Chapter 12: Pushing Forward

{R}

The two days passed quickly for Ren. He managed to make a "hiding spot" in Leblanc by organizing then using what was there, actually finding a bike in the process, and thought of a better way to bring all of it for their trips, having had Mona stash a bag on the roof in a spot only the not-cat could reach. The day before he had another training session with Ryuji as well as, at Aki's suggestion, bringing a lot of drinks and sodas. That also included them trying to make coffee on the café's coffee machine, which they unexpectedly got permission for. And now it was the day for another infiltration and they were back in the safe room that was surrounded by crowded hallways filled with enemies, including the incredibly strong one.

For the moment, they sneaked passed them to try out the door behind the strong enemy but found the lever wouldn't work, a necklace with a divot hanging from the goat's neck. Since it was clear they needed some kind of "key" for it, they went in the room with no enemies inside that was nearest to it to hide, the room that was actually closest having a guard in it.

"A library, huh? Seems fishy," Mona said when they entered.

"Took the words right outta my mouth," Rogue said.

"Agreed," he said as he followed his sister in looking at the shelves.

"Huh? Whaddya mean?"

Mona said, "Come on. A library in a castle? There has to be some sort of secret mechanism here."

"Yeah. There's always one."

"Or more."

"Uh huh. And since this is cognitive... Ha! Thought so," Rogue said.

"Here as well," Joker said.

"Huh? Found what? There's nothing there."

"Exactly. The perfect spot to put a key book," his sister said.

"Now we just need to figure out what to put in it," Joker said as he examined the shelf before him to see if there was a clue with the titles.

He frowned and glared.

Shiho Suzui: The Pliant Bunny, one of the book titles said.

Ann Takamaki: The Charming Doll, another of the books said.

Akira Amamiya: The Exotic Waif, yet another book said.

Yet more reasons to go after Kamoshida.

Almost as if to draw him from those thoughts, the girl in question said, "Hey, I think I found another one!"

He turned and went to where Panther was, Rogue, Skull and Mona doing the same. As he did with the shelf earlier, he looked at the books on this one.

"'Tracing Kamoshida's Steps'... 'Kamoshida's Heroism'... 'Kamoshida's Law'? The hell? All these books are 'bout Kamoshida."

"Hmm, so we got one shelf with the names of the boys on the volleyball team, one about Kamoshida and one that's..." Rogue glanced at him.

Right, he hadn't said anything. "It has the names of the girls at school."

His sister's eyes shifted and he felt her gaze soften in worry. Ren smiled in embarassment and sadness. She probably had a guess to what names were specifically on the shelf. Yet she didn't say anything about that. Instead she said,

"So we have to find something about Kamoshida, the boys and the girls."

"Okay...but how're supposed to know which ones are the right ones?" Skull said as he glanced back at the room.

Joker followed it to the tables, some of which had books. He shared a look with Rogue and they nodded. He turned back and focused, using the Third Eye Igor gave him. There, he found it. One of the books was glowing, the wear much more prominent than the others. He stopped as he went and picked it up.

"The King Book..." Rogue said.

"Did you two figure it out?" Mona said.

"Maybe," Rogue said. "But we only found one so far."

He did another sweep with his Third Eye before he said, "Let's try the other rooms."

The other rooms turned out to indeed have other odd books—one titled "The Queen Book", the other "The Slave Book"—and just like that first room, there had been guards in all of them. Thankfully none of the knights in the halls noticed the screams from the fights. When they returned to library, it was easy enough to guess where they went. Just as they thought, when they were all put in the empty places, something clicked and two of the shelves moved to reveal a hidden room.

He froze at the threshold.

"Ugh, the hell...?" Skull said. "There're tons of pictures of Suzui here! Wait...they're all pics of her?"

But then he noticed the pain look on Panther's face and he turned to her in concern.

"Are you going to be okay?" he said.

Rogue was looking at her with the same worry.

Panther looked at them both before she took a deep breath. "Yeah." Then her gaze burned as she said, "If anything, I feel even more motivated now."

