Author's Notes: The last line of chapter 11 seems like it left some people wondering about Rise's relationship with Souji and what she thought of him. They might be thinking she's hung up on him, or that it's gonna lead to conflicts with him and Yukiko down the road. Maybe it'll turn into a catfight, or threats in the mail and late-night phone calls, or even a Rise/Yukiko/Souji threesome in a later chapter. But what crazy thoughts were going through my head when I wrote it, you ask? How could I leave such an intriguing question on a cliff hanger?
Well, pretty easily, actually. But hopefully what is to follow will help explain that, and a few other things. So you all know the drill. Read, enjoy, review or PM or both. Fave and alert too, if you feel like it, but I love the reviews and the feedback, positive or otherwise.
Standard disclaimers apply: Don't own P4, not making money off this fic, will take it down if someone from Atlus asks, and all that. And I guess I should warn that there are some spoilers as to the true culprit and ending of P4 in the chapter, but I'm sure I crossed that bridge more than once already, so if you've read this far and are shocked to learn about who the real bad guy is, well, them's the brakes.
Again, some selective terms in the chapter. A shamisen is the three-stringed banjo-looking instrument seen in Japanese animes like Samurai 7 and Samurai Champloo, which the anime buffs in my readership should have no problem recognizing. And a guqin is a quiet seven-stringed Chinese instrument played on a table or bench.
Oh, and Mathais? Hopefully this chapter explains the question you raised about Rise.
Chapter 14
Kujikawa Rise could attribute her success as a singer to a lot of things and people. Having a music-oriented family, namely a mother who still taught high school music theory and a father who'd sung tenor most of his life, a close older cousin who loved theatre and used her to practice his lines when he rehearsed for drama club, growing up near a park where the local universities always had bands practicing or putting on concerts, and the lungs and vocal cords to reach any note she needed to. She took to singing at a young age like a bird would take to the four winds, and Inoue always credited her upbringing and raw talent as the reason she could beat out the other idols in almost any singing contest she entered.
But there was something that almost no one knew about Kujikawa Rise. Something she hadn't told Inoue or the agency staff, her fans, or anyone from Inaba. Not even Souji-senpai.
She was born with perfect pitch. No matter the instrument or the person singing, she always knew which notes were being played without ever looking at the music sheets. As she grew, she developed a feel for what notes should go where and when, and every time someone asked her why, her answer was a shrug and 'Just because.' And she was usually right.
She kept it to herself after she started middle school. Her parents found it fascinating and encouraged it at every turn, but scoring better than anyone else in every music class and choir club she ever joined did nothing for her popularity. Yes, the students wanted her around at first for help and advice, but when she started pushing herself into realms of musical competence that even the teachers couldn't tap into, it quickly made her an outcast. The students said she was trying too hard to impress and called her a show-off or a copycat. She'd told Souji-senpai once that she didn't have a lot of friends growing up. Her perfect pitch wasn't the only reason for that, but it was a big one.
Her gift made her into a sort of carnival freak at school. So she kept it to herself and only practiced around home or in the park. And then her cousin signed her up for singing auditions until Inoue saw her and signed her on the spot. She'd taken off from there, and almost never looked back.
Her career as an idol and singer had been the perfect stage for her talents, and she flourished under the spotlight. Part of her wanted to show up the students who'd teased her and put her down when she was younger, to show the country just what she could do. That ambitious child, however, hadn't considered all the extra baggage that accompanied such fame. The interviews, the loss of any sort of privacy, and the rumours when she wanted to keep something to herself weighed her down like chains. Ironically, the cold shoulder she got from the idols and singers who saw her as competition, or the disingenuous sucking up from the ones who wanted to hitch a ride on her success, was comforting to her in its familiarity.
It wasn't until Inaba, the place she'd gone to get away from the paparazzi and fakeness of the idol industry, that she found the drive to go the distance. And something much more than that.
