"So you'll be coming back soon?" Makoto asked.

Ren smirked on the other side of the screen. "Can't wait to be in my arms again?"

Makoto smiled through her blush. "Oh, shut up. Just get back safe, okay?"

"We will!" Haru smiled. "Though we still have some time to talk before we need to start packing for the drive back."

Ren, Haru, Sophia, and Morgana were on a video call with the rest of the Thieves viewing it on a large TV screen in the main room of the Thieves' Den. Since the big meeting, Futaba had been experimenting with the Vanes of Order a lot more, and had succeeded in more than doubling the space inside the room, as well as the size of the TV and the amount of furniture. Most notably, with some help from Yusuke, the paintings shimmered with a veneer of reality, almost appearing three-dimensional.

Ann leaned forward from where she lounged on a love seat, almost on top of Ryuji. "We heard about the Palace. Was anyone hurt?"

"Nothing that mine or Lady Minako's magic couldn't heal, Lady Ann," Morgana reported.

"So it's not just Ann who gets the 'Lady' title anymore?" Ryuji asked.

Morgana looked embarrassed. Haru placed one finger on her cheek. "He also called me 'Lady Haru' after the Palace disappeared…"

Morgana looked even more flustered. "W-well, I…"

"Would it have something to do with that deal we made before you left?" Ryuji asked.

Morgana gave him a look through the screen. "Well it seems you held up on your end. I guess I won't claw your eyes out."

"Oh, are Ann and Ryuji finally going out together?" Haru asked innocently.

Ann leapt to her feet, blushing furiously. "W-what? Why would you just assume-!"

Makoto shook her head with a smile. "Ann, you and Ryuji have been all over each other ever since that date you went on a couple days ago. It's not very hard to figure out what happened."

Zenkichi pitched in his two yen, "Honestly, if you two were acting any more saccharine, I would have insisted Akane leave the room."

"And then I would have ignored you," Akane snarked back at her father from the other side of the sofa.

Ryuji looked rather embarrassed himself, but he took Ann's hand before she could say anything else and pulled her back onto the love seat, whereupon the blonde girl melted into his touch and laid her head on his shoulder. He looked back up at the screen. "Yeah. We're officially… together, now."

Haru clapped her hands together. "Congratulations! I very much hope you two are happy together!"

Yusuke smiled, mostly to himself. "Indeed, the passion radiating from them as they gaze at each other is such, it is difficult to restrain myself from shouting in joy and passion and demanding to portray their love on my canvas!"

Ann spoke up again, "I suppose I don't really have a problem with that…" Then she smirked. "...as long as you also do one of Ren and Makoto."

Makoto stammered, "W-wait, what!?"

"Sounds like a good idea to me," Ren grinned.

"Excellent!" Yusuke exclaimed. "Perhaps it can be part of a new series of mine, on the many forms that love can take. The bright fires of passion and the sweet simplicity of familial love…!" He immediately pulled out his sketchpad and started jotting down ideas.

"I don't think we're going to get anything else out of him for a while," Ann noted. Makoto sighed and accepted defeat.

"Anyway, what were we talking about again?" Ryuji asked, right before immediately snapping his fingers and saying, "Oh yeah, right! Morgana, why'd you start calling other girls 'Lady'?"

Morgana struggled to find the words for a minute. "Well… I don't really want to stop calling Lady Ann 'Lady Ann'. It would just feel… disrespectful, you know, since I've been doing it for so long now. So I decided, since being a gentleman thief means I have to be a gentleman, obviously that means I should respect all women, not just Lady Ann. So I've started using it with other people as well. That's all there is to it."

"Either way, it's good to know you're getting over your obsession in your own way," Ren told him.

"Morgana is getting cooler!" Sophie praised him.

"Just don't start calling me 'Lady Makoto' or anything, okay?" Makoto told him.

"If that is your wish, your highness."

Makoto glared at him through the screen as everyone started laughing.

"Epithets aside," Zenkichi started, "I have some more news on my end."

"Are the police up to something?" Akane asked.

"In a sense," Zenkichi answered, his face growing more serious. "There have been recent reports of increased numbers of Shadows appearing around and under Nagatacho. Especially the Diet Building. They're starting to appear in broad daylight."

Makoto frowned. "That's concerning…"

Ren nodded. "Agreed. Especially since we know that Palaces can generate in the real world."

"Eh, big deal," Ryuji said dismissively. "They're probably attracted to all the corruption."

"Do they want the Thieves to do something about it?" Akane asked.

Zenkichi twisted his expression in distaste. "There's a good number of officers on the force who don't like the Thieves, or the fact that I work directly with you guys. They think you guys are an embarrassment to them, that they're incapable of keeping order in the city without the help of a bunch of vigilantes."