Joker was still worried she was pushing herself too much. But with that look in her eyes, he knew he wasn't going to be able to stop her.

So he said, "Okay. Just remember, we're doing this all together, okay?"

"Yeah. Exactly," his sister said.

To his relief, Panther smiled, even if it was small. "Yeah. Thanks."

Then Mona said, "Then let's search this room. I know it'll be awful, but if it was hidden like this, something important must be here."

They all nodded. Thankfully for their sanity, they found it quickly enough. There was a medal the same size as the divot from before, and not only that, there was a map under it. With that, they were able to determine where the Treasure could be and how much was left to get there. Because of that, and that they weren't that tired, they pressed onward. But just as they exited the room...

"Hey! Who're you?!"

...a guard came in.

It was a relatively quick fight, thanks in part to taking advantage of the thing called a Disaster Shadow that was with them, the Shadow a walking bomb.

Joker didn't want to think too much about the fact that the explosion didn't affect them but its "allies".

After that, they snuck past the guards, put the medal and went down the hallway past the unlocked door. At the end, there were two more doors. The one on the right led to a safe room, the one on the left...

Joker stared at the carpet before taking careful steps inside. Past the doorway was a large space, rows of chairs that looked suspiciously like pews and stained glass windows on each end of the room. And...

"No guards in sight?" Mona said. "That seems suspicous..."

"But the Treasure's ahead right? We got no choice but to keep goin'."

"I guess that's true...but let's make sure we're ready for anything."

Rogue leaned to him. "Mini boss room?" she said, low.

"Mini boss room," he said just as quiet.

With them in agreement, they brandished their weapons. It startled Panther and Skull but then they did the same as they followed him into the altar where a giant statue of Kamoshida stood. As he and Rogue guessed, a knight appeared, a golden one at that, mad at their intrusion on the king's holy ground before transforming into an armored angel. And to say the least, it deserved its armor.

Like the toilet demon when Panther awakened, it had a lot of health, but unlike it, the knight angel had no weaknesses they could exploit, or at least to the skills they had on hand. Not only that, it seemed to have some sort of charging skill. When it did that, its next hit was pretty much an instant faint on any of its targets. Joker had to burn through the few revive items they had. But after finding out that it had a habit of aiming for Skull, he had him lure out attacks and guard against them while he and the rest attacked it. Slowly but surely, they whittled at its health until it screamed and dissolved.

However by then...

"Incoming! We have a lot of enemies coming our way!" Mona said.

"From where?" he said.

"Both sides!"

Steel footsteps echoed.

"What?! What are we supposed to do now?!" Panther said.

Joker cursed under his breath and searched for an exit. Then his eyes met the statue again and he looked up.

"Rogue!" he said and pointed.

His sister followed then she nodded. "Right!"

"Mona! Skull! Hold on!" he said.

"Panther! C'mere!" she said.

Each of the ones called were startled but still listened and held on to their respective caller. He and Rogue flung their grapples on the arm of the statue and pulled just as they guards moved to surround them. Joker breathed a sigh of relief as the guards looked around in confusion, as if they pulled a disappearing act.

He was glad they made it through.

"Mona. Can you please make more grapples? We can't carry them with us all the time..."

After catching their breaths, and Rogue making Mona promise to make more grapple hooks, they continued on, using the pillars and arches to reach areas with items and chests before moving on. Though they made a brief detour in the hallway leading to the stairwell up. Skull had noticed an overgrown door on a balcony across the hallway's own and so they grappled their way to it. Behind the door covered with vines was a...potato shaped like a skull.

"Hmm...to be or not to be, that is the question..." he said as he held it in one hand and put his other under his chin.

"Huh?"

Rogue snickered.

He couldn't help it.

After that little joke, Mona "explained" that it was something called a Will Seed. And by "explain", he meant that Mona told them how they came to exist but not what they actually did or how it'd be helpful. But since it was a rare treasure, it was only fitting for the thieves they were to take it. So Joker kept it, once again thanking the large amount of inventory space he had. With that done, they made their way up the stairwell to the castle's rooftop, where many, many strong enemies were patrolling.

