Chapter 3. Thank you all who enjoyed the previous chapter! There's a poll up for a persona 3 AU fic and I would appreciate if you all voted on it!

I don't have my PSP with me so I cannot check the October battle so it'll be from memory and like before, it is altered for this story.

Minako woke with a start and sat upright in bed. Her breathing was heavy and she was drenched in sweat. She lifted her hand to her neck and she massaged it. Like all the times she did it before she didn't feel anything, no hands trying to strangle the life out of her. She sighed in relief and collapsed back on her bed. How many times had this happened before now? This was ridiculous!

"Are you alright?"

Minako turned her head to the left. "Hey Pharos," she said to the young boy. It must be the Dar k Hour now then if he was here. Minako had not been going to Tartarus for the last couple of days due to Mitsuru wanting to make sure she was alright and recovered after the almost-death incident.

"You've been having nightmares for the past few days haven't you?" asked the young boy. His eyes were cast to the side giving him an innocent, sad look. "I've noticed. Want to tell me what they are about?"

Minako sat up again and ran a hand through her lose brown hair. "It's complicated," she said. Pharos didn't move and that pretty much told her that she could continue. "Well, I was almost choked to death by a member of Strega." She chuckled. "Weird that I'll still be having dreams about it right?"

"Not at all," replied Pharos "You're scared. It's quite normal."

"But I am the leaders," protested Minako. "I'm not allowed to be scared. I need to be strong so I can lead."

"But you shouldn't push yourself," said Pharos. "Please don't push yourself. You don't want to collapse do you?"

"I'll be fine," replied Minako crossly. She fall back on her bed and turned away from Pharos.

"I'm sorry," said the young boy.

Minako did not move. When she didn't hear anything else from Pharos she turned back over but the boy was gone. She bit her lip. "Sorry Pharos," she called out to the darkness of her room.

Linelinelineline

Akihiko punched a shadow out with his fists. Nearby Yukari and Junpei were teamed up to fight another, Shinjiro was holding his own against one and Mitsuru and Ken were fighting another. He didn't understand why but he had been really angry recently but he didn't know why.

Although he did notice that whenever he did feel angry his thoughts would float to Minako. How pale she looked with Chidori's hands wrapped around her neck. How weak and frail their leader looked. It was strange to see her like that. She was usually so strong. Well she had returned to that way after she had recovered from Chidori's attack. But still. She didn't look fine.

"Akihiko!" Mitsuru's warning yell brought the young man back to the battle around him and he quickly took out a Shadow that was going to attack him.

"What are you doing Aki?" asked Shinjiro in his usual gruff way. "You have to pay attention or you're going to get killed out here."

"I know," Akihiko replied.

"Why don't you just fix up this little problem you have?"

"What do you mean?"

Shinjiro didn't reply. Instead he began knocking Shadows out left and right.

Linelineline

Minako left her final class with a long sigh. It was the night of a full moon. Mitsuru had demeaned her fight enough to be on the front-lines again a couple days ago and that's what she did. She had to get back in shape before today. She was the leader. Everyone was counting on her to defeat the Shadows.

Her thoughts drifted to Akihiko. Tartarus had become really awkward with him around. At least she could focus on the mission at hand to try to take her mind off him the best she could. That only helped a little though. She could still feel his eyes watching her as she fought. In the real world it had become one of her newest skills to try to keep away from Akihiko. She was getting pretty good at it too. Yukari on the other hand didn't think this was a good idea at all. She had told Minako to just ask the guy if he felt the same way or not. Easy for her to say. Yukari never had a boyfriend before.

"Minako."

Minako flinched and turned around slowly. "Oh, hi Akihiko-senpai," she said. She put on her leader face. At least she had some advantage over him. "Want to talk about the uh school at that hour?" She could feel stares burning into her back. Great. She had only been talking to him for a few seconds and the fangirls were already on a rampage.

"Can we talk somewhere?" he asked. "You know, before tonight's mission?"

"Uh well, I don't know," she finished lamely. The fangirl stares were really bothering her. Yeah, they were the reason she couldn't think straight. If they weren't around she would be alright.

Akihiko blinked slowly. "What do you mean that you don't know?"

