[18th April, morning]
After a day off from both school and palace infiltration, the boring day in Shujin began again. Akira was walking with Shiho by his side toward the school when they noticed Kamoshida was standing at the front gate, greeting everyone he saw.
"Good morning! C'mon, hurry up and get to class!"
"...!" Shiho hastily clung to Akira's left arm once she saw Kamoshida, the memories of that day crawling back to the surface. "Why is he here..."
"It'll be OK." Akira patted her head reassuringly with his spare arm and whispered. "He can't do anything to us."
The duo kept their head down and tried to pass the teacher without him noticing, but it failed. "Good morning." Kamoshida suddenly said, catching the duo by surprise.
"Good morning." Akira replied perfunctorily and proceed to walk toward the school, earning an annoyed look from the teacher.
"At least I don't need to face you brat after the board meeting." He murmured cockily and loudly, letting Akira heard his words.
"Huh, we shared the same thought, how unlucky am I." Akira replied with a small smirk on his face, making Kamoshida felt irritated. "Remember, nothing is certain. Mr. Ka-mo-shi-da."
Akira then turned to Shiho and asked gently, "Well, Shiho. Let's do what Mr. Kamoshida said and get to class, shall we?"
With a hesitant nod from her, the duo then ignored Kamoshida and entered the school. "Phew... I did it..." Once Kamoshida was gone from their sight, Akira instantly dropped his cocky face and sighed in relief.
"You did a great job though." Shiho also sighed and loosened her grip on Akira's arm. "So... castle infiltration today?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Yep." Akira nodded with determination. "but where should we meet up?"
"Um..." Shiho was in deep thought for a short while before suggested to Akira, "Rooftop?"
"OK, then see you after school." Akira scratched his body and lead the volleyball player to her class before saying goodbye to her.
[During class]
It was class as usual again. Everyone in Class 2-D was focused on what the teacher's saying, including Ren and Ann. But then a synchronized 'buzz' from their phone interrupted them, causing the two thieves to check what's going on.
Ryuji: So I saw Kamoshida at the school gate this morning.
Ryuji: He was just standing there looking at me with this shit-eating grin on his face.
Ann: Ugh, that's annoying... He was probably mocking you.
Ann: But I heard that Akira mocked him back somehow, weird.
Ryuji: Oh yeah! I saw that!
Ryuji: He just slapped him in the face with that 'reverse' card!
Ryuji: But honestly, seeing that got me even more fired up about this.
Ann: Yeah, I heard that Shiho came back today and I'm worried about her. But I want to concentrate on our operation too.
Ann: And I won't let myself get exhausted like last time.
Ryuji: The board meeting's May 2nd, tight?
Ryuji: We just gotta take care of him before then.
Ren: I'm ready for this, this is our only way.
Ryuji: Same goes for me.
Ann: Me too!
Ann: I'll do my best. No going without me, OK?
Ren: Of course.
Ryuji: Yeah, you better let us know if you're going into the palace.
Ren: I don't want that situation to happen again.
Ann: Which one do you say? The outfit one or something even worse?
Ren: ...That one about being captured! It's not what you think, Ann.
Ann: Haha, I'm just teasing you.
Ryuji: Dude, no PDA in the group chat!
Ren: I hate you, both of you.
With an irritated sigh, Ren put his phone back to his pocket and continued his focus on the lesson, trying to forget their conversation. Of course, only the part about his 'PDA' with Ann.
On the other hand, Akira didn't even look at the teacher for the whole lesson. He's just too occupied on studying his notebook about the palace.
"So... Most shadows with wings are weak to gun attack..." He murmured while examining his profile for each shadow they encountered during the infiltration. "But that knight on the red horse is null to gun attack. Also, that fairy girl is weak to curse, the Pyromaniac with a pumpkin head is weak to wind as well..."
After about a whole hour of studying shadows, Akira just gave up and put his attention back to the class. In the end, he failed on both fronts.
[After class, the door to the rooftop.]
After meeting up with Shiho in the stairs lead to the rooftop, the duo sneaked up the stairs while making sure that no one is watching them. But as they reached the door and about to open the door, Shiho and Akira noticed a few people are sitting in a group and quickly hid behind it. Only peeking out to see what's going on.
