It was the evening after the Yasogami High culture festival, and the investigation team was currently unwinding (or, as can more accurately be described given the events of the beauty pageant, "recovering") after the days' events with a luxurious soak in the Amagi Inn's famous traditional hot springs.
Or at least the girls were. The boys, due to an unfortunate scheduling mix-up on Yukiko's part, did not get to enjoy a relaxing soak, and were instead retreating to their assigned room after a much less relaxing session of "getting hit repeatedly in the crotch with washbuckets."
"Chie-Senpai's... really good at kicking things," Kanji sighed as he limped down the hallway with his upperclassmen.
"Well," Souji, their unofficial leader said with authority, "I propose we never speak of this incident again."
"What was that 'hold the line' shit?!" Yosuke asked Souji.
"Never. Speaking. Of it. Again." Souji said with finality.
"Did we score?" Teddie the former shadow and occasional bear asked.
"NO!" the other three exclaimed simultaneously.
---***---
Unbeknownst to our heroes, a dark entity was watching over them, and had been for some time. This was the goddess Izanami, who had started the chain of events the team had been dealing with since April in an attempt to determine humanity's worth.
"Well, now," Izanami said. "It looks like things will be coming to a head soon. It seems to be a dead heat between Hope and Emptiness. We shall see what humanity craves..."
The ageless deity sighed to herself.
"But this lull in the action's lasted for almost a month! Since they saved that small, androgynous thing, nobody's even entered my world. How trite..."
Her attention was drawn to the girls, who were just leaving the hot springs.
"Did you enjoy the hot springs, Nanako-chan?" Naoto asked the young girl in their care for the evening.
"Uh-huh! It was really neat!" Nanako said. This was followed by a wide yawn.
"Guess this is a little past your bedtime, isn't it, Nana-chan?" Rise asked.
"No, I'm... not... tired..." Nanako muttered, obviously fighting sleep.
"Come on, girls," Yukiko said. "Let's get Nanako to... uh-oh..."
"What is it, Yukiko?" Chie asked.
"I... think it may actually have been the boys' time to use the springs," said Yukiko in apprehension.
An air of silence overtook the girls. Even Nanako, young and tired as she was, seemed notice the gravity in Yukiko's words.
"Let's... never tell them," Chie announced.
The girls unanimously agreed, and headed off to their room without a word. As Izanami watched this exchange, her eyes lingered on Yukiko, the tallest of the girls. An idea came to her, and a grin came to her face that, if Izanami could be quantified by human concepts of morality, could be construed as evil.
"Let's... shake things up a bit," Izanami said with a dark chuckle.
---***---
Later the night, the boys of the Investigation Team suffered another inglorious defeat. After they, too, had learned of Yukiko's scheduling faux pax, Yosuke hatched a plan to surprise the girls while they slept. Unfortunately, they got the room number wrong, and walked in on their aged teacher Miss Kashiwagi, and their extremely unpleasant and corpulent classmate Hanako. After the most traumatic five minutes of Souji's life, the boys found themselves out in the hallway once again.
"I propose," Souji said with finality, "that we never speak of this again."
"Sure has been a lot of stuff the past two days that we're not supposed to speak of again," Yosuke sighed.
"Wonder whose fault that is, Yosuke-senpai?" Kanji grumbled.
"Was that scoring?" Teddie asked piteously. "Because if it was, I didn't like it..."
Before Yosuke could once again correct his friend's misperception of "scoring," their conversation was interrupted by a loud boom.
"The hell was that?!" Kanji asked.
"It came from the girls' room!" Souji said, gesturing towards one of the doors on the other end of the hall. "Let's go!"
The boys ran towards the noise.
"Wait... you knew where the girls' room was this whole time?!" Yosuke asked angrily.
"That's not important now!" Souji said.
Just as the boys reached the door...