...05/10/2009 Monday; Dusk...
The sky bled orange over Gekkoukan High when the gates opened for the daily exodus. Backpacks swayed on shoulders, shoes scraped against the asphalt, laughter burst from groups that scattered like flocks of birds.
Someone shouted something about the math test. Another replied with an exaggerated groan. Ordinary life filled the cracks of the day with the cruel efficiency of normalcy.
But the auditorium remained untouched.
The rows of chairs still faced the stage like a silent congregation awaiting a sermon that had already ended.
The table covered in white. The flowers—lilies, chrysanthemums, daisies—motionless in their vases, petals that didn't wither because death was still too recent for nature to collect its due.
In the center, the portrait of Shinjiro Aragaki smiled.
The door creaked.
Footsteps echoed in the silence—not the hurried steps of a student searching for something forgotten, nor the authoritative click of a teacher's heels. They were slow steps. Measured. As if each one were a decision.
Akihiko crossed the central aisle with his hands in his pockets and his face strangely calm. A careless observer would say he looked fine. That he had moved on. That Shinjiro's death was nothing more than a statistic already processed and filed away in some corner of his mind.
The careless observer would be wrong.
Akihiko climbed the stage steps one by one. His shoes made the wooden platform creak—once, twice, three times.
When he stopped, he was exactly in front of the portrait. The dark wooden frame. The glass reflecting his own face superimposed over the image of his friend.
He stood in silence. Not the silence of someone who has nothing to say. But the silence of someone deciding where to begin.
"Hey." The word came out casual. As if Shinjiro were leaning against the dorm wall with a can of coffee in his hand.
"I had the usual for lunch..." Akihiko scratched the back of his neck, his eyes still fixed on the frozen smile. "...and I kept wondering what ramen tastes like when you skip class."
The echo returned his words, distorted by the emptiness of the auditorium.
He crossed his arms. His right hand rose to his chin, his fingers drumming lightly on the skin. An old tic. Something he did when he was thinking—or when he wanted to look like he was.
"For some reason it's way better..." A huff of a laugh escaped, dry. "...you really could've invited me to eat, you know? At least once."
The echo.
Then silence.
The same silence that had accompanied him the night before, when he held Shinjiro's body in his arms. The same silence that had filled the dorm when everyone came back without him. The silence that now lived in that portrait and that would never—never—be broken by the voice Akihiko was waiting to hear.
He forced a smile. His lips obeyed, but his eyes didn't. His eyes remained fixed, too bright, too still.
"Ah, come on, Shinji."
Akihiko pointed at the portrait. His index finger trembled—barely. Almost imperceptible.
"Say something. You like leaving your friends on read, don't you?"
Akihiko stared into the eyes of the portrait. Not the eyes of ink and photographic paper—but the eyes he knew. The same ones that rolled whenever he talked too much about training.
Something tightened inside his chest. Slowly. Like a fist closing in slow motion.
The forced smile fell apart. First the corners of his lips, which dropped. Then his forehead, which furrowed. Finally his eyes—those didn't drop, but hardened. Sadness and rage fighting over the same face, and he too tired to pick a side.
"Yeah... you were right."
A bitter sigh escaped. More of a laugh than a sigh, really—the kind that hurts on the way up.
"I was always the one running from himself. I was so blind about getting stronger..."
Akihiko raised his own hand before his eyes.
The same hand that had taken down Shadows, that had broken bones. He turned it slowly, examining the lines of his skin as if reading a map that led nowhere.
"Ever since I lost Miki in that fire... that was all I thought about. Getting stronger to protect everyone."
His vision flickered.
Not the flicker of blinking—but a cut. A glitch in reality. For an instant, the stage disappeared. The flowers. The portrait. Everything replaced by red.
Blood.
Shinjiro's blood running between his fingers, hot and thick, staining his nails, seeping into the lines of his palm that he had been examining seconds before. And the voice—Shinjiro's voice, weak, hoarse, saying something Akihiko didn't want to hear, something he had been trying to push to the back of his mind since the night before.
"Take care of Amada..."
Akihiko blinked again.
The auditorium returned. The stage. The white flowers. The portrait. His hand was clean—but he still felt the blood. He would feel it forever.
"How wrong I was..." His fist clenched so hard his nails dug into his flesh. "...and in the end you died too! GODDAMMIT!"
The scream exploded and ricocheted off the walls of the empty auditorium, returning to him distorted, multiplied, as if an invisible audience repeated his words in mockery.
Akihiko turned away abruptly, stepping back from the table. His hands rose to his head, his fingers tangling in his hair, squeezing his skull as if they could contain the rage throbbing inside.
Rage at the world. Rage at the Dark Hour. Rage at himself.
He knew. He had always known what they were getting into. Every night in Tartarus was a flirtation with death. Every Shadow defeated could be the last. He knew—and still...
"I knew what we were getting into..." His voice came out trembling, furious, the words stumbling over each other. "...I knew we could die at any moment! I was so blind fighting that I ended up seeing absolutely nothing in this shit!"
He turned toward the portrait. Two steps. Three. His legs carried him back near the table before he could decide.
"It doesn't matter how strong I am!" His hand slammed the table. The flowers trembled in their vases. "LOOK WHAT HAPPENED!"
His legs gave out.
It was as if someone cut the wires that kept him standing. His knees hit the wooden floor with a dull thud that echoed all the way to the last row of chairs.
