Daichi: Today I realized that my to-do list for this fic includes 'a Snivy riding Koro-chan into battle', and I'm not sure if I want it to be terrifying or adorable.

Vee-Vee: How about terrifyingly adorable?

Daichi: ….Now there's an idea.

Verity: She doesn't own these things, and my Veemon really needs to stop giving her ideas.

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"Okay, do we have everyone?" Yukari asked, trying to keep the uncertainty out of her voice. "Well, that's on this floor, at least?"

"I don't think there are any other humans on this floor…" Mitsuru noted. "Of course, without my equipment, I could be wrong. Especially given that Taraki and Amada can't have strayed too far."

"Right… new plan. Find the transporter, figure out what floor we're on, work from there. Sanada-senpai, zap anything that gets too close. Junpei… don't die."

"Aw, Yuka-tan, don't you have any faith in me?"

"Do you really want the answer?" Junpei didn't reply. "I'll take that as a no."

How did Minako make this look so easy? She'd been part of the group for longer, but Minako made strategies like she'd been commanding them for years. All things considered, it was probably just talent, but the other girl couldn't really be naturally talented at everything, right?

...Right? Maybe. Personas weren't supposed to have voices, but she'd had a surprisingly enlightening chat with Pixie that one time. If Minako was such a genius that even the smallest fragments of her subconscious could speak so clearly, maybe she could be just that good.

But now wasn't really the time for that. Or the time for pondering why none of the Shadows that appeared really surprised her, or why she expected to see others besides them, though Taraki never made it into that picture.

'There'll be time for that later,' A soft voice whispered in her head, one that Yukari both had and hadn't heard before, though she wasn't sure when.

So she was hearing things, huh? She clearly wasn't cut out for this. She'd leave the work to Minako from now on.

After all, that was how things had always been.

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Satoko's senses had never failed her before. Auras were a constant presence that could be stifled, overlooked, suppressed, or hidden, but never faked. It was something she had always known, ever since she was a young Riolu that wished for nothing more than to help her best friend achieve her dreams.

If an aura could be sensed, the source of the aura was there. It was a simple rule, one that told her that the rest of the group that had gone into Tartarus with them were three floors below, that a Persona User she'd never spoken to was several floors higher, that Minako and someone else had apparently had the same idea as them and slipped in at some point, below them but advancing more rapidly than anyone really had a right to, and the main reason Satoko was so upset about having to come in three hours early.

Her hand reached to touch her right sleeve, beneath which was an odd sort of bracelet, silver and traced with images of wind, clouds, and sun, blessed with the power to make the rain slide off of her fur.

Not that she needed it. It hadn't rained once since she came to Iwatodai. No, it was the other purpose of the Weather Looplet that interested her now.

She sensed it before she saw it, the rainbow-colored powder dusting the hallways of Tartarus. "Ken-kun, Meiko, are you seeing what I'm seeing?"

"Emera dust?" Ken pulled a bracelet of his own out of his pocket- solid gold- while Meiko glanced at hers, which was tinted pink. "Will the Emeras work for us? The Looplets?"

"If they don't now, we can always transform," She pointed out. "And we'd still need to find good Emeras."

'At this point, can you really afford to be picky?' Anubis pointed out. Satoko ignored him, focusing more on gathering the shimmering substance in her hands, sliding into her Pokemon form without a second thought.

Not every Pokemon could transform Emera dust into the crystalline form that granted power, but Satoko counted herself lucky to be a member of one of the few species who possessed that gift. Maybe she'd had it before her transformation, maybe not. It, like the relationship between Emeras and humanity, was something that she'd never had to think about.

It didn't matter anymore. She was simply herself, someone who couldn't quite fit in in a world without Shadows, or at least a proper opponent, and it was this clarity of mind that allowed her to fuse the dust, the green form of Big Ears taking shape as the floor changed from a dimly-glowing rainbow to something that fit the aesthetics of Tartarus just that much more.

"I guess we'll be getting our answer now," She commented, once the function of the created Emera became apparent to her. "Ken-kun, can you sense…?"

The boy, who wasn't really a boy when she looked at his aura, the thunderstorm within his soul too much for a mere child to handle, caught the gem as she threw it, green slipping into gold like it had always belonged there.

There was a pause, as Ken concentrated, his fingers brushing the slot. "That's… that's a lot of Shadows… Wait."

"What is it?"

"Do you hear anything like rattling chains?" Satoko and Meiko both shook their heads.

"You're probably just imagining it, or it's too far away to be a problem," The Snivy suggested.

Privately, Satoko agreed. If she couldn't sense anything that was too much of a danger- the Shadows were always a threat, but Anubis and Nemesis could generally handle them, or they could just use their own powers- than it couldn't be that much of a problem.

Five minutes later, she sensed something truly dangerous- a primal force, similar to Dark Matter. There was only one way to describe it. It felt like death.

And then she started to hear the rattling chains.

"Ken-kun…" She started, trying not to sound panicked, though Anubis' snickers told her she was failing at it, "We should hurry off this floor as soon as possible."

They'd been going in circles the whole time. Tartarus was so much more expansive than the Mystery Dungeons, none of them had a clue where the stairs were.

This was very much not a good thing.

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"You know, I actually miss the days when Shadows would attack us," Minako commented. "Sure, it was annoying back then, but it was better than empty floor after empty floor."

"You say that every year," Shinjiro pointed out. "And then you decide to do something stupid like break into Monad."

She shrugged, trying to enjoy the banter while not losing track of her mental floor map. "Hey, you can't say that you didn't have fun. Well… until Margaret showed up, anyway." The eldest attendant might have been more fair than her younger siblings, but that still didn't make her a good opponent. There was a reason that fighting the odd family was on the list of things that Minako feared for herself, which numbered four, the other three being the Reaper, being stuck in the time loop forever, and Fuuka's cooking.

"You ever figure out what she was doing there?"

"I'm pretty sure she was just bored. I don't know why she doesn't just take a page out of Lavenza's book, it's not like she'll get a Guest any time soon since Sho and Elizabeth are working together."

"Or maybe she actually thinks we'll make it out. For some reason..."

"Don't you have any faith in me?" She tried to pout and open the door behind her at the same time, only to trip and fall backwards. "Hey, look, I found the stairs!"

Shinjiro just laughed. "See, you're sort of proving my point, here."

'Figures. The one time we want him to call us out….' Orpheus mumbled. 'Look, just yell at him or kiss him already, I don't care which!'

'Now really isn't the time for this!' She snapped at her original Persona. 'I'll talk to him later, okay?'

'Later can mean a lot of things with you…' The Mistress of Strings pointed out. Minako inwardly sighed and switched to Sandalphon. Given the natural state of her mind, it didn't actually do anything, but it made her feel better.

Which was good, because unless things had majorly changed, the others should have been on the next floor. Which meant explanations, which required some amount of mental stability, whether they ended up going with the truth or not. Which they'd never actually talked about, come to think of it.

"Satoko-chan must have thrown me off more than I thought…" She mused out loud, before picking herself off the floor. "So… turns out I never actually figured out a plan for today… got any ideas?"

Just another night in Tartarus.

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Daichi: Minako is lacking in two important things. The first is a willingness to talk about her extremely varied past that technically never happened. The second is a concept of 'future'. I'm pretty sure that's just a natural consequence of breaking time, though. Maybe.

Verity: Are there any characters that aren't drowning in issues here?

Daichi: It's Persona. That should be all the answer you need.