5/8 – Sunday
After School
Shujin Academy, Classroom
"I've been thinking about what you said," Mishima began. The classroom was still emptying, but a quick glance around the room confirmed that the remaining students were too preoccupied with their own conversations to listen in on Ren and Mishima. Even so, Ren turned slightly towards the window before he replied, back towards the gossiping throng at the back of the room.
"About asking the Phantom Thieves?" he said.
Mishima shook his head. "About fighting. I'm," he looked down at the floor, "I'm not that strong. I'm too scared to confront people, to actually face them, the way you and Sakamoto faced Kamoshida."
"You don't have-" Ren began, before Mishima cut him off.
"There are more people whose hearts need to change!" His tone was still hushed, but Ren could see a spark in the boy's eyes. "I know you're not Phantom Thieves, or whatever, but..." Mishima fished in his pocket for his phone, unlocked it, and passed it to Ren. "You still asked them to steal Kamoshida's heart. So, please, if you can, make sure they see this."
Ren took the phone. "Phantom Thief Aficionados?" A fan site? No, not just that, a quick scroll down showed more than simple praise for the Thieves. "Requests. Wait, three hundred–"
"I mean," Mishima said, "the first forum wasn't split up, I expected mostly thank yous and discussions, but then so many people started asking for the Phantom Thieves to help them, so I made a whole separate forum for that."
Ren looked up at his classmate, the quiet boy who was smiling now wider than Ren had seen before. "You made this? That's impressive."
Mishima shrugged. "I mean, it's pretty bare-bones. But people are noticing, so I guess I did something right." He chuckled.
Ren scrolled back up, to a large poll question placed front and center beneath the Aficionado title. "Do you believe in the Phantom Thieves?"
"Well, I've heard so many other students debating that, so I thought why not get people to weigh in." He rubbed the back of his neck. "It's ninety-six percent disbelief right now though."
"Guess everyone thinks the Thieves are just a rumor." Ren handed Mishima's phone back.
Mishima shook his head. "Not everyone. I wouldn't have started the website if I didn't believe." He clutched his phone to his chest. "I need...to fight too. It's not much, but this is what I can do, get people to come forward, give the Phantom Thieves the information they need to do their job." He met Ren's eyes with a frightening intensity. "Please, Ren, can you make sure they hear about this site?"
Ren hesitated. He felt Morgana stir nervously in his bag. Then, he nodded. "They'll know."
5/8 – Sunday
Evening
Leblanc Attic
Morgana paced back and forth on Ren's bed. "Are you sure we made the right decision? Even if Mishima doesn't think you're a Phantom Thief, he definitely knows you're involved."
"I trust him," Ren said. He slid underneath his bed and carefully lifted the loose floorboard. "Mishima wouldn't rat us out, he wants to help the Phantom Thieves as much as he can. We could probably just tell him we were Thieves without anything bad happening."
"Not a chance." Morgana said, sternly. "There's too much at stake to risk exposing your identities" He sighed. "I don't think Mishima would betray us, but do you really trust him to not make things worse by getting involved? Or accidentally letting something slip?"
Ren reached an arm into the secret compartment, rooting around half-blind for the right parcel. "The fan site is too useful to shut down. And Mishima's determined to help, even if I tell him to get uninvolved, he'll probably just work harder outside of our control." He pulled the parcel out and replaced the floorboard. "He still thinks I'm some sort of middle-man, how about I just play along and make sure he's actually being helpful? I'll keep him from getting into trouble, or getting us into trouble." He sat up and shook off the dust.
Morgana let out a very feline grumble and plopped down onto his belly. "Fiiiiine," he said.
Ren snickered and scratched behind Morgana's ears. "Hey, come on, aren't you excited to see what's in the parcel?"
He sighed, though it sounded half like a purr, and nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, open it up already!"
"Aye-aye boss." Ren sat down on the bed and pulled open the parcel, letting the contents slide out into his lap. He'd expected more trinkets or materials, something far more intricate than the heap of papers that plopped onto his legs. A solitary black pen rolled out after them, landing on the sheets between Ren and Morgana. Ren stared down at the intimidating document, stapled together at the corner like some sort of massive homework assignment. "This is new."
