April 25th, 2012, Gremory's Training Ground, Afternoon.
The air in the sealed training chamber was thick, a tangible record of the immense effort expended within. Rias Gremory laid on the cool, unyielding stone floor, her body a map of exhaustion.
Every muscle screamed in protest, every nerve felt scorched. Her crimson hair was plastered to her damp forehead, and her chest rose and fell in ragged, shallow gasps.
"I can't... take it anymore..." she whined, the words barely a whisper, carried on her last conscious breath before she succumbed to the welcoming darkness of utter depletion.
How long she laid there, she didn't know.
Time had lost all meaning in the face of such profound fatigue. Eventually, awareness returned in a slow, painful trickle. She pushed herself up onto trembling elbows, then to her feet, her body swaying unsteadily.
She braced herself, expecting the cold, imperious voice of Louise Cyphre to cut through the silence, chastising her weakness and commanding her to resume her drills. But the expected reprimand never came.
The chamber was silent, save for the ragged sound of her own breathing.
'Where has Mr. Cyphre gone?' she thought, a sliver of unease piercing through the fog of her exhaustion. Cautiously, she approached the massive, round vault door that sealed the chamber.
"I think I am going to regret this..." she whispered to the empty room, a sense of foreboding settling in her gut.
She leaned her weight against the cold metal, grunting with effort as she began to turn the heavy mechanism. The door swung open with a low groan, and she peered out into the dimly lit basement corridor.
"Mr. Cyphre?" she called out, her voice echoing faintly.
There was no answer. The space where her formidable, enigmatic tutor usually stood was empty. Instead, her eyes fell upon a figure seated in a high-backed chair against the far wall.
It was a man, but his presence was the antithesis of Cyphre's sharp, commanding elegance. He was gloom incarnate. His skin was deathly pale, stretched taut over sharp cheekbones, and his long, messy hair was the color of bleached bone.
A horrific, crescent-shaped scar, deep and vicious like the mark of a harpoon, dominated the left side of his face, pulling his features into a permanent, pained grimace.
He was draped in a heavy blue cloak that evoked the deep sea, worn over a formal military uniform reminiscent of an old Japanese naval officer's. His sunken blue eyes held a vacant, lazy quality, staring at nothing in particular.
Rias felt an involuntary shiver trace its way down her spine. The man's aura was one of profound, abyssal stillness, a silence that felt heavier than any noise.
"Ehm... hello?" she ventured, her voice unsure. Logic dictated he must be one of Makoto's Personas. Who else could be here, in this secured basement, apart from them, her peerage, and Grayfia?
Her question was met with only that same, unnerving silence. Then, footsteps sounded on the stone stairs leading down from the manor above. For reasons she couldn't explain, the simple, innocuous sound sent a jolt of primal alarm through her.
She spun around, falling into a defensive stance, her exhausted body protesting violently as she faced the staircase, ready for some new, unknown threat.
"Leviathan, where has Lucifer gone?" Makoto's voice cut through the tension, his tone laced with a rare note of annoyance and concern as he descended into the basement.
'First Liz, now Lucifer,' Makoto sighed internally, his frustration—a rare sight from him—palpable.
'At least the Attendant apologized and returned to Kuoh Town with the Tower. As for the Morning Star... I dread to imagine what he might be orchestrating,' Messiah replied, sharing his other self's apprehension.
"Yuki?" Rias blurted out, her stance relaxing slightly in confusion. "Where is Mr. Cyphre and... what do you mean by Lucifer and Leviathan?"
The two names, pillars of her own cultural and historical identity, sent her mind reeling.
"He's gone. I didn't pay attention to where," the gloomy man—Leviathan—replied, his voice a low, monotone rumble, as if dredged from the ocean floor. He hadn't moved an inch.
"Sometimes I envy Lucifer's dynamism," Leviathan commented, his vacant eyes still fixed on the middle distance. "In that regard, I am far more similar to you, Universe."
"Yes, whatever," Makoto dismissed, too focused on the immediate problem of locating the missing Morning Star. "Rias, do you have any idea where Lucifer is?"
The question only deepened Rias's shock and confusion. Desperation was clearly driving Makoto to ask the one person least likely to know.
"Wait!" Rias's eyes widened in dawning horror. "You don't mean Mr. Cyphre, right? Oh, no... HE'S LUCIFER!?" The pieces clicked into place with terrifying clarity.
"Louise Cyphre... it's such a stupidly obvious anagram, and I fell for it completely!" she admitted, slapping a hand to her forehead.
"So you don't know either..." Makoto whispered, his shoulders slumping slightly before he turned to leave.
"Yuki..." Rias's voice was small, filled with a new, different kind of terror. "You don't think I... you know, made the progenitor of devilkind upset, right? He must be so pissed! I kept prattling on to him about my brother and how I wanted to prove myself, to reach him..."
She gulped, her mind conjuring the worst possible scenarios. Vivid, anime-esque scenes played out in her head—Lucifer, THE Lucifer, in a fit of pique over Sirzechs usurping his title, unleashing a legion of biblical demons upon the Underworld.
"Mr. Cyphre isn't going to send a legion of demons against the Underworld in spite of my brother taking the name of Lucifer, is he? Maybe he's going to pull a Devilman reference and destroy humanity first, right? Just like Satan?" Her imagination, fueled by pop culture and genuine panic, was running wild.
