Wandering through a mostly abandoned residential district, Niko, Shinju and Cecilia look around in awe at the destruction. Windows have been broken, furniture and decorations vomited out onto the streets — plundered cupboards, broken tables, abandoned toys, torn-up bedsheets — and the asphalt is littered with shards of glass and splinters of wood, as if a tornado tore through the neighborhood mere minutes ago.

Niko: Holy crap… This… This place looks straight out of a zombie movie… Are you sure this is where this Nobunaga lady’s holed up?

Cecilia: She’s here. Of that, you can be certain. (she steps back a bit, her eyes glowing gently beneath the hood for a brief moment)

Niko: … was hoping more for a “stately mansion on the edge of town” kinda vibe, really.

Cecilia: And once upon a time, it was. …But in case I’m wrong… Shinju, you are prepared for anything, are you not?

Shinju: Yeah. That’s why I’m here. … Is there a reason you’re stepping back?

Cecilia: Call it… reconnaissance, I suppose.

???: Hey! Over here!

Startled, Niko jumps before turning towards the source of the voice — leaning out of one of the windows of one of the buildings lining the street, Anisa Nobunaga is waving, urging the trio to join her. Her body language communicates a clear sense of urgency, as she looks both ways for danger before closing the curtains again.

Luckily, the entrance to the apartment building is unobstructed, and after climbing some stairs, Niko and company make their way to the fourth floor, being prompted inside quickly by Anisa, who pushes the closet back in front of the door as soon as her guests have made their way in.

Anisa: (she sighs) Ugh… Thank God you have the Oracle with you. The rioters have just left.

Cecilia: I’m… equally glad I decided to personally join this endeavor. The route I saw had to change a few times to avoid those mobs.

Anisa: In any case, I’m glad you all made it. (she turns to Niko) I take it I’ve been… able to convince you?

Niko: … No real chance to go back now, is there?

Anisa: There always is. We’re not doing this unless you want to. (she guides the visitors into the apartment’s main living area, gesturing at them to take a seat) Uh, pardon the smell. We had an unexpected visitor yesterday and Kiwako was a bit forceful in showing them the door.

Cecilia: …She’s still here, then? Kiwa-chan? …Are the twins with her?

Anisa: (she nods, before being joined by Toi exiting the kitchen)

Toi: Don’t worry, they’re here. Probably still asleep. (she sighs) So, do you girls want anything to drink or …?

Niko: I’d… kinda rather just wanna get this over with, if that’s okay.

Anisa: Might be wisest. Good call.

Cecilia: Current projections show us having eleven hours before rioters return this way. But, Anisa, know that my vision isn’t completely reliable, either. It’s a rough estimate based on current intentions of the roaming mobs.

Anisa: Well, I’m not planning on changing their intentions, in any case. (she takes a spare chair and sets it in front of Niko, sitting down) So… ready to go?

Niko: Err… Do you think I’m gonna lay my hands on you or anything?

Anisa: I dunno, you tell me what to do.

Niko: Uh… Sleep, I guess? I mean, it’s called the Dreamscape for a reason, right?

Cecilia: Oh, um… sleep is not necessary to be pulled into the Dreamscape. Nebbia Piccolo pulled Yuma Amaya as she was falling from a train, after all. It is a matter of will. Like any other power, I suppose. I, myself, am already in the Dreamscape, as is Shinju. I am unsure of Kiwako or the Twins. Anisa… likely is not in the Dreamscape, given the plan and all. 

Niko: O-Oh… I guess that makes sense… But, I still have to, right? Or… (she tilts her head, closing her eyes) … maybe I could…

Cecilia: Quite possibly. But… don’t worry. We’re all here for you. All of us who dwell in the Dreamscape will bear this weight with you.

Niko: Alright then… Here goes nothing…

Niko closes her eyes and holds out her arm. The darkness behind her eyelids shimmers; she hears nothing but her own breathing, feels nothing but the tension in every muscle reaching out towards Anisa. Then, she senses something. Something small. It pulsates and writhes, calling out towards her, so she beckons it to come. It takes her hand and she pulls, pulls the sensation from its invisible tether, but as she pulls, she realizes how much bigger the sensation is than she could ever have anticipated. Like a cork escaping a bottleneck, the sensation succumbs to her pull, but with it follows a tidal wave, a presence larger than her imagination can contain. It washes over her mind, clinging to every drop of fog in her realm, burning through every synapse of her brain, engulfing her, inundating her!

