Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters or any content from the Megami Tensei series as a whole. I do not claim to own anything. All contents' right belong to their respectful owners. Once again, I do not claim to own anything.
I'd like to start off by answering a few questions for RaidEye on Chapter 2: Nurse Natsumi is pretty much like that in-game and in the manga which is why I described her like that. As for Saeko and Natsumi's concern, that dialogue was mostly taken from the game itself were for some reason they only express concern for the fell instead of the lightning strike. As for Mark and Masao, I'll try to keep it straight, but Mark, like Nao, and Brown is just a nickname. As for the Chisato and Yosuke eloping, in the game before you leave for the hospital, if you go around the different classrooms of the school, you can talk to students and found out that Chisato and Yosuke had gone missing and they thought they'd eloped. As for Maki's crush on Yosuke, it's kind a one-side thing, she still likes Naoya, but she also likes Yosuke, but realizes he's with Chisato. Also I you didn't offend me, I prefer criticism. Now, the chapter does contain a lot: the awakenings (80% of this chapter), the rest of Mikage Hospital (10%), and grabbing Setsuko (10%). As for dungeons, they are greatly reduced in this novelization, because the standard format for the dungeons in the original Persona is, navigate through the maze of floors, to get to a boss, where a cutscene happens, so I'm basically cutting out most of the navigating and traversing the dungeons part, because they don't all necessary have interesting designs and gimmicks like a Zelda dungeon. I might take awhile to upload this, so if you're reading this and were waiting, I'm sorry for the wait. Chapters 4, 5, 6 are short chapters. They won't take a week plus to put out most likely. With that aside, welcome to Persona: Be Your True Mind Chapter 3.
Chapter Three: Awakening
Naoya hung up the phone in a nervous sweat. The doctors moved Maki to the I.C.U. and he tried to call Setsuko at SEBEC to let her know of Maki's condition, but the call wouldn't go through to Setsuko.
Naoya walked to the alcove outside the automatic doors to the I.C.U.
"Nao!" Masao face was flushed. "How was it? Is Maki's mom-"
"No good. They said she's in a meeting, so she can't be contacted."
"Huh?" Masao kicked the tan painted wall of the alcove, shaking the hung pictures. "Her kid's in critical condition! What hell? In a meeting! Is their something wrong with them?"
Kei, leaning on the wall, stared at the floor. "Don't make a scene, monkey! Where do you think we are?"
"But c'mon."
Naoya sat down besides Yukino, his eyes tightly shut, clearly disappointed and abashed. "At any rate, I told them to give her the message. I called her house too and left a message on the answering machine."
"Maki's mom works at SEBEC, right?" Yukino asked.
Naoya propped up his head with his palm. "Yeah. Some kind of engineer."
Masao faced the wall, his knuckles knocking on it. The red on his face retreated and a sulky frown came in it's place. Maki being in critical condition really pulled his heartstrings. "She's still her mom, Nao. I don't care if she's an engineer. Maki said she's never around. It's always work, work, work! Making her own kid feel lonely like this!"
"Masao, you idiot! Don't say those kind of things!" Yukino tried to keep her composure and also keep Masao from doing anything rash. Maki being in critical condition effected her too.
"WHY? Isn't that how it is?" Masao pointed at the automatic doors. "If I were part of Maki's family, I would NEVER let her feel lonely! I'd always be by her side and make sure she's okay!"
Naoya sneered at Masao. "It can't be helped, Mark!"
"What's that, Nao?"
Naoya, while listening to Masao, stood up and eased his way towards him. Naoya understood, Mark's point, but he shouldn't throw the blame on one person.
"If Aunt Setsuko could she'd visit Maki more often. Then how would she pay for Maki's hospital bills?"
"Eh? Oh yeah." The anger faded, his expression being one of realization.
"I see. Maki's only got her mother."
Kei remained quiet. He related to Maki, but at the same time envied her. He spent most of his life trying to be the best, because one day he would take over his father's business in the Nanjo Group and forge his path to being number one. The problems were, Yamaoka cared for him throughout his utter childhood. His loyal butler pay more attention to him and compliments and praised him on his successes more than his parents ever possibly could combined.
"At least her mother supports her, even when she's abandoned in this abode. Must be a prison to her, a doll sealed inside an inescapable cage."
Naoya, on the inside, begged for Maki to be all right. He poured all his aspiration and soul, believing he could will reality to be altered.