Understandably, Panther and Skull were worried about getting past all of that when these were the more self-aware Shadows. But Rogue pointed out the perfect platform for them: the roof of the gazebo in the center of it all. From there, they grappled their way to the roof of the room leading into the large tower and climbed the edges of it, as well as going through vents. On their way on trying to find more than just single rooms with no exit, they found yet another Will Seed. Eventually they did find the proper way inside.

To say the least, if the place hadn't hammered in on how distorted Kamoshida was, the tower definitely drove the last nail in.

Gone was the gold, red and white extravagance, replaced with magenta tints, slime covered blocks that sometimes moved like pistons, and pillars shaped as solely the torso of women, the head, arms and legs gone and their backends...constantly following his sights, even in his peripherals. It made his skin crawl with goosebumps. Skull made gagging sounds of disgust. Rogue just glared at them like she was hoping to burn it with laser vision. He wished she could. But as tempted as he was to let Panther burn them, he stopped her since it would attract attention on them.

So he was glad that there were only two enemies on the floor they entered, especially when it turned out one was particularly savage, and that there was another safe room. Yes they had passed by an elevator, and everyone didn't look as exhausted as last time, but he didn't particularly feel up to exploring any more. Thankfully for him, his sister and their friends agreed to his wish of stopping that day, though he did make a point of wanting to come back very soon. So Monday was the day they planned on finally reaching the Treasure.

(A)

Akira smiled and stretched her arms. She had fared much better yesterday. Instead of outright collapsing at the next safe room, she just sat down. True, she had still been incredibly tired, both in and out of the Metaverse, but it was an improvement nonetheless. So she still went on her walk, but for the most part, she stayed at the café so that she would be in top form for tomorrow while her brother made preparations, buying and selling items and such. He was also likely taking another medical trial from Takemi while he was at it.

Though she wasn't exactly spending her time resting at the café.

"Thank you for your patronage," she said as another customer left.

Upon seeing she had free time, Sakura-san put her to work. Since he had let them use his coffee machine the other night, Akira did so without complaint. Though she certainly felt like doing so towards the more annoying customers, and unfortunately did let slip a few times with snarky remarks. She had to hand it to Sakura-san for not blowing up on them. He was a lot more patient than she gave him credit for. It made her guilty over the memory of nearly punching him on her first day here even worse. So she renewed her efforts to reign in her temper.

As she was putting away the cutlery, the bell rung.

Akira put on a polite smile and said,

"Wel—" She stared. "Akechi?"

Akechi stared. "Amamiya-san?"

She smiled wider. "It is you! I didn't think I'd see you so soon," she said. "What brings you here?"

The boy cleared his throat and tugged on his collar. "Oh a colleague of mine likes to come here," he said. "Do you remember the woman that was with me on our way to work?"

"Yeah. She comes here?"

"Yes. She says the coffee is quite delicious here so I wanted to try for myself. So when I managed to have some free time, I thought I would use the chance to come here."

"Well I'm glad you did." Since that was the case, she said, "So what do you want to order?"

Akechi gave her an inquisitive look as he sat by the counter and put his attaché case beside his chair. Whatever that expression was for though, she was pretty sure it wasn't for what he said next.

"Hmm..." He looked at the menu above. "What blend would you recommend?"

Still, even with the inkling on what he actually had wanted to say, she just chuckled sheepishly as she walked to the kitchen. She would bring it up after a bit.

"No clue." She turned to her caretaker and said, "What about you, Sakura-san?"

"I'll just whip up today's special. You fine with that?"

"I believe so."

"Want anything else with it?"

"Hmm. Well since there's curry, I'll have that as well."

"Got it."

While Sakura-san did the coffee, Akira washed the dishes. When he started cooking the curry, she had finished cleaning them and acted as his gopher, even though most of the utensiles were within arm's reach. But then when he was finished preparing the meal, he let her serve both the food and drink. She wasn't sure why but she took the plate and cup the few steps towards Akechi and placed it before him.

She smiled and said, "Here you go."

"Thank you."

As he ate, Akira was about to head back to work but then Sakura-san said,

"What are you doing?"

