This is a story that has been in my head for a while now. I think it's about time I got it out of my head and onto paper (figuratively speaking).
In an unrelated matter. Happy birthday Fuuka! The 22nd of December is (apparently) Fuuka's birthday and in Australia (where I live) and Japan (where the game is made) It is now the 22nd.
I still don't own Persona or any characters and settings used from the series.
Black God.
Crossroads.
A boy stood at the top of the tower of darkness Tartarus. The sky above writhed violently as the moon descended through it. The boy raised his right arm and pointed at the moon. A thin beam of light extended from his finger strait up to its zenith where it connected him to the moon. A great and terrible wave of energy travelled from the moon down the pillar of light to the boy and from him outwards to swallow the entire world. Everything went black.
The boy floated in a completely different space now. Beneath him was the world he had been in a moment ago. Above him was a sky made up of an infinite number of other worlds. Between him and that sky was a being both dark and beautiful. A being know in the world below as Nyx. The boy began to reach out to Nyx but stopped. He turned to see a glowing reflection of himself behind him.
The glowing figure pointed at him. It grew brighter and brighter until the light engulfed both the boy and Nyx. When the light faded the glowing figure was gone and boy was chained to a great seal that stood between Nyx and the world, blocking each from view of the other.
As time continued in the world below the boy grew old. Not in body but in spirit and in mind he grew old until he was as stone. Below him humans carried on the same as always. The rich got richer while the poor got poorer, the weak suffered to profit the strong. In the boy's eyes if not in the eyes of the humanity the world continued eagerly towards its own destruction.
His friends carried on their lives without him. Sometimes his name was invoked in the name of their cause but never in the name of his. The messiah they praised couldn't possibly be him. Their Messiah could only be the one who stole everything away from him.
In a space apart from time he was imprisoned. Kept alive not by the light of hope but the flame of his own hatred. Sentenced by friend and foe alike to suffer for all eternity.
Minato awoke with a start. He threw off his covers in a panic before realizing that he wasn't really suffocating. His heart raced as the cold sweat from his nightmare lingered.
He'd dreamed of being unable to move, or speak, or breath. He tried to remember the contents of his nightmare to rationalize them away but as the cold sweat broke the details began to fade away and soon his heart had stopped racing enough for him to lie back down in bed.
He lay there for awhile waiting for his panic to subside completely before turning his head to stare at his clock. He noted with a weary disdain that it was only half an hour before he had to get up. He considered lying in bed until his alarm rang but the terror of his nightmare not forgotten he got out of bed and made an early start on the day.
After he finished his morning shift at the record store Minato was recruited by his boss to run errands. It was kind of a pain to help out right after his shift given the early start to the day he had. Minato liked his boss though. When Minato had been lying in an alley with half a decade missing from his memory the boss had rescued him and given him a place to stay and work. Minato was happy to do a favour for the boss.
There was a shop in the arcade off of the central crossing that apparently sold some "awesome band posters" that would look really good in the store. Minato didn't quite understand what the big deal was but now it was up to him to find this place and purchase some posters that would look good in the store.
He was standing at the crossing right now, across from the arcade, waiting to cross. He was surrounded by the large crowd of people waiting to cross and the smell of a nearby ramen joint. The babble of incoherent chatting was wearing away at his patience and the smell of ramen only made him hungry for lunch (a lunch which would probably be less satisfying than fresh ramen). Minato focused on the resonating voice of a newscaster coming from several TV's displayed in a nearby electronics store.
'...the NPA denied that it was investigating the Kirijo group in connection with last year's "Dark lord" hacker attacks. And now a word from our sponsors... At Junes, every day is Customer Appreciation Day. Come see for yourself, and get in touch with our products. Every day's great at your Junes...' The lights changed and The crowd began to move.
Yukari had just started her lunch break from the news office and as usual she was racing across town on the selfish whims of Junpei. He made a habit of asking her to lunch with him. Sometimes he invited others (usually Aigis or Fuuka), sometimes it was just Junpei (to Yukari's horror). It was a real pain rushing across town on her lunch break just to keep Junpei company but it wasn't like she had friends at work to have lunch with and she supposed it would be rude to turn him down.
She was cutting through the arcade past stores selling books and video games and one store that had some wicked looking band posters in the window. She rushed on towards the central crossing. The lights changed as she reached the crossing and she joined the crowd moving forward.
As she navigated among the hundreds of people passing through the crossing something caught her attention. A short man hunched over a backpack. As she got closer she caught a glimpse of the lined face of an old man.
She was going to ask if he needed any help when he took something out of the backpack. It looked like a paper wrapped package about the size of a (what is smaller than a watermelon and larger than a mango?), with wires coming out of it connected to an electronic device. he placed the package on the ground and pressed a button on the control pad. There was a beep and the old man slung the backpack on and walked away from the package.
Alarm bells rang in Yukari's mind but still she approached the package. There was nothing on the control pad indicating its purpose but the soft, steady, beeping of the device revealed the function of the package.
It was a bomb.
Yukari spun around but the old man was nowhere to be seen. She was about to cry out a warning but the last beep sounded with a bang. Yukari felt the explosion. It wasn't nearly as loud or as powerful as it should have been but it was bright. In a heartbeat everything was white and in a second Yukari had lost all sense of direction.
