You Can't Plug Your Ears and Cover Your Eyes...

[Firebreath Fishslap]

Souji shook his head. "If I had any others than my own pair on me, I would have yet you wear them while we were upstairs. I hadn't planned on entering the TV World."

Suddenly, he whipped around and grabbed his sword. "Quiet! Something's coming!" As the footsteps got closer and Souji could better hear the squeaky steps, he lowered his blade. "Teddie?" he hesitantly asked.

K1 looked to Kaini. His face was pretty much asking, "What the hell's a 'Teddie'?"

-------------

Minato looked up at the top of these stairs. He could see the sky... it was green and shrouded with no fog. And there...

That was Nyx for sure. That full moon was too close to the tower. And it looked like it would split apart and reveal some kind of hellish visage inside.

[mugenginga]

K2 looked just as confused as he returned his twin's look. Ameterasu and Abaddon went on guard. Naoya narrowed his eyes, being irritated by the fog. He stayed on guard as well. For the effort they had put into allowing K2 to fight from a distance, he was sticking next to his twin. Naoya was actually the furthest back from the group. Nyarlathotep would make fighting from this distance simple.

Atem and Yuugi both looked towards Souji. Teddie? Yuugi had embarassing memories surface. His friend from America, one Rebecca Hopkins, made a show of seeming younger than she really was with a stuffed bear. She'd called it "teddie". So the English word was easy enough for Yuugi to make out. Same for Atem, but that didn't explain how Souji was using it. Atem took a battle stance at Souji's nervousness, and Yuugi stepped back a bit.

"SENSEI!!" It was an ecstatically happy shout, not an angry one.

Despite the thick fog the giant.... bear mascot could be seen. K2 almost facefaulted. Yuugi looked confused and Atem had a "WTF?" expression on his face as he blinked several times. It didn't seem harmful, in any case, and it seemed to know Souji. Naoya had an eyebrow raised at the unexpected development, but made no significant reaction. Sensei?

[Firebreath Fishslap]

Souji completely fell out of his battle stance as he ran over to Teddie. "It is you! I thought I'd never see you again!" He patted the bear's head as he smiled. Everyone from back home was showing up one by one. Sure, he was still stuck in an alternate dimension from hell, but at least he had his friends.

His expression dropped. "I can't stay around and chat, Teddie. One of our friends was dropped into the other side and if we don't hurry, he's going to die."

"Our demons can't sense where he is, either, which is a big problem," K1 stated. "Kikuri-Hime's usually really good at this, but she can't see through this fog worth a crap." He added more quietly, "Neither can I, but..."

Souji turned to Teddie. Teddie's nose hadn't let them down when they really needed it most... "Teddie? Do you smell where our friend is?"

---------------

Minato took a deep breath. It was time. He looked up at the moon and began to channel the power of the Universe into his body as he prepared to make the seal.

And suddenly collapsed to his knees. What the--

"We were supposed to be buds forever..."

"I thought it was odd when you didn't show up to Student Council that day for our final meeting..."

"..wh-Why... he was so young..." "There, there..."

"...We were going to go to competition... together..."

"...Mi-Minato-kun... *sob*"

No, no, no, this is all wrong, this wasn't right, this wasn't how it was supposed to go, no, no!

Behind Minato, a black silhouette appeared. Its blank white, glowing yellow, eyes stared at Minato.

"I'm tired of being forced to save the world. I'm tired of being forced into being the hero all of the time. Why should I care for the people of the world? What'd they ever do for me?" the shadowy doppelganger of Minato stated. "All I want is a normal life, with normal friends, with normal worries, like entrance exams, and girlfriends... is that too much to ask?"

Minato didn't need whoever was spouting his mouth off right now. He had to make this work-- why wasn't it working-- but all of these people...

"...I never knew... all those months, chatting... I never knew, and now..."

"I didn't find out until I came back... they never sent me so much as a letter."

"...What am I going to tell the kids we coached...?"

