Meeting people has never been so mildly entertaining!

[darken_the_light]

Who: Kaede, Momoko
What: Getting to know fellow Purseowners.
When: Friday, lunch time
Where: Student Council room

It had been Tuesday that Kaede overheard someone talking about their student council president's open-door-policy sessions. Not really something she was terribly interested in one way or another, as she had no real plans of interacting with with the student government.

It had been Wednesday that she realized this would be an opportunity to actually talk to one of the others who'd been dragged into this... low-budget magic-girl-anime but-real-life. She wasn't much of one for large gatherings, so meeting people one-on-one seemed ideal.

Thursday, she'd gotten the when and where figured out.

And finally, on Friday, she arrived at the student council room, near the beginning of the lunch break. And, without further ado, she knocked twice.

Comments

[not_a_peach]

Hearing the knock at the door Momoko had leapt to her feet and pulled the door open, her most presidential smile plastered on her face. The smile almost faltered when she saw who was standing there. She thought she recognised her from the events of 'that night' but kept her expression the same as she ushered Kaede into the room. After all she was pretty sure this was Yuzuki's room mate who had been there for the whole rollercoaster extravaganza. But recognising people from their avatars wasn't infallible and she wasn't about to make a fool of herself in front of someone she wasn't totally sire of.

"So what can I do for you?" She asked, smile still firmly in place and guesting towards a seat before her desk. On the desk was a boxed lunch (not made by her) and a cup of tea (also not made by her because what kind of president makes their own tea?) and a whole pile of paperwork.

[darken_the_light]

Kaede was momentarily taken aback by just how much Momoko resembled her avatar. Really, though, it was a good thing; it meant she didn't have to worry (well, much) about having accidentally tracked down the wrong person.

She took the indicated seat with a grateful nod. "Thank you. Terada-san, yes?" And, once (or, if) she got an affirmative to that, Kaede elaborated with a just-slightly-awkward (it was awkward, these... in-person parallels to VR introductions that had already happened), "I'm Kaede Murasaki," touching a hand lightly to her chest to indicate, well, herself, "Yuzuki's roommate. We met Sunday night, I think?"

[not_a_peach]

Momoko smiled, having nodded in the affirmative that yes she was Terada-san, which was her default position when she was working out what to say next, a cheeful smile was essentially Momoko's loading page.

"So you were the lion bird girl?" She tapped her finger on her chin for a moment trying to recall what she could about her beyond her being Yuzuki's roommate, oh right, she'd been the one who'd wanted her as leader. Not that Momoko considered the possibility in any situation that she wasn't the leader but hearing someone endorse you out loud made them pretty likeable off the bat. So Kaede was doing pretty well in terms of endearing herself to Momoko already.

"How are you holding up? It seemed to take a toll on a lot of you." She spread her hands and gave Kaede a smaller more compassionate smile than her presidential beam. "I mean I don't think anyone expected a jerk to essentially kidnap everyone and get them into a monster fight." Yes she was still very bitter about Mara.

[darken_the_light]

The lion bird girl. Kaede almost winced. Because as if the situation hadn't been bad enough for every other reason, she needed that indignity heaped onto her as well. "Right," she affirmed. At least some good had come of it; she'd been able to hit Yuzuki, and get that out of her system harmlessly.

"I'm doing alright," she answered, and after a moment's hesitation added, "Not... great. But I'm managing." Mostly by not thinking about the whole situation for more than a few hours a day.

"And you?" Momoko certainly seemed to be doing fine, but this was one of those rare instances where Kaede not only wanted to sustain an actual conversation, but also make a decent impression.

[not_a_peach]

"It's perfectly understandable if you are struggling with some of what happened, not everyone is exactly prepared for that kind of thing." She considered herself of course totally ready for anything life threw at her. She certainly wasn't the slightest alarmed or afraid of anything that had happened. No sir.

"You know if stuff does get on top of you and you stop being able to manage I am always here to talk to." Momoko was so very weak to any younger student that showed her any form of respect or reliance, they were pretty useful to have around too after all you needed someone to run errands for you.

A small pause as she considered how to react to Kaede. "Me?" She grinned. "I'm doing fine, I'm just glad we got everyone out of there. Though I'm not happy about this Mara guy he seems totally sketchy and I think we need to learn more about him before we consider trusting him." Not happy was an understatement, wanting to find where he lived and yell at him in person was more like it. Not only was she suspicious of him in general but she was enraged that someone had managed to trick her with a phony email and thrown her into something well outside of her control.

