Author's Notes: And here I thought a job with a schedule would make writing easier. Shows what I know. I have no excuse for the delay on this one, other than that real life got very busy during the last 4-6 weeks. I've adjusted for it now, so I'm hoping the time for the next chapter won't be too bad. So, here're my responses to my wonderful readers:
Xoraan: You know me by now, I'm certain. I wouldn't be putting in all these wonderful details if there wasn't going to be a payoff. Minato and Mitsuru's dates, Aigis, they'll all come together at some point. And Elizabeth, since she's too funny to leave out. And as to future scenes between Minato and Mitsuru, well, you'll just have to read and see, my friend. Always wonderful to hear from you, and I hope you like the chapter.
AnnaMae: Elizabeth was a blast to write, and we'll be seeing more of her down the line in a set-up that I hope will trump this by a long shot. But we'll see when we get there. And Minato's agitation is something that I'll be using a lot of in the future, since everyone accepting the wackier elements of the game really took away from the punch, in my opinion. As to that information on Mitsuru's mother, thanks for the heads-up. I didn't know those details were there, but that is good to know. Thanks for reviewing, and I hope you like what's to come.
Guest: Well, here you go!
Meia42: Akihiko feels like he needs a bit more depth from what the game gave him. Him being as focused and single-minded as he was portrayed is fine, but I always felt like there was a lot more under the surface that we didn't see. Glad that others are enjoying my portrayal of him. Takeharu seemed like a given when I was putting the chapter together. I agree with you, that for him to be so distant when he was so closely tied to what happened with the Shadows just didn't make any sense. And as to that last bit, well, it'll become clearer as we go. But I'm glad it's got you hooked.
Guest: Your wait is over. Here's the update you've been waiting for. Hope you like it.
Bru022345: Thanks for the congratulations. It was a trek getting it, but it's an alright gig that's given me my weekends back. Never realized how much that helps in life. As to the finale, I can't say much without the risk of spoiling it, so I'll just say that it will play a role further down the line, and I'll certainly try to make sure it feels organic when I get there. Thanks for the review, and enjoy the chapter!
writinginreverse: Believe me, you won't find that from me. I can't stand that mindset or writing along those lines, so I won't subject my beautiful readers to it. And one would think that, with any normal person, all this weird stuff would start to get to them over time. If nothing else, it makes it a lot more fun to read. Anyway, glad you're liking the work, and hope that continues.
Guest: Glad you think it's awesome, and here's the update! Later than I'd have liked, but life is like that.
Hoshiro 217: Character interactions in Persona 3 felt like a missing gap, and given all the potential for running with conversations and arguments, not giving those details their time in the sun would feel like a disservice to the source material. Thus, my works for Persona 3 and Persona 4. But thank you for the kind words – it's not every day that I am told I'm an inspirational figure to someone else.
Guest: Takeharu felt like a wasted opportunity in the game, and since he's an important figure in Mitsuru's life, to say nothing of all the experience he's had with Shadows and Personas himself, it only made sense to build on him as a character. The restaurant dates are starting a lot earlier than in the game, which only makes sense, and it won't be the only liberty I take with Mitsuru's S. Link events and timeline. Hope you don't mind. As to which machine it was and who was responsible for it, well, it'll be a surprise.
Emeraldfireblade: I take exception to that. Do I really seem like the sort of person to play with expectations and not have a payoff? To build up awesome potential and invite speculation into what I'm doing just to say 'nah, just kidding'? Really, I'm hurt now. So I'm not going to tell you anything. You'll just have to wait and see how awesome I can make Mitsuru in a restaurant, or Elizabeth in a scene that blows the one in the mall completely out of the water, and the grand revelation of the significance of Chapter 5's last bit in a stunning and grandiose display so that no doubt remains in anyone's mind as to how much I love my readers and how awesome this fic is going to be.
ByLanternLight: And I'm looking forward to showing you – it'll be a real blast when we get there.
Guest: Glad to hear it, because I think I'm pretty amazing too. And here's the update, so I hope I continue to be as amazing or even more amazing than I am now. Enjoy!
irie: That's good to hear, because you won't be waiting very long. Hope you enjoy it!
Guest: Keep up what I've already done? No no no, my friend, I can't just do the same thing until I finish the story; I have to build on what I have, progress and grow so that new ideas are introduced, allowing them to become amazing, and then new ideas from those, and so on. I won't rest until the fic becomes a singularity of incredible ideas and perfect execution, and, I can assure you, I will get there.
amir26r: Well, thank you. I strive to be amazing and unforgettable. And as to the ending, well, we'll see when we get there, right?
Talking Raptors: Well, I'm glad you liked the chapters. Chapter 4 was an interesting exercise, given that Minato losing his cool made the most sense under the circumstances, but having him do so in a constructive way took some doing. So I'm glad that came across well. As to chapter 5, Elizabeth seems to be a big hit, and that's good because next time we see her I'll be trying to up the ante and make the scene even better. So stay tuned for that. I believe that Fuuka is in the same year as Junpei and Yukari and Minato, as an aside, and building up the relationships we don't get to see in the games is part of the fun of this fic. Thanks for the review, and hope you like what follows.
Chapter 6 – In Quartata
Mitsuru-senpai shifted a bit in front of him, turning and looking at him seriously. "Is this uncomfortable for you?"
"Uncomfortable? How do you mean?" Minato replied.
"Do you think I'm overdressed for this?" she clarified, gesturing to herself. "I hadn't thought of that when I chose my wardrobe."
"No more than usual, Senpai. You look fine as you are," her companion assured her.
Though to Minato, it seemed, more and more, like a universal rule that Kirijo Mitsuru would stand out no matter where she was. And being in line at the local Duck Burger was no exception. He'd thought that she couldn't look better than when he'd seen her in her swimsuit, with so much bare skin on display coupled with that indomitable confidence. Yet she'd proven him wrong. She'd met him at the dorm's front doors in a close-fitting pair of capris and a sleeveless, cream-coloured top. A black choker with a ruby in a gold mount set off her eyes and hair, not that they needed it, and her usual boots were replaced with a pair of low-top shoes. He'd felt inadequate from the moment he saw her, dressed in a light blue summer shirt and loose slacks, but she'd smiled at his choice of clothing and asked where they were going, out the door before he could second-guess himself.
They talked about small things as they walked to the restaurant, in no hurry and both wearing sunglasses against the noon-time sun. Minato looked down and noted that they were almost matching in step and stride, and he couldn't help but think that, to anyone looking at them, they probably seemed like they were a couple on a date. And while the specifics of their outing were a bit too clinical for him to get lost in such an illusion, he was proud to have the striking Kirijo Mitsuru next to him, from when they left the dorm to when they stepped into Duck Burger.
He gave her a brief rundown of what was on the menu, and expected her to choose the salad or a vegetarian dish. She surprised him by choosing a hamburger loaded with lettuce and onions along with a side of greasy fries and a soda instead of water. She'd caught him so much off guard that he watched her blankly for a moment before giving and paying for his own order.
"There's little point in an experiment if I order the same things that I eat normally, right?" she told him when their eyes met. "And while I doubt I would want this all the time, now and again won't hurt me."
"Fair enough," he told her with a small smile. While they waited, she looked across the menu again, then at the mascot in the corner, and then at the layout of tables and booths. All while male customers of every age and size watched her, sometimes holding up the line. Minato was tempted to chase a few of them off like he had with Elizabeth, but decided against it. She'd wanted the full experience of going to a fast-food restaurant, and a beautiful young woman standing out, even compared to the other students who were watching them curiously, was part of the package.
Their food came and they made their way toward a free booth. Mitsuru-senpai took careful steps as she moved, balancing her tray easily and moving around the other customers. Minato knew that it was an unfair association, thinking that the rich girl wouldn't know how to hold a fast-food tray properly. Still, he couldn't help that that's what he'd expected, or at least some uncertainty from a lack of practice. But she could have been holding her rapier and Evoker for how little trouble it gave her. He watched, close beside her on the off chance that something went wrong, but it proved to be completely unnecessary, and they got to their table without incident.
He slid into his seat calmly, setting down his food and watching as she did the same, though more self-conscious than he was. Then she shifted around in her seat to get comfortable, and Minato wondered if she'd ever sat in such hard plastic chairs before. Either way, once she was comfortable, she carefully set a napkin on her lap and moved her food around on the tray. Burger in the middle, fries to the left, ketchup packets in between the two, and her soda on the right. Minato looked at the design for a moment, then chuckled. Everything was set equally apart, almost like the hour marks on the face of a clock. Even though she was trying something new, some things wouldn't change on a whim.
"Am I doing something wrong?" she asked, pausing as she reached for a fry.
Minato waved his hand dismissively and reached for his soda. "No, nothing. You're doing fine so far."
Relief was in her eyes, alongside appreciation, and her lips turned up in a small smile. "That's comforting to hear. Thank you again for taking the time to indulge me."
"No thanks necessary, Senpai. And I'm not indulging you – this is fun. We don't get to talk much outside of school or work, so this is a good chance to catch up."
