Chapter Eighteen: Out of the Blue
Lavenza had her reservations about venturing out into the world of human kind. This was nothing unheard of in the history of the Velvet Room. One of the older siblings, Elizabeth, was infamous for whimsically doing so; Lavenza herself had to do it during the final gamble for the autonomy of mankind. But that was then: the menace was known and the world was suitably doused in its influence. Now, over a year later, she had not the slightest suspicion of what terrible wrong loomed over them, and the world she stepped out into was a troubling incognita.
For it was the world of humans, free from all outer influence. It mattered not that she was born and raised somewhere inextricably bonded with the human soul; all she knew about them she read in the heart of one boy dear to her, and his friends. And she was aware - to her detriment - that those seven were unique in a world that would shun them. How much could have truly changed due to their deeds? No matter how she looked at it, today she was about to set foot into a completely different and foreign world.
And all she had to arm herself with was the knowledge that the Phantom Thieves were her only hope.
Her first timid step from the azure threshold was met with the sensory flood of a day like any other in the Shibuya Crossing. The people came and went, from all directions, in such thick droves and with no immediate destination for her to see. All her studied notions of North and South out in this bustling city were robbed of meaning. Lavenza tried to follow one current, only to doubt herself and change to another, loosely guided by the monotonous tune coming from the traffic lights, also entirely oblivious to the looks she was getting from the few people who noticed her.
She was soon to decide on one current to follow, only to make a critical mistake: looking up.
It was not the first time her eyes caught sight of the famous big screens. She started to rummage through her memories to recall whether they shone as bright and colourful as they did now, boasting of appliances, electronics, and edible items of all sizes, shapes, and types of superfluous. There was little appeal for her in that kind of variety; she found it all quite chaotic, as a matter of fact. It was as if each programme was tailored to fetch the human eye in a competition with no apparent winner. And with a little more observation, she found that few people actually bothered to look at the images flashing on the screens, with the exception of a news broadcast taking over a second later. No matter how she looked at it, Lavenza found a small margin of purpose to these screens; hardly even a distraction at all.
But, she mused, could that not be the purpose of it all? To compound multiple kinds of chaos in order to create a different harmony? Lavenza quickly remembered an image from a book Igor procured for her long ago; a tome written in a forgotten language, rich with detail on nearly every aspect of human life across the ages. This image was a reproduction of a wooden carving, a scene from the Great Bazaar at one extreme of the Silk Road during the zenith of ancient trade. It was only an imperfect reproduction, but one thing was very clear about it: its chaos. The humans in this carving shared little to group them under one single collective. Different folk, different tongues, and no doubt, different purposes to mingle amidst the human colony.
The more she walked by herself in this new face of civilisation, the more she could guess to find similarities with the Great Bazaar. In just a matter of seconds, she would plunge deeper into the streets to this peculiar city and find familiar scents stirring in her memory as a two-fold entity of food joints and alley murk. Truly and well, a new Great Bazaar for human kind to boast of.
Beautiful, in its own way, every bit of it – except for the sudden cacophony of car horns and annoyed protests headed her way that pulled her stark out of her thoughts. Somewhere along the ride, Lavenza forgot to keep walking, and found herself stranded in the very middle of the crossing, just as the motored vehicles were meant to travel in their share of the chaos.
"Moron." She heard the word fading as she ran towards a safe end to continue her quest. The sudden change in the flux her pulse spike for a moment. She guessed it would not be the last time this happened on this day. For the sake of the Velvet Room, and possibly even this strange human world, she had to keep her composure.
Lavenza took a deep breath and concentrated. If somewhat scatterbrained big sis Elizabeth was able to locate a guest with hardly a thought, she could too if she really put her mind to it. Lavenza stood in the middle of the street, oblivious to the bothered, hindered pedestrians, and instantly reckoned how much more difficult it was when the guest had not been received in the Velvet Room for a long time. All she could sense was a faint trace of his footsteps, roads walked time after time, day after day. The ghost of his presence was all she had to go by, but it would have to do.
