Persona x Metaphor: Archetype

January 11th, 2009

I closed the book I'd been reading through for the past few days, and my eyes drifted lazily to the window. It was one of those quiet nights where the road felt like it stretched on forever—it was chilly, the kind of cold that sinks into your bones no matter how high you crank the car heater. Snowflakes lazily drifted from above, as if they had all the time in the world to fall. Outside, everything blurred into a haze of white, punctuated only by the occasional gleam of passing headlights or a distant traffic light, like tiny sparks floating just out of reach.

The silence was almost too perfect, broken only by the hum of the engine and the distant honk of another car. It was peaceful, and for a moment, I let myself savor it. Funny, this kind of quiet wasn't something I was used to. Growing up in Okinawa, the closest we got to a "winter" was a slightly breezier day, so the idea of snow was about as foreign as an honest politician. But still, I felt oddly at home here.

I was just getting comfortable in my thoughts when the peace was shattered by the shrill ring of a phone. Not mine, of course. That would have been too private. No, the noise came from the car's head unit, which—naturally—meant one thing: my father.

Without waiting for me to even register the sound, Tadashi, the driver, picked up the call, and my father's voice filled the space, as steady and reliable as ever.

"My son. Tadashi," he greeted, in that voice that somehow made everything sound like it was going exactly according to plan—even when it wasn't.

"We're close to the destination, Masayoshi-sama," Tadashi answered, glancing at the road. "There's a bit of traffic, but we should arrive within the half-hour."

"Good," my father responded. I could almost picture him nodding as he said it. "My son, how are you feeling?"

I sighed, leaning back into the seat, wishing I could just block out everything for a moment. "How do I feel?" I muttered to myself. "I don't know, Father. Let's see… moving across the country on short notice, switching schools mid-year, and learning I'm supposed to live with a fiancée I didn't even know I had… Honestly, it feels like a plotline from some badly written novel."

There was a chuckle on the other end, and of course, my father was unfazed. "Don't worry. I'm sure you'll warm up to her soon enough. You did well at your previous school; I have no doubt you'll do well here. It's one of the best in the country."

"I'm sure it is…" I muttered, turning back to the window, my breath fogging up the glass as snowflakes drifted past. "But… At least the weather's nice here."

"Ah, your mother's blood is showing again," my father replied, his voice full of that familiar warm exasperation. "Give it time. You'll be missing Okinawa's sunny weather soon enough."

I could hear his tone shift as he addressed Tadashi. "Let me know when you've arrived."

"Yes, Masayoshi-sama."

Then, back to me. "And, son… be good."

I shut my eyes, leaning my head against the cold glass, wishing for a moment of peace. "Yes, Father," I said, the words tasting like something I had to get through just to keep the peace. The call ended, and the silence returned, but it wasn't the same. Now it felt… strained, like a calm before a storm.

A second chance at life. Everyone wants one, right? I should've been grateful, and I am, as I was reborn into a good family. Father's a powerful businessman, with more investments than I could even begin to wrap my head around. And yet, he never seemed to have high expectations for me, so I did what I could. Academics, public speaking—being good at whatever that could equalize myself as his son, yet the man still never asks anything from me. Life was good… or at least it was—until today.

When I first "rebirthed" into this world, I thought it was just your typical reincarnation. But slowly, the puzzle pieces started to fall into place. And today, the last piece clicked. I wasn't in just any world. No, I was in a world where shadows and Personas existed. And that's when the real problem started.

Persona 3. Yeah, I remember it well. It's a story about death, sacrifice, and fate. And now I'm about to get caught up in it.

I had no idea what was ahead of me. Being here already messed with the timeline—no way around that. If I don't adapt, if I screw this up, I'll end up a casualty of fate. My father, without knowing it, might send me straight to the grave. But hey, no pressure, right?

Would I awaken a Persona? Join the group? Or maybe, just be the random NPC that gets in their way, something for them to hurdle over as they grow stronger? As obviously, I'm now in an arranged marriage with one of them, and—spoiler alert—those kinds of arrangements don't usually be taken well, especially on the woman's side.

And then there's the big question: Do I even have what it takes to awaken a Persona? I've never experienced the Dark Hour, or at least, I don't remember doing so.

Part of me wonders if I should even bother with all of this. This isn't just some random story. This is Persona 3, a tale that revolves around the protagonist, a hero destined to become a literal door—because that's not ominous at all. But I don't get to choose, do I? I'm stuck in their web now. And speaking of which…

The car came to an abrupt stop, jerking me out of my spiral of existential dread. Tadashi turned to me, his voice breaking through my thoughts. "Ruichi-sama, we've arrived."

