Chapter 3: One of a Kind
"I honestly don't know what kind of being I am." — Yatogami Tohka
"This is... different."
Minato scratched his head in bemusement, attempting to figure out what just happened.
After departing from Tohka and everyone else from Raizen High, Minato, Shido, and Reine made their way to the entrance of the school and exited through the front doors. At first, Minato was quite wary because it was really dangerous and absurd to go outside when a spacequake was about to discharge somewhere in Tengu City.
He couldn't voice out his opinions due to not even having a chance. One moment he was outside of his school, and in the next he suddenly found himself in an alternate location along with Shido and Reine.
The two high school students and their physics teacher were currently in a round room. The floor was glowing bright yellow. The walls conveyed the impression that they were made out of the finest, adamant materials humanity could obtain. A bright blue light circulated around the room within the middle portions of the walls.
From the looks of things, Minato felt as if he was just raptured into a spaceship.
"Where are we...?" Minato voiced his confusion. He tried maintaining a cool head in this foreign situation. Becoming distressed wouldn't help him. That didn't stop him from heightening his senses, though, in case of a potential trap.
"We are aboard Fraxinus," Reine answered in her typical tired tone. Having her as a teacher for the past month, Minato assumed she was sleep-deprived. She would suddenly fall asleep in the middle of a lesson, and as time went on, it would become a daily occurrence. She also drank coffee with lots of sugar, but that didn't seem to help her whatsoever.
Minato raised an eyebrow. His teacher's information was kind of vague. Although, one piece of it did provide some hint.
"'Aboard'? Are we inside a type of vehicle then, Sensei?"
"Good assumption. Fraxinus is an airship," Reine stated.
Minato's eyes narrowed.
"An airship," he repeated flatly. The sleepy teacher nodded. Minato veered his head towards his fellow blue-haired friend, wondering if he was believing Reine's words. "Is she serious, Shido?"
Shido smiled wryly and looked him in the eye.
"Reine-san is telling the truth, Minato. As far-fetched as this all sounds, we really are on an airship. Fifteen kilometers in the sky above Tengu City to be precise," he confirmed with no hesitation in his tone.
Without warning as soon as Shido finished speaking, the room around the group vanished. The surroundings of Fraxinus disappeared, startling Minato as he was seemingly standing in mid-air. He saw a gray sky with clouds progressively moving above him and then faced Shido and Reine, noticing that they were not perturbed in the slightest. Minato glimpsed at the "floor" and noticed a metropolitan area that bared similarities to Tengu City's design far below him.
Everything Shido and Reine said started to make sense. To test his theory that he was in Fraxinus still, he stomped his foot with some force, receiving a metallic sound in response. Minato kept tapping his feet on the invisible floor until Fraxinus regained its tangible appearance.
The amnesiac processed what he had just witnessed. He was momentarily at a loss for words.
Advanced airships like Fraxinus existed, huh? Truthfully, he recognized that society today was more or less advanced in technology. He saw it firsthand in a spacequake evacuation drill a while ago. Buildings built like elevators, trains and monorails on train tracks, and cars on streets retracted into the earth for preservation matters. It made sense, though. Who'd really want to recreate all of that if they got decimated? If what Shido and Reine were saying was true, then why was there a need for airships? More importantly, why were they on one right now?
"I suppose I can't deny what you two are saying. I've no choice but to believe now," Minato resigned stoically. Shido and Reine were undoubtedly part of something much bigger, possibly government-related.
Reine walked forward. The moment she was face-to-face with a wall, a door appeared, parting from left to right as it opened. She turned her head back to the blue-haired teens.
"This way, Minato, Shin." She motioned for them to come with her as she walked casually through the door and proceeded down a hallway.
A split second later, Shido facepalmed so loud that it echoed throughout the room.
"Seriously, what the hell? His name has one more syllable and she can't even memorize mine right?" Shido then continued to mutter angry, incoherent words to himself. Minato ignored his friend's small flare-up and walked to the door.
"Let's go, Shido. Since it doesn't sound like this is your first time here, you probably know your way around Fraxinus better than I do," Minato called out.
"You're taking this a lot better than I thought you would…" Surprised by Minato's quick acclimation, Shido snapped out of his thoughts and caught up to his friend as they then followed Reine.
"I'm sure you've got a lot of questions, Minato." Shido decided it was best to talk to Minato while walking at a brisk pace to their destination. "Considering that I've been ordered to bring you along, I think it's safe to say you'll be briefed on everything soon."
That made things easier for the amnesiac.
"What's going on, Shido? Why are we in an airship when a spacequake is out there? It's obvious from your behavior that you haven't been telling me some things," Minato pointed out. There was more to Shido than meets the eye apparently. He could admit that he didn't suspect his friend of having a secret like this whatsoever. Just what was he getting himself into?
Shido chuckled nervously. He felt like Origami was interrogating him at the moment. Her and Minato's observation skills were noticeably alike.
"Well... how do I explain this without sounding really ridiculous? I'm not sure if you'll believe what I have to say..." Shido trailed off.
"Try me," Minato challenged calmly.
Shido hesitated continuing. Guilt had weighed on his conscious for keeping Minato in the dark for this long. He couldn't figure out why Kotori chose to involve Minato now, but he supposed there was no better time like the present since Minato was already here in Fraxinus.
'I might as well get it over with...' Shido mused. "I have a mission."
Minato's curiosity was piqued.
"A mission?"
Shido closed his eyes and took a deep breath before speaking once more.
"I'm supposed to date these girls that have extraordinary powers and abilities. These girls are beings called Spirits. They're from an unknown dimension and the real reason spacequakes happen in the first place. Whenever they leave that dimension, they come to Earth and they create spacequakes. There are two factions that I know about that have their own ways of dealing with Spirits. One of them is the Anti-Spirit Team. They're a group of girls with advanced weapons and tech, and their objective is to kill Spirits before more spacequakes can be triggered. The other faction is an organization called Ratatoskr. With their help, I have to make the Spirits fall in love with me. Apparently, and I don't know why, I have the ability to seal their powers into me by kissing them once I reach a high enough level of intimacy with them. And Fraxinus, this airship, is actually Ratatoskr's command center."
Talk about a lengthy info dump.
Minato wasn't sure what he expected initially, but he remained unfazed.
Things had certainly become interesting now.
"Looks like you got your work cut out for you, Shido," he said composedly.
Shido blinked and had to pause from walking.
"Wait, you actually believe me, Minato?" The oldest Itsuka sibling wondered, sounding really shocked from how accepting Minato sounded.
"You're not a good liar, Shido," Minato bluntly stated.
Shido bashfully scratched the back of his head.
"Ha… Guilty as charged…" Shido admitted in defeat.
Minato then smiled reassuringly.
"When you're not lying, that means you're serious. You also had this determined look in your eyes while you spoke. This talk of 'Spirits' might sound hard to swallow, but hearing it all from you? I can believe it," he said, placing a hand on Shido's shoulder. "After all that you've done for me, this is the least I can do. I appreciate you being honest with me."
"...Thanks, Minato." Shido grinned with relief. Minato could practically see the weight being lifted off of Shido's shoulders. "You've no idea how hard it was to keep all this a secret. And there really isn't anyone else I could trust except maybe you, but... Well, you'll soon find out. Anyway, I'm honestly glad that Tobiichi brought you to my house when she did. You really are one of a kind."
Something unexpected emerged within Minato's mind.
"Ya know, you really are one of a kind."
He blinked.
"Huh?"
Minato thought he just heard a voice. A feminine one. Whoever that was, she sounded happy.
