(Volume I: The Fool's Awakening)
"......."
A young man with fluffy black hair stood frozen in place, a look of utter confusion on his face.
"Where... where am I? Wasn't I just at home, happily playing the greatest game ever, P5R?" [Persona 5 Royal]
"Did I finally succumb to the all-nighter pressure and pass out? Is this... a dream?"
The black-haired young man raised his hands, instinctively mimicking his last remembered action: cupping an imaginary Nintendo Switch, fingers twitching deftly as if playing in thin air.
Nothing happened.
His memory was crystal clear.
He vividly recalled coming home for summer break from university, immediately buying a physical copy of P5R, and diving headfirst into the game, completely engrossed.
After finishing his first playthrough, he hadn't managed to achieve the coveted "nine-timing" feat [Romancing nine female confidants].
Without a moment's hesitation, he'd immediately jumped into the battlefield of New Game+.
He'd been pulling an all-nighter on his second run, getting Ryuji's Confidant Rank up to 7, gleefully cruising around Mementos in the Morganamobile, instantly wiping out Shadows left and right.
Then, in the blink of an eye, he went from his warm bed at home to standing... here. In this completely unfamiliar place.
"Ow..." He pinched himself hard. "Okay, definitely not dreaming. Does that mean... I've been isekai'd?!"
Usually, the moment you realize you might be dreaming, you either wake up or gain lucidity.
But there was no sign of waking. He'd had lucid dreams before, but none felt this real.
After pinching his hand hard enough to make his brow twitch, the undeniable sting of pain confirmed it.
This definitely wasn't some fatigue-induced hallucination.
Well, when you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
Transmigration happens all the time in stories, guess it was finally my turn.
It was obvious. He'd been isekai'd!
As a typical orphan protagonist archetype—parents deceased, no siblings, but owned property—he knew his setup was prime isekai material, but he never actually thought it would happen to him.
"Damn, what a waste. If I'd known this was coming, I would've sold the house and lived it up first. Now I'm here, but the money isn't."
He let out a melancholic sigh. Given his lack of attachments, he surprisingly quickly accepted his new reality.
Still, leaving all that equity behind stung a bit.
"Okay, if I've been isekai'd, I should have some kind of cheat ability, right? Hey, System, you there? Status screen? Anything?"
He tried everything he could think of for a while, but eventually had to silently admit...
...as a transmigrator, he apparently came with zero cheats. What a disgrace to the genre! The one guy who slipped through the cracks without a single OP ability!
"What's this... a student ID?" He pulled a card from his pocket. "Chiba Academy... First Year... Ren Amamiya— Ren Amamiya?!"
He stared at the name clearly printed on the ID, and the student photo... which was unbelievably familiar.
His eyes widened in shock.
He pulled out the smartphone that had been in the same pocket.
With slightly trembling hands, he held up the dark screen towards his face.
Reflected in the dark glass was a face he knew intimately from the game.
Fluffy, messy black hair. A face that seemed unremarkable at first glance, but on closer inspection was actually quite handsome, even carrying a hint of roguish charm.
The only thing missing was the pair of plain glasses that usually obscured half his face and lowered his presence.
There was no doubt about it. This was the face of Ren Amamiya, the protagonist of P5R, the very game he'd been playing before... this.
He had transmigrated into the world of P5R. He was Ren Amamiya!
"Wait... I remember Ren Amamiya in the game is a second-year at Shujin Academy. This ID says first year... Does that mean I'm here a year before the main story starts? Before Masayoshi Shido framed him?"
The young man—now Ren Amamiya—raised a hand to touch the bridge of his nose, where glasses normally sat.
That explained why he wasn't wearing glasses, and why this school uniform ("Chiba Academy"?) felt unfamiliar.
"Okay, so identity crisis averted. Next question: Where am I right now?"
Tearing his gaze away from the phone screen mirror, Ren Amamiya surveyed his surroundings with a complicated expression.
