Summary: Kamoshida's Palace, Kamoshida's Shadow, a not-cat, and a couple of Shujin students.
Note: look, I don't have anything to say… *shrugs*
Warnings: Kamoshida, Niijima Goro AU, AkeMako Siblings.
Disclaimer: Don't own P5.
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Kamoshida's Shadow tumbled backwards and fell to the floor, and above him stood both Goro and Makoto, weapons drawn and poses threatening as they considered their next step.
"What should we do now?" Makoto asked, glare firmly fixed on the trembling Shadow on the floor, eyes looking quite menacing through the openings in her dark, metallic mask.
Goro frowned behind his black mask and tightened his grip on his serrated sword, "Do you think we should finish him off? Like the other Shadows we faced? If he disperses for a while, this place may crumble in his absence, and it would give us a chance to act at school."
Makoto slipped to a ready stance, and Goro slid into a position standing next to her.
"You fools!" The Shadow spat out, "Do you even know what you're doing? Of course not! You're just blundering idiots who have no idea what and who they're messing around with!"
"Shut your mouth!" Makoto snapped, "A disgusting monster like you doesn't get to talk like that after all you did to the students of this school!"
"It's already been a year," The Shadow scoffed, "What are you getting all uppity now for? Don't tell me…" He grinned mockingly, "Is your conscious weighing on you now? Do you want to absolve yourselves of the guilt? What a stupid pair of no good, goody-two-shoes."
Goro snarled, "Let's do this."
"Right away." Makoto drew her hand back right as Goro raised his hand to his mask, ready to call Loki.
"Wait!" A voice called out to them from somewhere off to the side; it sounded like a young kid, and both of them stiffened in place, whipping their heads around to stare at the direction the voice came from. They weren't followed by a kid, were they? It would be absolutely dangerous for the kid if that turned out to be true.
Except… it wasn't a kid, but a cat-like creature with a comically big head and wide blue eyes.
"Don't do that!" Shouted the creature (Shadow? It didn't act like a Shadow- neither a yellow-eyed one nor a normal Shadow), a serious frown on its face, "Do you know what happens if you kill a person's Shadow?"
The two had to hide a flinch when they heard the creature say 'kill'; they weren't going to kill Kamoshida's Shadow, they were going to make it disperse just like they did with the other Shadows they faced.
And they needed to make that fact known.
"We're not going to kill him!" Makoto retorted sharply, "We're not going to such extreme measures to deal with such disgusting scum! We're simply going to make him disperse like other Shadows do after they're beaten!"
"And you just beat his other Shadow form, didn't you?"
The two recalled the large-tongued menace and nodded.
The creature nodded gravely, "If you destroy this Shadow, his other self outside of the Metaverse will suffer a mental shutdown and most likely die."
"What?" Goro whispered in shock, before he shook his head and regained his composure, "And why should we believe you? For all we know you could be another of the Shadows under his command and just stalling for time until he can regain his strength and beat us."
The creature bristled, "Excuse you?! I'm not a Shadow! I'm a human!"
Goro and Makoto looked at each other in disbelief before they turned their stares to the creature, "Right. A Human."
The creature frowned, "I just lost my human form and memories! But I know that I'm supposed to be a human! This form is temporary until I regain my body!"
The doors leading to the hall the group was in were slammed open in that moment, and Shadows poured in.
"Guards!" Kamoshida's Shadow snarled, eyes glinting, "Get them! Show them what happens to those who dare cross the great King Kamoshida!"
"Let's fall back for now," Makoto whispered, and Goro frowned as he scanned the place; they were basically surrounded and the nearest entrances were blocked. Probably the only upside was that Kamoshida's Shadow was too worn out to face them again.
"You guys!" the creature called to them, and they turned to it to see that it pulled a scimitar out of somewhere and was staring down the guard nearest to it, "What are you doing standing there?! We should start running!"
"But to where?!" Makoto hissed as she started running towards the creature, Goro a pace behind her.
"We can make an opening in them! Zorro!" A figure rose behind the creature, "Garu!" With a twist of their wrist and a flash of their sword, the figure sent a gust of wind that buffeted the nearest guard away from them.
"What the-" Makoto started, shocked.
"That's Zorro, my Persona," The creature explained shortly, and Goro snapped out of his shock to raise his hand to his mask and call his own Persona.
"Loki! Maragi!"
As the fire spell flared through the guards nearest to them, the creature waved to the two of them, "I can take it from here!"
With that, the creature jumped, transforming in mid-air into a van before dropping to the floor, "Come on! Get inside!"
Goro and Makoto rushed to climb inside.
There was a moment of silence before the creature snapped again, "What are you doing in the back?! Hurry up and drive me!"
Makoto scrambled to climb to the driver's seat from the back seat.
"Floor it!"
Makoto followed the creature's snapped command and slammed the pedal.
"Now, get them!"
Did it mean to ram the Shadows? Makoto wondered briefly before she banished her hysterics to the side and turned the vehicle to mow down three Shadows.
"Head to the door!"
"What door?!" Makoto snapped, "All of them are too small for you!"
"The farthest from the Shadows!" The creature snapped back, "We're faster so we can get ahead of them! Once we reach the door you'll exit and I'll transform back, and then we'll have to find our way from there!"
"Just do it, Makoto!" Goro shouted from the back seat, clutching the back of her seat tightly.
"Fine!" Makoto snarled and did as the creature suggested, turning to the farthest door from the Shadows and mowing down the guards as she drove the van there.
She screeched to a halt when she reached the door, and immediately clambered out of the vehicle along with Goro. The creature transformed back into a cat soon after, and the three slammed through the door, speeding down the hallways and running as far as they could from the Shadows while making sure the other guards still patrolling the castle didn't notice them to engage them in combat.
