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"Oh, what the fresh fuck is this."

Next to Shinji, Koromaru whines. He has no idea either, but it doesn't smell dangerous.

Shinji sighs. "Good to know, I guess..." He maneuvers his coat around in his hands until he can reach in the pocket - okay, keys are still there, he should be able to duck back out to Liminal Space whenever he wants. Cool.

Now to figure out what the fresh fuck this is.

He ignores Igor entirely, and almost does the same to the conspiracy board until the word 'Tartarus' jumps out at him. Well, shit, that's not a good sign. Oh well. At least he knows where he stands with the Dark Hour, and he's actually way better equipped to handle it than the last time he had to.

Anyway, that gets him to stop long enough to scan the information, and then he's off to Iwatodai. Reading can only tell you so much, after all. Actually seeing what's out there is going to work a hell of a lot better.

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"The other way-?" He had never heard of a Minako before, so he was a little confused as to how this all worked. The only way he could think of the other way making sense would be when he was younger and...

He really doesn't want to think about losing his sister and parents though.

Koromaru gives Makoto a nudge, to help get him out of whatever the bad thoughts are. He knows that kind of face very, very well by now.

"Timeline bullshit's like that sometimes."

Makoto smiles a little at Koromaru nudging him. He's not surprised the dog was good at reading his emotions if he'd accompanied Shinji this whole time.

He may as well tell Shinji though. "I mean I guess it'd make sense since I used to have a sister. Her name wasn't Minako though."

"Huh. She never mentioned any siblings, so that might be more timeline bullshit or might've just been something she didn't wanna get into."

He's pretty sure it's the former, but.

"Probably something she didn't want to talk about." Makoto sure as hell didn't bring up what happened to him to his friends more than he had to. Yukari had brought it up once herself.

"Maybe." And if that's the case, well, it's not like Shinji wanted to talk about many of his old scars.

"Anyway, did you still want to explore Tartarus?" Makoto didn't want to stand around in an uncomfortable silence after all.

"Want's a real strong word, but at least it won't fuck me up beyond repair anymore."

Koromaru whines. He wouldn't have let that happen. ...Never mind that Cerberus doesn't really have healing spells. He wouldn't have let that happen. Not again.

Makoto can guess that he's talking about whatever went on the evening of October 4th in his world. Makoto himself didn't want to dwell on that any more than he did the things that just happened or the silent state of the dorms back home.

"I just wanted to know if you were concerned enough to explore it. There's a copy of the Iwatodai dorms we could head back to instead," Makoto offers.

Koromaru perks up at the suggestion of the dorm, and Shinji shrugs. "Yeah, home's as good a place to go as any."

Makoto nods and starts heading back to the dorms, assuming that Shinji will follow. "How this sort of works is that there are other places that have Shadow threats too. There's a cognitive Tokyo," he's still not totally sure what's going on with that place. "And you know Inaba, right?" It's a bit aways away from Iwatodai, but he knew some of the sports teams went there for competitions.

"Phantom Thieves, TV world, probably somewhere with whatever shit set Mitsuru's grandfather on poking Shadows to see what would come out. Got it."

Oh. He knows already then. That's fine. "There's a couple more doors that lead back to the 90s, but they have demons wandering around instead of Shadows." Of course, with Makoto's Evoker he doubts that demons will be any bigger of a threat than Shadows, but that might be important information to Shinji.

"Huh. Weird."

"There's nobody here from those places so there's no idea what's going on there as far as I'm aware." He explains further. Looking up as they make it to the dorms Makoto approaches the door to open it.

The dorm... looks pretty much the same as always. There's a reason Shinji just recreated the space when he could carve out his own little corner of Liminal Space.

Koromaru plops himself down in front of the TV, wagging his tail.

Koromaru plops down in front of the TV, which is fairly cute. "I think there are other people at the dorm so there might be food in the fridge if you want." Makoto had heard footsteps and whatnot too and never seen anyone else, which was really odd.

"I'll figure out shopping later." Or just see if he can make shit from liminal goo still. Either way, he's not gonna steal someone else's food.

"Most the cognitions won't notice if you take stuff." He's not totally sure that the mystery person in the dorm is a cognition but the shopping at least won't be stealing.

"Huh. If only it was that easy everywhere."

There's a whisper of a smirk in his expression. "Yeah. If only." There is something else that's on Makoto's mind. "Hey, by the way, what happened on...?" He trails off, not sure if he should bring up the date. Really it was probably not fair to ask Shinji how he survived, but Makoto wanted to know. Maybe it was morbid curiosity to know if he could have prevented Shinji's death himself.

"In October? I got fucking lucky, that's what happened."

Shinji hangs his coat on a coat peg that, a lifetime ago, was his - not that Makoto would've ever seen him use it, when his temperature regulation was fucked enough to stay bundled up through the hottest summer on record. Close observation will show that it's been repaired, and very well (the best job Mitsuru could find); you'd have to know something happened in the first place to find it. Then he digs something out of a pocket, and passes it over.

It's a pocket watch - or, well. It used to be. It still has a bullet smashed through it.

"Mentioned to Minako I lost my watch. Figured it'd be a wild goose chase at best, but she found the damn thing - at the police box, of all places - and got it back to me about three days before. I was still out of commission for five months, but I got fucking lucky."

Makoto doesn't think he's seen Shinji without his coat on. It's sort of odd, honestly. He thinks he sees a stitch in it, but it was possible that he was just seeing things.

That is until Shinji hands him a pocket watch with a bullet in it. Huh. Makoto hadn't ever seen this pocket watch. He also mentions that Minako found his watch and gave it back to him just before the mission. He's not sure if it makes him feel more or less like he could have done something, since Shinji is saying he got lucky, but Makoto wonders if he was merely inattentive to even ask about Shinji's personal life himself. "Oh." It's really all that he can think to say.

"Stop blaming yourself."

Normally he probably wouldn't even bother saying that, but right now? It's necessary, and if Shinji can tell it's necessary, it's fucking vital.

"I might not've told you even if you asked. If I had, you might not've found it. Ken wasn't talking either. Aki and Mitsuru fucking forgot what day it was in the first place, and they knew better than the rest of you. And it's nobody's fault Takaya crashed the party."

Makoto looks up from the watch at Shinji's blunt words. How did he even-?

Maybe, since he knew about the other places and the weird timeline stuff, maybe it was common for Shinji to die. He can't really argue against a thing that Shinji said either. It's not like the circumstances were in Makoto's control at all. Maybe he only felt so responsible because he was supposed to be the one in charge of the team. "Sorry. I guess it happened pretty recently for me so..." Granted a lot of shit had hit the fan pretty recently, so maybe seeing Shinji here and alright under someone else's watch was just salt in the wound.