A/N: This is it. I do not see a way back into writing this story. I wanted to make it clear here so that people do not have expectations of this story continuing, at least as written by myself. The time commitment from work is essentially eating six days of my time a week and adding the commute in and the time for writing is more or less non-existent. I was able to write this stunted stream of consciousness on the various holidays on the calendar year, which helps to explain why it reads as it does and the butchering of grammar. What you will find below is a disjointed rambling of the story points that is horribly disorganized and lacking any kind of proper editing. I hope the rambling chapter will provide some semblance of closure. There are a ton of things missing, but I have forgotten a lot of where things were going towards. Alas, I do not want anyone to come here with any expectations that the story will continue since it is definite that I have entered the next stage of my life for better or for worse. I have spent a lot of time in introspection and honestly, I don't think writing will be a part of it.

This is way too much personal information like the previous chapter, but I think I owe a proper explanation to those that care. I am not someone who has the mindset of scarcity when it comes to relationships which helps to explain why I was/am so shaken by the events that transpired before I published the last chapter. I've tried seeing other people, but yeah it just hasn't gone over well so far. The irony of almost publishing this on Valentine's Day was not lost on me. Unfortunately, I see this person quite often because of circumstance and I need the money from work so yes, it is like a scab that keeps getting ripped apart every couple of days. Obviously not the place for this kind of lamentation, but yeah I wonder why things can turn out one way or another sometimes.

In the end, I must admit that I am envious of little children because they are not so jaded as to have their views distorted of each other to the extent of adults. I believe if I were so honest and not so concerned with appearing a certain way, then things would have turned out differently. With time, I think I will feel better, but the time crunch is real and sadly the main driver in ending this prematurely. I would at least hope that is the case.

With that, I bid you adieu for accompanying me on this journey through the deepest recesses of my mind. I am not sure how we reached this point in the story, but I can say this much for sure, it was an absolute blast! As silly as it sounds, I am grateful to the people who have read my story, regardless of whether they said it was garbage or it was great. It genuinely made me happy to see the notifications in my email inbox. My phone buzzing in my pocket felt like a jolt of energy during those dreary doldrums of college and post-college life. I am waxing too philosophical now, but whoever you may be, I am glad to have met you… well e-met you, but you get the point. Whether you started with me from the beginning or are reading this drivel in the future, I am happy to have crossed paths with you!

Still, it still baffles me how some of the story elements came together. I could lie here and say I had the majority of things planned out, but some of the events were just completely out there, but made sense later on. I wouldn't say a twist of fate, just lucky execution. Anyhow, I would never have imagined the number of reads this story wound up getting. I always thought the premise was a little silly if a little bit original. Personally, time travel always seemed a bit quirky in my mind and doing this project made me appreciate the authors who do undertake this enterprise. I leave you with the horrible notes that I had remaining on my storyboard. The majority of it doesn't make even the slightest sense and is horribly unedited with grammatical mistakes, but I hope they provide some semblance as to where the story hoped to go. And yes, the title of this chapter is a total cop out and the format is not even worthy to be a chapter, trust me I know! I had meant for the title of this chapter to be the chapter of the final chapter… maybe like chapter 120? As a last but certainly not least important plug, thank you to my beta reader in the early going. rEpose, I don't know what happened to you, but I really appreciated your help!

All in all, I leave you all with a silly reason for a heavy heart, and wish you all the best for the rest of your lives!

With my deepest gratitude,

~Nowherefast

Chapter 30: Raison d'être (Notes and knickknacks)

Junpei's Nightmare?

