Fanfic / Seven Days Survivor

I! Magical Girl Warrior Dolly, do hereby invoke the power of Love and Magical Justice! BLACK FROST!

— Midori Komaki, in the Velvet Room

Seven Days Survivor started as a Persona 3 FanFic where Midori Komaki from Devil Survivor moves to Tatsumi Port Island to finish out her school year after her home school got wrecked in the Tokyo Lockdown. Less than a week later, she is drawn into the Dark Hour, and joins SEES in response with Black Frost as her Persona.

Originally planned to cover just the events of Persona 3, feedback from the initial thread on SpaceBattles caused the author, JonBerry to keep going all the way through to Persona 4: Arena Ultimax and Persona Q. The first two stories are complete: The Journey - which covers the events from the Hermit Battle through the defeat of Nyx and The Answer - which covers up to the last battle of The Answer. The Interlude is the story of Midori in Inaba between Persona 3 and 4, and is a more slice-of-life fic. The Golden is now available here, and covers the events of P4G. However, he has since decided to reboot the fic, which is still currently in the SpaceBattles forum starting here.

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Seven Days Survivor trope examples follow:

• Achilles' Heel: No matter how powerful Abel is, he's still human. That means that Nyx's descent will kill him along with the rest of humanity.
  Ryoji: He is still only human. No matter his name or his heritage. He too is part of the Death that Nyx brings. He cannot stop it. No one can.
• Alternate Continuity: The story setting has merged the events of Devil Survivor and Persona 3, including:
  • Fuuka being online pals with Atsuro.
  • That corrupt executive that Honda was working for to bring him a COMP? It was Ikutsuki.
  • Naoya helped develop the The Dark Hour proofing technology and Aigis. And then 'helped steal' it for the Shomonkai, hence why the COMP works in the Dark Hour.
  • The Seal from Devil Survivor is intact, hence why Midori thought The Fall couldn't happen since it prevents Demons from crossing over. Ryoji points out that Nyx and the Shadows just so happens to be a part of humanity and thus an exception. Only Man can stop it, not Angels or Demons or Bels.
  • Club Escapade hosted a D-VA performance, which Midori got tickets to.
  • Metis is a Shadow of Aigis' persona Pallas Athena, taking into account the shadows of Persona 4 and the similarities to her origins, rather than a manifestation of the Abyss.
  • Mari heads to Inaba because there's a doctor relocation program for rural areas and takes Amane there under witness protection.
• Amnesia Missed a Spot: Midori didn't lose her memories after the Dark Hour vanished because Black Frost isn't tied to it like the other Persona-users barring Minato and Aegis. It's because of this she and the latter could bond.
• Anti-Magic: When Atsuro unbricked Midori's COMP, he scrubbed it of the Demon Summoning App but has it play the unsummoning song at a sound too low to hear while its on. So as long as she's in the area, no demon can emerge as a safety measure in case something happens.
• Arc Welding: Word of God has this as why he changed Metis' nature in The Answer to be closer to Persona 4's Shadows.
• Ascended Extra: Saki is this in The Interlude. The Quiz King or 'Riddle-kun', found on the third floor of the school in-game, is given the name of Dan (apparently his full name is really long), is made into the Student Council President and later enters a pretend relationship with Midori.
• The Atoner: Kaido, from his appearances in the Interlude. He's aware that he may never be forgiven, but still wants to make amends.
• Author Appeal: Apparently a big fan of natural misunderstandings, and abuses this for drama and comedy.
• Badass Boast: Midori to Adachi.
  "I have seen things you wouldn't believe," Midori taunted him right back, seeing now that he was even more scared by this place than she was. "Worlds on fire while wrapped in the wings of an angel. Seen the sky open up and a tower rise from hell. Stood before things with more angles than possible. I have turned back humanity's worst, and embraced its best. The Legions of Heaven and Hell know my name and fear it. You don't scare ME."

  He raised his gun one more time, and Midori saw that his aim would be true. "Time to lose," she said as his hand and hers tightened at the same time.
• Bag of Spilling: Justified. Midori loses some of her power from the lockdown in order to avoid breaching the seal between the human and demon worlds.
• The Berserker: Midori has shades of this, a Flanderization of her characterization in Devil Survivor.
