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AUGUST EVENT PT 2

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→ 8/13-8/15 Obon Festival

Lanterns start to dot the streets, hung by the front door of each house who still have an able body to hang them. From there, the lights spread outward, neighbors visiting neighbors with lanterns in hand and prayers in their hearts that the light will be enough to guide the spirits of their ancestors home, enough to heal their loved ones and bring the health and energy back into town.

The first day of Obon passes in silence.

On the second day, the oppressive heat starts to lift, skies clear with a cool breeze that passes through the streets and rocks the lanterns at each door, which opens as people trickle out onto the street. By late afternoon, the entire town is alive with chatter and laughter, the townspeople bustling about to get their late start in setting up the festival stalls and the large stage set on the lakeside in front of the school. Some of the missing have started turning up again, with claims of having recovered from illness or returned from a trip, and more than that, visiting relatives are introduced to one another despite no car or plane ever seen entering or leaving the town. With most businesses closed for the Obon holiday, the second day is spent catching up with one another, making last-minute purchases and renting yukata, and finishing preparations so that both the spirits of their ancestors and those who have become well enough again may celebrate with all in full. By the end of the night, everybody has returned, the town restored.

Loud drumming can be heard the morning of the third day, taiko drum performances starting early and lasting late into the evening. The steady beat fills the air no matter where in town you are, but standing right in front of the stage, it can be felt in your chest, as if the entire town's hearts beat as one. Though less compared to during the tanabata festival, stalls are set up for Obon and largely consist of games and shops selling toys and trinkets, food stalls focusing on small treats rather than meals. With the taiko performance in the background to keep the rhythm, folk dances are held on the stage and in the parks and are open to anybody, participants being pulled in from the streets to join the circles to dance. Traditional clothing like yukata can be seen worn by almost everybody, from young children to great-grandparents, as they gather around the lake at sundown to say farewell to the spirits. Lanterns are lit and sent off into the lake, where they gather at the center and burn bright until there's nothing left to burn, and the town settles into warm, sleepy darkness.

When night falls and the townspeople begin to clean up, retrieve the lanterns, and go home, the breeze picks up a little, soft and cool, cutting paths throughout town much like the freezing gusts of winds that first Lockdown night. Rather than to the schoolhouse, however, the wind gently nudges you towards the forest, towards the edge of forest blocked by caution tape to keep people out of scorched earth and blackened trees. Only one lantern is left untouched, hanging on a tree branch just before this forest fire site, fallen trees cleared out to widen the path, that leads into the forest.

Soon, the full moon hangs high in the sky, shining its light straight down onto the castle ruins below.

→ 8/15 Castle Ruins and the Shrine

Carried along by the breeze that winds through the streets and blows down this path, finding your way through the forest becomes simple, and soon the trees part to reveal the castle ruins hidden away inside the forest -—at least, what used to be castle ruins. The changes come unexpected and instantly, in a blink of an eye during the day for those who still live in the castle, and a sight to behold for those who haven't returned in a long time until tonight.

Entering the castle reveals a repaired foundation and pillars which stand whole again, stairs to the second floor still broken but with all the rubble underneath cleared away, the air inside the castle no longer choking with dust. In the main hall, red candlesticks line the perimeter of the room, the glow of fire illuminating the murals that have shown up on previously blank walls, images faintly visible under a layer of yellow mildew. If you carefully scrub them clean, they depict a small village surrounded by farmland, a familiar lake at the center, flocks of crows adorning the skies with one large crow standing on the peak of the mountain overlooking the town.

At the center of the castle's main hall, a mother bear and two cubs can be seen snoozing in the middle of the room, sleeping next to a meter-by-meter square that has been cut into the stone ground. If you can get the bears to leave or are brave enough to approach without waking them up, you will see that hinges on one edge suggest it to be a door, but there is no handle and no way to lift the panel, nor can the door or the surrounding area be damaged no matter how hard you try. Upon closer inspection, there are four impressions on each corner of the door matching the size and shape of the ofuda received as a reward for defeating the dungeon boss, currently in RO's possession. Placing the ofuda on one of the slots causes the edges of the door to glow bright blue for a second before the light disappears, and the ofuda turns to stone, just like the door and the castle around them. Nothing more seems to happen after, the other three impressions remaining exactly the same.