"*sniff* *sob* Y-You promised me... we'd... you promised...!"

"When I came back to Nihon... I found out about... first my Auntie, and now Minato-kun... they've both gone to the angels!"

"I don't want to die for the world. All I want is to be normal. To not have to worry about my Persona. All thoughts I've had over this whole week, waiting for my time to die. Well, it's that time..." The Shadow laughed. "I know what you're thinking. You're wondering how I know all of this. Well, that's because... I am you..." His smile fell. "You're thinking it. Say it."

Minato thought his Social Links would have stayed happy for him, even after his death. He had no idea...

"Say it."

"...u're not me..."

"Louder."

Minato was trying to stop pulling upon the Universe's power, but the voices of his S. Links kept coming...

"It's such a shame to lose such a prospecting young lad... he could have gone on to such great things..."

"Dying before an old man like me...? That's shameful..."

"Hey, you haven't written in a while... what's going on?"

"I decided to be my own person thanks to you..."

"It looks like... I'll be seeing you again sooner than I expected..."

Where was that unknown link Igor had spoke of? The only ones left were Fool, Judgement, and...

Minato jumped to his feet and looked back at the Shadow. "I'm doing this for my friends, not because it's expected of me! Shut up already! You're not anything like me, so shut up!"

The shadow started to chuckle, and then it exploded with that same dark energy from before. "That's right... I'm nothing like you... I'm my own person... heh heh heh heh..."

The dark energy began gather around the Shadow, and when the shell of dark energy dissipated, where the shadow had been was this cruel fusion of the Nyx Avatar and Orpheus. It had Orpheus's face and body, but it was wearing a long white cloak that toward the bottom formed into long, beautiful white wings. Around the shadow's legs and arms were black chains.

The chains of Death.

"I am a Shadow, the true self... I just want to be normal already..."

At that moment, Minato saw what was attached to the end of the chains as the Shadow reached back to attack. They were long silver scythes hanging from the ends. The Shadow grabbed hold of one chain and brought it down on Minato.

[mugenginga]

Teddie was beaming at Souji, but his face fell when the silver haired teen mentioned that yet another friend of his had gotten trapped in this world. He'd been unsure about it before, but Souji had confirmed someone else here. He nodded and turned around with a bit more energy than those who didn't know him might have expected. His eyes got wide.

"....All of a sudden its the clearest thing here! Its like when we fought Izanami! He's this way!"

Teddie broke off running. He'd fought with Sensei enough that he knew his friend would be right behind him. Naoya would follow the group, and K2 had no intentions of seperating from K1. Atem and Yuugi exchanged a glance before chasing after Souji and "Teddie"... the latter of which had no idea the surge of power was related to the similar Arcana of The Universe and The World. But for all his skill, the speed Minato's encounter had de-escalated with meant they wouldn't get there in time...
-----

He'd begun to get depressed. He was still wandering aimlessly. How long? He'd fallen asleep... or blacked out... on his feet at least once. Every once in a while he'd swear something was near him, but the feeling would fade quickly. Usually with that fading squealing noise. If he was being watched, his observer feared him?

He would have laughed at that in other circumstances. It reminded him of Aigis. She'd freaked out so much when he'd transferred to Gekkoukan. He hadn't even been there a full month when his parents suddenly moved again. He'd made such friends with...

He paused and jerked his head to the side. He felt something pulling at him as the blue haired teen he had befriended crossed his mind. It was almost as if his thoughts of Minato had come up because something had beckoned them. A wave of worry sudddenly washed over him and he broke into a run. He didn't know why... he was being called somewhere, and he had the feeling failing to comply would create an event he wanted nothing to do with.
-----

As the silver scythe lifted into the air, Minato would finally hear a voice... it would happen quickly. In the moment between one second and the next.

"I wish I hadn't had to leave... Minato-kun, no matter what seperates us we'll always be friends..."

The scythe was on the way down towards Minato now. There would be no dodging, and that final voice was likely one Minato had hoped to never hear again. As if the shock wasn't enough, the voice came again... this time very much in person.

