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chroniccombustion · 5 years

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A Corner of Memories pt. 2

From “Seven Days to Eternity“, part of @souyoweek2019

Genre: Soulmate!AU, romance, M/M Rated: K+ Characters: Yosuke Hanamura, Souji Seta (Yu Narukami), mentions of the Investigation Team, mentions of Saki Konishi, mentions of Tohru Adachi Warnings: mentions of canon minor character death Status: oneshot collection, incomplete

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(Covers used as inspiration: Piano and Guitar.)

Day 2: Confession or Partner

The storm rages as they battle on, illuminating the sky with residual bursts of light – thunder rattling the horizon in a tone so bitter and harsh that, for just a moment, Yosuke thinks maybe it isn’t thunder at all, but rather the sound of shrieking from deep inside his partner’s soul.

They chase Adachi into Magatsu Inaba with all the fury and pain of those that have known loss. He mocks them, taunts them, running further and further into the depths of his own depravity with a cackling laugh and a manic smile.

“Bitches,” he calls the dead; “sluts! Whores!”

Yosuke didn’t think he was capable of actively wanting another person dead until now.

They pursue him into the deepest pits of the twisted, ruined reflection of their town – their home – until there is nowhere left for him to go and all that’s left to him is to stand and face their wrath. But even then he doesn’t stop smiling. He doesn’t stop mocking them, doesn’t stop bemoaning his own lack of existence and blaming the world for everything; instead, Adachi pulls a blood-colored, toxic, mutated version of Souji’s Izanagi from his mind and sets the monster on them.

Yosuke desperately wants the first hit. He wants to summon Susano-o and call up a windstorm with enough might to tear the bastard to pieces. He wants Adachi begging and bleeding, pleading for his life the way Saki-senpai must have done. Yosuke wants Adachi to suffer like his soul mate did – after all, this is the man that took her away from him, stole their chance together and destroyed it. Yosuke wants Adachi to pay. Even if it’s not entirely for Saki-senpai anymore, because Yosuke knows that no amount of revenge or justice or bid for forgiveness will ever bring her back. He knows that once this is all over, he will have to continue on, carrying her memory along with the knowledge that his Song will forever be incomplete. No, that first shot would be for him.

But he can’t take it.

At the last moment, just before he calls Susano-o into action and channels all of his anger and hatred and misery into a single, obliterating spell, he glances over at the boy beside him and feels his magic freeze.

Souji stands low to the ground in his battle stance, his teeth bared in an abhorrent snarl. His knuckles are white against the handle of his sword, fingers squeezing so tightly that they cause his hands to tremble. There is anguish in his posture, grief and fresh sorrow panted across his face and in the set of his jaw; Yosuke remembers the way his partner’s shoulders had felt shaking beneath his hands. He remembers the tear tracks staining his cheeks, carving like knives into the grooves of his face.

Saki-senpai is dead.

She’d died back in April, gone and buried months ago with the oozing, gaping wound left behind now healed into a dull, perpetual ache. Yosuke has had his time to mourn for her. As much as he wishes it were different, she hadn’t been part of his life the way she’d been part of his soul. But Souji…

Souji is still mourning. Souji is awash with agony and new anger, his loss still fresh and much, much deeper than Yosuke’s is in the long run. Yosuke weeps for the loss of potential, for the loss of a happy future – but he weeps for a girl no more. It’s shameful to admit it to himself, but he has to. For Souji’s sake.

Whereas Yosuke mourns what could have been and what will now never be, Souji mourns for a piece of his shattered heart – a shard that had been unequivocally real and unendingly deep. Adachi deserves to die for what he’s done – but as Souji glances over to meet Yosuke’s eyes, to silently nod for Yosuke to land the first blow, Yosuke realizes that he doesn’t have the right to decide. He shakes his head and steps down, motioning for his partner to strike in his place.

This is no longer about Yosuke’s selfish need to apologize to a dead girl that had never liked him back; it’s about making a murderer pay for all the lives he’d brought to an end.

Yosuke shakes his head.

You do it, he says without words. This one isn’t mine anymore; it belongs to you.

Souji watches him with a grey, empty gaze, blinking salt and ozone and desperate, agonized rage as he gives Yosuke one last chance to change his mind.

Yosuke looks his partner dead in the eyes and takes a step backwards, standing down from his position with a decisive nod.

Souji sucks in a shivering breath.

With a cry of utter desolation, their Leader surges forward with gleaming sword raised high. He summons Izanagi mid stride – pure and untainted by the blood saturating Adachi’s wretched hands – as he digs his shoes into the crumbling earth and pushes himself closer to where their enemy stands laughing at them. There is a crackle, a rising wave of hyper-charged air that stands the hairs on Yosuke’s arms upright, before the sky splits open with a righteous ‘BOOM!’ and Izanagi’s lightning cleaves through the world around them.

It rends them all, but Adachi finally goes down; Yosuke feels a weight inside himself shift and begin to fall away.

But their victory is temporary. There is no time for Yosuke to reflect on the feeling of redemption, no time to search for Souji’s eyes beneath the fall of his moonlight-tinted hair now speckled with red. There is no time to lick their wounds or to even take a breath once their foe is on the ground, because as soon as Adachi falls, he is speaking yet again, another voice using Adachi’s body like a puppet and sucking in the air around them all so that it almost hurts to breathe.

The earth turns to bubbling muck, tar-like and black, and from it, Ameno-sagiri rises from the fog in a tide of apathy and shadowy fire – a single, soulless eyeball glowing bright against the crimson skyline.

Silently, Yosuke looks to his partner once again and finds that Souji is already looking at him. There is steel there, a wall of frozen, hardened ire. Not yet, his eyes say; we aren’t done yet. He jerks his chin towards where their final nemesis floats ominously above the world like a poisoned star.

Yosuke grits his teeth against the wash of unnamable emotions, some new and some still steeped in older hurts, and strengths his grip on his kunai. He leaps, his Soul Song ringing like a war cry in his ears, and this time he allows himself to deal the first blow.

Hours later, battered and emotionally drained, the team emerges from the television, dragging Adachi’s unconscious form with them as they file out one by one in a fatigued, triumphant mess. Souji’s cell phone buzzes in his pocket as his feet touch down on the shining tiles. He fishes it out like it’s made of lead and flips it open to find a myriad of missed calls from the hospital. Yosuke watches as Souji seems to sink inward, the last of the color draining from his face, and steps off to the side to listen to the voicemails he’s been left.

Yosuke reaches into whatever remains of his mental capacity and drags up the last of his ability to lead. He sends the others on ahead to the police station with Adachi’s limp body in tow, promising to text them all as soon as he knows what’s going on. He pretends to watch them go but keeps an eye on his partner as Souji stands away from him with a mask of careful calm glued over his features. It doesn’t fool Yosuke, though; he’s grown too accustomed to seeing, to noticing, and he can tell that there are spidery cracks in the façade that Souji is holding so desperately in place.

It isn’t until Souji turns back around with the glimmer of moisture in his eyes and tells him that Nanako is somehow alive that Yosuke allows his lungs to breathe. He’s at his partner’s side again in and instant, throwing an arm around Souji’s shoulders as the other boy sags against him. He props Souji up when his knees seem to buckle, leaning his weight into Yosuke’s body like Yosuke is all there is. His breathing quickens, lips parting as he swallows dry sobs before they can slip past his defenses and spill from his eyes. His entire body trembles in a mixture of utter exhaustion and relief, a release of all the tension and leftover emotions he’d been too focused on surviving to properly deal with up until now.

And Yosuke feels all of it. He can feel the way Souji shakes against him, can feel the stuttering rise and fall of his chest as he tries to keep his breathing under control. He feels the slow but steady drag towards the floor as more and more of Souji’s strength leaves him. He also feels a thrumming somewhere deep inside his own soul – like a sad, keening note has faded out of existence to be replaced by something soft and soothing instead. Flecks of silver against the black and white of a piano’s keys; a minor key shifting into tentative major.

There is a part of him, one very deep below the surface in a place filled with shadows and bile that wants to be envious. That ugly part of him wants to be angry, to drive him to slice his kunai though a television screen and shout about how unfair it is that Souji got his loved one back and Yosuke didn’t. It tells him he should want to find the ruins of Ameno-Sagiri down in the fog and the mud and revive it somehow, demand an answer as to why his soul mate is still gone while Nanako gets to live.

It wants him feel this way, makes him think that maybe he should. But he doesn’t.

All that Yosuke feels is bone-deep relief, gratitude to whatever god or deity might have been on their side tonight, and tired, worn-down joy that at least Souji gets to keep that shard of his heart after all.

And even on a more down-to-earth level, Yosuke is just really glad that Nanako-chan is okay. The reality of the situation is that Yosuke cannot feel bad for Nanako’s survival when he knows her death would have weight heavier on his shoulders than even Saki-senpai’s; he hadn’t been able to do anything to stop Saki-senpai’s demise, he’d been too weak. Nanako, however, had been right there in front of them. Had she stayed dead forever, then there would have been no chance at redemption, no excuse. He would have blamed himself until the day he’d died if Nanako had been permanently gone. He knows this, because he’d been all too prepared to do so the moment her heart monitor had flat lined and that awful, world-ending sound had overpowered even the strongest notes of Song inside his mind.

He doesn’t even want to imagine what would have happened to Souji.

Souji had already been destroyed by Nanako’s death. He’d hated himself enough for letting her get hurt, for “not getting there soon enough,” and any scenario that ended in Nanako leaving them for good, being gone for good, is one that Yosuke is pretty sure would also have ended with Souji disappearing behind a mask.

Yosuke doesn’t know for sure, but he thinks he might have come dangerously close to losing his best friend tonight. Souji might not have resorted to taking his own life, but Yosuke had seen how empty his partner’s eyes had been just after she’d died, and he cannot help the cold, gnawing feeling that a crucial piece of Souji himself had very nearly followed her. There are ways to be dead while the heart still beats, after all. Sometimes, that living death is almost worse.

But no.

Souji is still alive against him, still breathing, still there behind his own eyes, and Yosuke feels like the wind has been knocked out of him, chest tight and aching like he wants to break down crying in desperate joy because his friend is still here. It’s enough. It’ll be enough.

Yosuke shifts so that his arm is around Souji’s waist where he can support him under his ribs. He brings Souji’s arm up over his shoulders and wraps his fingers over Souji’s wrist to keep him from sliding away. (Souji smells like sweat and blood, ozone and ashes, but below the scents of battle there is one of cold, clear water and the fresh new grass of greenest spring. Something in Yosuke’s soul trills.)

To his partner, out loud, he says, “Let’s get you home.”

To Saki-senpai, in his head and in his heart, he says, “I’m sorry.”

He takes a deep breath, and lets it out.

Yosuke closes up the box that had held all of his affection for Saki-senpai in the days that follow, and tucks it away into a private corner of his heart. It still stings sometimes, and he acknowledges that his future is never going to be the way he’d pictured it when he was little. All that time spent as a child, wishing, wanting, waiting – all of it has come to nothing in the end. He has no soul mate now, no one to play his Song for. But, strangely, it’s alright. He regrets the loss of a happily ever after, regrets that he will never be able to hear the finished piece as he and Saki-senpai’s Soul Songs combine into one – and he lets himself regret without shame. However. He and Saki-senpai had never even started, he’d never gotten to hear what her music sounded like; he thinks maybe, funnily, it might have been harder to have lost her after they’d synched up. He thinks he might have got off even just a little bit easily having never heard her at all.

It leaves a strange taste in his mouth to think it, but because he doesn’t know what he’s missed, he wonders if he’s lucky. It might have been too hard to carry on living had he been given a taste of their Song made whole only to have it snatched away again soon after.

He wonders if he should feel guilty, and he does, but probably not in the way he should. He decides just to let it be. It won’t do anyone any good to dwell on “what if’s”.

(A week after Adachi is sentenced, Yosuke puts his guitar back into its case.)

Yosuke puts his focus into trying to adapt now that the investigations are over and he has the time to breathe. It’s surreal, readjusting his life to fit with his new reality, but he finds it surprisingly much smoother than expected. It isn’t exactly easy or fun, because the pain is still there – dulled and quiet, but definitely there – but there are more good days than bad and he isn’t going to beat himself up over it if he can help it.

Souji, however, is a slightly different story. He seems to be handling the end to the cases, the newfound free time and lowered panic levels, but there is still something… off about Yosuke’s partner that he isn’t sure how to pick apart. He acts normal enough at school, when they hang out together, when he interacts with other people, but there’s an odd tension to his shoulders, lines around his eyes that shouldn’t be there. Yosuke would be lying if he said he wasn’t worried.

The strangeness persists well though the last week or so of December without so much as hinting that it’s on the way out. Yosuke tries to subtly bring it up to Souji a couple of times, but he never gets a straight answer. Souji just shrugs it off as being tired or trying to stave off burn-out now that they don’t have to fight monsters anymore and he can finally drop his frantic “go-go-go” mentality. Which, to be fair, are both valid reasons for him to be the way he currently is, but Yosuke can tell by the dimness in Souji’s eyes that they aren’t the real reasons. He doesn’t call his friend out on it, though, because he honestly has no idea how; instead, he catalogues his partner’s reactions and watches the way Souji always seems to fade around the edges – just slightly – whenever Yosuke says he can’t hang out after school. Or when they’ve been hanging out and Yosuke has to go home. Really, any time Souji is alone he seems to want to be with someone, and any time he can’t be he almost… shuts down.

