"How did you find me then?" Yusuke asked.
Good question. Let's turn the clock back a bit. The timestamp thingie should have a control panel somewhere. Beep beep boop…
Tuesday, January 3rd, Daytime
There we go.
Morgana was the wandering type. He liked to get on a random subway train, get out of it at a random station, and absorb the hustle and bustle of the city. On that particular day, he ended up circling back to the Shibuya station and its underground shops. And as he inspected the assorted stands and displays, among the crowds, he saw her.
There she was, talking to a friend of hers, standing out in the crowd. All the other girls around could've been just faceless extras and she was the protagonist, or at least a potential love interest for one. Morgana found himself approaching the girl with confidence. "Hello, Lady Ann!"
That was akin to a tap on a glass barrier. Both the boy and the blonde froze in place. How did he know her name? He didn't see her before… or did he? On her end, she vaguely remembered that there was a certain someone that called her that, and the person in front of her simultaneously looked familiar and unfamiliar. Shouldn't he have gray eyes though? No, wait, that was someone diff-
"Oh, is he a friend of yours?" The blonde's friend smiled awkwardly, trying to defuse the situation. "Nice to meet you, I'm Shiho."
"And…" He tried desperately to focus on a thought that he couldn't fully internalize for some reason, "And I'm… M… Morg…"
"Morgan? That's a nice name."
Ann's eyes widened. "Morgana?"
That, in turn, was like smashing a glass barrier with a sledgehammer. The rush of memories caused the blonde's vision to blur, and when it refocused, the boy wasn't there anymore, replaced by a familiar black cat.
"Huh!?" it went, in a higher-pitched yet still human voice.
"W-what is going on?" Shiho blurted out. "What happened to that guy?"
"I don't know," Ann replied. Her body went into autopilot and she picked up Morgana from the ground. "Look, I'll call you back… I need to… I need air…"
Before Shiho could protest, the blonde ran away with the cat in tow.
Ann's first rational thought after her brain had finished rebooting was to go somewhere secluded and compare notes with Morgana. She suggested Leblanc, but Morgana, still not quite used to being a cat again, mewled incoherently in protest, and so she proposed her house instead. On her way she stopped by a takeaway place to grab some food for both of them, and by the time she returned home it was…
Evening
The Takamaki house was spacious by Japanese standards, and doubly so considering only three people lived in it, and two of them only dropped by once every blue moon. It was mostly furnished with generic looking but functional flatpack furniture, since both Mr and Mrs Takamaki led busy lives which left little time for interior decorating.
Ann marched into the kitchen and put two plastic containers - one with oyakodon and one with negitorodon - on a white table in the kitchen. She grabbed a fork from the drying rack, sat down by her serving and opened the cat's container.
"Can you talk now?" she asked, stirring her food.
In response, Morgana shoved his snout into the container and started munching.
"Eat the rice too, not just the tuna," she remarked, then put some chicken and rice in her mouth. The two ate in silence for a moment, before the blonde pulled out her phone and opened her contacts. "I don't seem to have anyone's phone numbers. Are you in touch with any of the Phantom Thieves?"
"Kunduh." The cat swallowed. "As a human, I was… a distant relative of the Sakuras, I think. I was living in Leblanc with…" The coin dropped. "I was living there with Goro! It's gotta be his fault, somehow!"
Ann found the idea ridiculous and decided to move on. "And what happened to Akira?"
"He's gone!"
The fork froze in mid-air. "What do you mean 'gone'? Like, dead?"
"No, like he never lived in Tokyo to begin with."
"Wait a second." Gears turned in Ann's head. "If he didn't come here and you weren't created by Igor to guide us… does that mean the Thieves don't exist anymore? What happened to the baddies who we stopped?"
She opened a web browser and typed in names of a few past targets in a search engine, as Morgana trotted over and looked at the screen. Kamoshida was an assistant coach for Japan's male volleyball team. Madarame remained a prolific artist, but associated strictly with traditional Japanese paintings. Okumura…
"Okumura's alive," she remarked, not even surprised at that point. Every subsequent revealed change was just added to the 'things are weird now' pile, acknowledged but not worth freaking out over.
"Yeah, so is Wakaba," Morgana replied. "She married Sojiro and then they adopted Goro, apparently. That's why I think it's his fault."
They returned to researching; Okumura ran a medium-sized chain of upscale cafes under his name. There were no unusual results for Sae per se, but someone with her last name has been honoured for exceptional service, probably the also-inexplicably-alive father of her and Makoto. Shido never entered politics and, judging by his social media accounts, was an unremarkable salaryman in Ishikari.
