Boku wa Detective Princess (Invite Only)

[mugenginga]

Yuugi hesitated, "Um... do we have to? There has to be someplace else, right...?"

He remembered when K1 and he had been here. While he saw that it wasn't the same clerk, he wasn't really looking forward to ever going near this shop again, "And I agree with Shirogane-kun... it is kind out out in the open..."

He was well aware how blatent of a rationalization that was. But if it would convince them to try elsewhere, he'd take it. Naoto probably noticed the nervousness. If he wasn't distracted with the Yu-Gi-Oh! poster. Which was highly likely, actually. Yuugi was quickly trying to come up with another store they could check, but not having much luck. There were a few entertainment stores in the front of the mall they could try... and besides all that, K1's little smirk was a touch frightening.

[Firebreath Fishslap]

In fact, Naoto was very much distracted by the poster. "Yu-Gi-Oh!"? King of Games, and with a picture of Atem on the front, albeit without the tan, it certainly explained a couple things. That must have been the name of that anime they were from. Though he had to wonder about the english text. Or the fact that the cards were being called Yu-Gi-Oh cards. Considering what Yuugi's name was, he had to doubt the cards were actually called that on the show.

"There's a few more electronics stores down this way. We should just go on," Souji said, and started walking away, and Naoto followed on after.

"Dang," K1 said. Minato gave a questioning look before following after the two.

After a couple of minutes, a TV store came into view. This particular store had enough stuff in it to fill the electronics section at Junes, and had a large TV over in a corner. The Security Camera for this store seemed to be angled in a way that the TV in the corner was in a blind spot too.
"This will work," Naoto said. He walked inside and over to the TV and waited for Souji and the others to approach. "However, Souji-kun, I have to question why you wish to enter the TV World. There doesn't seem to be much of a reason for it."

"If that clerk was put in the TV, then he'd have a reality in the Midnight Channel, right?" Souji said. "There might be clues there."

Naoto seemed skeptical. That wasn't how it had been before. Konishi-sempai's reality upon reinvestigation had yielded nothing, and while Yamano-san's reality had lead the way to Adachi's own, before Adachi had escaped into the Midnight Channel, there were no clues that suggested that he was the killer.

[mugenginga]

Yuugi was facepalming at the look of scrutiny Naoto was giving the poster. This was why being seen as an anime character was extremely awkward. It caused awkward conversations, and meant people tended to know far more about him than he knew about them. When Souji suggested they go on he made no effort to hide how relieved he was. And the clerk in the story hadn't seemed to notice him. Well, it was Atem on the front, although Yuugi still didn't understand the lack of tan and the school uniform. He wondered if Atem was more famous than he was in worlds that aired this "Yuugiou" anime.

He missed K1's comment, having hurried after Souji and Naoto. As such he was in the middle of the group as they reached the other store. Yuugi looked over to Naoto as he asked his question. That was actually a good point. If there were no clues to be found, why would anyone ever want to go to that place again? He could only be grateful they weren't gonna pop out in his area of the TV World. Souji called them "realities", a term Yuugi wasn't fond of. No matter how much his Shadow had been part of him, it made it seem like that was all there was to him.

"I think we're waiting for you, Seta-kun," Yuugi stated, still unaware that anyone with a Persona gained from the TV World could access it. Adachi could, so it was likely only a few people had the ability.

(OOC: Yeah, Yuugi. Atem, or more accurately "Yami Yuugi" is the franchise's posterchild. XD)

[Firebreath Fishslap]

Souji opened his mouth to respond, but Naoto had already moved over to the TV to open the portal. He stuck his hand into the TV, causing the familiar black and white rings to appear.

"Anyone with Persona summoning abilities can do this, with any TV," Naoto explained. "I don't recommend going into the TV World by yourself, though."

"Is that so..." Minato said. He had tried it himself, and nothing had happened. He guessed it was only for tarot card users.

K1 turned to Naoya. "You should go first."

[mugenginga]

Naoya raised an eyebrow. Keiichi was unusually assertive today. And while he didn't know the full story of the card shop, Yuugi's reactions had been enough to indicate he was also more mischeivous. He supposed it beat the goodie two shoes act. But he shook his head, "Someone who has already ran into their Shadow should go first," He didn't explain his logic. He wasn't sure how the TV World worked, but from what he had seen so far, it seemed people without Persona who went in got attacked by their Shadows. An incorrect analysis, but understandable what with the situation.

He gestured to Souji, "He seems to think himself the leader of these little trips. He should go first," the blatent jab had been more than intentional, although it wasn't shown in his expression or tone of voice. He actually sounded dead serious.

