Date: ?
As police officers with black suits started flooding the inside of a casino, a male teenager holding a briefcase underneath his arm was jumping from large light fixtures that hung on the ceiling. The teen had blonde short spiky hair parted to the right with a black lightning-shaped streak on the left fringe.
He wore blue-tinted visors over his eyes and wore an untucked white collared shirt under an unbuttoned black trench coat over his torso. He wore black fingerless gloves over his hands, black trousers over his legs, and black Wingtip boots on his feet. Around his waist was a black Obi that held a wakizashi, covered by a black sheathe.
As the blonde teen landed on another light fixture, he briefly stood still, looked down, and smiled at the guests of the casino, as well as the police. Seeing the teen smiling smugly down at them, the police officers scowl in response.
"He's here. Move in immediately," one of the officers said into his radio as he and the other officers started pushing through people in an attempt to get towards the blonde.
The blonde smile grows wider before leaving the briefcase on the light fixture, turning around, and then jumping and landing on another light fixture. Before the young blonde could continue running away, he heard someone's voice through an earpiece he had located in his right ear.
"Keep running!," someone with a boyish voice told him.
"This is our only chance!," a boy with a sophisticated tone of voice warned.
"Stay calm! You can get away now!," someone with a young girl's voice assured.
"You did a great job acting as a distraction," someone with the voice of a young boy told him. "Now, you just need to make sure that their attention is kept on you so that we can get the briefcase."
"Are you guys sure you can reach it?," the blonde teen questioned his apparent comrades in a concerned tone of voice. "There are a lot of cops here; you might get caught."
"Don't overthink things. You might fry your brain like that," the person with the voice of a young girl teased before getting serious. "But seriously, we'll be fine. Just stay focused on the mission."
"Oracle's right, Jester," the person with the boyish voice agreed. "Don't worry about us. Just concentrate on getting away!"
"Alright. Just be careful," Jester warned before he continued his escape, once again hopping from light fixture to light fixture.
"Like I said, just focus on your escape; we'll be just fine," the person with the boyish voice assured. "Speaking of your escape, showing yourself above that crowd earlier was an excellent move. Nice work as always, Jester."
"Thanks, Mona," Jester responded happily, feeling proud of the compliment given to him. "So, what did the rest of you guys think? I was pretty awesome, wasn't I!? Come on, don't be shy, you can tell me!"
"Heh. You never change," Mona chuckled.
Jumping from a light fixture and landing on the second story of the casino, Jester dusted himself and frowned.
"Why do you always-"
Before Jester could finish asking his question to Mona, a shadowy monster with a humanoid body appeared in front of Jester. It wore a blue theater mask and a suit similar to the suits the police were wearing and held an electrified baton in its hand.
"Take it down, Jester," the voice of an excitable girl buzzed in his ear.
"Already on it, Panther," Jester answered before smiling cockily at the monster in front of him.
Before the monster could attack Jester, he jumped on it and got on its shoulders. He then grabbed its mask and began to rip it off.
"Show me your true form!," Jester yelled out before finally ripping the monster's mask off.
As Jester jumped off the monster's shoulders and landed in front of it, it began to transform until it took on the appearance of an anthropomorphic bull with metallic legs and a long metallic tail. While the monster roared in anger, Jester removed his visors, causing the visors to combust into a small blue fire. The blue fire suddenly moved behind Jester and grew bigger, concealing something in its flames.
"Let's go, Black Frost!," Jester yelled out.
Emerging from the flames was a living snowman made of black snow. It had red eyes and fanged teeth, giving it a sinister appearance. Despite its appearance, it wore clothing that made it look cute, such as a purple winter hat, a purple scarf, and a pair of purple boots.
"Bufudyne!," Jester called out.
Heeding Jester's command, Black Frost opened its mouth and breathed, causing a stream of ice to leave the snowman's mouth. Black Frost's ice breath managed to freeze the bipedal bull in its tracks.
"Nice!," Jester cheered, smiling happily due to him temporarily immobilizing the horned beast.
