A/N: Hello to my first story ever, featuring Akane 2 years after the events of P5S. Those who haven't played P5S should go play it first, since it will be easier to understand the story with Akane not being a blank slate in your mind. But it should also be fine if that's the case. With this being my first story ever, please don't expect much, if you like the idea enough, and have enough freetime (which you should, unless you are medical personnel), consider betaing this for me since my fictional writing sucks balls. Enough berating myself, please enjoy!

2019/3/31

Scrubbing my eyes, I woke up noticing the train was stopped at a station.

"Akane." Dad saw me waking up "we still have an hour left to go, you could sleep some more."

I yawned heavily "I didn't wake up by choice you know"

Dad just pats my head "I can guess, but you are quite tired from the trip isn't, you better rest up for school tomorrow."

I yawned again, thinking back to the trip to Tokyo we just had. We met up with Makoto-chan and Futaba-chan and the others, we even got to meet with Yoshizawa-san, who was said to be rather busy doing gymnastics overseas. She is quite the well-mannered girl, but I guess I am too shy to call her by her First name.

Fatigue took me away while I thought back towards the trip, and as dad soothe my hair.

I woke up not in the train, but in some sort of big blue room, where everything is in dark velvet blue. A number of glowing holographic panels surround me while I get a hold of myself, some indecipherable words are on it. I am apparently in the middle of the room, indicated by a large circle shaped bench with a big V on the floor, along with some stairs to get out of the circle. Then I noticed a man sitting across me.

He is wearing a suit with black tie, bald on top with some white hair on the side, both his eyes are bulging out like they'd fall out any second, a Pinocchio-style long nose, and an abnormally wide grin. Needless to say, I pinched my face rather hard to test my sanity "Oww, I'm not dreaming? But how..."

"Hehehehe, no need to be so confused, my dear guest" he speaks while cackling through his grin.

I dunno, my brain tells me he's bad news but my heart says otherwise, but that nose though… I decide to not panic, and ask him some questions "Hello, I am Hasegawa Akane, who are you?"

He made his grin larger As if it wasn't large enough "It's good to see our guests are all composed, as per usual." He stood up and cleared his throat before continuing "My name is Igor, I am delighted to make your acquaintance."

His voice somehow both creeps me out and make me feel at home at the same time, which I didn't think it's even possible.

It was at this moment I noticed that there is a window behind Igor. I pointed my finger at it "Is that space?" He nodded "Yes." I continued "Are we on a spaceship?" He nodded "Yes." My brain kind of short circuited, it was beyond my imagination. Seriously a spaceship? Why would I even dream about it? "Can you tell me how I can not be confused?" I asked Igor, looking for any answers at this point. He said calmly "I will explain everything, maybe not now, but please be assured that i will do it down the road. Don't worry"

I took a deep breath, and told Igor "Alright, please do." In which he did explain a lot "Firstly, I must welcome you to the Velvet Room, it's a place existing between dream and reality, mind and matter. As a matter of fact you are in your dream right now." I tilted my head in confusion "But pinching myself didn't work?" He cackled again "While this is a dream, this isn't just any other dream, so your normal ways don't work here. Moving on, do you believe in fortune telling?"

Fortune telling? "Um... I haven't tried it yet." He magically summoned a deck of cards, and shuffled it without touching the cards. And drawed a card from the top "Let's see how your immediate future looks like… It's the Emperor arcana in the upright position, symbolizing the will to control one's surroundings, and maybe failure to do so."

I had expected it to tell me that I will screw up big time, but I guess I can live with that. That got me curious "What about after that? Can you tell?" He drew another card from the top, and looked at the card for a second "Hmm… Interesting, the Hanged Man arcana in the upright position. It represents self-sacrifice for the sake of enlightenment. While there are other more positive interpretations, this is the most common interpretation of this card."

I went speechless for a second, Never heard a reading this precise before, Is it actually true? "Is that a good or bad thing?" I asked nervously. To which he said "It would depend on your ability to seize your ability to achieve said enlightenment." I reconfirmed with him "So what you mean is to be careful, right?" He nodded "You are correct."

I guess that's not too bad of a reading, I had expected him to go much more vague.

Igor then summoned a clipboard with a paper on it "If you want to make use of our services in the future, you will need to sign the contract here. Please note that our services aren't limited to fortune telling only, but forgive me I can't delve into this right now."

