Shattered Justice (A Persona Quest)

You don't always bring your notebooks with you everywhere. You're still sort of worried about the wrong type of person seeing them, even though you realize that it probably won't change all that much. Not if this sort of information has continually failed to spread from Mikage-Cho to the rest of the world.

...Which, honestly, is sort of confusing, given that you'd think something would have slipped out by now just due to the presence of a tourist industry, but whatever. It's not your problem.

Your problem is currently keeping yourself and Akira entertained while something happens upstairs that may or may not end in hypothermia. No way to know unless you actually check. And you have a notebook on hand, today, and he's already seen a few samples of your writing, so it certainly couldn't hurt anyone.

So you offer it to him, flipping to the section that you think he'd like the most. It's almost about him, after all.

He accepts it with a slight smile and starts reading, not loud enough for you to hear it, but his mouth still moves along with the words on the page. Given that you wrote it, and just saw it again while working through to that exact page, you can tell exactly what he's seeing on the page at any given moment.

---

"I think he likes you," Nami commented, watching Merlin snuggle up close to Ren. For someone who insisted he wasn't an ordinary cat, he sure acted like it sometimes, at least when they were purely in one world. "He never lets me cuddle with him." And, honestly, she was the one who fed him. If there was anyone who was entitled to hugs, it really should have been her.

Ren's eyes lit up. "Oh, so I can have him, then?"

"No!" Honestly, the golden-eyed creature would probably end up slipping completely into the Metaverse and coming back months later or something, apparently that sort of thing was possible, and Nami didn't have the time to go searching though another world for a cat. "Are you even allowed to have pets?"

"Hey, what everyone else doesn't know won't hurt them. ...Unless they're allergic, or something. Then it'd probably hurt them."

"You can't have my cat."

Merlin poked his head up from the boys lap. "Hey, do I get any say in this?" Nami wasn't entirely sure how she was supposed to respond without sounding completely insane. Among other things, she didn't want to be known as the crazy girl who held one-sided conversations with her cat, no matter how capable of communication said cat actually was. Suddenly, the feline's ears pricked. "Um, Nami... do you sense that?"

"Sense what?" She asked, because her reputation was admittedly less important than any sort of Metaverse-related emergencies.

She got her answer almost immediately. The world fell silent, but for the two children and the cat on the park bench, the water vanishing from the fountain in front of them. Thankfully, unlike the last time she was here when the worlds merged, no goopy mess started oozing out of the pipes.

The people, too, changed form. Some became statues, others became hedge sculptures. Nami wondered, not for the first time, what other sorts of forms they could take.

Ren stood up quickly, Merlin falling to the ground with a yelp of protest. "This- Nami-chan, what's happening?"

Nami shrugged, because despite having received the best-possible explanations, she still wasn't sure she'd been told everything. Or that Merlin knew quite as much as he said he did. "I... never really got that part, either."

"It's not that hard!" Merlin protested, and Ren's gaze was immediately drawn to the cat. Well. That answered one question. "There's your world, the Universe. And there's my world, the Metaverse. Right now, they're mixing together. It's not exactly difficult to remember." Maybe not, but she'd always been a bit more focused on the whole life threatening situations thing. Those seemed just a bit more immediately important.

Not that Ren seemed to agree with her. "That sounds simple enough," He stated, quickly getting over the shock of the talking cat. "Though that still doesn't explain the..." He gesture around at nothing in particular, but it could also have been everything.

There was a movement behind a nearby tree. "We can talk about it later, we should go somewhere safe now," Nami urged her friend. While she was sure Mnemosyne could handle whatever threats lied in waiting... why take the risk?

---

They managed to avoid the Shadows for less than five minutes, at which point they somehow managed to get surrounded. On the bright side, this meant they literally could not throw spells about without hitting something.

Summoning Mnemosyne was easy. Nami wasn't sure how much of the same was true for Merlin when it came to Astraeus, but odds were it was, given how nothing he had on hand ever glowed. Ren stood near them, watching the fight, his hands fiddling with what looked like a small black device. "What is that?" She asked, distracted by the new sight.

"I-I don't know... It just showed up in my pocket." The same way her ring had appeared on her finger, and Shinri described the experience of finding an odd music box sitting next to her the first time she encountered a Shadow.

Merlin seemed to notice, too. "Do you know how to use it?"

"I..." The boy reached forward, and tapped the device. "...I think I do. Epiales!" The name rung out through the streets of the combined worlds, a being of pure darkness emerging from Ren's shadow. The being had claws, with visible, tangible darkness leaking out from the holes that the Persona tore into reality.

Well. At the very least, three fighters could certainly handle things better than two.

---

Akira stares at the pages. You aren't sure if he likes what he's been reading or not. "So... this is for your book?" He finally asks, still not looking away. You don't think nodding would do anything for him right now.

Before you can answer, Mitsuru-san is down the stairs. There is a frosty air around her, but at the same time, you don't think there's any slipping hazards around. If only because you've never actually seen her do anything like that.

"Kurusu-kun." Her voice is warm, which could mean any number of things, but probably just that she likes Akira and doesn't want to scare him when you only just told him she uses ice. "I have acquired permission for you to visit the dormitory during spring break, from after your breakfast to right after dinner. I hope that is okay with you?" Okay, you have no idea what she did, but you also don't see any real need to ask. Whatever it is, it can only be a good thing, right?

"That- I'd like that." He nods, and Mitsuru-san wordlessly leads you all back to the dorm. You have no idea what she's planning to tell Ikutsuki-san about this, but you also don't really care so long as it works.

"So... your book?" Akira repeats himself, more quietly, as you walk along. You nod.

"It- the first bit's basically finished, really..." You still aren't sure if it's ready to be published, but... maybe you could try?

You know Akira and Maiko would be ecstatic, at the very least.


[ ] Get help from your friends to get this first section of your story published.

[ ] Honestly, you'd... really rather keep it to yourself...