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.
I would appreciate any responses that you have, please enjoy.
Chapter 33: - Confirming Our Suspicions
The hours spent in school could not be closer to torture unless actual physical pain was involved. I wanted nothing more than to leave the grounds and hunt down Madarame's estate, all out of a fervent desire to know if the artist was a Palace Ruler. But with no idea where the shack was located, that would be a fool's move, besides my friends deserved to be involved in this incident since we were a team.
"Hey there. I'm Doctor Maruki, your school counsellor," Maruki-sensei greeted. It was a little strange to see the counsellor standing at the front of the classroom. "Thanks to the school, I can even talk to you outside of counselling now. I want to talk a little about how mental health and perception can affect you. Don't worry, I don't want to stress you out or anything. Just relax and listen," Maruki-sensei insisted. I perked up slightly, hearing those words since it seemed like this might benefit us. "How much do you guys know about the emotional mind?" Maruki-sensei asked. Hm, emotions didn't have as much effect on the Metaverse unless it was the same emotion from a large number of people, like a person's mood from the weather. "See, what's going on in your mind can affect your body pretty significantly. There's proof it can even heal you, depending on your outlook," Maruki-sensei claimed. His gaze turned to look at a specific student. "So, Amamiya-kun. What do we call the phenomenon were believing in a treatment's power is enough to improve your condition?" Maruki-sensei asked.
"The placebo effect," Ren answered. This was right and Maruki-sensei went on to explain more about the false drug and how the perception could affect the body. It did seem that placebos could have a powerful effect of people. Especially if they could actually change a person's condition enough for it to improve from before the placebo was taken, but such a thing wouldn't work in the Metaverse unless all of us were completely blind to what the placebos actually were.
"The mind affects the body, huh? You think I'll change back into a human if I just believe in it hard enough?" Morgana wondered. That was an interesting possibility, I really do hope that we'd be able to change Morgana back to his human form when we reached whatever lay down at the bottom of Mementos. A cold sensation raced its' way up and down my spine when that thought crossed my mind, causing me to fight down a shiver.
"Maybe, all we can do is try," Ren answered. For the moment, that was all we really could do.
*Persona 5 Royal*
Once school was over, the four of us humans and Morgana proceeded to head for the train station. We hopped on the train bound for Shibuya with Ann and Ren sitting down in two open chairs while me and Ryūji took a hold of a section of railing in order to keep our ground; suddenly the blonde beside me heaved a sizeable sigh which caused all of us to look over at our Electricity wielder, with curious looks upon their faces.
"Phantoms thieves goin' by train… this ain't any different from how I get home from school y'know," Ryūji complained. I couldn't do anything to tell him off for saying such a thing out loud – the train wasn't packed, but it was filled enough – without potentially hurting Ryūji or myself. Neither could any of the others for the first reason given that the train was still moving.
"It's not like any of us can drive Ryūji, so how else are we meant to get around. Walking would take forever compared to the train, plus the bus would be longer than train too," I stated. If we walked then our feet would be so tired that our brains would have turned to mush simply to support the poor abused appendages, that meant we wouldn't be in a fit state to deal with a Palace Ruler.
"Besides, we can bring pets on here," Ann added on. That was something we couldn't do on a bus; we at least were allowed to do that on the train, I wondered what would be waiting for us when we got to the shack Madarame was living at. Suddenly the bag proceeded to writhe and Morgana eventually wriggled his head free with an annoyed look upon his face.
"Hey, who're you calling a pet!?" Morgana protested. However, the moment Morgana's face appeared, I immediately spotted the widening of Ren's eyes as his face slackened and his skin rushed just a little paler than before; he lifted his head slightly as if expecting some kind of trouble which dragged everyone's attention to our typically steadfast leader.
"Oops… I forgot to pay for Morgana," Ren realised. Well, that explained it, he did seem to remember most of the time, but now he had forgotten; then again there did seem to be more pressure upon us today since this was the first time we were hunting down a possible target, instead of trying to outwit a target and all the obstacles present in our path. This sort of tension was different to what we were used to.
"Then you'd better be quiet Morgana!" Ryūji hissed out. He leaned in closer to the cat in order to deliver this message, we would certainly need him to be quiet otherwise we could end up in trouble with the train operators if they managed to find out about the cat's presence. However, Morgana turned his annoyed gaze upon Ryūji which caused me to take a couple of steps away from the duo in case things got a bit argumentative.
"I'm the one guiding you to your destination! You should be calling me Master!" Morgana claimed. Why on earth would we need to do that? Morgana was indeed the one responsible for handling the map in the previous Palace once we found it, but I didn't think that was any reason to start addressing him by such a respectful title. I wasn't demanding such a thing despite having taught them how to handle their weapons like an instructor. Also, Ann was currently the one guiding us.
"Ooh, kitty!" A young voice called. I practically jumped a foot in the air when I heard that voice, Ryūji started as well while the two on the seats flinched; I looked over and saw a little girl approaching with dark hair tied in pigtails and dark eyes, she was dressed in a zipped hoodie and a skirt with sensible shoes. Her eyes were shining brightly as they focused on Morgana who had gone completely still, or at least his head had gone still, what his body was doing in the bag I couldn't tell.
