Literally: better late than never… ooh, you have this one too :P

Sumire and Futaba have returned to the rest of the group.

"Did you get the memory?" Goro asked.

"Yep!" Sumire beamed, showing him the VHS tape. She turned towards the multi-player on the desk. "Now, where do I stick it in?"

"That's what he said!" Futaba giggled.

Goro raised an eyebrow. "Who said that?"

"It's merely a turn of phrase," Yusuke explained, "to signify that the preceding sentence might as well refer to fornication."

"Ah." Goro winced. "Ew."

Ryuji glanced at him. "How old are you again?"

Sumire identified a slot that'd fit the tape and gently pushed it in. A few buttons appeared on the top of the device. She tapped the one labeled 'play' and a shot of Leblanc's interior appeared on the screen. Most Phantom Thieves were sitting around in the booths or by the counter, with Goro and Makoto missing.

"So, it's not from the point of view of anyone specific?" Sumire asked.

"I guess it adds up everyone's memories and then takes the average," Morgana guessed.

"You can handle it on your own. Good." Futaba's Persona manifested around her. "I'll get to scanning for Maruki's tapes then."

The bell above the door chimed and Makoto entered the cafe. "Sorry, student council matters."

"Hey there," Akira gestured at her to sit down at one of the free chairs by the counter. "Akechi texted me he can't make it today – he's shooting a PSA or something."

"We can start the meeting then," Morgana jumped on the table to grab everyone's attention. "We have one target for today – 'Kasumi' Yoshizawa, a first-year student of Shujin Academy."

"Why the emphasis on the given name?" Ann asked.

"Because her real name is Sumire," Futaba explained. "Someone overwrote her system variables so she believes herself to be her dead sister, Kasumi."

"Wait, back it up a little," Ryuji butted in. "Who did that to her and why?"

"I've done some recon beforehand," Akira replied, "and the short version is: the real Kasumi died early this year, pushing her out of the way of a speeding car. She blamed herself for that death and believed her own life and existence are meaningless in comparison, and some therapist hypnotized her to believe she's Kasumi to stop her from killing herself."

"Poor girl," Haru remarked. "If we are able to help her, we must do it immediately."

"Let's vote on that first, just for the record," Akira announced. "Who's in favor of stealing Sumire Yoshizawa's Treasure?"

Everyone raised a hand and/or front paw.

"Great." He got up from the booth. "Phantom Thieves, moving out."

Ryuji pushed the 'fast-forward' button. "Yeah, let's skip the next part."

"Why?" Sumire asked.

"It was a few days before, uhm, Crow tried to kill Joker," Ann explained, as Goro glanced elsewhere, ashamed. "We kinda… spent the whole trip from Leblanc to your Shadow trash-talking him."

"You must admit, your excuse to skip that meeting was on the nose," Haru commented.

"It wasn't an excuse!" Goro protested. "I was actually shooting a PSA about eating your damn vegetables! It has to be online somewhere!"

"In our defense," Yusuke added, "nobody at that point expected further developments that led us where we are now."

"It's mostly just us driving around Mementos and ramming weak Shadows with Monacar," Makoto reassured Sumire. "Nothing you hadn't witnessed already."

"It looks… different than usual," Morgana remarked.

"I think it's a side effect of that personality overwrite," Akira remarked.

The separate section of Mementos where the Thieves had expected to find Shadow Sumire had barely resembled the realm they had left behind. Everything was brightly lit up by a large halogen attached to the ceiling, and the floors and walls were covered in light gray padding, like a cell in a mental ward. In the distance they noticed the Shadow herself; while she seemed to be waiting for them like all the other minor targets, for whatever reason she was kneeling instead of standing up straight, and wearing some sort of white garment that didn't seem to match any of her real-life outfits. On top of the expected golden irises, she also had her hair loose and wore glasses.

"Alright, disembark and carefully approach the target," Akira ordered.

