It turned out that in the two days he'd been away, he'd become something akin to the talk of the school because of his actions. The moment Akira returned to Shujin Academy on Monday, girls had swarmed his desk asking him if he was alright while guys patted him on the shoulder for saving Shiho. The latter of which he wanted to punch in the face because it seemed they didn't understand that jumping off of a three-story building meant he obviously had injuries and damn it hurt…
He let out a quiet sigh of relief as he crouched in his perch in the rafters of Kamoshida's palace, a Diarama working its magic on his spine and fixing his spinal disks as he watched Rem, Ryuji, Ann, and Morgana scurry around the hallways like mice. He closed his eyes and allowed Ongyo-Ki to surface.
He looked at the black Oni, the ultimate of the hermit, and the result of his bond with Futaba.
COLD
Ongyo-Ki gave the smallest of bows before disappearing into the depths of Kamoshida's palace, the black Oni ninja unseen and unheard from both Rem and the guards of the Palace. He looked back down as he felt information flood his mind, Ongyo-Ki transferring the data he gathered during his scouting back to him.
It turned out that somehow, there were some differences between this Kamoshida's palace and his own. He noticed that there seemed to be three strange rooms that definitely hadn't been in his own, so strong in their distortion that he could hear Kamoshida's voice echoing from them. Additionally, there were some layout differences compared to what he remembered.
The only reason he knew it wasn't Kamoshida's Shadow was because he could sense the overwhelming lust that was emanated by his shadow from far above in his personal tower. He shook his head as he looked down at the map in front of him. He took out a ball-point pen from his pocket, something that was on his person when he followed after the group once school finished and began annotating the map as Ongyo-Ki continued transmitting the information.
He'd swiped the first map from the barred room, Third Eye making it easy to understand which chains to pull down and was now annotating the locations of all of the treasure chests, locked doors, points of interest, and in a large emphasizing circle the room that the distorted voices were coming from. As much as he wanted to take a peek inside, something deep within his bones told him he wasn't meant to do so. He could tell it was something only for Rem.
Akira felt as Ongyo-Ki shadowed Rem, his Persona noticing that they would be reaching the room the map was meant to be held after just a few more battles against some shadows and notified him. He leapt down from his perch and landed on the foyer floor, recalling Ongyo-Ki.
It seemed even his Persona could be a navigator, just like its contractor. Just like how Oracle had once been.
The moment he landed on the floor, the ground burst into black and red bulging puddles. It seemed he'd been noticed. Akira sighed as two dancing Jack Frosts and a Mandrake appeared in front of him.
"Intruder!"
"Kill him-ho!"
Akira had sliced past them in the moment it had taken them to shout, Paradise Lost gliding through the shadows with ease. He continued walking as they exploded behind him. The strongest of this Palace's shadows wouldn't even be able to leave a scratch on him, but even so, it was better to take care of them immediately lest they sound the alarm.
He'd be a pretty terrible Phantom Thief if he let Rem know that there was someone else in the Place beside them. Akira crouched down, and with Ongyo-Ki's natural efficiency in movement and speed aiding him, sped through the halls of the Palace without so much as a wind in his wake. It took only moments before he was once more in the open room where he'd gotten the map.
Unfurling it, he placed it flat on the table and moved around the pillars, pulling the chains downwards so that the bars rose back up and sealed off any access until the chains were once more pulled in the correct order.
Akira sighed.
He wanted to do more, but doing so would limit the Trickster's growth along with the others. He'd risked a lot simply by giving Morgana the Sword of Liangshan and the Liang Yang. Even now Akira could tell Morgana's growth was being limited using such strong weapons. But he'd been emotionally compromised when he'd given them to Morgana, scared he wouldn't make it to the Trickster in the month between his birth and his imprisonment in Kamoshida' palace.
He shook his head.
What's done was done.
He eased the door closed as he vacated the room, Ongyo-Ki manifesting once more into the Palace to scout ahead while also monitoring the fledgling Phantom Thieves. Akira's attention, on the other hand, was focused on the second half of the two maps.
Pulling himself once more into the rafters with an impressive show of acrobatics and concealing himself in the shadow of the ceiling, he began his ascent.
Rem wiped a growing bead of sweat from her forehead and wished that her outfit would stop changing her hair into a high ponytail every time they entered the Palace. It was annoying having long strands of her hair stick to her face or whip around every time they fought. Having it back in a braid would be so much easier.
