April 21st, 2012, Gremory's Training Ground, Late Afternoon.
The walk back to the Gremory estate was a quiet one, the fading afternoon light casting long, deep shadows across the manicured grounds. Makoto kept a watchful eye on Koneko, whose usual stoic silence seemed heavier, more burdened after the incident outside the amusement park.
"Are you feeling better now?" he asked, his voice cutting through the comfortable silence as they approached the main manor.
The rook nodded her head, though she didn't meet his eyes. "Yes. Sorry for before Senpai," she replied, her voice barely above a whisper.
"No problem," Makoto said. "It's almost time for dinner. Grayfia told me earlier she was going to start preparing food around this hour. Why don't you go on ahead?"
Koneko finally looked up at him, a faint frown of curiosity on her face. "And you?" she questioned, raising a delicate eyebrow.
"I need to talk to my Personas first and see how the others' training went," Makoto lied smoothly. It was a half-truth, but the full truth would only cause more worry.
'Lying is bad, Universe, hee-ho!' Jack Frost chastised immediately in his mind.
'Oh yes, he should have said, "I'm going to teleport myself in front of the mysterious woman who was spying on us," of course,' Apollo retorted, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
Makoto dismissed the internal debate and waited patiently until Koneko gave a small nod and continued toward the mansion, her small form disappearing through the grand doors. The moment she was out of sight, he reached into his coat and pulled out the cold, familiar weight of his evoker.
"The Wanderer," he stated, focusing his will entirely on the image of the woman with the golden eyes, the one whose presence had triggered such a profound reaction in Koneko. He pulled the trigger.
The world dissolved into a brief, blinding flash of blue light. The Roman god Mercurius answered his call instantly, appearing before him in a swirl of cosmic energy, his staff circling with an air of impatient intelligence.
"Finally, you ask for my help, Universe! I have to say, using The Wanderer to track down a single individual is… unexpected, but not impossible for sure!" he exclaimed.
With a dramatic flourish of his staff, the space around Makoto twisted, and he was teleported away. Mercurius vanished, his task complete.
Kuroka stood at the edge of Lake Kawaguchi, the serene waters doing little to calm the storm within her. The late afternoon sun glittered on the surface, a beautiful, peaceful scene that mocked her inner turmoil. Her thoughts were a chaotic whirlpool, centered on one person.
'Shirone...' The name was a constant, painful echo in her mind. The sight of her little sister, frozen in a panic attack merely from sensing her nearby life force, was a wound that felt fresh and bleeding.
"I'm really the worst sister ever, nyaah," she whispered to the placid lake, her shoulders slumping in defeat.
Suddenly, a brilliant, unnatural light blazed into existence a few meters away. Kuroka instinctively threw an arm up to shield her eyes, her body snapping into a defensive stance, muscles coiled to blitz away in an instant.
'Devils? It's impossible; this place is deep in Shinto territory. And what kind of devil uses light?' she thought, rapidly discarding possibilities. The light faded, and the figure that emerged from it made her blood run cold. It was the blue-haired boy from before.
"Here you are," he said, his voice calm and level, utterly devoid of the aggression she expected. "Why were you spying on me and Koneko today?"
The directness of the question threw her completely off balance.
'Universe, you scared her. We just appeared from nowhere, and the only thing she knows about you is that you can see through her invisibility. It is not the best calling card,' Izanagi-no-Okami observed wryly.
Makoto seemed to process this, his stern expression softening slightly. He rubbed the back of his head in a gesture that was almost sheepish.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you," he apologized. "I just wanted to know what happened with Koneko today. It's clear she had a panic attack because of your presence."
Kuroka stared at him, her golden eyes wide with a mixture of shock and confusion. He had tracked her down—a wanted SS-class fugitive—not to capture or fight her, but because he was worried about her sister?
"You mean Shirone, nyaah?" she asked, testing the waters.
Makoto's brow furrowed in genuine confusion. "Shirone? No. Koneko. White hair, short, first-year high school age."
'This was all just a misunderstanding. Let's go back, Universe,' Apollo said, quickly dismissing the matter.
'No,' Izanagi-no-Okami refused firmly. 'There is more to this.'