As they got off and got a bit closer, they realized the garment was in fact a straitjacket, with its sleeves wrapped around her torso and tied down to a massive hook embedded in the ground. "Ooh, guests," she remarked. "Are you here to finally put me out of my misery?"

"Not quite." Akira took a step forward and removed his mask. "Do you know who I am, Sumire?"

"You're Akira-senpai, aren't you?" the Shadow replied. "It must be so disappointing, to know that the perfect Kasumi you've known was just a facade, behind which hides a broken, pathetic husk of a person."

"I've seen more pathetic husks, truth be told," he replied, then knelt in front of her and started undoing her restraints. "Tell you what, I'm gonna untie you and we'll have a little chat, how does that sound?"

"I have a better idea: you drive your dagger through my heart and end this farce."

"Eh, that's more of a third or fourth date thing," he joked. "There, you're fr-oof!"

Shadow Sumire delivered two quick jabs to his stomach before Akira recoiled away. "I told you to kill me, Akira!" she screamed and raised her fists. "I'll force your hand if I must!"

"Joker, do you need assistance?" Makoto asked.

"No, not really," he proclaimed, gesturing at them to stand down. "If I get overwhelmed, step in."

"This…" Sumire found herself too flabbergasted to comment. "That thing… was me?"

"A distorted and repressed part of you," Morgana clarified.

She lowered her head in shame. "And it attacked Joker-senpai…"

"Shadows assaulting us are par for the course," Makoto commented. "And, once again, this was merely a part of you, without the rest of you keeping your internal strife in check. Don't hold it against yourself, because nobody else does."

"And your Shadow was still less edgy than-" Ryuji realized that Goro looked uncharacteristically bothered by the scene playing on the screen. "Uh, Crow? Everything okay?"

"Yes."

"…how are you so bad at lying?"

"How are you so bad at keeping your voice down?"

"What's wrong, Crow-san?" Sumire butted in, glad for a chance to draw the spotlight away from her.

"I don't know, alright?" he said, trying to not blow up at her. "Just… I understand that you were suffering and I don't blame you or anything, but this whole strike-me-down shebang just… rubs me the wrong way for one reason or another."

"Does it hit too close to home for you?" Yusuke asked.

Goro responded with an exaggerated shrug.

Shadow Sumire had the real thing's agility and stamina, but her attacks dealt little to no damage, if they even connected in the first place. Akira had months of experience in Metaverse fights – and the training sessions with 'Kasumi' didn't hurt either – but prefered to tire his opponent out than to strike her directly, and so the 'fight' was closer to an unorthodox dance routine.

"Do you really think…" the Shadow growled, "you can keep this up forever?"

"Nobody complained about my stamina before," Akira replied with a cheeky grin.

Shadow Sumire backed away from him, trying to catch her breath. She scanned her surroundings, trying to come up with a different angle of attack, and realized that Akira's teammates behind him seemed to have their guards down. She could've dived past Akira, grab a weapon from one of them, and put herself on a more equal footing.

Akira didn't have access to her internal monologue, but saw her look past him and at his friends with a glint in her eyes. And so, when she tried to spring forward, he grabbed her by the edges of both of her straightjacket sleeves, and wrapped them around his hands in one smooth motion. He then yanked on them with much more force than she had anticipated, and pulled her to him, close enough that she ended up smacking her head against his mask and felt his breath on her face. Their eyes met. She tried to pull herself free, but he wouldn't budge.

"What do you think Kasumi would say if she saw you right now?" he muttered, in a tone completely devoid of playfulness from a moment earlier. "She sacrificed her life so you could live yours. If I humored you, and if you met her on the other side, what would you tell her? That she shouldn't have bothered? That your life is worthless, actually, and she should've let you headbutt a windshield? Hm?"

That seemed to have made an impression on the Shadow. She stopped struggling, and Akira slowly released her sleeves and took a step away. "You know," he said after a pause, "when I said I wanna have a little chat, I didn't mean guilt-tripping you and calling it a day." He pulled a thermos cup out of nowhere. "You want some coffee?"

