Chapter Twenty One: The Holiness of the Soul and the Body
The battle died down, but there was no peace to be had. Behind thick walls of dark soil turned to warm granite, the Phantom Thieves were safe from all harm outside. Still, something about the way Susumu Kamiyama commanded his Persona to erect this fortress struck them oddly; a brief, but obvious change in demeanour, a blink of self-indulgence, a touch of glee so poorly suitable for the bleak urgency at hand.
His words seemed to echo in the air, even within the confines of the structure.
"Look upon my works, you mighty, and hope!"
The rapturous face that conjured this shelter into being was gone as soon as it had come, leaving behind the humble, sober features of Susumu Kamiyama. The weariest lines of his face stood out from the flame Ann summoned to bring warmth and light within the fortress. Whenever he looked up, the Thieves could see the shame and the concern in his eyes. But most of the time, he observed Akira, slumbering still – his head carefully cradled on Makoto' lap. Keen observation skills and battle-hardened instincts kept her aware of all that surrounded them, but her eyes did not leave her boyfriend. She watched patiently for even the slightest variation in his face. A twitch of the mouth, the subtle motion of dreaming beneath eyelids, something, anything to tell her that he was there, surfacing from sleep.
Susumu Kamiyama's momentous words were not the only thing lingering in the air. Though the tears stopped, Ryuji's furious sobbing stuck in fresh memory. Despite the countless ordeals the Phantom Thieves endured, the notion of Skull breaking down into tears never crossed their imagination. But there was no holding it back when he realised his best friend was not waking up.
"What did you do to my friend!?" He cried out on the first association of Kamiyama with this alien world. "What did you do to him!?" Ann and Makoto were ready to hold him back if his rage led him to attack the older man, but grief rendered him too weak for that.
Makoto bitterly thought Ryuji may well have wept for them all. But that was not true, for she was on the verge of breaking down at any moment. It took all of her fortitude to keep tears at bay; she could not afford them, nor any distraction, however slight and insignificant. She needed to catch every single word that came out of Susumu Kamiyama's mouth, any problem, explanation, or clue, anything that could lead to Akira waking up.
Anything that could lead to Akira healing.
"Kamiyama-san." Haru was the first to break the silence. "Are you the chairman of White Pheasant?"
All sans Makoto looked at her. Yusuke seemed particularly taken aback by her question.
"I am." The man acknowledged without the least bit of pride.
"Noir. Do you know him?" Futaba asked.
"Something like that." The young woman looked sombre. "It's not important."
It was with great discretion that Yusuke placed his hand on Haru's, as his mind went through some of their past conversations. Whether the young woman appreciated the gesture, there was no telling, but only an instant later, she looked up towards the older man with steel in her gaze.
"Kamiyama-san. I believe it's due time you told us about this place, and your role in all of this."
"Yes… indeed, Okumura-san." The man approached candour with some degree of modesty. This directness served a purpose beyond acknowledging how Haru's mask hardly concealed her identity without her hat on; perhaps he could convey his purpose better by summoning a truth he still remembered – and hopefully Haru did as well.
The young woman only frowned on Susumu's addressing, but said nothing. She only urged him to speak with a nod.
"In order for me to best communicate the reason to this world, I first need to tell you about myself, and about the late Kunikazu Okumura. Miss, I knew your father, and I know, as well as I hope you do, that he was once a very different man. You see, he and I shared a philosophy from the earliest days of our friendship. We believed that it was every man's duty to help their fellow somehow. We were both initiated early in entrepreneurship, and as our enterprises grew powerful, we each chased this philosophy. But all throughout, we knew that sacrifices needed to be made along the way. The success that would allow us to fulfil this purpose would always come at a great price."
The man sighed with painful remembrance.
"I believe Kunikazu lost sight of this purpose somewhere along the way, and the sacrifices he was willing to make were no longer bound to it. Perhaps, he merely reached the vanishing point much sooner than I did…" Susumu rubbed his eyes for a few seconds, only now realising how tired he felt – not from the events occurred on the last hours, but for the life he had led for the over a decade now. "In time, I too realised how naïve we were, both of us. In this world, there's only so much one man can do, even with power and money. One will alone is powerless when few others care to put their shoulder to the wheel. From where I stood, seeing my old friend go down a dark path, the country, maybe the world was without a hope."
