The Magical World is declining as the Collective Consciousness of Humanity embraces modern technology. During that time, a Fool begins her journey by enrolling in Luna Nova to follow her missing idol's footsteps. Can she rekindle people's believe in magic once more? (She probably needs to study first though...)
A Fool's Study into Witchcraft
is a Little Witch Academia and Persona crossover written by 741AuthorNCS. The story features Akko arriving at Luna Nova possessing the power of the Wild Card.
It can also be found on Sufficient Velocity, AO3, and SpaceBattles.
This fanfic contains examples of the following:
- Achievements in Ignorance: Akko reveals that most of the guns in her arsenal are actually fake, and only works because of her Believing Heart. Simultaneously inverted, as Akko also points out that it is best that the Shadows don't find out that the guns are fake, or they'll stop working.
- Adaptational Badass: Akko, by way of possessing the power of the Wild Card.
- Adaptational Intelligence: More like "Adaptational Book Smarts." Aradia is adamant about Akko taking her schoolwork seriously, so Akko comes across a bit smarter than before.
- Adaptational Nice Guy: Sucy is a lot friendlier to Akko early on, because her Made of Iron status makes her a much better guinea pig and the Cognitive World provides her access to new and ludicrously rare poisons.
- Adaptation Expansion: Akko's Personas get more time to shine in mundane tasks, as Luna Nova being an inherently magical place and Aradia revealing herself on the first day of school makes hiding their existence both unnecessary and pointless.
- Always Someone Better: Diana sees Akko as this initially, not completely understanding that Personas and Magic are completely different from each other. Combined with Akko inadvertently embarrassing her by revealing that she's a Shiny Chariot fan, it lets her Shadow Self loose, who proceeds to kidnap the real Diana.
- Bad End: An Omake shows what would have happened if Akko & friends weren't able to save Diana: Shadow Diana will go on to Unperson Daryl, Merill and Marill in the real world, then takes over Luna Nova as headmistress and impose a tyrannical "do perfect or do nothing" policy in regards to education.
- Bag of Holding: Akko has one that is revealed when she stuff all of Lotte's souvenirs into it, and it doesn't look full at all. Later, Lotte and Sucy sort through the bag without Akko's knowledge (she is unconscious at the time), and digs out more weapons and trinkets than they could possibly fit inside their dorm (and there's still plenty more inside the bag).
- Much later in Inaba, Akko teaches her friends to make their own Bags Of Holding. Constanze uses the knowledge to create a portable container with a build-in digital sorting system.
- Both Yukiko and Mariko's clothes had a Sleeve Of Holding.
- Berserk Button: A real sure way to get Aradia and Akko's Personas riled up is someone tries to harm or insult the girl.
- Big Eater:
- Bilingual Bonus: The Japanese kanji embedded in the Touhou Project-styled faux video game interface in the illustrations of the Broom Relay Race arc reads "A fool's quest".
- Casting Gag: Professor Nelson mentions that she once worked for a delivery service.note
- Character Development: When Aradia points out that Ursula is hiding something from Akko, Akko decides not to call her on it, considering that something similar is what placed Diana in severe danger.
- Clap Your Hands If You Believe: Like in canon, beliefs and perceptions have a strong impact on the Cognitive World.
- Closet Geek:
- Diana is, of course, a Shiny Chariot fan. Not so funny in this story, due to it causing Diana's Shadow to manifest, which actually threatened Luna Nova.
- Constanze turns out to be a fan of Humongous Mecha anime.
- Crippling Overspecialization: As in the Persona games, the Arcane Turrets can only use Ice-elemental attacks, and nothing else, making them totally harmless against Jack Frost, a friendly Shadow who is completely immune to Ice attacks.
- Contrasting Sequel Protagonist: Invoked by Akko. Chronologically, the fic takes place following the "Phantom Thieves Incident" and Akko is aware of their powers. Rather than stealing peoples hearts to change them, she wants to inspire change through her shows.
- Damsel in Distress: Diana is abducted by her Shadow, requiring Akko, Lotte, Sucy, and Amanda to go in and rescue her.
- Dark and Troubled Past: While her goals and personality remain unchanged, much of Akko's past is surprisingly left with ambiguity and has become one of the major plot threads in the story. Several clues littered across the chapters heavily implied that Akko gained her Persona powers from a life-threatening event that occurred a couple of years ago and had Akko not unlocked her abilities, she would have most likely died. It's also because of that event that Akko moved to Inaba and later Luna Nova for her own safety.