Yosuke has seen him meandering around the shopping district sometimes, too, or the riverbank, or just anywhere in town that’s worth meandering. It’s like he’s aimless. Lost in the fog that still hasn’t entirely cleared.

Yosuke suspects it might be more than that.

He finally gets an answer to his questions one day in late December, just a few days before Christmas and the start of break. He’s already declined Souji’s request to grab a late lunch in town, stating that he has go get ready for work. It isn’t lie at the time; he’d been asked the night before to come cover someone else’s shift until evening. However, much to his luck, right as he’s getting ready to head back home to change, he gets a call from his dad. The other employee had called in to say they could make their shift after all, and now Yosuke has an evening all to himself.

Or with Souji.

Elated at his unexpected fortune, Yosuke heads back inside the school to see if his partner is still there. He doesn’t find him in the classroom, the library, or the roof, and texting his cell phone yields no results. He’s about to give up and make his way back out to head for home after all when he passes by Kou near the first floor stairs, who tells him in another stroke of blind luck that Souji had been heading for the practice building that last that Kou had seen. Thanking him, Yosuke jogs off in the direction he’d been pointed.

Walking down the outside corridor and into the practice building feels almost like Yosuke has stepped through a gate of some kind, and into a liminal space. The first thing he notices is the silence. It’s abnormally quiet in the building suddenly, which is wholly bizarre considering it’s not yet late enough for the last of the lollygaggers to have filed out yet. Yosuke isn’t in any clubs, but he’s pretty sure there should be at least a few people still milling around.

But apparently he’s wrong, because the further into the building he walks, the more eerily empty it looks and sounds to be. It’s almost enough to make him nervous. He’s contemplating texting Souji again to see if the other boy will respond this time, when Yosuke feels the world stop turning.

He senses it first – like someone has plucked a string inside him, letting it echo through his bones like ripples on the surface of a lake. It’s warm, ringing, a long exhale after holding his breath for far too long and suddenly it feels like he’s been drowning all his life and for the very first time he knows what it’s like to breathe! Frantic for reasons he can’t explain, he whips his head around, searching for something he doesn’t think he can name. He turns towards the end of the hall and the plucked string in his soul tugs at him, pulls him forward, ringing all the while like an orchestra getting all of their instruments into tune before a symphony. Building anticipation, longing, yearning knots hot and inescapable in his ribs and, heart racing, he moves his body towards the where the feeling is getting stronger.

And then he hears it.

Soft and slow and pretty, the sound of someone playing piano reaches him from behind the mostly-closed door at the end of the hallway. It sounds like romance, like a hard-won love at the end of summer – full of hope and bittersweet nostalgia and promises of happy memories yet to be made.

He hears it, and his soul ignites.

Yosuke would know that music anywhere, would be able to recognize it anywhere, even though he’s never heard it in person before. It’s achingly familiar in its foreignness, like the final piece that fills the last gaping hole in a puzzle – he knows what it is without needed to even check: someone is playing the other half of his Soul Song.

It shouldn’t be possible, it can’t be possible; Saki-senpai is dead and buried and no one in the world could have known what the combined movements of their Song would have sounded like. But there it is. It’s there and it calls to Yosuke’s very being like someone has whispered his name to guide him safely through the dark.

Home.

Yosuke feels as though he’s moving through water, sluggish despite the adrenaline electrifying his veins and making his heart pound as if he is a drum. He follows the rhythm of his breathing and makes his way to the end of the hall in daze. The music trails off for a moment, pauses, then starts back up again like it’s a skipping CD looped back to the beginning of the piece because the rest is unplayable.

I know it! his soul sobs; I know the rest of it! Let me play it with you!

Yosuke reaches the door after what feels like an eternity and rests his forehead against the frame. He closes his eyes and listens, listens with every part of his existence and allows the feeling of home to wash over him. He thought he’d never hear it, thought he’d never get the chance to play it back, finished and complete and whole in a way that Yosuke had feared he’d never get to be. He swallows back the taste of tears and concentrates on synching up his breath with the music to keep himself from crying.

The music stops again, the pause much longer than the first. Yosuke nearly chokes on the sudden lump of fear that lodges itself in his throat. No, keep going! Please keep going!

It does a heavy second later, but it’s wrong. It’s sadder and slower, only the right hand playing the melody this time, without the left to accompany it and it positively wrenches at Yosuke’s heart. It isn’t meant to be played that way, he knows. His Song, their Song should be played with hope and summer light, not melancholy. He tears himself away from where he’s leaning and, without thinking, he sticks his hand through the space in the door and slides it open.

The music abruptly stops.

Yosuke feels the breath leave his lungs. Seated on the piano bench, starting back at him with wide, startled grey eyes is Souji.

He sits there completely motionless, one hand still on the piano keys, lips slightly parted in surprise as he watches Yosuke standing rigid in the doorway. Yosuke, for his part, simply watches him back.

Something slides into place inside Yosuke’s mind. You, his soul calls. It’s you, it’s you, it’s you. He wants to rush forward, to throw himself at his partner, his missing other half, and press their hearts together so that they beat in perfect time. There is elation and want and love spilling out and over the sides of his heart and as time slows to a perfect stop he knows without a doubt that he’d been wrong before, that it could never, never have been anyone but Souji.

Souji with his quiet voice and clam demeanor, hands calloused from gripping a sword with ferocious precision but gentle as they pet the cats at the riverbank, ruffle Nanako’s hair, alight on Yosuke’s shoulders. Souji had come into his life like the hint of clear skies after a devastating rainstorm, bringing hope and light back into his lonely existence when Yosuke thought he’d lost everything. It was Souji that helped him through the pain of Saki-senpai’s death, Souji that had faced down Yosuke’s Shadow for him and still stayed by his side after seeing all the ugliness underneath. All this time, it’s been Souji that kept Yosuke going, kept him strong, and Yosuke belatedly realizes that the Song that Souji had been playing on the piano, soft and sweet, hadn’t been the end of Yosuke’s own, but the start. Souji’s half of the Song isn’t a completion of Yosuke’s, the final notes to echo after his in answer – they are the opening to the piece, the question to Yosuke’s eager reply, and it makes sense in a way that nothing else ever has or ever will again.

Because Yosuke’s life was always going to begin with Souji.

His partner exhales radiance. “Yosuke?” he breathes, and from Souji’s lips it sounds like peace. Something like hope, like want, lights up behind that liquid-silver gaze as Souji continues to stare at him, and Yosuke can see the burgeoning understanding beginning to take root.

And Yosuke, dumb-fuck that he is, absolutely panics.

He wasn’t ready for any of this, doesn’t know how to react or what to say. Up until this point, Yosuke had been completely convinced that he’d never get to be in this position, where he’d be faced with his soul mate out of nowhere in an empty music room. He isn’t prepared, hadn’t thought he’d need to be prepared; it’s been ages since he last picked up his guitar, since he’d resigned himself to never needing to play his Song again. He can’t respond now, not in the way he needs to, not when it can’t be perfect like it always should have been. He isn’t ready.

He forces his face into a semblance of casual pleasantness and prays that Souji can’t see the anxiety in his eyes from halfway across the room. His mouth forms a greeting, an, “Oh hey, Partner, there you are!” A plastic smile stretches at his mouth and it feels like razors on his cheeks. “I was wondering where you went.”

The furrowing of Souji’s brow cuts into him like his own kunai. Confusion, nervousness, things that look out of place on his soul mate’s features – they flit across Souji’s face and meld together into an expression that Yosuke wishes he were brave enough, good enough to brush away. “What are you doing here?” is what slips from Souji’s tongue, wary and unsure, tinted with something Yosuke cannot recognize. The light of hope seems to flicker behind his eyes.

Yosuke crawls to the bottom of the hole he’s begun to dig for himself and sinks his fingers in to dig even deeper. He tells Souji his shift has been filled, that he’s free after all, lets the shallow words fill the silence as he buries the ones he aches to say instead.

You’re my soul mate, becomes: “I didn’t know you could play.”

I finally found you, becomes: “You’re really good.”

I missed you so much, becomes: “Did you write that yourself?”

And each one carves a bleeding line across Yosuke’s heart.

Souji’s eyes grow dim as Yosuke babbles, the light and the hope fading into empty cold until they snuff out entirely. “Oh…” his lungs whisper in a sound like the dying gasp of joy. Grey eyes, now hollow and dejected, look down and away from where Yosuke stands propped against the doorframe, keeping himself upright because his body wants to crumble. Souji turns his gaze towards the piano and hunches over on himself like he did that horrible night in the hospital so many weeks ago, when he had watched his little sister turn silent and still.

His hand ghosts over the keys but presses none of them, and slowly he brings it to his lap to curl around his own waist. “…It’s not finished yet,” is the only sound he makes.

Yosuke feels his soul crying. Yes, it urges, yes it is; I’m here, I’m right here!

But he doesn’t say it. He keeps his mouth tightly shut and cages the wailing in his heart at the blank, defeated look on his partner’s face. He swallows, and it feels like gravel in his throat. He croaks out another question – he doesn’t even hear what it is.

But Souji must, because he folds inward like a wilting morning glory and sighs out, “I just didn’t want to go home yet. It’s too quiet.”

Of course.

Of course that would be what’s been wrong this whole time; Souji’s house is empty, dark, devoid of the sounds of life and laughter, and every time he leaves school, leaves Yosuke or one of their friends, he’s been going back to nothing but a stifling reminder that Nanako and Dojima are still in the hospital.

Yosuke nearly caves right then and there, nearly darts forwards and wraps his soul mate up in his arms to comfort him, to apologize for leaving him by himself, for letting Souji think that he’s completely alone, for leaving him to be lonely when from day one Souji has done nothing but make Yosuke feel like he finally had someone he could rely on. He feels himself cracking, feels the weight of his guilt because Souji needs him right now, and all Yosuke can bring himself to do is grin as if his heart isn’t sinking and say, “Come over to my place tonight, then, it’ll be like a sleepover.”

There is little solace to be had from the way Souji smiles at him, sad and grateful at the same time. Like a selfish coward, Yosuke takes it anyway.

Yosuke spends far too long thinking things over after that.

Once the initial shock of hearing his Soul Song completed wears off, once he wraps his head around the fact that his soul mate is actually is best friend and not Saki-senpai after all, Yosuke is… Not Okay.

His head feels like it’s going to explode; he’d spent the better part of a year convinced he’d already met his soul mate, that she had simply been taken from him before they could even discover what they were to one another. He’d mourned her, grieved the happy ending Adachi had stolen from them both, but in the end he had been ready to tuck her away inside his heart and take the next steps forward into the future. He feels like he’s betrayed her now, somehow. It rattles around in his skull like shards of broken glass, pricking him with the idea that he’d loved her but hadn’t really loved her but yes, he did, he could have, and now she’s gone but he can’t let her go but he did, and---! Over and over he turns it all, weathering the sharp edges and letting them knick him as he thinks.

He feels guilty over Souji, too.

Yosuke knows he’d been a terrible friend at the beginning, selfishly dragging a boy he barely knew into a grand game of make-believe, in which Yosuke could pretend he was a hero, pretend that he was doing it all to avenge his lost love. All the while clinging to someone he unknowingly was never meant to be with after all and blindly ignoring the missing piece of himself that had been right there beside him the whole time. He feels like he’s used Souji, like he’s disrespected Saki-senpai, and somewhere in the middle Yosuke doesn’t know if he even deserves to let himself love either of them.

He’d been ugly in his words and actions, too. Yosuke cannot count the number of times he’s said something horrible, homophobic, downright mean, right in front of his partner. The barbs had been aimed at Kanji, yes, (to whom Yosuke still isn’t sure he’s entirely made it up to despite doing his best to apologize and learn from his past behavior) but Souji had been there to hear it all. Yosuke realizes with a heavy heart that he’s never really apologized to his best friend for spewing his misguided ignorance out where Souji had to see. What would Souji think of him, if Yosuke were to play his Song for him now?

Would he reject him? Would he smile and sadly tell Yosuke that he’s already hurt him to badly to love him back?

And right about then is when Yosuke realizes just how deep in this he is. He wonders when he started to grow to love his partner – if it was something new, something recent that had developed in the time since Saki-senpai’s death, or if it had been there all along without him even noticing it. If that’s that case, then it means Yosuke has been dragging both of them behind him, tethering Saki-senpai’s memory to himself while he stings Souji’s heart along, stubbornly oblivious to the harm he’s done to all three of them.

How can he face Souji after this?

So he keeps the knowledge of their shared Song to himself. He hoards it like some kind of glittering treasure – because that’s honestly what it is. From the time he was little all he’d wanted was to meet his other half, to know them and to know the feeling of completion that comes from their shared Soul Song. He thought he’d lost his only chance; now that he’s discovered that he hasn’t, that he’s just been wasting it instead, the greedy parts of him want to cling as hard as they are able to make sure he never feels that sensation of inescapable grief ever again.

