Disclaimer: I do not own Persona 3—or any version of the Persona series, really. I just own this rather shameless piece of work.
Symbiosis
Chapter Fourteen
In the following two nights of training, Tartarus found a SEES full of newfound determination and willpower. Minato ran alongside his classmates and colleagues, leading them through the halls and tearing through whatever Shadows they met without mercy. Akihiko and Junpei were just as into it, determinedly keeping up with their field leader with their Personas. Even Yukari, who was still more reserved when it came to fighting Shadows with Io, seemed to be giving her all in the endeavor.
"I don't sense any other Shadows on that floor," Mitsuru's voice reported after Polydeuces finished pulverizing an enemy. "You can continue on."
Minato steadied his breathing, looking at the others as they regathered around him. "Status?"
"Good to go," Akihiko said. He barely looked winded.
"I'll be fine in a bit," was Junpei's reassurance. He was breathing a little hard; Minato observed that Hermes seemed to rely on physical attacks, which sapped away at Junpei's stamina. If it got too bad, they could always recover it through Dia or take a small breather if they managed to find a safe spot. He would be okay.
Yukari nodded, though she looked Junpei over with a critical eye. A medic's gaze, Tamamo told him once. "I'm good."
Nodding, Minato walked to where they'd seen the stairs before, checking around corners just in case a Shadow decided to spawn outside of Mitsuru's surveillance. It wasn't that he didn't trust the Kirijo heiress, but they were quickly getting to the floors that tested her Persona's communicating range. Had it not been for the odd blockade they ran into a good few floors up, they might've left it entirely.
"Um, just wondering, but…" Yukari began, drawing the boys' attention to her as they walked. She fidgeted. "You know that girl staying in the dorm right now… Natsuki? Have any of you tried to talk to her?"
Akihiko hadn't, which, okay, was pretty predictable in Minato's opinion. The guy didn't talk to many people unless it involved training or how to improve said training, so he couldn't see him talking to her.
"I tried," Junpei admitted. When Yukari leveled a flat stare at him, he gave a petulant frown. "Not to hit on her or anything! Er, much, anyway." He rubbed the back of his neck. "Just wanted to see if she was comfortable and stuff. Her friends were attacked by Shadows and all… She seemed really scared."
Yukari's gaze softened. "Yeah… I tried talking to her about Fuuka and she freaked out. She kept asking for forgiveness and how she didn't mean to hurt her. Then, she started talking about her friends that are in the hospital. It was a mess."
Foot-in-mouth syndrome gained another point. Not that he probably wouldn't have done the same thing. He'd thought about going to confront her a few times, if only to satiate his own desire to know why bullies did what they did—or at least this one. Maybe even knock her down a peg by really driving in how endangered Fuuka was now for her actions. But then some sliver of mercy would kick in, or maybe just common sense, and he would back down.
"Speaking of Natsuki," Tamamo said idly, "it's occurred to me that she won't be able to resist the Shadows' call, even from the safety of the dorm. If they want her, they will drag her in. Especially now, when she's so vulnerable in her guilt and fear. Shadows are drawn to such negative emotions, and right now she's a veritable wellspring of that."
Another complication. Minato voiced her concerns aloud to the others, if not in so many words.
"We have no other choice," Mitsuru informed him through the transceiver. "Taking her with us to Tartarus is not an option—we can't afford to divide our attention to protecting both her and Yamagishi if we manage to find her. The chairman will be at the dorm during the operation, however, and will be aware of her presence. He should hopefully be able to keep her from running into danger."
Hopefully.
Minato resisted the urge to scoff. Ikutsuki could stay conscious during the Dark Hour, but he couldn't even protect himself like they could. Besides, what would he do to stop a teenager from running off when he couldn't even bend the rules a little in order to rescue Fuuka sooner?
Tamamo sighed. "I'm not saying I agree with all this or that I like it any more than you do, but, sometimes, there's no helping it. You can only do what you can, Minato. You can't… You can't save everyone."
Such endings only existed in fairytales, he knew. Children's fairytales, at that. The real myths were much sadder.
But even so…
Maybe I can change that, he thought. Like how Kirijo-senpai said in her speech.
A bold new future, built upon the concentrated efforts of individuals working together to better their environment and lives.
