Makoto followed Akechi as he guided her throughout the dark, insidious halls of this dungeon. They had managed to sneak past most of the knights stationed there, but whenever one spotted them, Akechi made quick work of them with Robin Hood. Makoto still couldn't believe Akechi could summon that...demonic bird thing from thin air! Just what was that?

"Akechi-kun?" Makoto asked, but paused as she saw Akechi command Robin Hood to lift up a knight that noticed them. Makoto shuddered when Robin Hood cracked the knight in half like an egg and feasted on the jack-o-lantern-like creature inside it.

"I told you, Mako-chan, it's Goro," he insisted. "And what is it?"

"Just...that bird thing..." she said. "What is it...and how on earth are you controlling it?!"

"Bird thing isn't exactly a flattering name for Robin Hood," he said with a playful smirk. "Especially since it's an insult to myself as well."

"I-I'm sorry then," Makoto said, but Akechi shook his head.

"No, no, you don't get it," he said. "Robin Hood is me. Well, a part of me at least. He's a Persona, a manifestation of one's true self that comes to life in the cognitive world."

"R-Really...?" Makoto whispered, thinking over his words. A manifestion of one's true self...that comes to life in the cognitive world...

And upon remembering her time with Igor and Elizabeth, Makoto's eyes widened when an idea popped into her head. "Wait, if it come to life in the cognitive world...does this mean we're-"

"Inside someone's head?" Akechi finished, answering her question with a nod. "You're catching on pretty quickly."

"But if we're inside someone's mind, who's-"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!"

"What was that!?" Makoto shouted, hearing the chilling cries of someone in deep pain. Against her better judgment, she rushed toward wherever that shrill scream came from.

"Mako-chan, wait, you shouldn't-oh, god damn it!" Akechi said as he ran after her.

. . .

"There you are!" Akechi said when he finally caught up to Makoto. "We shouldn't waste any time! The longer we stay, the more we--Mako-chan? Makoto, are you okay?"

Makoto said nothing, her face pale as she stood still and watched the horror show in front of her. Ever since she stepped inside this castle (or Palace, as Akechi called it), Makoto had seen and gone through a lot of horrible things today. From getting chased by large knights, to being treated like a slave, to being nearly violated by a twisted mockery of herself; Makoto thought at this point, nothing inside this godforsaken place would so much as surprise her. She's seen it all after all. There's nothing in this place that could be worse than what she had been through!

Boy had she been wrong...

In the large cells of this dungeon were students from Shujin Academy, all of them beaten, bruised, and barely holding onto life. From behind her, she heard agonizing screams and when she turned, she gasped in horror as she saw several students wrapped in chains, their pained screams echoing the dungeons as the knights tortured them sadistically.

"W-what..." Makoto's voice trailed off, her skin paling and her body trembling at the gruesome sights around her.

Akechi also looked at the torture that surrounded the both of them and sighed, knowing exactly what thoughts were inside Makoto's head. "Makoto..."

"Akechi, we have to free them," Makoto said darkly, her hands clenched into fist.

"Mako-chan, there's nothing we can-wait!" Akechi begab, but it was too late as Makoto rushed forward to one of the cells, trying to barge it open.

"C'mon! C'mon!" Makoto gritted her teeth, trying to pull the cell open, but it wouldn't budge. "There's got to be a key somewhere here..."

"...no use..." the student in the cell whispered hoarsely.

"What...?"

"...no use...no use getting out..." he said in an emotionless tone, staring at Makoto with broken eyes. "...there's no escape, so we have to be obedient for any chance of happiness…"

Makoto gaped, unable to grasp the student's statement. "Y-you can't be serious! Why on earth would you even consider staying!?"

"It's because they're not real, Makoto," Akechi said from behind the student council present, who turned to him with a confused stare. "These student are cognitions. Figments created from Kamoshida's mind."

"What do you..." Makoto asked, but her voice trailed off when she glanced back at the tortured students.

"Remember that...provocatively-dressed doppelganger of yours from earlier?" Akechi asked.

Makoto cringed, remembering how she had been assaulted by that twisted mockery that wore her face.

"Well, that's how the ruler of this Palace sees you," he explained. "Cognitions are perceptions of people or objects that take form in this world. For example, the ruler of the Palace are in sees Shujin Academy as his castle and thus, it took the form of one. And by the look of his cognition, he sees the male students as slaves can torture on a whim, and judging by your encounter with the cognitions of yourself and the other girls here, sees the female students as...sex slaves, for the lack of a better term."

