Captain Blues: A long time coming, but I am back with a new chapter. Let's go!

Persona 5: The Darkest Hour
Wild Cards in the Velvet Room

[Opening Scene: The Velvet Room
Theme of the Velvet Room: Velvet Room from Persona 2: Innocent Sin]

"Aigis, you're alive!" Minako yelled in excitement as she rushed over to Aigis and embraced the android. Minako pulled away and immediately asked, "What happened to the others? What happened to Ryōji?! How did you defeat Nyx?!"

"How do you know of Nyx? Who are you?" Aigis questioned.

Minako's eyes widened in disbelief as she took a step back. "No….No, please, this can't be. Aigis, it's me. Minako! Arisato Minako! You know me."

"Ari…Sato?" Aigis whispered. "T-The only Arisato I know was Arisato Minato, and he…." Aigis paused, her voice wavering slightly. "He sacrificed himself to seal Nyx away. He had no record of a sibling, and yet my Papillon Heart burns at your touch, as it did with his…."

"Sibling? I'm an only child," Minako told her as she took a step back. "W-What is going on? W-Why is this happening?"

"I am so lost," Ren murmured as Yu stood and nodded in agreement.

"Minako!" a voice shouted from behind them, prompting Minako to turn around, only to cover her mouth at the sight of the Velvet Room Attendant.

"Theodore," Minako whispered before she ran up to him and hugged him tightly. "You know who I am! You see me!"

"Darn right, I do," Theodore said as he hugged her back. "When you went missing, I was terrified."

"Theodore, you know of her?" Lavenza asked.

"Yes," Theodore said as he broke away from Minako. "She's a Wild Card in an alternate world similar to this one, and I was her attendant."

Aigis, Ren, and Yu's eyes widened in surprise.

"An alternate world?" Yu asked.

Theodore nodded. "Did you think this universe was the only one? There are plenty of alternate universes, with alternate velvet rooms out there," Theodore explained before he looked at Ren and said, "For example, there is a universe, right now, at this very moment where you are also a Phantom Thief, Amamiya Ren. And not only that, Minako is your aunt."

"Whoa," Ren and Minako breathed out.

"That's interesting," Yu murmured.

"I agree," Aigis whispered.

"It makes sense that you are confused," Margaret said as she stood in between Lavenza and Theodore. "But it makes more sense if you can see it." A door appeared behind Margaret, and she turned around to open it.

On the other side, Caroline and Justine were talking to Ren within a cell while Igor watched on in amusement.

"Welcome back to my Velvet Room, Trickster," Igor said with an amused grin.

Ren walked up to the front of his cell and said, "Good to be back? Anyways, what's going on, long nose?"

"The sheer audacity of you inmate!" Caroline exclaimed, but Ren waved her off with a disarming grin.

"Now, now, short stuff. Adults are talking," Ren retorted and took a step back as Caroline slammed her baton against the cell bars, causing electricity to streak across them.

"Now, prisoner, what do you have to gain from angering my sister?" Justine questioned.

"I like teasing her," Ren replied with a grin. "She's so uptight. She needs to learn to loosen up, or else, she'll regret it."

"You'll regret teasing me, inmate!" Caroline exclaimed.

"Sure I will, kiddo," Ren replied with a grin, ignoring the second blow to his cell's bars.

Once the electricity died out, Ren leaned against the cell and said to Justine, "This place is so damned sad. I will say this; the opera-like singing is magnificent but mournful. How do you guys live with this?"

"You get used to it," Justine responded with a bored expression.

Margaret closed the door and turned around to face the stunned faces of the Wild Cards. "See?" Margaret asked.

"Okay, we believe you," Ren breathed out.

"With that said," Lavenza began. "Minako should not be in this universe. She should be within her own."

"If there was anything left of it…." Theodore whispered, which caused Minako's eyes to widen.

"T-Theo….What do you mean?" Minako asked.

[Theme of Crushing Truths: The Path Was Closed from Persona 3]

"When you disappeared, your friends decided to fight Nyx without you…." Theodore began. "Because of Aigis' realization, she became the new Wild Card in your stead and tried to lead them to victory, but because of her lack of experience and the power she lacked that you had, they all failed…."

Minako's face grew pale. "No…." she breathed out.

"They fought as hard as they could for as long as they could, but it just wasn't enough…." Theodore continued.

"Please, t-they can't be…." Minako whispered.

"I'm sorry…." Theodore whispered. "The Fall happened, and no one survived…."

"So that's it?" Yu asked. "The Fall happened, and everyone died? So she has no home to go back to?"

"No….Igor closed that door," Theodore answered. "There is no way to reopen it."

"Okay, but maybe we can go back to the past? I mean, if the Multiverse exists, then surely time travel does, right?" Ren asked.

"It doesn't work that way," Lavenza whispered. "To receive a resemblance of time travel, we would need to find a universe that is as close as possible to the universe the recipient came from."

"Then, we would have to essentially replace the soul of the person with that of the recipient's," Margaret said.

"And finally, we would need to find a universe in the exact timeframe that we would need it to be," Theodore finished.

"For example, the universe we just gazed into, that Amamiya Ren, had failed to convince Niijima Sae and was killed by Akechi Goro," Lavenza began, shocking Ren greatly.

"I failed?" Ren asked.