"Uh...working...?"

"Just talk with him. There aren't any others around anyway. You can sit on the chairs if you want."

Akira couldn't help but stare. Sakura-san was...giving her a break?

The man turned unamused. "What?"

Akira just smiled, barely making it not a smirk. "Nothin'." But she still said, "Thanks."

So she took a seat beside Akechi and said, "So? How is it?"

The boy chuckled softly and said, "The coffee certainly lives up to my colleague's praise, but I didn't expect for it to mix well with the curry."

"Heh, yeah, me too. But the curry's so good and the coffee too. No complaints here."

"Indeed." Then his face turned a bit more serious as he said, "Though not as surprising as seeing you here. My colleague never mentioned about anyone besides the café owner."

And there it was. It turned out her guess was right, he was wondering about why she was here.

"Makes sense," she said, smiling. "I did just move here and I haven't seen that co-worker of yours since I first met her."

"Oh? You live nearby?"

Akira smirked. "Yeah. Just upstairs."

"You live here?"

She laughed. "What? Something wrong with that?"

"No. It's just that it's not every day one makes home in a café with such a wonderful atmosphere," he said, smiling as well, though much smaller. "I'm quite jealous that you get to drink coffee like this everyday."

Well, when he put it that way... Akira looked around the café. She was pretty lucky. And for all the gripes she had of Sakura-san, he wasn't that bad.

"Yeah. You got that right." She gave him a mischeivous smile. "But if you really want the coffee that much, you can just come every day you know."

The boy chuckled. "Well, maybe not every day, but I think will come back," he said. "I think I've found my go-to café after all."

She smiled. "Glad to hear," she said. But still... "Not everyday huh? Work keeps you that busy?"

"Pretty much," he said after yet another bite. "I work rather irregular hours."

Akira couldn't help but giggle as a thought came to mind.

"Oh? So the boy named after a detective turns out to be a detective himself?"

"Ah ha ha, yes, actually."

She stared. "Woah, really? Can you tell me about it?" she said then she flinched.

Oh wait. He was here to relax from that, wasn't he?

"Uh...if you don't mind, I mean. We can just talk about something else if you don't wanna talk about work on your break..."

Akechi just stilled, holding his spoon mid-air and, once again, stared at her, this time with a blank expression. Akira frowned and fidgeted, worried she upset him. But then he shook his head, put his spoon down and gave her a small smile.

"I don't mind," he said. "What do you want to know?"

"Hmm..." Akira gave it some thought. "Oh, I know!"

And so they talked about his job. Unsurprisingly it wasn't as cool or glamorous as most shows and anime made it to be, but that was exactly why she listened, both fascinated and impressed. Fascinated because she got a bit of a glimpse of what it was really like, with the info searching, questioning and much, much paperwork like reports, and impressed because Akechi didn't seem that much older than her, if he even was, and he already had such a job, even if it was pretty much a part-time one.

Before she knew it, Akechi had finished his coffee and curry and said to Sakura-san,

"Thank you for the food."

"No problem."

"Here," he said as he paid for it.

He then took out his phone to see the time was pretty late into the afternoon and he seemed to mutter something. She looked at him with curiosity and Akechi met it with an apologetic face.

"My apologies," he said as he lifted his attaché case. "But I'll be taking my leave now."

Oh. Well, "It's fine," she said. Then she remembered something. "Oh, hey, wait."

Akechi looked curious until Akira held another chocolate bar before him.

"Huh?"

Akira smirked. "What? Did you think you were gonna leave without it?" she said. "No way I'm gonna stop a running gag."

The boy looked shocked before he laughed, a complete and full one that made him close his eyes, smile and bend a little forward from the surprise. Akira joined in his cheer, happy to see him smile. When he was done, he still had it on as he took it.

"Very well, Amamiya-san, I accept," he said. "Thank you."

"No problem. See you later, Akechi."

And so he left and Sakura-san broke her out of her reverie as he said,

"Hey, clean up will you?"

"Uh, got it!"

