[center][img]https://img.roleplayerguild.com/prod/users/684ddb45-4fc1-4da4-89c5-42f0263bd666.png[/img][/center][right][sub]April 13th[/sub][/right][hr]
Emi listened hungrily as the boys explained themselves, slowly sinking onto the bench Hinari had tripped over. It was a bizarre experience, their descriptions of events being at once intensely familiar and strangely foreign. Shadows popping out of mirrors and dragging people in she was familiar with, but all this butterfly stuff, the cats, and William were all as new to her as they seemed to be to the boys. 

When “Hoshino”, as Mori referred to him, finished his piece, Emi was silent for a moment, gripping her knees as she thought through all they’d told her. How much should she disclose? Her initial thought was [i]everything[/i] – maybe they’d have some idea what happened to her friends if they had all the information. But did spilling it all risk scaring them away? Surely not; they’d seen the horrors on the Other Side and still came back for more, they could handle it. Right?

Not wanting to wait too long to find out, Emi decided to err on the side of more information. But for all her enthusiasm, her tone started out measured, almost somber. 

[color=E5C4CD]“Thank you for telling me all this,”[/color] she began. [color=E5C4CD]“And let me be the first to say that… I’m sorry. I know firsthand how awful it is to be faced with Shadow, and now all this responsibility has been heaped on you that you never asked for. You probably feel like freaks, or like you’re crazy – at least, that’s how I felt before I found others like me.”[/color] She sighed. 

[color=E5C4CD]“I should explain. You’ve probably guessed it by now, but I’m like you – Awakened. I have a Persona, and I’ve also fought Shadows on the other side of the mirror. In fact, my friends and I used to make a habit of it.”[/color] Emi chuckled, though the sound was weighed down with melancholy. [color=E5C4CD]“And I think I should take some responsibility here, too. That ‘demon woman’ you mentioned – she sounds familiar to me. I can’t tell you exactly why, but I know she was important. I think… I think my friends and I were trying to… track something down…?”[/color]

Suddenly, Emi pitched forward, hands clutching the sides of her head in evident distress. [color=E5C4CD]“But I can’t— remember!”[/color] She spat, frustrated. [color=E5C4CD]“It’s so important, but I try and I try and it’s all just a blur…”[/color] 

She drew a shaky breath, blinking back tears as she regained her composure. She hugged herself, her wounds freshly opened now that there was finally someone to whom she could tell the [i]full[/i] story. 

[color=E5C4CD]“I’m sorry. I should start from the beginning.”[/color] Emi took a slow, deep breath, stretching out the tension in her chest before launching into her explanation. [color=E5C4CD]“Like I said, I have a Persona. But I wasn’t the only person at Hinotori who had one – or even the first. There were five others – Mineri-chan, Makoto-kun, Hanami-chan, Reiji-san, and Kudan-kun. Maybe you knew some of them; Reiji-san is Nakano-san’s older brother, and Hanami-chan was going to be the student council president this year. Anyway, we all had Personae, and together we spent most of last summer rooting out corruption and slaying Shadows as a team. But then… well, you all heard about the fires.”[/color] 

Emi’s hands twisted the hem of her uniform skirt as memories of the wreckage came rushing back, the smell of smoke and soot as clear as if she were standing right in front of it. She shook her head. [color=E5C4CD]“Everyone insists they’re dead, but that [i]can’t[/i] be the case. Some lousy fire isn’t enough to kill a single one of them, mark my words. But that leaves the question: what happened to them? And why did whatever it was let me escape?”[/color] 

She shook her head, reaching to massage her temple. [color=E5C4CD]“My memory of that night is hazy – I know we were on the Other Side, and I think we’d finally found something important. I think there was a fight… but then the next thing I knew, I was in my house and my parents were telling me my friends were dead.”[/color] 

Emi looked up at last, fixing a look of unexpected optimism in the boys’ direction. [color=E5C4CD]“And that’s why what you’ve told me is so important. You say you met William [i]in the flesh[/i], in what used to be a burned out house? Can you tell me which street that house is on?”[/color] The question was aimed at Hoshino (or at least, in his general direction), and then she turned where she thought the others were. [color=E5C4CD]“See – notwithstanding exceptional circumstances – we always accessed the Other Side through a mirror in Mineri-chan’s house on Akaitori, not super far from here. Obviously, hers was one of the houses that burned down. Ever since, I haven’t been able to cross over into the Other Side at all. But then William’s dreams came, and I swear I saw – well, [i]‘saw’[/i],”[/color] she made air quotes, [color=E5C4CD]“I don’t know how to explain it but trust me – I saw Mineri on the stage. Then William comes back and tells me ‘the previous denizen of the stage’ has ‘returned to my world’, and I’m inclined to believe him. If your mystery cat woman is familiar with William [i]and[/i] the Other Side, maybe she knows something about my friends’ whereabouts.”[/color]

Emi blinked a few times, not sure if anything she said sounded remotely sane or if these boys, even with all their knowledge, would write her off as crazy like everyone else and back out of there, never to be found again. And there was still so much more to say, and so much she felt she needed to tell the boys – about Shadows, about Personae, about everything – but she figured it was best to let them catch their breath. [color=E5C4CD]“Am I making sense? Forgive me – I didn't think I'd ever find somebody I could tell all of this to.”[/color]
[hr][right][sub][@Scribe of Thoth] [@Asura] [@Lord Orgasmo][/sub][/right]