Persona 5: Daywatch

Thursday, 14 April 2016
Early Evening
Front Gate of Shujin Academy

Ann glanced out of the alley in front of Shujin Academy. Dark doors and the distant sound of traffic met her senses. Satisfied the coast was clear, she rubbed at her shoulder, then stretched it out with a wince. "I guess we're off on our own way for now. I just wish we had a quick way to get together."

Morgana hopped up onto one of the air-conditioning units to look them closer to eye-to-eye. "Like a secret hideout." He purred. "We'd be like the classic thieves."

"I am not a thief," Akira muttered, then rubbed at a bruise he felt forming below his ribs. "Well, you guys are the ones who've been here the longest. Where's a quiet spot to hide out when we don't want to be overheard?"

Ryuji shrugged. "Nobody ever goes up on the roof."

Ann's eyes rolled up for a moment. "I guess not. The roof it is, then."

Ryuji slouched against the air conditioning units, favoring his left leg. "Man, I'm gonna sleep like a baby when I get home."

Akira smirked. "Up every thirty minutes?"

Ryuji rolled his eyes. "Speakin' of time, I feel like we were stuck in there for days! I've had track meets that didn't wipe me out that much."

Rubbing an eye with the heel of his palm, Akira nodded. "I could use some rest, too." He drew his phone. "Before we split, we should exchange contact info. Being physically present all the time shouldn't be necessary if we can just call or text each other. If anything comes up, go ahead and send me a ring."

Morgana's ears drooped. "What about me? I can't contact you from the Metaverse."

Akira finished checking Ryuji's number, then looked to their smallest member. "So stay in this world."

Ryuji stretched out his leg. "They don't allow pets at my place."

Morgana turned a hopeful look to Ann, but she shook her head. "My father's allergic to cats. If he came home and saw you, he'd blow his top, cat or no."

Morgana's ears drooped.

"I guess that means you're stuck with me." Akira smirked and collected his school bag. "Tough luck."

Ryuji pointed a steady finger at Akira. "Don't you dare forget to call me before you go back."

Akira tisked. "You shouldn't have to worry about that, you're showing me that place we can get guns from."

Ryuji's stomach growled. "Man… I'll have to do that tomorrow. I'm starvin'."

Akira waved at him with a, "Pshaw." Then his stomach growled.

"Even I feel like I could eat a horse," Ann declared. Then she flinched, holding a hand to her ribs. "Okay, not a horse."

Ryuji smirked and slipped his hands in his pockets. "Well, if we're all rarin' ta go, I happen to know a great place.

Akira squinted at him. "If this is a greasy back-alley gastropub…"

Waving him off, Ryuji stepped out in the road and turned for the train station. "Nah, it's a Chinese joint, real authentic. But they got ramen bowls if you're hankerin' for Japanese cookin'."

Thursday, 14 April 2016
Evening
Nerima, Chinese Restaurant Nekohanten

Traditional styling gave a warm, homey feel to the restaurant tucked between a commercial and residential neighborhood. Ryuji slurped down a long noodle, then looked up from his soup. "So, transfer—"

"The name's Akira," he snapped, then tore into the small mountain of sliced pork on his plate.

"Sorry," Ryuji said, at least having the grace to look sheepish. "You really got a criminal record?"

"Sakamoto!" Ann chastised.

"No, it's okay." Akira swallowed a bite of pork and peppers, then poked at his meal. Bringing up his checkered past might have brought up anger before, but between the hunger and pain from the fight leading up to Ryuji's awakening, Akira couldn't manage anything more than a self-derisive smirk. "To be honest, I'm just pissed off that the one time I did get arrested, I didn't even actually beat the guy. It's not like I haven't gotten into fights, they all just got swept under the rug."

Ryuji stirred at his soup, looking for another piece of shrimp. "You have a lotta assholes back home?"

"I wouldn't call it home, and no." Akira swallowed and picked at his pork. "Sure, it would've been great to be one of those nice guys everybody's friends with, but everyone knew my old bastard." He lifted another slice, watching the pink meat dangle. "All I wanted was for people to know that I wasn't him. The last time I made a real effort to play nice with people outside the chess club was basketball. The captain saw me and said 'hey, it's the creepy geek's kid'. That was when I decided, what's the point playing nice if people are going to treat me like I'm a monster anyway?"