Awakening Himiko was a musical thrill like nothing she'd ever experienced. Notes and chords and vocal harmonies she'd only heard in her dreams ran up one side of her and down the other, and it was raw, unbridled euphoria every time. She could hear every note in perfect synchrony, and it fed her perfect pitch as much as it wanted and still had more to give. When she asked the others about their Personas, the most common response she'd ever gotten was that summoning them was easy, natural, but hard to explain beyond that. Souji-senpai said he heard voices or words from some of them, but not all, while Yosuke-senpai said Jiraiya and Susano-o were always accompanied by an airy light-headedness that never tripped him up or put him off-balance. When she asked Naoto about it, the detective reported nothing outside the usual adrenaline rush, and theorized that maybe Yosuke-senpai and Souji-senpai had acclimated to their Personas and identified with them on a deeper level than those who'd awakened theirs later. Perhaps it was a symptom of how seriously they took their roles as the Team's leaders. Or something like that; Naoto's explanations were hard to follow. Either way, while Himiko's sensor may have looked like a satellite dish, Rise always perceived the information she got through sound. Locations, floor diagrams, people, friends or foes, she could absorb it, perceive it, and make sense of it in a flash.
And more than that, she could pick up the sounds of the others when they fought and summoned their Personas. Each of them was different and distinct, and it never ceased to fascinate her when she heard the phantom chords surrounding her friends in battle. To her, Yosuke-senpai was the most harmonious. A diverse combination of notes that no instrument could produce, but spoke of balance, soft or harsh, loud or quiet, and always in a harmony that she wanted to dance to. Souji-senpai was accompanied by a clear, triumphant horn section, whether it was saxophones or trumpets or trombones. She thought Souji-senpai's particular sound was a coincidence, but then she'd heard him practicing with Ayane-chan by the Samegawa one afternoon after school, and knew it wasn't a mistake. He played with confidence and passion, putting his heart into the performance for his audience of two, and who knew how many fish and crustaceans. Ayane-chan herself wasn't to be ignored either. Rise had heard professional trombone players in concerts before, and good Lord above, that girl had nothing to be ashamed of.
Chie-senpai was a complex combination of fast-paced drums and bells, like a marching band near a church, and they were always in a flux of volume. Rising, falling, some combination of the two, but never content to stay steady or play to a set beat. Yukiko-senpai's suited her in a strange way. Konohana Sakuya and Amaterasu always appeared with a classical string accompaniment, be it harps or violins, and Rise always heard several shamisens and guqins in the background, playing a tune she'd never heard before but always wanted more of. Kanji's was no surprise. He fought to the sound of electric bass guitars and drums, like a heavy metal band playing a war beat, and yet there was a very subtle addition behind it, something she could hear but not identify, that was separate from the overarching noise, but so intriguing that it always caught her attention. She never had managed to figure out what it sounded like, no matter how many times he tore up a whole corridor. Teddie's Personas sounded as odd as she expected. Stated and outgoing, a mix of electric keyboards and j-pop synthesizers; when he fought, the sounds were all over the place. As irrepressible and eccentric as he was himself. And Naoto's Personas appeared to the sound of flutes of all shapes and sizes and tones. Rise knew the last addition to the team would never live it down if she knew how well the perky, bouncing tunes suited her pint-sized Sukuna-Hikona and Yamato-Takeru. Rise also never told anyone that Naoto's Personas had the same subtle, almost imperceptible accompaniment that Kanji's did, down to the timing and last elusive note.
Her knack for sounds and music also cut the other way though. Mitsuo Kubo was a cacophony of voices. Young, old, male, female, his own voice and that of countless others all speaking, shouting, whispering, screaming at once. The words were angry, resentful, and filled with fear, and they were all making noise at the same time. She could sympathize with him a little; if she always had that much noise in her head, she'd have gone crazy too. Adachi in the TV world was a discordant mess of angry notes and sharp, jagged sounds, never settling in place or trying for any kind of harmony, and Ameno-sagiri was a hulking mass that was utterly still. She couldn't hear anything from the entity, even when it was talking to them, and despite feeling the same presence as when Teddie's Shadow manifested, it still felt like Ameno-sagiri wasn't real, despite its sheer size.
But of all her experiences in Inaba, there were two beings that truly terrified her. They haunted her at night when she'd had too much wasabi during dinner, too much sugar for dessert, or when she went to bed hungry. She knew the others had their problem areas. She knew Souji-senpai hated the rain and had nightmares about Nanako-chan. She knew Teddie was frightened of being alone and never slept anywhere near a TV, nor could he stand being around dolls or stuffed toys by himself for very long. She was no exception; there were nights she woke up screaming and couldn't get far enough away from her bed or couch. And just like Teddie, she put on her best face and bore it all with a smile, usually after an extended crying session and an hour of intense dancing and loud music.
