Euphemia of the Personas

Seemingly Unrelated People

Disclaimer – I do not own either Code Geass or the Shin Megami Tensei Persona franchise. Code Geass is the property of Sunrise, Gorō Taniguchi and Ichirō Ōkouchi and the Shin Megami Tensei Persona franchise is the property of Atlus.


Kazebana Reiko blinked as her world briefly seemed to flash red for just a brief moment, and afterwards, she found herself feeling somewhat confused as she momentarily forgot where she was and what she was doing. The sound of glass smashing next to her on the ground quickly brought her back to reality, and she saw an attendant of the Moel Gas Station making their way towards the store, as she found herself standing in front of the Moel Gas Station at the end of the southern portion of Inaba's Central Shopping District.

"Sō sō," Reiko said to herself as she remembered what she was doing beforehand, and then looked down at her right to discover that, in her momentary lapse of concentration, she had dropped the bag she had been carrying, which contained a bottle of sake from the Konishi Liquor Store that her mother had sent her to buy for her.

Realising that the smashed glass must have come from the bottle as she dropped the bag, she groaned rather unhappily with a shudder, as she knew that her mother would not take too kindly to the fact that the bottle containing her sake had been smashed. Of course, Reiko knew that she could just turn around and go back to the liquor store and purchase another bottle, but unfortunately, she knew that her mother had given her a set time to be back home by, and if she was not home by that time, then harsh punishment would most certainly follow, and Reiko knew she would be punished even if she was just a single second late in arriving home, so she usually made an effort to get home as early as possible before the assigned time.

Shuddering at the thought of facing one of her mother's harsh punishments she also brought her right hand over her left shoulder, feeling the phantom sensation of the pain that her mother had inflicted the last time she had punished her. Reiko knew that her mother did not really like her, not since her birth had practically ruined her mother's promising art career, since Reiko had been born out of wedlock after her mother, Kazebana Ritsuko, had gotten drunk one night and had a one-night stand with a man she remembered her mother naming him as Mikimi Kankurō, since Reiko had never met him herself, and afterwards, her reputation as a promising well-respected artist had gone down the tubes. However, since Kankurō had disappeared, Ritsuko could not take it out on him, but upon discovering that she was pregnant, she had decided to take all her frustration out on her daughter; at least, that's how Reiko saw it.

Another reason she was hesitant to go back was because the owner of the Liquor Store, Konishi Keiji had arrived just as she was leaving, after being served by his wife, Sayuko, and he had made it quite clear that he disapproved of her, though, she knew was that what he really disapproved of was the fact that his daughter, Saki, was friends with her.

Konishi Saki was her best friend… in fact, she was, perhaps, her only friend, and though she did not know the full story, she knew that Saki had extreme issues with her father that went back to, even long before she had taken a part-time job at the newly opened Junes Department Story six months previously, which was why many of the stores in the Shopping Distract were closing down. She remembered that Saki had confessed to her that she hated her father with a burning passion and that she only took the part-time job just to spite him, and give him a reason to declare his hatred towards her openly, and also she was saving up enough money so that she could go and live on her own away from her father.

Speaking of Saki, turning to look to her right, she could see Saki and her younger brother, Naoki further down the road, and both arguing, and though Reiko could not tell just what it was they were arguing about, she had to guess that Naoki was not too pleased that Saki had eaten his cream puffs again. It was a habit of Naoki's, that he would put creams puffs in the refrigerator and then forget about them, and then Saki would discover them and eat them since, usually by the time Naoki remembered about them, they would have been by the expiration date. Whether Naoki accepted that excuse from his sister or not, she did not know, though, given their argument, she could guess that the answer was, "no", he did not.

Normally, seeing Saki, she would have asked her to hang out, but unfortunately, not only was Saki preoccupied with calming her brother down, Reiko knew that she was on a strict timetable, and that her mother would undoubtedly deal a severely harsh punishment if she was even just a single second late in returning home.

"I swear, sometimes I wonder if she intentionally wants me to be late just so she can have an excuse to beat me up," she mused to herself with a sigh, as she winced even at the thought of her mother inflicting pain on her.

That definitely would not be surprising, considering how her mother clearly hated her and seemed to take great pleasure in making her suffer.

She wrapped her arms around herself even as she imagined her mother inflicting pain on her, whether it was with a whip, her fists, a baseball bat or some other improvised weapon. It mattered not. Ritsuko seemed determined to make her daughter's life as miserable as possible, though, she stopped short of killing her, reasoning that, besides the obvious reasons like dealing with the police and possibly fighting off murder charges, she reasoned that, that if her daughter were to die, then she would have no one to take her anger and frustrations out on.

Turning to look across the street, as she struggled to regain her composure, she noticed someone turning the corner from the bus stop, making their way down the Shopping District.

The boy in question had short bleach-blonde hair, indicating that he had obviously dyed it, grey eyes and a look of pure annoyance adorning his face He also had had three ringed silver piercings circling the left helix of his ear, one near the lobe, one in the middle, and the last one near the top. His right ear had one ringed piercing looped around the helix and a rectangular piercing that looked more like a piece of metal attached to his ear from just after the lobe to the halfway point between where the lobe ended and where his ringed piercing was situated. He also had a small piercing on the left side of his nose. He also had a small series of scars just above his left eye, one going diagonally downward from right to left and two smaller scars crisscrossing

He wore brown slip-on shoes with black bottoms and silver bolted studs that rand over their front, black trousers with a series of white dots and lines that looked to form a shape of some kind that Reiko could not identity, as well as two back pockets, one situated at each butt cheek. He also had a black belt around his waist with small metal square studs running around it in two rows and a gap every so often. The belt also had a black ovular belt buckle with a silver outline and a silver skull decoration in the centre. One his upper torso, Reiko could just make out a yellow sweater underneath a black leather jacket with silver ringlets running along the bottom. The front had a rectangular outline at the centre where the zip was. The jacket also had two waist pockets at either side, a left breast pocket, two vertical zips that ran to the halfway point between the wrists and elbows, one of the end of either sleeve and a brown fold-back collar at the sides and back. However, on the back of the jacket was what looked like the top of a skull with hair and a moustache. Three appendixes protruded from the skull like hair whereas two more protruded at the bottom in diagonal downward angles imitating a moustache. In the centre beneath the skull top was a small white dot shaped a bit like an upside down kite imitating a nose. Beneath the skull white two bones situated on opposite side tilted so that they were leaning inwards towards one another with their tops then protruding outwards, though, if one were to study the tops of the bones, they sort of looked like the letter J tilted slightly. Running from the bottom hair protrusions were lines that curved around beneath the skull, breaking only when they encountered the bones before going on to meet in the centre forming a sort-of circle. Above the circle, but between the two bones was the letter U with a downward curved line at either side. Beneath the circle was yet another downward curved line running from the outer ends of the lines on either side of the letter U inside the circle, and beneath that was a smaller upward curved line. The entire decoration was white and looked like the sort of thing one would associate with biker gangs. The boy also had a black leather bracelet around his left wrist with small silver spikes protruding from it every ninety-degrees, though they were not big enough to cause any serious harm, unless they hit the eyes, but to Reiko, the chances of that seemed slim. She also noticed that he had a rather thin black metal necklace around his neck that looked a bit like a loose choker.

Noticing that someone was watching him caused the boy to stop, which caused Reiko to flinch and subconsciously take a small step backwards, as he turned to shoot the girl a rather furiously hostile glare.

"Oi, 'the hell you lookin' at!" the boy practically shouted in a scathingly demanding tone, as his eyes narrowed on the now-trembling girl, and he seriously looked as if he was considering on whether or not to give her a thrashing, "Ya think I won't beat ya up just cause yer a girl?"

"A, a, a, ano, sumimasen, Tatsumi-san," Reiko apologised fearfully, trembling under the boy, Tatsumi's furiously threatening gaze, as she took a few more steps back, as she believed that he really was going to hurt her, "I wasn't looking for any trouble, shōjikina."

"Tch, nanideare," Tatsumi said dismissively, and after thinking it over for a moment, he gave Reiko a rather rude sneer before storming off down the street, obviously deciding that she was not worth the effort.

"Yareyare, that was close," Reiko said to herself, as she struggled to stop herself from trembling.

Even though she was not very well acquainted with the boy that had just threatened her, she did know him by reputation, and unfortunately, his reputation was not a very good one. Tatsumi Kanji was his name, and he always seemed to be in a state of perpetual fury, always getting into fights at even the slightest provocations, like just happening to be glancing in his general direction as Reiko just experienced, ever since he was in middle school, at least that was what she had heard, and unfortunately, it had led to some rather unsavoury rumours floating around about him. Whether or not those rumours had any substance to them or not, Reiko did not know, and she did not particularly care either, since she tended to avoid Kanji whenever she could. However, she had seen him around a couple of times and based on what she had seen, she would not be surprised if those rumours did in fact turn out to be true.

Some of the rumours floating around about Kanji were that he had become a member of a local biker gang, and though each time Reiko remembered seeing him in the past, he had been alone, which appeared to disprove those rumours, but from the way he was nearly always dressed, she would not be surprised if it turned out that he was part of a gang. She could not help but feel sorry for his mother, whom she knew was a widow who owned the local textile store in the Shopping Distract, and like the Konishi Liquor Store, it was one of the few stores still open for business. She could not imagine what poor Mrs. Tatsumi must be going through because of her son, especially considering that he may be part of a gang.

"Nanideare, it's not my problem," she said to herself with a shrug, "It's not like I'm wanting to be his tomodachi or anything."

She knew that Kanji was due to start attending Yasogami High tomorrow, though she doubted that he would show up all that much, since he also seemed to have a habit of constantly playing truant, in other words, he did not bother showing up for school. Not that she cared or anything, just so long as he left her alone, that was all that mattered. However, one thing she did take note off whenever she did see Kanji about was that he seemed to have a particular hatred of girls. She did not know why, but observing him, he seemed to be a bit more tolerant towards boys than girls, though, she had never actually seen him attack or fight with girls, whenever he glared at them, like he did with her, the glare, itself, seemed a bit more ferocious than it was whenever he glared at boys, and it was like he wanted to rip their heads off, though as far as she knew, he never actually followed through on any of those unsaid threats.

"Kuso," she suddenly heard someone cuss, followed by the sound of squeaking, the sort of squeaking an old bike that had not been well oiled would make.

Turning back to face the direction from where she had passed Saki and Naoki arguing to see another boy riding a yellow bicycle with the word "ATLUS" in black lettering on the side of the down tube.

Looking towards Saki and Naoki, she saw that they had stopped arguing with Naoki glaring after the boy on the bike as he continued to pedal by whereas Saki gave her brother a scolding look. However, knowing exactly who the boy on the bike was, she could not help but follow Naoki's example, as she too, glared after him.

The boy in question had short light brown hair that was a bit messy neat the bottom of the sides and back and he also had dark brown eyes. He wore dark brown laced boots that went up to a quarter of the way between his ankles and knew, dark green trousers with thick dark brown outlines highlighting the pockets at the sides near the top that came around to the front and two pack pockets that were highlighted by a light pinkish brown colour, a dark brown belt around his waist with a silver buckle, an orange t-shirt with a yellow outline highlighting the collar and a white jacket with brown fur at the end of the hood. The jacket, which was unzipped also had a thin navy blue line running around the bottom in the centre of the trim area with two vertical line on either side of the jacket acting as a cut-off point before the horizontal line reached the end. There were also two thick navy blue lines that formed arches underneath the boy's armpits, and on the sides of the shoulders, with white outline were two, one for each side dark greenish blue semi-rectangles with the top shaped more like a triangle and inside were two orange wing shapes. He also had a set of black headphones around his neck, which were red at the backs of the ear paddings.

"Hanamura Yōsuke," Reiko groaned in dissatisfaction as she glared after the boy.

This was definitely a boy that, she had to say, she did not like in the very least. He was the son of the Junes Department Store's Manager, who had just transferred to Inaba six months ago when the department store first opened, but that was not why she disliked him. In truth, she really did not care much for the conflict between Junes and the Shopping District, since in her view, shops were shops no matter where they were situated or how much they charged. No, what she disliked about Yōsuke the most was his attitude towards girls, Saki in particular.

