2025-08-19: Hell Is Just A Place We Visit
- Log: Hell Is Just A Place We Visit
- Cast: Hazuki Nakao, Suzume Fukura
- Where: Gigolo Arcade, Akihabara, Tokyo
- OOC Date: August 19, 2025
- IC Date: June 28, 2012
- Summary: Suzume finds Hazuki at the arcade. While talking, they resonate, and end up shifting discussion to the shadowy secrets of the world.
<Pose Tracker> Hazuki Nakao has posed.
Gigolo Arcade is having a slow Thursday afternoon, but that doesn't mean Hazuki Nakao didn't return to it after her talk with Tyler helped calm her down yesterday. Now knowing more about the horrors of the world and having a word for what she did, 'Persona', she can start to return to normal.
Until she slays that Homunculus, at least.
Hazuki Nakao is playing one of the shooter games this time, instead of her usual Night Parade. She's hoping to test her reflexes a bit, see if she now has godly superpowers. She does not, but her aim is still pretty good, due to being an experienced gamer.
No one's with or around her, everyone at the crane games or the fighting cabinets. She's in her usual hat and jacket, and has a gloomy face on, despite how she's casually shooting bad guys without missing. She's got a water bottle next to her bag, which she picks up between rounds to sip at.
<Pose Tracker> Suzume Fukura has posed.
Suzume needs to take some time for herself. Between Everything that's going on (and boy there sure is a lot of Everything) she's had more to do during the last month than the rest of the year, so far. Though really, it was always there and she just didn't know about it to care.
And when Suzume needs some alone time, she tends to find something to do. Sometimes it's running; she times herself. She's kind of fallen out of that a bit lately, but wants to get back into it. These days she's been working out to try to figure out how to use her tonfa properly. And sometimes...
Sometimes it's video games.
Suzume has actually been here a while but she has been in a different part of the arcade. There's more than just Gun About even if it's a popular draw these days, set so that you can watch people play at the big prestige cabinet.
Which is actually how she noticed Hazuki without being spotted herself. It's harder for Hazuki to look away from the game, while easy for Suzume to spot her, watch for a couple minutes without being noticed, and then make up her mind that yeah, maybe today wasn't going to be *all* video games.
And now...
A voice Hazuki might be vaguely familiar with sounds as Suzume steps up. She's wearing her comfortable jeans and a short-sleeved shirt a little big for her; it's not quite as unfashionably baggy as some of hers but it's definitely loose enough that she feels like she's hiding in it a little, which she likes.
"You mind a second?" Suzume asks. "Don't worry. I won't slow your game down."
<Pose Tracker> Hazuki Nakao has posed.
It's luckily between rounds when Suzume approaches, so Hazuki doesn't freak out from a scare. She removes the bottle from her lips, placing the other girl in memory. "Oh... hello. Yeah, jump in.
She puts the bottle back down to grab the player one gun before the round timer runs out. "You play often?"
She remembers Suzume was passionate about Night Parade... perhaps she's also passionate about shooters?
Hazuki is pretty good. Not pro level, but that's because she put THOSE points into fighters. "Sorry about that incident again, by the way..."
<Pose Tracker> Suzume Fukura has posed.
Suzume sets her backpack down at her feet (she had to bring it; it has her Evoker in it) and feeds a couple coins into the slot. Gun About's a big cabinet. They charge you more than 100Y to play it. She picks up the second gun a moment later, judging its weight as the round starts and she prepares to join in.
With two players, there are more enemies on screen, but Suzume lives up to her promise. She's not perfect - nobody who doesn't have the whole game memorized will be perfect, they're designed to catch you by surprise, and Suzume has not put that many hours into Gun About - but she's well above average. Even though, like Hazuki, this isn't her best style of game. It's a long way from her worst though.
(That's puzzle games. She doesn't have the patience to think everything through before she starts to act.)
"I play sometimes," Suzume says. "Sometimes you just wanna shoot everything that moves." It certainly helps *her* on a bad day. But... If she could take her eyes off the game for more than a couple seconds, she would have side-eyed Hazuki for that.
"Don't think it was your fault," she says. With the Homonculus... Not that she can say that directly in front of Hazuki, who wouldn't know about it. She scowls, momentarily. "Trust me, it *really* wasn't."
