Haru had never seen Joker so frustrated before.

She'd only known him - and the rest of the Phantom Thieves - for a little while, but Joker was always the epitome of 'cool' in Haru's eyes. He was confident, organized, suave, stylish, and decisive - as quiet as he was, he was a man that knew exactly who he was and what he wanted. That's what she liked about him, and the rest of the Phantom Thieves, for that matter - they all had their own little quirks, but they were clearly cut from the same cloth as their gentleman conductor, and they did everything in their power to not only make Haru feel welcome, but to set things right. It was easy to like them because of that.

(Well - Haru didn't like Futaba much. But maybe it was just an odd first impression.)

But this was different. The normally confident and collected Phantom Thieves were a nervous wreck. They were in the middle of finally facing off against her father. They were anxious, annoyed, in agony... and *angry*. Even with their plethora of masquerade masks neatly covering anywhere from half to almost the entirety of their faces, their narrowed eyes, clenched teeth, and hunched body language painted a startling picture of raw, unadulterated *frustration*.

And honestly, Haru was starting to feel it, too.

Haru was new to the team - her first-time jog through a Palace was bound to be exhausting. And exhausted she certainly was by the end of it all, but what took her by surprise was how even her teammates - the ones with experience under their belts - were starting to lag behind as well. Her father's Palace was a long, depressing slog through the mire of his sins, a chillingly sterile and futuristic yet bland and hollow cosmodrome where the faceless cognitions of his workers were treated like little more than cogs in a machine.

Haru liked to think that she was pretty perceptive in spite of her sheltered upbringing. Her father's Palace had been wearing down even the tried-and-true Phantom Thieves. Everything just seemed to annoy and drain them the further and further they delved into the Palace. The aggravating goose hunt for the ID cards, the arduous run through both the export and production lines, the constant run-ins with weak yet tediously durable robots, and the god-*awful* airlock switches, the frequent running back-and-forth to try and hit the right switches to get them on the right path... by the end of it all, the Calling Card was sent not with a feeling of resolution and determination, but with a dead-eyed groan of 'let's just get this shit over with.'

But this battle with her father was proving to be the nail in the coffin. And given the constant, droning tick of that bomb timer up above... Haru was starting to wonder how literal that coffin might be.

Kunikazu Okumura just sat there in his atrocious, gaudy outfit, reclining against his chromium pod-throne and snapping his fingers, summoning drones to do the dirty work for him. Waves upon waves upon waves of drones, of "CorpoRobos" they'd all seen before and yet were proving to be even more troublesome than before. No matter how hard Ryuji or Yusuke hit them, no matter how often Ann weakened their attacks or how often Makoto buffed the team's shields... nothing was working.

Nothing was working, and the clock was ticking. Tensions were running high.

And by the time the timer crossed into the fifteen-minute mark, she could tell that everyone was on the bitter edge.

"Fifteen minutes!" Futaba cried out, nervously adjusting her goggles and tapping away at her holograph displays. "We've only got fifteen minutes, everyone!"

"God damn it!" Ryuji shouted with an aggravated stomp of his foot. Okumura laughed behind a wall of those damned green robots that kept exploding or running away before they could finish them off, a laugh that made Haru wince.

"Oracle - any chance of hacking into the system? Shutting the timer down?" Makoto asked quickly, revving up her ethereal motorcycle and hitting the bots with a row of Nuclear attacks they shrugged off with ease.

"I've been trying, but it keeps kicking me out!" Futaba responded, with some indignity. "I'll keep cracking at it - you guys focus on cracking some skulls!"

"Don't take that too literal, though-" Ryuji tried to joke, before:

"GET BACK!" Joker shouted, his voice unexpectedly cracking at the end of it before Haru saw the all-too-familiar flash of the robots about to self-destruct.

Everyone shouted and threw up their arms to try and block the hit, but nothing could have stopped the heavy, burning sensation or the ear-splitting explosion that shook each and every one of them to their core. The Phantom Thieves were knocked back, hard - Haru fell onto her back with a sharp cry, wincing as she saw Morgana hit the floor with a headache-inducing clang.

"Mona-chan-!" Haru started, before two of the green CorpoRobos pinned her and Morgana down beneath their metallic arms, generating a sharp hiss of pain and a strangled meow from Haru and Morgana respectively.

"There's not much time left, you know," Okumura drawled, leaning against his throne and giving both Morgana and his own daughter a sneering look that hurt Haru more than she cared to admit. "If you'd like to join me after all, Haru, my offer still stands."