"Wait... Ann?!" Shiho silently exclaimed, staring at the other side with disbelief. "Also, why Sakamoto and Amamiya are with her?"
"Well..." Akira paused with an awkward look. "I think they are Infiltrating the palace as well."
"All three of them, including the cat, are Persona users." He then quickly explained.
"Huh?" Shiho breathed with wide-eyes, couldn't believe what she just heard "You mean not only we have the power, but Ann, Sakamoto, and Amamiya as well?!"
"Yeah..." Akira awkwardly rubbed his neck, feeling the intense glare from her, "I forgot to tell you about that, sorry."
Shiho just sighed in frustration and pulled out her phone, opening the navigation app. "Enough waiting, let's go."
"After you."
With a nod to each other, Shiho clicked the location and disappeared in the spot.
[Kamoshida's palace, Saferoom in the first floor of West building]
"So now we can teleport between saferooms... That's convenient." Once the duo was inside of the saferoom, Jester quickly noted down the ability to teleport between safe rooms to his notebook.
"Jester, you finished?" Swan stretched her gloves and asked calmly.
"Yeah," Jester replied, closing his notebook. "Let's kill some shadow."
The two thieves then exited the saferoom and ran through the hallways in shadow, killing some shadows in the process. After some battles and running, they reached a library filled with books in the East Building.
"Library in a castle... That's weird." Jester examined those books out of curiosity, only to be weird out by the titles of those books. "Ugh... Swan, I think we should not read these books." He said to Swan, who was examining the book on the other side.
"'Kamoshida's Heroisms', 'The History of Kamoshida', 'Tracing Kamoshida's Steps'... These names only represent Kamoshida's ego, at most." Swan replied with a confused look, wondering about his reason.
"Well, mine is..." Jester reluctantly read the name of those books, only to be angered by them. "'Ann Takamaki: The Charming Doll', 'Shiho Suzui: The Weakening Swan'... Jesus, these titles are whole another level!"
"Well... I guess you're right." Shiho cringed from those titles and continue to examine those books, but the sound of the door opening caught their attention.
The two thieves quickly fired their grappling hook and hid on top of the bookshelf. Luckily (or unfortunately for them), it's the other group of Phantom Thieves.
"Whoa, it's so musty..." Ann, now Panther stared the image in front of her and coughed as the dust caught to her.
"A library, huh?" Mona raised an eyebrow as the scene before him. "This definitely seems fishy."
"Whaddya mean?" Skull asked.
"Come on, it's a library in a castle." Morgana frowned from Skull's question and glared at him. "There has to be some kind of secret mechanism in here."
Seeing no response from Skull, Mona turned to Joker and said, "Let's look around, Joker."
The four thieves nodded to each other and started to look around, while Swan and Jester were observing them from the top of the shelf. Skull look into the bookshelf Swan was looking at and spoke out loud.
"'Tracing Kamoshida's Steps'... 'Kamoshida's Heroisms'... 'Kamoshida's Law'...?" Skull exclaimed in awe, surprised by those book's titles. "What the hell?! All these goddamn books're about Kamoshida!"
Mona suddenly remembered something and asked Joker about the book they found earlier, "That reminds me, we found a book earlier, didn't we?"
"Yep." Joker nodded and took out the book they just found earlier, 'The slave book'. "Let's try putting it in. There's an empty spot after all."
"Yeah," Mona agreed, observing the space for another closer look. "something might happen if we put a book in there..."
Joker put in 'The King's Book' and punched it with his hand to make sure it's fully slotted on the shelf. But, nothing happened.
"Um..." Joker awkwardly coughed and looked at the others, "Maybe there is another empty slot like this. Let's look around."
The four thieves nodded and on their way to examine the other bookshelf.
"Hey... Everyone" Panther suddenly spoke up when they examining those bookshelves. "I don't know what is it but... There is something wrong with this entire infiltration."
"Yeah, I've noticed this too." Skull agreed, "Too many rooms with no shadows for some reason..."
