As the middle of the week began for the residents of Leblanc's attic, Akira looked over the side of his bed to see Morgana stretching on the floor.

"Oh, hey. You toss and turn a lot! I almost fell off the bed last night!"

Akira, despite being in the process of getting up, still had a hint of embarrassment in his voice.

"Yeah, I probably should've warned you about that. Man, we really need to get you your own bed."

"Well you still have some spare cash left over from yesterday, so at least that's something you can do with it." That was when Morgana looked over at the couch, and a moment of realization came to him. "Now that I think about it, why does the ghost get to sleep there? Isn't she incorporeal?"

"I guess so." Akira yawned. "But she gets pretty uncomfortable when someone or something goes through her."

As Akira got off his bed, a higher-pitched yawn came from the other side of the room. Akira remembered something she said to him the day he met Morgana.

"Morning sleepyhead."

Sumire giggled at the joke, taking her back to those simpler days. She really had gotten used to living with those two.

"Morning, boys. Did you finish the extra grappling hooks yesterday?"

With Morgana hopping in the bag, Akira was reminded of the night before. "Oh yeah, you knocked out last night! I saw you levitating above the couch as you breathed."

"Is she asking about the grappling hooks?" Morgana questioned, his voice slightly muffled as he made room for himself inside the bag. "If so, we did finish them. By the way, Sumire, your light form tends to dim whenever you sleep."

Sumire whispered something to Akira as he packed some supplies for both school and the Metaverse. It was quite a struggle to squeeze all of that stuff into each and every pocket that didn't already have almost two feet worth of fur inside of it. He'd ironically ended up spending more money on the supplies than he did at the mall.

"She said she'd make a good night light. Also, you did not need to whisper that."

The two caught Morgana letting out a small chuckle before he composed himself.

"Alright, new weapons?"

"Check."

"Healing items?"

"Check."

"Maps?"

"Check."

"Confidence in the fact that we're going to revolutionize your school's history as we know it?"

"Check!"

"Okay then, we're good to go!"

Right as Akira exited the cafe, Sumire overheard something on the news channel Sojiro had on the TV, not wanting to end up like last time, she ran through the door to warn Akira.

"Sorry, just saw the forecast back at the cafe. You might want to get an umbrella."

"Oh, thanks!"

He quickly ran back into the cafe, which did confuse Sojiro, but he thought nothing of it.


By the first period, Akira already had his phone out. He was eagerly texting the group chat about his excitement towards finishing up the palace.

Akira:

-Alright, so I got these wrist bands that Morgana said could make us stronger somehow, loaded ourselves with healing items to make sure last time doesn't happen again, and you two are gonna love the new battle tactics I thought of!

Ryuji:

-SLOW DOWN!!!

-but also go on

Akira:

-We made more grappling hooks for you 2 last night.

Ryuji:

-THANK. EFFING. GOD.

Akira quickly looked up from his desk to check if the teacher was watching. Lucky for both him and Ann, the teachers almost never paid attention unless a specific student was called on.

Akira:

-And you know how everything on our phones that isn't service or cameras works?

Ann:

-Saved us a lot of trouble. We are NOT doing math in a twisted version of the school.

He thought he heard a snort and looked above his desk. He noticed Ann look behind herself to see him, Akira waved at her, Ann waving back before turning back around.

Akira:

-Anyway, I took a picture of the maps and marked everything to make sure I know where we're going.

Ann:

-Sounds like you got it all figured out then!

"Mr. Hiruta!" Akira heard, startling him to quickly put his phone behind Morgana in a panic, only to look at where the call came from, realizing it was just Sumire giving him a smug look. Morgana asked if it was something she said as he handed Akira his phone back, who was facepalming with his other hand.

Ryuji:

-and i thought had a big grudge against kamoshita

Ann:

-KAMOSHITA

Akira couldn't even respond back as he had to hold in his laughter.


Rain was always a weird feeling to Sumire. The water droplets always went through her, as usual, but her clothes still felt damp for some reason, and it still felt like the droplets were briefly touching her skin. It was soothing in a way. It was a feeling that no one who was alive could ever experience. Despite all of that, she preferred to be under the balcony with Akira and the rest of them.

"It doesn't look like this rain's gonna let up…" Ann said, sighing.

Akira was trying to make sure everything was safe under the balcony. It was a bit thin for his liking, so he sorted out the weapons while also trying to make sure none of them got wet.

"Ok…Ann's, Ryuji's, mine, Morgana's…oh yeah, how far are we?" Akira asked, handing the map to Morgana.

"Well we're actually pretty close to being done. It looks like we only have a few rooms left to go through before we reach the treasure."

"Sweet!" Ryuji cheered. "We might be done with this so much sooner!"

"Don't get too cocky." Morgana warned. "I don't think any of us want a repeat of last time, right?"

Despite Morgana's quips usually being aimed towards Ryuji, during this one, he looked at Akira as he said it. Once Akira finished sorting out the weapons, he had sat down on the doormat next to Ann. Lost in thought, he leaned his head onto Ann's leg. Not accounting for his height, he accidentally landed on her waist. Before he could get his head off of it, Ann quickly stepped away from him, causing him to fall over. Noticing this, Morgana tried to do the same thing, only to get the same response.

"Uh, Akira?" Ryuji said after hearing Akira react in pain to his head hitting the ground. "You good? Anyway, what did you two do yesterday?" He asked, trying to break the tension.

Akira got up, eager to tell him about what happened. "Well, Morgana recommended I go on a shopping trip, and I found Ann as I was checking out the stores, and she got me this amazing castella before she went home!"

Ryuji put his hand to his chin, he started having his suspicions about what Akira was doing. "Oh. Do you two have a thing going on?"

"Wait, do you?" Morgana asked the moment that sentence was finished. Akira froze in place.

"We don't!" Akira and Ann said in unison, with Ann's being a little more aggressive.

"Sorry, sorry. Just asking." That didn't seem to get Ann off his case.

Akira's face transitioned into a suspiciously smug smirk. "Besides, I think I already figured out who Ann has her eyes for…"

Ann stomped her foot on the ground and put her hand on her hip. "Don't even try to guess!"

