A/N: Whoa, haha. Hi guys, what's up? I kind of poofed for a little while there, huh? Sorry about that. But anyway, yeah, here you go.

Disclaimer: I've given up on the idea of disclaimers altogether. It's pretty much common sense given that it's a fanfiction website. Lmao.

He started off by kicking the edge of Junpei's bed, earning a sharp cry of surprise and annoyance from the groggy male.

"Wha—hey!" Junpei exclaimed. "What's the big idea, jerk?!"

"Minako," Minato began, not wasting any time. "Where is she?"

Junpei practically dragged himself out of the covers, shooting his leader a rather menacing glare. He glanced at the wall clock above his study desk, and winced.

"Dude," he stretched the word, "It's the middle of the night. She's probably sleeping in her room or something."

Cue a hardened gaze from Minato. "Think again. It's the Dark Hour."

Irritated, Junpei buried himself back into the sheets, running his fingers messily all over his head in frustration. He seemed to be trying his hardest not to lash out at Minato, though the latter wouldn't put it past him to. Not that Minato cared at the moment.

"I can't deal with this right now," Junpei whined. "If you want to make out with her that badly, don't drag me into it, man."

"Did she mention anything about going to Tartarus tonight?" Minato prodded, arms crossed over his chest and refusing to budge.

The response he got was grinding teeth, eventually fading as he found the other falling back into sleep. Minato kicked the edge of the bed again, to which Junpei momentarily flicked his head back at, then wearily muttered an almost inaudible 'did you even check the bathroom' and slumped back into the pillows.

He had no time for this.

Minako wouldn't be foolish enough to explore that tower alone, would she?

Checking her room twice did nothing to ease his worries. The naginata sat lonely and unused in one corner, forgotten on the table was the evoker, which he had snatched and shoved into his pocket without thinking. The handle stuck out of it like a sore thumb. After deciding to rush back into his room and grab hold of his own evoker, he sprinted past Junpei's room and down the stairs.

Thinking about it more clearly, he could have chosen to approach Mitsuru or Akihiko instead of Junpei, but his room had been the closest, and no matter how calm the others made him out to be, he was still only human. Even Minato could lose his cool or act like a total raving lunatic in the middle of the night.

Against all rationality, Minato Arisato clicked his tongue and hastened towards the tower of demise.

Bong…

The dull, resonant sound of a bell echoed deeply from within the checkered halls, where the girl found herself sprawled across the cold floor, still donned in a rather revealing carmine nightgown. She felt a light breeze and instantly shivered at the slightest of its touch, the situation still not having fully registered in her mind.

Bong…

What is that incessant ringing?

Minako Arisato rose to her bare feet, face twisting in disgust when something moist and sticky slid between her toes. Realizing she had just stepped into a puddle of something red—blood?—shegasped.

Where…? Her inside voice was full of alarm. Snapping her head back, crimson eyes scanned the surrounding area, blinking twice before widening at the sudden understanding that she was not where she was supposed to be.

Hands fumbled to the sides of her waist. She searched frantically for the evoker that should have been there, but there she stood, in the middle of a familiar but daunting hallway wearing nothing but a nightgown while her auburn hair fell messily on her shoulders.

The girl began to walk around, thankful for the fact that her lack of footwear gave her the advantage of silence. If all went well, she could just sneak around until she found an access point and leave unharmed. If not, well… she'd rather not think about that.

Bong…

That sound again. She was beginning to wonder if the bell had been ringing in her mind all this time. After all, she'd never heard of it working during the Dark Hour, even though she did see a huge clock at the peak while watching her school morph into this huge tower.

Minako wondered how she ended up in Tartarus, of all places. She forced herself to think, slamming a finger to her temple. A few hours ago, she was happily eating a bowl of ramen with her other half, having fun despite the majority of their conversation consisted mostly of talk about Tartarus, the Dark Hour, and battle formations. There were quite a few instances where she felt the need to switch into a lighter topic, which he would entertain for a short while until eventually reverting into the serious matter at hand. Minato certainly was all work and no play, wasn't he?

Not at first, honestly. She knew he hid his emotions well—even did so without anyone looking as if they were things he wanted to hide from himself. But Minako knew the consequences of cutting your feelings in half. That kind of flimsy resolve would only get him so far, would only fester into something horrible and possibly hurt those you love. Every time Minako looked into Minato's magnificent silver eyes, however, she saw the potential for something more.

In them, she saw a world so vast; all things beautiful surged through the marks in his eyes like a raging waterfall. Back when she had been staring at them through a puddle on a rainy day, the girl never would have expected to discover a whole plethora of emotions in those normally blank steel hues.

