Chapter 6: Tank!
"I think it's time to blow this scene. Get everyone and the stuff together. Okay, three, two, one, let's jam." the singer smoothly sang. He immediately went into a jazzy trumpet lick. Ryuko and I were sitting close to the stage in the jazz club, just far enough away to hold a conversation. "You sure this isn't a date?" she asked, eyes half hidden by her bangs, her red streak playing nice with the stage lights. We were there on business technically, but who was keeping count anyways?
"You want it to be?" I asked coyly. She smirked and looked over my shoulder. Ann was making her way towards us. "You sure it would be for me?" Ryuko jabbed. I chose not to respond. Ann took a chair from another table and pulled it up to ours. "So, what's going on?" Ann asked. "Morgana's outside keeping an eye out. He'll come fetch us when they get here." I said. Ann nodded and leaned back.
"You remember the plan?" I asked her. "Yeah." Ann said, "We wait for Ryuji and Mako to show up to the temple, we head in after them and go to Mementos." she recited. I nodded, we had given them invitations to hang out yesterday at school, hopefully they would show up. From what we could tell over the last week or so they didn't have a lot happening on Sundays.
The three of us watched the band for a while, they ended their set, and we applauded as they made their way backstage. "So," Ryuko said, "you guys hear anything about Kamoshida?" Ann shook her head. "Last time," I said, "it took around two weeks for him to change completely, so hopefully next week we will get an update. I wouldn't worry though." Ryuko nodded.
We sat around some more and sipped our drinks, waiting for Morgana's signal. I was about to go out and check on him when I felt something brush up against my leg. "Howdy." I said. "Ryuji showed up, I don't know where Mako is." Morgana said. I let him back into my bag and I stood up. "Maybe she'll be there by the time we arrive." I said. The two girls stood up and we made our way out of the club.
Around the block we saw the Buddhist temple, a monk was outside talking with some tourists and the three of us went inside. Out back we found Ryuji sitting on the porch alone. "Hey man." I said, reaching a hand out to him. "Yo!" he said, taking my hand and standing up. "Nice to see you." he said. "Is Mako around?" Ryuko asked. "Nah, she's sick with something today, not sure what." he said. Ann shot me a questioning look and I decided to just roll with it.
"Well, I'm sorry to hear that." I said, pulling out my phone. "It's alright, I'm sure it's nothing." he said. I pulled up the Nav, "Say, there's this thing I wanted to show you." I said, "Uh, okay?" Ryuji said. I put in 'Mementos' into the search. Ryuji got closer and I began the navigation.
We had gone here before already, just to make sure everything was still the same. Nothing much had changed, but all of Maruki's wires were still there though, but they looked to be dormant. Ryuji stood by the turnstiles that led deeper into the tunnels. I began to walk towards him to cut the fiber. "Hey, guys?" he said with a worried tone, he turned around and saw me raise my knife. He backed away. "Don't fight it." Ryuko said lazily. That was exactly the wrong thing to say. Ryuji screamed loudly and ran off. He jumped the turnstiles and ran into the tunnels.
"Why the hell did you say that!" Ann asked. "Thought it'd be funny." Ryuko said nonchalantly. I was looking at where Ryuji had run off to, "Morgana, can you get us caught up to him?" I asked. He nodded and jumped into the air to transform. But instead of his usual van he turned into a car. I wasn't an expert, but it vaguely looked like one of those old two-door drifting cars from the 80s or 90s.
"Since when could you turn into a car!" Ryuko asked, she held her hands out and circled Morgana. "It used to be a van." Ann said, looking at the tires. "Well, the cognition must have changed with all of your people coming in." Morgana said to Ryuko through the speakers. "I'll explain later, we got to go catch our friend, remember?" I said, opening the door. I started up the car and Ryuko took shotgun after letting Ann in the back.
I took off down the tunnels, thankful that Morgana was handling the manual transmission for me. I made sure to avoid the Shadows, we weren't here for a fight. We searched the entire floor, and we didn't see him. I drove us to the last place we hadn't checked, and we found Ryuji sitting on the platform that led down. He was out of breath. When he saw us approach, he tried to stand up and run but he fell over.