The girl in blue followed the trace into dodgy alleyways without a care for anything but her mission. But that was not the whole truth, a voice in her head suggested a bit more knowingly than it seemed. Even now, she still was a little infatuated with this guest. A more cynical pitch to that voice remarked how ridiculous it was that she sought him out to essentially be her knight in shining armour, but gave little objection beyond.
Then, she felt it, a place where the trace resonated strongly. Akira had been here, many times. Lavenza looked up and read the word spelled in big, green letters.
UNTOUCHABLE.
Without a second thought, Lavenza walked into the airsoft store, wholly unknowing of the murky nuances to this place. Even if this place was not as labyrinthine as the streets she travelled through just a moment before, she still felt a little disoriented as she navigated through the aisles, eyes brushing the contents of each shelf. She did not need to read much about human nature and history to know the items on display had a questionable reputation, but the merchandise's design and craft could not be denied: each fire arm shone under the soft light with a kind of artistry. It looked as if these guns and knives were not made to kill but to look the part, even better than the real thing. Then, it hit her: it would make sense if these were merely replicas, seeing how the guest occasionally requested imbuing the power of Personas into varied fake weapons. Judging from the look on the young man's eyes on one occasion, he saw one such empowered revolver as if it were a present rather than a tool.
Lavenza nodded, satisfied by her conclusion. That only served to confuse Iwai Munehisa even more as she stared wide-eyed at the strange child that just walked into his store. It had been a long time since he had an unusual customer – the last one had been a strange young man who turned out to be a Phantom Thief. He knew it was only a matter of time till he got another. But this he would have never expected.
Finally, the girl's eyes landed on the man behind the counter, and she froze in sheer fright.
"…." Iwai made his silence heavy the way only a Yakuza could. But his silence was not his tried and true method of interrogation from days past – he merely did not know what to make out of Lavenza.
"…" And likewise, the girl did not know what to make out of this man. Even the spherical shape of the lollipop under his lower lip did not alleviate the weight of Iwai's presence.
"… What the hell are you doing here?" Iwai spoke in a sharp flurry after several, very awkward seconds.
"Akira Kurusu." Lavenza croaked, sensing the bond this man had with the guest.
"What?"
"I'm looking for a boy called Akira Kurusu." Lavenza's breathing rhythm started to normalise as she mentally gripped her purpose.
While Iwai was a hard man to read, his doubtful squint strongly suggested that he doubted whether to divulge anything about the young man. To his knowledge, his return to Tokyo would have him lead an ordinary life, far from the perils he encountered as a Phantom Thief, as well as the risks involved in being Iwai's acquaintance. An doubtless red flag would be if it was a police officer asking, but this little girl? She too wore blue, but for all the police department's flaws, he doubted they recruited children yet. Then again, the bright yellow hue of her eyes was more than uncommon – it was unsettling.
"What do you want with him?" Iwai decided to play it by ear.
The way he phrased his question brought out a bit of red in Lavenza's incredibly pale complexion.
"Umm. He's a friend of mine. I wish to see him." She responded awkwardly.
Iwai did not blink as he judged whether to say anything or not.
"He works at some coffee joint in Yongen-jaya. You might find him there." The man shifted his lollipop to the other side of his mouth.
"Where is that?"
"You can get there on the subway. There should be a station nearby."
"How do I ride the subway?"
"Really?" Iwai sputtered with bitter amusement and disbelief after a moment. A suppressed bout of laughter followed, sounding more like an animal growl. Unease and embarrassment both grasped at Lavenza's composure. "Really?" He repeated, calmer, humourless.
"Y-yes."
Iwai sighed long and loud. He froze in contemplation of everything occurred in the last thirty seconds. The girl could almost hear the machinery of his mind at work.
"Kaoru!" He called out loud suddenly.
