Literally: to have [horse] blinkers on your eyes
Meaning: to be unable to look at something critically, or to see something obvious
Rough English equivalent: to have tunnel vision, to have blinders on

Monday, January 2nd, Morning.

Goro opened his eyes and smiled. It was going to be a wonderful day.

He sat up on the couch and glanced at the bed in the corner. The roomie was already out and about, it seems - he always cared very little about normal sleeping hours. Goro neatly folded all his bedsheets, and put them under the couch. Then, he got dressed in his favourite beige suit, brushed his hair, and marched downstairs for breakfast.

As soon as he walked off of the last step, he realized something was off.

There was a girl, just a smidge younger than him, sitting in one of the booths, trying her hardest to appear focused on a long-cold half-empty cup of coffee. There was something inexplicably familiar about her, like he had passed her by a few days prior on the street or something. Her blood-red coat and crimson hair would definitely stick out in a crowd.

"Good morning," Sojiro greeted him, a plate of curry in hand.

Goro pushed the thought aside and sat on a chair by the counter. Everything was fine. "Hey," he waved half-heartedly at the barista, then turned to the black-haired woman sitting next to him. "Working remotely again, Wakaba?"

"The coffee here is better than at the campus," she smiled, typing something on her laptop, "Any plans for today?"

"First, I'll devour my breakfast," he grabbed the provided spoon and started shoveling curry in his mouth. Laugh track goes here. "Thuh," he swallowed, "Then, I was thinking about rummaging through the second-hand bookstore for something interesting."

"So, new year's gonna be the same as the one before it, huh?" Sojiro asked.

"It -gulp- worked well so far." The plate was soon empty and he moved to the sink to clean it. In the corner of his eye, he noticed the girl slowly finishing the cold coffee. "See you later," he gave the adults a wave, then grabbed a jacket from the coat stand and marched out of the cafe, towards the train station. He didn't walk far before the bell above the Leblanc entrance chimed again, prompting him to turn around and see the girl leave as well.

"Okay," he remained polite, if a bit confused, "could I please get an explanation for why you're following me?"

"I'm sorry, Akechi-san-"

"It's Sakura now," he replied. She must have been an acquaintance from the orphanage.

"Oh," she appeared flustered - why though? There was no way for him to keep his last name after the adoption. "Okay then, Sakura-san… Do you know where I can find… your roommate?"

"I don't know, Morgana's an independent person."

She appeared shocked for a moment, before correcting herself, "I mean… I mean Akira-senpai. Ren-senpai?"

Something thudded loudly in his brain, like a kidnapping victim locked up in an attic, trying to break out. "E-excuse me, this has to be a misunderstanding." He took a step backward, ready to quickly march away from the uncomfortable situation. "I do not recall anyone by that name."

"He was the leader of the Phantom Thieves of Hearts."

That was the kick that forcefully opened the attic door. A slew of memories poured into his brain, in roughly chronological order. You could split most of them into two categories - 'horrible things done to him' and 'horrible things done by him'. Some of them he thought he had pushed out of his brain, like, say, beating Wakaba's Shadow to death with a baseball bat.

"Dear fucking hell in a goddamn…" he whispered, too blindsided to curse coherently.

"S-sakura-san?"

"Akechi," he hissed, before regaining his composure to an extent. "Or just Goro, it'll be less awkward. And you're… Sumire Yoshizawa, yes?"

She nodded vigorously. "Apologies for… breaking you out of this, but I really need to reach Akira-senpai. I've been coming to Leblanc for a few days, but it's like he's not here anymore."

The detective focused. There was a clear line in his memories between 'then' and 'now'. "He just… disappeared in late December. Not moved out, like he never lived there to begin with. His cat stayed behind and he's now a human." This situation was deeply unsettling - as far as he could tell, it's like the writers have changed somewhere in the past few weeks, and the new ones had dramatically different ideas for what to do with the setting. "What on earth's happening?"

"I don't know," the gymnast admitted. "I have one single clue, and I can't look into it without the Phantom Thieves."

Goro pulled out his phone. His contact list was rather short: Futaba, Morgana, Sojiro, Wakaba. Approaching the nerd was out of the question, because it would require reminding her about both her mother's death and who caused it. The cat… well, he wasn't a cat anymore, for some reason, and the detective couldn't guarantee that breaking him out wouldn't make him return back to his normal form, and that would be hard to explain as well. "Unfortunately," he put his phone away, "the only available Thief is standing in front of you."

That didn't fill her with confidence. "But do you…" She lacked the terminology to describe what she expected, and so she paraphrased: "…have a costume and a mask and a spirit that attacks things for you?"

"Two spirits, in fact." Goro grinned proudly. "I'm almost as good as Akira in these matters."

"Alright then," Sumire reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone. "Back in early October, I ended up transported into some sort of… weird place with scary shadowy guards wandering around. Senpai called it a Palace."