-As for the rest of what would've happened at Shirakawa Boulevard, Junpei was set to be charmed by the Lovers Arcana to the extent where he was to be under complete submission. I had decided that Junpei would be missing from the battle because he was engrossed in a nightmare about how his mother left because of his alcoholic and abusive father. The cliché thought here was that Junpei would see that his father figure in the dream was in reality a Shadow and he would attack with all his love, his anger, and all of his sorrow! Sorry, I just couldn't resist that reference there. But yeah, that Shadow would in fact be Hamuko who he sees as someone not worthy to be a leader and in turn he wouldn't have felt that apologetic for his actions. The thought here was that at the last moment he snapped out of the charmed status, but he proceeds with his attack anyways because he believes that she just isn't cut to be the leader of a team. Now, once again this is a bit extreme, but it is what I was intending. Junpei becomes even more of an outcast with the team and it is only through an incredibly noble and redemptive scene which I had not come up with that he was able to come back to the good graces of the team. Yeah, I totally did not work on this part.

Hamuko would've been out of commission for a while and stuck to a wheelchair during Yakushima events. Honestly, I had no idea what impact her physical limitations at this point were to have on the island, aha.

What is going on with Hamuko at Shirakawa Boulevard?

-Essentially, the point of this chain of events is a trigger into subverting the relationship between Hamuko and Aigis and also between Hamuko and Yukari/Mitsuru. Hamuko finding about the sealing of the monster (Death) into her as a child was set to mess with her mind and bring doubt into everything she has done and will do. Of course, at this juncture of the story all she is aware of is that the monster that killed her parents looks remarkably similar to the monster that tore Orpheus to pieces during the well-played awakening scene of the protagonist near the start of the story.

However, with the knowledge that Death is sealed into her, makes Hamuko doubt the extent of her own ability versus that of her merely channeling the power of Death and merely being a vessel for it. Plus, at this point she doesn't even really understand who or what Death is. In turn, my thought process here was that she would get discouraged because being so relied upon by the other SEES members made her press as things originally stood. Now, not having total faith in her own abilities gives a bit of a mental block and prevents her from performing optimally. I mean, how could she when her power source is attributable to the cause of the death of her parents? Things were set to get even worse when the events around Yukari's father truly get going at Yakushima Island. First, because she would be led to believe that Yukari's father was partly to blame for Death getting out of the laboratory and indirectly responsible for her beloved stepparents perishing and Death being sealed inside her by Aigis. Hamuko would also start to question whether listening to Mitsuru and the Kirijo was such a good idea as well. I thought this was missed in the game. Look, we caused all of this, but trust us because we know how to get rid of it… is essentially the mantra bought by SEES from the Kirijo. Anyhow, Hamuko would have been very suspicious, and rightfully so, of everyone around her after the triggering event in the hotel and the subsequent 'revelations' from the Yakushima experience. In summary, it looks like Aigis is a demonic android who sealed Death within her, Mitsuru has lied to the teeth to get them to where they are so far, and Yukari's father appears to have helped create Death and the flashback incident. There would have been no beach scene where Hamuko sympathizes with Yukari. I was going to have Minato play that part.

Basically, I was going for the fracturing of Hamuko's social links because I did feel the game always did wave off a lot of things in terms of the protagonist just accepting things the way they were. While the movies did a better job of addressing some of these issues, I think with the way this story was set up, it was inevitable that Hamuko would develop trust issues with all the females on the team, save Fuuka who I feel is the straightest arrow in terms of her character. That being said, I did a pretty terrible job on connecting Minato and Fuuka and I can predict the connection between Fuuka and Hamuko would've been pretty forced as well. Still, Fuuka was supposed to be a lighthouse of sorts for both protagonists. In a way this makes sense because Fuuka's character and persona are of the supporting type and while I wanted to develop her character to be more diverse than that I felt she could help bridge the connection between the two protagonists as a mediator of sorts.

Also, I had meant for Hamuko not be Minato's foil as much as just her own character and I felt that I failed to do that a lot at times. The bubbly stereotype to which the female protagonist is attributed to always did grate on me at times. Yet, it was such an easy panacea for a lot of the situations where we are trying to distance ourselves form the brooding Minato. The hope for me at least was to start off Hamuko at that point and for her personality to devolve slowly as her natural neurotic nature metastasizes itself from her own internal expectations as well as those from her teammates… however unwittingly they choose to do so. Hamuko's teammates, would wonder what had happened to her as the bright person that they knew as their leader becomes jaded and willing to trust them as far as she could throw them. After all, every person has their own parts which they press deep down from the sight of others and Hamuko was meant to be no different. She is a teenager and meant to make impulsive decisions that have a disproportionate impact on the morale and safety of her team because of the Dark Hour and the Shadows.