A bitter chuckle escaped Kuroka's lips. "You don't know, huh?" she asked rhetorically. She summoned a swirling orb of greenish ki in her palm, the energy crackling with latent power.
"I'm Shirone's sister. And a wanted criminal. I don't know who you are, but I saw you look after my Shirone, and for that, you have my gratitude. However, it's better if you go away. You don't want to have anything to do with a mean cat like me."
With a flick of her wrist, she sent the orb sailing past Makoto's head, impacting a tree behind him and scorching the bark. It was a warning shot, meant to scare, not to harm.
'Just go away, please. I don't want to risk harming Shirone anymore,' she pleaded internally, hoping he would take the hint and leave.
She was wrong. Very wrong.
"Koneko's sister?" Makoto asked, his confusion only deepening. "Why are you saying you're a wanted criminal? I've never heard of you from anyone." He took a tentative step closer.
'Is it possible he didn't know about Shirone being part of the supernatural?' Kuroka wondered, baffled by his ignorance.
"Listen," Makoto declared, his gray eyes holding a determined light. "I want to help Koneko, and if you are the answer to resolving her problems, I want to see it through."
"And what are you going to do, boy, nyaah?" Kuroka said, trying to slip back into the role of the 'evil cat,' a persona she had cultivated for self-preservation.
'Why don't you just go away...?'
But his words, 'helping Shirone,' sparked a tiny, fragile hope in her chest. A small, genuine smile threatened to break through her forced sadistic grin.
'Continue like this, Universe. She is just putting up an act,' Izanagi-no-Okami advised, seeing straight through her bluff.
"I just want to talk," Makoto repeated, his hands open at his sides, showing no hostility.
Kuroka hid her exasperation behind a low, mocking giggle. "Don't you have a tiny bit of survival instinct?" she asked, her tone teasing.
'Really, what's wrong with him!?' she screamed internally.
"If it's for my friends' sake, my answer is no," Makoto said. The simple conviction in his voice seemed to resonate in the air around them, striking a chord deep within Kuroka.
"I admit, you are a fun one, nyaah," she said, shaking her head. "Still, I fear we can't talk. Goodbye."
With a swift motion, she swept her sleeves forward, unleashing a thick, purple mist of Youjutsu designed to put her pursuer into a deep, immediate sleep. It was her preferred method of escape.
Makoto watched the mist billow toward him. Before he could react or call upon a Persona to dispel it, Izanagi-no-Okami's voice stayed his hand.
'Leave her be, Universe. It will be for another time. She is not in the right mood to talk if you do not wish to use violence.'
Makoto nodded almost imperceptibly. He stood his ground as the sleep mist enveloped him, but he did not resist it. He simply let it happen, allowing Kuroka the escape she so clearly needed.
Through half-lidded eyes, he watched her form blur and then vanish into the gathering dusk before the magical sleep claimed him.
April 21st, 2012, Land of Oz, Night.
By the time Kuroka returned to the Vali Team's headquarters hidden within the magical Land of Oz, her mind was a tangled web of conflicting emotions. The encounter with the blue-haired boy replayed over and over.
'That boy... going so far for my sister. I didn't feel anything particularly special about him...' His calm determination was baffling.
As she walked through the strangely ornate corridors of their base, a familiar hand clapped her on the shoulder.
"Hey, Kuroka! Back already? Is everything good?" came the cheerful voice of Bikou.
Kuroka managed a small, genuine smile. She liked the monkey yokai; he was a good friend and far less intense than Vali or Arthur, even if she found the White Dragon Emperor more compelling as a man and potential mate.
"Hello, Bikou. Why are you all smiles and sniggers?" she asked playfully.
"Oh, it seems Vali is all in his head about a new friend he made," Bikou answered with a wide grin.
"Really? Little, shy Vali made a new friend?" Kuroka joked, falling into step beside him.
"You had to see him! Today he sparred with Arthur and was all, 'Oh, this for Makoto would be child's play,' or 'Makoto would be disappointed in me.' Things like that. It was hilarious! Still, I really want to meet this guy now," Bikou said, doing a spot-on impression of Vali's serious tone.