They didn't stop until they stumbled across a safe room.
Makoto sighed in relief as she slammed the door behind her and sagged against it, Goro dropped into one of the chairs, and the creature hopped to the table and turned to stare between the two.
Right.
The creature.
"You-!"
"Yes?" The creature said, tail lazily swishing behind it, acting like it hadn't just marched both Makoto and Goro out of a tight spot.
"What are you?"
The creature frowned, "I told you! I'm a human and my name is Morgana! I just had the misfortune of losing my human form and memories! But I'll get them back someday!"
Right. Of course.
"And what you said in there about the mental shutdown…" Goro trailed off, a frown on his face.
"Yeah. If you kill a person's Shadow, you cause that person to have a mental shutdown and highly probably die afterwards."
"And how do you know that?" Makoto pressed, one hand propped on her waist.
"I know that because-" Morgana started before stopping abruptly and frowning, "I… I don't remember… I just know."
"That's convenient." Goro sighed.
"Hey!"
"Anyway," Makoto interjected, turning to look at Goro, "Does that mean we can't do anything about this?"
Goro tiredly raised one shoulder in a shrug; they needed to think about it as it wasn't easy to just figure out solutions to this situation at the drop of a hat.
"Would you consider changing his heart?" Morgana started, looking at them expectantly.
"Change his heart?" Goro echoed, "And how would you get about doing that?"
"Alright, pay close attention to what I'm going to tell you. You see, this place is what you would call a-"
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Goro and Makoto trudged towards the castle's gate to leave the Metaverse, Morgana behind them.
"Alright, this is where we part ways," Morgana declared and turned to head back to the Palace.
"Wait," Makoto called out to him, "Are you sure you should be going back in while the guards are on high alert?"
"It's not like my memories and human form will return to me on their own. I still need to look for them." Morgana nodded decisively.
"Um. Take care?" Goro hesitantly offered.
"Yeah, you two as well! Hard to say how this confrontation with the Palace's ruler affected him outside of the Metaverse, so tread carefully around him."
"Will do."
"Good." Morgana nodded again, and rushed back to the castle, slipping through the vent the three used to exit earlier.
"Well, what do you think?" Makoto asked, and Goro shrugged.
"We better not talk here. Besides, we should get back; we still have work to do in regards to school."
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Morgana's warning about being careful around Kamoshida out of the Metaverse proved to be spot-on, as Kamoshida seemed to pay them close attention at school, and making sure they could never get into contact with any of the volleyball team members. He was suspicious of them, and that put them under scrutiny, scrutiny they couldn't afford.
They'd already been called to the principal's office a couple of times to get assigned tasks that would keep them occupied.
And so, the two decided to lay low for the time being, and think over their options and what they could do next.
Morgana had explained to them about the changes of heart that were possible through the Metaverse, but he also warned them of the possibility that it, too, could cause a mental shutdown.
Makoto and Goro couldn't risk it. Or at least, not now.
And then Suzui Shiho jumped off the school's roof.
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"We can't just stand aside any longer," Makoto hissed lowly, gripping her pencil tightly and glaring down at her homework, though not seeing it.
"Agreed," Goro replied, his eyes narrowed at his phone's dark screen, as if he could see the Nav on it even if his phone was locked.
"Morgana may still be in the Palace; the castle is big enough that it would need him a long time to explore the whole place, especially alone."
"Indeed. We'll go look for him to discuss the topic of heart changing once more. Even though I don't think it's going to change our mind about performing it anyway."
"A couple of days. We'll wait a couple of days until Kamoshida gets distracted from what happened, and then we'll go in." Makoto raised her head to lock eyes with Goro, stare burning with determination.
Goro grinned crookedly back at her, "Sure thing, nee-chan."
Makoto snorted.
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The chance to approach Morgana happened earlier than they expected, in the last place they would have expected it.
The two were looking for a private spot to relax from the constant scrutiny by the principal when they heard a very familiar voice.
It was Morgana's voice, which didn't make any sense- unless Morgana could travel out of the Metaverse without an app.
Which raised another important issue: Morgana didn't exactly look normal, and a cartoon-ish creature being seen on Shujin ground was the last thing they wanted to deal with on top of everything.
And so the two quietly snuck up towards the spot where the voice came from, lingering out of sight at the corner that led to one of the seating areas, and eavesdropping.
"What I'm saying is that there is a chance the change of heart may cause a mental shutdown and kill Kamoshida, are you alright with that?" Morgana said, and Makoto and Goro stiffened; was Morgana talking with someone else who could access the Metaverse? There was someone else who could access the Metaverse? Maybe even more than one person?
Makoto and Goro shared a look and continued eavesdropping.
"Yes," A voice hissed, "That monster hurt Shiho, he has to pay for what he did!"
'Takamaki' Makoto mouthed at Goro and he nodded.
"I'm in, too," A second voice spoke up, tone loud and recognizable- Sakamoto, "Like Ann said, that bastard has to pay."
There was a moment of silence, and then Morgana spoke up again, "Well then, what do you think?"
Makoto and Goro shared another look; there was another person?
"Alright," A new voice, firm and somewhat commanding, "Let's do it."
Makoto jerked her head to where the voices came from and Goro didn't need to be told twice.
The two stepped around the corner in tandem, causing the group already present in the area to freeze once they saw the two siblings.
Takamaki. Sakamoto. The transfer student, Kurusu.
And a blue-eyed black cat- Morgana, no doubt.
"Morgana, was it?" Makoto started, smiling pleasantly, "It's quite lucky that we found you here. It certainly saved us a trip to go looking for you."
Goro stepped forward, bringing their attention towards him, "We are interested in hearing your plans concerning stealing Kamoshida's heart."
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End
My, oh my, I wonder what happens from this point on…