Same day 10:57 AM: Weather Partly Sunny
The four people climb to the landing of the stairs and onto patches of dirt and grass. Behind the stairwell sits the backside of a shrine, surrounded by a grove of trees. The fresh air feels crisper than usual for some reason as a gentle wind blows. In a nearby bush, a young fox pokes its head out, seeing what the fuss was about.
"So what did you want to tell us?" Yamato sits on the ground to rest, waiting for his best friend to say her piece.
"I think…" She gulps feeling nervous, but she smacks her cheeks to help herself focus, "I think according to the town's lore that was read to me, there might be a swarm of darkness under Ainoska. It first appeared two hundred years ago and was said to have spread dread. I don't know if this fable sounds like what Labrys was telling us about earlier or what. What do you all think?"
Leiko cups her hand around her cheek in thought, "Lore can have an ounce of truth to it."
"Is this story written down anywhere, Izumi?" Labrys hurriedly inquires, wanting to see this text for herself. It might be the smoking gun in determining if those Shadows were baited or not.
"It should be in the Shrine's library. Double checking the scroll shouldn't be any trouble." Her eyes shine as she speaks enthusiastically, bouncing on the arches of her feet. Being able to pass on the lore of the town to another like a previous shrine miko did for her eleven years ago makes it feel like a true right of passage. "I just hope the scrolls aren't damaged. I've had no time to check them or the shrine's library due to school."
"I think you just made her morel go a mile high Labrys." Yamato raises from the ground, stretching his back. "So how about we get back to the shrine. We don't seem to be that far from it." He starts to walk around the shrine building, Izumi skipping along behind him in a cheerful mood.
"How are you holding up there Labrys?" Leiko inquires upon noticing the silvery blue haired girl's arm twitch slightly as they follow their companions. "I should have asked you this after we had gotten into the tunnels."
"I've got slight damage to the motor in my right forearm all from that lightning attack and my punching of one Shadow. I'll still be able to fight, but I won't be doing anything fancy." She gripes, grimacing over the injury preventing her from fighting efficiently.
"Labrys, Leiko! We have a problem." Izumi's voice rings out and the two quicken towards her voice.
"What's the matt…er?" Leiko skids in her tracks as she rounds the corner, taking in the unfamiliar sight. The shrine in question is a modest building with several dirty golden torii, a golden offertory box, a rudimentary fortune box and a stone slab path leading down a slope.
Deciding to follow the descending path, Leiko strides along the incline, onto a street lined with unfamiliar buildings. There are individual stalls on the opposite sidewalk, their owners making small talk with customers. Turning back towards the shrine, she spies a store with scaffolding around the door, but she can barely make out the store's name, Tetsumi Textiles.
"Where are we?" She voices once her friends join her.
"I don't even recognize this place, if only we had a landmark to give us a clue." Yamato cranes his neck, looking down the street for any kind of signs.
"I'm such a dunce! I should have just checked my phone's GPS!" Izumi yelps looking up a local area map.
"No need for that, Izumi. We're in Inaba." Labrys smiles, relief washing over her, knowing they weren't lost. She should have used her GPS the moment she walked out of the tunnel.
"INABA!" The three teens shout in shock as they each check their phones to see she is right, only looking at each other in confusion right after.
"How? How can we go from Hokkaido to the middle northern section of Honshu?!" Izumi frantically asks, her brain just not able to figure it out.
Leiko furrows her brow a bit, something nagging her about this situation, "There has to be some reasonable explanation for this."
"HEY!" The door of the textile shop flies open, a tall man around the age of thirty years old with slicked back black hair, gray eyes with a scar above the left one, wearing brown jeans and a yellow long sleeved shirt steps outside. "Get to school and get an education. Damn delinquents causing…" The man's jabbering stops and he breaks into a smile, "Labrys! What are you doing here with these delinquents?"
"They're my friends from Orimasu and Fuuka's students. It's kind of a long explanation." The girl spins around playfully exaggerating her movements, showing off the uniform with a grin.
