Mercifully, Mitsuru lessened harsh grip on the handful of blue hair she had snatched sometime during the activity, maybe during the middle or perhaps the very start when Makoto pressed his mouth to her warm core to return the favor. After whistling out a sigh of relief, she parted her legs and released Makoto from in between her thighs and the boy let out a gasp upon being freed, at last able to catch a breath of fresh hair as Mitsuru had been absolutely ruthless from start to finish.

Aware that she had inflicted a moderate amount of pain, Mitsuru rubbed his scalp softly, fingers combing through the tangled mess of blue hair she had left in the wake of her frenzy. She was normally a lot more controlled even during oral and she blamed Makoto for her erratic behavior this time. Her blue haired boyfriend was far too eager to please her and she wondered if this was his method of atonement for upsetting her earlier.

"You were certainly looking forward to appeasing your queen today, Makoto." Mitsuru teased with a demure smile and worked at a steady pace with her fingers to pacify the prickling sensation at the root of his scalp. "Do give me a warning next time."

A curt yawn pushed past his lips and Makoto lolled his head against her thigh to ease up the cramp in his neck. His beloved senpai rode his face in more than one position and for the majority of the session, she smothered him between her thighs, refusing to let go until she was truly and utterly satisfied. Even now, she had not moved an inch and her legs were still wide open. A small glimpse of her bare womanhood made him huff but after everything that had transpired in the last twenty-four hours, Makoto was exhausted to his aching bones.

"I did say this whole mess was my fault." Makoto yawned again, murmuring something about her thigh being more comfortable than his actual pillow. He met her adoring eyes and with a small nip on the inner side, Makoto attempted to move away but his senpai snatched the nape of his neck to restrict his movement. He peeped at her and saw a very demanding smile contorted on her lips. The queen uttered her last command in a low, sultry voice and the words rolled off her tongue sweet as honey.

"Kiss."

Makoto yelped when she did half his work from him and guided his mouth back onto her damp sex, her hips trembled at the sensation but so did his whole body. He had tasted her for the past hour but the moment his lips touched her slippery folds, the blue haired teenager found his eyes rolling to the back of his head. Her scent, her warmth and her body intoxicated him, and his consciousness drifted in a dreamlike haze.

"Kiss me, Makoto." Mitsuru made sure to tilt his head to get a better look at his face. She swept the long fringe and stroked her thumb above the other eye normally hidden under his bangs. The heiress almost swooned at the sight of gray orbs staring at her, slightly dazed but brimming with unmistakable lust for her.

The affectionate gesture from his senpai brought Makoto back and he did as she commanded. After a final lick across her sex, he parted his lips and kissed her folds as he would do to her mouth. Her legs that were wrapped around him quaked but she refrained from tugging on a fistful of blue as she had done before. Instead, she maintained the pace of her caresses on his hair and rewarded him with a loving smile for taking care of her so thoroughly.

Done with her final request, Makoto flopped on his back and rubbed at the minor ache surfacing along his scalp. To think this was the same girl who was previously unable to stare at his dick for more than two seconds without blushing and hiding her face. The same girl came close and loomed over him with another gorgeous smile, a visible glow of satisfaction radiating her delicate features.

"Well done, Makoto." Mitsuru gave a soft giggle and then parted his bangs. She leaned down for another kiss on his forehead and she held on for more than a minute while the male under her squirmed, basking in her display of love and wrapping his arms around her waist to reciprocate.

"Happy to please, senpai." Makoto said when she was done kissing his now marked forehead, cherry-red lipstick smudged over. She stopped at his lips for a small kiss and then sat up, brushing her red hair to straighten out the curls.

Mitsuru casted one last glance at the boy to make sure he was okay and to her relief, he was. Her boyfriend did not seem bogged down by the misery she witnessed when he was flat on his back in the doorway. Relieved, the heiress got off her bed for a change of wardrobe as she had lost her skirt and underwear somewhere and she was not bothered enough to locate them.

