07 September 2009
Minatodai Dormitory, 1st Floor
After School
* ding dong *
She rang the doorbell again, thought less than five seconds had passed since the first. She checked her reflection in the small window that was set into the door, and through it was able to see someone move towards the door from the inside.
Straightening up, she made sure her bag was still firmly in hand. The door opened to show a teal haired girl whom Midori tried to remember the name of. "Hello!" She launched into her practised speech, "My name is Midori Komaki and I will be staying here from this day forward! Please take care of me!" She added in a bow to the girl to show her sincerity.
"uh..." Fuuka blinked in surprise, staring at Midori. She had heard last night that she was eager to join the fight and that Minato had told her to come over after school. She just didn't expect her to show up just after she herself got back. And she had come straight away to get things prepared. "Come in. You're earlier than we were expecting."
Accepting the invitation, Midori walked into the dorm under her own power for the first time. Frosty's card was carefully tucked into her breast pocket. After kicking off her shoes, she set her bag down onto the counter-top that was beside the entrance. "This place used to be an inn, right?"
Fuuka nodded. "Not many people figure that out." She gestured to the couches where Koromaru looked up at Midori, cocked an ear, then when back to sleep. "Oh, Koro-chan! You should at least greet our newest member!"
The dog yawned.
Fuuka sighed. "Sorry about that. Usually he's more energetic."
Midori didn't mind. "We met yesterday. So, what do you do? You have any super awesome powers?"
"Ah. Well, the seniors were supposed to prepare a more formal briefing for you this evening, but something came up, and it may be delayed until tomorrow." She knew that Midori didn't know about Chidori or STREGA yet, so she had to improvise until they got back. She hated improvising. "But until then, I can talk to you about the basics."
With Koromaru not paying attention, Fuuka explained in her own way about Tartarus and the Shadows that emerge from it. She explained that she couldn't fight and that her job was analysis and support.
"So... These Evoker things, how do they work? Can I see one?"
Fuuka shook her head. "No. They're locked up until we're ready to go into Tartarus."
Junpei took this moment to slam open the door with his shoulder. "Aigis! You could have held the door for me! Yeesh!"
"My hands are full, and you were closer."
The two came in, Junpei not seeing Midori while Aigis did. The two of them set down their supplies on the floor while Junpei complained some more. "So I get why I'm stuck with the job of buying food and stuff, but why you?"
"It was determined that I should not go with our senpai's to visit her."
"Her? You mean Chidori?"
"Hello!" Midori called out from her seat. "You're... Aigis and Junpei, right?"
"GyahhHh! Where did you come from!?" Junpei jumped at the sudden presence. "Wait, you're Midori Komachi, I'm Iori, Junpei Iori."
"Her name is Komaki." Aigis corrected him while examining Midori from across the room. Seeing her with Fuuka, her attention shifted to her instead. "Has she been briefed fully?"
"No. I was in the process of doing it when you two came in. There's only so much I can do with the others being out."
"Ah. I will go meet with them and inform them of Midori's presence."
"You could call them, you know." Junpei rubbed his shoulders. "I mean, they should have a cell phone, right?"
"Not allowed to be active in the Hospital."
"Wait!" Midori said loudly. "There's someone named Chidori in the hospital? Do I have to sign a get well card or something?" She looked aghast at the thought that a fellow member of SEES was hurt and she hadn't been told about it. "Let's head over there now then! All of us! I can introduce myself!"
"No." Aigis shot her down with no preamble. "Chidori is not affiliated with SEES."
"Oh!" Understanding dawned in Midori's eyes. "She's just a friend who isn't a hero. That's alright. We can't all be." She sat down again, not wishing to intrude on a personal meeting.
Unwilling to correct Midori without permission of her seniors, Fuuka moved to take control of the conversation again. "Aigis, why don't you head over there? Midori and I will help Junpei unpack, and we can sort things out from there."
"Acceptable." Aigis spun around and walked away, leaving a slightly annoyed Junpei behind.
Kirijo Memorial Hospital, VIP Wing
Stepping out from Chidori's secured room, Mitsuru sighed in frustration. "She's totally uncooperative."
Shinji grunted. "What did you expect? That she would respond with kindness?" He fingered the bottle of pills in his pocket.
"She will break in time." Mitsuru sounded quite sure of herself.
"Is she worth being that hostile too? Isn't it enough to keep her away from her comrades?" Minato offered as he saw Aigis approach from the elevators. "Hello Aigis."
