Minato died for our sins, the time abyss happened, Inaba case also happened (Golden Version with Marie) and Arena and Ultimax was indeed the clusterfuck that it was in the games, as far as I could remember.

After comparing our knowledge, I crossed my arms.

"So, how come you didn't talk to us before?" I asked in a neutral tone and Fuuka chuckled awkwardly as she scratched her right cheek a bit.

"I was a bit busy running away. Multitasking was never a thing I was good at."

"Why are the shadows here?" Chrome then asked in a quiet tone and I nodded in agreement.

"Well, I was already here for simple shopping, when I got the call from Mitsuru that there could be a...well, shadow terrorist in the area, who stole a Kirijo machine," Fuuka explained, before taking a sip from her tea. I processed the information as I stared on the table with a frown.

"You are the only Shadow Operative in the field then..." I blinked, then looked back up at Fuuka with a raised eyebrow. "Wait, if you were here for shopping, why the machine?"

"I like to be prepared," she said with a casual shrug, before shaking her head. "Anyway, I saw the suspect and tried to keep an eye on him while the other Shadow Operatives were on their way."

"Let me guess. He activated the machine before you could stop him," I said in a dry tone and she bit her lip in shame.

I at least was polite enough to flinch at her reaction.

Chrome's frown at me did not help.

"I...am not the best combatant, so there wasn't much I could do." The persona user let out a deep breath and stared into her cup with worry. "Bad thing, it could take a long while until Mitsuru and the others break in. This piece of technology was one of the more advanced ones."

I gulped as I processed the information.

That meant anything could happen. Anything bad.

And the three in this room were the only ones that could do something about it. One pure support persona user and two illusionists with some martial arts training.

Not exactly the best odds.

Chrome and I shared a worried glance.

Hopefully I didn't show too much fear, because I was damn afraid. Chrome at least looked only somewhat worried. Maybe I was wrong.

Anywho, as I was busy trying to get the dark scenarios of how we could die here out of my head, the girl next to me took a deep breath.

"Is the man still here? And what does he want?" Chrome asked in a hardened tone and Fuuka hesitated to answer for some reason.

When I looked up, she had a weird expression on her face.

I wondered if it was classified.

This theory of mine got thrown out of the window when she finally decided to speak up again, after she soothed over her features.

"He is. About what he wants...I am not sure. I think he has a grudge against the Kirijo Group. And did his research, because he recognized me and summoned the Dark Hour as a panic response." She closed her eyes and her forehead wrinkled in thought. "He should be where I last saw him. Where he activated the machine."

"Where exactly is that?" I asked, already feeling dread in my chest.

And lo and behold, I was right.

"On the other end of the building, where the surveillance rooms are," Fuuka replied and bit her lip as she opened her eyes again.

Chrome and I stared at her in silence.

Then he rubbed my forehead in frustration.

"So we have to fight through armies of shadows, beat him if he will be a problem and deactivate it before he finishes what he started, whatever it is. And before we run out of energy or he escapes."

I looked around, for confirmation. Fuuka stared at me with wide eyes for some reason, but Chrome nodded after short hesitation.

"Apparently." We shared a glance and nodded at the same time, before my friend turned to the persona user. "We will help."

After processing our words in her head for a moment, she immediately shook her head with disapproval.

"I can't ask this from civilians," she said sternly and I sighed.

By all means, I really wanted to agree with her.

Honestly, I was not looking forward to this. The fear of death was a big reason, especially since we didn't have more super humans on our side to help us out this time.

This time, Chrome and I would have to do this ourselves, with some support from Fuuka. We would be doing the hard stuff and as a responsible adult and on site agent, she felt and was responsible for us.

Seriously, I would like nothing but follow her order.

Still, if we weren't going to do it, who would then?

We were the only fighters in the area. We were the only ones who could end this quickly.

Because of that, I put up a nervous smirk as I stood up.

"Multidimensional travelers," I replied, pointing at ourselves, before pointing at her with a frown. "And you need our help. Analysis alone won't stop the man."

Before Fuuka could reply to that, Chrome stood up as well, unfurling her trident that was in mini form up until now, and clutched in her arms.

"Not the first time we are in a dangerous situation," she said in a quiet, but determined tone.

For a while, the young woman stared at us with an unreadable expression. Then, she smiled softly and shook her head in an exasperated manner.

"Very well..." Standing up herself, she frowned, yet extended her hands towards us. "But you have to be careful."

Smiling, the two of us shook her hand.

"Please, I want to help, not die. I won't be suicidal, if I can help it," I said with some amusement.

Easier said than done, I added darkly in my head.

Anyway, Fuuka nodded with approval after a small weird mouth twitch, and removed her hands from us.

"Alright. I declare you temporary Shadow Operatives. As the highest ranking number, you have to follow my orders," she said in a raised, authoritative voice. When we stood in attention, she threw out her right arm. "Move out. I will keep watch here."

Shouting "Yes, ma'am" the two illusionists, speak Chrome and I, steeled ourselves and exited the safe room.

