Chapter 48

Soon after they entered the Metaverse world, Isamu, Akira, Ann and Ryuji gasped and look around in shock when they saw that all of the other people walking around them had disappeared while Morgana look at them with a calm look on his face.

"Everyone disappeared…! It… kind of feels like I'm walking on air…?" said Ann in a shock tone of voice to them.

"Is this place truly the Metaverse world? But the place looks the same as the one in the real world…" muttered Isamu to herself.

"Is this that Nakanohara guy's Palace?" asked Ryuji as he glance at Morgana.

"That's half right, but half wrong." replied Morgana in slight amusement to Ryuji. "This is a type of Palace, but it's different from Kamoshida's Palace. Come on, let's head down. The Shadows here lurked underground." added Morgana.

"Why is that, Morgana?" asked Isamu.

"I don't quite understand why. It may be because they're drawn to something." replied Morgana.

"They're drawn to something in the underground? What could that something be?" said Akira to himself.

"Underground…? How are we going to get there?" asked Ann.

"How, Lady Ann? You all use it everyday on your way to school. Follow me!" replied Morgana as he nodded to them before he turned and run down the stairs and they immediately run and follow behind him.

XXXX

Inside Mementos…

"The hell is this place…?" said Skull as he, Jester, Spade and Panther look around the almost crimson-coloured subway station of Shibuya that had dim-looking lights hanging and swaying slightly on the ceiling above them, several televisions screen showing nothing but static buzzing and several mass of growing dark red vines on the floors, pillars and on the ceiling with worry looks on their faces (while Mona glance at them in silence) before Skull turned to glance at Jester, Spade and Panther as he suddenly took a step back in surprise. "Wait, our clothes change!?" added Ryuji to them.

"The Shadows knows we're here!?" said Panther, surprised as well.

"Since the moment we stepped in." said Mona.

"You should have told us earlier!" complain Skull as he scowled at Mona.

"Excuse me, Skull. Neither you nor Panther ask him before we stepped in and he already told us that there're Shadows in here so keep your comments to yourselves." said Jester slightly coldly to both Skull and Panther (which make them scowled at her before they fell silent).

"Jester's got a point, besides, we're still safe right here." said Mona reassuringly to them. "I've come to investigate this place a number of times before I met you guys. Shadows never come up to this floor. But it's a different story once you all go down. This place is simply teeming with them."

"Then we just have to be more alert and careful when we head down, isn't it, Mona?" asked Spade.

"Yep." replied Mona as he nodded to Spade.

"More importantly, what is this "Mementos" place!? It's about time you start explaining." demanded Panther.

"Mementos is… everyone's Palace." replied Mona as he placed his paws on his hips.

"Huh? Whaddya mean "everyone's"…?" said Skull confusingly to Mona.

"Wait. Are you saying everyone as in all of the people living in Japan!?" said Jester in a shock tone of voice to Mona (who nodded to her).

"Holy Christ… That's a lot of people." said Spade in shock as well.

"Exactly as you two think, Jester, Spade. A Palace as grand as the previous castle only forms when a person's wishes are extremely distorted. So, instead of many individual Palaces, the general public has one gigantic shared Palace. That's where we're now… Mementos." explained Mona even more to them.

"Now that you mention it, this place feels a bit different from Kamoshida's Palace…" said Panther as she take another look around the place.

"When you say shared… you mean they're all put together? Even though they're just strangers…?" asked Skull warily at Mona.

"Think of it as the collective unconscious… No, never mind. You wouldn't understand that." replied Mona despondently to Skull.

"So what you're saying is… Using this place, we can change the hearts of people who don't have Palaces of their own?" asked Panther with a hopeful glint in her eyes.

"Correct! The steps to do so and slightly different though." replied Mona as he glance and smiled at Panther.

"But this place looks pretty huge. Are we gonna be able to get around just by walkin'…?" said Skull questioningly to Mona (who began walking a few feet away from them, stopped and turned to glance at them).

"It seems the time has finally come…" said Mona dramatically to them.

"Huh?" said Spade.

"Time for what?" asked Jester.

