Part 25: Entry Twenty: July 27, 2009

Entry Twenty: July 27, 2009

Mood: Training? I guess that's a mood.
Music: Eye of the Tiger!

Well, summer vacation's been over for a few days now, and I've gotta say that I miss it. Seems like when we're not on break, I've always got fifty things to deal with at once. It's pretty stressful, especially combined with the fact that my life is a goddamn mess.

Anyway, we got back from vacation on the 23rd, with Aigis in tow. I talked with the Chairman for awhile about her. First, I asked him why Aigis looked human.



Ikutsuki: So the plan was to place a human mind inside an anti-Shadow weapon...the only real issue was the form the weapon would take. If the form of the weapon was a tank, for instance, the weapon's mind would recognize itself as a tank...however, a tank is not a living entity. This is crucial, you see, because the mind of a non-living entity will not process human thoughts correctly...so it will not function properly, and it will soon become corrupted. However, a mind placed inside a form that closely resembles a human body will recognize itself as a human being, thus allowing it to easily adapt to human thoughts. Therefore, Aigis and her sisters were built in the form of human beings.

Next, I asked where the other robots like Aigis were.



Ikutsuki: Well, there were many created. You could say they were Aigis' sisters. However, they were all destroyed ten years ago in the incident. Aigis has been quite lonely since then.

Finally, I asked why Aigis seemed to know me.



Ikutsuki: Perhaps it is simply a glitch in her human recognition programming...regardless, it is nothing to concern yourself with.

My thirst for knowledge sated, I headed off to bed...



...and awoke during what I thought was the Dark Hour.




No, it was just the crazy robot girl pretending to be an alarm clock.




Uh, thanks, crazy robot girl. My life is such a goddamn mess.



Yukari: That girl disappeared, and we can't find her anywhere. Think you can help us out? She might've gone out on her own, like she did in Yakushima.
Aigis: I am not a girl...I am Aigis, and I am here.
Yukari: Huh...?



Y'know, getting a bunch of women into my bedroom would be nice, but not like this.

Aigis: He was asleep, so I unlocked the door.
Yukari: That's unlawful entry! Didn't we tell you to stay in the command room at night?!
Aigis: I propose to be on standby in this room from now on. Is this acceptable?



Aigis: If there is a problem, I will address it promptly.
Yukari: Uh, the problem is it's against dorm regulations...



To be honest, I really didn't care either way. She's just a robot...only a freak would see her as something sexual. Nasty.



Yukari: Tch...alright, I'll have a room prepared for you on the third floor. You can stay there. Oh, and don't leave the dorm by yourself, okay?
Aigis: I will do as commanded.
Yukari: Ugh, I'm tired...I have practice this morning, so I gotta go.




I didn't like the sound of that...



...but before long, it was time for school.



I ran into Junpei on the way in.

Junpei: After we defeat all the Shadows and the Dark Hour disappears, what's gonna happen then? Regular people don't even know about the Dark Hour, right? That means no one will ever know about anything we've done...that kinda sucks, don't ya think?

I didn't care much about this, either. My life was a goddamn mess before the Dark Hour, and it'll probably be the same afterwards.



We got our exam results later that day...



...and I kicked ass, of course. I knew all that studying, sushi, and throwing away money to the gods would work!



(This is the best way to raise Charm, giving twice as much as a cup of Pheromone Coffee. Unfortunately, our Charm's already maxed, so this boost is completely useless to us.)




Oh, there's this, too. I'll have to ask her about that next time I see her. I wonder if it's Melon Bread...



After school that day, I went to talk to Yukari.

Yukari: I want to tell you something...in private.



(Yukari will only respond like this with max Charm; anything less and she shoots you down.)



I agreed, so we headed to the roof.



Yukari: Oh, nevermind.



Yukari: Y-you might have forgotten about it already, but at Yakushima...I said some stupid things. I just wanted to say I'm sorry. It's been bothering me for awhile. It's hard not having a regular family, y'know?



Yukari: Why do we have to be different...? Why us? ...Sorry, I didn't mean to lump the two of us together...but I feel like you understand, and have been looking out for me, Minato-kun. At least, that's what I thought.




Huh, she always seemed a little distant...




...but I guess I've made an impact on her.




Like Junpei said, I'm "da man"! Minato Arisato, master of LOVE.



With that, we headed back to the dorm for the evening.



I was feeling restless that night, so I decided we should go to Tartarus. Before we left, I talked to Aigis about her combat abilities. She's...well, she kicks the collective asses of us puny humans. Yeesh.