Immediately, the pressure was back on again. However, this time, we were prepared and grit our teeth as we jogged towards our target.

Not even five meters away however, Chrome spoke up with a small mouth twitch.

"She looked a bit awkward, wasn't she?"

I held back a snicker, remembering how stiff Fuuka was when she played leader.

"Probably," I muttered and let out a snort.

"I can still hear you!" The voice of our leader rang in our heads in indignation and I couldn't help but snicker harder while Chrome blushed in embarrassment.

Oh, I could only see how these exchanges were going to be fun.

The shadows coming from around the corner were debatable however.

 

[ObsidianNoir]

Chapter 11.5

"Holy shit!"

"Language!"

"Heillige Scheiße!"

I did not know why Fuuka didn't laugh at that joke of mine. It was hilarious!

I knew I did, as well as Chrome.

Well, we didn't laugh for long, because the two of us jumped out of the way of one of these metallic floating cavalry knights with lances, I to the right and Chrome to the left respectively.

Said lance smashed down right in the middle of where we were, creating a compact, but powerful explosions.

The moment the two of us rolled over the ground, we turned around and pointed our palms at it.

Fire came out of Chrome's hand, while I did my Darth Sidious lightning at it.

After getting burned nice and crispy for about a couple seconds of constant magic, it finally vanished into the air.

With great strain on my face, I managed to stand up, but I had to support myself on my own knees, while Chrome panted like me, using her trident as a support.

Now, it had been quite some time since we started to make our way to the cause of the Dark Hour and it was natural that we would get tired.

However, that wasn't the reason I hissed in irritation.

The shadows were getting stronger.

One knight we fought after getting out of the safe room was one shot by one well placed fire pillar.

Now they could survive a good, constant stream of a dual attack for several seconds.

They also started to become more and more numerous. If it weren't for Fuuka's direction, we would have been doomed before we even reached half of our way.

Still, I did not need time to act as pressure as well, thank you very much.

Wiping some sweat off my forehead, I noticed that something was shoved in front of my face. Looking up, I saw Chrome holding a bottle for me, her breath sounding less erratic than mine.

I nodded in thanks, then immediately grabbed the bottle, opened it and dunked the content down my throat.

It was bitter, but exhaustion was an effective means to ignore it, as well as the wonderful feeling of a headache going away.

Good thing we went back to get medical supplies. Would have been real stupid if we hadn't.

Probably the reason why I thought it was blissful when I drank it in the break room.

Now that I was more aware of it, I still shuddered because of it. Still, I let out a breath of relief and shook my head.

That hit the spot.

However, I could see on my own skin that I was running out of stamina, medicine or not. Chrome looked equally pale or even worse.

My only consolation of our situation was simple.

"You're doing great! You're almost there!" Fuuka said in a motivating voice.

That. That was my consolation.

I grinned slightly. I could taste the end.

"What's the kill count at?" I asked, searching for a way to boost my morale even more.

Sadly, none of the girls played along.

The adult of our temporary trio only sent a sigh across our mental connection, obviously seeing my words as hot headed talk.

Probably experienced that from Junpei or something.

Chrome on the other hand...

"I stopped counting after thirty for each of us..." She replied, before her eyes became a bit unfocused. Then, she blinked, gaze normal again and shook her head.

I bit my lip.

As if I needed another reminder of our personal time limit.

Fuuka appeared to notice as well and decided to speak up in an encouraging tone.

"He should be around the corner. Just a bit more."

The two of us, speak Chrome and I, nodded to each other. But before we would walk the final meters, the girl to my right frowned in my direction.

"Do you have a plan?"

I nodded, equally serious and raised my right hand, showing off the hell ring.

"Yes. Stealth, walk over and break his face."

Chrome blinked at me, blank expression staring at me. With a questioning look, I extended my arms a bit. What, was it that bad?

"Uhm, I don't think it will be that easy," Fuuka said after the small pause, trying to sound polite, yet tyring to suppress any meaner comments.

I shrugged in response.

"I know, but I can hope." Then, I waved my hand dismissively, before I closed my eyes to focus. "Besides, it's the best plan I have after 'beat him up in the old fashioned way' and hope for the best."

I didn't hear any objections, so they didn't seem to have any better ideas either.

Anyway, I started up the indigo flame, feeling the pressure on my mind rise, and erase our presence. After I was done with the set up, I nodded at Chrome and we carefully peeked around the corner.

The moment we looked into the hallway, I was certain we were at the right place.

Why?

Because there was no way a door guarded by a gigantic, green snake with several snake heads, who looked around like it expected enemies from all angles, was not screaming "Final boss room, right here" to me.

I let out a sigh and shook my head as I frowned at the giant...shadow or persona, I didn't know what it was.

"Of course the guy is a dungeon boss," I hissed in irritation and my forehead wrinkled in thought. "Looks like a hydra."

I sure hoped it wasn't as bullshit as a hydra. Poison, high speed regeneration of heads and multiplication…

I shuddered. I was no Hercules, whether in weaponry, physical form or skills.

