6 / 6 / 2016

Niijima's decked out in a skintight leather suit with white gloves, a long black scarf, and a dark gray corset-style leather breastplate. She bears small shoulder and knee pads with spikes, her boots sporting metal heels and toes. Her Persona's an almost futuristic, cyberpunk-ish motorcycle that's almost as large as a small car, the diameter of each of its wheels an arm's length. It bears a glossy, pure white sheen all over itself, save the dark-as-night wheels and the heavenly blue headlights. A content, motherly face is carved upon the front of the bike, looking almost like a sculpture of the Virgin Mary you'd find in a cathedral.

She flicks her wrist forward, causing the bike to rev once more, and in an instant a bright blue nuclear whirlpool swirls over our heads — white-hot sparks dash downward and I can feel Niijima's rage, I can feel the fury coursing through every inch of her, such that if she were to throw that whirlpool at me, I'd surely die.

"Charge, Johanna!"

The light rushes forward such that Kaneshiro's Shadow can't even dodge out of the way and the sound it makes is a great big BOOM comparable to Satanael's gunshots. The nuclear winds carry the flies' corpses in the air and disintegrate them utterly, causing a three-meter wide crater in the bank lobby with Kaneshiro right smack-dab in the fucking middle—

But of fucking course the bastard's still alive. Not even a single scratch on his clothe, that smug ass-smirk still on his face as he says, "Tickles. Perfectly honest, I kinda like you two. Been a looong fucking time since I've seen kids stand up to me rather than beg me to stop."

"I ought to disembowel you and hang you by your own intestines," Niijima snarls.

"You don't. You wanna get messy only when you really wanna fuck with people, send a message. Otherwise it's cheaper to just shoot 'em in the head and stuff their bodies in oil drums fulla acid."

"I'll make a message out of you Tokyo's underworld will never forget."

"And I'll make a message out of your sister you'll wish you could."

Niijima grits her teeth and loses herself, in her madness she rides directly for him like this is Mad fucking Max, and as the tires gush out jetstreams of blood the force of the charge becomes such that if she were to hit an ordinary person, she'd get their insides all over herself.

But we're not facing an ordinary person. We're not even facing an ordinary Shadow.

A single backhand slap rings out through the world like the crack of a whip, and Johanna's sent spiralling out. Niijima's able to leap off the bike before it careens into the wall, rolling over the ground all curled up as Johanna disappears in a hail of black flame.

She just rises to her feet, cycles her jaw around, spits out a tooth, and gets into a fighting stance.

"Y'know, I killed a guy once by running him over. You'll be surprised how easy it is for someone's bones to go pop under pressure. We're so fucking fragile. You should really be careful where you point that fucking thing, Miss Prez. Delicate girls like you get shit on in prison."

"Everyone you've hurt. All the innocent people you've victimized. You think you can just stand there and gloat about everything you've done?"

"Why not? The city fears me. The cops fucking love me, because I do most of their work for them. My people don't dare pull shit or else I tear their fucking families in two. Those in power work the ones below them to the bone. Death and taxes, bitch. Take it or leave it."

Niijima's eyes grow even more enraged, "You murder people and exploit them for money!"

"You stupid enough to think it's all about the fucking money?" His speech begins devolving into a laugh that seeps through my fucking ears like worms. "It's not about money. It's about making a fucking staircase outta the guts and bones of the people who fucked you over. It's about surviving longer than the guy who wants to stuff barbed wire up your ass. You think I'm lying, then the shit in your brains is heavier than the lead in your ass."

Kaneshiro's body mutates and groans, bones popping and jutting out of his flesh. His chest throbs and pulsates and out from his ribcage tears open a large round head with hair that stretches all the way down to his back. A large obese creature, the likes of which could not humanly fit in the gangly body its shedding right before our very eyes, rises up and when he stands firm on both his flabby legs he comes to rival the height of a two-story house.

His skin is a deep shade of blue and he wears a tiger's skin over his shoulders. In his right hand he bears a staff made of a human spinal cord and skull. Dark purple veins stretch all over his body, from his bizarrely skinny arms to his flour-bag legs, to his overly-inflated belly the likes of which looks ready to burst at a pinprick.

Despite all the flat-out blinding anger Niijima let loose just moments ago, all she can do now is stare and watch as this fucking monster shows his true form right in front of us all.