What struck the almost-deepest, second most horrifying chord in her was when they faced Izanami in all her grisly glory. Bare bones and rotting organs hanging like a macabre tapestry was a sight that she could never forget, and the stench had nearly made her faint. Because Izanami, for all her talk of being an ancient deity and the legends of her and Izanagi creating the world, made no sound at all. And it was far worse than Ameno-sagiri because where the imbedded mass of spikes and pipes was like still air around a rock, Izanami seemed to suck the sound in and leave nothing behind. She was a hole in reality, a void that swallowed the music Rise had known all her life, and that concept of nothingness scared her, months later, even more than the chilling touch of death had. Really, she'd been dead, if that's even what happened to her, for so short a time that it seemed like Souji-senpai had pulled them all back into the fight before it could really sink in.
But the one thing that scared her the most, no matter how much she tried to justify it to herself, was the reason she didn't invite Souji-senpai in to dry off and warm up after he'd fought to protect her. She didn't lack for comforts to offer; she had plenty of towels to use, tea and hot chocolate stocked in her cupboards (she loved the smell of coffee, but couldn't stand the taste), and even a comfy couch to sleep on if he didn't want to go home. Seeing him soaked and shivering like a bedraggled puppy left out in the rain tugged at her heart strings, and she knew she seemed ungrateful because of it.
She couldn't help it. It was why she didn't say much on their way to her apartment, why she couldn't bring herself to wrap around his arm like always or check him for injuries, why she kept the same distance between them every step of the way. She could tell herself it was because she felt guilty about dragging him to that party and not being careful enough to watch what she drank. And that was true. She didn't remember much between that drink and sitting on the park bench, but she had a feeling that it was awkward. It was a good reason, but it wasn't the first one in her mind. She didn't talk to him because she saw some of the hits he'd taken and knew he had to have a headache, so she didn't want to aggravate it. She didn't touch him because she saw how much pain he was in, or would be in soon, and didn't want to touch something sensitive. She kept her distance so that if he stumbled she'd be able to react faster and not trip on him or get caught on an arm. They were all sound reasons.
But they weren't why she was sitting against her bathroom sink without any lights on, still dripping wet in her soaked clothes while her hair slowly dried and started to curl. And she hated it when it curled. Those reasons weren't why she'd locked the door on Souji-senpai and hadn't called Inoue to tell him what had happened. The reason she was sitting there in the dark, curled up in a puddle of rainwater on the tile floor, and staring into the shadows and grout lines and fighting with her own demons, the occasional unconscious tear trickling down her face...
Was because of Seta Souji, her Senpai, closest friend, and inspiration and reminder of everything she wanted to be in life. He ranked first of the things in her life, from Inaba or beyond it, that terrified her to the very foundation of her soul. And not because he represented change, or clarity, or showed her a part of herself that she'd never come to terms with, like in one of the cheap romance novels she indulged in during flights and train rides. No, this was pure, unadulterated fear.
It wasn't constant. It wasn't even all that often. He was still sweet, reserved, kind and considerate and smart. He was still faithful to Yukiko-senpai, still talked about Nanako-chan, still looked out for his friends no matter what. And she'd been around him when he was depressed, or frustrated. She'd seen him at his best and worst and most places in between, and she'd never have guessed all those months ago on the bench beside the street near the shrine in Inaba that the boy who'd set out to make a connection with her and help her out, sunbeams dancing around still-damp hair, would frighten her as much as he could. But he did, and nothing she told herself changed that.
It had started when Nanako-chan was abducted and taken to Heaven. Souji-senpai had been relentless, pushing through the soft-toned streets and paths of paradise with a wild edge that defied any kind of caution. And in the week it had taken them to get to her, more than once he'd stop at a door, bleeding with torn armour and shredded clothes, and look back at them as if he'd forgotten they were there. None complained about the inhuman pace he'd set, though some were clearly worried that he'd take a chance too big to recover from. He'd stare at them, beleaguered and strung as tight as he himself was. Then he'd open the door, snap his fingers, and take them back to the entrance. He ignored any questions or protests and told them all to get some rest. But his voice was cold, empty, like it was coming out of a spare cargo container on a ship. She never thought he was angry or disappointed with them, but to hear him, usually so calm and uniquely expressive, to sound so defeated, so dead, echoed through her and sank like a lead weight in her stomach. Even when he didn't call the following day, she couldn't forget how he sounded. And when he did call, his voice sent chills through her over the phone, an effect his appearance didn't help at all: his hair was lank, his eyes bloodshot, clothes rumpled and stained (and Senpai was nothing if not presentable, no matter what), and his voice sounded dead, no matter what words he used.