Makoto nestled under the blankets and pondered upon the fact that he had been sleeping in her bed more often than he did in his own room. He was very territorial in regard to his sleeping space and no other person was allowed to sleep alongside him. That was until the female changing her clothes to his left shared his bed for the first time and held onto him the entire night. Since then, Makoto could not recall a single night he slept alone and not in the arms of Mitsuru.

For a brief second, Makoto marveled at the sight of his senpai shedding off the remaining clothes and putting on comfortable sleepwear.. He himself discarded the jacket to prepare for a good night of sleep, and while his school shirt and pants were not too comfy he could make do. The current day was perhaps the most difficult one he could remember and at one point, the wild card user had banged his head on the concrete wall thinking that Mitsuru would never speak to him after his mistake but here he was now.

His neck was cramped and jaw sore. The slap from Mitsuru hurt a lot worse than the hook from the boxing champion but since he earned her forgiveness, Makoto was satisfied. The oral intimacy was more gratifying than usual, signifying a return to the sweet normalcy of love after a bad spat.

"I need to stop doing this to her." Makoto knew the reason for his agitation last night and Mitsuru had nothing to do with that. He was taking his frustrations out on her and rightfully so, he was bashed on the face for his mistakes. A rueful sigh escaped his lips and Makoto contemplated bashing his cranium against the metal frame of her bed for further atonement. He was about to do so as he was acting worse than a low-life and the person who had to suffer in the crosshairs was Mitsuru.

"Makoto…" Her melodious voice offered him comfort and Makoto stopped in the middle of repentance with a self-deprecating groan. He shifted on the bed and made room for Mitsuru as she came back after a change of clothes; black panties and the same color gown which hung low, barring her shoulders and ending a few inches above her thigh. She worked her hair up into a ponytail and tilted her head with another soft smile, gazing over the boy who had done nothing but leer at her body.

"Your eagerness never fails to surprise me." Mitsuru chuckled in amusement as she straightened her ponytail, conscious of her beauty in front of her kohai even well past evening.

Shrugging his shoulders, Makoto shifted on his side for a better look at her pleasant assets. "Can you blame me? You are Mitsuru freaking Kirijo!"

After dimming the lights in her room, the Kirijo heiress hopped onto Makoto without warning. Even injured and not fully recovered, the underclassman cushioned her fall and despite the speck of pain at the collision, he wasted no time in wrapping his arms around her to hold Mitsuru close.

His arms around her shivered every now and then and Makoto murmured, remorseful for upsetting her earlier. Mitsuru crawled up his body and while she shared none of the blame of the initial disagreement, the sound of her palm connecting on his cheek and knocking him over persisted in the front of her head. She had her own demons to purge and she located his weary face in the darkness. His eye held a hint of unshed tears and Mitsuru wasted not a second more.

She gave him a bevy of kisses on his face. That was the first time she had ever struck him down and now she regarded her lash out as nothing less than a grievous sin. Mitsuru recoiled under the weight of the sin as it crawled on her own cheek, and she briefly considered banging her head on the desk.

"Cute." Makoto said after clearing his throat to flush out the hoarseness in his voice. Her soft lips smooched every inch of his face and Makoto only tightened his hold around her and he occasionally kissed her back, meeting her lips with his and sharing more than a dozen short but sweet kisses with his redheaded senpai.

Mitsuru paused briefly when his hand snaked into her gown and the empress braced upon feeling his digits along the curve of her left breast. She was expecting Makoto to grasp and fondle her chest but he began to trace the shape of a heart along her breastbone, praying that his touch would heal her broken heart. The touch was more soothing and romantic than sexual and Mitsuru sought his lips for a much gentler kiss while Makoto continued roaming his warm fingers in the same motion. He ducked his head under her chest and he kissed her where her heart was and he felt the beat under his lips, slow and steady and in sync with his own

"Makoto…"

Mitsuru had slapped his face but Makoto had abused her heart. Pity he could not actually cast a Diarahan and heal the scars of agony she had to endure throughout her young life.

