Minato tried to count the amount of days, week, months and years it had been since he took his last breath but his soul, saddled with the burden of the Seal would hibernate after a few seconds of math and lull his senses into a deep slumber. The first few moments were especially excruciating, being trapped alone at the edge of reality with no sense of sound and vision but eventually, at least by now, Minato had grown accustomed to his primitive existence, only capable of existing and a few seconds of thought, nothing more.

At times, he would see flashes of blue and silver in his blind vision but aside from that, all was quiet and static.

All he was left with was sleep with no dreams, and Minato did not resist the embrace of soft death because when he was not trying to count the amount that had passed and even with his broken senses, the one memory of his friends and his world was prominent. He had given his young life in exchange for people who would never even come to know of his name, let alone his sacrifice and yet he felt no bitterness towards humanity or even Igor and Philemon for thrusting the burden of humanity on his shoulders.

The fear, uncertainty and bitterness, all of those human emotions become meaningless when he summoned Messiah at the end of his battle against Nyx. He was caught between a rock and hard place as he faced off the goddess of the night sky, but Minato swore that even if it was just a moment, when he finally unleashed the primal of the ultimate arcana, he felt that he had touched and ascended heaven.

He was chained, weak and barely even in existence but he still watched over his world and deep down, he knew that one day he would rise again when the will of the collective unconsciousness would cry for salvation.

Such was his legend.

When the world would call him.

When the masses would cry for salvation-

Minato lost his consciousness somewhere in the middle and the whispers dragged him back to dreadful sleep. He woke up sometime later but remembered nothing, and so the cycle continued.

Each time he woke up, Minato would recite the same to himself in a number of different ways but one detail was always constant in his stream of thoughts.

There would be a second coming.

When the world demanded...

...

One point in time, the cycle was broken and Minato came alive, his memories and senses flooding back into his being.

His sense of sight returned and Minato saw a void of darkness.

His sense of smell caught the after burn of magic and spells.

His sense of feel came last and his body was shredded by the chains that previously held him in place, as he was forcefully dragged out from the Seal, his soul caught up in the explosion of magic and decay. His physical body was buried long ago but even then, Minato felt the ripping and tearing of flesh and the rearrangement of his internal organs-

The Seal broke with an unearthly smash heard across the realm and his liberation shattered the gates. His scream broke down in his throat as the ungodly pain broke his senses in an entirely different manner, rendering him paralyzed to process what had happened.

All he knew...

What he last saw...

Erebus reaching out for Nyx.

The scene was forever burned into his soul but soon after, Minato lost consciousness and was thrown into another deep slumber. He did dream this time, with the catastrophe playing over and over in his head, his liberation from the Great Seal and Erebus awakening Nyx.

"..."

His personas were mourning and he knew what had happened.

Minato desperately sought the deep slumber that he had grown accustomed to but the dreams persisted, eating away at him for another unknown amount of time.

This was not his legend...

This is not what he was told...

When he touched...

...

Minato woke up for the third time as he ascended upwards through the darkness, eventually floating in what seemed to be a sea of mucky water. He saw the hideous condition of his body and rested his head back, trying to figure out where he was but all he could see were layers and layers of darkness ascending upwards to a blue night sky littered with billions of dimly lit stars.

"W-Where am I...?"

The place was vaguely familiar but at the same it was so much different, far more primitive than the realm he was accustomed to.

Minato tried to move but fell back in a heap, barely able to keep his eyelids open.

He felt weak.

So very weak...

Last time he was alive, he was the epitome of persona users with the universe in his grip but now, he felt weak, empty and alone without his companions at his side.

"Why...?"

Minato wondered what had happened but more than that, he lamented why he was the one caught up in whatever the hell had happened.

"My world..."

He clenched his left hand and it grew numb seconds later.

"My friends..."

Minato tried one more time to rise up from the sea but he splashed back down with a small cry, the exhaustion hindering him more than the damage he had suffered. He tried to sleep but remained conscious, just blankly staring at the stars in the vast expanse of the sky. He tried to search for Yukari, Junpei, and his other friends but none seemed familiar. He was almost puzzled by the mere existence of those above as all seemed so...

"..."

Finally, he felt a warmth. A very different of warmth, one that was capable of burning his soul to ashes. Straight ahead, he saw a light and with nothing else but the misery and his cursed fate, he reached out to touch the burning glow and almost instantaneously he felt a pull.

The same pull he felt when the same force dragged him out of the seal.

Minato was weakened and confused but he fought back against the force, screaming, struggling and clawing to grab a hold of something, anything that would help him but there was nothing around him to help. All he could was thrash in the mucky waters, demanding the entity to let him go-

"Thou Art I..."