After the attack connected, Black Frost turned into blue flames and disappeared, causing Jester's visors to reappear over his eyes.
Not wasting any time, Jester unsheathed his wakizashi, dashed towards the bull, and sliced it three times, killing it in the process. The monster's corpse turned into black ooze and dissipated.
"Shadow defeated!," Jester announced into his earpiece.
"Okay, pull out before their backup gets here," Oracle instructed.
Before Jester could react, two more Shadows appeared behind him, similar in appearance to the one he fought before ripping its mask off.
"Great. More of them appeared," Jester sighed in annoyance.
"More of them!? Be careful!," Oracle cautioned.
Jester smiled cockily at Oracle's question, "Hey, remember who you're talking to; I've got this."
"It's because she knows who she's talking to that she's worried," someone with a girl's voice chimed in teasingly.
The voice of a vulgar boy was heard over the earpiece, laughing at Jester, "Damn, dude! Phoenix roasted the hell outta you!"
Jester could hear the rest of his companions chuckling in the background at the vulgar boy's comment.
"Shut it, Skull!," Jester urged as his cheeks heated up in embarrassment.
Wanting to forget about his embarrassment, Jester returned his focus on the Shadows, which had gotten closer to him while he was talking to his companions. Just as one of the Shadows was about to attack Jester with its baton, he backflipped off the floor and landed on another light fixture. Once he landed, he jumped from that light fixture onto the floor above him.
"See? I told you there was nothing to worry about," Jester bragged.
"Good job, Jester," Phoenix genuinely complimented.
"Yeah, almost too good. Who are you, and what did you do to our brain dead leader?," Oracle teased.
"What is it with you guys and dragging me today!?," Jester complained.
"Alright, sorry, sorry," Oracle apologized half-heartedly. "Anyways, there's a door behind you, Jester! Go through it and get going!"
"Fine," Jester groaned, deciding not to let the bashing get to him.
Turning behind him, Jester noticed that there was indeed a door. Wasting no more time, he ran towards the door and headed up to wherever it led. Once going through the door, Jester was met with a flight of stairs that he quickly went up. Once up the stairs, Jester found himself in a room that contained large pipes, guarded in cages. Making his way through the room, Jester came across a door in the far left corner.
"You should be able to get out that way! Hurry!," Oracle urged, seemingly knowing the layout of the room that Jester was in currently.
"Right, thanks," Jester nodded before opening the door, revealing a hallway.
As he began to run down the hall, Jester picked up Oracle's voice through his earpiece.
"I'm getting a weird reading heading your way! C'mon, run faster!"
"I'm running as fast as I can here!," Jester snapped.
Before Oracle could snap back, Jester stopped in his tracks once he saw a police officer standing at the end of the hallway, blocking the door that led to another room. Luckily for him, the officer seemed too preoccupied with a phone call to notice his presence.
"Ugh! How many of them are there!?," Oracle questioned in annoyance as Jester hid behind a cart that had been in the hallway.
"Damn. What am I supposed to do?," Jester muttered, a hint of anxiety seeping into his voice.
"Don't worry, I've got the perfect solution, Jester," Oracle confidently assured. "You mind looking up for me?"
Jester quickly looked up, noticing a platform above him that led to another room. Picking up on what Oracle wanted him to do, Jester couldn't help but smile.
"Ohhh, I get what you mean."
Jester aimed his wrist towards the platform and flicked it, causing a grappling hook to shoot out from the sleeve of his trenchcoat and pull him up and onto the platform.
"Wow! I'm shocked you figured out what I was getting at!," Oracle admitted. "I thought I was going to have to spell it out for you; I'm impressed!"
"…Don't ask to use me as a phone charger anymore."
"What! H-Hey, I was just joking! You know that, right, Jester!? Jester!?," Oracle claimed.
Ignoring Oracle's protests against the punishment he gave her, Jester walked into a large, empty room. Just as Jester was about to make his way out of the room, Oracle cried out for Jester to stop.
"There are enemies-right near you!"
Before Jester had time to react, out of nowhere, two Shadows appeared in front of him.
