The next day…
The familiar and delicious smell of pancakes drifting from the kitchen into Yusuke's room immediately woke Yusuke up from his deep slumber before he swiftly got off his bed, went to the bathroom to do his usual morning routine of brushing his teeth and taking a bath and then drying himself up with a towel, left the bathroom to put on his clothes before he left his room, went to the dining room and saw Ken putting 4 plates of steaming hot pancakes, jars of chocolate, raspberry, strawberry and vanilla and 4 glasses of orange juices on the table.
"Good morning, Yusuke-kun." greeted Ken as he glance and smile at Yusuke.
"Good morning, Ken-san. Mm, they smell really good and our brothers haven't woke up yet?" asked Yusuke slightly concernly to Ken about their brothers, Minato and Goro.
"Seems so, Yusuke-kun. Why don't you sit now and have your breakfast first while I go wake them up?" said Ken.
"Alright and thanks for the breakfast, Ken-san." said Yusuke thankfully to Ken for the pancakes before he sat down, picked up the jar of strawberry and poured some of it onto his pancakes before putting the jar down and began eating his strawberry-coated pancakes.
"You're welcome." said Ken as he left the dining room, went down the hallway toward Goro's room and knock on it. "Good morning, time to wake up now, Goro." Ken called out to Goro and received no answering call back from him.
"Hm, guess he's much sleepy than I thought. Even so, I still need to wake him and then Minato-san up… Oh, his door is unlocked." thought Ken to himself as he try the doorknob and noticed that the door's unlocked, opened the door and as he stepped into the room to wake Goro up, he stopped and his eyes widened in shock and embarrassment at seeing both Goro and Minato lying naked and close in each other's arms on the bed, various hickeys and love bites on their bodies and with the blanket covering the bottom half of their bodies before Ken quietly and swiftly left Goro's room, closed the door before turning and making his way back to the dining room.
"Well, have you wake them up… What's wrong, Ken-san?" asked Yusuke as he glance up and noticed the shock and embarrassed looks on Ken's face.
"Well, they are… our brothers are… I think I'll wake them up or they can wake themselves up later, Yusuke-kun." said Ken as he picked up the jar of vanilla, poured some onto his pancakes, put the jar down and began eating his vanilla-coated pancakes.
"… I see. They're doing "that" together, huh? You make the right choice in not waking them up right away, Ken-san." said Yusuke as he realised what Ken tell him before he resumed eating his pancakes and drinking his glass of orange juice.
XXXX
Several hours later, in the walkway in Shibuya…
"Great, everyone's here." said Morgana as he popped out of Akira's bag and glance around at everyone (Minato, Goro, Ken, Yusuke, Sumire, Ann, Ryuji, Makoto, Hanzo, Haru, Futaba, Isamu, Kanakubo-sensei and Doctor Maruki) that came.
"Yeah, we're all here and accounted for, Morgana-san." said Kanakubo-sensei as he glance and nodded at Morgana.
"We're going to be infiltrating the Jail. Are we ready?" said Morgana.
"We've done this many a time. I can't imagine anyone being fazed by this." said Yusuke.
"I don't know. I mean, it's been months since any of us went back into the Metaverse…" said Doctor Maruki concernly to them.
"Really? Meaning all of you are getting rusty, is it?" said Isamu concernly to them.
"I'm sure we'll be fine, Doctor and new girl! S-S-So, bring it, bro!" said Futaba slightly nervously to Akira.
"We're very short on intel, so we need to be cautious. We'll just scout the general area for this trip." said Makoto.
"We use EMMA to enter, right? Is there anything special we need to do?" asked Haru.
"Um, nah, we just opened the app and said the right keyword…" replied Ryuji.
"Find the right name in EMMA's search results, then enter the correct keyword on the friend request screen." said Futaba.
"Yeah, you got it, Futaba! Leave it to the super hacker to explain this tech stuff!" said Ryuji with an awed look on his face at Futaba.
"That had nothing to do with hacking. Even you should know how to explain it…" sighed Futaba.
"What a clueless idiot…" thought Goro sarcastically at Ryuji.
"All that's left is to choose our point of entry." said Makoto.
"There'll be no enemies in the area from which we escaped yesterday. Upon reaching the relevant location, you will only speak the keyword." explained Sophia.
"Is that so, Sophia-san?" said Ken.
"Yes." said Sophia.
"It seems all that's left is to trust Sophia and see where she leads us." said Makoto.
"Then what're we waiting for? Let's do this thing!" said Ryuji excitedly and slightly impatiently to Akira and the others.