"Hello." Conversation halted until they could all speak without yelling down the hall. "I report that Midori Komaki make contact with Fuuka at the dorm."
"That was quick." Akihiko said. "Was the Chairman there?"
"Negative. Fuuka was briefing her to the best of her capabilities and desired your presence for a more comprehensive review."
Mitsuru sighed, this time in impatience. "So much in such a short period of time. At least she's eager, despite her ignorance." She nodded to a nondescript guard who stood watch over Chidori's room. "We should head back to the dorm and greet her properly."
08 September 2009
Gekkoukan High School, Gymnasium Female Change Room
School Hours
Midori stopped as she came face to face with a very determined woman with longer black hair and dressed in the sports uniform. She had a tennis racket under one arm. "Midori Komaki-chan?"
"Yes?" She pulled on her shirt, momentarily obscuring her sight.
"Iwasaki Rio. Tennis Club. Have you decided what sports club you're going to join yet?"
"Um... I'm in the middle of changing." And to be honest, she hadn't. She had planned to look over the available clubs this week before handing in her applications next Monday, but with the events of the past couple days, it had all slipped her mind.
"That's alright. Listen, the Tennis Club has a strict training regimen. You're the kind of person we want in it! So join, alright?" Rio gave Midori a winning smile, then walked away to join the rest of her own class.
Stunned, Midori tried to figure out where she had seen such bullheaded rudeness before, someone trying to dictate things like that to other people who should be allowed to choose things for themselves.
She had no idea and dismissed the concern from her mind.
Minatodai Dorm, 4th Floor Control Room
Evening
Minato closed the door behind him. "Yukari and Fuuka have her busy helping unpacking."
Ikutsuki nodded. "Thank you. And I'll remember to thank them later for keeping our newest recruit busy."
"So, we have more information on her Persona?" Akihiko prodded, hoping this would be a short meeting. He was behind on his training, and the fight against the Hermit wasn't much of one.
"Yes." Aigis stood beside the Chairman. "Mitsuru-senpai and myself conducted a review of her Persona last night. The results were unusual, so it was felt further input was required."
Minato rolled his hand. "Well?"
"Midori Komaki-san's Persona, Black Frost appears to be a very mature Persona. It has multiple strengths against Agi, Bufu and Mudo, while also being weak to Zan. It is also a very aggressively organized Persona, with great strength and magical abilities at the expense of poor defence and average mobility. It's abilities in battle should follow the same pattern."
Silence. Then Ikutsuki spoke up. "So a hot and cool persona for a hot and cool person? That doesn't sound unusual. Well, it does, but not in a 'outside the scope of Persona' unusual."
Mitsuru debated her response to his pun and decided that hurting him wouldn't help. "That's not all. Aigis' analysis indicates that Midori has the Moon as her personal arcana yet the Black Frost is the Fool."
Minato was the one who figured things out first. "Are you saying she's a Wild Card, like I am?"
"Unknown at this time." Aigis said flatly. "She only had one active Persona, If she had a second, we would be certain, but for now, we must consider the possibility that is most likely, that she is the first example of a person whose Persona is different from their innate Arcana."
"Wait. Different problem. You said that the Frost was weak to Zan. What is that?"
Ikutsuiki was the one who answered, which surprised Akihiko. "When we first discovered the power of persona and were categorizing it, we assigned names to the various effects they could produce. Agi for Fire, Bufu for Ice." the others nodded in understanding. "Well, we discovered wind and named it Garu, as Takeba wields, but we also thought we discovered a function that was like wind, but in having a more physical presence, a 'Force' effect if you will. We named that Zan. However, later research indicated that the two were aspects of the same element, so it was decided to consolidate them under the same heading, and Garu won out over Zan."
"Same thing, different names then." Mitsuru approved of the idea. "It appears to have been a glitch in the system that called up the old name."
"Actually, that still leaves a question of how she got it so developed in the first place. Everyone – except Minato – has a basic Persona, one with a single strength and weakness." Mitsuru pursed her lips in thought. "Yet why is hers to resilient to three separate elements while only being weak to one?"
No one had an answer to that.
10 September 2009
Gekkoukan High School, Infirmary
After School
"Hello Midori! Sit down."
The doctor was a person she didn't care to remember the name of. He was the type who was supposed to 'help' her after her 'traumatic' experiences a month previously. She hated every minute of the two previous sessions. She couldn't talk about her hero work because she promised not too, and without that, how was she supposed to give the doctor what he wanted to hear?