'Was that... a memory? Who was that?'
"Are you okay, Minato?" Shido's voice pierced his friend's thoughts. "You just suddenly zoned out like a zombie."
"It's nothing," Minato insisted coolly, shaking his head. An indication of his past had surfaced out of nowhere, but sadly there was nothing else he could discern from it. Annoyed, yet he was willing to take it for now. It was progress at least. And besides there were more pressing issues to be concerned with at the moment.
"If you say so," Shido said skeptically, relenting. Then a thought occurred to him. Shido hadn't mentioned to Minato about the truth behind Tohka. He realized this may be a good opportunity to change that. "By the way, about Tohka… She's..."
"She's a Spirit?" Minato finished that sentence promptly.
Shido lifted his head up and looked at his friend with enlarged eyes.
"Y-Yeah. You already knew what I was going to say?" Shido asked incredulously.
Minato had felt like Tohka was peculiarly unique among their peers, but he didn't know why until now. That being said, this newfound knowledge wouldn't change anything between him and her.
If Shido and Ratatoskr were going out of their way to save Spirits, then that implied they weren't irredeemable. And given Minato's exposure to Tohka's attempts to blend into human society, Spirit or not, he already considered her a friend. It didn't matter what she was, rather what mattered was what on the inside.
Yatogami Tohka had a pure soul in Minato's eyes.
"I had a hunch. Considering what we were just talking about, I assumed you were going to say that," Minato explained. "Am I right?"
Shido sighed and rubbed the back of his neck.
"Geez, took the wind out of my sails… But yeah, Tohka is a Spirit. I actually met her a couple days before you were at my doorstep with Tobiichi. Her powers are sealed though, so she's about as normal as us now. That's why I had her stay behind. Reine-san told me her powers could come back if she gets really stressed."
"So that means you kissed Tohka then?" Minato asked straightforwardly, effectively causing Shido to blush.
"U-Um... Well, I guess so. She kissed me first..." Shido mumbled, scratching his cheek. He looked embarrassed from thinking about that memory.
Minato raised his eyebrows, impressed that it was Tohka who did the deed.
Their relationship went further than he first thought now that he had some context.
"Don't be embarrassed, Shido. I think it's very admirable that you're going out of your way to help Spirits like Tohka," Minato complimented. "It's also obvious that Tohka cares about you and you care about her. I'll support you two all the way."
If there was one thing Minato learned from mingling with Shido, it was that Shido truly wanted to lend a helping hand to people in need.
"I..." Shido murmured, his blush growing. Then he shook his head. "Haha, w-we should really get going! We have to prepare for this new Spirit after all!"
Minato couldn't argue with that, so Shido took the lead and ran as Minato followed suit.
"We're here!" Shido exclaimed, entering a room in Fraxinus while catching his breath. Minato arrived a second later and slowed down as he examined his surroundings.
The room reminded Minato of spaceships' main bridges from science fiction stories. In front of him were people at designated stations, each of them having advanced computer setups. Everything screamed futuristic.
At the front of the room was a large monitor. The monitor was depicting an area with a sizable crater in the center. Parts of buildings were destroyed where the crater was. It almost seemed like a meteor crashed down.
"Is that what a spacequake can do...?" Minato was stunned from how destructive spacequakes were.
"You catch on quick, Minato," a familiar, young-sounding voice remarked.
Minato veered his head towards his right. Right next to him, he saw Reine without her white lab coat on. She had on a different set of clothes rather than the ones she wore previously. The expression on her face was the same as usual.
Past her was a tall man with long, blonde hair in a white suit with black outlines who was waving at Minato. His name was Kannazuki Kyouhei, and he was the vice commander of Ratatoskr. He was standing next to a recognizable redhead.
The redhead was on a chair with her hair in twin tails because of the black ribbons that were maintaining them. She wore a red coat over her shoulders, a black tie with sidelines, a white shirt and black boots.
She exuded an authoritative aura, yet it was a bizarre sight for Minato as well simply because this girl was Itsuka Kotori – Shido's foster sister. The lollipop in her mouth was a dead giveaway too.
"Kotori?" He asked, arching his eyebrow.
"Yes it's me, Minato. It's about time you and Shido showed up. A spacequake just happened," Kotori stated sternly. She turned her head towards the screen at the front of the room. "As you can see, it isn't as big as the last one, Shido. You may not have much to worry about this time if things go smoothly."
"Wait," Minato interrupted. "That's all you have to say, Kotori?"
"Hmm? What do you mean?" She sighed, grabbing the lollipop from her mouth and lazily waving it in the air. "Fine, welcome to my command center, Ratatoskr, and all that jazz. Did Shido not brief you on anything on the way here?"
"He told me about Spirits, his ability to seal their powers in him, and that Ratatoskr and the Anti-Spirit Team have different ways of dealing with Spirits," Minato explained. Kotori nodded in response.
"That's good enough for now, I suppose. I'll explain everything to you later. Proper introductions will have to wait as well," Kotori proclaimed with a tone that sounded like she was annoyed.
Perplexed by Kotori's behavior, Minato walked up to Shido and whispered.
"What's with Kotori? She's... different." The Kotori he knew was pretty happy-go-lucky. This Kotori, however, behaved with an opposite disposition.
"I know," Shido whispered back. "Long story short, she's like this when she assumes her role as the commander of Ratatoskr."
"Oh. So she's the commander of this organization that's helping you romance Spirits?" Minato was definitely not expecting that plot twist. A girl her age was at the helm of these confidential operations? Her tone suggested that she was rather confident in her leadership too.
"Surprising, isn't it? I was shocked too when I found out for the first time," Shido replied with a nod.
"Hey!" Kotori shouted, causing Shido to flinch and grabbing the two blue-haired boys' attention. "You two better stop talking to each other right now! In case you two already forgot, we're in the middle of a Spirit situation!"
Although somewhat bemused about Kotori's change in attitude, Minato decided to pay attention to her.
The second-in-command of Ratatoskr, Kyouhei, cleared his throat, preparing to speak and alleviating the inelegance in the air.
"I'd like to say that we got lucky this time, but Hermit has always been like this."
"Hermit?" Shido and Minato said simultaneously.
"The name of the Spirit that's appeared just now. Records state that she has a more docile nature than other Spirits we've seen," Kotori informed the two boys.
Ratatoskr's main screen was focused on the crater that the recent spacequake created. There was a small person, clad in green and standing in the center. Their left hand had something small and white on it. A light green aura was radiating from the person's body too. Minato presumed that the individual was the Spirit everybody had been discussing.
The monitor then zoomed in on the Spirit's face, and Minato and Shido immediately recognized the Spirit.
"Wait a minute, we've seen this girl before," Shido stated, not taking his eyes off the screen. Minato nodded.
"Hold on, seriously? Where and when did this happen!?" Kotori demanded.
"Yesterday at the shrine in the morning," Minato answered her.
"How strange. No spiritual disturbances were detected around that time, and we were already tracking her by then," Kyouhei commented, examining data on a tablet-looking device.
"Then it's the same as Tohka's case, huh?" Kotori added.
This didn't sound right. Shido had said that Spirits caused spacequakes whenever they came to this world, but nothing of the sort happened during their first encounter with Hermit and not to mention that last piece of information he heard relating to Tohka just now. Perhaps even an organization like Ratatoskr didn't know everything about Spirits quite yet.
"The AST is mobilizing!" A woman from one of the six stations in front of Minato spoke up. "They're commencing fire on Hermit!"