"MINATO-KUN!!!"

The "blue haired boy" would find himself literally tackled out of the way of the attack by a teen his age. The yellow scarf trailed behind said teen before they both hit the ground and began tumbling towards the edge of the "tower".... the shadow's sickle had imbedded itself into the floor of the area, and would take a bit of effort to pull out.

[Firebreath Fishslap]

As the group approached the top of the tower (it had to be the top, the fog was thinner up here), Souji could hear something coming from the top of those stairs. And anything other than Minato's voice up there was bad news. Those white feathers littering the stairs weren't helping at all.

As Souji came out onto the roof, a white wing swept over Souji. The shadow, which had wrenched its scythe out from the floor, was approaching two figures who appeared to have collapsed by the edge of the tower. No, it looked like one of them had jumped and pushed the other out of the way, causing them to both take a long tumble.

One of those figures was Minato.

"Take the shadow down! We can't let Minato die!" Souji yelled. He ran forward and summoned Izanagi-no-Okami before letting off a Megidolaon at the Shadow. "Hey! Leave them alone and fight us!" Souji grabbed his sword again as Izanagi-no-Okami floated next to him before ran up to it and tried slashing into its legs. The attack impacted off. They were metal.

"Kikuri-Hime, stay back! Rangda, use Diajama! I don't know if it has any healing skills, but I'm not going to take the chance of that!" K1 yelled Rangda proceeded to put her curse on the berserk Shadow so it couldn't heal.

Minato looked up at the person who had saved him, and went completely pale. "No. No, no, this is bad, this is really bad..." He shoved Ryoji off of him, and looked behind him. Oh, the edge of the tower. Nice. "As if things couldn't get any worse..."

[mugenginga]

Souji had ran ahead of Teddie as soon as he saw the shadow. Teddie nodded quickly. At some point, exactly when was unclear, he'd manage to get extremely nasty claws on his... mitts. They were rather long. But he didn't rush the shadow with them. Instead a Persona appeared above him, an odd missile-like image thing.

Under other circumstances Atem and Yuugi might have found it odd that the... giant bear could use a Persona. But there were other things to be concerned about. Atem and Yuugi both summoned their own Persona, the two similar looking entities materializing at the same time. Yuugi took the distraction that Minato's shadow would have with the fight and attempted to go around the edge of the battlefield to get to Minato.

K2 didn't like how much the "shadow" as the group kept calling it resembled an angel. White feathered wings, just wonderful. He felt somewhat mocked. He made to go after K1, who had stepped forward a bit, and almost ran right into Cain's outstretched arm. He glared at Cain, who returned it with a flat look.

"Handle healing and stay back here. We gave you Abaddon for a reason," he ordered.

Temu fired off a Zionga while Teddie's Persona, Kamui, used Bufudyne. Without support they had to take the dangerous gamble of trying attacks. Kamui would be fine if it reflected, Teddie's ascended Persona blocked its dominant element. But a reflected Zionga would be very painful for Atem.

At those attacks, Naoya ordered Nyarlathotep to use Agidyne and Ananta to use Deathbound. Ananta had Pierce, immunity to the bashing attack of the snake heads wouldn't matter. The black mist representing Chaos Wave swirled around Nyarlathotep and the wave of energy of both attacks shot at the shadow.

K2 hated to admit it, but Cain was right. He quickly backed to the edge of the tower, putting his back against one of the black spire-like objects evenly spaced around the edge in case he got hit. Ameterasu had Affection and it had a huge range. He'd use Abaddon if the "shadow" came remotely close to him.

Ryoji saw the look of fear in Minato's eyes. Well, who could blame him. He'd just been attacked by some kind of demented angel! He rubbed his shoulders and stood up, staring wide eyed at the scene. He closed his eyes and shook his head. For a second there he'd thought he was going to black out again. He whirled towards Minato and reached to help the teen up.

"Minato-kun, what's going on!?" he asked.

