April 19th

Woah! OK! That felt pretty good! A satisfied King thought as he stretched, his arms above his head while craning his neck. Despite all the damage he took yesterday, he felt much better today. Whether that was due to his persona's healing or simply knowing he has someone he can rely on, either way he greatly appreciated how things were turning out.

"Hey!" King heard as he saw Saki jogging to catch up to him. He stopped she reached him, slightly holding a hand over her chest a bit winded. She laughed the tiredness away greeting him with a small smile. "Morning!"

"Morning Senpai, you're sure in a good mood today huh?" King asked a bit teasingly. She nodded as they matched each other's pace to school.

"Yeah, it feels like a giant burden has been lifted. How are you feeling?"

"I feel a lot better." King gave her a thumbs up before scratching his cheek. "Uh… Thanks again for yesterday."

"I already told you to just call it even." Saki waved him off. " I mean you saw apart of me I didn't want to show anyone." The heat rose to her face as she recalled everything her shadow said to them. "A-anyway, I can't just ignore this. Amagi will go through the same thing if we don't do anything. She huff slightly before noticing the grin King was given. "W-what?"

King snickered before twiddling with his dreadlocks. "S-sorry, It's just." You're so different from what I expected. "You're looking pretty cool right now."

Saki blinked before smiling. "Well you know, I try." They both share a laugh ignoring the stares of the passing students. "You're a weird guy, but I'm glad you were the one who saw that side of me. Thanks. Just know you count on me."

"Again with being a weird guy." King pouted trying to look upset but failing. "Well you're not wrong." He crossed his arms while tilting his head. The chime of the bell caught their attention. "Oh crap! If I'm late, King Moron is gonna lay into me! Uh I'm going on ahead!" King waved her off as he booked it through the crowd of the other students. Saki just watched as he weaved through every person, hearing a him shouting a few apologies to the ones he bumped into.

Saki still wasn't sure what to think of him. Apart of her still couldn't help but think he's just acting.

"Hey watch it!" A male student shouted when King collided into him, almost knocking each other over.

"My bad! Sorry!" King sputtered as he regained his balanced and ran into the front doors. She saw the student grumble before shaking her head.

But Something just tells me he's just a dork.

Made it! King thought as he walked towards his seat, steadily trying to catch his breath from that brief exercise. He sat down when he suddenly felt a pair of eyes on him. He glanced to the right, noticing it was Yosuke who just as quickly shifted back to Yu. That… wasn't my imagination right? Yosuke was staring at me right?

So it would seem. Zetsubo replied. Perhaps… he feels threaten by thou presence. Zetsubo added as King felt the mischief in his words.

What are you… King started before the thought of Yosuke seeing him and Saki walking together crossed his mind. He held back a laugh as he looked to the window to cover his smile. A-ah I could see why. With everything going on, I completely forget about that! You think now that she's alive, they could get together?!

Zetsubo could only cough in response.

Geez… at least give the man a chance. King cringed.

Rather then focusing on his possible love life, perhaps thou should focus on her instead? Zetsubo remarked as King glanced at Aika, reading a book. As always, she made his face feel hotter from presence alone. King hummed as he looked back out the window. Annoyed as he was, his persona had a point. He didn't have anymore time to dwell on it as Moorka came in and yapped away. At some point during the lecture he glanced at Chie, downcast, nothing like the energetic girl he once knew.

Just wait a little longer, I'll clear the way for you guys…

(Yuki Koyanagi- Cross Colors)

The final bell rung, signaling the end of the school day. King wasted no time packing up his things. The faster he got to the rooftop, the faster they could rescue Yukiko. He heard Nami chuckled as she cross her arms and leaned towards him.

"My aren't you in a hurry." She said with a smile as King side eyed her. His irritation only increased as her smile widen. "Did you know, I joined a club today?"

"Huh?!" King's eyes widened as he shifted his body toward her. "What made you do that?" he asked with genuine curiosity.

She chuckled again. "My aren't you curious. Just a second ago you had no interest in me. I simply decided that if I'm going to watch you, I might as well experience a high school girl's life first hand."

"So it's just another experiment to you." King muttered before shrugging. "Well you have fun with that, later." He quickly made his way out.

