.

.

.

I remember back when I was six years old
Daddy said, The world's so cold
There is something that you should know

To be beautiful is to be hunted
I can't change the truth, I can't get you used to this

- Childish Gambino, 19.10


7 / 3 / 2016

Another arrow of blacklight fires overhead and blows off another chunk of the staircase, sending rock and stone and steps flying down.

As he approaches, the Shadows around us pause, as if his mere presence has silenced their vilest and most violent urges. Through his mask I see his sneering but otherwise relaxed stare. His saber glows a bright neon blue, the raygun in his other hand sputtering sparks every few seconds. He passes his gaze over all the beasts and the abominations but soon enough keeps his eyes locked firmly upon me.

His gaze is neutral but it's the kind of neutral you'd make when you're trying too hard to keep a swell of emotions inside yourself, and I've no idea why he's putting in so much effort.

"Akechi-kun!?" cries Niijima.

"You know this guy?" asks Takamaki.

"Niijima-san?" He now looks like an office worker would if his boss stashed him a thousand papers to file out by the end of the day. "Wh-what're you even doing here?"

"That's what I'd like to know!"

"Hamstring them, the whole lot of them!" Tsukioka roars, "Flay their backs and crucify them by their tendons! Death to the Thieves who would invade the House of God!"

"Talk later! Sukukaja!"

Akechi and I share one last glance at the other, tearing off our masks.

To our left, Satanael fires a shot which liquefies the torsos of a dozen angels; to our right, Robin Hood looses an arrow which incinerates a dozen more. Takamaki's Persona lets out a plume of flame from the head on a platter, and Niijima summons a nuclear hell which decimates the remaining. Maruki repeatedly and exhaustedly fires out Sukukaja after Sukukaja, at some point he's unable to even stand, but it's enough. More than enough.

In the haze I see their faces; Takamaki's taken by terror yet she fights on regardless. Her eyes bulge manically yet below them everything freezes, even as red flames swallow the world.

Maruki spouts a constant stream of magic words that increase our agility and cause sparks to fly in our veins; Sukukaja and Rakukaja and Tarukaja fill our insides with levels of adrenaline that could kill a man were they not magically endowed. At some points I see the horror overwhelm him for just an instant and then he gets back to telling our bodies to overclock themselves.

The cat's caught in something of an addled state; its saucer-like eyes almost pop right out its head and I hear it laugh in a bizarrely deep voice, as it cuts and slashes and tears organs out with its teeth.

Akechi's eyes are cold and detached, his mouth a still line. His neon blade cuts through whatever angelic beast comes at him like butter, his toy gun producing a beam of light that nigh-instantaneously vaporizes whatever he sets his eyes upon. There are hints of frustration, shades of agitation, but never anything which pierces through and dulls his senses.

And Niijima.

Niijima's a violent, roaring nuclear inferno made manifest. Takamaki's flames spread outward like a burning wave, catching and burning up the creatures caught in the explosion. But Niijima's bright bursts and sparks carry themselves in the air, whirling the beasts caught up by the light into a bright blue vile tornado. I see winged messengers, Dominions and Thrones and Virtues and Powers and Archangels, undergoing complete cellular annihilation in instants, and through it all she just sits upon her bike, a rage charging through even the obstructive steel mask covering most of her eyes - a rage that would set the fear of God into anyone unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end.

And, after Satanael's carved his way through a few dozen -

"Murderers, rioters and thieves and liars all! You know what you fuckers are!? You know what you stupid little motherfuckers are!? You all, who know nothing about what it takes to run a fucking country, to make a city stand tall!?"

Large, red hands burnt and cooked almost completely down to the bone grab my Persona by the horns in his helm. Azazel, even with fried and blackened skin, even with his black wings collapsing by a hundred feathers per second, tries pressing his thumbs into Satanael's eyes-

"FUCKING PRIVILIGED LITTLE-"

A BOOM and Satanael blasts his stomach, causing another mile-wide crater, causing more of his guts to spill.

"-FUCKING SHIT FUCKING INBRED THIRD-WORLD COUNTRY LITTLE-"

Another BOOM to the shoulder and the right arm flops right off, along with one of his wings. Even still he rants and raves-

"-YOU SHIT-EATING LITTLE FUCKS! DIRTY MOTHERFUCKING PIECE OF DOGSHIT BASTARD SONS OF WHORES-"

Another BOOM to his testicles, which ends up sending his lower half splashing in liquid meat across the floor and his legs bouncing and snapping upon impact. Obscenities are all he makes now, so loud and he says them so quickly and furiously that his words no longer make sense at all, and it ends when I fire at his jaw.

Everything from below the nose to the center of his sternum is sent shooting outward like a corpse meeting a woodchipper. Feathers burst in a flurry of black, and when I turn to get a glimpse at whatever other freak of nature wants a piece of me I find all of them are dead or dying or in pieces. Takamaki's obviously shaken, Maruki's collapsed to his knees, Akechi's breathing through lungs that barely can, and the cat's trembling with excitement as its hairs stand like quills.