"C-can it, you gaudy bastard!" Morgana yelped, struggling beneath the green robot's metallic grip. "She already said no!"

"Oh? And does this freak of nature really speak for you?"

Don't you dare call him that! Haru wanted to say, were she not pinned beneath the crushing weight of her father's workforce. She grit her teeth and struggled, trying to free herself from the grip of a robot that was already readying a follow-up attack. But before it could strike her, Joker's voice rang out and blue fire emerged out of his mask.

"Parvati!"

The elegant, Hindu princess gracefully manifested in front of Joker and clasped her hands together, a strong, focused Psio attack honing in on the robot on top of Morgana and knocking it back, a gesture that gave Morgana time to suck in a breath and scurry away from the CorpoRobo. Joker then proceeded to hit the bot on top of Haru with the same exact medicine, a literal weight lifting off of her chest in the process.

"thankyou—" Haru managed, a weak whimper of gratitude as Joker rushed over to help her to her feet and spirit her away from the robots and back to the Phantom Thieves battle line.

"Alright, Mr. Big-Shot CEO!" Futaba's voice rang out from the speakers of her UFO Persona. "I think it's time you take a good, long break!"

Haru heard the telltale sounds of Futaba tapping and clacking away at her Persona's holographic console. One resounding, synthesized beep later, and a huge green dome spread over the Phantom Thieves, one that Haru had never seen before but seemed to strike a chord of familiarity with the rest of the team.

"Oh! Just like back at the pyramid!" Ann chirped, raking a hand through her sweat-doused hair and giving Futaba a thumbs-up. "Thanks, Oracle!"

Okumura gave the dome and the Phantom Thieves inside it a bitter scowl, and he ordered his peons to strike and shoot at the dome. In spite of their resulting efforts, it didn't seem like the digital sphere was cracking any time soon. Haru couldn't help but stare at the muffled flashes of gunfire with a deep, deep frown.

I'm just another cog in the machine to you… aren't I, Father?

The Phantom Thieves used that crucial time to catch their breath, Ryuji gripping his knees and taking a deep, gasping breath while Makoto weakly used a Mediarama to get everyone back on their feet for the time being. Joker was quiet, narrowing his eyes at the synthetic enemies outside of the dome's radius as he began to brainstorm.

"Oracle – how long do we have until this dome goes down?" Yusuke inquired.

"You've got about a minute," Futaba muttered, her fingers flying over a number of digital readings in front of her. "Maybe less. Can't guarantee it'll survive one of those explosions."

"Getting real fucking sick of those," Ann snapped, tightening the coil of her whip in her hand.

"Noir – how's your stamina?" asked Makoto. "Those green models seem like they're weak to Psy attacks."

"not… I-I'm running low," Haru confessed, gripping her shoulder as she tried rolling it. Her axe felt heavier than usual. "I don't know how much more I can do."

"Here." Yusuke tossed her an SP restorative of some kind. Haru gratefully took the strange-looking pink drink and sucked it dry like a juice carton. With a deep sigh, Haru felt a little stamina flow back through her veins.

"Joker?" Ann offered their leader a restorative of the same kind, but paused, noticing him lost in thought. "…Ahh. You've got your 'thinking face' on."

"What's on your mind, Joker?" Haru piped up.

"Whatever it is, make it snappy," Futaba advised, her lips curling into a nervous frown. "The barrier's going down soon."

For a beat or two, there was silence on Joker's part… and then he opened his eyes. Haru knew, right then and there, that Joker had a plan.

"I've got it," said Joker, and that was all the assurance the team needed. He reached into the inner pockets of his longcoat…

And, much to their initial surprise, tossed a number of 'Psycho Bombs' down onto the floor. Haru had seen these before – they were item boxes charged and pre-set with Psy magic. You could use them even if you weren't able to use Psy spells at all.

Ryuji picked up one of the boxes, giving it a suspicious look. "This? Dude, this won't even make a dent in their armor! Besides, even if we knock 'em all down, we can't exactly swarm 'em and—"

"No," Makoto spoke up, her eyes lighting up as she began to follow Joker's train of thought. "…This… this is exactly what we need."

It took Haru another beat, but soon, she understood. And Morgana, the infiltration tool aficionado, was right behind her.

Right! Baton Pass!