She wanted to try and contact Lieutenant Izuna after the first session, to ask her to pull strings to get her out of the interview process before she accidentally let slip something she shouldn't and get punished for it.
He asked his inane questions, and the only ones she could answer truthfully were about the friends she had made. Due to the COMPs stopping working after the week, she couldn't get in touch with the others that had helped save the world, let alone use them as references to show that she was properly 'sociable' during the Lockdown.
She finally managed to escape the minute her session had ended, and her first thought was that she needed a Demon – or Shadow – to beat up. Something to get her frustrations out. Crossing the hallway into the library didn't seem like a good idea, but staring at the door, a thought crossed her mind. She had been told the names of the Persona's wielded by the others (except Minato, he was weird) so perhaps she should try something different and do some quick research first?
12 September 2009
Hey! It's Dolly!
Today, I have an update for all my fans out there. Well, you know how I was transferred after what happened over the summer? Well, it seems like there was a mix-up in the paperwork.
No, I'm not switching schools again. But rather it seems like I was put in the wrong Dorm. The one I'm in now? Well, it's the residence of the Student Council President, the hottest man in the school, and, like, a dozen other people all of whom are all just as awesome as I am! And me! It's like they know how popular I am, and had to put me with all the other popular kids!
I'm sorry this update is so short, I'm still unpacking from my re-move, but in the future, I'll show you all around! Bye!
Mitsuru stopped the video. "I don't understand how this could help."
Akihiko sighed, still not sold on the idea himself. Junpei had wanted to recruit Midori to help him get Chidori to open up, and this was one of the pieces of evidence he had called up. "Think of her as like an amateur actress. She does her own costumes, post production, and uses these videos to show off her skills." He didn't add some of the other things people used this sort of thing for.
The oldest person there was clearly impressed by what she assumed was required by all Junpei said, though Akihiko couldn't help but wonder how Junpei of all people came across this information. "Well," he replied, rubbing the back of his head. "I was looking over Fuuka's shoulder while she was doing her thing, and she came across this and I decided to do a little more research! Right! Research!"
Eventually it was decided that letting Miss "Love and Justice" Komaki in to see someone with a highly opposed personality would not be the best thing they could do. Besides, they still had to go into Tartarus tonight.
1st Floor, Dining Room
The large table allowed Minato to redo his work. Something he didn't like doing, especially having to do it again so soon after Shinji joined.
One of the things he did after becoming the field leader was to organize a schedule of dates to head into Tartarus as well as teams to go with him. At first it was easy. Everyone brought something to the team and so he could simply rotate who would rest. And then the team doubled in size over the summer with Aigis, Koromaru, Ken, Shinji and now Midori. Each brought their own skills, strengths and weaknesses to the group and it just kept getting harder and harder to figure things out.
When he created teams, he focused primarily on two criteria – compatibility of Persona, and of the person. It wouldn't do to include Mitsuru and Junpei with Ken for example. Ken couldn't moderate the two of them while Minato led. And while Akihiko and Shinjiro got along great, Shinji had problems getting along with everyone except Koromaru. It was all a headache.
Aigis was sitting beside him, offering what help she could. It wasn't much.
And now Midori with her persona that could possibly take the place of Junpei, Koromaru and Mitsuru if Aigis and the Chairman were to be believed. He also had no doubt that she would try to work hard at making sure everyone got along, so that wasn't an issue.
When he started doing this, Mitsuru had approved and even offered some suggestions to help make things go more smoothly. One of them was making multiple copies of the information to scatter about and mix and match from there. And it did help.
If Midori was the glass-cannon as Aigis reported, then it would be a good idea to have Yukari or Mitsuru in the group as well to keep her health up. Probably Yukari as Midori covered Mitsuru's Bufu skills and Yukari was the better healer. On the table, he put a pink and purple slip of paper together.
Shuffling post-it notes, he figured he had enough time over the next couple hours to get at least a plan down until the next Full Moon to take care of things. Perhaps he could use tonight to experiment with different teams to see who jelled and who didn't.
Outside Gekkoukan High School
Before Midnight
Midori tugged at the hem of her skirt in exasperation. When she had been told that they would be heading to hunt down Shadows that night, she was excited and extremely eager to start, but the others had restrained her from running off by herself.
So she had exercised her energy by putting together what she felt was an appropriate set of clothes for the event. For the self-styled Magical Girl, the possibility of simply wearing her school uniform – even one customized to the maximum extent of the letter of the rules – just rubbed her the wrong way.