He makes an effort, though, to be there more for Souji. He stays with his partner whenever he can, hangs out with him on free weekends and after school until he absolutely has to leave for work or risk running late, giving every free moment of his time to make sure that, even if his souls mate doesn’t know what they are to each other, he at least never feels alone.

Nanako and Dojima are released from the hospital sometime after the start of the new year, and Yosuke sees life breathe itself back into his partner’s body at last. He hadn’t realized just how much he’d missed that gentle smile until, for the first time in two months, Souji turns towards him with a soft expression of genuine contentment. It feels like sunlight chasing back the grey and heavy clouds.

That day, the day that Souji smiles at him again, is also the day that Yosuke’s soul finally rebels and overrides the doubts inside his head. He wakes in the middle of the night with a dream lingering fresh in mind; images of Souji’s body, still and lifeless and draped over a power line. It starts as the nightmare from months ago but different, lacking the superimposition of Saki-senpai’s actual death, and slowly the nightmare fades into something better, something brighter, with Souji’s laugh and his kind eyes and the feel of his calloused hands across the skin of Yosuke’s arm. He dreams of terror turning into joy, of fog and sorrow birthing hope and happiness; a future Yosuke had once thought gone for good now alive and vibrant once again. In the dream there is a whispered breath of words, too tender for him to make out but the meaning of which resonates deep within his bones. There is the feel of lips pressed quietly to his own, the scent of clear water and spring grass and all the things that Yosuke has never known he’d needed before, and as the dream ends and Yosuke is left to lie awake missing the taste of Souji’s kiss, he makes a decision.

He climbs out of bed the next morning, blessedly free from school or work, and pulls his guitar back out of the case. He sits and runs his fingers over the strings, mimicking the memory of Souji’s hand on the piano keys. Yosuke can still hear the chords that his soul mate had played; it isn’t his half of the Song but he knows it now. He lets it play out in his head as he shifts his fingers into their proper positions. When Souji’s parts ends in his mind, Yosuke’s hands continue the melody on the strings of his guitar, the notes falling into place as if they had always been connected, never divided into two.

He finds he doesn’t need to practice until it’s perfect; the sound of his soul ringing out to answer the echo of Souji’s is already perfect enough.

Yosuke spends the rest of the morning digging through the last of the boxes from his closet. He pulls the microphone from its hiding spot and sets it up on his desk, connects it to his laptop. He only needs to record it once.

The view of the town from the overlook is strangely lovely in the late afternoon sunlight. Yosuke stands with his arms crossed, staring down at the place that he’s come to think of as home. Beside him stands his partner, the person he’s come to think of as home.

He’d called Souji up almost immediately after he’d finished recording, before he could chicken out and waste another ten months waiting for the right time. He’s had right times, had a million of them; he just hadn’t been able to see them when they came. Too deafened by what his head wanted to hear the way his soul had been ringing. He’s nervous – of course he is – and wrapped against his chest his hands have begun to shake. But he knows what he wants now, knows what he should have been looking for from the start, and he’s come too far to back out now. Besides, he’s caught a glimpse of what it could be like to lose a soul mate and he would take on Ameno-Sagiri all by himself to stop it from ever happening again. Even if Souji isn’t in danger of dying (at least, Yosuke hopes,) he’s familiar with the pain of not knowing, of pining from a distance and never making a move. Soon Souji will be gone, headed back to the city with Yosuke still in Inaba, and unless Yosuke tells him before he moves then he might not get another opportunity for a long, long time. Because, as he’d reminded himself once before, you can still lose someone without them being dead.

He looks over at his best friend, who gazes out at the town below them with a soft, fond smile. The falling sunlight casts a dull halo behind him, making him shine like gold in the rays of not-quite-twilight. He’s breathtaking. Yosuke as noticed it before, has allowed himself to acknowledge how beautiful Souji is on more than one occasion. At first it sparked envy, a desire to be similar – if even just a little. Now, though, with his heart trying to pull him closer, closer, closer still, the idea that this beautiful, ethereal person is his and his alone is like a balm on blistering skin. He’s lucky, he so lucky; Yosuke just hopes that luck is still on his side.

“I hated this place when I first came to Inaba,” he whispers, hoping he isn’t about to make a massive fool of himself. “You can tell how small the town is from up here…”

Souji turns to watch him.

So Yosuke continues on.

He tells Souji how, somewhere in between all the kidnappings and the deaths, he’d grown to somehow love the town. He tells him that there still isn’t anything there, not really, but that he has people now, friends and memories that make everything seem just a little bit more like home. Souji watches him all the while, silent, with that careful smile that makes Yosuke’s knees feel weak.

Yosuke keeps talking. He breathes out a message for Saki-senpai, one last one, and uses it as a final goodbye. The end of it he shapes, morphs it, takes the words into his hands and molds them into something new: a confession of sorts, for the one that’s held his heart all this time. He thinks that Saki-senpai would approve.

“You’re special to me, you know?”

He listens hard, past the crescendo of the Song inside him, and he thinks he can hear Souji’s breath catch for just a moment.

Before his partner can say anything in return, Yosuke reaches up and slips his headphones from around his neck, holding them out for Souji to take. “I need to play this for you,” he says with his mouth. Please, he says without speaking aloud.

Confused, but trusting him all the same – just like always, even when he shouldn’t – Souji takes the headphones and places them over his ears. Yosuke hurriedly digs out his MP3 player and brings it out of sleep mode; he doesn’t need to find the song he wants, it’s been pulled up ever since he’d downloaded it earlier that afternoon. He swallows past the fear.

His hand is steady as he presses ‘play.’

Yosuke chews on his bottom lip as he watches Souji’s face. At first there is simply neutral curiosity. Then there is a slow build of realization, followed by a sharp, shaking inhalation, grey eyes going wide and lips parting in a breathy, wordless note. Souji stares at nothing as he listens to the sound of Yosuke’s soul, poured out across the strings of an acoustic guitar; sweet and pretty, like hard-won love and summer sun.

And then the song ends, and Souji slowly looks up at Yosuke as if he’s seeing color for the very first time.

Yosuke, his lips say, forming the word without voice. He sucks in another breath, like he cannot get his lungs to fill. Trembling, he tugs the headphones away and lets them rest against his neck, hands tight around the orange plastic. “This… this is…”

Yosuke nods; slow, careful. He licks at his lips and exhales, “It’s us, Partner.” He searches Souji’s eyes with his own, hoping against his nerves for a sign of something good.

Souji holds his gaze, but it flicks back and forth as if he’s searching, too. His breathing quickens and every other breath is a hushed, disbelieving word. “I never… I thought—I thought that…”

“I know,” Yosuke shushes in response. “I know. I’m so sorry, I know.” Because he does. Everything that Souji cannot put into words, Yosuke knows. He knows he was an idiot, that he’d been convinced Saki-senpai was his soul mate, that he hadn’t acknowledged Souji’s Song for what it was that day in the music room and had let his partner believe they weren’t a pair. But none of it matters right now; none of it needs to be vocalized. Maybe later, someday, another time, but not right now.

Now, Yosuke tentatively brings his hands up to cover Souji’s own over the headphones. He squeezes their fingers together, slides them up, up along Souji’s slender throat, along his jaw, coming to rest with his palms on his partner’s cheeks. And as he reaches, Souji reaches back. Long fingers clutch at Yosuke’s wrists, slide over the fabric of his sleeves, higher, up to his shoulders, his collar, his face, until those same fingers are caressing his skin and tangling into the hair at the nape of Yosuke’s neck. At some point the two of them meet in the middle, bringing their foreheads together in perfect unison, like a single image in a pair of mirrors.

I love you, their souls whisper in unison.

I love you, I love you, I love you.

Souji whispers his name against his lips and Yosuke nuzzles against him in return.

There is a sound like tinkling glass inside them as their lips finally meet in a kiss; a sound like waking, like the rise of the sun after a hundred years of night, a perfect melding of strings and piano in the desperate, gorgeous music of something once broken now made whole.

They stay like that until sunset, pressed so close together that their hearts beat as one.

#fanfic #fanfiction #persona 4 #p4 #souyoweek2019 #souyo #yosuke hanamura #souji seta #yu narukami #soulmates #soulmate au

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shadowtarot · 6 years

Note

Its Mitsuru and Yu? Throw in Koromaru? Lol... Ren fighting the It and SO? Sign me up!!!

Thieves In Inaba Part 11!

TV World, Central Hub

A calling card has been left right in the center of the entrance that reads as follows:

Yu Narukami, the try hard pursuer of Truth. You who wish to expose us but yet have fallen so far. If you’re so desperate to find us out, then we challenge you. Come to the lake on the far end of this realm. Alone. Then perhaps you’ll get a chance.

From, The Phantom Thieves of Hearts.

“Dude! A legit calling card!” Yosuke says excitedly. “Damn this is cool….”

“Focus, Yosuke. This could possibly be a trap.” Yu pockets the card.

“Indeed, but it’s also very likely that they don’t want too many eyes on them. If we want to resolve this fast, perhaps you should go along.” Mitsuru states.

“But Mitsuru-san, is it not too risky?” Aigis worries. “Perhaps we should at least follow far behind.”

“If that’s what you wish, then go ahead. But I think I’ll be fine.” Yu smiles.

With that, Naukami heads out. The others following a different path to the lake.

Joker awaits upon a large rock, casually tossing his knife in the air and catching it. Yu soon arrives.

“Geez, kept a guy waiting.” He smirks. “So, you’re the one leading this search huh? Interesting…”

“Enough fooling around ‘Joker’, we’re going to unmask you this time.” Yu states, drawing his katana and pointing it at him.

“Oh? That’s how it’s gonna be huh? Good. I haven’t had a nice fight in a while anyway. COME ARSENE!”

“IZANAGI!”

The Persona clash, sparks and shadows filing the air as Ren and Yu exchange strikes with knife and sword. Ren smirks, using his free hand to draw his pistol.

“!” Yu flinches, granting Ren the chance to deliver a swift kick to the stoumach.

“NGH! Fine then…PERSONA CHANGE! BLACK FROST!”

“I knew it, COME ALICE!”

Black Frost attempts to freeze Ren in his tracks, but he’s able to narrowly back flip out of the way, the lake instead getting frozen.

Alice then smirks, casting Play With Me.

Yu tries to dodge it the best he can, but Black Frost takes the hit instaid, the Persona glitching like a TV from the damage.

“Agh!”

“Had enough, city boy?” Joker smirks, tossing his knife in the air before catching it and pointing it straight at Yu’s neck.

“No…because I’m not alone. NOW!”

The rest of the Investigation Team and Shadow Opritives comes out of hiding.

“Ha, sly. I like it. But don’t think I didn’t plan ahead.” Ren snaps his fingers and Promethius descends, bringing with it the remainder of the Phantom Thieves.

“Alright guys, It’s Show Time! “

Futaba boosts everyone, and the true fight begins.

Ren goes back to fighting Yu, as Ryuji attempts to fight off both Junpei and Yosuke.

The sword and knife clash once more, scraping as they both try to overpower the other.

“So, you’re a wild card too huh? How come you’re not showing your full potential then?” Joker smirks.

“Same could be asked for you, Phantom Thief.”

Meanwhile, Ryuji is struggling with Junpei and Yosuke.

“I’m so not gonna get shocked by you this time!” Yosuke proclaims, trying to break through Ryuji’s constant blocking.

“If you say so, Junes Prince. SAITEN TENSEI!”

Ryuji’s Persona uses God’s Hand on Yosuke, sending him flying straight into the frozen lake. “Ha look at that, he was right.”

Junpei strikes Ryuji from behind. “Ha! Did you see that? Huh?” But the small victory is short lived as an attack from Makoto’s Persona shoots off at Iori.

Queen herself, is trying to fend off Chie and Akihiko who have her trapped on both sides.

“Huh, so you fight with Akido hm? This is going to be an interesting match then!” Akihiko smirks. “Satanoka, will you continue to asist me?”

“Uh, of course!” She smirks.

“Do your worst!” Makoto gets into a fighting stance. “ANAT!”

Yusuke is fending off Aigis and Kanji. “One of these two doesn’t seem human, Oracle! Can I get an analysis please?”

“The other one is an android of sorts! She’s armed to the teeth! Find some way to stop her movements! Then the other guy should be a piece of cake.”

Yusuke is blocking as many shots as he can and nods. “KAMU-SUSANO!”

He casts bufudine on Aigis, managing to freeze her in place.

“Junpei, I require thawing out!” She calls.

“Oh crap! Be right there!” He reaches for his Evoker, but Ryuji knocks it out of his hand with a swift club strike.“Shit!”

“Not happen’.”

Kanji grits his teeth. “The ice should thaw after a while! I got it from here!” He dashes after Yusuke.

“Oh please.” Yusuke manages to hook Kanji’s chair with his Katana.

“What the-”

“If you took combat more seriously, you’d use a harder to counter weapon.” With that, he flings his weapon to the side.

Haru is trying to fend off Naoto and and Mitsuru. “Oh dear….one has fire arms and the other swords. They have both long range and short range covered….”