"I'm sorry, senpai." The hoarseness returned to his quivering voice when he removed his mouth from her chest. Grief rushed up her nerves and strangled her heart as his frail voice echoed in her head but the redheaded heiress hushed Makoto before he could go on.

"Oh, stop." Mitsuru urged him and captured his mouth in another soothing kiss to dispel any notion of lingering bitterness she held towards him. "I admit this is a little difficult since we never had an argument before but…"

"Let it go." Mitsuru said slowly and then repeated to make sure he understood. "I will never strike you again, Makoto."

"But please…" She cupped the sides of his face with her shaky hands and her lip quivered when she pleaded with him.

"Please don't do this to me anymore…"

Stress and anxiety tightened his nerves and his body stiffened under her as her desperate voice begged him to tone down his recklessness in the tower. Mitsuru was expecting a retort or complete silence but her underclassman gave a slow nod after brief contemplation.

"Yes, senpai…"

The gorgeous grin that adorned her previously aghast face made him smile slightly. Another kiss on his forehead later, Mitsuru made herself comfortable beside him, arms around his neck and head on his shoulder. She was ready to sleep in the loving arms of her kohai but she had one last request for him and perhaps the most difficult one.

"We'll visit a doctor tomorrow, okay?." Mitsuru informed, appointment already set prior. The younger boy next to her barely showed up to the scheduled checkups as he preferred training over anything else. And as the Promised Day loomed over their heads, Makoto skipped on every single checkup scheduled in the past month.

"Okay, senpai." Makoto answered back, agreeing to her request with absolutely no qualms. Satisfied, Mitsuru whispered a goodnight into his ear and drifted off to a pleasant slumber beside the boy she loved. Makoto however remained awake long past midnight, mulling over the events of the day with a grimace on his face. He had promised Mitsuru that he would alleviate his self-destructive behavior in battle, but he had to try one more time. He owed that to their love.

"I'm sorry, Mitsuru." Whispered Makoto in a faint voice, bitterness dripping off his tongue as he apologized in advance for breaking the promise he had just made. The promise the two had sealed with a kiss moments ago.

"I love you too much to not try one last time, senpai…"

The Promised Day was just around the corner.

The school-bell rang to signal the end of classes and Mitsuru marched into classroom 2-F to fetch her junior from the sea of students demanding his services for the evening. Yuko wanted help in drafting a diet plan. Chihiro wanted to talk about romantic mangas. Kazushi wanted to spar in Kendo. Poor Makoto was glued to the wall of his classroom, petrified and cowering against so many students yelling at him to come along. Or else.

The drop in temperature led to the dispersal of the mob and from there Mitsuru dragged him off to Tatsumi Memorial Hospital, as they had agreed to. Confident about his condition, Makoto went through a number of X-Ray scans to ascertain the condition of his skeleton. His body was trampled under the weight of numerous shadows during the last outing and Mitsuru was expecting a few hairline fractures at the minimum.

The tests came back clear and to be sure, Mitsuru ran the scans by another professional. After validation by the second doctor, Makoto was declared injury free to the relief of his senpai. With business at the hospital done, the couple left the facility and headed back to the dorm.

"I tend to forget that you rival Yukari in healing prowess." The heiress said with a proud chuckle, outside the hospital and waiting for her driver to arrive. "Your jaw looks healed as well."

"I think I am better than her." Makoto concluded after a quick comparison of his healing spells against the repertoire of Yukari and Isis. "I could have healed myself the day before if I was not feeling so… miserable."

He was constantly bringing up the incident and apologizing since the night before. Mitsuru was about to scold him but a nauseating series of nihilistic chants directed her attention towards a number of hooded figures on the other side of the road. Her stomach blanched at the sight and she took a step back unconsciously as her guilt-ridden conscience reminded her that ultimately, her family shouldered the blame.