In her view, when it came to girls in particular, Yōsuke tended to overrate his chances with them and act as if he was the world's most popular ladies' man, and no matter how often the girls he attempted to flirt with turned him down, he just did not seem to get the hint, and in Reiko's opinion, he was just so full of himself. His interest in Saki in particular really bothered her. She did not know why, but something about his interest in Saki just rubbed her the wrong way. Even though Saki did not admit it, not even to herself, Reiko knew that she also did not like Yōsuke very much, though she was just too nice to admit it to Yōsuke's face, or perhaps, even to herself. The only reason, at least in Reiko's mind, that Saki put up with Yōsuke and was nice to him was because he was the Manager's son. Unfortunately, Yōsuke seemed to completely misinterpret Saki's kindness and took her intentions the wrong way, and he had ended up deluded himself into believing that he was officially Saki's boyfriend.

However, whereas Saki was too nice to clear up the misunderstanding, Reiko had no qualms about letting him know how she felt, and because she openly displayed her dislike for him, Yōsuke, in turn, did not like her all that much either, and in fact whether they met, usually whenever Saki was present, they would constantly bicker and insult one another. She hated it especially when Yōsuke would address her as "Rei-chan", since the kanji symbols for her name read as "Zero Child", which her mother had given to her because she believed that she would never amount to anything due to her being born out of wedlock, which was still a big deal in Japan, and Ritsuko seemed to be determined on drilling that notion into her mind. However, the way they fought and how Saki seemed to get caught in the middle, some people, and even Yōsuke himself, joked that they were fighting over Saki's affections. In fact, Reiko often wondered if perhaps Yōsuke genuinely did believe that she had feelings for Saki and viewed her as a romantic rival.

"Ē ne," Reiko said to herself with a scoff, "I admit that I do like Saki-chan a lot, but I can't really be in love with her, right? Saki-chan and I are both girls, so the idea that we're aikoka… it's just ridiculous."

However, even as she dismissed the notion, she could not help but wonder if perhaps there was at least some small inking of truth to it. Nonetheless, by the time she pushed her thoughts regarding Yōsuke to the back of her mind, she found that he was already out of sight.

Shaking her head, glad that he failed to notice her, or if he did, then he had obviously decided to leave her alone for the time being, she then started to walk towards the apartment complex where she lived with her mother.

"… Jūbunna, just leave onē-san alone," a new annoyed and frustrated sounding voice came, causing Reiko to stop and she turned back round to see two boys about her own age walking out from the Gas Station's store.

"Oya oya, Umeji," the boy on the left said, obviously replying to his friend, "You're ane is just so hot, I can't help myself. I mean, who wouldn't want to go out with Rika-chan?"

"That's Rika-san to you, Gōki, ima shizukani," the boy on the right, whom Reiko now identified as Umeji, said in an annoyed tone.

"Oya oya, you're no fun," the boy on the left, whom Reiko now identified as Gōki replied with a pout.

Umeji just growled in response.

He had dark messy bluish grey hair and light milky chocolate brown eyes. He also had a small, barely noticeable scar just at the left edge of his mouth, though unlike Kanji, he did not look as if he was part of a delinquent gang. He wore white trainers with at least four blue streaks on either side running downwards from left to right at diagonal angles, grey trousers with pockets at the sides at the top, much like Yōsuke's, only it was highlight by small thin black lines. He also wore a black belt round his waist with a silver buckle, and on his upper torso, he wore a bluish grey jacket that looked almost identical to Yōsuke's with the fur at the end of the hood being back, and unlike Yōsuke's jacket, this one was completely devoid of decorations aside from the depiction of a two-on-two volleyball match on the back with the players all coloured as black silhouettes and the ball between the net with one of the players raised high with their arms outstretched above their head and their feet off the ground. Underneath the jacket, Reiko could just make out a blue t-shirt with a red outline at the collar, though unlike Yōsuke, Umeji did not have a set of headphones around his neck.

Gōki, by comparison, had shoulder-length brownish red hair that fanned out at either side and dark grey-almost-black eyes. He wore a pair of black laced shoes with dark brown bottoms, a pair of dark blue jeans, a brown belt with an ovular brown buckle with a golden outline and the golden depiction of a bull's head at the front. On his upper torso he wore a blue unzipped jacket with lack cuffs at the end of the sleeves and a thick black line that ran from cuff to cuff over his elbows and around the back of his chest, and at the elbows were big black circles. The jacket also had two pockets, one at either side, near the bottom with black flaps, which were buttoned in place by two silver buttons and also two breast pockets, again, one at either side with the same assortment as the two bottom pockets. The interior of the jacket was also black, displayed by the fold-back collar at the top. Underneath his jacket, her had a dark greenish brown sweater with a strange zigzag pattern, with both upward and downward zigzags, with the downward zigzags coloured red and the upward zigzags coloured yellow. To Reiko, looking into those zigzags seemed to have an almost hypnotic effect.

However, neither boy seemed to notice her standing nearby, or if they did, then they chose to ignore her.

"Mizuwosasu hito," Gōki grumbled under his breath with a pout as he followed Umeji out the gas station.

Umeji just grumbled, but otherwise ignored his friend.

"Nē, otōto," a new female voice came, causing the two boys and Reiko, who had, until then, become mesmerised by the zigzag pattern, to turn their attention to where Kanji had come from earlier, and all three saw a girl walking towards the two boys.

This girl had long black hair that was tied into a ponytail that went down to just beneath her shoulders, and held in place by a green bobble, and she also had the same colour of eyes as Umeji, though they were a slightly darker shade than his. She wore a pair of brown slip-on shoes, light greyish blue knee-high socks, a grey skirt that went down to halfway between her waist and knees, a light blue plain unzipped jacket those sleeves went down to her elbows and a white t-shirt depicting a long-haired blonde woman with blue eyes and wearing female Japanese school gym gear holding a volleyball in her hands. All in all, this girl looked stunningly beautiful, and Reiko found that she would be surprised if she came across a boy that did not want to date her, not that she was jealous or anything.

"Hai, what is it, onē-san?" Umeji replied to the girl as she stopped right in front of the two boys.

"Konnichiwa, Rika-chan," Gōki greeted with a somewhat smug smile that he shot at Umeji before turning his attention back to the girl, whom Reiko now identified as Rika, "I can call you Rika-chan, can't I?"

"Why of course you can, Gōki-kun," Rika replied with a gentle smile and followed it up with a small giggle, much to Umeji's obvious displeasure, and he could not help but groan as his friend turned to shoot him a rather smug grin.

"See, Rika-chan doesn't mind if I call her Rika-chan, so what's the problem, Umeji?" he said to his friend before he turned his attention back to Rika, "He says I can't call you Rika-chan."

"Onē-san, why are you here?" Umeji asked, paying attention to his sister, while shooting a glare at Gōki, clearly wanting to change the subject, since he felt that it was getting rather awkward for him.

"Ā, otō-san sent me to find you," Rika replied, putting whatever thoughts she had of the previous subject to the back of her mind, "He needs help with cleaning out the shako, he did tell you that that he'd be cleaning it out in order to fit the car in, didn't he?"

"Hai, he did," Umeji said rather hurriedly, glad that he had something to take his mind off his friend's crush on his older sister, "Thanks for reminding me, onē-san. I better get back home."

He then, rather hurriedly, left in the direction Rika had come from leaving his friend and sister behind.

"Gomenne, Rika-chan," Gōki apologised with a respectful bow with a frown on his face as he thought of his friend, "Honestly, I don't know what his problem is with the fact that I'm interested in you."

"I'm his ane," Rika replied, though, Reiko could see that she was fighting to suppress a blush at hearing Gōki announce that he was interested in her, "And as my kyōdai, he's rather protective of me, so naturally I'm off limits to everyone, include his shinyū."

"Shitteiru," Gōki replied with a sigh as he started to walk down the Shopping Distract, "Anyway, sayōnara, Rika-chan. Jā ne."

"Mm," Rika responded with a grunt and a nod before she turned and started to walk back in the direction she had come from, the same direction that her brother had run off in.

Now that she was alone, once again, though, she felt that she had been alone to begin with, since none of the trio had regarded her, Reiko could not help but develop an interest in what had just transpired in front of her. Like with Kanji, she was not all that well acquainted with any of them. However, she did happen to know Rika by her reputation, though, unlike with Kanji, her reputation was a relatively good one. Hirase Rika was the star-player of Yasogami High's all-female volleyball team, and from what Reiko knew, starting tomorrow, it was her final year at Yasogami High and she was the overall favourite of being named team captain of the Volleyball Club this year. She had heard it all from Saki, who was also going to be in her final year, since that last year, both she and Rika had been in the same class, though Saki never really interacted with her all that much. She just heard from Saki what little information she managed to pick up.

As for the two boys, she did know them as Hirase Umeji, Rika's younger brother, who was in the same year as her, and the same can be said for his friend, Saitō Gōki, though she hardly knew anything about them. Despite being in the same year, Reiko noted that they had been in a different class than her, though, she had seen them every now and then, but did not interact with them at all. Every time she did see them, though, they seemed to be arguing, and since Rika's name tended to pop up in those arguments from what little Reiko did hear, she guessed that Umeji was not all that pleased that his best friend had a crush on his sister, and what she had just witnessed only served to confirm those suspicions. Not that Reiko cared or anything. Whenever Reiko did happen to overhear their arguments in the past, she just ignored them, only picking up certain words, but other than that she left them alone.

Thinking it over, she supposed that she probably would have gotten to know Rika better if she had joined the Volleyball Club, but she never expressed an interest in the sports clubs. At Yasogami High there were sports clubs and culture clubs and students had the choice of choosing to join at least two clubs, one sports club and one culture club, though joining was not mandatory, and neither was attending said clubs for the students that did join. She never actually expressed an interest in sports, mainly because the sports uniforms revealed far too much of her arms and legs, which had scars and bruises from where her mother had repeatedly beaten her.

Instead she focused on the culture clubs, and thankfully, her mother did allow her to join, even if she was looking to prove that she would never amount to anything no matter how hard she tried. However, by some strange twist of fate, she found that she had inherited her mother's natural artistic talent, and had joined the Art Club. Her mother had been an artist before her ruination, and by chance, many of the other club members had found her paintings to be very good. However, unfortunately, it meant nothing to her mother. Ritsuko had seen a few of her paintings, and despite agreeing that they were indeed good, perhaps almost as good as some of her own paintings that she had painted in the past, she just dismissed them regardless, claiming that it did not matter how good they were because, due to the fact that she was born out of wedlock, no one would be interested in her work.

"Che, I've been milling around too long," she groaned to herself, looking down at the bag containing the smashed sake bottle, "Mā, I guess it can't be helped I suppose."

Not that the fact that she was now late in returning home with a broken sake bottle would help her. Reiko knew that her mother would punish her anyway. Ritsuko was never really interested in hearing any of her excuses, even if said excuses turned out to be valid reasons. It would matter not if she turned up with a broken sake bottle or a replacement. Her mother always dealt out the same degree of punishment not matter how minor or major the reason.

"Nē, Kazebana-san," a new female voice came, causing Reiko to almost jump out of her skin and she turned around to see two girls standing behind her with curious looks on their faces, "Are you okay?"

"You look like you're just standing around and staring into space," the girl with long black hair said, as both girls stared at her with concerned looks on their faces.

"Ā, Satonaka-san, Amagi-san, what are you two doing here?" Reiko asked, a bit surprised that the two girls had decided to speak to her.

She knew exactly who those two were, since they were not only in the same year as her, but had also been in the same class the previous year, though, she never really interacted with either of them all that much. The only times she remembered having really interacted with them was when the situation called for it, like when she had been partnered in the same group as them a few times in the past for certain assignments and she recalled that they had all helped one another in setting up decorations for the school's culture festival.