He had to have been given his unique power, the Wild Card, for a reason.
Perhaps that could be his reason.
On the second night of waiting and training, as he waited for the Dark Hour to approach, Minato held a conference with Tamamo regarding the operation to come. As Mitsuru said, they would be counting on him to prepare them as much as possible, so he figured that was a clear a sign as any that he should just pick the mind of his precognitive informant already.
He settled on his bed (in case anyone decided to burst in his room for whatever reason), calmed his thoughts, dove, and—
…And came face to face (well, more like face to chest) with Zouchouten.
Moving back, he sent a dry look to the space behind the Persona where he could just see Tamamo's Gekkoukan uniform hiding behind it. She was snickering. "Really?"
"Yep!" Tamamo leaned around the fierce guardian god, smiling impishly. Minato stilled, but she didn't seem to notice as she moved around the Persona fully to approach him. "You gave a warning this time so I prepared. Did you even see how close you were? If I didn't think fast you would've popped in not even an inch from my fa—"
"What happened to your eye?" the question blurted out before he could stop it.
Tamamo paused, blinking at the non sequitur. Then, realization dawning on her face, she gave a nervous laugh as she shuffled back half a step. "My eye? Ah, well, funny story… um…" He waited, watching as she tried to explain herself, until she eventually gave up. "With all that's happened, I forgot you haven't seen it yet."
"So what happened?" he asked. Ever since she first adopted a human appearance, she'd had bright red eyes. Seeing the sudden change of one turning blue was disconcerting. It wasn't even a natural blue color, by his estimation. It was too bright, like… that boy's?
"It's a side effect of the damage from before," Tamamo finally answered, interrupting his train of thought. "I lost some pieces and when I recovered, it left its own mark." When he remained silent, she edged closer, hands held up in a placating manner. "I know it's a pretty light color, but it's not like I'm blinded or anything! In fact, I haven't felt any real change other than it being aesthetic. I've been feeling just fine! Better, even!"
He sighed.
Her hands fell, posture drooping. "It's true."
Smiling wryly, he said, "I know." And, for once, he lifted his hand to pat her head rather than the other way around. Her hair seemed to be getting longer, too, he noted. It was interesting to see her start to change after years of remaining a static image. Perhaps it reflected that he was steadily changing, too?
Wilted, Tamamo followed him as he made his way across his own mindscape. Zouchouten was dismissed, and Minato strolled along the vast expanse of the area in an aimless manner. "So, you wanted to know about this month's operation?"
"'Two's coincidence and three times is a pattern', right?" he asked, paraphrasing her quote from the other day. "Both full moon nights, a strange Shadow attack happened. I'm gonna guess this one won't be any different."
"No. That, it won't." She tugged on his sleeve to stop him from moving further, constructing a table with two chairs before gesturing for him to sit down in one of them. It wasn't necessary, but he appreciated the gesture and claimed one of the seats anyway. She sat across from him. "There'll be two this time around, if things happen as they should."
He grimaced. That wasn't the best news to hear. Especially with an innocent life on the line.
Tamamo laughed. "It certainly isn't, but I doubt the Shadows care." She focused her gaze on the table, tracing images in the imaginary wood. "Shadows are categorized by the shape of the mask they bear as well as the powers they possess into that of the Major Arcana. The first full moon night, which 'Thanatos' killed for you, was the Magician. The one on the monorail was the Priestess. This next ordeal will pit you against the Empress and Emperor as a pair."
Minato thought. They were certainly in order of the Major Arcana from the bits and pieces he'd looked up since Tamamo told him about their significance to Social Links. He wasn't well-versed by any means, but he thought himself at least vaguely informed about the subject. "How many more of these are there?"
"There are twelve in all," she replied distractedly. Minato realized that her tracing had moved on from meaningless doodles to writing, ink flowing behind her finger and onto the surface of the table. English again. "So eight, when you complete this ordeal."
She was writing a list, going down in a column before returning to the top of the row to cross the first few out. "That's them?"
His Other nodded. "I don't remember the order of what comes after the Empress and Emperor, so you'll have to check them out later. The last one, though…" She tapped the bottom of the list. "That's the Hanged Man. I remember that much."
Minato sat back in his chair, contemplative. "That's a lot." If they all came out only on the full moon nights, that would involve months of work.
