April 12th: Tuesday

Time: After School

Location: Other Kamoshida's Castle

The four of them entered the castle through the same vent they used to escape this place, as Morgana had claimed that barging through the front door would be against the basics of 'phantom thievery'. Whatever that meant…

Ryuji tightened his grip onto the drawstring bag and sighed as his eyes scanned the dark corridor of the hallways that were dimly lit by the torches on the wall. "Man, this place is still giving me the creeps…"

"Mm-Hm." The cat-like creature moved to the front of the three with his hands on his hips. "Now, make sure you do exactly as I say, all right?" The cat took the lead out of the room and ordered before moving to the room right of them. "Follow me!"

After they followed Morgana to the next room, the three of them noticed that the large room with a painting of Kamoshida as a knight above the staircase– was the same room that they first entered through and the same room that Kyotaro awakened to his persona.

After Ryuji voiced their exact thoughts about the revelation of the area, the room suddenly changed before them– the hallway outside of one of the faculty offices with one of the job bulletin boards had flashed before their eyes but it disappeared as fast as it came, the scene returning to the staircase of the castle.

"What the...!" Ryuji reeled back in surprise as did Akira and Kyotaro, though they weren't as vocal about their confusion. "I was seein' double or something just now! Was that Shujin?!"

"I've told you before," Morgana shook his head in exasperation, "This place is your school. Regardless, we don't have the time to stand around. Let's go!" He looked over to the right of the castle where the door to the dungeon was, "Come! Follow me!"

The four ran through the door to the dungeon and descended down the spiral stairs, funny how they were breaking out of this place the first time and now they were breaking in. Talk about irony. Once they made it to the bottom, the four of them moved to a gated door frame which led to the path beside the waterfall. Where one of the guards from before was blocking it. Goodie…

"Darn, I had a feeling there would be guards here…" Morgana gritted his teeth as the knight remained diligent in his watch. He looked over to Akira and Kyotaro, "It looks like we won't be able to avoid conflict from this point forward."

"F-for real?!" Ryuji said once again, his eyes looking quite wide as he faced Morgana.

" ' k… How are we going to go about this then?" Kyotaro furrowed his brows as his eyes were still set on the sentry that paced back and forth on the path before them.

"We're going to ambush it– of course," Morgana announced, he stepped in front of Akira and looked him square in the eye as he began laying out the plan. "These guards are called shadows and as you've seen, these knights aren't their true forms. In order to get the jump on them, you're going to have to rip off its mask– that'll daze them for a second which will open them up to attacks. Got it?"

"Y-yeah…" Akira's eyes glanced back and forth as the cat looked at him expectantly while Kyotaro and Ryuji shared an uneven glance. He gave a hefty sigh before he slowly moved his feet out the gate.

With a hard gulp, the frizzy-hair boy had rushed towards the guard as its back was turned– leaping onto its broad shoulders and digging into the chin of its mask before calling out in an assertive voice, "Show me your true form!"

At his command, the knight ruptured into a stream of red and black after Akira flipped off of it with his knife drawn. Morgana called for Kyotaro to move in as the streams took the shape of one of those pumpkin heads from before. The two teens and cat took their blades and cut down the monster before it could even make its move.

"Huh, that was easy…" Kyotaro said as he sheathed his machete, he looked over to Akira and patted him on the shoulder with a smirk. "Nicely done back there, getting the jump on that thing. It was like… something from a movie, y' know?"

"Yeah, I gotta' say... You da' man!" Ryuji congratulated the frizzy-haired teen, who was currently twirling a lock of his hair at the praise– but he could be seen smiling as he cast his head down.

"Thanks, but shouldn't we get out of here before more of those guards come by?" Morgana nodded at Akira's suggestion.

"Right, let's get to those prisoners before that happens."

With simultaneous nods, the four of them moved across the bridge and to where the prison cells were– only to find nothing there…

"Why ain't anyone here...?" As they moved past the empty cells, Ryuji exclaimed in frustration. "Dammit, they were here before! Where did they go!?"

