Alrighty, I'm feeling good, so how about we answer some reviews!
Dad of War: Why thank you! It means so much hearing that someone thinks I'm getting better and better! We are starting to see more of Minato as a character, and that's why I went first person: I find it easier to write his character from his perspective. And Minato will be paling around with a majority of his canon friends and Links outside of school as well! It's something I wish we got more of besides just the random calls to hang on Sundays. What will Minato and Hidetoshi do after Student Council, for example? We'll find out later on! After all, it would suck if I changed a few Social Links and just left the canon ones to rot, wouldn't it?
After that rousing game of Guilty Gear X and the sweet sound of a Social Link fixing itself me and Junpei walked down to the lobby, myself deciding to cook a quick dinner and Junpei positioning himself right on the couch, striking up a conversation with Yukari. Of course, once I started cooking I put my music on and the conversation about a test was quickly drowned out by some Lotus Juice. Man, Mass Destruction is such a good song.
Anyways, I sat down with my small bowl of homemade ramen at the dining room table. The noodles aren't really much, especially compared to Hagakure, but they taste good, so that's all that matters. Before I could even take one bite, however, Mitsuru walked through the door, and made a quick search before spotting me.
"Arisato, I need to speak with you for a moment." She calmy remarked.
I stood from my seat and walked over to her. "Sure, senpai, what's up?"
"Regarding our explorations through Tarturus, I've decided that it will be up to you when we next go from now on."
"Excuse me?" I asked, surprised at such a decision. I mean being a field leader is one thing, but actually deciding when we go to Tarturus was just a bit unexpected.
"With your showcase not just in battle, but in leading the team during that fight last night, I believe that a schedule decided upon by the field leader would be the best course of action. Akihiko and the Chairman have already approved as well."
"Well, I guess I can't say no to that, now can I?" I sheepishly grinned.
"Excellent. There is also the matter of being allowed to go out at night from now on, and we need to discuss your Club Escapade performance this Wednesday."
Shit, I had completely forgotten that. My eyes told the entire story.
"The band has already been decided, but they would like to practice with you for the rest of the week."
What song am I going to sing? Will they even like the same styles of music as I do? Will they be willing to work with me? Asuka back in Kyoto did say I was hard to work with when it came to my music.
"Um, thanks, Mitsuru-senpai." I said. "About Tarturus, how about we go tomorrow night?, or maybe Saturday?"
"Hey, why not tonight?" Junpei asked. "Hermes is itching to Cleave some Shadows!"
"No, not tonight." I responded curtly.
"I have to agree with Minato on this one." Yukari admitted.
"I've no doubt the three of you have yet to fully recover from last night." Mitsuru spoke. "Overexertion during the Dark Hour can lead to increasing fatigue and even illness."
"And I'm going to try to avoid that as best as I can." I responded with a determined face.
"Damn, dude, you're serious about this, huh?" Junpei asked, impressed.
"Like you said bro, this isn't a joke. I'm going to be at 100% when I end the Shadows' very existence."
"I like the way you think, Minato." Akihiko said as he suddenly walked in, surprising everyone save for Mitsuru.
Mitsuru gave a small chuckle. "I admire your determination, Arisato. I can see we made no mistake with our decision."
"I won't let you guys down. We'll end this wretched Dark Hour!" I exclaimed. Junpei grinned and exclaimed "Hell yeah!" Akihiko simply smiled. Yukari agreed as well "Let's do our best!" and Mitsuru simply nodded.
*CRASH*
Again!? Which one is this?
"I am thou, thou art I.
Thou shalt have our blessing when thou choosest to create a Persona of the Fool Arcana."
I JUST MADE YOU YESTERDAY, WHAT!?
After that scene, with the Social Link level up still confusing me, I sat down to eat my still warm ramen, which was still good. After dinner, Akihiko was flipping through the channels on TV until the news caught everyone's attention with reports that Apathy Syndrome is on the rise.
"Apathy Syndrome... The Shadows cause that, right?" I asked. Mitsuru and Akihiko simply nodded.
Well, that settles things.
After listening to the news report, Akihiko turned off the TV, and we all sort of did our own little thing. I noticed Junpei pull out his PSP, so I decided to grab mine from my room. I had a friend back in Kyoto hack it last year, so now I have all these Super Famicom and Playstation 1 games on it. I love to play this little thing man.
So I came back into the lobby and booted it up, when Junpei noticed and suddenly came over to me.
