Sunday, June 21, 2009 3:12 PM
Iwatodai Dormitory, 2nd Floor, Makoto's Room

its not like i don't have a lief /
but my stipid boss is like 'we ned u to teach him' while hes vacatining in tokoy
HE'S A TEACHER1 WHY DOENT HE TEACH HIMSELF HOT O TEACH
...sorry :0 maya got a little mad '-_-
hw's not a bad kid but he isn't tuff enuf to be teacher u no
the students will eat him alive D:
rip newbie teacher

Makoto snorted. Why don't you just tell him that? Maybe that'll make him reconsider his career prospects?

!
NO!
MAYA IS SHY GURL
I CANNOT
...sorry yelling again :p
anywoy i refuze
if he ask me than maybe
their so meen I dwont 2 com in n teach a newb teacher and m students
but I do want 2 c him flounder ;3
2sday will be fun :-)
altho spekin of 2 he mite end up being Mr. E 2...:-

The worst of all possible outcomes. Makoto typed out.

;3
idon think Mr. A wil be that bad
noone can /
hol on I gotta go let this deliv guys in my apartm
theyre delivering a new matris 4 me XD
can slep mucho better
be back in ~20 min

Makoto leaned back and stretched, letting out a big yawn in the process. His eyes glanced over to the bottom corner of his computer. This late already? Should probably go outside for a bit of fresh air.

As he leisurely made his way downstairs, he saw both Shinjiro and Kirijo playing shogi in the living room.

Both looked far quite a bit more casual, unkempt even, than Makoto was used to seeing them. He was wearing a beaten old red coat and had his hair hidden under a raggedy old beanie as he lay hunched over the table, carefully eyeing the board. She lacked any makeup, wearing a white button-up shirt that was a size too big for her – and that he could have sworn was Sanada's – with her hair was pulled back up into a ponytail as she slouched back into the couch.

"Who's winning?" Makoto asked as he plopped down on the sofa chair.

"Not me, that's for sure." Shinjiro said as he scratched his chin.

Kirijo languidly moved her silver general piece back and to the left. "It's still anyone's game."

He snorted. "Yeah right, don't sugarcoat it, I ain't won a match all year."

She smugly grinned. "If I don't give it my all, I won't be able to keep up my winning streak. It's how I've managed to win against so many people."

Shinjiro turned to Makoto. "By 'so many people', she means me and Aki. And occasionally red-eyes."

Kirijo crossed her arms. "I try to play with other people, but most of them are either not interested or simply do not know how to play. At least properly."

"Count me in the latter group." When he saw her frown at that confession, he looked away and scratched the back of his head. "Sorry. No amount of e-Shogi ever made me any good."

She shook her head, no doubt disappointed in Makoto as a human being.

"Where is everyone, by the way?" Makoto asked.

"Some of them should be outside playing with the dog." Shinjiro said as he moved a pawn forward.

Makoto raised an eyebrow, but said nothing as he got up and went for the door.

"Koro-chan," Fuuka said authoritatively on the steps of the dorm, "give me your paw!" The small white Shiba Inu obediently stuck his paw out.

Kotone squealed in joy and clapped. "Good dog!"

"Ruff!" Koromaru walked over to Makoto and rubbed his head against the boy's leg.

"Good boy." Makoto said. "Need a bowl of water little guy?"

"Ruff!"

"Koro-chan says yes." Kotone said while petting him. "Who's a good puppy?"


A few hours later, after numerous meandering conversations and at least one attempt to actually finish a single quest with Maya, they bid farewell and logged off Innocent Sin. He could hear some kind of conversation downstairs, the loudness of which tipped him off it probably included Kotone.

As he wandered downstairs again to check it out, Makoto could hear Kotone, loudly, asking for something.

"Pleeeeease?" Kotone clapped her hands together and begged.

"No." Kirijo said, impassively.

"Pretty pleeeeeease." She begged again.

"Not tonight, Shiomi." Kirijo said.

