The Scene of the Crime [Open]

[Hisui Inagawa]

Every bump in the road sent twin spikes of pain through Hisui's middle. Relics of last night's battle with the shadowy things in the Mori Tower's stairwell. They were an unpleasant reminder of what was at stake. That spectral being, 'Zarathustra', had saved her life the night before, but even with its power at her back, Hisui didn't expect things to change in the long run. She would still lose ground and eventually succumb without help from more powerful humans.

As if in response to her train of thought, Zarathustra appeared again unbidden. The mechanical angel seemed to glow just as brightly in the daylight as it did in the sickly green of the frozen hour. It flapped its wings lazily as it kept pace with traffic, swooping between the speeding cars.

Another bump and two more spikes of pain drew Hisui's attention to the driver. He met her gaze and quickly returned his eyes to the road, an expression of fear visible on his face through the rearview mirror. Eighteen years old, a full year older than Hisui, and yet still such a child. Though he was bound to her as a fellow member in her Yakuza clan, Hisui regarded him only with contempt. This one wouldn't last long. She hadn't even bothered to remember his name.

"Do you intend to hit every pothole on the way there?" At Hisui's sharp words, the driver tightened his grip on the steering wheel and determinedly focused his gaze forward. Good. As long as he kept his eyes on the road and not on his passenger, he might manage to avoid any further unnecessary bumps.

Shibuya Crossing was just ahead. Hisui's heartbeat picked up at the prospect of getting an answer to the questions that had bothered her since last night. "Here." The driver obediently pulled over, and Hisui got out. The limousine wasted no time rejoining traffic and leaving her alone in the crowd.

Just a few hours ago, this very place had been a battlefield. Something immensely powerful had emerged here, and some similarly powerful humans had converged to send it back into the ground. Now, everything was peaceful once more, and the constant flood of people moving through the crossing didn't seem to notice that anything was amiss.

But the humans that had fought here would remember. Perhaps there was some extra sealing element they would need to perform in the daytime. Perhaps they would wish to study any possible residue left behind by the beast. Perhaps they would simply be moved by sentimentality to make their next meeting here.

Whatever the motivation, if Hisui was correct in her prediction, she would be waiting here to meet them. She cast a sharp eye across the crowd, looking for anyone lingering without apparent cause, for anyone acting suspiciously. Zarathustra seemed alert as well, rising further above the crossing with an increasingly loud hum of energy, its faceplates sliding apart with a hiss and revealing a bright searchlight that swept between the crowds.

Hisui sat on an empty bench and waited with folded hands.

[Lucretia Odovacar]

Even if Lucretia was starting to become accustomed to staying up late and sleeping during English class, even she was still feeling rather tired after last night's battle.  Her body was in good condition because she could easily just heal herself, but the amount of healing she had to do last night was enough to leave her even somewhat fatigued.  Fortunately, it wasn't the kind of fatigue that would show unless she had to do something that required a lot of focus, or something really complicated.  She just could have used a couple extra hours of sleep.  Sadly, she wasn't able to sleep after fighting something like that.  There were so many implications from that fight that she had to investigate.  After trying, and failing, to sleep she waited for daylight so she could go investigate the area once more.

She wasn't quite sure what she expected to find.  After the battle, all signs of the fissures and any other damage vanished, much like that fight with the dinosaur.  No matter how hard she looked around the museum both in daylight hours, and even in the midnight world, she was unable to find any signs that the fight ever happened.  There were four other people there, all of which remembered the fight, so she was certain it actually happened and it wasn't just a dream.  Lucretia just didn't understand why these stronger creatures removed every trace of their existence.  When she damaged something herself in the midnight world, the effects still showed up in the normal world the next day, so there was definitely something different there.

Once again, much like that fight with the dinosaur there didn't appear to be any signs that anything ever happened.  No unusual cracks in the road, no signs of ash or soot, no sign of any building damage, not even any sign of the variety of magical attacks that were used.  No matter how closely she looked, even if she had to walk really slowly to examine it as closely as she wanted, there was just nothing there.

