Chapter 12

Takamaki and Sakamoto stood from their chairs, and Akira followed their movements as well, moving to the side to collect Morgana and his bag while the other two scooted away, though he could feel them lingering just behind him.

Shifting the added weight under his arm, he turned around to join the rest of the team, only to find them staring at him rather intently; enough to make him freeze in place.

Did I do something? He questioned silently, dragging his gaze over Takamaki's face, then to Sakamoto's. Nothing in their expression sparked resemblance inside of him.

Sakamoto lifted a finger and pointed towards the table they had just abandoned. "You forgot your drink," He pointed out, a benign smile dragging his lips upwards.

"We didn't know what you'd like, so we filled it with water, is that okay?" Takamaki questioned once he turned around once more and looked back at the table. As Sakamoto had stated, there was a cup there, sweating under the sunlight piercing through the windows.

For me? He considered. The cup was cool against his skin, and equally as moist; refreshing against the sudden spring heat. Once again, he turned around, careful not to swivel fast enough to have Morgana bump into him, and bowed slightly to his teammates.

Without waiting to see if they were following, Akira headed towards the door, bowing once again to the lady guarding the entrance.

"Have a spacetastic day!" She shouted cheerfully, as he walked between the automatic doors. Moving away from Big Bang Burger, he leaned against the closest wall and peered into the bag Morgana was in.

"Let's go back to the station, you guys should be able to get in through there." The cat advised, using a paw to point towards the street they'd used to get here. Nodding, he pulled the bag's strap back onto his shoulder.

"The train station, he said?" A voice questioned, causing him, and subsequently Morgana, to jump in place. Swallowing reflexively, he looked up to see Takamaki and Sakamoto, who had obviously followed him out of the restaurant. He hadn't seen them approach, however.

Akira nodded in reply, causing the other two to nod as well.

"Let's go then!" Sakamoto cheered, twisting around and walking away. Takamaki followed after him, and he followed after her. The packed stream expanded around them, avoiding walking too closely to Sakamoto as he led the three of them towards the station. Whispers slithered past them, casting judgement on the three of them as they marched forward. The comments served to flush his already warm face, and he sipped at his water gratefully, thankful that he could keep his face down, hopefully preventing more judgement than he was already being subjected to.

The comments abruptly faded into nothing as Sakamoto led them around a corner. The ones that had been talking about them continued forward, part of a larger crowd that assimilated back into a compact stream as soon as they had left.

It was a strange occurrence. Usually, with his head kept down, people rarely attempted to talk to him or made comments about him; though Tokyo was steadily breaking every expectation he'd had about people before he had moved. Nobody in Tokyo knew his name, except for his school, where everyone seemed to know not only his name, but the circumstances surrounding his sudden transfer; yet people that barely knew him still looked down on him in disgust, as if his criminal record was stapled to his face.

"Freakin' assholes." Was shouted from in front of him, only be shushed and quelled by Takamaki shoving her hand over Sakamoto's still moving mouth, expletives no doubt turning into muffled yelling under her fingers.

"Ew!" Came another, more feminine, shout, presumably from Takamaki. The girl recoiled from Sakamoto, taking her hand with her but holding the appendage a steady distance away from her.

"You licked me!" She screeched before leaning forward and wiping the palm of her hand onto the purple of Sakamoto's jacket. The blond did nothing to move away and a smug cackling was his only response.

"What's the big deal, anyway?" Takamaki questions, stepping forward and leaning against the smooth wall of the closest business. Both he and Sakamoto follow, taking either side of their new teammate, though, where he is careful to keep a respectful distance between the two of them, Sakamoto all but leans into the blonde.

"Forreal? They were bad-mouthing all three of us, and you're just gonna take it?" Sakamoto grumbles eventually. Around the curve of Takamaki's cheek, Akira can make out Sakamoto's angered expression, the same one he had adapted within moments of spotting Kamoshida's castle. It was becoming a familiar enough sight for him to recognize it.

"It's not like we'll ever see them again anyway, Ryuji." She responds.

Sakamoto leans back and his view of the blond is cut off unless he leans forward. He does not.

The weight under his shoulder shifts, "I think Lady Ann is right, Ryuji. Besides, it's a big disadvantage to us if you get hot-headed every time someone insults you." Morgana pipes in, his voice following the appearance of his ears as they peer out of his school bag.

