04/19

Two hours before The Dark Hour

"This is my backup?" Makoto can't hide the derision leaking from his voice like a faucet. He gestures to the mannequin-like woman, formed from alloyed metal and copper wires. Its bright blue eyes, if he can even call them that, follow the waving motions he makes with his hand in front of her face with a mechanical buzz, like a camera focusing on a landscape. Makoto lets out a sharp grunt as he pushes away from the machine and looks to Kirijo for answers. "Are you messing with me?"

The girl shakes her head at his lack of imagination. "Aigis. State your directive."

Immediately upon hearing an order, the blonde-haired Robo-woman stands at attention, straightening its already immaculate posture and raising its neck in the air. Makoto gets a good look at the circuitry beneath. A webbing of internal wiring and steel framing holds the fake mask that makes up what one would consider a pretty life-like face atop its chassis. It doesn't set off any alarms in his head when gazing upon it, no 'uncanny-valley' vibes.

From its face alone, one would be able to assume it's just a regular high school girl. All they'd have to do, however, is look down and see the flat feet, frayed aramid torso exposing everything that should be armoured and the metal joints linking everything together.

What a joke. This thing looks ready to fall apart at the seams.

"I am ASW unit: twenty-three. Codename; Aigis." Its voice sounds real too. "Prime directive; The destruction of the entity known as: Death. Secondary directive; The destruction of the Dark Hour. Was my summary sufficient?"

"Death?" Makoto twists his face in confusion and looks over to Mitsuru. The girl shrugs.

"We don't know what that means. She's said it since we've had her."

He doesn't see any point in continuing that train of vague answers. "What does ASW mean?"

"A.S.W. Anti-Shadow-Suppression-Weapon." Aigis answers before Mitsuru can open her mouth.

"There's one more 'S' in there, though." Makoto notices. "A.S.S.W? Ass-W?"

"The acronym was enough to deem the Suppression part silent by the Krijo Group's Chief Engineers," Aigis says without a change of expression on its face. It's eerie.

So the Kirijo Group has enough influence to make an android of this calibre. That's interesting.

Very interesting. What else do they have hidden?

"Are you done being childish?" He shifts his gaze to Kirijo, standing off to the side, looking bright red and offended. "Please consider your language, Yuki."

"What? I said ass." He confusedly replies. If possible, she turns a shade darker and shuffles her feet as she looks off to the side. "Are you serious?"

"It is uncouth!" The girl flashes her crimson face back to him and glares. "Have you no shame?!"

"Jeez," He sighs before deciding to ignore her altogether. Makoto gets close to the robot, checking out her servos and looking at the exposed gears. "If it goes out like this, it's gonna get shredded. Is there any plating we can strap on it?"

"Negative," Aigis replies instead of Mitsuru. "My aramid coating has degraded through the years of disuse, and my cobalt plating has been stripped. While my circuitry and delicate machinery are exposed, I can promise you that I am still capable of performing my duty."

"Hm." Makoto hums, gazing inscrutably at the machine. "What good is a promise from a hunk of steel?"

"Yuki—!" Mitsuru tries before getting interrupted.

"Understood," Aigis calls out without an ounce of emotion. Yet another telltale sign that it's simply a piece of equipment. "My duties will be purely navigational in nature until I am approved for active combat duty." it spins on its toeless foot and vacates the empty living room Makoto and Mitsuru have set up for use. Before exiting through the back, it looks over its shoulder and peers its bright baby-blue 'eyes' straight into Makoto's deadpan stare. "However, I am not steel. My components are a tungsten-carbide alloy."

Makoto can't reply before the robot leaves. He chuffs, but it's a little more mirthful than chastising.

"Touché." He turns back to Mitsuru, watching the interaction from beside the seating area with interest. "We got a coffee maker or something?"

"Why didn't you nap like I recommended?"

"Couldn't." He shrugs, stalking over to the kitchen and rummaging through the cabinets. Kirijo doesn't say anything, but judging by the passing glances she tosses his way and the subtle tapping of her foot, she wants to say something. With a sigh, Makoto relents. "What?"