"Er, shoot!" Ann exclaimed. We were certainly in deep trouble, the little girl wouldn't be able to keep her voice down as children didn't understand the concept – or at least Mirai certainly hadn't at that age – which would draw the attention of others and then we'd be outed, even if Morgana tried to simulate a statuette as he was currently doing his utmost to.
"Is that your pet, Mister? I heard it meowing!" The little girl wondered. The girl's brightly sparkling eyes were greatly opposed to the current tense feeling that was rolling across the four of us as we tried to think about what to do; the girl had heard the meowing so we couldn't tell her no, but how to explain why she heard a cat's meowing… even more so, given that she'd seen the head as well.
"It's a stuffed animal, actually. It simulates a cat's meowing," Ren lied. Well, that might just do it, it wouldn't be too impossible for that to be taken in by the young girl, especially so long as Morgana remains still; we just had to hope that Morgana's phantom thief poise would keep him stationary for as long as was required to sell the story to the child.
"Yeah, when you press its' head, it meows," Ann added on. At least someone else was helping to support the story, especially given that the young girl had heard the cat meowing which meant we could probably at least prove how she heard the meowing from a stuffed toy, while also ensuring where to press in order to get Morgana to go along with the ploy. The girl was so excited that she immediately demanded to hear it.
"You heard her Ren-Ren, press on its' head," Ryūji encouraged. A grin on his face, he was probably going to enjoy seeing Morgana get treated this way since they did seem to be at each other's throats at the drop of a hat, they got along well enough, but they could certainly fight between themselves better and more often than the rest of us certainly did.
"This is ridicu-," Morgana began to protest. Only for Ren to lift his hand and press it down on Morgana's head. "M-Mewww," Morgana plaintively let out. He looked deeply upset to have been subjected to this treatment, but he certainly deserved it for having got us into this mess in the first place for not staying quiet like he should have when Ryūji said to be quiet.
"Wowweeeee! Again! Again!" The girl insisted. Ren looked between the girl and Morgana before lifting his hand and pressing it onto Morgana's head, it started out gently enough which caused Morgana to start drooling which Ryūji commented on. Of course, Morgana didn't care as his eyes seemed clouded by an almost dream-like state of mind thanks to the gentle pressure that Ren was exerting.
But then, Ren started to increase the pressure which Morgana did not appreciate by his exclamation. And then, Ren increased the pressure so much to the point he was basically button mashing Morgana's poor head; this caused Morgana to let out high pitched, strung together, painful sounding meows. Eventually Ren stopped, but the sound Morgana had unleashed actually made me worried he was going to be sick.
"Ahaha, that's so funny! I wanna hear it again!" The little girl cheered. Morgana claimed he had in fact thrown up which caused a pang of sympathy to shoot through me for the poor little animal; thankfully Morgana's head was saved anymore pain by the announcement that we would be arriving at Shibuya soon, the little girl walked away after Ann told her this was our stop, a little disappointed but happy enough.
"Mona, you okay?" I asked. A small moan of pain escaped the cat and I took that as enough of an answer to reach out and gentle trail my fingertips along his spine in an attempt to relax him and ease his pain; when the train rolled to a stop, I also stopped stroking the cat and we proceeded to leave the metal contraption. "What now Ann-chan?" I asked. She was the only one to know our destination and how to get there.
"Yeah, which line do we gotta transfer to?" Ryūji asked. Ann pulled out her phone and proceeded to look at the shack's location, however the longer she took to examine the route we needed to reach, the more a frown proceeded to pull heavily at her lips; eventually she lowered the phone and looked at us with an awkward expression upon her face.
"Doesn't look like there are any stations close by to that address… if anything, this is the closest station," Ann revealed. Ryūji was shocked by this, since it meant we now had to walk the rest of the distance and complained about us being phantom thieves yet walking which caused us all to glare at him since he had exclaimed that part unsettlingly loudly. I even quickly looked around just to check if Niijima-sensei was following us; thankfully, no sign of her.
"Stop your complaining," Morgana chastised. Ann revealed that despite it being a shack, Madarame still lived in a neighbourhood that was considered well off, Ann quickly found the fastest route and we set off in that direction.
*Persona 5 Royal*
It really was a shack. I know I'd heard he was living in a shack and Madarame had even claimed it was such, but there's a difference between seeing and believing. The structure was made of what looked to be corrugated metal, a few windows were in the structure with shoddy little balconies attached. The door looked to slide open, but I didn't quite trust it not to get stuck at some point.
"We're at the right address… the door plate does say Madarame," Ann admitted. However, the tone in her voice showed just how confused she happened to be, not that I entirely blamed her as I was half convinced the thing was held together by tape and a high number of prayers. This structure looked like it shouldn't even be lived in by rats, let alone people.
"Uhhh… you ring the doorbell," Ryūji insisted. His eyes were focused upon Ann which caused me to frown at him, that was practically offering Ann up as a sacrificial lamb! Then again, I wasn't entirely willing to move any closer to this structure so I wasn't innocent either, but to send one of the others in because of his own reluctance seemed a bit extreme.
"Me!? The walls won't collapse when I do, will they?" Ann panicked. A reasonable fear, I was fairly certain that one well-placed rock would send the whole thing crashing apart like a house of cards; Morgana chose that moment to pop out of Ren's bag with a twinkling smile upon his lips… at least he seemed to have recovered from the earlier incident.
