Last night had been the first instance of an early light's out for Munehisa for a long time. What was usually a late session of indulging social media and video games had turned into heavy sleep before the midnight hour, leading to an earlier awakening before even his father had come to. For whatever reason, the man had been drawn into yet another drunken stupor, and the boy would take it upon himself to begrudgingly take advantage of his unusual rejuvenation to clean up the mess. He disposed of the scattered alcoholic beverages strewn about the proximity of the stinking couch that was his father's cot, spraying a fragrant aerosol to combat the rank odor in the room. It was a commonplace routine in the Nara homestead, but as the boy stared down at his morning meal of a soft-boiled egg and empty calories in a bowl, the indignation was never any different. Was his father's display all what growing up had to sell?

Unexpectedly, school was more of a hassle than usual. Despite Okamoto's reticent disposition in comparison to her livid outburst the previous day, her crusaders made up for the silence with their own chattering, droning about rumours and spinning the controversy surrounding their class. It pissed Munehisa off, especially after seeing what he saw in that parallel universe; as fearful as he was of stepping back into that dangerous world, Nagi was right in that they had a score to settle, lest someone like Asumi somehow stumbled inside. It was very much an Asumi thing to occur, especially if...

"Hold on, you found a dead body, but also fell on it?" Munehisa exclaimed upon Masashi's initial explanation, casting a bewildered look towards Asumi. First, this whole other world scenario, and now we've got a small town murderer on the loose? "Now we've gotta worry about somehow not getting expelled and gutted in the same day," Munehisa sighed heavily, his shoulders sagging. Though it was obvious that the existence of that parallel universe had to remain a secret, he sure as hell didn't have an incredible cover story in mind for their whereabouts. Here goes, anyway. "Well, I went to basketball practice, but Katsuragi-senpai's rejection and that whole expulsion crap is still bothering me, and the guys don't notice a benchwarmer like me anyway," the boy started, looking towards Nagi expectantly. "So I left the gym, and ran into Nagi on the way out! She felt so bad for me about Katsuragi-senpai that she actually took me out to the food court at Aprile. What can I say? I'm gonna need all the dating practice I can get with the ladies!"

Louis Armstrong? She'd heard of the guy's name. Something about him being really good at the trumpet, right? Her music goals were so vastly different to the kind of music that Akira played that she didn't think she'd need to familiarize herself with any of it. There were plenty other musicians that piqued her interest, and unfortunately, Armstrong wasn't one of them.

And if she had to be honest, Kotone was willing to bet 10,000 Yen that Akira was the only person at the whole school to listen to the guy's music. Nothing wrong with it, but it was definitely a niche taste.

Kotone took Akira's offer and sat down next to her. She'd rummage through her bag to take out her own lunch, then popped the lid off to reveal a teriyaki beef bento box with a side of white rice, chopped vegetables, and some melon for a treat. The smell of Akira's own lunch made her keep a mental note to buy some shrimp tempura for dinner.

"Heh, glad I'm memorable." She said with a little smile. "I'm Kotone, nice to meet you too Akira. I remembered you as the chick always playing some jazzy stuff. Never had an idea what it was up until now." She took a piece of beef from her container then ate the piece as she thought of something else to say, then swallowed. "Is Louie-boy all you play or you got all kinds of songs up your sleeves?"

Well, wasn't this a cavalcade of fuckups? Nagi closed her eyes and suppressed a groan as Masashi described how the rest of her friend group and associated hangers-on somehow got themselves involved with what sounded like a serial killer case. Son of a bitch. If anything, this kind of shit was just going to make the fucking curfew even worse. And wasn't that just a bundle of fun?

Of course, Mune beating her to the punch on making up an excuse was bad in the immediate sense. Asumi would buy that godawful story just from her nosy ass wanting to set her best friend up with someone. Masa, on the other hand...well, they'd known each other long enough that he could most likely smell the bullshit from a mile away about that being hilariously out of character for herself. At least that part Nagi could salvage a bit.

"Oh, for fuck's sake. Let's not get it twisted." Nagi sighed, running a hand through her hair. "Translation: I conned Mune into buying me food. He asked me for dating tips and I told him to stop being a pussy and go to the gym until he had a six-pack and some arms. The end. Let's get back to the important part. No one said anything stupid when you were being questioned, right?"

---

Unfortunately for poor Chen, he didn't seem to recognize any more of the figures around him. Either he didn't watch enough anime, which was almost certainly the case, or these were all just really obscure characters. Either way, he'd managed to burn half an hour just looking at stuff he probably wasn't going to buy anyways. Looks like it was time to go bother the old man again.