Morgana batted at the pen. "What's this? Some sort of secret tool?"
Ren picked it up and popped the cap off. "Looks like a fountain pen." The tip was intricately designed metal, a wedge of silver with gold trim. The black plastic was also ringed with gold. "A completely normal fountain pen."
Morgana hopped up on Ren's shoulders to look closely at the pen. "There's something written on the tip."
He tilted the pen to better read the tiny text engraved on the metal. "Kuramoto Child."
The not-a-cat hummed an inquisitive note. "Any idea what it means?"
Ren shook his head, almost displacing Morgana, who let out an indignant squawk. "Sorry," he laughed. "Maybe it means something to someone else though." He put the cap back on. "I was thinking about going to get some new pens anyway, mine are running low."
"What kind of idiot uses time travel to save you the trouble of going on a shopping trip?" Morgana huffed.
Ren pocketed the pen and picked up the stack of paper. "I'm more interested in this." It had been primarily printed, though there were a number of handwritten notes scrawled in the margins. "April Twenty-Second," he read, "the Phantom Thieves invade the Castle of Lust and steal Suguru Kamoshida's heart. May Second, Suguru Kamoshida confesses his sins and turns himself in to repent for his crimes. May Seventh, the Phantom Thieves change the heart of a stalker." In the margins, the name 'Natsuhiko Nakanohara' was scrawled.
"What the hell?" Morgana's fur prickled. "Has someone been watching us?"
"Maybe it's a guide?" Ren said. "Something from Oxymoron or Anachronism to help tell us what to do?" He turned the page. "Or not." Past the first page, someone had practically attacked the document with black ink, covering up dates, names and other details.
Morgana growled softly. "May blank, the Phantom Thieves invade the blank and steal blank heart? We can't do anything with this!"
"Well," Ren offered, "it confirms the Phantom Thieves will still be stealing hearts?" Even he was starting to lose interest in playing devil's advocate for their benefactors.
Morgana half-glared at him silently.
"Yeah, okay, it's pretty useless." He skimmed through the page, then the next, then the next. Each entry was more redacted than the last, until every single line had been blacked out completely. The redactions were a mockery, like his providers were laughing at him from the future, dangling a morsel of truth in front of him only to snatch it away again. Beyond simply clueless, Ren felt powerless, forced to continue risking his life flying blindly through this storm of shrieking nonsense. Once again, he thought of Shiho and grit his teeth. Then, he froze. The last page was minimal, with only two lines of text. Most importantly, that text hadn't been redacted.
December 24th. The sky cries blood and the world eats itself alive.
December 31st. Oxymoron, under duress, saves daylight from the Fall.
Morgana was motionless, probably reading those two lines over and over the same way Ren was. "Do you remember the first letter you got in the parcels? What did it say again?"
"I look forward to meeting you again," Ren recited, "when the sky cries blood and the world eats itself alive."
"That's our deadline then, huh?" Morgana shivered. "We're going to meet our benefactor on Christmas Eve."
"Deadline," Ren said, quietly. "That second entry, I think...saving daylight from the Fall. I feel like I've heard it before, I just don't remember where."
"Whatever it means, I don't like the sound of it." Morgana hopped down off Ren's shoulders. "We meet Oxymoron on Christmas Eve, then they're under duress by New Years Eve. Are we supposed to save them from duress? Or are we the duress that makes them save whatever daylight is?" He rolled onto his side and groaned. "Ugggggh this is making my head hurt!"
"Mine too buddy," Ren chuckled. He reached over and gently rubbed Morgana's tummy. "Mine too."
5/10 – Tuesday
After School
Cafe Leblanc
"Thanks again for letting us study here," Ann said, flashing Sojiro a winning smile.
The cafe owner chuckled. "Hey, you three are the first customers I've had all day. As long as you don't cause too much trouble, you're welcome to study here as much as you like."
"You got it boss!" Ryuji said, definitely louder than he should have.
Ann shot him an "inside voices" kind of look, and the jock quickly pretended to be deeply invested in a math worksheet.
