Persona 5

Friday, 6 May 2016
After School
Halls of Shujin

Akira slid the rear door of Class 2-D open, then stepped into the hall. Ann stepped out a moment later, closing the door as Akira busied himself with an online shogi match. The two students turned to the stairwell and ascended to the third floor where Student Council President Niijima almost bumped into them.

Shifting her weight to her back foot, she gave a smirk like she expected a party to leap out at any moment. "Off to some clandestine rendezvous?"

Akira looked up from his online game, the pleasure from his incipient victory clashing against the suspicion about her extremely obvious leading question. Was she that oblivious, or did she have something on him that made her that confident? Akira could only raise an eyebrow. "Um… what?"

Standing even straighter, Niijima's smile vanished beneath a layer of composed calm. "Nothing. Carry on." She walked off toward the library.

Akira glanced over his shoulder at Ann, standing just a step beneath him on the stairs. "How'd she get to be president?"

Ann glared after Niijima. "Probably from having top marks last year." Pacing around him, she headed for the door up. "Let's just go."

Turning his attention back to his shogi game, he followed her onto the roof, hearing Ryuji come up after. Morgana hopped out of his school bag and onto a desk as the rest took a seat. Ann leaned against the perimeter fence and a cool breeze wafted over the rooftop.

With everyone settled, Akira looked down at his game and saw opponent resigned. He threw his free fist in the air. "Yes!"

The others shot to their feet and looked at him with baited breath. "We got somethin'?" Ryuji blurted.

Akira swallowed and pulled up the messenger app. "Uh, sorry. I just won. Feels like the first time in a while." He cleared his throat. "Anyway, Mishima texted me at lunch. Said Iida is in our class, found out Nishiyama's one of his friends. Nishi's in Class 2-C. Apparently they meet up in Shibuya sometimes, just not where Mishima hangs out."

Plopping into a chair, Ryuji growled. "It's been a week and this is all we can find out?"

Akira shrugged. "I checked with that doctor, but all she knew was the guy buying drug ingredients is named Masa and she doesn't even know for sure if that's his real name. Either way, it's not enough to look for a Palace."

Grinning, Ann brushed one of her pigtails off her shoulder. "Actually, since Kamoshida's confession a lot more of the girls in Shujin started talking to me. Akemi said her big brother's been using. He's a college senior, but he still works in Shibuya. Hopefully that means the friend he's buying from is also in Shibuya."

Ryuji settled his chair back to all four legs. "Got a name?"

"Masachi Marai. She even posted it to the Phansite."

Bringing the bloody eyeball app, Akira considered how unlikely it was to just guess what somebody's secret distortion was. He punched in the name just in case.

"Candidate not found," his Metaverse Nav said.

He grimaced. "Damn. No Palace."

Ryuji groaned. "Man, what kind of Phantom Thieves can't come up with a good guy to heist? We're never gonna get famous at this rate."

Ann sent him a sharp glare. "We're doing this to give hope to the helpless, Ryuji."

Akira didn't like Ryuji's attitude, but followed the idea to browse the Phansite. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised that they're so hard to pin down, or the cops would've done it already. But if we can't find anybody connected, how can we possibly hit the top of that corrupt pyramid?"

Ryuji leaned back on his chair, kicking it up on its rear legs again. "I've been checkin' the Phansite. So far, just a lotta bitchin' about parents or boyfriends. I'm thinkin' that Nishiyama-Iida angle is more likely to go somewhere."

Phone on the Phansite, Ann winced. "Maybe asking people to post a name and location is too much. I know the name and location submissions are blanked out to regular users, but even I'd be hesitant to put someone else's name out there."

"Truth," Ryuji said, flicking his thumb up along his screen. "I mean, just that people already are is kinda freakin' me out."

Akira opened a new thread. "Especially if they don't believe the Phantom Thieves are real. Wanting to believe we took down Kamoshida and believing we'll take down the next asshole is two different things."

Ryuji growled. "Well… If nobody's gonna tell us, we'll find one ourselves."

"Who?" Morgana's ears drooped. "If they were big enough everyone knew them, the police would already be on them."

"As much as I'd like to get on this now," Akira said, "we do have midterms next week." He looked up at his two school companions. "You two ready?"

Both of his fellow students found sudden fascination with the roofing beneath their feet.

Sighing, Akira moved to the next thread. "We need to set up a study group. My math and English suck."