Heading upstairs and looking around, the placed looked the same as it always did. Model knives and swords in cases, and even a few model firearms off to the side. Thinking about it, Chen realized he had little knowledge of firearms. He knew how they worked for the most part, but he didn't know the history and significance behind these weapons. Maybe Wantanabe could enlighten him? If he wasn't allowed to buy them, he could at least learn about them.

Chen walked over to the cases, looking down at the firearms. They all looked relatively the same, though there were some minor differences among them, like size, barrel length, or color. They looked well made, all things considered. The metal was polished to a shine, and the plastic was free of any scuff marks, dust, or scratches. A couple of them stood out amongst the rest to Chen. Their tags read "Minebea P9" and "M1911".

"Hey old man," Chen called over to Wantanabe, pointing at the guns in the case. "What can you tell me about these?" Wantanabe walked out from behind the counter over to Chen. "Didn't take you for the firearm type, but I'll tell you what I know."

Wantanabe took one of the guns out of the display case, holding up to the light to inspect it before talking. "This here is the SIG Sauer P220, made by, well, SIG and Sauer. Though here in Japan these are made by Minebea, and called the P9. They originated in Germany and Switzerland, and are even used by the Swiss military. It was mainly used as a replacement for the SIG S210, which was developed in World War II." Chen's ears seemed to perk up at the mention of World War II. Wantanabe seemed to notice, and put the gun back into the case to pull out the other gun he had pointed out.

"This one here I think you'll be a little more interesed in. This is an M1911, an American handgun. If you can believe it, this thing was used from 1911 all the way up to 1985, and even then, they're apparently extremely popular over in America, and are still being made. This thing saw two world wars, and even a couple wars after that. I'm not too familiar with American history and wars, so you'll have to find out more yourself." Chen couldn't believe it. A weapon that was over a hundred years old and was still saw use. It lived through two of what might be considered the most important wars in history.

From there, Wantanabe explained in more detail the intricacies of the weapons, such as manufacturers and the places that used them. Apparently some guy named John Moses Browning was real important for firearm history. He'd continue listening intently to Wantanabe as he spoke, even if he didn't exactly understand what stuff like "parabellum rounds" were. He had a lot of research to do when he got home. Hopefully, given recent circumstances, researching firearms wouldn't get him put on some sort of watchlist.

Looking between the two of them, Masashi raised an eyebrow before he just sighed with a hint of disgust and shook his head. If neither of them wanted to tell the truth, then he'd just have to leave it at that. It wasn't like he had any way to pry the truth out of them anyways. "Not like they questioned all of us together. We're not the ones the cops actually care about anyways," he said with a roll of his eyes before he snorted. "Yeah, shame you decided to run off early with the crow. I got to take some home thanks to these two no-shows." Most of it had ended up being shared with his parents, but there had been enough for him to bring a portion to school for lunch today.

Speaking of the crow though… Masashi tilted his head and narrowed his eyes at Asumi before he shook his head. “You brought it to school...?" Trailing off for a moment as he wondered why she hadn't just hid it in a bathroom at home or something, he gave up trying to follow Asumi's logic before long. "Sure hope a stray cat didn’t get to it,” he muttered somewhat darkly before he shook his head and adjusted his carrier again. “Well have fun with that. Maybe bring it to the vet instead. I’ll see you guys on Monday or Tuesday though,” he remarked before he waved a hand to see them off and departed from the three’s company.

---

Chen walked out of Wantanabe's, his head still swirling with newfound knowledge of his new interest. This one discovery could lead him down a whole new rabbit hole. People, places, industry leaders, historical battles, and who knows what else. Chen sighed as he realized he'd probably end up staying up late again on one of his "research" moods again. But, such is the life of an up-and-coming Historian. He wished there was a museum around here. There was one back where he lived in Yokohama, but he only got to go a couple of times, and this was before he could really appreciate the exhibits and the knowledge there.

But that was enough thinking for now, a good walk home would clear his head, though he'd need to hold on to a few details of what he had learned in his mind, lest he forget. But other than that, he could walk freely, forgetting the troubles of the world, if only for a few moments. No needing to worry about test dates, no need to worry about the threats from his teacher, need to worry about the fact that he found a corpse of all things. Well, that one still stuck on a little bit.