The fact that he didn't know... things had just gotten a whole lot more fun for Minato.

[Firebreath Fishslap]

A look of surprise crossed Minato's face. Ryoji remembered him, but he didn't realize what was going on. It was like Ryoji had reverted to the state he'd been in before he awakened as the Avatar. After a moment, he took Ryoji's hand.

"Just stay away from the battle, okay?" There was audible panic in Minato's voice. Ryoji was here. Ryoji, as in the avatar of the thing he'd come here to stop in the first place. Not good. At all.

The Shadow had been in the middle of lifting into the air with its cloak wings when Teddie's Bufudyne had hit it, freezing two of the wings to each other and sending the shadow plummeting to the ground, leaving it vulnerable.

Okay, it could fly. That was a problem. But it certainly weak to Ice, that Souji could tell.

"Hey! Let's hurry up and kill it while it's down!" K1 yelled. That was good enough of a call for an All Out Attack as any to Souji. Souji ran forward, grabbing his sword and heading to hit any vulnerable spots.

[mugenginga]

Okay, so Minato knew what the hell was going on. That made one of them. He opened his mouth to argue, but he really couldn't come up with a good one. Besides, that "angel" or whatever the hell it was unsettled him to indescribable levels. And while this felt idiotic, it wasn't the worst of the area.

He wasn't sure how he'd gotten here. He wasn't sure what he'd been doing just before then. His last clear memory was honestly transferring out of Gekkoukan late in November, his parents had moved again. This place seemed familiar. Eerily and frighteningly familiar. In more ways than one. And that thing in the sky, it looked eerily like a black version of whatever the hell the group was fighting. And it was the most familiar of all of this. And it unsettled him.

Ryoji stumbled against one of the black spire-like objects in the area. His head was swimming, and he felt like he was going to pass out. If anyone was actually paying attention to him, they'd notice he seemed... unstable. Like he wasn't all there, like his was about to dissappear... He took in a few deep breaths and the instability seemed to dissipate. He refocused on the fight. Minato knew what was going on, he could handle it right? Him and all these other people...

Atem didn't have to be told twice. He ordered Temu to use Zionga again. Yuugi was a fair ways away from the group, he'd been trying to loop towards Minato. He'd caught the "instability" for lack of a better word of Ryoji, but he came out of trying to figure out what had happened (or who the teenager was, for that matter) when Souji yelled. From this distance he couldn't use the sword, so he ordered Nefertum to use Garu.

Naoya ordered Ananta to repeat its attack, and had Nyarlathotep fire off Bufudyne. Teddie did the same, focused on Souji's orders... and missing the momentary instability Ryoji had shown. K2 ran forward some, granting enough distance for Abaddon's Chaos Wave to work. He had Ameterasu use Megidolaon and Abaddon use Bufudyne on the shadow.

It might have qualified as overkill... but then again, Shadow Minato was at least the equivalent of level ninety. Not exactly "weak".

[Firebreath Fishslap]

Minato turned to Ryoji, and he did notice the instability. Shit! He ran closer to Ryoji. "Hey! Are you alright?" He couldn't help but feel worried about Ryoji. The guy had been his friend once. But Ryoji existing alone meant that the Fall was coming. Minato had been too late to head it off.

"Hey, you need to get out of here... see if you can get to the stairs or something while the Shadow's dis--"

The Shadow climbed back to its feet and flexed its wings, breaking the two frozen ones out of the ice they'd been encased in as it did so. White feathers scattered all over the battlefield. It then held its arms and stretched its wings out at it cast a spell over itself, a little one called White Wall. The shadow then rose into the air, where it began charging a spell.

Souji didn't like the look of this spell. "Don't attack, guard!" he yelled to the others. K1 and his demons put up a guard as the Shadow loosed the spell. A cross shaped explosion of Almighty energy took up much of the battlefield, sure to hit most of the combatants. Souji felt rather exausted from the hit... oh, it caused Eneveration. Lovely.

