April 18th, 2012, Tsushima, Morning.
The heart of the Hakutaku Forest was a place of profound silence, broken only by the drip of condensation from ancient leaves and the low hum of residual magic.
The clearing where the ritual had taken place was now a scar upon the earth. At its center was a pool of blood, thick and dark, its surface unnaturally still and reflective as a sheet of obsidian. The air was heavy with the metallic tang of iron and the cloying scent of corrupted ozone—the unmistakable stench of kegare given form.
A tremor disturbed the pool's placid surface. A bubble of dark blood swelled and burst. Then another. A hand, massive and powerful, clawed its way out of the viscous liquid, fingers clenching into a fist as it found purchase on the solid ground.
With a guttural, straining roar, Kazan Ishikagawa hauled himself from the sanguine depths. He emerged, reborn, his skin glistening and pale, every muscle coiled with renewed, vengeful strength. He knelt on the bank, chest heaving, his fangs gritted so hard they threatened to crack.
The stain of his dishonor—his defeat at the hands of devils and a mere human—clung to him like a second skin, a psychic wound far deeper than any physical scar.
As he dragged in his first ragged breaths of this new life, his burning red eyes focused on a figure sitting casually at the edge of the blood pool. Santhgrim, the hakutaku high priest, sat with an unnerving stillness.
But the eyes that looked back at Kazan were not the wise, calculating eyes of the ox yokai. They glowed with a malicious, ancient light, and the smile that stretched his features was too wide, too full of predatory delight to belong to him.
"Kazan. My dear, dear Kazan." The voice that came from Santhgrim's mouth was a distorted chorus, layered with the priest's tones and the sibilant, commanding whisper of a goddess.
Izanami.
"My goddess," Kazan grunted, the words a vow of fealty etched in pain. He dropped to one knee, bowing his head before the possessed form of his leader.
"There's no need to be so formal, Kazan. Stand up." Izanami, using Santhgrim's hand, gestured for him to rise. The gesture was grotesquely maternal. "Congratulations on your resurrection. It suits you. Now, tell me... why did you fail?"
Kazan's head remained bowed, but his eyes blazed with a fury that could ignite the very air. "I underestimated the Gremory heiress's affection for her servant," he growled, the rehearsed explanation he had composed in the tormented silence of Yomi tumbling out. "I shouldn't have wasted time with theatrics. I should have killed her queen in front of her eyes and then—"
A cold finger, Santhgrim's finger, pressed against his lips, silencing him. The touch was icy, leaching the heat from his rage.
"No, Kazan," Izanami chided softly, her voice a poisonous honey. "You failed because there was someone there far stronger than you. You didn't even consider him, did you? A blue-haired boy. He was the real threat."
Kazan's brow furrowed in confusion. To doubt her was heresy, but the words made no sense. "My goddess, I would never dare to doubt your word. But the little traitor... he was just a human puppy. A servant of the bat-winged devil, perhaps. An insect."
Izanami shook Santhgrim's head, a look of profound disappointment crossing the borrowed features. "Are you so sure? Think. He was the one who dealt the final blow. He was the one who came to the devils' aid when you had them cornered. His was the power that truly ended you."
The memory, hazy and pain-filled, sharpened into a devastating point. The cool, apathetic gaze. The swift, sure strike. The explosion of agony. It hadn't been the devil's power. It had been the boy's.
A new, more vitriolic hatred ignited in Kazan's chest. To be bested by a recognized enemy was one thing. To be laid low by a human, a creature he considered beneath notice, was an indignity that burned hotter than any hellfire.
"Then he will be the first I kill in your name when I return to that town!" Kazan snarled, the promise a vow written in blood.
"No." Izanami stated, her voice flat and absolute. "I told you, he is too strong. He is not your target. But his friends... that town is full of them. The devils he protects, the humans he walks with. Take them out. Make him suffer. Make him watch. In doing so, you will not only reclaim our land, you will do me a personal favor." Her smile returned, chilling in its intimacy. "There is a special kind of pain in losing what you cherish, isn't there?"
Kazan nodded slowly, the gears of his strategic mind already turning, discarding plans of direct assault for schemes of exquisite, personal torment.
"Enough about the past," Izanami chirped, the mood shifting unnervingly fast. "Let's think about the future! You and Santhgrim have served me so well. I shall reward your dedication."
"It will be my honor. I will use your gift to destroy all your enemies, Great Izanami," Kazan vowed, bowing again, ready to receive the boon.
From the shadows cast by Santhgrim's possessed form, two figures peeled themselves into existence. They were lesser shadows, twins to the one that had attacked in Kansai and found its way to Kuoh.
They were formless yet palpable, concentrations of pure, sentient kegare. One immediately flowed back into Santhgrim's shadow, vanishing from sight. The other surged forward and plunged into Kazan's own shadow.
The oni gasped as an immense, cold power flooded his soul—a torrent of divine hatred and malignant energy. Yet, it did not burn. After decades of serving Izanami, his soul was a vessel perfectly tempered to hold her corruption. The energy settled within him, a new, furious heartbeat alongside his own.
"This is a shinigami," Izanami explained, her voice proud. "A fragment of my most sincere desire given form. The one I have gifted you is of the Chariot Arcana. It will make you unstoppable."
As the process completed, the divine light faded from Santhgrim's eyes. He blinked, staggering slightly as he regained control of his body, the goddess's presence departing as suddenly as it had arrived.