I got out and jumped up to the platform. Ryuji was trying to crawl away. "NOOOO!" he yelled as I took out my knife. I didn't exactly know where I was going to find it, but I grasped the life fiber controlling him and I slashed it apart. His eyes rolled back into his head, and he went limp. Ryuko, Ann, and Morgana joined me, and we set Ryuji up against the wall.
"So, what's up with the car?" Ryuko asked as we waited for Ryuji. "This place is Mementos." Morgana began, "It's kind of like everybody's Palace, the collective unconscious. And therefore, if something is widely believed in the real world, then it will most likely take manifestation here. So, if it's rainy and miserable outside or if there's a bad day for allergies, then that will change things in here." he said.
Ryuko was doing a decent job of catching on it seemed, "For some reason when we were here last." Morgana continued, "There was this strange idea that a lot of people had that associated cats with vans, so I could transform into a van. Now, the association is with drift cars. Heck, these changes in cognition probably explain why Kamoshida's Palace was different than before, different memories and all that." he finished, I nodded at that last part. "So, what you're saying is…" Ryuko began, "YOU ARE A CAT!" she said, dramatically pointing at Morgana. Ann and I chuckled to ourselves while the other two got into a verbal slap fight.
Just when they were about to come to blows, Ryuji woke up. His Thief gear had returned, he moaned and rubbed the back of his head. I went over to him while Ann broke up the others. I knelt next to my friend. He opened his eyes and met mine, "Hey man!" he said, I straightened up and helped him up. We gave each other a half-hug and he looked over at the others. "What the hell happened?" he asked. "You missed quite a lot." Ann said.
"I can't believe you took him out without me!" Ryuji said, his mouth half-full of ramen. We were sitting at his favorite place over in Ogikubo, we had just filled him in on what happened. "Well, we couldn't just let Shiho do what she did last time." Ann said. Ryuji finished chewing. His enthusiasm waned a little. "Yeah, that's true." he said. We ate in silence for a little bit to clear the air.
"So," Ryuji said, "who else is back to normal?" "Just us, and Akechi." I replied. "You went after that guy before me?' Ryuji said, "He didn't need fixing." I said, "He was supposed to have died in Shido's Palace, and he was also supposed to be gone after Dr. Maruki was taken care of. So, I don't think whoever did all this time reversing knew about him. He's a glitch." I said.
Ryuji nodded and went back to his noodles. "So, what's your deal then?" Ryuji asked Ryuko. "Excuse you?" she snapped. "Oh," Ryuji said, "I didn't mean it like that. I just wanted to know what your persona was." he asked. Ryuko looked into her ramen for a little, "Well, it's not exactly a persona." she said, "It's an outfit called a Kamui, I call him Senketsu, it's made of one hundred percent life fibers, and it runs off my blood." "Your blood?" I asked, having heard that detail for the first time.
"Yeah, but I know how to manage it, and besides, once I synchronize with Senketsu, we kind of feed back into each other? It's hard to explain." she said. She started slurping down more ramen and the rest of us didn't really know what to say. I just turned back to my bowl, and it wasn't long before we had broken up for the day. We had agreed to meet up at school to see if we could plan for the next Thief restoration.
The next day was normal. I opened the shop for Sojiro again to his amazement and I was getting Ryuko on the coffee train, teaching her how to brew it. Around ten in the morning we were texting in our group chat, organizing a lunch meetup when Mr. Inui called on me, "It's generally well known that Julius Caesar's last words were likely similar to the Shakespearian phrase 'Et Tu, Brute', but some have theorized that the original words that he said were the Greek phrase, 'Kaì sý, téknon' which translates to 'you too, child'. What do you think this could have meant?" he asked.
I had absolutely no goddamn clue what to say, so I decided to go for laughs rather than a straight answer. "See you later, punk." I said. He clapped his hands amid the surrounding students who were giggling. "That's actually pretty close." the teacher said, "Many historians have interpreted the phrase as a curse, being an incomplete part of the Roman phrase, 'You too, my child, will have a bite of power.'" he said. I was surprised that I was anywhere near the correct answer, and I did feel a little bit smarter afterwards, not that I needed it anyways.
