2026-07-07: Study Check-In
- Log: Study Check-In
- Cast: Minato Arisato, Koh Katsuhiro
- Where: Iwatodai - Dorms
- OOC Date: 2026-07-07
- IC Date: Thu Dec 06 2012
- Summary: Minato and Koh study for finals, and Koh checks up on Minato after his experiences with Strega. Minato continues to not get it.
<Pose Tracker> Minato Arisato has posed.
Minato had to go to to Kirijo's endorsed hospital for one of those regular check-ups they get, recently; getting caught out in the Dark Hour and ending up in an unlikely teamup with the leader of Strega was more excitement than he usually gets up to alone. Now, luckily, he's safely back at the dorms...
... and he's brought Wild Duck takeout to set out on the table for a group studying session. Technically, the week before finals is next week, but how lucky do ya feel, punk?
Junpei doesn't feel very lucky, but that's why he's taken Koromaru for a walk. That, and because Koromaru kept trying to eat their burgers. Koro-chan, that's people food...! Right now, that leaves two other boys in the dorm -- Minato and Koh.
"So we carry the integer, and..." Minato pauses, frowning at his homework. "No... it's hopeless."
"I can't work another second without more fuel."
With that, he takes another burger from the crinkly pile of Wild Duck wrappers in the centre of the table.
<Pose Tracker> Koh Katsuhiro has posed.
Wild Duck is somewhere near the top of Koh's food pyramid, so the spread in the dorm would be enough to draw him out even with the repelling power that gathered textbooks, notes, and pencils exude.
He too has had his check-up by now, which mark the rare days that he isn't in a good mood. But, after whatever poking and prodding was done, he seems to be back to normal.
"Hmmm" He muses, cheek pressed to table and fry sticking out of the corner of his mouth. "It should be 6. Wait, was I looking at it upside down before?"
After a bit of scratching and consulting notes he laments, "We should have got the girls."
Which reminds him: "..But Aigis-san's test scores were pretty normal last time. Isn't she...a computer?"
<Pose Tracker> Minato Arisato has posed.
Careful, Koh... if you confess your love to Wild Duck, you'll turn into a speck of light and vanish. Q--quaaaaack!!!
"Six... nine... ninety six." Is that a joke? Is that Minato's idea of a joke?! "Hmm... maybe the point is to go three by three...?"
Minato recalls Aigis's test scores, tilting his head. "Aigis-san is a mechanical girl," he decides, after a moment's thought. Still a girl! Just, you know, there's no way he can pick her up. "But she must have learned things like we are now... it's not like she's connected to the web, or anything. So... maybe algebra just wasn't a priority for her where she went to school before this."
Minato thinks Aigis went to school before she came here! How optimistic.
<Pose Tracker> Koh Katsuhiro has posed.
Koh squints at the other boy. Is it a joke? Mysteries like this may never be answered.
"You think?" He asks. He seems doubtful about her attending other schools, but the rest makes more sense.
He rises from his slump, just to find another handful of fries to much on. For some reason his notes are greasy.
"I guess there's a drawback to having jets..." The only problem she has is having to go to school, obviously.
"Hm." His pencils wears thoughtfully on a redrawn number before he asks, "By the way. Are you okay? From that thing with Strega?"
<Pose Tracker> Minato Arisato has posed.
"I always wondered what happened if she got something stuck in them," Minato muses, on Aigis's jets, "but it feels impolite to ask." Chomp!
Then, he blinks, his impassive expression gaining a light shade of surprise as he looks from his burger (BORGOR --) to Koh. "...?" He asks, which is mostly just a grunt, because he caught him in that question while his mouth was full.
Chew, chew, swallow -- "haa," Minato breathes out, perhaps more because his eyes are bigger than his stomach than anything. (No, that's not true. Minato is a black hole of a boy. He can eat ANYTHING. Just -- maybe not all in one bite.) "I'm all right," he assures Koh, then. "It was strange, though... that man summoned his Persona in a way I've never seen before. It looked painful... it troubled me. But he was so powerful that even with that powerful Shadow attacking me... it didn't last long."
<Pose Tracker> Koh Katsuhiro has posed.
If the conversation hadn't wandered to important matters Koh would tell Minato what he wonders about Aigis. He'll probably have to tell Junpei. (It's her hair. Whose hair is on Aigis' head? Did she grow it!?)
"Painful?" He echoes. "But, he used an Evoker, right? Like ours?" While Koh doesn't clearly show how important such a question is, he does seem to have a more diliberate cadence than usual.
<Pose Tracker> Minato Arisato has posed.
Maybe she won it in glorious battle...
No, that's ridiculous, Minato.