Joker nodded to Makoto. "Atta girl, Queen." He glanced at the rest of the party. "Throw these at the bots and knock 'em down, one at a time. And when they're all on the ground – pass the torch to either me, or Haru. Got it?"

A renewed energy began to fill the room. Haru beamed at Joker and nodded. "That's brilliant! You got it, Joker!"

"That's our Joker!" Morgana chimed in, grabbing one of the Psycho Bombs with one hand and his discarded Slingshot with the other. "C'mon! It's payback time!"

"Give 'em hell!" Ann proclaimed like the cheerleader she was.

"Yeah, go team go, yadda yadda yadda—get ready!" Futaba belted out, with perfect timing. The second after she spoke, the dome began to dissipate around the Phantom Thieves, their surroundings changing from a green tint back to the cold, unfeeling grays and blues of the spaceport. Okumura sat there, giving the Phantom Thieves a look of unconcealed impatience. Strangely enough, there weren't any CorpoRobos in front of him at all. The ones that had been shooting at the dome must have disappeared.

"…huh!" Ryuji hummed, smirking as he stamped his fists together. "You ready to fight us like a man-?"

And right on cue, Okumura snapped his fingers and summoned a fresh quarter of green CorpoRobos, ready for duty.

"Oh, come on, man!" came Ryuji's prickly response.

"Let me guess," Makoto proclaimed, glaring at Okumura. "You got rid of the last ones because they weren't producing any results."

"Hmph. You think you're clever, don't you?" Okumura drawled in response.

Haru frowned. "…She's right, isn't she, Father? That's what you do to people that aren't… useful to you anymore. Isn't it?"

A haughty scoff emerged out of Okumura's throat. "That's how you get ahead in this business, Haru. You get rid of the trash that's weighing you down and holding you back."

"They aren't trash!" Haru insisted, gripping her axe even harder. "They're people! They're living, breathing people!"

"A well-oiled machine cannot run without-!"

"They're more than just parts in a machine-!"

"Guys, we don't have time for this!" Futaba interjected, panicking as she popped out of Necronomicon. "We've got less than ten minutes to go!"

"For once, we are agreed," snarked Okumura, followed by a high-and-mighty finger snap. "Minions – to me! Dispose of them!"

The leftmost CorpoRobo came charging in, prepared to strike!

"Panther! Now!" shouted Joker.

Ann, slamming her foot down and getting into a pitching stance, drew her hand back. "Get a load of THIS!"

She swung her arm forward and pitched the pink-trailing Psycho Bomb right into the visor of the robot in front of her. The item box exploded upon impact, causing the bot to stammer and falter – while it did a tiny amount of damage at best, it was enough to throw both it and Okumura off their game, a gesture that bought Ann enough time to pivot on her heel and then high-five Yusuke.

"All yours, Fox!"

The moment Yusuke's hand clapped against Ann's palm, Haru saw the energy of the Baton Pass swirl around Yusuke.

"And now… the reprise!" Yusuke struck a flamboyant pose and tossed a Psycho Bomb right into the center of the nearest bot. That was two down and two to go, and Okumura was looking visibly confused by this change of tactics. "Haru – the flame is yours!"

Needing no further prompting, Haru bolted over to Yusuke and gave him a resonant high-five. The moment she did, she felt the energy of the Baton Pass well up inside of her, a tingly feeling that gave her goosebumps in the best way possible. Haru's hand flew over her mask.

"Milady – manifest!"

Milady, the makeup of Haru's soul, rose out of the cyan flames of Haru's mask, her opera-gloved hands thrusting forward and hitting the third CorpoRobo with a particularly powerful Psychic blast, one that completely floored the massive robot and made it fall to the floor with a metallic clang. And right before Haru could knock the last one down with a similar blow, Joker thrust his hand out to Haru. "Pass it to me!"

"O-okay!" Haru eagerly passed the torch over to Joker, and Joker began visibly brimming with power. And right when she thought he was going to finish the job and hit everyone with a wide-range Psy attack…

Joker manifested his Ol' Reliable, Arsene, and began to charge up a massive attack, bending his knees and gripping his mask tight as Arsene's long-clawed fingers coiled and curled around his wielder.

The weary Phantom Thieves began to grin deliriously, eager to finish the fight… and Okumura notably began to panic.

"W-what are you doing, you incompetent fool?!" he anxiously barked at the last CorpoRobo left standing. "Don't just stand there, do something-!"