When they got Nanako-chan back, he came back to life a little, and when they confronted Namatame, he sounded angry. Not like he had before, but genuinely lively and passionate, stopping them from making a terrible mistake and bloodying their hands. Nanako's revival, their investigation into Adachi, Teddy's return, through it all he sounded like he was back to normal, and Rise could have brushed it off as a one-time thing.
But then they'd met Ameno-sagiri, and her nightmares began.
Flashback
Souji-senpai stared at the entity surrounding Adachi with disbelief and anger, and something more. He'd dropped his sword in the fight and held his ruined left hand against his right shoulder, trying to staunch the bleeding while Yosuke-senpai and Yukiko-senpai worked their magic on him.
"You mean everything we've done up to now, the Shadows, the fights, they've all been a test? Some twisted experiment for you to assess us?" Rise shivered – he sounded angry, but that dead quality was back in his voice.
"Yes. Your desires needed to be revealed, so they could be met." The reply came from different angles at different pitches, but Rise could still hear another voice, coming from across an enormous distance.
Before she could say anything, Yosuke-senpai, mostly done on their leader's shoulder, stepped forward. "Bullshit! None of us asked for this!"
"But your Shadows were born of you. Your wishes were made manifest. And you denied them, denied yourselves. You craved an alternative to the reality before you."
"And what about our Shadows? They nearly killed us! How can people change if they're dead?"
"A consequence. Unfortunate, but still proof to your desires. Had you never denied reality, there would have been no difference. No change. Only the fog. And despite your efforts, the fog will continue. Humanity's will cannot be stopped."
Souji-senpai stepped forward, and she couldn't see his face. But his voice. Over the static of the TV world, she could still hear his voice. "Everything we've done up to this point, Nanako's death, Adachi leading us around like rats in a maze, and you're going to destroy us anyway?"
"Your struggles are commendable, but futile. Mankind desires its false images, its separation from reality. And the desires of many will come before those of a few."
Blue light erupted around Souji-senpai, and half a deck of phantom cards twirled around him in a flurry. "I don't want the world you're talking about. I want things the way they were before. And I'll fight you to make it happen." His words were inspirational, but his voice still made her shiver. It was Senpai, but something was different. Was it him she was sensing? Or...
Ameno-sagiri's voices became distant, almost whimsical or contemplative. "Ah. Your Personas. Human will overcoming one's Shadows. An unexpected result. An anomaly? Or a new path for humanity? I must know the truth."
The others flanked Souji-senpai, glowing in synchrony with him, their respective sounds erupting around them like an ascending orchestra. "Then allow me to give you a demonstration."
Adachi burst into flames as the Shadows gathered, and the others lashed out immediately when their foe's true form appeared. The fog surrounded Ameno-sagiri, however, and their strikes hit nothing at all. When its eye flashed in retaliation, Souji-senpai raised a hand to stop the forked lightning racing toward them, then growled "My turn."
He took several steps forward, separating himself from the others, and held out his torn left hand, summoning a card. Rise had seen him call on countless Personas since she'd met the team, but this card was black. Faceless. The noise of the TV world died down and there was a heavy hush around their leader, like everyone was waiting for him to speak.
She saw the others flicker and glow, saw the streams of light coalesce around Senpai, like he was drawing from them, but she didn't feel any different. If anything, everything still felt muffled.
Then she saw it. The hazy white cloak, tattered and immeasurably old, but regal and foreboding. It fell around Senpai, protected him and cut him off from their foe. Hovering next to the cloaked figure was a worn and scratched trumpet with illegible writing running down the length and tarnished wings grafted to the end. Rise felt pure terror spring up in her heart when she realized the figure was the manifestation of Senpai's mind. The usual blue glow around him darkened, and the ground under him snapped and buckled. The card he'd been holding shivered, trembled as pure energy carved into the rock around them, scribing XX on the black surface. The cloak pulled back to reveal the upper half of a skeleton, bony hands, empty eye sockets, vacant grin and all. It radiated an aura of power that nearly pushed her over, and Senpai's usual horns now sounded like a funeral fanfare. Like Senpai's own voice did, and she shook until her legs almost buckled.