Live footage of teenage girls in mechanical suits of armor flying down and shooting with Gatling gun-like weapons then appeared on the monitor. They were all shooting at that little girl, explosions soon following from the shots. In spite of their efforts, the girl flew up unscathed, and proceeded to fly away from the AST. They quickly chased after her, attempting to take her down.
The longer Minato watched, the more he began to feel inwardly agitated. He could remember being annoyed at various moments since the day he awoke with missing memories, but never actual anger until now even if it was moderately concealed.
The Spirit, Hermit, didn't deserve this type of aggressive treatment.
"How could they do that to a kid? She's not even fighting them," Shido criticized with displeasure, clenching his fists tightly. "This is wrong…"
"A target's appearance doesn't matter to the AST," Kotori elucidated collectedly. "As long as that girl's a Spirit, they will show no mercy until they've completed their mission."
"How can we help this Spirit, Kotori?" Minato spoke up after sustaining his silence for long enough.
Kotori raised an eyebrow yet proudly showed off her amusement with a grin.
Shido had shot him a look of both disapproval and concern.
"What are you saying, Minato? Look, I get how you feel, but I should be the one to go out there. I can't risk you getting hurt," he stated.
If only Shido had known the truth. Minato believed he should be saying those words to Shido instead. Shido wasn't aware that Minato had been hiding something as well since they met: a truth that could tip the scales in their favor should things go south with Hermit or the Anti-Spirit Team.
"Minato is going with you, Shido," Kotori ordered. Shido's jaw dropped as he looked at her with surprise.
"B-But–"
"No 'buts' Shido," Kotori interrupted. She narrowed her eyes at her brother. "Didn't I already command you to bring him with you, or is your memory progressively getting worse?"
"I remember, yeah... but what can Minato do?" Shido wondered, ignoring Kotori's snarky remark.
"Think of Minato as... reassurance," Kotori guaranteed confidently with a smile.
Something didn't seem right. He had been growing increasingly suspicious of his purpose here once Shido and Reine brought him into Fraxinus.
Why was Kotori so keen on the idea of Minato tagging along with Shido to see Hermit? From what he had learned recently, Shido had the exclusive ability to approach this situation peacefully by winning the Spirit's heart through intimacy and sealing her powers with a kiss. Minato had no such ability to his knowledge. If everyone viewed him as a normal human, what was the point of his presence among these secret events?
The only plausible explanation he could come up with was that they somehow knew he wasn't just a normal human.
'Do they know…?' He couldn't help but wonder. If they did indeed know about his secret, then how did they manage to discover it? He wanted to pick Kotori's brain about this but believed the best course of action for now was to keep his cards close to his chest. Not to mention time was of the essence.
He was going to get his answers one way or another when this was over.
"Understood," Minato told Kotori, nodding.
"Good answer, Minato." Kotori was pleased to hear his cooperation.
Shido still looked uncertain about all this, despite Kotori giving the OK. Minato couldn't blame him but this was for the best, even if the eldest Itsuka sibling wasn't aware of it yet.
"Geez, alright fine!" Shido gave up, shaking his head. "We need to get going then! Follow me, Minato!"
Nodding his head, Minato went with Shido to finally start their operation of saving the Spirit codenamed Hermit.
Shortly after the group left, Kyouhei turned to face his commander.
"Why did you have that boy go with Shido-kun?" He asked curiously.
Kotori sighed.
"If you weren't busy sleeping on the job yesterday, you would have heard the conversation I was having with everybody else," the redhead sneered. She wanted to punish him, but now was not the time to get upset over something so minor. "You see, for the past few weeks we detected a new source of mana and have been carefully monitoring it. I guess you weren't aboard Fraxinus that day when this happened. The signal's incredibly faint, almost too negligible to be noticed. If it weren't for Reine pointing it out to me, we might've never found out."
Kotori placed her lollipop in her mouth, adopting a neutral mask.
"It took some extra effort, but when we finally pinpointed the source... we saw one Arisato Minato on the screen."
When he processed this new information, Kyouhei was stunned.
"Is he...?"
The commander of Ratatoskr couldn't help but smirk.
"Well, let our date and battle begin."
The two blue-haired boys had been warped to the Spirit's location. It wasn't until this deed that Minato realized Ratatoskr was capable of teleportation via the Fraxinus. It was such a convenient method of traveling. His amazement was fleeting, however.
He and Shido found themselves in a storage area of a mall's department store, surrounded by mannequins that displayed women's clothing. They couldn't find the light switches for the room, so they had to make do and rummage around in darkness.
"The Spirit's here?" Minato asked Shido.
"According to Kotori, she is," Shido replied while glancing around him.
Minato tilted his head before inquiring, "How are you still communicating with her?"
"I was given an earpiece so I could talk with her," Shido informed, pointing to his right ear. "We also won't have to worry about the AST firing their weapons at the building for a while. Again, according to Kotori."
"Alright. That should give you and I a head start, then," Minato concluded.
He looked around the vicinity, but he mostly saw was darkness and the human body replicas wearing clothes. It was like he was in a haunted house. Shido laughed nervously from the creepy atmosphere. They both turned behind them to search in other directions.
"Did you boys come here to bully Yoshinon too?" A mischievous-sounding voice spoke up suddenly.
"Gah!" Shido was caught off guard from the sight of a talking-rabbit puppet in front of him.
Unfazed, Minato recognized the puppet. He looked up and saw a tiny blue-haired girl floating upside down. She then flipped over, slowly and gently descending to the floor.
Lucky them, they found the Spirit.
"Oh? Well if it isn't the lucky lechers! I thought you two looked familiar for some reason," the puppet spoke with a cheeky tone, while the girl silently stared at the two bluenettes in front of her.
'Lecher?' Minato felt that was a little unfair. That was this Spirit's actual first impression of them? 'Whatever.'
"Uh… are we really going with that?" Shido asked quietly, holding a hand to his right ear. Minato assumed he was talking to Kotori. He could see sweatdrops forming above Shido's brow.
Shido then stood up straight, closing his eyes.
"Haha, I don't have the faintest idea of what you're talking about. We're just easygoing wayfarers," Shido proclaimed confidently to the Spirit, complete with a hair flip.
Minato sweatdropped. That was totally unexpected. And corny. Almost as if it was some visual novel dialogue choice.
The blue-haired amnesiac's confusion didn't go unnoticed by Shido, who looked flustered.
"S-Stop looking at me like that. Kotori told me to say it…" He hissed quietly.
Oh, it was Kotori's idea. Was that how she and Ratatoskr helped Shido mingle with Spirits?
Minato had the urge to sigh but repressed it. It was astonishing how well things seemingly turned out for Tohka if this was the kind of support Shido was getting. He couldn't help but pity Shido.
This really wasn't what he envisioned for Ratatoskr's pacifist route of handling Spirits. They weren't in some romance anime for crying out loud.
The rabbit puppet on the Spirit's hand then started to laugh hard. Shido tried his best in keeping a straight face after making himself look foolish.
"That was so unexpected and weird; it's funny! Nobody talks like that, silly!" Hermit's puppet stated cheerfully to Shido.
At least Hermit seemed to enjoy that goofy response. Maybe Ratatoskr knew what they were doing to some degree. This wasn't enough to ease Minato's doubts, however.
"Agreed," Minato supported Hermit's puppet indifferently.
"See? This boy knows what's up," the puppet stated.
"Shut up," Shido bluntly said to Minato. The latter nonchalantly shrugged in response. Shido cleared his throat and put on a more happy facade before talking to Hermit again. "Well I'm glad you liked it, haha... I'm Itsuka Shido, and my friend here is Arisato Minato. May I ask your name?"
