Cold.
It's cold.
For some reason, that's surprising, but the reason slips away before she can process it.
There are too many inputs at once for her to process anything. There is too much – too much – too much muchness about her, she decides. She should not feel cold, she should not be able to decide anything. She is not a being. She is nothing, she is nowhere, she is everything and everywhere. She can't feel. She should not be able to feel.
So why is she cold?
She wiggles her toes.
She should not have toes. Or a body. Or a presence.
She should be. . .
Dead?
Perhaps.
Her eyes open of their own accord – another piece in the mounting pile of evidence that she does, in fact, suddenly exist – and then immediately shut. It's too bright. Or perhaps it is dim, but she is unused to having eyes. Any amount of light is bright where previously there was nothing. After a moment she tentatively opens them again. Her surroundings are still an insult to what little processing abilities she has gotten under control, so she looks down at herself instead. Blouse, jacket, skirt, pin, bow. School uniform. She recognizes it but can't quite place where she knows it from. The waistband holds a flip phone that doesn't seem to have charge, so she securely tucks it back in to deal with later. Somehow, she gets the sense that the ensemble is still missing a few things.
There isn't a mirror nearby – she doesn't seem to be in any sort of proper room – so she reaches up to touch her face. It feels very much like a face should, she supposes. She can't remember what her face is meant to feel like, but it doesn't feel like it's missing chunks or anything, so it's probably fine. Even higher, she touches her hair. It feels unwashed and messy, tied up in a loose and terrible ponytail.
The hair tie holding her hair has fallen down considerably, so she pulls it the rest of the way off and puts it onto her wrist. As she pulls, she realizes her hair is much longer than she expects it to be – long enough for her to pull over her shoulders and inspect. While she's at it, she finger-combs the mess as best as she can. The lighting is off, but her hair looks a bit orangey-brown. Auburn, maybe? If she had to pick a color, anyway.
Nothing left to be gained from inspecting herself, she turns her attention back to her surroundings. Once again, she notes that she doesn't seem to be in a normal room. It is, at the very least, an enclosed area. The colors are just disorienting enough that she's having trouble processing exactly what the room looks like, a swirl of red and black that is almost nauseating. She's more of an orange person, herself, but she doesn't think that's why it's so unsettling.
There's a blue glow up ahead, emanating from beyond a set of stairs she hadn't yet noticed. It draws her in – blue stands out so starkly against the red and black backdrop that she has no choice but to investigate. And –
Blue is familiar.
Blue is. . .
She heads for the blue light almost instinctively. There is a sense of safety in the light, drawing her in, though she has no rational explanation for why the light might feel safe. (Though, even without the sense of safety, she'd still be tempted to investigate. It's not as if she has anywhere else to go.)
The glow comes into focus as she reaches the top of the stairs, coming from an equally blue door. She walks towards it hesitantly. It doesn't seem to be attached to anything – nor, in fact, does it seem to be corporeal. Pushing down a sudden onslaught of foreboding, she reaches her hand out and goes to turn the handle.
Click.
It doesn't turn.
. . . All the better, really. She may not be sure what's happening, but it feels a bit "first person to die in a horror movie" to go opening random, seemingly inexplicable doors all willy-nilly. She pushes down the deep discomfort brought by the presence of the door and continues investigating as cautiously as possible, admittedly backing up what she deems a safe distance from the door first.
The layout of this room makes sense of something she had noticed subconsciously on the floor below. She's in a subway. The stairs she had taken to get up here suddenly make so much more sense, and she's sure if she went back down she'd find tracks. But for now, there are more stairs leading out to what is presumably the rest of the world.
The new set of stairs leads her out to a city she finds vaguely familiar, but just as unsettling as the blue door had been. Looking up at the buildings, it takes a moment to put her finger on it – there's no people. Not a single soul in sight. The sky is a vivid red, as if it is either dusk or dawn. Even so, there should be people wandering about. Come to think of it, there should be people in the subway. Where are the people?
Once again feeling as if she has been thrown headfirst into a horror movie, she starts walking. There has to be some evidence of life further into the city, right? Some sort of sign that she's not in a hellish dystopia where she's the only living survivor? After a while of walking, though, it becomes clear that she's not actually moving anywhere. She had moved a little bit at first, but there seems to be some sort of boundary that's preventing her from getting any further. Her only option seems to be the subway.