"Maki's mother needing to paying the bills is something I'm sure Maki understands. Thinking about it logically doesn't make it taste any better."
Masao pulled his hat over his eyes. He found doing this helped him escape reality. Nothing to the eyes sight, but darkness. In the dark, his artistic mind created intricate, illustrious, and florid graffiti, like paint on a blank canvas. His mind's eye weaved and threaded each letter of his specific trademark tags in a splatter of gaudy colors on the cold, black, and barren dusk.
"Please live Maki."
Yukino exhaled a held breathe. She still considered herself a person who was invincible. The reason she joined a gang and very nearly lost her life was because of her bad tendency. She believed knives and bokutos wouldn't hurt and guns and bullets wouldn't pierce her skin. Thinking herself a woman of steel, she'd forgotten the people around her didn't believe they were unstoppable. Maki didn't shared her mind set. Maki didn't think she was immune to sickness and disease. She lived with her sickness on a daily, monthly, and yearly basis.
"With four years passed, I'm still an idiot who thinks she can win any fight. An idiot who thinks she can't feel any emotions. I am so sorry, Maki, but I just can't bring myself to cry."
Interrupting their thoughts, the ground began to quake. The quake reverberated throughout the hospital, causing the floor and walls to abnormally shake.
Naoya and Yukino were forcefully jerked off their seats by the quake. They hit the newly cleaned floor.
"Yukino!" Kei attempted to go to Yukino's side, the quake making it a difficulty due to the vibrations.
Kei crouched by her side, grabbed her hand, supported her back with his free arm, and held her, waiting for the shaking to end.
The frames on the wall shook violently, falling off the bland walls. At the contact with the floor, the glass panes fragmentized, the shards heaving forward.
Masao tapped dance around the shards, trying not to step or fall on them, shouting "The hell?"
The quake suddenly stopped.
Kei helped Yukino to her feet. "It seems to have subsided." Kei let go of Yukino's hand. She put her mouth close to his right ear, gently whispering "Thanks, Nanjo."
"Maki!" Masao turned to the automatic doors.
Naoya returned to his feet, while saying, sarcasm clearly in his voice, "Oh, don't worry, guys, I'm fine."
Masao gasped. The automatic doors fully parted, exposing a bland tan wall of the hospital.
"Wow! What the hell? Where'd the room go?"
"How's that possible. I'm positive the I.C.U. was there a moment ago."
"What are we suppose to do?"
Naoya frisked the new wall behind the I.C.U. doors.
"At first, I thought we were in a bad dream. The wall is real."
A clamorous, aghast shriek boomed on the third floor. The floor the students were presently on.
The four gasped.
"Is that Maki?"
"It sounded like the woman's on the second floor." Kei explained.
Naoya turned, concern on his and Masao's faces. "I hope it isn't Maki."
"Let's go then!" Naoya sprinted out of the alcove of the I.C.U. Masao dragged behind him with Kei and Yukino bringing up the rear.
Persona: Be Your True Mind
The atmosphere of the hospital had changed. The air, no longer fresh and loose, but now musty and thick. The hallways no longer open, but cramped and confined. The pleasure and glee associated inside the hospital replaced with a suffocating and dangerous evil presence. The teenagers were now in a completely different hospital then before.
The shriek escaped the lips of a petrified nurse. Her pink uniform visible at the open doors of the second floor lobby. A rotten stench of death permeated the air in the lobby and leaked out to the halls, adding a pungent odor to the stuffy draft.
Yamaoka felt his person brutally tremble during the earthquake. He worried for his young masters wellbeing.
"I must find Young Master Kei!" Yamaoka pushed open the doors to the hallway. His master had ordered him to stay, but what if Kei's safety had been jeopardized, he thought. He would not permit such things to happen. He would disobey an order given to him by the Nanjo Family Head if Kei was endanger. The boy practically was his son. He'd cared for Kei Nanjo since the day of his birth and he'd continue to care and protect him until the day his debilitated heart's beat ended.
Yamaoka reached the second floor, the hallways of the first floor were twisted and bent into a maze of dead-ends. He'd managed to find the flight of stairs, hearing a scream. He'd armed himself with a pipe from the ceiling.
Yamaoka sniffed the air, smelling death and rot. Using the odor as a trail, he found a shrieking nurse. She stood as still as a stone statue, totally horrified. The loyal butler went into the room, drenched in the stench of decayed flesh. His jaw dropped at the sight of the source of the smell.