"Really?" Yuugi looked extremely surprised. Of course, he had no problem believing it with what Naoto had just done. But it hadn't really occurred to him. He glanced over at Minato and gave him a soft look of support. He did think Souji should go in first, but he wasn't sure he wanted to agree with Naoya. He looked over at K1. He seemed off today... and not in a good way.

[Firebreath Fishslap]

In truth, K1 was just acting like this to take the stress off of things from the day before. He really didn't want to think about K2 at all, and this worked as a nice distraction. That and he'd had some coffee on the way out the door that morning. Mmmm. Coffee.

Souji glared at Naoya before climbing into the TV himself. K1 followed after. Minato, however, seemed hesitant.

"Is there something wrong, Arisato-san?" Naoto asked. Minato shook his head, and climbed into the portal himself.

-------------

After a short fall, K1 landed in the TV World on what appeared to be hard asphalt. Remembering the glasses he'd gotten from Souji, he pulled them from his pocket and put them on. He had appeared to have landed outside a train station of sorts. Minato appeared nearby.

[mugenginga]

Yuugi gave a thumbs up to Minato to try and encourage him. Atem had done it before and it always seemed to have an effect. He wasn't sure if Minato had seen him or not, but he shook his head towards Naoto before climbing into the television. Naoya eyed it carefully before climbing in himself. It honestly felt like he was just passing through air. Yuugi hesitated and looked over to Naoto.

"I'm sure he'll tell you about it later..." Yuugi said. He wanted to say more but didn't want to put Minato in an uncomfortable spot. This television was lower to the ground than the other one had been, and he just had to take a high step to get in.
-----

Naoya actually landed fairly well. The only indication he had been off balance were a few rapid steps foward. Guy didn't even have the decency to put out his arms for balance. He looked around, squinting from total lack of visibility. He saw a shape and more sensed Keiichi's presence than actually saw it, walking over and touching his shoulder to let him know he was there. He already felt a case of eye strain coming on.

Yuugi had already managed to forget the whole "watch the last step" rule of the TV World and fell over sideways, roughly hitting his shoulder as he crashed into the hard ground. He muttered 'ittai' before pushing himself to his feet. He dug the glasses out of his pocket and put them on. He was grateful he'd thought to transfer them to his currrent pair of pants. He looked around. It looked rather... well, dead. It was eerie, like all the world's. He hoped it didn't belong to anyone currently there.

He noticed what no one else had, and felt panic rising in his chest, "S-Seta-kun...? Guys, where's Seta-kun!?" he almost shouted as the panic started coming out. He looked around, hoping he was wrong. But when people arrived apart from the rest of the group...

That doesn't make any sense! He has a Persona, and a card! He has total control over it! Yuugi's breathing had picked up a bit. He really was borderline panicked.

[Firebreath Fishslap]

Naoto landed next to Naoya. Sometime before climbing into the TV himself, he had put on his glasses, a pair of light blue frames that went along quite well with his hat. He frowned.

"This is odd," Naoto stated. While it wasn't unheard of for persona users to be able to form their own realities (Adachi had certainly done so himself, and Namatame had to have some part in Nanako's reality), the fact that Souji had appeared away from the rest of the group was suspicious.

However, Naoto felt a bit more relieved when Souji walked out from behind a wall. He was alright...
He wasn't wearing his glasses, though, since Minato still had them. He walked over to Naoya, since he was able to somewhat make him out in the fog. He pulled the gag glasses out from his coat and handed them to Naoya.
"Here. Put these on," Souji said. Upon closer inspection, this was a different pair. These still had the nose and moustache.

"A train station?" Minato asked. He had put Souji's glasses on to see what was going on.

"I think this is the reality of that clerk who was killed," Souji said. He didn't seem to be saying the whole truth, though.

[mugenginga]

Naoya wasn't stupid, by any means. The fact that Souji was handing him anything willingly, let alone something that his tone of voice implied was supposed to help... he felt along the outside of them and smirked. All he could think was that it had been a nice try. He held them close to his face, practically touching it for the thick fog. He carefully picked off the nose and mustache piece and placed them on. He raised an eyebrow as the fog all but disapepared.

"You dropped something," he stated with a large smirk as he roughly placed the nose/mustache piece in Souji's hand. He crossed his arms, "I'll admit I don't know much about this world, but Keiichi seems to be concerned about when the fog sets in on the Island. I can't give an exact estimate, but we've got a few hours at most."

It still conflicted with the weather forecast, which had only adjusted a bit. Rather than raining all day it predicted it would rain later. In a few hours, actually, about the time Naoya claimed the fog would set in at their world.

Yuugi turned white as a sheet. He had completely forgotten about that. Souji had said that when the fog arrived in the real world, people died in the TV World. He jerked his head towards Souji, "S-Seta-kun, maybe we should come back tomorrow..." his voice held a certain level of pleading to it.

