Fanfic / Strange New World

50 years have passed since a strange incident destroyed the world as we know it. Shadows - supernatural creatures that emerged from the underground - paralysed the system and drove the surviving people out of the cities. Settlements were built to keep the shadow-threat at bay while humanity got used to a more survival-oriented lifestyle. But in a society where the laws aren’t upheld anymore, the amount of people who bend the rules to their own will increases. And with no executive, the protection of the innocent falls into the hands of individuals.

Ren Amamiya is no stranger to the injustice of this new order of the world, and neither is the rest of the rag-tag group of friends that had become a part of his family over the last years. Having grown up in these challenging times and without knowing any different, they soon have to ask the question: Who will stand up to help the people in need, but them?

Strange New World by BloodRedTitanium1022 is an Alternate Universe Fic retelling of the Persona 5 storyline that takes place in a post-apocalyptic Japan where Ren Amamiya and his Ragtag Bunch of Misfits must survive in a world where shadows run rampant on the world's surface and corrupt adults oppress the weak, and they must do so without the aid of their personas.

As of June 5, 2021 the fic was officially completed with a total of one hundred nineteen chapters and is almost 670K words long.

The sequel, Strange New World 2, was published on September 14, 2021 and is regularly updated every Tuesday and Saturday. It takes place five years after the events of the first book and borrows elements from the story of Persona 5 Strikers.

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Strange New World contains examples of:

