Edit: I've cleaned up most of the errors in this chapter and added some little details. Persona 4 is copyrighted and used here without permission.

Borderline of Madness, Part 1: Secret Lab

Chapter One: The True Self

As she awoke from a fuzzy daze, the first sensation Naoto felt was the throbbing ache in her head. It was an ache unlike any other—an invisible hand was grasping her head, the thumb pressing at the base of her skull, two fingers drumming a painful rhythm against her temples, and the two remaining fingers through her eye sockets strumming her optic nerves.

"Invisible hand?" She was being far too metaphoric. She must have hit her head quite hard.

Naoto forced her eyes open in an attempt to take in her surroundings. Her bleary eyes fluttered open only to stare up into a blindingly bright light. Gasping in surprised pain, Naoto clamped her eyes shut, cursing the imbecile who left such a light pointing in her eyes.

"Where am I?" she mumbled, attempting to roll over onto her stomach. As she turned herself over, she felt the solid ground melt away. She let out a small cry as she crashed off an elevated area and onto a cold steel floor with a resounding thud.

Groaning in pain, Naoto tried to push herself into a sitting position. She succeeded only in slipping and banging her already throbbing head against the hard ground.

Ooh, that looked like it hurt!

Naoto froze upon hearing the garbled voice. Someone else was here with her. Suddenly everything came flooding back to her: the investigation. She had been trying to get herself kidnapped. Had she succeeded? Was she in the perpetrator's lair? Feeling a brief (and admittedly childish) burst of adrenaline, Naoto pushed herself onto her knees.

"Who are you?" She opened her eyes and looked in the direction she thought the voice had sounded from. Her eyes met nothing but a green-tinted wall and several computer-like panels. "Where are you?" she muttered softly.

Thinking that perhaps she had only imagined the voice (after all, head injuries could cause hallucinations, she reminded herself), Naoto blinked to clear her vision and began a preliminary visual examination of the room. There were high-tech computers, other equipment stacked on top of each other, and the entire room was tinted in a sickly shade of green. If she had not thought it so childish, Naoto would have called the room a "secret lab." It had all the cliché qualifications for being an evil scientist's laboratory…like the ones from the television shows she had enjoyed as a child (and still did, secretly). Perhaps the perpetrator was actually a scientist. If he were a man of science, it would not be impossible to reason logically with him.

Naoto rose to her feet, wobbling a few times before feeling stable enough to continue her visual investigation. She turned to look behind her and noticed the elevated table from which she must have fallen. Continuing her gaze, Naoto's eyes rested on the gleaming drills that were suspended from the ceiling. The sight of the tools made her stomach turn.

"W-what kind of place is this? Those are not standard experimental implements." Her voice echoed off the steel walls of the mostly empty room.

I don't know. You created this. Everything here…it's all from your head.

Naoto gasped as she felt a hand rest on her shoulder. She spun around. There was no one behind her. The only thing she saw was her own looming silhouette cast on the wall.

Naoto shook her head at her own paranoia. "Get it together, Shirogane! It is just your shadow. Focus on solving this case. Focus on getting out."

"Just your shadow?" What do you mean by "just?"

Where was that voice coming from? It seemed to be everywhere at once. Moreover, how had it known what she was thinking? Had she spoken aloud without knowing?

Taking a deep breath in an attempt to stay calm, Naoto turned the focus back to her unknown conversationalist. "Are you the one who brought me here?"

Hahahahahaha. A cruel laughter shattered what courage Naoto had managed to build and she stepped backwards until her back was against a wall. Don't you realize, Naoto-kun? We are both here because of you.

"What?" Naoto frowned. Clearly, the perpetrator was attempting to throw her off guard. She refused to be so easily distracted from her goal.

"What do you mean to do with me?" Naoto was about to ask another question, when she noticed her shadow change directions. It began to move by itself. It walked over to the table in the center of the room and knelt by a small blue hat. Naoto reached up and touched her head, realizing for the first time that her hat was gone. The shadow did not copy her movement.

Instead the silhouette reached down for the hat and stood back up placing the hat's shadow on its own head. Naoto watched in stunned silence as the shadow stood up off the floor.

"This is not possible. S-shadows are two-dimensional objects. Illusions caused by the angle of light. This…this is a dream."

Hahahaha, always sticking to your "truth" and "facts." Haven't you ever considered that there might be something beyond the possibilities of so-called "reality?"

