*Author's Note* To the Persona 4 fans. I hadn't found a fic that described what Yosuke went through after the defeat of his Shadow, regarding the existence of Jiraiya. It was something I was curious about, so instead of waiting for someone else to write up something, much like learning to embroider, I'm going to do it myself. This is Yosuke-centric. Parts may be added later as I get more ideas with interactions among the Investigation Team, because I'm sure they're all experiencing something very similar.
This is the first fan fic I've written in...dear lord, it's been years, so I may be a bit rusty. I'll go back to working on my Fictionpress story "Gravity," now. ENJOY!
THE MAGICIAN
The card spun lazily at eye level.
He stared at it with a mix of shock, fear, and curiosity, enthralled by the miasma of blue energy drifting around it like the very fog that filled this studio.
'It's just a tarot card,' he assured himself.
It was just a harmless card, a simple tool for fortune tellers at festivals to give the expected answers to the curious and financially fool-hearty. He never believed in that sort of magic before, although the wonder-filled boy he used to be constantly urged him to try. The shaded blue front with its yin-yang mask winked at him through every turn. It looked exactly like the one his new friend recently came to possess. The only difference was the back. Whoever designed it had painted two gloved hands reaching up toward a mysterious flame and secret eyes beneath the Infinity symbol. Below the artwork rested the number "1" and the word "Magician." As if he could be something as awesome as Merlin. The thought was laughable. Maybe not so much if he could bench press his weight in bacon. That would be cool.
Then there was the power that came with his friend's card. That power had emerged from the other when their lives were threatened. It flowed out of him like water, obeyed his commands, and mirrored his movements. Yet his friend reeled in pain as though he'd been personally attacked every time the manifestation took a hit. The energy transmitted to him, which meant it was connected to him through an unbreakable cord. He had called this giant ethereal samurai 'Izanagi' - his Persona. That guy could easily bench press his weight in bacon.
This new card thrummed with the energetic promise of the same potential, but at a price.
Accepting the words of the Shadow born from his heart was easier said than done. The fact that anything could come from 'his heart' was ridiculous, bordering on crazy if anyone had told him about such a thing before he fell into the world of Crazy complete with a colorful –albeit frantic and loud—thing calling itself a bear. His headphones were perfect for ignoring the world and everything it said or did to him. He was just a regular teenager from a regular boring dimension where this sort of thing only happened on T.V. in reruns of the 'Twilight Zone.'
How ironic.
Terror and disbelief had stolen his strength when the Shadow first showed itself, and he'd collapsed to the floor. The Shadow professed things he would never repeat out loud in his life. It stripped his emotions and his psyche raw, ripped apart the barriers he'd built over the years to protect himself from reality. It threw him into the fire, exposed, screaming, and begging for the verbal evisceration to end. The words of hurt, selfishness, greed, and malcontent brought him to his knees. This wasn't him. He couldn't live with himself if that monster was his true self. If anyone knew his mind had entertained these thoughts, he'd be ashamed beyond reason to show his ugly mug in public again. He was a pain in the ass failure for everything he'd ever tried, and to everyone he'd ever known.
Then, when he was sure it would end him, his friend had literally knocked him back to reason.
Now he faced the slowly spinning tarot card because he had accepted –albeit painfully—that the Shadow had spoken the truth. Yes, at times he used the headphones to escape. He couldn't fully trust or love anyone for fear of losing them simply because of the way he was. So he joked and he laughed. He wanted to be a hero to the point of being reckless and selfish…
But he also loved the one he'd come to save enough to put his own life in jeopardy. His shadow may have magnified the negativity ink-staining his personality, but his friend pointed out that his loyalty, and feelings were no less true or valid. Sure he joked, but the atmosphere weighed less on those around him because of him. People were more complex than a simple black and white label. Both the darkness, the gray, and the light of his own soul was the full truth. All of it was Him.
He reached out to take the card in hand.
As soon as his fingers touched it, it dissolved as though it were a cube of sugar in a glass of water. The cerulean energy billowed around him briefly with such strength that he couldn't exhale. It seeped into his skin painlessly. He felt it ride the lines of his veins in his arms and legs, his chest, and spread out through his entire body like warm water from head to toe. His mind filled with the same buzzing energy as though he'd taken hold of a live wire. He could feel it stirring, shifting, 'waking up,' with the same sensation one gets with being shaken from a deep sleep.
