There is only one.

A/N: Seriously people, please leave some reviews; it would help catch more audiences attention. I live on attention here. *chuck a pint filled with attention*

The Sea of Soul. It was a strange place. It existed as a place, yet it didn't. It flew like water, yet it was solid. And its inhibitors, they had no form, yet they still had form.

While most soul would simply pass through to an afterlife or met with grimmer fates, a few would be held here. These souls were those that the collective consciousness of humanity refused to let go. The legends from the bygone eras, the figures that left such impact that every human being heard of them, the lost mythologies kept only as fairy tales, and many more.

They're all here.

One such figure was Maia, the daughter of Atlas and Pleione in Ancient Greek mythology. She was sitting and standing while thinking over the recent development. The most powerful Persona user, the one that called - or Messiah, and the holder of Universe Arcana was dealing with this multiverse threat.

While she would help in whatever ways she could, but she could help but felt that there was something strange about the boy. Well, not the boy himself, but something seemed to 'stain' him; for the lack of better words. At first, it slowly faded away, but on the day he met Spottedleaf this 'stain' reemerged.

One of the things Messiah wanted to know was who's the 'Man' that had set this chain of events into motion. She felt strangely familiar with this 'stain', which was no doubt had something to do with the 'Man.'

She had been thinking over this for a while now, trying to recall whatever she could. However, the Persona user himself was talking and the voice seemed to be leaking through — it distracted her. These girls were a little bit annoying.

Girls…

Girl…

Stain…

Girl...stain...Persona user...

Girl...Persona user...stain…'Man'

...

She got it!

She recalled who was the 'Man.' It was so long ago that she had almost forgotten, but no one could truly forget that memorable adventure. She must get the attention of - at once, he needed to know this - he needed to-

"That won't be necessary." A new voice joined in. She turned to see no other than the blad long-nosed caretaker of the Velvet room, Igor. Unlike her, he had a form without having no form.

"Igor? Why are you here?" Maia asked.

"Well, you see..." as he said that the Sea of Soul began to shake. "We will be undergoing some...renovation," a grin creeped onto his face.

xxxxx

Minato lied down on his bed.

Today was exhausting.

The questioning didn't yield as much result as he had hoped. But the origin of the Daimon definitely raised some concern. Apparently, they were servants of some outer space entity. He could barely explore Earth alone, much less other versions of Earth, and now there's a space overlord heading this way. Just perfect.

Though from how casual the Scouts answered his question on the subject, he felt that he could leave this issue to them; much like what the Elder said. He would put his faith in them then.

On the plus side, they agreed to talk with others magical girls groups. Still, any groups outside Tokyo might have to wait until the Golden Week. [1]

With today done, he closed his eyes and drifted off...to a place in the older time.

xxxxx

He opened his eyes, expecting the sunlight shining through the window as usual. This was the second time he was disappointed.

Instead, he found himself in a familiar elevator; sitting in the same chair he did all those months ago. But there was no table on his opposite side; no Igor, no Elizabeth, nothing.

He was quite confused, but not as confused as when the elevator, after endlessly descending in all his visits, finally 'ding' and came to a halt. From beyond the gates, he could hear a familiar opera music. The Poem Of Everyone's Soul.

As the gates parted and dim violet light slowly leaking through the crack, he braced himself for whatever on the other side. But he could not have brace enough for what he was about to witness.

On the other side was a bar, inhabited by the Personas. Some of them were drinking at the counter, some were at tables chatting with other Personas, and some were playing cards and others such games.

The atmosphere was identical to the Velvet Room he knew. Dim purplish light shore in the gloomy air and color. The reflection of those violet light when they made contact with the bottles of alcohol on the shelf near the bar served to illuminate and highlighted the drinking counter as the most prominent spot in the room.

While the room was somewhat huge and uneven in shape, there seemed to be a stage on the opposite side of the counter with a woman currently performing; singing The Poem Of Everyone's Soul.

"Ah! Here is the man of the hour!" From the counter shouted the thunder god of Norse as he noticed Minato.

