Title: Keeping One's Cool Under Fire
Fandom: Persona Q (and I guess, by extension, Persona 3 and Persona 4)
Rating: General Audiences
Length: 1176 words
Content Notes: References to canon-typical violence, non-detailed gun mentions
Author Notes: Unsubtle hints of Naoto -> Mitsuru and Naoto -> Yukari. (Also, this seems like a cool community!)
Summary: Using a handgun against the Shadows used to make Naoto feel pretty cool when it was just her and the Investigation Team, but fighting alongside a ludicrously armed Aigis leaves the detective feeling a bit diminished. Thankfully, Yukari is here to offer some sympathy and advice -- or at least, a potent distraction.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Fandom: Persona Q (and I guess, by extension, Persona 3 and Persona 4)
Rating: General Audiences
Length: 1176 words
Content Notes: References to canon-typical violence, non-detailed gun mentions
Author Notes: Unsubtle hints of Naoto -> Mitsuru and Naoto -> Yukari. (Also, this seems like a cool community!)
Summary: Using a handgun against the Shadows used to make Naoto feel pretty cool when it was just her and the Investigation Team, but fighting alongside a ludicrously armed Aigis leaves the detective feeling a bit diminished. Thankfully, Yukari is here to offer some sympathy and advice -- or at least, a potent distraction.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Naoto has always been reassured by the heft of a firearm in her hand. Even recently, when so many of the weapons she has found, or that Theodore has crafted for her, have been a little ridiculous — like something she would expect to find in her own dungeon in the TV world — she has found the weight of her guns comforting. It feels right to carry steel wrought in a pleasing shape, to a dangerous purpose.
Now, though — as she looks between Narukami’s and Arisato’s shoulders to see a Shadow rendered to something straddling “swiss cheese” and “fine paste” in terms of the consistency of its remains — her gun feels a little light. A little small.
Aigis takes a few steps forward after lowering her arm. “I believe I have dispatched the last of the Shadows.”
“Gee, Aigis, you think?” Takeba, who made up the rear of the formation along with Naoto herself, carefully clips her bow into place across her back. “I think you ‘dispatched’ that one a second or two after you started shooting.”
Aigis looks over her shoulders at Takeba, eyes seemingly guileless, as far as Naoto can discern. “It is good to be thorough” is all that Aigis responds with before turning back around and following Arisato deeper into the labyrinth.
It’s hard for Naoto to tell just how capable the android is of complex expressions. She wants desperately to ask Kirijo for Aigis’s schematics. Learning to string more than five words into a sentence while in Kirijo’s presence will have to come first, though.
It’s hard for Naoto to tell just how capable the android is of complex expressions. She wants desperately to ask Kirijo for Aigis’s schematics. Learning to string more than five words into a sentence while in Kirijo’s presence will have to come first, though.
Takeba turns back to look at Naoto and gives an exaggerated shrug. “Well, I guess she saved us the trouble,” is all she says, grinning slightly.
“She certainly did that,” Naoto says, falling into step with Takeba as they both begin to follow the others. As she starts to move again, she thinks. “You were involved in your anti-Shadow group some time before Aigis became a member, correct?”
“Hm? Yeah, for a while it was just me, Junpei, and sub-leader,” Takeba says, framing Arisato’s title with finger quotes and a roll of the eyes. “Why?”
Here, some hesitation on Naoto’s part, as they walk at the same speed as the rest of the party, though far enough back to be out of casual earshot. She hasn’t spoken much with any of the Gekkoukan team’s members on a one-on-one basis in the days since they and the Investigation Team formed common cause. It is, at least, easier to approach Takeba alone than it would be for her to ask anything of Mitsuru one-on-one. “Before her arrival, then, you were your team’s only long-range combat specialist.”
Takeba is looking at her askance, now. This is probably a bad sign. “Yeah…?”
At this point, Naoto can only guess how Takeba is looking at her, because Naoto can’t quite bring herself to meet the girl’s eyes as she says, “After Aigis joined you, did you feel a little…” A few words come to mind here. Jealous? Inadequate? “Obsolete?”
“Oh,” Takeba says. “The guns. Well, yeah. Once she was around, I ended up spending most of my time slinging Garu spells and healing the others.” She actually laughs. “Actually, I was a little bitter about it for a while.” There’s a hint of wryness in her voice, a touch of conscious self-deprecation. “I mean, I got over it pretty quickly. Or I like to think I did, anyway,” Takeba adds, laughing again.
Naoto doesn’t know what to say. It’s a relief, knowing that, at least for a while, Takeba felt the same way she does right now, to a point. What lies beyond said point just isn’t something Naoto feels entirely comfortable admitting out loud. “If we’re being completely honest here,” she says, “it isn’t just…the tactical concerns, that are making me feel somewhat redundant.”
Takeba raises an eyebrow. There’s something about the gesture that Naoto likes, or something about Takeba’s face that Naoto likes. Not for the first time, and probably not for the last, Naoto is uncomfortably aware that Takeba, like Kirijo, is very beautiful, in a specific sort of way that makes Naoto wish she was taller.
It is good that Naoto is staring moronically at Takeba’s arched brow; it isn’t quite as bad as having to look her in the eye as she says, “Fighting Shadows with a revolver made — makes me feel…cool.” As soon as this last word escapes her mouth, Naoto has Regrets.
A sound somewhere between a snort and a snerk erupts from Takeba’s mouth, and her lips quirk into a smile that isn’t charming, at all. A distinctly charmless smile that reaches her eyes, which Naoto might as well look at after all, given that she’s humiliated herself so thoroughly. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Takeba says, and giggles. “Just — oh, I’m sorry. You’re very honest.”
Naoto catches herself trying to reach up and tug her hat down low over her eyes; her hand’s progress arrests itself a bit north of her waist, and, rather than let it flop uselessly down to her side, she shoves it into her jacket pocket. “I’m beginning to wonder if that’s such a good thing,” she says ruefully.
In spite of the embarrassment that makes her want to run far, far away from this conversation, Naoto feels a little encouraged. Being told that she’s honest — perhaps too honest, and awkwardly so — is a far cry from the desperate obfuscation that encompassed so much of her life before she fell in with Narukami and his friends. It feels good, to be told that she has changed, even if the messenger has no idea of the significance of her message.
“W-well, if it helps at all, I think Aigis’s shooting is more…brute force, than it is cool,” Takeba says in an obvious attempt to lift Naoto’s spirits. The grin that suddenly overtakes her features, and the teasing quality that enters her voice when she speaks again, do not leave Naoto with quite as much faith in Takeba’s good intentions, however. “I mean, yeah, she can fill a Shadow with lead in no time flat, but it’s not like she can shoot from the hip, or twirl her gun between shots, or —”
“I get your point,” Naoto says hurriedly, face hot.
Yukari laughs again, hands held palm-forward before her. “Okay, okay, I’ll lay off.” She lowers her arms, now walking a step or two closer to Naoto than before. “Well, if it helps at all,” she says, still smiling, “I still think you’re cool, okay?”
For a moment, Naoto thinks she’ll erupt into flames, or spontaneously grow ten inches in height. Neither of these things actually happens, although her face heats up again and her posture shifts so that she stands a bit taller. She suddenly wants to say something, do something, to sweep Yukari Takeba off her feet and into Naoto’s waiting arms. Instead, she mutters something along the lines of “Very kind of you to say,” which makes Takeba laugh again.
This time, Naoto does tug the hat down a bit over her eyes.
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