'I should get some sleep, it's almost midnight…' Minato said to himself as a yawn escaped his small mouth.
He closed his textbook, placed it inside his bag and plopped his tired body unto his bed, not having the energy to change into his pajamas or bother turning off the lights. He spent all night doing his weekly routine of studying an entire night to catch up on some of the lessons he had a hard time learning; though he didn't really needed it this week since school had just started a few days ago.
Before his consciousness drifted off to sleep, he thought of what Minako said,
"I hope you're not a heavy sleeper, something is going to happen tonight."
'Yeah, right, like something's going to happen…' Were Minato's last thoughts as he closed his eyes, accepting the comfort of sleep.
A few minutes later, Minato was roused up by a sudden shake. He thought that an earthquake was happening, so he slowly opened his eyes. There seemed to be trace left by the earthquake, but what he saw made him sat right up from his bed.
His room was enveloped by a hue of green, a bright yellow light was emitting from outside his window and his sink had a bit of red liquid all around it. He then remembered that this wasn't the first time he saw this kind of change in environment. The first night he came to Iwatodia, as he stepped out of the train, this had happened.
Much like that day, Minato wasn't disturbed by what he saw, just mildly surprised. Again, he was confused as to why he felt at ease even with this freaky change in his room.
Before he could put more thought into it, he heard sudden banging noise from his door and a voice that came after.
"Wake up!" The voice shouted from behind the door, which Minato recognized to be Yukari's. "Sorry, I'm coming in!"
A few seconds later, he heard a key being inserted from behind his door and it opened with Yukari frantically coming inside; her expression was serious and she looked that she was in panic.
"I don't have time to explain. We have to get out of here now!" Yukari stated as she pulled him out his room, much to the blunette's surprise. "Hurry, downstairs! Go to the backdoor and wait for me there, I need to grab Minako before we leave."
"Wait… Here, take this, just in case," Before they could exit his room, Yukari faced him and placed what seemed like a rusty old short sword in his other hand. "Okay, go, hurry up!"
Despite not knowing what was going on, Minato gave Yukari a serious look, nodded his head in reply and dashed down the stairs.
He arrived at the backdoor, behind the kitchen and tried to open the door, but it was locked; he thought that Yukari must have the key and would open it herself when she returns from Minako's room. Minato didn't have to wait for long since the two girls arrived before he could panic and go up the stairs to check up on them. Much like him, the bluenette saw that Yukari has given Minako a weapon; hers on the other hand wasn't a sword, it was long staff with a blade on the tip on it.
"Alright, we should be safe now…" Yukari she sighed in relief as she took a key from her pockets, but before she could open the door, a ringing tone could be heard from a radio on Yukari's waist. She took it and placed it on speaker, so the others could hear it.
"Takeba, do you read me?!" A voice which sounded much like Mitsuru's shouted from the radio.
"Y-Yes, I hear you!" Yukari replied to the radio, nervousness apparent from her voice.
"Be careful! There's more than one enemy!" Mitusuru warned, urgency resonating in her voice. "The one we're fighting isn't the one Akihiko saw!"
"What?!" Yukari shouted, shocked by what Mitsuru said.
While the two were speaking on the radio, Minato thought about what the hell was happening right now. He couldn't understand much from their conversation, all he knew that something was attacking the dorm and there were multiple assailants. But even still, who would even attack such a dorm? Is this dorm a frat house and they were under attack by another fraternity? Or did the people in this dorm just piss off some people and they were retaliating?
While he was thinking this, a banging noise could be heard from behind the door, surprising the trio. It seemed that someone, or something, was forcefully opening the locked door with all its might.
"L-Let's pull back!" Yukari instructed the two, dragging them upstairs.
As they got upstairs, they heard some of the windows breaking. Minato thought that someone was throwing rocks at the dorm's windows, trying to ruin the place. But it didn't stop there, another noise could be heard. From below them, it seemed that whoever tried to barge through the back door has finally entered the dorm and was now running around the place to look for them.
"It's getting closer!" Yukari said, panic could be heard in her voice, she pointed to the stairs. "K-Keep moving, hurry!"
The trio frantically up the stairs, they didn't stop climbing it until they came to the fourth floor. Yukari took another key from her pocket and panicky tried to open the door. Because of so much fear, her hand kept on shaking and had a difficult time opening the door, but opened it after a few seconds.
When she opened the door, Minato and Minako ran inside, and what they saw was that they were currently on the roof of the dorm. Yukari ran to the other side of the door and locked it behind her, sighing in relief as she did so.
"The door's locked," Yukari stated as she panted from exhaustion of climbing up and down the stairs. "I think we're safe for now…"
But after she said that, they suddenly heard a monstrous growl and a disgusting squishy sound came after it. Looking at the source, they found the something had climbed up from the side of the walls. The hand and arm looked to be a mass of dark matter, after the first arm came, another arm that held a bluish mask that had a Roman numeral one on its forehead. The arm twisted itself as if it was the neck, making the mask scan the roof.
But that wasn't what scared them the most; it was the multiple hands that came after it, each of it were holding a deadly sword, much sharper and smoother than any of the trio's weapons. When the arms finally climbed up the wall entirely, they saw that it didn't have any sort of body; just a mass of tangled arms that were each waving each of its sword menacingly.