Shortly afterwards the lunch bell rang, and the Thieves all met up in the courtyard. We took over the small area by the vending machines, it was fairly cloudy, cold, and drizzly outside, so there wasn't much chance anyone would bother us out here. I unwrapped my lunch and was picking at it when the others showed up. Ryuko sat next to me on a bench, Ann and Ryuji occupying the other.
"So," Ann chimed after some small talk, "what's next?" I thought for a moment before saying, "We should get Haru and Sumire next, then move on Yusuke and Futaba. They shouldn't be too hard to get." I looked around and Ann and Ryuji agreed. "We should get on Mako too." Ryuko said between bites of her sandwich. "About that." Ryuji said.
"After you guys cut that life fiber, I'm not exactly sure how to deal with her." he began, "She still has fake memories, and she keeps texting me like usual. I'm not sure how to feel about it, but she's apparently still at home sick." Ryuji said. I thought for a second, "Okay, let's wait for her to get better on her own then." I said, "We need to be more strategic with how we go about things from now on. We can't expose ourselves like we did last time by getting too popular." I finished.
"That makes sense." Morgana said, his head slipping out of my bag, "By the way, I hear someone coming." he said, ducking back into the bag. I guess his feline senses were spot on today, I turned and saw Makoto with one of the other deputies, some guy with short blue hair, walking along the covered path towards us. "What about her?" Ryuji asked, "I was about to get to that." I said as the deputies walked by.
It looked like they were going to just pass us by but the blue-haired one stopped. "Nijima, don't you think it's odd?" he said measuredly. The four of us were staring at him, and Makoto caught on. "Let's see." he said, pulling out his phone and pushing up his glasses, "Ann Takamaki, Ryuji Sakamato, Ryuko Matoi, and…" he started, "Well you sure are rude." I said, standing up and adjusting my glasses.
He stopped talking and smirked a little bit, "Really? How so?" he asked, Makoto tensed up, but the guy readjusted to get her behind him. "Is it not customary to introduce yourself first?" I said, trying to appeal to his intellectualism to avoid a potentially ugly situation with Makoto. The guy chuckled a little bit. "I think you overestimate the value I place on manners." he said, glancing at his phone. "Forget them. Besides, they were the ones who tipped me off about Kamoshida." Makoto said.
"Really now." the guy said as he typed a note on his phone. "That's interesting, I'll add that to their files." he said. The guy nodded and began walking away. Makoto followed, but she shot me a glance which I wasn't sure how to interpret, it was something between professional acknowledgement, friendly kindness, and knowing remorse.
I sat back down and looked at the others. "About Makoto." I said, waiting for the footsteps of the two deputies to fade away, "I think we should hold off for now." "But why?" Ryuji asked. "She's on the inside." I said, "We need to plan out how to get her back cleanly. I doubt she is ever alone when's she's out of her house. So, we should focus on the others first." I finished. "Makes sense, but I don't like it." Ann said, sipping her drink afterwards.
"Thanks man." I said to Morgana, he pushed the collapsible umbrella into my hand. The weather outside was really quite bad. I knew the umbrella wouldn't help with the water, but it would help with my target. It was after school, a few days after our encounter with Makoto and the other deputy, Ryuko, Ann, and Ryuji had gone off ahead of me. Sumire, or Kasumi rather, was standing just outside the front door rummaging through her bag.
I walked up beside her, "You forget an umbrella?" I flashed her a warm smile. "Oh, hello, I did forget it, on today of all days." she said in her usual cheery candor. "Well, you want to share mine? I'm going to the train station." I offered. She smiled, "That would be wonderful, thank you so much!" she said. We walked out of the school and towards the street. The road out front of Shujin was deserted. Most people having already left to beat the rain. I started making small talk with Sumire as I opened the Nav in my other hand.
Mementos appeared around us, and my umbrella had vanished from my hand. Sumire was looking around the subway terminal, I think her brain was working overtime to justify the sudden change in her reality. "What's with your clothes?" she asked me, looking at my outfit up and down. I was going to say something when a hand grasped the fife fiber that was connected to her head. Sumire didn't have the time or know-how to react before Ryuko's scissor blade cut the thread.
She went limp and I caught her. Ryuko grabbed her by the legs, and we carried her over to a bench to let her recover. Ann and Ryuji were taking their time, their job was getting Haru. We were going to try and get two in one today. But it wasn't long before the three of them appeared in the tunnel. Ann and Ryuji distracted her in the split second it took me to cut the fiber. We sat Haru on the bench next to Sumire and we waited for them to wake up.
