Chapter Text
August 29th, 2011, Near Yasoinaba Station, Inaba
BGM: Welcome to the Black Parade (My Chemical Romance - The Black Parade)
When he was a young boy, Tou-san took him into the city to see a marching band. He said, “Son, notice how the musicians march to the beat? They have to do so, so that the illusion created by the music isn’t broken. In fact, they try to be a tiny bit early, so that they can easily accommodate for the proper timing. You too must always be on time, no, even earlier than that. A few minutes early is timely, but just the right time is late”. These were powerful words that Yu had followed ever since, with only a few instances where he was late in the 17 years of living he lived.
“Crap, I need to go!” This was one of them.
Yu had planned on seeing her early, having cleared this day for her arrival; He didn’t plan on hanging out with anyone in the ID today, nor with any of his other friends in Inaba. He didn’t plan on going on any major hunts, or to fish on the Samegawa (Even though he really wanted to). Hell, he didn’t plan on fighting any demons today, which was exactly why he was running late; a group of demons appeared on his way to the station, forcing him to beat them to death in the most stylish way possible. Of course, one of them had to run away, forcing him to chase after the coward until it found a new group of demons to ally itself with, forcing him to kill them as well. This was painfully repeated until Yu finally killed the cowardly bastard, at which point he was very very late; luckily, nothing else came up after that.
Nothing except Teddie, apparently
Record Scratch!
“Heya, Sensei, what’re you doing?!” The bear screamed loudly from his left, startling the quarter-devil, though he was able to effortlessly keep his pace.
“Gah! Teddie, what’re you doing here?” Yu questioned the bear, only for Yosuke to appear beside the bear, running at the same pace as the both of them via a gust of wind.
“Oh, we finished our shifts at Junes, and we were going home when we saw you running like a mad-man. Teddie wanted to see what you were doing and I came with to make sure he stays out of trouble.” Yu cursed internally as he remembered how curious Teddie could be. Mind you, he wasn’t against letting the two of them meet V, but Teddie could still be a bit much… Then again, so was Griff, so maybe they’d even themselves out? Yu didn’t think about it any further as he decided to answer the question.
BGM: Your Affection (Persona 4 OST)
“Well… my cousin V wanted to come to Inaba to show me something in person; a demonic artefact she got from a friend at school. How that friend had it in the first place was beyond me, but she wanted to look into it with me ASAP. Of course, before we could do that, we had the Mitsuo Job, and uh… I might have procrastinated on a bunch of stuff after that.” He scratched his head as he remembered his failings once more, before shaking them away. “Either way, I finally got some time, and when I told her that she took the first plane out of New York to get here. Now, where is she-Oh, there she-they are! They are?” Yu adjusted his sentence as he saw the small group outside Yasoinaba Station. Three of them were familiar to the rest of the team; Byres, their mentor and fellow devil hunter, Dojima, his guardian, and Hell, Yasogami’s new Music Teacher and unofficial Jester of the Sparda Family. The other two were only familiar to him and him alone. “ V! Morrison! ” He cried out in English, grabbing their attention.
“Nero! You’re here!” V yelled back in Japanese, her gothic lolita-style dress fluttering in the wind, her right hand resting on her cane more for decoration than support. Yu skidded to a halt, before using his arms to stop Yosuke and Teddie from barreling into the wall, or his guests. “Oh, who are these two?”
Yu stepped to the side, letting Yosuke introduce himself and Teddie. “Hey there, kid, Old man. My name’s-”
“My name’s Teddie! What’s yours?!” Teddie butted into the conversation to introduce himself, before Yosuke used a hand to pull him back with a growl.
“Sorry about that, Teddie can get excited easily. My name is Yosuke Hanamura, and this is Teddie, also known as Kumataro Hanamura when he’s not in his true form.” He explained succinctly, and V nodded in approval.
“Huh, nice to meet you in person. My name is Victoria Ann Redgrave, but you can call me V. This gentleman over here is my guardian for the trip, J.D. Morrison. He’s also the job broker for DMC America.”
“Pleasure to meet you.” He greeted with a tip of his hat, before letting V continue.
“Nero’s talked alot about you guys online; specifically, of your competence, Hanamura-san, and your ingenuity… Hanamura-san. That will be confusing to say, won't it?” She asked aloud. Luckily for her, Yosuke was more than willing to let her use their first names, which she gratefully accepted. “He also talked about your perverted streak, Hanamura-san, and Teddie’s err… naivete about human culture…” As she finished her rather plain opinion on the two of them, Yu could feel the sweat falling down his face as Yosuke glared at him.
“Hehe… Can’t exactly blame me for being honest, right Yosuke?” He asked his partner, who glared at him for a minute more before sighing.
“You could’ve at least given her a better picture of us before going into the brutal honesty bit…” He grumbled out, which quickly faded away as she smiled at him.
