Authors Note: Fun fact, when I'm writing I call the characters Minato and Hamuko, and only change it to Makoto and Kotone as I'm about to post the chapter. It's a habit I picked up over a decade ago and have found difficult to break, even as they've received official names.
Saturday, April 11, 2009, 5:55AM
Iwatodai Dormitory, Living Room
"Mornin'." Takeba waved him from the dinner table when he arrived downstairs.
"Morning." Makoto replied. A good night's sleep was enough to rejuvenate him. No longer did he feel like the walking dead, he now merely looked like one of them.
She stood and walked over to him, meeting Makoto face to face. "I just wanted to thank you is all." Takeba said. "I didn't really get a chance with all the stuff that happened yesterday with the Chairman, and us being all out of sorts."
"No problem." Makoto said with a grin. "You did save my life first, Takeba-san, so it's only natural I pay you back."
She nodded, her eyes darting every which way but his.
"Is there anything else?"
She rubbed her arm. "That's not the only thing I wanted to talk about." She clapped her hands and bowed her her head. "I'm really sorry about this, but I was doing some digging and I ended up going through your school files." She said quickly.
"I...what?" Of all the things he expected her to say, that wasn't one. "W-Why did you do that exactly?" He asked slowly.
Takeba bit her lip. "Ten years ago, my dad died during that big explosion in the area. Supposedly, he was working in a lab run by the Kirijo Group. What actually happened there is super top-secret stuff, so finding out anything is nearly impossible."
She looked at him dead in the eye. A quiet, burning seriousness in her eyes.
"That's why I joined Gekkoukan, and why I was joined SEES. I've been doing my own research since I joined and when I overheard 'ten years ago' and 'explosion' I...had to look." She turned away. "I'm sorry, I know it was wrong to invade your privacy like that, but I couldn't help myself."
Makoto opened his mouth to speak, but instead just exhaled, feeling like a leaking balloon.
"If you're mad at me, I, I totally get it." She mumbled out. "I'd be pretty mad, and angry, and freak outed and stuff if I were you."
"I'm not mad." She looked up at him, eyes glistening. "I get it, kind of." He scratched his head. "If you really feel bad about it, you can buy me some Wild Duck Burger later and we'll call it even."
The air between them remained thick with tension, before both burst out laughing.
"Geez." She wiped away a tear. "Way to break the mood."
"Sorry." He said, a smile betraying how apologetically he really felt.
She gave a lazy wave as she picked up her things. "See you at school Makoto-kun."
"Bye Takeba-san." He left for the kitchen.
"By the way." He turned back to her. "You can call me Yukari, OK?"
Makoto nodded. "Understood Yukari-san."
"...I swear he's doing that on purpose." She muttered under her breath.
Makoto twirled his pencil in hand.
"Ten years ago, my dad died during that big explosion in the area."
In his head, there were many different pieces of evidence floating around.
"Sadly we're no closer to discovering the answer than when they discovered both a decade ago."
So many tragedies happened ten years ago.
"You know my name, even if you haven't said it for a long time."
Ten years ago, so much happened. Shadows and the Dark Hour were discovered, Yukari's father died, his parents died. A car crash at midnight while he was sleeping soundly. But...was I? It happened so fast, but I swear I was-
"Alright, for this question..." Mrs. Terauchi scanned her eyes across the classroom, "Mr. Yuki."
Makoto languidly stood up.
"What is wrong with the English sentence, 'The girl went to an other school from me.'?"
Without missing a beat, he responded. "'An other' should be one word, another."
Mrs. Terauchi smiled. "Very good!" She said in English. He gave her a thumbs up and sat down.
As the teacher continued to lecture, Kotone turned around and whistled. "Wow, look at you Mr. Hotshot."
Makoto shrugged. "My aunt's a native English speaker. She never let me score anything less than perfect in these classes."
Kotone nodded. "Cool."
"Yuki."
Makoto turned to see, of all people, Kirijo waiting for him outside the school gates. "Senpai?"
"Do you have any plans for tonight?" When he shook his head, the red-haired girl smiled. "Good. Tonight, I want to show you what Tartarus is, and it's best if you're in tip-top physical shape."
Rather than asking for her to elaborate, Makoto simply nodded, wondering where they could possibly be going.
About eight hours later, he had his answer. They were going to exactly the same spot he was standing in the first place.
Makoto snorted. "Wow, what're the odds?"
"Hm." Yukari turned to him. "You say something."
"Nah." He scratched his head. "Why are we here exactly?"
Yukari gave a rather mischievous smile, something that he'd come to expect from Kotone rather than her. "Mitsuru-senpai asked me not to spoil it. It's always a lot more impact if you see firsthand."
