Good Day Readers! Obviously, I do not own anything connected to the Persona series in general or Persona 5 specifically, I DO own Chiba Natsumi and Anais Ouvrard, along with Natsumi's immediate family members and the original Personas that will be showing up on occasion.
To Guest, thank you for the review.
I would appreciate any responses that you have, please enjoy
Chapter 50: - More Mementos
Before I could even consider my plans for the day, a message had popped up on the group Chat from Joker, it requested that we meet up at the café for some Mementos exploring. I quickly got myself sorted and took off, running into Ren and Morgana along the way obviously. At the café, Ann was already waiting for us and we sat down to join her with Yusuke coming over in a few moments and it took a little longer for Ryūji to arrive.
"This is our intel on the cat abduction incidents occurring in Yongen," Morgana revealed. All of us proceeded to exchange concerned looks since Ren and Morgana kept us updated on the progress they had made on this case. "Our target is Aino Ryoko, who lives in Yongen. It sounds like many cats have fallen victim, and the neighbourhood's residents have already made complaints," Morgana summarised.
"You almost got abducted too, right Morgana? It seems super dangerous and I heard that the police aren't willing to do anything about it either… we've got to help out the cat owners in any way we can," Ann insisted. That had been quite a terrifying bit of information and led to Ann and I giving Morgana rather tight hugs while Ryūji had been quite angry and Yusuke expressed a sense of deep worry for such an incident occurring.
"Yeah… but there is somethin' that I'm confused about," Ryūji admitted. All of us turned to look at Ryūji, wondering what the blonde punk had to say about the incident which was already highly unusual to begin with. "Why the hell would anyone call Morgana a snowball? He's barely got any white fur," Ryūji explained. That had been an odd development and Ryūji did make a fine point about the paradox between Morgana's appearance and calling him a Snowball of all things.
"I was wondering the same thing. We may be missing a piece of the puzzle here, but I've already sent a calling card, so we're all ready to go. Let's solve this one for all the cats in Yongen and their owners!" Morgana declared. Hopefully we'd be able to confront the Shadow and get some answers out of her to fill in all the pieces of the puzzle. Ren lightly knocked his fist again the table top which focused our attention upon him.
"We also have some new intel on a cowardly kid at our school who's carrying out horrible events using the bullies that are under his control," Ren spoke up. That must have been related to the previous bullying case we solved the other day. "Apparently, he's the one who's behind Takanashi, the bully we trained against recently. It seems that Sakoda Yoshimori is blackmailing people with videos they don't want made public," Ren added on.
"Sure, let's break that bastard," Ryūji insisted. We were all in agreement to go after these targets, so we decided to head into the strange world.
*Persona 5 Royal*
We arrived in Mementos and the same creepy energy fell upon us, Joker shook it off and proceeded to move towards the wall, opening up a shortcut which got us to the end of the first area. At least we'd be able to see what kind of Shadows popped up in this second area for me and Mona to analyse them, which would make it easier for us whenever we came down to check out the first area.
"Hm, I'm sensing the targets are in a deeper area," Mona admitted. We proceeded to head into the second area and immediately piled into the Mona-van, Joker quickly got us speeding down the tracks and we occasionally encountered Shadows which manly consisted of Agathion, Bicorn, Incubus, Kelpie, Silky, Obariyon, Berith, and Kodama.
I used my eyes to see them while also trying to make sense of their connections but for some I couldn't feel any kind of connection to a person. Thankfully Mona came over after each fight and enabled me to list these Arcana that each of the Shadows were attached to which I'm quite glad that Mona could see them no matter what, smoothing over our little investigation. We eventually reached the fifth area, with Mona freezing up suddenly as his ears twitched about.
"I can sense one of our targets in this area! Let's scour this floor for them!" Mona insisted. Mona quickly assumed his van form and Joker took off into the twisting tunnels of this world until we came upon the entry point, the van proceeded to jump through the portal and we found ourselves facing down one of the Shadows we'd come to face. "Look. It's Sakoda's Shadow!" Mona exclaimed.