"You never said you don't have one at all!" Ryuji teased.

Meanwhile, Sumire was lost in thought the whole time. Morgana's comment affected her much more than Akira.

"I can't let that happen again."

Different strategies ran through her head as to how to utilize her unique abilities to their advantage.

"If I can run them into a wall…maybe we can corner it?"

"Spirit, you coming?" A whisper broke through her thoughts. It looked like Akira and the rest of them had already left, and Morgana was sent to keep an eye on her. Without a spoken word (not that Morgana would hear any from her), she flew down through the school floors and into the alleyway.


The castle was as foreboding as ever, and everyone knew that things wouldn't end up like last time. Akira looked to his side to see Justine at the entrance, beckoning him to come inside. He told the others that he wanted some time to do a sort of "mental exercise" before he started. A lazy excuse, but they surprisingly bought it. While Sumire and Morgana hung out on one side of the bridge keeping Akira company, Ryuji and Ann had some interesting thoughts about what was going on.

"Ok, so the light Mona sees, I think he and Joker have been referring to it as Spirit or something. What do you think it is?" Ryuji asked, sitting next to a nearby barrel.

"I dunno, I guess it would explain why he talks to himself sometimes." Suddenly, a good theory popped into Ann's head. "Wait, this place is some kind of mindscape dimension where everything someone thinks comes to life, right?"

"I guess?"

"Yeah, it's like in a movie! Well I thought that maybe it's an imaginary friend!"

Ryuji tried to work out the logic, and it made a little bit of sense to him. "That kinda works. Didn't think a guy like him would have one, though."

"Well, life's been tough on him since he came here. He may be stoic at times, but you can't help but feel that he's still got a bit of a kid in him, and I can't help but find that… cool." Ann started to reminisce about her childhood. "I mean, I remember when I had my own imaginary friends before I met Shiho."

This got Ryuji's attention, quickly asking, "Hold on, you gotta tell me what they were like!"

Ann brushed it off just as fast. "Nah, they were pretty dumb anyway. Got anything embarrassing about your childhood you want to get back at me with? It's only fair, you know."

Ryuji took a deep breath in. He knew he was never going to live this down, but he might as well tell someone. "When I first started track, I ran like a cartoon character."

"Arms to the side, neck forward, back bent?" Somehow Ann knew exactly what he meant. Ryuji begrudgingly conceded, causing Ann to laugh.

"Pfft! Yeah, that sounds exactly like something you'd do!"

Akira's eyes suddenly gained life again, and he felt very relaxed, yet determined.

"Alright, guys. I'm ready!"

While Akira was entering which safe room he wanted to go to, Ann quickly turned behind her with an apologetic expression.

"No offense, Caheet."


Along the way, the group found a nifty skull-shaped item apparently called a Will Seed. Ryuji compared its texture to a potato, much to Akira's amusement. It's appearance in the palace made Akira curious enough to want to find some more trinkets within the castle's depths. Exploring it sometimes became fun to him, and even more fun to Sumire, who was practically zipping to and from each and every wall in case there was something hidden inside, even examining treasure chests to see if what was inside was worth using a lockpick on. What wasn't fun, however, was the amount of stairs they all had to climb. Sometimes it was lucky being able to hover.

"Can't you just…use your wind magic…to bring an updraft up these stairs?" Ryuji asked Morgana as he huffed, holding onto the railing just to keep himself standing.

"While that would look cool, you gotta remember that we need to preserve every bit of vitality we can today."

Just then, a cool breeze wiped over everyone. They were finally outdoors again. With a relatively low level of security from the looks of it. It felt right to take a small break here to rest their weary legs. Sometimes Sumire would pop her head out of the building to see how much progress they were making, which would help with Akira's motivation, so when he went over to a nearby fence to see just how high up they were, the wind in his face made him realize just how it felt to be someone flying around on the side of a large structure.

"Quite the view, isn't it?" Sumire commented, noticing the strangely normal view of the entire city, not unlike the average skyscraper. Well, apart from the red sky, pink clouds, and gigantic moon, that was. "I don't wanna brag, but the views I get after all your climbing look a lot clearer without all of those towers in the way."

"I don't wanna interrupt your moment, but take a look at this!" Ryuji pointed to the large tower looming over them.

Morgana took out the map to examine it. "That matches up with the map. There's no doubt that's the tower we're headed for."

"So the treasure's up there!" Ann sounded excited about getting close to their finish line.

"Which means we're almost done!" Sumire cheered.

"Alright! So what's our entrance looking like?" With Ryuji's additional question, it was easy to tell that everyone was itching to get in there. Peeking up behind a nearby fence (With Morgana needing to ride on Akira's shoulder), the rooftop was filled with a bunch of crates scattered around the area, with a gazebo in the middle. But most importantly, there were also a bunch of guards whose looks told Akira that they were not the kind of enemies they should be fighting.

"Oh come on, I thought we were home free at this point!" Ryuji complained, almost too loudly, causing Akira to shush him.

"Like we could've just waltzed in here." Ann whispered.

Morgana was careful to remind them of their current strategy. "Remember, if we want to get through the rest of the palace today, stealth should be our number one priority."

Ann pondered over the area for a moment. "Those boxes make it look like an entire maze. I guess it would be nice cover, but we're bound to get cornered at some point."

The rest of their break was spent figuring out strategies in order to get past all of the guards.

"I think I got something!" Ryuji having the first idea was definitely not what anybody expected, but it was something. "So Joker and Mona made us those extra grappling hooks, right? We use those to get to the top of that open house thing or whatever it is…"

"A gazebo."

"Right, right, thanks Panther. Anyway, we get up there and… actually we'd still have to get down eventually… and the guards might see us there… dang it, I thought I was on to something!"

"Wait, hold that thought!" Morgana muttered. "If we can then latch it on to one of the flagpoles, I think we'd be safe and get even higher up! Yeah! Even if you only came up with half of a plan, I think it can work!"

"Hey, half of a plan is better than no plan!"

"Guys, we still need a way to actually get to the gazebo," Akira noted.