The girl on the left, Satonaka Chie, had short light brown hair and brown eyes. She wore light green boots that went up to three-quarters of the way to her knees and were a yellowish white colour at the front over the tops of her toes. There were also yellowish white semi-circle arches at the back at the bottoms and thick yellowish white outlines at the tops with black strings attached at the outer sides that went halfway down to her ankles. She also wore yellow socks that emerged slightly from the tops of her boots along with a rather short navy jean skirt along with what appeared to be three tops and a green and yellow unbuttoned jacket with at least six white buttons. The first top looked a bit like a child's white sundress that Chie had long since outgrown with a wavy bottom. Underneath that appeared to be a black and dark grey horizontal striped tank top and underneath that appeared to be a sea-blue t-shirt. The jacket had a yellow bottom with vertical black lines creating rectangles, the same was true with the high-rise collar. The jacket also had pockets near the bottom, one at each side, which were each highlighted by a diagonal yellow rectangular line as a forty-five-degree downward angle, from left the right on the right side, and right to left on the left side, and at the outer side of each sleeve, there was a thick yellow stripe that went up over the top of Chie's shoulder to her neck. One the back was a yin-yang style symbol with the top half being a dark brownish yellow colour and the bottom half the same yellowish white colour as the non-green parts of her boots. She also had a red badge with three dots forming a downward pointing triangle pinned to the upper left side at the front and she had a black string looped around her neck that held a small purple crystal, forming a necklace.

The other girl, Amagi Yukiko, by contrast had long black hair that went down to behind where her stomach was, though, she had two strands that hung from the front over her shoulders that went down to just beneath her breasts and dark brown eyes that were so dark that one could easily mistake them for being black. She wore dark, almost black boots with dark brown bottoms and black outline at the tops, which were just under her knees. She also wore what appeared to be a mix between a jacket and a dress, which was red in colour and went down to halfway between her hips and knees. The jacket-dress had three black buttons on the left side and a cut that was also on the left side that was filled in by a black material. The jacket-dress also exposed her upper chest above her breasts, though the outline that covered the tops of her breasts was a dark brownish back with a triangular jagged end. She also had a reddish orange scarf tied around her neck with the knot situated on her left side and the ends were pointed and were highlighted with a white colour and a yellowish orange border that separated the reddish orange from the white. She also had a red headband over the top of her head.

"Well, Yukiko and I were on our way over to my place when we saw you just standing there and staring into space like you couldn't help it," Chie replied in response to Reiko's earlier question.

"Hai, we were worried that you may have been in a bit of trouble," Yukiko added, as she also voiced her concern, speaking in a somewhat quiet tone.

"Ā, well, I'm okay now," Reiko replied with a hasty nod, deciding that she had been milling around the gas station long enough, "In fact I was just about to leave."

Yukiko turned and looked down at the bag containing the broken sake bottle before she walked over to pick it up. She then noticed a small puddle that had formed just next to the bag and when she wrapped her hand around the handle, she almost immediately withdrew, feeling that the handle was rather wet.

"I'm guessing that you had some sort of accident," she said, looking between the bag and Reiko.

"Hai, that's right," Reiko said with a nod, deciding to go along with it, since she really had dropped the bag, "I was on my way home when, somehow I must've accidentally dropped it. It was for my haha."

"Haha, is that what you call your mother?" Chie asked, raising a curious eyebrow, as it was unusual for people to address their own mothers as haha, and may even be considered rude.

However, given the relationship between her and her mother, Reiko absolutely refused to refer to her with the usual titles that symbolised respect. Sure, the only exceptions were whenever she was with Ritsuko, both in private and in public, but since her mother was not here, she refused to refer to her respectfully, since she had come to despise her for all the beatings she had given her over the years.

As for Chie and Yukiko, despite not knowing either one of them personally, she did know that they were usually always seen together despite their contrasting personalities. Yukiko was rather timid and shy whereas Chie was loud and boisterous. All in all, they were the most unlikely pair one could ever hope to meet. Chie was pretty much a tomboy who was into Kung Fu and who had no problems talking to people whereas Yukiko, on the other hand, was the shy and timid heiress to the Amagiya Ryokan, who had problems opening up to folk, though given her looks, she was pretty popular round Yasogami High and was constantly being hounded with requests from boys to date her, which she always turned down no matter what, and given Yukiko's lack of a boyfriend and all the boys' desires to go out with her, many of the boys had dubbed trying to get Yukiko to agree to go out with them, the "Amagi Challenge", though by now, most of the boys had pretty much given up, realising how hopeless it was, with only the most diehard souls still trying every now and then.

The Amagiya Ryokan, now that was a famous landmark of Inaba, Reiko reminisced. It had been dubbed the "Pride of Inaba" and featured in a good variety of magazines and brochures with many people coming to Inaba just for the soul purpose of staying there, and as the manager's daughter, Yukiko was going to inherit it someday, though, from what Reiko could see, rather than beaming with pride at that prospect, Yukiko did not look all that enthusiastic about it, and in fact seemed rather depressed over the issue. From what Reiko had seen over the course of the previous year, sometimes the Ryokan needed help, and Yukiko occasionally did not turn up for class or she just headed straight home after school. It was those times that Reiko noticed that she was at her most depressed state. Sometimes, she had to take a few days off school due to a need to rest after a busy session, and when she came back, she was depressed with only Chie for company.

As for Chie, herself, Reiko could not help but notice that she was very protective of Yukiko. She was normally the one who kept the boys at bay and scared them off, especially those few who were too stubborn to accept no for an answer, though unlike Yukiko, whenever they were not together, Chie was seen with a variety of other people, including Yōsuke, whom she seemed to have a love-hate relationship with. Unlike Yōsuke though, Reiko found herself okay with Chie since her on-off friendship with him did not cross paths with her, and Chie even occasionally let him borrow her DVDs, though whenever angry with him, Chie would always lash out at him in some way, which she giggled at, though she knew that that was her own dislike for Yōsuke coming to the surface.

As for Chie's relationship with Yukiko, since they were mostly seen together, like with her and Saki, Reiko had heard talk that perhaps they were a romantic couple, and she often wondered that herself, though she would never dare ask that to either of them, since Chie was also known for having a fierce fiery temper and a tendency to lash out whenever she was upset, and asking about such a topic would undoubtedly be a sure way of upsetting her. However, unlike with Saki and her, whereas the talk about them being romantically involved with one another came about due to her dislike of Yōsuke and her hanging round Saki, whom Yōsuke was interested in, Chie and Yukiko were both rumoured of being a romantic couple because they were always seen together and seemed to be inseparable, plus Chie always mostly was there to scare away any boys that were pestering Yukiko for a date, and there were a few times Reiko had come across them both alone, and Yukiko seemed like a completely different person. She was more cheerful and seemed to burst into spontaneous fits of laughter over even the most ridiculous and insignificant of things, though she put that down to the fact that she was mostly comfortable round Chie enough to feel at ease, since Yukiko never once displayed any of those cheerful traits whenever she was alone or with Chie around other people.

"Konnichiwa, Kazebana-san," another new female voice came and all three girls turned their attention down towards the direction where Saki and Naoki had been arguing, though the Konishi Siblings were no longer there, obviously having gone back home.

Instead, there stood a woman who looked to be in her early thirties with short dark brown hair and orange coloured eyes holding a bag identical to the one that Reiko had dropped. She wore grey boots with platforms underneath that rose half a foot off the ground, black leggings, a dark greyish brown skirt and a long-sleeved top that was the same colour. She also wore a light grey sleeveless coat that was unbuttoned and had a total of five white buttons. The coat also had thick dark grey lines that ran both vertically and horizontally, giving off a square pattern that was almost as hypnotic as Gōki's sweater.

However, she knew very well who this woman was, as she had bumped into her occasionally and they would often talk, though Reiko was rather hesitant to open up to her.

"Konnichiwa, Sonomura-san," she greeted with a smile.

Her name was Sonomura Maki, a recently-qualified psychiatrist whom she had accidentally bumped into after fleeing from her mother one night when she had flown into an alcohol-fuelled rage, and Reiko, fearing that her intoxicated mother may go too far and severely hurt her, or even kill her, had fled the apartment and accidentally ran into Maki, who back then, had just moved to Inaba with her mother, Setsuko. She had just opened a psychiatric clinic, and from what Reiko could gather, she clearly seemed to have a somewhat obsessive desire to help people with their problems. She had taken her in for the night and Reiko very quickly found that she was well as ease with her, and that she could talk to her, though, she did not tell her about her mother's abuse, fearing of what Ritsuko would do, not just to her, but Maki as well. She feared that her mother may end up killing Maki, and even her, herself, if Maki tried to interfere. It was for that reason as well that she had never tried to make any friends in the past, because she feared that it would infuriate her mother, though, the only reason she made an exception with Saki was because or her similar issues concerning her father. However, unfortunately, it seemed that Maki had a fair idea about what was going on, and had urged her to open up in the past, but Reiko found that she was too fearful to do so, but Maki never pressed the issue whenever it came up and just changed the subject, obviously must be sensing that she was uncomfortable. However, aside from that, both of them had a rather friendly relationship and Reiko found that she was coming to view the recently-qualified psychiatrist a second mother. She was definitely more of a mother to her than Ritsuko ever was.

"I couldn't help but notice that you dropped your bag with the sake bottle in it, and so, I bought a replacement for you," Maki said, as she walked over to Reiko and offered her the bag she was holding.

"Ā, arigatōgozaimasu, Sonomura-san," Reiko said simply, clearly taken aback by the psychiatrist's act of generosity.

"Dōitashimashite," Maki replied with a smile.

"Ē, you two know each other?" Chie said in confusion, as both she and Yukiko looked on in surprise, since neither of them knew Maki.

"Mochiron, we met eight months ago when I first moved to Inaba," Maki explained, as she turned to regard the two other girls, "She accidentally ran into me."

"Sokka," Yukiko said quietly to herself.

"Oya, you must've been in a hurry if you weren't looking where you were going," Chie said with a playful laugh.

"Hai, that was it," Reiko said, since in a sense, it was the truth; she was in a hurry to escape her mother, and in her fear, she failed to realise that her mother had been too drunk to chase after her, and she suddenly decided that she had hung around long enough, and decided to take her leave before either Yukiko or Chie inquired more on the subject, "Well, I've been milling around here for far too long. I'm late enough as it is in getting home. I really shouldn't keep haha waiting much longer, she'll already be mad enough at me already as it is."

Maki frowned, noticing how hurriedly the young girl had said that last part, and Reiko turned to regard her.

"Aratamete arigatō, Sonomura-san," she said before she turned and started to run, much to the confusion of both Chie and Yukiko.

"Ano, was it something we said?" Chie said in confusion, clearly not expected Reiko to just run off out of the blue like that, and both she and Yukiko turned to give one another questioningly confused looks.


Maki watched Reiko run off and sighed, knowing that she was obviously dodging any potential questions that both the other two girls had for her, since she knew that Reiko was deeply uncomfortable about discussing issues about her mother. She had met Reiko eight months previously after she had accidentally run into her. She remembered how scared and frightened the young girl looked, especially when she apologised repeatedly over and over again. Feeling sorry for her and realising that she needed help, Maki had taken her in and offered her a room for the night. Reiko had told her that she had had a bit of a disagreement with her mother and simply wanted to wait till her mother had cooled off before she returned to the apartment that they both shared. That particular subject caused her to frown. She and Reiko had become fast friends, though whenever they talked, she noticed how evasive Reiko was whenever the subject of her mother popped up, and Maki could not help but suspect that her mother was abusing her. Reiko did tend to wince a lot and she mostly tried to keep herself well covered, though every so often, Maki did happen to notice some tell-tale signs of bruises and scars, but she had pretended that she had not noticed, since she knew that Reiko would likely not tell her anything.

However, other than that, Reiko was rather talkative on subjects that were not pertaining to her mother. Maki had discovered that she was born out of wedlock, which probably was a possible reason for the abuse, since unlike the majority of the Western World, children born out of wedlock was still pretty much frowned upon for the most part in Japan, and that she was also an artist, something that warmed the psychiatrist's heart, as she had also taken to painting during her youth, especially during the year in which she was bedridden thanks to a weak constitution. Reiko did not know her father because she had never met him. She only knew that his name was Mikimi Kankurō and that he had a one-night stand with her mother before fleeing the next day. That was as much as Reiko was willing to share without becoming uncomfortable.

