[Note: A*big* thank you to the people who have reviewed this story. I appreciate your comments and suggestions, and it's good to know someone is reading this. ^^ Sorry the updates are coming a little slow – Hopefully the pace will pick up, as I think I might be approaching the second half of the story. Thanks again! –C]

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Chapter 8 - Starry, Starry Night
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It was that time of day.

Every street was neat and quiet as the sun slowly crept along the sidewalk, spilled into gutters and alleys, and ran across the pavement in golden streaks. The silver city-buildings slept, their many eyes closed and reluctant to open to the calm morning. Two trees waved gently outside of the private mansearching firm on Fifth and Green, dropping red and orange leaves like a silent rainfall to collect in the recessed entryway. Every place was matte muted autumn, and hardly a soul stirred in Sumaru City.

Inside the mansearcher office, Baofu was proving to be no different. He slept with his head on the desk, one long arm in his lap and the other shielding his face from the morning sun. A nearly empty bottle of sweet alcohol had attracted a few flies, and one of them occupied its slightly tipsy self by playing in his nose hair. He sniffed.

Although later the fly in his nose and the one still lingering at the bottle would try to reconstruct the chaotic events of the next few moments, no one was or ever would be sure of exactly what happened. By some accounts, the fly in his nose got a little too daring, and being uninhibited as it was, set about crawling further into that dark chasm than it perhaps should have. A misstep on its part tickled Baofu beyond any tolerance and he sat up, jerked his head back, and after a small pause for suspense, sneezed.

Now, there's no need to worry. The fly survived due to luck or providence, and now resides with his family on an old slice of pizza that fell behind the file cabinet. Sometimes his children gather round and he tells them the story of the Cavern of Evil, always making sure to end with a lecture on the evils of alcohol.

Such a lecture to Baofu would have fallen on deaf ears; not for any philosophical reason, but because of the suddenly more pressing noise of twelve angry elephants stomping and trumpeting across his brain. Twenty-nine gazelles followed quickly behind, who were of course pursued by three cheetahs and a tractor. Two boys carrying pails of sea urchins and sand shovels pattered around and asked each other meaningful yet innocent questions about the nature of life and the universe; a single star flashed bright red and began spelling Pink Lady lyrics in Morse code; four cats and five dogs arranged for a rumble, with knives, in the old quarry at sundown. A handful of pleasant memories picked up and took off for the hills, complaining as they left that they were tired of all the noise the neighbors were making.

Imagine all this crammed into a single, fragile human skull, and you might understand what it meant to be Baofu at this moment. His whole body sagged and he placed his head in his hands as though it could fly off at any moment.

As if by cruel, divine ordination, his phone hiccupped and started to ring.

"Go away," he snarled at it as it bebopped playfully in the cradle. It ignored him, and after three intensely unbearable rings he reached over and snatched up the receiver.

"Go away," he said again, pressing the phone against his face. Someone coughed at the other end.

"Ah, Baofu?" It was Katsuya.

"Suou, if this isn't important, I will hunt you down and eat your children."

There was a long pause and Baofu could almost hear the sound of blinking. "Er, yes... well, yesterday I got a chance to talk to Kisho Ito, one of the boys from the attack at the school. I think you might find this interesting. Are you looking for a girl named Mai?"

He sat straight up and immediately regretted it. "Ow. Yes. Did you find something?"

"She knew both of the boys. More than that, they've been harassing her for months, right up until she ran away."

Baofu cursed under his breath. Amazing how it all comes together. "I see," he said simply.

"There's more. By Kisho's account, it was Mai who attacked them on top on the school. What he described sounds very much like a persona attack, but I can't see how any single one could be so powerful as to leave the marks we saw on the pavement."

That was all the hint Baofu needed. "You think it was a fusion."

"You are looking for a missing boy as well, aren't you?"

He furrowed his brow and tried to clear his head. "Yeah, Ichirou Otsuki." He chewed his lower lip thoughtfully. "If you're right, all the sooner we need to hunt him down. Did you talk to the second boy who was attacked?"

Katsuya cleared his throat. "I'm afraid he ended his own life yesterday, in the early morning. I didn't get a chance to speak with him before... well, it was Maya who found out." They were both silent for a long moment before he spoke again. "It may interest you to know that the wound he suffered at the attack was actually self-inflicted. It must have caused the puddles of blood we saw, but I don't get it." His voice sounded tired and strained. "I can't figure it out."

