The story’s official Title Logo, as drawn by CrazyNoVa himself.
”All you have to do is to mask your true self from the world and live in blissful ignorance. Let the fog shroud your name, your past, and your true self, so that no one will ever suspect anything. Ignore anything contrary to your desires. What is wrong with letting go? You don't have to live in a reality of suffering. Live the life you want to live. After all, didn't the ones who cared for your well-being wished for you to be happy? Put on a mask, shroud yourself in fog, and be happy for yourself. Pursue the life you want, and leave your pain and sorrow behind you.”
— The Voice In The Fog.
Have you ever wondered what would happen if Labrys from Persona 4: Arena had been awakened at an earlier point in time than in the main games? Have you ever wondered what would happen if she took Yu Narukami’s place as the leader of the Investigation Team and as the main protagonist of Persona 4 to solve the Inaba murders?
Persona 4: Silver Blue is a Persona 4 fanfiction by CrazyNoVa, featuring a “What-if” scenario where Labrys wakes up earlier than in canon, moves into Inaba, attends Yasogami High School and becomes the Leader of The Investigation Team instead of Yu Narukami. It’s an Alternate Universe where just one element changes, that being Labrys being the main character instead of Yu, with very big repercussions down the line.
At first, the story more-or-less follows the same beats as the original Persona 4 until the end of Yukiko’s castle. Then, the changes to the timeline become apparent, and things slowly start spinning out of control. Some social links are also changed and different than they were in the original story.
The story can be read on Spacebattles.com
, Archive of Our Own or Fanfiction.net.
Persona 4 Silver Blue provides examples of:
- Adaptational Badass: Purposely done by the author for various reasons.
- Labrys herself. Unlike in canon, she’s a wild card, and she has better control over her illusion powers to allow her to disguise herself and better blend in with humans.
- Shadow Yosuke. In canon, he’s a Warm-Up Boss and he’s not that hard to defeat. In this story, he puts up a much better fight before going down, and he can take a lot of punishment too.
- Adaptational Early Appearance:
- The weird dream where Izanami first contacts the protagonist happens earlier than in the original Persona 4, so they make their first appearance earlier. In Persona 4, the dream happened after Yu first meets Ryotaro and Nanako. Here, it happens before Labrys meets them instead.
- Technically, Labrys herself counts when taken in the meta-context of the timeline of the Persona games. In the canon games, Labrys’s first appearance is in Persona 4: Arena, which is set after Persona 4. Here, she instead wakes up before the events of Persona 4.
- Downplayed with Naoki Konishi. In the original game, he technically first appears at the very start when he’s arguing with his sister Saki in the shopping district, only to befriend Yu much later in the game. Here, he first appears the same way too, but Labrys befriends him sooner, so he becomes prominent earlier.
- The Amagi Inn and its employees appear sooner in the story than in canon, since Labrys accompanies Chie to visit the Inn with her before Yukiko gets kidnapped.
- The Tatsumi Textile shop also appears a bit earlier than in canon, and Labrys meets Kanji’s Mom in the same chapter, so Labrys meets her earlier than Yu and his friends did in canon.
- This doesn’t just apply to characters, but for some locations too. Labrys’s first visit to Okina city happens earlier than Yu’s first visit did back in the original Persona 4, so the city first appears earlier than in the original story. Also, remember Big Bang Burger from Persona 5? It’s revealed during that visit that there’s a Big Bang Burger restaurant in Okina City. Labrys and Aika even stop there for a bit during their Okina trip. And as mentionned above, the Amagi Inn, the Tatsumi Textile Shop and Yomotsu Hirakasa both appear slightly earlier than in canon too.
- Adaptation Expansion:
- Some aspects of locations that already existed in canon are expanded upon in this story, especially due to Labrys being more somewhat more curious and adventurous than Yu, not to mention somewhat more willing to ask questions about the world around herself. For example, during one of her visits to the Velvet Room, Labrys asks about the music and singing that’s always in the background. Igor and Margaret then reveal that Nameless and Belladonna are the ones responsible for it, which reveals that they both exist in this story.
- The hidden issues and problems of the Investigation Team members are expanded upon, and their shadow selves use these to mercilessly torment their counterparts.
- Adaptational Karma: In canon, Hanako Ohtani and Ai Ebihara never really face any consequences for their negative attitudes and actions. Granted, they both at least show one or two Pet the Dog moments and Ai gets better through Character Development in her social link, but still. Unfortunately for them, Labrys isn’t nearly as patient as Yu when it comes to dealing with their crap, so in this story, they face consequences as early as their first appearance. When Labrys catches them both arguing with each other and about to start a fight, she ends up singlehandedly breaking up the squabble, humiliating them both in front of their classmates in the process. Then, after Labrys fails to reason with either of them, she forcibly drags them both to the principal’s office against their will to face consequences for their actions.