“If I had any negative opinion of either of you, it means absolutely nothing compared to the respect I have for both of you; you for defeating your demon with an ingenious pile of junk, and you for overcoming your own fear to work with humanity.” She pointed at Yosuke and Teddie respectively, before continuing. “Besides, your fetishes mean nothing compared to what my dad and mom have done, and I do mean nothing.” She shuddered violently as she recalled a particularly horrid memory. “Ergh, the horrors I’ve accidentally witnessed…”
“Caught your parents doing it? Yeah, it’s something I’ve seen before, and surprisingly that’s not the first thing I’d want to bleach from my eyes.” A new but pleasant voice entered the conversation, as Rise walked up to the group, and laid eyes on V. “So you’re the source of demonic energy Himiko picked up…”
V was quick to identify her, though it was not before a large bird-like demon named Griffon bursted out of her back to swoon at the idol. “Oh by Heaven and Hell, if it isn’t Risette herself! I don’t listen to human music much, but I gotta say-AGH!” But before he could simp for her anymore, a large fiery spider appeared besides V and slammed its massive scorpion-esque tail into the bird’s butt before slamming him into the ground, bouncing him into the air where it recovered. “OI! What was that for, hothead?!”
“Says the idiot who forgot our conversation on the train. Kujikawa-san here is very sensitive to that, or so Nero has said online.” The spider, Phantom, then turned his attention to Rise before doing his best to bow in front of her on his 8 legs. “My apologies, Kujikawa-san. Griffon here is very bad with manners. Childish, I would say.” The bird squawked in rage, though Rise was quick to laugh off the incident.
“Still, it sounds like Yu-senpai has talked quite a bit about me, huh?” She then looked at her leader in a bratty way before continuing. “Hopefully nothing bad, right senpai?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say he’s been disparaging you, Kujikawa-san.” V answered for her cousin, before a devilish smile appeared on her face. “In fact, he’s been complimenting you behind your back, saying you’ve got a nice-”
“ALRIGHT, Alright, How about we focus on something else?” Yu hastily asked, ignoring the growing blush on his face, before focusing on Byres. “Say, I saw the two of you interacting. Has Byres-sensei given you any trouble?”
V, ever the little sh*t, chucked at his misery before she answered in turn. “Oh, she didn’t give me too much trouble. She just wanted to know what demonic artefacts, or demons in general, I was bringing into the town, given the demonometers were going crazy when we entered.”
Byres took the opportunity to interrupt, looking at V intently. “You still haven’t answered my question; you told me that the artefact you’re going to look over with Yu-kun is safe, but what about the rest of your demons?” She asked the girl, who merely shrugged before pointing her cane to the ground.
“You’ve seen Griffon and Phantom, but allow me to introduce you to Shadow…” A large mass of particles and shadows flew from the cane before coalescing into a large black cheetah on the ground, before V raised her left hand to the sky. “...and Nightmare, my ink golem.” She snapped her fingers to instantly blow out the ink in her hair, returning it to its natural white colour. She waited for a few seconds before she snapped her fingers again and again. “Where are they? I thought they would… oh you piece of-”
BGM: Crimson Cloud (Devil May Cry 5 OST)
The sky darkened as a large black meteor covered the sun itself. It quickly moved out of the way as it streaked towards the earth, returning light to the land while also making it apparent that the meteor was composed not of rock, but of near-solid ink. Before anyone could react, the meteor crashed into the ground, right besides V, creating an explosion of rock, fire, and ink, though luckily none of it touched anyone in the area. In the crater it left was nothing more than a puddle of ink, which quickly grew an eye with a pink iris. The eye floated upwards until the puddle had been consumed, leaving in its place a Golem that was about 2-3 times as large as V; Not like it scared her, or anyone in the vicinity.
“Dammit Nightmare, we talked about this! You can’t fall from the sky willy-nilly; We have to worry about property damage around these parts!” For what it was worth, the demon turned around and looked away from their scolding master, and the size difference made it far funnier than it had any right to be; even Byres was chuckling despite her monotonic disposition.
BGM: Your Affection (Persona 4 OST)
Gotou was the first to wave it off for her. “Ehhh, don’t worry about it. For some reason, things like cracks in the ground and walls seem to go away with time, so I wouldn’t worry about the crater being here an hour later. Plus, if the council really decides to make a fuss about it, we can just blame it on Hell-san here!” That had earned a laugh and an annoyed screech from the demon in question, before he recalled something. “Speaking of demons creating massive craters, I’m surprised your father remembers Raidou the 14th, even after all this time.”
V rested her chin on her left hand as she remembered what her father told her. “Dad always tells the Vortex World story over the Vie de Marli job, since he actually did something beyond shooting in the former. Then again, if Mom didn’t get sick, I’d bet that he’d have found it more enjoyable, given its title as the ‘Island of Gunslingers’. That, and it’s not as far back for Dad; Lucifer screwed with time during that mission, pulling the 14th into the future so you and him could interact with Dad.”
