Summary of damage: one dislocated shoulder (left), one broken ulna (left), one dislodged patella (right), one twisted knee (right), two cracked vertebra (both thoracic), and seven cracked ribs (various), not to mention all the various bits of bruising. Everyone's various healing efforts had taken the edge off everything, which is why I ended up going to school the next morning instead of spending another day in hospital, but it would still be a few days before my bones were back up to scratch.

"Look, he's back…"

"He can't have been ill this time… it must have been something…"

"This whole 'mental issues' thing just has to be some sort of cover up! I won't stop until I reach the truth!"

Moronic rumours aside, the morning was uneventful. Junpei came up to me during the lunch hour. "'Sup, dude? Feeling better after last night?"

I groaned. "Everything still hurts. I mean, I'm not dying, but couldn't I just have one day off?"

Junpei gave a light laugh. "For the record, I thought it was cool. Reckless and dangerous, but still freakin' badass! And I feel your pain. The first couple of nights for me were hell as well."

That helped warm my mood, and it also reminded me of something. "I meant to ask you: how long have you been doing this? You seemed to have some previous experience of Tartarus."

He shrugged his shoulders. "I joined, what, two years ago? Mitsuru, Akihiko and a third guy were already there. We tried to explore Tartarus, but we didn't get very far, mostly because me and the other guy kept butting heads. I can't really give any more details. Mitsuru had most of what happened classified under pain of execution." He gave a visible shudder.

I decided to quickly change the subject. "How's living with Akihiko and Mitsuru been for two years?"

He snapped of his minor fit and shrugged again. "Honestly, kinda dull. They spent most of their time on school and admin, and mostly ignored me. Everyone seemed to envy me, though, living with the guy that everyone wants to be, and the girl everyone wants to be with. And now Yuka-tan's in as well." He gave an exasperated sigh.

I was puzzled. "Sorry, but how is that a problem? You just said you're hanging around with some of the most popular people in school. Even if they ignore you, can't you pretend they don't, and scam things from other people anyway?"

His eyes flashed back up, and he gave a small laugh. "Not a bad idea. You can do it. I guess that I just thought none of that ever really mattered to me."

"So what does matter to you?"

Junpei fell silent. "I don't know. That was part of why I joined, two years ago. To find something that mattered. I still haven't found it."

Another silence filled the air.

"You'll find it eventually. I know you will."

He smiled. "Glad to have you on my side, Minato. Remind me to thank you for that."

"No problem, dude." We shared a manly brofist.

Crack.

Thou shalt have my blessing when creating a Persona of the Magician Arcana…

"Anyway, you're probably busy with your own stuff…" Junpei began.

"Not really," I interrupted. "There's not much homework, and I'm not in any clubs yet, so I don't really have anything to do."

Junpei blinked at me in mild surprise. "Huh. Wait, that was also why I wanted to talk to you. The tryouts for the sports teams are tomorrow. You thinking of joining any?"

"Yes… actually, right now, that would be a really bad idea. Cracked ribs and all that."

He gave an empathetic sigh. "That's a bummer. You would have done great in kendo or something. Anyway, I'm now the baseball team's pack mule, so I have to carry some stuff over for tomorrow. I'll see you around." He left with a wave.

That did raise an issue, though. This year, how would I end up spending my free time?

I'm still here, you know.

I know, Lyra, but I never spent that much time talking to you. In fact, what did I usually do?

Eat, sleep, and play trading card games. Oh, and arson.

I felt like I should probably get some new hobbies.


With everyone else staying back to sort out things for the sports teams tomorrow, I decided to go back to the dorm early and do some admin of my own.

First: sort out new phone. Music had always made burning things more satisfying, and I wanted to have that bonus in Tartarus as well.

Second: look up Arcana. Wikipedia and a quick search managed to turn up all the things I needed. Twenty-two Arcana, from Fool to Fool, with a basic understanding of what each of them meant.

Next: check Elizabeth's requests. Most of them seemed simple enough: kill some beetle thing, explore Tartarus to find some stuff, take her out to the real world, those types of things. Most seemed simple enough.

One of them, though, involved fusing a Persona. Urgh.

You're going to have to learn it at some point. Who knows? Maybe not all of them will explode immediately.

Sighing, I picked up the bright yellow book lying on my desk and began slowly reading.

