Chapter 16: Thick as Thieves

(A)

"Woah! This is where we're eatin'?"

"Good taste, Lady Ann!"

"Hey, quiet, you stupid cat! We don't wanna get caught!"

"I am not a cat!"

"Quiet you two or we'll get caught because of you."

"Uh..." Akira said.

When they planned on celebrating, she had been hoping for a nice restaurant, something a little expensive but the menu would be a bit down to earth or simple.

Not a freaking buffet in a freaking five-star hotel.

"Something wrong?" Ann said to her while Ren settled the two bickering boys.

"Uh, not really just..."

"You don't like it?"

Akira flinched. "Kinda...?" she said. "I just...don't know if there'll be something I'll like to eat here..."

Because she usually didn't find anything hotels served for meals all that...appetizing.

"Oh. Well, I'm sure we'll find something! It's a buffet after all. There has to be at least one thing you'll like."

"Well I don't know about that...but thanks anyway."

To her surprise and relief, after tasting bits of a good amount of the meals offered in the buffet, Akira did find some things she liked the taste of, including desserts. So for her meal she had meats, greens, and rice and for dessert she was going to have a chocolate cake and pancakes. The rest, while she could bear, wasn't exactly anything she'd want to eat a lot of, like the hams or berry flavored desserts. Meanwhile Ann got mostly desserts, having only one non-dessert meal to go with them, and Ryuji had all meats. Ren was the only one besides her who had actual variety in his meal, though some of them was because of feeding it to Mona.

"Hmm... It's so good..."

"Of course it's good! It's a famous hotel after all."

"Famous doesn't always equal good," Akira said. "But I'll agree this time."

"Well now I know it's good if it has something for Aki's picky tastes."

She pouted. "I'm not that picky."

"I beg to differ."

"Hey, Ren," Mona said in a whisper. "Can I have some more?"

"Oh, right."

Her brother went back to feeding Mona.

But she said, "Hey, let me. I'm done eating already."

Well minus her desserts but they just were that, desserts. It wasn't as important as the main course and they weren't ice cream so she could afford leaving them alone.

Ren was hesitant for a moment but said, "Okay."

And so she was feeding Mona while he went back to eating. In the middle of it though, Ann told them the police were going to investigate their school and interview people.

"I was wonderin' when we'd see 'em," she said.

"This is troublesome though..."

"Our names are gonna come up for sure with all the rumors about us and Kamoshida..."

"Nothin' we can do 'bout that."

"Yes. The best we can do is not act suspicious," Ren said.

"Yeah... But hey! At least we got the school pumped up! I keep hearin' things like 'The Phantom Thieves really stole his heart!'"

Akira thew him a questioning look. "Really?"

"I didn't hear anything about that."

Ryuji took out his phone, fiddled with it, then held it out as he said, "I got it from here."

They all leaned forward to see something called the "Phantom Afficionado Website" up on his browser and well... Akira stared. ...it was pretty impressive. It not only looked pretty professional, with a page that was convenient for phones and clean graphics, it was stylish. The wall was red and black, the posts looked like speech bubbles, and the text for it looked bold and like a calling card. But the best part...was that Ryuji was right. There were quite a lot of posts thanking them and congratulating them.

"Pretty cool, huh?" Ryuji said with a huge grin.

"Wow," she and her brother said.

"I was just desperate to solve my own problems, but seeing people say all this feels...strange."

When she put it like that, it would seem strange. But as she took out her own phone to see the site herself, all Akira could feel was smiling at it all. They really did help more than just themselves.

In the middle of her browsing though, Ryuji said,

"Hey... What do we do now?"

"Huh?"

"You mean besides eating? I don't know," Ren said.

That somehow made Ann and Ryuji remember that they had a time limit of one hour and they panicked...despite the fact that they had fifty minutes left. Akira would've told them that was plenty of time to eat, if Ren didn't beat her to it, but...

"I'm not gonna eat all the beef dishes at this pace!"

"I need to eat my way through the entire dessert menu!"

...with how they went off to do just that, she doubted that would've calmed them down.

Though not before Ryuji said,

"Look after our stuff! We'll snag something for you two!"

Akira and Ren sweatdropped.

"Should we tell them we got all we wanted?"

"What are the chances they would've listened?"

They thought on it. And remembered they were in a buffet.

"Close to zero."

"Exactly."

So they just waited until they returned. As expected, Ann got even more sweets and Ryuji got even more meats and they began stuffing themselves and moaning about how delicious it was. There was something out of place though...

"What the hell is this?" she said, staring at the procured plates.