"That was surprisingly easy." Ann chimed. "Yeah, I'm surprised they controlled themselves so well." I said, leaning up against the wall. Ryuko joined me as we waited. "Hey," Morgana said, "Before we leave, we should check to see if the other levels opened up." he said while looking out into the tunnels. "That's a good idea." I said.
I was going to suggest a plan when Haru started to stir. Her Thief gear was back, and she lurched forward, clutching her head. She moaned a bit, and I crouched down to her level, "Hey Beauty Thief." I said, lifting her hat a little. She looked at me, "Joker?!" she said in soft surprise. I stood up and offered her a hand, which she accepted. "Welcome back Noir!" Ann said, Ryuji gave her a friendly nod. "Gosh, what happened?" Haru asked, she turned to Ryuko, "I'm sorry, but have we met before?" "Don't think so, Ryuko Matoi." Ryuko said, reaching out a hand. Haru shook it and I turned to Morgana.
"Let's split up and go check the lower levels." I said, "Violet might take a while given her dual personality stuff. Panther, Skull, Noir, you stay here and wait for her and fill in Noir as best you can. Ace, Mona, and I will go check the lower platforms." The others nodded and the three of us jumped the turnstiles and ventured into the tunnels. We drove through the next few levels before we finally reached the final platform.
We were walking down the escalators when we came upon where the first door ought to have been. The intricate door wasn't there however, and there were thick wires strewn across the floor. "I guess Maruki's setup never vanished even down here." I said, bending down to inspect the wires. "Yeah, that probably means we could go all the way down, right?" Morgana said, looking down into the next level.
"What's at the bottom?" Ryuko asked, bending down next to me. I picked up a wire and brought it to our eye level. "So, you remember how Mementos is basically the manifestation of the collective unconscious? After you go down several floors and go deeper you reach a prison of sorts where everyone's Shadow is kept. People whose desires are distorted enough eventually form their own sectioned off corner of Mementos, which if left long enough can evolve into a Palace." I said, she nodded along.
"What are these for then?" she asked, she grabbed it from me, and our hands touched, shocking each other with static electricity. I flinched and she giggled, her face blushing. "Originally at the bottom in the prison." I continued, "there was the God of Control who was satisfying everyone's desires through absolute submission." When I said that last phrase Ryuko visibly flinched, but I soldiered on anyways, "We defeated that God and afterwards Dr. Maruki, that therapist I told you about, took the infrastructure of Mementos to construct his own reality. And I suppose even after we defeated him, all that infrastructure is still here." I concluded.
"That's quite a lot of words to say that we don't need to become famous anymore." Morgana said as he joined us. "Yeah, and that's a good thing. We don't need the attention." I said. "What's that got to do with anything?" Ryuko asked. "There used to be doors separating the levels of Mementos, they would only open once more people in reality knew about the Phantom Thieves, but we don't have to do that anymore. It was a huge mess." I said. Ryuko nodded and the three of us turned back to go up, but Morgana's ears perked up. Ryuko and I heard it too, voices. We dashed to take cover behind some columns. The finish on my knife was silvered enough to act as a mirror and I stuck in out from behind the column.
"Man, why do we always get the shitty patrols?" one guy said. There were two of them, both were taller guys who were probably around my age, they were wearing light grey high-collared uniforms that had a darker grey four-point star stitched onto the chest. "What'd they say was wrong? One of the wires, right?" the other guy said, kneeling to look at the section of wire Ryuko and I had been investigating.
"Looks fine to me." the guy said as he poked at the wire. "Here, check the multimeter." the other one said, handing the crouched one a small device that had two prongs. They stuck one of the prongs into the wire and the other one further down the cable. "Hmm," the guy said as he looked at the multimeter. "Yeah," he said, "there's no current. Let's go report it to the geeks." he said, pulling the prongs out of the cable. The two of them then went back downstairs.
Morgana was across the platform from Ryuko and I and he motioned for us to get out. I nodded and we ran back up the escalator. He transformed into the car and Ryuko got in shotgun as I drove back up the levels. "God damnit!" Ryuko said as we gained distance from the platform. "You know who they are?" Morgana asked, his voice coming through the radio. "Yeah, I recognize their faces from school, and I know what those uniforms are too. A One-Star Goku Uniform.", she said dejectedly.