"There should be much more shadows..." Mona frowned from the strange situation they got themselves in. "Maybe... Jester and that girl are here with us?"
"This could be a possibility." Joker commented on Mona's question, putting the final book to the empty slot.
With a click from the bookshelf, the thieves heard some rumbling close by. A wall separated and slid apart, revealing another room like the one Panther was in before.
"Whoa, it opened up!" Skull gasped in wonder.
"Yes! Let's take a look around!" Without another word, Mona rushed in and was followed by the others.
Once they're inside the mysterious room, the thieves looked around with wide-eyes. It's almost identical to Panther's with the X-Shape cross with steel handcuff and two wooden stocks gangling ominously from the side. The floor was lit by candles and filled with rose petals. And the wall was plastered with photos of Shiho, mostly focus on her face, breast, and rear.
"Ugh... The hell is this room?" Skull exclaimed, staring the whole room with disbelief. "These photos... It's all about Suzui!"
"Shiho..." Panther stared at those photos with rage, her hand clutched so hard that her gloves started to squeak. But a gentle pat from Joker made her calmed for a little.
"We'll make him pay for what he has done, not just for Suzui." Joker said. a determined look leaked through his mask. "But for everyone."
"Yeah... Definitely." Panther replied with a determined nod, anger leaked through her voice. "I feel even more motivated to do this now."
Mona looked at Panther sympathetically, but then also nodded determinately. "I'm sure it'll feel awful, but we should search this room. There has to be something in here if he was hiding it with such an elaborate trick."
They nodded in agreement and spread out to look around in this disgusting room. "Hey guys, I found a medal!" Skull shouted excitingly, calling the others to come here.
"That size, and that shape..." Mona examined the medal before exclaimed loudly. "I think that's out key!"
He turned to Joker and asked, "Remember that round indentation we saw back near those bars?"
"Yep." Joker nodded and pocketed the medal, then he examined the piece of paper the medal was rested on. "This is the other half of the map!" He exclaimed in relief.
"This is lucky! Let's take it with us!" Mona jumped again and again from excitement. "Aha! Our map is complete now-"
Before Mona could finish his sentences, the sound of someone opening and closing the door rang loudly through the whole room. Catching everyone's attention.
"It's gotta be Jester and that girl!" Skull gasped before rushing through the door with Mona beside him. "Joker! Panther! We'll chase after 'em, you two go exploring first!"
"OK! We'll meet up in the saferoom!"
Seeing a nod from both of them, Skull and Mona exited the room and chase after the mysterious duo.
[The hallway of the 3F]
"Hey! Wait up!" Skull shouted, Running in full speed behind the other duo. "We're just wanna talk!"
"Jester, maybe we should talk to them..." Swan whispered between panting, still running at max speed. "We'd face them one day or another..."
"I know..." Jester was deep in thought for a short while before replying to her, "Swan, I'll talk to them. You go first, OK?"
"What?!" Swan quietly exclaimed with a look of disbelief, but she compromised in the end. "I'll wait in saferoom."
With a nod to each other, Swan quickly fired her grappling hook around the corner and kept running in the shadow. Meanwhile, Jester slowly slackened his pace until that he was standing in the middle of the hallway, facing away from Mona and Skull.
"Huh?" Skull was staring at Jester's back with a look of confusion, confused from his decision. "Jester, why did you stop?"
"This is not good..." Mona whispered to Skull while holding him away from approaching Jester, narrowing his eyes toward him. "You're going to fight, right?"
Jester took a deep breath and said with a calm tone. "Actually, no."
"You four are also targetting Kamoshida, right?" He continued to ask them, still facing away from the two.
"Y-Yeah... So are you, right?" Mona asked back.
"Yes." With a nod, Jester apologized to Mona about the memory wipe he did to him a while ago, "Also, sorry Mona. I wiped your memory about you teaching me about the palace and stuff, I did this to hide my own identity."
"What?!" Mona exclaimed, eyes open-wide with disbelief. "So that's why I got those memory fragments about you..."
"So, what do you want to talk about?" Jester said with an impatient undertone, "I don't have much time."