Yes, Minato Arisato held millions of emotions inside of him. He just doesn't know it yet.

On the way back, she had started asking him more personal questions, but only received standard responses. Take, for example, when she inquired about what kind of traits he liked in a girl; he replied with a mere 'as long as she's nice, we're cool.'

They reached the dorms safely, bid each other goodnight and headed to their respective rooms. Everything went without a hitch.

So why had she ended up here, dressed in her bed-wear as if abducted in her sleep and thrown into this dungeon?

Did someone leave her here to die?

Sorry to disappoint, but there's no way I can die. At least not in a place like this.

A small glimmer in the midst of further darkness caught her attention. Despite her inner protests, she gathered the necessary courage to venture into the dimmer parts of the hallway. Deep down, she cursed her own curiosity.

"This…" Knees bending, she reached for the ornament lying miserably on the ground, eyes widening when she realized that the thing in her hands had been—

"Senpai's pocket watch."

It was his first time stealing a bicycle. Sure, the bike was just lying next to a coffin—which he assumed was its originally owner—but he figured in this case, fate would be tolerant enough to forgive him. Thanks to that, he reached the school-slash-tower in a matter of minutes.

Only one thought weighed on his mind upon entering the tower.

Which floor…?

Hands reaching for his pockets, Minato realized that he had forgotten his phone in his room. Elizabeth normally would have informed him of the range of floors whenever someone wandered into Tartarus by now, but from the male's haste, he had disregarded that thought. Then again the darn thing wouldn't work during the Dark Hour, anyway. Time was leaving him behind.

Pharos' words struck him harder than Akihiko's fists.

Time waits for no one.

"Damn it."

That didn't really matter now, did it? He could always just enter the Velvet Room and—

Oh, hell.

Because of his key splitting, he couldn't enter the godforsaken room without Minako, who owned its other half.

"Damn it."

Junpei sprang from his bed into a sitting position, realization hitting him smack dab in the face. He surveyed the emptiness of the room, swearing for the life of him that someone had just visited him—much to his dismay—in the middle of his slumber.

Looking down at the edge of his bed revealed a few marks that looked as if they were caused by the sole of someone's shoes, particularly leather. Then it hit him. Again.

"That idiot's on his way to Tartarus!"

He leapt from the mattress and exited his room, pounding on every door he passed along the hallway.

"Guys, wake up! We gotta go, now!"

Yukari pulled open her door and rubbed the sleep off of her eyes. The other residents followed suit and opened theirs in succession, where afterwards the females in the area descended wearily to the second floor, some glaring; some shooting confused glances at the ball cap-wearing fool.

The archer was the first to react out of everyone else, albeit voice dipped in huge amounts of venom.

"What the heck's your problem, Junpei? Do you have any idea what time it is right now?"

"Hell yeah I do," Junpei snapped. "It's the freaking Dark Hour!"

Mitsuru ran her fingers through scarlet strands, already feeling alert compared to most of the others. "Calm down, Iori. What's wrong?"

"Both Arisatos aren't in their rooms. I'm guessing they're in Tartarus right now."

The female senior seemed skeptical. "You're sure of this?"

"I don't remember much because it was in the middle of the night," Junpei admitted, feeling a little flustered in his flurry of thoughts, "but I think Minato barged into my room asking where Minako-chan was, and I brushed him off."

That piece of information shocked the grogginess out of everyone's eyes. Yukari, enraged, grabbed him by the collar and screamed profanities at him while Fuuka's quick-thinking by running up to her room to retrieve her evoker succeeded in calming everyone down, including Aigis. Mitsuru assumed her usual authoritative demeanor and told everyone to rush into the command room. In a few minutes, everyone had gathered with their respective weapons in hand, donned in clothes more appropriate for exploring Tartarus.

Juno had answered Fuuka's heeds, encasing its summoner in the spherical barrier that was her stomach.

"I've located them," she said, voice echoing from inside the said sphere. Sighs of relief filled the room. "They're definitely in Tartarus. I'm not sure which floor Minako-chan's on, but it's pretty high."

Akihiko stepped forward. "And the other Arisato?"

The girl furrowed her brows, concentrating long and hard. "Five… no, Sixth floor."

Everyone met each others' gazes and nodded in unison.

"What, is he planning on skimming through the floors one by one?" Yukari asked, disbelief written on her face. "Like, from bottom to top? Is he crazy or something?"

"This isn't really the first time he's pulled a crackpot stunt like this, Yuka-tan," said Junpei.

"Point taken."