But Niijima, even though her ribs almost definitely aren't fully healed, even though coated in the literal blood and guts of angels - she remains steadfast, gripping the handles of her bike with a grip so tight she could snap someone's neck in two, her eyes fixed entirely upon the old craggly piece of shit in Pope's robes. Johanna's wheels are awash with blood, beneath them lying the flattened and ground pieces of a Dominion.

"B-Bishop...!"

I turn and see Maruki collapse, to a state of nigh-unconsciousness. Running over to him I examine him silently, as his clothes and mask are eaten by blue fire and he's back in his actual clothes. He bears no wounds but a single string of blood flows down from his nose; the cat asserts, "He's okay! He, he just overexerted himself!"

In all the chaos I hadn't even seen him; I knew he must have been pushing himself with all the Sukukajas he'd been throwing around, but to think this much would have incapacitated him. He grabs my shoulder, gripping tight upon the leather, and pleads with his last few breaths, "Don't kill him. Please, please don't kill him..."

And he mutters that a little more, a few more times, then loses the will to stay awake.

Immediately Tsukioka flees the scene, something he should have done when he saw his men dropping around him like flies, and his guards bloom into more vile angelic creatures with names I can't even pronounce nor ever heard before - Niijima lets loose an enraged howl the likes of which I only heard from someone else once before and Johanna charges, plowing through the guardian angels with such force that they all but explode on impact.

"NIIJIMA!" cries Akechi, but he can do nothing to stop her and it's fortunate for Tsukioka Niijima decided not to just run him over.

The steps are somewhat steep but Johanna's wheels rush with such force that they all but destroy the steps themselves, crushing rock and brick and flattening the stone just by revving over them. Niijima curves over the stairs and stops Tsukioka right in his tracks, causing him to double back and trip over himself. This withered old fuck gives a little yell as he tumbles over his robes down the steps and over to us. The sight of an old man breaking his everything, falling down a relatively large flight of stairs, would have been painful to watch had he not been the sick fuck he always was.

My turn to approach him. Akechi steps between me and the old man, "What do you think you're doing-!?"

I just push him out of the way, Takamaki shouting, "Joker!" as Niijima herself treads down the steps of the stairs on foot.

Akechi grabs my fucking shoulder again, "Would you listen to me for a second-!?" and I shove his hand off, summoning Satanael one last time in front of the director of the SIU as Niijima stands over his body.

At his heart he is a coward. He could turn into his true form at any given moment but he remains trapped in his inadequacy, a shivering and frightened old man. The whole situation reminds me of Kobayakawa, truth be told.

I want nothing more than to shove Satanael's gun in his face and demand an answer as to who the hell Shijima is. But I see Niijima's eyes and I decide to let her draw first blood.

"Wretched thieves, the whole lot of you. You haven't any clue what you've done. No understanding of the chaos you've wrought upon the city."

She grips him by his robes, pulling him up close to her as she seethes, "What did you make my father do?"

"I didn't make him do anything," Tsukioka throats out. "Everything he had done, was of his own doing."

"Did you...," she hisses, the grip on his robes growing even tighter, "did you kill my father?"

"I tried to protect you. You and your sister. He would have ended your lives."

"What are you even talking about!? Don't run around in circles, you bastard, tell me!"

"Niijima-san, wait!" Akechi runs past me, grabs her by her shoulders and pulls her right off of him, "You can't! Just, just stop, you can't touch him!"

She grabs his arms, tries prying him off her as she shouts, "Get your hands off me!"

"No!" he says firmly, whirling around to me now, "And you, put that thing away!"

"We're just asking a couple questions," I growl at him.

Akechi just shouts back, "While putting a gun to his head!"

Akechi snarls at the both of us, raising his arms up to placate the situation, "I need the both of you to calm down. There's so much more to this than you could know. The situation's volatile enough as it is. If any harm comes to this man it'll cause chaos. He's in league with multiple criminal organizations stretched out all over the city. If you take out his Shadow like this you risk-"

"Do you know anything about Shijima."

Akechi suddenly halts whatever he was about to say next. The old man grunts at me, so defeated his tone turns annoyed. "What the hell do you wanna know about them?"

"Kaneshiro said you and they were in cahoots. So. What the hell do you know, you old fuck? Tell me. Or you'll be pissing thirty times a night instead of ten."

"I know nothing about any of them. Information was kept on a need-to-know basis. I wasn't one of them. Everything Kaneshiro was able to blackmail us with, they know. They've got us completely at their mercy. I know nothing of who they are."

"So I can assume you know nothing about their leader, either."

"Their leader...?" he laughs, exhausted. "You little fool. If you stand against him, you die."

"I'll be the fucking judge of that, now tell me his fucking name!"

"No."

"Oh, fuck off-"

"I must not say even the name. Not here. Not ever."

My turn to grab him by his robes, "What the fuck are you telling me you withered wretched fucking miser, talk sense!"

And I slap him three fucking times across the goddamn face, until Akechi gets the bright idea to grab ahold of me and pull me aside, "Stop it now! Enough!"

"Tell me his fucking name or I'm shooting your goddamn head off!"

He looks at me, utterly drained. "His name is ⁸̵͇̝̺́̈́̀¹̴̞͕̼͊͋̓ᵏ̵̙̝̠̔͛̚⁴̴͙̻͛̓͑͜ʷ̵̡̻̠͒͘͝⁴̴̦͎͑̓̈́͜."