"Calm down, Ryuji…" Kyotaro sighed as he gestured for the blonde to cool it. "We don't want any more of those shadow-thingies on us so try to be quiet."

"Oh… right– yeah," Ryuji sighed and rubbed the back of his head before something popped into his mind, "There were more of them further in…" Before anyone could get another word in, the blonde boy moved down the chamber to see if there were anyone in the cells.

Morgana sighed, "They might have been transferred already…"

"Really?" Akira rubbed the back of his neck as he looked over to where Ryuji ran off to, "Well, that means we're just gonna have to–"

"Crap! I can hear footsteps! Lots of them!" Ryuji returned to the three with a white face, causing the others to do a double-take at what he just said.

Morgana crossed his arms and furrowed his brow, "It would be a problem if they found us now…"

"–Or ever, you know, that's bad too." Kyotaro put his two cents as his eyes frantically scanned the area for a way out as did Akira.

"Right, but hey– let's head into that room." Morgana raised a paw to the door to the left of them as he confidently stated, "We should be able to hide there until they leave."

Well, that seems highly unlikely but it's not like they have any other choice!

TAKE YOUR TIME

"The shadows probably won't come here."

" 'Probably' doesn't put me at ease," Kyotaro shook his head and sighed at Morgana's bold statement before asking the question that was on all three of the boys' minds. "Besides, what's so special about this room?"

"There's a lack of disorientation, meaning that the ruler's control over here is weak." At the cat's explanation, the room began to shift much like the one from before.

The dark mahogany table that Morgana stood upon was turned into a light oak with several stools lazily placed around it. To the left of them was a large set of windows and to the front of the room was a chalkboard with a small teacher's desk in front of it. And like before, the scene left in a flash much like how it arrived.

"Is this a classroom?" Ryuji gaped as his eyes scanned the darkly lit room that kept swapping between a room in a castle to a classroom in Shujin.

"Now do you see?" Morgana asked, "This place is another reality that the ruler's heart projects."

"So… Kamoshida made this place? Why?" Akira asked incredulously at the prospects of someone just making a different reality where they're the king of their own place.

"Eh… yes, but he didn't make it directly." Morgana explained in a slightly hesitant tone, "One could say it's a world in which one's distorted desires have materialized. I call such a place a 'Palace.' This cognitive world, that we're in, originates from Kamoshida's perception of himself and those around him. This is the reason why the school becomes a castle because he sees it like that."

"And he sees himself as king, huh?" Kyotaro shook his head with an irritated sigh, while Ryuji's jaw tightened at the mention of Kamoshida as a king of a castle.

"Hahaha…." Ryuji gave a hollow laugh as his eyes were cast to the ground, before kicking the ground with a growl. "That son of a bitch!"

"You must hate this Kamoshida guy…" Morgana mused with a shake of his head seeing Ryuji foam at the mouth at the gym teacher's name.

"Hate doesn't begin to cover how I feel. Everything is that asshole's fault!" Akira looked at Ryuji incredulously, Kyotaro averted his gaze and rubbed the back of his neck, and Morgana shook his head once again as Ryuji tightened his fists.

"I don't know what happened between you two, but don't let your emotions get the better of you. His lackeys are everywhere inside." Mona advised the angered blonde.

There was a pregnant pause between the four of them; Ryuji still had his jaw clenched, Morgana still had his gaze focused on the door where the guards were roaming outside, and both Akira and Kyotaro shared rigid glances. But their eyes had also scanned each other's odd clothing once more which caused them to awkwardly glance around the room– something that didn't go unnoticed by Morgana.

"You guys are curious about your outfits, aren't you?" The two nodded at Morgana, who went on to explain to them the vague reason that it was 'just because of this world'. That didn't exactly explain why Kyotaro looked like he belonged in a circus and why Akira looked like some weird gentleman villain.

"Anything distorts according to how a ruler pleases within his Palace. A school can turn into a castle much like this, after all. In order to prevent such distortions, one must hold a powerful will of rebellion. Your appearance is a manifestation of that. It's the image of rebellion that you hold within."