Two of the people here had never summoned a Persona, and Minato didn't have his Evoker. Understandable after the events in Atem's World, but it still made him a target. And Souji always sounded so serious when he talked of the fog. Would any of them survive. It was clear the short teen still trusted Naoya's forecast... or at least acknowledged the possibility. He was back to looking worried.

Naoya had caught the shadows of hesitation in Souji's explanation, but chose to say nothing of it. He was just as aware as Yuugi was about the three biggest targets being himself, Keiichi, and Minato. Since they were dealing with things of a fairly supernatural origin, it meant Minato would probably be at the most risk...

[Firebreath Fishslap]

Souji shifted. "If we leave before the fog appears, we will be fine. This shouldn't take too long anyways. This place doesn't look too large." And with that, he started walking toward the entrance of the train station. He really didn't like the look of the place. Looked too much like the Inaba Train Station. Because of the fog, which wasn't anywhere near as heavy as it usually was, he didn't notice the sign for the train station.

K1 walked over to the sign. It read "Train Station", but there was no name. The "name" of the Train Station consisted of several characters overlaid over each other, so it was almost impossible to read.

Souji was getting fairly far ahead, so Naoto started walking after him. This behavior was odd for Souji. He had to know that this wasn't some clerk's reality, right?

[mugenginga]

Naoya narrowed his eyes at Souji's behavior. He walked after Keiichi, glancing at the sign briefly. He was staying with his cousin, but there was no way the teen would be able to read the sign. If he'd been forced to guess, he would have said it was impossible to read because so many place names had been overlayed that it had become a muddled mess. He gestured towards Keiichi.

"They are going to leave us behind."

Yuugi had walked up beside Minato and was giving him a soft smile, "It'll be okay... I mean, you've got your weapons and we've got Personae and demons. Come on, Seta-kun is gonna wander off without us if we don't keep up..."

Souji was acting extremely odd. Even Yuugi had picked up on it, which was saying something. Atem would probably have a better idea. He wondered if this World reminded Souji of a person he knew. He was still extremely worried about the fog but he wasn't about to leave Souji behind. He glanced downwards and drew five cards, not bothering to look at them just yet. Minato knew the way the cards worked more or less, he had seen Atem summon Kuriboh back when Yuugi had arrived on the island. It wasn't a Persona, sure, but the monsters on the cards required less energy to maintain. He'd wait for Minato to go forward, and would walk beside him when he did. He didn't want anyone to get left alone here...

Yuugi turned a card around with one hand and a monster familiar to Minato in more ways than one rose up from the light the card turned into. It had many derogetory nicknames and was rather infamous in the Duel Monsters fandom. The glorified brown fuzzball known as Kuriboh materialized above Yuugi's head with a characteristic, "Kuri!" It floated around Yuugi's head in a circle, chirping the shortened version of its name.

The comparison to a Pokemon would not have been unfitting.

[Firebreath Fishslap]

K1 looked up. "Oh! Crap, right!" He started running after the rest of the group.

Minato smiled at the Kuriboh, and followed after the rest of the group.

Souji walked on into the train station, and past the empty ticket booths. He hadn't even stopped to investigate anything. Naoto caught this odd behavior, and ran up to him, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"Are you okay, Souji-kun?" Naoto asked. Souji nodded. "You don't seem alright."

"It's been a hard couple of days. I'll be fine," Souji said. He held onto his sword even tighter, and Naoto couldn't help but wonder how Souji even got that sword into public places. Granted, everyone else had seemed to have swords on them anyways, except Keiichi-san and Naoya-san. Naoto noticed Souji reaching into his pocket, and reached into his own, reaching for his tarot card

"Souji?" Naoto asked. Souji pulled the tarot card out of his pocket, but the image on it was blank for a moment, before being replaced by that of Trumpeter, the last non-Izanagi persona he'd used.

[mugenginga]

Naoya sighed and headed after Keiichi, albeit at a much slower pace. He knew Yuugi and Minato were still back a bit. No need for someone to be killed uselessly. When he noticed them approaching he sped up a little, not even looking like he'd tried to catch up to Keiichi as he did so.

Yuugi pulled a card out of his vest pocket as he continued to walk with Minato. He was glad the other teen remembered Kuriboh. With how crazy things had been, he wouldn't have blamed him if he hadn't. However, Yuugi paused for a moment. He'd just gotten a really bad feeling. He looked down at the Pendant. Was it reacting to something? He looked at the cards in his hand for a moment and then up to Kuriboh.

"I'm sorry, Kuriboh... but I need something more powerful right now."