"Only way to carve your own path is to make everyone else who wants you gone either scared shitless or pushing up daisies. I pulled myself from the deepest darkest asshole of the planet all the way up to here, and I'm not gonna let a foolish whore who will bear the children of a thousand fathers in next two weeks whine about all the pigs I've slaughtered to get this far."

He grins and grimaces at us with a smile so wide it stretches well beyond the confines of his face. In his jaws lie about six rows of needle-shaped teeth both top and bottom, with a thick and fat tongue that nests flies within its tastebuds. I tell myself Victory Cry and I rise to my feet, the pain searing across my body slowly but surely fading as the cancers die down, I glare at the monster before us and a name passes through my head: Baal Zebul, Baal Zebul, Baal Zebul.

"The pigs devour each other with such ingenuity and ruthlessness that unless you return that cruelty you shall be consumed. It is an endless hunger I bear, but a necessary one. Scour my Palace and let us see if you have an even greater hunger than I. By the time I am finished with you not even the flies would dare feast upon your corpses—"

"Cendrillon!"

Spears of light charge through the air and burrow themselves into his red eyes.

"HRRAAGGGHHHHH!"

Yoshizawa charges into the lobby, the vault door open. "Niijima-senpai! Hikawa-senpai!"

"Y-Yoshizawa-san!?"

"HURRY! It'll only blind him for so long!"

Normally I'd be inclined to waste the motherfucker right here and now. But I'm so fucking burnt out and exhausted it isn't even funny anymore, and considering how exhausted people normally feel after awakening their Personas, Niijima's likely feeling the same.

But Baal Zebul rages, eyes bleeding and belly boiling, not all too happy with that notion. "I'LL SLAUGHTER YOU ALL! YOU SHALL SPEND THE REST OF YOUR DAYS WITHOUT LIMBS OR EYES OR TEETH, DEAF AND BLIND AS YOU WASTE AWAY IN THE ARMS OF ALL WHO KILL IN MY NAME!"

Good for us he's still blind as shit, he's not even facing our direction as he screams.

I'll just leave him with a fucking warning shot.

"Satanael."

"Senpai, wait—"

BOOM.

Baal Zebul's purple guts spill outward, sliding down his legs as he falls to his knees. He stops screaming, clutching now at both his eyes and his stomach, just groaning as though suffering through a week-long constipation.

Niijima's taken aback again, stepping away from the creature she'd threatened to disembowel just earlier, and forces back down any urge to throw up.

But Baal Zebul stops his pained groans, laughing again, laughing ever so proudly, turning his bloodshot eyes back again at us even though he still undoubtedly can't see, "You hunger for bloodshed just as much as I. Too many pigs die too quickly. I've not felt this rush in decades."

His eyes, each burnt to a crisp, are wide and black and searingly painful to look upon, and like serpents his guts writhe and wriggle while still hanging loose from his opened belly.

His intestines vibrate and tremble as they rise upward, facing us; they bear the heads of anacondas, cobras, pythons and all manner of other serpents. Hissing, they spout poison from their fangs and mouths and I grab Yoshizawa by the arm, "Niijima!"

"Johanna!"

"HAHAHAHAHA! I shall leave my doors open for you all! Reach my Treasure and rip it away from my clutches! I've very much longed to see beasts of a similar nature as mine stand against me! So come at me, COME AT ME! FEED MY NEVERENDING HUNGER!"

I grab on Satanael's leg and he flies me and Yoshizawa outta there as Niijima rushes out the door on her Persona-bike, Baal Zebul laughing at our great escape all the fucking while.

When we get back it's just half past sunset.

We land in the middle of Shibuya Crossing. A few people look at us, but nothing much more than that. I grab Niijima and Yoshizawa's hands and steer us as far fucking away from crowds as possible, and Niijima's too tired to protest or pull away.

We all make it back to the walkway and luckily there's no one within like twenty feet of us and I fall flat on my face and feel so fucking tired my heart wants to stop beating forever. Niijima clutches at the railings and heaves her fucking lungs out while Yoshizawa stares at the both of us.

"Sorry I couldn't arrive sooner, senpai," Yoshizawa tells me, kneeling beside my collapsed body. "Traffic was terrible, so I had to run all the way here."

"It's...fine...," I chuckle a little, barely able to see her for a second. "Please help me up...?"

She grabs one of my hands and pulls an arm over my shoulder, helping me over to the side of the railing next to Niijima.

Never thought I'd even think it. But I'm glad she's still alive.

"I've...," she groans, "I've never felt so exhausted..." I smirk at her, laughing a little. "What's so funny?"