Akira was picky but even she would admit that if something was properly plated and looked appetizing enough she would at least give it a try.

But this...?

She knew what she was looking at should be a variety of foods, but...they were all put together with no rhyme or reason and mixed as if they were ingredients instead of the finished meals they were.

If she didn't know any better, she would've thought it was lethal Mystery Food, complete with capitalization.

"Yeah, where is our share?" Mona said.

"Oh I didn't know what you wanted, so I just got you some beans."

"Beans?"

"There were some pretty bizarre things there, so I got you a variety of those... Like fried banana, preserved eggs and...some kind of beans."

"M-More beans?"

"We put so much on the plate that it got mixed up, but it should probably taste good," Ann said, with the biggest and most innocent smile.

Correction, it was definitely lethal Mystery Food.

"This is just plain grotesque..."

"Maybe we should've just told them not to get anything," she said, whispering to her brother.

"Yeah, we should've," he said, whispering back.

Then Mona said, "Let's go you two. These two just don't know what fine dining means! We'll show them!"

She was tempted to complain that she wasn't needed, but looking at the Mystery Food again made her say,

"You got it."

"Leave it to us," Ren said.

Unsurprisingly, Ann and Ryuji didn't really notice them leaving and continued to gorge themselves on their delicacies. Meanwhile, she and Ren just picked out food that Mona wanted to eat. But while they did so, they heard the adults around them gossip. Akira frowned and pulled up her mask. While most of it was what she expected, like how TV, the police and people outside of Shujin thought of what happened with Kamoshida and the existence of the Phantom Thieves of Hearts, the rest just made her wish the fifty minutes would be done sooner. The patrons sneered at their presence, the staff of a TV station were more worried about ratings than what happened and some detectives were doing the same, saying they couldn't treat the Kamoshida case "seriously".

She was almost glad to be back at their table.

Almost.

"Don't you think you're eatin' too much, Mona?" Ryuji said.

"There's no..." Mona gulped a piece. "...knowing when we'll get to come here again."

"Sure, but you guys brought loads of food back... It'd be a shame to let it go all to waste..."

"You're the ones who brought most of this food!" Akira said, pointing to Ann and Ryuji.

"Uh, well...Ryuji, why don't you help finish it?"

"What? Well then we should both help."

"Oh me? I'm way too stuffed! I couldn't possibly help!"

"Yeah...stuffin' your face with cake..."

"Traitor..." Akira said under her breath.

"Whatever! Let's deal with this ourselves!"

Ren just chuckled before rolling his neck. "Bring it on then."

And so her brother, their faux-blond friend, and their not-cat began to eat was there. She didn't want to eat more than what she picked, but she wanted to at least help a little, so she picked out a few of Ryuji's meals. But when Ren saw that, he paused in his stuffing and said,

"You don't have to, you know."

She gave an unamused look. "Yeah I know, Big Bro. Just let me help."

Ren frowned with worry. "But can you really stand it?"

Akira glared. "I'll show you," she said and began reaching out for as many things as she could get.

And she did. Twenty minutes later, though she felt absolutely stuffed, she only felt a little bit queasy as she leaned against the couch.

"See...? I can do it..." she said, glancing at her brother with a smirk.

Ren, also laying prone against the back rest, grinned back and laughed, though it was weak.

"So will you eat more foods now...?" he said.

She laughed as well. "Not...gonna happen..." she said.

Because she doubted that part of her was ever going to change.

"Good job guys!" Ann said. "How about one last dish to cleanse your palette?"

Urk!

Akira slapped a hand over mouth and groaned.

"Noooo..." Ren said for both of them.

"Stop..." Ryuji said. "I don't wanna hear about sour stuff..." He burped then groaned. "This isn't good... I gotta go to the bathroom..."

Well she was going to have to go too at this rate if they kept reminding her how full she was.

Though on the bright side she wouldn't be alone if that was the case as Mona said,

"M-Me too... Please...carry me gently..."

"Ugh...stop it..."

But then a woman said,

"My, look at that table..."

And Akira frowned. She tilted her head back to see a man and woman behind her.

"Come now, pay them no attention," the man said. "I'm sure they must not normally have the chance to eat such exquisite food."

"But look at their manners... I can only imagine what their parents must be like."

Akira snarled.

"Oh yeah...?" she said with a glare.

"What was that?!" Ryuji said but then she heard him gurgle.

Akira, however, followed them with her gaze, ready to give them a piece of her mind, when something gripped her hand hard. She startled and turned to her brother and saw him stare in the direction the couple left with a blank expression.

"Let's go to the bathroom," he said then looked to Ann, his gaze only slightly softening. "Do you mind watching our stuff?"

