"Good afternoon Detective Akechi! Welcome to our show, Helen's Showtime, where we present the upcoming famous stars! You have solve quite a significant amount of cases since you have entered your investigation agency haven't you?" The interviewer, Helen, was quite an energetic spirit. Her harvin ears twitched a little in excitement as she hopped onto her seat and motioned him to sit down across from her.

"Good afternoon Helen-san. It's a pleasure to be on your show." He laughed as he took a seat. "Haha. I don't know if it's a significant amount, but I am grateful for the opportunity my agency has given me especially since I'm still completing my final year in high school. They have given me a lot of hands on with these cases and even trusted me to solve a few on my own. It's been a wonderful experience to be working with them."

"Oh my! What a humble person! I can see why you have a huge fanbase. Tell me, what case have you completed that you learned the most from so far."

"Oh, well I can't go into details of the case of course, but there was an interesting criminal case -"

The conversation continued on between them as the audience watched entranced. Akechi's words and hand gestures were all gentle, yet powerful. It was easy to grab people's attention with a loud, obnoxious voice, but that would usually give people a negative reaction. The best way to not only attract people's attention but to make them actually listen was to use a soft-spoken voice, smile when necessary, and use the correct gestures at the right time. He always had to keep watch of the other's body language, always had to keep on guard of everyone around him to avoid offending them. It's impossible to keep everyone pleased, but he can try his best right? Afterall, you have to use whatever skills necessary to get people to notice you or you can never get ahead in life.

'Remain pleasant and calm, never show your true colors, but don't let anyone call you a pushover.'

Akechi has practiced many times over the years to capture people's attention while only using the bare minimum of effort. He mentally grinned as he sneaked a peek into the audience to gauge their reactions. He was pleased to know that the crowd was fully concentrated on the interview.

"Now I have an interesting question for you Akechi-kun! What is your opinion of the Phantom Thieves of Heart? While they have been recently active for a few months, they have took in quite a number of bounties! Let's not even mention the fact that they have also stopped the terrorism of some Persona wielders! I'm not sure how they do it, but it's quite mysterious if I must say!"

Akechi paused for a moment, lifting his hand to his chin as he ponder the many questions that got thrown at him.

"Hm, well I do appreciate their help with controlling our shadows' and monsters' population. I am glad to know that people can now feel safe going to certain locations that used to be overridden with them. However, I'm not sure if I would praise them for their contribution with the cases of the Persona wielders."

"What do you mean Akechi-kun?"

"Well I'm not sure I could place my trust on an unknown group taking matters in their own hands and going outside the law to see their version of justice being done. It's one thing when the authorities are asking help with monsters, but it's an entirely different situation when people we don't know feel if someone needs to be punished for whatever reason they can think of."

"There are people out there at the moment that are saying that the Phantom Thieves are doing more than the authorities. What is your response to their words?"

Akechi looked at her, while her question was innocent, her face looked rather cunning. He wasn't sure if she truly believe her own words or she was doing it for the views.

"I would admit that while it might take longer than anyone would like, the law exist so we can judge everyone fairly. How can we know for sure that the Phantom Thieves won't attack all Persona users or even random civilians who might have looked at them the wrong way? Because their identities are shrouded in mystery, we would have a hard time identifying them compared to the other skyfarer crews that at least show their leaders' faces."

"That is a good point, but how far did the police get with their investigation with Kamoshida and Madarame? While the police did come to look into the suicide attempt of the poor student Kamoshida was taking advantage of, it looks like they deem that it was a open and shut case. They didn't really bother looking at what had driven her to that point. The case would have remained closed if the Phantom Thieves didn't stepped in on time."

'This lady is getting on his nerves!' He tried to continue smiling as his irritation level was slowly rising. "Unfortunately, I can't explain the process of an investigation of the police, but please understand that we wouldn't have let him got away with it."

"Hmm, I don't know if that's the best way though. Even if he got caught eventually, how many more victims would there have to be? Perhaps it's not the ideal way, but the Phantom Thieves stopped him before any more victims were claimed." She tilts her head cutely, but he was not fooled. He knows that many Harvins like to take advantage of their small build to make people believe they are naive and innocent.