"What!?"

"ᵒ̢҉͝ʰ͏̴͏ᴿ̨̕͟͜¹̷̸͠ᶻ̶̡̀͘͘ʰ͘͡¹̶̸͠ᴳ͘͘͘³̨͏̵̡̀ ̛͘҉̨⁸͘͢͠¹̢̨̀͞ᵏ́͞⁴̨͜͝ʷ̷̧̡͢⁴̸̡̢͏̴ is his full name. I can say no more."

"What the hell's the matter with you!?"

"Oh, I get it!" the cat shouts.

"What - a...talking cat...?" mutters Akechi.

"It's a, a," cat snaps its paw-fingers for a little, until it finds the words, "a cognitive block! It's a cognitive block!"

"A what!?"

"Whoever leads Shijima must've put a cognitive block on him! So whatever the Shadow knows about Shijima he can't even say!"

"Are you fucking with me!?" I rip my arms outta Akechi's grasp. "So he can't tell us shit!?"

"No. He can't. But this...," cat shakes its head. "whoever did this must have a tremendously extensive understanding of the cognitive world. Not even I can do something like this."

Akechi places a hand over my shoulder, "We have to get out of here-"

"Not until I get fucking answers!"

"Agreed," grunts Niijima. "We've got all day."

"Would you both just listen to me!? Niijima! Hikawa!"

"What?"

Suddenly Tsukioka's voice has deepened. He looks at us all, eyes wide, as if having realized something terrible. He breathes a little, huffing out gusts of air from his lungs, and then his body blooms exponentially. He seizes up, his whole body from the top of his head to the soles of his feet. He's muttering horrid noises that make no sense as he clutches his skull, rocking back and forth on the ground; if you were to listen closely enough you'd hear him muttering a thousand little Nos.

"Leave, all of you, ALL OF YOU, LEAVE!"

"Everyone stand back!" exclaims the cat.

Satanael raises his rifle right then and there but it's too late. Unlike Kamoshida's or even Kaneshiro's, his transformation into his truest form is a spectacle that carries us about a dozen feet backwards from where we stand, the explosion almost loud enough to deafen me completely. But somehow, thankfully, the force isn't enough to liquefy my bones or strip away my skin.

The creature before us is a head coated in a thick shade of red and black, as tall as a bus, that bears a steel crown atop its head. Everything below its neck is under the ground, but the ground hasn't been caved in or broken apart in any way to accommodate it; rather the head and its shoulders float, the ground itself undulating as the ripples of an ocean would. It opens a mouth that could swallow a thousand people, and lets out a purple tongue long enough to stretch from one end of a parking lot to another. The mouth, rather than horizontal, is completely vertical, and is lined with dozens if not hundreds of sharp teeth, each as large as your torso.

Alciel. Alciel. Alciel.

"LEAVE MY PALAAACE!"

The whole fucking basilica begins trembling, the world darkening as bright orange lights peer through the cracks coming through the ground - Alciel roars and screams and rages violently, and I realize what with Maruki unconscious and Akechi now here and the goddamn earthquake all around us it's best to leave for now than fight or interrogate. Lucky for us that Niijima has the same idea.

Johanna screeches past Alciel, across the dividing ground and grabs Maruki by his clothes; the cat transforms into a bus and we all rush ourselves inside and as I floor the gas and rush ahead, as I pull open my phone and get us back to the real world I feel an unstoppable, unquenchable anxiety over Tsukioka's outburst, something that stays with me for the rest of the day.


Our very first few concerns lie in dragging Maruki to a hospital. Luckily there's one about ten, maybe fifteen minutes away. The ambulance arrives rather swiftly, gets him on a stretcher, and we all of us stay with him in the ambulance.

During the drive, that nosebleed he developed as a result of straining himself turns into a full blown nose-waterfall of blood; his ears begin bleeding too and they have to stuff cotton in his orifices to ensure the bleeding doesn't get too much. The cat doesn't pop up once through Niijima's bag, which is good because pets likely wouldn't be allowed in a hospital, and when we get to the room proper the doctor advises that the poor fucker oughta get some rest for the next few days or so. Guy's lost a good amount of blood.

He'll wake up, but it'll take a day or two for it to happen.

We all of us are gathered in Maruki's hospital room. Everybody's absolutely shaken from the events of the fucking Palace, and nobody's willing to say shit.

Part of me feels like shit for dragging him into all this. Like I should never have told him what I intended to do, never should have made him feel compelled to join me and maybe prevent me from going completely fucking crazy in pursuit of this man. But he'd made his choice.

Like I've made mine.

It's now, when the cat decides he'll pop right out of Niijima's bag. He hops over the bed, eyeing Maruki carefully, and he says, "He overexerted himself there, in the Palace. Buffs were unbelievably useful, but he pushed himself too hard."

"Will he actually need a day or two to recover?" Takamaki asks.

"Yeah. He'll wake up in that time frame. But he needs about, like, a week of rest."

"A week?"

"Guy doesn't have particularly strong constitution. Dunno what to tell you."