Makoto was disturbed and shaken beside her, self-hatred flickering every so slightly in his eye . The increasingly relevant cult was dedicated to the maternal being, Nyx and the madman responsible for the assembly of nihilistic commoners was Takaya Sakaki, the leader of Strega. According to a popular rumor, the cult had conducted a few human sacrifices in order to fasten the advent of the fall, much like the bastard Ikutsuki had attempted to do to him and his friends.

The blue haired boy shared the blame as well for the moment he came back to his hometown, he sealed the fate of the world. If Mitsuru's grandfather prepared the blueprint for the fall of humanity, he was the one who executed the prophecy. After all, Death dwelled within him and he was the leader of the group responsible for rebirth of the thirteenth arcana. Unwillingly or not, he had a direct hand in the Resurrection of the Appraiser.

"Those people." Mitsuru's shallow voice anchored him back to reality and Makoto winced. The remorseful scowl present on her face was the bane of his life and these days, wherever she looked, Mitsuru witnessed the remnants of her grandfather's madness poisoning the city. "They are growing in numbers."

"Takaya's poison is spreading." Makoto said and latched onto her hand to let her know that he was there. The cult was ominous already but what was truly terrifying was the fact that the nearby people started paying close attention to the ramblings of a man preaching death as the ultimate salvation.

Salvation. That word rang a cursed bell in his head and Makoto was prepared to venture into Tartarus right there and then.

"Senpai." Makoto squeezed her hand in a reassuring grip. Mitsuru finally averted her stare from the group and gestured at him to continue.

"We are going to Tartarus tonight."

Mitsuru could only sigh at his command. She was not going to override his command, not after what she had witnessed but she was also not looking forward to Makoto running into a brick wall, as he had been doing since they resolved to fight Nyx.

Something had changed within her beloved Makoto. He was always reckless and selfless to the point of suicide and despite being mild-mannered most of the time, the boy was fiercely protective of his team in battle and that was especially true for her. The past few weeks however, Makoto entered Tartarus each time with a death wish, hoping that his corpse would be dragged out of the tower.

"You promised me, Makoto." Mitsuru reminded him of what he had sworn last night and received painful silence in return. He started looking the other way, ashamed to show his face as he was about to go against her wishes.

"You promised…"

"He promised…"

Mitsuru was honestly expecting a positive change and some compassion from someone who had claimed that he loved her more than anything in the world. After all, the promise was made in exceptional circumstances and she could perfectly remember being nestled in his arms when Makoto swore that he would never fight like an absolute moron.

Yet, as she watched Makoto scamper from floor to another, looking for a suicidal fight with the shadows of Monad, Mitsuru held the urge to give up on him and return to the lobby. This time he did not allow any of his friends to take part and took on whatever came in his path.

After fighting and exhausting himself to the point of collapse, Makoto was supported out of the dungeon by Akihiko and Junpei. Mitsuru was the last one to leave and a gander at the chaos strewn across the floor sickened her. Makoto had bled as much as the shadows did and with about thirty minutes left until the end of the Dark Hour, she knew that Yuuki was going to return very shortly.

When Mitsuru returned through the green device, Makoto was standing in the corner of the lobby. According to him, an invisible blue door led to a room cloaked in blue and the residents of "The Velvet Room" were the ones responsible for fusing his personas. This only reinforced the thought that he would rush back into Tartarus to test out a new persona.

Mitsuru questioned why she expected anything different out of him. Her worst fears were starting to come true. She had denied the theory before but the truth was stitched over his terrified face. Makoto was hoping to die in the battle so that he would avoid facing the material being.

Dejected, Mitsuru discarded her weapon and crossed her shivering arms.

"I was wrong to expect more out of him…"

After all… She was as terrified as everyone else in the lobby.