A group of five, wearing patient's clothing, limbed toward him. Their skin was drab and sinewy. The flesh on their faces loosely hung. Their eyeballs swung out of their sockets and swayed back and forth by tissue. They groaned, limping closer and closer them, their arms pointed straight out, the hands clutching the air.
"Zombies!" The nurse shrieked again.
One of them lunged at the nurse, Yamaoka put himself between them, blocking the zombie with the pipe. Unfortunately, one of the zombies arms grazed the side of his head, peeling a sliver of skin off. Yamaoka held the pipe horizontally, put it against the decaying flesh of the zombie's neck, and laid his weight on the pipe.
"Please run, Miss!"
The held zombie lunged forward again, by passing the pipe, and clawing Yamaoka's neck, tearing off more flesh. A spray of blood washed over the zombie's face.
Yamaoka's knees buckled and he collapsed on his side. The zombie who slashed his throat, shoveling the torn flesh into it's mouth.
"Fresh meat!" It groaned.
The nurse, trembling with disgust, and terror backed up, falling on hear rear, trying to back out the doors.
Right after he fall, Kei, Yukino, Naoya, and Masao rushed into the second floor lobby. They too followed the stench.
"More fresh meat!" One of the zombies yelled with ecstasy.
"Wh-what's with these guys?" Yukino held her nose. Her nostrils were burning.
The nurse stammered, "Th-the dead patients suddenly got up and walked. The old man rescued me and," She gripped the wall to return to her feet, the zombies eyeing her. "NOOOOOO!" she ran out, without looking back.
"What these guys are dead? Is this for real?" Masao asked.
"Y-Yamaoka?" Kei's face lit up like a Christmas tree in rage and melancholy.
Kei without thinking charged the zombie chewing on Yamaoka's meat.
"YOU BASTARD!" Kei put his momentum into a powerful kick to the zombie's used-to-be solar plexus, launching it into the other zombies, knocking them to the floor like bowling pins, causing them to struggle severely to stand up.
Kei's eyes watered, pouring out tears. He fell to his knees, not enough strength to hold his body weight.
"YAMAOKA! YOU BASTARDS! HOW DARE YOU!" Kei stared sincerely into Yamaoka's eyes. "Yamaoka, please don't leave me behind!"
Yamaoka, pressuring his fatal wound with his hand, trying his hardest to speak. He weakly caressed Kei's cheek with his other wrinkled hand.
"Oh, young master…" Yamaoka coughed. "Don't be so sad. It spoils your handsome face. You are a fine Japanese man and a man must stand on his own someday." Yamaoka's bloody face streamed tears. "It seems this will be the last service…I can provide you."
Kei's placed his head on his butler's chest, hearing his faint heartbeat in his ear. "No! NO! NO! NO! NO! I won't let you leave me! Please, Yamaoka, please!"
"It is time I said farewell. Please promise me, young master. Promise to become the number one man in the country and carry the world on your back!" Yamaoka coughed again, the hand on his wound covered in his blood.
"Of course! Of course, I will! When the time comes you'll see. So, until then-"
"My young master…I will always be in your heart." Yamaoka closed his eyes, his partially lifted head sinking to the floor. The beating of his heart in Kei's ear halted, signaling the end of the loyal old man's life.
"Yamaoka? Hey! Answer! I'm begging you! Yamaoka!"
Kei wiped away his tears. The misery in his eyes mixed with pure feral fury and it all was aimed at the recently standing zombies.
"I'll never forgive you bastards!"
Yukino, Masao, and Naoya ran to Kei's side as the zombies thumped their rotten limbs across the floor.
"Careful, guys!" Yukino yelled.
"How the hell are we suppose to fight something already dead?" Masao scoured in his backpack for something.
Naoya picked up Yamaoka's pipe. "Easy! We send the heads flying!"
Naoya impulsively charged like Kei, pulling the pipe back to swing. He came into range of the zombie who killed Yamaoka. He stopped his speed and swung the pipe forward, bashing the side of the zombies head, snapping it backwards. The sound of the snapped neck made Naoya cringe. The zombie swatted Naoya to the wall.
"Nao!" Masao dug his hand deeper, losing his hope of survival.
The zombie popped it's neck back into place and lunged on Naoya.
"SHIT!"
One of the zombies hands gripped hard on Naoya's shoulder, digging into it. Naoya yelled out in pain.
