Chapter 2
Aragaki Minako was exasperated. Her brother and his boyfriend had the nerve to use the Velvet Room to quick travel, barge into her bookstore, while it was still open, and demand help. She would help them anyway. Of course she would. Apparently Minato had been waking up at midnight for nearly a month now, and that instinct that came with being The Universe led him here. To little Yasoinaba. 6 months after they moved in. It didn’t help that she kept misplacing her Velvet Room key, and Akira started wandering around town more often, though maybe that wasn’t that bad. At least he had something to do.
So here she was, in Junes, fooling around. She wasn’t even sure how that happened, but it was just the three of them. They had asked Shinji, but he said,
“I don’t do that persona stuff anymore. Besides, someone has to watch Akira. Someone that won’t keep using garu to entertain him and be a nuisance to everyone else.”
It also didn’t help that Ryoji Mochizuki was very physically affectionate to her brother, who allowed it.
“Ugh, get a room you two. I don’t need to see this.”
Her brother sighed.
“Come on, Mina-chan, it’s love!” Ryoji smiled.
“No, no, she’s right. It’s getting to be too much.” Minato deadpanned.
“Thank God.”
“That’s not fair, you two are ganging up on me!”
At this they started playfully shoving each other around in the Junes electronics aisle. Eventually, somebody shoved a little too hard, and they all ended up falling into a big TV.
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“Whoa, what is this place?”
“It radiates Dark Hour energy. There are shadows here too.”
“Wait, that means we can summon our personas again!”
Minako squealed as she flipped through her old selection.
“They’re all still there!”
“Messiah!”
“Orpheus!”
Ryoji whistled before transforming with a spin.
“aNd thANaToS!”
They all laughed, the God of Death having to change back just to do so.
“Look guys, the Velvet Room’s over there.”
“Let’s go, then.”
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Inside the Velvet Room…
“Igor! I was worried you locked me out when I couldn’t access those magical blue doors across town.”
“Apologies. We have been very busy with our current guest.” He appeared to remember something else, but chose not to mention it, in favor of grinning wider.
“Greetings. Unfortunately, our services may no longer be available to you.”
“No that’s all fine, Margaret, we have everything we need.”
“Maybe we should go slash through some shadows.”
They grinned in unison.
“Let’s do it.”
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They slashed through the shadows easily, until they came upon the Reaper. A bear, who had started following them since they entered, gasped as they started to fight it. They were strong, but nobody could beat the Reaper, right? However, they smirked and engaged. The trio moved fluidly and silently as they maimed the shadow, subduing it. All of them had a strange energy around them. Suddenly, they all turned towards him, smirking. The black-haired man winked. Teddie gasped and fled. He had to tell the others.
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At Junes…
“I’m telling you guys, there were others in the TV world!” Teddie yelled, before being hushed by Yosuke.
“They all were at the entrance, confused. I was going to help them, but suddenly they started talking about dark hour energy. Then, the girl said persona, and summoned a lot of them, like Sensei! The boy did too, and he could summon a lot at once! Then the other one transformed into a monster! The pretty girl pointed at the air and said ‘velvet’ and they all kinda spaced out together.” Yu’s eyes widened.
“They snapped out of it after a bear-y long time, and started cutting through shadows! They were stealthy and strong. They went to Yuki-chan’s dungeon and cut through them like they were nothing! The Reaper appeared, and instead of running away, they fought it!”
“Whoa, whoa whoa. What? They fought The Reaper?”
Teddie nodded.
“They didn’t even have to say anything to each other, and they beat it!”
“They did?!”
“How-”
“Then they noticed me, and I ran here bear-y fast to tell you this!”
“What did they look like?”
“The pretty girl had red eyes, and the boys both had dark hair and blue eyes.”
“Could you be more specific, Ted?”
“I couldn’t! Teddie was very scared!”
“Good job, Teddie. We obviously can’t fight these people, so we’ll have to grow stronger. We should work on finding out who these people are. Yosuke, check the camera clips. Teddie, watch the TV world, and tell us if you recognize them. If these people are the murderers, we need to work harder. Yukiko, are you ok to go back there?”
She nodded.
“Great, we need to go as soon as possible.”
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“That bear-shadow-thing will probably be telling the other persona users now. We need to find them. I doubt they’ll think us innocent, especially after defeating the Reaper.”
“Maybe they’ll come into the bookstore, or the restaurant, who knows.”
“You sure we won’t be seen falling in?”
“Of course, dearest. Death has a way of blending in, after all.”
“You two should really wait until I leave if you’re going to be all romantic and stuff.”