Chapter Seven - Master of Strings
The music rose. A rock chord rang out.
Blue specks of shattered glass danced around Minato's figure as he gave a ghastly smile, surrounding him, bathing him in a monstrous light show. Minato's silver eyes had changed to a bright turquoise, and a thin strand of smoke wafted into the air, in a zigzag pattern.
Yukari, matching her real-life counterpart, watched the scene unfold, caught between awe, horror, and regret. And through the shattered glass, through the smoke, out from above Minato, his true self began spawning.
And said with a deep, mechanical voice:
"Thou art I...and I am thou." A speaker formed from the light, and from the speaker, a body formed. A mechanical body, belonging to a godly musician. "From the sea of thy soul I cometh. I am Orpheus, master of strings..."
His Persona had a turquoise torso, along with white arms and legs. The joints were silver, and his head was an endless black. His eyes were red and fiery, his hair was white and flowing, and a giant lyre was latched onto his metal back. A mechanical musician who'd ventured into the Underworld to reclaim his lost love. Behind him was the green full moon of the Dark Hour.
And then he roared.
At that roar, everyone felt something in them they'd believed this game was never ever going to evoke in them: excitement. The same adrenaline rush they'd felt when they'd battle the abhorrent beasts at each others' side. The camaraderie of those days, the fire, the wind; the roar was not just Orpheus', it was all of theirs.
They'd overcome challenge after challenge and horror after horror and emerged out of it with their heads held high, and through his Persona, they were remembering all of it. In the mire of horror that was the Dark Hour, there had always been a little spark, forged through nightmares and steel and brotherhood.
And just for a brief moment, Junpei and everyone else felt like all they'd just witnessed was worth it for that roar alone.
The scene then abruptly cut to Mitsuru, or rather, Mitsuru's head. "As we suspected..."
Akihiko looked upon his newest teammate in silent anticipation.
And Orpheus continued roaring, his violent call to battle punctuated further by the extremely wide smile seen on Minato's face at the moment. The face zoomed in on Minato's uncanny, sadistic smirk. The audience could only grasp at a hint of the euphoria engulfing him, before-
CRACK!
"What the-!?" exclaimed Junpei. Yukari, Mitsuru, and Akihiko all remembered this scene far too clearly, and so they did their best to keep themselves composed. Aigis, Ken and Koromaru stared at the screen in shock, in fear. Fuuka gripped at her sleeves, her head still in her arms.
Minato began gripping his skull, letting out a pained cry, his widened eye now fully into frame.
"What's happening!?" Junpei exclaimed, practically begging Yukari to tell him with his eyes alone.
Yukari didn't want to answer.
Mitsuru and Akihiko stared ahead, completely immersed in the scene. Aigis slowly began to understand what was happening, and this reflected in how horrified she became.
Junpei began sweating.
Orpheus convulsed as a red light blared out from his mouth, Minato's screams of pain and agony making the players cringe.
Minato had died in peace. Everyone knew this. But the road to his death was one of pain and torment. This was merely his first step. And seeing it firsthand made Junpei feel sick. He'd been told of what Minato had done, his first night summoning a Persona.
In the hospital room, where he had been held, they'd tell each other stories, their experiences with him. Yukari had told him of how she had witnessed his first summoning, how he had been so brave and she had been so useless, how he had summoned Thanatos from out of Orpheus in a bout of pain and suffering, and all Junpei could've done at the time was simply be in awe of the man lying pale in the hospital bed next to him.
Orpheus gagged and twitched and his limbs twisted in ways limbs weren't supposed to twist, horrible cracking and snapping and squelching noises coming from his body. The world around him was red.
Aigis just felt empty.
Guilty. The sight of Thanatos emerging out of him? There was an irony in all of this that she was completely aware of, and it ate away at her. She hated it. She could barely stand the sight. Yet, more than anything, she just felt ruined because she was responsible for giving him that monster in the first place. Responsible for his...
