TAKE YOUR HEART

Those three cutout words on the reverse side of Madarame's calling card stood out like a sign in his hand as Makoto marched through the second floor of Shujin, to Kobayakawa's office. He faintly saw two figures through the door window, and braced himself as he knocked. "Let's get this over with," Makoto muttered.

The confident click of high heels preceded the door latch. Striking silver hair he recognized spun back to the desk, stood over the Principal who looked worse than ever. "… Naegi," the dark suited prosecutor said, with a touch of relief in her voice.

"As I was saying, Miss Niijima," Principal Kobayakawa thumped the middle of his chest, "Naegi's report last week was so thorough that I simply could not repeat the whole argument myself." His hand shot up to wipe a layer of sweat off his forehead, but he stopped himself. "His chain of logic is something you should hear firsthand."

Kobayakawa gestured to the chair. Sae unclasped her briefcase, taking out a hard bound notebook. Makoto pulled back the corner of the chair, and sat down, facing Sae, avoiding the Principal's devious glare.

He laid Madarame's calling card on the desk. "There's something else I wanted to mention first," Makoto said, "before we begin. Last week, Nishiyama told me that his friend Iida had a sudden change of behavior. Recently, they met a suspicious person in Central Shibuya, who offered them a part time job. Nishiyama refused, but Iida accepted, and that's when his behavior changed."

"Hold on, Naegi," the Principal said. "What does this have to do with the Phantom Thieves?"

"Nothing," Sae said. "It's a tip off about another issue. He even said as much. But I have to ask as well. Is this going anywhere?"

Iida met with suspicious people and suddenly started spending suspicious money. Yoneno suddenly started vanishing after school, with a suspicious change in in clothes. Both of them, and probably others, cut themselves off from all their friends.

"I believe," Makoto said, "that some students at Shujin are being exploited by a criminal organization."

"What?!" The Principal's eyes popped wide. "Are you sure about this? I can't believe this would happen to the students of our academy."

Sae's pen reached a stopping point, and she looked to Makoto. "Have you spoken to Iida directly?" Makoto shook his head. She looked between him and the Principal. "Has Iida disappeared?" Again, the answer was no.

Sae crossed out her last note. "Naegi, I don't want to discourage you from continuing to probe into this, but unfortunately, all you have now is hearsay. I don't know what you expected me to do with this."

"Yes, that's right," the Principal said. "I appreciate your initiative, but you should focus on the matter at hand-"

"Don't you have something else to do?" Sae said.

The Principal's arms rattled on his desk. "I-I… Am I not a critical part of this investigation? Naegi is only looking into the Phantom Thieves on my instructions, after all. Even questioning Mr. Kamoshida."

"Which means he's the one with the information. So be quiet, and let him talk."

The Principal shook his head in disgust and moved around some of the stacks of papers on his desk.

"Without further diversion. The Phantom Thieves." Sae turned over her pen in her hand. "Who are they?"

"The main suspect for posting the calling card," Makoto said. "It's Ann Takamaki. She was Shiho Suzui's closest friend. She was in the closest proximity to Kamoshida's actions. She would have had the strongest motive to seek retribution against him."

"All circumstances," Sae said. "And we heard this in our interview with Kamoshida. Do you think Takamaki was acting alone?"

"Alone? Probably not. That brings us to the students threatened with expulsion, right?" Makoto said. "Ryuji Sakamoto, Ren Amamiya, and Yuuki Mishima."

"Are they connected to this?"

"Well, I saw Ann, Ryuji, and Ren together on the school rooftop once." When was that, again? "I think that was May seventh."

"So, only after Kamoshida turned himself in." Sae scribbled over the connecting lines in her notes. "Is this it, then? That's what the director wanted? I could have told him that."

Director.

Of the prosecutors office? It answered some questions about Sae, but brought back another one. Why did such a high ranking government official care about Shujin Academy? Makoto looked for an answer on the Principal's face, but only found a vacuous smirk.

Feeling Sae staring down on him, Makoto tapped on the second calling card on the edge of the table. He thought he had the answer before, but if that was really just hearsay and circumstance, if all his deductions up until now didn't amount to anything, then what did Sae want?

Makoto pulled the corner of Madarame's calling card over the edge of the desk. "Actually, this incident with Kamoshida might not be as personal as I first thought. Just recently, the Phantom Thieves went after someone else." He flipped the card over.

