destinystrings | Autumn Festival (OPEN)

Entry tags:

Autumn Festival (OPEN)

Who: EVERYONE
Where: Virgo Ward
Summary: Autumn Festival Log! You're all invited!
Warnings: MELONS
Ahh Autumn. The time for harvest, and the normal national holiday that falls on the 24th and 25th. Demons? Angels? Magic? Well nothing's been put on pause, but even the Anoli need to relax once in a while...

With that free time, what's a newcomer like you to do?

Well Hinoto-Ri has much to offer! As they seem to be the only standing city in...well, anywhere, they've tried to merge and adapt as many festivals around the world as they can.

Ergo this Fall festival is a mixture of everything the world could offer. Corn on the cob, Pumpkins, Yaki Imo (Oven-Roasted Sweet Potatoes), Ramen stands, Falafel, caramelized apples...

A giant dragon is tied down in the middle of the waters. At night, you can see a few pixies hover close to it, keeping other monsters at bay. The streets have been decorated as well.

But most importantly, the upper Virgo Ward has been turned in a giant festival area...even more so than usual! Now the millions of stalls don't just try to sell things to you, they sell things to you thematically with this fall! Giant pumpkins and fresh produce made in Libra and Capricorn..did you know that Capicorn has an amazing giant apple orchid, protected by the office of Wands and Swords? Try out some free samples! One taste is enough to convince you that having Persona to irrigate the fields ass a crispness to the fruit..right? Winter outfits...hats are in this year! Listen to some of the new music groups, and get pumped for the upcoming movies!

There is giant mooncake in the middle of all the tents and stalls. Don't worry about the money! Everything's free today! It is a time for sharing and family and...

...being thankful for what you have. No matter how small it might be.

For a city of survivors, Hinoto-Ri is certainly trying to have a good time.

You should join them.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

But her smart remark fades away as the girl suddenly reacts bizarrely again. Only this time it looks more like fear, or sadness, than anger. A look... close to how she'd felt when she'd first seen him again in Hinoto-ri. And then the whispered name?

"Huh...? Do you know him?"

He shoots Minako a look. He can see that.

He's about to bark out a response when Minako says something else, and his expression is almost bewildered for all of two seconds as he approaches, his eyes slowly wandering over to the girl. She... knew him or something? He searches his memory, but finds nothing to show for the effort—except for the vague, nagging sense of something that might be familiarity, but he can't place it. Maybe he had seen her around Port Island or in school once, but—

Well. All he knows is that, whoever she is, she doesn't look okay. She looks like she's five seconds away from hyperventilating and having a goddamn panic attack.

Striding forward, he finally reaches the two of and kneels down. He stares at the girl for a few seconds, wondering if maybe he shouldn't have come closer at alll. She wasn't scared of him or something, was she? Well shit, maybe she was. Maybe she had a brother or something who was one of the punks he ran into on the street, though she didn't look like she was from that type of crowd. He had never looked for a fight, of course, but there were times when he had had to swing his fists once or twice to defend himself.

"Look—" he hesitates, not sure of what the hell to even say. Instead, he carefully hands the girl her geta, in the same, slow way he might offer something to a cornered, frightened animal. He sighs. "I think this is yours."

Edited 2012-09-28 07:51 (UTC)

Frightened animal was certainly a fitting analogy. She felt she was having an out-of-body experience, watching him as he came near her. None of this felt real. None of this could be real. And yet...the nagging voice in the back of her head that grew louder at each passing second.

What if? What if this was real? What if this wasn't a dream? After all, everything about her brother looking at down at her right now was too perfect to be a mere memory, down to how he acted, his voice, that damn bright coat of his and...she didn't even care if he didn't seem to recognize her or not.

At first, she doesn't look up and nods, starting to reach out for the geta with a single trembling hand. Then without warning, it is pushed aside as she falls into his arms, holding him into a hug she couldn't give when he laid in a pool of his own blood.

This wasn't a dream. This is real. He is here.

"Y-....you're. You're alive..." Her voice cracks, and she breaks into sobs.

He doesn't have a manual for this.

