It Doesn't Matter
By: KowaretaTsubasa
This was mostly written because I always liked to keep Shinjiro in my party until he died. Thank you for reading.
Disclaimer: I obviously don't own Persona 3 and make no profit from this, although this does not matter to the new ACTA laws. I just loved the ride and journey and crushing, flat out emotional defeats (both plotwise and in gameplay) and exhilaration of Persona 3. But what I loved most were its characters, who I feel I could be as close to as my own friends.
...
Shinjiro doesn't know that Minato is going to die. He doesn't know that the smaller blue-haired boy will one day, at the end of everything, keep Nyx at bay for love of this world. He doesn't know that Igor and Elizabeth watch him eagerly from the Velvet Room, a place where only Minato can enter. Or that he would, without a word, smile that secret smile of his, and float up towards the moon.
Shinjiro doesn't know these things, hasn't seen these things, will never know these things, because he is also going to die long before the final battle.
But that doesn't matter. None of that matters.
What matters is that Minato is there, beside him, in Tartarus when the shadows loom towards them, dark and menacing, and he doesn't give an inch. What matters is Minato gives him a chance to be a part of the group again, picks him—whose persona is lumbering, slow, and sometimes uncontrollable—to go up into the tower, higher and higher and relies on him with the kind of trust Shinjiro didn't think he deserved. What matters is that it doesn't matter—the reasons why he left SEES, the reasons why he came back, the reasons he puts life and limb and sanity on the line to foray deeper and deeper into the tower. To Minato, it seemed, having reasons was simply enough.
Shinjiro also doesn't know the struggles Minato and the team will go though after he dies. He won't be there to watch each of them fall as low as they could go and climb back up, come to terms with it, and become stronger than they ever dreamed possible. Shinjiro couldn't guess that Ken would haunt the place he'd died in the same way he couldn't imagine Mitsuru letting go enough to become friends, real friends, close friends, with Yukari, (who was just as guarded).
He couldn't fathom the new, incredible powers of Fuuka's Persona nor would he be able to see Junpei's personal decision, born of selflessness and resolve and courage and determination, to go on and fight Nyx and damn the consequences. He wouldn't know the eventuality of Akihiko's fierce love and loyalty to everyone in the dorm, nor would he be there on that final walk with Koromaru, who, while not human, was just as determined as everyone else to stop the end. Shinjiro would never know Aigis, the robot who became nearly human simply because of her wish for change and for things to be different.
He couldn't possibly know about Ikutsuki's ruthless betrayal or the death of Mitsuru's father. He couldn't know of Ryoji, who was all things bright and clear and mischievous, but also, at the core, a reluctant component of the Fall. And Shinjiro couldn't have known the darkest and most painful decisions the others had to make on New Years Eve and what courage they needed not to take it back.
He could not expect that of all the things to happen, that the SEES members would become a family—unruly, uncooperative at times, and strange but loving and strong and accepting and, most of all, formidable. He could not expect that after so many losses, his friends would find family in each other.
And least of all, he could not know that Minato would die.
Shinjiro doesn't know these things, hasn't seen these things, will never know these things.
But what he thought mattered right now, lifting an axe of a size and weight the others thought he was crazy to use, was that Minato had given him the chance.