Akira panted as he trudged his way through the unpleasantly familiar yellow hallways deep in Luciano's domain. According to an earlier text from Futaba, this section apparently had a name: 'The Backrooms' and while it was by no means an inviting place – what with its endless corridors and its countless empty carpeted rooms – the deafening buzz of the neon lights offered barely enough peace for Akira to catch his breath. Luckily, that stick-figure creature from before hadn't appeared either and while his pursuers were nowhere to be seen, he knew it wouldn't be long before Morgana's tracking abilities lead them straight to him.

Even after going through every memory he had of himself and the boys, Akira still had no idea why they wanted him dead. He rested his weight on the slightly damp wall and blasted through plan after plan in his head to hopefully come up with something that would let him take the others out or at least find a way to calm them down; If only he had some kind of distraction…

"Oh, mister plumber~…!"

A feminine voice cooed through the halls. Akira's ears and dick perked up at the same time. He'd recognize those lewd moans anywhere.

"My back pipe is toootally loose~…"

He'd witnessed this exact scenario a million times before in his perusal of the dark, horny corners of the internet. It all starts with a lonely housewife calling a plumber to fix a faulty water line. Then the woman starts flirting with the plumber; She knows she shouldn't, but that bum husband Kotaro is always so busy at the office and a girl needs her fun too! The plumber tries to get underneath the floor to fix the pipe, but it's just so hot and humid under there, the plumber has no choice but to take off his shirt to take the plunge, and oh, is he sexy…

"Do you have aaaanything I can use…"

Sayaka, no! you're a married woman! Your honeymoon with Kotaro was so beautiful! You got to go to Hawaii and you eloped under the stars by a romantic bonfire! Sayaka! That eventful evening you promised him that your college-party-crashing days were over, and that you were ready to commit to an eternity of happiness with him! You knew when you married the man that things weren't always going to be easy, he's working his ass off for you in that shitty underpaying job trying to build for you the life he feels you deserve! Don't betray him now, Sayaka! Are you going to throw all you've worked so hard to build away for a single afternoon of passion with a stranger? You don't know where he's been! Who he's been with! Sayaka, stop! Before it's too late...!

"To plug it up~~?"

"SAYAKA! I'M COMING! I WILL PROBE YOUR PIIIPESS~!" Suddenly forgetting all about the murderous traitors tailing him, Akira skipped towards the voice while flapping his arms in utter glee. Like an Iaidoka drawing his blade at the last possible second, Akira whipped his dick out at light-speed upon arrival.

"I'M HERE, SAYAKA! MY PLUNGER IS READY FOR Y-huh?" When Akira turned what should have been the final corner before he could start whacking it, his shaft immediately went soft in his hand.

By all accounts, he should have failed No Nut November 744 milliseconds ago, as Akira clearly and undeniably saw a woman in her early 20s, on all fours, getting pounded up the ass by a muscular, shirtless plumber. Unfortunately for him, the second he saw the poorly drawn clothes that covered any nudity and the digitally altered expressions of innocent cheer on their pixelated faces, he knew exactly what this was. Akira re-sheathed his sword in defeat and looked down at his trembling hands.

"Gee! Thanks, Hasegawa! I had just slipped on the wet floor and was about to ask for help!"

This isn't real..

"Of course, Miss Sayaka! The leaky sink should be perfectly fixed now! I truly appreciate that you and your wonderful husband Mister Kotaro have relied on my services for so long!"

It'ss a meme…

"Why, you needn't be so formal! As the best man at our wedding and life-long friend of my husband, I would trust our beautiful home's plumbing to nobody but you! Hahahaha!"

It's…

"Hahahaha!"

"CROPPED POOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRNNNNNN!" Akira screamed in pain.

Akira punched 'Hasegawa' through the face, causing him and the entire scene to burst into puffs of dust. Tears streamed down his cheeks as the cloud swirled into his mask and joined the green frog Pepe from last week as the next meme in his arsenal. Such torture… Akira would shove a plunger up Luciano's ass if it was the last thing he did.

In the distance, Akira heard faint tire screeches and sporadic engine revving. They'd found him already! It wasn't much to work with, but with this new dastardly meme in his possession, a plan suddenly popped into his head.

