#is for finding a reason why futaba should get along better with her mother's murderer

[starryoak]

Making memes out of my headcanons, part 3, swinging bats at hornets nests edition!

[ceescedasticity]

another sneak preview

Or actually this may or may not be the entire interlude chapter, but I haven’t decided yet, and I’m fishing for feedback because today has been terrible.

Interlude: Hypatia

Wakaba was never going to get used to accessing cognitive space — the Metaverse — with a phone app. It did not make sense.

(Accessing it using the rift generator in the lab had been bad enough. Yes, it had supposedly been thoroughly tested, and Wakaba herself had programmed in failsafes in the power supply to shut it down if it ever started using more energy than was necessary for a strictly local distortion — but it was based on tech that almost took out a city.)

(…Or, actually, tech that some experimenters almost took out a city with, and wasn't that just the problem.)

(Sometimes she wondered if she would have pursued cognitive psience if she'd realized how very un-theoretical it could get.)

(But the point remained, Metaverse access from a phone app did not make sense, and further investigation had only led to the unavoidable conclusion that it wasn't a phone app, not really, but neither she nor Futaba were ready to say what it was. Futaba had elected not to mention it to the others. Sadly, investigating the source and purpose of a suspicious not-actually-a-phone-app was rather far down their to-do list, since they could at least be confident it had nothing to do with Project Styx.)

She probably was going to get used to the way Mementos felt just that little bit more wrong than the museum, and yet simultaneously less… less… she'd find the words. Hopefully before she got used to it.

She'd come early with Futaba, Wakaba wanting to take some readings (the sensors were all piled in the wheelchair), but they still weren't the first to arrive — there was a black silhouette sitting cross-legged on the floor as Mementos solidified around them, though she quickly bounced to her feet. "Oracle, Archive, good morning."

"Shade?" Futaba said, surprised. "What are you doing here already?"

"I wasn't sure if it would be a good idea to hang around the station for a long time, in the real world," Shade said. "For… conspiracy reasons?"

"No, I think that's probably fine?" Futaba said, and looked at Wakaba for confirmation.

"It should be," Wakaba agreed. "We don't think they know there's anything special about the location. Why?"

Shade was Hifumi Togo — a year older than Futaba and not a time traveler, so not even in high school quite yet. Wakaba felt reasonably well-acquainted with her and her Persona from the museum Palace excursions, on top of their brief meeting in Wakaba's Palace, and Futaba's somewhat disjointed account of the events since regaining her memory and more disjointed account of their interactions with Hifumi in the future. Hifumi liked shogi, science fiction books, and pointing out aspects of the museum that made Madarame look particularly bad, because—

"Apparently I can't be in the house without fighting with my mother this morning," Hifumi said, clearly trying for light but not really succeeding. "I thought she'd accepted the argument that I was focusing on high school for now, but apparently not."

"Oh," Futaba said. "Ugh. Well… hanging around the station is fine, probably. But since you're here, want to help us with these sensors?"

Evidently they were not discussing the Togo household at this time. Wakaba refrained from pushing.

For the moment.

It took <em>extensive</em> modification to get any kind of audiovisual recording working in the Metaverse, and Wakaba was still trying to recreate what the lab had managed. But the barometer, Geiger counter, and accelerometer all operated, sort of, and observations could be recorded manually. Barometric readings were just slightly higher than you'd expect for Tokyo's elevation, but lower than either of the Palaces she'd gotten measurements from. The accelerometer thought they were in free fall — in the Palaces the gravitational offset had been lower than it should have been. The Geiger counter reported negligible radiation, but who knew what that meant. Wakaba wanted to set up a seismograph — she'd gotten some interesting readings in the Palaces and wanted to compare — but that would have to wait until they weren't on a mission.

