entrancelogs | find yourself in the debris, feed your anger like fire

Entry tags:

find yourself in the debris, feed your anger like fire

Who: Ryuji Sakamoto (

nomorules) and Minato Arisato (

jivitadana).
Where: Hedge maze.
When: May 9th, at ~~Dark Hour~~ midnight.
Rating: PG-13 on account of Vulgar Boy.
Summary: A day in the life of Wonderland's hedge maze: taking abuse from Persona users. Ryuji arrives and shit is on fire, why is it always on fire.
The Story:

_{[For some little boys and girls, the Dark Hour is a time for covert operations in the dead of night. For others like Ryuji, it's a time to toss the comic book you'd been reading aside and flop back on your bedspread to dream of the covert operations you'd once had. I'm just closing my eyes for a sec, I'll get my pjs out soon, mom...

God, but when did it get so damn cold in here?

For the life of him Ryuji can't figure out when his bedroom got so nippy, or his bed so hard. And the moonlight... It's like the moon is right on top of him. Did his curtains fall of the rod or something?

Opening his eyes and sitting up is a study in confusion the progressively longer he has to take in his surroundings. It's not his comfortable, soda-stained bed he's laying on, it's a dirt path, and it's cold because he's in the middle of the fucking outdoors. On either side, leafy hedge walls tower above him, condensing the starry night sky framed by greenery.

What.]}

What the shi-- ahhh!

_{[The exclamation ready to blast from his mouth abruptly turns into a yowl as a jet of flame roars over the hedge walls he'd just been looking at, obliterating them into ash. Fire safety, kids. Stop, drop, and roll if you think you're about to be incinerated. Already on his back, Ryuji does the next best thing and balls up with his hands over head.]}

I don't wanna die like this!

_{[More importantly, what did the hedge maze ever do to deserve this abuse.]}

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[It's a running theme that the hedge maze gets annihilated in some fashion, whatever fashion that may be. Minato just had to pick its poison today. It usually cycled between fire, wind, ice, electricity. Sometimes he got all fancy and switched it up to almighty too, but it was hard to tell if the attack landed in a specific spot since, well, part of the hedge maze would be decimated and that was that. There was no way to check his aim, really, with an attack like that. Light and dark weren't exactly effective from what he could tell either.

So fire it was today. His innate element, even if Orpheus Telos carried around Thunder Reign. But fire worked so well on the hedges.

Thus Minato had Thanatos out and casting Ragnarok. He watched as the flames rose and pierced through the night sky, illuminating the area in golds and reds.

But what he hadn't expected was to hear someone yelling. He thought he had been alone. He even checked beforehand! No incinerating anyone today because that wouldn't be cool. Literally.]

Thanatos.

[He had his Persona hang back as he made his way through the smoke of his Ragnarok spell, only to find that yes, there was an actual someone there lying on the ground. What the. He seriously checked beforehand.]

... Sorry. Are you all right?

[He really hoped that they were.]

_{[Peeking past his arms is a mistake. Visible in the space where the hedge walls occupied not a minute ago is a hulking, grate-faced nightmare surrounded by a corona of shield-like panels, like Jason Voorhees in a metallic hula skirt if he were ten feet tall and ready to rain hell down on the unsuspecting. His mouth falls open.

The fuck!? If Ryuji wasn't having a heart attack already, he certainly is now.

Laid out in imitation of a stunned turtle, it takes until someone steps out of the cloud of smoke for Ryuji to unfreeze and fall to action. Or roll to action, as it were. He gets himself right side up on knees and starts patting his hair and arms down for embers.]}

Does it look like I'm all right!? I almost just got barbecued by that-- _{[An abrupt pause as a very important detail in all of this sinks in.]} Holy shit, don't tell me--is that thing a Persona!? What the hell's goin' on here!?

Edited 2017-05-10 03:28 (UTC)

[Thanatos is the cutest, hulking, grate-faced nightmare with his mantle of coffin lids and metallic mask and jaws. Uh huh. Or so perhaps the Shadow that looked like him would try to convince anyone of, but that is neither here nor there. Sort of, anyway. This person obviously saw the warrior death god hovering behind and above Minato and actually described him accurately. That was a first.

He replaced the Evoker back in his holster for now. It looked like he had some explaining to do. He could do that. It might just take a while since he has a word quota for the day, given he was a silent protagonist.]

