Author's Notes: See, not only can perfection not be rushed, it also can't be improved upon. Unless you're me, in which case it's pretty much expected. Welcome, to another installment of the best Persona 3 fic out there! I'll do some replies and then we're off to the races.

Big thanks to Firion on this one, both for the feedback and commentary and for his experience in classical music.

Brightwizard21: That's an impressive binge, I must say. Must be a good story to warrant that. Thanks for the review, and enjoy!

emoprotagonist: The balance between the light and dark was kind of necessary; the chapter would have been pretty heavy and dark otherwise. I'm happy to see that it turned out good in the end. Thanks for the well wishes, and right back at you.

Sly Assassin: Amazing how a good story can do that, isn't it? Thanks for the comment, that's what keeps me going through it all. Hope you like this little number. Enjoy!

Ramix: Welcome back! Glad you liked Junpei's arc, it was a long time coming. Different from the game, sure, but it fit. Thanks for the review, and enjoy.

CallmeDaybreak: I'm glad you like the story, your reaction is exactly what I hope people get out of it. The best praise I can receive is that my work trumps the original, and if I'm getting to that point, then I will take it. Thanks, and enjoy!

SomebodyLost: Hi! The end to Chidori's story felt like it fit, a fair bit more than what we got. And tragic ends can still fit, especially for a game with a body count as high as what Persona 3 has. Glad you like it. And I don't make boasts; I simply speak the humble truth!

To all my readers, I hope you're all healthy and safe given the circumstances of the day. Take care and be well. Now, onward!

Chapter 23 – Los

Mitsuru fidgeted with her sword belt and Evoker again, tugged on a loop and bit back a curse in frustration. She'd been fighting with herself from the moment she got the call from the hospital. She couldn't keep her thoughts under control: the desperate worker who'd established the connection, then Yoshino's cold ultimatum, the team frantically assembling and getting ready to fight. Before she'd joined the others, as she'd been belting on her sword, she went to the command computer and ran a scan of the hospital, checking the shift roster against the IDs that were absent or still in the building.

She shouldn't have done that. The computer showed her how many IDs were stationary in the halls, how many weren't moving. She tracked the likeliest path from Yoshino's room to the comm. station and knew that those were the IDs of the dead. So many, all because of one person. So many letters to write, people to inform of their loved ones passing on. All because Mitsuru had assumed her countermeasures were effective enough, because Mitsuru had figured that Yoshino couldn't break out because she hadn't yet.

More pain and death. More good intentions and best efforts that had led to blood on her hands. The voice in the dark corners of her mind stirred awake, rolling restlessly no matter how hard she tried to shove it down, no matter how much she focused on the task in front of her.

"Are you okay?" Yukari asked her, pulling her back to the present.

Mitsuru braced herself, fought down her anger and indignation, and nodded. She didn't have the time to be maudlin, couldn't afford to feel sorry for herself. They had a job to do. Yoshino had to be stopped, had to pay for what she did. It felt like everyone was watching her as they prepared at the landing of Tartarus. It was time to go to work; her emotions could wait. They would have to.

"Let's go to work," she told them. Everyone nodded and followed her lead.

When they stepped into the teleporter at Tartarus though, her fear bloomed and lodged solidly in her throat. Yukari grabbed her arm as they whipped through the tower's floors at breakneck speed, being spun around and tumbled upside down until they came to a lurching halt like hitting a wall. Both girls rocked unsteadily from mental whiplash while the alien gravity of the Dark Hour took its time reasserting itself. "Are you okay?" Mitsuru asked after she didn't feel like revisiting her dinner. They were in the dark rooms of the tower, the most recent set of levels they'd been exploring. She looked around and knew even without using Penthesilea that they'd been separated from the others, scattered to gods-knew-where.

"I think I'll live," Yukari answered, clutching her bow. "How about you? Where are the others?"

Mitsuru focused Penthesilea outward. This high off the ground, with so much distortion from the tower and the Shadows and the oppressive thing that Yama– Fuuka had talked about, she couldn't detect nearly as much as she could even when she rejoined the front lines. Still, she was able to reach Fuuka and give an update, and to get a feel for where the others were. "They're all over the place," Mitsuru reported. "Iori's a few floors below us, and Akihiko's closest to him. Amada and Koromaru are with Minato, two floors up."

"At least no one's completely on their own," Yukari noted.

"Agreed."

They checked their corners and dodged the Shadows where they could, making slow progress through the corridors. They heard howling wind outside and knew they'd found the outer wall, and underneath that sound they heard dull explosions. The staggered rumbles were familiar to them both, had become so over months of combat with the Shadows.

"Someone's fighting. Having a bit of fun at it," Yukari noted. "Probably Akihiko-senpai."

Mitsuru reached out with Penthesilea, then frowned. "It's Iori. He's fighting Yoshino."

"He– what?"