She flicked her twin chain-nails into a loop before depositing it on her hip, much like how Panther had done with her whip. Originally, she'd twirled them around her right forearm but it proved too tedious trying to constantly wound and unwound it after each battle with Kamoshida's shadows.
She eased open the next door and the group found themselves in a strange room, with bars preventing them from accessing the centre.
"Huh…? What's that?" Skull asked, walking over to the bars and peering between them. "It looks like some kinda map or somethin'," he muttered, Panther trailing behind him. He gripped the bars between his hands but they didn't seem to move, "These damn things are blockin' us."
"If he's protecting it this securely, it has to be important," Mona reasoned while rubbing the bottom of his football-shaped head, "That means there should be a way in and out of there. Joker, do you think you can figure out how to get past these?"
Rem didn't say anything.
Instead, her vision darkened.
Activating the ability Igor had bestowed open her, she spied a set of footprints on the floor in a shining blue heading to two specific chain-levers hanging from the mouth of demonic goat heads. Pulling the two in succession proved to be the correct thing as the bars quickly lowered.
"Is this… some sort of map?" Panther asked in wonderment, looking down at the large brown sheet of paper on the table in the centre of the room.
"Wow… this is amazing!" Mona gaped as he looked over Rem's shoulder, perched on her left, taking in the intricately detailed map.
Rem's eyes narrowed as she picked it up. Looking closely at the notes and marking on the map, she swiped a finger over them before looking at her gloves.
They came back tinged with partially dried black ink.
"This is fresh…" Rem muttered as her brows furrowed, "Is Kamoshida toying with us?
"I wouldn't put it past him," Ann growled as she looked over the map in newfound annoyance.
"No… I don't think so," Morgana shook his head as he looked over the map. "With how fresh this is, it would've meant Kamoshida had put this here just moments ago. He wanted to kill us, remember? He could've just waited for us here."
"Eh, who cares? A map's a map!" Ryuji shrugged his shoulders before walking up and swiping the map from Rem. "Besides this things gotta be useful right?"
"You're hopeless…" Morgana shook his head as he hopped down from Joker's shoulder. "Still… it does certainly seem useful, I'll give you that much."
The bobble-headed cat looked up at their leader. "How about it Joker? Do you think we should trust this?"
Rem shrugged, prying the map from Ryuji's hands and looking it over, the annotations of all safe room locations, locked chests, and some points of interests. She did notice something peculiar about it though. "This isn't the whole map," Rem announced showing it to the group.
She was right. It only showed the bottom half of the Palace, and even then, it didn't show some portions of the basement.
"Well… it wouldn't be too much of a guess to say there might be more of these things around," Morgana stated."
"Mkay, let's start checkin' around then," Ryuji shrugged his shoulders lazily. "We'll prolly find another map along the way somewhere if that's the case."
Joker nodded, tucking the map away for later use. She looked at her hand, the tip of her thumb stained with now dried ink.
She had a strange feeling.
Akira slammed his head against the pillar disgruntled.
"I am such an idiot…" he muttered as he continued slamming his head against the pillar in annoyance. He was running on the top of the pillars in Kamoshida's cathedral when Ongyo-Ki had relayed some important information back to him.
Information such as the fact that he hadn't even made sure the ink dried on the map, which had caused Rem and her group to question it. He couldn't believe he'd missed something as crucial as that.
"Some Phantom Thief I am," Akira smashed his head against the wall one more time, shattering it and leaving a large gouge of crumbling marble before allowing Chi You, the ultimate persona of the Chariot Arcana to fade away along with its Repel Phys.
Marble pillar dust was stuck in Akira's slicked-back hair, which running a gloved hand through it quickly removed the rubble for the most part. He shook his head for good measure, allowing a quick sigh to leave his lips before squaring his shoulders.
It was a good thing he'd left Ongyo-Ki to shadow the group as they slowly made their way through the palace. If he hadn't, he wouldn't have realised his mistake.
"I should probably buy a quick-dry marker or something… or just use an Agi…" Akira muttered as he shook off his mistake and noted it down for the future. It was good that he learnt it now rather than before Makoto joined, she'd probably have figured out something was up in an instant.
COLD
It also pained him to admit, but Rem was certainly sharper than he had been. She'd noticed his mistake almost immediately.
"…" Akira mulled over that thought for a minute before shaking his head. They both may be Trickster's but they were their own people. He wasn't Rem, and Rem wasn't him.
