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[jivitadana]

Who: Seta Souji [eatsyourscience] and Arisato Minato [jivitadana]
Where: Sixth Floor, Room 100
When: Thursday, August 31
Rating: PG for conversations about the past and home
Summary: Minato and Souji attempt to write down all the potential words or phrases Wonderland might consume from their memories. Should one of them lose a memory, the other should be able to remember it instead.
The Story:


The issue should have come up sooner, or at least, Minato had thought about it, but only now finally had time to get around to doing something about it. All he really needed was a place to keep notes, whether digital or physical, time, and then someone who would be able to remember when Minato had forgotten. He had to keep track of all of his memories since he was the only one from his home and his time period. It didn't seem to matter to Wonderland if he originated from the same world as some of his companions here: If he hadn't existed at that time in the future, then he wouldn't experience the consequences of losing something they did. But if he had lost something, then it might've been gone forever. (Or something like forever. He wondered about lost memories, especially after this past Christmas. Something to think about.)

Thus he set up a meeting with Souji in their room at the table, laptop out and on and ready, notebooks and all sorts of writing utensils of an assortment of colors laid out before them, and a few snacks and sodas just in case. He had a feeling this meeting would take a while, but it really should take all the time it needed. Souji was already missing more than enough memories at this rate and they had to log everything they could before anymore could get taken away.

He glanced at the mirror for a second, wondering if he should also consult with someone on the other side about it as well, but again, perhaps that was for a later day or later conversation.

"I need to tell you everything."

Minato had told Souji so much already. But it wasn't everything, he realized, if Wonderland was also going to take something seemingly so trivial such as words they used every day. That bothered Minato, but not as much as losing names to places or maybe even people if it came to that eventually. He needed to drill down and tell Souji every little detail, anything that might be of interest to Wonderland.

Comments

[eatsyourscience]

"Nanako gave me a picture of her with her parents. My uncle gave me a coffee mug. I had the picture here for awhile, but I gave it to a Mirror."

He could remember that incident pretty well, and wishes he'd gotten to know that Mirror's Real thing better.

"Kujikawa Rise was my Lovers link. She was our navi, and her Personas were Himiko, Kanzeon, and Kouzeon. She gave me an autographed picture of her." He smiled a little and, because that probably sounded a bit odd on her part otherwise, added, "She was an idol."

[jivitadana]

Minato would've liked to see that picture, but it was okay. He thought he'd get the chance to see the picture at home.

He tilted his head when Souji mentioned his Lovers Link.

"Risette? Her picture's at Hagakure." Minato had definitely heard of her. "She was supposed to have a concert at Club Escapade but a Shadow had cut the power and she had to cancel."

The world was so small. Minato felt more connected to Souji, even more so. He had no idea that Souji would have her as a Link and someone on his team too.

"My Lovers Link was Takeba Yukari who had Io and then Isis. I mentioned her father Takeba Eiichiro before, one of the scientists who wanted to stop the experiments, but he was killed and Ikutsuki Shuji later doctored his warning video. She gave me her cellphone strap, and Fuuka fixed the video for her to keep."

[eatsyourscience]

"She mentioned a show there being cancelled. We got drinks at the club for free because of that."

Souji rested his elbows on the table, his pencil held loosely in one hand as he looked at the page in front of him. It was half-full of the notes he'd taken so far. There were fifteen cards to go--but more links than that. When he spoke again, it was as though he was addressing the paper in front of him.

"My Chariot was Satonaka Chie. Her Personas were Tomoe, Suzuka Gongen, and Haraedo-no-Okami." He wondered if he should have explained who all of these Personas were named for, but kept talking instead. "She gave me a pair of wristbands. She was into kung fu movies."

As he finished, he realized he was referring to Chie in the past tense, as though she weren't alive anymore. Shaking his head, he looked up at Minato.

