Good Day Readers! Obviously, I do not own anything connected to the Persona series in general or Persona 5 specifically, I DO own Chiba Natsumi and Anais Ouvrard, along with Natsumi's immediate family members and the original Personas that will be showing up on occasion.
I would appreciate any responses that you have, please enjoy
Chapter 85: - Girls' Day
The exams this time around were a much harder beast to tackle than the first lot were, but I think that was mainly due to the fact that I only had four days in which to actually focus on studying unlike before. I managed to get through the exams, but I don't think I did particularly well – still better than my two blonde teammates most likely did – on them. On the final day after the exams were over, I walked out of the classroom with Ren at my side.
"My parents are gonna kill me, there was so much stuff on that exam, I didn't have time to study everything. I probably could have managed it, if I had an extra week, too…," The girl complained. Or the girl could have just found a way to manage her time better, that's what I did by dividing up when to study certain subjects and focusing on my poorer subjects more than others.
"An extra week, huh? The only people who get that kinda cushy treatment are the honour students," The other girl stated. What? That didn't seem exactly fair, unless there was some medical treatment that came up which prevented them from being able to take part in the tests, or they had something like dyslexia which had unique circumstances that needed to be considered; I couldn't understand why such a thing had happened.
"Oh, you mean like Yoshizawa-san?" The first girl asked. Okay, that was very strange then, Yoshizawa didn't seem like she was ill when I saw her yesterday, so unless something serious had happened then she should be fine; the red haired girl also didn't seem like the kind of person who would request her exams be moved back, there was something I was missing about this piece of information.
"I heard the school moved her exam period. Must be nice getting perks like that," The second girl sneered. So, the school had likely arbitrarily decided to just change Yoshizawa's exams to some later date, maybe without really consulting her as to what she thought of the situation; I was going to talk to Yoshizawa today anyway so I could probably ask her about it then to clear up this mess.
"Hey there, Amamiya-kun and Chiba-san," Maruki-sensei's voice called. Well, this was bound to be a much more pleasant conversation than what I had overheard. "Congrats on surviving finals. Today was the last day, right?" Maruki-sensei asked. Both of us nodded in agreement, though I suppose the term survive was more accurate when used towards Ryūji and maybe Ann. "Hey, Amamiya-kun, would you happen to have some free time right now? There's something I'd like to discuss, I promise it'll just take a moment," Maruki-sensei wondered.
"Go on, I had something that I wanted to do, don't mind me," I encouraged. Ren looked at me in surprise before walking away from me to follow after Maruki-sensei; I remained by the classroom to wait for Ann. The girl stumbled out and seemed extremely drained of energy. "Hey Ann," I called. The girl perked up and looked at me with brighter eyes. "Since we've finished our exams and the fireworks are in two days, I was wondering if you would be free tomorrow?" I asked.
"Sure, but what for?" Ann wondered. I had ended up overhearing something by chance and it had ended up sparking this idea in my mind, plus after everything with Kaneshiro and the exams I figured we could probably use something to relax a little before the next target was found. And after the whole issue with my birthday, I found that I really enjoyed spending time with more of my friends over one.
"Well, I overheard Ryūji talking about a summer festival on tomorrow and it sounds like the boys are going, so I figured we girls could spend some time together doing… well something," I suggested. That was the only thing that I hadn't been able to figure out since there wasn't anything going on that we could probably attend before the fireworks and going to the same festival that the boys were going to wouldn't be great; more because it was apparently going to be hot and the main product was going to be meat which did not sound comfortable.
"Why don't we do a bit of cooking, it would be something we could do together and we'd probably get through a lot more with more individuals," Ann offered. That seemed like quite a reasonable idea, even if I was a little concerned about letting one member in the kitchen, but it was certainly better than the nothingness that I had ended up coming up with beyond everyone getting together.
