June 13th, 20XX (Monday)

After School - Shujin Academy

A few days had passed since Toya first laid eyes on Kaneshiro's Bank. After a few days of brainstorming with both Kai and Osiris, he still wasn't able to think of a way to get all the way up there. The only idea that made even remotely any sense at all was getting a grappling hook, but it's not like he had one on hand. Thankfully, Kai had already ordered him one. He'd have to wait about a week or so, but that was fine. Until then, he just had to wait around and hope that the days were quiet.

"Maybe I'll go to Mementos today…" He thought, standing up from his desk.

"Mementos? Why do you wanna go there?"

"To be honest? I'm really bored… It kinda sounds fun, don't you think?"

"You have a weird definition of 'fun', you know that?"

"Not like anything else is happening… Besides, I have to take down a mob boss on my own. If I'm out of shape, who knows what'll happen?"

"Fine, fine. Just don't do anything too stupid. Nobody will be able to save you if you're deep in the Metaverse."

"I know, I know…" Toya stretched his arms out. It had been a while since he entered Mementos-in fact, he hadn't even summoned his Persona since Madarame got his heart changed. Part of him missed it, so the thought of doing this was enough to get him pretty excited.

"O-Oh, you're still here…" Mishima started walking up to Toya's desk, looking down at the ground.

"Mishima? What's wrong?"

"Um… the student council president wants to see us…"

"The student council president?" Toya took a moment to remember exactly who that was. "What exactly does she want? ...And why both of us?"

"I don't know, but… We probably shouldn't keep her waiting." Toya closed his eyes and looked down.

"Give me a break…" He sighed and put his hands in his pockets. "Fine, fine, fine. Lead the way, I'll be right behind you." He opened his eyes and looked at Mishima, nodding. Mishima turned around and started making his way to the 3rd floor, with Toya following behind him.

"Any idea what this could be about?"

"Not at all. Ugh… I have a bad feeling about this." The two of them stopped in front of the room they were called to. Neither of them were really sure what was in store for them, but they entered anyways. As soon as they walked in, they saw the student council president herself, Makoto Niijima, leaning on a table.

"Ah. Earlier than expected." She said, standing up straight with her hands at her sides.

"So, what, you can just summon people to your office?" Toya said sarcastically, rolling his eyes.

"You came, didn't you?"

"If that's a challenge to start ignoring your requests from now on, then I oh so graciously accept."

"Calm down. No point in getting angry before she does anything, right?"

"...Yeah, you're probably right." Toya looked towards Mishima, who had a confused and slightly intimidated look on his face.

"S-So, why did you want us to come here?" Mishima blurted out, trying to carry the conversation on past whatever awkward banter was happening beforehand.

"...Have a seat." Makoto took a seat at the table just behind her after speaking, with Toya and Mishima taking a seat on the other side, looking at her. "I'll get straight to the point. Mr. Kamoshida and Madarame. Won't you two tell me the truth behind the Phantom Thieves' incidents?"

"How should I know? I'm just a schoolboy."

"Y-Yeah! We don't care about that stuff! I-It'd be weird if we did!" There was a stark contrast between the two and their tones. Toya was doing his best to remain calm after what Osiris said, trying to use as little words as possible. Mishima, on the other hand, made it painfully obvious how nervous he was. He talked more than he had to, and overall just made a fool of himself.

"Ah, of course. There's no way you would admit to such things." She took out her phone, tapping a button on the screen and putting it down on the desk. "Have a listen."

"Don't worry about her. She's small time compared to the people you've been taking down!"

"N-Not so loud!"

"...How'd it go yesterday? You know, with Madarame? Did you get him?"

"...Yeah. Yeah, I got him. He'll confess to everything soon."

"Haha, awesome! No rotten adult is safe from you!"

"I said not loud! L-Let's just get to work!"

Silence.

Pure silence filled the room for a moment. Toya and Mishima both recognized the audio. It was a conversation they had a few weeks ago, just before they had begun picking up trash around the park for the school activity.

"...What could all this mean?"

"W-We didn't do anything! We swear, we-" Toya raised his arm in front of Mishima's face, signaling him to stop. He was looking down, his eyes not visible."

"Was it blackmail? Hypnosis? How do you corner someone into making them confess?" She was pressing them for answers harder than before. It was easy to tell that she had some level of experience with this kind of stuff.

"Something is off about this..."

"What do you mean?"

"Think about it. Why would she do this? She has zero reason to question you like this. If she wanted to expose you, wouldn't she do it by now?" He had a point. If she wanted this to be exposed, it would be done. "You need to figure it out. Start asking questions."