Fuuka's concerned voice in my head did not make me feel any better.

"Be careful! It feels very powerful! It...feels like the Moon Arcana."

"Fuuka, I don't know what that means," I replied dryly. I knew something about Arcana, but I didn't know it from the top of my head.

To my surprise, Chrome gave a quiet response.

"The Moon indicates mystery and usually involved trickery of some sorts in mythology. Depending whether or not it's reversed, the target of confusion may vary from oneself or others."

I turned to her, raising my eyebrow?

"How do you know that?"

"I read it in a book," she said with a shrug and I let out a small grunt.

"Well, that's great...But I didn't actually mean that." I stared up the ceiling, in order to talk to our persona user. "What are its powers?"

Thankfully, our senior decided to elaborate on this with a swift response.

"If the enemy is from the Moon Arcana, it means that it should be physically inclined rather than magic. But I need more information..." She muttered, before pausing. Then, she took a deep breath and went back into overwatch mode. "Try to walk around it."

I made an uncertain sound with my mouth.

Not sure if that was possible. It did look a bit narrow between the hydra and the door.
...

Eh, I had a hell ring. What were the chance the fucker knew where we were?

I made a hand motion with Chrome and we both slowly walked from the left of the hydra, approaching the door. The heads didn't react, so my plan apparently worked.

Slowly, ever so slowly, with bated breath, we reached the door. I took a deep breath and put my hand on the handle, ready to run into the door and break the machine and the culprit.

Not specifically in that order.

Suddenly, my hand wasn't on the door handle anymore.

Or rather, I wasn't in front of the door anymore.

I blinked, before my brain processed the motions it was put through. Immediately, I looked to my right, just as Chrome let of both of my arms, breathing heavily as if she just ran a marathon.

So she used Ssamsu-Step, the instant movement art.

I could guess what the reasons were.

I thanked the girl, whose mouth corners twitched despite the exhaustion, before I turned my gaze at the hydra.

All heads stared right at us, tongues flicking around in what I assumed was anger.

Considering that one of those head just removed itself from the door it punched a hole through, I knew why.

The fucker knew where we were.

How?!

"I think he noticed how you vanished and this time made sure to track you!" Fuuka replied, easily reading my emotions and I dispelled the stealth field with a loud groan.

"How does that work?!" I yelled, getting into the Ssamsu-Taekkyeon battle stance in front of Chrome, who still was catching her breath on her trident.

"It's not very hard. If you know what you are looking for, it's rather easy. Whatever you are doing isn't absolute. There are some traces," Fuuka explained in a grim tone. "Didn't you notice that I linked up with you even though you are using your stealth?"

I blinked for a moment, my stance slightly wavering.

Right, she did had the connection up despite me using the hell ring.

How didn't I notice that?

Wow, good job at being attentive, Sid.

"So, if somebody knows we are there and knows what to look for, I need to upgrade my stealth?" I asked in a dry tone, as the hydra carefully observed us, snake heads making those...snake motions.

"Essentially. But I didn't expect this person to have such abilities..." The persona user muttered, concern in her voice.

I on the other hand cracked my neck.

Okay, stealth was out of the picture.

Somehow.

I glanced at Chrome, who stood next to me, with her weapon in hand. The two of us nodded to each other.

Old fashioned way it was then.

 

[ObsidianNoir]

Chapter 11.6

"Old fashioned way it is then!" I yelled out loud and at the same time, I started to dodge the headbutt attacks of the hydra.

Easier said than done, because they were basically annoying whips.

Suffice to say, I needed to keep my feet on the ground, because the moment I was in the air, I was as easy to hit as a pinata.

Therefore, I needed to move. Non. Stop.

Obviously it was not the best plan, but it was a core requirement to survive.

It was exciting, at least.

Weaving away from a snake head, only to immediately duck, before sliding over the ground to do my Taekkyeon-Flashstep, all the while punching against the heads that I couldn't dodge completely in order to set them off course.

Rinse, repeat.

Luckily for me, the hydra's attacks were limited, because it was in danger of creating a knot with its necks if it weren't careful in attacking.

Still a pain in my ass though. Especially since my punches, knee strikes and similar didn't make the heads flinch much.

On top of that, I lost sight of Chrome after the first few strikes.

...Wait, that wasn't a bad thing. Cluttering up would have been counterproductive for us.

Also, damn. If I moved as well as she did, GoH-Verse really gave me a biased view of how fast humans were supposed to be.

Normal humans (for my first life's standards) should not be fast enough to dodge eight plus heads in an extended period of time.

Still, I couldn't dodge forever. Stamina and all that. If I was on the defensive without doing any damage, I lost already.

Because of that, when I spun to the right, letting a snake bite barely miss me in front of me, I used the momentum to bury a left straight into its eye.

Without waiting, I unleashed a barrage of cross punches into it, before ducking low on the ground to avoid another head from the right. Then, I turned around, staying low with my hands on the ground, before I pushed, while shooting my left leg at its underside as if I was a horse.

