...11/09/2009 Friday; Afternoon...
The silence in the hospital room felt like it had swallowed the entire city's noise.
Only the soft hum of the air conditioner filled the space between the three of them.
Hiro said nothing. He didn't move.
He stared at the floor, hands clenched over his knees, his body hunched forward as if trying to hold back something swelling inside his chest — a suffocating mix of confusion and restrained anger.
For as long as he could remember, he had only one image of his mother: a name spat out with contempt by his father, accompanied by shattered bottles and slurred words between swigs of alcohol.
When Hiro finally lifted his head, his eyes were slightly wide, as if silently begging for an answer that could make sense of what he had just heard.
"What do you know about my mother?"
Takeharu Kirijo stood still for a moment, bearing the weight of someone who knew that every word would carry tremendous gravity.
Then he looked away, eyes narrowing tightly, as if reaching for that memory meant reopening an old wound.
"What I know?"
Silence.
His hand trembled slightly at his side before curling into a fist.
"Not much," he finally said. "Almost nothing."
Hiro closed his eyes and dragged a hand down his face, fingers pressing deep into his skin, trying to contain the ache.
His voice came out low, hoarse, defeated.
"I... I see."
"I'm sorry I can't tell you more, Hiro-san."
Takeharu's voice was as formal as ever — yet something had cracked within it. A weight.
Without warning, he turned and walked slowly toward the window. The shadows of dusk stretched across the room, painting the walls in deep, melancholic orange.
He stopped by the table.
For a moment, he studied the flowers with strange intensity, as if they had something to say.
His hand gently brushed against the petals.
A simple gesture. Yet full of something — longing? Regret?
"During the explosion that gave birth to Tartarus… I lost my right eye."
His voice was quieter now, almost intimate. "A shard hit me. That's why I started wearing this."
He lightly touched the eyepatch.
"But... that wasn't all."
His fingers carefully pulled a single rose from the bouquet.
The red hue seemed to glow in his hand, as if that simple object carried far more weight than it appeared.
"The energy released in that accident... exposed me to a kind of radiation from the Shadows themselves. It affected my brain and gave me the ability to remain conscious during the Dark Hour."
Hiro frowned. "And... what does that have to do with what we're talking about?"
Takeharu turned slowly.
The light from the setting sun illuminated the right side of his face, highlighting the marks of age, the wear in his eyes — yet his gaze remained steady.
He stepped back toward the bed and stopped in front of his daughter.
He extended the flower toward her with a calmness that didn't match the tension in the air.
Mitsuru hesitated. Her eyes shifted from the flower to her father, then to Hiro.
Then, slowly, she accepted the gift, pressing the flower lightly to her cheek, breathing in its scent with a near-instinctive motion.
"That same energy... affected my hippocampus. It's the part of the brain responsible for storing memories. After that exposure, I lost most of them," Takeharu said, his voice heavier now.
The statement lingered in the air.
Hiro said nothing. His eyes were wide open now, as if trying to absorb every nuance of Takeharu's words.
"Shit..." Hiro muttered, looking away. "So you don't remember anything?"
Mitsuru placed the rose gently in her lap and looked at Hiro.
"He lost fragments of his memory," she explained softly, as if trying to help Hiro make sense of it. "The doctors reconstructed what they could. But there are things that... simply never came back."
Takeharu felt a vibration in his chest.
He slid his hand into his suit and pulled his cell phone from the inside pocket.
The screen lit up, and a new message from Giyu, with a subject line full of exclamation points, immediately caught his attention.
He frowned and pressed a key to open it.
Message:"Kirijo-san, I went to the industrial zone just like you asked. The scientists detected that inside the Shadow that appeared, there was some kind of artifact that enhanced the Shadows' power. But... nothing similar was found in that area or in any other parts of the city where S.E.E.S. operated. My hypothesis is that the artifact was retrieved by someone."
Takeharu's expression darkened. He remained silent, eyes fixed on the screen for a few seconds.
Hiro, who had been talking to Mitsuru, looked over at Takeharu as he sensed the air in the room grow heavy.
"Mr. Kirijo, is something wrong?" Hiro asked, puzzled.
The two exchanged looks. Confused. Neither seemed to fully grasp what he meant.
Mitsuru closed her eyes for a moment, trying to pull any fragments of memory before she'd lost consciousness. But all she remembered was the moment Hiro caught her in the air.
"I'm sorry... but I don't remember much after we defeated the Shadow," she said, shaking her head slowly.
Takeharu nodded, as if he already expected that.
"It's alright. The report Sanada sent says you fainted right after finishing off the Shadow."
