Story Title: The Velvet Room's Fools
Author: Mathais
Rating: T
Fandom: Persona 3, Persona 4
Warnings: Spoilers for everything in the two games.
Pairings: Elizabeth/Minato, Margaret/Souji
Summary: Elizabeth has found a way to release her guest from his Seal: by replacing it with a similar soul at the brink of death. Margaret objects to who she chooses.
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters and elements of the Persona series. I'm just here to play.
Note: Done for badbadbathhouse here: http:/badx2bathhouse. livejournal. com/543. html?thread=643103#t643103.
OoOoO
He fell to the ground once more. He could barely see beyond the blood that streaked across his eyes and his sweat-matted hair. He couldn't feel his left arm anymore, and the bones in his right were fractured, but with all of his desperation he still held onto his sword.
It was futile, he knew.
But he had never given up before.
With the conviction that let him claw back from Death itself, he stood once more.
The woman before him looked sad but resolute as she opened her tome. "Why don't you understand? I finally found my answer."
Blood welled in his throat. He gritted his teeth and grimaced as crimson surged past and dripped down his chin, but he refused to respond.
"You're almost like him. Your souls may be close enough that if I just... If I just..."
His eyes tightened as darkness began encroaching at the edges of his vision.
He didn't have much strength left.
"You've each gone through your journeys. You each have nurtured your potential. So why, why do you get to live?" A single card rose from her book. Though its features were indistinct, he knew that card. It would spell the end of him.
It was useless. He never accepted defeat gracefully though. The dregs of his power swam through him as he scraped the very bottom of his soul, but he still willed his card to life.
"Izanagi—" he whispered through the pain and crushed the card with broken fingers. Izanagi-no-Okami, still proud and pristine in spite of his master's condition, rose above him. With a wordless cry and the spin of his pole-arm, Megidolaon dropped from the sky like the hammer of the gods.
In the aftermath of his power, he stood, silhouetted by his Persona as if it were protecting him. The woman, however, looked barely affected by the spell, though he was gratified to see her clothing, clothing of such a deep, familiar blue, was singed, even as his head and vision swam with the fact that he had nothing left to give.
He would face his future on his feet.
"I just... I just want to see him again."
Izanagi-no-Okami did not fade as he raised his sword to face the new threat. Pixie, oh so familiar and oh so damning, rose when the woman shattered her card. As the Persona raised her deceptively tiny arms to call down immense power once more, all he could think was that, this time, all of him would face it head on.
He refused to close his eyes as certain defeat fell onto him.
Power blasted him into the sky, except...
He was warm. It wasn't that he was numb to the pain but, rather, someone had shared their warmth. When he looked up, he saw blue. His cracked lips spread out into a small smile, and he said, "Margaret."
She smiled beatifically down at him. "I told you, didn't I? If your soul should ever become isolated, I would do whatever it took to free you. Now rest, I will take it from here."
Amid the light of Diarahan and finally able to let go, he closed his eyes and blacked out.
OoOoO
Margaret's smile, the one she had pasted on for her guest's sake, cleared when she surveyed her opponent. She was furious. It had been a long time since she'd felt such anger, though it didn't show through the neutral expression on her face. "Elizabeth. What do you think you are doing?"
"Sister," Elizabeth gasped. "You now stand in my way?"
"Once I understood what it truly meant to bond with a guest, I swore that I would not impede you," Margaret stated in a clipped tone. That was the truth she'd found when she fought her guest and his friends and came out the loser. "But, this is my guest, and I will not let you take him in your quest."
"I will not stop. I have found my answer, and I will do it." Margaret watched as Elizabeth raised another card out of her tome, and her eyes sharpened. This would not be easy, but she would be ready. "Even if I have to go through you."
"Then, it looks like I'm going to have to teach you a lesson." Her pose was still relaxed, but her own Compendium opened in her hands, cards shuffled into the pages like miniature stars.
