AN: I wrote this in 3 hours since it hit midnight in my timezone. Cut me some slack D:
It starts with a whisper. A small voice that floats in the wind. It's weak, but it calls out. She can't help but notice, can't help but look for the source. It nips at her ears, it teases her with soft lilts. The words they speak are broken by quiet and trodden by noise. But she listens, because nobody else but she can hear.
Yasogami's dragon awoke from her slumber with a start. All eyes in the classroom are on her. She doesn't notice their bemused stare, not even the teacher's outraged rant in front. She's preoccupied. The same sound, the same voice. She hears it fly past the trees outside. It travels on the breeze with the leaves preparing for autumn.
It's senior year and class has just ended with her being chewed out by her teacher. Mr Hosoi was displeased with her inattention and she could do nothing but bow in apology, quickly dispensing promises of never doing it again. It's a lie, she knows it's a lie, and he knows it's a lie. It will happen again. She knows because she can still hear the voices, he knows because students are just like that.
It has been months since she had last seen their leader, her best friend and confidant in the most bizarre of matters. Whether it was a problem of the heart or something that would give birth to scandalous gossip, she would go to her childhood friend. But voices, voices were not something to be discussed with her, not voices without a speaker.
Still she struggles, the meager mind of Chie Satonaka continues to twist and turn what few cogs are in place. She tries to write down what she hears whenever the voice comes to her and sometimes in frustration she even attempts to record it. It's all in vain, she never hears anything intelligible enough to be written, she never hears anything on the recorder after playing the sound back once more.
Days past and the voice grows louder. It's no longer a whisper, it merely speak in hushed tones. Somehow she can recognize crying, she can recognize a vast melancholy that weighs down on her soul. She can't help but be emphatic. Soon, it's evident to the whole of the school that Yasogami's lively dragon is acting strange. Chie sometimes stops at a corridor and stares out the window looking like she's about to cry. Sometimes she pauses in the middle of the street, head down-turned with the most pensive of looks on her face.
Chie doesn't understand why she feels the way she feels, but she doesn't tell anyone, not a soul. Whatever this was, it was something that felt familiar to her. Almost as if it resonated with her. So she listened.
Weeks pass and the voice is now fragmented speech. It speaks about everything and nothing. It drones on and on about the most profound of things and the most tedious of tasks. She only hears every other word, but Chie learns something about it. The voice is a girl.
Months come and the speech is now steady. She listens to it well. How it weaves prose in the most interesting of ways. How it makes the tale of a trip to the convenience store sound so enthralling and wonderful by choice of words alone. Chie continues to listen with a smile as she reads her textbooks. The words whispered in her ear a muse that fills her head with nothing but an interest in life and how wonderful it is.
The town is soon abuzz again and once more her friends take notice of the change. From bouncy to forlorn then once more to the iconic local busybody. How odd it was for one Chie Satonaka to become so involved with life, with other people's lives. And yet she does it with a smile and enthusiasm that she has never had before.
Soon the voice gains a personality. Intonation hikes and drops in speech appear to give it more life. Chie listens, she listens well. Even alone, it feels like she's with a friend. It's that sort of easy voice, one that reminds her of him. She smiles lightly at the thought and closes her eyes, giving in to the voice.
It's one year after their grand adventure. All of them are graduating soon. She stands with her friends in the food court of Junes, a place they prided as their secret base. The voice snickers and Chie believes it can hear her. But the laugh is not unkind, merely amused, emphatic with a sense of envious nostalgia.
And then it happens. Like some sick twisted joke, she meets him again and her head throbs. Junes begins to warp in her vision. Her friends become blobs of color swimming to her wavering sight. The pain in her head is unbearable, and she somehow feels that he's suffering too, the voice is suffering as well. The three of them scream and all of them are taken to the municipal hospital.
It's all black at first, but she hears the whispers once again. Clearly this time, the words are warnings. Despair, hope, life and death. Happiness and Sadness, acceptance and rejection. So many opposing ideals that human lives live through are presented to her. And at th end of the soliloquiy she is presented with the argument that all of that would be invalidated by death. Death as the ultimate end. She listens to the depressing voice that foretells the inevitable end of mankind. It's still the voice of the girl.
Darkness persists and the voice changes. It speaks of courage, of will, of friendship and of hope. It speaks of purpose and self-discovery. It tells her of the lost that seek to find their way and in that search, they gain something that may surpass even death itself.
The voice tells her of stories, of a tower, of a time that exists outside of time. The voice tells her of people she has never met, and people she may have met. It recounts with energy the times shared, the memories had. Chie finds this a welcome change in the mood.