"Jester, this is your codename right?" Seeing a nod from him, Skull continues to ask. "Why are you and that girl want to take down Kamoshida?"
"Well... First, that girl is called Swan, she is my partner." Jester answered, stuffing his hand into the pockets of his coat. "And this is the only way to take down Kamoshida, right? Everyone just kept protecting him."
"So..." Mona thought for a moment before answering, "You're also a student in Shujin and you know what Kamoshida has done."
"Correct. We just want to make him pay for everything he'd done." Jester said, took out his grappling hook from his pocket in the process. "We'll assist you every step on the way in the shadow. However, don't expect us to disclose our identity to all of you... yet."
He then fired his grappling hook instantly and pulled into the shadow, disappearing in the thieves' sight.
[Saferoom in the 2F of Old Castle]
Swan was waiting impatiently in the saferoom with her mask lifted to her forehead when Jester swiftly opened the door and entered.
"So, how's the 'talk'?" She questioned, crossing her arms in front of her chest.
"Yeah, it went well." Jester took off his mask and put it on his tophat. "At least I let them know that we're not enemies."
"That sounds very promising." The white thief replied sarcastically, but sighed soon afterward. "So, we'll help them in the shadow?"
"Yep." he answered, taking out his notebook. "But as we don't have the complete map of this castle... I think we should follow them for the rest of the infiltration."
"...I'm fine with that." Swan put the mask back on to her face and asked, "So... Continue?"
"Yes." Jester answered, also putting his mask back on, "Let's go."
On the other hand, in the saferoom of the third floor of the castle. Joker and Panther couldn't believe what they just heard as skull and Mona
"So... they're just like us." Joker murmured, rubbing his chin in the process. "Skull, can you describe the other girl... Swan for me?"
"Well... She's wearing a white coat, just like yours." Skull answered, trying to recall his memories about Swan. "black ponytail... that's all I can remember."
"Well, that's VERY useful." Panther said sarcastically, intentionally scratched the word 'very' to emphasize that. "But they said that they're going to help us, so problem solved?"
"Maybe," Joker sighed, decided to put the Jester business in the background. "So...continue?"
"hell yeah!" Skull exclaimed with a grin on his face, pumping his fist to another. "Let's go! Leader."
"As Jester helped us clean up some of the shadows, I think we can go even further than before." Mona said with confidence, crossing his paws in front of his chest. "If we're lucky enough, we may able to secure the infiltration route today!"
"Me too!" Panther also exclaimed with confidence, "for the sake of everyone!"
"Very well." Joker smirked and pushed open the door of the safe room, the others soon followed.
After a short while of hopping from cover to cover, and some minor battles to the guards. The Phantom Thieves found opened the previously barred doors and opened the Annex of East building. They walked down the stairs and found another safe room.
Meanwhile, Jester and Swan were following them in the ledges of the hallway with the help from their grappling hook. After their short break on the ledges as the Phantom Thieves entered the safe room for another break. They continue their infiltration and found themselves inside of a church-like room, with a huge statue of Kamoshida in the center.
the room wavered, turning into the gym of Shujin Academy's before turning back.
Jester and Swan look at each other before looking back to the 'church', "Holy... Even I underestimated the size of his ego..." He whispered in disbelief.
"Jesus... Kamoshida thinks he's the god in the gym..." Swan bit her lips as the remembered the abuses she received in this exact gym. "No wonder that he'd did those things..."
Meanwhile, the other four thieves on the ground were still in disbelief at what they saw. "Wait, was that... the gym?" Panther blinked multiple times, trying to know whether what she saw was real or not.
"I get it..." Skull murmured, glaring at the statue with disgust. "The gym's some kinda holy place for him. He's a god here."
Even though Joker didn't say anything and seems to be darting his eyes around for enemies and other things, but he's equally disgusted as well. They walked up to the statue afterward, with Jester and Swan still staying in their hiding spot.
"Jester... Maybe you should be closer to them, I got a bad feeling about this." Swan whispered to Jester while holding her sniper rifle, aimed at statue's direction. "I'll provide cover fire for all of you."