Ren laughed. "So, where should we start? I'm not too concerned about Math, but I've fallen a bit behind everywhere else."
"I've got an okay handle on English, I think." Ann shifted a few papers around on the table. "These prep questions are awful though."
"If you're struggling with 'em," Ryuji said, "all three of us are probably screwed."
Ann picked up a handful of lined pages and straightened them out with two quick taps. "Well, I found my History notes, so maybe we should start there?"
Ren groaned.
"Not a fan?" Ann asked.
"It's hard to keep all the random dates in my head," Ren said. "Like, I know that the Kenmu Restoration happened after the Kamakura Period, but I how am I supposed to remember what date the Restoration started and ended?
"One-Three-Three-Three to One-Three-Three-Six," Ryuji said, still staring down at his worksheet, twiddling a pencil between two fingers. "It was only three years, so you just gotta remember the start."
Both Ren and Ann stared at him for a silent moment.
"And how do you remember that?" Ren prompted.
"Cause that Nitta Yoshisada guy invaded Kamakura and killed the shogun, that was in one-three-three-three."
"Thirteen-thirty-three," Ann corrected.
"Whatever, whatever," Ryuji grumbled. "You write em the same way anyhow."
Ren looked at Ann, then back at Ryuji, then slowly wrote "1333" in his notebook. "Uh, Ann, what were you saying about the English questions?"
"Oh, they're horseshit," she replied.
Sojiro, still behind the counter, snorted into a cup of coffee and starting coughing.
"Like," Ann leaned down to read from a prep sheet, "the phrase 'Daylight Savings' refers to a practice in many English-speaking countries to change their clocks twice a year on specific days. In which season do Americans change their clocks forward an hour?" She smacked the paper down on the table, huffing out the corner of her mouth. Morgana, resting on a nearby stool, jumped from the sound. "I get we're supposed to learn how to talk fluently, but it's an English class not an American culture class. How often is that going to come up in normal conversation anyway?!"
"So, uh," Ryuji finally raised his head from his math sheet, "what's the answer then?"
"Spring," Ann replied, still half-grumbling. "They set their clocks forward an hour in Spring and then back an hour in Fall."
"Weird," Ryuji replied.
Ren snapped his pencil in half with one hand. Saving daylight from the Fall. Daylight. Oxymoron was going to set the clocks back to save daylight from the Fall. For whatever reason, on New Years Eve, Oxymoron was going to turn back time.
"Dude," Ryuji said, "are you okay?"
Ren's eyes refocused. All four of Leblanc's current inhabitants were staring at him, with some mixture of confusion and concern. He looked down at the splinters of yellow wood and graphite biting into his palm. "Yeah," he replied, "sorry, just...stressed."
5/10 – Tuesday
Evening
Mementos, Entrance
Ren stared down at the unblinking red eye of the Metaverse Navigator as blue flame tickled his nose and flickered at the edges of his vision. When the azure faded, he stuffed his phone back in his pocket, not even bothering to let it chime a complete journey.
"I hope this is actually important," Mona said. "If Sojiro realizes you've snuck out, you might get shipped back off to jail. Besides, you've got exams tomorrow, you should really be resting." He was standing there, arms crossed like some sort of tiny, stern older sibling.
"I don't care," Ren said. His tone was sharper than he meant it, and Mona flinched. Stifling the urge to apologize, Ren turned to face the stairs leading down into Mementos. "You were right about Oxymoron giving us a deadline, but it wasn't the 24th. It was the 31st."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean," Ren's fingers tightened around his knife's grip. "That whole thing about saving daylight from fall. I don't know why they put it in such a stupid fucking code, but they're trying to tell us that's when this whole time traveling bullshit started. Something is going to happen, some sort of big event or enemy or whatever, and we have to stop that from happening or they're going to 'turn back the clock.' That's our deadline."
"Turn back...so if we can't do whatever they're warning us about–"
"Then Oxymoron, under duress, is going to turn back time and try again." Ren tried to keep his breath steady. "Like a bad sketch, just undo everything and start from scratch. Like we're nothing."