"Ohohoho!" Hermit's puppet giggled. "Minato-kun sure is handsome now that Yoshinon can see him up close! Shido-kun is too, I suppose."
The little blue-haired girl's facial expression hadn't changed, but it almost looked like she was blushing. It was difficult to tell in this dark room, though.
'You suppose?' Shido's eyebrow twitched.
'I can't tell if this is how the Spirit really feels or if the puppet is its own person,' Minato pondered before putting his game face on for Hermit. Like Shido, he was going to have to play ball if they wanted to resolve this amicably. "So your name is Yoshinon?"
"Yup! Yoshinon is my name! It's cute, right? Right?" The rabbit puppet asked with a lot of enthusiasm.
"Y-Yeah, it sure is," Shido praised, eye-smiling. "So is Yoshinon the puppet's name or yours? Do you two share the same name?"
Oddly enough, Minato sensed the air getting slightly chillier. He could see that Yoshinon, which he surmised was the puppet's name, had a glowing, red left eye. The other eye was probably red too, if it wasn't for the eyepatch covering it. That seemingly perpetual smile it had looked more eerie right now.
"Wrong choice of words, Shido," Minato whispered. Shido didn't seem to be aware of what he had done.
"Huh? What do you mean?" Shido asked aloud. "I was just wondering why she's only talking through ventriloquism."
Suddenly feeling a murderous intent targeting him, Shido found himself being stared down by Yoshinon.
"I have no idea what you're talking about, Shido-kun..." Yoshinon stated ominously, expressing tranquil fury. "What is this 'ventriloquism' you speak of?"
Realizing his mistake, Shido tried to turn the situation around.
"O-Oh, I get it! My bad, Yoshinon is Yoshinon, right?" He then laughed awkwardly.
"Good grief, Shido-kun, you joker!" Yoshinon teased, thankfully ignoring Shido's earlier accusation. "So, what did you and Minato-kun want?"
Now here was their moment, or rather Shido's.
"Shido has something to ask you," Minato prepared for Shido's follow-up, gesturing to the latter.
"Um... This may be a little sudden, but… would you be willing to go on a date with me?" Shido worked up the courage to finally ask Hermit out.
"A date?" Yoshinon's tone was filled with curiosity, and the Spirit even appeared taken aback. "If Shido-kun is being honest, then why is Minato-kun here?"
Shido touched his earpiece briefly, likely receiving instructions of what to say next from Kotori. He glanced at Minato and turned back to Hermit with a confident smile.
"Minato is my wingman."
A girl with long, dark plum hair in a ponytail ran through the currently empty streets of Tengu City outside, wanting to find a certain blue-haired teenager.
She didn't know where he was, but she had her heart as her guide. She needed to know that he was safe. She wanted to be with him, no matter what.
Eventually, she found the "mecha-mecha squad" perched on top of tall buildings and floating in the sky, each one of them staring at an architecture with the number "10.9" labeled on it. She gritted her teeth when she saw them, but they weren't her main priority right now.
Her intuition was telling her to go inside. That boy was in there.
"Shido..." Tohka said worriedly, increasing her speed as she entered the building evasively.
Minato wasn't sure if Hermit knew what a date was. She seemed to be dodging Shido's offer at the moment but hadn't properly declined him yet, instead opting to play with the two bluenettes. Given her youthful appearance, he sort of expected this behavior. Slow and steady would win the race, he supposed.
"What do you think, Shido-kun, Minato-kun?" Yoshinon cheerfully inquired. The Spirit holding Yoshinon was balancing herself on a jungle gym that was inexplicably stored in the storage room. Although, she looked as if she was going to fall at any moment because she wasn't standing perfectly still. "Doesn't this look cool? Isn't Yoshinon super cool?"
"H-Hey, be careful, Yoshinon!" Shido said worriedly. Minato cautiously observed the Spirit and Yoshinon in silence. Both blue-haired boys outstretched their arms should the Spirit slip and fall.
"Come on, do I look cool or not, guys?" Yoshinon sighed with crossed arms.
Unsurprisingly, Hermit then lost her balance and was about to tumble forward. Before Minato could act, Shido instinctively covered the distance between the Spirit and himself and caught her. But in the process, Shido fell to the ground from the force.
"Are you two okay?" Minato asked hastily. He soon clammed up because of what he saw next.
Shido couldn't talk. He found himself accidentally kissing the Spirit.
This wasn't good. Shido and Hermit haven't even gone out for a date yet, and Minato doubted she enjoyed that accident.
Hermit stood up by herself and stared at Shido with an unreadable face.
"U-Uh, that was my fault! I..." Shido was flustered as he got up. Through his earpiece, he could tell Hermit wasn't too happy from that altercation due to Ratatoskr being able to perceive Spirits' mood levels. That was rather unfortunate.
"Whoopsie! Sorry about that, Shido-kun!" Yoshinon apologized while Hermit was dusting herself off with her free hand. "I guess I got too careless."
"Glad to see you two aren't hurt badly," Minato stated concernedly, attempting to alleviate the tension in the air.
"Aw, thank you, Minato-kun!" Yoshinon appreciated his concern.
"Wait, what happened...?" Shido said out loud, most likely talking to Kotori. Minato made a mental note to get an earpiece for himself later because having to rely on Shido as his primary means of communication with Kotori and Ratatoskr was starting to get annoying.
Shido turned his head to his left and his jaw dropped. Noticing this, Minato glanced in that direction and his eyes widened.
Standing a few feet away with a visible, red aura emanating around her was Yatogami Tohka, glaring intensely at Shido. The two blue-haired boys could have sworn that she went to a spacequake shelter with their teacher. Her presence here might make things more complicated.
"Shido... What were you just doing right now?" Tohka hissed, her voice giving it its all to not sound agitated.
"T-Tohka? Wh-What do you mean?" Shido inquired, frightened about what Tohka might do. He unconsciously touched his lips, and then he put his hands behind his back when he discovered what Tohka was talking about.
'She must have seen that kiss,' Minato speculated. That had to be why she looked so mad.
"I was left by myself worrying about you and Minato..." Tohka then raised her voice. "I came all this way and I find you kissing another girl, Shido!? How could you!?"
Tohka then stomped the ground, a small crater forming from the impact. Minato couldn't help but start to feel uneasy after that display of anger.
'I thought Tohka's Spirit powers were already sealed within Shido, so why does she have this kind of strength?' Minato contemplated everything for a moment then snapped his fingers. 'Maybe her powers are tied to her emotions.'
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. And considering this particular woman was a Spirit, this wouldn't be pretty.
Seeing as how Shido was visibly quaking in fear, the blue-haired amnesiac decided to intervene and hopefully save his friend from Tohka's wrath.
"Tohka, this is just a misunderstanding," Minato said collectedly, holding out his hand that signaled for her to stop.
"...A misunderstanding? Minato, are you telling me that Shido's important business wasn't to be with this strange girl!?" Tohka exclaimed hysterically while also pointing at Hermit. She didn't sound too convinced, not that Minato could honestly blame her after what she witnessed seconds ago. With her suspicions voiced, Minato attempted to think of ways to answer her that wouldn't end in disaster.
"Why hey there, scary ma'am," Yoshinon chimed in, apparently wanting to talk to Tohka and not sounding bothered by her.
"My name is Tohka," Tohka replied with a discouraging tone.
"Tohka-chan," Yoshinon continued, "I hate to rain on your parade, but it looks like Shido-kun has grown bored of you."