"Was it…" She shouts like a bursting dam as her question shoots out without hesitation. "Was it nightmares? You mentioned not being able to sleep, even in the past."

"What do you care?" He asks without heat, but definitely some measure of unease considering the level of heightened aggression Kirijo has shot his way in the short time he's known her.

She scoffs, flipping the long tendrils of her crimson hair. "I care about everyone in this club. Whatever troubles ail you matter to me."

That forces an exhale of breath, similar to a laugh, but not quite forceful enough to really call it one. His head falls, mid-search with his hands still clasping the cupboard handles. "Sure. But no, not nightmares."

"Then what kept you up? Sleep is important for the kind of work we do."

"Ugh," he groans, reaching behind a few pots and pans to grab something he assumes to be the coffee maker he's looking for. "Spare me the preaching. I was excited, that's it."

Kirijo looks almost ready to argue before fully comprehending what he said. Her face twists in offended rage, then confusion. "Excited?"

Makoto grunts as he pulls out a kettle, not the machine he wanted. He sighs, putting it back and moving to the next set of cupboards. "I was basically bouncing in bed. There's no way I'd be able to sleep."

The girl stares at him. A strange expression Makoto can't quite grasp stretches like a rubber mask across her face. It flip-flops from uncomfortable to confused at the drop of a hat. Then, she speaks.

"You were," She pauses, twisting her lips as she tries to parse whatever feelings his comment drew up. "Excited? And that kept you awake?"

"Yep," Makoto replies without hinting at anything remotely close to emotion. Pure apathy. "I couldn't calm down."

Mitsuru looks at him like he's grown an extra head. Is it really so hard to imagine him excited? Makoto thinks about that for a second, imagining himself from her perspective vibrating from excitement with his blank face.

Honestly, he doesn't see what the issue is. Kirijo's just being dramatic.

"Aha!" He calls aloud, making the girl jump at his sudden exclamation. Without a smile or even a whisper of what could be a grin, he pulls out a coffee maker. "Found it."

Kirijo seems to have reached her limit as her hand reaches over and grips the countertop. "Yuki—"

"Yo!" A new voice breaks into the fray. Makoto immediately shoots his dead gaze toward the stairwell, where a boy in a ball cap, clad in cargo shorts and a tank top, juts out his goateed face into the kitchen. "I— Woah."

He freezes under Makoto's stare, realizing he has entered into an already running conversation. Makoto, in retaliation, points his finger at the new boy and looks over at Mitsuru. "Who the hell is he?"

"Uh," Her voice wavers a bit, no doubt caught just as off guard as the new boy. She clears her throat with a cough, holding her fist to her mouth. "Yuki, Iori. Iori, Yuki. He's now our newest member of SEES."

Makoto sighs and flicks his gaze away from the out-of-place Iori, back to Mitsuru with a smouldering spark behind his cold eyes. "And when were you planning on telling me there'd be another one I have to watch out for?"

Before Kirijo can respond, Iori jumps in with an almost arrogant swagger in his step as he walks into the kitchen proper. "Watch out for me? Please. I handled myself just fine when Sanada-Senpai picked me up. Maybe you'd have to watch out for the girls, but not me."

Silence follows after that exclamation. Neither Makoto nor Mitsuru continue the conversation, as Iori begins to crack his overconfident facade and shrink when nobody responds.

Makoto sighs again, returning to his coffee maker mission and looking for an outlet.

"Right." He says with his back turned, shifting his attention to Mitsuru once more. "You gonna keep me in the dark the whole time we work together? Now I got some dude I don't even know living in the same dorm as me, and I'm supposed to protect him." He scoffs, finding himself more upset at this outcome than he realized. "Sweet gig, Kirijo. Glad to be a part of the team, Kirijo."

Once again, before Mitsuru can say a word, Iori steals the spotlight. She's getting increasingly miffed every time this guy opens his mouth.

"B-but we did meet, Yuki-Senpai." Iori rubs the back of his capped head. "Remember? Ko-Tan… introduced us…?"

"No, we didn't." Makoto immediately replies. "I don't know anyone named Ko-Tan."