"Joker," Mona said, quietly.
"Is this just some sort of game to them? Some fucking simulation they can reset whenever it doesn't go right? What kind of stupid...idiot has the power to turn back time but not actually solve their own problem?!"
A tug on his coat. Ren looked down at his fluffy companion. Mona was staring at the ground, clearly overwhelmed, gripping the end of Ren's coat tight in his paw. "It'll be okay though, right? I mean, they're counting on us to help them. So whatever it is, they need us, they can't do it on their own. And, we're Phantom Thieves. We help people. So, we're gonna help them."
"Yeah," Ren said, "maybe. Probably? I don't know."
"We're gonna try?" Mona asked.
"We're gonna try," he affirmed.
Mona nodded. "So, why are we down here anyway? Couldn't we just talk in our room?"
"Arsene won't let me use his strength," Ren replied. "My first and strongest Persona won't listen to me, our benefactors are refusing to communicate with us in anything other than cryptic bullshit, and I have no clue what sort of trouble we're getting ourselves into. I'm...I can't..." He took a deep breath. "I need to get stronger. If I can't use Arsene, I'm just going to have to form a stronger bond with my other Personas, and get better at fighting on my own."
"You're not going to be on your own," Morgana said. "You're a Phantom Thief, you're part of a team."
"That's the point. If it were just me, I don't know, maybe I could live with improvising my way through this. Except Moron chose me to be the primary recipient of their stupid plan, so I'm going to end up leading you guys down whatever path they've set for us! I can't let anything..." The words caught in his throat. "If I'm taking point, I need to be able to clear the way for you all. I can't afford to do that if I'm slowing all of you down. I'm gonna make sure that no one else has to carry my slack."
"So you're going to stay up late fighting Shadows, the night before your exam? How's that going to help anyone?" Morgana was angrier now too, half yowling out the words.
"I'm not going to let myself lead you to your fucking deaths!"
Silence.
"I can't ask you to follow me," Ren said, "unless I know I can lead you all back out of whatever I'm leading you into. Without Arsene, I don't...I don't know if I'll be strong enough to do that."
Morgana didn't reply, but he let go of Ren's coat. "Go ahead, if you wanna train on your own." His tone was low, hurt, and it shoved a knot into Ren's throat. "If you get hurt, I'll heal you. But I'll stay out of your way, or whatever."
Ren wasn't sure what to say. Thank you? I'm sorry? Good? In the end, he couldn't find himself able to say anything.
Ren's throat felt beyond dry by the time he dragged himself to the seventh staircase. The blue subway walls were starting to blur together, and his heart was repeatedly smacking against the inside of his skull. He pulled a soft drink out of his bag and tried to drink it and coughed as it went down the wrong pipe and tried to drink it again. He'd managed to navigate his way through this area with minimal injuries, but his stamina was at its limit. His Personas were slower to answer his call now, and their attacks far weaker. He was out of bullets, and his arms were beginning to ache and cramp from the dozens of knife swings. After another minute to catch his breath, Ren stepped onto the escalator.
The small corridor at the bottom ended in another closed, glowing wall between areas – that didn't much surprise Ren. What did surprise him was the blonde-haired girl sitting cross legged on the ground in front of that door. She had been rummaging around in a black backpack, but as Ren stepped off the escalator, she looked up to smile at him.
"Greetings, Joker," she said. "It is very nice to finally meet you." The girl was wearing metal headphones, a white suit with a red tie, and gold...pants...
They weren't clothes. They were armor. White and gold metal that glinted in Mementos' faux subway light. She wasn't so much wearing anything as much as she simply had it, the way Ren had skin or hair. In fact, the only part of her "outfit" that looked like actual fabric was her tie. When she pulled a can out of her backpack, Ren could see something like a large gun barrel around each of her wrists.
"Do you also want something to drink?" the girl asked. Her voice was soft, but almost monotone, rising and falling in odd places, like someone who couldn't quite hear themselves talk.
"No thank you," Ren replied.
The girl popped the tab and lifted her head back to chug down the can.
