003 [Video/Public]

[otakuro]

Everyone!

I've, uh. Got good news! Again! It looks like we all survived the onslaught of invisible centaur archers that didn't actually show up in November! Aha. Hahaha... Uh. ...Yeah, I was wrong. I'll give it a few seconds so you can all yell at me.

[................]

Time's up! So, right.  Even if we're not gonna be attacked by centaur archers, Arturia and I have been going through the library pretty thoroughly, and we have some findings to report.

First, a few of you were right about the compatibility theories. Everyone who was affected last time either had terrible compatibility with Scorpios or were fated to live happily ever after with them. If you want to take your chances, you've got a pretty good shot of finding true love from the guys who were trying to murder you before.

Second... This one's about the history of the city.  It's pretty long; I'm gonna read off my notes here........

Hinoto-Ri - that's the Japanese phoenix, for those of you who aren't native.  The Hou-ou. You'll see why they named it that in a little bit. Hinoto-Ri is a city in a world that's pretty much parallel to my Earth. Default Earth, I guess. We had the time of the samurai and the daimyos and the Sengoku period and Bakumatsu and the Meiji Restoration and all of that. So did they. They've got records up until the 1900s and then, somehow, things started to get lost.

It's not that history began to change around then, it's just that they couldn't find any of the modern books.  I don't know why. The last book is from 1980, and it's a Japanese history textbook. It's all sealed up and preserved, and there's nothing really weird about it except that the last person to use it lived in 2012.

It might be safe to guess that 2012's the year when it happened.  It.  No one knows what.  There's whole shelves of the library labeled Theories on the Great Cataclysm or something along those lines, and most of them are pretty out there. I mean, we're living in a world where demons are pretty well integrated with the human population, so I guess alien invaders running a psycho-cultural experiment isn't too crazy.  I'd like to think there's a more rational explanation, anyway.  Nuclear war or something along those lines.

There's just no data at all - and, for the record, no evidence that humans had anything to do with it, either. The people of Hinoto-Ri just woke up one day and realized that they couldn't remember what happened at all except that they were sure there had been some kind of catastrophe. This was nine years ago, and no one's come any closer to solving the mystery. This doesn't mean we're in 2021 - they have no idea how big their memory gap is. 2021 or 2051, it doesn't matter. The city's so effectively cut off from the rest of the world that we might as well reset the calendar.

Alright, that's not entirely true.  They made contact with some cities in other parts of the world at first - some unidentified countries in South America and Africa, but that fell apart when the earth was cloaked in a sandstorm.  Don't ask me how Japan has enough sand for a sandstorm.  Since then, they've sent out planes and ships and expedition parties, but they've all been lost.  They got reports about 'giant creatures' before they lost contact, so after that happened a few too many times for comfort, they decided to use their new Persona powers and demonic skills to create the dome that seals us all in. It's not there to keep us locked in; it's there to keep us from becoming a messy splatter on the bottom of Daidarabocchi's heel.

Of course, there's always gonna be some jerk who wants to wreck a good thing, so to add on to the whole post-apocalypse deal, we've got the Anoli now who want to make the city into some sort of 'paradise for the strong'. That mostly seems to entail killing anyone who disagrees with them and anyone they think is 'weak'.  They assassinated the last mayor four years ago, but a new one was elected pretty quickly. It seems to me that if no one's doing it yet, a few people should try to protect him if possible. We're enjoying our stay here, to some degree, but it's not exactly paradise in any sense of the word.

...Alright, I think that's about it. I don't think I have to mention that since we're dealing with demons here, people's beliefs have begun to shift around a bit.  There's a lot of material on Western psychology and old religion if anyone wants to do some more research.  As for me... all I can say is that I'm sorry I didn't spend more time paying my respects to the kami when I was back home.

[Atsuro finally stops blabbing on, reaching down to take a swig from a mug of water at his desk.]

..........Oh yeah! 

If you're not sick of me talking yet, I need someone who's good at sewing to do a favor for me.  I'll pay you back by reading your astrological fortune!

[That's probably a joke.]

Comments

[Video]

[second_destiny]

2012... I think there was some kind of doomsday prediction for that year. But that was centuries ago where I'm from, so we kind of look back at it like every other doomsday prophecy.

I'm glad you told us about the previous mayor, though. Part of my job is keeping the current mayor safe. Now I know to be more careful.

written

[greatseal]

[She's multitasking, so have a written response instead.]

Thanks for sharing your research, Atsuro-kun. It's really strange that so many books could just disappear like that, though. If it were all books it'd be one thing, but just the recent ones is really suspicious. Maybe the catastrophe was related to that somehow...

Anyway, I know a little about sewing. What kind of project do you have?

[Video]

[bondsofsuffering]

"The people who were trying to murder you before"... You're referring to the incident that happened around October? All I have to go on is the messages posted on the network from around then. Do you mind explaining in detail what happened there?

2012 is about a decade away from my time, so I can't say I know of any specific doomsday predictions related to it. But if all of the data from that time is gone, memories included...

After coming here, I'd almost be tempted to say it's the work of a god or similar type of being. The only other possibility that springs to mind is a large organization with access to some kind of memory removal technology that also happens to be precise enough to remove memories of certain periods of time without affecting any of the others. That one would be a pretty big stretch, though.

[Then again...]

...Actually, do we know if that technology is available here?

[Video]

[not_that_sasuke]

...So we can't reliably know whether or not the next month will come with an attack or not.

[That alone is enough to worry him.]

[misery_hates_company]

Sounds like you've been quite busy. Also good to know the Anoli are just as much of morons as I suspected they were.

[Video]

[universebeware]

Psycho-cultural experiments? Really? I can't exactly speak for other alien races, but I'd think if non-Earth beings had any hand in whatever happened to this Earth, it'd be tied to an interest in acquiring resources.

Text

[get_bent]

[Man everything the guy said was confusing him. Kanji dozed off halfway to stay sane...at least until the last part woke him up. Good a sewing....


....well he was good at sewing...should he. He still wasn't sure if he should share that he could...

..you know he had told Senpai he wouldn't be afraid of this shit anymore. Good time as any, right? Ergo, there is now a message message left for him.]

What type of sewing are you looking for exactly? Plain? Fancy? Heirloom?

[maybe_a_king]

I believe if I hear one more thing about fortunetelling I might wind up throwing things.

[Dear God, all that research feels like she turned her brain to mush.]

[risingshepard]

[Well, that's just bloody brilliant. So much so that she has to snark at it.]

So what you're trying to tell me is, we never got to find those artifacts on Mars a few decades later?

[...Atsuro, pray your sarcasm senses are strong, because that's the driest reaction one can get from Shepard.]

[greyerrant]

Sounds like Terra is entering the first of many Ages of Darkness. I cannot say I'm surprised.

[ He also blames the demons, but then, it is Garviel. ]

Video

[all_wound_up]

That's amazing, Atsuro-san! How long did all of that take you to find out?

[demifemme]

It obviously wasn't a Conception, then.