"Look at 'im… thinks he's some kinda hotshot," Skull sneered. It certainly did seem like Shadow Sakoda seemed to be assuming that he was some kind of important individual from the expression that he had upon his face and the infuriatingly smug smirk just made it even worse. We proceeded to approach the Shadow who adjusted his stance ever so slightly when we approached and I could practically feel the animosity rolling off of him.
"You think you can blame me for what I've done? It's a dog-eat-dog world, morons. Didn't you hear? Might makes right," Shadow Sakoda claimed. I was feeling rather irritated just listening to this guy, after all the words that he'd just used were so like something my uncle would say and it really made me want to be sick at hearing someone who seemed so young spouting the same horrendous nonsense.
"No jerk's got the right to go around blackmailin' people!" Skull snapped. I was grateful to the presence of my friends as I'm certain that had I been here alone, then I might have got a little more heavy handed with him that was strictly advisable, any reminder to my uncle was something that I was deeply repulsed by; seriously, I even covered my ears whenever his little speeches came on if I was somewhere public, in private the TV was never on to begin with.
"The weak who can't survive in this world become prey for the strong. Nothing's wrong with that!" Shadow Sakoda claimed. I sucked in a breath through my teeth in order to keep myself controlled from losing my head too quickly given this fool's determination to keep reminding me of my uncle; his belief was also a boatload of absolute nonsense.
"Survival of the fittest is a law for the wild world. But you aren't strong, you are a coward who hides behind manipulation and fear. Why don't we show you what true strength looks like," I challenged. This child needed to be taught a lesson about what strength really was, I had some of the strongest people on my side for this fight. However, the Shadow proceeded to let out a mocking laugh that would have been insulting had I been someone not involved in the Metaverse or trained by my dad.
"Haha! You're a stupid bitch that's all bark and no bite," Shadow Sakoda insulted. Was that really supposed to hurt me, frankly it sounded rather childish to me. "Changed my mind. Dogs are stronger than cats or mice. You're just trash! Now, die!" Shadow Sakoda demanded. He was consumed by black goo and when he remerged, the Shadow looked like Jack Frost, except the body was black, the clothing was purple and the black eyes were a rather intimidating shade of red. "Let me help you understand what survival of the fittest truly means! I'll devour you!" Shadow Sakoda threatened.
"Watch out! This Black Frost Absorbs Ice, Reflects Fire and Curse, and Nulls Nuke. It hasn't got a weakness!" I warned. This was going to be a fairly difficult as a fight, but we'd probably have to utilise the Ailment Spells the others had as much as possible in order to actually deal the most damage possible to this extremely powerful enemy. The little twisted snowman spun around as dark energy flowed out from it.
I sensed death within the attack, a deep cloying feeling heavy with a weight that seemed to remind me of mud and stone. I quickly threw myself out of the way alongside a few others. But Fox and Skull got caught, yet despite the creeping eerie aura surrounding them, nothing happened to them. They looked confused before shrugging their shoulders.
Despite how baffling the whole incident had been, we quickly acted. Panther flicked off her mask and had Carmen use Dormina. Unfortunately, the little fiend managed to dodge it. Fox used Goemon to increase Joker's speed. Joker utilised that to properly ensnare Black Frost in a sleep spell this time. With the snowman now asleep, I was finally able to attack.
Phantom's Tera Spell brought a shower of rocks down upon the twisted snowman. With our opponent knocked down, I quickly passed to Skull. Our Electricity wielder quickly had Captain Kidd smash his boat into Black Frost. Mona used his Wind magic to pile more damage on the demon. Black Frost quickly recovered and moved to retaliate.
A chilling energy spready this time, covering the same area as the Curse spell. Knowing that it was an Ice spell, I quickly moved away from the source to avoid being caught. Panther did the same which kept us both safe from the attack as the other also dodged. Except for Fox who was completely fine except for a little frost decorating his gloves. Joker quickly made his next move, bringing out Atalanta.
From the Grecian warrior-princess, a weakening aura flowed and pinned Black Frost down. A speed spell wrapped around Panther which allowed her to actually hit the darkened snowman with Dormina. It fell asleep this time; Skull quickly used another Skill attack on Black Frost which knocked it down. Skull passed over to me and I quickly used Gry this time. Mona proceeded to heal Skull of his Life Energy drain which made him perk up from him slumped over state.