"Sounds good, I'll just talk to a few others and see if they can come. I don't know if Shiho can come but others can probably join in," I admitted. Ann seemed to really brighten up at my words which was good to see; we were going to meet with everyone later so I quickly set off to find the other three I could ask. As I went, I sent off a message to Hifumi asking if she wanted to attend, it would probably have been awkward to ask any of the older women I had befriended to join – plus they were likely busy with their jobs – while I knew Rise was definitely busy and I barely knew Chihaya.
Finding Makoto had been very easy and she was also able to come to my home tomorrow. The next issue was finding Haru-senpai and Yoshizawa, lucky for me I spotted the red haired student walking towards the stairs with a focused expression on her face. I jogged over and called out to her which caused the girl to face me, and she broke out into a smile as I approached.
"Yoshizawa-san, I was wondering if you wanted to come and hang out with some of my friends and me tomorrow at my home?" I asked. However, the moment the words left me, Yoshizawa's bright expression fell into a rather saddened one; that caused me to get worried a little as to why she had suddenly ended up being so upset all of a sudden.
"I would love to Chiba-senpai, but I'm afraid that I can't. You see the gymnastics competition that I mentioned is actually tomorrow," Yoshizawa explained. Well, that was quite a shock, they only told the person who had been selected the day before; I doubt it had been earlier due to how excited Yoshizawa had been yesterday.
"So that's why your exams got moved back," I realised. That made sense, the school had made it very obvious that Yoshizawa's gymnastics career was more important to them than anything else that she might want to focus on – including her mental health! – so of course they were going to do something like that to her. When I said those words, Yoshizawa's expression became extremely pinched which meant that this was a problem she was well aware off.
"Yes, I didn't actually ask for it, it just ended up getting hoisted on me. But my classmates don't seem to realise that," Yoshizawa explained. Gods some people were stubborn, I reached up to rub at my nose because this was definitely irritating to have to learn; Yoshizawa had enough on her plate and didn't deserve anymore being heaped on her, especially by people who didn't know the full story.
Bidding goodbye to Yoshizawa, slightly disappointed that she was too busy to come, I set about searching for the last person I could ask to attend this little hang out. Even though I wasn't particularly close to Haru-senpai, I felt like someone ought to try reaching out to her, from what I had seen she seemed so isolated – sort of like Hifumi in a way – and I wanted her to know there were people around who would help her.
"Haru-senpai!" I called. Haru-senpai was at the entrance and jolted a little as she turned to look at me, clearly she hadn't been expecting me to show up so suddenly – not that this surprised me – I was just glad that I had managed to catch her before she ended up leaving. Haru-senpai could be a difficult woman to find when she wanted to. "Some friends of mine are coming to my home and I was wondering if you wanted to come as well, we're mainly going to do some baking," I offered.
"Oh, that sounds very lovely Chiba-san and I'd love to attend, but I don't know if I can," Haru-senpai admitted. I got a rather chilling feel as Haru-senpai looked at the ground and shuffled her feet, something was just unsettling me a little as Haru-senpai said those words. It was about her at all; no, the unsettling feeling was for Haru-senpai instead.
"Is something wrong Haru-senpai?" I asked. It was probably wrong of me to pry but I had the strangest of sensations that I needed to ask this, right away, there was clearly something wrong and even if I couldn't fix it then I at least wanted to be able to offer some way for Haru-senpai to at least be able to escape from it.
"Well… it's just I might not be get away for something like that," Haru explained. For just a moment, I felt like I was hearing myself before escaping Shido's house; I knew I wasn't allowed to attend clubs or even if I had friends then I couldn't hang out with them because he was seemingly determined to make sure I solely focused on my 'training' with Ouvrard. I couldn't assume the situation was exactly like that, but there was one way I had always been able to escape and it seemed like it would work here as well.
"What if you claimed it was extra studying, preparations for the next exams," I suggested. If there had been one thing that Shido was more obsessed with ensuring I was good at with singing, then it was getting good grades at school; I'd quickly learned that claiming I was busy studying was sometimes the best way for me to get out of actually going back to that building when Ouvrard was there. It couldn't be used all the time, but it certainly worked when I needed it to.