Nonetheless, she could see that Reiko clearly needed help and she was determined to do whatever she could to help her. She found that the younger girl was rather pleasant to be around whenever the topic of her mother did not come up, and Maki found herself wishing that she could get Reiko away from her mother and adopt her as her own daughter, despite the fact that she knew that due to the fact that she was single, she could not hope to ever legally adopt a child unless the law changed. However, part of her had to wonder if that was because she happened to share a name with her former employer, Hīragi Reiko, from the Hīragi Psychotherapy Counselling Service that was based in the Kōnan District of Sumaru City, where she had worked part-time as a psychiatrist's assistant twelve years previously back in 1999.

Sighing to herself while shaking her head, she turned to regard the other two girls.

"Well, I guess we should get going, are, Yukiko," Chie said with a sigh after recovering from Reiko's hasty departure.

"Hai," Yukiko replied with a small nod.

"Chottomatte kudasai!" Maki called out, as the two younger girls started to walk away.

"Are, Sonomura-san?" Yukiko said, stopping before turning to face the older woman.

"Listen girls… ano, what are your names?" Maki said before realising that she did not know either of the two girls' names.

"Ā, I'm Satonaka Chie," Chie said, formally introducing herself, and then she extended her arm out at Yukiko, "And this is my shinyū, Amagi Yukiko."

"Ano… it's very nice to meet you, Sonomura-san," Yukiko said in a polite tone, and she followed it up with a respectful bow, "Sorry that we had to meet like this."

"Nē, don't apologise like that," Chie whispered, looking a bit upset, "It makes it look as if I had no upbringing."

"Well, anyway girls, I really need to ask a favour of you both," Maki said with a pleading look in her eyes, ignoring Chie's statement, "It's about Kazebana-san."

"Are, what about her?" Chie asked in confusion.

"Look, I know this might be difficult for you, but please, I must ask you…" Maki said in a sincere tone, "Can you please try to make friends with her?"

"Are, make friends with her?" Chie asked in confusion.

"Onegaishimasu," Maki practically pleaded as she clasped her hands in front of her and gave the two girls a pleading look, "I realise that I'm asking a lot from you, especially since I realise that she's not the most sociable girl around, but please… have some patience with her. She'll most certainly try to push you away. However, I'd prefer it if she had some friends. She could really use them."

"Eto… we're not sure what to say to that," Chie said in a rather reluctant tone as she turned her head to look at Yukiko, who also looked reluctant.

"I don't think that we can guarantee that," Yukiko said in a soft and quiet tone that was barely above a whisper as she looked as if she was retreating into herself.

"Especially after hearing the part about her pushing us away," Chie added, putting in her two cents.

However, Maki did manage to catch what Yukiko said, and she also understood Chie's misgivings as well.

"All I ask is that you try, nothing more," she said simply, hoping that that would be enough.

"Besides, doesn't she already have a friend in Konishi-senpai, doesn't she?" Chie spoke up, knowing about Reiko's friendship with Saki.

Yes, that was true, Maki submersed. She was well aware of Reiko's friendship with Saki. Saki was perhaps the only other person that Reiko did not push away, though she knew that even Saki did not have the full story about Reiko's mother, just as Reiko did not have the full story about the suspected abuse that she believed Saki had suffered from her father. She did not know the full story with Saki either, only that she had issues with her father going back years, even long before Junes had come along, and like Reiko, she did not open up, though she was far too nice to even try pushing people away, so long as they did not press the issue. She reckoned that the only reason the two girls made exceptions for one another was because of their similar situations, though that was mostly just a guess. However, she could see that both Reiko and Saki needed to make friends.

"Reiko-chan, Saki-chan, I wish that the pair of you would just open up to me," she thought to herself sadly.

"Hai, that's true, but she, as well as Konishi-san could really use more friends," she spoke up, reiterating her point.

"Oya, this really means a lot to you, doesn't it, Sonomura-san? Chie said as she analysed Maki's state of mind, "I noticed earlier how she addressed her mother as haha, which isn't normal. Usually it's okā-chan, okā-san, okā-sama, kā-chan, kā-san or kā-sama or on the cases of some people, haha-ue. I know that you're not her haha, but you wouldn't happen to know what's going on, do you?"

"That's not my place to say," Maki replied, as she shook her head, "Since I don't know the full story either, since she won't talk to me about it, but I do have a rough idea. However, it's something that Kazebana-san will have to tell you herself, and that's if she feels like it. I also must stress, don't bring this up with her, whatever you do. She's not comfortable with discussing that particular subject."

She then shot the two girls a stern look, and Yukiko could not help but tremble slightly, despite the fact that Maki meant them no harm.

"Like Yukiko said, we can't guarantee anything," Chie said with a sigh, after briefly thinking it over as she looked Maki in the eye, "However, we will try, but we can't promise you anything."

"Kekkōda," Maki relented with an accepting nod, "All I ask is that you try, nothing more."

"Jā okē, ikuzo, Yukiko," Chie said with a satisfied nod, as both she and Yukiko walked away.

Maki watched them go till they were out of sight before she started to make her own way home, picking up the bag that Reiko had dropped and planned to dispose of it when she found a bin.


Unbeknownst to any of them, the Gas Station Attendant that had seen to the Dōjima Family, Yū and Euphemia had been watching the entire situation play out, and their eyes widened upon seeing Maki. Despite having never met Maki face to face before, the Attendant did recognise her as one of Philemon's previous Chosen Ones that was instrumental in preventing the end of the world back in 1996 in Mikage-chō when Nyarlathotep manipulated the businessman, Kandori Takahisa into shooting for godhood with his DEVA Machine, of which Maki had somehow become Kandori's unknowing and unwilling guinea pig.

"Sonomura Maki, just what are you doing here?" the Attendant mused to themselves, "Her chapter in Philemon's machinations is over. Could it be Philemon's doing?"

They did wonder if Philemon did indeed have a hand in Maki's presence in Inaba. After all, just because he could not interfere directly did not mean that he could not interfere completely. There were many ways that he could interfere without becoming directly involved. In other words, he could interfere indirectly, though that was more Nyarlathotep's forte. They were aware of the old bet that Philemon and Nyarlathotep had with one another, and throughout their many struggles, Nyarlathotep was the one that mostly looked for loopholes to exploit in order to tip the odds in his favour, if not outright cheating and taking action personally. In fact, that old bet was still in effect, even today despite Nyarlathotep's devastating defeat twelve years previously. Since his defeat, Nyarlathotep had been banished from their dimension and had somehow ended up in Euphemia's world.

Yes, the Attendant was aware of Nyarlathotep and his influence in Euphemia's World, how he had shaped its history, though they were surprised that Nyarlathotep did not seem to object to them whisking Euphemia away. That was not like Nyarlathotep. They knew that he already had his own plans for Euphemia, and he did not like others hijacking those he had plans for, so the most logical explanation was that he must have some ulterior motive in mind.

"Not that it matters," the Attendant thought with a scoff, "As I said before, Euphemia's fate is inevitable regardless of the outcome. I don't know what he hopes to gain by allowing me to confiscate her from his game."

Yes, that much was true, they reminded themselves, and upon reminding themselves of that, they suddenly decided that Maki's unexpected presence did not matter all that much either. Even if she did have an influence on the outcome of their experiment, it mattered not as there was nothing she, or anyone else could do that would alter Euphemia's fate, and to the Attendant, that's all that mattered, though if Philemon was indeed behind her presence, it was rather unusual for him to exploit loopholes.

Philemon really needed to be careful about how he went about things, the Attendant mused, as since the accord he had with Nyarlathotep was still in place, Nyarlathotep could not re-enter their dimension so long as the accord held true, and one of the ways to break the accord would be by Philemon interfering directly, and if the accord was broken, it would enable Nyarlathotep to re-enter their dimension, and that was something they did not want under any circumstances, as they knew that Nyarlathotep would simply pick up from where he left off before his banishment.

"Tread very carefully, Philemon," the Attendant said, speaking aloud, as they shuddered just thinking about Nyarlathotep and the chaos he would most definitely bring, "For between me and the Crawling Chaos, one must wonder, which of us is more suited to putting Humanity to the test?"


Kujikawa Rise stomped out of her dressing room as her manager was discussing things over with the agency's board members on her next big appearance. She had just gotten through with the latest in a series of photoshoots following her part in that Quelorie Magic diet soda commercial, and being honest with herself, she was getting really sick and tired of her life as an idol. She found it rather frustrating, though she did not mind the repetitiveness of everything she did. No, it was not the repetitive aspect of the job that was frustrating her. It was due to the fact that she had long since realised that her fans, her "so-called" friends, were not really all that interested in her as a person, but rather, they were only interested in her stage persona, and not her as a person.

Rise was rather unique in the idol industry, in that she did not have one stage name, but rather two. At first, she had appeared under the name, Risechī, but after a while, after realising that everyone was only interested in her Risechī persona, she had dropped the name and retooled herself under the name, Risette in order to see what would happen, and surprisingly, the agency, Takura Productions, had decided to let her go ahead with it, though, she cited their reasoning as being that it was something that had never been done before, and they were interested to see what would happen. In other words, to them, it was probably just an experiment, since idols tended to just stick with the one stage name.

It was something that she had tried to see if the fans would start to get interested in her as a person, but unfortunately, that had failed to get results, since, as soon as everyone realised that she had changed stage names, they were all now only interested in Risette, though some fans still did talk about Risechī, and it led to a rumour that Risechī was perhaps a caterpillar and Risette was the butterfly that Risechī had become since they were both the same person. It seemed that no matter what she did, she could not get the people to see her as Kujikawa Rise.

"Kujikawa Rise, who the hell is she?" Rise imagined a few people saying behind her back, and it caused her to wince, since she genuinely believed that that was what most people would say if her real name had been brought up, "She's probably just some haisha needing a mask to feel special."

She winced at just imagining that. Even though she had never heard anyone say those sorts of things, those were the sorts of things she believed that her fans were probably saying behind her back.

"Kinda ironic isn't it?" she mused to herself with a sad chuckle, "The whole reason I became an idol in the first place was because I wanted to make friends, but after all this time… nothing's changed."

That was true, she mused to herself. She never really had any friends back when she was a child. She was rather shy and found it awkward trying to talk to others, and due to this, whenever she was trying to muster up the courage to talk to people, she had this habit of staring at her feet, and it led to her becoming a victim of bullying. No one had been expecting anything from her and she had learned to live with the fact she was being bullied. However, she had filled out an application form for Takura Productions, though, she never expected anything to come of it. One of her relatives, though, had sent it off to Takura Productions without her knowledge, and not only did it pass the first audition, but by sheer chance, Rise had won.

At first, after hearing the news, she had considered turning them down, since she had not been expecting it and was a bit frightened of what could potentially go wrong, but after thinking it over, deciding to give it a shot, rationalising that if she could change, then perhaps she could make friends, and for a while, it seemed to pay off. After her debut, when she returned to school, no one bullied her, and in fact, those that had bullied her were now suddenly interested in her, wanting to talk to her, and not only that, but even those she did not know all that well and complete strangers were all wanting to talk to her as well. At first, Rise had been elated and believed that she was finally making friends.

However, after a while, when she was coming down from her metaphorical high, she started to realise that none of her "friends" were really all that interested in her. All they wanted to hear about was what she was doing as Risechī, and later, Risette. After all, very few of them had addressed her by her actual name, instead addressing her as Risechī, or Risette when she switched stage names. She had hoped that by changing stage names, it would get people interested in the person behind the Risechī persona, as she believed that they would start to wonder why she had switched stage names, but as soon the fans heard the news, they had just switched their attention to Risette, not really caring all that much about Kujikawa Rise the person, and it had left her feeling rather lonely and deflated.

She had also come to realise that since she had been an idol for so long and how she had constantly played a variety of different roles for the public that she had come to realise that she had lost sight of what she was really like to the point where she was unsure what traits belonged to her as a person and what traits belong to the false personalities she had shown to the public.

"Just what makes me… well me?" she said to herself with a sad sigh, "I'm not sure I really know anymore."

