The knight's existential roar echoed in my mind long after Tartarus faded from view. It wasn't a sound of pain but of recognition. A king recognizing a usurper. A fixed point in reality recognizing a walking void.
The fear my teammates had once directed at me was now a shadow of what I felt from that creature. It wasn't afraid of being destroyed; it was offended by my very existence.
The dorm felt less like a sanctuary and more like a laboratory cage. Every interaction was laced with a new tension. I was their ultimate weapon, but one that had almost exploded in their hands.
The trust we'd begun to build was now tempered with a layer of cautious, clinical distance.
Mitsuru threw herself into research with a ferocity that was frightening. Books on obscure mythology, encrypted Kirijo files, and quantum theory texts piled high in the command room.
She was no longer just trying to understand my power; she was trying to find its origin, its rules, and its limits.
I was her most fascinating project.
...
Mitsuru POV
The data was meaningless.
I stared at the sprawling diagrams on her multiple monitors. Energy signatures from Tanaka's manifestations were a chaotic mess of interference patterns, a visual representation of static. There was no Arcana to assign, no mythological precedent for a Persona that acted as a conceptual lock.
I pulled up the encrypted file labeled "Secret Project." One of my grandfather's notes, maddeningly vague, spoke of "breaching the collective unconscious" and "harnessing the source of cognition." He... sought to control it, to weaponize it.
This has connected with Kaito's; his... power completely felt different.
It didn't seek to control. It judged. It found a concept and rendered a verdict: You shall not be.
I then minimized the files and opened a live feed from the common room camera.
He was sitting alone, staring at the wall. He looked… small.
The terrifying entity that could unmake Shadows was, in this moment, just a boy shouldering a burden she could not fathom.
My father's words from their last, tense call echoed in my head. "Contain it, Mitsuru. Analyze it. That is your duty to the Kirijo Group."
I cannot help but frown; my duty to SEES was to protect its members. And he was also a member, however anomalous.
A part of me, a part that I struggled to acknowledge, rebelled against the cold logic of categorization.
I had seen the raw terror in his eyes when the knight turned its gaze upon him. He wasn't a weapon; instead, he was a prisoner of his own power.
I finally closed the feed; I cannot help but sigh while slightly frowning at the information in my brain.
The mystery of Kaito Tanaka was becoming personal. And for a Kirijo...
That was the most dangerous variable of all.
...
My training with Akihiko became less about fitness and more about mental fortitude.
"It's not your body that's the weak link, Tanaka," he said, his voice gruff as we sparred in the gym. He easily deflected my tired jab. "It's your focus. You fight with emotion. Fear. Panic. That's a luxury we can't afford."
He swept my legs out from under me, and I hit the mat with a grunt. "Your Persona is the most disciplined fighter I've ever seen. It's you who's the amateur."
"..."
I cannot help to sigh inwardly, he was right. The Entity was a paradigm of cold, perfect for execution.
My human frailty was the flaw in the system. I was...
The variable that could cause the entire machine to crash.
Akihiko POV
The kid had spirit; I would give him that. Getting thrown on the mat twenty times and still getting up took guts. But guts wouldn't save you when a Shadow was clawing at your throat.
I watched Kaito push himself up, his breath ragged. The problem was clear as day. The boy's power was absolute, but his will was a flickering candle in a hurricane.
I had seen it in the ring—fighters with all the natural talent in the world who cracked under pressure.
My Persona, Caesar, was a manifestation of his drive to become stronger, a clear, direct goal.
If it's compared to this guy, it... cannot be described by the word. His persona was… a void? Like How did you find common ground with a concept like that? How did you forge a bond with a silence?
Seeing that he seemed to have no stamina to continue, I decided to change tactics. "Enough," he said, tossing Kaito a water bottle. "Your problem isn't here."
I tapped my own temple. "It's in there. You're trying to fight the thing inside you. You need to stop seeing it as an enemy."
He looked up, confusion and frustration in his eyes. "How? It's… it's not human. It doesn't think like us."
"Then stop trying to think," I said, a gruff insight striking him.
