"Thank you" the boy with the yellow scarf said with a smile on his lips.
The person across him nodded and utters his farewell.
"Goodbye Ryoji" He pulled the trigger.
Darkness as far as his eyes could see...
The coldness of death embrace him as he float around in the emptiness.
'All of them put their trust on me and I betrayed them.'
He doesn't know how long has it been. A minute? An hour? A day? A month? A year? He couldn't tell. Yet the only thing filled His mind are those words.
That is until a blue butterfly enter his vision.
Slowly but surely, it make it's way towards his left eye before shattering into blue glass, covering his sight with lights.
His feet touches something, that's when he realized he can stand again.
"Huh?" The blue-haired boy let out on suprise.
"Welcome to the rift between consciousness and unconsciousness." Minato cast his eyes on the man with a butterfly mask covering his face.
"I am Philemon" he introduce himself with a bow.
"Why am I here?" he ask Philemon
"I've been observing you since the beginning of your journey, I think you noticed the thing that brought you here." he said.
"The blue butterfly..." he muttered. That's why it was able to catch up with the train.
"Precisely. Do you know the reason why I brought you here my boy?" He asked.
After thinking for a few seconds he raise his head and gave his answer "I've failed my journey, haven't I ?"
He nodded "Correct, but adding salt to your wounds is not why I called you here." He assured him.
Philemon continued "You have the largest potential out of all humanity, but a little bit of fear and one wrong choice is all it takes to shut that potential down."
He look away from the man as he felt the bitter taste of guilt.
"Too many things gone wrong at such a short amount of time." is his excuse.
'Shinjiro, Ikutsuki, Takeharu, Chidori, Ryoji...' Casualties, one after another. It's a collective of burdens that stayed at the back of his mind, constantly reminding him of death. That's why he choose blissful ignorance to face it.
"One wrong turn is all it takes to doom all mankind, that is why I've called you here. You see my boy, I've always believed in the power humanity." A tarot card with the Fool arcana symbol floats on Philemon's hand.
"It is unfair to destroy them because of a mistake one person make isn't it ? That is why I am offering you a second chance, a chance to restart your journey and rewrite your own fate. How about it?" He offers him the card.
Without a second thought Minato reaches out and grasp the card with my hand. If there's any chance to redeem himself then he'll take it.
"I accept." He said solemnly. The card vanished from his hand as he felt the fool arcana become one with him once more.
"Do not fail me again this time. Show me what power humanity holds, Minato Arisato." His body suddenly felt really light.
"I am Philemon, a dweller in the rift between consciousness and unconsciousness of all souls... I am you. You are me... I shall always watch over you from within. Farewell..." Minato faded away as he heard Philemon's Declaration.
He open his eyes once again to the familiar sight of the blue neverending elevator.
"Welcome, to The Velvet Room." He heard Igor's signature greeting.
"It is delightful to see you again Minato-san." Elizabeth welcome him with a bow and a warm smile.
"It's good to be back here again." He returned their greetings.
Igor continued "Now, I trust you know why you are here."
He nodded "This is my second chance."
Igor closes his eyes "Correct, but before you proceed I need you to sign this contract." the same piece of paper he have signed before appears on the table. Strangely enough, 'I shalt changes the fate of this world' is written on the contract instead of 'I chooseth this fate of mine own free will'
He looked at Igor with his eyebrows raised "A different contract is required for a different purpose."
He nodded at the answer and sign the contract with his name. Just like before, it quickly vanished. "Before you go I must inform you that all of your powers from your previous journey is still available, also this journey will be quite different from before." His ears perked up on that.
"What do you mean?" He asked with curiosity in his tone.
Igor looked straight at him with his bloodshot eyes "Unfortunately, that is all I can tell you." His tone is unidentifiable to him.
His consciousness began to fade away "Until then, farewell... my dear guest." Igor said as his vision blackened.
DATE : 04/06 (Monday)
Minato Arisato open his eyes once again, he is back to the land of the living.
It's currently afternoon... 13.00 to be exact. A light gray double-breasted jacket wrapped his body with his headphones dangling on his neck as usual.
On the side is a duffle bag with quite a few thing inside, his clothes, a wallet full of money, an MP3 charger, an apartment pamphlet, a laptop with it's accesories and two letters, one is blue and one is white with butterfly symbol on it.
He opened the white letter first.
