madimpossibledreamer

Main Points: Persona 4 .hack inspired AU
chapter summary: souji wakes up and wants answers. in the past, nanako and souji get someone's help and go through the tutorial.
word count: 2328
rating: T
someday i will figure out how to format. someday.
also it would help if the stupid tension headache could go away please

Souji suddenly wakes and blinks. He’s pretty sure he didn’t hear Nanako calling up to him that breakfast was ready, even though that’s what usually serves as his alarm clock.

It takes his his tail tapping against the couch to remember what happened. He’s stuck inside a game. …Where’s Yosuke?

He throws off the blanket and stands lightly, sniffing the air. The scent of the brunet is stale. He hasn’t been here for a while. Did I mess up, trusting him? …No, I can’t believe that. But if that’s the case, where is he?

He follows the smell to the front door of the Clan Sanctuary and opens it, at which point his senses are suddenly assaulted. Yosuke’s scent is definitely here, but there are so many other different scents…how is he going to tell the difference between them all?

He almost hisses, but bites it back. He’s not a cat. And just because he’s a Nekomata at the moment doesn’t mean he has to lose himself to that. He shakes his head to clear it. It’s a little overwhelming at the moment, because he’s never been trapped in a game before, because he’s never been a Nekomata before, but that doesn’t mean he has to let it control him.

His instincts allow him to jump out of the way as an out of control motorcycle barely misses him and skids into a nearby building. It’s orange and flashy, and…it’s Koual’s, isn’t it?

“God, I am so sorry. Are you okay? Oww.” The figure that crawls off it, bloody face and all, is someone he didn’t expect to see anytime soon, either. That’s the friendly face of the Kitsune, and the outfit is back to its usual as well. The scent has changed, he notes, including the metallic smell of blood, but it’s still Yosuke underneath it all.

“K-Koual?” he manages.

The saddle bags look to be full, and it looks like the contents aren’t particularly damaged. Unlike Yosuke himself.

Once he looks Souji over, though, he’s back to smiling, even sneaking in a wink. “Dude, I’m not that bad. My bike probably needs some work, though.”

“Well, you’ve proved it’s you,” Souji eventually manages, though the inner cat is really not liking the look of that bleed above the eye. Never mind the fact that head wounds usually bleed worse than any other type of wound and usually look worse than they are, that’s no reason to treat it like it’s nothing.

“Haha, very funny.” The laugh isn’t real, but the amused twitch of a lip is. “Since you’re up, help me carry in this stuff.”

He nods at the bags, and Souji opens them to find…more bags. “You…went shopping?” he asks blankly.

“Everyday’s great at your Junes.” Koual shrugs. He waits until the saddle bags are empty before beginning to walk the motorcycle back toward the Clan home. “I’m just glad I didn’t actually run you over. Though if I thought you were actually going to wake up this soon, I would’ve hurried up more.”

Souji wants to ask a million questions, all at once, but he swallows them until they’re at least off the street. The posts about CPs had turned ugly, never mind what would happen if someone were to overhear the thing about Yosuke being Ceirahn, Siren of the Abyss.

Yosuke directs Souji to the fridge and carefully puts the motorcycle in a corner near the stairs that seems to have been specifically put there for it. When he turns, though, there’s an expectant look, like he’s rehearsed this in his head. “Technically, you’re my commander, now, so. Questions are yours, answers are mine. I’m up for anything.”

“Could I order you to do anything?” It’s a question he hadn’t meant to ask, didn’t even know he was saying until it was out of his mouth. At least Yosuke can’t see the blush beneath the fur.