"That would be a welcome change," she told him, still smiling. "I suppose I can start, in that case. I was impressed by your exam marks. With everything else going on, finding the time to study can't be easy."
As he expected from Mitsuru-senpai – starting with their studies and tests where anyone else would have talked about their favourite sports team, or the weather. "Not as hard as you might think," he shrugged. "Regular reading and notes in class are enough for me. And working as much as we have been just means finding the time elsewhere, right?"
She nodded approvingly, unwrapping her burger. "That's a very efficient attitude to have. Iori disagrees with you, I think."
Minato smiled, remembering Junpei's grousing about the tests before they'd left for Yakushima. "That wouldn't surprise me. But as much as he might slack off, he's more than his test marks and grades, right?"
"Of course." She took up her burger in both hands and began biting into the edge. As she nibbled at her meal daintily, chewing in small, experimental bites, her eyes lit up and her smile became pleased, spreading wider across her face as what she tasted clearly agreed with her. There was a trace of innocence in the gesture, a glimmer of open childishness in the upturn of her lips and cheeks that he'd never expected to see from her, and the sight of it caught his heart in place.
Even worse was the light little chuckle she gave as she ate so happily, a sound that reached him past all the surrounding noise and kept him still. That's not fair. She was one of the most capable, mature, and responsible people he'd ever met, studying university material and able to speak four different languages, and yet the simple act of eating at a fast-food restaurant inspired a reaction that he could only describe as 'cute.' So much so that all Minato could do was watch in a daze, uncaring of whether she saw him.
She was more than a third of the way through her hamburger before she set it down and dabbed at her lips with her napkin. That was enough to break Minato's fascination with her and focus on his own food, though his heart was still beating fast. Just like at the beach. And that thought didn't help things as he reached for his drink.
Her next words broke through his reverie and pulled him back into the realm of work, however. "What do you think of Ikutsuki's decision to invite Amada to the dorm?"
Minato stopped sucking on his straw and let out a sigh after he swallowed and set the cup down. "I don't agree with it," he told her simply. "Ken might have the potential, but that doesn't make him ready to handle what we're going up against. I know he's not part of the team yet, but it doesn't seem any less wrong to have a kid fighting beside us if he does join up."
"Ikutsuki says that Amada has been studying spear fighting for the past few years," Mitsuru-senpai commented after eating another fry. "I agree that he is young and certainly lacks the training at the moment, but he is also very determined to help us."
"It takes more than desire and enthusiasm to do what we do, Senpai," he pointed out. "And saying he's ready is pretty different from going up against the real thing." There was a silence between them as they ate, but his fingers drummed on the table, catching her attention. "Besides," he continued, glancing around to make sure no one else was listening, "isn't it odd that we have so many allies now? I thought it was strange when we found Fuuka, but now we have Aigis and a kid at the dorm. I always got the impression that Persona-Users were rare, but we'll run out of rooms to put them in at this rate."
"I don't disagree," Mitsuru-senpai told him after a moment, her eyes thoughtful. "It is strange that we have so many now when there were only three of us before. I thought finding and recruiting Takeba was a major victory, but then you and Iori awakened to your abilities at almost the same time. It's an odd turn of events."
Minato let out a hard grunt. "More mysteries and unexplained conveniences."
She ran a finger along her cheek, staring at him pensively."I know how those bother you, but do you feel the same way about Amada? He's not lying about his past, and I feel that he truly wants to help us, even if he lacks experience as you say."
"He's keeping something to himself," Minato observed. "Normal kids wouldn't take having a Persona as easily as he is. He's too steady and calm for what he's gotten into, and I wish I knew why."
"I don't mean to be insulting, but perhaps you're letting those mysteries bother you more than they should." He gave her a long stare, and she returned it with a sober look. "I'm quite serious. If you fixate and worry about everything you can't control, you won't be able to lead and look after the others. And I think you're better than that, if I'm being honest."
Her encouragement did nothing to alleviate his seriousness. "Your confidence is appreciated, Senpai, but if I don't have information about what's going on around me, I can't prepare for problems. If the time comes where we have to take preventative measures and we haven't considered the need for them before, then we're operating from a weakened position. I'd rather worry over nothing than gloss something over and suffer the consequences later. Especially where the others are involved."
She conceded with a quiet 'hm.' "You raise a fair point, Arisato. I just hope you're not treating the others with mistrust because they keep their secrets to themselves. After all, not everyone with SEES is like Aigis."
Minato leaned back against the seat with a pained groan. "Please don't mention her." Their newest member had been difficult enough to handle when they were at the dorm, where there was lots of space and plenty of rooms he could use to avoid her. Her following him to school and enrolling in his class, sitting only a few desks away from his own, that was definitely pushing things. And how his classmates didn't think that she was unusual, from her unchanging face and voice to those glassy doll's eyes, he'd never know. In light of all that, her pledge to be near him, spoken in front of the entire room, was practically accepted as normal.
His discomfort brought a small smile to her face, and she chuckled a little when he looked at her. "I apologize. I know you find her unnerving, but her dedication to you is rather charming. Even if we're not sure where it comes from yet."
"No news on that, eh?"
She dipped a fry in the ketchup, holding her other hand up in a shrug. "I'm afraid not. Her records at the lab don't explain why she reacts to you like she does. The engineers and technicians, however, have been concerned with the disappearance of another unit like her."
Minato stiffened. The thought of another walking tank in a schoolgirl's body following him around, pledging eternal devotion and service, pulled the blood in his face southward. "Another one?"
"Yes. I don't have the details, and I doubt I'll get them since they are calling this an unrelated incident. Ikutsuki is investigating it, but I don't know what he'll find."
He gave another sigh and rubbed at his forehead with a stiffened finger. He needed a drink. "I hope it is unrelated. It would be nice for something to happen by coincidence or by accident for a change. I have enough rumours going around about me as it is."
That perked her eyebrows up for a moment, like he'd reminded her of something she'd forgotten until that moment. "Actually, speaking of rumours, I heard something unusual that I wanted to clarify."
"What's that?" he inquired, sucking on his straw.
"I heard that you're acquainted with a wealthy, well-dressed American woman," Mitsuru-senpai told him, voice unchanging as he stopped drinking in a snap. "From what I hear, she was rather fascinated with the fountains at the mall."
She hadn't finished speaking when Minato inhaled too hard and choked on his drink, pushing it to the table and falling into a coughing fit. His free hand up to his mouth, he tried to look at her while his eyes watered and his lungs spasmed, trying to clear out his windpipe.
"Are you alright?" she asked immediately, handing him a napkin and looking at him with concern in her eyes.
"I'm fine," he rasped, taking her offer and coughing harder into it, trying to clear his throat. "You heard what?" he gasped when he could breathe without setting himself off again.
Mitsuru-senpai looked a bit surprised at his reaction, and her eyes reflected her concern, but her tone was casual as she continued. "She spoke excellent Japanese, as I understand it, and seemed to be quite fond of you. What I heard suggested that she was calling you 'Arisato-sama.' I'm not criticising, but it seems odd that you dislike Aigis calling you 'Minato-san' when a relative stranger addresses you more formally."
"That's–" he started, then stopped as he bit his tongue. It was what? A misunderstanding? A lie? How could he explain the nature of the Velvet Room, of Igor and Elizabeth, to Mitsuru-senpai when he knew so little about it himself? And he was certain, now that he thought about it, that his comrades would have been very interested in the pair given all there was to learn about Personas and the Shadows. And yet they hadn't commented on the door to the Velvet Room in Tartarus, so how would he come across as? Lying? Elitist? It was proof of a secret he kept to himself because he couldn't prove that it existed, and doing so made him feel like a hypocrite. "That's all there is to it," he told her carefully, picking his words like they were steps through a minefield. "She's a friend who wanted to see what the mall was like, and I had a free afternoon. I guess you could say that she got a bit carried away when she saw the fountains."
Her eyes narrowed incrementally, and Minato was worried that he'd stepped onto one of those mines and gotten too carried away. "It's good that you're making friends outside of SEES and school," she told him after a moment. "Do you mind if I ask how you met her, though? She seems a bit outside of your circle."
"We have a mutual acquaintance," Minato hedged, feeling his palms sweat and certain that she knew he was lying. And he hated this feeling, especially with her. "It's hard to explain. But she's a friend, if a bit eccentric."
"I see," Mitsuru-senpai said slowly after a few moments. "It's not a problem, but hearing about her was a surprise, I'll admit."
He tried not to let his relief show. Never mind a bullet, it felt like he'd escaped being fired at by an entire SWAT team.
They discussed mundane matters for the rest of their meal. The restaurant was beginning to get even more crowded as they finished up, and Mitsuru-senpai declared the outing a success as they left. "There are other types of fast food to try out," he offered as they were on the sidewalk. "Ramen, takoyaki, okonomiyaki, places like that. If you want to try them out, I can come with you whenever you like."
She stopped and looked at him, pursing her lips with a speculative stare. Finally her focus eased off and she smiled, welcoming and at ease. "I'd like that. Thank you for the offer, Arisato."
He tried not to let his sense of triumph show too much, but it was difficult at that moment. "Anytime, Senpai."