"Well, this isn't exactly a normal situation," Makoto reasoned.

"But the Phantom Thieves only want to help people," Sophia wondered aloud.

"Yeah well, helping people or not, this whole Shadow business is still operating outside the sphere of the law," Zenkichi stated. "And there's no small number of people on the force who resent that. They don't want to ask for you guys' help for this because they think that makes them look incompetent."

"But if they don't get our help, that'll only mean they just sat by and did nothing," Ann objected.

"Then we're not going to wait around for them to ask," Makoto stated. "Ann, you and me are in that area for patrols tonight, so be extra thorough. Any Shadows get obliterated on sight. And we don't have Futaba's help while she's off at her school trip, so make sure you don't let your guard down for a second."

"And I'll be there to back you up if you want," Ryuji offered.

"You're willing to sacrifice your day off?" Ann asked. "You sure?"

"Long as it's with you, there's nowhere I'd rather be," Ryuji told her. It was a cheesy line, but it still managed to make the blonde blush.

"Get a room!" Sophia called from the other side of the screen.

"Alright, who taught her that line!?" Ann demanded.

Then there was a ding from everyone's phones.

Phantom Thieves Groupchat

Futaba: LMFAO IT WAS ME I"M NOT SORRY ;P

Yuuki Mishima nodded with satisfaction as he put together the finishing touches on Joker's information page on the Phan-site. Ren had made it clear that he didn't want to be giving away too many of his secrets, so Mishima had mostly just stuck with the facts that by now could be considered common knowledge:

The enigmatic leader of the Phantom Thieves of Hearts, Joker is a Wild Card through and through. His signature outfit is of a long black coat paired with crimson gloves, black winklepeckers, and a white birdlike domino mask. Perhaps due to his notoriety, Joker rarely makes public appearances, but whenever he appears, it is always in style, emerging from the shadows whenever he's least expected and defeating his enemies with seemingly no effort. As a Wild Card, Joker has the ability to call on multiple Personas, but only on rare occasions will he use a Persona other than his trademark Raoul, which takes the form of a red-coated gentleman demon.

Joker is noted to be the only Phantom Thief who has been publicly arrested, with the police force claiming the next day that he had committed suicide in his cell. This turned out to be a ruse when the Phantom Thieves made their grand reappearance before the 2016 elections claiming they were going to change the heart of Masayoshi Shido, the at-the-time favorite to win the election. Joker showed his masked face to the public, and the Tokyo Police Department was reportedly driven into a frenzy of confusion at the reveal that he had not in fact committed suicide. It is unknown how he escaped or why he was reported as having committed suicide while in custody, but given everything that was confessed by Shido after his change of heart, corruption in the police force is strongly suspected.

The image of Joker on the website was of a black-coated young man with a blacked-out silhouette in place of his face and hair, with the mask covering where his eyes would be. Each of the Thieves were drawn similarly on each of their individual pages, with the lack of details being both a good means of keeping those details from being used to discover the Thieves' true identities, and representative of how the Thieves' masks kept anyone from being able to tell who they were, even when they were removed to summon their Persona. Whenever someone tried, their mind would cloud over and become entirely incapable of remembering more than a vague silhouette.

Mishima took great pride in his work as the admin of the Phan-site. While the Phantom Thieves weren't really doing changes of heart anymore, their job was far more important this time around. And his role in all of that wasn't just as a simple combatant. No, his role was as an informant. All kinds of information was being posted on the Phan-site now. A forum was set up where different members could talk about their own sightings of the Phantom Thieves. There were a few polls, asking questions such as Are the Phantom Thieves just? and Would you want to join the Phantom Thieves? There were pages being set up on the different Shadow varieties and the various Persona-users around Japan. And finally, there was the Alert, or as he liked to call it, the big red button. With the help of Oracle, he had managed to create a hotline directly to the Phantom Thieves themselves in case of emergencies. Admittedly, Oracle had done most of the work, but the idea had been his at least.

"Yuuki!" he heard his dad's voice from the living room. "Could you go fetch the mail?"

"Sure, Dad!" Mishima called back. He stood up from his computer and pulled out one of the drawers in his desk, setting it aside so he could access the "secret space" under the drawer. From it he withdrew a small hand sling, fashioned from a piece of cloth with a length of string tied to each end, as well as a small bag of what, to almost anyone else, would appear to be strange marbles of different sizes. He pocketed the two objects and quickly left the house.