Makoto felt beyond sick as she processed the information Akechi gave her. It soundee unbelievable, but the truth was literally right in front of her.

This castle...this perverted fantsy that she and Akechi had stepped into...this was beyond appalling. If what Akechi said was true, this castle was a cognitive version of Shujin Academy, but who in their right mind would ever see her school as this corrupted castle of lust!?

"Gagh!" Akechi cried as he was suddenly by a knight, pinning him to the floor. Makoto screamed and stepped back in horror.

"Akechi-kun!" Makoto shouted. She rushed to help him, but her arms were quickly grabbed by a large knight in golden armor. Makoto struggled to break free, but the knight's grip was too strong.

"Well, well, well, if it isn't the student council president," a familiar voice said, malice oozing out of his voice. "I didn't expect you'd sneak into my domain, but given your recent misbehavior, I shouldn't be surprised."

"That voice...it can't be..." Makoto whispered in disbelief. She turned her head and her eys widened as right in front of her stood Suguru Kamoshida.

The gym teacher was flanked by two knights, and the cognitive version of her stood beside him, her arms wrapped around him as she pressed her breasts against his exposed chest. He, in turn, smirked and groped her scantily clad rear.

Makoto gagged at the sight, but it was nothing compared to what Kamoshida was wearing...which was nothing at all. Barring the cartoonishly small crown on his head, the red king's cape that had pink hearts symbols adorned on it, and the pink speedo, he was practically naked.

There was no doubt about it, this sight would forever haunt Makoto's dreams. There was no way she could wash it off.

"K-kamoshida...?" Makoto whispered, to which he slapped her in response.

"It's KING Kamoshida, you mediocre peasant!" he shouted, sneering at Makoto, who then noticed that his schlera in his eyes were glowing a sickly yellow. "You have some nerve sneaking into my castle and running amok with that intruder!"

He gestured to Akechi, who struggled to free hinself from the knight's grip. "Robin Hoo-ACK!!!"

Kamoshida motioned his foot backward after delivering a powerful kick to Akechi's skull.

"Don't you dare bring that monster back, unless you want another kick to the head..." he warned before giving a sinister chuckle. "As if that matters now..."

He turned to one of the knights beside him, who held a large axe. "He's intruded my sanctum for far too long. Kill him," he ordered and the knight nodded.

"What!?" Makoto shouted, shaking wildly in an attempt to break free. "Nonononono...!"

"Ooh, your little friend's in trouble~!" the cognitive Makoto sang mockingly to the real one. "I can't wait to see your face when his head gets cleaved off!"

"No, please, don't!" Makoto pleaded, but was ignored as the blade of the knight's axe went close to the skin of Akechi's neck. Kamoshida knelt down to stare at Akechi, who glared at him.

"You've been quite a pest for the last few weeks, bird," he said to Akechi. "But perhaps I can spare you if you-Gragh!" he winced in pain as Akechi spat on his eye. After wiping the saliva off of his eye, Kamoshida stood up and glared hatefully at Akechi. "You little brat! Kill him! Kill him now!"

Akechi didn't falter and remained silent as he glared down at Kamoshida, his twisted cognition of Makoto, and the axe-wielding knight as it raised its weapon high before swinging it down to Akechi's neck!

"STOP!!!" Makoto suddenly cried, stopping the execution in the nick of time as the axe was only an inch away from decapitating Akechi. "P-please, don't..." she whispered, tears streaming down her eyes as her body trembled in absolute terror.

Kamoshida turned to stare at Makoto for a moment, then laughed. "The Shujin student council president reduced to a sniveling wreck. I would call it a shame, but you've been starting to become a pest ever since you decided to snoop into my business."

"You even made me hurt my own little Makoto!" he gestured to the Cognitive Makoto, who posed like a model to display the various scars on her back.

"I was such a lovely slave to King Kamoshida, but then you had to make him hurt me by standing up to him!" she hissed. "Why couldn't you just go back to being a good little sheep!"

"And it's not too late for you to go back to that..." Kamoshida added, grinning slyly to Makoto.

"W-what do you want...?" Makoto stuttered, her eye fixed to Kamoshida's sinister gaze.

"What I want is two things," he answered. "The first is for you to stop investigating me in the real world. Second is to...share the bed with me, to earn your friend's freedom."

"B-but you're a teacher...and I'm a student..." Makoto protested feebly, to which he chuckled.

"I'm a king, and I can do whatever I want..."

"Forget about me, Makoto, just get out of-Groagh!" Akechi shouted, but was cut off when the Cognitive Makoto stomped on his head.