"I guess so." The blond leans forward again, bringing a change in expression with it, "'sides, once we go to this Mementos thing, we can change the hearts of all shitty adults, right, Morgana?"

Just below him, Morgana nods slowly, "If their heart is twisted enough to cause minor distortion, we should be able to find them somewhere in Mementos; though it would be a lot easier if we had their name, without that we'll be stuck looking until we stumble upon them. It's like a palace in that aspect."

Despite the information, Sakamoto growls in frustration.

"So we're just supposed to learn the name of every shitty person on the planet?" The blond imposes.

Morgana doesn't respond.

After a terse moment of silence, the four of them continue their way towards the entrance of the station. This time, however, he is the one leading, somehow he had managed to position himself at the front of their small pack and was trying not to freak out over the realization.

By the time the three of them were walking down the steps into the train station, he was out of water and was sweating on the wrong side of profusely. He paused at the bottom of the endless flight of the station's steps, but continued in the same moment, the trample of shoes that much closer as he scuttled towards a more secluded section of the station.

Chills pressed into his skin as he leaned against a vacant wall of the station, just around the corner from where they had come in. Further on presented a dead end of yellow tape that stretched from wall to wall in a neon web. He didn't need to step closer to read what it said, the sinking feeling inside of him told all he needed to know; which gave him enough confidence that nobody would turn this corner to see the three of them surrounding a talking cat.

Sliding down the wall, he tugs the bag carrying Morgana off of his shoulder and carefully sets his teammate on the floor between his legs. Almost immediately a pair of pointed ears jut out of the bag, followed by the rest of his fur-coated body as he pounces out of his prison.

Akira doesn't blame him.

Morgana looks around the secluded wing of Shibuya train station, then turns to them. There's something strange in Morgana's eyes, though he can't really seem to place the emotion or expression.

"We can get in through here?" Takamaki clarifies, glancing around the empty hallway as Morgana had done a moment ago.

Morgana nods, "And it's out of the way, so nobody will notice when the three of you disappear, nice thinking, Joker." Under any other circumstances, Morgana's statement would be creepy, yet he finds his face warming again despite himself.

"So whadda we do? How do we get into the palace, then?" Sakamoto interjects, drawing his attention away from Morgana's strange expression and praise.

"Is your Meta-Nav open?" The cat countered.

Sakamoto cursed, and quickly shoved his hand into his pants pocket.

"Ready?" Morgana asked the moment Sakamoto pulled his phone into view.

"One sec." The blond responded.

"Ready?" Morgana quipped as soon as Sakamoto responded.

"One sec!" Sakamoto repeated, fiercer this time; the smooth planes of his face twisting into a scowl as he, presumably, pulls up the Meta-Nav.

"Ready." He sighs out a moment later, "We just need a name and a place, right?"

"No, just enter exactly what I say," Morgana commands, "The keyword is: Mementos."

The skin on Sakamoto's face pulls tighter together, "Huh? What're you trying to pull?" He questions, shaking his phone in Morgana's direction.

"Just listen to me! It should work… I think." Morgana pleads, his previous calmness deteriorating rapidly. Sakamoto and Takamaki share a look, then they both glance down at him. His gaze shifts to the floor, to the tiles just beyond where Morgana's tail is puffing into a mess of bristles.

Sakamoto sighs, "Mementos, then?" He asks, though he gets the feeling the question is one that isn't meant to be answered.

"Candidate found." Sakamoto's phone cries out noisily. He jumps, surprised, though he knows he shouldn't be.

"We got a hit?" Sakamoto questions tightly. His eyes are glued to the screen held between his fingers.

"Just as I thought!" Morgana retorts smugly, stepping over his leg to get closer to Sakamoto and Takamaki.

"You guys ready for this?" The blond questions.

"Mhm!" Takamaki consents, though her voice seems shaky.

He wonders if the same fear is gripping her, Sakamoto as well, that's currently expanding in his stomach, if their throats feel as tight as his does right now. Ignoring the shaking that's pulsing in his chest and spreading into his legs, Akira finds himself standing, and glancing long enough at Sakamoto to nod firmly before he finds his head reeling with similar, uncomfortable sensations.

It's quiet… The silence is the first thing that he notices. The way his ears try to latch onto any sound is almost deafening, but he can't find out why. Everything around them appears the same as it was before Sakamoto activated the Meta-Nav.

