Part 46: 08/07/09 - 08/09/09

This is, uh, the first time we've been Tired as a result of the full moon but not needed it for anything. Welp, that's potentially inconvenient. For like a day, but still.


Huh, ths is different. Almost everyone is hanging out right upstairs.


Fuuka, it uh... it's like noon? Maybe? We're obviously not going to go to Tartarus.









Ken's the only one in the dorm who's hanging out downstairs right now.



It's probably a bit odd, but it'd be odder if it wasn't the fifth time it'd happened by now. This is a monthly thing, but somehow no one's noticed the clear pattern yet...?

At the time, many people wrote wishes for them to recover... And as of today, the number of Apathy Syndrome victims has been decreasing. It looks like the wishes came true, however belatedly.


Before I forget, we'll take a look at what Kurosawa has for sale. The equipment is mostly stuff we could find in Tartarus, and he doesn't sell any weaponry for Aigis (in Portable he does though!) but he does now sell...

Swimsuits. For 300k each. They do have the highest defense available but, uh, they are swimsuits. They change models in Tartarus as you'd expect. The Sundress is for Aigis, of course, and is the only armour available for her.
They're absurdly expensive, and they're really not worth 300,000 a piece.


We've got new requests for Elizabeth already, which is nice. There's not overly many of them either, which is pretty convenient.

First, we'll make an Oumitsunu since we're level 30 now. He even gets to level 34 which is more than what Elizabeth wanted, so that's one from before done already.







Nata Taishi's level 37 and pretty okay. We might use one at some point in the future, since he has some nice skills. Would be more likely to use on in vanilla though, since there he learns Gigantic Fist but that's not the case here.

Next up in the quest line is a Black Frost. He's level 34 so we can't do it yet, but notably this one has no other requirements. That's because even if we WERE level 34+ right now, we couldn't make Black Frost. It's literally impossible; we need something that we don't have yet.


We're gonna step out for just a minute and head to this shady backalley again. Our cat friend is still hanging out here and has gotten pretty chubby!

But we're here for Que Sera Sera instead.
Young Man: I bet this'll be popular!

Bartender: ...Hey, aren't you still in high school? You're not s'posed to be here. ...Hm? You look like you've been around the block a time or two...

Bartender: ...It's my own little concoction. I'm hoping to expand our clientele.

Bartender: So, whaddya think? Good, huh?

Bartender: Right? I knew you'd like it. Tell ya what... I'll give ya a bottle of it, on the house. I'm gonna go home and catch some Z's. Come back when you're legal, and I'll let you try the good stuff!

Well, we just got a bottle of alcohol free booze. Purely because its name is Elizabeth. Yes, really.







The Aroundight is a one-handed sword that'll be a nice upgrade for Mitsuru, probably.

I'm just sorta guessing here, since it's a decent upgrade in power AND it gives a bonus 30SP.
Unlike last time, this doesn't open up any new requests so we'll do the inevitable and see what antics Elizabeth can get up to at the shrine.





Oddly, she doesn't comment on the Shiisaa statues. You'd think she would, really.

> The innumerable coins Elizabeth is pouring in are shaking the offertory box.











A-All of them?! But a single one takes up the entire day and it's RNG and...
> You decided to wait until Elizabeth is satisfied...

It's probably for the best that no one else is here right now, otherwise at this point Elizabeth would look positively weird.
Er, moreso than normal I mean.











Fade to blue, and... uhh...

How did you get in...?

> You had fun with Elizabeth.








> You headed back to the Velvet Room with Elizabeth.













Thoth is, uh, level 41 so that's a long, LONG way off so far. He has some really nice skills that we'll want, for sure, even if he's not all that great by that point.
But, hey, with that, we've now finished all the requests that don't involve Tartarus. Again. Hurray...?
Yes, really. It's that quick and easy this time around.

So, we'll just head back to the shrine and talk to Maiko.




> You wait for Maiko to calm down.









Wow. Wooow, that's insanely not cool and why would you even blame a 7 year old for that. What the hell, lady.









I think maybe, just maybe, Makoto should be responsible for once and, I dunno, not do that?

> Maiko seems to trust you a lot.
> Your relationship is stronger now!


> You went back to the dorm after parting with Maiko.
We're not gonna bother going back to the dorm, though. There's nothing new there, since we already saw everything there earlier in the day. It hasn't changed since, for once.

So we'll just skip right to hanging out with Mutatsu at the nightclub.

















> Perhaps because he was thinking about his son...

> You understand Mutatsu better now.






> You decided to go back to the dorm.
Since we're Tired thanks to the Chariot and Justice stuff last night, and the bathroom didn't clear it unfortunately, we'll just be going to sleep early tonight.


Well, we TRIED to sleep anyway...















Y'know, I think I'm seeing a bit of a pattern with Pharos. He went from Rank 1 to Rank 3 and now to Rank 5, skipping over 2 and 4...

At least even with Pharos' interruption, we're no longer Tired. This'll be useful, I'm sure.

Oh and we can go higher in Tartarus as of today. It's something we'll do later, since we have plenty of time for that.


But we have something else that happens, first thing in the morning.






> It seems Mitsuru has left.


Now we can just do our usual rounds and talk to everyone before we do... something or other.





I'm sorry, Yukari. That's unfortunate that you've gotta deal with that. We kinda did pretty alright so we're safe.




...Why would you think that we're the only ones? The entire time from the very beginning, we've been gaining new members because we found new people who can use Personae. This is a recurring trend. We even learned there is A DOG who can use one a few days ago!