"Ah, crap!," Jester cried out, trying to get away from the monsters that were right in front of him.
Just as Jester was about to back out of the room, three more of them appeared behind him, blocking him from leaving.
"You're surrounded!," Oracle pointed out. "Even you can't take on this many-"
Before Oracle could continue giving him a play-by-play of what was going on, Jester heard her gasp in shock.
"Jester! That weird reading from earlier's closing in on you too!"
"Come on! Can't I catch a break!?," Jester questioned rhetorically, anxiety apparent in his voice.
As the Shadows began to close in on him, they stopped moving once they heard the sound of footsteps coming from the end of the room.
"I'll end this right now," someone with the voice of a girl proclaimed.
Coming from the staircase at the end of the room was a girl with red eyes and long red hair tied into a ponytail by a black ribbon. The girl wore a black mask with silver highlights, a strapless black leotard, a chain belt that held a rapier concealed by a scabbard, a black choker, and red gloves. She wore a black bolero jacket with ruffled sleeves and floor-length coattails over her leotard, as well as thigh-length hose and stiletto heels on her feet.
"No way! Is that…," Jester trailed off, shocked by the appearance of the girl standing in the back of the room.
"Jester, it's her! She's the weird reading I've been getting!," Oracle revealed.
Not giving the Shadows a chance to react, the red-haired girl unsheathed her rapier, and it flung towards the one that was closest to Jester, piercing it and paralyzing it. Jester let out a surprised yelp before looking at the redhead with a crossed look on his face.
"Hey! Watch where you're throwing that thing; you could have hit me!," Jester scolded.
Jester's scolding caused the girl to wince and physically cringe, "R-right. Sorry about that, Senpai!"
Suddenly, the Shadows stopped trying to close in on Jester and started to rush towards the red-haired girl. Just as one of the Shadows was about to attack her, she cartwheeled out of the way. The girl then pulled a rifle out of her jacket and shot a Shadow in its face, killing it in the process. She then cartwheeled towards another Shadow, backflipped over it, shot it in its face and killed it, and stopped in front of a dumbfounded Jester.
"Wow! That was awesome, Kasumi!," Jester cheered.
The girl could not help but chuckle at the way her senpai had complimented her.
"Thank you, Senpai," the red-haired girl smirked before quickly turning serious, walking towards the Shadow that held her rapier in its face. "My weak self relied on you too much. That ends today."
Pulling her rapier out of the Shadow, (causing it to deteriorate and die in the process), the girl named Kasumi went and stood beside Jester.
"Let's do this, Senpai!," the redhead exclaimed, pointing her rapier towards the Shadows.
"Alright! Let's go!," Jester agreed, imitating his underclassmen by unsheathing his sword and pointing it at the Shadows.
The Shadows' masks fell off their faces, causing two of them to transform into anthropomorphic leopards that wore green capes and dual-wielded twin broadswords and the third one to transform into a large red vulture that wore a golden helmet on its head.
Wasting no time, Jester sheathed his sword and threw away his visors. Just like when he had removed them before, his visors combusted into blue flames after being taken off; the blue fire moved behind Jester and grew higher.
"Scathach!," Jester called out.
The black-colored snowman he had summoned before had not emerged from the flames; instead, a woman with pale skin had come out of the blue inferno. The woman hovered in the air with her legs crossed, wearing a black hat on her head with a black veil under it that was longer than her entire body. Over her torso, she wore a black crop top that covered half of her stomach, and over her waist, she wore black underthings.
"Evil Smile!," Jester yelled.
Complying with Jester's request, Scathach flashed the Shadows a dastardly smile. Once the Shadows caught sight of the pale woman's smile, they all began to shiver in fear.
"Now, Ghastly Wail!"
Heeding the command, Scathach let out a piercing shriek; once the Shadows heard Scatach's shriek, they all died instantaneously. As Scathach disappeared and Jester's visors once again returned over his eyes, he turned his attention to Kasumi, who looked at her senpai with a gleam in her eye.
"That was incredible, Senpai!," Kasumi commended. "You took them out before I had a chance to react!"