"Don't even think about it!" Makoto yelled, revving up Johanna and coming in swinging towards the CorpoRobo, throwing a Psycho Bomb towards its visor and drifting away from it shortly thereafter, the robot weakly falling to its knees behind her.

She honed in on Joker and lifted a hand. "Joker – hit it with everything you've got!"

Joker and Makoto's hands smacked together in one of the most satisfying high-fives Haru had ever heard. And right when Haru thought Parvati was about to rise out of the hearth of Joker's mask…

Joker summoned a mighty Persona that Haru had never seen before.

"Messiah!"

Joker spun on his heel and smacked his hand against his mask… and from the fire emerged this spindly, angelic being with pale-white skin, piercing red eyes, and a length of chain coiled around its arm that fanned out into a whip-sword comprised of what appeared to be coffins.

What—what in the world?

Haru had a basic understanding of the ins and outs of Joker's unique power – the power of the 'Wild Card', as Makoto had called it – but she knew for a fact she'd never seen a Persona like this before. And judging from the stunned reactions from the rest of the Phantom Thieves, she wasn't alone in her surprise.

"Whoa-!" managed Ann, her wide eyes staring at the sword-backed silhouette of this otherworldly being. "Joker, where did you-? When did…?"

Shadow Okumura's face began to pale as well, his taut fingers gripping the armrests of his chromium throne. "W-what—what is that thing?! These—these power readings, they're nothing like I've ever seen before!"

Joker merely glared at Okumura, imperious and ready to strike. "I didn't want to resort to this… but you leave me no choice."

He stamped his foot down and thrust his hand forward. "MEGIDOLAON!"

Haru barely had time to process what Joker had even said before a concussive blast manifested in the middle of the downed CorpoRobos, a massive, teal-tinted radius of raw, destructive energy that darkened the room around it and grew larger and larger with each passing second until it finally reached criticality…

…And then burst into a fantastic display of atomic fireworks that utterly decimated each and every one of the downed robots in one fell swoop. It was a big, flashy move that clearly took a lot of stamina out of Joker… but with something that powerful, it hardly even mattered.

"Ohhhhhhh SHIT," Ryuji exclaimed, laughing and clapping his hands together before gripping his crowbar rod with renewed vigor, pointing the weapon at the stunned and terrified Shadow Okumura. "How d'you like THAT, big man?!"

"H-ha! Yeah! You having second thoughts?!" Ann chimed in, likewise feeling the effects of a sudden endorphin rush to the brain.

Morgana and Makoto gave Joker a mutual side-grin, feeling the tides of battle shifting over to their side in an instant. Both Yusuke and Futaba seemed shocked by this turn of events, but relieved all the same.

Haru wished she could say the same. But in all honesty…

There was something off about Joker's smile in that moment in time. And perhaps if she had the power of hindsight… she would have understood why.

"…g-guys! Seven minutes!" Futaba shouted, a yelp that knocked Okumura back to his senses.

"M-minions! To me! Die for the company!" he snapped his fingers, summoning yet another four-man band of CorpoRobos to the frontlines, but Joker was quick to swap to Arsene and charge up yet another attack.

"Alright! Same thing as before!" shouted Joker. "Knock 'em down and pass the baton to me!"

Everything after that moment was a blur of action for Haru, like a well-choreographed dance that felt equally mesmerizing and almost horrifying to watch. The Phantom Thieves' frustration, anger, and anxiety was giving way to a quasi-bloodthirsty enthusiasm, eager to take out their mounting anger upon these cognitive beings that had been giving them so much trouble for the last several days.

Cognitions. Cognitive beings. That's all they were, Haru rationalized. So it was fine when the Phantom Thieves knocked the robots down and taunted them afterwards. It was fine when Haru finally passed the baton to a fully powered-up Joker, who used both Arsene's Charge and the full effects of the Baton Pass to atomize and annihilate the robots like they were nothing.

Okumura was losing this battle. He was losing fast. He began to sweat, panic, fidget in his seat, almost shrinking away from the scene of the fight as if realizing he bit off more than he could chew.

But that wasn't her real father, Haru rationalized. And besides… it was obvious that he viewed her as nothing more than a tool. A pawn for his ambitions.

A cog in the machine.

They were running out of time, and she knew her father would keep doing terrible things if left to his own devices. So it was fine. They had to do whatever they had to do to win, right?