"There is one more thing," she told him, suddenly sober, before he could continue down the street. She looked at him, her gaze direct even through the sunglasses. "I realize that there are many things about what we're doing that you don't understand, even more so since you seem to be in the middle of what is happening and none of us know why. But even if you can't explain something, or are afraid of how it will sound, I will certainly listen to what you have to say. There's no need to restrain yourself, even if you don't have the answers."
Minato stiffened. She'd known the whole time. Much as he'd tried to keep his secrets from her, she knew when he was bluffing. And knowing that she knew didn't make him feel any better. In fact, it made him feel like trash to be scraped off someone's boots. "I'm really sorry," he told her, bowing apologetically. "It wasn't something I could discuss easily, but you're very right. I'll try to be more forthcoming, even with the weird stuff."
"Good. It's unnecessary for us to talk around each other. We're in this together, and you have my support regardless of what answers we find. Friends can trust each other with such things, correct?" She looked at him with an eyebrow slightly raised.
Kirijo Mitsuru was offering him a hand up, a chance that he didn't think he'd ever get. And he wasn't about to pass it up. "Of course, Senpai. Gladly."
Minato had gotten used to how weird hunting for Shadows was becoming. Tartarus was familiar ground now, and the fights at the love hotel had been the strangest ones to date, but the memory had lost its edge in the short time since it had happened. He was sure he was ready for the kinds of oddities that the nights of the full moon promised.
Still, an abandoned military weapons depot was a new one on him, and it made him decidedly uncomfortable when he thought of what sorts of trouble a Shadow with a howitzer could throw at them. Images from various American movies involving killer cyborgs in human bodies came to mind as racks upon rows upon rails of automatic rifles showed themselves the deeper into the depot they went.
"The Shadow's nearby," Fuuka told them with a frown. "But it seems to be further down from here."
"I think we're ready for it this time," Minato told her with a sidelong glance to Aigis and the gear she was carrying. Weapons that would have sent him to his knees in a second if he'd tried to shoulder them.
When Fuuka first located the Shadow, none of them wanted to take chances given the skills of their last enemy. So they'd put on even more armour and discussed smaller teams and contact methods on the way to the site. Aigis had given them a variety of ideas, but when she'd emerged from her room, no one said a word. Junpei's jaw had hit the floor while Akihiko-senpai whistled to himself, and Minato wondered how she'd gotten down the stairs without breaking through them. Aigis was dressed in tactical ballistic armour, thick enough that she was almost half again as wide as normal. Straps and bandoleers of spare ammunition crisscrossed her torso and rested in spare pockets on her arms and thighs. She put Junpei's comment from months before, about automatic weapons and grenade launchers, to absolute shame when they saw that she was carrying more firepower than an SDF platoon. A small automatic rifle was attached to her left arm, a chain of bullets connecting to a box at her hip. Over her right shoulder was a .50 calibre anti-tank rifle, polished and loaded like she'd just finished working on it, and attached to her right hip was an American M79 grenade launcher. As she'd joined them, she moved as easily as she did when they were at school, not a trace of exertion to be found. Even as she'd hauled it all along with them, she never flagged so much as a step.
"Do we know what's down that way?" Yukari asked, adjusting her belt and Evoker. Her bow and arrows seemed out of place next to the heavily-armed Aigis, but she looked around, more concerned with where they were than with appearances.
"Not yet," Akihiko-senpai told them. "We couldn't find any specific blueprints of the place, or the records of what they kept here." He nodded to one side, where dusty crates of tank shells were stacked. "From the looks of it, though, there might be some vehicles here."
Minato shivered at the thought, and he wasn't the only one who did. "Let's hope the Shadows don't know how to–"
The main lights, a grimy green in the Dark Hour, suddenly cut out, plunging the depot in darkness amid the surprised shouts of the team. The emergency lights kicked on a second later, bathing everything in red light. Then the main lights flashed back on, accompanied by the grinding of the door behind them.
"It's closing!" Junpei shouted, running toward it. But it had shut tight just as he reached it, the locks grinding into place and slamming home with a threatening boom that rumbled throughout the storehouse.
"What was that?!" Akihiko-senpai demanded, next to Junpei and running his hands along the seam of the door. "The doors were shut down!"
"Someone reactivated them," Fuuka told them, horror on her face. "I couldn't sense them until now, but they're right outside."
"Is there any way to get the doors open?" Mitsuru-senpai asked, brow furrowed in an almost-glare at the idea of being set up.
"Not that I can find," Fuuka admitted. "The controls on this side are broken.
"Should the need arise," Aigis put in, loading her grenade launcher, "I can destroy key points of the doors and grant us egress."
"Junpei and I can do the same if it comes to that," Minato told them. "They might be blast doors, but we can probably melt through if we hit them in one place. That's the least of our worries, though."
"How do you figure?" Yukari asked. "We're stuck in here without a way out."
Minato pointed further down the building to where the gates had been blown apart. "We have enough oxygen, so we won't suffocate, and we can get out when we need to. That's a problem for after we find the Shadow. But, consider this: someone locked us in here, but didn't attack us first. If they want us dead, then they are expecting the Shadow to do it. It might have heard the doors close or felt the lights go off, and this place isn't defensible." He gestured to the crates around them, most of which were stamped with 'Danger! Explosives!' The group looked around with a growing sense of dread, and he cleared his throat to keep their attention. "It's not ideal, but I think it's best if we find the Shadow before it finds us."
"Yamagishi," Mitsuru-senpai inquired, already moving away from the door, "can you tell us anything about the ones who locked us in here?"
"Very little, Senpai," Fuuka admitted, wiping at her brow with her bandana. "There were two of them, but they were here and gone so quickly that I couldn't learn very much."
"How could they have gotten this close to us?" Akihiko-senpai asked as he joined them. "Could they conceal their presence? I've never heard of that."
"Nor have I," Mitsuru-senpai replied as she drew her sword. "But Arisato makes a valid point – we should tend to what we can, and the sooner we find the Shadow, the sooner we can debate on who did this."
Minato led them down the tunnel at the back of the depot, his heart sinking when he saw the even bite of tread marks in the ground. And they were too fresh to have come from weeks or even days before. But they followed, looking for cover at each and every step. Cover that was almost nowhere to be found as they descended into the natural cave. Down they went, a growing sense of foreboding with every step. "I wonder," he murmured to himself, "if it's too much to hope that the tank the Shadow's using isn't–"
The air detonated around them. The shockwave of an exploding tank shell crashed over them over and over, rebounding off the walls. Junpei and Akihiko-senpai responded first, grabbing Fuuka and Yukari and shielding them with their bodies. Minato felt the impulse to do the same with Mitsuru-senpai, immediately looking for her. But she was against the wall across from him, peering down the tunnel while trying to keep out of sight. Aigis was the least affected, unstrapping the anti-tank rifle from her back and aiming down the way.
Another shell detonated the air, but no explosion followed. Whatever was being shot at, it wasn't them. Junpei and Akihiko-senpai stepped ahead of the girls as Mitsuru-senpai pushed away from the wall. "What's going on?" the boxer demanded, shaking his head.
Minato was about to say that someone, or something, had gotten there ahead of them, but the air tingled, electricity snapping on the nerves of his arms. A high-pitched ringing sound hit his ears, faint but unmistakable, and it pushed on him like the wind.
"Minato-kun?" Fuuka asked. "What is it?"
Another deafening cannon blast, and more ringing that shivered through his brain despite the agony in his ears. This time there was an enraged ethereal shout laced with radio static. The familiar hissing and chittering was there, but the voice was far more distinctive this time. "Someone's fighting the Shadow," he told them, taking two steps forward and not looking at any of them. "Someone with a Persona."
"How do you know?" Junpei asked, holding his sword and eyeing the gloom nervously.
"Is that possible, Yamagishi?" Mitsuru-senpai demanded immediately, pulling her Evoker free.
"There's a Persona being used. Minato-kun's right about that," Fuuka confirmed, frowning as she focused. "But I can't pick up anything else. There's too much noise."
"Target locked!" an alien voice echoed from down the cave, hissing and rattling and unmistakeably angry. "FIRE!"
The tunnel shook from the next blast, everyone struggling for their footing and looking at the walls nervously. Minato started walking toward the noise, the Shadow's voice like a lure. The sound of servos and shifting ammo followed him, settling in next to him as Aigis chambered a round in her rifle. "Please exercise caution when confronting our enemy, Minato-san," she told him, not a trace of fear in her voice.
"I'll be fine," he told her, not looking over. The underground lighting grew brighter as they went down, eerie green light intensifying and the stench of decay and gas fumes growing heavier. The next blast felt like it had hit right on top of them, so close that, once he shook off the ringing in his ears, Minato could hear the frantic turning and grinding and shifting of treads. Another high-pitched blast crashed ahead of them, accompanied by the sound of armour plating hitting the ground. Whoever was fighting the Shadow was still alive, and giving as good as they got.
A different voice rattled in his ears this time, deeper and definitely in pain. "Damage! Left side penetrated, treads at 55% functionality, probability of maintaining pace–"
"That doesn't matter!" The first one commanded. "Evasive manoeuvres!"