Jester could not help but rub the back of his neck sheepishly due to Kasumi's comment.
"W-Well, I've been at this for a while, so-"
Suddenly, a realization came to Jester before staring at Kasumi in disbelief.
"Wait a minute, what are you even doing here!?," Jester asked while pointing at Kasumi accusingly.
Kasumi chuckled nervously as she looked away from Jester sheepishly.
"U-Um, well, y-you see..."
"All of the enemy readings disappeared. I take it that you were able to beat them?," Oracle's voice buzzed in Jester's ear, unintentionally cutting Kasumi off.
"Yeah, but I had a little help," Jester revealed to Oracle.
"Huh? From wh-"
Pausing before she could finish asking Jester her question, Oracle let out a gasp of shock.
"Wait-bad news! Enemy backup's headed your way! You need to book it, right now!"
"Alright. Thanks for the heads-up," Jester acknowledged before turning to Kasumi. "More enemies are coming. We have to get out of here."
To Jester's surprise, Kasumi shook her head no and turned away from him. "Please go on ahead without me. I'm going to make it harder for them to track you down."
"W-What!? No way! It's way too dangerous to go off on your own in here!"
"I'll be fine," Kasumi promised before jumping up onto a ventilation shaft that was above Jester's head.
"Wait a minute, Kasumi!," Jester pleaded.
"You still have something you need to do as a phantom thief, right?," Kasumi asked rhetorically, ignoring her senpai's protests. Then I'll help you in any way I can, just like you've helped me."
Kasumi paused for a moment and turned her head towards Jester. "Please, don't forget the promise we made, okay?"
Knowing that Kasumi was going to go through with her plan whether he liked it or not, Jester let out a loud sigh and reluctantly nodded his head in acceptance.
"Alright. I won't. Just... stay safe, Kasumi," Jester requested.
"I will," Kasumi promised, smiling reassuringly at Jester before jumping away and out of sight.
Jester's gaze lingered on the ventilation shaft that Kasumi was on until he heard someone's voice buzzing in his ear.
"Jester, what are you doing!? You need to get outta there! Go, go, go!," Oracle commanded, snapping the blonde teen out of his trance.
"U-Uh, right! My bad!," Jester replied before going to the end of the room and making his way up the stairs. "Alright, so where do I go from here?"
"Make your way to the top floor. From there, you should be able to make your escape," Oracle instructed.
"Got it," Jester responded as he continued to make his way up the staircase.
Once Jester made it to the top, he saw a door with an exit sign hung over it. He sighed a breath of relief and made his way through the door, only to be met with a balcony that had a view of the entire floor below him.
"U-Um, Oracle, what am I supposed to do from here?," Jester asked anxiously, the sound of footsteps coming up the staircase making him sweat bullets.
"The exit should be up ahead, through that window," Oracle revealed.
Jester turned his focus towards a giant, colorful glass window towards the back of the room below him.
"You want me to go through there!? How!?," Jester exclaimed.
"It's the only way that you can escape. After that commotion, the bottom floor's completely closed off," Oracle explained.
"Do you think you can make it!?," Panther chimed in.
Desperately looking for a means of escape, Jester's line of sight goes all around the room until he gets a glimpse of a chandelier hanging over the middle of the room. He then focuses his full attention on the decorative light fixture and smiles confidently.
"Yeah. This'll be easy," Jester assured his comrade.
Hooking his grappling hook to the chandelier, Jester got on top of the balcony's guardrail. Just as he was going to jump off the railing, the door behind him busted open, revealing a horde of policemen. Before any of them could get to him, Jester smiled cockily towards them and gave the police officers a two-finger salute.
"See ya."
Without any hesitation, Jester jumped off the guardrail, and swung across the room and towards the window. Once he was close enough to the window, Jester unhooked his grappling hook and broke through the window. As he fell to the ground, Jester performed a midair flip to prepare his body for landing.
"Geez. What a show-off," Oracle chimed in.
Once he reached the floor, he tucked his body in and rolled, allowing him to land without injuring himself. He then picked himself off the floor and dusted himself off before replying to Oracle's comment.