As he walked down to the post office, Mishima kept his head down and eyed his surroundings. It was still fairly bright out, but one could never be sure when a Shadow would pop out of a dumpster or a dark alleyway and attack. Mishima snuck a hand into his bag of Spellstone and brought out a few chunks. He rolled the spells' names around in his mind. Sukukaja. Agilao. Zio. Tetrakarn. Fire Wall. Many of them he'd seen in action, having reviewed through many hours of video footage while doing research for the Phan-site. The Spellstones had been a gift from the Thieves, to give him a little bit of leeway before he was able to bring himself to Awaken for real.

Mishima frowned. How was he supposed to do that? Awakening was such a… vague concept. Sometimes it meant rebelling against whatever was holding you down, sometimes it meant accepting your true self… it made his head spin. And it wasn't something he could really set up or prepare for, either. It had to happen organically, and it had to come from himself. No one else would be able to help him.

His mind immediately flashed back to his apathetic parents. If they didn't give him food and an allowance, he'd swear that they didn't care about him at all. They barely noticed his grades, ignored his activities, and hadn't cared one whit about Kamoshida. It stung, it really stung just how much they didn't care. But Mishima forced down those feelings of resentment. It wouldn't be any use getting upset now. Once he'd earned enough money working part-time, he'd be able to move out on his own, maybe even get a proper job as a programmer and web designer. Then he could ignore them back as much as he pleased.

Mishima turned a corner and immediately ducked back behind it again. A few lesser Shadows were hanging around an intersection on the other side of the post office from where he was. Shadows were stupid enough that he could probably sneak into the post office with little trouble, but that wouldn't be what the Phantom Thieves would do. Mishima fished out his sling and rummaged through his bag of Spellstone, drawing one out that ought to do the job.

Quietly slipping the shot into his sling, Mishima slipped the finger ring of the sling's shorter cord onto his middle finger while holding the longer cord in the same fist. He'd barely practiced this before, but he was aware of the theory of how it was done, based on his research of trebuchets and the Balearic slingers. Surprisingly, the throw was pretty similar to the action made when serving a volleyball, one of the few parts of the sport he'd actually been able to enjoy. Letting the sling's payload swing forward a little as he tracked the range of his throw, Mishima swung his arm back, up, and over, releasing the cord of the sling at the apex of the arc, and speaking the Spellstone's trigger word as he released the shot.

"Maragi."

In an impossibly perfect arc, the Spellstone burst into flames and split into several fist-sized fireballs, slamming into the Shadows and causing several of them to disintegrate immediately. Two more let out wailing noises as they burned to death, while a third, which escaped the worst of the flames, let out a screech and made to charge, but already another Spellstone was on a collision course with its face.

"Zio!"

A burst of electricity blasted through the Shadow and instantly disintegrated it. Moments later, the last couple Shadows succumbed to the flames and died. Mishima trudged over to the site of the carnage, almost dragging his feet from the onset of exhaustion from using the Spellstone. He stamped out the remainder of the flames licking against the concrete and asphalt and turned back to head in to the post office, not noticing the shy head that poked out of a nearby alley as he turned away.

When Mishima returned home, he immediately heard his dad call, "Anything in the mail?"

"No," Mishima called back. There was no further response from either of his parents. Mishima sighed a little and turned over the manilla envelope in his hands. It was specifically addressed to him, which was weird because he never got anything in the mail. It was also weird because it contained some sort of ring-shaped object.

Mishima walked into his room and tentatively tore the envelope open. First, he removed the ring-shaped object, which swung open on a hinge as he pulled it out of the envelope. It was a single silver band, about five centimeters in diameter and half a centimeter thick, with a golden feather displayed on one side of the hinge. The object was polished to an immaculate degree, and flashed and twinkled in the sunbeams on his desk.

Peering back into the envelope, Mishima pulled out a folded note. It read:

Yuuki Mishima,

This is a summoning catalyst called a Shattering Shackle. If you accept it, it will remain with you until you no longer have need of it. Once you break the chains of your own accord, you will finally be promoted from NPC to Party Member.

Oracle

"! This is…!"

Mishima's eyes widened as he realized what he'd just received. The Thieves were giving him a chance to properly prove himself, not just to them, but to himself. For a moment, Mishima just stood there at his desk, looking down at the ring of polished steel. Was he really ready for this? Could he, Kamoshida's punching bag, really become a hero? Then his eyes drifted to the addendum at the bottom of the note.

I told you before that all you needed to help the Phantom Thieves was your Phan-site, but if you still want to be more involved in the fight, we could always use the reinforcements. Remember, courage lies not in the absence of fear, but in overcoming it, and you are not alone.

