Persona: Spirits In Pixels – Chapter Eight

Meeting A Stranger

Good evening one and all! Hoping for a longer chapter than last time? Well here you go! The poll is still up if anyone else wants to vote, and do take note that the poll will be ENDING SOON, probably at the end of this month, so vote while you can! Although the last chapter was a REALLY short one, thank you everyone who took their time to read it. Enjoy it? If you didn't please tell me in a PM. It would be much appreciated if you could give feedback to make the stories better! Announcements over and now it's time to say...LETS-GT-R-DONE (slight change in catchphrase)...

08/01 - Morning

Despite the long hours of nothing but downpour, the weather hasn't changed at all. The heaviness stayed the same and the same roads which everyone walked across to get to Junes were still flooded with the rainwater. The skies remained dark and grey, rolling in new rainclouds to send out its next large wave of sharp droplets.

Everyone and their soaking coats and jackets were gathered around the usual television, some of them wrapping their arms around themselves, shivering and grinding their teeth as the draft came through the doors of the television department. Though, Rise was lucky to have Yu warm her up with the blushes that he makes her reveal.

"Man..." Kanji spoke, spitting a squirt of rainwater out of his mouth, "...if this rain keeps up, I'm gonna need a new jacket..." Yosuke heard this and took it as an opportunity. "Well there handsome! If a jacket's what you need, we have some that are top-of-the-range..." he spoke with a corny sales assistant tone.

Kanji raised and eyebrow at him, curving his lip with disbelief. "Dude, do you really think I wanna pay a fortune for the crap you have here?" Kanji said with a gruff tone, raising a fist at him afterwards, "And don't call me 'handsome'." Yosuke flinched at his fist, shaking his head to let him know that it won't happen again. "Boys, concentrate!" Naoto ordered, quickly catching both of their attentions with a sharp turn of their heads.

She cleared her throat before turning back to Yu. "So Takeharu Kirijo is the leader of the Kirijo group who died of unknown causes, yet he still appears on the Midnight Channel, correct?" she asked him with her detective tone. "That's right," Yu spoke solemnly, "and the one who's now carrying the baton on is his daughter, Mitsuru Kirijo."

"So, you think that this 'Mitsuru' might be in the TV world?" Chie asked with some understanding to the situation. Yu gave a nod. "It seems to be the case," Yu spoke, "the similarity between Konishi and Takeharu's appearances on the Midnight Channel, is that they both died before they appear on the TV."

He continued his deduction. "The reason that Konishi became a spirit was because Yosuke held a desire for her...so maybe the same thing will happen to Mitsuru...maybe her father has become a spirit...a desire."

"That does make sense." Yukiko commented as she looked up in thought. "So leader, what should we do?" Yosuke asked Yu with respect, getting a friendly smile in return. Yu cleared his throat before saying anything else. "Well...do you guys feel up to it?" Yu asked, hoping that everyone had the rest they never had the night before.

Everyone gave a confident nod to Yu immediately after being asked. He gave a grin before reaching into his pocket for his Teddie glasses. Everyone saw this and copied him, also getting out their glasses. At the same time, they put the glasses on and turned towards the TV. "Let's go..." Yu spoke slowly.

He let everyone go first into the TV one by one before jumping into it himself. But just as he put his foot up onto the table that supported the TV, a figure was seen in the corner of Yu's eye.

He quickly looked round to see who it was, but just like last time, he saw nothing there. "Huh?" He continued to look around the whole TV department before giving up. "I swear there was..." After a while, he shrugged it off and continued climbing into the TV, delving into the many striped patterns that flew by him as he hovered towards the end of the tunnel.

08/01 - Morning - The TV World

As Yu jumped out of the portal, he quickly reacted and managed to land on his two feet after coming out. He stood up straight, only to find that Chie and Yosuke were laid down on the floor, recovering from their attempts to stick their landings. Everyone tried to help them up, but they were all sniggering at the odd position that they were both in, uncontrollable of their silent giggles.

Chie was laid on her back on the floor, rubbing her head in recovery as Yosuke did the same, only that he was on top of her, using his arms to support himself up. They both saw how close each other's faces was with shocked expressions, only making everyone else laugh harder.

"W-What the...! Get off of me!" Chie yelled at Yosuke, giving a swing of her fist afterwards to his face. He instantly rolled off of her, and slowly got up with one hand as he rubbed his face with the other, moaning in pain. Chie was left watching him with blushes reddening her face.

As she quickly got up, they all concentrated on the task at hand. "Okay!" Teddie began with a cheerful tone, already in his bear suit. He turned to Rise. "Rise, do you know where this 'Mitsuru' is?"

"I'm on it!" Rise said with a tone of confidence. She opened her hands to form an elegant blue flame, dancing in, out and between her fingertips. As the tarot card of the Lovers Arcana faded into view, she grabbed it with both hands, causing a sound of breaking glass to call forth her Persona, Kanzeon.