Noticing the giant moon in the background, Sumire had already been considering how bright she really appeared to shadows when she heard this. "They did call me a torch when we first came here... and just like that, the memory gave her an idea.

"Joker, I can get a bird's eye view of the area. I'll give you directions, and you get the others to follow."

"I like it!"

"Oh, you got something, Joker?" Ann overheard him. He already had the perfect excuse. "Just go in a single file line and back up when needed. You guys just follow me." He then whispered the real plan to Morgana.

"It's the best we got. I think we can do it."

Camouflaging herself as simple moonlight, Sumire took a peek at the maze below her. Those on the ground were crouched down, waiting to begin. As they went, Sumire realized she needed to turn herself along with them in order to avoid a "My left or your left?" situation. There were a few close calls, but once they made it to the gazebo, it was smooth sailing, though everyone was still trying to get the hang of using a grappling hook. Ryuji might've stumbled a few times by aiming a little lower than he should've, and Ann almost lost her balance, but they were still much higher than anticipated. They were rewarded with an even better view of the city. One that even Sumire hadn't seen yet. At the end of it all, Ryuji only had one thing to ask.

"I know our phones don't work here, but could we at least bring some walkie-talkies next time?"


"What the hell is that?"

When Sumire popped her head back into the room, he gave Akira the same look she always did when something bad was in the next room. But this one was different from usual.

"I can't even describe what was in there! It's literally something you need to see for yourself to understand!"

Akira pushed the door open with a combination of hesitance and curiosity, and he realized that no matter how many times he thought he'd seen all it had to offer, there was always something new the castle would throw at him. In this room the floor pulsed up and down in rectangular chunks, and there was a small moat in the corner where a purple magma-like substance flowed through.

"We must be getting close."

"What's even going on here?!" Ann exclaimed.

"Joker's right. The closer we get to the treasure, the more distorted a palace will look." Morgana explained.

Right as Akira was about to touch one of the walls to examine it, Ryuji pulled him away.

"Woah woah woah woah woah, hold on. Those things are purple and blocky, and we got a moat with soda-flavored lava or whatever it is. Have you seen ANY form of entertainment? That stuff's clearly poison!…Right, Mona?"

"The walls I know are safe. I've used those for cover plenty of times. The goo on the other hand…I'm not so sure." The confidence in the former statement was a stark contrast from the complete lack thereof in the latter.

"We should probably still test it to make sure it's safe. Anyone got anything they don't need?" Ann suggested.

Akira looked through his stuff to see if he could find anything worth dropping in there. He found a single broken pencil he forgot he even had. Akira figured it'd be the best test subject for the goo, and everyone else agreed.

"Welp, there it goes."

Everyone watched as the pencil slowly sank into the goo. It didn't look like it was dissolving or burning up or anything of the sort. It was more like quicksand if anything. "Slowly" was the keyword though, and once it got to the point where only the eraser was sticking out, Sumire thought of a way to further examine the situation.

"Want me to go in there and check on it?"

Akira's response was a simple shrug of his shoulders, as if to say "Go ahead. I can't stop you."

But as soon as her arm made contact with the mysterious substance, something was off to her. Every other time she touched something solid, she'd only go through it if she wanted to. Otherwise, she was able to feel its texture and pressure on herself, even if she wasn't able to interact with it. But now…

"It's solid?"

It was like trying to push through a giant roasted marshmallow. It was squishy, and after enough wriggling, she managed to push herself through. Inside, the pencil was still there. Nothing seemed to have happened to it, but after a few seconds, Akira started tugging on his collar.

"Is it just me, or does anyone else feel this room getting warmer?"

"Sorry, did I lose control again?" Ann apologized. "I noticed those mannequin-shaped pillars, and I was feeling a little riled up about it."

"No, it's not you. Something's-aah!" A stinging pain came simultaneously to Sumire and Akira. Sumire immediately flew out of the moat and caught her "breath".

"It hurt me. I don't know how… but it actually hurt to be in there. How am I even feeling pain?!"

"We should get out of this room for now. We'll save it for the near future. Besides, I think I know where the other Will Seeds are."

As the group walked out of the room, Ryuji and Ann coincidentally both placed their hands on Akira's shoulders. It was awkward at first, but still comforting.

"You okay, man?"

"Yeah, I'm fine."


"Can I speak now?" Ryuji whispered, feeling a little out of it. He wanted to go full force on enemies so badly, but knew that with how many shadows were in the room, that wouldn't be a viable strategy at all.

"Yes."

"So we got three skull-shaped thingies that sort of stapled themselves together when we got 'em all. Does that mean they're conjoined triplets?"

"Wha-" Morgana was speechless at that comment. He had to pause to think about it before answering. "I guess? But that's not what they are, nor is it what they're used for!"

While Morgana was trying to figure out the reasoning behind Ryuji's question, Sumire was sliding across the ceiling of the room, patiently waiting for the next shadow to succumb to her tricks.

"Is this what haunting is? I guess it's kinda like the inside of Kamoshida's brain. Maybe that's where the term comes from. Huh, the more you know..."

She then looked down to see multiple giant axes swinging below her. Before she could even get to Akira to warn him as usual, he found him jumping in shock at the entrance, thankfully safe thanks to Ann pulling him by the collar.

"Phew, that was close!"

"Giant swinging axes, a classic security measure for dungeons like this." Morgana pointed out. "Your tail would be mincemeat if you tried to force yourself through."

"Well they are metal," Ryuji noticed. "Panther's got fire powers, why don't we just have her burn it down?"

"I don't think we want this whole castle to burn down. A for effort though." Ann complimented in response.

In the meantime, Akira was playing around with the mouth of the Kamoshida bust next to the room. It was suspiciously flexible. Sumire came to Akira's side to check on him.

"Can't find any way around it. There's a platform with a treasure chest on the side, but that's way too far of a jump. What are you doing with that anyway?"

"I don't know, but it's fun." Akira mumbled some mocking phrases when Morgana turned around to see him.

"Aha! I knew something like that should be around here!"