Gotou nodded in return. “Not that I dislike the current Raidou, but your dad was a riot, especially as we went further and further into the Vortex World. I know he was drained from Vie de Marli, he mentioned it alot, but I hope I’ll get to see him one more time.” V agreed with him, before pulling out a pocket watch to check the time; yet another element to her style.
“I’d love to talk more about my Dad’s past with you, but I’ve got things to do in Inaba; namely puzzle-solving, and it’s already 1 o’clock. Nero, you wouldn’t happen to know a place where we could do our analysis, right?” She looked towards Yu expectantly, and he looked at Dojima-san in turn; He figured that they could do it at the Dojima household given all the bullsh*t surrounding him, but he decided to check with the man himself first.
“I trust you enough to know you won’t light my house on fire. So long as she can promise the same, then I’m fine with letting you do whatever you need to with your cousin there.” He looked at V, who nodded right back at the detective.
“I can guarantee that any sort of demonic explosion can be contained by me, and by me I mean Phantom.” She then let the spider demonstrate by lighting a few leaves on fire, before waving his hands over them to cover them in a layer of ash, which acted as a spell to suppress the fire instantly.
“Well, that should be good enough…” He approved, before looking away from the girl with a frown. “Wish you were here when Sakuya attacked, but I doubt anyone here’s got time travel, or something like that.” Yu noted that Byres flinched, but he didn’t get the chance to ask her about it, not while everyone else was close by.
As for Morrison, He merely sighed before pulling out a cigar. “Well, if that’s all, then I’ll leave you to it, V. Just be back by evening, alright?” He then raised it to his lips and was about to light it, only to get strange looks from Dojima and Byres. “Oh, don’t look at me like that! I only had to come here because she needed a guardian for the flight and the train. After that, she’s got everything she needs to explore Inaba herself; I’d be dead weight if I followed her to be honest.” Byres seemed to accept his justification, while Dojima pointed at a “No Smoking” sign plastered on the wall nearby, which caused a frown to appear on the broker’s face. “Oh, you motherfu-”
Dojima sighed to interrupt him, before nodding in agreement. “Yeah, it’s a pain in the ass for me too, given that they only installed it a month ago. I know a place nearby where we smoke, if you’re willing to join me.” He then guided Morrison away, while Hell took the opportunity to guide Byres away while suggesting something, only to get his crotch smashed by her knee. The remaining group looked away, before Yu smirked at V.
“I can show you to Dojima’s house easily, but the question is: can you keep up?” He taunted her, to which she responded by stabbing the ground with her cane, calling all of her demons back sans griffon and shadow, who became her eyes in the sky and her magic shadow-particle scooter respectively.
“Oh I can, but I have to wonder if you’ve gotten any slower here. I doubt you’ve even kept up your training.” The two continued to trash-talk the other, as the group of 5 blazed a path towards Yu’s residence.
Stop BGM
---------
“It’s… quaint.” V noted upon seeing the house he was living in, before she recognized what she said. “Er, it’s perfectly fine, but it’s a bit smaller than what I was expecting.”
“Yeah, houses here are smaller than they are in Tokyo; Small towns and what not.” Yosuke pointed out, while Yu pulled his keys from his pocket.
“It doesn’t really matter; We’ll have more than enough space inside.” Yu explained as he unlocked the door, before going inside to greet its current occupant.
BGM: Signs of Love (Persona 4 OST)
“Hello, Big Bro! Did you bring Redgrave-san with you?” She asked him, and V stepped out from Yosuke’s shadow to greet her cousin, or some form of relative (Yu wasn’t going to keep track), while he took out some curry he made out of the fridge before reheating it on the stove. Betting that Dojima would likely allow them to do their work in his house, Yu made some curry before leaving so that they’d all have something to eat, though he could have frozen it for later use had the team decided to eat somewhere else. But given that they were here…
“V, I hope you’re hungry; I made curry for everyone!” He swiftly brought the pot to the table, where everyone was sitting, before dishing out for everyone to eat. As expected, they all liked it, with notable praise from V and her demons given Tou-san’s reputation in the kitchen, and emptied the pot within 30 minutes. After cleaning up everything, and bringing the Black Jack from his room for safety, they were finally ready to work on the artefact.
“So, this is it?” Yosuke asked as V placed the artefact onto the table; it was a box, which was a bit simpler than what Yu was expecting. Then again, he wasn’t considering the markings on the side of the cube, which showed a bunch of small squares inside a large arena of some kind. Each of the sides seemed to show a story of a man walking through what looked to be the underworld, though Yu had no recollection of the specific locations the box was referencing. The bottom was comparably bland, with little in the way of detail, while the top was much the same with a small rectangle carved into it.
