Chapter 47: Saints of Bedlam
The crowd was much alive by the time Saint Doom took the stage. Previous performances had quickly sent a jolt into the Masquerade's pulse. And now, under the sunset, the countless Red Masks looked like stoked fires in Dr. Takemi's eyes. It was a sight both welcome and daunting. A shudder of anticipation ran up her spine, as she climbed the steps; much like the first time the trio set foot on a humble stage back in med school. It was a fitting comparison, for this was the first time in years Saint Doom unleashed its melodious dirge upon an audience.
Tae knew how much was at stake. Everything pended on a precarious balance, in fact. For this, and for her own pride as a performer, her goal stood clear. They had to fan the flames into an inferno that could never be extinguished. No small task ahead.
Beneath the complex, red-spattered, layout of her cadaverous makeup, these emotions went unnoticed. All the attendees saw were three demon-women taking their place on stage. Still in silence, their very image conjured fear and fascination. None could turn their eyes.
It was a good start.
The crackle of Tae's guitar plugged into the amplifier was followed by a stylishly unsettling screech of feedback. Everything after that was pure mayhem. Saint Doom brought the conflagration.
[ ]
"ZAOU-GONGEN!" Joker cried out. Then, as if his echo itself was made flesh, the protector deity sprung forth into the fray. The colossus lunged at Nyarlathotep's primitive homunculus, binding its neck with tight chains. Immediately after, Skull and Fox's Personas swooped in for the offensive.
"Beat him down, Seiten Taisei!" Skull commanded, unafraid. All around him, the conflict grew in intensity.
"Don't let up, Kamu Susano-O!" The artist thief called, mimicking his Persona's swordplay as he himself stood his ground against the heaping mass of Shadows.
The shadow of Nyarlathotep's beast alone dwarfed the trio in size. The swiping motion of its claws encompassed too wide a radius. However, it behaved no different than a mindless beast. The Phantom Thieves halted its momentum almost immediately. The challenge was wearing it down quick enough for the coup de grace, before the Shadows' numbers grew further.
"Move, move, move, move, move, move." The three voices of Saint Doom chanted into the crowd as the song started. With every call, more souls in the audience heeded until every single one echoed the lich queens. Tae Takemi breathed in one last time as herself, before incarnating her stage Persona. Grim Reaper Hayasaka.
"Move, move, move,
If your heart won't stay true and brave,
Go on, go on. Hide with the dead.
If you feel it in you, the cold wave,
Come now, come now. Play with the dead.
Night falls on earth, and the judging Saint comes calling
A plague, a war, a promise forevermore.
It's a letter waiting at your doorstep.
All rise from your early graves, the Saint comes calling."
The threefold assault by Joker, Skull and Fox was formidable, but not enough to put the beast down. There were now large holes all across its obsidian skin, slowly patching closed as Shadows merged with its mass. To kill it, they needed something a little more forthcoming.
"Noir! We need some firepower our way!" Joker called. One volley of artillery from her Persona could do the job. However, she was already well occupied keeping the tide of Shadows contained alongside Queen, Panther and Mona.
"Roger that! I need some room!" Having responded, the young woman chopped her way through the opposition, shadowed at all times by Queen, as Johanna transformed into Anat. The two reached an advantageous position shortly after.
"Whenever you're ready, blast away." Queen said. "I'll keep them at bay." The team's lieutenant hissed, daring the Shadows to approach. And as they did, lured by the sudden movement, all fell to Anat's sword.
"Alright. Skull, Fox, let's give it another go." Joker turned to his friends.
The three Thieves resumed the offensive, cleaving, bludgeoning and cutting a little further into the beast's core. Above them, flaming Prometheus monitored their vitals and stamina. Meanwhile, Noir aimed carefully.
"Guys, you're starting to pant a little." Oracle warned them. "This one gotta be the killing blow, or they could be trouble."
"Don't sweat it, guys." Panther called out.
"We'll cut you some slack." Mona grinned as the two felines in the group cast stray lashes of fire and wind to disperse the Shadows.
Every second in the assault was vital. The trio at the vanguard did not miss a beat as they steadily dug deeper into the beast, dodging every bite and swipe, only to then retaliate twice as furious. At this point, the Phantom Thieves were not only resolute to outlast the beast's resilience. Its fate hung on one command from their leader.
"Fall back! Noir, fire at will!" Joker cried out.