"Impossible given current–" Another ringing crash. "Further damage! Evasive manoeuvres still unfeasible! Eliminate the target!"
"Two of them," Minato whispered, massaging his temples and sheathing his sword. "Not again."
"Due to the explosions, I could not hear what you said, Minato-kun," Aigis told him, looking over from her rifle's scope. "Was it pertinent to the mission?"
"It's nothing," he replied shortly, not looking over as he unholstered his Evoker. "Just get ready."
The others braced themselves and came into the open cavern amidst another cannon blast. And none of them liked what they saw.
The Shadows had commandeered a tank, but the vehicle seemed barely large enough to hold its passengers. The turret was hissing spitefully, surrounded by black muck. Two man-sized crates of spare shells were covered in slime, the warning labels on them peeping at the group almost sympathetically. The top of the turret glowed malevolently, a misshapen mass of muscle twisting this way and that as a glowing red dot looked about frantically.
The chassis was, as Minato had heard, a mess. The treads on one side were almost blown completely apart while thin, finger-like appendages tried to drag the pieces back together. Two gaping holes in the tank's armour showed the Shadow's black blood and more appendages, clinging to the destroyed plating and pulling it back into place. Minato tried not to look at the Shadow too much, remembering what happened before, but he couldn't miss the numerous red and yellow eyes staring at him hatefully. The air rattled with the Shadow's voice now.
"New threats!" one of the bellowed. "Prepare to engage!"
The turret swung, slowly, towards them, the red glow intensifying and showing further scorch marks along the top.
"Previous target has escaped," the static-laced voice reported. "Current threat level assessed. Prepare!"
"Get ready!" Minato shouted at the others, yanking his Evoker free as the top Shadow locked another round in the barrel and pointed directly at him. He pulled the trigger, feeling another Persona join his own as the cannon fired. Another deafening explosion, and the blast pushed Minato back a good two feet, brain spiking with pain from the effort. But it had worked – the blast had been blocked, and Aigis looked at him with concern, next to him and half the reason the stunt had worked.
But the tactical side of him knew not to waste time with pointless words. They didn't have the luxury of them as the Shadows shrieked furiously, chambering another shell.
"Junpei!" he yelled. "You're with me. Mitsuru-senpai, I'm giving you the others!"
The redhead nodded once, even as Junpei looked at the tank for a terrified moment before joining their leader.
"You put yourself at risk needlessly, Minato-san," Aigis pointed out, still glowing with that unearthly light. "Allow me to take your place."
A frightening clunk announced the cannon loading, and Minato was joined by Palladion and Hermes to fight off another shell, and another deafening blast. Mitsuru-senpai had taken Yukari and Akihiko-senpai and flanked the tank, blazing blue and burning the air with energy.
"You have the weapons to destroy this thing," Minato shot back with a glare. "I don't. Get to work while we keep this thing busy."
The Shadows shrieked more orders, reporting and arguing furiously. Minato's ears were ringing so badly that he could barely hear them now.
"Your powers will not be sufficient to fight this threat," she insisted, loud enough to be heard. "You cannot withstand it for long."
Junpei swore and brought up his Evoker, preparing for another strike as the others began their barrage.
"Then make it fast," Minato gritted out with a glare. "That's an order."
Aigis stared at him, then rushed off to the open side of the tanks, strafing it with bullets.
"We gonna make it through this?" Junpei asked, dripping sweat and abandoning his sword. He stared hard as the barrel shifted to target the attacking trio. They ran together, staying in front of it and ready to block its shots.
"We have to," Minato replied. They stopped in the face of another blast, buying time as the detonation punched into their combined barrier. The blend of Personas, Aigis's grenades and high-calibre rounds, and the damage the Shadows had already suffered began to wear the tank down.
But the Shadow on the turret screamed in rage, bathed them in red as it sent an even stronger blast down the barrel. Minato and Junpei's next shield broke, blasting them both from the feet and sending them rolling, bodies screaming in pain. Junpei staggered to his feet, holding onto his knee and shaking violently. Minato came to his feet just as another grenade tore into the armour on the other side and the trio behind them unleashed another combined blast. It didn't stop the turret and barrel from shifting toward them.
A fork of lightning raked across the barrel, tearing into the metal. Minato breathed hard, half-blind from sweat, and tried to prepare for one more shield as the barrel slowly lowered, staring him in the face.
This was it.
The cannon went off. Then detonated in a blast of red as it backfired, knocking them all back a few steps. The Shadow's shriek lasted only half a racing heartbeat before cutting off abruptly, the explosion igniting the spare shells. The concussive blasts, one after the other and deafening as they echoed throughout the room, destroyed the entire top part of the tank. The Shadow's cutting red stare disappeared, blown apart with the rest of its body.
Everyone was thrown to the ground, from the noise and the sheer force of the blast. The tank's motor kept running, however, and turned toward them like a macabre metal coffin, grinding the treads and turning in spasms, slowly approaching to crush them. Minato scrabbled for his Evoker. Junpei was lying face down, covering his ears. And the others were behind them, just as helpless.
Closer. More grinding. Closer yet.
A faint whistle sounded from the side, barely heard by the deafened team. But another explosion blew the remaining treads apart, stopping the tank cold. Minato looked up and felt the sizzling power of a Persona rake across his face.
The only one of them not on the ground. Aigis.
Two heavy explosions ripped into the tank's rear, blowing the engine to pieces, and another grenade whistled through the air, this time passing the armour plating and sinking into the Shadow's mass like mud.
The Shadow's last scream as the grenade detonated drowned out the explosion, the sound of ripped-apart metal and the final echoes of the tanks destruction. The sound died off, finally, and the Shadow began leaking from the tank's gaping wounds.
Minato and the others pulled themselves unsteadily to their feet, trying to regain their hearing and looking at the steel behemoth, fearful that it would move again. But it was dead, even as they walked around to be sure, often covering their noses at the stench of blasted metal and burnt Shadow. The transfer student shook his head as he saw the damage Aigis had done. There was a lot he didn't know or trust about her, but there was no denying that she'd saved their asses.
Minato wiped at his face, feeling the grit scrape across his skin as he cautiously walked around the armoured chassis, looking around first and noting that whoever had been fighting the Shadows, they were nowhere to be found. Then he looked into the hole that he'd seen before. Scorched metal and blown-apart plating surrounded the mass of eyes and tendrils, now blinking and retracting weakly. He felt its whimpers, its pain, and it looked at him as its life slipped away, a single large eye persisting as the others closed, one by one. He couldn't hear any words from it, but didn't need to. Agony, fear, the knowledge that its life was ending. It all hit him like a blow to the chest, as real as though it were a living person feeling those things, and he tried to push its feelings out of his mind. Much as he tried, he could still feel them, accompanied by a morbid acceptance.
But in a flash those emotions died off. The eye narrowed, staring at him as it tried, in its dying moments, to make sense of something. Then the eye widened in an expression that needed no interpretation or explanation.
Not anger or resentment. But realization. Recognition. It was brighter and clearer than a prison searchlight and held Minato in place.
And then that light died out. The eye froze in place for a brief moment before melting into the black tar-like muck that was oozing out of the holes in the tank and sticking to his shoes. The tank's armour buckled and caved in on itself with a hard crash that hit them again and again, rebounding off the cavern walls like a sarcophagus lid hitting the floor of a tomb. The silence that followed was heavy, weighing down on him like 6G gravity. The others called to each other and helped each other up, brushing dirt off and tending to wounds. Minato stared at the hole where the eye used to be, still seeing its expression.
He hadn't imagined it. That had been the first and most comforting solution. But he knew in his heart that that wasn't the case. There had been a brush against his mind at the moment, a last gasp before it dropped away entirely. Perhaps it was his imagination, but he felt like the Shadow was about to say something with that final breath. A word or phrase that only he could hear, and the thought sucked the joy of victory from him, leaving only a cold dread in return.
What had it been about to say? How did it know him? What was going on?
"Arisato," Mitsuru-senpai called from several yards away. "Are you alright?"
Minato didn't hear her. The only thing he heard was that soft inhale, and all he saw was the Shadow's eye. He slowly approached, feeling colder with every step, and holstered his Evoker before reaching out to touch the armour plating. His fingers shook, and it had nothing to do with the chill from the Dark Hour. Would he see something? Could the Shadow have left something behind as it died? He wanted to know, was tired of being kept in the dark, but was it worth the risk? It could be a trap, like the Shadow in the love hotel. But he wanted to know.
His fingers stopped against the rough plating, and he sturdied himself for a mental backlash, a vision or a sign of any sort.
Nothing. Not a flash of imagery, not a last word, not so much as a breathless flicker. When the Shadow died, it left nothing but a hollowed-out shell.
"Arisato?" Mitsuru-senpai asked again, approaching from the side. "What's wrong?"
He pulled his hand back and slowly turned to her, his eyes fixed to the hole until he forcibly pulled them over to look at her, dirty and sweaty and worn, but brilliant in the filthy mist of the Dark Hour. A flame of white and red in the night. He smiled shakily as he pointed to the vacant tank at his side. "I'm not sure," he told her after a few long moments. "It felt like it… like the Shadow knew who I was."