"Shut up," the Cognition said with a perverted smile.

"So how about it, Niijima-san?" he asked rhetorically, as if the answer was already decided. "Having both you and your twin together would be fun..."

Makoto was slient, her face pale as she stared down at Kamoshida's perverted exprrssion. She turned to Akechi, thd dear friend to her and her sister that stuck by them ever since their parents had passed away.

She couldn't afford to lose him, not after everything he did for her and Sae! Not to mention that there was no way for them to escape now. Kamoshida had pinned them both down and Akechi was unable to summon Robin Hood with the threat of decapitation looming over her.

Makoto's eyes then gazed at the Cognitive Makoto. Should she accept Kamoshida's offer, would she turn out like what the perverted gyn teacher saw her as? A plaything for his sexual desires? The idea disgusted Makoto to her very core, but seeing the direness of the situation, she had no choice.

With a defeated sigh, her eyes turned back to Kamoshida, who smiled as he can clearly see the hopelessness shining in them. She opened her mouth, ready to accept the deal.

"Pathetic. Are you really going to accept this so easily?" a voice asked in Makoto's head. Makoto perked up for a moment at the voice, but frowned as she thought back to her current situation.

"I don't have any other choice..." she said.

"And you'll just accept it? Just like that...become a sex slave to this heathen?!"

"...I don't want Akechi-kun to die..."

"And this will save him!? Give up your freedom, become this man's plaything, to ensure his possible survival!? You've truly lost it all if you're willing to result to that!"

"...then what am I supposed to do?"

"Since the day your parents died, you were always the good little girl with constant high grades, a shining role model for her fellow students...a pack mule for the adults that ran your life."

Makoto remembered her time as student council president. Yes, she became president to become a good example to her fellow students, but she was always following her teachers' orders. Even when she voiced her objections, they always told her to keep quiet and obey.

"You've become nothing more than a mouthpiece for the people who used and abused you and the other children in your academy."

She remembered Ann's words. How she was just a teacher's per who did nothing to help the students suffering from Kamoshida.

"Are you really going to let that slide? Are you really going to stoop low as to lose whatever freedom you have left to be this man's plaything!?"

"..."

"...no..."

Kamoshida frowned. "What?"

"I said NO!!!" Makoto shouted and kicked Kamoshida in the stomach, causing him to tumble down.

"You rotten bitch!" he wheezes out, clutching his stomach. "You dare assault your-!?"

"You are not my or anyone else's king!" Makoto hissed. "I won't bow down to you or to anyone else anymore!"

"So you've decided to tread the path of strife?" a voice in her head asked. "If so, let's proceed with the contract at once."

Makoto's eyes bulged as they turned yellow. She began moving wildly as she felt a splitting migraine that tore her head apart. With a loud scream, she emitted a powerful cry that knocked the knight holding her away. Now free from its grip, she writhed in pain from the migraine, but stood strong as she stomped on the ground, panting heavily whilst glaring down at Kamoshida and his twisted cognition and knights.

"I am thou, thou art I. You have finally found your own justice...please... Never lose sight of it again."

A mask of iron then appeared on Makoto' face and she growled in agony. She instinctively reached up to take the mask off, but found that it was attached to her face. Yet still, she pulled and pulled with all her might until she sensed the metallic taste of her own blood in her mouth. Blood flicking off her face as her skin tore out alonside the mask, she let out an agonizing war cry as she ripped off the mask. In a burst of blue flames, the wound she inflicted on herself seemed to burn away.

"This memorable day marks your graduation from your false self..."

As the flames died down, they revealed a silver and blue motorcycle with a mask of an elegant woman's face beneath the windshield on the front. On the motorcycle was its rider, Makoto Niijima. Instead of the Shujin Academy uniform, she now wore a skintight black leather adorned with spikes, and a long, flowing scarf tied around her neck.

Kamoshida, the Cognitive Makoto, and the knights looked on in horror; Akechi, on the other hand, grinned in excitement.

"What the hell!?" Kamoshida shouted as he stared at what Makoto had become.

Makoto closed her eyes and had a determined look on her face. "I can feel it...my 'self'... me...!"

Her eyes jolted open, glaring hard at her foes. "Gun it!"

The motorcycle screeched as Makoto drove straight toward Kamoshida and his twisted cognition of her, who managed to dodge away from the attack.

"ROBIN HOOD!" Akechi cried and the aformentioned skeletal bird appeared, grabbing the knight that held Akechi down and tossing him away.

Now free, Akechi ran to Makoto's side. "You have quite the fabulous new look, Mako-chan."