"Dammit," I shake my head.

"Akechi-kun," Niijima's voice turns thick, as she musters up the gumption to ask in the midst of Maruki's sleeping corpse, "How did you get involved with the Vortex World?"

"How did you get involved with the Vortex World!? Does Niijima-san know that you've been-!?"

"Of course not! Does she know about you!?"

"No!"

"How'd you get involved with Palaces!?"

"How did you get involved!? I've been doing this for a month!"

"Alright shut up, the both of you," I grunt, getting between them. "None of this is getting us anywhere."

"Hold on, Hikawa, do you know this guy?" asks Takamaki. "He called you out by name, when he joined us during the battle..."

Niijima goes silent, turns to me. I exhale, "I do. Goro Akechi. High school ace detective. Known as the Detective Prince, in some circles."

"How do you know him?" asks Niijima.

I narrow my eyes. "He interrogated me the night I committed my assault."

The conversation instantly shuts down. Niijima, Takamaki, and the cat don't say a word as Akechi narrows his gaze right on me.

"...so you remember," Akechi exhales. "I, assumed I was the only one who could access the Navigator. I didn't once think... how? Last I saw you, you were..."

"It's an exceptionally long story."

He blinks at me, his eyes on me as though they were on a velociraptor, a wild untamed animal. "You..."

Niijima mutters, "Akechi-kun?"

"How did you end up involved in all this, to begin with? I, you, you weren't...," he pauses, takes a moment to recollect himself. "Forgive me. It's been a trying few weeks."

"I can imagine."

"Before we tell you, we must know. How much about Palaces are you aware of?"

He blinks, the cat dashing down from the bed. "I've only ever come across two. I came across my first, a month ago. Encountered the...golden-eyed monsters ruling the place. The creatures the Navigator refers to as Shadows. I know that a Treasure is a distorted desire coalesced into physical form, that lies at the core of the Palace. All this information, again, I've received from the Navigator. I know nothing more."

Suddenly the cat perches itself upon my shoulders, whispering, "Checks out. His Persona's only a month old."

And all that information is in the Nav.

"How did you come to discover Palaces," Niijima says starkly.

Akechi winces a little, "I...think I should discuss it with you first, in private."

Niijima furrows her brows, then shows a stunned expression, "Wait...what do you mean?"

"Why her?" Takamaki asks.

"It involves... a mutual colleague," Akechi sighs.

Niijima immediately rises up, understanding exactly what he means. She grabs Akechi by the arm, and drags him out to the hallway.

They spend a few minutes out there, there's muffled shouts and disgruntled noises, and then they return to the room proper.

Niijima's got this disgusted look on her face, though she refuses to point it at us, and Akechi clears his throat.

"While at work, I found the Vortex World Navigator in my phone. A couple of words were spoken in a string. A coworker of mine happened to have a Palace, and I stumbled upon it completely by accident. I learned that my colleague has been engaged in illicit activities for several years, now. Manipulating evidence to ensure undeserved sentences, and what have you. It got me curious as to how deeply corrupt the SIU had become. Eventually, I entered the basilica of Hideyoshi Tsukioka. And managed to find...a wealth of information concerning the criminal underground. That's...about all you need to know."

"You're sure that's all you can tell us?" asks Takamaki.

"It is," grunts Niijima, taking her seat. In that moment all of us know there's nothing we can say to press the matter further.

"Now, how did you discover Palaces? All of you? Especially you," he turns to Niijima. Then to the cat, "And...whatever you are."

"Name's Morgana."

"Okay?"

"Fair's fair, I suppose," I grunt out at him.

"Hikawa," Takamaki grips me. "Are you sure...?"

"You're gonna lie to a detective?" I ask her. She just freezes and says nothing more. "We delay this any more, we'll just be wasting time. When I transferred to Shujin Academy, I became aware of a man named Suguru Kamoshida. A gym teacher who would physically and sexually abuse his students."

Akechi's eyes widen. "That was all over the news...you were responsible for that?"

Takamaki and Niijima look at me like I've thrown a stick of dynamite, but I keep a blunt tone and harsh eyes, "Yes. I was. I entered his Palace. The ensuing scuffle between us and his Shadow led to him throwing himself off the roof of our school."

"And you did that, all by yourself?"

"Yes."

Takamaki, the cat, and Niijima say nothing. They understand completely.

Akechi says measuredly, "You realize you've essentially confessed that you compelled a man to attempt suicide, right in front of a member of the Tokyo Police Department."

"Yes. I do. Because when you go home after this shit, you'll be able to trace my involvement to Kamoshida back anyway."

He shuffles his jaw. "You're not wrong. That said. What makes you think I won't haul you into prison over what you've done?"

"I could give a shit about going back to jail. But Tsukioka needs to be punished."

"Like Junya Kaneshiro needed to be?"

All of us say not a word at that. Except Niijima. "So you know."

"We've received word recently that Kaneshiro disappeared off the face of the planet, shortly after a series of photos containing obscenities addressing him specifically were posted all over Shibuya. Considering that your drug-running principal with ties to yakuza had been run over a few weeks prior to Kaneshiro's disappearance... it's no chore to put two-and-two together."

