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It's a peaceful day at Leblanc. Sojiro has a couple customers in his shop, both sipping coffee, one eating a curry. Mellow music is playing, the lighting is cozy, and the coffee is as good as ever.
He nods a greeting as Akira enters the shop on her way home from school.
"Yeeeeeeees but for right this moment let's not go there. I want to try some of these other arcanas."
She presses the button that opens the back again.
"Oh, shut up."
Akira seals the device again and opens the Confidant Tracker.
Now it displays a Shiho graphic in place of the Joker graphic, with an updated card image.
Resurrection Confidant
Name: Shiho Suzui
Persona: Bradamante
Rating: ★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
Bio: Ann's middle school crush and primary girlfriend, who had to be saved from a cruel fate at Kamoshida's hands. A Phantom Thief and technically also my girlfriend. Clearly lives for Ann's sake. Thoughtful. Good at research.
Recently: We talked about the goth and vkei scenes and decided to go to a concert together in july. I'm excited! I wonder what our relationship will be like by then...?
Huh. Alright.
She's not sure what the point of this device is if it just displays information she already knows...
"Okay... probably we should try 'pairing' this like it says is necessary for the persona manager."
"Probably a smart move." Joker drums her fingers on the couch's armrest. "Care to pass that?"
Joker inspects it.
"I think we need... some form of cradle for this... And for that I think we'll need an office. It'll take up space."
Akira sighs and nods. "Alright."
She offers one hand to Julie and one to Joker.
Julie takes Akira and Joker's hands in her own, completing the loop. She closes her eyes.
"Picture a place where we can work, and organize things, my loves. Tell a story of someplace safe to take notes in, someplace safe to store tools, someplace functional. What is our office like, moitiés?"
Akira closes her eyes and concentrates.
A desk. A glass-topped one like her father had...
It's hard to get further than that. School's never been a good place for her. Textbooks in a bookshelf, obviously. Somewhere to put her pack...
It's hard to imagine an office where she'd actually be comfortable.
And as she feels her loves' envisioned designs take shape, she pushes energy through them and into their world. It settles into place with a click they can all feel in the fabric of the place. The fusion suite's door vanishes, and a new door to the presumable office appears.
"That should do it, chéries. Shall we take a look?"
Akira gets up.
"This is going to suck," she says. But she goes and gets the door.
The room behind it is choked with dust, layers upon layers of it on every surface. The carpet is dirty grey; when she flicks the light switch, only a single bulb in the overhead fixture sputters to life, lighting the room in dim off-orange.
A huge glass-topped desk dominates the room: it faces the door. A nameplate sits on it, as well as several heavy stacks of textbooks. A chunky black desktop computer takes up the left hand side, while the right-hand side is buried in sheaves of paper. A rickety wooden chair sits behind it, its black wood split and splintered to such a degree that it's clearly unsafe to sit on.
Bookcases flank the desk on either side, crammed with textbook after textbook. A snap-together molecular model sits in the one patch of free space, suspiciously free of dust.
Along the back wall, there's a calendar set to this January, with every day marked with the word DEADLINE in thick black marker and the date of Akira's arrest circled thrice. Next to it is a timesheet full of entries in crabbed handwriting, and a thick teak door that leads... somewhere.
Joker comes in, and nods.
"Yeah," she says. "That was about what I was expecting."
Julie smiles sadly and steps in as well, squeezing her loves. "We'll work through it, moitiés. One piece at a time."
She picks up the nameplate and examines it, then frowns and shakes her head, setting it back down. It reads "Principal Kobayakawa".
"I would like to destroy this, but like any of the hurt that leaks into these newly-created rooms, it will just come back in some other fashion, I'm sure, until you process it."
Akira comes over to the desk in the dim orange light, and looks up at the ceiling fixture.
"Let's start by replacing the lights so we can actually see what we're doing. Then the desk, I think."
She looks over at Joker. "Pass me one of those crystals?"
Joker pulls a thumb-sized chunk of crystal out of her pocket, and hands it to Akira.
Akira settles the crystal in her hands, and stares up at the light fixture above her. She could do this the long way, but she has a feeling any repair wouldn't last long with the room in this state. She needs to use a little of her strength on this.
She presses the crystal between her palms, and the light above slowly reddens and intensifies, until the whole room is picked out in scarlet light. It's eerie at best, but at least now she can see what the hell she's doing.
The small crystal fractures, and its inner light goes out. It dissolves into black flakes, which then disintegrate into dust.
"There," she says. "I don't think this will last, but it'll buy us time to clean this place up a bit and install a proper repair."
Joker nods. "Let's use it well."
She goes over to the desk and starts brushing dust off the surfaces.
Akira comes over and starts cleaning off the papers on the right side of the desk.
Most of the pieces are old report cards, tracking her spotty academic record. She's never been great at school, for all that she tries hard. The concepts just don't quite stick the way they should.
Mind you, that might have had something to do with her being depressed, friendless and alone in the wrong body...
Keeping that in mind, most of the old grade records dissolve away as she goes through them. Water off a duck's back. They didn't see the real her. She's doing better now.
The expulsion papers halfway down the stack stop her cold, though. Her old school had wanted nothing to do with a student that had assaulted a reputable gentleman. And the school before that, she'd been transferred out of because her studies were suffering so badly...
She takes a deep breath and sets the two expulsion documents to the side. They can get filed. That's what she has a desk with desk drawers for.
Beneath them is more arrest paperwork. It's in the past. She's making the best of her new chance, with better and more people than before. Most of it dissolves as well.
At the bottom of the stack is her wallet, in amid a tangle with a doctor's stethoscope and an elementary-school pencil case. It's empty except for a single glass card that shines with brilliant inner fire. The card is engraved and inlaid with gold; her own face stares back at her, and next to it a single huge legend:
NAME: AKIRA KURUSU
GENDER: F
It's her Shujin Academy student ID.
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