Morgana chuckled. "It's not as bad as Ryuji's Japanese."

Ryuji slammed his chair back down on all four legs. "I don't have to take this from a cat."

"I'm not a cat!" Morgana stood, tail held aloft, ears folded back. "Not every challenge can be solved with brawn and overconfidence. Sooner or later we're going to run into traps that you'll have to think through." He glanced up at others. "Your Personas are a reflection of yourselves, everything you do in your daily lives has an impact on them."

Ann chuffed. "I hate studying. But I guess if it's training to be a phantom thief, I can push through."

Ryuji's shoulders slumped. "Maaan… I became a phantom thief ta fight Shadows and help people, not study."

Akira deadpanned, "That would explain your class ranking."

Ryuji shot to his feet and snarled, "I don't have to take this from you, too!"

"Hey!" Morgana shouted. Once everyone's eyes were on him, he sat. "Studying is important, but just because we can't find a Palace doesn't mean we have to give up."

Akira sat back against a desk. "No Palace, no Shadow."

Smirk growing enough the transfer student could see it even on his small cat face, Morgana sat back down, tail curling around his feet. "You all did agree to help me if I helped you with Kamoshida."

Akira looked up at him, eyebrows up. "That's true, and you were there the whole way with Kamoshida. But what can we do?"

Morgana hopped off his desk, leaving a little rattle, then paced back to the door off the roof. "Come on. This little trek starts in Shibuya."

The team headed out, though Morgana noticed Niijima at the end of the hall, holding up a manga as if it could shield her from their view. As they headed down the stairwell, Niijima slipped to the stairs up to the roof.

Friday, 6 May 2016
After School
Shibuya, Station Square

Dozens of people criss-crossed the paved square in business suits and bland clothing adults used to indicate their surrender to boring. Akira crossed his arms, leaning against the concrete wall in the nook of the courtyard the group stood in, watching the crowd in the Station Square.

Ann mimicked the gesture, watching his posture. "Starting to get used to the Shibuya crowds?"

Still terse, Akira answered, "It's not the crowds I have a problem with, per se. It's getting pushed around and people coming up behind me when I'm not ready."

Ryuji, standing closer to the lanes of travel, looked lost and confused. "I've been hangin' out here lots this week. What am I s'post'a be seein'?"

Akira glared at Morgana, sitting on a chest-high wall that put him near eye-to-eye. "I could be practicing shogi right now. What am I supposed to be doing with the Nav?"

Morgana wrapped his tail around his feet. "Remember that friend who might be selling drugs?"

Akira uncrossed his arms. "Don't you remember back at school? I already tried Marai. We don't have a location or distortion. The app said he didn't even have a Palace."

"Just listen to me." Morgana stood, looking out at all of them. "All of you, too, this place is harder to get into than anybody's Palace. Type Mementos into the keyword."

Akira finished typing and hit the check address button.

The droll, automated voice floated out of his phone. "Candidate found."

All three humans stiffened, eyes widening. Despite the multitude streaming around them, Akira would've sworn not a breath passed between the thieves.

Ryuji cheered. "Sweet! Does this mean we don't need a location for everyone?"

"I said all of you," Morgana snapped at Ryuji, while scanning the crowd as if expecting an assassin to burst out at any moment. "We'll each have to use our abilities to get into Mementos." Once they were all ready, he settled back. "Now as soon as we have a clear opening, hit it."

Akira scanned the thinning crowd, then almost as one the three hit the Metaverse Navigator. The world bled red, all motion slowing down and twisting in on itself. When the distortion and sense of gut-wrenching motion ceased, an empty Station Square surrounded them.

Ryuji braced, his fists up. "Where'd everyone go?"

Akira blurted a surprised laugh. He ran into the square, arms spread straight out and ran in a wide circle, laughing and taking in the dulled scent of summer. His heart leaped in his chest. "Finally! It's Shibuya without a gazillion people!"

Ann looked around, knees bent and stance wary. "This is Masachi's Palace?"

Morgana, now in his boyish form, beamed a smile at her. With his stature less than a meter tall and head rounder than any human it almost made the transfer student laugh. "Yes and no, Lady Ann. It's a sort of Palace, but not like the one Kamoshida had." He stopped and turned to the square, fists clenched before he bellowed, "Joker!"

Realizing he looked like a child, Akira stopped and followed him down to what should be the Shibuya's underground walkway. All the main lighting looked dead, but a dim red shone out from the emergency lighting and through the cracks of the staff doors. He inspected the vents and some of the pillars, where some crystalline substance crawled out or around the shapes like mold.