"I see you've earned the title of Detective Prince," Niijima says spitefully.

"Why go after Kaneshiro? Why risk yourselves?"

Niijima speaks before I can, "He dragged students from our school and others into a drug-running business. Blackmailed and coerced them into helping them trade product in the middle of Shibuya. If we did nothing he would have continued on."

"And you joined Hikawa on his crusade against him?"

I smirk. "I couldn't just let him go."

"That's it, then? You exacted your justice, by driving him into hiding? Perhaps you could answer how any of you would have been insane enough to try something so reckless."

"Perhaps you could answer how the hell the yakuza could grab the Tokyo PD by the balls," I shrug.

His jaw trembles a bit, as he sucks in a deep breath. "The yakuza have been on the decline for a good long while. New laws and regulations and market opportunities had forced them on the whole to be far more legitimate... and as such, many have absconded from this decaying criminal institution, and good on them. But Kaneshiro found an exploit in the system."

"How?"

"Before he became the boss of bosses of bosses, he was head of a minor family working for a much bigger clan, hired to take care of anyone stupid enough to tread over his boss's robes. He had come to understand the workings of the underworld far better than most. Kept information about the crooks who hired him close to his chest, and then he got arrested. Rather than leave him to rot...the cops figured they could use him."

"Oh my God...," Niijima groans.

"He lent his services to the cops and fed them information, all the while slowly accruing a network of blackmail on said cops, and using them to manipulate the SIU into becoming a business partner, when in truth they're his dogs. Once having gathered enough information to strangle the cops into doing his bidding, Kaneshiro worked his way up the ranks and practically freed himself from prison. His dealings with the SIU got him and the family he'd already worked with, enough cash to gather enough men to kill whichever family they needed to."

"And the rest is history," I shake my head.

"Now the yakuza are bolder than they've been in years. This anomalously violent man, who preferred torture over negotiation, represented a return to the golden days of shakedowns, extortion, and intimidation. He gathered the remaining clans under his banner and became a figure that they feared and respected, strengthening them and restoring the yakuza's glory, if only in the underground. He'd managed to manipulate the cops into being his footstool and became the closest thing to a kingpin the clans ever knew. And now, he's gone."

I grit my teeth and narrow my eyes at him, "So what do you suggest we do about it?"

"You will do nothing."

Niijima wants nothing more than to shove her foot down his throat, "Excuse me!?"

"The SIU has been corrupt for years. Ingrained in this business of bodies and narcotics. With the disappearance of Kaneshiro, the boss of bosses of bosses, the situation's already unstable as it is."

"We can't just let him get away with what he's done!"

"You've taken out the head of an entire drug and human trafficking cartel, and in doing so the city is on the verge of a gang war. It's only a matter of time before innocents are caught in the crossfire."

Niijima's eyes widen in absolute terror, gripped by a fear I can't even imagine she must be feeling right now, and for some reason I'm compelled to step in, "If we did nothing, he would have continued victimizing innocent students, propping them up as tools for the trade to be used and forgotten."

"I know," he exhales. "I sympathize. In fact, it even worked to some extent. Kaneshiro's disappearance has put a hold on business somewhat. Now, they're so focused on consolidating power for themselves that the drug trade is somewhat secondary. I don't condemn your action in the slightest. But these are the consequences."

"Isn't there any way this can be resolved between the clans peacefully?" Takamaki cries.

"A good number of families are far more pragmatic than the vocal and volatile minority. The Kuroyama and Nishikiyama clans, among others, are mostly onboard with treatises, but other clans and families are far more eager to follow a survival-of-the-fittest mindset. Certain families, such as the Moriyamas and the Kamikis, have patriarchs who long for the turbulent clashes of the seventies and eighties, and supported Kaneshiro because he enabled their inclinations. They'd rather kill than talk, so any voice of reason will be drowned out when people start dying, which will happen sooner rather than later. Families once willing to negotiate will be pressured into establishing territories. Talk will be seen as a cheap distraction. As we speak they're already mulling over what they could possibly do next."

"And what's Tsukioka planning to do, in the middle of all this uncertainty?" I ask him.

"Nothing."

"What, he's doing nothing too!?" exclaims Takamaki. "The cops won't even clean up their own mess!?"

"He figures that involving the police too soon would cause unnecessary disruption. Yakuza don't like it when cops get in their business, especially those who're indebted to them. Tsukioka intends to wait out the war, keep it mostly under wraps, and then use his connections to weed out the winner's competitors. Force all the power upon one head family, who will do business with the SIU, and the larger police force on the whole, in secret."

"Surely there'd be at least some cops suspicious of all these killings and how the chief of police isn't doing much to stem the tide, other than superficial reports," I tell him. "Or news reports that'd catch on that the cops are doing nothing."

"Any law-abiding cops who get suspicious of corruption in the system will be threatened into compliance, or bribed to look the other way, or pressured to uphold the police's image in front of the public. Keeping their heads down has worked rather well for them thus far. If word gets out that the cops are engaged in such horrid business practices there will be unrest, and the state can't afford that."

I hiss, "You expect us to sit by and let these fuckers rampage throughout the city and wage war on each other?"

