Disclaimer: I do not own Persona 3 or related properties. They all belong to their respective owners, namely Atlus and its parents (at this time: Sega Games Co., Sega Sammy Holdings, etc.). Some dialogue is identical to that present in the game itself or features only minor changes. This is not mine and is used entirely as buildup — it will not be a recurring feature once the opening of the game has passed (that is, the first trip to Tartarus) and does not compose a majority of the dialogue (though it may enter into the realm of statistical significance in chapters that focus more on description than speaking).

Weirdos, Weirdos Everywhere

Makoto sighed softly to herself as she turned the page of her book, the motion of the train combining with the late hour and making it difficult for her to remain focused. She brushed a strand of her blue hair back behind her ear — she had cut the damn stuff short to prevent it from getting in her way, but it was persistent.

'A new school, huh?' She mused. 'How dull.'

This was not the first time she had been uprooted from her home, and she was sure that it would not be the last. The world seemed to enjoy tossing her around. This time promised to be a little different, though — she was returning here, to the place where it all began.

When the announcer's tinny voice filtered through the car to inform the few passengers that they had arrived in Iwatodai, she forced herself to her feet and through the doors. As soon as she got to her dorm, she was going to pass out.

The sight that greeted her outside of the station made her sigh. She took a look at her watch — yes, it was stopped at midnight. Just her luck to be stuck walking outside during the Witching Hour. She closed her eyes, feeling for the familiar presence of her guardian spirit. A soft smile curved her lips as Pixie's power flowed through her, pushing back against the oppressive atmosphere.

Makoto pulled out her map and looked around, ignoring the coffin-covered sidewalks with the ease of years of practice. She began to walk, consulting the map at every corner. The last thing she needed was to get lost now. Admittedly she might need to do some awkward explaining as to how she got into the dorm without anyone noticing her, but that was preferable to just standing here for an hour killing whatever monsters decided she looked tasty. It was fun and all, but after a certain point it got repetitive.

Her trip was surprisingly uneventful — she only ran into a small handful of the creatures that infested the strange hour rather than the dozens she was used to. Were they less common here?

The real surprise came when she entered the dorm. Something surged in her stomach and a boy-shaped… thing appeared behind the counter. It wasn't human, whatever it was — its aura was far too wrong for that — but something about it felt familiar.

"You're late," it told her.

She stared at it, then very deliberately raised her right hand and began cleaning out her ear with her pinky.

It continued to wait for a response, and she continued to clean her ear. When she had decided that it was clean enough, she lifted up her left hand to clean the other.

At this point, the thing's patience seemed to desert it. "If you want to proceed, then please sign here. It's a contract."

It squirmed under her stare.

"There's no need to be scared. It only binds you to accepting full responsibility for your actions."

Makoto glanced down at the paper. Indeed, the only words it contained were "I chooseth this fate of mine own free will."

She shrugged internally. 'Why the hell not? Could make things less boring for a little while, if I'm lucky.'

She scrawled "Makoto Moriya" on the indicated line and handed it back to the thing.

It smiled at her and cheerfully said, "Time is something no one can escape. It delivers us all to the same end. Wishing won't make it go away."

'Great, a living fortune cookie,' Makoto thought, more exasperated than annoyed. This was why she hated dealing with speech-capable sentients — whether they were human or not, they loved to waste words. She preferred the monsters. You knew where you stood in a life-and-death battle, and the raw killing intent on both sides was a far purer form of communication than speech.

The thing just laughed and disappeared, melting into the darkness surrounding it as if it had never been there. Makoto rolled her eyes — how typical.

It was at that moment that a panicked voice rang out from behind her.

"Who's there?"

Makoto spun towards the source of the voice, a spell gathering on the tips of her fingers. A pretty brown-haired girl was on the stairs, staring at her in shock.

'A human?' She had never been so glad for her naturally expressionless face. Without it, she was sure that she would look just as flabbergasted as the girl in front of her, and that just wouldn't do.

And that was when she noticed the gun. She brought her hand up, preparing to remove the threat, when yet another human voice cut through the air.

"Wait!"

A redhead this time. Makoto trailed her eyes over the newest arrival. She was clearly calmer than the brown-haired girl, and she held herself with the grace and confidence of a fighter. She had a nice figure, but more important than that were the muscles evident on her arms and legs.

If it came to a battle, it would be important to take the redhead down hard and fast. The mere fact that these two humans were awake during the Witching Hour meant that they were dangerous — they might even have guardian spirits of their own, which meant unknown magic.

As the three faced off, the eerie green lights of the hidden hour flickered and returned to their natural state. Makoto relaxed slightly, but didn't drop her spell. The redhead followed her lead and let her guard drop before giving her a stunning smile.

"I didn't think you'd arrive so late," she said. "My name is Mitsuru Kirijo. I'm one of the students who live in this dorm."

'Kirijo, hm?' The school was built and operated by the Kirijo group. Makoto examined Mitsuru's face intently, ignoring the girl's blush as she noted the lines of her face. Yes, this girl was definitely from a rich family. Interesting that she seemed trained in combat — that was atypical for an heiress of her stature.

"Who's she?" the brown-haired girl asked, still tense.