"Ryuji! You said you could drive! Now! Turn left!" Morgana's cries shrilled through the cabin.

"Shut the hell up! It's not my fault those racing games don't have any bitchy ass cat vans for me to practice with!" The blonde replied, throwing the steering wheel from side to side wildly.

"Turn less erratically, you oaf!" Yusuke was splayed out over the passenger seat, trying to hook his limbs under or around anything he could find for stability.

"When you fail No Nut November," Morgana said "I'm gonna get your cock back from Luciano and shove it down your throat so you can fucking taste how much of a dick you are! I said left! Left! Go left, you baboon!"

"I'll turn you into a fucking carpet and use you as a cum rag, asshole! I AM going left! Your shitty tires have less grip than an extra-small condom over your cat-micropenis!"

"Here! He's not far, get the fuck out! A-and don't touch my shift knob! Only girls can touch there!"

"Wha-!? What the fuck is that suppos-!? Never mind…!"

Once Ryuji and Yusuke leaped out, Morgana spun around and morphed back into his cartoony cat form, not losing any momentum as he ran after their target deeper into the yellow maze.

"This way! He's close!"

From up ahead, Morgana felt the familiar tingle that overcame him when a persona was summoned, their target wanted a fight. Good. Akira had managed to avoid them thus far, but now there was nowhere to run. He would pay! Morgana couldn't wait to scratch those stupid fake glasses off his smug ass face! The things he was gonna do to the boy… oh, he couldn't wait to-

"Oh, mister plumber! My back pipe is toootally loose~…"

A feminine voice faintly bounced through the halls. Morgana's ears and dick perked up at the same time. He'd recognize those lewd moans anywhere. He turned on a dime, beelining single-mindedly towards the cooing with spirals in his eyes.

'Oouuhhhh! I know this one… I'll fix your pipes, lady Ann~!' he salivated as he got closer.

"…Don't you have aaaanything I can use to plug it up~~?"

"I'm here! My plunger is ready for y-CROPPED PORN!?"

*BONK!* A red streak bashed Morgana on the back of the head and his vision went black.

"Morgana, where have you gone!? Ryuji!?" Yusuke called out. "Where did everybody go?"

"Oh, mister plumber! My back pipe is toootally loose~...!" He knew that setup! Finally his time to shine!? Hopefully she was a BBW with fat th-

*BONK!* He was out cold.

"Get back here! Fucking cat! Where'd you go!?" Ryuji screamed.

"Oh, mister plumber…!" Ryuji instantly went hard.

"Sayaka-!"

*BONK!*

.oOo.

Akira tapped his foot impatiently in front of the three boys. In his hands he held a piece of A3 paper, and though his brows were furrowed and his mouth was curled into a frown, the leader's nostrils were flared and his eyes darted back and forth across the page.

"SEE!?" Ryuji pleaded. "IT'S SO DAMN GOOD, MAN!"

"Akira, you don't get it! You already have like 5 different babes throwing their panties at you, us normal folk can't get that kind of top-up like you!"

"That shit made me so fucking desperate t-that I had no choice, man!"

"We HAD to kill you! It was the only way we could stay loyal to our blood pact and still jerk off!"

Akira gulped and looked at Yusuke. He, like the others, had his hands and feet securely frozen to the wall Mara's (one of Akira's regular personas) targeted ice attacks. But whereas Ryuji and Morgana begged and screamed for mercy, the young artist looked away quiet and trembling, his lanky frame curled up into an uncomfortable slouch. They briefly met gazes and Yusuke ducked even further down.

"A-akira… I…" He choked back words. "I… I wasn't strong enough… I do not deserve the clemency of death. Apologies have lost their meaning in the face of this betrayal."

"…" Akira stared at him with an unreadable expression.

"Whatever punishment you deem appropriate, I will impart doubly so on myself… Perhaps then…!" He screamed and flailed wildly against the ice cuffs "PERHAPS THEN I WILL BE WORTHY OF A SLOW TORTUROUS DEATH! AS MY FINAL REQUEST, ALL I ASK IS THAT I BE ALLOWED TO SUFFER LIKE THE DESPICABLE INSECT I'VE PROVEN MYSELF TO BE…!"

