[center][img]https://fontmeme.com/permalink/210324/c514e8101f58f889421092edb63edaa1.png[/img][/center][right][sub]April 10th - ???[/sub][/right][hr]
Khepri faded with none of the fanfare that preceded its arrival as soon as the door closed behind them, leaving Daigo with a vague feeling of unease. 'Awakened' or not, he felt practically naked without his magical protector looming over him, and he had no idea how to call it back. If he even could call it back. The redhead still wasn't certain what had even happened back there, just that instinct had kept him alive so far and that too much thought was probably counterproductive in circumstances this nonsensical.

Of course, with the short respite from the shadows' assault also came a chance to analyze his new appearance. Daigo was Mira's Sun now, was he? It beat the Devil label, at least, but what the hell happened to his clothes? A cursory overview of his new attire didn't reveal anything too unusual, in fact it looked almost familiar. There was a display case in the entry hall of Kaiseki Hinari that housed a roughly similar harness that tourists used to fawn over. Daigo concluded his self-exploration with a haunted gaze turned slowly backward as an unpleasant thought crept across his mind. To his great relief, no tail waited for him back there, nor any other unfamiliar limbs.

A million questions about what 'Awakening' entailed raced through his head, but Hoshino seemed intent on rushing ahead despite Mira's warnings. The room they'd arrived in was almost homey, familiar even; no reason to ruin it by agitating the evil well so quickly. He could've at least waited until Daigo knew [i]how[/i] to help out now that he apparently could. Even that was a development he hadn't quite processed fully, but he took it with the same grain of salt one takes the contradictory happenings of a strange dream. Daigo thought they were in the clear when Mira yanked Noriaki back toward the group, only to be promptly proven wrong when that shadow hand creature from before made its return.

Daigo hopped backward as one of the hands swooped for him, momentarily taken aback by how light on his feet he was now. That had to be part of the awakening - or maybe it was a side effect of the outfit. Was there a functional difference between the two? Unfortunately, the hand was far less impressed with his newfound agility, and curved back around for another attempt. Right, he had to look out for the other two as well, he couldn't just dodge until someone else solved the issue.

[color=ff9933]"Um. Sword?"[/color] Daigo called out experimentally, unsure of what to do besides mirror what Noriaki had done earlier. No sword answered his call, unfortunately. The teen persevered in lack of better options, flailing his arm as though he were swinging a weapon with each evasion. The shadowy appendage seemed to catch on to his tactics, and missed by a smaller margin on each attempt. It shot forward and Daigo made one last desperate swing, answered by a torrent of blue fire that extended from his palm to meet the aggressor. The hand drew back as it made contact with flame now solidified into blade, deterred but not defeated. Daigo held the newly-formed polearm before him awkwardly, as if he were unsure of the proper way to grip it. He wasn't even entirely sure what it was. It wasn't quite a spear; the point was curved like a slashing weapon, more like a sword with a very long handle. A glaive, maybe? 

Whatever, he could worry about the semantics later. He heaved the weapon at the hand in an aimless tantrum, which only seemed to taunt him as it danced around his clumsy attacks in a mockery of his earlier dexterity.

[color=ff9933]"Get. Back. Here- Khepri!"[/color] Daigo tried at last as the burst of cyan in his periphery tipped him off on how to summon his Persona again. The Sun card fluttered into being before him, and just as the butterfly that preceded it, it shattered inside Daigo's fist in a blaze. A swell of fire leapt out of his chest and the armored figure seemed to materialize from it. No sooner had Khepri's hand coalesced did it seize hold of the shadow's wrist and shift its weight backward as plumes of golden fire exploded from beneath its elytra, attempting to outright yank the shadow out of the well by one of its arms. Daigo himself maneuvered around his terrifying other self, his weapon at the ready to sever the limb in case of any surprises.

[hr][@Asura][@RiverMaiden][@Lord Orgasmo]