"Yes, actually that might work out!" Haru-senpai exclaimed. She had proceeded to cheer up almost instantly at hearing my suggestion and I was relieved to know that. "Thank you so much Chiba-san," Haru-senpai admitted. She seemed on the verge of tears and I was actually feeling a little worried for her, what was happening in Haru-senpai's life that was so bad that a mere offer to spend time with others would make her so happy?
With that very heavy piece of thought in my mind, I gave Haru my address and we left the school before quickly splitting up. I made my way towards the train station as a buzzing went off, Hifumi could also attend which I was glad for and I quickly sent off my address to her as well. I managed to reach the other Phantoms at last, but at least they were all still at the café by the time I arrived.
"Exams are finally over… I'm so exhausted…," Ann claimed. Despite the fact that she was sat more upright than Ryūji who was slumped into his seat, I was also relieved that the exams were finally over since that meant that we could focus on other things, which would probably be firstly the firework festival and then actually locating another target for us to go after.
"I can get back to actually sleepin' in peace," Ryūji stated. I looked over at the boy and saw that he did actually seem a little exhausted which did cause me to raise an eyebrow as I was debating whether Ryūji had actually gone and studied like he should have been doing or if he had ended up doing something else entirely like last time.
"Huh. You must have been studying pretty hard if it kept you up at night," Makoto commented. She seemed rather pleased to hear that such a thing had happened, but I was waiting for the other shoe to properly drop; my thoughts were confirmed when Ryūji's expression ended up falling, what really concerned me was when Ann's expression also became a little twisted up as well which just spelled something bad was going to come.
"Nah, I was up playin' video games. Slackin' off is just too much fun," Ryūji revealed. I allowed a groan to escape from me upon hearing that, since this was actually near enough exactly what had happened the last time; it seemed Makoto wasn't as much as an influence on Ryūji as I had hoped she would be, and this was without hearing whatever Ann had done instead.
"I know, right!? I kept cleaning my room instead of studying! It might even be too clean now," Ann admitted. At those words, I proceeded to slump down, so my head landed on the table, it almost felt like something had managed to hit me with a Despair Ailment; that was how I was currently feeling at hearing how these two had ended up slacking off, again in the case of Ryūji since Ann had actually studied last time. Frankly, that made her slacking much worse.
"You two are perfect exemplars of what escapism can mean," Yusuke stated. Yeah, these two were definitely examples of how not to spend one's time when there was a pressing matter coming closer; I really needed to find something to do in order to keep these two – especially Ryūji – on track a little bit more, luckily, we had until after the summer holidays were over before the next exams to handle this.
"And I can only imagine what the end result will be," Makoto added on. There was definitely a high chance that they wouldn't do well on the exams, but we'd only really know once the results were finally posted; I could only hope that somethings had been absorbed by the two blondes that would keep them from failing the exams completely. I peeled myself of the table to sit up right once more.
"Right, that's it. Next time exams roll around, we're all studying together," I decided. That was the only measure I could think of at the moment that might just help keep things a bit more focused for these two, especially since it was apparent that leaving them to their own devices was definitely not going to end up working properly when it came to revising.
"Are we sure even that'll work?" Ren wondered. I couldn't deny that there was a possibility that our leader's concerns were valid, after all I had no clue if it was even possible for the two to end up just doing whatever they wanted and ignoring the stuff that we were trying to get them to focus on instead of being distracted by whatever they chose.
"Whatever, it's over with now. Who cares about that anymore!?" Ryūji questioned. I think that the rest of us definitely cared about the fact that these two failing the exams could end up landing them in some pretty serious trouble if we weren't careful. "What's real important in the Phantoms' popularity! Ain't it amazin'!?" Ryūji boasted. He was definitely not going to let us focus on the exams anymore so it might be best just to let it go until we had cause for concern.