Should I tell you?

[Since he said not to tell him. At least all the heat from the fire made things warmer since the spring nights were still cool. So there's that to be thankful for, probably.]

Oh, and welcome to Wonderland. Party of one?

[Though he had this sneeeeaking suspicion that he had a few friends here already. Meanwhile Thanatos was just chilling and waiting for another set of orders.
Minato wouldn't send him away just yet.]

_{[Dude, do not even fuck with him right now, w-whoever you are.]}

Of course you should! Are you screwin' with me!? Nngh-- I can't be dreamin', this shit feels way too real. I think I need a change of pants...

_{[There's a direct correlation between Ryuji's level of agitation and the amount of decibels his voice rises; he's into the "over-invested sport parent shouting at kid's baseball coach" range when he clambers to his feet to point a shaking finger at Minato, then Thanatos, panting for breath.

... Hold on. Yelling and sucking in ashy smoke is a bad combo. Before he says anything else, Ryuji ends up coughing, fist pounding his chest to clear it.]}

Gonna need you to repeat that 'cause I thought I heard you say Wonderland.

_{[What. The. Hell.]}

Edited 2017-05-10 09:22 (UTC)

[It was an honest question! Minato didn't think he was really giving anyone a hard time. (But it was hard to tell whether he was or not since he was deadpan when he responded.) Wow, this person is loud and just kinda sorta on edge, but he could understand why. He didn't blame him. Instead Minato poked at his own arm for a second to show that he was real. He felt real, anyway.]

Pants you can get at the mansion. [He gestured toward the building.] This is one of my Personas.

[And he gestured to the looming figure behind him. He was really just stating facts like how the sky was blue and grass was green and ice cream was the best thing ever. Real fact, that last one. Minato now moved though to be out of downwind from the smoke, expecting Ryuji to follow him if just for his health and Minato's as well.]

Mn, it's not home. I don't know when we'll go back.

[He wasn't sure if that was too much information at once, but he may as well have said it all. He was open to any and all questions at this point. There were probably a million of them.]

_{[Kinda sorta on edge or slipping right off it... it's Minato's joy to find out which it is. Giving up on deciding what fucked up thing to point at first, Ryuji settles for gesturing with both arms, following in the shorter boy's footsteps if just so not to let him out of his sight. Hey, buddy, you don't just get to walk away after going scorched earth like that.]}

That there is a mansion is the problem! Why is this weird stuff always happenin' to me!? Somebody better start makin' sense like right now.

_{[And don't even get him started on the "P" word! Personas can't be here. Personas can't be anywhere.]}

How do you know about Personas!? Tch, and how did you manage to nearly roast my ass with one!? This ain't the Metaverse!

_[...]

... Is it?

_{[No, but that's impossible. Damn it, his head hurts. Or maybe that's just the panicked adrenaline rush talking.]}

[Whoa, questions was right. There was a whole string of them in there. Minato would have to answer those one at a time, and he hoped he made sense when he answered them. He tried his best to do so. Make sense. Sometimes.

But at least now it seemed like this person could have an easier time talking now that they weren't going to be smothered by smoke. That was his own fault, Minato knew. No roasting this time then as he dismissed Thanatos and summoned Messiah instead to drop Niflheim on the area to freeze it up and stop any errant flames from spreading. You know, just all casual and stuff.]

Wonderland's another world altogether. It brought us here to consume our memories.

[And wow okay, that was not the greatest start to making sense at all, even if he was telling the truth. But oh! Good, good. Now he had a name for that place when the others talked about the "other world" that definitely wasn't the TV world.

As for the P word since Messiah's still hanging around now:]

... Can you show me yours?

[He may as well ask. What is with all the new Persona users and what is up with his future? Why is it that Shadows came back even after they've been defeated. Twice, from what Minato understood.

Then again, how many more times were they defeated before him? So maybe it wasn't impossible in the future. Shadows were a tricky thing, especially if originating from human emotion.]

_{[ARE YOU EFFING KIDDING HIM RIGHT NOW.]}

--You have another one!?

_{[Are Minato's ears ringing yet? They could very well be, thanks to the deafening pitch of Ryuji's voice. He jumps back, mouth gaping, the question just as startling as show of power so like Akira's and Akechi's.

Minato's earlier words float back to him. This is one of my Personas. He hadn't thought-- But that's--

Hoo, boy.