K1 personally thought the cross shaped explosion was a bit ridiculous. It already looked like an angel. Did it really need cross shaped explosions? Really?

[mugenginga]

Ryoji jerked his head away from the black angel in the sky and shook his head. He looked like he was panicking, and seemed on the verge of hyperventalating. His words contradicted with his shaking head, "I-I'll be fine!"

Atem had already planted his feet by the time Souji gave his order, allowing Temu to vanish. Teddie gave an exaggerated "Grrrrrr!" as he got into a defensive position as well, his claws held in front of him.

Yuugi stopped as the shadow took wing, and at Souji's order ran towards the nearest spire. At least he was already near the edge. He managed to get his back plastered against it just as the attack fired. He winced and collapsed to all fours. Atem was knocked back several feet, and he heard Yuugi hit the ground.

"Yuugi!" he shouted. Yuugi was wincing but he was conscious. Nefertum had vanished thanks to the hit. The power level difference was just too much. Yuugi couldn't take another hit like that, and Atem seemed to only be functioning out of concern for Yuugi.

Ameterasu and Abaddon took up positions in front of K2, who would have melted into the spire he was using for support had he been able to figure out how. He actually thought he was going to get pushed into it as the attack hit. He didn't miss the shape, and would have scowled at it had he not fallen to his knees. Ameterasu whirled around as Abaddon vanished from the sheer power of the Almighty and cast Prayer without waiting for an order.

K2 had been dangerously close to passing out... it wasn't that he was that weak, but his injuries were hindering his abilities. In fact, after the attack there was a damp red spot on his back. Ameterasu's Prayer had resealed the wounds, but they had bled quite a bit before the spell had taken effect. The Chaos Wave theory hadn't been that useful after all.

Ryoji had glanced at the stairs Minato had mentioned, but before he could seriously give the course of action thought the angel had risen again. It had cast its spell before raising into the air. The attack pushed Ryoji into the spire and he crumpled a bit, managing to recover on the way down and just hitting his knee. For a split second those right next to him would see something other than Ryoji over his form, but it faded quick enough as the stability was regained.

Ryoji reached up to his head. He looked like he was about to cry. It was amazing how much effort, even if it was only subconscious, he was putting at keeping this form, this "self". It might have even shocked Minato... this had to be worse that what Aigis had put him through, and yet he hadn't lost his form, nor did he seem to think of himself as anything other than Ryoji Mochizuki yet.

Teddie sensed an extra shadow on the battlefield for a split moment, but by the time he got to looking for it the feeling was already gone. It had felt extremely strong though... but it was gone. He had to focus on protecting Sensei and his friends! After getting knocked back an inch or so by the force of the attack he ordered Kamui to use Energy Shower. He could at least prevent the team's ability in battle from remaining low. The rain of light danced around the group - Those that had been afflicted with Enervation no longer were.

It didn't change how quickly the battle was going south. All the battles, both the conscious and subconscious. And on all accounts...

[Firebreath Fishslap]

Kikuri-Hime had disappeared after taking the hit, and Rangda was only barely hanging on. K1 ordered Rangda to heal herself before standing up again. This was insane. The only one here who could even match the Shadow's power was Souji. That weird kid who had shown up earlier wasn't even fighting, and Yuugi and Atem were both having the crud beaten out of them. And K2... he glanced over at his brother, who had started bleeding again before Amaterasu's Prayer had taken effect. This was NOT going well.

And Souji could tell. He summoned Izanagi-No-Okami again and had it use Bufudyne on the Shadow as it rose into the air, which didn't hurt it anywhere near as bad as it had before. However, it did freeze its wings still. The Shadow struggled to break the ice again.

Souji figured it out. "We have to keep it grounded with ice attacks! Anyone who can use ice skills, you keep on the offensive! Anyone with healing skills, heal!"

