Disclaimer: I do not own Persona, Atlus does. All I own is the story.
The Return
Chapter 10 The Kidnapping of Naoto Shirogane Part 2
POV Akihiko
The room was still in silent shock as all everyone digested the magnitude of the information. The information about Naoto's kidnapping and the death of the high school teacher Moorooka, but most importantly the fact that Minato was alive came was mind blowing and simply unthinkable.
Akihiko himself was feeling an incredible mix of emotions that he was sure was reflected in his friend's faces of disbelief. Genuine surprise of the survival of his friend Minato, horror at the at the murders and kidnapping, an anger that Minato had kept this a secret from all of his friends, a paralyzing fear that the Seal might be broken, but most importantly an all consuming joy that their friend was alive, that Minato Arisato had beat the odds and came back to life.
The first to break the silence was Yukari, "I can't believe it, but the facts, the names, the records, they all point out that Minato is alive… He's alive! Oh I'm going to kill him when I find him for not letting us know!"
"The seal guys, you don't think it might be broken?" Akihiko chimed in tentatively in fear of Yukari.
Yukari apparently did not hear his question and continued on her rant much to his dismay..
"First I'll throw him into a Garudyne a couple times, before sticking a few arrows in his ass. Then I'll take him to Mitsuru, so she can execute him!" roared Yukari.
"Uh Yukari?" mused Akihiko hesitantly
"He deserves, that maybe I can borrow Labrys axe. What was he thinking, leaving his daughter, my goddaughter.."
"YUKARI," yelled Chidori of all people.
Yukari stopped mid rant and both her and Akihiko gave the usually quiet Chidori their full undivided attention. She didn't chime in often, but when she spoke people would listen.
"I can't say I knew Minato as well as you all do, but I do know the impact he has had on all our lives. That being said we must calm down and take a step back. There has been another murder and Naoto has been kidnapped.!"
"You're right," said Akihiko, "We need to look back at the case first."
"Exactly, now who do we know has been at the center of the cases in the beginning, Souji Narukami, Yosuke Hanamura, and Chie Satonaka. We must track and follow them," said Chidori with increasing determination.
Both Akihiko and Yukari caught on as Yukari finished, " Indoing so they not only lead us to more leads on the case and the shadow activity, but to possibly Minato as well. You're a genius Chidori!"
Chidori blushed red slightly still unused to compliments, "Oh thank you…"
The police officer in Akihiko soon connected the dots quickly, Minato, Naoto, shadows.
"Guys, that's not all, I think Naoto probably knows too."
"That makes sense," said Yukari. "We must go quickly and find those high school students."
"Alright guys, pack your gear and evokers, we're headed to Junes." commanded Akihiko.
They whole group took twenty minutes to regroup and reconvene at the Junes store. They were all keeping an eye out for the students, Souji Narukami, Yosuke Hanamura, and Chie Satonaka.
Chidori was the first to spot them but they weren't alone. The three students were joined by previous victims, Yukiko Amagi, Kanji Tatsumi, and Rise Kujikawa and an odd blond haired boy.
The three of them quietly tracked the odd group of students to the electronics department before they stopped in the TV section.
The next action completely took Akihiko by surprise. One by one the whole group jumped into the TV as if it were a portal.
"Did they just seriously…"
"Yep"
With that shock in mind all three of them jumped into the TV
POV Souji
Souji was in a state of shock, Naoto was kidnapped, and Moorooka had been killed in the flat she was staying at. Most seriously though, was that they let the killer strike again after trying so hard to track and catch him.
Souji called up the whole Investigation Team and decided to have them meet at Junes within 30 minutes to discuss a plan of an attack. The whole Investigation Team was shocked and eager to meet up with the exception of one individual, Minato. He tried calling Minato with the borrowed cell that Margaret had given him. When that didn't work Souji the favorite haunts where Minato usually hanged out. But try as he might he couldn't seem to find Minato at anywhere.
"Where the devil could he be at?"
He decided to try the one place he was sure Minato was at, the Velvet Room. Souji quickly made his way through downtown Inaba and walked through the door of the Velvet Room, confident that Minato was inside.
To his shock he only saw three familiar individuals, with no sign of Minato. Igor and Marie looked the same with no, Igor with his default expression and Marie with a quiet bored expression. Margaret, though had an anxious slightly worried expression.
"Margaret, do you know where Minato is?"