<Pose Tracker> Hazuki Nakao has posed.
As they begin playing, they're doing pretty well. Not perfectly, but, Hazuki nods to 'shoot everything that moves'. "Yeah... it's been rough the last few days. The world's really crazy..." Hazuki says, as she gets another shot down.
Though as Suzume says it wasn't her fault, she frowns, but... "Yeah, I know that now." Now? What does that mean?
It's the 'trust me' that gets Hazuki to quirk an eyebrow. She starts to speak, but stops. It's this motion that sets it off.
Resonance. Hazuki has it, and when she starts thinking about everything that's happened, it flares up. Radiant emotions, like a flashlight shined in your heart without being blinding. She has no filter, and can't really control it... the person she is happens to be someone who is loud and proud on the inside.
This can mean only one thing.
"...but I still want to help him."
<Pose Tracker> Suzume Fukura has posed.
"You don't know the half of it." Suzume lets out a puff of air. Well, at least it sounds like Hazuki is doing better than she was; that's one thing off Suzume's mind, because prickly as she is she was feeling a little bit ...
Worried isn't the right word. Concerned? Thoughtful? Suzume, thinking about someone who isn't her? (She does it more often than you'd think. Don't tell anyone.)
But -
The resonance hits. Suzume has only had this happen a few times to her when she's not actively summoning her Persona, which is a whole different feeling. At first she's not sure what it is, but when it flares, it's different. Suzume feels the light, but also like she's being looked at in a way she's not quite sure she likes. She hunches in, almost reflexively.
But Hazuki can feel her too, however faintly. A feeling of speed, of action, of being challenged and *winning*... it's the vibe she puts out anyway, especially in a situation like this, where she's competing. Just more, for a moment.
It breaks, suddenly, as Suzume takes a hit in Gun About, and then a second before she gets her gun back into place. She's startled more than anything else... and faintly uncomfortable with the sensation, which she felt as scrutiny.
"Shit!" Suzume tries to recover her Gun About credit, holding on by the skin of her teeth. She doesn't speak again for a few moments, when she's pretty sure she's not about to crash out: "So it's like that, huh. I didn't know you... knew."
"...So why the hell are you apologizing then? It's not your fault and you're going to help him." Apparently. "...you know, you're not the only person that is trying, either."
<Pose Tracker> Hazuki Nakao has posed.
As the resonance trades, that burst of winning, Hazuki blinks owlishly. She's staring around, like she literally *does not* know what just happened. "Are you okay?!" she asks Suzume, unsure what just happened, and then when she curses, Hazuki recoils slightly. ...even so, she has not, in fact, lost her credit, though she is shooting more wildly.
"...sorry," she responds about apologizing. "Knew... does that mean you know, too? My friend said there's a few people, and even a group he's part of..." She's vague in case she's wrong, but...
"...yeah. But... it feels like my responsibility. I made that... thing so upset, but it's been wearing his face. Maybe it's just playing off his real feelings..." A pause.
"It's... only been a few days. Since things got weird. Do you, uh, have one too? A..." Pause.
"Wow this is actually really hard to talk about." Hazuki is frowning again. "It's so scary, though... talking is the only thing that makes it make sense."
<Pose Tracker> Suzume Fukura has posed.
"I'm fine," Suzume hastily replies, though given she's the kind of person to say she's fine under pretty much any circumstance that might not mean a whole lot. She is, though.
Suzume doesn't really recover her mental poise until after the stage is over, when she actually has a moment to breathe and takes it. "I hate walking away from a credit," she says, lowering her voice, "but if you wanna talk about it, there's probably easier places."
...
"Yeah, I know," she confirms, anyway. "And yeah, I have one." A beat: "Not a doppleganger. I don't have one of those, I hope." If she does she's certainly never seen it - but would she see it? Suzume thinks to herself. Kind of the whole point is that you don't, unless it steals you away or whatever...
"It's only been, like. A month for me. Less. But I didn't find out the same way." Suzume also says nothing about the possibility of a group, but... "Who's your friend? Please don't say Takeba, I don't know why she was at the arcade but if that's why I don't know if I could handle it."
<Pose Tracker> Hazuki Nakao has posed.