A-D

• Adaptational Badass: The Phantom Thieves, even without the aid of their personas, are very proficient with actual firearms and melee weapons and are very skilled at fighting shadows.
  • Special mention goes to some of the confidants in the original game. Hifumi, Iwai, Mishima, and Shinya all have moments in throughout the story.
• Adaptational Early Appearance: The Phantom Thieves get together well before the events of the main story take place in this fic. Futaba is also the first member of the original Phantom Thieves that he meets in this fic.
• Adaptation Expansion: Many of the confidants play a much larger role in this fic. Some of them even become honorary Phantom Thieves themselves and assist in taking down some of the targets.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: In the original game, Madarame was Yusuke's Parental Substitute after the death of his mother. In here, Yusuke doesn't even know Madarame and only agrees to become his protégé after Madarame reveals that he was an old acquaintance of his mother.
• Adapted Out:
  • The original Big Bad, Yaldaboath, has been left completely out. During the final journey into Mementos, the gang fights a large dragon-like shadow instead.
  • Since the gang also don't possess Personas, Igor and the Velvet Room attendants also don't make an appearance.
• Adaptational Species Change: In the original game, Morgana was a talking cat, who also happened to be the embodiment of humanity's hope. Here, he is a normal human child with amnesia.
• Adaptational Villainy: As bad as the targets are in the original game, they are even worse in the fic:
  • Kamoshida is seen as a local hero by nearby settlements who takes young people under his wing and mentors them. In reality, he rules his own settlement with an iron fist. He forces the boys he takes in to be his Child Soldiers, and the girls he locks in his dungeon to be his personal harem.
  • Madarame takes in people with a talent for art for the purpose of "mentoring" them. However, once they agree to become his protégés, they can never leave his art gallery, effectively becoming his slaves that make art for him. Those who do try to leave are murdered in cold blood to prevent them from spilling his secret.
  • Kaneshiro acts as a Loan Shark trapping people in tremendous amounts of debt. In addition, he kidnaps Makoto and threatens to sell her as a Sex Slave if the Phantom Thieves don't pay a ransom. He also kidnaps Kaoru in an attempt to blackmail Iwai into making weapons for him.
  • Medjed goes from being a loosely connected organization of hackers to an organization of scientists and explorers who are more than willing to frame Futaba for the death of her mother and kill Sojiro in order to cover up the circumstances surrounding the role of United Future in starting the shadow outbreak.
  • Kunizaku Okumura runs a weapons factory that forces its workers to operate in slave-like conditions. Workers who fall behind in their quotas are beaten, and deaths are not an uncommon occurrence. Those who try to rise up against him are put into solitary confinement. He also builds bombs that are used by the Crow to destroy the larger settlements throughout the country.
• Adaptational Wimp: The Phantom Thieves don't have their personas in this story. Therefore, they must rely on their wits to defeat their enemies. Also without the aid of Healing Magic, injuries are far more consequential.
• After the End: The story takes place in a post-apocalyptic Japan, where civilization has ground to a halt after shadows emerged from the underground and wiped out a huge percentage of the population. The larger cities, like Tokyo, have been mostly abandoned, and the survivors have formed smaller settlements around the country-side.
• Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: During the Okumura arc, Ryuji and Yusuke do some reconnaissance in one of the local taverns. While mingling with some of Okumura's workers, they both get completely plastered. Ryuji becomes even more loud and talkative and blurts out that he and his friends are Phantom Thieves. Fortunately, the locals think he's too drunk to be believable. As for Yusuke, he starts randomly spouting haiku's, much to Futaba's amusement.
  • The girls later have their own moment during a "girls night out" in New Shinjuku, where they break into Sae's apartment in order to find out what dress she was supposed to wear that night. Sae is not amused.
• Anger Born of Worry: Ann is absolutely furious with Ryuji after he tries to pull a Heroic Sacrifice to help everyone escape Shido's ship.
• Badass Normal: The Phantom Thieves themselves are able to fight shadows and take down seemingly untouchable, powerful adults with nothing but their weapons and their wits.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Lampshaded by Eiko when it comes to Ryuji and Ann.
• Big Damn Heroes: Hifumi does this twice. First, she saves Yusuke from being killed by a shadow by sniping it from the rooftop of their home. Second, she saves the rest of the gang from Kaneshiro's goons when they are pinned down by sniping their machine gunner, creating an opening for the Phantom Thieves to counter-attack.
• Big Damn Kiss: Each of the main couples get their moments.
  • Ren and Makoto have theirs in Chapter 27. It gets cut short when they end up aggravating their injuries from the raid on Kaneshiro's bank.
  • Subverted in Ryuji and Ann's case in that their first kiss comes off as awkward and uncomfortable considering that they're both hiding from shadows. They try again and finally have theirs in Chapter 37.
  • Yusuke and Haru get theirs while going undercover during the Shido arc.
• Blatant Lies: Ren and Ryuji try to cover up the whole "Operation Maidwatch" fiasco from the girls by telling them that they were out late because a random stranger challenged them to a knife-throwing competition...at night. Needless to say, Ann and Makoto are not convinced.
• Breaking Speech: Kamoshida does this to Ryuji when he and Ren are captured. He implies to Ryuji that the death of his and Ann's parents was his fault because Ryuji's settlement had to compensate Kamoshida after Ryuji attacked him. This deprived the settlement of vital resources, and thus they were forced to send out the bulk of their forces to acquire more, leaving the settlement vulnerable to raiders. When raiders attacked, the council was forced to call Ryuji and Ann's parents to be part of the defense, resulting in their deaths. To twist the knife further, Kamoshida tells Ryuji that he has Ann at his mercy, and all that Ryuji managed to accomplish was to drag her down with him. It nearly succeeds in breaking Ryuji's spirit, were it not for Ren giving him a pep talk. Ann later reveals, that Kamoshida was lying as it was Ann who paid off Ryuji's debt.
• Children Forced to Kill: While trying to rescue Makoto from Kaneshiro's bank. Reinforcements arrive and the Phantom Thieves are forced to Hold the Line while Ren searches for her. As a result, the whole operation turns into a bloodbath. Afterwards, the whole group is deeply traumatized by having to kill in order to survive.
• The Conspiracy: United Future is the major threat that hangs over the Phantom Thieves, and they were the ones responsible for the shadow outbreak fifty years prior to the events of the story.
• Continuity Nod: The fic makes several references to the original game:
  • The locations where the Phantom Thieves fight their targets are references to the palaces in the original game.
  • Yusuke is first introduced to the group by stalking Ann and trying to get her to model nude for him.
  • Ren, Ryuji, Ann, and Yusuke are all arrested at Jinbochu for "assaulting" a man who was trying to sexually assault a woman.
  • Haru's backstory involves the Phantom Thieves helping her to escape an Arranged Marriage.
  • Ren uses himself as bait to be captured and interrogated by Sae.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: The first half of Ren's fight with the Cleaner doesn't go well for him as their opponent is an experienced, hardened killer.
• Dangerous Drowsiness: While Ren is bleeding out from his injury, Futaba has to repeatedly slap them across the face to keep them from passing out.
• Darker and Edgier: The story takes place in a post-apocalyptic Japan where shadows have overrun the world. Since there is no government, there is no law. Meaning that many villainous characters are able to do far worse things than they could in the original canon. Also, while the Phantom Thieves never killed anyone in the original game, there are a few instance where they are forced to kill in order to survive.
• Death by Adaptation: Ren, Ann, and Ryuji's parents were all killed prior to the events of the main story. Kaneshiro and Shido, who didn't die in the original game, also meet their deaths at the end of their respective arcs.
• Doomed Hometown: The story begins with the Phantom Thieves finding a new place to live after their home settlement of Yongen was destroyed by a bomb.
• Do with Him as You Will: The Thieves leave the fates of Kamoshida and Madarame up to the people they've wronged. In both cases, the people have them imprisoned.

