Tokyo Psychic

After all, those guys aren't stupid enough to give him the chance to take them down one by one.

......

The roller shutter door opened.

Toyokawa Shoko sat down next to Wakaba Mutsu and whispered to her.

An and Subaru didn't seem to be in a good mood, and they started to pinch and knead Morgana.

Akira clapped her hands, walked up to the girls, and looked at the three of them and the cat. "Although we had a terrible day today, thankfully, we will no longer be fighting alone from now on."

"Hmm?" Faced with everyone's doubts, Akira Kurusu looked at Shoko Toyokawa on the sofa. "They are a group of Personas who made many contributions and sacrifices in the fight against disasters. Shoko has had contact with them before."

Saying this, Akira Kurishi walked to the open roller shutter door.

"Here I would like to introduce to you the special forces that were active throughout Japan two years ago, whose duty was to suppress various shadowy incidents. From now on, when facing major disasters, they will fight alongside us on the same battlefield."

"Hmm, you can call us—Shadow Patrolmen," a cheerful voice chimed in.

Then, under the sunlight outside the door, some overlapping shadows suddenly appeared.

The extremely beautiful girl revealed a mischievous smile and was the first to enter the Phantom Thieves' base.

Kotone Shiomi waved to the tense girls, "Good afternoon, everyone from the 'Psychic Thieves'~"

Behind her stood a full-scale Shadow Patrol.

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(There will be another "three-in-one" chapter later, and the other "three-in-one" chapter will be released tonight.)

199. The Aftermath of the Armor-Piercing Rounds of the Great Sin

(Bonus chapter this weekend: March 8)

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Good afternoon, everyone from the 'Mind Thieves'!

The moment Shiomi Kotone appeared, the girls in the base immediately felt a stinging pain in their line of sight.

Her dazzling soul left those who first encountered her persona with a burning, disorienting feeling.

Even though Wakaba Mutsu had already met Shiomi Kotone that morning, he still found it difficult to look her in the eye—

Akira Kurusu could probably guess the reason.

After Shiomi Kotone sacrificed herself to "seal" Nyx, her soulless body was buried.

And now, having been reborn in the new world, it must have been with the help of Ferremon.

Under the gaze of the Fool's Eye, a gift from the contractor of the Velvet Room, Shiomi Kotone has largely deviated from the realm of humanity.

But he didn't pay too much attention to it, and instead looked behind Shiomi Kotone.

Seeing those familiar seniors, Akira Kurusu couldn't help but feel a little emotional... But the next moment, Kotone Shiomi's beautiful and perfect face came close to Akira Kurusu's face.

I thought you would be very curious.

"No matter what happens, Shiomi-senpai won't change because of it, right?"

"You're deliberately saying flirtatious things..." Kotone Shiomi stretched out her small hand and gestured back and forth between her head and Akira Kurusu's chin. "Also, aren't you a little too tall?"

"..."

Standing behind Shiomi Kotone, Kirijo Mitsuki's eyelids trembled for a moment, completely unable to connect this lively and mischievous pretty girl with the taciturn, melancholic blues savior in her memory.

Yue Yujia patted her on the back, "This is good, just think of it as bringing back a cute junior."

"Junior?"

"Well... anyway, it's always good to take good care of her."

"You've only known her for a day, and you're already treating her like she's on the moon?"

"I always feel like I owe them something."

The conversation abruptly ended.

Just as Yukari Yueyu said, even Mitsuru Kirijo couldn't help but feel a strong sense of indebtedness when she saw this girl who had almost the exact same experience as Osamu Yuuki.

Given the unique nature of the Mind Thieves, the Shadow Walker actually had no intention of visiting this place.

They were simply preparing to meet the contemporary Velvet Room contractors.

However, the moment their gaze passed over Kotone Shiomi and landed on Akira Kurusu, these battle-hardened Personas all froze in unison.

The familiar feeling seeping from their very souls, and the terrifying scenes that kept replaying in their memories, made the warriors who had climbed that tower side by side tremble even after six years.

Kirijo Mitsuki stared at Kurusu Akira in astonishment. Connecting the dots with the term "psychic thief," an image immediately popped into her mind of him dressed in a black phantom thief outfit, using a grappling hook gun to leap dozens of meters and block her and her companions' path.

......

Let's go back six years.

After Yuki sacrificed himself to fulfill his destiny, the SEES, whom he once led, stepped into the abyss of time together in order to find the truth behind the sacrifice of this respected and trusted partner.

After a long and arduous journey, they finally discovered the true nature of the "seal" that Yuuki Osamu spoke of in the Sea of ​​Hearts—

It was a colossal, golden gate, standing tall on the pale surface of the moon.

After another difficult exploration, they realized... that the extraterrestrial life form Nyx was not hostile to humans.

Relying on the "Sea of ​​the Heart," the willpower of life on Earth is sufficient to achieve a state of mutual balance with the death signals it emits.

Therefore, there was actually no need to seal Nyx away.

The magnificent gate that Yuki Osamu forged by sacrificing his soul certainly blocked anything that tried to touch the Nyx spirit sleeping at the bottom of the sea of ​​the heart, but what it was really fighting against was a newly born evil god.

That's because of the death-seeking signals emitted by Nyx, which in turn gave rise to the collective entity—"Erebus"—born from people's unconscious desire for death.

Erebus's innate will was to bring death to the world.

In order to accomplish this mission, He will do anything to awaken Nyx, who has been asleep for countless years.

The Shadow Walkers ultimately defeated Erebus.

After all, the enemy that truly troubled them, made them feel sad and even desperate was not the so-called evil god who was a collection of desires for death.