Ann stared at the piece of white fish between her chopsticks. "You're not the only one who had no friends. I was born in Finland and my parents were always busy with fashion shows. We were traveling all the time." Her eyes took a distant look and a nostalgic smile pulled at her mouth. "That's why I decided to go into modeling. When I'm in front of the camera, no matter how silly the dress, it's like… I'm right there with them. When I came here, everybody saw me and said 'hey, it's the foreign girl'. Shiho was the first one who actually came up to me and talked with me, instead of hanging back and talking at me."

Hunching over his bowl, Akira swallowed a large bite. "What about you, Sakamoto?"

"Dude, that's what my teachers call me an' they don't even want anythin' to do with me." He flashed a smile. "Just Ryuji is cool, yo!" His smile faded. "My old man wasn't exactly a model father." He pulled a shrimp out of the soup, letting it drip a second before stuffing it in his mouth. "When he finally left, mom wanted me to make somethin' of myself at a new school. I started runnin'. Got into Shujin and crushed the track team quals." His eyes took a faraway look and he swallowed. "She looked so happy when I came home and said I might be gettin' a sports scholarship."

"Yeah," Ann said around a mouth full of fish. "Shujin isn't cheap."

Ryuji's face flinched in a bitter grimace. "Then that asshole had to go screw it all up. He called it self-defense, but he was abusin' us, too." His eyes squinted, a brief flicker of intense hatred. "One day… I couldn't take it no more and let him have it. He broke my leg and the next week the track club was disbanded."

Akira snorted and picked up a long chunk of pork. "I guess that means we're all a bunch of misfits. No wonder you guys haven't ditched me yet."

Ann looked him over with tense, arched eyebrows.

"You know," Ryuji said, "you never did say how you got a record, exactly."

"Oh, that?" Akira swallowed the rest of the chunk of pork. "I was reading late at Inuri High one evening. On the way home, I spotted some drunk trying to force a woman into his car. Mother or the old bastard would've walked away. That's all I need to know that's the wrong thing to do. So I dove in there and pulled him off her. The dumbass was so sloshed he tripped on himself and fell on one of those concrete barriers separating the road from the sidewalk. I didn't know he was one of my old bastard's benefactors until the cops pulled up with their headlights on." Akira chuckled. "He stood up and said," his tone dropped, "I will bury you."

Ann looked up from her fish. "Your father didn't try to do anything to help you?"

Akira snorted with a deep frown. "They pulled out the red carpet whenever that prick came around. My old bastard was the one who suggested kicking me out. He was so proud of the idea he told me." He popped another slice of pepper in his mouth. "Besides, the idiot was drunk. You know nobody takes what you do seriously if you're drunk. So I'm the one with the felony."

"Damn!" Ryuji snapped, slamming a fist against the table next to his bowl. The napkin holder and pepper shaker jumped from the impact. "What an asshole!"

"Dude," Akira said, "Chill. It's in the past." He ate in silence for a moment, then shrugged and pointed his chopsticks at himself. "Only guilty man in Shawshank." When Ann and Ryuji shot him confused looks, he sighed. "I think of it like this: I may not deserve those charges, but I'm not innocent. Besides, at least I'm away from the old bastard."

Ann scrutinized him out of the corner of her eye. "Wow, you really know how to let life roll off your back."

Akira rotated his shoulder, feeling an unpleasant tingle at praise.

Ryuji tilted his bowl and drank the broth, then brought it down to the table hard. "Between what you did at Kamoshida's office and inside that castle, you're one of the…" He shrugged. "I dunno how to say it… most real people I know. You ever need somethin', I got your back."

Akira swallowed a mouthful of noodles, his throat feeling tight and his eyes unable to meet the others'.

Thursday, 14 April 2016
Late Evening
Yongen, Leblanc

Akira pushed at the door, but it swung in with no resistance, the bell tinkling and a woman standing right there past it. Her black, biker's leather jacket looked generic enough, but the green dress had a spiderweb pattern to it and her black pants had holes slashed across the front.

Morgana hopped up in his bag, bracing on Akira's shoulder to check out the cause for the stop.

Akira stepped back to let her out. "'scuse me."

She gave a polite nod, but paused when her eyes fell on Morgana. "Nice cat," she said before walking on.

Morgana growled, "I am not a cat."

Akira shook his shoulders to drive Morgana back into the bag as he walked in.

Newspaper crinkled as Sojiro looked up from the end of the counter. "You're pretty late today."

Akira shrugged. With his belly full, his aches returned and all he wanted to do was lie down. "Who's the punk rocker?" he jerked a thumb at the door.

Sojiro snorted, lifting his newspaper. "She's the doctor at the clinic down the corner."