"This bust with a funny mouth?" And then it dawned on Akira. He didn't even realize that that mouth was there for a reason. Morgana climbed on his shoulder to show him.

"Look inside."

When he did, he noticed that inside the mouth were some pipes that lead down somewhere. Diving into the floor, Sumire saw all kinds of rods connecting the statue to the axes. Inside the eye holes were some weirdly shaped holes.

"There's definitely some kind of key that goes inside of the eyes."

"C'mon, we got superpowers! Let's use them for something other than fighting!" Ryuji proceeded to slam the bust on its head, giving it a shock through his fist. Unfortunately, this only made the axes move faster. "Well, that backfired."

"Guess we gotta do it the intended way." Ann disappointingly accepted. "Where would it be, though?"

"I checked every wall, no sign of a hidden room with a key in it. Such a shame too, would've been a really clever place to hide it. Can't these things teleport?"

Akira looked toward the staircase, recalling the army of shadows in the prior room they had to sneak past.

"Look guys, I know we've been trying to do as few battles as possible today, but chances are, one of the shadows in that room downstairs has it."

"But there's so many of them even in that one room!" Ryuji complained.

Morgana thought to himself before asking "Did any of those knights look different from the others?"

The other three fidgeted in silence until Akira spoke up. "I think we were kinda too focused on the whole 'focus on stealth' thing to really pay attention to that stuff."

While Morgana groaned, something came to Sumire. "I do remember one that had gold armor!"

Akira wiped his brow in relief, and whispered it to Morgana.

"Alright, I have a feeling it'll be pretty easy to spot anyway. Plus, I figured out a way for us to grab the key without needing to alert the other shadows!" Morgana then whispered his own plan to Akira, and gestured for Sumire to listen in too.

Everyone proceeded to go downstairs and found the golden knight. Ryuji hid next to a bust, Ann behind the staircase, and Akira behind those same distorted pillars.

The pillar's texture was rugged, poking at Akira's gloves, yet it also had some smoothness between the more pointy parts. It felt similar to a fountain.

Sumire smugly walked on the air in front of the knight's face. She cheekily sat on top of its shield and smirked at it. "So, you doing anything tonight?"

Annoyed, the knight flailed it's sword at Sumire in an attempt to shoo her away like a flyswatter. While it was distracted, Morgana went up to it's leg armor and did a small hop, snatching the key without the knight noticing. Ryuji fist pumped while Morgana gave a thumbs up. The group booked it to the scythes, leaving the knight to stop and continue patrolling the room. Akira inserted the eye into one of the sockets, and yet nothing happened.

"Guess we need the other one too."

"I'm getting at least a week's worth of exercise in today…" Ann groaned.


Their search eventually led them to a room where, immediately from the entrance, they had a bunch of shadows at the bottom of the staircase ripe for the picking. Watching the distorted pillars rise and fall, Sumire was able to get a front row seat to their behaviors. Morgana attempted to poke his head out from the legs of the taller team members.

"Ok, any guys with gold armor here?"

"Yeah. There's just one problem." Ryuji whispered.

"What's that?"

"They're all in gold armor!"

Indeed, each one of the soldiers below was identical from the last, it was clear that this wouldn't be as easy as before.

Morgana quickly rethought his prior strategy. "We can't just pickpocket all of them. Looks like we'll need to actually fight to figure out which one's the leader. Luckily, I can see a safe room downstairs."

Sumire proceeded to lead the shadows guarding the safe room out of the room. Disappearing into the walls of the safe room. But because of how close they were to it, Akira knew that they might come back. So to make sure they weren't surprised by anything the moment they came out, he volunteered to be on lookout duty. As he sat outside next to the door, Sumire poked her head out of the wall to check on him.

"Feeling comfy out here?"

"A little." Akira sighed. "But I can't stop thinking about what happened while you were in that moat. You told me it hurt you, right?"

"Oh yeah. I didn't even know I could feel pain!"

There was a melancholy energy in the air. It always did feel like that in a place born out of lust, but this was a different kind of melancholy.

"But why did I feel it?" Akira questioned. His hand pushed through his hair and then rubbed around it. "Is our pain… shared or something like that? I don't remember seeing you hurting whenever I got hit in battle."

Sumire felt a lightbulb appear over her head, she looked back on their first day in the palace.

"Wait a minute. Back when those first two guards attacked you and Skull, I felt like I was the one getting beaten up myself. Maybe not as much as you did, but it still hurt."

To both of them, it was hard to look back on that moment. Akira was still a normal guy back then.

"So it's not just a one-way street. But if you don't feel it as badly as I do, then maybe that's why you don't feel it when normal attacks hurt me. I'll still be careful for you, though. Ok, Spirit?"

"Thanks, Joker." She said before placing her hand through his. He knew what she was going for, and that gave him something to plan around his fighting style. Akira couldn't help but smile at his incorporeal roommate.

There was still no sign of the shadows returning to that location, so they went back inside. When they got there, they noticed a sheet of notebook paper on the table with some doodles drawn on it, presumably a spare provided by either Ryuji or Ann. When Morgana noticed the two enter, he picked up the sheet and showed it to them.

"Ok, so I realized that we don't have to take out all of them. We just need to find out which one is their leader once they expose their true selves, pickpocket that one, then make a run for it." He then whispered "Spirit's the line in the center."

"Sounds like a plan!" Akira confirmed.

"Everybody ready?"

"Yeah!"

"Right behind you!"


Weapons in hand, everyone hid in place to surround the closest shadows to the doorway. Akira made a finger gun motion with his hand. Ryuji shrugged, confused as to what that symbol meant. Akira tried to mimic the action of breaking the mask with his hands, but it didn't seem like the message got across to anyone. He then mouthed "Just go…", and right then and there, everyone jumped an individual shadow, alerting the entire army. Incubuses, vampire women, and almost naked angels filled the room. It was a whole ensemble of different creatures. The first Persona Akira summoned was the one he thought he lost. Good ol' Arsene. As curse energy spread out from across his wings, Akira mumbled to himself, "Thank you, compendium!"

It was good to have his favorite back.