She is drowning. Like a weight shackled to her ankle, she feels her own head dragging her deeper and deeper under the surface, sinking to the bottom of the abyss. She is drowning in dreams, a red trail of blood emerging from her nostrils and dissipating into the milky light pink of the dense fog. But she is still here. She reaches out her arm once more as her consciousness begins to fade, and at once, her call is answered, one, no, two, no a dozen, no a hundred invisible hands grasping hers and pulling her back up, through the fog, until she surfaces, gasping for breath. She plants her hands onto the surface and rises, until the fog materializes into solid ground and she is back on her feet. Back where she belongs. 

She wipes the blood from underneath her nose and looks around. The fog clears as she wills it, revealing a deep, dense forest, savage vegetation stretching as far as the eye can see. She looks up. The sky is clear. Yet there is no peace in the air. Only blood.

Niko: Nobunaga…? Is this your domain?

No answer.

Niko: Hello? S-Shinju? Cecilia? … Anyone there?

It’s only then that she realizes her voice is not her own. It is low and hoarse and strained — a voice not for speaking, but for screaming. This isn’t her. She peers through the stench in the air, squinting her eyes, looking at her arms, the hands dirty and covered in calluses, the skin tanned and covered in scars. In a panic, she backs away until her bare feet don’t feel dirt and foliage, but water, and turns around to look at her own reflection. This isn’t her, her complexion darker, her hair longer and thicker and her gaze more intense. Her forehead is slightly larger, her nose more defined, her chin pointier, but most prominent of all is her neck, upon which a crude piece of what seems to be amber-colored gemstone is dangling from a carefully, but rudimentarily woven necklace.

Niko: Is… Is this a…?

She hears footsteps approaching, walking then running, but she is too busy feeling the shape of her face with her numb fingers to react. It is hot. God, it is way too hot. The footsteps become louder and louder, but before she can turn around to see whoever they belong to, a massive force slams into the side of her skull. Blood. Blood in her eyes. Before she can properly process what has just happened, her head is already in the water, held down by a hand far stronger than hers; She struggles, flailing around, but the water and the blood in the water muffle her screams. The hand does not relent. And from beyond the water and the blood and the fog a voice calls out.

YOU HAVE BEEN BRAVE

YOU HAVE BEEN BLESSED

NOW THE WATER BECKONS

The voice is alien, yet familiar, speaking in a language she doesn’t know, but understands. She stops trying to resist. Her body feels heavy, every crevice and cavity filled up with water, warm water. She doesn’t even have the energy to cough anymore. She struggles to open up her eyes, peering through the water. Two red, perfectly round, emotionless, glassy eyes are staring back at her from the depths. How is the water so deep when she was standing in it mere seconds ago? 

… Or is that just blood? 

… Where did the necklace go? 

… Was it always this color?

…

COME TO US

She is falling again, falling through the darkness, memories swirling around her and inside her, like a puzzle in a vortex, slowly falling into place. What was that? What has she just witnessed? Does Anisa know about any of this? Does Cecilia? Did they all see this? Did Shinju, too?

A presence stands like a rock against the raging tide. Invisible, unknowable, and impossible. Something that should not be, observing the intrusion upon its domain with muted interest. Erosion through the eons washes the presence away, yet with the promise of return.

Suddenly, she feels Shinju. She can’t see her, but Shinju is there, right next to her, falling through this void just as the others are. She can’t see her, but she can reach out to her. She can hear her. Speak to her.

Niko: E-Everyone…! I… I think it worked! The Dreamscape is just trying to put everything into its proper place!

Shinju: Th-that’s what it working is like!? What the heck is happening to us? 

Niko: I mean… I’m not a murderous monster? That’s one thing!

Anisa: I think Miss Ambrosi was right on the money here. Keep focusing, Niko. I don’t think we’re out of the woods just yet.

Cecilia: Out of the woods… was that literal? Can we even tell what literal means anymore?!

Niko: Did you guys… See anything in here? A memory or anything?

Cecilia: I… I don’t know… I don’t know! Nothing I’ve seen is like anything my visions have ever shown me!

Anisa: Have your visions ever shown you the past?

Cecilia: Yes, I can see through time well enough. But…

Niko: … Sure looked like it. Wait… Did I, like, witness the first Balancing?