Akira slipped his hands in his pockets. "The one selling drugs? Who gives half-assed exams?"

Sojiro's eyes narrowed. "Where'd you hear something like that?"

Akira shrugged. "People talk. I learned early on in life how important it can be to pick up on the little details some people whisper."

Sojiro flicked the newspaper in his hands to try to straighten it. "She may sell weird homebrewed medicines or whatever, but as far as I know she's a legit doctor. I haven't been there, myself, but I bet neither have any of the people spreading those rumors. It's not like she's doing anything to them. I don't know why they'd bother talking about someone they never deal with."

Akira stared down, feeling a strange sense of empathy for the woman facing the uphill battle of a bad reputation. "We're the easiest targets." He paced toward the stairs.

Sojiro looked Akira up and down. "Were you limping yesterday? I hope you're not getting into trouble."

"You know me," Akira threw back. "Trouble is my stage name."

Sojiro sighed. "Well, if you're joking it can't be that bad. As long as it's not trouble with the law, I don't really care. Just remember that as long as you're staying here, anything you do could reflect on my livelihood."

Akira's eyes fell to the floor with a heavy sigh. "I got it." He slipped around Sojiro, trotted upstairs, let Morgana out, then started cleaning the table next to the couch.

Morgana sniffed at a bag of coffee beans. "Is this an abandoned warehouse?"

Akira snorted. "I wish, at least that would be cool. This is just Sakura's attic." He set a stack of books in a bin, then paused. "There's a lot of books on psychology up here. I wonder if he was more involved in Isshiki's research than he let on." He paused in between book piles. "Recognize any of this?"

Morgana hopped down to the floor to scan the titles on the spines of the indicated stack. His ears curled down. "Uh… I don't think so." He looked up at Akira. "Why?"

The student stacked more books and set them down to sort into unwanted, suspicious, and a small stack for personal use. "I was wondering if you might have been involved in Isshiki's research, too. You seemed to have a real knack for the Metaverse."

Morgana smirked and stretching himself up a little. "Well, you did luck across the Metaverse's greatest thief extraordinaire. That castle is just one of many Palaces that sprang up from the people of this place. While I was exploring it, I found lots of places representing Kamoshida's suppressed self."

"You mean he's not just a rapist with delusions of adequacy?"

Morgana pointed a clawed paw at him. "Don't be too eager to dismiss him. Kamoshida may be small fry in comparison to some, but you all have only begun your journey through the Metaverse. You've already seen some of the things he longs to sate – his lust and his longing for power. However, he's also driven by fear and all the inertia of his past life."

Heavy footsteps tromped up the stairs, and Sojiro's voice projected, "Are you watching cat videos?" He reached the top of the stairs and his eyes locked onto Morgana. "A stray? This is a restaurant! I can't afford to let pets run around."

Akira stood up, finding his hands curling into fists on the way. "Morgana was abandoned."

"I was what?" Morgana blinked at Akira.

"Morgana?" Sojiro scratched his head.

Akira stacked books from the shelf against the wall. "That's his name."

Sojiro stroked his goatee for a few moments as he stared at the cat. "I suppose if you're already that attached, you'll be on better behavior." He let out a sigh with a hint of wistfulness. "But you're taking care of it."

Akira straightened the stack of books against the wall, then stood up and snapped a British salute. "Right-o, Boss."

Rolling his eyes, Sojiro trotted downstairs.

Morgana hopped up on the desk in the corner. "Is that the ruler of this place?"

Scowling, Akira said, "He's not a…" A deep breath passed before he chuckled. "You know what? I guess he kind of is."

Morgana swept his gaze across the half-cleaned attic. "He seems pretty understanding for a guy keeping you crammed in this dump."

Akira chuckled, going back to stacking and sorting out books and other detritus. "You must not know much about housing. This may be an attic, but it's probably twice as big as most apartments in Tokyo." His eyes rolled up. "Well, the ones I'd have a prayer of affording. It's not a cell, anyway. The cell my old bastard kept me in? I could touch both walls if I stretched my hands straight out."

One of Morgana's ears twisted down. "Why do you keep saying that? What is an 'old bastard'?"

Akira sighed, set down the last of his stack of books in the sort, then sat on the corner of the bed with a sigh. "Well… other people have a father. It's not just the person who donated the half of your genes to allow you to live, he's supposed to be a person who provides for you. He gives you shelter, a safe place to stay. When you're lost or confused he's supposed to teach you. He gives discipline so you grow up to be a good person, but he doesn't beat you or shackle you as bait in terrifying experiments. He never lies to you, never makes you feel like you're an unwanted mistake. A father is supposed to be the person who builds you up so you can go out into the world. He gives you that little push when you're unsure."

