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> 01. [text]

Hello everyone! ＼（＾∀＾） I hope you've all settled in well!

My name's Minako Arisato. I've talked to a few of you already, but for everyone else, it's nice to meet you!

Now that things have calmed down a little I was wondering - how many of us were Persona-users before coming to Hinoto-ri? I think it might be good to meet and compare notes if we haven't yet, see what's the same and what's changed. And maybe we could also make a list of people with experience who can help with answering questions or training, or things like that! Just jumping into using a Persona can be pretty daunting...

For everyone else - what do you usually do for fun? Some of the things I like are music, volleyball, cooking... If we have enough people who like the same things, maybe we could even form a club! I wouldn't mind having someone to play volleyball with again. Or to go out to karaoke! (ﾉ´▽｀)ﾉ♪

Anyway, that's all for now!

[added private text to Shinjiro]

Can I come over later?

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Just Shinagawa is fine.

Wait. How old're you? 'Cause Shinagawa-senpai might be more appropriate.

I'm 18, jsyk.

...I was. Those weeks were a lot of fun.

["But so were the weeks with you--" It sounds like an excuse, even as she thinks it. She can't give him excuses. Even when they're true.]

But you've probably already guessed things didn't stay that way. Aigis never liked Ryoji from the moment they met. She kept calling him "dangerous." We never took it seriously because, well, he's flirty and you know how she is with me, anyway. But the next full moon, Aigis disappeared during the Dark Hour. Fuuka-chan found her on the Moonlight Bridge and we all went after her... only to find her and Ryoji-kun both. Aigis was in horrible shape. It turned out... that Ryoji-kun was really a Shadow. Aigis had finally figured that out and attacked him.

I guess. It's one I had before, but it's a little different here.

A ladle sounds fun. I've never used one, though. The strangest thing I have seen someone use was a bus stop sign. <('-')>-[ ]O

[ All the smiley faces going around is making him a little more prone to using them... ]

[He nods.

Then that's all he needs to know.

He could say other things now, and ask a hundred others, but he won't. He will wait for later, after her story is done, when he can finally take in the whole picture and see everything he needs to see. So for now, he continues to listen.

He still notices her use of past tense when she refers to Mochizuki, and guesses at the future that lies in store for him, but his suspicions are still far and away from the unraveling truth he's hearing, and his eyes widen in surprise when she mentions that Mochizuki was a Shadow. Not... human at all. But... that didn't make sense. He had always seen Shadows as beings that existed, but were never really all that sentient, if at all. Mostly mindless things that they'd probably never be rid of.

Guess he was wrong, and that added an element to the Shadows that made some things in Tartarus even more disturbing, considering the possible implications, but nevertheless, that would explain why Aigis would react to him so badly. She probably sensed just what he was in some way or another, even if she couldn't put that feeling into words. And if he had the strength to take her down—

Well, he wasn't an ordinary Shadow.

But that much was all ready obvious.]

[It just gets stranger, of course. Minako pauses as she tries to condense all of the main points.]

Aigis was unconscious, so Ryoji-kun told us the whole story. Ten years ago, the Kirijo Group created a Shadow called Death. But that Shadow was too dangerous. Yukari-chan's father realized this and so he let the Shadow escape. That Shadow split apart as it left and became the twelve Shadows we ended up fighting all year.

But Aigis followed the main part and chased it to the Moonlight Bridge. I don't remember this myself, but it happened that my family was there at the same time. Death was too strong for Aigis to destroy. All she could do was seal it away inside the one person watching the battle. Which was me.

...Minato told me it was the same for him. Whoever lived that night received "Death," and when we came back to Iwatodai it started attracting the other Shadows. When we defeated them all, Death was whole again and left us, becoming Ryoji-kun.

Edited 2012-09-16 20:02 (UTC)

[just. this look]

Of course not. I actually saw him every day.

[And if any of those girls had seen him that often they probably wouldn't be as crazy about him either.

