Hi everyone, I know it took me a lot of time with this chapter but stuff happened on my week. And I know there was a lot between the trailer from P5R, info about the new character, and the Musou game. I will give you some thought at the end of the chapter.
Disclaimer: Persona 5 Characters except Ryuunosuke Katsuo belongs to Atlus, this fanfic has no commercial purpose.
Ryuji: Is it just me, or have there been a ton of info leaks lately?
Ryuji: It's not Medjed, right?
Makoto: I think they'd make it into a much more theatrical occasion.
Ann: You're right! They didn't make any declarations or anything!
Katsuo: There's something that I don't like it. They must be planning something.
Makoto: Still… It's quite a headache.
Ryuji: The hate we're getting online is insane too. People're treating us like this is all our fault.
Yusuke: They may denounce us if we don't hurry and take of this.
Katsuo: You shouldn't give a damn of what they say, we're doing the risky work here.
Makoto: Has anyone come up with a plan for solving the problem?
Akira: Not yet.
Ryuji: Well, I'm gonna keep tying.
Ann: We have to do whatever we can.
Yusuke: Either way, simply relying on Futaba will not do.
Ryuji: Well if we run out of options, that might be our only choice…
Katsuo: How's Futaba?
Akira: Boss told me that she is still sleeping.
Katsuo: Then she is still not able to help us, right? What a nightmare.
I was done texting during my break. The situation didn't look as good as how I read everyone's messages. It was August 5th, and we are still having trouble with Medjed. Seriously, how much sleep needs one person to recover? Futaba was a weird girl.
"Is everything alright, my dear boy?" Lala-chan asked me as she noticed my concernment.
"I'm fine, just waiting for a friend to recover. She must be a heavy sleeper." I replied with assurance.
"I hope your friend gets better."
"I hope so too…" I couldn't get out of my head as I felt hopeless. I couldn't come up with a plan to deal with Medjed. One could expect that I should ask my family to solve the issue, but this way too far for them too. I don't want them to ask for help on anything at all.
One side of me wanted to believe that we will get out this without a scratch. However, the other wanted to accept that it is an unwinnable situation. We weren't dealing with Shadows, that terrorism on a bigger scale. People were telling us that is our fault from all this happening.
Screw them. I couldn't care less about what they thought about us. It was so easy to play the blame game when the people aren't the ones risking their necks. I started to wonder if it is worth it, those ungrateful assholes.
When I was busy cleaning some of the glasses, a miserable businessman came to the bar with a worn-out face. "G-Good evening…" He greeted us in low spirits.
"Oh, my… You look quite exhausted. Here, have a seat." Lala-chan tried to make that guy comfortable while I started to serve some sake for him. "…Well? So your boss has been bullying you again?"
"As soon as I talk back, he makes sure I know I'm lower than him. He insinuates he'll demote me…" He spoke on such a depressing tone. I kinda felt pity to him. "After that, I'll overhear him talking about me, calling me useless while I'm at work… And everything I've done, all the results I'm getting… Somehow, he's taking all the credit."
"That is the worst kind of workplace abuse. I cannot believe that man…" Lala-chan said with concernment.
"So many people have quit because of stress. And yet, the higher-ups all ignore it. Of all the terrible bosses I could get in the world, why did mine have to be Kishi Shinsuke?" He sighed distraughtly, and I found the jackpot. "Hey, Lala. I wish those Phantom Thieves could do something and help me this…"
"Like how? Are you going to ask them to steal all your stress away?" Lala-chan did one of her famous quips. While the miserable businessman cracked a smile, but it wasn't enough to light his mood completely.
"Hahaha… No. I guess it's impossible. But it's nice to think about…" Their conversation began to derail away from the original topic. I didn't pay much attention to them since I finally got what I needed.
If I could recall correctly, Akira mentioned a request from that Mishima guy. Overworked and undervalued, yep, that was the type of problems that I didn't like a bit of it. I'm not a genie, but I heard his wishes very clear. I decided to wait until done with my shift to send a message about the target.