"It kinda feels like our time's finally here!" Ann exclaimed. There was certainly a great deal more talk about us and what we were doing then there had been since we took down Kamoshida; going after Kaneshiro had been the right move in a lot of different ways, the next level of Mementos had to be open now and if we got really lucky then maybe even the level after that could be accessed given how well known we were becoming.
"I have even heard people excitedly speculating about our next social activity. We will have to choose carefully," Yusuke admitted. There was that; we couldn't just choose someone at random since they did have to be an actual criminal like the others but the real question was what kind of person could end up garnering more attention than taking down an infamous crime boss.
"There's no need to hurry. We should spend some time thinking it over," Makoto placated. I nodded my head in agreement, rushing in just to try and find someone to take down would probably just cause a large number of problems that would be a headache to deal with; our next choice had to be carefully made.
"Makoto's right, we don't need to rush head long into anything yet, let's look around and take our time," Ren agreed. Everyone proceeded to make their agreement known which was a relief, knowing we were all on the same page about what to do concerning our next target meant less stress; primarily for Ren, Morgana and Makoto than anyone else.
"Hold up, the most important thing now is our celebration party," Ryūji claimed. I allowed a breath to escape me since it figured this is what he would be focused on instead. "I hope you guys didn't forget. It's the fireworks festival on the eighteenth," Ryūji reminded. We all nodded our heads since we did remember that. "I guess we're good meetin' up in Shibuya, yeah? Let's say… five PM," Ryūji suggested.
"You sure are on top of these kinds of things," Morgana commented. Ryūji really was, I couldn't say if that was a good thing or a bad thing in all honesty.
*Persona 5 Royal*
I was busy gathering everything that might be needed by the different people who were coming, there was discussion of people bringing their own ingredients alongside what I already had out. Ann and Makoto were the first to arrive with Ann setting down some sugar and chocolate, clearly intending to make something sweet which didn't surprise me in the least, as for Makoto she was barred from the kitchen by me pointing a spatula at her.
"Why should I let you in the kitchen?" I questioned. I didn't particularly care what Makoto claimed, I definitely remembered all the chaos that having this particular lady in the kitchen would cause; I could practically hear Hikaru howling in outrage at the possibility of letting Makoto into the kitchen even if it wasn't the one that had been victimised by Makoto's terrible cooking ability.
"I'm not going to burn the house down Natsu-chan. I promise," Makoto insisted. I stared at her in silence, almost expecting something in the kitchen to be set on fire as if to refute Makoto's firm words; when nothing happened, I still debated whether to go through with it or not, my choice ended up getting made when the sound of someone waiting at the front door came towards me.
"You get one chance. Or else," I warned. Setting the spatula down, I ducked around Makoto and quickly made my way to the front door; I was still waiting for something to immediately go wrong since I'd let Makoto into the kitchen, but nothing happened and I was able to reach the door in peace. I pulled the door open to find one of the invitees waiting on the other side.
"Good morning, Chiba-san," Hifumi greeted. I returned the greeting and stepped back to let the shogi prodigy inside, she slipped off her shoes and set down a pair of slippers she had brought with her to use inside; however, I noticed Hifumi rub at her arms as she looked around the entryway, I guided Hifumi through the building to the kitchen. Ann and Makoto stopped talking to look over at the two of us.
"Ann, Makoto, this is Tōgō Hifumi, she's my shogi mentor. Tōgō-san, this is Takamaki Ann and Niijima Makoto, my friends," I introduced. Hifumi bowed to the other two with Makoto doing the same and Ann immediately started to quiz Hifumi about shogi; I couldn't stick around since someone else had shown up at the door which required me to duck out once more to find the last arrival waiting.
"Hello Chiba-san," Haru-senpai tentatively spoke. She didn't need to be so shy, but I could understand if she was a little unsure about coming here, even so Haru-senpai still stepped inside and quickly set about sorting herself out with her shoes, also bringing a pair of slippers that looked quite durable compared to normal slippers, was Haru-senpai rich? Probably, but it wasn't my place to ask, instead I led her to the kitchen.