We pretty much just kept going like that, dodging the attacks as best we could. Using Ailment spells to put it into a state of sleep or blindness then striking at that weak point. Support Spells were used whenever possible to boost our capabilities or weaken Black Frost. Mona, Panther and occasionally Joker would heal us whenever the others got hit by the ice, but we all avoided that cloying death darkness thankfully. Eventually Joker hit it with a powerful enough Psy Spell that it knocked Black Frost down and his appearance changed back to that of the horrible boy.
"I'm not a loser… I'm strong, I'm strong… I am strong… aren't I?" Shadow Sakoda pleaded. He sounded so pathetic now, now that he had been beaten by people much stronger than him, now he was seeking some pathetic validation of his own strength; Joker walked forward and pressed the tip of his dagger underneath the Shadow's chin which caused him to tense up at feeling the sharp point.
"I thought you said this was a dog-eat-dog world," Joker commented. His voice was icy cold as he said those words, it seemed that Joker had taken a great deal of issue with the mind set this Shadow Sakoda said and our leader was using the opportunity to vent those feelings; not that I blame him since he had been raised by people that seemed incredibly kind so perhaps this mentality irked him, or it might have reminded him of that awful man.
"Why don't you just admit you lost? You're acting kind of pathetic right now," Panther chastised. A sneer was upon her lips as she said those words; in fact, a small glance at the expressions upon my comrades' faces, showed that each of them were pretty much in the same boat as Panther and Joker, we each had problems with the way that this boy perceived the world.
"Yes, I know I am," Shadow Sakoda agreed. Well, at least we could see that the Shadow had been affected by our actions, the Change of Heart was likely going to take effect now that we'd beaten him; hopefully he'd get rid of all that blackmail material now which would stop all of the bullying that had been going on at our school, the less chaos we had to deal with would be better for all of us.
"Alright. Now, it's time for you to get eaten. The strong eat the weak or somethin', right? When I'm done with you, there's gonna be nothin' left but bone. You ready?" Skull threatened. Shadow Sakoda panicked, begging for forgiveness when hearing those words while we all turned to give some wide-eyed looks of worry. "Kiddin'. You don't gotta say sorry to us. Go apologise to who you really need to apologise to!" Skull insisted. His dark expression bright with a sunny smile now, which relaxed all of us; Shadow Sakoda vanished, which left behind an object that identified as being called an Evil Snow Crystal which Joker snagged and I had no idea what to make of it given its' strange energy.
"Our other target is a bit further down, so let's keep going," Mona insisted. We all agreed and proceeded to leave the sectioned off area, once back Mona transformed and Joker quickly got us off towards the next area; let's just hope that Shadow Aino was a much more palatable individual than Shadow Sakoda had been.
We proceeded to race through the eerie area until we reached the next area and Mona immediately sensed that our next target was located in this section, which started our search for the hole that would bring us to Aino's location. Soon enough we located it and proceeded to jump inside the hole which would bring us to the crazy cat-napping lady.
"There! That's Aino Ryoko. Let's Change her Heart for the sake of all the cats in Yongen!" Mona insisted. We definitely needed to get those cats some help, if the information Joker had learned was anything to go by then they were in some pretty serious distress; that couldn't be healthy for them, plus she'd almost kidnapped Mona which was definitely not a good thing for us to endure, especially poor Mona.
"Aino Ryoko? You're gonna let all the cats in Yongen go," Skull insisted. We had reached the Shadow who had actually seemed pretty meek when we walked up to her, but the moment those words left Skull's mouth, her entire demeanour changed in an instant, she became tense and I sensed some anger start to build within her.
"No! Without me, Snowball and all the other kitties won't be safe and happy!" Shadow Aino insisted. However, her words seemed to be a little off, apparently Aino had been referring to each of the cats that she chased down as being Snowball despite many of them not actually being white; but the reference to other kitties was the most unusual thing which caused me to tilt my head slightly in curiosity.
"'Other kitties'?" Mona echoed. It seemed that he had also caught on to the unusual phrasing of her words, I was trying to wrap my head around the way that Shadow Aino's mind was working at the moment. "Hey, what are you talking about?" Mona questioned. But the moment Mona called out, Shadow Aino focused upon him and her eyes went wide with an almost frenzied kind of delight.