"Or you could say 'Dark Hour,'" The Norse trickster god interrupted with a pun.

"Bah, your joke is terrible, Loki," the one-eyed god of the Norse added.

Suffice to say, the whole room turned to him to greet his arrival after that. Some raised their glasses, some waved, and some nodded. There was one table, however, that beckoned for him to come over.

The one who did so look eerily similar to...

He moved across the room, taking in the sight of figures of good and evil, real and mythical, one culture to another, mingling with each other.

He finally arrived at the table. "Orpheus," he greeted his first Persona.

Unlike when he was summoned, Orpheus actually looked like a normal human in greek toga while at the same time still had the same facial features as to when he was a machine-like Persona. Actually, that applied to just about every Personas in the room, it's like they reverted back to their more rooted form.

"Greeting, - ," the bluenette blinked. He was sure Orpheus had just spoken his name, but he couldn't hear it. "Please have a seat." The musician gestured at the empty seat between Jack Frost and Thanatos.

"Frost," the bluenette greeted the little snowman as he took a seat. "Thanatos."

"Look alive, boy," the Greek God of Death, now looked like a gloomy man in a black toga with long midnight hair, returned the greeting with irony before taking a sip from his glass of whiskey. "It had been awhile since I got any exercise, maybe summon me next time, hmm? I yearn to reap souls once again."

"I will consider it," Thanatos replied with a 'hn.' "Is this what it's like in the Sea of Soul?" Minato asked Orpheus.

"Well, only recently," the musician answered.

"I am not complaining," another occupant of the table, Surt, the fire giant, now just a regular human-like giant with long messy red beard and hair and literal flames in his eyes, added as he began shuffling a deck of cards; seemingly prepared to play with the others on the table.

"None of us do."

"So...why am I here?" Minato asked the most important question.

"Well…" the lyre player was about to answer when he suddenly went pale.

"I will be the one to answer that," a voice said from behind Minato.

At that voice, several Personas around him jumped, including the like of Thanatos, Surt, Hera...Uriel...and Lucifer.

"Get her away from us!" Thanatos yelled at the top of his lung as he crawled away. His fellow Personas all around the source of the voice had the same reaction. Jack Frost hugged Minato in fear.

The bluenette turned around and was greeted by a young girl. With her long platinum hair and golden eyes, the similarity to Elizabeth was quite clear.

"Greeting, Messiah," that name again. "We're Lavenza, the new assistance of Velvet Room. The masters would see you now."

Minato nodded.

She led him far to the back of the room where a large gate was located. She pushed it open with ease despite her small size. Inside was much darker than the bar, with only candles on the side of several large pillars that seemed to stretch infinitely upward could guide them toward their destination. They stepped through and walked into the dim hall as the door behind them seemed to close itself.

As they strolled on, Minato asked something he wanted to know.

"Where's Elizabeth?"

"Our sister left the Velvet Room in search for a mean to free you from the Great Seal," ah, he knew she would. "We had already contacted her. She will return to us soon. It will take a while, however, too long then they are willing to wait," she explained.

"You mean Igor?"

"No, the true master of the Velvet Room." Well, that was ominous. He had a feeling the answer to this question would have to wait until he met this 'Master.' Still, he had another question.

"Why are the Personas so afraid of you?"

"Umm...let's just say that there was a short period when fusing Persona was a little bit...brutal."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Minato raised an eyebrow.

"We... rather not recall that if you do not mind." With that, he was forced to drop the subject and could only walk along with Lavenza.

Eventually, he saw something ahead, a table in the middle of columns arranged in a circle and its long-nosed occupant, Igor.

"Ah, welcome back to the Velvet Room. No introduction needed this time, good Messiah."

Alright, now he really needed an answer to why every Persona seemed to call him that. He took a seat and, after a knowing gesture from Igor, asked, "Why is everyone calling me 'Messiah'?"

"It's rather simple really. Do you notice that your 'Messiah' Persona was not in the Velvet Bar?"

Great, now they were Velvet Bar and Velvet Room, but back to the question. He was sure he didn't find Messiah back in the bar so he shook his head.