The Persona stood with pride behind its host, bringing its red crown over Rise's eyes. The anxiety built as Rise continued to scan the TV world for the victim's whereabouts, but as she seemed to struggle, expressions of uncertainty were spread out among the group.

Another long while passed and still no answer from Rise. "Is everything okay, Rise?" Yu asked worryingly, having had to witness her expression of struggle for such a period of time. "I know she's here..." Rise spoke with a slightly agitated voice, "...but I can't pinpoint where..."

Long minutes passed before Rise finally gave up, dismissing her Persona with a regrettable look. Yu walked over her and placed her hands on her shoulders, bending down to her level to get a look of her face. "Rise?" Yu asked, getting a weak smile in return. Just standing in front of her seemed to make her feel a bit better.

"I can't find her..." Rise spoke with weakness. Yu comforted her by standing at her side and putting an arm around her waist. "We will...don't you worry." he spoke with a warm smile, giving Rise the confidence she needed as she gave a smile back.

"We can't find her now...so what do we do?" Yukiko asked with a will ready to do anything. Rise stood up straight before giving her answer. "The reason I can't get an idea of where she is, is because I don't have enough information about her," she spoke solemnly, "so we need to ask around Inaba about what Mitsuru is like and what sort of person she is."

"Well..." Yosuke said, fully recovered from his pain, "...I hate to be the annoying one, but that could be a little tricky..." Everyone's head shot towards him with a look of curiosity.

"What do you mean?" asked Yu who was just as curious as everyone. "You know that Minato Arisato case that's been highlighted on the news?" Yosuke began, getting a few head nods in return. Yu was slightly bothered about Yosuke bringing Minato up and hid his expression. Rise could see the slight sadness that lingered in his eyes however.

"He lived in Iwatodai and they said that Mitsuru was a close friend of that guy. Plus, they went to the same school together, so she must be from Iwatodai as well..." Chie looked at him with confusion as did everyone else. "So...what's your point?" she asked him with a slight irritation from minutes ago.

Yosuke rolled his eyes at her remark before giving his point. "Well, she's from Iwatodai... do you think anyone is going to know what she is like, let alone who she is?" Everyone pondered upon what Yosuke was saying and they gave a look of realisation, knowing that it was very true.

"You're absolutely right, Yosuke..." Naoto said to Yosuke, putting a troublesome look on her face. Everyone tried to find an argument against Yosuke's theory, but not one of them said anything.

"But maybe, just in case, we could ask around here first before doing anything else." Teddie cleverly suggested. Yu turned to him and gave him a nod. "Teddie's right, we should find a short way before taking the long one," Yu said with other words than Teddie's, "good thinking, Teddie." As Yu said those words to Teddie, the bear scratched his head in embarrasment. "Why, thank you, Sensei!"

And on that note, everyone left the scene through the TV, back to their world. After passing by the abnormal outlines of TV screens, they jumped carefully out of the TV one by one. Yosuke and Chie took the most care out of everyone to stop the same incident from happening.

After a short while, everyone stepped out of the TV safely and huddled up. "Okay, leader," Kanji turned to Yu, "you call the shots." Yu nodded to Kanji's respect for him with a smile and then collected his thoughts, thinking about what to do. "To make things quicker, we'll split up and ask around Inaba for any information on Mitsuru Kirijo." Yu proposed, looking around the group to find the right people to go to a certain area.

"Chie, Yukiko and Naoto, ask anyone around the Central Shopping District, yeah?" The three nodded with confidence in their stride. Yu then overlooked the others to allocate them elsewhere. "Teddie and Kanji, ask around the Samegawa Flood Plain." They all nodded with smiles to his order. "You got it, Senpai." Kanji said with his chilled tone.

"Rise and Yosuke, you'll be asking around Junes with me." he gave his last order with both hands on Yosuke and Rise's shoulders, getting friendly smiles in return. And with that, everyone set off towards their allocated locations, most of them heading into the unchanging heavy downpour.

Yu, Yosuke and Rise were left in the store to split up, weaving in and out of different departments of the store to try and find any information whatsoever as to Mitsuru's life. But with every asking, no one knew an answer to their questions, and some never even knew her. All attempts were failing and the amount of people to ask that were shopping in Junes were decreasing.

There was almost no luck with finding any information and Yu looked around the store after a quick stop to find no more people to ask. He was on the brink of giving in.

But fortunately, he found one figure in the distance. Yu ran towards the person and then slowed down as he approached him. The person he saw was definitely a male about the same height as him, with slender shoulders and stood still as he looked out of one of the large windows of the store. He was wearing a dark, slim jacket with dark skinny jeans and monochrome sneakers. The hair colour was too hard to see because of the lighting that was set around the store, mixing in with the shadows from outside, but Yu can clearly see that his hair was straight and seemed swept to one side.