"Astarte…" Noir infused one more definite burst of strength into her Persona, waiting only for her friends to be clear of the blast radius. And then… "OBLITERATE!"
"Deadlight, holiday.
Killing time to make us stay.
Hollow as the promises of yesterday."
It was always a custom to play a cover at some point. Saint Doom had crafted their style off many inspirations, all in varying degrees of dark and loud. Yet nobody could deny a certain deliberate softness to their sound. It was as if they meant to conjure both terror and sweetness. The chief ingredient in this dichotomy was a Canadian band - at first infamous in the band for having claimed The Birthday Massacre name before they did. But once the bitterness passed, Saint Doom embraced the divergent sound.
And now, Dr. Tae Takemi, aka Grim Reaper Hayasaka, sang the lines in a heavily accented English, feeling once again like that concert in Moscow years ago.
"On and on, the music plays.
Memories in paraphrase
Falling past my window like the morning rain."
The crowd was dancing and hopping. Alive. Enraptured. Absorbed completely in the sweet, loving chaos the Masquerade cradled on this fateful day. Dr. Takemi started to realise how hot the lights fell on Grim Reaper Haysaka's makeup. The black circles painted around her eyes were running down in bittersweet tears.
She felt her self in this melodic mayhem. Almost as if every line she sang was funnelled into the Phantom Thieves' strength. And she knew, even if they played beyond their set time, Saint Doom would make this the gig of a lifetime.
"Kill that asshole good, guys." She thought, as Holiday came to an end.
From the rising smoke, a black, oily rain started to fall. The Phantom Thieves walked away, leaving an unspeakable onslaught behind. If these Shadows were to regenerate, the Phantom Thieves would be long gone by the time they were whole. This obstacle had been tougher than it seemed at first, but they had plenty in store yet against Nyarlathotep. A quick bite of LeBlanc and Mogami's packaged lunch later, the eight ventured into the fortress, prepared for the next hurdle to overcome.
But as they walked on, a cold reminder of their previous experience within the construct stalked nearby.
A cruel shapeshifting aspect of the Crawling Chaos.
[ ]
"Well, what do you think, Boss?" Sae Niijima asked within the small fraction of quiet in between songs.
"You mean, in general, or…?" Sojiro Sakura could not quite tear his eyes from the trio on stage.
"Whichever you prefer." The defence attorney was visible amused, even beneath the mask.
"Well… it definitely is something." Considering the range of his music tastes, this band was nowhere near the uncanny melodic and technical territories of Isao Tomita, Phideaux and King Crimson. Yet this mixture of genre and presentation had Sojiro face the beckoning unknown once again.
"A little vague, but I'll take it." Sae gulped down a mouthful of water. The heat of the stage had somehow spread throughout the Masquerade, though that likely was just the majority of the attendees having gathered closely to enjoy the show. "To tell you the truth, I actually kind of wanted to be in a band like that back in college myself."
"Somehow I don't find that surprising at all." Boss chuckled. "Assuming that'd happened, would you have taken the mantle of the darkness?"
"Hmm, I'm thinking more of a gangster, all-girl ensemble."
"Rather ironic, wouldn't you say?" Sojiro remarked.
"Considering my baby sister is a Phantom Thief, of the leather-clad biker kind, no less... Maybe it runs in the family." Sae smiled wistfully. "Makoto probably doesn't need to know, though."
"Secret's safe with me. Then again, just by being here, I suppose we're all flirting with the dark and mischief and whatnot."
"And all for a wholly, unambiguously altruistic reason…" The smile vanished from Sae's face. "They really are out there fighting for our survival right now."
"Do you feel you should be doing something more to help too?" Sojiro asked, unveiling his own emotional state.
"Yes. But I cannot imagine what. This event itself is meant to empower them. It should suffice… in theory."
"But it's not a chance we can take."
"You know… our father had this couple of rules for life." Sae meditated out loud. "Right at the top: Never compromise who you are. His close second: Don't be overly proud. If you don't know something, find someone who knows more than you."
The idea sparked almost simultaneously for the two.
"We need to find Mishima-kun." Boss wiped the sweat built under the red mask. He knew there was still work to be done.
As Sae and Sojiro moved away from the crowd in search of Yuuki Mishima, Saint Doom carried on with the latter half of their performance. By now, the energy among the attendees was almost palpable. And every thought in their heads manifested elsewhere, into a force of chaos. The Phantom Thieves grew stronger, but so did Nyarlathotep's hidden ace.