They were just packing the equipment away when reality rippled, and they were joined by both Queen — Makoto Niijima, two years older than Futaba, might or might not have time-traveled but definitely didn't remember it — and Fox — Yusuke Kitagawa, one year older than Futaba but definitely time-traveled. She knew Yusuke the best, of Futaba's new friends. He'd been in the temple, been present for every museum Palace excursion, she'd met his senpai, and as far as she could tell he wasn't trying to withhold any significant information about his background or home life from her, so he was more forthcoming than some of the others.

He was withholding information about the now-defunct future, but Wakaba was fairly sure that was at Futaba's instigation.

"Great, Inari's on time," Futaba said. "Do you know if…?"

"According to the group chat they're both in Shibuya Station already," Makoto said. "They should be along any— There they are."

And here was the interesting part.

Once Wakaba was out of the hospital and safely in Sojiro's house where they could speak freely, Futaba had gone into more detail about the last timeline, and told them about the friends/comrades she was in contact with — about most of them, that was. Two of them, as per agreement, she was vague on.

Noir — two years older than Futaba, a classmate of Makoto's, and definite time traveler. And Crow — two years older than Futaba, a classmate of Makoto's though he hadn't been in the original timeline, and definitely not a time traveler. Both, Futaba had explained back in February, would probably happier to trust a Shadow than an adult, so it was only to be expected that they did not join any of the experimental trips to the museum Palace while Wakaba was there.

Noir reportedly had a rich and powerful father who'd been awful to her and awful to his employees — Noir would say the employees had it worse but in Futaba's opinion it was debatable — and in the original timeline he'd gotten involved in Shido's conspiracy and ultimately gotten murdered over it. Noir, Crow, and Makoto had prevented this, this time, with a "change of heart" before he could get involved.

(Wakaba had asked Makoto, as casually as possible, if Noir was satisfied with the effects of the cognitive interference. Makoto had said Noir was very happy not to have her father involved with Shido or dead, and everyone was happy Noir's father wasn't trying to make her marry anybody, from which Wakaba concluded there were undesirable side effects but the kids had decided the upsides were worth it.)

Noir, according to Futaba, didn't have any problem believing that Wakaba and Sojiro wouldn't hurt them, were on their side against Shido. She just, according to Futaba, had trouble accepting that adults could be useful in the Metaverse.

When the subject had come up again during a museum trip, Hifumi had remarked that she thought Noir was finally in a position where there weren't any adults casually rearranging her life, and she didn't want to jeopardize that, before Makoto gave her a pointed look and she shut up.

Wakaba had a guess which answer was closer to the truth.

Crow was a different situation entirely. Futaba had, as per agreement, not revealed his name or any information that would reveal his identity — but that didn't exclude revealing his actions in the future timeline: he'd pretended to join them, then betrayed them, then died, and he'd been the cognitive assassin "Black Mask".

(Which meant that original-timeline Wakaba had been murdered by a first-year high school student, which was… she didn't have the words for that. Shido was odious.)

"He's not working for Shido this time, because Noir found him first," Futaba had said finally. "He's a part of the team. Noir and Makoto know basically what's going on with him — he listens to them — and I trust their judgment. And really I don't have any more justification to be nervous than Noir, and she brought him along to fight her dad's Shadow when he definitely murdered her dad by killing his Shadow last time. It's just… hard."

She'd softened a fair amount since then. Wakaba hadn't understood why — it seemed faster than familiarity alone would account for — until the Kana situation came out, and then it made sense that Crow having a lot to say about social services and holding strong opinions on adults who exploited children would make Futaba better disposed towards him.

(Speaking of things she didn't have words for.) (Futaba had been reticent in large part out of respect for Kana's wishes — but might she have said something, last year, if Wakaba hadn't been so very preoccupied with work?)

"Hello, Archive," Noir said politely.

"Noir, Crow, pleased to meet you," Wakaba replied.

"The same," Noir said.

"Looking forward to seeing 'hyperbola' in action," said Crow, which was probably even true.

"Well," said Futaba in the awkward pause that followed. "Shall we?"

***

[Hmmmm, yeah, I think I want to add some more impressions of what Futaba isn’t saying about the future actually. Still needs work.]