Fuuka groaned as she slowly rose. Losing her footing, she quickly leaned on the wall to support herself. She brought a hand to her throbbing head and waited for the pain to subside. "Where am I?" she whispered, trying to have a better look at her surroundings, but her aching head was preventing her to do so. The teal-haired woman dropped to her knees and panted.
"Here, let me help you." Two small hands found their way on each of her temples. The moment the fingers touched her, a warm sensation engulfed her and soothed the pain. "Are you okay now?"
Fuuka blinked a couple of times before turning to her helper. The person who helped her is a child with short, auburn hair that reached her chin. Her face was covered by red mask, which Fuuka recognized was from an older version of Featherman R. Judging from the red uniform the girl was wearing, Fuuka deduced that the girl is an elementary student.
"Does it still hurt somewhere, nee-chan?" the girl asked, her voice laced with concern.
"Huh… Oh, oh…" Fukka waved her arms frantically. "No, no. I'm okay now, thank you. How did you do that?"
"I don't know. I just felt like touching your head will make you feel better."
"Is that so…"
"What's your name?" the girl inquired eagerly, balancing all her weight on her heels.
"My name is Fuuka," the older female answered. "What about yours?"
"Mine?" Fuuka nodded. "You can call me Reiko."
"Nice to meet you, Reiko-chan." Fuuka held out her hand to the girl. The girl stared at her hand for a while, before gasping in delight and shaking hands with her. After their introduction, Fuuka stood and glanced around the area. I must be the tower. She tried to sense where in the tower she was, but she couldn't detect anything below or above them. Could there be something blocking my view? She tried again, but there was really nothing; though she did find out that her abilities were still working fine. I guess I have to use my persona.
She looked down at the girl, who was eyeing her - based on Fuuka deductions, from the way the child tilted her head to the side - curiously. "Do you want to see something cool, Reiko-chan?"
"Yes, please!" the girl said, nodding. After chuckling at the girl enthusiastic response, Fuuka called out Juno. "WOW!" Reiko lifted her mask slightly to get a better look. She gaze in amazement at the woman and her persona. When Fuuka called of Juno, the girl has already set her mask on again; she didn't know that the girl even remove it. "That was amazing, Fuuka-nee!"
Fuuka crouched to the girl's level and stroked her head. "Thank you, Reiko-chan." The teal-haired woman looked around again. I have to find a way out of here. She turned to the girl and took her hands in hers. It's not safe for both of us to be here, even if there are no shadows around at the moment.
Teddie sniffed and joined the the student in their applause to their student council president for that school year, Ken Amada.
"Thank you," Ken said, ending his speech then bowed.
The applause grew louder, and Teddie sleeves grew damper. Minako offered him her handkerchief. The blond took it gratefully and wiped his tears. He blew his nose, to free his airway from snot. When he returned the piece of cloth to the girl, the wild card glared at him and placed her soiled handkerchief on his lap. "Clean it before you return it," she said.
"Hey did you hear," a voice from beside Minako whispered. The crimson-eyed girl glanced sideways to see to of her two of her classmates, gossiping. "They say that, early yesterday, they saw a body of a woman by the gates."
The other girl gasped, "Really?"
"Yeah! And this morning, they saw another one. But no one knows because if it's true. They say some people took her body before the gates were even open."
"That's scary..."
Why does it sound familiar...? A tap on her shoulder brought her out of her trance. "Huh?"
"Mina-chan," Teddie said, "we have to go back now."
"I see, thanks."
Maybe I should visit Bunkichi-san again, Minako thought while they were on their way to the dorm. There's no point going there now. If those three already fished out everything that they can from the tower, then I doubt that I can get anything.
"Hey Ted, what do you think you're doing?" Ryoji asked when he saw Teddie's arm draped over the Minako's shoulders. The girl doesn't seem to notice the weight on her, and continued walking, as if nothing is happening. "Keep your dirty hands of her!"
"And why would I?" Teddie asked intimidatingly. "After what you did to me, after your act of treachery, do you think I'd do what you want?"
" 'Act of treachery'?" the black-haired boy repeated in exasperation. "That was only payback for everything you did to us!"
"So that is how you pay for the kindness I've shown you?" Teddie grabbed Aigis, Labrys, and Ken. "As leader, I outcaste you from our group."
Shinjiro could only look at him in disbelief. "Who made you the leader?"
"Labby-chan did."
The pony-tailed boy glanced at the said girl. "Yesterday, at the book shop, he wouldn't stop messin' up the books 'til I call him 'leader'. Childish twerp," she said, muttering the last part.
"Just let go of her," Ryoji said in exasperation.