"You make it sound like that was easy for me. A few more seconds and I would have gotten caught."
Immediately after he finished responding, bright lights flashed towards Jester. Curious as to where the light was coming from, he turned his attention towards the source of the lights. His eyes widened in horror as he saw that the lights were coming from a large SAT team surrounding the front of the casino, flashing Jester with their flashlights.
"Shit!," Jester yelled in fear.
Voices began to flood through Jester's earpiece, speaking to him all at once.
"Enemies, here!?"
"What's wrong!?"
"These readings... it can't be!"
"What happened!?"
"An ambush!?"
"Jester, can you handle this!?"
"Jester!"
Frozen in fear, Jester didn't, nor couldn't respond to the voices of his companions. Seeing that the bespectacled teenager wasn't moving, the cops decided to take action.
"Capture him!," one of the SAT members yelled into his radio, prompting every other officer to charge towards Jester.
Snapping out of his fear-induced trance, Jester began to run away from the mob of law enforcers. Taking note of an unguarded fire escape, he ran towards it in hopes of using it as a means of avoiding capture. When reaching the fire escape, Jester jumped up, grabbed its ladder, and began to climb it quickly. Once he reached the top of the ladder, a wave of fear ran through his body, seeing that five SAT officers were waiting for him on the fire escape.
Not giving Jester a chance to react, one of the SAT members hit him with the back of their rifle, causing Jester to fall off of the ladder.
"Agh!," Jester cried out in pain as his body hit the ground.
As he tried to get up off the ground, he was stopped quickly by five police officers holding him down.
"H-Hey! Get off of me!," Jester demanded, struggling in an attempt to break free of the SAT officers' hold on him.
"Stop struggling!," one of the SAT members replied in anger.
Ignoring the officer's command, Jester continued to struggle; unfortunately, it was to no effect since he ended up getting handcuffed.
"Suspect secured!," another one of the SAT officers announced to his fellow officers.
Despite being captured, Jester continued to wriggle his body in defiance; he stopped squirming only when someone stepped on his head.
"Urgh!," Jester groaned.
The blonde looked up to see who was stepping on him; his eyes met the hard gaze of a suited man with short, brown hair.
"Didn't expect to find some kid," the man admitted. He then removed his foot off of Jester's head and kneeled to the ground. Moving his body closer to the captured teen, the man grabbed the back of his head and lifted it. "One of your teammates sold you out."
Jester didn't seem surprised by what the man had revealed; rather than looking saddened or shocked, Jester looked angered.
"I knew it," Jester lowly growled, not being able to talk louder due to the pressure of multiple hands on his back, holding him down.
The man in the suit raised an eyebrow at what Jester had told him.
"Oh, did you now? And yet, in the end, you couldn't do anything about it. Makes me wonder if all the crimes you got away with up until now were just streaks of luck."
The man let go of Jester's head before getting up off the floor.
"Oh well, not like it matters much now," the man shrugged before turning his attention to the SAT officers that were holding Jester down. "Take him away, boys."
"Sir!," the SAT officers replied before grabbing Jester, yanking him off the floor, and pulling him away from the casino.
After his arrest and having his mugshots taken, Jester was brought down to an underground interrogation room in the police station. Once inside, a handcuffed Jester was forced onto a chair; almost immediately after being sat down, a cop handcuffed his legs to the chair's legs. What followed after was a brutal half-hour beating by three police officers that left Jester with multiple bruises and cuts all over his body.
"That's enough," a voice from behind the three officers ordered.
Recognizing the voice, Jester groggily looked towards the direction that it came from. After getting a good look at the person the voice belonged to, Jester noticed that it belonged to the short-haired man with a suit that stepped on his head during his arrest. In one hand, he held a clipboard, while in his other hand, he held a pen.
"Leave the rest of this to me," the man instructed while directing a sinister smile towards the blonde-haired juvenile.
Wasting no time, the three officers moved away from Jester and stood to the side of the interrogation room.
"I see that they got you out of that ridiculous costume," the man in the suit commented.