However, she was so occupied with her thoughts that she failed to notice a janitor standing on a stepladder as he was trying to hang a clock up on the wall to her right, and unfortunately, she bumped into him, causing him to lose his balance, dropping the clock in the process, potentially breaking it, and he fell off the stepladder on top of Rise.

"Itai," the janitor said, as her recovered and picked himself up.

He was not too badly hurt, though there was a pain in his left shoulder, but it was bearable. He frowned as he looked down at the clock and discovered that it was indeed broken. However, upon hearing a groan from behind him, he turned around and saw that Rise was still on the floor. He then held out a hand and offered to help her up.

"Are you alright, wakai josei?" he asked with a look of concern adorning his face.

Rise groaned, wincing in pain, as she accepted the hand and got back to her feet. In truth, she hurt all over from the weight of the janitor falling down on top of her, though she did realise that the whole incident was her own fault, since she had not been looking where she was going.

"Sumimasen, yōmuin-san," she apologised, giving the janitor an apologetic bow, "That was my fault, I should've been paying more attention to where I was going."

"Oya oya, don't worry about it," the janitor said with a dismissive chuckle, "Those things happen."

Looking the janitor over, Rise saw that he looked to be in his early thirties and had short dark reddish brown hair and light brownish grey eyes. He wore light brown laced shoes and teal-coloured overalls that consisted of teal-coloured trousers, a teal-coloured button jacket with at least eight white buttons, white sleeve cuffs, a white outline at the bottom with vertical black lines running around forming rectangles and two breast pockets, one on either side at the front. On the left side of his jack was the insignia that presented Takura Productions and underneath that was a white nametag that had red kanji symbols that read, Uesugi Hidehiko on it. He also wore a teal-coloured tap white a white visor and the Takura Productions insignia displayed on the front and resting on his forehead were a pair of yellow-shaded rectangular glasses that were tilted upwards from his ears.

"D-demo…" Rise said, trailing off, as she looked down at the broken clock, and then back at the janitor, whom she could now identify as Uesugi Hidehiko.

She did not really know him that well, though she did remember passing him by a few times as he tended to his duties, but other than that, she had never spoken to him before, and she did not bother getting to know him.

"Like I said don't worry about it… eto…" Hidehiko explained as he picked up the broken clock and trailed off, trying to remember who Rise was.

Though he never actually spoke with her before, he had seen her pass by a few times, but since she had not paid any attention to him, he had just ignored her in turn, and though he knew who she was, he was used to seeing so many faces each day that it took him a while to recognise her.

"Hai, I'm Risechī… or Risette… or whatever…" Rise said in a frustrated huff, believing that this janitor was going to want to hang with her due to her fake personas.

"Ā, Kujikawa-san," Hidehiko suddenly said, after hearing the frustrated annoyance in Rise's voice, "You're Kujikawa Rise, aren't you?"

"Are?" Rise said in surprised, as her eyes widened in shock, clearly not expecting to be addressed by her actual name for a change.

"I'm Uesugi Hidehiko," Hidehiko said, introducing himself, as he extended a hand towards a bewildered Rise.

Rise automatically accepted his hand, clasping it with her own, still shocked at the fact that Hidehiko had addressed her by her actual name and not by either of her stage personas. However, thinking about Hidehiko, and realising how familiar his name sounded, her eyes widened yet again, as she did recall seeing him on TV back when she was just a toddler as a variety talk-host host.

"Nē, aren't you the Uesugi Hidehiko, you know, the one that hosted that talk-show… what was it… Hidehiko Shitsumon Jikan?" she said, which caused Hidehiko to wince, though he very quickly regained his composure and then just laughed.

"Ā, you remember that far back, Kujikawa-san?" he replied to her question with a rather uncomfortable chuckle.

"Hai, I was only a yōji at the time, but I do remember that," Rise replied, and then shot him a stern look, "Only because you tended to humiliate your guests."

"Ahahaha… well, that's all in the past now," Hidehiko said with a laugh as he brought his hand to the back of his head and started scratching it before his look became serious, "I'll be honest with you, Kujikawa-san, back then, I had let my jiga get the best of me, and I was full of myself. As you said, I tended to humiliate my guests, only because I thought that it would appeal to the kankyaku, but unfortunately, I eventually ended up humiliating the wrong guy… in other words, someone was a lot of wealth and influence, and because of that, I was fired."

"Well, that's your own fault," Rise said simply, and surprisingly, Hidehiko nodded in agreement.

"You're right, however, thanks to onī-san, I wasn't down and out," the talk-show host-turned-janitor went on, "He helped me get back on my feet and now I work here as a yōmuin, though I only started working here recently as a favour from onī-san."

"A favour from your ani?" Rise said in surprise, though, she did not know why she was even listening to him, as she could easily just walk away, but for some reason that she could not explain, she felt compelled to listen to him.

She figured that perhaps it was because he had addressed her by her real name rather than either of her two stage names and she was hoping that perhaps he was seeing her as Kujikawa Rise rather than Risette or Risechī.

"Hai, onī-chan has a musume who recently passed an audition here, I don't know if you've met her, Uesugi Tamami?" Hidehiko replied to Rise's question, "I'm her oji, and onī-san wants me to keep an eye on her as payback him for helping me."

"Hai, I know Tamami-san," Rise said with a nod, knowing exactly who she was talking about.

She had met with Tamami a few times, though she found herself a bit put off by her personality, as Tamami tended to get pretty boisterous at times and had a bit of a bad temper with a tendency to pick fights, especially when she was not the centre of attention, and she seemed to exaggerate herself, believing she had a lot of fans. All in all, Tamami seemed like a typical textbook narcissist suffering from Narcissistic Personality Disorder, though because of her traits, the higher ups tended to relegate her to comic relief rolls, though she did not tell this to Tamami's uncle, unsure of how he would react.

"Anyway, Kujikawa-san, I couldn't help but notice that you were feeling a bit frustrated recently," Hidehiko went on, dismissing the subject of his niece.

"Are, hai, demo…?" Rise started to say, still feeling a bit bewildered, and in truth, she was unsure how to respond.

"Let me guess, you're probably feeling dejected and alone, that no one seems to appreciate you as a real person, just the geimei that you portray on stage," the janitor went on, interrupting Rise, much to her surprise, causing her eyes to widen in shock, "Onī-san knows the feeling. It's why he's having me keep an eye on Tamami-chan. In truth, he didn't agree with her, believing that no one would really like her for being her, just the geimei that she presents to the taishū. I can see, given how frustrated you are when you believed that I would address you by one of your geimei that you know what it feels like."

Rise just nodded, though she could not help but be curious as to where he was going with this.

"Hai, that's right," she said, following up her nod.

"Well, I have an old gakuyū, who's gone on to become a seishinkai, and who's also currently in the inakamachi of Inaba," Hidehiko went on to explain, "Her name's Sonomura Maki and she's set up a seishinryōhō there…"

"Inaba, that's where I'm from," Rise said, interrupting Hidehiko, though she did happen to notice his surprised look, "Ā, sumimasen, Uesugi-san."

"You're from Inaba…?" Hidehiko said in surprise, as his eyes widened before regaining his composure, "Well… I suppose that would make things easier. Look, if you're feeling down about your fans not really knowing you, just take some time off. Go see Maki-chan; she likes to help people with problems like that."

"Arigatō, Uesugi-san, but I don't think I need to see a seishinkai," Rise said, though his suggestion about taking time off did sound rather tempting, "I'm not mentally ill or anything."

"S-s-sumimasen," Hidehiko said rather hurriedly, fearing that he had unintentionally offended the young girl, and he waved his free hand in front of him, as he had the broken clock underneath his arm, "You don't have to if you don't want to. It's was only a suggestion."

He then turned and started to walk away, leaving Rise, who was seriously thinking it over. However, he suddenly stopped and glanced back at her.

"Just think it over, will you?" he said simply, "As I said, you don't have to. However, I'm sure Maki-chan won't mind. She likes to help people sort out their problems."

"Hai, I'll think about it," Rise said with a nod, though she was a bit puzzled why a total stranger would give her such helpful advice and would not expect anything in return.

Hidehiko just nodded with an accepting smile before turning and started to walk down the corridor in order to fetch a replacement clock for the one Rise had accidentally caused him to break.


Shirogane Naoto frowned, walking out of the police chief's office in the quiet country town of Akakusa just at the borders between the Yamanashi, Kanagawa and Shizuoka Prefectures after having just helped solve a case involving a thief that had stolen the mayor's most prized possessions.

"I don't care about any of that!" Naoto heard the chief practically scream in seething fury, "That gaki must've hired in outside help, that's the only explanation!"

Naoto stopped for a moment and winced at hearing that, as "he" felt that "he" had just been slapped in the face, but then shrugged it off with a sigh and kept walking towards the front door, all the while, feeling the hate-filled glares of everyone "he" passed by on "his" back.

However, Naoto was not surprised by this, though it still greatly upset "him". "He" was used to it. It was always like this for "him". Shaking "his" head, Naoto did "his" best to ignore them. Bringing it up would accomplish nothing, other than, perhaps, only serving to discredit "him". Yes, Naoto figured sadly, the police would very much like that. "He" would not be surprised if they had people looking into "his" background, looking for any shred of evidence that they could use to bring "him" down. Not only would Naoto not be surprised if "he" discovered that that's what they were doing, "he" was actually expecting it.

Naoto hailed from a long line of famous detectives, and ever since "he" was young, "he" often read detective novels and became fascinated by them. Naoto had lost both "his" parents in a car accident and had been taken in by "his" grandfather who took care of "him". Among the police, the elder Shirogane was a highly respected detective, and the last from the times before there were crime scene investigators, and calling in the help of detectives was considered normal. Naoto often fantasied about being like "his" grandfather and the protagonist characters of the novels "he" read, and yes, Naoto found that "he" was rather smart for "his" age. Naoto helped solve a lot of cases, though unfortunately for "him", rather than receive praise for "his" hard work, the police instead just cast "him" aside and took the credit for all the hard work that "he" had put into solving those cases for themselves, and all because of "his" age.

At fifteen-years-old, Naoto was still a minor and the police usually called "him" in when they were having trouble, though, upon meeting Naoto, they looked greatly offended. It was obvious that they only hired Naoto because of "his" family's name and were expecting an adult. The fact that they got a child no doubt made them feel insulted. However, they grudgingly allowed Naoto to help, though it was only because "he" was as good as the stories said. After Naoto's services were no longer required, "he" was promptly dismissed while the police basked in the glory of stealing the credit for "his" hard work.

This served to infuriate Naoto greatly. "He" was infuriated that the police had practically used "him" and then discarded "him" when "he" was no longer needed, all the while stealing the credit for "his" work.

"Don't bother us kodomo," Naoto remembered one particular offensive police officer tell him, "What would a gaki like you know? You're in our way."

Comments like those plagued "him", and whenever Naoto did end up proving them wrong, rather than acknowledge "him", it only served to intensify their dislike into pure hatred, as in their eyes, a mere child should not be that smart, and to have one that proved them wrong only served to bruise their egos, as they believed that Naoto had made them look like incompetent fools, which they basically were most of the time, at least, that was Naoto's opinion of them.

Naoto remembered one time when "he" helped with a rape case, the police had practically forced an innocent man to confess to the crime based on eyewitness testimony, though, as it turned out, the poor man just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and Naoto was able to prove it and went public with it, much to the fury of the police, but unfortunately, in order to deflect the criticism from the police department that had been involved, one infuriated police detective had ran a smear campaign against their original suspect, making it seem that he had had illegal drugs in his possession, though, Naoto had also proven him innocent once again, but unfortunately the detective responsible had managed to cover up his involvement, and the police had managed to wriggle themselves out of owning up to their original mistake as a result.

One thing that Naoto knew infuriated the police was that because they were constantly under pressure from the higher ups to get whatever case they were working on solved as soon as possible, it led to them making rather rash and hurried decisions without properly examining all of the facts, and at times Naoto felt that they did not really care exactly who did what, just so long as they arrested someone and then have them prosecuted with the issue of guilt or innocence not even entering the equation. It was here that Naoto usually clashed with the police, as "he" preferred to go over everything rather thoroughly and meticulously. However, the police, at least from Naoto's point of view, did not seem to care about details, and given the immense pressure they were under from their superiors, "he" could not say "he" blamed them. However, trying to explain the situation to the higher ups was like arguing with a brick wall. No matter how many times they were told that solving cases took time and effort, they just ignored the people telling them that and reaffirmed their rhetoric on how cases should be solved as soon as possible, and would not listen to anyone. It was like they did not care about facts and where only interested in prosecuting people regardless of whether they were guilty or innocent.