By the last battle, I planned for Hamuko to not have mastered all of her social links because that is rather unreasonable. To be everything to all people is being nothing to anyone. I know for one that I wouldn't have managed max social links if I didn't follow a guide during the game. Hamuko's deficiencies in this aspect were to be masked by the real relationships that she formed with her teammates that went beyond social links. I'm not sure what Igor would even coin the term as, but the plan was to have SEES see the darkest parts of her personality and decide to stick with her. I meant to explore the vulnerability in detail so that the blank slate cop out wouldn't have been as obvious if any of this makes sense.

Pairings: Now, I know I never introduced pairings and that was on purpose more than anything else. The plan for me was to do MinatoxChidori, MinatoxMitsuru, HamukoxAkihiko, and HamukoxShinjiro. But I never really got around to it because I felt it would just distract from the story. And I am not very good at writing romantic fluff.

=Minato/Chidori was supposed to be a side thing, but I found it to be rather interesting as I thought of ways to integrate Chidori more into the story. Now, I never ha dany issues with JnnpeixChidori, and felt that in the game it really helped flesh out Junpei's otherwise murky character development. However, there were a lot of possibilities when I thought of MinatoxChidori. Why? Well, because she is Strega and while I did not mean for Minato to join Strega at any point, he turns into a bit of a grey area between SEES and Strega. And with Chidori also being of the Hanged Man affinity there was a lot of opportunity for growth here. In fact, Minato essentially decides to split part of his soul for her so that she doesn't lose her life as a result of having an artificial Persona in this story. Well, that is what was meant to happen. That way, Chidori wouldn't lose her memories and would essentially be going through what Junpei did when he absorbed Medea.

-Minato/Mitsuru was supposed to truly blossom after Minato manages to save Takeharu at the expense of his own 'life' which will make more sense in the wall of text somewhere below. From the top of my head, I remember the motorcycle scene during the full moon and I had meant them to go on a motorcycle date when Minato was old enough to get his license.

-I think HamukoxAkihiko was supposed to revolve around some pancake side story which I never did manage to flesh out properly. I was thinking of trying to avoid the whole will you be my girl line because it was so brutally awkward. Then again, it fits with Akihiko's awkward character and the fact that he would be reading stuff from magazines about how to ask a girl out and what to do in general.

-HamukoxShinjiro was supposed to revolve more around a caring brother/sister kind of relationship angle. Shinji being Shinji and worrying more about others than his own well-being. I hadn't thought up of any decent scenes for them that fell outside of canon…

Random Scenes

In the super melodramatic scene where Takaya attempts to kill Ken, but Shinjiro intervenes the plan was for Minato to attempt to intervene. We are going with the assumption that Shinjiro dies in Minato's memories of what happened previously. Essentially, that there was nothing to block the 3 bullets, I forget the exact explanation. Anyhow, the timeline gets thrown off a bit because of Minato's deviations, within the constraints of him being the Arcana Hanged Man. So the time of Ken confronting Shinjiro and Takaya's interruption does not occur during the same time. Minato notices that Ken and Shinjiro are missing during a full moon however.

As a result, Minato panics a bit and immediately goes without second thought to the alleyway with the rest of the team in pursuit. Due to not having to wait for Fuuka to locate Shinjiro and Ken, the rest of the team arrives just as Takaya shoots. However, Shinjiro doesn't die because by this point Minato had already befriended him to the point where he gifted him that armor item in the game 'bulletproof vest'. While reluctant of such a preservation item, Shinjiro gets into the habit of wearing it because Minato threatens to tell the others of his pill habit otherwise. I know, this isn't exactly the most logical of reasons but hey I tried. Akihiko starts crying when he sees that Shinjiro hasn't died and seeing his tears causes Shinji to tell him he's an idiot, but he starts to cry as well and they finally move past their respective guilt. These chain of events finally get Shinjiro to shake off his pill habit since Ken forgives himself of the whole revenge plot bunny. However, this chain of events really cause Minato to get thrown under the bus because Shinji gets questioned why he was wearing the bulletproof vest and makes the mistake of telling the truth.

