Starting to smolder...
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By the time Mitsuru came out of her self-induced stupor, it was beginning to get dark. The world was crumbling around her, but she had no desire to do anything except sink into the ground. It was over before it even began. Akihiko had abandoned her. He had taken the news exactly as she'd feared.
This shouldn't have surprised her. On paper, it sounded horrible. SHE sounded horrible. She really should have noticed that her best friend was madly in love with the same man that was luring her out of her depression. She had noticed her treasurer gradually coming out of her shell because of Yuki, yet she still agreed to date him! But it took two to tango, so they said. Yuki knew that both girls worked closely with one another, yet he dated both. Mitsuru and Yukari actually lived across the hall from one another, and yet he dated both of them – and Yamagishi to boot! Why was Akihiko only upset with her?
Because you should have known better, a voice in her head lectured her.
Indeed, she should have. But Father had died, and Mitsuru lost the capability to care about anything else. She'd withdrawn from the juniors and their social lives, from Akihiko and his newfound resolve in the wake of Shinjiro's death. If she hadn't already completed the required coursework for graduation, she could have completely tanked her high school career. She would have gone on to marry a man who barely noticed she existed outside of his own needs. And Akihiko would have just gone on with his life, directionless, with the desire to become stronger and help others, but without the means to do so. Her husband wouldn't have stood for Mitsuru spending HIS money so a friend from school could fly around the world. The Shadow Operatives would have never gotten off the ground if Mitsuru was spending all her time having children and being a prisoner of her own home. None of them would be here today.
Mitsuru stood up finally, a newfound fire in her heart. Yuki had done many rotten things, to be sure, but his involvement with Mitsuru had given her the impetus to change her life for the better. He had given her the opportunity to in turn give Akihiko his chance to succeed. What would Akihiko have done, had he been the one to confront her fiance? Allow her the chance to tell him off herself...or punch him and receive a first class ticket to jail instead of South America? She'd have been married off that very evening.
They'd let past mistakes stunt their growth before, and it nearly tore them apart. Now was not the time to dwell on what went wrong. Yuki was dead...but they weren't. If Akihiko couldn't see that, if he insisted on being so pigheaded and valuing his wounded pride over this precious friendship, then everything SEES had accomplished would be for naught.
Mitsuru headed up the hillside determined to find Akihiko and set things straight once and for all – but fate had other plans once again. She ran into Aigis instead.
"Mitsuru-san!" Aigis was, as always, oblivious to the atmosphere she'd intruded upon. "I have returned from investigating the hijacking of your underwear."
Oh, yes...that. She'd forgotten how sarcasm-blind the robot was. Why had she been gone for so long? "That's wonderful, Aigis, but we have more pressing matters to concern ourselves with-"
"Your suspicions were correct," Aigis cut her off, "There has been an attempt to purloin your unmentionables."
What.
"The culprit was clearly focused on making off with one of your bras."
Mitsuru was fuming and freezing at the same time. There was only one being in Inaba whose idiocy surpassed even Iori's.
"TEDDIE...!"
Why did shit always happen to him?
Akihiko had been determined to find a drink to crawl into, but all Inaba had was a liquor store and a few freezers in Junes, which was out of the question. He didn't want to run into anyone he knew while drowning his sorrows, and sitting like a bum on a picnic bench with a paper bag would make him look even more pathetic than he felt. So would taking the bus into the city just to get plastered. Fucking tiny little one-Junes towns.
He hadn't run into Mitsuru yet. For all he knew, she was still sitting by the river, hopefully realizing how much she'd crushed him. Why was it so important that Akihiko know she'd been with Makoto? Why did she even feel the need to tell him now, after all these years, after they'd just spent the past month getting closer than friends had any right to be? Was he always going to have to settle for someone else's leftovers?
Of course, he had to run into someone, and of course, it had to be Labrys. "Hey, where ya been?"
"Where the hell is there to be in a place like this?" he snapped. "I thought Aigis was my babysitter."
Labrys continued to be insensitive even for a robot. "Wasn't Mitsuru-san with you?"
"No."
"Really? 'Cause-"
"What do you want, Labrys?"
"We're goin' into the TV! Teddie said he smelled somethin' fishy goin' on, and Fuuka-san says there's still Shadows in there."
Now there was an idea. Punching trees was one thing, but punching Shadows was sure to get his mind off of being unable to punch Makoto. There was no better high than fighting. "Well, why didn't you say so in the first place?" He got about two feet in the direction of Junes and stopped. "Wait, who's leading this circus?"