The other zombies encircled Yukino, Masao, and Kei.
"We're going to die!"
The zombie raised its other claw and swung it down on the Naoya. In Naoya's eyes, time delayed, images of Philemon and the crying little girl flashing in his mind, fear still stricken in his body. A eerie velvet mist surrounded his feet. His body surged with a bizarre flash. He felt a build of power which quickly released.
"AAAHH!" The power burst out around of him, throwing the zombie backward into the opposite wall. The velvet mist swirled around his lower body, blowing his Ebony locks in a flurry. Masao, Yukino, and Kei were also surrounded by the mist, feeling the sensation of energy building inside and then releasing.
Masao, Yukino, and Kei were awestruck at the energy flooding out, feeling a mysterious presence hover behind them, as if the sense of fear had called it.
Naoya held the side of his face, his hair whipping backwards. "PER-SO-NA!"
The miniature figure Naoya saw in the palm of Philemon's hand, emerged above him, his fists clenched, and toes curled, ready to fight.
The blue figure spoke to Naoya in a deep voice. "Thou art I and I am thou I am a being that has emerged from the sea of your soul! I shall lend you my power! I am Seimen Kongo!"
Masao gave up on his backpack, feeling his own Persona above his back. A being with wiggling worm-like emerald strands of hair, a tribal decorative shaman mask on it's face, tightly swathed in a mud colored, ruffled cloth, it's hands and feet level stumps of lime tendrils, and a clannish earthen spear, held by the tendrils.
The Person spoke in a African accent. "Thou art I and I am thou! I shall lend you my power! I am Ogun!"
"Awesome!" Masao trademark grin expanded. "Let's do it to it!" Masao threw his hand in the air.
Kei saw his Persona hovering above Yamaoka's corpse. The lithe and slinky Persona, dressed in plum spandex, twirled it's metallic fingers, sharp stilettos at the end of each tip. A spandex head mask fastened to it's head, revealed only it's pure jade eyes and red lumps underneath the bottom of the lids. On each joint a spiked brace attached itself, a chain interconnecting between all of them.
Kei's Person gently spoke as an sadden, but educated intellectual "Thou art I and I am thou! I shall lend you my power! I am Aizen Myouou!"
The young heir to the Nanjo Group, held his loyal butler's glasses in his hands. He wiped his tears and swiped his hand, clasping the glasses, to his right.
"My move!"
Yukino turned her head to see her Persona. Her Persona wore a white mask, a hollow cross in the center of it, inserted inside a carroty sack, wearing armor, ornamented with spines. The sack indeed had arms, but they too were assembled out of the raggedy orange clothe, each hand and finger straggly-like tresses. The area the mask was slotted in was a jester hat, also arranged out of the orange material, with two pendulum crystals displacing the bells at the end of the extension on the hat.
Her Persona addressed her in a compassionate womanly voice. "Thou art I and I am thou! I shall lend you my power! I am Vesta!"
Yukino tilted her head. Vesta didn't seem to match her. "Whatever."
Yukino punched the air. "HA!"
Naoya touched the side of his face, Seimen Kongo above him, the zombie cowering in fear of the almighty presences of the Persona.
The four heard words of a different tongue in their heads.
"Garu," Naoya repeated.
Seimen Kongo yelled, flying at the lead zombie. He threw a powerful jab in mid-air, not connecting, but summoning a feral storm of green wind around the zombie in the line of fist, the decayed flesh ripping a part by the amazing winds.
Kei caught-on the fastest. "Aizen Myouou! HAMA!"
The spandex Persona opened it's arms out, ready to maybe receive a hug. Milky white washed under the feet of two zombies. Sutras and talisman looped, sticking themselves on every inch of their corpses. The light burned away at them, reducing them to rancid ash.
Masao pointed at a zombie, Ogun readying it's spear. "Flurry Stab!"
Ogun jousted at the zombie, impaling him with the spear. The Persona yanked it out, reassuring the zombie of it's death by tearing it to chunks with a barrage of relentless stabs.
"My turn, boys! Let's go Vesta! Frei!"
The cloth fingers curled inward, a pulsating ball of golden energy appearing in the palms. Vesta aimed and fired the orb. The Frei spell expanded into a cannonade of the golden energy, essentially nuking the remaining of the undead.
At the second deaths of the zombies, the Personas departed as swiftly as they arrived. Naoya slid his back on the wall to the floor, his hand nervously holding the left side of his head.