All throughout the night, the candles burn along the perimeter of the hall, one hundred in total that cast the room in warm light. Whether you remember the fortune teller's words or are simply chatting with one another and catching up on all that's happened during your time here, each time a story is shared, a light blows out, leaving the castle dimmer and dimmer as the night goes on. The darker it gets, the more restless you begin to feel, Personas becoming more agitated and prone to lash out as the clock ticks closer to midnight. Those who choose to take a walk to the shrine to cool their heads find that the shrine looks different from before too, revealing unbroken steps, a thoroughly swept floor, stone lanterns whole instead of crumbled and broken, and the water basin filled to the brim with clear water that almost seems to sparkle in the moonlight— a far cry from how broken down the abandoned shrine appeared just a month before. There's still work to be done, however: in particular, the sign- restored and painted over in pure white so that it looks almost new- still displays no name. The paint is still a little wet, so perhaps somebody is just waiting for the paint to dry...

The night seems to drag on, but as long as people keep talking, no matter where they are in the castle or at the shrine, the candle lights continue going out until they count down to zero.

→ 8/15 Welcome to the Velvet Room

When the last of the candles go out and the castle plunges into complete darkness, a bright blue light begins to shine from beside the throne, taking on the form of a doorway set into the wall. Without fanfare, two figures step out, the taller with silver hair and a kind face, and the other with golden eyes that peek past long bangs to squint at everybody inside the castle. ...The latter immediately turns around back through the doorway to leave his partner to explain things to everybody here, who takes a seat on the throne as if he belongs there all along. If you have questions, come talk to this guy; but otherwise, there's nothing stopping you from going through the doorway to follow after the other one.

This isn't the only doorway that opens up: blue light shines between the pillars of the torii at the shrine, and similar doorways appear scattered throughout town to replace your bedroom door, the bathroom stall in a store you've run into for an emergency, set into the wall in an alleyway where there was no door before, even at the first floor of the school dungeon if for whatever reason you're there. Regardless of which door you enter, stepping through any doorway brings you into a small room, a bowl of fresh fruit and a bottle of some sort of non-alcoholic mixed drink in a bucket of ice sitting on the table in the middle of the room, two chairs flanking the table and a plush velvet couch against one wall. The ground shakes and rocks as you look around, curtains pulled aside to reveal inky blue darkness, spots of light floating past the windows out in the distance like stars. Each person arrives in their own room, a placard with their name and arcana set on the door labelling it theirs.

Down the end of the hall, the door opens up into a brightly lit lounge, wide windows set along the walls although the landscape outside remains as dark as ever. The lounge is filled with chairs and couches covered in the same blue velvet as the rooms and music seems to fill your entire being rather than just your ears. Passing through the door at the end of the lounge brings you to the conductor's cab where a young man sits, changed out of his costume into a more formal uniform in dark blues with a train engineer cap pulled low over closed eyes, slouched far back on his seat with his feet up on the control panel. Despite all that, however, the train simply zips along, the rail just barely visible from the front window of the cab. The attendant tilts his head your way, looking rather irritable, silent until you speak first.

→ MOD NOTES

⬥ As a reminder, characters are more likely to lose control of their Personas around the time of the full moon (8/15) but this can also occur at any time, especially with internal conflict and during Lockdown. This is an optional mechanic. Personas will also temporarily disappear once the character enters the Velvet Room.
⬥ The two Velvet Room assistants will have their own top-levels below for those who wish to speak with them in this log, and they may be contacted at the NPC contact page at any time as well. The NPC contact page will serve as an "IC inbox" for the characters to freely interact with the attendants to ask questions, receive and fill requests, hang out, etc. Please read this page carefully for more information about accessing the Velvet Room.
⬥ While each attendant may have individual requests for those who ask for them, they will also give tasks for the characters as a whole. These general requests will be listed on the NPC contact page at the beginning of each month. Successful completion of a request will earn characters rewards, and there is no time limit for completion.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Huh? No, he's not really all that friendly, is he?

[ Souji sucks /: ]

I think he is? Though a bit frustrating...

[ Considering... ]

He doesn't make me want to throttle him on sight! I think that's something.

Edited 2019-08-14 17:06 (UTC)

[ Okay, Kido can't help but let out a short laugh at that ]

What a low bar! Is there anybody who didn't pass the throttling test?

[ His original? Minato?? What does it take for Terry to not find somebody to be friendly ]

[ Terry laughs a little. ]

Well...

[ He punted Kokichi's fox Persona on sight, but he's pretty sure that doesn't count. ]

Yeah, quite a bit back where I came from some time ago. I was a lot more violent then.

[ Kido had also punched Kokichi first thing before she'd even fully opened her eyes, so, fair. She's... not really one to talk about being violent, though. ]

Hmm, that's something we all grow out of, I think. I used to be pretty bad, you know?