"No way! I still haven't taken my revenge." Teddie puckered his lips and moved closer to the girl. But Minako, who was still lost in thought, tripped and fell face first. Teddie ended up kissing Ryoji - who was trying to catch the wild card - on the cheek. They stayed like that for a while, until Ryoji's face darkened. With repulsion, he glared icily at the blond. He pushed Teddie and helped Minako up. After that, he swiftly took the rubbing alcohol from his bag and applied somewhere Teddie's lips landed.
"I hope this is enough to make me pure again," Ryoji said, nose scrunch both at the burning sensation on his cheek and on disgust from being violated. "Minako-chan, are you okay?" The girl didn't answer. After wincing from the sting, he moved closer to the girl and shook her.
"What?" the girl said in surprise.
"You've been spacing out the whole day," Ryoji told her. "Something wrong?"
"Uh..." I can't tell them about my secret trips. She quickly glanced at Shinjiro and the sisters. They'll kill me. I have to think fast. "Um, I heard a rumor this morning." I'm so good at this, she mentally praised herself.
"Ya mean the ones about the bodies found at the main gate?" Labrys asked.
"Yeah! I feel like it happened before." But when...?
"It's just a rumor," The white-haired android said. "Don't think about it too much." After saying those words, her phone rang. "It's Mitsuru-san... Hello? ...Yeah... Alright." She placed her phone back on her pocket before turning to her friends. "I have to go meet up with her, I'll see you later."
"Do you not want me to come with you sister?" Aigis asked before her sister got any further.
"No need. Just make sure those-" she pointed at the three - Minako, Teddie, and Ryoji, "-won't bring hell on earth."
"Understood."
Ken would never understand how quick his friends could change. When Labrys left, Aigis announced that Labrys' birthday was in two days. Hearing that, Minako suddenly got out of her trance-like state, and Ryoji and Teddie stopped with whatever they were doing.
"I don't think now's a perfect time have a party," Shinjiro said, quickly adding an apology after seeing a frown on Aigis' face. "I mean, the full moon is in four days. We need to prepare for that too."
"Yeah," Minako agreed. "Plus, Labrys is too smart. Who knows, she might already know that we're talking about her right now."
"She's smart, not psychic," Shinjiro told her.
In the end, they came into an agreement to make her cake on her birthday, and a small party on Saturday night. When they've already planned everything, all - except for Ken - went up to their rooms.
"Are you excited, Koromaru?" The dog gave a low bark in agreement. "Me too."
It's been years since I promised Mitsuru-san I'll live a normal life. He recalled the time after the incident with Sho Minazuki, how he started enjoying the normalcy of his life. As he grew older, he was still happy, but not as much as he used to in the past. Slowly he felt empty and became more aloof to the people around him. But then, the three who shouldn't be there came, as if his late mother sent them to have him smile again. Though their arrival brought him back to the shadow business, it did not break his normal life. Despite going back and forth in the TV World, they still made him feel like he was an ordinary student.
I never thought I'd get a happier normal life when everything just got out of the ordinary again..."Mitsuru-san wouldn't like this."
"Maybe it's something that happened before," Minako mumbled as she rolled to her side. She stared at the wall long and hard. "Something that happened before... before..." Minako gasped. She quickly rolled to grabbed her phone on the bedside drawer, falling off her bed in the process. She ignored the pain on her knee and scrolled down in search for a certain person's name.
"Since when was she gone?" Labrys asked.
"The last she was seen was on the thirteenth," Mitsuru answered. "We've searched everywhere: her apartment, her parents, the TV World, the tower. Akihiko's already dispatched a search party for her, but up until now, we still have no clues as to where she is."
"She just vanished..."
"I remember something Minako-san said," Naoto began. "She said that it's possible for people to disappear."
"She did say that," the older woman confirmed. "But if that is the cause of her disappearance, we wouldn't know because we wouldn't remember her."
"Then that leaves us with the theory that we will find her on the next full moon."
"Shirogane," Mitsuru said sharply. "If you're suggesting again that we stop searching for her, and to just sit around here and wait, then I'm sorry. I thought Akihiko and Rise made it clear to you that Fuuka's life may be in grave danger. We cannot risk doing nothing."
"But we barely have any clues," the blue-haired detective calmly responded. "We've been aimlessly searching for her for days now. We're not even sure if she is in this world or in somewhere else."
"But we can't just stop!" By this time, Mitsuru was breathing hard. Labrys quickly walked over to her to calm the woman down.
"You should rest," Labrys told her. "You are in a lot of stress now. We'll handle this; please rest Mitsuru-san."
"...Alright. I'm sorry for my outburst, Naoto." The red-haired woman left the room without another word.
