Chapter 18: Cursed Persona

Riser POV

Seeing the protagonist made me feel like, I really am in another world aren't I? I realize once again that I am living a different life. I crossed the street together with Rias while it was raining too. I just used Infinity subtly to make an umbrella like Gojo did in the opening.

And I have to admit it is pretty fucking cool. Rias was looking at the water droplets that stopped just before her skin in wonder.

Then I saw Joker and Ryuji meet up and start walking in an alleyway. Shit I am going to miss their entrance into the palace. I blazed through the streets dragging Rias all the way with me and as I saw them take a turn a feeling of vertigo.

Everything was topsy-turvy, left was right and up was down. Even with my regeneration, I still felt dizzy. It was confusing and exciting at the same time for me. But after a moment of that happening it was gone in an instant almost like a dream.

Though Rias was clutching her head still, my regeneration really is a cheat isn't it? I took the time to massage the forehead of Rias asd she felt better in seconds.

After a few seconds more of just making Rias feel better, we looked forward to see the massive castle that was in front of our eyes. It was big to say the least, but well, to be honest. The Gremory and Phenex house was bigger than this. Just goes to show how rich both of our families really are huh.

It was weird to realize how blessed with money Riser and Rias really is. In my previous life I was in a middle class family, I was blessed with good parents, a cute sibling. And I was so depressed I unalived… No, don't think. Just that now in a world where I became a devil with nigh infinite money with a beautiful fiance, I am still chasing something.

I am still not satisfied with myself, is this just human nature… How ironic, now that I am a devil I am forced to acknowledge how human I still am.

Like how I obsessed with a black flash, I wanted to achieve it myself, to prove something to myself that I was enough. That I won't mess up this time. That…

I was just chasing that high that came with a black flash, to focus on something else, to live in the moment. Look at me being introspective… hahaha smile through it, you are a sigma alpha male that will become a protagonist aren't you? So prove it, don't think, just move.

Seeing the castle door open I could see Ryuji pushing the massive door open… Just how in the world? He is a normal human right? With an injured leg too… damn Ryuji really works out doesn't he, wait didn't he quit for a time or something? Maybe because it's a cognitive world he thinks that this is a prank and the door shouldn't be that heavy that the result is the door being lightened? Eh fuck it, let's just say that it is what it is.

"Riser-kun, what is this place?" Rias finally had the mind to ask after her being discombobulated and stared in wonder at the castle.

To be fair we were in the streets of a modern city, and then we were Isekaied again from her perspective.

"Do you want to know now or find out for yourself, or do you want just a short summary?" I asked her curious of how a heroine from another franchise would react in this kind of scenario.

"Hmm, just a summary so I know what we're dealing with I guess…" She sounded kind of unsure, thinking to experience the story herself or to know what happens I guess she really is conflicted.

"This is the mind of a person, it is the metaphysical manifestation of how someone views the world around them. A twisted version of reality in the eyes of someone so far removed from reality that they can assert their version in reality itself, something like that I guess. Though it only manifests in a place between mind and reality if I remember right."

Explaining the mechanics of a palace is kind of hard to say in words. A palace is kind of like a Reality Marble or Domain Expansion in my perspective. It was a twisted view of what you think goes on around you, like Kamoshida thinks of himself as the king of the school, so he became a king in a castle. Shirou Emiya was a sword through and through and in turn his inner world was a never ending desert with unlimited sword, there was more to it than that but ultimately that was the basics.

"Is it dangerous here then?" Rias sounded concerned.

"Of course it is, it is twisted as I said."

"Then we have to hurry and save those two then!" Rias' concern turned to panic for those two for a moment.

"For ordinary people this is a dangerous place, but those two will be fine. However, we should probably still go look out for them." I replied coolly, I am confident they are going to be fine after all, this is a canon event.

Sneaking around and entering the castle from the big entrance, we stayed in the shadows and saw large armored knights surrounding the two high schoolers and then dragging the unconscious somewhere underground. We were too late to at least warn them, maybe this really is a canon event. Are we in a cutscene right now? Say hello to the chat, Hi chat!

They are going to the dungeons then. The other guards went in a different direction, somewhere in the upper castle, my guess would be him reporting to the pretend king that there were intruders. Following the ones going down, they started talking.

"So what do you think King Kamoshida will do to these two?" Guard A started the conversation.

"I don't know, stop asking questions." Guard B was more serious in his job huh.

"Bet he's going to use his balls to crush them." Guard A insisted.

"..." Guard B, please respond to that at least.

"After all, the King's balls are large enough that he can crush these two." Guard A stop talking.

I could actually see the two unconscious teenagers shudder in their sleep with his comments, congratulations to the human unconsciousness, we are all degenerates in the end. Even shadows likes dirty jokes.

