I own nothing - look to Atlus for that. I write these for my wife, even though she doesn't have the obsessive taste for continuity that I do. All "After the End" stories take place in the same world, but each is meant to stand alone as its own story.

(Dreaming of You, Wherever You Are)

Okina City. A middle school student looks around to make sure he isn't being watched, and takes a set of bolt cutters from his jacket. After a deep breath, he pops the lock off of a single pay-locker and drops it into his pocket.

Ken Amada takes a second glance at the crowds as he hides his cutters. His face is hidden in the depths of his orange sweatshirt, and his fingers tremble, just a little, as he opens the locker. He has any number of outs if he gets caught, but he knows that if he is, there will be no way to hide his actions, and his intentions, from the one woman he wants to avoid: the woman who is, in fact, paying for his scholarship, and arranged his internship with a major newspaper.

Inside the locker, as suspected, is a single file folder. The locker's owner likely has similar such lockers and other hiding places all over the country, and perhaps overseas. She is a consummate professional. Unfortunately, she never expected to be tailed by someone shorter than she was.

...When the folder was stashed inside his sweatshirt and the locker closed, Ken took a new lock of the same model out of his pocket and snapped it on. That would buy him time, at least.

He slipped away into the crowds. He had to get back to Inaba as quickly as possible; his school's baseball team was going up against Inaba's, and Shu Nakajima was a surprising terror at bat. And then, back to the paper, where Miss Amano would no doubt be wielding a red pen.

Sometimes, he had dreams.

They weren't dreams that made sense; not like the nightmares, which were clearly about things that had happened. The dreams, instead, were about things that could have been real, felt so close to real, that he often woke up wondering if he and his life, instead, were the dreams.

Naturally, Shinjiro was alive.

It was back on that one day, the one that had repeated. He would stare down into the Abyss, and he'd know that Shinjiro was standing behind him. Probably with his arms crossed, pretending to be bored by the whole thing. But there was such, such nervous tension in his Senpai, he knew without even turning around.

Each time he dreamed, he wanted to turn around, to tell Shinjiro that it would be okay. Something he always recalled right before the dream was over, that Shinjiro hadn't wanted to come back to the dorm that day, that he'd blown off Fuuka-san in every phone call, and had only come back begrudgingly when the emergency call had gone out. But each time he went to turn around, he'd wake in his bed in sweat-stained sheets and feel like throwing up.

He'd consider calling Akihiko, and then instead turn over in bed, pull the covers over his face, and fail to get back to sleep.

The rented car all but fishtailed as the driver made a last-second lane change. The passenger, sixteen-year old Ken Amada, grabbed the handle built-in above his window. "Whoa!"

A sign flew past him, welcoming him to Threecorn, Indiana.

The car's driver, a beautiful woman in a designer, heart-laden jacket, was grinning. "C'mon, Amada! Live a little!" She wasn't used to driving on an American road, but it didn't seem like there was much that Maya Amano couldn't adapt to.

Ken had never been entirely clear with Maya on the fate of his mother; he wondered for a brief moment if the official version of the story would have caused her not to be so rough on the road. But he didn't like mentioning the incident, when he couldn't tell the truth.

Particularly not to a woman who had been so encouraging in his choice of career path-he had, after all, been all of twelve when they first met-and so kind to him overall, the occasional scare notwithstanding. She thought of herself as his senpai, and he knew it. He just already had a very select group of people who'd earned that title the hard way. Maya had no idea, he thought, that she was mentoring the story of the century, and he was a little bitter about keeping it that way.

He pulled the map out of the glovebox and unfolded the part pertaining to Threecorn. If you were to limit yourself to, say, only the half-dozen most important landmarks, it wasn't hard to figure out what to look for. There was the farmland to the west, which was basically part of town by property line only. There was the military base to the southeast, which was their final destination. There was the—he tried to remember the word in English—the "sprawl," a collection of department stores and strip malls to the northeast where the town reached out to touch the highway. There was the town square.

And, and this one Ken only noted from past experience, there was a high school.

"Well, we're almost there." Maya smiled at him. "Let's settle in, take it easy, and start early tomorrow. If we're lucky, maybe we can treat the rest of the week as a vacation in America."

Ken nodded, and pointed towards the windshield, so that she would look back and see the bus that she'd almost rammed into. She hardly paid it heed, just turned the volume up on the Risette CD and sang along.

...Your affection

Your affection

Taking pride from fear
Past will tell you when to make yourself a hero...

He figured it was going to be a long week.

