Hey, me again. Update up.

=}+{=

What had I ever earned?

The reward for toil had always been more toil.

When I dug the best ditches, he didn't even give me a bigger shovel.

And I never, ever asked for anything in return.

Which meant I never got anything in return.

=}+{=

We ran as fast as Yukiko could manage.

There was a subdued atmosphere in the streets of Iwatodai, now the pandaemonium calmed down.

Of course, this was the time where the pain takes hold before the reality sinks in.

"Fuuka." I said aloud as Yukiko caught her breath. "Scan the building at the co-ordinates I'm sending you. I need an entry way into apartment 304. Preferably via window."

~ On it. ~ Fuuka replied in my ear as Yukiko stood up straight, gulping in more air.

I checked on the girl.

She's sizing it up.

~ Go down this alley way and pull the ladder down from the fire escape. ~ Fuuka explained, showing me the location she was talking about. ~ Run three flights up and open the second window. Hurry! ~

"LET'S GO!" I shouted, Yukiko sprinting alongside me. We had to run in synch, otherwise I'd end up choking her, and I'm not risking another fusion today just for convenience's sake.

Right, turn here, Yukiko following, jump onto this bin and pull-

Land on my backside, push Yukiko up the ladder. "Keep moving." I told her, rubbing my back before grabbing onto the ladder myself.

Once she got to the top and I was still climbing, she nursed her neck, keeping low until I caught up.

Right, her neck is chained my wrist.

Necks have a quality of remaining at the verticalmost end of the human body.

Wrists have a choice of being up or down.

I should've gone first.

"Up we go." Yukiko grunted, running up the stairs, me close behind.

One flight.

And her head's in the noose.

Two flights.

Sniffling...

Three flights NO DON'T KICK THE CHAIR OVER!

I slammed into the glass as the girl fell, then bounced back into the railing.

Dangit, I HATE DOUBLE GLAZING!

"AMETERASU!" Yukiko shouted, smashing a card to summon her persona, who slashed through the glass and bursted forward to cut the rope of the girl before she choked to death.

I vaulted in, Yukiko tumbling after me, and grabbed the girl.

Barely conscious, severe bruising around her neck.

Neck didn't break. That's a small mercy.

"Thank you." I told Yukiko as she brushed the broken glass from her hand. "I'm sorry for pushing you, but I really appreciate it."

"It's... it's okay..." She replied, breathing heavily. "Is she gonna be okay?"

There was a banging at the door.

"Ayako-chan?" One of her roomates shouted. "Ayako-chan, is everything okay?"

I stood up.

We need to leave.

But this girl-Ayako, she needs help.

"What do we do?" Yukiko whispered into my ear.

I looked around.

Yukiko's prints were on the carpet, and on the glass.

"Do you have a criminal record?" I asked her, to which she took offense.

"N-NO!" She shouted. "Why would you even-"

"Ayako-chan, is there someone in there with you?" Roommate asked. "I'm coming in, hold on."

"Because they're gonna dust for prints and I hope that they don't link you to the crime." I replied, transforming into a ginger bearded man. "Now to give you an alibi." I added, putting a had to her face.

"EH?!" She shouted, her hair turning blonde and wavy, dropping a bust size and gaining an inch in leg height.

And the friend came through the door.

"Wh-what on-"

"MOVE!" I shouted, pushing Yukiko out the window and down the fire escape.

"HEY- WAIT!" Ayako's roommate shouted, rushing to the window as we escaped. "STOP! POLICE!"

But we walked onto the street as two dark-haired Japanese students.

Yukiko played with her hair on the way back to Shinji's. "So... how did you do that..?" she asked me.

"I ate Zeus a while ago." I told her. "Power to change both my appearance and that of others is one that stuck as my own. Plus a few lightning skills."

Caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror as I said that.

I look old.

Not massively, but older than I should be for my age.

I think I might be getting a few wrinkles.

And I can see the Emperor motif behind me.

That's... unusual.

I'm not supposed to have an arcana am I?

I looked within myself.

Four Personae.

That's not good.

I haven't been able to single out Personae like that for years.

On top of that, I don't recognise any of these as ones Minato used.

Jacob, 0, Fool arcana. Null fire, null ice, null light. Weak to electricity and wind.

Zeus, 4, Rebel arcana. Repel electricity, null wind.

Izanami, 3, Refuge arcana. Drain electricity, null light, null dark.

Chernobog, 11, Hunger arcana. Null physical, dark, and ice, weak to fire and wind.

Jacob's mine.