"Everyone's disappeared!" Takamaki gasps out. Leaning forward, he glances towards the left, where he finds her statement to be correct. Where hundreds of feet were threatening to stampede the four of them, there was now nothing but empty space.

"This feeling, too," She continues, stretching one hand out, then the other, "It feels like I'm… walking on air." Shudders wrack through her fingers.

"This is Mementos?" Sakamoto asks, his voice and presence feel amplified now, strings of syllables echo off of the empty floors in a crude echo of his voice.

Creepy… He thinks, a shudder of his own spilling down his shoulders.

"That's right." Morgana confirms quietly, stepping forward towards the corner they'd turned in the real world, "Come on, let's head down. The shadows here lurk underground."

Morgana doesn't wait for them to catch up, as he navigates towards the stairs leading to the actual stations.

"Wait up!" Sakamoto commands to no avail. The blond scoffs, but runs out of the secluded corridor and towards where Morgana had ran off to. With their height advantage over him though, the three of them easily catch up to him before he disappears fully.

"W-why do they stay underground?" Takamaki questions, taking hold of the guardrail that leads them lower into Mementos.

Morgana pauses halfway in his descent, stopping on a long stretch of stairway to turn back to Takamaki. "I'm not sure, it may because they're drawn to something." He answers honestly; or at least he assumes that Morgana is being honest.

The air gets noticeably colder as they descend, darker as well, as if they were starting to sink into the ocean instead of the cognitive world. As they approach the bottom of the steps, Takamaki and Sakamoto are enveloped in sapphire flames; he watches, transfixed, as it stretches across their skin, leaving behind red and black leather, respectively, and reaches into their hair without them noticing.

When he passes down the same section of stairs, the similar sensation floods him with an audible woosh, as the cotton of his t-shirt and pants are replaced with exaggerated shadows within moments. The weight of the mask comes without notice until he lifts his fingers to drag along its edge.

Morgana awaits them at the bottom of the steps, nearly blanketed in the darkness of Mementos, save for the florescent sheen in his eyes, revealing one part of him, then the rest as his own eyes begin to adjust to the darkness.

Sakamoto turns his head over one shoulder, "Akira—Woah!" He looks down at his own hands, coated in bright, yellow material, "Our clothes changed!"

Takamaki gasps softly, but it echoes into the void they just walked down from, as well as the one that lingers below, "These clothes again…" Her fingers clench, the pink leather coating her fingers squeaks noisily.

"This means that the shadows know we're here, doesn't it?" Skull questions, glancing down at Morgana.

Morgana shrugs his now visible shoulders, "Since we came in, but we'll be safe here, the shadows never come up to this level."

"Still, you should have told us!" Skull complains, glancing around to confirm Morgana's truth.

"It feels different than Kamoshida's palace…" Takamaki states, glancing around as well, though nothing seems to draw her attention.

"There is something quite different about this place, isn't there?" Morgana counters, leaping onto the guardrail of the next set of steps. "Still, I doubt you'll be experiencing something quite as distorted as what you stumbled into with Kamoshida's castle, anyway."

Takamaki turns towards him, "Why's that?"

"It takes an extreme amount of distorted desires to form an entire palace, this place, while bigger than Kamoshida's, holds a much larger number of shadows, all of them harboring lesser distortions than you witnessed with him." Morgana explains quietly.

The palace of the world… He ponders, wondering if bigger was just putting it lightly; Mementos could go on forever. And according to Morgana, the secret to getting his body and memory back was somewhere in the depths of this place.

"This deal you struck seems to have been written sourly." Arsene comments darkly, a rapturous cackle accompanying his words. He's inclined to agree, even with the difficulties that Morgana had helped them through with Kamoshida's palace, their end of the deal could take years to complete.

"So using this place, we'll be able to change the hearts of people that don't have a palace?" Takamaki asks.

Morgana grins, baring his altered, sharper teeth to them, "That's correct, Lady Ann. Oh!" He suddenly gasps, "We still haven't given you a codename!"

Takamaki winces, "C-codename?"

Sakamoto nods, though her attention isn't on him, "Yup, all of us have 'em. I'm Skull, Morgana is Mona, and he's Joker." He explains, pointing to each of them, "Mona said it would prevent any unconscious ideas about our identities from getting into the real world."

