III. Open Case

Naoto is sitting at the small desk in her room at the Inn. Yukiko had insisted she'd stay there instead of at the Shirogane estate. "It's loads closer to the police station" she'd said, but Naoto knew it was because she'd wanted to make sure she wouldn't be lonely.

The first Skype call went unanswered, so Naoto had started on writing out an itinerary for the investigation tomorrow while attempting a second call.

"'ello Gov'nor!" Rise suddenly interrupts from Naoto's laptop screen. Without realising it, Naoto immediately breaks into a huge smile.

"Hi Rise. How was the flight?"

"Ugh, longgggg," Rise stretches her arms out above her head before sitting upright, "Wait. Where are you right now?"

So much for easing Rise into the news, Naoto supposes.

"I'm at the Amagi Inn."

"You're in Inaba? Is everything okay?"

"Everything's fine. I'm here for a case."

"Oh?"

Suddenly Naoto wishes she had prepared some sort of script to tell Rise someone was recreating the horrors of their high school lives.

"It's, um, we don't know much yet but there's, ah, well, there's been a murder."

Rise's eyes go wide.

"Someone we know?"

"No," Naoto is quick to point out, "But, uh. She was a high schooler. Fifteen years old."

The same age Rise and she had been when they'd been thrown into the TV world.

"And she was found hanging from a-"

"From an antenna." Rise finishes the sentence. They're both quiet for a bit as Rise processes the information.

"So do you think it's a copycat?"

"That would be the most logical conclusion, considering Adachi is still in prison."

"Or someone else is pushing people into televisions."

"That seems unlikely."

"It happened before."

Rise's certainly right. Naoto stares at her pen for a bit.

"Hey, do you…. Do you need me to come back?"

Definitely not, if someone was in fact putting people back into the tv world, then London was probably the safest place for Rise to be.

"No, you don't have to," Naoto looks back up and sees that Rise isn't entirely convinced, "Anyway, you have to start filming tomorrow, right?"

Rise squints at Naoto for just one more second before allowing her to change the subject.

They don't sign off until after Rise makes Naoto promise that she won't go back into the Midnight Channel alone.

Yasogami High seems a lot smaller now that Naoto is no longer a student there. She's finishing a cup of tea just outside of its gates as she looks over her itinerary one more time. She'd already finished talking to Nishihara Asako's parents. They hadn't been able to tell her much and she decided not to spend too much time interrupting their grieving. Next up was the new principal at Yasogami High, a woman named Sunada Mie. Naoto takes one last sip of her tea before tossing the cup in a trash can and walking through the gates. It's a Tuesday and she can catch a few glimpses of bored students listening to lectures as she walks through the familiar hallways towards the principal's office.

"Ah, you must be Detective Shirogane." The door to the office is already open and the principal stands up to offer Naoto her hand. Principal Sunada is a small woman but still exudes a certain matronly authority.

"Principal Sunada, thank you for taking the time to meet with me."

"Of course, of course. Anything I can do to help. Quite the tragedy, I'm sure everyone involved is anxious to get some answers."

"Indeed," Naoto takes a seat across from the principal and takes out her notebook, "So I was wondering if there was anything you could tell me about Miss Nishihara."

"Yes. I did not come into contact with Nishihara too often myself. As a principal I mostly know the troublemakers. But I did talk to her teachers, so I'm sure I can offer some insight."

"So you would say that Nishihara wasn't in any trouble, that you knew off?"

"No. Not at all. She was a rather average student. Never skipped class, ran track after school, and I believe that in the weekends she worked at one of the daycares."

Naoto takes a few quick notes.

"And what about her friends?"

"It seems she didn't have too many. Most of the first year girls spend time together in groups. She was very close to two other students… what were their names again?"

Principal Sunada is rifling through a few papers looking for a list of students.

"Ah, yes, Miss Sada Honoka and Miss Koshikawa Mari. It appears they've been friends from a very young age but then after the accident they'd apparently been somewhat inseparable."

Naoto's interest is peaked.

"The accident?"

"Mhm. About four months ago. Four of our students had taken a car from one of their parents and gotten involved in a terrible crash."

"Four students? So that would be Miss Nishihara, Miss Sada, Miss Koshikawa and…?"

"Okano. Okano Hitomi. She'd been in the passenger's seat. She did not survive the accident, I'm afraid."

Naoto is scribbling down everything as fast as she can.

"The other two girls, they're both students here?"

"Yes. Though I think their teacher allowed them to stay home for a few days."

"Could I get their addresses?"

"Of course."

"And the fourth student, Hitomi, do her parents still live in Inaba?"

"Her father does, yes."

"Can I get his address as well?"

Naoto checks her phone as she's leaving the principal's office. A text from Rise:

English Breakfasts are insane. Expect me to be twice my size when I get back.