I devoured Zeus and Izanami, both using the skill Black God, which I used from Minato's personae, but now it's held by Chernobog.

And Izanami has a lot of scanning techniques, which let me see things from other viewpoints, and connect with other people's Shadows.

I have no idea where Chernobog came from. Following the trend, I should have Leliel.

I know for a fact Minato never had Chernobog.

...

Since when did I start thinking of myself as separate from Minato?

I am him and he is me, right?

So why does that feel so wrong now?

"Is... something wrong?" Yukiko asked, noticing I wasn't listening to her.

"N-no." I lied, raising my hand to wipe my forehead. "It's fi-"

There is blood on my hand.

There is blood on my hand.

There is bright red blood on my hand.

I licked it.

It stung my hand.

It tasted metallic.

I felt something flap against my tongue.

I knelt down and wiped my hand against the snow, leaving a bloody smear against the white.

Yukiko said something, but I wasn't listening.

There was a cut on my hand.

More blood oozed out of it.

"It's probably from the glass." Yukiko said, taking my hand and shoving a diarahan down it.

It tingled as the wound closed up.

"Better?" She asked me, trying to cheer me up for whatever mysterious reason I seemed down.

"Yukiko?" I asked her, looking into her eyes. "You've been fighting Shadows long enough to know that their blood is black. You've probably been in enough fights to know that their blood tastes like sludge."

Small clouds came out of my mouth when I talked.

There was a pain in my chest.

My toes are numb.

"You're freezing." Yukiko told me, purposefully ignoring the question I wasn't asking. "Let's get you inside."

I didn't talk to anyone for a while.

Someone forced a hot drink into my hand.

I burned my mouth on it.

I switched persona to Jacob.

It was easier to drink it then.

The cold wasn't as intense either.

Snapped out of it after an hour or so.

I checked the clock.

Four thirty.

It has not been a fun day.

There are still a lot of people in this city that need help.

I can't do it.

Can't help them all.

I scanned through them again.

No one else is suicidal yet.

Quick scan again,

Two or three may contemplate it in the next few hours or so.

I marked those as alert just in case.

Everyone else can fend for themselves at the moment.

"You okay?" Yukari asked, sat opposite me.

I shrugged. "It's been a long day." I told her. "Wanna have that talk?"

She nodded, and we both looked at Yukiko.

"Um... don't mind me, it's okay." She assured us awkwardly. "Uh... do... you want me to go..? Uh..."

The door clicked shut behind me, and Yukari sat on the bathtub.

I picked a spot on the porcelain throne, resting my arm on the loo roll. Yukiko's sat in the changing room outside the Japanese bathrooms they always have.

"So," Yukari said, looking right at me. "Whatcha wanna talk about?"

"I wanted to give you a proper explanation." I told her.

"Explain what?" She asked. "You're gonna defend him? You're gonna try and make it right between me and him now?"

"No." I told her. "Present evidence notwithstanding, I'm his Shadow. I was born of his weaknesses and self-hate that he wasn't willing to accept. As far as I am concerned, he's a self-serving scumbag that didn't care what anyone else felt as long as he was getting what he wanted, but what I can tell you is that he cared about you. I might even go as far as to say that he loved you, if he was capable of actually having that emotion."

Yep, reopening old wounds is the first part of treating them properly. "So you're trying to make things right then?" She replied bluntly.

"Sounds it, but that's not what I'm trying to achieve." I replied, meeting her glare. "Minato Arisoto left this mortal plane on January thirty-first. Everything after that point was me. I was the one that broke up with you, not him, and the events I told you about then happened."

Yep, reopening old wounds hurts. "But Minato Arisoto had no intention of telling you about them because he wasn't even aware of them himself."

That just got blankness from her.

"Growing up, Minato Arisoto experienced blackouts." I told her. "Sometimes he'd wake up and he'd be holding a gun to his neck. Sometimes he would be soaked in someone else's blood. In time, he came to control them, but he referred to the entity that would take over as The Oncoming." I explained. "It wasn't until he came back to Japan that they began happening again, starting around the time of the Lovers battle. After he was charmed, when he summoned Orpheus Hollow."

"And that Oncoming was you." She replied, putting two and two together.

"I think so, but I'm not certain." I answered. "But I think so, because I remember what happened during those events. However, after Orpheus Hollow, there would be events that I was blacked out from, that he remembered but I could not. These were events he did not want me present for."

That raised her eyebrow.

"So, Shadow." She replied. "Do you remember that time he hid in a tree, waited for me to get out of school before swinging out and kissing me upside down?"