Makoto stared at her for a long moment, completely taken aback by the sheer specificity and absurdity of her fears.
"What? No, no. He is not going to do anything like that," he finally replied, his tone flat. "I think."
Rias let out a massive sigh of relief, the tension draining from her body. "Good. But I still need to apologize. If I had known he was the Lucifer, I would have behaved with much more... decorum." She nodded to herself, satisfied that the "Devilman" ending had been averted.
"Leviathan, in case Lucifer returns, alert me, okay?" Makoto asked the silent sea monster.
Leviathan offered a response so slight it was almost imperceptible—a nearly invisible nod, his gaze never wavering from the void.
Curiosity, now overpowering her fear, prompted Rias to take a tentative step towards the seated Persona. She smoothed her rumpled clothes and adopted the formal posture befitting her station.
"Lord Leviathan," she began, her voice respectful. "I am Rias Gremory, heiress of the Gremory House. May I ask you some questions?"
"Rias, don't disturb Leviathan," Makoto admonished, his tone reminiscent of a zookeeper warning a visitor not to tap on the glass of a dangerous exhibit.
"If you want to come along, let's go now," he added, already heading back up the stairs without waiting for a reply.
"Yuki, wait for me!" Rias pouted, hurrying after him after casting one last, deeply curious glance at the motionless Leviathan.
As she caught up to Makoto on the main floor, the question burst from her lips. "Yuki, that... that was really Leviathan? The Sea Monster? One of the original Satans?"
"Technically," Makoto confirmed, his eyes scanning the halls as they walked. "Don't mind him. He's kind of eccentric and isn't used to speaking much."
"I shouldn't have let my excitement get the best of me," Rias mused, a mix of awe and regret in her voice. "But he is really Leviathan, the original one! I wanted to present myself as the future head of the Gremory House properly... Now I want to apologize to Mr. Cyphre even more."
The realization of how casually she had spoken to the mythical Lucifer for days felt like a profound, almost sacrilegious breach of protocol.
"I thought you didn't care much about being the Gremory heiress," Makoto pointed out, momentarily diverting his search.
"After all you've seen with the Riser matter, it might seem that way, but it's not true," Rias stated, her voice firming with conviction. She clenched her fists at her sides. "Actually, I am proud and happy to be who I am—the heiress of the Gremory House. However, I am also Rias. I want my parents, and all the Underworld, to understand that! I am much more than just the heiress of a Pillar House."
A small, genuine smile touched Makoto's lips. 'Just like Mitsuru, huh?' he thought, the parallel striking him with sudden clarity.
"Yuki?" Rias asked, noticing his expression.
"Nothing," he said. "You remind me of a friend. You're both similar. She, too, was conflicted between her own identity and her status as an heiress, even if it wasn't a noble household, but a major corporation."
"Really?" Rias's interest was immediately piqued. "Was she another one of your... Confidants?"
"Yes. She is the Empress, just like Sona is in this world."
"And I am your Priestess here, right?" Rias pressed, eager for more. "Who is the other one?"
As they continued their search, Makoto began to tell her about his friends in S.E.E.S.—the diligent, responsible Mitsuru; the fiery, protective Akihiko; the gentle yet resilient Yukari.
Rias listened, enthralled, pestering him with questions about each one, the hunt for Lucifer temporarily forgotten in the sharing of his past.
Their search finally ended near the entrance to the basement. Lucifer was walking back towards it, his posture as impeccably composed as ever.
"Mr. Cyphre... Ehm, Lord Cyphre," Rias began, stepping forward and bowing deeply, her face flushed with embarrassment. "I am deeply ashamed for having treated you without the correct formalities. I—"
"You told her?" Lucifer interrupted, his sharp gaze shifting to Makoto.
"She heard it from me and Leviathan," Makoto explained.
Lucifer turned his attention back to the bowing Rias. "Raise your head, kid, and get back to work," he said, his tone devoid of ceremony.
"Mr. Cyphre, we just finished the most tiring and painful training I have ever had in my entire life! I can't do this again!" Rias complained, her body already aching in protest.
A rare, almost imperceptible smirk touched Lucifer's lips. "It only means you are getting better. The pain leaving your body is the weakness leaving it too."
Despite her vocal resistance, Rias found her feet carrying her back down the stairs, compelled by an authority that was now fundamentally understood. Makoto watched the strange scene unfold, a bemused expression on his face.
'Did we truly just witness the Morning Star behaving like a stern but dedicated schoolmaster?' Messiah wondered, his mental voice filled with disbelief.
This was a far cry from the world-ending threat they associated with the name Lucifer. It was more in line with what they would expect from Kohryu.
'It seems so,' Makoto replied, the smile returning to his lips.
A moment later, his expression sobered. "Wait... we still don't know what he was doing during his absence," he muttered, making a move to follow them down into the basement.
'Leave him be, Makoto,' Messiah counseled gently. 'This mission of ours... it is changing us all. We are being shaped, in ways large and small, by the people of this world and their beliefs. Their hopes, their fears, their very perception of us leaves a mark.'
'Not,' he added thoughtfully, 'that I find it an entirely disagreeable process.'
Makoto paused at the top of the stairs, considering Messiah's words. The bonds they were forming were not a one-way street. They were a dialogue, and even the most ancient and powerful of Personas were not immune to the conversation.