Before either could speak, a kappa messenger scurried into the clearing, bowing low. "High Priest! Honorable Warrior! The yokais sent by Toku have arrived on the island. A squad of twenty, low to middle class. What are your orders?"
Santhgrim cleared his throat, his own voice returning, now filled with zealous fire. "We will show them that the era of the Sun is over! Lady Izanami will correct Japan, giving it back to its rightful owners! The mist of Yomi shall envelop the world!" he shouted, spreading his arms wide as if to embrace the coming darkness.
"Toku isn't among them?" Kazan asked, his voice a low rumble of disappointment, his new power itching for a worthy test.
"N-no, sir," the kappa stammered.
The oni grunted, cracking the knuckles of his massive hands. "I still have to test our lady's gift. They will be enough. Lead me to the armory."
April 18th, 2012, Yomi, Late Morning.
Izanami whistled a cheerful, discordant tune as she practically skipped through the vast, echoing halls of her castle in Yomi.
The experiment had been an unqualified success!
Kazan had accepted the Chariot shinigami with minimal difficulty, his soul bonding with the fragment of her will. It was a crucial step, a proof of concept her father would be thrilled with.
"Father will be so proud!" she chimed to herself, imagining the praise from Nyarlathotep.
"Proud about what?" a dry, unimpressed voice inquired.
Leaning against a corridor wall of polished, weeping stone was Shalba Beelzebub. Or rather, the shadow of him—a perfect replica with chilling yellow eyes that held none of the original's glory, only a refined, cynical malice.
"Oh, it's you," Izanami said, her enthusiasm dampening noticeably at the sight of her "brother."
"Yes, it's me," he replied, pushing off the wall and looking her over with the weary exasperation of an older sibling. "Father wants to talk to us. We were waiting for you."
His presence was a constant reminder of what could have been—a perfect shadow general if Azazel's hadn't been destroyed.
"Father is here?" Izanami's mood instantly brightened. She brushed past Shadow Shalba without another word, her pace quickening to a near-run as she headed for her throne room.
Shalba shook his head in annoyance and followed.
Nyarlathotep waited for them, seated upon Izanami's obsidian throne as if it were his own. He was in his preferred human form—deceptively calm, impeccably dressed.
In his hands, he held a book. It was a dark, twisted mirror of the Velvet Room's compendium; where that was blue and gold, this was bound in what looked like dried, crimson flesh and etched with silver that resembled scar tissue.
The Reverse Compendium.
He was turned to a page depicting a familiar form: the Chariot shinigami. Below the illustration, the words 'Chariot Arcana' were written in a spidery, aggressive script. A smile of profound malice played upon his pale pink lips.
"Good job, Izanami," he said without looking up as she entered.
"Yes, Father!" she replied, beaming with pride.
Shalba entered a moment later, offering a respectful nod to the sitting figure. "Father."
"Now that both of you are here," Nyarlathotep began, closing the book with a soft, definitive thump, "we will discuss our approach to the Universe."
"Can't we just kill him?" Shalba interjected, his voice practical, cold. "He's still human. A blade, a bullet, a well-placed spell..."
Nyarlathotep's smile didn't falter, but his eyes grew colder. "No, Shalba. No. The power of the Universe is something that transcends humanity, Personas, or Shadows. Brute force is a primitive solution that will achieve nothing. And moreover," he added, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, "he is far too useful to be simply killed. He is the ultimate card of my game."
He held up the Reverse Compendium.
"What we are going to do is play the same game as my dear brother, Philemon. He gave humanity the power to fight their fate, to fight me. We will do the same, but we will reverse the flow. I will gift this world the power of the Reverse Personas. And this," he tapped the book's cover, "will be our instrument."
"Thanks to Izanami's efforts," he continued, "I am now able to produce lesser shadows indigenous to this world's growing Sea of Souls—your shinigami. However, to truly contrast the Universe, we need Reverse Personas born from my original Sea of Souls, infused with my essence."
"So what do my shinigami have to do with this?" Izanami asked, raising her hand eagerly like a star pupil.
"Just continue as you are," Nyarlathotep instructed. "Seed the conflict. Spread your influence. Your shinigami will be the foundation, the indigenous threat that weakens their resolve and fills their Sea of Souls with the right... flavor. In the meantime, Shalba and I will secure the means to directly fight the Universe by creating our own agents. You will continue building this world's Sea of Souls until it is ripe."
"And what does that book do, Father?" Shalba asked, his yellow eyes fixed on the crimson tome.
"Just as the attendants of my brother's creation, Igor, use their compendium to manage the power of Personas," Nyarlathotep explained, his voice dripping with sadistic pride.
"I will use this, the Reverse Compendium, to bestow the power of Reverse Personas upon chosen individuals. The key difference is that their power will be borrowed from me, a direct link to my will. It will not be the power of their own soul, but a leash I hold. Furthermore, this tome allows me to track every lesser shadow, present and future, that originates from our efforts here. It is the ledger of our coming victory."
He stood from the throne, the Reverse Compendium vanishing into the folds of his coat.
"Now, both of you, get back to work. I have a visit to pay to my original world. There are pieces there that need to be moved into place."
With that, he was gone, leaving only the echo of his command and the chilling promise of the reversed tarot hanging in the air of the dark throne room.