Shortly after she finished crossing the first street, a flash of light brought her attention off the road and towards the sky.  She used her arm to shield her eyes from the light so she could actually see what was going on.  There was something flying near the buildings here.  A quick examination of the people on the crossing showed that they probably couldn't see it.  It was likely there would at least be some reaction if they could see it given how strange it was to see a flying mechanical angel spitting lasers at them.  That didn't leave many options for what it actually was.

Lucretia summoned her own persona to take a closer look at the angel.  A flash of bright blue light appeared around her, and then the eyeball monster that was her persona appeared by her side.  Her scan revealed that this person was most definitely new.  In fact, her skills were identical to her own when she first summoned Coeus.  Second, she was pretty badly injured.  Lucretia recalled that most people awoke to their persona after a near death experience (and that she was somewhat of an anomaly since she didn't even fight anything until long after her persona had awoken), so it didn't take much guess work to figure out what happened.  What this person was doing here though was another thing entirely.  Fortunately, the scan revealed the user's location, so she didn't have to guess.  The real question was how she should approach, and she didn't really have a good answer for that.  Might as well just wing it.

"Hello," she paused for a moment.  "Are you okay?  I can heal your wounds if you need it."

Her accent was as thick as ever, still making it obvious she wasn't from around here.  Lucretia didn't bother dismissing Coeus either.  She figured it would make it very obvious what was going on and what she was.  

This was the second new user she'd come across recently.  Now she was just wondering if the fact that several of the current users awoke at once was just a coincidence.

[Tristan Carter]

Tristan really didn't know what to expect when he returned to Shibuya Crossing. He had just fought a giant dog monster that, according to mythology, guarded the gates of Hell itself. More or less. However, absolutely nothing looked out of the ordinary. On top of that, other than being exhausted, he felt great. It was as if nothing had ever happened. It was a terrifying, humbling experience to the boy. Of course, who knew what would have happened if the ragtag group hadn't stopped Puppy Chow from leaving the food bowl? Nothing good, most likely. It took a good number of people with special powers to stop the thing. Cerberus probably would have torn through Tokyo with little to no resistance once it was free.

Well, whatever would have happened, We managed to stop it. Hell, if it wasn't for everyone having their abilities changed on them, we would have been golden. Those simple facts both brought relief and irritation. Tristan was glad everything worked out, sure. But it did bring up some questions that Tristan knew he didn't have the experience to answer. How did the Persona grow? At what rates? How did the dog show up? Why was it there? And, to top everything off, who was Bubbles, and what role did he play in everything? Of course, it didn't take a genius to know that it likely wasn't good. Hell, nothing's good so far as these matters are concerned, Tristan thought with a sigh.

He looked up, taking note of how the sky was blue and wondering how the sky changing worked, when he noticed something strange. A mechanical man with wings, sporting a spotlight from... somewhere. It was distant enough that Tristan couldn't tell where, but the way the sunlight reflected off of it gave away metal. The boy took a look around, noting how nobody else, no matter where their focuses lay, was paying any attention to the flying humanoid. Suddenly, it reeked of yet another instance involving the Dark Hour. Tristan wasn't sure if the man really was a Persona, Shadow, or Demon. He was willing to find out, though.

If I can see it, Tristan reasoned as he summoned Odysseus, who took a stand behind the boy, and it is a Persona, then whoever it belongs to would be able to see Odysseus. At least, logic dictates as such. He then considered this a moment before realizing how little logic seemed to play into anything. He sighed, hoping he wasn't wrong, and simply stood still. He had little doubts that he would be missed by the winged man and, by extension, his controller.

[Hisui Inagawa]

Hisui was momentarily surprised at losing the initiative, but on further thought, it was only to be expected. She was hopelessly out of her depth here. The events of the last month had indicated the existence of an entirely new branch of the sciences that was previously closed off to her, and with new sciences come new technologies. She might as well be trying to use stone age tools to hide from spy satellites and thermal imagining cameras. Her lack of knowledge would handicap her in every way when dealing with those more familiar with these matters, and she wouldn't even be aware of what vulnerabilities she was displaying.