Looking around to ensure he wouldn't be seen, Akira leapt off the pillars and up into the rafters above. Leaning against the wall, he hid in the surrounding darkness and allowed his mind to fully meld with Ongyo-Ki, using his Persona as a physical extension and looking through its eyes as it watched the group scurry around.
The two watched as Rem and the group came across a broken spiral staircase, one that Ongyo-Ki had noticed and Akira had marked down on the map as inaccessible. He shook his head, they were certainly a persistent bunch if they were going to try and ascend that way.
It was strange because this was the area just before Kamoshida's hidden room full of those disgusting pictures of Shiho along with the second map which he'd already annotated and returned. Hopefully, by the time they get there, the ink would have dried. The reason why he found it strange was because Akira didn't remember the staircase being broken in his own reality… actually now that he thought about it, he wasn't all too sure there had been a staircase at all.
But back to that matter of the broken staircase, Akira would have been able to run across the walls from the broken section of the staircase to the upper section, but that's with a whole year of experience and exploring through various palaces. Rem, Ryuji, Ann, and Morgana as they were now wouldn't be able to do that.
He watched closely, curious as to how they'd get past this. With Ongyo-Ki being a master of stealth, and an Oni with supernatural powers it was a cinch for it to cloak itself and not be seen while also watching and listening in on the group.
"Uhh… I don' think we're gonna have any luck this way…" Ryuji muttered rubbing the back of his head.
"I don't suppose there's any other way is there?" Ann looked around, her fake tail swaying s she did so.
Morgana looked around before pointing up at… a… demonic goat head?
It looked remarkably like the ones that held chains in the map room, but rather than holding a chain it held a bronze ring between its teeth. As far as Akira could tell, the goat-head didn't seem to emanate any sort of power.
"What about it? Are we throwin' a rope over that and climbin' it?" Ryuji asked.
Morgana turned around with a familiar smirk on his face, the type he used to wear when he had a trick up his sleeve.
COLD
"Phantom thieves do things a bit more stylishly than that…" Morgana smirked as his eyes turned akin to gleaming stars, "…and I know just what'll do the trick."
He turned to Rem before handing her something, the object too tiny for Akira or Ongyo-Ki to make out from a distance, even with Ongyo-Ki's enhanced eyesight. She seemed to squeeze her left wrist with a flourish before looking down at Morgana.
"Good- seems like it fits properly," Morgana smiled.
"What is this thing?" Rem muttered while looking over the thing attached to her wrist.
Morgana smirked "Just a little something I've been working on in secret. Go ahead and try it out!"
Akira and Ongyo-Ki watched as Ryuji and Ann latched onto Rem as she stepped forward, Morgana sitting on her shoulder. She threw her left hand outward with another flourish, something zipping from her wrist and attaching to the ring in the goat statue's mouth snugly.
The group zipped through the air smoothly and landed on the banister of the staircase above.
Akira gaped.
The group continued to move as Akira and Ongyo-Ki just stared in silent shock. He continued to stare at the space they'd previously been occupying then up to the goat bust with the bronze ring in its mouth with the distinct expression as if it had done everything in its power to offend him.
Akira felt like that one blue train meme that Futaba had once shown him years ago.
Never had Akira seen such bullshit before in his life.
Returning back to his body and relinquishing his mind-meld on Ongyo-Ki, Akira pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation. He couldn't help but wonder why he hadn't gotten a grappling hook.
Great now he was feeling slight jealousy over a grappling hook.
He shook his head of the thoughts of grappling hook and continued his way up through Kamoshida's palace.
Akira stared at the Tyrant Pistol as if it was some sort of alien object.
Looking around and spotting a guard, he silently drifted over to it. Once he was close to it he jumped onto its shoulder and ripped off its mask, backflipping as it exploded into a group of Silky and…
"What the hell is that..?" Akira muttered as he looked at the feline shadow standing on its hind-legs while wielding a scimitar-like sword in its right paw. He shook his head for a moment, pushing onto a currently much more important matter.
He raised the Tyrant Pistol and fired again, bullets tearing through the shadows like paper and riddling them with bullet holes.
This was the third time he'd done so. His ammo had refilled somehow after each battle. He couldn't get over the fact that his ammo refilled!
"This… would have been so useful earlier…" Akira groused as he tucked away the Tyrant Pistol into its holster. Every time he'd been in a Palace before, he'd only have a solid eight bullets to use carefully before he ran out of ammo for the infiltration.
The only way to get some more and refill was to either exit the Palace which wasted a day's worth of exploration or crafting reserve ammo refills.
