"Speaking"
'Thought'
"Persona Speaking"
'Persona thought'
Skill
Disclaimer: I do not own Persona 3 or 4.
Chapter 3:
The Dreaded Hospital
The two young men who were sent into the parallel world and the two young ladies were trapped inside of the hospital, which changed into something terrible and horrifying. Still standing inside of the room where the ill client supposedly died, they encountered creatures from the shadowy corner. Minato Arisato and Souji Seta remembered those creatures.
Shadows.
They were monstreous creatures hidden in the other side of the world, which no one except the most special ones had experienced. The most common thing about them were the masks. They were once gentle creatures who lived peacefully as the humans, but because of certain incidents, they went in murderous rage. Most victims would befall in an epidemic state. Some would be killed by them.
Minato Arisato and Souji Seta's mission were to stop the ones responsible of the Shadows' rage and bring peace for them, which they succeeded.
But here, in this parallel time, they were stuck in a difficult situation, along with Chie Satonaka and Yukari Takeba, face-to-face with the Shadows. Fortunately, in a nick of time, their lives were spared, thanks to the unexpected appearance of the creatures similar to the Shadows, but lighter. These creatures are called...
Personas.
Thanks to the Personas, Orpheus and Izanagi, Minato Arisato and Souji Seta managed to slay the Shadows before they take their lives.
But only one problem was solved. The other problem was just the beginning of the cruel nightmare.
As the two young men defeated the Shadows, they turned their head toward the two surprised and amazed school girls, with their Persona slowly fading from where they stood. "Are you two alright?" asked Souji, asking about their current condition.
Chie and Yukari could only nod for a few short seconds. Then, Chie took a step in toward them. "Whoa... What... What are you guys? And... Who were these things that appeared before you?" she asked.
Souji was about to answer Chie's question, but suddenly, a chaotic cry was heard from outside, in the hallway. The cry surprised the four young teenagers. "Tch...! There's more of them, just as I thought..." said Souji.
"We don't have time to chitchat. We have to get out of here, fast." said Minato.
Without giving a second thought, the two girls quickly nodded, before all fo them ran outside of the room, carefully examinating the hallway. Somehow, there were no Shadows in sight. "Chie-san, Yukari-san, stay behind us at all times. No matter what you do, don't leave our side." said Souji. After receiving a qucik nod from both of the girls, all of them immediately ran toward the stair way. So far, no Shadows were in their way. And they made it safely in the stair way.
They then came running down the stairs as quickly as they could. Chie, unlike the others, could ran down faster than them, as she was an up-beat girl. As she reached the fourth floor of the hospital, she looked back up at the others, awaiting them impatiently. "Come on, you guys! We gotta get out of here ASAP!" she yelled.
"We're coming, Chie-san! We're not as fast as you are, you know!" cried Yukari.
"Whatever! I'm getting out of here no matter what! I can't stand this place anymore!" So, Chie resumed running down the stairs. However, just when she ran to the following stair, she suddenly hit hard on the empty air, strangely. Following the impact, she fell down on the ground, groaning in pain.
That was when the others joined her by her side. "Oh! Chie-san!" gasped Yukari, kneeling by her side. "Are you alright?!"
"Owww...! Yeah, I think so... I might have hit something hard..." responded the fallen girl.
Minato began to walk toward the next stair. Standing face to it, he examinated it. Stretching his hand toward it, he felt something hard on the empty air. There was nothing in front of the stair, but there was something hard. Turning to face the others, he concluded the sudden impact of Chie. "Something is blocking the way of the next stair."
"Wh... Wha?" said Chie, as she sat up from the ground. "Wh... What are you talking about? There's nothing there!"
"There IS nothing there, according to our eyes. But there IS something blocking the path."
"You mean... an invisible wall?" asked Yukari.
"Yeah. This might be it."
"Wait... Then that means...!"
"We can't run down any further. This invisible wall is in our way."
"Then... What are we going to do to get down from here?! This place is creepying me out! I wanna get out of here!"
While Yukari complained about not being able to get out, Souji averted his eyes toward the hallway. There might be a certain way to get down further in. "Hm... Hey, si there another stair way in the other side?" he asked.
Chie turned to the silver-haired man with a confused look. "Uh... Yeah? Why?"
"We might be able to go down to the third floor by taking the other stair way. Since this one is sealed off, we could be able to go down from the other one."
"But...! But that's a long way to go! And there's those... monsters in there! Do we HAVE to go this way!"
"If you guys value your lives, then we have no other ways. This is the only way to go, to escape from the hospital."
