And now there will be plot.

/= [DAY 106] =/

The day back at school was not a fun one indeed. No one was happy…or sober enough. Seriously, when Charice entered her cooking class half her classmates were acting as if they shouldn't be trusted with anything past…well…no, not even that! What ended up happening was that she ended up having to make her red velvet cake with Ion, the Romanian guy. She would've chosen Yong Soo (as always), but for some reason he's been fascinated by that Ecuadorian chick in his hangover rage.

"That isn't going to end well." Ion stated.

"No crap…or is it 'I figured'?" She turned to him.

"You don't have to sound that formal with me." He stated.

"Well, you look like you deserve a little bit of it." Charice stated, going to the fridge to get the ingredients. "I don't know you that well, you don't know me that well."

"We have met before, you know."

"But never really discussed anything past flying robots and the school musical." She pointed out. "Think about it."

"…true." He lifted out his hand. "Greetings. My name is Ion, of Romania."

"…pfft. You sound like a vampire."

"Is that a bad thing?"

"By itself? Yes. Compared to the Twilight sparkle-ravers? No." She laughed. "I'll take original any day."

"That's good to hear…I guess." Ion turned away a little confused, revealing one small fang on his teeth. Charice shivered. "Did you get everything?"

"Yes, I did." She answered with a wink. "So…what were we doing?"

"We're mixing the batter first."

She was about to do so when she realized that Ion was already in the middle of doing so. She looked up in confusion and saw that he was just about done…another strange vampiric trait she hadn't touched in on yet. She found herself staring for a few minutes before Ion realized that he was being stared at.

"You've cooked before, right?"

"Yeah…I just never saw anything hand stirred that ended up that smooth before."

"You can't do it?"

"I barely did it once…after stirring it for about an hour."

"Well, that's not going to work out…did you crush the chocolates?"

She was about to say no when she looked at the cutting board and realized that she had smushed all of them in jealousy of what he was doing with his awesome stirring skills. Charice turned back and pointed at them with a light giggle, somehow smelling something that seemed like the stove was on fire. Ion just nodded and pushed them into the batter.

"Are you drunk?"

"Hm?"

"Well…I've heard that you drink wine like Francis does, so…I figured that you'd be drunk or something."

"I did drink wine yesterday…Charice, am I right?"

"Yeah."

"Charice…however, unlike these people I usually drink wine alone and hence I do it before I get…um…the word is 'drunk', right?"

"That's the word."

"Yes…I rather get a good buzz. At least I can operate." He smiled. "Besides, who else is going to watch you over next to that brother of yours and your boyfriend?"

"Um…other sane people?"

"Name one."

"…good point."

"I figured as much."

"Wait…how do you know about my boyfriend?"

"Please, I myself know that when a guy and girl get together in this school they're the talk of the world." Ion laughed. "Besides, you girls seem to have a fun time pairing all the guys together, don't you?"

"…yeah…but still!"

"You don't have to sound so confused about it." Ion popped the cake in the oven (when was he already done with that?). "It's just natural with what's normal these days."

"Yeah…I guess I'm one of the lucky ones."

"Not really. Elizabeta got back with her ex-husband last night."

"Roderich? Really? Wow, that's so awesome!"

"Exactly." He sighed. "While I do think that she's a rather talkative bitch of a dog, I have to respect the fact that there is love there."

"…hah?"

"You'll understand our relationship later."

"…sure?" She turned away, noticing that the rather enticing pair of Gilbert and that Zaki kid almost setting their place on fire. "Why not?"

"Innocent…wasn't expecting something like that from an Asian nation."

"Really? Well, I think I'm the exception here…with Lin Yi, maybe?" Charice rubbed her chin. "I think I'm the only nation that was never raised by China directly."

"No?"

"No. I was raised by Spain…if what you call what he did to me parenting."

"Hm…most of the time you were raised by European nations…how interesting." Ion turned back to the oven. "I'm sure there was another nation just like you…"

"Australia?"

"Jason? He's his own continent."

"True…" Charice sighed. "Maybe me and my brother are the big exception to this…"

"I wouldn't be surprised, but don't be surprised if you're not." Ion stood up. "Are you going to take half the cake?"

"Hell yeah I am." She grinned. "My brother might like that cake."

"Red velvet? I thought he hated anything red."

"Carrying red, sure. It's wearing it that gives him shivers."

"Ah. Say no more."

/=+=/

"Kuyaaaa~! It's me, ate!"

She stayed in front of the door of his room, waiting for him to open up. Strangely enough, he didn't respond. She blinked before knocking again, noticing that the door was open. Confused, she snuck in and took a peek around the area. It was neat and clean, like Rizal hadn't been living in this room at all. If it hadn't been for the goggles on the counter, she would've thought that she was in the wrong room…an unoccupied one, at that.

Huh…maybe he's out studying with someone. "Kuyaaa~! You here?"

There was silence for a few minutes, so Charice decided to leave a note with his part of the cake and stick it in the fridge. There was some bit of food in there so she snuck it right next to what looked like his lunch and headed out of there with a smile on her face and a chuckle.

Rizal never came back.

/= [DAY 107] =/

"Hey, Doitsu-ki~!"

"Hm?" Ludwig looked up. "Charice?"

"Have you seen my brother around?" She sat next to him. "He wasn't in his room last night, so I figured that he was studying with you!"

"No, I haven't seen him since yesterday. He seemed perfectly fine." He answered.