"They'll come sooner than you think," Tamamo said mildly. "Now, back to the present matter: Empress and Emperor. I don't know what their arcana means, exactly, but I do know that their battle will test your ability to work with Shadow weaknesses and strengths."
On the table between them, Tamamo laid out a diagram of the different elemental weaknesses Shadows could have along with physical vulnerabilities, printing the words on little square tiles. Agi, Bufu, Garu, Zio, slash, pierce, bash… It all made sense in his head (no pun intended), but seeing it laid out and actually written was somewhat confusing. He wondered where the names came from and how they had all been discovered in order to name them, and why Shadows could resist and be weak to certain types. Then there were the two skills that Tamamo labeled as "instant-kill" strikes, Hama and Mudo—he really wondered about those two and what made them so apparently lethal.
"Just think of it as a game," Tamamo said with a sardonic smile. "But really, I don't know. Now, pay attention. Hama and Mudo are crapshoots normally unless the target is specifically weak to them, so I wouldn't rely on those anyway and especially not in this fight." She moved the respective spell-types to the side, where they popped out of existence. "The Arcana Empress… I'm not entirely certain, but I think she'll be the one to start out weak to physical strikes, but block any magic you throw at her. Whatever the case, the Emperor will be the exact opposite."
She arranged the tiles, dividing them cleanly and putting them under the labels of the respective Shadow.
"You've still got Unicorn, with the spells you introduced to it via fusion and skill card, so that will work," she commented. "Zouchouten's good enough for physical striking if you're not confident with your swordplay yet."
Minato nodded absently, glad he hadn't gone and fused Unicorn into another Persona yet as he had almost done the other night. Then again, most of his Personas had at least one elemental skill in their repertoire anyway. For insurance.
"Don't prolong the fight," Tamamo warned him. "Strike true, but strike swiftly. Don't give them a chance to possibly switch things up on you. Because Shadows will take that chance." The sour look on her face told him that she somehow knew this by experience.
He wondered how.
"Hey, Tamamo?" he asked, reaching out to prod a tile. She gave a small hum in acknowledgment. He looked at her and found her mismatched eyes studying the odd words. "How do you know about Shadows, anyway? And all of… this?"
Her eyebrow quirked. "You want to know that now?"
He shrugged, trying to seem nonchalant. "I know you said that you know a lot 'things' that I don't… you practically tell the future. I'm just curious."
His Other looked at him appraisingly, the dual colors of her eyes making her scrutiny more intense than usual. After a moment, her stare softened and she looked away. "Maybe I'm an oracle," she joked quietly, before shaking her head. "Or just a girl who had too much time on her hands."
"Who decided to live in my head one day to get me through this mess?" he asked jokingly, but even then, he was fitting the pieces together. Her various slips, the way she worded certain things… like what she'd said just now. "Had" rather than "has". She had been someone before she was with him. But now…
She smiled gently. "Maybe Fate decided you needed me. Who knows?" Her arm lifted, finger poking his forehead. "You're being summoned."
Minato blinked and found himself back in his room. Someone was knocking on his door.
"Minato-kun? Are you awake?" Yukari called through the door. "Mitsuru-senpai's having everyone gather in the lounge. We're about to leave."
Sitting up from his bed, Minato told her that he would be right out. He considered talking further with Tamamo as he stood up, grabbing his sword from where it stood leaning against his shelf, but decided against it. He wanted her to tell him, to confirm his suspicions, but there was something about the quiet way that she dissuaded him from the topic that told him she didn't want to say just yet.
People were entitled to their secrets, he felt. Whether they had a body or lived in one's head.
How funny, Tamamo thought without any real humor.
It'd been a while since Minato had asked her about what she was, however indirectly. He had done it a lot when he was younger, trying to know more about the mysterious "Other" that lived in his head. She never knew what to tell him, scared that admitting the truth and trying to explain it would freak him out. After all, how could one say that they were dead without it sounding strange? Especially to Minato, who had seen his parents die despite no longer remembering the exact details?
He knew death. Knew that it meant separation. That the people he cared about left him when they died. He had feared her even hinting that she would leave him, and all throughout growing up he told her often how glad he was to have her with him. As if the subsequent guilt-trip his words spawned would keep her anchored to him. If she'd told him that she was already dead, nothing more than a spirit that could fade away at any given moment, what would it have done to him?