"Not only the Thieves never existed," Ann muttered, "it's like they never needed to exist to begin with."
"You know," the cat said, "if we're digging through social media anyway, we might try and find Akira."
"Good idea." Ann opened two more tabs in the browser, one for "Ren Amamiya" and the other for "Akira Kurusu". Having found a page with the latter name and a matching profile picture, Ann logged on to the service and wrote a private message: Hey, how are you?
The response was prompt: Don't message me again, followed up by a block.
"Yikes," the cat muttered. "Let's try looking up others."
"They might react as badly as him," the blonde pointed out. "Or maybe they didn't realize something's off and freak out when breaking out of it. These conversations need to happen face-to-face. School's back on the 10th, so-"
"The 10th?!" Morgana protested. "We can't just sit on our hands for a week!"
Ann smiled impishly. "You don't have hands anymore."
"You know what I meant!"
She giggled. "But honestly, the alternative is hitting up Leblanc and you seemed against the idea."
"Yeah, because Futaba's still not out of it and Goro is behind it all."
"Okay," she put down her phone, "how exactly did he do all this then?"
"We've already seen him use some unique powers when he drove others and himself berserk," Morgana said. "He also needed to survive in Mementos alone for years. Maybe he had some… time manipulation powers or something, allowing him to go back and avoid making mistakes? We fought a god last month, this doesn't sound implausible."
Ann wasn't convinced. "He'd have no reason to deal with Kamoshida. And Shido is still alive."
"Akira complained about that asshole before to him, and as for Shido…" Morgana shrugged, somehow. "Maybe he realized vengeance is stupid?"
"Look, even if you're right in some form, I want some sort of proof," she announced. "Leblanc's our only immediate lead, I say tomorrow morning we'll pack you in a rucksack and go there to subtly poke around."
Morgana sighed. "If you say so."
Ann gently patted him. "C'mon, you're supposed to be humanity's hope or something. Ease up."
Morgana didn't ease up. It took him almost the whole night to actually fall asleep, and only just barely. Things changed and he had no idea why, and there didn't seem to be any lea-
"Morgana…"
"Huh?" The cat raised his head and opened his eyes. He was… somewhere, and yet nowhere. Nothing as far as his eyes could see, except for a glowing blue butterfly.
"Morg…" The voice was muffled and weak, like something was drowning it out. "Co… ement… Rejo… frien…" One of the words sounded like 'Mementos', but wasn't it gone? Wait, the butterfly was blue, could it be…
The cat woke up.
Wednesday, January 4th, Morning
"Lady Ann!"
The blonde was already awake, dressed, and making herself breakfast when the cat darted out of her bedroom. "Lady Ann Lady Ann Lady Ann…"
"Jeez, what bit you?" A toast popped out of the toaster, and she grabbed it and spread some butter on it.
"I need to go to Shibuya immediately!" He ran to the front door and clumsily attempted to operate a knob without opposable thumbs.
She marched up to him, nibbling on her toast. "Can I know why?"
"I've had a dream!" he explained. "I think Lavenza was calling out for me and Mementos is still standing and I need to go there immediately!"
"Hm." The toast crunched satisfyingly. "It's on the way to Leblanc, we might stop by there. Just let me finish my breakfast."
"There's no time!" The door finally opened and the cat sprang out of the house.
"Mona!" she shouted, but the cat wasn't listening anymore. She sighed, put the toast in her mouth and grabbed her coat from the hook by the door.
"Greetings."
Right after entering Mementos, Ann and Morgana spun on their heels and noticed the Velvet Room assistant standing by the cell door.
"Lady Lavenza!" the cat knelt.
"Hey," the blonde waved at her. "I assume you have some answers for our questions."
"Indeed I do," the assistant pulled out a piece of paper out of nowhere. "Master has prepared a brochure summing up the situation." She handed it over. "Feel free to ask follow-up questions."
The two took the brochure and started reading together. "Wait," Ann spoke up, "is "Maruki" the same Maruki that worked at my school?"
Lavenza nodded.
"And Akira threw in the towel?"
Lavenza nodded again.
"Wait, Sumire Yoshizawa has a Persona now?"
Third nod.
"The team's led by Goro goddamn Akechi?!" Morgana seemed almost offended by the prospect.
"Nominally, yes," the assistant replied. "They planned to infiltrate Maruki's Palace today, but unfortunately I don't know the exact time."
"With three people?" the cat reacted. "One of whom had her Persona for two days?! We've gotta catch up with them before they get in trouble!"
