"Would you?"

"It's not a matter of choice."

"But if you did..."

"...is not a valid concern."

"Well..." Frustration. "What kind of person do you think you are?" It came out as a very nice, screechy-sounding hiss.

"...A Kirijo." But of course.

"That's it?"

"What more could there be?"

Sigh. "You've never really thought about anything else, have you?"

"...No. Why?"

They had had their own fair share of abruptly started and abruptly ended conversations, and even those lent themselves to awkward pauses and blank stares in the other's direction. It was all very...uncomfortable, as Mitsuru had said.

But they were friends. Of an unbelievably backwards sort, but still friends, which meant they had a lot to learn from each other...if they were willing to, which they were generally not. Because if their friendship had been a car, it would start up, and then stop, and then start up again, and then stop, and maybe on a good day, it would get to where it was going, and on less fortunate days it would run into a tree. Nevertheless, if their friendship was a car, it still worked. Kind of. It was in dire need of a mechanic, but it could get itself there, at least.

So, "I want you to be friends with me and I'm not going to let you decide that for yourself, so I'm going to make us friends for you, OK?"

"Uh..."

"OK, thanks," was kind of how it got started, with Yukari doing the talking and Mitsuru doing the "uh"-ing. Because, really, they didn't have quite the time to develop their friendship with all the stuff that was going on, and did Mitsuru have time for anything anymore?

"I'm going to be more open with you from now on,"Yukari had said. When she had the time, of course. Because when you were so busy with work and school and Student Council and insurance and SEES, you didn't have a lot of time. But then again, nothing could be done about that, right? But at the same time, Yukari couldn't take back their friendship, say, "Oh, sorry, you're too busy, I don't think we can be friends anymore." It sounded like her, but she wasn't about to say that.

Besides, Mitsuru wasn't the type of person who deserved that treatment at all. Mostly. She just had a bad habit of bottling up all the important things, you know, emotions, the little signals that turned you from a cold-blooded domineering scary mistress-type into a fleshy, warm-blooded mammal (human? It wasn't like she had a breast complex or anything; oh, no) capable of feeling things. She was getting there, of course. It was just kind of taking a long time, and without them she was kind of...intimidating.

Oh, no, it wasn't her fault. Mainly. But, she had to admit to everyone but her, Yukari could still in some part blame her for not taking...action. Well if she knew that something was wrong, why couldn't she just say so? You couldn't be afraid of talking to other people because that was the only way they'd know what you wanted to tell them! Regardless of what it was! Civility, propriety bullshit aside!

And, and it was kind of funny because Yukari couldn't do anything either. She did shoot angry little glances at her indomitable senpai when she could, but nothing else. And when she tried to confront her, it came out all wrong and then Yukari got the feeling she had said something bad again, but what could she possibly say that sounded good? In front of Mitsuru? How much did she have to do to make her happy? And why was this making her all flustered in the first place?

Yukari... She generally frustrated herself, in fact. Stick 'er in a room and within thirty minutes she'd be exhausted from doing absolutely nothing. She had that kind of skill.

But honestly, it was Mitsuru she was talking about. Nothing could faze her.

That wasn't true. But it still did, even if it wasn't true, because Mitsuru defied the laws of logic like she did much every other law on Port Island, and had she even broken one in the first place?

Yukari grumbled under her breath. Idiot senpai.

In truth, she had no idea what kind of power Mitsuru had over her, because to be honest, Mitsuru probably didn't know what it was either, and because of that, it made her feel even more pathetic. She didn't even have to be standing in front of her—like she was doing now—to make her upset, because Yukari could entertain herself with thoughts like these for hours on end without getting tired of them, because they were so true and contorted and stupid.

And as she sat on her bed about to sob out of frustration, there was a knock on the door and oh God please don't let it be Mitsuru.

Instead of screaming at the door like she usually did, Yukari walked up to it and opened it, and oh God it is Mitsuru make it go away it was Junpei.

"Junpei?" The shock had been so great it just...shocked away all her previous anxiety.

The guy frowned at her. "What?" he asked.

Yukari was staring at him, a stunned lack of interest scribbled all over her face. "That's what I should be asking you," she said. "Um...yeah. What is it?"

Junpei shrugged. "Ah...uh..." He furrowed his brows in concentration, "What was it again?" and then, "Oh, right. Mitsuru-senpai said she wants to talk to you...later today. She went out to go somewhere, but she said she'd be back. Like, five o'clock or something." He suddenly put on a look of vague concern. "Are you all right, Yuka-tan?"

"...Nn...no." She had no idea what kind of expression she had on, but apparently it didn't look all that pretty.