"Nothing," I exhale, "I'll tell you what just happened to you tomorrow."

"Please do..."

"You brought her along with you inside the Palace?" Yoshizawa asks me. "A-and your clothes! They're covered in...!"

"I got her away from Kaneshiro," pant, "he smashed a bottle over my head," pant, "she wouldn't let me change his heart alone," pant, "even though she didn't know shit," pant, "so I brought her in...and she awakened to her Persona."

"H-he smashed a bottle over your head...?"

"Your wounds, oh my God!" Niijima cries.

"Don't worry," pant, "All healed up." I wipe my face, "Wine's gone, too. That's a plus..."

"H-how...?"

"Again, I'll tell you tomorrow."

"How'd you find a way in the Palace? It was locked, yesterday?"

"Came at a cost. Niijima throwing herself at Kaneshiro, and me trying to get her the hell outta there, resulted in the both of us becoming his customers. He demands three million yen, no less, in two weeks. And he parsed her phone for her contacts, so..."

Yoshizawa's eyes widen. "Oh my God."

"You, Takamaki, and Sakamoto can enter the Palace, too. But you're all in his line of sights, too."

Yoshizawa exhales, letting the frustration show for just a second. "I'll take what I can get. At least we can enter his Palace now."

"How's Sakamoto?"

The look in her eye, you can tell Yoshizawa feels awful, "Doctor says he'll be confined for a month, maybe? Takamaki-senpai had to stay with him. His mother hadn't arrived yet, by the time you called, so she and I agreed it'd be best if I went on my own."

Nice timing on her part. Still. "A month, huh?"

"Wait, wait," Niijima cries out, turning to us, "what's this about being confined?"

I turn around and tell her, even though Yoshizawa tugs at my arm in an attempt to get me not to, "Sakamoto's in the hospital. In chasing you down he got so desperate he threw himself into traffic and received a faceful of bumper. I had Yoshizawa and Takamaki stay with him and await an ambulance."

Niijima looks like she can't even bear to exist for even another second.

She slings her bag over her shoulder and turns away from us, her head hung low. She doesn't even say a word as she walks to the trains.

"N-Niijima-senpai, wait!"

Yoshizawa follows her close behind, leaving me hanging on the railing. I go across the opposite end from the both of them, eventually able to make my way out the station by myself.

Strained myself, my mind, my everything just moments ago. My eyes burn with something I never felt before, not once. I want to sleep, but at the same time my heart races. My lungs are cold, but my hands are warmer than they've ever been. Neck's practically on fire as I begin coughing.

She's lying in my bed now, desperately lonely, even though I'm right across from her in a chair. She's asking me if I meant it when I said I'd never leave her, and I'm saying yes.

I don't walk home; I trudge, and limp, and fight to keep one foot in front of the other. Every now and again I trip over myself and every time it happens I hear Masako laughing at me. I make my way through people who don't know me and couldn't care less about me. My mind drifts and when it does I see Makoto Niijima, eyes furious and discontent; I see Ryuji Sakamoto and Kasumi Yoshizawa, screaming at me for the horrors I've committed; I see a giant seven-headed monster that bears my face upon all its heads; I see the fear in the eyes of Kamoshida and Kobayakawa's Shadows and I feel a rush of euphoria that carries my next few steps but nothing more beyond that.

I'm reading Masako The Little Prince. I'm helping her with her homework, and I'm laughing because she still doesn't understand it even though I've explained it a thousand times. I'm helping her with a little universe she neglected to make because she's lazy, I'm seeing her off to college and telling her to be careful. I'm walking her down the aisle and she's smiling at me, and I'm more than proud, I'm more than happy.

Where are you? Where have you gone? Are you hiding from me?

Do I scare you, even until now? Are you looking at me with the eyes you gave, when I beat Shido down?

By the time I make it back to Maruki's place I see him and he sees me, he greets me, says words I can't hear and I figure I must look as horrible as I feel because he can't stifle the terror rearing up in his eyes. I try to raise a hand up, try to get him to relax for just a second, but I can't stop the floor from rushing up to me and slamming me in the face.

He rushes to me as I collapse to the ground and he calls out my name, "K-Kazuya...!"

"I'm okay...," I tell him, "I'm okay..."

"Wh - there's blood on your clothes...!"

Shit. Shit, shit fucking shit. Everything that's happened and I ended up so stuck inside my own fucking dumbass shit-for-brains head that I hadn't even thought to fucking clean myself up before coming here. "No hospital, please-"

"Of course I'm calling a hospital!"