Kei crouched on one knee by Yamaoka's side.
Yukino went to his side, reaching her hand to his shoulder. "Yamaoka, what should I do. Without you, I'm all alone. No one is here to encourage me. No one will stand by me." Kei's dry eyes wetted once again with tears of mourning.
"Kei…" Yukino frowned. "He needs comfort. He's lost a loved one."
Masao grabbed her wrist. "Let him alone, Yukino."
"The guy may be a dick, but I can sympathizes with anybody whose lost somebody important to them."
"Hey, Nao, you hear their voices. They said they were us."
Naoya nodded, his hand and head shaking. "Those are the Personas, huh? They're powerful. I guess they listen to us."
"Oh, Mark, what the shit were you searching in you pack for while we were going to be eaten?" Yukino asked.
Masao picked up his bag. "I totally forgot!" He turned it upside down, the contents spilling out. Books, pencils, pads, dozen of cans of spray paint, painting materials, and….a steel hatchet. Masao sifted in the pile of artistic supplies and came out with the hatchet in his hand. "There it is!" he exclaimed triumphantly. "Why hadn't I done that earlier?"
Yukino and Naoya looked puzzled. "Mark, why do you have a axe in your backpack?"
"It's my blade, Nao."
"What?"
"His weapon, Naoya. On the streets, you carry a weapon." Yukino explained, previously being a member of a gang on the streets for years. She carried a switchblade in her pocket, back then, even to school, when she rarely attended class, back then.
"Mark, that's an axe! You can dismember a person with that!"
Yukino put her hands in her pockets, feeling a sudden pain in her thumb finger.
"Ow!" Yukino retracted her hand, her thumb bleeding out of a narrow slice. She put her open hand in the pocket, nicely cupping the contents and retrieving it. A total of eight razorblades were in her hands.
"Why'd you have razorblades in your pocket?"
"I was using them to chop and cut tiny things for my project, must've spaced out when Brown mentioned Persona and put them in my pocket."
Masao helped Naoya to his feet, whose hand tremors stopped. "Use em', Yukino! We all need a weapon, if more of those undead freaks are in the halls." Masao picked up the pipe Yamaoka used, that Naoya picked up and put it his friend's hands.
"You use the pipe, Nao. Yukino can throw the razorblades and take em' back. I've got my blade. Now we need something for, rich boy and we can go to try and find Maki."
Kei's empty eyes locked with Masao's. "Leave me with Yamaoka!"
Masao hooked his arm under Kei's, aggressively pulling him to his feet. "The four of us came in here alive, Nanjo, and we're all going out alive!"
"A monkey wouldn't understand."
Masao put his axe in his left hand, balling his right fist. He punched Kei in the shoulder, the force knocking the glasses-wearing boy to the floor, casting his said glasses to the other side of the room.
"Like hell I wouldn't understand, Nanjo!"
Yukino picked up Kei's glasses. "I should stopped him, but maybe Masao can talk some sense into Kei."
"If Kei won't come with us, I refuse to leave him here."
Kei's eyes ignited in a fire, his body struggling to stand up.
"Think, Nanjo, before you take a swing at me! Would the old man, really want you to stay here and die! If anything he wanted you to live! He said he spent seventy-years of his life protecting you and you want to throw those seventy-years away in this stinkin' hell! You're the most selfish prick I've met!"
Masao's words stung. Kei hung his head in shame. He wiped his fresh sorrow on his sleeve. He slipped Yamaoka's glasses into his breast pocket. Yukino handed him his own glasses. He opened the stems, adjusting the frame on his nose comfortably. He tucked his "number one" scarf in. He raised his head, his usual features regained, the sophisticated and stable tone to his voice and his serious and cool complexion.
"Well, then, Todo, Yukino, Masao, let us go." Kei stepped to the open threshold.
"Masao?" Masao gasped. "He never calls me by my first name."
"Hey, Kei, wait up!" Yukino ran in front of him, razorblades carefully placed between each of here fingers. "You don't have a weapon. So, I'll use mine and you can use your Persona."
Kei shook his head in agreement. "Thank you, Yukino."
"I'm sorry, Yamaoka. I shouldn't squander those seventy-years of your life you spent protecting me. I'm sorry, Yamaoka. I was too caught in my own selfish desires I'd lose sight of your's. To think the monkey Masao Inaba would have me realize this. I'll do it, Yamaoka. I'll be the number one man in Japan…FOR YOU!"
