"Makoto-chan. Makoto-chan where are you?" A familiar voice called out to him. Warm and maternal. A voice he hadn't heard in so long. It was...
No, it can't be. Makoto picked himself off the ground. He looked around and found himself in some place with wooden floors and wooden paneling. It was rather... familiar. He had been here before, but he couldn't recall when or how.
"Makoto-chan!" He turned and saw who was calling him. A woman with long light-brown hair and soft hazel eyes stood at the end of the hallway.
"There you are." She said, face halfway between annoyed and relieved. "Where have you been young man?"
His eyes went wide, and tears began to swell at he edges of them.
"M-Mom? Mom!" Makoto ran to embrace her. And he passed right through her.
"Splorin'." A small, faint voice called out. Makoto turned and saw the voice was from...himself. Smaller, younger, wearing tiny shorts, but there was no question.
That was him.
"Well don't go 'splorin' without telling us." She softly admonished.
"Kay."
"Your father and I were looking for you."
"Sorry." He said, stone-faced and unapologetic. "What's for breakfast?"
His mother shook her head and chuckled. "That's a good question, let's go see."
The harsh and familiar scent of cheap beer and tobacco immediately brought Junpei's mind into focus.
He was back home. Not in the dorm, his home with-
"Junpei you piece of shit, pay attention!" Junpei flinched when he heard the voice. Slowly he turned and saw him.
His father. The same five o'clock shadow he'd had for as long as Junpei could remember, the same vacant look in his eyes, the same goddamn sneer plastered on his stupid, ugly-
"What're you lookin' at, brat?" He snarled. "Be useful and go get me a beer."
"Ow." Akihiko grabbed his shoulder. For some reason it was sore. Exceptionally sore.
Great. He stumbled forward. I'm in some city I don't recognize, no one will talk to me, and my freakin' shoulder is killing me.
As he turned another corner, he saw a group of people run past him...and through him. "He-Hey!" Akihiko flinched back as another person ran through him. "What the hell?"
Down the street, he saw what they were running from, a massive, multi-story fire.
"Oh God." He ran forward as best as he could, as his knee, his back, and jaw started hurting as well.
"Shotaro dear."
In the blink of an eye, everything changed.
The driver yawned before answering his wife. "Yes Tomoko?"
He was in a car, sitting next to the sleeping form of his younger self.
"You made sure to grab everything before we left right?"
The smell, the feel of the seats, this was his family's old card. The one on the night of-
"Mmhmm. Triple checked. Makoto-chan would be upset if we forgot Orpheus."
Tomoko chuckled. She peered in the back seat, seeing a snoozing young Makoto hugging his favorite stuffed toy, and ignoring the stupefied form of the older Makoto. "I'm glad we all enjoyed the little weekend getaway."
"Yeah." Shotaro said. "Iwatodai is a beautiful city, even without the island."
"Oh definitely," she paused to yawn, "there was so much to see today, I couldn't believe how late it was when we finished."
"Mmhmm. You know," he turned to her and smiled, "if I get that transfer, this'll be within walking distance. Imagine a home on the mainland."
She chuckled. "And what a home it would be."
It was blindingly white. Everything was so bright that even shutting her eyes and covering herself with her arms, it still felt like she was staring at the sun itself
Eventually, the lights stopped burning, and a voice called out. "Alright Kirijo-san, we need you to prepare yourself for round two."
As she opened her eyes, she saw medical professionals. A man in a doctor's gown covered in blood, needles, nurses, blood-covered scissors, syringes with blood, and blood, and blood, and blo-
"G-Get the hell away from me!" Mitsuru screeched as she ran away, away to anywhere but there.
Eventually, his parents stopped talking. Not because of a lull in the conversation, but because everything stopped. Time itself stood still, and they were sealed inside coffins.
Makoto looked outside of the window. Everything was this sickly green color, and the handful few other cars on the road were stopped as well.
This was it, the bridge, the Moonlight Bridge.
