Inside a blue room sat a man with a very long nose, a half-bald head and wearing a black suit. He was hunched over a table, his elbows being placed on the said table and his fingers crossed. The man grinned his trademark grin, as he saw the newest guest arriving at the Velvet Room. She wore a black school uniform of sorts, had her hair tied up into a ponytail, with hairclips forming the Roman numeral XXII. She was also currently fast asleep, sitting upright in the luxurious chair provided by her from the room.
Speaking of the Velvet Room, the man used the opportunity of where his guest was still asleep to take a look around. It was always intriguing to greet new guests because the room always shaped itself after the guest's o psyche. This time the room had taken the shape of a dressing room for a TV or movie-star. There was a mirror with multiple light bulbs on each side, along with various makeup tools placed in front of it. Next to it was a sink with numerous hair-cutting tools. In the left corner was a small dressing area, complete with mannequins from which hung a multitude of blue dresses. And finally in the right corner was a couch, seemingly for relaxing purposes.
His assistant for this particular guest was Beatrix. Her blonde hair was so long it almost reached her waist. She wore a blue dress with golden butterflies seemingly flying from the bottom to the top. Additionally, Beatrix had long blue fingernails and wore blue lipstick and a golden butterfly mask with her eyes being visible. She held the persona compendium in a similar matter to Elizabeth and Theodore, but she stood in a more relaxed fashion. She was currently watching the sleeping form of their guest, giggling at the fact that there was a bit of drool leaking out of the poor girl's mouth.
The old man decided not to chide Beatrix this time, as his mind was currently focused on the guest in front of him. Over the years he had had a multitude of different guests welcomed inside his domain. He still could remember them all very clearly. However, this one stood out among the others for a particular reason.
His attention was brought back to "reality" when the girl let out a small moan and finally woke up. Her eyes were unfocused, bloodshot and the eyelids never reached their full height. She was looking around the room like a drunk, her body wobbling ever so slightly. The old man allowed his guest some time to fully come to her senses, though technically speaking that never happened on this particular day. Her gaze eventually landed on the old man, though whether she was actually focusing or not was up to anyone's guess since she looked like she would fall asleep any second now. Nevertheless, the old man had a duty to fulfill, and he would start now.
"Welcome, to the Velvet Room," the old man greeted his guest, to which said guest tilted her head in confusion. "It seems we have a guest. And what a special guest we have. My name is Igor. I am delighted to make your acquaintance." Of course, the introduction, in this case, was unnecessary, but Igor said his name out of politeness. "This room exists between dream and reality. Mind and matter." Again an unnecessary explanation, but even the master of the Velvet Room was not above the force of habit.
"Am I… dreaming?" the guest asked. Igor knew that under normal circumstances, his guest would have a very different reaction. However, currently, his guest's mind was only working on a subconscious level, which generally eased the spirit of the guests when they would visit the room on their own effort later on.
"In a manner of speaking," Igor answered the question. "You're fast asleep in the "real world," whereas your mind is temporarily displaced in this very room."
The girl nodded, seemingly understanding. But again, it was only her subconsciousness that understood the situation at hand. Her consciousness was almost non-existent at this point due to a multitude of reasons.
"I have summoned you here to discuss the contract you have signed." Igor waved with his hand, and a piece of paper appeared on the table in front of the girl. Said girl leaned forward and read to the contents of the contract out loud.
"I will take responsibility for all of my actions. Signed: Minako Arisato." The girl looked up, blinking in confusion. "Minako… Arisato…" she repeated slowly. "That's… my name?" she asked, however, Igor was unable to provide her with an answer at this point in time. "It feels… strange…" she added.
"If I may have your attention, I would like to introduce you to my assistant, Beatrix," the old man motioned over to the beautiful, golden-eyed woman standing right next to him.
"A pleasure to meet you, darling. I look forward to working with you," Beatrix said with a bright smile.
"Likewise…" came the slow response from "Minako."