Joker

Mishima's eyes widened, and then he began to chuckle. Just how did Amamiya-kun manage to find just the right words to completely tear his guard down? Yeah, he was scared, terrified, of failing again, losing again. But he set his resolve. "I'll never go back to the loser I was!" he swore, right then and there. "And if the Phantom Thieves need my help, then by golly, I'm going to do whatever I can!"

Mishima grabbed the Shackle and snapped it around his wrist. The lines of connection between the two halves glowed faintly and then vanished, leaving it a single solid ring that snugly fit around his wrist. Immediately, there was a blue glow as an etherial manacle formed around the Shackle and his wrist, with four shining blue chains binding his wrist to the walls and floor of his room, but right before his eyes, one of them shattered and crumbled into wisps of azure fire, leaving only three binding his arm.

Mishima tested the etherial bonds, finding them firm and restrictive. Each one felt unpleasant, as though they were specifically meant to tie him down, keep him chained. His eyes drifted back to the note.

…break the chains of your own accord…

Mishima clenched his fists. He set his stance. He raised his restrained arm as if to throw a punch. The chains held, keeping him from moving further. He strained harder against them, doing his damnedest to break through them. His muscles strained and sweat dripped from his brow. Some of these muscles he'd barely used since Kamoshida's hellish training. But he needed to do this. He wouldn't let his heroes down!

There was a sound of shattering glass and a burst of azure fire.

A similar sound of shattering glass in Shibuya was drowned out by the screeches of a Greater Shadow. Two men in suits cowered before the monsters at the front entrance of Untouchable, their plan to hide in the dark alley having completely backfired on them. The large Shadow had shattered the shop's fortified window with a single strike and raised its baton for the killing blow.

BLAM!

The Shadow staggered, off-balance as it took the shotgun blast to the back. A heavyset politician stood at the head of the alleyway, his gun barrel smoking. "If you want to run, gentlemen, now would be an appropriate time!"

The Shadow screeched one more time and dissolved into ink, reforming as two Bicorns and an Incubus. Toranosuke Yoshida only pumped his shotgun in response. "One at a time boys, I only got so much ammo in the tank for ya!"

The Bicorns neighed and made to charge, but Yoshida was able to nail both of them in the head to slow them down. He ducked as the Incubus flew at his head, bringing around the butt of his weapon to smash it in the back as it flew past. Yoshida, still holding his gun by the barrel like a club, turned to bash at the Bicorns some more, but found them both dissolving into ink. Standing where they were was the man who'd sold him the gun, Munehisa Iwai, the barrel of his own rifle smoking slightly.

"Good thing those horse things are weak to lightning," the grizzled ex-yakuza said candidly, loading a white shining stone into the breech of his rifle. "As for that guy… well, demons are weak to holy magic, right?"

The Incubus came charging back down the alley. Iwai simply raised his rifle and said, "Kouha," under his breath. Yoshida saw his finger squeeze the trigger, but there was barely a puffing sound as the gun fired. The demon, on the other hand, was instantly transfixed with a spear of light magic and disintegrated.

"Well, well," Yoshida said, "I didn't know you could do that with a model gun."

"I loaded it with Spellstone," Iwai explained. "The Phantom Thieves gave me a stash of the stuff in case of emergencies. So,..." he trailed off menacingly, turning to the two men in suits they'd saved. "What, may I ask, are you two doing back here?"

Yoshida had never seen a swifter dogeza than in that moment. In less than two seconds both men were kneeling on the ground in front of Iwai with their foreheads on the asphalt. "We're very sorry for our prior actions, Iwai-san!" one of them cried.

"You know these two?" Yoshida asked.

Iwai shrugged. "They're goons from some weapons dealer who came in a few days ago lookin' to strongarm me into a shady deal. They weren't counting on the fact that the only shady deals I do nowadays are with the Phantom Thieves."

"So you told me when I bought my shotgun from you," Yoshida remembered.

"That's right." Iwai turned to the two prostrating men. "I heard an apology from you two, but you still haven't answered my question. What're you doing here?"

"Well,... the truth is…" one of them started, "thecompanywentunder!"

"What?" Iwai asked.

"Some people got wind of the things our CEO was doing under the table and sent the police to take them down!" the other one confessed. "The main branch is in Osaka, and they even got the Phantom Thieves' help! And it's probably a good thing they did considering what the building turned into!"

"I heard about that," Iwai stated. "Called a 'Palace', wasn't it?"

"If I recall correctly, yes," Yoshida added.

"And now the company's done for!" the first man cried, still doing dogeza. "So we were going to look for new jobs and beg your forgiveness for the trouble we caused you. We didn't want to do it, but…"

"You didn't want to lose your jobs, right?" Iwai asked. Both goons nodded, at least as well as they could considering they were still grinding their foreheads into the asphalt.