She stumbled blindly through the white haze until she fell and then she crawled. She could hear the panicked cries of people all around her and even collided with several of them but she saw no one. She kept crawling in what she hoped was a straight line until eventually the haze began to clear.
There was a sort of no-man's-land formed between the smoke and the people stopping to get a look at the explosion. Behind that emergency services were already gathering to tend to the victims then question them as suspects. People were exiting the smoke all around her desperately crawling towards the crowd to collapsed crying into their arms. Yukari was to proud to crawl but she could only manage to stand shakily and then stagger awkwardly away from the scene. Behind her someone screamed.
She spun around and lost her balance falling on her butt. Cursing her clumsiness she looked up to see someone emerging from the haze. at first she thought that her eyes were playing tricks on her but as his image became clearer she knew that he was real. It was the man she dreamed about every night in her sleep.
It was Minato.
Minato made his way calmly out of the haze. A lifetime of avoiding social interaction was finally paying off. It was certainly a pain when everything went white but he figured that the panicked mob of people that followed would be worse so he decided to suck it up started walking.
As the haze started to clear his antisocial senses started tingling. The first object to fully resolve was a young lady in pink who seem to have fallen on her butt like a gigantic klutz. Her eyes met his and didn't leave. Under the assault of her intense stare Minato faltered dropping his gaze.
'Minato?' At the sound of his name Minato look back at the lady. He had forgotten a lot of faces but there was no spark of recognition at hers. Still Minato's memory didn't have the best track record.
'Minato'. She said his name again with more conviction this time. She stood up without taking her eyes of him and walked towards him. 'It's really is you isn't it?' She reached out to touch his face but he took a step back into the haze. An expression of desperation and fear appeared on the lady's face.
'No, don't go! Don't leave again!'
Minato was scared of the desperation in this lady's eyes but he was more scared of not knowing why. Fighting the urge to run away Minato took half a step forward.
'How do you know me?... Who are you?' A flurry of emotions passed across the lady's face
'You don't remember?' This was awkward. It wasn't as simple as forgetting. The memories just weren't there.
'I have amnesia. I really don't know you so please just tell me who you are'. There was a long pause while the lady processed this information. Finally she answered.
'I'm Yukari. You need to come with me and meet the others'. Before Minato could object Yukari had grabbed his arm and was dragging him away. He struggled futilely but she either didn't notice or didn't care. Either way her grip was too strong for him to break it. They made their way back towards the crossing skirting around the haze until they reached the ramen joint he had smelled earlier. They stopped for a second outside, the entrance bared by customers standing outside looking at the drama in the street. As they stood outside Minato could see the TVs he had heard earlier.
'...the new Oracle tablet. Form a social link with your world...We're back with breaking news. Chaos has erupted in the heart of the city as an explosive device was detonated at...' Yukari, finally clearing a path, dragged him inside the building.
Inside the atmosphere was surprisingly calm. it seemed that the remaining customers were to absorbed in their noodles to worry about what was going on outside. Yukari was scanning the area looking for something. She must have found it because the next thing he knew he was being dragged towards one of the booths.
The booth in question had three people sitting on one side of it. Closest to the wall was man wearing a sports uniform of some kind completely absorbed in devouring the bowl of noodles in front of him. Next to him was a woman with teal hair wearing a pretty white dress, her fingers dancing across the surface of a tablet device. Closest to the aisle was a woman with unbelievably blond hair and blue eyes, observing the other woman's progress on the tablet.
Yukari guided him forcefully into the seat opposite the others and against the wall. She sat down next to him, either by design or by accident, blocking his exit. The man was the first one to see him. He looked up from his noodles, saw Minato and immediately choked on his noodles. This drew the attention of the other two women. The teal haired one put her tablet down and patted the man on the back. The blond looked at him concerned then her gaze turned to Minato and her mouth opened slightly in surprise. Then as the man recovered the teal haired woman turned her attention to the other side of the table locking eyes with Minato. Something about her eyes seemed to pierce right through him.
'Is that really you Minato?' the man shouted. Minato suddenly noticed the simultaneous attention of four people was on him and flinched. The three people opposite seemed taken aback by this reaction and their attention turned questioningly to Yukari.
'I ran into him outside a moment ago but he says he has amnesia'. All eyes turned back to Minato and under the pressure of their gaze Minato began to speak.
'I'm Minato, though I guess you know that already. Around 2008, 2009 my memory goes hazy and I don't have any clear memories until about a month ago... Do you know what happened to me?'
They all looked at each other, their faces reflecting fear and uncertainty. Getting the truth out of them was going to be hard. Then the teal haired one spoke up.
'You died Minato'.
And that was the first chapter. What did you think of it?
Just a heads up that I'm writing this parallel to another story called Night Mother. You don't have to read it to understand this story but If you liked this or you're just looking for more stuff to read then try reading that one as well.
There are still some things I'm not sure about with this chapter so please review and let me know your thoughts.
I'd like to thank La Vie Musicale for Beta reading this for me.
Congratulations for making it to the end of my authors notes. Now I'm going to arbitrarily pick a track from my playlist and say that Minato was listening to that during this chapter regardless of his ability to do so. In this chapter Minato was listening to "Awaken" by Disturbed. I do not own the rights to Awaken by Disturbed.