“Indeed, Yosuke-san. We haven’t figured out a name for it, but it seems to hold a great power inside.” V explained, while Griffon appeared on her shoulder to continue.
“Yeah, we did about all we could do to open the damn box; run our fingers through the grooves, peck at it; Hell, Lady got so pissed trying to open it that she pointed the Kalina at it, screaming, and I quote: ‘Open up, you stupid piece of fu-’” But before he could finish that quote, a shadowy hand wrapped around his beak before crimping it shut, silencing the bird.
“Griffon! Language.” Yu scolded the bird before retracting his second right hand away from the bird. Sadly, it did not cut off oxygen to him, as the bird so desperately proved through his loud snorting. Meanwhile, Phantom appeared to inspect Yu’s new set of arms.
“Hmm… so a devil has awoken in you, Nero… Would you mind showing us your new form?” Phantom asked the quarter devil, who nodded in return.
“Yeah, I just need to go outside for it; Dojima-san didn’t want me using my true form inside for some reason, though I assume it’s because this place isn’t as demon-proofed as the office back home.” Just as he explained himself, he looked back to the box, which was already being inspected physically by Nanako through her hands. “Ah, Nanako-chan, you may not want to-!” And within seconds, a bright light covered the room for an instant, as the edges of the box lit up, before they went away. Suddenly, the box shuddered before unfolding, revealing the horrifying contents inside the box.
“Oh, jigsaw pieces!!” Nanako cheerfully exclaimed upon seeing the contents of the box; a bunch of square pieces with cutouts on them. Upon closer inspection, a greater problem was revealed to the team.
“Wait, are they all silver?!” Rise cried out, as Yosuke picked one up to inspect it.
“Not just that; They're all blank! Are you kidding me, how are we going to put it together?” He asked, as he spun it around his finger. It looked like a normal set, though Yu figured that the challenge came from linking the pieces together without images to work with.
Stop BGM
SQUEEE!!!!
He did not expect the challenge to come from the pieces themselves and neither did Yosuke, as the piece grew a pair of stick-like black arms and legs before using its new arms to suplex Yosuke onto the table, defying all known laws of physics. Had nothing else happened, Yosuke would have simply been slammed right into the table, messing up their already lacklustre organisation, but instead he shrunk down rapidly until he was about the pieces’ size, before he was thrown towards the table’s surface.
BGM: Crisis (Persona 3 OST)
“Yosuke-san!” Rise-chan cried out first, as the rest of the team plus V worried for his safety, especially after he landed with a thump, though their fears were slightly alleviated as he got up once more. However, they were un-alleviated once more when the rest of the pieces woke up, and surrounded him menacingly. The last piece, which Yosuke had been holding, finally landed on the ground, before screaming up to the sky roof, a rallying cry of sorts that got the rest of the demonic jigsaw pieces to rush Yosuke.
“Senpai, we need to help him!” Rise cried out to him, and he nodded in return. Yu picked up his sword from the edge of the room, while Rise and Teddie pulled out their weapons, before they looked at the table. There was a moment of confusion as they tried to figure out how to get in, when Rise had an idea. “Jump in!” and so they did, though that was quickly defeated when they were launched out. Quickly, Yu assumed they needed to try again, and so they did, again and again, though they were denied entrance everytime.
“Why isn’t this working?! Must more attempts be made?” Yu thought aloud, before looking down at the board. “The pieces! They’re blocking off the table somehow; if that’s the case, then Yosuke’s gonna have to do this alone.” Yu had concerns about Yosuke taking on a group of demons, but a quick glance at the table, however, proved otherwise.
“Yosuke’s kicking butt!” Teddie cheered for his big bro, while the rest of the team looked down upon him in the most literal of senses. Indeed, Yosuke was slashing through a number of them easily, as each of his slices either killed tens of pieces at once, or knocked them down hard enough that they didn’t attempt to get back up. Yu knew that something was off with the board, since Yosuke HAD been sucked inside, but it wasn’t that he couldn’t deal damage to them; if not that, then what?
“AAGGHHH!” Yosuke cried out loud as a Jigsaw piece slashed at him with one of its soft edges, instantly knocking him out of the arena. In turn, he was launched out of the box, landing right on top of Teddie. “Ow…”
Stop BGM
“Get off me, you’re beary heavy!” Teddie bounced back onto his feet, forcing Yosuke onto the floor with the force of his movement. Yosuke quickly got back onto his feet, while Griffon took the opportunity to snark at the boy.
BGM: Youthful Lunch (Persona 4 OST)
“Oi, dumbass, did you try rolling?” Griffon laughed at his own taunt, only to squawk loudly as Yosuke threw a kunai at him.
