I've been writing a new AU because for some reason my brainworms won't leave me alone, here's a preview for it >:3
It had been one month since Ren awakened Arsène.
One month since chains shattered beneath blue flames.
One month since Suguru Kamoshida died.
Nobody understood how it happened.
Even now, nearly every conversation in Shujin eventually circled back to that day like vultures returning to carrion. The memory lingered heavily over the school halls no matter how much faculty attempted to restore normalcy.
Ren remembered the assembly vividly.
Students packed tightly into the gymnasium. Nervous whispers. Teachers attempting to maintain order after Shiho Suzui’s attempted suicide shattered the school’s carefully polished image. The atmosphere had been suffocating, thick with dread and uncertainty.
Then Kamoshida confessed.
The abuse. The manipulation. The violence. The harassment.
The volleyball coach stood before the student body trembling and unraveling, tears streaming down his face as he admitted crime after crime into the microphone while teachers stared in horror and students broke into horrified sobs or furious shouting.
A violent choking gasp escaped him before his body struck the stage floor hard enough to echo through the gymnasium.
Panic erupted instantly afterward.
Teachers screaming for ambulances. Students crying. Faculty rushing forward. Someone vomiting near the back bleachers. Police arriving within minutes while rumors spread like wildfire through the city before the day was even over.
Some even whispered divine punishment.
Nobody except the two boys sitting quietly together near the gymnasium exit that day, watching the chaos unfold with eerily composed expressions.
Because Kamoshida had not simply “collapsed.”
His Shadow had been killed.
Ren still remembered the fight itself.
Kamoshida’s grotesque king-form screaming atop his throne inside the castle, draped in stolen glory and warped lust. The battle hadn’t even lasted long. Kamoshida had been arrogant to the very end, convinced his authority made him untouchable.
But Robin Hood’s radiant arrows pierced straight through his defenses while Loki carved apart the openings mercilessly. Arsène danced between both Personas like black silk soaked in gunpowder, elegant and lethal.
The Shadow’s screams still echoed faintly in Ren’s memory sometimes.
