2025-08-05: Strange Events
- Log: 2025-08-05 Strange Events
- Cast: Ren Amamiya, Yusuke Kitagawa
- Where: Cafe Leblanc, Yongen-jaya, Tokyo
- OOC Date: August 05, 2025
- IC Date: June 21, 2012
- Summary: Yusuke comes by Leblanc to let Ren know about a strange encounter he had during the Dark Hour in Sumaru City. In return, Ren gifts him something he found recently in Mementos.
<Pose Tracker> Ren Amamiya has posed.
The weather is drizzling outside when Ren finishes up an after-school shift at Triple Seven. It's gotten dark, and he needs to catch the train to Yongen-Jaya, but he does a little shopping after his shift first--nothing special, just food he can take into school the next day to serve as his lunch. He's had enough of going hungry and needing to lean on Ann to share her lunch with him because he wasn't able to buy something from the school store in time. He has to take responsibility for himself.
Right now, that's a yakisoba bread for him to stick in the Leblanc fridge tonight and take into school to eat for lunch tomorrow, and a few cup ramen for him to save in case of an emergency. He also grabs a sandwich to have for dinner right now--tuna salad, after much pestering by Morgana, climbing up out of his bag to lean his paws on his shoulder and backseat drive his shopping choices. A cup of cut veggies for some vitamins for once, an Earl Green instead of a grape Manta on a whim, and he has a complete dinner waiting for him at a reasonable discount. He's even got money left over from his shift.
From there, it's just a short train ride from Shibuya Station to Yongen-Jaya. One of the nice things about the dusty attic where Ren now lives is that it's very close to the train station; it's less than five minutes' walk to get to the front door of the cafe. He shakes off the rain from his umbrella and lets himself in, only to find that someone might just be waiting up for him up in his bedroom. (It's not like there's a door to keep people out...)
<Pose Tracker> Yusuke Kitagawa has posed.
There is someone waiting in the cafe, but not up in Ren's bedroom.
Yusuke is sitting in the booth with the second-best view of the painting they recovered from Madarame's palace - his mother's masterpiece, Sayuri, whole and untarnished by his former mentor's idea of 'added mystique'. He seems worlds away, gazing at the painting; Ren might need to announce his presence to get the other boy to realise he's there.
When he does, however, Yusuke sits up straighter. "Ren-san! Uh, forgive my sudden appearance, I asked Sakura-san if it would be okay to wait for you down here."
Just because they're Phantom Thieves together doesn't mean he's going to invite himself across the threshold into Ren and Morgana's sanctuary, even if it's just walking up the stairs.
"I had some things I wanted to talk to you about. They might be..." There's nobody in the cafe with them, but he still looks around surreptitiously. "... things we should look into."
<Pose Tracker> Ren Amamiya has posed.
Ren appreciates that! There's nothing stopping someone from just going upstairs, but it is supposed to be his private space, whether he's at the cafe or not.
"Yusuke," he greets him. ...No response. He walks up to him. "Yusuke?" ...He follows his gaze to the Sayuri. He can understand why Yusuke might be off in his own world, but... Ren opts to physically block his view, which prompts his reaction.
"It's fine," he reassures him. "Better than waiting outside in the rain." They are indeed alone (except perhaps for Sojiro himself behind the counter, but that will remain ambiguous). "Let's head upstairs, then. I've got some things I wanted to talk to you about too," he suggests.
He'll take a moment to put his groceries away, both in the fridge and upstairs; then he seats himself at the desk and offers Yusuke some vegetable sticks and half his tuna sandwich.
"You were gonna share that with *me*," Morgana complains from his bag.
"Don't worry, I'll still share," Ren promises.
He doesn't add that Yusuke's eating habits are even more atrocious than his own. Morgana knows this too, so he waves a paw before hopping out of the bag. "Never mind! I'll see if the Chief doesn't have something even more delicious."
And soon Morgana's downstairs. Ren watches him go, then looks over at Yusuke. "First off... Do you mean something other than what happened to Fuuka Yamagishi? Because I heard yesterday that she's safe and sound now."
<Pose Tracker> Yusuke Kitagawa has posed.
Once up in the Ren's loft-slash-bedroom, Yusuke gratefully accepts the gift of shared food, nodding to Morgana as their definitely-not-cat saunters back downstairs. He's brought with him a briefcase, which is a fairly unusual addition to his look - speaking of, judging by the fact that he's still wearing his uniform, he probably didn't change at all before coming over, even though it's been a while since Gekkoukan let out.
He relaxes in relief when Joker brings up Fuuka. "... Good. It was... frustrating, not being able to help her."
He sets the cup of veggies aside to put the briefcase on his lap, flicking the dials on its lock and snapping open the clasps. "So I have made a breakthrough in my artist's block. Unfortunately, this is less 'inspiration' and more 'necessity'."
He takes out a drawing pad, and hands it over to Ren. "I was in Sumaru City on the twelfth; I missed the last train back into Tokyo before that... green time happened."