Margaret was ready when the fires of Maragidyne surged out from Surt. She called Loki to her aid, the ice of Cocytus Pain rendering the flames to nothing.
"I met your guest as well," Margaret told her sister as she switched Personas and blasted out with more than little sharpness in her tone and magic. The lightning of Narukami seemed to disappear amid the winds summoned by Cu Chuliann, but Margaret knew better. Some bolts struck true, and Elizabeth was forced back at her power. "He was strong, powerful. He cared for people."
"He deserves better," Elizabeth retorted. She flung her signature tarot cards, which Margaret negligently knocked aside with a twitch of her wrist. Margaret knew her sister's abilities too well to attempt status spells, and so she called Oberon to bestow the power of magic onto herself in preparation for a long battle. "He cared so much, and the reward to his journey is eternity as the Seal," Elizabeth continued as she invoked Jack Frost, with the cold it brought matched by the chill in Elizabeth's voice.
"Silly girl, you told me that you were going to work with those who cared for him to free him from the Seal," Margaret said as she took the brunt of Mabufudyne unwaveringly, the coldness in her voice matching the one buffering her body. Even inside of that ice, however, the faint stirrings of anger bled into her stance. "You never said that it would involve replacing him." Margaret crushed the card she prepared, Meltdown spewing from Siegfried's plunged sword in a raging inferno.
"It makes sense," Elizabeth insisted and powered through the flames, surprising Margaret. Thor appeared before her, using the divine Mjollnir to call down Maziodyne's lightning. Margaret was forced to retreat as Elizabeth followed up with a barrage of cards, each one as sharp and cutting as her tone. "They both began as the Fool, taking the Fool's journey to Judgment. They reached their answers together with the help of their friends. They have each etched their wills onto the divine." Elizabeth's tone dropped in desperation, with a Magarudyne swirling into life at Cu Chuliann's command when her attacks were parried. "He can form the Seal, and then—"
"And you fail to see the subtleties," Margaret retorted, Oberon granting her strength to weather Elizabeth's storm. It took all of her remarkable self-control not to just snap back at her little sister. "My guest is not the Judgment; he is the World. Your guest remains the Judgment, but not just that. He is Death and the Universe as well. This combination—"
"—exists within your guest as well," Elizabeth finished, Thor's lightning punctuating her statement. Margaret flinched as lightning crackled across her frame, and Elizabeth continued, "He has been touched by Izanami; Yomi is with him. He has the power of Judgment dwelling inside, and his World is almost as strong as my guest's Universe." Each statement was accompanied by either a smash of her book or a thrown card, all of which Margaret barely parried. "It will work."
"And if it does not?" Margaret countered. She twisted her wrist and sent a stream of cards at Elizabeth, pouring all of her frustration into the attack. Her sister dodged it and its follow-up when the snaking cards arced back. "Even if this can free your guest, what of the Seal he left behind? Will that continue to hold?"
"It does not matter!" Desperation once again rang in Elizabeth's tone, and Maragidyne once again surged from Surt. In the light given off by the flames, Margaret saw.
For the first time, Margaret saw the depths to which Elizabeth was willing to sink. She had left the Velvet Room, but that was acceptable. But now, now she was threatening to damn the world and the humans they had fought so long for, that her master loved, that her guest defeated a god for, and that, above all else, spurred her to action.
For this entire battle, she had remained on her feet, trying to reason with Elizabeth, even with her own emotions swirling inside. But, no longer.
Elizabeth's eyes widened when Margaret rose off of the ground. Cards rose around her, numerous, twinkling—
—deadly.
Elizabeth sidestepped as twin steams attacked her, even as Margaret flipped through her Compendium and summoned Oberon once more. There was no satisfaction to be found in the way she forced Elizabeth to dance less she be cut down. This was not a spar which she and Elizabeth used to hone their abilities. This was not even the friendly bout she had with her guest, the one which had made her so understand Elizabeth's viewpoint.
This was Margaret doing what needed to be done.
If there was one thing the Velvet Room's residents knew above all else, it was duty.