Morgana held the lead. "Be careful. Lots of Shadows lurk further down."

"Sounds quiet to me," Akira said. He gestured to Ann. "And I don't see Catw—her thief uniform. Shouldn't we have gone all fire-and-phantom-thief yet?"

Morgana shook his head. "The tunnels may be teeming with them, but they rarely come up. It's like they're drawn to something below."

Ann tapped at one of the darkened vending machines. "What is this place if it isn't Masachi's Palace?"

"This isn't Masachi's Palace. It's everyone's," Morgana said with a theatrical sweep of his arms.

It was plenty to tickle a cold worry in Akira's mind. "Hold on a second. With Kamoshida, you said that crown was the core of his Palace. When we took it, that place crumbled."

Morgana nodded. "That is correct. His Treasure and distorted desires grew until they could no longer be contained in Mementos and they formed a distinct Palace for Kamoshida himself."

Ryuji scratched his head. "So… Kamoshida's Palace was like a hermit crab that outgrew its shell and left to go find a bigger shell?"

Morgana looked askance at him. "The Treasure, yes. To a certain point, distorted desires and their Shadows can exist together down here. However, they begin to distort their own little space and after enough time, if that distorted desire is… fed by the person, it expands into an independent Palace like you all saw with Kamoshida. Until then, those distorted desires reside here in Mementos."

Akira swallowed. "You're saying it's like a Palace for all of humanity? Like a collective… no, not consciousness, a collective unconscious?"

Morgana's eyes narrowed. "I'm a little uncomfortable with how unsurprised you are by all this."

Akira steamed ahead. "Everyone's Shadow is down here?"

Morgana nodded.

"So somewhere in here I have a Shadow?"

Morgana fell down to all fours, touching his wide forehead to the floor. "I thought I told you, Persona users have to form a kind of… self-understanding that should make having a Shadow and therefore a Palace impossible."

Ann stepped between them. "But if the Nav could still react with ones like Masachi, does that mean we can change hearts even if they don't have their own Palace?"

Morgana flashed her a wide grin. "Precisely, Lady Ann. I'm glad to have a smart person on the team."

Akira and Ryuji both stomped in protest. "Hey!"

Then Akira blinked. "Wait, what about a calling card?"

Morgana flinched, but held eye contact. "We shouldn't need one for Shadows that are still in Mementos. Something about them is still… I don't know, bound enough to the Treasure and to Mementos that we should be able to engage the Shadow directly. We should be able to change them just like we did with Kamoshida." He hopped down some stairs, the team following as a prickling sensation of eyes on them grew. A few paces from the subway station, flames flickered over them, leaving the team in their Phantom Thief outfits. "If the public was more aware of us it would be easier, but it's still possible."

Though the way the emergency lights shone red made the floor look caked in blood. Where the real world's subway smelled of perfumes, machine oil, and overworked electronic circuits, this place reeked of dust, scorched grain, and some kind of metallic tang he couldn't identify. Akira thought he saw movement in the shadows, but every time he turned to look, he saw only dark lines of a distorted subway.

Morgana stopped on the station above the tracks. "Stay wary of Shadows." A smirk spread over his face. "I've been waiting to show you guys this." He leaped, somersaulting into a spin, then with a pop, burst into a Citroën minibus. "Everyone in."

Ryuji gawked.

Akira knew he looked similarly shocked. "A van?"

The minibus shook on its wheels and Morgana's voice came from it. "It's similar to how cognition materializes those transformations for you guys."

Akira lifted a gloved hand. "I would like to call your bullshit and raise a what the hell? We get coats and you just turned into a car."

The minibus' doors opened. Morgana's voice floated out, "Get in and let's go find Masachi."

At hearing the name of their target, Akira blinked and glanced at the others. "He's right."

"Window seat!" Ryuji said before dashing for the side door.

Ann grimaced, pushing as she ran for the same door. "Ladies first, Reaper!"

The minibus trembled more than just two teens stepping in should cause. "Gentle, Panther!"

Akira settled into the front seat and closed the driver's door. The interior looked just like an ordinary vehicle, and he ran his hands over the steering column.

The minibus, Morgana, jostled. "If you grab the steering wheel and scratch my beautiful paint, I'll never forgive you, Joker!"