"Oh," Junpei retracted his neck like a giraffe, "OK. I'll, uh," he shot a shifty glance around the hallway, "just leave you alone then," and was down the stairs in a flash.

Was that a way of telling her to stay in her room? Or at least, don't go anywhere until I come back? Or was it just Mitsuru's usual way of doing things, or maybe it was a kind of indirect apology for all the times she had barged into her room unannounced. Which didn't happen very often, but still. It could. And why Junpei? Well, Yukari supposed, Mitsuru could make Junpei do pretty much anything. The guy was practically scared of her...to a rational extent, obviously. Probably.

She closed the door, went back inside, and didn't feel like crying anymore. Now, though...she didn't know what do think. Now she was just worried about what Mitsuru was going to talk to her about. It was going to start and stop and be awkward like all their other conversations, because they were destined to never get along and she was pretty much assured of that no matter what anyone tried to say to her. Even Minato. And usually what he said worked on her, because she liked him. But enough of that.

She left her room. Damn bedroom. And went to the vending machine to get something to prevent her sanity from collapsing. Damn sanity.

Mitsuru arrived back at the dorms at exactly five o'clock. She didn't mean to; it just so happened that way. The soon-to-be-graduate looked, for lack of a better term, completely exhausted.

Junpei look at her from the couch. "Oh, Mitsuru-senpai... You don't look so good."

"It's called 'work', Iori. You'll get acquainted with it yourself soon enough."

"Nooo way," he drawled. "I like being a kid; no need to think about that."

"And cherish it. You don't have that much time left, you know," she said, glancing at him from the corner of her eye.

"Yeah," Junpei mumbled, sinking into his seat. "Thanks for the reminder."

"Is Takeba still here?"

"Mm...yeah. I don't think she's left her room."

Mitsuru disappeared up the stairs phantasmally, as usual.

Junpei rolled his eyes. Girls...

From the look Junpei had shot her when he told her she hadn't left her room, Mitsuru didn't feel so confident as she knocked on Yukari's door. She rarely was unless she knew she could afford it, but this was a special kind of discomfort, and disturbingly familiar.

Yukari walked up to the door herself and opened it. She saw Mitsuru's face, was quiet for a moment, and then talked while she looked at the floor. "It's five o'clock," she said out of the side of her mouth.

"That's true, albeit I didn't expect to get here exactly on the hour."

Yukari's gaze went from the floor to Mitsuru's face. She looked somber, frail...strange. Her eyebrows rose weakly, and she looked as if she had been crying. "What is it?"

Mitsuru was taken aback at her question. She had forgotten what she was going to say. "I..." What was it? She had forgotten, and opted for the only other real reason, "...just wanted to talk."

Yukari's expression drooped into a low frown. Where had all her vitality gone? Devoured by a Shadow? Or was it some personal discomfiture, something she maybe shouldn't ask about?

Mitsuru smiled at her through some unknown force. It was clumsy; being so honest, or maybe so dishonest, it didn't really feel right and thus probably didn't look right, either. "Are you feeling all right?" Of course not.

"No," and it came out as hard and angry as she had expected it to, and what with Mitsuru smiling like that, the question didn't seem to make much make sense, either. Then Yukari melted a little, her left eyebrow quirking up. "It's your fault," she said, a bit teasingly, "but I don't blame you."Mitsuru stared at her in surprise. "M...my fault? How so?"

Yukari's hands shifted behind her back, and her brow furrowed. "You know what? I'm not really sure." She cocked her head. "So..." she said quietly, "what did you want to talk about?"

"I don't remember anymore," said Mitsuru.

Yukari smiled weakly. "Well," she said, "we can't really talk if we don't have anything to talk about, can we?"

"N...no, I suppose not."

Yukari looked over her shoulder into her room. "But it's not like I have much to do, anyway." She looked back at Mitsuru. "I'm sure you do, though."

"I have plenty I could be doing."

"Then..." Yukari sounded more curious than reproachful, "what are you doing here?"

"I'm not so sure."

They stood at each other, staring. Then Yukari giggled a bit, most likely at the whole ridiculousness of the situation.

"All right," she said, "well, I'll be here if you remember, but I don't want to waste any of your time."

"Well, you aren't," Mitsuru wanted to say, but by then she was already halfway down the stairs, and she wasn't sure why she was going there in the first place. Then she recognized the feeling that had led her away from Yukari's room.

It was disappointment.