She heaves a sigh and turns back, quickly making her way past the blue door so that she doesn't have to look at it for too long. It freaks her out. She runs down the next set of stairs and stops abruptly at the bottom. How did she miss the subway tracks the first time around? Too distracted by the newfound experience of existing and the blue glow, she supposes.
Something glitters close to the track, so she goes over and picks it up. It seems to be a pistol, with the acronym S.E.E.S emblazoned on the side. It must be a fake pistol though, as there doesn't seem to be anywhere to load bullets. Other than that, she's sure she could be convinced it is a real gun fairly easily – it's hefty and made of metal, with enough detail that any passerby would be fooled.
It's convincing enough that she doesn't take the risk of touching the trigger, at least.
She glances at the tracks in front of her. They lead only in one direction – this station must be the end of the line. If she has any hope of getting anywhere, it lies beyond the tracks. There's nothing up the stairs, the blue door is locked. There's nowhere else to go. She doesn't like being a sitting duck. Damsel in distress, she is not. She has a (fake) gun. Do damsels in distress have (fake) guns? Probably not. They definitely do not have real ones. She carefully lowers herself onto the tracks, takes a deep breath, and makes her way into the darkness.
The thought that she might get hit by a train does meander its way through her head, but she pushes that aside. This is her only option besides waiting it out and waiting it out isn't a very good option. What would she even be waiting for? Another person to suddenly appear out of nowhere and save her? Considering the entire city is empty, that seems fairly unlikely.
In any case, even with the thought of potential impending doom, the tracks aren't very scary. There's an odd sort of distortion that clings to the walls, and she's pretty sure subway stations don't have this many twists or turns or dead ends, but it's not scary. There are weird. . . she expects globs, not that she knows why she should expect moving globs, but instead they are more like. . . mountain men? Men made out of mountains, wearing masks. Actually, upon further inspection, they seem to be made out of subway cars, which makes a lot more sense in the context.
(Not that weird subway car men things make sense in any context, but she's just sort of going with the flow here.)
The subway car men things avoid her as she gets farther in. Actively run from her, even, which makes her feel some sort of powerful. It also gives her a breath of relief, considering she's almost ninety percent sure her gun is fake. Maybe she could pistol whip them if they got too close? It's not a theory she'd like to test out, but she files the idea away just in case.
Eventually, she finds stairs going down. Ignoring the fact that this is apparently a multi-level subway, down is good. Down will take her to new places, instead of back up and out into the empty city. Briefly she catches herself feeling surprised that the next level of the subway is not up, though on further reflection, if the subway were going to have any number of levels – it is not as if this strange world makes sense in the first place – down is the correct way to go. Going down makes sense.
She goes down.
The – monsters? Mountain men? Subway men?
". . . You saw those creatures. We call them Shadows."
Shadows.
The Shadows continue to evade her as she moves down, but. . . well, if they're avoiding her, they can't be too strong, can they? Maybe she should fight them. She aims the (fake) gun at one and click. It does nothing. Awesome. Her gun is useless. (It's a fake gun. Of course it's useless.) She mentally facepalms and continues on her way. She hasn't quite reached the point where she needs to use the fake gun as a blunt weapon yet, so she lets the Shadows ignore her.
Maybe she should turn around in case it ever does come to that point.
. . . But there's nothing up there. There's nowhere to go but further down. She continues on her path. If this isn't what she was meant to do, she would've woken up somewhere else. And, failing that, at least it gives her something to do. Down, down, down she goes. She rests at the rest stops – small stretches that lack any Shadow activity – but otherwise continues on. The Shadows keep avoiding her.
Eventually, after who knows how long, there is a sound. It feels very much like it should signify the Big Bang – the presence of life when previously there was none. All the noises she has heard thus far have either been strange sounds from the Shadows or sounds that she herself caused.
She supposes she counts as life, so the metaphor doesn't quite work, but only after she hears the sound does she become aware of how eerily silent it's been since she woke up, accompanied only by the sound of her footsteps. She goes toward the source of the noise, making her way into a weird portal-looking thing she hasn't seen thus far and eventually coming upon people. People in weird costumes, but people nonetheless. They're fighting a Shadow, but for some reason it doesn't look like she expected it to.