Instead, Minato has something else strange to talk about. "No," he shakes his head. "He just... grasped his head and... rocked backwards. I've never seen a method like that before... I've read our reports about those people who use vials of something, and then there are people who have Persona Cards, and there's people who summon up butterflies and crush them? There was a man who summoned his Persona with nothing but a gesture, but..."
Minato pauses, his gaze growing distant. "That man... he called himself Hisataka Shinjo, but the adults called him Takahisa Kandori. His Persona was called 'Nyarlathotep'... and there was nothing in his eyes."
He's not being metaphorical.
"... so I can't think those two were doing the same thing."
<Pose Tracker> Koh Katsuhiro has posed.
"Nya." Koh muses. "Nyarlathotep." It doesn't mean anything to him, but it's hard to say.
Still, Minato describes both the man from Strega and others. There seems to be no shortage of Persona users. Even a bird. And a dog. How would the bird shoot himself anyway, if he could?
"Well. I'm glad they haven't been back." He settles on that. Strega remains, for now, a mystery.
Koh lets out a long sigh. Which comes to and end when he jams a burger in his mouth. After some gnashing he mumbles around burger bits, "I don't get whatever they're about. I mean, I have this power, but I don't feel powerful. Does that make sense?"
<Pose Tracker> Minato Arisato has posed.
"... oh, right," Minato remembers, a moment later. "And the Phantom Thieves tear masks from their faces to summon their Personas. I saw that when we were dealing with Kamiya-san's Palace." Eiji Kamiya was, of course, the terrible boy convicted of HUMAN TRAFFICKING, a few months ago.
"Nyarlathotep..." He echoes the word, again. Somehow, he's able to pronounce it perfectly well. Is that his true power as a Wild Card? "... I feel uneasy saying that word. Maybe I'd better not say it a third time."
Three times, and it's a summoning, after all.
Nomph, nomph, he chews on his borgor instead. Borgor... is happiness.
"I think... that man is disconnected," Minato says. "I asked him why he wasn't wearing a shirt... it's particularly strange in winter, right? But even in summer, it would be unusual... it would disrupt the social order. He thought it was a foolish question, so I think he didn't even think about those things... how it didn't fit the temperature... or polite society."
Minato frowns, as he finishes up his burger, and starts folding the paper it came in. Crinkle, crinkle...
"When he tried to get those people to kill themselves in Aoba Park... I was afraid. I'm not sure what possesed me to stop them like I did... but I was afraid they wouldn't listen to me. I didn't feel very powerful, then."
Minato smooths out the crinkly paper, and folds it over itself. Fold, fold... "... so," he adds, "I think that makes sense to me. Maybe there's a difference between strength and power?"
<Pose Tracker> Koh Katsuhiro has posed.
"I've heard rumors about them." Koh replies of the Phantom Thieves. Even outside of Sumaru rumors are easy to find.
Koh takes another bite of his burger before carefully setting it aside.
"I didn't see him," Koh notes, "When they came to the dorm. I heard he shot the TV, but I only saw the glasses guy and, you know," He hesitates, the memory still unpleasant despite the thing it's attached to gone(?). "The Joker Killer."
But Minato's suggestion makes sense. "Yeah. That sounds like it's from one of Ono-sensai's samurai books. But, I mean, not in a bad way."
Koh leans forward, balancing elbow on the table and his chin in his palm. "Aha, I got talking about something depressing. Sorry, we should be working on this."
By this he means the rest of the Wild Duck.
<Pose Tracker> Minato Arisato has posed.
"They want to meet with us," Minato mentions -- reminds? -- Koh. (It's no doubt posted up somewhere, though Minato reminds himself to check.) "It's been arranged for Saturday... so that's why we can't go to Tartarus that night." Because the meeting is in the Dark Hour.
Minato frowns. "The Joker Killer... he cursed Sumaru, I think. Since he said the Joker wouldn't die, when he died... and now people who rang their own phone number are turning into monsters." Minato hangs out on the Dark Side of Sumaru sometimes, of course; he's online, like that. "But... Takaya Sakaki... you'll know him when you see him."
Beat. "Since he doesn't wear a shirt."
Does Minato not feel how menacing Takaya is, that he'd fixate on the shirt?!
"I guess it is kind of like those old samurai..." Minato takes a breath. "Oh, yeah... we'd better revise history, too."
His gaze drops to the borgors.
"Maybe after we replenish more HP..."
Somehow, despite their bottomless stomachs, they might still manage to eke out a note of academic progress.
<Pose Tracker> Koh Katsuhiro has posed.
Koh's head tilts slowly toward SEES co-leader.
"Right. No Tartarus." Now he's wondering if Minato thinks he'd have been disappointed.
A sigh. "Okay. Back to it." And the work continues.