June 22nd, 20XX (Wednesday)
After School - Kaneshiro's Bank (Banker Passageway)
"How're you feeling? Think you're up for more exploration?" Toya asked, his back against the wall and his eyes closed.
"Yeah, I'm fine." Makoto responded, cracking her knuckles and looking away. The tension between them from before was nowhere to be seen at this point. They weren't exactly friends, though. They had a common goal, and began helping each other achieve it. Whether or not that would continue once Kaneshiro was dealt with had yet to be seen, even yet to be thought about. Neither of them really cared about what would happen in the distant future at this point. Instead, their only goal was figuring out what they were going to do about Kaneshiro. Nothing more, nothing less. "There is something that I've been wondering, though… Just how deep are we supposed to go?"
"Hm? What do you mean by that?"
"How will we know when we've reached the end? What do we have to do to fully change his heart? Does it end with us just beating him in a fight?"
"Err… Well, fighting Kaneshiro himself will definitely be a part of it-but I don't think that's the main goal. Pretty sure we have to steal something from him."
"...Something. And just what exactly is this something?"
"It's… uhhhh…"
"His Treasure."
"H-His Treasure! He's got a Treasure at the end of this place, and stealing it will make him change his ways and confess his crimes. We just gotta take it from him!" Toya was struggling to actually answer that question. He was trying to keep up a facade of knowing what he was doing, but… He was still pretty clueless on the specifics of things. Osiris was able to help him out with it slightly, but it was still pretty obvious from his voice that he was having trouble coming up with an appropriate answer. Makoto didn't verbally respond to him, and instead just stared at him blankly before just sighing and dismissing it. She wasn't stupid enough to be fooled by something like that. There was something that did pique her interest, though. And it wasn't anything that he said-rather, the way that he acted.
"...There's something off about this." She watched Toya as he took a deep breath, trying to get his composure back. For a few moments, she just stared at him. His facial expression changed a few times while she was watching. He seemed to get annoyed for a moment out of thin air, almost like something was speaking to him, and said something that got on his nerves. But… nobody was talking. It was only the two of them in the room together. "...He can't be talking to himself. His reactions are way too… raw. It's like he's having an actual conversation with someone… Someone inside of his head. But… How can that be? He can't communicate with his Persona… can he?" She closed her eyes and pondered this thought. She tried to communicate with her own Persona, but to no avail. Try as she might, she wasn't able to get her Persona to speak a word to her. Maybe she could if she had summoned it, but if she did, then that would defeat the entire purpose of her test. "No… It's not his Persona. It can't be that. There's something else going on here… What is it, though?" She became lost in thought. The elevator had stopped without her even realizing it. She was trapped in her own head now, perhaps even more than she expected Toya to be. "So if it's not a conversation with himself… and not a conversation with his Persona… Then…"
"...Yoohoo… Earth to Niijima…" Makoto was suddenly alerted by the sound of fingers snapping. Her eyes jolted open and she was Toya standing in front of her, a confused expression on his face. "...You sure you're okay to continue? You kinda spaced out there for a minute…"
"Oh, I'm fine. I was just… Thinking about something that I need to take care of later. Don't worry, I'm more than able to continue on here for a while longer."
"Huh… Well, alright, then. Just don't go straining yourself, alright?" Toya walked towards the wall, seeing an air duct and getting down, crawling into it. "C'mon! Let's get through this quick!"
"...You're certainly unique." She thought to herself, as she followed him through the vent. Her questions had still been left unanswered, but she didn't have the time to delve deeper into them. For now, she just had to continue on, and try to get through the rest of the bank within a reasonable amount of time. Her questions could come later… in a more safe environment, where she's not worried about literal demons trying to kill her by the will of an oversized mafia boss.
The two of them got to the other side of the vent and jumped down onto ground level. They were fairly deep into the bank at this point, deeper than they could have imagined the bank actually went from the outside. Then again, it didn't actually surprise them that there was more to the place than first met the eye, but it was still something that caught their attention.
"All security, listen up!" Suddenly, a voice rang out on speakers, echoing throughout the halls. "It looks like a pair of rats have infested this place! Under no circumstances let them further down! Strengthen security as much as you can! Understood?"
