A/N: Persona 4. True ending spoilers. If you aren't aware of the December 24th super-bad ending, search for a video titled: "P4 - Murdered "The Final Hour" by MasterLL on YouTube for the fic to make complete sense. Revolves around the 'go-back-a-week' solution Igor offers when you miss a deadline; specifically, the one on Christmas Eve. An older fic, reposted from Livejournal (hey, when I post Kanji/Naoto, I like to team it with something ensemble.)
The first time, you simply wait too long.
It's nobody's fault. The end of the year, Adachi said, and December 24th isn't even close. Naoto's strangled cry crackles through the cellphone speaker and you tell yourself, there was no way to know.
And you're familiar with what comes next, because it's happened twice before. Yukiko's castle towered floor after floor and your powers were too raw and too unfamiliar. Six months later, Naoto's world remained as unreachable as the boy prince. Experience is a harsh teacher and you're expecting the sharp pain through your skull; the buzz of static; the way the room seems to fold in on itself.
You're also expecting to see Margaret and Igor against the dark blue seats of the limousine - but instead, there's only a few seconds of bright white silence before you jolt awake in your bed. The calendar on the wall is set to December, sixteen days are crossed through, and you think maybe, maybe there's something you're forgetting.
…Can't be that important.
"You okay, partner?" Yosuke asks.
When you don't answer, he frowns. He shoves his open can of soda in your hands and tells you to drink it, maybe you need the sugar. TaP, you realize after the first swig. It tastes like rusted metal. You keep drinking anyway, rather than hurt his feelings.
"Bet even fewer people show up at school today," he murmurs. "This fog's the thickest yet."
You're about to tell him he's wrong; the fog just before Christmas was much worse, it swallowed all the lights at the food court.
Except it's Monday. Christmas isn't for another week.
So you nod, wondering how you muddled up the dates so badly, but the pause in the conversation lasted too long. Yosuke shakes his head.
"I swear, Souji, it's like you're on autopilot." He rolls his eyes, fingers twirling the cord of his headphones. "You should take a day off."
Preparation is vital, and you spend the next two afternoons inside the television. Your Personas are volatile, though. You call Odin and Ishtar answers. Uriel's Agidyne becomes Hamaon. You're no less erratic yourself - and now Chie sits on the floor of the Secret Lab, clutching her bloodied shoulder.
"Jeez, Souji," she hisses through clenched teeth, "pay more attention!"
Midway through a battle with two Hell Knights, your mind went blank. You tell Chie this, followed up by a mumbled apology. You don't tell her that the room itself vanished for a moment - dissolved into white - because that couldn't have happened. Chie just grunts and Yukiko shakes her head, Amaterasu shimmering behind her.
Kanji, however, pulls you to one side. He's been jittery all afternoon. "Senpai… listen to me, okay?"
You nod, and he launches into a stumbling, messy insistence that the team needs to go after Adachi, not waste their time training, they're strong enough already. "He's still in here somewhere," he says. "We gotta stop him."
Of course, you tell him. A few more days and you'll be ready. No need to rush; you have until the end of the year.
The hospital calls on Friday, two days before Christmas. Nanako isn't doing well. You'd planned another training session - perhaps even an excursion into Magatsu Inaba - but it'll have to wait. Family comes first. You've been saying this to yourself since November, in the vague hope it might bring your cousin and uncle home.
Rise tells the others on your behalf and Yosuke goes with you to the hospital. There's no real purpose to sitting at Nanako's bedside, not while she's comatose, but you like to think she can hear you. You tell her what you've been doing at school, how nice the New Year decorations at Junes look, that Teddie misses her. Izanagi scratches inside your head the whole time - listen boy listen listen listen - until the words become meaningless and you easily push him aside. Nanako deserves your full attention.
On the way out the hospital doors, Yosuke puts his arm around your shoulders. "It's okay," he tells you, with a conviction you almost envy. "We'll get Adachi and Nanako'll be fine. You'll see."
You stop at Junes on the way home. Yosuke skipped half a shift to visit Nanako and he needs to finish up with Teddie, so you wander to the food court. Strings of red and white lights cover the fences, almost swallowed by the fog, and Naoto and Kanji sit opposite each other at a table. Perhaps they didn't get Rise's message.
Kanji spots you first and calls you over to sit down. He fidgets in his seat. "Hey… when do we get to go after that bastard?"
After Christmas, you tell him. Nobody's ready yet.
Naoto visibly pales. "… I apologize. I need to go indoors." She isn't feeling well, she says, but she'll be fine, just needs more sleep.
Kanji watches her leave. "Something ain't right," he says, perhaps to you, perhaps to himself.
He has a point. There's something missing here; something you should be doing. And you know, somehow, that it's crucial, that everything would work out fine if you could just remember.
You don't. Naoto calls at midnight on December 24th, chokes out a final panicked scream, and the world rewinds.
Everything's oddly familiar, and you spend the week trying to understand why.
Yosuke hands you a soda. You need the sugar, he says, you're looking exhausted these days. Maybe he's right. In the television Chie leaps in front of you, takes a glancing blow from a Hell Knight's sword and lectures you afterwards. She didn't need to help, you think. Or perhaps she did. Perhaps she was supposed to. There are patterns, grooves worn in the dirt - and when Kanji angrily insists you need to stop Adachi right now, you're only half-listening.
There's the hospital, always: Nanako motionless in a bed and Yosuke's arm around your shoulders. The machines around her bed beep and buzz. You'll fix everything. No problem. This time, Yosuke sounds a little less convinced. At Junes - the food court, hazy Christmas lights and bitterly cold air - Kanji taps his foot against the ground and Naoto shivers. Sorry, sorry, she has to go indoors, bad dreams lately, that's all. Nothing more. Kanji watches her leave and you walk home to an empty house for the forty-eighth day in a row.