“Shut up, you stupid chicken, or I’ll fry you whole and give you to Chie!” Yosuke shot back at the demon. V opened her mouth to call him out, only for the two loudmouths to get into an argument, much to Phantom’s consternation. As V slumped back in disappointment, Yu patted her on the shoulder, in an attempt to console her..
“I wouldn’t worry too much about Yosuke. He isn’t the sort of person to actually try that… Then again, I kinda wanna see if fried Griffon tastes like chicken.” V smiled upon hearing that, though not everyone was so happy to hear that.
Namely Nanako, who slapped him in the arm. “Big Bro!”
Rise also got mad, though with a lot less slapping and a lot more whining. “Senpai! You can’t say that about her… I don’t wanna say pet, but…” as she lost her train of thought, V merely laughed.
“He’s closer to a servant, given how mom and dad set up the initial glyphs that bonded them to me when I was… 2, I think? Either way, I’m not super worried about Griff, given that he can in-fact regenerate independent of me. It’s not uncommon for our family to threaten him with ‘death by frying’… now that I think about it, I’m really hankering for a 10-piece meal…” She started to drool at the idea, forcing Yu to nudge her so that she’d clean herself up.
This time it was griffon’s turn to squawk, interrupting his argument with Yosuke. “V?! You too?”
Phantom merely shrugged with his massive pincers. “Well, master’s orders.” He then turned to Yu from his position in V’s lap. “Bring me a pot, and 2 gallons of oil. We are having a feast tonight!”
“Wait, are we going to cook the talking bird?” Nanako asked innocently, before frowning. “That’s not very nice…”
Yu couldn’t help but feel a bit bad about the jokes from earlier, and calmed the group down. “Alright, alright, enough of this bit, We’ve made enough jokes at Griffon’s expense. Let’s focus on the puzzle.”
“THANK YOU!”
“ Not like he doesn’t deserve it at times… ” Yu noted quietly, though Griffon still heard him and squawked. Moving swiftly along, the group refocused on the puzzle, inspecting the pieces a lot more carefully this time.
“So… how did these pieces drag me inside?” Yosuke questioned, a good bit more cautious given what he had gone through.
Rise gasped before pointing at the board. “Aw, look! the pieces are helping each other up! How cute!” Her smile was as brilliant as the sun, but Yu pushed that thought off to the side.
“Cute for you, maybe…” Yosuke grumbled, which Yu also ignored in favour of the pieces; indeed, the few pieces that Yosuke had knocked down were getting back up, some of them separating themselves from their brethren and-Oh wait!
“When Yosuke knocked down some of the pieces, they would land in some random spot, but I saw a few pieces that were knocked down together, as if the pieces had been put together normally. I think the goal here is to defeat all of the pieces, without getting hit.”
“Like Heaven or Hell…” V muttered aloud, before realising that eyes were on her. “Oh, I don’t really remember how it started, but some demon lord created a spell that enhanced the offensive power of any army to insane levels at the cost of nuking their defensive power. He named it ‘Paradinferno’, but most people call it ‘Heaven or Hell’ after the English translation.
“It’s far more dangerous than you’re saying, V.” Phantom stepped in. “The item could allow armies to defeat any demon lord, even Mundus himself, with enough attempts, or enough bodies. The creator was known as Dragon Rockford, though he sought to use his power to help others in the underworld, earning him the title of the Great Helper; not like it stopped Mundus from sending Sparda to eliminate the demon and prevent him from helping any of mundus’ foes.”
Himiko appeared beside Rise and scratched her chin. “Also, Rockford was a fine musician, with a voice like honey and wine…” She started to mumble something about Rockford’s body, which Rise stopped with a solid knife-hand strike to the demon’s head.
Yu’s eyebrows raised at the information. “So Sparda eliminated someone like that?” Phantom nodded as best as his arachnid body could allow, and Yu shook his head in disappointment. “Damn…”
“Sparda was still a general in Mundus’ army, so he followed orders to stay in good standing with him. I doubt it means anything against his character; in fact, I have a theory that it was one of the events that might have led him to betraying the underworld and sealing it off.” Phantom consoled Yu, while Yosuke looked back at the pieces.
“So… we need to defeat, I think, 1000 pieces, without getting hit? If we go at it a few times, we should be able to do it… right?” Yosuke summed up, before snapping his fingers. “Oh, maybe we can all go in at once, then we’d have an easier time dealing with them!”
Yu rubbed his chin at that idea. “That’s pretty good… Now how are we going to get shrunken down?” Yu picked up one of the pieces, which instantly tried to flip him over its head only to fail when Yu anchored himself with his second limbs. “Ah-ah-ah. Not yet.” he chided the piece, which instantly started screeching in a demonic language that Yu had no clue about. “Uhh, what is it talking about?”
“Uhh…” Griffon listened into the piece’s shrieking, before leaning towards Yu’s ears. “Let’s just say that… it’s not safe for children to hear.”