"Well, that helps with figuring out where we're supposed to go. Still… It looks like things are gonna start getting a lot more dangerous. Keep your guard up, alright?"
"Don't worry about me. If anything comes our way, I'm sure the two of us can handle it without much trouble."
"Hah! Got that right!" Toya liked the sudden confidence from her. She might have said it on a whim, but she was sure that the two of them would be fine. She was confident in her own skills due to her aikido practice, and Toya had proven himself to be capable of holding his own in a fight time after time. Despite the sudden mystery surrounding him, that was the one thing about him that she was sure of. For now, that was more than enough for her to be confident in their chances. And because of that, she was content. The two of them walked down the hallway in front of them, before stopping and looking up towards the ceiling, spotting multiple different security cameras. "...You know, I'm not even surprised that there are security cameras. If anything, I'm surprised that we're only just now running into them. You'd think that a place crawling with guard dogs would have security cameras everywhere, rather than just the basement…"
"It is a bit strange. Nonetheless, it's dangerous. We should still proceed with caution around them."
"Nah, that won't be necessary. As long as we see them before they see us, we won't have any issues at all." Toya said, looking up at the first camera and smirking.
"...You're making that face again. You're giving the camera that look." Osiris took note of Toya's demeanor, before realizing what Toya had in mind. "...Jester, no."
"Jester YES!" Materializing his bow in his hands, Toya pulled an arrow out and aimed at one of the cameras, shooting directly at it and breaking through it. A few sparks flew out from the camera for a second, the light emitting from it disappeared, signaling that it couldn't see anything anymore.
"...Well, I suppose that's… one way of dealing with security cameras watching our every move."
"See, what'd I tell ya? No issues at all!" Toya bragged for just a brief moment, before taking out more arrows and making short work of the rest of the security cameras that were in the hallway. Before they knew it, they were all completely turned off, and were no threat to the two of them at all. "Now we don't have to worry about them seeing us, so we're completely invisible!"
"...You really aren't the smartest person in the world, you know that?"
"Oh, come on! Admit it, that was a great idea!"
"...Jester, what do those security camera feeds show now? The ones you just destroyed."
"I dunno… Probably just static or something, right? What's wrong with that? Not like they can see through it."
"They don't need to. They know that the cameras were destroyed, and they know that there's only two people in this entire cognitive world that would do such a thing. Which means that, without even seeing you, they know exactly where you are." Toya paused. He had a completely dumbfounded look on his face for a moment. "See, this? This is why you listen to me before going on and doing something reckless just to look cool in front of a girl."
"I am NOT trying to look cool in front of her! W-Why would I even care about that!?" Toya shook his head and started walking forward, with Makoto following behind. "Ugh, nevermind! We'll be totally fine! If anyone comes for us, we'll take them down! Easy!"
"...What am I going to do with you…" Toya could feel disappointment radiating from Osiris with every word. Their relationship was weird, and mostly involved the two of them bantering with each other and trying to prove which was smarter than the other, but at the end of the day, they meant well. They were still friends with each other, and stuck with each other for… Well, for as long as either of them could guess. It was a weird way of getting along… But it worked out well for them, surprisingly enough. The two of them liked the back and forth banter, but neither of them would ever admit to that.
Regardless, this was no time for either of them to be dwelling on a bit of banter. Toya and Makoto got to the end of the hallway and opened a door, only to see a guard standing idly at the other side, his back turned away from them. Toya jumped back and pressed himself against the wall, trying to peek into the room without being spotted. There was only one of them, and it didn't look like there were any reinforcements nearby.
"Well, he shouldn't be hard to deal with if his back is turned…" Toya whispered, assessing the situation. "It should be pretty easy to deal with this thing if there's nothing else around… But they're upping security, and there's no telling when there's gonna be someone turning the corner. So doing this might be a bad-"
"You just took down 3 security cameras, and we ambushed a literal guard dog not long ago. Are you really going to try and tell me that taking down a single guard who doesn't know any better is where you draw the line on recklessness?" Makoto said, raising an eyebrow at Makoto with an expression that was somewhere between disappointed and surprised.