“Surrender now, Phantom Thief.” Naoto states.

“Never! After everything that’s happened, we’re not going to give up! Come Milady!”

Haru’s Persona fires at Naoto while Haru herself tries to fight off Mitsuru.

“You have some skill with that axe, but do you believe it is enough?” Mitsuru smirks, taking out her evoker.

“Those guns…that must be how your group calls your Persona…”

Milady fires a shot at Mitsuru. “Well I won’t give you the chance!”

“Artemisia!” Mitsuru attempts to cast Marin Karin but to no avail. “Hm…fine then. Freeze!” She goes for Bufudine.

“NOIR!”

Morgana jumps in the way of the attack and gets frozen.

“Oh no, Mona-chan!”

Teddie and Koromaru corner the frozen cat.

“Ehehe, should we go for it Koromaru? It’s a Beary good opportunity!”

“Not if I have a say in it!” Futaba unfreezes and heals Morgana. “Go get ‘em Mona!”

“Nyeheheh, never underestimate the teamwork of Phantom Thieves!”

The not-cat clashes with the dog and bear.

Meanwhile, Ann is trying to keep dodging arrow fire and Staff strikes. “Geez, you both sure are persistent.”

A fan is thrown at her. “Hm, that defiantly should have hit.” Yukiko says, taking out another combat fan.

“Uh guys? I’m a bit out numbered here?” Ann says.

“Don’t worry Panther! I’m on my way!” Ryuji starts to move to her location but is blocked by Trismegistus and Takehaya Susano-o. “Shit! Fine then!” Skull takes out his Shotgun and opens fire.

Back to Ren and Yu, the two keep clashing. “Your friends sure are strong, Narukami.” The Phantom smirks. “I’m impressed. But just because you’re strong, doesn’t mean you’ll win.”

“Talk is one thing, Joker. I’m curious to see how the Phantom Thieves’ mysterious leader earned the title.” Yu has Izanagi electrify his blade.

“Ha, if you insist.”

Rise and Fuuka both gasp.

“Sempai! The power coming from their leader..whatever Persona he’s trying to call out…it’s nothing like the previous ones he’s called out!”

Futaba laughs. “It’s about to be game over for you all!”

“Partner, get outta there!”

“Narukami!”

“Ravage them..Satanael!

Ren’s ultimate Persona descends. With a cocky smirk, the Thief leader aims his gun at Yu. “Checkmate, Narukami.”

“This power…this guy really is just like our Sensei…” Teddie states, blocking strikes from Morgana as he watches.

“Damnit! We can’t do this….unless…YU! DO IT!” Yosuke calls out.

“Right. Come! Izanagi-no-Okami!” Yu brings fourth his own ultimate Persona.

Light and Darkness clash, as Ren and Yu exchange blows. Now strengthened by their Persona, their attacks hit harder. The offshoots of their clash hitting the other fights around them.

“Geez! This is getting risky to stay near!” Chie yells. “But I’m not gonna give up! We will protect Inaba!”

The whole group nods to Chie’s statement.

Satanael fires at Izanagi-no-Okami, who uses it’s staff to block the shots much as it’s user blocks Ren’s shots with his katana.

“For the sake of my friends! I WILL NOT LOSE!” They both yell at each other.

#persona 3 #persona 4 #persona 5 #shadow operatives #investigation team #phantom thieves #thieves in inaba #compendium

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virtualfutaba-cloud · 3 years

Text

#Atlus #Atlus games #Persona users #Yu Narukami #Persona 4 grand prix #Persona 4/Golden #Fool arcanum #lovers arcanum #P4 #Rise Kujikawa #the investigation team #Teddie/Kuma #The Star arcanum #Labrys #Tohru Adachi #Official art

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digitalpenstroke · 6 years

Text

Storied Gaming: Yu’s Shadow Theory

Spoilers incoming for Persona 4 and Persona 4: Golden. Give the games a look see before we go into this theory, it’s actually a damn good game.

We all have something hidden within us that we never wish anyone to ever find. The secret might be dark, an embarrassment of sorts, a feeling about yourself that you never want to disclose. Sometimes, it’s just better to confront that person within you, to cast away the doubt of your Shadow, and embrace the person you really are, your Persona. When it comes to the characters in Atlus’s most popular side series, Shin Megami Tensei Persona 4, confronting their Shadow to reach their Persona is not only a necessity but also a means of survival in their world. But not everyone had to, but maybe they didn’t need to. Today we tackle the theory that, while it proves interesting, still holds some flaws on the surface. Today we ask: Is Teddie, Yu Narukami’s Shadow?

The Theory’s Rundown

The speculative theory goes as thus: Over the course of Persona 4, all characters who travel into the TV world, with the exception of Nanako, enter a realm of the TV world and is confronted by a Shadow, who represents the darkest or contrarian thoughts and feelings of the person. Should the person accept their Shadow as a part of themselves, the Shadow calms its aggression and converts itself into a Persona, a weapon, and companion of the user within the realm. Should a person reject their Shadow, it intensifies in strength, becoming its own being and lashing out against the individual. There are three characters that do not have this sort of interaction within the Shadow Realm: Yu (or the main character), Nametame, and Adachi. With Adachi and Nametame, we see their Shadows manifest when we confront them.

Which leaves Yu, and wouldn’t you know, the first Shadow being we confront is Teddy. As the theory suggests, Teddie has a unique relationship when it comes to Yu. He’s introduced as a Shadow without remembering anything about his life before their encounter. During the True End path, if the player neglects to do the social links, Teddie is the only one that will appear before Yu to give a moment of reflection. During the events of post-Nanako’s death, Yu happens to discover him within the Velvet Room, a place that seemed to be designated only for Yu, his benefactor Igor, and his assistant Margret.

When it comes to the Arcana, Teddie’s Star acts as a stepping stone for Yu going from The Fool to The World. Throughout the game, much like the other Persona games, the main character begins as The Fool, a wild card, a blank slate that which can project the right ideas into others and inspire through action. The Fool’s traits stem from our innocence, divine inspiration, madness, freedom, spontaneity, inexperience, chaos, and creativity, all things Yu has in spades. To adopt The World, a symbol of the protagonist’s triumph, Yu would need to also the qualities of the Star to achieve his goal. The Star’s traits are hope, self-confidence, faith, altruism, luck, generosity, peace, and joy; qualities that we see from Teddie time and time again. To accept the Star, to accept Teddie, Yu takes the final step to achieve his true Arcana, and his true Persona: Izanagi-no-Okami.

How Did I Like It?

It’s a unique take on the relationship between Yu and Teddie. Looking at the game at face value, it does sort of explaining a couple of the key aspects of the story that seemingly doesn’t get touch upon via dialogue or action. In the context of this game, we do only see Teddie enter the Velvet Room, and it is a little strange for Yu to not have to deal with a Shadow of his own. For Teddie to be a Shadow without substance, it could explain how he came into existence but forget his purpose. He would have been what Yu would have to confront in the TV world to acquire Izanagi. Would Yu have gotten The World if this came to pass? It would have been the thing Yu would gain if Teddie was still the Shadow.

And as a quick addition to the theory, it would explain Teddie’s existence. Normally a Shadow is manifested based on the thoughts and feelings of the person who encounters them. If Yu already had the powers to summon his initial Persona at will, then ties to his Shadow would be severed. Much like how others Shadows would act on their own if they were rejected, Teddie became an entity of his own, one which struggles with its own mind and self-doubt. One that would create its own Shadow to face, and Persona to attain. On face value, it’s an interesting prospect. But...

The Problems With It

Let’s look at the problems through the story, and start from the beginning. The reason Yu is given his Persona early is that it was a gift from the Gods. Did I just rehash a statement? Actually no. In a statement that would be read as “oh, so he’s the chosen one then” type of mindset, it’s actually a one hundred percent correct assessment. Yu’s powers were indeed given to him by the Gods, Izanami to be exact, the mother of all creation to be more detailed. Yu encounters her as he enters Inaba while he, Dogima and Nanako stop as a gas stop. She makes some mundane conversation with Yu dressed as a gas jockey, and proceeds to shake his hand, and thus transferring power into him (you can actually feel it happen too if your controller had dual shock). And this is also revealed to be the reason of how Adachi and Nametame also are able to enter the TV world, as she had visited them as well.

So did Yu ever have to encounter a Shadow? The only time he ever had to encounter something Shadow-esque was only in the anime version of Persona 4, wherein during his fight with Margaret and Izanami, he is confronted with a Shadow that expressed his fears of leaving everyone he cared for. He was afraid of being alone again, yet unlike everyone else who could not embrace what they couldn’t accept, Yu’s journey saw him through the Shadow and helped him accept that he was indeed not alone.

Then where did Teddie come from if he wasn’t Yu’s Shadow? Teddie is still a Shadow, just not of any one person in particular. The bear himself tells us that there was a world of Shadows, a world created by human thoughts. He would then say:

“One day, a Shadow living in that world awakened to human emotions. But humans and Shadows are completely different entities. So he made himself forget that he was a Shadow... He wanted to forget... he wanted people to like him. And that’s how he came to look like this...” And towards the end, once Izanami is defeated, the Investigation Team is able to see the Shadow World as it truly is. And what it is, is a gorgeous landscape, something that looks like a meadow.

But how can Teddie summon a Persona if he is, in fact, a Shadow? If we can glean something from Teddie’s story, it’s that he was able to manifest emotions and feelings. If that was the case, he would then be able to create an ego, a piece of identity that facilitates the creation of the Shadow and the Persona. It wouldn’t be too impossible for a being, which has gained an Ego and sentience naturally, to also be able to have such a gift within him as well.

And I believe that is where I will leave the topic for today. As I have said, I enjoyed the aspect of the theory, and it creates a more endearing relationship between Teddie and Yu than what we already see. It’s a fun thing to think about, despite the flaws and the facts that are presented to us in the context of the game. So until next time, where we will look into one last theory.

#Storied Gaming #theory #Persona 4 #Yu #Teddie #Shadow

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thedetectiveofinaba · 6 years

Note

Yu Narukami. Leader of the Investigation Team. Cool, calm, and collected, he's always able to keep his friends together no matter what situations they find themselves in. And with his supernatural "Persona" ability, magnefied by his arcana, The Fool, he's saved many a person from certain death in the Midnight Channel along with his friends. So, what does this stoic, silver-haired badass currently find himself doing? ...Shopping for groceries at Junes with his cousin Nanako. Yeah.

Naoto was shopping at Junes for groceries for the following days and trying to find something useful for Grampa. She noticed a familiar-looking hairstyle among the crowd at the food department with his cousin. She thought it was really sweet for him to spend time with Nanako: she really deserved not to be ignored and Yu taking his time to try replacing the days Dojima-san spent at the office must’ve been significant for the younger girl.

She decided to approach them and talk with them for a minute. “Yu-senpai, fancy seeing you here.” She greeted Nanako and smiled at her, asking when he’d come here.

#world-of-the-munatar #world of the munatar #p4 it #verse: tv world detective #ask reply #ask reply [shirogane speaking]#ask answer #ask answer [you received a message]#munatar!yu #queue line #queue [paper pile]

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wildcardwriting · 7 years

Text

Fool’s Favor #2

Narugami[Persona 4 x Naruto]

Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

Fool’s Favor on AO3

Summary: Deep within the core of Konoha, there resides a guardian, watching over, and protecting the people. He’s been there since the beginning and is cherished by the village and his team. His name is Narukami Yu.

Naruto x Persona 4 Crossover

XXxxxxXX

Drabble #2

XXxxxxXX

Revising the history book was a lot more difficult than any of the Investigation Team had thought.

“What. the. Hell. is. this?” Yousuke said, far from amused.

“If the Hokage were the leaders that directed the village, Narugami-dono was the protector-teacher of the people. He was a being of intelligence and tactics. He helped create the first school, as well as the establishment of the hospital–an idea that was revolutionary in an era where families taught members the skills necessary for survival.“

“That explains why Tobirama-san was staring when I requested land for a school and a hospital.”

“Obviously, a school was necessary! How the hell were they going to learn to read? Or learn vital skills? They were cooking meat over a fire!” Chie hissed. “I ate burnt meat for every single meal!”

Yukiko patted her on the shoulder. “I agree with you. Most of their food was rather…inedible.”

“Chie-senpai still hasn’t forgiven them for that,” Kanji added, thinking back before muttering. “Though cooking is important, I don’t know if I’d consider it a vital skill…”

“What confused me, is that fact, that this book continues to call Narugami with other adjectives other than human.” Naoto pointed out. “Here, Narugami-senpai is referred to as a ‘being’, and over the next few pages, the same thing continues constantly. There’s nowhere where in this book that refers that, he is anything even remotely human. If nothing else, he is very loosely said to be a celestial being.“

"That's unsettling. I'm pretty sure we never told Tobirama-san that we weren't human." Yukiko noted.

"Maybe it was Mito-chan?" Teddie added as he decimated yet another bag of rice crackers, likely the last bag of them.

( Apparently not noticing the vein starting to pulse on Yousuke's head. )

"Stop eating all the rice crackers, you stupid bear! " Yousuke snatched the bag from him.

