Chapter 24

Dull thudding echoed down the hallway to the boys' rooms. Heavy impacts hammered in an inconsistent rhythm, pounding away relentlessly with no pause longer than a few seconds. Anyone living at the dorm would be unsurprised to find that it came from the room belonging to one of the oldest members of S.E.E.S.

The reason was simple. While the other dorm residents may have been lax in their training for the month, Akihiko was not.

As he practiced his technique on the punching bag anchored to his room's ceiling, it wasn't hard to see why Akihiko was made the captain of the boxing club so early in his high school career. Every few hits he delivered knocked the bag back several feet. He circled to the side as it swung back towards him, firing off more punches as it passed and began its movement back. He shifted clockwise again, smashing another set of punches into it. The poor bag continued ricocheting back and forth again and again, constantly pummeled as it flew.

However, Akihiko's thoughts were focused entirely on one thing: boxing.

Left!

CRACK!

Left!

SMACK!

Uppercut!

WHACK!

Left, juke, right!

P-POW!

Huge breaths escaped Akihiko, sweat shining on his face and trickling down his neck into his already soaked plain white tank top. That, plus his simple black shorts and similarly dark, worn shoes, were the only workout gear he used. He didn't have any need for high-test, specialized clothes. If it worked, it worked, right?

Right as Akihiko began to prep for another round, a different kind of impact could be heard through his door.

Boom, boom, boom.

"Heya, Akihiko-senpai, you in there?"

Hamuko's voice came through his door after she knocked, voice chipper as ever. Talking was too difficult with his current amount of breath, so Akihiko wiped a hand across his brow and steadied the punching bag before striding over to the door. He grabbed his hand towel from the back doorknob and flung the door open, letting in the much cooler air from outside and revealing Hamuko, Junpei and Yukari.

Akihiko nodded his head in greeting, still breathing hard. "How's it… going?"

Hamuko just smiled in response (though oddly, after Akihiko opened the door, Junpei began to look uncomfortable, and Yukari was abruptly studying her shoes and adjusting her sweater, but whatever). "Well," she began, "we were wondering if you wanted to come with us to Paulownia, since you don't get out much."

That earned her a light smack on her arm from Yukari. "Hamuko-chan!" she groaned, glancing up enough to roll her eyes. "You can't just say that to someone!"

If the brunette was expecting any remorse, she was sorely disappointed. "Eh, it's Akihiko-senpai. He doesn't care."

Akihiko chuckled. "Heh… you know what… you're talkin' about." He smirked, asking, "Where are you going?"

The three juniors looked at each other.

"Game Panic?" Junpei suggested.

Yukari's response was one of the most vigorous head-shakes of denial Akihiko had ever seen. Junpei relented, reaching up to hold on to his cap as he chuckled. "Ok, ok, sheesh."

Hamuko tapped a finger to her chin, tilting her head in thought. "Chagall Café?"

Yukari appeared to consider that suggestion, but Junpei winced. "Not really sure that's my kinda scene, Hamu-tan…"

"Alright." Hamuko shrugged and turned back to Akihiko. "Well, we're clearly out of ideas. So, you should come along and tell us where you usually go for fun, Akihiko-senpai."

Akihiko scratched his head, having finally recovered most of his breath. "Not sure I know where to… go for fun either. Usually I just train and study."

"Woah!" Junpei exclaimed. "You actually study, Akihiko-senpai?!"

Another smirk snuck out of Akihiko as Yukari slapped a hand to the side of her head (with a slight mutter of "why do I even bother?").

"Well, it's a lot of training. But I manage pretty well. I do some reading for school when I can."

"Woah! Akihiko-senpai, you actually re-" Smack! "Urmph!"

Yukari's hand had slapped over Junpei's mouth just before he could ask the damning question (though Akihiko's smile just widened at Junpei's attempted remark). Junpei's eyes slowly turned to the hand's owner, who was looking at him through her hair with heavily slanted eyes.

"No. Way. Junpei."

Yukari removed her hand, and Junpei rubbed the back of his head, looking down but a slight smile still on his face. Hamuko just shook her head in bemusement, and gave Akihiko a look.

"See, I could really use the help reigning these two in, Akihiko-senpai."

The other two immediately protested.

"Hold it, you need help reigning us in?! Hamuko-chan, seriously?!"

"Hamu-tan, don't even get me started on all the crazy things ya do…"

Hamuko gave a long-suffering look upwards, ignoring the protests from her compatriots. "I wonder what I did in a past life to deserve this…"

Junpei snorted. "Forget past life, think about past day!"

"Sure, sure." Hamuko dismissed the boy with a wave of her hand. "Anyways, getting back on track, whatcha say, Akihiko-senpai?"

