A new viewpoint character! (Also, a subtle joke.)

- pppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp -

"I can't."

"You can't, or you won't?"

"Either. Both. Look, will you just give it a rest already?"

Yosuke had barely made it back to the dorm before he was surrounded by girls. Ordinarily, this would have been a dream come true…except these girls were the most irritating ones he'd ever met!

"Come on, Yosuke-kun! Wouldn't you want to know if a girl liked you?" Yukiko trotted out her best hostess voice, but Yosuke wasn't in the mood to moon over her anymore. He didn't know how they found out that he knew who Yu's crush was, but they weren't getting it out of HIM any time soon!

"You're talking to Yosuke, Yukiko," Chie was quick to retort, "The day a girl likes him is the day they let you cook lunch at the Inn."

"I'm getting better!" Yukiko protested.

"Yukiko-senpai, you somehow set the kitchen on fire making sandwiches," said Rise. These two would murder each other if I told them!

"What we are trying to accomplish, Yosuke-senpai," Naoto playing Good Cop made sense; she was actually a detective, "is the elimination of false hope among those Yu-senpai has not fallen in love with. The stress from wondering is not good for team morale. You do understand, don't you?"

Yosuke used his one advantage – height – to show his disappointment by crossing his arms and frowning down at her. "Naoto, I really expected better of you."

"Senpai, please be reasonable."

"I am! Yu told me everything in confidence, and I promised I wouldn't say a word. You really want me to betray his trust like that?" Yeah, that's right. I can have a good point every now and then! "Would you do that?"

And Naoto scowled, because he was right, and even she knew it.

Unfortunately, Chie was relishing her role as Bad Cop. "We are gonna make you crack, Yosuke. You just wait."

Yeah, they probably would.

Dammit, Yu, why'd you have to take the harem route?

Yosuke's initial plan was to find a hiding space as far away from estrogen as possible, but he failed at that almost immediately, as the other guy's ex-girlfriend brigade was blocking the stairs.

Man, fuck that guy.

His presence was immediately registered by the hen party, and as vainly as he tried – "Don't mind me, just passing through." – they dispersed as if they'd been caught plotting something – which Yosuke would certainly believe today. Girls were scary.

"If you're looking for your friends," Yukari called out as he passed, "they should probably be back on the third floor now. At least, they'd better be, after I chased them out of the Command Room."

This had the bonus effect of stopping not just Yosuke, but Mitsuru in her tracks as well. "Someone was in the Command Room unattended? I never authorized that. When was this?"

"Oh...an hour or so ago? They weren't messing with the cameras or anything, Senpai, honestly. They just wanted to know where Yu-kun was so they could talk about him without him listening."

An hour or so? That would have been about when Yosuke was talking to Yu in the dining room...oh, shit… "They knew all along."

"Hmm?" Oh, he must have said that out loud.

"They heard Yu tell me, and they know that I know, but they don't know I KNOW they know that I know. Oh, Yu doesn't know anyone knows that we know. Should I let him know?! Oh, no!"

Yukari and Mitsuru just stared back at him in utter bewilderment (which was fair.). Eventually, Mitsuru shook her head as if to wipe this moment from her memory. "I'm...going to check the equipment in the Command Room," she said, and fled.

"Sorry about her," Yukari sighed, "she's still not a big fan of...well, people."

"It's all right. People usually aren't a big fan of me." It had been nice, being around people who actually found him useful. "Really sucks to automatically have two strikes against you because of something your dad did."

He'd been talking about himself, but Yukari flinched as if he'd struck her, muttering something like, "Especially when your mom does it," before she realized she'd also spoken out loud and scrunched up her face like she'd eaten a lemon.

"Something wrong?"

"No, don't...don't worry about it. Be careful with those girls, okay? Sometimes people say things without realizing how much they hurt you." And before Yosuke could finish processing that, Yukari made herself scarce as well.

Seems like the two of them had more in common than just wind shit.

Of course Yukari was next, and he hadn't realized it. Naturally, he had to mouth off about his dad when hers was dead and probably going to show up here tonight. Classic Yosuke.

Yukari's floor didn't look like anything at all, really. Just an old apartment building that needed a good cleaning and airing out. The phantom sounds of kids playing, senior citizens yelling, dogs barking and general craziness of multiple people living in the same building echoed everywhere they went. It was like Junes at peak holiday shopping season, and Yosuke instantly hated it. Living here would definitely drain your enthusiasm for life.

They could tell Yukari was trying to ignore the environment as she trudged on towards the end of the floor, but she never seemed to find it. Turning a corner just led to yet another hallway with faded wallpaper, worn carpet, and flickering or dull lighting. The walls shook every time a car drove by, some of the apartment numbers were missing or in the process of falling off, and an incredibly loud boiler scared the hell out of them as it thumped and rattled. With every wrong turn, Yukari grew more sullen and frustrated.

"Nice place you've got here." Yosuke couldn't help but quip.