To : Minato Arisato
'As you can immediately noticed, I've changed quite a few things from where you've starting. For example, you are no longer required to attend school, I've also granted you the ability to summon your persona without the tool you called evoker. In doing so you will have more time and freedom to change the outcome of this journey. Your body and mind are also left untouched. I look forward to see what you can do with this chance.'
Philemon
'That'll come in handy.' He moved on to the next letter.
To : Minato-san
'Minato-san, I was most disappointed when I discovered the choice you make. But nevertheless, I am happy to find out Master Philemon are giving you a second chance. This must be because of the 1.000.000 yen I poured into the fountain, I knew the spirit of the fountain will not let me falls into depression. I am also hoping you can take me on what you called a "date" once more, I might even brought my foolish younger brother with us. Ah! Yes, I was supposed to inform you that you can find The Velvet Room where it normally is. We will provide our services as usual, we have also left your money exactly the same. By all means, please do not take too long to visit.'
Elizabeth
A smile decorated his lips after reading Elizabeth's letter. After returning the letters to the bag, he put on his headphones and stare toward the windows.
While looking to the city, he wonder what his friends are doing right now. What'll happen to them if he hadn't join S.E.E.S.
When he thinks back, most of them would've died if he hadn't join. Yukari and Junpei will crash in the monorail, Akihiko and Mitsuru will lost to the Empress and Emperor, Aigis will never be activated again, Shinjiro will die slowly, Ken will fall into depression leading to he doesn't want to know what.
Just now, he realized how much he have done for them, which hurts even more when he remember his mistake...
His thoughts are cut short as the speaker suddenly announced "Attention all passagers, next stop is Iwatodai" and that's his cue to get off.
He grab the bag and walked out to the station. Next stop is his new home.
The apartment is located quite far from the dorm, which is good because he doesn't want to run into any of my old teammates in the Dark Hour. The place is not even bad, the apartment is on the second floor. It has 3 rooms, the living room, bedroom, and bathroom. All of them are being kept clean. The living room is merged with the kitchen, there's a couch, a small TV, a dining table with 2 seats, and a basic kitchen along with a refrigerator.
The bedroom is pretty standard with a single size bed, a wardrobe, and a shelf. The bathroom have a shower with water heater too. Even though it cost quite a bit, it's a pretty comfortable place.
After putting unpacking and charging my MP3 I sat down on the couch "Alright, unpacking is done. Now, what else should I do?" His question is answered immediately when his stomach grumbled, ordering him to grab his wallet and buy some food.
He bought groceries to last at least for a month, on the way back he decided stop by Wild-Duck Burger because he's already hungry enough. When he enter the restaurant he immediately noticed the familiar cap-wearing boy Junpei Iori, who is hanging out with Kenji. He doesn't seem to noticed the blue-haired individual when he walked past him. Then it hit him, if he wanted to do activities on the dark hour he need to be really cautious. He can't let other member of SEES caught him running around while everyone turns into coffins. A weapon is also needed, he can fight with his fist but he prefer to have a backup in case something gone wrong.
He's back at the apartment at last. After swallowing two triple cheeseburgers, he decided to plan ahead of time from now on.
Minato sat on the dining table to plan out his schedule.
'So today is April 6th, the full moon occured on April 9th, and Junpei joined SEES on the 21st. That means I have to follow Akihiko and distract the Magician shadow when it showed up 3 days from now.' His train of thoughts continued
'I also have 10 days to explore Tartarus starting from 10th to 20th. Clearing out the floor guardians before SEES reaches them seems to be my priority.' He's not doubting his former comrades capabilities, but he would rather not take any chances in case they get into troubles.
'Orpheus, Surt, Scathach, Odin, Cybele, Thor, Melchizedek, Arahabaki, Alice, Daisoujou, Lilith,and Thanatos. I don't think my body can take the strain of summoning strong personas but passive skills and the persona's properties like absorbing fire can still be used.' This is evident when he try to burn his hand on the stove with Surt equipped... he wish there's a better way that could be proven.
Minato lean back on his seat while sighing to himself "I hope this would work" he said to no one in particular.
Feeling tired, he decided to end the day early to save energy for tomorrow.
A/N : Hi, this is my first fic and this chapter is just a prologue, so it's not much.
I'm not the best at grammars so if you noticed a mistake, please tell me.
Feel free to leave a review, I always have rooms to improve.
Question : Are you okay if I use a character from another series as an OC?