A small part of me wanted to grin and enjoy the feedback I got from my attack.

The pussy part of me muttered "shit" repeatedly in panic as I hurried out of the area, just before four heads at once smashed into each other.

On the plus side, I knew I could walk, or run, on my hands for a short period of time, neat.

On the minus side, I tumbled over after losing the momentum of speed and fell flat on my back.

I stared up with ragged breath and a pained expression.

And I didn't like what I was seeing, even upside down.

The head I targeted shook its head and only hissed in what I assumed was slight irritation.

Just like the other heads hissed at me.

Meanwhile, I could see at the edge of my vision how the other half set of heads were doing...something behind it.

A flash of steel swiped against one of the hydra's necks, creating a small scar before it got healed away.

Huh, so Chrome was there. Good to know.

Anyway, I rolled my eyes with a groan as I quickly raised myself, making sure to use the small break to wipe my sweat of my forehead.

Okay, I knew for a fact those hits should at least fractured its hypothetical skull.

"It's resistant to all physical attacks!"

And there was my confirmation, from our resident navigator herself.

My frown intensified, as I stopped short and jumped away from the wall on my left. Couldn't get myself get boxed in after all.

Welp, Dying Will mode was out as well.

Didn't want to use it in the first place anyway. It would risk me running out of energy real fast and Chrome would suffer because of it.

The resistance was just another argument to not be deadweight with high risk, medium reward strategy.

Magic it was then.

Only had to find a good opportunity. Preferably nailing as many heads as possible as well.

I shared a glance with Chrome, in between the gaps of the necks and we both nodded at the same time. Right after that, we disengaged, using our stepping technique to get out of range instantly.

Despite the burning in my body, I took a deep breath, focused and threw my palm out.

"Obsidian, wait! It can reflect-"

Before Fuuka could finish her warning however, the electricity already shot out of my hand. My eyes widened and relying on my experience of fictional stories, a warning could only mean one thing.

What I just did was a bad idea.

Not waiting for the results of my action, I put my all into getting the fuck out of dodge.

Just in time, because while my body screamed in agony as I flash stepped again, it was better than having my own attack be reflected back to me.

"...Lightning," Fuuka finished lamely and I let out a dry chuckle despite my heavy breath, gritting my teeth afterward to bite through the pain.

It did not help that all snake heads directed at him looked smug. At least as smug as a snake could get.

"Alright, gotta wait for analysis to finish, roger that..." I muttered with great annoyance.

That annoyance turned to a gleeful smirk when the hydra with all its heads let out a loud scream of pain when it got engulfed in fire pillars.

Right after that, I could hear Chrome's voice yell, despite sounding tired.

"Flames appear to work!"

"It's not a weakness, but it's better than no...thing..." Fuuka trailed off and she gulped across our mental link. "It doesn't have a weakness."

Great.

"So burn it until we turn it?" I said loud, trying to speak over the screams of burning snakes and lean to the right in order to spot my friend.

Said friend stared at me with a flat expression, while holding her trident on the ground, as if she just jammed it into it.

Hell, I could feel Fuuka stare at me with the same face, despite her not being here in the first place.

"Did you just try to rhyme?" Chrome asked, before taking a deep breath and raising the intensity of the fire pillars.

"I need something to cheer me up here." I shrugged. "I think it made more sense in my head."

Before I could say anything more however, the hydra did...something.

It stopped screaming, as if taking a deep breath with all heads despite the fire.

Then, it roared and something came out of all mouths, splattered all over the place.

It was in enough volumes to extinguish the flame pillar it was in.

Not wanting to test out what it spat out, I put several meters between me and the hydra, as did Chrome.

The monster was scorched, but it did not look very close to death.

Actually, it looked more pissed than before.

Probably felt like I did after I saw what its spit did.

Dissolving the ground, that was. And considering how the...smoke, I guess, filled up the air, I assumed this had a poison effect.

"Oh, of course it has acid!" I yelled, before making sure to cover my mouth.

As if we weren't on a time table already.

 

[ObsidianNoir]

Chapter 11.7

"It's filling up the air! Cover your mouths!"

Fuuka didn't have to yell me that twice in order for me to frantically create a mask around my mouth. Looking like one of those rebreather masks you see on gas masks, it hat the sole purpose of filtering poison out.

I had no idea how gas masks work, but it didn't matter. If it looked like an item, it would work like the item, that's how the Dark Hour and similar places worked.

Still, it was only a jury rigged solution, coupled with the protection goggles I whipped up.

First, the fake items sapped on my already waning energy resources.

Second, I could feel the steam of the acid start to sing my skin a bit. Not outright dissolve it, but I could feel a constant, small burn.

Third of all, the hydra was not satisfied with only spitting acid, because it did its rapid headbutt strategy again.

Oh, and fourth, Chrome had the same three problems as I did and she had less endurance than I did.

Suffice to say, I was not pleased, as I weaved between the acid and attacks, while also throwing some punches and kicks here and there in order to get some breathing room.