He feels the girl's sudden weight against him and leans back a little bit, body going rigid, but doesn't quite pull away, as utterly surprised as he is. He can't just shove her away, can he? He doesn't even know how to handle this sort of thing in the first place. Girls aren't supposed to cry—no one is. Not Aki, not anyone. Not over him. There's not an inch of him worth crying over. And he still doesn't know how the hell she knows him, or why she'd even bother to get so attached. He only knows that, whatever had happened, whoever he was to her, she had thought he died, which sounded plausible enough, given the circumstances. Doesn't know why a girl like her would care, though.

"Shit. I don't—"

know who you are

But he pauses then, remembering the night he had come here. Plenty of people hadn't remembered things they should have been able to remember then either. But that was something they couldn't help, and couldn't be at fault for. The world here was strange. And someone else's memories didn't necessarily match someone else's, even when, perhaps, they should have.

Perhaps there's a better question to ask. Carefully.

"...You know me?"

Strange enough as it is, his physical reaction just adds even more into the realization that she isn't dreaming. Of course he'd do that. He'd always hated physical contact (which is why she'd always tried to be a pain about it in the moments he least expected it). The sobs continue, as she cries both from happiness and relief. Despite moving on and accepting his death, she isn't going ignore this second chance she's been given...

At least, until he mentions that he didn't remember her. Time stops again, and it feels like she was given a new punch to the gut. Miki can only think back to when Chidori's memories of her time in Strega had left her once she had come back to life...but that also meant she didn't remember any of them. Was her brother in a similar situation? Junpei had tried to help her too, right? Maybe that's what she needed to do now. Granted, this was trying to tie faulty logic at best since it still didn't explain Minami's twin standing close by, nor why he was alive at all. But a Sanada never backed down from a challenge. When she releases him, Miki uses her kimono's sleeves to wipe her nose. Screw attempting to look dignified at this point. She slowly nods, and manages a small smile for him.

"I hope so. We grew up together."

She fights back all urges to just add Jiji to the end of that right there and then. Thankfully, even her subconscious knows it isn't the right time.

It takes a few seconds for her answer to reach his ears, and a few more seconds for his mind to process and interpret what she had told him. When the realization of who she is hits him, it's like electricity is suddenly trying to carve a pathway through his nervous system, searing through his heart, his arms, his brain, jolting through his body like something meant to kill.

And then he just looks at her, stares her down with suddenly wide, disbelieving eyes, like she was some sort of ghost that had just waltzed across his vision—sees the resemblance to her brother in her face and in her eyes. And that's all the confirmation he really needs.

No, he knows you, it's just been a very long time.

She's not exactly how Shinjiro imagined her, the shy, lonely little girl that followed he and Aki around until the sun set. He's had plenty of time to play what-ifs. Like if he had been quicker, hadn't allowed her to stay in her room that day. Had just stopped the cause of the fire, cutting off the flame's life before it had the chance to take hers. For the rain to fall down, or to suddenly live in a world where there's no such thing as fire. But those are all what-ifs, and most of the time, when he imagines her, he doesn't imagine her older at all. He imagines her exactly how he last remembers her the day before she died: and that her is criminally small compared to the woman she is now.

As much as he can hardly believe it, he's more than glad to put his heart into accepting the existence of world that allowed her to grow up, like the universe had finally realized the mistake it had made and set to correcting it—because no one can tell him that dying wasn't one of the biggest mistakes life itself could make. He never wanted to see her brother like that again.

But when he also looks at her, he also sees the fire. The fire that engulfed their childhood and caused life as they had known it to die. He remembers their caretakers holding Aki back, and him standing by him, because he knew, though he wanted nothing more than to rush in and pull her out of that burning building, that he could never do it. He wouldn't make it for one, and he couldn't just leave her brother alone. Her brother meant the world to him, too. Somebody had to look after him now that his sister was gone.

He also sees her broken body they tried to hide from the both of them. It's easy to remembers how angry and sad and crushed he felt when they said they didn't want he and Aki to see her, even though he knew they meant well. They just didn't understand.

All those memories and a host of split-second others come rushing back into him in the space of seconds. Everything around him is suddenly bright and surreal and the noise of the festival is rough and far away in his ears. It's like no one else currently matters, and where they are doesn't either. These few long moments are theirs, and forever will be.