"Makoto?" Kuroka asked, her interest suddenly sharp and genuine. "What type of guy is he?"
"It's better if you ask Vali himself; he won't stop talking about him. He talked about his strength and how he pierced Vali's Scale Mail like it was butter!" Bikou explained, his eyes wide with excitement.
"He should be worth meeting," Kuroka said, her mind racing.
"Oh, Vali is spending his free time finding a reason for Makoto to join us," Bikou added.
"How strong is he?"
Kuroka froze. The voice that asked the question was small, flat, and devoid of emotion. It did not come from her or Bikou. She looked down to see a petite girl with long, straight black hair, wearing an elaborate black gothic dress tied with a huge purple ribbon.
Her eyes were endless pools of darkness. It was Ophis.
"From what Vali said, he's stronger than him, as he easily defeated our lead—" Bikou stopped mid-sentence, his blood running cold as he realized who had spoken. "I spoke too much," he whispered, a bead of sweat tracing down his temple.
"Where is he?" Ophis asked, her gaze fixed on Bikou.
"Ehm... I don't know," Bikou answered, his usual bravado utterly gone.
"Lady Ophis, I ended the mission you assigned me," Kuroka said, stepping forward slightly in an attempt to divert the dragon god's attention.
"Good," Ophis said, her head tilting a fraction of an inch. "Now, where is this Makoto? I want to meet him." She completely ignored Kuroka's report.
"Ophis, it is utterly rude to walk away in the middle of a discussion."
Bikou and Kuroka turned in unison to see the fool who dared to use that tone with the second strongest being in existence. Shalba Beelzebub stood there, his form radiating a sinister aura, a smirk playing on his lips.
"I don't care," Ophis replied, causing Shalba's eye to twitch in irritation.
"Where is Vali, then? Does he know where Makoto is?" Ophis asked for the third time, her single-minded focus unnerving.
Shalba's eyebrows rose in a rare display of surprise.
'What does this arrogant, childish, naive thing want with the most important piece of my Father's plan?' Nyarlathotep had told him he was seeding a rumor throughout the supernatural world—The Prophecy of the Messiah.
It was the crucial step for the Crawling Chaos's ascension to a higher state, free from the shackles that bound him to humankind. The Universe was central to it.
"He's in the training ground," Shalba said, a look of profound amusement on his face as he met the venomous glares from Bikou and Kuroka. He had kept one of his flies watching the Star, Vali, precisely for such contingencies.
"Thanks." Without another word, Ophis teleported away in a silent, effortless ripple of space.
Shalba walked calmly between the two stunned members of the Vali Team, his arrogant smirk firmly in place. "What is your fucking problem!?" Bikou exploded, his tail lashing in fury.
"Are you in search of a fight?" Shalba asked coldly, his gaze seeming to pierce Bikou's very soul.
The descendant of Sun Wukong met his gaze, refusing to back down. "What if I am?" he challenged.
Shalba scoffed. "You have courage, I concede that. But I don't have time to waste on you." With that final dismissal, the Shadow walked away, leaving the two fuming.
"That guy gets on my nerves! Always so arrogant and full of himself, even speaking to a being like Ophis with that tone," Bikou grumbled, clenching his fists.
"I can't stand him either," Kuroka agreed, nodding her head. "Let's just hope Vali can manage the situation."
A deep sense of foreboding settled over her. The mysterious boy who cared for her sister had just attracted the attention of a dragon god, and she had a terrible feeling that nothing good would come of it.
In a secluded chamber, Shalba communicated with the presence that dwelled within him. "Father. I'm sorry to interrupt you, but Ophis seems to be on the trail of the Universe. Should I stop her?"
"No," Nyarlathotep's deep, resonant voice answered from the void. "I will deal with her myself."
"Father, she's not worth your time," Shalba rebuked, though his tone was one of deference.
"Do not underestimate her. She is stronger than you. I will simply need to show her who is going to become the new god and owner of this world. If she wants to find the Universe, let her. Tell her where he is. I will intercept her in her precious Dimensional Gap," the Collective Shadow of men replied, his voice dripping with ancient malice and absolute confidence.
"As you wish, Father." Shalba closed the connection, a cruel smile gracing his features.