Himiko did not seem to care, choosing instead to thoroughly explain their screeches. “Well, the piece is cursing your mother, calling her a-” before she could finish her explanation, Rise smacked her in the face, though Yu already felt his hackles raise at the insult.
“Allllright then, I don’t need to hear more, I’m going in .” Yu growled the last part before he stood up, picking up the Black Jack from its place on the floor, and hopped onto the table, shrinking rapidly until he was not much taller than the piece he was holding; as he fell, Yu punched the piece in the face rapidly before landing Izuna-drop style to defeat the piece. Getting up, he saw Yosuke, Rise and Teddie land beside him, though V had been launched out for some reason, landing on the floor beside Nanako. “V, you alright?” Yu called up to his cousin.
“Yeah, I’m fine, but I saw a piece of paper fly out of the box with me!” She got back up before reading the paper out loud. “ Limit of four participants. Any more will be booted out. What?!” V raised her eyebrows, only for Yu to wave her off.
“Don’t worry about it! We’ll be just fine!” Yu called back to her, before facing the jigsaw pieces. Yu drew the Black Jack from his back, pointing it at the demons while the rest of the team brought their weapons to bear. “If you’re gonna insult my mother, then I hope you don’t mind if I pound you into the metaphorical dirt that is this table!” Incidentally, he had roughly counted the demons and it looked to be about a thousand, which made sense given that the same number was on the box earlier.
BGM: Beast Test (No More Heroes 3 OST)
Not like the demons cared, as they roared back in response, before they rushed the team.
A Puzzling Encounter! - Jigsaw Joes
The first of the demons were quick to fall by their hands, as the wide coverage of Rise’s spells and Teddie’s random items flattened them into place, many of which were incidentally connected. Yosuke was slashing at them once more, though he kept his attacks quick and short-ranged since both he and the pieces couldn’t take much punishment. Yu, of course, took the role of a Jack of all trades, switching between dashing around to pick off stragglers, blowing up large groups of enemies with Spirit Blazes, and blocking the odd hit with Mirror Screen.
Of course, this pattern would not last for long.
Yosuke was dealing with a group via launching them into the air when one of the pieces nearly got lucky, nearly missing the hunter but knocking him out of his flow. This caused him to stumble and trip around the group of demons surrounding him, until one of them got a lucky hit on him, launching him far due to their unforeseen power. He was not hurt once he landed back in the room, but it left the team at a disadvantage, even though they had gotten through a third of the pieces already.
The team continued to maul their way through the pieces, though the loss of Yosuke had made it far more difficult to deal with the pieces that liked to run away. In turn, the three of them had to deal with more and more sneak attacks from the pieces, which were easily repelled by Yu and Rise, but not so with Teddie, who quickly found himself overwhelmed by a number of pieces.
“Crap!” Teddie screamed as he was quickly booted out of the arena, leaving the two of them to deal with the remaining half of the pieces.
‘I hate to be pessimistic, but at this rate, we won’t be able to clear all the pieces before they get the two of us.’ Yu thought to himself as he ripped through a large group of pieces with an EX-Streak, but his blade got stuck in the floor of the arena, which motivated a group of demons to run at him, murder (or at the very least, victory) in their eyes.
That swiftly stopped when a massive wave of purple electricity pulsed through them, instantly defeating the lot.
“What?!” Yu cried out, only to look up, where Griffon, shrunken down to fit alongside Yu and Rise, was flapping his wings above the crowd. The bird waved a talon at the quarter-devil, before teleporting back to V’s shoulder, back to his normal size. “V?! What’s going on?”
“I found a loophole!” V answered excitedly from above. “The puzzle has a limit of four participants, but it never says anything about adding more participants to replace the ones defeated!”
Yu quickly spun around to slice through the pieces around him, before returning to their conversation. “Wait, how are Yosuke and Teddie doing?”
Nanako leaned over to answer. “They’re on the floor, napping.”
V raised an eyebrow at the girl’s answer, before looking away, likely towards where his teammates were sleeping. “Oh, she’s actually right. They are napping.” V got shoved by Nanako in retaliation, though V waved it off to focus on Yu. “Look, if you two need a hand, just tell me!”
“Yeah, just hold the directions on the D-Pad to summon us, Nero!” Griffon crowed from V’s shoulder.
“Wait, what?” Yu asked, confused at the bird’s words. “Directions? D-pad?”
V looked at Griffon with just as much confusion, and Griffon sighed in disappointment. “Just… holler at us, ok?”
BGM: Beast Test (Red Orca - Wild Tokyo)
Yu cleared his head once more, before focusing on the fight. Rise had cleared a number of pieces with an explosion, before summoning a few bits to cover her from behind. She then blocked a strike from a piece that tried to attack her from behind, only to find herself quickly on the back foot when multiple pieces joined in the mayhem. The quarter-devil whistled upwards, before pointing at Rise. “Shadow, clear a path for her!”