Persona: Be Your True Mind
The hallways of the hospital retained the odor of death and bent in intricate pathways. They managed to not run into anymore zombies down on the first floor, but considering how much of the stench saturated the air in a short period of time in the middle of the earthquake and their arrival, lead Kei to believe more zombies roamed the halls.
Kei kept in the center of the four, Naoya and Masao stayed up ahead, pipe and axe respectively readied. Yukino brought up the rear.
As the four tried to escape the hospital of hell, Naoya's thoughts replayed the events of the day. It hadn't been two hours since the game of Persona was played.
"We were preparing for the school festival when we made the bet. Persona, the crying girl, the butterfly dream, Philemon, Maki disappearing along with the I.C.U. What's going on? I'm scare as hell, but I want to confirm and fathom what started this."
The four crept into an upcoming corner, a shadow of a lone nurse cast on the wall. They turned down the hall, finding a the nurse with her back turned. The nurse rotated towards them, her face misarranged in a mess of corroded soft tissue. Groans of hunger were heard behind them and farther in the corridor.
Hordes of zombies limped in both directions, pinning the four at the corner.
"Yo, Nao, this is bad!" Masao stated.
"We're surrounded, Todo."
"Persona."
"Eh?" Masao prepared his axe.
"Call out Persona and fight!" Naoya put the pipe at a diagonally angle, using his left hand to grip his face. "I don't know what's going on, but I don't wanna be killed. Remember the exact feeling!"
The mist arose under Naoya, the wind carrying his hair into a frenzy.
"Persona! Seimen Kongo!" The blue beast man appeared at the call of Naoya.
Masao, Kei, and Yukino watched on wordless at Naoya summoning his Persona on command.
"Here I come, zombies!" Naoya pointed to the zombie nurse. "Seimen Kongo, GARU!"
Persona: Be Your True Mind
Outside of the hospital, Mikage's street, the peaceful and tame nature adrift, bustled with hundreds of hideous monsters, in a hundreds of different shapes and variants. The citizens barricaded their families and friends in their own homes. The beasts' roars disrupted the common lives of the men, women, and children, driving their city to become a utterly chaotic nightmare infested with vicious demons.
Just as the families were sheltered in their homes, St. Hermelin High, Principle Ooishi and Vice-Principle Hanya safeguarded the students who remained in the school at the end of the day, including Hidehiko, Yuka, and Eriko.
Hanya, shinai in hand, ordered the first years to guard the gates and block the windows on each floor.
On the east side of the school, near the gym, Ms. Saeko asked Yuka, Yuko, and Eriko to plug up a hole. In the passageway to the gym, a brick wall was erected. A student a few week back snuck in the school at night and hammered and pick axed out a portion of the bricks. The disciplinary committee haven't found the student or the purpose.
Hanya focused on finding the student instead of addressing the property damage. Now with random monsters and demons flying and prowling the sidewalks and roads, decreasing the number of entryways into the school was the main priority.
Hanya's mind worked like a general's, treating the students as his soldiers, the school as his encampment, and Mikage as a war zone. After ordering the first years to be guards, he ordered the second years to take stock of the food supply in the cafeteria and teachers lounge. The third and fourth years searched the floors of the school, looking in each classroom to gather the stragglers into the gym.
Yuka, Eriko, and Yuko lifted boxes and cinderblocks to the passageway to fill up the perforation.
"Like, hurry up, Yuko." Ayase commanded to the girl with braided purple hair. "The hole isn't gonna plug itself up."
Yuko, a timid and shy girl, carried a stack of boxes in her arms. Ayase walked backwards in front of her empty-handed. Eriko examined the exposed courtyard by the gym, her own stack of boxes beside her leg.
"Hey, it seems everything is okay." she said. "I'm going to go out for a little bit!"
Ayase shouted at Eriko. "NO! If YOU die, like, what are WE supposed to do? You saw just now right? There are, like, monsters running around the city!"
Eriko smiled, grasping the newly attached scabbard on her hip. She unsheathed the weapon, revealing it to be a fencing rapier. She held the sword in a appropriate fencing stance.
Ayase glowered.
"My, there's no need to worry. Even now, I have confidence in my sword skills. A demon or two will be no problem!"
Eriko studied fencing overseas. When she settled in Mikage to finish her education at St. Hermelin, she joined the fencing team, becoming the top fencer in the school.