"Watch. Morganaaaa… Transfoooooorm!" exclaimed Mona quite loudly to them as he do a power ranger pose before he jumped up into the air and literally transform into a black bus (which had a yellow stripe extending from it's hood down to it's rear, blue orbs-like eyes as headlights in front of it, with the numbers 2-22 on it's license plate, a golden cat brand logo above it and with a cat tail swaying left and right in the back near the exhaust pipe) which make Jester, Spade, Skull and Panther gaped in shock unison at Mona's transformation.

"Wh-What? Th-This…" stammered Jester.

"Come now, Jester, Panther. Ladies first." purred Mona.

"A car…!?" said Panther, flabbergasted.

"No way!" said Skull in disbelief.

"How is it possible that you transform into a freaking bus!?" asked Spade.

"This comes from the way cognition materializes in the Metaverse, plus a bit of extra training. It's not dissimilar to how you guys transform." replied Mona.

"You turnin' into a car is totally different than our clothes changin'!" yell Skull as he briefly flailed his arms around.

"For some reason, "cats turning into buses" is an extremely widespread cognition among the general public." explained Mona.

"But still, why a bus though?" asked Panther.

"…No idea." replied Mona as he jumped a little.

"Wait! Why didn't you do this at the castle!?" interjected Skull before he make his way toward the Mona bus, opened the door and went in.

"I would have if I could!" snapped Mona in slight annoyance at Skull. "But that castle was cramped, there were tons of stairs, and no way this fits on top of a chandelier!"

"If only that castle were wide enough and didn't have any stairs to hinder you, we could have use you to ran Kamoshida over, Mona." thought Jester sneakily in her mind.

"Hey, Skull! Ladies first!" yell Panther indignantly to Skull as she run forward and began pulling him out of the bus.

"Stop pullin' me! That's dangerous!" Skull reprimanded her.

"Panther! Please be gentle!" yelped Mona as he shook quite violently from their actions.

"Oh dear…" sighed Jester as she shake her head at both Panther and Skull.

"Come on, Jester. Let's get into the bus too." said Spade (who's composed himself now) calmly to Jester (who nodded to him) before he approach the bus, went and sat onto the middle seat of the bus next to Skull while Jester opened the driver's seat door, went in and sat down.

"All aboard! Let's go, leader!" said Skull cheerfully to Jester as he leaned back in his seat.

"Hold on a second! Jester, do you know about safety and how to drive this bus?" asked Spade concernly to Jester.

"Well, not really, Spade. But I do learn, know and remember most of the basics of driving and vehicles safety for quite a few years, just in case." replied Jester slightly reassuringly to Spade.

"Really?" said Spade even more concernly to her.

"Don't worry, Jester! I trust you to drive me. Just try not to smash up my beautiful face, alright?" said Mona concernly to Jester.

"Got it, Mona." said Jester reassuringly to Mona.

"All right, then. We'll leave the driving to you." said Panther as she gave a small smile to Jester (who glance over her shoulder at Panther and smiled back at her before she turned on Mona's engine with a flick of the switch).

"Yeah, right there, Jester… That feels sooo gooooood…" purred Mona happily to them.

"Uh, is that purrin' I hear…?" What a creepy-ass bus!" said Skull as he shake his head.

"Don't underestimate my meowtary engine. We're going full throttle! It's time to fly!" declared Mona.

Upon Mona's declaration, Jester put her hands on the steering wheel, stepped on the pedal and started driving Mona and her teammates down into the subway station and they saw that it's a dark and foreboding-looking tunnel with a slightly strong wind constantly blowing and sending pieces of torn papers, stray metals and scraps flying around them. Jester proceed to drive down the paths of the winding tunnels, bumping into wandering Shadows against Mona and fought and defeat them with her teammates, take the treasures from treasure chests while searching for their target, Nakanohara until Jester stopped the bus in front of a red and black swirling vortex at the end of a pathway.

"Dude, the hell is this…? It's all wavy and shit." swored Skull as he glance in disbelief at the swirling vortex in front of them.

"This is the place… I sense the target up ahead." confirmed Mona. "Now, are you ready, Jester?"

"Yeah, let's do it." said Jester with a smirk on her face before she drove Mona and her teammates straight through the swirling vortex, came out and landed into a large room on the other side and Jester slammed the brake to bring Mona to a stop before she turned off the engine and she and her teammates quickly got out of Mona before he transform back into his regular cat form.