(Aigis is a powerhouse when you get her - she starts at level 29, 7 levels higher than Minato. She uses guns, which are set into her fingertips; Minato is unable to use these. She also uses unique armor and footwear.)



(Aigis' Persona is Palladion. Palladion's unique in that it doesn't have an element; instead, it resists Pierce attacks. Palladion has an insanely high Endurance, meaning Aigis' defense is ridiculous and she's a better tank than Junpei. Aigis learns a variety of physical attacks, but she's also the party's main buffer. She starts with Sukukaja and will gain the rest of the -kajas over time, eventually learning the party buff versions of these spells as well. Palladion's main issue is her weakness to lightning, which makes her hard to use along with Yukari, who shares that weakness. Oh, Palladion is also awesome because its head splits open into a gun whenever it uses an attack skill. That's badass.)



So that night at the Dark Hour we were off to Tartarus.



I decided to make some new Personas before we started ascending, and discovered with glee that I could now make the single most awesome Persona ever: Narcissus.



How could this NOT be the single greatest Persona in the universe?



My enemies shall tremble before Narcissus' might!



Oh, something I haven't mentioned - sometimes upon leveling up, a Persona's skill will begin to change; this will usually upgrade it, though sometimes it'll turn it into something else entirely, so I have the option of stopping the change if I wish.



Oh, I made Mithra, some kind of horrible lion/snake monstrosity, too, but dude. NARCISSUS.



(Mithra gained a ton of levels thanks to our strong..."friendship" with Bebe, by the way.)



I grabbed Akihiko, Aigis, and Yukari, and up we went. On the way, I took Aigis to some weaker Shadows and had her show us what she can do...

Aigis - Orgia Mode
Aigis is Awesome 1
Aigis is Awesome 2
Aigis is Awesome 3

(Note that Aigis does not use an Evoker.)



After Aigis had her fun, we proceeded to the third block, Arqa.



There were new Shadows there, like this Silent Book. Whenever I saw one, I immediately switched to a Persona that was strong against Darkness - the Mamudo skill these guys use attempts to instantly kill everyone. It's horrible enough when it kills everyone else, but it'd be even worse if it got me too.



We ran into a strange floor on the way up. It was filled with an odd haze, and I think I had a hallucination. It was a pretty scary one...

Boss - The Reaper (Failure)

(Certain very rare floors in Tartarus will contain nothing but Rare Forms! This is a good thing, right? Wrong; in these floors, the Reaper shows up very quickly and will kill the fuck out of your entire party as seen here. Normally you don't see Death unless you spend more than ten or twenty minutes on one floor.)

Fortunately, that wasn't what actually happened. We did find one Rare Form...

Rare Form - Treasure Hand (Failure)

...but it got away.



We continued up, letting Aigis smash the Shadows for us as we went...



...while I did my own part offing Shadows with Mithra.



Eventually, we reached the eighth Guardian.

Tartarus Boss 8 - Furious Gigases (These guys only take significant damage from All-Out Attacks. They're weak to Wind, but even that doesn't do much. They also do absolutely ridiculous amounts of physical damage, which they buff up even further with Tarukaja and Power Charge. The idea, then, is to use Magaru to keep them down while your party buffs and debuffs; this way you can slowly but surely whittle them to death by only attacking when you're safe.)



We got a delicious Cadbury egg for winning, and I decided it was time to wrap things up for the night.



The next day was the last one before summer vacation, and I ran into Junpei on the way into class.

Junpei: Ya know, if you think about it, we're pretty lucky to be living in the dorm...Mitsuru-senpai, Yuka-tan, and Fuuka, they're all hotties, don't ya think?



Junpei: Senpai is the smartest girl in the school and the President of Student Council...I bet she only dates uber-nerds. Yuka-tan is pretty damn popular, so she could prolly get any guy she wants...and that just leaves Fuuka, but she's super shy. You'd have to be really careful. ...Hey, don't tell any of them I was talking about this, alright?!

(You guys have probably already guessed this, but Junpei is right. We need max Academics to date Mitsuru, max Charm to date Yukari, and max Courage to date Fuuka.)



After class that day, Coach came to talk to me.

Coach: Since you're a transfer student, you probably don't know about the upcoming competition, right? Well, on August 2nd, there's a big tournament. I want you to compete, so start training! You'll be going up against a monster named Hayase, but you can handle it. This year, we won't lose so easily!



Aw, man. There goes a chunk of my break.



I didn't really have a choice, I guess.



After Coach left, I went to talk to Mitsuru.



Mitsuru: Here, this is from the Chairman. It's a reward for effectively balancing school and battle.