Then the darkness fades. It recedes from the corners of her vision like ink would clear from a stain. Chie is perplexed as the stands in what appears to be the cosmos. Before her stands an imposing gate, of battered steel and fading gold. She sees it's formidable frame battered, beaten and on the hinge of defeat. And yet it stands firmly. It stays held together by red-rusted barbed wire. It holds tightly around the dilapitated structure and yet the wire in itself is held together by something else.
She sees it, a statue of a girl that looks like she has grown from the cracks of the doors. Bronze that may have once been gold, the image is hewn and weathered. Chie looks and sees with horror at how the wires wrap around the idol, how the barbs dig into what looks supposedly like pale flesh. It scares Chie to imagine holding a death grip into such cruel looking spikes on steel wire.
And yet, despite the painful image, it feels like the statue is smiling. It looks down to her. There are no eyes but Chie feels its thoughtful stare.
"You've come."
Chie nods calmly.
"I'm here.".
It was the same voice. It was the voice that spoke to her, that called out to her. It was the voice that had tried to fight away solitude by calling out and conquered it by knowing someone was listening.
"Welcome.", the voice speaks, but shyly. "I know I've spoken to you so many times. But this is the first time I've heard you talk. You have a lovely voice.".
Chie flushes pink, she's not sure how to take such a compliment. "Um... uh... so do you?", she tries awkwardly. And the voice laughs. Like the tinkle of bells that girls her age should be making, she laughs. The voice of what should be a disembodied spirit laughs.
"Thanks. But I think introductions are in order. It's kind of hard to talk without knowing each other's names right? I'm Minako.".
"Call me Chie.", the country girl nods.
"Such a cute name.", Minako giggles.
"It's not that cute.", Chie pouts.
A silence fills the air, then they both begin to laugh.
It was odd, a statue and a girl, a voice and the oblivious. How odd for the fates to let them meet.
It has always been Chie who has listened, it was her who was always spoken to. But it wasn't in the dragon of Yaso-Inaba's nature to remain passive for long. This time, when they faced each other one on one, it was her turn to talk. It was Chie's turn to recount hardships and triumphs. To recall lessons she had learned in the past two years She asks questions of who Minako really is and what this place was.
Minako listens with a joy she is incapable of properly showing. She delights in tales and she empathizes on hardships. She respects the losses and the gains of this girl in front of her. And she answers the questions sent her way one by one. Slowly they both understand.
"So this is the death of the world.", Chie looks past the gates and gazes upon the death moon that lays beyond. The great eye of Nyx that remains closed until the time Erebus stirs her.
"And this is the eyes that see the truth for what it is.", Minako recounts the tale of the fog approvingly.
"Always, for a long time. I've wanted to speak to someone. To hear from someone.", Minako spoke sadly. "There has been a friend that has always kept me company but my voice just doesn't reach them. They speak to me, they caress me with care and love that I wish I could pour out to them but I can't not like this."
"So you called out.", Chie interjected understandingly.
"I called out.", Minako agreed. "I called out for someone to understand. Somebody, anybody. To help me deliver my feelings.".
"And that was... me?", Chie looks down at herself. Unsure.
"You're the one that answered the call.", Minako smiles if only one could see. "I can ask no other than you.".
"Then I'll be glad to do it.", Chie gives a cheeky grin. "We're friends aren't we?".
It should be impossible for a statue, much more perhaps a disembodied ghost, but Minako is warmed by those words. "Yes, friends. Thank you Chie-chan.".
The emotions were heartfelt and Chie could not help but look down in embarassment and kick at the nothingness below.
And then there was a crack. The voice of one that the living did not recognize yet the one who stood in between did.
"Well, well this is a surprise. To see the birth of another outside of the room."
The voice echoed as bright blue light coalesced above the short-haired girl from Yaso-Inaba. It funneled down slowly like pixie dust before her eyes. The first of many instincts was to reach out with cupped hands and accept it like she imagined as a child.
It fell to her hands, a single-card. It was one she was familiar with, the back with the face of a jester and abstract shapes of shades from black, to blue, to white on the back in definitive patterns. Yet that was only one side, the other which Chie had grown so used to holding the red, green and yellow image of her Arcana was not present. She could not quite understand, what that meant because she had studied for the past year and a half why her card had been what it was. But for this new card to fall into her hands, she knew not what to make of it.