Left hook against a head to me right. Duck away, let another head smack into the previous head. Right uppercut, followed by left kick to my back. Use left kick as leverage to push myself up. Then, right knee with the help of gravity down on another snake, more to my left.

Land on ground, flash step, get out of reach for normal heads and keep watch on acid attacks while dodging.

Take that pattern and you got the gist off what this fight was going to look like until the end.

Hopefully, the end being with Chrome and I alive.

"Too many goddamn heads!" I yelled out in annoyance. Then I hissed when some acid hit my right sleeve and ripped it off immediately.

That little distraction of mine however turned out to be fatal.

Because apparently the damn snake waited for another opportunity like this and also was most likely jobbing it.

Why?

Well, I was certain the necks did not reach me with the ten meters or so distance I made up between us.

Considering two of those heads shot forwards in double the speed than previous, I was understandably surprised and jumped into the air out of panic to dodge the first head.

Since I was in the air however, I could not dodge the second one. Try as I might by tilting my body to the side, it still hit my front on the right side. More specifically, my rib area.

I spun like a beyblade, spatting out fluid in pain and slid over the ground before I held my side in agony.

From my anatomical knowledge gained to keep Chrome alive, I was relatively sure I cracked or even broke a bunch of ribs. Not sure how many, but it didn't change I was extremely in pain.

Honestly, I was more surprised I got off with only that much damage. Maybe I was superhuman already, or the hydra had shitty physical stats in offense.

Opening my eyes in pain, I saw how a couple of the snakes opened their mouths.

I gritted my teeth and tried to scramble away. But considering I used the flash step a bunch of times already, on top of the damage I suffered, there was no way I could get away in time.

To my surprise, I didn't need to. Not really, at least.

Just as the acid was about to be spit, the heads screamed in agony due to them spontaneously exploding into indigo flames

Except for one head.

It would have been counterproductive to light up the head one would jam their trident in, after all.

Chrome's rather cute battle cry was appropriate with her facial expression that screamed how she did not want to do this.

This, as in flash stepping up on the head, using up her reserves to burn shit and play a modification of a rodeo in order to make sure I didn't die like a bitch.

One more thing I should be ashamed of.

Still, it was amusing to see her face when she lost her grip on her weapon and yelped in panic as she was thrown off.

Less amusing was the fact that she was thrown against me.

I only had enough time to widen my eyes and lose my smirk before she crashed into me.

Right into the ribs.

At least the hydra was more busy being in immense pain, given the trident stuck in one of the heads and a lot of burns.

It still didn't look dead enough, however, and that pissed me off.

"Are you guys okay?!"

The two of us groaned in response to Fuuka's question as we raised ourselves. Holding my side with gritted teeth, I shook my head.

"Relatively..." I glanced at my friend to my left and nodded. "Thanks for the save."

"Thank me later," she replied, though I did spot her mouth twitch. Then, she frowned at the hydra that started to gain its wits again. "Didn't work out as well as I wanted it to be."

I let out a dry snort.

"Welcome to the club." Trying to ignore the pain, my body was tensed as I glared at the obstacle in front of us."This isn't working...it has way too much stamina."

"And you don't have enough stamina nor the proper equipment to deal with this," the persona user said in a grave tone and I nodded in agreement.

"Especially with that many heads taking pea shots at us all the time," I muttered and let out a sigh. "I am open to suggestions here."

"Maybe we could try to use the trident as a lightning rod. Would that work?" Chrome asked, rubbing her ears at the loud noise the hydra was making as it frantically shook its heads around in a feral frenzy.

If it weren't in such a pain, I assumed it would have taken off the weapon a long time ago. Better for us then, to give us time to strategize.

Anyway, I could hear Fuuka grumble over the mental link as she mused over Chrome's idea.

"No, it wouldn't. Reflect is rather straightforward." She paused and I could imagine her biting her lip. "Perhaps you should retreat for now. It's too dangerous to continue this."

My eyes widened at hearing this. Then I lowered my head as I contemplated her words.

Fuuka didn't believe we could pull this off. Why should she? We weren't like the experienced shadow hunters the Shadow Operatives, her team were.

Hell, we were already losing this.

I didn't blame her. She was kind and wanted to make sure we would be okay, as the younger, inexperienced ones in this situation. I thanked her for that.

By all means, she was right. It was the smart decision to back off now, given that we didn't have anything to beat the hydra quick enough, with the abilities we currently had.

But damn it, I did not like the feeling. The feeling of being dead weight, of being angry at myself.

Because of that, my gut decided for me, instead of my brain.

Was it stupid? Hell yeah.

Apologies, future self, but I did not care.

I grit my teeth and stood up, my hands curled up in fists.

"I already injured myself and wasted five minutes of my life here, I will see it through." I took a deep breath, trying to ignore my pain, and observed the hydra. "Just give me a minute..."

"But-"

To my surprise, Fuuka got interrupted by my fellow illusionists, who also stood up with determination in her face.

"It's too dangerous to leave it be. It could do immense damage if we flee."