"Strength was a pair of friends: Ichijo Kou from the basketball team and Nagase Daisuke from the soccer team. I joined soccer, but they come as a pair, apparently." He smiled a little at the thought. "Daisuke gave me a brush for cleaning my cleats. He had trouble with girls."

[jivitadana]

Minato believed it had to be more of a coincidence that they would have a pair that would be a Link too. It wasn't that hard to believe anymore that they really were destined to be connected.

"Miyamoto Kazushi was my Chariot. He was on the kendo team with me. Nishiwaki Yuko was my Strength Link. She was our kendo team manager and gave me a letter from the kids she helped coach. She had a crush on Kazushi."

He did think about his kendo team and knew he'd circle back to it once he explained his Star Link.

"My Justice Link was Fushimi Chihiro. She was also on Student Council with me as Treasurer. She was falsely accused of stealing money, but a teacher had the money, we discovered. She gave me her favorite manga."

[eatsyourscience]

Souji blinked, eyes widening. "I've met Fushimi. When we went to Gekkoukan for the school trip, we talked to her a little."

He supposed he shouldn't have been that surprised, considering all the other connections between the two of them. But it made him sad, somehow. He'd have never known they were connected at all if it weren't for Wonderland. None of those moments in time would have meant anything to him. It was as though he were walking right over Minato's life without ever knowing how much he--and everyone else--owed to him. Like it hadn't meant anything in the end.

He swallowed and went on. "Like I said, for me Justice was Nanako. My Hermit was a fox from Tatsuhime Shrine. It would give me ema with wishes on them and I would go and make the wishes come true so that people would offer money at the shrine. It also went into the TV world with us and would give us these leaves to heal us when we were hurt. For a price anyway. It gave me an ema showing its gratitude."

[jivitadana]

Minato's eyes widened too. He had never really imagined that any of his friends would meet Souji or his team. But then again, his friends had lived and were living their lives. He could be grateful that they were doing that. It sounded like she was doing fine though, and he thought everyone else had to be like that too.

He smiled a little though after recovering from the shock. Having a fox for a Link was novel, but then again, he did have a dog on his team that had a Persona.

"That's cute." He liked that a lot, that Souji made the wishes come true. Souji was so good at doing that kind of thing.

"My Hermit was used the online handle Maya. She played an online RPG with me and gave me a screenshot of a message in the sand saying she liked me. I kind of knew it was Toriumi Isako-sensei though, my homeroom teacher."

Thinking about that, Minato brought out his cell phone and showed Souji the screenshot. It was strange to think that he had it on him.

"Kenji had a crush on Kanou-sensei, but it didn't work out since she was getting married to her fiance."

And if Kenji ever found out or had found out about Toriumi-sensei, then Minato didn't think he'd hear the end of it.

"Hiraga Keisuke was my Fortune Link. He was our Music Club leader who decided to become a doctor. He gave me the award letter he got from a composition competition."

[eatsyourscience]

"Shirogane Naoto was my Fortune. She's a detective and she used to pretend to be a boy because she worried people wouldn't take her seriously. She gave me a detective badge, like one she made for herself when she was younger."

There were other items, too, and he smiled a little as he thought about it and about what was basically a scavenger hunt the two of them had gone on.

"My Hanged Man link was Konishi Naoki. His sister was murdered just after I moved to Inaba and he was trying to deal with that. His family owned a liquor store that was failing, I think, because of the Junes in town. He gave me a receipt from Junes."

[jivitadana]

Junes was another one of those places that Minato wrote down. He had to collect all of these place names, places that Souji had been to and known about. Who knew, Wonderland could replicate the place here and Souji wouldn't be able to remember the name of it if that was what Wonderland decided to take. Hearing about the murders being that close did hit home for Minato too.

"You might know about my Hanged Man. Oohashi Maiko-chan was in elementary school when her parents divorced. She went to live with her mother, but promised she would marry me. She gave me the bead ring that you have."