I grab his hand by the wrist, growling out at him, "No. Please, God, no."

Feel fucking horrible. Last I was hospitalized was in fucking grade school and I had to stay in bed for like a week. Now I feel worse. I'm exhausted and coughing and I'm nauseous and remembering shit I'm not supposed to, meaning if I do end up hospitalized I'll be confined for like a fucking week. Maruki's already freaking out over the blood and whatever I say won't mean a goddamn thing.

I have no fucking time for this.

Every day is beyond vital, now more than ever before. If we encounter something like the fucking vault door again, if Baal Zebul's far more powerful than I can take, if even a single day is wasted we might screw ourselves over.

"I have to go to school tomorrow," I push him away from me, practically groaning out each word. "I-I need to go."

He grabs me, shoves me into the couch in the living room, "You don't! I can call up the school, tell them you're not feeling well, they won't let absences due to illness affect your record! The only thing you need to do is keep yourself out of trouble!"

"Too fucking bad."

He grips my shoulders, "What happened to you? You'd collapsed on the floor! Your clothes are stained with blood! You've been keeping secrets from me for weeks, now. Do you expect me to just accept you coming back home, sick and collapsing, with blood all over you!?"

Goddammit Maruki I'm trying to protect your stupid ass now leave me the fuck alone— "It's none of your business."

"If you don't tell me what happened, I'm calling your father." He glares at me. "I'll have the judges rescind your probation and send you right back to jail. I mean it."

Never thought he of all people could have a backbone. "Maruki."

"It's my job to take care of you. I won't let you destroy yourself. Unless you tell me exactly what's going on, I'll take matters into my own hands."

"Give me two weeks."

"What?"

"Two fucking weeks, that's all I'm asking you."

"Hikawa-kun, no—"

"Then one week. Three days. Just don't put me in a fucking hospital. Please, I need to be able to—" I cough and hack and nearly puke right on the fucking spot, "—there's something I have to do. I can't tell you. Trust me, I—"

"I did trust you! I trusted you to keep yourself safe, and you come home like this. Why won't you just tell me what happened to you!?"

"Maruki. Do you remember that girl you told me about, your ex, Rumi?"

He blinks, "What?"

"If you throw me into a fucking hospital, she will die. They will find her. They will find anyone close to me, and find anyone close to anyone close to me. You can't do anything about it, but I can. I'm the only thing standing between you and oblivion. But if you don't let me go everyone you love is fucked."

"What are you talking about...?"

"Maruki please, please, I'm begging you, I promise, two fucking weeks, you can throw me into prison if you like, you can stuff a buncha fucking pills down my throat and make me overdose if you want but for God's sakes you can't confine me, there's people I need to talk to and shitheads that need to fucking die—"

"Kazuya, calm down! Y-you need to...!"

Oh, fuck it.

I push him the fuck away from me and it takes everything I have to open my fucking phone, open the Kingdom Log—

"Hikawa-kun!"

Beginning Navigation.

—and Maruki sees everything.

He sees the world I've made inside my heart.

Every little detail, not a thing is spared whatsoever.

"Wh-what!? What is this...!?"

"Maruki," I grip his shoulders, "you have to listen to me, very carefully."

"Wh-what's going on!? Where are we!? What have you—!?"

I slap him, really really really, really hard across the face. "Listen to me. If you want to keep yourself and anyone you know and love alive, you will listen to me. I'm not gonna kill you. Nothing here is going to kill you. But there're people that will. People who don't give a shit who they hurt or how far they have to go to get their money. I'm willing to tell you literally everything that's happened to me in the past few months. So please. Listen."

He shuts up after that, rubbing at his face and giving the look of a man who can't even comprehend what kind of creature is standing right in front of him.

I end up telling Maruki as much as I'm willing to let him know.

I tell him about Palaces, and Treasures, and Shadows. I tell him exactly what they are.

I tell him about Kamoshida, and how he was such a fucking horrible piece of shit that he needed to have his heart changed, that I'm the one who fucking did it, that I'm the one who threw him off the roof. I tell him about Kobayakawa and his snivelling fucking drug-running operation and how I put him down.

I tell him about Niijima blackmailing me into getting rid of fucking yakuza for her. About how I spent two fucking days trynna find out how to get into this Sakahagi's Palace. About her losing her shit and throwing herself at this fucking asshole, about the bottle getting smashed over my head, about the fucking two week deadline before everything goes to hell.