He's strong and sweet. But he has zero understanding of the female psyche. And compares her to his dead sister.]

That just makes it worse! A person can't be "defective."

I'm 17... so I guess it would be senpai, if we were in the same school or club.

[which they aren't. So in other words, give her a good reason why she should call you that.]

A computer component can be though. And if a detective computer component is discarded then it can be a person. Just there was no other way to get out of my contract given how it was crafted when I was originally purchased.

My biological father found me a few years ago and offered to buy off the contract, but... It would have been too much hardship on his country and it felt wrong. I was defective as a computer component all on my own.

[they're both such wonderful sisters, aren't they]

There's just not enough keys to make everything look perfect... But I think they'd be less interesting if they were.

I agree. Although it's always a nice feeling when you do win.

It's an all-girls team! My friend Rio-chan is the team captain.

[He's beginning to see where her story is heading, and the horizon he sees there guessed is a dark one. You didn't call something "Death" for no reason, let alone a Shadow who could assume human form, having been trapped inside a human body for years.

He knew Aigis was a robot—a being who didn't think along the same lines humans did; their grayscale morality was not hers—but why the hell would you choose to do that to a little kid?]

That why Aigis was so protective of you?

[Minako doesn't blame Aigis for any of it. What could have happened then, without anyone to stop it, was even worse. At least her gambit had given them time, enough time that she could grow up and actually fight back...]

Right. Her memory was damaged but she still sensed I was the same person.

Anyway, all that time with me... or with Minato, I guess, made Ryoji-kun more human. That's why he took a human form and even made himself forget he was a Shadow for a while.

[She sort of idly wonders if Ryoji had acted the same way after living inside a person like Minato. Had Ryoji absorbed her traits, or was his personality all his own? Maybe someday, she'd ask.]

He did all that because he'd remembered his real purpose when his pieces came back together. "Death" serves another being called Nyx. Nyx is... something like a goddess. Shadows are like pieces of her, and she brought death to humanity a long time ago. Ryoji-kun's existence then meant that Nyx was going to come back and cause the Fall Ikutsuki had talked about before.

Basically... when Nyx arrived, everyone on Earth would become part of the Lost and the world would end.

Edited 2012-09-16 21:32 (UTC)

[simply the best. minato and theodore should feel honored]

I agree. (•u•) I suppose I will answer your initial question! I believe Theo and I share many hobbies and interests, however I am prone to believe that I am far more musically-inclined than him. I enjoy playing the piano, although I don't get the chance to do so as often as I should like. I can sing without instrumentation regardless.

Oh, I like playing the piano, too. Though I haven't really practiced that much lately. [Except for showing off to Theo in the music room that one time.] Did Minato ever take you to karaoke?

[The lines in Shinjiro's face deepen into a hard grimace. It's hard to believe, but he there's no room for disbelief here, even if he can't fully understand why anyone would want to bring about the Earth's destruction. But that desire isn't normal, and you can't expect to pull out sane reasoning from deranged minds, like Ikutsuki's and Takaya's.

And if the information she just gave him is true—as undoubtedly it is—he can't imagine Minako and Aki and the rest were left with a whole lot of options.]

[She's on the home stretch now, and her tone becomes more confident and a little more boisterous. She's had enough of depression already even if the story is still very depressing.]

Ryoji-kun didn’t want the world to end any more than we did, but he didn’t think we could beat Nyx. He gave us a choice, though. We could ‘kill’ his human form to erase the Dark Hour and our memories of it. If we did that, we’d forget all about the Fall and wouldn’t worry about it until it actually happened. The other choice was to fight Nyx. ...I think it’s probably pretty obvious which one we went with.

[Even if it’d been far less than obvious back then. December had been one of the worst periods for all of them – but it was done with, and revisiting that time wouldn’t do anyone any good.]