"It seems he found her first. They're–" Mitsuru grimaced, images of that night rising in her heart and taking hold far too easily, the smell of blood and touch of cold darkness on her skin. "They're on the ledge. Where Minato fought Aigis."

Yukari looked over, concern in her eyes followed by a flicker of cunning. "Are there any windows or ledges near there that we can get to?" She pulled an arrow out of her quiver. "If so, I can give him a hand. It's better than us jumping down or looking for the stairs, and he's going to need help."

Mitsuru focused again, fought past the memories and the accompanying mocking laughter in her ears, laughter she hadn't heard since the night Minato had pulled her back from the edge. "There is," she said a moment later. "It's nearby, but I'm not sure how good a shot it'll give you."

"Anything's better than leaving him alone. Let's go."

They ran through the halls and were almost at the ledge when the air outside the tower rang like a struck anvil. A swell of power raced through them, shook the walls, lit up nearby windows with blue-white light, and for a moment the corridor felt hot, calling to mind the images of a forge and wrought metal. They knew what this sensation was, even from this distance. They'd felt it when Amada had awakened his Persona – the strength released from a new resolution in one's heart.

"Is that Junpei?" Yukari asked. "He... he's got a new Persona?"

"It seems so. I can't imagine it was Yoshino. And if he's fighting this hard, he might have a chance against her."

"Sure, but will that be enough?"

"I... I don't know. There's a lot about the Personas I don't know anymore, and I'm–" She stopped from completing that sentence, though her traitorous mind continued it for her, "I don't know, because I don't have a new Persona. I don't know because I'm not strong enough."

Yukari might have seen what Mitsuru was going through, because she pulled her arm. "Let's go. Stronger or not, he'll need help."

They went through the halls as fast as they dared, and the door to the ledge was in sight when both had a terrible, momentary premonition. Both dove to the ground a split second before a metallic fist exploded through the wall, then rolled away when an explosion raked where they'd been a second before.

Mitsuru knew what was attacking them before she saw it, felt fear even through her warrior discipline when she heard crackled hissing of binary code that somehow sounded like malevolent human speech: Moros, and that meant Shirato.

Sure enough, the green-clad Strega member stomped through the hole, spewing profanities. He looked ragged. His eyes were bloodshot, his face splotchy with rage, and his clothes were dirtier than combat could account for. His hair was a mess, like he'd been working such long hours that he hadn't paid attention to himself, and the look only added to the murderous fury that had twisted his face into a snarl. "Found you," he grated. "Hope you've said your prayers; I'm going to kill you both."

"Nice to see you too," Yukari spat back, body glowing as she called her Persona.

"Your friend killed Chi-chan," he told them, glowing incandescent. "You're going to pay for that."

"He... Junpei won? Can't say I'm sorry, honestly; a lot of good people are dead because of her."

"You will be sorry when I rip you apart and throw you to him. Do you know how long people can live after amputations? Forced ones?" Moros's fist revved up. "I don't know, but I want to find out, and you're going to help me."

Mitsuru's heart caught in her throat. She felt the cold glare of that Persona, couldn't find the easy mental distance of the fighter that she'd trained herself to be, that she had been for years. She knew it was the influence this thing had on her. After Thanatos had arrived, Mitsuru had done some research. The Persona's name was clear enough to her, but she dug deeper and learned of its connection to two more Personas. Thanatos was the god of violent deaths, a being who hated life and sought to snuff it out as ferociously as possibly. By contrast, Hypnos was the deity of sleep who anaesthetized its victims before it killed them either by disease or in their sleep. Fitting, given how effective Sakaki was at undermining his enemies before defeating them. And Moros preceded both of them, as it was the deity of impending doom, one whose role was to inform mortals of when and how they would die. Not merely knowing that one's life would end, but the means by which it would happen, the unceasing fixation of its approach that crushed one's life before Thanatos or Hypnos came to finish the job.

The Persona was living up to the legend. The closer Moros got, the worse her mind rebelled against her, bringing up every negative thought she'd been trying to keep down, all that which Minato had been helping her suppress. But now Minato wasn't here. Moros was, and Mitsuru could feel the Persona proclaiming her worst fears as she stared at it. And she knew that it knew her worst fears because without guessing or preliminary attempts, it showed her what she feared most: death, but after failure. Failure that ended in others bearing the consequences of her mistakes. Dying of despair only after her friends and loved ones had all died before her.

She snapped back to the present, jumping back and firing her Evoker. Ice hammered into Moros, but that wasn't enough to stop it from punching at Yukari. The blow was stopped by Io, but the colossal shockwave blew Yukari back against the wall, leaving her crumpled on the floor and holding her stomach. Moros kept advancing, blazing with Shirato's homicidal will. Mitsuru stood in front of her friend, dug in and dug deep, pulled the trigger with a blast of light and ice that slowed Moros down. The ice compounded, created a wall that taxed her so much she broke into a full-body sweat just to maintain it.

