Author's Notes: I plan on revising the whole story once I am done with it. Thank you for reading and leave a review. I'm not going to stop updating. Just when this reaches its absolute end I will go back and revise.

Chapter 15: Hierophant and Lovers and the Lost Link

Wednesday 6/20/2012

There will be a full moon tonight. Yukari was still sleeping because yesterday's encounter was exhausting. I decided that it would be best to conserve energy and I spent the day resting.

Morning passed by and it was almost noon. The strong summer heat permeated the room. It was silent in the room until I heard something move.

"It's so hot." Yukari groaned. She looked at the clock, "Wow, I slept like a log."

"How does one sleep like a log?" I dared to ask.

"It's a figure of speech." replied Yukari. "Have you been sitting there all morning?" she asked.

"Yes, is something the matter?" I replied.

"I forgot that the heat doesn't bother you." Yukari giggled. "Since it's so hot let's go get ice cream."

We opened the door to leave, but as soon as we did we were greeted with a front of hot air. "I wish our air conditioner worked." said Yukari. She went over to the next room which was Fuuka's and knocked.

"Hey Fuuka, you want to go get some ice cream with me and Aigis?" Yukari asked. The door opened.

"Sure, but shouldn't we save our strength for the full moon?" Fuuka asked.

"It's so hot that we can't relax at all. Well Aigis could probably endure the heat, but I can't." said Yukari. "Hey how come your room is so cool?"

"Well all the rooms have an air conditioning system." Fuuka replied. "Is yours broken?"

"Yeah, well we never really used it." replied Yukari.

"Regarding your statement about the heat, I may not sweat or feel discomfort from it. However I do require energy to prevent overheating and that energy is also required in battle." I stated. "Let us go." I grabbed Yukari's hand.

A few seconds afterwards Yukari pulled back her hand painfully, "Ouch! That burns."

"My apologies, my surface temperature is over 40 degrees Celsius." I stated.

"You did that on purpose didn't you Aigis?" Yukari grinned. "Hey let's try that on Junpei."

"It was not my intention, but it means that we should go cool down. I am not efficiently using my energy in the heat." I told them.

The three of us left the dorm and walked over to the nearby convenience store. The frozen goods section had a variety of ice cream flavors. Not that it mattered to me. We all bought one for each of us and a box to keep in the dorms.

When we returned to the dorm Junpei was lying on the couch sweating. "Oh hey you're back." he said weakly.

"What are you doing here Junpei?" Yukari asked. "You know this is a girl's only dorm."

Junpei shrugged, "What's the harm I came here thinking that the air conditioner here worked."

"Actually I'll go and fix it in a bit, here Junpei." Fuuka gives Junpei an ice cream bar.

Junpei smiled euphorically, "Fuuka-chan, my savior."

"You can fix ACs Fuuka. That's amazing." Yukari complimented.

"Oh, it's nothing special really. I just watched my dad fix stuff when I was a kid." Fuuka said modestly. She went upstairs.

"Hey, is there anything to do here?" Junpei asked. "It sucks to just wait for the Dark Hour to come."

"No there's nothing. I'm just going to mess around on the internet." Yukari returned to her room.

"So it's just you and me." said Junpei. We passed the day idly as Junpei either slept or played on his COMPstation Portable. I went over the Personas I have and made sure there was no weakness I cannot cover.

The clock strikes midnight with everyone anxiously awaiting the Dark Hour. The world changed. Everything had a sinister shade of green and the moon floats in the sky as full and massive as it was.

"Fuuka-san please find the shadow." I said. Fuuka clasp her hands in prayer and closer her eyes. Her Persona manifested itself around her.

Huh? It's really close by. I think it's in one of the dorms. Fuuka's voice spoke in our minds.

"Good job Fuuka, now let's get going." said Yukari. We all left the dorm to search for the shadow.

"It is here." said Fuuka. We were in front of the sorority that I was a member of. Then a thought occurred to me. Maya was special along with some of the other members. I immediately rushed in.

Junpei tried opening the doors, "Damn it's locked."

"We have no choice." my hands clicked and I pointed them towards the door. "Junpei-san, stand back!" I open fired. The wooden door shattered to pieces against the volley of bullets.

Inside the main hall there it was. The large shadow was there among a pile of bodies. "What the, there are people here!" Junpei shouted in surprise.

"Shouldn't they all turn to coffins?" Yukari asked.

"It's the Hierophant! But how, we already defeated it before." said Fuuka.