As I tell him all this he remains utterly silent, looking like he can't even process what I'm saying more than seventy-five percent of the time.

I don't tell him about Kana, not yet. I don't tell him what the hell a Kingdom is or what my Kingdom was all about. But I have a feeling I will, sooner or later.

Luckily the Nav allows us to return to the real world when I hit the screen. Probably since I'm the Kingdom's Ruler, so I suppose I at least have control over that. Once we the both of us return he still doesn't say a word. He just sits himself down on his couch, eyes wide and terrified, looking ahead at seemingly nothing.

Neither of us eat dinner that night. Sick and tired and not hungry in the slightest I throw myself into bed when I figure Maruki's too shellshocked to really have a conversation about all this bizarro shit.

I spend about an hour wondering what the fuck I've just done.

And then I go to sleep.

.

.

.

6 / 7 / 2016

Even after I wake up he's still fucking catatonic on his couch.

At seven AM I message the others who can make it.

「Kazuya Hikawa:」 Takamaki, Yoshizawa, Niijima, meet me at the student council room after classes.

By the time I leave Maruki remains in his seat, pretty much in a comatose state unto himself.

"I'll tell you everything once I get back, I promise," I tell him. "I'm sorry. I'll be a little late before coming home."

Like last night, he doesn't respond.

I head to school with a facemask over my mouth, a clean new uniform, and a spray bottle of alcohol in my pants pocket.

Impulsiveness is a fucking monster that rears its ugly head whenever I'm too fucking pissed off to listen to reason. I suppose in that respect, and perhaps that alone, Niijima and I are rather similar.

Five PM.

I close the door behind me, eyes locked on Niijima. Takamaki and Yoshizawa are in the room as well, though the former is far less accepting of being here than the latter. Yoshizawa's sitting to Niijima's left, Takamaki to Yoshizawa's left.

What felt like ages ago she'd brought me here and put my back to the wall. That condescending, uptight, furious look in her eye is now gone. I just don't have it in me to rub it in her face, so all I do is take my seat across from her.

"Are...you feeling okay?" she asks me.

"No," I say, my voice slightly muffled through the face mask. "Bad cold. But we can't waste any time."

Niijima stares at me. Then at her hands. "You said then, that I didn't know what I was asking you to do. This is what you meant. I'm sorry."

My voice is low but not harsh. It's as collected as it can possibly be. "Why did you act so recklessly? You could have gotten yourself killed."

I'm not scolding her. She isn't stupid. She's made stupid decisions, but she isn't stupid. I don't want to keep speaking for her.

I want to hear the truth from her own mouth.

Though she's keeping herself strong enough, a single look in her eyes is enough to tell you she's utterly agonized. Her lip trembles, only for a second, and she breathes outward. Her tone is a humble sort when she explains herself.

"Ever since my father died, my sister's had to raise me all by herself. Everything I've done since then, I've done to try and lighten that burden. I didn't want to do anything that would reflect poorly on her. After I'd forced your hand into helping me, I was frustrated with myself. With being used by my principal as an accessory to help cover up his crimes. Being denounced as a kiss-ass by students who didn't even know me. Being reminded at every turn of how pointless I was... and how you of all people, despite the odds stacked against you, actually managed to do something."

I don't say a word. Her eyes are glassy but she's able to keep whatever's coming down. She and blinks a few times before clearing her throat, and an utterly cold and detached expression crosses her face.

"I don't even know how it had gotten to that point, but... the night before last, I asked my sister what justice meant to her. I asked her if she believed it was right to do something horrible if it meant putting an awful man behind bars. She just looked at me like I was talking nonsense. And I...lost my temper at her. We argued. The more I tried to explain myself the louder her voice grew. I asked her what Dad would think of her, and all she said to that was that our father died, upholding some lofty sense of righteousness, leaving all his responsibilities on us. I'd never heard her sound so resentful. She told me that I should grow up and acknowledge our situation. That I was useless. That all I did... was eat away at her life."

"And so when Takamaki said the same thing..."

She nods, sadly, "I couldn't own up to my own failings, so I took it out on you and the others. And when confronted on it I wanted to prove to myself that I wasn't what everyone said I was. Even though I'm worse. That's why I threw myself at Kaneshiro. All of this is my fault."

Takamaki leans back in her seat, arms folded. Yoshizawa actually looks willing to reciprocate, looks hopeful that we would, too.

"In particular," Niijima turns to Takamaki, "I have to apologize to you."

She looks confused, "M-me...?"