"Good luck Shimi-san." Nami sing sang earning a twitch from him.

King took a deep breath hoping to clear the frustration away. No point in getting upset over her, right now I need to focus on one thing. Despite that, he still wanted to make sure they were ready. He took out as he made his way downstairs.

KS: Hey I'm gonna make a quick stop by the Central District. I wanna make sure we're prepared for anything.

SK: Alright! I do have some painkillers and bandages if those help.

KS: Oh wow you thought ahead, you're pretty reliable. Still you'll need a weapon. You won't always be able to rely on your Persona.

SK: …Actually.

SK: I have a weapon.

King had to squint to see if he read that right.

KS: But… when did you?

SK: You see…

"You brought them with you?!"

So that might've been louder then King intended but luckily, no one was up on the rooftop again. Saki was sitting on the air conditioner, an assortment of knives and darts on her lap. She grinned sheepishly trying to ignore the stern glare she was receiving.

"I mean I appreciate how dedicated you are but seriously?" King scolded. "How'd you even hide those throughout the day?" He saw as her face become a bit more red. "You know what, it's fine I don't wanna know." He scratched his cheek.

"Well what was I supposed to do?! I don't have a magical fog where I can store things!"

"Alright Alright. I'm sorry. Let's just go already." King responded hoping to just sweep this moment passed them. Putting on the glove he snapped, melding them into the cloud.

King managed to land on his feet this time. The blissful feeling ending rather quickly when Saki body slams him, the ground ever so lovingly welcoming his face. He sighs as he lifts his face a bit. Maybe one day… He turns his head to see Saki sitting right on top of him. She quickly removes herself from him as she dusts herself off.

These moments are reminding me of some of thou romance novels. Zetsubo snickered.

Hey! Don't you start that again! Seriously he would appreciate if the gods or goddess in this case would stop making these awkward situations. He sighed, letting his head fall. Eyebrows rose as he noticed something different Wait a minute… the platform! The platform indeed changed a bit from before. What was once a silhouette that was back to back with King as well as one of the portraits, was filled in with Zetsubo and Saki respectively. It… filled in the blanks? Does that mean there's three more people who get involved In all this? He wondered seeing as the other portraits were still blacked out. He flinched as he felt a hand on his shoulder.

"You alright?" Saki asked. He saw the brief look of concern in her eyes. " You can't go all quiet on me now, I'll get nervous." She tried to say it as a joke but the impact didn't land. Still, it was enough to shake King out of his thoughts.

"Sorry! I was just surprised." King quickly apologized. He turned towards Yukiko's platform. "Alright let's go."

The two made it the entrance of the twisted Inn. However, not only were they greeted by the static faced people, they also saw shadows roaming about the halls. Small blobs crawling along the floor and some floating around in the form of ghosts.

"Well… this is a thing." King said with a blank expression. Was this the Inn's way of saying that the tutorial was over? Well he still had someone to teach as he glanced over to Saki, who despite showing such bravado earlier couldn't hide the nervousness on her face. "Don't worry Senpai, it'll be ok" He gave her a thumbs up hoping it would calm her nerves.

"Alright… Alright." She said between each breath. "I'm ready. So what do we do first?" King hums for a second.

"Well first!" King points a finger at the shadow floating around in front of them in the form of a gun. "We gotta get you some experience! " He says as excitedly as he can, a toothy grin forming. Hopefully going into this with confidence will help her. "I doubt any of these guys are as a strong as that stupid bird so we can handle it!"

"Right…" Saki replied clearly not convinced. But she shook the feeling off, she told herself she would change and she won't back out now. She took a deep breath as she felt the card forming in front of her. Fujin was ready and so was she.

"You look more relaxed now." King grinned, scratching his cheek before holding his card out in his hand. "Come on Zetsubo!" he crushed the card revealing the long caped ice warrior. Saki stared in awe. "Don't stare too hard. He might look cool, but he's kind of a goof." King said proudly only to get bopped on the head by him. "That kinda hurt you know!" he groaned rubbing his head, Saki covered her mouth holding back a smile.

He really is just a dork.

"Alright enough messing around. Let's do it Senpai!" King sent Zetsubo forward, slashing the ghost like shadow as it split into three hands, two black hands and a white one.