"Wha–!?" Shido and Tohka had gasped at the same time from Yoshinon's declaration, while Minato expressed his shock with widened eyes. Just when he thought things couldn't get worse.
"After listening to you guys talking to each other," Yoshinon persisted haughtily, "it seems like Shido-kun went behind your back just so that he could be with me, huh? Sounds about right to me, doesn't it?"
Tohka became teary-eyed. The look on her face had said it all – she didn't want to acknowledge Yoshinon's words whatsoever but was clearly hurt from the thought of Shido betraying her.
In a way, Minato empathized with Tohka. The poor girl didn't really seem to be aware about the situation like him, except he was enlightened with some information and withholding the truth from her came back to bite them.
"No! What the heck are you– Mmmph!?" Shido raised his voice towards Yoshinon's remark, but he was quickly silenced by Tohka covering his mouth with her hand.
And despite him not even uttering a single word, Minato found himself in the same predicament as Shido, much to his confusion.
"Shido, Minato, shut up and be quiet for now," Tohka commanded without looking away from Hermit. She fastened her grips firmly on their cheekbones.
'But I didn't even say anything...' Minato mentally complained, as he couldn't free himself from Tohka's ungodly strong grip no matter how hard he tried.
"I am sorry, for realsies," Yoshinon said mockingly, overlooking Minato and Shido being silenced. Tohka's agitation increased with each word Hermit's puppet spoke. "But you can't blame me for you being second best now. Shido-kun's heart has been stolen by Yoshinon, and those are simply the facts!"
Minato was mildly surprised to hear how bold Yoshinon had been with those statements, starting to believe that perhaps the puppet was letting Hermit speak her more personal thoughts. Hermit herself hadn't spoken a single word since he and Shido arrived to confront her. On one hand, it sounded like Hermit was beginning to like Shido at least. On the other, Tohka was very distraught from Hermit's taunting.
"NOOOOOOOO!" Tohka then wailed, finally releasing her hold on Minato's and Shido's faces as she flailed her arms like a child throwing a tantrum. The blue duo collapsed onto the floor in a miniature daze.
"I can't feel my face..." Minato muttered quietly. Shido concurred with a weak nod.
"Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up! This can't be true! There's just no way!" Tohka cried out frantically.
"Keep shouting all you want," Yoshinon persisted goading, "but that won't change anything, right, Shido-kun? Why don't you tell Tohka-chan yourself that you don't want her any–"
Tohka hurriedly whisked Yoshinon out of the Hermit's hand with a swift grab, preventing the rabbit puppet from tormenting her further. She had seized Yoshinon's neck, her frustration climaxing.
"Don't you DARE say that I'm not wanted!" Tohka exclaimed tearfully. "Shido... Shido told me he wanted me to be here with him! You don't know anything about me or us! Why are you being so cruel!? ...Answer me! Why aren't you talking!?"
Just as Minato thought, Hermit couldn't talk through Yoshinon while she didn't have the latter like actual ventriloquists with their puppets. All Tohka would be getting from Yoshinon right now was silence.
Hermit then slowly approached Tohka and tugged her school blazer, hiding the upper half of her face with her green hoodie and gaining Tohka's attention.
"Wh-What is it? This thing's not saying anything; let me talk to it!" Tohka said to the young Spirit.
"She wants to talk… Please... give her back..." Hermit finally spoke after so long, sounding meek like Minato and Shido recalled from yesterday. In an attempt to try and take back Yoshinon, who Tohka was lifting high up with both her hands, Hermit jumped up and down, unsuccessfully making progress in getting Yoshinon back because she was short and couldn't jump high enough.
Recovering from his stupor, Minato stood up while also helping Shido. They noticed Hermit was becoming more distressed without her puppet that Tohka was currently strangling. This wasn't good. The plan was falling apart fast. One way to resolve this presumably was to have Tohka return Yoshinon to Hermit.
"H-Hey, Tohka. Could you maybe... give that back to her right now?" Shido tried asking Tohka as gently as he could.
When he had said his piece, Tohka gasped.
"Shido…? I can't believe it... You don't want me with you anymore..."
"Tohka, that's not true," Minato shook his head and responded immediately in Shido's stead. If they managed to get out of this unscathed, he internally promised himself to inform Tohka about everything.
Hermit then suddenly raised her arm into the air.
"ZADKIEL!" She screamed, catching everyone's attention instantly.
The floor behind Hermit bursted. A giant figure had manifested at that spot. From the looks of things, it appeared to be an enormous, ravenous-looking rabbit with glowing red eyes. Its teeth gave the impression that it could chomp essentially anything. White mist flowed from its mouth. It then lowered its head, glaring at the high school students.
"What is that...?" Minato asked in awe, eyes widened. He instinctively took a defensive stance.
"Uh… this is not good..." Shido whimpered. He and Tohka were left speechless.
Hermit jumped onto the gigantic rabbit's back, the latter then roaring when she did so. The white mist it was emanating unleashed in every direction, hitting Minato, Shido, and Tohka head on. Ice had started to quickly spread across the floor and objects in the room.
Minato had shielded his face with his arms, bracing himself and gritting his teeth. Hermit's powers definitely weren't anything to scoff at. This cold air reminded him of a fierce winter storm. If something wasn't done soon, he and his friends could possibly become human popsicles.
Believing he was left with no other options, he closed his eyes and reached into the sea of his soul to call forth assistance.
It felt like ages since he had utilized his unique ability: the Wild Card. Messiah was indeed his ultimate Persona, however the Wild Card allowed him to use multiple Personas instead of just one, thus making his potential limitless.
Each Persona had varying advantages and disadvantages, and how effectively one used his or her Persona could be the deciding factor between success and failure.
To protect himself, Minato switched Personas in his mind to protect himself from Hermit's icy assault.
'Jack Frost.'
Although on the lower spectrum of pure power for his Personas, Jack Frost was practical in this case due to his innate negation to ice elemental attacks. Sometimes simple was best. Blue shards had floated out of Minato's head before fading from existence, along with the noise of glass breaking, when he changed Personas.
This went unnoticed by the other three individuals around him because of the radical predicament taking place at the moment.
"What is it, HQ?" Kusakabe Ryouko, the Anti-Spirit Team's captain, asked aloud. The higher-ups of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force had just contacted her. She was a woman with black hair tied into a ponytail.
She and the rest of the Anti-Spirit Team members were known as Wizards: humans who had been trained to fight Spirits with their advanced weaponry. They were waiting on the rooftops of buildings outside or flying in the air with their CR-Units – short for Combat Realizer Units, they were mechanical armored suits – while carefully and patiently monitoring the department store that the Hermit hid in not too long ago.
To Ryouko's right was Tobiichi Origami, one of the strongest Wizards on the team.
"..." Origami continued to observe the department store diligently, ready to strike should Hermit make herself visible.
"Y-You've got to be kidding me! There's ANOTHER Spirit literally right next to Hermit!?" Ryouko shrieked, causing the members of the AST to overhear her.
Ryouko's higher-ups had informed her that while Hermit's mana was fluctuating dramatically, another source of mana was recently detected near the Hermit. It was only a sudden shift that disappeared briefly, but they identified that the source belonged to a Spirit.
Origami tightened her grip on her Cry Cry Cry, a large Anti-Spirit rifle. The gun itself was powerful enough to blast a hole through a human torso, something that Origami accidentally accomplished doing in the past. It was one of the AST's commonly used weapons.
