Souji's Shadow First Draft Second Chapter

[madimpossibledreamer]

Again, not the final draft, but I thought maybe people would be interested in where it starts and where it goes.  Certainly aspects of this dungeon will be retained.  Sadly, what I'm currently working on won't be done by today.  I'm hoping my Shadowed Suspicion beta will get to my chapter by the end of the summer, but... /shrug.

Main Points: Persona 4 Playthrough Mild AU, ABANDONED START
Chapter Summary: The Investigation Team begins its exploration of Souji's dungeon proper.
Word Count: 1299
Rating: T

 

“—suke!  Yosuke!”

“Damn bear,” he mutters halfheartedly and yawns.  And then realizes something.  Teddie’s here, which means…

He’s on his feet in an instant, clenching his kunai.

“Thank goodness, senpai,” Kanji’s disembodied voice reaches him, and he looks around wildly but doesn’t see his kohai.

“Please don’t tell me you’re in my head,” he ventures quietly.

“Nope.  I’m in a kind of cell thing?  It’s all white, though.  The place at the local station is a little more interesting.”

Yosuke swallows his half hysterical comment on how Kanji knows this, since he really doesn’t want to test the homicidal thing from earlier.

“I’m in one, too.  I hate this!”  Chie slams her foot against the wall, from the sound of it, and Yosuke winces in sympathy.

“We’re watching you and connected to you somehow, since we can hear each other.  I assume you must continue on your own, but we will help you however we can.”  Yukiko.  She sounds almost calm, but anyone who’s known her for some time knows it’s the terrifying kind of calm that really bodes no good for anything she’s mad at.

Everything around him is white, which is kind of eerie.  It’s easy to miss corridors.

And there’s no Shadows he can see.  It should be easy to notice them before they arrive.  But then a thought occurs to him.

I really should stop thinking this stuff, and I really hope I’m wrong.

“Yosuke!  Something’s moving!”

I never thought I’d say this, but I hate being right.

There’s a moment before the white Shadows attack.

They look similar to the fish Shadows in Yukiko’s Castle, but they’ve seen other fish that haven’t been weak to wind before.  It’d help if Souji was here, with his penchant for naming and his almost encyclopedic memory of Shadows they’d encountered before.  He almost didn’t even need Teddie to remember everything.  But they didn’t have their Leader.  He hesitates, and one slaps him in the face.  It doesn’t hurt much, but he can’t afford to mess around like this.  With Susano-o, it’s not like it’ll hurt him if the Garula reflects.

He jumps and breaks the card, and Susano-o grimly casts the wind spell.  There’s no time for showing off, like he sometimes does.  It does some damage, but not enough.

And then a voice interrupts.  He does his best not to pay attention, since it’s not the Investigation Team and he’s in the middle of combat, but to his surprise the fish aren’t attacking, as if waiting for this wacky conversation to be done.

“Hey, you sure you want answers?”  The mocking voice seems to be coming, not from his own head, but from the corridors beyond.  It echoes mockingly.  “Now, now, don’t answer hastily.  Give it some thought for once.  Yeah, I know it’s coming from me, so you want to just say ‘Shut up’ and leave it at that.  Like usual.  But you’ve got a brain, however well-hidden.  You might want to use it.”

The voice seems to morph into the first voice he’d heard, the one right before Souji was taken.  “Or maybe you’d listen to me better,” a voice purrs, and yeah, that definitely sounds like his Partner.  Except it’s terrifying, because he’s never heard him like this and it’s just wrong.  “You’re having a hard enough time just accepting the evidence of your ears.  Everyone is, isn’t that right?  Can’t possibly be hearing what you think you are.  Not about perfect, Shadow-less Souji.”  The chuckle is dark and freezes his veins.

This is worse than his Shadow.  He’s not sure how that’s possible, only that it is.  The mocking tone, the smug, dark amusement.  He can handle that from his own Shadow, but here, he wants to deny it with his last dying breath.

As if reading his mind, the voice continues, “Wouldn’t you prefer to leave, to just look away?  The things you’ll find here, you can’t handle.  Yeah, he might turn up dead, but at least you can say he’s a nice guy and mean it.  Stay ignorant and happy.  Close your eyes, clap hands over your ears.”

He shudders and clenches his wrenches harder.  He’d been on the verge of doing just that.  This Shadow knew exactly what to say.  Except for this time he’d messed up.  If he’s about to take a Shadow’s advice, he’s doing something wrong.  At least his own Shadow, his half-tamed Shadow, was giving him some not entirely discouraging advice.  Be sure of yourself.  Be sure of what you want to say.  Don’t just react, think about everything before you say something.

Well, that might not be exactly what the Shadow had been trying to say, but it’s good advice anyway.  And if it makes his Shadow happy to be credited with that, why not?

“No.  I don’t want that.”  Everyone’s counting on me.  Partner’s counting on me.  What sort of partner would I be if I flaked now?  “It’ll hurt.  I don’t want to see him like this.  I don’t want his most vulnerable moments just broadcast on TV and revealed in front of everybody by his jerk side.  But I’d be an ass if I just walked away now.  Like hell I’m going to turn a blind eye to the truth.  That’s what we’ve been fighting for.”

Silence meets him.  Then the voice returns, surprised.  The smug confidence is shaken.  “Don’t you prefer the image?  Your perfect friend.”

“You know me pretty well, Partner, you tell me.”  Now he’s gaining confidence.  It might be stupid, given whose Shadow they’re probably going to have to face, but they’ve got a chance.

“You know who I am.  I’m not your precious Partner.”  And now he sounds bitter.

“You’re him.  You’re a part of him.  And I want him whole.  You were there at the riverbank.”  It’ll know what he’s saying, right?

Okay, the creepy laughter is not the best sign, but the fond tone in the Shadow’s voice is maybe a better one.  “He’s the best liar you’ve ever met,” it confides, before adding, “You’re sick, wanting to find flaws just because you’re sick of living in his shadow.  But fine.  This is interesting.  I’ll give you a pass, just entertain me.”

Souji, bored?  Just because it’s a Shadow, just because it’s telling a representation of the truth, doesn’t mean that it can’t omit, stretch the truth, anything else to get its way.  But then, it had to be formed out of something that was true.

Souji was pleased with Nanako, Dojima, his new friends, this town.  He’d briefly mentioned being passed around different cities because of his parent’s work.  So maybe it wasn’t a question of the boonies, like it was with him.  Maybe it was just a question of Souji being every bit the cold fish he’d come across in the first couple days, when he’d ignored Yosuke’s pain, not attaching to things because why bother?  They’d only be gone soon, after all.  And when you didn’t allow yourself to care, to do anything, well, that was kind of boring, wasn’t it?
            “Damn, man, that sucks.”  How could anyone go through that untouched?  They couldn’t.

“—Yosuke, you idiot, say someth—”  Oh, Chie.  That’s right, he hadn’t heard them this whole time.  Had they heard?

“Something,” he answers cheerfully.  And attacks the nearest fish with his wrenches, before jumping back as a blinding light comes down and the Shadows disappear.

“You idiot!!”  She’s in tears.  He’ll owe her more steak after this, but then, if they make it through this, he doesn’t even quite care about his paycheck.  They’ll have earned it.  Meat obsession or no.  “Okay, did anyone else hear that?”

“Hear what?  Senpai, you just disappeared.”  Kanji, blunt as always.

He takes a deep breath.  Now, or later?