It looks more like. . .
"Persona!" calls a girl in a tight red catsuit. A being materializes behind the girl and sends fireballs at the Shadow. The Shadow - which looks familiar in a way that she does not expect it to - responds by knocking the girl down. Backup arrives. The group seems surrounded, and they are not exactly doing well. She could help, but - all she has is a fake gun.
She watches as one of them - wearing a black trench coat and red gloves - points the fakest looking gun she's ever seen and fires. It hits the Shadow. It works, so why doesn't hers?
"I chooseth this fate of mine own will."
What did the girl say?
Persona. . .
She raises the gun to her head. Someone - is that a UFO? - finally notices and calls out in a panic, but now she's sure of what she's doing. "Per. . . so. . . na." She shoots. Someone screams. Messiah bursts forth in all his glory, almost like a long-forgotten friend. "Megidolaon!" she calls instinctively. There are Shadows, and then there are not. She glances at the group. Most look hurt. The catsuit girl from earlier is heaving and staring at her in confusion. She casts Salvation, which restores the party's health.
She doesn't know how she knew to do that. She doesn't know how she knew the names of the powers she needed to call upon, or that they'd do exactly what she intended for them to do. She feels a bit woozy. Turning to the costumed group behind her, she is faced immediately with a gun.
Which, yeah, to be fair, she'd be a bit suspicious of herself too.
(Even if she did just save their lives.)
"Who are you?" demands the one at the forefront of the group. He's taller than her, she notes. Fluffy black hair, black trench coat, black-and-white masquerade mask, red gloves. The one she saw shoot a gun earlier – staring down the barrel of it, she can tell it's fake. Why does his fake gun work differently from hers?
"I don't know," she replies because she doesn't. Honestly, she hadn't yet thought about it. She was too busy trying to figure out where she is or what's happening to remember to think about her name. Now that she is thinking about it, though, nothing comes to her. Actually – she doesn't think she knows much of anything about herself. That's probably something to file away for later.
Red gloves presses on. "How did you get here?"
"I don't know," she says once again. Still true.
"What is that?" the boy says, gesturing to her fake gun. Reasonable question. He's probably specifically wondering why it doesn't work like his. She looks down at it consideringly.
"We've prepared an Evoker for you. We'd like you to lend us your strength."
"Evoker," she replies vaguely, now even more dizzy than before. "Summons my Persona."
And then, like an overdramatic movie character, she passes out.
She dreams of clocks, and Shadows, and doors.
She dreams of being everything and nothing, and then not.
She dreams of masks, and red, and black.
She wakes up bathed in the blue glow of the creepy door, surrounded by the mask-wearers. They are muttering amongst themselves. Black-and-white mask snaps to attention when he notices her stirring and quiets them down.
"Hello," he says.
"Hello," she replies. She's still a bit dizzy, but not nearly as much as before. "Why are you wearing a mask?"
It doesn't seem to be the question he was expecting. He replies quickly anyway. "We're the Phantom Thieves." He says Phantom Thieves, proper noun. She can hear the emphasis.
She pretends that somehow answers her question and moves on. "Phantom Thieves? What do you steal?" This doesn't seem too unreasonable a question for her to ask. After all, they just said they're thieves.
The others mutter amongst themselves, but she's too busy staring at the boy in front of her, who glances at his still-muttering group before answering. "Distorted desires, mostly."
Phantom Thieves of the mind, how interesting. She wonders what stealing a distorted desire would entail. Probably this strange world she's found herself in, considering the Phantom Thieves seem to know exactly how to navigate it. A million questions run through her head – for instance, where exactly are they – but she can't focus on them for long. "What's your name?" she eventually blurts with little to no input from her brain.
"What's yours?" black-and-white mask counters.
This, her mind continues to not supply. She pretends not to notice that he is clearly deflecting – they'll have to tell her their names at some point, or even just some code names. She can't keep calling them descriptor words forever. "I already told you, I don't know."
"You don't know?" he asks.
"I don't remember."
"What do you remember, then?" says a girl in a black, metal-looking mask.