E-H

• Everyone Can See It: When it comes to Ren and Makoto, pretty much everyone in the Phantom Thieves can tell there is a mutual attraction between them no matter how much they try to wave it off. The same is true for Ryuji and Ann.
• Evil-Detecting Dog: Or chickens in this case. While transporting them home after looting Madarame's gallery, they start to behave erratically in the presence of shadows.
• Fake-Out Make-Out: Ryuji and Ann do this to avoid suspicion from Madarame's security while investigating his art gallery.
• Forced to Watch: Kamoshida toys with the idea of doing this to Ryuji while he has his way with Ann, but he decides against it because it might "spoil the mood."
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: Inverted in Ren's case. After Makoto is kidnapped and held hostage by Kaneshiro, Ren is so blind with rage, yet he is unable to do anything about it, that he can't even think straight. Ryuji allows Ren to vent his anger and frustration by letting Ren beat him up. Surprisingly, it works.
• Go Mad from the Isolation: Downplayed when the Phantom Thieves go into lock-down after the death of Kunizaku Okumura and the subsequent smear campaign by United Future. They don't go insane after being cooped-up for one week, but they do go stir-crazy and irritable and lash out at the most minor of offenses towards one another.
• Groin Attack: Ann gives Kamoshida a hard knee to his groin after he's tied up, causing Ren and Ryuji to wince.
• Heroic BSoD: After Makoto is kidnapped and held for ransom by Kaneshiro, Ren is so distraught that he is unable to think straight for an entire chapter.
  • Haru also experiences this in the immediate aftermath of the destruction of her family home and subsequent deaths of her father and his staff. She all but shuts down and is barely responsive to others save for simple nodding.
• Hold the Line: The raid on Kaneshiro's bank goes sideways when reinforcements arrive forcing the Phantom Thieves to hold them off while Ren goes to rescue Makoto from Kaneshiro.
• Hope Spot: Having successfully changed her father's heart, Haru elects to stay behind and help her father change things for the better. Just when things are starting to look up for Haru and her family, both the mansion and factory are destroyed by a series of explosions, killing Kunizaku and his staff.

I-L

• Let Us Never Speak of This Again: Ren, Ryuji, and Mishima agree to not tell anyone about "Operation Maidwatch" and how they ended up running into Ryuji's old teacher working as a maid.
• Lotus-Eater Machine: The final act of the story involves Maruki trapping the Phantom Thieves in an simulated version of Tokyo where the shadow outbreak never happened and everyone is just ordinary high school students.