Ryoji-kun told us Nyx would appear on January 31st, at the top of Tartarus. So, that was January. We spent the whole month climbing up there. Strega wasn’t helping much, they set up a whole cult for people to welcome Nyx. The city really looked awful... [All those flyers and weird graffiti everywhere. She’s sure Shinji wouldn’t have approved. ~~Also, around here she’d mention whether Chidori was revived or not, but we’ll leave that up to any future Junpei-players to establish.~~]

The 31st came, and we went to Tartarus. We had to beat Strega again, but this time they’re gone for good. Jin blew himself up, and Takaya... well, actually, I’m not sure what happened to him. [But from tone it’s apparent she doesn’t really care. He’d attempted to murder two of her friends - had murdered one, in another reality, and was generally a nasty person. She doesn’t wish death on him because she wouldn’t do that to anybody but she doesn’t need to spare any effort wondering what happened after Tartarus collapsed.]

At the top, we met Ryoji-kun again, only he’d turned completely into Nyx’s avatar and wasn’t human anymore. We fought him, and we won. But… it turned out what he’d told us before was true. We really couldn’t kill Nyx. She was coming regardless and it looked like we were going to lose despite everything. That’s when...

[she pauses. Explaining what exactly happened – what exactly she’d been able to do, wasn’t an easy concept. It’s still hard for her to grasp her own mind around it in some ways. But the things they’d learned since coming to Hinoto-ri might make it simpler.]

Do you remember how when we arrived here they talked about the Velvet Room?

Yeah.

[If Minako does not care, Shinjiro will do the imagining for her: Tartarus collapsed on top of him, and unlike his benevolent look-alike, he did not rise from the grave three days later. He will imagine that when given the information and opportunity and not feel too badly about it.

As for everything else, he can see everything she told him just as easily. He can see the graffiti lining the bricks, can almost imagine the flyers that she hadn't mentioned littering the streets. How everything dissolved into decay, like something that had been abandoned and left to rot. If she says it was awful, he believes her. He can imagine Hell. But he can imagine other things too. He can see them fighting, climbing that damn tower night after night after night, because succumbing to that inevitability—memoryless and painless as it might have been—would never have been an option for very long. That's what he would have chose if he had been there.]

Got an idea of what that place is.

[He doesn't know everything, of course. Not much at all, really. But enough.]

Yes. It was very fun, although I never had the chance to go again.

Does that mean your soul is a little different here? :|a

Using a ladle to fight is souper. Get it? xD

And what kinda monster would use a bus stop sign?! That's like something from our A rank fighters! Sid's sword was huge and that was only the same weight as a bass guitar!

Indeed! Claiming the spoils of battle is always a good feeling. It's like christmas or your birthday but with more panties.

[What.]

Oh really? I go to an all girls school, do you?

...What?

[uhh... anyway] No, it's a co-ed school. The sports teams are just usually separate.

You know how during a battle you flip up the other girls skirt to drop their defences? Or you cut it clean off at the belt for an easy win? Like that.

Isn't it weird going to a school like that?

[she nods... that's enough for this, really. If he has more questions he can ask Igor himself whn he appears.]

...I've actually been going there all year. It has to do with my special Persona ability. But being a guest there also gave me another power, and that power gave me one miracle. I faced Nyx myself and saw what the real problem was. Nyx isn't really an evil being that's just out to destroy things. She came because people called for her. Like the people who joined Strega's cult... Everyone in the world who's suffering, and thinks they'd be better off just dying. It's all those feelings that brought Nyx here. And that meant just our small group wouldn't be enough to stop her.

So, I cut them off. I used the Universe and put a seal between our thoughts and Nyx. That way, no one can call her ever again.

...I can't say I've ever done either of those things in battle before.

[ . . . . ]

I've been to a lot of schools, and it's not really that much weirder than most... [aside from some of the teachers, possibly.

This girl's school sounds like it's on an entirely different level.]

Edited 2012-09-16 23:29 (UTC)

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