"You weren't broken by despair; instead, you're trying to fight back... You're a good girl," Mordred said, having already finished her own work, and patted Yukino Yukinoshita's shoulder in praise.
Yukino, who had never seen Mordred before, stiffened and turned her head to Taichi. "Is she someone you know?"
"My Persona, Mordred," Taichi nodded and replied. "She was affected by this fog and inexplicably got a chance to materialize."
At this, Yukino's tense nerves immediately relaxed, and her body swayed as if she were about to fall. But Mordred caught her with one hand.
"Hey, Taichi! This little girl's body is even weaker than yours!"
Yukino, who was somewhat sensitive about the word "little," had a very complicated feeling. After defeating the monsters, Taichi approached Yukino. Looking at the clothes in her arms, Taichi nodded in understanding.
"We're currently looking for a way to get everyone's bodies back and find the culprit who caused this disaster," Taichi said, looking at Yukino. "Do you want to come with us?"
"There's a way?" Yukino asked, looking up at Taichi in shock.
"That's what we're looking for right now," Taichi nodded and replied. "But the clothes you're holding..."
"They're my sister's," Yukino replied with a sorrowful expression. "My sister disappeared right in front of me."
"But why did you take the clothes?" Taichi asked, scratching his head in confusion. "If we successfully resolve this crisis and your sister's body returns to the real world, won't she have nothing to wear?"
"Huh?" Yukino looked confused.
Mordred seemed to realize something. She pulled Yukino to a place where a "soul was gathered and sealed," pointed at the glowing figure's outline, and asked her, "Can you see anything here?"
"...A security camera?" Yukino followed Mordred's finger, looking along its line of extension, and happened to see the security camera in the corner of the wall at the end.
"...You can't see the outline of the soul?" Taichi asked, surprised.
"The outline of the soul?" Yukino was more confused than he was.
"I apologize, it seems my previous guess was wrong," X said, a little embarrassed. "I had assumed it was an environmental factor because Taichi's body showed no abnormalities, but judging from Yukino's situation, it seems it's not an environmental factor but something else. I can't yet make a conclusion on what that is."
...
"So, my sister's soul is actually floating in the place where her clothes fell earlier?" Yukino asked, looking at Taichi in a panic and confirming again.
"Yes, that's right," Taichi nodded. "I can still see the scene where many souls are mixed together."
Taichi suddenly felt that the cube-like things that sealed the souls might also be protecting them. After all, the monsters, who were supposed to be in the same space as the souls, would change their path and go around them before they could touch them. However, Taichi didn't think this was done by the mastermind to protect these souls. Instead, it was more likely to make them serve as... energy. After all, in the Shibuya area alone, nearly one hundred thousand people had their bodies erased, leaving only their souls. Because of this, X had to constantly use most of his computing power to monitor all the cameras in Shibuya to avoid missing any developments.
"So, should I put the clothes back in their original place?" Yukino asked, looking at the clothes in her arms with some uncertainty.
"If you remember the original location, it's safer to put them back," Taichi nodded. "You wouldn't want your sister's body to return without clothes after we've successfully resolved the situation, right?"
Yukino was stunned. She seemed to have remembered something, and her face turned red and then green. Then she turned and ran upstairs.
"Wait! Don't go alone!" Taichi was taken aback and grabbed her wrist to remind her, "This city has an unknown number of monsters, and it would be bad if you ran into them by yourself."
"Ow!" Yukino frowned, feeling a sharp pain in her wrist from Taichi's gauntlet.
"Ah, sorry, this gauntlet is too hard, and I accidentally used too much force," Taichi said, releasing her wrist and apologizing.
After Yukino returned the clothes to their original location based on memory, she let out a sigh of relief.
"What do we do now? Do you have any clues about this incident?" Yukino looked up at Taichi, then glanced at Mordred with an uncertain look. "Is it related to the Cognitive World or a Palace?"
"I don't know," Taichi shook his head. "After all, unlike you, I don't have that other-world navigation app on my phone, so I can't enter a Palace."
"So, Ren and Ryuji have already entered a Palace, but they haven't come out yet?" Yukino pulled out her phone and opened the navigation app. "Sorry, I forgot that the radio waves in Shibuya are cut off, so there's no way to contact them."
"They haven't come out yet," Taichi said with certainty. "My partner is monitoring all the security cameras in Shibuya, and there's no sign of them in any of the visible areas."
"...You can even do that," Yukino said, biting her lip. She felt more and more that this Taichi Naruto was not an ordinary person... even among the group of extraordinary people in the Phantom Thieves, he was particularly outstanding.
"...Access denied!" After operating her phone for a while, Yukino looked up at Taichi in shock and turned the phone screen toward him. The clear words "Access Denied" appeared on the screen in a hideous font.
"There are two possibilities now," Taichi said, his face grim. "One is that the current situation is indeed related to the Cognitive World, and the other is that something big has happened in the Cognitive World as well, so the other-world navigation app can't function properly."
Taichi was more inclined toward the first possibility. He knew that the other-world navigation app was created by the false god Yaldabaoth. Although the fog that made tens of thousands of people disappear and the barrier that sealed off Shibuya were certainly a big deal, compared to Yaldabaoth... this fog and barrier were not even in the same league.