Starting yet another fight.

Naoto continued reading.

“Narugami-dono oversaw all aspects of the hospital, creating many techniques, still used today, such as antiseptic, and antibiotics, the combination of which helped Konoha thrive, when ninja recovered much more quickly to not only live but fight another day---”

“Fighting. It's back to fighting.” Rise frowned. “Honesty, I thought our world was bad enough.”

“I know, right?” Chie hissed. “It’s like that all they think about. Constantly. It's so annoying! It not about anything else.”

(”Like you’re any different, Chie-senpai.” Kanji said, but Yu doubted anyone else heard his words.)

“If that upsets you, the next lines are no better,” Naoto said reading through the rest of the page, before scanning the rest of the chapter. "Though from what I can guess this book is less about the facts and more about Konoha patriotism and propaganda. "

"That is bad.” Yukiko thought now starting to understand why people treated Narugami so strangely. “Remember when Narukami-kun used to go shopping before the Third-san made it a permanent D-Rank mission?”

Most of the Investigation Team made faces at that (Naoto being the only except as she was still scanning through the history book, appearing to get more and more annoyed with what she was seeing.)

“Of course we do,” Chie told. “Those weeks were utter crap!”

“Ninja kept following senpai everywhere, and Mariko was getting twitchy every time they got closer. Especially after the whole stampede thing that happened before. “ Kanji said frowning.

“And then if that wasn’t enough they followed him back! Like I thought the surveillance cloaks were bad, but they were everywhere! In the trees, pretending to be rocks, everything, and anything!” Yousuke yelled. “Man, remember the scare Yukiko got after she went to check the mail? That masked ninja was so close to getting a galactic punt from Chie.”

Teddie nodded. “And there were so beary many! It was nothing lie the weird rumors in Inaba---”

“Stop eating all the rice crackers!” Yousuke growled once again taking the bag.

“Sadly, our problems are far from over.” Naoto cut in, closing the book. “There some more bad news for Narugami.”

“Like what? They think he’s a chick or something? I don’t see how anything could be any worse.” Kanji said leaning back in his chair, balancing on it so he was on the back two legs, with his feet on the table.

“This is an international edition,” Naoto said placing the book down in front of Yu and rubbing her forehead irritably.

“So?” Chie countered grabbing some rice crackers from Yousuke.

“It has a picture of Narugami three pages from the end. Even if the other nations think this is some Konoha propaganda the fact that someone was able to take a picture of Narugami and so brazenly print it---something that was never supposed to happen because it’s punishable by a long torturous death--- this book was published outside of Konoha in Wave Country.” Naoto told them, pressing upon them the seriousness nature of what was very wrong.

“I theorize that if I look in the copies printed in Konoha, Narugami picture isn’t printed in it because it would have never passed through censorship if it had, or gotten this second, bigger publishing from an outside source. The fact that this happened at all means three things.”

She held up three fingers and taking a sheet of paper from under the snacks bowl, and a pen started writing.

“First that someone either knows the truth or at least suspects the validity of what Narugami is, and is testing the waters. This means that there a number of moles in Konoha in powerful offices because they were able to oversee the second release in another publishing company and take a picture of Narugami even through the security measures.”

“The second is that whoever is trying to paint a target on Narugami’s head is connected to one of the other nations, though how many I couldn’t say at this point. I do know that this isn’t just a scheme from a random missing-nin. It's far too complex, and time-consuming especially considering that amount of security surrounding Narugami. Even an exceptionally skilled missing-nin would not dare attempt something of this magnitude without backup, which means other ninja villages.”

“The last is more my theory, but from the clues in front of me, I doubt this is something from Konoha’s underbelly.”

Chie frowned. “Why not?”

“Because as power hungry, and profit driven as the bosses are they need Narugami to keep the peace as mediator. Especially in the current political climate. If something happens to Narugami there could be a cleansing by the ANBU. The yakuza are tough but very few are ninja. I can’t see them acting rashly. At least not yet.” She turned toward Yu leveling him with a long look.

“Then we should investigate, shouldn’t we?” Yu said standing.

XXxxxxXX

While three buildings down a certain Hokage felt a chill go down his spine.

XXxxxxXX

Author’s Note: Some serious stuff in this drabble/chapter. I will probably pick up this line of thought further down the road, but I’m more likely to do something funny for the next drabble.

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#persona 4 golden #persona 4 #fanfiction #yu narukami #souji seta #chie satonaka #yousuke hanemura #Kanji Tatsumi #naoto shirogane #Yukiko Amagi #rise kujikawa #marie

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chroniccombustion · 6 years

Text

Caught in the Grey (ch 1)

Genre: Trans!AU, hurt/comfort, romance, angst with a happy ending Rated: T Characters: Souji Seta (Yu Narukami), Yosuke Hanamura, Naoto Shirogane, Investigation Team, Izanagi/Shadow!Souji Warnings: depression, dysphoria, disassociation, self-hatred, implied suicide attempt, suicidal thoughts, mentions of homophobia, implied past child abuse and transphobia, canon-typical violence, mild sexual content Status: multi-chapter, incomplete

Playlist: Spotify | Youtube next chapter ->

He stands on one end of the red-washed roof beneath a sky of blood and onyx and watches himself watch back from the other side.

“I’m fine,” he whispers to the figure across from him.

It shakes its head and sobs. “No,” it answers with two voices – layered over top each other in perfect stereo, one low and one high-pitched. It looks at him with eyes the color of sickness, gold and harsh against the pale, flickering silver of its hair.

“No, I’m NOT!”

Chapter 1: Beauty In the Breakdown

“So let go, let go, and jump in. Oh well whatcha waitin’ for? It’s alright, ‘Cause there’s beauty in the breakdown…”

– (“Let Go”, Frou Frou)

October

“You better have damn good explanation for this!"

Yosuke is livid, incredulous. His voice cracks as he rounds on the girls, asking them how they could have done this, and from somewhere far away, Souji can hear him growing increasingly upset.

He knows that Yosuke has raised his voice in panic and embarrassment, knows that Kanji is nearby, adding his own disbelief to the mix, but everything is… muffled. Distorted. Like he’s hearing it from behind a wall, through a rushing current that’s pounding somewhere inside his head and can’t breathe!

Seta Souji

It’s there, on the list of names under “Pageant Signups” – in scrawled black letters, clear and bold.

Everything is numb.

He curls freezing fingers around the cuff of his jacket sleeve, absently noting that his hands are shaking. He wants to run, wants to bolt, wants to go find a nice, quiet place to hyperventilate, because he can feel his lungs seizing and his vision blurring and he. Can’t. BREATHE.

“…isn’t that right, Senpai?”

Souji looks up. Sharp, manic, eyes wide and chest stuttering. He stares at Rise – because that’s who was calling him, right? – and tries to think. He doesn’t know what she said, has no idea how to respond. Fake it. Don’t crack where they can see. You’re the leader, you’re the leader, you’re the leader…

Crushing down the weight inside his chest he forces himself to soften his eye contact, to school the line of his shoulders so that he doesn’t look like a cornered animal. He evens out his features until all semblance of expression is gone and only a blank mask remains. Jerkily, puppet-like, he gives the slightest nod of his head and consciously pulls up the corners of his lips into what he hopes is a faint smile. His stomach churns.

Rise crows with delight. “See?! I told you, Yosuke-senpai! Souji-senpai believes in us!”

Oh. Oh god.

“Dude, what the hell?!” Yosuke whips around and gives him a look of utter betrayal, his mouth hanging open and eyes bright with indignation. “Why would you agree to this? Do you just want to get paraded around in drag?!”

He feels sick. He feels so sick and he still can’t breathe and the edges of his vision are starting to go all fuzzy and he didn’t mean to agree to whatever she just said.

Oh god oh god oh god oh god

Something acidic climbs up his throat and burns the back of his tongue.

Yosuke is staring at him and Rise is grinning at him and Chie and Yukiko are sniggering and---

“Y-you’re positive we’ll be pretty?”

“Kanji, not you, too!”

He can’t do this. He can’t do this; even with Yosuke’s blistering gaze now turned towards Kanji, (and fuck fuck fuck even Kanji’s agreeing now!) the room still feels too small, too crowded. He needs to get away. He needs out of this whole situation but he knows he can’t escape because he’s trapped. He’s been roped into doing the one fucking thing he would rather chug bleach than do and there is no way to get out of doing it without making everything so much worse.

The girls would demand a good reason for backing out. Kashiwagi probably wouldn’t even listen, would just dock his grades or something if he skipped. He almost wonders if it would be worth it.

He’d do it anyway if he didn’t think somebody would find a way to do something to punish him for it.

I can’t breathe!

Everything is cold. He can’t feel his fingertips as they twist and wrap themselves deeper into his jacket sleeves, nails digging through the fabric to prick at his palms. Is anyone looking at him? He can’t tell. The room dims; a ring of grey static, like the Midnight Channel, fizzles in around the edges of his sight and makes everything around him dull and blurry. His friends are speaking. He doesn’t know to whom. He can’t pick out their voices anymore, can’t make out any words against the thunderous drumming of the river inside his head. It’s too loud, too dark, too cloistering, too much.

He turns. He doesn’t stop to figure out if anyone is calling after him, following him. He doesn’t care. Through muscle memory alone, he manages to get out the classroom door and into the hallway. He wills his legs to move, to push, to carry him forward in the direction of the nearest bathroom, even if he doesn’t know where he is anymore. The hallway is too long, too crowded, too, too, too, and he can’t.

He pushes the bathroom door open, body trembling so violently that he barely makes it inside before he’s throwing himself into a stall, to his knees. He feels them connect with the hard tile floor, is aware of the impact, but cannot feel the pain he knows will be there when he comes back down. He doesn’t feel anything but sick.

He curls over the toilet as if it could offer him salvation and vomits up everything he’s eaten today. Even long after he’s purged his stomach, the roiling is still there; he coughs until the taste of bile and acid sits heavy in his mouth.

The world is finally quiet by the time he’s able to stand again – though whether that’s from the roar in his ears subsiding at last or because the school is starting to empty, he has no idea. He doesn’t care. He washes his hands, his face, his mouth with water from the sink and refuses to look in the mirror as he does. His hands shake so badly that he’s certain there’s puddle on the floor beneath him. He doesn’t care. His breathing is still too shallow, too thin, comes too fast. He doesn’t look in the mirror. He doesn’t think.

It’s only after he hears a quiet creak that he even remembers other people still exist. He glances up from his shaking hands – why is there steam coming from the faucet? Is the water that hot? – forces his head sluggishly up and his eyes blearily over until he thinks he can see just the barest hint of hallway beyond the cracked-open door.

“Souji-senpai?” someone calls from outside. The voice is low, blessedly quiet, like deep blue twilight and old velvet. “Are you alright?”

Naoto.

“I’m fine,” he tries to say. His throat screams at him, raw and papery, like crusted salt. He tries to clear it and winces as the burn nearly makes him choke. “I’m fine,” he says again. It’s weak, scratchy, but louder than before.

Silence.

He wonders if he’d been too quiet, runs his tongue over his lips to try again. He tastes panic and shame.

“Please don’t lie to me, Senpai.”

Damnit.

Of course, even if Naoto wasn’t a detective they’re still the most observant of the team, the most logical. They’re exactly the kind of friend that wouldn’t be fooled or placated by something as weak as his automatic response. Of course they would notice him leaving, would find him even if he’d somehow wound up on the opposite side of the school building. Of course they would call him out for his obviously bullshit answer.

The door creeps wider open and suddenly there is a swath of blue in the line of the doorway. Naoto swings their head from one side to the other – checking the hall – before stepping further into the bathroom and settling their too-keen gaze upon him.

He looks back down at his hands, watches them turn pink, then red under the scalding water.

Naoto gasps softly. “Oh! Senpai…!” There are footsteps, the sound of the door closing, and then there are hands in his line of sight as Naoto reaches over and turns the water to cold. He still doesn’t feel a thing.

He stands there and lets Naoto keep his hands under the faucet, watching the redness of his skin slowly start to recede.

“I’m so sorry.”

He doesn’t look up at them.

There is a pause, a measure of silence before they whisper again. Their voice is calm and level, and he focuses on it rather than the rush of water from the sink, the rush of blood still behind his ears.

“It was only Teddie and Yosuke-senpai that signed us up for the beauty pageant; I tried to tell them that but they had already put your name down as well. I didn’t know…”

Their voice catches slightly, and when he lifts his eyes from his numb fingers he can see them pursing their lips as they stare at their own hands on his wrists.

“I couldn’t stop them. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he whispers back. Because it is okay, even thought it’s absolutely not; he believes Naoto. They’re the newest of the group, but they’re honest, and he knows them well enough by now to know that they’re also the most rational member on the team. They would have agreed to punishing Yosuke for his stunt – he’d like to think they would have stood up for him.

Naoto shakes their head. “It clearly isn’t.” They look up at him then, the movement of their head so sharp and startling that he finds himself looking up at the same time out of shock and catching their eyes. They stare and he can’t look away.

He holds his breath as Naoto opens their mouth to speak. But then, they don’t. They close their mouth again with a soft ‘click’, sighing out their unspoken words through their nose. Their gaze falls back to the mess of hands beneath the stream of water.