"Īyakkaiharai," Naoto heard one policeman say as "he" exited the station and started making "his" way to the hotel "he" was staying at.

Naoto was sure that the police only continued to put up with "him" despite their objections to "his" interference due to "his" grandfather's influence. "His" grandfather was pretty well connected with the police, and Naoto was sure that they were fearful of getting on his bad side. After all, the Shirogane Family were highly respected and very popular with the general public. Unfortunately, Naoto had decided to use this popularity to "his" advantage and had recently started showing them that "he" had been the one who solved those cases that the police had tried to steal credit for. Though Naoto could do nothing about the cases they had already claimed credit for in the past, "he" had recently started communicating with the general public, appearing on television and showed them that he was the one that had been doing all the work, and it had led to "him" being dubbed the "Detective Prince".

Unfortunately, this had only served to infuriate the police even more, as they undoubtedly believed that Naoto was deliberately trying to undermine their competence, so much so, that they would now only call "him" in when they were desperate. Their strategy had been really simple, once they had exhausted everything at their disposal in trying to solve their latest case, they would call in Naoto, let "him" do the all the hard work, and then try to steal the credit for it to bolster their reputations.

However, now that Naoto was taking measures to prevent that, "he" knew that their hatred of him only increased. To them, "he" was nothing more than a child who seemed to enjoy making them look bad.

"It's just as well that they haven't discovered my secret," Naoto mused to "himself" with a sad chuckle, as he reached the entrance to the reception area of the hotel, "Otherwise they'd have even more reason to hate me, and it would probably be enough to discredit me."


Meanwhile, over in the United Kingdom, in the town of Langington near Glasgow, Scotland, just northeast of the town of Rutherglen, at fifty-six Donaldson Drive in the Donaldson Suburb of Langington, sixteen-year-old Robert Lenston Jr. tiredly came downstairs and rather sluggishly, and rudely, made his way over to the breakfast table where his father, Robert Lenston Sr. and his mother, Tamao I. Lenston were both waiting for him. In the UK, since it was eight hours behind Japan, it was mid-to-late morning, whereas back in Japan, it was late afternoon-going-into-early evening. It was also the second week of the Easter Holidays, which in Glasgow and the surrounding area always fell on the first two full weeks of April.

Robert Jr. then took his seat and taking a box of corn flakes, poured a few of them into the bowl in front of him, and then, he reached for the milk carton that was sitting on the table and poured some milk into the bowl before taking his spoon and started to eat his breakfast.

"Yer 'air's a mess," his father commented, breaking the somewhat tense silence, as he could see that his son was not all that happy with them at the moment.

"So, whit's it tae yae?" the younger Lenston replied with a rude snort and followed up with an angry sneer, making his dissatisfaction clear.

"Robert, that's no way to speak to your chichi!" his mother, who was Japanese, scolded, shooting her son a scolding glare, "I realise that you're upset about moving to Japan, but that's no excuse for your rudeness."

"Whitever," Robert Jr. replied with an uncaring shrug.

Robert Sr. just sighed, shaking his head. He just knew that this was going to happen. He just knew that his son would object to their plans to move to Japan. He knew that his son was perfectly happy living here and he had a social life in school, as well as a girlfriend. However, there was nothing he could do about it. His job demanded that he move to Japan, and he wanted to take his family with him. Besides, his wife would be returning to her homeland, and his son could certainly use a lesson in Japanese Culture, considering that Japanese blood flowed through his veins. However, Robert Jr. had been born and raised in Scotland, though he only understood Japanese because Tamao had practically drilled it into his mind since early childhood. He was also a big fan of Japanese anime and manga and had a variety of manga and anime DVDs up in his room.

However, the problem lay with Robert Jr. having done research on Japan via the Internet, and apparently, he had become so focussed on the negative aspects of Japanese Society that he had practically closed his mind off to the positive aspects and blew the negative aspects out of proportion.

"Come on noo, ah'm sure not ever'in' aboot Japan's aw bad," he said, trying to reassure his son, only to receive a snort in response.

"Jūbunna, Robert!" Tamao shouted with a glare, "We're going over to Japan, and that's all there is to it."

"Ah know," Robert Jr. responded in dejected displeasure.

"Disnae mean ah hiv tae like it," he then grumbled under his breath.

"And another thing, I do hope you don't intend to speak like that while we're over there," his mother went on with a stern look on her face, "It can come across as being rather rude."

"Aye, an' Japanese people ir aw aboot politeness an' don't take too kindly 'ae rudeness," Robert Jr. said in a boastfully smug tone, believing that he was finishing his mother's sentence, "Can't help it, it's the way everyone 'ere talks."

"I know," Tamao relented with a sigh, "However, I don't want you talking like that over in Japan. Neither I nor your chichi want to deal with any misunderstandings that may arise because of your native accent."

"Aw, come oan, it's not like the Glaswegian accent is the most offensive soondin' accent in the world," Robert Jr. replied in mock defeat with a bit of a laugh, "Some ae the other accents in the wold soond even maire offensive tae the point where a typical "hello" cin soond maire like a declaration ae war."

Robert Sr. could not help but agree, and even nodded in agreement. However, he then cleared his throat, knowing that his son was not going to like this next bit.

"Well, noo that that's oot ae the wiye, ah hiv some'in' 'ae tell ye, Robert," he spoke up, deciding to change the subject.

"Whit, we're no gauan aefteraw?" Robert Jr. mocked with a laugh, only to receive a glare from both his parents.

"As you know, before you were born, I was a diplomat," Robert Sr. said, suddenly speaking proper English, much to his son's surprise, "And because you were born, I decided to go on a hiatus, but now that you are old enough, I feel that it's time to end my hiatus, and that is why we're going over to Japan. I've been assigned the position of Second Secretary to the British Ambassador over in Tōkyō."

"Aye, ah know this awready," Robert Jr. said with a pout.

Robert Sr. groaned at that, wishing his son would not state the obvious. It was true that he was a diplomat, and he had been sent over to Japan in the past, and that was where he had met Tamao, who had been Ichioka Tamao back then. He met her while checking out the Japanese countryside in an area known as Yasoinaba, where he had helped her home after noticing that she was carrying a heavy load of shopping, though her father, Ichioka Daichi had been sceptical of him at first because he was a foreigner, but after a while, he had eventually warmed up to him, seeing that he genuinely did care about his daughter. As for him and Tamao, Tamao had insisted on paying him back for his generosity and they saw one another often whenever Robert Sr. managed to get time away from his work and they had gradually fallen in love over time, though, eventually Robert had been recalled back to the UK, but Tamao had followed him with her father's, albeit reluctant, blessing and they both married and three years later, Robert Jr. was born, which prompted Robert Sr. to take a hiatus from his job so he could be there for his son. However, now that Robert Jr. was now becoming old enough to take care of himself, Robert Sr. had decided to end his hiatus and, as luck would have it, his first assignment was to return to Japan.

"Yes, well, anyway, what I'm trying to tell you is that I managed to pull some strings to ensure that you will not be covered by my diplomatic immunity." he went on to say, still speaking in proper English, and to Robert Jr., it was as if he had dropped a bombshell.

"WHIT!" Robert Jr. exclaimed in shock, and then fixed his father with a furious glare, unable to believe what he just heard, "Ye cannae be serious!"

"Aye, ah im serious," Robert Sr. replied with an equally intense glare, as he lapsed back into speaking with his native accent.

"Not only that, but you'll also be staying with otō-san in the inakamachi of Inaba, my furusato," Tamao added, letting her son know that she had been aware of what his father had been doing and was okay with it.

"Why?" Robert Jr. asked angrily, since despite not wanting to move to Japan, he had expected to at least have the protection of diplomatic immunity.

"Because ah know, with how much ye've been readin' on the internet aboot ever'in' that's bad aboot Japan, ah just know that yer gonna end up gettin' in'ae a fight," Robert Sr. explained, fixing his son a silencing glare that stopped him from voicing whatever objections he had, as well as indicate that he was not finished talking, "And ah'd rather no get expelled fae Japan aw because ye couldnae keep oot ae trouble."

"Whit makes ye think that ah'm gonna pick a fight wae someb'dy?" Robert Jr. asked under his breath, as he shot his parents a disapproving glare.

"Jūbunna!" Tamao snapped, glaring at her son, letting him know that she will accept no further backtalk, "Now, we're going over to Japan, and you're not covered by diplomatic immunity. That's all there is to it. It's basically to teach you a lesson. I know how much you've been reading into Japan while you browse the internet, and I also know how much you've practically hyped up the downside of Japanese Culture while having closed your mind off to the upside. This trip is basically a way of showing you, that while Japan is not perfect and there are a few things that aren't nice about it, that there also exists many positive aspects about it. Like it or not, Robert, Japanese blood flows in your veins, and I happen to be Japanese, and I don't appreciate the fact that my own musuko is practically insulting my culture. You will be staying with your sofu, Ichioka Daichi, my otō-san in Inaba-shi, and if you get into trouble, you will experience the full force of the law, and, that, is, FINAL!"

"No fair," Robert Jr. grumbled with a defeated sigh, realising that there was no point in arguing with his parents any further, as whenever his mother raised her voice like that, it was a sign that the discussion was over and persistence would be met with severe punishment.

Their minds were made up. Apparently this was a trip designed to basically prove his negative views about Japanese Society wrong, at least that's how he interpreted it. It was not that he was planning to pick a fight with the Japanese. He knew better than that. If he did get into a fight, then he resolved that he would not be the one who would throw the first punch, so he saw his father's pulling strings to have him exempt from diplomatic immunity as pointless.

"No'in' ah cin dae aboot it, ah suppose," he thought with a defeated sigh as he continued to eat his breakfast before he got up and stormed back up to his room to get ready for the day.

Robert Jr. had short light greyish green hair that was currently in a mess due him just getting out of bed and deep green eyes, and currently he only wore a pair of white boxers with thin dark blue vertical stripes and a white sleeveless vest.

Robert Sr. had short dark brown hair that was also messy due to him just getting out of bed and the same dark green colour of eyes as his son. He currently wore a pair of black underpants underneath a plain dark grey bathrobe.

Tamao had shoulder length greenish grey hair that was also in a mess because she was not long out of bed, the same colour as her son's, only a shade darker and hazel coloured eyes and all she currently wore was a pink short-sleeved nightdress that went down to her ankles and one the back was the depiction of a red torii gate that symbolised the entrance to a Shintō Shrine with dark pink, darker than the shade of pink on the nightdress, kanji that read Tatsuhime Jinja.

"What are we gonna dae wae that boay?" Robert Sr. said, shaking his head with a rather sad and frustrated sigh.


Meanwhile, back in Japan, over in Sumaru City, in the Aoba District, Fujii Yukino, formally Mayuzumi Yukino stood in front of an apartment door on the second floor of a relatively newly built apartment complex as she pushed the doorbell. A few seconds after the familiar ding-dong sound, the door opened revealing a woman in her mid-to-late thirties with short dark grey, slightly blue-tinted hair and dark brownish purple eyes, and who wore a pair of tight brown shorts that went down to halfway between her hips and knees and a light brown t-shirt with two pink love hearts on the front that were positioned over the woman's breasts and a purple line running down the centre between the two love hearts.

"Konnichiwa, Yukki," the woman greeted with a friendly smile, before she motioned with her hand for Yukino to come in, "Ohairikudasai."

Yukino nodded and walked into the apartment's genkan before taking off her trainers, which were white round the bottom and grey at the top over the feet with black stripes moving downwards from left to right at the sides. The backs were also white, and the tongues were the same grey colour as the tops.

