His entire body felt as if he had been flung through a meat grinder when he awoke next. Lurching upwards while clutching at his chest, Ren gulped in as much fresh air as his lungs could handle as he hacked and coughed up globs of pink gelatine.
Rolling over, Ren emptied the contents of his stomach unto the uneven and disgusting ground beneath him, causing him to crinkle his nose in revulsion before blinking back the dense fog that settled over his vision.
Ren tried to rise from the ground, only to collapse onto his knees as his body spurned his desires to stand without remorse. Eventually, Ren returned to his laying position on the ground before rolling onto his back to stare at the sky, his mind foggy and his body lethargic.
He attempted to remember how he came to ache as badly as he did, but each time he felt he was close to remembering, it would escape his reaching grasp and leave him in pained ignorance.
What… happened? Ren struggled to push past the fog of his mind, though it proved almost impossible, Did… did I get mugged or something?
Shaking his head, Ren pushed away that theory after a few seconds of scanning his body by moving one limb at a time. Despite how achy he was, there was no immediate wound that would indicate just why he was in the shape he was in.
After a few moments, his memories began to return on their own. He remembered going into the depths of Mementos with his friends and partners on a mission to… to do what?
Ren furrowed his brows as he once more forced his memories to the surface, ignoring the splitting headache that came with pushing himself.
He remembered eventually reaching the lowest point of Mementos, and the shrine that society had built around their treasure, made of nothing but prison cells filled with willing and loving occupants. His eyes widened in shock as he remembered the fight between his group and the Treasure of Everyone's Hearts, the Holy Grail. The awakening after their sound defeat by the unwilling to change public had been bittersweet while the series of events afterwards had been anything but.
Ren felt tears spring up in his eyes once more as he remembered watching each of his friends fade from the minds of those they tried to save so vehemently, erased from existence completely. Glancing down at his hands, the black haired former leader of the Phantom Thieves attempted to rationalize what he saw and what he was feeling inside, but he couldn't, no matter how hard he tried.
Despite all of his comrades fading into dust, here he was, awakening under the afternoon sun once more. If not for the final words of Morgana, Ren would have hoped against hope that he wasn't the only Phantom Thief to regain their form.
No matter how much he attempted to convince himself otherwise, he knew that he was the last one left standing. A gut feeling was all he had to go on, but he never failed to listen to his instincts, no matter how much that he wished they were wrong this time.
A sob escaped his lips, so pained that it tore through the night sky like a knife. Those passing by the alley tensed and glanced into the depths between the two buildings, only to snap their gazes forward once more upon coming to rest upon his laying form.
He wasn't sure how long he laid there, nor did he care. The anguish he felt clutching his stomach and heart were too much for him to bear, causing him to howl harder as the tears continued to fall.
After everything he had done to prove himself to society, they would toss him away so casually? They would willingly choose ignorance and a life of slavery over the sweet taste of freedom?
The thoughts swirling through his mind eventually became a blur after what felt like an eternity of tormenting him, allowing his tears to dry and his sobbing to eventually come to a halt. Hiccuping under his breath, Ren removed his large glasses and wiped his eyes with his grungy sleeves, ignoring the feeling of grime grinding into his skin as he took in a shaky breath.
While his friends may have paid the ultimate price for their, his, failure, Ren still lived and breathed. Realizing that it wasn't quite over just yet, the leader of the Phantom Thieves steeled his gaze and readied himself to track down the Holy Grail once more to enact his revenge. If Mementos and Reality had truly become one, then the location of the Grail should have changed from the depths of Mementos to somewhere else in Tokyo.
A fire burned in his stomach as the thought of crushing the massive, golden chalice filled his mind, renewing his energy and filling him with a driving force easily as powerful as the pursuit of justice.
Ren snapped his head to the left to get a better look at his surroundings, having somehow found himself in an alleyway sometime in between his fading from the Cognition of Humanity and his reawakening, wherever he was. Nothing but a dead end filled with trashcans, folded cardboard boxes and rotten refuse filled his vision.
A low groan escaped his lips as he forced his body to roll to the right instead, this time allowing him to be able to look outwards from the alley and beyond.
The sight of passersby caught his attention, much more clear than it had ever been before. If it wasn't for the glaring street light across from the alley, Ren would have almost been convinced it was daytime with how well he could see.