What met his obsidian eyes was a landscape bathed in an eerie, crimson light, like a perpetual, unnatural sunset.
Where the sky should be, there was only solid crimson, devoid of sun, moon, or stars.
The ground below was a maze of dark, jagged rock formations and walls of varying sizes, creating a treacherous and complex labyrinth.
And Ren Amamiya found himself standing right at the entrance to this maze.
Glancing over his shoulder, he saw no path back, only an empty void shimmering behind him.
He tried stepping back, but bumped against what felt like an invisible wall, barring entry into the void.
After trying to force his way back for a few dozen steps, he turned around again. The entrance to the rocky maze hadn't gotten any further away.
He'd just been marching in place against the invisible barrier the whole time.
"This surreal, bizarre place... Don't tell me... this is Mementos?!"
He stared at the psychologically oppressive, crimson expanse before him.
Realization dawned, and Ren Amamiya sucked in a sharp breath.
He'd just been mowing down Shadows in the Morganamobile in Mementos... How did he end up getting thrown into Mementos?!
"You've got to be kidding me! I'm only a first-year! How am I already in Mementos? The God of Control [Yaldabaoth] shouldn't even know I exist yet, right?!"
He unlocked his phone with his fingerprint, carefully scanning the apps on the home screen.
He meticulously checked for the ominous, red-and-black eye icon of the Metaverse Navigator app...
...and let out a small sigh of relief when he found nothing. But his brow quickly furrowed again.
No MetaNav meant the God of Control hadn't targeted him yet.
Not having to immediately face the entity that could rewrite reality and imprison humanity's hearts was certainly a relief.
But that didn't change the fact that he was somehow trapped in Mementos.
And without the MetaNav, returning to the real world seemed almost impossible.
Anxiety and worry began to gnaw at him.
The way back was blocked by that invisible wall.
Just standing here doing nothing felt like a death sentence.
The only option left was to push forward into the rocky maze and explore.
"This place looks... different from the Mementos I remember," Ren mused. "Is this the outer edge of someone's Palace? Or maybe Mementos looks different because I didn't enter through the Shibuya subway?"
Ren stepped into the labyrinth, senses on high alert, trying to rationalize the strange environment.
After all, the game's depiction of Mementos under the Shibuya subway, with its distinct transit theme, was probably just a gameplay conceit.
The real Mementos, the collective unconscious of all humanity, wouldn't be confined to just looking like subway tunnels.
Any variation here shouldn't be surprising.
"If I want to get back to the real world alive, I need to awaken my Persona here."
"Mementos is crawling with native Shadows, and they attack humans on sight. Only with the power of a Persona can I fight back."
"Sure, there might be rare Safe Rooms where I could hide, but... if I got lucky, maybe I could even find an exit back to reality without fighting. But..."
"...skipping this 'lesson' now just means I'll be unprepared when I eventually do have to face the God of Control."
"As the protagonist of P5R, the Trickster with the Wild Card [The ability to wield multiple Personas], I'm destined to confront him eventually."
"If the Trickster doesn't step up, the real world faces a catastrophic end."
So, no running away. He had to face this head-on and use this chance to awaken the Persona sleeping deep within his soul.
Being trapped in Mementos was dangerous, yes, but also the perfect opportunity to awaken his power.
You couldn't awaken a Persona in the real world, after all.
"In P3, awakening required the courage and resolve to face death. In P4, it was about confronting and accepting your true self. Compared to my predecessors, P5's condition is actually simpler."
"All it takes is finding that spark of rebellion within your heart to awaken the Persona's power."
Recalling the awakening conditions from the series, Ren felt a small wave of relief wash over him as he crept forward.
No need to face death head-on, no need for intense, potentially socially-crippling introspection [like in P4]. Just gotta find a way to ignite that rebellious spirit.
Knowing the method, it shouldn't be too hard.
Except...