"The artist, Madarame," Sae said. "I saw his press conference. You think it was the same group?" She took the calling card off the desk to see for herself.

"With one addition, yes." Someone who knew how to draw. Very likely one of Madarame's abused pupils. "Kamoshida was… a man with a lot of problems," Makoto said. "But a lot of past fame. Madarame seemed like he was similar. I think that was the Phantom Thieves' motivation."

"So, self righteous vigilantes." A final sounding stroke punctuated the dismissal. "Possibly addicted to their success. Do you know who their next target is?"

Makoto shook his head. "I don't think they have another one yet," he said.

Sae returned the calling card to the edge of the desk, reverse side up. She clasped her notebook shut, and placed it in its pouch in her briefcase. She handed Makoto a business card. "Contact me directly when you find out, Naegi. In the meantime, don't do anything rash."

Sae slammed her hand on the desk, shattered Kobayakawa's performance of focus. "That goes double for you." Her heels clicked and echoed away.

Makoto caught one last feeble look of spite from Kobayakawa, and left the office with a shrug.

A haphazard pile of plastic shapes sat on a workshop table. Makoto watched over a girl in a deep green sweater as she tore piece after piece from a two way radio. Delicate hands struggled to pull two pieces apart.

Makoto reached for it. "Do you need help with that?" she said.

A tear formed at the corner of the girl's eye, and she nodded. Makoto took the interlocked part and separated it into its two components. "Thank you, Niijima," she said.

"It's no problem, Fujisaki." For some reason, even though she thought they were close, Chihiro Fujisaki was just a last name person. "So, what's the idea here?"

"I'm trying to see how small of a transmitter I can get away with," Chihiro said. "… I'm sorry if this is a little boring to watch."

"You don't have to apologize," Makoto said. "This stuff takes time. There's no problem with that. And, I'm actually enjoying this. I didn't have many opportunities to spend time with my classmates at my old school."

Chihiro crossed between her pile of parts, the transmitter assembly in the middle of the table, and her laptop on the other side. "I'm sorry to hear that," she said, blinking as another trickle of tears streaked down her cheeks.

"It's not your fault," Makoto said.

The program on the laptop showed a flat line. Chihiro grumbled and put down the transmitter, and pulled the laptop closer. She had a completely new energy over the keyboard, and Makoto couldn't keep up with all the changing screens, until a compiler's progress bar started up.

Once it completed, and the program started again, Chihiro tapped on the transmitter. Still, nothing happened. "I guess I took too many parts off," she said.

They fished around the plastic shapes together, trying various things to attach. Makoto stepped in wherever the assembly was too rigid or too precise for Chihiro to handle alone. After a while, when she inspected the transmitter assembly in her hands, he gave it to Makoto. "You do the honors, Niijima."

Makoto took the transmitter close to her lips. "Hello world," she said. Chihiro giggled below her.

The flat line on the program morphed into a wave form.

With a functional prototype to work with, and not a moment to lose, Chihiro and Makoto began taking parts off again, putting parts on again, testing again to see if the transmitter still sent its signal to the laptop or not at every step.

Chihiro was insistent, almost obsessive, that the finished transmitter be as small and as flat as possible, revealing a wristwatch, still in box below the workbench, that she wanted to eventually attach it to.

By the end of the day, they had squeezed the transmitter down to the thickness of a single coil of wire. "I guess that'll have to do it for now," Chihiro said. "Thanks for all your help, Niijima. I don't think I could have done this without you."

"Don't worry about that," Makoto said. "Whenever you need me again, just let me know." In the hallway, out the windows, Makoto looked over at the sunset sky. She saw the fountain in the center of the courtyard, where Hajime sat with someone else, and she smiled on her way to the stairs.

His eyes still hadn't completely adjusted to the bright, flashing lights of the recording stage. Makoto was sure it, well, probably looked better on TV, but live, sitting before the stage and seeing the edges of the set with his own eyes, it just looked lacking.

Two big video cameras stood on the ends of the set. "Mr. Akechi's coming on!" one of the camera operators said.

Sitting around him, all the girls in Makoto's grade, and only the girls, turned their heads to a boy wearing a tan coat, erupting into squealing cheers.

"Ain't that the guy from yesterday…?" Ryuji was sitting in the row just behind Makoto.