Chen let out a long exhale as he began his journey home, looking over at many of the buildings and houses he passed on his way. He never did visit many of these buildings, maybe he should do that sometime. Some of the older buildings were abandoned, but there were also mom and pop shops, there were shops selling little knickknacks, little restaurants, all sorts of things. Chen chuckled at thought of his father working as a chef in his own restaurant. What would he even call it? Probably something really dumb like, "The Shining Dragon" or "The Tiger's Den". It'd make no sense and he'd love the place to death. But it's probably better for everyone that he keeps his job at the hospital for now.

There was one shop that stood out a little more amongst the rest of them,that place being Aprile. It was much bigger than the rest of the places around here. It even had a food court. He'd been there a couple of times with his mom to get groceries, but he never actually took the time to look around. Maybe now would be a good time? Hell no! He had research to do. The food court could wait. And with that he set off once more towards his home.

"Yeah, yeah, my bad." Nagi grunted in response to Asumi, still just rolling with this cover story. "What can I say? Mune's goddamn hopeless sometimes. Anyways, Chen's dad a better cook than me, then? Don't do much Chinese, myself."

She sighed to herself as Masa clearly didn't buy their excuse and took the opportunity to fuck off. Probably gonna have to make it up to him, just so he didn't have something to hold against her for whoever knew how long. Whatever, she'd get him food or something later. For now, there was still other shit to get done. Like accompanying Asumi to see...a half-dead crow, if hers and Masa's words were any indication.

"Uh..." Nagi raised an eyebrow as she let Asumi drag her along. "Asumi, I know you wanna be a vet and shit, but if this crow's as fucked up as Masa was making it out to be, shouldn't you have taken it to the actual vet? Also I ain't really a bird girl. More of a..." She paused, tapping her chin with her free hand in thought. "Shit, what animal do I like? I dunno, fuck it, Buchimaru's a panda, so that, I guess. Anyways, we're here, so let's see your fuckin' crow, then."

"Oh I play a lot of things. But I love jazz the most. Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, Wynton Marsalis."

Akira smiled as she tucked into her lunch. The tempura was not as crunchy as when her mom had made it, but it was still hot enough that it made that good crunch when she bit into a piece of shrimp. She sat in silence for a while, busying herself with her meal until she had another thought that came to mind.

"But I also play other things. I play in the school band so we do a lot of classical pieces. Sometimes our conductor finds a neat cover of a modern pop song for us to play to, that's always interesting. Oh! That reminds me."

She set her lunch box down on the ledge next to her and dug her phone out of her pocket. She tapped on the YouTube icon and typed into the search bar, scrolling until she found the video she wanted. Then she tapped on landscape mode and held her phone between herself and Kotone so they both could see the video as it played. The song was something she'd heard before, plenty of times, both at home and in practice, and she knew her part to a T.

"I found this band's music recently, they're this German band who do covers of dance music with marching band instruments. Our conductor told us about these guys and we're doing one of their songs for the next school concert. They're pretty cool!"

Munehisa cast off a dagger of a glare towards Nagi upon her own rendition of his cover story, resisting the urge to punch her shoulder before Asumi carried on with being her usual self. "You have a crow?" his voice cracked out of bewilderment as he dashed a few footfalls ahead of the girl, turning around to face her while walking backwards. "A literal manifestation of divine intervention? You know, that whole myth of Yatagarasu?"

A dramatic episode spurred from the boy as his imagination ran wild, wondering if it was a sign of the events from the previous day. "Won't the school just chase it off or somethin' if they see it by the premises?" Munehisa returned a farewell gesture towards Masashi as he questioned Asumi.

Kotone could only recognize one of those names, and that was because they were just talking about him. Still, Akira seemed passionate about them and their work; Kotone wasn't gonna kill the mood.

She picked up a piece of beef and ate it, the two girls taking a moment of silence to enjoy their respective lunches before Akira popped up with some more information about herself; something that intrigued Kotone.

"Ooo, sounds cool. Your band ever consider trying to cover rock music? I know there's a video or two out there of a marching band covering classic rock, metal, and all that." Those types of videos had popped up on her recommended feed and she gave it a look. It was pretty cool, to be honest.

"Oh?" Akira put a video up for them, which Kotone started eating her lunch while watching. The band themselves played really well and the music sounded like something she could dance to. "Oh yeah, they're pretty good. You guys should do something similar and play at the school festivals." She took another bite of beef before chewing and swallowing. "I'm curious. You ever take that trumpet and go play in jazz clubs? You're really good, and it'd suck if those skills were restricted to just school roofs and marching bands."