"I had my suspicions about Kamoshida, but I'd do nothing to put a stop to him. I'd keep my head down, telling myself that I wasn't at fault, because I was just following orders. But because of that, I couldn't save or protect anyone. Not Suzui, not you, not the students in the sports clubs, nor anyone else Kamoshida or Kobayakawa had victimized. I'm so sorry."

Takamaki can't find it in herself to say anything back.

I take a deep breath. Everything I have in me that wants to throw her fuck-ups back in her face collapses. What I had been before, what I had tried to do for the girl I loved, and how utterly catastrophic my failure was; it rears its seven ugly heads and very nearly overwhelms me right on the spot.

Being dismissive towards Makoto Niijima has screwed us over more times than it hasn't.

"So what are you going to do now?" I ask her.

"What...?" she turns to me.

"Are you going to let yourself stew in the void where your self-esteem should be," I look directly into her eyes, "or are you going to help us kick this guy's ass?"

The light returns to her eyes, a small flickering thing, but it makes all the difference in the world. "Help you...?"

"You want her to help us?" cries Takamaki. "After everything she's pulled!?"

"You really think she can?" asks Yoshizawa.

"Our lives are over unless we change his heart in two weeks," I face Niijima directly. "You fucked up bad. Put us all in the sights of a goddamn psychopath, while at the same time giving us what might be the only possible route we have to put a stop to him. We are down a man, I am sick, and we need all the help we can get. Pushing you away had only ever been to our detriment. Who the hell knows? Maybe actually counting on you would do the opposite."

"Can she even handle herself, out there?" Takamaki shakes her head. "She hasn't exactly shown herself to work well under pressure, in case you've forgotten-"

"She absolutely can."

"You're sure?"

Even Niijima looks surprised that I'd vouch for her. Though she shouldn't.

The rage in her eyes, that bold naked fury that she'd let loose after years of keeping it stamped away, is above and beyond exactly what we'll need to push ourselves through that fucking place. Niijima's iron will is perhaps her greatest strength and most damning weakness. She can fail and fuck up just like anyone else but if there's even one single thing I can respect out of her, it's that when she's focused herself on something, she gives everything she has.

"You think I can actually help you stop him?" she asks me.

"That power that you awakened to. You've attained a will of rebellion. In so doing you've accessed what's called a Persona."

"That's what you call Johanna? A Persona?"

"Little iffy on the details. But, essentially, it's a thoughtform. After Kaneshiro threatened your sister, you confronted that aspect of yourself you had long ago shelled away. In so doing you manifested her into that cognitive world, and drew from her power to get us the hell outta there."

She places a hand over her chest, "It felt like…my own heart had come alive."

"They take the form of some mythical creature. Dunno how that works. But it's essentially every aspect of yourself, both the conscious and unconscious, united and awakened."

"How did you even get involved in all this?" she cries out. "How did you even come to access worlds formed out of people's cognitions!?"

"Open your phone," I tell her, getting mine out.

"What for...?"

"This," I show her my screen, pointing at the Nav. "You recognize it?"

She shakes her head, but pulls out her cell and slides the screen a couple times. "What...?" Presses it once. "Vortex World Navigator...?"

"I met Sakamoto and Yoshizawa near the school. Kamoshida had passed us by then, and Sakamoto ranted about him being a pervy teacher who thought the school was his castle. Sure enough, that was all that was needed for us to enter his cognition."

"What...?"

"You need a name, a place, and the target's cognition of said place. And you need to be within a roughly fifty foot radius of the place itself, apparently."

"And you just wandered in?"

"Yes. Yoshizawa summoned her Persona first. I second, Sakamoto third. After Suzui jumped, Takamaki wanted in, and she got hers last."

"You did all this right under our nose...," she almost sounds impressed. "How do you change hearts? Why can the process be fatal?"

I lean back in my seat, folding my arms. "You remember what I told you? About that world?"

"You said it was founded on Kaneshiro's," she places a hand over her forehead, eyes scrunched closed as though in deep thought. "His subconscious?"

"Yes. Such a world is called a Palace."

"A Palace," she repeats it, not because she's asking me for clarification, but because she's internalizing the terminology for herself. "And that version of himself, that we saw inside the bank was?"

"That is what we call a Shadow."

"A Shadow."

"It's that aspect of yourself you seek to hide away from yourself; everything about yourself you don't want to face. Deep in the recesses of his mind, he unconsciously views the station as a bank, and himself its president. The flies we encountered seem to be lesser Shadows, drawn to the purity of this guy's fucked up desires."