"No one sneeze or we'll blow this house down, okay?" Morgana teased. An unnecessary comment in my opinion, we were already nervous and didn't need to hear any more unsettling things, we tentatively approached the highly unstable-looking building and Ann pressed the intercom button that was at the front. She also proceeded to jump back as if expecting the whole thing to tumble down from that light press.
"Who is it? Sensei is currently-," Kitagawa's voice crackled through. Ann revealed who it was before he could continue. "I'll be right out!" Kitagawa declared. The intercom shut off, meanwhile Ryūji seemed genuinely surprised by people living here, not that I blamed him, although before anyone could respond, the door was flung open which made me wince in worry. "Takamaki-sa-," Kitagawa began to speak. However, his happy expression immediately descended into an annoyed one when he saw the rest of us gathered there. "You three are here, as well?" Kitagawa asked in a biting tone.
"Hey. Sorry, but uh… we ain't here to talk about the modelling thing. There's something we gotta ask you," Ryūji spoke up. I wasn't entirely sure that it was a good idea for the blonde punk to be doing the talking about what might be a sensitive subject; with Kitagawa living here, then… well I wasn't entirely sure how to go about asking him about the accusations of Madarame's plagiarism and abuse. "Is it true Madarame's plagiarisin' stuff? He's abusin' people too, yeah?" Ryūji questioned. Blurting it out the way Ryūji just did was probably the worst way to go about this conversation.
"Are you serious?" Kitagawa asked. There was an angry note in his voice and his eyes were narrowed into a sharp glare at Ryūji, the blonde brought up the post both by mentioning it and physically showing the post to him, Kitagawa stepped out to get a closer look at the object. "This?" Kitagawa asked. He then shook his head and proceeded to lift his hand to cover his face as he began to laugh. "Preposterous! Not only is the plagiarism impossible, but abuse? He welcomes pupils into his own home! This is no act of violence; it is charity! And I'm the one residing here and studying under him. I'm saying it's not true, so it's beyond doubt," Kitagawa declared. He sounded so adamant that it was hard to believe him, but Ryūji stormed in close to him.
"You might be lyin' about it!" Ryūji accused. Kitagawa actually shied away at this claim and seemed to pull in on himself even though he claimed that it was rubbish; that post had seemed so sure and yet Kitagawa's previously unyielding declaration would have been enough to shake any suspicions I held. Yet now, he seemed extremely unsure and almost scared. Kitagawa suddenly pulled himself up and got in Ryūji's face.
"I had no family when Sensei took me in and raised me into what you see now!" Kitagawa insisted. My eyes widened at this admission, I felt a pang of empathy for the boy, Ann looked down at the ground while Ren frowned a little, only Ryūji didn't relent even if his eyes softened slightly. "If you continue to ridicule the man I owe my life to, you will rue this day!" Kitagawa threatened.
"Yusuke," Madarame's voice sounded. WASN'T HE MEANT TO BE OUT!? Okay, Kitagawa might not have said as much, but I still thought he probably wouldn't be in the building, or at least that had been my hope, but the old man proceeded to walk into the doorway while remaining inside the building. "What's the matter? I heard you yelling," Madarame asked.
"These people are slandering you with baseless rumours!" Kitagawa accused. This wasn't good, if Madarame did have a Palace, then hearing this accusation from Kitagawa might just cause Madarame's mental defence to shoot up which would automatically raise the Security Level of his Palace, therefore making our infiltration more difficult right off the bat… but we couldn't exactly contradict Kitagawa without making thing potentially worse for us.
"Forgive them Yusuke," Madarame insisted. That was a surprise; I turned to look at the man and found that he seemed completely calm about the whole incident, instead of angered or unsettled like I had expected. "They must have heard some bad rumours and came in worry for their friend's safety," Madarame rationalised. Did he deal with this often enough that he could so easily explain it away or was this all an act he happened to be putting on to throw us off. "Well, I doubt that a cranky old man like myself could be liked by everyone," Madarame commented.
"That's not what we meant," Ann stated. She seemed slightly uncomfortable about this welcoming acceptance of the accusations, then again I felt a little uncomfortable as well; Madarame proceeded to apologise for butting in and after asking for us to keep it down for his neighbours' sake, he retreated into the building. This caused Kitagawa to turn around to face us.
"That was discourteous of me… I'm sorry," Kitagawa apologised. His expression was slightly morose, perhaps at having caused such a scene instead of having defended his mentor so fervently; we really needed to salvage this situation before it turned any worse, yet it looked like neither Ann or Ren were prepared to make a move.
"We're sorry too, Kitagawa-kun," I spoke up. I stepped forward to face the boy who proceeded to look at me, I just hoped I'd be able to soothe his state of being. "Are you aware of the recent news about a teacher harming students at a school in Tokyo?" I asked. I sensed the curious looks that I was being shot with while Kitagawa gave me a puzzled expression in response to the question I'd spoken.
"Yes, I am. Quite awful," Kitagawa acknowledged. His tone sounded sincere, yet I still detected the curiosity that moved beneath his eyes, it was clear he didn't understand what I happened to mean, but that was no surprise as just hearing it didn't necessarily mean that he had seen the report and he likely might not recognise our uniforms if that was the case.