"You are talking about the King serving his volleyballs aren't you?" Yeah you tell him Guard B!

"... Yeah of course… of course." What was that pause Guard A. And why did you stop to just stare at your companion.

"What was with that pause man?" Guard B said my thoughts outloud.

"Well, I mean thinking about how our King is I think we all know how this is gonna go… they about to get served." I was just thinking if this world was worse than the canon and they just weren't able to show it in the game but this may just be worse than I thought. Puns, really. The only one who can pull it off is Ina because of her cuteness.

"Just go do your job, Jerry. Let's just go." What? These shadows actually have names? When was that established? And was Joker's shoulders shaking? Is he holding his laughter? Is he conscious? Looking again, I can see Joker stay still as a dead fish, was I imagining that?

Rias poked me and looked at me with a questioning gaze. I just shrugged I don't know what was happening here after all.

Continuing down the dungeons we were treated to the sight of students being tortured. There were students being whipped with the guards' spears while they clench the net in a volleyball court.

Rias looked horrified at what we were seeing. "What…" She was speechless from the shock. I dragged her forward, making her see even more of the horrifying mindset of the volleyball teacher.

We saw a giant treadmill with students having to run on them or they would get crushed by spikes at the end of it. A never ending torture for them. In another prison cage, there was one student hanging from the ceiling upside down being hit by a volleyball launched from a cannon… repeatedly.

Seeing it in the game was uncomfortable, like in the mindset of one adult they torture teenagers for fun, for amusement, for validating their power over a school. But seeing it in real life, all I could feel was a sick feeling in my stomach. It was disgusting.

Rias herself looked like she was going to vomit. She has tears in her eyes, symphatizing with the students locked up in cages in this fucked up dungeon.

"What the hell is this Riser?" With an unamused expression she asked me heatedly what we were really in for.

"This is the cognition of a person, I told you this was a twisted mind. Now think how the owner of this place thinks of their position in the real world. And what it means that in his mind, we can see students being tortured like this."

Her once sad face turned contemplative and ended with a furious look in her face. Her eyes filled with the darkness of destruction.

She moved to attack the guards but I stopped her, this needs to happen. In our world I can somewhat attack Issei, will he be stronger or weaker doesn't matter because at the end of the day that is my home dimension. If something attacked it I would step up to the plate and defend it if Issei was too weak.

But this dimension needs it's protector, I can't always be here to fight off threats and because well, there are many other worlds I am going to and… I respect Joker too much to play with him like this, to weaken or strengthen him by my whim, yeah no.

"Why are you stopping me Riser?" She hissed at me.

"I told you there was something interesting in this dimension, to see it we need to let this happen, if they really are going to be harmed then we'll go interfere alright?" To be honest even I was excited for what is about to happen, I will finally see the thief in person.

The two guards passed through a corridor and into a bridge. At the end of the opposite of where we were going I could hear a meowing coming from one of the jailcells. Haa, it gives me flashbacks hearing those meowing "Hell no you can go to the bathroom, you know where you can go? The fuck to sleep!" Ooooh I can hear his voice now, thank god, ow, Joker is the one who will deal with him.

I can see it now Joker wanting to manipulate his friends into hanging only to be stopped by a cat, he can't even use the power of friendship with this. He just has to become a perfect human by raising up his stats and become a god hahaha.

Further in we go to the dungeon, until we finally reached the cell where they just dumped the two highschoolers. We waited for a while and Ryuji woke up first and started banging on the jail cell bars.

"Hey! Let us out of here! Hey!" Ryuuji shouted angrily but also there was a hint of desperation in his voice.

Then I could see some guard surrounding someone approaching the jail cell. While the frizzy haired boy finally woke up. Ryuuji made sure that he was fine and explained the situation.

The guards finally reached the jail of the second years and informed them of their sentence.

"You are sentenced to death." The guard intoned calmly.

"Wha-" the shocked blonde was interrupted.

"How dare you enter my castle?" The king has finally showed himself. And wow! What a man! Notice the sarcasm here. A red royal cape hid his nude form, and I didn't stutter. He was fully nude under his cape with the crown on his head the only article of something he was wearing.

Without the age restriction of a video game, reality is just disgusting. His schlong is just hanging out swinging around as he walked, frankly it was barf inducing. Rias looked ready to castrate the man if anything else. Her anger really blinded her disgust for the moment.

The man kept babbling about his damn ego and finally decided to "It's time for this pathetic welp to die! It's time for an execution! Take him out!" he ordered his men.

Rias darted around and was going straight through Kamoshida if not for me stopping her once again. "Just wait, endure a little bit more." I whispered to her.

She struggled against me "Do you want them to die!?" She now looked like I betrayed her.

"Just believe in me, if you don't then believe in them. Believe in those two." I comforted her.

