A/N: Welcome! Now begins the true story. Also thanks for the reviews. For the confusion over Souji's name, I'll be going back and fixing the chapters making sure that it reads souji instead of Seta. Sorry about that.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything in the Shin Megami Tensei franchise!
Chapter 4: Death sends a text message
Nicaea, a dead face delivery site
25 years ago, Nicaea's tagline
In a parallel universe
How can we go on a quest to regenerate the world if we can't even save the people standing right in front of us?
Lloyd Irving, Arguing morality
Sylvarant
April 4th, 2034 7:00 AM
Amagi Inn, Inaba
The Fool's Morning
Minako quickly kicked her shoes on as she ran out of the house, a piece of toast hanging limply between her teeth.
"I'm going!" She yelled into the lobby area to her mom who was manning the front desk although due to the toast it sounded more like, " I'f gofing."
Walking at a leisurely pace, Minako's thought flew back to her dream of the Velvet Room. Her musing was interrupted by Nagato and Yuki Hanamura, the twin children of Yosuke and Chie who were first years at high school. As usual, they were bickering.
"Nagato, you try to blow up one more toilet I'm going to kill you!"
"You'd have catch me first Yuki!"
"Hmph, as if you could run away from me on those sticks you call legs. A three-legged dog could run faster."
"Whatever! You still won't catch me until you pull that stick out your-"
Minako tapped the arguing siblings on shoulder saying, "Good morning."
"Oh, good morning. I didn't even notice you." Said Yuki amicably. Yuki was the sister of the pair, known for her studiousness and athletic ability although many people found the fact that she was actually smart somewhat surprising because her parents had both been idiots in high school.
Nagato quickly followed suit saying, "Good morning. How are you?"
Nagato on the other hand was known for his lack of both of his sister's qualities. He was an idiot through and through. His hair was sticking up in random spots and some parts of his face looked rather darkened like a mini-explosive had gone off in his face. Although if a bomb had went off in his face no one would have been surprised.
The three continued walking towards school catching up on the latest news and talking about the school year, the whole conversation interspersed with Nagato and Yuki arguing with each other. This continued until they saw a figure rolling around in a trash can on the side of the road.
It was calling out, "Hello, hello, can anyone hear me? I could use some help here. Anyone…anyone."
The three quickly went over and pulled the trash can off of the squirming figure to reveal a young man with white hair that had red tips.
"Um.. hello." He said, looking rather embarrassed, "Sorry you had to see me like that. I'm Takeharu Kirijo, a trans-"
Suddenly a scream emitted from Yuki that could have shattered bullet proof glass and her eyes lit up in a way that made anime characters look plain by comparison. After the three of them checked if their ears were bleeding, Nagato with a rather pained look on his face asked, "Ok…so who is this guy?"
"WHO IS THIS GUY! Seriously! You don't know!" Ranted Yuki.
"Um…I don't think I would be asking you if I knew now." Responded Nagato, his voice inflecting enough sarcasm to cut a boulder in half.
"He's the national boxing champion! He won last year with practically no effort, destroyed the competition and has the world record for fastest knock-out in the entire high school boxing level. How could you not know him!"
"Look sis, if I have to stare at something shirtless and sweaty I prefer it to be something of the opposite gen-"
*Whack* Yuki nailed Nagato in between the legs and he fell quipping, "Critical hit to the nads…"
While Yuki was berating Nagato, Minako turned to Takeharu asking, "So you were saying?"
"Oh yeah. While I found out this morning that I'm attending Yasogami High for the year and I have no idea how to get to the school so I was looking for students from the school who knew how to get there. I accidently tripped into the trash can you pulled me out of so I've was stuck in there waiting for someone to pull me out. So can you give me directions to the school?"
"You can just come with us." Said Minako with a cheery face.
After helping Nagato stand again, the four set off. Yuki, of course, had a question for the famous boxing star, "Why do you and your dad have your mom's last name? I mean, don't people usual do the opposite and take the husband's last name?"
Takeru, with a face that said 'this is a question people have asked hundreds of times' said, "My mom's the head of the Kirijo group. If she took Dad's last name then she would lose her position as the Kirijo's group CEO. Her last name is quote unquote more important than Dad's."
Minako backed him up, "Same for my parents. That's why Dad took mom's last name. The inn had to stay as the Amagi inn."
"Oh…"
By the time the four of them had finished talking, they had reached the school building and the group quickly split up to find their classrooms.
April 4th 2034, 8:00 AM
Yasogami High, Room 2-2
Another Transfer Student?
Minako quickly sat in her seat as her dad and homeroom teacher, Souji Amagi began class.
"Today we have two new transfer students. Please come in."
The door opened and the two transfer students, a boy and girl, walked in and stood in front of the class. Souji introduced the girl first, "The girl is Aigis. Let's see what the file says…"he continued reading from the file verbatim although he sounded more and more confused as he read, "She is an…anti-shadow weapon created 36 years ago as part of a secret military project…What the heck? This file must be a prank or something…Anyways," He turned to the guy, "This is Teddie. Let's see if the file was right this time. He is a shadow from the TV world who created his current body out of sheer force of will after blowing up a demonic brothel. OKAY! Somebody's getting fired today!...Anyways please be kind to them. I'm going to office so homeroom is finished. Please don't leave until after the bell rings thank you."
With that he was out the door. Minako just sighed to herself and started spacing out.
