Chapter Text
Tuesday, January 14th, 2144
Midnight
His phone only played back his ringtone once before the man on the other side - Tsukauchi - picked it up. "Aizawa-kun, what is it? Found a villain you need a lead on?" Aizawa answered him with a heavy sigh, his attention still focused on the unconscious girl in front of him.
"Have there been any reports of villain attacks tonight? I just found a girl unconscious, school-age from the looks of it." He heard the detective curse on the other end of the line, before speaking into his radio.
A short pause later, Tsukauchi responded with a resounding "Nothing." Now it was his turn to curse. "Need me to send an officer over to pick her up and check for evidence?"
"Send an officer, but I'll take her to the station myself. I don't want her waking up in an alleyway." After pushing off of the building he'd been leaning against, Aizawa dipped down and gingerly lifted the girl off of the ground. She was light and cold to the touch, though the gentle thump of her heartbeat assuaged any worries that she might be dead. A streetlight overhead gave him a better view of her features: reddish-brown hair tied back, with six metal barrettes by her temple fashioned into an XXII. A pair of old-fashioned headphones hung around her neck, affixed to her shirt around the collar. Their MP3 player jostled around slightly as he walked down the streets of Musutafu, unable to stay in place but not loose enough to fall.
A police cruiser passed him, lights and sirens turned off so as not to disrupt the public in the dead of night. The station wasn't far away now: just a few blocks away.
Aizawa pushed the door open with the tip of his foot, creeping into the police station's lobby without risking the chance of dropping the girl in his arms. "That the girl, Aizawa-san?" He nodded towards the receptionist, then turned towards the hall to lead her into one of the interview rooms.
The chairs were anything but comfortable, but at least they were better than the cold hard ground of a concrete alleyway. Aizawa sighed again as he slinked out of the room, only to run into Tsukuachi just outside the door. "Is the girl doing alright?" the detective asked.
Aizawa shrugged, looking at her over his shoulder. "Cold, but alive. Hopefully she'll come around soon; I don't want her parents to worry too much." It was already half past midnight; his patrol would be ending soon. "I'll go make a circuit around the station, call me back if she wakes up."
It was cold when she woke up.
Her joints were as stiff as they'd ever been, sorer than they were even after her most gruelling runs through Tartarus. An overhead light gave form to the rest of the room: it was square, with a bland metal table right in front of her, in the middle of the room. The uncomfortable seat she found herself in and the mirror on the other side were the last things she needed to realise she'd found herself in another interrogation room.
"This again?" she asked, as if someone was there to respond. The door into the room was open this time, without a single officer standing guard. A quick patdown revealed she still had her headphones and MP3 player, as well as her glasses and Evoker.
Hopefully they hadn't seen that last one.
Minako straightened out her sweater, careful to leave a bit of sag in it to cover up the impression of her Evoker. With any luck, they'd believe her when she said it was just a fake for self-defence. She supposed that it was true to an extent; it didn't fire bullets, and it was for self-defence - sometimes at least.
She was halfway out of the door when a man walked around the corner holding a coffee. "Oh! You're awake," he said, making his way straight for her. Minako could only assume that the man was a detective: he fit all of the tropes to a T, including the brown hat and trenchcoat. If only he'd had a beard and daughter, like Dojima-san.
...Nah, he looked too young to be a Hierophant. "A hero found you unconscious and brought you in for your safety, and so we could get a statement. Can I get you anything?" A hero?
The ease with which he spoke kept her from commenting on his use of 'hero', so she simply shook her head and smiled. "No thanks, Detective-san." She paused, eyeing the hallway past him. It was short enough that she could probably run past him and into the main lobby, provided that there wouldn't be anyone there to keep her from exiting through the front door. "Do you need anything from me?"
"We're just looking for a statement from you, nothing more. If you'd like, we can phone your parents so they can pick you up...?" The detective trailed off; he must have picked up the odd look she made when he said 'parents'.
She decided not to sugarcoat her words - he was still a member of the police, and the image Kurosawa painted had been tainted by her time with the Thieves. "Orphan," she said quickly, and looked to the side to avoid making eye contact with the man.
Detective Man clicked his tongue and looked to the side as well. "I- My condolences," he settled on. "Your guardian or ward, then?"
