Title: Vespers

Author: Celirian

Series: Tales of Vesperia X Persona

Disclaimer: This is all for funsies!

Summary: Yuri Lowell has long been considered a delinquent. Parentless, homeless, and seemingly hopeless he's sent to a remote town in Japan's countryside for one last chance to clean up his act. Though, that becomes a little difficult when dead bodies start to get tangled in T.V antennas. Personally, he blames Yosuke Hanamura.

A/N: Okay, this is my first crossover...EVER. This is also my first time writing real worldness. So its a rocky terrain that I've never traversed before and Persona and Tales of Vesperia are... niche to say the least. But I had an idea and decided to go with it. Thanks for checking it out!


Things had been going to well for him. He was on an upwards curve, a good streak. He had managed to spend an entire year in school without getting suspended or expelled. Sure he had more detentions than all the other Saturday regulars combined, but they hadn't thrown him back out on the streets.

For Yuri Lowell, that was really saying something.

Ever the delinquent, his reputation in schools was… bad. Parentless, short tempered, and unmotivated schools usually didn't take long to realize he was a "lost cause". Let him be and he'd screw up bad enough to get kicked out and then he wasn't their problem anymore. That's the way it was for a long time; school after school, suspension; expulsion after expulsion, and one more mark on his juvenile record after the next. It wasn't long until Yuri didn't care; he'd drop out of school all together if didn't mean spending his early adulthood in jail, but it did and so he wandered from one school to the next going to any unsuspecting institution that was stupid enough to take him in.

He would be motivated at first. New school, new people, a fresh start. Maybe this time he'd managed to not royally screw everything up. Heh, yeah right. It wasn't long until he more than royally screwed everything up and he was onto the next school in the list and that list was getting very, very short.

A reputation has a way of latching onto you and growing until it encompasses you; takes over you; until you become your reputation and when Yuri had hit that point it was when schools wouldn't even politely turn him down. They all but put a giant sign on their doors that read 'No Yuri Lowells Allowed'. So seven schools and two years of high school down, Yuri was going to give up. What was a couple years in a place where rain wouldn't leak onto his bed, hot meals were given and he wouldn't have homework compared to being given up on over and over again? Compared to people trying to tell him how to live his life and dictate his every move. Fate already stained his hands red from his past; why should he let anyone or anything else interfere?

His destiny was his own, that was the only thing Yuri Lowell was sure of in his life.

So when he started on his upwards streak, when things began to go strangely well for him Yuri wasn't quite sure what to make of it. The beginning of one summer he found himself studying for an entrance exam for a school he hadn't even thought about touching. A flurry of knowledge cramming and a few all-nighters later he found himself at the doors to Gekkokan High; a wealthy, prestigious school he had no business attending. Why he was there? He couldn't tell you. How? Who knows? The police knew to hand over his record to any school before he could even apply for the test; that was usually when he was rejected. Not this time, though.

So when that wasn't weird enough he took the test and passed…. really passed. Not barely scraped by, or got lucky, he whizzed through every question and managed to finish the entire thing (well, minus a couple algebra problems because math was not his thing). A month passed by and he moved his meager belongings into the fanciest dormitory he had ever seen and put on the fanciest uniform he had ever been given and started his classes.

And what's more? He liked it.

Sure, most of the teachers were jerks (from his experience that had to be a job qualification), but that one substitute teacher was pretty cool; if not completely insane. He played football and damn was that fun and his teammates were a riot to be around. He made friends for the first time ever; solid people who, despite an adoration for gossip, had plans for their lives. They talked about places they wanted to go and the people they wanted to turn into. Yuri had never seen that before. As he moved around he always met others like him; teens who were rootless and pathless.

It was like he had been picked up out of his reality and put into another one; he barely recognized himself between joining clubs and going to the library on a free afternoon (which still made him feel just a little bit icky on the inside). But if Yuri was good at one thing and one thing only; it was adapting. So he knew he would get used to the changes and he went along with the flow of life. He didn't get the best grades, but he wasn't failing, he was a good center on the field, he liked going to cooking club (even if he did get made fun of for it from time to time), and he had people around him who, well…cared. He had a best friend for the first time in years and hallway acquaintances and rivals (okay, that wasn't anything new).

He even found a girlfriend. A headstrong, no holds, funny, and witty girl who he had gotten along with from the day they met in homeroom and snarked at each other for five minutes about who would have the last seat next to the windows (she won, of course). She was pretty too, really pretty which was a bonus. She helped him with math and he taught her Kendo (the only thing he had ever kept up with his entire life) and soon they were the topic of whispers in the hall and decided to just go with it. She went to his football games and he went to her dance recitals and they went to that disgusting burger place and ate until they swore they would ever return again and always did.

So things had been good and he was actually living for once and Yuri didn't really mind it; not one bit. Sure he still got in trouble; he had a mouth and a tendency not to think before letting it speak. He was getting better though, slowly and that still had to count for something.

Yes, things were good, great, hell, for Yuri? Things were perfect. All the while, Yuri had told himself he should get used to this life; it was better for him, it was the way things were supposed to be. But, at the same time there was an itch in the back of his mind telling him something was off. Something just wasn't…right. He ignored it, placing it aside and telling himself he was just trying to adjust to his new motivation in life that he came from nowhere.