That must be the worst thing of having a work that no one values you. I guess I couldn't say much about myself. It was a dysfunctional, poorly organized job I had with the delivery company. I never mentioned how I got it in the first place, didn't I? It isn't the most exciting story.
I started when it was a part-time job during my third year at Shujin. I just bought my motorcycle and tried to look for something different than working at Crossroads. At this point, I can't quit it since it pays my bills. Balancing jobs while being a phantom thief became exhausting.
What? You don't want to hear the sorry story of my life, do you? I guess it's understandable.
As I was saying, I kept working like always until the end of the night. There weren't many people around as if not many people wanted to leave home. For some reason, my head started to hurt a lot. It was insufferable. I don't know why that sudden feeling, but it was quite painful. The first thing I did after leaving work was heading towards the closest drug store in Shinjuku.
From the cheapest selection I could get, I bought one that should alleviate the headaches but probably making me fall asleep pretty fast. After leaving the drug store, I went to where I parked my bike and heading back home. The first thing on my head was to eat that medicine and go to bed early.
Early morning in Shibuya, I went to the office where my day job work is since it's been a long time without any new deliveries. It was a small building behind some alleyways across the central street. Pretty easy to miss, but not something that you would care anyhow.
As I walked through to see how they were doing, I felt that something wasn't right as I opened the door. The place was full of boxes, either too much delivery or something worse.
"Oh, hey Katsuo-san." The guy in glasses and a dirty white shirt was my employer. He was greeting me while moving boxes around. "I didn't expect to see you here."
"Hey… what's with all those boxes?" I asked in confusion. The place seemed cramped that I couldn't even see the restroom.
"Didn't you get my email?"
"No, I didn't get emails, or letters, or texts, or calls, or anything at all since every single person in this place didn't want to answer me." I said in desperation since I was in the dark about the details.
"We are shutting down." He said melancholically while not looking me on the eyes. I couldn't stop saying but 'What!' every time while hoping for the answers.
"B-But why!?"
"This place was falling apart lately as people were afraid to go out. With the new policies and mental shutdown incidents around the corner, we were losing profit and personnel. I'm sorry that I didn't tell you directly, but I was afraid of being the bearer of bad news."
"Y-you can't do that! I won't quit and bring as many packages as possible even if I go through the whole city!" I tried to persuade him, but he just gave me dismissing smile. Convincing him was useless.
"I appreciate your enthusiasm, but you know that having one courier isn't enough to keep this place afloat."
"Then what would happen to me! I do really, REALLY need this job! I…"
"I'm so sorry, I understand that, but there's nothing we can do." He tried to apologize way too many times. He grabbed my right shoulder and looked at me, straight to the eyes. "I must admit, you probably were the best courier we ever had. However, you know things have to change one way or another. Don't feel disappointed. The only thing I can assure you is that you will find a better job than this one."
"I truly doubt that will happen." I said while looking at the floor.
"Have some faith, that's the only thing I can guarantee you. You don't know what awaits you on the future." He went on his way of accommodating boxes around the place. "One more thing. If you are worried about your last payment, don't sweat it, I will deposit it to your bank account before the end of this week." He gave another reassuring smile, but it was useless. He went to the other room while I left the office.
Once outside, I tried my best to not showing any reaction in public. Deep down, I was damned, furious and confused. I couldn't think straight as I was sitting on the street with a defeated attitude. Not only I lost my job, but it was a goddamn fact that I won't ever get to Europe or even a regular college anywhere in Japan. I saved so much money since my second year at Shujin, but in the end, all that effort went to waste.
"Goddamn… what should I do?" I muttered. I started to look at my phone mindlessly as I tried to think about something else. It only brought more stress as I got nothing but news about Medjed. Sure, we saved Futaba, but we are doomed regardless unless she wakes up to take those nerds down. We only could wait.
Without work at the moment, I decided to return home until night. I couldn't even do that.