"W-huh?" Iori offers one last time before Makoto decides to ignore him altogether. No offence to the guy, but he really isn't interesting.

"What's the game plan for tonight?"

Mitsuru closes her eyes and shakes her head before stating her goal. She must have been more ticked off than he thought.

"Shiomi, Takeba and Iori will infiltrate Tartarus tonight while you scout out Paulownia and the surrounding area." The girl leans against the counter, crossing her arms as she runs through everything. "Shiomi will run them through the basics of fighting Shadows."

"Tartarus? They're going underground?" Makoto quirks his head before continuing. "I thought Takeba-San was pretty in the know already?"

"Tartarus is a Shadow nest that takes the form of a daunting tower during the Dark Hour. By day, it's Gekkoukan. Takeba, while a member longer than you and Iori, hasn't been on the team long. Her first encounter with a Shadow was the one on the roof." She then grimaces, tightening her grip on her elbows. "Still, she struggled to properly summon."

"Wait, wait," Makoto finds himself stuck on something she said earlier, unable to move forward. "You said it's a 'Shadow Nest?' And you're sending me to scope out Paulownia? What the hell, Kirijo?"

"You agreed to the job, Yuki." Mitsuru sharply retorts, speaking through clenched teeth and harsh glare. "You know what you're signing up for, and I'd appreciate it if you kept it under wraps around our Kouhai, understood?"

"Oh, this is bullshit, and you know it—"

"Hey, so how come he's got a secret job?" Iori jumps in with jealousy leaking into every word. "First Ko-Tan's automatically put in place as field leader, and now he gets to be on top secret missions? C'mon!"

"When the hell am I gonna meet this Ko-Tan?"

"Enough!" Kirijo seems to have reached her limit, stomping her foot and shouting with a cold wind emanating from her lithe body. "Are you both children?! I am not going to stand here and listen to you both complain! You have your jobs, do them!" With her words and thoughts spoken, she turns on her heel and stalks away, back toward the stairwell. "Be ready for the Dark Hour."

Silence follows after that as Makoto begins to brew his coffee. It putters for a second after pouring in some grounds he found alongside the machine, and with a filter placed in first, he slides in the siphon and lets it brew. Makoto doesn't interact with the other boy in the room, much to his assumed chagrin. Iori clicks his teeth, sighs and saunters off toward the seating area, clicking on the TV with his foot.

"Lame." Makoto hears Iori groan while watching the brown liquid fill its glass pot. Past the sputtering and pouring drink, he overhears some television show spew out its jingle. Iori must be just as bored as he is.

"Why the hell did I even agree to do this?" He continues his ministrations with a shake of his head, grabbing a coffee cup, getting sugar and some milk from the fridge, when it suddenly hits him. "Oh! Ko-Tan! Kotone. Huh."

—

Makoto climbs his way up the third flight of stairs, nursing his fourth cup of lukewarm coffee. However, upon reaching the third floor, he bumps into a more petite and stumbly body.

"Oof!" Kotone grunts, trying to catch her balance by waving out her arms but failing and falling to the ground with a thud on her butt. "Heeeey~! Where're you — ugh — you goin'?"

Makoto grimaces as he watches her fall, mainly because she made his drink spill all over the place. He moves to pick her back up but immediately catches a whiff of that familiar scent he remembers when they met.

It's sour. Harsh. Powerful. Stale with an after-stench of hand sanitizer.

He grimaces, straightening out and staring down at the red-cheeked fem-fatale, meeting his gaze with a giggly smile and hazy eyelids from the carpeted floor.

"Are—are you drunk?"

She brings her finger to her plump lips, fumbling it against the skin with an irritatingly simple yet fudged motion. "Shhhh~! Don't tell on me!"

"You gotta be kidding me. Do you have any idea what might happen if someone catches you?"

"Hehe~!" She giggles some more, curling up in Makoto's eyes, seductively on the floor as she gets more comfortably seated on the plush green carpet. She bats her eyelashes at him, angling her face downward. Why is this doing something to him? "I was lookin' for you! Only…" She pauses, mumbling something incoherently under her breath before returning to a standard octave. "Only you can catch me. Just—Just like when we were kids! It's faaaaate, To-Chaaaan!"

