May 6th, 2012, Universe Arcana, Little Past Midnight.
The void around them pulsed, a hollow, arrhythmic thrum that echoed the absence of their Other Self's consciousness. There was no sky, no ground, no horizon. Only darkness that stretched in every direction, pressing against them like the weight of a world about to collapse.
Normally, they would wander the Sea of Souls until Makoto woke, drifting through the currents of his subconscious like fish in a deep, dreaming ocean. But this world offered nothing but void.
Apollo's voice sliced through the encompassing darkness, brash and golden as sunlight forced through cracks in a door sealing a forgotten basement. His form manifested as a silhouette of red elegance and light, flickering at the edges like a flame fighting for air.
"Universe! Universe, are you awake!?" he shouted into the void, his voice musical and rhythmic, yet edged with fear.
Kohryu's golden serpentine form coiled tighter, his divine scales glinting like fractured jade in the non-light, each plate catching reflections that did not exist.
"Your recklessness rivals your radiance, Sun God. Silence. You will rouse nothing but chaos. The Universe surely does not need your shouting right now. He needs quiet. He needs space to heal."
Lucifer's many wings flared wide, casting shadows that swallowed the already-dim glow around him. He drifted closer to the abyss's edge of Makoto's mind, peering into depths that even he could not fully fathom.
"Speculation is futile. The question is not how we arrived here, but where exactly 'here' is." His tone was ice over embers, cold yet seething, an authority forged in rebellion and tempered by ages of exile. It was a much-needed anchor in a moment like this, when the others threatened to spiral into discord.
Loki materialized mid-air, legs crossed as if lounging on an invisible throne, his grin sharp enough to carve lies from truth. "Oh, obviously we are vacationing in the Universe's head! Lovely décor, isn't it? All... existential dread and negative space. Very minimalist. I really appreciate this new arrangement, even if it lacks a bit of color. Red, perhaps. Red would improve it immensely."
Yoshitsune's blade hummed, its edge trembling with restrained violence, a wolf straining against its chain. "Your jests sour even the air here, Trickster God. Cease your prattling, or I will give you something to truly laugh about."
The others lingered in fractured silence, scattered across the darkness like stars in a sky that had forgotten how to shine. Jack Frost hovered near Izanagi, his usual grin dimmed to a wobbling line that threatened to disappear entirely. His icy gloves clinked as he fidgeted, the sound small and lonely in the vast emptiness.
"Hee ho... any ideas? Did we... get deleted?" The question hung in the air, unanswered, too terrible to acknowledge.
Apollo's light flickered, betraying an unease he could not quite conceal. "Horus... the Spear of Destiny. He was hit by that accursed weapon. I felt it—the impact, the sudden absence. It probably tore right through him, through our connection to him, like a blade through silk."
Izanagi's helmet tilted, light pooling in its hollow eyes like water in a grave. "Then Horus is entombed where even we cannot tread. A prison of the soul's deepest fissures. Defining it as a 'dreadful fate' would be an understatement."
His voice was calm, clinical, but beneath it lay a current of something colder. Grief, perhaps. Or the acceptance of inevitable loss.
Fafnir's roar shook the void, molten steel dripping from his jaws, hissing as it struck the nothingness.
"And US!? Are weeee next!?" His scales rippled with agitation, each plate grinding against its neighbor in a discordant symphony. "Will we be picked off one by one, silenced like candles in a storm!?"
Yoshitsune's gaze narrowed, a strategist parsing a battlefield made entirely of shadows. "No. This is the Spear's recoil—it is its burden as much as our own. We are echoes here. Reflections in a shattered mirror. We can only wait for the Universe to awaken. To fight is to exhaust ourselves against an enemy that has no form. To flee is impossible. So we wait."
Messiah's halo guttered, its light frail as a dying ember, as the last prayer of a forgotten saint.
"To sever a part of oneself so abruptly..." His voice faltered, the words catching in his throat. "The pain and the shock must have been... unimaginable."
Around them, the void yawned—a static-laced abyss where time curdled and logic bled. They were fragments adrift, their bonds to Makoto's mind frayed into whispers, left to parse a riddle none could grasp.
What becomes of Personas when the soul goes silent? What remains of reflections when the mirror shatters?
Loki spun toward Odin, fingers drumming an invisible table with impatient rhythm. "Dindin! Cat got your tongue? Or did you finally choke on your own wisdom—or should I say madness?" He jabbed, mentioning Odin's rule over frenzy, his dominion over the chaotic edges of thought. "You have been quiet. Too quiet. It is unnerving."
Odin's single eye narrowed, the pupil contracting to a pinprick. The blue monocle over his other eye was fixed on Leviathan's silhouette. The whale lay suspended in the abyss like a forgotten constellation, a leviathan of flesh and scale and ancient indifference. Its gargantuan ribs rose and fell in a rhythm older than speech, slower than the turning of continents.
"Observe, worm," Odin intoned, his voice a low rumble like distant thunder. The spear Gungnir glinted in his grip, its surface marked by the very curse Loki himself had placed upon it ages ago. "Someone here knows the value of stillness. Someone understands that not every moment demands a response."
"Stiiiillness!?" Fafnir's roar tore through the dark, scales rippling as molten gold dripped from his maw, each drop a tiny sun falling into oblivion. "I will reduce this void to ASH before I am snuffed out liiiiike Horus!"
Leviathan's rumble shook the void to its core, a subsonic growl that vibrated in their bones, in their teeth, in the very essence of what they were. "Cease... your squalling." The words came slowly, deliberately, each one an effort. "Even oblivion... has limits. Even nothingness... can grow tired of noise."
Apollo collapsed onto a phantom ledge, his golden aura dimmed to embers, to the memory of light rather than light itself. "Why does that overgrown sardine even linger here? He is about as loyal as a stray cat. He comes and goes as he pleases, offers nothing, contributes less."
Kohryu's serpentine body coiled tighter still, golden scales hissing against themselves like snakes in a basket. "Prattle less, Sun God."
Apollo's brow arched, a flicker of his old fire returning. "Since when do you play authoritarian? Shouldn't Lucifer be scowling about 'order' and 'discipline' and 'the proper hierarchy of things'?"
Nearby, Lucifer twitched—a small, involuntary motion that spoke volumes. "Order," he muttered, the word dripping with contempt. "Is a corpse here. It died the moment the Universe lost consciousness. I have no intention of keeping any of you in line. It would be a waste of my time, and time is the one resource we cannot afford to squander when the Universe is not here to guide us."
Jack Frost skated figure-eights through the dark, leaving trails of frost that evaporated instantly, as if the void itself rejected his presence. "Hee hoo! Let us have a heart-to-heart talk! You know... like why Odin's ravens are always looking at me like I am a dessert, hee hoo!"
"Enough." Odin's voice cracked like thunder, like a glacier calving into a freezing sea. "I would sooner let the Spear unravel me entirely than endure another moment of this useless chattering. We are Personas. We are reflections of a soul that currently cannot reflect. Bickering will not hasten his awakening. Fear will not strengthen our bonds. Silence is our only ally now."
Loki materialized at his brother's shoulder, breath reeking of mischief and old betrayals. "Aw, Dindin. Still bitter about that time I turned your throne into an outhouse? It was ages ago. Let it go. Forgive. Forget. It is the healthy thing to do."
"You would need more than parlor tricks to unseat me, worm."
The void shuddered.
Jack Frost's voice, small and hesitant, broke the silence one last time. "I wonder... what Death and the Attendant are doing, hee hoo."