"Skull." Takamaki snorts, turning towards the blond, "Very you, Sakamoto."

He rolls his eyes, "Skull." He corrects, pointing towards his mask.

"Mona." She announces next, nodding towards their feline teammate. Again, Mona smiles up at here.

"And Joker?" She says last, with a different tone, finally turning towards him. "I don't get it." She comments honestly, tilting her head a little to the side.

Morgana laughs triumphantly, "Joker is able to wield multiple personas, Lady Ann, therefore he's the wildcard of our team!"

"Hmm." Takamaki responds, "I think I get it, so what should mine be?"

Morgana, for once, has little to say. Akira turns towards Sakamoto, who he finds scratching his chin, looking rather caught up in thought.

She has a cat mask… and controls fire… He didn't have any ideas, and it's not like he'd be saying her codename, or her actual name for that matter, out loud anyway.

"Hm…" Morgana and Sakamoto hum in unison, he glances between them, watching as they both consider the girl standing in front of them.

Creepy…

"What about Catgirl?" Sakamoto shoots out first.

Morgana growls loudly, the reverberations straining into his voice as he speaks, "That's stupid, Ryuji! How about Catwoman?"

Takamaki turns towards Sakamoto, raising a stiff, pink finger towards him, "No! I don't want to be cat-anything !" She insists, there's a cumbersome fierceness in her voice that he hasn't encountered before, somewhere between when she'd confronted him about Shizui and when she'd been considering taking Kamoshida's life.

He swallows, apprehensive, though he knew it was stupid; they were on the same team now.

"You got any ideas?" Skull's voice is too sudden, and too loud, striking nerves like he'd been shocked. He jumps, and turns to his left; Sakamoto is standing in his immediate vicinity, close enough that he can hear the shifting of the metal plates that line his spine as he breathes.

Akira takes a step back, almost stumbling when the edge of his heeled shoe is caught on the solidness of the step. Lifting his foot higher, he slides onto the gritty surface of the next stair up, creating distance against the sudden proximity.

In the holes where Sakamoto's mask allows him to see, the skin around his eyes stretches outwards and he can tell that his teammate is raising his eyebrows at him.

He swallows again, nervous, and clutching his clammy fingers closer to his palms, unsure, but not uncaring, if the leather will dye his hands red.

Not cat… Not cat… Not cat… He repeats, frantic, but unable to draw conclusions. Lion… Lioness… Leopard… Leopardess… Panther… Shaking, he pushes his hands into the endless, shadowy folds of his outfit and pulls out his phone.

It brightens to life in his palm when he unlocks it, and opens his most frequented application.

"Panther?" He fumbles with the weight of his phone, despite how familiar the weight is in his hand, how complete he feels with its heat, as he twists it around, facing it towards Skull.

Stupid… He criticizes, suddenly frightened of their criticism, but unwilling to look at the half-expression etched into Sakamoto's features as he stares at the phone screen. He swallows, again, wishing he'd brought his own water to cool the taut tension his throat was enduring.

"Panther…" Sakamoto reads out loud, a moment later, slow enough that it sounds like two words instead of one.

He shouldn't have suggested anything.

"Panther?" Morgana echoes, loud, announcing it for the subway, the unconscious, to hear. He taps a paw at his rounded chin.

"I like it." Takamaki obliges, much to his surprise, and slight mortification, "Much more elegant than catgirl… or woman…" Shudders stumble through the ember-colored contours of her shoulders, causing both her pigtails and tail to shake violently.

"Panther it is then!" Morgana announces happily.

Akira sighs, relieved, yet apprehensive in a different way, something he can't name yet.

"Now that that's out of the way, I can finish saying what I was talking about earlier!" Morgana continues, "While exploring Mementos, we'll be able to change the hearts of anyone in the world, provided that they don't already have a palace. From my experience, the more distorted someone becomes, the more room they take up inside the floors below. It's the beginning signs of extremely distorted desires."

"So like… a mini-palace inside of a really big palace?" Skull questions, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Something like that." Morgana acknowledges, rather flatly.

"So you said that this place holds everyone's heart, right?" Takamaki—Panther imposes. She waits for Morgana to acknowledge her, and he does so with a nod, "Does that mean our hearts are in here somewhere?"

Akira blinks, but leans in closer, curious.