"This one goes out to the Phantom Thieves of Hearts… wherever you are!" Grim Reaper Hayasaka shrieked into the microphone. "This is, WHO YOU ARE IN THE DARK!"
[ ]
The Phantom Thieves plunged in the dark core of Nyarlathotep's towering domains. Nothing looked like the last time, by sole virtue of the stillness around them. By now, they knew even tranquillity could be concealing a world of horror beneath. Their advance was steady and cautious, betraying no fear.
The path ahead was dark and unpredictable. Every step seemed a little more treacherous to their footing. Only seconds into their trek, and nobody could tell whether they walked up or down.
"It's way dark in here." Skull said. "We could do with some light."
"Prometheus could probably be our torch." Fox suggested.
"No telling what lies ahead. We should save our Personas until we definitely need them." Joker said. "Mona, care to help us out?"
"You got it!" Mona decided to try something new. Rather than morphing into his vehicular self, the feline pressed his paws against his temples, prompting his eyes to cast a pale, blue light ahead.
The path was a grotesque, winding slope. As above so below, the walls and ceiling merged with the floor into a tunnel with peaks and valleys. All of its surface had a vaguely coral-like appearance; like it tiptoed the line between mineral and animal, dark grey with splotches in blue and green. Whichever the height they travelled, it felt like unspeakable distances below the sea.
"Well, that'll give me nightmares." Queen remarked.
"What will? The cosmic horror love tunnel, or the Mona night lamp?" Oracle shivered.
"Yes." Though shaken, the team's lieutenant did not let the unnerving layout deter her drive.
"Yo, what the hell is that?" Skull pointed to something far ahead. A strange silhouette lingered behind a rise, just slightly out of view; it eluded them with every step they took. At their current pace, the Phantom Thieves could not catch up, but already they suspected this figure was a lure. "I don't like this, guys."
"It's leading us on." Noir observed.
"Let's hope we're being baited into an open area." Joker said, his knife ready at the end of his left arm.
Moments later, they came upon the other end, where the lone figure waited idly. Although this turned out a much wider space than the cramped length of the tunnel, it looked no less disadvantageous. In the very centre of the room stood something akin to a large tree trunk. But rather than branches, long, twisting corridors and stairways stretched out in unseen extremes around and above. At a glance, this resembled the dreadful, disorienting mutation from their first visit.
"Like an Escher…" Fox noted. "But more sadistically incomprehensible."
"That's Nyarlathotep's touch, all right." Mona scanned the room with his eye-lights.
"Be on your guard, everyone. I read one, two… seven baddies incoming from above, plus the one ahead." Oracle warned, summoning her Persona around her.
"Above?" Queen strained her eyesight in search of this unseen threat. By now, even Prometheus' light could not easily pin the crosshairs on their foes. But soon, she detected an anthropomorphic figure climbing down one of the impossible stairways. Even from so far away, Queen managed to see the strange metallic sheen of its skin.
"Here they come." Joker prepared to summon a Persona, followed by the rest of his friends.
No sooner he spoke, the seven figures began running down the stairs, defying gravity with uncanny grace. And one by one, they landed on the ground next to the figure standing by the 'tree trunk'. A unified metallic clank echoed in the gargantuan chamber when they took the first step forward towards the Phantom Thieves.
"You gotta be kidding me." Panther said, with a tone of disbelief and annoyance.
"We should have seen this coming, I guess." Skull added. "That's alright. Always kinda wanted to kick my own ass."
As the eight figures stepped into the light of Futaba's Persona, their appearance lay bare for all to see. A double of each of the Phantom Thieves. Bodies coated in bronze; expressions frozen in unfeeling slumber. Unbeknownst to them, this was another of Nyarlathotep's tricks prior to banishment. Now a light mockery - a distraction while he harnessed the chaos outside into a tool to his disposition.
"And yet another 'Akira'…" Queen seethed, reminded of her partner's original replicas.
"A little tiresome, no?" Joker stood nonchalant before this new double. It was not this enemy he was looking at, but the tree behind it, and the stairways leading up. The way forward was all that concerned him. "Let's take them down."
The calm in his words proved a chilling prelude to the searing violence. The Phantom Thieves charged ahead, meeting their false counterpart in combat. Each doppelgänger summoned a Persona identical to their' adversaries', save for a few differences. The team's navigator took to the heights and monitored both allies and enemies. However, another reading started to creep into Oracle's field as her double came into view.