"Hey, something's there!" said Skull to the others as he raised and pointed his hand at the figure of a businessman standing with his back to them a few feet in front of them and with black mists swirling around him.

"That seems to be Nakanohara's Shadow." said Mona.

"Lemme see. Some front desk guy at City Hall became a stalker, right?" asked Skull.

"I don't know how much evil he's done, but we've to do something if he's bothering other people." said Panther as she glared at Shadow Nakanohara.

"All right, let's go talk to him." said Jester to them before they pull out their weapons and firearms, approach and stopped in front of Shadow Nakanohara (who turned to glared darkly at them when he noticed them coming).

"Who are you all!?" growled Shadow Nakanohara.

"Are you that stalker!? Haven't you ever stopped to consider how your ex feels!?" snapped Panther as she stomped her boots a little.

"She's my property! I can do whatever I want with her! It's not like she didn't treat me like a plaything! What's wrong with me doing the same to her!?" Shadow Nakanohara snapped back at Panther.

"You can't treat someone like shit just 'cause they did it to you!" said Skull as he glared at Shadow Nakanohara. "What a load of crap… We're gonna change the hearts of all the bastards like you!"

"There are millions of people far worse than me!" retorted Shadow Nakanohara.

"That's no excuse for what you did!" snapped Spade.

"What about Madarame…? He stole everything from me, but you all are letting him off the hook!?" yell Shadow Nakanohara indignantly to them.

"Madarame…? The hell's this guy goin' on about?" said Skull in confusion to the others.

"That name sound familiar for some reason…" thought Jester to herself with a frown look on her face while Shadow Nakanohara transform into a small, orange-skinned, dark purple-haired, no eye troll (named Obariyon) that danced around in front of them.

"Get ready! Here he comes!" warned Mona.

"Now that I have what's rightfully mine… I'm not going to let you all take it away… Look, this is a winner-takes-all-world. Come fight me and I'll show you what I mean!" said Shadow Nakanohara smugly to them before he jumped onto Jester and uses Cleave skill on her, causing 3 slash wounds on her right shoulder which make her gasped out in pain before she summoned forth Sonya, uses Aqua skill on him to get him away from her.

Panther then summoned forth Carmen to use Dia on Jester's shoulder to healed it while Spade, Skull and Mona summoned forth Arsene, Captain Kidd and Zorro, uses Eiha, Zio and Garu skills on Shadow Nakanohara and managed to knock him down. Jester and her teammates then uses All-Out Attack on Shadow Nakanohara to attack and injured him a lot before they charge forward and finish him off with their weapons and firearms. Shadow Nakanohara yell out in pain from their attacks before he fell to his knees on the ground and change back to his human form (while Jester and her teammates level up and obtain 7200 yen from him).

"I-I was wrong… Please forgive me…" said Shadow Nakanohara weakly and pleadingly to them. "That evil teacher used me, then threw me out on the street. That's what caused my fixation on her…"

"Evil teacher?" asked Jester as she furrowed her brows.

"Are you talking about this "Madarame" man you told us earlier?" asked Spade.

"Yeah… I just didn't want anyone to throw me out again…" replied Shadow Nakanohara sadly to them.

"So some selfish bastard was making you suffer too…" said Panther sympathetically to Shadow Nakanohara as she crossed her arms. "Still, you shouldn't have dragged an unrelated woman into your mess."

"Yes, I know that now. I'll put an end to my love for her…" said Shadow Nakanohara as he nodded sullenly to them before he glance up at Jester. "Hey, you can change people's hearts, right? In that case… Won't you change Madarame's heart!? Before more people fall victim to him…" Shadow Nakanohara pleaded to Jester before his body started glowing and disappearing into dozens of bluish-white lights and leave behind a glowing white orb that floats in thin air.

"Change… Madarame's heart?" said Panther as she glance in confusion at Jester, Spade, Skull and Mona.

"Hm? What's that shinin' ball thing?" asked Skull.

"It's the bud of a Treasure." Mona answer and explain to Skull. "Had we left it be, it very well may have blossomed into a Palace. Jester, this will make a perfect reward!" added Mona happily to Jester (who nodded as she approach and take the Treasure and saw that she obtain an Attachment Pearl charm).