"Messiah is a Persona created by you. You are the person that become Messiah, but you come back from the dead. Thus instead of being a separate entity as before, you and Massiah have become one and the same again. You are him and he is you…I am thou and thou am I, I supposed. Of course, you can still summon him, but don't expect him to have a mind of his own as long as you still draw breath."

That was one questions down, now onto the real question. He was about to ask about the 'Man', but Igor held his hand up.

"I know what you're going to ask, however, for this one it would be my master who answers you. Please looks after our guest until our master arrives, Lavenza. I am still recovering from our latest...ordeal."

"Of course, Master Igor," Lavenza heeded her command with a slight bow.

Igor seemed to slowly fade out of existence and, just like that, he was gone.

Minato turned to the still-smiling Lavenza. Since he shouldn't ask about what happened before he came back that left him with very few topics he could discuss with her...hmm

"So you're Elizabeth, Margaret, and Theodore sister?"

"Oh, We did not know you have met our other siblings, beyond Elizabeth of course," she expressed her surprise.

"Yes, I did. It was a rather...strange experience." [2]

"We see," Another silence fell.

Fuck it, he was curious and really tired of thinking of off topic banters.

"So what did Igor mean by 'ordeal'?" Lavenza shifted her eyes and arms around.

"Well...there was a...takeover of the Velvet Room for a little while," Minato's eyes widen a little. It's hard to imagine somewhere like Velvet Room to be taken over. "But it's over now, thanks to him."

He didn't need to guess much, "another Fool?"

"Another Fool," she nodded in confirmation. "If it wasn't for him the world would have perished." Lavenza blushed lightly. The Messiah's lips curled into a little smile. He was glad that even when he was gone someone would still come forward to save the world.

A blue butterfly came into the view, out of nowhere if he might add.

"Oh mind, he's here." The blue insect flew around for a while. "Of course, master. We shall prepare some tea," the girl said before went off into the darkness of the room, out of his sight.

The blue majestic creature landed on the chair opposite to him which Igor had previously occupied.

Minato blinked. In just one blink, a man was now in that chair.

He had long black hair tied into a ponytail. Most of his facial features were covered under a white mask with a butterfly wing extended from its left side.

"Greeting, Messiah." The man's voice was soothing, but something felt unnatural about it. "I am glad we are finally able to talk like this. Simply guiding you as a butterfly was a little bit boring."

Lavenza reemerged with a tray in her arm. She laid the silverware down on the table before began serving the two. A plate of biscuits, small cups of milk, sugar cubes, and mint leaves, and, of course, cups of tea - normal tea.

Despite the calm atmosphere, the bluenette couldn't help but get a bad reminiscence to when he met the 'Man.'

"Oh yes, he was quite dreadful when it comes to entertaining his guest," and...he could read his mind too. At that, the Master shrugged.

"I am Philemon, the Master of the Velvet Room. We had met once, at the start of your quest to stop Nyx." Minato nodded.

"Yes, there's the same kind of feeling coming from you like that night."

"I am glad you remember, but I will have to be quick with our conversation. First, I can assure you that you would not have to meet the 'Man' outside of your dream. That's, of course, if you manage to stop the threat to The Cluster."

"What's this threat?"

"Straightforward, but I can't answer that," Minato narrowed his eyes. "Tell me, what do you think gods, real Gods, is like?" The Persona user was silenced for a moment, but he replied.

"Powerful."

"Simply and true. I and the 'Man' belonged into this category. Because, truly, how else do you think I manage to create a place where the lesser gods of human mythologies became a tool for mortals to use?" Rhetorical question.

"How is this have to do with anything?" Minato asked before taking a bite out of his biscuit. Philemon, after sipping a tea, replied.

"It is to make you grasp what level the being that had freed you is on. He was my equal and vice-versa. If one of us is to fight the other, it will result in half of the observable multiverse being destroyed before we stop simply because too many things that we both like will perish in the fight. We know this; we know of our limbo dilemma before it even starts. That's why we came up with a system between the two of us," he paused and sipped another tea.