Baofu shook his head, closed his still reeling mind against a sudden rush of visions and emotions. "He was trying to kill himself," he found himself saying. "That must have been her plan all along. Whatever she did to them, it made this kid fall to his knees and hack at his own arm in a desperate attempt to end his own life."

"But he was interrupted," Katsuya said, picking up where Baofu left off. "By the people that found them. And as soon as he was alone..." he trailed off.

"He finished the job." Baofu pursed his lips and hissed. "Jesus. It's sick."

"I would have to agree. Find Ichirou. Figure out if he's connected to Mai, and if so where they're hiding."

He nodded. "And you?"

"I'm going to the Velvet Room with Maya this afternoon. We need to figure out which personae these kids are using and how they got their hands on them."

They talked for a few minutes more, arranging to meet the following morning to compare notes. When at last he was able to hang up, Baofu felt both much better and much worse. The hordes of trumpeting elephants had receded for the moment, but in their place were terrible intuitions looping in constant playback. He pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a long breath.

I wonder where Serizawa is, he thought, before stiffly getting up to start the day.

* * *

Ulala Serizawa was sitting across from her roommate in a sticky vinyl restaurant booth, and she was picking at an omelet. Maya looked over at the redhead as she shoveled a forkful of chocolate chip pancake into her mouth.

"Are you going to eat that, or just prod it to death?" she finally said.

Ulala gave her a weak smile. "I'm just not too hungry. I'm still full from all that ice cream last night."

"That was sugar and cream. This," Maya pointed to the eggs. "is real food. You need some of it. So eat." She demonstrated with another piece of pancake.

Ulala sighed and nodded, and a waitress in a pink collared uniform came by to fill their coffee cups. Maya dumped two packets of sugar into hers and drained half of it in one swallow. "What's bothering you?" she asked after another long silence.

"I've got a lot on my mind, I guess. Not just about him, but about the kids too." Ulala put her fork down. "I still can't believe that one of them killed himself. It's so unnatural, you know? So sad when it happens to someone that young."

Maya nodded. "It's rough, isn't it? All of us took it a little hard." She took a sip of her coffee. "And Mai, too. I wonder what she's feeling right now. If she's feeling anything."

Ulala screwed up her face. "I just don't know what to think. Did those boys deserve what happened to them? Sure, what they did to her is unforgivable, but one of them is dead now." She looked down. Really, I know all too well what Mai is feeling. What if my story had ended like that?

"No one ever deserves to die," Maya said, then added, "Which isn't to say I don't think they had it coming. Part of me is secretly glad she stood up for herself." She took a bite and chewed thoughtfully. "Of course, I don't usually prescribe personae for women's empowerment, you know?"

Ulala couldn't help but smile. "You're right. We can both understand what drove this girl to do what she did, but that doesn't make it any less wrong." Her expression grew serious. "She was playing with something really powerful, wasn't she?"

Maya hesitated, then nodded somberly. "According to Katsuya, yes. We're going to the Velvet Room this afternoon to try to figure out exactly what."

They were silent for a while as they finished off their breakfast. Maya signaled the waitress for the check and Ulala took out a mirror to fiddle with her hair. She looked thoughtfully at her reflection. "Hey, how do you think the Kasu High boy is involved with her? Are they a couple?" She looked over at her roommate and grinned. "That'd be kind of romantic!"

Maya laughed. "I'm not sure romantic is the word you want. Creepy, maybe. Besides," she said teasingly, getting up. "Finding Mai and Ichirou is your and Baofu's problem."

"But Ma-ya," Ulala pouted, hurrying behind her as they picked their way through the other tables. "I don't want to see him today! I'm still mad at him, remember?"

They got out to the street and Maya turned to her. "Well, would you rather come to the Velvet Room with me and Katsuya?"

Ulala stood and thought for a while. "I don't think so," she finally said. "I'm going to go look for Mai on my own." She silenced Maya's objection. "I'll be careful, I promise. I know she's dangerous. But," she looked down. "I think I know what she's going through. I've been wrapped up in revenge too, you know."

Maya looked at her for a long time, then reached out and touched her roommate's shoulder. "Alright, Ulala," she said, and smiled. "I trust you. You know where to find me."

Ulala looked up and smiled back; then the two friends parted and went their separate ways.

* * *

Morning bled into afternoon as Ulala made her way around downtown. She visited three coffee shops, a shady day bar, a mall, and both local extensions of the Peace Diner. She got distracted in Pachinko Silver for a while and made up for it by trekking out west to visit a couple of popular internet cafés. Every place was buzzing with people, kids especially, but they were all packed into impenetrable groups of friends and classmates. She had to admit that she hadn't found a place where you would expect to find two kids who were running from society.