Makoto's lips tighten into a line at her emphasis on the letter A. "God, you're a mess. Get up."

"A pretty mess?"

"Get up."

She throws her head back, splays out her tight-clad legs and puts out her arms. "Carry me~!"

Makoto's patience, which is insubstantial already, runs dry. "Shiomi, get up before I pour the rest of my coffee on your stupid drunk face." The girl boos. "Now."

She groans, pushing herself up shakily to her feet. "So serious…"

There's building indignation within the pit of his stomach, stemming in some way or another from Kotone's new attitude. He's irritated, finding himself angry for some reason. Makoto doesn't understand why. He never gets angry.

Mouthy, sure. But never angry. This girl does things to him he's not sure he likes.

"Shut up." He spits, surprising himself again at the emotion he's not used to pouring out. "C'mon. We're cleaning your dumbass up."

"Don't be so mean~" the girl whines, stumbling past him, when he grabs her shoulder and leads her back down the stairs. "What's wrong with wanting to unwind every now and then?"

Makoto feels his lips twist. "The cops and Kirijo can probably find something wrong with that. I personally don't give much of a crap." They reach the second floor, and he leads her toward the hall where the male dorms are.

"Pshh!" Kotone scoffs. "Who cares?! I like it!"

When Makoto doesn't respond, she starts to actually get a look at her surroundings. "Where… where are we going?"

"You're supposed to be the leader." He glares down at the bubbly girl. "Have a little class. We're going to my room and cleaning you up."

"Ohh, and it's my—*hic*—my responsibility, huh? I didn't ask to be field leader. I just had experience~!" She giggles after her hiccup, looking over her shoulder with shadowed eyes at Makoto. "Y'know, taking a girl to your room under the pre…pretensh." Kotone shakes her head at the obvious flubbing of the word. "Pretence of cleaning her up kinda gives off the opposite impression. You care so much."

"Sure," Makoto replies coldly as they near his door. He reaches into his shirt for the lanyard he bought, while Kotone laughs arily to herself with her hands on her blushing cheeks.

"I've never been in a boy's room before!"

So much for experience~!

"Shut up!" Makoto hisses through clenched teeth, unlocking the door and pushing the wobbly girl inside. He takes a breath before following, only to be caught red-handed.

"Uh, what…?" A voice speaks up from across the hall. When Makoto turns to face it, he's met by Akihiko, shirtless with a towel around his neck and peeking his body out his door curiously. "You guys totally got something going on, huh?"

"Not a word, Sanada." He points at the scarily ripped boy. Seriously, the guy's shredded. Maybe Makoto should go to the gym with him. "Her shower isn't working. She's just borrowing mine."

Why the shit is he lying for her now?!

"Uh-huh." The boxer grins, crossing his arms and leaning on his door frame. "My lips are sealed, bud. Be good to her, okay?"

"Piss off." Makoto slams the door shut with his back and falls to his butt with a groan. "This is great. Just amazing."

A gasp cuts through any self-immolation reckoning throughout Makoto's soul, making him lift his head at the sudden outcry. He spies Kotone leaning across his bed and reaching for the record collection he'd so neatly laid out from A-Z.

"You like Lotus Juice?!" She says as he jumps to his feet. "No way! Me too!"

He runs over, jumping atop her and desperately trying to wrench away the LP from her grubby, greasy, drunk hands. "Don't touch! You'll ruin the lining!"

Still atop the substantially smaller girl, Makoto gently places the blue-coloured album right back between Kanye and MF DOOM. After immediately replacing the volumes, he sighs in relief, knowing that they're all where they should be.

Call him a perfectionist, but these things are expensive. He won't let some idiot ruin his collection.

"So—urgh!" She grunts beneath him, twisting and writhing beneath his torso to get more comfortable. "You're into hip-hop? I only really like Lotus Juice. Pop-punk is more my style. Green Day got me through Middle School."

"Really?" He asks, surprised. "I had you pegged for a Weezer fan."

