Chapter 4: 1X/05/2016

Part 1: My Partner In Crime

"I'm compromised. They know about the Meta-Nav, Shido, the others…they know damn near everything." Oh god, Ren. They've spooked you good. Mona's message from Ren spelt a whole whirl of trouble. The phone's GPS pattern was pretty weird and when he confirmed the snatching, I knew he'd need me. This nasty spyware they installed was absolutely mediocre in every sense. It was so haphazardly put together: no personal sign-off, no defined style of coding, lots of amateurish verbose errors, poor variable naming…no way a pro puts this pile of shit together and stands by it! Sorry…getting a little heated. In all honesty, the fact that this crap, stupidly easily to vanquish, cannot be removed is more annoying than anything and it's forced me to provide Ren a second smartphone to use.

"I need you to relay the message to the others to get here as soon as possible. I can't risk being overhead anywhere that isn't safe." I went over to the kettle to prepare a coffee and a chocolate so that I could hear Ren out in full. This wasn't a hardcore crook I was dealing with so I did understand the fear he had. While I wanted to empathise, I needed him calm first.

"Futaba, please. They've bugged my phone and if I leave it off too long, I'm worried they'll make themselves known to Sojiro as well as the others." As the kettle was finished, I made the drinks and brought over the coffee to Ren.

"Drink this. I'm no use to you in your state." I requested.

"Futaba, listen to me!" He snapped.

"Just shut up and drink. Your head is all over the damn place…how am I supposed to help you if you can't stay calm?" I responded. That seemed to whip some sense into him as he sat down and held his head in his hands.

"Even if you tell Sojiro, he's not going to get involved. We all but requested that." I watched as he continued drinking until not a single drop remained.

"Better?"

"...Sorry. I didn't mean to act like that."

"Don't start feeling sorry for yourself or I'm gonna kick you out." I poked.

"Well…I might do you a favour and leave if you keep pushing me." he poked right back.

"Tell me everything about what happened." As he explained the kidnapping attempt, I needed to take the time to process what was said because there were many things that could be ignored. Maybe our situation wasn't as awful as Ren made it out to be.

"Follow me." Hm? Obliging her request, we kept going along the house until we stood in front of a green door marked with several messages in black and yellow tape. Why her room of all places?

"I've been doing some thinking on what you said." The way she looked over towards me, I could only assume what said thinking concerned happened to be highly important to her.

"About?"

"You know, last Sunday!"

"How is that relevant?"

"Just try and remember, dummy!" The Sunday where I got together with Ann…

"No older sibling should make their little sister panic like you did? You seriously don't remember?" Futaba mocked, doing her best impersonation of me.

"Oh…yeah, that." I looked over to my chat logs to find Sunday's morning conversation:

You: "Take the week off, everyone."

Panther: "What do you mean, week off?"

Skull: "Are you planning on leaving or something?"

Violet: "Please don't leave us now."

Lotus: "Joker, can you explain what you mean? Is this a regular thing?"

Oracle: "Don't worry - Joker will explain."

You: "I'm not going to leave. If you guys want some time to chill and be normal for a bit, go ahead. We've not taken a proper break."

Panther: "Your worry is nice but we can't just act like nothing's going on."

Lotus: "The website happens to have a few hits. We're looking into them right now."

Skull: "In all honesty, I'm feeling kinda uneasy not having a task to do."

Violet: "I have yet to sort out a weapon and gun. I don't want to forget to do that."

You: "Have you guys had much sleep lately?"

Panther: "I can't say I have."

Lotus: "True…I've been worrying myself over what next."

Skull: "Could do with a little more, I guess."

You: "Spend time with your families and friends. Remember the people who are most important to you and don't let this Reaper crap be the only thing you live for. There's more to you all than playing God with people's lives."

Panther: "You say that but it's not like there's a switch."

You: "Well…you guys are gonna need to find one."

Skull: "Okay, dude."

Violet: "I'll just throw myself into training."

Lotus: "Panther, if we continue our search, that should be distraction enough."

Panther: "If you think so."