Thunder blared through the air as the guitars intensified. Another roar. A more monstrous roar, belonging to a more monstrous Persona. Something larger than Orpheus had emerged from his body and did so with barbarism, with brutality. It had six coffins hanging from its back splaying out like they were the devil's wings, and let out a hungry growl as bits and pieces of Orpheus scattered in every which way.
The world slowed. Death's massive hands gripping at shards of Orpheus' metal frame. Orpheus' destroyed face giving the audience a glimpse of one of his red eyes, as parts of his hair flowed through the air. All the while, red was stabbing the players' eyes from the background. Thanatos' dragonlike head then popped into frame, and he let out a shrill yet craving snarl, the jawed helmet he wore so excellently emulating a starved beast bellowing out a famished cry.
Yukari, Mitsuru, Akihiko—all three of them remembered. All three of them had bore witness to the magnificent yet morbid sight, all those years ago. And it still was a moment of discomfort for all of them, because now the scene was systematically drawn, animated, and detailed to the point where it wanted them to feel scared. It wanted the player to taste the power of Persona, and show them the horror that power would entail.
It wanted to take the dead boy they all knew and cared for in their own little ways and turn him into a monster before their very eyes.
Aigis frowned to herself, her eyes still on the screen. No. Guilt? Again? She'd felt enough guilt before the Abyss, before her sister. But she saw this sight, the sight of a roaring monster, the God of Death, barrelling out of Minato's Persona and tearing it apart like paper? It was like the game was telling her You did this.
Ken watched the scene in silence, gripping Koromaru, who buried himself in the boy's lap. Ken's eyes, glued to the screen; it was like a frog run over by some truck, he noted to himself. A grotesque image, yet one that nobody could hope to look away from. His mentor was on the screen, literally breaking apart in front of him, in order for something else to take his place.
Junpei watched the whole thing unfold and was giving the most unnoticeable glare one could ever give to a television screen.
The whole of Death's form slashed at the camera with a sword longer than the cannon of a tank, and he swept his body downward before he lunged.
Minato lurched upwards, screaming again, his pained and scared eyes now the focus of the screen and giving every single person there in the audience a glimpse at the lightning, the madness, that was just in his grey pupils.
Junpei gritted his teeth and set the controller down, just deciding to let the scene play out from there.
Death swooped down, the Shadow not knowing just what was coming for him. Another sweep made by the monster from Minato's mind ensured that the Magician would not use its weapons on him, a gleaming silver knife flying off from the Shadow's grip.
Death, after grabbing hold of the Magician, You'll never leave, you'll never leave, and his hand pressed down onto the beast's gelatinous form, black flecks spattering out. As if that wasn't enough, he then caused the screen to distort once he made one more slash at his foe, splitting the camera—not even the camera was safe from his monstrous attacks.
The slaughter ended just as quickly at it had begun. The Magician's black body writhed and engaged in helpless death throes as it was reduced to a tar-like mess of ichor, Shadow guts and Shadow blood all over the roof.
Yukari was now shunted into frame, horrified, terrified, growing older by decades just by this sight alone.
Death breathed like his lungs were a furnace, his blade bathed in black. He lurched, hissing in bloodlust and frenzy, gasping for air at the blood on his weapon and the thrill of the kill. He held a little remnant of the dead and dying Shadow in his free hand, and crushed it in his vise, horrible noises that bodies shouldn't make just playing out for all to hear.
And, embracing his kill, completely satisfied, he roared. He roared again. He roared a roar impossible to describe in its fierceness, its hate, its rage.
And all of a sudden, the game stopped being worth it again. But.
A second of static flashed on the screen...and in Death's place was the Master of Strings.
"What!?"
Yukari nodded, tiredly frowning at the screen, "That happened," she said to Junpei, who turned to the senpai. Judging from their faces, Yukari wasn't wrong.
[Mitsuru: ...!]
[Akihiko: What on earth is that!?