"Mmmm," Makoto turned and saw his younger self stir in his sleep. "Mmmmm." He tossed and turned in his sleep, his grip on his plush toy, with its white hair, blue body, and red eyes, slowly released.
"I'm going back to Iwatodai City." Yukari saw her younger self say. Smaller, with a different haircut, thin frame quietly shaking with barely restrained rage, and eyes filled with contempt. "I've found a place in Iwatodai, it's not too far from my new school."
Her mother said nothing, pathetically splayed out on the living room table. She didn't move, and was unable to so much as get up to look at either Yukari.
"If you absolutely need to call me, and I know you won't," Yukari flinched at her words and her tone from way back then, "you know how to reach me." The younger Yukari left for her room.
Yukari didn't follow, she remembered what she did that day three years ago, packing her things and leaving, furious tears in her eyes as her mother refused to see her off or...even acknowledge her existence, to go stay with a friend in preparation for her move back to Iwatodai.
Makoto could hear the sound of several back to back pops. Almost like fireworks. He reached for his seat belt and took it off. He opened the car door and stepped outside. From the island, he saw two figures approaching. The sounds of gunfire slowly became louder and louder.
A black-clad figure wielding a sword, landed on the concrete in front of him. Eight coffins connected by chains, hung behind him like a cape. A face-guard cover his blank, featureless head, looking like the skull and jaw of some kind of monster.
This was a Shadow.
"Ah!" Makoto looked towards his younger self, somehow awake. "M-Mom? Dad!?" He was breathing hard and sweating profusely. "W-What's going on?"
The Shadow growled and jumped over the car. As he watched it, a bright flash of light erupted from behind Makoto, and then-
Akihiko dragged himself forward, despite the growing pain. His arms, his legs, everything hurt so much, it increased the further he forced himself until he collapsed on the ground, not too far from the fire. People were watching in abject horror, and he could hear someone screaming.
"Let me in!" A boy with white hair in a beige shirt and blue pants was being held back by two boys, one in a red shirt, and one in blue.
"Don't be stupid!" The boy in the red shirt screamed.
"You'll get yourself killed!" The boy in blue yelled.
"But Miki's still in there!" The boy with white hair yelled. The other kid in a red shirt one headbutted him and both held him on the ground.
Akihiko looked to the rampaging fire and bit his lip. He laid limp and pathetic on the ground, incapable of going even an inch forward.
The car was thrown aside by the force of the explosion. Makoto was thrown with it, rolling across the concrete until he slammed into another car on the road.
Two harsh footsteps approached. Makoto struggled to left himself up and see what had fired the rocket. In the dim light of the Dark Hour, all he could see was a shambling mechanical skeleton. What has once possibly been its face and flesh was burned off, with only a few traces of blonde hair stitched to the side of its scalp. Its hoof-like feet had numerous gashes and cracks, and one of its arms hung lamely on its side, occasionally crackling with electricity or twitching. In the gaps of its white midsection he could see a faint blue light.
"You still dare defy me child of steel?" The Shadow roared at the mechanical skeleton. "Curse you and your human masters!"
The machine rushed forward, shooting a volley of bullets from its wrist that the Shadow dodged. The Shadow jumped onto one of the cables of the bridge, hopping between them as it evaded the machine's bullets.
Once the machine ran out of bullets, the Shadow lunged towards it. With a diagonal slash of its sword, it hacked the machine in two. The upper portion sent flying over the bridge and into the water, and the lower half falling to the ground, with a few pathetic crackles of electricity and slowly whining gears.
The Shadow roared and beat its chest before it began stomping on and hacking apart the remains of its enemy. And as it did, he heard his younger self cry out. "Mom?" He crawled out of the car, trembling. "...mom, dad!"
Fuuka looked back at her parents and just sighed.
Her younger self was cooped up in her room, working on her computer, tinkering with the odd bits of tech she had found and taken apart. Her parents were either pacing around the house, muttering to themselves, or yelling at each other over something innocuous that they obsessed over for the entire day
It was like this for...how long?