"Ren. I've decided to trust you in a way I've not even begun to trust Sojiro with. To you, what we're standing in front of might just be a piece of thin wood but to me, it's the safety of knowing no one sees what Alibaba gets up to. Who she works with, what she does inside there, how she does what she does…the very ESSENCE of Alibaba resides in that room on that screen. You'll be the first person I ever decide to give authorisation to and the first person to whom Alibaba is vulnerable towards. The moment I open up this door, our very relationship will evolve again. There won't be a personal and professional boundary that exists - for every action that I take, every live I wreck and every consequence I must bear, you will have to share them with me for the rest of your life. Anything Alibaba touches equates to you touching it too. It shouldn't need to be stated but just to be sure, you can't back out of any deal with me once I open this door because of what I'm going to show you. I'm going to give you the chance to turn around, walk away and never bring this offer up again because even though I don't want to destroy your life if you get cold feet, I will do what I must to protect Alibaba. My respect for you won't change if you do decide to leave now and I'll still continue to have your back." Futaba wanting to trust me with her professional alias…this was undoubtedly a tremendous weight she's carried. Her family…what they might have done if they ever found out about Alibaba…god knows the indescribable horrors that would've taken place.

"Are you sure?" Futaba chose to warmly take my hands and gave me her response.

"My skills and my social life...you've never let me down on them. My mother is one thing…but even with that hack Maruki, you only ever have good intentions. I'm sure that trusting you on this isn't something I'll ever regret." Her words that she so easily got out to me were quite difficult for me to process. The things that encompassed who she was…she trusted me with them and in doing this, she would trust everything of herself with me. Was this her confession?

"You're saying you can trust me with everything about you. That's very confession like…" I needed to be sure of my suspicions so that I could kill any chance of a romantic pursuit.

"It is, huh? I know you call me sis because you don't want the intimacy between us to change. I know just how I feel about you too. That being said, your happiness and Shiho's happiness isn't something I'm going to get in the way of. I'm going to struggle to get over you, who knows how long, but I'll manage because you both mean a great deal to me and moreso to each other. I don't want to destroy the awesome standing we have."

"...I really do think you're extremely attractive and I'd be lying if I said I didn't think of you once as a romantic interest. But just to be clear, I won't pursue a romantic relationship with you." Futaba nodded in approval of my answer. Would we have been an insanely cool couple? Possibly. Maybe in another lifetime, there was a relationship between the two of us where she was my girlfriend. But there was no point contemplating it further.

"Good. That's the way it should be. Do you want me to open this door up?"

"...Please provide authorisation to me, Alibaba." As she opened the door, I really wanted to doubt that she didn't care for her surroundings and respected her room. Sadly, my worst nightmare of what the state of her room could have been came true. There were tons of balls of paper just tossed anywhere and everywhere. What used to be the area where rubbish was disposed sat a mountain full of empty instant noodle cups, sweet wrappers and crisp packets. Her bed in the left corner of the room was filled with several gadgets and parts carelessly strung about. And you give me so much crap over how I treat my laptop. The only aspect of the room that could be forgiven was her desk. The centrepiece of the setup was her four monitors stacked carefully together. Each monitor happened to be 4K equipped and fully switchable between sources so if she wanted to switch over to a game, she could. On the counter of her setup was two plates of curry and rice dishes, knives and forks on top - the usually pleasant smell was rather pungent suggesting to me she placed them there and forgot about them. How can you really erase all of the mess around you like that? Is this why Sojiro doesn't come in so often? And the smell…this bin! It's not been thrown out for quite some time…Looking over to the front of her wardrobe, I saw the bags of clothes we bought yet to be put away. I dreaded what the wardrobe's current insides held.

"Thoughts?" Futaba shot me such a happy smile too. It made it all the more painful to give her my thoughts.

"It doesn't get any worse. Give me a moment, please. I've got some stuff to fetch - don't go anywhere." I told her.

"...Okay." I replied. I should've seen this coming…he must think I'm disgusting. It's not like I meant for my room to get so bad! I guess his room being as clean as it is doesn't just boil down to Sojiro's tough rules regarding attic living…he's just another OCD freak. At the very least, he was distracted enough not to let this mystery guy weigh over him.

"Let's get started." Ren came back up with several items, balancing them extremely carefully. A bowl full of soapy water, a roll of trash bags, a sponge, some cleaning bits and most of all, the basket that he carried the bits in.

"The biggest takeaway from this meeting/kidnapping is the revelation of a Meta-Tracker identifying who uses the Meta-Nav. They know of you, Ann, Sumire and Ryuji meaning that they can track the old version of the Meta-Nav. It's only a matter of time before they catch onto Shiho and I. Doesn't exactly bode well for hunting more Palace owners."

"Can you remove the bug without them knowing?"

"If I do that now, they'll know you've croaked. I'll need to figure out where this Meta-Tracker is stored. In the meantime, it means you'll need a backup phone. Take your pick from my backups in that unit - I'll find them for you." she responded.

"Okay. As for being a Meta-Nav user, is it likely he's a Persona wielder too?"