"But...! But...!" Chie was about to protest some more, but as she wanted to live, she sighed in defeat. "Alright... But we better get out of here as quick as possible. I don't wanna run into those things again!"
"Then let's hope so." said Minato.
With a quick nod from everyone, without a second to lose, they ran into the fourth floor hallway. The other stair way wasn't too far from here, but not too close either. Their only option was to run faster from the Shadows. But, just as they came across half of the hallway, they suddenly noticed an ominous object, standing in the hallway. "What the...? A coffin?" said Yukari, after seeing a coffin.
That coffin was standing there in the hallway, completely immobile, with a red glow below to where it stood. "Wha? Why would there be a coffin standing there?" asked Chie, before she shivered at a certain, disturbing thought. "Rrr...! This only makes me feel scared around here more and more...!"
"Coffin...? Wait... Could it be...?" wondered Minato, as he remembered something from his past life.
Noticing the thoughtful blue-haired man, Souji decided to ask him. "Do you know about this?"
"... Maybe... Maybe..." started Minato, as the others looked at him, awaiting for an answer. "... There's someone inside of it..."
"What?! then we better get him out of that coffin! He might be suffocating in here!" yelled out Yukari, as she began to open the coffin, but with no luck.
"Hold on, Yukari!" shouted out Minato. "It's alright. He may be frozen inside of the coffin. In fact... Maybe we're... stuck in time."
"Stuck... in time?" asked Souji.
"It's only a theory, but somehow, everyone in the hospital... might be frozen in time, inside the coffins. And we're the only people who could move around, even at this time. I'm not sure if it's... possible, but... I think we're stuck in a hidden time, different from normal time."
"A hidden... time...?"
"Whoa... Never thought of it that way." said Yukari, slightly amazed at the "theory" Minato came up with. "So then... Everyone is safe and sound? Those creatures won't attack them?"
"As far as I know... I don't think they will." said Minato.
As they stood there, discusting about the time and whatnot, a sudden chaotic cry flew through the hallway, surprising the young adults. Yukari gasped. "It's that cry again! Are those... things coming?!"
"Chie-san! Yukari-san!" said Souji. "Get behind us! We'll take care of them!"
Then, both Chie and Yukari went behind the two males, who readied their sword, facing in front of the direction of where the cry was heard. Just as they thought, the same Shadows back from the room above appeared, crawling and flying toward the young adults. Just like before, there were the two masked slimes and two striped balls. As the Shadows started to attack them, starting with a charge attack, Minato and Souji already got prepared for the attack. Minato drew out his Evoker and pointed it at the side of his head, while Souji held a card that suddenly appeared on his hand, just by answering the mind. At the same time, they cried out, "Persona!" before pulling the trigger and crushing the card, respectively.
"Agi!" cried out Minato, as Orpheus appeared before him. Upon his appearance, Orpheus launched the skill for his master, as burst of flames came bursting on the slime Shadow, destroying it into dark aura.
"Zio!" cried out Souji, as Izanagi appeared before him. Just like Orpheus, Izanagi launghed the skill, as lighting struck the striped ball Shadow, as it vanquished along with the slime.
With two Shadows left, Minato and Souji decided to go head-on against them, running toward them with their swords ready. Just as the Shadows attack, the two Persona-users jumped over them, avoiding the attack. But also, counter-attacking them with a quick, heavy slash from above, vanquishing them in less than a minute or so. The battle was over, but there were still more awaiting them from the rest of the floor.
Looking back at the two girls, they resumed running to the other stair way, at the same time, signaling them to follow. Seeing the sign, the two girls quickly joined the Persona-users, at the chance of surviving from the upcoming Shadows along the way.
With the strenght of the two Persona-users, the young adults had finally reached from the fourth floor to the first one. They encountered many, but few Shadows on these floors, but they managed to survive and conquer the battles they had gone through. Although they had gone through a lot of battles, it took them a lot of time to get to the first floor, much to Chie's dismay. They had to go through each stairs to go down to one floor at the time, which costed them a lot of time and brung them a lot of Shadows.
Finally, they arrived down the the first floor. After running and battling the Shadows for all this time, they relaxed themselves and took a few deep breaths to regain their normal air. "Whew...! Thank God, we finally.. made it...!" said Chie, gasping for air.
"Whew... This is it...! The first floor...! We're gonna make it out of here alive...!" said Yukari, feeling overjoyed of getting out of that terror for good.