The text was small, but the preface was easy enough to understand. As for the actual content…

'Definition Four: The Primary Quantum of a Persona is its Quantum with the highest density of Electromagnetic Severance Flux per unit 4-Radian, after normalisation. Secondary, Tertiary and subsequent Quanta are defined similarly.'

That was halfway down the first page. I flicked forward to see whether the book became any more understandable.

'Corollary Sixteen: observe that by applying Proposition Eight to the Median Glore of the Personas used in the Complex Fusion, the Glaucic Concentration of the Intermediate Supercelestial Corona can be halved. This is critical in making sure the resulting Persona is actually stable, as follows from the definition of Glaucic Concentration.'

Urgh. How was this meant to be for dummies?

After three hours of slow reading, rereading and notemaking, I finally finished page two. I quickly turned to the back to see that the book had three thousand and twenty-seven pages. Okay, that many pages, at one-and-a-half hours a page, meant…

Four thousand, five hundred and forty-and-a-half hours. In other words, just over half a year in continuous reading. Who knows? If you don't have any friends and force yourself to hardly sleep, you might just finish it by this time next year. Assuming your pace per page doesn't slow. Which it almost certainly will.

I let out a groan. There would be no way I'd finish this any time soon. The pictures didn't help either: they all depicted the Personas being fused as Tarot Cards. That would be fine if I knew how to actually turn them into those Cards in the first place.

I had a sudden, vicious urge to destroy something.

Knock yourself out. It's always fun to watch you burn stuff.

What looked like an interesting place to burn? I skimmed over my map. Huh. There was a shrine nearby. I'd never destroyed a historical monument before.

Wait. If I was going to torch this shrine, I was going to do it properly, not with some crappy aerosol-based flamethrower. Where was the nearest petrol station? And where could I get some Jerry Cans?

Everything went fine to begin with. I couldn't find any garages nearby, but I obtained some metal watering cans from a nearby garden centre. The surveillance by the petrol station proved to be too much, so I syphoned some fuel from nearby cars with some garden hose (also from the garden centre). Flammable liquid in each hand, lighter in my pocket, smile on my face, I was skipping merrily towards the shrine, eager to rack up some more damage to the country.

And then, of course, a police officer had to come my way. Ordinarily, this wouldn't have been a problem, except for three reasons: one, the garden centre had reported the theft of two watering cans and a length of garden hose; two, the smell of petrol from the cans was suspicious to say the least; and three (as I found out later), the police had registered me as a potentially dangerous, so every officer recognised my face and knew what I'd previously done.

Hence, I was waiting in the police station, waiting for someone else to pick me up.

The time passed in silence. The police milled about, all minding their own business, pointedly ignoring my presence.

You know, it's sort of your fault that you're stuck here.

Shut up, Lyra. I don't want to talk.

Eventually, a familiar redheaded girl appeared before me. She was not pleased.

I gave a light smile. "Hey, Mitsuru… sempai…?"

If anything, her expression became even colder. I swear the air around her was freezing and falling to the ground in lumps.

I swallowed. Years of interviews with authorities had made me passable at reading faces. Usually, they wanted to intimidate, or to persuade, or to coerce.

Right now, Mitsuru's expression didn't want any of that. It called for death.

I tried to warm the situation, but anything I did seemed to make her crave my blood more. I finally settled for blank staring, waiting for her to speak.

The silence was deafening.

Expression unchanging, she began to speak. "Do you understand what you've done, Arisato?"

"Not burnt down anything?" Hopefully humour would defuse the situation... no, the air felt even colder now.

Her glare seemed to pierce deeper into my soul. "This is no laughing matter, Arisato. The police explained how they found you, and your intent was obvious enough. Last night was reckless, and I will continue to think about that, but this is on a whole new level. I will not tolerate such lunacy from members of SEES. There can be only one punishment for what you have done."

A cold sense of doom pervaded though my entire body, and it took every effort to not spontaneously run away, or collapse to the ground begging. Nothing would reason with her.

Her eyes narrowed, and one word came from her mouth. "Execution."


As a result of that night, I had persistent nightmares, I gained a deathly fear of the cold, I would never look at oysters the same way again, and I felt my soul break apart.

I may have been a moderate wreck at school tomorrow.