“No, not anything.” With the smile, it looks like Hanamura has something in particular in mind, but he’s not going to say it. “It’s not like you’re a master and I’m a slave, because that’s not how it worked with Nyarlie. It was more like…hmm.” The arms have crossed, but other than that Yosuke’s not particularly defensive. “The suggestion was there. And being an Immortal definitely brought out the worst side of me. But it was more like a real leader and general relationship. The big things were ordered, but for the most part, I had free reign. Like, ‘wreck some havoc but don’t get caught’ kinda thing. I can’t blame the Crawling Chaos for everything I did or said. A lot of that was me. But it’s also kind of like…y’know how you have a thought, but you’re like ‘that’s stupid’ or ‘that’s wrong’ or ‘I’m not going to do that’, and then you don’t do it? Suddenly that step was gone, and I couldn’t even see why I shouldn’t do whatever I felt like. And now that I’m back in the land of the sane, that voice, my conscience I guess, that’s back.”

“Do you…” This is harder. It’s probably not a good idea to ask. It’s probably a good idea to just ignore it. Pretend it never happened. Yosuke Hanamura is the kind of guy to be ruthlessly heterosexual. And…did Souji actually care back?

I don’t have the experience, he admits. I don’t know enough to know the difference between friendship and love. But I do know that Yosuke is important to me, and if it’s real and not just a horny teenager’s instincts speaking, it’s important to him. And thus it’s important to me, even if I’m not sure how I feel about it or how I should react. What we should do about it.

“…That stuff Ceirahn was saying. All the innuendoes and…were you coming on to me?” He finally manages a question. It’s not as polished as he’d like, but he got it out.

By the way the kitsune’s eyes widen and he suddenly shifts, uncomfortable, he doesn’t want to answer the question. “Can we leave that question off for a bit?” It’s meant to be light, amused. It’s anything but, the desperate misdirection of someone very scared.

Suddenly, grey eyes are flinty and hard. He suddenly actually wants the answer. “No.”

He watches the Adam’s apple bob as Yosuke swallows. The posture’s scrunched over, the tails held tightly to the body, and the kitsune turns so he’s not looking at Souji. The agony is back, the near-tears look of utter insecurity and lack of self-confidence that Souji absolutely hates seeing.

“Well, okay, but it’s going to be a long story, and you’re not going to interrupt, because I’ve got to explain some other things, too.”

Souji settles on the pads of his feet to listen. It’s an oddly comfortable position. He focuses his full attention on Yosuke.

Previously:

They appear outside a small shrine. Souji’s suddenly curious about how they’ll integrate someone else into the tutorial.

A man’s sitting there, praying. “Shinshoku had the dream again. Harm will come to this shrine. Please, Kami, protect us…”

Souji realizes that a ghostly fox of the same color fur as Koual is sitting, perched, on one of the statues. He yawns and then twitches his tail, as if in welcome.

The prayer goes on, but nothing happens. Nanako tugs on his sleeve. “Big bro, is it broken?”

He shakes his head and turns to Koual, who stretches again and then suddenly, as if sheepish, words appear on the screen. Koual typing. ‘Oh, huh. There’s supposed to be a messenger Kami that shows up to instruct you on the actions you are required to take as a Kami, but I guess since I’m here I’m supposed to fill in her place. Uh, here goes.’

He leaps to the top of the highest statue, posing. Nanako giggles. ‘You have a requirement to protect your Shrine as a Shrine Kami, Mystery Girl. You can only show your true form to humans who have already guessed it. As Neko, your greatest task, Shrine Kami or not, is protection of mortals. I’m not entirely certain why you’re here, Kenshin…looking out for your sister, maybe? I’m pretty sure there’s supposed to be a textbox asking about that, but it hasn’t popped up yet Might be a bug, I’ll submit reprt. There’s some other stuff…sorry, I’ve only done this particular one once…’ A pause, then, ‘…oh, yeah. Even the Dragons are getting restless and coming down to Earth to check things out. Something big is stirring, a darkness in the air. A lot of humans are ending up with powers. Change is on the wind. Your Shrine may be in danger, according to the mystic dreams of the Shinto Priest that takes care of your shrine, but this is probably just one step in a greater scheme…’ He’s fast enough at typing, which means that it’s just laziness, that keeps him typing so badly usually.