Minako rose her hands up in a defensive gesture. "Well it's just that you know," she dropped her voice to a softer pitch. "With people around us you know? Can't talk about it here."

Akihiko looked around like he just remembered about his fangirls. "Right. We should head back to the dorm together then."

"Oh, great," said Minako. She felt like her skin was being peeled away from her back as she walked next to Akhiko. And the bad thing was that the stares were not going away. As she continued to walk, the stares followed her. Great. Were the fangirls following them? "Ummm, do you always follow you this much?" she asked lightly. A small chuckle left her mouth at the end.

Akihiko looked back. He was probably used to them following him around so much that this didn't bother him anymore. "They usually stop following me when I get to the school gate. Although it is quite strange that they aren't swarming around me like they usually do."

"I wonder why," said Minako slowly. Maybe she should think about bringing her evoker to school. Mitsuru could pull some strings so she wouldn't get in trouble for bringing a gun. She could say it's for self-defense.

They crossed the gate of the school but that didn't reduce the stares at all. Well at least the pain in her back as getting weaker and weaker the further away from the school they got.

The two were painfully silent. Minako wished she knew some kind of icebreaker. Grrr. If only Junpei were here. He would say something stupid and then she could work off it.

"So, are you feeling okay? You know, if you aren't feeling up to it you don't have to lead in the fight tonight."

Minako shook her heads, "Akihiko-senpai. I'm fine. Don't worry about it." She smiled. "Plus, this one Shadow will be no match for me!"

Akihiko chuckled. "Of course. That's the kind of person you are."

Minako looked away. She knew her face was turning red. Oh boy. Calm down girl. Calm down. "Oh look! There's the dorm," she began to walk faster. "I should probably go rest before tonight right?"

"Right," said Akihiko but he looked unsure but Minako was not going to sit around and wait to see what it was about so she hurried into the dorm.

Linelineline

Minako relaxed her arms. Tonight's shadow had been very difficult and it didn't help that Ken and Shinjiro, for some reason had decided not to show up tonight. Even if the battle wasn't too difficult it was hard.

"See? I can redeem myself," said Junpei proudly.

"Oh shut up Stupei," Yukari shot back.

"Hang on," said Akihiko, stopping in his tracks as the group was heading back to the dorm. "Today is October fourth…"

"So?" asked Junpei.

"You guys go on without me," said Akihiko before running off without another word.

Minako had a very bad feeling about this but she couldn't put her finger on it. "I'm going after Akihiko," she announced before running after him.

It was then that she learned how fast Akihiko was. He was running-no sprinting in the direction of that shady ally that Junpei, Yukari and Minako had went down a couple weeks before. Her eyes widen in shock when she saw Takaya there holding a gun. Ken and Shinjiro were there as well but Shinjiro was on the ground clutching his stomach.

It didn't take much brain power to know what the heck was going on. Minako yanked out her evoker and pointed it to her head. "Unicorn!" The unicorn was summoned in an instance and she jumped on its back without breaking a stride. She could see Akihiko looking at her in surprise as she rode past.

Takaya was continuing his speech but Minako wasn't listening at all. She was getting closer and closer and once she was close enough she jumped off unicorn's back and stood in front of Shinjiro, her naginata at the ready.

"Hey," she snapped angrily. "I can't let you hurt any of my teammates."

"Get out of here," snapped Shinjiro. "Take Ken and go."

The young boy on the other hand just stared in shock at Minako.

"How touching," Takaya chuckled. He lifted his gun and pointed it at Minako. "Maybe I should send you away first."

Minako pointed the sharp end of the weapon at Takaya. "Don't even try me," she snapped. "You mess with my teammates and I will seriously have a problem with you. Don't mess with me." She looked down at Shinjiro out of the corner of her red eyes before focusing her attention on Takaya again. It looked like Shinjiro would be okay for the moment but still. A wound like that might be a problem if help wasn't gotten quickly.

Minako lifted her evoker to her head to summon a persona to teach him a lesson when she heard a gunshot fire. She blinked in confusion at the sound. She hadn't fired yet.

She could hear someone calling out her name but she was too distracted by the pain that was coming from her abdomen area. Looking down she noticed a red area growing and Takaya was laughing.

Oh.

"I just got shot," she thought as her world went black.