"Minako. I need to talk to you."
"Huh…" She quickly snapped out of her dream-like haze and looked up to see her fellow class representive, Raidou Tatsumi. Raidou was famous at the school for getting Ms. Kashiwagi arrested and the students loved him for it. Although famous, he was a bit of a recluse who would take cases to find "things" for money. Nobody knew how he did it but the school gave him permission to carry both his rapier and pistol on him even though it was a school.
"Minako," Raidou said again, finally getting her attention, "Look we have class representative meetings tomorrow instead of homeroom okay? Also DO you mind if I ask you a few questions?"
"No not really." She responded quickly
"The teachers sent me to go interrogate Nagato Hanamura about the various pranks he pulled yesterday at school but he I know he'll deny anything I ask. Any advice?"
She pointed to the sword at his waist, "You carry that thing for a reason right?"
Raidou just smiled wickedly.
April 4th 2034, 11:40 AM
Yasogami High, Room 1-3
Cutting Lies
Chihiro Arisato sat at her desk eating her lunch quietly. Chihiro was quiet and demure. She ran the school's library, was the disciplinary committee's newest member, and she had to beat the horde of boys who wanted to date her with a yardstick. Chihiro was one of the schools idols. Boys across the grades worshipped her, much to her chagrin. So today she sat alone trying her best not to look conspicuous. She watched as Nagato Hanamura raised a ruckus on the other side of the room and sighed. Idiot.
He was practically yelling, "And that is how I got the podium to collapse without the teacher noticing."
Of course they all laughed and patted him on the back. He stole a glance at Chihiro and whispered to his friends and the whole pack of them moved over to where she was sitting.
"Hey, Chihiro, want to go on a date? C'mon I know you love me." Spoke Nagato in a totally overdone voice.
Chihiro sighed and said, "Look, for the thousandth time, no. Please leave me alone."
"Oh c'mon don't be like that girl."
"The name's Chihiro if you can even get that through your thick skull."
"Ohh…She's a feisty one." He winked to his friends and they all started laughing, so loud that they didn't notice Raidou Tatsumi walk through the door. The expression when he saw the scene before him was beyond upset. He quickly walked over to Nagato's group and tapped him on the shoulder. Nagato turned to find one very mad, armed detective standing before him.
"Nagato, we need to talk."
All of Nagato's friends quickly scattered, scared out of their minds of the armed detective.
"A-about what?" He whimpered.
" The school hired me to find evidence of you pulling pranks and you're going to spill your guts in front of the teachers for me."
"Or what?" Nagato quickly regained his confidence, "You have no proof."
"You're right." Conceded Raidou, "but if you don't fess up I'll charge you with sexual harassment of a fellow student."
Chihiro grinned and spoke up, "If you'd like Raidou, I can testify on your behalf in front of the teachers. I know the whole story or all his pranks."
Nagato laughed, "Right like that'd fly. Look, Mr. false detective beat it. If you remember I have a whole gang of friends who will vouch for me. They won't be able to over look that."
Raidou was practically shaking in fury, "FALSE DETECTIVE! You little brat!" he cooled down a little bit then noticed something, "I don't see your friends behind you."
Deciding the time for words was over, he grabbed the sheath of his sword, tripped Nagato with it, grabbed the back of his uniform, and dragged him out the door, threatening him about human target practice.
Suddenly the PA system came on, "Discplinary committee members please report to room 3-2. Also Minako Amagi please report to room 3-2. Thank you."
April 4th 2034, 11:50 PM
Yasogami High, Room 3-2
Purpose
Minako sat in the disciplinary committee room waiting for instruction. Even though only students who were in trouble were ever sent to this room she wasn't worried too much as the committee head, Tsubaki Iori, was a close friend of hers. Both Mikado and Tsubaki sat in chairs and were waiting for something to happen. Suddenly the door opened and Chihiro walked in sitting next to Tsubaki. Then Mikado finally began speaking, "First of all don't worry we're not here to punish you because you obviously haven't done anything and we don't need you testify against a classmate either."
Minako curious asked, "So what do you need me here for?"
"We're saving your life." Deadpanned Mikado.
"Wait, what?"
"Look." Said Tsubaki starting to explain, "We've been warned that you are going to die in about five minutes but by inviting you here we have prevented that. Here look." Tsubaki took out here cell phone and showed her messages from a sender named Nicaea. It was a series of three images. The first picture showed Minako fetching something from room 3-2 at the request of her father; the second picture showed her opening the door; the last picture showed her dead sprawled on the floor. Minako instantly felt sick to her stomach.
Chihiro spoke up, "Nicaea can predict your death and send warning of it. By what happens we can change the future. Since we changed the past of the first two pictures the future should be different."
Mikado finished up for her, "The true purpose of the disciplinary committee is to save the lives of the people who show up in the texts. However since you have seen this, you now have no choice but to join the committee. I'm sorry but if word got out of this, people would think we were crazy."
Minako, too shell-shocked that she'd almost died just nodded numbly.
Suddenly, a ringing noise sounded from the center of the room and there was a bright flash of light. "What's going on?" Minako yelled at them.
Her only response was Mikado yelling, "Minako close your eyes!"
She complied and the world faded into darkness.
A/N: I'm evil aren't I? Are you confused? Good. Have questions? Save them for after the next chapter but still review. This chapter spotlights some of the main characters so let me know what you think.
Next Chapter: one word: PERSONA!