"I remember. . . Shadows. Personas. My Evoker." She stands abruptly, startling the masked group. She absently notes that she's also shorter than the rest of the Phantom Thieves, not just black-and-white mask. Well, shorter than almost all of them except for a weird anthropomorphic cat thing that she hadn't seen before and the UFO girl, and she's a bit iffy on her height in relation to the fluffy-haired girl. "What. . . is that?" she asks, point to the cat. "A cat?"
The cat huffs and crosses its little arms. "I'm Mona. I am not a cat."
That only vaguely answers her question, but she's not going to argue with it. It seems pretty certain about the cat thing, so she'll trust it. She's accustomed to strange, clearly – her only memories pertain to this odd world she woke up in. She's sure whatever she doesn't remember is equally strange, considering her missing memories and where she woke up. And honestly, her complete unsurprise at the whole endeavor so far has to have a reason. She feels like normal people probably do not look at Shadows and then just move on with their lives.
She lets the not-cat have his moment and looks around. Her gaze lingers on the blue door. Seemingly triggered by her focus, the door opens just a crack. A silver-haired little girl wearing blue peaks out of the crack. They briefly make eye contact, and the girl flinches away, slamming the door as she re-enters the room. She breaks her gaze from the door to find black-and-white mask staring between her and the door with a thoughtful look on his face.
"Is there a way out of here? I tried earlier, but I couldn't seem to go anywhere," she says in lieu of acknowledging the blue door. "There aren't any people out there, either."
"You need an app to come and go," red catsuit answers. "How did you get here without it?"
"I don't know," she says for what is probably not the last time.
"You want to leave?" black-and-white mask asks her.
She nods, and they lead her up into the red city. Black-and-white mask pauses at the top of the stares and pulls out his phone – much newer looking than hers – and presses a few buttons. Her vision goes blurry for a second, and then the red city is replaced with a much less red, much more populated version.
You have now entered the real world. Welcome back.
She turns back to look at the stairs and they look a lot more normal than before. The walls of the stairway are no longer red and veiny, but back to their normal concrete selves. Turning back to the Phantom Thieves in front of her, she sees that they have lost their masks and outfits. They appear to be high school students, almost all of them wearing a school uniform.
"Kurusu Akira," black-and-white – the Fool, supplies her inner voice – says politely when they've reached an area out of the way of the crowds. "We don't use our real names in there."
And yet he had asked for hers. She wonders if there is any danger in saying it, or if they've just decided to be cautious. Either way it seems rather rude to not have applied the same rule to her.
Ret catsuit introduces herself as Takamaki Ann – Lovers – and the rest clamor after her. Sakamoto Ryuji – blond, energetic, loud. Chariot. Kitagawa Yusuke – blue hair, quiet demeanor. It seems familiar, but she can't place the feeling. Emperor. Niijima Makoto – red eyes, brown hair, formal. Priestess. Sakura Futaba – orange hair, purple eyes, nervous. Hermit. Okumura Haru – light brown hair, pink sweater, shy. Empress. And Mona the not-cat, now going by Morgana and taking a very cat-like appearance, but still able to talk. Magician.
"Oh, we should probably give you a name, right? Since you don't remember, you know?" Takamaki says. The others nod their assent and look at her expectantly, so she nods at well. There's no harm in having a name, really. She doesn't question that no one has brought up cops or hospitals, considering the world she was found in. And the Evoker that looks very much like a gun tucked in her waistband. And the fact that she was found by the Phantom Thieves (proper noun).
They all stand there for a moment, puzzling over this new problem.
"What about Chihiro?" suggests Sakura.
For a moment, she pictures a gentle-faced girl with a nervous laugh. "No, that doesn't feel right."
Okumura looks over her consideringly. "Uhm, is Hanako alright? It means blossom."
Hanako. . . it's not quite right, but it'll do. It feels close to where she needs to be, anyway. "Hanako is nice."
The not-cat Morgana leans forward from where he's perched on Kurusu's shoulder and inspects her. "Gekkoukan High, huh? Is that a school nearby?"
Niijima takes a closer look at the emblem on her jacket. "I think I've heard of Gekkoukan before," she says and pulls out of her phone, typing something and nodding at the results. "Yes, here it is. Gekkoukan is a private high school located on Tatsumi Port Island, a man-made extension of the city Iwatodai. It was built by the Kirijo Group following the destruction of the building before it. It's apparently a very prestigious school."
