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07/03 Hatching Day

Those groups who have seen their flour sack baby's survival through the end of the fourth week will be rewarded with 50 merit points each and full marks on their project. After class ends, if the sacks are taken outside of the classroom, the seams begin to tear... a little hand pokes out, wet with blood and flour slurry, and a new life is born into the world. Cooing, the baby reaches out to touch its parents' face: it wants its mother's eyes, its father's nose...

If any part of a character's face is touched by the baby, they will lose the sense corresponding to the facial feature for one full week (eyes = sight, mouth = taste, skin = touch, etc), and it is possible to lose more than one sense. The babies' preferred food is flesh and blood, and they are always hungry. Please report in the toplevel below if they are killed at any time, otherwise they can be found scurrying around the school snapping at people's ankles tracking glitter footprints everywhere after a semi-successful attempt at licking the shiny off the bulletin board.

07/03 Grand Opening

At the end of classes, the students who haven't been mauled to death by their children pour from their classrooms into the hallway to go home for the weekend, although more than one pause in confusion before realizing that it's quiet. There is no hammering, no sawing, no screaming that'd been background noise for the past month due to the construction of the elevator, and the doors to the central stairwell have been replaced with sliding elevator doors. The light at the very top indicates that the car is currently on the ground floor...

Gundham Tanaka and Shuichi Saihara press the button to the elevator on the ground floor, located next to the main entrance, and the double doors silently slide open to reveal a metal room with single blue wooden chair at the center of the car with a person sitting upon it, turned around so the back is facing the door. There is blood splattered all over the walls, and on the opposite wall from the door, scrawled in rust red blood below the clock, are the words:
this is
hopE
is ugly
Please use the toplevel below to investigate the body and the crime scene.

07/03 Grand Re-opening

If you haven't been scared off from using the elevator yet... it does work as normal, providing a swift and smooth ride from one floor to another, provided that you only touch the buttons indicating the first four floors. There are others, mostly white but some black and one red, with the white buttons numbering -6 to 27, out of order and occasionally skipping numbers. Most of the other buttons still don't seem to work, with the black buttons causing the car to shudder but otherwise not move, but the red one...

Pressing the red button causes the car to plummet, the free fall lasting a full minute before it gradually and safely slows to a stop so its passengers don't get turned into pancakes. The door opens, allowing its passengers to step out and find themselves... home. In a sense.

The world outside is a bad end version of the character's canon from the perspective of your character, for example Dangans in the middle of the Ultimate Hunt, or Personas where Apathy Syndrome had fully taken hold of the world. Any familiar face is rendered obscured, their voice unintelligible, and they act as if they do not recognize the character, passing through them like shadow students in the void. The space is limited to the size of a building or street, with an invisible boundary preventing characters from progressing any further, but characters are welcome to stay as long as they like, with the elevator waiting patiently where they left it. Returning to the elevator and pressing one of the buttons to the first four floors will return the character back to the school.

The clock on the back wall ticks backwards.

OOC

✽ This month, characters in homerooms 1-A, 1-B, 1-D, 2-C, 2-D, 2-E, 3-D (those who rose 10+ ranks in the past month) will find that the water looks... clear. It smells and tastes fresh, whether from the sink or the water fountains or bottled in the vending machine. The same water will still appear slightly tinged pink to other characters.
✽ Characters in homerooms 1-B, 1-D, and 2-C (the top three classes) will find that they can open the front doors, and this month, they can step through. A single step. And then they meet the barrier again, but that's progress. In this space outside the door, the air is cool, fresh and invigorating.
✽ Regardless of whether a character was able to enter the courtyard in previous months, for the month of July, only characters who have committed at least one murder can freely open and exit through windows and the door to the courtyard from the locker area, although they are still limited to the courtyard. These murders include ones that have occurred in the game so far, as well as those OOCly assumed from tally marks stated in the app acceptance. Even if your character would never kill on purpose!! sometimes... things happen...
✽ The red button in the elevator allows characters to visit a bad end version of their canon world. ICly, if more than one character is in the elevator at the time, it is random as to which canon world exists outside the doors. If more than one character exits the elevator but leave a character behind, the character left behind will NOT be able to return to the school UNLESS they have castmates that would take the elevator back down again. Otherwise, there is no way to return once the doors are closed, and this will effectively count as a permadeath and drop from the game.
✽ As a reminder, finals are July 15-20. Summer vacation is July 21-August 29, during which the school is closed and club resources are not replenished. The full moon is on July 24.