He slumped forward slightly from a headache when everything the energy contained wove its threads tightly into his consciousness. I am thou. And thou art I. He knew that voice as his own, but this held the mellifluous timber of wisdom that assured him he wasn't just thinking those words. They came from somewhere else. Knowledge of what it was capable of flowed gently from the bond into his awareness, like a gift. He heard the sound of the wind rustling through leaves, and he smiled slightly. That was always a sound he loved. Feeling the wind's fingers comb through his hair never ceased to give him some semblance of joy. He always wished he could fly along its perfect chaotic freedom into the sky.
What gave him this sensation now was powerful, strong, and when it finally settled down, he felt complete. Some part of him always knew something was hibernating—at least that's how he imagined it. Yet, he'd always assumed it was his lack of a girlfriend, or never being taken seriously no matter how hard he tried to show the 'serious' face. It was impossible to fathom living without this presence. He wondered how he'd managed to make it this long without ever knowing what he was missing.
It was alive. It shared his heart beat. It breathed when he breathed. It moved when he moved. It was a part of him, yet a separate protective entity fully willing to share his mind. To say the least, it was weird, but comforting. It spoke a single, clear, unmistakable name.
"Jiraiya…" He turned a slight accepting smirk to Yu Narukami. "This must be my…"
"Persona," Yu finished.
Yosuke Hanamura nodded, keeping that smile. His Persona. So it was.
"I'm exhausted." He exhaled. Everything he'd experienced happened within the span of a few moments, though it felt like a day. "Dammit. It hurts to face yourself."
A few days later...
"I know you're there. I can feel you." Yosuke stared unblinking at his reflection in the mirror, trying to look past his brown irises into his own head. "C'mon, dude. You said your name once, plus that whole 'I am thou' bit, so drop the act and say something already."
Silence.
"I will summon you."
More silence.
"Don't think I won't do it, man."
He got the impression that wouldn't work outside the T.V world anyway.
"This is stupid," he murmured. "There's nothing there. A Persona is just another aspect of a whole personality. I asked Yukiko-chan. She looked it up in some psychology book. It's not some weird body sharing alien thing. And now I've bought a ticket to crazy town and I'm talking to myself. Joy." The words should have been comforting, but ever since he got back from the T.V world, his own reaction to things had been slightly off. He wondered if any of the others did the same thing.
He shut off the bathroom light and left the house to get his bike from the garage. It was easy this time since the space his parents' car normally occupied was empty. He planted his left foot on the pedal, pushed the bike, and threw his right leg over to sit on the saddle. "Woo!" he grinned. He'd never been able to pull that off before without falling over. What else had changed? Maybe there was something to this 'Persona' thing after all.
He pumped his legs to get the bike going down the street. Once up to speed, he let go of the handlebars and put his arms out to the side. He smiled at the crisp morning wind on his face like he owned it, like he commanded it. The moment was thrilling, though it didn't last long before he had to steer the bike around a delivery truck in the shopping district. He flew. And he didn't crash. A Hanamura record!
Today was going to be a spectacular day.
Late that night after the Midnight Channel and a call to Narukami about Princess Yukiko and her lacy unmentionables... Hot damn…
Yosuke had passed out cold on his bed, deep in a dream.
He rode his bike along a smooth black road in the green hills, enjoying the cool breeze when a figure appeared ahead of him. He pulled the trigger brakes on his handle bars to stop. "Seriously, man? Right in the middle of the road?" he whined. The figure became clear as he approached. "Oh, no way…. Wait a minute, you're—"
"You said you wanted me to talk, so what do you want?"
He just stared at Jiraiya, who –funny enough—didn't look like the disco frog that kicked Shadow ass in the Television. It looked like Yosuke himself, only wearing camo pants, black gloves, a white shirt, red scarf, his headphones, and a confident swagger. "J-Jiraiya?" He'd never thought speaking to his Persona was possible before. He only entertained the idea because, why not?
"Bright, aren't we." He folded his arms.
"Oh, man, I gotta be dreaming."
"You are. Why do you think I'm here? It's a hell of a lot easier to get through to you."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Those little twinges you get when you're about to say something stupid, or make the wrong decision? Who do you think does that, genius?"
"My inner cricket, ya douche."
Jiraiya grinned. "That's the me I love. So, whadda you want?"
Yosuke shrugged and dismounted the bicycle. "I dunno. Just to... talk, I guess. That last battle with Chie's Shadow was awesome, but I think I sprained something when I tackled her. Thanks for deflecting, though, dude."
"It's my job. Someone has to protect your ass."