"But why a ringmaster?" Kyotaro brought up with a raise of his brow.

"I dunno… It's your image of rebellion, not mine." Both he and Ryuji sighed at Morgana's vague explanation. The not cat was the only out of them who had a grasp on what was going on yet he didn't even have much of a clue.

"Uuugh, I'm so fed up with all this! I'm more curious about you than their clothes! What the hell are you anyways!?" The bleach blonde jabbed a finger towards the creature on the table, to which said creature had given him an intense scowl.

"I'm a human‒ an honest to God human!" The three raised their brows at his statement, confused as to how in the world is the thing before them a human.

"No, you're obviously more like a cat!" Ryuji shook his head as he told Morgana, causing the creature to stagger back with a flinch.

"This is, well… It's because I lost my true form. ...I think." His large eyes drifted to the side with a weak grit of his teeth. "But I think I know how to regain my true form. The reason why I snuck in here was for a preliminary investigation of those means. Well, I ended up getting caught though… Besides, I've been tortured by Kamoshida too! I'm gonna make him pay for sure!"

"Well we're going to need to get out of this room first," Akira announced as he took a lock of his hair and played with it. He glanced between the three of them with a determined gaze, "We may have the power to fight but that doesn't mean we should go head-long into a fight."

"Right, we should hurry along." Morgana nodded his head as he brought a paw to his chin. He looked over to Akira and Kyotaro however he mostly lingered on the black-clad teen. "I'll be counting on your skills."

"Yeah… I may not be able to fight but I think I brought something that might help." Ryuji's voice brought their attention onto him, the bleach blonde opened up his bag and pulled out three pistols… What the hell?! Before they could ask why– he explained with a grin, "I brought these, they're model guns so it only makes sounds! Nice, huh?"

"Why would you bring realistic guns to school?" Kyotaro facepalmed and shook his head, "And if they do only make noises, why would you bring them? It's like… bringing a plastic sword to a duel!"

"I thought that we could use them to fake them out, ya know? They look real so you can use them to threaten those guards if they ever get too close." He explained with his grin still on his face, he handed Kyotaro the toys so that he could pull out a small bottle of painkillers from his bag. "I brought some medicine too. You know what they say, 'providing is pre….' something."

"Providing is preventing…" Kyotaro finished his line as he looked over one of the pistols in his arms, but looking over the supplies he got caused him to realize something. "So wait… you wanting to come here wasn't a spur of the moment decision?"

"Yeah, I kinda planned this as soon as we left the rooftop," Ryuji admitted as he awkwardly scratched his cheek. "I also brought a shotgun if you guys want it, er... Fake, of course."

"I'm fine with the pistol," Akira smirked as he took one of them from Kyotaro, giving it a faulty twirl of the handle before placing it into a pocket inside his coat. The ringmaster looked over to Morgana as he held out the guns for him.

"So which one do you want? The white one or the black one?" The cat scoffed as he pulled out something behind him.

"I don't need those, I have my own form of ranged attack!" He announced in a snobbish voice as he revealed a slingshot.

"Okay… I guess you get the two berrettas." Ryuji rubbed the back of his neck as he saw Morgana's attempt to look impressive with that slingshot of his. Also, did that mean he had a pocket in the back of his fur?

"Well, anyway. Let's continue with our infiltration of this castle." The three of them nodded at Morgana's declaration, the cat-like creature looked over to Akira. "Let's head out with caution, can you put your ear to the door to see if you hear any guards?"

He nodded before doing just that, he placed his right ear to the wooden door to hear the distorted voices of a few guards just behind the door outside their safe room of sorts.

"Hm, I thought I just heard something move over there. Guess it was just imagination…"

"And what of the slaves?"

The three others in the room slowly moved over to the door at the muffled mention of slaves. They shared uneven glances as they heard the guards continue.

"They're all in the training hall. I'd assume they're screaming in pain by now."