"Stop trying to command. Just… listen. In a fight, you don't command your body to move. You just will it, and it obeys. This is the same. Your persona is a part of you, as much as your own fist. Stop treating it like a separate creature you have to tame."
It was the most philosophical I had ever been, and it felt strange. But, at the same time, I saw the way this guy power moved when he was calm versus when he was panicked.
The kid wasn't just a liability; he was an untapped resource. And I really hated seeing potential go to waste.
...
The advice rattled around in my head. 'Stop trying to command. Just listen.'
That night, during the Dark Hour, I didn't train. I went to my room, sat on the floor, and… listened.
I closed my eyes and descended into the quiet space within. The Entity was there, a vast, silent presence at the core of my being. I didn't ask it questions. I didn't demand answers. I simply held my intention, my will to understand, and opened myself to it.
There were no words. No visions. Instead, I was flooded with sensations. The cold, smooth texture of ancient stone. The weight of innumerable chains.
The profound, aching patience of something that had witnessed the rise and fall of stars. And beneath it all, a deep, resonant purpose: to preserve. Not to create, not to destroy, but to maintain a balance.
To ensure that things that were meant to end did so, and things that were meant to remain were protected from unnatural change.
The Shadows were an unnatural change. A cancerous growth on the cognitive world. The Entity wasn't evil. It was… janitorial. A cosmic custodian. And I was its current, clumsy vessel.
The realization was less comforting than it was humbling. I wasn't a hero with a cursed power. I was a janitor's apprentice, handed a tool that could scrub reality itself clean, and I had no idea how to use it without wiping away the floorboards.
A few nights later, we were back in Tartarus. The memory of the knight was a fresh wound. We encountered a new type of Shadow, a floating, will-o-wisp that cast a powerful charm spell. Junpei and Yukari were immediately affected, turning on us with blank, smiling faces.
"Tanaka, the concept!" Mitsuru barked, fending off a charm-fueled attack from Junpei.
I focused, pushing past the panic. I reached for the Entity, not with a command, but with a shared purpose. We need to fix this. We need to restore the balance.
I saw it. The wisp glowed with a sticky, pink concept of BEWITCHMENT.
The Entity responded. It was not a reluctant tool, but a willing partner. I felt its power flow through me, not as a wild surge, but as a precise, controlled channel. I imposed the concept of CLARITY.
The effect was instantaneous and clean. The pink aura around Junpei and Yukari shattered like glass. They stumbled, blinking, their minds their own again.
"Whoa, what happened?" Junpei mumbled, looking at his long sword in confusion.
"You were charmed," Akihiko said, his eyes flicking to me with a look of approval. "Tanaka handled it."
He hadn't erased. He hadn't struggled. He had simply… corrected it. It was the first time using the power that felt right. It felt like cooperation.
As we pressed on, the rhythm of the team was smoother than ever. I was no longer a panic button. I was the strategist, the one who could rewrite the rules of engagement on the fly. When a Shadow resisted physical attacks, I imposed FRAGILITY. When one healed itself, I imposed STASIS.
I was learning the language of my own soul.
On the walk back, Makoto fell into step beside me. The tower' pulse was a fading drumbeat at our backs.
"It's quieter," he stated.
I knew what he meant. The constant, low-level hum of anxiety that had been my companion since the awakening was gone. The Entity was no longer a silent, judging warden. It was a silent partner. "I'm learning to listen."
He nodded, a rare, almost imperceptible smile touching his lips. "Good."
But as we reached the dorm, a cold sensation trickled down my spine, unrelated to the Dark Hour's end. It was a feeling of being watched by something other than the Entity. Something… external. I cannot help glancing back at the dormant tower, a silhouette against the moonlit sky.
The feeling was gone as quickly as it came. But the message was clear. I was learning to live with the guardian within. But out there, in the vast cognitive sea, something else had taken notice of the new keeper of the locks.
The peace I had found was fragile, and the world beyond our small team was vast, ancient, and full of things that did not want to be balanced.
The master was learning, but the exam was far from over.