Story Title: The Arcana in Mourning
Chapter Title: II: Priestess
Author: Mathais
Rating: T
Fandom: Persona 3
Warnings: Persona 3 Spoilers, based on FES.
Pairings: Social Links/Minato
Summary: After the Journey but before the Answer is the mourning. Shorts on the Social Links.
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters of Persona 3; I'm just here to play.
OoOoO
II: Priestess
It took all of Fuuka's willpower to not cry. She wasn't sure that she could do this. Today was supposed to be their happy day—they all finally, finally remembered their shared purpose and were supposed to celebrate. They were supposed to enjoy the future they'd built together through blood, sweat, and tears.
They shouldn't be... They shouldn't be without him.
Not on the day of their greatest celebration when they finally, truly, knew they had won.
Fuuka's hand remained over her mouth when she finally made it to the school's entrance. If it remained there, then the words couldn't escape her. She'd lowered it once, when she was running down the stairs, but her chant of, "Minato," only served to cause her emotions to fray. Fuuka had quickly covered her mouth after.
She needed something—anything—to focus on. And so she pulled out something that she kept carefully hidden away, that only one person knew she had. The pair to the headphones she'd created for Minato settled around her ears, and his music flowed into her.
With a tension-releasing sigh, Fuuka let the music invade and took comfort in the fast beat. Fuuka had never quite been one for music; she usually only paid attention to what played on the radio. Minato, however, loved music with a passion he showed little else and, though for the most part his headphones and his personal space were sacrosanct, every so often he'd pull her close and slip them over her head. It was never the same song twice, and eventually Fuuka purchased her own mp3 player to deposit the songs Minato would recommend.
Minato truly was an eclectic person; much like the shifting personas she felt him use, he never found himself one genre. He flittered from the cheerful lilt of pop to the evocative sound of Western classical, never once showing a preference and yet never denying the strengths and weaknesses of each. One in particular stood out to her, and it was this song which sang into her heart.
"Burn my dread," she whispered to herself.
Out of all the songs Minato regularly switched in and out of his mp3 player, Fuuka knew that this song remained forever on it. As such, it never left Fuuka's either. Action in the face of futility—Fuuka had never quite understood Minato's fascination with the song, but now, having stood and faced Nyx, Fuuka thought she might understand the appeal.
She thought they would all die—Juno told her what they were up against. Power so strong that, even as she relayed information on the Avatar, Fuuka could sense the almighty power that dwelled behind it. Only she had known the full truth—the Harbinger had but a fraction of Nyx's full power and even if they could manage to strike this fragment down, it would mean nothing in the end. But still she stood by her friends, hoping for a path that would take them beyond this trial.
And there had been one.
She only wished it had been one without the sacrifice of the boy she loved.
Fuuka loved Minato in her own, quiet way. Fuuka knew she wasn't the only one; she could not be blind when her very power was to see, but she accepted it nonetheless as an inevitability. It was hard not to love Minato even a little, and it was even harder not to love him a lot. Whether it was in his comforting words or his understanding silences, Minato drew people to him and made them shine that much brighter.
Though the resolution in her heart that awoke Juno from Lucia stemmed from Natsuki and SEES, Fuuka credited her true blossoming to Minato. The way he encouraged her to play to her strengths, to not let her interests decay simply because they weren't "feminine" enough, became words for her to live by. So what if she liked tinkering? So what if she lived for taking things apart and putting them back together? If that was what she liked, then it was what she'd do. That was the resolve he gave her—to turn her hidden strengths into confidence and pride.
She wanted to make a tech club to let her talents truly shine. She wanted him to join it with her, so that she could teach him her strengths and give back what he had given her.
Fuuka wanted him by her side.
This future that they made... The only reason why she wanted to live in such a future was because Minato had been by her. For so long, she had feared the future the most. All of its mysteries, like a fog that not even Juno could pierce—she had been terrified of stumbling blind and deaf into what lay ahead. She tried to mold herself into what people said she should be in order to better weather the storm to come.
When Minato was with her, when he held her hand in a rare display of emotion and affection, Fuuka thought that she wouldn't mind walking into such a future, now sure of herself and her place.
Without him, though, she found the same fear all over again. The same indecision. The same pain.
She only had that courage because Minato was by her side.
Without him, what future awaited her? What future could now be there?
Fuuka wasn't sure she had the strength anymore.
Feeling the tears flow down her clenched eyes, Fuuka pressed the heels of her palms into them. Opening her eyes fully once more, she looked out into the street and saw the coming ambulance, its siren blocked by the music still drumming through her. As she tucked away her headphones, Fuuka swallowed her sorrow and dried her tears as the ambulance stopped and paramedics exited the vehicle. She nestled it right alongside that same pain and fear in her heart, and she told herself she would deal with it later.
With her voice emptier than it had been in months, Fuuka directed the paramedics up to the rooftop.
Her face was perfectly blank.