Okumura summoned one last robot in a last-ditch effort to kill the Phantom Thieves, a giant, hulking, black-armored 'executive' robot that doubtlessly would have been intimidating ten minutes ago…

…But was quickly reduced to rubble and detritus after both Joker and Ryuji charged up a devastator of an attack that tore at the executive's armor like it was made of cookie dough and hot butter.

"Hell YEAH!" shouted Ryuji, pumping his fist in delirious victory.

Victory. Victory. Victory was in sight. They could do this. They could win this. They'd change her Father's heart, and he'd be a changed man, and everything would be okay.

This was all for the sake of a better world.

"I—I've had enough!" Okumura said, with rising terror. "Someone! Get in here!"

Silence.

"…Get in here, NOW!" he shouted, into an empty void. The only things that responded were the distant klaxon sirens and the synthesized ticking of the spaceport bomb.

Haru felt a twinge of discomfort. That undertone of genuine fear and dread in his voice… it felt… awfully real.

Don't be naïve, Haru. It's… it's just his Shadow. This is what you have to do. If you don't do this… then everyone else is going to die.

Futaba grinned, wide. "What's the matter? All out of slaves, big guy? Well, too bad for you! You've got no one to hide behind… and nowhere to run."

Futaba gestured broadly to the rest of the Phantom Thieves. "We've found our chance! This is the only shot we've got!"

"Right!" Joker snapped his finger with a crisp, resounding smack. "Surround him! Let's finish this!"

The Phantom Thieves fell in line to Joker's step, and they surrounded him in the now hyper-familiar arc of the All-Out Attack formation.

If Haru had the power of foresight… she wouldn't have gotten into formation with the rest of them. She would've tried to stop them, or convince them to try something else.

But desperate times always call for desperate measures.

They were running out of time.

He was going to sell her off.

She was just a cog. A cog in a well-oiled machine.

It was just his Shadow.

This was the right thing to do.

And so when everyone jumped into the air and zeroed in on Okumura for one last knockout blow… for a moment, Haru felt victorious. Like this was a long time coming.

The Phantom Thieves struck Okumura with a blinding, rapid-fire flurry of slashes, strikes, and blows that completely destroyed the man. Just one hit after the other, a nonstop barrage of practiced motion and violence, one that the Phantom Thieves had done hundreds of times before and would no doubt do hundreds of times more.

It wasn't even a contest. Okumura had far less health than they expected him to have. They easily did four, maybe five times the amount of damage that he could sustain before falling over.

And fall, he did. Okumura's pod-throne was decimated, burning into black ash at the end of the All-Out Attack and sending Okumura flying across the deck, his back smacking against the floor with a series of grunts and pained shouts sailing out of his throat. Once more, Haru felt that instinctive gut-reaction of parental sympathy and regret. It was impossible not to, after all. But… at the end of the day, even she had to admit to herself:

This… was a long time coming.

Of course, if she had known what would happen next…

In the aftermath of Okumura's defeat, the Phantom Thieves were wiped out. Tight, drawn breaths all around, beads of hot sweat all over their skin, sunken body language across the board – even Joker, with the sudden appearance of his all-powerful new Persona that he'd obtained… somehow, looked utterly drained by the almighty skills he'd been using for the last several minutes. All of the downright bloodthirsty vigor, bravado, and excitement they'd felt when the tides of battle finally turned in their favor had mellowed out into an exhaustive afterglow.

Okumura, with shattered armor and a broken helmet, laid there before them, defeated and prone on the floor, weakly trying to crawl… somewhere, to no effect. Haru was no expert on the subject of Shadows – she was the rookie, after all – but something felt wrong even so, a sinking feeling in the pit of her gut that she couldn't quite shake. Maybe she was too nice by nature, maybe it was bias towards her father, or maybe it was her just overthinking things, but Okumura looked… too defeated, too weak, too broken-down for it to be normal. The other Phantom Thieves seemed a little concerned as well, now that they were properly looking at him. Their eagerness to strike him down had given way to a strange feeling of regret and dread, like a big brother that played a little too rough with a younger sibling.

But they had no time at all to speak up about it. The timer was still ticking down. The entire spaceport was going to go up in flames in a matter of minutes. They had to get going, and they had to get going now. Morgana transformed into a car. Futaba began mapping out the quickest route out of there. Ann and Joker rushed to grab his Treasure, dragging that faint, shimmering object towards the trunk of the Morgana Van.