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[ He doesn't understand what's going on, but he almost never does anyways. It's easier to accept than to question, to go with the flow than against it, to let himself drown in the stirring in his heart than to put a name to the emotion.

His hands slide into the warmth of his pockets, fingers trailing over the ridges of a key that shouldn't exist. It glows bright in his hand when he pulls it out but— he stops there, unsure where to use it. His room? The rooftop? There are too many locked doors in this dorm.

Is she going to make him walk all the way back to the mall... ]

( (opens the wiki to check something) Yes, if the key isn't going to spontaneously open any other door and turn it into the Velvet Room.

She's glad to see he still has it — that despite his decision, despite his desire to do nothing but sleep and let things happen rather than fight against them, he's still held onto the key that allows him to change fate. )

Wonderful. ( A mysterious smile, but she's so... elated? excited? apprehensive still, to see what his room would look like? Is the elevator ascending, or has it stopped... Is it dark, ruined, empty? She lays her other hand over his and his shining key. ) There are two ways into the Velvet Room... Three, if we count sleep, but I could hardly accompany you in such a state. I don't require it, after all.

( ... )

But that's only if that's what you wish. ( If he wants to remember; if he wants to turn the key, if he wants to understand exactly who is in front of him, the weight of the circumstances of the world at this moment. Her voice has a quality of sadness to it; she couldn't keep it out if she tried. ) Though it would make me rather happy for you to do so, as selfish as that is... It is still, as always, your choice.

It has ever been your choice.

[ It's your choice, she says, but the moment another person's happiness comes into play it stops being his choice, the knowledge that this would make somebody happy— somebody he doesn't know, somebody he wants to know, somebody he doesn't need to know or make happy but he wants and that want is his selfishness. The desire to meet, to connect, to improve the lives around him in any way that he can.

The words fall from his lips like nails on a chalkboard, but he take a step closer, places a hand over his hand and not feeling the one that should be between. ]

( He is, after all, her guest.

They'll have to work on the talking bit at some point — is it from disuse? She will talk to him every day, every hour, if it helps him talk in that quiet way he once did. Not so many words, but much more than now. )

While we're here... Please, go ahead and try it on any door you'd like. ( She doesn't step away the whole way; selfishly, she stays close enough to have her hand at his elbow. If only she had the power to create doors herself, but even that is beyond her abilities. ) If it should prove a fruitless endeavor, we'll traverse to one of the other entrances. Thanatos can carry us. Presumably.

( Thanatos is being voluntold into this, but he isn't voicing a complaint. He's a good boy. )

[ Thanatos. A shiver runs down his spine at the name, but he can't tell whether it's from anticipation or something else. It wouldn't be the first time he's found himself at death's door, but he would have to find it, first.

Maybe it's a good thing that they're on the boy's floor and not the girls, because he balks a little at Yukari or Mitsuru walking in on him jiggling their doorknobs like a little creep. He hesitates to try the doors here on this floor too, though, because it's not as if he were close enough to most people living here to have some plausible excuse, even if it's Junpei who would ask him "What the fuck, bro?" and Minato wouldn't have an answer.

So in the end, it's his own room that he walks towards, sliding the key into the keyhole and it catches halfway through, not fitting. It doesn't come out, either. It's stuck... Frowning slightly, he jiggles the doorknob to see if he can nudge it out from the other side, and the handle turns completely— he hadn't locked it, when he left, which doesn't matter because the room is as bare as Elizabeth last remembers it if she follows behind him: a laptop sits on the desk, empty trashcan at the side. The bed is neatly made, and a book or two sits on the shelf at the headboard, collecting dust. Presumably, there is a closet with some clothes, and that's all he has to his name. He tries the key on this closet, knowing it won't fit. ]

( Thanatos it is.