(Jabberloop- LowBit Funk)

The three hands danced around on their fingers, an aura of irritation emitting from them as King and Saki got into their battle stances.

"Of course you guys would be back…" King grimaced before perking up. He had to stay confident for Saki right now. " Alright Zetsubo hit the black hand with bufu!" The Izanagi did just that, spewing out an icy mist towards the hand that backed away in fear before the white hands came and took the blow for them, slowly becoming frozen in the process.

"They!..." Saki gasped, surprised that these creatures would go out of their way to protect each other. As far as she was concerned, these things only cared about killing people. She glanced at King who simply sighed while shrugging.

"Well this would be a good time to talk about weaknesses and strengths." King spoke as they saw the hands break out. "So there are some shadows that can take attacks better than others. For example those hands are really strong against Ice." He points to the black hand who was giving fist bumps to the other two. "That one on the other hand… no pun intended isn't so lucky.

The two white hands looked towards King and leapt at him and quickly recalled his persona to block one of the hands while blocking the other with his wooden blade. King recoiled a bit but managed to push it back and swing at it, grazing one of it's fingers as it jumped back. Meanwhile, Zetsubo also pushed the other white hand back and grabbed it. It struggled under his grip, desperately using it's thumb and pinky to escape. The black hand in turned attempted to save their friend by launching a fireball at him, but Zetsubo stood his ground.

Uh… What are you doing?

Just watch. With the hand holding the shadow, he held it out, flames engulfing both them as the white hand gurgled before being reduced to ash.

"Shimi-kun!" Saki cried out as she watched him kneel and clutch his left hand.

"Motherfu!..." King hissed out in pain due to the burning sensation being transferred over. At least tell me what you were planning so I can brace for it next time! "Don't worry about me, focus on the black hand! I'll take care of the other white one!" King grunted as said hand rushed at him again.

Saki watched as the hand attacked King with what looked like a kick, King rolling away and standing up, sword behind his back prepared for it's next attack, not noticing that the black hand was aiming at him. She couldn't just keep watching anymore. Pulling out a knife and with surprising accuracy, she flicked it right at it's middle finger. The black hand just barely noticed as dodged, the blade grazing its thumb it the process. It turned to her, now finding her to be a nuisance fixed itself into a snapping position. Saki stood adamant, a blue card forming in front of her.

"Blow it away Fujin!" She bellowed, slashing the card as a bright light took over the room. King glanced for a second, catching a glimpse of the wind goddess and smirking before returning his attention to the white hand. The black hand snapped, releasing the fireball as Fujin swung her bag of wind, slicing winds clashing with flames causing a small explosion. Saki looked at her persona before nodding at each other as the smoke began to clear.

The black hand stared at the smoke, deciding if should shoot again before knives and darts flew out. It twisted out of the way only to run into Fujin, a dark ball of energy forming out of her hands. Unable to change directions, it took the attack head on as the dark energy tore it's body apart. It was blown back a few feet and struggled to stand only for another ball to engulf it instantly. It cried out before disappearing.

King blankly stared at Fujin's brutality as Zetsubo finished off the other white hand. Remind me to never piss her off. He held out his hands like a camera, watching Fujin return to Saki's side, the Senpai with a hand on her hip flipping her hair behind hers. The cool elegant and reliable type, a foil to a goof like me.

"Hey what are you doing?" Saki questioning the stance of the boy.

"Nothing!" King grinned putting his hands down. "I couldn't even give you a full on tutorial but look at you! Already wiping shadows out easily. You're really reliable!" King praised not noticing the small pink rising on her cheeks. "So how do you feel now?" he asked even though he was sure of the answer. She nodded, turning towards the hall that would lead to the the hot springs.

There were a few more shadows in the way, most of them being hands while some of them being those balls with long tongues. The duo were getting more confident working with their personas as well as each other as they dealt with each threat accordingly. King sigh in relief, acknowledging how much easier these fights were with another person, watching as his partner finished off another shadow.

"Hey Senpai, how are you so good at that?" That being her the knives that were currently lodged in the shadows decaying body.

