Hello! This is based on the information that Hifumi Togo was originally meant to be a member of Phantom Thieves. I've decided to write in how that might have played out in the story, along with putting together concepts of her Phantom Thief appearance and Persona. This will be a multi-part fic, I'm not quite sure how long, though I have most of it outlined at this point.
I haven't 'replaced' anyone in the party with this AU, but instead tried to submit Hifumi into the story as naturally as possible. Of course, with trying to confine myself in ways to realistically submit her, there might be parallels to other events or story elements in the game, but there are also quite a few differences. This is just a peek at what could of been.
Her hand hovered over the board, still and indecisive, as she considered her next move.
Hifumi's opponent was a fourth dan player. The match was supposed to be a challenge, with her narrowly defeating him in the end with some ingenuity and bold tactics. It was to make those that followed Shogi talk, to bring attention to who she was, so that it could lead to more interviews, to more photo shoots, to more chances to earn money to help with Father's treatment.
But her opponent was too good at giving her opportunities. His play acting was barely better than an amateur, an over dramatic novice commander on the battlefield that sent his men to die in a careless manner. Sacrifices to a greater cause. Hifumi could hear the murmurs of those that were observing the match, confusion as to why her opponent was playing so foolishly, and why she was hesitating with her next move.
What did she see that they didn't?
Hifumi saw at least a half of dozen ways she could proceed. Three of those options would lead to a checkmate in the next five turns. Her opponent's king remained unprotected, in the upper right hand corner of the board, easy to reach and take advantage of.
This wasn't a fair match in the slightest.
But, as she withdrew her hand from the board and observed the placement of its pieces, she reminded herself it was never meant to be a fair match. If it wasn't for the promise of half a million yen for the opponent, the cost to buy his pride, she would have surely conceded long ago. Everyone online would say of course Hifumi Togo lost, she would have no chance playing against a league player.
As she moved her hand back to the board and pushed her valiant knight forward, Hifumi bit her lip.
It was all too obvious. Someone was going to find out eventually. The matches before were easy to excuse, a lack of judgement and underestimation giving beautiful Hifumi Togo the chance she needed to succeed. Hifumi Togo, the Venus of Shogi, was becoming known for her ability to catch obscure openings and drive right through them. To come back when it seemed like she would lose for most of the match, right when her charm and beauty would mystify her opponent and secure the win.
Even when the wins were bought, no one respected her skill. It was still about how beautiful she was, how she was the ideal Japanese woman in appearance but only that.
This match was going to be different. Everyone would wonder about her opponent. Was something wrong with him today? Was he so easily charmed by the Venus of Shogi, a secret pervert charmed by the temptation of a high school girl?
Her eyes glanced up at her opponent. A man in his late thirties with some extra weight in his face, he was pondering the board. A professional like him knew how he could proceed, how he could crush her. But he was still pondering on how to give her more openings, to make it more obvious, because even he figured that Hifumi would need that extra helping hand to win. He didn't know that she had been playing since she could talk, that she would spend entire vacations with Father over the Shogi board, that there was three shelves in her room dedicated to Shogi books.
Shogi was one of the few things she still had.
"What is also interesting today is Togo-san's composure," her ears faintly picked up on the commentator behind her, that she had been able to successfully tune out up until this point. "Usually she treats her matches like a child's game, but she is finally giving the game the professionalism it deserves-"
They knew nothing.
Hifumi rose from her seat. Her opponent was preparing to move his king to even a more vulnerable position, a treat taunting her for the taking. The commentators stopped, and she could feel all the eyes in the room on her.
She was surprised to realize that her hands formed into fists on her sides. Taking a deep breath, she relaxed her hands and moved them forward, palms down against her skirt. Bowing her entire upper body took extreme effort, for she felt no respect towards her opponent, but even less towards herself. It boiled up in every inch of her being, waiting for its chance to explode and leak out the truth to anyone that would listen to her.
"I concede. Thank you for the match."