"I was expecting to be an errand when she called," Labrys said, glancing at Naoto.
"Can you talk to Minako-san about this? Only to her."
"About Fuuka-san's disappearance?"
"Yes. She might be able to help us find her."
"Where are you going?" Ken looked at the crimson-eyed girl curiously. The girl twitched, as if she wasn't expecting anyone to see her. She slowly turned, formulating a good excuse in her mind. But she realized she's been staring at the boy for about a minute now, without saying a word. She knew that whatever excuse she'd say now would not be expected.
Giving up, she sighed and said, "If you want to know, then follow me me." Minako slipped out of the dorm. Ken, having nothing to do, followed her.
"Where are we going to?"
"Meeting up with Margaret," Minako said stoically. "Remember those women found in front of the school?"
"You mean the rumor?" The girl nodded.
"This happened before, when Fuuka got stuck in Tartarus. So then I thought," she stopped to meet Ken's eyes, "Fuuka is missing."
"That's impossible. If she was, then Mitsuru-san would've told us."
Minako turned and began to walk briskly again. "What if she didn't tell us?"
"I don't see any reason why she would do that."
"Well for one, we're students. You know how strict she can be with studies. The other thing that I could think of is that she wants Aigis and Labrys to focus on whatever they're doing."
The boy's brows furrowed in confusion. "What do you mean?"
"I've always wondered why those sisters and Teddie are with us. Why they're in the same dorm, in the same school, and in the same class... Then I thought, was it to spy on Ryoji, Shinji, and me? But then I realized, it doesn't really matter. It's what I get for being dubious.
"That aside, we have to know whether she somewhere on the other side, or somewhere beyond it - if a place does exist. If I could, I would've ask senpai."
"Why don't I call her?" Ken suggested.
"No need. We're going to find out anyway."
"I don't sense your friend anywhere," Margaret said after scanning the tower. The five of them were at the "top" of the tower. The dwellers of the Velvet Room have surveyed every plane they've gone to. But in those three places, Fuuka wasn't there. "I'm afraid that she might be in another domain."
"Could you try searching beyond this floor, this tower?"
The siblings looked at one another. "We could try," Elizabeth replied. The three walked to the center of the room and closed their eyes in concentration.
"You've haven't said anything in a while," Minako said, turning to Ken. "I'm starting to wonder if you're not here as well."
"Sorry... I just can't believe we got here so fast."
The girl chuckled, remembering how she reacted when the siblings first brought her to a series of portals to reach the tower. "Ditto." She beamed at him, and he grinned back. They turned back to the siblings. "Hey Ken."
"Yes."
"Can I trust you not to tell anyone about today? Please..."
The boy gazed at her, considering what she said. "Alright, but on one condition."
"...Okay, what is it?" She looked warily at the male.
"We go to Wakatsu sometime in the future."
The condition left the girl in a stupefied state. She was expecting something like a demand for an explanation, or the truth. But then she realized that the only ones who knew she was lying was the three in front of them and their master. The other was Ryoji, but he knows nothing about the truth yet. I guess Ken and everyone else just think that I'm just not telling them everything. "I haven't really told them anything..." she thought out loud.
"What was that?" Ken asked leaning his ear closer.
Minako got her cheery act together, "I said sure."
"I have found something," Elizabeth said proudly. "There's a rift from another world above this room. I sense a faint presence of a human from it."
"I'm so tired," Minako whined on their way home.
"I just noticed, going to the tower always wears you out. Why is that?"
"I'm not sure," the girl answered truthfully. Though she was told that it was because of her broken psyche, she wasn't sure if that was truly it.
"At least you didn't collapse," Ken said. "I don't know how I can explain things to Aigis-san and Ryoji-san if you did."
"Forget about that. What do we say if they ask us where we went?"
Ken halted and closed his eyes thoughtfully. "Hm... Ah!" He opened his eyes and said, "We can always tell them we were looking for a present for Labrys-san."
"And if Labrys asks?"
"Then we tell her that we were at the Shrine."
"Oh, good thinking!" She gave him a thumbs up.
After that conversation, they continued their journey back in comfortable silence. For a moment, Ken felt like he was a child again, walking with a humming Minako beside. But why we was feeling so nostalgic was unclear to him.
"We're home."
Hey guys! How are you? I'm actually too drained my brain on this. Please tell me what you guys think.
Anyway, thank you readers.
Megami Tensei Emperatriz: I think I making her too pampered. I will break her. [I don't really mean it in a bad way]
Asahar4: I always thought you can play the MC part in P3Fes. I guess I was wrong. Orz I wanna play it.
SenpaiNoticedMeXD: I dunno about it. Like your name by the way.
What am I talking about? ( =ω=)