He turned to look at the Phantom Thieves with eyes twenty years younger. "Until you came along. In less than one year, you accomplished far more than I could have hoped for in twice my lifetime. You forced the wheel to start turning. Society could be reformed, after all. The world could be better…" Kamiyama looked into the fire, looking lost. "What happened? Why did you stop?"
"Kamiyama-san?" Fox asked, taken aback by the suddenly vulnerable tone in the man's voice.
"No… I'm sorry. You must have had a reason to leave the process incomplete." The old man sounded like he struggled to convince himself. "Regardless, the good you've done would eventually be undone. And things would regress to how they were before. That was when he showed up in my office."
"He?" Panther asked with suspicion.
"My benefactor. A friend, I suppose. He shared my beliefs, on the state of the world and on the influence you had through your deeds. He was very… passionate about it. He fervently said there was still much to be done to heal the world. You may not have gone through with it, but you still provided with the tools to make it possible. He had power of his own. Not much, he said. But it would do, given time."
"This benefactor." Queen said. Her voice had not smoothed down since she last spoke. "Who is he?"
"He is…" Susumu Kamiyama fell quiet. "I know his name. He… he told me it. But it escapes me."
"That's some bullshit. I'm not buying." Skull snapped.
"Skull." Oracle tried to pacify.
"Name or not, did this benefactor and his power lead to this?" Mona straightened out the line of conversation.
"Yes. We agreed that the solution was simple, in theory. We needed to create a new, different world, parallel to our own, but free from certain burdens, certain… nuances that constitute our society, yet keep the individuals chained. Without such contradictions, human kind could thrive, be happy and free." Subdued enthusiasm and faith coloured his voice. "He could create that physical world, provide it with the necessary elements to sustain life. But that alone would not do. He… we needed a paradigm to guide us all. He explained that a specific worldview constitute make that paradigm. A special individual was needed to shape the reason of this world."
The Thieves followed the man's eyes to Akira's slumbering body.
"No…" Queen whispered in dread.
"He said we needed one who rejected the contradictions that kept our society going. A compassionate, brave individual." Susumu's voice trembled slightly. Tears started welling up in his eyes. "A rogue to break the chains that bind us."
"What did you do to him?" Only Joker's body kept Queen seated. But her desire to beat the answers out of the man radiated off of her very presence.
"His method was to replicate him. Make a template out of his inner self to be our guide and to give this world its reason. The template was made one year ago and it has slept since, growing into his own being, his own self. That is how the new world will dawn. This way, no harm would come to this young man."
"No harm...? ARE YOU SHITTING ME!?" Skull stood up, walking menacingly towards Kamiyama.
"Ryuji!" The word slipped by unchecked from Panther's lips as she tried to stop him. In spite of her need to keep violence at bay. She was one of a mind with her boyfriend – all of the Phantom Thieves were.
"No! Do you have any idea of what this guy's been going through because of your new world fuckery!?" Skull growled.
"Skull… we don't know if those two things are related." Oracle said dejected.
"I know they are. I know they fucking are." Fury and grief mixed in the young man's voice.
Through it all, Queen fell into dark silence. Considering what Susumu had told them, the relation between his plan and Akira's condition was dubious. Or so it would be, if not for one thing in particular he said. The template was made one year ago. Akira was still in Kawasaki then. The love between Makoto and he bridged the distance on a nearly daily basis, but one day, he simply went silent. He went dark; in fact, all of Kawasaki did.
This was the missing piece – the one that had been eluding her.
Makoto remembers the infamous Kawasaki Blackout, but not by the event itself. She remembers it by what happened to her boyfriend that night, when he slumbered deep for four days after sleepwalking throughout town. This incident was chalked up to stress, even after the follow-up with a specialist. The fury of the Queen was slowly defeated by the memory of Akira's voice on the weeks afterwards; how he tried to reassure her that everything was fine, how she believed it. They buried the incident so deep down, it was all but forgotten by the moment she surprised him in the subway on the day he returned to Tokyo for good.
And now, the darkness of those four days sprouted out from the soil to haunt them.
Makoto heard Ryuji's voice in the distance, yelling at Susumu Kamiyama, while Ann and Futaba tried so desperately to calm him down. But the cacophony fell soundless on her ears. All she could hear was Akira's voice in a dearly preserved memory.
"I've slept enough, my Queen. I dream of you a lot, and I feel terrible when I wake up to find I no longer have you in my arms. But that's okay." He smiled warmly on his side of the screen. "It'll be no dream when I finally return to you."