Good-News/Bad-News time. The good news was that, after alot of searching, Hakuro was about to search out the information he was looking for. This wasn't to say that the news he had found was good. It made for a grim read. There were a host of flunked-out students whom Okamoto had treated like garbage, in which some of them were in a bad way and...some of them had succumbed to pressure in the worst way. Let's just say that if Nagi really had plans to make that woman disappear, he wouldn't argue with the girl's methods. And yes, some of the failures had disappeared... The bad news, though...was in the successes, the ones he'd been warned about. Some of them were unfamiliar to him, just names listed among a series of achievements. However, some of them... The Student Treasurer, Room 3-A's Class Rep, Rina's older brother... Hakuro's eyes widened especially at that last one.

No wonder you were trying to warn me. You knew about the fanaticism from the start, and that put you onto the fallout of the fail-outs.

There were others in the vicinity of him, but the main threat was that the most-successful were in the places where being aware and in control of things surrounding them worked hand-in-hand. No wonder the Pricnipal liked the results. These were achievers probably at any cost, and they had a severe case of Stockholm Syndrome. Hakuro stepped back from the computer and headed out of the school library. He needed time to think, to reflect on this. Putting on some music, he started to head to the roof while composing a text to Rina.

I see now why you warned me so quickly.
It must've been rough for you, at home.
I'm sorry if my investigation caused you grief.

Heading up the floors, he was getting close to the roof, looking to get some air, when...something interrupted. He stopped his phone a second. Was there...? Yeah, someone up here was already here, playing music. It was different from the track he'd been playing, which was from a show. It was more up-beat, even. Hakuro decided to open the door to the roof and have a listen, seeing two girls, both of whom he knew, but not personally. That is, one was the Metal Chick, and the other was the very-much-into-pink girl, Akira. The music played itself out, and then the Metal Chick - who was the one that drew that picture of him, most likely - asked a question that Hakuro was all too happy to answer as he stepped out into the open.

"Unfortunately, there isn't really much in town that would be alright with that. Closest things would be either the mall, and Komatsu Karaoke, and Shimazu-san doesn't like minors hanging around the bar. Believe me, I tried."

For the record, Hakuro was not mispronouncing Shimizu Aoi's name. He was equating them to the Shimazu of history, a clan of war and profit. So, these two had a Hatto-san on their hands now. What do?

Nagi stared at the crow Asumi was so excited over with her usual unimpressed face. Well, it wasn't dying. It also wasn't eating the granola bar that her best friend had left for it, but even with Nagi's borderline-nonexistent knowledge of birds, she was pretty sure she understood why.

"Uh...Asumi?" Nagi tapped her on the shoulder. "I'm pretty sure the bird can't, you know, bite through the granola bar. Don't think that's how beaks work-"

She was suddenly cut off by an unfamiliar voice, causing her eyebrow to twitch.

"Oi, what the fuck-" Nagi cut off as she looked around. There was no one else around. Was she losing it after that shitshow yesterday? Hell, did they get sucked into that alternate dimension crap yet without her or Mune noticing? A glance around showed that the bushes outside the school still seemed normal, so that clearly wasn't the case. Considering it clearly wasn't herself, Asumi, or Mune that spoke, that only left one real culprit. God damn, she was losing it if she thought the crow was talking.

What was more disturbing, however, was the fact that Asumi didn't seem to react to hearing the voice. A quick glance at Mune showed that he clearly heard it too, so...that only really left one reasonable explanation. Somehow, having something to do with the freaky alternate world let you hear birds all of a sudden. Or at least this one. This really sucked.

Nagi shook her head apologetically at Asumi, shrugging as she decided to cover it up for the moment.

"Sorry, phone buzzed in my jacket. Forgot I left it like that." She made a show of pulling said phone out and flipping through her texts, looking up from the screen the moment Asumi's gaze was turned to narrow her eyes and glare at the crow. Damn, but Nagi really, really, hoped she was just hallucinating the first sentence. Dealing with talking birds wasn't something she wanted to deal with at all.

God fucking damn it. Nagi wasn't going crazy. The crow was actually talking. And reacting. Yep, this was stupid. Nagi resisted the urge to groan as she listened to the bird protesting in Asumi's arms. Which was actually pretty funny, all things considered. For someone who wanted to be a vet, Asumi sure was mistreating the crow. Or maybe the feathered fuck was just bitching over nothing. Who knew?

"Uh, huh. Yo, Asumi." Nagi nodded as her best friend went on before cutting in. "You ever had someone insult you and then ask for your help right fucking after? I mean, what kinda dipshit does that, right? They'd have to be a real jackass to think that'd work." She gestured casually towards her phone, implying that was the content of her texts while shooting the bird a brief death glare, just to give it some shit for being a prick.