It was enough for the moment. She could hear Moros in her mind, but she'd stopped it–

Right until the metallic fist revved loudly and punched into the ice, sending chunks flying back at her. Shards clipped her arms and legs, cut her face and scalp. Her best barriers gave way to the hulking Persona, and she could feel Shirato's hatred coming from the entity before her.

Against all her expectations, disregarding years of training, her body locked up. Fear stopped her trigger finger, she dropped her sword, and she couldn't look away as Moros's scanners centred on her, blocked out her peripheral vision, muted anything Yukari said to her. She couldn't deny it anymore, not as the darkness closed in on her.

This really was...

... the end.

Her vision winked out, and she felt herself sinking, falling, tumbling into the darkness.

Down, down she fell, the voice of her inadequacies and failures accompanying her the whole way. She felt blood stain her hands and clothes, Father's blood and that of the hospital staff – "Maybe if you'd been stronger, been smarter about it. Maybe if you hadn't been so sweet on Minato, hmm?" The gleam of broken blades, of marble grave markers and the excruciating expanse of those who'd died before her – "Always someone else to carry your burdens, isn't there? It wasn't enough to ruin Shinjiro's life, so what did you do? Found new lackeys and got them to fight for you, put them in the line of fire." The voices rang around her, followed her down, blaming her for losing, for running, for living.

Finally she stopped, her knees hitting something solid. She opened her eyes, saw it was cracked black basalt she knelt on, and found dark humour even here: she'd hit rock bottom. This was where she'd been destined for all this time – Minato's intervention was only a delay tactic. Here she'd break under her own mind, and in her body she would die trying to save Yukari. Another failure, another death of a friend.

"At least then it will be over, won't it?"

The voice was close now, just ahead of her. When she looked up, she saw dozens of mirrors, all standing at slightly different angles and casting distorted reflections right before her eyes. The images shifted, twisted, always glared back at her and she knew she was to blame for...

For what? What had she actually done that was worthy of so much anger?

Mitsuru stood and walked toward the origin of the voice, toward whoever was taunting her even now. When she brushed by one of the mirrors, her skin crawled and shrank back from the anger she felt. When her hand clenched reflexively, she found her fingers closing around the hard weight of a firearm. Her Evoker, she realized when she looked down, gleaming from a light she couldn't see the source of.

Couldn't see? Why not?

When she looked closer, she realized the letters along the slide were glimmering, bright enough that she could see around her.

"So you can see," the familiar, raspy voice told her from just ahead. Echoes of the voice came back to her, each with a different pitch and intonation and emphasis, as varied as the mirror reflections. "Well, that's irrelevant. What good will seeing do you when you fail again, when all you love comes crashing down?"

The words hit like a blow, had pressure and force behind them, but Mitsuru pushed forward, now curious even beyond her self-recriminations and the weight of despair that hung over this place. The mirrors glared at her, but shifted out of her way when she made to push past them, fingers firm on her Evoker. When she found the source of the words, saw the speaker that had dogged her thoughts for weeks, she blinked first in surprise, and then in revulsion.

She – and to assign even that much humanity to the wretched little thing was a monumental courtesy – was a warped little hunchback perched on a chair. Ragged, matted red hair fell knotted and limp around her shoulders and body, her body lumpy and vile to the eye even under clothes. And those clothes, Mitsuru noted with growing ire, were a bastardization of her own school uniform. From the boots that had been cut along the shafts and ends to accommodate stumpy legs and feet missing toes; to the red ribbon she took so much pleasure in wearing, now tattered and stained from food and blowing one's nose; to what should have been a pristine blouse that was worn through in patches, revealing grey, wrinkled skin underneath. The creature turned and smiled, a grim grin of crooked teeth and malicious intent in those dull red eyes. Even at this distance, Mitsuru could smell cheap perfume worn in excess to cover a damp smell of mold that twisted her stomach.

Sitting before the creature was a gramophone and a sound tube where one could speak into. The pipes of both these devices connected and intertwined, tumbled upward into a crooked mess of twisted pipes and dead ends, more bent and misshapen than yarn tangled at the hands of a child. The words that echoed along those pipes sounded, now more than ever before, like noise. They were words of recrimination and doubt, of self-hatred and pity, but the distortions came across more like racket than words, and the pressure on Mitsuru's eardrums tried to push her down, tried to cow her into submission and order her thoughts as the creature wanted. A single word was made powerful by such an apparatus, crafted from the nature of this place, of her worst and lowest point intent only on dragging her down.

Even the means this thing used to torment her was insulting: a mechanism where the worst words came simply from an idle little monster on a stool, not exerting itself beyond the utterly necessary at its task. To be brought so low by something pathetic, so lazy, fired her ire.