She managed to clean the dishes and utensiles Akechi used just as another customer came in. After that, time went much the same way it did that morning, helping out in the café. At least until her brother showed up, then he joined in with her. Soon enough, evening came and Akira sighed as she finished the last dish. She wiped the sweat from her forehead.

"Man, I wish I could take a bath..." she said.

"Hmph. Didn't I tell you already about the baths?" Sakura-san said.

She gave him a flat look and said, "Oh? You'll let us out at night to actually take one?"

He softened slightly. "Well, you're the only ones here, and you've been taking school seriously, so I see no problem with that."

Akira stared. She looked to her brother to see if he would tell her she was imagining things, but he just met her gaze, similarly wide-eyed. She turned back to their caretaker.

"Really?"

Sakura-san was back to frowning as he said, "But only around these parts, all right? Go back on your word and I'll kick you two out."

Akira couldn't help it. She laughed. There was the Sakura-san she knew.

His frowned deepened. "Keep that up and I might change my mind."

Akira smothered it as best she could before she said, "Sorry." Then, with a smile, "Thanks Sakura-san."

The man just huffed in reply. She, meanwhile, rushed upstairs, giddiness fueling her movements as she got her change of clothes. She was glad Sakura-san was giving them a bit more leeway now.

{R}

Joker knew he shouldn't rush that much, but it got harder the longer they explored the tower, the limbless women pillars and ooze on the floor tile towers unnerving him. As such, his first order of business was seeing where that elevator went. It turned out it led to a staircase. The floor they arrived in led to a hallway behind the painting from the foyer, while the stairs itself led to another elevator, this one thankfully with no women pillars. But it didn't work. However, after some investigating and shortcut opening in the foyer, they found the switch to activate it.

What greeted them was a giant slime in front of the door to another Will Seed.

He quickly learned it was susceptible to Arsène and Carmen's sleep effects and so it was relatively easy to get rid of compared to the angel in Kamoshida's Cathedral. Once it was gone, they found out that when three Will Seeds were brought together, it formed a Crystal Skull and when he held it, he could hear the whisper of Arsène telling him he could use a new skill because of it. Seeing as it was a healing one, he had Mona hold onto it. From there, they finally explored the tower proper. Thankfully, it was rather straighforward...

...until they ran into a hallway of swinging scythes.

"Really?" Rogue said.

Joker smirked. "Can't have a booby trapped castle without them."

She sighed. "Of course." She looked to the Kamoshida bust. "And it's probably not gonna be that easy to stop it."

As they both guessed, it wasn't. The bust had no eyes so it was no surprise the jaw, when pulled, didn't stop the blades. But with all of that, it was logical enough to assume they needed to find some eyes to put in. It was easy enough to do with the use of Third Eye, finding the items they needed in the hands of certain golden guards. Said guards were the same red cavalrymen from before, as such they were handled without any trouble. Once they acquired them, they put the eyes in the sockets, made it across when the scythes stopped and reached the top floor. They went into the safe room before, unfortunately, using a woman pillar as a stepping stone to get inside the locked throne room.

In it was a fuming Kamoshida and a bunch of guards.

Rogue snickered. "He'd flip if he knew we were in the same room as him," she said in a whisper.

Joker allowed himself a brief smile before he said, "Let's go. We're almost there."

"Right."

They walked past him, keeping low to the ground, and went inside the door behind Kamoshida and his throne. From there, it was just another hallway with a much more ornate double door. They took a moment to catch their breaths before they found themselves past those and in a treasury.

"Woah, what is this place?! Holy shit!" Skull said. "That Treasure thing's gotta be here somewhere."

Joker agreed. It was like out of a cartoon. Everywhere around them were gold coins, piled together like they were sand, with a couple of gold cups and regular barrels here and there with even more in them. But that wasn't what he was the most interested in.

In the middle of it all, a strange orb floated, flowing like water and glowing with a rainbow aura.

"Hey, what is this?" Panther said as they moved closer. "It's...floating in the air."

"Is this the Treasure?" Rogue said, tilting her head.

"Heh heh, yup. That's the Treasure. We finally found it!" Mona said.