Ayase closed her eyes, massaging her temples. If Eriko left, she would have to do work. She was never keen on heavy lifting, light lifting, or any labor period. "No problem, you say, you are, like, so-"
"Well then, I'll be off."
Ayase opened her eyes, seeing Eriko dart through the gap.
Ayase pouted. "If something, like, happens to you! I don't care!"
Eriko ran up the streets of Mikage, her rapier still out. She'd conned Ayase; not difficult in the slightest. She didn't only want to explore the "new" Mikage. Beneath her pulchritudinous (A/N), placid exterior, she worried for Nao and the others.
Since Eriko attended St. Hermelin and met Naoya Todo, her crush on him augmented to a burning care and love for him, but Naoya rather spend his time and money in the arcade, Judgment 1999, instead of her. "He's playing hard to get." She often though when Naoya missed an obvious hint by her.
"It's so quiet."
The streets of Mikage, typically quiet, wasn't an uncanny silence. Eriko was uneasy. Fifteen minutes is the amount of time it takes to go to the Mikage Hospital. She only needed to endure the silence for fifteen minute.
The situation struck Eriko's fancy five minutes in, passing the Historical Society and Sun Mall.
"The city was normal until recently, now, it's different with no one around. It's as if we're in a Stephen Prince (A/N) novel. The Cursed City."
Eriko Kirishima enjoyed occult, supernatural, and fictional paraphernalia, novels, and tales of the dark side. Her fascination didn't match her demeanor, but looks can always be deceiving.
Eriko passed the Alaya Shrine, a prayer shrine, which interior was adorned with different types of masks.
Eriko heard a human grunt of hurt. She saw red spots by the stairs to the Alaya Shrine.
"Blood?"
She heard another groan.
"Is someone there?"
Beside the stairs, fell a woman, short brunette hair, in a brown blazer, wearing glasses.
Eriko rushed to her side. "Oh my God! Are you all right? What happened?"
The woman pick up her head. She notice the insignia on Eriko's shirt. She elevated her chest. "You're a student at St. Hermelin!" her hands grabbed Eriko's shoulders, pulling her closer. "I'm Setsuko Sonomura, Maki Sonomura's mother!"
"Maki's mother?" Eriko saw the side of Setsuko's blouse stained in blood. "I'm her classmate, Eriko Kirishima. Are you wounded?"
"No, it's nothing serious! I was grazed by a bullet. More importantly, I have to hurry to the police. The city is no longer receiving electricity or a telephone signal. I couldn't dial 911."
Eriko heard a third groan, not out of Setsuko's mouth. The groan wasn't of pain, it was of hunger. Setsuko's eyes blinked repeatedly. Eriko snapped her head back, a giant amphibious creature skulking toward them.
The demon, green skinned, and scaled, groaned gutturally, opening it's webbed, three-fingered talons. He leaped high into the air, diving on Eriko and Setsuko.
Persona: Be Your True Mind
Masao struck the last zombie down in the chest with his axe. "Man, it's like we're in friggin' Abandoned 4 Dead (A/N)." Masao tucked his hand in his pocket, running his index finger under his nose. "These guys aren't a big deal at all." He chuckled. "Maybe we're too strong."
Yukino pulled the bottom of Masao's, earring-less ear until it was red.
"OUCH!"
"Get off your high horse!" she scolded. "It thanks to our Personas, we can even fight those things." She let go of Masao's ear.
"Damn, Yukino, that hurt!" Masao rubbed his ear. "I know that much, but we're the ones who can call those out."
"Mark, Yukino, hurry up here! We found a doctor whose alive!"
Naoya discovered a wounded doctor, laying up against the door to the lobby. His lab coat soaked in blood.
"Your Maki's doctor, right?" Kei asked.
"You're those kids." he weakly said, then coughed hard. "You wanted to see her."
"Yeah, now, is she here?" Naoya asked desperately, Masao and Yukino joining them.
The doctor coughed again. "No. In the Intensive Care Unit when the earthquake occurred, me and the attending physician must've fallen unconscious. I woke up here, nearly eaten by those hideous things. I found a window. The city has turned into a netherworld. No people, no cars, nothing, but monsters." He coughed into his shoulder, harder, crimson droplets staining the white.
"So, Maki, may not be in the hospital." Masao put his axe back in his backpack, preparing to leave.
"It's hopeless. We practically searched each floor trying to leave."
