There is only one.
A/N: We will stop from rapidly introducing new fictions for a few chapter. Let resolve our currently building up the plot for now.
This might come as a surprise, but I have to ask. Have I been using 'had' wrong? Considering the contexts.
Minato woke up to the sound of his alarm clock ringing. The sunray shined into his room as usual. He got up before quietly opening the door. He poked his head out to check on Spottedleaf. She was still sleeping on the couch, peacefully from what he observed.
So with that over, he went back to bed, intending to get about an hour more of rest. However, his intention was stopped when the doorbell rang. He sighed.
Let's just hope just hope it wasn't the landlord seeing him taking a cat with him; there's no pet policy here. He opened the door to the main room. Spottedleaf was awakened by the bell as well.
"Stay here," Minato said to her. The cat nodded.
Minato went to the door before looking through the door viewing hole. Outside his door was five teenager and two cats, wait they looked familiar...oh, it's those...what was their name again? Sailor...Sailor M...M...Moon! The Sailor Moon! The group that tried to 'save' him from Nurarihyon, the yokai commander.
If he wasn't there himself, he would not believe the absurdity of all that; and that's coming from a Persona user.
But to deal with the situation at hand, let see what they wanted first. He opened the door.
"Good morning," he greeted first.
"Um...morning," the leader replied and her friends followed suit.
"How can I help you?" he asked, pretending that this conversation would not go in the direction he knew it would.
"Well, um…" the blonde leader was silent. Her friends looked at each other, panicked. They expected one of their own to help. But before any could volunteer, the leader snatched the black cat from one of her colleague's arm and put it in front of his face. "You explain!"
"Nice going, Usagi," her brown-haired companion voice was oozing with sarcasm.
The cat and Minato stared at each other, neither seemed like they were going to speak anything. And neither got the chance to.
"What are you doing here?!" a voice called from behind Minato, the voice of Spottedleaf.
"Oh, um, hi, Spottedleaf," the black cat greeting was very clumsy.
"What! Another talking cat?!" Usagi was shocked. At this point, the other Sailor Scouts started to feel frustrated at the situation.
"Alright look," the black-haired girl, Rei, stepped in. "We know of your situation about stopping this multiversity threat and, honestly, we would like to help," she declared.
The blood seemed to drain from Minato's face a little. While he didn't have any long-term plan on 'Saving the multiverse', he certainly did not plan to tell anyone the truth yet. These magical girls are just...just…
Minato sighed out loud. At his failures to contain the information and at his own distrust. He thought he had overcome such paranoia and cynicism from his early life, but it seemed to still stick with him. There's no shame in asking for help.
"Please come in," he said.
The Sailor Scouts looked at each other, before nodding to one another. Minato led him into his apartment. They crammed themselves onto the couch while Minato dragged a chair and sat in the opposite direction of them.
Spottedleaf sat on the table between them, eyeing their black cat with contempt – bordering hatred.
"So, how do you know of my situation," if this was indeed leaked through Spottedleaf, which the situation seemed to indicate so, then at least his previous adventure would still at least remained a secret; those were too personal to share with strangers.
"We had been, um, spying on you for a few days now ever since your fight with the dragon," the other blonde of the group explained.
"Say, where is she anyway? You took off together," the glassed one asked.
"She's next door," he answered, no hint of emotion on his face.
"Oh," the girl remarked.
"Anyways, back to the question," Rei reminded them. "Yesterday we saw you with that cat," she pointed at Spottedleaf. "So we ask our dear friend Luna here," she gestured at their black cat with a crescent moon on her forehead. "To ask your pet about you."
"I'm no one kittypet," the spotted cat grumbled.
"Kittypet?" some in the group asked.
"Not important now, please continue," Minato told them. If he can't save his own privacy, he could at least save Spottedleaf's.
"Well, through your pe- friend. We know of your situation about trying to find this inter-dimensional threat. Then we reached an agreement to finally come talk to you," Rei concluded.
"And why didn't you come to talk early?" Minato asked the obvious.
"We planned to, but those yokai attacked," the brown-haired one told him.
"After that, we have a little...disagreement," the blue-haired one added nervously.
After that, the silence fell. Minato sighed.
"Look, I appreciate your offer, but I can barely make out the situation as it is. This problem is really…" he was at lost of the word. Saving multiple dimensions was definitely going beyond just 'big.' "It's complicated," the Sailor Scouts nodded. "Then there's this...entity," Minato added. Spottedleaf visibly shivered.
"You mean the one behind this?" Luna asked. Minato nodded.
"There's no telling what it was, what's its intention or the extent of its malice. I don't want anyone to get involved without the need to, like Spottedleaf here who was forced by the entity." The Sailor Scouts' face fell at that, there seemed to be a conflict in them between their morality and rationality of Minato's word. "But," their face lit up. "I am not so foolish as to reject help when it's offer to me."
'Not anymore, at least.'