"...Won't you tell me why you're doing this?" Toya asked, still looking down. "The police are on high alert. You could take that clip to them and get the two of us under surveillance- or even worse, depending on how desperate they are right now. But instead, you're here-asking how it happened. So, tell me this..." Toya finally looked up, staring dead into Makoto's eyes. "Why do you care?" Mishima had a shocked expression on his face. Toya was speaking in an aggressive tone that he hadn't heard from him before. He didn't just sound annoyed like he did previously. Instead, he was turning the table of the conversation. He had become the one asking questions, and demanding answers.

"...Because I would like to verify the justice you speak of."

"...What?"

"...What?" Toya and Osiris had the same immediate reaction. Even Mishima had a confused look on his face. "...You want to… verify this? What do you mean by that?"

"I'm the only one who knows about you. If you prove what you're doing is just, I'll erase this. There is someone whose heart I'd like you to change."

"...And just who might that be?"

"Hm, so you're not saying it's impossible."

"Oh, for the love of-"

"Not yet. I cannot tell you that just yet. Let's continue our talk after school tomorrow. On the roof. Assuming the two of you accept my offer, that is."

"...Fine. I'll be there. But let me make one thing clear." He lifted a hand and pointed his thumb at Mishima. "He's not directly involved with this. Don't go trying to expose him to the cops too." He got up from his seat, putting his hand on Mishima's shoulder. "Come on. Let's get out of here."

"H-Huh? W-Wait up!" He got up and quickly followed Toya out of the room. Makoto watched the two of them leave before trailing her eyes down, a sorrowful expression on her face. She didn't like having to do this, and she didn't like how she was being seen as antagonistic. But she thought it was necessary. If she was going to protect the people who made up the student body of the school from someone who was targeting them… then she needed the cooperation of the Phantom Thieves.

While she was lost in thought of how tomorrow was going to go and how she'd make sure this would go well, Toya and Mishima made their way outside. Toya had an annoyed look on his face as he pressed both his bag and foot against the wall.

"I-I'm sorry! I swear, I'll be more careful! I won't say anything about that out loud again! I swear!"

"Just… Give it a rest already, Mishima. It's fine." Toya took out his phone. He contemplated telling Kai about all of this, but… He didn't know how to do it yet. He wanted to wait until later, until he had more information about this. For now, his best play was to just wait until he figured more stuff out.

"Ugh… I can't shake the feeling that I messed it all up now…"

"Seriously, it's fine. Just be careful and don't get roped into anything, okay? I'll deal with her on my own." Toya continued staring blankly at his phone. He was a lot more tempted to go to Mementos now, solely for the sake of blowing off steam. He stared at the red and black eyeball on his phone's screen, before spotting someone approaching out of the corner of his eye, someone he recognized.

"You two okay?" Out of everyone who could possibly come up to them and ask what's wrong, Toya certainly did not expect Ryuji Sakamoto. Then again, he was a Phantom Thief. It was a lot more in character when factoring that part into his personality, but most people didn't know that. Toya put his phone in his pocket before responding.

"Yeah, we're fine. Someone is just being annoying. But don't worry, nothing I can't handle!" Toya tried his best to sound more cheerful. He didn't want to cause any kind of a scene, given who Ryuji was. He also felt bad acting like he was upset around Mishima, given how visibly and audibly upset he looked.

"Um… I should go…" Mishima spoke in a shy tone before starting to run off.

"H-Hey, wait!" Toya reached an arm out while speaking, but slowly rescinded it when he realized Mishima had no plans of listening. "Damn it…"

"...You sure you two're fine?" Ryuji was taken aback by the situation, and confused about context.

"No… Not really. We're in a bit of a weird situation… Or well, I guess I am." Toya took a long, deep sigh. He put his hands in his pockets and closed his eyes. "Ren told you, right? About how I'm… 'covering' for you guys. You know, about… That."

"You mean—" Ryuji had to stop himself from saying it out loud. "U-Uh, yeah. Why?"

"Back when we were picking up trash at the park, Mishima asked me about Madarame. This was after the calling card got put up. I told him it was done, and Madarame's heart would change within a few days. Problem is… the student council president heard the entire thing, and she recorded it. Now she's got me pegged as the one responsible for everything."

"F-For real!? That's so effed up! Let us talk to her, we can sort this out!"

"N-No, that's crazy! Her knowing that it's you guys is way worse!"

"But…"

"Worst case scenario, I can just talk to my brother and figure something out with him. She won't be able to get me arrested, or anything like that."

"Alright, but damn… Wait, how'd you figure out it was us, anyways?"

"It was pretty obvious when—" Toya stopped himself and looked around. Nobody was looking, but there were still a lot of people in the area. "...Maybe we should talk about this somewhere else."

"Good point… Hey, you hungry?"