Either way, if she could hear the bird thanks to her Persona superpowers or whatever that mess had been yesterday, Nagi figured she might as well play along. Even if that meant giving the stupid crow what it wanted despite the shit it had been talking.

"Anyways, look. If this is about not wanting to pay the vet, give it here. One of my dad's boys likes birds, has a feeder in his backyard and everything. Lemme take it over to him and he'll probably know what to do. At the very least, he'll probably have some kind of food that this crow'll actually eat."

Of course, this hypothetical bird lover didn't exist. But Asumi didn't need to know that. Nagi just needed five minutes uninterrupted with the bird just to find out what it knew, if anything. If she didn't like its answers, well, it was going straight back into Asumi's hands.

Akira shook her head, a smile on her face as she put her phone down so she could return to her meal. The food on her lap wasn't getting any warmer just by being there, and the wind on the roof was starting to pick up a little. She shovelled another mouthful of rice into her gob and washed it down with water, before she could respond to Sonoda's question. But before she even could, out from the stairway stepped the school's resident "vigilante", Hakuro Kuroda. A senior whose whole shtick was dressing up like a film noir detective from the 1920s and one of the weirdos in the school. She didn't mind him, mostly because he never had a reason to bother her, but it seemed like today was an exception to that.

She swallowed another mouthful of rice, washed it down with some water, then set her chopsticks down on her lunch box. His response to Kotone's question, meant for her obviously, did make a lot of sense. And Akira had been about to say the same thing. But she gestured to Hakuro and nodded to Kotone, keeping a warm smile on her face.

"Y-yes, exactly that. Besides, I'm not good enough to warrant any notice by the adults. Not yet, anyway."

---

On the way home, yet another store caught his eye: a bookstore. Kudo's bookstore. He'd only been there a couple of times, as he could get a lot of stuff online for free, and also because he was usually broke. But if he was going to be researching firearms from WWII, and important figures like John Moses Browning, a bookstore would be a pretty decent place to start. He split off from the path he was taking towards the bookstore.

Stepping inside, he took a quick look around. Where would he start? WWII? American history? Would they even have those kinds of books? Maybe they'd have books on firearms, or books that detailed old war tactics. Given that it's an American handgun, it would probably be wise to start there. Guess it was time to start looking.

He looked through the many shelves and their genres. Fiction, sci-fi, horror... history! "Ah ha! Here we go." He stood there, scanning the spines of the books. Many were quite thick, likely either detailing a lengthy period, or going into great detail on a smaller period. There was the Meiji period, Edo period, modern Japan. He widened his search to a few more shelves.

That's when he noticed a tall, lanky figure sitting with a computer. He looked familiar. Ken-something. Kendo? No that wasn't it. Kenshiro? No, that wasn't it either. Ken...zo. No, that was wrong too. Suddenly, he was struck with the answer, Kenzan! He remembered him from the dinner party back home. He didn't stay for too long. Maybe he had somewhere to be. He called out as he approached.

"Hey there, uh, Kenzan right? Asumi dragged you along for the impromptu dinner party the other day. How've you been?"

Mentions: Chen @Lord Orgasmo
He was supposed to be working on school work, and he did, for a bit anyway. Kenzan got through an acceptable number of assignments before the other random tabs that he had open on his computer grabbed his attention and he started scrolling through various social media sites. He wasn't actually paying much attention to what he was seeing, just mindlessly scrolling until he rediscovered the motivation to keep working. If he actually managed to find it.

The textbooks he had been flipping through had been dropped to the ground, or returned to his backpack, so that likelihood that of that happening at this point was pretty slim. Instead he finally gave in and just closed out of any of the school tabs that he had up. Maybe he'd get back to it later. Instead he clicked open one of numerous games he had downloaded on his computer to continue to pass the time until closing.

He heard the sound of the door to the bookshop opening, but ignored it since he doubted it was of any interest to him. It was a bookstore, people could come and go as they pleased. He didn't usually pay any attention to who came in because they didn't usually care about some student who was there doing work.

Seemed like that wasn't the case this time though as he heard a voice directed in his general direction. Dark eyes flicked over to the second year that he had somehow managed to end up in the house of the other day. what were the odds that someone who knew him would actually come in. From what he heard about Chen though he was pretty quiet, unlike most of the people he had met in that group.

"Yeah, that's right," he paused his game so that he didn't end up dying, "Um, pretty good. Just trying to get some work done." Which wasn't going all that well anymore. "What're you here for? Anything specific?"