Persona 3: Another Encounter
By: Ominae
Rating: T
NOTE:
All characters of Persona 3 (Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 for you peeps based in North America) are under the copyright of Atlus.
Summary:
When Kenji Tomochika's heart was broken by seeing Emiri going to get married to someone else, he decided to make himself strong in mind and body by enlisting in the JGSDF after graduating from high school. Set in a few years after the events of Persona 3.
The year is 2018, 6 years after Kenji Tomochika had graduated from Gekkoukan High. He had changed since his initial affairs with a teacher named Emiri Kanou, or rather Kanou-sensei, had broken his heart after news of their affair had initially broke out from the ranks of the school's faculty. After he found out that Kanou-sensei was going to get married, Kenji had a profound change. During his remaining years, he had a drive within him that suddenly resulted in earning good grades and awards. His sudden change had shocked many of his friends, teachers, peers, classmates and his family.
With Tomochika's graduation from Gekkoukan High with high marks and a spot in his batch's history as a slacker-turned honor student, it was said in his yearbook that he was most likely to succeed after high school life. During the 1st anniversary of the graduation of Kenji's batch, rumors began to spread that he had joined the JGSDF. Soon enough, one of the graduates who had been a journalist had confirmed the rumors when he said that Kenji made his first appearance as a JGSDF soldier with the rank of Leading Private in a JGSDF East Army parade after confirming a snap shot of a group of JGSDF East Army soldiers that showed Kenji in front of its formation.
No one knew where Kenji had went on from there, but it was said that he had enlisted to join the JGSDF's counter-terrorist unit, the Special Operations Group, in order to get away from the attention that he had received from his ex-classmates from his Gekkoukan days when he realized that some of them were trying to get into contact with him. Though lately, he had opened up a bit to some of his ex-classmates who had either seen him or visited him in the Nerima garrison.
Bleachers, Higashi-Fuji Training Area, Gotemba, Shizuoka, Japan
"Welcome to all the visitors of the Higashi-Fuji Training Area. Today is the 11th anniversary of the foundation of the JGSDF's Central Readiness Force. We hope that you will all enjoy the events that we had planned for you. For the first event, please welcome the brave soldiers of the CRF's Special Operations Group."
"Oka-san! Look!" A little girl, somewhere around 9-10 years of age, pointed to her mother one particular SOG operator, armed with a Colt M4A1 assault rifle, who was leading his unit into securing a mock building full of armed terrorists as part of the maneuvers in showcasing the skills that the CRF has.
"See, Michiko." Her mom replied. "That brave man's down there just to show us how he can keep you and me safe from bad people."
However, the woman saw that one of the soldiers prior to the commencement of events looked a bit familiar. In fact, he looked a bit way to familiar.
Masaka! Is he... She then shook her head. Calm down, Emiri! It's probably a coincidence that he looks like him...
Feeling someone tug down on her hand, the woman looked down to see her daughter who stared at her strangely.
"Oka-san! What's wrong?"
"Nothing." The woman smiled. She then watched the demonstration as the SOG units began to assault the building and gun down the mock terrorists.
But maybe it wouldn't hurt if I could ask someone...
Meeting Area, Higashi-Fuji Training Area, Gotemba, Shizuoka, Japan
"Well, that went well."
A JGSDF soldier with the rank of Sergeant had his Colt M4A1 rifle slinged on his back with its safety on after taking off his Type 88 helmet and ballistic goggles, placing the latter into his left pants pocket with the former under his right armpit, while still having his balaclava on since he wasn't cleared yet by the SOG's commanding officer of the day. After the day's events were done, most of the participating JGSDF soldiers were in the designated meeting area to see their family and friends who had went to the Higashi-Fuji Training Area to visit their loved ones and friends in the exhibition. But this particular soldier didn't have anyone to see him.
Otou-san and Oka-san can't go this year due to a business meeting in America. Which leaves me alone again since last year. But why do I have a feeling that I'm about to meet up with someone familiar?
"Hey!"
When he heard a voice shouting, the masked soldier turned his head to the left to see a mother with her child being escorted by a JGSDF officer with the rank of Captain.
"Sergeant Tomochika! There's someone to see you!"
"Sir?" Kenji saluted while under the cover of his balaclava.
"I'll give you a few minutes since the lady was asking to see you. Make sure to turn in your gear when you're done. Oh, you can take the mask off. I'm allowing it since we're done for the day."
"Understood." After Kenji saluted his superior and watched him leave, he turned to see the woman standing in front of him. He observed that the lady was in her early to middle '30s.