"Right now, the fact that we are inside of Mementos is the palace's way of recognizing all of your hearts. Once a persona-user leaves Mementos, so does their heart. You aren't… chained to the unconscious like the others are." Morgana replies, looking almost uncomfortable, though his eyes are gleaming wickedly, as if he were happy at the same time. "You'll usually be able to tell when you've encountered another persona-user when you think about it like that." He titters loudly.

Skull snorts, the sound amplified by the metal coning his nose, "You sayin' we're weird or something?"

Morgana, once more, taps his paw on his chin, as if carefully considering his reply, "Quite." He admits, another, louder, laugh emerging from him. Skull laughs as well, though it is much quieter and much more abrupt than he'd assumed the other boy would.

"What about your heart, though, Mona?" Takamaki questions, shattering the moment.

Morgana's smile twisted rapidly until it fell into a flat line that betrayed little emotion, "What about it?" He questions neutrally.

"You said that we'd be able to find your true form inside of Mementos, right?" She probed, "How are we supposed to find that if we can't find your heart in this place?"

Morgana's grimace intensified, so much so that Skull was beginning to look distinctly uncomfortable. The tension in his own shoulders began to tighten again.

Silence shatters his eardrums for an eternity. "I don't know." He responds, eventually, despondently, and devoid of his usual slyness. "I can't remember anything before I met those two, but I know that Mementos is holding a part of me!" His quietness escalates until he's all but yelling into Takamaki's face, his small form is heaving from the effort.

Takamaki—Panther is no better, her shoulders are shaking, vibrating in place as she stares at the ground.

He takes another step back, that much closer to running, and that much further away from how tense and uncomfortable he's feeling, though he's not shaking nearly as badly as either Takamaki or Morgana.

"Ann…" Sakamoto states, stepping down the stairs that Akira hadn't noticed him climb until he is level with her. His form towers over hers as he pulls her into an embrace, the brightness of her hair stark against the blackness of Sakamoto's outfit, giving it curves and contour.

Akira's eyes widen without him noticing and he stares over their combined shoulders, towards Morgana. Takes in his folded back ears and that darkened folds of his face. He feels bad for Morgana, and for Takamaki, as well; even if he doesn't quite understand why he started to yell loud enough for him to forget his own fear and worry about others. He doesn't understand Takamaki either, though, why she'd pressed Morgana the way she did.

He doesn't understand any of it, and he feels like an idiot, standing there, gazing into a scene he's barely a part of. Undeniably foolish, he admits, to the point where his face is heating up despite his eyes starting to dampen beneath the folds of his mask. It was good for something, at least.

Takamaki bawled into Sakamoto's shoulder for what seemed like hours, she mumbled into his clavicles about things Akira knew little about, they one name kept riding into his ears in waves that never ceased to make him nauseous.

Suzui… Takamaki had told them that her friend was alive, but had yet to awaken from her coma. He wondered if she had known about the pictures, about everything that Kamoshida had done and would have continued to do if they hadn't stepped in. Had she shared Sakamoto's fate, suffering from Kamoshida's cruelty and unable to find justice?

She snorted loudly, mucus gurgled loudly from where her face was tucked into Skull's uniform and he turned his attention back to them, watching as she pulled away and adjusted the ferocious mask that represented her rebellion.

"Sorry about that." She whispers, it echoes through each of them, "It's just… hard to process all of this." She pulls off the mask she had just adjusted and wipes at her eyes with her forearm.

"Ann…" Sakamoto says gently, standing taller than Akira had ever seen him. "We—"

"Panther." She interrupts.

"Huh?" Sakamoto responds, wiping a shiny trail from his chest and onto his thigh.

"It's Panther, in this place, anyways." She explains, pulling her shoulders back and placing her mask back over her face. "Feeling sorry for myself and crying won't fix what happened to Shiho, or to you… or to him or me, or anybody. We can do something now though..." She trails off, a smile warping the dimensions of her mask

"We get it, Panther." Sakamoto finally finishes, managing a smile as well.

He doesn't get it, not as much as Sakamoto or Morgana seem to, but finds himself nodding anyways when her gaze locks onto him.

"God," She whines moments later, taking her face into her hands, "I must sound so cheesy." Sakamoto laughs again.

"Anyways, let's go change some hearts!" She cheers, taking another drastic change in tone that it leaves him feeling a little behind.