"Yeah, we know and I'm bringing us in now." said Akira as he used the EMMA app on his phone to transport him, his girlfriend and friends straight into Alice's jail palace.
XXXX
Inside Alice's jail palace…
"Well, did we all make it?" asked Oracle to Joker after he used the EMMA app to transport them into the palace.
"Yeah, it seems so, Oracle." said Joker as he and the others turned to glance at each other.
"Your Phantom Thief outfits, all of you! And yours is, the design and texture of it is… simply excellent, Toudou-san!" said Fox as he admired Isamu's phantom thief outfit.
"H-Huh? Uh, thanks." said Isamu, feeling uncomfortable with Fox's excitement before she noticed that Ryoji's with them in the Metaverse. "He's back but how because I didn't see him coming into the Metaverse with us earlier… unless he's something else like Sophia-san?" thought Isamu in confusion then worry about Ryoji.
"Fox, what did I say about making Toudou-san uncomfortable with your love for art and beauty, like you did yesterday?" said Seraph sternly to Fox.
"R-Right, Seraph. Sorry about that, Toudou-san." said Fox apologetically to Isamu.
"It's fine." said Isamu.
"And yeah, we know and yours change too." sighed Mona.
"Ah… I've forgotten this feeling. The fusion of form and function… Truly magnificent." said Fox with a joyful look on his face.
"Look, it's Beauty and Dashing Thieves!" said Panther as she glance and smile at both Noir and Blanc's phantom thief outfits (which make them decide to fool around a little).
"My name is Beauty Thief!" said Noir.
"And I'm Dashing Thief!" said Blanc.
"Oh my god, a second time…?" thought Crow as he closed his eyes and face-palm himself at seeing both Noir and Blanc fooling around.
"Uh, may I ask on why did they have to do that?" asked Doc as he glance at Paladin.
"They did it for fun, Doc. That's why." replied Paladin as he shake his head.
"I see…" said Doc.
"Let's… not fool around here. I admit though, these clothes do bring back some memories." said Queen.
"Plus each of the clothes that I see on the ones that I didn't see yesterday is quite cool, elegant and intimidating." thought Isamu as she look admiringly at Crow, Jack, Fox, Panther, Queen, Noir, Oracle, Paladin and Doc phantom thief outfits.
"We can reminisce later-take a look at that view, everyone." said Mona as he and the others turned to glance at the entire jail palace of Alice.
"So this is… the Jail?" said Queen as she look at the place with a surprise look on her face.
"Just what IS that building? This place is bonkers…" said Oracle.
"Nothing escapes the atrocious colour scheme of this place…" said Fox with a disgust look on his face.
"I hate to admit it but Fox is right about this new Jail palace of Alice Hiiragi. It's atrocious indeed." thought Crow in reluctant agreement in his mind with Fox.
"It looks like that because of someone's cognition, correct?" said Noir.
"Right, most likely Alice's. The distortion has to be exceptionally strong there for a reason." said Mona as he raised and pointed his left paw at the bizarre-looking 705 castle building.
"So you're saying that's the stronghold of the queen ruling over this Jail-it's appearance certainly fits the notion." said Fox.
"The buildings around it and here still look pretty normal, though. Looks like that place over there has a limited range of distortion. The first time we came here and which Isamu Toudou accidentally came here with us, we entered by the Crossing down there. That's also where we saw a group of security shadows taking shiny-looking stuffs out of people's bodies." explained Mona.
"Yeah, it's terrible when I see what they did to them." thought Isamu worriedly in her mind.
"Down there, huh?" said Crow as he glance down at the place where Seraph, Joker and the others entered and where they saw what happened to the people.
"Oh? You mean those jewels we saw? The hell was up with that?" said Skull.
"Those may have been Desires." said Sophia as she showed up, walk toward and stopped near them. "Yo, Phantom Thieves." greeted Sophia politely to them (which make them gasped and widened their eyes in surprise when they see her).
"Aaaaah! Sophia!? Holy crap, an actual AI in human form!" said Oracle with a surprise look on her face at Sophia.
"Wow, you're so cute and your outfit is cute too, Sophia!" said Noir, complimenting Sophia's looks and outfit.
"Such a fascinating form you've taken… I can't stop staring at the beautifully curved lines." said Fox.
"Ahem, Fox." said Seraph sternly to Fox.
"R-Right, sorry again." said Fox.
"I've never seen an outfit like that… can I try floofing it?" asked Panther eagerly to Sophia.
"Floofing?" said Sophia with a confused look on her face.
"I think she wants to get a feel for the fabric of your clothes while hugging you, Sophia." said Queen.
