Taking Hearts, Breaking Limits (Persona 5 Royal x Final Fantasy VII)

II

4/21 - Thursday - Lunchtime

In Cloud's perspective, Shujin Academy was surprisingly impressive.

A three-story school building, complete with a practice building, a gymnasium, and a courtyard. It was a bit amazing to him since the only school (if you could even call it that) he'd ever seen was an orphanage for children of the slums.

The gates were open, so he decided to walk inside. The first floor interior was not all bad. Multiple doors leading to different classrooms, some vending machines, a staircase leading upstairs, and even a co-op selling bread. Multiple students were walking around which probably means it's recess or something. They were all wearing black blazers with red buttons with the school's emblem on their left chest. The boys had black and red pleated pants (which looked weird in his opinion) while the girls wore plaid skirts with the same pattern.

"Hm? I haven't seen you before." he heard a girl's voice behind him.

He turned around and saw who was probably a high school student. She was an inch or two shorter than he was. She had brown hair in a bob cut with blunt bangs and a French-braid styled headband that matches her hair color. Her uniform was different from the others. Instead of a blazer, she was wearing a black halter vest over a long-sleeve white shirt with a turtleneck. She was still wearing the same skirt as other women, along with a black pantyhose and dark brown ankle-boots.

"What's with those clothes..? Are you a student here?" she asked him.

That's when he just realized: he was really standing out from everyone else. Paired with his spiky blond hair (which he highly doubts is part of school regulations), he wore his battle gear; a black robe with with a high collar sleeveless black shirt, black gloves, black pants and boots, and black cloths covering his left leg and arm (he was a fan of black). The attire also included a single pauldron on his left shoulder, with his chest covered by two straps, held in place by a badge representing a wolf. Not only that, he had seven sword hilts on his back; six small ones, and one hidden one currently carrying his Fusion Sword. Oh, and he had a little bag on his side that held all his Materia. Definitely proper school attire.

"I'm uh..." Cloud tried to make something up, but nothing plausible came to mind. The girl studied his face, trying to recognize who he was. Suddenly, she brought something up that cleared all his suspicion against him, but it just added even more to his suspicion against what the hell's been going on.

"Oh! You must be the foreign exchange student the teachers have been talking about." she said.

Cloud definitely did not sign himself up to this academy, but he didn't really have a choice but to go along with it. He had his doubts, but it was obvious what he needed to do. He started to feel like he was going to hate this.

"Come on, I'll show you to the faculty office." she said while gesturing him to follow her upstairs.

Second level was underwhelming.

It was a smaller version of the first floor, with almost the same classrooms but with different numbers. According to the girl, it housed the faculty office and the principal's office. Apparently the principal's name was Kobayakawa. If Cloud wanted to (which he never does), he could laugh at it. But of course, he didn't. He had more important stuff to focus on.

They were on their way to the faculty office, but a man called out to them with a big "Hey there!"

He was an unnaturally tall man with long black unkempt hair and thick eyebrows. His jawline was broad and square. He wore a white t-shirt and black track pants with double white stripes. Around his neck, he had a red timer and a whistle. Cloud thought he was probably some athlete.