Mitsuru turned to her, cheeks still slightly flushed. "She's a transfer student. There was a mix-up in the papers, so she'll be living here until a room is prepared in the girls' dorm."

'A mix-up in the papers?' Makoto couldn't recall any such thing. In fact, she was quite certain that this was the dorm she had paid for. There was something strange going on here, and she would be damned if she didn't get to the bottom of it. It definitely had something to do with the Witching Hour, which meant that it was probably life-threatening.

She refocused, realizing that the conversation had continued while she was distracted. Mitsuru was addressing her again.

"-kari Takeba. She'll be a junior this spring, just like you."

Kari Takeba? Oh, she must mean the jumpy girl.

This was confirmed by the subject herself, who gave her a tense smile. "Hi, I'm Yukari."

Oh, Yukari. Probably good to keep that in mind — if she ever spoke to her (hah!), using what would no doubt be interpreted as a familiar nickname would no doubt do nothing to help the tension between them.

Makoto acknowledged Yukari's greeting with a nod.

"N-nice to meet you, too…" Yukari muttered, seeming a little put-off.

"According to her files, she doesn't talk much," Mitsuru told Yukari. "I don't think she's mute, but…?"

She raised an inquiring eyebrow at Makoto, who shook her head.

"Oh, you're just quiet. That's okay, then," Yukari gave her a genuine smile this time. "I hope we'll get along!"

Makoto gave a thin smile of her own. She hadn't yet decided whether or not these two would need to be eliminated, so it was best not to get too familiar with them… Though it would likely be easier to launch a sneak attack if they trusted her, so that was also an option worth considering.

She rather hoped she wouldn't need to kill them, though — it would be a shame to ruin Mitsuru's flawless skin. Perhaps a light-based spell…?

Mitsuru, unaware of Makoto's thoughts, seemed to believe that her lack of attention was entirely due to exhaustion — which, to be fair, wasn't all that far off the mark. Makoto still wanted to pass out, she just didn't know if it would be safe to do so with these two around.

"It's getting quite late. Yukari, could you show her to her room? I still need to do a few things down here," the red-haired heiress said, moving towards the desk.

"Sure!" Yukari replied. She shot another smile at Makoto before heading up the stairs.

Makoto followed her. If this was a trap, it certainly didn't feel like one — and the odds that someone as jumpy as Yukari could be so calm while leading her to her doom were low.

"Here we are!" Yukari chirped, stopping in front of a door on the third floor. "Do you have any questions?"

Makoto had so many questions, but she would find out the answers on her own. She shook her head, mentally cataloging Yukari's physique now that she was close enough to examine in full. Her fingers were calloused, and the shape of those muscles… Archery, perhaps?

"Okay," Yukari replied, but then that tenseness returned. "Um… Can I ask you something? On your way here from the station, was everything okay?"

Was the girl seriously trying to obliquely ask her about the Witching Hour? They had just interacted in the entrance while bathed in its green light. It was absurd to imagine that she could be unaware of it — an entire hour every day, placed outside of clock time and filled with monsters.

Makoto just raised her eyebrow and gestured at her pristine appearance.

"Never mind," Yukari half-giggled. There was something slightly manic about the sound. "Good night!"

Makoto watched the brown-haired weirdo go into her room before entering her own. She immediately locked the door, then allowed a trickle of Pixie's magic to run through her and seal the place. It wouldn't block any traps or bugs that were already placed in the room, but it would prevent anyone with malicious intent from entering without her being made aware of it. Further exhausted by the use of power, she tossed her bag on the floor and collapsed into bed without even bothering to undress.

AN:

Welcome! I'm not exactly new to either writing or fanfiction, but I am new to posting on this site. I was cleaning my room the other day and found my old copy of FES buried on the bookshelf, so I popped it into my PS2 and started playing through it again. That inspired me to write, so here I am!

This story features a FeMC, but you can assume that she looks exactly like P3 MC (albeit with the addition of a (small) pair of breasts). I'm not a huge fan of the design they used for Portable's FeMC, in part because of the way that I played P3 the first time.

What do I mean by that? Well, when I first played P3 I was a bored teenage girl who was tired of the lack of a female player option in the RPGs that I liked. When I saw P3 MC's design, I was thrilled — it's quite androgynous, so I headcanoned that my MC was a girl and played the game that way. I was so used to thinking of that design as being used for both male MC and female MC that the addition of a female design that really had nothing in common with it drove me insane! I guess it was kinda neat that they redid dialogue so that she would be a more upbeat person than the male character, but… Eh. I like gloomy characters, so that was also something of a wash.

This story is based on a New Game Plus playthrough, so Makoto (which was, in fact, what I named my original MC — a nice unisex Japanese name!) will be somewhat overpowered. I hacked the game a little to carry over an endgame Pixie instead of starting with Orpheus — my take on hacking in games is that you don't do it during the first run, but all subsequent playthroughs are fair game for me to pull out a debugger/hex editor/etc and see what I can do! As a result, most battles are unlikely to be much of a problem for her (though I may very well up the level of difficulty in-story, because it's boring if it's always a curbstomp). What will have the potential to cause more problems is her general attitude, which I think is fitting for a Persona game.

That's enough of an AN for now, I think — I'll see you next chapter!