It's a week filled with echoes, flashes of white, and patterns inside patterns. It's almost comforting.
Still, Izanagi's voice persists, and Christmas Eve finds you sitting in bed wondering exactly what you're forgetting. Two minutes before midnight, you remember - far too late, of course.
The taste of metal. Yosuke walking beside you.
Jeez, Souji, pay more attention!
Kanji, near furious when he corners you inside the television. Why isn't the team fixing things, why isn't Adachi locked up by now, why don't you ever listen (and Izanagi echoes: listen, listen)
You want to tell him you don't know - but that isn't what happened.
Something ain't right.
Yosuke's holding you up as you leave the hospital, and the steady buzz of machinery echoes behind. Everything will be fine, he says, and he sounds like he knows he's lying.
The entire town, it's filled with Shadows…!
The digits on the clock roll over, and everything turns inside out.
You okay, partner?
The walls are brilliant, blinding white and a breeze blows through an open window that stretches from floor to ceiling. The world outside is a painting: bright sunshine, lush green fields, patches of flowers that burst into colour.
But inside, the air is cold. You're sprawled on a bed - white sheets - and a woman sits on the edge of the bed: white robe and spun silver hair, so beautiful (so familiar) your eyes ache.
You ask her where you are - because you went backwards, you think, and that means you should—
Hush, she says. When she kisses you, she leaves the bitter tang of metal on your tongue.
The sun never sets. There's only brilliant afternoon sunshine, green grass, streams and waterfalls that sparkle crystal in the light. You sleep sometimes, perhaps. It's difficult to tell.
The woman stays in the room. Her robe tangles in the bedsheets and the sunlight merges them into one expanse of white.
Do you like it here? she asks.
You nod. It's quiet, at least, and you're tired.
Her lips - pale white too, you notice - curl into a smirk. You're not going to leave, not this time. She moves like a spider, long limbs that wrap around you like the sheets, and you imagine webs of silk spinning in her wake.
You remember some things, maybe.
First there's a boy, headphones and an awkward grin, and a girl in a hospital bed. Soon, more appear: other figures that stumble in and out of your awareness. A blond boy in a shop apron; a girl in red crouched by a girl in green; a boy wearing skulls kicking at the ground; someone in blue running through a street at midnight. All fractured mosaics. You try to shift around the remaining pieces, to fill the gaps - this one here, another there - but too many are missing.
When you ask the woman about this, because you think she might know who they are, she just laughs.
Sometimes the room vanishes - and you're in a classroom, or the Secret Base, or sitting on a food court bench. It never lasts very long.
(I swear, Souji, it's like you're on autopilot.)
The room's white, the light's bright, the woman stands by the window, a black outline against the sun.
(Jeez, Souji, pay more attention!)
The sheets are cool, even when the sun's at its height and even when she presses tight against you on the bed.
(Senpai, listen to me, okay?)
You should remember why you're here, you think. You're just not sure you want to.
She straddles your hips and her cold hands glide along your stomach. Her skin's as pale as the robe, the sheets, the walls. Izanagi, she whispers.
The violent twitch in the back of your skull almost - almost - makes you snap your hands around her neck. The sun's still shining, though, and it isn't so bad, you tell yourself. Nothing's really that bad - so you lie still, close your eyes, and forget everything.
Time's an abstract concept here. It makes no difference.
When you wake, hours or weeks or months later, the woman is gone. You try to stand but the room's already dissolving into your own: futon, sofa, shelves. It's ten minutes to midnight, twenty-three days are crossed through on the calendar, and you can't explain why your cell's already clutched tight in your hand.
Seven minutes and forty-four seconds later, you realize. When the call comes, you don't answer.
The world rewinds as always, and you're back in the white room but the woman isn't there. Instead, there's a man in a rumpled suit perched on the bed.
He laughs. "Wow. You really keep screwing this up, don't you?
You're supposed to know who he is. Supposed to do something else, too.
"I think you need a little clarity," he says. Then the room shudders, dissolving again - too soon, surely? - as the white walls turn dirty green and the tiles shift to rotting wood. There's a chair in the middle of the floor and a looped rope hanging from the ceiling.
"Better?"
You're on your back against a bent metal bedframe and the air smells of dust and mildew. So, no, you tell him, not at all. You miss the light and the cold sheets and the woman whose name you never quite remembered.
"She's trying to keep you, Seta. Making you forget. But she's mine. You understand?" When he grins, his eyes gleam. "She wouldn't want you anyway. Not when you're too stupid to figure this out."
You shake your head. He's lying. Of course she would.
"So pull yourself out this loop, idiot. Remember, you got the dates wrong. You took too long." He taps your forehead with his fingers. "Just remember."
Senpai, can you hear me?
The man smiles. "Maybe you'll figure it out this time," he says. "Maybe not. Maybe I'll see you again."
Senpai! Wake up!
Your vision flashes white, just for a moment - and the man is gone. You're inside the television, in Mayumi Yamano's single-roomed world, slumped over the metal bed. Yosuke bursts through the door and the others follow close behind. "Souji!"
Chie shoots you a glare, one hand clutching her shoulder. "Why didn't you answer us? Or Rise? We were worried!"
You sit up, head suddenly clear. Sorry, you say. You must have been sleeping.
Yosuke's laughing, and only half with relief. "Seriously, Souji, you fell asleep in here?"
It sounds strange, come to think of it. You thought you were dreaming, you tell him, but maybe you were wrong.
"Hey… you okay, partner?"
There's an itch inside your skull. Something you should be remembering?
…Can't be that important. Everything's fine, you tell Yosuke, and you smile.