"Now then, in regards to your contract, in exchange for our services we wish of you to abide by the contents of the contract by the letter," Igor explained. Most people would be confused by this, seeing as the contract only held one sentence. And this sentence could be interpreted in a multitude of ways. However, Minako's subconsciousness understood the graveness of those words and nodded.
"I understand," she said in an almost mechanical fashion.
"Splendid," Igor said with glee. "You are of course more than aware of the services we provide. After all, this wouldn't exactly be the first time "you" are using them, correct?" the old man chuckled.
"But is knowledge alone enough to find the answer you're seeking?" Beatrix spoke up. "I wonder."
"Hmm, it seems your mind still tires from your first ordeal," Igor observed. "I shouldn't keep you here any longer. It may be best that next time you come here on your own accord."
In a flash of blue light, the Velvet Key appeared in the middle of the room. It gently floated over to Minako, until it landed in her palm.
"Until we meet again."
03/23 Monday Late Night
Inside one of Port Islands hospitals, a patient stirred inside her bed. No doubt it was the strong smell of disinfectants that finally woke her up because the first thing she did after rubbing the sleep off her eyes was letting out a big sneeze.
"Achoo!" The girl shot upwards, only to slam with the back of her head against the pillow again. She groaned groggily, her gaze wandering around the dark room. Not that she could see much.
"What time is it?" the girl asked aloud and tilted her head to the right, in order to look at her digital alarm clock. The only problem was that there was no digital alarm clock or any clock for that matter. The nightstand also seemed very unfamiliar, as the girl was pretty sure her nightstand was made out of dark wood and not white plastic.
"What the hell?!" the girl exclaimed, this time shooting upwards on purpose. The covers fell from her body, revealing that she was still wearing the self-made school uniform from the other day. She was even still wearing the shoes for some reason. It may be dark, but even she could see that the bedsheets were completely white.
"Where the hell am I?" the girl asked, barely keeping herself from shrieking out loud. Having watched too many movies, multiple scenarios immediately went through her head: kidnapping, drugs, amnesia due to head wound (that one was quickly disproven by the fact her head was not bandaged).
Scared and slightly disoriented, the girl got off the bed and carefully maneuvered her way towards a wall, where she could see a tiny light illuminating something white. She accidentally hit something with her knee, causing the brunette to hiss in pain and rub the offending limb a little. After a short pause, she quickly closed the distance between herself and the mini light. It turned out that the mini light was illuminating a light switch and after pressing it the red-eyed girl knew immediately where she was. Blue floor, white walls, multiple beds all covered in white sheets, the smell of disinfectants, a large window…
"A hospital?!" she exclaimed. "What in the name of the almighty fuckening am I doing in a hospital?" she asked aloud and looked down on herself, checking if she had any injuries. She silently noted that she was still wearing her female protagonist cosplay outfit. After not finding any visible wounds, the cosplayer came to the conclusion that she simply drank too much on the party inside the bar and ended up drunk and hospitalized. While this may seem a little bit of a farfetched theory at first, it indeed wouldn't be the first time this has happened to her. Or even the fifth. She was a lightweight.
"Oh man, mom and dad are going to be furious," the girl lamented. "Oh well, better get a nurse and tell them that I am awake. Strange, no headache hangover."
The cosplayer exited the room and found herself in an empty hallway. There were two ways for her to go. The left path led to a set of double doors with a sign of a stairway hanging next to it. The right path would lead to a corner and presumably to another hallway. Having decided on her way, the patient took a look at her room number in case she needed it and memorized it. Afterward, she walked to the stairs with the reception as her final destination in mind.
The smell of disinfectants wasn't as present in the stairway as it had been in the hall. It actually smelled a little bit like potatoes. The girl raised an eyebrow at this and wondered why it smelled like this when her answer became prevalent on the first floor. The hospital cantina was nearby, although at this point in time it was closed. However, the cosplayer still stuck around, for she noticed something odd. Namely, the signs were all the dishes were listed on were all written in Japanese. And the only reason she didn't mistake the kanjis for Chinese letters was because she could see the yen symbol right next to the price numbers.