Aside from her trainers, Yukino also wore white, ankle-high socks, red trousers that went down to halfway between her knees and ankles with a black button at the top at the centre of the front holding them in place, a dark navy blue t-shirt that looked a bit too small for her, as her abdomen was exposed, a grey leather jacket with two pockets near the bottom, highlighted by diagonal forty-five-degree black lines, which one the left side moved downwards right to left and on the right side moved downwards from left to right. The jacket also had a small depiction of a cat's head on the left side near the top over the breast area, which was a navy blue colour with white dots for eyes and a nose and white lines depicting the stereotypical drawing of a cat smile, along with three white lines on either side depicting whiskers. She also had a grey bandana tied over the top of her head depicting the same cat head at the front in the centre.

"My, you haven't changed any, Maya-san," she said to the woman that had let her in, as she walked in and looked the place over to see that the either apartment was a mess.

The apartment, itself, had a brownish orange wooden floor, bare white walls and a dark brown ceiling with a lightbulb cover by a Japanese style lampshade held together by paper and bamboo with the top and bottom being square in shade, and the sides being rectangular in shade with small black lines painted vertically near the end of either vertical side of the rectangles and two more line painted horizontally near the top and bottom of each rectangle. In the corner left hand corner furthest from the door opposite the window was a messy looking bed with white sheets and blue covers that had not been made up, in fact, from the looks of it, it seemed as if the woman, Maya, had made no attempt to tidy her bed from the moment she had gotten up. Not far from the bed on the left-hand wall was a rather old and tattered dark purplish brown three-seat sofa that was torn in places and on the floor between the sofa and a small square-shaped dark brown table was a pink rectangular rug that ran the length of the sofa and the length between the sofa and the table. On the right-hand wall, beneath the window sat a TV atop a dark brown TV table with an old VCR situated in a shelf underneath the TV table top. In the right-hand corner furthest from the door by the window was a dark brown table and a chair with silver metal left and dark pinkish red coverings.

Aside from that, the apartment looked more like a rubbish dump, as all sorts of rubbish lay strewn all over the place, and not just on the floor, but on the sofa and on the table in the corner as well. However, looking at the small table in the centre of the room, Yukino saw a pizza box sitting on top of it with a nice, steamy hot, delicious looking pizza contained within and she could not help but lick her lips.

"I ordered that for the two of us," Maya said, almost startling Yukino, as she gave her a friendly slap on the back.

"Sokka," Yukino said with a nod, as she recovered from her brief fright and smiled, "So, what're you doing?"

"Nothing much," Maya said with a shrug, "I'm just watching the last interview my itoko, Yamano Mayumi had before she decided to take some time off, due to the scandal surrounding the affair she had with that Namatame guy."

"Ā, you mean that kisha that Ai Terebijon took off the air, don't you?" Yukino said, before her eyes widened as the full force of what Maya said hit her, "Tsukamatteiru, you never mentioned anything about having an itoko before."

"You never asked," Maya replied simply with a shrug, as she walked to take a seat on the sofa.

Yukino followed her, and after clearing the rubbish from the seat to Maya's right, sat down beside her and then winced in surprise at how hard and uncomfortable the sofa felt. It was definitely feeling its old age.

"Oya, Maya-san, you really ought to get a new sofa," Yukino said, turning her head to face her friend, still feeling uncomfortable, "This one's getting on a bit. I don't see how you can be all that comfortable."

"I'm used to it," Maya replied dismissively, as she reached over to the pizza box and took out a slice of pizza, "Besides, I can't afford to buy a new one. My yosan's pretty tight."

"Sokka," Yukino said with a sigh, as she then took her jacket off and placed it on the armrest to her right.

Maya then turned to face her friend with the slice of pizza in both hands and motioned it towards her slightly.

"Nanitozo, help yourself," she said before withdrawing the slice and then took a bite out of it.

"Arigatō, don't mind if I do," Yukino replied with a smile, as she also reached out to take a slice of pizza from the pizza box, and then took a bite out of it.

"So, how are you and Shunsuke-kun doing?" Maya asked, once she swallowed the piece in her mouth, and before taking another bite out of her slice.

"Ā, we're doing okay," Yukino replied with pride in her voice, "Shunsuke's actually taking me up to Hokkaidō to meet his kazoku in Rumoi on Hokkaidō's Nishikaigan next weekend. His haha's just dying to meet me."

"Woa, that's great, Yukki, good for you," Maya congratulated with a smile, as she swallowed the piece in her mouth and Yukino took another bite out of her slice.

Yukino just nodded with a beaming smile on her face. She remembered back to when she had met Shunsuke. It was not long after she had graduated from St. Hermelin High School in Mikage-chō back in 1996 after the world had almost come to an end thanks to one, Kandori Takahisa and his DEVA Machine, though, not only that, but she also remembered how her former teacher, Takami Saeko, whom Yukino looked up to due to the fact that she had saved her from her former delinquent lifestyle and a life of crime when everyone else, her own parents included, had pretty much given up on her, had become possessed by the Mask of the Snow Queen that contained the vengeful spirit of Saeko's former friend Fujimori Tomomi, who blamed Saeko for convincing her to wear the mask, which had disfigured one side of her face. Thankfully, Yukino and a few others managed to free Saeko, and Tomomi made peace with her, and they went on to defeat the Snow Queen before going off to defeat Kandori, rescue Sonomura Maki, whose mind had somehow linked up with the DEVA Machine and had become Kandori's unknowing and unwilling guinea pig, and save the world by defeating Pandora, an aspect of Maki's personality that had embraced nihilism due to the fact that Maki originally had a weak constitution, and it had left her bedridden for a year, and Pandora had planned to erase everything from existence using the DEVA Machine's core. Afterwards, Maki's health had greatly improved, though Yukino had to wonder if that was a side-effect of the DEVA Machine, since there seemed to be no other plausible explanations to explain it.

Anyway, after that particular incident, Yukino had aspired to become a photographer, and it was then, when her aspirations had taken her to Sumaru City where she met Fujii Shunsuke, and he had become her mentor. It was also through Shunsuke that she had come to meet Amano Maya, as Shunsuke had been a former colleague of Maya's late father, Amano Masataka, who had been a war correspondent that had been killed while trying to document a war. Anyway, upon meeting Shunsuke, it had been love at first sight, and Yukino had come to develop a crush on him, though, due to the fact that she was a tomboy, in order not to cause him to think that she was weird or anything, she had tried to hide her tomboyish nature from him and became more girlish when in his company.

Anyway, in the year, 1999, in Sumaru City, a group known as the NWO or New World Order, led by Foreign Secretary Sudō Tatsuzō conspired to bring about the end of the world, though as it turned out, they were nothing more than pawns of the being, Nyarlathotep, who was basically a being spawned by the Collective Unconscious, representing mankind's darkest traits and desires. Though Yukino was not instrumental in dealing with the NWO or Nyarlathotep, she had helped protect the city, and thankfully, Nyarlathotep was beaten, and if that was not enough, Maya was one of those instrumental in his defeat, her along with Suō Tatsuya, Tatsuya's older brother, Suō Katsuya, Maya's old roommate, Serizawa Ulala and Saga Kaoru a.k.a. Baofu, who was an extortionist and so-called tap buster. However, regardless of that, her relationship with Shunsuke continued to grow, and two years later, they were married after Shunsuke admitted that he was aware of Yukino's tomboyish nature and did not mind. In fact, according to him, it added to her appeal, and that had meant a lot to Yukino. She was so happy and touched by this that she had agreed to marry him.

However, what Yukino did know that a lot of people did not know was that the world they were all currently living in was not the original world. The current world was nothing more than a copy that was created after Nyarlathotep had manged to succeed in destroying the world by manipulating a group of teenagers into fulfilling a prophecy that ended with Maya's death. The group, from which she had initially been a part of consisted of Tatsuya, Maya, along with Lisa Silverman, Mishina Eikichi and Kurosu Jun had originally been investigating a mysterious being known as Joker, who was said to make people's dreams come true. All they had to do was dial their own cell phone numbers, though as it turned out, Joker, in reality was Kurosu Jun, who Nyarlathotep tricked into believing that Maya had perished in a fire at Sumaru City's Araya Shrine by tampering with his memories. However, in that world, Shunsuke had gotten killed, and though it shocked Yukino to the point where she did not want to go on, Tatsuya was able to talk sense into her. Eventually they managed to save Jun, though, Nyarlathotep, disguised as Jun's dead father, Kashihara Akinari striped Jun of his Persona summoning abilities, but Yukino gave hers up and gave then to Jun, and he took her place in the group, though rather than stopping Nyarlathotep, they had played right into his hands, and Maya had been killed, and so, in order to prevent that tragedy from ever occurring, the others had agreed to sacrifice their memories and friendship by erasing their first meeting in order to create a new world, something that Yukino was thankful for, as it meant that Shunsuke had not been killed and was still alive.

However, unfortunately, Tatsuya had panicked at the thought of sacrificing his memories at the last minute, and fearing loneliness, he had failed to completely synchronise with his counterpart in this world, which gave Nyarlathotep the opening he needed to try and re-establish the original timeline, and so, the incident with NWO was basically trying to stop Nyarlathotep again, with the NWO taking the place of the Masked Circle, the organisation that Jun, as Joker, created, only this time, they were successful, and as far as she knew, Nyarlathotep had been banished to parts unknown. The only reason why she remembered the original timeline, at least she figured, was because of the incident in 1996, which she was a part of, and that had also been Nyarlathotep's doing, as he posed as Kandori's Persona and manipulated him from behind the scenes. Despite the pasts of Tatsuya, Jun, Lisa and Eikichi being different, in that they never met as children, and thus, never met Maya, the 1996 incident remained completely unaltered. It played out in this world the same way it had played out in the original timeline, though despite not meeting the children, Maya's father still died, Maya still became a journalist to follow in his footsteps, though she resolved not to start a family, since she believed that she was incapable of managing time between her job and raising a family, and both she and Maya had ended up being partnered together.

"You're thinking about what happened twelve years ago, aren't you?" Maya's voice came, pulling Yukino out of her thoughts.

"Hai," Yukino replied, turning to see that Maya was looking at her with a worried expression on her face.

As for Maya herself, it was true that she knew about the other side. The deal was that Tatsuya and the others would sacrifice their memories, however, if their memories returned, the original timeline would re-establish itself. That incident was not something that she wanted to think about. Because Tatsuya had backed out, he had retained his memories, and in the end, he had separated from his counterpart and had returned to the Other Side. She did not have her memories back, as she had been killed, though she did know of her counterpart's past. It was hard to explain, a month after the Sumaru City Incident, there was some kind of accident in Tatsumi Port Island involving the Kirijō Group, which not only had caused the world to enter some sort of twisted and dismally oppressive alternate dimension where strange creatures roamed at midnight each night for one hour, but it had also somehow bestowed the knowledge of her counterpart on the Other Side, though rather than feeling like things that she, herself, had experienced, it felt more like she had just been observing her counterpart from the outside. She could not really explain how or why it happened, though she expected that weird phenomenon caused by whatever the Kirijō Group were working on had something to do with it, though she could not say for sure how or why knowledge of her counterpart on the Other Side came into her mind.

It was thanks to that incident that the Sumaru City incident had quickly been forgotten, as the general public's attention had been diverted because of the explosion on Tatsumi Port Island. Neither Maya nor Yukino knew what the Kirijō Group had been up to, but since that accident, up till the 31st January 2010, at midnight each night, the world seemed to go into another dimension where everything became a sickening green colour, liquids turned to blood and all electronics ceased to function. The atmosphere also became far more oppressive and heavy, and the majority of people transformed into coffins. Not only that, but there were also those strange blob like creatures wearing masks that prowled about attacking those few unlucky enough not to transform into coffins, and in some cases, the people, themselves, transformed into those creatures. Each time this had happened, it had lasted just one hour each time. Maya and Yukino were among the ones that did not transform into coffins, neither did they transform into those creatures, though, those creatures seemed to single them out for some reason whenever someone else who had not transformed into a coffin was nearby. Whenever they noticed them, they would abandon their initial prey and come straight after them.