She sighed.
No, a lot of it was her own weakness, really. She knew it all logically, within the confines of her own mind, but she didn't want to say it aloud. Words, when spoken, had more weight than they did in her thoughts. If she told him, she would have to face the reality that yes, she was dead.
She accepted it, but that didn't mean that she liked it by any means. Or that she liked being reminded that there was no going back. Nine… ten years was a lot of time to come to terms with it all, but some pains never went away.
…Huh, Tamamo thought as she considered the now empty chair across from her. She could still cry.
Frustrated, she stood, erasing the table and chairs from existence before going to drag a Persona out from its rest. This was no time to be moping around. If Minato was going to go train to keep them both alive, then she would, too. Feelings be damned.
"Junpei!" Minato called as he feinted a slash, sending a Dancing Hand Shadow skittering back on its fingers. Its head turned when Junpei took the opening, moving behind it with his two-handed sword raised almost over his shoulder. With a deft swing, he smashed the Shadow's damaged mask and it dissipated.
"Ha!" Junpei crowed. "Home run!"
Resisting the urge to smile, Minato looked down into the room ahead where a staircase lay waiting. "Kirijo-senpai, how are the others?"
"Akihiko is currently engaged in battle," Mitsuru reported after a short pause. "Takeba is near him and en route to lend assistance."
He shared a look with Junpei. "Is it bad?"
"I'm fine," Akihiko's voice groused through the transceiver. There were the telltale sounds of combat in the background, albeit muffled. "You guys are near the stairs, right? Just sit tight. Yukari and I will head there soon."
"Or so he says," Mitsuru remarked dryly.
"I'm gonna go check back down this way in case there was something I missed," Junpei informed him when the communication cut. "I kinda just breezed through, so there might be another Shadow there or one of those weird briefcase thingies."
Minato let him go, but fidgeted as he was left to wait. It wasn't often that he told the group to separate, especially seeing as how they all had to be hale and whole for the operation ahead. But they had all been doing rather well in fights together that he felt they could manage somehow on their own. Mitsuru had told him numerous times that she could safely monitor them all through Penthesilea, keeping track of their statuses and informing the others should one of them be in danger. He just didn't like the thought of one of them being cornered and the rest not being able to reach them in time.
Shadows preyed on humans, but they especially didn't seem to like Persona-users. Even more so, Persona-users that trespassed on their nest. Normal humans would become Lost or be put in a coma at the hospital, but the members of SEES were in danger of much worse. Their potential kept them conscious during the Dark Hour, but if they had the misfortune of being knocked unconscious while fighting the Shadows, they were placed at the Shadows' mercy.
And Shadows didn't exactly have mercy programmed into their instincts.
That was why it was much easier, much safer, to traverse Tartarus in a group. Shadows, like animals, were more wary of trying to attack them if they were together. Hostility was definitely shown when they were close in proximity, but SEES didn't have to fear being swarmed when they were together.
And if one of them was knocked unconscious while in the group, it could be counted upon for the others to protect their vulnerable bodies until they could be revived.
Biting his lip, Minato stared down one end of the hallway, where he and Junpei had split up with Akihiko and Yukari at a fork. While his and Junpei's paths had eventually reconnected near the stairs, it appeared that the others' had branched out further. Yukari found an Access Point, though, so if worse came to worst, they could always flee down that way…
He shook his head. Part of being in a group meant trusting the other members to pull through. Minato was a bit of a loner by nature, but living with Tamamo in his head made him aware of at least that fact of socializing. He would trust the others to hold their own or, in Mitsuru's case, keep him informed if the situation went downhill. And if it did, he would act on that same trust to go running to find them, just as they would do for him.
Footsteps sounded down the path he had come from and he watched avidly as Akihiko and Yukari came into view. The gray-haired teen looked a little more rumpled than he had before the team separated, the dark fabric of his pants had the odd dirt mark or two, but no worse for the wear. Yukari was clearly watchful of their surroundings, but she was much less on edge than the first few runs they'd had.
"Where's Junpei?" Akihiko asked as they neared.
"That way." Minato gestured with a tilt of his head. "He should be back soon."