"I don't like it either, Hikawa. But trade goes on. Business goes on. No matter how many people you take out, no matter how high up the totem pole they are, they can always be replaced. Some more easily than others, of course. You've put a dent in their operation - a sizeable, impressive dent, but a dent which can nonetheless be straightened out. Given time and work, and a lot of dead bodies."

"So there's just nothing we can do?" Niijima throats out. "We should wait out the storm, and hope they don't kill any more than they're supposed to, is that it? Is that all you're giving us?"

"It's all you can do. It's all any of us can do."

"We can't just accept that!" Takamaki yells.

I step in, "There's got to be something we can do-"

"You've already done enough. All of you. It's terrible that your schoolmates had to endure something like that, and you were right to want to save them, but as it is now, any single thing you do may just rock the boat beyond any-"

"What about Shijima?" Niijima growls at him, so blunt in her tone she silences all of us for a time.

Akechi furrows his brows. Steadies himself a little, "Yes, Hikawa-san did mention them rather strongly, back in the Palace. What exactly were you even talking about?"

I tell him, "Kaneshiro told us about a group of Persona-users who use the Vortex World for their own gain. They've been killing people. Causing mental shutdowns. They've been working with the SIU and God knows who else in the upper echelons. What do you know about them?"

He purses his lips, "I haven't heard anything of the sort."

"You've come across all this information, but you haven't heard once of Shijima?" I ask him.

There's a small twinge of annoyance painting his eyes. "I suppose Tsukioka kept that rather close to his chest."

"We need to put a stop to them. We're the only ones who can. Including you," I tell him.

"I don't doubt that! But what have I been telling you all this time!? The situation is beyond anything even close to our scope as of now!"

"But now is the right time to strike. You said it yourself, the families are so caught-off guard by Kaneshiro's disappearance that they can't even maintain business just yet, focusing on gathering as much of their resources as possible before the inevitable war. Except it isn't inevitable. We can stop it! Even as we are now!"

"And how do you suggest we do that?"

I steady myself, looking at him right in his eyes. "We go after them. All of them. Every last one of them."

"What!?" cries Takamaki.

"You're not serious," Akechi growls. "All of them? Every single yakuza family Kaneshiro associated himself with!?"

"At least the ones unwilling to settle things through peace talks," I tell him. "A man in Tsukioka's position must have names, faces, info on each. Considering he's working with Shijima he may very well have a bead on their Palace locations or distortions."

"You're working on an assumption."

"An assumption, yes, but that's all we have," says Niijima, looking at him coldly. "And we have to take advantage of it."

"What, you want to do this, too!?" cries Akechi. "What's the matter with you!? Even if you're able to gather that kind of information, you'll have to make it through Tsukioka's guards! And after you make it through them, you'll have to hope Tsukioka himself just kind of lets you take all the info he's gathered up on them, which he won't! And if you do get what you're looking for, I'm not even getting into how you're planning to go through what's potentially dozens of Palaces, if not more!"

"Then what the hell were you doing, since you've gathered this much information in his Palace to begin with?" I smirk. "Do you intend to just let it all go to waste?"

A vein pops outward in Akechi's neck for just an instant, retreating as quickly as it came. "I wanted to know how deep corruption ran in the SIU. I wanted to see if there was anything I could do to stem the tide. Today was my final venture. I would have scoured his Palace and looked for as much information as I could find, anything that could have helped me in any way. Instead I found you, and all the hypotheticals you've presented, and now I'm firmly convinced; knowing what I know and knowing our alternatives, there isn't any way to stop any of this."

"But there is."

"If you want to throw yourself to the goddamn wolves like some masochist, I won't stop you. But don't drag me into your justice-crusade bullshit! Don't you see that anything you'll do will be undone as soon as you do it!? You're trying to unravel an industry that will always have people willing to lay down their lives for it! No matter how many mob bosses you erase, another will take their place! Each of them with their own sea of connections that's as fragile as Kaneshiro's! Everything you want to do, every single step you take, a landmine will go off right beneath your feet and you plan to brush off the fact that all you'll lose is a few limbs and maybe your life and maybe a few others around you. Do you see how fucking stupid that is!?"

"And your idea is to let them kill each other and hope nobody uninvolved gets dragged into the mess," Niijima snarls. "Even though that's impossible, if a gang war happens and it's as large as you say it will be."

"Innocents will die no matter what we do. No matter what you do."

"We can't just sit back and do nothing," she growls back at him.

"And how well has doing something worked out for you? You've thrown yourselves in the heads of rapists, psychopaths, murderers, and drug dealers. And your reward is more rapists and psychopaths and murderers and drug dealers. And that will be your reward no matter how hard you fight or how many Palaces you undo or how much you wanna save people. Is that worth it? Tell me, Niijima, is that worth it!? Your father understood it wasn't! That's why he-"

She grabs him by his fucking collar, "You shut your goddamn mouth about my father!"

"Your father was the one who got Kaneshiro out on the streets in the first place!"

At that we're all stunned into silence; even Niijima, whose fists remain clutching at his shirt collar.