I was walking around the central street to get my bike. As I turned my head around, I saw the gym I went with Sakamoto last month, time went fast. With all the frustrations, I needed to cool down somehow. I decided to get inside and pay the fee.
The place didn't change much. I didn't have the appropriate clothes, but that wouldn't matter since the only thing I could do was to punch the sandbag.
I was already on guard, putting my fists up to strike. I took deep breathes as I was punching it from left to right. I did nothing but hooks and jabs on it with all my strength. Every minute I spent punching out my stress on that thing, my knuckles started to get bruises and probably minor bleeding. It didn't matter for me. I just tried everything to let go all that stuff out of my mind.
"Shit…" I begrudged under my breath. Every blow I landed on the sandbag felt as if I was punching shards of glass. I couldn't stop. My levels of adrenaline were high. If I continued at that point, I would end up breaking my fists. Of course, things always had unexpected turns.
"Sup'…" I heard a voice from behind. I wasn't surprised, though.
"How many times are you going to sneak up on me, Souta?" I said while cracking a smile.
"As many times as necessary, old pal." I saw him in gym clothes. I guess I wasn't the only one to get in that place during the same day. "What a surprise of seeing you here."
"I just came here without thinking, how about you?"
"I'm a regular." He said while putting his stuff on the ground. "And from what I'm looking here, you got pretty sloppy from what I remember. How often do you train?"
"Not much." If you thought that fighting Shadows count as training, then that didn't work.
"Quite a letdown of seeing you like this. Then again, you were more of a 'punch hard' kinda guy."
"I don't pick fights like when we were kids, you know. The best I can do is to give them a scary glare." I said humorously.
"I won't deny it. You always intimidated every single chump that tried to fight us." Souta started to put some gloves as he was ready to punch the sandbag as well. "But with all honesty, being scary isn't enough as there will be someone that isn't going to fall for that trick. Better have the skills to back you up."
"Well excuse me…" I chuckled while trying to take a break from beating that thing. As I was taking a deep breath, Souta started to see my bruised knuckles.
"Dude, you shouldn't practice without the right equipment."
"I already told you, I came here without thinking."
"Then how about if I lend you these?" He showed me two rolls of boxing wraps.
"Are you sure? I don't want to bother you with your training." I said modestly, but he only cracked a smile.
"Don't be stupid. Let me help you a little since you seemed rusty." Souta insisted. I couldn't refuse any longer as I took them started to wrap them around my hands. Those things felt tight, a weird sensation as I never expected to use them. "From what I saw, you lack finesse in your movements. As I said before, you are more brutality and intimidation, but people will catch you off-guard if you keep doing that."
"Yeah, right…" I said as it wasn't too important. As I turned my head, Souta tried to throw a left hook. I blocked it in the niche of time, but he caught me with a kick on the back. "Oww! What the hell man!"
"I told you, you got sloppy." He said casually. "Sorry for that, but you know very well that no one would act so polite on the moment to attack." Souta started to put himself in guard, ready to attack the sandbag. In a way, he wasn't wrong if I could compare it of how many times the Shadows caught us for being careless.
"So, what exactly you have in mind?" I asked while crossing my arms. My old friend only gave me a smirk without saying a word.
His eyes were focused on the sandbag with both fists up. He inhaled while stretching both arms and legs. He closed his eyes briefly. From a second to another, he started to punch with a tremendous speed that you could only see in martial arts movies. As hard to believe, his strikes were precise and powerful enough that the sandbag was almost flying.
"Holy shit…" I was amazed by his movements. That wasn't a child's play. I remember that his fighting style was faster back then, but that was on another level. Soon after that, he started to send frontal and roundhouse kicks from all angles. Despite all that effort he put on hitting that thing, he didn't look exhausted one bit.
"Impressed?" He asked while taking a brief pause from beating the shit out of the sandbag.