Over Sakamoto's shoulder, Morgana looks apprehensive, but waves a paw towards them, "Let's get going then!" He orders, though there is no command behind his voice.

Mementos only gets colder and darker as the descend, the light of the sun had faded once they reached the turning point, leaving only the lights inside to guide them, though those too seemed to dim once they reached the following floor, leaving ember hues across the walls and floor. Everything he could see was shaded in an unnatural fog of red, even the shadows, stretching long and thin from the few fixtures inside of the subway, had a disturbing glow to them.

They reached the platform, perfectly mimicking the station he'd used to get here, except there was no stampedes and no hissing of the trains. Even when he held his breath, trying to extend his hearing, he heard nothing but the scuffling of their own feet and the shuddering sighs that lingered on his teammates' lips. The contrast was the most disturbing part, he thought, how empty a packed area should be.

Morgana approaches the lip of the station, peering over the edge and then glancing both ways. Suddenly, he turns away from the empty train tracks and turns back towards them, half of his mouth twists into a smirk.

"Transform!" He shouts suddenly, his high-pitched voice echoing off of the stations walls, deep down into the darkened tunnels as he leaps off of the edge of the platform. It was a small drop, yet he couldn't help the spike of adrenaline and concern that caused him to dash forward, intent on catching his teammate before he injured groans in return, sending baritone vibrations back towards them, though he can't make out any words from the noise.

Akira shudders, fazed, for the first time really, by how truly creepy this place was. He continues towards the edge of the platform, and briefly spots Morgana's huddled form before he's enveloped in smoke that clears in the time it takes him to breathe in an unsettled gasp.

Morgana's cat-like features disappear into the shadows of mementos, replaced with large, smooth lines, a rectangle with wheels.

A car… He ponders, concerned yet, somehow unsurprised.

"Joker? Guys?" The shape questions, the tires hopping up and down until a windshield is pointed towards them, along with oddly eye-like headlights. He finds himself avoiding their gaze, the unsettling sensation beginning to set in.

"You're a car?" Skull belts out, suddenly beside him. He jumps, nearly losing his footing but catches himself from tipping over the edge and onto the train tracks. "What the hell?" The blond whispers, though it echoes enough that he may as well have yelled it.

"… A car?" Takamaki questions, stepping to the other side of Sakamoto. The headlights of the vehicle slide towards the sound of her voice, gleaming a deep blue over Panther.

Morgana's voice erupts out of the car again, prefaced with an amused snicker, "This comes from the way cognition materializes in the Metaverse." The car explains, "Along with a little extra training." One of the headlights winks shut, then opens just as quickly, "It's not dissimilar to how you guys transform."

That… makes sense. He supposes it wasn't the weirdest thing he'd seen in the past week.

A gust rushes past him with a flash of yellow, the air crackles a bit and he steps backwards, confused, and watches as the black of Sakamoto's arm is soon covered in sparks that lead and end into the blinding coating on his clenched fist.

The air around them crackles as well, Panther's and Skull's hair rise against the forces of gravity, and he's sure that is own is following as well.

"You turnin' into a car is was different than our clothes changin'!" Skull spits out.

Morgana doesn't seem to notice the shifting in the air, most likely due to his body being composed of metal; expanding, breathing metal. "For some reason, 'cats changing into buses' is an extremely widespread cognition among the general public." Morgana reports, the front end of his new form dipping forward as if shrugging shoulders that weren't there.

Panther attempts to smooth down her suddenly unruly hair, "Why a bus though?"

The shape dips forward again, "No idea."

Skull stomps his foot, causing the air to crackle like static once again, drawing their attention, "Why didn't you do this at the castle, then? We almost got crushed!"

The grill of Morgana's car curves downwards, resembling a frown, "I would have if I could!" His voice shouts, echoing into the tunnels beyond them, "But that castle was cramped, there was no way I'd be able to get all of you out before the place came toppling down on us!"

The crackling fades until his ears are ringing, searching for sound that isn't there.

Skull slides over the lip of the platform first and Akira watches, curious, as the blond hooks his fingers into one of Morgana's handles and tugs. The door sweeps open, blocking his view of Morgana's inside as well as his teammates as Panther pushes Skull to the side and jumps into the backseat.

"What the hell!" The blond shouts over a fit of high pitched giggles, "That's dangerous!" He warns; the door slams shut, muting Panther's laugh.