A whisper in her own voice. The sound felt heavy and almost palpable. Words all too familiar to the once-reclusive girl behind the mask. Loss and guilt imposed upon her by foul men. These were thoughts belonging to a girl who broke free of those chains. It was all in the past, and yet these whispers from her double still obtained an emotional response from Oracle. And as she observed on her screens, it was the same for her friends.
"I've seen the line in the sand.
All closed doors, hushed hearts.
A language of past lovers,
You'll grow to understand.
A face on the wall, framed in darts,
Between haunted, stray brothers.
But I've been the line in the sand.
I know it all."
Grim Reaper Hayasaka poured herself out through her voice. It was the final song on their set list, and the closest thing Saint Doom had to a signature song. It was their longest, with a solo in between and another at the end for a happy send off. By now, her vocal cords were feeling the strain of a sudden comeback, so she was thankful for her bandmates' assistance during the chorus. As the song continued, she hoped there would be a tomorrow for all. Perhaps then, they could follow up on this little return.
"Your scorn means nothing (Be exorcised)
Our past means nothing (Be exorcised)
My pride means nothing (Be exorcised)
Cross the line, come together (Be free, you and I)
No eyes on us, no teeth at our heels.
(Come) I know. This is who you are in the dark."
Beneath the mask of the Skull, a taunting murmur reached Ryuji in between strikes of thunder. Old, dusty words of guilt and remorse borne from impulsive decisions. It was always easier to deal with the aftermath than the cause itself. But the burden did not solely fall on his own shoulders. His friends, his peers, his mother. They all paid the price for him.
Beneath the mask of the Panther, a muted, sorrowful moan fell upon Ann's soul. All eyes would fall on her, in and out of her craft. They never lacked for reasons or base wants. To them, she was barely a person. She was a hollow doll, a trophy, an end to a fleeting urge. But then, she barely had the fire within her to prove them wrong.
"Who you are in the dark."
Beneath the mask of the Fox, a harrowing delusion shivered through Yusuke's spirits. He did not see the full picture, but was never altogether blind to the truth. One by one, his peers vanished from sight in the atelier. The ones remaining merely seemed to waste away. But the boy refused to truly see past his old devotion, not even as he himself began to fade.
Beneath the mask of the Queen, a dreadful echo menaced to obliterate Makoto. The girl's life had been framed in love and loss, and from it, she came to fear life and freedom. Long before her time, she felt content with dulling her experience as a human. She would discard it even, for the comfort of never having to peek out of her shell.
"Who you are in the dark."
Beneath the mask of the Oracle, a lonely sob creeped into Futaba's head. Every bad memory was like a step backwards, like some obstinate hand pulling her down, leading her once more to the early grave she picked. It was not a judgement she placed on herself alone, but others also deemed her undeserving to live. She felt inclined to believe it, every hateful word.
Beneath the mask of Noir, a bitter hissing vibrated its way into Haru. The luxuries and privileges in her life lacked beauty and colour of their own. They, much like the girl herself, were only an extension of her father's will. Whatever life her own hands could give was a futile attempt at asserting something of her own. She belonged to her father, nothing more.
"Who you are in the dark."
However, beneath the masks of Joker and Mona, the doubles bore only silence. There was nothing the former could utter to shake Akira anymore; nothing the latter could do to cloud Morgana's mind, as a being made of hope. All their foes had at their disposition were flawed constructions of Arsene and Mercurius.
"They're not usually this sloppy, are they?!" Mona exclaimed, noting how their friends started to struggle against their doubles. Every attack narrowly missed their target, and their navigator seemed unable to assist them.
"Must be these doppelgängers." Joker attacked. "I know all too well by now. This is plain, psychological warfare."
"If we don't help them now, they'll get burned out before we even get to Nyarlathotep!"
"I got it." The team's leader grinned as an idea popped into his head. "On three, make it big and windy."
Arsene clawed out fiercely at both doubles, repelling them for a brief moment. It was but an instant of reprieve, but long enough for Joker to jump back and summon an old favourite. Then, just as the Lord of Flies finished materialising, Mercurius conjured a towering spiral of wind, ready for whatever Joker had in mind.
"Beelzebub! Plague them all!" He cried out balefully.
The devil king spread out his wings, releasing a legion of locusts, each and every single one syphoned into Mercurius' tornado. Within seconds, the emerald wind turned black with the storm of misery contained within. Then it was time to let them all loose.