"Well... Stay safe" With that being said, Jester quickly grappled himself to another ledge closer to the other Phantom Thieves, taking his magnum revolver out from his holster.
"God, that bastard makes me so freakin' sick! Just you wait, Kamoshida!" Skull shouted to the statue in front of him, clutching his fist.
But then a mysterious voice suddenly rang in front of them, causing them to step back a few steps.
"I see... So you're the one who tampered with the library." the voice said. "It seems my time waiting here has paid off..."
Then, A soldier with golden armor suddenly appeared out from the ground, staring straight at them. "Just as the ape there said, this place is a holy ground for our great King Kamoshida." It plainly said. "It is preposterous for miscreants like yourselves to come waltzing in like this."
Then the soldier twitched and convulsed uncontrollably, dissolved to black goo before changing into a Medival soldier with red wings behind him. Or a Heavenly Punisher for short. "How dare you... You will pay for foolishly defying King Kamoshida... with your lives!" It shouted as it raised its sword, striking toward Skull.
But then a sound of a gunshot from somewhere far behind suddenly rang through the whole church and the shadow got hit by a bullet in the head afterward, stunning him.
Soon after that, the voice of Jester suddenly rang in the dark.
"Moriarty! Garula!"
Moriarty instantly appeared in the air and snapped his finger, sending a small blast of wind towards it, dealing some damage. Skull sees this as his opportunity and summoned captain Kidd, using cleave to damage it further.
However, the soldier didn't flinch after the two attacks. Instead, he charges his next attack and targeted Panther, who was not quick enough to guard herself. Luckily. Moriarty quickly flew in front of her and took the damage from her.
"Urgh!" Jester groaned in pain as he took the damage head-on. "Dammit... It hit harder than I thought."
"T-Thanks, Jester!" Panther quickly exclaimed to nowhere, thanking Jester before summoning Carmen, sending a ball of fire to the shadow.
However, the soldier only shrugged it off like nothing. Then it charged again to strike toward Mona. Fortunately, Mona was quick enough to dodge the Cleave attack.
"Phew..." Mona swiftly summoned Zorro and shouted, "Garu!"
The Persona sent out another wave of wind towards the soldier. Dealing fewer but still a considerable amount of damage.
"Agathion! Lunge!" Joker pressed on his mask and summoned Agathion, smashing into the soldier. But also surprised Jester in the meantime.
"So he can control multiple Persona... interesting." He thought.
"Captain Kidd!" Skull then attacked with another Lunge to the soldier, causing even more damage to it.
Knowing that her Persona's attack is not effective against the shadow, Panther quickly slashed her whips to it, damaging it even further.
Joker then quickly slashed his dagger against the shadow. With a backward roll on the ground, he fired a bullet to the soldier, knocking it down.
"Everyone! All-Out Attack!"
Without another word, The four thieves jumped into the air and strike the soldier from every angle possible. Unfortunately, the shadow was able to survive the attack.
"Moriarty/Jeanne! Garula/Giant Slice!" Once the All-Out Attack was ended, the Personas of Jester and Swan appeared in the sky and slashed the shadow with Jeanne's blade and Moriarty's wind. Dealing the final blow to kill it.
"Didn't realize those things could be that tough..." Skull said between heavy panting, using his knees as support.
"Yeah," Mona nodded, "It looks like he's making a concerted effort to stop us now."
"We'll have to do our best from here on out!" Joker said, pulling the edge of his red gloves. "Also, Jester, Swan. Thank you! "
In the meantime, Jester smiled as he heard the appreciation from Joker. But the pain finally got to the better of him and caused him to collapse, only to be held by Swan.
"You took too much damage from that one hit!" Swan quietly exclaimed as she examined the injuries on him and quickly cast a Dia on him. A feeling of energy rushed through his body and made him felt a bit better. "Why would you do that?!"
"Well, it's Ann we're talking about." Jester breathed with a weak smile, "It's just my impulse... I think."
"You're such a huge baka, you know." Swan could only sigh with a worried look from Jester's word. "But that's why I kinda like you..." She murmured to herself.
"Same word as Ann... She's such a bad influencer to you, Shiho." The male thief laughed quietly, earning a smack to his shoulder from her.