Cecilia: I-I have no idea… whatever it was, it could not have been from our world!

Niko: I’m… not sure. I… It must have been, like, prehistory or, like, caveman times or something like that… I think the Dreamscape is trying to show me something… Out of all of the knowledge in… in your soul, Ms. Nobunaga, why would it show me this?

Anisa: What… What did you see, Niko?

Niko: I… I was a girl — I-I mean, another girl. She was wearing this gem around her neck, like a piece of amber or whatever you call that stuff, and… she was killed. Beaten with a rock… and drowned.

Anisa: Drowned? Sorry for prying, but… If you intended to kill someone and you had already split open their skull with a rock, why go through the effort of drowning them?

Niko: Because… The point was not to kill… The girl was turned into a Witch. It was a kind of torture.

Anisa: How can you be so sure?

Niko: … Because that’s how they do it. The Balancers. I… I know.

Cecilia: That… that is their modus operandi, yes. That is how they… disposed of Mirai Mizutani.

Niko: I… Wait, how do I know that? I mean, it makes sense, but…

Anisa: Probably because it’s working. You needed information, and the Dreamscape filled in the gap.

Niko: Then… How come I still have questions? Like…Okay, so I saw Kyubey… in that memory, at least… I think it was him. It didn’t sound like him, or look like him, but it was Kyubey, I’m almost sure of it… Thing is, if I “possessed all the knowledge in the world” right now, wouldn’t I not have to guess like that? Wouldn’t I just know?

Cecilia: If you had all of it… ngh, you would have become a Malefica. I surmise that… all of this information is… spread out throughout the residents of the Dreamscape, in order to lessen the burden on your mind. 

Anisa: I did imagine it would be more akin to a library… The information is present, but you need to have some semblance of it in order to start looking… That is…

Niko: … If I get it under control?

Anisa: Right… I’m afraid we’re stuck here until you can…

Cecilia: But that thing… that Incubator… could it have been an Incubator different from the “Kyubey” we know? Is that even possible…? Multiple “types” of Incubators…?

Niko: … Why would there be multiple types, though?

Anisa: Well… Hmm. Your vision… or that memory, or whatever it was, you said it took place during prehistoric times, right?

Niko: Yeah… At least, I think so.

Anisa: And… How did Kyubey appear to you? You said it didn’t look like what it usually looks like?

Niko: It was… I dunno, it didn’t really have an appearance. More like a voice. He wasn’t a cat-like cuddly thing, more like a… presence. An entity. A… force of nature. He… also didn’t talk like Kyubey, and still… I’m sure it was him.

Anisa: A… force of nature? That’s—

Niko: It said something like “you were brave and you were blessed… but now the water calls for you”, like… like it was the lake that I — or that girl — was being drowned into.

Anisa: Huh… Was… Was Kyubey playing at being… a god?

Cecilia: If… if that was, indeed, Kyubey… but… I-I can’t make sense of it all. It’s all… flashes, images, sounds, feelings… none of them are coherent.

Niko: I think… Kyubey looks like a cuddly mascot for all of us, right? He looks like he came straight out of a magical girl anime… like Lovely Cure or something… Cause… Well, I’ve been thinking and like, what he’s doing is basically that, right? It’s like Lovely Cure, but… y’know, messed up. 

Anisa: … He does look a bit like Mippy, that’s true.

Niko: … Mippy?

Anisa: … Yes? Mippy? From Lovely Cure? The fairy that turns them into Lovely Cures?

Niko: What? No! It’s, like… There’s two of them, right? A fox and a bunny? And they were called like, Leelee and Laalaa, or something?

Anisa: Pretty sure there was only one fairy back when I watched Lovely Cure…

Shinju: Guys, is this what’s important right now? Fairies?

Niko: I-I’m getting somewhere! The thing is, like… if Kyubey’s whole goal is to, like, mislead girls and harvest their energy and whatever, with his contract? Of course he’s gonna look like the fairies on TV that pretty much do the same thing!

Anisa: What makes you think he’s putting so much thought into any of that?

Niko: Well, because he didn’t look like that in caveman times, right? Because anime obviously hadn’t been invented yet. So instead —

Anisa: — it took the form of a natural spirit. A deity… Of course. Of course! Kyubey changes its shape into whatever entity its potential victims are most likely to trust.