"Yeah, dad?" A small bespectacled boy peeked his head out from a door at the back of the store. He also had a slight remnant of Akira's trace.
"Watch the store. Won't be long." Iwai lazily walked from behind the counter, motioning Lavenza to follow him.
"Who is that, dad?"
"Hell if I know. Order some food in the meantime, will you?"
"Okay, dad." The boy called Kaoru shrugged and took seat in his father's chair. His hand reached under the counter and pulled out a lollipop which he put in his mouth after discarding the wrapper.
"You. Don't stray." That was all Iwai said to her. He made no remarks or questions on the train ride to Akira's neighbourhood. Despite all logic, the eyes that would follow a duo like Iwai and Lavenza stayed off of them for the entire trip.
[ ]
"This is Yongen-jaya." Iwai finally said. "This is where the kid works. As far as I know, he lives here too."
Lavenza took in the new surroundings in full colour and vitality. The place was far smaller than Shibuya but still followed her theorised template on chaos. The overall effect, however, was a quiet functioning harmony. Here and there, she saw adults minding small stores, elders gravitating together around a dingy contraption she identified as a radio, children playing and small animals travelling about the asymmetry.
The trace of Akira was far stronger here. It was intoxicating, in fact. Wherever she turned, Lavenza felt she could catch the outline of the guest's lean build through multiple ephemeral silhouettes. There was nothing about this neighbourhood that did not resonate with his presence – still, it was nowhere near his actual person. It made no matter to Lavenza: if she was to find the guest, it would be here.
"You good on your own?" Iwai grumbled.
"Yes, good Sir. Thank you so much for your kindness." Lavenza bowed deeply, smiling warmly at this man. Nothing was changed about Iwai, but there was no way she would ever feel unease around him again.
"Alright." The man seemed as dry and nonchalant as ever, but there a slight, almost imperceptible kindness about his "Take care."
And so, Iwai left for the subway back to Untouchable.
Lavenza spent close to an hour slowly navigating through the alleyways in search of Akira Kurusu, with no success. Despite her thorough efforts, all she had was his phantom, but if he was not here – where else could he? There was some comfort in introspective reasoning, but she could not afford it at present. For all she knew, the Velvet Room was deteriorating further while she was here. She needed to be more precise in her search. It was imperative for her to have an accurate lead before sunset.
The girl decided then to gather all the things she knew about the guest and build a direction to follow from there. Akira Kurusu had a lot of pride, but also a wide dash of vulnerability, a yearning to belong but also a yearning to provide; even as a prisoner, the guest did not withdraw in fear inside of his cell. Rather, he reached forward despite Lavenza's mental resistance from being divided into Caroline and Justine, as if despite them being his jailors, he wished to be their friend. In a way, Caroline and Justine did become his friends, in their own way – that is, Lavenza's own brokenness.
Friends… could he be in the company of friends?
Likely, she thought, but still too broad an approach. Lavenza returned to Iwai's words. He said Akira worked in these parts, but where, and doing what? She thought harder.
Now and then, he mentioned a few things from his cell. Things about work – they were only passing comments, but she could finely recall something about flowers, drunken patrons, and food.
Food.
Akira Kurusu did worry a lot about food, but he did not look malnourished himself. There was probably little reason to cogitate so much over that – unless it was not just for him to consume. It made sense when looking at it that way; he was, after all, the leader of the Phantom Thieves; it was only natural that he would concern over his teammates being well fed.
The image was still fresh in Lavenza's mind. She did get to meet the rest of the Phantom Thieves. At one occasion they too became guests after a terrible fashion, having just been erased from the public cognition, becoming prisoners of a cruel God's machinations. She vividly recalled their physiques. Some looked like they were getting a fair influx of nutrients, yet others looked like they were in dire need of better nutrition. Whether to preserve a rhythm of growth or to prevent snapping in half at the blow of the gentlest breeze, food must have been vital for the Phantom Thieves.