"Because you will fail, won't you?" the creature mocked, using a perfect imitation of her own voice. The one thing the little beast could get right, and that somehow made Mitsuru's blood boil even more. She liked her voice, had been complimented on it, knew that Minato enjoyed hearing it, especially when she'd tried singing for him. For this creature to misuse it against her was... it was beyond insulting. It was utterly unforgivable.

"You tread where you are not welcome," she told the creature firmly, striding up to it. The mirrors tried to get in her way, and the noise amplified, pushing Mitsuru to a standstill.

The creature cackled. "I'm not welcome here? Why would I not be? I'm you, aren't I?"

The mirrors turned to Mitsuru, each glaring at her with the weight of her doubts and pain, each speaking her self-recriminations back at her.

"We're all you, and you're all of us. You can't be free of us, so down here's where you belong. You can't blame us for telling you the truth, can you?"

The pressure grew to the point of pain, and then amplified. Mitsuru grit her teeth, tried to stop from bowing or backing away. She knew she was outnumbered, knew she was the outsider here, and despite her anger and indignation, she didn't have the advant–

No, she realized as she clenched her Evoker. She didn't have the advantage, but she didn't need it. Not here, not when the battleground was her own mind, not where she was the one who decided what happened and what didn't. She looked ahead and straightened her back, squared her shoulders and raised her chin. "You're only telling your truth, not the truth as it exists."

The creature laughed at her, and the mirrors spun 180 degrees, showing her failings and mistakes all at once, each one tainted by might-have-beens and near misses, by the worst outcomes imaginable.

Mitsuru held her Evoker up, let the light rest against her, and pushed right back with her own memories, calling on everything her friends had told her since Father died, since she'd joined SEES, and even before that. Right back to her earliest memories of Mother. "I did all I could to protect Father, to protect Shinjiro and the others," she declared. "Maybe I failed to save them, but all I've done has been for them. I did all I could to help them, and I would have done more if I'd had the chance."

The mirrors shivered, and some began to crack or turn dark.

Mitsuru stepped forward again. "I would have helped the people in the hospital if I'd had the chance to. I'd have stopped Yoshino in person, no matter what, before I would have let her hurt anyone. I can't be everywhere at once, though, and I won't be blamed for her decisions. How dare you even consider that I don't hurt for the deaths of my people? Of course I knew they had families and loved ones; that's exactly what I'm fighting for!"

The mirrors distorted again, backing away from her, and the creature hissed and tramped on its seat. "You're just one! We're many! We're everything you made us into, and we are your reality!"

Reflections of the creature were cast all around her, above her, right beside her, about to strike. Mitsuru's instinct was to flinch, find a defensible position, fight back. She stood her ground and glared at what she knew was the original, the only solid one out of any of them. "You are mistaken. No, you are just a mistake, such as it was to listen to you in the first place." Her Evoker glowed brightly, and her voice carried up the twisted vocal apparatus. "I won't be held back by you anymore."

The reflections wavered and faded, but the creature tumbled up to her, glaring fiercely. "Won't you, Kirijo Mitsuru? Won't you hear the voice of your own conscience?"

"You're not my conscience. You're not prudence or caution. You're a monster, and I won't be held to your standards." Mitsuru looked at the gramophone where it lay ready to repeat whatever was put on the turntable – only doubts and pain. Not anymore. She projected her voice at the device and willed it gone. "But you are correct about being part of me, so I will grant you this: I'm going to protect the people I love and trust. I will fight for those I can, and I won't let myself get in the way of that. I've always wanted what's best for those around me, and even if I fail, it is enough that I try and improve so I succeed next time. I won't have you, or me, tell me otherwise, and I won't let you stop me until I get to where I'm going."

The creature turned apoplectic, hissing and spitting and leaping at her only to stop just short of her when she didn't budge or blink. The gramophone shivered and creaked, then bent in a wailing auditory torment of bending metal and breaking wood. The device cracked in on itself, falling apart as pieces disappeared into the gloom around them, reforming until what sat there was a normal gramophone sitting aside a fine, plush velvet chair. One of her favourite records sat on it, and Franz Schubert's 4th movement of Symphony No. 9 began to play, uplifting and triumphant. Mitsuru brushed past the creature, looked up and noted that the gloom gave way to light, the light shining from her Evoker.

"I'll do more than survive. I'm going to live my life, I'm going to protect them, and I'm going to make a future where I can be happy every day that I'm alive. I won't get in the way of that anymore, and I won't let anyone else get in the way of it either."

Her voice echoed until it matched the music, and the hideous little creature shrieked to the volume of a jet engine before it vanished entirely. Mitsuru had the sensation of floating, lifting upward to the sound of music and her own voice, flying and gaining speed until reality crashed in around her.