Makoto hopped over on the couch, sitting next to Kotone. "What are we trying to get permission for? Is it to adopt Koromaru?"

Kotone frowned. "No, besides Koro-chan won't leave his old place. Trust me, I tried."

"She is requesting for us to go to Tartarus tonight." Kirijo explained. "We are not going, regardless of how much Shiomi asks."

"Yeah, Kotone," Junpei said while wiping his brow, "We went the last three nights in a row. Don't you want to take a break?"

"Nnnnnnope!" Kotone said with a smile, a wink, and a thumbs up. "I'm not stopping until I get myself a cumulative one million yen in my wallet!"

Junpei turned to Makoto, tears welling at the corners of his eyes. "Dude, please back me up."

"She works hard for the money, Junpei." Makoto responded. "So you better treat her right."

"Ay, caramba."

Kotone smiled and flashed a peace sign. "Come on guys, mama needs a brand new pair of shoes!"

Makoto turned to Kirijo. "Put me in coach, I'm ready."

"That's the spirit!"

"We are not going. Not tonight." Kirijo said with a tone of absolute finality. "As much as I would like to cross the threshold into the next section of Tartarus, I wanted tonight to spent preparing for the next Full Moon Operation. Once Akihiko and Takeba return home, everyone is going to the fourth floor for an official SEES meeting." She turned to Makoto. "But first, I want to talk to you alone."

Kotone huffed and looked away as they left.


"We have about sixteen days until the next full moon." Mitsuru said before the assembled SEES members. "This month's battle against them was...not my proudest moment, I will admit. But the two Shadows we encountered did lead credence to what Yuki theorized last month." She turned to him. "If you will."

"Thank you senpai." He typed on the keyboard and brought up several pictures. Tarot cards, representing the first eleven arcana, and a poorly cropped jpg of a moon. "I was already fairly confident going into the most , I think my hypothesis about them correlating to the tarot has been confirmed. While it's hard to know exactly what they'll do, given how many different ways tarot cards can be interpreted, I think going forward we can assume they'll be based in some manner on them and should at least try to plan accordingly."

He flipped through slides covering each of the Shadows they faced and their connection to the tarot. As he flipped through Emperor and Empress, he scowled, and as he flipped through Hierophant and Lovers, nearly everyone else in the room bristled. Even for the half of SEES that managed to overcome the two Shadow's machinations, it was a uncomfortable battle to remember.

"In some decks, the eighth Arcana is Justice, and in others it is Strength." Makoto continued. "We're fought between one and three Shadows per full moon, so we're certainly going to fight the seventh, Chariot, when July hits. We'll probably face either Justice or Strength as the eighth, and then maybe Hermit as the ninth. Given how...esoteric some of their abilities can be, we have to be ready to fight them physically and mentally. Kirijo-senpai wanted us to set aside time tonight to workshop some ideas about what we might be facing in July."

"Lets focus on just the one we know we're gonna fight," Sanada said, "reversed Chariot, it represents..."

"A lack of, or misapplied, ambition, focus or drive." Makoto said as it moved to the corresponding slide.

"So we're going to be fighting Junpei then." Sanada said, utterly deadpan.

"Hey!" The small amount of laughter breaking the room's tense atmosphere. "I resent that you know."

Makoto grinned, but continued. "Either it'll act like some kind of wild hostile animal, or it'll turn us into one. That's my prediction."

"Hermit looks pretty literal to me." Kotone said. "Anti-social, isolation, loneliness, sounds like it'll try to split us up, and then one-by-one pick us off that way."

Yukari crossed her arms. "We tend to outnumber the Full Moon Shadows, so I guess divide and conquer is a good enough tactic."

"So is Justice gonna be some kind of evil cop or lawyer or somethin'?" Junpei asked.

"Could be." Makoto said. "It could also represent retribution and corruption."

Shinjiro scratched his chin. "So something that hurts us just as much when we hurt it?"

"Could be." Makoto said again.

The rest of the night was spent theorizing what they would be fighting in some two weeks, and how they could combat them.