Jester looked down and realized that the man was right; his previous outfit was gone and replaced with a high school uniform. The uniform consisted of a black blazer with a white symbol that resembled a police badge on the top left corner, a white turtleneck underneath the blazer, and black pants with a plaid pattern.
"Wonder why they had you change from your old getup into your school uniform?," the man in the suit pondered before shrugging. "Then again, it's not like that should matter to me."
The short-haired man looked down at the clipboard in his hand and began to read something off one of the pieces of paper it held.
"Says here that your name is Denki Kaminari," the man revealed before he continued to read off the clipboard. "You're a second-year from Shujin Academy, huh? So I guess the rumors about the Phantom Thieves being students from Shujin were true after all."
Denki didn't reply to the man in the suit due to the pain he felt in his chest and lunges from the beating he received. The man continued to read the young blonde's information off his clipboard.
"Obstruction of justice, blackmail, defamation, possession of weapons. Manslaughter too, yeah? Talk about the works. To think all those crimes were led by a punk like you. And you seemed to be enjoying every last second of it."
Denki growled and glared at him, which the man in the suit responded to by shooting him a glare of his own.
"Nothing to say, huh?," the man asked before kicking Denki in his head, causing him and the chair to fall over. "Give it up already!"
"Agh!," Denki cried in pain.
The man moved close to Denki's head and stepped on it, eliciting a pain-induced groan from the suspected criminal.
"Come on, cooperate. Or do you want another beating?"
Denki tried to talk, but all that came out was garbled gibberish. The man in the suit clicked his tongue in disappointment before kneeling down next to Denki.
"Guess you can't talk even if you wanted to," the man realized. He put down his clipboard and pen before reaching into his jacket pocket and fishing out a key. He then unlocked the handcuffs that chained Denki to the chair before unlocking the handcuffs around Denki's hands. "Don't try anything funny; if you do, it will be the last mistake you ever make."
The man with the suit grabbed his clipboard and flipped the papers it held until only one piece of paper remained unflipped. He then held out the clipboard and pen towards Denki, to which the teenager just raised his eyebrows in confusion.
"It's a confession under your name. Sign it," the man demanded. Taking note of the rebellious look on Denki's face, he decided to add something. "And if you refuse, then I'll make sure you lose one of your legs. After all, I only need your hands to sign it."
Not taking the man's threat lightly, Denki took the pen and clipboard and gave his signature. Once he finished signing the confession, Denki handed the clipboard and pen back to the suited man, but not before he grabbed onto Denki's wrist and glared at him.
"Don't expect to walk out of here in one piece," the suit-clad man threatened. "We're going to make you understand that one must take full responsibility for their actions."
After getting up off the floor, the man in the suit turned his focus to the police officers standing to the side.
"Cuff him again and sit him down near the table," the man instructed. "Get him some opioids and wait half an hour to question him again. If you can't get anything out of him, then contact me. One way or another we'll get a verbal confession out of him as well."
After giving out his commands, the man in the suit left the interrogation room while the policemen started to carry out his instructions.
"Wake up!"
Hearing someone yelling at him, Denki opens his eyes and groggily raises his head off the interrogation table.
'When did I fall asleep?,' Denki mentally questioned as he rubbed his neck due to it feeling stiff from sleeping on the table.
Suddenly, water splashed Denki in his face, causing him to wake up fully and yelp.
"W-What the hell!?"
Turning his attention towards the direction where the water came from, Denki saw that one of the police officers had a bucket in his hand.
"Wake up, criminal!," the officer who splashed Denki with water commanded. "You have a visitor here for you."
The reveal of someone coming to see him seemed visibly confused Denki, as one of the policemen laughed at him and pointed at his face.
"Haha! You should see the look on your face!," the police officer taunted before relaxing. "It's not anyone coming to save you, so don't get your hopes up. It's just some prosecutor coming in to question you for a while."
"Don't try anything funny," a different officer warned. "We've got cameras here, so if we see you trying anything suspicious... well, we'll leave that up to your imagination."