Whispers erupted around her, the murmurs of disbelief as the Venus of Shogi would dare concede when victory was so rightly assured. The opponent looked straight at her, his eyes shrouded with confusion and betrayal, his brow furrowed, his mouth turned into a disapproving frown. Hifumi reached down next to her chair and picked up her school bag, then turned around to make for the exit of the play hall.
As she went through the doors, Mother was waiting for her in the lobby. She was hovering nearby, one of her finely manicured hands clutching onto her phone, where she had been watching the match while it proceeded.
"Hifumi!" Mother whispered as Hifumi disregarded her, determined to make a graceful exit from the building. She could hear Mother's heels with each step she took, almost perfectly in time with Hifumi's own. "What were you thinking?"
The door to the play hall slid open on its own, out into the bright late afternoon sun of Tokyo. Hifumi shielded part of her face with her left hand to disregard the sunlight, and made her way down the sidewalk to the nearest train station. Mother's steps were still close behind her, still in time with each of Hifumi's strides, even when Hifumi broke out into a light jog towards the entrance of the station that led underground.
" Hifumi !" Mother hissed, her hand grabbing onto Hifumi's arm tightly and spinning her around. "You will answer me when I talk to you. What were you thinking ?"
Mother's eyes were dark green flames of rage and disappointment, but for the wrong reasons. Hifumi glared back at them, one of the few ways she could rebel before wrestling herself free from Mother's grasp. A few people that were walking close to them gave curious glances, but none of them really cared, as Mother waited for Hifumi to find the words to say and Hifumi waited for Mother to give up.
As she always did, however, Hifumi was the first to relent. "He was being too obvious."
"Too obvious?" Mother whispered in disbelief. "What about it was too obvious-"
She had never bothered to learn Shogi, even though Father dedicated his whole life to it, even though it was her daughter's dream to follow in his footsteps. It was just some silly child's game to her, with no real meaning, but a way to give the family what they needed.
"Are you listening to me?"
Hifumi learned how to drown out Mother's words with her thoughts long ago, just like she could tune out any commentator during a match. It was needed for her survival, for the long, meticulous match of living under her mother's thumb until there was a chance that she could break free. Only a year and a half remained, Hifumi kept telling herself, though she knew in reality that it would be longer and possibly never end.
"Of course," Hifumi lied, turning away. "He was too obvious. It was not well planned at all, but instead clearly a match of pity. I refuse to play against someone like that."
Mother's silence was a sign of what was to come a moment later. Hifumi stood there quietly, poised at attention, waiting for the rage that would come out of Mother's mouth. It would be about how pity didn't matter, about the waste of money, about how it would be more difficult to explain this away than an easy win. Hifumi knew that she wasted this opportunity, but she had realized staring at the Shogi board that she could only go along with it if the match was realistic right up until the end.
If Hifumi could still convince herself, even the tiniest part of herself that she was still the winning commander of the battlefield, then the opponent's generous openings could be forgiven. They could be tucked in the back of her brain to haunt her later during practice sessions with her club members or when she tried to sleep at night, as the moves replayed in her head over and over, enough times that she was sometimes subconsciously reenacting the scenarios on the Shogi board.
"That's...that's brilliant."
It wasn't the response she expected. Hifumi turned around in disbelief to see Mother standing there, an inhuman grin on her face. Mother reached out to gently grip onto Hifumi's arm this time, to now steer her down into the subway station. Her voice was louder now, at the tone of a normal conversation, but everyone around them was too absorbed in their own thoughts and concerns to even notice.
"We can say that it was sexism," Mother said to her, her eyes now alight with a warmer flame. One of pride. "That he was underestimating you and pitied you to give you the win. You were disgusted and had to forfeit the match because of that, right, Hifumi?"
Mother was still guiding her, now onto the train that would take them home. Hifumi wanted to scream, to point at Mother and tell anyone that would listen, and beg someone to take her away so she could just play Shogi. But her mind thought of Father in a hospital bed, staring out the window until he realized that Hifumi was there, and then a gentle smile-that Hifumi knew was painful-would pass his face.
