"The chairman..." Mitsuru took a deep breath, making Minato smirk since nobody was looking at him. "Has lost his right eye."
Horrified shrieks and gasps all around, even Minato let out a small gasp just to fit in with the rest of them. "That is terrible!" He bit his lip and muttered. "What insane bastard could possibly do that to Ikutsuki-san?"
"Who is this guy!?" Yukari yelled out loud. "Broken legs and now he lost his eye?"
"Shouldn't one of us actually stay next to him?" Hamuko suggested.
Mitsuru sighed. "He is currently in the hospital but I'll arrange more security for him once he relocates to the house near this dorm."
"That is a good idea," Junpei nodded at her words. "If I was there, I would have given that bastard something to remember!"
Minato clasped his mouth with his hand. "I-I'm kinda sick! I'll be back!" He grumbled and quickly sped up the stairs.
"He must have taken the news badly," Hamuko sighed.
Inside his room, Minato was laughing his ass off at Junpei's comment. He spent the next 10 minutes rolling around and then went to just mess around the school database once again. Hooray for proxy services.
It has been a few days since the monorail incident and the attendance for Gekkoukan plummeted since not many students could commute with the monorail being busted. The estimated time for repairing would take like a month but Mitsuru had already prepared a vehicle for her dorm mates so they wouldn't miss any more homework.
Days weren't passing smoothly for Minato as well. He was bashing his head for the past few days because of the strong ass presence he felt at Hiirage psychotherapy. Was that Tatsuya? If it was then he had a huge challenge in front of him.
"I still have to get to the damn top," He spat. "I can't do it with these weaklings around."
Still cussing and annoyed, Minato buried his head into the pillow and began to sleep.
...
Much to the fallen one's annoyance, Hamuko had created a bond with Junpei as well! The two started to hang out together after the monorail and maybe it was just him, but Junpei was a lot more controlled around Hamuko than he was with Minato in the previous Cycles. Obviously this pissed off the former Messiah more.
On the first Cycle, Minato had to drink his weight of that damn coffee to make Yukari even look at him but over here, Hamuko and Yukari were somehow glued to the butt best friends since the first day.
Most important of all! The tense atmosphere of the dorm was a thing of the past despite the incident was relatively recent. That damn Hamuko appeased almost everyone in a few days.
"Stupid..." Minato looked above from the novel he was reading to see Hamuko stepping into the lounge. He scowled at her as Hamuko waved her friend off and closed the door.
"Minato-kun!" Hamuko cheered, causing the blue haired Fool to cringe slightly.
Minato put his novel to the side and pulled out his usual, cool smile. "Hey there, Hamuko."
The redhead bounced over to her leader and sat next to him. "How are you?"
"Fine as usual," Minato replied. "How about you?"
"I'm feeling better," She smiled warmly. "Mostly because of you."
Minato blinked. "What did I do?"
"You consoled me remember?" Hamuko giggled, tapping his shoulder. "Giving me a shoulder to lean on when I needed it the most while no one else was there for me."
"Oh..." Minato cringed inside but he smiled on the outside. "Anything to help a young lady."
"I really appreciate it," Hamuko boldly gave his hand a quick squeeze and smiled once again.
Minato widened his eyes momentarily but chuckled a few seconds. "No problem." He actually wanted to lure her into a false sense of security and then stab her right in the spine. Literally.
"Can we head to Tartarus tonight?" Hamuko asked, rubbing the back of her neck. "I want to train so I don't get a cheap shot like last time."
Minato pondered it before shrugging. "Sure, why not?"
Hamuko jumped onto her feet and saluted Minato. "Gotcha!" She ran up the stairs to prepare for the trek tonight.
"TCH!" Minato spat at her retreating figure. "You fucking copy..."
...
Minato leaned back as the rest of the team took on Rampage Drive on the 14th floor of Thebel. This shadow was a real pain in the ass for the bluenette in the first Cycle and he nearly lost his life fighting against it the first time around.
Minato scowled as Hamuko sidestepped and dodged most of the bolts of lightning and actually ended up delivering some rather decent slashes that made the shadow roar out in pain.
"I was..." Minato gritted his teeth as Hamuko gave a small smirk at shadow. Hamuko was more powerful than Minato on the first attempt at the Journey and it was making the fallen one quiver with rage. "Getting my ass handed to me."
Hamuko rolled her way out of the another Zio as Mitsuru keep applauding her. She summoned Angel during the roll, hitting the shadow with a powerful gust of wind that pushed it backwards.
"DAMMIT!" Minato gritted his teeth. He looked around at the two other members and both of them were in good spirits. They were totally devoid of hope when he fought and barely defeated the shadow because of fucking Cadenza.
The shadow turned sluggish and Hamuko basically toyed with it for the next few seconds. She was making him look like a fool now.
He would not stand for this!
Finally having enough, Minato shot like a bullet and punched a hole through the damn thing like a knife cutting through butter. "Fucking fates..." Minato muttered. They always found a way to make him feel like shit.
"Wow..." Hamuko blinked as the hole in the shadow's body began to glow.
Minato unleashed a Morning Star from within the shadow, destroying the pest from within and even burning off the Ichor, leaving not a single trace of that damn thing behind.
"Well done," Mitsuru applauded. "The shadow has been defeated."
"Awesome job, Hamu-tan!" Junpei fist pumped. Minato cringed.
"For someone who barely started fighting shadows, you sure are exceptional at it!" Yukari smiled as well, causing the redhead to blush and Minato to rage inside once again. That was a direct cheap shot at him.
"Oh come on guys," Hamuko giggled and swung her arm around Minato. "He finished it off!"