Junpei raised his sword, "I know, but they're back and we have to deal with them before they hurt more people." Junpei charged at the shadow shouting. "Hrraaggghhh!"

Fuuka clasp her hands and summoned Juno. Scanning the target.

The shadow was an obese man sitting on a small throne. Behind him, sprouting from the small throne is what appears to be a woman. The two crosses on its side move in front of Junpei and smacked him.

He was knocked back his feet sliding on the floor. "I'm not done yet!" Junpei got his evoker and held it to his head. "Persona!"

Trismegistus deftly swerved past the two crosses and manage to gash the Hierophant's side. It wailed in pain, but more of anger from that. The man and woman laughed in sync. Lightning strikes down Trismegistus and Junpei reeled in pain.

"Don't be reckless!" Yukari shot herself and called out Isis. Junpei's wounds were being healed.

Scan complete. Don't use electricity it'll only bounce back.

"I don't want to use powerful attacks because I fear it may hit the people." I said.

"We'll have to beat it the old fashioned way. Mano and mano." Junpei rushed towards the Hierophant again. The shadow laughs once again as ominous purple gas filled the room. Soon afterwards Junpei was running away in fear.

"Ah! I'm out of here! There's no way we can beat that!" Junpei ran away.

Yukari was also in the same state, "I'm pulling out!"

No! Guys, be brave! Fuuka's words don't reach them as I was left to fight the Hierophant alone until they snap out of it.

"Athena!" I shouted. The two crosses were moving towards me. Athena struck them and they flew against the wall. Now while the Hierophant was open, Athena dove in and stabbed it with her spear.

The shadow wailed and it wailed even more when I fired a barrage at it. However just when it was about to fall, its wounds have healed and there was another shadow floating above it.

There's another one! This time it's the Arcana Lovers be careful!

This was not an advantageous situation. I was being pounded by a barrage of wind and lightning. I couldn't move my…. body.

Aigis, hang in there! Aigis!

Everything was failing me. The shadows loomed over ready to finish me off.

I hear gunshots. The shadows fell back. Above me, I saw a white bird Persona dash in and slash the Lovers. "You alright?" It was Naoto. She grabbed my hand and pulled me up.

"Leave some for me!" Yosuke jumped in brandishing two kunais. He and his Persona both slashed repeatedly at the Hierophant.

"Damn, sorry back there." Junpei returned along with Yukari. Yukari began casting healing spells on me.

"Let's go Yukiko, that shadow is going down!" Chie and Yukiko rushed in.

"Suzuka Gongen!" Chie roundhoused a card before her and a white samurai like Persona appeared. It soon became a large melee with the shadows and everyone charged in.

Kanji charged in also and Teddie as well.

"It's one after the other." said Yukari.

The Hierophant used the same move it used last time to inflict fear on everyone. The Lovers shadow charmed a few of its attackers. Soon everyone was beginning to attack each other.

"Everyone! Stop!" I shouted.

"It's no use they've been charmed and feared." said Yukari. "I'll start curing them."

The shadows moved back further into the hall. "We'll have to finish them ourselves." said Naoto. We charged forward and made sure everyone was behind us.

I reloaded by gun and Naoto has hers at the ready. "Ready to fire." I said.

"Here goes then." Naoto and I fired simultaneously. The sound of gunfire rang through the air and was deafening. As soon as I had to reload, Naoto kept up the barrage and I did so as well when she had to reload.

The shadows returned to nothing but black mush. "Nice one." said Naoto.

"But what are you doing here?" I asked.

"You expect me to sit still when time stops and everything turns like this?" she replied sarcastically.

After the dust settles we all had to leave before the Dark Hour ended. Everyone retreated back to the dorm.

In the lounge, everyone was lying around looking tired.

"You guys were great. Thanks for the help." Junpei sighed, "I thought we were goners there."

"Really? From what I saw you were running around in circles screaming." giggled Yukiko.

"What no way!" Junpei shouted. He looked around at everyone's expression. "Yeah, sorry about bailing out on you Ai-chan, but I really don't remember anything after being feared."

"Yeah, I'm ashamed of it myself." said Yukari. "Thanks for saving us though."

"No problem Yukari-chan. Call me anytime." Teddie said suggestively.

"So what were those things anyways?" Kanji asks.

Naoto explained, "Every full moon time stands still at midnight and shadows appear in our world. However the reason for their existence and the cause of the strange phenomenon is unknown."

"So basically we have no idea." said Yosuke.

"Right." Chie rolled her eyes. "Kind of sucks though to be stuck here in this creepy world for an hour."