Straining his ears to listen, Ren could make out the words being spoken by the strangers far more clearly than ever before despite their distance, though they spoke exclusively English the entire time he listened.
Where in Tokyo am I? Ren questioned almost frantically as he forced his body to stand again, this time ignoring the knives and daggers of pain racing through his nervous system, Are they having some weird foreigner convention in Shibuya today?
Finding the situation more and more eerie as he continued to watch and listen to the strangers passing his alley, Ren staggered and limped his way to the entrance of his current location and poked his head outwards.
He had obviously been unconscious for quite a few hours, as night had fallen and the moon had risen over the cityscape. Ren shivered, though not due to any feeling of cold. Something was very, very wrong.
Looking up at the night sky, Ren could immediately make out three things wrong with what he was seeing.
First, he couldn't make out a single structure tall enough to distinguish his location within Tokyo, and he had become quite adept at navigating the impossibly large and densely populated city. Secondly, there was no longer the looming, skeletal structures forming from the fusion of Mementos and the Physical World.
Last of all, the moon of Earth, Luna, was not shattered, nor usually quite as close as the moon he was looking at seemed to be. Ren didn't know where he was, and that terrified him more than anything else. Wherever it was he had awakened, it was clearly not Tokyo, and with this realization, any sense of energy he gained from thoughts of revenge fell flat.
Ren grasped his head as a spike of pained laced through his brain, weaving agony deeply into his grey matter. His body almost gave out beneath him as he struggled against the agonizing headache, eventually prevailing against whatever ailment had befallen him. Beneath his hands, he could feel something pressing against his fingertips almost uncomfortably, hiding amongst his wild locks almost perfectly, triangular in shape.
The increased sense of touch, hearing and sight only further increased his feeling of sickness, as if his body had been supercharged with no way of coping with the sudden influx of new sensations.
Glancing down at his body, he took in his appearance as if it would provide him answers, only to find his casual outfit resting upon his frame like he wore in the Real World. His pale blue hoodie with an extra large hood rested beneath his black blazer while faded slim fit jeans and cuban heeled boots completed his outfit, just as he wore before he entered Mementos for the final time.
The last item he wore was an unneeded but much loved accessory, his non-prescription glasses that helped hide the intensity of his gaze. Wearing them allowed him to become an unassuming figure in the crowd, usually by tilting his head downwards and hiding the majority of his face with his hood as he had for the past few weeks. It wouldn't do for people to recognize him, not when he was supposed to be 'dead'.
Over his shoulder rested his messenger bag, still filled with illicit goods and thief tools gained from diving into the depths of Mementos time and time again. Ren remembered that he was supposed to make a trip to Iwai to sell off a lot of the valuables, but he doubted he would be able to now if his gut feeling was correct.
"What am I looking at…?" Ren questioned aloud as he stepped out of the alley, glancing to his left and right as he nearly fell forward from the wave of vertigo hitting him once more, "Excuse—, Excuse me, ma'am?"
"Don't speak to me so casually, freak . Know your place!" Spat the strangely dressed woman viciously as she increased her pace to put more distance between herself and Ren, causing the black haired teenager to draw his extended hand back towards his chest as if burned.
"Dammit," Ren cursed under his breath as he took a deep breath to push away the anger he felt, closing his eyes briefly before opening them once more and trying again, "Excuse me, sir, please… Can someone tell me where I am? My phone isn't working right and I need to find my way back to Shibuya!"
"The fuck is 'Shibuya', pussy-boy? Some kind of new drug you Faunus keep bringing into our good Kingdom?" The gray haired male Ren attempted to stop growled out while shoving both hands into Ren's chest, sending him sprawling into the wall behind him, "Get the hell off my block or I'll cut those ears of yours off and hang 'em on my wall as a trophy!"
Ren gasped loudly as his skull impacted the wall behind him, causing his vision to blur and haze once more while knocking his glasses from his face. Hunching forward while trying to regain his breath, Ren tensed his weakened body and got ready to defend himself, slowly raising his head to glare at the silver haired man that dared put his hands on him.
The silver haired stranger took a step back in fright upon seeing the glowing, crimson eyes ringed with gold that stared back at him from a fringe of ebony hair. "W-what the hell?!"