On the sheet of paper was a relatively tame sketch of a nude woman laying in bed with a seductive pose. It would at most have gotten a nod from a seasoned collector of pornographic material, but to Akira (and evidently the other boys) it was a work deserving of galactic praise. Akira let his arms swing limp.

"Forgive me, Yusuke…" Akira put a hand on the blue-haired man's shoulder.

Yusuke snapped his head up, tears poured out his eyes like waterfalls.

"…But I cannot punish you" he looked back at the paper and instantly got hard. "For I would have done the exact same thing."

"Ghk-!" He winced and recoiled in pain "…Your kindness stabs through me like blade in my spine, Akira… How could you be so cruel?"

"Yeah, see! Y-you get it, too, Akira! S-so we're cool?" Ryuji piped back up.

"Normally, this wouldn't slide…" Akira held the sheet up between his fingers. Seeing the drawing again made Ryuji and Morgana foam at the mouth. "But 'content' of this caliber has yet to be found on this Earth…"

Akira summoned Mara and the boys felt the ice holding their wrists and ankles against the wall begin to melt.

"…I will not punish you for this." He and Ryuji pulled the sobbing Yusuke to his feet. "B-but, maybe don't do it again…"

"Akira…" Yusuke cried softly.

"Man… It's so fuckin' sexy!" Ryuji took the drawing and drooled over the page, Morgana soon hopped on his shoulder to do the same. "Dude, the titties on this girl are SO HOT! Like… I don't watch any hentai or shit like that, but now…!"

"The subtle curves of her boobies, the way her leg covers up her girly-parts, but leaves just enough to keep your eyes glued to the paper!" Morgana swooned.

"Right!? Yusuke, how the hell did you manage to make a bunch of pencil marks look 3D!?" Ryuji slobbered.

"W-well…" The man wiped his tears and regained his composure as his passion for art re-took its grasp upon his heart. Also, he was horny. "My hand simply put onto graphite what my mind truly desired…" Yusuke sniffled.

"It's seriously really good." Akira said.

"This shit should go in like a… a porn museum!" Ryuji said.

"I'd go every day if this was on display…" Morgana said.

"Impressive, indeed!" LuckyLuciano17k said.

"Right?" Ryuji drooled. "Oh. Hey, Luciano. Anyways, it's so fucking hot ma-WHUUAAAHH!?"

"Sup, buckaroos!" The shorts-donning man grinned. The others immediately leaped back and drew their weapons.

"Luciano!" Akira raised his voice shakily. "What do you want this time!?"

"D'aww, is that any way to treat your ol' pal?" he taunted.

"Shut the hell up, dude! We're seriously not in the mood to play your shitty game right now!" Ryuji retorted.

"Yeah! You'd better back up, because we got some brand-new weapons, and we aren't afraid to use them!" Morgana drew his Angry Birds slingshot and pointed it at their tormenter's face. The others summoned their own meme-weapons and readied for a battle.

"O-ho-ho-! Looks like you lads found some toys!" He spread his arms wide and took a step forwards.

"Phantom Thieves, ATTACK!"

BOOM!

SLICE!

CLANG!

AAAAAH HEE-HEE HAAH!

They were coming at him from all angles, but Luciano effortlessly took every single hit and slice and cartoon bird, barely even flinching. The thieves felt like they were trying to break a concrete wall using swords made of feathers.

"Ya done yet?" Luciano gloated once the boys had tired themselves out.

"W-what the hell…!?" Ryuji looked down at his pipe in horror at its uselessness.

"It's good that you're workin' hard to jerk it hard, but I'm afraid it won't quite be that easy!" Luciano clasped his hands in front of his stomach in his iconic pose and spun casually on his heel. "You see, I picked you four for the challenge because I foresaw something beautiful in your futures. I've seen many, many good boys and girls come and go as the overseer and proctor for No Nut November, but I've never encountered any lot with such a contrast as y'all! So unique… starting off so lowly and degenerate, but with so much potential for greatness! With how good y'all are at crankin' it, I figured y'all would've cracked it by now…"

"Spit it out already!" Akira fumed.