[ Like, worse than she is right now. If he can imagine. ]

[ Yeah, Terry's trying to imagine it and... wow. That sounds painful. Very painful. ]

How bad did you get?

[ He still wants to know anyway or otherwise he'll be filling in with his imagination as Kido, the yakuza subordinate or some shit ]

[ She was going to tell him some stupid story about something dumb Kano said once that she had to break his ribs for, but the truth is, ]

Murder.

[ She is not a yakuza subordinate, she is the yakuza boss. ]

[ But that's not at all what she wanted to say, so she jumps up onto her feet with a start, backpedaling and will probably fall backwards into a trashcan or something as she waves her hands, frantically spluttering a defense ]

Even though it's— The circumstances were complicated, so!! It's not like—-!!!

[ The only things that pass the lie detector are vague, incomplete statements like this. She can't deny that she's killed before, that it was done in anger, that she wouldn't do it again if she were placed in the same situation. ]

[ Terry only watches from where he sits as Kido gets up and falls into a trash can. Good job, Kido. Good job.

He's... not sure what to say at first, because that was so sudden and he didn't expect that at all. Wow. ]

[ Kido's so fucking hardcore.

Anyway.

Terry gets up from the bench and pulls Kido out of the trash can, brushing off whatever got on her shoulders, if there is any. It's kinda funny how Terry had partook in so murder attempts but he never managed to kill a single person, and yet, here's Kido. He can't even laugh it off as a possible joke from how much Kido is panicking. He's curious and he gets the gist of it--nothing too detailed, but all he gets are the results from pinpointing: a parricide in the act of self defense. ]

Yeah, I get it. You're the kind of person who probably wouldn't do something like that unless you were under a lot of stress.

[ It was self defense, but more than that, she had killed him in order to save her sister- and they all ended up dying anyways because it was a futile effort from the very start. She was five. And she hated herself for it, and a new wave of rage wells up now and spills from her eyes as she grabs Terry's arm. If he had laughed, she would have punched him. If she could see his dumb face, she would have punched him. But all she has is words and it takes everything she's got not to punch him, wet and hateful as her words are when they spill out. ]

You shouldn't get it! You shouldn't just accept something like that so calmly! It doesn't matter what kind of person I am— that sort of thing is unforgivable! So don't just brush it off like it's no big deal!

[ Right.

People care about that sort of thing.

Terry looks at Kido and could only wonder... if it was such a sensitive topic, why talk about it so casually? Though he doesn't know that Kido is under the Truth Mechanism right now, so that's why he doesn't understand. Maybe it's incomprehensible. Maybe it's something he'll never understand. ]

You said it yourself, didn't you? The situation was complicated. Sometimes things aren't so black and white. It's not like you enjoyed it. [ Maybe? ] It doesn't look like you wanted to do it either.

[ ... ]

So, are you never going to be forgive yourself for it?

[ She definitely didn't enjoy it, and she didn't want to do it at all. Who would? There's such a world of difference between stomping on somebody's foot while squabbling like children, and taking a spear and plunging it into your own father's chest. And for Terry, who never had a family, there's no way Kido can ever tell him how she had destroyed this family with her own hands, just by simply existing.

So no, she can't forgive herself for it, she wants to go back to putting it out of mind like she did for so many years and bury it under better memories that are so scarce to begin with. ]

I can't. The sort of person I am is no good, Terrence. Even after I did that, I couldn't save her. My own sister.

Kido...

[ He's sorry to hear about her sister, but maybe this isn't the time for that. He needs to focus on the person in front of him. ]

Expected and unexpected things happen in life all the time. You know that too, don't you? Sometimes things are out of our control. It's frustrating. It sucks. It makes you regret. No one's going to be perfect. We all have our fuckups.

[ He puts a hand over hers that's grabbing onto his arm. ]

I'll always be your friend, Kido. No matter what you've done.

[ It's comforting, even though those aren't the words she wants to hear or thinks she deserves hearing. Things happen, she knows that, because it feels like all her life she's never been able to get things under control; she's always anxious and frustrated and she lashes out when things don't go her way, and she's done a lot of things she regrets and every time she corrects something, something else goes wrong and there's just endless fuckups everywhere. She'd grown a lot since she was really little. She's pushed herself and has made such great strides. And still, things are like this- she still cries too easily, can't ever keep her emotions in check, and being blind makes her useless because how is she supposed to help anybody now?

It'd be nice if something went right for once. Terry's always been nice to her, even right now. ]

Yeah. You being my friend's made me really happy.

[ But she lets go of his arm and pulls away, stepping back. ]

Sorry, I'm going to go cool my head for a bit.