“You should see the nurse,” they say instead.

He shakes his head.

No. He absolutely does not want to do that. He’s already going to be poked and prodded enough for the damn pageant, thank you, and at least he can try to keep his friends’ hands on his face and hair and away from the rest of him. The nurse? Not so much.

He tries to say, “I don’t need to”; what comes out instead is a weak, shaky, “I can’t.”

Naoto looks back up at him, their lips pressed into a thin line and their forehead creased in concern. They stare at him for what feels like eons. “...Senpai—“

“Naoto, I can’t.”

And the way his voice breaks, the way his vision blurs, he’s sure he’s close to crying. But he can’t, he won’t, not here, not in front of his teammate, not in the middle of the school building where anyone else could walk in at any moment. He pleads with his eyes instead, because if anyone is clever enough to see hidden meaning in someone’s face, it’s Naoto.

Slowly they nod, and he feels a burst of relief for the first time in far, far too long. He wants to sob.

Naoto sighs and slumps their shoulders, apparently giving in for now. “I understand.” They tilt their head pointedly, searching his face for something he can’t fathom. They must find it, because the ghost of a reassuring smile passes over their features and he feels something inside his chest lift just the tiniest bit. “I really do.”

He should be afraid, he thinks, that Naoto can see through him – even though, out of all of the IT, it was always going to be Naoto that saw him first. He should feel like the floor has been shattered underneath his feet, like he’s falling into blackness again, but no. Not this time.

No one has said anything; no one has spoken the words out loud. It’s Naoto. He’s safe for now.

And he didn’t even have to pull the words from his mouth like shards of broken, bloodied glass. They just knew.

“I’ll do what I can to make sure they don’t go overboard tomorrow,” Naoto is saying. Their fingers uncoil from his wrists and turn the faucet off. (He thinks he can just barely make out the feel of the air on his freezing skin now.) They sigh again. “Chie-senpai and Yukiko-senpai will likely be all too glad to focus on Yosuke-senpai, but Rise-kun…” They trail off, unspoken horrors hanging thick in the air between their lips like oil.

Souji nods. He can feel the cold of his hands now, the leftover sting from the hot water still burning beneath his skin; the room is less fuzzy, now the lights less dim and his vision clearer. He feels himself slide back into his body – not lock into place, he’s still too shaky, too jittery – like a sheet of colored plastic overlaid across a different one to form a new color only where they touch. He’s there, he’s just not solid yet.

Souji flexes his fingers. They hurt. “I’m in drama club,” he rasps. “I can do most of it myself.”

The look that Naoto gives him is full of pain and sympathy – much more emotion than he’s sure anyone else in their group has ever seen. “Awful, isn’t it? That playing pretend has become so natural for people like us.”

The laugh that tears unexpectedly from his chest sounds more like a sob.

---

The next morning dawns like bile against the horizon. Souji watches from the window, barely real as he takes in the sickly yellow of the sun as it rises. A glance at the clock shows he’s been awake for several hours now, unable to stay asleep because of the constant, taunting reminder of what today is; the hummingbird-quick beating of his panicked heart bringing him back to wakefulness any time he managed to doze off from sheer exhaustion.

Numb, nauseous, he drags himself over to the desk and grabs his uniform from where he’d habitually set it out the night before. He feels like nothing, like a wind-up doll as he puts it on. He gathers his things, heads downstairs, passes by the kitchen without even bothering to glance inside. He doesn’t want breakfast right now, doesn’t even want to try and keep his stomach under control long enough to make a bento for later. He stops just long enough to give his little sister a hug.

Nanako asks him if he’s okay.

“I’m fine,” he answers with a strained smile.

---

He runs into Yosuke on the way to school, even though Souji’s absently aware that it’s far earlier than Yosuke actually needs to be leaving his house. But it doesn’t matter, so he doesn’t ask. Yosuke looks about as tired as he feels and at first there is silence.

And then Yosuke opens his mouth and starts to talk.

Yosuke rants about how unfair it is that they have to go through with the pageant, about how it’s totally different for the girls to be up on stage, about how real men don’t wear dresses, damnit, this is so stupid! Yosuke gesticulates as he talks and never once looks over to see the hollowness in Souji’s eyes or to see why Souji hasn’t said a single word to agree with him.

Souji tries and tries to tune his friend out but in the end he feels every word as though it were a splinter of ice burrowing ever deeper into his gut.

Yosuke finally asks him if he’s okay only once the front doors of the school are in sight.

“I’m fine,” he says, and pretends the catch in his voice is a yawn.

---

The day stretches and stretches but still seems to go far too quickly and soon he’s being handed a girl’s uniform and a long silver wig done up in a pair of braids. There are stockings, too, and a padded bra stuffed with what looks like socks pinned inside. He takes the uniform and the wig and stifles the burning, sinking, suffocating feeling that spreads throughout his body so that he can make it to the bathroom to change. Rise calls out to him as he walks stiffly into the hall like a man marching to his execution, asking him if he needs help fastening the bra. He keeps walking as if he hadn’t heard her.

He stands in the stall and tries, tries, tries not to hyperventilate, not to give in to the way his vision blackens and his lungs scream and his stomach – still empty from yesterday – lurches and rolls. His heart pounds like he’s been running, like it’s already escaped and is pleading for him to come with it. He barely manages to hook everything together with how badly his hands are shaking – fingers slipping and nearly dropping everything as he slips the bra fasteners into place. He wraps the socks that had been padding it up in his own uniform and doesn’t think about how well the bra actually fits him without them.

He puts the wig on last while still in the stall. He uses his drama club training and feels for the tabs on either side of the wig, pulling on them until they’re next to his temples. He keeps the stall door closed, keeps his back to it and his head down, even though he cannot see the wall of mirrors over the sinks while he hides behind the door. He squeezes his eyes shut as bits of the wig brush across his cheekbones and does not look at the long silvery strands that now frame his face.

The way the skirt swishes around his legs, the way the shirt hugs his chest, the way his hips look fuller, his waist smaller, his hair longer—

He clamps a hand to his mouth as he gags, body heaving to expel his fear and panic, even though his stomach is so empty it cramps. Sweat breaks out over his forehead and he has to blink back the sting of tears behind his eyelids because everything is wrong wrong WRONG!

It takes everything he has to lock himself away and call up the bone-deep coldness. He slips into the numbing distance, pulling it over himself like a cloak, and pushes everything away until there is nothing left inside but nothing.

Gathering up his things, he finally steps out of the stall and breezes past the line of sinks towards the hallway. He watches himself from someplace far away in his own mind as his body looks dead ahead and refuses to even glance at his own reflection in the mirrors.

Naoto is waiting against the wall just outside the classroom when he makes it back. They take a glance at his mask-like face and their expression twists like they can feel every bit of black, oozing wrongness that has filled his veins and settled into his lungs; like they want to cry every tear for him that lurks behind his frosted wall of forced calm.

He hears them whispering to him as he passes, hears them asking senpai are you okay?

“I’m fine,” he responds, voice like a worn-out recording on an over-played cassette.

---

He doesn’t let Rise do his makeup. He doesn’t let Yukiko or Chie do his makeup either. Thankfully, the latter two have Kanji and Yosuke to focus on to keep them from descending upon him. Rise, though, winks mischievously and waggles a foundation compact in his direction.

He doesn’t want her touching him. Doesn’t want anyone touching him. But he stills just before he can tell her he’ll do it himself because even through the cloak of numbness he knows that to do it himself he’ll have to look in a mirror. His mind stutters, reboots, works his mouth on autopilot and tries again to tell Rise she doesn’t need to help but she isn’t listening. She leans into his personal space with a wide, sweet grin, and he doesn’t want to be upset with her when he knows she’s doing it because of her not-so-subtle crush on him, so he can’t recoil or shove her away like his instincts want to. Luckily his mind and his body are so far removed from one another right now that his knee jerk reaction doesn’t reach his limbs through the void.

He feels the ice encase his heart just a little more solidly and pulls himself further back into his head.

In the end it’s Naoto that winds up doing his makeup. He doesn’t remember them speaking up or shooing Rise away, doesn’t know how he wound up sitting in the far corner of the room with Naoto in front of him like a shield even as they lean in close with a brush.

I’m sorry, their lips say; he can read the words up close like this but the sound is lost behind the echoing cold.

He doesn’t answer, doesn’t know if he’s human enough to remember how. He just sits there and lets them dust the smallest amount of pale brown shadow onto his eyelids. Someone whistles nearby, one of the girls saying something about the ‘natural look,’ but he catches next to nothing else. He can’t even tell who it was that said it – the voice muted like his head is underwater and he’s drowning.

Naoto sweeps something minty-smelling across his bottom lip; a tube of tinted balm, it looks like, not lipstick, but he doesn’t bother trying to read beyond what passes through his peripherals.

He sees Naoto rest their hand tentatively on his shoulder – he can’t feel it, can’t feel anything – and another pained, worried look paints itself over their features. Any other time he would feel guilty about making one of his friends worry, but right now he’s so hollow that he barely even notices.

Naoto turns over their shoulder, eyes suddenly sharp, and parts their lips as though they’re about to speak at someone, when Chie and Yukiko appear in front of them both with matching expressions of glee.

Chie’s mouth moves, quirking upwards as she gives a stunned Naoto a thumbs-up. Yukiko, however, tilts her head at him, appraising. Her mouth moves as well; a great wall of static noise blocks out her words but her lips shape the letters ‘O’ and ‘K” and he absently sees his own head turning to mimic looking in her direction.

“I’m fine,” he feels his body say in his absence.

---

It’s over. The pageant is over. Everything is finally, finally over.

He barely even waits until everyone is off the stage before he’s pulling the wig off his head as though it burns him. He tosses it at someone beside him, not caring whom, and immediately grabs for the bag full of his clothes – his clothes – that someone has apparently stashed backstage for him. (Probably Naoto.)

The world is a blur around him and he all but runs to the bathroom and slams his shoulder into the door. He’s already kicking off the shoes before he even makes it into the closest stall. The first thing off is the stockings, which he nearly trips over as he tries to yank them from his legs as gently – but quickly – as he can, because he doesn’t want to tear them. He’ll have to return everything in one piece; he doesn’t know whom any of this belongs to. He whips them over top the side of the stall and lets them hang there, reaching for the skirt next and hearing something ‘pop!’ as he tugs it down almost before it’s completely unfastened. It joins the stockings in a whirl of fabric.

Still in the top, the scarf, the bra, he unzips his duffel bag and starts grabbing at the clothing inside, not even caring what he pulls out first. He separates a pant leg from a jacket sleeve and drops the jacket back into the bag. As he slides his legs into his pants his knees nearly buckle in desperate relief.

Never again never again never again

The frigid wall, the cloak of numbness, the nothing inside his head; all of it starts to peel and crack and unravel as his violently shaking hands fumble with his button. It takes him far too long to get them fastened, scraping his knuckles on he teeth of his zipper, but when they’re finally, finally, FINALLY ON, the breath leaves his lungs like he’s been slashed open and he has to lurch forward to brace himself against the wall. He trembles, gulps in lungful after lungful of air like a dying man and it still isn’t enough, still feels too shallow. All the color has left his vision, leaving only blacks and whites and greys behind in the ever-tightening circle of static sparkling at the edges of his eyes. He feels unbalanced, off-kilter; his head spins as he continues to try and fill his chest with enough air to keep him above the line of blind panic.

He wonders just how much adrenaline a human body can handle in a day before serious damage is done.

But he can’t relax yet. There’s still the rest of the girl’s uniform, and then the makeup, and he doesn’t know if he has enough left in him to keep going right now. He’s running on sheer luck – body too sick and anxious, deprived of any kind of fuel beyond adrenaline and well-practiced autopilot since yesterday afternoon. And even then, not by much, since everything had come up again after seeing his name on the sign up sheet. How he’s standing he has no idea; how he’s going to make it home, he doesn’t want to think about.

He wills his body to move, to peel off the remainder of the costume – because he has to think of it that way, it cannot be anything else – and locate the toughest part of his own clothing to put back on. He doesn’t look down as he practically rips off the bra, nearly drops his next item of clothing into the toilet in his haste and rising exhaustion. He only gets stuck for a moment as it rolls up underneath itself, but he’s done this before, so many times, in fact, that detangling himself has become muscle memory by now. He rights the fabric, tugs it down over his torso, runs the palms of his hands down the smoother, flatter surface of his chest.

Breathe in. Hold it. Breathe out. Almost done, almost done.

The shirt takes several minutes to button. He keeps getting the wrong hole, keeps slipping as he tries to push the buttons through only for them to resist. He’s better now that he has pants on, more in his own body than he has been in hours, but he’s still not entirely there, not completely whole again. He won’t be until he can put this entire fucking day behind him and he can’t even start to do that until he can get his goddamn clothes on, please just button!

He gives up on the last couple of buttons, letting them hang open; they don’t go low enough to show the flesh-colored fabric beneath, so it doesn’t matter. The rest of the shirt is fastened, though, which is good enough for now. He grabs for his uniform jacket and pulls it on without a hitch. Somehow he manages to get his socks and shoes on without sliding down the wall and cracking his head open on the tiled floor.