After fighting her way through yet another crowded coffee house, she decided to take a break and turned north to walk along the river. The air grew humid and she stopped under a bright orange tree to watch the leaves fall into the water. Two fat ducks waddled up and looked at her expectantly.

"What do you want?" she asked, irritated. The one on the right turned his head and quacked.

She sighed and rubbed her eyes. "I can't believe I'm talking to waterfowl." She sank to the ground and leaned back onto her elbows. "Not that I have better prospects right now," she said dejectedly.

The ducks poked around at her feet for a minute, then caught sight of a family throwing bread some ways down the river. The talkative one quacked and waddled off in their direction, but the other one held back and gave Ulala a friendly nudge before following suit.

She watched them leave and then turned her gaze back to the water. The afternoon sun sparkled on its surface, and morose as she was, she couldn't deny that it was a beautiful day. I should be at a picnic, she thought bitterly. Not looking for a vengeful high school girl and her delinquent boy toy. She brushed a lock of hair out of her face. Who am I kidding? They could be anywhere.

Across the river, a young couple walked hand in hand by the bank. Something in her eyes changed as she watched them. They stopped and turned towards the water, and the girl smiled as the boy tentatively put her arm around her. For a moment there was a kind of balance: the boy, the girl, and the woman silently regarding them. A breeze tousled Ulala's hair and stirred the leaves in the treetops, but she hardly noticed it pass.

A commotion in her purse jerked her out of her reverie. She scrambled to open it and pull out her phone. Maybe... "Hello?" she said hopefully.

"Miss Serizawa?" It was Katsuya.

Her face fell. "Oh. Hi, Big Suou." She settled back on her haunches with a little huff.

"I'm here at the Velvet Room with Maya, and we discovered something interesting about your runaways."

"Oh?" She propped the phone between her ear and shoulder as she dug in her purse for a pen. "What is it?"

"Well, they do know the boy, Ichirou - he's visited several times. But here's the strange thing: according to Igor, he's never summoned a persona for the kid."

Ulala squinted. "What sense does that make? Why does he go to the Velvet Room at all, then?"

"He comes to see the Demon Artist. Turns out he's a card fanatic, though no one knows how he figured out about the place. He does use personae - otherwise he couldn't come here - but we find it likely that his awareness of it was actually dormant until recently."

"Ohh.." she exhaled. "I see. Seems like you've found more questions than answers."

"Yes, well," he sighed, sounding slightly exasperated. "Talking to the people in this place is like swimming through warm peanut butter. It's pleasant enough, but you never get very far."

She laughed. "Okay, so the boy is way into cards. Any news about Mai?" She wrote CARDS in block letters on her hand.

"Not even a little. They've never heard of her, and Ichirou never mentioned her." She heard him sigh. "I can't prove that they're connected at all. Maybe we're just chasing rainbows here."

She smiled. "No, Big Suou, I think you're on the right track. Don't get discouraged, okay? I'll keep looking."

"Thank you, Miss Serizawa. Let me know what you and Baofu find."

Ulala hesitated. "Um," she said with an awkward laugh. "Yeah. I'll tell him that. Goodbye," she clicked her phone off and stuffed it back into her purse.

She looked at the word on her hand for a while, trying to think of any possible leads that it could give her. Unfortunately, she had no way of knowing whether or not Ichirou shared his hobby. If he had been involved with friends, that would be something, but as far as they could tell he'd been a loner like Mai. Not to mention that the best place for a card fanatic was the Velvet Room, and they obviously couldn't be staying there. She shook her head. This doesn't help me, she thought.

Ulala sighed and turned her attention back to the couple across the river. What's that like? she thought. Oddly enough, she found that she wasn't bitter or angry - just curious, as she watched them turn and head back up the path away from the river. They seem so easy together. I never feel that comfortable.

A cottony seed landed on her shirt and she brushed it off idly. Well, except for when I'm home or at Baofu's office. But those aren't really *my* places, are they? "No," she said out loud. "I don't have a place, that's why I'm sitting in the dirt beside a river."

Ulala couldn't help but grin at that. Now I'm talking to myself. I'm dusty and I'm talking to myself. "Well, where else can I go?" she asked herself. "I don't have a clue where Mai or Ichirou could be, Maya's not home, and I'll be damned if I'm going go back to the office." She climbed to her feet, kicking up a cloud of dust where she had been sitting.

