Midori hissed in agony as he tried to walk down the stairs to the kitchen. He gave his right side, which had a cooling pack on it, a hateful look before gritting his teeth as he opened his fridge. It's been four days already and he still felt the pain in his ribs. At least his headache was gone, but the damage dealt to his stomach was not normal.

It was of magical nature. To be specific, the attack by whoever attacked him, who he assumed was the same guy who sicked the shadow army at him and the others in Rise's dungeon, weakened the effect of healing. Because of that he was stuck in his own home, unable to go to school or help the others in the TV-World. Not until a week has passed. In the best case scenario if Yukiko or Teddie keep up their healing quota.

Naturally he refused to sit around, but the others forbid him, telling him to focus on resting. Besides, he could milk the whole fever excuse for school. It was ridiculous how trusting the staff was of him. Maybe it was because he was boosting their image of good grades.

Nevertheless, he was not in the best mood. When the Fool remembered what the others told him about after he lost his consciousness, he had to take a deep breath, realizing that he slowly lost control. It would not be wise to smash his milk against the wall.

The culprit giggled and laughed.

He danced around like the joker he seemed to be.

That bastard taunted them about hurrying up.

With an angry grunt, the persona user slammed the fridge door and sat down on his couch. So far his efforts to stay calm were fruitless.
It did not help that he couldn't help the others in getting Yukiko's persona back. Midori felt sorry for said girl being stuck with a moody American, but he couldn't help it. The Fool was supposed to help solve the crime, not be dead weight.

All those memories and thoughts led to one conclusion Midori told himself over and over again.

He was useless.

Sure, he was the reason that Adachi survived and that Rise could be saved, but everything after that could have happened without him. They didn't need him. Hell, he was way weaker than the other persona user, with copying or without it. He didn't have the physical power of Kanji or Chie, the magical progress of Yukiko or the speed of Youske. Midori had nothing. He didn't even have his full memory. The frustration managed to come out of him in the form of tears and he made no movement in wiping them away. It had to be let out. It was piling up ever since he got here. The Fool had nobody to lend a shoulder to him, nobody he could trust with his insecurities. How could he? Nobody would care. He was just the guy they could pity, who lost his memories...

Who acted like a bastard as an excuse to avoid that support he yearned for. He was a paradox.

"Well, you went down like a bitch."

Midori sighed and let out a weak chuckle as he shook his head. He could talk to himself, despite the fact how stupid that idea actually was.

"Shut up and leave me alone," the persona user muttered as he didn't make any effort to get up from the couch, lying comfortably on it. He thought about to just sleep on it for the rest of the day.

"Hey, don't blame ya. You were distracted. Kinda stupid since the others weren't, but hey."

With a heated hiss, Midori grabbed the side of the couch as support and pulled himself up. Trying to ignore the pain with a deep breath, he looked over at the chair that faced his garden and was closest to the kitchen. It was supposed to be empty, but instead he saw Shadow Midori sitting on the chair, his hands grabbing the sides of the chair and swung his legs in a relaxed rhythm.

Great, now he was getting insane.

"The thing with Namatame disturbs you that much?" The shadow said softly and with a sad smile. As soon as the memory resurfaced, he crushed it back down into the depth of his mind as he shook his head and rested it in his hands.

"I'm not like that..." He muttered with closed eyes. Yet the soft whispers remained in his head, causing him to shake.

You steal from others.

You are not your own person.

You are weak.

By now, Midori started to hyperventilate and the sweat dripped down to the floor. When he heard the reassuring voice of his shadow, he threw himself on it like a life ring and focused on its words as his breathing calmed down:

"Of course you aren't. You can be strong, you know? You don't even copy them completely, only a fraction. You are still yourself. It's not too late. This won't happen again."

This was him pretty much talking to himself. The persona user wasn't sure if he talked to either his persona, which would be a paradox, or his shadow, but he didn't care at the moment. He let out a soft laugh of relief. The state he was in convince him not to be picky about comfort.

Even if it was from himself in this regard.

"You're right...it's not so bad yet...Just...have to focus on myself...don't think about it too much..." Midori muttered, having calmed down. The shadow simply smiled and gave him a thumps up before slowly vanishing from existence. Though he could have sworn that the shadow looked sad even, the way that the smile was only slightly above a flat line.

Maybe it reflected his mood. He shrugged and closed his eyes as he got into a comfortable position on the couch. Might as well get some sleep if he can't do anything.

/

As soon as he fell into his deep slumber, he found himself in the weird void again next to the giant door, shining like something from the bible.

"Oh god, not this place again!" Midori exclaimed angrily and looked around in caution, waiting for the dark monster to rip him apart again. Whoever was responsible for this, was apparently the fan of random, because he actually had a few days with relatively pleasant dreams.