"It's you who influenced Ann!" The white thief glared directly at him, making him flinch a bit. "Also, codenames in palace!"
"Oh! sorry, Swan-chan." Jester jokingly said while sticking his tongue out, earning another glare from her.
"...No more healing for you." Swan plainly stated as she turned her head to another side, making Jester instantly dropped his mocking tone and beg her.
"I-I'm sorry, please don't do that!"
"Hmm... Maybe I'll consider that."
Swan was trying her best to not laugh at Jester's look of despair when the voice of the thieves below suddenly rang out. they quickly changed their attention back to them and listened.
"What should we do? Head back?" Panther asked worriedly to Joker.
"No, we're still able to go, right?" Joker turned to the other three thieves with a raised eyebrow. The other thieves nodded in return.
"The treasure in up ahead, there's mostly a path to it somewhere." Mona said, sensing the distortion start to strengthen. "We just need to be smart about this."
The four thieves continued their infiltration, decided to sneak past those shadows instead of fighting them to save strength. They jumped to the ledge of the church and found themselves in another room after a few minutes of sneaking, opening some chests in the process.
"We found a shortcut, fantastic!" Joker mused when they opened the door to the roof of the castle.
The rooftop consisted of about four or five shadows with dangerous aura patrolling. Knowing that fighting head-on was not an option, they sneaked past those shadows carefully. Hopping from box to box, they finally reached the single places with no fences blocking them.
"That matches up with the map." Mona whispered to Joker, "there's no doubt that's the tower we're looking for."
"But the door won't work, bro!" Skull quietly exclaimed after a few unsuccessful tries to open the entrance.
"Then the ledges might work." Panther said, pointing at the ledges.
They quickly jumped up on the stacked boxes, then the ledges. Running along the edges of the castle, before jumping up to the tower's wall and into an open window. Then they jumped down into an empty room and opened the door.
Once they opened the door, the room in front of them was very weird. There's a purple tint to the atmosphere, the floor which looked like a checkerboard moved to different height individually.
"Wh-What's going on?!" Panther asked, looking around with disbelief.
"The distortion is getting stronger... Ther treasure has got to be nearby!" Mona stated with a firm nod.
the four thieves continued to explore the tower. With the amount of cover available decreases, the infiltration became much harder than before. Luckily, they're still unnoticed to the shadows. After a few more rooms explored and discovered a secret elevator completely by accident, they found another safe room and quickly got inside.
Meanwhile, Jester and Swan were hanging on the ceiling of the tower by their grappling hook as there is much less place to land their foot on.
"I officially hate this place now." Jester groaned. "Hey Swan, you're OK?"
"I think so..." Swan said while switching her hand to hold the grappling hook. "But this place is the worst."
"Well, this is Kamoshida's heart after all."
"..." with a slight nod from her, the duo continued to hang on the ceiling in silence. Then after a few minutes, the four thieves exited the saferoom and continued their infiltration.
The four thieves hopped from one cover to another and ambushed as this is the only way. After two-floor worth of stairs and a few ambushes, they reached a large open room with two metal grates held up with large metal chains from the ceiling. To the side of the entrance was a small statue of Kamoshida, a large grin on his face.
"Disgusting..." Panther frowned.
Joker started walking down into the room with the others following him soon afterward. But as a giant blade swinging down at where he is. He suddenly jumped back, narrowly dodged the blade.
"Whoa, that was close..!" Panther gasped.
"Jesus... That scared me..." Joker breathed out, heart-pounding at his close call.
"Classic security measure." Mona frowned from the sight of multiple huge blade swing from side to side, "There's no way that we try to force our way through."
"Oh yeah, same for Panthers. So...what do we do?" Skull frowned, "No way we're gettin' through here as is."
"Maybe there's something fishy about that small statue." Joker said, examining the statue. "Huh, it's missing the eyes."
"Maybe we need to find the eyes to insert." Mona was rubbing chin, try to figure out the mechanism it uses. " Those heys probably are in the hand of a special enemy"
"Huh?" Joker thought for a short while before calling the others to search for the 'special enemy. "Well then... Let's look for those special enemies."