"I suggest we head back to the school, we might not be able to make it back to our individual homes by ourselves. It's key to our survival, we stick together. We can form a search team in the morning back at St. Hermelin."
"Kei's right, we gotta help the doctor." Naoya said.
"No, you kids leave. I'm too far along already. Go, find Maki Sonomura."
Naoya nodded, complying with the doctor's wishes. The doctor closed his eyes.
"Todo, I hear thumping."
"You gotta be kidding me! We beat down at least fifty of them!" Masao dug back out his axe.
"Forget it, Mark! If Maki isn't here, we're heading back to the school."
Yukino, Kei, and Masao pushed into the doors to the lobby. Naoya heard the dry, sinewy thuds of the limping zombies. He looked to the doctor and then down the hall they'd previously fought the horde in, more crowds of silhouettes projected on the tan walls.
"Nao! Hurry up! They're coming!"
Naoya clenched his teeth, putting his arms under the doctor's in a full-nelson. He grunted, dragging the doctor to the lobby. "You may be on the path to death, but I'm not leaving you to be zombie chow!"
Naoya fully dragged the bleeding doctor into the carpeted lobby floor. Kei and Masao slammed the doors shut.
"You kids go! I'll prop my weight on the door. I'll hold them back until I go. You four, please, stay alive."
Naoya helped the doctor against the door. The doctor let out a grunt of pain.
"We can still help you." Naoya said.
The doctor shook his head back and forth. "Go, son, I've lived my life. You four still need to live yours. So, I ask you again, please go and let me save your four lives in my final moments."
Masao and Yukino grabbed Naoya by the arms, struggling to pulling him through the automatic doors.
"No! Let me go!"
"Come on, you heard the doc, Nao."
"Naoya, I'll hit you over the head and carry you out on my back if I have to." Yukino threatened.
Naoya stopped his tussling. The handles of the door, racked back and forth. The doctor averting their accessibility.
The doctor coughed blood on to his shirt, speaking to Naoya. "Thank you."
Naoya stepped back through the automatic doors, his eyes locked on to the doctor. He planted the last step out to the concrete sidewalk, the mechanic sides returning. The doctor's countenance and bloodied character disappeared in Naoya's sight at the moment the doors closed.
Naoya grabbed the side of his face, reluctantly running with his fellow classmates.
"I'm sorry. I couldn't save you. Even when you said you were to far along, the least I could do was slow the zombies into sinking there teeth farther into you, for a short while. You did save our four lives, keeping the new horde back for us, with your final breathes nearing. As a doctor you're job is to save lives. Even when you're bleeding to death, clutching the straws of life, you did your job. You shouldn't thank me. I should've thanked you."
Naoya's flicked a teardrop with his index finger. He'd tried to help a complete stranger to him, yet the stranger helped him and his friends. The cost of life was all ready collected, but before the doctor cast his last handful of coins into the fountain of death, he'd helped them escape. He did not begged to be saved, begged to live, or cursed himself. A truly selfless man, possibly a simple stranger, can perform good acts that extricate the souls of many.
Persona: Be Your True Mind
(A/N) A play on Stephen King, of course, a little Persona 3 Junpei style humor, taking a real thing and making it a play on words to suit the situation. Abandoned 4 Dead is obviously a play on Left 4 Dead, thought it suited the situation. Yes, that word is a real word.
Okay, for the amount of time it took to write this, I'm not really liking the turn-out, but whatever. I do think I handled the awakening well, the being to, the very ending scene with the dying doctor, kinda rushed, I'll admit, but I think I got the point across that Naoya wanted to save him, but couldn't. That's a change-up of the ending part of the hospital where a nurse is trapped under a vending machine and you can chose to save her or leave her there and it's part of a somewhat test of your character throughout the game. So, I spun it with Maki's dying doctor and Naoya being a decent-human being, trying to stop him from becoming just another mangled corpses. As for Eriko, normally she's suppose to have her awakening at the hospital, but I went with the manga's approach were they escape, then meet Eriko with her Persona, and then retrieve Setsuko. Next chapter, I hope won't take me as long as this. Chapter 4 isn't terrible long, but I've learned my lesson of not trying to cram a lot of content into one chapter. It doesn't seem like a lot of content in-game terms does it? Once again reviews and criticism are welcome, anything I can do to improve is always welcome. Either way I hope you enjoyed Chapter Three of Persona: Be Your True Mind, and I'll see you next time for Chapter Four: St. Hermelin.