• Blood Knight: A less... extreme interpretation of the above.
• Big Sister Instinct: Midori has one for Nanako. The author has revealed aborted plots where this would have led to a Roaring Rampage of Revenge when or if Nanako got kidnapped.
• Big Ego, Hidden Depths: Midori develops into this over the course of The Interlude.
• Blind Without 'Em: Midori is massively far-sighted, although unlike most representations of this trope, she can still function. She's just very careful about it.
• Bonding over Missing Parents: How Nanako is brought out of her shell.
• Breather Episode: The entirety of the third arc is this, though it still contains some drama.
• By the Power of Grayskull!: Averted. The quote Midori uses at the top of the page has only been used thrice in the story so far. When she first received Black Frost, when she first summons Frosty in the Real World and when she shows him to Nanako.
• Casual Danger Dialogue: Midori has saved the world once already, and she joins the rest of SEES in this.
• Character Development: Midori, as this is her story and she responds to her experiences.
• Charm Person(a): Jezebel, Amane's Persona, has Marin Karin. First used on a Maya, and it started hitting itself.
• Chekhov's Gun: Frosty's Card may be this, given the the author's comments.
• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: The girl's yukatas during New Year's.
• Conflict Killer: Abel, to the point where his sole appearance so far had the possibility of a fight rejected by the characters in-story.
• Control Freak: How Midori sees Mitsuru. She's also a bit of one as well.
• Dangerous Forbidden Technique: Summoning Demons. Igor is very quick to point this out to the offending party, as there is a thin barrier between the world of humans and that of demons and angels and her summoning Black Frost like that ended up threatening to undo the Seal erected after the events of Gin's route. Shadows and Persona are just reflections of things on the other-side of the veil, so they don't damage it, but calling out a demon does and would undermine all of Abel's efforts.
  Igor: Now, dear Midori. When you called forth your 'Frosty', he at least had the sense to return to the Demon World once he was finished protecting you. But in calling him forth like that, you damaged the seal. You endangered the world and came very, very, very close to invoking the wrath of Metatron and the Council of Angels. There would have been no 'Ordeal', they would have simply taken over!
• Death by Adaptation:
  • Tohru Adachi gets wasted at the end of The Interlude.
  • Prior to this, the Song of Hope ending was chosen in the Devil Survivor side, except Keisuke dies by Kaido's hands.
  • Junpei opts not to be revived in exchange for Chidori living on. Subverted when he's revived later in The Answer.
• De-power:
  • The Lockdown survivors as a whole have lost their abilities to use demons due to the Great Seal, outside of Midori with Igor's help.
  • Junpei loses Hermes to empower Chidori.
  • Frosty has lost a lot of the power he had at the end of P3 due to the fact that Midori hadn't been using him to battle until Amane was thrown into the TV World.
• Determinator: As a consequence of her experiences in Tokyo, Midori isn't the kind of person to give up on world saving.
• Died Standing Up: Shinjiro.
• Dirty Cop: So far, the only ones in the story who aren't this are Kurosawa, Ryotaro Dojima, and his partner before Adachi.
• Dissonant Laughter: Midori when Ryoji explains how The Fall and Nyx will work and everyone else is dead serious. She believes that she already resolved the problem because the Great Seal is intact with Abel, but Ryoji points out that Nyx and the Shadows are an exception.
• Divine Parentage: Amane raises this point as a possibility, causing Midori to have a minor BSOD, given her distaste for the angels.
• Experienced Protagonist: Not an issue in The Journey, as Midori joins half-way through the plot, but will be a concern once The Golden begins.
• Fantastically Indifferent: Being a Type 2 comes with the territory.
• Fatal Flaw: Pride.
• Fighting Your Friend: Averted in The Answer, thanks to Character Development and The Power of Friendship.
• First-Name Basis: How Midori addresses other characters is a good indication of how she views them. Her friends get their names used to show her friendship. Nanako gets a diminutive "Nana-Chi" to emphasize the Cool Big Sis relationship she has, while she uses -san on both Chie and Yukiko to maintain her personal distance. Importantly, Mitsuru doesn't even get that much, always being referred to as "her" or "that woman", demonstrating Midori's absolute hatred for her.
