Chapter Text
There was a castle where their school should have been, and all she could muster was a familiar sense of dread: she wasn’t surprised; she wasn’t in awe at the size of the building or wary of the dark sky surrounding it; she wasn’t even scared: all she could feel, from deep in her bones to the topmost layer of her skin was all consuming dread. Something about it— the dark architecture, the off-colored sky, the way the air seemed to hum with an energy that made something at her very core itch— felt so eerily familiar, so deliciously anxiety inducing, that she couldn’t help but follow the blonde haired boy into the castle.
If she was being cynical, as she was often to do, then she would say that she thought that she and, despite her limited interactions with him, the other boy had more sense than to do something as stupid as walking into a mysterious castle without a care in the world. As it stood, however, she could feel something deep inside her, something more pressing than passing curiosity pushing her to follow him in; something that whispered in her ear with every step to be careful, careful, careful.
Brushing her hair and the series of hairpins that pinned it back to the side, she exhaled sharply, resisting the urge to let her hand linger against her thigh. It was an odd habit that had been with her for most of her life– when she needed comfort, when she felt scared, when being alone with her thoughts became unbearable, the first place her hand wandered was the outside of her upper thigh. Dancing over the tight material that covered her legs, she twisted it in her hand, desperate for a sensation that she couldn’t quite place to pull her from her dread.
Finding nothing, she swallowed before focusing her attention forward, forward towards the water stained drawbridge that crossed a bone dry moat, forward towards a boy who seemed so oddly familiar that she could have sworn that they’d met before. A ridiculous idea– she’d never been in Tokyo before, even during the years she spent bouncing from foster home to foster home, and she would have remembered someone like him at her old school.
The pair crossed the drawbridge in silence, her new schoolmate moving forward without any of the trepidation that she felt while she lagged behind, taking in the sights and sounds of the world around her. Distantly, if she listened closely, she could hear a voice singing quietly, a familiar melody that she couldn’t quite place.
Shaking her head clear, the teenaged girl bit into her lip, slipping in front of her companion to push open the heavy wooden door, anxiety intensifying as it opened silently. The room beyond was ornate, hardwood and red carpet covering the floors and walls, accented by gold and brass edging and light fixtures, regal and impossible. It reminded her of something from a fantasy movie more than anything she’d seen in real life, doubly so with the gaudy portrait that hung directly in front of them.
“Woah.”
She flinched at the noise and the touch as the boy pushed past her, gawking at the entrance hall like a grade schooler seeing something impressive for the first time. Before she could step forward to join him, she froze: every sense in her body was screaming that something was wrong, wrong, wrong, that they needed to get out. Distantly, she could hear something moving down one of the side hallways. Moving towards them.
“Wh-what the hell? This isn’t Shujin.”
Humming her approval absentmindedly, she tilted her head to the side as the sound clarified into the distinct clank of metal on metal, moving forward to accompany the boy to the base of the painting. Her anxiety was peaking: she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were wrong to enter the castle.
“Kamoshida? Who would paint Kamoshida?”
She wanted to tell him, needed to tell him, that they needed to run as fast as they could, that something was coming, but she couldn’t. Something held her back, some deep dark part of her that she couldn’t find if she looked for it, was begging for them to stay.
When the soldiers in knight armor emerged from around the corner, she didn’t even bother pretending to look surprised: all she could think was that they smelled familiar.
Is this it?
Glancing around for the source of the voice, even as she shifted away from the knights, arm outstretched to protect the boy, her body twinged with a familiar, yet bizarre, mix of euphoria and pain.
After all of that, are we going to die here?
The world around her twisted, soft candlelight and expensive carpet exchanged for stone flooring marred with pools of blood and a harsh green light.
No, Martyr. We refuse. Do you?
There was something at her feet. Something shining a familiar silver color, even as it lay in a pool of dull blood, even as the world darkened around her into a single point. Bending down, she pulled the object from the ground, grip shifting to hold it properly as distant shouts reached her ears. It was a gun— a silver plated handgun with a blue crystal where the magazine should be, short barreled and engraved with unfamiliar flowers, beautiful and deadly. Fear and excitement pulsed through her brain, even as she commanded her muscles to drop the weapon.
Ah, I see. You don’t remember us. Well, Martyr, allow us to instruct you. Say our name, summon us from the Sea of your Heart! Exact your vengeance! Embrace Death itself!
Reality reasserted itself. The boy was on the ground, blood leaking from a head wound onto the carpet. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t move— she could only act. Could only follow a strange instinct from a time she couldn’t remember. Spinning her finger in the trigger guard to reverse her grip on the gun, she brought it to her head. She was going to die anyway— why not find out why her soul begged for her to do this? Hands shaking with fear, part from the knight and its raised blade and part from the cold steel pressed against her temple, the girl dropped all semblance of control, letting her muscles and soul take over.
“Per… per…”
Squeezing her eyes shut at the sound of metal sliding through the air, she breathed in a gasp.
“Persona!”
She pulled the trigger, and time froze.