Makoto raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. It was only a few more minutes until the Dark Hour anyways. His eyes made their way to her upper arm, where her red SEES armband was snugly tied. When they left the dorm, Makoto noticed that all of the girls were wearing the same armbands Yukari was a few nights ago. Kirijo had the number 1 on hers, Kotone with 4, and Yukari with 5.
It quickly dawned on him that it probably referred to member order. Aragaki and Sanada probably were 2 and 3 if they joined after Kirijo, but before Kotone and Yukari. That either left Ikutsuki as number 0, or just not a member at all.
Makoto looked up at the school. Even though he had been here for less than a month, seeing how it looked in the dark felt just wrong enough to make him squirm. Especially given how they were waiting outside of it near midnight.
Given the amount of weapons they had on hand, Kirijo's rapier, Yukari's bows, and Kotone's naginata, plus the sword he used a few nights back, he had come to expect they were going to be fighting Shadows. But Shadows in their own school?
Then, at the strike of midnight, as the Dark Hour emerged, the school...rose.
No, that wasn't quite true. As Makoto gazed up the sight before him, he saw that it didn't just rise, it also twisted, split, contorted, and pierced the sky itself, becoming many stories of gangling and mechanical bits poking out all at once.
Makoto's eyes grew wide. "What the fuck?" He mumbled under his breath.
"Told ya." Yukari said. "You're never gonna forget your first time seeing Tartarus transform."
"...our school is a tower." Makoto stated, still in awe.
Yukari started walking inside with the other girls, prompting Makoto to start walking. "For some reason, this place is kind of like a Shadow nest. Not every Shadow goes here at night, but a lot of them do. They bring all kinds of things with them."
"See this naginata?" Kotone asked. "I found this thing inside a few weeks ago when we were fighting Shadows out near the mall. I blasted it with Elea and this dropped from its body."
"The Shadows collect all manner of things." Kirijo stated. "Money, weapons, armor, briefcases; there's a lot of things we can salvage from them, and that is especially the case here."
"Finders keepers!" Kotone said as she ran inside, practically radiating with energy.
It was not completely dissimilar to the inside of the school. There were stone pillars holding it up, it had floors and, indeed, even a flight of stairs.
After that, everything went completely off the rails.
Directly in front of the entrance was a flight of stairs that led up to what Makoto could only describe as a door built into a titanic clock. All around them, after the floor simply...stops existing, there are numerous towers off in the distance, even just around the entrance itself.
As Makoto walked over and reached out, he was stopped by an invisible force. It wasn't a wall, exactly. He couldn't feel anything stopping him, it was just like his fingers, and then his hands, were incapable of proceeding any further. A wall that wasn't.
"Up those stairs is where the real madness of Tartarus begins." Kirijo said. "When we first attempted to traverse the area, we made a map. We soon realized it was for naught. As you'll soon learn, the floors twist and mutate every time you enter them."
She stabbed her rapier into the ground and crossed her arms.
"What might be a straight walk to the next floor today will be a byzantine maze crawling with a swarms of hostile Shadows the next. I, however, have a Persona that allows me to help you navigate from down here, so no matter how high you go, I'll be able to relay information about your surroundings to you."
"How high is this place?" Makoto asked as he kept looking around.
"That, I'm not sure of." Kirijo said. "There's a barrier up on the sixteenth floor that blocks further progress. Or rather, there was a barrier."
Both Yukari and Kotone perked up.
"With the defeat of the Shadow that attacked our dorm, I've sensed a change in Tartarus." She crossed her arms over her chest. "While I do want to check on the barrier before the month is over, my immediate concern is for you to get a firsthand look at what SEES members do, as well as for you to get a feel for using your Persona in a relatively controlled environment, should you choose to join us."
"It's like Biorisk 4." Kotone said. "But we're all Leo, and you're Ashlyn."
Everyone turned and stared at her.
"...bad example?"
Kirijo turned back to Makoto. "Shiomi will be the field leader for the time being. You will obey her commands whenever we are in battle, as well as in any SEES-related business when I am not available." She handed him the gun from a few nights ago. "This is an Evoker. You already have experience with it, but just to be thorough, these are specially manufactured tools that resemble firearms, made to summon Personas."
Makoto gingerly took it and the holster from her.
"And before you ask, yes, you do have to aim it at your head to fire." She smiled, even though her eyes dimmed. "Doing it will get easier with time."
"I see." Makoto whispered.
Kotone walked over and pointed to another side of the room, where a little doorway was. "Are we going to be using the teleporter, senpai?"
She shook her head. "No, I want you to stick to the lower floors tonight. Small Shadows first. Should Yuki prove himself capable and willing, we'll use it on later rights."