"Okay," Hazuki nods about being fine. She lies too, so. "...up to you. We can keep shooting, or we can head out for some air," Hazuki offers. She's the one with the information, she doesn't need to decide herself!
"No, uh, I think the doppelgangers are bad. ...do you have a cool outfit, too?" Wait, what? Hazuki sparkles again at this, because TYLER DIDN'T.
Speaking of which... "Oh, uh. If you can keep a secret... his name is Tyler. I don't really know a Takeba... he told me about a secret hour at midnight and all sorts of things like coffins... I haven't left my room during it, so I didn't know about anything but the power outage..."
<Pose Tracker> Suzume Fukura has posed.
Sometimes the best thing to do is lie. ...probably not, honestly.
"Let's get some air," Suzume decides after a few moments. Though she's definitely going to deliberately kill her credit instead of walking away and leaving it open for someone else. Why? Well, in case she makes the high score table of course!
(She does not; she hasn't been playing long enough on this credit, only a couple rounds. Hazuki might if she's been there long enough, though.)
A cool outfit? "No," she grumbles. "I have to wear my gym clothes or something, I feel like an idiot going out in my school uniform." She could just wear the jeans, she supposes, but then she's not a 'team player' or something...
"Wait, Tyler? *Gould-san*?" Suzume knows him, clearly. "That - " She doesn't call him a weirdo but only by biting it back at the last moment. He *is* a weirdo, and coming from someone who also doesn't fit in, that means something. "That - *goth*?" He's not much into the goth outfits, but what does Suzume know about outfits? Not a whole lot. Mostly he just wears black and hangs out at graveyards, which counts by Suzume's standards.
"...the secret hour's real, though. With the coffins. Stay inside if you can." But sometimes, of course, you can't.
<Pose Tracker> Hazuki Nakao has posed.
As the credit is killed, Hazuki, who did not quite get a high score, goes outside with Suzume. As they talk...
"Oh... I have like, this magical girl outfit? Big wing pauldron. It's... weird. And my hair and eye colors changed, too..." A pause. "Is that just me and some others, then...?"
As they get to a quiet spot... "Oh, yeah! He's been really nice... told me about the American demons and ghosts and such. It makes sense... the other lady inside the carnival told me that there's sharknadoes in Beirut, so lots of dangerous things really exist." Hazuki, that was a figure of speech. "He helped a lot... I'm very thankful for him."
Though, about staying inside... "Are there... Shadows out there? Nakata's Atelier had them too, but..." Wait, is she just dropping nouns without explaining? (Sure is.)
<Pose Tracker> Suzume Fukura has posed.
A magical girl outfit...
Suzume makes a face. Honestly, she's kind of glad she DOESN'T have something like that, because she can't imagine herself in one. All frills and apparently big pauldrons, too. Well, maybe the big pauldron wouldn't be so bad. It can't be worse than buying armour from the police station.
Which she's not telling Hazuki about because, well. Legality.
"Sharknado, huh?" Unfortunately, that movie hasn't come out yet, but rest assured Suzume will have additional things to say about that *next* year. "If there's ghosts in America, I don't know about them. Never been." Her English isn't that good.
Suzume shoves her hands in her pockets for something to do with them. Her backpack threatens to slip the way she carries it (over just one shoulder) but never quite does. "Yeah," she says. "There's Shadows. They're not real powerful, usually - not the ones just in the street, they're pretty rare. But sometimes they move in groups. They're worse in Port Island, because we have a hell tower there that's full of them." A beat, as she thinks about it: "They might be bad here near the trains. There's a hell subway too."
Great.
"What's an Atelier?" Suzume struggles with the pronunciation even though she just heard it. She does not speak a word of French.
<Pose Tracker> Hazuki Nakao has posed.
"Sharknado! Whatever that means," Hazuki says. But as Suzume talks about... the hell tower... and the hell subway... Hazuki frowns. "...are we just in Hell?" She thought it before. It's coming up again as an option.
Though, Suzume asks about the Atelier, and Hazuki thinks. "Hell... carnival. For the one that belongs to Nakata-kun, I guess. I don't know much, this talking pig Shadow, Roger, told me that the Homunculus took over? So it must be a good thing that got corrupted... Roger was pretty nice. I'm going back there to save him, and Nakata, and... find out more." A pause. "Once I figure out how. I need to 'bring the thread to the eye', whatever that means..."
