Chapter One

Insanity in a Happy Package

When I had received the letter telling me that I had been accepted into Hope's Peak, appalled was an understatement. That academy was fit for only the the highest and best students, athletes, doctors... everything but ordinary people like me. And yet there it was, fluttering in my trembling hands, were the words, "HANAMURA YOSUKE - SUPER HIGH SCHOOL LEVEL SALESPERSON". Sure, I was pretty good at selling products at my father's department store, Junes, but I was almost certain I wasn't that good. Was I?

Doubts still present in my mind, I showed my parents the letter during dinner. They both thought it would be a great learning experience, as the teachers would be well trained and able to help me out. As much as I hated to admit it, my marks in school were a little below average... Though I wasn't quite sure if I wanted go to a school full of top students.

"What if they look down at me? Y'know my marks are a little... um..." I stared awkwardly at my fish on the plate in front of me, already beginning to get cold. My appetite was a bit butchered by my mixed feelings about the school letter. My mother urged me quietly to eat it while my father let out a long sigh.

"The teachers are trained, professional staff. If there's anyone that could raise your education levels, it would be them, the best teachers Japan has to offer. You should go."

Eventually, the conversation died down, and after a few, choked down bites of the slimy fish, I retreated to my bedroom for the night.

Weeks later I found myself standing in front of the renowned school, staring up at the tall building. As I took a few steps towards it, I felt a strange sensation in the pit of my stomach... One of excitement, the other of dread. Before I knew what it was, exactly, I crossed onto the property of the school, and my vision suddenly flickered into darkness.

-•-•-•-

I awoke to find myself in a classroom with no windows. Normally I wouldn't notice the absence of windows, but the fact that the room was mainly lit artificially was a bit strange to me. The walls seemed weirdly textured to me as well, almost too smooth and shiny. Almost... Metallic. Shaking the creeping feeling that someone was watching me, I slid my chair back and stood up, glancing around quizzically. Where was everyone, anyway? This wasn't a typical way to be welcomed into a school... Being knocked out and placed in a room.

...no, wait. That didn't make any sense. They wouldn't randomly knock students unconscious and drag them into the school. That wasn't proper etiquette. I must have fallen asleep during the welcome lecture or something.

Just as I got up, a slip of paper fell to the ground, blown by the small breeze I had created whilst standing up. I bent over to pick it up. In crude, purple crayon read the message:

"cOmE tO tHe GyMnAsIuM bY nInE o'ClOcK"

"...wow, someone with worse handwriting than me." I commented quietly to myself as I stuffed the note into my pocket and started to head for the gym. Just as I did, I instinctively pulled my headphones up onto my ears, only to realise...

They weren't connected to anything.

"Huh? Where's my phone?" I checked my pockets... once, twice, thrice.. Nope. Nothing was in them, besides the note I stuck in them mere moments earlier. Did they confiscate my phone? Surely I hadn't had my headphones on during their speech... Man, something was really up.

But still, I pressed on, walking through the eerily empty hallways, always glancing back in case someone was watching or following. There was always no one there, but I could feel some creepy presence... Could it be all the cameras around? Sure, cameras were normal in schools nowadays for security reasons, but why so many here?

Trying not to be bothered by it all, I soon arrived in the small room just outside the gym. The awards and trophies glistening in the clear display area caught my eyes as I walked by, but I forced myself not to look at them. There would be time to examine them later. Instead, I walked up to the door and opened it, stepping inside the large gymnasium. Inside, a group of various students stood... It appeared that I was one of the last to arrive. With a sheepish smile, I made my way through the group, introducing myself to each and every student.

The first person I talked to was a boy with silvery, short hair brushed to one side, and steel gray eyes. He wore a crisp, white dress shirt and black pants. A dark gray tie hung around his neck. A plain wardrobe, but more formal than my own; a hastily chosen white v-neck with an orange bird design, accompanied by a pair of red pants and white sneakers. As I briefly looked around before approaching the teen, I noticed my clothing didn't stand out too much; there were others dressed casually. Well, that was a relief.

Approaching the teen, I put on my friendliest smile. "Hey." It wasn't the most elaborate greeting, but it wasn't like I was a Super High School Level Greeter.

"...hi." The teen stared back at me with expressionless eyes. Much of a talker, wasn't he?

"Erm, I'm Hanamura Yosuke." I introduced myself, trying to get some conversation going.

"...Narukami Yu."