With some hesitation, she grabbed the mug and took a sip from it. Akira sat down on the ground and gestured at her to do the same. The rest of the Thieves approached their leader, then sat down behind him.

"So, Sumire," Akira went, "tell me about yourself."

"Well…" She finally joined the others on the floor. "M-my name is Sumire Yoshizawa. I go to Shujin Academy with Akira-senpai." A pause. "That's it, I guess."

"Come on," Akira encouraged her. "There's more to you than that."

"N-no, not really."

"What about your successes as a gymnast?" Akira pushed on.

"Oh, that." She scowled. "I got bronze in a small competition last month."

"Really?" Ryuji piped up. "Geez, grats!"

"Eh," she seemed dejected. "The school principal thought it wasn't enough."

"Shujin staff are a bunch of ffffff-" Ryuji stretched the last consonant, having caught himself at the last moment. "Don't worry about them. You did good, they're just a bunch of a-holes trying to save face after everything."

"I have to ask:" Akira said, "do you stick to gymnastics because that's what Kasumi would've wanted, or because that's what Sumire wants?"

Sumire opened her mouth, but nothing came out of it. "Can it…" she finally said, with hesitation. "Can it be both? I think it's both. It was our dream to get to the top, not just hers."

"Hm." Akira was concerned. "Is there anything you'd call yours specifically? Something that you didn't share with Kasumi."

After a beat, she went: "I… I can cook, I guess?"

"And Kasumi couldn't?"

"She was lethal in the kitchen," she said, emphatically. "Once I asked her to cook rice, went to the store, came back five minutes later, and the rice cooker's lid was somehow stuck in the ceiling. Firmly enough that I could pull myself up on it."

"How did that happen?" Ann asked.

"I have no clue."

"There you go," Akira smiled. "For you to continue living as Kasumi is to deprive the world of your uniqueness and your talents."

The Shadow didn't seem convinced, still staring intently at the ground in front of her.

"Look," he continued, "I'm not saying you're supposed to completely forget her, but you can't cling to her memory to such a degree. She wouldn't want that for you." He reached over and put his hands on hers in a gesture of reassurance. "I promise, you will not be left alone with your grief. You'll have someone looking out for you. Things'll turn out alright."

Shadow Sumire carefully and hesitantly grabbed his hands and held them for a moment. "Thank you, Akira-senpai."

She then disappeared in a flash of light, leaving behind the thermos cup and something else. Akira picked it up and inspected it – it was a length of red ribbon, tied into a bow. He picked it up from the ground and put it in his inventory. "Alright, let's get outta here. I need to check up on her in the real world."

"If I'm allowed to ask," Morgana glanced at Sumire, "what was the deal with that bow? The Treasures left behind by Shadows are items deeply relevant to how the distortion was formed in the first place."

"I think it was a copy of Kasumi's hair ribbon," Sumire replied. "When she… When Maruki-san overwrote my personality, I ended up tying my hair like she used to do. I still tie it up for convenience when I'm alone, but keep it loose when I'm out with her."

"Can I say something?" Goro raised his hand slightly. With nobody protesting, he turned to Sumire. "Green… Sumire, I just wanted to say that…" He paused. Dunking on people came to him infinitely easier than sincerely complimenting them. "You're a great person and a great Phantom Thief, and I'm glad to have you around."

"I second this," Makoto piped up.

"I third this then," Yusuke added.

"Fourthed."

"Fif-"

"I get the idea," Sumire interrupted the chain with a smile. "And… honestly, same. I hope we'll be able to hang out some more when this is all over." Noticing Goro's dejected expression, she added: "I'll promise, I'll write you lette-"

"Ding!" Futaba reemerged from her Persona, and everyone turned to her. "After a thorough search I've narrowed it down to four memories that were explicitly tagged as 'turning point'." She glanced at Sumire. "Green, you wanna go on a fetch quest with me again?"

"Sure!" She pressed the 'eject' button and the tape with the November memory slid out of the player. "Should we also return this back where it was?"

"It can't hurt."