"You did," Lavenza said. "The remains of that universe's Lavenza used all the remaining energy she had to find a universe as close as possible to her version's Trickster, replace the soul of that universe's Amamiya Ren with her Trickster's, right as his journey was beginning. And she had barely made it before that window closed for him."

"The fact she was able to do that as her energy was fading was amazing," Theodore said with a soft tone. "But the reason it wouldn't work in Minako's case is that the window of time has moved past hers. Right now, the next opening won't occur until the next few years, when a new Wild Card is selected."

"So there's no way to send her back?" Aigis asked.

The trio shook their heads with an apologetic frown.

"It doesn't matter," Minako whispered with her head bowed, tears falling down her face. "It wouldn't have been the same anyways. My friends, My Ryōji, they're gone. And there is no bringing them back…."

"Minako…." Ren said as he reached out to her, but she smacked his hand away.

"Don't," Minako whispered. "Not right now…." Minako then walked past the group and left through the entrance she and Ren had walked through.

"I'll go talk to her," Theodore said.

"No," Aigis spoke up. "I was her friend in her world. I will speak to her instead. Perhaps it would help."

Theodore nodded, and Aigis walked away and through the exit.

"That was a lot deeper than I expected," Ren whispered.

"Yeah," Yu murmured before he looked at Ren and smacked him in the back of the head.

"Ow! Why?!" Ren exclaimed as he looked back at Yu.

"That is for not telling me that you're THE Phantom Thief, Ren," Yu answered with a frown on his face.

[Theme of Reunion: A Sky Full of Stars from Persona 4: The Golden]

"Oh, I'm sorry, but I was unaware you were involved in all this Persona business!" Ren exclaimed with a frown on his face. "Does Aunt Naoto know your little secret?!"

"Does she? She's a part of it, idiot!" Yu exclaimed.

"W-What?!" Ren exclaimed. "Are you for real?!"

"Very," Yu said with amusement, but that looked faded away into a serious expression. "How in the world did you get mixed up with this business?"

"Well, remember the incident with that asshole, Shido?" Ren asked.

"Yeah. He lied and nearly got your ass thrown in jail," Yu said.

"Well, let's just say, there's a lot of shit that happened that involved Personas," Ren stated.

"This both Naoto and I have to hear," Yu said. "But perhaps that should wait until we figure out what's going on with the Dark Hour."

"I don't understand anything about the Dark Hour, truthfully. And the only one who seems to know might be Minako," Ren said.

"Even we're not too sure of what went down," Yu said. "Most of the S.E.E.S group keeps hushed about it due to losing two members of their team during that event."

"Two members?" Ren gasped out.

Yu nodded and continued with, "Yeah. The fact that we managed to make it out of the Midnight Channel with all of us intact was nothing short of amazing."

"Yeah. I mean, the only person we lost with Akechi Goro, and he wasn't really a member of the Phantom Thieves, you know?" Ren asked.

"Oh, I know exactly what you mean," Yu knowingly said. "Come on, Let's trade horror stories."

"You two have fun," Margaret said as she kissed Yu on the cheek. "I'm going to inform Naoto of what's going on here."

Yu smiled at her before she walked out, only to turn around to see a stunned Ren. "It's a long story," Yu began.

"Well, let's get to it then," Ren told him.

[Scene Change: Shibuya - Inokashira Park (Daytime)
Theme of Memories: Memories of the School from Persona 3]

"You run quite fast."

Minako lifted her head to see Aigis standing before her, a sympathetic look in the android's eyes. Minako looked away from her, unable to look at her fellow S.E.E.S member.

No.

There was no S.E.E.S anymore.

There was just Minako, the sole survivor of a universe that was forever closed off to her.

"What do you want?" Minako questioned.

"I have come to talk to you," Aigis answered as she walked over to Minako's side and sat down on the bench Minako occupied. "I understand that this has been rough on you."

"Don't bother," Minako interrupted. "There is nothing you, or anyone, could say that could cheer me up. My Aigis is dead. My Junpei, my Ken, my Yukari, My Akihiko, My Mitsuru, my Konomaru, my Ryo-"

Minako's voice broke apart as the image of Ryoji's heartbreaking smile appeared in her mind. "My Ryōji…." She finished. "They're all dead and gone. I'm trapped here without the people I cared about."

"You are correct. I do not understand how that feels," Aigis said after a moment. "But I understand loss. The person I loved, Arisato Minato, sacrificed himself to become Nyx's seal. I will never see his smile or laugh again. Even now, after all these years, continues to both me."

Minako remained silent.

"Losing him was like losing a part of me. If not for Elizabeth, I would have crumbled and returned to my emotionless state, undoing my sister's sacrifice," Aigis continued. "I am not your Aigis, that is correct, but I am me. Despite you not being Minato, My Papillon Heart tells me to help you with all that I am. And if you allow me, I will be there to help you in any way that I can."

Minako looked at Aigis and felt tears well up in her eyes. "Can I please have a hug?" Minako asked with a shaky voice. Aigis smiled and leaned over to embrace Minako, who hugged her back as she began to sob heavily.

Captain Blues: So this one was a heavy chapter for Minako and I'm sorry, but she will be hurt some more in the future. The next chapter will have Minako and Aigis returning to the Velvet Room and conversing about the Dark Hour, along with some bonding moments for our Thieves. Until then!