Haru couldn't stop staring at her father. Even as the rest of the Phantom Thieves murmured behind her, she couldn't stop staring. They must have felt it, too.

"…h-hey, isn't… hey. This is the part where, like… they start spilling their heart, right?" Ryuji asked Makoto, hesitantly. "…start confessing to their crimes?"

"I-it… should be, given the track record. But… he's awfully quiet."

"…We can't ask him about the mental shutdowns like this," Yusuke muttered. "And we don't have the time to do so, anyway."

"Right…" sighed Makoto. "We can't afford to throw our lives away like this." She turned on her heel. "Come on. We're running out of time!"

Even as everyone else loaded into the van, Haru couldn't stop staring.

"Noir! It's time to go!" Ann said.

Would he die if he left her behind like this?

"Noir! C'mon, move it!" Ryuji.

She had a couple potions on her, a few meds from that clinic in Yongen-Jaya. Maybe… maybe if she healed him, then—

Joker's hand was on her shoulder. A reassuring touch, like always. She looked back at the taller boy, and he nodded down at her.

"…We've done this before," Joker assured her. "He'll be fine. But if we don't get going, then we're all gonna die. …Alright?"

Joker was a confident guy. Joker was confident, organized, suave, stylish, and decisive - as quiet as he was, he was a man that knew exactly who he was and what he wanted.

But in that moment… even he didn't sound too sure of himself.

But this was all they could do.

Haru took one last, uncertain look back at her father's Shadow. As outlandish and ridiculous as that Space Emperor getup was… that was still her father's face beneath the mask.

Why wasn't he looking at her? Why wasn't he showing his face?

Why did he seem so… still?

"NOIR! IT'S TIME TO GO!" yelled Makoto.

Haru finally snapped out of it, and fled with Joker into the back of the van. Morgana soon took off as fast as he could, him and Joker putting the pedal to the metal even as the ship began to rumble, crash, and collapse around them.

And little did Haru know… her entire world would follow suit shortly thereafter.

[***]

Shadow Okumura was bleeding out on the floor. A thick, murky pool of black blood began to form beneath his prone body, staining the otherwise spotless titanium plating, the man's twitching body subtly stilling into a calm, unnatural nothingness. It was a striking image, his lone, solitary body dying alone in the middle of a gigantic deck.

All of this was of great interest to the Black Mask… who finally emerged from the shadows, slowly strutting over from his hiding place towards Okumura's unmoving form.

His task was a simple one. Kill Kunikazu Okumura. Not only was Shido getting wary of Okumura's political ambitions, but Okumura was the most requested hit on the so-called 'Phan-Site'. If Okumura were to suffer an accident… it would have been easy to pin the blame on the Phantom Thieves. A classic case of two birds struck down with a singular stone. Make Okumura the martyr, and the Phantom Thieves the convenient fall guy. It was a plan with a ruthless, brilliant elegance.

And he didn't even have to bother with the keywords this time, an often-tedious process that hindered the Black Mask's work more than he cared to admit. The Phantom Thieves had taken the bait, after all, so using them to get inside Okumura's Palace was child's play – all he had to do was stay out of sight and let them carve a path to Okumura, leaving him to swoop in and take care of the stragglers after they killed each-other off. A ruthless, brilliant plan of inaction. He almost felt like patting himself on the back for that one…

…Except that it seemed like the Phantom Thieves had done all of the legwork for him already.

He knew what it looked like when a Shadow was on death's door. And with the injuries that Okumura's Shadow had sustained… there was no way that he wasn't going to have a mental shutdown as a result of his wounds. The Palace wasn't crumbling because of the treasure or the launch sequence, after all.

The Black Mask contemplated putting a final bullet in the man's head. Either as insurance, or to put him out of his misery once and for all. Maybe both.

…But after a moment of thought, he realized it would have been meaningless. Like shooting a dead horse. After all, the Phantom Thieves had done all the hard work for him already.

Why rob them of their final moment in the limelight?

Seeing them be the progenitors of their own destruction was satisfying enough… for now.

A stern, feminine voice over the PA announced that the self-destruct sequence had three minutes left before activation. The Black Mask glanced over at one of the many cyan-ringed transporters and teleporters scattered throughout the room.

And with one final glance at Okumura's Shadow, Goro Akechi left the scene of the Phantom Thieves' final crime with a smirk on his face.

[***]

Two days later, Kunikazu Okumura was found dead in his study. The cause of death was confirmed to be the result of a mental shutdown.