Disclaimer: I do not own Persona 3—or any version of the Persona series, really. I just own this rather shameless piece of work.

Other Notes: This fanfic is brought to you by FANOWRIMO and my own inability to stop playing the game through again no matter how depressed the ending makes me. Also, I've been reading too many OC SI reincarnation fanfics like Silver Queen's famous Dreaming of Sunshine as well as others, such as Runner by CompYES and Casalinga by Freydris—which also inspired the mainly non-OC-centric POV of this story.

Symbiosis

Chapter One

For as long as five-year-old Minato could remember, he had never been alone.

Okay, so maybe his mom and dad rarely left him unless they had work. And maybe they hired a babysitter to watch over him when they were both gone. But he didn't mean it that way.

He may be a kid, but he wasn't stupid. He knew he couldn't actually be left alone, physically. He knew that because when he tried insisting that he was old enough to not need a babysitter, his mom and dad told him that they worried. It was for their sake, they said, so that they knew he was safe and no bad guys got him while they were away.

Minato understood that. It was common knowledge that bad guys used the precious people of the good guys to make them hurt. So he stopped pestering his parents about babysitters after that, so he wouldn't worry them about being by himself.

Anyway, back to the point, Minato was smart enough to know that he couldn't be physically alone. But he also knew that even around other people he could still be lonely. That was what some girl said on a TV show he saw once, anyway.

Minato couldn't really relate to that, though.

He was never lonely, had never known "true loneliness", because he had his Other.

His Other lived in his mind, curled up and settled in a back corner like the puppy he saw once in his neighbor's house. At first, Minato barely even noticed his Other there. His Other had been with him since he was born, he was pretty sure, since he couldn't remember a time he didn't feel that presence in the back of his head, but it was only at his recent fifth birthday that he got curious enough to investigate it.

Because it moved.

Well, maybe not move. His Other wasn't physical. But it shifted somehow, like something asleep twitching in a dream. Sometimes, he tried to get his Other's attention, imagining himself prodding at the mental presence. But other than his Other shifting again in response, it never responded and instead, as Minato convinced himself, kept sleeping.

But that was okay. Minato still liked his Other even if it was lazy as heck.

His Other was his constant companion, sleeping habits aside. Ever since he discovered it, Minato talked to it about anything and everything. He liked to think his Other could hear him, even while asleep. His mom said that people in comas could. Minato didn't know exactly what a coma was, but the way his mom explained it made it sound like hibernation or something. Maybe his Other was in a coma?

Anyway.

Minato talked and talked to his Other, sometimes prodding it to see if it would wake up this time, and then talked some more. Sometimes aloud, sometimes in his head because that was where his Other lived. Minato talked better in his head, but talking aloud was a habit.

Sometimes he just wanted a quiet day, though, and just spent time lying around, trying to mentally cuddle around his Other as it slept. It was kind of weird, but it felt very warm even in his mind. A sort of gentle warmth, like the feeling of the sun in the morning. It made him feel nice and sort of sleepy, so those days he usually took long naps, sprawled out wherever in the house while curled up by his Other in his head.

Those were the best days, in his opinion.

For a while, all I did was sleep. I think.

It was all so very hazy, so I don't really remember much of anything. I knew I was resting, sleeping like the dead. It was the type of rest that followed that deep sort of exhaustion—like staying up for almost thirty-six hours straight. The type of rest that happens when the body is finally allowed to sleep after running on fumes and just sort of shuts down to try and make up for the lost time.

I knew that type of rest well. It kind of came with the territory of being a college student, really. Which is why, I suppose, I didn't really find it alarming. Somewhere along the line I guess I figured that I was just sleeping off a couple of all-nighters and barely budged for anything.

Sometimes, something would reach me, like what felt like a brush on the shoulder or little fingers poking my back. But I could ignore them. I had had little cousins, nephews, who were too precocious for their own good and liked to bother whoever they saw to play with them. If I didn't react, they would lose interest. So I didn't and, as expected, I was left alone.

And so I kept on sleeping, completely oblivious.

His parents were worried.

Minato knew this because his mom only ever asked such pointed questions when she was worried. Questions like "Staying inside again today?" and "How come you don't go out to play with your friends anymore?" and "Are you sure you don't want to go out with the other kids?"

The first times she asked he didn't think anything of it, but then she started asking more frequently and it became much more obvious.

His dad worried, too. More than once, Minato would wake up from his nap alongside his Other to find his dad looking over him, or just sitting nearby and running his hand over Minato's head. It was soothing and usually made him want to sleep again, but his dad always stopped him.

"You sleep more than a sloth, kiddo," was what his dad would say. It started out as a simple tease when Minato first started taking more naps. But the way his dad said it started to get quieter over time, heavy with some meaning that Minato didn't understand.

Eventually, his parents took him to see a doctor. And as Minato sat, nonplussed, they took turns explaining his odd "symptoms" and their concerns for his health to the medical professional that came in to see them. He tried to keep track of the conversation, but lost interest after a while, only catching snippets of words and phrases they shot back and forth over his head.