Her ice barricade was almost gone. Moros had crashed forward, loomed over her, ready to kill at Shirato's command. Behind, Yukari was crumpled on the floor, hand outreached to stop the blow that would kill her friend. All around and within, the sense of electric calm and adrenalized combat that Mitsuru had grown to enjoy as a test of her skills. Always to improve, always to see what she could do, and who she could protect. The noise from Moros, its imposed premonitions, its unbending, mechanical will, pushed on her but now fell short.

The Persona's projected fate, after all, only affected her if she allowed that fate to pass. Without her permission, that doom would not touch her.

Because fate bent to human will.

Mitsuru leapt back from the killing blow, stared at Shirato and the Persona without fear or hesitation. She'd allowed herself to stagger and stumble for long enough, and now it was time to see what her devotion to her friends and her drive to succeed were worth. In her heart, she felt Penthesilea whip her sword vertically, salute her and dissolve, morph into something else, something stronger and grander. A whisper brushed across her soul, a message as much in sentiment as in words, "You are finally ready. Magnificent. Let us begin."

No speeches or explanations. Mitsuru set her Evoker to her temple and pulled the trigger, Penthesilea exploding outward in ice and light. The force was so great that the walls rang twice as loud as when Iori found his new Persona, the upswell three times as great.

What stood at her back was no longer just the Persona she'd grown up with, but all that and more, a warrior that didn't know defeat in the face of any adversary: Artemisia.

Ice slammed into Moros with force of a meteor, and bladed light whipped out, severing the Persona's arm in three pieces. It tried to backpedal, tried to readjust, but three more cuts sliced through its legs and left it immobile, and a final blast sent it back into light and energy, howling into the depths of Shirato's soul. Shirato himself was doubled over, suffering from the blowback of his Persona being so quickly dispatched. He tried to bring Moros out again, tried to grab at a grenade, but Mitsuru darted forward, sword in hand. The grenade went flying, harmless, to the side, and she kicked him in one knee to put him down, slamming a heel into his chest to keep him there. When he grabbed for his Evoker, she speared her blade through his hand, pinning it and twisting, making him scream.

"That's the least you deserve, if you helped Yoshino kill my people," she told him. "For all the pain you and Takaya have caused us, you deserve much more."

"After all the shit the Kirijo Group did to us, that balance isn't close to being struck!" he spat. "You're to blame for all this! You did this to us!"

"You'd have my sympathy if you'd tried to make something of your life. What happened to you and the others was a tragedy, and my grandfather bears the blame for it. I would have helped you if I could have, and heaven knows that we tried over the years – I suffered in those experiments, so I know full well what happened to you. But if you take all that we've offered and attack us anyway, kill those who had nothing to do with what happened to you, then you deserve nothing from me. I won't allow you to hurt my people or my comrades over your petty grudge; you should have either made your peace with your past, or stayed away from us altogether."

"So you'll kill me? Run from your dirty little secret because you can't fix it?"

"You were never going to let me try and fix it. All you want is blood and pain." She leaned down, staring him in the eye. "But no, I'm not going to kill you. I've defeated you already, I can do it again, and we'll be ready for anything else you and Sakaki throw at us."

His lips curled in a pained sneer, but she could see the hatred and the cracking sanity in his eyes. She smiled coldly, decided to take one more shot: "Because it's Sakaki and Ikutsuki that I want. You can't take two helpless women out even when you have every advantage. You can't avenge someone who meant something to you, and you can't even fight on your own and achieve something – you're not worth the little bit of effort it would take to finish you off."

Her words had the expected effect. Shirato jerked and thrashed under her, twisting his hand on her blade and making the damage worse, but she backed away to keep her balance and dodge his flailing kicks. Then he turned and ran. Mitsuru thumbed her Evoker, had a perfect shot at his back, knew she could take it before he turned the next corner, and would certainly save herself some trouble down the line.

She let him go. His fury would rot him from the inside, as her doubts and pain had tried with her. Besides, she had something more important to attend to, and whatever Shirato and Sakaki concocted next, she would handle it head-on.

Mitsuru turned to Yukari and immediately checked her for injuries. Yukari's armour had saved her life, but there was still damage present. Mitsuru focused inward, called on Artemisia – so much smoother than before, how had she operated properly before now? – and began to heal her friend.

Yukari hissed as her muscles mended and bones knit back together. Everyone on the team was used to some measure of pain, so what would have had the toughest athletes, all used to broken bones and physical damage, rolling on the ground in agony, Yukari just grit her teeth through. It would have been a troubling thought had any of them thought about it, even more when one considered that Akihiko and Iori grinned and laughed through their pain when being healed.

"Got your new Persona, did you?" Yukari asked, blinking through tears as she was healed. "How'd you do it?"

"It seems there were some things I hadn't dealt with." Mitsuru finished what healing she could do and knelt before her friend, waiting for her to try to stand. "A lot of things."

"And the middle of an ambush was the time to deal with them? I'm not criticizing, but that seems to be a common thread for everyone. It seems crazy to me."