"We don't have any weapons and equipment," Ann pointed out. "I have some food money my parents left me, but it won't be enough for top-tier stuff." She glanced at the fake escalators leading deeper into Mementos. "We could farm money from Shadows, but we don't have any-" She snapped her fingers. "Mona, can you still turn into a car?"
"Lemme try…" The cat jumped up and a van came down.
"Perfect." The blonde grinned ear to ear. "We can ram the Shadows with you and get enough money for proper weaponry!"
The engine emitted a satisfied purr.
"That reminds me," Lavenza opened her tome and pulled out something vaguely bookmarky. "Master told me to give Morgana this skill card. He said it should help you stay beneath the notice of your housemates."
He shifted back into his cat form and tried to take it from the assistant's hand, but the moment his paw touched it, it stopped being a paw.
The boy in front of the two girls looked remarkably like Morgana did in his human form a day before, except his clothes were a bit more, dare I say, over the top. Dress shoes, black suit pants, white shirt with an Oxford blue vest, black cape with golden ties, domino mask wrapped around his head, and a black sombrero cordobés with a carmine band. Two folded handkerchiefs were tucked on either side of the hat, resembling cat ears under the right angle.
"Wow," Ann was forced to admit to herself that the boy in front of her was hot.
"This does not replace your feline true form, just grants you the ability to restore Maruki's overlay at will for as long as his reality persists," Lavenza explained. "I believe you should be able to switch between the cat, car and human forms in the Metaverse, and between cat and human forms outside of it."
"As long as his reality persists," the blonde repeated, wiping the blood coming from her nose. "What will happen when we defeat Maruki? Will everyone end up snapping out of his reality at once?"
"That's… a good question," the assistant replied. "I shall ask the Master and return to you with an answer."
"While you're at it, tell him we are all very thankful for his help," Morgana said.
"I will do so," Lavenza nodded, then disappeared alongside the Velvet Room door.
The cat… I mean, the bishounen inspected his new costume and semi-new body with a satisfied expression. "I love it. I'll be able to return to Leblanc, and maybe craft some tools myself and not just instruct others how to do that."
"Great," Ann pointed at the staircase to Mementos. "Let's not wait for her and just go get the cash."
Daytime
The collected money was enough for a long steel whip, an ornamented karabela, a polymer-and-rubber slingshot, and an SMG model based on the Czech Skorpion EVO 3.
Ann and Morgana - who kept his human form, just for the novelty value - walked out of Untouchable at the right moment for the Velvet Room entrance to materialize nearby, with Lavenza by it. "Master has confirmed that arrangements will be made to keep the transition smooth," she explained. "The true reality is currently going in parallel to Maruki's actualized version, and taking down his Palace will harmlessly restore it, with the general populace none the wiser. People directly involved with the Thieves, however, will end up with only vague memories of what happened in the true reality, so keep that in mind."
"Thanks, Lady Lavenza," Morgana bowed slightly. "We'll pass it on to the others."
Her eyes widened a bit. "Oh dear, I almost forgot - The Thieves have just entered Maruki's Palace."
"Crap," the blonde cussed. "We need to go to Odaiba, before-"
Lavenza wordlessly moved out of the way and the blue cell door next to her opened with a creak.
Ann smiled. "You're a goddamn lifesaver, you know?"
"My purpose is to assist," the assistant smiled back. "Now, make haste. Rejoin your friends."
The two marched through and found themselves standing in front of a massive lift shaft, with the Palace itself at the top end of it. They saw the lift, no doubt containing the three other Thieves, moving up.
"Well," Morgana remarked, "that's inconvenient."
After a few minutes of awkwardly waiting for the thing to go all the way up, then back down, then up again, the blonde and the bishounen finally entered the Palace.
"Can you try and track them?" Ann asked, as they marched up the stairs to the initial room with the poster boards.
Morgana ostentatiously sniffed the air. "Self-deprecation, no social skills, and acrylic paint." He turned to her. "Seriously though, just barely. I can point you vaguely in their direction, but nothing speci-"
"Can I help you?"
The two turned to a mook Shadow in a lab coat looking at them expectantly.
"Yeah," the blonde smiled non-threateningly. "We were supposed to come here with some of our friends, but we got here a bit late and they must have gone ahead."
The mook took a gander at their unusual costumes and remembered an equally colourful bunch from before. "White fox mask, peak cap with glasses, and crescent-shaped black mask?"
Ann and Morgana nodded in response.
"They are currently talking to the head researcher in the auditorium." He pointed at the door. "Go through that door, and then there'll be one on the left side, and the auditorium is at the end of the corrid-"
The two trotted away before he could finish his sentence. After promptly reaching the auditorium entrance, Morgana gently put his hand on the doorknob and pushed it downwards. The door cracked open just barely, and they heard Maruki's voice:
"-appears I won't be able to convince you my reality is an improvement worth the risk."