"—sleeping far more than what's healthy—"

"He has no motivation—"

"—becoming highly antisocial…"

Minato kicked his feet, head bent and glowering at the tops of his shoes. He didn't understand a lot of what they were talking about, but none of it sounded good. His parents were talking in that hushed sort of way that he recognized whenever he got really bad flus, too, which only made him feel worse. Did they think he was sick?

He wanted to complain about being there for nothing, but when he tried to tell them he was fine, they insisted they had to know for sure. So he couldn't do anything but sit and wait until they got the results back.

The doctor ran a few tests and asked Minato questions that he tried to explain about, but Minato didn't understand. His parents asked questions back, though, so Minato left it to them and instead focused on the warm presence of his Other to keep him calm. All it did was sleep, but Minato found it comforting to sort of latch onto it mentally. Like the teddy bear he used to have before he outgrew it.

Eventually, the doctor found nothing wrong with Minato, as the boy had been expecting. Minato himself couldn't help the small, smug grin that painted itself on his face even as his parents asked even more questions to test the doctor's certainty.

The medical professional held firm. Minato was a quiet boy, merely introverted and maybe a little shy, he concluded. But there was nothing wrong with him. Even the excessive napping was doing no harm—the boy napped so much simply because he liked to sleep.

Defeated but relieved, Minato's parents thanked the doctor for his time and returned home with Minato in tow.

I don't remember when it started, but I started noticing more things in the time before I woke up. I guess they were warning signs that I was going to wake up soon, like that feeling you get when you're trying to cling to a dream but are on the verge of consciousness. Minato's voice, for instance, began reaching me even in the midst of my slumber at some point even before I woke.

Minato was a good kid. Kind of strange, but a good one nonetheless. As quiet as he could be on the outside, he had some very loud thoughts sometimes. But he toned them down, I think, for me.

He took care of his friends like that—something that would follow him later in life no matter how outwardly antisocial he became. He was very thoughtful of them, of me, even if I was much less of a good friend in return since I ignored him by sleeping most of the time.

Still.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was his voice that I honestly started to pay more attention to as my consciousness gradually shifted from slumber into wakefulness. As I learned later, he really liked talking to me, like I was some sort of mental diary for him—or maybe a sounding board. Either way, it was this habit of his that kept me sane when I finally did wake up.

His voice became familiar to me long before I was conscious enough to notice it, and I latched onto that familiarity like a piece of driftwood in a sea of confusion.

His Other dreamed sometimes.

The first time Minato felt it, he was in his elementary school's library, looking at a book on Greek mythology. He was flipping through the contents, looking at the colorful illustrations of gods and monsters, when his Other shifted in the back of his mind.

Looking around to make sure no one was around to see him, Minato focused inward, automatically heading straight to his Other's location after a year of practice. His Other shifted again when he "approached", which surprised him. It didn't usually move more than once every few days unless he talked and prodded incessantly at it to goad a reaction.

Curious (and maybe a little worried), Minato mentally reached out for it. When he made contact, he was stunned when, instead of the familiar brush of warmth, he was met with a long beach and an endless sea beneath a bright blue sky. The only thing that stood out, quite literally, was a lone tree that sat on a cliff at some point in the distance.

Everything was silent.

As his surprise died down, Minato looked around. There wasn't much in this dream—if it was a dream, anyway—so he was a little lost as to what to do. There didn't seem to be anyone around but him, either, which made him rather curious about where his Other was. Perhaps the tree would have clues? It was the only other thing around.

But, as Minato moved to take a step forward, a shrill bell sounding tore him out of the dream and back to reality. Twisting around to see a nearby clock, Minato realized that break was over. He put the mythology book back on the shelf and left, promising to look back into his Other's dream another time.

Somewhere along the line, I think my subconscious started to see Minato as a part of myself and vice versa. We had been linked for reasons beyond my understanding at his birth, maybe even before it, so our minds (or would it be souls?) gradually acclimated to one another as he grew.

In a way, this was a very good thing because in the early years, while I was asleep, Minato was a curious child and apparently went snooping around where he probably shouldn't have. I won't pretend to be an expert on anything, but in the universe of Persona, the concepts of the mind and soul are very important. And fragile. Had it not been for our unexpected link, he could have potentially been cut off from his own mind or worse by venturing into mine.

When I think about it now, it might be the fact that his potential as a Persona-user was so strong that allowed my soul to attach to his with relative ease.

Because, I mean, obviously fanfiction and real life are different, but in fanfiction when people are reborn into an already existing character, they usually sort of… kick the original character's soul out. I can only speculate that I had been meant to do the same, to be born in his place. But because Minato's soul is a veritable sea to accommodate multiple Personas, instead of him being shunted aside I was instead absorbed and kept alongside his.