I blinked, recalling that name from the list of new students. However, it didn't bring on any association of titles. I briefly wondered what his talent was.. Would he tell me if I asked him? It was a try, at the very least. "Ah, what's your talent here, by the way? I got here by selling stuff, which is honestly not that great."

Yu merely blinked and stared at me.

Oh gee, thanks.

I decided to keep in my mental notes that he wasn't very talkative. Maybe I could challenge myself to get him to speak more than a few words at a time. I moved onto the next student, a feisty looking girl with brown hair and a green sweater. She wore a light, white shirt underneath, with a blue tank top under that. Light green shorts and running shoes finished the spring-like look. Green was her colour, it appeared. She seemed to be practicing some sort of martial art moves, and as I walked towards her, gave me a free full serving of pain - a hard kick to the stomach. The air was knocked out of my lungs as I slowly crumpled to the ground, my vision dimming a little. Ouch. Well, there was someone to definitely avoid in a bad mood.

"Hey! What're doing, jumping in front of my super secret dragon technique?" The girl shouted at me. She wasn't even going to say sorry, or at least help me up? I staggered to my feet, coughing a couple of times before glaring at her.

"I wasn't trying to get hit. You just decided to kick right when I was coming over."

"To be fair, you make a pretty decent punching bag..." She said thoughtfully. "Springy and light! And you have no hard muscles!" Ouch. Insult to injury much, girl?

"U-um, anyway, I'm Hanamura Yosuke." I quickly said, feeling the need to back away into a Safety Zone soon.

"Satonaka Chie!" She grinned hugely. "Martial artist extraordinaire!" Oh, that was right - Chie was a name I had heard before. She had won many tournaments before... Yowch, I got hit by her? I hastily moved to the next student.

She had long, black hair and wore a red top over a black shirt. A long, dark skirt flowed down from her hips, leading one's eyes to her legs, clad in knee highs - hey, I'm just being honest here! They were some pretty -

"Are you staring at me?" A soft voice caused me to look up; her face looked so smooth and perfect, and her eyes were so elegant...

"I said, are you staring at me?" She repeated, a bit more loudly this time, as if I hadn't heard.

"U-um... N-no, I was just spacing out." Another smooth move by the great Yosuke.

"Hmmph..." She pursed her lips, before glancing back at me, thinking. "Hmm.. Weren't you on the news? That salesperson or something like that?"

"H-huh? Oh, yeah. I'm Hanamura Yosuke." I smiled as best as I could, hoping I could grab at some redemption. I wasn't the proudest of the report, since I was a stuttering klutz in it, nearly dropping a whole tray of drinks on the reporter as she was asking me questions.

"My name is Amagi Yukiko." She replied quietly. "It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Hanamura-san." She bowed neatly to me, and I was compelled to do the same.

"You can just call me Yosuke." I mumbled as I racked my brain for anything that fit the name Amagi... They ran a famous historical inn, didn't they? And Yukiko.. She was the supposed next manager of it. I made an oh-so-important note to check the inn out some day. I mean, if she was the one running it...

...I forced away the thoughts. I still had plenty of other introductions to get through.

The next teenager was tall and muscular, with bleached blonde hair combed back. His glare settled on me as I approached him... He seemed to be in the process of knitting some sort of stuffed animal? Well, I suppose everyone had their own talents... I walked up to him nonetheless.

"Hey, my name is Hanamura Yosuke." I offered him a smile, hoping he wasn't the violent type...

He seemed to notice that I was eying his work-in-progress bunny and he scowled at me. "Tatsumi Kanji. Beat it, punk unless you want to be beat up." Someone was definitely in a good mood today - not. Though... Tatsumi sounded familiar. That was some sort of textile shop in the small town near the city I lived in. And wasn't their son some knitting and sewing genius? Not to mention the legends of him beating up an entire biker gang... Yeesh, another person not to make enemies with. I quickly made my way to the next student.

The girl standing nearby had a face I was very familiar with. Her reddish-brown hair was tied up into two twin pony tails, and her curious gaze settled on me. I was too distracted to focus much on her attire - and orange top and black leggings, or something like that? I didn't really care - right in front of me was the super pop star idol Rise, better known as Risette. She was known throughout Japan, and even overseas. Just being in her very presence gave me a rush of nervous excitement.

"H-hi." I mumbled. Very smooth talker, here.

"Hiya!" She gave me one of her trademark smiles, along with a short wave. "I'm Rise Kujikawa! And who're are you?"