Ann looked concerned but still said, "It's fine. I can stay."

"Thank you."

Big Bro...

She felt a bit better that her brother was almost as ticked off as she was at the couple's behavior, but that wasn't much when she felt sad at Ren being hurt from their words. In hopes of comforting him, on their way to the upper floors in search for a bathroom, she held his hand tighter and leaned against his tense shoulder. As she hoped, he relaxed from the touch, but still kept his pace steady and brisk, for Ryuji and Mona's sake if anything else.

After going in the girl's bathroom to pee, and stopping herself from mimicing Ryuji when she heared his puking all the way from the boy's bathroom, the four of them returned to the elevators. Unsurprisingly their friends ended up arguing a bit about how much they ate but thankfully they didn't draw it out, Ryuji wondering which was the floor they came from. While they were discussing that however...

"Ugh."

"Ow!"

"Tch...!"

...someone just shoved them away from the elevator.

"What the—?!"

"Hey!" she said. "Watch where you're going!"

But the group of men didn't apologize for what they did. In fact, they didn't say anything at all to them. Instead, the man in the middle, a bald one with glasses and a goatee, said to who she assumed were his bodygaurds,

"There's no update on the case?"

THUD.

"Ack!" Akira grimaced and held her hammering forehead.

"Aki?" her brother said, holding her.

"I'm...fine..." she said, focusing on her breathing as the pain lessened.

Meanwhile, Ryuji said, "Hey! You're cuttin' in line!"

And one of the bodyguards turned to them, uninterested and annoyed.

"What do you want?" he said.

"We were here first," her brother said still supporting her.

"We're in a hurry."

"Oh I'm sorry. So you can butt in front of other people if you're in a hurry?" Ryuji said.

The bald man finally turned, only just realizing they were there.

"Hmm. It seems the customer base has changed since I was here last," he said. "Have they started a day care?"

"What?"

THUD.

Akira gritted her teeth as it flared again. Was she having a migraine? She hoped not. Ren was going to ban her from going all out on buffets if that was the case, or at least close to it.

"Sir, we don't have time for this."

"I know."

The elevator dinged then and by that point she was lucid enough to see Ryuji step forward, likely hoping to push through. But a bodyguard pushed him back. Akira was ready to return the favor, but then bald man spoke again.

"Don't bother with them!"

THUD.

She gasped, trying to not shout at the sudden spike of pain in her head. The only thing she could make out was her brother groaning beside her and vaguely of Ryuji and Mona talking. Otherwise all she could feel were the thuds of her brain, pounding as if trying to escape from her head, and the maelstrom of emotions she felt from The Incident at March.

THUD.

"Wh...w...ng...?"

THUD.

"...on't...worr...bou...it..."

Thud.

"...gonna ma...worry more, y, know."

thud.

"Aki?" her brother said, ignoring Ryuji. "Aki?"

Akira stared, waiting for another thump. But when none came, she took a deep breath and sighed.

"Yeah...?"

"How are you feeling?"

"Like I wanna punch everything," she said.

Because she hated how that stupid man made her remember that stupid night when they were just enjoying themselves but it all went downhill.

Ren sighed in relief. "Good. You're okay."

"Ugh, yeah, that 'sir' bullshit makes me sick...actin' all high and mighty..." Ryuji said. "Damnit..."

"You can say that again..." she said.

But he didn't. Instead they were silent as they made their way back to their table. But as soon as they made it back, Ann said,

"What took you so long?!"

Akira flinched but then stared. "What the..."

"Why're you all pissy?" Ryuji said.

Whatever hostility she had left as she turned shocked at her own behavior.

"Sorry," she said. "I...had a run-in with some woman a second ago..."

"What happened?" Ren said, his tone souring.

Not that Akira was any better.

The blonde sighed. "She bumped into me but then said it was all my fault she dropped her plate..."

"Sounds like a real bitch..." Ryuji said.

She and Ren nodded in agreement.

"Yeah...thanks though." Ann smiled briefly but that left her as she said, "But...all the restaurant workers all looked at me with this disapproving expression..."

Everyone's mood fell at that. Ren's especially as he kept up his stoic mask when he sat down. Nobody said anything for a while, just letting the people around them bustle and time continue to flow. What could they say after that? At least, without making it seem like a poor attempt at brightening the mood.

But then Ann said, likely thinking out loud, "I wonder if we're out of place here..."

Akira glanced around for show before she said, "Gee, I wonder why... There's nothing odd about regular teenagers in the middle of a fancy buffet. Not at all..."