"More than that…" I rubbed my eyes, to make sure that I wasn't getting blind or something from that little demonstration. "What was all that? Some sort of ancient marital or something?"
"Martial arts? Don't exaggerate that is self-taught."
"Bullshit, that doesn't look like something you could learn on your own." Souta chuckled from what I said.
"I'm serious. Hard to believe, but you would be surprised that I never stopped fighting when I left Tokyo six years ago." He gave me a grimace. From what I understood, he got rough years without catching a break. "That doesn't matter. What's important right now is to put you back in shape."
"Are you serious? I mean, I appreciate the offer to train me and all, but why would you do that for me in the first place?"
"Because you are like my brother." He gave me a pat on the back. "Even though you are not good at the moment, I can feel your fighting aura back when we were younger. I'm confident of you."
"How reassuring… Did you get those inspiring words from a movie or something?" We started to laugh it out. Shortly after talking about trivial topics, we began to take turns on punching the sandbag while he gave me tips on my practice. Just food for the thought so I wouldn't hurt myself while training. We didn't much progress, but it was nice to hang out with him after a long time.
"Alright, we are done for today." Souta said to me while taking off his gloves.
"Agreed, my arms are starting to feel numb." I gave a worn-out expression. That was a good exercise, but goddamn, my body would hurt on the following morning. I headed to the restroom while he started putting his stuff back to his duffle bag.
I washed my face and looked myself on the mirror. I noticed two important things: I needed to shave and some sleep. Probably would do it once I get to home. Although, I felt that something was missing. "Oh shit, that's right…" I forgot to give the target's name to Akira.
I pulled my phone and started typing it.
Katsuo: Hey I got your name. Kishi Shinsuke, a real piece of shit of a boss.
Akira: Alright, that should be good when we go to Mementos.
Katsuo: When exactly are we going?
Akira: We? I wasn't expecting to accompany us this time.
Katsuo: Well, I thought it would be nice helping out at least.
Akira: In any case, we will go at some point of this month. I will send you a message when we are ready.
Katsuo: Sounds good.
After the conversation, I left the restroom while looking for Souta. He was already gone. I went outside to see if he was there. He was already waiting next to the entrance while looking at his phone.
"Hey, ready to go?" He asked me.
"Sure." He started walking towards the central street while I went in the opposite direction. He looked confused for some reason.
"Dude, the subway station is on this direction."
"I don't need it. I have my motorcycle." Souta got his eye full of surprise from hearing that.
"You don't say… which bike you have?"
"A Monda CMX250, pretty old."
"Nice! Having your own ride must be sweet." He said with a smile.
"It is, but it was pretty expensive when I got it."
"How much?"
"I can't remember, but I know it was a lot despite being used."
"Mhhh… maybe I should get myself one?" Souta started to scratch his chin. He was serious about it.
"Good luck with that."
"Remember, I will send you a text in case you want to practice more."
"Wait, I think we never exchanged ID, didn't we?" I just realized at that point. That was odd that I never asked before.
"True that. Here's mine." I added him on my list of contacts. "See you next time, pal." He headed to the train station while I went to the parking lot.
It felt quite like a mood swinger this day. I pretty much lost my day job, but at least let some of that rage out with a good friend. The most I could hope was to ask Lala-chan if she could let me work during the day. I doubted if that would be even possible since there are no customers during the day. I looked at the sky while asking myself if there would be a future for me, probably not.
Okay, first thing. Persona 5 The Royal was a surprise of the amount of content I saw on the trailer. From new locations, readjusting Palaces, and of course, the new characters.
From what I could give you about the new party member, Kasumi looked fine, not much opinion about her except the fact that the main story will be altered with her inclusion. Which I should make it clear about that I won't rewrite this fic to accommodate P5R changes. It will be still the vanilla version with some minor alterations. Although, I will consider in some future about writing the new scenes with Katsuo in it as a separated story as "what if..." scenarios. And we are still about to get more info on May 9th. I can't imagine what could be exactly, but it will be a lot for sure.