Too long.
"I'm sorry." She said, knowing they couldn't hear her. "But I can't stay here any longer. I left because I wanted to spread my wings. Because I have a, a sort of higher calling." She could feel the warmth of Lucia enveloping her. "I'll come back eventually, I promise. But right now, my friends need me."
The Shadow turned towards little Makoto. It had no eyes, no distinguishing features on its face underneath the head guard it wore. But he could feel it staring it down.
He grabbed his doll and quietly braced himself, tears dripping from his eyes. "Orpheus...help me." He quietly begged.
The monster roared and came rushing at him, and as it swung its sword above Makoto's head, a bright flash of blue light erupted from Makoto's body. Orpheus emerged and sent the Shadow flying back with a rear hook.
"O-Orpheus." Makoto mumbled in awe.
The spirit looked back at him and smiled. "For as long as you draw breath, I will protect you and stay by thy side." He knelt before Makoto. "I am Orpheus, master of strings. I am one with you, Makoto. I shall always be with you...no matter what. "
The monster roared, crushing its own sword and throwing it away.
"Come." He stood between Makoto and the monster. "Let us smite this creature of evil."
"Y-Yeah!" Makoto brace himself, and with a shaking hand, pointed at the oncoming monster. "Go! Get 'em Orphy!"
Orpheus roared and attacked, parrying the Shadow's blows and smashing his lyre across the creature's head.
Yukari looked back at her mother.
"I still hate you, you know." Yukari said, knowing her mother couldn't hear her. "But...you're my mother. You suffered too, didn't you? After dad died."
She leaned down and placed her hand just above her mother's shoulder.
"I'm sorry. I don't know if I'll ever forgive you but...I'm your daughter, and you're my mother. I want to see you again." Her voice cracked.
"Let us return." She hear Io say, from the depths of her soul. "Come, away from this land of deceit."
"You've always been there, haven't you?" The older Makoto turned and saw two forms of Orpheus. One stood battered but triumphant over the Shadow. He began to fade back into the recesses of Makoto's soul, as his younger self fell into a long slumber. The other stood by his side.
With a smile, the Persona nodded. "I always have and always shall. You and I are but one."
Makoto replied with his own smile. "Yeah." He held out his hand, and ask they shook promised him. "Let's get the hell out of here and beat these Shadows. To victory."
"To victory!"
"Worthless little shit." His father snarled as he got up and shambled towards him with an empty beer bottle. "I give you one goddamn order and you can't even-"
"Shut the fuck up!" Junpei threw his father back across the room. "You're just some worthless goddamn drunk! I've got a Persona! I've got friends! My life actually has a purpose, you good for nothing piece of shit!"
As his father staggered up, blood rushing down his nose, and as Junpei was about to attack again, a gentle but firm hand grabbed his shoulder. He turned and saw a familiar black and golden figure.
"Hermes!?"
"Stay thy hand, Junpei!" Hermes' voice echoed out. "Remember our true enemy. This is naught but a mere illusion."
"But I-" Junpei winced. "No, you're right." He turned to his father, or rather, the illusion of his father. "You...you're not real. You're just a bad dream. Get out of my head."
As the visage stumbled over to Junpei and swung at him, the young man didn't move. He didn't blink or react in any way. As soon as his father's fist made contact, he simply disappeared into smoke, leaving Junpei and Hermes alone.
Junpei sighed. "Aight, Hermes, let's get the hell out of here."
As Hierophant and Lovers both finished feasting on the psyches of the people they pulled out of their coffins, they heard something behind them. They turned to see four of the Persona-users, standing tall and proud.
Makoto pointed his sword at the two Shadows. Junpei cracked his neck. Yukari aimed her bow at them. Fuuka clapped her hands together. All of their Personas emerged in unison.
"Alright you bastards." Makoto said, resolve burning in his eyes. "Let's go."