"We make bets. Let's the mortal fight in our place," sound like classic gods to him. "True, it's not as if we didn't act like those lesser deities from time-to-time, but let us not go off the point here. The way we approach this is different too. While I gifted the mortals the power of Persona or other boons, he would summon an avatar from thousand of his forms to act as his champion. The last time we bet, however, my champions had managed to...workaround and imprisoned him for quite some time. But now he's back, as you might know," Minato nodded, showing that he's still followed the story.

"The thing is...this time he cheats," the smile on his visage that had been there since the conversation begin started to fade. "He prepared our new betting table to be in his favor. Of course, I caught on and, well, here we are." Now, this is the part he didn't understand.

"What do you mean by 'new betting table,?'

"Simple really. Supposedly by fate, you would be freed by Elizabeth from the Great Seal without destroying it. But my nemesis came back and proposed another bet, whether your new quest will succeed or fail - basically. With that, I allowed him to free you and sent you here. But he did not tell me that there is a way for him to directly get involved. For that, I called him out and he had to give me handicaps."

Minato was silent. There's something boiling up inside him. Something he felt before, albeit deeply. When Shinjiro died, when all his friends were hurt, when Aigis was hurt. Anger.

"Human are not chips and dice for you to use as you please."

Philemon nodded, "Yes, from a mortal perspective it would look like that. But I am benevolent in my own way. Despite not getting involve myself, I have saved countless universes from my nemesis by interfering with his plan using our little system. Like it or not, this is better than either we fight or I let you all perish."

Minato sighed. He would not accept this, but he was not here to argue about that.

"So directly intervene is the handicaps?"

"Yes," the reply was strong. "The 'cheat' isn't something that cannot be removed without upsetting other entities that's as strong as both of us. So I am allowed a chance to directly intervene as well."

"So why not tell me about this threat? Why choose to clarify things up rather than helping me," the bluenette questioned.

"Nothing is simple. I do tell you and I will be violating my agreement with my rival. Besides, I am helping, or would you rather not hear about a mean to get to other dimensions," Minato's ears perked at that. "and perhaps toward a few other Arcanas? You have met Serenity, no?" Minato nodded. "Well, there's more where that came from, so keep creating Social Link, or Confidant as it is called now, and you will get more power. Don't be afraid to tell the truth about your situation to potential allies. Your enemy is omnipotent, he knows everything. Plus when the end comes, the only difference your choices of secrecy will make is whether people will die fighting or running; telling is more beneficial than not," that's not very reassuring by any extent. "Now, I think it's time our talk came to a close. I have almost spent more time with you than my rival had; he would mock me if I excess him."

The God leaned forward.

Find a time-traveling well in Tokyo. Travel through it then find a girl named Kagome.

His voice...it's almost like the 'Man,' only the malevolent had been replaced by...great, cold, and immense uncaringness.

Follow her, and by the time you return to your base dimension you would find:

Philemon held up three fingers.

The Devil, the Judgement, and the Wheel of Fortune.

Along with a mean to safely traverse dimensions.

Say 'hi' to that degenerate scientist and HP for me.

With the last word spoken, the whiteness consumed Minato's world. The last thing he heard was a farewell word from Lavenza.

xxxxx

Minato opened his eyes. This dream visitors were getting really annoying.

He got up from his bed and reached for his cell phone. The contact he rang to is obvious.

"Hello? Kensei-san? This is Minato. Yes. I am fine, I just have an appointment with friends yesterday. Thank you. Could you hand the phone to the Elder, please? I need to speak with him."

xxxxx

A/N: I will give you some hint for the three Arcana. The Devil is from a cartoon, have white hair, and name begins with 'R'. The Wheel of Fortune is from a game, dressed purple, and name begin with 'S.' The Judgement...meh, even if I hint it, you people still wouldn't know who she was, that anime was good but a bit obscure. HP is not one of the Arcana.

[1] Golden Week is a week off for all Japanese, consider it a holiday exclusive to Japan.

[2] Persona Q is funny but weird. And it's weirder when they considered it is canon.