As usual I do not own the Persona franchise or its characters.

I'm sorry guys, due to homework and tests I've been so busy that I haven't any time on writing or thinking about the story. I'll try to rush the next chapter if possible so please look forward to it.

By the way I would like to thanks the reviewers for their reviews. They really helped and supported me. Thank you!

TheImperfectDarkOne: Thanks for the review. The pairings are still not decided yet, though… (Thoughts are still rushing through my brain…)

Scoutmasterkb28: Sorry if my grammar was bad. I'll try to improve as fast as possible.

Update (20/6) : Changed some grammar mistakes.

April 11th

Top of Tartarus

"Yes, I'm finally free!" Minako yelled as she stretched her arms.

"Please be quiet, Minako. You'll attract the shadows." Ryoji warned her.

"Sorry, I couldn't help it." she apologized and smiled to him. "By the way, this scenery…"

She then looked around her surroundings. The moon and the sky were shining with a sickly green colour. Not only is that, in front of them is a large door with a statue of a man resembling Theodore. The arms and legs of the statue were chained to the door.

"If my memory is correct, this is Tartarus. But I thought that Tartarus and the Dark Hour were erased from existence…"

"Actually, it returned to its original place." Ryoji suddenly interrupted her. "When the Dark Hour disappeared in your world, it was teleported to this realm. In this realm, the Dark Hour is eternal, so anything you experienced during the Dark Hour in your world is the same in here."

"I have a question. What do you mean about 'this realm'?"

"There are many realms in the universe. Your world is one of them. Some realms are ruled by a god or goddess. For example, this realm is ruled by Nyx."

"Oh, so that's how it is…"

Minako then continued admiring the scenery. Suddenly, a noise was heard from the stairway.

"What was that?" Minako was surprised by the noise.

"Shadows! It looks like they heard your outburst and are coming towards us!" Ryoji panicked.

A shadow then appeared from the stairway. It then slowly changed from its dark and goo-like appearance to a figure resembling a Minotaur with shackles on its hand. Its face was covered with a mask.

"This is bad! Let's get out of here, fast!" Ryoji was preparing to run away, but Minako just stood there unfazed.

"This is nothing, I can beat it with just an attack with my persona." She then pulled out a gun-like item from her pocket.

"No, wait Minako…"

It was too late. She pressed it onto her head and took a deep breath.

"Persona!"

A bang was heard and a mechanical figure appeared behind her. The mechanical figure had long, brown hair, a golden torso with a speaker attached, and a heart-shaped lyre on its back.

"Orpheus?! I thought I summoned Messiah…" she sighed. "Oh well, it doesn't matter. Attack!"

Orpheus soon heeded her call and struck the shadow with its lyre. However, the shadow was unfazed by the attack and retaliated by throwing a punch. Minako then quickly stepped back, dodging the attack.

"What the! Why didn't that attack make a single scratch on it?" she was puzzled by it.

"Hurry Minako, follow me!" Ryoji then grabbed her arm while she was still dazed and ran past the shadow down the stairs. After that they came across an access point and used it. A bright light then surrounded them, taking them back to the entrance.

April 11th

Entrance of Tartarus

"Phew… I thought I was going to die back there." Minako panted for a while before regaining her composure. "Why did I suddenly become so weak?" she asked.

"Did you forget the consequences I told you?" Ryoji said. "Your power of the Wild Card was used in order to strengthen the seal. That means you're stuck with Orpheus forever. So you have to strengthen it again."

"No way! This sucks…" Minako sighed. "By the way, why do I have a body? I thought Mitsuru was taking care of it."

"Actually, I stole your body from the graveyard…" Ryoji laughed, but it sounded off.

"Oh, the graveyard... Wait a minute, the graveyard! What was my body doing there!"She yelled, shocked by the facts.

"Well, how should I say this?" he scratched his head for a while before explaining.

Ryoji's Flashback

March 14th 2011

XXX Hospital

Tomorrow will be the 1st anniversary when Minako passed out in Gekkoukan High and became the Great Seal. Since that day she fell into a coma and didn't wake up. Mitsuru called every doctor she could find to try and cure her, but they all said the same thing.

"I'm sorry, but there's nothing that I can do."

The members visited her every day and hoped that she recovers but to no avail. While she was asleep, I had been by her side, watching her and protecting her from harm. Every time someone entered the room, I would quickly disappear so that no one would notice me.

A day before the anniversary, every SEES member gathered at her room. Besides Minako, there were also others who had fought with her. They all went to the same school, except for Ken and Koromaru. I quickly hid myself to avoid another confrontation between them. Who knows what will happen if I bumped into them. While hiding, I eavesdropped on their conversation.

"Everyone, I called you here for a reason." Mitsuru said.

"We know." Akihiko turned towards her. "Tomorrow's the day, right?"