"I heard he got arrested by the police."

"Look at how beaten up he is. The police wouldn't have done that. At least, non-corrupt police officers wouldn't…"

"You see? Minato must have earned the displeasure of the criminal underground! We can't be seen near him, or they'll kill us too!"

That bothered me less than usual, mostly because I was trying hard to never blink. If I closed my eyes, the visions returned.

Try not to get too worked up about it, Minato. Just move on.

The final bell rang. I sat there.

Minato?

"Arisato." The lurking fear that had lingered since last evening suddenly swept into every nook of my body, and I had to strain to not jump out of the nearest window.

I slowly turned to face her. "Yes, Mitsuru-sempai?" Do not forget the honorific. Do not piss her off more than necessary.

"Come with me. Now." She turned and left. I followed her as quickly as possible. Retribution could and would be dire.

When she heard my footsteps, she began speaking. "I've been speaking with the chairman. After some discussion, we decided it was necessary to temper your various impulses. As such, we have enlisted a psychologist for you." She made no effort to look at me.

I briefly considered telling her how none of the previous psychologists I'd had had worked, and how this would be an exercise in futility. Then I remembered she could execute me again, and I gulped and followed her in silence.

Eventually, we came to the nurse's office. "Arisato, meet Doctor Edogawa. Doctor Edogawa studied psychology at Tokyo University, and completed his doctorate at Harvard in the US. He has over twenty years of experience in the field, and is the most experience psychologist in the city. He's waiting for you." She walked away, still not looking at me.

Not entirely sure on the appropriate course of action, I swallowed and entered the room. The room was a nurse's office: simple, clean, well-lit, with numerous boxes of medicine and first-aid kits lying about. What was more interesting was the man sitting there. Tall, gangly, roughly shaven, he wore a white labcoat over a yellow T-shirt, with a pair of thick-rimmed glasses. His skin had an incredibly dull quality, almost like rough leather. In his hands was a magazine entitled 'Occult Monthly'. All in all, he reminded me of someone who'd escaped an asylum. Was this really the man giving me mental advice? Evidently he was, as the nameplate on his desk read 'J. Edogawa'.

He looked up at me. "Kekeke…" This man didn't seem stable. "Welcome to the nurse's office. How can I help you? I assure you, one of these cures will work on your illness…"

"Erm… I was told you're a psychologist?"

"Kekeke…" That was seriously creepy. "So you are Minato Arisato. Many of my brethren speak your name only in hushed whispers. They say you are impossible to reason with, and can destroy people's minds with a single word. Would you like a seat?" He gestured towards a chair. I politely declined.

"Kekeke… We are here about your behaviour. Perhaps you would like to talk?"

"No, not really."

"Kekeke… Very well. You may leave." He turned back to his magazine.

I stood there blinking as I tried to process what just happened. "Was that it?"

"Hm? You're still here? Kekeke… I've seen all my colleagues' reports on you, Arisato. No matter what the chairman or Miss Kirijo may want, I can tell standard procedure with you will be a lost cause. If you ever decide you want to talk, my door is always open." He turned back to his magazine again.

Huh. That was unexpected. For a moment, I stood there. The torrent of fear had disappeared, only to be replaced again by the nagging dread from before. I still had no intention to blink.

Come on, Minato. Positive outlook and all that? Remember what you used to do when you felt down?

I walked back to the classroom and sat down until everyone had to leave.


I spent the next day sitting down and blankly staring into the air. That was also how I spent the following day. I would have spent the day after that the same way, but it was a Sunday, so I spent the day staring at the ceiling in my room instead.

Minato… Several times I felt a voice like that try talk to me, but each time I ignored it.

On the next day, as I was staring blankly into space again, Yukari came up to me. "Minato-san, are you alright? You've been like this for a couple of days…"

I said nothing.

"Yuka-tan, I told you he's become a zombie. You don't know what Mitsuru's executions are like… I don't like admitting it, but I was kinda like this the first time. Hell, Akihiko was kinda like this the first time. We have to let him be."

I continued staring blankly.

Yukari sighed. "I was afraid of this. Well, I hope this works." She turned to her bag and began looking for something.

I held my silence.

"What're you looking for?"

"I was worried about him, so I got something which I thought would help. He mentioned it in passing. Got it!" She lifted something up and placed it on my desk.

