He was not sure how Elizabeth had done it. One moment he was sealed in stone, his mind drifting in the vast void of nothingness, and then he had been here, alive, breathing, and confused. Then he had seen the white haired woman, staring at him with a sad smile on her lips. It had taken a second for him to realize, to comprehend, and by the time he did, she was gone, as fast as she had appeared.
He searched for her, but the location of the Velvet Room refused to disclose itself to him. He searched for the others as well, but like Elizabeth, they too seemed to have vanished. It was as though they had never existed in the first place. Not even Mitsuru's conglomerate, the Kirijo Group, existed, and that had troubled him most of all. People could disappear, but not a multi-billion company that spanned nearly every continent.
Reality reared its head. The truth was there to be seen. Steadily he came to accept the fact that the world he knew, the world he had died to protect, no longer existed. It had been a bitter pill to swallow. One could not easily forget the Dark Hour, the unending levels he had climbed in that accursed tower, the many faces of Nyx as he ascended to battle her. Sometimes he wondered if it had all been some elaborate dream, a figment of his imagination, and he had merely woken up. But then he would call for him, shattering his mind with the Evoker, and he would always answer, proof before his eyes, skulled helm bowed in deference.
And he was not the only one. Others came to him, some that he remembered as being his and others drawn to him by the strength of his Arcana.
They were the only proof he had. The only evidence that reminded him of who he was, what he had been, and he clung to them like a drowning man would a clutch a raft.
Still, life had to go on. He eventually settled in the place Elizabeth had brought him to, surmising that there was something he had to do, some task he had to perform before he could go back. When the months passed and nothing out of the ordinary happened, his hope had dwindled and he resorted to working odd jobs to support himself, earning enough to rent a small apartment in a middle class section of the city. His basic needs met, the only problem that was left was boredom. He needed something to keep his thoughts off the past life that he led, or otherwise his mood would grow dark and his mind would wander.
He solved that by attending the local high school, and despite the material that was presented to him was almost word-for-word the same as that of Gekkoukan High's, he still enjoyed it. It brought a sense of normalcy to him, attending this school, with the familiar chatter of students and the buzz of everyday activity. It gave him a feeling of belonging, and though the faces were different, he could at least pretend he was one of them.
And in the rare instances his jobs gave him time to spare, he would always find a seat in the school's library, his headphones over his ears, a book in front of him, listening to the same track as the sun set.
She reminded him of Mitsuru.
From her red, flowing hair to the almost aristocratic way she carried herself. It was an uncanny resemblance, and it was for that reason he did his best to avoid Rias Gremory.
There were differences, of course. She was never as cold as Mitsuru when he first joined SEES, and though that cold eventually disappeared, it still did not compare to the warmth of the President of the Occult Research Club. As far as he could tell, Rias was kind to everyone, compassionate almost, to a degree. She would reply to any student, whether they be freshman or senior, and help with sincerity in any task presented to her. It was within her nature, he guessed. Perhaps that was why she was considered to be one of Kuoh Academy's Two Great Ladies. He couldn't imagine Mitsuru ever displaying the same amount of passion, not in public anyways.
But then again, if she did, he probably wouldn't have fallen for her, and her, him.
He still remembered that bumpy, lonely ride on the back of her motor scooter, as odd a trip as the request that led to it. She had plied him with questions, and it was halfway through their journey that he divined its true purpose. He had answered to the best of his ability, and still the trip back had been awkward. He had succeeded though, realizing it at first when the Persona he could summon from the Empress Arcana grew stronger, and then a week later when Mitsuru cornered him in a classroom and kissed him.
It was that scene alone that played in his mind over and over again when he saw Rias, and the image pained him; dangling the one thing in front of him that he desired most, yet was unable to attain. So he avoided Rias, going so far as turning away when she approached or slipping outside into the hallway when they were in the same room. The memories were still too raw, too painful, and he did not like having them.
Unfortunately, his efforts at evasion did not go unnoticed. He was not like the other boys, who immediately went wide-eyed and became tongue-tied when the school beauty gave them a look. In the times he could not avoid her, he would at least give her a polite nod of acknowledgment, and focus on whatever he had been doing before. That apparently set him out from the rest, though it did not surprise him. It had been much the same with Yukari and Mitsuru at Gekkoukan High.