"Hifumi, let's play a game."
She elected to tune out Mother's voice as they headed home, for Mother would chatter on incoherently about her plans. Future interviews, maybe a photoshoot or two, all to tarnish her opponent's name and to put Hifumi on a tainted pedestal. At the point when Mother finished chattering excitedly and pulled out her phone to check it, something clicked in Hifumi's mind that could make it all tumble down.
"Mother."
"Yes, Hifumi?"
"We can't say I withdrew because he was making it too easy for me," Hifumi said.
Mother looked up from her phone suspiciously. "Of course we can. The public will eat it up, why shouldn't we?"
Hifumi lowered her voice. "Because he could counter that we paid for him to lose."
A laugh escaped Mother's lips, the high pitched, throaty kind that she sometimes put on because she thought it was more attractive than her natural one. Hifumi winced. "No one will believe him. You against him? You're so beautiful and innocent, Hifumi. No one will believe him for even a second."
Hifumi stared at her mother in horror as she returned to her phone, quickly tapping away at the screen. None of this made her innocent and beautiful. It made her a villain, the opponent on a battlefield of a world that was rightly against her.
It had to stop.
Keeping an eye on Mother, Hifumi slowly pulled out her phone from her school bag and turned on the screen. She was praying for some sort of distraction. There were several notifications from her chat group with the Shogi Club, which she rarely interacted with but only observed. Even with her love of Shogi, she found it difficult to relate to them, and constantly felt like an outsider.
Here's the link I was telling you about, Konomi~
Ok thanks! Gonna totally suggest they steal Takeuchi-Sensei's heart, maybe it'll make him give us less homework during the break, lol
Aaaaa good idea, I'll post his name too!
It was a link to something called a Phan-Site. Perplexed, Hifumi clicked the link, and a harsh red and black webpage met her eyes. It appeared to be some sort of fansite for the Phantom Thieves, with a poll and a long post about their recent exploits at the top. Scrolling down further, there was a message board where people posted anonymously, some of them with people's names attached.
She had heard of the Phantom Thieves, of course. Everyone at school spoke of them in excited tones, wondering who their next target would be after their recent theft of a mafia boss' heart. Before that, it was a famous artist. Hifumi only knew that because one of the artist's students went to her school...
Please steal their heart, Phantom Thieves!
They're a rotten person!
Hifumi's finger hovered over the field where she could submit a request. Mother was still absorbed in her phone, rapidly responding to some sort of work email from what Hifumi tell by the rate of her presses. She tapped the field and slowly began to type.
Mitsuyo Togo.
No, that wasn't right. It was Hifumi's fault that it got this far, not her mother's. She cleared out the field and rapidly typed in a different name instead.
Hifumi Togo.
Her finger hovered over the submit button. It would be awkward to put her name out there with no explanation, but she felt an encroaching shame surrounding her. How could Hifumi begin to admit it, even anonymously? It felt like she was too far gone at this point, but if she was too far gone, then the only real solution was this.
She took a deep breath and typed more.
She bribes others with money to lose matches so she can advance her Shogi career. She is a selfish person who needs to stop and won't admit to her ways without stealing her heart. Please help
No, that would be too obvious. Hifumi erased help and continued.
Please steal their heart.
Submit.
"Hifumi?"
She jumped. Mother was looking at her, but there wasn't a hint of suspicion on her face, only curiosity.
"This is our stop," Mother told her. She grabbed onto Hifumi's arm again, a bit too tightly, to lead her off the train.
"Sorry, I was reading something from Shogi Club," Hifumi said, sliding her phone back into her school bag. Her heart was beating rapidly, and she wondered if Mother could notice from her grip onto her arm.
"Anything interesting?" Mother asked, feigning interest as she continued to guide Hifumi. It seemed like she didn't.
"No, not really."