Fear in My Head

[madimpossibledreamer]

Why are Jun’s parents still alive and yet he’s going by Kashihara unlike ‘This Side’? Not even Tatsuya knows.

Main Points:
Persona 2/Persona 4 crossover (Broken Hero)
Chapter Summary: The Dungeon's Shadows finally show themselves.
Word Count: 790
Rating: Teen
Pairing: Jun/Tatsuya (only really past in this part)

 

         “The hell are these things, Kashihara-san?” Hanamura-kun yells, voice unsteady.
         Jun is fairly certain even Teddie-kun agrees, since he yells something about a ‘grizzly sight’. Because these things aren’t normal Shadows. They’re not even ordinary demons.
         The children are flopping between being blasé and losing their minds, and Jun can’t blame them, because so far everything had made some sort of sense. Knights in the Castle, for instance.
         All right, so maybe they didn’t all make sense—floating fish, giant eyeballs, but still. Those were tame compared to this.
         These things look like the black goop that most Shadows are made from, half-sculpted into nightmarish entities. Things with too many eyes, or too many tentacles. Things that look like they might have holes that stretch into infinity, only Jun’s not inclined to look too closely. Keratinid monstrosities. Growths with wings. Fur that looked like it was strung-together hyphae.
         There’s something fundamentally wrong with their existence, which is why Jun takes great pleasure in removing them. Like they’re tearing holes in reality by their very presence.
         Satonaka-chan seems to be channeling her hysteria into booting them with all her strength. Hanamura-kun seems to have turned up his music, and Jun can’t blame him. Even the bear mascot seems on edge. Only Amagi-chan and Seta-kun seem oddly fascinated, but any hint of danger to the rest of them seems to snap them out of it.
         The Shadows are just as solemn and silent as the rest of the dungeon, which also feels wrong, because while Tatsu-chan could be quiet, being around him had never felt desolate before. At the same time, there’s more life and color in them than their surroundings, than anything else the dungeon has offered other than the flower, like they’re hyperreal, and that, too, itches at Jun’s skin in a way nothing had—nothing, his mind whispers, except for Nyarlathotep, as the Great Father.
         Jun never did any research after the fact, never bothered to look further, because everything had worked out and this, at least, he didn’t care to examine further. He’d known Tatsuya wasn’t the same.
         One of the days when they were still dating and Tatsuya had visited an apartment, shying away from Jun’s mother’s teasing with startled eyes, Jun had caught sight of a book in Tatsu-chan’s bag that didn’t look like it was for class. He was probably hiding from Katsuya’s concerned scolding again, only to find a different kind of overbearing that he didn’t quite know how to deal with. Jun’s parents had always been welcoming, if a little odd, and Tatsuya never had known how to deal with them.
         Jun waited until Tatsu-chan had fallen asleep—it didn’t take long; he could fall asleep anywhere—and then looked inside, desperate for any clue as to what was wrong, how he could help. He ended up spending hours reading, struggling with the English—it’d be a different story if it was French, but then, if that were the case Tatsuya wouldn’t have chosen the book at all, as he couldn’t have read it. The monsters, when described, however vaguely, were similar to what he’s seeing now, and he’d suspect it was reading for fun if not for the notes he’d found, vague but speculative, as if taking notes on weaknesses and strengths, as if they were going to have to fight the things someday.
         The notes, from the glimpses Jun’s caught since, have only grown more cryptic, and he’d feel vaguely guilty that perhaps he’d done that, perhaps he should have asked, if not for the fact that he’d known, he’d seen, that Tatsuya wouldn’t answer any questions and he’d been desperate to do something, anything, because that dull, distant look in his dragon’s eyes killed him a little each time he’d seen it.
         Still, Jun hopes that their presence only indicates that these nightmarish creatures are the single interest Tatsuya retained, and not something more sinister. He’s realistic enough to suspect that he’s incorrect, but he can still hope.
         At least they’d only attacked once they’d exited the building, Satonaka-chan yanking him back as a gooey tentacle whips through the space he’d been mere moments before. At least it doesn’t appear like there are more roaming the streets.
         He has a feeling that they will only appear after each encounter with one of Tatsuya’s memories, though it’s possible on a return visit they will merely be roaming the police station like their more normal counterparts in the Castle. He’s also fairly certain that Seta-kun has also come to the same conclusion, though he foregoes questioning the leader about it in favor of using Cross Fortune—it’s a good thing that many of these Shadow monstrosities seem to be weak to light.