Whatever was going on negated that and Akira was planning to milk it for what it was worth. He wondered if it had something to do with this reality. He'd never noticed before in Memenots since he'd gotten so used to hoarding ammo that he never actually ended up using it.
He looked longingly at the Tyrant Pistol, this newfound ability of magical ammo replenishing making him want to just run wild and shoot everything in sight. It was unfortunate that he couldn't do so, some things currently more important than wanting to be trigger-happy.
Moving forward, he kept in mind that he should keep an eye out for that strange feline creature with the scimitar. He didn't recognise it, but he could tell it was a Persona connected to Humanities' Sea of Souls.
Shaking his head and entered the final safe room just shy of Kamoshida's treasure and sat down, taking a break. The fatigue he was feeling wasn't too bad, especially with how much stronger he was compared to the nearby shadows but having to jump and climb over various obstacles, especially up the side of a tower would make anyone slightly exhausted.
He closed his eyes and allowed himself to meld once more with Ongyo-Ki and look at the group's progress.
Oh, that is such bullshit.
It had taken him a solid twenty minutes to scale the side of Kamoshida's tower even with his Persona enhancing his physical capabilities. But here he was connecting to Ongyo-Ki and watching as Rem glided through the air with the use of her grapple hook and ascended the tower in less than ten seconds.
He couldn't believe how aggravating it was to watch as she used the grappling hook at a myriad of chances. She used it to get to the second of those weird rooms filled with distorted desires, or to get over high obstacles and get to chests.
Back in his day he had to use his hands and climb.
"Oh dear god… I'm sounding like an old man…" Akira splayed his hand over his face before dragging it downwards with a groan.
Perhaps shadowing the group wasn't such a solid idea after all.
"There has to be a better way to rig the game than just stalking them through palaces and writing on maps," Akira muttered as he leaned back in the chair, keeping his mind open as he watched the group continue to ascend through the tower and even at one point descend all the way to the basement.
Huh… so there were three of those weird distortion rooms, and they held… skulls?
"Weird…" Akira murmured before bringing his mind back to the present. Maybe he'd have to show his hand after all if he wanted them to grow…
A small thought popped into his head, specifically a time when he'd gotten his butt kicked by Caroline and Justine during his beginner days as a Phantom Thief. An idea began to form in his mind.
"That… might just work…" Akira muttered as he stood up, a small grin spreading on his face. "I'll just have to wait for a good time… maybe… at the end of Aiyatsbus…?"
He swivelled on his feet, giving one last look through Ongyo-Ki to look at Rem and co. finding them in an area full of swinging blades over a precariously narrow path. They were only a singly floor below him.
He recalled Ongyo-Ki, the demon Oni returning to the depths of his Sea of Souls. His duty was done for now. He grasped his pendant and closed his eyes.
Reality blurred as the barrier between realities thinned allowing him to slip through. He disappeared from the safe room just as the door opened admitting a beleaguered and tired group of novice Phantom Thieves.
"Aww man, how much more do we have to go?" Ryuji groaned as flopped down into the nearest chair, almost tipping backwards with the force he fell into it. Around him, the other members of the group did similar things as they tried to recuperate.
Rem could feel a ringing headache forming from using her Persona so much. During this exploration of the Palace alone, she'd garnered around six new Personae and constantly switching through them left a noticeable strain on her mind.
She could tell the others were feeling the same way, Ann flopping her upper half onto the table while cradling her head while Morgana was spread-eagle along the rest of the open table. Rem shook her head as she nudged Morgana to the side and spread the second map they'd found in Kamoshida's… hidden room.
She internally winced in disgust at the room filled wall to wall with compromising photos of Shiho in the middle of being sexually abused by Kamoshida. It was so bad that when Ann had almost burned down the room by summoning Carmen, Rem hadn't actually held her back actually wanting to join her.
She may have not wanted to actually kill Kamoshida but destroying the disgusting room full of filth was more than fair game. Looking over at the blonde female of the group, she could tell that every now and then her thoughts drifted over to Shiho, her face scrunching up in a mix of disgust and anger. Rem was just thankful Ann was able to keep it bottled up for the moment, but sooner or later she'd need to vent.
And Rem didn't want that vent to result in Kamoshida turning into a corpse.
She shook her head from those thoughts for the moment and looked down at the map, a giant circle around a specific room and the word 'TREASURE' written in black dried ink. "If I'm reading this right, that big room with the giant doors we passed earlier should be just before the treasure," Rem pointed out, Ann, Ryuji, and Morgana struggling to even look up.