M-P

• Major Injury Underreaction: Ren's reaction to getting shot in the stomach is to simply say, "Oh..." before collapsing to their knees.
• Moment Killer: After Ryuji proposes to Ann, their special moment is ruined by the arrival of Goro Akechi.
• Mortal Wound Reveal: This happens in the aftermath of the raid on Kaneshiro's bank. As Ren and Makoto reunite with the rest the group, they're confused at first when the rest of the group's looks of relief turn to looks of horror. When Makoto points it out, Ren looks down to his stomach to see that he has been shot. Thankfully, he gets better.
• My Own Private "I Do": Ryuji gives Ann a ring after their brief isolation and they declare themselves as husband and wife while taking a walk in the woods. Later, Ren and Makoto exchange their own private vows with each other while on the way home after taking down United Future.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: This is how Ren kills Kaneshiro and later defeats The Cleaner.

Q-T

• Reusable Lighter Toss: Ren and Makoto burn down Kaneshiro's bank by tossing a lighter onto the stacks of money that he had stored in his vault.
• Secret Relationship: Ren and Makoto try to hide their relationship from the others; however, it doesn't last long as Futaba spies them in the act one day and immediately blabs to everyone.
• Slap-Slap-Kiss: After their First Kiss doesn't go well, as they were hiding from shadows at the time, Ryuji and Ann get into a heated argument and ends with them trying again. It goes into full blown make-out session and it's heavily implied that they went all the way.
• Sleep Cute: While they're being treated for their injuries at Takemi's, Ren and Makoto fall asleep holding hands. They enjoy it so much that they make it into a regular routine.
• Shower of Love: Ren and Makoto have one while everyone is going undercover on Shido's boat.
• Snark-to-Snark Combat: Ren and Makoto engage in this while they are both delirious from blood loss after getting shot and again while they're both hopped-up on painkillers while at Takemi's house. After their Relationship Upgrade, their witty banter becomes more flirtatious.
• Technical Pacifist: The Phantom Thieves make it a point to avoid killing when possible, however, they will use lethal force when there is no other choice.

U-Z

• Ungrateful Bastard: The people of Seiki are initially very gracious to the Phantom Thieves for all the help they've done for them. However, they instantly turn on Haru when they discover that she is Kunizaku Okumura's daughter and chase her out of town.
• Unstoppable Rage: Ren falls into this when Kaneshiro shoots Makoto in front of him. He beats Kaneshiro to death after this. When he comes to his senses, he is horrified upon witnessing the bloody aftermath. He later weaponizes this in his fight against The Cleaner during his Heroic Second Wind.
• Wham Line:
  • End of Chapter 25:

    So Kaneshiro hadn't missed after all.

  • End of Chapter 59:

    Her plans were crushed within seconds when several explosions went off on the compound, drowning everything in flames.

  • End of Chapter 64:

    Goro Akechi: "Hello, Phantom Thieves."

  • End of Chapter 96:

    Sae: "We're moving."

Strange New World 2 contains examples of:

• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: Some members of the Phantom Thieves have become leaders in the newly established town of Yongen within the city of Tokyo. Ren has become mayor, Makoto is the police commissioner, Ryuji is the captain of the guard, Ann is the head of public relations, and Sae is a councilwoman representing Yongen.
• Tempting Fate: As they are about to embark on their first major case in years, Makoto does this.

  Makoto:"I’m sure that there is a perfectly logical explanation and that there’s not another big Evil looming above all of us"

• Time Skip: The story takes place five years after the events of the first story.
• Victory Is Boring: While the former Phantom Thieves have settled into their new roles as citizens of Yongen, the quiet life has left most of them feeling bored with the daily grind. Many of them miss the action from their days of fighting United Future and the shadow threat. When the prospect of a new case emerges, they feel genuine excitement for the first time in years.

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