"We're from that school," I admitted. Kitagawa's eyes widened with horror as he proceeded to look between the four of us, likely processing what we would have gone through at the hands of Kamoshida. "When we heard that someone with such a striking similarity to Madarame was hurting people, after what happened at our own school, well we… we got worried. About you," I admitted. That had been the main concern, that Kitagawa's life had been at risk.
"Natsumi's right, we wanted to make sure you were okay. That teacher was good at hiding his real self so we couldn't just dismiss this post without being sure. We didn't want to let someone suffer something like this without at least trying," Ren soothed. His gentle voice drew Kitagawa's attention and I saw the boy's expression soften and he almost looked remorseful about what had happened.
"I… I see. That's very kind of you," Kitagawa admitted. However, he suddenly seemed to have a lightbulb moment as his entire demeanour perked up. "I know! I think you'll be able to believe in Sensei if you saw that painting," Kitagawa decided. With an unusual amount of giddiness, the boy reached into his pocket to pull out a blue cased phone and opened it up to show something to us. "It's his maiden work as well as his most representative piece, it's titled Sayuri. This was the painting that inspired me to become an artist," Kitagawa explained. The image Kitagawa showed us took my breath away.
It was so simple, yet evocative as well. A dark-ish yellow background with a pale white-yellow disc in the centre of said background that could be either sun or moon, in front of this was a mostly bare branch that still had some cherry blossoms clinging to it. Yet the forefront, the eye-catching aspect of the painting, was the woman. She was pale skinned, as if made of moonlight, with dark flowing hair and equally dark eyes, a simple red shirt was covering what could be seen of her torso. But her dark gaze, so solemn and sad with a hint of warmth yet longing in a way that made no sense, was focused upon the fog that covered up her arms.
"It's so beautiful," Ann whispered. Even Ryūji could appreciate it, and given how he had acted at the art gallery that was saying something, there was something so… captivating was the best word and even it didn't fit, about this painting; perhaps it was the mystery of the woman's expression? Or what the fog was meant to represent? But something about this painting tugged at my heartstrings. Kitagawa put the phone away and focused his eyes upon Ann.
"When I first saw you, I felt the same powerful emotion as when I saw this painting," Kitagawa admitted. Ann seemed flustered by this admission, but I think anyone would be after hearing something so powerful. "I wish to pursue beauty like this. And I believe drawing you will be part of that pursuit. I implore you: seriously consider my offer. I'm sorry that you took the time to come all this way, but I must assist Sensei today. I hope that we can discuss this further another time. If you'll excuse me, then," Kitagawa explained.
With that, he walked into the building and closed the door, with nothing more that could be said about this, we proceeded to walk away. Although our steps didn't take us far, instead we simply moved towards a nearby fence that separated pavement from road, we settled around it with a range of expressions upon our faces.
"Those two… seem like nice guys, don't they?" Ryūji commented. That certainly seemed to be the case, Kitagawa wholeheartedly believed in Madarame – his little shaken state could have been attributed to Ryūji aggressiveness which Kitagawa might not be used to – while Madarame himself seemed like the last person I'd suspect of being Palace Ruler, he did seem like an ordinary individual without any form of distortion, although he at least did have a Shadow.
"Maybe, the Madarame we heard about in Mementos is a different person. After all Madarame Ichiryūsai doesn't seem like a Palace Ruler," Ann commented. Ryūji was just about to start complaining about having lost a potential target, but something cut him off… something that alerted us to something quite important.
Candidate Found. A familiar electronic voice chirped, all of us proceeded to jump in surprise at the voice as Ren dug into his pocket and retrieved his phone, his skin seemed to rush even paler as he looked and when he showed it to us, it was confirmed. The Meta-Nav had been active and it had managed to pick up our conversation, with the full name of the target inserted it had confirmed the existence of a distortion.
Gritting my teeth, I snapped my head to look at the shack – the best place to start was here – and immediately set about emptying my mind. Mentally chanting the name and location, over and over, would allow me a clearer image while remaining on this side of reality; I waited patiently as I ignored all conversation around me. Suddenly the shack became slightly hazy, a golden sheen covering the building which grew in size as a faint darkness surrounded the rest of the area. I pulled myself away from the image with bared teeth, especially at having almost been tricked!
"Jail! Warehouse! And guidance counselin' office! Might as well add farm!" Ryūji was yelling. I looked over to give the boy a confused look, the other three were gathered around Ren's phone with the Meta-Nav still open, while Morgana sat on the metal fence. "Not a single hit?" Ryūji bemoaned. Ren shook his head, but this just confused me even more… what had happened while I'd been perceiving the Metaverse.
"What are you doing?" I asked. The three jumped and turned to look at me with confusion in their eyes, had they not realised what I was doing this entire time. "I engaged my Second Sight to take a look at the shack, it's definitely a challenge. Now what are you three up to?" I explained. While speaking, my mention of shack got a 'Candidate Found' chirp from the phone which at least confirmed we were on the right track.
"Random guesses to see if we can figure out the 'what' that Madarame views this shack as," Morgana explained. I almost wanted to sigh in exasperation at those words, we would be here all day and night, then probably the next day too, listing all the possible variations of buildings in order to get the right descriptor, it had taken me a long time with Kamoshida and I wouldn't afford such a delay here.