"Woo…" Ryuji pumped out the most pathetic sound of excitement, his arm lifting into the air before falling back down. "Okay, let's take a break or somethin' for a bit…"
Rem grimaced at his reaction, already able to tell that the rest of the group was the same way. Today was meant to be a minor infiltration, and make some progress but what had ended happening was that they'd traversed the full length of the Palace, and at Rem's insistence had located every Will Seed, Safe Room, and treasure chest. This, therefore, resulted in the now beleaguered state of the team, barely able to walk.
"C'mon," Rem clapped her hands together before placing them on her hips and cocking them to the side. She placed a couple of drinks onto the table that she'd gotten from various vending machines around the city, Arginade and Water of Rebirth being some of the more useful ones which were quickly snatched by the group and chugged like their lives depended on it.
"Oh, that's so much better," Ann said blissfully, placing the half-empty cold drink of Arginade against her forehead.
"Do we got any more of these things?" Ryuji asked, his drink already gone as he made his way through another drink, this one just some normal soda to keep up his sugar levels.
"Just this one," Rem motioned to the one in her own hand that she quickly drank. Immediately she could feel a portion of her fatigue lift from her weary mind, causing her to sigh in relief. Popping open a can of soda she sat down.
"Okay, maybe a five-minute break…" Rem conceded and allowed herself to rest
The group groaned in relief.
"Ten minutes?" Ann asked like a floppy noodle over the table.
"I can live with that."
All-too-soon the group was making their final trek to Kamoshida's treasure.
"This the room?" Ryuji asked as the group approached a sturdy looking door following their entrance into the throne room and past Kamoshida's Shadow via climbing up a statue.
Rem nodded as she pushed open the doors with an ominously loud creak, bidding the group entry to the Treasure.
Rem almost found herself gaping at the literal treasure room, filled to the brim with all sort of gold and riches.
"Whoa, what is this place!? Holy shit!"
It didn't stop Ryuji from gaping, nor Ann.
"The Treasure's got to be somewhere in here, right?" Ann asked as she looked around, looking for something that could possibly resemble something of Kamoshida's distorted desires. She noticed some sort of multi-coloured cloud floating in the air, the group quickly surrounding and examining it.
"What's this? It's… just floating there."
Morgana hopped up onto a nearby large fallen golden chalice with a chuckle. "Hehe… That's the treasure. We finally found it!"
Rem rose a brow. "This cloudy thing?" she asked as she took a closer look. It didn't seem like it was anything tangible, a quick swipe through it proved her right.
Morgana turned around and looked at her. "Just hold on a second. I was planning on telling you more once we made it this far," he said. "Simply find ing the Treasure isn't enough. We'll need to make it materialise before we can steal it."
The three humans looked at Morgana with looks of equal confusion between the three of them.
"Whaddya mean?" Ryuji asked as he sat down on the same golden chalice Morgana was standing on.
"Desires have no physical form by nature," Morgana explained crossing his spindly arm paws, "Hence, we'll need to first make the real persona aware that their desires are in fact a Treasure. Once they're conscious that their desires might be stolen, the Treasure will finally show itself."
"I don't think it would be wise to just go up to Kamoshida and tell him we're going to steal his desires," Rem pointed out.
"Of course we wouldn't do anything as moronic as that," Morgana looked up at her. "We only need to send them a warning that their desires are in danger of being stolen. We can simply tell them "We're going to steal your heart" through a calling card."
"A calling card? Aw man, that's totally what a phantom thief would do!" Ryuji grinned with bubbling excitement.
"Once we do that, the Treasure will appear for certain!" Morgana nodded, "…I think!"
"That again?" Ryuji slumped like a balloon empty of air. "Either way, sounds like it's worth givin' it a shot!"
"Excellent! Our infiltration route is secure," Morgana hopped down. "All that's left now is to pump out a calling card in reality, then come back to take the Treasure!"
"So… this is finally it…" Ann let out.
"It took us a while but we got here… even if we are dead on our feet…." Rem nodded in agreement, twisting her neck and allowing the air bubbles in her vertebrae to pop.
"Once we sound out the calling card, there'll be no turning back," Morgana looked at the three of them. "When we send out the calling card, we need to be ready to steal Kamoshida's treasure."
Everyone nodded. The four quickly returned to the Safe Room just in front of Kamoshida's throne room and exited the Palace.