Hideaki watched as those familiar with each other grouped together, distancing themselves from him and Junpei. He had recognized Korosawa Yori’s name from the open introduction he had posted earlier online, but he couldn’t fit a face to the name until now of course. And it didn’t help the pang of annoyance he felt well up from within as the group of four associates clambered together, leaving him the odd man out like so many others had done to him years before. As Yori asked his question he dug his hands into pockets, feeling over the round metal pocket watch as Haruto asked his own. He stood in silence Junpei addressed the others, turning his attention away to take in the scenery once again. But when his eyes turned back to the center of the path…
His saw the shadows mobilize as quickly as Junpei, but his reaction was much slower, his face turning white and his jaw hanging open. All the stubborn disbelief he had been mentally holding onto had evaporated the moment the first puddle monster showed itself, further emphasizing itself as more showed up behind it. He gripped his pocket watch tightly as he whirled to look at Junpei expectantly, fear clear on his face. The expression doesn’t change as the Evoker goes soaring into aptly placed underbrush, the horrified looking teen turning back to the monsters. The group of Mayas all had their masks drawn in their disembodied arms, surveying each individual in the group. The masks stopped moving and, not long after and the shadows began to advance on the group, the panic stricken teen closest to them nearly falling backwards in a not-thoroughly-planned retreat. Between the group of almost-strangers and the stranger creatures Hideaki had nowhere to run, the mere thought causing him to grip his watch in frustrated desperation.
Time seemed to stop as the watch opened itself without warning, the landscape bathing itself in a blinding light. The light dims, the source emanating from an ethereally shining source between the party and the group of monsters. From Hideaki’s cast shadow a spectre rises from the thinned nothingness, spreading its sleeved arms out in a stretch. The ghostly visage places itself just behind a glass-like crystal ball, the floating orb reflecting the landscape in all its incandescence. Time flows again and one male and one female voice both speak in unison, their voices echoing throughout the party’s ears. “Thou art we. And we art thou,”
The group of Shadows stands transfixed on the suddenly summoned being, the apparition’s formless hands placing themselves at the crystal ball’s sides. The apparition straightens its arms, pushing the ball foreward in one swift motion, and with the motion the nearest Maya becomes surrounded by white cascading feathers, floating serenely. They stop midair, the space between the heavenly looking feathers igniting in a bright light and the shadow in its middle disintegrating. Hideaki stares at the figure’s backside, whispering loudly in a quizzical tone “Midgard?”