Morgana started sniffing the air, but kept an ear on Akira. The transfer student took off his glasses and rubbed a palm against one eye. "That's what you have to do to be a father. If you can't do that, you're not a father, you're an accidental parent." Setting his glasses back on, Akira spotted Sojiro's head poking up from the stairs. "You don't have to eavesdrop from that far away."

Striding up with a gait too stiff to be nonchalant, Sojiro avoided eye contact as he walked in with a plate of tuna. "I… uh… thought the little guy should at least have something to eat."

Morgana's eyes grew wide as Sojiro set the plate of tuna down on the desk. "Now that is a generous man. You didn't bring me any meat when you went to that place with Lady Ann."

Akira's phone vibrated, but he held off answering when he noticed Sojiro still there looking at Morgana.

"He just kept on calling out in that cute little voice."

Akira covered his mouth to hide his smile.

Sojiro turned on him, straight and all-business. "Make sure you wash that dish."

Akira snapped him a British salute. "Aye-aye, Boss."

Sojiro shook his head and left.

Smirking, Morgana looked up from the half-eaten plate of tuna. "Looks like he likes me more than you."

"Laugh it up, fuzzball." Akira crossed his arms. After a moment of watching Morgana eat, he straightened. "You seem to be comfortable eating straight from a plate. Were you an eating contest champion?"

Morgana licked a paw, then cleaned off his muzzle. "To be honest, I don't remember. Listening to you all talk about your lives growing up made me realize I must've lost a lot to the distortions in the Metaverse, not just my form. That's why we've got to go back into that castle. I'm sure we can clear up the distortions, and I can get my real body back."

"Well," Akira said, picking up more junk and moving it to a bin already lined with a black trash bag. "As long as you're backing me up with this, I'll back you up with that. It's only fair."

Morgana smiled. "Well, if you're that certain, I guess I could pass along some of my knowledge. This keen mind and these dexterous paws aren't just for show. I could show you plenty about infiltration tools."

"You could help me make a new tension wrench? I had to leave the crew's old tools behind when I moved."

Straightening, Morgana scrutinized Akira. "You already know about picking locks?"

Akira dropped some broken chunks of styrofoam packing into the trash bin, then gave an uncomfortable shrug. "Me and the guys used to go all sorts of places where we weren't invited. I wasn't the expert, I just tended to carry the tools because I was the only one who ever got away from Kung-fu Cop. I'm more curious about that smoke canister. That could be useful if we need to do some sneaking or escaping after they already know we're there."

"I don't know if all my tools will work in this world, but I'll teach you what I can." Morgana leaned back down to lick off the plate.

That conversation over, Akira took out his phone, hoping to see an update on Shiho from Ann. To his surprise, it was Ryuji.

[About this treasure and palace stuff you guys were talking about… how's that work?]

Akira checked with Morgana, sitting down at the stool against the bench so he could read in, then typed in the explanation to Ryuji.

It took a few moments for Ryuji to type out a reply. [Wait a minute, isn't desire a good thing? I mean… when I was in the track team, I had plenty of days I didn't wanna go to school. But training with the guys was enough to get me up and out.]

Morgana flicked an ear. "It's true. We're all defined by our desires. To eat, sleep, to build something, to fall in love—"

"Oh, please," Akira barked. "Love's just running around trying to entertain yourself while still calling yourself an adult."

Morgana's ears folded back and his eyebrows rose. "Where on earth would you get a strange idea like that? Love is the glue that holds families together, that forms new ones."

Akira adjusted his seating and pushed up his glasses to rub at one eye in an effort to stave off exhaustion. "I hear about love all the damn time." He raised his voice to mimic the airheads at Inuri, "I love chocolate!" He lowered his voice a bit, adding more of a western twang to mimic his mother, "I love sex!" Akira straightened. "'Love' is people trying to excuse not having control."

Morgana stared at him. "We'll have to talk about this later. About stealing a Treasure, if all of a person's desires were taken away, he'd shut down." Akira forwarded a quick summary.

[So Kamoshida could turn brain dead if we mess up? I may be pissed at him, but I dunno if I want to go so far as killing him.]

Akira ground his teeth. [Ryuji, I used to think there was only one person in the world so evil he deserved to die. Then Kamoshida raped Suzui.]

Morgana looked over Akira. "You feel really strong about her. How long was she your friend?"