Monday, June 22, 2009 Dark Hour

Tartarus, Ground Floor

"You sure you're OK?" Yukari asked Makoto as he limped forward.

Makoto winced. "I'm fine. My legs are just a bit sore from track is all."

Kirijo crossed her arms. "If you're not up to climbing tonight, I can swap you out with Akihiko."

"I'm fine," Makoto said, as he stretched. "I promise."

"Just don't strain yourself dude." Junpei said. "We're a team, we gotta tag in and out if need be, you know?"

Makoto nodded. "I'm good, trust me."

As they stepped out of the teleporter and began to walk to the stairs, everyone quickly went on high alert.

The first thing that sent off alarm bells was the light, or lack there of, in the second threshold. The electric purple lighting of the second block of Tartarus had become, if not familiar, than at least tolerable compared to how obnoxious and headache-inducing it was their first time around. Now they were walking into pitch darkness. Junpei and Makoto quietly summoned their respective Personas to use as make-shift torches.

"I do not sense any Shadows on the next floor." Fuuka said. "I still encourage you to be careful."

The second, and much more unpleasant, was the harsh stench of ash, melted plastics and corroded metals. Even before they walked halfway up the stairs, all four of them started coughing. It was like directly inhaling the toxic fumes of burned down chemical lab.

The floor and ceiling largely consisted of soot-covered linoleum tiles. Various computer monitors, each standing easily the size of the one on the fourth floor of the dorm, lined the left wall. But all were melted, warped, and smashed to varying degrees. The right wall had various industrial pipes extending down the hall, far past where they could see.

"What the fuck happened here?" Junpei mumbled before coughing again, Hermes vainly trying to air out the room with his free hand. "And what the hell is this place?" Kirijo and him wandered down the hall while Makoto and Yukari stayed and inspected a particular monitor.

"Is this," Makoto paused to sneeze, "excuse me. Is this place a lab or something?"

Yukari bristled at his question. "Maybe." She mumbled as she placed her hands on the melted keyboard. He could see, even with the small light Orpheus provided, how tense and uncomfortable she looked.

"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."

"Yukari." She turned to him. "Do you think this place is...?"

"That's why I joined Gekkoukan, and why I was joined SEES."

Her eyes closed. "I-I don't know." Yukari said as her voice cracked.

"Hey guys!" Junpei yelled out from down the hall. "There's a busted open door over here."

"C-Can we talk about this later?" She whispered, eyes craned downward.

Makoto nodded "Of course."

A large metal door, once fastened to the wall with various seals and locks, lay broken and melted on the other side of the hallway. Inside was a large circular room with several large glass tubes near the center, even one of them being enough to hold everyone present with room to spare. Most of the glass that hadn't been melted lay shattered and warped on the ground that they had to carefully avoid. A single small terminal sat, mostly undisturbed albeit non-functional, near the back of the room

Junpei's nose crinkled. "Is that booze? I swear I smell booze." Makoto could faintly make it out through the other odors.

"Yeah." Yukari sniffed the air. "Come to think of it, there was a similar smell on that cafeteria area a while back."

"What, were people operating all this shit while piss-drunk!?" Junpei yelled. "Is that why this place went up in flames?"

Makoto shrugged. "Maybe."

"We don't know anything!" Yukari turned and snarled at them. "So maybe shut up unless you have have something to contribute!"

Both took a step back. "You uh, you okay there Yukari?" Junpei asked hesitantly.

"I'm fine." She walked off, going back to the door.

"H-Hey!" Junpei yelled as Hermes and him ran off towards her. "Don't just walk off alone, dumbass."

Makoto turned to the only other member of the investigation party. The ever-ineffable Mitsuru Kirijo, who simply inspected the tubes in silence. Even on a good day, she was hard to truly read. But both this time, and in the last threshold, she was almost dead silent. She wasn't afraid or uncomfortable, just...quiet.

"Well?" He asked her. She jumped back, inhaling sharply and reaching for her sword, ready to strike. "It's just me senpai. You OK?"

