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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 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.

It really isn't hard to guess what happened. Especially when Shinji knows he was fucking lucky.

"How recent?"

Makoto lets out a quiet sigh. "About a month ago." There were other circumstances that made Makoto feel like he failed his team too, like what happened with Mitsuru's dad, but that's not relevant to this conversation.

"And from what Minako said, shit only got worse from there."

Koromaru growls in agreement. November was not good. (Shinji's kind of glad he was indisposed for the whole Ikutsuki thing, honestly.)

"Pretty much. There was the whole thing in October, and then after the full moon in November Ikutsuki took control of Aigis and killed Mitsuru's dad." And they still had no answers as to what was causing the Dark Hour. That's about as far as Makoto is right now, he'd heard a little bit about Nyx and what it is from Crow, but he sure as hell doesn't have a full picture.

"And that wasn't your fault either. It wasn't anybody's fault except Ikutsuki's. I can say I never trusted him, but I've trusted two adults in my life and I'm not sure who decided I get to be one of the adults now." That sounds Fake And Wrong.

But it's also probably apparent by now that Shinji has a little emotional distance from everything that went down.

"According to you 'dumb fucking luck'," Makoto repeats back to Shinji mentioning he wasn't sure who decided he was an adult. "How long ago did all this stuff happen for you?" Makoto can't say he isn't curious how much distance Shinji had from the events of 2009.

Shinji snorts. Okay, got him there.

"Great question. Consistent calendars weren't really a thing. Best guess... four years or so."

Geez that was a long time. He mentions that where he went a consistent calendar wasn't something that he had. There was something else on his mind, more of a curiosity to him after what Crow had said about sealing Nyx away. "Can I ask what happened to Minako? Somebody else told me a little bit about 2016 in his world and what happened to me so...if you don't wanna say I get it." He doesn't want Shinji to be mad if it is sensitive after all.

As quick as he smiled, it's gone again.

"Well, she ended up in the same place I did, so it's kinda complicated. But as far as she knows she's supposed to be dead."

He's not going to soften the blow. It is what it is.

Yeah that was what Makoto thought. It would be what it would be if the same thing happened to him. "Yeah, Crow told me that's what happened in his world." He also got told that everyone else ends up investigating the Shadows forever, but dwelling on that doesn't seem right.

Koromaru goes to Makoto and nudges him. Nothing like petting a dog to help process bad news, right?

"Probably what happened in most of 'em."

Koromaru nudges his hand, causing him to smile. "Actually you never know. Crow also told me there's some version of me wandering around that's technically a Shadow." Makoto doesn't know the significance of that in the slightest, it's just kind of interesting to him.

"You? Not that Ryoji guy? What the fuck happened there?"

Shinji doesn't expect Makoto to be able to answer that, but clearly something got fucky.

"Ryoji?" Makoto hadn't met a Ryoji. It's more than likely going to be a future him problem.

"I haven't met that me, you might have to ask him about that directly." If Shinji's genuinely curious Makoto figures that's the only person that would have the answer to his question.

"Never met him personally. Minako didn't talk about him much, either, so I don't really know what his deal was, just that it had something to do with the Dark Hour's root cause."