The man closes his eyes, his grins broadening, "I sort of didn't even notice the different uniform till just now." His eyes open, looking at the three teens, jabbing his thumb at himself for the briefest of moments as he holds out his hand, "The name's Kanji Tatsumi. It's nice meeting you three. Any friend of Labrys and Fuuka is a friend of mine. Sorry for calling ya delinquents."
"I…Izumi Kaido. It's…perfectly alright s…sir." She quickly shakes his hand, her legs quivering. This adult really gave off a scary vibe and she didn't know why. Maybe it was due to his height or just the man's frame.
Yamato shakes his hand next, not feeling any trepidation, "Yamato Watanabe. No offense taken." This guy might seem scary, but was probably a big softy.
"Leiko Mizaki." The pink haired girl's tone is crisp and she quickly takes the man's hand, feeling a small ping in her mind, "You're…a Persona user too?" Why didn't she sense this man was a Persona user until just now?
The man chuckles softly, "I uh…am. So this makes you three the Persona users Labrys has told my friends and I about." His chuckling stops as he realizes something important to this exchange, "Why are you guys even here and not there? Don't you have school today?"
The teens exchange glances, each wondering just what Labrys said about them to this guy and his friends.
"The school event we had was canceled, so they gave us the day off. Fuuka has meetings all day." Labrys comments, her eyes half closing in thought, "How we got here is harder to explain. The short version is, we entered some place in Ainoska, got caught in a nasty surprise attack by Shadows and the corridor we ran down brought us to a set of stairs that led to the back of Tatsuhime shrine."
"So some weird space distortion crap." This is the best term he can use to understand this concept.
"A reasonable explanation as any." Izumi pipes up, her voice shaking less than before. "I'm going to call Fuuka to touch base with her. Labrys, can you come with me to explain some of the stuff I can't?"
"I was going to ask to come with you. There are a few things I need her to do a check on." The girl answers, hoping to place her friend's mind at ease.
"Thanks Labby! I owe you in some way." The brown hair girl whispers, her fear of the man slowly ebbing away.
"You're more than welcome to use the store to keep things private." The black haired man answers with a smile.
Izumi bows politely, "Thank you very much Kanji-senpai." Slowly rising, she quickly turns and proceeds to the shop with Labrys.
"Senpai huh? I sort of like being called that, even though we are more than thirteen years removed from each other." Kanji closes his eyes, smiling. "So what has Labrys said about me or the others?"
"She hasn't exactly said anything to us about anyone she knows from here. We've heard three names from her. Yu, Makoto and Yosuke. We know Yosuke is your pal, but we're unsure about the other two, since one is Fuuka's friend." Yamato explains, rubbing a stiff spot in his neck. "I don't think it's easy for her to talk about old friends to new friends."
"It's…not exactly easy for anyone to do that. I know from experience of having moved a few times." Leiko leans against one of the nearby torii, looking over at Kanji, "Even though we didn't mean to come here today, Labrys is happy that we're here and able to meet you and hopefully your other friends."
"I can tell you kids genuinely care about her with how she's taken to you. Sort of how she was with Yu-Senpai and the rest of us when we wanted to be friends with her." Kanji smiles, giving a wave to someone down the street.
Leiko and Yamato glance in the direction of Kanji's gaze, seeing a beautiful woman with black hair styled in a neat bun, donning a green hairband in her early 30's. She is wearing an azure short sleeved blouse, a long pleated pink skirt and open toed white sandals, walking towards them, a Junes shopping bag in hand. She waves to the black haired man, running over.
With her is what can only be described as a blue furred bear, wearing a red and white looking jumpsuit with buttons on them. At the neck is a zipper, with a tan face with large eyes surrounded by a golden border.
"Yukiko-senpai, are you here to talk about the rumor from earlier this morning?" Kanji shouts to her, "I wouldn't put any stock in grave markers being busted up as anything more than some idiot delinquents from Okina City spreading rumors to look big."
The woman approaches her friend and the teens with a serene smile, "While I've heard something about the rumor; that's not what I've come over about Kanji. I rushed over here because of something Teddie said was happening out here." She glances at the two teens with a raised eyebrow. Why are two kids from Orimasu Highschool here? She thinks as it eats away at her. "Kanji, who are these two?"