"You idiot," he says, meeting her eyes, hearing his voice rise and break, like someone's cut the strings to a marionette and let it tumble down to the hard, unforgiving earth. Makes a noise at the very back of his throat, like he's trying to reclaim the voice that he's lost, and can't find it—has to make due with this messed up one instead. Then all he does, after setting the bag of food carefully on the ground, is grab her by her suddenly not-small shoulders and pulls her to him, like maybe in a moment he'll wake up from whatever bizarre dream he's having, and realize when he opens his eyes that she had never died in the first place. Or worse, that she had. He's dreamed dreams like this before. "...the hell took you so long?"

Why did you take so long to come home? You were supposed to, didn't you know? You were always supposed to come back, no matter where you ended up or how far away you had gone. They had never stopped waiting for you.

In the background, Minako's expression since Shinjiro knelt by the girl has gone from this to this to just plain shock as she processes the scene in front of her.

This girl knows Shinjiro well enough to break down on seeing him again.
Shinjiro didn't recognize the girl.
The girl and Shinjiro grew up together.
Now Shinjiro does recognize her, and is hugging her like he'd just seen a ghost.

A... ghost... White hair... 'My name's Mi-'

Slowly, still clutching the filled bag of apples, she rises to her feet. This isn't a scene she should be intruding on any longer.

It is this moment when Minato happens to show up. Though he spent a fair amount of time at the karaoke tent or enjoying some of the tasty foods being offered, he has also been casually looking for his sister or any of his friends. He's already exchanged silence with Shinjiro, but hanging out a bit with family at someplace like this seems quite appealing - that is, of course, if Shinjiro will part with his date for a little while. Thus, while scanning the crowds he meanders through, Minato is primarily focused on finding Minako, and when he sees her standing up with a bag of apples through a gap in the throng, he quickly makes his way over.

Although he's wearing neither a festive kimono nor a school uniform, he still manages to stick with a blue theme with jeans, a t-shirt and a hooded jacket whose hood he is totally ignoring except as a place to rest his headphones, when he pulls them off, which he does now. Comfortable, practical things with a dark blue theme ~~just like himself if he were in Strega~~.

He makes an elaborate greeting. "Hey."

Quirking an eyebrow at the sight of Shinjiro hugging someone he absolutely does not recognize, Minato shoves his hands back in his pockets and glances sideways at his sister, questioning.

"W-wha-" Oh gods, now she is right back thinking she is dreaming. As he grabs her into an embrace, it is Miki's turn to flinch and stand upright at the touch. Shinjiro did not do physical contact in any circumstance (that she knew about, anyway). Yet it just takes a few seconds for her to snap out of it - she doesn't know why he's doing it, but she'll take her hugs when she gets them.

She puts on a brave face; the same one he always told her to take whenever anything really bad happened. The sight of him breaking down like he's the one seeing a ghost is confusing, and for a split second she is wondering if she herself died, but that doesn't makes sense.

The last three hours haven't made much sense actually. But...they are nice. Real nice. She bites her lip down as it to a check to see if she is still alive, and the pain shoots in her lip. When she speaks, her voice is a little more level than before, but it's still trembling.

"Y-you're the idiot..."

It was the best she could muster under the circumstances. Maybe if she'd been here for longer, she would have known about the alternate worlds, and the different outcomes in each one; but that, unfortunately, was still too soon.

Maybe if she had, her reaction to the new arrival would have been different.

WHAAAAAAAT.

Suddenly, the mood is ruined by the appearance of the last person she had expected. The stranger (Miki, thank you very much!) in question looks at Minato in a way that could only be described as a mixture of mild annoyance with a what are you doing here. You can't just be this...casual, greeting them like this was some normal thing. What was next? Ken and Jin popping out of the water and doing a Strega conga line? At this point she wouldn't have even bat an eye.

"...Hey."

She sounds about as friendly as her look. You might have saved the world...and saved your sister....alright okay you did do nice things and sure she appreciated all those, but you were still Minato, leader of Strega. You had killed a bunch of people! ...granted you had saved everyone too but still!

Stupid ~~sexy~~ Strega Leader.

Pouty face.