"I'm afraid Master Minato has already gone into the shadow world."
"What! He of all people know we only go in to the Shadow World in a group. What was he thinking of…" erupted Souji before he was cut off by Margaret.
"Souji, I'm not entirely sure about the details but I know it must be something must of seriously emotionally upset Minato for him to act so irrational and foolish.
"Dammit, I'll give a piece of my mind when we find him the shadow world." Souji stated, irritation clear in his voice.
Souji turned to exit the Velvet Room but not before being stopped b Margaret. When Souji turned to see her, he was shocked to see the clear worr and fear on her face.
"Souji be careful, something has changed in the shadow world, whatever it is this may be your toughest fight yet."
"I will," Souji stated with determination.
Souji met up with the rest of the investigation team and gave them the unfortunate news. The whole group had brought all their weapons just in case on the chance of going into the shadow world.
"Guys we all have a problem, in addition with Naoto's kidnapping, I have reason to believe Minato went in the shadow world alone."
"Crap that idiot, now we have no choice to go in guys and find him and Naoto." Said Yosuke.
"We all need to go in know, the sooner the better," stated Yukiko.
With that said the whole Investigation Team jumped inside the TV. Upon arriving inside the shadow world, the all realized something was wrong, the fog was even thicker than usual. Even with their special glasses the fog was still hard to see through.
The Investigation Team didn't have much time to relax when the portal to the real world glowed and out came three different individuals.
At an instant the whoe Investigation Team drew their weapons and had their tarot cards in hand ready to fight the mysterious newcomers. The newcomers drew what appeared to be guns and their own weapons, boxing gloves, a bow, and a tomahawk.
Souji quickly took in stock of the three different newcomers. The all looked vastly different from each other.
The one with the most eye catching outfit, was girl with the bow, she had long brown hair and had a shockingly all pink motorcycle outfit.
The second individual had red hair and looked like a classic gothic Lolita. She looked pretty menacing with the tomahawk.
The third person looked remarkably like Souji, with silver hair and looked ready for a fight.
Then it hit Souji, guns, those guns were evokers. He remembered Minato telling him of how he and his group summoned their personas. These people must have been Minato's friends.
Before, both groups could make a move, Souji called out,
"Stand down, are you guys Minato's friends?"
POV Change Minato
Minato leaped through the TV and landed with a powerful impact on the floor before looking up to take stock of his surroundings.
What he saw him surprised to say the least.
The past mazes he visited in the shadow world had a set theme, a royal castle, a bath house, and a strip club. The entire setting was a horrible mash of colors and anachorisms. Dungeon like walls and moats contrasted with high tech computers. There were steel retractable bridges and an odd mix of futuristic and wooden doors.
The strangest part of the world was that it seem to shift at times changing to a dungeon setting before morphing into a futuristic bunker. There were other parts where the world stayed as a horrible mix of the two settings which clashed together.
Naoto Minato thought before moving cautiously to locate and rescue her.
Before he could take a few more steps an angry voice emerged from his head.
"Minato Arisato, what were you thinking of, jumping into the shadow world alone, without a sword, and perhaps most importantly into a random tv portal?!"
It was then Minato realized that the voice was Elizabeth, Elizabeth's compendium.
"Of course it's me you dolt, are you trying to get yourself killed?"
Minato snarled and made his way through the dungeon, not trusting himself to speak.
As Minato turned the corner he saw a pair of shadows. Minato grinned sadistically before obliterating with a powerful maragirion fire spell.
At this Elizabeth chimed in, "Minato will you please stop and calm down?!"
Minato ignored her and pressed on. He was an absolute machine burning through and destroying any shadow that got in his way, before he encountered a shadow that he was unfamiliar with and seemed to be immune to his elemental spells.
Minato growled annoyed with the shadow in the way before Elizabeth, quickly said, "It's weakness is to light based spells."
Taking her advice he quickly eliminated the shadow before slowing down to listen to Elizabeth.
"What you did Minato was stupid, I did not just sacrifice my life for you to get killed again. That being said I think I can help scan some of our enemies. Be careful when using it, though because it will exhaust me to the point where I'll shall be dormant again.
"Elizabeth ou were right, it's just that bastard.."
"I understand Minato, let's just focus on getting you out alive.
"Okay…"
Before Minato could turn to move, the floor beneath him opened up and he fell through.