She blushed. "You think so?"

Kamoshida growled in anger at the sight and turned to his remaining knights. "Don't just stand there! Kill them now!"

The knights nodded and tore themselves out of their suits, revealing a High Pixie and two Jack-O-Lanterns.

Makoto glared at the opponents, revving her up her motorcycle Persona. "I will not lose heart again, ever...I will go full speed, non-stop!"

"Right, Johanna!?"

With one final rev, Makoto and Johanna charged into battle with Akechi and Robin Hood beside him. Today was the day she stood up for herself...today was the day she made Kamoshida pay!

"For King Kamoshida!" the High Pixie shouted as she commanded the Jack-O-Lantenrs to throw fireballs at Makoto, who was rather unfazed by the attack despite the injury she got from it. If anything, she was just annoyed.

"Johanna! Frei!" Makoto shouted and spun her motorcycle in place via her accelerator and handbreak, causing a burst of light blue light to come down at the High Pixie.

The creature could only scream in pain as she fell to the ground. She tried to get back up, but was run over by Makoto for her troubles.

Akechi then leapt above Makoto, and above him, Robin Hood readied his bow and arrows. "Robin Hood! Open Fire!"

Winding a pair of ice-coated arrows back, Robin Hood laughed menacingly as he fired them at the two Jack-O-Lanterns, killing them with ease.

Kamoshida and his Cognitive Makoto flinched at how they tore through the monsters with ease, but were relieved when more knights ran into the battle, morphing into swarms of Pixies.

Akechi grinned viciously, whipping out his pistol as he and Robin Hood shot down the Pixies with a hail fire of bullets and arrows. Several knights morphed into a herd of Bicorns that attempted to trample him, Makoto snatched Akechi before they could and countered with several bursts of light toward them, causing them to get knocked back from the attack.

In a few minutes, Makoto and Akechi found themselves outnumbered and surrounded by an army of Pixies, Jack-O-Lanterns, and Bicorns.

"Shit!" Akechi hissed, reloading his gun and pointing it at one of the Pixies. "What do we do now?"

Makoto gritted her teeth, glaring at Kamoshida and the Cognitive Makoto before glancing to Akechi. "Hop on and hold on tight!"

Akechi nodded and did as he was told, wrapping his arms around Makoto's waist. Revving up Johanna, Makoto drove her motorcycle in high speeds, narrowly avoiding some of the monsters while almost running over Kamoshida, who jumped out of the way in time.

From a distance, Makoto could hear Kamoshida's cries for murder, but it was muffled by the sounds of Johanna's roaring engine. Zooming out of the dungeon and through the halls of the Castle, Makoto and Akechi managed to find the Castle's large entrance and drive out of it.

As Makoto and Akechi sped their way to freedom, familiar waves of black and red began to wash over them, distorting reality around them.

. . .

Once Johanna and her leather outfit dissipated, Makoto knelt to the nearest trash bin and hurled into it. After that, she panted heavily and scanned her surroundings, seeig that she and Akechi were now back in Shujin Academy.

"It's a good thing you had awakened your Persona back there," Akechi sighed, slumping onto a nearby bench. "That was too close..."

Makoto nodded as she observed her surroundings one more time to make sure they really had escaped that awful castle.

"That...that was real, wasn't it?" Makoto asked. "We really were inside Kamoshida's mind."

"Yes, and I find it very surprising that you ended up there," Akechi said. "You didn't get a strange app on your phone, did you?"

Makoto opened her mouth to ask, only to be cut off by the sound of a school bell.

Her eyes widen and she checked the time on her phone. "Shit! I'm late for class!"

All her exhaustion vanishing instantly, Makoto got up and practically dashed into the school.

"H-hey! You still need to answer my questions!" Akechi called out, but she didn't hear him as he was far beyond her hearing.

Once she got to her class, Makoto almost broke the door open and tripped inside.

She groaned, landing face first on the floor.

"Niijima-san?" the homeroom teacher Mr. Ushimura said. "Y-you're late..." he said in utter disbelief. She had never been late before since she enrolled in this school.

As Makoto stood up, she heard her classmates whispering behind her back.

"Why was she late?"

"Guess she really isn't Miss Perfect after all."

"Was she seeing someone?"

"Not only that, but you missed you previous class too," Mr. Ushimura added. "Care to explain?"

Makoto sweated nervously as he and the rest of the class stared at her like a hawk watching its prey, awaiting her answer. Makoto sighed in defeat. What am I supposed to say to this...?