Scene One – Retreat to Leblanc
The bell above the café door chimed.
Steam curled from mugs, rain pattered outside, and silence settled between the Thieves like an unspoken pact.
Futaba sprawled on the couch, hoodie pulled low. Ryuji sat at the bar, bouncing his leg, eyes haunted. Ann leaned into Ren's shoulder, her fingers nervously toying with her gloves. Yusuke sketched in stillness, his lines shakier than usual. Makoto flipped through a leather journal—but hadn't written a word.
"So…" Sojiro said, drying a glass, "you all look like you walked through a graveyard full of your own ghosts."
"Not far off," Haru murmured, her tea untouched.
Tae Takemi sat in the corner, arms crossed. Her pale eyes swept over them. "You're all experiencing symptomology. Persona-based trauma feedback. It's like forcing your psyche to wear divine armor that's too tight."
"And it's making us forget things," Futaba added quietly. "I almost called Joker… 'someone else.' And then I didn't remember who."
Ren's hand clenched around his cup.
"This isn't just Mementos anymore," he said. "It's rewriting Tokyo. Us."
A pause. Then:
"We keep going," Makoto said firmly. "But we do it together. And if we're changing—we keep each other grounded."
Scene Two – Back into Mementos: Crown of the Forgotten King – Layer Two
The next gate was worse than the last.
A hallway of hospital beds stretched into the dark, each one occupied by shadowy versions of the Thieves—lifeless, frozen, incomplete. Above, monitors played their worst fears: Makoto shackled to a desk, Futaba abandoned in a code loop, Ryuji limping in isolation, Ann fading from photos, Ren alone… forgotten.
They pressed forward.
But the deeper they went, the heavier it felt.
The Crown's second layer was a labyrinth of faded roles—classrooms, offices, homes—all distorted into prisons where people had been reduced to their utility. Forgotten dreams echoed on loop.
They weren't fighting Shadows now. They were fighting Voids—sentient absences where people used to be.
Midboss Encounter – The Head Registrar
A towering figure with scrolls wrapped around its body, the Head Registrar wielded bureaucratic erasers and name-tag chains. Every hit it landed caused the Thieves to lose access to one skill or ability until they remembered why they first earned it.
The team staggered.
Ryuji forgot his Zio-based attacks. Haru's psychic fusion vanished. Yusuke's blade became weightless and ineffective.
And Ren—
Lucien didn't respond at all.
Until Ann, her voice cracking, screamed: "You're not just the Trickster. You're Ren! And you fought for us!"
Lucien flared to life—divine wings ablaze—and the counterattack was swift, righteous.
The Head Registrar burned in a storm of resurrected truths.
Aftermath – Quiet Moments in the Depths
Futaba scanned the next passage.
"Three more layers," she whispered. "Maybe four."
"Each one's harder," Makoto added, gripping her chest. "Not just to fight… to stay ourselves."
They found a quiet room. A safe zone, for now.
Haru passed around warm drinks from her thermos.
Ann leaned against Ren, silent. Ryuji sat beside Yusuke, not saying much, but not moving either. Futaba lay across a bench, eyes blinking against sleep.
Tae touched her chest.
Her Persona, Nox Salvia, stirred softly. A healer in black blooms and sterile light, her mask a shattered mirror.
"I think we're all unraveling," she said. "But maybe… that's the only way to be woven into something new."