"Mind explaining?' I asked as we drove on. "Those uniforms are made of ten percent life fibers. The school I went to had two-star and three-star uniforms with twenty and thirty percent respectively." she said. I caught her eye for a second as we came up to the platform leading back up to the turnstiles. "Okay, let's get the gang out, you can fill us in once we're out." I said, she nodded, and we ran up to the turnstiles.
I hopped over and jogged up to the group, who were huddled together. "Senpai!" Sumire said, her face lit up as she raised a hand from behind Ryuji. "Hey guys, we need to leave, like, now." I said. I didn't mean to kill the mood but the other understood and we went back to reality.
The group of us all reappeared in front of Shujin in the pouring rain. I whipped out my umbrella quickly and unfolded it. Morgana jumped onto Ryuji's shoulder and Ryuko ducked under my umbrella as the wind and rain picked up even harder. Ryuji and Ann shared an umbrella with Haru letting Sumire under hers. "Let's go to the café in Shibuya." I said. The others nodded and the other two umbrellas went ahead. Ryuko and I lagged, and she got much closer to me, and I noticed she was shivering, having left her jacket in her bag. I wrapped mine around her, and we walked to the station.
We all reached the café, and we found a quiet booth off in a corner of the dining room. Ryuko, Morgana, and I recalled what we saw to the others while we sipped on coffee and hot chocolate to warm up. After we told them about the One Stars Ryuji cleared his throat, "So, if these uniforms have a hierarchy to them, does that mean Satsuki is structuring the students at Shujin like an army?"
Ryuko thought for a second, "It's possible, that is essentially what she did last time but I'm not sure how much that will translate to this world." she said. "In any case, I think we need to look into it more." I said before gulping down some coffee. "Yeah, for sure." Ann said, "Hey, didn't Makoto say she was a Three Star that one time she caught us going to the roof?" she asked. "Yeah, but don't all the deputies have that rank?' I said. Ryuko nodded, "Those uniforms will be a pain in the ass." she said, "But, didn't you notice something?" she asked, turning to me.
I looked back at her, and I was caught off guard a little bit. And something about the way her hair looked while it was wet over her face and the way she was cuddled in my sports coat distracted me for a second, "Uh, yeah, I thought I could sense some sort of life fibers connecting to them." I said. "I caught that too." Ryuko said, turning to the rest of the group, "But unlike the connections to you all, I think theirs were stronger, which means that whatever is controlling them is taking extra care of that connection." she said.
We all thought about this for a moment when the food we ordered arrived. We all ate in relative silence. We were hungrier than we could've imagined, I suppose. After we ate our fill, I decided to break the group for now. "Okay guys." I started, "If Satsuki is going to have her own private army in Mementos, we need to see if she's running the same things in reality too. So, let's hang low at school and focus on gathering intel. In the meantime, we should also look for openings to get Futaba and Yusuke back." The others agreed and we broke off for the night.
"Money of course, and guns, fuckin' a with those two things the world's a great place." the woman on TV said, I think her name was Revy or something like that. The scene continued but Ryuko paused the anime just as some action was starting. "I'm using the bathroom." she said. We were on the futon in LeBlanc watching some anime we had picked up from the rental store, Morgana was off doing something in the neighborhood, 'reconnaissance' he called it. It was a few days since our little Mementos excursion, and we hadn't found many leads yet, but it was Saturday night now, it was time for a break. I was about to browse my phone some when Ryuji called me. "Hello." I said, "Hey man you free to talk?" he asked. "Sure, what's up?"
"It's about Mako." Ryuji began, "Ever since you cut the fiber, I just don't feel much of anything towards her at all. But she keeps acting as if we are still an item and I don't know how to feel about it." he said. I thought for a moment, not expecting him to be so forward. "Have you tried to let her down?" I asked. "I've been responding to her texts with one-word answers since Mementos dude. I don't know what else to do, she just won't let up." he said. "Have you only texted her?" I asked, "Yeah, and I'm sorry if this is a bit much or if it's kind of out of the blue. I just know you had that thing with Ann for a while, and all the other girls in our group had a thing for you I bet." he said. I wasn't sure how to respond to that, I found that most of the time I fell into things, if he was asking for romance advice I was just as clueless in all honesty.