Thanatos, who has followed them down the hall and stands in the doorway — menacingly, but Minato can't see him, so that's fine. Elizabeth glances around the room, gaze flicking away very quickly from the bed at the thought of her last time spent here. When he tries the key on his closet door too, and it doesn't work... it isn't unsurprising, and yet she finds herself disappointed. Nothing worth anything is without some type of hardship though.

She moves to the window to peer out at the moon; maybe with one thing happening, she'll see the other, too. It does seem a little closer, or maybe her eyes are only playing tricks on her...

Elizabeth finds the lock and pulls open the window anyway, wincing a little at the noise. Thanatos disappears when she unsummons him, but reappears just as quick on the other side once she calls for him again. Does this area even stretch that far? If not, perhaps they'll just have to see if the elevator she came down on will suffice; and if not that, then little trips to a possibility she thought she would have never beheld until her time here until they strike upon something close enough to one...

And what then?

Well. Cross that bridge when they burn it, or however that saying goes. )

Minato. Come to the window, if you would.

[ Minato pulls his head out of the closet at the sound of his window sliding open, frozen in place and staring until Elizabeth speaks up.

Without pause, he walks over to the foot of his bed, feeling the breeze from the window brush his bangs off his face, breathing in the smell of car exhaust from the street below.

Come to the window.

Something about death's door.

If somebody tells you to jump, will you jump? That's not what she said, but he places a foot on the sill, and then the other, leaning out to face the night outside.

He tips forward, and lets go. ]

( The Persona is there to catch him; Elizabeth, full of alarm, is also there to grab— his calf, as it turns out, half-leaning out of the window with both hands around it. Please let Thanatos catching him in his big strong Persona arms have worked because Elizabeth is only hardy right now.

She can't even speak — once again, not sure what she expected, but it isn't this, it would never be this, not in a million years. )

[ In a world of which this school shows her, should she be surprised to find her guest miserable and careless with his life? Full of trust as he is, unthinking as he is, he lets himself be caught by the ankle, jerking to a stop before the rest of his body turns around and lifts upright.

He stares back at the window, expressionless, sees nobody there.

But the key is still clutched tight in his hand, and he hasn't let go. ]

( ...Thank goodness.

She climbs out the rest of the way, waiting for her Persona to shift Minato to a more comfortable holding position so he can accommodate her too, and she

hugs him. He can't see her, and he can't hug her back, but she does it anyway; she pulls away, glad for her invisibility to him. It was most forward of her, and her cheeks are warm due to it. )

...We'll be heading to the mall shortly, so please keep your hands and feet tucked in on the way. ( Voice slightly trembling, but otherwise even. Yes, this world is terrible and cruel and she should have expected it, when the worst thing for her is losing Minato and not being able to gain him back — when death would do that with utmost permanence, when at least if he's sealed there is some small hope she can eradicate the reason for his sacrifice

or come to terms with it, as goes the journey, but she hardly thinks of that possibility now. She won't. Other Persona users have performed miracles — she is set on doing the same, no matter what it takes. ) I'm afraid our tour will be rather quiet. I'm quite unfamiliar with this area, you see.

( ...Thanatos gently floats down closer to street-level — not quite on it, but close enough that if anyone slips, they'll just get some bruises and scrapes — and silently moves through the streets. Elizabeth is unfamiliar with the area, but she does know the route they took to and from his dormitory; she remembers that, and that's the way she goes. )

[ Breathing out, Minato settles back into the hug, feeling the warmth and then the cool air from travel and they cancel each other out, especially as he starts to lean over not unlike a cat who is physically incapable of being held. But in Minato's case it's because he's looking at the ground at some marvel at being flown— the change in perspective, a single inch or two higher than he's used to, makes everything new again, and his gaze drinks in everything that they pass: the overflowing trashcans, graffiti scrawled all over the walls, cigarette butts tossed carelessly onto the ground, a stray dog that growls at them as they pass. The things that he loves about this city, thing things people close their eyes to but they're things that are left behind once everybody has gone home and left— they're signs of life, things he loves and things he hopes whoever is flying with him will see and notice too—-

And then their trip abruptly ends. Thanatos and Liz are met by an invisible wall, while Minato tumbles out of their arms and onto the ground, rolling over twice before coming to a stop. His eyes are open, dazed, but he doesn't get up. They've only made it as far as the end of the block, no further. The key remains clutched tight in his hand and although the sound that spills from Minato's mouth is of gravel crunched underfoot, his lips repeat to nobody: "The mall..."