With those words, she stood by my side, staring at the hydra as well. I smiled for a bit, before refocusing back on finding a way to beat that thing.

Obviously, our navigator was not pleased about our actions.

"It's still reckless! Listen, I know that you want to finish this, but you won't be able to! Please, listen to me!"

Her worry almost made me follow her wish and run away.

However, I tuned out her objections and tried to find a path beat the damn snake.

Judging from how it began to calm down and try to reach for the trident in one of its heads, we didn't have much time.

Physical attacks didn't work, at least not blunt attacks. If we were better in Ssasmsu-Taekkyeon, this would be easier to deal with.

Weapons could work, but that would sap away more energy than creating simple flames. Besides, we would need dozens of tridents to jam into the hydra to kill it, by my estimations.

Speaking of flames, they were the only thing that actually hurt it enough to matter.

But our...well, magic wasn't strong enough to scorch the beast into nothingness.

We needed more power…

Damn, if only we had the mental energy of a wild card or something and this would be a curbstomp.

…

Mental energy?

I narrowed my eyes in thought when an idea came.

Hm. That could work...never tried it out, but improvisation was the mother of all ideas.

Or something like that.

Let's hope that works.

"Fuuka, Chrome, I have an idea. If this doesn't work, we'll run."

Chrome glanced at me in confusion, but nodded after a small pause.

Good, she was willing to risk it.

Question was, if Fuuka would do the same.

For a while, she was silent.

"Depends on the plan," she said in a quiet tone.

I blinked for a moment. The leader like voice was a bit weird.

Nevermind that. Gotta explain.

"Could you link me up with Chrome? I mean, as much as possible?" I asked, feeling a bit awkward in phrasing my thoughts. My friend blinked at me in confusion.

"Why do you need that?"

Hearing Fuuka ask that, she didn't know what I was talking about either.

I bit my lip and started to gesture with my hands.

"Sync up our minds. Two brains for own illusion. Efficiency equals power here. The basic idea of the Collective Consciousness should boost it up immensely. At least I think so."

I let out a ragged breath after my explanation, the pain of my ribs flaring up again and I shook my head.

Fuuka meanwhile hummed in thought, before letting out a sigh.

"It could be difficult...but I can try. But you have to run if it doesn't work, you hear me?"

"Roger that, captain," I said with a smirk.

I shared a glance with Chrome and we both nodded.

If this worked, we could win this.

If not, well, it would be nice to know for future reference.

Hm, I wonder how-

My eyes widened wide when Fuuka did her thing, at the same time as Chrome's did.

Hokay, that was trippy.

Describing what I...we felt would be near impossible.

But it didn't mean I...Sid wouldn't try.

As much as it wasn't appropriate right now.

Hush, Chrome.

Anywho, it was basically a storm of emotions. Like, two people's worth of emotions crammed into Sid's body and shaken around like a milk shake.

We didn't read each other's mind, but given the tight link between us, it was easy to find out from the emotions alone.

Less thinking, more illusions.

Right.

The two of us took a synchronized breath and raised right hands.

Then, the two of us concentrated on one simple thing.

Burning the hydra, that finally managed to rip off the trident.

We both took care of one half, so to say, with no words shared.

Before, there were gaps in our illusions so to say. When we created a flame, we had to pay attention to a lot of stuff at once.

Now however, we reduced the gaps, since we both had our own "area" to focus on, refining it.

The result we envisioned was glorious.

Time to make it into reality!

"Sync Flame!" Sid exclaimed and there was enough judging emotions directed at him that he didn't need to look at Chrome to see her raised eyebrow.

Nevertheless, it did the trick.

As the hydra was about to turn its full attention back to us, it got interrupted.

Interrupted, by the blazing fire that incinerated it completely.

Compared to the fire pillars we created beforehand, this was more akin to a concentrated nuke.

Unlike the fire pillars however, the nuke was as close to reality as possible.

Dark hour, two mist flames and a Path of Naraka made it perfect enough.

After the explosion occurred, the two of us carefully peaked into the smoke.

When it cleared, there was nothing left.

We looked at each other with ragged breath, but clear relief.

"It's down..." Fuuka said in some disbelief, but then shook it off before her voice got more cheerful. "Good job, you two!"

"Thank you for the help," Si...I said and wiped the sweat of my forehead with a weak laugh.

Mentally, I celebrated a hell of a lot more. As in, I imagined myself to throw my arms up in celebration and scream those words in my head.

Whohooo! Alive, baby!

"Quick, you need to get in and deactivate the device!"

At Fuuka's urging, Chrome and I nodded to each other.

Right, celebration later.

Hurrying to the door, while I held my side as the pain flared up again, Chrome quickly picked up her trident. Immediately after that, she opened the door and the two of us stepped in.

Inside the monitor room, a shady looking guy in a hood and what I assumed was black hair strains coming out from it, looked like he was in a lot of pain as he hugged himself with a lot of groaning.

Noticing us, he glared at us and snarled.

