Piecing the Fragments
Chapter 34: Midnight Requests
Original Concept: Persona 3 Portable
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Created by: Atlus
written by: wrathie
Author's Notes: Game Spoilers Galore, Readers be warned.
Author's Notes: Thank you, Wolf's Honour for this beta-edit.
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Minako waved goodbye to Rio as the duo left from Bookworms, their destination after getting a bite to eat. She learnt a lot about Rio today, like how the girl was a little picky with her food as well as being a very voracious eater, as much as her as between the two of them they devoured 5 plates of food in a heartbeat.
It was a wonder that the two of them even managed to keep as good as a figure that they did, something which Rio commented about as they left for bookworms.
'Exercise can only do so much you know, Minako~'
Rio commented as she poked Minako's stomach, very surprised that the girl can manage to hold such a great figure even when she was not active in any sports club at all. No, she wasn't really bitter at Minako not attending club as much as she wanted her to, Rio knew that the girl had a very wide and extensive network of friends and she didn't want to seem to be selfish by bothering her to attend more sessions with her when she has other obligations too.
'Well, I guess I'm naturally slim?'
Sticking her tongue out in reply, Rio wondered if that was really true as Minako had the stamina to keep up with her for the most part during their face, only petering out at the end where Rio took the lead.
Her great stamina, great arm and leg strength told her that Minako worked out quite often, no one could be so fit without constant physical training or at least by taking part in sports.
'Well, you must be doing something right! You're... really not in any clubs... right?'
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For Minako, she knew that Rio was getting a little suspicious of her real identity, or probably just curious on whether she was taking part in other sports besides Tennis and she tried her best to convince Rio that she really wasn't.
'Akihiko-sempai does invite me to train with him, you know him, Sanada Akihiko-sempai, the champion boxer~ He gives me tips on self defense and we work out a little once a week... although his idea of little is running a marathon...'
Making a tired face, Minako knew she was off the hook for now as Rio seemed satisfied but she couldn't help but add on a few lines that helped to seal the deal for her.
'Rio, I'm trusting you on this... please don't tell anyone else about this... Akihiko-sempai's fangirl club would be out for my blood...'
Clapping her hands together to pray to her, Minako shouldn't have worried as Rio nodded with a smile. She did understand how that would feel like as she was the target of multiple girls now and Minako apologized just as quickly when she realized that and she hung her head down in guilt at forgetting that simple fact.
'N-no, it's not your fault, Minako... but I'll help you keep that secret~'
Their bond was strengthened a little through a shared secret and Minako wasted no time as she tugged her to Bookworms to meet Bunkichi-san and Mitsuko-san.
The two elderly people were glad to meet new friends of Minako and Rio found herself a little overwhelmed at how Minako seemed to knew so many people around her and even when she was a transfer student too!
The waitress at Wakatsu seemed to recognize Minako as a regular to the restaurant and she even teased Minako about not being there with her cute little boyfriend. Yes, Rio had been to the restaurant before but she was just some random customer where else Minako was able to converse with the waitress a little on how her day has been.
But to see her get along so well with the two elderly people made Rio feel a little relieved and astonished at how her friend was able to form such strong friendships with people from every age group.
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'So is there something that you need, Rio-chan? Minako-chan does talk about you before and it's nice to finally meet you in person.'
Laughing softly as Bunkichi-san led Rio through the bookstore, Minako chatting with Mitsuko-san about a new book that she was about to pick up, Rio was startled when the elderly man dropped a book about Massage into her hands.
'Take this, it teaches you the basic of massage and it would help you recover from fatigue much easier.'
Bunkichi-san winked at Rio and the girl, who was stunned for a moment, flipped through the pages for a moment, checking the content before nodding her head in joy. It was quite a good find and it was reasonably price, even more so when Bunchiki-san rang the register and bickered with Mitsuko-san about giving the two of them a discount for being such good customers.
'Minako-chan is always referring her friends here, that is good business, dear!'
'Yes but a 50% cut is too steep!'
'Oh did I say 50%? I meant 5%...'
'Ehhh? 5%? How about ten, please!'
It was Minako who interrupted the two of them, much to Rio's surprise and the three of them laughed out loud besides themselves, the two elderly people's laughter mixing together with Rio's own as they couldn't help themselves seeing how eager Minako was at haggling.
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In the end they had gotten a 7% cut, Mitsuko-san was a talented haggler too and she fought till the bitter end over a price different of 750 yen with Minako.
'Ah~ I wish I got a better discount...'
Minako complained as she waved goodbye to Rio in front of bookworms. She hadn't really managed to increase a rank in the Hierophant Arcana but she did spend some time together with them and helped in giving Rio some encouragement and thus Minako felt that it was a good day nonetheless.