Minako shook her head that time. "...Don't have one." Sojiro, of course, had been as great of a guardian as she could have asked - at least until he threw her out, but she couldn't blame him much for that.
She could understand not wanting a mass murderer living above your café.
It wasn't like she had been in the wrong, though. Ikutsuki deserved to die, she knew that Mitsuru would agree with her on that. Takaya had too, after what he'd done. What was so wrong with making sure that people could never put themselves in a position to do that ever again? "Are you staying somewhere, at least?" The detective's question pulled her out of her thoughts.
She shook her head again. "No, not really..." The detective grimaced and was about to say something when another man walked around the corner.
The hobo who walked around the corner was decidedly more Hierophantic, Minako thought. He even shared Dojima-san's stubble. His eyes held a sense of cool, yet still caring warmth; like Sojiro when she first met him. "How long have you been awake?" he asked, his tone doing little to convey his concern.
It was the thought that counts, though.
"Just a few minutes," she said, looking around. Without any windows in sight, it was impossible to tell what time it was. "...What time is it?"
Hero Man - she assumed he was the one who'd found her, at least - frowned as he checked his watch. "Almost one in the morning. Let's have this conversation in the interviewing room." Minako was unable to say anything before the man walked inside, leaving her to begrudgingly follow him inside.
Minako took a seat in her uncomfortable chair, staring the other men down as if they'd get the hint that she'd rather have this conversation anywhere else but in the interrogation room. She looked around with her Third Eye, checking to make sure that there was no one watching them in the adjacent room before saying anything. "So...?"
The detective coughed into his fist, then gestured towards himself. "I'm Detective Tsukauchi. This here's Eraserhead, the Erasure Hero." She couldn't help but snicker at the dumb name; hadn't that been a movie? "Would you mind introducing yourself, miss?"
"My name's Arisato Minako," she said quietly, twiddling with the end of her scarf. Thank god she hadn't gone through any growth spurts over the years; her old sweater, scarf, and skirt still fit her better than anything. "I'm an orphan, before you ask for my parents' contact information as well, Eraser-san."
Eraserhead practically flinched at that, a hint of sorrow dropping into his eyes. "We'll get to that later," he said, before turning towards the glass. "What were you doing before you, uh, fell unconscious?"
"...Nothing illegal," she said, deciding she might as well start off with that. "I was just hanging around, I guess? Then all of a sudden, bam! Waking up in an interrogation room."
Tsukauchi frowned. "This room's for interviewing people who-"
"Interview, interrogation, same difference. Doesn't matter, the last time I was - Oh, um, nevermind," she said, punctuating her sentence with a nervous laugh. "Anyways, next question?"
The pair gave her a mixed look - one of equal parts suspicion and pity - before continuing. "...If you were mistreated by the police in the past, I'd be happy to look into it, Arisato-san." Detective Man's voice was tentative, like he didn't want to repeat his previous mistake.
Minako shook her head. Fuck, she was speaking herself into a corner. "No, I... I think it's already been taken care of."
The detective let out a hum before he brought his coffee mug up to his mouth, taking a long sip. "Do you think there might be anyone who thinks of you as an enemy?" the hero asked. "A villain you witnessed or testified against, someone at... wherever you go to school?"
"No, I took care of that one myself. N-Not illegally, of course." She had never quite figured out the legality of her actions in the Metaverse; sure, murder was illegal and all that, but was there the legislation needed to label what she did as murder? Maybe she'd look into that.
Tsukauchi shot a sideways glance at the hero next to him - she figured it either meant 'why did you bring in such trouble', or 'you owe me for this' - then took another drink of his coffee. "If you don't mind me asking, what do you do for... a living? That might point us in the direction of any possible suspects, Arisato-san."
Minako pouted in thought. "...I walk? Odd jobs, and... jeez, what do I do? Normally I just stumble my way into shelter, like this one time there was some uncle and apparently I was his niece? Fantastic guy, loved him to bits even when he tried to arrest me."
"...I'm sorry?" She snirked at Eraser Man's confusion, even though she'd probably said too much. "Was he not your uncle?"
"See, I'm still not sure. It's entirely possible that he was forced into thinking that I was his niece, but if the paperwork was there too, then am I or am I not his niece?"
Eraserhead crossed his arms, his eyes barely conveying any amusement at the turn of their conversation. "If you weren't adopted, and he wasn't a member of your family, then he wasn't your uncle. I... imagine you can't go back?" For a moment, Minako considered the possibility that Dojima-san or Nanako-chan might have been alive.
