Disclaimer: I do not own Persona 3—or any version of the Persona series, really. I just own this rather shameless piece of work.

Other Notes: Aha… hahaha… ha… I've no excuses. Life is just really, really, really mean.

Anyways, Happy Holidays to those that celebrate and many thank yous to those who have been patient and apologies for the long wait. I still can't promise any sort of stable updating schedule, but I will do my best to keep this story going until it's finished!

Also, reading the early chapters of this story that I did for my insane "30 chapters in 30 days" NANOWRIMO challenge (even though I only made it to 26) is so cringe-inducing. I don't know how I did it and I don't know how it made people stick around, but kudos to all of you, seriously. When this story is done, I'll probably go back and edit them to be more… palatable, I guess? But judging on how long it takes me now to update, that'll probably be a long time incoming.

Fair warning, this chapter jumps a lot. I don't consider it filler since things do happen that tie in to stuff later on, but it will probably feel that way. Good news is that means more exciting stuff will happen next, so yay for that! (Whenever that may be, haha!)

Symbiosis

Chapter Thirty-Two

After everything Tamamo had told him, including the fact that he was housing the amnesiac Death in his head, Minato supposed he could be forgiven for expecting that their little group bonding sessions in his head would stop.

They didn't.

That much was evident to him now, staring blankly at the wall of trees in his mind, standing in the middle of a clearing filled with blue fireflies. Tamamo stood near the center of the clearing, holding a clear jar. Pharos moved nearby, a bug-catching net in hand, looking puzzled but dutifully trying to catch the fireflies.

Minato carefully strode up to his Other, unable to help keeping a cautious eye on the child Death. "Hey."

Tamamo turned as he approached, smiling so blithely that he reached up to tug on a lock of her hair. "Hey, yourself. Ready for school?"

He shrugged, eyes still glued on Pharos. His net was glowing slightly with caught fireflies. "It's something to do. Junpei's acting like it's the end of the world, though."

That earned him a dry look, which he responded to with a placid blink of his eyes. Her expression cracked into a smile, so he counted that as his win. As if sensing his thoughts, she rolled her eyes and turned to call, "Pharos! That's enough, let's put those in the jar."

The boy came over obediently and it took some effort for Minato not to step away and drag Tamamo with him. If either noticed, they didn't say, instead busying themselves with carefully transferring the oddly-colored fireflies into the jar and conjuring a lid to keep them there. Once the lid was in place, Tamamo handed it over to Pharos to inspect, which he did with interest and confusion.

"So what's the occasion?" Minato asked.

Tamamo shrugged as she straightened. "Not much apart from the usual. Though I would like to ask if you've noticed the Apathy Syndrome victims sprouting up."

He grimaced. "Yeah, they're starting to come around." They were hard to miss, actually, no matter how hard people tried to ignore them lingering in the street corners like ghosts. "Not that I'm surprised. Just a little more than a week now."

Nine days, if he was doing his math right. Which meant that the number of cases was likely to rise up rapidly in the coming days. And as disturbing as that was, it certainly gave him the motivation to fight the next Arcana Shadow.

"Are you both speaking about the next ordeal?" Pharos spoke up suddenly, startling Minato.

"Pretty much," Tamamo replied before Minato could say anything. Her lips quirked. "Guessing there's nothing much you can tell us about it?"

Pharos shook his head, looking back down at the jar of fireflies in his hands. After a long moment, it seemed as if he had lost himself in the soft glowing lights. But then, "So you're still going to fight?"

"Yep." Tamamo kneeled, poking at the glass of the jar and watching as the fireflies fluttered around inside.

"Even if it is the wish of the people for the Fall to come?" the boy asked, plaintive.

"Even so," said Tamamo. "Although, I've never believed in the idea that humanity as a whole could be so distraught that we wanted to die, exactly. An escape from the pain, maybe. Or a wish for more out of life than the rut we've dug ourselves into. But not death."

Minato tilted his head at her words, contemplative. That did sound more likely. The fear of dying was almost an inherent feeling for most people, as was an aversion to pain. The idea of the Fall being something desired was almost paradoxical to the base of human nature, since the ultimate conclusion was death. But the lead up to the Fall? As Tamamo put it, "mass Apathy Syndrome"? There would hardly be anything to fear after that struck, if only because no one would care or even realize they were dying anymore. "…In other words, we'll fight to save them now so that they can save themselves later."