"Yeah well we had to go through this every night for a year and no one knew about it." Yukari shouted.

"Whoa calm down Yuka-tan. We've had our Personas longer than they did and they were probably all coffins when we were getting our Personas." said Junpei. "It's not something I would brag about, but we did get used to having this happen every night."

"We enter the shadow's world through the TV, and then it wouldn't be hard to assume that shadows enter our world through this Dark Hour." said Naoto.

"Precisely." said Fuuka. "From the old reports, shadows have the power to distort time and space."

"Yet they are also the embodiment of human desires and emotions." I followed up. "Personas are no different."

"Argh, this is all so complicated. Why can't there just be some bad guy we could beat up and be done with it." Yosuke looks frustrated.

"We should rest." I suggested.

"I agree." said Naoto.

"But how did you guys get here all the way from Inaba?" Fuuka asks. "The trains shouldn't be working."

"Oh, we used the other world. It's really cool, we enter from a TV in Junes, explore the other side until we find an exit that connect over here." said Chie.

"You could do that?" Junpei looked impressed.

"Although really, I was just sniffing out your scent." Teddie rubbed his nose confidently. "Your room was really nice."

"Hold up, you didn't do anything weird?" Yukari glared at Teddie.

"No, nothing at all! We all just exited from your TV and went to find the shadows." Teddie said in his defense.

Everyone was tired and slept in the lounge for the night.

Thursday 6/21/2012

I went downstairs into the lounge. Everyone was there watching the news.

Reporter: Today's news we have vandalism in Okina University's sorority dormitories. There have been no suspects as the local authorities are at a loss for clues. All of the residents are unharmed however they all seem to have apathy syndrome.

Whether or not this was caused by the vandals or something else entirely, it seems that the dorm will be shut down and under heavy investigation.

"We couldn't save them." said Junpei looking depressed.

"It's unfortunate. If only we had arrived sooner." said Naoto.

"Nah, don't worry about what if and what not." said Junpei. "We couldn't have done any more than your group can."

Everyone watched in silence as the news continued to report all the damages caused last night. I lost a friend to the shadows. Maya fell to the shadows and now she has apathy syndrome.

Fortune lost.

Friday 6/22/2012

Today to get our minds off the full moon, we decided to talk about our plans for the trip. We all agreed to go on Sunday and to have things ready the day before.

I went over to Junes with Yukari to buy things for the trip.

"Hey." Yosuke greeted hollowly.

"What's the matter? You seem down." Yukari noticed Yosuke's dull tone.

Yosuke said plainly, "I have to go with my dad to help with another June's opening in the summer. It's in Tatsumi Port Island and apparently everyone is using it as an excuse to go. I mean my dad said that I could bring my friends, but I'll be working."

"Yeah, that sucks." Yukari said sympathetically.

"Whatever, I need to get back to work." Yosuke returned to sorting various goods.

"So everyone's going to be there." Yukari looked disappointed.

I spoke up, "Is something the matter? I think it would be more fun if everyone was there."

Yukari mumbled, "No, it's just that there might be too much people. What a coincidence."

"I agree." I replied. We returned after buying the things we need.

Saturday 6/23/2012

Yukari and I spent the day packing our belongings. I did not carry much, only several sets of clothes. Yukari seemed to have a hard time choosing what to bring.

Sunday 6/24/2012

"Is everyone here?" I asked. After looking around Junpei was the only one missing.

"He's probably late again." said Yukari.

"Let's all meet up at the station." suggested Fuuka. As soon as we left Junpei was in front of the dorm with his bags.

"Aw, you were going to leave without me?" Junpei chuckled.

"Maybe.." Yukari smiled.

"Wait, really?" Junpei said in a shocked tone of voice, "That's cold."

We all went to the station where we boarded the long distance train to Tatsumi Port Island.

"Port Island here we come!" Junpei shouts enthusiastically.

I only smiled as we boarded the train as we head towards the place where everything started.

Author's Notes: My original plan for the Hierophant and Lovers would be to have them get human forms like Ryoji and become intelligent and what not. My reasoning for this is that like how Death was inside Minato and gained a human consciousness, the 12 Arcana who were a part of Death should also gain that as well.

After several tries, I decided no. It's way too inconsistent. I am going to overhaul this when it reaches the end. Thank you for reading and leave a review.

Next chapter preview: 0n3 0f 7h3 7hr33 ** 4pp34rs dur1ng 7h3 7r1p.

Pardon the horrible language there, but I don't want to make it obvious.