His shoulders shook first. Then came the sobs. Loud. Ugly. The kind of crying that tears at your throat and squeezes your chest and doesn't ask permission.
Thick tears streamed down his face and dripped onto the floor, staining the wood.
It was the only thing he could do.
Scream. Cry. Stay there on his knees before the table, before the portrait, before the frozen smile of the friend who no longer answered.
Because Shinjiro was dead.
Akihiko cried for a span of time he couldn't measure. The minutes dragged on, slipped over one another, and the empty auditorium offered no clues.
It could have been five minutes. It could have been an hour. His internal clock had been broken since the night before.
Then he felt it.
A presence at his back. A vibration that didn't pass through his ears, but straight through his chest.
Polydeuces floated behind him, shrouded in its ethereal blue glow. Imposing. Silent. The armored warrior that had always answered his call. But now it only watched. As if waiting.
Akihiko dragged his arm across his face, wiping the tears with the sleeve of his uniform. He remained on his knees, but lifted his head toward the portrait.
"I know, Shinji..." His voice came out heavy, dragged, but every word was steady. "Crying won't do any good."
He placed his hands on the table. His fingers gripped the edge of the wood, the muscles in his arms tensed, and with an effort that seemed greater than any fight he had ever faced, Akihiko rose to his feet.
He stood there for a moment, his shoulders slumped, his gaze on the floor. He didn't have the courage to face the portrait. Not yet.
"You don't need to tell me that..." His voice still heavy. But something in it was beginning to change. A tiny ember in the middle of the ashes. "...but I can't keep running from myself anymore."
Then he raised his face.
His eyes met the portrait—the smile, the uniform, all that remained. And this time he didn't look away.
His jaw locked. His shoulders pulled back. His right arm rose, steady, and his fist clenched in the air with the precision of someone who knows exactly what he's doing.
For an instant—so brief that he himself didn't notice—his eyes flashed blue. Then yellow. And returned to normal.
"I'm done running."
Behind him, Polydeuces began to glow.
Not the serene blue of before. An intense, golden yellow that expanded in concentric waves through the empty auditorium.
The white flowers were tinged with gold. The shadows fled to the corners. The light enveloped the Persona like a cocoon—and then the cocoon shattered.
The form that emerged was another.
A Greek armor, white and silver, covered the entire body. Overlapping plates on the shoulders, the chest, the legs—every detail polished as if forged in that very instant.
The enormous helm fused into the neck, leaving no room for a face—only a black, empty visage, where two eyes and a mouth burned in red.
A cape descended over the shoulders: dark red on the inside, white on the outside, billowing in a wind that didn't exist.
The arms and legs took on a dark hue, crossed by silver veins that resembled constellations.
In the center of the chest, an oval cavity pulsed in red. Inside it, seated in an analytical pose, a small black figure observed the world through a crimson mask.
The posture of an emperor who weighed entire kingdoms with a single glance.
The right hand held a Greek sword—long, silver, simple as the truth. The left hand opened with the palm facing up, and upon it floated a miniature Earth, spinning slowly, blue and green and alive.
Akihiko didn't turn around to see.
But he heard the voice.
Not with his ears. With something deeper—his heart, perhaps. Or that part of the soul where Personas have always spoken.
The voice was solemn, deep, but not cold. It carried the weight of empires.
"I am thou... thou art I..."
The words resonated inside him and then erased themselves from memory, like smoke dissipating. He wouldn't remember them consciously. But his heart would know. Forever.
"Thy heart has called me. I, Julius Caesar, shall accompany thee to the end of thy journey."
The yellow glow faded completely. The flowers returned to white as if nothing had happened.
Akihiko took a deep breath. The air filled his lungs slowly, and when it left, it carried with it some of the weight he bore on his shoulders.
He reached his hand toward the table. His fingers touched one of the flowers—a white lily—and carefully he pulled it from the vase.
He placed the flower before the portrait.
There. Right in front of Shinjiro's smile.
Then he turned. His shoes creaked on the wood as he walked to the edge of the stage. Until he stopped. Over his shoulder, he cast one last look at the portrait.
"Rest in peace, Shinji."
His voice came out steady. No longer choked, no longer trembling. It was the voice of someone who had made peace with something he couldn't change—and had decided to honor it.
"Wherever you are... I hope you and Miki watch over me."
A smile. This time, genuine. Small, crooked, but real.
"After all... I've got a job to do."
Akihiko turned his face toward the exit. His eyes shone with a determination that hadn't existed minutes before.
"Right?"
He began to walk. Firm steps through the central aisle of the auditorium, the empty chairs on both sides like silent witnesses to his departure. The echo of his footsteps filled the space, rhythmic, constant.
And then, behind him, something took shape.
A silhouette—fragile, translucent, like mist taking the form of a young girl. Silver hair that glowed with its own light, rippling in a current of air that didn't exist. Her face was a soft blur, impossible to define—except for the mouth. The mouth was clear. And smiling.
A huge smile. The kind that didn't fit on the face.
The silhouette reached out her hand toward Akihiko, her pale fingers almost touching his back as he walked away. He didn't see. He didn't hear. But he felt it—a brief warmth on the back of his neck, like a ray of sunlight crossing a window.
"Don't give up..." The voice was sweet. Young. It carried the echo of a childhood cut short. "...big brother."
Akihiko kept walking. He didn't turn around.
But his steps, somehow, grew lighter.
TO BE CONTINUED...