"You knew this would happen, didn't you?" It wasn't a question, in Hamuko's mind. More like a declaration of a fact.

This chain of events initiates Minato's end of his association with SEES as I will explain in the next subheading or somewhere below.

Of course, this is a lot of causation and hand-waving on my part, but I think you get the gist of the thinking process in my head.

-I meant for Minato to help Yukari connect with Shinshoudo, you know the owner of the antique shop where you can fuse weapons. I always wondered why the game never really gave you an opportunity to do that. Not to mention that Shinshoudo I believe knew both Ikutsuki and Yukari's father. I meant to have a couple of visits there where Yukari would get confirmation that her father was who she thought he was. Instead of believing that he was the kind of person that Ikutsuki painted him to be. And of course, to provide an outlet for a place where we could learn more about Ikutsuki and his inferiority complex that helped lead him to the path that he chose to walk on. There wasn't too much in this section, but I felt that it was neat way to tie things together in a meaningful way.

-Graveyard scene: Now, I'm not sure when I was going to fit this scene into the story, but it was meant to confirm Hamuko's suspicion about Minato's parents once and for all. Minato went to the florist and after asking Chidori what she thought would be the best type of flowers for a bouquet, he proceeds to visit the graveyard of his parents on the date that they died all those years ago. I know, how the hell would he know the date? Looking at old newspaper articles at the school library, something along those lines. Anyways, as he is offering up a prayer after placing the flowers at the graves, Hamuko is nearby watching him, starting to put two and two together once and for all. She confronts him and says who the hell are you?! And they get into a nasty fight because Minato doesn't have the freedom to say who he is exactly. Once again, I didn't develop this part properly, but I thought it was a decent idea.

-Pharos/Ryoji/Nyx are all aware of what Minato is doing which is why the first says rather cryptic comments to Hamuko in their meetings with each other. Why would Nyx allow this to happen? Curious to see what Minato can do given this second chance.

-Err, I can't remember the others and the notebook with them was probably thrown away…

Minato, what is he exactly in this story?

-Spoiler alert, well, Minato is a Shadow as many of you such as Sir Godot had been saying way back for a while. Think of it this way, do you remember all of those fans with 3 blades that you can see at the rooftop of Gekkoukan High? Minato essentially is a vessel with 3 souls and the blades on those windmills don't stop with the flow of time. Now that was awful imagery, but what I am saying here is that Minato is the Arcana Hanged Man first and foremost. That helps explain why he is unable to just blurt out the truly important things that he wants to say like- oh Ikutsuki is a traitor, liar, etc. He can dance around and imply things as we have seen though. The other parts of him are the Hanged Man and the Sun. Oh, this sounds like Tatsuya Suou from Persona 2? You'd be right! I forget which review mentioned this, it was a long time ago. Also, Toriumi tells Minato to use 'Tatsuya' during her Hermit social link, remember?! Ah, the way things fit together sometimes gives me a warm feeling. Yes, and yes.

-Each time he time traveled, Minato basically picked up a piece of himself. I know, it doesn't make much sense, but please allow this assumption. Then, let's assume he is a blank slate after forming the Great Seal and spending all his powers for the purposes of this explanation and that going from the battle area with Nyx to the dorm counts as one time travel.

-The beginning when he comes back to the disintegrating dorm he picks up the Hanged Man because of the seal dissolving and his feelings of selfishness after seeing his friends fail to save him. Essentially, this is his natural affinity at this point, which is why he develops the Hanged Man.

-When he travels back to the past and rescues Hamuko from the burning car and faints after the encounter with Aigis. He picks up the Arcana Hanged Man after he passed out as the Arcana Hanged Man is attracted to his body as a vessel after escaping from the lab because well, Minato's body already has the affinity to the Hanged Man. So, essentially we have the normal Hanged Man, and the Arcana Hanged Man within Minato now.