"U-Um…" It was Ken's turn to step forward, voicing an opinion more adult-like than the rest of the people in the room. "Shouldn't we hurry on over to Tartarus? I checked Minako-chan's room, and…" In his other hand was the naginata that the others had grown so accustomed to seeing wielded by the cheerful brunette. It felt strange, staring at the small fingers curled around the handle of the weapon instead of slender, more feminine ones, even though Ken did wield something similar in length.

"You mean she's unarmed out there?! Come on," Akihiko urged, motioning towards the door. "We're wasting time!"

Fuuka called her persona back and nodded along with the others. Several footsteps faded from the command room, the members of S.E.E.S. rushing forth in search of their leader and friend.

Minato wondered just how smart a decision it was to start from floor one and up. Not his brightest, most definitely, but he didn't want to risk missing a floor and it turning out to be the one area that held her. What a sick coincidence that would be, huh? He didn't want to admit it to himself, but something at the back of his mind told him that, had Minako still not been found, he would continue the search long after the Dark Hour had passed, possibly trapping him in Tartarus with her.

Should I just skip to floor fifty?

He didn't know what this so-called paradox was capable of, but clearly it had the potential to be harmful if it liked throwing people into life-threatening towers during the Dark Hour. Maybe that was how other civilians wound up in Tartarus, but then similar incidents had happened before, long before he met the girl named Minako Arisato and long before the paradox even started. It had a knack for coming up with the most random of occurrences that normally wouldn't cross his mind, and he'd seen a lot of unusual things in his life, at least for the past seven months.

The ache in his head outweighed the pain in his heart as he skittered about the daunting floors. His fingers twitched at the absence of his long sword, which lay forgotten in his room, and instead coiled to form a fist. It didn't matter. All of his Personae were with him. But…

Silver eyes wandered not to the evoker in his holster, but to the other one in his pocket.

She's alone out there.

Without a blade, without a Persona… without him. The thought of her quivering in solitude, surrounded by the freaks that lollygagged amidst the shadows in the corners caused a flame of fury to flicker in his eyes. He needed to hurry. At times like these, he wished he had a Persona like Fuuka's sitting idly in the sea of his mind. This would have been over in minutes. Unfortunately, all he was good for was combat.

Fortunately, the lower floors of Tartarus housed weaker Shadows, so even the ones that managed to ambush him were of no threat. Minato was running on instinct now, almost utterly void of rational thinking.

He seemed to realize this, and slammed a fist onto the right side of his cheek.

Think, he commanded. What's the best move in this situation?

Sometimes, he wished a solution would just… pop out of thin air.

"Minato-kun!"

Fuuka's voice…?

Well, that was fast.

"Thank goodness you're—"

The girl had sounded a little distracted, mumbling a few words that he couldn't quite make out in her haste. She sounded as if she was talking to someone, perhaps the others in the exploration team.

"H-Huh? What? But… I…" Fuuka cleared her throat and continued. "U-Um, Yukari-chan wants me to tell you that… you're an idiot, Minato-kun," she said, embarrassment clear in her tone. A small smile found its way into his lips. "A-And that you should… uh…" Fuuka diverted her attention away from him again to protest from the other line. "But saying it like that is a little…"

When she sighed, he knew she'd been talked into relaying another kind of message, one he secretly looked forward to for some reason. If he weren't in a hurry he'd be engraving this bit into memory.

"Oh… um, she says that you should get your… b-butt over here unless you… want it ripped from one cheek and the other."

"A-Anyway," she added, "please rendezvous with the rest of the group. Mitsuru-senpai's already on the third floor with Akihiko-sen—"

"There's no time," he cut off.

"Huh?"

"Tell them to fall back and meet me at the entrance. You have an idea where she is, right?"

"Y-Yes. Okay, I'll let the others know. I'll be searching for the nearest access point in the meantime."

He shook his head, though he doubted she could have seen that. "No need; I see it."

"Alright. Travel safe, Minato-kun."

Upon transporting to the first floor, he had expected the various snarls directed at him and a few blows to his head, but he couldn't care less about anything other than Minako's whereabouts, which he quickly turned to Fuuka for. In the midst of her analyzing, Minato reassured Aigis that he had been free from any serious injuries during his reckless escapade, and to his relief, the others had already switched from reprimanding him to focusing on the search.

"I think I can narrow our search down to three floors… she's somewhere around fifty-six to fifty-eight, I think," Fuuka mused from within Juno's protective sphere. Something in her expression sparked the leader's concern. "Wait a minute…"

The others looked at her with impatience.

"I'm detecting a large Shadow in the perimeter!"

If Minato had a second heart; that too would have already dropped to his stomach.

A/N: It's cliffhanger after cliffhanger, I know.