He continues. "Your father knew that Kaneshiro had trustworthy information concerning very specific gangs around Tokyo at the time. He provided Kaneshiro with benefits in exchange for that information. Better living quarters compared to other inmates. A pay cut for information. Phone calls, albeit monitored. At some point, though, he wanted a cut of drug money, and gave him even more benefits. And because he wanted a cut, Kaneshiro was able to snake him and his fingers and his people in almost every inch of the organization."

Niijima lets him loose slowly, agonizingly. Unable to say anything in response to that, she lets her trembling hands fall to her sides, as she sits back down in her seat next to Maruki's bed.

And none of us can say anything, either.

In finality Akechi turns to me. "Do not interfere in any way. Stay out of all of this. Or I will incriminate you and your friends in the attempted suicide of Suguru Kamoshida."

"There's no evidence of such a thing occurring."

Harshly he assures me, "Then I'll make sure there is."

I give him a flat look, "So in the end, Goro Akechi, you're just another crooked cop."

"All men in power are crooked in their own ways."

With that he leaves us in this hospital room, with me, my unconscious therapist, a cat, a girl who no longer has any idea what to do next, and another girl who's lost everything she thought she once knew to be true.

Niijima's of course the first to leave. The cat teleports itself out of her bag right as she slings it over her shoulder. When she leaves, she's silent, brusque, doesn't even give a goodbye glance as she dashes out the door. Unquestionably, she's bound to spend the rest of the night utterly sleepless, and I may not even see her tomorrow at school. Takamaki leaves then, and she actually addresses us when she does, saying she has to go, but nothing more or less than that. She does not move at the brisk pace Niijima does, but it's clear she wants to be as far away from this fucking hospital as possible.

And I stay, alone in my chair, with Maruki, who deserved none of this bullshit whatsoever.


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7 / 4 / 2016

Things remain utterly silent throughout the entirety of the next morning. Not a word from Takamaki or the cat, no notifications of Maruki's recovery yet from the hospital.

It's the first quiet day I've had in months. Perhaps once upon a time I would have wanted nothing more, but now, there's nothing I want less than this. Seeing us all cave from circumstances beyond our control is to be expected, but it is nonetheless teeth-pullingly aggravating. There will be war in Tokyo and all the only ones who can stop it are willing to do, is sit on their fucking asses and hope things don't go to shit. It makes me sick but what makes me even sicker is how I'm considering standing by the sidelines too, waiting for all the shit to unfold like some fucking atrocity purveyor. Even now there's nothing can be done but watch rabid dogs fight and fuck and die, except there are things that can be done, except the dogs need to be put down, except I have the shotgun with which we can use to put them down.

And so it is no surprise when I see Makoto Niijima sitting all by herself on the rooftop of the school during what should be lunch hours. Under the canopy, an untouched bento opened up on the desk attached to the chair. She is startled by my sudden appearance of course, but she doesn't turn away when she sees me. She doesn't shirk back at the sight of me, or tell me to get the fuck out, instead she watches as I bring a desk over to her, as I unwrap my bread right in front of her, as I chew and I swallow in front of her completely unmolested box of food.

"I'm sorry," is the first thing she says to me.

"Don't apologize."

"I didn't think I'd drag us into something like this-"

"I said stop. You've done that a thousand times now. I know how sorry you are. Even Takamaki does. Apologies won't solve any of this, action will, and you know it."

"Will it, really?"

Harshly I land my bread down on the dusty-ass table. "What the hell are you saying? Don't give me that shit."

She hasn't slept. Again. The bags under her eyes make her look a decade older. She doesn't say a word, but she shares this disgusting reprehensible defeated look and it's nothing I ever wanted to see out of her. There's absolutely nothing I could relish in her dead fish eyes, or her pale sickly skin, or her low shoulders or hunched posture.

"Niijima, listen-"

"I used to resent him," she begins. "My father was almost never home when he was out on the job, but I always told myself it was because he was out fighting the bad guys and dispensing justice upon the world. But whenever he was home, he always had this...bizarre kind of smile on his face. A smile that'd never once reach his eyes. Yet felt sincere all the same. He'd fit my headband over my hair every single day before we'd head out to kindergarten, and he'd tell me jokes on the way, and then he'd leave me there to go to work and, and I'd have to wait for him for an extra hour after class because that was his only free time. And he'd, he'd take me out to eat ice cream whenever he could. And his salary was never that big so we'd eat fried chicken a lot for dinner. In grade school he'd tell me to fight back against boys that picked on me. In junior high he told me not to care about the girls who'd stuff mud and soil in my shoes before homeroom. He always told me that my name was Makoto because it meant sincerity and integrity and it was everything he wanted out of a daughter like me. My father died in a car accident. The report said he'd been tailing someone, at which point a truck rushed in, smashed right into him in a hit-and-run. Killing him, instantly. And now I know that probably wasn't even true at all. Now, I know that he was most likely killed to hush something up."

She's been angry at me. She's been livid at Kaneshiro. This is beyond either. "Niijima."