Magic: the Gathering. Conflux. 15-Card Booster Pack. Age 13+.

"Yuka-tan, do you really think this will work?"

"Honestly, I doubt it, but I had to try. Maybe… just maybe…"

Silence continued to fill the room as I read the label again and again.

I stood up and gave Yukari a hug. "Thank you." Screw psychologists. In all my life, through however many bouts of depression and sadness I'd experienced, only two things had ever helped. The first was arson, and it had always been more effective, but the second? Trading cards. No idea why.

Yukari and Junpei probably made some comment, but I didn't notice. I was too busy ripping open the pack and fanning out the cards. Mmmm… new card smell.

Mythic Rare. Progenitus. Oh yes. Think of the awesome… I felt my soul returning.

Finally. Only took about five days. Do you know how uninteresting sitting around here is while you're all weak and gibbery like a raw steak? This is all your fault.

How was this my fault? I was the one who was executed.

And that was because you were going to go burn something down.

Only because you told me to.

I didn't tell you to. You had the idea all by yourself, remember? I just told you to get on with it. You made the choice. Free will and all that.

Free will? Wait, was this all some plan for me to understand consequence or whatever we were talking about, back in my brainspace?

Actually, I did want you to burn the shrine, just to see what would happen. But hey, now you understand that if you try burn something down, you're probably going to get executed again. You get that, right?

I guess. So, given that I really don't want to get executed again, I should probably keep the pyromania to Tartarus.

That makes sense. You're sort of beginning to understand all this. You know, that execution was one of the finest pieces of torture I've ever seen. Such creative use of oysters and paint thinner. Next time I'm inflicting body horrors on you, I might borrow some ideas from that.

…I hate you, Lyra.

I wouldn't have it any other way.

The clack of heels turned me back to reality, and I turned to see Ms. Toriumi approaching. "I didn't know you were a fan, Arisato." I was still holding those trading cards, wasn't I? "You know, if you're interested, the school has an unofficial Magic: the Gathering Club. I'm the teacher in charge. You're free to join."

I couldn't agree fast enough. "Count me in. What day, what time, and what room?"

I think I saw my friends smiling at how my mood had returned.


That evening, I gathered enough courage to grovel to Mitsuru for forgiveness. I'm sorry, keep the fire in Tartarus, the psychologist is really definitely absolutely helping massively, blah, etc., blah. That was the gist of it. She seemed pleased enough at my penance, and wrote off any further punishments.

I still felt the need to try appease her more, so I convinced everyone to briefly go to Tartarus again. My bones had sufficiently healed to go back to fighting (hooray for healing spells), but Akihiko was still sidelined (apparently, the same healing spells weren't as effective on quintuple arm fractures). Nevertheless, the regular Shadows were simple enough: flamethrower everything I could, get Junpei to finish off what was needed, and have Yukari heal. Honestly, I was surprised I was still the leader, but I was getting used to it.

Along the way, the variety of Shadows we fought increased. In particular, there were some giant beetle-things which I remembered Elizabeth wanted me to kill. The problem was she wanted me to bring a carapace to her as proof, and I had no idea how to transport something that was actually larger than I was. I had to leave it behind, sighing at the wasted effort.

Another thing: the floating cards didn't only create money and new Personas (on testing, any new Personas I found still exploded). Sometimes, I felt the weird tingling of being healed, or some other weird tingling that somehow made all of us feel stronger, and once physics seemed to evaporate completely as a whole sword materialised from thin air. That new sword was the one I was using now, having given to old one to Yukari for close combat – not that she could use it well. The one time she tried to use it, she almost cut off her own foot. I'm not sure how.

We'd climbed onto the tenth floor (surprisingly similar to the fifth floor) when Mitsuru chattered in over the intercom. "I detect three Shadows in your path. You'll need to defeat them to move on."

"Dude, there's another teleporter-thing here. Check it out!" Junpei had indeed found another green machine. He pressed the button, disappeared, then reappeared. "Yeah. Definitely a teleporter."

I quickly examined it. The interface was the same as the other two, except the light was differently coloured on various settings. Now it was red on the third-lowest, green on the two lower, and white on the rest.