[Ikutsuki: ...]
Oh, don't go all ellipses on us! shouted Junpei in his head as he pressed X to proceed and get on with the boss.
Orpheus returned to form, repaired and ready for battle, floating effervescently over the head of his master.
The sudden swell of power has subsided...Orpheus regained its original form. You have obtained a new Persona!
For some reason, none of the players saw this as a good thing. As usual.
Orpheus then faded away, rings of light emanating from him. The day was saved. Nobody died. What could possibly have gone wrong from here?
[Yukari: Is it over...?]
"No, it's not," Junpei hung his head. "Look, I can't play this forever, someone else take the controller!"
"None of us know how to play!" Yukari stressed.
"You better get started!" Junpei irritatedly spat back. "The only way I'm gonna make it through this is if we take turns, I can't control Minato all by myself! It feels so wrong!"
"So you'd rather have all of us feel wrong with you?" Mitsuru asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Hey, we're all friends here!"
"I shall take the controls when during our next gaming session," said Aigis.
"R-really?" asked Junpei. "You know how to play?"
"I am capable of Internet access and can search up terabytes' worth of information in less than five minutes. So yes, I think I may know how to play this game."
"Thanks, Aigis!"
"Now, please get to the boss," she said, not even looking at him, her voice now cold as ice.
Junpei blinked. "Yeah. Yeah, okay."
Ring.
What now!?
You'll end today's session soon
The Magician counts, apparently, as your first boss.
"Sweet!" Junpei exclaimed. "First good news all day! The Shadow in the cutscene counts as the boss! We're home free, guys!"
"You have a new text message."
"What?"
Just finish up the rest of them, and you'll be done for the day
Junpei mouthed, "'Rest of them?'"
"Oh. I remember," said Yukari. "Press X."
[Yukari: ...!]
Two Shadows crept up to Minato on the roof.
"Okay!" Junpei smiled a terrible smile. "Time to relieve some stress—!"
/BABY BABY BABY BABY—/
"What the—!?" Junpei, startled, exclaimed.
/—BABY BABY BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA~!/
"Huh!?" Yukari seemed just as surprised.
"This is the music?" Ken squinted his eyes.
And then they all remembered just where this came from.
"Why is Minato's playlist the soundtrack!?" Junpei cried.
/Yes! The battleground's right here!/
/It's a man's world!/
The screen showed Minato, sword drawn, facing two conspicuous Magician blobs on the roof of the dormitory. The green moon of the Dark Hour the setting sun for this showdown of wits, and surely this was going to be a fight that would shake the heavens.
/Come on!/
/Gotta get ready for this right here/
Minato Arisato, the hero, the savior of the world, crossing blades with the Shadows for the very first time! And then a small circular menu popped up on the bottom left-hand corner of the screen. And the first icon on the menu was labelled Attack.
/Hey, yo/
"Oh, no."
"What?" asked Yukari, to Junpei.
"It's turn-based!"
"What?"
"I suck at turn-based RPGs!" he screamed to himself, before turning to the uneducated masses who knew less than nothing about the complexities involved in RPGs. "We take turns in fighting."
"What do you mean?" asked Mitsuru.
"Here." He clicked X on Attack.
/Fear's awake, anger beats loud, face reality/
/Never beat charity/
A crosshair then popped up, fixed on the Shadow on Minato's left, and Junpei pressed X. Minato then dashed forward and gave a slash at that Shadow, his foe recoiling in pain with a big fat 27 appearing over its head. Most of its lifebar went down.
/The enemy you're fighting covers all society/
And then both of the Shadows lunged forward and slashed at Minato's form, each giving him 6 points worth of damage. Not a lot of damage, but enough. Just enough to wound him.
/(-amn right)/
/Mommy's not here, gotta fight/
/(All night)/
Everyone winced for a bit. But then Junpei said, "That's how it works, Minato hits them once, then they hit back. Each group takes turns in killing each other."