The moon is full overhead. It starts to split. ]

( Even if he can't see her, she can see him; the way he looks at even the simplest of things makes her chest fill with warm air, reminds her of herself in no small way. How often she had (and still does, sometimes) look at the world with such awe, though the reasons for their similar feelings are different...

She rocks at the stop, Thanatos making a half-aggravated noise that sounds not unlike Minato's own attempts at speech, and looks down first to check on her guest, then slides out of her Persona's arms to look over him proper—

ah, the wall. She presses her hand to it, then pounds her palm against it. How awful — a wall even she can't pass through, not like the barriers the holder of that Grand-Prix had supposedly erected. Thanatos, too, strikes against the barrier, to no avail. )

Minato— ( She hopes he can hear her. A little louder, anyway: ) Minato, please stand up. We—

( And then she sees the moon, and she thinks: We've overstayed our welcome.

Firmer: ) We must leave at once.

( If she has to choose.

If she has to choose.

She's going to choose him. The rest can come later; it's more important that he's with her, and maybe this isn't what she should be doing, maybe she should just leave him to his fate, but it doesn't matter, does it? This is what she's deciding right now. )

[ It doesn't have to be him. He's not even her Minato, the Minato she grew to admire, the Minato who saved the world. Instead, he's the boy who tasted happiness for the first time in his life and wanted to do whatever he could to preserve it. He's the boy who chose happiness over futility, who wanted a good life not a long one. The boy who had so little and clung so tight to whatever he had left.

Right now, all he has is a voice, telling him to stand and so he stands.

But it doesn't have to be him.

She could leave and come back and find another him— another Minato closer to the one that she knows. Perhaps she'll find him in the sky, struggling to his feet and surrounded by futility. Perhaps she'll find him on top of Tartarus, defying Death again and again and again. Perhaps she'll find him gored through the chest in the depths of that tower, or staring down the barrel of a gun in the hands of somebody who believes death is salvation, or at the scene of a car accident where he doesn't get back up, it doesn't have to be him.

He stumbles forward through the barrier, reaching for a hand he can't see but knows. It doesn't have to be him, but... ]

( The answer is so simple to her.

To her, Minato Arisato is Minato Arisato, no matter what world he might be from. The Velvet Room has many doors, many realities; it doesn't care for logic, for time, for space. There is something undeniably him in every iteration. The only difference between the Minato who tasted happiness here and wanted to hold onto it, and the one who gave his life up for it, is just that. In the end, both of them desired something similar.

And more selfishly: she cannot just see him and then leave him to die. She'll rescue her own Minato in time, and if she comes back here and sees another Minato — she'll rescue him, too. A whole school of Minatos, but she can't just...

Elizabeth takes his outstretched hand and pulls him towards her, though she keeps moving with the motion — she takes Thanatos's with her other and lets him pull the two of them back up, her grip tight on Minato's. )

Thank you for returning to me. ( Even when he can't see her, when he just has to blindly trust her... Trust that someone is going to be there. ) Things may get a little rocky from here on, but worry not.

( ...Up they go to the same height as before, heading back to the elevator; not quite the one she'd hoped for in the end, but the one that's necessary. )

[ A whole school of Minatos, as if I wouldn't play each and every one, I already have two accounts. But she might never get another chance like this, the world being what it is— this world being what it is, so determined to never let them reach a safe harbor that the sky cracks open and goes dark even as they flee, Minato forgetting he's being carried and trying to stand, his hand going for an empty spot on his best and closing over nothing.

The elevator waits up ahead, doors wide open.