Maybe it just wasn't possible for them to get along. How many times had they had this conversation before? It certainly wasn't the first. Her own speechlessness, she thought, had been simply incredulous. She wasn't used to seeing Yukari like that, but...it had thrown her off to the point where she forgot what she had been about to say. It all made her feel a little...strange. Stupid. She wanted to ask what had happened now, feeling guilty about wanting to talk to her only to leave her in no better condition, but she had no idea how to phrase it without sounding insensitive. She had always been used to the privilege of being able to do that without getting rebuked by anyone else; she was meant to be a strong and efficient leader for so dangerous a task force, but now...she realized, as she had begun to, the lack of sensitivity would...no, more than that, it already had antagonized many of the people around her. And at the same time, Yukari, even knowing that, volunteered to be her friend. No, it wasn't completely selfless—she would receive some benefit from it, maybe even more than she realized—but it ended up being more than anyone else was willing to give.

The fact completely sobered her. Of course...of course.

It was her fault, but only partially. Everyone else's reluctance to "open up" to her didn't help much, either. Even Akihiko, who had been in SEES from the beginning, didn't seem to talk to her all that often.

It had to be the person who had hated her from the start, didn't it? But honestly, it was only after that weird little conversation in Kyoto she even considered anyone in the group as someone she could rely on. Why? They barely talked then. Yukari had practically choked on her words, regardless of how smoothly they seemed to come out. She was surprised it made any sense at all.

Yukari and Mitsuru walked out of their rooms at the exact same time. They stared at each other from the hallway, and their expressions fell.

"We really need to talk, don't we?"

"Only if it gets us anywhere, Takeba."

They frowned at each other, apparently thinking the same thing and not quite realizing it.

"Don't you just hate this?" Yukari asked, her brows scrunched and a deep frown marring her pretty face.

Mitsuru's expression was stone cold, a sure sign of deadly, deadly anger. "In fact, I do." Terse and frosty...no surprise there.

Yukari walked straight up to her. "I mean," she scoffed, "I tell you I want us to be friends, and then we try and never get anywhere. What's the point?"

"I believe the point was to relieve some of the tension between us," Mitsuru said, her expression changing only slightly, still upset, still disappointed. "But it hasn't worked."

"But why?"

Mitsuru sighed. "I don't know."

Yukari stomped her foot. "But...but you have to know! I mean, you're Mitsuru, right? You have to know."

"And...what's the reasoning behind that, I have to ask?"

"I don't know! But you do!"

"Takeba..." she exhaled again, anxious and kind of sad-looking, "I must admit, I do not. I'm sorry; I wish I knew as well."

Yukari made a frustrated-sounding noise and slammed her back against the wall. "This is just so stupid. I thought we could get along, we said we could get along... Why aren't we getting along?"

Mitsuru flinched at the loud noise. That was the wall of her dormitory... "I don't think it's so much 'getting along' as it is being honest with each other."

"The hell it is," Yukari muttered unapologetically, glaring holes into the floor, "I just wish all of our conversations didn't end up making us look like idiots."

"Well," Mitsuru looked at her, feeling distant, "I..."

"You what?"

"...I wish we could be friends, too."

They just stood like that for a while, brooding.

Yukari stomped her foot again, propping her upright. "You know," she said, looking at Mitsuru, "I know getting angry isn't going to do anything about it."

"Yeah..."

"But I don't feel like I can do anything else."

"Mm..."

"Uh, so," impatiently, she started to tap the heel of her boot against the floor, "have any suggestions?"

Mitsuru looked at her blankly. "Yes?"

"You do?" Yukari looked surprised.

"I...I apologize. I wasn't listening."

"Oh." Yukari groaned, and she covered her face with her palm. "Geez." She thought for a moment. Then her palm slid down to her mouth. "Well, think about it."

"Hm?"

"I mean," Yukari talked to the floor through her hand, "you're just a person. I'm one too, but...it's not like we have to talk all the time."

Mitsuru looked at her with an odd expression. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, we can be friends without trying to come up with all of these awkward conversation topics." Yukari shrugged lamely. "I don't know how we're gonna pull it off," sarcasm tinged her voice, "but standing here whining about it and being pathetic sure isn't going to do anything."

"That's right. But what do you mean?"

Well, what did she mean? "I mean," and she looked up, off to the right, "I don't know. But we shouldn't force it," and her eyes settled on Mitsuru again. "Like, don't come expecting...I don't know, that we'll have the greatest, longest, most engaging conversations ever," despite how wrong that ended up sounding, "but if you ever feel...lonely or something," and Yukari blushed, because that sounded weird too, "don't hesitate to come...I don't want you to." A pause. "Hesitate, I mean."

"I see," Mitsuru said, and that was the end of their conversation as Fuuka came up the stairs.

