This wasn’t how things were supposed to be. Taro was supposed to be drinking whiskeys in a bar somewhere chatting up some tanned girl with a nice smile and a fake personality, or locked up in his room playing video games until his eyes were bloodshot, or out to dinner with some strangers he called friends. He wasn’t supposed to be minutes away from death on a metal hunk of junk with a three-headed freaky monster looming overhead ready to roast him with one mouth, bite him in two with the other, and drool sludge all over his clothes with the last. He wasn’t even supposed to be on this damn train. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. Taro Mori deserved something better than this, but he couldn’t even do a damn thing. He was, sadly, frozen with fear; he couldn’t even open his mouth. 

Of course the first time in his life that he was actually speechless would also be his last.

Taro heard something muffled behind the grinding of metal, the guttural growls of the beast, and the curses of his peers. He recognized it as the sound of his dad’s voice, yelling through his locked door. Of course, this was just a nightmare. He was late for class. His dad was yelling at him again for being a useless slacker, a lazy waste, a dead beat, or something else equally inspiring. The only problem was that the muffled yells of his father telling Taro that if he kept doing nothing then he would never amount to anything was just a phantom echo of a memory. He hadn’t spoken to the old man in months, and had lived with him in over two years. He couldn’t even remember the last thing he said to the bastard so that he could clichely regret it. He couldn’t even yell at the stupid little ball of flame, because the damn thing had gotten itself killed by it’s so-called friend. 

And now he could feel moisture on his cheeks, and he knew it wasn’t sweat. What would his obituary read? Taro Mori, Twenty. Achieved nothing in life; died crying like a useless baby. Didn’t even think about the others, at least not until now. Couldn’t even apologize to them. Wasn’t he responsible for pushing them to head towards the engine room instead of the caboose? Sure, who could predict a goddamn three-headed dog monster, fair enough, but still. Shouldn’t he have been trying to do something? Even yell out an unhelpful piece of advice like “watch out” or “run”, like they wouldn’t have already bolted if they could. 

But no. He was too scared to do shit.

[i]I hate this.[/i]

Taro could see Nao. She was right in front of the monster, standing tall despite her height. Something shimmered in her hands as she kept stepping towards the monster, jaws snapping towards her. Taro wanted to scream at her, to run forward and pull her away, to do something, but his legs were no longer his to control. [i]What the hell, she’s going to get herself killed. Just do something, man![/i] thought Taro, but his voice was still lost to fear. 

And then he was speechless for another reason as Nao called forth a phantom lady and blasted the beast with a wave of energy. He felt his tight jaw slacken. Izuki was soon to follow, hurling curses at the creature as a mechanical man spewed its own brand of fire back at the three-headed dog. He could feel another presence behind him; to his shock, Taro could turn his body to look at it. A figure was between him and Mari, her shield forming a protective wall in front of the blind girl. He could hear the girl’s voice coming from behind the shield. Taro was still scared, still terrified, but he couldn’t just let the others do all of the work, right?

[i]Right?[/i] he thought, unsure of why he believed he would have heard something reassuring in response. 

[color=8dc73f]“Got it,”[/color] he said, his voice cracking out from his dry lips. [color=8dc73f]“Hit the vines and don’t play with fire. Just one thing, how the hell did you guys—”[/color]

He felt something heavy drop in his pocket. Fishing the object out of his pocket, Taro stared at the square golden compass. The needle quivered above a picture of a tower being destroyed by lightning, the silhouette of two diving figures tucked behind the letters for east and west, respectively. As he gawked at the object, he could feel it shifting in his hands, flattening out into a slate almost the size of his phone before it began to warp into a disc. It felt uncomfortable as it molded itself in his hands, never quite settling on a final form like the bulbous wax in a lava lamp. Still, he had seen the others use something like this thing. He squeezed the compass like putty, melding it into a sphere. What was the word they said?

[color=8dc73f]“Persona?”[/color] Taro said, uncertainly.

There were no trumpeteering, no fanfare, and no great revelation. No masked woman or flame-spewing man materialized out of the air next to him.  He didn’t feel any different or receive a charge of energy. He did feel ridiculous, squeezing on a ball of gak with his arm held forward like a cheesy nineties cartoon hero calling out an evil doer. He looked at the face of the compass again, confused. The needle spun wildly. [i]Great, it’s broken. You get the stupid magic whateverthefuck and it doesn’t even work,[/i] he thought with a huff. [i]Like it would’ve done any good anyway.[/i]

Again, Nao called forth her ghost-magic-lady-whatever-thing almost effortlessly. A natural. Maybe he was just doing it wrong. He held the compass to his heart. Nothing. He smacked it in between his hands like he was some bully about to give a kid a beatdown. Nada. He tried kicking it like a hacky sack. Zilch. He said the word softly, he said the word loudly, he tried stretching the word out. No, nope, negative. 

[color=8dc73f]“You stupid son of a bitch,”[/color] he yelled, flinging his bookbag with all of his might at the monster. 

[i]Shit![/i]

It missed.