The girl rubbed her eyes, trying to see if she wasn't still half-asleep or something, but no: the letters wouldn't change. The thought of being affected by some kind of hallucinogen crossed her mind, but that idea was quickly dismissed by being ridiculous alone. Confused the cosplayer continued on her way to the reception, which was pretty easy to find in the first place. She could see that it was pretty dark outside and aside from a receptionist working on some papers or other, nobody was there.
The receptionist was an Asian woman, wearing square glasses and having her hair tied up into a short tail. As the girl in the uniform stepped closer, she noticed that all of the papers on the desk were written in Japanese. An uncomfortable feeling built up in the girl's stomach, plus she was starting to feel pretty anxious about the entire situation. Internally hoping that the woman could speak English, the cosplayer spoke up.
"Um, excuse me, ma'am?"
The woman behind the counter immediately looked up, seemingly surprised to see someone standing in front of her.
"May I help you?" the woman with the glasses asked.
"Uh… I hope?" the teenager scratched the back of her head, almost accidentally undoing her ponytail. She didn't even notice the doctors had not taken out her hair clips. "You see, I kinda woke up in one of your rooms and excuse my language, but I have no fucking idea where the hell I am," she explained calmly. "This looks like a hospital, so…"
"This is a hospital," the woman confirmed. "And you say you just woke up inside one of our rooms and have no idea how you got here?" the woman repeated, doubt being present in her voice.
"Yes?"
The clerk woman raised an eyebrow, but nevertheless, she started moving her mouse swiftly, practically hammering with her finger on the white plastic of the computer tool. The girl in the meantime fidgeted with her fingers nervously and looked around some more. There were some potted plants, a few benches, a vending machine with Chinese or maybe Korean letters on it. That actually gave the cosplayer a pause, as she was wondering just why there weren't any English words on that thing. The woman was perfectly speaking English, and besides, it would be pretty nuts for her to wake up in another country suddenly. Not to mention impossible.
Shaking that random thought out of her head, the girl let her gaze wander once more until it fell onto a clock. From the position of the pointers, she could see that it was close to midnight. Once again the girl began to worry about how her parents would react once they found out about her ending up inside a hospital. Plus she still didn't know the reason as to why she ended up in the hospital. Was it an accident? Alcohol? Drugs? All of this had happened before after all.
"Ah, here we go," the voice of the clerk woman brought the cosplayer back to reality. "Someone messed with the hotkeys again," the woman grumbled. "Room 205, the second bed. Minako Arisato, correct?"
The cosplayer had to blink. And blink. And blink again. "Excuse me?" she asked, being sure she just misheard the woman.
"Minako Arisato, that's your name correct?" the woman asked, assuming the patient hadn't understood her correctly.
"Minako" blinked a fourth time. "Uh… I think you're mistaken, ma'am. That's… not my name." Inside her mind, the brunette wondered if she hadn't accidentally introduced herself as such when she had been under the influence of alcohol. Of course, at this point, she wasn't sure whether she got to the hospital due to excessive alcohol consummation, but the possibility was there.
"Well, what is your name in that case?" the woman asked, clearly becoming impatient already.
"My name is… I am…" Blank. The cosplayer was drawing a blank. It was like when you studied for an upcoming test the entire month, and all of a sudden you can't even remember the easiest answers, like your mind had been wiped clean.
"My name is…" she tried again but got nothing. Her mind came up with nothing. Well, that was not entirely true. Her brain did provide some names, but none of them were correct. How could they? Those were all names of fictional characters that she had cosplayed as at some point in her life. A few random names from friends also came to mind, but not her own.
"Hey, are you still there?" the woman asked, getting annoyed with the teenager. And for some reason, the girl didn't react to the secretary, not even when she started snipping her fingers. The cosplayer seemingly just stared into empty space.
