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Black glass flew around me as Orpheus materialised.
"THOU ART I!"
The Black glass rushed around the Persona.
"AND I AM THOU!"
I was beyond angry.
"FROM THE BRINK OF DESPAIR I SUMMON THEE!"
The glass moulded around Orpheus, creating black, beetle like armour. The armour extended down the forearm, making the entire elbow downwards an enormous spike.
"THOU ART HOLLOW! I MAKE THEE WHOLE!"
I roared with Orpheus as the black mask rose to cover his face. His rage was my rage, his bloodlust my bloodlust, his eyes were my eyes.
My fist was his spike.
I lunged forward with the right spike, but the Lovers swooped left to dodge. I stabbed the ground next to Junpei then dragged him aside as I stabbed the roof above where he was, making a hole in the ceiling.
"Uh.. wha… What The Hell!?" Good, Junpei's awake. I stabbed into the falling rubble, but I missed the Shadow yet again.
"Dude, what the hell's going on?"
~Minato-Kun's Projecting! You need to stop him!~
"Projecting?" Junpei looked scared, "Shinjiro Senpai didn't say anything about this!"
I ignored him as I stabbed forward again, trying to find the Shadow. ~I don't know what the black substance is, but Minato Kun thinks that he's Orpheus now!~
Thinks? I am Orpheus now. I looked up. There it is. I lifted my spikes into the air.
"Ragnarok"
The flames were immense: A pillar of flames stabbed straight through the Shadow, making it scream. Oh, it deserved to suffer. I strode forward out of the hotel, bringing down any wall that dared get in my way. Jumping down to street level, I saw the Lovers hit the ground. I ran for it.
"MINATO! STOP!"
WOAH, hold it. About to run off a bridge ledge there. "Thanks Yukari." I jumped.
"MINATO!!!"
I landed in a roll and a brothel got its front wall knocked down. Orpheus got back up in time to block a huge Holy Arrow, parrying it to stab into the roasted Shadow. Come to think of it, I thinking from the complete glimpse I saw before re-entering Orpheus, he looked a lot like Zearth from Bokurano. In that case…
I rested one spike against each wing, pinning the Shadow in place, and I rammed my knee into it. WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! It was full of liquid so it didn't take much damage, but the lovely couple had lost the mood by now. Good. I headbutted the Shadow.
"SCREEEE!" Hey, I have a horn now. Pink Slime gushed out of the wound, the two lovers were washed into the deflating sides of the Shadow by the stream. I rammed Orpheus's knee into the now half emptied sack of flesh that wasn't so tough now, was it? The man and the woman were thrown around inside of the Lovers womb, helpless against my power.
Then a huge spike came from the bottom of the heart shaped Shadow, emptying its insides of the Shadow's and whatever fluid remained. The spike dug deeper and deeper, widening like a tree trunk.
Wait, isn't the Lovers represented by a tree?
SMACK! One of the two Shadows smashed Minato's face, bringing me back into my own body. I span back and squished its skull in a single punch, and I caught my reflection in a shop window.
A white mask was slowly forming across my face, from my left chin upwards. It had already reached my nose, and a sarcastic smile was already visible.
Oh, I am not doing a bleach thing here. I lifted my hand up to catch it and pull it away, but it was stuck, and it started growing around my fingers.
Then the dark blue lines crept up my hand, sliding over my fingers. The mask immediately fell away, and the lines started growing up my face. For some reason, I wasn't threatened by these lines. They looked similar to the tattoo Elizabeth gave me…
Which was now gone. I looked back at myself, and my eyes flashed, now turning gold.
Wait…
…it revealed itself unto me, its cold, grey, lonely eyes became golden, as beautiful as they were terrifying...
This is…
…Blackness rode its skin, like many roads encompassing the great moors of Scotland...
So that guy…
… The beast was a demon, wearing the skin of a young man…
Ah. I saw both of the two lovebirds come at me from behind in the reflections. Without even looking behind me, I backhanded smashed them, Man in the right hand and Woman with the left. Both melted and did not get back up.
"The hell is this!?"
I turned around. Shinji? "What are you doing here!?"
"What are you doing smashing up a street?"
I didn't get to answer, since I was busy dodging a big spike aimed for my head. "That thing started it."
"Right. And what's with the warpaint?"
"No idea, but I'm rolling with it."
"Tch. Where's Aki?"
"Inside, unconscious."
"What!?" Shinji looked disappointed, dodging an attack. "This thing do it?"
"Sorta. It likes to mind control."
"So who's left?"
"You and me, but I can handle it."
Suddenly, a whole field of Shadow people rose from the ground. These ones had features though, but since so many of them were naked, 'm guessing that they're the locals.
"You sure?"
"Well, Might be tough if one more shows up."
"Tch. Guess We'll just have to kill 'em all before that happens."
"Wait, you're fighting too?" I turned to look at him size up a stop sign.
He kicked it down. "I ain't gonna watch and let my friend die zombie food." He picked it up and swung it. "You ready?"
"Fuuka! Count us in!" Pharos whispered something before leaving. "And keep count of who kills the most!" FWOOSH! Hands on fire!
"Tch. Whatever, runt."
~Um… On the count of three?~
"THREE!" we both shouted, charging into the maw.
Bodies hit the floor. I sliced through them like burning hands through something melty, while Shinji smashed his way through like a guy swinging a stop sign. Both were very accurate metaphors.
~You're half way through them!~
"Yeah, but who's winning!?" I shouted, tearing a Shadow's head off.