"Take out the weaker ones first! We'll have more space to work with!" Morgana called while firing his slingshot past an Incubus's head, using a wind spell to boomerang it back.

"What?"

"The little ones!"

Since they hadn't engaged in battle due to all of the stealth done today, an evasive, aggressive fighting style was present in the room. Or at least, that's what they were trying to do, if you could call running away from anything that looked too big or hordes and attacking anything that was alone a "strategy". They did occasionally land a hit or two on the bigger ones with a bullet, but then it would alert them, and it was back to evasion. At least mostly avoiding battles meant that they didn't feel any burnout.

Akira was admittedly rusty with Arsene, but being what he is at his core, it all came rushing back to him, though he was getting struck left and right on his blind spots, and while the blows were devastating, they weren't as deadly as he would've thought. His wrist started to feel tight. Looking at it, he noticed the arm band he purchased the other day. They made the right call buying those. He would've been done for if it wasn't for those.

As good as it felt to use Arsene, this was serious. He decided it was time to switch Personas, scrolling through his mind like flipping pages in a magazine until he found the one he wanted.

"BICORN!"

Charging up a Garu attack, a cold breeze surrounded him before it launched towards his targets, it felt really satisfying to him. The wind in his face, the thrill of combat, the-

"Joker!"

He was so distracted by that satisfaction that he didn't have time to react to the stab of a vampire's flaming tail. The woman giggled as Akira clutched his chest. Sumire, who was coming in from helping Morgana by giving his blind spots, called out to him.

"Hey, don't forget to patch yourself up."

Akira called out Pixie, and his body started to relax more.

"Focus, Akira…focus Joker."

Looking around the room to see if he needed to switch yet, he spotted Ryuji backed into a corner, struggling to keep up with the shadows. Sending his healing power to him, he was thanked afterwards, and saw Ann run past him.

"Remember to baton pass, guys!" Morgana yelled to them. Hearing this, Ann threw a fireball at the vampire who attacked Akira, but it barely even flinched. It's wings went ablaze and charged forward. Out of pure instinct, Ann held up her whip from both ends to block it, resulting in the vampire ramming into it before being flung back like a slingshot. Seeing his chance as it hit the wall, Akira brought out Bicorn once more as it started to prepare for another tackle. Using his own Lunge, the two shot towards each other. Akira took some serious recoil, but he managed to blast through her. He had to lie down for a few seconds before he got back up. He saw Ann healing him, and behind her, an angel charging up some kind of bright energy ball.

"Panther, behind you!" He shouted. Ann looked behind herself. Pulling out her gun, she spun on a dime with her heels, her trigger finger faster than the angels' reaction to her turning to face them, shooting them down before they could fire off their attacks. She finished her turn with a small wink, as if to say it was nothing, and made a beeline for Akira, who held his hand out for her from behind a pillar, to which Ann reached out her own.

"Tag tag tag tag!" Ann yelled in a panic. She almost missed Akira's hand because of how shaky it was. But their baton pass managed to connect, and they could both feel the battle coming into their favor. Akira and Ann both threw out their respective magic attacks at an Incubus, the result being the wind pushing the fireball even faster. It tried to fly away, but the fireball got to it before it even had the chance to dodge. The two attackers looked at each other with big grins on their faces. With it being Akira's turn to pass, he looked for Ryuji.

Sumire watched as Akira ran towards Ryuji. During the fight, she was helping out whoever was missing hits or needed some help luring an enemy towards them. Seeing Ryuji or Ann grin when she got them to land particularly strong hits thanks to her made her feel good about herself. When both her and Akira found who they were looking for, Ryuji was facing a multitude of angels. While he mostly managed to hold his own, his footing seemed to get a bit shaky after taking some hits, spurring her into action. Even a single hit would take him out at this point, yet no matter how hard she tried, the angels wouldn't take note of her presence.

While Ann was coming to heal him, and Akira, now with Arsene, to boost his power, Sumire took a closer look at the angels. She wondered what was hindering her capabilities, Sumire decided to get a closer look at the angels, flying right in front of them. The angels held their ground, not reacting to her presence as they continued to attack, zooming past her. As the angels flew, Sumire followed, getting another look at their faces, where she saw streaks of black across their eyes. That was when she realized that they were wearing headbands that obscured their vision. Thinking about what this meant, Sumire hesitated a bit, realizing that her abilities had their limits if they were facing an opponent that seemingly didn't need their vision to attack. Wondering what this meant for her, Sumire's mind started to entertain the idea that she might not have as much of a use as she thought she had. But just as quickly as her mood diminished, her determination fired up as hard as Ann's Agi attack. There were still other enemies in the room that she could "fight", and she wasn't about to let her teammates down. Checking her surroundings, she noticed some Incubuses soaring towards Ryuji, taking advantage of his preoccupied state. Taking her chance, she flew into their line of sight, blinding them and making them cry out in surprise, grabbing Ryuji's attention. He swung his pipe behind him, knocking them to the ground. Akira managed to finish off the angels behind them.

"Nice save, Skull!" He said to him before giving him a high five. It wasn't meant for a baton pass, but for a genuine compliment.

Checking if there was anything left, Akira saw a bullet whoosh by him, only catching a glimpse of an Angel before it disintegrated, and heard Morgana cackle behind it's ashes. Seeing him turn around to face an Incubus and a vampire, Akira went to Morgana to assist him.

Side by side, Akira and Morgana were firing attacks left and right, but it felt like the shadows just kept coming.

"Damn, at this rate, we'll be overrun!" Morgana huffed, leaning onto Akira's leg a bit as he checked his surroundings. Looking for something that could pass as the leader, Morgana didn't find anything. "Hold a sec," he said, as green energy surrounded him, making Akira look at him. In a second, Morgana shot up into the air, leaving behind the small tornado that launched him up by Akira's feet. While high up, Morgana spotted three shadows that they hadn't seen before on top of a flight of stairs, silently watching the fight below. When he got down, he asked Akira about their presence.

"Those horse riding guys have been awfully quiet this whole fight. Think one of 'em's got it?" Morgana asked, pointing towards the three mounted shadows.