"There's an easier way to do it, you know," I stated. The group gave me a confused look, yet it was tinged with intrigue at what I was about to tell them. "Get inside Madarame's head. Think how he thinks. He's an artist like how Kamoshida was an athlete and Ouvrard was a Prima Donna. Kamoshida was actually nicknamed a king at one point which likely influenced his Palace's development, while Ouvrard was a renowned opera singer. Madarame is praised as a great artist, so we need to think about a place that is important to a great artist," I explained.
"A building important to artists?" Ann muttered. At least she had got it, a building that would have enough physical world significance to artists that Madarame's cognition would immediately use it as the basis for his Palace; Ryūji seemed stumped while a contemplative hum escaped from Ren's lips as he seemed to be thinking intently.
"An art gallery… or a museum," Ren spoke. He paused briefly after the first suggestion which got no results, until he said the next suggestion and the immediate sensation of slipping into the Metaverse washed over us as the phone chirped out that the navigation was starting.
*Persona 5 Royal*
"Hey! When did you activate the Nav!? You surprised me!" Mona exclaimed. How had he been surprised? He was standing right there when it happened, Skull theorised they just happened to get it right and it had decided to activate immediately. "What if I hadn't noticed, and then wandered off and got caught by an enemy!?" Mona snapped.
"Prolly woulda figured it out once you started walkin' on two legs," Skull stated. A fair point, the sensation of moving from a quadruped to a biped would be something that couldn't be ignored, I'm sure that someone as highly observant as Mona would surely notice that he was moving differently before he got found by any Shadows wandering about.
"So, even you can slip into the Metaverse without realising it, Morgana?" Panther asked. I almost felt like shivering at those words, recalling the times when I'd accidentally stumbled into the Metaverse during the two Palaces I'd already dealt with, I'm just lucky that I never ran into enemies and that I was sensitive to the distorted feeling that accompanied crossing over; it didn't mean the others were.
"Yes. In a place with minimal cognitive distortion, the difference can be subtle," Mona admitted. I nodded my head quite firmly to show that this was indeed the case, the further you went from a Palace then the more it started to look like the normal surroundings given that the Palace was less like a tree and more like a monument in that regard, the distortion's grip only spread so far before it waned.
"Forget that! Look!" Skull exclaimed. He pointed his finger towards the Palace and we looked over to see the Palace's shape and my eyes widened at the towering golden building against a night sky backdrop, it was surrounded by things like spotlights which reflected off the golden plating of the building. "That shack is seriously some kind of museum!?" Skull questioned.
"And an ostentatious one at that. You'd think it be more aesthetically pleasing to look at," I commented. It was really hard to look at this thing, I wouldn't have thought that something that was meant to be beautiful could be so off putting after the Opera House, but this Palace made that one almost seem subdued in its' flamboyant nature.
"This one is painful on the eyes," Joker agreed. All of us nodded our heads, I think my eyes were starting to hurt and that was without having worked my eyes in any such manner, it was rather annoying to see such an ugly thing staring us right in the eye; hopefully once we got inside it would be better looking… or at least not as painful to look at, otherwise I'm not sure how well we'll do in any fights.
"Let's go check it out!" Panther insisted. We moved in closer and saw an extremely long line of cognitive people, but they weren't made to resemble anyone. So, like the people in Ouvrard's Opera House, they were devoid of some facial features, eyes and mouths being the most common. The facial expressions that were there happened to be fixed like mannequins, which frankly gave this place a horror story atmosphere. "It really is so extravagant as to be gaudy. Are we sure this is a museum?" Panther wondered.
"It's a museum based on how Madarame perceives a museum… still doesn't explain… that," I admitted. On the last word, I gestured towards the building with my hands, simply because there wasn't any way for be to articulate the growing discomfort I had. Even Ouvrard's Palace had some manner of anchoring in what had been seen in the physical world… I don't think I've ever seen a golden museum or art gallery before.
"Madarame's artwork is on display in museums in reality, too, though. His exhibit was popular and people already respect him. Why would he fantasise about a museum?" Panther commented. A fair point about that, unless the post turned out to be true, but either way the paintings were addressed to him so maybe that had something to do with this Palace's appearance… it was rather head-scratching.
"Panther's got a point… this ain't related to plagiarism or abuse, either," Skull commented. The only real way to understand this Palace will be inside, there was much that could be understand about a Palace from the inside and only from the inside; the outside rarely gave away the secrets of the person's mind who distorted it into existence.
"It might, if the post you found is true, Skull. Then it isn't his work being displayed but his students," Joker pointed out. At least someone else had recognised the possibility of what this might be about, then again there wasn't much that could be learned from out here; especially with that creepy cognitive crowd hanging about, all that told me was that Madarame believed his artwork worth seeing… which had actual basis in the physical world.
"Let's try looking around. Racking our brains here won't do us any good," Mona insisted. We agreed and proceeded to move further away from the main entrance and its' creepy crowd, there was a van seated beside the wall which seemed in perfect jumping distance for us to get over the high wall and into the courtyard that surrounded it. "This is really how he thinks of that run-down shack? It's overwhelmingly shiny," Mona complained. He rubbed his eyes slightly as if they were hurting.