"Hold on, Origami," Ryouko commanded, placing an arm in front of her comrade's body after she perceived it tensing up. "We haven't been cleared to attack just yet. We don't want to destroy everything left and right just for some Spirits. We're gonna have to wait until they decide to come out. Do you hear me?"
As much as Origami was a prized member of the AST, she would charge into battle recklessly and go against her superiors' orders as of late.
The white-haired girl simply nodded in response.
Thanks to Jack Frost, Minato didn't feel chilly any longer. Wielding different Personas had its uses, such as providing their users passive resistances without having to fully summon them. He believed he could now maneuver properly without being harmfully affected by Hermit's powers.
Taking Hermit on in such an enclosed space wasn't ideal, though. Not to mention he didn't want Shido and Tohka getting hurt. He hated to admit it, but they needed to retreat for the time being. There was also the AST to worry about on the outside. Hopefully Kotori and her crew from Ratatoskr would extract them posthaste.
The windows of the room were smashed by sharp icicles as freezing air rushed in. The icicles swarmed in, penetrating the floor. Seeing that Tohka was in the icicles' path, Shido quickly grabbed her waist with his arms and they barely avoided getting pierced by moving their bodies out of harm's way.
"Good save, Shido..." Minato said under his breath, relieved. He then noticed that a familiar rabbit puppet was in front of him on the floor.
In the ensuing chaos, Tohka apparently dropped Yoshinon. Minato had a feeling Hermit might calm down if he returned Yoshinon to her. With no time to lose, he made a beeline for Yoshinon and picked her up. Icicles had bounced off his body or broke upon impact due to him using Jack Frost.
'Gotcha.' He held up Yoshinon with his hand victoriously. Fortunately, she wasn't damaged.
"MINATO! LOOK OUT!"
The blue-haired teen turned behind him, seeing that it was Shido who shouted his name. Shido's face was contorted with horror, but it wasn't the only thing Minato noticed.
He also saw an enormous rabbit with red eyes charging straight at him like a bull, and the distance between them was incredibly close.
Minato had managed to say one thing.
"...Oh."
"There's that signal again," Ryouko noted. The same spiritual signal had appeared once more. That confirmed it. There was indeed a different Spirit in the vicinity. "Listen up, everybody! There's another Spirit here besides Hermit, so be on your guar–"
The eldest member of the AST was cut off as an explosion occurred in front of her eyes. Out from the explosion came a monstrous-looking rabbit that she assumed was Hermit's Angel and something she wasn't expecting to see. Because of that certain something, everyone did not fire their weapons straightaway.
Origami's eyes widened greatly, seeing a recognizable head of blue hair. The hair was distinctly unkempt unlike her boyfriend's, so by process of elimination she had immediately discerned this individual's identity.
'Minato!?'
The expert Wizard of the AST could only stare despairingly as Minato's seemingly lifeless body slammed into the face of a building, a small cavity forming from the collision after Hermit wall-hopped between buildings. Minato was momentarily lodged in it before he slowly fell head-first into the ground, the impact forming yet another crater.
"A human boy…?" Ryouko uttered. She gritted her teeth in frustration. "Damn Spirit!"
"No... Not again..." Origami's voice trembled, her eyes losing their focus. Anxiety overwhelmed her. She almost couldn't believe what she witnessed. That denial then transformed into anger. "Why... WHY!?"
"Origami! Wait!" Ryouko called out, unsuccessful in stopping Origami who blindly charged at Hermit when she landed on the ground.
Origami discarded her Cry Cry Cry and unleashed her No Pain, a laser blade meant to stab and slash Spirits.
She had thrown logic out the window. She saw her chance for revenge.
'I'll avenge you! Minato!'
He remained motionless on the ground, his face seeing nothing but concrete while trying to get his bearings.
Despite the fact that he wasn't injured anywhere, Minato felt uncomfortable from being bulldozed by Hermit. Crashing into a building and then falling towards land from several stories high didn't help either. It made him slightly dizzy.
He was quite fortunate to have switched Jack Frost out at the last possible moment for Beelzebub: a mighty Persona of his that could passively nullify strike-type damage.
Minato felt something soft in his hand. He then realized that he had been holding on to Yoshinon this entire time. With everything that just happened, he was kind of surprised that he didn't let go of the puppet.
He heard a loud thud just ahead of him a moment later. Raising his head, he noticed that Hermit's rabbit monster landed on the ground. The Spirit girl was looking directly at him, mainly at his hand.
Now seemed like a better time than any for him to give Yoshinon back. Or so he thought.
As he began to pick himself up, a black-and-white blur dashed past him, flying towards the Spirit. He couldn't properly make out who it was, but the sword-esque weapon in their hand promptly caught his eye.
He surmised it must be an AST member, and they were going to harm Hermit at this rate.
Not if he had anything to say about it.
'Siegfried!' With another Persona switch, Minato jumped up to his feet and bolted with boosted speed due to Siegfried's Auto-Masukukaja skill, disappearing from sight in an azure blaze.
"Haaaaaaah!" Origami cried out in rage, closing the gap between her and Hermit and bringing down her blade for a downward slash.
Hermit had been taken by surprised, too focused on Minato who suddenly vanished with Yoshinon in his hand. She instinctively shut her eyes, bracing herself for what might come.
But nothing happened.
The demure Spirit opened her eyes cautiously, wondering why nothing happened.
In front of Zadkiel while airborne was Minato, apparently stopping Origami's attack with his hand as he looked at the AST member.
"I didn't know you were in the Anti-Spirit Team, Tobiichi-san," Minato said coolly as the two descended to the ground. Since Siegfried could null slash attacks, he wasn't fazed by what may have resulted in a missing limb.
"What is this...? You're... You're supposed to be dead!" Origami claimed, pulling back a few feet with her laser sword. She was dumbfounded.
"Whoops... I guess I didn't think this through enough." Minato rubbed the back of his head. He acted on impulse and was careless. This would take a while to clarify to Origami.
As if fate didn't want Minato to explain himself, a loud voice boomed from the sky, "ORIGAMI! GET AWAY FROM HIM!"
"Why should I?" Origami didn't follow that command immediately, replying with a light glare.
"Because he's that Spirit we detected!" Ryouko added in a hurry.
Eyes narrowing, Minato couldn't help but be intrigued by that accusation. Today specifically was eventful for him, strangely enough. He had learned about Spirits not that long ago, and now he was accused of being one.
"I'm not a Spirit," Minato denied, maintaining his calm demeanor.
"Are you telling the truth?" Origami asked Minato coldly, but hesitantly. The look on her face told him that she was at a loss for words.
"Listen, Tobiichi-san," Minato attested, not liking where this was going. "From the little I know, I'm not lying."
Origami gritted her teeth.
"Then tell me how you are still alive!" She responded in retaliation, her voice sounding angry and sad. It legitimately took him by surprise, as this was the most emotional he had ever seen her behave.
Minato then sighed. He believed if he did explain his Persona ability to Origami, she and her comrades may misinterpret it as a Spirit's power.
"I was hoping it wouldn't come to this... I guess I'll have to take responsibility for my actions. Sorry, Tobiichi-san, but I won't let you or your teammates hurt Hermit," Minato replied with a bitter smile.
It was time to say goodbye to the somewhat normal life he had while having amnesia. Again, he felt like he was left with no other options if he wanted to stay alive.
Minato stuffed Yoshinon into his pocket and reached into another with his right hand, bringing out his hidden Evoker. Origami naturally entered a defensive stance after seeing the gun-shaped object, surmising that Minato might have the intention of shooting someone.