Beelzebub's death flies ordinarily devoured Shadows in spectacularly haunting fashion. They were never as effective against more powerful foes, and Akira knew they would likely have little effect upon the doppelgängers. However, his objective was much more practical and simple. Rather than trying to defeat the doubles himself, he would break whatever hold they had on the Phantom Thieves' senses. Nothing was quite as much of a shakeup as a bug bite.
"Be exorcised"
"Agh, shit!" Queen was the first to feel a locust as it munched on her arm.
"Did Queen just swear!?" Panther exclaimed, feeling the bug getting tangled on one of her twintails.
"Guys! Queen said a bad word!" Skull laughed as he finally landed a vicious blow on his double.
"Never in a thousand years would I have expected it." Fox shook his head as the delirium of the doubles' whispers faded from their attention.
"I'm never gonna live this down…" Queen sighed as she summoned a Persona from her repertoire. "RHEA! BURN IT ALL!"
"Be exorcised"
A wall of flame emerged from Rhea's fury, quickly joined by Hecate's fire. Both the locusts and the doubles were enveloped in the inferno. And even before the flames went out, the Phantom Thieves lunged through the fire to make their counterattack, at which point they took control of the fight and never let go. The doubles' incredible sturdiness was their only saving grace, and even that would not keep them whole for long.
The eight struck back with sheer fury, scorned by the delirium of past heartaches to throw them off. The haunting whispers from their doppelgängers were nothing foreign or alien. Those pains might forever inhabit some small, private corner in their subconscious; and to live is to coexist with those shadows. However, hearing those ghosts revived by Nyarlathotep was a new kind of low. It was a corruption of their vulnerabilities, spoken through mouthpieces in their image.
An insult they could not let go unpunished.
"Be free!"
Queen made agile use of her gift as Wild Card, almost summoning a new mask with each movement. Her muted double staggered at every blow, whether by fire, thunder, darkness or the might of her own fists. And soon, the bronze double in her likeness came apart, cold sterile limbs producing a loud echo as they fell. This was the overture to a symphony of destruction, as her comrades followed suit in triumph. One by one, the doppelgängers were defeated, with Joker's falling last.
"That was… yeah." Skull found himself breathless for a moment.
"Exhausting." Noir stretched for a moment.
"More enduring that I would have thought." Fox nodded. "I'll wager more so than Joker's replicas, pardon the reminder."
"That seems to be Nyarlathotep's M.O." The knowledge gained in the Velvet Room was still fresh in Joker's mind.
"Mind games, at their lowest." Queen seethed. "In any case, how are we looking, Oracle?"
"Lemme see… we still have energy to spare… Shadows all around and below us, nothing new there…. The Masquerade should be on its half point, so we should be buffed for a while longer… And… oh…"
"Oh?" Panther picked up on Oracle's tone.
"I can't get a good reading on the distance, but… Nyarlathotep is directly above us… Like, his body, self… you know what I mean… Technically all of this place is him, but this seems to be the real deal."
"Above us…" Mona looked up at the 'tree' and the unseen heights beyond the chamber.
"What say you, Monamona? Can you pull off your wacky stunt again?" Skull asked.
"I'm not sure. Those branches look narrow and I don't have nearly enough room to get speed."
"I don't think we'll be able to climb up the same way our doubles climbed down." Noir observed.
"Oracle, do you think Prometheus could give us a ride?" Panther asked. "I doubt Hecate or Astarte could fly up there."
"Uh… maybe? Van Goth did pimp out our Personas a bunch. Plus, I'm doing practically zero fighting over here." Oracle summoned the bright orb, descending slowly. "Actually, I think I can do you one better. Summon your Personas, c'mon."
After some confused glances among the team, all stood around Prometheus, with their Personas hovering above their heads. Even behind the spectral walls of Oracle's Persona, they could sense her manic glee in she input commands on her ethereal keyboards. And in a matter of seconds, Joker and the rest felt a strange pull towards the centre. It felt somewhat like magnetism.
Queen already guessed what was about to happen. She could hardly speak a word, but the frantic look in her eyes quickly found Joker's. She found his expression hardly reassuring.
If awkwardly at first, Prometheus floated upwards, with Oracle's friends in tow. Each one held tightly to the flaming orb by their Personas. The ascent soon sped up, and it was now too late to act on their newfound fear of heights. The navigator eluded the tree's branches with incredible precision. And once they were clear of all obstacles, Oracle felt free to increase speed. The Phantom Thieves collective now resembled a strange, uneven-looking balloon.