Skull is suddenly in his view again, and Akira slips over the edge of the platform and offering a hand before the blond has his feet under him. Despite his yelling, and subsequent grumbling where Takamaki couldn't hear, there's a smile ripping Sakamoto's face open.

The blond takes his hand, and an overwhelming pressure grabs pulls down on his wrist through his glove to the point where he digs both heels into the ground to avoid falling onto the tracks around them.

He's heavier than he looks... He thinks, not quite sure why he's surprised. The blond claps him on the shoulder, hard enough that it kind of hurts.

"Thanks, dude." The door Panther had just slammed shut is pulled open with yellow-coated fingers and Sakamoto climbs in, leaving the door open.

Akira steadies himself, rolling his shoulder until the soreness fades, before turning on his heel and climbing into Morgana as well.

The insides are unusually red, deeper than his gloves when he compares them, pressing his palm against the seat in front of him.

Gross. He tries not to ponder it for too long, though he doesn't have to ask to know that he's currently sitting on Morgana's insides. He squirms.

"All aboard!" Skull announces, dragging the phrase out, "Let's go!"

Morgana's voice enters the car as if he were sitting right in front of them, "Why are you all just sitting back there? I'm a car, remember? I'm not going anywhere unless someone drives me…"

He glances across the seat, first as Skull, who's closer, than at Panther, hoping that one of them has their license.

"You can't drive yourself?" Skull barks back, glancing around the interior of the car like he was looking at Morgana's face.

Takamaki glances towards him, then stares at him from behind the crimson of her mask, "Do… you know how to drive?" She questions.

He shakes his head, he hadn't been around cars at all, now that he thought about it, except for when he was being arrested and when Sakura-san had driven him to Shujin.

Her gaze shifts to Skull, "Ryu—Skull?" She asks next. He shakes his head too, and Takamaki sighs loudly.

"You wanna rock-paper-scissors for it or…?" Skull speaks up, lifting his fist into the air between them.

"I—I don't want to drive!" Panther asserts, shaking her hands wildly in return.

Skull shifts in the seat, turning towards him, "What about you, leader?"

"Leader!?" Panther shouts from the other side of the seat, making him flinch. The girls leans forward and stares at him again, "Then he should be the one driving!" She announces, looking panicked.

Sakamoto's chin wrinkles into a frown, "Yeah, I guess so." The plates on his back shift together noisily as the blond shrugs, "Just don't crash us into a wall, Akira!"

Face heating up, he steps out of Morgana, and stares into one end of the tunnel that's surrounding them, grateful for the cold air that Mementos provides. Within him, Arsene chuckles, the noise is devoid of the unusual presence that the persona usually brings.

Do you know how to drive a car? He thinks loudly, enough to pierce the veil that separates him from the numerous presences residing within him.

Arsene snorts again, surprisingly inelegant.

He climbs into the driver's seat and rests his hands on the foreign sturdiness of the driving wheel. Fingers twitching nervously, he grips the wheel, sighing quietly as the leather coating his palms squeaks noisily against Morgana's wheel.

Akira stares at the dashboard; complexed and sweating.

"Start the engine; you can't drive me if the engine isn't running!" Morgana guides, voice somehow reaching him through the pounding in his ears.

The interior right over his shoulder squeaks noisily, and he looks over just in time to see Skull's form falling into the seat beside him. The blond leans closer, peering around from under the sheen of his mask before opening his mouth, "Where's the key to this thing?" He barks towards the windshield.

The car's equilibrium shifts uncomfortably, making his stomach shudder in ways that it shouldn't, "Why would there be a key?" Morgana's voice calls out, "There's a button under the steering wheel!"

Akira leans down and, to Morgana's word, under the steering wheel, a small black peered out against the red of Morgana's interior. Hesitantly, he pressed his finger into it and instantly the car around them sprang to life, vibrating the car's walls, as well as the seat beneath them.

The window beside him lowered on its own accord, he turned to face the absent barrier, staring into the abyss of tunnels as Morgana's voice called out to him, louder now, through the gap.

"That feels so good." His teammate purred over the sound of the engine.

"Is the car… purring?" Panther questions, suddenly leaning over the seat, her mask peeking into his view along with her bright hair.

Skull sighs, "What a creepy ass car."

He's inclined to agree.