"It's almost like that quote of the hungry man and the fish," his Other quipped with a grin. The approval in her bicolored eyes made him crack a smile automatically in return, a sliver of pride trickling in. "Give him one and he'll eat for a day, but teach him how to get one himself and he'll do the rest. We might not be able to do that with the whole of humanity in one lifetime, but we can at least give them more time to learn."

"So you will fight… just for that small chance…" Pharos mumbled, his blue, blue eyes fixated on the softly glowing imaginary insects in the jar.

And though part of Minato still felt reluctant to speak as easily with the manifestation of Death as he had before, something told him that something pivotal was occurring. "We will. Even if it scares the hell out of us, we will."

The trio fell into silence, each lost in their own thoughts. But as Pharos pulled off the lid to release the fireflies at Tamamo's quiet instruction, Minato saw a certain awareness in those blue eyes that had not been there before.

When the boy faded from view, his presence retreating back to that eerie door hidden in the shadows of the forest, Minato wondered what it meant.

The days leading up to the next Full Moon operation were, in a word, hectic.

Not because the members of SEES were running around losing their heads trying to prepare for that while juggling the end of their summer vacation and the start of the new school semester. SEES as a whole was actually rather calm about the whole thing, which Minato attributed to it becoming something of a routine.

No, what made the days hectic to Minato was that Shuji Ikutsuki needed to have his face punched in, Ken Amada needed to not be in SEES, Strega needed better timing, and Tamamo needed to start speaking Japanese again.

"I am speaking Japanese, though?" his Other asked, bewildered. "…Aren't I?"

In a manner of speaking, yes, Minato replied, but I just asked if you thought it would be a good idea to invite Ken to the Film Festival and you said something along the lines of vengeance as a plot point being a romanticized notion that should 'die in a fire' and that kids are impressionable and shouldn't be encouraged to go out and avenge an entire clan because they'll be stupid enough to do it and doom the whole world to some eye in the moon.

"…Oh."

Is there something you're not telling me about Ken Amada's importance to the Fall? he asked mildly.

"No, no… That's just… a stupid… It's nothing, so what's this about a Film Festival?"

There's a superhero movie showing today according to Screen Shot's website. It looked like the type Ken liked to see and I was wondering if you thought it'd be a good idea to take him along to see it. Since he gets embarrassed about it and all.

Tamamo hummed. "I think you should at least ask. I mean, you've been watching Phoenix Ranger Featherman with him on the mornings when you can be bothered to wake up that early, so he knows you won't make fun of him for it." She gave the feeling of a shrug. "It wouldn't hurt to try."

With barely a thought more, Minato did.

He considered it a success when Ken hesitated for only a few seconds before agreeing, and with a more genuine smile than the usual half-smiles he'd been gracing the dorm with before.

(Minato would never know it, but after they left to catch the showing, Junpei huffed and muttered from his place in the dorm's lounge, "Even kids like him, what the hell."

"What's so bad about that?" Yukari asked.

Junpei melodramatically tried to melt into the sofa, arms flinging upwards as he illustrated his point. "His club loves him, the student council depends on him, an android practically imprints on him… And now the sullen kid opens up to him? Can this guy be any more perfect?"

The brunette snorted. "That depends. Do you like him?"

"Well, yeah, but… Hey." He sat up. "Hey, wait a second—Yuka-tan! It's not like that! Ugh!" And he flopped back down, groaning.

She only laughed at his flailing.)

"I don't understand. Why do they call him Amoebaman? He's nothing like an amoeba. Is it because his powers has that goo thing that can sorta move on its own and grab things? I don't get it," Tamamo groused as Minato and Ken exited the theater some hours later.

Unlike his Other's griping about details, Ken seemed content with the movie overall. And by "content", Minato meant "starry-eyed enthusiasm". "That was so cool! Did you see the part where Amoebaman gets captured? And—and the part where he was in that underground prison, but Morus Signal came to help!"

As much as Minato agreed with Tamamo on some points, it was easier to ride along with Ken's wave of excitement. "Yeah, when they tied him up, I thought the others weren't going to get there in time. That was actually pretty intense."

"I know, right!?" Ken gushed. Then, his eyes widened as he seemed to return back to reality as they left the building, standing out in the open in the middle of Port Island Station. He flushed and shuffled with his hands for a bit before jamming them in the pockets of his shorts. He cleared his throat. "B—But yeah, the movie was pretty good. Even if I know it's all fake."

Very deliberately ignoring the switch in the younger boy's mood, Minato nodded. "That was a good movie to end summer vacation on." He smiled. "Thanks for watching it with me."

