personavelvetroomdr | (no subject)

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There's a new presence in the shadows of the Velvet Room tonight.

For a while, there's no obvious sign of this... presumably a person, just the feeling that something is watching from the darkness, listening to whatever cryptic platitudes Igor's spouting about the place tonight. Eventually, though, the presence announces itself as... an Akira, looking at the conspiracy board.

Or maybe he's a Ren? (He's both. He's neither. He's pretty sure Igor is the closest to a familiar entity here. Making connections? That's not going to be a problem at all.)

"...I have no idea what most of this means," he's forced to conclude after several minutes. "Cool."

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"Oh, I'm probably where I need to be. I just have no idea what most of this board is talking about."

Really, the stuff about names is the most comprehensible. Names have power, after all, and you have to know what kind of power it is.

"So you aren't sure where you are then." Alice may have the wonderland theme going on with her personas but she isn't personally a fan of the chesire cat act that this Kurusu seems to have going on.

"Anyway um. The board seems to have details from the lives of everyone here. This may sound a little stupid, but we're all from different realities. This Velvet Room place seems to exist in between them." She didn't tell him the rhyme or reason that anyone was brought here because as far as Haru had explained to her there really was none. "Is there something in particular on the board that catches your eye?"

"Oh, not in the slightest. But if I'm here, I probably need to be." It just stands to reason, is all. He'll make it work.

"That bit about the coffins doesn't make any sense at all. But it seems like it didn't make much sense to the person who wrote it, either."

"Oh the coffins? That's through that door to Iwatodai," she points. "I think I've seen a guy with blue hair go in and out of that door a few times so he might know more about that than me." Since she hadn't spoken with him she couldn't say for sure, but it was something if Kurusu really was that curious.

"I'm more somewhere in the Metaverse and Phantom Thieves timeline. Only difference I understand is that you're in charge of them most other timelines and not Ann." It seemed Akechi was his rival too, rather than Alice but surely Kurusu was already aware of that.

"I wouldn't know about this Metaverse thing, either."

His world has different weird shit.

"For real?" So there's no such thing as the idea of personas where this Kurusu is from. Interesting.

"The Metaverse is this thing where the cognitions of people manifest. Mainly those with distorted desires. The Phantom Thieves tend to reform society by changing the hearts of those people." That's about as short as she can get it. She doesn't mind answering other questions that this Kurusu has, either because of the board or what she just told him.

"So that's how they deal with people like the vulture, then? Or Kaede's shit art teacher."

"I'm not really sure who either of those people are. They changed the heart of a corrupt artist called Madarame though." So this Kurusu's timeline was really different if he's bringing up people that Alice didn't even know.

"...No, I think that's the teacher. Bella handled him, not me, so I don't know all the details, but the name sounds right."

Good. That's the sort of abuse that oughtn't be tolerated.

"Bella?" She asks him. It seemed like he was hiding the names of the people he was talking about or just didn't know anyone that Alice knew. "Are you not in contact with the common members of the Phantom Thieves?" She can't help but ask.

"That's a good question. My world might just be so different that it's impossible to tell." Doubly so when he's not going to give out anyone's true names, and doesn't know some of those names.

"Belladonna. She has a garden." She is the garden. It's complicated. "Kaede got sent to paint something on her property, and she took a shine to him."

"Sounds like Haru and Kitagawa." She wasn't super close to Haru but the one she met here had asked to use her first name so Alice was guessing the others didn't like to be called Okumura either. "Funny you guys use different code names than the ones that Ann and her friends do." It seemed as though there was a different reason for it as well.

"Could be." Bella also uses Haru, sometimes.

But she would vociferously object to being tied to the man who thought he owned her property.

"They're not exactly code names."

"If they aren't code names is it like another reason? I know Ann and her friends were using code names in the Metaverse in case using their real names caused an issue." So there had to be some issue that this Kurusu's friends took with using real names. "But they know each other's real names too."

"Names have power. Not handing out your true one freely is reason enough."

"So it's fae bullshit then." Alice reasons out. "Most of our timelines don't have that so there's not a whole ton of reason for the thieves to not know each others' names. Especially with how often they meet up and hang out in the real world." At least that seems to be what the norm is.

That makes Akira grin. "Well-reasoned."

Well, she wasn't a detective but Alice wasn't that airheaded. "So then to let you know, the doors here lead to different places. Tokyo in 2016, Inaba from 2011, Iwatodai from 2009 and some doors back to cities in the 90s, but people around here rarely use those. The other three have the possibility of encountering the Shadows mentioned on the board so be careful." She was sure this Kurusu could handle his own but only Persona users could reliably deal with Shadows.

"2016? I'm a couple years late to the party." Interesting. What delayed dealing with the foul people in Akira's own world? Did Kaede just meet Bella too late to be effective?

Did the vulture not get elected? That would save a lot of people a great deal of trouble, to be sure.

"I appreciate the heads-up."

"Mhm. I'd also be happy to tell you my name and phone number if you ever do find yourself in trouble," Alice offers. She figures the figure of speech giving Kurusu her name would cause problems, knowing Ann's Kurusu at least.

"Only as much of your name as you feel like sharing," Akira says. "I don't want or need bound minions."

"Well then you can call me Alice," there's no need to include her last name. Kurusu didn't seem interested in her number, so she figured that he didn't want that.

"A pleasure, Alice. I'll answer to Akira, or Ren, or Lotus, or Joker, or any number of other things." He's amassed quite the collection of names, over time.

"...Right. Phone numbers are a thing, aren't they? I'm new to this whole phone thing." 'taba's still annoyed she's not the one who finally wore him down, but she'll just have to get over it.

"I'll probably stick to calling you Kurusu unless I stumble into another Akira." It was how she knew him by so that was the easies thing to call him.

"Wow you're like old old then huh?" She teases him about the phone thing. That said she still had business cards from her modeling gig. Reaching into the pocket of her leather jacket she hands one to him. "That has my phone number on it, if you stumble into somewhere with Shadows definitely call me since Personas are the only thing that can kill them."

"That's a new one, but whatever's easiest for you." He's really not fussed, especially since it's not like any of those were his true name anyway.

At the teasing, he grins. "Sure am. I also just... didn't have a need for one, until recently. Should I still call you if I don't stumble, but deliberately choose to investigate?"