"Who the hell are you?" Ren asked. "What are you doing here?"
The girl wiped some sort of black residue off the corner of her mouth. "I'm sorry, could you please repeat that? I couldn't see what you said."
"Who are you?" Ren said. Her eyes were focused on his mouth when he spoke. "You're not a Shadow, right? Are you human?"
"You are correct, I am neither human nor shadow. My proper designation is an Anti-Shadow Suppression Weapon." She smiled. "But my name is Aigis, so you should call me that instead."
"Anti-Shadow..." Ren leaned against the nearby column, still somewhat winded. "I don't understand. Don't take this the wrong way, but you don't really look like a weapon."
Aigis laughed. The sound was curious, synthetic in tone but still very natural. "I was built to protect humans and destroy Shadows. But I have found other reasons to exist, beyond that. As every person does, I expect."
"Built." Ren squinted at her. "Are you like...a robot, or something?"
"I am an android, yes." Aigis replied. "But please do not assume I am a simple machine. Not to brag, but I have managed to develop a great deal of perception beyond the limits of my programming."
"Good for you," Ren said. This was all a little past sensible to him, but then again, nothing about the Metaverse really made complete sense. Sure, he could accept the robot lady for now. "You knew my name. Have you been watching me or something?"
Aigis reached into her bag and pulled out a tan rectangle. The moment Ren recognized it, his blood ran cold. "This parcel was sent to me a few months ago. Inside was a list of instructions and information. I expect you received something similar."
"Right." Ren clutched his knife tight in both hands. "And how am I supposed to believe you aren't the one who sent them in the first place?"
Aigis shrugged, her joints letting out an audible popping sound at the motion. "I understand you are frustrated," she said, "and impatient–"
"You don't know the first thing about me," Ren spat. "Even if you're not Oxymoron, or her lackey, you still don't get to act all high and mighty! I'm tired of being played with!"
The wall behind Aigis opened. At first, Ren thought the android might have opened it, but then he saw two yellow eyes gleaming in the dim. The Shadow walked, slowly, forward into the light, neon glinting off its dozens of teeth. Its entire torso was an enormous mouth, ringed with sharp fangs, its two hungry eyes on foot-long stalks. Ren couldn't move. His muscles ached, and he couldn't move.
Aigis glanced over her shoulder at the monstrous Shadow, now towering over her, drool running down its legs. "Oh, hello," she said. "I was waiting for you to show up."
The Shadow raised one hand and stretched out five razor talons, hissing a horrid shriek.
"Aigis, move!" Ren shouted, finally able to take a step, charging towards the monster, blade-first.
"Persona," she said. There was no strength behind her words, no gesture of command, but Ren heard a sharp hiss follow her words, like the sound of compressed air. He saw red, a wave of crimson engulfing the corridor, then fading in an instant. The Shadow crumpled, wailed, and burst into black dust. Aigis was still sitting, cross-legged, smiling at Ren. Floating above her, surrounded by a metal ringed shield, was an ethereal white-clad woman with an enormous spear and a plumed helmet.
The wall closed, and Ren struggled to find anything to say. "Are you alright?" he finally asked.
Aigis laughed again. "I am operating at peak efficiency, thank you Joker." The wall closed behind her, and her Persona faded from sight. "To answer your earlier inquiry, my mission here is not about you, though preventing you from pushing too far is a definite objective. These gates seem designed with the intent of keeping outsiders from venturing into deeper paths, as they are not very effective at stopping powerful Shadows from wandering up here. I have been installed here to prevent the Phantom Thieves from being forced to face such a threat before they are ready to."
"Oxymoron told you to babysit us?" Ren said.
"No," Aigis replied. "Their instructions were extremely vague and very open to interpretation."
Ren found a chuckle bubbling past his lips. "No kidding," he muttered.
"I was only made aware that your team would be conducting operations within Mementos," she continued. "And that a few particularly hungry Shadows might decide to come looking to eat some Thieves for lunch. As a Shadow Suppression Weapon, I was encouraged to do my job. Protect humans," Aigis cracked her neck, "and annihilate Shadows."