He jumps down, lightly. ‘Okay, NPC role over. Note that in your spiritual form, you rarely take fall damage. I wouldn’t recommend going and trying to figure out exactly what height can kill you. Uh….like I did. Also, you picked one of the cooler tutorials to play through—not that they’re all cool—but the Shrine Priest, praying guy (he’s probably on staff, we haven’t figured that out yet), and even this particular shrine are all procedurally generated. There’s not a ton of difference, but it’s enough to be cool and/or distinctive. Anyway, moving on. When I hit this button’

A textbox appears. “You smell the acrid scent of burning. The man gasps and starts running. Follow or Stay Here?”

Souji frowns. This isn’t color-coordinated this time, but then, of course they wouldn’t drop hints like that all the time, judging by some of the posts he’s seen. He turns to Nanako. “What do you want to do?”

“Well, what should we do?” she asks, beginning to type, but he puts a hand over hers.

“I have a feeling Koual will stay out of it. He wants to you make decisions and have fun.” So do I, adds his smile, and she looks unsure.

Eventually, she gives a fierce nod, eyes brightening with determination. “Follow!”

They do. Nanako’s managed to hit a button that makes her walk rather than run, but through trial and error they find it (there’s probably an easier way through the Options menu but he doesn’t feel like scrolling through that right now).

Koual changes back into the humanoid form, running effortlessly alongside them. He even manages to type as he runs: ‘spacebar is jump’

They’re closer and there’s a Buddhist temple, on fire. Something streaks away—back in the direction of the shrine. It looks like a fire spirit, but Kenshin isn’t quick enough to catch it. From inside, Souji hears the screams and the sound of a cat, yowling in anger. “Stay and help or go after the spirit?” comes the next textbox.

“What do we do?” Nanako asks, and Souji makes a decision.

“How does this sound? Someone stays and helps, and someone goes after the spirit to stop it from hurting anyone else?” He types it as well and hits enter, just so that Koual can tell him if it’s even possible.

“I don’t want to split up,” Nanako says, just as the reply comes in.

‘It’s possible, but the two of you have to make the decisions yourselves. I can’t actually make the choice, so I’ll just end up with one of you.’

Nanako looks upset, but she hangs her head and nods. “…I…don’t want to split up, but I don’t want anyone else to get hurt, either. I’ll go after the spirit.” She types it so Koual’s on the same page.

Souji nods and is about to add an order. Fortunately, it looks like Koual is ahead of him.

‘I’ll keep Nazoko-chan safe,’ he promises, and Souji nods at the screen.

It’s difficult getting everyone out. The tutorial-ness of the tutorial prevents the combat from being truly horrific, but there’s some new interactivity that involves crawling around in the vents for a bit that he’s never seen before. It needs concentration, so he doesn’t see much of Koual and Nazoko’s fight against the spirit.

It seems longer than the other one he’d gone through, but in a lull Koual types, ‘…they make it harder if you have more people grouping,’ which certainly explains much.

At the end, they’re exhausted, and even Nanako looks ready for a nap. Koual doesn’t seem very surprised by the decision, either. ‘Yeah, this is one of the longer ones. Especially grouping. But on the other hand, you got a few more items, so it’s worth it in the end.’ He shows them to the safe room in the temple. ‘You’ll get a bonus buff next time if you log off here, so here’s as good as any. Also, there’s something else if you didn’t see it—the priest and the abbot were actually friends,’ Koual explains. ‘You’ll probably find out later but I don’t want to run the risk since it seems like it’s being buggy again. I’m honestly wondering if it was supposed to show up during the grouping tutorial, but since you’re already grouped…’ An emote shrug. ‘He was visiting when the fire started. There’s a friendly rivalry going on, though. If you hadn’t intervened, both of them, plus all their followers, could have ended up dead.’

Souji’s curious as to how it would work out with only one player, but it’s time they got off. Perhaps he could get ahead on his assigned reading.

‘Thank you. It was fun,’ Souji states formally, and Nanako adds, ‘Thank you so much! It was nice meeting you! Bye!’

‘Aww, don’t worry about it, Nazoko-chan. It’s always more fun with friends.’ And the way Nanako lights up, Souji knows they’ll be seeing more of Koual.

He almost doesn’t even mind.