"Hehehe… Feisty, feisty!" Luciano's haunting smile creeped further up his pale face. "I'll keep it simple. You lot aren't the only ones gettin' stronger as the days go by."

"S-stronger…!?" Morgana's eyes sunk into their sockets.

"I came here to congratulate y'all on a week well abstained, and you got that little goodie bag headed your way soon. But…" His voice suddenly appeared close behind them. Very close. "If you're tryna end the challenge early by defeating me, I suggest you do it quick."

They jumped back another few feet in the opposite direction. Luciano was nowhere to be seen.

"See y'all on Friday, you know where to find me!" His evil laugh echoed through the halls, coming from nowhere and everywhere at once.

The Phantom Thieves' boys exchanged terrified glances. They'd all decided long ago that they'd do everything in their power to wipe Luciano's smug grin off the face of the planet, but with this new development, soon all the power in the world might not be enough…

.oOo. .oOo. .oOo.

The four girls sat at the table in a private balcony of one of Okumura Food's finest restaurants overlooking the skyline. They had agreed to come here to celebrate Ann's return to form, and while she would have preferred a less extravagant venue, Haru insisted on pulling every string available to her and granting them all a dinner to remember. The mood began slightly tense, as the other girls didn't quite know where Ann's boundaries were after the attack, but as soon as their meals arrived the air softened and the conversation flowed as if none of this Luciano nonsense had ever happened.

Ann took a deep breath, letting the cool evening air soothe her from within. She looked down at the busy streets, watching the shadows of people, cars, and trees dance under the approaching sunset. From so high up, even the enormous city of Tokyo threatened to look small.

"Guys, Thank you so much. Seriously." She had tears welling up in her eyes.

"Don't mention it, Ann, we are here for you always!" Haru clasped her hands together. "It's great to finally see you up and about."

"I feel so stupid for pushing you all away like I did." She looked down at the comically small portion of shrimp tempura before her. "After you guys came to visit yesterday, I'd realized I'd forgotten some of the things that matter most to me. It's like I was-…"

Ann stopped talking and flushed red when she made eye contact with the other girls.

"S-sorry! I… don't wanna bring down the mood…" She sulked.

Makoto put a hand on the girl's shoulder. Ann felt a lump in her throat for the briefest second, but once she remembered who she was with, it vanished.

"Right…" Ann knew that here she was safe. In the company of her fellow Phantom Thieves there were no walls, no barriers, no need to hold back. With her cherished friends, Ann doesn't need to worry about holding her tongue or trying to fit into some mold. Here she can be herself.

"When that… angel attacked me…" she began. "It went into my head. It…"

The other girls swallowed their bites and leaned forward.

"It felt like… How do I explain it…" She pursed her lip, looking for the right words. "Like I could see myself, but from all angles at the same time. I got unraveled like an orange and laid out flat…"

"Freaky…" Futaba muttered.

"Yeah…" Ann confirmed. "And it wasn't just my body, my brain got peeled, too…"

The blonde swallowed.

"It showed me my memories, I relived my whole life in that one second. All the choices I'd made from birth until that instant-"

Ann hadn't realized how hard she was balling her fists up until she felt Haru's hands wrap themselves around her own. The brunette gave her a pained smile from across the table.

"Sorry…" Ann blushed again.

"There's no need to apologize." Haru meshed her fingers into Ann's.

She smiled softly and nodded.

"You guys remember the rumors, right?" She watched how Haru's fingers glided between hers. "From before we became friends. Kamoshida, Shiho, all of that… Everybody was saying that I was just some… some slut… because of my hair and eye color…"

"It happened a lot outside of school, too. Teachers wouldn't take me seriously, kids would stare at me, people on the street would turn away and whisper…" She sighed. "Even in my own age bracket, other girls wouldn't talk to me and the boys only cared about my body…"

"We know how you feel, Ann…" Makoto looked down. "Unfortunately, we all know what that's like."

"I don't!" Futaba proudly raised her hand and promptly lowered it when the death-stares hit her. "Sorry."

"I learned to ignore it eventually, especially once we became the Phantom Thieves, but that angel made me re-live all those bad memories from before I figured it all out…"

There was a brief pause.