…Granted, this was all just hypothesis. I have no actual idea on how reincarnation worked or why mine seemed to go so horribly wrong. All of this was just what I told myself to try to make sense of things.

Sometimes, Minato would wake up in the middle of the night and the sky would be green.

He thought it was weird and kind of cool, but even though he wanted to get up and explore or maybe ask his mom or dad, he didn't. Instead, he stared at the sky outside his window and had hushed conversations with his Other, telling it about the weird things he saw until he fell back asleep.

Several times, Minato would wake up to see this strange sky. But he always stayed put, simply watching quietly, until either he slept or blinked and it went away. It never lasted, but sometimes it went on for so long that he wondered why no one ever told him about it before.

He asked his mom once, but she had only smiled at him and dismissed it as a dream.

"You're reading too many of those fairytales, Minato," she had chided teasingly, petting his hair. "But my, what an imagination you have!"

Realizing that she didn't know about it either, Minato decided not to say anything more. He could try to show his parents instead, somehow. They would surely scold him for staying up so late, but at least then they would know what he was talking about.

Unfortunately, he never got a chance to show them the strange time. Even when he managed to stay awake long enough, whenever he went to find his parents, he found an empty house instead. Occasionally he would find large boxes in weird places of the house—normally in his parents' room, but sometimes in the kitchen or one of the hallways. Once, he found one right outside his room, preventing him from leaving.

Eventually, Minato had to give up trying to show his parents the weird time of night and, when he sullenly told his Other about it, had a feeling that it agreed.

So Minato kept his secret about the odd green sky and big yellow moon, growing used to it as the year went on. By the time several months passed, he barely registered the time and lost interest in it.

It was for this reason that he barely batted an eye when he and his parents were caught out late at night. They were driving, on their way back home from some party of a friend's that they had attended. Minato found himself sleepily looking at the car's clock, watching the minutes tick by.

11:54

In the back of his mind, his Other stirred.

Blinking, Minato focused inward on it and was surprised when it kept moving. Was it another dream?

He reached out, but was not drawn in to his Other's quiet world. Instead, he could feel the presence of his Other tense at his touch—something it had never done before. And then, the feeling of his Other grew, and Minato could feel it move around slowly, steadily, in its little corner.

With a start, he realized that his Other was waking up.

11:56

"Good morning," Minato whispered after a long, stunned pause.

His Other stilled.

Minato caught flashes of emotions that were not his own. Surprise, worry, confusion—his Other was disoriented, like it was groggy, but Minato couldn't help but grin as it finally, finally, was able to interact with him.

"My name is Minato Arisato," he introduced himself because his mom was always telling him to be polite. "It's nice to finally meet you."

In the passenger seat up front, his mom turned. "Minato? What're you whispering about back there? You should be asleep."

11:59

"Nothing, Mom," Minato replied, distracted. His Other was moving around again, still confused. He tried thinking at it to keep it calm. It seemed to be working.

He glanced outside the car window. They were over the bridge now. Just a few minutes more and they would be home, where he could talk to his Other better.

12—

The world turned green.

Minato looked forward when the car stopped, engine dying. His eyes widened when he didn't see his parents, the two oddly-shaped boxes from before taking their places. He looked back outside and found that everything else had stopped moving, too.

"What…?" he muttered. Then he paused, an anxious feeling erupting from his Other. "Other? Are you okay?"

"Minato," said his Other.

Minato jumped at the sudden voice in his head. It sounded similar to his mom, almost, but maybe a little higher. His Other was a girl?

"Minato," his Other repeated. "Minato… Arisato… you are…"

"Yeah, that's me!" Minato affirmed, forgetting the situation in his excitement. His Other may be a girl, but she was talking! She was actually talking back! "I'm Minato Arisato. What's your name?"

His Other ignored his question. Fear burst from her, making him frown. "Oh my god… Minato. Minato, get out of the car. Get out of the car now."

"Why?" he asked, confused. He peered outside at the green-tinted world. "We're on the street. That's dangerous."

The car was stopped and so were the others, but what if they started moving again? His parents told him not to open the door while they were driving or even just on the street because someone passing by could drive too close and hit them.

"Please, Minato! You have to get out—" His Other was cut off by a loud sound. Minato looked around for the source. It sounded like a roar. "Oh my god."

Movement in the corner of his eyes made him look forward again, between the two boxes that sat where his parents had been. Up ahead, on the bridge, a dark shape was flying towards them. Behind it, something lighter followed.

The lighter thing jumped up into the air and shot at the dark thing—Minato could barely see what they were, but he could hear the sounds they made. There was a lot of gunfire.

The dark thing roared and turned, swinging something and knocking the light thing back. Then it continued flying towards the car. As it got closer, Minato shrunk back in his seat.

The lighter thing pursued and Minato noticed that it looked like a girl with short blonde hair. She shot at the ghost—or it looked like a ghost, at least. The ghost roared again and they clashed, struggling against one another. The girl knocked the ghost back with a kick and the ghost went flying—in their direction.

"Minato!"