But they wouldn't leave town for a whole year.

They were taking a vote around the table in the dorm lounge, as they had once before. This time, though, her presence was taken up by Shinjiro, who'd settled into her place at the table without a glance at the others. His hat was pulled down low over his eyes.

Mitsuru spoke first—her sacrifice was too important to dare tampering with, she said. They would use the key to open the door to the dorm building and try to regain their lives. It's what she would have wanted, she argued, and Yukari was quick to fall in line behind.

Junpei's fists rapped against the table and he couldn't meet anyone's eyes. He was scared, scared to go against Nyx again, and maybe he wanted to go back and maybe he didn't, but he was too scared, too, of making the decision. It had been her, after all, who'd made the decisions for them. Koromaru had barked in solidarity.

Shinjiro had listened to all of this quietly, and when the awkward silence began again to build up, he leaned forward, and told them that he was going back for her.

Every pair of eyes turned to Shinjiro, and Ken thought it was unfair of them to be shocked.

Ken didn't like the burning anger that he saw in Shinjiro's eyes whenever he looked at Aigis, it made him shake, but he thought about her smile, the way his heart had lifted every time she took him out—thought about the way she'd treated him like an adult. She'd said he'd grow to like coffee, and he was, slowly, but it was the milk he'd kept drinking for her sake.

And he owed Shinjiro so much, too much to even voice aloud. And so he agreed with Shinjiro, despite his misgivings, and vowed to stand by his side. The older man had looked uncomfortable, had clearly wanted to push Ken aside for Ken's own benefit (always protecting him), and yet... there was an unmistakable gratitude there, deep down, that helped firm Ken's resolve.

And so his gaze fell, along with Fuuka's and Aigis's (and everyone else's), to Akihiko, who didn't look up at all.

Ken got an unfortunate call; unfortunate, in that the familiar voice caused him to spill his morning coffee all over himself.

"Amada."

He scrambled to wipe the hot coffee from his lap. It was the blend that Shinjiro had once asked him to stock in the dorm, those few months where they had shared a home, and breathing in the dusky aroma as the sun rose was one of the only ways to think of him (and Minato, for that matter) without grief or regret. He was lucky that Maya had gone out early for... some reason.

"Amada?"

"I'm here." He had to regulate his tone with her, for all the good it would do.

"I was wondering if you could do me a favor."

He sighed, dropped the mass of paper towels into a bin. "I'm fine, how are you?"

There was a long pause. "I'm sorry. You're right, that is rude and unfair."

"...I'm not even in the country right now, anyway," Ken offered, but he wasn't surprised when this didn't faze her.

"I know. That's why I'm asking you. Do you have a pen?"

He wanted to say no. "Yes."

"If I understand it correctly..." As though she'd ever make a mistake! "They are opening a new branch of Junes in the town where you're staying."

"Yes... We drove past it coming in." Ken frowns. "I didn't think they had them in America."

"It's branching out." This digression seemed to bore her. "I believe that the corporation is angling for a buy-out from one of the similar American retailer chains. At any rate, I want you to see if you can get hired onto the staff that's there, setting up the store for its grand opening."

"Okay." He went over to the motel room door and pulled on his shoes. He was still unused to the way everyone in America walked all over the damned place in their shoes, tracking dirt around in people's homes. "Who am I supposed to be spying on?"

"I'll give you a physical description." And it was a thorough one, too thorough for her not to know the guy's name, too. Which meant, Ken understood, that he wasn't supposed to identify with the man. Was he a target of some kind? "And, Amada... this should be safe, but... be careful, nonetheless. I still have fondness for you."

"Yes, Senpai." Though you had a funny way of showing it. "What time is it, there?" But she'd already hung up.

And half a world away, Mitsuru Kirijo gave one last long look at the phone before turning to the man sitting across from her desk, who was running his fingers over the motorcycle helmet in his lap. He looked up, his eyes curious behind thick glasses, but she just shook her head.

When Ken was still only thirteen, Maya had once almost caught him, when he was using the copiers at work to make a double of the Shirogane file that he had stolen. The data was comprehensive, and it would take longer to study than he'd hoped; he needed to replace the originals before the detective's investigations got Mitsuru's further attention.

"It's for a school project," he mumbled awkwardly at Maya, and when she offered to help he all but panicked. But someone else called her away, and he stuffed everything into his bag. Better to use the library next time.