"Correct. And since she's been asleep for a year, I think it's time for us to let her rest peacefully."

Everyone had a sad look on their faces. They were reluctant to bury her, especially Akihiko.

"Can't we just wait for another year? I'm sure that something's bound to happen to her." Ken pleaded her.

"We can't. As much as I would like to wait, it's for our own good too." Yukari replied.

"I can't believe that it's been a year…" Junpei muttered. Koromaru whimpered after hearing Mitsuru say those words.

"What about you, Shinjiro-senpai?" Ken turned to him; however the beanie-wearing man ignored him.

"Nobody has any objections? Then let's meet at the cemetery tomorrow, dismissed." Mitsuru then left the room, followed by the others one by one. However, Aigis suddenly stopped at the doorway and went into her battle stance.

"What's wrong, Aigis?" Fuuka asked her.

"I sense a shadow near us." Aigis warned.

"Yipes, this is bad… If she finds out I'm here, I'll become mincemeat in a minute!" I thought, panicking.

"Are you sure? There couldn't be a shadow here, not even now." Fuuka shrugged off.

Aigis then calmed down and continued walking. After all of them were gone, I went out of hiding.

"Phew… At least I'm safe." I sighed. "So they're going to bury her tomorrow…I'll just take her body then. Besides, it's for an emergency."

March 15th 2011

Cemetery

I arrived earlier before the SEES members. I quickly sat on a branch of a tree to hide myself so that they wouldn't see me.

"Ah, today's a good day…" I said while lying down.

After a few hours, they arrived with a coffin carried by priests in front of them. The priests continued walking until they reached the tombstone. After that, they dug a hole and placed the body inside.

"Let us pray for this girl's safe journey to the afterlife." One of the priests said.

They began to pray for awhile before finally burying her. After the burial was over, the members stayed for awhile, but as time passed every one of them left, with Akihiko being last, leaving after 4 hours of staying. When they were finally gone, I quickly approached the grave and started digging her coffin out.

"That was a very long time. I didn't expect Akihiko-senpai to stay for that long…"I yawned while digging up the ground.

After several minutes of digging, while watching carefully to see if nobody returned here, I finally dug out her coffin. I took the body out of the coffin and reburied the empty coffin so that no one else would suspect that her body would be missing from the outside. After finishing the job, I quickly grabbed the body and took off. I then continued preserving her body until the day had come.

(Flashback end.)

"So in their eyes, I'm dead?" Minako said.

"I'm afraid so."

Minako then went silent for a while. She was trying to hold back her tears, since her friends are trying to move on with their lives. But eventually some of the tears trickled down her cheeks.

"Are you all right?" Ryoji approached her, handing her his scarf.

"Yeah, I'm all right…" She then used the scarf to wipe away the tears and mucus from her face before returning it to him."Thank you."

"You're welcome…" Ryoji looked disgusted at the sight of his dirty scarf. But since Minako was in front of her, he wore it back on without hesitation.

"So, what should we do now?" he asked her.

"Well then, since this is the Dark Hour and time is stopped, let's go train!" her expression quickly changed into a happy smile.

"Wow, she changed her expression in a blink of an eye." Ryoji thought to himself.

"Come on, let's go!" she pulled Ryoji's arm and quickly ran for the next floor.

Minako trained for several hours inside Tartarus after that. Even though she lost her power, she still had her moves. And after a few battles she quickly regained some of her old physique and abilities, able to dodge and hit enemies with ease.

"Although it's been a year since she fought, she still fights like a monster; Even her face was showing a sinister smile…"Ryoji shivered when he saw the smile.

After several hours of leveling up, Minako finally showed signs of slowing down. She had gone up 50 floors in a row without stopping. She didn't even let a single shadow escape, killing everything in her sight.

"I'm hungry…" she cried out.

"Well then, let's go back to the real world. But first, do you still have the butterfly Elizabeth gave you?"

"Yeah." She quickly took out the butterfly from her pocket. Ryoji then opened a portal and let the butterfly flew inside.

"Let's chase it quickly." He then held her hand and quickly entered the portal.

Author's Notes: Sorry for the wait! Arghh… Writing a chapter is hard. The homework and tests don't seem to be letting down either. I'm sorry for posting this after a few months since I promised you readers 1 chapter per month. I'll quickly write the chapters as soon as I can. (If holidays come, at least…)

As I said before in the previous chapter, please read and review. Any review is fine. Love it or hate it, please write it down! The review can help me in some way… (Inspiration, dedication etc)

Update (20/6) : Sorry, because of some problems, like exams and stuff, I didn't have the time to write the story. And writing a chapter is ridiculously hard. I am still struggling on the beginning of the chapter. If you want to know the status of the story for now...

Ideas : 100% (Enough for maybe 3 or 4 chapters)

Writing : 0% (Having a hard time writing the beginning)

I'll try to update as soon as I can, so please stay tuned!