Before long, Shadow landed besides Rise, just as she tripped, before turning into a large whip that hit everything around her instantly. Rise quickly got up before launching a large blast from her staff to deflect some enemies, before petting Shadow on the head. “Aww, good kitty.” The demonic panther chuffed at the praise, before being launched out to land besides V. Yu smirked as he saw the effects of Shadow’s work.
“Good.. this is good.” Yu rubbed his chin before going in, joining Rise with a grounded High Roller to launch a group to their doom, before dodging and countering a piece’s attack with a Shuffle. Before any other piece could attack him, Yu snapped his fingers at a horde of them. “Phantom, light em’ up!”
The hellish scorpion-Spider Hybrid landed on the board before slamming his head into the ground. The pieces were confused for a moment before charging the demon, but Yu merely smirked as they were consumed by pillars of flames, instantly clearing a large number of them. The rest of the demons were blocked off by the remaining pillars of flame, though as Phantom hopped away Yu found a little problem; the pillars were positioned in such a way that Yu was isolated from Rise, and Rise was open to attack from the rest of the horde.
“Damn! Apologies, Nero! Same to you, Rise-san!” Phantom hollered out from above as the pieces swarmed Rise, though she didn’t seem to mind it as she blasted them with a number of projectiles from Himiko, every one of them slaughtering tens of them at a time; sometimes she’d get more than expected when the bodies of pieces were flung into others, knocking them down for her. But there were too many rushing her, and even doing his best to jump over or around the flames, Yu couldn’t get there in time before one of the demons got close enough to land a hit on her, launching her out of the arena.
“SORRY SENPAI!!!” Rise screamed dramatically before she was launched out of the arena, landing on Yosuke and Teddie’s bodies.
“Oof!” Yosuke grunted in pain.
“Yeowch! You’re very- OWIE!” Teddie’s comment was halted with a loud blow, before Rise shuffled to sit besides V and Nanako. The pout on her face was very cute… but it quickly left his mind when he heard growls come from his left, which just so happened to be the rest of the pieces on the board.
“Hmm… about a… 50, I think?” Yu guessed at the number of demons left before smirking. “Welp, might as well see what Nightmare will bring!” Snapping his fingers, Yu pointed at the demons, only for nothing to happen. “Nightmare?” He asked aloud, just as the pillars of flame flickered out. And then he saw a massive meteor fall towards the board. “Oh sh*t, not again!” Yu ran out of there, just as the meteor impacted the floor, deleting a few pieces in the process. Within seconds, Nightmare had appeared on the field and started to wreak havoc on the pieces via a demonic lariat, leaving Yu with a few to deal with. “Best I clear you out in one shot” Yu quickly activated his Devil Trigger to give himself a boost in power, before charging up energy in both the Black Jack and the Izanagi.
“Place your bets… ALL IN!” Yu swung both blades forward, launching a cross wave of demonic energy that instantly defeated the demons in front of him, just as Nightmare beat down the last pieces with a massive laser. “And that’s that.” Yu said as he sheathed his swords and the last few pieces fell into place.
Stop BGM
Nightmare flew up back into V’s hair, while the floor started to shimmer. Yu was about to hop out himself but found himself stuck on the floor as it turned into some sort of image. Just before he was pulled in, he saw a rather strange image, though he didn’t get a good look before he was pulled under.
BGM: Subhuman but it's JAZZY! (Devil May Cry 5 OST - Jazz Cover by Claus)
Inside the painting, he found himself inside a busy tavern, with a bunch of demons laughing and drinking with a few humans. Yu couldn’t put any names to any faces, but the image of humans and demons having a wonderful time together put a smile on his face, if he could ignore the other drunken shenanigans surrounding him. He looked around until he found the bar, which was being tended by a man wearing red clothes and a strange red cap who felt strangely familiar to Yu. As Yu approached, the man looked up and smiled at him. “Ah, Buon pomeriggio young Nero . It’s a bit early to be coming here, no?”
Yu looked at him in shock. “How do you know my- You know what, I’m inside a painting after beating up a bunch of demonic jigsaw pieces that can shrink people. You knowing my name is the least of my concerns.”
The man chuckled before pointing to his left. “Of course. You and your friends completed this puzzle, so you might as well get your reward.”
Yu followed his finger and saw exactly what the man was talking about; a Blue Orb Fragment, floating on a stand that didn’t seem to fit with the room, but Yu did not care. A Blue Orb Fragment is still a Blue Orb Fragment, and so he walked up to it to pick it up. Once he did, he was flung backwards out of the painting. Landing on his ass, he quickly got up just as Dojima-san entered the room. “Huh? What’s going on here?” He asked curiously.