"I don't know if I should be offended by that." The girl remarks with a confused laugh. "Coming Clean is just so darn relatable, y'know? I used to play it on repeat 24/7."

"Yeah, Dookie is a great album." He nods along with her statement. "I've wanted to get a record, but I can never find it anywhere."

Shit, this is the last thing Makoto expected to be doing right now. She's a music fan. Not just one of those listeners who like the songs or the band/artist, but the music.

A girl after his own heart.

Kotone groans out, but not from his weight. Suddenly, he realizes he's still on top of her. "Ugh! I wanna get a record player so bad! They're too expensive!"

Makoto scrambles off Kotone, finding himself hot in the face. His cheeks burn with an unfamiliar heat as he stumbles away.

"What, do I stink?" She peeks over her shoulder and gives herself a test sniff. She grimaces. "So what other music do you like? This is the first time I've met someone else as into it as I am."

"D-depends on the mood." Makoto stutters, winces and clears his throat, then continues. "That's not important. You still need to sober up, Kotone."

He realizes after saying it that he fucked up. The girl turns her head slowly, like that girl from the ring. A slow smile stretches across her face while her eyes squint deeply as she catches him right within her weaved web.

Makoto is frozen stiff. His face is a carved statue of shock at his own carelessness. He's dug his grave; now, he must lie within it.

"Hoh~?" Kotone puts her palm up to her mouth. "Kotone? Did I hear that right? We're on 'first name basis now?'"

He scowls, marches over to the bathroom door, noticeably hiding his face from the girl seated atop the bed, and aggressively pats at the wood partition.

"Shower! Now!"

04/19

Late Night

Starvicks Coffee

10 minutes before the Dark Hour

Makoto sits outside the café in the seating area with a steaming cup of something expensive he doesn't know the name of. The lady behind the counter recommended it. It tastes good when he sips on it, so he won't complain.

The air is dead. It's eleven fifty. Time and space will shift to a distorted Goya-like swap where water becomes blood, and the sky turns green. Honestly, he can't calm himself down. Makoto's been looking forward to this moment for hours.

"Makoto-San," the robot speaks from across the table, clad in a heavy dark overcoat and a deep hood. "I do not believe you should be consuming this much caffeine. From my count, this 'Honey Oat Latté' is your seventh quart of caffeinated beverage."

"Quiet," he shoots, taking a sip simply out of spite. "No speaking."

"Understood. Beginning JSL hand and mouth movement subroutine." Aigis waves her mechanical digits in dexterous motions, like insects curling and flying around a stinking carcass. Makoto stares for a second before losing interest in the fake girl.

"Hey, I finally found you guys." Sanada makes a sudden and unexpected appearance from around a corner. He smiles, waving his good arm. When he looks over at Aigis, he spies the girl making weird and jerky motions with her hands and points his thumb over his shoulder. "What's with her?"

"Don't care, don't ask. It talks too much." Makoto sits up higher in his chair as he stares at the boy. "What're you doing here? I thought I was running solo."

"Aigis is here, too." Sanada nods at the robot, taking the open seat next to Makoto.

"Solo. Equipment doesn't count as people."

Akihiko furrows his grey eyebrows, opening his mouth to say something but decidedly closing it before anything comes out. The boys sit in silence while Aigis waves her hands around willy-nilly.

"So, why are you here?" Makoto breaks the quiet. "I don't mind. I'm just curious. You're better than Kirijo."

"Mitsuru doesn't mean anything by what she said earlier." Akihiko groans as he leans back in his chair. "We're glad to have you. You're just…"

"Hard to work with?"

"Yeah." Sanada nods. "Mitsuru said I'd be of more use acting as your handler until I'm back in fighting shape. It sucks, but for now, I gotta just take it easy. Otherwise, I'll be outta the fight permanently."

"Sheesh. Your arm's that bad?"

The boy sends a tight smile his way. Makoto gets the meaning.

Suddenly, a crash echoes inside his mind.

"Thou shalt be blessed by thine deepening bond with the Star."

That's a bond increase? All they did was talk. Strange.