"Well, er…Yosuke-kun had the idea, see, but Naoto-kun said we should get some of you adults to go with us, and so I thought Mitsuru-san would tell everybody what to do, but then Junpei-kun said that she only really laid the rules down, and the real leadin' had come from-"
"Never mind! You know what? Forget about it! Let's just go!" Akihiko wasn't a handpicked-by-some-blue-idiot leader, but he knew a lot more than people gave him credit for. He could do this shit. They had all the elements covered between the 15 of them. Chie had some ice...right? Oh, wait, there was also Teddie Teddie. Great. But when they reached the Junes food court, Teddie Teddie wasn't there.
"Found Akihiko-san!" Labrys triumphantly declared.
"Hey, wasn't Senpai with you?" Junpei asked.
"No," Akihiko replied in a tone that hopefully indicated he didn't want to discuss it.
Yukari looked like she wanted to say something to that, but held her tongue. "So, what's going on?"
"Our navigators have confirmed the presence of Shadows in the TV World." Ah, good old no-nonsense Naoto. "But that isn't all." Oh? "A scouting party went on a preliminary investigation and found what we believe to be the beginnings of a Dungeon." She put so much importance on that one word that Akihiko thought he could actually hear it being capitalized.
"You keep saying that like it's important," said Ken, "What's a 'Dungeon' in this context?"
Naoto looked as if she had a huge speech at the ready (after years of Mitsuru and Ikutsuki, Akihiko knew what a speech looked like), before Chie interrupted her. "That's where a person's Shadow lives when you throw them in the TV!" she explained. "Yukiko had this big castle before we rescued her. Naoto-kun had a secret lab, and Kanji-kun had a sauna-"
"I thought we agreed never to TALK ABOUT THAT SHIT AGAIN!" Enough steam came out of Kanji's ears to power a sauna for a few days.
Chie just shrugged. "Hey, you invented it!"
Kanji grumbled. "Well, don't blame me if Yosuke-senpai starts dancin' around like he's gotta piss when we get there! 'Ehhhh, I don't want to catch the gay!'"
"God, that place was awful-HEY! HOW'D YOU KNOW ABOUT THAT?! You weren't even around then! CHIE…!" Yosuke couldn't decide if he was embarrassed or pissed off. Seemed like the Investigation Team had their own inside jokes and moments.
Next to join them was Aigis, who happily reunited with her sister unit. Akihiko was prepared to defend his choice of college courses again (why the hell would he need Chemistry? They had a forensics unit at the station – he was just a beat cop!) when he remembered that Mitsuru had sent her away for something.
Sure enough, Yukari had the same idea. "Is Senpai coming?" she asked just as Labrys was asking, "You seen Teddie anywhere?"
"Yes. They are both heading this way," Aigis replied.
Wait, what?
A series of crashes were heard as the temperature in Junes suddenly dropped without warning. "Somebody HEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLP!" Teddie Teddie came flying across the court, tears somehow coming out of his plastic eyes and a full panic gripping him. "Mitchan, PLEASE!"
"DON'T YOU MITCHAN ME, SHADOW!" Mitsuru was hot on the bear's heels and there was murder in her blood-red eyes. For a moment, Akihiko forgot his anger, watching in awe as she vaulted over trashcans and tore through chairs and tables as if they were snowmen. It wasn't like her to ignore the fact that she was making a scene. What the hell was going on? "I AM GOING TO TEAR YOU LIMB FROM LIMB!"
"Yoooooooosukeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! I don't want to die!" Wow, Teddie Teddie was actually shitting himself. Whatever he did, it was bad.
Yosuke seemed to be the only one who knew what was going on as he kept looking from Mitsuru to Teddie Teddie with dawning fear in his eyes. "Teddie, we've talked about these panty raids, remember?"
Are you fucking serious?
So loaded was that question that even Junpei of all people was shocked. "Whoa...you actually DID it? I mean, people have joked about nabbing Mitsuru-senpai's underwear for years, but...that's just locker-room talk, bear! Nobody was gonna actually TAKE it!" He watched Teddie Teddie run for his life with his mouth hanging open. "I don't know whether to be impressed or terrified that I'm guilty by association!"
