seaofhearts | i will burn my dread

i will burn my dread

Who: Everyone!
What: Welcome to the Dark Hour!
Where: In the Strega warehouse.
Warnings: Possible blood and gore, Persona 3/general SMT-level disturbing topics, possible violence (knowing this group). Will edit if needed.

[When he first wakes up, Ken finds himself lying on a bed. That in itself isn't so unfamiliar, but this one has dents where it should, the shape of a small body pressed into it over weeks and months, and the sheets are soft and scratchy in just the right places and -]

[Oh no. He sits up and pulls himself out of bed, reaching almost automatically for Koromaru but... he's not there. Of course not. He'd been expecting the Tower, but this is worse, because they're not here because this is his Heart, not theirs, and because -]

[No. He has to think of what to do. He grabs the dangpa that Shinjiro made him and the copy of Gae Buidhe that Diarmuid gave him, strapping them onto his back. He needs to stay defended in this place, no matter what - the last Heart taught him that much.]

[The familiar pressure of the Dark Hour doesn't bother him, but it's worrying. It should be gone now. They won. It's over. Even in his Heart, it shouldn't be around. But it is, and there's a brief flare of panic before -]

[No. He needs to get going. The puzzles aren't going to find themselves.]

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[He can't help but let out a little bit of a sheepish laugh at that.]

They were hits.

[Hah. Although his eyes narrow for all of a fraction of a second, he remains surprisingly calm.

Well... With a background like his, it's not like he can really judge.]

Yours?

[Or did someone else do it?]

They didn't let me go on those outings with them. Still it... wasn't that hard to figure out.

[He'd heard them argue about it. He was too young, they didn't want to make his life worse and expose him to that kind of thing... ugh. He reaches up to his neck and touches the... no. It's not there.]

...

[ This hits home so hard, really. Even with the hair out of his eyes thanks to the Rabbit giving him a headband, seeing the red Xs just blatantly reminds him of the trials back home. Whenever someone died, he'd see the red cross over their face as if to mock their deaths.

Unconsciously, he licks dry lips and swallows hard before speaking from where he is. ]

... Sorry for intruding [ he kind of overheard ] but what were the hits for?

[He looks over at Hinata, and then back to Sasuke. It's a fair question.]

... Revenge. People would write into the website, the others would look the requests over, and take hits that didn't look like stupid or selfish reasons. They'd wait until the Dark Hour -

[He gestures towards the outside.]

- when most people were unconscious, open the coffin the person was in, and pull them out. Then they'd kill the target. Once the Dark Hour was over they'd collect the money from the person who wrote in.

Dark Hour...?

[He never got the rundown on that.]

[How to explain it...]

So there's twenty four hours in a day, right? ... Due to some of the Kirijo Group scientists messing around with things they shouldn't, like Death itself, there was an accident and they released a ton of Shadows, which made the Dark Hour. That happened every night at midnight. Normal people got sealed into coffins, and only people who had Persona or the potential for Persona would be awake.

It shouldn't be here anymore, though. All of the Shadows are supposed to be gone now... and the Avatar and Nyx were both defeated and sealed. So why... ?

[He looks down, putting a hand on his chest. Why is it here, in his Heart?]

[So they just waited until they were most vulnerable to pick them off for easy money...]

...Morimori was different, too. [Although he's not about to think too deeply on... all of that.]

Even if it's your heart, it will probably be different than expected.

I think I understand that, in a way. And Jabberwock was as well. [ The whole 'messing around with things they shouldn't' part, anyway. It's kind of how Kamukura was created, after all. Scientists wanted to mess with something called talent and then it just fucked him up in the head pretty hard. ]

I have a question about that, actually-- these "Persona", how exactly do people get the potential in the first place?

... In my world, in my time, there's two ways. Apparently in Yu's time there's a different way, but... you're either born with it like me and Koromaru... or you were experimented on and one was forced into you like Minato, Jin, and Chidori. And Sasaki I guess, but.

[He wrinkles his nose at the last name, sighs, and looks back at the board.]

That's why they had to resort to this kind of thing. It's not like they had any sort of legitimate paperwork where they could get a job. And tey couldn't risk the Kirijo Group finding them when they'd spent so long trying to hide from them.

...

Is it... rare? Having the potential for it naturally.

[That list just seems very skewed...]

... Very. I don't know the statistics, but I know that being born with it naturally is rare, and there weren't a lot who survived the experiments to force someone to Awaken.

That's... horrible. [ He feels for people who were experimented on, honestly. It's all too familiar to him, after all. ]

Of course it's horrible. We're talking about people who messed around with Death and almost ended the world. It's their fault that Minato is -

[No. That wound's still too fresh. He huffs and stares at the floor.]

I just don't think that people should be experimenting on humans to begin with.

[ Case in point: himself. ]

Well, yeah. Obviously. They took orphans, people who had no real paperwork tying them to anyone.

I just feel sorry for those people, because... [ He's like them. But unlike them, he willingly chose to do it. ]

[Sasuke stands in silence for most of the conversation, having little to contribute and quite a lot to learn from it. There is one thing, however...]

...Do you think it's possible that any of that might come up in this world?

[The... experiments and so on.]

... Probably. There were... experiments in the Tower, too. Jason did it on all of us, but... ngh.

[He wouldn't be surprised, really. He still has nightmares.]

Is there anything specific we should expect?

... He was fond of brain surgery. Or surgery in general. He liked to inflict pain - physical or mental - over long periods of time. Take people apart, replace parts... it didn't matter as long as it hurt. And if we died we'd just come back in a fresh body, so it's not like he cared about 'wasting test subjects' or something.

[He shifts a bit uncomfortably, closing his eyes. He still can't hear Dike. Ken sighs and looks back at the others.]

We need to find more clues. Standing here isn't going to help.

[...He's been through a lot of things, but never anything like that. He's not sure he'll be able to hold himself together through it.

But, well... He doesn't have much choice, now does he?]

You're right. Is there anywhere you can think of that was important enough to hide a key, or a clue?

Important enough... Minato's room, maybe. But it's locked, and I couldn't see a puzzle to open it.

[Hmm...]

Maybe it will unlock last.

[Like the mountain. And the shrine...]

Maybe. He was... really important to all of us.

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i will burn my dread

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