"Snowball!?" Shadow Aino cheered. Panther quickly scooped Mona up and held him close to her while turning her body to the side to protect Mona from the Shadow. "C'mere kitty! You've gotta come over, too!" Shadow Aino insisted. She reached her hands out towards Mona, but Panther stumbled back to keep our healer safe, Shadow Aino took offence to this and proceeded to transform into a Nekomata. "I'll be the one to protect the Snowballs! I won't let anyone stand in my way!" Shadow Aino vowed.
"It resists Psy and is weak to Electricity," I warned. Joker immediately had Atalanta out and lowered Nekomata's defence in order to make this fight slightly easier than the previous one. Skull cracked his knuckles and quickly fired off a bolt of Electricity. Nekomata was knocked down and we all dived in for an All-Out Attack. Unfortunately, she managed to claw to her feet and Nekomata lashed out.
The cat lady lunged forward and swung her claws towards Fox. She managed to lash the needle points into Fox's arm. Thankfully the Rebel's Armour stayed strong but the pain on Fox's face was clear even through his mask. Panther lashed her whip out, tangling it around Nekomata's waist. Joker ran over and helped Panther haul the cat woman away. Mona quickly healed Fox's wounds. As for me, I pelted Nekomata with a lot of rocks.
Skull proceeded to toss some lightning at Nekomata which allowed us to enact an All-Out Attack. But this time when the cat lady got back to her feet, there seemed to be something different about her. Instead of getting back into the battle, Nekomata remained hunched over as she tentatively began to move towards us. I saw that she seemed to be slightly defeated from the way her shoulders were collapsed and the flickering wildness within her eyes as her wickedly sharp claws were clasped together in front of her chest in a rather meek manner.
"Please! Stop it!" Shadow Aino pleaded. She was hunched over and seemed to be struggling with something which confused me even more, this whole issue was more confusing than any of the other requests we'd dealt with. "If I'm gone, there won't be anyone protecting the snowballs!" Shadow Aino insisted. That caused all of us to stop and we proceeded to look at each other in confusion.
"Joker, it seems like there's something going on with this one. Maybe we should try talking to her," Mona suggested. Joker nodded his head in agreement, unlike other negative emotions, this seemed almost like Shadow Aino was suffering from some kind of sadness instead of the typical arrogance or rage. "Okay, here's what we know about her. She's calling the cats she catnapped 'snowballs' the catnapped cats are 'stressed out' and lastly 'the pet owners are giving up'," Mona reminded. Let's hope this information would help us.
"All I want to do is protect the snowballs. I have to protect them; I just HAVE TO PROTECT THEM!" Shadow Aino ranted. Her sadness was clearly turning her emotions into a rather intense protective drive, which could only make this fight worse if we let it continue; Joker acted quickly and put his dagger away while holding his hands up, likely trying not to present himself as being a threat to the woman.
"It's alright, just calm down," Joker insisted. We definitely needed the Shadow to cool off if we wanted any chance of talking her down from the clearly distressed state that she had worked herself in; if definitely couldn't be good for her sake to keep all of this bottled up inside of her, the stress must have been hurting her as surely as the stress was harming the cats she had locked away.
"I am calm… of course I'm calm… I need to stay calm for the snowballs," Shadow Aino insisted. There she went again, her mind was hyper focused upon calling the cats snowball and it was starting to weird me out, something must have happened to cause this because I'm fairly certain that no amount of colour blindness could turn everything – or at least every cat – white.
"What does she mean by snowballs? That's so weird. Are all cats snowballs?" Mona wondered. It was certainly a fair question to ask, but we'd only get the answers by asking Shadow Aino, I just hope it was something that the rest of us could actually understand because so far, I was drawing a blank about this whole situation.
"Snowballs are snowballs," Shadow Aino insisted. Well, that made about as much sense as throwing wood on a fire to put it out, I really wanted to know what was running through this distressed woman's head because it was clearly affecting her ability to think with even the tiniest grain of rationality; even the others seemed baffled by the words that Shadow Aino was speaking… we certainly had our work cut out for us on this one.
