That night, Nanako and Souji both stayed up late to watch the Midnight Channel. "We may as well watch together, right?" Souji asked. Nanako nodded and followed him up to his room. They passed the couple of hours left until midnight with Nanako on the couch reading while Souji sat at the table making paper cranes.

"Do you still do that for money, or is it just for fun now?" Nanako asked, not looking up from her book.

Souji smiled softly. "A little of both. Actually, I was planning to fold 1000 paper cranes as a gift for Kanji and Naoto. It's supposed to bring good luck, and they can hang them in the nursery."

Nanako finally looked at him and returned his smile. "That's adorable. I hope you've gotten really fast at making them, because pregnancies only last 9 months and you're down to at least 8 already, right?"

"I can do it, that's plenty of time," Souji said, sounding determined.

Nanako laughed. "Whatever you say."

Just before midnight, Souji was looking out the window. Nanako could tell he was feeling restless. She stood up and stretched. Just then, the TV turned itself on. They both turned and stared at it in disbelief, even though they had reason to believe just about anything.

Nanako shook slightly as she watched the blurry figure on the screen. "It's definitely Takeyoshi-kun," she said sadly.

"I'll text the others," Souji said, grabbing his phone. "We'll get as many of us to meet up tomorrow afternoon as possible so we can help you make a plan. Alright?"

"Is there much point to a plan? I mean, it should be pretty much the same as when we rescued Sanae, right?"

"Yes and no," Souji answered. "In my experience, these things tend to escalate. And it depends on the person. Do you know if Takeyoshi-kun has been going through anything difficult lately?"

"Not that I know of," Nanako answered.

"Then it might be no big deal. But you wanted us to help Sana-chan pick a weapon tomorrow, anyway, so we may as well get the gang together." Nanako nodded. So long as they managed to save Takeyoshi, it didn't matter how it happened. She yawned and stretched again. "Go get some sleep, Nanako. We'll figure it out tomorrow," Souji said, pushing her towards the door. Nanako nodded again and headed for her own room, tumbling onto the bed and falling asleep quickly despite the things swirling around in her mind.


The next afternoon, Nanako's team met with Souji, Kanji, Naoto, and also Yosuke, who happened to be working in the food court. The others had work obligations they couldn't get out of. Nanako had brought Emiko as well, deciding that if she was going in with them, she should know as much about the situation as possible.

Naoto was sitting on one of the tables in the midst of their group. "There are some big differences in this case from what happened in the past," she began. "One thing I have noticed is that the victims have not appeared on television before we've seen them on the Midnight Channel."

"That's true," Souji said, thoughtful. "And they also haven't had the same sort of, umm… shows. They appear blurry like they used to before entering the TV."

"Right, I'm glad someone else noticed," Naoto replied. "The blurry images used to indicate that they were a target, but had not yet been kidnapped."

"It's also weird that the fog is back in the TV, isn't it? I mean… that was supposed all stop, right? After we won," Kanji asked.

"Yeah," Souji replied. "So long as 'mankind's wishes' didn't change."

"This crap all makes my brain hurt," Kanji said with a frown.

"Hey, whatever happened with Namatame?" Yosuke asked. "Chie said you were trying to contact him to see if he was alright."

"I was able to touch base with him this morning, actually," Naoto said. "He said he had to go out of town on business suddenly and that nothing out of the ordinary had happened."

"Obviously that's not true," Kanji said. "He's got to be hiding something."

"I agree," Naoto said. "Whatever happened has him scared, and he doesn't want to get involved."

"So how do we make him tell us the truth?" Yosuke asked.

"If I remember correctly, trying to make Namatame tell us the truth didn't go so well last time."

"Wait!" Nanako interrupted. "Namatame was involved last time, too? You guys didn't tell me that part."

"We… sort of didn't want to," Kanji mumbled.

"It's not something we're proud of," Yosuke added.

"We still need to know about it," Miusagi pointed out.

Souji sighed. "Namatame was being manipulated by the real culprit. He thought that the people shown on the Midnight Channel were going to be killed, and that throwing them in the TV would save them. He had no idea that being inside the TV when the fog came to our world was what was actually killing them." He took a deep breath and continued. "After Mayumi Yamano was killed, Namatame moved back to Inaba, his hometown, and began working as a local deliveryman."