The IT girls had been upset about their friend until the truth came to light, and then they all did complete 180s. "The Shadow Operatives are staying in our inn..." Yukiko may have been soft-spoken, but Akihiko could feel the flames rising from where he sat as she put two and two together. "Teddie, you were trespassing in our inn? If my parents find out about this, I won't be allowed to have friends over anymore!" As Teddie Teddie ran by her, she stuck out her foot, tripping him and making him land face-first on the concrete. "HE'S DOWN! GET HIM, MITSURU-SAN! FREEZE HIS LITTLE EYELASHES OFF!" Damn, she jumped off the mood swing so fast it came back and hit them all in the face.
"Wait, whoa, whoa, WHOA!" Yosuke jumped in front of the downed bear, waving his arms. "No killing in the food court! This is supposed to be a safe place for kids and families and dirty little mascots and homicidal women with swords-LOOK HE KNOWS HE SCREWED UP, OKAY?"
Things were quickly getting out of hand, and Akihiko needed to stop this before someone got hurt. As Mitsuru ran by him, he stuck out his arm and caught her around the waist. The goosebumps rose up on his skin within seconds.
Mitsuru yelped as three things quickly became clear to her: Firstly, that she was no longer moving because there was an arm in her way. Secondly, that arm belonged to Akihiko, who was shivering, but holding his ground. Akihiko was holding her. Finally, she realized at last that everyone in the food court was staring at her, some even pointing and muttering about this grown woman attacking their overly friendly mascot character, a presumably-teenage boy who was shuddering under a table. She deflated.
"I hate Inaba,"she muttered.
With everyone too upset to act rationally, it fell to Naoto to shut down the situation. "Teddie, you do realize that you have committed a crime?" she began. "Mitsuru-san is well within her rights to press charges against you."
"I want my sensei!" Teddie Teddie whined.
"Do you understand what you've done wrong, Teddie?" It was amazing how Naoto could sound so calm and collected while interrogating. Akihiko had seen grown men smash coffee cups after dealing with stubborn perps.
Teddie Teddie sniffled. Oh god Teddie Teddie, please say yes, I'm losing the feeling in my arm! Finally, he nodded and slowly crept out from underneath the table.
"Then I suggest you apologize."
Oh, this was going to go swimmingly. Mitsuru barely forgave, and never, ever forgot. It had taken Akihiko years to atone for the incident that earned him his first Execution, and then Kyoto happened – and both of those were mistakes! Teddie Teddie pulled this shit deliberately!
Teddie Teddie stood up, somehow growing lips to quiver and letting his eyes get huge and doe-like. "Mitchan-er, LADY Mitchan – I'm so beary sorry I pawed your lacy little naughty clothes. I've been a beary rotten Shadow, like you said!" He wrung his hands, playing up the piteous look.
Mitsuru's eyes were closed, so he couldn't read them, but most of the tension had drained out of her body. She isn't buying it. I don't know how much longer I can hold her, so you'd better run like you've never run before, bear.
"Don't touch my belongings again," she finally said, walking away before Teddie could react.
Akihiko shook the hell out of his arm. "That's probably the best you're gonna get," he explained, "Don't push it any further. She'll come around if you let her breathe for a while."
"You're one lucky stupid bear, Ted," Kanji laughed as he clapped him on the back.
Teddie Teddie looked like he'd been sat on and he'd never smile again. Mitsuru put the fear of death into him permanently. He didn't even put his usual effort into schmoozing. "Hold me, Rise-chan," he said weakly.
"Nope," said Rise as the girls took off without even looking at any of the guys.
Those Shadows were gonna go out screaming in a wave of estrogen.
Labrys couldn't say she always understood humans, but she thought she'd spent enough time with the Shadow Operatives to have them all sussed out. Today, though, everyone was weird! Well, not everyone – Koro-chan was still cheerful. But he didn't get why the humans had stopped talking to one another, either.
Mitsuru and Akihiko were avoiding one another like the plague, and everyone else was busy watching them, but no one would ask either of them what was wrong. Yukari had said that if Mitsuru wanted to tell them, she would, but if you bugged her too much, you'd get frozen. Labrys really didn't want to talk to Akihiko in a mood if she didn't have to. That just left her guessing.
All the girls were mad at Teddie. Even some of the guys didn't want to be caught standing next to him. He'd finally cheesed them off to the point that they couldn't let it go. That was something else that Labrys had trouble understanding. What was the big deal about underwear? It was just clothes! Didn't Teddie work in Junes? They had underwear all over the place! If he needed underwear that badly, he could buy some!