• Fusion Dance: Hermes and Medea merged to give Chidori Helios.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: Minato explains Social Links to Midori, who accuses him of "Dating Yukari for a powerup", which he denies. Healing skills are also used outside of combat when applicable.
• Glass Cannon: Midori's stats for Persona 3 have been released by the author, which he said was a combination of her natural stats in Devil Survivor, and Black Frost's. Endurance is her weak point while her Strength and Magic are almost maxed out (95/100 for each at Level 99).
• Girlfriend in Canada: Saki wants to leave Inaba despite Midori's objections, and claims she has a boyfriend in Tokyo named Toshiro and that he's a member of the Tokyo Demons. Midori later calls Kaido on this over the phone, he denies having any member with that name (and that it's not the first time anyone used the gang's name to make themselves look better), and he says he'll get to the bottom of this, as well as meet with Saki if she does leave for Tokyo. He also makes it explicit that this doesn't have to make things even between them.
  • The "boyfriend" was real, but turns out to be exploitative, as Kaido's gang found out sometime after coming over to pick up Saki from the train station. Some members of the Tokyo Demons sheltered her before ensuring she returns to Inaba.
• Going Native: Midori, during The Interlude, getting used to life in Inaba compared to the bigger cities.
• Hate at First Sight: Abel and Aigis immediately sized one another up when they first met during the Tokyo Tennis tournament as non-human and nearly came to blows. After Midori stopped them, they settled for talking things out in private.
• The Heart: Midori is this for SEES during The Journey and The Answer after Junpei is killed and before he is rescued.
• Help Yourself In The Past: Rescuing Junpei through the Abyss of Time.
• Heroic Neutral: Abel and his companions. They cannot summon their demons after the end of the lockdown, and doing so to solve a problem made purely by man's hands would bring the wrath of Metatron upon them, so their hands are tied.
• How Do I Shot Web?: Averted by Midori getting instructions on how to use Frosty from Igor.
  • Played straight with her second Persona (which she got from the Midnight Channel like Yosuke, Chie, Yukiko, and Amane) Mannequin.
• Humans Are Special: Unlike Demons or Angels, Humans are creatures of freedom and thus not bound by Law or Chaos. They can also convince others to do the same, which was how Frosty went from a Jack Frost to a Black Frost.
  Midori: But humanity is different. We are not creatures of 'Law' or of 'Chaos'. Even though in a school like this, in a culture like mine, total rigidity is impossible. Exceptions exist, leeway occurs. Humans are creatures of... freedom. We are capable of choice. To follow the dictates of Law, or of Chaos, or of neither.
• Hypocrite: Midori shows signs of this early in The Golden, especially when things turn to the issue of Personas. Word of God implies that this is part of her Sanity Slippage as her Shadow starts to work its influence.
• I Gave My Word: Midori will keep a promise if she makes it. Hence why she plays Secret-Keeper for the events of the Lockdown and Persona to those who don't know about them. Only those involved in both, such as Naoya, having been involved in both cases, and Ryoji, who knows about them both, are exceptions.
• Impeded Messenger: Played with in that Midori left her cellphone at home during her day trip to Okina City early in the second version of The Golden, meaning that she has missed Amane's kidnapping and the first excursion to rescue her.
• It's All About Me: Midori has a bit of a problem here when she decides to do something. She hasn't gotten better as during The Journey and The Answer, people found it easier to work around her then through her.
• Kill It with Fire: Frosty and Helios.
• Kill It with Ice: Frosty again.
• Lampshade Hanging: A few times, from Genre Savvy comments, to people making light of the situation in general.
• The Lancer: Midori is one for Aigis, as demonstrated all throughout The Answer.
• Lawman Baton: Given the lack of weapons in Devil Survivor, the author gave this to Midori as her weapon of choice. It was explained as her using a club to start with, before taking a police baton off of one of the defeated Police Tamers. She has kept it, and often tucks it under her shirt, which has caused problems when people find out about it.
• Leeroy Jenkins: Midori needs to get this out of her system again at the start of the story.
• Level Grinding: Word of God is that everyone in Devil Survivor reached Level 99, as did everyone in Persona 3.
• Libation for the Dead: On the Anniversary of the Lockdown by Midori and Kaido.
• Loophole Abuse: Abel can't directly interfere against certain things, like stopping Nyx, but he can extend the Dark Hour to last until Midori and her friends win.