"Hey!" the woman shouted, causing the patient to flinch and look in the direction of the woman.
"Huh… what?"
If it hadn't been so late, the secretary might have considered the distressed state the patient was in. But given that she and pretty much everyone else inside the hospital was overworked, she immediately moved on to giving the girl a mouthful. At least she would have under normal circumstances. The problem here was that the clock struck twelve.
03/23 Monday Dark Hour
"Wha….? What the…? WHAT THE FUCK?! WHAT THE ACTUAL FLYING FUCK?!"
To say that "Minako" had a panic attack would be the understatement of the century. And who could blame her? After all, out of nowhere the lights inside the hospital went out, the woman in front of her disappeared and in her stead stood a coffin and the water inside the water bottle on the table, presumably belonging to the same woman, turned into blood.
A part of the girl might have already realized at this point what was going on. After all, she figuratively played Persona 3 to death and knew everything there was to know about the Dark Hour. However, this small part of her mind was quickly overshadowed by the more significant part being in full panic mode. She had already been tense after waking up in the hospital, albeit she managed not to show it outright. But now after seeing a supernatural phenomenon going off in real life, the floodgates had been opened.
From an outsiders perspective, it might have actually looked funny how the girl in a cartoonish fashion ran here and there, stared at the coffin, stared out of the window, ran around the lobby which eventually resulted in the girl merely curling up on the ground and putting her thumb into her mouth. Naturally, this wasn't a fun situation. The cosplayer was overwhelmed in more ways than one about the sudden shift in atmosphere. Not only did the scenery around her change into something out of a (cheap) horror movie, but her senses were assaulted in other ways as well. In later times, the girl would describe the effect of the Dark Hour as an oppressing presence. It was like her entire body had been wrapped up in something dark and hard. It was like a weight capable of pressuring her on every square inch of her skin. Then there was another thing giving the cosplayer the creeps.
Inside her mind, it felt like there was someone there. It is somewhat hard to describe for someone who has not experienced this, but for her it felt like someone else was inside her brain, watching. If "Minako" had been more aware, she might have speculated this was what it felt like to have a second personality inside her mind.
But as things stood, the poor teenager was reduced to a vegetable state, cowering and whimpering until finally helped arrived in the form of her future teammate.
Mitsuru Kirijo figured it was fortunate her busy schedule forced her to stay in town until after the Dark Hour began. It was also lucky that she was relatively close to the hospital where the Arisato girl was currently staying or else she wouldn't have been there to find the girl panicking. Originally the Kirijo heiress simply planned on moving past the building, since it was placed on the shortest way back to the dorm. It was a stroke of luck that her gaze wandered inside the building or else she would have been able to see the poor girl sitting on the floor in front of the reception.
Acting quickly, Mitsuru looked for a way inside, but since it had been the Dark Hour the electronic doors didn't work. Cursing quietly, the girl drew her evoker and summoned her persona, which fired multiple ice shards against the glass doors, causing the said glass to break. Arisato didn't react to either the persona summoning or the glass being shattered.
"Arisato!" Mitsuru shouted, as she carefully made her way inside the hospital. Some of her hair got tangled up on some shards still being attached to the frames of the door. The heiress hoped this would be later shrugged off as the works of hooligans.
"Arisato!" the redhead shouted again. After making her way through what remained of the doors, she ran straight up to the other persona user and crouched down.
"Arisato, can you hear me? Is something wrong?" The Kirijo heiress didn't receive an answer. The brunette just kept sucking on her thumb like she was a baby while letting out the occasional whimper. Mitsuru tried another approach and lightly tapped the younger girl on the arm. This proved to be a more successful method of getting her attention than the previous one. The brunette stopped whimpering and looked at the older girl for a total of three seconds. Mitsuru was about to speak up again, but only let out a gasp of surprise. Like a python, Minako had wrapped her arms around Mitsuru and hugged her tightly. The brunette also buried her face into the other girl's chest and started crying. The heiress could feel her blouse getting slowly but surely soaked.