While we were busy arguing the guards were busy beating up Ryuuji. "Just go! Save yourself!" the athlete pleaded to someone he just met. He really did have a heart of gold doesn't he.

The guards held him down and the Lust King started wailing on the track star himself.

"You lowly scum!" whack "Useless pest!" wham "Pathetic worm of society" Bam.

Even I was starting to feel an anger burning in my stomach. I was just holding back now because I know Joker can do it… right?

Phew

The scum spit on the kid he just beat up. "Hmph. Where did all your bravado go huh? Are you feeling fear now. Because I will have you killed right now, don't worry I will make it a swift death hahahaha!"

"Stop." A cold voice filled with fury resounded through the chambers. The glasses wearing boy looked at Kamoshida with no ounce of fear but only with conviction and anger.

The Lustful King approached the black haired boy with arrogance.

"Don't tell me you don't know who you're fucking with kid? I am the king of this palace! That look just really irritates me." Just as he was about to kick Joker.

PAM!

The kid landed a straight punch that pushed the king backwards.

Eh!?

"You insolent brat! I'll kill you! But first hold him down!" The nudist ordered the knights.

He was held down and as he struggled against the hands of the shadows, Kamoshida approached the blonde. "I'll start with you, you always were an eyesore to my school. You should have just killed yourself when I broke you. I will make your friend watch as I torture you before I kill you. Thank your friend for changing my mind on your swift end."

"No, I don't wanna die…" The gravity of the situation finally weighed on Ryuji.

"Torture him slowly!" The monarch ordered. 

When a sudden burst of power exploded from the struggling persona user.

"I told you to Stop!" A mask formed on his face. A be domino brid mask manifested and with no hesitation, he pulled it off his face. His skin stuck to his mask was ripped off and blood covered his face. However the blood was burned off of him as an otherworldy blue flame manifested from himself and formed into another being floating behind him.

A physical being appeared behind Ren Amamiya, chained to him to his wrists. A very tall tophat adorned the being with a face of demonic origins with matching horns too. It wore a red eighteen century suit with a black angel wings sticking out of its back. 

The rebel nature of the wild card has finally appeared, and what an appearance it was. It was cursed, it was demonic, it was beautiful. And it was just plain cool.

Arsene, the twilight pillager, the phantom thief stood over his master protectively. And with a single gesture of the newly stylish phantom thief clothed Joker. Arsene blew away the guards with his power.

Kamoshida now stood alone, with the smirking thief approaching the king, he backed away fearfully. And there lies the true nature of this coward. Faced with the power of someone who can oppose him, he tries to get away from them.

Joker was about to punish the King for his crimes when all the flames adorning the cell went out and his three piece tailcoat and combat form all sputtered out and he was changed back to his regular old shujin uniform.

His once confident look now has an exhausted form. I remember that awakening your persona was an exhausting affair for the phantom thieves.

Ryuuji absolutely bodied the king, tackling him and making him fly into the cell further.

Ryuuji carried Amamiya out of the cell and immediately closed it using the key that flew when he bodied the nudist and trapping the disgusting king behind it.

Huh and now that they are out, we will eventually meet because we do need to exit this place eventually. Looking beside me, I wondered what the reaction of Rias was and I was not disappointed.

Stars was practically bursting out of her eyes, she had to prevent her squeel from coming out of her excitement. Her once furious emotions now forgotten because of the hype she was feeling right now.

"Was that a Stand!!?? That… He was… That was so…" In her excitement she can't even form words.

"Calm down Rias." I told her soothingly stopping her hyper ventilation because of excitement. I didn't think she would be this obsessed with anime but damn, she really is such a weeb nerd isn't she.

Looking at me, she finally calmed down a little but ended up blurting something out that I'm sure she wasn't expecting to actually say.

"Thanks for bringing me into this world Riser-kun!! I love ya!!" She said casually excited still.

After a few seconds of her squealing about how stands were real, she seemed to realize what she just said to me.

"I mean! Only as a friend of course! Nothing more okay!" she added quickly.

Okay Rias whatever you say, but I think the capture in my phone will say differently.

~~~

A/N:

Sorry about last chapter guys, I was feeling a little demotivated and depressed because of all the comments. I wasn't enjoying writing anymore and even contemplated about just quitting this series but I think I am a little better now.

So enough about me being depressed, let's talk about the story. Joker finally has a persona but was he acting a little weird hmm maybe I don't really know. And Rias you silly little goose do you really think you can escape the lures of the company, they are basically mind control you can't escape from him hehehehe.

Oh and I think I will be releasing like just short story ideas for like builds or just ideas I have in general that maybe have an actual story continuation I don't really know yet but meh.

Once again thank you for bearing with my depressed self and, for continuing to support me to continue to do so please visit(Read in an automated voice):

Patreon: https://www.p@treon.com/Nautyrus