"Very well. By the way, I heard we may have intruders around. Stay on your guard."

They heard the sound of metal footsteps walk away from them which slowly disappeared into the distance after a few seconds. Akira slowly peeked his head through the crack of the door to see that the guards turned the corner in the distance. With a signal, the group moved out of the room– where Morgana began discussing their next action.

"Training hall, that'll be our destination." He announced as he stepped into the front, "I think that's a little further up on ahead. Let's go!"

TAKE YOUR TIME

"Hey, have you seen anyone who looks like an intruder?"

"No, nobody yet…"

The four of them saw the two knights converse after they made their way to the lower chambers that led to the training hall. Unfortunately, it looked like they had no way of avoiding confrontation as the two broke apart and one of the two looked over to the corner they were hiding behind.

"Okay, what's the plan? Kick their asses like before?" Ryuji asked the three as he raised his fists.

"It's not that simple, summoning our persona takes energy out of us. If we use it liberally then we'll just tire ourselves out fast." Morgana gritted his teeth as his eyes lingered on the guard blocking their path.

"I-I see…" Ryuji looked crestfallen as his eyes dropped to the ground. "Dammit, I wish I could help. All I've done so far was bring a buncha' toys that don't even shoot pellets! I'm such a loser…"

"Hm, wait… I think those guns you brought may come in handy right now." Morgana rubbed his chin with his paw. He looked over to Akira and Kyotaro with a determined gaze, "One of you needs to rip off that guard's mask then we'll fire upon it."

"Wait! What are you sayin'?" Ryuji did a double-take, he looked over to Akira and Morgana and hissed out. "They can't shoot anything so–"

"Too late, Kyotaro's already on it…" Akira pointed to the ringmaster-like boy who leaped over the box and crawled onto the guard's shoulder.

"Let's see that mug of yours!" He announced as he tore off its mask, Kyotaro rolled away from the body before it exploded into several streams of black and red and took the shape of two creatures. One of those fairies from before and a plant-like creature with a large pink flower on its head.

"So we just shoot these things?" Kyotaro looked over to the cat as he and Akira raised their guns, Morgana gave a stern nod as he held his slingshot. The boy gave a scoff as he had his finger on the trigger, "I don't understand though, how do you think a sound is just gonna‒"

BANG! His brows widened in shock seeing Akira just fire a bullet from his pistol at the fairy, glancing between him and the cat‒ he raised both of his guns and pulled the trigger, firing actual bullets at the plant creature. He gaped, "Holy… crap!"

"Nicely done, allow me to finish the job." Morgana raised his slingshot and pulled back several pellets. He launched them in bursts of fire, causing the shadows to explode upon their deaths.

After the fight was finished, Ryuji moved over to the three of them with his mouth agape, "Whoa! Did those toy guns just shoot actual friggin' bullets!"

"This is a cognitive world. As long as our opponent sees it as real, it becomes such. It's a good thing it's realistic-looking." Morgana explained to a Ryuji with furrowed brows.

"...I don't get it."

"Well, I didn't expect you to understand." Morgana shook his head before turning to the frizzy-haired teen who was currently rubbing his chin in thought, "And what about you, Frizzy-hair? Do you understand what I said?"

"So… It's all based on perception and because we're in some sort of reality from Kamoshida's mind, it becomes real?" Akira said, unsure if he was correct or not but based the look on Morgana's face he seemed to be right on the money.

"Exactly, at least one of you has a mind of higher caliber…" The cat smirked as he mused in that same condescending voice.

"So if that's the case, how come your slingshot is as strong as a goddamn gun! What about that cognitive whatever?!" Ryuji bit back, causing Morgana to stagger back in surprise‒ his eyes frantically moved all over the place looking for an answer.

"W-Well… That's‒"

"Maybe it's because… You see it as a powerful weapon? Or something?" Kyotaro added his two cents with a shrug, they all looked to be taken aback based on the way they looked at him. "Well, since this is a 'cognitive world' and it runs on perception‒ it could also run on our perception as well. And, slingshots ARE technically weapons so the mind can still register it as a danger subconsciously or whatever…"

Morgana blinked before facing Ryuji with a confident smirk, "Y-yeah! Of course, it's simple logic!"