"You might even say that, they did more work than you did regarding bringing people to justice." She smiled as she just said something incredibly offensive.

He sat there, flabbergasted at those words. 'Bitch! How dare she? Did she just said their few months activity was more worthwhile than my 2 years?! My sweat, blood, and pain just to get where I am with my lack of experience and young age, did she just dare undermining my hard work in front of everyone?' It was difficult, very difficult to not stand up, walk up to her, and slap her across the face.

He chuckled weakly, trying to not show how much her words affected him.

"Ha..ha, I can only make general statements since I was not personally assigned to either one of those cases."

She giggled in response. "Oh my, the topic got a bit dark didn't it?"

'Yeah, because of you! I'm willing to bet she has a Persona. Heh, wouldn't it be fun to use Desperation on her and cause a psychotic breakdown? She could be labelled as one of those Persona wielder's who took advantage of her power and gotten drunk off of it. Even if she didn't have one, I would still be tempted either way. You can just be one of another typical case for me to solve Helen-san~ It is quite tempting, but unfortunately this whole situation is just a minor hiccup and has no benefit towards my goal.' The edge of his mouth moved up a bit, showing barely a mere hint of a smirk, before he noticed and could stop it, hopefully, Helen thought that he just lost his composure because of the idiotic comparison between him and the Phantom Thieves.

"I heard from your fans that they have seen you have taken Shadows and monster down before, that's amazing! Is there anything you can't do?"

The crowd who was previously silent on the debate between Akechi and the host, started whispering to each other in excitement.

"Oh, I was trying to keep that on that down low actually. Sometimes on my free time, I would look at some of the bounties that weren't not taken yet and pick ones that seems to be bothering the public at the moment."

"You're so heroic Akechi-kun! I bet with the right support, you could take down even some infamous Shadows! Have you taken down any Primal Beasts yet?"

"Ha ha, well I don't know about that. I would need more experience before I would dare go after them. And Primal Beasts eh? I would have to say that I haven't fought any yet. There aren't many around here that cause a ruckus thankfully."

"Come on Akechi-kun! You have so little faith in yourself! Or… would you rather have the Phantom Thieves handle all the challenging ones and you are satisfied with the small fry?"

It came over him. Rage. Unadulterated rage. The emotion he was trying to keep underwraps for the whole interview finally became unleashed. He opened his mouth without thinking about the consequences for the first time in a very long time.

"Always comparing me to the Phantom Thieves now, eh, Helen-san? Well alright, I guess I do know some people who would be willing to help me." He laughed softly. "I swear on my badge that I will assist the people of Auguste Isles with their current biggest issue. I will take down the shadow Ca Ong and help alleviate their pain!" Akechi said as he stood proudly, putting his right hand over his heart.

The studio was in shock as Akechi made his declaration, after a moment of hesitation, a few audience members started chanting his name and cheered before the rest joined in as he kept his determined look. Even Helen looked surprised and applauded as she said something that was probably encouraging, but Akechi could barely hear her as he felt his right brow twitched as the words are being processed in his mind.

'Oh shit…'

'Oh my god, I'm such a fool! Letting her manipulate me into saying something so foolish! I know that Shido won't bother lending me a hand since this had nothing to do with his mission. I also can't ask my agency for help since it only deals with investigations and doesn't have an offense department. I can't just take back my words, how should I deal with this situation?'

He groaned in the dressing room, hesitating to leave it and face the real world. Knowing that everyone would talk about his latest interview, Akechi remained in his chair, with his hands over his face as he tries to think of multiple scenarios to get past this situation.

After a few minutes, he figured that he won't be able to figure anything out today when he's stressed out so opted to think about it again the next morning.

He grabbed his suitcase and left without looking back. He ducked his head and quickly left the television station.

"Hey."

Akechi stopped at the voice. He hesitantly turned around and saw him, one of the Eternals, Quatre coming towards him.