The boy blinked up at him, but then returned his smile. It wasn't the bright grin he'd been sporting all of a minute ago, but it was good enough. "Thank you for inviting me along. I had a lot of fun."

Minato opened his mouth to reply when his eye caught something brightly colored in the distance. He glanced at it briefly before returning his attention to Ken only to pause when his mind caught up with what he saw. Tamamo.

"I know," she replied softly.

Minato looked again, resting his gaze on a woman with long, straight hair of a brighter red color than Mitsuru's. He saw only the back of her head, but while she and her white dress stuck out in the crowd, what really caught his eye was Junpei, who had a grasp on one of her arms. Even from a distance, he looked worried.

"Minato-san?" Ken called.

He didn't reply immediately, too focused on his friend. Neither he nor the girl seemed to notice his intense staring, thankfully, and the girl eventually moved away, leaving Junpei to stare after her. It was only then that he looked back to Ken, smiling apologetically. "Sorry. Shall we head back?"

Ken, confused, glanced over his shoulder. He blinked in surprise. "Oh, isn't that Junpei-san?"

"Yeah," Minato confirmed, eyes drifting to where the red-haired girl disappeared to. "I thought about calling out to him, but he seemed busy."

After a moment, Ken nodded and faced forward again as they left the station, apparently content to leave things at that. Minato only looked once more in Junpei's direction before following.

That night, with the proof that Junpei had indeed met the elusive Chidori of Strega, Minato found himself asking, Which do you think is the most likely scenario to come around?

At first glance, he had doubted the ability of such a slight young woman being able to overpower someone like Junpei. She seemed so frail-looking in her white dress, even from afar. Junpei wasn't the biggest guy around, but for her to take him down without a Persona… Well, he couldn't help but feel skeptical, as sexist as it sounded. But the more he thought about it, the more he realized how unfair that was. After all, nobody would be expecting high school students (and an elementary student now) to be successfully fighting off monsters like the Shadows, but there they were.

All it took was the right weakness and the right opening.

With that in mind, Tamamo's concerns about whether Strega would attempt to kidnap Junpei or himself (or any SEES member, really) became a lot more valid. Depending on how much effort Strega chose to expend, all of their members had weak points in their schedules that had them completely open and vulnerable. It was paranoia fuel at its finest.

"I really want to say that she'll go and kidnap Junpei anyway, as bad as that sounds, since she knows his face and can manipulate him. She's likely only seen yours and the others' from a distance in comparison, when Jin and Takaya stopped you guys before." She sighed. "But with those two calling the shots, they'd definitely target you if they could, simply by virtue of you being the squad leader for field missions. All that and considering your tendency for poor luck during these operations? I'd say it's something like a 60-40 in your favor. Or not-favor, as it were."

He snorted. Perfect.

"As terrible as it sounds, I really, really hope it's Junpei that's taken that night."

Returning to school for the second semester was… well.

When the first conversation he heard before even strolling through the gate was a girl considering trying to "come down with Apathy Syndrome" just to get out of caring about class and wanting to laze around in bed, Minato thought he could be forgiven for his plummeting mood. It was at that moment that he also felt he understood Junpei's point more about their escapades during the Dark Hour going unnoticed, albeit from a different perspective.

To the rest of the world, Apathy Syndrome was a strange disease that struck and lifted seemingly at random. Perhaps some scientists and doctors realized the pattern concerning the lunar cycle, but without knowledge of the Dark Hour, any further reasoning and attempts to discern a cause and a cure would fail. People like the students at Gekkoukan High could joke about it so lightly because they had no idea about the larger plot it all tied into.

They had no idea that he and his friends and classmates were risking their lives at least once a month just so the rest of the populace could continue living on, blissfully unaware of the very real consequences that would occur should SEES fail.

Even so, when the girl said that Apathy Syndrome didn't "sound too bad", as if she wasn't trivializing all their efforts to combat it, it took a lot of willpower not to march over and try to make her understand exactly what Apathy Syndrome victims went through. Exactly how much pain and fear he and his friends endured to keep the numbers of those people from rising higher.

It was just an insensitive comment, he knew. But now that things were so very personal, now that he knew his life was very literally on the line, he couldn't help the flash of anger that lanced through him as a result.

It was only the feeling of Tamamo's presence that kept him steady, helping him break down that anger until he could compartmentalize it and stow it away for a better time to vent than at an innocent, if ignorant, girl's face.

He took a deep breath, held it, and soldiered on through the gates.