- Adaptational Location Change: Zig-zagged with the Velvet Room. On one hand, it’s still the Velvet Room like in Persona 4, down to having the same attendants too. On the other hand, since Labrys is the main character, it’s her Velvet Room that’s featured in the story, not Yu’s. Also, since Labrys’s personality is different from Yu’s, the Velvet Room doesn’t look like the inside of a limousine, but a classroom instead.
- Adapted Out:
- So far, Yu Narukami doesn’t seem to exist in this universe, and Labrys takes his place as the heroine of this story.
- Inverted with Aika Nakamura. In the canon continuity, she was mostly just an Anime-only character and she never really appeared in the Persona 4 game (although she did get mentionned in Persona 4 Golden once or twice). Here, she not only gets to meet and befriend Labrys, but she also becomes the Strength social link.
- Adaptational Relationship Overhaul: In canon, Yu doesn’t really befriend Aika Nakamura or Saki Konishi, and he doesn’t get to know Naoki Konishi or the Gas Station Attendant until much later in the game. Here, Labrys not only gets to befriend Saki a bit more before she dies, she also gets to befriend Aika and meets Naoki earlier than in Canon. Also, both Aika and the Gas Station Attendant become social links later.
- Adaptational Superpower Change: In addition to having the powers and abilities she had in canon, Labrys also gets the power of the wild card and access to the Velvet Room too.
- Big Eater: Aika Nakamura. When she visited the Big Bang Burger restaurant in Okina City, She somehow managed to complete the Big Bang challenge and eat the Cosmic Tower Burger on her first try. And even after that, she’s somehow still hungry and she asks Labrys if she can have her burger and fries.
- Bloodier and Gorier: Downplayed. The action sequences are much more violent and gruesome here than in canon, and the shadow selves are more vicious than they originally were in the games, but so far, that only applies to the fights against shadows. The human deaths, on the other hand, are about just as bloody as they already were back in the original story.
- Blood Knight: Labrys admits a few times to herself that she enjoys hunting and fighting shadows, and that it feels like second nature to her, probably because that’s literally what she was made for. It also helps that it’s not like fighting humans or actual sapient beings, so she doesn’t have to feel bad for slaughtering them either.
- Challenging the Bully: As stated in Adaptational Karma above, Labrys does this to Ai and Hanako, although she doesn’t fully realize that this is what she’s doing until later.
- Composite Character: The Labrys in this story seems to be one. She’s like a composite between her canon counterpart and the original protagonist of Persona 4, Yu Narukami. She has her canon self’s powers, skills, personality and background, but she also has Yu’s life as seen in Persona 4, and like him, she’s also turning in a Magnetic Hero who’s leading the Investigation Team into solving the Inaba murders and the mystery behind the Midnight Channel. Plus, she takes up his role as the resident wild card. Even the name she took to blend in amongst humans, “Yura”, is basically a female version of Yu’s name. Makes sense, since
Word of God has stated that she’s supposed to be like what would happen if Persona 4 Golden had added a FeMC like Persona 3 did for its remake. - Continuity Porn: Downplayed. A lot of references to other Persona games, or even other Shin Megami Tensei games, can be found in this story if one pays close attention. They don’t impact the story too much and one doesn’t need to understand them to understand the story, but still.
- Do Androids Dream?: Labrys sometimes ponders about the idea that artificial beings can be truly considered alive, that they can have souls or about where they go after they die, especially since she’s had to face the idea of death a lot since she’s moved in Inaba.
- Fish out of Water: Happens a lot to Labrys, since she’s a robot and doesn’t fully understand humanity yet. Plus, she’s been sealed away for a long time, and the world has changed since the last time she was activated.
- Foil: Labrys is this to Yu Narukami, the original main character of the original Persona 4. They’re both silver-haired newcomers to Inaba who end up getting tangled in a supernatural murder mystery, they both have access to the power of the wild card and they both care a lot about their friends and loved ones. However, Yu is cool, Stoic, reactive and remains calm in face of all the weirdness he ends up facing in Inaba, and he’s level-headed. On the other hand, Labrys is more brash, curious, active, hotheaded, emotional and she’s more likely to get shocked or surprised by all the new, crazy things she encounters in Inaba. Basically, Yu is Blue Oni, while Labrys is more Red Oni. Also, it’s worth mentionning that while they were both bestowed special gifts by a higher power at the start of their respective adventures, Yu was just an Ordinary High-School Student with a normal life who ends up being given the power to be special, while Labrys was someone who already had special powers from the get-go and who was gifted the opportunity to live a normal life instead. Thus, while both of their lives are equally normal and special in their own ways, Yu’s life got relatively more special, while Labrys’s life got relatively more normal.
