I can't take this anymore!
Why does our daughter have to be like that?
The young girl opened her eyes with her lips slightly parted, the contents of her faint memories still echoing in her head as she peered sideways out of the bus window, idly watching the pedestrians on the sidewalk of Asakusa. She put her hand to her forehead and sighed before pulling her headsets over her ears under her dark hoodie rimmed with neon blue linings, brushing aside a few stray locks of jet black hair. She slowly blinked her eyes, her icy blue irises gleaming in the dim light, as her playlist started, drowning out the hum of the bus's engine, impatiently waiting to arrive at her destination and constantly checking the time on her phone's clock.
When she finally arrived at her destination, she quickly rose and promptly alighted with her hands in the pockets of her hoodie, completely oblivious to the trio of high school boys intently watching the silky white and slender thighs beneath her skirt. Perhaps oblivious would not be the right word, rather, she could not be bothered to summon the energy to even acknowledge it. As she stepped off the steps, she felt a vibration on her phone, pulling it out as the bus left the stop, eyeing an invitation from a certain someone, to have dinner with her, to which she promptly shot a reply, stating that she could make it. As she pocketed the phone, she proceeded down the street, taking a few back alleys until she reached where she needed to go, before pulling out her phone once more, tapping on a certain app, revealing a map that showed a circle on the map along with a small blip along its southern rim, indicating her position.
"You have arrived." A mechanical female voice announced into her ear pieces.
Mikoto checked the timer on the app, noting as it reached 10 seconds on its countdown.
"Cutting it close, huh."
Mikoto pocketed her phone once more and stretched, an uncharacteristically girly voice escaping as she felt the relief in her muscles. She started humming to the tune of the song playing on her headphones right as the air around her turned to a red tinge and a fog started to develop. The few people around her in the square noticed the change and began looking around in confusion.
"Eh? Was there supposed to be fog today?"
"Why does everything look red?"
Mikoto simply considered the time, calculating in her head how much time she had to make it to her dinner appointment on time after she had finished up here.
"Guess I'll make this quick, not that it matters."
Mikoto mused right as the first screams rang out. Another reason why she liked listening to music whenever she entered a Fracture. The screams always got on her nerves.
"What was that?!"
"Are those…. screams?"
Mikoto spotted a pale green arm explode from the ground. The people around her flew into a panic as tall and thin figures, enough so that the outlines of their bones were visible, began literally clawing their way out from the ground. The creatures resembled naked goblins with pointed ears, glowing red eyes and razor sharp talons and teeth. Mikoto watched with boredom as a panicked teenaged schoolgirl backed up into the darkness of an alley only for a greyish green hand to grab her shoulder from behind. She froze up and slowly turned her head, her face writhe with terror, just in time to gaze into the glowing eyes of the Shadow, right before it bit into her neck, tearing out her throat before she could even scream, and all that escaped was a nauseating gurgling as the dying girl was pushed to the ground, and more sets of decayed limbs grabbed onto several parts of her body before gruesomely tearing her apart and devouring her, while her friend met a similar fate. Similar scenes played out all around Mikoto until she was effectively the only living being left in the vicinity, but she paid no attention, focusing her senses to search for her goal, promptly finding it in the center of a park. A small smile curled on her lips, before she licked them in anticipation, right before a man's ravaged and decapitated head rolled to her heel.
Mikoto looked down in disgust, rather annoyed by the blood now dotting her shoes, considering that she had just washed them. She was busy trying to shake the blood off when a Shadow slowly crept up behind her, the noise it made drowned out by the music playing directly into the girl's ears. Mikoto finally set her foot back down and sighed, lamenting at how she had to wash her shoes again so soon after the last time, right as the Shadow reached for her.
Flash
*Queue OP music: TRAGEDY : ETERNITY by Myth &Roid
The Corpse seemed to stop short right before it's dead fingers could touch Mikoto's hoody, as the other Corpses turned to the sound of metal, just in time to see the head of Mikoto's would-be assailant slide cleanly off its neck as its body crumpled to the ground, as the wind picked up around Mikoto blowing the front strands of her hair around as her upper face stayed completely shrouded in the shadow of her bangs and hood, her arms now devoid of sleeves and her skirt replaced with a pair of torn pants fitting to her slender frame perfectly, lined with the same blue linings as her hoodie, which were now glowing in neon blue light. A smile played out across her lips and her left arm was outstretched, a massive sword, seeming as though it was segmented into many parts and easily bigger than Mikoto herself replacing where the Corpse's neck had been.
At the sight of fresh meat, every Shadow in the vicinity honed in on her, the formerly slow movements evolving into vicious animalistic rampage as dozens of undead barrelled towards her, intent of ripping her apart.
"Ghouls? What a joke." Mikoto giggled slightly.
Mikoto seemed to ripple out of existence right as the first Ghouls reached her position, reappearing several meters ahead of her. There was a momentary delay before 5 Ghouls that were in between her and her prior position burst into half, the shockwave of the attack knocking a few more off their feet. Wasting no time, Mikoto burst forward, effortlessly cutting through the waves of undead, heading in a single direction and closing in on her target. There seemed to be a sea of Shadows, but Mikoto would not, could not be stopped. She effortlessly cut through them like a bullet through paper.