The grey-haired senior in question had been watching the interplay between the trio, and when they looked back to him, he had donned an enormous grin, leaning against his door frame as he watched the show.

"Well," he started, pushing off against his doorframe. "I'd like to join you, but I've gotta finish up my workout here."

That cued an eye-roll from their operational leader. "Akihiko-senpai, that's all you do. You could stand to loosen up and hang out with us some more."

"No, I don't think so."

The proclamation from the boxer straightened Hamuko's back, and a sliver of her soldier-mode slipped onto her face.

"What are you thinking, Akihiko-senpai?"

"Possibly the opposite of you." He leaned forward, eyes intent on Hamuko's face, which was slowly growing sterner. "How many times have you gone on training missions in Tartarus this past month?"

"Four times."

Akihiko shook his head. "That's not enough. I don't think you three are taking training seriously enough. We've taken it easy in Tartarus so far, and especially this month, but we don't know when something's going to happen." The boxer glanced at Junpei. "And I'm not going to let anything like the train incident happen ever again."

Hamuko and Yukari's faces lit up with comprehension. But only Junpei's face showed he truly remembered what Akihiko meant.

"I understand, and I'll keep that in mind," Hamuko said. "But it's also important to not work yourself to death, Akihiko-senpai."

Akihiko blinked. "Well, yeah, of course."

"Just makin' sure you knew." Hamuko glanced away. "I feel like I should start reminding you and Mitsuru-senpai about that."

Akihiko blew out a sigh. "Trust me, I know all about Mitsuru's habits. I've been trying to break her of them for years."

"Ah, good." The shorter Arisato shifted her stance, sinking back onto a hip. "Maybe you'd like to follow your own advice, then?"

Akihiko blinked. He opened his mouth, then closed it for a moment before responding. "Uh… I think it's a bit different from my situation..."

Hamuko shrugged. "Just something to think on. Well, we're heading out, Akihiko-senpai. If you need us, we'll be at Hagakure Ramen."

And that statement completely ruined the mood, groans erupting from the two juniors behind Hamuko.

"Aw c'mon Hamu-tan, again?"

Yukari massaged her temple. "We go there, like, every other day…"

"You have only yourself to blame, it's the only place I can actually drag you both out to!" Hamuko waved jauntily back at Akihiko. "Well, hopefully see ya later!"

Hamuko closed the door behind her, and the trio's voices echoed loudly, slowly drifting away as the three walked further down the hallway.

"Next time we invite Akihiko-senpai, can we go in when he's, y' know, not all sweaty, Hamuko-chan?"

"Whaddya mean, Yukari-chan? What's wrong with that?"

"He's all… I dunno, it's makes me a bit uncomfortable…"

"Heh, Yuka-tan's just havin' thoughts she'd rather not have-"

"St-Junpei-kun, I swear to God, if you are even thinking that I'm attracted to-"

"Hey no disrespect, seein' him all sweaty is making me ask some questions about myself!"

"Oh, so it's that? My bad, Yukari-chan!"

At that point, their voices had faded to the point where they had stopped being audible. Akihiko just chuckled once again at their antics. Those three were a comedy routine all their own.

He turned around, looking at the main articles of his spartan room. His punching bag, having taken all of Akihiko's training blows, sagged at the middle and hung loosely at the end of its chain, looking rather sad. His history textbook lay on his desk, book mark further than it was a week ago, and his bed was messily made in the corner of the room.

Akihiko rubbed at his nose, and exhaled with a smile.

Ah, what the hell. Why not?

Grabbing his tank top by the bottom, Akihiko flipped off his shirt (a bit harder to do than normal due to the sweat it was drenched in), opened his drawer, and - after a moment of scrounging - pulled on a similar (ok, exact replica) of his workout shirt. He walked to his room's door, yanked his jacket off the coat rack, and closed the door behind him as he followed the trail of the three juniors.

He seriously needed some protein and carbs, anyways.

That girl just would not come out of her coffin.

Mitsuru sat at her usual chair in the control room, swiveled away from her regular set of monitors and bathed in the ill-colored green of the dark hour. She was instead facing a chair sitting opposite her, a coffin hovering above it. She breathed out a sigh, tapping her foot as she stared the coffin into submission, willing it to open.

It did not work, sadly. Mitsuru was starting to wonder if she was losing her touch.

The coffin belonged to Fuuka, unsurprisingly. She had agreed to stay late (although not sleep over) at the dorm a few nights already to humor Mitsuru and the Chairman and test if the presence of other persona users would hasten her natural awakening to the dark hour. Yet so far, she had just been waking up one minute past midnight, often baffled by the change in location of her new teammates, and in one case, completely perplexed by how fast Mitsuru had managed to read and annotate a chapter of her textbook.