After a short while, he raised his eyebrow and began to relax. Usually by now he should be awake now. Scratching his back awkwardly and simply deciding this was him getting some slack from the dream world, he walked toward the gate. Only this time without the fear of playing food to whatever beast resided in this place. Wherever this place was.

After a few steps, he at last got a closer look at the statue sealing the gate. The female head was now clearly visible, though given that it was a stone statue, it didn't gave him much information. The only thing he got from it was the hair held in a high ponytail and that the roman number for twenty two was at the right side of her head.

Midori tilted his head in confusion. This statue, or rather the person it was supposed to represent, seemed familiar and he scratched his chin as he tried to find out why.

On a side note, it was kind of freaky to see this homage of "what if Jesus Christ was female and stuck on a gate" in front of him, but he didn't dwell on it.

What he did dwell on however was that he heard a voice. Who spoke in complete sentences and sounded female in contrast to the monstrous guttural noises he heard before getting chomped to death.

"Theodore? Is that you?" Whoever that was, sounded very tired and even sad. Though he could hear a bit of cheerfulness creeping back into it, as if she expected the visit.

"...No?" He said slowly and eyed the statue as he squinted his eyes. Midori then heard an echoing sigh, as if she was disappointed, but the pause that came after felt as if she was eying him with interest.

"Oh, you're new...How did you get here?" She asked with a peppy tone. It was hard to tell if it was acted, given the lack of facial expressions. The detective simply shrugged. Maybe the girl was simply happy of having someone new to talk to.

"...I fell asleep and woke up here, getting maimed by monster over and over again. Took a lot of sleep from me," said the feminine boy in a deadpanned tone as he sat down on the ground (which was invisible).

"Huh, that...sucks, I guess?" the voice, which must come from the statue, said after a short pause. Midori shook his head in with a wry smile. Of course the girl did not know why he's here. That would have been way too easy. What also bugged him was that he could not put a name on this statue.

"Who are you?" Midori said with a sigh when he reluctantly gave up on getting an identification from the depths of his mind.

"Name is Minako Arisato!...I'm the door." Midori facepalmed the moment he heard her introduction. It was on the tip of his tongue too! Behind his hand he then frowned for a moment. The second part of her second sounded rather depressed. Perhaps she didn't volunteer for this.

"Midori Tadashi...Why are you a door?" He asked dryly as he raised his eyebrow and removed his hand from his face.

"You know, preventing the apocalypse. That giant two headed monster? Its name is Erebus and I'm here to prevent it from touching something on the other side."

The copycat blinked. He opened his mouth, but then closed it again. In the end he decided in shaking his head at the casualness the girl's tone had and turned his back to her after he stood up again. It was weirder however, that he probably knew something on equal level of that kind of story somewhere in his old memories.

"I don't even want to think about the implications of dreaming of this," Midori muttered , regretting asking Minako this as he nervously eyed his surroundings. No monster deity around so far.

"Wait, you are seeing me naked right now! Ah, so embarrassed~!"

His mind came to a screeching hold at hearing the teasing and cheery tone. The copycat slowly turned his body towards the gate and only had a look of disbelief. His mouth was slightly open from the ridiculous situation.

"...It will be a sad day when I gush over stone," Midori said in a deadpanned tone. He wasn't a big fan of ponytails anyways.

"Ouch, that hurt my non existent body," Minako replied in a semi mocked tone, which made the American raise an eyebrow. A minute ago any mentions of her body made her sound sad. Now she joked about it. Was she bipolar? Or maybe she managed to gather enough wits during their conversation to keep up a happy facade? Whatever it was, he welcomed it. He would not deal with personal problems in his dream. There was enough playing psychologist when he was awake.

"Let's change topics...Who is Theodore?" He asked as he leaned against the gate and started to count the stars in his head, trying to kill time.

"A guy from the Velvet Room...you know the Velvet Room?" Midori didn't know how she knew, but the moment his body stiffened at the mention of the Velvet Room, because he did not expect that, she simply continued to talk."Good. He often comes here, talking with me and making sure that Erebus doesn't get strong enough to break this door...or me."

This sentence alone made gears start in Midori's head as he rubbed his chin. Deducing from what she said, he assumed that this Theodore was responsible for him not getting maimed at the moment. This would also mean that Theodore, and with that any Velvet Room residents, must be very strong, since Midori could feel the raw energy of the beast, despite the few seconds he actually felt it. Adding to that, he now knew that there were people of the Velvet Room who actually went itself, he concluded, seemed to be immortal, or at least had a high healing factor, since if the monster was such a big deal, people would have tried killing it. However the copycat had the slight feeling he knew why Erebus could not be stopped, but he didn't dwell on it.