~Uh, what!?~
Sigh, "Fine. Whoever kills that sunovabitch gets a bajillion points."
"Tch. Like I care." He said that, but I could see the flicker of a smile on his face. I knew it. He lived for this, he just needed someone to kick his head in so he could realise it.
I got back to the goal in hand. The tree started glowing with pink spikes. ~It's going to summon more Shadows!~
"Tch. You got a thunder Persona?"
"Uh, Yeah, Take-Mikazuchi, why?"
"Summon it. We're doing a Mix Raid."
That when two people work together to make a fusion summon? Okay, then… the fire died as I switched Persona.
"TAKE-MIKAZUCHI!"
"CASTOR!"
SMASH! Thunder stabbed into the tree from the Thunder god's sword. The very same instant, Castor rode his uni-unicorn's horn into the very same hole, causing it to spark again or something because Zionga should not have shot out of every single pink glowy orifice that tree had. We were surrounded by screams as the Shadow zombies collapsed into nothingness, and the Lovers into a Mask.
"You want it?" Shinji asked.
"Hold on." I grabbed it and ran back over to the hotel. The hole on the top floor was pretty massive. I ran up the side for a few steps then clambered up the side. Once I climbed through the hole, the tattoos began fading. Everyone was conscious, but too wounded to heal each other. I put the Evoker to my head. "Cadenza!"
SMASH! Orpheus came out of my head, alone. However, I whistled the other part of the duet. Everyone started to get their energy back, and I fell to my knees.
"I'm sorry…" I told everyone. "I… I know I was being controlled, but, still…"
"It's cool." Akihiko replied. "Charmed you is a Douche."
I laughed. "Was I really that bad?"
"Dude, you were freaking torturing us!"
Seriously? "I'm sorry… Hey, I brought it back alive." I threw the Lovers mask onto the floor. "Thought you guys might want to take your vengeance on that first before kicking my arse."
SMASH! A brown boot crushed it before anyone could step forward.
"Shinji?" Akihiko asked in disbelief. "Wha-what are you doing here?"
"Cleaning up your mess, as usual." He looked at everyone. "Leader messed you all up pretty bad, huh?"
"Um, I'm sorry everyone!" Fuuka ran into the room. "He, he just came in and, I thought that since he helped us, then…"
"It's alright Yamagishi." Mitsuru explained. "This is Shinjiro Aragaki. He is… was a member of S.E.E.S."
"What!?"
"WHAT!?"
Oh, right, Fuuka and Yukari didn't know.
"Thanks Shinji…" Akihiko said with relief. "I owe you one."
"Tch…" Shinji leant against the wall. "Is my old room still available?"
Oh, yeah, I told you so.
"Wait, you… you want to come back?"
"I got my head on straight. There a problem with that?"
Akihiko laughed slightly "No, no not at all." He grabbed Shinji's wrist. "Good to have you back."
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You might be wondering what we did to cover our mess back at the hotel. Let's just say it involved a minor gas leak and a broken wire to safely destroy the evidence. When the electricity comes back on as soon as the dark hour ends, the spark will activate the gas: destroying that room and shaking all of the others. The shockwaves would also affect some of the other buildings, so we covered all of our tracks.
I am a genius at doing that.
How did we celebrate our victory? With Thai food, of course. I footed the bill this time, which would have been a punishment if I wasn't… you know.
And I gotta say, doing a full assault like we did tonight against the Hierophant and the zombie army? So much fun. We're gonna do that again sometime.
Shinji moved right back in, that night, said that he'd grab his stuff from his dormitory the next day. Mitsuru said that he had to start coming back to classes though, if he was rejoining S.E.E.S., to which he said "Tch." Shinji likes that word. Tch.
I like it to.
Kinda like "Meh", only much more badass.
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Before you ask, no, Minato is not a Vizard, and I did not steal the idea from bleach. The mask is the Nyx Avatar mask.
And WOOT! SHINJI'S BACK!
And now to answer the reviews.
P4 character appeared very briefly in one of the last four chapters. Very briefly.
Dark Omega Z? You scare me. You weren't supposed to enjoy Minato beating the crap out of the main love interest while under mind control.
Viktor, like I told someone else ages ago, I've realised that I'm spelling his name wrong, but I'm going to stick with the name I've got.
Glad you enjoyed the story so far Fireblast. Hope you like the big reveal about the tattoo and the Hollow Arcana.
That goes for all of you. BAM! Hollow Arcana allows the user to change their Persona in someway, but at the cost of getting some creepy ominous mask that is clearly evil and will probably eat your soul if it comes on completely.
The Tattoo transforms into a full body seal that turns Minato into the HITO-SHURA! I liked playing with that idea, one that I was looking forward to.
Police officer cannot be Naoto because Naoto would be in middle school right now. And Naoto's of the Fortune.
Marada, it's actually more likely that Hito-Shura picked the Neutral Ending, since he was warned that there would be a Punishment for his decisions. BAM!
And surprising, I wrote all of these chapters in one day. Add them together and you get one 6000 or so word long chapter. But I wanted to split it up to get the effect right. I might do that actually, half the chapter length and update more often, what do you guys think? I'll stick to the current 3500 word guideline for now, unless you want something different.
Now, in the words of KRP, I've pretty much near-completely deviated from the original plot here. Except I have one more trick up my sleeve before they get to Yakushima. Mental!
Also, anyone here seen the new trailer for P3P?
MINATO. IN. THE. ABYSS. OF. TIME. LEADING. THE. PARTY!
DUDE!!!