Maybe some Shadow-hunting would cheer everyone up. Aigis had promised to help Labrys with her own Orgia Mode, so she was raring to go. It was strange not having Yu around to lead them through the TV World, but Yosuke and Naoto were doing a lot of talking, and it seemed like they had a plan.
The TV World was dark as hell as they landed. It felt...wrong. Not that a dimension where people's subconscious feelings ran wild would feel like a dream, anyway, but it felt even wronger than it normally would. When the kidnapped kids were fueling the place, each room of the dungeon had a different theme. This one? It had no theme at all, no recognizable form or shape. It was like it had no idea what it was supposed to be yet. There were tons of Shadows everywhere, but they just hung out in corners like they were waiting for the bus, only attacking when provoked. What was up with this place today?
Akihiko and Mitsuru were fierce. They punched and slashed like nobody's business, even stealing kills if somebody took too long. When one of them kicked a huge amount of ass, the other would step up their game. It got so bad that the Shadows started running away when they saw them coming.
At some point, Fuuka started picking up a kind of signal. "Everyone!" she exclaimed via telepathy, "I'm getting a strange reading from the center of that floor! It's unstable, and extremely powerful!"
"Is it the Reaper?" Mitsuru asked her. She was squinting in the direction Fuuka "pointed".
Rise and Teddie were tuning their Personas that way, too. Suddenly, they both gasped and looked at each other. "No...something even worse," said Rise.
"What the hell could be worse than a rotted cloak full of evil with two double-barreled shotguns?" asked Junpei.
"A rotten person full of evil with a shotgun and a Persona!" answered Teddie. "It's Adachy-baby!"
Everyone on the Investigation Team immediately tensed. Adachi was bad news. Adachi in the TV World was even worse news, because he used to use the place to pull off his murders. He wasn't afraid of Shadows at all – in fact, he claimed they liked him. Labrys never actually met Adachi in person, but from what she heard, he was a misogynist who did it all because he was bored. That kind of guy would be real comfortable in a place like this. But why was he here now? Yu got him to go back to prison and behave. Did Sho really break him out again? What were they doing with all these Shadows?
"That explains the suddenly hostile Shadows," Naoto concluded, "as well as the police's failure to locate Adachi. It is, once again, up to us to extract him."
"Yay." Yosuke spoke for all of them. "I don't really wanna do this without Yu here, but I guess there's enough of us to overpower him."
"He's gotta know where Sho-kun is." In spite of the apprehension coming from the humans, Labrys wanted to check this guy out. He had spoken to Sho before – not that Sho trusted anyone, really – but they had a rapport of some kind. Maybe he could help her understand him?
Behind her, Akihiko scoffed, and Labrys just knew he was rolling his eyes. He was never going to feel bad for Sho since Mitsuru almost died for him. But Mitsuru did that herself. She felt bad for Sho! She understood what he went through. That's why it was crucial that they find Sho and talk his ears off until he realized that. If Akihiko really loved Mitsuru, he'd get it.
But it was Naoto who stopped her. "Labrys, a word of caution. I understand you want to locate Minazuki, but this is not a safe way to do so. Adachi is deeply manipulative. He won't hesitate to use your feelings to further his own goals."
Labrys shook her head. "All's I know is I gotta do somethin'. Do you have any idea what it's like goin' around thinkin' nobody wants to be your friend?"
Naoto took a deep breath, and Labrys totally didn't expect her next words to be, "Yes." Kanji and Rise both approached, looking like they each wanted to hug her, but Naoto stepped away from them and continued. "But when your alienation is caused by your own actions, in the end, you're the one who has to take the first step towards change." Okay, something new to be added to the files on the Investigation Team: Naoto's past. Labrys had missed out on quite a bit by coming in late.
As they got closer to the middle, the Shadows stopped trying to run away from them as much and started standing their ground. This meant nothing to the two adults, who kept charging in and showboating while everyone else wondered why they were even along on this run if Mitsuru and Akihiko were going to keep plowing through everything without them. This was not normal behavior for the two, if the looks that the other Operatives were giving them was anything to go by.
Another couple was acting sketchy, too: Naoto and Kanji. Ever since Naoto's sorta-confession, Kanji had been orbiting her super-closely. Naoto didn't say anything about it, but sometimes when he wasn't looking at her, she stole a glance at him. This, at least, seemed to be normal behavior, since Rise had a big goofy grin on her face while watching them. It looked as if they liked each other, but were too afraid to say anything – a stark contrast to Mitsuru and Akihiko, who just argued with each other like their feelings were the other's fault.