"You had no idea either…" Ryuji sighed at the cat's attempt to play off of Kyotaro's theory. The blonde looked over to him, still surprised he could muster up a seemingly logical explanation. But he was even more surprised at what he was about to do.

Kyotaro raised the gun to his face and asked, "So if I just imagine that the gun won't fire, does that mean?‒"

"NO!" They exclaimed in unison, quickly taking the gun out of his hands before he could pull the trigger.

Probably shouldn't have given him a gun even if they thought it was just a toy, let alone two…

TAKE YOUR TIME

"Got any other moves for us? Morg?" Kyotaro asked the cat beside him as they peeked around the corner to see the door with a banner above it that readout 'Training Hall of Love', gross but it was still a good thing that they reached their destination.

But the 'con' to this 'pro' was the fact that there was a guard blocking the door and there looked to be no way that they were going to sneak around it with how diligent it was in its watch. So, it looked like they were going to fight again. Welp, if the cat didn't have any other way to deal with this then…

"Actually I do," Morgana announced with a smirk, causing the three of them to do a double-take. "Alright, you two just need to do as I say once you rip off that guard's mask."

They nodded, Akira being the one to take the mask off the shadow while Ryuji kept an eye on Kyotaro. Once the shadow revealed its true form‒a bunch of pixies‒ they moved in with weapons in hand.

Morgana explained to them as they faced down the shadows, "First, knock down the enemies‒ these creatures are weak to Curse element-based spells so it'll be your job to take them down, alright Frizzy-hair?"

"Got it. Ravage them, Arsene!" He pulled off his bird mask and called forth the raven-winged pillager. His persona's fingers began to radiate with dark crimson energy before it sent several pyres of it that struck the shadows with each slam of its fist to the ground‒ the fairies fell to the ground with relative ease. Akira breathed out, "What… now?"

"Now, it's time for the all-out-attack!" Before they could even register what that meant, the two of them felt their bodies just sub-consciously move on their own. The three simultaneously leaped into the air and struck the shadows in a flurry.

Akira landed on his feet and slowly walked away from the silhouettes of the fairies in pain and started to adjust his gloves. Once he made it to his left, an evil smirk formed on his face as he heard the sounds of blood gush out of the shadows. A large gray star appeared behind him with several bullet holes through it like glass with large lettering to the side,

THE SHOW'S OVER

"Wh-what was that super move you guys just did?" Ryuji asked as he slowly picked his jaw up off the floor. Akira and Kyotaro looked at each other, sharing simultaneous shrugs before Morgana helped fill in the blanks.

"As I said, it's an all-out attack. A powerful technique used by Persona users when their enemies are knocked down, it could be used to dispatch them all at once." Morgana explained with a toothy grin. "It ends a fight quickly, however, there are times where we should hold off on using it." The cat looked to Akira, "You'll be in charge of determining when to use it."

"I… guess that's fine." Akira rubbed the back of his head, the raven-haired boy was confused as to exactly what cases they needed to hold off on using such a powerful attack but whatever, all he had to do was just say the word whenever they could use it.

But Ryuji was still questioning the exact details of what just happened‒ he looked over to Akira and asked, "So what was that thing you did? Your eyes turned all red and that backdrop just popped outta nowhere!"

"Another form of distortion, you can say." Morgana explained once again, "But that comes from our own cognition and stems from willpower, it causes our surroundings to temporarily shift and allows us to eliminate weakened enemies without needing to even touch them. I call it a 'finishing touch'."

Ryuji only sighed, "Again, another thing that doesn't make any sense…"

"Well, how about we put that aside for now?" Akira recommended as he placed a hand on the door before them. "Let's focus on finding these prisoners."