She was Arisato Minako, she was six years old, and she had just watched her parents and twin brother die. She didn’t have a concrete idea of death, yet— all she knew was that they weren’t coming back, and that there had been so much blood, blood, blood, on the bridge.
They said it was a car accident, but she knew. Knew that it was a monster that had taken her family from her, and that it was a girl with short blonde hair that stopped it.
She knew that the monster lived inside her.
And then she forgot.
Minako wasn’t the same girl she was when she summoned Orpheus for the last time. She wasn’t the same girl she was when she summoned Messiah for the last time, and she was far from the same girl as she was when she summoned Thanatos for the last time.
She was so much more, yet so much less than she used to be. She was, once again, a stranger in an unfamiliar city, once again the loner in a room, once again an explorer of the unknown. Her journey had started over again: her fate had been cast off, her destiny shattered, and she was left floundering in the wake of it all. She had a new beginning, and her soul knew that.
“Sometimes, you don’t need a purpose as special as saving the world, Minako.”
She smiled weakly, because she had nothing else to do. She wasn’t going to cry, because she wasn’t sad. She didn’t particularly feel like standing up and going somewhere, or waiting around for the world to pass by. All she could do, all she wanted with her whole entire heart, was to lay there and smile.
“Sometimes you just need something simple. Like protecting you.”
A blue butterfly floated overhead, larger than she would have expected it to be. Reaching up to the sky, she giggled as it landed on her fingertips. Minako’s smile broadened. “Thank you.”
The other girl’s look softened even further, seemingly impossibly. “For what?”
“Protecting me.”
“Of course.”
And then she died.
And then she forgot.
She wasn’t a naive child reaching for the coattails of adults who treated her like dirt, and she wasn’t a teenager who’d insulated herself against emotion with a constant mask of sunshine and rainbows. She had her friends, her bonds that she could feel even after so long. She had Yukari, and all of the emotional weight and growth that came from truly loving someone.
She wasn’t a weak little girl who flinched at shadows: she had the muscle that she had developed over a year of volleyball practice and fighting, of running up stairs and dodging attacks from the demons that inhabited Tartarus. She had the skills she had learned, had the talents she had picked up from the clubs she joined, she had every ounce of charm and intelligence that she had refined over the school year.
Her existence itself was oxymoronic: she was a dead girl, living. A seal, unbroken, yet far from holding anything together. Someone with everything, and nothing.
“The Arcana is the means by which all is revealed.”
Biting into her lip, Minako twirled her naginata around to slash through a lesser shadow as Messiah mirrored her movements, cutting a slice in reality that gleamed with eerie blue light.
“Megidolaon!”
The light exploded forward, tendrils snaking through the air, crossing through each other to form a single ray before slamming into the body of the Nyx Avatar, a massive, deafening explosion filling the air.
As the smoke cleared, the beast continued. “The moment man devoured the fruit of knowledge, he sealed his fate. Beyond the beaten path lies the absolute end. It matters not who you are.”
Athena dashed forward, blade on a downward swipe while a second Megiodolaon from Messiah and a Bufudyne from Artemisia detonated, blowing dust backwards as the remaining members of S.E.E.S staggered slightly. Undaunted, the Avatar spoke again, voice reverberating, even in open air.
“Death comes for everyone.”
Not now. Not for her.
She was a fool.
She was the universe.
She was dead.
She was loved.
She wasn’t even human anymore.
When had that ever stopped her or her friends before?
You will even rebel against me, Martyr?
She would grab her power with her own two hands, would fight and fight and fight until she could live without any regrets.
We are in agreement, then. I am thou…
“And thou art I!”
Gritting her teeth as time resumed, as shards of not-quite glass exploded from the side of her head, showering the ground with fragments of psychic energy, Arisato Minako smiled toothily as her other self pulled into reality. Death itself was thick in the air, cold and stifling like a lead blanket holding the Shadows back from her. It felt like an old friend— like Pharos’ smile, like Ryoji’s scarf on a cool day, like the demonic reflection of herself tearing the Magician’s Shadow to shreds.
Blue fire and green glass mixed together, swirling around her in sharp-edged fractal patterns interlaced with cool flame, shaping itself into a new form: a human shape, vaguely masculine, draped in a clean white cloak with gold detailing spiraling around the shoulders and hip area. The visible portions of his skin were discolored— sickly grays and greens weren’t uncommon, with a blue tinge suffusing the whole organ— and eerily disconnected: thin chain links were the only thing keeping each chunk of body to any other. Clutched in his hands were a golden crook and flail, each glowing with a dark energy that took her breath away. The top of his head was covered by an elaborate crown, sectioned off into two sections, colored a deep red and brilliant white, respectively.
Grin stretching further as she returned the Evoker to its holster, Minako pulled at every ounce of strength from within herself. Tugging her naginata from her back and dropping into a fighting stance, the girl could almost feel the shouts of her friends as they summoned their Personas echo within her skull as she named her own, tugging it fully free from the Sea of her Heart.
“Osiris!”