"So, it's like kindergarten, but with monsters," said Yukari.
"Exactly."
"Sounds easy," noted Akihiko. "We can strategize without them giving us a hard time."
"Yeah, but you never know what they're capable of," said Junpei, rather sadly. "Until it's too late. Until they make your fight all for nothing from some cutscene magic or whatever."
"What are you talking about?" asked Yukari.
Junpei recalled a traumatic memory from his childhood, and how, to this day, he'd continue to rant internally about how Sephiroth wasn't supposed to kill Aeris, how everyone should've thrust a Phoenix Down, how Aeris sank when Cloud lowered her down into —
—wait, don't dead bodies float on water?
Junpei blinked.
Did Cloud drown Aeris —!?
"Junpei," stressed Yukari.
"Y-yeah, huh?" Another time, then, to think about past video game crushes and the Final Fantasy series (when it still had dignity).
"Could you kill the two Shadows, now?" she practically pleaded. "I'm tired."
"I think we all are, at this point," said Mitsuru, yawning.
"Okay."
/Right here, Shadow 10 o'clock direction/
/Seize the moment, destroy the nation/
Junpei scrolled the circular menu downward and found something worth of note. Above Attack, there was an option labelled Skill. Junpei figured that it might have something interesting for him, so he pressed X.
After that, something labelled Bash - 5HP appeared as an option, and Junpei pressed that as well. The crosshair appeared again, and Junpei, deciding to at least try to be a clever strategist, switched it over to the one with more health, and pressed X.
/Your rhyme is slow motion, give me motivation/
/Freaked out now, and dead on arrival/
/(What?)/
"Persona!"
Stylishly, casually, powerfully, Minato twirled his Evoker out and pressed it to his skull, the sound of shattering glass ringing through the air as a blue light surrounded him. The word Bash appeared over his head all the while.
/Round up around, spit out, all over/
/Rhyme like a rolling stone, comin' a crowd/
Orpheus leapt from his master's head with all the grace of a ballerina and bashed his lyre down on the next Shadow, landing a whopping 37 points in damage and reducing the lifebar of the Shadow to a fraction of what it had been.
Junpei laughed, almost satisfied for once throughout the whole hour they'd been playing. "Whoa, okay! Well, Skill works out better than Attack. Cool."
What Junpei remembered, however, was that Minato had a lifebar of his own.
Two, or so it seemed. An orange one above a purple one. The orange one was currently numbered at 48, while the purple one was numbered 41.
/Watch out, they move, they diss you loud/
/Guess what this sound, it bombs whole ground/
/(So round up)/
He remembered that Bash cost five health points worth from Minato's lifebar. So if the battle was to go on any longer with him constantly using Bash, Minato would lose much of his health.
/Don't ease your pace, 'cuz enemy's brutal/
/Moment of truth, There ain't no truce/
Both Shadows then came at Minato again, each dealing 6 HP worth in damage. Minato grunted as they slashed at his body, and then it was his turn again. 36. He had 36 HP now. If Minato were to get hit six more times, he was dead. Better wrap this up quickly.
Each Shadow had low health. They easily could be finished with the swipe of a blade.
Attack, X.
Minato ran and slashed at the one with lesser health, killing it instantly. But then when his turn was over, the other, living Shadow came for him and swiped him with its black claws.
"AGH!"
/You're the only one, one world, one love/
No, everyone was still not okay with seeing Minato getting slashed up like this, but they were all pretty much going to have to get used to it.
"Hey, can you switch Personas?" asked Yukari. "You think Minato's capable of that, at this point?"
Junpei smirked. "Could sure use Thanatos, I suppose."
Ring. Phone opened.
you don't have the option yet
Junpei shrugged. "Eh. Whatever. Fight's gonna be over anyway."
/But the battle goes on, Shadows of Mass Destruction/
Attack, X.