She blinked a few times, bewildered, as the others began looking for a way out. "It knew you? How?"
"I don't know," he admitted, unease growing in the pit of his stomach. "It was dying and it looked at me, but it felt like it recognized me at the end."
"How can you tell?"
The habit was there. He could try to tell her nothing, to ignore her questions or lie about it and pretend that it was just his problem. But their lunch date came back to his mind, how sincere her words were. She'd told him that he could trust her, even with the stuff he didn't understand, and he needed to talk to someone about this. He turned to face her and squared his shoulders. "I can hear them," he told her, quiet enough that the others couldn't hear.
Her eyes narrowed a little at his words, and she rested a hand on her hip. "Hear them? You mean they talk to you?"
"Not all of them," he replied slowly. It was already feeling strange, talking about this stuff, and the feeling that it was a bad idea slowly grew. But he kept going, refusing to back off now that he'd started. "And not entirely. It's more like they speak without knowing that I can understand them. The last one in the hotel was different in that respect – it actually spoke to me and tried to keep me under its lies."
Mitsuru-senpai was silent for a moment, then her eyes widened a hair and she nodded to the empty tank husk. "But even with these two, over the tank fire, you could hear them?"
"Odd as it sounds, yeah. This one," he pointed to the hole in the hollowed-out armour, "seemed like it was about to say something when it died. And I think it had to do with me."
"How long has this been going on?"
"Since the Shadow on the train. I could hear it, but it didn't make any sense. It was just white noise. These two, on the other hand, were as clear as you are." He held his breath a bit, looking at her pensive expression. "I take it that you haven't had a similar experience."
"I haven't," she confirmed. "The Shadows that I've fought seem like they might be trying to speak, but I've never heard anything that sounds like words, or even white noise, as you describe it. Even when I was using Penthesilea to assist you and the others, I never heard the Shadows communicate. And Yamagishi hasn't reported anything like that either."
Minato sighed. No new answers, and more new questions. "I see. Well, I thought you should know. This is getting very strange, and I could use any help or advice I can get."
She nodded in return. "Thank you for telling me. I don't know how I can help you, but I appreciate this not being kept secret."
"Of course," he told her automatically, then broached the next most logical question. "But regarding one of the Shadows recognizing me, where does that leave us?"
Her brow furrowed and she crossed her arms thoughtfully, looking to the hole. "Maybe they communicate with each other," she offered. "The last Shadow tricked us, but it didn't know Aigis since there's no way it could have. So perhaps the Shadows pass on their knowledge to each other when they die, and it knew who you were from that."
"I'm not sure," he told her after a moment's thought. "Why wouldn't they have better tactics if they knew us? And why only show up one or two at a time?"
"I don't know why they are appearing as they are," she admitted. "But the last two Shadows relied on deception and narcotics to defeat us, and these two commandeered a fully-armed tank. We can't say that they aren't learning or changing in some way."
"So the next one might be even more accustomed to us," Minato completed, his face turning grim. "I hope that's not the case, Senpai, because a Shadow taking over an aircraft carrier would be too much for us to fight."
She shivered at his words. "Don't invite trouble, Arisato. Let's just focus on being ready for the next one."
He bowed, pushing his thoughts to the side. "Of course. My apologies."
"Hey!" Junpei called to them from across the cavern. "Seems like there's an emergency shaft that leads outta here!
"It certainly beats trying to blow through those blast doors," Minato commented, heading toward the voices of their comrades.
"Another mystery," Mitsuru-senpai replied, glancing back at where they'd come from as she fell in beside him. "I thought we were the only ones who knew about the Shadows. More Persona-Users raises a great many questions."
"Layers upon layers," Minato commented. "I think all we can do, though, is move forward. Everything seems to be tied together at this point, so we'll find our answers, or they'll find us, one way or another."
"You're Arisato Minato, aren't you?" was the unexpected question.
Minato stopped in hearing his name, turning to the mouth of the alley to address the speaker. "That depends on who's asking," he replied, locking eyes with a guy his own age. But instead of slacks and a school uniform, he saw cargo pants and a thick green vest. Very, very green. And slicked-back dark blue hair above a polished pair of glasses.
It had been a rough few days since they'd fought the Shadows in the bunker. The sobering reality of their enemies using conventional weapons and commandeering vehicles raised doubts in how they were going to fight whatever was coming next, and the usual victory dinner afterwards was as tense and uncomfortable as a tea party on a canyon-spanning rope bridge. Food was picked at instead of eaten, and conversation was even less interesting than the traffic updates and public service announcements on the radio at 3AM. They'd dispersed and gone to their rooms before long, and the disconnect between them for the following days was making Minato tense. There were, of course, more questions raised from the Shadows' deaths, but this time it was the purely practical problems that plagued him. What good were swords against a tank? Or a bow and arrow? What was coming next, and would they have the gear to fight it? He hated admitting it, but Aigis had been a godsend this time. And the thought of relying on her as much or more in future operations left a bad taste in his mouth, enough so that he'd decided to take a walk to the bookstore to clear his head.
"You're pretty popular at Gekkoukan," the teen continued, shifting to lean against the brick wall, casually, with his hands in his pockets. He wasn't intimidating, and that vest looked like it was concealing a thin frame beneath. But the dark eyes behind those polished glasses were smooth and sharp like the obsidian tip of a scalpel. His tone was low and level, and did nothing to put Minato at ease. "Fighting the kendo team, joined at the hip with the Student Council president, and threatened by your classmates in the first few months. Word gets around pretty fast."
"I know that," Minato replied curtly, moving toward the wall opposite the speaker to get out of the pedestrian traffic on the sidewalk. His feet was spread and his stance steady, prepared for anything as he focused his senses on the person opposite him. "And I know who I am. Who are you?"
The teen stared at him, emotionless, for a few long moments, before shrugging once. "Shirato Jin. We haven't met before."
Minato watched the teen for a moment before giving a dismissive wave of his hand and pushing off the wall. It took two to tango, and he wasn't about to toy around with a stranger. "Well, best we keep it that way," he suggested blandly. "I'm too boring to be of any interest to you, so it's been real."
Before he could take two steps, however, Shirato gestured for him to wait a moment. "You know the Kirijo pretty well," the teen noted, a bit more engaged this time. "I hear you're tight with them, and in with the chairman's daughter."
Minato pinched the bridge of his nose, as exasperated sigh escaping before he could stop it. More misleading comments and dancing around the issue. "The first part is common knowledge around school," he replied shortly. "The second part is none of your business. What do you want?"
Shirato was quiet for another moment before letting out a long breath. "We have something in common," he told Minato. "Something we don't tell other people. Maybe you guys have a code of conduct or something about not showing off, but in my case, no one else would understand."
Minato's blood went cold. Memories of Mitsuru-senpai's father and their discussion, human experiments to manifest Personas, immediately came to mind. He leaned back against the wall; leaving wasn't an option now. "Go on."
"I want to know why you work for them," Shirato continued, eyes hard. "The Kirijo are at the centre of your abilities, same as they are mine. And they gave us those abilities without any care for whether we wanted them. They're using you. So why do you work for them?"
"You mean Personas, I take it?" Minato inquired, keeping his face carefully expressionless. "That's what you're referring to?"
Shirato snorted coldly. "What else would I be talking about? It wouldn't be about their stock prices or their public philanthropy. Though if that's all you know about it, then maybe you should think of why they know so much about Personas, and what they did to get that far. "
That sealed it. This person, Shirato Jin, was one of the children in those experiments. Minato's cold blood chilled even further, and he had to stifle a shiver before replying, choosing his words before he opened his mouth. "I know why they know what they do," he replied, keeping his tone level. "Why are you bringing it up? We don't know each other, so your concern seems misplaced."
"Do you?" Shirato challenged. "How much have they told you by themselves? How much information did they hand over when you got here? Have they really answered all the questions about the shit going on around you?"
Minato was silent for a long moment, holding back his words. He wanted to defend the Kirijo, to give them the benefit of the doubt after his discussions with Mitsuru-senpai. But there was no denying that the suspicions were still there. Aigis. The Shadows. Even the nature of their Personas was something he'd learned from Igor rather than from Ikutsuki. Were the Kirijo giving him information just to humour his curiousity? Were the answers even correct? "I know enough," he replied finally. "Again, why does it matter? You've got a grudge against the Kirijo, but why are you talking to me about it? I don't know who you are, and you don't seem to want to change that."
Shirato smirked, as close to a smile as Minato felt he would ever get. And yet that it was almost a smile made him feel anything but safe or welcome. "So they haven't told you anything," Shirato continued, contempt heavy in his voice. "Well, that's no surprise. But I'm talking to you about it because I figure you must get tired of their shit sometimes, and I have an alternative for you when you are."
Minato's eyes narrowed, intrigued. "An alternative? Of what sort? And why would I want to?"
"For when you're serious about ditching them," Shirato clarified. "But the first perk is getting rid of that collar around your neck. Second is information, and we won't hide anything from you. You want to know more about your Persona? So do we. So when we find answers, you'll get them too. And when we want to act, there's nothing stopping us. No boardroom approval or paper-pushing bureaucracy. We do what we need to so we can get what we want."