It was happenstance only, that Ken had been visiting Mitsuru at the offices of the newly-minted Kirijo Foundation when Naoto Shirogane's name had first come up. Mitsuru had tried to deflect him, as he'd just tried to deflect Maya; Ken, however, at least knew what the report on her desk had to concern, for her to want him not to see. After that, it just took a little cleverness, and (Mitsuru's weakness) a little bit of embarrassment.

They were keeping tabs on the private detective, who was working on a serial murder case in a small rural town called Inaba—one that Ken was aware of from school. Apparently, Shirogane-san had spent an abnormal amount of time digging into things like what had happened in Iwatodai, and Mitsuru's response had been characteristically calculated—the leak of a project file from her grandfather's days, on what Personas and Shadows were believed to be... and a hand-delivered message to the detective to stay out of it.

Ken knew that Mitsuru didn't want the truth to go public. He didn't want that either, exactly—he knew it would cause a panic—but the attempts to keep things under wraps had led to things like his mother's death—and Shinjiro's, and Mitsuru's own father's—to be written off as accidents, and that he couldn't stand.

So he would take matters into his own hands, and compile as much data as he could—he'd figure out the best solution as he went along.

The arena was lit by several torches. Ken squinted, and he could see what looked like human figures softly revolving in the center of each flame. Mitsuru... Yukari... Junpei... Koromaru...

Shinjiro made a clucking noise at the four people standing on the other side of the arena. "Hell of a game you guys are playing."

Aigis couldn't meet their eyes, and Metis didn't look like she understood the remark... but Akihiko reeled back as though he'd been hit. Ken wanted to reach out to him, but...

"No, really. Four against two. I can see the conviction, here." Shinjiro pulled off his cap. "Ain't gonna prove you're right, if you stomp us. I'll kick my way back up from Hell to stop you from doing something this stupid."

Fuuka covered her eyes. "Shinjiro-san..."

"Don't make us do this!" Akihiko raised his fists. "I... not even for you, I can't..."

"Tch." Shinjiro swung his axe loosely to the side, and replaced his hat. "Let's get this shit over with."

Ken tried to find the words, any words, to stop what was about to happen. But none came. And so he lifted his spear.

The Junes lobby was open, so that they could take applications. Ken stepped in through the sliding doors, and jammed his hands in his pockets. Maya had called him on the way over.

"Something really big is up, after all. Rumors in town are all crazy, something about a UFO out in the cornfield, if you can believe it. And the base called off the interview." She sounded far too excited. "I'm gonna need your help. Meet at lunch?"

"Sure." He should be there already, and instead he was here, looking at a cardboard standee of the Junes mascot, a blue bear in a red and white clown suit.

...Lost destiny

Far outcry

They hear you no more
Numb feeling

Whole dizziness

Deep scars

No pain
No sanity

Body aching

Control your own face
Invisible real enemy

Ruin your mind deep down...

Ken barely brought his spear up quickly enough to block a rushing punch from Aigis. The force knocked him backwards, and he was only just able to plant the point in the ground and spin around the pole to kick her in the face.

He could hear Fuuka's voice, from deep within Juno's protective shell. "Be careful! Ken is invulnerable to light attacks, and Shinjiro to dark!" Those were instant-kill attacks, and the way that Aigis seemed to re-file that information away as she turned to line up another shot scared him. Would they really... kill them both, just to get the keys?

Akihiko and Shinjiro were fighting, halfway across the arena floor. They were moving so fast, he could barely track the moves, but even with the disparity of their choice in weapons, they were so evenly matched, neither giving an inch of ground... Akihiko threw an uppercut inside of Shinji's axe swing, and he in turn pulled back on the axe handle, collapsing Aki's elbow and drawing him in close enough for a vicious headbutt to the nose. They were fighting too hard to feel.

They had been fighting each other all their lives, and it was a kind of love that Ken didn't quite understand, a kind he'd wanted for himself. Now, though, this was different. He was rolling beneath machine gun fire from Aigis and still, he was more afraid for the two men, brothers, who were out for each other's blood.

Ken hadn't yet studied Greek mythology or Roman history or any of the sources of their Persona's titles; and so when Shinjiro's Persona had ascended upon Hamuko's death, he'd been confused at the way Akihiko had laughed when he'd heard its name. Who, he'd asked Shinjiro later, afraid the older man would laugh at him, was "Brutus?"

Ken called for Kala-Nemi, and a bolt of lightning shot from his hand into Aigis. Circuits shorted out, and her neck twisted at an inhuman angle, but she moved as if it had barely fazed her, punching forward with the force of a God's Hand. He barely dodged past, and the force propelled her past and allowed some distance between them, which he took advantage of with a series of healing spells directed at both Shinjiro and himself.