I wonder if Mai feels that way too, she thought as she brushed herself off. We're not that different, are we?

At that point, she straightened up and the knot in her mind finally came undone. She knew where the girl who didn't belong anywhere would be, and more importantly, she knew where to find the boy that she would undoubtedly be with. She stared down at her hand for a long moment, her eyes tracing the word CARDS.

"Ulala!" she shouted with a mad little laugh. "You're brilliant, you know that?" She collected her purse and took off for the road at a brisk trot. Behind her, a group of chickadees tittered nervously, and two fat ducks waddled back and forth on the dusty riverbank.

* * *

Meanwhile, Katsuya and Maya were still in the dark Velvet Room, and the young detective was rapidly reaching the end of his rope.

"Alright," Katsuya said, gritting his teeth. "You say that you don't know of a persona that fits this description, is that right?"

Igor looked at him with a blank expression. "It's not one that I have ever summoned," he said deliberately, as if he were talking to a small child.

Katsuya blinked, then pinched the bridge of his nose. "Okay, you never summoned it. We got that." He looked pleadingly at Maya, who was sitting at the piano with Nameless. She grinned and gave him a look that said, Don't look at me, this is your job isn't it?

He glowered at her and turned back to Igor. "But if you didn't summon it, how did he get it? And which one is it?"

The old man took a deep breath and rolled his eyes back. "Everything has a persona. Sometimes you choose it, and sometimes it chooses you. Sometimes it comes from the outside, and sometimes it comes from the inside. Get it? There are many ways someone can grow into a persona. This room is just one means to that end." He sat back, apparently satisfied with this explanation. "As for which one the boy is using, who can say? Each thing can be a persona just as much as it can have a persona. It's all relative, you know."

There was a brief pause. "So," Katsuya said slowly. "He could have gotten it anywhere, and it could be anything."

Igor nodded vigorously. "You got it!" he exclaimed in a proud voice. He looked as though he might burst into applause.

Katsuya looked at him dumbly for several minutes, then shook his head and stalked off. "I give up," he said over his shoulder to Maya, who was still practicing duets with the blindfolded piano man. She gave him a concerned look as he passed.

Nameless carried the song to a close and looked over at her. "He'll be alright," he said warmly. "Our world is a little hard on his mind, and he isn't used to thinking with anything else."

"Hmm? Oh, I suppose you're right. I don't understand it, though," she said, turning to face him. "I always feel so comfortable here."

The handsome musician smiled. "We are all destined to grow into more than we are. In more ways than one, you're a very special young lady." He nodded to Katsuya, who was standing alone. "And he's a very special man, too, in a different way. You see, you enhance each other."

Maya took her hands off the keys and smiled up at him. "Thanks, Dad," she teased, and he chuckled softly. "But I don't worry too much about Katsuya. I feel like he can always take care of himself."

"Of course he can," he said, his fingers moving to start another song. It was a solo this time, and to Maya the sound was both haunting and oddly familiar. "But that's not the issue in question here," he added.

She nodded and sat in silence for a while, her thoughts straying into the dark and dreamlike melody. Over the piano, she could see Katsuya leaning against the wall by the door. His arms were crossed and his head was turned half to the side, so that the line of his jaw stood out even in the dim light. Maybe it was the music, or the drowsy atmosphere of the Velvet Room, but in that moment he seemed to her like a statue of perfect stillness and beauty. She shook her head slowly and tried to stop herself from staring, but something in her eyes wouldn't let him go.

Somewhere inside the song, Belladonna began to sing. Her voice fell into a descant like rain that seems to come from nowhere, and it hovered above the melody in wordless grace. Maya held her breath as the shapeless music descended into a language she could understand.

You know the sun will rise today,
The same as it has ever been.
No other way,
Not today,
That it could ever be.


She felt herself rise from the piano bench. Nameless smiled and nodded goodbye to her, and she walked around to where Katsuya was standing. She touched his shoulder lightly, startling him away from his thoughts.

You know the rain will fall today,
The rain that washed away your sin.
The lyre won't play,
Not today,
And you can't come to me.


"I want to go now," she said voicelessly, mouthing the words to him. He gave her an odd look, then nodded and pushed himself away from the wall. Together they opened the door and made their way through gossamer curtains back to reality. Behind them the sound of Belladonna's song grew faint and thin in the air, but did not fade from their awareness until the last word had reached them.

You know the world will end today,
The sickness biting from within.
I cannot stay,
Not today,
But tomorrow we shall see.