Summary: A new game has begun, and now it is time for the ultimate choice: Which protagonist will you choose? Minako/Minato decision. What really happens when you choose a gender in P3P.
Author's Note: An (incredibly morbid) idea I had when I realized Minako and Minato were/could be twins. I created this oneshot quite a bit differently from my other stories. For instance, it is not only in present-tense but it is rather fast paced, focusing on the content and events itself than details or literary flair. I hope you enjoy reading this experimentation nevertheless.
Warning: You may never be able to play P3P the same ever again.
Disclaimer: I do not own the Persona series. If I did, Persona 4 would have a female protagonist (Why Atlus?! I want to date Yosuke and yes, even Kanji!). Unfortunately, that is not the case.
Would You Like To Start A New Game?
Created By: x-LittleMissAlice-x
xXx
"Our choices often affect the fate of others."
Unknown
xXx
Welcome to Persona 3 Portable.
They are laughing.
Giggling - innocent, light giggling echoes from the back seat. Lying on the rumbling leather car cushions are two children; one a boy with dark inky locks and passive blue eyes, the other a bright young girl with chestnut hair tussled in a ponytail. The twins are about six years old, and in their grasp are two Phoenix Ranger Featherman R figurines. The boy moves the Blue Ranger idly, merely to amuse his sister, while the girl bounces and grins as she makes her Pink Ranger soar through the air, her childish mind swimming with imagination. They cease their playing at their mother's voice.
"My little darlings, it's almost midnight," she says. "You know what to do then, right?"
The twins turn towards one another. The boy has an evident, rare ghost of a smile, while the girl grins openly. They reply in unison:
"Make a wish!"
Please choose a gender.
Their father chuckles. "Let's count then, shall we? Ten. Nine. Eight…"
Your decision will change the storyline. Are you sure you want to choose the male protagonist?
The twins join in with their father and mother.
"Seven. Six. Five…"
CANCEL.
Please choose a gender.
They are counting together and everything is happy.
"Four. Three. Two…"
Your decision will change the storyline. Are you sure you want to choose the female protagonist?
"One."
Then chaos ensues.
Their mother and father abruptly disappear. Bulky coffins replace their once warm, active bodies. The sky from outside the car window warps, shifts and darkens. The once gray clouds morph to an eerie yellow.
CONFIRM.
The car continues to fly forward. It swerves and shakes on the bridge; erratic, uncontrollable, unstable. Her brother's body jerks. With a loud thump! his skull collides with the car window, and his eyes slip shut.
The little girl takes off her seat belt even though her mother had told her not to, under any circumstances. She climbs over the center console, between her mother and father's coffins and fearlessly places her small, child-like hands on the wheel. When her big brown eyes flicker up and look through the windshield, she sees a girl...
She is tall and blond and stands passively in the middle of the road. Instinctively, the little girl jerks the wheel.
The car is spinning. She is spinning. The world is spinning.
And then they crash – hard.
Upon colliding with the bridge railing, she flies into the back seat, next to her brother's unconscious body. The nerves in her arm and side are bursting, throbbing, exploding. With a soft whimper she closes her eyes and wishes, wills, longs to go to sleep.
Thoughts of her mother and father and brother float in the back of her exhausted mind. She wants to laugh with them again.
Without another moment to spare she pushes her self to her feet, opens the door, and climbs out of the car.
She limps. Her arms and feet feel heavy but she pushes forward, seeking any help, seeking any possible savior.
And then she sees her.
The blond girl from before hovers in the air several feet above, but she is not alone. A large beast kneels before her – tall, fierce, deadly.
The stench of death and decay hangs heavily in the air around the beast. It is hunched over, an inky black liquid oozing from a hole in its side. He turns towards the little girl slowly – so slowly, in yet too fast. The beasts face – a mask of solid bone – stares straight at her (right through her) and roars.
Her big brown eyes widen as she stumbles back. Her body trembles as the monster's talon fingers reach towards her.
A voice that is not hers rings through her head.
"Thou art I. I art thou. You child who has the potential, come forth to me. Be embraced by the arms of the Death. Accept Thanatos as your-"
An ear-splitting screech splits her mind in two as the blond woman tackles the beast to the ground.
She watches. For far too long she stands in the middle of the bridge and watches the battle raging on before her.
This isn't real. Her family is not injured. This monster does not exist. This is a nightmare. It has to be.
And it is a nightmare – but it is also reality.
The woman soaring through the air, shooting bullets like a rapid-fire machine gun is real. The beast that is trying to evade all of her pursuits, damaging the bridge and shattering the coffins around the area is real.
The rocket that flies out of the blonde's arm and soars towards her car is very, very real and she can do nothing about it.
She screams. She knows she is screaming, even though she cannot hear it. Her vocal cords ripple and ache. Her ears are ringing, and it takes her a minute to finally process why.
The rocket – it was causing her ears to ring. It had whizzed, flown, and crashed… into her car. Into her parents. Into her brother. Upon impact the smoking car combusts, blowing up the vehicle and everyone inside.
You have chosen the female protagonist.
There are flames. Burning. Raging. Spitting and hissing. Consuming.
Her screaming stops and the cackling of the fire is all that remains of the car, of her parents, and of her brother.
She cries hot, wet tears but no matter how much she cries, the flames will not extinguish.
The black sludge of a beast flies through the air and is hurled into the flames. The blond girl follows after it.
Minutes pass, and the screeching howling from before ceases. All that remains is silence in that dark hour.
Finally, from the fire the blond woman emerges. A swell of hope bursts inside the girl – a fluttering little hope that she has her parents or brother with her. That hope dies as quickly as it came. The woman is not carrying them. Her parents and her brother are gone. Forever.
There is something more valuable than her parents lives in the woman's hand: a cracked mask made of bone – the same one from the monster earlier. It is covered in glistening black liquid, and the coppery scent of blood wafts from it. The closer the woman approaches, the more the girl feels overwhelmed by the mask's dark aura. It is chillingly cold, like Death.
She wants to run.
Far, far away she wants to run. But the girl does not move; she no longer has a family or a home to run off to.
Mechanically, the woman stands before her. Her limbs look similar to auto-mail or metal. She can hear the gears inside the girl hissing and smoking, her fingers twitching as if she will shut down at any moment. Robotically, the woman cocks her head to the side. Her pale face is stoic and hollow, like a beautiful little doll.
"I am sorry," she says but her voice is flat and her blue eyes do not show sympathy or remorse. "I am too weak to destroy this shadow on my own. No matter how many times I try to beat Death, he keeps regenerating. Your family is a causality for my incompetence. To prevent future incidents from happening again, for the sake of the human race, I am afraid you must carry this burden."
The woman lunges forward before she can move, and the mask is jammed into her chest, over her heart. Everything numbs as a dark feeling floods throughout her body, burying any and all emotions that could be stirred.
The woman says her parting words, "When the hour is over, you will never know what really occurred during this night. I am sorry for that as well."
And then she is gone.
Everything is gone. Nothing matters.
Please input a name.
She falls, numb.
The world fades.
The memory of her parents' previous laughter and her brother's small smile disappears.
The last thing she sees is the eerie blood red moon.
Arisato-Minako
...I did warn you that it was morbid, didn't I?
Although depressing, I hope you enjoyed reading this nevertheless. If this story receives five or more reviews, I will create another oneshot for this series.
That is all then. Have a lovely evening.
xLMAx