Minato had been hit rather badly by the explosion before, and was a little winded from its attack, but not enough that he couldn't hear what Souji's plan was. That wouldn't work, the Shadow had cast White Wall on itself... it could just break the ice again and cast its spell. And no one here, except maybe Souji and Teddie, would be able to survive a second hit.

And then Minato realized what they should do. Normally this wasn't a good strategy against larger shadows like these, but this was a special case.

"Dark skills! Mudo, Die For Me, try any of those!" Minato yelled. Souji turned to Minato. Those typically didn't work very well, but it was worth a try. He unsummoned Izanagi-no-Okami and changed his Persona to Alice. Alice held out her hand, and those same playing cards from before hit the Persona, and hit it badly. It didn't instantly kill it, but it hit like a normal spell would... and then the Shadow with its wings half hanging off of its body, collapsed.

"...It worked?" Minato asked. Oookay.

[mugenginga]

Teddie was half way through ordering Kamui to use Bufudyne thanks to Souji's order when Minato cut that plan off. He looked towards Souji, who listened to the teen. Atem had fallen to one knee after forcing himself over to Yuugi. He was looking at the shorter teenager, but he seemed fair enough. As the Shadow crashed to the ground, white feathers kicking up in almost a storm from the way it had been injured, Teddie took the chance to cast Mediarahan on the group.

Yuugi was able to get to his feet thanks to it, and Atem glanced at the Shadow. It was down, but Minato still had to accept it. K2 painfully climbed to his feet. In most cases healing spells took care of both injuries and pain, but there was a threshold when they became useful only to prevent the injury from being deadly. He stumbled a bit, and Ameterasu gently reached out and helped him steady himself.

Naoya remained where he was standing, ready to attack the Shadow again if it tried to get up. He ordered Nyarlathotep as such, and the demon had a Bufudyne all but prepared at the order.

Ryoji's breathing calmed down a bit. His head still hurt, but it was fading somewhat quickly, especially thanks to the Mediarahan. He was still kneeling, but he looked over at the angel. He glanced at Minato, but he didn't know where to begin with the questions...

An almost tangible tension hung in the air among those that knew of the Shadows... the fight wasn't over until Minato accepted it. Ryoji put his hand on the spire behind him and got to his feet. This was really messed up, and his head hurt from various aspects of the situation. At least his form was stable.

[Firebreath Fishslap]

The Shadow's form dissipated before forming back into the shadowy doppelganger. It was silent now, and staring back at Minato, who stood up and stared it in the eye. Minato sighed.

"I never wanted any of this. Sure, it was fun at first, but I never really wanted to be the hero. But I was stuck with it, because Death had been sealed into me back when I was a kid. Once Death was released, I had no choice but to help save the world... it was either that or everyone die. What kind of choice is that anyways..." He sighed and pressed a hand to his face. "But I still did it, because it was what was expected of me. And this time too. But I failed." He looked back at Ryoji before looking back at the shadow.

"There's nothing wrong with wanting to be a normal person for once," Souji said. "You had it worse than the rest of us anyways. I don't doubt it if there's days you just wish you could be a normal student like your friends."

Minato nodded. "The fact is... you're me. I can't deny it. I was never the hero type anyways.

The shadow nodded, and suddenly, something unexpected happened. Something completely unlike all of the Shadows before.

The Shadow began to flicker and actually showed a perfect reflection of the real Minato for a moment before going back to black... and then it began to disolve. First its skin dissolved away into that broken glass like energy... and then its muscles, its body twitching as it slowly dissolved. K1 backed away. What was up with this thing?!

Minato took a step back as he watched himself dissolve layer by layer. All of the Shadow's internal organs dissolved now, and the skull faded away as the shadow's right arm reached up and pointed at Ryoji. The Shadow's headphones only now faded away, disappearing into nothingness. And then, once the shadow was only a standing pile of organs, it dissolved into a cloud of glowing blue butterflies. The butterflies began to swirl around where the shadow's body had been as a transparent Persona finally materialized. A white colored, four armed Persona that almost looked like a fusion between Thanatos and Orpheus appeared with the blue butterflies still flying around it. The butterflies, what was left of the body, and the Persona all disappeared into blue flickers of flame at once before a tarot card floated into Minato's hand.