She cut that line of thinking when she remembered feeling their soul catapult into the Sea of Souls.
"No," she said, shaking her head. "They... passed on."
"My condolences," Tsukauchi said, before he leaned in towards Eraser Man and whispered into his ear. "Excuse us for a moment, please." The pair left the room, leaving to her own devices. She clicked the play button on her MP3 player with her left hand, using her free hand to clip on her right headphone.
"Burn, my dread..."
"So? What's the verdict?" From his own point of view, Arisato looked like a bundle of tragedy, mystery, and uncooperativeness - if only Tsukauchi could change that. "Was she even telling the truth?"
"The name she gave us wasn't fake, and she's on her own. My Quirk picked up that she wasn't doing anything illegal before she got knocked out," Tsukauchi said, "though she wasn't just 'hanging around'."
Aizawa frowned. "Why would she lie about that?" The hero sighed, shaking his head. "Whatever. Anything else?"
Tsukauchi chewed the side of his lip for a second before continuing. "Her problem with the police and her grudges were 'taken care of', as she put it, but it wasn't legally. Her habit of walking into shelters registered as false too, but the whole story about her uncle was the truth.
A small click from the interview room pulled the detective's attention over towards the door, though he turned back when nothing happened. "I'm thinking she's just some kid who's had a rough life and did some less than legal things to get back at the people who wronged her. I can't imagine it's anything too serious, do you?"
"The uncle story's worrying," Aizawa said, brow creased into a thoughtful frown. "Some kind of Quirk maybe? It could be dangerous, especially if it's hers and she's unaware of it. Did we get that?" Tsukauchi shook his head and glanced towards the room again. "Ask about it. If she doesn't have a place to sleep, she can crash at my place - I don't want her accidentally using her Quirk on someone who's unaware of it, if that's what it is."
"Right." Tsukauchi walked back into the room, and assumed - hoped, more like - that she hadn't heard their conversation, based on the tired but cheery smile she gave him. "Arisato-san, may I ask what your Quirk is?"
Arisato blinked at him a few times, confused, before shrugging. "Quirk? Um... I can eat a lot?" A truth. Tsukauchi let out a sigh of relief, glad that her Quirk hadn't been some sort of automatic brainwashing ability. "Why?"
Behind him, Aizawa walked into the room. "We just wanted to make sure no one would be in danger if they housed you. Listen, it's late and I imagine that none of us want to spend a night talking in a police station. If you don't have anywhere to go, you're free to crash at my place - I've got a guest room you can use." Arisato smiled and nodded, eyes closing to complete the gesture. She froze for a moment, all movement halting as if she'd been shot, only for her smile to widen as she beamed at Aizawa.
If only she was easier to read, Tsukauchi thought with a sigh.
The Hierophant - Aizawa Shouta, as he'd reintroduced himself - led her into his apartment. It was small, obviously meant for just one person, with a scarcely decorated living room. The couch held a bulky-looking sleeping bag on it, which Aizawa quickly bundled up and slipped under his arm as he grumbled about having to clean up. "I'll get a futon out for you." Minako sent him off with a small hum. "Thinking about something?"
"This just reminds me of a place my... friend lived in."
Aizawa stopped to give her an odd look. "...Must've been pretty bad."
"It was, yeah." The Western-style apartment held a kitchen in the corner, segmented off from the rest of the living room by a separating wall. Opposite the kitchen was an old television facing the couch, backed up against the bathroom wall. Aizawa's guest room was just next to the door to the apartment, creating a hallway that funnelled in and out of the central room.
Minako poked her head inside, examining what was to be her bedroom for the next... week? Month? Year? She settled on the next over-encompassing 'while', eventually. A rolled-up futon sat in the corner, in front of a large wooden dresser. Adjacent was a simple wood desk, its polish barely shining under the layer of dust on its surface. Up against the wall stood a single computer, of the kind she would have found in an underfunded library back in Inaba. A stool was all that served as a chair - she had to admit, she'd still gotten worse. "Thank you, Aizawa-san!" The hero's groan sounded off in the other room, bringing a slight grin to her lips.
Perhaps this wouldn't be so bad, she thought, though the knot of energy and restlessness inside of her was enough to stave of any thought of sleeping.