'Let's hang out tomorrow again in school, kay?'
Beaming at the girl, Minako smiled in embarrassment as Rio thanked her for being there with her today when she needed it.
'And you bet, let's eat lunch together!'
Rio remarked as she headed off towards her home while Minako set off for the dormitory alone, pulling out Shinjiro's notebook that she had wanted to read earlier.
'I wonder what he wanted me to see...'
Minako wondered as she started reading the notepad and as she continued, became even more drawn into the evidence that Shinjiro had collected for her.
It was about Strega and contains information about a certain revenge website that he had heard about along with all of the necessary information needed to access it.
It was a gift from heaven, the ideal gift for her in a sense and she squealed with happiness out loud, much to the confusion of the strangers that were walking around in her vicinity but Minako could not help it.
This was definitely a find and Minako felt herself forgiving Shinjiro-sempai now that he provided such important information to help with her quest.
Yes, one can call her a manipulative and reward-oriented girl, but Minako had not expected him to put so much detail into his fact-finding mission and the girl felt a little guilty at knowing how deep he was digging to prove that she was right and he was wrong.
Making a promise to herself that she would make up to him some way later, Minako made her way back to the dormitory, prodigy platter in hand of course!
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Dinner was a quiet affair, Minako telling the two of them that she would have something to investigate today and the two of them nodded in understanding.
'I'll tell you guys what I found out later, kay?'
Besides her wish to keep what Shinjiro sempai had discovered for herself for the time being, the chairman had dropped by once again and Minako wanted to ensure that she was still in his good books for now, spending some time with the chairman and listening in to his lame jokes during dinner. It would not do for him to feel that he was being ostracised after all and it was only after dinner did Minako finally did escape, retreating back to her room to check up on the information that was so valuable.
'A revenge website huh...'
She had heard of rumors of this so-called revenge website, where one can call a 'hit' on another person by placing a request on a website.
It was really unorthodox as the rumours never quite stated that a 'hit' needed to be funded and it Minako had heard students joking amongst themselves that if that was true, they would try it out too.
I mean, who wouldn't want to make someone who they hated or dislike suffer?
That was human nature after all, a mean and despicable part of human nature but one that Minako had to admit was a fact of life. But apparently no one has considered how dangerous a 'hit' really might be, a fact that dawned on Minako after she entered the board through a hidden link.
It was quite difficult to enter the site as one had to be redirected to the site through two different websites and if one tried to access the board directly through the known URL, it would immediately redirect one back to their home page, probably a code that was written to prevent one from accessing the board accidentally.
Adding to the difficulty was how one would need to supply a username and password that was given to each user prior to entering the board, something which Shinjiro had managed to obtain for Minako.
That meant that the website was invite only from the get-go and Minako wondered how many favors did Shinjiro had to pull to get all these information.
'… Now I'm the one that owe him...'
Scratching her head as she started to read through the notes before trying the website herself, Minako was happy to see that Shinjiro had managed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that Strega were the ones that were behind the website and although there wasn't any mention of payment needed for the site, there were appeals for donations for their 'services granted'.
As crude as it might seem, it seemed to be working as donations were indeed being given to the site.
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Besides uncovering the website, Shinjiro sempai had unearthed certain facts about the mysterious and unsolved deaths that occurred in Tatsumi Port Island.
They are mysterious as all of those deaths that are classified together were discovered more or less in the same way although in different places.
All of the victims were found dead due to a gunshot or with wounds that suggested that they were shot with something similar to a gun. That would usually narrow the suspect list a little but what was weird was how the bodies were discovered in the first place.
From the reports all the bodies were all discovered after midnight and the autopsy revealed that it was around that time where they died too.
That would normally not raise suspicion but it would raise suspicion when no one heard the shot being fired at all during the time of the shooting. What was odder at times was how the person would suddenly end up dead when they stepped out of sight for a few moments. Some reports were from friends of the victim who swore that he was alive till he went out of sight for a brief moment.
Some reports were even crazier, suggesting that he just dropped dead in front of them with a bullet in his chest... without anyone hearing a gunshot being fired.
All of this clues only hinted to one thing, the Dark Hour... someone, or something had find a way to pull innocent humans into the Dark Hour and was murdering them for some reason.
Besides the S.E.E.S, there were hardly any other people who were active during the dark hour and so... it has to be Strega right? That and the site admin was someone called Jin. Talk about obvious, but hey, perhaps he was just using the adage: 'Hiding in plain sight' after all, but Minako really doubted that.
Even so, Minako was furious at Shinjiro getting her user login to be Hamtaro, it has to be done on purpose or it would be a heck of a coincidence after all as she logged into the hidden board and took a quick peek at the topics being posted.