Well...one thing turned into another, and that was the end of that. Not of their "friendship", or whatever it amounted to, but only of that conversation. At least, that one had gotten pretty darn close to its final destination. Nothing had exploded, nothing had done leaps and bounds (Yukari still wasn't sure how the conversation in Kyoto turned Mitsuru's Penthesilea into Artemisia, as they noticed the next time she came with them to Tartarus, but it made her feel better about what had happened there...apart from the hot springs incident.); nothing had really happened. She thought, something had to happen eventually. She was only bothered by the fact that she had no way of preparing for it. The end of the world was closing in on them, after all, and judging by how tired Mitsuru looked the last time she talked to her, it was probably only going to get worse as time went on, preparing for university and all.

So something had to happen. Something had to. It would most likely suck and screw up everything, and Yukari realized that her fixation on the whole problem was getting a little out of hand, but if nothing happened, then...well, what would happen to all that tension? It unnerved her to think about it.

That was all they needed. A few days' rest, a few nights in Tartarus to clear their heads, and they would forget about the problem almost completely. There was much more to be concerned about, after all. Nyx was the most glaring problem; Mitsuru had several little ones of her own, and they weren't just going to go away.

Yukari was only slightly more relaxed than the rest. The unspoken promise she had made to her deceased father hung heavy over her, and her mother...was her mother, still the same. As the days passed, even, she was beginning to sense an increasingly bad premonition about their combat leader, Minato... Somehow, she could just tell something bad was going to happen to him when they got to the top of that crazy tower. He had had Death, the harbinger of the Fall, inside him, after all, and...

"Takeba."

"Uhn...?" Yukari shook herself awake. "Mitsuru-senpai? Oh! Uh...what is it?" Her face burned; of all people...

"Nothing," she said, blinking at her for a bit. "But you're the only one still down here. I had come down to see if I had misplaced something here, but it seems I hadn't. I wasn't sure if I should wake you up, but it..." she made a weird face, "didn't feel right to leave you down here by yourself so late at night."

"Why? What time is it?"
"Two o'clock."

Yukari almost gaped. "You're kidding..." Judging from the darkness, "You're still up?"

"I was about to go to bed, actually. I'm exhausted."

Yukari sat upright on the couch. "You're always exhausted," she said quietly.

"Unfortunately it seems that I will be for at least a while longer," Mitsuru replied, taking a seat next to her. She noticed the window. The moon was growing fuller, a constant reminder of the impending Fall. "As long as there is still a world here to take care of."

"There will be," Yukari said. "I can't imagine that the world's really going to end. I mean," Yukari glanced at Mitsuru, "you don't think so either...do you?"

"I'm not sure what to think," Mitsuru said honestly, "all I can think about is all the work I have to do, both before and after the thirty-first. It's just one more task I have to fulfill."

"Well..." Yukari mumbled into her collar, "that's not the nicest way to think about the end of the world..."

"There are very few, I'd imagine."

Yukari fell against the couch again, staring at Mitsuru's hair. It glinted a dark, bluish-blackish crimson in the moonlight. The lights were off; for whatever reason, Mitsuru decided not to turn them back on. Probably because she hadn't expected them to start off on this...nice little conversation.

"You've never really thought about anything else, have you?"

"You really don't think about anything else?" Yukari approached, not sure how to phrase her question properly.

"Sometimes," Mitsuru replied without turning back. "But I have too much to think about; I'd rather not think about any of it. Once I finish one paper, report...whatever it is, I move on to the next. It's one way of dealing with all the anxiety that's been circulating around the dorm, I suppose... Not the best way, but it's the only way I can move on."

Yukari was a little miffed. Not one of these kinds of conversations again; she couldn't imagine talking about hopes, dreams, aspirations, what-the-hell-ever... Everyone else seemed to have their future set out for them—what had happened to hers? For once, she didn't feel like doing what her father did and working for the Kirijo Group. That would mean working under Mitsuru, which wasn't terrible, but...it soured their friendship. She didn't want to be Mitsuru's subordinate. But wasn't she already?

"I guess we all have our ways of dealing with it," said Yukari offhandedly. "But...I don't know. I'm not saying that Nyx should be the end of us all, but...I don't have much going for me."
Mitsuru shot her a confused look. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, it's like...you have so much to do you don't even want to think about the end of the world, and that's all I can think about now because...it's all I have to think about." Yukari sank into her crumpled collar. "I don't have a future like you. I don't even know what I want to do; I guess I've never really...thought about it."

"My situation isn't exactly one of the most common, to be honest," Mitsuru said, turning her head to look at her, "but I understand what you're saying."