Akira took his hands back and the minibus drove at a cautious speed into the gloom lit only by the headlights and occasional emergency lighting that looked more like they dripped cones of blood than lit the tunnels. The small headlights cast overlapping white light into the deep darkness ahead.

As the dim red lighting on the train station fell behind, Ann shifted in her seat. She looked out one window, then another. "Something about this place feels like I'm being watched. Kinda like a Palace. You sure you can find him, Byakko?"

"I can sense him kind of like how I can sense the Treasure in a Palace." Morgana turned a corner.

Something towering, but deformed and bulbous stared down at them. Akira would have called it humanoid, except it lacked a head and leered down at them with either multiple faces or masks embedded across its body. It took a step at them. He could hear the thud from inside the minibus. One 'arm' reached at them, and he could swear it lengthened at them.

Tires squealed as Morgana shot past it, then kept on driving into the dark. The monstrosity gave chase until it receded into a tiny figure in the back window.

Mementos, Masachi Mirai's Distortion

Black gushed away from the monstrous ball of flesh and it fell with a wet thud to the etched obsidian. The polished surface stretched out as wide as the rooftop batting practice range, the glowing patterns making it look more like the carved bobble of a fantasy sorcerer. Lit by glowing red pipes at the back, they reminded him of veins even without the eerie floating cord now severed from Shadow Masachi. The Shadow itself, a sphere with eyes and mouths scattered across its ugly shape, thrashed and wailed.

Black muck dissolved until only Shadow Masachi remained on all fours, breathing hard. The pudgy middle-aged man looked up at the thieves, glittering eyes wide. "Please… You can't do this to me."

Ann braced behind her pistol, confident and ready to launch back into combat. "You think just because someone else threatened you, that gives you the right to threaten lots of other people?"

The Shadow of Masachi Marai looked up through his thick, unruly mop of black hair. His fur-lined leather coat looked more like bonds weighing the overweight man down. "But they have lots of people! With guns! If I don't sell… or at least bring in the quota every month, they'll kill me." He shrunk away from Ann, cringing at Akira before prostrating in front of Ryuji. "They don't just have dirt on me from selling in Shibuya! The one time I said I wanted to stop, she brought photos of ma and pa sleepin' in their bedroom."

Akira raised an eyebrow. He didn't comment out loud that he understood the threat. If the yakuza could get a photographer into his parents' bedrooms, they could get an assassin in there just as easily. He lowered his submachine gun. "She? Who is she?"

The Shadow backed away on his knees, holding up a hand to shield himself. "No, if I tell, she said the next time I saw ma and pa again they'd be in wooden boxes!"

Ryuji came alongside Akira, leaning close to whisper, "Tch. Ain't that the same kinda thing you said they're doin' for the doc?"

Nodding, Akira took a step forward. He held his emotions in check and tried to inject some soothing into his tone, "She won't find out that you told us." His hand tightened on his SMG. "But if you don't tell us, I will be very unhappy."

Shadow Masachi cringed, both hands held up. "I don't dare."

Akira clicked the firing selector and squeezed off a single shot next to Masachi's ear. The Shadow fell backwards, covering his face with his hands and wept.

Ann ran between Akira and the Shadow. "Joker!"

He hissed, "This is the only way to make our way up the ladder." He stepped around her, his grey eyes falling back on Masachi. He flipped the firing selector to burst with a click echoing through the enclosed space lit by the eerie, vein-like pipes. "Tell me!"

"Tosa Kotomi!" Shadow Masachi wailed.

Akira lowered his gun and turned away. "All right, everyone. On to Tosa."

Mementos, Path of Aiyatsbus

Morgana, in his catboy form, hopped up on the station platform in front of the others. The dim red lights and crystalline corruption creeping from the staff utility door gave another reminder the concrete-and-steel space around them wasn't the real world. "Oh, good. It's a route down."

Ryuji slapped a palm to his forehead, the sound only louder when it struck his heavy mask instead. "You didn't know where it was? I thought you were here before."

Morgana turned around, looking imperious from his stance on the concrete above them. "It's the fused cognition of every human who hasn't either awakened into a Persona user or separated into Palace ruler. It would be useless trying to make a map."

Ann looked around the otherworldly subway. "So it's always changing? Why aren't we seeing the walls move?"

"I think there's a stabilizing influence from the presence of Personas." Morgana's cheeks puffed out as he considered. "That or maybe it only shifts during certain times when I never happen to be here. Either way, I know the path is different every time I come, but it never changes while I'm here."