The time had come to begin rectifying that.

Hisui assessed the girl standing before her. A foreigner. Western, but it was difficult to place the accent any more precisely. No sense of decorum, of course, but it went beyond that. Her first words a pragmatic and generous offer, rather than any sort of social nicety... Most likely a sheltered lifestyle, one that afforded her the luxury of speaking bluntly to all those around her without any worry for offending a partner or informing an enemy.

This girl was not a threat, at least not unless someone more troublesome was pulling her strings.

She looked tired. Good. Hisui was at least relieved that she wasn't dealing with some sort of physical god capable of fighting without limits. But that blob of darkness behind her was still worrying. It looked too much like the dark things that overran the city during the frozen hour. More information surfaced in Hisui's mind, and she realized that Zarathustra was casting its beam of light across the dark thing's mottled surface. The information was frustratingly incomplete, but it did indicate that the entity would fare poorly against the same types of energy that Zarathustra itself was resistant to. That was interesting as well.

The confirmation of their mortality allowed for the possibility that the foreign girl would not necessarily be on the winning side of this conflict.

How to proceed, then? Hisui wasn't precisely afraid. For a teenage girl among the Yakuza, dealing with people who could break you in half on a moment's notice was simply routine. But nonthreatening as she might be, this foreign girl had a gaze as sharp as that of the dark thing behind her. Best to play it casually and accept her offer, as much as it rankled. Maybe she'd even expect some sort of gratitude from Hisui and let her guard down.

Hisui stood from the bench and bowed her head in acknowledgement. "It would be appreciated," she said in her most sincere tone. "I don't believe we've met before. I am called Hisui Inagawa." Hisui spoke slowly and clearly. Even an especially blunt foreigner should recognize when she's being invited to give her own name.

But Hisui's train of thought was broken by another unexpected sight. A ghostly figure dressed in ancient armor, powerfully built and gazing across the crowded crossing. It took her a moment to spot the boy standing in front of him. "Is that another member of your organization?"

[Lucretia Odovacar]

The moment she summoned Coeus, she felt a blip on her internal radar.  Tristan could wait until she located the source of the angel.  After a moment, his presence fragmented, so it was likely he was trying to do something similar anyway.  Lucretia just had a more direct way of handling it.

The new user ended up being a little more surprised than Lucretia thought she would be given how polite she was being.  It embarrassed her a little, but not enough to fluster her any, or make her permanently stern scowl change any.  With a small wave of her hand, the new user was covered in a soft blue glow and her wounds started closing up.  None of the people around showed any signs of seeing this either.  It was very convenient that only people that were at least aware of what was going on could see any signs of magic.

With that, she sent a mental message to Tristan in English.  "The user is on the north east corner sitting on one of the benches.  Long brown hair, green eyes, dresses somewhat formally.  I'm speaking to her now, so you can just look for me and my persona."

"I am Lu--Odovacar Lucretia," she switched back to Japanese as annoying as it was.

Lucretia had to pause for a moment before she could answer the new user's second question.  Thinking of what was essentially a rag tag group of mostly highschoolers as an 'organization' was one of the weirder mental images she's had, and she's seen a lot of weird things lately.  All things considered it was likely close enough though.  Trying to describe exactly what they were would not only be difficult, but would just make them look bad. 

"Yes.  He is very good at hurting the creatures.  I have a stronger kind of the magic you do and I can heal, so I just help everyone else in battle."

It was difficult to find the exact words she was looking for, but that should be close enough.  Having a speak a language she only somewhat knew continued to be annoying.  

"However, I think it is safer to talk like this," she began speaking mentally to both Tristan and Hisui.  "You have the same ability I do, so you should be able to do this too.  Just think at Tristan and I and we should hear you.  How much have you figured out so far?"

[Tristan Carter]

With his Persona out, Tristan didn't really know what to expect. The winged machination to turn out to be a shadow or demon came to mind. For it to be a Persona, and its user to come and talk to the boy, maybe. Hearing Lucretia's voice inside his skull again? He hadn't really thought of that. However, he followed her instructions and approached the two, before "putting away" Odysseus. He didn't really like thinking of it like that, and "de-summoning" didn't sound like a real word- Tristan caught himself before he let his mind wander too much. The way Lucretia was "talking," it sounded like the user wasn't somebody they knew already.