"Request denied. I am neither a child nor a pet." said Sophia as she glance and bluntly denied Panther's floofing request.
"Oh, burn and too bad for you, Panther." thought Crow with a smug smirk on his face.
"No floofing…" said Panther with a dejected look on her face.
"By the by, how does age work for an AI?" asked Fox curiously to Sophia.
"Not right now-Sophia, tell us more about the Desires you mentioned." asked Mona as he and the others glance at Sophia.
"That is the term use by the Shadows here. They say things such as "Seize their Desires!" and "We must offer these Desires to the Monarch! Based on their language and behaviour, I speculate the aforementioned "Jewels" was in fact their Desires." replied Sophia.
"She's quite the knowledgeable one, for an AI at least." thought Crow to himself about Sophia.
"That does make sense-when we saw Alice's shadow here, she mentioned Desires." said Mona with a nod of his head. "So if Alice is the "Monarch", then she really is the ruler of this Jail." added Mona in reluctant agreement to them.
"But these "Desires"… Are they actually made up of the things people desire?" said Noir.
"It's possible, Noir." said Paladin as he glance and nodded at Haru.
"Seizing desires, of all things… What use would they have for those?" said Queen with a confused look on her face.
"Finding out what happened to the ones who got jumped could tell us something." said Skull.
"Where could those victims be now? I don't see a place from here where they may be held…" said Fox.
"I don't know… Maybe Alice had her minions taken and held them somewhere else." said Mona as he shake his head.
"Say, about those people you all witnessed being attacked… Are you sre they were humans?" asked Queen.
"Huh, whaddya mean?" said Skull with a confused look on his face.
"Well, couldn't they have been Shadows or something? If there are humans getting captured and imprisoned in this Jail right now…" started Queen.
"… That would mean and caused huge commotion from the people in the real world. Reports and news of them going missing out of the blue will show up on TV and radio." finished Doc.
"Points for you two, Queen, Doc… I haven't heard a peep about those online." said Oracle.
"So no one is actually disappearing from reality?" said Noir.
"That's a relief. If that were to really happened in reality… it'd be terrible." said Violet with a relief look on her face.
"Hey, Seraph. Didn't those accidents happened before back in Tatsumi Port Island? Reports of people going missing when they somehow wander into Tartarus and that you and your teammates had to find and rescue and bring them out of Tartarus at night before they die in there?" whisper Ryoji to Seraph.
"… Yeah, you're right, they did happened before and it's best if we keep it from them, Ryoji." whisper Minato grimly back to Ryoji.
"Sure and does it include what you and Crow did together last night too?" whisper Ryoji teasingly to Seraph.
"Yeah, of course and don't you tell them about it!" whisper Seraph in anger and embarrassment at Ryoji.
"Alright, I won't, you have my word." said Ryoji.
"I see… Shadows!" said Mona as he widened his eyes in surprise at Queen telling them about it.
"What are Shadows?" asked Sophia with a confused look on her face.
"Yeah, what are they?" asked Isamu, confused as well.
"A Shadow's the negative parts of you suppressed within your subconscious… It's basically just your other self." replied Mona to both Sophia and Isamu.
"Does that mean their main selves are all right?" said Sophia.
"No-the Shadows and the actual selfs and two sides of the same coin." said Mona.
"So if a Desire is taken from someone's Shadow, what happens to the person in reality?" said Fox.
"I gotta say… I'm getting a bad vibe from all this." said Oracle worriedly to them.
"Are they trying to influence reality by doing something to the Shadows?" said Mona with a worry look on his face.
"Then how are we to act? This sounds like a crisis-shouldn't we rescue the victims right away?" said Fox.
"We should right away if we see them…" said Jack before he got cut off by Mona.
"No, that was just speculation. After all, we've only witnessed the cognitive world's side of things. Until we find out how all this is affecting the real world, we can only know half of what's going on. I'd say the first thing we need to do is investigate Alice Hiiragi and her victims." said Mona.
"Plus, if we make the wrong move in the cognitive world, there's a chance the ruler could have a shutdown in the real world…" said Panther with a worry look on her face.
"Right. We need to get the story straight before we make any real moves or we'll just be doing damage." said Queen.
"Right. Let's get started on investigating Alice Hiiragi, everyone." said Joker with a nod of his head.
"Got it-buuuut, what're we gonna do? Crashin' some random store opening probably only works once." said Skull.
"That's his idea? How foolish and lame it is." thought Crow sarcastically at Skull's idea.
"What say we get into that once we're outta here?" said Mona.
"Okay, let's get out of here." said Sophia as she nodded in agreement with Mona's idea to leave the Metaverse and they all did.