Kuriboh didn't seem in the least upset, giving off another one of its trademark cries before Yuugi held up a card. Kuriboh dissipated into light that went towards the now glowing card Yuugi had held up. The card flashed even brighter and an extremely cute blond in fairly scanty pastel armor appeared, her feet floating just above the ground. She looked around and saw Yuugi, waving energetically, "Yuugi!" Her voice was cute too.

Yuugi remembered when Atem had summoned Black Magician. It only made sense Black Magician Girl would be similar to her original human self too. She stopped waving suddenly and whirled around, getting into a slightly defensive posture.

"Black Magican Girl...?"

"Something's wrong!" she said.

Yuugi looked towards Minato, "It might be Seta-kun! We have to hurry!"

He hoped the other teenager would follow him, but he had broken into a run. Black Magician Girl seemed a little startled but flew after the slightly shorter teenager. Something dark was approaching ahead. She didn't sense the Pharaoh in Yuugi's Pendant, but it was his reincarnation that was directly involved in the fight and the immediate concern...

Yuugi was extremely concerned. Souji had seemed off... it hit him that his reality might be his... it still didn't make sense, and his mind balked whatever explanation he tried to come up with. But logic aside, if it was right Souji was in danger. Atem hadn't outright rejected his shadow, what if the same thing happened here...?

[Firebreath Fishslap]

Souji clenched his sword even tighter as K1 and Naoya approached. "Forget it, we should go--"

"Of course we should go. I'm always going somewhere, aren't I?"

Souji spun around, and saw standing by the train tracks a silver haired boy, wearing his uniform. The boy had yellow eyes, and had one of those rolling suitcases with him. He turned to look at Souji.

"That's why you've been acting like this, isn't it? You want everyone to ignore you. But you can't help playing the hero. After all, you're the one who managed to stop Adachi before. You have to stop him again." the boy said. He was speaking in Souji's voice. It was very obvious that this was a shadow.

Souji's face paled. "Get back in the card, Izanagi."

"You're a paradox. You just want to be another face in the crowd, yet you want to be accepted. If you're accepted by other people, you're sure to be remembered. And then when you're forced to move again, you'll be missed. And you can't decide what you want to do anymore," the shadow continued. It stepped forward, bringing the suitcase along with him. "So you act like a jerk to keep people from remembering you. So they don't miss you when you're gone."

Souji clenched his teeth. "I said get back in the card, Izanagi."

Naoto assumed a defensive stance. This was going downhill. The shadow's features seemed to be getting darker. "Souji! You're rejecting it!" Naoto warned. It looked like whatever push Izanami had given Souji before was wearing off, and Izanagi had gone back to being a shadow.

Minato looked on, not sure what to do. It almost looked like Souji was having the same problem he had, just without the persona trying to murder him part...
...Yet.

[mugenginga]

Naoya reached out and grabbed Keiichi's wrist. If the teen turned to him, he gave one of his "big brother" glares. The type that somehow managed to mix a dead serious warning with concern. He didn't say anything, but it was clear to Naoya this was something that had to be handled by Souji. Nevermind that it was interesting to watch develop.

Yuugi had stumbled to a stop just behind Naoto. Black Magician Girl had stopped and was looking a little confused at the two Soujis. She could tell from Yuugi's extremely concerned expression which one was the "real" Souji. One had a far darker aura as well. But... they both seemed to be the silver haired teen. In one aspect or another, at least. She blinked and looked back at Yuugi. He hadn't drawn another Duel Monsters card. His free hand was hovering over the other card he had. The one that felt vaguely like the monster spirits the Pharaoh's priests had summoned so long ago. Not quite, but there were similarities. With no command she merely held her ground. She hadn't been told to go on the defensive, after all.

That... actually explains a lot...

Yuugi had to work at keeping his focus on Souji and his shadow. It didn't make sense that Izanagi had reverted to a shadow. And it didn't bode well for him. The hand over Nefertum's card was shaking a bit. He swallowed hard, "Y-you're not a jerk, Seta-kun... I mean... you mean well..."

It wasn't the most reassuring of statements, especially since Yuugi's mind was forcing him to remember how he'd acted when Atem was thrown into the TV World. It was unclear which Souji he was speaking to. He wanted to be speaking to the Souji he knew, but he somehow knew that the words applied more to his shadow. The one he was threatening, that didn't seem a good idea...

As it was, the layout had Naoto closest to Souji, Yuugi just behind him and a little ahead of Minato with Black Magician girl between them and a bit closer to Yuugi. Despite having arrived there before Yuugi, Minato, and Black Magician Girl, Naoya and Keiichi were the furthest back. In at least partial thanks to Naoya's firm grip on the hand Keiichi tended to grab his COMP with.