"The deliveryman…" Nanako said, feeling shocked. "He's who took me." None of the others could look at her for a moment. "S-So, what else happened? There's more, isn't there? Something you're all ashamed of?"

"We thought he was the culprit. And we knew under the circumstances that it was unlikely he would be brought to justice." Naoto paused, unsure how to continue.

Kanji continued instead. "We considered throwing him in the TV and letting him die."

Yosuke added, "Almost did it, too."

Naoto finished. "It was my idea."

Souji cleared his throat, so they would focus on him instead of continuing to stare at the ground. "But we made the right decision in the end, and figured out who the true culprit was."

Nanako looked at the floor this time. She found it difficult to swallow. Adachi, she thought. He had been her dad's partner, and a family friend. And because of him, she had almost died. And despite all of that, her dad and Souji had forgiven him in some capacity, because after the first couple of years, they began visiting him on holidays. Because he was like family, and he had no one else, they had told her. Knowing the whole truth made her feel sick to her stomach. Teddie reached out and took her hand, which made it a little bit easier to breathe.

"Ok, so… I guess what we can take from that is to be sure before we do anything crazy," Miusagi said, trying to steer the conversation forward.

"And even if he's not telling the truth, it's probably because he's scared, right?" Sanae asked.

"Yes, I believe so. For the time being, I wouldn't consider him a suspect," Naoto answered.

"What about Takeyoshi-kun?" Emiko asked. "What are we going to do?"

"We're going to save him," Nanako said, coming back to earth with more determination than ever. There was no way she was going to let one of her closest friends die in there.

"But first, some weapons and a little training," Souji reminded her.

They moved to the electronics department in smaller groups, all heading just inside the TV world with the weapons box. Emiko had heard about how this worked, but it was still terrifying. How do they not all throw up every time? she wondered. She felt sort of left out as they showed weapons to Sanae. She wondered if she should have been paying better attention, and considering what weapon she would pick if she got one of these persona things.

Sanae decided on a whip. Her persona had water magic, and this weapon would allow her to keep a little distance. It would allow her more time to focus on her magic if she wasn't right up front in every fight. No one on the previous Investigation Team had used one, but they took her in to train with a small group. Souji, Yosuke and Teddie went with her. Nanako stayed by Emiko's side, which made her feel a little less freaked out. Sanae felt a little overwhelmed when she summoned her persona for the first time. Mikumari had long, teal braids. Her figure was shaped almost like a mermaid, but not quite. She was more human than fish. Sanae thought she looked beautiful and a little bit intimidating at the same time.

Miusagi wanted to go with Sana-chan, but he remembered Kanji's story about being overprotective of Naoto, and decided to give her a little space to train. He noticed Kanji standing against the wall, away from everyone else, and decided to join him. "So… you guys still feel really bad about it, huh?"

"About what?" Kanji asked, not looking up.

"About almost killing the mayor," Miusagi said with a half smile.

"Wasn't the mayor back then," Kanji replied.

"Right," Miusagi said. "Well, you didn't do it, so you shouldn't still be hung up on it. It was like 10 years ago, wasn't it?"

"Naoto feels worse than me or Yosuke. Blames herself because it was her idea. But it was us that had him by the arms about to go through with it. Luckily, senpai had a clear head and put a stop to it. You, you're kind of a hot head like me. You make sure and always listen to Nanako-chan before you make stupid decisions, you hear me?"

"Loud and clear," Miusagi said, looking down. Then he looked up at Kanji with a big grin. "Hey, I know what will cheer you up. You're gonna be a dad soon."

Kanji couldn't help the huge smile he felt on his face. "Yeah. Thanks, Miusagi." Already sort of am, Kanji thought happily.

The training session was kept fairly short. Sanae got tired pretty quickly. Nanako suspected that it wasn't easy for her to train in her own part of the TV world, but it was where the strongest enemies were and she needed that kind of experience. She was also worried about Emiko being inside the TV for too long. She didn't have a pair of glasses, so she must have been exhausted. I'll ask Teddie to make her a pair for tomorrow, Nanako thought before they exited the TV.