"It's just not hitting me that this is that old guy's Palace," Panther admitted. Skull encouraged her to keep moving, we dropped down to the ground and walked through a series of leafed arches until we reached a small fountain area with some large and oddly shaped platforms. A jump onto the top of one led us to finding a pathway of more platforms, we walked and leapt across them until we reached a rectangular piece of building.
This section linked to the rest of the ugly structure and we climbed up to one of the lower roofs. Lucky for us, there happened to be a triangular prism made up of yellow and blue tiles, one of which happened to be propped open, I pulled out the rope and secured one end to something attached to the roof. I then chucked the rest through the opening, Joker slid down the rope first and the rest of us followed after him.
We ended up in a blue room with green couches, but hanging around the room were very odd paintings. These paintings were portraits of people but there was a strange sort of wavy effect to them which ended up distorting their features, not enough to be unrecognisable but only if I actually knew them. In this instant, I certainly did not.
"It's quiet in here. Almost eerily so," Mona commented. That was quite true, there were no Shadows about and an almost non-existent pressure from the Security Level – at least implying it was low – which I wasn't entirely used to; there was a door covered by a grate like the kind to keep people from entering places, rather appropriate for a museum.
"H-Hey… this… it's… moving," Panther called. She was looking at one of the pictures with its' distorted facial features, Skull insisted she not be freaked out by the paintings, but Mona believed it to be worth checking them out, so we moved in closer and I sported a plaque at the base of the frame, typically where the name of both painting and artist were kept.
"That's weird, 'Suzuki Hiroto, twenty-four'. That's what this plaque here reads," I spoke up. The others were confused by this, likely as confused as I was, with Panther wondering if the name belonged to the artist. Mona insisted we check out all the other paintings, but a check of those paintings simply revealed more names and ages so we proceeded to move into the next room, although we walked passed some odd black boxes with green lights blinking out from them.
Seeing those boxes dotted around the next room set me on edge slightly, we quickly checked the paintings in this room until we came upon another barred opening. Lucky for us, there happened to be an opening through a wall which led to another room full of paintings but Panther suddenly came to a stop which caused the rest of us to stop and look at her, spotting the uncertain expression upon her face.
"Hey, this doesn't make any sense… Madarame's famous for having a variety of art styles. But all the portraits on display here look the same… this is way different from what was at the-," Panther began to comment. Yes, there had been a large variety of styles on display at the gallery; however Skull suddenly cut Panther off by pointing something out to all of us, we looked over and my eyes flew wide when I spotted the painting which Skull had pointed out.
"Ain't this that guy we saw in Mementos? Y'know, the one who was shit-talkin' Madarame," Skull wondered. It was definitely a painting of Nakanohara, dressed in his suit with the same bowl cut hairstyle, yet the edge of his suit was marred by red which could almost be blood; Mona pointed out his name was on the plaque that was underneath the painting.
"Doesn't art usually have, like, the title of the piece or the artist's name?" Panther wondered. Very true, titles and the painter were typically what was written on any descriptors of artwork, I'd seen several such plaques at the exhibition yesterday; in that case, perhaps the explanation was really just that simple.
"It's not the artists but the subjects, that's what the names are for," I realised. A pulse of worry shoot through me and I quickly looked at the other paintings, I couldn't see some of them, so I jogged over and when I reached the end, my feet ground to a halt as a lead weight sunk into my stomach. "Kitagawa! Kitagawa-san's picture is here!" I called. Immediately everyone flocked to my side and I pointed to the picture.
"The plaque says Kitagawa Yusuke, so there's no mistaking it," Mona agreed. That lead weight seemed to get even heavier, to the point that I put my hand over my mouth as if to stifle the swelling nausea that pulsed through me, I managed to quell it after a few careful breaths and lowered my hand back to my side; there was something deeply unsettling about what was going on here.
"What do you think these paintings are?" Panther wondered. There could only be one possibility given what we were currently staring at, Nakanohara could have implied any number of possibilities but with this grotesque painting of Kitagawa here; well, I could only think of one answer and that answer was sickening me, the lead weight sinking even heavier in my stomach, almost seeming to drag it to my feet.
"Based on Kitagawa-san's presence, I'd say that these paintings… are probably Madarame's pupils," Joker theorised. That was the only thing that Kitagawa's presence meant, all of these people we'd seen had to be the people that Madarame had called pupils; to view each and every one of them like this… this distortion merited further investigation, we had to be sure as to the extent of this horror.
"For real? All of them? But it was only Yusuke when we went to his place before," Skull exclaimed. That was very worrying, true we knew Nakanohara was alive, but he had been severely harmed because of whatever Madarame had done; the question was what had happened to all of the other students to leave Kitagawa all alone in that shack, had they all run away? Or was it something worse?
"This must include former pupils as well. Only one remains now," Mona ominously stated. All too true a statement, enough that a shiver made its' way down my spine at those words. "Taking into account what that Nakanohara guy said earlier, things are getting clearer," Mona admitted. We were getting closer to the answer, but still not close enough. "Alright, let's keep investigating. We need something to further confirm our deductions," Mona insisted.