Across the room, Hiro brought his hand to his mouth, eyes narrowing as if something was struggling to surface in his mind.
"Actually..." He paused for a moment, frowning. "There was something."
Mitsuru and Takeharu both turned their attention to him. Hiro started tapping his foot lightly, trying to organize his thoughts.
He closed his eyes, letting the memory return.
The image of Takaya emerged like a dark stain at the back of his mind. The metallic tones of the setting, the deathly silence after the battle. And then, the phrase.
"Jin, grab what we came for…"
Then the movement. Jin handing something to Takaya.
But it wasn't just anything.
"It was an Evoker," Hiro said, his voice firmer now. "But not an ordinary one."
"An Evoker?" Mitsuru frowned. "Are you sure it wasn't one of ours?"
"I'm absolutely sure," Hiro said, locking eyes with her. "It looked nothing like ours. It was very different."
Takeharu narrowed his eyes, paying close attention.
"Describe it."
Hiro nodded and reached into his pocket, pulling out his phone.
He held it as if it were the Evoker itself and began to demonstrate with his fingers while speaking.
"It had a shape similar to a normal Evoker. But... it had red parts, like it was stained or modified. Here..." He pointed to the side of the device, focusing on his palm. "...there were exposed wires, like a test version or some kind of prototype. It looked... I don't know how to explain."
Mitsuru furrowed her brow, eyes narrowing as she crossed her arms. No matter how hard she tried to recall, nothing matched the description of the strange Evoker Hiro had mentioned.
"Hmm... I've never heard of an Evoker like that. Not even in the command room's computer archives," she murmured thoughtfully, her eyes drifting.
Hiro nodded, slipping the phone back into his coat pocket, his expression still tense.
"And it didn't seem like it would just summon a Persona normally..."
That's when Takeharu's voice cut through the silence — dry and dense as lead:
"Exactly."
Even though she was used to her father's stern tone, Mitsuru felt the hairs on her neck rise. Hiro also took a step back, as if the room's temperature had suddenly dropped.
The man in front of them kept his eyes lowered, shoulders slightly tense — a rigidity that rarely showed.
The silence that followed was broken only by his muffled breathing.
Takeharu was staring into the void, but his eyes were locked onto another scene — a memory suddenly slicing through the fog of time like a blade.
A laboratory. The metallic smell of new equipment mixed with the buzz of electricity in the air.
Scientists in white lab coats bustled around digital panels, discussing the development of the new S.E.E.S. combat suits.
Takeharu stood next to one of them, listening closely... until the door burst open with a sharp click.
Shuji Ikutsuki entered with his usual relaxed stride, far too casual for the environment.
He wore a beige jacket, a black turtleneck underneath, and carried a design schematic in his hands, smiling as if he'd just uncovered the key to a great mystery.
"No way... could it be...?" — Takeharu murmured, the words slipping like smoke from a long-buried past.
Mitsuru shifted in bed, her voice a mix of concern and surprise:
"Father... what ha—"
But before she could finish, he raised his hand firmly, signaling for silence.
Mitsuru instinctively fell back, watching her father press his fingers to his lips as if trying to retrieve a memory that refused to fully surface.
The image of the lab began to distort, pulling Takeharu even deeper. The scenes scrambled in red flashes.
Blurred faces, voiceless echoes, corridors screaming with untold memories.
And then, he was there — in an old office, seated before a massive desk.
Across from him, a man stood looking out over the city through a wide window, hands clasped behind his back.
The light reflected off his shoulders, but his face... was a red blur. A blur that pulsed as if the memory were poisoned.
But the body, the presence... he knew who it was.
Kouetsu Kirijo, his father. Mitsuru's grandfather. The man who started it all.
Kouetsu placed a hand on the desk and leaned toward his son.
Even with the distorted face, one could feel the wicked smile — a cutting presence between them.
"I funded the development of the 'Akuma Project.' The scientists will begin production tomorrow."
Takeharu's chair creaked as he leaned forward, fists clenched.
"You know this could kill her! We don't even know if the Persona is just a version of a Shadow!"
Kouetsu shrugged and turned back to the window, his voice dripping with disdain:
"It's just a version of... what does that Takeba boy call it? An Evoker? Yes, just an improved version of that devi—"
The wood cracked.
Takeharu stood violently, knocking the chair over. His arm slammed the desk hard, papers scattering.
"SHE'S PREGNANT!"
The shout tore through the air like thunder.
And in a flash, the image shattered. The office vanished. Dust replaced the scene.
When he came back to his senses, Takeharu was standing once more, back in the hospital room.