"How do you plan on doing that?" Minato asked. "If the Kirijo are really behind all this like you say, then where are you going to get the answers? Ask them nicely? Hack their systems and break into their offices? It could be that those answers don't exist."
"You're backing them up?" the teen asked coldly, hard light gleaming off his glasses.
Minato kept his expression level, same as his gaze. "No. I don't deny that they could still be hiding things. But if I'm going to give up what I have, I need a bit more than promises for answers when those answers might not exist. Could be they burned all their paperwork so no one else could find out what happened. So what else is on the table?"
Shirato tapped the wall behind him, then gave another uncomfortable smile. "Being part of the change that's going on around here." He gestured toward the street and all the people walking along it. "You feel it too, right? The people around here, the things happening at night, it's all going in the same direction. The Kirijo will lie to you and tell you whatever suits them. We won't. You'll have a front-row seat when things become too big for them to control, and you'll get the answers first-hand."
"You've talked about answers a few times," Minato commented, still trying to put the pieces of this new puzzle together. "But what are the questions?"
"I'm pretty sure you know them already. But if you want assurances, come with us, and find out."
"Is there a time limit on your offer?"
Shirato took a few moments to answer, blinking a few times before speaking. "A few weeks, max. Any more than that and I can't make promises."
Minato smiled, suspecting that it looked hollow, but there was a lot to think on now. "I'll give it some thought. Where can I find you if I do want to jump ship?"
"The alleys. Come see us when no one else can, and we'll work something out."
"Then maybe I'll see you then. I should go. Chores and obligations, you know."
Shirato nodded, but didn't smile as he turned and walked down the alley, turning a corner and vanishing a moment later.
Minato let out a breath and went back over the conversation, trying to make sense of it. Persona-Users moving against the Kirijo? He hadn't heard of any acts of sabotage from Mitsuru-senpai, so while Shirato sounded like he hated the Group, he seemed more interested in foiling them than destroying them. And those last words came back, burning into Minato's mind. "Everyone's going in the same direction, huh?" he muttered. Despite Shirato's promises of answers, that was just one more question on the table. The Shadows, the Lost, Apathy Syndrome, if they were all connected and going somewhere, rather than just the results of a bad experiment, what was waiting where they all connected?
He sighed. More questions, more possibilities, and nothing to prove that any one theory was right. He pushed off the wall, heading back into the pedestrian traffic and walking toward the book store. He lets his eyes and feet keep him from colliding with anyone, but he turned over this new information and tried to figure out why Shirato made him feel so uneasy.
His musings were interrupted by a harsh grating sound, metal binding on itself. Nearby, a store owner struggled with the roll-down cage above the storefront, holding it so his co-worker could work on the wheels in the rails. Minato thought of the blast doors closing at the bunker and how Fuuka had said it had been Persona-Users who had done it. That she hadn't been able to sense them until the damage was done was unusual by itself, but to meet someone who'd had a Persona forcibly awakened, and to run into him so soon after that incident… Was it a coincidence? Had Shirato been one of those two? What was his connection to the Dark Hour? Did that mean Shirato was a new enemy on the board? He'd mentioned others, so could one of them have shut the doors?
Minato groaned as he made his way up the steps to the train station. Once again, he was stuck waiting for things to happen. Igor would probably tell him to be patient, that things would reveal themselves in time. And the old man had a habit of being right with his hints and half-truths, always preaching patience.
But Minato was quickly becoming of the opinion that patience and waiting were both very, very overrated.
Jin had looked back at Arisato from the edge of the corner, waiting for the transfer student to leave as he put together what he'd seen and felt from the enigmatic transfer student.
Takaya and Chidori had been right. There was something unusual about him, and not just in how he kept things to himself. The first time Chidori had been asked to look at him, she'd had to readjust four times before she could get a read. Jin figured it was her meds messing with her again, but she insisted that she could feel everyone else around him. There was something strange about Arisato. "Clouded," she'd called him, "like trying to look through dirty water."
He'd brushed it off, but Takaya wanted more. It hadn't ended well. Chidori's second attempt at looking at Arisato had gone better at first, watching him from a building near the train station as he and Sanada finished their morning run. But then she'd screamed so loud and scrambled away from the window like she was on fire, whiter than her dress. Takaya hadn't known what to do, and when Jin tried to get anything out of her, she just repeated "darkness" over and over again, curled up and shivering on the floor. Any time they'd suggested looking at him again, she'd flatly refused and was nowhere to be found soon after.
Jin turned the corner, going deeper into the alley network and reaching their unofficial home, pausing before he went any further. For what he'd learned about Arisato, it was all data without context. Meeting the Kirijo lapdog in person helped put it all into perspective, purely because he hadn't let anything show. He knew about the experiments, probably through the chairman's kid, and he hadn't brought up the Dark Hour or the huge Shadows he and the others had been killing. He kept his hand close and couldn't be pressured into making quick decisions, but for all his mystique, he fought on the front lines, probably in every engagement regardless of the size. Once he decided to act, he didn't let anything stop him.
Jin snorted to himself. And if that power surge from more than a month ago was any indication, when he let loose, all Hell followed in his footsteps.
But that was strange, even now. Takaya had been adamant that the synchrony he'd felt with Arisato was part of who he was, a connection through their Personas that he couldn't explain. Jin's experience with it had been less notable, and meeting with Arisato had counted for nothing. No power spikes, no odd feelings or sensations like before, and Moros didn't respond at all. He could have been talking to a brick wall for all the difference it made.
Despite the cold act though, Arisato had changed his tune when the promise of answers was made. It figured that the Kirijo were playing their old games, like usual, but this lapdog wasn't the same spoon-fed idiot that the others were. He had a mind and knew that something was going on, and he was only going to get more curious as time went on.
Jin didn't know what the transfer student would do. He got the feeling that the others at the dorm didn't either, regardless of how much time they spent around him. Arisato was an unknown variable. A wild card in the deck. And Jin let that warm him from the inside, stir Moros a little and kick up a touch of anticipation in his heart. He was curious to see what Takaya thought of all this.
"It's ready!" Fuuka told him two days later, poking her head out of the dorm's kitchen. "Thanks for waiting!"
Minato marked the page in his book and set it aside, following her into the smell of miso, vinegar, and burning. It was so nostalgic that it took him a moment to remember that he was planning on eating what had been producing those smells. And when he saw what she'd tried to put together, his ever-analytical mind, growing used to life-and-death decisions, started to put together what she'd tried to make. It looked like what she'd tried to make was stir-fried vegetables, potstickers, miso soup, and curry rice. What he saw, however, was something quite different.
As Minato had told her before, he was no cook. He stayed away from the kitchen, knowing that his skills lied elsewhere, and because he simply had no interest in learning. But he knew from the near-nuclear disasters that his parents had created in the past what she'd done wrong. Rather than boiling the rice at a steady temperature, she'd burnt the water and, if the malformed shapes were any indication, hadn't let the rice cook for long enough. There was too much miso in the soup and the tofu cubes were already falling apart, the potstickers were breaking apart at the edges, and the vegetables were of a shade he hadn't seen since 'Nako promised to make kimchi when he was eight years old. He hadn't been able to go to school for three days after that, he recalled. Or even stand up straight.
"I know it's not perfect," she admitted, looking hopeful from her chair near the kitchen counter, "but it should be pretty good."
"I'll give it a try," he told her calmly, filling up a plate and digging in. Right away, his tongue curled back, trying to get away from the attempt at a sauce for the vegetables. When he ate the rice, he had a harder time swallowing than if he'd tried to put back a mouthful of glue. "It could use some work," he told her, flexing his jaw so it didn't feel quite so numb. To her credit, his teeth weren't aching. That's when he knew things were bad.
Fuuka looked at him, looking for the positive side of the experience. "Well, I expected that. But it's edible at least, right?"
"Not really," he told her frankly, sipping at the soup, so overpowering that it scorched his nostrils, without so much as a grimace. "It's pretty terrible, in fact."
Shock registered on her features, and her face fell.
"But," he continued immediately, "that just means that we need to work on it. And the nice part about being bad at something is that you know exactly what you need to do to get better. Look at it that way and this is a successful attempt, regardless of how it tastes."
She looked down, shame clear on her face. "You're just saying that," she told him quietly.
"No, I'm serious. When you're already great at cooking, fighting, driving, whatever, it's hard to improve. But when something doesn't come easily, then every attempt afterwards is only going to make you better at it." He wasn't trying to prove a point, but he took two more bites of the dish, swallowing it easily despite her skeptical look. "Don't give up on something just because it's hard. No one's an expert right from the start."
Fuuka let out a depressed sigh. "You're sure? This is progress? It doesn't seem fair, given how you and Mitsuru-senpai fight so well."
Minato held up a finger to stop her train of thought. "Fighting and cooking have nothing to do with each other. If I tried making this, I'd probably have done it worse. And, again, we're good at things because we kept practicing. When I first started kendo, I kept tripping over my own feet. I'm sure Mitsuru-senpai had trouble with it at first too. Same as Akihiko-senpai with his boxing, or Yukari and her archery. You just have to keep at it and you'll get there."