(I haven't really discussed Cards yet, though we've been collecting them from some of the Tartarus bosses. Basically, Cards come in four suits - Coins, Cups, Swords, and Wands - and four faces - Page, King, Queen, and Knight. Each will boost a given set of stats for a chosen Persona permanently, and this bonus transfers between fusions, so they're very handy. We get a Knight card of every suit for acing finals, which is a pretty great reward, seeing as we want max Academics eventually anyway.)



I hung out with Yukari again after that.



We went to the Port Island Station florist.

Yukari: Maybe gerberas? Oh, sorry. I'm looking at flowers for my room. Hey, I think I'm gonna go with Gerberas, but what color should I get?

I told her that she should get pink, since it seemed like her thing.



Yukari: I guess we have the same taste, huh...then it's decided: I'll get 'em. Hmm, but just gerberas might be a little plain...what other flowers do you think would look nice?



I thought that was messed up, and told her so.



Yukari: Actually, any flowers would be fine if they were from you, Minato-kun...psych!



That, too, is messed up.




Aw, man. She teases me, and it boosts her Link?





My love life is a goddamn mess.



On the way home that night, I was feeling lightheaded, so I stopped to rest on a bench and dozed off for a sec. Seems like it was time for my regularly scheduled mysterious vision. This time it was Shinji and the trio again.



Jin gave Shinji another set of capsules.



Takaya: ...Well, I suppose it's more of a pet than an ally.
Shinjiro: Makes no difference to me.
Takaya: It seems like what you told us before about their intentions was true. How lamentable...now we have no choice but to intervene.



Takaya: But to erase the Dark Hour would be denying the very power they possess. We cannot tolerate that.
Shinjiro: Do whatever you want...

Shinjiro got up to leave, but...



...Jin stopped him.

Jin: What're ya gonna do...? I know they asked you to come back.



Jin: They're goin' down, ya hear me? And if you're on their side, then you're going down too.
Shinjiro: Like I said before...it doesn't concern me.

The vision ended there.



Ken greeted me when I got back to the dorm.

Ken: My name is Ken Amada. I'll be staying here for awhile. I'll try to stay out of everyone's way, so don't mind me.



Didn't matter much to me - I was off to see Mutatsu that night.



Mutatsu: What's the deal with your hair, kid? Is that what's in style nowadays? Doesn't it get in your eyes? My son kept his hair long too...you should cut it. No, better yet, shave it all off...smooth like me.



Mutatsu: I'm not taklin' about fashion here. I'm sayin' you'd be better off without your hair. Oh, sure, you're young and good-lookin' now, but just wait...



Mutatsu: That's life, kid. People get old. Someday you'll be just like me...you'll look in the mirror and think, "Damn, I was handsome back in the day..."



Mutatsu: Just don't expect nothin'. Simple, eh? And that way you won't ever be disappointed. You're gonna lose your hair eventually, kid, so why bother with it now? Bald is beautiful. You just wake up in the mornin' and go. No fuss.



But...but...I LIKE my hair.




I also like Social Links.





Mutatsu doesn't really seem to be that bad a guy after all.



The next day was the beginning of summer vacation...



...so of course I squandered it online.



Maya: ...my muscles are sore, but i'm soooooo buff! there's nothing a little endorphins wont cure, rite?



Maya: actually, i only went cuz i was so pizzed at that bastard! >=/

I wasn't sure which bastard she meant, and asked her.



Maya: what i meant was... i was upset cuz of this guy... remember that Mr. E guy? (the SOB, rite?) i made a small error in my gradebook and now he's all on my ass



Maya: he thinks he's all that just cuz he's a history teacher ffs



Maya: if Mr. E starts playin this game too i'm putting him on ignore! xD u can't talk to him either, k? hee hee...pwned!




Speaking of pwned, looks like I just pwned a Social Link rank...





...I can't believe I just said that. Oh, if only I could shoot myself.




...Roflcopter?



Maya: dun worry! i won't let that old geezer get me down, tatsuya!! ^_^



This morning, it was off to training for Track Team.




Yuko pushed me to the limit all day. Maybe she feels responsible for me since we're dating...ugh, I'm horribly sore either way.



Junpei met me when I got back to the dorm.

Junpei: Dude, don't push yourself too hard. ...If you think you can handle it, let's go to Tartarus tonight. We have less than two weeks to get ready, and I'm sure the next Shadow will be stronger than the last one...

He was probably right, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to go just yet, so I'm blogging instead. I might go, might not - either way, you'll find out next entry! Later!

Coming up in the next entry: Summer days make me feel fi--...ugh, no, that's awful.