A sly laugh and the voice from before continued, "The contract has been made, and another journey begins. You who were once the chariot and now the fool on a journey. We will welcome you soon to the Velvet Room.".
"Wh-what?", Chie had to ask in alarm. Though it was far from the first and most pressing question in her mind.
"It's time to leave soon.", Minako said sadly. "He will be here to pick you up.".
"Huh? He?"
Minako hummed in affirmative. "There will be no other way to leave.", the girl cast as a statue explained. "Goodbye for now. I hope the next time we meet, it will be in reality.".
"W-wait!", Chie reached for the doors. But the imaged had grown blurry. What little colors that defined the blackness of that landscape began to blur and leak away. It left Chie with a sense of vertigo when she had met him again after such a long time.
She fell to her knees, the headache getting the best of her. There was no way for her to recover so easily. The black stillness was a comfort to the intense migraine. Chie could not fathom the amount of time that had elapsed before she heard the soft sound of a purring engine. Behind her a limousine had pulled up. She stared at it, unsure of why a car of all things was suddenly in this infinite expanse. She raised a wary hand to touch the vehicle but her vision wared and before she knew it she was grabbing at air.
Chie noticed that she was seated in a rather fancy room covered in blue velvet. The sensation of being in motion tells her she's in a car, possibly the one that had pulled up.
"Hello."
The voice nearly scares Chie out of her skin. The teen feels her heart drumming like the taikou at the summer festival. It took a few seconds for her to register that there were other people in the room. To Chie's right she could see a woman dressed in similar deep blue to the room. Rouge lips and beatiful hair of pale gold, she made for quite the sight. The woman's face seemed set in steel yet the ends of her lips tilted into the smallest of smiles.
"Welcome to the Velvet room. My name is Margaret."
"Th-thank you. I-I'm Chie", Chie stammered out at the cool beauty before her. If she had been insecure with Yukiko before, then one could only imagine her feelings now with this peerless beauty sitting beside her as if it were for comparative purposes.
"Indeed. You are most welcome as our guest. The newest wielder of the wild card.", came the disembodied voice again.
However, this time it came from a definite direction. When Chie sought it out, she was taken aback by the first thing she noticed.
"H-ha-hana!?(F-F-F-Flower?)"
"Flower?"
"I mean hana!(nose!)"
The impossibly long nose would be the first thing you'd always notice, then succeeded by the baldspot and fringe of long white hair that ran the perimeter of the head. The long pointed ears come after, before one notices the impeccable attire of a crisply pressed suit and tie.
"My name is Igor.", the long-nosed man introduced himself. "I will be assisting you on your new journey. However, let us discuss the details of your contract for another time. We are now merely borrowing an extension from your friend over there.".
Chie's brows furrowed in confusion. There were a lot of things he said that she didn't understand but he had promised to settle them later. For now, she focused on who Igor had referred to as her friend. She turned to her left and felt the breath leave her lungs.
It was him. Seated to her left on a large plush chair that made it seem like he owned the place. His poster was completley casual, legs crossed with one hand resting on the armrest while the other propped up his chin in slight interest.
"How've you been Chie?"
"Y-Y-you..."
He looked down at himself with a small pat down before nodding. "Yes, I'm me.".
Chie blushed in annoyance. "I didn't mean it that way you dolt!".
He was still the same. That deadpan attitude and awkward humor that never failed to throw everybody off.
"Anyway,", Chie continued, "What are you doing here?".
He shrugged, "I'm not sure myself. When I came to, Igor told me that they needed to borrow my Velvet Room. I didn't mind.".
"Y-you're velvet room?", Chie looked around at all the expensive looking things around her.
It must've reflected on her face that she was trying to figure out how much everything cost so he decided to spare her the hardship and explained, "Don't worry. None of this is real.".
"Huh?", Chie replied intelligently.
"This is a place that exists between dream and reality, mind and matter. Basically, none of it is real but at the same time it kind of is.".
Chie gave him a flat look. "Now I'm even more confused.", she scratched her head.
"Don't worry if you don't understand. I don't have a handle on everything either.", he barked out a laugh.
"Yeah, okay.", Chie agreed with a chuckle as well.
"What I can tell you is that we're not in the real world.", he informed her, "Looks like something happened when we met again and we were both pulled over to this side. I ended up in my velvet room and was told you needed to be picked up. So here I am. What happened to you after you woke up?".
Chie looked at him then down at her hand. The card was still there, it lacked an image, completely blank. It still glowed faintly with a dull blue. The words she shared with that girl of the gate echoing in her mind. She smiled, "I was making a promise with a friend.".