There's still a sense of surreality to everything around him. Time is moving a bit slower than it should—gives him the seconds he needs to slowly begin to piece together the jarring differences between the little girl he remembers and the girl who's in front of him. There's an inner part of him that almost laughs at the absurdity of it—as someone would when driven to the point of exhaustion—at how strange it sounds to hear her talk, especially in a way he's entirely unused to. There's nothing scared, shy, or really all that hesitant about it. She had grown up. She would have never called anyone an idiot—let alone him—back then. But he's also not thinking as clearly as he should, stuck in some limbo between the past he remembers and the now he's experiencing. He then wonders where Aki is.

And then Minato's greeting cuts in, and upon hearing his voice, Shinjiro raises his head and looks around him. He notices the odd look on Miki's face and pieces together that there's something between the two he can't even guess at, the colder greeting evidence of something he'll deal with later. Near him, Minako's standing, seeming like she's seconds away from leaving.

And then—abruptly—the festival suddenly roars back to life, no longer a dull, muted background noise he can easily ignore. The lights are bright and people are everywhere and he feels like he's had the emotional wind knocked out of him by a sledgehammer.

He shouldn't be here. He can't be here.

It takes him a few seconds to feel the stinging redness in his eyes as he pulls back. "We need to talk."

He lets go of her and stands. Picks up his bag as his body tries to compartmentalize and smother everything, force his body to run on some sort of emotionless autopilot, but at the moment it's doing a really shitty job.

He looks at the Arisato siblings then, suddenly relieved that Minato had decided to show up, and wonders, in a way, if this was what the both of them felt upon seeing each other again. He eventually walks over to to the two of them, holding the bag of taiyaki out to Minato. "Take it."

And then his attention drifts over to Minako, and he halfway wonders if she's already figured things out, just as he did. His voice comes out as a rasp, quieter than it should be. "I need to go."

Edited 2012-09-29 03:54 (UTC)

This is one of the strangest atmospheres Minako has ever been a part of. Shinjiro looks like he's on the verge of tears. The girl - Miki - is... pouting? And Minato...

Well, Minato looks about the same as always.

Minako had already planned to slip away, but the tone of Shinjiro's voice confirms that's a good idea. She smiles brightly (and slightly forced for once, but she's trying to inject some cheer back into this bunch) and slides over to her poor, unsuspecting brother. He probably has so many questions right now. "Come on, Minato, I need your help buying a tank for A-- the goldfish I won." Mentioning Akihiko's name probably isn't the best move right now. "...We'll see you later, Senpai."

And she latches onto Minato's arm to steer him away.

Don't let the impassive face fool you! Minato is actually terribly confused. Akihiko never did actually mention having a dead little sister to Minato, but even if he had, and even if Minato had somehow managed to put all the little pieces together right then and there, he still would have been confused.

Either way, there is very little about this whole scene that makes much sense to Minato. Shinjiro is looking highly emotional, some girl he doesn't even know is looking at him like she's upset about something and it's all his fault, and his sister is looking somewhere between shocked and awkward and --

Shinjiro is handing him a bag, disrupting his thoughts and analysis of the situation. He blinks and then nods, taking the bag before sliding his gaze past Shinjiro to the girl again, still confused but beginning to understand that he's not about to get any answers, with Shinjiro needing to go and his sister forcing out that smile only to grab him and start to ~~manhandle~~ drag him off with some excuse about a tank and goldfish.

So much for answers. But, being himself, he makes no objections. Instead, he just nods, mumbles a 'see you,' and lets Minako drag him away.

He is definitely going to eat Shinjiro's share of the taiyaki, though. It is revenge. Or payment. Or something.

Oh you do that Minato. You. Do. That.

After all, that's exactly what she'd expect of the Strega leader, wouldn't it? All about Revenge and Payment and Something. As her brother starts to walk away, Miki nods silently and starts to follow him. At least, until she does a turns in the middle of the walk, and looks at the twins again, as they go off.

Just remember Minato...

She has her eyes on you.

Thrusting his hands into his pockets, he turns and walks past Miki as the Arisato siblings take their leave. He intends to cut a quick path through the crowd and take the quickest route that isn't overly congested back to the apartments. He has a feeling it's going to be an awkward walk home.