• Lunacy: Midori takes the place of the Moon Arcana for Yu and Aigis.
• Magical Girl: Moreso than in Devil Survivor where she can now actually back it up without using Demons. People who know about Personas poke fun at her for this.
  • This is what she calls herself in front of Nanako after the latter sneaked into the former while she was bathing and saw Frosty washing Midori's back and screamed from how "evil" it seemed to be.
• The Medic: Midori has shades of this, thanks to practical experience. She helps Mitsuru deal with a leg injury in one battle, and performs surgery on Junpei to remove Takaya's bullet and save his life. Word of God is that she will not get any Healing Magic.
• Mundane Utility: Midori uses Frosty for plenty of non-combat uses. She has used it as a spare pair of hands while working, a foot warmer when it's cold, to help make her class' haunted house more authentic, and in many ways treats it like an extension of herself. Comparisons to Stands are common in the commentary.
• Must Make Amends: Kaido is trying, for the most part.
• Mutual Masquerade: Igor orders Midori to keep the knowledge of the existence of demons away from the Persona users and the knowledge of the existence of Personas away from the demon tamers. Despite her best efforts, Abel and Aigis swap notes and figure it all out during The Interlude, and Amane learns everything during The Golden.
• Mythology Gag: During the Halloween Party in The Interlude, Midori plans to dress up as a "Demi-Fiend" for the Haunted House.
  • Her second Persona, Mannequin, calls back to the Manikins from Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne.
  • In the reboot of The Golden, while waiting for the Midnight Channel, Yu muses it as just a rumor, like "cell phone apps that predict your death or something like that".
• Naginatas Are Feminine: Amane's weapon. She's had practice in its use when she was a member of the Shomonkai. She never used it during the Lockdown because she was in a more public relations position, and by the time she needed to act directly, she had the Shomonkai's disciples (and later Abel and the others) backing her up.
• Nature Spirit: The Fox of the Shrine in Inaba is a Land spirit, native to Earth unlike the DS!demons and angels.
• New Transfer Student: Midori transfers over to the same school as the P4 cast because her father got a job in Inaba for his advertising company and she has to go with him.
• No Body Left Behind: Junpei's body disappears on his death. This is because they pulled him from the past and into the Time Abyss in the future.
• No Name Given: The protagonist of Devil Survivor is only ever referred to by the name of his pre-incarnation, Abel.
• Non-Idle Rich: Mitsuru. If she believes that her company or she is responsible for something, she'll set out to correct it, which is why she usually tries to help Midori in private by donating to her school in Inaba.
• Not a Morning Person: Midori.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Igor of all people just rips into Midori over accidentally summoning a Demon into the Dark Hour. Elizabeth actually jumps into the corner of the Velvet Room out of shock.
• Oh, Crap!: Igor's response to Black Frost getting summoned.
• Ordered Apology: From multiple people.
• Painting the Medium: In The Golden, before leaving the Velvet Room with Marie and Midori, Margaret turns off the music that plays inside. Marie lampshades that the music gets on her nerves after a while.
• Patchwork Fic: A necessity because of the source material.
• Physical Scars, Psychological Scars: The Lockdown left Midori with a number of physical scars that she hides behind makeup. Her mental scars are still there.
  What she saw curdled her stomach. A web of scars and pockmarks ran up along the left side of Midori's body. The backs of her arms – crossed over her – held many thin white lines. Her inventory stopped as she fell back, a look of horror on her face.
• Power Born of Madness: This is how Mitsuru views Midori, due to the Lockdown cover-up. She believes that the trauma she suffered there (in addition to a theory that the Cult was also attempting to force them to summon Persona) resulted in fracturing her psyche and creating Frosty as a coping measure. This may be more literal thanks to Midori's slow Sanity Slippage.
• Puppy-Dog Eyes: Junpei mentions Koromaru being able to pull this off, and not even Aigis is immune to it.
• Rage Against the Heavens: Midori's primary motivation, which she can't share with people due to promises made.
• Reconstruction: In her speech to Akihiko after Shinji's death, she rebuilds her personal philosophy as a Magical Girl into something workable in reality.