Huh. This was the third teleporter we'd found, and the light was red on the third-lowest setting. That fit the pattern on the lower two teleporters as well. Could it be…

You don't have to spell it out, Captain Obvious. I bet everyone else already had it figured out by now.

Shut up, Lyra.

"Okay. We'll get these Shadows out of the way for next time, then we'll leave. The Dark Hour should be ending soon, anyway."

"Um, Minato-san…" I turned to face Yukari. "Remember what happened last time? Maybe we should do this when we come here next time, so we're fresh for this."

I scratched my head. "You have a point, but this time we have experience. We should be fine. Same initial plan as last time. Mitsuru-sempai, I need a scan. I torch, don't get too close. Okay?"

Junpei understood. Yukari seemed doubtful, but she readied her bow. I walked down the corridor and approached the Shadows. They appeared to be some floating hands, each with a head and mask connected to the wrist in place of an arm. They reminded me of similar, smaller Shadows we'd seen on our way up.

Smiling, I pulled out another can of aerosol and began burning.

The flame touched the nearest Shadow, and it began twitching.

"They're called Dancing Hands! They're resistant to elemental attacks!"

Well, at least it wasn't immune. Still, if fire and all that wasn't great, then getting up close seemed like a better strategy. "Junpei, Yukari, cover me!" I ran straight forwards.

Hermes appeared to launch a barrage of fire, while Yukari notched an arrow. The Shadows proved surprisingly agile and dodged the arrow, before tanking the fireblast and in unison directing a blast of cold wind straight at me.

I froze. The cold was reminding me of that evening. I shivered and almost froze completely.

For the love of… Minato, just get on with it?

Okay. This was so much… less bad than getting executed. I can do this. I slowly took another step.

"Arisato, remember this was your call to fight now. If this call proved to be wrong, I may have to execute you again."

Oh god no. More out of panic than anything else, I burst into running, aiming directly for the Shadows. I crashed straight into one. Both of us fell to the ground.

It took me a good five seconds to get back to my feet, but when I did so the Shadow was still on the ground. There was a distinct me-shaped cavity in the Shadow's palm, where I'd ran into it. Huh. The other two were just hovering there, seemingly unsure of what to do.

"They're weak to blunt force trauma! Strike now!"

…Hey, my fists were blunt, right?

The end of that fight was somewhat anticlimactic.

"Welcome back," Mitsuru greeted us when we returned to the lobby.

"Um, sempai… what's that machine?" There was what looked to be an old brown radio in front of Mitsuru.

"This? It's a special monitoring machine, from the lab. I had Akihiko bring it in while you were in Tartarus. It simply gives us a visual feed on your actions instead of only audio." She tapped some buttons, and an image appeared. It looked like what I would have seen, had I been standing where Yukari was. "I had the necessary cameras installed in your earpieces."

"Yeah. Already it's been useful," Akihiko smirked. "I now know Minato punches like an ass."

I rolled my eyes. "Really. Like you can do better, cripple."

He laughed. "I'm willing to take you on right now, just to show how much you need to improve. My right arm's my weak one, but you're still going down."

"Oh, you're on."

I growled and charged, and was immediately on the floor. Akihiko had taken me out with a single punch.

Okay, maybe he had a point.

I groggily got back to my feet. "Urgh. How did you learn to punch like that?"

He shrugged. "I'm not the captain of the boxing team for nothing."

Captain? Urgh. No wonder my face felt like it'd imploded.

Akihiko continued. "I admire your attitude, though. Tell you what. When this arm finally fixes, meet me in the school gym. You could do with getting stronger."

I briefly paused. At the very least, strength would be useful in Tartarus. Also, if I ever got in a fight without my flamethrower, good fistfighting skills might just save my life.

I stuck out my hand. "I'm in." He took it.

Crack.

Thou art I… and I am thou…

The card had an imposing figure in a crown and cape, and was numbered IV.

Thou shalt have my blessing when creating a Persona of the Emperor Arcana…


A/N: To briefly respond to reviews:

Blarg7865: Yes. Technically, the Pied Piper doesn't blow up on him, but he will eventually get useful Personas. It will take a while, though.

Nunas The No Name: Sort of (I'm guessing you're referring to Lyra). I don't want to give too much away (I'll say that things are probably more convoluted than you thought), but thanks for the support.

As always, feel free to leave comments or suggestions.