[darken_the_light]

Kaede folded her hands on her lap while Momoko spoke. She wasn't struggling (all things considered, Yuzuki was a bigger stressor than this whole end-of-the-world business), and the suggestion felt more than a little patronizing. Still, she reasoned, she had been the one to start the conversation, so... probably best not to take that personally.

She settled for an "Mm," and a nod. Besides, she had a personal interest in being on good terms with someone in the group, and with the other three people she actually knew being Friendship Boy, Magic Girl, and Yuzuki, she was willing to put some effort into actually getting along.

And, after Momoko had continued, Kaede's lips twitched down into a frown. "Even if the whole 'end of the world' thing he's on about is true, there's obviously stuff he's not telling us." Which seemed pretty counterproductive when you alleged wanted someone tosave the world. "I mean, normally I'd think it was just some kind of lame joke, but after that whole..." Her frown deepend briefly; how to best describe it. "With the way things seemed so real, it's hard to just ignore it, is what I guess I'm trying to say."

[not_a_peach]

Momoko was still trying to work out this girl's angle properly, it seemed big sisterly support wasn't quite the ticket, and she doubted effusive flattery would be the thing. She wasn't sure she'd spoken to Yuzuki much about her, at least nothing she could recall right away. So she tried to find some kind of neutral ground until she got a better read on her.

She spoke sense about Mara though and Momoko nodded in agreement. "Considering he is the only person we encountered beyond the shadows it does make him highly suspicious. There is no evidence he didn't orchestrate this." It was always best to be highly suspicious of anyone who knew more than you did, or potentially had more power over a situation than you did.

"As you rightly say regardless of if the apocalypse thing is true he is clearly hiding a great deal. As we can see from how he got us all together he's very underhanded and doesn't care about doing things like hacking a school." She brushed her hair behind her ear as she tried to suppress her expression of disgust. "An adult hacking a school system and gaining access to the personal information of students who are under age is incredibly problematic, well hacking anyone's personal information is problematic but I am sure you know what I mean. He's a creep basically."

Talking about how Mara was a creeper was easier than getting into the bizarre reality they had apparently been thrown into the other night. Being angry at Mara fell far more in Momoko's area of expertise. "It was unlike anything any of us had experienced in the VR, and you are right, it's hard to ignore something like that, it's stumped Mako and he is an expert at anything computer-y."

[darken_the_light]

Kaede listened quietly while Momoko spoke, though her body language betrayed at least someof the relief she felt; she adjusted her position in the chair a bit, relaxed her posture, nodded once in agreement.

Relief, because finally, here was someone with clear, pragmatic concerns about the situation. No rambling about magic and spirits, no claiming that the world would be a better place if everyone just didn't have personalities and mindlessly got along. There were others who seemed like they might be reasonable, yes, but this was the first time Kaede had an opportunity to actually talk to one--and as such, was a fairly good outlet for the thoughts that had been constantly coming back to nag her over the past week.

"What you said, that he hacked into the school's computers to do... whatever," a dismissive gesture with one hand accompanied that, indicating that the details were, to her, not all that relevant, "Everyone's assuming that, and maybe I missed something, but why?"

She was about to elaborate on the possibility she meant to imply--before she recalled the other detail that had been bothering her. Without actually giving Momoko time to answer the first question, she hurriedly added, "Actually, that reminds me," a hint of energy crept into her voice as her words quickened, "Are you in class 3-C?"

[not_a_peach]

Momoko drummed her fingers on the desk, quietly attentive as Kaede spoke, which in some ways was a rarity for Momoko. "Well what we know is he must have hacked the school to get all our contact details, and to use the school's messengering system. Mako says he looked into it and the power going off was a security measure when someone tried to hack the school. So there has to be a correlation."

Momoko wasn't quite sure what Kaede was asking, so settled for filling her in with what was known so far about the hacking of the school's computers. She didn't know if Mako had told anyone else about the attempted hack into the school's systems, he could have told Yuzuki who could have told other people but she might have also either forgotten or not found it quite interesting enough to waste her time on.

"Oh yes I am in 3-C! Why do you ask? Do you know someone in my class?"

[darken_the_light]

The thing about the power outage was new, or at least, if it had come up before, she hadn't been paying attention then. That did kind of put a damper on her theory, but still, she might as well go ahead and present her reasoning.