Akira's vision managed to lock onto the shadows Morgana was talking about. The silhouette of everything in the area was immediately distinguishable, and a particular red aura was piercing through the armor of one of them.

"Yes it is. The one on the left. Spirit, you ready?"

"Oh! Ready as I'll ever be!"

Catching sight of their chase, the two other riders charged at them, swords pointed forward. Akira and Morgana darted to their sides while Sumire stood in front of them. Her brightness caused the knights to fly right past them, and they slammed straight into a wall. Since they were charging at such speeds, bits of wall flew everywhere after they hit it. A piece of debris from their impact hit Akira's shoulder, forcing them to slow down to let Morgana heal it before standing in front of the last rider.

Sumire flew up to the corner of the room that trapped the riders in the wall, catching up with Akira and Morgana. Her sudden appearance startled the rider's horse, causing it to go haywire. The knight swung its spear rapidly at Sumire which, while intimidating at first, only humiliated the attacker as it realized the futility of its attacks.

"Can't kill what's already dead, can ya?"

Coming in to attack, Akira felt the heat radiating from the knight's body. He stood his ground and waited for Morgana to be close enough to make their move.

The horse continued to buck, unable to deal with the sparkling light before it's eyes, eventually causing the horned shadow to fall off. Right as the knight was about to launch his fireball, Akira called out Silky to put it to sleep. Swiftly coming in from a strong gale, Morgana grabbed the remaining eyeball-shaped key, and he and Akira ran back to the center of the room. Morgana called out to everyone, "We got what we came for, let's move!" And with that, the group successfully escaped the room, eager to finally stop the obstacle in their path. It wasn't without its difficulties, and they needed to rest up before continuing their mission.


Now that they entered the safe room, a collective sigh escaped everyone's lips. Walking into the center of the room, Akira brought out the medicine he bought from Takemi, as well as a first aid kit Ryuji bought earlier, and spread them across the table. They were proving their worth in dealing with smaller injuries, patching up aches and bruises to not take away any energy from using their healing skills.

"I'll be honest, we could've done better." Morgana said, pressing a small bandage against his shoulder to cover a small cut.

"Hey, we got the key, right? Isn't that all that matters in the end?" Ryuji huffed, lifting his shirt to get a look at his injuries.

"Do you wanna get to the treasure today or not?"Morgana snapped, feeling his body for more injuries. "We may have gotten through battle relatively well for a bunch of first-timers, but you're in for a rude awakening if you think that was good enough. We gotta think about the bigger picture, for what's waiting at the end."

Letting Morgana's words sink in, Akira took the map out, looking at what was left to explore. The Treasure really was only a few rooms away, and he was starting to realize how close they really were. It would be all over soon. Starting to feel the heat, as well as some excitement, Akira took his coat off to cool down a bit when he noticed that there was a small scar on his shoulder where the debris had hit him. It could have been the adrenaline from the battle, but it was smaller than he seemed to remember, when it mysteriously started to shrink. "Hey Mona," he asked, pulling everyone's attention to him. "Is it me, or is this injury shrinking?" Climbing up to get a better look, Morgana examined the injury, placing his paw on the edge. Everyone held their breath as they waited for a response, before the scar shrank a bit more. "It's fine," he said, jumping off Akira's shoulder and landing on the table. "It's a side effect of healing in the Metaverse. It nullifies some of the pain and repairs some of the damage, but it's not a fix-all. Bigger injuries will take a bit to disappear completely, by next week, it'll be like it was never even there."

"Really?" Ryuji asked, a small amount of hope in his voice and eyes as he looked to Ann, as a look of understanding crossed between them. Rolling his pant leg up, a long, narrow, hard to see line ran along Ryuji's leg, one where Akira squinted a bit to actually see it. With a quick Dia, the two of them, but Ryuji especially, looked at his leg, waiting for the line to shrink.

Remembering why he was here, Morgana's ears drooped as he got off the table, putting a paw on Ryuji's leg."It…doesn't really work on injuries given outside of the Metaverse." He said, unable to look at Ryuji as disappointment ran across his face. "Stuff like that's outside of my area of expertise."

Feeling the atmosphere had suddenly gotten darker, Ann grabbed some ointment from the table and rubbed some on her hands. "At least it can't get worse," she said, placing a hand on Ryuji's leg. Taking small comfort in what she said, Ryuji let her rub his leg. But as nice as the small comfort was, it was short lived. "Ow," he flinched, pulling his leg back. "Bad spot," he hissed.

"Sorry!" Ann said, pulling her hand back. Seeing that it was an accident, Ryuji put his leg back out, letting Ann resume with a gentler touch. Akira was about to ask Ryuji what was wrong before pausing when Ann continued. It was easy to tell that the two had known each other for much longer than he had.

Akira's eyes wandered upward, and he noticed Sumire slowly floating upwards. Her belly up as she simply laid down on the air. She felt at peace with herself, even if it did look a little funny from below. That gave Akira and Morgana a good laugh, and once she was about to hit the ceiling, she turned over and flew down to Akira.

"So, are we ready to get back out there or what?"


The next few rooms involved quite a bit of climbing. Still a little worn out from their fight, there was always a case of someone needing to grab onto another person's hand in order to reach a high cliff.

"Come on, Skull, I swear this is the last one!" Akira called.

"That's what you said about the last three statues! Wait, is this part actual cloth?" Ryuji noticed.

Ann couldn't help but sigh at the boys. "You just noticed that now?"

While walking on the balcony of a bigger room than the rest, there was an annoyed grumbly voice coming from downstairs.

"You runts can't even keep two simple keys from those grubby little hands of theirs. Do you know how long it took me to install those scythes?"

There was no mistaking it. That was the voice of the king himself. Reaching the edge of the balcony, they looked down to see that they were in the throne room of the castle. If they were this high up, the treasure couldn't be far behind.

"I'm sure they did all they could, milord. Their dust proved they fought a valiant battle." A nearby soldier reported.

"Well it clearly wasn't valiant enough! I rule this castle for who knows how long, and suddenly these intruders start messing up the place! I raise security, and yet none of them notice!"