"Dude, you have a PSP too?" He asked with an excited grin on his face.
"Of course." I grinned back as I booted up Dragon Quest IV, much to Junpei's confusion.
"I didn't know they ported Dragon Quest IV to the PSP?"
"They didn't. My friend Ryu hacked it to play PS1 and Super Famicom games."
"Dude." He responded in amazement. "That's so sweet! But why Dragon Quest? Don't you know Final Fantasy is so much better?"
"But see Junpei, I like the art style of Dragon Quest a lot more."
"Why, cause it looks kinda like Dragon Ball?"
"That's exactly the reason. Toriyama-san drew the art for all the Dragon Quest games."
Junpei's jaw dropped. I thought it was fairly common knowledge, but I guess not. "No way."
"He also did Chrono Trigger."
"WHAT!?" Junpei screamed loudly in my ear.
"Yeah man."
"Holy shit that's awesome!" Junpei seemed lost in thought for a moment. "Oh yeah, I wanted to ask you if you game on the PC?"
"Every now and then but generally I prefer my PS2 and PSP. Why?"
"Cause, there's this sick MMO called Innocent Sin Online. Kenji gave me a copy but I already had one, so I was gonna give it to you. We have a three day weekend, so you should try it out."
"Got plans with Kenji Sunday, so yeah I'll try it Saturday."
"Alright man." He handed me the copy of the game. I took a look at the box art. Nothing too fancy: just the name of the name, two character sprites (a boy and a girl) and some company logos. Apparently it was created or published by Atlas, a company I'd never heard of.
"Speaking of games, do you have any multiplayer games, Minato?"
After thoroughly explaining to Junpei why I would not play him in Guilty Gear XX on our PSPs, I decided to head on down to Paulownia Mall. I wondered briefly if the music shop was still open while I sat on the train, once again istening to some Lotus Juice because wow was Junpei right these guys are AWESOME!
As I walked through the entrance I briefly wondered if I should make a stop at the Velvet Room and see if there's anymore info they can give me. I decided against it, and walked over to the music shop only to find they were closed. Damn, maybe tomorrow after school.
"My, aren't you handsome!"
I'm sorry, what? I turned towards the sound of the voice to find a fairly creepy man in a suit staring right at me. I was feeling really uncomfortable, and stared back, when I noticed something forming over his head. A card.
Devil.
What the hell is this?
"How would you like to become rich, young man?"
Oh great, a scam artist. Let's try to stay calm and humor him. "Boy, would I!"
A sly grin grew on the man's face. "Well, if you give me just 20,000 yen, I can have your money doubled, no, tripled by tomorrow night!" He smiled such a fake smile it hurt to see. "You'll become fabulously wealthy while you sleep!"
On the one hand, he's very obviously lying. On the other hand, I've saved up about 60,000 yen that I brought with me from Kyoto, and I'm honestly interested in where this goes tomorrow night.
"Sure, ok." I handed him 20,000 yen. The glee on his face as he seemingly scammed a new customer was honestly a lovely sight, especially since I plan on getting that 20,000 yen back. "I'll meet you back here tomorrow night for my 60,000 yen." I said as I walked away. I couldn't make out most of his response, but I did hear him call me a sucker. This is gonna be fun.
But I really needed to figure out what the hell just happened with that card appearing over the man's head. Surprised I didn't freak out more, like the guy in the music video to Nickelback's "Savin' Me". I guess in the past few weeks I've dealt with so much insanity I've kind of gotten used to it. I walked into the Velvet Room.
"Ah, Master Minato." Igor greeted, calling me both Master and my name for the first time. "What a pleasent surprise. We weren't expecting you until Monday."
"Yeah, well I just had a conversation with some guy and I saw a card above his head that was the Devil. What the hell just happened!?"
Igor chuckled lightly. "Another one of your abilities has begun to show itself to you. You have the ability to sense not only a person's Arcana, but also their Persona, if they possess one."
Jaw drop. "You're kidding me..."
"I believe the reason why this hasn't shown itself to you before was because you haven't focused hard enough on any single person until tonight. Try it with your friends and Social Links." Igor recommended.
"...Yeah... yeah I'll try that. Thanks Igor. I'll see you guys Monday."
"Farewell, Master Minato." Both igor and Elizabeth said in unison. Fairly creepy.
I walked out of the Velvet Room and rode the train back to the station. I decided to try out the Arcana sense thing, and found it actually worked. I was able to see everyone's Arcana if I focused enough. Nobody had a Persona though.