"Are there a lot of snowballs?" Panther asked. Her tone was gentle and soothing, likely hoping to ease the distressed Shadow so that we could get some answers out of her; Panther was giving Shadow Aino quite the concerned look and I didn't know what could be spinning around in her mind, but it was obvious that the Shadow's state was really hitting something inside of Panther.
"That's right… they're all snowballs. I have to protect them. As long as I protect them, the snowballs will be happy," Shadow Aino insisted. She was clearly oblivious as to how the current arrangement in their lives was actually having a negative impact on the cats she had imprisoned; Shadow Aino needed to understand this so that the real Aino would, but if any of us made one mistake then we could easily re-spark the fight.
"Don't you realise the cats are stressed out," Skull commented. His expression was also concerned, but more of the baffled variety, though whether that was at the way the woman's mind had been twisted up or something else I couldn't tell; we just needed to figure out the answer before things got out of hand again and from the flash across Shadow Aino's face, it seemed like we were actually getting somewhere.
"W-Well that's…," Shadow Aino spoke. So, it seemed that she did realise how the cats were suffering, but for some reason she was turning a blind eye to it, which was quite concerning given how obsessed she seemed to be about the cats. "But if I don't keep an eye out for the snowballs, they'll die too," Shadow Aino claimed. That caused all of us to exchanged wide eyed looks, everything finally falling into place.
"They'll 'die too'. I guess that means the real Snowball is already gone?" Fox realised. That had to be it, the death of the original Snowball had triggered a breakdown in Aino's mind which was the cause behind her running around and catnapping every feline that she came across; the poor woman definitely needed someone to help her out of this situation.
"I think this is enough for us to work with. She's calm enough for her to be talked down. Would you do the honours, leader," I suggested. Joker nodded his head and gently approached the hunched over Shadow, with a soft expression on his face, I did feel sorry for this woman and how her life had suddenly been upended all because of whatever had happened to her cat.
"Snowball is gone," Joker calmly reminded. We needed to clear up her mind so that she could accept the fact that her Snowball was gone and that she could not keep treating the other felines this way; I could respect that she was actually trying to do something kind for the cats she found, but the way she was going about it was the wrong thing.
"You're… right," Shadow Aino agreed. Her form then returned to the human form it had when we first got here, proving that she had calmed down now. "I found this white kitten and took it home, but it wandered outside while I wasn't looking. And then… I saw it get run over by a car. The car just kept driving, even after it ran over the kitten. Since then, I see that kitten in every cat. I always think 'I have to protect it this time'!" Shadow Aino explained.
"It's brought you a lot of suffering, huh," Mona realised. It certainly had, this was also a real eye opener for us, it wasn't just the arrogant, self-centred and cruel emotions that could cause people to develop Shadows; it was also others, sad emotions, like hurt and loss, something which I guess I understood given the confusion that had spawned Rise's Shadow five years back.
"No… the people who really suffered are the owners and their cats," Shadow Aino admitted. Well, we couldn't really argue with that comment either, as they had most certainly suffered but that didn't mean that Aino hadn't suffered either; whoever that person was who ran over poor Snowball was to blame for all this suffering.
"It's all right. You realised your mistake… just don't do something like this again," Mona insisted. We really needed her to not do this again, those poor cats had been through enough already and so had their owners, it would be best for everyone if Aino finally gave up her desperate desire to protect every cat she came across, in place of the one that she perceived she had failed.
"Yes. Thank you, Kitty-san. Um… I have a lot of cat food at my place. So please come over sometime," Shadow Aino requested. That showed that beneath the intensity she had display, Aino Ryoko actually had a very kind soul; she had been so desperate to avoid the cats suffering from the same pain that her Snowball had endured was the whole reason behind her actions and distorted mind.
"I am not a cat!" Mona protested. Panther and Joker both nudged the cat who calmed down slightly as he focused upon Shadow Aino once more. "But… that sounds nice," Mona decided. A big smile spread across Shadow Aino's face at those words; hopefully she could be a bit freer after this incident and let the cats she'd taken go back to their owners which would certainly make them happy.
"Thank you," Shadow Aino admitted. And with that, she disappeared leaving a cat brooch behind, Joker took a hold of it but the frown on his face – a frown that all of us shared – proved this had been quite the perspective changing request.