Daichi: Time to see them try and recruit Chie with promises of meat! And the rails get farther and farther off into the distance.

Verity: You can see why we don't own these things.

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"...And that's about it," Yosuke finished. Souji stood nearby, begging every god that he'd ever heard of that Chie wouldn't think they were crazy… or try to kill them for leaving her out of an adventure that basically granted them superpowers. He wouldn't put it past her.

"So, you just… agreed to help?"

"We also maybe kinda-sorta volunteered you."

"He volunteered you," Souji corrected. "I tried, and failed, to talk them out of it." Chie's eyes narrowed. "On the bright side, there's a chance you could develop a Persona as well."

"And why, exactly, should I do this?"

"We'll buy you dinner." Souji resolved to never let Yosuke speak in his place again.

"Deal." His poor wallet…

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"Midnight Channel, huh…?" Ryoji mused. Metis looked up from her homework.

"Do you really want to be caught at Junes this late?"

"It's not like we haven't snuck out before the sun was up, before."

"...We need a new television set," The robot girl stated. "If only so you don't get arrested doing something stupid, like waving swords around in the food court."

"What's a food court?" Teddie asked.

"It's a place where people go to eat," Ryoji explained. "Not a place where you want to show off weapons. I'm not sure who would do that, honestly… maybe something like that girl who used Zio on me?"

"What girl?" Metis asked. Ryoji paused, realizing that he'd never thought to tell his 'roommates' about his encounter in the Shopping District. Given the signs of her use of magic, a fairly glaring oversight that he'd have to look into later.

"I'm… not really sure. She just showed up in the middle of town. I tried talking to her, but-"

"Talking to her, or hitting on her?"

"Does it really matter?" He wasn't interested in having Metis more upset with him than she had to be- and she had the right to be, after he'd wandered off, lost Teddie, and stayed in the human world overnight.

"One version is malevolent, while the other one is simply asking for basic human decency." He'd pretend to be offended, but he knew his track record spoke against him.

"...Okay, there may have been a touch of flirting."

"That does explain it," Metis nodded, turning back to her work. "Try not to provoke any deities in the next week- I imagine you'd like to have more than a month total at school this year."

Sometimes, Ryoji wished Metis was more like a normal robot. This wasn't quite one of those times, but it was rather close.

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"Welcome back to the Velvet Room." Souji glanced around. Blue. Blue everywhere. "Do not worry, you are fast asleep in the real world. I have called you here from your dreams." Which really did not reassure him that he hadn't just gone crazy, but after today, that didn't seem to matter so much.

"I'm inclined to ask why." Now that he bothered looking, there were two more people in the Velvet Room. One a woman with long silver hair, and the other the girl that he'd met the other day.

One that, now that he thought back, he realized had been accused of using a lightning spell on Ryoji's hand. Not that he could blame her if she did- he was annoyingly upbeat. And, sometimes, just plain annoying.

"Huh? Why are you looking at me?" She asked, her emerald-green eyes flashing with something dangerous.

"N-no reason. You were talking to Ryoji-senpai the other day, weren't you?"

"I don't know who you're talking about."

"Please excuse Marie," The woman stated before the conversation could advance any farther. "Her soul is still very young, and she-"

"I don't need you to talk for me," Marie huffed, pointedly looking anywhere but at the other people in the limo.

"...Very well. I am Margaret, and it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

"Same here… I think." Was it too late to just turn and run out of Inaba? Probably. He'd agreed to a supernatural murder investigation, after all.

On the other hand, if half of the things that Igor ended up telling him about his powers were true, at least he'd be getting something interesting out of the deal after all.

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Saki knew, from the start, that she couldn't tell anyone about there being another, fog-covered world inside of the television. Beyond the fact that it sounded crazy, and she herself only knew it was real because of the scarecrow inside her heart, if all it took to get powers was to hop through a television… she'd rather not be the cause for such knowledge becoming a common thing. No, she did not need responsibility for half the world deciding to go mad with power.

Nobody minded that she said she didn't remember anything between walking home and when Ryoji found her, and that her memories of both were foggy. It wasn't entirely a lie, either. They just wrote it off to the concussion and left it at that.

And left her, come to that. People were busy, and there wasn't time for them to spend the whole day with her. Which was a shame, because her head was still rather fuzzy, but-

"Saki-senpai?" She hadn't been expecting Yosuke to show up. Yes, she'd known about his little crush, but it was just that. A crush. "Mochizuki-senpai asked me to bring you this."

Oh. Her homework. "He couldn't be bothered to just do it himself?"

"More like he forgot…" Yosuke chuckled, and she found herself smiling as well, because Ryoji was the type of person it was far too easy to laugh at. Sort of like Yosuke himself. "...He told me about what happened, you know."

"What do you mean?"

"With your Shadow. I- I ended up facing mine, too… only it was for a stupid reason. I got Jiraiya out of it, but… it really puts it in perspective, doesn't it? Just how… silly everything was. And I just… I wanted to apologize. For, you know, bugging you all the time. I always knew you didn't like me back, but..." He shrugged. "...I don't even know what I'm saying anymore."

"If that's the case, you should probably stop talking."

"Yeah… I probably should."

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The electronics section at Junes was very rarely frequented by more than one person at a time, other than the dates of major video game releases. Sure, there were sales and such at times, for for the most part, it was the loneliest place in store, so much so that there were only two security cameras. And Ryoji knew where both of them were. As much as it mattered to someone who could decide whether or not he showed up on film, anyway.

But he still enjoyed the idea of sneaking about, no matter how many times he'd actually done so before. As such, he'd elected to spend the night in a blind spot, huddled up with his scarf just across from his portal 'home', such as it were.

Trying to be somewhat careful about this, he listened to make sure it was still raining, glanced at a nearby clock to see it was almost midnight, and confirmed that the full scope of his powers as Death hadn't returned and that the world wasn't just going to turn green.

That last one was probably unnecessary, but, well, it couldn't hurt to check.

Peace of mind restored, he settled back, just in time to watch the screen in front of him turn itself on.

Well, there was definitely some otherworldly influence there, no doubt about it. The real question was… what to do next?

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Verity: The question asked by everyone who goes off the rails. More or less.

Daichi: Something like that. Next time, we get to see discussion about the Midnight Channel by people who have no clue how it works.