Then he saw Metis.

Ken still, after all this time, had no idea what to think about Aigis's sister, the black-clad robot who had appeared at the moment of the Abyss of Time's opening—and who had immediately attacked him, nearly killing him without a thought. The others, it seemed, were none too comfortable with her either, but Aigis had apparently reached some kind of agreement with her, and since then they'd been inseparable. In truth, it had made his skin crawl, working alongside her, but... hadn't he only joined SEES in the first place in order to kill the man that he now stood beside, in defiance of his own better judgement?

Metis spoke softly. "Entering Orgia Mode." She aimed square at Ken, and it almost looked like she was smiling.

"Shinjiro-senpai!" Ken used his spear to pole vault over the leaping Aigis, but he'd never close the gap in time.

But Shinjiro darted to the side, then, out of his clutch with Akihiko, and got his arms around Metis's arms and neck in a sleeper hold. It was too late for Metis to disengage Orgia, and steam poured from her eyes as she began firing repeatedly from her fingers. Her massive hammer clanged to the floor, and Shinjiro almost tripped, but he managed to pull Metis around, directing her fire away from Ken—and towards Akihiko.

Seeing it, Akihiko hesitated. Just for a second, but a second was enough.

Yosuke Hanamura didn't seem like a bad man. He seemed like a sad one, and yes, maybe a little slow, but a good person. But Ken remembered his name from the Shirogane file. He was a Persona-user. And as he'd learned from Junpei Iori, sometimes the most dangerous men were the ones who didn't let you see how seriously they truly took the world.

He first appears in an apron, with plaster in his hair, and a pair of headphones around his neck. The headphones remind Ken of Minato, and make him just a little angry. But no, this man with tired eyes just mumbles out a "Every day's great at your Junes!" and looks over Ken's application with skepticism.

"I'm a recent transfer student," Ken lies, and Hanamura seems relieved and grateful to speak Japanese again with someone, anyone. He tells Ken, English had been one of his best subjects in high school, but that it wasn't saying much.

"Do you have an American work permit? Or, a green card, or..." He scratched his head, unsure of what Ken actually does need.

"I just..." Ken tries to put the little boy mask on again, the one he'd worn during that first summer month at the dorm, and he can see Hanamura cracking a little bit already. "I need someplace to go. I could... I could help you with my English!"

Some construction worker or something, someone helping set up the shelving, hollers at them from the sales floor in English. "Geez, Yosuke, we all figured you swung that way, but little boys?"

Hanamura tenses up, and looks ready to explode. His English was good enough to understand that remark, at least. Ken takes a step back.

"I should maybe leave you alone."

When the Junes manager turns back, his eyes are clenched shut, and Ken's application is crushed in his fist. "I'll meet you tomorrow, no, Wednesday is better. That diner in the town square. I'll pay you wages for English tutoring. Okay?" Spit out so angrily, it left Ken with little choice but to nod. It was like Hanamura had something to prove, but Ken couldn't guess to whom.

Aigis moved first, and even as Ken was course-correcting, she was interposed between Akihiko and the rapid-fire, taking a series of armor-piercing shells in the chest.

If Metis understood that she had harmed the sister that she'd sworn to protect, she didn't show it. She was in the process of overheating, and when Shinjiro let her go, she slumped to the floor in a heap. Aigis, on the other hand, was trying to get back to her feet, though her damage was extensive. Akihiko just stared at his best friend in shock.

"How could you?"

Shinjiro picked his axe back up and slung it over his shoulder. "How couldn't I? Why do you think I'm doing this, Aki?"

"But... this..."

"No buts!" Shinji swung the axe down hard, burying it in the ground at Akihiko's feet. Ken caught up to them and stopped short before he tripped over it. "I'm gonna go back and get her! Someone has to!"

"Shinji..." Akihiko held up his open palms. "What she did... there had to be a reason... we can't just take that away."

"Then let me die instead, dammit!" Shinji slapped his own chest. "I'm going to die anyway! If the drugs don't do it, then the Brut' will! I'll go do whatever she had to, like I would have in the first place if I hadn't been..." He turned away from both of them, hunching up his shoulders. "No reason good enough for it to be her and not me."

"We all loved her," started Akihiko, but Shinji was on him in a minute, his fist around Aki's shirt collar.

"You don't get to say that." He shoved Akihiko back. "You know what finally got her to talk to me? Her being all sick with worry about you." Aigis had finally gotten to a standing position, and her self-repairing functions were beginning to kick in. He pointed at her. "You stay there, Pinocchio, the men are talking."