'W-What the hell is that?!' Minato shouted inside his mind, an array of emotions bubbling inside his head, ranging from shock to afraid. 'I-Is this some kind of nightmare?! But it feels nothing like a dream!'
As Minato was having a mild panic attack from everything that was happening, Yukari voiced out her concerns.
"You've got to be kidding me! It climbed up the wall?!"
As she said that, Minato looked at her, and saw that she wasn't that shocked to see the monstrosity in front of them. It seemed that she had already encountered such a thing, or even some of its kind. Even Minako wasn't that astonished to see it, she even looked determined to fight the thing. Who in their right mind would fight a monster?
"This is the thing that attacked this place… We call them shadows," Yukari explained, cutting off Minato from his panic ridden thoughts. "O-Oh, yeah I have to fight. I can summon mine, no problem…"
After saying that, Yukari pulled what seemed like a pistol from the holster in her legs, the same pistol that Minato and Minako saw from their first day in the dorm. The bluenette thought that a mere pistol wouldn't cause any damage to the thing; even if it could it wouldn't be fatal enough to save them.
Before Minato could comment on this, he saw that instead of pointing the barrel towards the tangled mess of hands, Yukari pointed the gun on the temple of head.
'W-What the hell does she think she's doing?!' Minato shouted to himself as panic washed all over his body. 'Is she trying to commit suicide?!'
Minato couldn't move his body to try and stop Yukari from ending her life. He tried to get help from Minako, but when he stared at her, she gave him a reassuring smile and mouthed the words,
'It'll be alright.'
Seeing what Yukari was trying to do, the monster seemed to be concentrating on something, then after a second, it sent a ball of fire towards Yukari. It didn't burn her much, miraculously, but the force sent Yukari tumbling on the floor, making the pistol slide towards Minato's feet.
Minako tried to take the pistol from Minato's feet, but was stopped by another fireball that the monster threw towards her. Minako blocked it by shielding her body with both her arms, and wasn't that much affected by it, but it did make her skid backwards a bit.
Before Minato could react, he heard a heartbeat, his heartbeat to be exact, and time ceased to flow. The monster had stopped moving, Yukari was still lying on the floor and Minako didn't move from her shielding position.
Confused by this, Minato tried to make sense of all that was happening, but he didn't get an answer. As he tried to think, he saw that a boy, dressed in what seemed like a small prison outfit, appeared in front of him, the same boy who made him sign a contract on the first day he arrived at the dorm.
The boy mouthed something to Minato. He didn't know how, but he completely understood what he was tried to say to him. He didn't know why, but he nodded his head and complied with the instructions of the small boy.
After their little conversation, the boy disappeared and time suddenly resumed. As per instructions of the boy, he slowly picked up the pistol and, like what Yukari did a little earlier, pointed the gun towards his head.
At first, he was scared, he didn't know what was going to happen to him if he pulled the trigger, but deep inside him, he knew that he wasn't going to be harmed and trusted the small boy. Taking a deep breath, he uttered the word 'PERSONA' and he pulled the trigger.
A surge of power overtook his whole body as he heard a glass being shattered from outside his head. Looking upwards, he saw that a figure slowly emerged from inside his head. When the figure finished emerging, it had the form of a human, but a body of a mechanical robot, and on its back he saw what seemed to be lyre.
"Thou art I, and I am thou. From the sea of thy soul, I cometh…" The humanoid figure said in a deep voice, even though its mouth didn't move. "I am Orpheus, Master of strings!"
Because of the surge of power, Minato felt powerful, powerful enough that he thought that he could take on the monster, with the help of Orpheus. But before he could act, he felt another spike of power inside his head, this time so powerful that it gave him a massive headache. As if being affected by the head ache as well, Orpheus's whole body shook uncontrollably.
Clutching his head, trying to relieve himself of the headache, the pain was so strong that he felt as though something was, again, emerging inside his mind. This time though, it tried to force itself out of his head.
After a few seconds, he screamed in agony. As he screamed, something emerged from inside Orpheus, breaking apart his whole body as it tried to escape the confines of Orpheus's body. The figure seemed to be another humanoid, but this time it was larger than Orpheus and it wielded a long sword, so long that it was as long as it's whole body. On its back, it had multiple coffins that served as its cape or wings.
Minato's vision became blurry and his body became heavy after that, but he was relieved to know that the massive pain inside his head subsided. Even with his already blurry vision, he saw that the figure flew towards the monster and proceeded to slice, dice and smash with its large sword.
After it finished destroying the monster, and leaving a huge mess of black matter behind, the figure screamed an ungodly roar, satisfied by its act of violence. When the roar ended, it disappeared and Minato collapsed on the floor. But before his vision faded, he saw that from the mess of black matter the monster left behind, two small blobs emerged wearing the same mask as the monster before. He then saw Minako pick up the pistol and shot her head, the same way he did. His vision faded when he saw that a figure, who looked the same as Orpheus emerged, but it appeared to be in a different shade of color.
He couldn't think about it any further as his consciousness faded.