BGM: Signs of Love (Persona 4 OST)
“Oh, We were just-” Yu stopped himself to transform back into his human form. “Oh, we were just dealing with a tiny problem. It was a bit tricky, but it wasn’t too puzzling for us to solve.” He answered with a bit of a smile, only to hear groans from everyone else barring the Dojimas or Teddie.
“Oh brother, that pun STINKS!” V yelled out before lobbing an empty can at his head, which he quickly dodged only for the can to be redirected to his head courtesy of a wind blast from Yosuke.
“A) Ow. B) I didn’t plan that pun out.” Yu defended himself as he turned to face the culprit. “And C) I’m not apologising for the puns anyways; they were way too good.”
“Maybe in your head…” Yosuke grumbled out before focusing on the completed puzzle. “Hey, would you look at that? The puzzle actually has a picture on it!”
Everyone quickly gathered around to appreciate the picture, though V was the first to make a comment about the picture with a gasp. “Oh! That’s Dante!”
“Isn’t he your father?” Teddie asked innocently, only for Griffon to swipe at him with electricity.
“No, you dumbass, She’s talking about the poet!” He shot back, only for V to crimp his mouth with her cane once more.
“Language, Griff, We’re around children!” She then turned back to the team. “And this Dante is known as Dante Aligheri, a famous Italian poet that I’ve been reading about. He wrote a trilogy of poems called the Divine Comedy, where he went through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise with another poet as his guide; Virgil, the writer of the Aeneid.”
“And they’re also the people Oji-san and Tou-san are named after.” Yu quickly pointed out, which earned a gasp from everyone in the room.
“Ah, so I presume your grandmother was a fan?” Dojima-san asked V, who nodded in response.
“So Dad and Uncle Vergil said.” V quickly answered. “Then again, it could be for any reason, but there’s no way any of us could ask her that given our family’s… uh, history.” V quickly became quiet, quickly bringing the mood of the room down. A cough could be heard in the silence, before Rise steered everyone away from the topic with a question.
“Now that I think about it, what do we do with the puzzle now?” Rise asked as she appreciated the picture. “It’s too good to just… throw out.”
“And we won’t be throwing it out, since…” V dramatically paused to pull the box the puzzle came in before pointing it at the table, at which point the puzzle rolled up like a sheet of paper and flew into the box which sealed shut in an instant. “The box has a storage function! I saw it while I was reading the box for any loopholes!”
“Well, I guess that solves that issue.” Yu noted. “What are you going to do with it, V?”
“Hang it up, obviously.” V deadpanned, before throwing the box into her own hammerspace.
“Ah, so you can have a reminder of that girl you were talking to. What was her name?” Phantom wondered aloud.
V screeched loudly in response. “Her name’s not important!”
“It’s gotta be if that blush on your face says anything!” Griffon guffawed as V noticed the blush that was appearing on her face, before shaking her head violently.
“You better shut it or I’m kicking your ass!” V swore before diving at Griffon, which led to her chasing the bird around the table for a hot minute. As they did that, Morrison walked into the room with a cigar, which he quickly put out with a portable ashtray.
“Ah, I presume we’re done here?” He asked the room, and Yu nodded affirmatively; he was about to answer in more detail when an explosion roared from outside, and V (and her demons) raised their arms in surrender.
Record Scratch!
“NOT US!” They cried out in fear, only to be silenced by a roar.
“I will find you, you son of a Sparda, and I will end you AND your BLOODLINE!” The demon roared, and Yu groaned in annoyance.
“Yep, not us.” V grumbled out as the fear on her face melted away into annoyance.
Yu’s phone started to ring, which happened to be a call from Chie when he opened it up. “Yu-kun! We’ve got a demon in the centre of town, and a big one! We need everyone here NOW!”
BGM: Time to Make History (Persona 4 Golden OST)
“Alright, we’ll be there.” Yu answered before ending the call. “Well, I believe we’ve got a hell of a fight ahead of us.”
“Mind if I join in?” V asked with a hand on her cane and magic swirling in the other.
“Ah, don’t worry about it, it won’t take too long. Plus, you’re supposed to be a guest.” Yu tried to refuse, only for his cousin to shake her head.
“Not like most demons care, if like every vacation we’ve been on has anything to say. And if I have to be honest, I’ve yet to fight anything meaningful today, so I’d like to join in for the hell of it.”
“Well, when you say it like that…” Yu scratched his head, before shrugging in response. “I guess you can join us, but you’ll have to follow my orders; We’re in my home-turf, remember?” She quickly nodded, and the team got themselves ready for a fight.
A few minutes later, while they were half-way towards the fight, V chuckled to herself. “Home turf, huh?”
“Knock it off… this place is growing on me.” Yu shot back, before looking at the ugly demon invading his home. “All that means is I’ve got to take out the trash!” And that’s all he said, as the Inaba’s Devils, and their guest, ran towards the threat of the day.
End BGM