How's the case going? 3

Naoto takes a quick detour to take a selfie in front of the door to their old classroom.

Seven hours later, Naoto is sitting at her usual table outside the Amagi Inn. She's organising all the notes she made while Agimaru pulls at the leg of her pants whenever she takes too long to throw his ball away for him.

"Are you sure you don't want me to get him away from you while you're working?" Chie asks worriedly.

"No, that's okay. My grandfather used to have a dog just like this one, actually, said he helped him crack all of his cases." Naoto throws the ball away again and Agimaru jumps more than necessary on his chase behind it.

"What was his name?" Yukiko asks from the other table. She's working on a seating chart for a wedding she's planning while Chie's playing a videogame.

"The dog's or my grandfather's?" Naoto asks with a smirk. Chie looks up from her screen with her mouth agape, 'Did the Detective Prince just make a joke?'.

Yukiko snorts.

"The dog."

"Inu."

"What?" Is Chie's sole interjection.

"Your grandfather named his dog Inu?" Yukiko asks.

"Yep."

For the next five minutes, Agimaru's barking is drowned out by the sound of Yukiko laughing.

Nishihara's friends, Sada Honoka and Koshikawa Mari, had been distraught. Not surprising, considering this was the second friend they'd lost in less than four months. They'd told Naoto the same thing as the principal had: That Nishihara was a very typical teenager. It seemed unlikely she'd owed anyone a large amount of money, or that she would somehow be involved in a drug-related crime.

The naughtiest thing any of them had ever done was borrow the car from Sada's parents without asking. Sada Honoka had lost her right leg when she lost control of the vehicle and they'd crashed into a telephone pole. And they'd all lost a friend. Okano Hitomi.

Naoto had gone over to Okano's father, Okano Shiro, as well. He had lost a daughter and she couldn't rule out that he might harbour some anger towards the other girls. Maybe Nishihara had been the one to instigate the joyride. However, when she arrived at his house he had seemed genuinely upset by her death. Though she made sure to never blindly trust her gut on these matters, he had seemed sincere when he told her he had always considered Nishihara as his own daughter, showing him pictures of the two girls together. It was him that got her a job at the daycare where his younger daughter went. He'd called his younger daughter over then and for a few moments Naoto had taught she was looking at a clone of Nanako.

"What's your name?" She'd asked. But the girl was just as shy as Nanako had first been.

"Her name's Kotone. In fact, it was big sis that chose that name for you, right?" Haromi looked tired.

"Koto." The girl confirmed, softly nodding her head.

After she left, Naoto kept thinking about Nanako. She'd be around the same age as the four girls from the crash now. Maybe she should have asked Principal Sunada if Nanako had been friends with any of them.

Now, as she watches Yukiko come out of her laughing fit while Chie's chasing around their puppy, Naoto can't help but feel very worried for Nanako.

Her phone vibrates on the table and Naoto gladly welcomes the distraction.

On a break. Wanna chat?

It doesn't take long for Naoto to answer.

Yes. I'll call you in a minute.

Almost immediately she gets another text.

Wait! RU with dog now?

Naoto smiles at her screen. Before she heads upstairs to make her Skype call, she has all three of them pose with the dog.

"That is the cutest dog I have seen in my life." Rise says as soon as the Skype call comes through.

"He is pretty cute." Naoto confirms.

"We should get a dog."

"I'm not sure if that's the best idea."

"Wha?!" Rise feigns shock.

"Like right now. If we had a dog then where would he be right now?"

"He'd be with you, obviously. He'd help you look for clues." Rise's not sitting behind her laptop, instead she is moving back and forward through her hotelroom changing her outfit.

"Right." Naoto's getting distracted. Rise's just taken her shirt off in favor of a loose top. She notices Naoto's vague response and shoots her a sly wink before rifling through her luggage looking for something.

"We could get him a miniature version of your cap. Or a tiny police uniform." She finds the bag she was looking for and is choosing between a few bracelets.

"Are you going somewhere?"

"Yeah. I don't have to be on set until nighttime so me and a few of the crew are going sightseeing."

"You mean shopping." Naoto teases. She'd made a few trips with Rise before. Rise scoffs.

"No, actually. We're doing this guided tour thing of all the monuments."

"That sounds nice. Do you have to go soon?"

"Sort of. I think we're leaving in five minutes. So how's your day been?"

"It's been alright."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"There's not much to tell, I think. I've just been interviewing people all day."

"Anyone suspicious?"

Naoto laughs softly.

"No. No one suspicious. In fact, I don't really have any leads to go on at all."

"Oh. That sucks. I'm sure something will turn up soon."

"I hope so."

Rise is quiet for a bit as she pulls at a bracelet.

"This kinda sucks, right?" She says softly.

"What does?"

"Just. This. Me being all the way over here. And you over there."

"Yes."

Rise sighs.

"Well, it's just a month, right? I'll be back in no time."

