When he came to his senses, what appeared before his eyes was a bizarre space.
"This is..."
He couldn’t even get a read on what it was.
A room strewn with traditional Japanese-style interior decor, circus tents, and all kinds of masks.
Beyond the one-room apartment narrow enough that even a single person could barely lie down, boisterous laughter echoed through the air.
-Ha ha ha ha ha ha
As if in response, incomprehensible noises followed behind it.
It wasn’t natural laughter, but a repulsive sensation born of soulless applause.
It felt like looking at puppets pretending to be human.
'Looks like I got separated from the others.'
Neither Okkotsu nor Kurusu was visible beside him.
They were probably in a similar situation.
Junpei let out a long sigh as he recalled the last thing he had seen, wondering how things had ended up like this.
Takaba, who had suddenly gone strange, had been hurled this way by Kenjaku.
Right after that, a bizarre surge of energy had exploded out of Takaba, and while he was caught up in it....
"Damn it."
Only now did he understand what had happened.
Kenjaku had used some trick to force Takaba’s technique into overdrive.
He had been wondering how he planned to oppose the Angel, and this was what he did.
"So when it comes to your goal, friend or not, none of that matters."
From what he had heard, Kenjaku and Takaba had gotten along unusually well.
Takaba’s value was extremely high, and Junpei had thought Kenjaku might even have felt some human affection for him.
He hadn’t expected him to use Takaba so cruelly as disposable bait and throw him away.
"What a piece of trash..."
As expected, that bastard was a rotten scumbag beyond redemption.
After cursing under his breath, Junpei headed for the door attached to the room.
Whatever happened, he had to get out of here with his allies first.
Even if Takaba couldn’t kill anyone, no one knew what might happen while he was out of his mind like this.
And on top of that, he didn’t think he’d been swept up in it, but if Kenjaku was inside here too?
'Kenjaku knows Takaba’s technique better than anyone. He’d also know how to control it.'
He didn’t even want to imagine what kind of effect a technique that fed back on Kenjaku’s imagination would produce.
-Creak
The moment he grabbed the doorknob.
"Kikikikikik!"
"Ack!"
Suddenly, a clown mask mounted on the wall lunged forward with a horrible screech.
Startled, Junpei reflexively threw a punch and smashed the mask.
-Pshk!
Apparently it had only been meant to scare him, because the mask shattered helplessly.
Junpei calmed his pounding heart, swallowed hard, and turned back around.
"Hoo..."
What was waiting ahead?
He had no idea what other monster might appear.
Since the technique that even worked on a special-grade had gone berserk, this might be harsher than any trial he had faced so far.
With equal parts anticipation and worry, he opened the door, and a bright street that contrasted sharply with the dark room greeted him.
Oddly enough, about 100 meters away on foot, he could see a huge building that looked like it had been modeled after the Tokyo Dome.
On both sides of the road leading to the building, stalls lined up one after another, each manned by masked vendors.
"What the hell is this?"
-Pop-pop-pop!
In front of the bewildered Junpei, fireworks burst and letters appeared in the air.
[Welcome to Takaba Palace]
As the greeting to guests appeared, the masked vendors all turned their gaze toward Junpei at once.
Their invisible expressions stared at him coolly.
Then the mouth parts of their masks twitched, and laughter with no rise or fall burst out.
-Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Again. That indescribable discomfort.
Something that was not human imitating humans, resonating with hollow emotion—it was deeply grotesque.
Cold sweat trickled down Junpei’s forehead.
"Seriously, what is this?"
In this twisted land of illusion, could he really get out?
Just then, someone called out to Junpei.
"Hey, you there!"
At the first complete human sentence he had heard, Junpei turned around.
To his surprise, the one-room apartment he had just escaped from was gone without a trace, and in its place stood two figures wearing masks.
Unlike the clown masks worn by the creepy NPC-like things still laughing hysterically, these were plain white masks with no decoration at all.
It was a pair made up of a man and a woman, and the expressions visible on each were different.
"Me?"
"Yeah★ You★"
The man wearing the smiling mask beckoned with an exaggerated gesture.
The woman wearing the angry mask stomped her feet in response, as if answering him.
"Why did an outsider come into the palace!"
No.
Even if they said it like that, I just got swept up in this.
And who the hell are you two in the first place?
"I didn’t come in because I wanted to."
"So what! Once you’re in here, you’re an invader! You’d have nothing to say even if we reported you for trespassing!"
"I want to get out too....."
"That’s the problem, isn’t it? There’s only one way out of here."
The woman clicked her tongue and pointed at the Tokyo Dome at the end of the road.
"Defeat the owner of the palace in there and take the 'treasure' with you. Otherwise, the palace won’t disappear."
"Palace?"
"This place, this place! You saw the welcome message earlier, didn’t you!"
"Uh... wait a second."
So this was a fictional space created by Takaba, and its name was a palace.
The two men and women in front of him were residents living inside that palace.
And on top of that, it was clear that he would have to defeat Takaba, who was presumably the final boss, in order to escape.