Makoto raised an eyebrow. "Teleporter?"
"Yep!" Kotone grinned from ear to ear. "Sometimes when you go up Tartarus, there's a one-way teleporter that'll send us straight back. And on certain floors we got a two-way, so we can get up and down really quick. Like fancy elevators."
From partway up the stairs, Yukari called out to them. "Come on guys! We've already spent enough time talking, the Dark Hour doesn't last forever you know!"
As they started to walk to the stairs, Makoto saw a flash of blue out of the corner of his eye. He turned, but as he looked around he could find nothing.
"Yuki?" Kirijo was looking at him, an eyebrow raised. "Is something the matter?"
Makoto turned to her, and then back to where he saw the flash of light, and then back to her. "No...it's nothing." He turned and rushed to catch up with the girls.
"HAIIIIIII-YA!" Kotone yelled as she smashed the last blob to bits. "Ah yeah!" She flashed them a peace-sign.
Yukari sighed. "Geez Kotone, save some energy for the rest of us, will you."
"You can't stop me~." She blew a raspberry at Yukari and ran off behind another corner. Yukari sighed and dropped her head in dismay.
Makoto walked up to his beleaguered classmate. "I didn't want to say this at school, but," Makoto scratched his nose, "she and Junpei really do share one brain cell, don't they?"
She rolled her eyes. "Ugh, don't even tell me about it." She turned to him, eyes narrowed. "You would not believe how annoying they can be sometimes."
"I can imagine."
"You can't and you shouldn't." She stated with absolute confidence.
Four floors up, Makoto started to feel the weight of the night catching up to him. He could tell Yukari, even having used her Persona the least of the night, was starting to slow down and struggle. Her breaths were becoming heavier and more ragged with each floor. Her aim with her bow was getting less and less precise.
Kotone, meanwhile, was firing on all cylinders. Despite physically combating Shadows the most of the three, and despite also using her Persona the most of the three, she showed no signs of exhaustion. Every encounter she went at it with maximum gusto.
"These are the last three enemies on this floor." Kirijo said. "Finish them and come downstairs." Makoto flinched every time it happen, it was such a weird feeling to hear her voice coming from inside his head.
A trio of floating heads appeared.
"Yukari-chan!" Kotone whipped out her Evoker. "Use Garu on the right one. Makoto, send Orpheus to crush the right one. On my command."
"Right." Yukari said.
"Got it." Makoto summoned Orpheus, poised and ready to strike.
As the three head fluttered forward, they braced to attack and-
"Now!" Kotone rushed in, swinging her naginata and slashing the middle Shadow in half. Yukari summoned Io and blasted it to pieces. Orpheus charged in, dodging a blast of fire and smashing the Shadow into the ground with his lyre.
"C'est magnifique!" Kirijo said. "There's a teleporter just up ahead, to your right."
The three walked up to the glowing green portal. Yukari and Kotone stepped inside, Makoto squeezed his way in after them. "So...what now?"
With a great big grin, Kotone said. "Watch this."
A green glow enveloped them, and before he knew it they were on the first floor.
"...huh." He said.
"Cool right?" She asked with a big grin on her face.
"I dunno." Makoto scratched his head. "I thought it was going to feel weirder than that."
"Be thankful it wasn't weirder." Yukari shuddered. "This tower is already freaky enough, I'll take as much normality as I can, thank you very much."
"I suppose."
"So what happens if we're in there after the Dark Hour ends?" Makoto asked on the way back home. Yukari and Kotone were a few feet ahead of him, conversing among themselves, while he walked with Kirijo. "Do we just end up back in school or...?"
"Not exactly." Kirijo flicked a strand of hair out of her face. "Tartarus does not ever truly goes away. If you were to be inside when it ended, you would simply find yourself in the next Dark Hour, a full day having passed you by in an instant."
Makoto raised an eyebrow.
She turned away, obscuring her face from his eyes. "I have...personal experience with that happening."
Makoto nodded. "I see. Tartarus, I assume it too sprang up a decade ago? Along with the Dark Hour?"
"...you would be correct in assuming that." She mumbled out, still turned away.
"I see."
The events of ten years ago: the emergence of the Shadows, the Dark Hour, the car crash on the bridge, the explosion that killed Yukari's father, the Kirijo Group, and creation of Tartarus.
All of it was connected. It had to be connected. It was impossible for him to believe all of these were coincidences. But every step forward he got more questions and less answers.
Makoto looked back at Tartarus, or rather Gekkoukan High, the tower having transformed back into their school after the end of the Dark Hour. Would the top of the tower hold answers? Or still more questions?
Only one way to find out. Makoto thought as they arrived home.