One of the cops unlocked the handcuffs that chained his hands together and his legs to the chair. After uncuffing him, all the officers present left the room; a few seconds later, the door to the interrogation room opened, revealing a beautiful woman. The woman had brown eyes and ashen brown hair which was parted to the left and reached her upper back. She wore a black business suit with a black turtleneck and dark gray high heels.
Once both of their eyes met, they widened in shock due to seeing one another in the interrogation room.
"Niijima-san!?"
"Kaminari-san!?"
Denki looked down at the table and sighed in exasperation.
"So you're the prosecutor that they were talking about?," Denki asked.
Getting over her initial shock Niijima's expression hardened before sitting down in front of Denki.
'As shocking as it is to find out he's a phantom thief, I can't let that distract me. I must see this through to the end,' Niijima mentally admonished herself.
"That is correct," Niijima confirmed. "You'll be answering all of my questions."
Before she began questioning the blonde criminal, Niijima took note of the bruises and cuts all over his face. She then took notice of how tired and worn out he looked before taking notice of some syringes on the floor of the room.
"Those bastards," she muttered before turning her attention back to Denki. "How are you feeling? Are you able to hear me?"
"Yeah, I can hear you," Denki confirmed.
A wave of relief hit Niijima as she continued the interrogation.
"It seems like you've been through a lot," Niijima noted. "Almost anything can happen here... and I can't stop them. That's why I need you to answer me honestly. I don't have much time either."
Not getting a reply from Denki, Niijima decided to continue.
"What was your objective? Why did you cause such a major incident?"
A part of Denki was screaming at him, begging him not to say anything but against his better judgment he gave her his answer anyway.
"It was for justice."
Denki's answer seemed to anger Niijima if the scowl she gave him was any indication.
"So you consider taking the law into your own hands and killing someone justice!?," Niijima exclaimed.
Denki's face scrunched up as if he were trying to focus on remembering something.
"Did I really kill someone?," Denki questioned more to himself than to Niijima.
Had she not seen the obvious whelps on Denki's face and the syringes on the floor, Niijima would have thought he was trying to play dumb.
"You honestly can't remember?," Niijima asked, to which Denki replied by shaking his head. She stroked her chin as if she were thinking of what to do next. "I see. In that case, I want you to tell me everything you remember, starting from as far back as you can remember. If there are any lapses in your memories, I'll do my best to assist you."
Before Denki could reply, everything around him seemed to slow down until time stopped altogether. He then took notice of a shining blue butterfly flying over his head. Then out of nowhere, the butterfly began to talk.
"You are held captive. A prisoner of fate to a future that has been sealed in advance," the butterfly informed in a calm tone of voice. "This is truly an unjust game. Your chances of winning are almost none. But if my voice is reaching you, there may yet be a possibility open to you."
"I've seen you before. What are you?," Denki asked.
"I beg you. Please overcome this game... and save the world," the butterfly continued, ignoring Denki's question.
"But... How am I supposed to do that? I'm trapped," Denki pointed out.
"The key to victory lies within the memory of your bonds-the truth that you grasped by the assistance of your friends," the butterfly answered. "For the sake of your world's future... as well as your own... you must remember."
After saying everything it needed to say, the butterfly faded away as time began to return to normal. Once again, despite a part of himself screaming at him, telling him that it was a bad idea, Denki decided to tell Niijima everything he knew.
"It all started half a year ago..."
Fun Facts
I was originally going to show Denki's initial Persona in this chapter, but decided against it in the end. His initial Persona will be revealed during his awakening.
Alright, hey guys, Phoenix here, and I hope you enjoyed the first chapter of my new story, "A Phantom Hero Among Rebels". Within the past two years, I've really, really gotten into the Persona games and have completed Persona 5, Persona 5 Royal, Persona 3, and Persona 4, (but not in that exact order). Since I have such a big love for Persona and My Hero Academia, I decided to make a crossover story. This was eighteen pages long and took two months to write this, so I can definitely say that I'm pretty passionate about this. Make sure to review, give me your honest criticisms, and follow and favorite if you liked the chapter. Hope you enjoyed, and until next time, later!