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Who: Baku Ogata, Persona Users
What: Team-Building Meeting
Where: Kobe, Regality
When: After Class, Thursday, May 11th

Reserving an entire room and providing drinks? How the hell did I get roped into hosting this at such a ridiculous place? Not to mention the money spent on the endeavor, but with all of this persona business, it seemed a bit out of place to worry about finances. I didn't even have that much spending money left. In truth, however, it was a welcome distraction from the stress of having all of the explosive components of the group come together under one roof without the adults to keep them tame; at least they did that much amidst all of the fear-mongering.

Baku had naturally arrived first to sort out the room reservations and whatnot. Along with him came a certain apprehension and paranoia; it was unlike him to skip out on kendo for something like this. What if someone caught wind of their activities? Despite a certain amount of inner protest, he knew that this was something that had to be done. No one of them would be able to succeed against the threats to come.

The teen soon began to regret arriving too early; he fiddles apprehensively and turns down several drinks before the first person arrives.

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The question posed by Haruka received only a simple grunt from the German. What did they think about what happened? Chloe tried her best not to think about it, to push the image of Miyume, lying so very still in her bed, out of her mind. Her gaze, while not directed at anyone, was intense to the point one might think her able to bore a hole in whatever she was looking at.

If this whole meeting was going to be about discussing their feelings on the matter, she might as well have not shown up. She was done with feelings, done with this stupid game of adults vs students. They had been told they had a responsibility, and normally she was down with being responsible.... but after what had happened, after looking at their situation.... why did it matter? It wasn't like they had a choice to shirk this responsibility anyway; the government had them all by the throats. There were no choices, merely a pathetic illusion of freedom.... and that made her angry.

Chloe stared at the table, a hint of that anger managing to leak through her carefully constructed mask. Even the small amount of anger that shone through made the German look all the more intimidating and terrifying. Thinking about their situation added fuel to her already furious fire, and the German did her best to push the anger back down as her bandaged hand clenched at her side.

Instead of looking at the others, Sayuri instead bowed her head the entire time all of them were talking and new people were arriving. She wasn't exactly used to being in this kind of meeting with so many peers, so she was still trying to figure out how exactly to act without looking like a complete idiot. So instead she was staring at the table so much she might as well have started to drill a hole into it with her gaze at this point.

But there was still one question playing through her mind. The girl didn't speak up about it since she sure didn't want to be rude and interrupt anyone, but with Haruka asking that question, it was a little easier to try and blend it into the conversation there. Although asking something meant having to look up a little bit again.. but Sayuri slowly gathered the courage to do so.

"Um, well.. if it isn't too rude to ask, I was wondering if that is what it's always like.." This was her very first contact with all those supernatural things, after all - it was right after she was even told about any of it that she was already forced to go along with them into that world.

Haruka took a long sip of her tea before replying,

"Nah, not really." Definitely. "Usually get thrown into more quiet spots with generic mooks to beat up."

Beat. A bit quieter,

"But might not be the last time we see a place like that?"

Minoru watched Haruka, listening carefully... and then something awkward happened:

He was too busy thinking, searching for answers and pondering what had happened to run everything through his mental filter of loyalty, propaganda and patriotic jargon. So common sense came out undiluted.

"Honestly, if it happens, I wonder what you're supposed to do about it."

He stopped, pursed his lips, and made a slow, trailing gesture with the hands. "Sure, the authorities will be thinking of something - I trust they will - but it is expected of a proper Japanese youth to solve problems, and do the best in face of adversity. And a life was already lost," his voice quieted a little, "since we were... not prepared."

Looking up, he asked. "What will we do, when we face our reflections? Have we all made plans for the mental discipline it will take? I mean," a slight shrug of the shoulders, "we were prepared for shadows and avoiding making those mistakes. I guess it makes sense we just do the same but adjust the target audience... er, so to speak."

Edited 2014-02-06 17:44 (UTC)

"You really think the authorities - the ones who conscripted us - have any clue how to deal with this?" Baku shoots a determined stare across the room, as if challenging the others to contradict him. His expression softens soon after and he rubs his forehead and continues, "the old guy we saw the other day, he more or less confirmed that they don't know anything about what's going on. It's something they've never dealt with before."

"Like it or not, we seem to be their last line of defense. You see the suits they wear on the other side? They look intimidating, but I'm willing to bet that they wouldn't need us if those suits stood a chance," he sits back down and sips on some sort of soft drink that was left for him some time ago. He'd have complimented the staff on the remarkable taste if he weren't so focused on the conversation at hand.

"I... heard that the thing that killed her, it looked just like her, right? I've started to wonder if maybe our presence there is creating these things. The people who enter are reflected, and that's what's causing all of this..." his voice has taken on a more solemn tone before continuing, "but there's not an obstacle in existence that can't be overcome. I really believe that."

"So that's why I wanted to call everyone here. This isn't just someone else's fight we're fighting... Hazama-san gave her life to give us this information, and I'm going to use it however I can to make sure that what happened that day never happens again."

He falls silent again and crosses his arms, staring out at the others who are probably staring right back at him by now; it was all he could do to refrain from talking about the other side of that coin. The fact that they didn't know much to begin with - the fact that more of them could end up just like her.

"I would think they know, yes," Minoru said, giving Baku a calm look. "Definitely more than we do. Unless any one of you has a," he paused to think up the right words. "Paranormal research lab."

"Sure, our superiors are not perfect... but I trust they will strive to be, rather than let down our country. It's to be expected. Kyoto wasn't built in one day."

With a slightly more bitter note, he added: "Does it matter? It doesn't answer the question: What do we plan to do when our turn comes?"