The Dark Hour. They all have Personas; they've all experienced it, and probably talked about it before. (Maybe Morgana knew the name? He blanks on it sometimes.)
"Something... strange happened. I felt as though something was calling out to me and trying to mislead me at the same time, so I followed the call." He motions that now would be a good time to open the pad.
On several of the pages is depicted: A woman, clad in a black fascinator and veil sufficient to disguise her face, and an armoured grey gown, highlighted in the eerie green of the Dark Hour. On other pages, though...
A masked woman in a white dress, bedecked in jewels, with steel bars run through her arms so that if she clasps them they form something like a jail cell. A creative piece, for certain... except that this figure is wreathed in an ice-blue flame that is intimately familiar to the both of them.
"This woman was using her Persona to disrupt the senses, and I think protect allies of hers within the building she was standing guard in front of - Wakabayashi and Sons."
<Pose Tracker> Ren Amamiya has posed.
Ren's eyes soften. "Yeah. I'm glad she's okay." He glances down at the briefcase that Yusuke's carrying with him, and adds, "I heard your student council president saved her and is getting her moved into a new dorm. Seems like she's a very competent lady." He smiles. "Nice to know The Phantoms don't need to come to the rescue every single time, huh?"
If the Phantom Thieves weren't needed, it means there's still Justice in the world.
For now, though, he falls silent as he accepts the drawing pad, first nodding at Yusuke, then looking down at the pad. The green time... Ren knows perfectly well what Yusuke's talking about. When Yusuke gestures, he opens the pad up to the first drawing. It's an intriguing portrait. No, they're both interesting portraits--both these veiled, masked women. Ren flips back and forth between them, understanding even before Yusuke makes it plain: this is a Persona User and her Persona.
He looks back up at Yusuke. This was in Sumaru on he twelfth. "What were they doing there?" he wonders.
<Pose Tracker> Yusuke Kitagawa has posed.
"I don't know for sure. From what she was saying during the fight," so he fought her, "it seemed like it was some kind of heist. I checked the plaque on the building... Wakabayashi and Sons are a legal company. I couldn't find any information on what kind of case would prompt a raid on their offices during the Dark Hour."
There's another sketch in the pad: A heavy revolver of some kind. When Ren turns the page to it, Yusuke says "She called her Persona forth wholly unlike us - she would press that to her eye socket and call out before pulling the trigger." It's a grim image to describe that he has not, thankfully, rendered in pencil there.
"She dropped it during the fight, after being weakened... and one of the men she was working with forced it back into her hands and ordered her to clear them a path 'by any means necessary', even though she was struggling. It... felt wrong, to me, so I stepped back from the fight - I was worried they were going to force her to total exhaustion - or worse - to win it."
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<Pose Tracker> Ren Amamiya has posed.
A heist, huh. Ren looks thoughtful at first, but the news that Wakabayashi and Sons are a legal company gets him furrowing his eyebrows. "Weird place to do a heist on," he opines.
He turns the next page. There's a gun there--a really serious-looking one. When Yusuke explains the woman shot herself with it to summon her Persona, his jaw drops. "What?" How does that even *work*? Ren doesn't try to question Yusuke on that, since if he knows, he'll tell him, and if he doesn't, there's no point in badgering him about it. As his friend explains what happened next, though, he frowns.
"That sounds horrible," he says quietly. It sure sounds like that woman was being forced into being an accomplice. He suddenly doesn't have much of an appetite. "Did you catch anyone's names?"
<Pose Tracker> Yusuke Kitagawa has posed.
Yusuke shakes his head when Ren expresses alarm about his mysterious opponent shooting herself to summon her Persona. "When the fighting was over, I had to take a moment to process that, myself. It is... an alarming thing to consider as possible."
"The group kept their operational security well, I didn't learn any names. Ryuji could stand to take notes," he quips dryly. "I wish I had more to go on, but I thought it was important for us to be aware that... this was organised. There are people out there who not only know about the Dark Hour, but they can field Persona Users like... tools to exploit it and achieve their goals, without having to worry about leaving a trail of evidence that makes sense to the police. Coffins make for terrible security guards, after all."
<Pose Tracker> Ren Amamiya has posed.
Ren messes with a lock of his bangs as he thinks about using a gun to summon a Persona. It'd have to be a specialized gun that doesn't shoot bullets... right? It is alarming to consider, either way. "We'll have to keep an eye out for anyone else who summons like that."
No names, though. Ren smiles wryly at Yusuke's dunk on Ryuji. He's not wrong. That smile soon fades. Organized Persona crime. "Yeah," he murmurs, resting a hand on his chin as he looks back down at the drawings. "That's disturbing to think about."
He wonders if Akechi knows about this kind of crime. It probably doesn't matter if he does or not, he decides. It's not like he could denounce it on TV without looking like a conspiracy theorist.
"The other guys that lady was with--did they use guns to summon their Personas too, or were they more like us?" he asks.
<Pose Tracker> Yusuke Kitagawa has posed.