Ken laid a hand on the man's sleeve. "Shinjiro-senpai..."

But he only glared at Akihiko. "You know why she chose me?" He chuckled darkly. "Because I was the one who gave a damn."

Apparently, the rift had opened the week previous. It had already grown. It was similar to the thing in Antarctica, the thing he'd heard Mitsuru's staff discuss in whispered tones when they thought he wasn't listening.

Ken stood in the cornfield and watched the hole in space as it seemed to rotate. He wanted more than anything to step inside, to see if it was like Tartarus. But Maya would wonder where he had gone. Instead, he called Mitsuru.

"Yes?"

"I need a favor."

"I'm fine, Amada, how are you?" With a slight mocking tone. This was as close to good humor as Mitsuru got, and so he pressed his advantage.

"I need you to transfer my scholarship."

Oddly, or not, she didn't question him at all.

Aigis laid a hand on Akihiko's shoulder. "I understand, Shinjiro-san. From the time of my birth, I have thought of nothing but her."

"Tch." Shinjiro shook his head. "Why the Hell did you get her power? Never mind, I know why." He looked over at Ken. "When you messed up, and you hurt a kid, you found a way to move on and protect them. I didn't."

Ken took Shinjiro's hand. "But, Shinjiro-senpai... you did."

His first day as a transfer student didn't go that well. It started after first period, when he was the only one who didn't get up to move to his next class. Apparently, nobody had told him that in America, it wasn't the teachers who moved around. And while his English was good, enough to get Maya to agree to bring him along in the first place, he was finding that it wasn't always good enough to follow the lessons.

He did find a likely suspect, however. A girl in his homeroom, conveniently enough, Anna Tracer, had all the signs. She didn't talk much, but when she was called on, she always seemed to have the answers. When she wasn't called on, she spent about half the time dozing. Sometimes he saw her rip small corners from her notebook paper and chew it. And while she acted awkward and anti-social, it seemed like everyone in the school was captivated by her, wanted her to solve their problems.

She was almost too much like Minato.

They agreed to go back—to watch. To see, and to understand.

Shinjiro took one look at Erebus, and lifted his axe. "All right... let's do this."

"I don't see you as much as I would have thought." Maya stabbed at her salad with a fork.

"Oh... I'm sorry." Ken was futzing with the napkin dispenser at his table. He was thinking about the evoker that he'd left on the other side of the Pacific. There had been just no way to sneak it aboard the flight. And now he was in America, with no way of summoning his Persona. "I just want to keep up with my studies... now that we're going to be here for longer."

"Ken, you know I would have sent you back in a flash." Maya frowned. "I can investigate this thing for the rest of my life, if I want to, but you have a life that you need to get back to."

Yes, of course he does. A Kirijo-paid apartment, a Kirijo-paid scholarship, his only friends a bunch of veterans who have trouble talking about anything but their secret, private war when they meet under the same roof? Junpei had offered to take him in, without even asking Chidori, he was so passionate about it; but as grateful as Ken had been at the offer to be out from under Mitsuru's thumb, he knew that the real problem would exist no matter what roof he slept under—this, Personas, this was all he knew, and all his life would ever have room for.

And now it was happening again, and he had to stay on the sidelines.

He wondered if there was any way he could explain all of that to Maya, and make her understand it.

It was his third month in town when the Kirijo Foundation opened a branch in town.

Yosuke flopped over, an English dictionary covering his face. Ken, who was sitting on the man's bed, waited patiently.

"Hey, Ken... you ever feel like your best days are behind you?"

Ken looked at him, and considered Shirogane's notes. Hanamura, despite his attitude, should be considered a second-level threat, following closely behind Seta and Tatsumi. He appears to be a driving force behind the group's activities, perhaps more obsessed even than Seta—a relation to one of the victims? While Hanamura may not be the smartest member, and he is decidedly immature, he is likely to be incredibly dangerous if provoked.

"I dunno..." Yosuke didn't lift the book, just reached out with both hands as though there was something beyond the ceiling that he could grasp. "I feel sometimes like... I don't know why I'm saying this to you, but..."

One day, a short while later, Anna Tracer came up to him out of the blue, and asked him if they could hang out after school.

One night when Ken was eleven years old, he stepped out onto the roof of the dorm building, to find that he wasn't alone.

Koromaru didn't get up from where he was lying peacefully, but he did offer a wave of his tail in greetings. The boy sitting on the edge of the roof, however, inclined his head and called back to him.