"...Now that you mention it, I definitely slept past breakfast..."

"C'mon, let's go grab a bite!" Ryuji started running off towards the nearby subway station.

"H-Huh!? Wait up!" Toya ran after him, following him down the subway station.

June 13th, 20XX (Monday)

After School - Shibuya (Diner)

The two of them got a seat at a table across from each other. It was the first time he had actually gone out to eat with someone that wasn't family-and it was someone he had almost no interaction with prior, surprisingly enough. It confused him, but… Well, he didn't exactly mind the company. Ryuji had a welcoming aura around him, after all.

"You wanna talk about how you figured out it was us while we're waitin' for food?"

"Oh, sure. Well, to be honest, it wasn't really hard. I was kinda just in the right place at the right time."

"Whaddya mean?"

"I saw you and Ren vanish into thin air outside the school."

"...Wait, for real? That's it!?"

"Yep. One second you two were there looking at your phones, next second you were gone. A few weeks later, someone puts calling cards all over school. I go outside once classes end, see you two vanish again as well as Takamaki… and then not too long after, Kamoshida's heart mysteriously changed. It was pretty obvious by that point."

"Jeez… Guess we gotta be more careful about it…" He took a big sip of the soda he had. "Hey, since you already know about it, wanna see how we do it?"

"I-I don't think that's such a good idea…"

"C'mon, you'll be totally safe if you stick with me!"

"Thanks, but I'll uh… I'll leave that to you guys! You've already done such a good job anyways, I'd just slow you guys down! Besides uh… I'd probably get too nervous to steal anything…"

"Alright. Let me know if you ever change your mind!" He had an excited grin on his face. Toya didn't show it, but he was relieved by the fact that he didn't have to try hard to dissuade Ryuji from the idea. If the two went into the Metaverse together, then Toya's identity would be revealed, which would be… bad, for obvious reasons. "Give me a minute, I gotta take a piss." Ryuji started getting up before accidentally hitting his leg against the table. He yelped out in pain and fell down, placing his hands on one leg.

"H-Hey, you okay!?" Toya got up and started helping him up.

"Easy, easy…!" Ryuji grunted as Toya lifted him up, carrying him on his shoulder. Toya tried to put him down, but Ryuji's leg was limp, and he was clearly still in pain.

"What happened to your leg…?"

"Frickin'... Kamoshida broke it a few months back."

"A few months…? It's still that sensitive after all this time?"

"It was getting better, but… Some asshole shot a damn arrow through it!"

Guilt.

It felt like he was getting hit by his own arrow, piercing through his own heart. He didn't even know that Ryuji had a bad leg to begin with. If he did, he would have been sure to aim higher.

"Agh.. H-Hey, you mind helping me move for a minute? Just… Just to the bathroom, alright?"

"Y-Yeah, sure… Hang on tight, alright?" Toya slowly stepped forward, making sure Ryuji wasn't going to fall off and hurt himself more. He tried his best to hide how guilty he felt. He was sure it was showing to an extent, but… He did his best.

June 13th, 20XX (Monday)

Evening - Leblanc

ANN: Hey, Ryuji.

ANN: Is your leg feeling any better?

RYUJI: It was…

RYUJI: Accidentally bumped it into a diner table earlier.

RYUJI: It still kinda hurts…

ANN: The diner? Were you with someone?

RYUJI: Oh, yeah. That Toya guy.

YUSUKE: Toya?

RYUJI: He's a guy who goes to our school.

REN: He knows about us being Phantom Thieves too.

RYUJI: Oh yeah, I asked him about that.

RYUJI: Apparently he saw us vanish into thin air outside the school back before we even sent the calling card to Kamoshida.

ANN: He's known for that long?

ANN: Well, that means he probably won't expose us or anything.

YUSUKE: Hang on, he goes to your school and knows who you three are, correct?

RYUJI: Uh… Yeah, why?

YUSUKE: Doesn't he fit the description of the person we encountered in Madarame's Palace?

RYUJI: Nah. No way.

RYUJI: When I bumped my leg, he sounded like he didn't even know it was ever broken in the first place.

ANN: Still…

ANN: We should be careful. Especially if he's known for that long.

ANN: If it's not him, then someone else knows who we are…

REN: Let's make sure we're more careful from now on.

RYUJI: Yeah. No talking about this in public!

RYUJI: ...Wait, do we need a new hideout then?

REN: Let's figure that out tomorrow.

YUSUKE: Agreed.

haha good schedule joke ahahahahahaha

(I'm just gonna stop talking about my posting schedule. It just gets worse every time I bring it up...)

"The part where Toya goes 'Please, not me...', is it a DBZA refrence?"

I need to get around to making more of those, honestly. DBZA is too funny for its own good sometimes.