She glowers, seemingly at nothing, and faces me, "In that world... how do you overwrite a person's cognition?"

"That world, the Palace, was created because he desired something on a deep, subconscious level. He desired it so strongly that it began to color his perceptions of the world around him. That something led him to, on some level he is utterly unaware of, believe that the whole of Shibuya Station is a bank. That would-be prospects are pigs. That his lackeys are flies. The Treasure is that something, distilled into a physical form that can be stolen away."

"S-so, if you take this Treasure away...his desires, and the Palace would disappear as well?"

"Yes."

She narrows her eyes, "I can imagine it won't be easy."

"Of course it won't be. We first have to wander our way through the whole Palace and establish a path directly to the Treasure. Assuming we survive that long, or that we make a path that won't later be obstructed, we have to trigger a reaction out of Kaneshiro in the real world in order to make his Treasure manifest itself."

"So the Treasure hasn't even materialized yet?"

"No. Remember, it's all subconscious. He's unaware of what specific kind of desire is grabbing ahold of his mind, but once he's called out on it, his subconscious flares up in a vulnerable sort of state."

She nods, "So... making the target believe the Treasure is in danger will allow it to materialize."

Got it in one. "Yes."

"That's why you tried to punch open Kobayakawa's bookcase. You knew he hid his product inside, and you wanted to provoke a reaction out of him."

"Exactly."

"That's actually rather bold of you."

"Moving on. After that, we make motions to steal his Treasure."

"And his Shadow will try to intervene."

"Almost certainly. That's where things get messy. You asked earlier why it could be fatal. Multiple factors at play."

"I remember that you told me, if the target is emotionally depressed or unstable, it would cause complications."

"That's one thing. Another is outright killing the Shadow themselves. Doing so will kill the Palace Ruler."

"So you have to subdue the Shadow without killing it, but also to the point where it can't stop you from taking the Treasure?"

"Yes."

"B-but that's almost impossible! You saw how he—!"

"We can't exactly do nothing, or else he does unspeakable things to us and the people we know. So all that's left for us is to change his heart and make him turn himself in. Alternatively, we can just destroy the Treasure. So long as the Treasure disappears, the person's heart changes. They will be so utterly consumed by their repressed feelings of guilt that, at best, they admit to their crimes."

Realization dawns in her eyes, "And at worst, they attempt suicide."

"Even if the change of heart works, he might get killed in the slammer. Who knows how many dirty cops are on his payroll?"

She exhales, frustrated, "So no matter what we do, someone's probably going to die."

"Or at the very least, never be seen or heard from again."

"What exactly did you do to Kamoshida, to make him throw himself off the roof of the school?"

Ignoring her won't do shit, she'll just keep bitching at me every day until I come clean. So I look directly in her eyes. "I threw him into his Palace."

Niijima bristles, "You what!?"

"Or, to be more specific—"

"He suggested we throw him into his Palace," Takamaki cuts in. "Threaten his life in front of his Shadow, in the hopes the Shadow would give up the Treasure. Ryuji and Yoshizawa didn't approve, but this was on the day Shiho had jumped off the roof herself. I was pissed off, so I ran into the school. Hikawa distracted Kamoshida enough for me to throw him into the Palace."

"And you tortured him, I'm assuming?" she glowers at Takamaki. "Given what I know about Kamoshida now, I doubt he would have been the kind of man to just let you steal his desires away."

"On that front you're not entirely wrong. His arm and leg were broken in two. His Shadow began flailing all over the place, but we kicked his ass all the same. I destroyed the Treasure right before our eyes, demanding that Kamoshida's Shadow turn himself in and live with the guilt of everything he'd done. Asshole didn't even last two fucking weeks."

"That's why Sakamoto and Yoshizawa hate you. You and Hikawa basically dragged them into his Palace and forced their hands." Daggers form out of her eyes and she all but stabs me with them. "And everything I accused you of was true."

I tell her, "Forgive me if the pained cries of a child molester don't exactly tug at my heartstrings."

"And you never doubted yourself, throughout everything that you did?"

"No. These untouchable pieces of shit use their money, and their connections, and the fear they induce to fuck this city like a whore and leave it dying of an overdose. If it's to stop people like them from getting away with the horrors they've let loose upon the world, I'm quite satisfied with doing whatever I must to make that happen."

"They still have their rights! You can't just deny them that when it's convenient for you!"

