Hey what's up everybody? I have a present for all of you: another chapter! *Cheering in the Background*

Anyways, I know that my chapters aren't very long compared to other works of fiction on this site, but 1,000-1,500 words is about as much as I can write at the time being while still remaining somewhat understandable. I'll try to make chapters longer in the future, when more plot happens, but in the meantime, you can expect 1-2 more 1,000 word chapters after this.

Thanks to all of you who are following this story and leaving reviews! Reviews help motivate me to write more, so review when you can!

Disclaimer: I don' own the Persona Franchise. I wish I did. I only own the OC soon to be introduced and this fic.

Chapter 4: Separation

"Final Stop: Yasoinaba. Yasoinaba station."

Everyone got up and stretched. All of the ex SEES members had been invited to stay at the Amagi Inn, since they were having a celebration of some sort. It was Summer Break, and the weather was perfect. As they exited the train, they found all of their old friends waiting for them, along with a couple of new faces. They exchanged friendly hellos and stories, while they all rode into Inaba.

At the inn, the guys were preparing to enter the hot springs, when they all remembered what happened the last time they tried. Teddie donned a general's cap, and began the meeting they decided to hold.

"Greetings, gentlemen. As you all well know, we have had some beary bad experiences involving hot springs. Tonight, we discuss what strategies we can use to avoid further injury at the hands of a simple misunderstanding. Akihiko, please relate your story to us."

Akihiko groaned. "Allright, fine. So, just to clear things up, this entire ordeal is Stupei's fault."

"Whadda ya mean it's entirely my fault? Ryoji was in on it to!

"Yeah, but you were the ringmaster."

"Just get on with the story."

Akihiko cleared his throat.

"Anyways, as it turns out, we had entered the hot springs just before it was the girl's turn. We tried to escape, but failed, thanks to Minato over there."

"I'm telling you, that was obviously a cat impression! Who could mistake it for anything else?"

"Anyways, long story short, we were 'executed' afterwards."

All of the male SEES members, save Ken, shuddered.

Yosuke nodded his head.

"Ours was about as bad. It wasn't our fault though. The girls had accidentally gone in when it was our turn, so when we showed up, they started freaking out."

Yu chimed in. "They started throwing buckets at us. Where they got them from I'll never know. I failed as a general. We tried to hold the line, but we inevitably had to retreat, after we lost Kanji to a bucket to the head."

Kanji rubbed a spot on his head. "It still hurts, man."

Teddie nodded. "Well then, here's what I propose…"

Yukiko looked at the clock.

"Oh my, it's almost girl's hour. You guys ready?"

Naoto groaned.

"Yukiko, you're sure you have the timeslot right this time? I still feel bad about what happened last time…"

Chie nodded.

"Poor Kanji. I didn't realize you were such a good shot with a bucket Naoto."

Minako joined into the conversation.

"Why? What happened?"

"It's a long story. We'll tell you when we get to the hot spring."

When the girls arrived, they were shocked. All of the guys were there, and…

"…does anybody know why they all have blindfolds on?" Chie said.

Shinji waved a hand in the girl's general direction.

"Whadda you all want? It's the guy's hour."

Kanji nodded in agreement.

"Yeah. There's even a schedule there for your convenience."

All of the girls turned to their left, seeing a printout of the hot spring's schedule. It said that "Men's Hour" ran from 6:30-7:30 P.M, and "Women's Hour" was 8:00-9:00 P.M. They looked at the clock on the wall. It was 6:35 P.M.

"Yukiko, how hard is it to keep the schedule straight? Honestly…" Yukari said, shaking her head.

Yosuke yelled over to the group.

"Feel free to join us. We've got our trunks on, and we put these blindfolds on just in case something like last time happened. And don't worry; we've got Teddie on a short leash, so you don't need to worry about him."

The girls were about to disagree, when Nanako went ahead and jumped in, making her way over to Yu. She gave him a great big hug, and started happily talking about her day.

Mitsuru began to panic.

"N-Nanako-chan, what are you doing?! Get away from him!"

Rise calmed Mitsuru down.

"Don't worry about it. He won't do anything. He's her cousin."

The other girls reluctantly joined in, but stayed far away from the guy's side, refraining from saying something they might overhear. Later on, after everyone had washed up and gotten into their robes, they all went their separate ways into their rooms, except Shinji and Minako. She had fallen asleep leaning against Shinji's shoulder while the festivities were occurring. Not wanting to disturb her, he stayed on the couch they had been on. Suddenly, Minato and Aigis came around the corner. Minato smiled, and handed Shinji a blanket, then walked off with Aigis.

Shinji carefully wrapped the blanket around Minako and himself, trying not to disturb her. He couldn't help but smile when he saw her. She had been his reason to keep on living after he had taken a bullet for Ken last year. He remembered waking up to see her, holding his hand gently.

He turned off the lights, and began to nod off to sleep. He awoke suddenly, several hours later, when he heard an abnormal sound. Looking up, he realized the TV had turned on. He looked, but the remote was far from him. He turned to see what had shown up on the TV. He was in for the shock of his lifetime.

It was Tartarus. And standing in front of it, a very distressed looking Aigis. She searched around desperately, as if she were looking for someone, or something.

"Minato? Minato? Minato, where are you?"

She paused for a brief moment.

"Mina-kun… please… come back…"

She fell to her knees, and began crying, when the TV suddenly turned off.

Several seconds later, he heard a stampede of footsteps, and saw Yu and company enter the main room. Kanji spoke up first.

"What the heck? What is going on? Didn't we deal with that Midnight Channel garbage?!"

Yosuke cut in.

"Why did Aigis show up? What does she have to do with any of this? And who's this 'Mina-kun' she was looking for?!"

Shinji nodded grimly.

"Go wake the others. They need to know this happened."

After everyone had been gathered together, Yu began to explain the situation.

"A while back, a string of murders began happening here in Inaba. We discovered someone had been throwing people into an alternate world inside the TV. We decided that, the most likely way they died was that they were attacked by something called a "Shadow" of their true selves.

All of the SEES members looked at each other. Yu continued.

"Eventually, some of our friends began to be thrown in. They managed to face their Shadows, and gained the ability to summon a 'Persona'. An old man I met once told me it was a manifestation of your Psyche, or something along those lines.

The SEES members stayed quiet. Then, Fuuka spoke up.

"Excuse me, but you just say 'Persona'?"

Yu nodded.

"Yeah. Why?"

"No reason. It's just that…' When she was suddenly quieted by Mitsuru.

"What? What about 'em?" Yosuke said casually.

Koromaru whimpered, obviously becoming tired. Ken yawned, and then began to speak.

"Don't worry about it. Besides, I'm sure it's a long story anyways. Regardless… starting tomorrow, we need to try and rescue Aigis. And considering what she said… Minato as well."

They all nodded in agreement. Tomorrow began their first excursion into what they dubbed, the "Tower of Midnight".