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"I don't mean to sound rude, but," Tae raised her hand. "Can we get to how it is that you change hearts?"
"Of course." Ren nodded. "In the cognitive world, the metaverse, there are things that look just like us. They're called shadows. Cognitive versions of individuals. They show the true beliefs that people hold. Miss Kawakami, I trust you remember the Takase's?"
The Shujin teacher balled her fists in her lap and nodded. "How could I forget?"
"And you remember how I asked for their names?"
"Of course." She confirmed.
Ren pulled out his phone and showed it to everyone. "While we were Phantom Thieves, we used an app called the Meta-Nav to enter the metaverse. What we did when taking care of smaller targets was enter their names and enter a world called Mementos."
"So, this mementos place is different from the metaverse?" Shinya asked.
"Yes and no." Ann stepped forward. "Mementos is just another part of the metaverse. In Japan, it's this huge labyrinth of subway tunnels. It goes on for miles and miles. But it may look different in other parts of the world."
"As Ann said," Ren took back over. "Mementos is an expansive subway system. It could also be called the 'collective unconscious'. A place where everyone's shadow, everyone's cognitive self resides." Ren turned to Kawakami with a serious expression. "When we changed the hearts of the Takase's we used mementos to deal with them."
"Deal with them is putting it lightly, bro." Ryuji groaned. "You beat the shit out of both of them.
Yusuke nodded his head alongside Ryuji. "I must agree. You were truly a force to be reckoned with that day."
Ren cleared his throat, signalling both of them to shut up. "Anyways, the shadows of the Takase's appeared in mementos because they both possessed distorted desires. Those desires made it possible for us to find them and steal their treasure, the source of their desires."
"Hold on." Ohya interrupted. "I don't know about your teacher, but when I gave you the name of my Chief, he apologized to me about everything the next day."
"What's your point?"
"My point is that I first met you outside of Madarame's house and later I gave you Kaneshiro's name, but it still took a week or more for their hearts to change. Why is that?"
Ren couldn't help but be impressed at her journalistic instincts. "As we told you before, Mementos is only a part of the metaverse. There's another part that we haven't told you about. They're called 'palaces'."
"So what's different about these palaces?" Yoshida asked.
"Palaces are formed when an individual's distorted desires are far more excessive. Their desires are too powerful to be shown within Mementos since it affects the cognitive world around them."
"For instance," Futaba stepped forward. "My palace was an egyptian pyramid because I saw my room as a sort of tomb. A tomb I was meant to die in."
"Hold on, you had a palace?" Shinya asked. "Just like that doctor guy?" He said, pointing to Maruki.
"Kind of, but unlike Doctor Maruki, I hadn't awakened to a Persona."
"Another thing we should mention is that desires aren't always the evil kind like lust and greed." Makoto chimed in. "Futaba had a distorted desire, but her desire to die was nothing like Kaneshiro's or any of our other targets, save for Doctor Maruki. Essentially, a palace can stem from any desire so long as it's been warped in some way."
"How do you mean?" Ren's mother asked.
Morgana began meowing with a self-satisfied grin on his face. Ren sighed and began to translate. "Desires are necessary to humans. Eating food, working for money, finding love are all desires. The difference comes when those desires rule over you. Gluttony, greed, and lust are what can happen if people aren't careful."
"Ya know they can't understand you, cat." Ryuji chastised.
"So what?" He cried. "Joker translated for me. Besides, I'm the one who trained all of you. I should explain some stuff."
Ren simply patted Morgana's head a few times and turned back to the group before him. "Futaba told you all earlier that her palace took the form of an egyptian pyramid. Kamoshida's palace was a castle. Each palace was shaped in the way that the palace owner saw the location. Kamoshida thought himself a king, and Shujin academy was his castle."
"Palaces are also difficult to get around." Yusuke stepped forward, still wearing his Fox mask. "In mementos, we simply need to find the shadow within the labyrinth and confront it. Palaces however take root outside of Mementos, but still within the Metaverse. As such, they are larger than a single floor of mementos and are far more than a simple maze. What's more, we need to find the treasure in the very center of the palace and take it."
"A name, place, and distortion is what we need to enter them." Ryuji added. "For Kaneshiro, his distorted area was all of Shibuya. That creepy bastard thought of the entire place as his own personal bank. 'Cause of that, his palace was a giant, flying bank."
"There's something else." Ren spoke. "Taking the treasure of a palace is the same as taking away all desires of a person. That includes things needed to live like eating and sleeping."
"But the only person who died was that CEO guy, right?" Iwai asked.
"My father did die, yes, but not because we took his heart. He was murdered by another persona user." Haru's voice was somewhat sad, but more than anything, it was passionate to defend the name of the Phantom Thieves.
"So why didn't any of the other Palace owners die?" Mishima asked.
"Well, they all had the possibility to die…" Ren said somberly. "At least according to our original plans to steal their treasures. You see, in every palace we infiltrated, we planned to steal their treasure, but during our heists, we always ended up fighting the palace owners and convinced them to return to their real selves and seek repentance. Essentially, we opened their heart to feelings of guilt so that their desires left on their own, but even if that wasn't the case, it wouldn't be guaranteed that they'd die. Just a possibility. But the reason why Kunikazu Okumura died was because of this other persona user. He killed Kaneshiro's shadow which triggered a psychotic break. Ultimately, Okumura's heart couldn't handle the stress that put on him and he died."
"I have a question." Hifumi stood up. "You said that there was another persona user, right?" She asked. "Someone that was responsible for killing Kunikazu Okumura? Did you ever fight this person?"
The Shogi master's words hung over the Phantom Thieves like storm clouds. The most hurt expression; however, belonged to Ren as he answered the question. "Yes. His name is… was Goro Akechi."