Quick AN: I Lied (More AN at the end)
Yu narukami was currently at peace
The gray-haired teenager was feeling remarkably calm considering the ordeal he had just gotten through but then again, Yu always had a pretty coolheaded (if at times weird ) demeanor.
A demeanor that just a year and an half prior had done wonders to both his life and the world.
Living in a world of superheroes, mutants and aliens would have made anyone a little on edge when something unpredictable happened , yet when his parents had to go work abroad for a year, he had stoically accepted it .
The teenager was a little estranged about leaving the city he grew up in, but being a relatively quiet and reserved figure he didn't have many friends that he was going to particularly miss.
So he had gone to the sleepy town of Inaba , to live for an year with his uncle Ryotaro Dojima and his 8 year old cousin nanako dojima until his folks came back . He had tought that said year would have been uneventful and the only thing he would really have to worry about was his studies .
Boy, was he wrong .
Around the time he had arrived to Inaba , a local tv news caster woman involed in sexual affair scandal with a local councilman, had been found murdered in a peculiar way , hanging from a tv antenna in the area , and when one of his new school mates , the girl who had discovered the body Saki Konishi, was found dead in the same fashion the police had started the hunt for ,supposedly, a serial killer.
And that was just the tip of the iceberg . See, right on the train ride to Inaba , Yu had a weird dream involving a blue limousine and it's passengers. A long nosed old man and a blonde haired , golden eyed adult woman talked to him about an incoming ruin, a deception and his journey throughout it all . The weirdest part about this dream , beyond feeling quite real, was the fact that he remebered every single part of it after waking up .
And that was when the weirdness really started to roll down the hill like a lanslide. After meeting a strangely touchy gas station attendant and ryotaro's protege detective Adachi on the day of his arrival , Yu had started his school year and he ended up making friends with three of his class mates : Yosuke Hanamura , a city boy like him that had ended up transferring when his parents had been assigned to the management of the local Junes mall some years prior , Chie Satonaka , a tomboy of a girl, rabid martial arts fan and aspiring police woman, and Yukiko Amagi , heiress to the historical Amagi Inn , one of the few spots in town that was worthy of attention by tourists
One eventful day shortly after his arrival, while hanging around Junes with Yosuke and Chie , Yu had ended up discovering a world inside the tv, covered in a yellow fog and a weird creature living in it ,Teddie a hollow mascotte suit of a clown garbed blue bear that moved and talked.
The friendly bear helped ' em get back to reality from said world mentioning people being thrown in there by someone , and not long after this discovery, their schoolmate and acquaintance Saki Konishi had been found dead after disappearing for a couple of days and having appeared on the midnight channel.
See, around Yu's arrival there was a rumour floating around about a tv channel appearing around midnight on rainy nights that would show your soulmate , and when Saki disappeared it was showing her .
Yosuke , who had a crush on the girl , asked his new friend and Chie to help him get back in the Tv world and find out if it had anything to do with saki's death . Yu had agreed and togheter they had discovered from Teddie that Saki had been indeed thrown in there and that there was a perfect copy of her family's liquor store from reality.
It was here that Yosuke was confronted by his Shadow.
From what they gathered the tv world was a place connected to the collective unconscious where monsters called Shadows roamed, born out of people darkest toughts and desires and when some one entered it , they were confronted by their own Shadow putting the person face to face with the ugliest part of themselves . You could either accept your shadow and understand the parts of you that you'd rather not aknowledge or you could reject it causing it to turn berserk and kill you like it happened to Saki. Yosuke unfortunately initially reacted the latter way and his shadow turned into a monster and almost killed him .
Almost, since ,luckily for him, Yu had awakened his Persona , a powerful fighting spirit that is granted in the tv world to the people that are aware of who they are completely . Yu's persona Izanagi defeated Yosuke' s Shadow which Yosuke then accepted granting him a persona too ,Jiraya .
After this point things just began to go faster and faster, Yukiko had been kidnapped and thrown into the tv world apparently to kill her, after helping chie face her shadow and gain her persona they later did the same for yukiko and all togheter they decided to form an investigation team to save people thrown in the TV, that would appear on the midnight channel , and find the killer, since the police didn't know about the tv world.