"Right."

A smile reappears on Rise's face.

"Okay. I've gotta go. Talk to you tomorrow?"

"Yes. Have fun."

"Always. I love y-"

Rise gets interrupted by a loud noise like static coming from the speaker of Naoto's laptop. The screen freezes before turning off completely.

Naoto is left staring at her reflection on the black screen. She closes it and the sound of static lessens but is not gone completely yet. She takes her phone out of her pocket. It's emitting the same noise. She opens it's case and takes out the battery and the sound stops. The room is entirely quiet now. She puts the battery back in and turns her phone on. This time it remains quiet.

The hairs on Naoto's neck go up suddenly when she realises the room is way darker than it should be. The only light is coming from the lamps on the desk and the nightstand. She checks the clock: around 8 p.m., it shouldn't be dark outside for a while yet. Naoto turns towards the window and takes a step back when she sees it's completely black like her laptop screen had been.

She takes a few steps forward, seeing her reflection grow with each step closer. When she stops in front of it, she takes a few deep breaths before stretching out an arm and touching the glass pane.

It doesn't feel like it should. It's cold and smooth and slippery. Before she knows it, her fingers dip through to the other side. It feels similar to going into the TV, but she had never heard of anyone going into the Midnight Channel through anything other than a television set. She pulls her hand back and examines her fingers. They feel cool but there's nothing seemingly wrong with them. She turns back towards the window in time to see that her reflection isn't matching her movements. She leans in closer, studying the mirrored figure. Was it… taller than she was? Naoto stretches her right arm to the side, over her head and back. The figure does not copy the movement. Naoto tries it with her left arm. The figure leans it's head to the side. Naoto leans her head as well before taking one more step closer to the glass, her nose almost touching it now.

She considers pushing her hand through the glass once more when suddenly two arms reach out from behind the window and pull at her shoulders. Her entire body is dragged through the window and all Naoto can feel is cold. She can't see anything in the pitch black darkness around her. The sound of static is back and deafening. She spins around to see a window looking into the room she had just been in.

Was she in the Midnight Channel?

The shadow world had never been dark or particularly cold. Naoto wraps her arms around herself to try and keep warm.

"You will find nothing but pain on this path." What sounds like multiple voices speaking in unisono come through the static. Naoto spins around to try and find the source.

"Who are you?"

"Interfering is a mistake. Let it take its course. It will all be over soon."

Naoto takes a few steps forward, but it's hard to pinpoint where the voice is coming from.

"Who are you?" Naoto asks again, louder.

"We do not mean harm to your world. We only wish to be part of it."

"Are you the ones that killed Nishihara?"

"She was unfit."

"Unfit for what?" Naoto runs around the window, but there is nothing there but more darkness.

"Enough. Leave."

"Show yourselves!" Naoto runs back to the front of the window and starts to blindly rush forward. "What did you do to Nishihara?" She keeps shouting questions so she can locate whoever's speaking but the voices no longer answer.

"Are you working together with Tohru Adachi?"

Her question is finally answered by a volt of laughter. To her right. Naoto sprints off in its direction.

"Adachi was a fool." A single female voice suddenly says. It sounds incredibly close. From the corner of her eyes Naoto can see a faint red glow and she heads towards it.

"We caught him, and we'll catch you as well."

"Unlikely." A man's voice answers. Naoto finally comes to a stop in front of a strange red mist. In the middle of it she can see the tall figure from the window.

"This is your final warning." The voices all come together at once again.

"You can't scare me off that easily."

"So be it." The voices turn more threatening. Something shoots out of the mist suddenly. Naoto hisses and holds her arm up, the blood from three deep cuts already starts to seep through the white fabric of her shirt. She looks up to see that the misty figure has switched positions and is standing behind her now. It rushes again too fast for Naoto to do something. She loses her footing and falls over backwards.

"Your investigation is over, Detective Prince." One of the voices says. The figure jumps towards her.

"Sukuna-Hikona!" Naoto yells as she feels the familiar burst of strength come out of her chest in a strong gust of wind. Naoto's hand crackles with powerful light that cuts through the mist. The figure hisses at her before it is hit by another of her Persona's light attacks. Naoto scrambles back on her feet, just in time to see the figure disappear back into the darkness as the sound of static lessens. Naoto takes a few steps in the direction it went but she knows she won't find it again. After a few moments to get her bearings, she starts back towards the feint light of the window she'd come through.

When she finally reaches it, she doesn't take much time to overthink it before vaulting over the edge and landing back at the Amagi Inn.

Her phone is ringing.

"Rise."

"Hey. I think my internet dropped out for a minute or something there. I lost you."

Naoto turns back to the window. She can see the trees outside and can hear the noises of people bathing and talking. As if nothing had happened.

"Naoto? Are you alright."

Naoto stares at the cuts on her arm.

"No. Not really."