Joker frowned. "Then how are we supposed to get it out of here when it's like this?"

"Don't worry. I was going to tell you how if we got here."

If. Joker wasn't amused about that implication.

But he kept his mouth shut as Mona was going to explain and he didn't want the non-feline to stop.

"Just finding the Tresure isn't enough. We need to make it materialize before we can steal it."

"Is it because desires are an abstract concept?" Rogue said, the same thing he thought of.

"Exactly. So we need to make the real person aware that these desires are, in fact, a Treasure. Once we make them conscious of that, its physical form should show itself."

"But how do we do that?" Panther said.

"We warn them. By saying 'we're going to steal your heart'."

Joker smirked. Well that gave the phrase "take your heart" a whole new meaning.

"Oh! We're gonna send 'em a calling card?!" Skull said. "That's totally what a phantom thief would do!"

"Oh now you know about phantom thieves, Mister 'I-don't-watch-spy-movies'?" Rogue said.

"Oh shuddup."

Joker and his sister snickered. But they stopped as Mona then said,

"Uh huh! Once we do that, the Treasure will appear for certain! ...I think!"

Joker smiled at Mona with amusement and exasperation, Skull perfectly encapsulating it with,

"That again?" Before he said, "Eh, sounds like it's worth a shot anyways."

"Not like we have any other ideas," Rogue said.

He glanced at the others to see if they would speak up against it, but when they gave non-verbal dismissals, he nodded back in acknowledgement.

"All right then. Let's head back before Kamoshida finds us. We'll talk about the calling card tomorrow in the hideout, okay?"

Everyone gave their agreements and they headed out, Joker confident they managed to explore every nook and cranny of the castle. Before he knew it, it was already the afternoon of the next day, all of them gathered once again at the hideout.

"All right, all that's left now is to send out the calling card and take Kamoshida's heart," Mona said.

"Why didn't we just send it from the start...?" Ryuji said.

"A Treasure won't stay materialized forever. Once the impression is gone, the Treasure will disappear."

"Yeah. You'll only be scared for so long," Aki said.

"And doing it again won't have as much impact if we fail because nothing happened the first time, yes?" he said.

"Right. Not only that, the effect will only last for about a day."

"So we gotta send the calling card and steal the Treasure on the same day, huh?"

"Yes. It'll be too late otherwise."

"All right...so when we gonna send it?"

"Tomorrow."

Aki looked at him in surprise, but Ann's eyes burned and Ryuji shouted in excitement.

"Yeah! I was hopin' you'd say that!"

"Ryuji! Quiet!" Aki said.

"Uh, whoops. Sorry..."

"Okay, we have that decided. So who will write the card?"

"Oh pick me!" Ryuji said.

Ann looked at him dubiously. "Why?"

"Why...? Why wouldn't it be me?"

"This is important. Can you handle the pressure?"

Predictably, Mona said, "I agree."

Ren was inclined to agree with them considering how Ryuji was normally but...

"I really wanna get him good! C'mon, please. Lemme write it."

...he wanted to believe in Ryuji.

Ren glanced at Aki, asking. She nodded. He returned it. Then he said,

"I'm fine with it. As long as you make sure we won't caught."

"I know, I know! I'm not gonna screw this up," he said. Then in a more somber tone, "Not like I did when he broke my leg."

That convinced Mona and Ann.

So the not-cat said, "All right then. Tomorrow it is! You better not slack off on this."

With that, the meeting was adjourned. However, just as everyone but his sister left them at the gate, he said to her,

"Chances of a boss fight?"

"Probably something like ninety percent."

He was glad she thought the same. As such, they both spent the rest of the afternoon getting ready. First by buying and selling what they could with the budget and items they had gained from the Metaverse, which was a lot but Ren made sure to save up a good chunk of the money for later. Second by fusing, summoning and re-fusing their Persona selection until they both had a good amount of varying skills across them, alongside their resummoned first Personas. And third by making a couple of infiltration tools with Aki, Mona guiding them through it as usual. With that, they were as ready as they could be for tomorrow.

Ren hoped they were actually ready for it.