Ryuji stomps his foot, the finger back and jabbing even more violently at Minato. If he'd hoped to calm Ryuji down by smothering what flames were eating at the remains of the hedge rows, it has the opposite effect.]}

Just who the hell are you? Goddamn it, start talkin' in plain Japanese or I swear I'm gonna lose it. _{[Deep breaths, Ryuji, deep breaths.]} This shit can't be happenin'!

[Minato is somewhat used to loud. Sometimes his headphones were a little on the loud side, sure. It's a little different though when it's someone yelling at him, but he'd listen to all of it no matter how loud it was.

And right, he did have another Persona and here Messiah was. He could clarify that part for him too.]

Six here. Close to two hundred at home.

[Did that sound familiar? He wondered just how many Personas someone could have. Souji had a little more than he did from the count and comparison they did before.]

Oh. I'm Arisato Minato. Who are you?

[He wasn't sure that that information would calm Ryuji down either. It didn't seem like anything he was saying was really helping. (But maybe he was just teasing Ryuji at the moment. Hard to tell again.)]

Oh my god, man, that explains, like, zip about anything. _{[Ryuji lets out a long, dismayed sigh at that extremely unhelpful answer. You win, troll, you've got him on the ropes.]} Is Wonderland some new Metaverse? Is that why you called it that?

_{[It's only by virtue of the fact Ryuji's accidentally entered an alternate dimension and almost died within the hour once in his life already that he doesn't start kicking the smoldering scrub left by Thanatos. Twice should be a piece of cake.

You used to be a phantom thief and a thief can figure his way out of any tight spot. It's WWAPTD time. What Would a Phantom Thief Do? Keep his cool, for one. Ryuji gives Messiah a hard look, but he seems to be making an effort to swallow his feelings when he speaks again.]}

Well, since you didn't actually set me on fire and you gave your name... Sakamato. Sakamato Ryuji. Now can we get to the part about how I ended up eatin' dirt and why you were standin' over me?

Edited 2017-05-12 06:20 (UTC)

Nice to meet you, Sakamoto. Wonderland's not the Metaverse. It just pulls people in from different worlds and times without warning. Time doesn't move at home though.

[See? He can be helpful sometimes. He did like to be, even if his trolling (he is sorry, he is!) got in the way. He was just chill about it, that was all. Poor Ryuji though, he seemed like he was trying to keep it together. He was doing a good job though, considering. Minato's smile became a little more apologetic then.]

I'm training out here. With them.

[Minato dismissed his Persona though for the time being if that would help Ryuji relax too. Ryuji should know though exactly who he was training with obviously.]

_{[He'd return the sentiment, but the jury's still out on this meeting. When Ryuji hadn't known he was there on the ground, he could hardly expect this guy to have noticed him. Accepting the near-miss had been an honest mistake is one thing, but he's still not sure what to make of this weird-as-shit place, or a stranger he's never heard of using Personas plural despite the Metaverse being gone for good.

Different worlds? Different times? ... Consuming memories? Guh, this is too much. He scrubs his face as if it'll wake him up and propel him out of this crazy dream. (He'll never drink soda after 11pm again.)]}

So that's how I got in this maze thing? I got-- _{[How'd this guy put it?]} --"pulled" in?

_{[Sharpening your skills with a Persona as your wing man is the first thing he's heard that makes sense, and he exhales softly at that, voice taking on a more reasonable volume for questioning someone without making himself go hoarse.]}

How can you still have a Persona if this is some other place?

_{[What is this, the Wonderverse?]}

Edited (will i ever stop forgetting words in the middle of sentences.....) 2017-05-13 04:10 (UTC)

[Minato nodded. "Pulled in" was a good term for it. Minato didn't really want to think of it as being abducted or kidnapped since it practically was. But they'd be released at some point and so he didn't quite think it was on kidnapping level. It was like he was being borrowed. He didn't mind either though because he appreciated the borrowed time.]

Wonderland's generous that way. But it's also likes to break rules.

[Souji couldn't summon outside of the TV world and Minato shouldn't have been able to summon at all since he had given up all of his Personas in the end.]

If you have your soul with you here now, then you should be able to summon yours too.

[That was his logic for it, anyway.]

_{[Uhhh. Ryuji doesn't even have to say he's still at a loss, his helpless look pretty much says it all. This is getting all metaphysical and shit.]}

I sure goddamn hope I have a soul... A-anyways, besides that, I ain't sayin' I have one, too!