Early October, as far as the detective could trust his memory, was when the Thieves were infiltrating the late Okumura's Palace. "Did it look like something out of a science-fiction show?"

"No, not really." She tapped her screen a few times. "The Metaverse app said it's a laboratory."

"The… you have the app?!" The detective yanked the phone out of her hand and glanced at the screen. There it was, somehow having appeared on the gymnast's phone. She had navigated to the "history" tab, which displayed a single entry.

Owner: 4d6172756b6954616b75746f
Location: Odaiba Stadium construction site
Form: Laboratory

"Yeah, it seems to have installed itself after senpai and Morgana pulled me out of that Palace," Sumire explained. "I tried to delete it, but it just came back, and I just didn't think about it until… until whatever happened, happened."

After a moment of staring at the entry, Goro handed the phone back. The glitched name alone was most unusual - if only the resident nerd was available; she'd probably realize that I just stuck the owner's name in a character-to-ASCII-code converter. "And why do you think that Palace is related to what's happening?"

"Because it is still standing, and visible in the real world."

Goro's eyes briefly widened in shock, and he ran off to the train station. Sumire promptly followed.


It turned out 'visible' was about the only thing you could say about the Palace. It kept blinking in and out of existence, and even when 'in', it looked blurred out, and like the colours were split between a few misaligned layers. The two teens were standing by the fence, craning their heads to get a good look.

"Nobody besides us seems to notice it," Sumire remarked.

"Or they don't find it unusual," Goro muttered. Images from the Day of Reckoning flashed before his eyes, how all the other Thieves disappeared surrounded by the uncaring crowd, cursing his name with their seemingly last breaths. He pushed the thought away - he had to keep his cool; whatever this mess was, it was up to him to solve it. "Alright, we won't gather any more clues just by standing here. If you have an entry in the app history, we can enter the Palace and investigate."

"Um, I'm not sure how to do that." She handed over her phone. "Lead the way."

Goro took her phone and navigated to the search history. Then, he grabbed Sumire by the wrist with his free hand and tapped the log entry.

He had entered the Metaverse countless times before, which made this particular shift noticeable by how different it felt. Rather than a black-and-red blob slowly covering the real world and replacing it with the cognitive landscape, his vision was briefly covered by a bunch of plaid, coloured like spilled petrol. When it faded, he was standing in front of what seemed to be a lift that would take him to the Palace proper. He released the gymnast and, without looking at her, handed her the phone back and inspected himself.

He was wearing his white-and-red Robin Hood garb, but with a peak hat in matching colours and a pair of glasses in lieu of a 'proper' mask - the lens shape matching Shido's sunglasses, but the thick black frame and opaqueness from certain angles came from Akira's fake spectacles. To his chagrin, he didn't seem to have either his cane or the suppressed Glock model, but thankfully reaching into an inner pocket produced his Nagant. A quick primer check confirmed the cartridges he spent in December had regenerated. The weight of the revolver in his hand gave him some much needed reassurance - pistol-whipping would do the job for now. He focused, and watched his costume get swept over by a blue flame and turn to a black-white-and-red dress uniform. He still wasn't used to the Persona switch being this eas-

"Whoa…"

He spun towards Sumire, who was busy picking her jaw up from the floor, and finally realized something he should've noticed a minute before. "Where's your Metaverse costume?"

"I… don't have one."

Only then Goro realized he shouldn't have made hasty assumptions. "You don't have a Persona, do you?"

"Personas are these attack spirits, yes?"

Goro nodded.

"I don't have one then."

"Then take your phone and get out."

"Wha- no!" she protested.

"You've already done your part," the detective insisted. "I do not know what white lies Ak- Joker told you, but this," he pointed at the lift behind him, "is dangerous."

"I am not taking the easy way out this time," she crossed her arms. "I can enter this place myself. If you send me away, I'll come back when you go ahead."

Goro rubbed his eyes and groaned. "Fine. But you're staying behind me, watching the surroundings, and informing me about anything unusual you notice. Got it?"

She nodded fervently.

"And you listen to every command I give you." He didn't bother with trying to sound nice at that point. If she was going to be difficult, so would he. "If I say hide and shut up, you hide and shut up. If I say run, you run. If I tell you to leave me behind, you fucking leave me behind, got it?!"

After some hesitation, she nodded again. "Understood, Go-"

"Crow," he cut her short. "In Metaverse, we use codenames. Pick one for yourself or I'll pick one for you."

Sumire appeared unsure. "But what should that codename be?"

"Anything you want. Animals, playing cards, colours…"

She thought about it for a moment, before blurting out: "Green."

Goro glanced at her blood-red coat. "I'm curious about your logic."

"I'm new to all this," she explained, "and I don't have the experience you have. 'Green' seems fitting."

"You're self-aware, good." The detective pressed the button and the lift door opened. "Alright, Green, we're moving out. Stick close to me."