All these thoughts went through his head in a fast pace, but then Midori realized that he just caused an awkward silence between them and said quickly:

"Sounds tough, being sealed here." He then mouthed the sentence silently again as he stared to the ground in disbelief. Really? That was the best thing he could think of?

His cheeks reddened when he heard an amused chuckle from Minako. Then she said in a somber tone:

"It is...but hey, I chooseth this fate of mine own free will."

The last part of her sentence made him frown. That did not fit the speech pattern the living seal had so far.

"...You got that from somebody else, right?" He half asked, half stated.

"It was on a contract I signed," she replied and the copycat could imagine her shrugging.

"Contract...sounds familiar," Midori said as he felt a light prickly in the back side of his head.

"You probably signed something in order to get into the Velvet Room," Minako said and Midori remembered Igor mentioning that. He however did not remember how he signed the contract or told her such and added in the fact he didn't remember much anyways.

"Really?" She asked intrigued and he nodded, assuming that Minako was aware of everything he did, since she did so before and began to explain. How he lost his memories until he was twelve years old, how he tried to get his memories back in the TV-World (after he explained what the TV-World is) and what led him to regaining them and getting in the Velvet Room in the first all this, he could feel how the girl (or woman, he didn't know) listened to his words with interest. It was like she had experience in listening to people.

When he got to the part of telling her about Shinjiro and what kind of mission he would have, Minako interrupted him in an overeager, loud tone.

"You know him?!" The copycat flinched and held his ears, which got accustomed to the silence in the vast space. A nervous laugh came from her before she calmed down. He could imagine her apologetic face as she continued talking. "Sorry...it's just...the last time I saw him, he only woke up from a coma recently..."

Midori winced at the image. He saw how much Shinjiro loved her and it appeared to be going both sides. One seeing a lover in a coma and when he finally woke up, the girl got taken away to be a gate lock. Fate seemed to hate the two of them a lot. The least he could do was assure her that everything was fine.

"He's doing fine as far as I know. He came with a kid named Ken Amada. They probably investigate those murders happening in the country."

"Oh, I sure hope they made up! It was such a pain to see them not get along!" Minako huffed, or at least he thought she did. Which restarted his interest as to what kind of relationship these two had.

"...What was their problem anyways? The kid told me he hated Shinjiro-san in the past."

The silence that followed worried the copycat. Did he overstep some kind of line? He started to play around with his hair when she didn't say anything for at least a minute.

"If he didn't tell you, it isn't my place to tell then," she said at last and Midori sighed. He let go off his long hair and opened his mouth to say something, when he felt something pull at him. It was light at first, but it gradually was getting stronger and the copycat could swear he saw a vortex forming in the distance.

"Seems like you have to go...talk to you later!...Maybe!" Minako said enthusiastically, but seemed kind of sad at seeing him go. But Midori didn't think much of it as he tried to grab onto something in futile and then got sucked into the vortex.

What was wrong with this place?!

His eyes slowly opened and he dragged himself up into a seating position. Midori scratched his head as he tried to cover his eyes from the few sun rays going through his shutter.

"...I talked to a door. Guess I can put that to my list of weird stuff I did."

/

Naoto took a sip from her tea as she eyed Midori with a worried look. Apparently he decided that the trouble of going down the stairs wasn't worth the bed and put up his sleeping quarters on the couch. At the moment he was lying on it, just having finished his homework. Though it was agonizing for him, judging from the several pauses he made when he wrote and the soft curses he made when she was outside his vision field.

It wasn't the physical state of the Fool that bothered her too much however. Yes, it was disturbing how the damage he received was not affected by healing magic. But it was more how he reacted at the news they gave him about what happened. First, his face was blank and his eyes seemed unfocused at the time, but quickly his face morphed into rage. Midori didn't not vent out his frustrations on them however, which showed his restraint. That restraint threatened to break when they told him that he had to stay put in order to rest. The Fool almost seemed desperate back then to not stay behind, but the team managed to make him accept it. Not that it was easy.

The sight of him lying and relaxing on the couch while his eyes were closed, was preferred to the depressed Midori she saw before the team left. Nevertheless, the young woman did not like what she saw at the moment either, despite the could not claim that she knew what was going on inside his head, but she was proud of her deduction skills.

The American had one big issue, if it could be called that: A need for control. His aggression towards those who try to "defy" or those who confront him was evidence enough. When he tried to gather information from the team, at the basketball game (speaking of which, he didn't join practice for a long time), at Kubo's crime scene, when the team went to his house because of Rise,at the Amagi Inn.