A vaguely well dressed man, a woman in pink, and Akechi, all sat down in the large cushioned seats in front of the cameras. "Cutting back from commercial!" the cameraman said. He counted down, "Seven, six, five seconds till start, four three…"

The woman in pink took over. "And now, onto the Hottest Meet-and-Greet segment of our show… After his last appearance was so well-received, we decided to bring this fine gentleman back today. It's the high school detective, Goro Akechi!"

"Hello there," Akechi said amid a second surge of cheering from all the girls.

"Thank you for taking the time to join us today, Akechi," the vaguely well dressed man said. "Your popularity is stunning."

"Even I've found it to be quite a surprise. It is a bit embarrassing though…" Didn't detectives have work to do? Makoto sure wasn't being asked to appear on TV after the Kamoshida case. Of course, that was probably for the better.

"Moving along," the woman in pink said, "We've been told there's a case on your mind right now. Care to share, detective?"

"Ah, yes. That would be the scandal involving the master artist Madarame."

Oh…

Crap.

"There it is!" the vaguely well dressed man said. "All of this phantom thief excitement has caught your attention too, Akechi! Allow me to be blunt for just a second. What do you think of these justice-oriented Phantom Thieves?"

"If they truly are heroes of justice, I sincerely hope they exist." It was a bit far, but it looked like Akechi was smiling as he said that.

"Ohhh, so you don't deny the possibility that they're real?"

"I may not seem like it, but I sometimes wish that Santa Claus actually existed. Although if he did, I'd have to arrest him for breaking and entering." Maybe it was the timing, but Makoto didn't get the joke like everyone else watching did.

And Ryuji, it sounded like.

"But hypothetically speaking, if these Phantom Thieves are real…" Akechi said. All of a sudden, his expression turned sharp as knives. "I believe they should be tried in a court of law."

Now that was interesting. Just two days ago, Makoto had told a public prosecutor his five prime suspects on the Phantom Thieves, and she just wrote it off as hearsay. He didn't know much about legal process, but going from hearsay to trial sounded like a bit of a stretch.

"That's quite the statement," the vaguely well dressed man said. "Are they committing crimes? Some people even say that the Thieves are actually helping their victims abandon their evil ways."

How well and how much that was actually working had yet to be seen.

"What the artist Madarame did truly was an unforgivable crime," Akechi said. "However, they're taking the law into their own hands by judging him. It is far from justice. More importantly, you should never forcefully change a person's heart."

Uh, what? That was really possible? Was this the guy Kobayakawa was talking about?

"You have a point. These people are calling themselves the Phantom Thieves, after all," the vaguely well dressed man said. "Amazing as always, Akechi! I could listen to you for days! You have the most radiant charisma!"

"I have to say though, I would be embarrassed if it turns out these Phantom Thieves don't exist," Akechi said. "If that were the case, I'd summarize it into a report as a school project." Another wave of laughter swept through the crowd, that again, Makoto didn't get.

"Now then," the woman in pink said, "let's try asking some students the same age as Akechi about the Phantom Thieves! First, please press your button now if the think the Phantom Thieves exist!"

"Of course they do!" Ryuji's voice cut beneath the talk show.

Makoto didn't bother pressing the button. A gaudy chime played with the answer. "About thirty percent or so? What are your thoughts, Akechi?" the vaguely well dressed man said.

"I'm a bit surprised. That's higher than I was expecting," Akechi said. "I'd love to hear some more detailed opinions on the Phantom Thieves' actions."

The woman in pink stood up and walked into the rows of chairs behind the cameras. Makoto held his head down. Don't pick me, Makoto thought.

The woman in pink stood over Makoto. "All right, let's try asking this student here," she said. "Hypothetically speaking, what are your thoughts on these Phantom Thieves, if they were real?"

Makoto raised his head to the microphone. "Uh… Their circumstances made them."

"Hmm. I see," Akechi said.

"This completely does against the opinion you had about them being tried by law, Akechi," the man still on the stage said.

"Not necessarily. A culprit's circumstances are an important part of any trial. There is one more question I'd like to ask. If someone close to you, for example your friend behind you. If his heart suddenly changed… wouldn't you think it was the work of the Phantom Thieves?"

"If it was that serious?" Makoto said. "I don't think I would want to make assumptions, before I knew for sure."

"But how can you ever be sure?" Akechi said. "Whether the Thieves' actions are good or not, I feel there is a more important issue at hand."

"Hm? What do you mean?" the vaguely well dressed man said. The woman in pink returned to her seat next to him.