Around the same time Yu had discovered the ability to wield multiple personas and fuse them into more powerful ones thanks to the blue room from his dreams , the velvet room and its host Igor with his assistant margaret . Igor also informed him that the true bonds he would form with the people around him would allow him to boost the power of his Personas and encouraged him to reach out to others.
So for the rest of the year, Yu juggled saving people in the tv world with his friends , his school life and spending time getting to know school mates, the fellow members of his team and other people in town. Everytime they saved someone that person ended up joining and helping them like Kanji, a local tuggish 1st year, Rise, a retired idol schoolmate and Naoto , the detective prince(ss) investigating the case.
After many twist and turns the team managed to corner the killer himself Torhu Adachi , who after discovering the same power to cross worlds as Yu decided to use it to agitate the sleepy life he had been relegated to when he was transferred to Inaba , killing the first two victims and manipulating a third party with the same power that led to the kidnappings using the events as entertainment.
But the case didn't end with his capture since the real cause for all of the events that transpired was the person who had gifted both Yu and Adachi with their power finally revealed itself right before Yu left town. The ancient Shinto goddess Izanami had disguised herself as a human ( the gas attendant that first touched both Yu and Adachi when they had arrived to town ) and corrupted the Tv world to be a realm of malicious illusions that would have leaked in the real world to test humanity's desire for truth .
After a grueling battle Yu and his friends were finally able to defeat her purifying the tv world and putting an end to the midnight channel .
Yu left Inaba the day after, the bonds with his friends and the people he met strong in his heart, vowing to come back and meet they did a few months later , with no school Yu had opted to visit Inaba during the golden week in order to spend time with his friends , one of them in particular.
Unfortunately for them the Tv world reared back it's head in their lives. The midnight channel was back showing them, in an ad featuring them in some sort of martial arts tournament . So togheter with his friends he had entered the TV once again, only for all of them to be caught completely off guard .
They ended up separated and pitted against each other in a fighting tournament, inside a nightmare version of their own school, togheter with other persona users from a group called the Shadow Operatives, older users that had also saved the world from a god in a similar incident to their own .
The operatives were looking into the disappearance of an anti shadow weapon , a robot created by the kirijo group capable of wielding a persona and gaining sentience .
It was this robot's shadow , named Labrys thrown in the newly corrupted tv world togheter with a kidnapped Rise , that created the school and the tournament . The first prompted by the robot girl desire for humanity and the second born out of her tortured development process achieved through constant fighting with other anti-shadow weapons.
The battle with the shadow had been tough but Yu was able to defeat her , and after a final taunt from the mastermind who orchestrated the whole situation, everybody safely left the newly unstable Tv world. A grim reminder of this incident being far from over .
Which brings us back to Yu, feeling calm and content that same late evening in his old room at his uncle's house. And the main reason he was feeling calm despite the ominous rain that had started outside his window. His cute redhead of a girlfriend was currently with him relaxing and cuddling on his couch with him, happy to have her senpai all to herself after some months of long distance relationship.
Yep, Rise and him had started dating during his year in Inaba and they had been togheter ever since. Rise initially developed a crush for him when Yu and the rest of the IT (Investigation Team) saved her from her shadow, mesmerized by his cool demeanor and bravery . A crush that grew into a reciprocated feeling after spending a lot of time togheter .
Yu had also ended up falling for the young ex-idol, discovering her caring nature and playful personality to be endearing and he had also helped her figure out to not give up on her passion for the music industry and to reprise her Idol efforts in order to not abbandon the people she had inspired with her songs.
Their cuddling session was a much needed respite after the slight scare of her temporary kidnapping and they were fully enjoying it.
"Senpai" the smaller girl said , nuzzling her cheek in his pajama shirt " I am really really really really really really really really really really glad that you are back in Inaba. I missed you soooooo much !"
"I missed you too" the gray haired teenager said while smiling knowingly " Tokyo feels lonelier than Inaba without my girlfriend to pamper with sweets". Rise gave a small hum of assent, continuing to rub her cheek against his clothed chest, taking in his smell.