With a nod from the others, the four thieves left the room and search the key. But once they're gone, Jester and Swan jumped down to the hallway.
"Well, I think we already got one key already." Jester took out the right eye from his pocket and inserted it into the right socket of the statue.
"Maybe we need the other eye to make it work." Swan said, observing the other empty socket of the statue. "But it's their work from now on."
"...Wish them luck." Jester sighed and the duo grappled themselves back to the ledges on the top. Waiting for the other thieves to came back.
After about fifteen minutes, the four thieves came back to the room exhausted. They were surprised when they discovered that the right eye was already slotted in.
"Dude! So we ran through the whole tower for nothin'?!" Skull groaned in frustration, panting heavily in the meantime.
"I figured that Jester and Swan would help us with this..." Joker put the other eyes into the statue and pulled the chin. Thankfully, The swinging blade stopped.
"thank god..." Panther sighed with relief.
"Well... let's go, shall we?" Joker stated and crossed the huge open room.
They ran down the huge hallway and entered an empty hall that was filled with small Kamoshida statue on the dividers, parts of the floor having eroded away due to the distortion.
The thieves spotted another floating stairs machanism and ran up to it. Unlike what happened before, the steps didn't move at all.
"Huh?" Skull said, rubbing his head in confusion. "Why ain't it movin'?"
Then out of nowhere, another voice suddenly rang out to them. "Hmph. You are gravely mistaken if you think stairs will appear for you whenever you'd like."
The thieves looked around, spotting another shadow in golden armor materialized from the ground.
"So you're the one stopping them..." Mona muttered, glaring at the shadow.
"This majestic tower penetration the sky represents the admirable King Kamoshida's most sacred place." The shadow stated. "It is nowhere for children like yourselves! Prepare for your punishment!"
"What kind of selfish reasoning is that?!" Panther retorted in anger, glaring at it. "The only one who needs to be punished is-"
Panther's argument was interrupted as the shadow twitched uncontrollably and turned into a slime-like grey monster with a penis-like head. In all and all, extremely disgusting.
"A-Ahhhhhhhhh!" Panther took a few steps back in disgust, trying to unsee this... thing.
"What. The. F$#k." In the meantime, Jester cringed at the shadow, holding back from vomiting. "What the f$#k is this shit!"
"My life has been ruined..." Swan said to herself, clutching her eyes tight. "Please, someone... Delete this."
"It's coming!" Mona warned, somehow unfazed from the sight of this monstrosity.
"Let's kill this son of a bitch!" Skull exclaimed and summoned Captain Kidd. "Zio!"
The lightning strikes the monster but was unable to damage it for a considerable amount.
"Carmen! Agi!"
Then a barrage of fireball impacted the shadow, but still unable to damage it. Then Zorro cast a burst of wind and Arsene cast a burst of curse energy to it, but was unsuccessful.
"Maybe it resists to all elemental type!" Joker shouted to the other thieves. "I think we need to get our hand dirty this time!"
"Dammit." Skull murmured from Joker's word, then summoned Captain Kidd again. "Cleave!"
The pirate slammed itself to the monster. Luckily, the attack is effective this time. Jester and Swan took this as their opportunity and fired their guns to it, further damaging it.
But then the shadow used an assault dive and knocked the four thieves back onto the ground, almost killing them if not Moriarty shows up and stunned it with a revolver shot.
"No!" Swan quickly summoned Jeanne and shouted. "Requiem of Rebellion!"
The voice of the crystal woman rang through the whole room and cast a beam of light to the thieves. They felt the damage they took a moment ago started to heal and got back up from the ground.
"Well..." Joker said between heavy panting. "We can't let this monstrosity attack us again! Let's finish this ASAP!"
"Yeah!" Skull fired all round of his shotgun on it before summoned Captain Kidd again, using another cleave attack towards it.
Then Mona slashed it with his bandit sword a few times before high fiving with Panther, passing the baton to her. Panther whipped it with an immense amount of rage and sprayed all bullet of her submachine gun. Joker followed up with a few extra slash of his dagger and summoned Obariyon. "Snap!"