She looked at him, trying to wallow while looking for the sarcasm, the hidden dig in his voice. His sincerity showed through, however, and a small smile began to work its way across her lips. "Thanks, Minato-kun. You don't have to eat that, by the way."
"It's not so bad," he told her, ignoring the familiar, nostalgic feeling of his stomach cramping up, but nowhere near as bad as it had been in his youth. "And it would be a waste to throw it away after getting this far."
She watched in disbelief as he put back all her food, but his steady humour kept her smiling even as she insisted that what she'd made shouldn't be eaten. But as he finished the food and helped her with the dishes, there was an easy smile to her features that he hadn't seen since Yakushima, and it distracted him from the churning concoction in his stomach. By the time the others were wrapping up their respective meals, the pair were joking and talking about school like nothing had happened, so much so that the others hadn't believed that she'd tried cooking, and that had gone as bad as she said, until they stepped into the kitchen. Minato had been able to scour the rice from the bottom of the pot, but even he couldn't ventilate the smell from the room.
Fuuka hooked up with Yukari after that, talking about girl stuff and whatever it was that Yukari needed Fuuka's help for, and Minato headed back to pick up his book. A head of brown hair, however, still an unfamiliar sight in the dorm, distracted him and tugged at his mind. He hadn't taken much time to talk to the boy yet, unsure how to handle someone in grade school. Still, Ken was here for a reason, and it wouldn't hurt to show some initiative.
He walked over to the couch, leaning back against the seat across from their new guest. "Amada," he greeted with a nod and a smile.
"Good evening, Arisato-senpai," Ken replied immediately, returning the nod.
Senpai. That always felt odd to Minato, like he wasn't old enough to be looked up to yet. "There's something I wanted to ask, if you have a minute."
Ken sat up on the couch, straightening his posture and looking calm and expectant."That's no problem. What is it?"
"Why us?"
Ken looked confused, blinking before replying. "I'm sorry?"
Minato gestured to the space around them. "You know we're not a normal dorm, that we don't house other students because of their family connections or grades. Of all the places you could live, why choose this one?"
"I want to learn to use this power, Senpai," Ken admitted, looking up with clear but determined eyes. "I have it, and it's not going to go away, and it's not something other people would understand. You and the others know the most about it, right?"
"We know more than nothing," Minato corrected. "There are still a lot of unanswered questions."
Ken shrugged comfortably. "It's more than what I could do on my own."
"You could suppress it, you know," Minato pointed out. "Ignore the Dark Hour and live a normal life."
The boy looked uncomfortable then, his voice going quieter. "That's not really an option for me now, Senpai. I've been talking to Yukari-san and Sanada-senpai, and we think that being normal isn't an option for anyone with a Persona. Like we all gave up something or lost what we loved as a trade-off."
"That makes sense," Minato conceded. "What will you do when you do learn to control it?"
"Help you and the others as much as I can," he replied immediately, perking up.
The boy's determination made Minato sigh. He still didn't like the idea of a kid joining them in the fray. "Why? You don't owe us anything, and the Kirijo Group, to say nothing of the government, would put you up and support you through school."
Ken's eyes lit up and he gestured to Akihiko-senpai, who was talking to Mitsuru-senpai across the room. "I've heard of Sanada-senpai from lots of people, so meeting him is kind of a big deal. I figure that if I can get to know him and help everyone while I'm learning about having a Persona, then it can't be wrong, right?"
Minato stared at the boy, realization sprouting in his mind. Wanting to help them before he knew them? Hide one part lie with eight parts truth. It jumped out at him the moment Ken said the words, and his heart told him the words weren't just a badly-formed sentence. "I see your point," he told the boy slowly, tapping a finger on the arm of the couch. "But is Akihiko-senpai the only reason? I don't think they charge admission to see him fighting, so you could always do it that way."
Ken looked a little awkward, scratching the back of his neck. "That's… That's true. It'd be uncomfortable to go to a high school just to see him, though. I guess the other reason is that there's something I want to know," he told Minato, looking serious. "It has to do with why I have this power in the first place, something that was never answered properly. I want to find that answer."
That made sense. Most of them had similar questions to that effect, and it was hardly worse than Minato's own unusual abilities. "And you think you'll find it here?"
There was a flicker of something on Ken's face, like flashes of an old-style theater projector with anger, sadness, grief, and hate on the reel. Then they were gone and the boy looked up with his usual smile, but this time without the usual calm or levity. "I think I have the best chances here, yes."
The older student ran his tongue along the edges of his teeth, incisor to canine to molar and back. "What will you do when you have the answer?" he inquired after a moment.
Ken's eyes widened for a fraction of a second, those expressions flashing and disappearing even faster this time before being covered over with a pleasant calm. "I haven't decided yet," he replied quietly.
Minato's eyes narrowed by a hair. The kid was trying to cover his reasons for coming to the dorm, mixing the deception in with enough truth to come across as genuine. It was easy to see why he'd gotten past the others, and his admiration of the others seemed genuine. But he'd just run into someone who lied the same was as he did, and the older of the pair had a lot more experience with it.
"Is that so?" Minato asked coolly, focused on Ken's expression. "Well, don't let it sit for too long. It's better to have an open mind about things. Sometimes the answers aren't what you want or expect."
Ken bowed respectfully, concealing, Minato noted, his expression as best he could. "Thanks for the advice, Senpai. But I've thought about this a lot, so I'll be ready to deal with it when the time comes."
Deal with it. Not 'consider the possibilities.' Minato grimaced and excused himself, returning to his book without looking at the pages. Ken was keeping things to himself, more than Mitsuru-senpai knew. But she said she'd talked to him. Had Ken lied to her? Did she see something he didn't? Or was this a strange development for their new resident?
Minato sighed. This was getting exhausting. He wanted to believe Mitsuru-senpai and give Ken the benefit of the doubt, but everything he knew told him that the boy was keeping something big to himself, and it wasn't as small as sneaking cookies before dinner or not brushing his teeth. It was big, probably personal, and precisely what he didn't need right now, on top of everything else.
He shook his head, closing his book and heading for the stairs. Maybe some sleep would help. After some temporary, metal-inspired deafness. Both sounded perfect right now.
The music had been a very welcome distraction, but sleep was a long time coming. Same as when Aigis had been on his mind at Yakushima, Ken's evasiveness and the chill in his bones that meeting Shirato gave him lingered, keeping his mind from drifting off. He could have blamed Fuuka's cooking for indigestion, but he'd been telling her the truth – he'd eaten much worse with more frequency when he was younger. What she'd made couldn't come close to what 'Nako and his parents concocted.
That brought a frustrated growl to his throat as he turned over again, trying to tire his mind enough to get some sleep. But that only kicked in his second wind, and he pushed up to a sitting position on his mattress. What was bothering him? No, that was a loaded question. He knew what was bothering him. It was more that the list was getting longer, and he was, again, feeling left in the dark while events orchestrated themselves around him, just out of sight and reach. Shirato, Ken, the Shadows in the tank and the doors slamming shut behind them. And the voices. 'Find it!' they had said. Someone, or something, had gotten to the Shadows before SEES had. Someone had fought them, but disappeared just before they arrived. Had the gates slamming shut been for their group? Or was it for whoever had gotten there first? And what could fight two Shadows sporting military-grade firepower and get away in one piece? Where was this person?
Minato groaned, flopping back into his bed. More questions, and he was no closer than before to answering the concerns he already had. "Why me?" he asked the night. "What does this have to do with me?" But his sensei's voice responded in his ears, carried on the currents of memory and time. He'd asked that same question once, why he had to represent his middle school in kendo when he had no interest in bolstering a team of kids who'd wanted him gone. "Because it's important, Arisato. You can learn something from it, no matter what the outcome is. And who else would you trust to do it?"
He blinked, reining in his mind enough to follow that train of thought. Who else could he trust to lead the team? Mitsuru-senpai came to mind immediately, and he knew that she could handle what they were facing. But he thought of the others anyway, cataloguing their strengths and weaknesses as best he could. Maybe it would tire his mind if he thought about it hard enough.
Junpei was out. The student had come a long way since they'd met, but he wasn't a leader. When things changed too fast around him, he got caught up in the details and couldn't react as fast as he needed to. Yukari was the same way. She was too fiery and got tangled up in the unexpected. They were both excellent friends and allies, but they couldn't distance themselves from what was going on to take the bigger picture into account. Fuuka… Minato gave a low 'hmmm' when he thought of her, but passed her over after a minute of thought. She got along with the others, but she wasn't a leader by ideal or by example. She didn't like putting herself forward and seemed content to help everyone else as best she could. Akihiko-senpai could have led the team, but Minato knew that the boxer often fixated on things. He focused hard on what was in front of him, and sometimes that meant losing perspective.
No, Minato decided as his mind finally began to drift off. Everyone else on his team was a necessary part of the puzzle, but the only one he trusted to lead them was Mitsuru-senpai. She knew the Shadows and the situation, and could adapt as needed to. She seemed content where she was, and Minato wouldn't push her unless he was desperate, but when the chips were down, he knew he could trust her.
