Persona: One World

Disclaimer: I do not own the Persona series, nor the characters associated with it. But, I do own this story and the characters introduced in this story.

Persona: One World

Chronicle Seven: The Velvet Room Guests

"Wake up, Shibuya Hiruma."

"What the…?" Shibuya rubbed his eyes, still groggy from being suddenly woken up from sleep. It took some time before he could make out the form of a short, bald man with a long nose. He's sitting on a sofa, and a small table was in front of him.

"My name is Igor. And worry not; you are perfectly asleep in the real world."

"Real world? Than, where is this? A dream?" Shibuya asked. For some reason, maybe it's the luxurious looking room, or the fact that the room seemed to be wobbling steadily from left to right, Shibuya spoke quite decently, almost formal, which is rare for the boy.

"This is a world located between your world and the dream world." Igor explained. He put his gloved hands together, and a key magically appeared in Shibuya's hand. "This is the Velvet Room."

"Velvet Room? Hey, are we on a ship? Where are we heading?" Shibuya asked, looking around frantically.

"We are going somewhere, but also nowhere. However this is a ship, so we can go anywhere." Igor answered smiling his creepy smile.

"Uhh, I don't get it…"

"Well, that key in your hand opens the door to this very room. We, the denizens of this room, and other guests will always be here to provide you any necessary assistance."

"We? Hey, are there others here too?"

Igor waved his hand and Shibuya started to lose consciousness. "Wait…" was all he could say before falling back to sleep.

"So, what say the two of you?" Igor turned to two men that were standing in the shadows, out of Shibuya's view.

"His power is as powerful as mine, and he awakened to it naturally…" said the first man, the one with the silver gray hair. "His power may have the ability to grow even beyond mine."

"I see what you mean, but within the short period of time will he…?" Igor tried to express his worries, but the other man with dark blue hair interrupted him. "I'll hold 'it' off as much as I can. As long as the malice of the world grows at this current rate, there should be enough time for him to awaken to his true powers…"

"I understand." Igor said. "Well, I guess you both should be getting back as well…" He waved his hand, and the two men disappeared. Igor turned around and looked at the empty room."Are you satisfied now… master?"

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"He's stirring!"

"Really?!"

"Shh… not so loud! Do you want the teachers to know we've got a guy here?"

"Why shouldn't they know? He saved us and the whole school!"

"There was no proof. The wreckage from your fight last night disappeared… more like it looked like the place hadn't been touched since last evening."

"What? No way…"

Shibuya slowly opened his eyes, from what he could see he was in a dorm room and the three girls plus Mellissa was sitting around the room apparently waiting for him to wake up. "What happened?" he said, well he more of croaked, actually.

"Well to put it simply, you passed out." Mellissa answered his question and gave him a glass of water.

"Thanks." He drank down the water to wet his parched throat. " Where is this? I thought I was on a ship somewhere?"

"Ship? Well, I don't want to know what you were dreaming about with the ships, but you went out cold after the battle. It took all of us to take you back up here without anyone noticing…" She glanced back at the other girls. "Oh by the way, our new Persona-user friend is Lyla Jean Guelle…"

"Just call me Lyla." The short brown-haired girl that Shibuya remembered saving said shyly.

"This is Maia," Mellissa gestured at the girl that was caught by the Shadow and then the cowering girl. "And Rita."

"This is our dorm room." Maia told him. "Sorry, but none of us wanted to give up their bed so we put you on some bed sheets on the floor."

That explained why my back is freaking sore…

Shibuya remembered something, and turned urgently to Mellissa. "Hey, can't we go back to where we came from? How come we're still here?"

"That is…" Mellissa seemed disappointed about something. "After we took you here, I went back to where I came in here from… But it seemed that the door I came through became a normal door again… Maybe it was because the Nightmare Zone had disappeared by then…"

"Maybe if we come back there tonight, you guys could go back to the doors you each came in through." Lyla spoke up.

"Maybe… but if we're caught here, well actually if YOU'RE caught, during the day, we'll get thrown out of the school, we might not be able to come back here… And what's worse we don't even have our passports here with us…" Mellissa reasoned, disappointed.

"Don't worry. I've got the perfect plan." Lyla winked, causing everyone to wonder what evil scheme is cooking up in the brains of this cute little evil genius.

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"Perfect plan my foot…" Shibuya mumbled as he watered the flowers in the front garden of the Beaux-Evengel Academy. He had changed from his Shirayuki High blazer into a blue janitor overall, and is carrying a rubber hose to water the vast gardens of the Academy.

"I'm lucky though that no other Japanese is passing through here… Otherwise I'd be marked as a disgrace to the Japanese pop-fashion culture generation…" he sighed before tugging at the hose to continue watering the plants. Unknown to him, a black Rolls-Royce had just parked nearby and a pair of scarlet eyes was watching him intently.

Mellissa got the easy way out though, as she got to hide in plain sight. The other girls had got her a spare uniform and she was asked to stay in the library during classes. It was a good thing that Lyla was the librarian on duty that day, so she was able to sneak Mellissa inside and locked her in.

Inside, Mellissa perused some of the books on the shelves. She then looked into the materials on the history of the school. She found the information she was looking for on the school website.

"Hmm… this school was established in 2014… That was like, 5 years ago? And the founder was……huh?!!"

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Lyla couldn't keep her focus during class. She kept catching herself thinking about Shibuya, thinking what he is doing right now, whether he is safe or caught, about how he looked like when he slept last nigh, the way his gentle features shone against the full moon…

"AHHHH!!! WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?!!!!" she shouted out. An instant later she knew she shouldn't have done that. She was standing upright, her hands clutching her hair like a madman. What's worse the entire class is now looking curiously at her. "Infirmary, Madamoiselle Jean Guelle…"

"Oui, Professeur…" she obediently walked out of the class, wondering which was it that is causing her face to feel so hot, being embarrassed in front of the whole class or the thougts of 'him'…

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If fighting the Shadow last night wasn't that frightening, this guy who had called Shibuya off his watering duty was much more intimidating. By his attire Shibuya got the impression he is a teacher in the academy, or maybe even a mafia… He looked like a cross between those two breeds.

"Oi, peon! Come here!" That was how that man called Shibuya earlier. Though his first instinct was to beat the crap out of the man, he followed as the man had ordered him to.

The man led Shibuya through a confusing path around the school, until the teen had lost track on how many flights of stairs he had gone up and down…

"Here," said the irritated teacher when they reached a set of large oak double doors. "You enter here alone, the Headmistress is waiting…"

Shibuya just nodded and knocked on the door before opening it. He entered a large office room where large bookshelves filled the walls of the room. There was a table in the centre of the room and a large chair behind it, which had its back against Shibuya.

"Bonjour," said a woman's voice from the figure sitting on the chair. She slowly turned her chair around to face Shibuya. She looked at him with her intimidating scarlet eyes, which was complemented by her fiery red hair. "Or should I say… konichiwa?"

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Alright, so a mystery character was added at the end of this short chapter. I wonder who that person is…

I am still taking in character designs from all of you, but this time I want some villains… Maybe some evil Persona-users of that sort… help me out okay guys!

For all that had been reading and reviewing this story, merci! I hope you've enjoyed the story so far!

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