Sakura bounces on her heels a little bit. "It's not just prestigious, it produces a lot of famous people. The actress who plays Pink Argus went there."
"Of course you'd know that," Kurusu mutters fondly.
"She's dating Kirijo Mitsuru! It's notable information," Sakura protests, and the two continue bickering.
Iwatodai, Gekkoukan, Kirijo. . . it sounds familiar in the way that Hanako seems close enough of a name, so that has to be the right direction. Which reminds her - she pulls her phone off of her waistband, noting that it seems to be much older than the rest of the Phantom Thieves'. Flipping it open, she discovers that it miraculously still has charge. It most likely didn't work earlier because of the strange world they were in, though Kurusu's had. She navigates to her contacts by instinct, discovering there are actually a few names entered in.
Akihiko-senpai
Bebe
Fuuka-chan
Ken-kun
Kirijo-senpai
Min
Rio
Saori
Shinji
Stupei
Yuka-tan
"I have a Kirijo-senpai in my phone," Hanako notes out loud. She tries calling it, but it doesn't work. "Oh, but I don't think I have service."
Sakura pauses her bickering with Kurusu to bound over and take the phone out of Hanako's hand. "Kirijo-senpai? There's only one living Kirijo – Kirijo Mitsuru. Why would you have her number?"
"Futaba, give Hanako-san back her phone," Kurusu says gently but firmly. "Hanako-san, me and a couple others are going to get something to eat, if you'd join us?"
Sakura sheepishly hands back the phone and rejoins Kurusu's side. Hanako clips it back onto her skirt and follows as Kurusu, Sakura, Takamaki, and Okumura make their way farther into the city. The rest of the Thieves make their excuses and part ways there. Takamaki gives her a jacket to replace her Gekkoukan one since according to Sakura, Iwatodai is nowhere near Tokyo. Sakura, Takamaki, and Kurusu chat amicably the whole way, but Okumura hangs back with her, remaining silent for a while but eventually speaking up.
"Would you like a last name, Hanako-san?"
Hanako ponders this. "No, it's alright. Hanako is fine for now." She wouldn't want to try her luck at finding a similar enough last name to her previous one. Just Hanako will do until she remembers – hopefully soon.
Silence again, punctuated by Takamaki laughing over something. Then, "Uhm, if you'd like to use my phone to check your contacts, you can. Since yours doesn't work." Okumura holds out her phone, and once again Hanako notes that it seems much newer than hers. It's not a flip phone, for one. For two, just as with the other ones she's seen today, it's much sleeker than any of the smartphones she can vaguely recall seeing. Deciding that's something to think about later, she clicks the phone app and goes through her contacts one by one.
Akihiko-senpai.
We're sorry, this phone number has been disconnected.
Bebe.
We're sorry, this phone number has been disconnected.
Fuuka-chan.
We're sorry, this phone number has been disconnected.
On and on, leaving her to wonder why she has a phone that doesn't work full of contacts that have since changed their number. She hands Okumura back her phone, shaking her head at the girl's questioning gaze. What else is there? She supposes her text history, but that hope is immediately dashed. No texts.
Maybe pictures?
There's only one photo. It's of a dog.
"Koro-chan, give me your paw!"
Koromaru.
Of all the things to remember right now, it's a dog. Great.
She thinks about the things she has remembered or found familiar so far. Shadows, Personas, Evoker. Gekkoukan, Iwatodai, Tatsumi Port Island. Koromaru. The way she can look at Kurusu's friends and tell what arcana they are. The blue door. Blue itself. Orange.
Staring at Morgana the not-cat, there is a new third comfortable color. His collar is yellow, just as his bandana was in the red-and-black world. Yellow scarf, blue eyes.
"It's like. . . I don't know. . . nostalgia? Have we met before?"
Unlike before, the memory does not bring any new information, really. Yellow scarf, blue eyes, the unsettling familiarity of a being that should not be. It feels like the name, the memory, is on the tip of her tongue –
"Have we met before?"
Have we?
She zones out while eating crepes that Okumura pays for. Kurusu and Takamaki spread out schoolbooks and papers, making a half-hearted attempt at studying while Okumura studies a single neatly laid out notebook and Sakura plays with her phone.
"Exams are tomorrow," Morgana informs her from his spot hidden next to her.