[ aka she's going to fade away the moment she turns around and forget the fact that she's blind and promptly get run over in traffic or something ]

Kido--

[ Terry keeps his eyes on her, but he knows when sometimes you just want to be alone. He's pretty sure those were the words that she didn't want to hear, but that's really all he could do, all he could say. ]

... Don't go too far. You still can't see, so... be careful.

[ The lights come back on, signaling that the lockdown phase is now over. His gaze shifted to the lights, but the moment he looks over at where Kido's supposed to be, she's gone. ]

Let me know when you want to come back.

[ It's quiet. ]

[ With just a few steps away from Terry, it's like being completely lost in the silence and the darkness, nothing that gives her a sense of being except for the ground beneath her feet- grass to pavement to the curb that she accidentally steps off of but moves back onto the the sidewalk after that.

That's no good. She's going to start thinking about all sorts of unnecessary things at this rate, so Kido puts her earbuds in and turns the music up as loud as it can go, running a thumb over the omamori on her wrist. Nekogami appears at her feet instead of on her shoulders this time, cool fur pressed against the side of her leg while the Persona tries to guide her and keep her from running into trees or more trashcans, with mixed success.

Don't go too far. Let me know when you want to come back. Sorry, Terry, she can't really keep either of those promises, music blaring in her ears that only she can hear, her Persona by her feet that she keeps hidden from the world too, cold and vicious and passing through the trees as if unaffected by the world. She's always been like this, ashamed and driven to hide, and nobody can help if she doesn't let them see the hurt. It'll be a long time until she gets back, if she can even manage it. Since she's blind and can't find her way back anyways. ]

[ And that is why after 30 minutes, Terry decides to go and find her. He would have liked to give her more alone time if he could, but he's worried. That's why he finally gets up from the bench after feeling incredibly restless and anxious, and pinpoints Kido's vague location and arrives at that area. ]

Kido! Are you here?!

[ He's even trying to cover every inch of the area by walking everywhere in hopes that he'd bump into her somehow. ]

[ MUSIC'S BLARING TOO LOUD SHE CAN'T HEAR YOU

There's very little specifics to where she is at all, aside from the general location- still part of the park, frost on the ground here and there wherever Nekogami stepped, though it's largely melted into water by now.

She's sitting somewhere leaning against a tree, maybe, legs tucked up to her chest specifically so nobody would bump into her somehow. ]

Kido!! Where are you?!

[ Understandably, Terry is growing frustrated when he hasn't discovered Kido's exact location despite being told by his powers that she's here somewhere. Maybe he should wait in this area and try pinpointing again later. Maybe she'll move and he'd coincidentally bump into him... yeah, right. Like that would happen.

Terry sighs and sits on the ground, feeling slightly defeated. The usual scent of his cinnamon identifier wafts in the air, and the longer he stays, the stronger it becomes. ]

[ Maybe it's weird, but she's always sort of associated Terry's scent with apple pie instead of the spice itself, something sweet and spicy and warm and her stomach growls, pulling her out of her daydream. Right, she had done a lot of running around tonight, so it's natural to be a little hungry even though it's just past midnight. It takes Kido a few seconds to remember again why the darkness doesn't let up after a few blinks, but the music had done a good job of flushing out all the thoughts and worries from her mind.

The invisible veil lifts as she summons Nekogami again, and she mumbles to her Persona ] Go find Terrence. [ before the cat trots off to blast the area around where Terry's sitting full of ice if he doesn't notice it first ]

[ He immediately notices the chill, but since he's sitting, Terry can't immediately dodge. You can't move fast if you can't start moving in the first place, so--he gets a direct hit with the ice. IT'S COLD... He lets out a startled yell and tries to swat the ice off him. ]

[ Kido ignores the yell because she can't hear it, music still playing and all.

Nekogami continues blasting Terry with ice, like he hasn't forgiven Terry for almost punting him across the dungeon. ]

Hey! I said I was sorry! S-Stop hitting me with the ice! It's cold! It's not that hot anymore outside!!

[ AAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaa

He would normally not have a problem with magical monsters attacking him, but he attacked enough Personas for the past two months... he doesn't want to anymore if he can help it. ]

[ Nekogami complies by shooting dream needles at him instead. They're kind of pokey, and if they hit, he'll start to feel sleepy. That's not really helpful for either of them right now. ]

premise ⬥ taken ⬥ faq ⬥ navigation

→ 8/13-8/15 Obon Festival

→ 8/15 Castle Ruins and the Shrine

→ 8/15 Welcome to the Velvet Room

→ MOD NOTES

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