The two nodded with a smile. No fucking compliments.
"Let's move on!" Hamuko cheered, marching for the stairs.
"Way to steal the glory, mate," Junpei snickered, clearly intending that as a joke but Minato took it the wrong way and shot a venomous glare at Junpei behind his back.
"Kiss her ass, you pathetic fools," Minato followed them, hands in his pockets. "You fucking idiots will forget her like you did me..."
Minato vented out all his frustration on the next few floors, utterly devastating the entire floor with repeated almighty attacks that sent tremors even through the ground floor where Mitsuru was.
"MESSI-" Minato was about to summon his ultimate persona to just amuse himself but he stopped as he felt something dark inside the sea of his soul. He stopped, feeling some sort of pressure on his heart that made the fallen one stop and switch over to some other persona to release himself from the strain.
"What happened..." Minato muttered to himself. "Messiah might waste my entire SP by coming out..." Why was this so?
He looked behind at the three to see them staring at him with a mixture of fear and awe. Hamuko looked pumped more than the two.
"Let's keep moving," Minato ordered, walking away in search of the stairs.
Soon, they found the access point and went back to the ground floor. Minato watched on as Mitsuru praised the auburn haired girl who blushed and thanked all of them. He could understand Yukari and Mitsuru being closer to Hamuko since they were females but Junpei and Akihiko were far close to her than they were with him.
All of this made Minato sick to his stomach. He wanted out of the damn Cycle and just burn in hell for the rest of his life. This was one sick and twisted game.
"Come on, Minato-kun!" Hamuko called out to him. Minato scowled at her voice and walked out of the damn tower.
Hamuko was happily chatting with the two juniors about how successful this expedition was. Minato was just walking behind them, scowling and pissed off as usual.
They went into their own rooms as soon as they reached the dorm. Minato wasn't planning on sleeping anytime soon. He was pissed as fuck this time. He wanted to rush into Hamuko's room and break her body into pieces but he couldn't.
"God damn," He buried his face into his palms "This Journey is gonna reduce me to a mess by the end..." He sighed, staring mindlessly at the ceiling.
"She's growing bonds faster than I did," He spat. "She's gaining more personae and kicking the crap out of stuff I nearly lost my life against!"
Minato stood up and teleported to the outside of the dorm. He didn't mind if it wasn't the Dark Hour. He needed some thing to get his mind off of stuff. Usually when he was stressed in the previous Cycles, someone was always there to console him. It was one of the females in the dorm and Elizabeth was a constant companion for all his Journeys.
This time however, Minato growled at the memory of his time with his girlfriends. They had forgotten him and were now kissing Hamuko's ass even though he was the one who had saved the world countless time. They would forget her too. Fucking hypocrites.
Minato easily got into Escapade and paid something extra to the bartender to just leave him alone. The bartender complied and handed over a bottle to Minato who started taking a few sips.
"Just kill Theodore and leave the torture of that girl to me," Nyarlathotep reassured.
Minato sighed and kept sipping the bottle. "Believe me, I'd love to kill all of them."
"JUST DO IT!" Nyarlathotep yelled this time but Minato ignored him.
"At this rate..." Minato smirked for the first time in the night. "I might have to kill someone on the team..."
Nyarlathotep chuckled. "Outright?"
Minato chuckled as well. "Nope, darling Hamuko couldn't save her teammate."
Another short chapter which again serves mostly as build up. Hoped you guys dig the dynamic between the two wild cards and mad props to CC for pointing it out. Mad props to girls meets boys as well. You both won cookies!
Who do you think will Minato target? Take a guess folks. Even though he hates like everyone on the team. :P
And yep, Ikutsuki lost his eye. The poor bastard.
Replies!
CC : Your reviews makes me happy too. :P And I totally dig the idea you got for the acute hearing and eyesight, it fits perfectly. Thanks a lot.
He will panic but the thing is, he's somewhat delusional and way egotistic as well. Those qualities surely won't help, right? Cheating death? We'll see. He has challenges, especially the presence at the psychotherapy that even got him tensed. Wonder who could that be.
YES! Thank you. That is exactly what I intended. Like in this chapter, Hamuko has easily created bonds with people that Minato struggled with. The fates have blessed her in a special way. I ship Hamuko x Theodore more than Minato x Hamuko but eh, the pairing doesn't really fit here. :L Hamuko is the best choice for fics like these. Thanks a ton for the help dude. I hope to see you again.
notsomeone : Who knows? Keep reading to find out. I hope I won't disappoint. Thank you.
girls meets boys : YES! You got it. Hamuko is better at connecting and she has one tough spirit. She might cry but her motto is something that Minato will struggle to understand. Congrats! Have a cookie and thanks for the review.
Blarg : Glad you think he's arrogant. I want people to actually hate Minato this time around. This is no joke and he is a antagonist.
He's delusional, keep that in mind. nyarly even yelled at him but he kept believing. Reason why he actually can't summon Messiah right now.
I heard that. :P Keep pixie or remember her fusion, correct? Thanks for the review dude.
Shadow : Bingo. Minato is getting more and more pissed at Hamuko for getting along better than people than he did. Like she's better in battle than he was in the first cycle. Hamuko is no 'll kick loads of ass very soon.
IKR? Too bad it hurt, hahaha :P Thanks for the review dude.
Shino : Like I said before, I'm a fan of that. Keep going with that. :P
Glad you liked that. It's like a sick and twisted game that Minato is stuck in. He'll get his ass handed to him at times, don't worry about that.
As always, review and all that. We'll see you next time with prolly the longest chapter till date. See you later!