16-year-old Yukari Takeba was silent next to her mom as they walked through Paulownia Mall together during a hot summer night. Mrs. Takeba was browsing through the things in the store when Yukari pulled out her phone. She wanted any excuse she could to not talk to her mom. She let a small grin creep across her face as her cell said she had a text from Stupei. Junpei was a new student who had just moved to Iwatodi last year. Yukari had become fast friends with him despite his hyper personality.
She opened the text and read 'What's up Yuka-tan?'
'Shopping with my mom :p' she typed back.
"Yukari, put your phone away. We are spending some quality mother-daughter time together" Mrs. Takeba scolded, attempting to snatch Yukari's phone out of her hands. The young girl nimbly avoided her mother and began to wander away.
Why don't you go look at more things we can't afford and leave me alone Yukari griped silently at her mother. She glanced down at her phone as she felt it vibrate between her fingers.
'You gonna be okay?' was the reply she got.
'For now. How r u doing?' she texted back.
That was probably another reason Junpei had become such fast friends with her. They both only had one parent left, and the one they had could hardly be called a parent.
'Dad's drunk, what else is new?' Junpei joked back to her.
Yukari smiled at the text but when she looked up she could see a girl watching her from the corner of the store. The girl looked at least 17, with long red hair. For some nagging reason Yukari thought the girl looked kind of familiar but she didn't have time to think it over before the loudspeaker of the store blared "The mall will be closing in five minutes" Yukari knew the mall closed at midnight and sure enough, when she glanced down at her phone the clock read 11:55. "
Yukari!" her mother's shrill voice called from across the room "We're leaving!"
'Why? Cause there's another boyfriend at home?' Yukari thought bitterly at her mom as she walked over to find her.
Mrs. Takeba walked out of the mall briskly with her daughter at her heels. Just as her mother started to load their bags in the car, Yukari could hear the beep from her phone that signaled it was dead. Didn't I just charge it this morning? Yukari thought. She spared a glance skyward to examine the starry sky, but after just one blink, everything was bathed in an eerie green glow. 'What?' Yukari thought startled. "Mom do you see..."
Yukari gestured upward as she turned towards her mother. She gasped as she was met with a scarlet red coffin where her mother was standing not a minute ago. Yukari jumped back in surprise as she surveyed the parking lot and saw it was filled with similar coffins. She heard an engine gunning in the distance and turned to see a white motorcycle moving in her direction. When it stopped right in front of her Yukari noticed the red haired girl from earlier riding the motorcycle. "As I suspected" the girl mumbled. "Get on!" the girl yelled frantically at Yukari, motioning her over.
"I don't know you!" Yukari replied shaking her head. Suddenly she whirled around as a squelching noise sounded behind her and Yukari saw a pile of black goo seemingly inching it's way over to her. "What is that?" Yukari yelled, scared.
"I can explain, just get on!" the red headed girl yelled from behind Yukari.
The brunette gave a quick nod before turning around and jumping on the back of the older girl's bike. They rode away from the mall and made their way towards the high school dorm buildings. The stopped in front of one of the dorms and both girls hopped off. The red head grabbed the motorcycle by its handles and pulled it up the stairs and inside the building. Yukari ran inside behind her and slammed the door after her. Yuakri followed the red head to a seating area in the lobby. The girl pulled out a walkie talkie like object and said into it "Akihiko, come down to the lobby please."
"Is everything okay?" a male voice, presumably Akihiko, answered.
"Yes" the girl replied briefly before clipping the communicator to her skirt. "I'm sorry I didn't introduce myself earlier, I'm Mitsuru Kirijo" the red head girl said, addressing Yukari.
'Kirijo? As in the rich guy that Dad worked for?' Yukari wondered to herself. She suddenly recalled hearing the name Mitsuru Kirijo in school before, but now she could put the name with a face.
"Yukari Takeba" Yukari offered, still shaken by what happened in the parking lot.
As Yukari listened she could hear a set of footsteps coming down the stairs. When she looked over at the staircase she saw a silver haired boy come down the stairs. He looked about Mitsuru's age and Yukari figured he was the boy she called Akihiko. The boy in question arched his eyebrows at Mitsuru as he entered the room, then nodded his head towards Yukari. Mitsuru gave him quick nod. Yukari didn't know how to feel about their silent communication but she didn't have much time to think about it before Mitsuru told Akihiko "This is Yukari."
"Hey" he replied to Yukari, seating himself next to Mitsuru.
"There's a reason that I brought you here Takeba" Mitsuru said, addressing Yukari by her last name. "You have a special power that allows you to experience this time right now. Did you notice all those coffins? How everything electronic ceases to work?" Mitsuru continued.
Yukari gave Mitsuru a confused look before asking "What do you mean 'power'?" she questioned the older girl.
"You have a special power called Persona, that you can use to fight Shadows" Mitsuru explained.
"Was that what that gunk was in the parking lot before?" Yukari asked, startled.
Mitsuru nodded "Yes, and we would very much like your help to combat creatures similar to that one" Mitsuru said, subtly pulling out an extra evoker.
"Okay" Yuakri agreed, not yet noticing the gun-like object. Mitsuru suddenly handed her the evoker to a very startled Yukari.
"Think of it as a good luck charm" Akihiko said, trying to combat the younger girl's fear.
Yuakri had a feeling she was going to need all the luck she could get.
Twiz: Yay! Another Persona story! It took me a while to get this read to post but there it is. That is how I pictured Yukari meeting Mitsuru and Akihiko and realizing she has a Persona. The rest of this author's note is basically me justifying why I set this fic when I did so feel free to skip it. Basically I set this fic the summer before the events of the actucal game because at the beginning of the game Yukari seem afraid to pull the trigger on her evoker, so I figured it was becasue she had never really needed to before. I decided to do this because I really like Yukari! Maybe in the future I'll do this for the other characters too!