To her immense bemusement, that "someone" was himself as he held the gun to his head.
Ratatoskr had witnessed the scene play out through Fraxinus's main monitor.
Kotori wasn't sure if she should feel interested or scared. There was the off chance that her assumption of Minato being a Spirit was incorrect. That being said, this might be the best time to see if he could only unleash his Spirit powers by shooting himself.
She and the rest of her crew had their eyes glued to the screen, really hoping that the blue-haired amnesiac wasn't going to kill himself.
Several floors high from a huge hole in the wall, Shido and Tohka had watched everything that occurred.
When Minato was plowed through a wall, they immediately ran to that area, exceedingly concerned for their friend. Tohka had put aside her jealousy for the time being, focusing mainly on Minato's condition with Shido.
Both were bewildered as to how Minato managed to survive but were more baffled about what he was doing right now.
Minato closed his eyes, relaxing his body and mind.
Out of all the Personas he could use, he required one that would help him fend off the AST while also not injuring them severely. He saw no point in harming them, despite their occupations. Those girls mainly used guns and blades, judging from what he observed. Those Gatling-looking guns were going to be an issue. He needed a Persona that can null or absorb pierce-type of damage.
A mysterious yet familiar-sounding voice then spoke within Minato's mind.
"Go on."
He had found the perfect one.
For reasons that eluded the people around him, an unseemly grin displayed itself on Minato's normally calm face.
Shido, Tohka, and Origami couldn't believe their eyes.
"WAIT! DON'T DO IT!" The three yelled at the top of their lungs simultaneously.
In spite of their efforts, Minato pressed the trigger as his eyes snapped open.
"Persona!"
The sound of glass breaking was heard, followed by a surge of blue aura enveloping Minato's figure completely like flames. From inside, colors of white sprouted forth.
Shortly after, the blue flame-like aura dissipated.
Minato, who was still holding his Evoker to his head, was revealed to be wearing the unknown school uniform Origami found him in from the day she met him. His red armband on his left arm came back too. His Raizen High School uniform was gone; his headphones and MP3 player he carried remained with him.
A being of pure white floated behind Minato. Its hairstyle was precisely the same as the teenager's, and its body seemed to be mechanized. On the being's back was a white object larger than itself that had arms wrapped around its waist. A chain of connecting coffin lids was wrapped around its left arm. Although its appearance may say otherwise, it radiated a gentle aura.
Something else had caught everyone's attention aside from this new existence.
Vibrant, white wings akin to an angel's were visibly connected to Minato's back. With them, it looked as if he originated from the heavens.
It was a display one could call divine.
"So that's Minato's Spirit form. I never would have thought his Astral Dress was the clothes he wore when I first met him," Kotori commented, waving her lollipop around with a satisfied smirk. She was impressed by Minato's appearance and initial demonstration of his ability.
An Astral Dress was a Spirit's armor or clothing, created by their power. Spirits were able to alter it to however they deemed fitting.
"Can we even call his attire an Astral Dress, seeing as how it doesn't look like a dress per se?" Kyouhei pointed out. Every single Spirit that had been seen up until this day were females. A majority of them wore, well, dress-like clothing. Now that the first male Spirit made himself known to the world, and considering how he was clothed, it wasn't proper to call his uniform a dress.
"Hmm... I suppose we can't... So, what do you all suggest we should call his clothing?" Kotori asked her crew. "And no poll this time!"
"I may have a suggestion," Reine said, raising her hand. "How about 'Astral Suit'?"
"'Astral Suit'?" Kotori raised an eyebrow.
"His attire does resemble a suit, does it not?" The physics teacher indicated.
Kotori shrugged.
"So it would seem. Alright everyone, that's the term we'll be using from here on out! Those that agree say 'I'!"
"I!" Ratatoskr's staff collectively agreed.
"Unreal... Minato's actually a Spirit?" Shido mumbled, shocked. He had no idea that his friend was a Spirit all this time. Now he started to comprehend why Kotori was so insistent on Minato tagging along.
He then had a thought that made him cringe.
'Does... does that mean I have to romance... him? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!' Shido screamed mentally, shaking his head at the idea. 'I'M GONNA KILL KOTORI IF SHE MAKES ME DATE HIM!'
"Minato's... just like me?" Tohka wondered in amazement, feeling a sense of happiness and relief from knowing she wasn't alone as a Spirit.
Origami dropped to her knees. She couldn't deny what was in front of her this whole time.
Arisato Minato was a Spirit.
This was odd.
Why did Minato have angel-like wings? He was very puzzled. The mere notion of it was so bizarre to him that he had trouble processing this. He was fairly positive that this never occurred when he would summon his Personas.
He reached out to touch his wings, and to his amazement, he could actually feel them.
They were... soft.
"Wow..." was all he said as he stared at his new wings. He honestly did not think they were soft to touch, let alone them being tangible. Having tangible wings could result in inconveniences for him, but that thought did not cross his mind as he still found himself in awe. He tried flapping them with his willpower, and they indeed fluttered, bursts of wind forming and him rising a few inches over the ground as a result. The sensation felt natural and unnatural, like it shouldn't have been possible to begin with, yet it seemed like it was something that should be instinctive to him also.
When he was finished registering his thoughts, Minato looked discouraged.
'This does and doesn't feel right. My old clothes materializing on my body, my new wings... They almost feel like abnormalities, like my amnesia. What... happened to me?'
Minato's internal monologue was cut short as blares of gunfire echoed from every direction.
"OPEN FIRE!" Ryouko commanded, bringing down her arm that signaled for her comrades to fire.
The blue-haired boy let out a grunt.
At that moment, bullets from the Anti-Spirit Team's Auldists – Anti-Spirit Gatling guns – rained down on Minato's and Hermit's location, kicking up a massive amount of dust. Minato didn't even dodge, choosing to simply stand. Hermit, however, began to run away on Zadkiel. Some members of the AST proceeded to chase after her with their Auldists.
"Did we get him?" Ryouko wondered, fixating more on the male Spirit and thinking that it seemed way too easy for a Spirit to go down so soon.
"None of that will work on me," Minato's voice stated calmly as the dust was blown away by sudden gusts of wind. When the smoke cleared, swirls of green wind that resembled a tornado were detected. Minato was in the center of it, along with that white entity he summoned earlier. The unknown entity was holding its arm out, as if it was about to take a bow. Both it and Minato weren't riddled with bullet holes whatsoever.
Minato wagged his index finger towards the AST before he continued.
"You girls are just wasting your time and ammo. I can absorb your gunshots and use them to heal me. Although I don't really need it, I should say thanks anyway."
"What..." Ryouko's mouth dropped as several other AST members' did as well.
Crushing their morale was a method Minato hoped would get them off his and Hermit's back for the time being. This confrontation had gone on long enough in his opinion. Wishing to not waste any more time, as he had been labeled as a Spirit, he made his next move.
"Messiah, Panta Rhei," Minato ordered, forming a fist with his free hand.
Messiah then released the vortex it had been maintaining for some time towards the sky. The tornado then expanded enormously in midair, dragging in the remaining members of the AST that didn't chase after the Hermit including Ryouko. Despite exploiting the Protect aspect of their Realizers, which were barriers, they were sucked in regardless.
As a result, the AST girls kept continuously screaming and spinning in circles on account of Minato retaining Messiah and the Panta Rhei, depleting his reserves marginally.
During that same time, a few feet ahead of him, Minato noticed one Wizard cowering and wielding her laser blade as if it was her first time doing so. He took a few steps towards her with his head tilted, causing her breathing to hitch violently.