"Girls, this is Haru. Haru-senpai, you already know Ann and most likely Makoto, this is Tōgō Hifumi," I introduced. Makoto seemed surprised to see her while Ann brightened up and even gave Haru-senpai a hug which froze the older girl until she returned the hug in a robotic manner. Hifumi introduced herself and Haru seemed much more comfortable with that, Ann turned to me with a happy expression on her face that had more to do with something else than Haru-senpai being here.
"Shiho couldn't come but I've managed to set something up," Ann admitted. She pulled out a tablet and set it up so that we could all see it, Ann then started a video call with Shiho which allowed her to get involved in the cooking. I gave one last round of introductions for those who didn't know each other and then set about assigning the tasks that we would be doing today for the cooking.
My kitchen wasn't particularly big, but the five of us managed to make it work, that was probably more in part to Shiho's keen eyes warning us when we were about to run into someone or if someone was about to move at the wrong moment. As for the duties, Ann was busy making cookies, mixing, kneading and rolling out the dough to cut them into different shapes; Haru handled the vegetables, delicately cutting them apart to form quite a beautiful array, Hifumi focused on the rice and noodles along with some stock for the ramen that she suggested. About the only duty I trusted Makoto with – due to her previous terrifying ineptitude in the kitchen – was cutting apart chunks of meat or doing the washing up; meanwhile I was cooking the meat and handling the timing of all the different pieces as we waited for them to finish or putting new items in.
Once all the cooking was done, the food mostly eaten and all utensils were cleaned and put away, no one really wanted to leave – especially Haru – so Hifumi suggested a shogi game which then ended up having koi-koi also being offered. Haru had a great deal of fun playing against Ann and Shiho with my aid or Ann's depending upon who wasn't occupied, while Makoto had more enjoyment in a battle of wits and barbs with Hifumi. Haru and Ann struggled a bit in shogi no matter who it was against, but Shiho was surprisingly good and even managed to teach Hifumi a new perspective with her moves. Hifumi took a few tries to learn koi-koi but eventually the girl got a handle on it, but at least she didn't immediately dominate it like shogi. Also, no one did more than give Hifumi a few looks upon first hearing her anime-style declarations which the girl was grateful for; in fact, Ann managed to give a few good responses even while getting her backside handed to her.
A sudden ringing shattered our little bubble of enjoyment and I quickly pulled my phone out, seeing Yoshizawa's name, I got a little worried since she was meant to be at the meet. Answering quickly, I heard a small and slightly morose sounding voice and asking one thing, for me to meet up with her; I agreed to and thankfully the others understood. We packed the games up and I handed out the leftover food to each of them as we left, I quickly made my way to Shibuya and easily found Yoshizawa at the café.
"Hey Yoshizawa-san, you wanted to meet," I greeted. She had seemed to be quite emotional when I had spoken to her over the phone and I definitely saw that she was more unsettled; not to the point of tears like she had been when I ended up bringing up Sumire, but she clearly was struggling with something that was upsetting her. I sat down on the bench beside her as Yoshizawa gave me a strained smile.
"Yes, I already managed to Amamiya-senpai, so I figured it best to tell you as well," Yoshizawa spoke. I somehow had a rather bad feeling upon hearing those words. "I'm afraid the meet was only slightly better than a disaster," Yoshizawa admitted. That would definitely explain why she seemed so down about after all the hard work she had put into trying to improve herself.
"Oh no," I expressed. There wasn't much more that I could say to express how I felt or that might have any effect in cheering Yoshizawa up from her dejected state; I wanted to make sure that Yoshizawa would not only be able to pull herself out of this current dark slump as well as Yoshizawa's overarching slump from her sister's passing.
"Yes, when the time came, my body still didn't move how I wanted it to… except when I used what you taught me about the rapier," Yoshizawa revealed. I was at least relieved that my lessons had managed to take some effect by allowing her routine to at least have some success, but it clearly hadn't been enough given how Yoshizawa had described it as only slightly above being a disaster.