There were topics that were quite common, about online gaming, something about an old online game called Innocent Online.
The moment she logged in though, there seemed to be a new window popping up at the side and Minako clicked on it to open a chat window. Apparently the admin was quick to spot a new user in the board and he dropped a message for her.
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Jin: Hi, welcome to the board. I'm the Administrator here, is there anything you want to know about the site?
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It was enough for Minako to laugh as she felt that it was a surprisingly normal greeting and not something more... radical like questioning who she was, how she heard about the site and it was doubly amusing when she imagined Jin, that fanatic that was so devoted to Takaya talk to her like that and it took a few minutes for her to reply the administrator.
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Hamtaro: Thank you for welcoming me... I heard about this board from a friend of mine and I just wanted to have a look around the place. It seems nice and I never got welcomed by a moderator before.
It was a few seconds before Jin's message returned.
Jin: Ah, we're always welcoming new members. We're a new community so we have a small pool of people around, but we welcome new people to come and have a look too. It's hard to locate us sure, but our service and our members will always be the cream of the crop.
Spoken like a real occult member, that's for sure but Minako still wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. She really had no problems with Jin, it was Takaya she had problems with and well... Chidori was just misguided, yeah, that's right, misguided! Minako wouldn't mind saving the two of them and leaving Takaya to rot and die, the one person beside the chairman that she was okay with physically harming and probably killing in a heartbeat
Hamtaro: Thank you very much! It's very nice to see someone who's so welcoming, I'll have a look around too... b-but... I have a question.
Minako paused for a moment before she hurriedly started typing out again before Jin could reply, making the illusion that the user was really confused.
Hamtaro: On second thoughts, maybe not! I'll look around!'
She logged off from the board in a hurry, but not before opening a new window for a particular topic in the Forum that had an interesting title:
'Midnight Requests'
Perhaps that was the thread where one places request on the board? Waiting with anticipation as the page loaded, Minako groaned when it said that she needed to login to view the page. That was to be expected but since Minako, or at least her online User had logged off in a hurry, she shouldn't log in just yet. It's a valid technique to try and get closer to this Jin fellow, if he really was Jin.
The rules were always true: There are no girls in the internet and it was a long shot that this was indeed the Jin of Strega.
Stretching, Minako decided to browse around the website a little longer, looking at the sideboards and shaking her head at how... normal it seemed.
There were threads about school, about gaming and of course about politics and society in general.
The latter two were the most popular and this was definitely where Minako found traces of extremism and of course a central ideal that there would be something important happening this year. There was this Saviour that the administrators were all talking about that will appear at the end of the year.
Were they referencing the fall? From what Minako had learnt, Strega never quite believed or knew about the Fall till they defeated the last Shadow... could this be another sign that she screwed up badly and had made the future different?
Either way, it was bad news as from the threads, most of the people were quite caught up in the discussion, most of them slowly being converted by the 'evidence' that was given and Minako, after reading a few threads, felt sick and turned off the browser.
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It was disheartening to know that people out there are still being deceived like that but Minako guess she really shouldn't be surprised... stranger things have happened and Minako had to admit that a few audio clips of Takaya giving a speech was pretty good.
Good, if he wasn't an evil overlord trying to convince the world was going to end and they should just follow him! There were so many things that were wrong with what was happening in the board and Minako wished that she could just post something, anything to get them to stop believing in this liar... but it wouldn't help, would it? It'll just get her banned and all her efforts would be for nothing.
Sighing, Minako called it a night and she retreated downstairs to have a drink before hitting the sack.
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'Ah... Akihiko-sempai.'
Greeting the individual that was preparing a drink for herself, Minako looked over his shoulders in curiosity as Akihiko was making a face at the concoction that he was drinking.
That was indeed odd as Akihiko-sempai was always only seen drinking some sort of protein shake of his own concoction, saying that it was how he toughens up, Minako wondered who could have made her switch diet so easily.
Well, the number of individuals can be more than two really and in this case...
'What is that, sempai?'
She was about to ask when another voice interrupted the two of them and for some reason, unless Minako's eyes were deceiving her, Akihiko looked very relieved as she was interrupted by that person, none other then Kirijo Mitsuru as she smiled at Minako.
'Good evening Arisato, are you getting for bed? I hope you are keeping up with your studies, the exams are coming up next week.
Reminding her with a small smile, Mitsuru looked at Akihiko's drink while pushing her hair back and explaining to Minako.
'This is some traditional Chinese Medicine that I picked up for Akihiko. Perhaps it would help him recover quicker, anything is worth trying after all. Akihiko he is eager to get back in the front lines.'