When Tristan saw the two girls, he smiled slightly and waved. Lucretia looked grim as usual, but the other girl was clearly not anyone the boy had met before. He approached her with an outstretched hand before realizing where he was. He dropped his hand and could feel the slight blush burning his cheeks. He sighed before speaking aloud, as all introductions should be. "Sorry about... Never mind. I'm Carter Tristan. It's a pleasure, Miss." He didn't say "miss" in a way that demanded an introduction. It was simply a polite term that he used. He took a moment to study the girl before he continued speaking. She was probably right around his age and fairly cute. But what he noticed was her eyes. Not anything in particular like their color, but something in them reminded him of Lucretia for some reason. It was unnerving, to say the least.

"So," he started simply. He had no idea of how to proceed. It was exactly like when he spoke to Lucretia at school. He almost felt flustered. So, he decided to ask the most common question of everyone he had met, so far. "What do you know of the current situation?" He then looked to Lucretia, almost as if for approval. He wasn't putting on a show for the girl, so he didn't know his role in this. However, he did know that Lucretia would probably know the best way to explain anything that the girl didn't know.

[Hisui Inagawa]

No warning could have prepared Hisui for the intense blue glow of Lucretia's healing. She hadn't quite understood what she had been consenting to. Within moments, the two nodes of pain in Hisui's torso had faded away. Even the lingering pain from stubbing her toe on the way out of the lab this morning was gone.

Hisui couldn't quite suppress a suspicious glance at the blob of darkness behind the other girl. Nothing this good could possibly come without strings attached.

Lucretia's voice suddenly appearing in her head did nothing to allay her concerns. Telepathy opened a whole new can of worms. Was it possible to dig inside a person's thoughts and find hidden secrets? Perhaps even to turn another person into a living puppet?

Well, that might not be entirely a bad thing, depending on what Lucretia meant when she spoke of a similarity between her own magic and Hisui's. Hisui turned her attention to the new arrival.

This one was a boy, also foreign. No less socially clumsy than Lucretia, but at least he was clearly cognizant of it. Fluent in Japanese with a distinct American accent. Probably a child or grandchild of occupiers. Even so, his humble manner was pleasant enough. Zarathustra's sweeping beams of light played over his face, giving Hisui a sense of awareness of him similar to that she had gotten from her scan of Lucretia.

Hisui studied the interplay between Tristan and Lucretia with interest. Lucretia had said that the boy was good at hurting the creatures, which was no small praise given the power that was on display last night. But Tristan's deferential behavior toward Lucretia suggested that the balance of authority was in her favor. She certainly didn't seem like the leadership type, so perhaps it was merely in his nature to defer to those around him.

The armored figure had disappeared. Hisui was curious about the meaning of that as well. Was it a social cue among this group, like keeping one's guns holstered as a show of nonaggression? The dark blob behind Lucretia was still there, though. Hisui felt Zarathustra settling into a hover behind her, jets of light below its wings keeping it aloft and motionless, and decided that she didn't mind her own accompanying specter remaining present as well.

"I am called Hisui Inagawa," she experimentally willed at the connection Zarathustra had created between them, and she was pleased to note that there was a sense of transmission, of positive feedback, from the words. It seemed that the same telepathy used by Lucretia was also now at her disposal. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

Now, it was time to clarify how much she understood about the frozen hour and the beings that populated it. Hisui had been dreading this. Her independent investigations had proven frustratingly fruitless, and she loathed having to rely on others to explain things to her. But at least these two seemed eager enough to help. Hisui focused her gaze intently on the two foreigners as she attempted to will her words to them.

"There is very little that I have confirmed definitively. Since I began to experience the frozen hour five weeks ago, my efforts have been focused primarily on survival. I was unaware that other humans were experiencing this until I witnessed your battle last night from atop the Mori Tower. That was also the same night that I first encountered Zarathustra," she said with a nod toward the being behind her. "However, I have studied some occult texts in an attempt to understand the phenomenon."