"So Nakanohara had a change of heart, right?" asked Skull as he glance at Mona.

"Most likely." replied Mona.

"But how are we supposed to know if we succeeded?" said Panther.

"The lady posted the dude's name online. If he really does change, she'll prolly comment again." said Skull as he crossed his arms.

"Hm, you do have a point." said Mona.

"Either way, trainin' against Shadows down here's the best! It's great prep for our next target!" said Skull with a wide grin on his face.

"It's also nice to be able to give courage to the people who post their problems online." said Panther, smiling as well.

"And maybe it might get them to post more serious problems on the website." said Spade.

"On top of that, we can sell whatever treasure we get for some cold, hard cash!" added Mona as he grinned widely at them.

"Sounds like things are goin' pretty great for us!" exclaimed Skull as he rolled his shoulders a little.

"Well then, let's go, everyone." said Jester to her teammates but before they could leave, Mona stepped in front of them to stop them from leaving.

"Hold on, there's somewhere I want to show you guys before we leave." said Mona quickly to them.

"What, there's more?" said Skull in a slight exasperated tone of voice to Mona.

"Don't worry, it won't take long." said Mona as he jumped a little before he turned and walked away from them, jumped and transform into the bus before Jester and her teammates quickly got in. Jester then turned on Mona's engine, drove out of the room, drove down the tunnels to another platform and got out of Mona (and they were surprise to see a black train with bright and sinister-looking red light shining from within the train out through the windows came driving into the station on the other side of a wall with bars on them before it came to a stop).

Jester, Spade, Skull, Panther and Mona then decided to ignored the black train that drove into the station for the moment, make their way down to the next level and found themselves standing on a platform with trains driving fast and nonstop down the tracks on both sides of them and with an ominous-looking wall that had glowing red "symbols and patterns of a curved diamond and an upside-down triangle on it a few feet in front of them.

"All right, there it is! What I want to check out is just past that wall!" said Mona in a cheering tone of voice to them.

Jester and her teammates nodded to Mona before they approach and stopped in front of the wall and they look and inspected it.

"…What is this place? It looks kinda creepy." asked Panther hesitantly to Mona.

"And a dead end at that. Why's it even exist?" asked Skull as he scratch the left side of his head.

"Now hold on, you two… Just watch. This is most likely not an ordinary wall. If my hunch is correct…" explained Mona to both Skull and Panther before he raised and pressed his paw on the wall, causing the wall and the platform that Jester and her teammates were standing on to start shaking (which alarmed them) before the wall opened up to reveal 2 escalators heading down to the next level.

"It opened…!" exclaimed Panther with a surprise look on her face.

"A new area has been confirmed in the depths. Updating guidance information." said the robotic female voice from Jester's phone.

"See!? It's just as I thought!" said Mona as he briefly jumped in joy.

"What do you mean?" asked Panther in confusion to Mona.

"That wall wouldn't budge when I came here by myself before. But it'd be weird for the deepest part of Mementos to be some normal place like this, wouldn't it?" Mona answer and explain more to them.

"So you were thinkin' there's gotta be more down there?" asked Skull as he crossed his arms.

"Yeah! Now that Kamoshida's Palace is gone and people are actually starting to talk about us… I knew something had to have changed down here!" replied Mona cheerfully to Skull.

"How deep is it? Should we try go further down?" suggested Panther.

"I don't think we should, Panther." said Jester as she shake her head at Panther.

"Jester's right, Panther. That's not why we're here today, remember?" said Mona as he also shake his head at Panther. "We've already accomplished our goal. We should head back and I'll explain more once we're home." added Mona to them before they turned around and began walking away from the opened wall. But before they leave, Jester suddenly stopped in her tracks when she heard a male voice talking to her in her head.

"So you're the latest human who received and started using the power of the wild card from Igor, huh? And here I thought that my previous host has return from wherever he is." said the male voice disappointedly to Jester.

"Who's talking to me now? Who are you and what previous host are you talking about?" asked Jester slightly firmly to the male voice.

