Chapter One – Mail
Junpei Iori was, by all accounts, a fairly sane human being. Sure, he'd fought monsters by night in a humongous tower that was practically spawned from his school, essentially being an altar to a Goddess of death who'd tried to end the world, but hey, at least he'd walked out of it and lived out the rest of his life. Not like he'd had any other choice.
But his sanity was coupled with sorrow. He'd left that part of his life with tragedy weighing deep within his heart. It wasn't enough for the girl he'd loved to fall. No, his best friend – the one who he'd once envied for all his talents, the one he had never been able to surpass in terms of social skills, the one who'd managed to grab the hearts of practically everyone in the school – had died. Having sacrificed his life to save a world that had never even known of his humble and mightily courageous deed, Junpei Iori's best friend died on the rooftop of his highschool, in the lap of a blonde-haired android named Aigis.
Chidori had been hard enough. But the second death merely added to it.
They had eventually managed to overcome the tragic events that had lurched forward at them – he and his friends. And it took what had felt like hours of exploration, days of getting stronger, months of emotional torture, and years of catharsis. They'd accepted his death. Aigis had found her Answer to life. Yukari had grown immensely and had decided to devote her life to making sure his death hadn't been in vain. As did Junpei, as did Mitsuru, as did Akihiko – as did all of his friends.
But it still would hurt at times, as that little blue-haired boy he'd gotten to know and love might not ever be able to see how much his friends had grown as people.
And so, it came as a huge surprise to him when a package had arrived at his door. Signed by no one, wrapped as neatly as a gift you'd give to your most precious person. Curious, Junpei wondered what was inside. From the sounds it'd make whenever he'd shake it and the fact that it'd been wrapped in plastic from a game shop, Junpei deduced that it was a game.
He wondered just who in the world would give him a game, and not tell him who they were. He figured that it might've been just one of his friends, and they'd one day decided to give him a game just for the sake of their friendship.
Maybe.
And then he removed the wrapping off of it.
"Yuka-tanyouhavetocometomyapartmentsomethingcameinthemailit'ssuperweirdandIdon'tlikeitsojustcomeover-"
"Junpei, what-?"
"No time to explain! Y-you just have to get Akihiko-senpai, Fuuka, Mitsuru-senpai, Aigis – everyone! Even Ken and Koro-chan! J-just come here! It'll only work at my place!"
"Why?"
"It's...you're not going to believe it..."
"What?"
"Trust me! You'll only believe it when you see it for yourself! If I told you, you'd think it was some kinda crazy joke or some – just come here! You've gotta see it for yourself!"
"But Junpei-"
"It involves him!"
"...What...?"
"It-it doesn't even just involve him, it involves all of us!"
"What are you talking about-?"
"Just. Come. Here. You have to."
"...Alright. This better not be some prank-"
"I wouldn't prank about something about him."
Everyone had arrived at Junpei's rather cramped apartment, sitting on a couch someone with Junpei's salary could never have afforded on their own and trying to withstand the rather mild smell of old pizza and sweat.
A game console – an old one, the Playstation 2, to be precise – had been plugged into the wall and set up so that the rather uncomfortably fancy flatscreen TV would be able to display the game.
"This...is weird," Junpei began. "So weird – immensely weird. Even for us, I mean-"
"What's going on, Junpei-san?" Ken asked. "Why'd you urge us all to come here in the first place?"
"What did you mean when you said this involved him?" Yukari asked. Or more like, everyone asked. They just didn't say it out loud, instead giving very commanding looks. Aigis' was the most commanding.
"This is what's going on!" Junpei grabbed the game that'd been inside the plastic he'd torn off a few days ago. "This thing here!"
The game's cover read:
Shin Megami Tensei
Persona 3 FES
And it had an arcane symbol on the side, along with a silhouette of the resident android taking up the left.
Everybody's eyes widened at the title especially.
"I got it in the mail. Now, look on the back!"
The game's description struck them:
Step back into the night...
Terrible creatures lurk in the dark, preying on those who wander into the hidden hour that lies between one day and the next. As a member of a secret school club, you must wield your inner power – Persona – and protect humanity from impending doom. Will you live to see the saga's end – and beyond?
The special features only made things worse:
The best RPG of 2007 gets even better in this definitive version of Persona 3!
Play the original 70+ hour game with brand new Personas, events and a Hard play mode...
Or jump right into the 30+ hours of new content found in the all-new chapter, The Answer!
To top it all off, Aigis was seen on the back cover as well, wearing the armor they'd seen her wear back in the Abyss of Time...and her sister, Metis, was right next to the description of the game.
"What!?" Yukari was the first to vocalize everyone's thoughts.
"What is the meaning of this...?" Aigis – a very perturbed Aigis – murmured out. "Who sent you...?"
Fuuka was silent, mouth agape at the whole affair.
"Who sent you that thing?" Mitsuru demanded.
"I have no idea," Junpei replied. "There was no name on the package..."
"Who in their right mind...? Mitsuru, did-"
"Nobody from the Kirijo Group would dare sell the secrets of Persona and the Dark Hour to any game developers, Akihiko. And besides...if any of them did, I'd find out."
"Then...what...who...?!" Ken could barely make out a phrase.
Koromaru just stared at everyone, wondering why they were acting so frantic.
"And...it works."
"...What...?"
"You have got to see the opening. It...it scares me, okay?"
He set the game in the console.
After a few logos flashed for a few seconds on the screen...the intro played out.
Kimi ha ne tashika ni ano toki watashi no soba ni ita
Images of them flashed. Of Aigis looking shocked, at first. Then it showed someone clutching his head. Then it showed someone wearing pink pointing a gun to her head. Then it showed two unrecognizable people who wore blue, one of them having cold yellow eyes. Then it showed a little boy's eyes, looking as if he'd snapped his fingers, and then Aigis sliding sideways-
Itsudatte itsudatte itsudatte sugu yoko de waratte ita
-then Koromaru was in the picture while everyone hung on crosses in the back, then Fuuka's eyes opened, then Mitsuru appeared, then Akihiko with Junpei and Yukari looked up and-
Nakushitemo torimodosu kimi wo
-and then he appeared with his back turned to them and then Yukari's mouth moved with the rhythm of the song and Aigis was crying and a key showed itself in the foreground as it twisted upwards after pointing down in a puddle of blood as the next five words hit their hearts like a gunshot.
I will never leave you