"My hypothesis is that, during the frozen hour, we are bodily transported to a second world which functions in parallel with our own. There is a causal connection such that events in one world are reflected in the other, but the laws of physics that govern each world are distinctly different, which allows beings that could not exist in our world to function in that one perfectly well. The superficial resemblance of those beings to some items from our world indicates that they are designed by humans, but the lack of any evident creator or purpose for those beings indicates that their very existence is not deliberate. I speculate that the beings' design and perhaps also their ultimate origin are a consequence of one or more humans unknowingly shaping some sort of magical energy into forms they subconsciously consider recognizable."

Hisui adjusted her glasses. "But even that much is far from certain. My own perspective so far has been severely limited.  As to the nature of the second world and the way it suddenly began pulling me into it every night, I can't even begin to guess."

[Lucretia Odovacar]

Lucretia thought for a moment, both as and after Hisui spoke.  Her theory was certainly plausible, but given how most everything done during the midnight world affected the normal world, with the only exceptions being exceptionally strong creatures, it would be difficult to verify.  The rest was a little over her head even with the minimal research she did into the occult.  There was definitely some connection between humans and the midnight world though, so perhaps that's what she was talking about.  Most interesting though, was how there was no mention of the demon realm at all.  Had she not noticed the portals yet?  Lucretia nodded slightly to herself and sent a mental message to both Hisui and Tristan.

"I am going to sit down."

There were a few open spots on a nearby bench, and since she didn't even need to be nearby to talk to her it was a perfectly fine spot.  Lucretia figured Tristan would follow suit soon enough given he had heard her try to explain all this before and it had a tendency to take awhile, but if he didn't...well it wasn't that important.  He would just look silly.  Lucretia's posture was very stiff, even when sitting, and for now she just looked up at the clouds due to lack of better place to look.  She didn't think Hisui would appreciate the staring even if she was talking to her.  After a moment so that she could figure out how to describe all this, she began speaking inside of Hisui's and Tristan's heads once again.

"It sounds like you have only seen one of the two worlds we know of.  The one you have seen takes place between midnight and 12:01:01, and lasts for exactly one hour.  During that time, unintelligent yet dangerous creatures roam.  Most everyone has said that they first found their persona during this time, since the other world cannot be found accidentally.

"The other is known as the demon realm to the people that live there, so I have started to use that name too.  You enter it through portals throughout the world," she took a quick look around, "though I do not see any here right now.  They are easy to see though.  They just look like swirling vortexes of darkness.  If you walk through it, you will end up in the demon realm and once you walk through one in the demon realm you will come back to the normal world.  So, unlike the midnight world, the demon realm is always there.  The creatures there are much more intelligent.  They easily match human intelligence.  They even have things like trains and malls.  Besides their appearances and their use of magic, they are not that different from humans overall.

"Both of these worlds are like the normal world in some way, but are still different.  As you saw, the midnight world is not very different.  The demon realm tends to twist what is in the normal world into something slightly different.  Some of the demons in the realm also refer to it as the 'dark world' for this reason.

"Most people could not hope to stand up to the creatures in either world.  If you were to use your magic on any normal human, you would see that they are weak to all types of attack.  This is why, when most people put their hand into a fire it would burn them.  For people like us, we could likely keep our hands there for awhile, and then there are people like me who are unable to even be hurt by fire anymore.  In your case, I think that you could stare into a flashbang and not be particularly bothered by it.  In some extreme cases, certain types of attacks will actually heal us.  For example, if I were to put a fork into an electrical socket, the surge of electrical power would actually heal me now instead of killing me.  However, I have not seen anyone else with such a resistance.