Kaede shook her head to answer the question, before explaining. "There are twelve of us, based on who Mara added to our contacts," she began ticking points of on her fingers; that was the first. The second, "Ten of us go to Matsubayashi. The other two didn't say either way." Third, "Three first-years, six second-years, and yourself. We're all in our year's C class--1-C, 2-C, and 3-C. Based on that, I'd guess the two other members of the group are in one of those three classes as well."

That perhaps gave an impression of her being more insightful than she really had been. The detail was something she'd noticed when organizing her thoughts a few nights ago, entirely by chance. She hadn't shared her thoughts until just now, largely because the options had been, well--Azusa, Kaito, and Yuzuki. And she didn't want to just post it all into the open when she didn't know most of these people and wasn't sure if it was all right.

"It seems hard to believe that'd be a coincidence," she continued, "So I think we should assume that Mara either knew what the class assignments would be ahead of time, and singled us out based on that, or he chose us first and then one way or another arranged for us to be in those classes."

She paused to take a breath and give a quiet sigh, before continuing. "Either one would make sense, with how he's talking about wanting us to work together. He even made sure we'd all be able to get in touch with each other. That's actually why I don't think it's the first."

"I mean, if you think about it, if he was picking students out based on class assignments, and wanted them to all be grouped together, why not put us all in the same year, too?" At that point, she raised a hand and began lightly rubbing her temple with a pair of fingertips, while turning her attention to the desk between the two of them. "Which means, if all that's right, he probably picked us out first, or maybe us and some others, and moved all his candidates into their year's C classes."

Which, in a roundabout way, brought her back to the question before. Without changing her posture, she glanced up, across the desk. "What I was getting at before was, it seems like there'd be at least a few people who actually work for the school that could do everything he did, without needing to be some outside super hacker. Though, I guess that might not explain the outage. I didn't know about that, until just now."

[not_a_peach]

Annnd Momoko hadn't thought of that connection, and internally she was kicking herself because now someone younger than her who wasn't Mako looked smarter than her. However she was just about capable of not having a small tantrum about looking stupider than a second year so instead gave Kaede a nice big positive smile, internal rage be damned.

"Oh! Well it makes sense we'd all be connected somehow and the class assignments is an awful big coincidence." Her expression became serious. "And if Mara could have an influence on our class assignments because hacking aside it does mean he could be a student or a teacher, there must be parts of the system the faculty are not meant to access. It also raises the issue of why classes there are plenty of other ways to group us together." She did find it rather arbitrary, most of their fellow Persona Users were in 2-C but then there seemed to be very few in 1-C and Momoko was sure she was the only one from 3-C.

She tapped her fingers together, still frustrated she hadn't seen what now seemed blatantly obvious especially as she knew a fair few of their fellow Persona Users and knew what classes they were in and unable to fathom out why this particular criteria was so important.

"It seems likely we are going to have to go back there, and I'd like to know as much as possible beforehand, hopefully everyone can be organised into pooling our resources. You already seem to be doing a great job of thinking everything through." Momoko used the power of compliment!

[darken_the_light]

Kaede smiled, just a touch shyly--she was not, really, a shy person, but social interactions... weren't something she did a lot of (mostly because she typically didn't want to); doubly so for cordial ones.

"It's just something I noticed while organizing my thoughts, but thank you." When her thoughts turned to the prospect of returning, though, Kaede sighed, and rubbed breifly at her forehead. "I'm not exactly thrilled at the idea of going back," she admitted. "But even if what he said isn't true, I don't think I could just forget about this without finding out more."

And, at that, the faint smile from before transitioned slowly towards a frown. "...Come to think of it, that might be why he's holding back so much information."

[not_a_peach]

Kaede's shy(ish) smile was noted, Momoko assumed it was purely due to being in her presence. Many younger students got shy and embarassed around her, she had become quite used to it so pretended as best she could not to notice, no one wanted someone they looked up to to see them vulnerable after all.

"You are right, we need to find out what we can." Momoko frowned. "He could be lying to us from the start, for all we know he might be the bad guy trying to manipulate us into doing exactly the wrong thing. We need to be careful." After all that is exactly what she would do should she be a villain, in fact she did tend to trick people into doing her bidding as it was but she was a hundred percent sure she was not the villain of the piece, that was the Art Club.

"We'll work it all out don't worry, and we will work him out too."