He smiled a little at that. Again, something of his was here from home without him really bringing it.

"Andre Laurant Jean Geraux or Bebe was Temperance. He came to Japan from France with his aunt's blessing, and made a kimono to show his uncle he wanted to stay. He had to go back, but he made me a money pouch from the leftover fabric."

They were slowly getting through all of their Links. Minato felt like he was getting to know Souji more and more, taking peeks into his life that he didn't think he'd ever get to see otherwise.

[eatsyourscience]

Souji looked at the bead ring on his finger and smiled a little. She wasn't going to get to marry Minato after all, but it was like Minato had entrusted her somehow to Souji. He'd entrusted Souji with her story, anyway.

"My Temperance was Minami Eri, a young woman who was trying to get along with her stepson, Yuuta. Yuuta had a hard time getting along with others and Minami-san didn't really know how to create a relationship with him. In the end, she gave me a bookmark with a four leaf clover pressed into it."

He tapped his pencil on the paper in front of him, going over the list in his head.

"Death was Kuroda Hisano. I met her at the hospital and always talked to her by the river. Her husband had just died and she felt some guilt over her feelings about her husband's death. She reminisced about their youth and I was able to find her old love letters and return them to her. She gave me the fountain pen she used to write them."

He glanced up, and, thinking the same thing as Minato--that they needed to record place names--he added, "The river is the Samegawa."

[jivitadana]

Souji had his own brush with death too. Minato hadn't thought about it since his own life was filled with death and he never forgot that it would be. He had kept Death for this moment and he was glad that he did, after hearing about Souji's link.

"Death for me was Pharos. He was a little boy in striped pajamas with bright blue eyes. He had me sign my contract and visited at me at night. Sometimes he told me about the Shadows to come and what hardships I would face. When the Link became unbreakable, he visited me in the early morning, then he left."

Minato smiled a little to himself. He missed that little boy and who he became.

"... And a little after that, Ryoji enrolled in school. I should have known from those blue eyes."

[eatsyourscience]

The connection was frighteningly easy to make. Ryoji had forgotten what--who he was, and so he lost part of himself along with his side of Minato's link to him. But the link was unbreakable. Maybe that was why Ryoji had found his way back to Minato.

"I don't really have anything that can match that."

He knew it wasn't a competition; that wasn't what he meant. He only meant that he didn't think he had anything that momentous to describe, except maybe...

But he'd get to that soon enough.

"My Devil was Uehara Sayoko. She was a nurse at the hospital where I worked part time and she offered to uh. Give me anatomy lessons." He didn't seem embarrassed by that--if anything, he had a wry look on his face. "In the end, she went outside of the country to work where people needed nurses the most. I didn't see her before she went, but she left her name tag for me."

[jivitadana]

What was with older women hitting on them? Minato thought about Toriumi-sensei and then the beach in Yakushima and a certain Operation that (thankfully) had failed. It must be a running theme.

"I paid 40,000 yen to my Devil Link since he wanted me to be a model. It didn't work out. His name was President Tanaka and he ran a TV show where he sold his merchandise. He gave me a thank you letter."

He looked back, seeing that he had a whole variety of Links, so many people from so many walks of life.

"My Tower Link was Mutatsu, a monk who always had a drink late at night at Club Escapade. He finally made up his mind to seek out his family and left me his reserve tag."

[eatsyourscience]

"Tanaka's Amazing Commodities...he was on on Sunday. I bought a bunch of stuff from that show."

Much like the commodities, that was amazing.

"Nakajima Shu was my Tower link. I tutored him at night and he was very smart. He had trouble at school because of a new kid who was better than him--he ended up cheating on a test to prove he was the smartest. He gave me his test results--his grades were really high."

Souji had been impressed, really, but he'd been more impressed by Shu's resolve to live a better life. He was impressed by that resolve in all of his links--except the one, of course.