He’s stuffing the pageant costume into the bag so he doesn’t have to look at it anymore when he spots the pack of makeup remover wipes tucked into the bottom. He owes Naoto everything, anything; anything they want, he will gladly give them. He will run himself ragged in the TV world to earn as much money as he needs to, if only for this one last kindness that his friend has shown him.

He rips open the pack and feverishly starts to scrub at his face with the first wipe he can get his fingers around. It hurts; even through the numbness still plaguing him and the chasm between his body and his mind he can feel his skin starting to burn. He doesn’t remember if Naoto put foundation on him – he doesn’t think they did – but he scrubs and scrubs and scrubs at his eye makeup, at his cheeks, at his lips, until he can taste copper on his tongue and see stars behind his lids. He grabs another wipe and keeps going. He doesn’t dare step out of the stall until the makeup wipes come away clean.

He washes his face with cold water at the sink, both to clear away the film of makeup remover and to quell the rawness of his skin. He watches the water stream around his freezing hands just like he did yesterday and absolutely does not look up at the mirror.

Somewhere out in the hallway he can hear clock chimes; he counts them to himself long after they’ve stopped.

---

He’s almost human again when he reemerges from the bathroom and finds his way back to his friends. Truthfully he wants nothing more than to hug the living daylights out of Naoto and then roll into a ditch somewhere to sleep for a million years. He can’t, though; he knows he has to make an appearance with the rest of the group or even the most oblivious among them will get suspicious. He doesn’t have the energy to think up a lie.

He shuffles his way into the classroom and sinks down into a nearby chair, legs wobbly and threatening to fail him. Once he can focus on something other than keeping himself upright, he takes a moment to properly look around the room. It’s weird seeing it suddenly, (even through the grey veil still clouding the edges of his vision,) since he’s barely registered anything around him for the past two days. He’s exhausted and probably hungry and really just wants to go home, but there’s still that responsible part of him that thinks he should try and rejoin the living and clean up the classroom with his friends. Though, looking harder, it seems like most of the decorations have been taken down already.

Just how much time did he lose?

“There you are! Damn, I was wondering where you disappeared to.” Yosuke steps over to him, also back in his own clothes, and slumps into the chair adjacent him. There is still makeup on his face, and his hair has a crimp mark where the hair tie had previously been. He looks haggard.

Souji doesn’t say anything I return, only gives his best friend shaky smile that goes nowhere near his eyes; he doesn’t think he can manages human words right now.

Luckily it doesn’t seem like Yosuke notices. Instead, he gives Souji a pitiful look and says, “Duuuuuuude, how’d you get your makeup off? Rise keeps saying she doesn’t have anything because she ‘forgot.’” He snorts sardonically and levels an unamused look over his shoulder at where the girls are snapping pictures of Teddie still in full costume. “’Forgot,’ my ass,” he grumbles. “Probably forgot on purpose just to make us suffer longer.”

Souji makes a mental note to ask Naoto if they paid for his makeup wipes out of their own pocket, and how much he owes them for it.

He doesn’t answer – again – but he does expend a little of what energy he has left to lean over and unzip his duffle bag. He doesn’t let his eyes focus on anything inside, just feels around until the familiar crinkle of plastic reaches him. Covertly, he taps the pack of remover wipes against Yosuke’s knee.

Yosuke looks down, confused, before taking the pack with barely-contained glee. He fixes Souji with a face-splitting grin. “Oh man, you are the best, Partner!” He hurries to stand, shooting Souji a quick, “be right back,” and nigh on sprinting towards the door. He nearly runs into Kanji as he’s leaving, the other boy apparently just now returning from changing out of his own costume with the dress draped over his arm.

Yosuke actually grabs kanji by the elbow and drags him back out into the hallway with a hushed, “come on!” The two of them disappear around the corner.

It would be funny, Souji thinks; probably should be funny, but the whole situation is some kind of overly-customized personal hell, and he’s about two steps away from saying “screw it” and slinking out the door to make his own escape.

He never gets the chance.

Somewhere, at some point in his life, Souji must have cashed in all of his good luck and used it up forever because its only once Yosuke and Kanji have vanished that he realizes there’s no one left to distract the others. Rise spots him first and, with a bubbly, “Senpai, you’re back!” she hurries over and into his space.

“Look!” she beams, holding her phone out towards him, screen turned where he can see. “I took pictures of all of you!”

He makes the mistake of almost looking – even knowing full well what’s probably on her phone screen, he instinctively turns his gaze and catches sight of long silver braids.

Immediately he freezes, doesn’t let his eyes finish focusing on the image now shoved in his face. He can’t. He’s tried so hard, made absolutely sure that any mirror he passed, any reflective surface, any window for god’s sake, was kept just out of his line of vision. He’s tried, for two solid days to keep from looking at himself, to keep from thinking, and now it’s all about to come unraveled because Rise has photographic evidence of this complete massacre of a day.

He shifts his gaze over to Rise’s face instead, looks just past the edge of her cheek and doesn’t meet her eyes. He thinks he might feel his lips twitch cordially upwards at the corners – autopilot yet again – and thinks he might hear himself say something. It might be, “so I see”; it might be, “please kill me.” He isn’t sure. The room is starting to waver in his vision and the river inside his skull has begun trickling to life.

Whatever it was he said must not have been too bad, because Rise just giggles and leans back on her hip, pulling her phone with her. She grins down at it and starts poking at the screen, likely flipping through her pictures.

He wonders if he could make it to the door before she pulls up another one to show him.

Chie and Yukiko wander over, much more relaxed than Rise had been, and while that part is appreciated it’s rapidly becoming too crowded in the little sliver of classroom he’s found himself trapped in. He lets his mind pull away from his body, giving his friends a fake smile and a nod while he tries anxiously to see if he can spot Naoto anywhere. He can’t pinpoint the exact moment his subconscious started hyper-fixating on them, viewing them as safe, as shield, but he won’t complain. For once there is an anchor, a lifeline, even if Naoto can’t really do much right now; it’s been so long since he’s had any form of hope when his panic surges and rolls, tugging at him like a vicious tide. Even just knowing he wasn’t alone in this cage of people would be enough to ground him.

But Naoto isn’t here. Naoto isn’t here and Yosuke – who could have at least pulled their attention away from him – is off in the bathroom and there’s nothing to keep his heart from quickening in his chest like a frenzied moth.

“Hey could you send me those?” Chie is saying to Rise, blessedly not looking at him for the time being. “I’m gonna lord this over Yosuke’s head for weeks!”

Yukiko launches into a laughing fit and the level of static noise in the room ramps up to just shy of too much.

“You got it! Senpai, do you want me to send some to you, too? I got a bunch of cute pictures of you backstage~”

No, please no.

He pulls himself back into his own head on a burst of sheer adrenaline, clutching onto his fight or flight moment of sickening clarity to open his mouth and beg her not to---

A whirlwind of blue dress and blonde wig throws itself at him, practically into his lap, and suddenly Teddie is latched around his arm like a vice.

“Ooh ooh! Send one to me, Rise-chan! Send one to me!” He pulls a little yellow Junes-brand phone out of seemingly nowhere and shoves it into Rise’s hand. “I want a bear-utiful one of Sensei!”

Without even seeming to pause for breath, Teddie wraps back around his arm and sighs dreamily. The blonde wig brushes against his face. It feels too much like the silver one had.

Longer hair, a smaller waist, fuller hips, the swish of a skirt…

His chest is full of cinders.

Teddie beams up at him. He stares back with wide eyes, only vaguely seeing.

“You should have won, too, Sensei!” Teddie says – very loudly, right near his ear. “Just think of it! We could have been heartbreakers together, on the hunt for bear-utiful admirers!”

The cinders in his throat climb higher, choking him, burning everything in their path.

Teddie sighs again. “Sensei makes such a pretty girl.”

Everything whites out.

It’s like being dropped into dark, freezing water; his body is paralyzed, rendered immobile in the sharpest, most bone-deep way, with every inch of skin so cold it feels like a thousand shards of ice digging into him and twisting. It forces the air from his lungs, suspends it in time so that he cannot draw another breath to replace it. He feels the frigid water seep into his mind, his mouth, his chest, feels the way it drains everything from his body until he is so numb he can’t even call his limbs to shake. There is no sound, no voices – only the muted rush of the water as it claims him and fills his head with silence.

---

There are flashes of black and grey in his vision.

From far, far away, he catches a glimpse of himself in the school hallway as he throws himself out into it and against a wall. He sees Yosuke and Kanji, coming casually towards him, sees their faces as he passes, shocked and confused.

He sees the door to the stairwell. He sees the landing halfway down.

He sees Naoto near the bottom, close to the exit to the first floor, heading upwards in his direction. He sees their look of terror as they notice him, the recognition dawning in their eyes, sees them reach out as if to intercept him. He sees himself dodge, sees his body swing itself over the railing and past the last couple of steps, landing wrong and slipping, falling, catching himself with the palms of his hands and using the last of that momentum to fling himself out the door.

He sees the front entrance of the school. He sees the walkway beyond.

He sees nothing after that.

---

The world is dark around him as he slowly blinks his eyes open. He is back in his room at his uncle’s house; he can just barely make out the outline of the desk, the couch, the TV in what faint moonlight filters in through the windows behind him. The wall is hard and unforgiving at his back; the floor is cold on his already-cold legs. Vaguely he notes that he is bare from the waist up, the skin of his arms and chest and shoulders all exposed to the chill of the room.

His hands sting and his knees ache. He has no idea what time it is.

“I’m fine,” he whispers to no one. His voice, though weak and raw, echoes like a temple bell in the maddening quiet of his dark, empty bedroom. In what sounds like a dark, empty house.

He licks at his lips, closes his eyes. He leans his head back again and rests it against the wall. “I’m fine.”

His next exhale is wet and trembling, like the dying breath of a drowning victim, pulled from the river only to die with water in his lungs. There is something crusted under the fingernails of his right hand. He touches it with the tip of a finger from his left hand and finds it thick and sticky beneath the first layer. Something smells sweet and coppery. There is a long stripe of stinging pain across the side of his left arm when he shifts it. He doesn’t focus on it.

There is a buzzing noise and a square of light shines from his pants pocket in the perfect outline of his phone. He lolls his head to stare at it until it goes away. It comes back what feels like a few moments later. Again and again, he watches as it blinks until going dark once more.

“I’m fine,” he whispers as the lead in his bones pulls him down to curl up on the floor against the side of the couch.

“I’m fine,” he whispers again as he lets the exhaustion settle across him like a weighted blanket and slips his eyes close.

“I’m fine,” he whispers like a mantra as sleep finally takes him.

His dreams are full of fog and shadowy places that he does not recognize; a crumbling indoor maze with whispering voices, a rooftop surrounded on all sides by impossibly high chain link fence. He stands on one end of the red-washed roof beneath a sky of blood and onyx and watches himself watch back from the other side.

“I’m fine,” he whispers to the figure across from him.

A wail of anguish rises from their chests, long and loud and keening, and the figure lurches forward to bury its face in its hands.

“No, I’m NOT!”

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hdawg1995 · 7 years

Text

Anyone know what Chie’s hair color was before it was dyed? anyway heres chapter 3.

The Cognitive net; a Persona 4 and Persona 5 cross over fanfic with OCs. Summary:

When a string of missing persons cases all seem to be linked by a far too familiar rumor, detective shirogane tries to enlist the help of her old investigation team. Unfortunately, not all of the original members are able to make it to shibuya-the sight of the latest case- but she finds help from an unexpected hacker and her friends. Elsewhere, a small team of brand new persona users have already figured out the “cognitive web” and it’s strange search engine. Will detective Shirogane and the hacker Alibaba discover the new group of heroes in time to realize this case is not city wide, but WORLD wide?

Chapter 3: Mishima is online/reunion Pt1

1/2/3/4/5

It was three days since the text she sent out to her friends. Chie had dropped by a day later and the two were thoroughly surprised at the other. Chie had exchanged her signature green and yellow sweater for a simple blue jacket with gold “in training” embroidered under the police district’s emblem. Her hair was pinned back in a yukiko style head band as well. It was both a surprise and familiar sight for the detective, but the lack of dye was jarring. Naoto figured the kung fu enthusiast was a bit shocked by her appearance as well- the last time they met face to face she had lacked her hat and suit. The detective uniform must have been nostalgic in a sense; the last time she wore anything remotely like it was during the love meets bonds festival.

Before they met up in shibuya there was an air of anticipation. As they stood among the crowd of people at Shinjuku station that feeling of anticipation washed over them. Will Yu be like Chie and surprise them with an almost total make over? Or will he be like Naoto and appear to not have changed at all? Absent mindedly, Chie pulled out her phone and checked text messages. Yup, he should be here any minute. On cue the announcement of the train’s arrival confirmed her suspicions. The feeling was building up in the young police school attendee, sending her into a familiar and comfortable bounce as she shifted from one foot to the other.

“Satonaka, the last time I saw you do that we were battling shadows. Please calm down.” Naoto’s words were accompanied with laughter as she watched her friend fondly.