"This power is what allows us to fight on the same level as these creatures.  We call it 'persona' as most of the personas have called themselves that.  They all appear to have some connection to mythology, though I am not sure what the significance of this is.  For example, my persona's name is Coeus, one of the titans in Greek mythology.  Besides allowing us to stand up to the attacks from these creatures, they also give us the means to fight them.  Every persona has a set of unique abilities, and everyone is a little different.  Some allow the user to attack well, other allow the user to heal or support in other ways.  I think the creatures in both worlds work the same way.  I find it likely that every bit of magic they can use, we can also use and vice versa.  My persona is suited for gathering information and lasting long battles.  It has the ability to analyze enemies, heal, return people to a normal mental state, and can transfer my own large reserves of mental power to others.  It is unlikely that anyone that fights with me will ever die or be tired.

"It is not yet clear why some people are able to summon personas and some are not.  According to most of the other users, they summoned theirs for the first time during their first time experiencing the midnight world, in a near death situation.  You and I are unique in the sense that we did not awaken our personas on the first night.  It took me four nights, and it sounds like it took you even longer.  I also did not fight any enemies until long after awakening to my persona, so I did not awaken in a near death situation either.  So, what exactly causes us to awaken is an unknown too."

Lucretia paused for a moment and tapped her chin.  That covered the basics at least, and she could always elaborate more.

"That is the basics."

[Tristan Carter]

When Hisui gave her ideas, and Lucretia relayed her findings, Tristan couldn't help but notice something that neither one of the girls seemed to have considered. He took a seat as he tried to find a way to word his thoughts. It would have been easier in English, he felt, but he was willing to try. "No offense, Hisui," he thought towards the two girls. "But something in your theory doesn't seem to... fit. If we were transported to another dimension during that time, as you say, and that is how the Personas are able to exist, due to a different set of physics... Well, how would we be able to see and use them during the day, while in our world?" Tristan may not understand any of the technical terms that the two girls would inevitably throw around, but he did understand that the Personas wouldn't exist during the day.

"There's also the fact that your idea requires a creator. I mean, I'd love to believe that each person who enters the world creates their own unique partner, but something about that doesn't feel right. For instance, everything having access to the same abilities. It would probably be reasonable to assume that there a single creator, and for it to be the same person who caused everything to start." There were other possible explanations, of course, but Tristan felt it would be best to simply stick with the girl's idea for now. "It would also be reasonable to assume that the Bubble Man from last night to have some sort of relation to said creator. If he isn't the creator himself, of course." He sighed with the last sentence. He didn't really care for the mystery of it all. However, if the situation continued to line up to an RPG like that one guy thought, odds were that everything would be explained in time. Everything important, at least.

"There is also the matter of the portals," Tristan said after a moment. It makes no sense for us to be forcibly transported to one dimension, yet for us to be able to choose to go into the other." He felt that everything else, Lucretia covered fairly well. He could explain his own idea, of course, but it was minimal at best. He had decided that there was no way that a person would be able to simply guess at what was going on, especially given how little information there really was. As such, he was more than content to wait until more facts had been uncovered before he tried to piece together the puzzle.

[Hisui Inagawa]

The explanations caused Hisui's estimation of the two foreigners to rise by a few ticks. It seemed that they were reasonably competent beyond their fearsome combat prowess. She filed away their words for later mental review. The list of books she would need to add to her research list was already growing. She replied telepathically.

"Paradoxes within paradoxes. It is difficult to fit these phenomena into the framework of mundane causality. Due to its lack of physical action, I had begun to think of Zarathustra as something closer to a hallucination than to a creature, but it seems that other persona are not so reticent."

Privately, Hisui still had her reservations about throwing in her lot with these people. Allies of convenience could only go so far together. But for the time being, she had nothing to lose. Once this ceased to be a matter of simple survival, she could begin looking for a way to turn this hazard into an opportunity for herself and her family. Until then...

Hisui turned an intent gaze on Tristan over the rims of her glasses. She found Lucretia's coldness offputting, but this one seemed much more tractable. Hisui had never considered herself to have an oyabun's talent, but she had seen enough about how loyalty was built. She would need strong fighters at her side if she hoped to do anything but continue to be swept along by these events.

"And as to masterminds and other worlds... It is clear that more information remains to be gathered before we can reach a well-founded conclusion. I believe I should begin accompanying you other persona users on your excursions."