Speaking of the heiress, she remained shocked in crouch position for a few moments, before catching herself. "Arisato? Arisato can you hear me?" Once again Minako didn't answer. Even after repeatedly being called out, the cosplayer simply continued crying into Mitsuru's chest, thus leaving the redhead in an awkward position. She knew the two couldn't possibly stay that way and she also knew that she couldn't leave the brunette alone. To Mitsuru, it was apparent that Minako was suffering from the symptoms of first awakening to the Dark Hour. Akihiko had described something similar happening to the girl the previous night. While Mitsuru would love nothing more than to question the girl about where she got her entire equipment from, she knew that this wasn't the time and place for this.
Coming up with a short-term plan, Mitsuru got back up from the ground. Slightly surprising the older girl, the younger one followed her movements and kept on clinging to the redhead.
"I-I-" The still flustered Mitsuru cleared her throat in order to get the stuttering under control. "I will bring you to my dorm for the time being. Is that acceptable?" Minako didn't answer. She simply kept on clinging to the heiress.
Seeing as there wasn't much she could do, Mitsuru carefully maneuvered the younger girl out of the hospital. No doubt this would lead to issues the following day what with a patient disappearing just like that, but that had to wait until tomorrow. The clothes both girls were wearing by some of the shards remaining attached to the frame of the doors, but luckily none of them got hurt.
The way to the Iwatodai Dorm went without any incident. The entire time the girl kept on clinging to Mitsuru like she was some kind of oversized teddy bear or something. The heiress was glad that everyone else was inside their coffins during the Dark Hour. Naturally, thanks to the position the two were in it took them quite some time to arrive at their destination. By the time they did, the hidden 25th hour was almost over.
"We're here," Mitsuru announced as they stood in front of the door. There was still no real reaction from Minako, which was testing the heiress' patience ever so slightly. Nevertheless, the redhead took a keychain out of her pockets, selected the right key and opened the door. Both girls entered the dorm lobby, and Mitsuru closed the door after they were both in.
Nobody else appeared to be awake. The heiress knew that the chairman was at home at this time of the day and chances were high Takeba and Akihiko were fast asleep in their respective rooms. And the brunette girl was still attached to Mitsuru. The redhead at this point had figured out she probably needed to say something that would soothe the younger one's emotions in order to make her stop clinging to the heiress. The problem here was that Mitsuru had no idea how to do that.
Her interactions with other people of her age had always been kept to a minimum. Thus she had no idea how to help a distressed person. She would have to improvise.
Mitsuru walked to one of the couches, with Minako naturally and both sat down. The redhead bit her lip, trying to figure out what she was supposed to say to the brunette. Luckily for her, it turned out she didn't need to come up with anything. The heiress almost let out a sigh of relief, when she felt the tight grip of the brunette loosening. At the same time, a pair of red eyes that didn't belong to Mitsuru looked directly at Mitsuru's own. It was hard to tell with the lighting, but the heiress thought she saw the eyes of the new girl being bloodshot.
Like a curious child, Minako looked around the room for a few seconds before her gaze once again fell on Mitsuru. Her mouth was ever so slightly open as she stared at the older girl.
"Are you all right?" Mitsuru asked with genuine concern. She might be called an ice queen by many and for a good reason, but that didn't mean she felt not empathy at all. The redhead figured the brunette was still confused and most likely scared.
"…You're pretty," the younger one said out of nowhere, taking Mitsuru ever so slightly off guard.
"…Thank you," the redhead replied after a moment, suppressing a blush. "It looks like you have calmed down considerably. Are you feeling all right?" the older girl asked again.
"So pretty," the other girl repeated and started going through Mitsuru's hair with her hand as if she was a pet of some sorts. "I wish I was this pretty."
Mitsuru moved her head away from the hand, but to her dismay, the hand followed her. From the looks of things, the younger girl was far away from recovering from her Dark Hour symptoms.