It doesn't take long for Kurusu and Takamaki to get distracted. In fact, she's not sure they even started studying in the first place. Sakura pulls them into a conversation about Pink Argus and Kirijo Mitsuru, apparently still thinking about their connection to Hanako. For her part, she stays out of the conversation and eats her crepes.
"Is that alright, Hanako-san?" breaks through her mental fog, and she looks up to see the others staring at her questioningly. They must've shifted conversation topics at some point. Upon realizing she wasn't at all listening, Okumura repeats the question. "I'd like you to stay at my house for the time being. I have the most room, after all."
Hanako nods. It's not as if she has anywhere else to go – she doesn't even know her own name, so her only other bet would be the hospital, and she's not sure how much that would help either. She's sure the Phantom Thieves want to keep an eye on her because of where she was found, anyway.
"Oh, but she'll need clothes too, right? She can't go around in a school uniform for the rest of her life. We should go shopping!" says Takamaki with the excitement of someone who has found a way out of studying. "It could be a fun girl's trip!" She glances at Kurusu, who is barely concealing his laugh. "And Akira, too."
"Hey!" says Morgana.
". . . and Morgana," Takamaki amends.
Once again, it's not as if she has anything else to be doing, so she lets herself be dragged to the nearby mall. Plus, Takamaki is right; it won't do to be wearing a school uniform for the next however long. Especially not when the school it's from is nowhere near Tokyo.
She picks out mostly orange and beige. (Orange is her favorite color, she tells Takamaki. It's one of the few things she knows about herself.) Takamaki makes her try all of it on – just in case – and she finds it is the first time all day she has seen her own reflection.
She looks. . . older than she expected. Not like a high-schooler, more like a baby-faced adult. Orangey-brown hair, red eyes. Hair pins arranged to say XXII – though it looks as if they were meant to be there with her hair up, and it's down now, so it's a bit messy. She carefully extracts the hair pins and sets them to the side, to clip to her skirt when she's done trying on clothes. The lack of pins makes her hair stick out oddly on that side, so she runs her hands through her hair until it flattens back out nicely.
She's missing something.
It is missing from every outfit she tries on, yet she can't figure out what it is. She finishes trying on the outfits and her gaze lingers on her uniform in the mirror – this, too, feels like it is missing something. She shakes her head and grabs some skirt and sweater combos that Takamaki seems to particularly like. She'll think about the odd emptiness later.
Kurusu drags them to a little knick-knack store so that he can buy a couple things, and then they stop by an electronics shop and buy a phone and temporary SIM card – "So we can update you," Takamaki says – and after some chat ID exchanging, and the return of Takamaki's jacket, they all part ways.
Okumura calls a driver, and soon enough they are arriving at a mansion. Hanako is introduced as one of Okumura's friends that will be staying indefinitely. The servants bow politely as they pass, and she's reminded of – well, she can't put her finger on it. Amnesia is the most annoying thing in the world, she decides.
They stop at Okumura's bedroom first so Okumura can put away her bag, which is apparently also carrying her weapons from the other world and probably shouldn't be outside of her room for two long. It's large, pink, and covered in plants. Mostly foods, from what Hanako can tell, though she doesn't know much about plants.
Once Okumura is done there, she leads Hanako to a different nearby room. This one is almost as large as Okumura's, but with orange accents instead of pink, and a less personalized feel to it. "I hope it's alright," says Okumura softly. "You told Ann one of the only things you could remember is that you like orange."
"Of course it's alright," Hanako replies. And it is alright, because why would a mansion not be alright? It's a mansion. Not to mention that Okumura is generously housing a stranger that just suddenly popped up with no memories in a strange world – even if the room weren't orange and pretty, Hanako would still be plenty grateful.
Okumura – Haru, she is eventually corrected – makes her departure soon after, only taking a moment to make sure Hanako has everything she needs for the night. The stilted, kind-hearted politeness is incredibly familiar, and that familiarity is going to drive her insane.
She doesn't bother unpacking most of the shopping bags, instead just pulling out pajamas and her new phone. With the pajamas on, she feels more herself – the uniform seems correct, but doesn't feel like something she should be wearing. She flops down onto the enormous bed and starts going through her new phone.
Sunday
10/16
10:38pm
Takamaki Ann : hi hanako-chan!