_{[The last part is a hasty afterthought, tacked on in a vain attempt to duck any affiliation to the Phantom Thieves. That's the second time this dude's talked about Ryuji summoning a Persona of his own. For good reason, the identities of the mysterious Persona users stealing hearts are supposed to be secret.

Too bad he's crap with secrets.

He scrunches his nose, both at the thought and the smoky burn crawling up his throat and into his nostrils.]}

Can we get out of here already? My eyes are still waterin'.

[Minato thought it was kind of amusing that Ryuji was trying really hard to keep his Persona a secret. But that was his choice. It was his soul, his Persona, and he could do whatever he wished with it, just like how Minato decided the best way to use them besides helping people was to train with them.

But yes, they could get out of the area, no problem at all. He nodded and had Ryuji follow him to the mansion then.]

At the mansion, you can find a room and it'll change to however you want, just like the closets will grant you most anything you think of. The dining rooms and tearooms will give you whatever food you want too.

[That was one thing that should be appealing, right? At least they wouldn't starve to death here. Normally.]

_{[Winding their way through what's left of the maze to the grass on the other side at least gives Ryuji the illusion of doing something more productive than flapping his gums and his arms. Moving gets his blood pumping, and doubles as a chance to see the size and scope of the mansion's grounds for himself. Holy shit, this place is huge and in the middle of nowhere! If he had any lingering hope this was still Tokyo, it's fading fast.

He looks over his shoulder at the hedge maze as they walk. No matter that the proof is in the glittering sheets of ice and scattered embers still blinking in some of the hedge rows like tiny fireflies, the idea that he could still have access to his Persona after the Metaverse's collapse doesn't feel quite real. He'd thought that was all behind him. It's a little too soon to be having that heart-to-heart out loud--this Minato guy may have powers like Akira, but it's kind of weird how exasperatingly chill he is about all this.

Not to mention even worse than Morgana at explaining shit.]}

Uh. Sorry, you're gonna have to back the bus up. I get you're some kind of whiz with Personas and I ain't in the real world anymore, but that's all I'm gettin'...

_{[Closets will... what? Sounds like a bunch of Pig Latin to him.]}

Who owns the fancy mansion? You said something about not knowing when we'll leave, too.

[Less so on the Persona whiz part. Minato could only say that he knew about Personas and Shadows from his time. Souji would be much better at explaining how Personas and Shadow from the TV world worked. All Minato could give was secondhand information.

He did have some questions for Ryuji, but he could save those for later. Minato had that same sense of worry in his chest, the same way he had when he met Souji. His future, everyone's future, had been in his hands. Then something happened and Souji had to take care of it. Now Ryuji, Akira, all of the new Persona users had to take care of it after that.]

Wonderland owns it. It'll send us or bring us back without our knowledge whenever it wants.

[Hey, hey, he is better at explaining things than that... cat thing? At least he won't snap at him or call him an idiot? :D He'd pick up a pamphlet for him once they were at the mansion proper if that would help.]

This world exists just to take our memories. Events are when we live through someone's memory and that person whose memory it was will lose a word or phrase from that memory.

[... As if that were a clearer explanation. So much for not being like that cat.]

_{[With only the moonlight and the distant lights leaking from the windows of the mansion to guide them, Ryuji is careful where he puts his feet in case he face plants on the grass. Now that the shock is draining out of him, his legs feel weak and jittery.]}

You say that like it's got a mind of his own.

_{[And what does that remind him of him? Damn it, this better not be more god shit.

... The one thing worse than more god shit would be having to read about god shit. Ugh. Where's Morgana when you need someone to underestimate your smarts so you don't have to read a piece of paper to get the answer?]}

Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down! _{[Yup, confirmed to be a worse explainer than Morgana.]} What "events"?

[Minato thought Wonderland did have a mind of its own. It did whatever it wanted and whenever it wanted. It had its own rules, broke them whenever it wanted, made them up as it went along. Minato just had to get used to it. He wasn't sure when he would, but he thought he was doing okay so far. It was what it was.

Slow down? Minato slowed his walking pace too. He didn't think he walked very fast, though he did sometimes have to take strides a bit longer to keep up with any of his taller friends.]