...though Margaret did admit, deep inside of herself, that there was anger in her hand as well.
"Come," Margaret intoned, and Yoshitsune the warrior rose above her, empowered by Oberon's Power Charge. At his blade, Hassou Tobi's eight strikes cut exactly where Elizabeth stood and drew blood.
Elizabeth fell to the ground, Compendium landing with a loud crash. Margaret didn't hesitate, and Hassou Tobi once again tore through Elizabeth.
At the end, Margaret lowered her tome, though she still floated in the air. "Do you yield, sister?"
Elizabeth was panting, and her eyes narrowed into a glare as she raised her head. "I do not." She opened her hand, where the card she had been concealing rose and shattered.
Margaret knew that card and, quick a flash, she pulled her own.
For an instant, there was only bright light as twin Megidolaons fell from the sky. Both were the strongest spells they could muster, as Elizabeth gambled on Pixie and Margaret summoned Oberon to the fore. Margaret felt the force of Elizabeth's conviction in her spell, how deeply her emotions ran. Where before, she had never quite understood the humans they watched over, now she mimicked them in ways that were completely new.
Truly, Elizabeth's guest was a wonderful person, to teach even a resident of the Velvet Room how to feel. He so deserved the freedom which Elizabeth was attempting to grant and the devotion which Elizabeth had for him.
But so was her own guest.
He had done the same for her, had given her the same viewpoint, the same emotions...
The same devotion.
And Elizabeth was not as strong as her.
So those same emotions with which Elizabeth fueled her attack with also fueled her own.
Margaret would not lose to her own little sister. Not when her guest was at stake.
Slowly, Margaret's power pushed back Elizabeth's. It burned like fire, and the sheer effort was quite possibly the hardest thing she had ever faced, but Margaret refused to lose.
She clenched her fist and pulled.
Both spells blinked out.
Margaret clutched one hand to her arm and slowly descended to the ground. But her eyes burned as she stalked forward, and a card appeared in her hand. She stared down at her bruised and bloodied sister.
She knew what her duty was. She knew was she was supposed to do.
The card rose.
And then it dropped, to float uselessly to the ground.
Margaret had learned much from humans, but she had always loved her siblings. Even now, she could not strike her down.
"You foolish girl," she whispered. But, in the end, so was she.
She knelt and picked her sister up, intent on returning her to the Velvet Room. She turned and picked her guest up as well. She healed him as best she could, but he would recover better in the world he had helped purify.
And then she gazed at the sword he still clutched in his hands. It wasn't his sword. Her guest didn't favor one-handed swords like this. And she had never seen him carry a sword whose very being was infused with a Persona.
Margaret looked up and finally acknowledged where she stood.
"You didn't want it, did you?" she whispered.
The Great Seal didn't respond, but it didn't need to.
The blade in her guest's hand said enough.
"You will be freed from the Seal someday, without sacrifice."
There was still no response, but Margaret felt something shift and warm in her.
"Rest well, O Seal. Though you reached the end of your journey, the Velvet Room never forgets its guests."
"No," Margaret thought fondly as she looked down at her guest, "we do not."
"We cannot forget the marks they left, even we tried."
"They will always remain ours."
OoOoO
Prompt is as follows:
Elizabeth is starting to get desperate to free Minato from being the seal, but nothing she's tried works. It seems mankind will never truly be free of its negative emotions, so there will always be need for the Great Seal.
But Elizabeth realizes that someone else could be the Seal instead of Minato, so long as that person was someone who harbors great (even divine) power within himself, is a master of Personas, a Fool, a Wild Card, a young man empowered with unbreakable Social Links, a slayer of gods and (to put the cherry on top) a lady killer.
Wait, don't we know someone like that?
So here's the prompt: Elizabeth is willing to do anything to free Minato from being the Great Seal, even if that means beating Souji to within an inch of his life and forcing him to be the replacement Seal. Margaret isn't going to let her little sister do that, even if it means sororicide.