"I don't know for sure. The first time you went in, you were there for over 5 hours. I can't pinpoint exactly when you and Ryuji got your Personas but Ann didn't have hers and she seemed relatively fine after you left." But then how could he have dealt with Shadows? Sumire hadn't noticed anyone and there was no mention of anyone else by Mona. He couldn't have seen us from anywhere without us catching onto him…

"He turned off your phone otherwise your Meta-Nav would've picked his up. Would've made our lives a lot easier in finding out who he was. Oh well…"

"What is this?" Ren asked. Showing it to me, it was an old USB stick in the shape of a scimitar. This USB stick was somewhat rusted but there was no mistaking it for another. Mom's old stick...the amount of damage she did with that little guy…

"It's…something my mother used a lot. She spent more time with that stick than she did me!"

"You can't be serious?"

"I absolutely am. It's too damaged to use now…hmph. Good riddance!" It seemed she had no need for the stick any more. It didn't seem like she was going to try and restore the stuff that was on it either.

"Can it be repaired?"

"If you're thinking what I'm thinking...I don't think Mom's research would be on there anymore."

"To find something so important just scattered on the floor, Futaba...any other missing mementos you've lost?"

"I don't think so?" Her answer was on the fence. As we continued, there didn't happen to be any more things Wakaba left that were scattered around.

"Ren…can you really be sure that Shido's son has the Meta-Nav? I know. It sounds crazy. But did he mention any specific area within Kamoshida's Palace that we could cross-reference?" Sumire made sure no one was watching her on her way to the throne room the first time and Mona made no mention of anyone else roaming the Palace…

"He did not."

"He'd claimed to have seen us waltzing around in the palace but that couldn't have been true! Once I hooked up the maps into the Meta-Nav, anything you didn't register as a friendly would've appeared. Sumire only began following us when we got to the upper tower - she wouldn't have missed someone else there. By that point, everyone used safe room travel straight from the palace entrance - the app would've linked to his phone! And the most important thing of all. There were no windows underground, very few windows at the front - we stopped going through the main entrance - and no windows until the third or fourth floor in the tower. No way any person could see into the windows or get through one of those!" It's a much more positive approach, alright…still doesn't change the fact he knows where we all are.

"I need to call Ann...let her know what's up."

"It doesn't sound like you want to do that." Futaba commented. I took the dirty dishes to clean them downstairs after thrusting her a cloth, sponge and towel to clean her workspace.

"Won't be long." he replied. Having gotten on with cleaning my desk and units, I then turned to the cupboard which he'd thankfully not opened up because no doubt, we'd end up blowing up into another argument if he did. Taking out my clothes and placing them on the bed, he eventually came back into the room.

"Woah…" he said.

"Something you wanna say?" I warned him, whether there was something he was going to say or not. I would sort them out properly later - seeing the much improved state of my room now, I was happy we put a good effort into cleaning up.

"Ann's not responding...she must be at a shoot or something."

"Look. Take a beat, go over the information once more and then make your choice. I'm not going to advise you on whether to tell her or not tell her because that's not my call." As he nodded wordlessly, pulling up a chair, he took a seat and had a serious look on his face…what else did he need?

"Alibaba."

"Listening." I responded.

"I need you to design an app that manages student information - attendance, punctuality, reports, clubs affiliated…anything student related. Shujin colour schemes, logos…you know what? You're the expert. Like I can tell you how to do your magic." Good.

"Purpose?"

"I got a feeling I'll need it for the council." Great. More secrecy.

"How fast can you cook this up?" Tch…

"Give me a deadline."

"Three days. Have Three work with you to speed things along if you need."

"On it."

"*sigh* I expect to be blown away. See you later, Alibaba. And thanks." Softly stroking my hair, he left my bedroom. Finally…I shut the door and made sure to wait for Ren's steps to disappear. As I was waiting for the door to open and close, the faint gust of wind crept through the hole and the final slam emerged. I breathed a huge wave of relief.

"Alright. Where to begin?" How did it go from me helping him to being pushed for my feelings, only to get rejected, back to me helping him all over again? It was really random of me to go off like that…at the very least, I didn't cry over him. I started by making a couple of stem folders and files. And thena single tear fell down my cheek. Crap. Nonono…you can't be upset. He's got someone already, idiot. Then a few began to seep out of my eyes. Screw you…you big idiot. You had the chance to snatch him away even if that wasn't what he wanted…And before I knew it, I was covering my face, sitting at what was my flawlessly cleaned desk, letting the mixture of smudged make-up and tears endlessly fall onto the table.