"No... Stay away from me! Get away! Don't hurt me!" The girl shrieked, collapsing onto the ground and passing out from fear. The blue-haired amnesiac casually shrugged at the sight. One less person to deal with.
Minato realized now would be an opportune time to leave while he had the chance as he sheathed his Evoker in one of his blazer's pockets. Surely Shido and Tohka had been already recovered by Kotori and Ratatoskr amidst this mayhem.
The Hermit Spirit was not here anymore either. The mission was a failure, so he had to regroup with everybody.
He eventually chose to fly somewhere that wasn't here until the coast was clear, slightly hoping that Ratatoskr would teleport him back to Fraxinus during that period of time and for his wings to go away. He was about to take off into the sky until he was stopped.
"Give up."
Minato didn't have to turn his head to know whose voice that was. Origami was holding her laser blade to his neck. He had almost forgotten the fact that she was still here.
"And then what? Will you kill me?" Minato asked flatly, holding his hands up in resignation and turning around slowly. No hint of fear was perceived in his tone as he made eye contact with Origami. "That's the Anti-Spirit Team's job, isn't it? To kill Spirits supposedly like me?"
Origami's grip on her blade became unsteady. Minato could see the conflict written all over her. She was hesitating, and he knew why.
"Don't look at me like that... You've no idea what I've been through because of Spirits!" Origami stated irritably.
"Well, you can enlighten me, Tobiichi-san," Minato replied peacefully. She had some vendetta against Spirits, but he wasn't aware of the cause for such hate. "I'm pretty new to all this myself, and you look like you've been shouldering a burden for a long time. If you want, we can talk this out."
"T-Talk…?" Origami stuttered. Minato nodded. For a minute, it sounded like she was considering his offer. At least, until she swung her blade at him, forcing him to evade by jumping back. "I've been trained for years to fight Spirits, and all they've done is bring nothing but pain and destruction! What good would talking do now!?"
Minato shook his head. Origami was too enraged to speak with him right now.
"Persona." The bluenette changed Personas, dismissing Messiah and by extension the Panta Rhei twister he made. He was using Siegfried again.
Origami lunged at him with her lazer blade but was met with Minato simply blocking her slashes with his arm until he caught her weapon with his bare hand once more. Minato pulled her to him before she could let go and delivered a swift punch to her abdomen. Origami coughed violently from the impact and then fainted on the spot as she landed forward into his arms, falling unconscious. Her lazer blade hit the ground and deactivated.
"I'm sorry..." Minato whispered as he gently put Origami down. It pained him to injure a friend, especially the one who had found him lost.
He spared her a worried glance until the scenery around him altered in a blur, realizing he finally arrived back in Fraxinus's teleportation room. Once he gave a sigh of relief, his wings then faded away along with his old clothes in a shimmer of white light, regaining his Raizen High uniform again, though he didn't notice it immediately.
Minato wasted no time in making his way to the airship's command center. He had a lot of questions that needed to be answered.
"Time for some answers, Kotori."
"What do you make of that Spirit, Ike?" Ellen Mira Mathers asked Deus Ex Machina Industries' director after the two finished watching the fairly recent battle conclude on a screen.
Sir Isaac Ray Peram Wescott chuckled and grinned darkly. This Spirit was very interesting, making incredibly quick work of the Anti-Spirit Team like he did was an impressive feat. And it was the first male Spirit he had ever seen too.
"It seems as though we're dealing with something the likes of which we've never seen before."
A/N: Kept you waiting, huh? So the anticipated chapter 3 is finally released. What do you all think of it? Personally, I couldn't have imagined it in any other way.
Sorry for the long wait, real life caught up to me. Graduated high school, applied for college, and getting a job took up practically all of my time. When I actually had free time, I worked on my stories bit by bit. I also got into a Persona 4 Arena craze, which I'm still in right now in preparation for Ultimax. With all of that aside, I can truly say that I'm free to work on my stories again.
I have a feeling most of you were disappointed in how the fight turned out. But when you really consider any fight against the AST, other than Origami and one other girl, in Date A Live, they're certainly one-sided. If you guys have been keeping up with the anime or reading the light novels, things are heating up. So, the future fights in The Divine Spirit will as well.
Have most of you also seen the English dub for Date A Live yet? So far, I like it! Shido's voice is deeper than I expected, but it's good enough for me. The English dub uses the term "spatial quake" instead of spacequake, so do you guys want me update the story by replacing spacequake with "spatial quake" or does it even matter since it's the same thing?
I coined the term "Astral Suit" for Minato since he's male, there hasn't been a male Spirit introduced in Date A Live at the time I'm writing this, and his Gekkoukan uniform does look like a suit. His Astral Suit's name is "Mashiach." In Hebrew, it means Messiah.
Minato's "Angel" is his Persona, or Personas. He can use over 170 Personas and weapons at his disposal. He'll usually equip his strongest or most useful Personas for their benefits. With Minato's speed increased from a Sukukaja, he's exactly like Yosuke when he uses it in Persona 4 Arena.
A majority of those who reviewed and messaged me have been asking what the pairings for this story will be. Honestly, I know what I'm going to do with Shido, but Minato is the bigger question. He's definitely not going to be with Tohka or Origami for obvious reasons. I'm stuck between Kurumi, Kaguya, and Yuzuru. Let me know what you guys want to see!
Minato may have an unwanted harem, but he will be paired up with someone!
Below this paragraph is "Ratatoskr's Confidential Spirit Data Analysis" on Minato, Tohka, and Yoshino. For every Spirit other than Minato, their data is based on information from the light novel version of Date A Live. I included them so you guys can have a better understanding of the Spirits and how they scale with Minato. I won't be showing off Tohka's, Yoshino's, or any other Spirits' profiles repeatedly, only when they appear for the first time in The Divine Spirit or if something changes about them. The analysis will be updated as the story continues, mostly Minato's.
Spirit: Arisato Minato
Nickname: Divine
Threat Level: SS
Spacequake: C (Megido), B (Megidola), A (Megidolaon), ? (Morning Star), ? (Black Viper), ? (Armageddon)
Spirit's Astral Suit (Mashiach): S
Angel (Persona (Messiah, Orpheus Telos, Thanatos, etc.)): SSS
Weapon: One-handed swords, two-handed swords, bows, fists, bludgeons, spears
Strength: ?
Consistency: ?
Spiritual Power: ?
Agility: ?
Intelligence: ?
Notes: This Spirit is able to summon spacequakes at will and control their intensities. His Angel is diverse in terms of appearances and abilities. He refers to his Angel as "Persona" in general, so it's safe to assume that it is what his Angel is called, although each Persona apparently has a unique name of their own. Because of his Angel, he's the only known Spirit that can absorb and heal himself from different types of assaults. He is adept in wielding various kinds of weapons, including his own fists. Although he is given a higher rank than Nightmare, he is shown to be rather cordial, only attacking when provoked. Very unpredictable in combat; exercise extreme caution. Also important to note: this Spirit is the only male one to be documented.
Spirit: Yatogami Tohka
Nickname: Princess
Threat Level: AAA
Spacequake: B
Spirit's Astral Dress (Adonai Melek): AAA
Angel (Sandalphon): AAA
Weapon: Broadsword
Spirit: Yoshino
Nickname: Hermit
Threat Level: B
Spacequake: C
Spirit's Astral Dress (El): B
Angel (Zadkiel): AA
Weapon: Puppet
Thanks for reading! As always, reviews are appreciated!
Reviewers:
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(Modified as of February 2019)