Akechi crossed his legs. "The matter of how they change people's hearts. If they honestly possess that ability… it could be used for more than extracting confessions. It could be that what seem to be ordinary crimes are actually being perpetrated by these methods…"

Was that what Sae's other investigation was about?

"You know, you're absolutely right."

"Oh, please don't misunderstand. This is all purely hypothetical…" Akechi seemed to throw the idea out there pretty matter of factly, for just a hypothetical scenario. "It is only is people who can use such a power truly exist. Either way though, this cannot be ignored. The existence of the Phantom Thieves would be nothing but a threat to our everyday lives."

Everyone in the audience gasped at that ominous proclamation.

"To be honest, I'm already working alongside the police to help sort out this matter," Akechi said.

"Oh, well, in that case, we can't really ask you for details about an ongoing investigation, Akechi," the vaguely well dressed man said. "Thank you for joining us today! We look forward to seeing you again!"

When they broke for commercial, it was officially the end of the tour and the field trip, and for Makoto, who watched Akechi talk to Ren from the other side of the studio room, the rest of the day left him alone with his thoughts.

A kiddie looking boy in a pinstripe suit sat in the corner of the gymnasium, where a lanky man with flashy jewelry towered over him. They talked in hushed tones. Makoto couldn't hear them. And she didn't have the attention to spare.

In front of her, a girl with an oppressive air about her held up a bamboo sword, prepared to strike at a moment's notice. "Whenever you're ready, Makoto," her flat toned voice said.

Makoto shook her head, and focused on practice partner. "I'm sorry, Peko. I'm just wondering who all these guys are." She took a deep breath, out, and in, and took a fighting stance. "But I'm ready now."

They locked eyes, nodded in sync. Tension mounted with each passing second, until Peko crossed the stretch of mat between them with her sword falling straight.

Makoto ducked ahead and slammed both her palms into Peko's forward wrist. The sword finished its arc in her other hand, and struck Makoto in the head.

She staggered back, clutching the top of her head. "Ow…"

Peko dropped the sword and knelt over Makoto. "I don't suppose you can continue like this?" she said.

"No," Makoto said. "Probably not." The stinging feeling in her head bounced around, losing intensity. "But I don't think it's gonna get worse."

She winced away from Peko's touch, a sign that little was wrong except the lingering pain itself, and Peko backed away, placing the sword back in its place along the wall. When she returned, she sat by Makoto's side, and they watched the pinstripe boy together. He had another visitor now, a woman with hair of every conceivable color, and even some colors that were inconceivable.

"Who are all these people?" Makoto said.

The boy in the pinstripe was Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu. He was a year ahead of Makoto, and likely had the only ultimate talent in this school that was even more bogus than hers, Ultimate Yakuza.

"They're the heads of other gangs," Peko said. "That one is Mizutani. The thin man before her was Higashisanjou."

That made a little bit of sense, but then Makoto couldn't think why they would meet so blatantly on a school campus, much less Hope's Peak Academy. Although, she supposed, if Fuyuhiko was indeed the boss of bosses, there was no getting around where he spent most of the day.

The gym door smashed open and its hinges groaned with agony. A fat man with slick hair stormed across the floor, tracking dirt all the way to the corner.

"Out of the way!" He pushed Makoto over.

Peko caught her before she hit the floor.

"You wanted to see me, kid?" Naturally, not everyone respected the Ultimate Yakuza just because a high school said so.

"Yeah. 'Everyone' includes you, you fat fuck."

"I better be there for this," Peko said, getting up to her feet. She didn't welcome Makoto to join, but didn't warn her to stay away, either.

"You wanna explain this?" Fuyuhiko held up a newspaper. It was impossible to read anything off of it, but in the corner, a mark of two 'S' symbols interlinked caught Makoto's eye. "How'd you be so careless as to let this leak?"

"You say that like it's a big deal," the slick haired man said. "They're just a bunch of dumb kids, they're not going to do anything about it. And if they try," he wrung his hands together, "It'll be fun crushing them piece by piece."

"Just don't blow it," Fuyuhiko said. "We're trying to make money, not rap sheets. You're still on thin ice for cop killing. No amount of protection is gonna save you if things get personal."

"Hrmph. Is that all?"

Fuyuhiko tapped his foot. "For now." The slick haired man let with a scoff. Peko's drilling eyes stayed on him all the way to the door. "Hey! You!" Fuyuhiko said. "What are you looking at?"

"Uh, nothing." Makoto bowed to Peko one last time before heading out for the day. "Nothing at all…"