Mitsuru laughed. "When you say it like that, I agree with you. Maybe it had to do with Moros. It tried to show me how I was going to die, but instead it showed me what was killing me in the first place. Perhaps it made a mistake, or maybe it was trying to bury me completely. When I dealt with... my problems, Artemisia was what resulted."

Yukari frowned, struggled to get to her feet and accepted Mitsuru's help in standing. "Akihiko-senpai said the same thing, about dealing with things he didn't know were problems. So did Ken. If you're saying it, then there must be a pattern there."

Mitsuru nodded. She expected Yukari to continue or say something else, but she looked troubled instead and said nothing. "Are you okay?" Mitsuru asked after an awkward moment.

"I probably can't shoot for a while, but I can still use an Evoker. And I owe Shirato for hitting me." She looked over, eyes hard but she grimaced out a smile. "That was pretty cool, pinning him and breaking him down like that. It's nice to see you fight back when someone takes shots at you."

Mitsuru smiled lopsidedly. "It felt... right."

Yukari pushed herself to her feet. "I'm glad, Mitsuru. Honestly."

The significance of the words, and the use of Mitsuru's name, wasn't lost on either of them.

"Let's get moving," Mitsuru told her friend. "The others might need our help. You can lean on me if you need any help."

They went together slowly, steadily so that Yukari wasn't injured further. They followed the blood trail Shirato had left as he'd fled, then turned the corner and saw that the trail had stopped. Presumably, he'd bound the wound or staunched the bleeding, putting an end to their easy tracking. It didn't deter them; Tartarus only went up, and so to must Shirato have gone. They followed the walls and heard human footsteps. Mitsuru focused and expanded her awareness with Artemisia – again, so much easier now than it had been before – and sensed two familiar figures. Shortly after, Akihiko and Iori found them, rushing up when they saw Yukari.

"Are you okay?" Akihiko asked.

Yukari grimaced. "I will be. Shirato got a lucky shot in on me. I just need some rest." She looked at Iori. "We felt your Persona. Heard you beat Yoshino. Nice work."

Iori nodded, looking satisfied but not triumphant. His usual devil-may-care smile was absent, lost in the harder lines of his face that hadn't been there earlier that day. "It needed to happen. That little shit Shirato came after you guys?"

"Yeah, and then he ran with his tail between his legs. Mitsuru-senpai dealt with him, and got a new Persona at the same time."

Akihiko nodded. "I thought that's what we felt. Good job; it's been a long time coming. Seems like a strong one."

"I can't measure her against you yet," Mitsuru demurred. "It's still new."

Akihiko smiled, half teeth and all anticipation. "Then we'll have to test her, see what you can do in the ring. It's been a while since we fought."

Mitsuru nodded, a similar feeling of anticipation rising in her heart. She wouldn't deny that few things got the blood rushing as well as the promise of a good fight. "Agreed. Set a place and a time and I'll be there."

"I'd pay money to see that," Iori commented, his usual smile coming back.

"Agreed," Yukari put in, "but we need to deal with Shirato first, and find the others."

"Let's go," Akihiko said, "before we attract any other attention."

Together they didn't need to worry about the Shadows, and they went up the stairs without a problem. When they arrived two floors up, Amada and Koromaru and Minato were waiting for them. Minato looked up mid-stride, his hands behind his back like he'd been pacing in front of the stairs. He approached her immediately, looked at her speculatively when he saw Yukari. "Are you okay?"

"She's hurt, but she says she'll pull through," Mitsuru reported.

Yukari nodded in agreement with that, summoning Io for another round of healing.

Minato looked at Mitsuru closer, a smile slowly growing on his face. "We felt you two all the way up here, you know. First Junpei and then you. You finally worked it out, all those problems you had before, didn't you?"

"I did, or something like it."

He leaned in and touched her hand, eyes warm and protective for her, enough that she forgot about the others for a moment. "Good work," he murmured low enough that only she could hear. "I knew you could do it."

She blushed and glanced downward, trying to conceal the silly smile he so easily inspired from her.

He backed away, their private moment over. "If we're all okay, let's keep going. It feels like Sakaki's nearby, and the gate to the next level's not far off either."

She nodded, back to business. "Agreed."

Minato's prediction wasn't far off: they reached the gate to the next floor in short order. The person waiting for them wasn't Shirato or Sakaki – presumably they'd already gone ahead or left the tower entirely. No, the one waiting for them, several steps behind the gate like a coward, was Ikutsuki.

Mitsuru clenched her fist around her Evoker, her vision tunneling when he looked at her, looked down on her like some aristocrat upon a peasant. The others had similarly aggressive responses, the air charging with barely restrained potential violence, but Ikutsuki looked unimpressed.

"So sad," he noted, his voice lacking the usual careless affectations of the dorm administrator he'd once been – a convenient mask to wear, it seemed. "Still fighting what's directly in front of you, no appreciation for the larger picture."