Blushing, Akira let out a wistful sigh at the memory of her beautiful smile. "Uh… Three days."

Morgana backed up, eyes wide. "Three days?"

Akira found himself unable to make eye contact. It felt like months to him. "It's not just about her. I came from… a really bad place. I needed somewhere good when I left there. She was the only one at Shujin with the strength and kindness to smile. When Kamoshida hurt her, he didn't just take that away. He took it away from me." The instant the words were out of his mouth, Akira realized how selfish they sounded. "He took it away from Ann, her boyfriend Mishima, her class. He hurt the entire school."

Morgana looked back down to the instant messenger. "I'm surprised you're forwarding all of this to Ryuji. I was kind of expecting you to edit what you said to make him feel more cooperative."

Akira shot him a nasty look. "I'm not the most honest of people, but I don't like tricking people into things. If Ryuji's on board, I don't want it to be 'cause I have him hooked on a line. That's the kind of thing my old bastard would do."

[I get what you're saying, but if we go so far as to kill him just because we don't like him… isn't that a little too close to what he does? Crushing everything he doesn't like? Sure, I want him to pay for what he did. I just don't know if I want to become a murderer over him.]

[I've been over this with Ann. The volleyball team's keeping mum, the parents and teachers all turn a blind eye for the glory of Shujin. You and I are already outcasts. I know I lost it back there in his office, but you've heard the rumors after. Almost nobody believes it, and the few who do would never stand up and say it out loud. Going into that world is the only option we have. If you want to sit out, _I_ will protect Shujin from him.] Akira turned off his phone and set it on the wide sill next to the bed before changing. A long day of school came before Ryuji's mysterious gun connection.

Thursday, 14 April 2016
Night
Velvet Room

Besides the metal slab he lay on, the first thing to intrude on Akira's consciousness was soft, gloved clapping. Crushed blue velvet lined the padded walls. He pushed himself to his feet, though he noted the slab of a bunk didn't feel as cold as a chunk of metal should.

"So the prisoner awakens," the voice as deep as the Marianas Trench resonated from the center of the room. Igor folded his gloved hands together, his unnerving smile wide as ever. Akira noticed a glass cylinder on his desk, an iron spike jutting down through the middle holding up a few glass marbles, which held up another two iron spikes. "And already he has begun training other thieves."

Akira pulled the ball weight to give himself some slack before walking to the bars and bracing his forearms against them. "I'd like a quarter-pounder with extra cheese and a side order of some God-damn clarity."

A resonant chuckle rumbled from the center of the panopticon. "No need to understand everything all at once. You must now hone the power of your Persona."

The wanna-be warden with a clipboard stared into him. "Personas are like an armor against the troubles of the world."

Akira scoffed at her. "I don't need armor. I find the problem and attack."

Igor gave a belly-full laugh. After a few moments, he clapped his gloved hands. "So tell me what you think of the Metaverse Navigator."

Standing up from the door of bars, Akira tilted his head. "The what?"

An electric zap sounded with the clang of Caroline's baton crashing against the bars. "Honestly, Inmate, haven't you been paying attention? The app you use to travel into the Palaces of the Metaverse."

Igor lowered his hands to the desk. "This shall be the tool enabling your rehabilitation. Since you have already begun gathering allies, I shall grant it to them as well."

Akira's steel gaze narrowed. He spared a glance at the hot-headed wanna-be before slouching against the barred door, braced on his forearms. "What kind of rehabilitation would require training me or my friends as a thief?"

The suited man's smile remained wide. "Involving others is the path you have chosen in your rehabilitation. Cultivate these new relationships. Go out and seek out more of those who have been robbed of their places to belong. They shall lend you their strength and help you mature."

Akira wavered, but couldn't tamp down his interest. "Robbed of their place to belong?"

Justine clasped her clipboard with both hands, her gaze intense despite the guarded neutrality of her posture. "Your Persona is the strength of your heart. While training it in combat against Shadows directly will make it stronger, the bonds surrounding you will do so as well."

Akira bristled. "My persona came from my own personal rage and defiance. I refused to hand Takamaki over to those things in Kamoshida's head. How the hell is buddying up to strangers going to help it?"

Caroline smashed her electrified baton against the bars, driving him back. "People all over the city have talents you could only dream of. Get their support and maybe we'll be able to help turn that into something even a weakling like you could use."

Igor reached out a gloved hand. "Even I could support your power, if you truly desire to reach your ambitions."

A chill crept along Akira's spine. "What do you know about my ambitions?"

He responded only with a deep chuckle before everything faded.