But as I was walking home, I happened to spot a boy with blue hair walking on the other side of the street. Of course, I tried my Arcana sense and found he was of the Fortune Arcana, but what was freaky was that I could sense something else. It wasn't visable, but there was some sort of... pulse in the back of my head that I only got when I focused on him. I had a feeling, but once I tried it on the rest of the team back at the dorm I quickly figured out I probably just had a headache from focusing too long. If anyone has a Persona, it will show up alongside their Arcana card as I focus. I found out everyone elses Arcana and Persona, because I already knew both of Junpei's. I didn't know Akihiko's Persona, but damn is that thing pretty cool. And it has a sick name: Polydeceus. Yukari is of the Lovers Arcana, and Mitsuru is of the Empress Arcana and her Persona is Penthesilea. I'm going to have to do some more studying of Tarot later on. Maybe I could ask Igor if he has a book about it.
"Alright everyone, great practice! I'll see you all Wednesday!"
I packed up my MMA gear, took a quick shower in the locker room, and told Kaz I'd see him later. He asked if I was free Sunday, but I had told him I had plans with Kenji and had to decline. He understood, but did seem a bit sad. Shame, I'd like to get to know the guy more outside of MMA. He has a lot of potential but it seems like he's focusing way too much on it.
While I thought to myself many solutions for this percieved problem, I noticed Yuko standing by the shoe lockers. Being the upstanding, yet still fairly shy boy I am it took a few seconds to gather myself and ask if she wanted to walk home. There were no romantic implications there, but I guess she thought so because she politely declined. I told her I'd see her later and went back to the dorm. I stopped at the shrine though, because I actually wanted to see what was up here. Fairly nice place, an offering box, some wishing enmas, and an inari sushi box. Never did understand what that in particular was for, but then again I'm not much of the spiritual type anyways. I left a 1000 yen donation out of respect and was on my way down the stairs when I heard soft sobs. A quick scan of the area revealed two things to me: one, that this shrine has a playground, and two, that there's a little girl sitting there all alone crying. Not only did she look sad (obviously), but she also looked hungry, possibly hasn't eaten anything since breakfast. This will not do at all. Luckily she didn't notice me, so I could sneak out and make a quick stop at Iwatodai Station, where there was a takoyaki stand. Not my first thought, I'll admit, but ok. I also bought a Mad Bull. I figured she was thirsty. All in all, it took me about 25 minutes, so I hoped she would still be there when I got back. Thankfully, she was, but sadly, she was still crying. I walked over to her, and she raised her head up and looked at me with red, puffy, yet still curious eyes.
"I saw you earlier, and you looked real sad and hungry. Would you like some takoyaki to help cheer you up?" I asked, my voice as kind and polite as I could get it. I liked kids, and hated seeing one upset.
She stared at me for what felt like an eternity before finally, slowly nodding her head. I handed her the box and the can of Mad Bull. She continued to stare at the box, almost like she had never seen one before, before finally turning to me. "...I'm not allowed to take things from strangers..." she said, almost frightfully. Not scared of me, scared of upsetting me. And that hurt, so I thought quickly. "What's your name?" I asked kindly.
"M-Maiko..." she quietly responded.
"Well Maiko, I'm Minato. Guess what?"
"What?"
"We're not strangers anymore!" I smiled. That got a very small smile out of her. "So dig in!"
"...You're a nice man, Mr. Minato. Will you come back and play with me?"
"Of course, Maiko. And thank you very much for calling me nice. You don't have to call me Mister, though. Just Minato will do."
"Ok Minato! You promise?"
"Pinky-promise." I extended my pinky and she hooked hers with mine. The smile on her face was so precious, I smiled just as wide.
*CRASH*
"I am thou.
Thou art I."
Look, I know you're trying to tell me about some new Social Link (apparently the Hanged Man), but you have a horrible habit of breaking up heartwarming moments.
Author's Note: Took me a little while (in fact, I've already written the first chapter of my new fic before I came up with the ending of this one), but it's done! I like all the little things I did with this chapter: The Tanaka scene, Maiko's introduction, and OH BOY THAT CAMEO. Take your guesses on the (in)signifigance of said cameo I know all of you caught it. I won't spoil it (and I'd ask that you don't spoil it either please), but it was pretty obvious if you're a Persona fan, all I'll say. See ya next time, peoples!