"Y-Yes?" She said, blinking rapidly. "No. Yes. I'm fine. No there's no problem. Yes I'm fine."

Makoto and Orpheus both tilted their heads.

"I-I'm fine, Yuki." She said, loosening up and, if his eyes weren't deceiving him, blushing with embarrassment. "Is there something you wanted to ask?"

"Just if you've noticed anything unusual or of note." He said drolly.

She shook her head. "Nothing."

Orpheus hovered a bit closer to her, the fire in his hand clearly illuminating their faces to each other "What do you think this place is?" He asked point-blank.

"I-" her eyes flickered away from him for a moment, "I haven't the faintest clue."

"I see." Makoto narrowed his eyes and turned around. "Let's go regroup with the others."


At the very end of the long hallway was another flight of stairs. Above was what Makoto could only describe as the insides of some kind of large factory. The floors were hard metal, the air cold and thick with the smell of rotten eggs, with brightest light source being that of the moon.

"So," Junpei cracked his knuckles, "we've reached our way to this garden of the uncouth."

Yukari scrunched up her face. "What does that mean?"

"No clue, but it sounds cool." He said cheekily.

"I'm surprised Junpei." The boy turned to Makoto. "You didn't make a single joke about us being on floor 69."

"...ah crap!" He slapped both hands on his cheeks. "I forgot!" Yukari rolled her eyes, while Kirijo looked at them with bafflement.

"Let's just find a teleporter and go home early." Yukari mumbled as two statute-like Shadows appeared before them.


"Can we talk for a minute?" Yukari asked as they left Tartarus.

"Course." He trailed behind the rest of the team, keeping an eye on Kirijo up ahead.

Yukari turned away and mumbled something.

"Hm?"

Yukari blushed, or at least he thought she blushed, and repeated herself. "I said, I'm sorry. I...wasn't trying to be mean earlier."

Makoto shrugged. "It's fine. I...can assume why you acted like that." Her eyes flitted away from him. "Do you think this place, it's where your dad worked?"

"M-Maybe." She muttered. "Dad never really talked about work. I knew he was a scientist and he spent a lot of time on the computer at work." She chuckled. "Mom was always teasing me back then that I was gonna get a hunchback if I spent as much time on the computer as he did." A small, sad smile on her face. "Did you notice anything?"

"Kirijo is definitely lying to us, or at least holding back information."

She rolled her eyes. "Took you long enough to realize."

"I'm...not good at that kind of stuff." Makoto scratched the back of his head. "You'll have to be the one to confront her about it. Sorry."

"No, don't apologize." Yukari said, a fire in her eyes as she looked at the red-haired girl. "I want to be the one to do it. Can I count on you for back-up when the time comes?"

"Of course."

She smiled, this time with not a hint of sadness or rage or any other emotions clouding it. "Thanks. I appreciate it."

Makoto nodded, a smile on his face as well. "Always."


Tuesday, June 23, 2009, 8:26 AM

Gekkoukan High School, Class 2-F

"I still can't believe you guys got to go and I didn't." Kotone grumbled.

Makoto's one and only response to her complaints was a loud, multi-second yawn.

"Bleh." Kotone stuck her tongue out at him.

"Can it Kotone." Yukari said, head firmly planted on her desk. "You can whine another day, just not today."

"I'm not whining." She whined.

Junpei lifted his cap from his face and whispered to Makoto. "She's totally whining."

"She is."

"I'm not!"

The door opened, as Mr. Toriumi walked in with a young man sporting short, slicked-back black hair and somewhat dull gray eyes. The white dress shirt he wore was a size too large for him, being tucked into his black pants, and his red tie was a size too small.

"Good morning, I'm going to be your literature teacher going forward. I hope I can live up the standards set by my predecessor." Ms. Toriumi narrowed her eyes and elbowed him in the side. "Oh! Sorry, I didn't even introduce myself, where are my manners?" The young man bowed. "My name is Tohru Adachi, it's a pleasure to meet you all."