Yukari didn't seem to hear him (thankfully). She had finally reached the end of the hallway, and a door that had been vandalized to the point that it was difficult to find the knob. "MURDERER" "TRAITOR" and several instances of "PSYCHO" (most spelled incorrectly) in bright red paint stared them down.

Not even displaced Inaban merchants were this cruel.

As Yukari reached to open the filthy door, it swung open on its own to reveal Chez Takeba in all its nonexistent glory, sapping whatever energy the normally cheerful woman had left. "Hi, Mom...I'm home," she said flatly. Oh. Yosuke had been expecting her dad to show up. Guess they didn't have everything in common.

What showed up instead was the shadow of a woman with hair that may have once been similar to Yukari's pert bob before it was neglected. She had the hunched-over posture of someone twice her age, and her voice, though twisted and vicious like the rest, still had an undercurrent of fatigue. The yellow eyes had dark circles under them that just added to the creepiness.

"Ugh, you look like him," she grumbled. "Wasn't it enough that he left me to rot in a place like this? Did he have to leave me with you, too?" She glared at Yukari hard enough to blow her away. "Did you have to turn out exactly like him?"

"Dad was-"

"-an IDIOT." The Shadow's anger flared. "He could never leave well enough alone. He always had to know. Always had to do what he thought was right – never thinking about how it would affect his family!"

"But he was right!" Man, what did this dude DO? Yosuke wondered if Naoto could explain it to him in layman's terms. "Dad...Dad did what he had to do, for the-"

"- the good of humanity?" Shadow Mrs. Takeba sneered. "How noble. Tell me something, Yukari: aren't you human? Did that idiot's grand stupid gesture do YOU any good, growing up with a murderer for a father? Wasn't I human, too?"

Yosuke had to bite his own tongue to keep from running his mouth – but he wasn't the only one. From behind him, he heard Kanji mutter, "I mean…"

"He left us with nothing. I had to work three demeaning jobs just to put a roof over our heads. My friends abandoned me. I was a widow at 26, with a child who wouldn't stop talking about her asshole father!"

"Look, I know it was hard for us, but…" Yukari was struggling to find the words for something she must have been sitting on for years. "...it wasn't Dad's fault. He got caught up in something he never intended to be a part of, and by the time he realized what was happening, it was too late. He didn't have a choice. He decided to…" Tears began running down her face. "...he decided to save the world, at the cost of his own life." And she stood straighter now, as if all the truths had somehow been revealed to her.

"Oh, but you'd know all about losing someone to their own foolish ideals, wouldn't you?" Mrs. Takeba smirked. "Doesn't it feel great to know that he cared more about what he thought was right than the woman he loved?"

"OH NO YOU DON'T!" Yukari screamed, and the background noises of poverty suddenly stopped. "You don't get to talk about Makoto that way! You have NO IDEA what it means to stare down the end of the world and realize you must sacrifice yourself for others! Do you know how scared he must have been...how scared they both must have been? You never tried to understand what Dad was going through, how he must have felt! He died so you could live, and did you? ARE YOU!?"

The Shadow shot back, "Are you?"

The walls of the apartment building disappeared. "I will," said Yukari.

It was a good thing the IT already had two Electricity specialists, and the SO had gotten one of theirs back, because this Shadow was a straight-up bitch. She kept healing herself and removing each and every status effect they could throw at her. They shocked her so many times that the entire floor began to smell like burnt hair. Plus, restoring items were much, much harder to find than the IT was used to, so they'd resorted to chugging sodas when not fighting, and praying for an All-Out Attack so they could just bum rush her. Maybe she'd get disgusted with all the burping and allow herself to be defeated faster.

Finally, FINALLY, after what seemed like a year, Shadow Yukari collapsed to the ground with a wail and did not get back up again.

"You're right," Yukari told her, "I haven't really been living, have I? I was so afraid of living my mother's life over again that I forgot to live my own. She went through guys like tissues...even went back to her maiden name, like Dad didn't even exist. I couldn't live like that. I couldn't do that to Makoto."

Aigis, who had been hanging back as far away from the electricity as possible, approached Yukari. "Makoto-san would not judge you for endeavoring to live," she said.

Yukari's eyes were filled with tears. "He didn't have to – I judged myself. No wonder he's upset."

"You can show him your resolve now," Yu said. Yosuke could tell he was getting impatient, but would never show it. He had a knack for guiding someone towards an action while making them think it was all their idea. "We're almost there."

Yukari finally smiled. "He always did like Isis," she said, and the bottomless buxom Egyptian Persona embraced its wielder.

- pppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp -

I realize I did the "Iknowyouknowweknowy'know?" joke before, but since it was Junpei who said it, how better to emphasize the similarities between the two teams than have Yosuke do it, too?

I couldn't find any info on Mrs. Takeba, outside of what is presumably her name and the possibly-not-canon fact that she was hired by the Kirijo Group to lure Eiichiro into the fold, so I made most of this up. Her relatively young age might explain her behavior somewhat, though.