"Please," Yukari said, turning away from her. "I'm sure you don't even have the time to think about it."

Mitsuru...didn't know what to think about this new development; she wasn't used to receiving this kind of treatment at all. "Perhaps I don't quite understand the kind of situation you may be experiencing at the moment," she said carefully, "but at least allow me to empathize. It—the entire year—must have been difficult for you. I don't want you to feel alone."

Yukari allowed herself a small smile. "Yeah..." Then she remembered something. "That's what I said too, didn't I...?"

"When?" Mitsuru asked, surprised.

"You don't remember anymore, huh...? It was that time a couple days ago when I got frustrated at you. I told you...something like, if you ever felt lonely, I didn't want you to hesitate to talk to me. Heh...guess it worked."

Mitsuru smiled at her. It was a nice smile. "It just may have."

Yukari saw the pale white moon out of the corner of her eye. She shot out her hand, pretended to snatch it in her fist. "I still can't believe the world's going to just...end like that, though. I promised my dad it wouldn't. So it can't...I'm going to make sure of it."

Mitsuru was about to say something, but closed her mouth as Yukari went on.

"But still...if it doesn't, if it just turns out to be some big hoax and that stupid cult collapses and whatever, if we save the world or not, our everyday problems aren't going to just magically vanish, y' know?" Yukari turned to her.
Mitsuru matched her glance.

Yukari stared back at the window. "I guess that's their reasoning for actually wanting the world to end. I mean...the people who don't have their life all well set-up like you," and Mitsuru wanted to protest, "they have problems, too. Bigger problems...so big they feel like they can't handle them and just want the world to end. What's the point, huh...?"

"I beg you, please don't think like that..." Mitsuru sounded uncharacteristically desperate, even though it was more or less a low murmur from her throat.

"But they don't," Yukari retorted. "If the world ends, then, they'd...well...they wouldn't feel anything, because they'd be dead. But if that's what they want, then..."

"That doesn't solve anything," Mitsuru said adamantly. "There's no reason they should even consider the end of the world as a viable solution to their problems. It isn't a solution at all!"

"Well, if they can't think of anything... You know, like I said, there are some people who aren't as...fortunate as you," said Yukari, opting for diction that sounded a little more to Mitsuru's tastes, "and it's not like they have much of a choice. You don't really, either, but..." She sighed. "Maybe you're right," she mumbled, defeated. "That's kind of stupid to think, that the end of a world is like a cure-all for the world's problems. It doesn't solve anything...though it does end it. And I guess if you just want an end to everything, there it is. That's why we have to stop it."

Mitsuru seemed to settle down, just a little. "Yes. We must."

Yukari shifted. "Though...a minute ago, you just said Nyx was just another thing to cross off your to-do list. Why're you so worried about it now?"

"I don't know," Mitsuru said, and then thought about it again. "What I'm more concerned about is how you can talk about the end of the world with such a calm face. Doesn't it scare you?"
Yukari was silent. Then, she said, "No." She looked down. "It's funny, but...no. I'm not afraid of it at all. Maybe it's just because I don't really think it'll happen, the end of the world, even after everything...I'm just deluding myself," a kind of subconscious psychological protection, perhaps. "Even if we die...we did the best we could. We have nothing to be ashamed of." She shrugged, and looked at Mitsuru for a moment, noting her sullen face. "What?" she asked, a little taken aback. "You look like I just said I wouldn't be your friend anymore," and giggled a little at the irony of that statement.

"It's strange."

"Huh?"

"It's strange." Mitsuru faced the table in front of them. "It's so late, and yet, here we are, discussing the end of the world so casually."

"Oh, no," Yukari said, all of a sudden sheepish, "it's my fault for saying stuff like that..."

"No. I'm not sure why, but..." Mitsuru almost collapsed against the couch, her hair splaying all over the cushions, "I like it. I feel a little calmer, now, talking to you like this. You don't seem to be afraid of Nyx at all. That's a good thing."

"Really...?" Yukari asked, not sure what to think of it.

"And you're right. When Nyx comes, we'll be waiting. And we won't...regret...anything..."

Something sounded off about her broken sentences... Well, the fact that they were broken was off in itself.

"Mitsuru-senpai?"

Her speech waned into soft, slow breathing. She had fallen asleep.

A/N: Hay guyz. New here in the P3 section, although I have played the whole game through. I haven't finished The Answer yet, though. It kinda bores me, and I don't like Aigis all that much...

Oh, right, and this hasn't been edited yet, so feel free to point out any, um, grammatical mistakes or faulty logic or anything. It'd help.