Minato and Souji did not have anything to say, but to be glad that they will get away from the Shadows and out of the hospital. After taking a few breaths, they began to resume their very last run from the hospital. But by looking at the front of the entrance, they all noticed a figure, standing in front of the doors. "Huh?" said Chie, puzzled.
"Is there someone over here?" said Yukari, becoming quite curious. Then, without a warning, the young adults began to ran toward the shadowy figure. After getting closer on it, they saw that someone perfectly.
He looked like a tall man with dark cloak and hood that covered his head and face, making it harder to see for the others. Strangely, it didn't look like he was moving at all, but he was breathing... quite heavily and slowly. They began to question that man in their thoughts. "Uh... Hey, are you... alright?" Chie was the first to ask him. However, he kept on breathing hard, never once he began to speak up. "Uh... Hello? Earth to stranger! I'm talkign to you!" Chie received no answer, still.
Yukari then stepped up to speak up with the stranger. "Hey, um... I'm sorry, but we need to get out of here. There's those... things who are after us and we gotta get out of here before they get us! You need to get out too, if you want to live!" she said. But, like Chie, she received no answer.
"Hey!" shouted out Chie, becoming quite angry for not receiving any answer from the stranger at all. "Why aren't you talking?! Do you want to get out of here and live, or do you want to stand here, doing nothing and die gruesomely by those monsters back there?!"
".... Rrrrooooooaaaahhh..." Finally, the stranger spoke. But rather disturbing that nearly jumped the teenagers.
"Whoa!" cried out Chie. "Man, what was that?! Don't you do that again! You almost gave me a heart attack!"
"... Minato... Arisato... Souji... Seta..." said the stranger. Minato and Souji were rather shocked of that man calling their name. How did he know their name? "... I have been... waiting for you... Wielders of the Wild Card..."
That only shocked them a lot more. "How... How do you know who we are?" asked Minato.
"... You two... are the only nuissances... of our goal..."
"... Goal?" said Souji, getting curious of what the stranger meant.
"... The only way... to achieve our goal... is for you two to... DIE!!!" As the strange said it, he lifted his arm up to the sky, opening up his hand. Then, as if by magic, a sudden gust of wind suddenly formed around them, rather heavily. The young teenagers began to hold themselves on the ground still.
"Aaahh!!! What... What's happening?!" cried out Chie, as she held herself still, fearing that the wind will carry her along.
The wind slowly formed a spiraling sphere on the stranger's hand, before slowly turning dark, as if it bended upon his will. "O creatures from the other side... Hear my call... Unleash your rage against these pathetic humans... Swallow their souls... Before devoring their bodies... I call upon the one who will answer to my dark will...!" he chanted.
"What... What is he doing...?!" shouted out Yukari, still holding herself still on the ground.
"Unleash thy power... Unleash thy rage... Terror Hand!!!" Finally, the dark sphere expended into large, shadow aura, surrounding Minato, Souji, Chie and Yukari. As the aura vanished, freeing the teenagers, something stood upon them. Something large, just twice their size.
They all looked above them to see the face of the mysterious and enormous figure. "... What... the HELL... is that?!?!" yelled out Chie, pointing at the figure.
This figure was a giant hand, wearing a giant glove with multiple colors attached on it. Unlike any other separated hands, this hand had a head of its own. All white, but with a blue mask. It stood there, facing down on the young teenagers. "Is that... a... a giant hand?!" yelled Yukari.
Just then, the Hand jumped to the air and attempted to slam itself on the teenagers. Realizing its attack, Minato yelled out to everyone. "Everyone! Get out of the way!" In just a nick of time, everyone jumped out of the spot of the attack, as the Hand slammed itself on only the solid floor.
Drawing out his sword, Souji turned his head to warn the girls. "Chie-san! Yukari-san! Stay out of harm's way! We'll take care of that giant hand!" he said, before charging himself toward the Hand. Minato also drew his sword and charged himself toward it.
But just as they made a few steps foward, the Hand jumped from the ground once more and flicked its fingers, before a burst of ice was casted on Souji. Noticing the burst, Souji quickly stepped out from the attack, before it bursted into icicle. Minato noticed the skill that the Hand casted. "Looks like it can use Bufu skills! Which means...!" He suddenly stopped dead to his tracks, before he drew out his Evoker, point it on his head and began to cast some of his own skills. "... Its weakness must be fire! Agi!" Minato cried out, pulling the trigger to unleash his Persona, as Orpheus made his appearance. He casted a burst of fire on the Hand, which struck it right where Minato wanted it to be. The Hand took some serious damage, but not enough to get it down. It set its sight on Minato, claiming him to be the death of it. It jumped from the ground and formed itself into a fist, as it flew toward Minato at a quick speed. Unable to dodge the quick fist, Minato shielded himself with the sword, bracing for the impact. The fist got him. However, the block was not helpful for Minato and the young blue-haired teenager collapsed on his knee. "Grr... Damn it...!"