"Any new personas?" Makoto asked the same question on a different day and much like before, Igor, and his attendant, Elizabeth shook their heads in negative. The answer made him curse and the boy punched the table in a fit of rage. "What if I fuse that one with something else?"

"That particular persona cannot be fused further." Igor replied calmly, studying him through his beady eyes which carried a hint of genuine concern. "You may reverse fuse to obtain another persona but the resulting entity will be far weaker."

Makoto shook his head and stomped off towards the exit. Another day of absolute pain and endless battles with no different result. He had no one to blame but himself as the residents of the room that warned him that further training would be wasteful. Still Makoto was not entirely convinced that this was his limit. According to Igor, the wild card was limitless so there was a chance that he would be able to unlock an entirely different persona if he trained just a bit harder.

"No…." Makoto stopped with his hand around the knob of the door that led back to the real world. In the real world, Mitsuru was waiting for him and he knew that his senpai was trying to nurse the wounds he had given her yet again, and all for nothing. Makoto was disgusted at himself for breaking the promise when he knew that further fighting would lead to nothing.

"I can't keep doing this to her…" The blue haired boy only whispered but his voice echoed in the small room. Igor, who barely spoke to him outside of fusing and handling personas, spoke up from where he sat.

"I suggest that you do not risk reversing your Social Links at a time like this." Igor spoke from his seat and the mention of Social Link boiled the blood of his guest. He looked over his shoulder and frowned upon the words of the proprietor, subtly warning him to retract his statement.

"She is not a Social me. Not anymore." Makoto corrected him with a small warning, anger creeping into his voice.

"All the more reason for you to be careful." Igor replied and he was as calm as ever even in the face of the small glare Makoto directed at him. "Venting your frustrations will do you no good, my dear boy."

The argument from last night dragged his frown into a look of remorse. He was doing the exact same thing, and this time to the people who had aided him every step of the way.

"I'm sorry." Makoto apologized and he lamented how often he had been doing so while rubbing his eyes with his sleeve. The gaze from Igor was much kinder and the slight smile urged him to step forward and not run away anymore.

"You cannot keep doing this, Master Makoto." Elizabeth parroted and gestured towards the thick tome opened upon her command and Makoto shivered once before resigning with a sigh. He walked towards the attendant with slow steps but determined steps.

"I understand…"

"Hey, he's back!" Junepi yelled to let everyone else know that Makoto had returned from wherever he went to for new personas. The leader turned towards his subordinates waiting for him but at the far corner, Mitsuru faced away from him, arms crossed and her head hung low.

"We're ready to go back." Yukari said with a huff and awaited his instructions. His other friends were ready to follow the leader back into Monad even though they were tired from the previous expedition.

Makoto located Mitsuru and the girl had not looked at him once since he returned. She was waiting for him to drag the rest of the team back into another mission of survival but Makoto simply smiled at his friends, recognizing that they had given it their all.

"No…" He scratched the back of his neck and let out a soft laugh. This made Mitsuru look at him and the blue haired wild card continued while holding her confused gaze with a gentle smile. "I think we've done enough. Let's go home tonight and rest up."

Junpei groaned in relief and was the one first to dash out of the tower, relieved for some rest after a hectic couple of days. The other persona users soon followed him out of the tower and Makoto walked up to Mitsuru. She saw the idiot boy approach her and she opened her mouth to yell at him for breaking his promise.

"I just had to make sure, senpai." Makoto hushed her mid sentence with a finger on her lips. "Trust me.."

Mitsuru tried to fight off the hug but her boyfriend locked one around her and whispered into her ear to quell her resistance.

"I swear. All I do, I do for you."

"Makoto…"

"I always have and I always will. I love you, senpai."

Author Note: I hope this was okay to read. I still consider myself rusty but I am hoping to get better as I go along. 3 more chapters, I think.

Please do review. I want to finish a Makoto x Mitsuru story and I need some support.

I will see you on the next one. Bye-bye!