In the corridor leading to the abyss of the Sea of ​​Hearts, the Shadow Walker faced a choice between two paths.

One is the right path, the other is the wrong room.

Unsurprisingly, they chose the wrong path the first time, and then, in the wrong room, they encountered a phantom that transcended time and space.

No one knows the other party's true identity, name, or any related information.

Dressed in a black phantom thief outfit comparable to that of a comic convention enthusiast, and wearing a white lark mask, he nimbly moved between chandeliers, finally using a grappling hook gun to launch a rope across the ceiling dozens of meters high, blocking the way between the crowd and the exit.

Without communication or exchange, battle is imminent.

......

At first, the Shadow Patrol members did not consider this strangely dressed guy a threat.

They summoned their Personas and, as is customary, entered the probing phase before the battle.

After a brief discussion of tactics, everyone decided to conserve their strength and wait for the opponent to make the first move before devising a countermeasure.

Then, the demon form he called "Arsène," which didn't seem very intimidating, suddenly burst into azure flames.

The phantom thief struck an exceptionally flamboyant pose, covered his face with his hand, and then shouted at the top of his lungs.

"Satanyal!"

The next moment, all the light in the space disappeared.

"Where is his persona?" someone asked loudly from the darkness.

But soon, the question itself found its answer.

In Yamagishi Fuka's eyes, the Persona, exuding a terrifying presence, unfurled its black wings, blotting out the sky. A marble musket, like a towering building piercing the heavens, collapsed downwards, its massive muzzle swallowing all light within sight, plunging the world into boundless darkness...

An overwhelming sense of oppression swept over him, and under the almost suffocating pressure, the phantom thief let out a low shout.

"【Armor-Piercing Sin Round】".

As soon as the words were spoken, a thunderous roar erupted, and an extremely dazzling light flickered from the gun barrel. In the next instant, this terrifying lightning engulfed them all.

200. Sakura Futaba's Secret (Two-in-One)

(Bonus chapters on weekends: April 8th and May 8th)

(Don't ask, it's just a review process.)

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"【Armor-Piercing Sin Round】!"

The phantom thief's stern shout echoed in the darkness.

The Persona named "Satanyel" slowly retracted its wings, and as the wind howled, it engulfed the Shadow Patrol's concentrated fire.

Those skills that had been honed to an extremely high level all disappeared into the dark wings of "Satanyel".

Having narrowly evaded Satan's seemingly world-destroying attack thanks to their extensive combat experience, and just as everyone was desperately trying to figure out how to counterattack...

The phantom thief suddenly raised his right hand, which was pressed against his forehead, and clenched it into a fist. Then he shouted again, "[Sin Armor-Piercing Bullet]!"

The expressions on the faces of the Shadow Walkers were beyond mere shock; they were pure terror and despair...

They had exhausted all their methods and barely managed to evade this attack that nearly destroyed the entire space, only to see the phantom thief shout once more, seemingly in a fit of rage. "【Great Sin Armor-Piercing Bullet】!"... The phantom thief here was merely a phantom existing in the Sea of ​​Hearts, so of course he wouldn't have any "rage" or "frenzy."

Without saying a word, he unleashed such an exaggerated move, comparable to the final boss battle in an RPG game. It's hard not to associate it with descriptions like "hair standing on end" or "red-hot".

The Shadow Patrol members were in utter despair.

The battles that followed were brutal.

If it weren't for the robot girl named "Aegis" in the team inheriting the Persona Encyclopedia from Yuuki Osamu and developing her untamed power to the maximum, they might have really been wiped out by one "Sin Armor-Piercing Bullet" after another.

......

Let's go back to the present.

They noticed Akira Kurusu's presence.

Inside the Mind Thieves' secret base, the atmosphere froze at an alarming rate.

"Senior, what's wrong?"

Faced with Akira Kurusu's slightly confused and doubtful gaze, the seemingly very quiet woman took two steps back as if in fear.

In Akira Kurusu's memory, the Shadow Patrolman, Yamagishi Fuka, was a gentle and delicate girl who would never show such a resistant expression to communication, even when facing complete strangers.

But Yamagishi Fuka did indeed do that.

It's as if they've met somewhere before and left a very bad impression on each other—

Akira thought to himself, "It's impossible that I was once their enemy in this world, and then I ravaged all the members of the Shadow Patrol in a very unreasonable way, right?"

Six years ago, I was still in elementary school.

He then looked at the young lady of the Kirijo Group, who was known for her cold and calm demeanor, only to find that this Persona user, once hailed as the "Queen," was now somewhat unnaturally looking away.

Generally, only after being bitten by a venomous snake will a person show such a fearful and distant expression when seeing familiar grass or similar-looking objects.

Even the men who had become more mature and reliable with age and experience all showed unpleasant expressions in front of Akira Kurusu.

Only by personally experiencing the terrifying nature of that technique called "Great Sin Armor-Piercing Bullet" can one truly feel fear upon seeing Akira Kurusu.

Originally, Shiomi Kotone was happily preparing to introduce the Shadow Patrol to the Dawn of Dawn when she noticed the embarrassment and awkwardness on their faces... There were too many suspicious points, and she didn't know where to start asking questions.

Fortunately, a series of clear telephone rings saved the atmosphere from becoming increasingly tense.

Under the watchful eyes of everyone, Akira Kurishi answered the phone.

"Hello, this is Amamiya from 'The End Band'."

"Yes, I'm Kurata, Kurata of Morfonica!"

Kurata Mashiro's cheerful voice came through the receiver. "We're leaving in five hours! Remember to meet at the Shinkansen! ...Oh, and don't forget to ask the school for leave!"

"..."