It's also a good thing that Shinjiro doesn't look back. No need for him to see the absolute spectacle she's making out of herself. She certainly hadn't learned that from him. She's certainly the star of making charming first impressions. At any rate, the two of them will eventually find their way to the Libra Housing Complex, leaving the Arisato siblings to make of the situation what they will.

The thread is yours to nurture or abandon. Happy tank hunting and watch out for small children.

Edited 2012-09-29 21:26 (UTC)

...Really, Minato. Did you run into her earlier and hit on her or something? Minako gives her brother a sideways look. Maybe he's more dangerous than he appears...

But, as soon as Shinjiro and Miki disappear, Minako carries Minato off in the crowd in an opposite direction. She still has the bag of apples but hasn't really noticed yet.

"Thanks for stepping in back there." Even if it had been a complete accident.

"Ah... it was... nothing?" He lifts his visible eyebrow at her, returning the sidelong look. "What was going on?"

Well... That's difficult to explain. The grin drops away.

She decides explaining everything from the beginning would be too complicated, and opts to skip to her conclusions.

"To be honest? I don't know for sure. ...But I think that girl might be Akihiko-senpai's sister."

Wait... what?

Minato pauses to look at Minako, eyes widening in surprise. "Akihiko-senpai has a sister?"

That grinds her to a complete halt.

"....You didn't know?"

He mutely shakes his head. Akihiko has never mentioned a sister to him. As far as he knows, Akihiko and Shinjiro grew up together in an orphanage and that's... it.

...Now she just feels bad. Akihiko had confided in her because he trusted her, and wanted her to understand. Shinjiro, too, had talked about Miki a little because he wanted to share his feelings with her.

But if Akihiko hadn't told Minato as well... now it's like she knows a private secret. Peering in on someone else's personal business. The Akihiko here wouldn't expect her or Minato to know.

It's not really surprising. She's sure it doesn't mean that Akihiko and Shinjiro trusted and respected Minato any less. Friendships between boys are just different than the friendship between a boy and a girl. Maybe, they just hadn't felt the need to speak about something so emotional. But it still makes her worry that she's inadvertently shared something she shouldn't.

"I don't know many details. Just that she died in a fire at their orphanage when they were younger. But that girl said she grew up with Shinjiro-senpai, and I don't know about anybody else who'd make him react like that."

Plus she just looked like Akihiko. Unless the differences between timelines are now getting so wild that people's genders are switched.... but she thinks that Shinjiro's reaction to a female Akihiko would be more abject horror than tears.

Edited 2012-09-30 00:35 (UTC)

"... I see."

Minato is quiet for a time, just thinking about that - about the fact that neither Akihiko nor Shinjiro had ever mentioned a fire when they were kids or a dead little sister. He thinks he understands, though. Talking about that would have been like him bringing up Minako. There had never been any need, and it wasn't something happy to talk about. It was something painful and that left one open and vulnerable. Like showing someone an old wound - someplace still a bit tender - and saying, 'I trust you not to hit me here. To re-open this. I trust you to protect it like I do.' And that's never been something Minato had ever felt comfortable doing. With anyone... And, he thinks, if he had ever voluntarily told someone about Minako, it wouldn't have been Akihiko, anyway.

Minato also thinks about Akihiko himself and about the strange girl they'd left with Shinjiro. They do bear a resemblance... and the way Shinjiro had reacted... it all made sense. He sees no reason not to believe his sister's conclusion.

"... Do you know her name?"

Even having him share hadn't made her tell her own story. At the time, it felt like it would have cheapened his own pain. Just having a dead sibling or dead parents didn't mean you could 'understand' someone in the same situation any better. It did help, but every person is different, and every circumstance different. She found it easier to listen and encourage, rather than try to force other people's grief into a box of her own experiences. Privately, she might compare, and use her own feelings to draw conclusions, but not publicly.

Eventually she might have told him, like how today she'd shared more with Shinjiro-senpai. But with Akihiko, that time never came up.

"Miki. She's younger than him." She's not really sure how much younger, but the girl hadn't looked much younger than they were, if at all. ...Though the height difference made that harder to judge. And made Akihiko's descriptions of her as 'small' all the stranger.

Edited 2012-09-30 01:24 (UTC)

"Miki..." Minato repeats the name, thinking about this revelation. And then he sighs and shakes his head, smiling faintly.

"I guess height runs in the family."

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