"You mean Nyx?" Iori snapped. "We know about it, and we're going to fight it when it gets here."

"Was that your plan the whole time?" Mitsuru demanded. "Using us to bring about some greater threat?!"

"That was Kouetsu-sama's dream," Ikutsuki said. "He knew the potential that she represented, the things we could do if we harnessed her power. When he ascended and the Shadows scattered, I needed a means to invite her back."

"So you manipulated the information," Minato noted, "put yourself in the position of an advisor, doctored what anyone else knew because so much was lost ten years ago, and used us like puppets on strings."

He looked across them in scorn. "Like puppets? Hardly. Puppets would have been more effective than what you were before Arisato got here. The first iteration of SEES couldn't begin to accomplish what I wanted. Much as any of them tried, they wouldn't have been able to kill any of the Shadows on the full moon."

Akihiko cracked his neck. "Care to say that on this side of the fence, Ikutsuki?"

"I'll say it regardless of where I stand. You were nearly killed by the first Shadow back in April. It was only the coincidental interference of Arisato that saved any of you." He smiled then, looking at peace somehow, and terrifying for it. "And what a happy coincidence that was. After that, I didn't need to do anything but let you do the work."

The others bridled, but Mitsuru's insight flashed. "You knew," she realized. "You knew about Arisato being the Appriser, knew what role he played in all this. You knew he was supposed to kill the Shadows, that he had Thanatos in him."

"Even Kouetsu-sama wouldn't have known all of that. And keeping control of a group of teenagers is more than even I could do. No, I simply capitalized on your efforts and let you do the work – for which I must thank you, Mitsuru. Because of your research, I realized quite early on what Arisato was: the guide to Nyx that I needed. That title – the Appriser – was only something you brought to me. A suitable epithet, however, for the guide that would lead us to Nyx." Ikutsuki frowned. "You feel different now, Arisato. You have since the last Shadow died at your hand. I suspect that whatever made you the Appriser has left you, or perhaps it's no longer needed. Curious, but irrelevant. Nyx is approaching, so your efforts are useless."

"You used Strega against us," Minato reasoned. "You were their source of Evokers and those drugs, and you're why they had so much information on the Kirijo Group. Seems odd that you'd set your tools against each other. Was your plan shoddy enough that you didn't anticipate that?"

"You assume that your fights with them were against my plans," Ikutsuki noted. "I simply covered all the angles, and Takaya's potential is as great as yours. He provided you with even more motivation to continue when he killed Shinjiro, didn't he?"

"Another plan of yours? No, you were just taking advantage of what was already available, weren't you? Borrowing the scraps of what was left over from ten years ago."

"Your attempt at provocation is quite short of the mark, Arisato. After all, things have proceeded as I wanted them to."

"Have they? Strega's in shambles – one of their people is dead, and Mitsuru sent Shirato running back here in pieces. Takaya hasn't even shown his face yet, and you're hiding behind them, stuck in this tower where you can't do anything except wait. We've gotten stronger, we know what's coming and we're in a position to stop you."

"Are you? To stop me, you'd have to know what I intend, and none of you could comprehend the scale of Kouetsu-sama's vision. You were a guide to the end before, but no longer, and I doubt that you could fill that role now, as you are." Ikutsuki waved them off, turning to the stairs. "Whatever your efforts, you are insignificant in the face of Kouetsu-sama's designs and Nyx's arrival. You're beneath me now."

A low growling echoed in the chamber, chains clinking from nowhere. Minato smiled coldly. "How did you get behind that gate, Ikutsuki? How much begging and groveling did you have to do?"

"None at all. Nyx is quite beneficent toward her servants. I walked toward the gate and it opened for me."

"You say that like you have something over us."

"Well, I am on this side of it and you aren't. Even you should be able to understand that much."

The growling got worse, and Minato smiled even harder. "Ikutsuki, one day gate will open. Every one of them has before, and this one's no different. When it does, we'll come find you. Keep in mind, for all your schemes, we're the ones who have done the fighting and the heavy lifting. We've killed every Shadow, we've beaten Strega at every turn, and even you stabbing us in the back didn't stop us. If you think Nyx is going to change anything, then you really bet on the wrong horse."

"You will fight, you will struggle, and you will die. In the end, your deaths will serve Nyx as they served me." Ikutsuki exhaled and shuddered, a lunatic smile on his face. "All deaths that serve Her serve Kouetsu-sama. You will see. You will all see."

With that, he turned and left.

"Are we just going to let him go?" Iori spat.

"There's not a lot we can do until the gate opens," Minato noted. "Besides, his reach is limited. We know where he is, we know that he can't access the Kirijo Group's resources, and we know what he's aiming for now. If he tries anything, we'll be ready."