I blinked.

Then I laughed.

"That would be something he would do..." I said, smiling. "Yeah, that's the kind of events that he was stopping me from knowing about. I honestly had no idea what you saw in him before I figured it out. But long story short, he was hiding things from me, just as I'd been hiding things from him earlier in his life. It took a while before I was doing it to him."

"So what, it's your fault he cheated on me?" Yukari asked, seeing where this was going.

"Mostly on one end, not quite on another." I replied. "But that's one point I wanted to clear. Another was what having over two hundred fragments in your psyche kept separate all at once, yet all of them self aware and listening to their voices all the time?"

That was another whammy for her.

"You probably noticed, but from the time of the trip to Inaba until Christmas, Minato Arisoto was slowly losing it." I told her. "His grip on his sanity, rationality and self-restraint grew slippier and slippier and slippier until eventually he started creating his own personae at will and he threw all the fetters that kept him human into the scrap heap. After that point, he would jump out of planes to joust against fighter jets. He was an unstoppable force with nothing to hold him back. It took half the school being massacred in a battle intended to capture him to remind him of his humanity, and even that didn't hold him to reason for very long."

She nodded at that. She'd noticed that too.

"During that time, right and wrong were very malleable concepts for him." I explained. "I want to do it, therefore it's right, because I'm going to save humanity. I can do anything, so no one can dictate to me what I can and can't do. I do what I feel like because I feel like doing it." I broke eye contact there out of shame. I had to force myself to look again before I continued. "His mind was so shattered that he couldn't even reason otherwise until January thirty-first, when Nyx made a large hole in his chest."

She nodded.

"At that point, he could have just killed Nyx for good." I explained. "He could have carried on as usual, but at that moment he saw what he had become and he decided to get rid of me. To fix his self. The great seal wasn't just for Nyx and Erebus, it was for him. To keep everyone else safe."

She nodded again, crying.

"I was responsible for Mitsuru." I told her. "Over time I took a prominent role in his psyche in the relationship. When it came to it, he resisted. I didn't. Miss Yamano was a joke." I continued. "A sick, sadistic act to infiltrate the Nyxists because of some bright idea that he had, one he would normally think about and decide against, at least without backup. Aigis was closest to an actual affair." I explained. "She was an emotional foil that managed to keep him somewhat intact. He knew how that would end, even with everything slipping and he told you about it before hand. You remember that, don't you?"

She nodded, grimly. "I never thought... that..."

I could rip into her. I could remind her that she knew that social linking was a two-way deal. I could point out that she knew this was going to happen all along but she refused to accept it, willingly giving him permission to go off with another woman.

But I didn't.

That would be uncalled for.

That would be something her Shadow would do.

"I'm not going to lie and say that he was blameless." I told her. "He had a measure of control, even if he didn't think about what he was doing half the time. He succumbed to power and decided to redeem himself at the last second. As far as I'm concerned, that was cowardly of him, especially leaving me to clean up his mess, but that's just the reinstated facts."

"So, what." She snapped. "You're saying you forced him to sleep with Mitsuru then told me he did it afterwards?"

"I'm not entirely sure because I didn't even know I existed until he died." I replied. "I won't justify either him or myself to you. But I do ask that you'll forgive me, at least to the level so we can work together."

She nodded, again.

Awkward silence.

"Can I see him?" she asked.

Aaand that's dangerous ground that I wanted to avoid- No, no actually.

That's a reasonable question.

It's a fair request.

"If you can create and maintain a ten foot radius sphere of breathable atmosphere, then I will take you to go see him when we're chained to each other." I told her. "I can't promise you anything from what will come out of it, but I can take you to where his soul currently resides, but you will have to provide the oxygen."

She nodded. "Thanks." She said morosely, wondering if she even wanted to or not. Whatever she saw in him, she clearly saw something worth having if she's still willing to try again after all this time.

You would have thought she would have moved on by now.

But Minato has that effect on people.

His mere presence makes people just want to bend to his will, try to please him, get a reaction to him, until his mere passing glance means the world to them.

...

Yukari's not the only one that needs to move on it seems.

There was a well-timed knock on the door.

"Hey, Yukari, you in there?" Chie asked from the other side. "Everything alright?"

Yukari stood up. "Yeah, I'm fine." she lied, moving to the door. "Coming out in a sec, hold on."

She grabbed the door handle. "Coming?" She asked.

"I'd love to." I told her. "But apparently I need pee. I'm pretty sure you aren't in the mood to watch."

That got a laugh out of her. "Whatever." She smiled, leaving. "Later."