"Can I help you, miss?" Kenji asked the lady in front of him.
"So you're Kenji Tomochika, right?" The very question posed to him brought some chills down his spine. He didn't know why he was being asked of his name, but Kenji thought that he better answer her.
"How do you know me?" Kenji was stunned to hear that the woman was somehow familiar with him.
"Do you remember me? Kanou-sensei. We first met back in Gekkoukan High in 2009."
Masaka! THE Kanou-sensei who dumped me after seeing her leave with someone else..." Bad memories began to emerge through Kenji's mind, remembering the day that he went with Minato to catch up with Kanou-sensei when she was seen with another man.
"So why are you here?" began Kenji, his voice was now a bit angry. "Why are you here after all this time?"
"Please Kenji-kun." Emiri pleaded. "I only wanted to see you since I was in the area."
"You being here just brings back bad memories." huffed the masked Sergeant. "I don't even want to talk about it. Right now, you should get back to your husband..."
"Kenji-kun. Let me explain myself." Emiri pleaded again, who nearly wanted to cry. Seeing that Kenji was willing to listen to her, she narrated on her experience after leaving Gekkoukan.
"After I left Gekkoukan due to the affair that we had, I transferred to a different school when I met my husband from my college days. We got married after I got the transfer approval in Kyushu."
Somehow, Kenji felt like puking when he remembered about that event. Just trying to remember it from Emiri's words began to make him feel sick.
"But I got got divorced recently though. So right now, I'm taking care of my daughter." Emiri knelt down to her daughter and pointed Kenji out to him. "Michiko, this is Kenji-kun. He used to be my student when Oka-san was a teacher in Gekkoukan High."
"Hi." Michiko said shyly.
"You have a wonderful mom, Michiko." Kenji said, his tone changed when he spoke to the little girl. "Be sure to listen to her."
"Hai!" Michiko nodded.
"I'm sorry if I had to ditch you after news about us broke out from the faculty." Emiri said, who apologized to Kenji. "Back then, you were just a young student and I was your mentor. I felt that it wasn't right..."
"Right or not, you didn't know how I felt!" Kenji began to shout, some of the soldiers and bystanders staring at him. While Emiri and Michiko began to feel a bit embarrassed, Kenji didn't care if the entire world was watching him like they were in one of those kabuki dramas that he had seen as a child via channel surfing. He then took off his balaclava, revealing the same brown hair and black eyes that he had. But his facial expressions showed anger and sadness at the same time.
"When I overheard you leaving with that man, I felt like the world crashed down on me." Kenji's eyes swelled up a bit, which was about to give out tears. "I didn't know why I began to study hard, locking myself in my room in my house or studying in the library for hours and days, getting high marks and being awarded for being an honor student. I didn't care about those, I only did it just to avoid remembering you and what you did to break my heart..."
"Kenji-kun..." Emiri whispered, not believing what she had heard.
"I just can't accept that you left me for someone else and then you coming here to tell me that you've divorced from that guy!" Kenji soon shouted again. "What is this? Some kind of sick joke?" Reminds me of when I wanted to slit my damn wrists when I came back home after seeing her in the station...
"Let me explain..." Emiri said in reply.
"I guess that you can't get enough from that man of yours that you came to see me so that we can work somehow out, huh?" Kenji smirked, bringing a bit of anxiety to Emiri. "Well, let me tell you. There is no damn way that we can fix this problem! You're the one who did it! You better find a better way that we can work this out. You understand me, woman!"
Emiri saw a tear emerge from his right eye before Kenji donned his balaclava and his Type 88 helmet. "I just don't know myself, Kanou-sensei." He then glared at her from under his balaclava. "Iya. Emiri-san." Kenji sighed after glaring at her for one last time. "And I thought that I would be able to get away from my past..."
With that, Emiri began to cry when she saw him walk away towards the training area's meeting point for SOG soldiers who were scheduled to head back to the Narashino camp since the day's events were over. Not one soldier tried to stop Kenji while the civilians were stunned to see what had taken place.
Gomen nasai, Kenji-kun. Emiri cried after seeing Kenji leave. Michiko didn't know what to do except to stick around with her mom until some JGSDF soldiers arrived to tend to Emiri while the others tried to locate Kenji in order to bring him to his commanding officer of the day after he was told by some civilians of what had taken place.
THE END
PS - Hope this fic was okay. Not sure if the angst was good enough for you angst-type fans out there or whether it was fine. Haven't done this for a while now... Let me know when you review later.