"They're Labrys' friends Yamato and Leiko. You two, this is Yukiko Amagi and that's Teddie." Kanji answers, quickly shifting his attention, while he ignores the three people exchanging pleasantries. "Did something happen Ted? Do you have any ideas on what it could be?" Kanji probes, eyes full of concern.
"I don't know Kanji. My nose started twitching as something appeared out of nowhere near one of the side streets near Yasogami early this morning. I couldn't tell what it was, so when I saw Yukiko at Junes I told her about it. As I was explaining the situation, my nose picked up something going on near the shrine, so we decided to come here right away to figure it out." Teddie distraughtly answers, "I wish Rise was here, she might have an idea of what is going on." He whimpers for a moment, holding his hands to his head, before spying Leiko. With a warped sense of new morale, his feelings of fear and dread ebbed away. Maybe this is a scoring opportunity.
"Pretty sure Lekio, Yamato, plus Labrys and their other friend Izumi, are the reason for what your snot box picked up during your talk with Yukiko, Teddie." Kanji looks back towards the shop, wondering how the call to Fuuka is going. "That's really weird, normally you'd have an inkling on what it could be."
"I'm worried I might have missed something else." Teddie answers, pacing a bit.
Yukiko bites her nail, thinking about the situation, "I'm drawing a blank on what it could be." Sho hadn't been seen in years since the incident with the Red Fog, and Adachi is still in prison. "Do you kids have any ideas?"
"I think I've got one." Leiko answers, closing her eyes as Badb takes the usual position. "Let's see what I'm able to uncover." She reaches out down the street and through the rest of the shopping district towards the town's floodplain.
"Did we miss something important out here?" Izumi inquires curiously as she and Labrys join the group, seeing the two adults with their mouths agape. "Good news is Fuuka has a theory about how we got here, but she'll share it with us when we get back."
Yamato nods his head, "Just checking on something that Teddie detected." His vision darts to the nearby adults whose expressions are nearly side eyes, "Are you two envious?" He looks at Teddie, but can't even tell if the bear is showing emotion or not.
"I'll admit I'm jealous that Leiko has the willpower to summon her Persona like that in the real world." Yukiko slightly pouts, wishing she had the strength of will to do that.
Kanji shakes his head, "I'm more impressed than envious. You must have some iron clad wills for this kind of shit. Sort of like how Chie learned to do it from Sanada-Senpai there ten years ago."
"Leiko, are you detecting anything?" Teddie questions, his own worry growing.
"Not yet. I'm just over the river." The girl pushes her scan further, trying to follow a car moving at breakneck speeds when a familiar thrum begins filling her head. Suddenly, the thrumming intensifies as a large outcropping rises up from the street ahead of the car, which jams on its breaks. Lieko stops her navigation, opening her eyes, looking pensively at her companions. "A…a Dread Burrow just rose out of a street."
Yukiko's phone blares from her bag, which is quickly taken out and placed on speaker, "Chie, aren't you working? What's wrong?"
"Oh man Yuki, we got a TV-World or a P-1 or some other kind of situation here! Detective Dojima and I were chasing after a kidnapping suspect and this huge rock-like thing popped out of the road. I think the suspect got swallowed up or is inside and we're lucky that I stopped the car in time. I've already belted a Shadow that came out of it with Suzuka Gongen. Can you get the others and get down here to help me out? I'll explain everything once you're here." The voice shouts from the speaker.
"Chie, I'll be right there with Teddy and Kanji. Just text us the location." Yukiko hastily answers as the other end hangs up, with a text ping arriving a moment later. "Labrys, can you and your friends lend us a hand with this?
"Even though my arm might be damaged, I'll fight the best I can with you." The android girl speaks calmly, knowing what the answer from her friends will be.
"While we aren't as experienced as any of you." Izumi begins as she brings her hands to chest, trying to calm herself, "We still want to be able to stand side by side with you senpais and pull our own weight." She looks back to Yamato and Leiko, who give her nods of approval, "So of course we'll help you out with this. Just show us the way please."
Yukiko turns on her heel, taking off in silence, the group of old and new friends following behind.