The righteous anger that had been building inside of the young woman, consuming her from within, was drowned in the tears that poured out.
"… Makoto." His voice reached her from beyond the confines of memory. She almost could not believe it when her eyes met his. Open. Awake.
The nerve of him, she thought, that even now, he would reach out with a hand gloved crimson to wipe her tears away.
"Guys! GUYS!" Morgana yelled eagerly – too eager for him to think of saying anything else. And one by one, as the other Phantom Thieves peered over Queen's shoulder at Mona's behest, they shared in the cat's mirth and relief.
Little did they know, Joker's own relief reached deeper even. It was not the first time he had seen his friends becoming undone. They literally ceased to exist before his very eyes when Yaldabaoth removed them from the world's cognition. However horrendous that tightly-escaped demise was, this was somehow worse. Akira Kurusu got to see his friends resist their executioners, and fail, being unmade one by one. And he could do nothing to stop it.
Their being all here safe and around him momentarily robbed him of his ability to say more than the name of she he deeply loved.
They were fine. He was not, but that was the smallest of his thoughts at that moment.
Akira managed to lift his head off Makoto's lap. It took him a greater effort than he imagined, but he figured it must be from having just woken. However, as he tried to standing up, his legs gave way, and he fell to the ground, rousing a dusty cloud off the fortress' stone floor. His wounds were healed, but he still felt drained of all energy. Around him, the shadows of his friends shielded him as they helped him up; through a small gap between Yusuke and Futaba, he caught sight of the man who halted the onslaught. He too, had stood up from his seat on the other side of the improvised bonfire, fixing him with saddened eyes.
"Stay the fuck away from him!" Ryuji shouted at the man.
"Ryuji, there's no need to…" Ann tried to ease him down again.
"No." Susumu said. "Young man, you are right to be brash. I did you wrong, Kurusu-kun. Despite our intentions, what we did was so wrong."
"What are you talking about?" Akira asked confused.
"It's… a long story." Makoto placed her hand on his shoulder. "Let us help you first."
Susumu Kamiyama retold his story to Akira. What links he made to the late Kunikazu Okumura he now replaced with a more direct approach to the young man himself. Much like Makoto did herself minutes ago, he too was now piecing the truth together. But though he was at the centre of this scheme, he felt like he knew even less than before.
All unwilling visitors to this world were now up to speed about its origin and purpose, but too much was still a mystery, especially when it came to Akira's doppelgängers. When time came to address this hideous blotch in the composition, even the surrogate host to this world appeared hopelessly mystified.
"There's still too much you're not telling us. I can feel it." Joker sounded uncharacteristically stern. "This 'template', as you call it. Is it supposed to be another me?"
"Yes, Kurusu-san. Another you, crafted on the same heart, the same values and drive. He is to lead this world into an enlightened future."
"Momentous, but too vague for my liking." Fox remarked.
"So true. Kamiyama-san. What exactly does all of this entail, and how do his strange doubles figure into this?" Panther pressed, taking the initiative where Queen traditionally took the lead. Quite unlike her usual self, the Phantom Thieves' second-in-command remained ominously quiet.
"I… I'm afraid I cannot say regarding Kurusu-san's doubles. I had little more than a brief glance when I reached you. But I have no reason to doubt what you say. Something must have gone terribly wrong for more than the template-born-replica to exist."
"And they all wielded Personas." Morgana added. "Could that be because Joker can summon multiple Personas himself?"
"Most likely. This is what is called the Wild Card, is it not?" Susumu inquired.
"Precisely!" The feline confirmed, instantly noticing something peculiar about the man's words. "Wait, how is it you know about the Wild Card?"
"That was knowledge imparted unto me by my benefactor. He assured me, this would be instrumental for the template. You see, the ultimate, concrete goal is for all who inhabit this new world to live fully aware of their selves, including the most intimately subconscious. When living in acceptance of the shadows that dwell within, they will be enlightened, illuminated… just like you. One who is able to explore multiple facets and planes of the soul would be the ideal guide for one such paradigm."
The Phantom Thieves all exchanged uneasy looks, save for Joker who seemed absorbed deep in thought, eyes fixed on the fire.
"Earlier, you mentioned something about us not being supposed to be in this world." Mona continued. "What did you mean by that?"
Kamiyama sighed.