"Rebellion..." He frowned. "Intellectually, I know I'm the Trickster now, destined to fight the God of Control and steal back humanity's future... but it just doesn't feel real yet."
Having just arrived, even knowing his identity as Ren Amamiya and the epic battle that supposedly awaited him against the master of Mementos... it all felt distant, unreal.
He still felt like a player watching a screen, making it hard to truly ignite that necessary spark of rebellion.
As Ren struggled internally, trying to cultivate that rebellious feeling, searching for the trigger to awaken his Persona...
...while simultaneously creeping through Mementos, wary of any sudden Shadow ambushes...
...several hundred meters away from his position in the rocky maze...
...space shimmered for an instant.
A figure materialized—a woman with flowing, waist-length white hair and an exquisitely beautiful, yet sorrowful, face.
Her shapely figure was clad in a form-fitting white and purple battlesuit. She appeared silently within this mysterious dimension.
Her arrival was as natural as a drop of water joining the ocean; the monstrous entities native to this space paid her no mind.
"...The Imaginary Space has been disturbed. Why?" the woman murmured, her voice tinged with melancholy. "It isn't time for Project Stigma yet... Why would the Imaginary Space actively pull a human from the real world in here?"
This was Hare, an executive of World Serpent and the very crystallization of the Schariac Stigmata [A powerful Honkai phenomenon].
The instant she manifested in the Imaginary Space, her ethereal gaze fixed upon Ren Amamiya, who was tensely navigating the rocky maze.
She observed the seemingly ordinary young man, devoid of any obvious special traits, yet inexplicably pulled into the Imaginary Space against the usual flow.
As the World Serpent member responsible for preparing and maintaining Project Stigma, Hare's elegant brow furrowed slightly.
"To be drawn into the Imaginary Space before Project Stigma has even begun... this stranger must possess some extraordinary, latent quality..."
The implication was simple enough for Hare to deduce.
Logically, she should approach him immediately, guide him out of the Imaginary Space, and return him to the safety of the real world.
Whether he could be recruited to World Serpent or simply sent back was secondary to getting him out.
Yet, Hare's expression grew even more sorrowful, and she kept her distance, hesitant to approach.
As the embodiment of the Schariac Stigmata's power—or curse—Hare constantly radiated potent Honkai energy, lethal to ordinary humans.
Only those fully awakened with Stigmata or true Herrschers could withstand her presence unharmed.
Even Schicksal's Valkyries, augmented with artificial Stigmata, could only endure her proximity for a limited time.
And based on her careful observation just moments ago...
...she could definitively tell that Ren Amamiya possessed zero Honkai energy resistance. He was completely, utterly normal.
For an ordinary human like him, with no resistance whatsoever, Hare didn't even need to get close.
Just getting a little nearer would be like stepping into a closing [poison zone] for him—her mere presence would instantly end his life.
Hare, who longed for connection, had witnessed this same tragic scenario play out countless times, leaving her heart weary and resigned.
"No—!!" Hare's eyes widened in alarm. "Imaginary Constructs! He's about to be attacked!"
Just as Hare hesitated, maintaining a safe distance while observing Ren Amamiya with conflicted feelings...
...a squad of shimmering golden Imaginary Constructs [Monsters native to the Imaginary Space], alerted by the unfamiliar human presence in their domain...
...materialized directly in front of Ren Amamiya and launched a ferocious attack!
PS1: P5's protagonist can be called Ren Amamiya, Akira Kurusu, or any other name without issue. However, for immersion, we'll stick with Ren Amamiya.
PS2: Quick clarification: The protagonist transmigrated physically (his original body came with him). He resembles Ren Amamiya and is experiencing temporary amnesia about his previous life due to entering the Imaginary Space unprotected. He thinks he's Ren Amamiya right now.
PS3: The protagonist has never played Honkai Impact 3rd. He's only vaguely aware of some plot points absorbed passively from online chat groups and recognizes characters famous from memes (specifically Kiana Kaslana and Elysia).