I took the clipboard from his hands, and noticed the mostly empty paper contract only has one condition.

"I will accept full responsibility for my actions."

That's it? I thought that it's weird, but the whole dream is already pretty weird. And I signed it without much delay. The clipboard and the contract vanished into the light the second I signed my name on it.

"Excellent." Igor fiddling with his fingers like an evil mastermind "You are now officially a guest of the velvet room."

Suddenly there's a beeping sound coming from the spaceship.

"Ah, but it seems like we ran out of time." Igor clarified "We will talk later."

"Uh, wha-" Before I can even ask a question, my view went pitch black.

2019/4/1

I woke up on my bed with my outdoor clothes on, And sensing someone's stench instantly Ugh, who's smell is that? I also had quite the headache as I heard dad was whispering something inside my ear "Wakey wakey Akane, it's time for school."

I rolled my eyes at him "Look dad, I got a headache and it's not because of you treating me like a preschooler."

Dad laughed quite loudly "I know, you get a headache because you slept way too much." I tilted my head in confusion as he continued "When we arrived at Kyoto station last night, I couldn't wake you up no matter what, so I carried you on my back from the station to your bed."

I Blushed from the implications of being carried on his back, and he just snickered "Well you better take a bath before going to school, you stink." I held my clothes for a sniff "That's MY stench?" I quickly ran to get my uniform and rushed towards the bathroom.

Dad offered to drive me to school every day he could, but we got into an argument, and in the end we decided to only do it for the first day. And here I am, in his car, driving to school.

I am wearing my winter uniform right now. With a button up shirt inside of a dark purple coat, with the school's emblem on the left side of my chest, I'm also wearing a blue knee-length skirt, with white socks and a black shoe. I also have a small black and white bird mask shaped hair clip on the left side of my brown short hair. If you are wondering if that is breaking the rules, then the answer is no.

"Couldn't believe you would reject my offer to drive you to school. You don't get these everyday you know."

Here we go, trying to change my mind again "If I didn't take the same offer last year, why would I take it now when I'm a second year?"

"I don't know, maybe you want more time at school?" Dad tried to justify his stance

And of course I am having none of that "Yea, no."

We had a moment of silence as the radio talked about something about a bill.

"In other news, the rather divisive Immigrant Expansion Act has been implemented for 3 years now. The original intent of the act was to combat Aging Population and bring economic growth, but the positive impacts of this act, for now, are mediocre at best. The government has said that they will be closely monitoring if there are negative effects caused for this bill. While a large part of the population does think the act will help tackle the problems it is made to tackle, there are some citizens who are critical of the act and campaign to have it repealed."

"Oh right, there's that as well. Are you looking forward to having foreign classmates this year? I heard the school took in quite a few this year."

I thought for a sec "Well, nothing bad happened last year when they came, so i don't think that there's a reason to assume they meant trouble. In fact I guess I'm more looking forward to it than others. How about you, what do you think about this bill?"

Dad replied without much thought "Well, I'm neutral towards them, that's my job you know? But I guess the biggest problem is the people opposing the bill, they might get more violent to try and overturn the bill."

I half-joked at him "That would also mean more work for you, isn't it?"

He then feigned ignorance "Why, how do you know." I glared at him "Sass me some more and I'll ignore you for a week."

He immediately backpedals "I kid, I kid. I just want to make you less anxious."

I retorted instantly "I'm not!"

Sooner or later, we arrived at the school.

"Come back earlier tonight, I'm going to make dinner." Dad declared

"Yeah, I'm going to not look forward to it."

He protested "Hey, don't just shoot me down for no reason!"

I opened the car door while answering him "We'll see."

He's such a nag sometimes. I thought as I walked towards the school.

A/N: Before you ask, I finished the game five months ago with a non-english version, that's why this is out before the english version of P5S.

It might yet not be apparent, but the start of the story is somewhat similar to Emerald by WhiteFangofWhoa. ( s/12745804/1/Emerald) However after the start, the two stories are going to diverge, and much like how every persona game tackles a central theme, I also have a central theme for this story, it's not hard to guess, so no prizes for anyone who does in the comments.

This story is also heavily inspired by Persona: The Sougawa Files by Arsene_Phantom ( /works/14831952/chapters/34327386), and thus will be a sort of original take on the persona formula with an already established character as the protag. I will update the story weekly, unless I have IRL stuff to deal with or I procrastinate too much, please look forward to it!