Ren wanted nothing more than to reach out and punch the foolish man in his throat, but refrained from doing so before slowly leaning down to retrieve his glasses and putting them back on his face. When he glanced up, his eyes were once more a strange, dark shade somewhere between ash gray and coal black, not to mention far less intense.
Getting the message, the silver haired man tucked tail and ran when he had the chance, seeing that the strange, frizzy haired teenager wasn't going to be fighting back.
"Are you alright, Brother? I saw him man-handle you… good on you for not hitting him back," Began a voice from Ren's left, causing the weary teenager to turn and face the newest arrival as quickly as his lethargic body would let him, "I know his type, the moment you hit back he would have called the cops and played the victim."
"I take it that happens a lot around here…?" Ren questioned lowly, not really caring either way but finding it better to ask anyway, "Where is here, anyway? I… think I'm lost?"
"You think you're lost?" The man with black mutton-chops questioned, "You're in Vale, kid, just outside the industrial district, how do you not know that?"
"I… where…?" Ren gasped out the question upon hearing the name of his surroundings, "Vale?"
"Yeah, the Southern Kingdom? One of the only four Kingdoms on Remnant? Just… how hard did you hit your head, kid?" The man was far more concerned now than he was before, going as far as setting down his bags before slowly stepping forward to get a better look at the eyes of the lost teenager.
From the light of the streetlamp behind him, the casually dressed man was able to get a much better look at his eyes than otherwise. "Hmm… your pupils aren't contracting and retracting in time, you might have a minor concussion… Here, you think you'll be alright to follow me? I've got a few pain pills and a bag of ice with your name on them, if you'd like."
"… Yeah, I think I should be good," Ren glanced down at his hands as his mind tried to process the new information provided by the man, not wanting to ask further questions and make himself seem like a lunatic when it became clear he wasn't sure what the man was talking about, "Lead the way… mister…?"
"Tukson," The charcoal haired man with black mutton chops extended his hand for Ren to take without a second thought, "Just Tukson, proud owner of Tukson's Book Trade, home to every book under the sun."
"Ren Amamiya…" Ren took the offered hand and winced upon feeling just how tight the mans grip was, "Do you know which direction Shibuya is in?"
From the information provided by Tukson, little as it may have been, it was becoming apparent to Ren that his gut instinct was proving correct, even when he wanted it to be wrong. Names like Vale, Southern Kingdom and Remnant were keywords that alluded to him no longer being on Earth, as did the shattered moon hanging in the sky above him. As things were, having a conversation in his second language on a street he didn't recognize made him more weary than his thoughts of failure already did.
"Shibuya? Is that one of the smaller villages on the outskirts of the Kingdom?" Tukson questioned with a tilt of his head, leaning down to retrieve his bags once more before gesturing with his head for Ren to follow, "Can't say I've ever heard of it, Brother."
"Ah… thanks," Ren murmured lowly while falling into step with the brown haired man, "For stopping and helping, I mean. I have no idea why they…"
Ren allowed his sentence to trail off, the morose look on his face only growing as the reality of his situation seemed to finally start to set in once more.
"Humans hate us here just as badly as they hate us everywhere else," Tukson growled under his breath, not turning to look back at the teenager that fell in step with him, "You might want to put up your hood and hide your ears, at least until we get to where we're going."
"Hide… my ears?" Ren didn't understand the mans line of reasoning, lifting a hand to rest upon his lobes while tugging lightly in concern, "What's wrong with my ears?"
"Nothing, Brother, at all. I know a lot of Faunus don't like hiding their traits, but sometimes it's a bit easier to get around without drawing attention to them." Tukson turned and gave Ren an almost apologetic expression, one mixed with what appeared to be sadness, "I know it's hard swallowing your pride, but blending in is better than sticking out, especially 'round these parts."
Tukson seemed to be glancing at something atop his head, causing Ren to slowly bring a shaky hand passed the ear he was gripping. Upon reaching the top of his head, the former student of Shujin Academy felt something that he only felt when petting Morgana.
Specifically, he felt a pair of triangular ears resting atop his head as well as the set of human ears he was born with in their normal position.
Ren was glad that Tukson was facing forward once more and thus unable to see the horrified expression that crossed his face.
The more Ren saw, the more he was convinced. Call it Vale, Remnant, whatever you will. To Ren, the world around him could have only been Hell, and here, he was alone once more.