<Pose Tracker> Suzume Fukura has posed.
Suzume helps herself to a seat. Fun fact: there are benches in here! It also means she can dig around in her backpack, until...!
A bottle of water. Sorry, Hazuki, she can't easily share this one.
She lets out a snort through her nose while she opens her bottle. "I don't think we're in Hell but I'm not convinced we don't visit," she says. "But I just call them that because they've got monsters in them. They're more like..." Well, she can probably be nerdy *at an arcade*. "They're dungeons," she says. "They have treasure and random encounters. And they're dangerous, so maybe don't go in by yourself."
Hell carnival...
"Huh." Suzume is thinking hard about that. "Who's Roger-san?" That could be anybody! "And how'd you get in? Tartarus you can just walk into. Mementos is a little harder. That's how I started... this," she says, gesturing with one arm. "I did the Mementos dare. It's real. I only barely got out, and with help. But I've never heard of anything like this."
"...Good luck," she says. Suzume will never tell anyone not to do this; she understands the desire to help people, to do something good. "Just watch your back. Shadows are mean."
<Pose Tracker> Hazuki Nakao has posed.
Hazuki has her own water bottle! She'll also take a seat. "Dungeons... gotcha. So you need a party..." Who can she ask for help, though? If she can't even get anyone in.
"Roger's a talking pig shadow! A Humor, they're apparently called. Very friendly..." She seems to be fond of him. "He just wanted to play games and protect me..."
However, as Hazuki is asked how she got in... "Well, I was, uh, outside Nakata's school to try and get him to talk to me, just holding my baseball bat, and I got pulled into some dimension. I don't know why. But I don't think I could do it again like that, based off what Roger said..."
The good luck gets a smile. "I know. This isn't going to be easy. ...but good deeds rarely are."
<Pose Tracker> Suzume Fukura has posed.
Roger's a Shadow.
Suzume inhales some of her water by mistake.
She spends a few moments coughing to try to get it out of the wrong pipe, though she waves off any attempts to help her - she'll be fine, she just needs a moment.
"Shadows TALK?" she hisses, once she's recovered enough that she can make words again. "The only talking Shadows I've seen were in Mementos, and they said - they said - " Oh no, she's thinking about the Pixies again. "They wanted to see what my blood looked like. You can't trust something like that..."
Suzume looks straight at Hazuki. "I know that sometimes you gotta do something. You can't leave it to someone else. You have to handle it yourself. But... be careful. And if you need to talk to someone who knows shit..." Crap, who can she even say? "...well. Ask, I guess."
<Pose Tracker> Hazuki Nakao has posed.
"Oh, don't worry, he's one of the good ones," Hazuki insists. "He... almost got hurt trying to protect me from bad ones. So I trust him." Though, trying to see what her blood looks like?! Weird...
As Suzume says to ask if she needs help... "I will. Here, let me... did I ever get your name officially? I don't think we introduced, though they said our names when we played... Hazuki Nakao." A pause. "We can exchange numbers, if you want. Just in case something comes up..."
"This world will feel too dangerous otherwise."
<Pose Tracker> Suzume Fukura has posed.
"One of the good ones," Suzume says, with some disbelief. "Just don't get yourself eaten. Or whatever."
Suzume considers that for a moment.
"OK," she eventually agrees. "Suzume Fukura. Nice to meet you." She has an old flip phone which she pulls out - she's a couple years behind, and while she's saving for a new one, she's not quite there yet. "Hell, even if you just want a game. Some days I really need to blow off steam."
Though let's be honest. Suzume is perfectly capable of getting steamed at competition, too. But she's the sort of person who blames herself, not her opponent.
<Pose Tracker> Hazuki Nakao has posed.
Hazuki has a smart phone, and exchanges numbers. "Sure, I'd love to have another gaming buddy. Thanks, uh..." Honorifics, honorifics. Every time she gets close she find someone who lets her first name yobisute and then she forgets. "Fukura-san."
She stretches, then. "I think I'm a bit tired out about talking this stuff, though... let's game!"