"Hey, Ken-kun. I was hoping it was you."

"Me?" He approached Minato slowly. The older boy was the only one whom Ken couldn't figure out. The girls were patronizing, but well-intentioned, and the boys were... well, Sanada-san and Shinjiro-san knew the truth, and Junpei was nice, but tended to leave him alone. Minato Arisato, though, their leader, seemed to look at Ken in a different way every time they spoke. It was a little unnerving, and he wondered what Yukari saw in him (she didn't think he knew, but he wasn't stupid, just young).

"Yeah, you. C'mere." He waved Ken over. "Come sit with me." Ken looked uneasily at the lip of the roof, where Minato's legs dangled. It was a four-story drop. "Would you believe I hate heights? I know, that's stupid. All we do every night is climb a tower into, like, space, or wherever. I try not to look out the windows."

Ken carefully sat on the edge, but facing in the opposite direction, so that his feet were still planted. "I didn't think you were afraid of anything."

"Oh, I've got courage to spare," Minato drawled, and placed a hand on Ken's shoulder. "But that just means I'm dumb enough to do what Mitsuru tells me." He chuckled. "Hey, let me ask you something. It's personal, though, is that okay?"

"Um, sure, okay." He liked Minato's laugh—it was the way he laughed with Junpei, at grown-up jokes.

"You stayed at an orphanage, right? After... you know, your mom?" Ken winced, but nodded. He would prove he could be grown-up enough to have this conversation. And he wouldn't talk about Shinjiro, because he knew Minato would try to stop him. "Was it the same one that they stayed in? You know, earlier?"

Ken glanced at the door to the stairs. The thought had never occurred to him before. "I... I don't know. I'm not sure which one was theirs. I guess it could have been." That was a disturbing thought.

"I want to tell you a secret, Ken-kun." Minato was looking out at the view from their building. It wasn't an especially tall one, but you could still get a nice view of the Moonlight Bridge, when the sky was clear. "Just you." When Ken turned to him, he smiled, his eyes hidden beneath his long bangs. "I think I stayed there, too."

"Really?" Ken gaped.

"I'm don't really remember, but..." Minato lifted his hair out of his eyes, for just a moment. "When I think about things, from a long time ago, I get these headaches. So I try not to. But, it's possible... I mean, I'm here now, and I know I spent some time, you know, without a family..." He smiled weakly. "You know, Yukari and I fought my first Shadow here, on this roof. When I first came here."

"It came all the way to the dorm?" Ken found Koro-chan's head in his lap, and scratched behind his ears.

"Yeah." Minato let his hair fall again, and wiped at his mouth. "I think I scared Yukari a lot, that night. She doesn't like to talk about it."

Ken didn't know what to say. He didn't understand why he was the one being told these things at all.

"I think something bad is going to happen, Ken." Minato shook his head. "I don't know what it will be. I go to this fortune teller sometimes, at Club Escapade, and..." He shrugged. "I don't know. I have to assume it will be that I screw things up, because I'm in charge." He looked at Ken. "I'm telling you, because the others will ask me questions, and I can't answer them." Minato placed his hand on Ken's head, but didn't tousle his hair the way that the others did. "I know that you have questions that you don't want to answer, either."

The longer Ken spent in Treecorn, the more detailed, the more involved and real his dreams got. It was like he was living a whole other life.

Ken had to flip himself over a bench in the lobby and hide behind it, when Yosuke Hamamura entered the Kirijo Foundation building. He listened as the young man with the headphones tried in vain to get the receptionist to explain what, exactly it was that the Foundation did. Yosuke tried humor, and then charm, and neither worked; then he tried rage, and threats, and that didn't work either. He pitied the Junes manager, who slammed the glass door hard as he stormed out.

When he was gone, Ken almost came out of hiding before he saw that the man had been replaced by Maya. She tried things in almost the same order, though when she failed, she offered a false smile and walked out calmly.

Later, Ken was sitting on a desk in the school newspaper's tiny room as Anna Tracer tried to solve his problems. She knew the right things to say, but she wasn't getting anywhere. Probably, most of the people who formed bonds with her didn't lie to her each step of the way.

"Let me ask you something." Ken slid off the desk. "Would you die for your friends, if you had to?"

Anna tensed. "Of course! But... why would you ask that?"

"This is bigger than you think it is. I want to help you."