"Well at least that means the training is working so we can keep pushing forward on that route," I stated. We could definitely keep having Yoshizawa studying swordplay given the evidence that it was working. "But we need something else… something that might help you relax…," I commented. I couldn't just let Yoshizawa continue to suffer from whatever was hampering her; we were working on her physical issues, so maybe tackling her mental burdens was the next way to go about it.
"But what senpai?" Yoshizawa wondered. This wasn't like Shiho, Ann and Ryūji as there was no one to get a kind of revenge on by living a better life and unlike me, the continued memories of the younger Yoshizawa only ended up becoming a painful burden for the elder sister. I wasn't a qualified therapist – despite my attempts to help Shiho – and given that Yoshizawa was speaking to Maruki-sensei this was likely going to be covering already trodden ground, so I needed another method.
"How about we head for Akihabara, it is the centre for anime, manga and games. If that doesn't work then some other day, we can head for Jinbōchō since they have a lot of antique bookstores," I suggested. It might seem foolish, but maybe giving Yoshizawa some kind of escapism, a hobby that Yoshizawa could do that would allow her to think about something that she wouldn't connect immediately to her sister since that the only way I could think off to get Yoshizawa to relax.
"That sounds good Chiba-senpai," Yoshizawa agreed. We went to the appropriate terminal and boarded the next train up to Akihabara; on the journey I tried to find out what Yoshizawa might like but that was slightly difficult. Yoshizawa had been very devoted to her gymnastics, so she didn't exactly do much outside of her studies and practice; honestly it felt like Yoshizawa needed something to relax even more from what I was hearing.
I'd come to Akihabara several times before – it was the best place to search for light novels – so I knew the way around; I guided Yoshizawa to the shop that I frequented to start. I tried to avoid anything related to sports or someone recovering from the loss of a family member since that wouldn't help with the escapism aspect. Finding a few novels, I showed them to Yoshizawa and she whittled them down further to just two.
Once done, we left the store and repeated the same searches for the manga, anime and games. I primarily focused on portable types of games since at least that way Yoshizawa could switch between reading or playing whenever she felt like doing something. We didn't pick up many items in the end, only three volumes of a manga and one game, but I hoped that it might at least be enough for now.
As we were walking away, something tickled at my senses which caused me to jerk to a sudden stop, I started to look around and trying to find what could possibly have set off my alarm bells; when I found the source, my entire body turned to stone from how stiff I went. It was a figure, dressed in dark clothing with a hood thrown over the head to obscure any features, but rolling off of them was a sensation that stuck my hair on end as it gave off a feeling of death. But to make things worse, there was some kind of massive black shadow looming over the individual in a rather unsettling manner.
"Senpai, is everything okay?" Yoshizawa asked. I suppose it was no surprise that she was sharp enough to catch on that I had suddenly stopped moving to stare at something; I didn't want to drag Yoshizawa into something that could end up being quite dangerous given that ominous dark shadow coming from the person. I needed to make sure that nothing happened to Yoshizawa before things went wrong.
"I'm… not sure. Will you be alright getting back to your home by yourself?" I asked. So long as Yoshizawa was able to get back to Shibuya and then onwards to wherever she lived safely, then I'd be much more settled in knowing she could get to somewhere safe. I could then approach that strange individual without risking any harm coming down upon the innocent red head with me.
"Yes, don't worry I'll be fine," Yoshizawa reassured. That was a relief to hear from Yoshizawa, I could safely confront this individual that was giving off such an unsettling feeling; but Yoshizawa looked rather concerned about the words that I was saying, but I felt like I couldn't let this go. "But what about you?" Yoshizawa worried. Something told me that she wasn't going to walk away without some reassurance due to how I was acting.
"I should be okay," I answered. I saw Yoshizawa look uncertain, but she turned and walked away eventually, once out of sight, I turned back to the person; I started to match towards the individual with the dark shadow, the shadow could have been a Persona. But it felt too different to a Persona, maybe something similar, but definitely not the same thing at all. "Who are you?" I asked.