Southbound traffic will be packed until the 15th, while northbound traffic will be congested from the 20th to the 21st.
Since we've already cleared out everything for Elizabeth that we could, we'll just head on over to, uh...

Maiko, of course. We don't really have much in the way of options, right now, for obvious reasons.



















> Maiko is deep in thought.



> Maiko seems to enjoy your company.
> Your relationship is stronger now!




> You walked Maiko home and returned to the dorm.
Hey, uh, maybe Makoto could like do that more? It'd be a good idea...






















...E-Excuse me...???




Notably, she says "all of us" which includes herself. So this is thoroughly unrelated to the threat from before about poor grades. So, this ISN'T Junpei's fault!



So, yeah, this is what Yukari was on about earlier.









W... Weeks?!

Okay, so, we don't have the best Academics, sure... but we still study basically every night.



As we do. Virtually every night.


The Pharmacy sells cat food, so it probably sells dog food too. I haven't seen any in there, sure, but I haven't really gone there to buy anything either.



We've passed twice. Notably, we've gotten increasingly better results!



I cat believe he didn't make a dog pun.
...Wait shit hang on--

> Koromaru seems satisfied.
> Maybe you should take him for a walk tomorrow...
Now there's an idea! Junpei presumably has done that today, like he said he would, after all.




Since Koromaru uses daggers/knives that he holds in his mouth, the Bone that we can get from Liz (remember that?) is clearly his joke weapon.






Oddly, Ken doesn't think its weird that Koromaru has a shock collar, little wings, is wearing a t-shirt or has a red armband on it that says SEES. Aren't we supposed to be keeping this kinda stuff a secret? Remember when that was a thing?

Anyway, hey look, it's a Saturday so its a double Academics night.

We're still not rank 5 but we are very, very close now. At this rate, we should be able to get it in a couple of days or so.

Well, we've got a day to do a whole bunch of stuff before we have to do bonus extra more studying. Thanks, Mitsuru.

Hey, Tanaka's selling a spear! Buying that for sure. Much like the Bus Stop axe, this is something only Makoto can use. Unlike the Bus Stop Sign, this is a spear.
Spears are my personal preferred weapon type to use. I'm sure anyone who's played the game before saw that one coming, honestly.



I'm also sure that no one at all is surprised that Koromaru's persona is Cerberus. It's a very obvious choice, honestly, and it couldn't be Orthrus (the other obvious choice) since we have him in our stock already.
Also, note that according to Aigis he has Fire skills. Hmm... I'm sure there's totally definitely not going to be an overlap problem here.


...And now, the news.
This is 100% a coincidence, but it'd be funny if the tokusatsu show was dealing with a Shadow in the sense we've grown used to by now. It's obviously just an actual shadow but hey.


Yukari's hanging out at the mall, where Junpei usually is huh? She's got the right idea for sure, though.



Junpei's just sitting around outside the... flower shop? We've seen him here like once before, so it's not completely unexpected but it's still unusual.
This is where we'd skip to whoever we'd be spending time with (usually Maya because Sunday), but first we have something else to do.

Since that Striped Shirt fella is just sat around the shrine. He's only here on Sunday, like he told us before.


He's been here a bit of a while, but we've never had the chance to come here since we got Academics 4 which is what we need.



> The thin young man seems happy for some reason.





> Apparently, the young man's fountain pen is missing.
So, yeah, despite requiring an Academics that's at least rank 4 that just lets us run into a wall. Thanks, Striped Shirt.
But, white fur and red eyes sounds kinda... familiar...

We'll worry about that later. First we have this guy to finally talk to, I guess.



> Mamoru is full of confidence...

> You accept his challenge!
Much like the guy at the shrine, we need rank 4 to deal with Mamoru. Unlike that one, we've had Courge 4 for like what feels like basically forever.


> Mamoru is eating takoyaki at an extremely fast pace.
> This seems like a good opportunity for an eating competition.
> What is your eating strategy?

It literally doesn't matter, but sure whatever. Let's just get this over and done with.


> Mamoru began to forego chewing as well!





Uh-huh. Sure, you weren't Mamoru.
> Mamoru seems impressed.


> Mamoru recognized your potential.
> Star Athlete Mamoru Hayase has become an acquaintance.


> A mysterious voice rings in your head...





Fortunately, the dumb deal was "the loser" specifically and not "the person who doesn't win."

> You decided to go back to the dorm.




I think we can definitely manage that, yes.



It sure is a good thing the only person (here) who's grades are higher than ours is Mitsuru, huh...



Considering the pattern has been "all of them except Magician and Priestess come in pairs," it seems pretty likely that we've just got two months left...










Oh. That's right!
Not Junpei's terrible idea, but Koromaru's right here and he's an albino shiba inu and he has red eyes!

> You spot something under Koromaru's paw...


Well, we know exactly what we're gonna do with that. Probably gonna be next Sunday, though.

For the rest of tonight, we'll just go spend time with Mutatsu while being all too aware that the first Tower persona is level 31.

Every. Night. Mitsuru.
Goddammit.
Fortunately, there IS something else we can do after being forced to waste time on something less effective than our current method of studying.

Namely, there's a requisite Festival event that we can participate in. Technically this is optional, but we will be attending it anyway.

Some people are gonna give us a call to ask if we wanna attend with them, naturally.

Quite notably, it's just all the girls from school that we have S.Links with.

We can go with any one of them, or...

We could just turn down everyone and go on our own, like a weirdo loner.
They're all valid options. Even Chihiro. It doesn't affect anything too majorly at this point, so there's no downside to picking whichever of the five options you want.
Remember, we are going to go no matter what. It's just a question of...