Booting up the computer without a hint of hesitation, the faint smell of burning dust filled her senses as she started to click around. Gone were the days of Tinternet Explorer and Gigahard, it seemed; Minako found the computer's web browser soon enough and opened it up, before beginning to search through local news.
An hour later, Minako had exhausted herself on learning about society in the year 2144. She'd lost more than a whole century during her exile within the Sea of Souls, and... nearly everyone was gone now, too. Would she ever meet the three who still lived again? Minako could only hope, and maybe, just maybe her Aeon would-
"Still up?" Aizawa's voice came through the door, muffled by the wood and cardboard. "Should try and get some sleep, you know."
Minako hit the power button, returning her room to its previous state of complete darkness. "Sorry, I'll be going to bed soon!" she half exclaimed, loud enough so that she could be heard. Her ward - hell, with how things had turned out with her last Hierophants, she might as well just skip to Law Dad as a nickname - grumbled something, then made his way down the hallway.
The computer's browser history could be cleared in the morning, she decided, as she rolled out the futon. Slipping inside, Minako let her head rest on the small pillow she'd been given, and felt herself slide back into unconsciousness.
Fuuka gasped over their connection as a pod of Shadows came into view. "The enemy!" Minako grinned as she cycled Mitsuru and Akihiko to the front lines, leaving herself and Yukari in the back to focus on support. "I-It's four Mayas, weak to ice and electric!"
Penthesilia was summoned in an instant, their illustrious president eager to take care of them with a Mabufu. "Hey, Minako-chan, how long do you think it'll take Yamagishi to get used to this? I know it's only her second night into Tartarus, but it feels like every time we find a Shadow, she's scared half to death." Minako idly watched as their two senpais fought a heated battle against the four Shadows, pulling her Evoker out and summoning Pixie to chip away at Akihiko's exhaustion. "...Also, jeez. You don't even have to think about it, huh?"
"Summoning a Persona?" Minako asked, looking over at Yukari as a Dia worked its way into Akihiko's bones. "Do you?"
Yukari nodded, glancing down at her Evoker. "Maybe it's just because of how morbid it feels, but I always have to kind of, I dunno... psyche myself up? Like I have to get into the right headspace for it," she said, leaving Minako confused. It was never hard for her - the most she had to think about was which Persona she wanted and what she needed to do with it.
"Sanada-senpai, look out!" Fuuka's warning prompted Yukari to shoot off an arrow, piercing the Shadow charging towards Akihiko from his blind spot. "Good shot, Takeba-san!"
"...She's so precious," Minako said after a brief thought, firing off a Zio with Pixie before pulling the Persona back into her soul. "I'm gonna pat her when we get back to the entrance."
The last of the Shadows were killed by a final Bufu that managed to strike two of them. "Arisato!" shouted Mitsuru, sending a pang of cold fear through Minako's body. "Don't think that I can't hear your conversations, even in battle. Please, refrain from talking about your crushes when we have more important things to handle." Heat crept onto her face as she blushed, nervously laughing as she made a show of scratching at her barrettes.
"S-Sorry, Kirijo-senpai."
They were only two floors further in when Fuuka's voice rang through their heads, imbued with sheer panic. "E-Everyone, run! It's Death!"
Tuesday, January 14th, 2144
Afternoon
Minako woke with a start to the sound of rattling chains, a bead of sweat rolling down the side of her head. Tartarus was gone, she told herself, the Dark Hour was no longer a thing. She was safe - probably - and didn't have to worry about Shadows - in the traditional sense at least - anymore. An ache spread from her side, where she'd slept with her Evoker digging into her hip.
Throwing off her covers, Minako stood up and made her way over to the computer, booting it up to clear her history after last night's search for knowledge. If she hadn't witnessed everything in Iwatodai, Inaba, and Tokyo, she might have thought the world was pulling one over on her.
Of course, after being directly responsible for the deaths of multiple deities, Minako tried her best to simply take it in stride.
She didn't leave until her browser history had been cleared, not wanting to give Aizawa or any other guests the opportunity to discover her knowledge deficiencies. If the last deity hadn't lied, and it really was responsible for her being pulled in and out of reality, then it wouldn't be there to do it again in the event she screwed everything up - she'd shot it in the face, after all, how could her life be robbed from her yet another time? Once the evidence had been fully cleared, she straightened out her sweater, hid her Evoker again, and left the room.