SMASH

Oh. Oh dear.

Thou shalt have our blessing when thou createst a persona of the Twins arcana...

Twins.

That's a reversed Lovers.

I smirked, closing the door behind her. "Later." I replied. "Hold on a sec Yukiko."

Now...

How do I pee?

Came back down around five without any major mishaps. There was food for everyone. Apparently I was invited. Shaweet.

Sat between Yukiko and Marina on the table as Shinji, Ken and Naoki began dishing up.

Is it alright for us to be enjoying a meal together while people are mourning loved ones outside?

Gonna sound cold for this, but yes. It is alright for us to be enjoying ourselves right now.

Some of us are going to die from this.

Even if we don't, every one of us are going to be facing death every night.

For the people who are still alive.

Kill for the living.

Kill for the dead.

"Mitsuru." I said, looking across the table to my 'fiancé'. "I need you to get me a fake identity. Something I can live under for the time being."

"Of course." She nodded, picking up her chopsticks as a bowl was placed in front of her. "Any preferences for your name?"

I leaned forward, catching Naoto's eye. "Hey, Nat." I called from down the table. "Do you object with me taking the family name?"

She looked at me, then glared. "Will you do anything our ancestors would be ashamed of?" She asked.

"Well, seeing as I already wiped out most of the clans for being twisted excuses for human beings, the answer would be most likely." I replied with a shrug. "But, if you were to rephrase the question, then I would only bring honour to the name. And giggles. Mostly honour. And a little violence. Lots of it."

She smirked in spite of herself. "Do as you wish." She replied, leaning back and rejoining her conversation. "You have my consent."

"Great." I grinned, turning back to Mitsuru. "My name's Ryoku Kuzunoha." I told her. "Japanese, mid European, history of a problem solver. Can you get your guys to hook my up?"

She smiled. "Expect your passport and social security number by Monday." See assured me.

So, it's... Wednesday now. Thursday I'll be with Mitsuru, Friday with Kanji, Saturday with a Hierophant, probably Shinji, then I'd most likely spend Sunday with Yukari.

...

Wow we have a lot of Chariots to chose from. Aigis, Kazushi, Rio and Chie. Monday will be a fun day.

Tuesday I'll have to be at school with Kenjamin. Yay.

Let's see... Naoki was a hermit arcana traditionally, so I might be with him this time next week. That makes nine.

So I'll have a week before encountering any potential Arcana difficulties.

Alright, this should be fun.

Yosuke put a hand on mine and Yukiko's shoulders, then put his head between us. "Hey, so we talked to Kanji." He explained. "He's not happy with the situation, but he'll help out with you guys for the next couple of days as long as you don't cause any trouble and let him work. His mom's sick right now, so he's taking care of the family business and can't fight right now, but you can crash at his place whenever it's his turn."

"Thanks man." I told him, Yukiko and Mitsuru nodding.

"I'm guessing you'll have to switch to Kirijo-senpai tonight, since we kinda cheated today." Yosuke continued sheepishly. "Are you alright to escort him around?"

"Of course." Mitsuru nodded. "Do we have any arrangements for Shinjiro to join us in Inaba for the return journey?"

Yosuke shook his head. "Either Rise-chan or Takeba-san's coming on Sunday." he explained. "Seta's uncle flipped his lid and wants you to force a Persona on him."

"What!?" Yukiko whisper-shouted. "Is he serious?"

"It might work, but I have my doubts." Mitsuru interjected. "My father tried many times for myself after I discovered my Persona. I wasn't much older than miss Dojima myself when I discovered my Persona, and my father was powerless to help at that time."

"We thought about that." Yosuke nodded, glancing at Aigis. "That's why Naoto-san's going with you."

"How would that-" Mitsuru began, before stopping herself. "You're going to force him into the television so he can face his shadow. Are you sure that Dojima-san understands the risks involved?"

"If not, then you can chain up to that damned wolf that's in there." Yosuke answered. "Rise-san discovered that it's a hierophant Arcana so it should work, even if you'll have to beat it senseless to stop it from eating your arm off."

"Black Shuck won't be eating anyone for a while." I told him. "It's had its fill."

"Wait, what? Yosuke shout-whispered in my ear, then stepped back. "Never mind, I don't want to know. That thing's nothing but trouble. I'm gonna get to my dinner, we'll talk more later."

Yep, later.

It-a-daki-mat-su.

Right?

=}+{=

Violence ensues next chapter. Details are details. Let's just say it would blow all minds involved. Epic ensues.