Long story short, there was enough evidence for her suspicion. But his depressed and desperate state when he had to stay put was new. Did it come from his suppressed memories? Did the stress get to him?

The most likely reason Naoto had at the moment was the man who attacked them. Only when they mentioned him did Midori become so unfocused for a while before spiraling down to the extreme emotions he showed. Perhaps the man was connected to the Fool's past. This then would mean that Midori knew the culprit. At least on a subconscious level, or else he would have told them more.

Would he now?

The Fortune shook her head lightly and took another sip from her tea. Now was not the time to doubt him. It would be ridiculous to believe that Midori covered for the one who knocked him out.

She let out a mental sigh. Not a physical one since she didn't want to worry the housekeeper more than he already was. They had nothing on the "Joker". No explanation how he could appear so suddenly, no idea who he was and no information about his agenda or told them nothing that could be useful, except for the fact that the figure felt weird. This could mean many things to Naoto. Too many, so she didn't dwell on it unless they found out more.

When she noticed that silence filled the room for at least twenty minutes, the young woman decided to start a conversation with him. She put down her tea cup and asked with a hint of concern:

"How are you doing?"

The Fool in question opened his eyes slowly and peeked at Naoto, before he stared at the ceiling with a sigh.

"Pretty good...given the circumstances," he said in a tired tone. "Sorry."

"For what?" Naoto asked confused, while she internally flinched. Now she made him depressed again.

"For not watching myself...for not helping."

The young woman filed this as another evidence for her theory in her head and leaned forward.

"Please do not blame yourself. It could have happened to anyone of us," Naoto tried to reassure him, butMidori snorted in dry amusement and turned his back to her. She let out a quiet grumble. Sometimes the exchange student in front of him acted like a child. Now that she was thinking about it, everyone in the team acted like children.

And she was one of them. The implications did not amuse Naoto. Not much anyways.

She shook her head and decided that it was futile to dispel Midori's negative thoughts about himself.

"Did...Did you ever think that ignorance is bliss?"

The question took her off guard. While she was focused on her own thoughts, Midori took a proper seating position and looked at the ground with slumped shoulders. It seemed as if this question plagued him for a long while, or else he wouldn't seem so hesitant as he avoided her gaze.

"I do," the female said after a short silence. She then however stood up and crossed her arms, before continuing on with a convinced tone. "But only because it is blissful doesn't make it right. Sometimes...the painful truth is preferred. Why?"

When Midori started to shake, she became a bit concerned. When he started to take deep, rattled breaths, she was certain something was wrong. But she stayed silent. She wasn't Narukam-sempai, but she learned to keep an open ear if someone wanted to reveal his worries.

After what felt like an eternity, Midori spoke up in a quiet tone:

"...I'm afraid of my own memories. I don't know what happened to my family. So far I saw happy ones, sad ones, even angry ones...but in all those they're alive. Caring for me."

He then looked up and Naoto could see the fear in his eyes and she noticed how his tough mask had cracks in it.

"Do I really want to see the reason they are not here anymore? What if I'm the reason?"

"Do not start to think that," the young woman interjected with a determined look on her eyes and put her right arm on his shoulder. "I may have never met them, but I am sure they were good people. You cared, no, care for them. I am sure you are not responsible for their deaths."

She would not let him fall into despair. Naoto did not know where this urge came from, but she knew, maybe subconsciously, that she had to stop him from falling into his fear, before it was too late. It wasn't logical to think this, but it felt...right. Apparently she was also getting through him, because he seemed shocked at her words. Slowly a smile formed and he seemed to relax.

Suddenly she felt her phone ringing and Naoto pulled it out. Then she activated the loudspeaker after seeing that it was from Rise, so that Midori, who took a glass of water to drink, could listen in.

"Shirogane here?"

First she only heard silence and Naoto became a bit anxious. When she finally heard her classmates voice, she felt relieved.

Up until the moment when she processed the sentence.

"Nanako-chan is...is gone..."

The Fool's grip smashed the glass in his hand to pieces. Under normal circumstance, this would havemake Naoto almost let go off her mobile phone in shock. If she wasn't in a mixed state of shock and anger herself. He appeared to ignore the blood and the pain coming from his right hand. As she witnessed his scream of frustration, the Fortune did not notice how hard she gritted her teeth or how her hands formed fists like Midori. Said injured teenager smashed his bloodied fist against the table, but she made no moves to stop him, since her mind was preoccupied with other things.

Never again. She swore to herself to never have to witness her still form in a hospital bed. Never again was she going to feel so helpless.

This time Nanako-chan will not get even a scratch, this is what Naoto Shirogane swore on her name.