This only seemed to heighten Fuuka's interest, rather than scaring her off. S.E.E.S. was quite fortunate that their first team member who joined before a forcible introduction to the dark hour was so curious rather than frightened. Mitsuru could only imagine other (arguably more normal) people's reactions.

Although there wasn't really anybody in S.E.E.S. who could be called "normal."

She switched from tapping her feet to drumming her fingers on the desk, or more accurately, on the new dark-hour proof laptop that had been sent to the dorm recently, after the unfortunate end of the last one. There were perks to having quick access to most of the Kirijo Group's production capabilities, especially for a product as unique and necessary as a dark-hour proof laptop.

The creak of an opening door didn't turn her head from her focus, but she did take note of the quiet, careful footsteps that followed.

"No luck yet for the newest team member, I see," Ikutsuki said, closing the door behind him as he strode into the room, padding across the plush carpet.

Mitsuru hummed in agreement, shifting her weight on the chair, but keeping her eyes on Fuuka's coffin. "Even after staying late at the dorm for several days already, she has agreed to continue doing so for now. Yamagishi has been very patient with us so far, but I am uncertain as to how much longer she will continue to humor us without concrete proof. It is a wonder she has stayed with us as long as she has."

Ikutsuki chuckled, taking a seat on the table in the center of the room (before quickly getting up and into a chair at Mitsuru's pointed stare). "I believe it has less to do with our discussion at the meeting, and more to do with Minato-kun. She really seems to feel… perhaps, indebted to him? For whatever reason."

The tapping of her fingers stopped as Mitsuru glanced with raised eyebrows at the chairman. "Truly? I did not notice that detail." Her gaze pivoted back to the coffin, and her finger drumming continued. "Yet I cannot say I'm surprised. I honestly did not expect her to stay at all, given all of her questions."

"I know what you mean." Ikutsuki smiled. "Sharp as a tack, that one."

The redhead nodded, hair slightly bouncing with the motion. "Quite so." She allowed herself a sigh. "I just hope that she will awaken soon. I would rather not continue telling her she is a persona-user without proof. Is there any room for error in your estimation of her potential?"

Ikutsuki shook his head. "No. Well, technically, there's always room for error in any calculation, but given that I have double and triple checked my prediction on Yamagishi-san while she was at the dorm, and both checks returned positive results for her being a persona-user, the likelihood of a false positive is essentially zero."

"Wonderful. Thank you, Chairman."

Ikutsuki chuckled. "You can also call me Ikutsuki-san, you know. I do not mind."

"I suppose it is just habit at this point." Mitsuru closed her eyes and smiled. "You know my stubbornness."

"That I do."

The two lead organizers of S.E.E.S. allowed a pause to pass between them. For her part, Mitsuru continued looking at the coffin containing (hopefully) their newest team member.

Ikutsuki broke the silence first, snapping his fingers. "Ah, I forgot to mention. Minato-kun asked that we all be together on the night of June 8th. He mentioned something about having a sort of theory he would like to share with all of us."

"Very well. I shall let the others know tomorrow morning." Mitsuru pursed her lips. "I must admit, I am worried that an incident like last month will occur sometime soon, especially given that Apathy Syndrome cases are increasing again."

Ikutsuki hummed. "Well. I suppose the only thing we can do is be prepared."

"Yes." Mitsuru closed her eyes in thought. "I agree. And if that is the case, we had best get started now."

AN:

Update on Oct. 20 2018 to add my beta's username/links, which are respectively Disasternoj, and:

www(point)disasternoj(point)tumblr(point)com

www(point)archiveofourown(point)org/users/Disasternoj

...

Quick shout-out to reviewer crymblade for catching the error that when Fuuka arrived at the dorm, Hamuko already knew what she looked like since she was introduced to Hamuko earlier that day at volleyball practice. Decided not to edit the chapter to redo that, but it's worth pointing out! (That's what I get for not getting this chapter to my beta in time…)

Also, Akihiko's punching bag really does take a beating. How many do you think he goes through in a month?

Shout outs to:

Ulimit, Dreagonheart, DavianThule19, ItsHoodButItsGood, Xakandan, Starleafx3, roughstar333, and Misterangryeyes for following;

Ulimit, Symphony of the Night, DavianThule19, ItsHoodButItsGood, StarLeafx3, and Misterangryeyes for faving;

And Pharos666, KageFuego4, crymblade, blarg7865, and Biscione for reviewing!

If it wasn't obvious from Mitsuru and Ikutsuki's comment at the end of the chapter… the next chapter will begin the Lateral Season 2 finale! It'll be 2-3 chapters (probably 3). Due to that, next week there's not going to be an update, as I'm trying to finish those last few chapters. But in 2 weeks, the end of season 2 begins!

Thanks for reading everyone, and I'll see you in the next update!