"This is something else my benefactor told me." By the look of the man, he was well aware that sole mention of this mysterious personage filled the air with vague unpleasantness. By now, he too started to feel apprehension at the very thought of him. "As you may surmise, this world is still young. It's barely a step above a blueprint. For it to begin growing, it needs a very specific stimulus. That is, your presence, Kurusu-san. When sensing you, your perfect double will rise and manifest… but only in your presence, none other's."
"Did you make it so I'd be meant to set foot in this place?" Joker asked dryly.
"Yes. In time, the gateway into this world found you. Only one moment would be enough. I never meant for you to be lost in here for as long as you did. The same goes for your friends. I promise I will see to all of your well-beings, but I must stress: the rest of you being here may be causing unforeseen consequences."
Akira remained silent. Susumu Kamiyama's responses said so much and yet so little. The only true light the man's words shed on his thoughts were the matter of Akira bringing his friends into this world, to feel fear and to suffer the cruel wrath of aberrations bearing his likeness. Though this was only an accident, to Akira, it was as if he had harmed his friends himself. Far over the questionable ramifications to Kamiyama and his benefactor's plan, deep, dark guilt was all in his mind.
It took him little imagination to feel, to know that Boss was hurting about this incident, to know Sae blamed him – but nowhere near as intensely as he blamed himself. He could sense Yuuki, Hifumi and Yasunori's concern. And strangely, he could also feel Lavenza's distress. And he felt himself responsible for it all.
In his deep, dark introspection, Joker failed to notice Oracle's sudden look of alarm. It was at the girl's discreet sign than Queen finally spoke again.
"Group meeting." She said curtly. "Please excuse us."
While unable to look at the others in the eye, he joined his friends swiftly, and quickly noticed how much distance they put between themselves and Kamiyama.
"Guys…" A distinct tone of alarm could be heard in Oracle's hushed speech. "I'm getting a reading, a really, really bad one."
"An enemy?" Noir said quietly.
"Yeah… but that's not all. I'm getting a really weird vibe around us. It feels dangerous. Really dangerous."
"I think I know what Oracle means. I can smell something outside… I think it's Shadows… and something else." Mona spoke.
"Shadows? In here?" Skull questioned.
"Maybe that's one of those unforeseen consequences that guy is talking about." Panther suggested. "What are we gonna do?"
"The walls in this place look quite unbreachable." Queen said. "Strictly speaking, there is no reason to go outside. We could well be safe inside. However…"
Joker finally looked up, finding her eyes first.
"I don't trust that man." The lieutenant acknowledged.
"Joker, what should we do?" Fox asked their leader.
This time, the Wild Card's response delayed little.
"For all we know, there are only foes out there. Those… things may still be lounging about, and I'm not sure the so-called template means good news at all. But we should be ready to head out, regardless."
"Don't trust that fucker, either?" Skull flashed a gnashed grin.
"No. I certainly don't." The more Joker reflected on Kamiyama's words, the more he suspected.
"He and his so-called benefactor have done this without your consent or knowledge." Queen's eyes seethed intensely beneath the iron mask. "I don't care if his long-term goals could be noble. I see no reason not to think of him as a menace on his own right. And he speaks of his end goal for this goal, but what does that mean for ours?"
"Indeed." Joker nodded. "Oracle, I will need you to play it discreetly for a moment. Mona and you will scan for the path of least resistance. We may need to dash off soon. In the meantime, I will try and get him to tell us where…"
"He rises." Susumu cut in from his place around the bonfire. His voice sounded distant and off-kilter. "He rises."
A faraway sound penetrated the thick walls of the fortress like a grave, perennial hum. Tremors; the earth was warping. Not a grain of displaced dirt fell from the joints that united the walls with the ceiling. The place would hold, regardless of what happened outside.
Why then did Joker feel like they were in close proximity with the greatest menace yet?
Then, for a moment, the beating of his own heart felt like another's, slightly off-rhythm, quicker despite his own pulse remaining constant. Or was it the other way around? Was the running of his blood through his veins unbelonging to the beat of his heart? Akira did not even wish to blink for fear of what he would see in the dark of an instant.
"Joker?" Queen called.
"Joker…" Susumu spoke with a voice that was not his own. "He rises."
He did not sound human at all.
Sensing danger, all Phantom Thieves took their accustomed battle positions, with Joker and Queen at the vanguard.
Though the dwindling fire left the sight of Susumu Kamiyama receding into the shadows of the fortress, two bright, yellow irises bridged the gloom and the distance, staring straight ahead.
Susumu Kamiyama grinned wide.