Rails rattled and Akira felt as much as heard a roar of air from deeper in the concrete-lined tunnels. A garbled horn reminding him as much of a distant woman's wail as a machine warning sounded.

Akira shouted in a panic, "Off the tracks!"

The team scrambled up onto the platform with Morgana. Moments later a subway train pulled up to the opposite side of the station, dim red lights flickering inside. A scattering of indistinct silhouettes stood inside.

Breathing hard, Ann stood up. "I knew I heard trains! How are trains running in a Palace?"

"Isn't this how the public views the subway?" Morgana tilted his head, ears rotating one way, then another. "As long as we keep our heads up we should be fine. Now come on, I need to check something down this way." He bounded to an inactive escalator going down.

The team followed him down to another station platform below. With only emergency lights casting dim red light, this place looked even darker than above. The concrete walls cracked and Akira could've sworn they bowed outwards under some unknown weight.

Ryuji paced to the side, then pounded at a dark ATM, then sighed in disappointment. "Man, it's like everything electronic ain't workin'."

"Except those trains," Akira pointed out, eyes flitting this way and that as he tried to take in the whole eerie place around them. "And those bloody lights."

Without warning, Morgana leaped with a victorious fist-pump. "Yes! Here it is!" He dashed into the gloom and the others followed him to a familiar sight. The wall looked too smooth to be concrete, its surface more like polished obsidian than anything else he could think of. Like the carved obsidian space Shadow Masachi had inhabited, wide patterns curved over it, glowing a faint red when they approached.

Ryuji shrugged his shotgun off his shoulder and clutched it in a ready stance as he came to a stop behind Morgana. "Weird wall."

"Just watch," Morgana said, his toothy grin glittering despite the dim lighting. "Lady Ann, everyone…" He stepped up and touched the carved stone. It rotated and slid away.

Akira's phone chirped. "A new area has been confirmed in the depths. Updating guidance information."

Akira stared down the new but still descending escalators. "A gate?"

Morgana danced in victory, either unhearing or ignoring Akira's question. "Yes! I knew it!"

Akira came to a stop next to the catperson, ears straining. "Haven't you been through here before?"

"No. The last time I came here, it wouldn't budge." Morgana's ears drooped. "But somehow I knew something lay deeper beyond it." He shook his head and straightened. "There's no way Mementos would stop at some ordinary place like this."

"For real?" Ryuji held his arms out to gesture at the gloom and crystalline corruption along the outer walls. "You're callin' this normal?"

Akira rolled his eyes, then turned to their guide and gestured down the inactive escalators. "Well, shall we go?"

Morgana's eyes widened and he stood in place. "But… I only brought you all here to see if we could open that gate."

Ryuji pumped a fist in the air. "Woo! Mission accomplished. Let's go have ramen."

He turned for the dead escalators up, but Ann crossed her arms. "Well… You did help us against Kamoshida. Carmen's still feeling strong. Besides, helping you with this still helps us. Didn't you say Tosa Kotomi was further down?"

Morgana's mouth twisted and his eyes fell away, elation and concern both in his expression.

Ryuji turned back, looked over the group, then trotted closer and let out a melodramatic sigh. "Fine. I guess this is still goin' after that scumbag mafia dude anyway."

Akira pointed a finger-gun at the short team leader and made a clicking sound. "We're all with you, Byakko. Besides, helping you is still helping us pull Shibuya out from under his thumb!"

Morgana looked at the three humans around him, smiled, and gave a nod. "Well, I can't very well let down my crew of gentlemen thieves, can I?"

"I am not a thief," Akira whined.

"Sorry," Morgana said, turning to Ann. "Gentlemen and lady thieves."

Mementos, Path of Aiyatsbus

Morgana leaped out of the swirling distortion, its churn already slowing. Instead of turning back into the Citroën right away to resume their trek through the dark, labyrinthine tunnels, he held a hand to his head. "Whew, I don't know whether they're getting a lot stronger or we're getting that tired."

Ryuji slouched against the concrete wall. "You're tellin' me."

"Good job everyone," Akira said, bringing up his phone to type in the next target. "Mo—Byakko, can you sense Masahiro Tokisumi?"

"Whoa there," Morgana said, holding up a hand to the boy in the black longcoat. "We've been through four Shadows, besides all the things between the distortions. As leader of the Phantom Thieves, I'm calling it a day."