Hanako : Hello, Takamaki-san! Thank you for helping today!
Takamaki Ann changed her name to Ann-chan.
Ann-chan changed Hanako to Hana-chan.
Ann-chan: haha call me ann
Hana-chan : Oh, okay! Thank you again!
Sunday
10/16
10:40pm
Sakura Futaba : can i have a list of ur contacts? i might be able to find something based on their names and gekkoukan
Hanako : Oh, sure! Some of them are more nicknames than anything, though.
Sakura Futaba changed her name to Alibaba.
Alibaba : i've found more on less
Hanako : Okay!
Hanako : Akihiko-senpai, Bebe, Fuuka-chan, Ken-kun, Kirijo-senpai, Min, Rio, Saori, Shinji, Stupei, and Yuka-tan
Hanako : That's all I have.
Alibaba : ok thx
There are other messages, but every exchange goes approximately the same as it had with Ann. They all seem to want to make sure she's settling in and that she has their numbers. Speaking of the others. . . she opens a search tab and types in "The Phantom Thieves," scanning the blurb of the first article she finds.
Thieves or Murderers?
The Phantom Thieves have dropped dramatically in popularity since the death of Okumura Kunikazu on live television only a few days ago. Although there is no evidence besides the customary calling card, Akechi Goro – alternately known as the second coming of the Detective Prince – maintains that the Phantom Thieves are behind this tragedy, and the previous mental shutdown cases as well.
Read more:
Okumura Kunikazu? A relation of Haru's, then. That explains the quietness of the other girl today, but – there's no way the Phantom Thieves actually killed someone related to one of their own. Or killed anyone, for that matter. Unless they are murderers and she got them completely wrong, in which case – well, she might be a little screwed.
. . . They're probably not murderers.
She looks for another article.
The Phantom Thieves: Fact or Fiction?
Following the confession of well-known artist Madarame Ichiryusai, the public is forced to consider: just who are the Phantom Thieves? Originally coming to media attention for the calling card and subsequent confession of disgraced Olympian Kamoshida Suguru, they were played off as a prank or targeted blackmail attempt. In the light of this new confession, however, it seems as if they Phantom Thieves of Hearts do just what they say: steal the desires of corrupted hearts. Or perhaps it is a fellow blackmailer hoping to propel the fame of my mysterious Phantom Thieves?
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Steal their desires? Well, Kurusu – Akira, she corrects herself – did tell her that's what they steal. She supposes she just didn't believe him much. After all, who's ever heard of stealing the metaphysical? How exactly do you steal someone's desires? She supposes probably through that strange world she woke up in, but she's not sure how that would help anything.
If they're this well-known, judging by the multiple articles on them, that's probably why they were surprised when she didn't automatically recognize the name. The Phantom Thieves of Hearts are apparently the topic of the country right now, and she is just a random amnesiac they found in a strange world.
She makes a mental note to ask them some additional questions – like what that other place was called so she doesn't keep thinking "strange world", and what actually happened with Okumura Kunikazu, though that one may need to wait a bit longer so as to not unintentionally cause Haru any stress. But for now, she's getting pretty tired. She glances at the time before putting her phone on the charger – a minute shy of midnight.
With the room completely dark, she can see the moon through the semi-sheer curtains. It's a full moon, she notes. She blinks, and for a moment the moon is impossibly big, green-tinged and bathing the room in a similarly green light. She automatically curls up and closes her eyes, and by the time she opens them again the world is back to normal.
. . . She's probably just tired.
She gets comfy and falls asleep soon thereafter.
She dreams of an enormous green moon floating about a car wreck on a bridge, a little blue-haired boy shouting her name – a name she cannot make out – and an odd-looking woman standing above her. She dreams of full moons, and a different little boy in a striped prisoner's outfit, speaking of moons and danger and friendship. She dreams of coffins, coffins, coffins –
She dreams of home, which is a dormitory somewhere with faces she can't quite see, laughing and joking as they eat food cooked by – one of them. It is walking Koro-chan with – someone – and playing with the local kids at the shrine. It is ramen bowls and dumplings and pancakes, a sushi platter spread on a coffee table for everyone to share. It is a peacoat and beanie and a face she cannot remember.
When she wakes up, she has already forgotten what she dreamed about.