" After my father died, hindsight reared its ugly head and I kept telling myself that I should have been more considerate. That I should have treated all the days we had together as if they were our last. I constantly and repeatedly thought about what I should have said, what I could have said, all the appreciation I should have expressed while I could. I wanted to tell him I was grateful that he taught me about what it meant to do the right thing, about sticking to your principles even when the whole world tells you you're crazy. And while he was saying all that bullshit to me, he was probably laundering money or drugs or whatever other illicit materials he could get his hands on." She laughs then, without a single hint of joy in her tone, "That day we spoke in the Big Bang Burger, you told me...what did you tell me? I know you want to make your father proud of you, but become a cop before engaging in police brutality. Turns out I would have made him prouder than I could have ever imagined."

There's absolutely nothing I can say to her. Other than something cliche, but sincere. "I'm very sorry that all of this has happened."

She just groans, "No you're not. I know you, Hikawa. Not enough about you but I know enough. You just came here to bask in my miserable pitiful state, and gloat about how my dear old dad was an asshole, and laugh at how goddamn stupid I am and you'd be right to do so. God, I, I bet you're just laughing inside at how I'm falling apart right before your eyes."

"No. In all honesty, this is the most reasonable reaction you could ever have."

She covers her face and laughs like I would, laughs like I have in my most manic moments; as she laughs she borders on crying tears of unbridled sadness, of chagrined rage, and then she slams her hand down on the table. Her mouth lets out a smile too wide for its own good and her eyes are capture a misery I didn't think could be expressed through eyes alone, "My sister has a Palace too. That's how Akechi learned about Palaces in the first place. And I don't know what's worse, the fact that my sister's been so horrible because she might know about what our father did, the fact that she's likely complicit in all these goddamn dealings with the yakuza, or that I assumed she had a Palace the day you told me about what Palaces even are, and I was right! I was, I was, I was right about all the worst things about my sister and wrong about all the best things about my father. It's a joke!" Through the laughter she lets tears fall from the corners of her eyes. First they come slowly, then they rush outward, and all at once she's left herself broken right in front of my eyes. "That bastard. That worthless, miserable, stupid, lying bastard. My life, it's, it's - it's all one big fat joke."

"I'll help you."

"Wh-what?"

"You want to go back into Tsukioka's Palace and see for yourself if your father was indeed responsible for all this horrible shit. Don't you?"

She just blinks at me. "How did you know?"

I purse my lips, "Because I'd want to do the same thing?"

She makes a hhhh noise, turning away from me while wiping her eyes. "You say that, but you actually want to get more information on the families from Tsukioka's Palace."

"I won't deny I'm motivated by that, too. But... believe me or don't. I understand what it means to believe in someone, and then find out that what you thought they were was a lie."

She looks at me. Gives a skeptical sort of look, but doesn't voice anything out. Lets me talk.

"That girl I told you about. Kana. I thought she was one of the kindest and most spirited girls on the face of the planet. One who possessed the determination and the heart to do the right thing by herself. In truth, her Palace was the world, and she saw it as Hell."

Niijima freezes then. Breathes laboredly, eyes red and wet and glistening.

I look her right in the eyes. "I don't know what I'd do if my father turned out to be a monster. But I know I'd like to find out how wrong I was. Because if nothing else, I want to close any open doors. So... if you'll have me, I'll help you."

"What about what Akechi said?"

"What about what Akechi said?"

"If he finds out you involved yourself in this, he'll have you prosecuted for Kamoshida. You, and me, and Takamaki-"

"Well. Maybe we should involve him in this, too."

"There's no way he'll approve."

"I think there's a chance he will."

"What makes you think that?"

"Because he's as disgusted and abhorred by these twisted motherfuckers as we are. As much as he tries to be all pragmatic. If I've convinced Maruki, I can convince him."

"Why would you do any of this at all? What's wrong with you?" Her tone wavers, "What's wrong with me?"

"It isn't crazy to want to get rid of everyone responsible for the state of the world. It isn't crazy to want closure. It's crazy, when you don't."

She doesn't say a word, not for the rest of lunch. I wipe the dust off my bread and continue my meal, and she begins hers just now. As she eats, tears stream down her eyes, but she doesn't thrash or scream or let her anger loose in even the slightest movements. We share this moment of solidarity together, never to be spoken of again, as we both let ourselves mourn the loss of people we loved, in our own ways.


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Basilica PT 2, next time on Morning Star Z.

Makoto's dad is an intriguing character, even though we barely know that much about him other than what Makoto tells us. His presence was such a strong foundation for Makoto's moral character - her bossiness, her quick-witted intellect, her determination to do the right thing. They all come from her dad, as far as she lets on. Lots of Shumako fics feature Makoto's dad in a very positive light, and why wouldn't they? Makoto's canon dad was awesome, from what we do know about him.

But I wanna drive Makoto up the wall in ways comparable to how I did Kazuya. The Shumako dynamic in this fic is characterized by intense philosophical and moral disputes on justice and righteousness and the like, and it'll be exactly that way for their backstories, too. What would Makoto do in a scenario where the foundation of her morals would get ripped to shreds right before her eyes? What would Makoto do when she finds out that All Cops Are Bastards, in the harshest way imaginable?

Next chapter's gonna get FUCKED up, we're close to the climax of this arc already, and after this things'll get kicked into high gear. Hope ya stick around.