"Teddie was my Star link. I've told you about him before. He was a Shadow who took on a human form. His Personas were Kintoki-Douji, Kamui, and Kamui-Moshiri."

[jivitadana]

So Souji knew of him too? How many people were they going to be connected to? It was kind of amazing as Souji had thought and Minato liked that.

"Hayase Mamoru was my Star Link. He was from another school, a star on the kendo team, and during the summer competition, he faced off with me and won first place. He gave me his car key after he moved away to work in a factory to support his family."

He hadn't expected so many of Souji's teammates to be his Links, but he knew that it made sense. He was glad that they were so close to Souji and Souji could rely on them.

"For my Moon Link, Suemitsu Nozomi was a food expert who was part of a cult, believing that he could reach salvation that way and spite everyone who compared him to his successful, athletic brother. But he changed his ways and decided to become a food critic. He gave me a gourmet license."

Minato thought he could go on to his Sun Link, but decided to stop for now. His Sun Link needed a longer explanation.

[eatsyourscience]

For Souji's part, he was realizing just how few of Minato's teammates were linked to him. He wasn't sure what to think about that, though part of him felt sad at the thought. What did that mean? Were they not able to be as close as Souji had been to his teammates? What did that mean for Minato?

"Ebihara Ai was my Moon link. She was the manager of the soccer team, though she never showed up. She only did it to keep from being kicked out of school--she had an issue with truancy. She was pretty, but no one liked her much. She told me later she wanted attention so badly that she had changed everything about herself, even down to her appearance to get it. She gave me her compact mirror."

Ai had been a piece of work, though he only thought that affectionately. He could understand her thirst for attention and admiration, even if he'd never sought it out as actively as she had.

"My sun link was Matsunaga Ayane. She played the trombone in the band, but wasn't very confident. She worked hard on that, though, and in the end she gave me a handmade ticket to come hear her play someday."

[jivitadana]

There were a lot of people who relied on Souji to help them with so many parts of their lives. They were changed because of Souji. Souji was always so good at that.

"My Sun Link was Kamiki Akinari. I met him at Naganaki Shrine on Sundays. He was a little older than us, 19 years old, but had an incurable, genetic disease. He knew his life was going to end and he almost didn't want to talk to me, but eventually he started to tell me about a story he wrote about a pink alligator and his bird friend. He realized that he should live his life to the fullest while he could."

Minato paused, thinking about his last meeting with Akinari.

"When my Link maxed with him, he left me his notebook with the story in it. He disappeared into the sunlight and that was the last time I saw him."

It was so fitting then that Akinari was his Sun Link.

"Later on, I met his mother. She told me she would live her life to the fullest too and would tell him all the things she's done whenever they meet again. He would've been twenty that day."

And it was also so fitting too since his Sun Link was number 19, the same age Akinari had passed away. Minato missed him, perhaps understanding him so much more now, now that he had the chance to look back at his own life and death.

[eatsyourscience]

"I know that book. Nanako read it to me once."

It was like Minato's story had been tailor-made for Souji to follow after him.

"I know Judgment and Universe." It was so different and so similar to his own "World." "What about Aeon?"

It wasn't a traditional part of the tarot deck, so he wasn't sure if Minato would have one, too.

[jivitadana]

Then somehow Akinari's dream had come true too, to have his work published. One of Minato's friends had to have done something with the notebook he received to make that even possible. Minato smiled a little to himself, thinking about that kind of legacy and what that meant.

Then his expression smoothed out a bit as he explained more.

"Aeon was Aigis, the Anti-Shadow Weapon who sealed Death in me. She had Palladion as her Persona and then Athena. She was a robot, but eventually became more human and gained the will to live when we spent more time with her. She gave me a charred screw."

It was almost like it was coming full circle.

"She was very protective. We remembered everything after the Dark Hour vanished, and she was there on the rooftop with me."

So at the very end. Like Ryoji, almost. They were there at the beginning and at the end, though Ryoji had been there the entire time.