"Minato!" shouted Souji. The Hand then attempted to unleash its final strike on the fallen Persona-user. The silver-haired teenager ran toward the two of them, attempting to protect Minato from the strike. "Hang on! I'll get you!" He could not use his Zio skill, as the Hand would be resisting it and it would be a waste.
But then, just as the Hand was about to strike down Minato, Souji suddenly heard a sound of a glass broken into pieces. Everything was stopped in time. Everything and everyone. However, Souji, though petrified from time, suddenly heard a voice calling inside of his head.
"Thou art I... And I am thou... I am a devil who will punish those who were sent into the Underworld! I only listen to demons of the highest order! But you, my young and silent human, are most interesting indeed! I shall serve you until my duties are done! Call me now! And I will unleash the flames of hell upon your enemies!"
Souji remembered that voice. It was the voice of a certain goblin that he had obtained during the beginning of his adventure back in Inaba. Then, slowly, time slowly went back to normal. And the Hand slowly moved to normal to attack Minato. Souji knew what he must do. He began to summon a Persona other than Izanagi to rescue Minato, with the aid of the card on his hand.
"Ukobach!" he cried out, crushing the card, revealing a small, green and devilish Goblin with blond hair, holding a long spoon with the curve part in flames. "Go! Agi!" Suddenly, a burst of flame was casted on the Hand, bursting up and stunning it, making it back away from Minato and from its attack. Souji ran over to Minato and lended a hand to him. "You alright, Minato?"
"Yeah... I'm fine... A little sore, though." said Minato, as he took Souji's hand and lifted himself up to the ground. "Thanks, Souji."
The silver-haired nodded in response. Then, they looked at the Hand, which seemed to be weakened after receiving two blast of fire. "It looks like it's weak. He's going down soon enough."
"Then let us commence an All-Out attack!" With that, both Minato and Souji charged at the Hand, going all-out on it. After reaching it, they commenced with numerous slashes and strikes on it, in hopes of taking it down to end it all. In the end, they managed to take it down, as it collapsed to the ground, disappearing into dark aura. All that was left of it was the two Persona-users, standing on the spot where the Hand disappeared. "... It's all..."
"... Over."
After the battle was over, the two girls ran toward the two boys, confirming it to be safe to come over. "Minato-san! Souji-san!" shouted out Chie, as she and Yukari reached them. "Oh God, are you two alright?! That hand looked tough on your guys!" Chie received a nod from both of the two Persona-users, which made her smile and glad for them to be safe and sound.
Yukari, who was too busy to know if the boys are alright, was looking around the room, noticing one, strange thing around here. "Hey... Where did that hooded guy go?" she said. As the others remembered the stranger, they began to look around as well. They found no trace of him at all. "It looks like he disappeared when that giant hand appeared... Don't you guys think?"
They all nodded in response. "This guy... He knows about this place... And he might be the one responsible for the change..." said Minato.
"Yeah..." said Souji. "... If you guys noticed, he summoned a Shadow to attack us. And he wants us to die..."
"But what does he mean? We're a nuissance of their goal...? This doesn't sound good at all..."
While the two Persona-users discusted about everything that happened, Chie now remembered something that got her concern about them. Something that no other people other than them would know. "Hey, you two..." she stated. Minato and Souji turned to Chie. "... How did you two know about this? About all of this? Those monsters, the coffins, the time and place whatnot, everything... How do you guys know all of this?"
The two Persona-users turned to each other, before thinking of the response that won't get Chie and Yukari confused about the whole thing. "Well..." started Minato. "... We... already experienced the same thing before." Souji nodded in agreement.
"Oh really?" said Yukari. "Well... If you guys know about all of this already, then... Well..." She trailed off, not finding any more words to describe.
"Well, anyways, we better get out of here. I don't wanna run into those things again. I had enough monsters for today." said Chie, as she began to walk toward the entrance, in hopes of getting out of this nightmare once and for all. However, suddenly, a sudden rumble occured on the ground, surprising everyone. As they began to look around to see what caused the sudden rumble, everything went blank in their eyes, as if a bright light had covered the entire room.