When he was seconds away from getting pulled to some other hell, Minato heard the voice of his the last persona he had summoned-

"Messiah!"

His strength returned for a millisecond and Minato immediately took the chance, calling the ultimate persona to the forefront of his psyche and evoking the supreme entity from within. Time stopped for another millisecond but his ultimate persona exploded out of his sea upon the command of his master, the mere force of the summoning giving rise to a cyclone of water and mist in the place that was now illuminated in the light of the messiah.

The water came splashing down upon him and Minato started hearing whispers, even yells of people tearing into his mind-

He shook his head and grabbed onto his persona for support, directing-

"Morning Star!"

The attack was much slower than he remembered but his persona conjured up the sphere of holy light just in time to counter the explosion of light from the will, with the mesh of the two attacks blinding the persona user and transforming the once dark void into a land of never-ending light-

Minato felt the rush somewhere in the middle, the roars and screams of his numerous personas reawakening and rushing back into the sea of his soul, from his first persona Orpheus to his prime persona, Thanatos, with the sounds reverberating over and over again, the light filtering through his shut eye lids and stinging his corneas and his hold around the coffins of his persona tightening in the moment of uncertainty.

The sound of the explosion came delayed and that was the last thing his senses registered before all grew dark.

...

"Haah... Haah..."

Minato panted with his head on the ground, doubled over in exhaustion with a light shinning down upon him. He was no longer astral and just a soul as he was breathing, taking in and exhaling the little air around him and while he was tired from what he had gone through, his strength had returned along with his personas.

He took a peek back and saw a church, a very ominous structure with a stifling vibe emanating from every brick of the foundation. He looked up and saw a street lamp, dimly lit in the cold night.

"Where am I?"

This was definitely not Iwatodai-

Not even close-

Not wanting to attract attention, Minato made a run into the shadows and tried to make sense of the situation as he carefully made his way out of the district.

There were so many questions.

What happened at the Seal?

Was this the second-

The questions stopped flooding when he heard a footsteps, and by the click slash stomp, he could tell that the person was enraged and obviously looking for something given by the pauses in between the stomps and low hisses.

"Come out!"

The voice was more authoritative than Mitsuru, far more regal if that was possible, akin to that of a supreme king but at the same time, the enmity rivaled and even exceeded the vicious creatures that he had fought against. He had two options, come out in the open and figure something out or stay in the shadows and run away to get his bearings-

Stab-

Minato jumped to avoid a blade that was sent his way, easily avoiding the danger by a good margin of time but he came out in the open, facing the opposite direction and the source of danger-

A golden haired male with red eyes, clad in black pants and a ridiculous white mink.

"..."

His gaze was filled with arrogance, looking down at Minato like he was even worse than the filth under his boot but at the same time, there was a stronger emotion emotion behind that, one he was trying hard to mask-

Hate.

A shake of his head, the golden haired stranger launched another blade in the direction of the blue haired teen who yet again dodged the projectile with a tilt of his head and retreated into the shadows, running as fast as he could carry him while the footsteps followed, with an obvious increase in pace. Whoever the guy was, he was persistent and on his tail-

Straight ahead he saw a body of water. He looked back and saw the golden haired male following him with the hatred even more evident in his eyes.

Minato jumped into the body of water and his stalker let out a strong hiss when a drop of water splashed onto his boot. He had half a mind to let go of the restrains that he had placed upon himself to scout out the annoying blue haired mongrel and fill his body with steel but...

"Whatever..."

Next time.

Minato swam and swam, trying to work through the questions. He had numerous, ranging from the seal to the world he was currently in but...

He climbed up the pier and stood on solid ground.

His summoning...

Minato glanced up at the full moon, lower lip quivering when he struggled with the biggest question of them all.

His summoning...

His summoning was cursed...

There was something horribly wrong with his summoning, his body and his existence.

"..."

I hope none of you remember me.

Just a test chapter of something that popped up in my head thanks to a debate with a friend. I'm not a fate expert by any means, having only watched the animation so bear with me. I mostly write for persona but the the nasuverse is one of the better developed ones I've seen. The lore is so much more deeper than persona but one thing I thought was a little lacking was the collective unconsciousness, as compared to the persona. Hell I maybe wrong on that too but this, consider this as a manipulation and merging of lore.

For those of you who got the message from the style and tone of the starting paragraph, good job. Again, this is merely a test fic and I am not sure if I will even update this again, but this idea was a little too interesting to pass up. I'd like to welcome opinions and hell, if anyone of you want to take this up, be my guest.

I THINK I have a basis of this down... I think...

Also, no rage please. You can get the point across while being civil.

Anyway, see ya... or maybe not. Cheers!