[Lucretia Odovacar]

When Tristan's thoughts started going back towards more the how and why this is happening rather than the what is currently happening she had to try really hard to not zone out.  The demon realm had clearly been around for quite some time, and her research suggested that while it was unusual for people to be able to see and enter it, it wasn't so unusual that they should panic about it.  The midnight world was not quite as clear, but it seemed likely that it had been around for some time as well.  So, Lucretia's own thoughts had drifted towards figuring out what was happening: the rules of these other places.  It was much more useful because from there she could figure out what she could do with these new found abilities.  

Hisui's words managed to perk her back up a bit, not because Lucretia found what she said particularly interesting, but because she couldn't understand half of it.  Paradoxes she got, but mundane?  Zarathurstra?  Hallucination?  Reticent?  What did that even mean?  Judging from her difficulty in pronouncing the word and the context around it, Zarathurstra was likely her persona.  But she couldn't make heads or tails of the rest of it.  There wasn't nearly enough context for her to even be able to get the gist of it.  Even if she did have a small computer in her glasses, looking up Japanese words was near impossible if you didn't already know how to spell them.  Kanji would always be her greatest weakness with the language.  Rather than ask any questions, Lucretia nodded slightly and hoped that Tristan would be able to understand that and respond as needed.

The last bit she could at least mostly understand, so she sent a message to both Tristan and Hisui once again.

"I have done some investigating on my own, and most of the users we know about have put together all the information they know.  I can share that with you if you want.  I can help with any more investigation as well, or any practicing you want to do.  My persona is built for long battles, so I can likely help until you want to stop."

Sadly, pretty much all of her personal notes were written in Italian.  Lucretia translated all the ones she had before the meeting into Japanese for everyone else, but she hadn't bothered to do that with any of her new notes.  There was a slight pause after her offer as she thought about this.

"You would not happen to speak Italian would you?"

[Tristan Carter]

Tristan got the gist of Hisui's words. Probably.

Hallucination. Physical action. She thought that she was going insane because the mecha-angel didn't do shit in reaction to the world. Zara-whatever was probably said angel's name. With a glance at Lucretia, Tristan did all he could to repress a smile. The way she was nodding along with no real contribution? She was just as lost, if not more so, as he was. He decided it would be best to not mention anything. Ever. He doubted her sense of humor had improved much. The slight, momentary smirk that he had would probably be enough to incite her anger. He didn't really want that. If anything, it would probably be best to try and use simpler terms. Or, Tristan thought mischievously, he could use more complex terms. Sure, it wouldn't be nice, but it would be hilarious. He just couldn't think of many terms that would fit of the top of his head. That didn't mean he wouldn't use the ones that he could.

"Don't fret too much about that. While certain Persona are able to manifest in a much more lucid state, there are others that do little in the way of physical machinations. For instance, Odysseus, my Persona, is proficient in seemingly mystic arts. However, he can also interact in a much more physical way, rending my enemies with a sword that can materialize with him. I also know of a boy who has a horse-shaped Persona, and he rides it while in combat. However, he has no combat abilities whatsoever, and mainly takes up the role of healer. So, I think a Persona's state, whether ethereal or tangible, is based on a case by case basis." The boy glanced at Lucretia again, this time unable to completely hide his smile. He knew she would probably be upset at his words, unless she understood everything and he just tried to sound intelligent for no reason. He could have just made a fool of himself.

"As for another ally," he thought to the girls, "I doubt anyone would object. I, for one, would love to have someone else who can handle themselves. Or have someone else who could really undertsand the situation."

[Hisui Inagawa]

For a moment, Hisui thought she was being mocked. Tristan's expression made it clear enough that some mischief was afoot, but his furtive glances toward Lucretia indicated that it was not Hisui herself that was the butt of his joke.

Only then did Hisui realize that he was probably making a point of using obscure vocabulary to frustrate the more recent immigrant. She hadn't even realized that spending so long buried in her books had left her thinking in terms of words that might be opaque to a laypeson, let alone a foreigner.