"My family used to play darts a lot, and It became something I liked doing whenever I wanted to relax." She replied heading to pick them up. "...I never thought I'd be using them for something like this." A sheepish smile graced her lips. King hummed as he nodded, once again reminding himself not to piss her off.

The made it to the hallway leading to the hot spring room. To Kings relief, the lady wasn't standing in the away anymore. Walking over he noticed that it there was no door, in fact there was stairs leading down somewhere. The walls held dimly lit candles but passed that he couldn't see any further.

"I was expecting another room not some stairs. Wonder where it leads." King wondered aloud before heading down. Saki gestures him forward saying there's point in thinking about it. As they walk and walk the only sounds being the creaking of the wooden boards echoing. Further down they noticed some steam surrounding them. King rushed on ahead, making out the area in front of him. "Woah…"

(Another place- Hiroshima- Topic)

Gone was the medium size hot spring of the Amagi Inn and in place was a mass landscape, filled to the brim of four, no five? There might be more but there were multiple hot springs laying about the smooth cobble floor, each about the same size or a bit small then the spring he knew. As he expected, they patches of static were worse here, along the floors and walls even in water themselves.

"Huh?! What is all this?!" Saki gazes out in shock. "Why is this place so huge?!" She had no time to ponder as a bunch of laughter rang out across the springs. King and Saki looked around as a man spoke.

"Man that Yukiko sure is beautiful. What I wouldn't do to get with that."

"Haha! You plan on taking the Amagi challenge?"

"Is that what they're calling it nowadays? Ha! Sure, I'm game!"

Oh so it really did mean that. Not that King was thinking it was anything actually pure but that pretty much confirmed it for him. Saki simply had a disgusted look on her face as they started hearing various boys attempt to "ask" Yukiko out.

"Yukiko if you aren't doing anything after school, would you like to go somewhere with me?"

"A-amagi Chan if you're not doing anything this Sunday…"

"Hey Yuki-chan why not stay around…"

Yuki-chan, Amagi- Chan, Amagi challenge this, Amagi challenge that!

I'm sick of it all!

If it wasn't for this damn Inn, no one would even look my way!

Now everyone just looks at me like a prize to win.

Even…

"…Damn." It was all King could say. What else could be said about all that? She's been dealing with it since birth. As a gamer, you got to see a very small part of it but here? She had to deal with it possibly everyday since growing into the woman she is now.

Amagi…" Saki muttered. Is this what she's been dealing with for so long? Saki always thought that Yukiko had a good life, friends, family and career before even going to college and admittedly resented her a bit. To hear all this, it was almost no different from the rumors that she herself dealt with when she started working for Junes. "Shimi-kun! Stop standing around!" She didn't mean to snap at him but her resolve to save Yukiko only increased.

"You right! Alright let's-" King couldn't finish as the water splashed his pants. "Ah! Shit that's hot!" He screamed, backing away from one of the springs clutching his leg. Saki rushed over to make sure he was ok, the boy already calling Zetsubo to soothe the pain before inspecting one of the springs. Upon closer inspection, the water in them were bubbling rather rapidly.

"Hot springs? More like boiling. Let's try to move carefully."

The two carefully walked around, doing their best to not to get close to any of the splashing water. It was a little hard seeing through all the steam but they managed before hitting a dead end. In front of them were two flames adjacent horizontally to each other. Behind those was another spring, unlike the others that were circular, this one was rectangular from wall to wall, gushing out water that they were sure of was even hotter then the other springs. If that wasn't even the steam rising from this spring was so thick, they couldn't see anything up ahead.

Saki considered using Fujin, but could feel how hot the steam was from here. She wasn't about to subject herself to getting burned. "A dead end." She sighed.

"Nah, usually in situations like these, it means there's some puzzle we have to solve." King shrugged while inspecting the floor to see if there's anything out of place. Although when they were rescuing people, wasn't it just a dungeon crawler? He pondered. Maybe he was just a special case.

I'm sensing something from the flames. Zetsubo notes as King decided to look at the flames. Indeed they were off as a dark flame occasionally flickered in them.

Oh, my gamer senses are rubbing off on you. Nice find! "Senpai, over here!" King waved her over before pointing at the flames. " I think these might have something to do with it."