Chie had been swapped in for Aigis, and after an All-Out Attack, she found Yukiko facing off with a Shadow. Then something weird happened. "Shall we?" she said.
"OK, Chie!" replied Yukiko. Both girls summoned their Personas at the same time, and in a flash of light, Chinese-style dragons appeared.
"Oh, this is what I was telling you about," Ken said to the other Operatives, "They can combine their Personas for a unique attack."
"Intriguing." Mitsuru began studying them intently, chin in hand. "And you say you have no idea what causes this?"
"We just thought we'd try it one day," Yukiko explained. "Our Personas agreed, because Chie and I are close."
If she hadn't been watching them, Labrys might not have noticed Mitsuru and Akihiko look at each other and then quickly look away.
Close...
Naoto knew better than to get distracted while Shadows were about, but in the back of her mind, today's events kept begging to be analyzed. Did she really see herself in Minazuki like she'd alluded to with Labrys? Surely she wasn't as violently antisocial as that! But she had been standoffish, especially with Kanji who had taken a liking to her from the start.
How did their Fusion Attack come about? She and Kanji hadn't known one another as long as Chie and Yukiko had, but they spent a great deal of time together over the past year, and on some level, understood one another more than the rest of the group did.
Including Yu? A traitorous little voice asked.
Yu was...different. He was certainly fully invested in Naoto's well-being and friendship – when alone with Naoto, that was. Evidently, he'd been fully invested in the other girls while alone with them as well. And yet he'd never developed a Fusion Attack with her or anyone else, not even Rise who was obviously devoted to him. Were they not "close"? What exactly did "close" entail? Surely Yosuke and Teddie didn't have the same kind of relationship she and Kanji had?
When did she start using the term "relationship" in conjunction with Kanji?
"Be careful!" Fuuka's voice popped in. "That power source is coming from the next room!"
"I can smell it!" said Teddie. He then began sneezing. "Pee-YEW! Don't they have showers in jails?"
"Yeah, but you don't want to spend that much time in them," Yosuke could not help but quip.
Don't rise to the taunt, Kanji, please, you're better than that! Naoto silently pleaded. He may not have been doing it purposely, but Yosuke had a way of putting Kanji's insecurities on manager's special.
Jeering laughter met them as they entered a large room that looked as if it were being dissolved in acid, causing the colors to run and smear together. "Well, well, well, if it isn't the Brat Brigade! Took ya long enough!" Tohru Adachi lounged on a destroyed pile of rubble as if it were a chaise, lazily tearing strips of paper and letting them flutter to the ground like flower petals. "Miss me?"
"Dammit, Adachi, why are you even here?!" Yosuke demanded.
Adachi rolled over, stretching and yawning. "I dunno. Getting some air?" He looked around. "Gotta say, I like what you've done to the place. The 'gaping maw of death' look is all the rage this year. Very 'on trend'."
"Don't play coy with us!" said Chie, getting into her fighting stance. "You're the one who made this place! Now come down here and get your beating!"
"No idea what you're talking about, Meathead," Adachi snapped back. "It was like this when I got here."
Now that was strange. "Are you actually implying," Naoto asked him, "that something else has altered the TV World?"
"What part of 'It was like this when I got here' do you not get?" Adachi was even quicker to anger than usual, switching from languid to threatening in the blink of an eye. "Aren't you supposed to be the last in a long line of snoops and snitches? You mean to tell me you haven't figured a damn thing out yet? Man, I thought you were better than that, Junior." Now Naoto had to plead with herself not to let jeers and taunts get under her skin. Adachi was clearly pretending to be withholding information from them so they would do the grunt work for him. He had no idea what was happening, either.
"Where's Sho-kun?" Labrys was not familiar with Adachi's modus operandi.
"No idea," Adachi answered.
"He's the one who got ya out of prison, right?"
"No, they let a serial killer go free because I always kept my cell clean!" His eyes flashed yellow. "Okay, I'm really disappointed in you brats. You forgot how the game worked! Why don't you come back after you know whodunnit?" He raised his hand.
"Wait, what the hell are you doing?" sputtered Yosuke.
Adachi ignored him. "Bye!" They watched as he snapped his fingers…
...and somehow they were transported to the TV World hub.
What?!
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How many of you got to Magatsu Mandala, screwed up, and got sent back? Adachi is a sadistic little troll.