If I had the strength, I would have had Liz have to save him from a thousand deaths before she finally gets her way, but the great thing about being alive is that there are an infinite number of deaths to look forward to in the future. ]

( I knew it, I knew in my heart you were only letting this happen to murder him. Also I started this tag and then immediately started my rewatch of MLP and that's why this is so belated i am so sorry

Into it they go, darkness rushing after them; she turns and kicks the button to close the doors, and there is just ... a moment, a moment for her to take a small breath, to take Minato's jacket and hold onto it.

Thanatos, helpfully, presses the ground floor's button on the elevator ... number pad... whatever thing for her. )

[ Will Minato ever see the end of graduation day let's find out

The elevator doors slide shut and they begin their slow ascend up, and if Minato looks shaken, it doesn't matter, because he sees the clock on the wall and feels the pressure on his body as the car rises and sees the blue chair in the middle of the room and goes to sit on it, slow enough that he doesn't tear his jacket out of Elizabeth's grasp. It's a tiny chair, and he sits on exactly half of it and leans his weight on that leg that's off the chair. In case Elizabeth also wants to sit, or something. ]

( STOP LET HIM GRADUATE AT LEAST ONCE he deserves it

That's cute... but her place isn't to sit in the chair, but to stand by it, so she follows him and does just that, moving her hands to rest on his shoulders. The familiar ticking of the clock... the weightlessness the elevator provides... Thanatos disappears as she bids him to silently, so as not to spook any students they might encounter once they're out. )

...The school we're about to attend is much different than the one you're used to, but no harm will come to you. ( A little smile. ) I promise.

( She'll do everything in her power to make certain of that, even if it means... )

On a more light-hearted note ( c: ) we're having a fundraiser with a host club and maid cafe very soon. Please attend should you feel up to it... I'll be there.

[ Oh. Wait, are they going to ignore what just happened back there? With the sky? They are, because Elizabeth's moved on and Minato will never ask on his own accord, so he can only sit there and mull over it and try to remember. ]

...as a host or a maid...?

[ An important question. He thinks there's supposed to be some sort of difference. ]

( damn you're right we'll circle back eventually. )

Neither. I am an assistant... And I'm making snowcones. ( should she have entered as a maid or a host. she isn't as excitable talking about this as she usually would be, watching the elevator doors. no, really, should she have asked him about...? should she have told him...?

future elizabeth's issue. let her have her one happiness at having (a) minato here, she will consider the consequence of her actions later. ) It will be... pleasant.

[ ...He doesn't answer right away, listening to her speak with a stark lack of enthusiasm as when he had first heard her voice back in the hallway. Maybe she's nervous? maybe there are other things on her mind? Elizabeth had never given him that impression before, is the feeling that he gets, so he finds himself a bit at a loss.

Then he finds himself an easy solution, the solution he always falls back on when he isn't sure. ]

I'm sure it will be. I like snowcones, and cafes. And you. You'll be there.

( she really couldn't have stayed a mere attendant after meeting him. )

All things I like as well, particularly you. ( heehee... oh, it really is so good to hear his voice again - ah, ) That was rather bold of me, wasn't it? My apologies.

( ... )

May I ask you a question?

[ It's nothing to apologize for, nothing he minds, when he himself is like that sometimes and never thinks to apologize for it until it's pointed out to him. ]

Sure. Whatever you want, whenever you want.

The relationship that you and I have...

( she pauses, then shakes her head. )

Never mind.

( the elevator dings to indicate their arrival, and her breath comes out in a small, soft sigh. )

...We've arrived at our destination! ( she's going to lean over him and peer at him. hello! a much cheerful liz now, mysterious smile as always. ) Shall I give you the grand tour?

[ It's an incomplete question that just fills him with his own, but if she doesn't want to and now's not the time, he doesn't press her on it, turning his attention back to the elevator doors as they slide open, revealing... rows of lockers. A school. It's nostalgic in that sense, with how much of both his days and nights he spends in such a place. ]

...Okay. [ Kind of like the reverse of... ] I'll follow your lead.

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July Event

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07/03 Hatching Day

07/03 Grand Opening

07/03 Grand Re-opening

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