"Let's go!" Morgana instructs, the car tilting forward as if it were a cat, leaning forward to pounce.

Akira resettles his grip upon the steering wheel and moves his boot around until he finds one of the pedals. He pushes it and the car leaps forward about a foot and he immediately lets go, feeling panicked.

Letting out a deep breath, he pushes the pedal again, slower and lighter than before, and the outside around them starts to roll past them slowly.

"Through there." Morgana instructs, the van tilting forward, drawing his attention to a large metal gate, bathed in dim, rusty light.

The metal breeches open when he drives in front of it, screeching loudly as the two panels separate from one another, dragging its chains and spitting up dust as if it hadn't been moved since it had been created. The two doors went on forever, the distinction between the two lost in the darkness that lie above them.

A deep sniff of air trilled from within, as if Arsene were taking in a long-awaited breath, then went quiet.

Akira swallowed, then pushed on the pedal once more, pushing the van into the purple-hued darkness that lie beyond the gate. Driving over the threshold left him feeling no worse, but no better, than it had felt on the other side, and looking out of the windshield left him feeling no more at peace with Mementos than when they had arrived.

The tunnel's floor held two sets of tracks, one going one way, and the latter going the other, though he had no way to give distinctions between the two, the walls were lined with posters and advertisements that he recognized from the real world, yet were defaced with age and dust, illuminated under dark, ominous hues. The wind howled at them as he continued driving, sounding like voices, but he wasn't able to recognize any of the words.

He pressed a little harder on the pedal, hoping the excess wind would drown out the sounds. Fortunately, it worked; though now he was barreling into the darkness of the tunnels, winding past turns but unable to recall if he'd taken a right or left. His hands were moving of their own accord, guiding him while his brain continued to try and make sense of these new sensations.

The van went very still far too quickly, and, thinking about it, realized that he hadn't been searching for the shadows that Morgana warned them about. Around them, the van began to dematerialize, shrinking and twisted into shape while they slowly fell to the ground.

In front of them, a lump of limbs, composed of pure blackness screeched as it was hit with the now non-existent van.

Akira landed on his feet, sending small, rattling shocks through his knees and into his spine, though his attention lie on the crude shape before them.

The gleaming shape exploded, sending small piles of tar splattering in a ring around it before three shapes emerged from it, resembling one of the persona that was currently within him.

"You!" They shouted, their shrill voices out of sync.

Morgana appeared beside him, his paws wrapped around the handle of his oversized blade.

The shadows advanced upon them, threatening them as magic began to spark out around them.

"Zorro!" Gusts of began visibly lashing out, shattering whatever weight that had been attempting to restrain him.

Arsene's wings sent larger, more potent drafts through the tunnels, pushing the shadows back until there was a sizable distance between them.

Blinding, splintering light scattered across the darkened ceiling above them before forks of lighting imbedded into the enemies across from them.

They moaned weakly, sparks shooting off of them as they fell to the floor, their wings twitching, but otherwise unmoving.

"Panther!" Skull shouted from beside him.

Akira glanced over at the girl, who remained, like the shadows, motionless.

"Takamaki!" He tried again, drawing her out of her daze.

The blond jumped in place, and threw forth the whip in her hand. It cracked like thunder against the prone form of one of the shadows, disintegrating it, then fell limply against the ground.

She gasped loudly, but remined still.

"Stop!" The remaining two cried, "Stop!"

His shoulders tensed at the sound, but he approached them.

"I won't do it again!" One sobbed.

"Never again!" The other added one.

Akira swallowed down his curiosity, then waved them off, healing them enough for them to escape into the dark tunnels.

He glanced down at the ground, where the third shadow had been.

Coins lie in its place, along with a bird' feather.

He pocketed the money, and after a moment of deliberation, the feather as well.

"That was…" Panther began, stepping up to him, and crossing her arms.

"Weird?" Skull finished, frowning.

"Nothing like Kamoshida." She said instead.

Skull nodded, but said nothing.

"Not all of humanity are like Kamoshida." Morgana supplied.

"I guess that's a good thing," Panther amended, "But I wish it didn't make me feel guilty for beating them up."

The plates on Skull's spine ground against each other, "Y-yeah… I wonder what they were doin' anyway."

Morgana stepped back, shifting back into the van soundlessly.

They piled in, and Akira couldn't help but feel that things felt worse now than they had before.