-Lastly, when he time travels and meets Hamuko for the first time. He picks up the Sun? Why? Because the Sun represents happiness and in the deepest parts of his soul that's what he truly wants. He just wants to be happy after all the nonsense that he went through. This part of Minato starts at the weakest because it is within the deepest part of his soul and only develops as he is able to let his past go and believe in his teammates unlike when he formed the Great Seal. Once again, we are assuming here for the sake of the story that he formed the seal because he knew this was his only answer at the time and his friends wouldn't be able to help him in a meaningful way.

'The Sun symbolizes happiness, joy, energy, optimism, and accomplishment. Occasionally, it is also associated with one's initial happiness.'- Megamitensei wiki

So, how does this all play out?

-Minato is primarily influenced by the Arcana Hanged Man throughout the majority of the story because I went with the assumption that it is stronger than the other 2 influences on his soul- the regular Hanged Man affinity he has and the Sun. Note: It is important to remember that the Arcana Hanged Man and the Hanged Man are two distinct entities for the story. This is important because the Hanged Man and the Sun are basically the two latent desires within Minato's heart which are buried because of the overriding influence of the Arcana Hanged Man. Hopefully that helps to explain some of Minato's seemingly contradictory and simply rude behavior during the story. Anyways, the Arcana Hanged Man would begin to become incredibly agitated after the Fortune and Strength full moon battle because it wants to rejoin Death. Hamuko was supposed to start feeling sick/murderous because of Death trying to influence her around Minato. You get the picture.

-Minato gets "stronger" with each defeat of an Arcana Shadow because it means that the Arcana Hanged Man is closer to becoming awakened. His powers are all Shadow powers such and the application of that was seen in his ability to converse with other Arcana Shadows and in turn developing the ability to teleport, which is obnoxious but important for the story. I know that it appeared his Persona changed after each full moon battle, but that is because the relationship between the Arcana Hanged Man and regular Hanged Man was supposed to be partially symbiotic. If one gets stronger the other portion does as well.

-Hamuko becomes sick and murderous because Minato is living in the same dorm and if she/Death manages to get rid of him then the pieces of Death will all come together. To her credit, Hamuko realizes something is seriously wrong with her and Minato breaks off from SEES at this point, leaving the dormitory altogether.

That isn't the end of it though. Minato's regular Hanged Man portion was also supposed to build up in strength in proportion to his relationship with Chidori. I had intended the final rank up of the Hanged Man was supposed to be Jason. Go look up the history between Medea and Jason and it will make more sense. Basically, Medea was supposed to absorb Jason in this story allowing Chidori to become a natural Persona user because of social link hand-waving. At the same time, doing this would leave Minato with the Arcana Hanged Man and the hidden Sun. My thoughts are all over the place, but Minato was supposed to bring Fuuka into his confidence about everything that he could tell… the parts that the Arcana Hanged Man would let him tell. He was to be able to get her to convince everyone that the Arcana Hanged Man was defeated before Ikutsuki's betrayal and all of the Ikutsuki scenes would continue unabated until the crucial moment. At that time, Jason would've been absorbed by Chidori and Minato would've been close to losing his sanity because of Death wanting to reunite so badly. Unable to resist the overtures for much longer Minato makes his choice and uses his Shadow powers (teleportation, I know this is ridiculous) to reach the place where Ikutsuki and Takeharu shoot each other.

"Warning, Shadow detected," came Aigis' emotionless voice, echoing throughout the murkiness of the Dark Hour.

"I know, you stupid machine," Ikutsuki spat, annoyed at having his soliloquy interrupted.

Minato takes the bullet from Ikutsuki and starts to die and the Arcana Hanged Man perishes as well, uniting Death. Now, you may ask what is the point of all this? Minato had little time remaining anyways because of the Arcana Hanged Man and Death's agitation. He wanted to at least be a meat shield for Takeharu, as crude as that sounds.