Smiling in satisfaction almost as if she was proud of him, Mitsuru nodded as Minako wished Akihiko a speedy recovery as she drank a glass of water.
'That said, would you mind if Akihiko joins you in your exploration of Tartarus? I understand that all of you work well alone but I do wish all of you to be a little more exposed to Akihiko's fighting style before he recovers.'
Blinking in surprise at how Akihiko seemed to think it was a bad idea, Minako raised one eyebrow as Akihiko winced before falling silent again.
'I don't see... why not. But we'll be going easy on sempai first so he doesn't get injured again.'
'Naturally, I am glad to know of your thoughtfulness.'
Mitsuru nodded while wishing her goodnight and she left the kitchen, leaving the two of them to stare at each other awkwardly for a moment before Minako finished her drink and wished Akihiko good night as well.
'W-wait, Minako...'
Finding his voice after so long, Minako stopped and turned to look at Akihiko-sempai with a patient look in her eyes.
'Yes, Sempai?'
'I know you probably wouldn't forgive me so soon... but I hope that you at least... trust me in battle.'
There was a pause and Minako nodded before smiling, raising her evoker which she pulled out of her holster and pressing it against her forehead.
'Of course, sempai... I know you'll have my back.'
There wasn't any sense of malice or her teasing him, just Minako giving him the seal of approval before leaving and Akihiko relaxed before glaring at the concoction that Mitsuru had insisted her to drink.
'Ugh... bottoms up!'
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5/16 Saturday
Getting out of bed a little later than usual, Minako was greeted by the smells of hot food being prepared and she was about to head down to investigate when Junpei called her from behind her.
'It'll be better if you change out of that, Minako... it's Aragaki-sempai... remember last time?'
Junpei grinned as Minako looked at her pyjamas before dashing to her room to change, causing the boy to laugh as he made his way down. It was rare that Junpei got up early but when one can smell the delicious smell of food from the kitchen, it wasn't really hard to wake up despite cramming for the exams next week.
He could confidently state that he was better prepared for this examination than any other one in his entire life and he was pretty confident about it as well.
'Morning sempai!'
Waving cheerfully at Shinjiro, the older boy merely nodded as he served up another order of vegetables to the table while wearing an apron. Junpei wasn't suicidal and he didn't comment about that, merely waiting along with Mitsuru sempai who was reading the newspaper and Akihiko who was redoing his sling with one hand and his mouth.
'Why don't I help you with that, sempai?'
Junpei offered and he was surprised when Akihiko shook his head and said that Mitsuru could help and as the red-haired senior looked up in confusion, she hastily nodded her head and walked over to the other side of the table to help him with the new sling.
It seemed that no one quite minded the running joke of Mitsuru and Akihiko sitting at the head and the end of the table and after a few days of being seated like that, everyone had seemed to 'claim' their rightful seat at the table, not shifting from that seat even if they were eating alone.
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'Morning!'
Greeting them cheerfully from the stairs, Minako and Yukari came down as one before putting their bags down and heading into the kitchen to help Shinjiro with the preparation of breakfast and lunch.
'We'll help with the dishes later.'
Junpei quickly quipped and Mitsuru seemed to be feeling a little complicated as she must no doubt be wondering what she could do to help.
'We could have some more protein shakes...'
Akihiko mentioned off-hand and Junpei shook his head immediately, telling Mitsuru that if she wanted to help, perhaps she could help them wipe the plates dry?
'Hmm... certainly... that would be a welcome change... I do not wish to provide just the funds for the delicious breakfast and lunch everyday...'
Mitsuru frowned but she still promised to stock their fridge as she wanted the S.E.E.S members to try their best to keep their health up.
'Especially with the exams coming up, have you prepared for them?'
Junpei nodded confidently, causing Mitsuru to blink in confusion while Junpei felt a bit hurt as well.
'You can ask Minako or Yukari-chi if you like, sempai!'
Protesting, Junpei was validated when Minako came to his rescue while carrying a pot of rice over.
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'Junpei has been preparing hard, sempai! I can guarantee it.'
Starting to dish out the rice, Minako told them that Shinjiro had added some plum juice into the rice before mixing it so it would taste a little different than usual.
'He might want some comments for his cooking, so take your time with it.'
Winking, Minako returned to the kitchen with the pot and returned later with Yukari carrying small plates of grilled fish to the table for everyone.
'We're almost ready, we have just the tofu left so please wait just a while longer.'
Chiming in together with Yukari, the two girls ran back to the kitchen when they heard Shinjiro call them, something about how there was too much starch, causing Yukari to pale as she ran back to help out.
All in all, a very normal and quiet morning.
Author's Notes: Reviews would be appreciated! Tell me what you think!