Minato ran forward, his blade in his hand, his health at 31. Junpei wanted to end the fight with a bang, and would have preferred to use Bash for its stylishness, but decided to end it with a simple slash because...well, he didn't want Minato's health to lower any more than it was.
And in one final sweep of his blade...
/Ooh YEAH!/
...Minato ended the fight.
"It's done?" asked Yukari.
"It's done," smiled Junpei.
"Thank goodness," sighed Mitsuru. "We'd been here for more than an hour already..."
"So, only fifty-nine hours left, huh...," Ken snorted. "Oh well. At least we have a grasp on the game's mechanics now."
"The more we know about how to play this game, the faster we'll be able to beat it," mused Akihiko. "Never really played this kind of stuff before...don't expect me to do much playing."
"The caller might say we all have to play, at some point," said Aigis. "I don't think it would be wise to put it past him."
Junpei grinned, "Yeah, but that point comes later. Now, we're done. We're done, and I think we all need a bit of a rest." Fuuka was behind them all now, her eyes red, a wet tissue in her hand. Yukari noticed her, and attempted to give her a somber smile. Fuuka gave a weak smile of her own, and Junpei was all too pleased at the sight of that. "It's over," he said. "We can stop playing now-"
Ring.
"What!?"
You do realize you guys need to save before you can exit, right?
Junpei inhaled and exhaled. "Okay. Looks like we gotta power on through until we reach a save point." Everybody groaned. "There's a save point at the dorm, we all just need to get him back there!"
"It took him a week to wake up after what happened to the Magician," said Yukari. "You think the game would show an entire week of him at the hospital?"
"It wouldn't do that," urged Junpei, who doubted himself immediately. "Would it?"
Ring.
No.
It skips.
"Well, that answers that."
X. Junpei didn't even pay attention to the upgrades Minato received from the battle, the XP gained. And everyone else didn't really know what to make of the numbers on the screen or terms like level up! or whatever, so nothing was lost.
The next cutscene played out. Minato fell to his knees as the cut-out of Yukari and an exclamation point next to her head appeared then disappeared. Yukari's character ran over to Minato's body and called out for him, grabbing hold of him and freaking out over him maybe being dead or something.
[Yukari: Are you okay!? Come on...! Say something!]
Mitsuru and Akihiko then arrived on the scene.
[Akihiko: Are you alright!?
[Yukari: Can you hear me!? Please...! Answer me!]
The scene was basically foreshadowing. Everyone knew it. It didn't make anyone happy at all. Carrying on.
Rushing tiles. Rushing, checkered, black and white. Then, a clear white rectangle, then everything, everything was velvet.
A mournful, tragic, yet uplifting aria of the soul played. Minato had returned to the Velvet Room. Igor and Elizabeth, the two weird people from last time, were there, before him; Igor spoke to him like he'd expected him to return (like he'd said last time).
[Igor: It's so nice to see you again.] Again with that voice, that eerie creepy-old-man voice. [You became unconscious after awakening to your "power." ...It's nothing to worry about, though.] Everyone wanted to just scream at the screen at how much it was worth worrying about. [So, just relax.] The game knew its players. It had to. [By the way... I see that it was Orpheus that heeded your calling. That power is called a Persona... It is a manifestation of your psyche.]
{Persona?}
{My psyche?}
{I don't understand.}
Ring
"I don't understand"
"Yeah, neither do we." Down, down, X.
[Igor: It may take some time to fully comprehend. A Persona is a facet of your personality that surfaces as you react to external stimuli... You can think of it as a mask that protects you as you brave many hardships. That being said, your power is still weak...]
Junpei raised an eyebrow, remembering all the times Minato had pulled their butts out of the fire through his sheer guile and determination. "Hey, remember the first time he used Thor?" he asked the rest of them. "On our, like, second venture into Tartarus? 'Cause that guy was weak, stomping on all those little blobs like they were nothing..."
"Maybe Thor was one of his less powerful ones, I guess," shrugged Yukari.