Hierophant shrieked and summoned a pillar of light that blasted towards them, while Lovers began to conjure electricity between its hands.
Fuuka willed Lucia to grab Kotone and their senpai, placing them under her protective bubble. Makoto and Junpei both willed their Persona in front of them, throwing their own blasts of fire to match Hierophant's pillar of light. Yukari ran around and down the hill, taking aim and sniping Lovers in the elbow with an arrow, disrupting its planned magic attack.
Lovers screeched in pain and turned away, attempting to flee.
"Oh hell no you don't!" Yukari yelled as she aimed her bow and summoned Io. With a single shot, backed by an intense and focused gust of wind, she pierced through Lovers head as it entered the forest, killing it instantly.
Orpheus and Hermes flanked Hierophant on both sides, and the Shadow was forced to attack only one. It sent a long line of prayer beads to encircle and restrain Hermes, only to be smashed into the ground by Orpheus.
As Orpheus pinned Hierophant, Hermes ripped apart the beads and slashed it to pieces.
"Friggin' cowards." Junpei said as he fell to one knee. "Could barely put up a real fight."
The rest of them feel to the ground, equally exhausted, and looking barely more awake then the sleeping half of SEES.
"...so you guys probably saw something too, huh?" Junpei said as they laid there. They all looked away from him, various shades of embarrassment on their faces. "I saw pops being piss-drunk again." Junpei confessed. "I got used to it after a while, but being back there...yeesh." He shook his head. "I'll be honest, damn did it feel good to slug him."
"Mine was my mom." Yukari said, laying on the ground and looking up to the stars. "She was...it was the day I left to go live on my own. She refused to see me off. She couldn't even get up to say anything to me. At the time it really hurt...and even now it still does." Yukari wiped her eyes. "I-I want to talk to her again. I don't want to spend the rest of our lives refusing to talk ever again."
"Mine was both of my parents." Fuuka said, sitting up on her knees. "Both of them were always so neurotic over...everything." She huffed. "What the rest of our family thought about them, what people at work thought of them, how respectable their jobs were, about what people thought about the way they dress." She shook her head. "It got exhausting living with them. I don't hate them, but I'm glad I left. Moving in with you all was probably the best thing that ever happened to me."
"...mine was...the night my parents died." The others looked upon him with a mixture of pity and sympathy. "I...forgot a lot of stuff that night. That hallucination, it unearthed a lot of memories." Makoto looked down at his Evoker. "Orpheus...even back then he was protecting me. He's the only reason I'm still alive."
"Huh!?" They yelled together. "Wait," Yukari leaned in, "you mean, you summoned your Persona back then? As-As a child?"
"Yeah." He forced himself up and looked off into the distance, towards the bridge. "I had a toy as a kid. I don't know if mom or dad got it for me, or who named it, but I called it Orpheus." He smiled. "He's been protecting me for longer than I remembered."
Junpei put a hand on his shoulder, they looked at one another, they smiled, and they nodded.
With a grunt, Yukari got up. "Sorry to ruin the mood, but who knows how much time we have left in the Dark Hour, and," she turned to the other four members of SEES, "if they're going to get up anytime soon."
Makoto held up his Evoker to his head, but then brought it back down. Instead of firing it, he simply willed Orpheus into existence. "Me Patra!" His Persona strummed a few notes and send healing energy towards them.
Kotone pitifully moaned in her sleep, but didn't move. The other three didn't even stir.
"One more time." Makoto said. "Me Patra!" He summoned Orpheus once more, and this he played his lyre slower, with more care and focus.
Slowly all four awoke.
"Are you alright?" Fuuka asked as she and Junpei knelt, helping them up.
"Huh?" Shinjiro looked completely confused, as did the rest. Blank eyes, slacked jaws, they were awake, but only barely.
Makoto wiped his forehead. "At least they're up."
"Yep." Junpei said as he threw Akihiko's arm around his shoulder. "Come on guys, it's gonna be a long trek home."