Minato fell through the hole roughly and collapsed in pain. He made to stand up quickly before he felt pain in his ankle. Cursing himself and the sprain he summoned pixie to cast dia to numb and partially heal himself.
This area was quite different, the setting was that of a very dark and winding cave. There didn't seem to be an presence of shadows.
Minato began walking, trying to find some form of direction before he felt an ancient and powerful presence, one he had not felt since Tarturus.
"Minato, I sense death, it's the Reaper."
Minato cursed his awful luck. In his prime he could easily solo and destroy the reaper with little effort, but now such a match up was far more uncertain. Fighting the reaper at the moment seemed like a bad idea because he really only had one spell capable of annihilating the reaper and that was Armageddon. Minato wanted to avoid using that spell though, because the spell would drain him to the point where he couldn't stand and pass out of exhaustion.
Minato quickly did his best to hide from the reaper with the use of a wall.
Minato could hear the breath from the insanely powerful shadow and the clinking deadly sound of its chains rattling the promise of painful death.
The reaper could sense something and slowly made its way toward Minato's direction. Minato ambled and moved about to keep away from the reaper.
Just when he seemed to get away from the reaper he encounter a single shadow that let out scream and moved to knife him. Minato was caught by surprise receiving a cut to the cheek. Minato rapidly dispatched the shadow, but the damage was already done. The reaper heard the skirmish and began to rush at Minato with its revolvers rising ready to kill. Minato began to run as fast as he could away from the shadow.
Minato was exhausted, and he knew he couldn't outrun the reaper forever. In fact the damnable shadow was slowly gaining on him.
Soon Minato felt a rush of ice and lighting primed to killed him and he rolled over to dodge the strikes. Minato turned and let loose an agidyne spell which caught the reaper point blank in the face. The reaper was caught by surprise by the maneuver and Minato used it to create some space before running again.
He turned to yet another corridor which seem to lead to a large atrium that was a dead end, Minato turned around as fast as he could ready to make his stand against the reaper before he saw the reaper appear in the doorway.
To his surprise the reaper did not enter the room and it gave strange keening, an almost fearful sound before flying away as fast it could.
Then Minato felt it, a surge of dark power permeated this room. Minato looked around before he saw the source of the power. Odd dark shapeless tendrils were hanging and building in strength before rushing to attack him.
"Minato be careful," said Elizabeth her voice laced with fear.
Minato responded with a powerful dome of light that was a variation of a hama spell. Over time Minato began to be able to manipulate his powers of persona to new and different methods. Mitsuru was a master, which was one of the reasons why she was one of the strongest fighters in all of S.E.E.S.
The dome of light surrounded Minato and he fought to push it out seeking to overpower the darkness. Despite this the darkness was unrelenting and pushed the protective shield before beginning to overwhelm it. Minato quickly responded by summoning all his strength for a stronger shield
"Minato, we can't take this, we need to run!" shouted Elizabeth.
But Minato could not run, the sheer power of the darkness was keeping him locked in place.
Soon cracks appeared on his light barrier before it began to crack.
Minato could only helplessly look on as more cracks were seen on his shield before it shattered in a bright flash. Minato stumbled nearly falling to ground before summoning all his will to summon Orpheus Telos to fire off an agidyne. A tendril of the darkness extinguished the flame before another stabbed right through Orpheus. A third tendril of darkness knocked the Compedium out of Minato's possession and Minato looked on helplessly as the Compedium sunk through the floor of the atrim
Minato felt immense pain in his chest and loss the necessary focus needed to maintain Orpheus Telos. Soon the tendrils of darkness encompassed Minato and tied his arms and legs before raising him and pinning him to wall of the atrium.
This is not good, not good at all…
POV change Naoto
Naoto Shirogane woke up feeling an ache at the back of her head. The last thing she remembered was pacing through her flat before being taken b surprise and knocked out. She quickly regarded her surroundings around her. She saw what appeared to be lab from Phoenix Featherman R, her favorite tv show as a kid.
"Well, well, well, looks who finally awaken from her beauty sleep.
Naoto turned before jumping in shock.
What she saw was herself with long hair and a lab coast but with demented yellow eyes.
Author's note: Hey guy I'm back with a new chapter. I was pretty excited with this chapter. This one had a lot of action guys, so I hoped you guys liked it. On another note I would like to thank you guys for such a warm reception to this story. It really means a lot to a first time writer. As always I accept all reviews, good, bad, and ugly.