Persona 3: Never To Leave

Coming Storms

14/05/09 After School

“Um, Makoto-senpai…” I could recognise that voice pretty well now, and the way that he carried himself always gave who it was away. This was because he was more stoic and laidback, so he had this thing where he leaned slightly back because he too lazy to stand up straight. This meant that his steps had a slight delay. “Yeah Minato?”

“Oh, I just wanted to thank you for helping us last night. If you didn’t, I would have to go up from the last teleporter again.” I know how you feel, but I don’t mind too much anymore because of my awesome teleportation powers. Speaking of which… I’ve been noticing a smaller delay in me using the technique. If I get to the point where I can use this several times in a row, I will be extremely happy.

“It’s fine. I was just feeling pretty forgiving last night. It just depends.” Minato cringed as he realise what I could have done to him if I wasn’t feeling as benevolent as I was. All of the Megidolaons would be fired. Yes… “…Ok. Wanna go train?” I shrugged my shoulders. “Why not?”

Like usual, we dropped off Pale Rider and headed to the Velvet Room.

“Minato… what level are you at now?” The bluenette paused for a moment, and finally replied with, “About fifty… Why?” I nodded. “A few more levels and we can finally get you started on the next part. It might be a small change, but you’ll need the body strength and stamina for at least sixty-four.” The cobalt-haired leader nodded. “That isn’t too far off… Alright.”

I began watching Minato again, and I realised something as he was bringing out the electronics for Burn My Dread once again. I wasn’t able to put my finger on it… But is his style actually a tiny bit… unguarded? Hmm… I’ll need to see more of it later when he’s actually fighting.

Know what? I am pretty impatient. “Minato, I just wanted to try something.” The blue-haired kohai nodded slowly and approached me, swords in hand. I too drew both of my blades, and got myself into a stance. “Attack me with everything you got. I’m not likely to get hurt, so don’t worry too much.” And I can heal myself instantly, I added in my head.

Minato spread out his blades, and got into a fighting stance that I had never seen before. I was way too… there was little to no guard. Anywhere. He began to charge at me with all this ferocity that I had never seen before, and he began to swing his swords. This wasn’t like a dance. This was a beast.

I dodged out of the way without breaking a sweat despite the pressure that he was putting on me. It was an impressive amount of killer intent, I had to admit. Again he charged, but the strikes he was pulling this time was more of a combination of the wolf-like viciousness that he was displaying and the grace of the music that was pulling him along.

This next combo was much harder to dodge.

Thankfully, the impending strikes were dodged by a hair’s breadth, using very little energy to get out of the way of the otherwise lethal stabs that he was trying to land. It was at the last stab that I managed to get a hold of his arm, and throw him backwards, letting him land on the ground. “Ok… I was just testing something…”

I silently cast a Diarahan spell on the cobalt-haired leader, alleviating the pain that he was not doubt feeling. “Sorry. But I just need to see something, and I think I was right.”

One of Minato’s eyebrows rose a little probably wondering what I was talking about. “I want you to go back to training again, but circulate this SP as well.” I poked him in the chest once more, filing in the Spiritual Pressure of a certain red wolf…

Now that I’m doing this again… Why am I actually poking him? Is it because it’s funny? I dunno…

Low growls were rumbling out from Minato’s throat, and I had to admit that the snarling was on par with Ray’s. Once he started, the strong animalistic urges that Skoll had invoked was encouraging a lot less guard, but the amount of killer intent, speed and power that were coming from his strikes were so much stronger now. It was like… seeing a real wolf.