A crack ran sharply down the blue-black mask. The black masked Shadow attempted to run away. Shadows. Unnatural monsters. That Shadow didn't have anything resembling a lower body. From the darkness spreading on the floor like spilled ink, a slippery black blob emerged. The shadowy silhouette tried to sneak away to the other side of the darkness.
"Like I'd let you escape!" His right hand, clad in leather gloves, grazed the floor and swept upward into an exploding body blow, dragging out the Shadow that was just about to sink away.
"This ends it!" His left leather-gloved hand audibly stretched and tauted, unleashed with a dull sound, penetrating the air. His fist, never had even once known defeat, punched with everything he had, piercing the mask between its eyebrows. The Shadow's mask -- with a slackening mouth hole, and eye holes that could only be described as empty and hollow.
From the crack running from its forehead to its chin, numerous crackling tiny lines spread. The next second, the mask shattered into pieces. Scattered fragments crumbled into sand before they could touch the floor. The dancing sand dissolved into dust; the dust vanished into gentle light. The shadowy creature was completely obliterated.
The boy who had just destroyed the Shadow, Akihiko Sanada, lowered his protruding fist and carefully surveyed his surroundings. The wall color and floor texture hinted at a school hallway, but this scenery couldn't possibly be a school. The perspective appeared to have gone mad: the floor slanted, the walls warped and the pillars twisted. Outside the window, the night was green. It was the Dark Hour.
Every night at midnight, a gap in time occurred, known only to the monsters called Shadows and an extremely small number of people who possessed the potential. The Dark Hour was a hidden time of day.
"Looks like no enemy nearby." Akihiko let out a deep, relieving breath. However, his labored breathing didn't subside. Akihiko boasted an undefeated record as the captain of Gekkoukan High School's boxing team, but fighting Shadows was, as one would expect, different from fighting human opponents. Exhaustion weighed on his back and shoulders. He stretched lightly to get his whole body to relax. The gunbelt at his hips made a clinking sound.
Akihiko cast a brief glance at the device sitting in the holster. "Even this thing feels heavy. I must be getting tired."
"You've been breathing quite fast. Are you okay?" A young girl's voice, mingled with noisy interference, transmitted via the communication device hooked on his left ear. Her tone of voice conveyed manly composure, while still filled with concern and trust.
Calming his breathing as much as possible, Akihiko placed a hand on the transmitter to hear her better. "I can keep going, Mitsuru."
On the other end of the call was Mitsuru Kirijo. Like Akihiko, Mitsuru was a second year student at Gekkoukan High School, and also the beloved daughter of the Kirijo Group, a corporation with powerful influence in the Japanese business world. Gekkoukan High School was also under the umbrella of the Kirijo Group, and many among both students and the faculty held a deep sense of reverence towards Mitsuru. However, to Akihiko she was not the daughter of a wealthy company, but one of the few allies whom he could trust.
That was why he didn't hold back his words. "I'll retreat if I think I can't go on. So don't worry so unnecessarily."
"... Understood."
This place was just like a dungeon. Night after night, as the Dark Hour started, the corridors twisted and the paths all changed. One could even say that without someone outside searching the perimeter and recording the routes, returning would be impossible. Without Mitsuru's support, Akihiko would be lost, and in this place, getting lost meant death. Akihiko was entrusting Mitsuru with his life, so to speak.
"Let's move on. I'm counting on you."
"Please don't overdo it, if just for my sake. I only agreed to this because you were determined to keep going, but fundamentally, this isn't a place you can just explore alo- "
"Yeah, I know." Akihiko interrupted Mitsuru mid-sentenced and started taking a step forward.
The corridor was dimly lit. He could only see at most ten meters ahead. Beyond that, darkness loomed. It wouldn't be surprising if there were a Shadow lurking there. As he approached an intersection, his hands stayed lightly clenched at shoulder height, ready for a fight at anytime. There might be a Shadow hiding in that blind spot behind the wall. Carefully, but quickly and boldy, he leapt into the crossing point. "... nothing here?"
There was no sign of the enemy there. Akihiko breathed a sigh of relief. Right at that moment, something moved in the darkness ahead.
"...!! Shadow?"
Akihiko swiftly jumped back into the hallway he just came from, hiding in the shadow of a wall. He peeked into the corridor where he just sensed the enemy's presence, taking extreme caution to not get noticed.
"Is that... a person?"
In the dark, he could only see a pair of knees and what were below them -- pale, slender legs and bare feet. Maybe a child, maybe a delicate woman. Humanoid Shadows were also known to be around this area. Akihiko stared intently at the pair of white legs, muttering under his breath as if confirming to himself. There existed many types of Shadows other than the Slime-like one he defeated earlier: bird-like Shadows, beetle-shaped Shadows, beastly Shadows, Shadows that looked nothing like any existing creature. And also, humanoid Shadows. What should he do? Could he take initiative?
The white legs suddenly moved, ignoring Akihiko's hesitation, and disappeared into the darkness. He jumped out reflexively. "What was that just now? The h-" Before the words "human shadow" could leave his mouth, he turned around, feeling a strong murderous intent from behind. Sharp claws the size of pitchforks cut the air, tearing at his side. The claws ended up only ripping his clothes, but if he had moved away just a moment slower, they would have gouged out a large chunk of his flesh. "That was careless of me-"
The Cowardly Maya, same type as the one he defeated earlier, launched at him as if to revenge its fallen ally. With no time to prepare, Akihiko took a large jump backward, putting distance between him and the Shadow. He drew it from the holster on his waist just before the moment of landing -- a device made of steel, engraved with the letter "S.E.E.S", shaped exactly like an automatic pistol. It was an evoker, a tool used to summon the ultimate power to fight Shadows. As he landed, he pointed the muzzle of the gun at his forehead and pulled the trigger without any hesitation.
"Your turn, Polydeuces!"
From his forehead, a blast pierced through. A dry, metallic sound reverberated, and instead of the expected blood splattering, blue fragments resembling shards of thin ice scattered. The fragments turned into light and disappeared. In front of Akihiko, an otherworldy figure came to life. The figure was a giant, easily more than twice as tall as him, with a disproportionate muscular inverted-triangle body, a giant needle at the tip of the right arm, and long golden hair reminiscent of lightning. The figure, called "Persona", was a kind of miraculous materialization of what Akihiko considered another self.
"Take this!"