"...H-Hanamura Yosuke..." Wow, what an embarrassment. I mumbled something along the lines of, "Just call me Yosuke", though I wasn't sure if she heard it.

"Nice to meetcha!" She replied, taking my hand and eagerly shaking it. For a moment, I thought I was going to pass out... I was actually meeting a celebrity! Not only that, but her flowery perfume was unbearably strong... Did she usually use so much? I decided to move onto the next student, though a little disappointed I had to leave her.

The next was a face I also knew well... Naoto Shirogane. A mysterious detective who had revealed her true gender, not long ago. A certified genius who worked with many police forces to solve difficult crimes in Japan. I even heard that there were some companies who wanted to make movies or shows based off of her...

"Hello." I greeted her, trying to act mature. "My name is Hanamura Yosuke."

"Greetings, Hanamura-san." She responded with a slight bow. "You've probably have already heard of me. My name is Shirogane Naoto."

Past her introduction, she didn't seem much of a talker. I moved to the next student. Or rather, two students.

"Hey, how's it going?" A cheery voice greeted me, and I looked up to see two male students, both dressed in two different sports jerseys. It appeared to be... Soccer and basketball? They seemed to be around my kind of type, for levels of maturity and personalities. I gave them a huge grin and waved back at them before walking over.

"The name's Kou Ichigo." The basketball uniformed one with dark blue-ish hair replied.

"Daisuke Nagase." The other, brown haired student added.

"I'm Yosuke Hanamura. Nice to meet you." Although I wanted to stay back and chat with them for a while, a quick glance at my watch told me I had to speed up my introductions. I quickly said good-bye to them before going on.

The next student was a girl with dark blue hair and some sort of delivery uniform on. I was a little surprised she wouldn't change into something more suitable for school, but I decided not to question it.

"Hello, I'm Hanamura Yosuke." I smiled.

"...Nakamura Aika." She responded emotionlessly. Paired with Yu, we could have a very silent comedy duo. Well... More like.. An un-comedy duo.

I passed by her to another student, who had messy black hair and was playing some handheld video game console... Or so it appeared. He was more yelling at it. Apparently getting mad that it wasn't functioning properly. I heard snippets such as "I want to play online!" and "Where's the wifi?!" After thinking for a while, I realised he was the famous (and infamous) gamer, Mitsuo Kubo. It wouldn't be the greatest idea to interrupt him while he was gaming - he was rumoured to have a bit of a temper. I went to the next student.

The boy was slim and blonde, with thin lips stretched into a small frown. He looked at me briefly, before saying, "My name is Konishi Naoki." He seemed to be dwelling on something, so I made my introduction quick before moving on.

"Hey, I'm Ozawa Yumi." A girl with short black hair greeted me. After wondering why she seemed familiar, I realised that she had been in many skits, plays and even movies and TV shows. She was incredibly adept at memorising lines from scripts in single readings.

"Hi, I'm Hanamura Yosuke." I smiled back at her.

"Oh, you're that salesperson, right?" She tilted her head slightly. "The one who sold a lot of products?"

"...yep." Wow, my talent was sounding lamer and lamer as it was repeated. But before I could say anymore, the sound of loud music being blasted over speakers could be heard. Several people covered their ears. I searched for the source of the sound, only to find a brightly coloured bear-like... thing standing on the stage. It looked like some sort of cheesy mascot, like the ones at cheap parades or promotional events.

"Gooooood morning everybear! I hope you've had a beary great day so far, bearcause I'm gonna welcome you all to Bear's Peak Bearcademy!" There were some muffled voices amongst the others, though the bear-thing soon hushed them. "Now, now... I know you're beary excited about getting to classes, but I must introduce myself first! I'm the bearmaster, Teddie. Bearfore we get ahead of ourselves, I need to mention somethin'.. In order to bearduate from this bearcademy, you must kill another student."

...

Wait, what?

• Author's Notes •

In order to make the plot a bit smoother, the events of Persona 4 don't happen in this fanfic. And the characters come from different schools and cities. I hope this doesn't confuse anyone. I was going to leave everyone as being from Inaba, but as that would allow them to know each other fairly well and to be less likely to murder each other... ahh, adjustments were made~ If clarification is needed, feel free to message me or drop something in the comments and I'll reply next chapter!

Random note - for the name positioning, I was attempting some trend for formal and informal greetings... I probably should've kept that more slack |D

Wow, the bear puns are a bit teddie-ous, aren't they? ahahAAHHAHAHAHA~

~ Magic Toad