"Er...excuse me?" Yu asked for the boy's attention. The boy didn't turn around, keeping his hands in his jacket pockets, but his head was slight turned to indicate that his attention was caught. Yu could just see the corner of his eye. "Sorry to bother you..." Yu added politely.

"Not at all..." the boy spoke. His voice sounded quiet yet somewhat mysterious with a slight politeness. "...you needed something?" he asked with a slightly louder tone. Yu cleared his throat before asking his question for another time out of the many. "This may seem weird to ask but...do you know anything about a girl called 'Mitsuru Kirijo'?" The boy's head quickly gave a small turn, revealing the side of his eye to Yu.

His mouth was opened slightly."Mitsuru?" the boy asked with a solemn look. Yu nodded. "I worked with her one time..." he added, making Yu's eyes grow into a widened stare. "You worked in the family business?" Yu asked.

"Not exactly..." the boy looked into a different direction in reminiscence. He looked out of the window to stare into the rain, collecting his thoughts and memories. "It was more of a...group thing." he seemed to struggle to find the right words.

"Oh...with school?" Yu asked, hoping that he wasn't prying. The boy's head was slightly lowered. "You could say that..." he said, lost in thought. His head was turned back to Yu. "Is that all you need to know?" he asked Yu with politeness in his voice.

"Oh...sorry I'm not done yet." Yu said, feeling apologetic to keep this person waiting. The boy shook his head slowly. "Don't worry about it...ask me anything..." he said friendly.

Yu gave a smile before asking anything else, even though the person couldn't see it. "Do you remember what Mitsuru was like or how others would see her?" the question made the boy seem to ponder for quite a while before he gave his answer. "She was very organised...protective and caring to others...and..." the boy hesitated to say what he was about to say next. But after a sigh, he slowly let the words pass through his lips. "...she was the descendant of someone who made the Shadows a threat to the human race..." Yu was slightly stunned by the words he said.

"Wait...you know about the Shadows?" Yu asked, talking a step forward towards the boy to get a clearer hearing of his answer. A short while passed before the boy spoke again. "She told me about them...why?" he spoke more darkly.

Yu's mind was stuck on the thought that he knew about Shadows, but tried to forget it. He turned his body away from the boy. "N-Nothing..." Yu spoke with nervousness, "but, thank you for the help. It was much appreciated." He then walked away slowly from the person.

"You own a Persona, don't you?" the boy spoke more loudly, clear enough for Yu to hear. Hearing the question, Yu was stopped in his tracks, giving a gasp as he quickly turned back round to him. "What?" Yu asked in a whisper to the boy, trying not to shout over the silence in the store.

The boy's body was turned more sideways, but his facial expressions were very unclear as they were darkened by the shadows of the store lights. "How do you...?" Yu whispered in shock. "The Wild-Card ability..." the boy spoke again, pouring fear into Yu with those familiar words.

After a while of sinking the knowledge in, Yu calmed down. "How do you know about Personas?" he asked with a solemn tone. The boy stood staring at Yu for a moment before giving his answer. "You will know in time..." he said with a lower voice. Yu was lost for words as he stood there, frozen into place.

"Yu!" shouted a familiar voice from a distance behind him. Yu quickly turned round to see that Yosuke and Rise were running towards him. As they approached him, they looked at his expression. "Senpai, are you okay?" Rise asked with worry, "You look like you've seen a ghost..."

"Huh? Um, no...I'm fine." Yu said with a convincing smile to quell Rise's discomfort. "Anyway," Yosuke began, "did you get any info on the victim?" Both Yosuke and Rise seemed hopeful that Yu found something.

Yu smiled with satisfaction. "Actually, I did." Upon hearing those words, Yosuke and Rise sighed with relief, knowing that they didn't have to do another marathon around the store. "Ah, sweet..." Yosuke commented.

"And it was the last person I spoke to," Yu added, "it was a guy just over...huh?" As Yu turned towards the spot which the mysterious boy was standing in, he wasn't there anymore, as if he just vanished out of thin-air. "What person?" Yosuke asked as he tried to look for any other being in sight, which there wasn't.

"Maybe he went home..." Rise suggested, but it wasn't enough to convince Yu, despite him accepting what she said. "Yeah..." Yu breathed heavily, turning away from the spot and walking away in small and slow steps, followed by Rise and Yosuke.

As his two companions passed him, Yu came to a halt to turn his body back around to where the boy conversed with him, letting his last sentence ring and echo around his mind. "You will know in time..." He was then left to walk on with the others, hoping that he will soon cross paths with that boy in the near future.

Shorter than usual, but longer than last time! Well, there is only a few more days left before the 31st, so get voting now before that time comes! Also keep reading and reviewing, and PM me with any feedback or comments you would like to make. Make this story a better one! CYA! And have a great Treat or Treat at Halloween!