Then a hollow, raspy breath was taken in, and a voice just like Senpai's, as dead as the figure itself, rattled her to the core. Calm, regal, inhuman. "...'Tis no worth in conversation. A lamb's voice is but mere bleating before the sound of my trumpet, like the falling leaves... What shall cause the downfall? The stars, the Earth, or the world of humans?" Senpai's breathing grew laboured, like he was struggling to summon his Persona completely. Or maybe Senpai was struggling to hold himself in check. Or perhaps it was the pain he was in from being impaled through the shoulder. Regardless, a skeletal hand lowered to rest on his arm. "Now singest thou to me with the voice of thy soul, that thou might keep the world from ending..."
Wild lightning snapped around Souji-senpai, thunder and raw energy breaking loose as he raised his hand and crushed the card in his bloody fist. He inhaled, then shouted in defiance to their enemy. "Israfel!"
The explosion as the Persona fully manifested tossed her mind around like a toy boat in a hurricane, but then she saw the skeleton raise its trumpet, and its cloak drew in, a mimicry of the lungs it no longer had.
And the sound of that trumpet... Dear God, she wanted to run screaming, to gouge her ears to a bloody, unhearing mess, to force herself into unconsciousness, anything to never hear it again. It was loud, it sounded just like Senpai's horn section, and it carried a deep tone of raw destruction on an unmatchable scale. A single blast of sound accompanied by the screams of untold millions. A call of the end of existence, of everything she knew and loved, in a heartbeat.
End Flashback
She'd never know how she kept her feet and mind during that battle. She'd never know how she walked away from Ameno-sagiri with the others, in victory, on her own legs without having shed a tear. What she did know was that, after she got home, she went through every song she owned, and plenty she didn't, and played them until her ears rang. She went into stages of blank semi-consciousness and crying mixed with loud music and almost violent dancing to drive the sounds of her beloved Senpai from her mind. She knew she was insufferably cheerful afterwards, but it was how she tried to cope.
By the time Senpai was getting ready to leave Inaba for Kofu, she'd succeeded in keeping those memories out of her head every time she saw him or the others brought up the fight. For the most part.
But tonight, hearing his voice, unchanged in the months since their fight against Adachi, had pulled all her nightmares to the front of her mind. The horns of his Personas were absent, but that was a small consolation; hearing him sound empty and dead, seeing him lose control, revel in the fight, had been enough.
She knew he wasn't like that. Since their fights with Ameno-sagiri and Izanami, he'd been the same charming and gorgeous Senpai as he always was. She knew he was a good person, a great person, no matter what he thought. And Rise swore to spend as much time with him as she could, to show him how to have fun again. But it didn't matter. She could tell herself whatever she wanted, but that didn't stop the nightmares from coming to call, grabbing hold and never letting go every time she heard that flat, dead voice. It didn't change the simple fact that that part of him, the wanton destructiveness in his soul, was the one thing in life she feared above anything else.
It was all these thoughts, all the memories, that tore a choked "I still love you, Senpai. But, I can't..." from her trembling lips before Kujikawa Rise's occasional shed tear broke into outright bawling. She cried in raw, wracking sobs so strong that they left her stomach feeling sore, so strong they nearly made her sick. She cried long after she'd run out of tears to cry. And it wasn't until a telemarketer called at some ungodly hour that she managed to pull herself together and flop into bed, looking like a complete wreck with frizzy hair, damp clothes and tear-streaked skin.
When Inoue came to check on her the next morning, she was all songs and smiles again. But she'd always reach for the dial when she heard trumpets in any song for the next few days.
Author's Notes, Post Script: Israfel is the name of the archangel that Trumpeter is based off of. Plus it just sounds better. Yes, I know Trumpeter is, according to P4, of a lower level than, say, Yoshitsune. But the lore behind Trumpeter would scare me more than one of Japan's national heroes, no matter how badass he was. And Lucifer and some of the other high-level Personas seemed a little too obvious. Much as I'd love to take credit for the quote, it's on the MegaTen wiki site, and the quote itself comes from SMT: Strange Journey's version of Trumpeter.