Kamoshida's anger gave some much needed silent laughter to the group before entering the back door. Akira whispered to the group "You guys go on ahead. I got an idea.".

"Don't do anything you'll regret." Morgana warned, slipping into the opening between the door.

Once he was gone. Akira whispered his plan to Sumire, and she began to enact it. She carefully put herself in the middle of the guards in the throne room. Her ability took effect, and soon enough, every helmet was turned towards Sumire.

"Something buggin' ya?" Kamoshida yelled.

"S-sorry boss. I almost lost myself for a moment."

Kamoshida facepalmed, annoyed by the seeming idiocy of his troops. Sumire then made her way towards the door while a single guard was still focused on her. Seeing it take notice of Akira, he waved at the soldier before slipping away.

"B-Boss, I swear! One of the thieves, he was right there!" The guard shouted with a shocked look on his face. Kamoshida turned his head towards the door behind him, with nothing in sight.

"Quit pulling my leg! You two, take him to the treadmill, max speed!"

"Yes, sir!" Two other soldiers said before picking up the 'prankster'.

"But Boss!"

"That's 'your majesty' to you!"


Just one room left according to the map, and opening the large pair of doors in front of them, the team was met with a room filled with coins, and floating above a pot, a weird light not too dissimilar to how Morgana saw Sumire.

"Is this it?" Ann asked about the light.

"Yup! That's what we were looking for! The treasure itself!" Morgana triumphantly answered.

Ryuji flopped onto the pile of coins, arms spread out, it was like he knew true inner peace. "We're finally done!"

Akira attempted to grab the enigmatic object in front of him, only to be met with thin air. "It's not working. Is there something like a password system or something for this?"

"At this rate, probably." Ryuji added, still lying face up on the ground. Sumire tried to grab it herself, but could only feel a slight ribbon-like texture to it. Yet another thing she could just barely touch, but never hold.

"Yeah, I probably should've explained this before we got here. It's just a desire right now, so it's not exactly a physical object just yet." Morgana proceeded to explain how to get ahold of the glimmering spot, requiring some kind of warning to grab the attention of the real version of the ruler.

And that grabbed Ryuji's attention. He sprung up from the ground "Ah, so something like a calling card? I can totally see a Phantom Thief doing that!"

"You've only been one for about a week." Sumire pointed out. A moot point, but still something she needed to say.

"And lucky for us, there's a safe room right next to this place, so that's convenient for us! We can just teleport it here, and carry it out!" Morgana declared. With how much he knew about this place, the teens wondered how long he had been going through these palaces.


The ambience of the rain told them that they were back in the real world. Through the clouds, they could see that the sky was a navy blue color.

Ryuji let out a large yawn. "How long were we there anyway?" Pulling his phone out to check, his eyes nearly popped out when he saw that it was already evening. "Two and a half hours!?"

Morgana shook his head. "These things take a lot of time, you know."

Through all of the buildings looming over her that she would occasionally fly to the top to, Sumire could spot the moon between the clouds in the distance. "We really did a lot today, huh?"

Akira checked his phone to see if that much time had passed. It was getting late, but not too late. There was still time for them to do one more thing before they had to head home for the day, and the sound of Ryuji's stomach told him exactly what they should do.

"Ugh, and I'm starving! If I had known we were gonna be there for that long, I would've brought something like a pack of sliced apples or an energy bar or something like that."

That got him some looks from the others.

"Hey, don't judge me for my taste in snacks."

Sumire remembered that as she made her way down, she noticed the vending machines next to the school. She told Akira that they could get something from there for everyone the next time they go to the palace.

"There's a diner not too far away from here." Morgana thought out loud.

Ann considered the offer. "I guess it would also give us some time to wait out the rain…wait how do you know that?"

"I used to rummage through their dumpster on occasion. Sometimes I thought I found something really shiny in there, but it was always something like a bottle cap or a paper clip or something like that."

The mention of him rummaging through dumpsters gave Sumire a pause, pulling on some memories from when she was alone, taking a closer look at Morgana's 'real world' form. As it dawned on her, she locked with him, shouting "It was you!"

"What? Akira asked, looking at the two of them as he thought about their statements.

"I'll tell you once we eat." Morgana and Sumire said in unison.

Hesitating to respond, Akira changed the subject, going through his phone. "A-anyway, I'll tell Sojiro I'm having dinner with friends."

After they had finished ordering, Ryuji let out a big yawn.

"Man, why do I always feel so worn out whenever I come back from there?

"Your body just isn't adjusted to the whiplash of hopping between dimensions. You'll get used to it with time. It should wear off after a good night's sleep." Morgana murmured from inside of Akira's bag. The zipper was barely open to allow for some breathing room, as well as an entrance to put food in.

Akira's head was resting on the table, looking at Sumire, who was mimicking his movement on an invisible chair at the end of the table. It worked as an effective way of sitting when there wasn't room for her, especially with four people taking up all the seats in the booth, though there were times where she did long for something cushiony to sit on.

"Akira?" Ann asked, making him perk his head up. "So you're the new guy here, right? Have you ever been to Tokyo before you transferred?"

Eager to answer, Akira remembered some foggy memories of his own. "I know I came here once or twice as a kid. I remember getting some kind of toy there that I'm sure I still have in my room somewhere, but I don't really remember much from it."

"Damn, so you've just been walkin' around the whole city aimlessly?" Ryuji reacted.

"Well I have a map of course, but it was pretty hard to navigate. But I had some help from someone who knew her way around the place," he answered, winking at Sumire. Her eyes lit up, the euphoria she had at the tiniest nod to her was indescribable. "Anyway, Ann. You told me you moved here when you were a kid, right?"

"Yeah?"

"What was your first time here like?"

Ann's face drooped when she thought about that. "Oh god, that brings up a lot of weird memories. I didn't really like the move at first, so I just kinda dragged my feet on the ground to go as slow as possible to delay ourselves." Her somber face slowly shifted as a small smile formed, trying to hold back a laugh. "But it made this annoying sound on the sidewalk, and I almost didn't cross the street in time because I was so slow! My parents have never let me forget that ever since!"