"That's all I have. What about you?"

[eatsyourscience]

"Aeon was Marie. I told you about her--she was something like a Velvet Room attendant at first, and she was pretty strange. She thought that she could save us from the fog by giving her own life. She told me..." He closed his eyes for a couple of seconds, getting it right before he explained. "She said she was born a long time ago as the unconscious wish shared by all people. Her original role was to protect the world for humanity and fulfill their wish. When people stopped wishing for the truth, she split into two--the one who could protect humanity and the one who could fulfill humanity's wishes. The two parts of her were in conflict--Kunino-Okami wanted to fulfill humanity's wish to be ignorant and Kusumi-no-Okami wanted to protect humanity by getting rid of the fog. She gave me a bamboo comb, which was her only possession before she entered the Velvet Room."

He jotted down a couple of things that Marie made him think of, then hesitated. There was one more, but...

"Most of your team aren't Links." He looked up at Minato. "That seems so..."

Lonely.

[jivitadana]

The gravity of that last Link reminded Minato of the way Shadows operated, the existence of the mother of all Shadows, the reason her Avatar existed, the fate of humanity. And to have that individual as a Link brought the decision, any decisions about the world, that much... closer, that was the only word Minato could think of it. It meant more.

Minato had also typed in the last of those notes before he turned to Souji, thinking about that. He realized too that all of Souji's team, his peers and his kouhai, were his Links.

"It's just the dynamics of our team. It helps that you're the senpai."

That was one reason for it too, Minato had thought. The chemistry among SEES versus the IT, Minato didn't want to play the comparison game, but he knew that it was different. It wasn't the same and would never be the same.

He thought back to those days in the beginning, what it was like to get to know the others or lack thereof of it. But then again, he wondered too.

He couldn't blame it on the others. It could've just been fate as well, teaching him something about Links in general. If his entire team had been Links, then he wouldn't have been able to meet all of the other people who had entered into his life.

Or maybe it was just him and he hadn't tried hard enough.

[eatsyourscience]

Souji looked at Minato for a moment as though he could feel what he was thinking. Not read it, but feel it, as though something in the air between them were vibrating at just the right frequency.

"Things happened the way they did, and for a reason. It was like that for us both."

He hoped that was reassuring or vindicating somehow. It was the only thing he could really offer.

Looking down at his paper, where he'd written down the names of each arcana, he frowned to himself, then wrote down two more words.

"I have one more. Or two, maybe. It started out as Jester and turned into Hunger." Without looking up, he added, "I've told you about Adachi."

[jivitadana]

Minato couldn't do anything about it now. It was what it was and he couldn't change it. Not that he wanted to change it, not really. Hearing about Souji's Links though did make him think about his own.

When he heard that name, Minato nodded. He wondered why he was coming up again, but if Souji was bringing him up, then he had to be more than what Souji had mentioned before.

He waited for Souji to explain. He didn't want to jump to conclusions.

[eatsyourscience]

"Adachi was a Link. Before we found out he was the murderer, he and I spent some time together. There was an old woman who would make him take food she made--but he realized he was just a temporary replacement for her son. Like he wasn't needed, just being used."

He drew a little line on the page and retraced it several times in a slow, small motion.

"He was my uncle's partner. He came over to our house a bunch of times. He ate with us and Nanako read him the book about the pink alligator. He always talked about how things in life were a bother."

He stopped his hand.

"I got a letter he wrote me when he was in prison. He thanked me in it."

[jivitadana]

A Link. It was like having a Link with Strega. Or Ikutsuki. Minato couldn't imagine it for himself, but he could perhaps see why it was that way for Souji.

"He means something to you."

It was why Souji kept him so close to his heart, like all of his other Links, despite what he had done. All relationships were complicated. This one included.

[eatsyourscience]

"Yeah."

He lapsed into silence for a moment before looking up. His smile was a sad one.

"That one was hard."