The dark blob began to take a definite human form. The tar-like blackness twisted into a shape that was disturbingly familiar. Finally, the shadow stood still, facing her in a defiant stance. Its eyes were hidden by the brim of a blue hat and its body was cloaked in a lab coat several sizes too large.

It's good to finally meet you face to face, Naoto Shirogane. The garbled voice began to sound vaguely familiar. Like listening to her tape-recorded case notes. The same mixture of an already low voice attempting to sound even lower. Like a small boy. Like her own voice.

"You…w-who are you? What are you? What is going on?" Naoto shook her head. "This can't be real. I must have hit my head harder than I originally gathered. You are simply a type of hallucination."

Naoto-kun, you are slacking off on your detective work. Here you have indisputable physical evidence of the truth. How can you fail to comprehend something so simple? The shadow tipped its face up and Naoto's breath caught in her lungs. She was starring at a mirror image of herself.

"Impossible…"

The truth…I am you. And you are me.

Naoto closed her eyes. "No, you can't…that is not possible! I-I am dreaming." She struggled to stay on her feet. "I must find a way out of here."

The doppelganger's sneer fell. No! No, don't leave me!

Naoto was caught off guard. "What?"

Don't leave me all alone! The reflection ran over and latched its arms firmly around her waist, letting out a rather pathetic snivel.

"Are you…crying?" Naoto attempted to detach the look-alike's arms, but she could not break its grasp.

I'm always alone. So don't go.

Naoto frowned. What an odd little person. One second it had been mocking her, and the next, it had broken down in tears and begged her to stay. Although, something about its words haunted her deeply. Almost as if her own thoughts were being made manifest. "No. That isn't possible."

We are always alone.

"We?"

The doppelganger pushed Naoto away. I've already explained it! You are me. I am you. We are the same. We are "we." It stomped its feet on the floor like a small child.

Naoto shook her head and crossed the room to her hat. She picked it off the floor, brushed it off, and set it on her head. Attempting to appear unfazed, she forced herself to speak in as logical a tone as possible.

"I do not have time to entertain a foolish child who thinks I will be deceived by a simple trick. Clearly, you are just a projection of some sort. This is a highly technical looking facility. However, I refuse to be taken in by this…farce. I am afraid I have an investigation to continue. I must be going." She turned toward the other side of the room. Hopefully there would be a door.

No! Not before the body alteration procedure.

Naoto stopped abruptly. "T-the what?"

The Other Naoto skipped over to the elevated table and motioned to the drill. We are going to make ourselves what we really want to be!

Naoto visibly shuttered. "What? You can't mean…" What did it mean? A sex change? But how did it know that she wasn't male? Besides, cross-dressing had always suited her just fine. She didn't actually want to be a man...right?

I know you, "Naoto." You think you've fooled everyone, don't you? But you are not, nor will you ever be, a real detective. As the charming men at the police station would say, "You don't have the balls, Naoto-kun."

Naoto swallowed hard. "I do not know what you mean." She felt at her right side for the revolver that always she carried with her. It was unnervingly absent.

Only real men can be detectives. Have you ever read about…or even heard about…a female detective? You are no man. You are a mere child! A mere female! No wonder we are always alone. No wonder we are never needed. Only useful for a time, and then cast aside like the garbage that we are. The shadow gestured wildly. But don't worry. It will all be over soon. We shall set this right. Fortune may have conspired against us at conception, but no more. We shall make our own fortune—our own truths!

"Fortune? What are you talking about?" Naoto shook her head and sat down resting her back against the elevated table…no, the operating table. How could she have so gravely miscalculated the situation? It had seemed so simple in theory: get kidnapped, apprehend the killer, rescue self, provide the police with evidence, and bask in the satisfaction of single-handedly solving a case that had stumped an entire police force.

Or the much less interesting plan B: wait for Seta and company to come and assist her in said apprehension of the criminal, collect the necessary evidence, and alternately bask in satisfaction and sulk in disappointment over requiring assistance to complete a task that an entire police force could not.

However, she had seriously miscalculated. Miscalculated the evil illusions that the kidnapper was capable of producing. Miscalculated how much the killer knew about her. Miscalculated the time it would take Seta to even discover she was missing. Would anyone even notice that she had disappeared?

Why would they? What are you to them? The doppelganger spoke as if it had read her mind.

"They need me."

Do they? They've managed fine without you this far.

"They…they'll come." Naoto crossed her arms. "I think." She closed her eyes and tried to shut out the sound of her own voice…coming from the lips of that terrible abomination.