We turned around and spotted a set of stairs that led down into a reception looking area, complete with more green, blue and yellow couches and a table up front with what looked to be pamphlets. A chest was at the opposite end near the stairs, false TV screens were behind the gold clad front desk, Joker walked up to the pamphlet stand and pulled one out; when he opened it up, a map was revealed. Not the whole thing, but a decent portion of it.
"I see… it says it's one out of two," Mona realised. We'd probably find the other one further in the Palace, Skull wondered how large the Palace was and it was probably at least a similar size to Kamoshida's Palace since that also had two maps. "We can worry about that another time. Right now, our objective is confirming Madarame's cognition. We may have to reconsider our plan depending on what we find," Mona insisted.
"I mean, he's got a Palace, seems pretty sketchy to me," Skull stated. Joker pilfered the two chests that were present and we made our way through the slightly curved passage way that led into a circular room with odd banners hanging from the ceiling. At the back was a raised area leading to another door, but at the centre of the room was a statue.
It was either gold or gold plated, making it as incredibly gaudy as the outside of the building. But it was also very strange, it went up slightly from the base and began to curl through the air, spiralling up to the ceiling and I could just make out the appearance of people within the strange golden spiral. Mona hopped closer to the statue and insisted that we look at it, which caused Panther to approach closer.
"'The Infinite Spring'?" Panther read. A questioning note in her voice. "A conglomerate work of art that the great director Madarame created with his own funds. These individuals must offer their ideas to the director for the rest of their lives. Those who cannot do so have no worth living!" Panther read. My blood ran cold and I felt the nausea from earlier start to return with a vengeance. "Hey! This is most likely about the plagiarism, right?" Panther questioned.
"Damnit! What a phony geezer!" Skull declared. I could feel trembles start to make their way across my body as my vision seemed to be constricting until all I could see was that infernal statue; an itch started to boil up within my throat and I reached up to start scratching away at it, all the while I heard Ouvrard's sickening voice speaking things.
"In other words, his pupils are his property. He doesn't even qualify as an artist if this is true. He's stealing the ideas from talented students in exchange for securing their livelihood. This even says that they have no worth. Couldn't this be about the abuse?" Mona stated. He was probably shaking his head, but I couldn't see, all I heard was the sharp intake of breath, as if something had surprised someone. "Wait… as proper- Amazon!" Mona exclaimed.
My throat continued to itch and my scratching increased as my knees gave out. I crumpled to the ground as my breathing began to rasp and heave, but I didn't stop scrapping my nails across my throat until a hand violently seized my wrist and dragged it away. The fingers continued to flex as if still believing I could continue with the scratching motion, I began to lift up my free hand, only for someone else to tangle my hand in their own preventing me from scratching with that one.
"Breath Amazon! You need to calm down!" Joker ordered. I couldn't really see properly, only that the statue was now blocked by a bulky black jacket; a cool sensation pressed itself over my throat as little rubbing motions ghosted over the skin, soothing the itch that had built up. I coughed slightly, feeling my breath starting to come back under control but it was still a struggle to get my air back.
"Shit Amazon, why'd you freak like that?" Skull questioned. It must have been him in front of me since that was where his voice was coming from, a hand gently smooth over my hair and I leaned back into it, lifting my head up properly. My vision started to widen and I realised that Joker and Panther were the ones holding my hands, while Mona was crouched in my lap with him gently smoothing his paw-hands over my throat which meant the cool sensation was probably some of the medicine we had.
"It's okay Amazon, we're all here. Just take your time," Panther gently soothed. I knew why I was reacting how I did… this situation had too many disturbing similarities to what I'd gone through with Ouvrard; it was pretty disturbing to see, I knew this was a possibility, but I still hadn't expected to actually see something with so many similarities. Especially those gods damn paintings.
"The paintings… they have… to be the… cognition… of his pupils. Just like that mute… was of me," I wheezed out. Joker's expression tensed up as I saw Panther looked confused, I still hadn't mentioned the cognition but I shook my head, not wanting to explain what I had witnessed within Ouvrard's Palace, I'd stubbornly avoided looking for my name in that library in Kamoshida's Palace because I had little interest in knowing how others perceived me after that muted songstress.
"So, Madarame will keep them around as long as they're useful to him, but the moment they're not…," Joker stated. The pause implied so many things, Nakanohara had either been lucky enough to escape or he'd been tossed aside when his artist talent had been burnt out; but that might not have been the only possible fate for those poor students.
"He's treating them like slaves or tools!" Panther exclaimed. She struck her fist against the floor, a look of pure anger on her face, no doubt realising that there was indeed something deeply wrong with the seemingly genial and kind old man; what a farce!? He was acting just the Kamoshida had, in fact he might even be better at it than Kamoshida since we were all nearly conned by him… if the Meta-Nav hadn't chirped up, we would have been fooled.
"Why's Yusuke keepin' quiet about this? He's got no reason to cover this up!" Skull declared. That's where Skull was wrong, in Kitagawa's eyes he did have a reason for keeping quiet about the plagiarism and even possibly the abuse – we still didn't know if he suffered from that – one that echoed within my mind even now.
"'I had no family when Sensei took me in and raised me'," I commented. Skull looked at me with a raised eyebrow as I tightly gripped the hands of Joker and Panther, using them to pull me back up onto shaky legs. "That's what Kitagawa-san said. Kitagawa-san believes he owes Madarame his life, that can be a powerful motivator," I admitted. A life debt could be a great way to justify acting in some way or another, loyalty was a funny thing even by emotion standards.