"I couldn't ask you to fight beside me, you had already involved too much as it is. But if you see anything that could potentially be this threat, please contact me." He accepted their help with a smile.
"Alright! Let's save the universe!" Usagi threw her arm in the air as she cheered.
"Multiverse," Rei corrected.
"Say, we didn't introduce ourselves yet. I am Ami Mizuno," the blue-haired girl with glass introduced, her friends followed.
"Rei Hino," the black haired one who led the conversation from the start introduced.
"Makoto Kino," the brunette in ponytail said. "I was the first one who saw you, you know."
"I see. When I fight that Daimon, right?" She nodded then turned to Ami and whispered 'told you so,' much to the other bluenette annoyance.
"I am Minako Aino," the blonde in red bow said. "This is Artemis," she looked at her white cat companion.
"Greeting," he said.
"And I am Usagi Tsukino, the leader of the Sailor Scouts," the blonde in pigtails hairstyle exclaimed cheerfully. "Oh, and Luna," she gestured at the cat.
"Hey!" The black cat was obviously offended.
"I'm Minato Arisato," he introduced then looked at Spottedleaf, understanding that someone like her would prefer to introduce herself. The cat was silent, however.
She turned her face away from the group, after staring at them all this time. "I shall not give my name to liars." She left without saying anything further. Minato only signed.
"Do you really have to trick her?" Minato inquired with certain upsetness in his voice.
"If I know what she had been through, I wouldn't have done that," Luna replied with great seriousness in her tone, much to the scouts' confusion. Minato lifted an eyebrow at that.
"She tells you about her previous life?" Minato asked, as she certainly didn't do the same to him.
"She was expecting a stranger whom she could let everything out without having to worry about the consequence, but that wasn't the case."
"I see, then," Minato got up before taking Luna from Usagi's arm and put her on the ground. "We both know you're the only one who could make her feel better," Minato said firmly.
Luna hesitated for a moment but took a deep breath and followed Spottedleaf. Minato turned back to the others. They exchanged numbers and other methods of contacting.
"Oh, shot! The school!" Ami shouted up. The other look at the room clock before starting to panic.
"We need to go now or we're going to be late for school!" Minako added in panic as they started to rush to the door.
"Please look after Luna!" Usagi shouted before running out along with the others.
Minato only signed. It looked like he would not be out looking for a job he supposed...well...time for the computer he guessed.
xxxxx
Minato looked out the window. The sun was setting, much to his disappointment; he just reached gym 2 on Pokemon ROM-hack on PC. Well, let's see if those two had resolved their issue yet. He checked up on them occasionally, but the last time he did there's still no progress since.
He opened the window to the balcony where both Spottedleaf and Luna was gazing at the sunset.
"So…" Spottedleaf simply went back into the apartment. Luna signed. "Didn't work?"
"I did some impact, but I think it would take time before she would forgive me completely," Luna replied with a sad smile on her face. "Still, I think I did make my point and she could see it. She's a very rational cat."
Minato nodded. The door rang. His guess was that was Usagi or one of the Sailors. He walked toward the door, Luna followed behind. He opened the door and was indeed greeted by Usagi.
"It's about time," Luna commented.
"How was the apologizing going?" the Sailor leader asked.
"This thing takes time," the black cat replied and jumped up to her friend. "I think it's time to leave her be, for now, she's in the rejection phase." She directed that to Minato. The bluenette nodded.
"See ya," the two bid their farewell and left.
Minato went back into his apartment. He checked on Spottedleaf.
"Are you doing alright?" She simply signed. "Are there any progress?"
"Progress? You mean the one-sided conversation of either trivial nonsense or stupid attempt to understand the Warrior Code? How is that progressing toward anything?"
Now it's Minato turn to sigh.
"Look, would you say that if you're in their position you would not do the same?"
"I understand the importance of seeing from others perspective, but there's a limit of action before it becomes unacceptable even if it's understandable. You yourself should have had that kind of experience, are you not?"
The artificial Persona users came to his mind. Such extreme action to bring an end of humanity was, while understandable due to their background, was not acceptable. With such counter-argument, he could not attempt to convince her that their action was justified, but still…
"Is it possible for you to forgive them?
The question left Spottedleaf hesitated, "we will see." He nodded that's good enough.
Minato decided this was the best time to leave her and went to make dinner for the two of them. While cooking, he wondered on how would it go from here. He had got his first allies in this tremendous task of his. With so many people on his trail, this secret would eventually leak out like today. Maybe he should...trust people more...he would need to think on this.
In any event, it's almost night time and since he wasted the whole day on the computer instead of trying to find a job...an idea hit him. He did try to find an online job, mind you, but he didn't try to find any job with night shift yet.
With that in his head, after the dinner, he went out the door to continue his job hunt. In his determination, he missed a sight of a blue butterfly resting from a nearby flower pot.
xxxxx
A/N: Short chapter yeah, but I can't do long ones all the time.