-----
The light was slowly fading from the young teenagers' eyes. As the light faded, in their eyes, the room was different than before... But normal than last time.
Yes, they were still on the first floor, in front of the entrance. But the room changed. It changed back to normal. The floors and walls were as colorful white as before. No puddle of blood was found or stained on the floor or walls. Everything was back to normal.
"We're... we're back...?" Chie was the first one to say it.
"The hospital... It's back to normal... It's back to normal! Oh, what a relief!" shouted out Yukari, glad that everything went back to normal as it was before.
"But how?" wondered Minato.
"I don't know... But whatever the case, we made it out alive. That's what matters for now." said Souji, smiling of relief.
"Wooh hoo!!! I'm so glad that nightmare is over with! We're back in the same old hospital as before!" cried out Chie. "Oh, how I wish to kiss the floor hard! I'll never ever disrespect the hospital ever again!"
Yukari could only giggled at Chie. "Chie-san, you're so childish!" And so, everyone laughed altogether, celebrating the sudden return of the hospital's normal state.
Then, a nurse came walking down the hallway, yawning of fatigue after working for a long time. That was when she noticed the four teenagers, laughing and celebrating around the room. "Hey, hey! What are you kids doing here? It's not visiting time, you know." she said.
Everyone stopped laughing and celebrating to face the nurse. "Oh! Heh heh... Sorry about that." apologized Yukari. The others nodded on her.
"... Hey, wait a minute..." The nurse began to look up on her notepad in her arms. She noticed the name "Chie Satonaka" and "Yukari Takeba" in the category of the people who volunteered today, which was that they were the only people who volunteered. "Aren't you two Chie Satonaka-san and Yukari Takeba-san?"
"Um... Yeah, why?" asked Chie.
"Your shift was already over two hours ago."
"Wha...? Really?"
"In fact, you were supposed to be done at 8 PM. Right now, it's 10 PM, two hours after you're done."
"Wha?! It's already 10?!" To the teenagers' surprised, time had already passed by. It was already 10 PM.
"Yeah. And you should go home. Your parents may be worried about you. You kids go along home already. Come on, we don't wanna get in trouble for staying out late, do we?"
"Uh... Don't think so."
"Good. Then go. And thank you for volunteering for us. We hope that you will come back to aid us a little more." And with that, the nurse left the teenagers alone.
"Whoa... Already 10? Time does pass by all of the sudden..." Chie said. Then, she started to yawn, covering her mouth with her hand out of polited matter. "Mm... Man, I'm tired... I dunno where I got this tired all of the sudden..."
At the same time, Yukari yawned as well, feeling tired just like Chie. "Mm... Maybe it was all that running... But that wouldn't be the case, would it?" she said. Minato and Souji also felt fatigue. The two of them knew that once they experienced this sort of thing like the Dark Hour or in the TV world, they would be fatigue more easily.
"Well... Anyways, I better go home now... Don't want my parents to worry about me for being this late..." said Chie. She then turned to the Persona-users one last time. "I really wanna know how you guys knew about what happened back there all so easily, but... Well, I guess it'll have to wait... See ya guys tomorrow!" With that, she ran to the entrance and exited the hospital, running home.
Then, it was Yukari's turn to say good bye, as she turned to face the two Persona-users as well. "Well, we didn't receive any money, but... I guess being alive is worth it. I hope I don't run over to the same kind of situation like last time again..." she said. She then bowed to them. "Well, I gotta go now. See ya guys tomorrow. And... Thanks for protecting us from those... Shadows or whatever they're called." She smiled. She then looked at Minato one last time, before blushing. "... Especially you too, Minato-san..." With that, she left the building as well.
As the two girls had left, Minato and Souji are left, standing on the floor, feeling tired as before. "So... What do you think we should do now?" asked Souji to Minato.
"Well..." started Minato, before he yawned. "... We... better go find somewhere to sleep. I hope this town has some hotels that we can sleep in..."
"Well, let's get going..." With that, the two Persona-users left the hospital, finding a place to sleep in. They had hope to find a hotel to sleep in or else, they'll end up sleeping in the streets, with a cold that will get to them tomorrow.
End of Chapter
Hey, guys! It's me again! Well, looks like I'm done with the chapter... After all these months! Well, I hope it makes up with all these stalling and for not updating for a long time. You see, I... Well, let's just say I'm trying to find my writing side back. And now I have... Sort of. Well, anyways, here's Chapter 3, just as you guys wanted! I hope you enjoyed it!
Well, see ya! And review, please! I need some reviews! T-T