"Oh, shut the hell up," groans Takamaki.

I cut in, "They deny others their rights all the time. Using people like you to help cover for them."

"You're no better than they are."

Takamaki actually looks fucking affronted by that, but I speak up before she can cut back in, "Well, I'm not a rapist or a drug trafficker, so I don't know what the hell kinda wavelength you're on. Besides, you talk like I actually did kill them."

"You nearly murdered people, and all you can say when confronted about it is At Least I Didn't!?"

"Bastards like Kamoshida and Kobayakawa don't get to walk away from everything they've done."

"And you think you should?"

"Be my fucking guest if you wanna put me down."

"Who do you think you are?"

I nearly laugh out loud, right in her face. "You know what Kamoshida thought Suzui was? In his Palace, she was a nun with cleavage who just loooved to talk about how gentle he was when he had fucked her right in his office. As for Kobayakawa, he thought everyone in the school was just a prisoner, so interchangeable and meaningless they lacked facial features of any kind. The students he had cart drugs around for him were books, each with a pack of meth and coke kept inside. Those are the people you're trying to defend."

"I'm not trying to defend them—"

"If you lack the power to back it up, it doesn't fucking matter if you believe in what's right. And you know this. If you didn't, you wouldn't have had to blackmail us into getting rid of yakuza for you. Don't go bitching to me about the way I do things, when the justice you uphold is so ineffectual that it lets people like Kamoshida get off scot-free, and forces people like Suzui to jump off school buildings."

Niijima grimaces, her disgust at the thought of what those assholes had done quelling any desire to bite back with a bitter quip. If you have to ask what she must be feeling inside, you'll never know.

"I want to help stop Kaneshiro," she snarls. "But as much as possible, we have to keep him alive."

Fucking hell. "Of coooourse we fucking do."

"Your words: Junya Kaneshiro took control of every family that could have stood in his way. He's confirmed that he's in league with the police. If he's such an important figurehead, then killing him will create a power vacuum. Shibuya will become a battleground for the other families, vying for control. Think of how many innocents are going to be caught in the crossfire."

Not like I hadn't thought of that. Not like I'm too concerned. But, I don't have it in me to argue back much. "If it comes down to it. If it's him or us."

"We'll do what we must," she exhales. "I want him kept alive, to the best of our ability. But I don't doubt we'll have to defend ourselves when the time comes."

"Are you willing to put whatever happens on your conscience?"

"I've allowed myself to ignore others in need whenever I was afraid to get my hands dirty. No more."

She better not bitch at me if he ever does die.

I stretch out a hand towards her, "Welcome aboard, Niijima."

She looks at me like I am the Devil, and it takes her all she has to return the gesture. She keeps a black look in her eye, all the while. Takamaki and Yoshizawa watch the scene unfold, the former far less pleased about this than the latter, and all I can think of now is how the hell I'm gonna explain my Kingdom to Maruki.

"Hey, guys!"

Oh fuck off-

We both pull our hands away from the other, and turn to the windowsill.

"M-Morgana!?" cries Yoshizawa.

"Nice job getting a new recruit! Not as hot as Pigtails, but she'll do."

"Wha-!?" Niijima gets out her seat, "Why is the cat talking!?"

"Not a cat, but I'll let it slide."

Goddammit.

.

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HEH HEH HEH HEH KAZUYA MADE A BIG OOPSIE AND HE DIDN'T EVEN KNOW IT

When forming Kazuya's character I wanted to give him shades of all three of my personal favorite characters in P5R; he has Makoto's intellect, Akechi's ruthlessness, and (a much darker version of) Maruki's backstory.

In a way, I feel that Kazuya can be seen as Makoto, but unhinged. He has her intelligence, her extreme repressed anger, her grit, and her determination—but he does NOT have her desire for justice, her faith in the judiciary system, or even her morals, instead focusing entirely on a very individualistic philosophy that few people in-universe would ascribe to, let alone understand.

Basically, Makoto is Matt Murdock, and Kazuya is Frank Castle. Remember that scene in Daredevil, where Matt and Frank argue on the rooftop? That's pretty much the basis for Queen and Joker's dynamic from here on. Honestly kinda tired of seeing fics where they're all lovey-dovey and awkward and shit XD

On a side note, Baal Zebul translated is "Lord of the Heavenly Dwelling," but I kinda like "Lord of All That Flies" a little more. I know it's a stretch but it fits considering what's gonna happen soon enough :3

edited the chapter a shitton to make events flow a liiiiittle better.