- Debate and Switch: Mariko and Yukiko shows up right before Akko & friends in Inaba all of a sudden, being angry about Akko. At first, both Akko and the readers assumed that Mariko and Yukiko are going to berate her for allowing people at Luna Nova to learn about the existence of Personas. Turns out they were only going to berate her for bringing her friends to Cognitive Inaba. Subverted as it is still something Mariko has explicitly told Akko not to do.
- Demoted to Extra: The Shiny Rod is only put in the forefront when Akko picks it up and uses it in Chapter 1, and when Akko tries to use it against Shadow Diana to no avail. Other than that, the story basically treats it as an afterthought.
- Digging Yourself Deeper: Akko describes her Personas in such a way as to make it sound like she is enslaving Shadows. Though Akko manages to dig herself out by comparing Personas to Pokémon.
- Everyone Has Standards: Not shown within the story itself, but according to
Word of God, Aradia's goat-headed scepter (named Bel-Chan) likes to say very lewd things, so much so that Aradia, who has shown streaks of sadism before, had it muted so that Akko would not be able to hear it. - Extended Disarming: See Hyperspace Arsenal below.
- Fantasy Kitchen Sink: This is a Persona fanfic. This is to be expected. Personas from pre-Roman Italian Mythology, Classical Mythology, Celtic Mythology, and Japanese Mythology have all made appearances so far.
- Foreshadowing: Professor Ursula's Arcana is The Hermit. Ursula is the true identity of Shiny Chariot, so she definitely has a reason to isolate herself from others.
- For Want Of A Nail: Diana's secret of being a Shiny Chariot fan is exposed by Akko triggering the former's Character Development way earlier. Simultaneously, Ursula will learn about Akko participating in one of her shows way earlier than in the anime along with the added knowledge that Diana was present there as well which gives the teacher hope in atoning for her past sins.
- Homage: The battle against Amduscias is a love letter to the first boss fight in The Anime of the Game of Persona 4, from the method of having the Shadow go berserk (Diana rejecting her Shadow) to how Akko ultimately triumphs (Akko doing her first Persona fusion, giving her one powerful enough to take down Amduscias).
- Hyperspace Arsenal: Upon reaching their dorm, Lotte and Sucy go rummaging through Akko's bag to retrieve Lotte's gifts from her parents. Then out of curiosity, they decide to explore further. They pull out so many weapons and trinkets from it that they eventually ran out of room in the dorm, and they still haven't gone through everything.
- Invisible to Normals: Akko mentioned that only Persona users and those with the potential to become Persona users can see the portal to the Cognitive World. Akko is surprised to find that Lotte and Sucy can see it. Diana initially cannot see it, but somehow her depression from being overshadowed by Akko enabled her to see it and eventually gain her own Persona after she's kidnapped by her Shadow.
- Late-Arrival Spoiler: Two big examples so far.
- A big twist in Little Witch Academia was that Professor Ursula is actually Shiny Chariot. Here, that secret is revealed with minimal gravitas in the first few chapters, albeit only to the readers.
- Diana being a Shiny Chariot fan is something both she and the author kept readers in the dark about for a large part of the story. Here, it's outed to both the readers and the characters in Chapter 2.
- Loophole Abuse: Akko points out that Persona users can easily make their own Bag of Holding by sewing a bag like normal and then putting their belief into it. Turns out the sewing part is unnecessary:
- Sucy manages to make her own Bag Of Holding by deconstructing the normal bag she already has, and then reconstructing it.
- Amanda just puts together something that vaguely resembles a bag, and it works.
- Constanze makes a portable container with a built-in scanner and inventory.
- Magical Girl: Akko's group of Persona users have a lot of traits in common with Magical Girls, such as their transformations and wielding the power of friendship.
- Magical Girl Warrior: Since they use their powers to fight evil shadows in rather brutal battles.
- Masquerade: Akko explains many times that the world should not know about the Personas and the Cognitive World. Unfortunately due to her luck leading to her Personas getting revealed to the school on the first day, Akko tries to keep the secret contained only in Luna Nova.
- Miss Exposition: Akko serves as this for Lotte and Sucy.
- Mundane Utility: Akko uses her incredible powers to make money by beating up shadows. She also uses her Personas for mundane tasks (such as cleaning up her messes).
- My God, What Have I Done?: Akko has this reaction when she realizes that her attempt to befriend Diana is what got her kidnapped by her Shadow.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: When Akko recognizes Diana from Shiny Chariot's show, she instantly blows her charade of disinterest with photographic evidence. This severe hit to Diana's reputation, coupled with Akko's unique powers that she is unable to match, leads to Diana's abduction by her Shadow.