Akira grit his teeth, but reigned in his temper for the first time in a long while. The light from his smart phone, the brightest in the tunnel, cast a pale pallor across his face, making it easy for others to see the his tension. "But… we don't have any other leads."

Ann reached up to squeeze his shoulder. "I know, but we haven't exhausted all options and we still have more we can come back to. Let's go home and rest."

"The doctor will still be there tomorrow," Morgana said with as much reassuring as he could pack into his tone.

Akira put away his phone, letting out a harsh breath in the near-pitch-black. Morgana transformed into the minibus and the team piled in. Akira rested his forehead on the top of the steering wheel for a moment, taking a deep breath even as a disapproving groan sounding like his mother floated in from somewhere down the tunnels.

"Um… Joker?" Morgana said. "I can't steer properly if you're holding onto the steering wheel."

Only then realizing he clenched on the wheel, Akira jerked his hands away and muttered, "Sorry."

Ann sat back and looked out the window as they got going.

Akira crossed his arms and watched the headlights playing over the walls so like, and somehow unlike the subways under Tokyo. "Was there anything else to do today, Byakko?"

Morgana slowed more than seemed necessary to make a turn. "There's another gate like that one we passed through earlier, but I think that might be dangerous in our current state. We'll come back after we've had time to rest." The others agreed and Akira remained silent as they journeyed back to the real station square in Shibuya. Just as they left it, each person activated the Metaverse Navigator to return.

Hungry as well as tired, the team helped Akira navigate to the Ore no Beko beef bowl shop and they sat down in the restaurant. Ann leaned heavy on one elbow as she ate piecemeal from her bowl with the chopsticks in her other hand. "Whew. I'd have never thought a labyrinth like that hid underneath us. So what was that big stone gate thing?"

Morgana peered up from Akira's school satchel, on the floor between their stools. "That's probably the best thing you could call it. Something about the public's cognition was keeping me out. I just wonder if things changed enough so the next gate will open for us right away."

Ryuji jammed a long octopus tentacle in his mouth, the curled tip dangling out as he chewed the base. "I thought you didn't have any memories."

Ann pushed herself up from the counter and glared at him, too tired to show revulsion for the crass behavior. "Ryuji!"

Ryuji shrugged his shoulders defensively, but sucked in the rest of the octopus tentacle.

Morgana's ears drooped. "My memories are foggy, but I know something is down there. If I can deal with the greatest cause of distortions, maybe I…"

Akira burped, then went back to his sliced beef. "Hey, we were looking for something too when you first helped us. Besides, helping you is still helping us with this crime investigation. We're all in this together."

Ann gave a relaxed smile and nodded. "Yeah."

Akira glanced to his side and elbowed Ryuji.

The ex-track star coughed on his rice and failed to wipe away the look of indignance before he said, "Yeah, yeah. You may've just been pokin' around, but if you're helpin' us, we can help you too."

Ann popped a pale shrimp in her mouth and added, "We'll help you get your human body back."

Morgana's ears curled and twisted in different directions as he averted his eyes. "I… I just needed minions. Don't think too much into it!"

Ann picked up a clump of rice, her eyes unfocused. "It's neat that we can make people have a change of heart even if they haven't become twisted enough to have a Palace. I just hope there's nothing too dangerous in there. It's already got its own sort of problems different from a Palace."

Akira nodded, swallowing a large bite of beef. "And this could be great for intel, but I thought of one problem." He leaned to look down at Morgana. "You said those four will all have a change of heart, like Kamoshida?"

Morgana stretched up, sniffing for the shrimp. "Yes. That's why their Shadows faded away. They were forced to a realization. Their suppressed self, as defined by their old Treasure, could no longer exist."

Akira pursed his lips. "We might need to leave some of them in case one lead turns out to be a dead end, but being able to learn things without alerting the conscious person could be a huge advantage."

Ryuji gnashed down on another tentacle. "Only if it helps us get the big fish."

Akira pulled his phone out of his pocket and checked the date. "Well, you guys need to rest, and midterms are right around the corner. Let's make sure we all pass our exams first."

Ryuji groaned, almost planting his face in his bowl with his flop of protest. "Shit, man, I gotta study."

Akira gave him a flat stare. "Yeah. It's almost like I've been inviting you to study for the past three weeks." When Ryuji tisked and returned to his calamari and octopus bowl, Akira picked up the last slice of beef in his bowl. "You guys have my number if you want to study or meet up."