That was a mistake.

He should have listened. He should have listened and run as far away as he could, as fast as possible. Because overnight everything went from perfect to hell faster than Yuri could comprehend. Faster than the onset of his mysterious motivation, faster than his life turning around it fell apart into even more broken pieces than it had been to begin with.

The worst part about it all was that Yuri honestly couldn't tell you how it had gotten so bad so fast. He honestly didn't know.

He didn't remember.


"You don't remember?" The officer sanding over Yuri's chair crossed his pudgy arms and let out a snort of air through his nose that ruffled his unkempt, ridiculously curled mustache. Leaning back slightly against the front side of his desk he shook his head. "Like I'll buy that one from you of all people Mr. Lowell."

Yuri resisted the urge to put his face in his hands. He had tried to explain, he really had. No lies this time. He was being more honest than he ever had been in his life and that was probably why no one believed him. Especially his probation officer, Officer Leblanc. He was a good man, really, but perhaps he was just a little too serious about his job. Which meant with Yuri's constant need to crack whit or pull out sarcasm and the officer's need to try and save everyone in the name of justice gave them a rocky relationship at best.

Still Yuri had to award the man for his sheer perseverance. Everyone else in the district had given up on Yuri years go, but LeBlanc hadn't. Why, Yuri would probably never be able to figure out, but the man was as obstinate as a mountain regarding his most frustrating and infuriating and seemingly hopeless case.

Yuri shook his head, his long black hair falling over his shoulders. He almost wanted to beg the officer to believe him, but pride would never allow that to happen. "Look, I don't know what else to say. That's the truth, I swear."

LeBlanc's eyes narrowed and his mouth twitched into a twisted half frown that couldn't mean anything other than 'I don't believe you.'

This time Yuri did bury his face in his hands. Leaning over he peered through his fingers at a dark stain under his feet that was probably from one of the fifteen cups of coffee LeBlanc drank every day. It kind of resembled Russia if you looked at it sideways. "What is going to happen now?"

"Nothing good." LeBlanc said finally breaking his overly dramatic judgmental stare. He hoisted himself off his desk and moved around to the other side. Shuffling through a few folders he finally found a rather thick one and opened it, taking the top paper he read it quickly and then held it out over the desk shaking it slightly to get Yuri's attention.

Yuri eyed the paper and took it quickly, but didn't read it right away. He was trying to gage the look on LeBlanc's face. It wasn't his usual whimsical authority. He actually looked kind of worried and that made Yuri's stomach tie in a knot. This is really not good.

Yuri didn't get past the first two lines before looking up again, "Juvenile Revival Program? What the hell is that?"

LeBlanc pulled his chair and sat in it clearly thinking about how to explain everything before beginning. "Well," He started, stopped, and started over again. "Everyone's pretty much had it with you Yuri Lowell. After we got this last expulsion letter they just wanted to lock you up. You turn 18 in a few months and then you're out of our hands."

Yuri nodded slowly, but didn't say anything. This is really really bad. If it wasn't jail, what on Earth could it be? Were they going to stick him in the military? Oh god anything but that.

"But, since you did so well at Gekkokan until that last month I managed to convince them to give you one last chance." Officer LeBlanc raised a grey eyebrow making sure to hold eye contact. "You hear me Yuri? One. This program is brand new and still in the process of being… tested."

"I'm a test subject?"

"Yes." LeBlanc's frown cracked a small smirk as Yuri's jaw dropped. "In a way. We are taking some of our worst cases, like you, and placing them in the care of law enforcement around the country away from the city. Away from the people and places and influences that we think are part of the cause kids like you are so messed up."

"Read the rest. That's your assignment. There's the name of your new school, the town you'll be living in, and the officer you'll be living with."

Taking a few minutes Yuri read the paper once, twice, and a third time before putting it on the desk and biting his bottom lip. This really was worse than jail. This was the department hanging a sign around his neck that read 'reject' and putting him out of their sight until he was old enough to not be their responsibility, or burden, anymore.

Honestly, he was okay with that.

Yuri leaned back in his seat. "You never did hold back punches."

LeBlanc's face snapped back to unamused. Closing his eyes he took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "This, Yuri Lowell, is serious. We are hoping by introducing you to a new, quieter, environment that maybe you'll be able to sort things out. You almost did in Gekkokan and that…that has me hopeful. I've been around with you since you were six and you were caught pick pocketing in Akihabara and I'll be damned if you aren't a person by the time I have to sign these papers to the storage until."

"W…what?" Yuri stuttered. He didn't care if his mouth was hanging open again. He had never heard the officer be so honest before. Did he actually have faith in Yuri or was he just putting on some act to get him motivated enough to accept this… experiment.

It was an act. It had to be. Just some scheme to get Yuri to play along into this charade. Well, fine. Challenge accepted. This could actually be a lot of fun. He would only have to play for a few months and then he was either in jail or free to make mistakes until he went to jail.

Jail was inevitable. Might as well make the road to it a fun one.

"Well?" LeBlanc carefully put the paper back in Yuri's folder and shut it with a small smack. "Any questions?"

"Yeah, just one." Yuri cocked his head to the side, his face as serious as he could make it. He lowered his voice to a deep monotone he used when he was not in the mood to joke around. "Where the hell is Inaba?"