Before Akihiko can comment on Makoto's weird pause, time distorts and the lights from inside the Starvicks shutter off. The baristas and customers turn to coffins, as the only thing illuminating their pow-wow is the massive waning crescent taking center stage in the dark sky.

"Well," Makoto grunts as he stands up. The coffee on the table turns to blood, and he feels vaguely upset that he won't be able to finish it. "It's time. Robot, you can speak now."

"Understood." Aigis jumps to its feet and throws down its hood. "Akihiko-San and I shall find an area with a vantage of Asphodel."

Makoto's face corkscrews. "Asphodel? We're going to Paulownia."

He looks over his shoulder and immediately turns his whole body to get a better look at what used to be a simple mall Makoto was starting to like. In the Dark Hour, it's now a mountainous rock-like Mausoleum, spewing fire from towers lining the buttresses. Lava leaks down from the columns standing guard at what used to be the entrance, now a great set of double elegant yet horrific doors lined with screaming skulls.

"First Tartarus and now Asphodel," Makoto repeats with a shake of his head. "I'm beginning to understand the nomenclature. What's next, Elysium?"

"Maybe," Sanada answers with a cocksure grin. "We haven't found it yet, but I wouldn't doubt it."

"Great."

With Akihiko joining them, the group weave their way around cars filled with coffins instead of drivers toward the imposing structure wreathed in flame.

"Up on the left," The robot sparks up, pointing its finger at a nearby tall building. "We can observe the A/O from there. I shall begin the climb."

She—it runs off, shinobi-cringe-running its way toward the office and scaling it like a spider monkey.

"Holy shit," Makoto states in awe.

"No kidding." Akihiko agrees. "I'm sure as hell not doing that. I'll go see if there are stairs." He then pats Makoto on the shoulder. "Stay safe, man. We're just a call away."

"Yep." He sighs, cracking his neck and loosening out his body as he stalks over to the door.

Thanatos writhes within him, pulling against the chains of his psyche. Never once does he try to break them, but he wants Makoto to know he's just as excited as he is. Orpheus sings for release to show whoever stands before them who's boss.

Makoto's hand falls heavily against his holster, unclipping the buckle for easy use.

"Yo, Makoto." The boy in question jolts, his heart jumping to his chest and his hand drawing upon the pistol. "Ha! You should see your face right now. It's me, Akihiko!"

"Damn, dude!" Makoto curses. "We just split up! How are you in my head?"

"What, Mitsuru didn't tell you?" To his credit, Akihiko sounds genuinely unsure if she did or not. "Aigis has navigational capability. Thus, telepathy. It's not as powerful as radio, we can only use it if we know where you are, but electronics die in the Dark Hour. Gotta work with what we got. You know how it is."

"Right. Telepathy." Makoto rolls his eyes with a scoff. "Of course, she didn't tell me that. She doesn't have a communicative bone in her body."

Albeit strikingly attractive body, that's not a feeling Makoto's suitably comfortable with admitting to himself just yet.

"She's gotta work on that." Sanada sighs. Makoto imagines him grimacing and shaking his head. "Anyway, be careful on your way in. Asphodel isn't as crazy as Tartarus, but the Shadows that spawn here are generally stronger. Outside the nest, they have more room to grow and propagate."

Makoto grunts as he reaches the massive door, putting his hands against the strangely cold iron and pushing. "Less competition, that makes sense. Anything else I should keep my eyes open for?"

"Aside from Strega?" The grin is palpable in Akihiko's voice. "Nah. Keep your head up, and you'll be fine. Remember to keep your feet moving, as well. You'll only get hit if you sit still."

Good and sound advice that he will most definitely take to heart. Makoto appreciates the level-headedness of his new friend.

Friends? Is that what we have now?

Makoto twists his cheeks at that slip of the tongue. Friends may be too careless of a word. Colleagues?

Ah, this is difficult.

"I'll be careful." Makoto ends the conversation as he entirely pushes the door open. A gust of hot wind blows through his hair, forcing him to cover his mouth and nose lest he suffocates under heavy gout. With a groan, he pushes forward into the dark stairwell leading him downward, doubtlessly to doom.

For the Shadows, of course.