The four of them moved across the bridge to where cries of pain came from with unease as they moved over to a gate. They looked into the cell to find several teens dressed in sports uniforms tied to a volleyball net by their hands while the guards had beaten them with sticks without any mercy in their lashes.

"Holy shit…" Kyotaro cursed in a voice barely above a breath. He looked over to Akira and Ryuji to see what they thought of the scene playing out before them, Akira couldn't even stomach it as he cast his eyes to the side while Ryuji ground his teeth together.

"Dammit!" He stomped his foot with a great amount of force, the three behind him flinching at the intensity of his voice. "This is bullshit!"

"How many times do I have to tell you to keep your voice down!?" Morgana hissed, but Ryuji still was busy going ballistic as he saw the guards continue whipping their victims.

"But this is beyond messed up! How do I open this…?"

"Stop it…!" Before the blonde could even get his hands on the bars, a weak voice pleaded with him. One of the boys, slaves– that's what the guards referred to them, limped over to them with his arms and legs bandaged up and begged once again, "Leave us alone… it's useless…"

"What? What do you mean?" Akira asked as he stepped up to the gate. His eyes glanced over their shirts and widened at the lettering on them, "You guys are from Shujin?"

"What?!" Ryuji reeled back in surprise at Akira's find, he examined the student closer before doing a double-take once he finally realized what their uniforms meant, "These guys are members of the volleyball team, the one Kamoshida coaches for!"

Another slave trod over to them as he held his arm wrapped in plaster. He sounded like he was on the verge of crying based on the way he spoke, "If we stay obedient, we won't be executed like you guys…"

"You're tellin' me you wanna stay in a place like this?" Ryuji growled as he gripped onto the bars, the two slaves of this castle only averted his gaze with pained expressions in response.

"Wait, were you planning on taking these guys out of here?" Morgana gaped at what Ryuji was insinuating. The bleach blonde nodded with a determined expression, causing the cat to shake his head and sigh, "How stupid can you be? These are only humans in Kamoshida's cognition, you could say they're extremely-similar dolls that resemble their real counterparts. These things are just 'the king's' playthings."

"The hell!? Why's it gotta be so complicated!?" Ryuji kicked the dirt before giving a tense curl of his lips, "So the school's a castle, and the students are slaves… It's so on point that it makes me laugh. This really is the inside of that asshole's head!"

"Still, this is horrible. It must mean he treats them as slaves in the real world too." The three Shujin students flinched back in shock at the revelation dropped by Morgana.

Kyotaro looked back to the students who slowly trod their way back to their abusers with furrowed brows and a creased frown. He spoke in a voice barely above a mumble, "So the rumors are true…"

He got the attention of the three at his revelation though Ryuji seemed to be crestfallen rather than being surprised, Kyotaro spoke a bit louder. "There have been rumors going around that Kamoshida was using some pretty harsh training. I just brushed it off as just gossip like everyone else but… it looks like we finally got an answer."

"That bastard, he's doing it to his own team too… I should have known!" Ryuji gritted his teeth. Without another thought, he pulled out his phone a stern expression. "If it is really true, then it's something that we should be reporting to the police. If this goes well then that asshole is gonna pay, I'll just take a picture then– huh?"

"What is it? C'mon hurry up and take the picture…" Kyotaro told him with a serious tone of voice.

"I-I can't use it! We can use the navigation app but the camera is a no-go?" Ryuji yelled as he gripped his phone, Morgana could be heard questioning what the navigation app meant in the background but everyone had their focus on the functionality of their phones.

Kyotaro and Akira pulled out their phones but like Ryuji, they got nothing… The former of the two asked with a tense gaze, "So how the hell do we go about this? If we wanna report this to the police then we need something."

"Right, I'll…" Ryuji's face scrunched up in thought but an idea crossed his mind, it wasn't effective but it'll do. "I'll memorize their faces! When we get back to the real world, we can get some answers from them."

"Whatever will work…" Morgana's eyes frantically glanced all over the place in case some guards took notice of them, "We just need to do it fast!"

"Alright, alright! I'll try to memorize them quick!"