Thankfully they had their Personas, and not only that, but apparently, as it turned out, all of Yukino's friends involved in the Mikage-chō incident, as well as Katsuya, Ulala and Baofu did not transform into coffins either, and like her and Yukino, those strange creatures seemed to single them out as well. Whenever those creatures attacked, they seemed to transform into a variety of different things, ranging from tanks, mecha, birds etc., and sometimes one creature, alone, would break off into up to five different entities. She could not say for sure, but considering that all those singled out were capable of summoning Persona, Maya concluded that that was because those creatures had singled them out. Something about their ability to summon Persona obviously must have posed some sort of threat to those creatures.

However, on the 31st January 2010, that time, something happened with the moon, as it seemed to be transforming into some kind of spaceship, at least from Maya's perspective it was, but then also of a suddenly, whatever was happening suddenly stopped, and everything went back to normal. After that, that strange oppressive dimension and those creatures no longer turned up at midnight. Maya knew that, given those creatures' tendency to chase after Persona Users while abandoning anyone they happened to be chasing at the time, she guessed that a group of Persona Users must have been responsible for dealing with whatever it as that was causing that oppressive dimension to pop up, though she did not know the details. However, she somehow still retained the experiences of her counterpart, and that was another reason why she was able to connect the creatures to Persona Users, as it was how they were able to save the world, though whereas Maya and Yukino were accustomed to fighting demons that seemed to pop up whenever the world was in danger, those creatures did not seem like regular demons… at least not like the ones they had become used to, as they could not form pacts with them.

"So, Yamano Mayumi's your itoko?" Yukino's voice came bringing Maya out of her thoughts and back to reality, and from her question, it was obvious that she was wanting to change the subject.

"Hai, that's right," Maya said with a nod before taking another bite out of her pizza slice and waited till she swallowed it before continuing to speak, "She's my sukoshi itoko on otō-san's side."

"Your chichi had a shimai?" Yukino asked, hypothesising that Maya's father probably had a sister, considering that Mayumi's family name was different, and it was usually the husband's family name that was carried over in marriage, as she was now Fujii Yukino, as opposed to Shunsuke being Mayuzumi Shunsuke.

"Hai, that's right, though, I hardly interacted with her, but oba-san was rather fond of our myōji," Maya started to explain, as Yukino took another bite out of her slice of pizza, "And knowing the chances of keeping it once she married were rather slim, she opted to marry someone with a similar sounding name, and as you probably already know, Amano and Yamano sound similar."

"Hai, that's true," Yukino agreed with a nod after she swallowed the piece in her, "But you know something else, Maya-san? Yamano Mayumi does sound similar to Amano Maya, and not only that, but you're both in similar professions, with you being a zasshi kisha and her being a terebi kisha. In fact, in the Roman alphabet, if you remove the Y in Yamano, you're left with Amano and if you removed the last A in your name and replace it with umi, you have Mayumi."

"Now that you mention it… that is sort of creepy," Maya said with a shudder before she took another bite out of her slice of pizza and swallowed it over, "I never really thought of that before."

"So I understand that she's involved in some sort of affair with a shikaigiin hisho… what's his name?" Yukino asked, as she started to think over the news she had heard recently, though she knew who the man was, it took a while to remember his name.

"Shigi hisho no Namatame Tarō," Maya spoke up, "That's his name. Apparently he recently married the enka kashu, Hīragi Misuzu, and now he's under fire for allegedly having an affair with Mayumi-san. I was just watching her last interview when you come around."

She then reached over to the table, though rather than take another slice of pizza, she grabbed the TV remote that was sitting next to the pizza box and pressed the play button.

On the TV screen was a woman who looked to be in her mid-to-late twenties with short grey hair and dark brown eyes. She wore dark bluish purple shoes, dark brown stocking that covered her legs, a bluish purple skirt the same colour as her shoes that went down to just above her knees and a long-sleeved white slight pink-tinted shirt. The camera managed to get her entire body in the shot and she was walking with a rather angry look on her face.

"Sumimasen, Yamano-san!" a voice from off-screen called out, just as a man holding a microphone, obvious the man that had been the one that had shouted out to her.

The man had short dark black hair and light grey eyes. He wore black laced shoes that looked to be finely polished, white socks that were briefly visible as he ran to catch up with the woman, who was obviously Mayumi, herself, neatly pressed black trousers, a nice shining black belt with a silver buckle, a white shirt, a neatly pressed black blazer coat with a breast pocket on the left-hand side and a neatly pressed black tie.

"Just who's he trying to impress?" Yukino thought with a frown, clearly not likely the overly clean look of this man, and apparently, Mayumi must have been thinking the same thing, as she completely ignored him and continued to walk onwards.

"Kotoyama Takuma from Inaba-shi Terebi," he went on to say as he ran up in front of Mayumi, barring her path and got right up in her face, "Are the allegations about an affair with Namatame-san true?"

"I don't see why I should have to explain myself to anyone," Mayumi said angrily, shooting the man, Kotoyama, a rather annoyed glare, "I already told the kisha that I'm not answering anymore questions."

She then tried to barge past Kotoyama, but Kotoyama stood his ground and fought back.

"Sumimasen, Yamano-san, but I cannot allow that," Kotoyama said with a serious look on his face, "You can't just walk away like that."

"Nani?" Mayumi said, shocked that this nosy reporter dared intrude on her private life, "Just what are you saying?"

"You can't just walk away from all those questions," Kotoyama replied simply, "You must answer them."

"No I don't," Mayumi said, as she tried to once again barge past Kotoyama, but once again, Kotoyama held his ground and fought back.

"I'm afraid that you have no choice, Yamano-san," Kotoyama started to explain with a somewhat sinisterly smug grin appearing on his face, "You must answer all those question. Now that the taishū are interested in you, you have no rights to privacy. The taishū must know everything there is to know about you. Tell us everything!"

"Is this guy for real?" Yukino said aloud in complete shock and outrage at the utter shameless of what Kotoyama was saying, and that he was saying it while on camera as well.

"This is just a recording," Maya said, trying to keep the disgust out of her voice, as she too was disgusted at Kotoyama's conduct, "This interview was conducted live yesterday afternoon."

She then focussed her glare on Kotoyama, furious at his lack of shame and smug arrogance over what he just said. However, she then smirked, as she watched Mayumi, who looked equally outraged, furiously launched a punch right into his face, causing him to stumble back and slip, causing him to fall on his rear end, and he also dropped the microphone had had been holding.

"Just what the hell's wrong with you?" Mayumi demanded, glaring furiously at the nosy reporter, "Īe! I'm not telling you anything and that is final!"

She then stormed off in a rage, leaving Kotoyama sitting on his rear end in a puddle of water feeling shocked, furious and completely humiliated.

"Kono ama!" he shouted furiously after Mayumi, cursing her as he picked himself up with a look of pure fury and rage on his face, shooting her a venomously ferocious glare, "No one does this to me, you hear? NO ONE! Mark my words, yariman, you might not live to regret this, I swear it!"

"Kotoyama-san," a somewhat panicked voice came from off-screen, and Yukino and Maya guessed that it must be his cameraman, "We're still on air."

"Nani?" Kotoyama said in shock as he realised that everything he said had been caught on camera, and not only that, but it was being broadcast to a live audience, but he then turned and glared towards the camera, obvious glaring at the cameraman, "Turn that blasted thing off, now!"

The last shot on screen was Kotoyama very hurriedly marching closer to the camera before the screen faded to black, and then Maya pressed the stop button on the remote.

"Can you believe the audacity of that guy?" Yukino said in shocked furious disgust, "Imagine telling someone that they have no privacy rights because the taishū were interested in them."

"I know," Maya said in equal disgust, shaking her head, "And he calls himself a kisha."

"So, do you know where she is?" Yukino asked in a bid to change the subject from Kotoyama's outrageous conduct.

"I'm afraid not," Maya said, shaking her head, "We may be itoko, but we've never really spoken that much to each other, much less interacted."

"I can believe that," Yukino said before turning her attention back to her pizza slice and taking another bite out of it.

"However, there are rumours that she's gone to stay at the Amagi Ryokan in Inaba," Maya went on to explain, "Though it's just a rumour. I don't know if it's actually true or not."

"Inaba, that's where Maki-chan's set up her seishinryōhō," Yukino said in surprise.

"Are, you mean Sonomura-san, don't you?" Maya said, as she remembered meeting Maki twelve years previously during the NWO Incident, in which she had been Hīragi Reiko's assistant at the Hīragi Psychotherapy based in the Kōnan Distract, and over in the Other Side, when she and the others visited Hīragi Psychotherapy, her counterpart had seen Yukino chatting away with Maki, and she had even helped her and her group, along with Nanjō Kei infiltrate an NWO lab run by the revived Kandori Takahisa.

"Hai, that's right," Yukino said with a nod, "You see, three years before the NWO or the Masked Circle, depending on the timeline Kandori built a machine called DEVA that was capable of bringing people's ideal worlds into reality, and somehow, it had mysteriously linked up with Maki-chan's mind, and so… she became his unwilling guinea pig. However, in her ideal world, she became conflicted, as part of her accepted it, whereas the other part rejected it, and because she was bedridden with her haha being too busy to come and see her most of the time, she became rather depressed and part of her started to embrace a sense of nihilism due to her frustration at being struck in a byōshō. I believe that she took to art to pass the time, and given how many of her paintings had a disturbing element to that, I believe that that must've been her nihilistic side."

"Hai, you told me this before," Maya said with a nod, "And her nihilistic side became the entity known as Pandora, and after Kandori's defeat, she stole the core of the DENA Machine and planned on using it to destroy the world, but she was stopped by that Naoya boy."

Yukino nodded.

"That's why Maki-chan became a seishinkai," she said, as she thought about her old friend, "She feels somewhat responsible for Pandora because Pandora was technically a part of her being, and so she believes that helping people with overcoming their problems is her way of making up for it. I do believe that she's taken interest in a girl that she's wanting to help."

"Ā, you told me, she's also you buntsū tomodachi, isn't she?" Maya said, remembering that Yukino and Maki had become pen pals.

"Hai, though Kazebana-san, as I understand seems rather reluctant to accept help from Maki-chan," Yukino said with a frown, as she remembered how Maki explained to her the situation she believed was going on with Kazebana Reiko.

"Kazebana-san?" Maya asked curiously.

"Ā, the name of the girl Maki-chan wants to help, Kazebana Reiko," Yukino said, explaining what she knew to her friend, "Maki-chan doesn't know the situation, but she believes that Kazebana is being abused by her haha. You see, Kazebana-san's a shiseiji, and her haha had a one-night stand with a man called… Mikimi Kankurō, I think I remember Maki-chan telling me his name was, and it led to the ruination of her mother's career. That's all Kazebana-san's told her."

"Sokka," Maya said with a sigh.

Yukino just nodded, unsure what to make of it. She had to admit that it would be something if Mayumi happened to bump into Maki, that is, assuming the rumours about her being in Inaba were true. She pictured Maki offering her help and Mayumi turning her down in a rude fashion. From the recording, Mayumi did seem like she was rather sick and tired of all the focus being on her, and she also seemed to have reached the point where she would snap at anyone who wanted to talk to her regardless of their intentions. After all, with everyone questioning her about the supposed affair, she would probably start to believe that everyone trying to talk with her only wanted to know about what her relationship with Namatame was.


Author's Notes – Finally, another chapter done. To tell you the truth, I was planning on having this chapter out before Christmas last year, but I accidentally broke my old computer and had to get a new one, and it pretty much killed my muse, and then my mind got distracted with other things. Just so you know, if you're confused about the strange spellings in the part with the Lenston Family, they're not errors. It's a Glaswegian accent. All I'll say is that most of those featured in this chapter are part of the Investigation Team, including some OCs (with obvious exceptions). I also want to maintain the gender balance of the Investigation Team, so it will still have as many of one gender as the other. Also Japanese is a very difficult language to learn, since they have many ways of saying the same thing on occasion, so if I've put in the wrong word, I apologise. The last scene was supposed to be at the start of next chapter, but when I PMed another author and told him of my idea for the ending scene for this chapter, he suggested that I should perhaps use it for the introduction for the next chapter, as it would fit right in, and thinking it over, I ended up agreeing with him, so it was basically a scene swap. One more thing, just so you know, the town of Langington is completely fictional, though Rutherglen is a real pl