Coming back to the dorm to find out that Aigis was apparently going to be attending class with them at Gekkoukan was at once both unexpected and yet completely predictable.

Really.

After everything that had happened thus far, Minato barely batted an eye when Aigis strolled in to the dorm lounge wearing her new uniform. She looked cute, certainly, and he appreciated looking as any boy would (or anyone else, as Tamamo certainly liked it), but he felt almost cheated in how unsurprised he was at the development.

Now, Koromaru, he thought, watching as the android translated the dog's laments that he couldn't attend class with them as well. Koromaru, I would've been surprised about.

"Koromaru's smart, but I don't think even the Kirijo Group could've pulled off successfully enrolling him," was Tamamo's amused reply.

But you don't deny that it would've been more surprising than the robot girl, Minato shot back.

His Other was quiet for a moment. Eventually, she conceded, "Had it happened even back then, yes, I would have been very surprised."

The following day, after a handful of lively classes that involved Aigis demonstrating her strange directive of trying to stick to his side like glue, Minato received a text message from Akihiko requesting his presence. After successfully shooing off his friends back to the dorm by waving it off as what he assumed was SEES business, he made his way to the front gates where the gray-haired upperclassman was already waiting.

"What's going on?" Minato asked in lieu of a greeting. At first glance, the senior looked normal, his blazer thrown over his shoulder as usual and a bag in his free hand. But, as Minato looked closer, the bag was not the usual book bag but rather a sleek, black briefcase. It looked eerily familiar.

Akihiko began walking, taking the lead. He had a pensive look on his face. When he spoke, his tone was strangely distant, "We're going to get someone… An old member."

It wasn't much, but it was enough for Minato to infer the rest on his own. Sure enough, as they both wound their way through the city, Akihiko pulled them up to a familiar ramen shop at the strip mall. Just in time, apparently, as one Shinjiro Aragaki stepped out just as they got within range of the doorway.

The other upperclassman took one look at Akihiko and gave a glare that could probably rival Mitsuru's. "Aki."

Akihiko nodded in greeting, as if he couldn't feel the tension building. "Shinji."

Shinjiro said nothing at first, his gray eyes sliding to the doorway behind him. Clicking his tongue, he moved out of the way, looking mildly annoyed when Akihiko followed. "Look, if you're just gonna bring up the same thing, don't bother."

"I'm sorry, but this time, I'm not asking," Akihiko replied. He held out the briefcase. "The situation's changed. We have a new enemy; they're Persona-users, like us."

"So what?" The other upperclassman looked highly unimpressed. He made to leave.

Minato, from where he'd been watching the exchange some ways behind Akihiko, watched as the boxer took a deep breath through his nose and firm his stance. "There's more. Ken Amada… has joined our team."

That got Shinjiro's attention.

"What!?" he demanded, whirling around. "What the hell are you talking about!?"

"He has the potential," Akihiko said, tone even as if trying to placate him. "Ikutsuki-san has okayed it. He's a Persona-user."

"You've gotta be kidding me," Shinjiro muttered.

There was a long silence as the beanie-wearing senior seemed to focus on simply breathing. Akihiko made no move to break that silence and so Minato, though he knew and understood the situation far more than they thought he did, kept quiet as well. It wasn't so much that he didn't want to speak or that he didn't know what to say, but he knew it was something important. To both Akihiko and Shinjiro, but especially Shinjiro.

It was something that outsiders simply shouldn't interrupt.

"…Was it his decision to join SEES?" Shinjiro asked eventually.

Akihiko nodded. "He volunteered."

"I see…" A sigh. "Then count me in."

He moved in to take the briefcase from Akihiko, his shoulders dropping as though he was taking on a great burden. Then, his gaze lifted to where Minato stood.

"So you're the one leading the operations now, huh? Glad you don't look half-dead anymore, then."

Minato ducked his head, feeling strangely sheepish. "Thanks. Again."

"Whatever." Shinjiro shrugged before rolling his eyes at Akihiko's questioning look. Keeping a tight grip on the briefcase, he started walking, calling over his shoulder, "Is my room still vacant?"

Akihiko confirmed that it was, following after his friend, while Minato trailed behind them. It was a successful recruitment (or re-recruitment), it seemed. They had one more person to contribute to their cause, so in some ways it was a victory.

In others, though, it just compounded how everything was now flowing together, as Tamamo forewarned. With all of the events about to happen so quickly and in quick succession of one another, even with her foresight of another timeline… would it be enough?

It has to be, he thought.

"It has to be," Tamamo agreed quietly.