Ryuji tried to cut in, "Hey, I was young when I moved here too, you know." He said, a cheeky tone in his voice.

"La-dy-Ann! Ow." Trying to enter the conversation, Akira's bag fell on the floor as Morgana jolted forward, attempting to stick his head out. Before Akira picked the bag back up. Sumire got out of her "chair" to check if he was ok. Morgana, though blinded a little by her appearance lighting up the space around him, gave her a gentle smile, thankful for the concern. Him falling thankfully wasn't enough to cause any stir, but that window of time when it happened was stressful.

"That's not something I could believe in a million years." Morgana complimented once the bag was back on the bench. "Your movement during battle today had this elegance and grace while still moving at an amazing pace and-" Sumire went in front of his face and stared directly into his face to interrupt him. Just giving a straight 'No,' as a response.

"Ah," he blinked, the light from Sumire making him stop."Please don't make this a regular thing." Morgana whispered.

The memory of that battle got Akira yapping. "Oh man, the way you threw those fireballs, you looked like you had a second gun on your arm like a robot or something like that."

"Yeah, I think pyrokinesis really suits me, you know?"

"Pyrokiwhat now?" Ryuji asked, cutting into the conversation.

"Fire powers." Ann answered, already looking at Ryuji as if she knew he was going to ask.

"Well, aside from that, Akira, I don't wanna be rude or anything, but I think you're giving a little too much-" Before he could get his point across, the food arrived, and everyone moved on before they could hear him out. As they ate, Sumire could only float next to Akira as she watched him eat. She saw a bit of concern in his eyes that told her that something was bothering him.

"Too much what?" she thought to herself, taking a glance at Ryuji before focusing back to Akira.

As they ate, everyone thought that they were rather hungry with how quickly they ate.

"Geez! Do these two always eat this fast?!" Sumire reacted.

As if he was listening, Morgana said right back, "Sumire, I don't know if you're watching this, but if we ever go out to eat with the rest of the team, we're going to need a bigger menu."

"Well that was quick." Akira pointed out while looking at everyone's plates. "I was hoping we'd be able to at least talk for a little bit while waiting for someone to finish."

"Dude, come on. It'd be awkward if we just dined and dashed now. We have more than enough time to chat before we call it a night."

Akira tried to think of a conversation topic, he was about to say something to Ann before Sumire called out to him. "Wanna know how I might have met Morgana?"

Akira looked at Ryuji and Ann, already distracted by each other's voices. He figured he might as well listen in.

"So you did more with those cats besides sleeping with them?" Akira asked.

Sumire pressed her hand against her forehead as she recalled the experience. "You don't know how many there are in this city. I saw and followed so many I'm starting to think it's becoming a problem. One of them looked just like Morgana, and looking back, that one did always seem craftier than the others…"

They couldn't see it, but Morgana was doing the same thing Sumire did from inside the bag with his paw. "That would explain so much."

Just like before, Sumire had some conversation topics for Akira to translate for. With Ann here though, she found herself having a lot more to say. Sometimes Akira would disguise her questions as things that a "Friend of his at his old school wanted to know.", other times, Sumire would ask things like "Hold on, are you taller than both of them?"

"No way, I'm not buyin' it." Ryuji denied, though the question interested Ann, and soon enough, the two were out of their seats, backs pressed against each other. It was a tiny difference, but much to Ryuji's dismay, and Sumire's amusement, Akira was in fact taller.

"Oh come on!"

"Ryuji, even after I go home, you will never hear the end of this."

"I'm at least taller than Ann, right?" He looked at her and goaded her. Ann hesitated before getting up. Once they were back to back, Ann took a quick step forward before the conclusion was drawn. Sumire even checked to see how she compared. She was the shortest out of all of them, but she tried to float to make herself look taller in front of them. Looking behind her, Akira seemed to smirk at her, knowing what she was trying to do. The blondes sat back in their booth, and Ryuji wiped his brow.

"Thank god I'm the shortest one here."

"But you're still the shortest male here." Morgana teased, somehow forgetting himself, or so it seemed.

"Hey, it's not my fault! Akira's just tall for his age!"

"Hey, 175 is nothing to scoff at." Akira proclaimed, putting his hand on his chest. "My growth spurt was something people were always talking to me about. Even if my eye level changing took a bit to get used to."

It wasn't enough to trigger a full on memory phase or whatever Morgana called it, but Sumire did feel some form of irritation in her head when that line about growth spurts was mentioned. When she snapped out of it, Sumire noticed that Akira was talking to Ann again, so she listened in.

Akira had been focusing on her for most of the time they were there. He'd occasionally make quick comments toward something Morgana, Ryuji, or even herself would say, but Ann seemed to be his go to person for interaction. She had a lot to say, and Sumire could see the appeal in her. They were so invested in talking to each other, that Ryuji had to step in and show Ann the time on his phone.

"Oh my gosh, really? Oh man, I'm sorry to cut it short, but it's getting really late." It looked like they talked longer than they ate.

"Sir? Sir? Are you three ordering again?" Their waiter called to Akira, snapping him out of his invested mood.

"N-no. I'm not."

As they got up to go, Akira was bummed that they had to go. As they walked out of the restaurant, Ryuji recapped what they needed to do.

"So, we doing the grand finale of this whole 'saving the school' thing soon?" Ryuji asked, looking at Akira for confirmation.

"I'll text the group chat when I'm ready." Akira nodded.

"Sweet. Just say the word, and I'll make my plans. Catch ya on the flipside, guys." And with that, Ryuji was quickly out of sight. Taking Ryuji's lead, Ann started to leave as well. Turning around to go, Akira ran up from behind and gave her a hug. He gave her a quick smile, the face looking back at him didn't. Ann made a light yelp, as she squirmed to get out of his embrace. She glared at him once she got out, intimidating Akira and making him pause before he could press on any further. She grunted and stormed off with her hands as fists, stomping as she walked.

"Akira?" Sumire said calmly, placing her fingers on Akira's shoulder.

Akira was frozen in place. He had never been more confused at something a friend of his did.

"Sorry…?"