"I guess you might just need to be straight up with her man." I said, "I'm not sure what else to say. That thing with Ann wasn't exactly planed out in advance, it just kind of, happened." he was silent, "I'm sorry that I can't tell you something else Ryuji." I said, getting up and leaning out the window. "It's alright." he said, "To be honest I just don't really know much about all this, and you're the only guy I really know who went steady with a girl." I sighed and looked out for a while.
"Well, if this helps," I began, "maybe just wait until she's back to school. I know that when…" I thought for a second, "I guess the way to know if it's going to work out is if you talk to them face to face. If the conversation doesn't die and if you don't have to force eye contact, if you just feel it, and know that they feel it too, that's when you'll know." I said. "I think I get what you mean." Ryuji said. "Anyways," he said, "enough about me, what about you?"
"What about me?" I asked. "C'mon. You and Ryuko are tied to the hip man. Don't try and tell me there isn't anything there." he said. I smiled a little bit at that, "Like I said, you'll know it when it happens. And for now, I can't say much, I guess I do like her." I said coyly. "If you say so man. Anyways, I gotta go take out the trash. I'll see you later." he said. We said our goodbyes and I hung up. I looked out into the alleyways thinking.
I definitely felt some way about Ryuko, I knew that for sure. She was attractive, no one could deny that. She was confident as well and presented more boldly than I did. But a part of me wondered if she was even open to a relationship. I've always gotten a weird feeling that she had purposefully maintained walls around her that made it hard to be intimate enough for a relationship. I could tell at least that much about her from the conversation we had the other night. And that aspect alone made it very hard to tell if she would feel the same way if the moment came to make a move.
I was lost in thought when the girl herself came up beside me at the window, I was so lost in thought I hadn't heard her come up the stairs. "Something on your mind?" she asked. I matched eyes with her. I smiled, "Just Ryuji, he called me after you went downstairs." I said. "What's he on about?" she asked, looking out into the alley. I looked down at the street, "Just guy stuff, nothing too interesting." I said. "Just guy stuff?" she asked, leaning on the windowsill, looking at me.
God I could have taken her right there. I thought about the advice that I had given Ryuji. And it seemed so cliché that I would have to follow my own, but maybe trusting my gut more would do me better. I tried to remember what it was like with Ann, but that wasn't anything like this. Ryuko was different, she wasn't building confidence or leaning on anyone, she was just living. I wasn't sure how to even think about it, and maybe that's what I should have told her.
"You wouldn't get it." I said softly, leaning to face her too. We locked our eyes for a second. And I couldn't exactly tell if we were doing it or not, but we felt closer than I remember us being. "We were in that jazz club for a while before Ann came." she said, her tone a little off kilter, "You sure that wasn't a date?" she asked. I leaned in, "It can be whatever you want it to be, but do you want to go on a real one?" I asked. I could have sworn that we had moved closer, and if I hadn't known any better, I probably would have tried to kiss her then and there. Something about the way her hair fell on her face, the way her body curved from floor to window, the way her eyes were lit up into mine… "S-Sure" she said, her voice short, I knew we felt the same.
Something about the moment. The soft wind coming from the street below, the smell of curry and coffee downstairs, the distant sound of a police siren, magic. She leaned in closer to me, her steely blue gear-shaped eyes peered into mine more intensely than ever before. I leaned in too, her red streak falling down her face slightly as a small breeze came through. I was ready to face the wind. She bit her bottom lip, and we moved even closer.
We were still like statues soaking each other up, but then footsteps started coming up the stairs. Sojiro peaked his head, "Hey," he said, Ryuko and I broke from our joint trance and separated, "I'm closing up for tonight." I nodded and Ryuko said goodnight. A small part of my introverted self was thankful for the break in tension. It felt like my chest was going to implode. Ryuko sat back down on the futon, and I joined her. She resumed the anime as the protagonists fought off some Neo-Nazis or something, I wasn't paying attention. My mind was somewhere else, on the person who was now sitting closer to me, whose hand was now in mine.
"See You Phantom Thief…"
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