Unless there was another purpose to it.
If Akira Kurusu needed to procure fake weapons to defend against the Shadows that plagued the Metaverse, he likely needed food to maintain their strength as they did so. By sheer cognition, instruments of make-believe became lethal – then, food became a potent invigorating agent. Thinking along those lines, the better the food, the more effective it would be for their needs.
It was only a hunch constructed on fragments of plausibility, but it was a ground more solid than her aimless wandering minutes ago. Wherever there was delightful, tasty, delicious, mouth-wateringly scrumptious food, she would find Akira – maybe.
For the next few minutes, Lavenza followed her nose. And sure enough, an alluring scent caught her senses. Spicy and hot. She could almost taste it herself, and the appetite she had no mind for was now stirred to the point of discomfort.
She passed several small stores on the way as the scent got stronger. Most of them were open at this hour, but a notable few were uncharacteristically closed, including a small café down a narrow alleyway called LeBlanc. The trace was the strongest here, but there seemed to be nobody inside when Lavenza knocked on the door. She peered inside through the glass and saw only darkness and complete absence. It was as if chance conspired against her, for there was no mistaking it: Akira not only worked here. He lived here.
Lavenza knocked one more time, more out of caution and politeness than anything else; her mind was already made. It took only a tiny sliver of effort to turn the knob all the way in spite of the lock. She did not make a mess when she opened the door, but the lock would still need to be repaired. The blue-clad girl took her time carefully scanning the inside of the place. There were multiple cylindrical recipients lined neatly on several shelves, each calling with a distinctive, strong scent.
Her mind's eye constructed Akira's silhouette in the kitchen. This is where he probably funnelled all his concerns about food into action, she thought. Lavenza rode on aboard her earlier train of thought, concluding he probably was a good cook. Curiosity got the better of her, and she looked in the refrigerator and cupboards, finding varied ingredients and many hints at delightful flavours, all of which escaped her reach by never learning how to cook. Perhaps big brother Theodore would know.
After a brief surge of bashful hesitation, she climbed up the stairs towards his room. It was a small place, touched unkindly by age and use; still it looked as tidy as one such place could be. Just like downstairs, this room radiated with his presence, but not only his: she could feel that of his friends as well, moving about the place, taking seat practically everywhere, forming different configurations of togetherness. This trace was not overwhelming, but Lavenza still felt her chest swelling with a wistful sigh. There was definite joy clinging to the afterglow, but there was also a considerable deal of sorrow.
As she sat on the edge of Akira's bed, little legs dangling, she imagined herself in their midst, turning each silhouette into a real image. There was the hopeborne scion of the Velvet Room, Morgana. A brutish but kind boy with dyed hair, Ryuji. A beautiful girl with Northern European factions and plentiful pigtails, Ann. A delicate-looking young man whose eyes drank fully from the beauty within each thing, Yusuke. A young lady with spring within and without, Haru. A walking oxymoron of fading anxieties and thirst for life, Futaba.
Across from the shelves boasting small mementos, on the couch, there were two others. There was the guest, but there was another somewhat similar to him: a young woman with both war and peace pulsing in her heart, Makoto. Everybody and everything in the room unfolded under their love and protection, pursuing the next stop in the narrative with their promise of success, even Lavenza herself.
Just her imagination.
She did not truly belong in this scene from the past. This was a present that unearthed ghosts by necessity. She was as much a part of the scene as a ninth presence, a live guided early from lacking into tragedy. Goro Akechi, the other guest, the one she tried not to think about, regardless of the myriad questions she had about him.
Disillusioned, Lavenza hopped down from Akira's bed, ready to leave. Before leaving the café, she noticed a book carelessly dropped on the floorboards. It was a cheap paperback: A Japanese translation of "The Double" by Fyodor Dostotyevsky. There was nothing particularly special about the book itself, but the girl noticed a few things about it. The number of bookmarks left between its pages was eye-catching, but so was the diagonal bend across the back cover; it was as if the reader handled the book with a certain violence.
