Taro was shocked. All night he had been tossing and turning in his bed as he replayed the insane events of that evening out in his head on a loop. Finally, around the time the sun was peeking up from the horizon and casting a light across his small apartment room, Taro had made his decision: starting today, he would start saving up money to buy a car. Until then he’d bike everywhere, because he sure as shit was never going to set foot on another damn doom train ever again.

Of course, his bike had a flat. Nevertheless, it had served as a great excuse for him to bail on his classes for the day and spend the afternoon inside furiously trying to ignore the messages on his phone. Yesterday had just been a strange group hallucination, he had told himself, and if not for the shapeshifting compass on his desk he would’ve actually believed himself. Still, if he ignored it all then it would eventually go away. Kantou was a small city, but it was big enough to avoid any awkward run-ins with the others. It wouldn’t be the first time he had alienated himself from a group of people, although usually they were the ones trying to avoid him.

Yeah, there was no way in hell he was going along with this nightmare nonsense. 

Which explains why Taro was shocked, because for some reason that was unclear to even him he found himself arriving exactly at six o’clock to join the others on the train. Maybe he didn’t want to let the others down after he had promised them that he’d help out. Maybe he was just afraid that some of them, namely Izuki, would find a way to break into his apartment and drag him, kicking and screaming, onto the train if he hadn’t shown. Maybe it was a little of both. Either way, he was there. That had to count for something, right?

Hopefully he cried less this time. 

[hr]

Man, did he hate hospitals. The childlike wonderment that he carried with him during their entire underwater journey (Taro had spent a good amount of time with his face pressed up against the glass, despite the disappointing view of dark and little more) had been replaced by a strong feeling of unease. Hospitals were already bad enough with all of its diseases and death and old people, but this one with its overgrown vines as decor and its creepy, static-distorted announcements really did a good job at making Taro want to beat feet back to the train. Unfortunately, he did not know the way back to the train. 

That he could blame on Izuki, although he’d never say it outloud.

He had followed after her when she had dashed ahead of the group, claiming that she was off to go rescue “bitchtits” before Taro even had a chance to question her on the nickname. Of course, he hadn’t followed her to ask about bitchtits, although he did find it absurd for her to name someone bitchtits without seeing if they even had the prerequisites, nor had he followed her because he wanted to be seen as proactive or brave. Really, it was because if they ran into any devil dogs then Taro would want to be with the girl who wasn’t afraid to go up to the mutt, shove its nose in the ground, and smack it with a rolled up newspaper. 

As he ran after Izuki he could feel the small pocket knife bouncing against his thigh. He had brought it along as protection at first, although he doubted he could harm anything but himself with it, but that effort had been nullified by Akito’s present to the group. Taro could not tell if he liked Akito for the mafioso-style of weapon packaging (sure, no tommy guns, but that’d be impossible) or if he was afraid of the guy for the number of sharp objects he apparently had just lying around his house. Still, it hadn’t prevented Taro from grabbing a spear that had been unscrewed into two pieces to fit better inside of the case. The weapon was now gripped awkwardly between his hands, but it was nice knowing that if something were to jump him he could, in comparison to a pocket knife, keep his body a decent distance away from the spook. 

Of course he decided, as he rounded the corner in time to witness Izuki literally beat [i]something[/i] into a black pulp, that it was even nicer knowing that he wouldn’t have to do anything as long as she was there. It was better that way; Taro really didn’t want to dirty up his gray chinos or his “no, it’s salmon, not pink” polo. As Izuki beckoned to the others, Taro turned his focus onto bitchti—the guy who they had come to discharge from this nightmare hospital. Three things stood out to him immediately. One, he had an acoustic guitar. Two, Taro wasn’t used to looking up at people, and he was now which meant this dude was probably a giant. Three, he looked like a foreigner and Taro had spent most of his time in English class either flirting with that cute-in-a-weird-way goth girl or drawing pictures of robots.

So this was going to go well. Taro had no time to embarrass himself with his horrible English, however, as the door around them slammed open and more nightmare men came shuffling out like zombies. Strangely, this was momentarily relieving to the young man before he realized he was actually going to be in some kind of trouble. His eyes darted between Izuki, the tall guy, the bad dudes, and the others; a plan quickly formed in his mind. He could have Izuki grab the big dude (she could carry him, right?) and they’d bolt to the others and skedaddle to the exit. Okay, so running away wasn’t really a plan, but it was the best—

More corpse guys stumbled out into the hallway, effectively cutting them off from the others. So much for running. So much for having Izuki do all the fighitng.

[color=8dc73f]“Okay, great, yeah, this is great. Izuki, make sure the foreigner doesn’t do anything stupid,”[/color] he said. [color=8dc73f]“Zombie things, huh? No sweat, right? Okay, buddy, don’t fail me now.”[/color]

He pulled the ever shifting compass out of his pocket and held it aloft in his hand. The goo hardened around his wrist again and the needle pointed toward his south at the foes cutting the two groups in half. The sound of galloping echoed through the hallway as Bellerophon appeared astride his Pegasus, a bolt of lightning turning one of the creatures into a pile of black goo. Meanwhile, Taro shoved another creature back with the blunt end of his spear as his Persona faded into the air. 

[color=8dc73f]“Guys, let’s just focus on the freaks in the way and get out of here, okay? No reason to hang around this creepy hospital now that we got bitchtits.”[/color] He flashed a smile back at the tall guy, who he still assumed couldn’t understand him. [color=8dc73f]“<It okay; we have no lose,>”[/color] he said in horribly broken English.