"Th-th-this is not what I signed up for!" Mona managed to say.
Skull would usually say something back at the feline companion, but at present he was too busy praying in rapid, hushed whispers. In varying degrees, his friends shared that sentiment, all except for Noir, who fully took in the view. Fox tried his best to keep his eyes open, and the present insurmountable height out of his mind.
They were back outside, travelling parallel to the tower. A few patches of land could be seen in the distance, far below. All around them, the sky seemed to have taken on a cloak of night, with the light of countless celestial bodies shining into the world. Despite his unease, Joker tried to find familiar constellations. But inside of this realm, those glaring, distant suns and stars appeared completely alien.
One such star looked closer than the rest. And it slowly moved upwards.
"Guys, look." Joker pointed at the star.
"I see it." Queen. "Is that… following us?"
"Everyone, hold tight-er." Oracle announced. "We got Shadows on our tail and Nyarny's a few ways ahead. We're flying, y'all… in 3,2,1…"
Joker closed his eyes, bracing himself for the inevitable speed burst. However, something else was in his mind. Not only the sense of inevitable conflict, but a troublesome hunch. Though his link to Nyarlathotep was severed at last, he felt he knew enough of the Dark Lord's character by now. He doubted Oracle's abilities were actually honed into detecting their foe's proximity. With every passing second, his conviction grew stronger. Their navigator did not actually find him. Nyarlathotep wanted to be found.
[ ]
"Mishima-kun." Sae Niijima said, finding Yuuki Mishima and Hifumi Togo in a secluded area backstage, surrounded by screens and wires. "We've been looking for you."
Behind her trailed a panting Sojiro Sakura. The cheers of the audience for Saint Doom's performance fell muffled at their backs. Both Sae and Sojiro had urgency written all over their faces, which Yuuki instantly picked up on.
"Niijima-san, Boss-san, I mean Boss… uh, can I help you?" The young man quickly stood up from his chair.
"Yeah, can you think of any way we can help you?" Boss said.
"Um…" Yuuki looked uncomfortable. "Not really? There's nothing I can really think of. Everything's looking fine over here. The event's going on strong still, social media is booming. There's even some streams going."
"How wide a reach are we talking here?" Sojiro asked.
"Um, decent? I mean, the Phantom Thieves got fans worldwide. I'm seeing the event streamed in America, and some parts of South Asia."
"The numbers are not looking as bright elsewhere, however." Hifumi interjected. "That is a shame. The Phantom Thieves have a sizeable following in France."
"That sounds very unlikely…" Sae thought out loud. "The event not being as watched in Europe, that is. Then again, this is not really a sponsored, wide-reaching event."
"Well, it really depends on the streamers' reach. Maybe it's the word-of-mouth, spur of the moment aspect of it…." Yuuki spoke. "Damnit, I should have thought of live streaming it beforehand! Not that many people follow me, but still…"
"We could encourage more attendees to live stream themselves." Hifumi suggested.
"Yeah… Wish there was a quicker way, though." The young man looked frustrated. "If only I had Ilya-kun's reach, I could have gotten this worldwide in a second!"
"Ilya-kun?" Sae asked.
"Russian internet celebrity. Massive clout. Massive Phantom Thieves fan."
"Russian…" Boss grinned with a juvenile shine in his eye. "You think we could reach out to this Ilya-kun right now?"
"Huh?" Yuuki blinked with a puzzled expression. "Maybe?"
"Boss, you have something in mind, don't you?" Sae looked on with a knowing expression.
"I say we simply reach out to this Ilya-kun. My Russian's not too shabby, so I'll translate for good measure."
"Yeah… and maybe he'll be willing to give us a hand if I reach out to him as the founder of the PhanSite." Yuuki smiled wide.
"While we're at it…" Hifumi spoke suddenly. "Should this be done, I think a fan with such repute would respond better to theatrics of some sort. It may be the spirit of the moment, but a simple, business-like e-mail probably would go ignored. You'd need a message guaranteed to claim his attention."
"Like a calling card." Sae smiled, remembering the times when her sister would leisurely talk about her days as a Phantom Thief. On hindsight, she found it oddly endearing that some of the better calling cards contained Makoto's handiwork. Sae Niijima may not get to flirt with that unfulfilled all-girl gangster rock band dream, but she could conjure some daring, picaresque words herself. "Give me a few seconds. I'll have your calling card."
Instantly, all four set out to work.