"Best thing we can do is consolidate what we have and get ready for Nyx," Akihiko put in. "If Ikutsuki's been waiting for it for this long, if it was the end goal of the experiment ten years ago, then it's not going to be a pushover."

"It sucks that we have to wait like this," Yukari ground out, her face pale with pain and fury. "After everything he's done, how he strung us along, he's got a lot to answer for."

"From all of us," Minato added. "We'll make sure everyone gets their licks in, though. For the moment, I think we'd better call it a night."

The others nodded, and together they turned and left Tartarus.

Walks back from the tower tended to be difficult affairs. Even after months of fighting in the Dark Hour, after the protections afforded by a Persona and getting used to the draining effects of the alien environment, coming back to the dorm always felt like a long, hard slog, often involving dragged feet and being helped by one's teammates. Tonight was no different. Despite the healing Yukari had received, her injuries bogged her down until she was leaning heavily on Akihiko-senpai. Junpei was stumbling by the time the dorm came into view, and nearly crashed into Ken when he tripped on the street. Mitsuru had begun yawning shortly after they'd left Tartarus, and before too long Minato had pulled her back behind the others and lifted her into his arms, carrying her the rest of the way. She was so tired that she didn't object, instead leaning into him and mumbling about him being warm.

Minato marvelled at how light she was. All that speed and skill and acumen, a powerful new Persona at the tips of her fingers, and yet he could carry her, armour and all, without much trouble. Even when they got to the dorm, he was only started to breathe hard, and he managed the stairs and kept going until he got to her room. He stood outside her door, not sure how he was going to navigate it while holding her, but she stirred awake and stood on her own – albeit while yawning heavily – and opened it.

Minato became uncertain just then. He'd been her sleep assistant these past few weeks, and while she hadn't objected to their arrangement since it started, if she'd confronted her worst side and conquered it, then technically she wouldn't need him to help her rest. Maybe she'd be okay on her own now, and he'd go back to his room. It would feel different, being away from her after this long, but if it was what she needed, then he'd do it and bear with it.

She cut through his doubts by turning and tugging him in, murmuring drowsily, "Come to bed."

He followed.

She got changed on her own, forgoing a shower despite the fight she'd been through. Once she was in her nightgown and under the covers, once she was situated next to him and resting on his chest, she was fast asleep.

Minato smiled, stroked her hair, and thought over the encounter with Ikutsuki. The guy had lost his marbles, had used everyone as his pawns from the beginning. But the details were bothersome the more Minato thought about them.

If he'd been the lynch pin of Ikutsuki's plan, then killing Shadows had been the goal all along, and Nyx had been the desired result. But Igor and Elizabeth had been directing them in the same direction, so either they were on Ikutsuki's side, or the outcome they wanted involved Nyx too. The simplest logic indicated that where Ikutsuki wanted to use Nyx for his own purposes, Igor's intentions involved stopping Nyx entirely. That jived with the old man's comments about events being set in motion outside what SEES could influence, that they were the ones to deal with outcomes of actions taken a long time ago.

Part of Minato was miffed that the Velvet Room duo hadn't just told the truth in the first place, but they had said that preparing the group in advance could have made things turn out worse overall. Minato didn't know what that would have looked like, but it did make a warped kind of sense. And if he'd known that he was being sent against something even stronger than Thanatos, the theoretical mother of all Shadows, then he probably wouldn't have kept fighting up to now.

But Ikutsuki's words kept coming back to Minato, how Minato had lost something important. Ikutsuki had known about the Shadow calling Minato the Appriser, had said he'd looked into the matter and come up with nothing. Now that was called into doubt, and it was more likely that Ikutsuki knew what the Appriser was and was happy Minato had assumed that role, however unwittingly. If Minato didn't know what the Appriser's purpose was and how he'd become it, then how could he have lost the title? What had happened between fighting that last Shadow and now that could have made that much difference?

Minato went over the events in his mind, from Kirijo-san dying and Thanatos awakening to the depression he'd sunk into and the fight with Akihiko-senpai to becoming Mitsuru's bedmate.

As though she knew she was the subject of his thoughts, she shuffled in her sleep and cuddled deeper, groaning a little before going still again. Minato smiled; it was like she was telling him to stop thinking too much.

He considered how he could have lost being the Appriser. He whimsically considered where he could have misplaced the title, where it might have gone and if some other poor sap had picked it up. What would that person look like? What would they do? How could he thank them for taking the burden he'd given up? Now they could be Ikutsuki's guide, maybe off the long end of a short pier, and–

Minato froze, hand stopped in Mitsuru's hair, heart racing as a thought hit him. His joke flipped before his mind's eye like a tarot card, revealing the point where all the pieces connected. He tried to examine it from a different angle, tried to push the idea aside, but that only made him realize how whole the idea was.

He was wrong. He had to be... but...

"No way."

Author's Note, Post Script: There's no need to guess where we're going next, is there?