Wonderland steals one of your memories, makes us live through it for a few days, and then you lose a word or phrase. That's an event.

[Stealing, see what he did there? Minato smiled a little since all of this did seem to be overwhelming.]

I haven't even told you about the Mirrors yet.

_{[Wrong kind of "slow down," man. Minato wouldn't lose Ryuji in the dark even without the head of eye-catching bleached hair; the pained sounds issuing from him would give him away on a cloudy night in a blacked-out room.]}

That's pretty much what you said the first time, you just changed the order of the words around! And I didn't get it then, either! _{[Gonna need a little more than the CliffsNotes version.]} How does a world with a dumb name like that take memories? There's gotta be a way out of here and back to the real world, like a door--

_{[Or if this were a Palace...]}

--or an app!

_{[That reminds him. Ryuji stops abruptly and pats himself down--not on account of being worried his clothes are singed this time, but in search of something he'd forgotten about until now. When he finds a small, rectangular shape in his pocket, he whips it out, only to frown and turn it over and around in his hand.]}

Hey, this ain't my phone. How did this get here? Is this another nav app on this thing...

_{[Like all true experienced phantom thieves and teenage technopiles, the first thing Ryuji does is thumb around, looking for the "get me out of here" button. Worked all right for the Metaverse.]}

[Okay, for that slowing down, Minato was trolling there for real, which was pretty terrible. He did though try to think of a better way to explain how Wonderland operated since he did just rearrange the word order once they came to a stop. But how else was he going to explain it?]

You'll use that to communicate with people here. There's no app or way out on our own.

[Still thinking of how to explain this.]

Can we just say it's magic for now?

[... Yup. He is the king of explaining things all the time ever, uh huh.]

Okaaay, but where'd this come from? I don't remember go shopping for a new phone before I took a dirt bath.

_{[Eventually he'll learn to stop asking the king of trolls questions......

Seeing is believing, and with investigatory mode engaged, Ryuji keeps looking through the communicator's functions until he sees for himself Minato's right. There's no distinctive Meta-Nav glaring at him like a creepy eye. Damn it. Standing just shy of the mansion's glow, the disappointment on his face is still evident in the semi-dark as he looks up at Minato again.

For a moment he'd hoped... but no. No. It's better without the Metaverse.]}

... Would I understand the real answer?

_{[Given his track record so far, uhhh... sources say probably not.]}

We're given these once we're here. No communication outside of Wonderland though.

[Minato felt kind of bad though and was apologetic. He had tried to explain it, but somehow explaining hadn't helped. Maybe Ryuji just needed time to adjust. Some people did, he thought, if they liked home so much and things were good. In some way, Minato thought he would've been like too if circumstances were different. He knew some others that wanted to go home since it was better than being here.]

That is the real answer.

[Basically. No one figured out yet how Wonderland did what it did. Or really why. Sure, their memories were being taken, but what for? Like really, why would it want to do that? What was the point? Then they'd go back home and remember everything anyway?]

Let's go inside and talk more.

[Then Ryuji could find a room, see the mansion for himself, learn how it worked.]

Given by who? How they'd known I was comin' that quick? _{[Apparently his encounter with Thanatos hadn't been intense enough, because as Ryuji sighs again and stows the new communicator away for lack of anything better to do with it, he says:]} This shit's getting intense. I kind of wondered if there were other worlds out there, but a Wonderland with smoking caterpillars like the book isn't what I was imaginin'.

_{[Memory-sucking worlds that hand out free phones. Okay, sure. Makes about as much sense as Personas without a Metaverse.

Ryuji shrugs, a gesture of defeat. Complete and total ignorance is his default state of being, anyway, he might as well accept it and follow this guy's lead for the time being. He won't pepper him with his thousand other questions until they at least get through the front door, promise.]}

Well then, lead the way. Guess I'm at your mercy here, dude.

Edited 2017-05-20 09:34 (UTC)

I don't know if it intentionally targets people or it's on accident.

[Did anyone know? Besides Wonderland? Minato doubted even the residents here knew if they were here for a reason. But it was something to think about, considering how many people came and went and how many times they did too. But ask away! Minato will answer them and this time try not to troll him.]

What year in school are you?

[Minato may as well ask that too if just to get a feel for how old the Metaverse kids were. Persona users were around his age, usually. Can't really trust the adults to get anything done, not when the adults themselves were pretty hellbent on killing them all.]

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