• Refused the Call: Despite having been in the TV World as the rest of the Perona-users, Saki has chosen to turn away from it. She is not in on what the other Persona-users are up to, only that Midori has experience in this "as a Magical Girl". She eventually accompanies the Rescue Team, but her overwhelming fears meant they had to pause in her Shadow confrontation before they could finish, though with promise to continue later.
• Retool: Part 1, The Journey and part 4, The Golden have been given major overhauls by the author. The first was due to expanding the plot to accommodate moving into later games, while the latter is being done (at the time of this edit) due to the author admitting to writing himself into a corner.
• Runs on Ignorance: One view of Midori's use of Frosty until people learn more about the Tokyo Lockdown.
• Secret-Keeper: Midori, Midori, Midori! She knows far more than she tells people, but as a price for gaining the ability to use a Persona, she has promised Igor not to tell SEES about the Battle of Bel and not to tell her old friends about the Dark Hour, but this doesn't stop anyone from figuring out that she does. At this point, the only ones who know what she does are Aigis and Abel - and they've agreed to not tell her that they know. Lampshaded when she complains to herself about all the effort involved in not telling people things.
  • It eventually comes to a head as Yu and company find out upon encountering Midori's Shadow while traversing her Dungeon.
• Spanner in the Works: Midori possibly, for Izanami, as Adachi's (very early) death would be sure to throw off the test she has arranged.
• Shout-Out:
  • Chidori calls Aigis "Tin Girl".
  • Morooka graduated from Seven Sisters High School.
  • Midori has the Moon Arcana in this fic, and along with her self-image of a Magical Girl, will cause Yu to dub her "Sailor Moon".
  • See: Badass Boast.
• Slice of Life: The Interlude is this, and helps shows Midori's personal development when not dealing with world ending threats.
• Spared by the Adaptation:
  • Chidori, but at the expense of Junpei's life. He comes back, though thanks to the Timey-Wimey Ball.
  • Saki Konishi is rescued by Midori before Adachi can kill her.
• The Stations of the Canon: Noted as a problem through the first two arcs, though starting in the third, things are starting to get off the rails even more. The Golden - Part 4 - has completely jumped the tracks with Naoto finding out about the TV world due to her investigations of Midori, Amane joining the Rescue Team^note The Investigation Team in canon and Adachi being dead.
• Stepford Smiler: Midori. As it turns out, despite being quite cheerful, she still has the scars from the events of Devil Survivor. And in the Persona 4 Golden installment, her shadow and maze reveals that Midori is losing herself from the psychological scars that affected her.
• Story-Breaker Power: Part of the reason Abel doesn't participate in any of the battles, even if he is aware of them.
• Sure, Let's Go with That: After Midori is confronted about having Black Frost's card in The Journey, Akihiro comes up with the idea that the cultist were gathering Persona-users and forcing others to develop them like Strega. It's not the exact truth, but it is close enough that she basically uses it as an excuse to tell him about her other friend's demons without breaking her contract to Igor.
• Take a Third Option: Naoya mentions that Abel's decision to reject the use of Angels and opt for humans to take things into their own hands was unexpected by the Council, thus he's fine with the outcome since he put all his efforts into doing exactly that in a different method.
• Taking the Bullet: Junpei's reasoning for his extended absence. He was shot trying to get Chidori away from Takaya's cult and they moved him out of the city to protect him.
• There Are No Therapists: Averted in that Midori does have a therapist at school for the events in Tokyo, but is hamstrung by the need for secrecy.
• Tragic Keepsake: Chidori keeps Junpei's hat after his death.
• Unwanted Assistance: How Midori feels about Mitsuru's constant donations to the school that made her well-liked among certain parties.
  Mitsuru:"She feels like she owes me, and has dedicated herself to ruining my life ever since in some misguided attempt to help."
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Implied to be the case between Midori and Rise come The Golden.
• Wham Episode:
  • Junpei is killed by Takaya, and resolves to save Chidori instead of having his own life saved. Yet Junpei gets saved thanks to the Timey-Wimey Ball.
  • The end of The Interlude is a massive one as well, compounded by the release date. Midori kills Adachi in the TV World after he throws Saki in.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Igor actually screams at Midori about how much of a bad thing summoning a Demon into the Dark Hour was. Even if it was an accident.
• You Are What You Hate: Word of God is that this is Midori's relation to Mitsuru until their battle in The Arena.

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