They said, the students did, that in America, all you needed was a dream and the will to achieve it. He'd asked what made that different from Japan, or anywhere, but they'd insisted. The American Dream, they'd called it. He'd thought it was funny, at first, and then a little irritating. But every Persona incident was different, and rumors and myths and ideas always held more power when the Shadows came. It was clear that whatever was beyond the rift, it was testing the identities of groups, this time, and that included national ideas, national myths and identities. If America believed itself to be its own myth-maker and wish-granter, then within the boundaries of Threecorn, Indiana, that belief had a power.

Ken saw the hesitation in Anna's eyes, the one that Minato used to have whenever he tried to figure out the precise thing to say. "I don't even know you."

Ken thought of Minato welcoming Ryoji into their home. "You don't have to know me. There isn't much to know. Just let me fight beside you."

And then: "I don't know what you're talking about."

Ken nodded slowly, and walked out. He never gave her the folder, and he never saw Anna's reaction to the shattering sound in her ears as the Justice Social Link reversed.

The door to the dormitory finally swung open. The Abyss of Time had dissolved. They were free.

Ken practically leaped down the stairs, to take in the sun.

Everyone was saying their awkward good-byes, and soon Mitsuru and Fuuka and Junpei had left, Junpei taking Koromaru with him. And there was that long silence, before Shinjiro offered Aigis his hand.

"Shinjiro-san..." As Aigis was shaking it firmly... "You do not have another place to stay." Spoken as a fact, not asked as a question. Yukari had offered to take Aigis in, and Ken could see Yukari's panic at the suggestion that Aigis was about to bring the glowering man in the topcoat with her.

"We'll figure it out." Shinjiro placed a gentle hand on Ken's shoulder, and Ken's eyes widened.

And then the girls had left, and there were only three confused young men, looking at each other and trying to figure out what to say.

"Well, based on what you've told me, this 'Asura Queen' and the entity we called Nyx have certain similarities." Mitsuru reviewed the reports and looked up at her colleague. "I'm not certain that I believe that she, or they, are behind this particular incident, however."

"There's too much we don't know." Kei Nanjou futzed about with his scarf. He was a little vain, but his keen mind had been apparent from the moment that Mitsuru had begun rebuilding the allegiance that her grandfather had destroyed. "The incidents in France, that small African village, we don't have much data at all on those. I find it peculiar that so many have been focused in Japan."

"National arrogance aside, I tend to agree." Mitsuru placed the folder back down. "But then, that is why we have an operative in America, now, investigating the supposed incident underway."

"You've been too reckless with your support for the American government and military." Nanjou sniffed. "And I don't like your hands-off approach with the boy."

"You don't know Amada like I do." Mitsuru picked up the glass of wine which she'd left half-finished. "The less he knows, and the more he believes he's operating against me, the more likely he'll be to stay within the parameters we've set."

"He sounds like a liability, when you phrase it in those terms."

Mitsuru shook her head. "No, Ken was, is, the greatest and most pure of all of us." She looked out at the skyline. "Save one, who's no longer with us."

...Leave this valid memory
The spirit inside of consciousness
And this lone prayer

Keep life on the coat rack...
The hate-craved fools just don't stop
As you clear away from death,
The world is all I've sent you...

One day, when Ken Amada was eleven years old, he approached Junpei Iori and asked him to teach him baseball.

The older boy fumbled with his magazine and looked up, incredulous. "Me? Why me?" But he was smiling, too, delighted in a way that Ken hadn't predicted. And so they'd gone out to the quiet street just outside their dormitory, and Junpei had shown Ken how to stand, how to hold his bat. It was hard only for Ken to remember not to hold it as he did his spear.

After a while, Ken glanced at the dorm and saw Minato sitting on the steps, his eyes shining as the other two boys played. It had been he who'd suggested that Ken go to Junpei with the idea, and he'd been right, he'd never seen Junpei so earnest.

"Well, look at this." Behind Minato, some of the others had come out to see what had caused the commotion. "Junpei, you can't teach him how to play unless he has someone to play against." Akhiko was smiling, and came down the stairs.

"I'll have you know, I was a softball star back in middle school." Yukari skipped right down behind her Senpai, and Junpei shook his fist at her.

"Softball ain't baseball!"

"Close enough for how you play, Stupei!" She caught the ball Ken had tossed her, and soon a poorly-staffed game had broken out in the middle of the street. Ken laughed as Fuuka struggled with the cap that Junpei had shoved onto her head, and Yukari tried to explain the rules to Aigis. Mitsuru and Shinjiro stood watching behind Minato, and at least Mitsuru was smiling.