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What are you doing?!
Can you be a dear and do this for me?
Can you never do anything right?!
I hate you!
You are absolutely useless!
The beast roared into the air as the memories assaulted its shattered mind, as it trashed around the red-tinged scenery, leaving the once beautiful street in absolute ruin.
"SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP! KILL, KILL, KILL YOU!"
The monster was a gargantuan ogre at 18 foot, wrapped in chains with skin reminiscent of an orc's, its face completely deformed with massive fangs erupting from its disproportionate jaw, its hands lined in evil talons. Once, it might have been known by the name Kaizuka Jin, quite the average salary man who lived an average 9 to 5 job. However, years of office abuse, being taken for granted, being used and thrown aside has finally caused the middle-aged man to snap, allowing him to be the perfect candidate to be the source of a Fracture.
"NOT USELESS! KILL! NOT SLAVING ANYMORE! I NO DO ANYTHING FOR ANYONE! OGRE KILL KILL KILL!"
The deranged roars were interrupted when a dismembered corpse landed right next to Ogre. Ogre removed his oversized hands from its face, turning upwards to where the body had come from. In the dim red lighting of the Fracture, he made out the form of a female, about 5'5'' and slender balancing on both her feet on the top of a lamp post, her skirt and hair blowing in the wind. The girl seemed somewhat bored as she examined the nails on her right hand while her left held a massive sword propped up on her shoulder. Without turning to face her opponent, she taunted in a sarcastic and nonchalant voice.
"You done? I'm on a clock here."
The words caused Ogre to snap once more as he roared to the air in rage and exploded towards the girl, intent on decorating the park with her bloody entrails and mounting her head on a lamp post much like the one she stood on. With his height, reaching to her elevated point was easy and he slashed with his talons, already anticipating the feeling of his nails slicing through her flesh like a hot knife through butter… Only to touch nothing but air. Ogre barely had time to register that his attack had not connected before the same hand was separated from him at his wrist as the girl cut downwards in a spinning movement, cutting straight through flesh, muscle and bone before her blade slammed into the ground hard enough to cut a good half meter into the ground, shattering the concrete path. Ogre's roar of pain was interrupted as the girl as the girl immediately followed up by slashing upwards, using her entire body to propel her blade as she made her way up his body in a fraction of a second, cockskrewing around his body as a long gash from his thigh going around to his back before exiting at his opposite shoulder exploded in blood, causing him to lurch forward in pain.
In a frenzy, Ogre lashed out in a rampage, completely decimating the area around him, but none of his attacks met their mark. His attacks were stopped abruptly when the girl began an onslaught of her own, slashes and stabs seeming to rain from every direction with Ogre unable to even track her. Before he knew it, he had lost the entirety of his left arm and he was bleeding from countless gashes across his body before he suddenly felt a loss of footing. In a large and forceful horizontal spin, the girl had cleanly severed both his feet at the ankles, causing him to crumple forward, utterly defeated.
Through his pain, he could hear the soft footsteps of sneakers on concrete as he raised his head as best he could. What he saw was a girl in a dark lavender hoodie with a design of a Grim Reaper in chibi form on the front, her head covered in its hood and lime green headphones over her ears, with long hair that reached her chest the color of night itself. Her skirt barely covered a quarter of her thighs and most of her long legs remained bare with a lack of socks. His former self might have wondered how she did not feel cold at the end of winter in such an attire, but Ogre was now nothing more than a swirling hurricane of rage, hatred and bloodlust. The girl idly held her sword by her hip at an angle such that it just barely did not touch the ground with her right hand in the pocket of her hoodie.
"What a bore. Didn't even need my Persona." The girl smirked arrogantly with her taunt.
"But I guess I could show her to you. Consider this your funeral service. Elizabeth Bathory." Mikoto's icy blue irises suddenly rimmed in scarlet around their azure core and black flames seemed to erupt from her body.
Ogre mustered all the strength he could to roar in rage once more before a flash of metal was the last thing he saw.
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The small shopping street of Nakamise within Asakusa was not quite busy on a weekday. Most of the pedestrians were office workers and students passing through on their way to the train station. A pair of teenaged girls chatted cheerfully, sharing various pictures on their phones and giggling before they noticed a red liquid drip onto one of the screens.
"Eh?"
Both girls looked at the drop in confusion before looking up to look for the source before both their faces erupted in terror and a pair of screams erupted into the air. On the slanted roof of one of the stalls lay the ravaged and dismembered body of a man in office attire, the eyes of his decapitated head blank and dead. As more attention was drawn to it, the screams increased, and no one noticed a teenaged girl in a hoodie with a large bag on her shoulder casually walking away from the scene.
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Well, that was a taste of what's to come. There will be another prologue for Ryouta once he gets sent to me by Shin. Also, do note that Mikoto is something of a special case, in that she awakened to her Persona long before any others in the main cast, as such, has had much longer to learn to use her powers and grow in strength.