No, it was more like a slap in the face to everything she held dear when it came to world-saving and monster-slaying. But Mitsuru had been adamant to the point of ignoring every possible avenue of approach she had tried to take, and forced Midori to wear the proper dress-code of the school uniform. But Love and Justice could not be denied for the sake of a pretty dress, no matter how much she wanted.
"Is it time yet?" She asked for the umpteenth time.
"No." Shijiro replied, checking the heft of his chosen weapon. "It isn't midnight yet."
"My watch says it is."
"Then your watch is fast." Aigis pointed out. "By several seconds. When was the last time you set it properly?"
Midori's answer was cut off as the Dark Hour started. She stood in rapt attention as the school transformed before her eyes. The tower of Tartarus grew into the sky, and she followed it with a dispassionate gaze until it reached its apex.
"Well? What do you think?" Mitsuru turned to look at Midori, only to find their newest member walking away. "Wait! Where are you going?"
Midori stopped and kicked up one foot to point at her school shoes. "I am not going to climb another damned tower without proper footwear. So I'm headed back to the Dorm to get my sneakers. Because someone forced me into the proper uniform."
Junpei choked on his laughter, earning a glare from some of the others.
Tartarus, 48th Floor
The Dark Hour
"MAAAAGICAL PUNIIIIIIIIIIIIIIiiiiiiiiiii iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiIIIIIIIIIISHM ENT!" Midori leaped for the Shadow, her police baton raised over her head for a massive strike. It connected, and the battle was on, though it lasted mere seconds as the group of four were far too powerful for this section of the tower. "Ha! I win again!"
"Now, we'd like to observe your Persona in action." Unknowing of the mental gymnastics going through the younger girl's head, Mitsuru issued another directive as Minato and Akihiko spread out to find another Shadow that didn't run from the mere sight of them.
This was the one thing that Midori worried about. She had been told about the basics of how to use an Evoker, and how she was supposed to make shooting oneself work with how Frost was supposed to be invoked was something she had spent far too much time thinking about. That her COMP was still a glorified paperweight just made everything all the more unintuitive.
But she had come to a solution. It made a certain amount of poetic sense, and that appealed to her. Put Frosty in the shirt pocket over her heart and under her jacket. Cross her heart and hope to die! Wasn't that how the English saying went?
They had to ascend a couple more floors to finally find a Shadow that didn't vanish into the aether at their presence. Midori once again led the way into battle, expertly flicking her club at a demon that Fuuka's voice told her wasn't weak to either of Frosty's elements. Minato blocked the return strike from the Maya-type Shadow (she still wasn't used to identifying things by Arcana, occasionally lapsing into a more Demon-centric view) and then it was time.
Midori pulled her Evoker from the holster around her leg and placed it over her heart. Not caring that she hadn't practised this at all, her only thought before pulling the trigger was that she wanted her first time to be something special. "BLACK FROST!" The trigger was pulled and a flash of pain sliced through her, dropping her to one knee, face red and gasping for breath. But her deception worked and from her back a mini-swirl of power spun out and above her into the form of Frosty. It landed, hopped up and down and looked at the Shadows while reading Midori's intent.
Agialo! Fire burst into existence as Midori felt herself drained by the effort, the familiar feeling of casting magic a comfort as she stood up again. The fire lanced through the Shadow, destroying it instantly. Without waiting to pull the trigger on her Evoker again, she pointed dramatically at the last Maya. "Frosty! Bufula!" Shards of ice impaled the Shadow, killing it off as well. The fight over, she gave her Persona a high-five before it returned to card form in her jacket.
13 September 2009
Minatodai Dorm, 4th Floor Control Room
Evening
Fuuka groaned, folding herself over to cup her head in her hands. "She makes less and less sense!" Yukari offered a consoling pat on the back as the rest of the meeting came to order. Everyone was there save Ken, Koromaru and Midori. They had needed a distraction to keep the subject of their conversation away from the meeting and Koro had taken it upon himself to demand that Midori take him for a walk and Ken had volunteered to go with them.
"So she's got a... a whatchamacallit... A 'Well Developed Persona'. How odd is that, really?" Junpei had such a nice afternoon with Chidori, and she was opening up to him slowly. The smile on his face refused to leave, no matter what.
"Odd enough." Shinjiro commented from where he leaned against one of the book shelves.