- For Want Of A Nail: The cataclysm for this whole Alternate Universe that made it diverge from the canon universe is unknown, but we know that it’s something that happened before the start of the story that dramatically altered the course of events, thus not only waking up Labrys sooner than in canon, but also ensuring that she would take Yu’s place and move in to Inaba, and the rest is history.
- Head-Turning Beauty: Like their canon counterparts, both Labrys and Yukiko are this. It’s somewhat less visible for Yukiko since she’s been around longer, but when Labrys first shows up at school in her “Yura Narukami” guise, it’s heavily implied that about 90% of the boys (and even some girls) can’t help but stare at her when they first see her, to which Labrys is of course completely oblivious about. Chie even jokes that she wouldn’t be surprised to see a “Narukami” challenge pop up for Labrys in a similar vein to Yukiko’s “Amagi challenge” in the future.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: How Labrys defeats Shadow Yukiko. She cripples its wings to prevent it from flying, then she impales it on one of her own castle’s pointy ornaments on the rooftops.
- Innocently Insensitive: Labrys can sometimes come across as this, due to her unfamiliarity with human social and cultural norms and being prone to sometimes misunderstanding things, and it’s mostly Played for Laughs. To her credit, when she understands what she did wrong, she usually feels bad about it and makes an effort to learn from her mistakes.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia:
- Since the start of the story, Labrys has been plagued by memory problems. It’s not as bad as her canon counterpart was in Persona 4 Arena, but she can’t remember everything about her past. She can remember some things, but not everything. May be justified, since it’s implied that something or someone may have purposely tampered with Labrys’s memory while she was sealed away to make sure that she could only recall specific things, which is something she’s really not happy about.
- Master of Illusion:
- Like her canon counterpart, Labrys has illusion powers that can mess with the senses and perception of people around her. She uses it mainly to disguise herself as a human and blend in with the humans of Inaba. She can also use it in battle to confuse enemies.
- Shadow Labrys too. She’s even better at it than Labrys, and she can even affect senses that Labrys doesn’t know how to affect yet, like time perception or temperature perception. She even used her powers to Mind Rape Shadow Yosuke and distract him so she could fight Labrys one-on-one.
- Mind Rape: Shadow Labrys did this to Shadow Yosuke by trapping him in an illusion where his perception of time was immensely accelerated, turning seconds into minutes, then minutes into hours, then hours into days, then days into weeks, then weeks into months, then months into years, an so on. It drove him insane with rage and almost destroyed his mind too. When he escaped the illusion due to Labrys accepting her shadow, he was not happy.
- Mundane Made Awesome: Discussed a few times in the story by people who talk about how Labrys sees the world. From her point of view, she’s spend most of her life in a lab or sealed away, so even a small town as boring or dull as Inaba looks like heaven from her point of view, especially compared to how crappy her life was like before she came to Inaba. From Labrys’s point of view, everything in Inaba is fresh and exciting, because she doesn’t really know anything better than that.
- Mental World: The Velvet Room, of course. It’s a place whose shape reflects the heart of its guests. Unlike Yu, whose Velvet Room took the shape of a limousine, Labrys’s version of the Velvet Room takes the form of a classroom.
- No-Sell: Labrys turns this to her advantage twice. The first time is during her fight against Shadow Labrys, where she turns off her ego and activated Orgia Mode, and during that time, Shadow Labrys’s illusions have no effect on her anymore. The second time was during the fight against Shadow Yukiko, where Labrys equipped the Senri persona to make herself immune to Shadow Yukiko’s fire attacks.
- Secret-Keeper: During the fight against Shadow Yosuke and Shadow Labrys, both Yosuke and Teddie learn the truth about Labrys’s past and they both swear to keep it a secret. At the time of this writing, they’re the only members of the Investigation Team who know about Labrys’s true nature.
- Shout-Out: There’s a few references to some other works and characters, or even to some real-life figures too in the story, mostly to make a point of some kind. They’re not always there, but you’ll see them if you know where to look. Some chapter titles are also references too.
- The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: Downplayed. In one chapter, it’s revealed that Izanami’s status as a deity grants her some kind of cosmic awareness, and she seems to have some degree of Medium Awareness. She decides to directly address the reader, but she doesn’t try to attack them or anything like that. Instead, she warns the reader that they too can fall into their own fog of lies in real-life and deceive themselves if they aren’t careful. She also explains that she’s been aware of the reader since they first started reading the prologue. And lastly, she ominously foreshadows some future things to come in the story before departing to pay Labrys a visit.
- What If?: The whole premise of this story is basically: “What-if Labrys was the main character of Persona 4 instead of Yu Narukami?”