Charice rubbed her chin for a few minutes as they sat quietly in the lounge to try to figure it out. After that, she turned her head back toward the German as he was reading something for his English class. She wondered why they needed a language class if they knew all the languages in the world.

"Hm…I'm worried about him…"

"Don't worry about it. I'm sure that there's nothing wrong and he'll check in on you later."

"All right." She stood up. "I have a class in five minutes, so I have to go."

"All right. See you later."

She never saw Ludwig that day.

/= [DAY 108] =/

"Veeeee! Fratello, fratello!"

"Gah! What the hell, Feliciano?"

"Have you seen Ludwig around? I haven't seen him since yesterday morning!"

"Why the hell are you so worried about it? He probably got called for a meeting back in his potato harvesting building. Don't worry about it."

"But Lovinooooo…he would've told me first…"

"Maybe he was extremely busy. Don't get your head tied in a freaking knot."

"…Lovino…"

"Really, just get to class. If I see the potato bastard, I'll make sure that I send him straight to you."

"…ve…thank you, fratello."

"Che."

That was the last time that Feliciano saw his brother.

/= [DAY 109] =/

"This isn't good…three people have just gone missing…"

The rest of the Persona users sat quietly in the newspaper room and looked at who was left. Antonio and Feliciano were drumming their fingers on the table as Kiku looked nervously at Charice as she stared out of the window, obviously worried about her brother. Alfred slammed his head.

"Dammit…out of all the times to strike, why in the world is this guy going after all of us now!" He stood up. "He's obviously getting all of them to finish the job!"

"That's only with Ludwig, you git! The murderer never targeted Lovino or Rizal." Arthur pointed out. "And there's no pattern to state that they had anything similar."

"What about them being Persona users?" Gilbert asked.

"Rizal doesn't have one." Charice stated. "Otherwise, he would've helped us."

"Maybe he does it behind the scenes…and we only see the ones that slip through him." Kiku looked up.

"OK, let's just leave that out for a minute." Li Xiao stated. "How about class schedules?"

"I already checked…from their class schedules to their club meetings." Matthew laid out the paperwork in front of him. "None of them match up…except for two classes between Rizal and Ludwig."

"Maybe it's their statuses." Francis stated. "They are rather powerful nations."

"Which would mean that the murderer is taking out the big guys before the little ones." Alfred shook his head. "Of course! He's leaving who he wants for last! An excellent move for a bad guy to do!"

"Calm down, aru." Li Xiao looked up. "The whole school is on alert about this. Three nations have already vanished, so if anyone else goes everyone's going to know."

"At this rate, hiding our statuses as Persona users is going to be almost impossible."

"What's worse, we could be dubbed as suspects of this." Gilbert shook his head. "Though I think with some persuasion we can get Feliciano and Francis out of this. They haven't gotten into the other world."

"Ve~~~but I don't want to see all of you being falsely persecuted." He leaned on Charice for support. "You saved me from the real murderer…"

"Well, if that comes to pass and we all get persecuted…" Kiku turned to him. "Then you and Francis should be able to take our place."

"What about the other guys that were attached with that mark Arthur gave them?" Antonio lifted his head. "They should be able to summon Persona like what Francis showed us."

"They aren't going to accept such a strange notion so quickly! None of you accepted the fact that the supernatural existed!" Arthur pointed out. "If not you, then who else is going to get this?"

"Uh…me, da ze!"

They turned their heads and saw Yong Soo standing at the doorway as he held his arms up to reveal his marks on his arms and a card in his hand. He instantly crushed it and showed them a huge demon that was laughing and seemed to be a huge snow fairy. When it vanished Ion and Erika were behind him.

"You're not the only ones who experimented with this, da ze!" He folded his arms. "After the whole robot incident, me and Ion here found out that we could bring up whatever you guys called it…Personas, right?"

"…you were listening?" Charice blinked.

"Well, we came with the same explanations that you came up just now." Erika stated. "But there were Shadows leaking through after that day."

"Shadows?" Antonio stood up. "Here? How come we've never seen them?"

"Relax. We've been cleaning up while you guys figured this out." Ion waved his hand. "Besides, this is a great way to warm up our Persona usage."

"…who else is in on this?" Kiku asked.

"There's the three of us, Roderich and Elizabeta is in class right now but they got in on this around the time we did…and basically everyone else affected. We just got Anri to control hers." Yong Soo laughed. "And I'm the leader, da ze!"

"Oh great…you?" Gilbert laughed.

"Don't mock me, da ze!"

"I'll mock you as much as I want to…da ze!"

The whole room erupted in huge conversation (well, more like a compromise of who's staying in the real world and who's going into the Shadow jumping) as Charice found herself being led out of the room by Antonio. She was looking around in confusion before seeing the Spaniard smiling back at her.

"Are you all right, mi querida?"

"Huh? Yeah, I'm fine…"

"No, it's not that. Your brother is missing…the first list of these recent victims." He stated. "I'm surprised that you haven't thrown a fit."

"…you haven't seen me the day Ludwig disappeared. I almost destroyed my entire room…" Charice rubbed the back of her head. "It was horrible…"

"Don't be worried. We'll find him and the others…please don't worry about them."

"...thanks, Antonio. I really mean it."

The next day, Charice mysteriously disappeared.

/=+=/

"Zaki" is Malaysia. He's a guy here.

Yong Soo's Persona is "King Frost". He's of the Emperor descent.