"...Messiah," Minato said out loud. He collapsed to his knees once again.

K1 twitched. What'd he mean by Messiah?! However, Souji was already running over to Minato, who looked up at him.

"Sorry, I'm just feeling... more than a bit exhausted," Minato said.

"My ass. Teddie, can you get us out of here from here or do we have to backtrack back to the entrance?" Souji asked.

[mugenginga]

Ryoji watched as the angel turned to... Minato. And his brain subsequently shut down. Really, his eyes looked glazed over and it was more than obvious he wasn't processing things as Minato talked to the thing that had taken his form. As such he didn't really "hear" the words Minato was saying to his Shadow.

Atem glanced over as Minato approached the Shadow. He could tell by the teen's stance that things were going to be okay. Yuugi was having to use the spire behind him for support. It wasn't that he was injured anymore, but he was still tired. Atem hesitated for a moment before ducking down and propping Yuugi's arm over his shoulders. It was fairly awkward, the former Pharaoh had a solid three inches on Yuugi. But Yuugi didn't seem to mind and gave Atem a soft smile.

It wasn't that Yuugi ran around given harsh looks, but this was somehow softer than usual. Atem looked away quickly, choosing to focus on the teenager with the yellow scarf. Who was he and what was he doing here...?

When the thing began to melt, Ryoji was rudely brought back to paying attention to the situation by feeling his stomach flop. He used the spire behind him to support himself, but he had to lift his other hand to his face. He adjusted the scarf abit, pulling it down more than usual. He thought he was going to throw up, and he didn't particularly feel like getting his scarf dirty.

In fact, Ryoji probably would have when its arm began to raise. He tensed up, his nausea causing his stomach to lock up. The skeleton was pointing at him. He felt extremely disturbed, but he couldn't tear his eyes away... the nauseaus feeling was still there, but something else was too... the butterflies cascaded outwards, revealing a white entity. It was actually kind of pretty, and Ryoji felt an odd sort of peace looking at it.

Finally the flames consumed the Persona as the card floated to his hands and faded away. Ryoji didn't quite catch what Minato had said, but he would have been blind to miss the teenager collapse. He knew he had been no help in the fight, but...

"Minato-kun!" He covered the distance between himself and Minato quicker than Souji and crouched down to make sure he wasn't hurt. That had been a rather large mindscrew.

K2's eyes widened as Minato spoke, and his expression changed to a scowl. Even Naoya's expression was far darker than he usually allowed himself to show, and he almost looked angry as Minato collapsed. Teddie wasn't sure what to make of the whole situation, but he looked towards Souji as he spoke. He paused for a moment and looked a bit pained.

"I can't help from here..." he said dejectedly in that whine Teddie had all but patented.

"Do you need help, Minato-kun...?" Ryoji said with a marked amount of hesitation. He'd been useless in the fight, would he be any good here?

[Firebreath Fishslap]

Minato climbed to his feet, and stumbled a bit as he did so. "I-I'm okay, really..."

"What about Thanatos?" Souji asked. Their gazes went to the same place, the Evoker at Minato's waist. Minato looked back up at Souji.

"I don't think I have to worry about him anymore. When Messiah appeared, I felt him and Orpheus both disappear," Minato said. "I can finally sleep easy."

K1 twitched again as Minato said that name. So the guy who could be possibly be his fraternal twin (instead of his actual identical one) got a Persona named Messiah. God really liked screwing with him, didn't he.
K1 turned around and headed down the stairs, motioning to Rangda for her to follow. The long nailed witch did as she was told. He didn't want to stay around even longer than he already was.

Minato watched as K1 turned tail and left. "Oh... right. How long is he going to be mad about that?"

Souji shrugged. "We should go. Come on, Teddie. I'll buy you some Topsicles when we get out of this insane tower for your help."