"Even if we don't have time to investigate it, considering our current mission... I think it's important for us to keep in mind. We should loop the others in on it, as well - and perhaps I should consider becoming the Phantoms' character sketch artist, in case I run into other interesting characters."
"The woman's accomplices seemed to be relying on her to provide supernatural muscle - they dressed in black suits with mirrored glasses, and I think they had radio earpieces." So MIBs, then. "They didn't bother to summon Personas of their own."
"However, I was not alone in fighting her." He motions to the pad again, and this time there are four other figures that feature in the book - a woman clad in riot gear including a shield, with a red oni mask (that he has added that familiar blue fire to), accompanied by a tetsubo-wielding Persona that Yusuke has calligraphed 'Momiji' next to. "The first girl has the same kind of power we do. The other one simply seemed able to call upon her Persona with no additional requirements."
The other pair are a black-haired, green-eyed woman wielding a staff, and her Persona is garbed in a black cloak, hood drawn back, holding a long ruler.
<Pose Tracker> Ren Amamiya has posed.
"Hmm. But if they were just normal people..." Ren's eyebrows furrow. No, even if they don't have Personas, they're not normal, are they? And it's not like he knows all the rules of that green time. Morgana knows a lot about various supernatural things, but a lot of his knowledge is punctuated with 'probably' and 'I think.' It's hard, having amnesia. There's lots of question marks there.
"That sounds like a good idea to me," he goes on. "You've already done some excellent work here. It should make it easy for the others to understand too."
But there's more, it sounds like. Ren flips to the next page and looks over the four figures--two more women and their accompanying Personas, it seems like. One is like them, and the other summoned with nothing extra... "That explains the lack of mask," he comments, looking between the two again. "Did you get a chance to talk to either of these two? Catch either of their names?"
<Pose Tracker> Yusuke Kitagawa has posed.
"We were a little caught up in the fight, and then afterwards we needed to get away quickly in case the men in black forced the fight to get worse," Yusuke admits. "Names would have been good, but the best I can do is identify their Personas. The older woman, however, seemed very familiar with the lack of functioning technology - she had a bicycle."
He taps his fingers thoughtfully on his knee. "At least since the girl with Momiji is like us, she'll be instantly recognisable in the right circumstance... And the woman had no disguise, but it would be... difficult to introduce ourselves to her, I think."
<Pose Tracker> Ren Amamiya has posed.
It makes sense. Ren nods once at Yusuke's explanation as he studies the drawing of the two Persona Users more. "Funny to think how many more Persona Users there must be out there," he murmurs. He sits up and flips to the next page if there is one; otherwise, he offers it back. "All we can do is see if we end up running into them again. If those people are local to Sumaru City, we might not."
But if they end up investigating the Joker Killer like they'd been about to do before Makoto presented them all with a mission... then maybe they'll run into them again. "Speaking of which, though, I ran into a couple of Persona Users in Mementos recently. They just seemed like they were exploring." Ren makes a face. "One of them was a cop, so I'm not eager to run into him again."
He stands up and heads to the shelves near the stairs, where he keeps the boxes of his clothes. There's something he's been keeping hidden behind there--a katana, it turns out. It's strangely designed and pitch black. "I got this while I was keeping an eye on them, though," he adds, and holds it out to Yusuke. "It's a Black Kogatana; I found it in Mementos with those guys I just mentioned. Igor told me if you get enough Tarot Cards, you can infuse a Persona into it. I figure a blade like this'd do you more good than it would me."
Certainly it would be easier for Yusuke to integrate it into his cognitive weapon type. Maybe that's why Ren's holding onto it like it's a normal blade.
<Pose Tracker> Yusuke Kitagawa has posed.
"It might still be worth occasionally visiting Sumaru," Yusuke ponders. "... The art scene there is certainly enough of a reason for me to make trips there, though I might draw the Student Council President's ire if I am late back too often."
Ren mentions other Persona Users in Mementos, and Yusuke seems surprised. "A police officer? Intriguing, though obviously not someone we can afford to encounter too frequently." Ren produces the katana, though, and Yusuke's eyes go wide. "My word. Such a pristine coating on the blade... Look at how it almost seems to drink in the light." He takes the weapon reverently. "... I suppose I shall need to make a stop at the Velvet Room on my way back to Iwatodai."
<Pose Tracker> Ren Amamiya has posed.
"Can't be having that," Ren says with a smile of Kirijo's ire. "Though if she ever goes off on you, I've got a friend who lives in the same dorm as her--Minako Arisato. She's the one who told me about Yamagishi-san. Maybe you can run to her for help." Ren already asked her to update Yusuke on Fuuka... though that was the last time they hung out over in Iwatodai and Port Island. Minako instead chose to come all the way to Tokyo to tell him in person about her...
But now it's Black Kogatana time. It *is* a beautiful blade in its own way. Ren watches him take it up as he slips his hands into his pockets. "I thought you'd like it," he says, pleased. "At least it's along the way, yeah?"
He heads back to his desk. "...But before you go, you may as well eat dinner with me."
Yusuke doesn't seem that starved right now, but Ren still doesn't want to risk him fainting on his way home.