When Ikutski dropped by on his bicycle, they forced him to play catcher. Koro-chan was kept busy fetching stray balls and gnawing at the chain of sausages that Shinjiro had snuck out to him.

When some of Minato's classmates walked by, though, even he had to come off the stairs, and the action was pushed to a nearby park. Kazushi was pressed into pitcher, so he'd go easier on his leg, and Kenji, Keisuke, and Yuko split amongst the two teams. Yukari dragged Mitsuru onto the field by one arm, and Junpei thrust a bat into her hands.

It was one of the nicest days that Ken would ever have. But sometimes all he could remember was the way Shinjiro prowled the edges, leaned against fences, and growled at the people who tried to get him to participate. He always had one eye on Ken, and Ken one eye on him. October was close, so very close, and they both knew what was coming.

When it was over, he told himself, it would fix everything. Make everything right again. But then he would look out to the field, and see everyone laughing as Aigis slid so hard that she drove a groove into the ground, and Fuuka and Keisuke futzing over their camera so that they could get everyone in the shot, and Minato smiling as Yukari and Junpei saw a side of each other that neither had expected; and he prayed for October to never come.

In the final months of the year, the Shadows began to rise in the real world.

Maya was standing in the town square, outside of the Kirijo Foundation building, when the Turret shadow began to roll down Main Street. The giant tank huffed like a fairy tale wolf and trained its barrel on her to fire.

She was thrown clear by a charging Yosuke Hanamura, and they both smashed through the Foundation's glass doors. They rose to their feet as one, and though each didn't know what the other possessed, their call for "Persona!" spoke as one.

In the recent years, of course, much of the population at each Shadow outbreak had offered little resistance, places like the Japanese Iwatodai and Inaba incidents, people were reduced to shuffling cattle, infected with Apathy or with the Fog of Untruths, a sort of Willful ignorance that led to an ease of harvesting.

It hadn't always been thus. There had been times when the people would resist. And this time, they would again.

Susano-O and Artemis were warriors, and so were the man and woman who held aspects of them within themselves.

They offered each other a surprised little smile, and stepped forward, toward the Shadow.

One day, when Ken Amada was sixteen, he stood before a rift in space and time.

It rippled and beckoned, and Ken reached out his hand. There was another world, the world of his dreams, and it wasn't so different. Was that the world that lay beyond?

He couldn't help the Wild Cards, and he couldn't help his friends. But maybe, in another world, a world where he could have stood beside the man who saved him, there was a chance for him to make things right.

Turning his back on the havoc that had come to Threecorn, Indiana, he stepped out of the world.

Freedom was having nothing left to lose.

"Shinji..." Akihiko shook his head.

Shinjiro shrugged. "Just shut up, and let's go."

"Huh?" The young man with the silver hair cocked his head.

"We're staying at your place, 'till we figure it out. I'll make dinner, and Ken will clean up." He glanced at Ken, and though he wasn't smiling, Ken saw something funny around Shinji's eyes. "He's always carrying that scrub brush around anyway, right?"

"Um, sure!" Ken jammed his hands into the pockets of his sweatshirt.

"All right." Akihiko was smiling.

"Though... I'd like to stop by the cemetery first." Shinjiro took off his heavy coat, and rolled up the sleeves of his turtleneck. "Got some things I wanna say to her."

"Yeah... me too." Akihiko stepped in line with Ken, and with his brother in all but blood, and they walked down the quiet street together.

Ken thought about the doors they had looked through, one after another. "Do you think... Do you think there's a world, where she didn't have to do it? A world where she could be happy?"

Akihiko nodded. "I see it sometimes... when I close my eyes."

Shinjiro said nothing, just placed a hand on each of their shoulders and shoved them, playfully, and the three of them watched the sun rise over Iwatodai.

Sometimes they had to look away and try to ignore the way Shinjiro coughed.

When Ken Amada was nine years old, his mother died, and he sat in a police station alone. Nobody believed the truth. He made a vow to never forgive, to avenge her with his life.

When Ken Amada was eleven years old, his life was saved by his mother's killer, and he made a new vow, to live for himself.

When Ken Amada was thirteen years old, he saw the scope of the world, and changed his vow again, to live for all people that lived.

When Ken Amada was fifteen years old, he was alone again, and nobody, he thought, believed the truth. And in coming full circle, he found a way to honor his many vows at last.

In a world of rumors, outside of the flow of time, his hand found the hand of the girl who'd haunted his dreams. He would find a way to carry her home.

"All right," he said to himself, "Let's do this."