"...You know? You bring up a good point." Toya quickly pulled an arrow out from his quiver, twirling it around in his hand before raising his other arm and aiming at the guard. He fired his grappling hook into the guard's back, zipping through the air and smashing his entire body weight against him. The guard fell to the ground, as Toya kept pressing down against his back. He brought his arrow further into the air before slamming down and shoving it through the guard's head. The guard faded away into mist when the arrow pierced its head, as Toya stood back up straight. He and Makoto looked at each other and nodded their heads, before continuing on through the bank. They knew that they were strong enough to deal with any guards that might pop up at this point. However, they knew that reinforcements were going to become more and more prevalent past this point, and they had no interest in fighting countless waves of enemies to get through. Because of this, they decided that it would be best if they just stayed stealthy and avoided conflict. After all, if they were to constantly get into fights, it stands to reason that they would eventually get overwhelmed by the seemingly endless amount of guards.
They snuck around for a few minutes, keeping as quiet as they could so as not to alert any guards, and they were thankfully able to do this fairly easily. Before long, they found themselves in a massive room, filled with security cameras and staircases, with a giant vault towards the bottom. But before they could focus on that, their attention was caught by the massive electrical gate in front of them. There were two of them, being used to block off an entranceway blocked off by iron bars that led to… somewhere probably important. They kept it in mind, but they couldn't really do much about it.
"This is the last room on the map… Do you think his 'Treasure' is in that vault?" Makoto asked, putting the map that she was looking at away and staring at the vault below them, trying not to focus on the gate.
"For some reason, I doubt that. And considering the literal gates of electricity… I have a feeling it won't exactly be easy to get in. I guess there's no harm in hoping for the best, though." He responded, before walking down the staircase in the room with Makoto by his side, as the two of them made their way to the bottom floor, staring at the massive vault. "So is it me, or… are there keyholes on the terminals?" He asked, pointing at the terminals that were on both sides of the vault.
"So we'll need two keys… to open a vault?"
"So it's a door… shaped like a vault. I don't even know why I'm surprised at what I see in this world." Toya closed his eyes and sighed. "So, we need two keys. And with my luck, those keys are…"
"Behind the gates of thunder on the upper floor. Any idea how to get through that?"
"Well, not through it. Buuuuuuuut…" Toya stared at the space inbetween the gates. There was a decent amount of space to stand, and while the door behind them was fortified, it didn't look nearly strong enough to withstand the power of their Personas.
"...Okay, what's with that look in your eyes?" Makoto asked in a nervous tone, before Toya suddenly grabbed hold of her hand, walking forward and raising his free arm into the air. "H-Hey! What are you-"
"Hold on tight!" He chuckled to himself, as his grappling hook shot out and lodged itself in the wall between the gates, pulling both him and Makoto towards it. Makoto yelped ever so slightly as she was suddenly lifted up into the air, being brought to the sealed off entranceway. The two of them landed in front of it, between the gates with enough room to move around.
"D-Don't just do that without warning me first!"
"Oh c'mon, it was at least kinda fun!"
"Not everyone has the same twisted definition of fun as you do, Jester." Toya rolled his eyes in response to Osiris and looked towards the sealed off door. He pressed himself against the wall and listened to a conversation that was going on inside the room.
"About those intruders…"
"Oh? Are you really that concerned? Don't be. We have the keys they need, so things should be okay as long as we protect them."
"Seriously, why do they just say stuff like that out loud? There's no way that they don't realize how dumb it is to do that, right?" Toya said sarcastically, grabbing onto his mask.
"Wait, do you intend on breaking the bars down? Those two should be considerably stronger than anything else we've seen in here. Isn't this a bit reckless?"
"A bit. But I think we can take them. Besides… I don't wanna stick around all day. The longer we're here, the more likely it is that we get overwhelmed by the regular guards of this place. We're better off at least trying this."
"Well… Alright. But we need to be careful."