"Persona?"
"You’re way too slow on the uptake. You just figured that out now?"
The Persona series.
A famous game IP centered on the human inner self.
Takaba’s rampaging technique seemed to have borrowed that setting to create this space.
'He destroyed perception and forcibly sent the technique into overdrive... in that sense, it fits.'
Takaba’s technique, [Bloom], was the materialization and compulsion of mental imagery.
Since it had now gone berserk without caring what anyone thought, this [Palace] could safely be called his mental image itself.
"Then you two are..."
When Junpei fixed them with a wary look, the duo started introducing themselves as if they had been waiting for that very question.
"I’m Joy★"
"I’m Anger."
"Anger? I’m reporting you★"
"You crazy bastard!"
The remnants of emotion that existed within Takaba, fragmented and given life in accordance with his rampage.
The Four Heavenly Kings assigned to protect this space and exclude outside intruders.
Each of them was in charge of joy and anger, respectively.
"We have a duty to protect this place."
"Yoshino Junpei★"
"By the will of the owner of the Palace-"
The eyes visible beyond the masks of the man and woman gleamed ominously.
-We will exclude you.
As the signs of battle began to show, Junpei reacted swiftly.
He drew up all the cursed energy in his body and tried to activate [Akasa anuttara mapari].....
"Huh?"
"Looks like your technique won’t activate★?"
"Won’t activate 'your technique' is sexist, so won’t activate, you..."
"Stop★"
The technique.
Would not come out.
It was a situation similar to Higuruma’s [Confiscation], but the feeling was completely different.
'The technique is still inside me!'
The technique he had handled as naturally as his own body ever since awakening refused to respond.
No matter how many times he called for [Akasa anuttara mapari], which had hidden itself deep inside him, there was no answer.
"Damn it all..."
-Pow-pow!
In the blink of an eye, the combo dropkick from Joy and Anger slammed into Junpei.
"This is a one-time team-up★"
"I still haven’t forgiven you, bastard!"
The traditional comedian duo consists of a boke who spouts nonsense and a tsukkomi who throws in the retort.
Joy was the boke, Anger the tsukkomi. The two of them—problem children, but the strongest.
Oh no, this was a pretty dangerous combination!
'Senior Maki said hand-to-hand combat wouldn’t work.'
Junpei bit his lip in frustration.
If only he could overwhelm them with cursed energy control and martial arts like before.
Since those two had inherited Takaba’s ability, ordinary attacks wouldn’t work.
He needed a more fundamental solution.
"I came all this way...!"
He couldn’t collapse this pathetically.
It was all over now. The Culling Game was over too.
He couldn’t get stuck in a place like this.
'Think, think.'
He already knew the response method.
With his technique sealed, how was he supposed to trigger soul resonance?
Getting no reaction at all was the worst. There was no way it would be solved by something that simple.
Was he supposed to play along with the gag after all?
At that moment, a flash of inspiration struck Junpei’s mind.
'This place is the inside. And the world of Persona.'
You can’t deal with something formless using something that has form.
From the start, this was another, different world. He couldn’t get through this deadlock with the rules of the old one.
If he wanted to oppose Takaba’s heart, then he would have to bring out his own heart as well.
-Click
He folded his fingers into the shape of a gun and pressed them to his temple.
"!"
Seeing Joy and Anger look flustered confirmed that this was the right answer.
With a grin, he recalled a scene from a game he had once seen, and Takaba’s technique resonated with that emotion.
Before he knew it, the object in Junpei’s hand, still shaped like a gun, had become something resembling a real firearm.
"Kek."
The Persona summoning device that appeared in the third installment of the series.
The iconic object that comes to mind when you think of Persona, a tool that calls the heart into reality.
No, was this the fifth one? Whatever. It was all a mess anyway.
"Hey! That’s already a game from ten years ago!"
"Didn’t you know a remake came out recently?"
Let’s just mash it together as a crossover side story.
Junpei laughed fiercely and pulled the trigger without the slightest hesitation.
"Come on, Personaaa!!"
-Bang!
With the added effect of a shattered tarot card, an invisible impact snapped his head to one side.
-I am you, and you are me.... You have finally obtained true bonds...and thus the power of [Clown] has opened to its deepest depths.
From the moment humans ate the fruit of wisdom, they became travelers.
Following the path shown by the cards, they entrusted their faint hopes to the future.
As beings who meet others, sometimes endure trials, and unravel the riddles of life through the journey called existence.
-We bestow upon you...[Clown]’s ultimate power, may it fill you completely....
It was all a road already traveled.
Mu-sang-jeong-byeon-ji.
'I', by itself, is complete and does not change.
"Ah, a cheat player★"
"Why are you already max-unlocked!"
"These days, overpowered protagonists are all the rage."
He had seen enough of his own inner self.
If it was the power of the heart built through bonds, he was confident he wouldn’t lose to anyone.
All that remained was to call it into this space.
He could do it as much as he wanted.
Akasa anuttara mapari
All of it,
I’ll devour it.
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