"It shouldn't be odd," Ren said, letting some of his melancholic annoyance through. "But as far as the regulars here are concerned, anyone who isn't an adult and rich shouldn't be here..."

That made Ryuji ask Mona to confirm that anyone could have a Palace.

"Why bring that up all of a sudden?" Ann said.

But Akira had a guess.

And it was right as Ryuji said,

"...I was just wonderin' if we could change those kindsa people too."

Ann stared. "You mean...you want to continue as the Phantom Thieves...?"

"I wouldn't mind," Ren said.

"Me neither," she said.

"Huh? Really? But...why would you want to do that?"

Akira and Ren glanced at the one who suggested it in the first place, hoping he would continue. He looked surprised they were waiting for him but he took the hint and said,

"Well we put a lot of work into changin' Kamoshida's heart but nobody believes us." He paused. "Plus...those people who had no other choice but to deal with it are thankin' us, us of all people."

With that, she and her brother turned back to Ann.

"That's our answer too," Ren said.

Akira nodded.

"Yeah, that's true..." Ann said. "And if we ignore people who are in trouble, I'd go back to being the same as I was before..."

"Well...that's true..." Mona said.

"So shouldn't we be able to help them?"

"But...that means we'll have to fight Shadows again, right?"

"Indeed. That can't be avoided."

Akira flinched. She...forgot about that. All she thought about was the fact that they could change people's lives by doing that, never mind how they're risking their lives to do it. It was understandable that Ann was scared. And yet...

"Eh, I'm sure we'll manage," Ryuji said. "Hehehe, right?"

"I...want to help people," Ren said, unable to look Ann in the eye.

"Me too," she said.

...she knew that wasn't going to stop her from doing this. Not when she could only imagine the people who had been in situations like they all had been in: powerless to change their circumstances.

"Then I'm in too."

"Then it's settled!"

And so it was decided. After a short discussion about the name, where Akira learned that Ryuji was actually the one way better with names than Ann and especially Mona, they were officially the Phantom Thieves of Hearts, thanks to her essentially being the deciding vote. Though with that issue done, Ann then went for another and said to Ren,

"Are you okay being our leader?"

Which she wasn't surprised of.

But Ren was and said, "Me...?"

She lightly ribbed him with her elbow.

"Of course she'd pick you, doofus. You were leadin' us back in Kamoshida's Palace. We're pretty much used to it by now."

"No objections here!" Ryuji said. "I can't handle all that responsibility stuff."

Akira snickered. That was very true.

"Where's my say in this?" Mona said.

"You just did."

"You know what I mean," he said, unamused. He sighed. "But Lady Ann did make the recommendation, so I'll allow it as well."

"Hey, you were the one who agreed to make him leader back in the Palace."

"T-That was because we had no time to argue."

"Yeah yeah, sure, whatever you say."

"So...?" Ann said, looking hopefully at him.

Ren looked at each and everyone one of them, Akira giving him a reassuring smile when he faced her. Once he did that, he returned the smile, much more confident, and said,

"Leave it to me."

"Well now that that's set...who's our next target?"

That...was a good question. Especially, as Ryuji pointed out, there were likely plenty of targets in a city like Tokyo. But after a bit of talk, they decided they would try to go after more big names, like CEOs and celebrities, when they found any so they would be more well known to people. And even then, they instated a unanimous vote rule: they wouldn't go after any target unless they all agreed to it. The former decision she was a bit hesitant on, being famous always was a double-edged sword, but with the latter choice, she agreed to it. After all, with that rule, if she didn't like going after a target, they wouldn't go after them.

"Oh no!" Ann said just as they ended the discussion.

"What?!"

"What's wrong?"

"Our time for the buffet ran out..."

They groaned.

{R}

...I'd like to congratulate you.

To think our master would give out words of praise...

...treasure this moment, Inmate!

(Yeah, whatever. What do you want now?)

You have encountered allies who share your ideals and you have found your place in reality.

(And of course no straight answer...)

{What do you mean?}

The time has come...your rehabilitation will soon begin.

(What rehabilitation?)

You have a special potential...that must be refined into a useful power...refining it shall grant you the strength to stand against the coming ruin. That is the rehabilitation cast upon you.

(What is this ruin anyway?)

...various means by which you may gain the power...

...gaining experience is one of them.

...the fusion process...is another.

...we have words of wisdom as well.

...you better hone your relationships with those you have contact with!

Thanks to the contacts you've formed your hearts are steadily gaining the power of opposition. It seems...going well. This is a joyous occasion... I shall grant you an ability... Consider it a gift.

And don't forget your contractors, Inmates!