"Let's work together then. Just follow my lead, alright?" Makoto nodded in response, as Toya fully unmasked and summoned his Persona. He snapped his fingers as Yama grabbed onto the iron bars, inevitably breaking them off completely. The sound of the iron bars breaking instantly caught the attention of the two guards, who turned towards the direction of the sound as Toya and Makoto jumped into the room, with Toya twirling one of the iron bars around his fingers.
"You've got some nerve, barging in like you own the place! You won't leave alive!" One of the guards yelled, as he began transforming, as well as the one standing right next to him. They became two large demonic figures, one that they recognized and one that they didn't. The one that they recognized was the one they encountered when Makoto first awoke to her Persona, with pink and faded red skin and hair. The other one, however, was entirely new. It had the same general figure and posture, but was blue… and had a massive, gaping hole where its face should have been.
"The one that we recognize… You took it down on your own the last time we saw it, right? Think you can pull that off again?"
"Consider it done." Makoto stared at the pink one, unmasking herself to summon her Persona and charging forward on top of it. The demon raised its blade into the air to try and slam down onto her, but it was far too slow to ever keep up with a motorcycle. Makoto was able to drive circles around it without even getting so much as scratched thanks to her speed.
"You're embarrassing yourself, damn it!" The blue demon was outraged and went to help out the other one, beginning to charge up a blast of magic. But before being able to fire it off, he felt something stab pierce his arm. He grunted in pain and turned around, only to see Toya standing there with his bow out, eyes focused on the light blue monster.
"Your fight is with me!" Toya yelled, pulling out another arrow and firing at the demon's head again. It swatted the arrow out of the air with its massive blade and started charging forward, raising its blade into the air. Toya smirked, having planned for this. "Yama!" Calling his Persona once more, Yama came out in front of Toya and grabbed onto the sword as it was coming down. The demon struggled and tried to push forward, but Yama wouldn't allow it. Yama held on to the sword tightly, not letting the demon move an inch. Toya twirled the iron bar around his fingers once again before moving forward, spinning it around the air and crashing it into the demon's leg. The demon grunted in pain and started losing balance, but it was strong enough to hold its own still. But that was okay, because it couldn't stop Toya anymore, not without losing its sword to Yama. Because of this, Toya was able to use his grappling hook to get on top of the demon, striking it in the head with the bar. Strike after strike, as the demon could do nothing but take it and try to push down harder.
While this was happening, Makoto was dealing with the other demon, and just like before, she wasn't having much trouble. She drove around it so much that the demon ended up getting dizzy, to the point that it could barely even stand anymore. She saw this as an opening and prepared a blast of nuclear magic, causing a massive explosion and sending the demon into the wall. The demon crashed against the wall with a loud bang, before falling to the ground and fading into mist. As she got done with her side of the fight, she looked over at Toya, who was just about done with his part, too. After striking the demon in its head enough times, it finally lost its grip and fell to the floor, leaving the blade in Yama's hands. With one quick movement, Yama was able to plunge the blade through the demon's chest, finishing it instantly.
"Aaaaaand done. See? That wasn't so bad."
"You're right… But I'm starting to get a bit worn out now…" Makoto felt exhausted after running around for so long today. That didn't really come as a surprise to Toya, considering this was her first full day in the Metaverse. Even he was started to get a little tired.
"Let's stop here for now, then. We've done plenty of work here already." Toya picked up the keys that were left by the demons who had been defeated, pocketing them and walking out of the room. "Come on. Let's get home and get some rest now. We can come back tomorrow, or something."
"Yeah… Alright." Makoto took a deep breath and followed him. She could still move, she just couldn't get into another fight with confidence. Not until tomorrow, at least.
June 23rd, 20XX (Thursday)
After School - Shujin Academy
After a long night of rest, the next day finally came and Toya and Makoto were both ready to go to the Metaverse again. They met inside of the school this time, and were beginning to walk outside.
"Wait." They heard someone talking to them. They turned around, and saw… a familiar face.
"M-Mishima…!?" Toya was taken aback by Mishima suddenly confronting them. Though, despite the surprised look on Toya's face, Mishima's expression didn't change at all. He stayed completely calm. "Uhhh, h-hey man! What's, uh… What's up?
"...I want to go with you."
"Huh? Wait, what do you mean-"
"I want to go into that other world with you."