"It is unlikely."
The two peeked inside. Maruki was sitting in the middle of the scene, dressed in a white suit, and sitting on a matching comfy-looking chair. Opposite him, on a couch, were sitting the three Thieves they expected: Yusuke, in his usual getup, Goro, in the black uniform, and someone they didn't recognize, but by the process of elimination assumed to be Sumire.
"But I will try anyway," the therapist replied.
"That sounds ominous," Goro said, and his left arm twitched ever so slightly.
"Don't fear. I'll just remind you what you're fighting for."
The floor under the couch gave way, and both it and the trio sitting on it fell through the floor, somewhere. Ann just barely stopped herself from gasping in shock, and Morgana closed the door as quietly as he had opened it, before Maruki could notice them.
"I guess we can't ask a helpful mook where they were taken," she muttered.
The bishounen closed his eyes and focused. "I think… I think they're somewhere below us."
Ann felt a chill go down her spine. "But, not, like… falling all the way down to the ground, right?"
"No, no, like a level or two below." He opened his eyes and looked at the employee door on the other side of the room. He marched to it and, after failing to open it, pulled out a lockpick and a turning tool, fashioned out of Mementos loot. "Now that I can get a proper grip, this, this shouldn't take-" The door opened. "-long."
The two quickly went through and closed the door before anyone paid attention to them. On the other side was a large spiral staircase, leading both upwards and downwards. The two picked the second option and walked to the basement - insofar as a building so far in the sky could have one.
It seemed to be some sort of storage area, with massive metal shelves holding containers each twice as tall as them. Unlike the bright spaces accessible to the public, everything was steel-grey, just barely lit up by the few fluorescent lamps on the walls. The mook Shadows wandering around lacked the labcoats seen on the earlier ones.
"They're somewhere on this level," Morgana whispered.
"Lead the way," Ann replied.
After some backtracking and a few fights too brief to warrant a description, the two found themselves entering a separated section of the warehouse. It was a narrow corridor, lacking the expected containers and shelves, but containing a multitude of doors on the wall. Nine of them, in fact, each looking more or less the same - human-sized, dark wooden frame, milky glass windows, silver door knobs, a backlit display on each. Six of those displays read VACANT. The seventh one read SUMIRE YOSHIZAWA, the eighth, GORO SAKURA ne AKECHI, and the ninth, YUSUKE KITAGAWA.
"Chilling," Ann muttered.
"What are those things?" Morgana asked, not expecting an answer.
"Well…" The two raised their guards, startled by Maruki's voice coming from nowhere in particular. "I expected some resistance to my reality from the Phantom Thieves and from that psychopathic manchild you're keeping around for some reason, and I prepared some… counterarguments."
"Personalized cells, more like," the bishounen replied.
"They aren't cells, no. They only show a simulation pertaining to the biggest regret of a patient, so that I can vividly demonstrate that the so-called 'real' reality isn't worth fighting for. They are locked from the outside, so that intruders cannot witness their personal memories, but the patients inside are free to leave at any point."
Morgana walked up to Goro's chamber and inspected the lock. "I could pick these without an issue."
"This violation of the patients' privacy is on your conscience, for the record."
"Stop with this prote-ow!" Ann was interrupted by the door to Yusuke's chamber smacking her in the face.
"An- Panther?" said the man himself.
"Yup." She poked her head from behind the door. The inside behind the artist resembled a particularly messy dorm room. "Good afternoon to you too. Mona's here with me, inspecting the locks on the other two doors."
"Hey, Fox," Morgana said, not paying attention to him and reaching for the lockpicking tools. "Good to hear you."
"That's… convenient. Dare I say, implausibly convenient." Yusuke took a step back, discreetly reaching for the electric kettle on the cupboard behind him.
"I have nothing to do with this," Maruki announced, defensively.
"How did you find me then?" the artist asked. Oh look, we've caught up.
"In short, Mona and I bumped into each other and then…" she paused, not willing to talk openly about the Velvet Room in Maruki's earshot, "...a little blue bird filled in the blanks we had."
"What does Twitter have to-" Realization. "Never mind, I am not thinking straight." He stepped out of his chamber and the Phantom Thief costume materialized on him. "We will discuss the specifics later, if possible. For now, let's free our friends."
"Of course."
Morgana spun the turning tool. "Crow's nest is open."
"Very well then," the therapist said. "Maybe a piece of his mind will be enough to convince you."
