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Sato Hashimoto // Cave of Solitude
	Before long, the shadows were dropping like flies and the battle was over. Sato felt a smile make its way onto his lips, and he breathed out a sigh of relief. There was nothing to be afraid of if they all worked together. The battleground withdrew and returned to the appearance of Ayano's house, the pixelation almost normal looking after looking at it for as long as they had been. Having apparently completed some arbitrary objective, the group was allowed to continue on to the second floor.

	As the group went up, the look of the pixel-y yet typical household began to fade into darkness. Sato assumed it was the same house, and Kami confirmed, but the only light came from webs all over the hall that coursed with electricity, spitting sparks at them. They tried doors as they passed them, but they all seemed to be locked. As Sato tried another door, clicking as a lock kept him out, he wondered if there was even anything beyond these locked doors. Probably not, he decided as Megumi noted a particular door as having a girl and a 'big reading' beyond it. The shadow was likely leading them on in some twisted fashion.

	Kami rushed in through the door way, Sato trailing behind Rui. What surprised first was how his footsteps went from walking on wooden floorboards to stepping on the stone of a cavern floor. The cave was very open, betraying logic, though that was lost when a TV basically ate the room they were in. There were more electric cobwebs running across the walls and ceiling and everything else. Or... he peered at a web for a second. A spot of the threads was frayed, revealing the copper beneath. Wires? It didn't make much sense to Sato, but at least it solved the mystery of how spider webs could handle that much electricity. Kami's shout drew his attention to the more important matter: the victim. Sato watched as Kami charged at one of the girls standing at the end of the room. Seeing as it avoided the attack without a blink (and how much of a fit Kami had been having over saving Ayano in the first place), it had to be the shadow. That meant the real Ayano was there, albeit not safe and sound quite yet. But...

	Who was the third one? As if to answer his question, the third Ayano giggled, before 'greeting' Kami in a way that Sato knew was in no way Ayano, even as little as he knew her, plus how both of the shadows referred to the second girl as 'Ayano'. The shadows continued verbally harassing Ayano, and Sato felt bad for just standing there. But listening to what they were saying... Memories of his own shadow flooded back into his mind, everything that it had said, how he'd reacted, the events that followed. Everything it said was an exaggeration of those dark things he'd thought and done, what he wished would just go away. In a way everything that it said was true, and Sato didn't doubt that what he was listening to was a dramatized version of the dark side of Ayano's life. Sato clenched and unclenched his fists, steeling himself yet again. Like Rui and the others had done for him, Sato wasn't going to let anything happen to the victims. The scene played through his head again, how he'd reacted. It was when he said it that the shadow transformed, those three words. Was that the 'trigger'?

	Just as he heard Ayano start to shout at her shadows, Sato lifted his head and called out to Ayano. "Wait, don't say it!"

	But it was useless, she was beyond getting through to. Silence filled the room after Ayano had cried out, before one of the Ayano shadows began to laugh uncontrollably. The two started to fuse back into one shadow, though it just looked like a blob of black and white goo. A tense moment passed like molasses before something began to rise from the monochrome ooze. Mechanical limbs dragged a large female head out the puddle. It ripped itself out with one last pull, revealing itself in all its splendor.

	Metal arms and legs held up a giant face as its abdomen with bodies composing the rest of its body. Like the punchline to some messed up joke, Sato realized it was supposed to be one hell of a spider. A figure standing on top of the monster pointed at everyone, giving a threat: "Now you pieces of shit have done it! I'm going to show you that I don't NEED ANYONE IN THIS WORLD! I'LL DO IT, I'LL PROVE IT BY KILLING EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU!"

	And then the battle began. The shadow scuttled backwards until its legs got onto some webbing. Sato watched carefully, knuckles white as he clenched the grip to his bow. He let out an alarmed gasp as it suddenly sped along the webs, spitting webbing at them as it did so. Making sure Ayano was safe before he did anything, Sato nocked an arrow into his bow. He tried his hardest to still his shaky body as he aimed at the spider. It was moving far faster than anything he'd ever shot at before, not to mention having to re-aim every several seconds to dodge a web shot. As the fight went on and Sato had trouble even keeping up with the spider as it scampered across its network of electrical webbing, he started to think that it was hopeless to try to hit it directly, seeing as it had already dodged everything the others had thrown at it. Still, he finally saw a good shot and he let go of the string, the arrow launching at a decent speed. Sato thought it was going to hit, as he had correctly guessed the speed and direction the spider was going and had adjusted accordingly, but it still dodged it with one swift movement around where the shot hit.

	The arrow instead pierced through a section of wire webbing. Frustrated, Sato took a step away from the spider, feeling his feet step on a bit of wire, tingling the sole of his foot with electricity. He glanced at it instinctively, and in the time it took to do that, the spider took another shot at him, this time shockingly accurate. Sato fortunately noticed it before it was too late and dived out of the way.

"Stay light on your feet, and clear the webs." Rui ordered. Sato nodded, noting how he'd pierced through the wires with that arrow earlier. Sato reached for another arrow, before realizing that doing it that way was going to do accomplish practically nothing. Instead, Sato reached out his hand again, a card conjuring itself again. His hand closed tight and Chronos appeared, immediately swinging its scythe. A gale whipped around a section of webbing, ripping and tearing it until there was just a big hole in the web.

	After the team had blasted the web with their persona's abilities a bit, it was looking a lot less solid. As they continued dodging the shots and pelting the web in reply, Sato prepped another Garula, aiming to rip the hole wider.

Sato Hashimoto // Cave of Solitude
	Everyone else started attacking as soon as he did, and without the need for any luck, broke through the formation of the shadows like nothing. None of the shadows managed to hit him straight on in his moment of distraction, though when he looked up he had to dive to the side to try to avoid one. The speed at which the attack came at him was surprising, as it had grazed him. The shadows seemed to be switching up their movement speeds. It slowly lumbered towards him after the lightning-quick slash. It was obnoxious, to say the least, even just watching it. Considering their lanky figure, Sato decided it'd be unwise to try to go for a shot from his bow considering he'd never been in a high-stress situation demanding both quick and accurate shooting before.

	Channeling his persona again with ease the likes of breathing, Sato sent his persona forward again. Instead of hitting the shadow, Chronos swung it's scythe to the side, the blue flame flaring up. Around one of the shadows, a polygon appeared on the ground, lighting up in a blinding white. A second passed, the shadow coming to a stop, no doubt about to attack. Right before it could take another swing at Sato, the shape erupted, hundreds of cards rushing out of it and latching onto the shadow's body, constricting its movements. Another moment passed before the cards themselves exploded in a fiery white light. When it cleared, the shadow was nothing more than a black smoke, dissipating into the air. They had this in the bag.

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