Lavenza left LeBlanc defeated. Behind her, the door left ajar echoed with her own forlorn walk, and the restless, hasty stride of another. Knowing her best chance led nowhere, she walked back into the main avenue of Yongen-jaya. The sun was about to set.
Before she fell in despair, two blue eyes caught her attention, staring at her metres ahead. Attached to those eyes was a fluffy white body with pointy ears. The white cat looked at her curiosity, swaying its tail slowly. The more Lavenza stared at it, the more peculiar it seemed. There was nothing about the cat that should stir her attention like this; Akira had nothing to do with it. But there was still a different kind of trace, growing more pungent by the second - it radiated from somebody approaching.
And then she came into view. A girl with long, wild black hair, and really big eyes. She wore an apron as white as her cat. A rich, spicy smell clung to her, reaching Lavenza's nostrils despite the distance, which the latter did not realise was decreasing as she approached without thinking it.
"Hi." Yumeko greeted with a little caution upon seeing Lavenza's unearthly appearance.
Lavenza was quiet. She squinted as she tried to figure out just what kind of energy this girl carried. Whatever it was, Yumeko seemed fairly unaware of it. But a distant past echo of lovesickness, obsession, and a 'bloodstorm' made the girl from the Velvet Room shudder. And yet, that phantom was merely a subdued chant from a heart that rang quite like any other. Could this girl be someone whose heart was changed by the Phantom Thieves?
"Hello." Lavenza finally responded, still wide-eyed.
"U-um, cool outfit. I like all that… blue." Yumeko was getting nervous herself.
"Thank you. I like your attire. Very white. It smells a lot." Lavenza said without thinking.
"Oh."
"It's a good smell. Very fresh. Spicy."
"I see." Yumeko seemed slightly less off-put. "It's from the chicken my father cooks. It's pretty good!"
"Could I have some?" The mental image of the Great Bazaar, of Akira's untasted cooking, filled her empty stomach with hunger.
"S-sure. I'll get a seat ready for you."
[ ]
One hour later, Mogami's was depleted of chicken and beef. All eyes inside of the place were nailed to Lavenza and her monstrous appetite. Judging by her pace, she was nowhere near close to being filled, though it could read in her expression that she greatly enjoyed the flavours. Furthermore, she looked somewhat saddened when told they had no more food to serve her.
"That'll be…" Yumeko's father, Hideo was trying his best to gauge the total bill. A little voice inside yelled at him, demanding a rational answer to why had they served her this much food without making sure she would be able to pay. "Damnit!"
"I…" Lavenza looked embarrassed and ashamed of herself. She was not aware of the problem her consumption caused, but the glances she caught from the other patrons gave her a hint to having done something wrong. "I hope this will cover it."
And out of her dress' pockets, she pulled out handfuls of notes and coins from all manner of currencies. There were yen, yuan, dollars, rubles, pounds, rupies, pesos, francs, and even coins ages-old that could fetch a great amount from an appraiser. It was obvious to the Mogami family that the girl covered the total of her bill; she had in fact paid a small fortune without knowing it. They offered no argument.
Hunger quelled – if partially – Lavenza was again more aware of her surroundings. It was then that a strong sensation made her turn her head to the door. A young man walked in, visibly surprised upon looking at Lavenza. Much like Yumeko, he also carried an old remnant of a desire subdued before it became corrupted, but that was not all; also like Iwai, he had some trace of a bond with Akira.
The sun had already set, but Lavenza would soon realise she just found a vital lead towards Akira Kurusu. On his part, Yuuki Mishima would experience profound disappointment to find that this strange little girl just put Mogami's out of business for the day. After the past few hours, he truly needed some comfort food – especially after seeing Sojiro Sakura storm out of LeBlanc in search for Futaba and Akira.