Yukari sighed, taking a seat near where Minato stood, her bow in easy reach beside her. Akihiko joined her, leaning against and sliding down the wall until he hit the floor. "Is it bad that I'm getting used to this?"
"Nah," Akihiko said as he inspected his gloves. "Works out better that way. Otherwise, you'd be making your way to a heart attack."
"Humans are highly adaptable," Minato chimed in.
The brunette rolled her eyes. "Why'd I even ask you two…?"
Puzzled, Akihiko asked, "What's that supposed to mean?"
She shook her head. "Never mind." Drawing her legs up to her chest, she leaned her chin on her knees and lapsed into silence. It was only a few minutes later when she broke it again, "Hey, Minato-kun, what made you so sure that Fuuka was involved with all of this? I mean, you put in a lot of effort to look into things and you haven't even met her, right? I didn't even think much of it when I heard she was sick… She's always seemed pretty sickly so it just sounded normal."
Minato drew a blank for a moment, trying to gather his answer. He couldn't very well tell them that he had only listened to a hint that the voice in his head told him at first and then ran with it.
…But if he thought about it, it wasn't just following Tamamo's words that had him running all over the place, looking for clues. He had been affected by this case, almost from the very beginning, hadn't he? Since the second time he went to Fuuka Yamagishi's classroom in search of her, only to hear her classmate talk about her in the mocking tones that had filled his childhood.
"I didn't get along with people a lot as a kid because I… liked my space," he began, stumbling over a clumsy replacement for calling himself a loner. "I moved around a lot, too, to live with whatever relative took me in. Other kids made fun of me for that. For being quiet. Different. And being a transfer student didn't really help anything. No one knew me, so it was easy to be overlooked by teachers and other students. Once, I was living with… I think it was my maternal grandfather. It was out in the country so kids got pretty mean. Jealous. I almost got locked in a supply closet in middle school. It didn't happen only because a younger cousin of mine figured out what was going on and caught them before they could try."
He paused, pushing down the terror he remembered feeling when he realized what could have happened. Tamamo's voice comforted him, whispering encouragements. "It's okay. Let them know you. It'll be all right."
"So, I guess you could say I'm a little sensitive to that stuff. Bullying. Cover-ups. When I heard Yamagishi-san was absent and the way some of her classmates talked about her, I guess one of the first things that came to mind was that." He shrugged, looking away so he couldn't see their faces. "I know what it's like to be quiet because no one else will listen. To wonder if anyone would bother to look if I went missing. Before I came here and met you guys, I just sort of… stopped caring. But I never forgot it."
As he finished, his words fading down Tartarus's halls, he ducked his head. He hadn't meant to divulge that much, such as the "supply closet incident", but the words had come pouring out anyway.
And if he were to be honest, it felt… nice to say it aloud. For so long, Minato had had only Tamamo as someone to share things with, but there was little to have to share with someone who lived in his head. But suddenly, with SEES, with whom he already shared the secret of the Dark Hour with, he felt as though he had more.
It was a novel experience, to confide something personal with others outside of his head. Like taking a bit of weight off his shoulders.
Catharsis.
"Wow…" Yukari murmured, blinking in honest surprise at the confession. "That's… Well, I mean, that's horrible, but…"
Akihiko looked at him with quiet appraisal. "Seems like you've gone through a lot, too." He pushed himself to his feet when footsteps sounded down the hall.
Junpei quickly approached the three of them. "Hey! Sorry, turned out there was one little passage I didn't check out earlier, so I went down it to see if there was anything to miss. It was empty, though."
Yukari rose to her feet, patting her skirt of dust. She laughed. "Of course you'd miss an area. Stupei."
"Will you ever quit calling me that?" Junpei grumbled. But he was quick to grin Minato's way. "Seriously, though, man. Sorry for the delay."
Minato shrugged one shoulder. It wasn't a problem. The Dark Hour had barely begun. They still had plenty of time to burn. "Shall we keep going?"
There was an affirmative from his teammates, so he turned to the stairs and started climbing up. He was surprised when they kept closer than usual, walking around and beside him on the wide stairwell rather than trailing behind as before. Junpei even clasped his shoulder, the usual traces of lingering jealousy removed from his friendly expression.
It was… strange.
But not unwelcome.