And that thought warmed him from the inside, making him drowsy and pulling into slumber. He trusted Kirijo Mitsuru, and he knew that the feeling was mutual.
He jerked in place, eyelids slowly opening. He had no idea what woke him up, but he had barely a minute to realize where he was before the thin line of air ran over him and his next breath brought in the stench of rotting garbage. He was sandy-eyed and groggy, trying to dismiss the Dark Hour and capture that elusive connection to sleep, but it was lost. A weak groan rumbled in his throat, his hand rising to rub at his eyes and run across his face.
His Personas were quiet, there were no Shadows around, and he was left staring at the wall next to his bed, his mood sinking with the temperature. Just one night's sleep. That's all I ask, he groused to himself. But when he couldn't nod off again, he turned over to get out of bed.
When he did, Aigis, brilliant in blond and white right next to his bed, stopped him like a loaded gun. He saw her, then kicked back in a flash, crashing into the wall and staring at her as his heart raced wildly.
"I apologize," she told him in that unnervingly monotone voice, staring at him with glassy eyes. "I did not intend to startle you."
"What're you doing here?!" he snapped, still pushing himself against the wall and staring at her, wide-eyed. "Who let you in?"
"Ensuring your security," she replied immediately, not moving, not changing her tone, not so much as blinking. "The Dark Hour is dangerous, and your safety is my primary directive."
Minato's muscles finally loosened, though his breathing was still fast, and he looked past her to check his door, but it was too dark to see anything. "Then change your directives," he told her coldly. "I don't need your help, and I don't want someone breaking into my room to watch me in the middle of the night."
"It's no imposition," she assured him, completely monotone.
"I don't care if it's an imposition, Aigis!" he snapped, pushing off his bed and glaring at her as he stood. "It's about trust and respecting someone's space. If you can't follow orders when I tell you to leave me alone, how am I supposed to trust you?"
"My reliability in combat is without question," she assured him, stepping back only so she wasn't crowding him, but otherwise making no effort to leave his room. "The others have exhibited no discomfort with me, and Yukari-san and Fuuka-san seem to enjoy my company."
Minato snorted and glared at her. "Do you spy on them in the middle of the night?"
"No."
"That's probably why. Out. Now. And don't come in here again." When she didn't move, he grabbed her shoulders, turned her around, and started pushing her toward the open door. It was harder than he expected – the Dark Hour and being startled awake with so little sleep left him light-headed, and his balance was almost shot. She was also heavier than he expected, and a lot colder. The difference only made him push her harder.
"Why does my presence here offend you so much, Minato-san?" she asked, head tilted to the side as she slowly gave into to his orders and started to walk on her own.
"You were in my room without being invited, Aigis," he pointed out frostily as he shoved her through his door and into the hallway. "I remember telling you not to do that."
She turned to stare at him, head tilted to the side a little. "My observations indicate that you have disliked me since we met at Yakushima. What have I done to earn this mistrust?" There was a small hitch in her voice, like his rejections had hurt her feelings.
Minato looked at her and felt a small tug on his heartstrings. She sounded a little lost and genuinely curious, a crack of emotion in her glassy eyes. What Fuuka said to him, about her needing to learn how to be human, came back to his mind. Aigis was, if one listened to the others, trying to become more like them without having any experience direction. And she had been invaluable against the Shadow, yet here he was, giving her the cold shoulder based on a feeling. Normally that would have made him feel like an S-rank jerk.
Sympathies or not, though, it didn't change the cold, churning unease in his stomach, nor the way his breath stopped when he looked at her. She worried him, put him on his guard, but he had no idea why. And back at Yakushima his Personas had reflected his unease. Some responded to her, some slept undisturbed, and the contrast only made him more nervous. They were awakening even now, prickling his skin and crashing around in his head like they all wanted to watch her at the same time in case she did anything.
"Think on it," he told her shortly. "Maybe you'll figure it out." Not caring who heard, he slammed his door shut and threw the locks in place. By the time he pulled his spare chair from the corner and locked it under the door knob, he heard someone's door open, probably Akihiko-senpai's given how lightly he slept, and heard Aigis respond to his questions.
Minato didn't care. He drowned out their conversation by opening the cold water tap to the fullest, the rush of water filling his ears. His stomach turned from the vertigo of the Dark Hour and from being startled awake, so he washed his face. The icy water was like the cold hand of a god against his flushed skin, and he knelt in front of the sink, resting his face against the smooth, cool porcelain as his hands stayed under the tap, soaking up the cold. Minutes passed, though how many he didn't know. He felt off from the Dark Hour, but, finally, his stomach settled and he rose to shut the water off and wipe his face with the nearby hand towel. When he looked in the mirror, another set of eyes stared back.
"Good evening, Big Brother," Pharos greeted from Minato's bed. The kid looked like he belonged there, sitting on the edge of the bed, legs hanging over the edge while he wore those prison-striped pajamas. The sickly light from the moon set off his hair with bright, ugly mix of yellow-green and pale blue that surrounded him and his unnerving smile, which no longer bothered Minato, like an aura.
Minato let out a breath, shaking his head and closing his eyes before turning and looking to his guest, leaning back against the sink. "Should have known you wouldn't show up with her around."
Pharos looked toward the door, then back to the teen. "She doesn't matter as much as you do," he said calmly. "As strong as she is, she wouldn't understand what I have to say."
Minato gestured toward his door. He couldn't hear Akihiko-senpai and Aigis anymore, which was probably just as well – being overheard talking to himself from the others wouldn't help his case in the morning. "Does the same go for the others? Mitsuru-senpai and Yukari don't know who you are, but I've never seen you outside of the dorm."
That got a nod from the boy. "That's right. They can't do the things you can, so you're the one I talk to. It's as simple as that."
It did make sense, Minato conceded. He didn't think that Junior was telling him everything, but nor did it feel like he was being lied to. "What about someone who isn't here in the dorm? Would they be able to help you?"
Pharos tilted his head and gave a thoughtful 'hmmm.' "That's a rather specific question. What do you mean?"
"I met someone the other day," Minato told the boy after thinking through his words. "A Persona-User who seemed to know a lot about the Dark Hour. And he's not part of our team. "
"People like your friends are quite rare," Pharos commented, but his expression didn't change. "But using a Persona isn't unique to you."
"From what I understand, he might have been pushed into developing a Persona when he was young," Minato continued. "And if he knows about the Dark Hour, maybe he knows about the Shadows as well. What do you think about that?"
Pharos frowned for a moment, then shrugged. "I guess it happens. Not everyone has your gift. Some use their powers to fight the Shadows, like you do. But others would use that power to understand the Shadows, or to hurt other people. Some have it and don't know it, or don't understand what it means." The boy straightened and looked at Minato then, with the same enigmatic, chilling smile as when they'd first met. "But they don't matter. You can do things that none of them can, Big Brother. And that's why I come to you and not them: I need your help with something."
Minato pushed away from the sink and stood in the middle of the room, staring at the boy directly. This was the chance to get some answers, and he wasn't going to pass it up. "What is this thing you need help with?"
Pharos hummed to himself, looking to the ceiling and swinging his legs back and forth over the edge of the bed. "There are people who want something," he said finally, looking back at Minato, "and they ask for it. Call for it. There are so many of them that it's impossible to ignore, like if all the students in your school were outside your room right now, calling your name at the same time. Over and over. I'm here to help them get what they want, and I need your help to do it."
The way he worded it made Minato shiver, leaving him with a cold, hard weight in the pit of his stomach. It sounded like what Shirato had been talking about before. "What is this thing that they want?"
Junior lifted his arms in a shrug. "It's hard to say. Some want it because they've tried other things and they don't work, so they come back to where they started. Others have wanted it from the start because they can't see beyond where they are. And some want it because other people do. I guess the best way to explain it is that it's a change. An end to one thing so that something else can happen."
Minato scratched the side of his face, glad that he was getting somewhere but still feeling like he was walking in the dark. And that cold feeling didn't subside. "What's needed to get this change to happen?"
Pharos lifted a hand, pointing out the window. "The large Shadows you've been fighting. They need to die. And you're the best person to do it."
Minato blinked and waited for the boy to continue. He didn't. He just stared with those intense eyes. "That's it? You just want me to keep killing Shadows?"
"That's right," Junior confirmed with a nod. "And it shouldn't be a problem, since they've been coming to you. Just keep doing what you're doing and the rest will handle itself," the boy declared with a cheery smile.
Minato raised a hand, again indicating the rest of the dorm. "Okay, but what about everything else that's going on? These other Persona-Users, Tartarus, Aigis. I don't even know where these Shadows you want me to kill came from. What about all that?"
"None of it matters," Pharos assured him, smile growing wider.
It should have been a pleasant sight. Minato got the impression that Junior meant for it to be comforting or encouraging. But all it did was send an icy shiver trembling down his spine, intensifying that cold weight and growing into a growing sense of dread.
"You're all that matters, Big Brother," Pharos continued, eyes edged in the unearthly light pouring in from the window. "And you'll handle everything as it comes. I have faith in you."