He continued " Besides, a couple of months and Risette is gonna be hitting the scenes once more, so I doubt we' ll be apart for that much longer." At that the young girl stopped rubbing abruptly and looked up at him. She was smiling in a weird, almost pained way and her eyes gave the impression she was hiding something. Her distress was clear to him, even if she tried to hide it. Enough to have him ask "Rise ? Is everything all right ? " the ex-idol started biting her lip in tought
"Senpai, I..." she shuts her eyes and lets out a long sigh " I really can't hide anything from you ." He gives her a moment " Listen there is something I want to talk to you about but... could we do it tomorrow ? I feel tired after the whole tv mess and I just want to cuddle in bed tonight, we really didn't get many chances before either ."
Yu was a bit uncertain but ultimately complied, he had missed her a lot too but fully intented on finding out what was bothering her. He got up from the couch, heading for the wardrobe to gather the futon in order to go to sleep .But before he could even open it, he was interrupted by a glow flashing on his face.
He turned, already dreading but expecting what he was going to see.
The tv, like many times, before had turned itself on at midnight on a rainy night and was currently showing something. That something was an atypical sight.
It was a dance floor, like an old weird disco night club and the predominant color was an unnatural orange with shades of red, the floor had flashing colored lights panel in red, blue and white and seemed empty outside of a lonely figure in white, standing in the middle of it in the semi-darkness . Suddenly a spotlight turned on the figure, showing more details while it looked straight at the camera. It was a fairly young woman, maybe a little past her mid twenties ,with vibrant red hair, emerald green eyes, pouty lips and full make up, garbed in a flourishing white wedding dress with the veil up.
Her neutral face turned into a perfect smile of pearly white teeths before she said " Hello boy-o's and girlies and welcome, to the latest "MJ, party fiend spectacular" " her voice raising in tone and glee, she continued" And today you are all invited to this party , dear viewers " she started dancing, wagging her hips left and right before giving a little twirl while saying " because today is a day I' ve been waiting for a long time"
She stopped, giving the camera another full toothed smile , a slightly unhinged light in her eyes
"Today is the day I finally am made an honest woman out of , the day I marry my dear sweetheart and settle down with... " she gave a little pause then shouted pointing to the stage behind her " THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN!" The moment she says so a projector turns on showing a close up of the new york super-hero swinging trough the city.
Giggling in glee, the apparently bride-to-be continued" oh yes, finally dear viewer, I've been waiting for this day for what felt like ten years. My Tiger will finally be all mine again, after the promise I made him , after all the anguish and suffering we went trough, the vapid and meaningless rebounds, the stale
nonsense we both brought up from time to time as an excuse ."
"But no more" the woman declared with determination" I' m done living a lie, and I'm done waiting ." A serious look on her face is quickly replaced with another smile " So you'd better hurry up dear viewer, because this party is going to rock the World "
And just like that, while the bride was staring right into the camera smiling , the Tv abruptly turned off showing Yu, his own and Rise's ,since she had gotten closer to the tv herself, stunned faces.
"I gotta call Naoto " he started to say " this feels different from the ..." "Senpai" but he was interrupted by Rise who had a toughtful look on her face
" I may know who that is ."
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AN:Sorry if a lot of this chapter was exposition , I wanted to give a basic Rundown of P4 and it's characters, it is a cross over after all and it has important information to the story. I really hope I nailed the midnight channel scene. I always tought of them as a really cool part of the tv world and I hope I did justice to them and to the idea of a shadow-MJ, even if , as you are going to discover it's a little more complicated than that. the classic smt parts are far off but they wont require as much exposition.
Anyway one question. Is the small fluff okay ? I never had a girlfriend so I wouldn't really know, and on a cultural level, I know a little of japanese culture and social norms but not nearly enough to use in a story so I'll keep things vague
That said I'm gonna see if I can keep the schedule to around a chapter, every two weeks , I feel comfortable with it. In conclusion I hope you enjoyed this becuse I sure did.
R&R.