- Not So Above It All: Constanze goes Squee when Akko channels a Kaiju and wrecks an army of Arcane Turrets (tank-like Shadows).
- Off the Rails: Jumps them fairly early on, when Akko is forced to summon Aradia to fend off the Cockatrice.
- Outside-Context Problem: Akko's Personas serve as this to the Luna Nova staff and students. The best anyone could describe the Personas is that Akko is a summoner and they are spirits summoned by her (which is technically true).
- Patchwork Fic: The story derives elements from Persona 5 (such as being able to negotiate with Shadows and having a rather....aggressive method of fusing personas) and Persona 4 (using the terms "Distortion" and "Cognitive World" as opposed to "Palace" and "Metaverse"). Justified since the other half of the crossover is fluffier than Persona 5 by a longshot.
- Power Incontinence: Akko has trouble controlling Aradia, who will attack anything that she sees as a threat to Akko.
- Previous Player-Character Cameo: Yukiko and Teddy show up during Akko's sending visit to Inaba. Mariko also shows up, though she is more of a "Previous Supporting Character Cameo".
- Shout-Out:
- Aradia's Rorschach-blot face is lifted from her design in Nocturne.
- Ursula claims to be descended from a tribe of "Umbran Witches" that once worshiped Aradia.
- The illustrations of the Broom Relay Race arc is a series of one huge love letter to the Touhou Project shooting games, right down to the design of the faux interface and the spell names. Diana even fires off a Master Spark!
- The Zoma Slashaxe is straight up from Monster Hunter. Even comes with the backstory that Daidara forged it because he saw his grandson play the game.
- The art in CH 17 where Akko battles Shadows is a reference to Cure Lovely's Lovely Beam.
- Spirit Advisor: Aradia is her own character, and she frequently provides Akko with advice and explanations.
- Token Enemy Minority: If Shadows could be considered a minority, then Jack O'Lantern and Jack Frost count, being the only two Shadows we saw that are completely friendly to Akko without becoming Personas.
- Tyrant Takes the Helm: This would have happened to Luna Nova if Shadow Diana wasn't stopped.
- Unstoppable Mailman: Aika is this - even the laws of physics will not stop her from making a delivery.
- Walking Armory: Akko's backpack is loaded with so many weapons for fighting Shadows that Lotte and Sucy outright wonder if she was gearing up for a war.
- We Buy Anything: Averted. In contrast to the Persona franchise and Japanese RPG games in general where you can make a quick buck by selling your stockpiles of rare, exotic loot to any stores you want, here Akko mentions that she was unable to sell her stockpiles of rare, exotic loot because no one in Inaba would buy them, forcing her to throw them away like trash.
- Weaker in the Real World: Akko can summon her Personas in reality, but it takes more out of her than in the Cognitive World. Being around a Ley Line helps significantly.
- Wham Episode: Rage Inducer Part 1 reveals that Akko has unknowingly encountered and fought off one of Croix's machines in Cognitive Tokyo, meaning that Croix is aware about the existence of the Cognitive World.
- Wild Mass Guessing: In-Universe, Akko speculates that Aika might be a witch or a Persona-user due to her ability to make deliveries. She and Sucy test her and rule out that she's doing it with magic, but not other methods.
- Worf Had the Flu: Akko nearly loses to Croix's Data Basilisk due to the latter using the Power Of Hate to enhance itself. However it takes Akko changing her arsenal and tactics that the battle turns into her favor.
- Worthless Yellow Rocks: In addition to having an armory's worth of weapons in her Bag of Holding, Akko also has a variety of magical items she looted from the Cognitive World, which is implied to be worth more than several other witches' family fortunes due to the rarity of the items. Akko, however, had so many that she had to throw some away, as nobody in Japan would buy it from her.
- Wrong Context Magic: It's explicitly made clear that Persona Abilities and witchcraft operate on different principles, which is why Akko can use the power of the Wild Card even though Shiny Chariot accidentally drained her during her show in Japan. That said, summoning Personas in the real world is significantly easier by Ley Lines, but that might just be cognition.
- You Do Not Want To Know: Whatever it was that happened when Akko encountered that train molester. The other girls thank her for not going into detail.
- Your Mind Makes It Real: Akko uses this in conjunction with her Believing Heart to great effect in the Cognitive World.