It was definitely direct and my tone rather sharp, but I was a little too on edge to go about doing this delicately; besides I'm sure that there was no chance that this person was an ordinary individual which allowed me to be a lot more blunt than I would normally be. It helped that this little section of Akihabara was also rather deserted since that aura was definitely scaring everyone away which gave us a little privacy.
"Me?" The person spoke. A male voice came out but despite him turning towards me, I couldn't really see much of his facial features due to the hood which was hanging low over his face; all I could see was that he was rather pale skinned. "Why do you ask such a thing?" He questioned. There seemed to be a note to his voice which I wasn't entirely sure how to process it.
"Because I know you're not human, I don't know any human that has a massive hauntingly black figure hanging over them with a sensation of death rolling of them wide enough for people to run away," I explained. Even just being this close to him was enough to make my skin start crawling in an extremely discomforted manner; I wanted to move away but I refused to leave without any answers.
"You can see that?" The boy questioned. He seemed genuinely surprised that I knew about the form that surrounded him. "But to do that you would have to have the eyes of the Other World," The boy commented. That caused my eyes to widen since I figured he just have been referring to my status as a Betwixt. The boy focused back on my and peered at me in silence for a few moments before a smile curled on his lips. "Ah, yes so you are. Just like Sakuya and Izumi," The boy stated.
"I'm going to ask again, who are you?" I demanded. I had a lot of questions now about exactly who this individual was, to have known about the nature of my eyes and the fact that he knew there were two other people like me was just the start. But getting answers about exactly what this individual could be was much more important than those other questions.
"You can call me… I suppose Shin is as good a name as any," The boy admitted. That caused my eyebrows to furrow since that made it sound like Shin wasn't exactly his name, instead it was a reference to the sensation that he was giving off. "You are concerned that I'm some kind of threat," Shin assumed. He was pretty observant, but if he knew what I was then it made sense that he knew a little bit more about me.
"Well, like I said you are giving off an aura of death," I pointed out. I just hoped that he would be willing to answer me properly and give me some idea about exactly what this individual was; despite the energy that was coming off of him and the haunting black figure that hovered over him, I felt like he wasn't exactly a dangerous individual who would do me any kind of harm.
"True, but it's not like I want to," Shin claimed. His lips were curved into a bitter expression, showing he did not have a high opinion of this power that he possessed. "My beloved was a little cruel when she rescued me from death's door. I can see the deaths of all others, no matter how much I don't want to," Shin explained. My eyes widened at those words; I felt my heart become saddened upon hearing such a thing since he suffered from an undesired power.
"Oh… I'm sorry you have that kind of power," I admitted. There wasn't much that I could say in response to that, it wasn't like I could take that power away from him given that I had no idea how he had even gained a hold of that ability or how he even ended up gaining it since he was a little vague on the details; but Shin seemed intrigued by the words I'd spoken.
"You aren't afraid… nor are you curious… I hadn't expected that. Since coming here, no one has been able to approach me," Shin claimed. Even the wave of death that rolled off of Shin so easily and constantly definitely would unsettle even the seemingly jaded and disconnected people of Tokyo; but I was a little different to most of the people that Shin had ended up coming across in this city.
"Well, I'm already acquainted with the idea of death already," I admitted. Not just the tragic passing of my family, but also the constant battles I got involved in when in the Metaverse and the ominous presence that kept randomly appearing when we were down there too long that Morgana called the Reaper. "So, you see everyone's death? No matter what?" I asked. I wanted to clarify a bit more about this power of his.
"Yes, I'm afraid to get involved with other people because of it. I can barely be around others like you and normal people are so much worse," Shin claimed. He proceeded to pull away with a bitter smile on his lips. "You would be better off staying away from me, I might just hasten your own death," Shin claimed. With that he darted down a side passage, but when I moved to follow him, I saw that there was nothing there at all despite it being a straight line.
'Sorry, Shin, but I'm kind of stubborn. And it looks like you need a friend.' I thought.