"That last hit majorly hurt, though."
"Yeah, it did. I'm still getting used to that."
"Eh? What do you mean? I thought it went one way."
"eenh! Wrong, super dweeb. "
"So, if I get hurt, kicked, punched, trash canned, or even really hungry…?"
"I feel it. Because I am you, remember?" Jiraiya folded his arms with a deadpan expression and twirled one finger languidly in the air with as much enthusiasm as reading the dictionary. "Woo."
More than a little uncomfortable, Yosuke kicked the stand down to prop up his bike and folded his arms in the same stance as his doppelganger. "Tell me: Why do you look like a giant amphibious reincarnation of Saturday Night Fever?"
The other laughed. "Ah, you would know about that show. I remember watching reruns as a kid from one of the American stations. Thank God, I never tried to dance in front of anyone."
"I was four. And you're evading."
"I think it has something to do with that," Jiraiya gestured to a well that materialized in the road behind Yosuke.
Curious, and not even questioning the logic of an ancient well in the middle of an asphalt road, the brunette stepped up, glanced back to his Persona, and pushed the wooden bucket aside to look into the darkness. He strained to see into the black, and leaned over for a better look, but felt someone grab the belt of his pants when his balance faltered.
His twin pulled him back. "Bro, really, bad idea."
"Duh, dooffus, I was trying to see. There's nothing down there. Not even water."
"Wait for it…" Jiraiya crooned.
The echo of a frog croaked up from the well.
Yosuke slid the bucket from the stones and lowered it into the darkness. Something rattled it. Unafraid, he pulled on the rope against the squeaky pulley to bring it back up. What he found inside was a small green river frog. He reached in to pick it up. It was slimy and cold to the touch.
"Oh-kay…It's…a frog. I don't get it. You've lost me," he turned back to Jiraiya with the frog cupped in both hands.
"Not a difficult task, apparently. That," he pointed at the small animal, "is how you see yourself. You can see the sky, hear the wind, and even smell the grass of sweet freedom, but you see yourself as trapped. Inaba is your well, the city was your well, and even your family is your well. And you, my friend, are the frog. Hence you get 'me.' …Although I think there is some John Travolta bleed through from those reruns."
Yosuke opened his hands to look at the frog. His Persona was right. He saw Inaba as a trap, but he hadn't expected to hear the same about his old home or family. He crouched down and opened his hands. The frog stayed on his palm, stared at him with it pulsing bulbous throat, then hopped off into the grass at the road side.
"Does that answer your question?"
He stood. "Yeah. More than I wanted, actually."
"Cool. O.k, I'm out. See ya."
"Wait!" Yosuke grabbed the other's wrist. Jiraiya turned identical brown eyes to him. It was definitely a second covered in weird surrealism. For a split second, he thought touching his Persona would cause a Back To The Future-esque paradox that would destroy the fabric of space time itself.
Jiraiya chuckled at the logic in Yosuke's thought, and actually thought the idea was cool in a science fiction way. They were, after all, the same person. And whether his human half wanted to admit it or not, he was a nerd.
"Can you talk to me while I'm awake?"
"Yup."
"Why don't you?" He let go.
"Think about that question for a second. Do you really want to be talking to yourself in public? If you wear a blue tooth at school, you'll go from Major Dork, to Yuppie Dork in 2.5 seconds."
"Point valid. Ok, then what about the others? Can they hear their Persona? Are they going through what we're doing right now? Can you hear each other?"
A lawn chair appeared out of nowhere, and Jiraiya reclined happily to watch an ocean that replaced the hills. "Let's see….. yes, most definitely, and… I haven't tried."
Yosuke grinned. "Then try tomorrow at school. It'll distract me from King Moron's lectures."
"Something to do while you drool on your notebook? Sure. You really wanna go this route?"
"Why not? If I'm gonna go nuts, I might as well go balls deep."
"Dude. Don't ever say that again."
Yosuke leaned against his bike, which stayed up despite the weight. "Tomorrow it is. You are going to try to talk to Izanagi or Tomoe. Then if the others can hear you, I won't be alone in my box of Crazy."
"Your alarm's about to go off."
"Eh?"
The grating buzzer shattered the dream world and snapped Yosuke back to his room. He slapped his hand on the 'snooze' button and rolled over with a mischievous smile. Time for school.
And time to test a theory.
That's it for now! I really needed to get my impression of the Personal/Human interaction out. I hope whoever reads this finds a little bit of enjoyment. Review if you want.