His voice was calmer, more crisp. "I don't imagine they would take excuses. 'I'm sorry, we were too busy questioning our leaders to figure out what to do here. Could you kindly wait there, by the corner, as I work through the motions? Much obliged.'"

A hand gesture for each word. "Structure. Order. Decisiveness. We need those to fight, for our country and for our survival."

As Ogata said 'Hazama-san gave her life to give us this information', Haruka suddenly put down her glass with barely suppressed force.

She wrapped her fingers around her cane again, feeling the grooves and bumps with aching familiarity as her hand dug in tight.

Miyume hadn't given her life for that. She hadn't done some noble sacrifice for the greater good or was some sort of martyr or sacrificial lamb. She'd been backed into a corner and then right off a ledge.

She still heard the rest of what Ogata and Suzuki said but it took a while before she pulled herself together enough to say,

"I'd settle for us being able to make it to graduation." She loosened her fingers from her cane a little, trying to look and feel more like her usual self than want to run out again or lose it entirely. "Whether the adults know better than us or not or even have noble intentions for the supposed greater good, they got different priorities. Otherwise they wouldn't have needed to keep dragging us into this? Or send the principle himself to make sure Miyume-chan came back to school?"

Miyume never answered whether she'd wanted to come back or not either...just that it didn't matter what she wanted...she should have at least been allowed to make that much of a choice herself. It was her future.

"They seem pretty hung up on keeping us until graduation at least. Even if we wanted to walk away, doubt they'd really let us." It was an illusion of choice. "We don't even know how long this is really going to be. Some of us are going to be out in ten months but the rest of us are apparently looking from anywhere between two to three years unless we somehow defeat whatever menacing, supposedly world threatening evil from beyond awaits. That's a pretty long time to be expected to suck it up and wait and see if we're going to end up like Miyume-chan or not."

'This is my place in society, Haruka-san. I'm not fighting it anymore. It's the price I pay for being defective.'

"We can't exactly plan for what we don't know is the trigger? Society's a pretty broad big enemy to prepare against." Beat. "But we can at least keep an eye out for each other where the adults can't? Wasn't like they noticed what was going on with her. And at least we can all agree we want to survive?"

"If we're going to face an image of what society expects of us, we can start by knowing what that is, and think of how to reject it. As it is, we know accepting it will..."

He paused, catching his voice.

"I won't have people dying resting on my conscience for being negligent and not even suggested we do something about it."

Edited 2014-02-08 01:07 (UTC)

Haruka sipped her tea a bit longer, despite the fact it was now just ice. After a long beat, she said,

"Couldn't make everything out," and no one else filled in the gaps for her, "but her Reflection was convinced she was broken. Miyume-chan thought-" She swallowed hard. She couldn't lose it again, not right now. She could at least wait for another time,

"-sorry, something off with the green tea today." The lie came out easily and she made it look true when she composed herself, like she was herself. "Anyway...she thought she was defective. Which I guess people who didn't know her," and were stupid, "might have summed her up with? Just a burden who just needs to be 'fixed'.

"So with that in mind, anyone have any ideas about our group? Yourselves or anyone else."

Having bought into all the propaganda didn't mean that Minoru didn't have a sort of code of conduct--

He approached Haruka, leaning in.

"I'm sorry," he said, a little stiffly, in the sort of way anyone who knows there's nothing right to say would show. He followed by, "Should I go outside and have them bring you another tea?"

Haruka's still. For a while, it doesn't seem as though she heard Suzuki, or that maybe she was ignoring him.

Then, she turned and said, deceptively like herself, "Huh..." She nodded. "If you don't mind, Senpai?"

Minoru picked up the cup. It was noiseless - he had a very good pulse, apparently. "Excuse me while I return," he said, leaving.

Baku sat by quietly as Haruka and Minoru conversed, through some miracle; what he'd really wanted to do was to tell Minoru how wrong he was. But that won't get us anywhere, will it? A dejected sigh escapes him as Minoru leaves the room. He looks to the others and offers them a stern nod.

"Well, whatever we do, we have to become stronger. I plan to start training hard soon, and... well, I would really like it if you would come along. Any of you," he pauses to stare at his drink pensively, "because I think Yachiyo-sensei and the others are only correct about one thing: these 'persona' things are the key to fighting back whatever the hell these things are."

Sayuri was mostly quiet as she listened to the others, having thanked Haruka with a small nod as she explained what it was normally supposed to be like before going back to being entirely passive.

Except by the time Baku spoke up again, there was something interesting in it to her-- training? She had never really done training of any kind other than what she did in kyudo club, but she doubted that really counted in the grand scheme of things. And he did say that they needed to get stronger and train to win.. and Sayuri even knew it herself. She wasn't strong enough to fight. She probably wasn't even as strong as all of the others sitting here at the table.

So she weakly nodded and rose her hand a little.

"Um.. If you don't think I'd be a burden, I'd like to train along with you. I don't have much experience though.."

That was all he really needed. It would suck a bit training out in that world by yourself, but he already had at least one volunteer! Despite the atmosphere, Baku quickly becomes gung-ho at the thought of empowering his own persona, and it shows.

"No burden at all! We'll start tomorrow! I really hope you guys plan on training too; we don't know much about this threat, but it won't matter if we're not strong enough to deal with it."

Right, become strong, then we'll have the power to stop all this. That's all that really matters right now.

Suzuki was still out and, hearing no response to her earlier question, Haruka leaned back in her chair and picked at her cake with little appetite. In response to Ogata's, she replied,

"Training's good. Have to skip tomorrow though."

Considering critical thinking had taken her out of the classes she wanted to take and had come to Chitoku for, she wasn't missing club practice too. She also didn't feel like going back into the other world, yet.

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