I nodded, pushing myself out of my mental pit, and stepped out of the car. Tadashi, ever the gentleman, rushed to get the trunk, and I glanced up at the looming structure in front of me.

The Iwatodai Dormitory. The headquarters of SEES.

I sighed, my breath puffing out in front of me like a wisp of smoke. "Whatever will be, will be, I guess."

Tadashi stood next to me, balancing two suitcases in each hand, eyeing the dormitory door.

"Thanks, Tadashi," I said, trying to keep the gratitude genuine. "I can take it from here. I'm sure you've got better things to do, especially this time of year. Thanks for the ride."

He gave a nod, setting the suitcases down with a soft thud. "I can't exactly force you to let me accompany you any further, Ruichi-sama. After all, you must be a bit nervous about meeting your betrothed. I hear she's quite the beauty."

This old man was teasing me now. I could feel the smile creeping onto his face, though it was annoyingly subtle.

I shook my head, pretending not to care. "I'm not nervous, I'm just… Ugh, well, you should go now."

"Of course." Tadashi bowed slightly, his smile faint but there. "I'll report to Masayoshi-sama about your arrival."

I watched him walk back to the car, taking a deep breath as the cold air bit into my skin. Grabbing the handles of my suitcases, I turned toward the front door of the dormitory. This was it. No turning back now.

—

A/N: Welcome to the fanfic! As you can see, this is a Persona and Metaphor fanfiction, with the setting of Persona 3 being the main thing. It's not really a popular story to write about compared to marvel, got, or naruto, but I kind of want to write about it, as Person 3 is probably my favorite game of the franchise.

Here's what will you expect from this fanfic:

-A Persona fanfic. In the truest sense. There will probably be a huge stretch of the fanfic where it is just a slice of life and school drama, and there will be a huge stretch of the story where it is just 'action'.

-If you don't know any Persona Lore at all, you should be fine, I will explain the plot and mechanism of the 'magic system' in the chapters, it'll add more word count anyway lol, and if you know about the plot, stick around, I know it'll be a bit annoying, but you might hear some lore that you never heard before. Besides, the game mechanics are a bit different if you translate it to novel-form. If you think I haven't explained enough, do tell. It will probably be explained in the later chapters, so that suspension is still there.

-constant switching of POV, like the good old days of fanfic in this website/app. It will be marked with [Third-Person POV] and [First-Person POV] depending on the angle.

-this is a bit of a spoiler, but it's in the name of the fanfic anyway. The MC will NOT have personas, instead, he'll have archetypes, like in metaphor refantazio. I will NOT focus on stats/numbers in this fic, as I don't like reading those types of fanfic that use half the chapters to display stats that are repeated again and again. Although I will say, the Archetypes and how they work will be changed a bit, especially skill inheritance(Though for the latter, again, it doesn't really matter in your eyes, just background stuff).

-As mentioned in the chapter above. The story of Persona 3, especially the ending, is heavily, and I mean heavily centered around the protagonist, aka Makoto Yuki. And unless you throw a lot of bs writing and plot armor, it needs to stay that way as well. There are times after he appears where you feel like it's just a simple self-insert(which it is), but our MC will have a different story than Makoto(as in focused on why he got archetypes instead of personas), it's just that he is involved with Makoto's story, and sometimes vice versa. But for now, it's focused around Tatsumi Port Island, aka the original story setting.

-As for characters and the story itself, here's the thing, I dislike it when authors promise that MC will be calculating, realist, etc, etc, when in the end it's just going to lead to an edgelord protagonist and an excuse for that story's mc either a degenerate, dumb asshole full of plot armor protection masked as 'smart', or both, so i'm not going to promise anything. Besides, this is a Persona story anyway, and there is always more than one side to a person. What I'm going to say however is that I'm kind of experimenting a bit, and it will probably bit a bit inconsistent. Though, my idea is since it is written in First Person POV, his character will be snarky, just a tad little, though mostly just inside his head.

-For romance, it should already be obvious enough from this chapter. No harem, this is a persona fanfic ffs, if you click on this story looking for harem, then idk what to tell you. Aside from this, I still don't know, but I think this story will have heavy romance. So if you do not like that, I am sorry.

-Lastly, I used chatgpt as my beta reader I guess? Or I suppose the editor would be more correct. Anyways, I use AI, as I'm not that good of a writer, hell, english is not even my native language.