A huge bullet hit the Torn King of Desire, finally killed it.
"OK! We can keep movin' now!" Ryuji grinned, but then quickly slumped to the ground in exhaustion, "But man... If not because of that healing skill, we're already dead..."
"I-I'm so done with this place..." Panther cringed.
"You're not alone on this subject..." Joker sighed and wiped his dagger clean. "But we're getting close, let's go."
The thieves nodded to each other and continued on, running upwards now that the stairs were functioning. They tried a few doors along the way but they're all locked. Then the thieves found another safe room at the end of the hallway. After taking a break, the four continued their quest to the treasure.
They came back to the door of the King's hall. Knowing that the door won't work, the thieves jumped on to the pillars which looked like a female body and climbed again onto the ledge. jumping into the opening of the King's Hall, they found themselves in the balcony. Meanwhile, Kamoshida was talking to the soldiers below.
"How have you not captured the intruders yet?!" The King yelled, glaring at his guards with immense anger.
A soldier dropped his head and begged for forgiveness, "I apologize, my liege!"
"I bet he'd never imagine we're in the same room as him. Come on, let's keep moving." Mona snickered, looking at Joker.
They snuck around the balcony without being seen by any of those soldiers or Kamoshida himself. After that, they reached a large stone room which was filled with gold, the ground wasn't even visible under those precious items like crowns, jewels or necklaces. And in the middle of it all was a white orb, glowing and wavering in place.
"Whoa, what is this place?! Holy shit!" Skull exclaimed, his wide eyes darting around to those treasure. "That Treasure thing's gotta be in here!"
"H-Hey, what is that?" Panther noticed the orb and asked, stepping closer to it. "It's... floating in the air."
Mona jumped up to the grail, grinning at the orb with confidence. "Hehe... That's the Treasure! We finally found it!"
"Are you sure 'bout that though?" Skull questioned, rubbing his head. "How can we steal this thingy?"
"Same for me." Joker stated.
"Just hold on a second. I was planning on telling you more once we made it this far." Mona said, crossing his arm. "Simply finding the Treasure isn't enough. We'll need to make it materialize before we can steal it."
"what?" Panther asked, then soonly followed by Skull.
"whaddya mean?"
"Desires have no physical form by nature. Hence, we'll first need to make the real person aware that their desires are in fact a Treasure." Mona smirked and explained. "Once they're conscious that their desires might be stolen, the Treasure will finally show itself."
"So a calling card, right?' Joker said with a raised eyebrow, rubbing his chin. "That's probably what a Phantom Thief would do."
Mona nodded its head, equally excited. "Once we do that, the Treasure will appear!" Then a look of uncurtain suddenly took over the excited look before, "...Think."
Skull deflated and looked at Mona with a frown. "That again...?" He shook his head and cleared his thought. "Either way, sounds like it's worth givin' it a shot!"
The feline jumped in place and looked over at Joker. "Our infiltration route is secure. All that's left now is to pump out a calling card in reality, then come back to take the Treasure!"
"Well, infiltration successful, I guess." Joker smirked, then turned into the shadow behind. "Well, Jester. Since you're a Shujin student as well, I think you'll know when we're going to steal the treasure. We'll make sure that everyone would see that."
Even though no response cam from the duo in the shadow, but Joker knows that they got the message loud and clear from the bottom of his heart. Then he turned back to his teammates.
"Once we send out the calling card, there will be no turning back." Mona stated with a serious look. "Just let me know when you're ready. We'll head back to the roof and send out that calling card!"
"OK." Joker breathed deeply and said to the others with a smirk on his face. "Let's leave for now."
"The next time we're back, we'll finish this once and for all."
And with that, chapter six of P5: Another Thief concludes! thank you for reading!
First, sorry for taking this much time to publish this chapter. It's just taken me a few rewrites to finish this.
But in the next chapter, the boss fight of Kamoshida begins! The calling card has been sent and seen by the teacher. The Phantom thieves and the duo would only have this one chance to change his heart.
This is the battle of their lives. And they can't lose, for everyone.
I hope you would enjoy this story so far, reviews are welcome!
