messiah

Maybe that’s why Wendy’s found staring at someone else, with no regard to their own comfort. Well, she’s mainly staring at the small, delicious treat in their hands. She’s still got some manners- she’s not going to go up and steal it, or anything! But… she will keep staring, scheming about what if she went up and stole it.

The smooth delicious outside, the warming inside, the sweet relishing effect on her tongue…

Yes, she’s staring, wide eyes and all. And she’s a little bit… dazed?

Minato definitely notices the wide eyed girl staring at him; or rather, at his acquisition. 

No. This is his chocolate, dammit.

Unless she was dying of hunger or something... he could probably let her have it then, but she didn’t look extremely malnourished. Maybe a little, but if she were, she’d be better off eating something with more nutritional value.

“Yeah... I wish.”

He leans back, hands in his pockets as Junpei starts backpedaling into his unmistakably Junpei gig. Nothing out of the ordinary there--

Except...?

“An older Akihiko-senpai...?”

Minato can’t help it; his mind immediately begins to conjure up mental images of his senior, several years older. All that training had to have paid off, by then...

It’s not bad. He’s just caught himself wondering if his vision is similar to the real thing.

He’d have to try and find out, if only to sate his own curiosity. 

“You’re not playing the game?” she asked, uncertain of how to phrase her question otherwise. Lowering her gaze to his neck, she was further surprised to not see the same collar she was wearing. This didn’t make any sense. Had the rules changed while they were locked in the underground facility?

Frustrated in more ways than one, Nemu lowered the evoker to an empty spot of concrete. She pulled the trigger and felt a slight kickback that was easily diffused between both of her hands. Otherwise… nothing happened. No bullet buried itself in the ground. She’d been ready to say “That will be your head next if you don’t answer me,” but the result quieted her and increased her confusion.

“…Oh,” she said quietly, peering at the gun in amazement. She turned it over in her hands. “You’re carrying a fake gun? How useless.” Her body rigid but prideful, she stepped forward to hand it to him. Afterward, she resumed the short distance between them and crossed her arms. She looked uncomfortable.

“No?”

He doesn’t even know what ‘the game’ is. How is he supposed to answer her? As he ponders he notices the girl aim his evoker at the ground.

“Hey, wait--”

But by the time he attempts to get her attention, she’s already fired it. Seems like nothing happened... he always kind of wondered what would occur if a ‘normal’ person fired it. At least he knows, now? Kind of boring, though he wasn’t expecting anything out of the ordinary.

As she hands his evoker back he thanklessly slips it back into its holster, a little grateful she hasn’t tried to grab anything else of his. Minato would definitely watch her a little more closely, now.

“It’s a long story.”

“And what do you mean by that...? ‘Killing game?’”

Running back to Rokukeikan Academy had never taken her here before. The researchers at the facility had never used false names before. Just taking a step out into this sprawling city was dizzying—it was only a new playground for the researchers to make her miserable in, but it was vast and not like anything she’d been forced into prior. Nemu closed her eyes against the noise and tried to breathe.

Her heart beat erratically in her chest as she forced her body to move. Rather than her usual confident strides, unease forced her to move like a puppet. No one was killing so far. There was no destruction, no fighting, no disorder whatsoever. It only served to increase her confusion, but it didn’t water down her resolve.

A few blocks later, Nemu decided to act rather than wait. She was passed in front of a restaurant with a single young man sitting at an outside table. His back was to the sidewalk. There: she could see a gun on him. He didn’t look any older or more powerful than her, but the killing game went on. 

Quietly, she stepped up beside him and leaned over, wrapping her arms around his waist. She rested her chin on his shoulder, whispering affectionately into his ear. “Honey…”

And then immediately drops them back onto the paper with a waxy, subtle crash as he’s touched from behind by someone whose voice he’s never heard. It happens so quickly he doesn’t even have time to jerk his head around, a jolt of sudden panic rushing through his body.

He pivots on his rear, legs swinging around to fully face the direction his assailant had come from. For a moment Minato doesn’t even recognize the mouth of the barrel of his own evoker; it’s been a while since he’s felt fear, even a small burst like this.

Her words, sharp and demanding, only serve to confuse him.

“What? Dictator?”

The way things were suddenly imposed on them sometimes, he might as well have been living in a dictatorship, but... there was no dictator he’d ever heard of, not formally. It wasn’t even that bad.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He thinks for a moment, perusing his mind for an afterthought.

“I wouldn’t go looking for a fight, either. But I guess that’s just me.”

╳☠☠ ┈┈

“I’m not thinking about anything, don’t worry.”

Well, he kind of had to, eventually... if things worked here similarly as they did in his own world, anyway. He was relieved to see his fellow SEES member, his features betraying a grin. 

Once he noticed how the other boy had processed his appearance, however, it quickly slid off his face.

“Junpei...?”

He’d seemed a little... different? Minato had been expecting a gleeful greeting, even a joke or two. That’d definitely be typical of Junpei, but humor appeared to be the last thing on his mind.

Was it a coincidence that these two souls met one another?

Maybe. Maybe not. As contrived as it was for Saitama to walk into a convenience store at the same exact time as one Arisato Minato, it happened and he crushed his glove against the metal handle of the door while trying to squeeze on by.

Stubbing his dominant hand like this was not how he expected to go down. Crippled by the pain of first world problems, Saitama dropped to his knees and idly remembered to himself that most convenience stores had cameras pointed at the exits. Ah. So his defeat had been recorded. Even better.

“Why do bad things happen to good people?”

So that was a little reassuring.

“Beats me.”

The way the man was reacting, it looked like he’d been struck down by something brutal. Minato felt kind of sorry for him; he extended his hand, reaching out in an attempt to help him back up.

“Spider bake sale?”

There were a lot of spiders, but Minato wasn’t aware that they gathered for any particular reason, especially not for baking. Spiders could bake?

If so, this changed everything.

Each time she felt Orpheus, it was different. The Persona was never the same; the abilities were different, and perhaps even it’s stats. But she could tell each of them were different, although subtle. Just because of that, she couldn’t simply bring up past encounters, or past happenings with the Fool. 

All she could do was cry.

And that’s what she was doing, right this moment, in front of the boy. He hadn’t paid attention to her coming, so the expression on his face was full of surprise. It was very likely she’d spill the beans about his previous incarnations and their adventures, but even so, he wouldn’t understand. Fuuka just let the tears fall, and punched him in the chest. It was a weak one, but it was still enough to knock him back a step or two.

“Why are you crying? It hasn’t been that long... has it?”

It feels like just yesterday she was there in the dorm with him and the others, relaying statistics and advising caution when she believed certain fights would be rough when they traveled to the domain of Shadows. Fuuka’s voice was gentle yet unwavering, and he heard that same tone even in her apparent sadness; he punctuated her strike with a small ‘oof,’ staggering backwards a bit and recollecting himself before shuffling right back to his original place.

Where has he been? That’s a good question.

“Lost,” Minato decides, and it’s not entirely an untruthful answer. If he wasn’t eating or sleeping here, odds are he was probably wandering about. At least in his own world he had found a purpose, a reason to exist...

“Sure. I’m Minato. Nice meeting you.”

As young as he may be, the boy-- Tyrone-- really appeared to have it together. It reminded him of a friend; Minato wondered about him absentmindedly, hoped to himself that he was doing all right.