"Say, Iwai-san," Yoshida said after a momentary pause, "why don't you employ them?"

Iwai looked at the old politician like he was crazy. "Say what!?"

"They said it themselves, they used to work in an arms company," Yoshida reasoned. "I daresay you'll find a use for them. Besides, from what I hear, you can barely keep up with the demand these days."

"True enough," Iwai agreed begrudgingly. "The only reason I'm not being absolutely swamped with orders is because my shop's down here in a dingy alleyway."

"Then put them to work," Yoshida proposed. "Two birds, one stone. They have a new job and are kept out of trouble, while you get more help with your business."

Iwai groaned, looking at the ground contemplatively. "Well, I can't deny that's not a bad idea." He looked back at the two goons, who had raised their heads to look at him, and tapped the barrel of his rifle against his shoulder. "Alright, I'll hire you as long as you can keep your mouths shut. And you're paying for my window too!" he barked.

"Yes, Aniki!" both men echoed, grinding their faces into the asphalt again. Iwai had to resist the urge to groan again at the use of the yakuza-esque title.

"Also, Iwai-san," Yoshida spoke again, "I noticed how quietly your gun fired earlier."

Iwai flashed a smile. "Heh, well, this baby's a model of a World War II De Lisle Carbine. First rifle ever to use an integrated suppressor on the barrel, and one of the rarest guns in the world. Modern guns might be better, but I've got a soft spot for rare pieces."

"Well, I daresay I have a use for it," Yoshida smiled. "Giving speeches out on the streets of Shibuya has been rather difficult these days due to the Shadows. But since you've proven yourself adept in their extermination, what say you work as a bodyguard of sorts for me when I'm giving speeches in Shibuya?"

Iwai raised an eyebrow. "I'm not opposed, especially if it doesn't interfere with my work or my time with my son."

Yoshida smiled. "It will only be a couple days a week at most. I wouldn't want to get in the way of your family time."

"Shall we head in and get a contract ironed out then?" Iwai asked, turning towards the door to his shop. He found that one of the men he'd just agreed to hire was holding it open for the shopowner and the politician, and the other stood at attention on the other side of the door. Iwai sighed as he walked inside. This was going to be a real headache, wasn't it?

"...so that's basically all that happened," Makoto finished. "Ren'll be home by tomorrow, assuming they don't get sidetracked."

"Knowing Ren, that means he won't be back until next week," Kazushi Amamiya joked. "And he'll have some elaborate, utterly inane story to explain why he was late."

Both Makoto and Akari stifled giggles. "Well, he wouldn't be Ren if he could hold back from sticking his nose where it doesn't belong," Makoto said.

"You don't even know half of it, Makoto-chan," Akari winked at her.

"Still," Ren's dad said more seriously, "I didn't think that CEO's name would be Isobe."

"Yeah, that was your maiden name, wasn't it?" Akari joked.

Kazushi sighed. "Can we not call it that please? I still have my masculine image to maintain."

"Your favorite method of which is swinging around a little boy by his ankles for misbehaving?" Akari sniped.

"It builds character! At least it's not spanking him!" Kazushi made a noise of frustration. "But yeah, that was my family name before I married you. Still, I'm torn between not wanting to be related to that old geezer, and wanting to be a long-lost uncle to his granddaughter."

"Poor girl needs people she can rely on," Akari agreed. "And I'm not sure whether this Sho fellow is that kind of person."

"I will admit I don't know very much about him, but I'm inclined to agree with you," Makoto admitted. "I'm not convinced of how stable he is, no matter how well Isobe's granddaughter seems to be able to control him."

"Well, we'll find out I suppose," Kazushi shrugged. "Altogether, it was almost a complete success. One corrupt company taken down, one Palace cleared, no civilian casualties, the only hiccup was that one goon getting away."

"Shoichi Takada, yes," Makoto confirmed. "Isobe's right hand man."

Akari froze at her words. "Makoto-chan? Could you please repeat that?"

Makoto was confused. "Which part?"

"His name, please."

If Makoto hadn't been used to Haru, she would have shivered at Akari Amamiya's tone. "Shoichi Takada."

For a brief moment, Makoto could have sworn she saw a spark of red in Akari Amamiya's eyes before she snapped them shut and took a deep breath to calm herself down. "For what I am about to say next, I pray that this is not the same person, though I highly doubt it."

"What? What is it?" Kazushi asked, grasping his wife's hand.

Akari Amamiya looked her husband and her son's girlfriend in the eyes.

"Shoichi Takada is the name of the man who raped me."