The opportunity to rub the foreign girl's nose in her linguistic failings was too much to resist. Hisui put on her best poker face as she joined in.

"I regret that Italian is not in my linguistic arsenal. My motivation to acquire expertise speaking exotic languages is contingent on the presence of a cornucopia of literature I consider relevant to my personal interests, of which the Italian tongue has a dearth."

"In any case, the conundrum of the origin behind the various Personas' characteristic manifestations is most vexing. I anticipate that further comprehension of the circumstances will entail continued observation of additional neophytes in order to elucidate possible correlations between external parameters and magical proficiencies."

"Any further data and hypotheses you possess would be superlatively appreciated, preferably in the form of documentation that can be perused and appended as necessary. This would facilitate the identification of trends which might not be apparent to contemporary observation but could be evident when analyzed in retrospect."

As amusing as it was to play word games like this, Hisui's mind wandered as she 'spoke'. In matters of life and death, communication difficulties could be more fatal than any enemy. She would have to explore the limits of her telepathy later.

[Lucretia Odovacar]

Was was Tristan even saying?  She could make out the general gist of it, all personas are different, but he was just randomly inserting big words into his speech whenever he could.  He never talked like this, so Lucretia wasn't quite sure what to make of it.  He was a bit of an awkward person, so maybe Hisui's vocabulary just intimidated him a little and he wanted to sound smarter?  Lucretia had long since stopped feeling weird about her lack of linguistic prowess when she was in other countries.  She had done enough international travel thanks to her father that she knew she'd never be able to completely learn the local language before they moved again, so she just learned enough to do what she needed to do, while occasionally picking up more words based on her interests.  His speech right now just seemed like trying too hard and made him look rather silly.  Nothing he said was disagreeable though, so there was no need to comment on it.

Lucretia couldn't tell if Hisui was talking the same or talking differently, but she could already tell that trying to have a normal conversation with her was going to be irritating and difficult.  At least this time she was talking about stuff she could actually understand.  Lucretia may not have known what 'exotic,' 'contingent,' 'cornucopia,' or 'dearth' meant, but the context was easy enough to read.  She only learns languages to read books she likes and there are presumably none she knows of that are in Italian.  Fair enough.  This did imply that she learned several though, and given the nature of the world, she likely knew English.  Tristan was from the United States, so he also knew English.  She could attempt to speak in that to see if that would make things a little easier.

The second subject almost went clearly over her head until she started to break it down a little bit.  She had no idea what a 'neophyte' was, but given this was about observing something related to personas, it was likely a persona user, a demon or one of the bobby creatures from the midnight world.  The last bit she could understand almost completely as she almost always picked up words related to data analysis in the local language of whatever country she happened to be in at the time, and Japanese was no exception.  Sadly, it meant she would have to translate all of them, which was inconvenient.  If she could get away with just translating them into English for now, that would be nice at least.

"I assume you speak English then?" she telepathically asked in English, sending the message to both Hisui and Tristan as usual.  "I have extensive notes regarding persona users, demons and the other creatures, as well as notes on the terrain, everything I have observed to be the same and different and notes on the capabilities of everything, human or otherwise, that I run into.  It would be easier to translate them into English than it would be to translate them into Japanese."

[Tristan Carter]

Suddenly, Tristan felt even more lacking in the language than he ever had before. His understanding of the language was easily dwarfed by Hisui's. There was barely enough context for him to understand what she had meant, although he did catch on to why she was talking with even more specific, technical terms. It seemed she had caught on to his slight joke and decided to take it even further. Her reasoning behind such was unknown, but the boy wouldn't reveal her intentions. After all, he would be revealed if he did so.

He breathed a sigh of relief when Lucretia suggested they speak in English. He doubted Hisui knew such terms in a foreign language. Or, at least, not as many. He didn't say- or think, rather- anything without Hisui confirming her capabilities in English. He didn't want to seem rude for making assumptions, as it were. So, he simply sat and waited, listening to see how Hisui responded. The thought occured that he could have translated the girl's words for Lucretia, but he decided against it. 

Again, it would implicate him in his joke, slight as it was.