Mitsuru mused, "He did use a lot of...eldritch ones later on..."
Nobody really wanted to talk about or even try to recall the first time he'd summoned Mara. The only funny part about that, Junpei thought, was that he did it in front of Yukari and Mitsuru while they were wearing Battle Panties.
...Wait.
Were Battle Panties a thing in the game? Like, could you change costumes in the game? And then he recalled the scene in the intro that he'd just glossed over. And suddenly he was desperately trying to keep himself from laughing.
"What is it?"
Pull yourself together, they'll kill you if you say anything! "Nothing, let's just keep playing!" he exclaimed, pursing his lips. Like he was ever going to do that...they were going to kill him for sure.
{Whaddya mean 'weak'?}
{You lost me.}
Two
Down, X.
[Igor: When you use your Persona ability, you must channel your inner strength. The ability evolves as you develop your Social Links - your emotional ties with others. The stronger your Social Links, the more powerful your Persona ability. Please remember that.]
...
The entire cast of characters just stared at the screen.
They weren't really emoting, per se. The statement wouldn't let them emote. It had too many implications. They all just stared at the screen and pondered those expectations. Junpei wasn't even pressing any buttons to move the conversation along. He just stayed there, reading the subtitles, pondering.
Nobody wanted to say it. Nobody even wanted to think it. But they couldn't help it.
The stronger your Social Links, the more powerful your Persona ability.
Minato'd had...many friends. Far too many friends. Too many to count. He was friends with that drunkard monk back in Paulownia. Friends with that little girl who always hung around by herself at that shrine. That foreign exchange student from France. Yukari remembered that he had even shared cordial relations with that elderly couple at that bookstore. Junpei could recall once seeing Minato converse with that businessman - Tanaka? TV's Tanaka, anata no terebi jika netto Tanakaaa, all that jazz. Fuuka remembered seeing him walk some girl with glasses home (she remembered because it hurt her to see that), and Mitsuru recalled how Minato had seemed pretty friendly towards one of her colleagues back in student council...Odagiri.
Minato had had many friends. Many bonds. Many emotional ties, not even counting the bond he'd shared with S.E.E.S. (and its ladies).
And at that, nobody knew what to think or say or want to say. So Junpei just continued on.
[Igor: Now, then... Time marches on in your world. I shouldn't keep you here any longer. Next time we meet, you will come here of your own accord. Until then... Farewell.]
Aigis stared down at her metallic hands, the hands that had once held his firmly in them, the hands that had caressed his hair and stroked his face when he had slept in her lap, on that rooftop all those years ago, and she remembered what she had told him, and what he had told her, and right now, she really couldn't help but wonder if all of that was a lie.
She closed her eyes, unafraid yet uncertain. Beginning to ask the question she should have asked a long time ago, the question nobody on the team had ever really wanted to ask in any meaningful way. Because they'd never known how to ask, how to tell him, how to express these thoughts, these words.
Minato Arisato...who were you, really?
A/N
What would you guys prefer? Shorter chapters updated relatively frequently (like, two per month), or longer chapters updated monthly? Because I began weighing the cost of this, and I've realized if I continue at the rate I'm going, I'll hit thirty by the time I finish this up (I'm turning eighteen this month!).
I'm considering just updating the story with shorter chapters, like 1,000-3,000 words per chapter. It'll get things done quicker, I think. Or at least I hope. I'm not dropping this story, it's cathartic in its own little way. But there are other fics I'd like to work on alongside this one, and if I have too much in the way, updating this will pose a bit of a problem.
What do you guys think?
Now. I'd like to thank you guys again for all your support in this fic. I know last chapter was on a pretty melancholic note. But don't worry, things are more or less alright now, and I'm eager to write out more of this story. I've got a good plan for how this is all gonna end. At least, I hope it's a good plan.
(and yeah, the P4 cast won't make cameos due to everyone saying "stay on target," so glad everyone agrees XD)