"Maybe our personas can blow them out?" Saki suggested as King grinned.

"I like the way you think!" King called his persona out and wasted no time in using his ice breath on the flames. The dark part of the flames got pushed out, lingering for a bit before disappearing. A small light sparkled around the flames, looking much brighter than before. They noticed the spring's steam was less intense than before, they still couldn't see over it but the heat dialed down a bit. "Well I'm glad it's that simple, thought we would've had to find some holy water or something." King said messing with his dreadlocks.

Saki chortled in agreement. "Still, that means there's a few more flames around." King let out a disgusted sound.

"Back tracking, the bane of wasting my time." He sighed before shrugging. "Ah well, let's go Senpai."

They scoured around, fighting shadows and finding multiple flames to put out, some of them hiding behind the steam of the springs themselves. Putting them out, they noticed the steam getting less and less visible. Hell, some of the springs themselves lost all water, revealing a treasure chest at the bottom.

"Treasure chests?" Saki was a bit dumbfounded as King leapt at the chest, his gamer side coming out. "This is like those games Naoki plays."

"Pain aside, It honestly is Senpai!"He quickly pointed out, his eyes lighting up even more as he popped the chest opened. Inside was a wooden sword in the shape of a katana, a brown almost red color. King took it, swing it a couple of times noting how easily it cut through the air compared to his current one. "Now this is a katana!" King admittedly swooned as he swung it around a bit more.

…Did you just-

"Alright let's go find the rest of those flames!" King quickly spoke hoping to try out his new blade on any shadow that opposed them. Saki just followed him whilst shaking her head.

To his dismay, they never found any shadows only more flames to put out. By purifying another flame, the steam completely dispersed. They could make out the entire room and what's more the hot springs weren't scalding, in fact it wasn't even hot, lukewarm at best.

"Hey we did it! Let's head back!" King cheered as they ran back. As they hoped the long spring was just like the others. Looking across, they saw another two more springs. One of them was far off to the left and another one was passed the long spring, this one much bigger in circular shape. Both still retained the problems of the heavy steam, but they figured they'd worry about that when the time comes. When they passed over they heard something. They looked around but saw nothing. It got a bit louder as they walked closer towards the middle spring.

Is someone… crying?

Please… save me.

You always do…

I know you'll save me…

It's coming from the other side!" Saki pointed out. With a nod they ran around the spring, coming across a two figures, both wearing a pink kimono. One was laid flat on her back while the other was kneeling over her, hands to her face. They both froze at who it was.

It's Yukiko!

They both ran towards the two, stopping right in front of them, unsure of what to do next. No one moved as "Yukiko" kept crying.

"W-what do we do now?" Saki asked glancing between the two Yukis and King.

"I… I don't know!" King admitted. He didn't even expect to run into Yukiko again, he was just expecting a big shadow that was causing all the static. He held out a hand towards the Yukikos, not really sure what else to do when his body jerked forward. "What the?" The cloud on his glove hand was pulling itself towards the two Yukis. King tried to pull back but the glove was prepared to reach out to them.

"What are you doing?!" Saki shouted out to him.

"I honestly have no idea!" King shouted back as the glove pulled him right to "Yukiko". They starred, at least that's what he assumed as he nervously laughed.

A-are you here to save me?

King blinked as "Yukiko" continued to stare at him. After a bit he nodded, a wry grin gracing his lips. "Yeah, I want to help you. He figured he'll just let the glove do its job. The glove guided him to Yukiko's chest before "Yukiko" screeched. King reeled back covering his ears as she started sobbing even harder.

You're not here to save me!

You want me just like everyone else.

No! Only she can save me!

A roar echoed across the room as King got blown back, luckily begin caught by Fujin as the duo looked at the pair of red eyes that sprawn behind "Yukiko". The steam cleared around it, the beast roaring again as it looked down at the two persona users. It was a dragon… A ten foot slim dragon sporting light brown hair and a green track jacket to cover the upper half of its body.

My dragon prince!

The dragon roared again as the duo quickly separated and go into their stances. King calling out Zetsubo, as the two personas began to stare the beast down. King frowned as he prepared to do whatever he could to take this beast down but still…

Why can't it ever just be easy?!