"Damn you! I won't-"

A loud crack sounded and the next moment, the man's head hung limply over the back of the chair, eyes rolled up. At the same time, I hissed in agony as I lowered my right foot.

Okay, maybe I should have gone with a punch.

When I noticed Chrome blinking at me, I shrugged in defense.

"What? Only unconscious. He can have his evil monologue in a prison cell or something. I am done with this crap."

"Fair enough," Chrome replied with a simple nod.

Fuuka meanwhile let out a sigh, but decided to focus on her mission, as she made a cal.

"Mitsuru, the situation is under control. Please bring us a pick up." She paused for a moment. "It needs to hold four people, myself included. Medical help might be required for at least two people."

As she hashed out the details, I walked over to a weird looking, black box the size of a laptop.

That was probably the Dark Hour machine.

I leaned over it and then grinned.

An off switch! How convenient!

I didn't even hestitate to touch it.

A moment later and the pressure of the supernatural air vanished instantly. Chrome and I sagged down on the floor in relief when the weird color disappeared.

It was over.

I weakly raised my left hand and my friend stared at it in confusion. Then it dawned on her and she touched it with her one hand, before both of them fell down like wet paper.

Chuckling a bit, I shook my head, with Chrome giggling at the same time.

Eh, we tried.

"Hm, weird. I thought the side effects would kick in now."

Hearing Fuuka's muttering, the two of us paled a bit.

"Side effects?" I asked with worry.

Oh, how I wished we didn't get the answer.

The answer came in form of an immense migraine. As we hunched over in even more pain, holding our pain with loud groans, I couldn't help but find this amusing.

At least I didn't pass out.

Improvement, everyone.

 

[ObsidianNoir]

Chapter 12.1

Awkwardly, I scratched my stomach a bit as I looked around. The damage might have been healed, but it still felt a bit weird for me.

Either that or I wasn't used to wearing a shirt with buttons.

Never liked those little buggers, even if they were fancy to me.

Anywho, I wasn't sure if canon ever showed a picture, so I was not sure if it did look like the office I was in currently.

It was very fancy, fit for a CEO though.

Big window walls, or whatever you called them, let in the natural light. It gave the room a more uplifted touch.

Considering paper work was to be done here, I guess Mitsuru would need any factor to cheer her up.

Overall, the office was...well, tidy. And rich like.

Some plants here and there, not big enough to cover something, but big enough to look nice. Leather couches, a blue colored carpet, white wallpapers with grey symbols looking awfully a lot like persona masks…

I heard someone female clear their throat and I straightened up in attention, my back scraping against the red cushioned wood chair.

Probably some fancy wood, hell if I knew, judging from the way it was shining, despite being dark brown.

Same color as the big ass, White House president like table I was sitting at.

With Chrome to my left and Fuuka standing behind her boss, Mitsuru Kirijo.

All three of them gave me a flat look.

I blinked.

Right, I was in the middle of a meeting here.

Clearing my throat with a small blush, I scratched the back of my head with a nervous laugh.

"Sorry. It's…a bit weird to be in the office of a CEO and leader of a black ops group. At the same time."

"Really?" Chrome asked in a dry tone and I shrugged in response.

"Relatively, yes. Not that long in this...business."

I wiggled my hand a bit for emphasis and my friend let out a small "hm" in response, accepting my reason.

It's been a week at most since I was in this shonen multiverse travel thing.

Anyway, Mitsuru moved her long, dark red hair with her left hand a bit, and leaned back a bit as she observed me calmly with her red eyes.

"I have received Fuuka's report. Still, I want to hear your version."

I nodded slowly.

Wow, with that fur coat of hers, her voice sounded about as regal as she looked like.

"Sure thing," I replied, clearing my throat awkwardly as I folded my hands and pointed at her. "Multiverse theory."

She didn't even bat an eye and stared at me with an unyielding steel.

Right, CEO. Had experience in staring contests.

I shrunk down in my seat and bit my lip.

"You don't seem surprised."

I let out an meep that was quieter than my sentence when her eyes grew...more flat.

"My grandfather wanted to achieve time travel abilities and would have succeeded if he hadn't lost himself to apathy. Then, one of his scientists almost brought on the apocalypse. That was before SEES entered a place called the Time Abyss, which involved time travel. Not to mention the Dark Hour itself." She let out a small sigh and crossed her arms with a frown. "Also, I did say I got Fuuka's report just now, didn't I?"

I blinked for a moment, before blushing.

Right, she did.

Fuuka averted her gaze in pity and Chrome slightly shook her head, which made my face flush even more.

I scratched my right cheek.

"Point." I let out a nervous laugh and clapped my hands, trying to calm down. "Anywho, I am pretty sure I know most of your story."

This would be the point where I would describe what I recounted.

But since I already did that with Fuuka, I won't repeat myself. Go read that chapter!

For the lazy ones, the games were canon. Minato Arisato as the main character, Golden being the main timeline, yadda yadda, yadda…

This story was about my journey, not about the games that there should be millions of playthroughs out there.