"Heh," Ann chuckled, surprising the others "Y'know, I actually started owning up to it, I guess…"

"What do you mean?" Haru tilted her head.

"I started pretending to be that loud, annoying blonde girl that everyone expected me to be. That was my way of sticking it to all those idiots who wouldn't take me seriously. Like 'Yeah, this is me, so what! Deal with it!' Thinking back on it, I guess at some point I stopped needing to fake it and it just became a part of me… Maybe that's why my Mementos outfit is so out-there, and why it felt like acid on my skin after the attack…"

The other girls stayed silent. Haru's grip on Ann's hand tightened.

"And y'know what? I don't really regret it, either. I was able to find people who didn't care about my appearance, people who were drawn to me. Shiho was the first back in middle school, then Ryuji, and now you guys, too." She looked each of the girls in the eye with a confident smile. "I know it's kinda lame, letting myself fall into that 'objectification' or whatever y'wanna call it, but the good really outweighed the bad in the end."

"It's kind of amazing, if you ask me…" Makoto looked down and twirled her hair. "You took the very same mold that this messed up world tried to shove you into and used it as a weapon…"

"…I guess I did, huh…?" Ann nodded solemnly. "I… I know I said I don't regret it, but there are sometimes that I wonder, too…"

"Wonder what?" Futaba asked.

"Like… What if…" She shook her head. "What if I'd listened to my old middle school teachers and dyed my hair black and wore brown contacts? If… I tried to be more quiet and obedient? I know there's no point in asking silly questions like that anymore, but maybe things could have been different. Maybe Shiho wouldn't have had to go through that bastard Kamoshida's sick torture if it was an ordinary, black-haired-brown-eyed Ann who tried to rat him out to the teacher instead of the 'school bimbo'…"

"After I got attacked, it felt like my brain had been rewound back to when I was a little girl, back to before I'd made that choice to live my best life and take pride in myself. It showed that little girl all the bad things that would happen if I went ahead with it… All the times I'd get teased by my friends, ignored by adults, ogled at by strangers, groped on trains… All the ways that my friends would suffer, like Shiho and the other volleyball team members…"

"Imagine being shown a future you, except instead of working on building a family with your loved ones and raising your kids, you see some drug-addicted junkie on the side of the road… And then blinking and waking up in that reality before you even had time to process it all…" Ann pulled her hands back and rubbed at her sleeves. "I know that's not what happened, I love being me and don't really think I could be any happier now, but… That's… How it felt for a while. I… Hated myself for a bit."

"Ann…" Haru dabbed at her cheeks with a handkerchief.

"T-that's awful…" Futaba wiped tears from under her glasses.

"But don't worry," Ann reached across the table to pat her head. "I don't feel that way any more."

"Spending time with you all yesterday, having dinner with you four right now, seeing you all and your beautiful faces, it hit me like a truck! I made the right choice all those years ago." Ann straightened her back. "Thanks to you guys, I don't need to lose sleep about whatever bad stuff might happen. Maybe it won't always be easy, but I can count on you to always have my back. And the boys, too."

The girls stood up and wrapped their arms around one another in a beautiful, emotional group hug. Ann could feel the heat she'd thought she'd lost returning to her chest even through the cold evening breeze. For several seconds they simply stood there in each other's embrace. This was a bond that would last a lifetime.

"Normally, I would scold you all for your poor table manners," said Makoto with a coy smile to hide the emotions trying to escape through her tear ducts, Haru gave her a gentle palm to the head. "But I guess it's fine just this once…"

The portions were small at the restaurant Haru had picked out for them, but the food was delicious and the view was even better.

A/N:

Another one down, this one was far easier for me to write than the last. I hope it shows! The boys' shenanigans are always fun to put onto paper, and it looks like they won't be able to slowly build up their power… Luciano's only getting stronger by the day, so things are getting a bit more urgent! This chapter also concludes Ann's mini-arc, I hope you enjoyed my exploration of her character! I wanted to keep her in-line with the rest of the girls and tie it back to the themes that were so prominent in the original.

Not much else to say other than stay tuned for the next one! See you then!