Ticking off her fingers, Yukari began to summarize everything. "So, let's see. She's got a powerful Persona without being a Wild Card," she glared at Minato. "Maybe. She can also keep it out for more than a couple seconds. Possibly as long as Fuuka can, while being far more active. Oh, and she uses her Evoker on her heart instead of her head."
Akihko offered an answer to that last one. "It seems to me that she's the kind of person who thinks and acts with her heart, not her mind. It's no stretch of the imagination that she'd consider her heart to be the seat of her soul and thus the target of her Evoker." Shinji's grunt showed he didn't put too much stock in what Akihiko said, but he wasn't willing to fight it either.
"I did go looking into her past, and the only thing that really stands out was the Tokyo Terror." Fuuka tried to get the conversation back on track. It was just so easy to fall into random tangents where Midori was concerned, even when she wasn't around.
"Explain, Yamagishi." Mitsuru also wanted things under control and took the opportunity offered.
Tapping on her laptop, Fuuka recited the relevant summaries. "Her statements are on file, in both the police and SDF servers. She was in one of her costumes when the lock down happened. Over the next several days, she and some other teenagers tried to keep order inside the contaminated area while avoiding the effects of the toxins released by the Shomonkai cult. There are several reports of violence, including confirmed SDF reports on the fifth and sixths days where she was fighting other people to maintain the integrity of the lock down."
"A history of violence?" Akihiko seemed almost worried.
"No. Not a history. But with the general lack of order, she may have been in the thick of things." Fuuka tapped at the keyboard some more. "However, the medical reports from the afternoon and evening of the seventh day seem to indicate that Midori-san was on the verge of a psychological breakdown due to the stress." If she felt any guilt at prying into such private things, Fuuka didn't show it. "For several days during the Terror and afterwards, she would lapse into a 'Dolly' persona as a protective measure against the things she had seen and done inside the Yamanote Circle."
"Wait." Junpei jumped in. "I know she's enthusiastic, but are you telling us that not only is she cute, but she's crazy-cute?" His assesment was bluntly delivered. "Damn. Too good to be true."
Akihiko buried his own concerns. "I'm not going to complain about a person who is willing to go into Tartarus with us. She knows the risks, intellectually speaking."
"I watched her go to her counsellor's meeting earlier this week." Minato offered, not sure where he was going with his line of thought. "Is that something we should be wary of? If she accidentally talks about the Dark Hour?"
Mitsuru nodded. "I have already thought of that, and have taken preventative steps."
Aigis, silent until that point, offered her own opinion. "I have observed that Midori-san's interaction with her Persona is one of familiarity. Perhaps it is fashioned after what would be called an 'imaginary friend'?"
The others mulled this over. "It would make sense." Minato suggested, hoping to recover from his slip earlier. "If she projected her trauma into the imaginary 'Black Frost', when she awoke to her power of Persona, it took up that form? It would explain why she's so interactive with it. It's more like a puppet, acting out what she expects of it and because of her" – he almost said 'traumatic' – "experiences, she has a greater sense of it than any of us? That Black Frost is... real to her in a way that we can't comprehend?"
Mitsuru nodded. The logic seemed sound. "That leaves only one question though. If her persona is the result of her traumatic experiences in August, then will treating her and helping her heal adversely affect her Persona?"
Naganaki Shrine
Midori sat at the top of the slide, Ken and Koromaru playing around the base of the playground equipment. Enjoying the experience of seeing a calm world and its peaceful days from on high, she barely noticed when Ken tied Koromaru's leash to one of the legs of the slide and began to climb up.
She noticed when he reached the top and she slid over to let him sit beside her. "So..." she began, "how long have you been living there?"
"A couple months now." He rubbed his hands together in the early autumn chill and Midori took them in hers to help warm them up. "Um, can I ask you a question?"
"Sure!"
Ken paused. Her eager response pulled at the question he wanted to ask her. He had wanted to since he had found out about her guiding principles in life, and now the words just couldn't come to him.
He wanted so much to ask her if it was alright, what he wanted to do, to gain vindication or perhaps justification for his dream.
Looking up at her, smiling like there was nothing wrong with the world, he found that he couldn't. He couldn't give his burden to anyone else.
"No. It's nothing."
Midori was many things, but stupid wasn't one of them. She read his doubts in his face and knew then that she shouldn't pry into what he really wanted to ask her. Somehow she knew she would find out eventually, but for now, there was no need to rush into things.
She had left her peaceful days behind. It would be enough to survive.