"Who my previous host is of no concern to you, human girl. As for who I am, I'm Orpheus, Master of Strings." said the male voice as he introduced himself to Jester.

"Well, it's nice to sort of meet you, Orpheus. May I ask why you're talking to me?" asked Jester for the second time to Orpheus's voice.

"Well…" Orpheus's voice began saying to Jester but he got cut off by Sonya.

"Stop beating around the bush and tell my mistress what you want already, Orpheus!" said Sonya in a slightly annoy tone of voice to Orpheus's voice.

"Fine, I wish to aid and lend you my strength in the big task that's been placed upon you, newest wild card user. Do you accept?" asked Orpheus voice.

"… Very well then, Orpheus. I accept your aid and your strength." replied Jester to Orpheus voice after she thought about it.

"Very good, newest wild-card user. From now on, I am thou, thou art I." said Orpheus a bit happily to Jester before the tall figure of a light green, white and black robotic-looking, black-faced, red-eyed, short white hair man suddenly appear in front of her before he turned into a mask, flew forward and absorbed into Jester's mask. Soon after Orpheus got absorbed into Jester's mask, Jester suddenly saw 2 brief images of a dark blue-haired, grey-eyed guy and a short blonde-haired, light blue-eyed girl wearing different school uniforms flash through her mind before they disappear and she and her teammates make their way out of the Metaverse.

XXXX

Outside Shibuya station…

"Mementos, huh?… I still don't really get that place. Oh, and what was that wall thing we saw at the end?" asked Ryuji as he glance at Morgana.

"I'm not entirely sure, but it blocked us from going in past a certain depth." replied Morgana somberly to Ryuji. "If Mementos is the public Palace's though… it might be affected by the general public's belief in us."

"In other words, we've to be patient for it to open up even more to us…" said Isamu.

"Why do you know so much about it, Morgana?" asked Ann.

"My memories are a little foggy in that regard… However, I need to know what lies in the depths of Mementos, no matter what." replied Morgana reluctantly to Ann.

"No matter what…?" said Ann as she raised her eyebrow at Morgana.

"Mementos is not just everyone's Palace, it's the source of all Palaces. It use to be that Palaces like Kamoshida's with one ruler simply didn't exist. So if we can do something about the greatest cause of distortions, I'm certain my appearance will…!" said Morgana sadly to himself.

"You wanted someone to save you too…" said Ann sympathetically to Morgana.

"I-I just needed pawns!" said Morgana as he bristled defensively at Ann.

"Yeah, sure, Morgana." said Isamu as she smiled teasingly at Morgana (who scowled at her for teasing him).

"Don't worry, we understand, Morgana." said Akira.

"I see… So that's why you came pokin' your nose around with us." said Ryuji as he glance at Morgana.

"…I'll help you. I hope you can regain what you've lost." said Ann determinedly to them.

"I'll… be relying on you guys." said Morgana slightly sadly to them.

"By the way, Morgana… Are you a boy? Or might you be a girl?" asked Ann curiously to Morgana.

"What if he's not both boy and girl? What if he's a bus?" said Isamu.

"That is a possibility!" said Ann teasingly to Isamu.

"I wish I could deny it, but… I just can't be sure." said Ryuji.

"Why not!?... In any case, of course I'm male!" snapped Morgana as he scowled at Ryuji. "I mean, I…" added Morgana under his breath.

"…What is it?" asked Ann curiously to Morgana.

"No, it's nothing! We're done talking about it!" said Morgana as he shake his head a little before he glance at them. "Anyway, we now know that we can perform minor changes of hearts in Mementos. If we come across any eye-catching leads, it may be worth dealing with them for a bit of combat practice."

"There weren't any other outstanding ones though…" said Ann sullenly to Morgana.

"I bet we'll get tons of 'em if we can change someone famous and make the Phantom Thieves well-known. The big fish are our main targets after all." said Ryuji with an excited grin on his face.

"First you need to find a way to get through your exams." said Morgana, reminding them about the exams.

"I gotta study…" groaned Ryuji as he lowered his head in a pitiful manner.

"There, there, Ryuji…" said Isamu consolingly to Ryuji while unbeknownst to them, a guy is watching all of them talking together from a distance among the crowd, specifically on both Isamu and Ann.