-SEES are understandably stupefied as Ikutsuki dies after another bullet from Takeharu and how Minato is bleeding out as the Arcana Hanged Man also perishes as its vessel is disappearing. They can't believe that Minato was an Arcana Shadow this whole time, even though he technically isn't… that's the part that they can see. While everyone is still paralyzed and unsure of what to say or even do, Chidori appears at the scene and embraces Minato for the first time ever in an attempt to use the Spring of Life. Minato vehemently dissuades her from doing so and says that a part of him lives with her now and that she should not throw her life away so easily for the sake of someone as foolish as he is. With that, Minato's consciousness disappears from this world and he falls into a coma of sorts that he doesn't wake up until the judgment day with Ryoji and the Nyx Avatar. During this time his mind wanders to the Velvet Room where he becomes a temporary attendant much to the delight of Margaret and Elizabeth. And no, I never planned to introduce Theo because I had no idea how to integrate him.

Anyways, now free of the Arcana Hanged Man influence and no longer holding onto the negative emotions of the Hanged Man (selfishness and other emotions), Minato is able to reveal everything that he intended in the grimoire (the one Margaret had showed him) as a velvet room attendant. He gives it to Hamuko and she understands everything. Not that she accepts it lying down and cross examines and berates Minato for being so foolish. In the end though they are able to reconcile and call each other brother and sister for the first time ever. While they do not share blood, the two of them realize that their connection with each other runs much deeper than that. Destiny, fate, whatever cliché word you want to insert here, Minato apologizes for not guiding Hamuko better than he did and says that she is free to reject him as her older brother. Hamuko declines that offer because she says that she always thought he was a bit of an idiot and that he is the only family that she has left in this world now. Well, his comatose body in the hospital, but at least his consciousness is alive and well.

-At the final battle Hamuko's social links+ with SEES and her other social links for a lack of a better term manage to put up a fight against Nyx together instead of the whole "Protagonist Shining Finger Montage" that we see in the 'Answer.' Minato was supposed to help provide the final push by waking up and being dragged to the battle by Chidori after he fully awakens as the Sun… seeking happiness for its own sake. While everyone on SEES learns of Minato's struggle through the grimoire. They don't appreciate the depth of his struggles because it just seems too unbelievable to them. Only with the actual appearance of Nyx do they truly believe everything that they read.

-Minato fulfills Nyx's wish to see what he could do with his second chance by coalescing the balance of the darkness bred in human hearts with the inherent pursuit of happiness that they seek. Essentially, this is the duality that the story was trying to seek. There can't be blind happiness without the accompanying darkness. Minato couldn't understand the true meaning of happiness without the suffering and trials that he went through. Nyx is not inherently evil or malicious to paraphrase what Metis said in the answer. In the arcs of the story Minato is able to find a simple and irrevocable truth that he wants to be happy in this life. In the most basic tenet of his heart, he doesn't want to be alone, wants to be with his friends, and most of all wants to continue living regardless of the inevitable hardships. That faith is what binds his raison d'être and as he combines his power with Hamuko's allows the world to find their balance in themselves again. Oh, by the way, this is a terrible explanation and leaves so many holes, but as I said this is what I remember from my seemingly lost original notebook. Minato's final persona was supposed to be the Phoenix. An overused, but appropriate metaphor for his final rebirth in finding the elusive happiness that took him multiple time travels and a lot of nonsense to find. A simple truth, but one that gives him the hope to look on to tomorrow. In the end, Nyx would recede satisfied with Minato's results and the Dark Hour would disappear from the world and the only those with Persona would remember the truth of what happened. Obviously, I had not finished the logical holes, but I deeply wanted a happy ending.

Hopefully, Minato's journey or should've been journey leaves you with something to relate to. Yes, he was crass and a hell of a lot of things didn't make sense, but he was able to find himself in the end. I am not going to go all memento mori on you, but I hope you find your own happy ending and not lose faith in finding your happiness. And with this, I leave you dear reader.