Aizawa's apartment was empty, devoid of all other life. A small yellow paper pulled her over towards the couch, where she found a hastily written note:
"Went to work. There's instant ramen in the cupboards and some bento in the fridge. Eat what you need, I'll pick up dinner on my way home. I don't know if you need anything for your Quirk, so if you need to buy anything I'll reimburse you. Take the spare key. Aizawa."
"What a nice old man," she muttered, setting the note back on the couch and pocketing the key he'd left under the paper. Shit, she needed to clear up her Quirk, then - should she even try to make one up? Minako thought back to how the Quirkless were referred to as 'inferior individuals' more than a few times during the prior night's research and decided against going without. Passing off her Personas as a Quirk might have been easy, she thought, though her range and flexibility might be too great to write off - all of the Quirks she'd seen were fairly specific, after all.
Minako absent-mindedly went through Aizawa's kitchen, in search of the instant ramen as she thought of what to do. She'd picked up her Third Eye in Tokyo; maybe it would work? A hum escaped her as she pulled out a bowl of instant ramen, getting it ready before placing it inside of the kitchen's microwave. The mechanical buzz provided a background to her thoughts, framing the inner discussion of whether she should go big or go small.
If only she could use her Thieves' Outfit, she thought; that'd be a pretty snazzy Quirk, and it'd allow her to-
Minako blinked when she saw the white jacket and chains around her wrist.
"Oh," she said quietly, before loudly repeating it as she found herself in her entire Thief outfit. Even her mask - the actor's mask fashioned in a permanent smile - had appeared, and a tentative tug at its edge had cyan embers whipping up around her. The microwave beeped, signalling that her ramen was warm enough to cook the rest of the way on its own. Her Thief outfit disappeared in a blaze of blue as she pulled out the bowl of ramen, Surt appearing to keep her from singing the tips of her fingers. "Quirks can wait," she decides, before impatiently eyeing the plastic bowl of ramen.
Minako had gone out for a walk after her late lunch - she'd woken up really late, as it turned out - weaving in and out of side streets and alleyways. "Habits die hard," she guessed, still accustomed to keeping herself out of the public eye in Tokyo. With no working phone or cell connection, she'd been forced to grab some of Aizawa's paper to make a map - a map, of all things - of the directions she'd taken.
The crowd paid her barely any attention, and Minako felt like she'd returned to just another cog in the machine of Japanese society.
It was an odd feeling of solidarity, one she hadn't really felt since her time in Iwatodai. There, she had been one student of many, without anything to set her apart. Mostly, at least. Inaba had been too small to form crowds that she could lose herself in, too intricately yet loosely woven together to lose identity. Her status as a pariah had prevented anything of the sort in Tokyo, even despite the anonymity of the crowds.
Here - in New Neo Sanfrantokyo, as she'd taken to calling the city until she could figure out its actual name - there was no such animosity to keep her from the crowds; still, old habits died hard. Minako sneaked through the alleys, trying her best to keep quiet lest she attract the attention of some villain hiding in the shadows of the alley. As nice as a fight to get the blood flowing sounded, she might have to pass on going all out - her guardian this time was a Hero, and probably wouldn't hesitate to haul her in for questioning.
Not long after she'd entered another block's alleyways, Minako stumbled upon what was obviously a drug deal. "You'll want some of the high-quality stuff, friend," said a shady-sounding man. Minako kept out of their line of sight, just around a corner of the alleyway, and closed her eyes to use Third Eye to watch with a detached curiosity.
The two figures were no more than four meters away from her, each outlined in blue. One of them held a faintly sparkling briefcase, with large sparkling signatures that dotted the man's jacket. Yen and some of the valuable objects changed hands without a word, and Minako realised one of them was headed her way before she could leave.
On instinct, a switch in her flipped - parts of her being shuffled towards the back to make room for what wasn't her, and she entered the man's cognition as a shadow on the wall. The drug dealer walked past her without even an acknowledgement of her presence, continuing unaware that she had been witness to their deal. The junkie found a suitable hiding place for his hit and left, leaving Minako alone and unknown to the world. The shift reversed, allowing her whole being to join the rest of the world.
Stunned - and frankly somewhat frightened - into silence, Minako looked back down at her recorded map and started towards the apartment.