"But still-," Skull protested. However, the blonde fell quiet, perhaps realising there was nothing that could be said to argue against this, we didn't know how old this distortion could be which meant that Madarame's behaviour might not have been the same back in Kitagawa's youth; Kitagawa might just be wilfully blinding himself because he didn't want to think badly of the man he so admired.
"When we were at the exhibit, I praised one of the pieces on display. But… Kitagawa-kun acted strangely. Maybe that piece was plagiarised too," Panther wondered. A possibility, heck even that magnificent Sayuri could have been plagiarised for all we knew; it was really impossible for us to say anything at this point.
"What's the call? Ain't this enough to target Madarame!?" Skull asked. He turned his gaze to Joker; as for our leader, he was looking at the statue while keeping a tight grip on my hand, I couldn't tell what he was thinking since he was facing away from me but the tension present in his hand and shoulder implied something quite intense. Eventually, Joker pulled his eyes away and proceeded to look at the rest of us.
"I want to know what all of you think before I decide?" Joker admitted. Him taking our opinions into account was very kind of him, he clearly wasn't happy about this, but he wasn't allowing his emotions to rule his thoughts; however, seeing that statue caused me to flinch back as I gritted my teeth, I think I was the opposite of Joker at this moment.
"We should confirm these facts with Yusuke first," Mona stated. Panther was in agreement, but Skull wanted to know what we needed to confirm. "It means we should get solid evidence that such crimes actually took place," Mona explained. Skull complained that this was a pain in the ass, but we had to be completely sure before we stuck our noses into this mess, even if the evidence was practically spitting on us.
"This is an abhorrent thing to see. But my judgment may be skewed, I'll follow where all of you lead, but I abstain," I decided. They gave me concerned looks, but it was my decision, these were choices that needed to be made with the head and not with the heart; given my shaken state, I don't think I was capable of making such a choice without my heart affecting my thought process.
"I'll try contacting Kitagawa-kun, I might be able to get the truth out of him if I accept his modelling offer," Panther decided. That was our best way to get in, Kitagawa was completely focused upon painting Ann so he'd likely accept us in if we proceeded to go; the true question was how we could bring this kind of topic up? He's already exploded and threatened us the last time that was attempted… we probably shouldn't let Skull do any talking.
"Wait, you're gonna do that!?" Mona questioned. Panther proceeded to demand we come along with her, that was obviously going to happen, we wouldn't just leave our friend alone with some depraved plagiarist as who knows what he would do; Kitagawa I felt I could trust not to do anything weird, don't know why but I just felt like he wasn't that kind of person.
"Famous, renowned artist, huh? This might be tougher than Kamoshida," Skull celebrated. The boy's energy seemed to feed into me and I felt myself stand just a little stronger than before despite the tremors that moved across my muscles occasionally. "Well, we'll just prep ourselves until we get confirmation from Yusuke. This is our first mission as real phantom thieves. We're gonna succeed no matter what!" Skull decided.
With our choice made, we proceeded to leave the Palace.
*Persona 5 Royal*
Back at my home, I couldn't bring myself to make any food still too disturbed by that Infinite Spring to actually consider putting food in my stomach. Instead, I simply made some tea just to try and help me get to sleep while I relaxed on my bed; I was leafing through another book, but I wasn't truly paying attention to what was written. Thankfully, a Chat came in which saved me from the pointless task.
Ann: Would you really forgive someone unconditionally if you owe your life to them?
Ann: I'm not so sure anymore.
Ryūji: What're you bringing this up for?
Ann: According to Kitagawa-kun, Madarame isn't a problem.
Natsumi: Depends, I suppose. Personally, not a chance.
Natsumi: But Kitagawa-san has been with Madarame for years.
Natsumi: Who knows the kind of brainwashing he's endured.
Ren: I guess so.
Ren: Is something wrong, Ann?
Ann: I mean, I know Madarame is a bad person, but still.
Ann: Maybe I'm so hesitant because I haven't actually met any of his victims.
Ryūji: Yeah, I guess that part's totally different from what happened with Kamoshida.
Ann: This might be an extreme line of thinking…
Ann: But if an evil person isn't causing any trouble now…
Ann: Is there really a point in us stepping in?
Ren: I…
Ren: I don't know, to be honest.
Natsumi: The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.
Natsumi: Just because they aren't doing anything bad, doesn't mean they couldn't do it later on.
Natsumi: But like I said, my judgment is clouded. I'm probably projecting my own issues.
Natsumi: I'm going to trust you guys to make the calls.
Ryūji: Ann, Natsumi, you've both got a point.
Ryūji: That's why, we're gonna let Yusuke decide if Madarame's worth going after or not?
Ryūji: Like Natsumi, I'd never forgive that bastard!
Ren: Kitagawa-san is the one to have suffered, he deserves to mete out judgment.
Ren: I know Nakanohara asked for our help, but he was distorted that the time, we have to take his mental state into account.
Ann: Yeah… I guess we could talk some more after that.
Ann: Okay, let's meet in Shibuya after school tomorrow.
Needless to say, despite the tea, I didn't get much sleep that night.