At the exit of the hidden passage, Noir is forced to stop the group, because the room they entered through is now swarming with shadows. It seems like a large patrol group might have moved in here, or a search party. Whatever the reason, there are now fifteen shadows in one room with clear lines of sight on each other and the passage entrance.

"Shit," Noir swears under her breath. "They must have come to investigate the passage opening up."

She looks back at the group. "Stay back and be ready, we'll see if they move on." She pulls her Tkachev and readies it.

Skull hisses a curse as well, but readies his Levinson.

Mona gets ready as well.

Five of the guards move on, but the remaining ten stay put.

Noir surveys the room.

They're backed into a corner. Even if they were to somehow get up the stair at the other end, they'd probably still have to come through here to get out. And the longer they wait, the bigger the chance that more shadows will show up. Maybe even Kamoshida himself. 

"We're not going to be able to take all these in a straight fight," Noir murmurs. "We're going to have to punch our way through and then run for it, like we did the first time we were here. Skull, Mona, you two lead with the Levinson and don't spare the Persona strikes. Clover and I will be right behind you. Try to cut a path through the edge of the group before they have a chance to coordinate an attack, then get down to the dungeons where there's cover and we can hopefully ambush the ones that are still after us. Don't get separated."

She holds up a hand. 

Three. 

Two. 

One.

Skull charges out, emptying his shotgun into the first shadow along the chosen path. As the armored guard falls, he clubs the next out of his way with his pipe, then tears free his mask to summon Captain Kidd, who starts blasting away with his cannon.

Mona fires all of their slingshot rounds into another guard, bringing it near defeat, and then summons Zorro to try to clear a path by battering the shadows with wind.

Noir finishes the wounded guard with a bullet from her Tkachev, then follows the group while firing at the remaining shadows, aiming to wound as many as she can and slow them down so they can't pursue well. When her mag runs dry she holsters it and pulls her sword. 

Clover takes potshots over Mona's head to help with clearing the path, some of her bullets zipping dangerously close to Skull.

"Careful, Clover!", Skull calls back.

The shadows rally, trying to keep the team from breaking through. They're starting to thin out, though.

It's a good thing, too. Skull keeps his Persona firing shot after shot of electricity from his cannon, but he's clearly starting to tire, judging by how his posture's starting to sag.

Mona's keeping the guards back as best they can, but there are a lot. They're starting to sag too.

Clover holsters her gun and charges in with her sword to assist the tiring Skull and Mona. She's still relatively fresh; hopefully she can turn the tide.

Noir joins her, throwing herself at the guards with all the strength she has. 

Between slashes and stabs from both Noir and Clover, the last few shadows falter and fall, dissolving on the ground.

"Phew," Skull exclaims, wiping his brow, "that was close!"

And that's when the five shadows that left earlier return.

With friends.

"Shit." 

There's nowhere to run. The shadows are coming from the only exit that doesn't go to a dead end.

Noir pulls her Tkachev again and empties it into the oncoming crowd of shadows. 

Clover fires as well, but the group of oncoming guards barely thins.

Skull empties his reloaded Levison into the crowd, thinning them further.

Mona hits them as well with their renewed stock of slingshot ammo.

They've thinned the crowd of shadows down to six — few enough that they could wipe them out between melee and abilities if their Persona users weren't fatigued. But Mona and Skull are running on fumes.

"You've fought hard, brats, but no longer," one guard shouts as the group surges forward and knocks the team to the ground.

Noir's shoved hard against the floor with a guard's knee in her back. She tries to swipe at it with her sword, but another guard steps on her hand with a heavy boot and kicks the sword away. Her tkachev's against her hip and she can't reach it, the guards have both her hands pinned.