Anyway, after I recounted everything of my knowledge about the Persona franchise and what happened in our mission as temporary shadow operatives, I took a deep breath and leaned back, slapping my thighs playfully.

"And that's it."

Then, we stared at each other in silence, as information was processed and people waited for the other to say something.

I was in club waiting.

Luckily, I didn't have to stick around in the club too long, since Mitsuru nodded and leaned forward, folding her hands calmly.

"You didn't receive a persona?" She asked, looking at Chrome and I. The two of us shared a glance and when Chrome shook her head, I nodded and turned back to Mitsuru.

"Pretty sure." I gestured to myself, then to Chrome. "Didn't face the shadows and or received it from divine intervention or anything."

Mitsuru hummed with interest and held her chin as she leaned back.

"Perhaps the...multiverse theory could explain why you didn't receive a persona."

"Or maybe we weren't suited for the whole 'face yourself' thing yet." I shrugged. "We can never know."

Letting out a sigh, I rubbed my left arm a bit.

Honestly, I was glad that didn't happen. I didn't want to face my inner demons, because I was sure I was not strong enough to face them.

Besides, I was pretty sure what I would see.

A great disappointment would be one of them.

…

Okay, enough of that, me.

"So, what happened to the dude with the hydra?" I asked, trying to sound casual as I wet my lips.

In response, the leader glanced to her friend with a neutral expression. Fuuka stared back in response.

I blinked at the silence and the unnerving staring contest the two natives had.

Wow, I wished I would reach that kind of innate understanding with other people someday.

Maybe...

I glanced at Chrome, who observed the table intensely and moved her finger over it with curiosity.

...

Nope, no reception. Too bad.

Before I could experiment more on the hypothetical connection between Chrome and I, Mitsuru moved in my peripheral vision and I straightened up in attention.

"Very well." She sighed and bit her lip. "He...lost consciousness five minutes into the interrogation. Right now, he is currently in a coma." When she looked up, she smiled reassuringly. "It's not your fault."

I cracked a weak grin, mentally relieved.

Puh, I didn't give the guy brain damage with that kick.

Though was I that transparent?

Judging from how all females in the room nodded in sync, I was.

Quick, a distraction!

"Apathy Syndrome?" I asked, trying to ignore my face heating up and trying to look as serious as possible.

Nailed it.

Thankfully, the others rolled with it and Mitsuru shook her head, full business mode.

"No, it's different. His self is still there. It's more or less sealed off."

I sent her a questioning look.

Huh. That's a new one. And concerning.

So his shadow, persona, whatever part of his self didn't leave him.

Hm...Not smart enough for this and stating the obvious like deities or something wouldn't help. And since Chrome didn't say anything, I assumed she knew that she didn't really have anything substantial to add either.

With nobody saying anything, the woman continued on and rubbed her forehead in minor frustration.

"We didn't get much information out of him. Only that he wasn't alone in this, had a grudge caused by my family and had access to top secret areas."

I nodded slowly.

That didn't narrow it down at all and I couldn't think of anything or anyone who would be more likely as the real culprit.

I sighed and lowered my gaze.

Freaking Persona with its mystery stuff. I never was good at that.

"So...what now?" I asked lamely when the silence began to grow awkward.

"When will you leave?" Fuuka asked as Mitsuru blinked at me in confusion, probably the headache of hers being the reason for her spacing out for a moment.

"One week at most, according to the computer," Chrome replied, deciding to give me a break from talking and I smiled at her.

"On what basis do you know that?" The CEO asked, having her wits again, and I let out a deep breath as I thought about it.
"I...assume the UFO is leeching off local energy. If it's arcane, good, it's faster. Probably. Maybe it's smart enough to calculate the flow of energy or something?"

Mitsuru and Fuuka stared at us with disbelief.

I shared a glance with Chrome, who looked as confused as I was.

What, did I say something wrong?

"You don't know?" The Empress' voice was filled with incredulity and the two illusionists in the room made an "ah" sound at the same time.

Oh. Right.

It would be weird to be on a space ship you didn't know about.

We should be more worried about that.

But...

"Nope. But I assume it won't try to kill us," I said with a shrug and Chrome nodded with me.

I trusted Kawahira not to fuck us over and Chrome trusted me for whatever reason, so we didn't feel uneasy.

It looked like Mitsuru wanted to object to that, as she opened her mouth, but then she closed it, closed her eyes and took a deep breath before opening them again with a smile.

"Very well. Either way, while you are here, the Kirijo Group will cover any expenses and will make sure your stay here goes smoothly, as well as showing you around."

I stared at them with a dumbfounded expression.

That...was awfully generous.

Well, not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth, so I stood up and bowed in gratitude, with Chrome bowing directly after me.

Though…

I raised my head and nervously mimicked their smiling expression.

"Can I get the loot from the shadows later?"

To my surprise, Fuuka and Mitsuru chuckled as if I accidentally made an insider joke and the latter nodded with approval.

"Of course. It's common procedure to do so."

…

Best black ops group ever.