Cecilia: So then… whether it is just that the hivemind changes its appearance, or there are multiple of its kind… or both, perhaps, it is irrelevant. Its purpose is to gain just enough trust to form contracts with our kind…?

Niko: I guess?

Anisa: If anything… If Kyubey’s been here since prehistoric times… It’s far more powerful and ambitious than we might always have assumed.

Niko: … That’s not very helpful— (a sudden flash of pain rings through her skull as the void around her distorts) … Ngh… Think talk time is officially over.

Shinju: (As the fog clears, Shinju comes into view, running towards Niko) Niko! Are you okay?!

Niko: It’s like my head is… unraveling… I can’t control it!

Cecilia: Deep breaths, Niko. You’re on the precipice… but stay with us now. (she is sitting nearby, a shadow looming over her as the fog reveals her form, which recedes soon after. Cecilia spares a passing glance, but returns to looking down at the ground)

Anisa: Let it go, Niko. I think the Dreamscape wants to show us something.

Niko: A-Alright, then… (she closes her eyes) H-Here we go…

As it swirls around their feet, the fog turns pale, twisting and turning itself into spiraling peaks that grow away from them in all directions. Soon a complex web of striking geometrical patterns in gold and what seems to be precious stones in intense shades of shimmering white and obsidian black are drawn on the flawless marble floor underneath their feet. 

As the mists draw further away, they unveil an immense circular auditorium, with storeys upon storeys of seats, hewn from materials too pristine to exist in any reality, expanding in all directions. Baroque details carve themselves into the pillars reaching into the infinity where a ceiling should be, into the stairs and the low walls separating each level from the next, creating an amphitheater of hundreds of smaller balconies, from which banners with striking colors and arcane motifs are hung. In between each column with rows upon rows of seats, a gargantuan statue holding out an arm towards the center of the auditorium. 

As she looks up, Niko sees what it is the giants are reaching out towards — a rotating orb of impressive size and otherworldly translucence, with thousands of incomprehensible symbols floating around onto its surface, like leaves on water. It looms over the four as they find themselves in the exact middle of this exhilarating space, taking in their environment with awestruck faces.

Anisa: Niko… Any chance you could show us… really, any other memory?

Niko: Is this… your memory?

The fog fully retreats now, leaving in its wake thousand, or tens of thousands cloaked figures, hastily scrambling towards their designated seats. Though they look passably humanoid, if somewhat stretched out, their features can’t really be discerned. They have heads on necks on shoulders, absolutely, but no eyes, ears, noses or mouths, instead distinguishing themselves through the unique masks on their faces, made of gold, stone or opaque glass. Some of them are pale, some plain, some exuberant, some flat, some meticulously crafted, some circular, some triangular or square or polyhedral or shaped in no way Niko has ever seen anything being shaped before. 

None of the figures, however, look remotely familiar. Even their clothes, for how human they may look, are somehow off. Elaborate and immaculate flowing robes in shimmering fabrics, usually adorned with excessive amounts of jewelry appears to be the norm, but it is clear some of the attendees are dressed more extravagantly than others. In fact, a majority of figures looks eerily reserved and collected, wearing simple grabs in white, gray or beige, and masks decorated with comparatively minimalistic geometric patterns, making their more extraordinarily dressed colleagues stand out even more. The one thing all figures have in common, however, is class. Whichever way these people dress or compose themselves, the intent behind it is clear. These are immensely powerful people.

Anisa: … These… These people are…

Niko: I don’t think they can see us.

Anisa: No — Niko, you’re channeling my memories. My personal memories. This… I’m pretty sure this is the afterlife we’re seeing. Those…Those people are members of the hierarchy. If they find out I’ve shown ordinary mortals what they look like, they’ll—

Niko: Wait… That can’t be true. These… figures… (she looks around, worried) 

Anisa: I was brought before the Hierarchy, Their tribunal looked just like this, all these… These cloaked figures are the people who sentenced me. Check my memories.

Niko: I’m sorry, miss Nobunaga, but… I haven’t even touched your memories. I just did what you suggested and used the collective unconsciousness as a library. I… We were talking about the Incubators and… I guess this is what the Dreamscape wants to show us about them.

Anisa: So… You mean that —

Niko: (she nods, slowly) … yes… This… is what the Incubators really look like. These are Kyubey’s memories.