“But Naotoooo! Its Narukami!” she gasped and turned around to face the bluenette. “What if he dyed his hair! What if he grew a beard?”

Undenounced to the two girls a silver haired 20 something was walking towards them. When the detective caught sight of him he lifted a finger to his lips. She tilted her head with a smile, the blonde and former fax brunette not noticing or perhaps thinking the head tilt was in reaction to her theories.

“What if he got one of those weird surgeries? Like that reptile guy or tiger man!”

Naoto blinked at her companion with confusion, prompting her to continue.

“What if Yu’s cat obsession drove him to getting whisker implants!”

The silver haired male had to slap a hand over his mouth to cover up his laugh now that he was right behind her. The motion was not left unnoticed however, the police in training turned slightly to see if anything was behind her. Yu took this opportunity to stand beside Naoto.

“Whisker implants? What do you think of that, Yu-san?” the detective smiled up at the slightly taller male.

“Yu-san? Wh-“ Chie turned around so fast her head band became eschew slightly. “n-aruKAMI!” she cried out as she flung herself at her old friend. The three laughed as their former leader pulled Naoto into the group hug.

“If I had the money for whisker implants I would visit everyone more often, Chie.” He gave the girls another squeeze, Chie hugging forty times more tightly than him, bringing a pained noise from him.

“Oh my gosh I missed you so much! We have time to catch up before we start discussing the case.” She pulled away and bounced in place, feeling like a kid again.

Yu smiled fondly at the pair. It has been far too long. He was about to say something when the sound of a phone going off interrupted him. At first he was going to ignore it, but when Naoto motioned for them to start moving with her phone to her ear his playful domineer shifted to a serious one. The trio walked through the crowd until they were out of the station. Once the Fool and Chariot settled themselves onto a bench Yu attempted to begin that catching up Chie had mentioned. The two got a few sentences in before Naoto approached, phone sliding into her pocket.

“Another missing person report was made. The only evidence the person left behind was a cell phone leading to the same website as the other victims.”

The two on the bench stood and nodded. Guess catching up was going to wait till later.

_____________________

somewhere in the cognitive web Mishima clutched his head as he tried to steady himself. His shadow watched from the two seater couch in the small attic space, above him a torn and worn out Phantom thieves flag. He had been thrown onto a poor excuse of a bed, knocking down various merchandises along the way.

“You want answers and I have plenty more. So what’ll it be, Public Relations?”

The shadow fiddled with a teddy bear that bore Fox’s mask as he studied his other half.

Once he was sure the room wasn’t spinning anymore the former high schooler took in his surroundings. There was so much phantom thief merch he would have thought it was the stock room of a gift shop. He knelled to pick up a bobble head he had tackled with him onto the bed. It was Joker, but mishima could have sworn there were never any bobble heads made.

“what is this stuff?”

“you tell me!... oh wait, uhh… yeah I did say I was giving you answers…” the shadow muttered as he set the Fox teddy down and strolled over. “its phantom thief toys. The toys that YOU would sell if only you didn’t puss out and have a change of heart…”

Mishima’s grip on the joker toy tightened as he straightened up. I didn’t have a change of heart… he told me so… he thought as he stared himself down. The shadow picked up a Skull plush doll and looked it over. There was an honestly adorable smile on his face as he chuckled and set the toy on his head.

“Look! I’m the adventure galley!” the shadow laughed as he bounced around the room like a small child, shouting out pirate slang and making canon noises. “This could have been it Yuuki! Can you see it?” he took the skull toy off his head and clutched it to his chest. “All those children full of hope because of the phantom thieves? Because of this…” he walked back over and placed the toy in Yuuki’s hands. “…because of their favorite toy?”

Yuuki set Joker down and examined Skull. There was so much detail, there was no way this could have been a child’s play thing. It was a collector’s item, the kind that people would spend hundreds of dollars on. When he turned the toy over and examined the tag he gasped.

“made with… real phantom thief hair?” mishima stared in disbelief before tossing the doll away in disgust. “what the hell!”

The shadow glared and picked the doll back up. He brushed the dust off and tch’ed at his counterpart.

“Well how else were you going to make any money off of the thieves? Did you think they would give you a cut of the money they make from palaces?” he leaned forward until he was nose to nose with an off balanced Yuuki. “Joker needs that money to make sure the thieves have good equipment. You don’t want to risk Joker’s coat tails after all.”

It was in that moment mishima’s mind cleared. He wasn’t like this, not anymore. He didn’t have a change of heart, he changed his ways himself! The phantom thieves were his friends not a product or cash cow to abuse. With fearful but stern eyes and steady hands Yuuki pushed his Shadow off of him.

“What do you want?” he asked calmly as the shadow smirked down at him.

“I want my one way ticket to fame back! You STOLE that from US when you decided the thieves didn’t owe you shit!”

“The phantom thieves were my friends! O-Our friends!” the subtle hint that Yuuki actually accepted him caused the shadow to falter. He sputtered over his words, giving mishima more room to speak. “We didn’t want to manipulate them! We didn’t want to use them!” he stared at the Skull doll and made a fist with his trembling hands. “We didn’t want to take advantage of them!”

“…yes we did…” the shadow lowered its head and glared up at mishima. “If they had listened to you they would have gone global by July!” the darkness of the attic started to whip around the shadow like it’s own personal storm at its feet. “They gave us so much hope and then you decided to CHANGE!”

The whips of darkness lashed out at mishima and he gasped out in pain when one snagged his arm. The teen yanked hard against the dark force but was unable to free himself. The shadow glowered at him as it sent more whips his counter part’s way.

“We could have had it ALL!”

“What we had was ENOUGH!”

The two mishimas shouted at each other before a skewer attack sliced the whips and sent the two flying from the force. The real yuuki found himself being caught by a man in a toga. When he looked up he was met with a masked face and careful eyes.

“Sounds to us like there needs to be an intervention.” A boy maybe three years younger then mishima seemed to just appear beside the large Greek man.

“Agreed. If you don’t mind…” the shadow stared up with wide yellow eyes at the fangs of a foaming mouthed man beast, the chain wrapped almost chokingly around his neck rattled in time with his snarls. “WE will be the ones getting physical from here on out.” A girl with a wolf like mask placed a hand on the creature’s shoulder. She also had a chain but hers was shackled to a collar. If he didn’t know any better he could have sworn it was the same one around the creature.

The blue raven haired boy was placed down onto the ground by the giant, the fire themed boy beside him nodding his thanks and dismissing him by name.

“Hopefully that will be all, Damon.” The giant nodded and vanished in a whirl wind of binary.

Mishima took in the sight of the group that now crowded the attic- there were five of them, two girls and two boys as well as a talking toy. His chest tightened and he froze with a mixture of fear and excitement- these aren’t the phantom thieves he knew, but could they be the next generation? They certainly didn’t look like thieves and this attic looked nothing like a palace if what he heard of them was correct. On top of that only one of them wore a mask. There was a yelp as the wolf man beast grabbed his shadow with his jaws and threw him forward to land at mishima’s feet. Yellow eyes looked up at him panicked and for a moment all he could see was the scared person he was before Akira entered his life.

“…Before Akira I knew my place in life…” Yuuki knelt down to help his shadow sit up, the people in the room tensed and relaxed at the same time. They were on edge but willing to let him handle this.

“…I was the one everyone messed with. That’s what I told him when he came to change our heart.” The shadow stared at the dusty floor boards. “We had embraced our fate as a zero… as a punching bag.”

One of the girls- this one wore purple and pink with hints of blue and looked like a cat girl themed idol- came up to the two of them, a robotic arm clinging to her wrist as one of the boys followed her. She looked hesitant and he looked ready to rein her in at any second.

“That sounds terrible…” she muttered as she too knelt down.

“haha… you don’t know the half of it.” both yuukis muttered together, the synergy startling them both. The shadow looked up from the floor boards to stare at the real yuuki before relaxing and closing his eyes. “We were zero our whole lives. And then it turns out our best friend was the infamous Phantom Thief known as Joker.”

The group in the attic started muttering to each other before the cat girl continued.

“oh! I heard of the phantom thieves! They were everywhere two years ago.” She giggled in such an innocent and cute way yuuki already felt calmer in her presence. “I was Panther for halloween one time when I visited America!”

“That really doesn’t surprise me.” the robot standing behind her shook his head with a smile.

“you’re just jealous you could never pull off such a sexy outfit! ME on the other hand-“

“Focus Skitty.”

The wolf like leader barked and the cat nodded. She cleared her throat and studied the two yuukis. “If you don’t mind me asking, but what happened after your friend came into your life?”

“I had a friend for starters. I had hope-“ mishima started, smiling fondly at his hands to avoid showing off his blush to these strangers.

“-Hope and a chance at fame! A chance at popularity! And… and then they came for Me.” the shadow finished as he glared at the wall behind Skitty.

The shadow stood, Skitty and Mishima following suit. “They all came to change MY heart of ALL people.” the whips formed again and lashed out at the Mona doll that sat next to a turned over Joker teddy, the stuffing flying everywhere as the shadows disappeared again. Shadow Yuuki appeared to go limp and silent.

Mishima studied him for a moment and then walked over to the torn up toy. The fur felt very cat like and he instantly dropped the toy when he remembered the Skull doll.

“hmm… could there be two different point of views here?” the robotic boy questions the room.

Mishima went wide eyed. He never thought about that. What if Akira lied to him about Mishima changing his own heart? What if…

“Are you still answering questions, me?” Yuuki turned to fully face his shadow now. The being only nodded.

“Please. What did Joker tell you when the phantom thieves came to change my heart?”

The room was quiet as the shadow remained silent. After a beat he straitened up and looked Mishima in the eyes.

“He said… I told him I knew it was wrong and… he said… when I asked…”

“Take your time. There are two sides to every story.” the fire themed boy patted the shadow on his back, the shadow’s eyes flicking to life again. He stared dumbly at the boy and breathed in a sigh.

“Joker said ‘there isn’t any need’.”

Mishima blinked at that. He laughed and walked forward to the shadow. “That’s what Akira told me when I asked if he had changed my heart.”

The shadow reached for the skull doll and carded his hand though the blond strands.

“Skull… he… said… haha…” the shadow held the doll up and tried to mimic the brash male’s voice. “hes already learned his lesson from hanging out with us awesome heroes.”

Mishima scratched the back of his head. “You called them awesome?”

“WE called them awesome.” The various merchandise in the room faded and the shadow laughed happily. “You mentioned it a few times already. You already accept me… and… you’re right. I would prefer these heroes as my friends than profits.” Yuuki nodded and extended his hand to his shadow. The two shook and when the shadow faded something in the back of Yuuki’s mind told him something was wrong.

His hands trembled as the world around him turned into HTML code. He couldn’t hear anything and all he saw was code. He gasped for air but couldn’t breathe. He reached out to the code and he realized a lot of it was familiar.

“The phan-site!” he cried out and his hands trailed over the code he made. Little by little he pieced it together.

Meanwhile, the Admins of the Cognitive Web stared in awe as the telltale signs of the Data Card transformation was not only interrupted but reversed. The HTML code flickered to gold that faded to blue and soon enough a boy in a white and pastel blue suit with head phones and a simple mask slowly appeared from the code.

He looked himself over; he looked ready for a high school prom or even a bank heist. Mishima laughed loudly and jumped in the air with a fist pump as he bounced around and took in his form.

“Whoa! Its like I’m a phantom thief!”

“Well, if you want…” the wolf leader approached him and he took a step back in fear. “…you can join us as Admins. Help others who get dragged into the internet by their Shadows.”

Mishina slowly took those words and turned them over in his mind. He really did get dragged into the internet from that search engine. What would Akira do? He thought as he looked over the outfit again. The word Admin floated about in his mind. He knows what kind of responsibility that title holds. Hes used to the power and how it can corrupt. He looked up to the wolf and nodded.

“Yeah. I mean, how many of you have been actual Administrators for a website before?”

All but the robot looking boy stared blankly. “Well that settles that. I will be joining you.” Mishima folded his arms and nodded with a smirk.

Skitty purred up to him, causing him to blush.

“You look ready for a dance at a masquerade, why don’t you and I learn to tango? ~” Skitty had moved her fingers up the boy’s arm until her arm was draped over Mishima’s shoulder.

The boy gapped at the girl and attempted a smile but failed non the less. Eventually the mechanical arm of the robot boy removed Skitty’s claws from their new member.

“Down kitty cat. I swear your user name should be jail bait, not Skitty.”

“Oh shut the fuck up J four K three! Alphaaaa, Jake is teasing me!”

“Click, defuse this. I wish to have a meeting with the former phantom aficianto website Admin. Not only me, but…” the wolf girl turned as the attic faded and off in the distance two figures stood.

“Hero and his partner want to have a meeting too.”

Mishima leaped at the chance to be away from the flirtatious cat, but when he landed he was no doubt in the lion’s den.

#Cognitive Net #persona 4 #persona 5 #cross over #fanfiction #fanfic #original characters #i don't know if there is a canon for yosuke and chie's original hair colors but i was really tempted to make chie's natural hair color blue #i dont know what else to tag this as

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