Persona 5: Daywatch

Wednesday, 18 May 2016
After School
Shujin, Class 2-D

The last bell rang and the class scrambled to pack up. While the class broke into discordant noise of half a dozen conversations, Akira took the opportunity to turn to the class representative behind him. "We checked out those names you sent me last weekend, but two of 'em were no good. Found anything else?"

Mishima shook his head. "Sorry. We're getting past the people or places I know. I've been talking to Ishikawa and the others, but they're still getting back on their feet after Hashiko had her change of heart today."

"Fuck," Akira spat under his breath. Turning back to his desk, he drew his phone and shot a message to his teammates to get ready for another trip through Mementos. He still felt a little tired from the last one despite taking the day off yesterday, but Ryuji's misadventure with Victoria didn't exactly help.

Akira paused.

If Kawakami was involved in an adult service, maybe she'd know somebody involved in the drugs or scams in Shibuya.

Akira bent down to look the team leader in the eye. "I may have another source. Let's go find Kawakami."

He found her in front of the Faculty Offices, trapped in an evasive conversation with Chouno-sensei. The English teacher held her arms crossed and eyes narrowed. "…late to almost every staff meeting. You leave work earlier than any of the other teachers. Is this the way that a new teacher serves a school as prestigious as Shujin?"

Kawakami blinked, dark rings under her eyes a testament to too little sleep. "It's not really so complicated, Chouno-san." She paused, taking a moment longer to recognize the transfer student's presence than he expected. "Get home safely, Kurusu-kun."

Akira's jaw clenched, but he held his fists behind his back.

When the literature teacher tried to turn for the faculty office door, the English teacher snapped, "We are not finished talking yet!" Chouno said, side-stepping to block the door. "Those detectives are like sharks, and there's already talk of criminal indictments. Kobayakawa's already been placed on administrative leave. Police are going around on another round of interviews. They're questioning everybody who worked with Kamoshida. Even Shima's been brought downtown."

Kawakami looked at the door to the Faculty Offices behind Chouno. "The history teacher for third-years?"

Chouno crossed her arms, her shoulders pinching up. "What are you running out to do every evening?"

Akira cleared his throat in the pointed 'don't ignore me' way adults always did when they wanted to interrupt without feeling like they interrupted.

Kawakami looked at him, looking like she'd much rather slink into the faculty office instead. "Did you have another question, Kurusu-kun?"

"Another?" Chouno repeated, suspicious but also ponderous.

Going with the sense of frustration, he tapped that sense of frustration inside. "It's not like I've got to book tutoring appointments for most teachers."

The dark-hared teacher looked from Akira to Kawakami. "Book appointments? For tutoring?"

Akira held his arms in the air in mock surrender, voice thick with sarcasm. "Oh, right, because everyone here has a second job trying to further education in Tokyo. But hey, why let dedication to a cause get in the way? After all, housing and living expenses are so affordable here in Tokyo I'm sure that a new teacher has no issues."

Chouno's eyes wavered until she took in a breath. "I… see." She turned to Kawakami. "I… suppose I hadn't considered that. I didn't get much better than a housing and living stipend when I started teaching here, either. And if you're taking work on margins as thin as tutoring high school students, I can see why you would spend so much time at it." She gave a shallow but noticeable bow at the waist. "Forgive me, it seems you are the kind of teacher Shujin needs. Especially now."

Kawakami blinked several times before processing what she saw and gave a polite, fake smile before bowing back. "Oh, you don't have to be like that, Chouno-san. Just trying to be the best teacher I can," she finished with strange tension in her face.

Chouno opened the door and stepped into the faculty office.

Kawakami mouthed, "thank you," before following her in.

Morgana peeked up at the transfer student from within the satchel. "I'm guessing we're not going to be learning anything from Kawakami today?"

"M-hm," Akira muttered before heading to Shibuya to join the others at Mementos. Pushing for something now could ruin things with Kawakami-sensei, but the Phantom Thieves needed a break in the investigation.

Thursday, 19 May 2016
After School
Shujin, Class 2-D

Trying to push out the cacophony of conversations from lingering students, Akira stacked his last book into his satchel. Behind him, Mishima slung his bag and stood.

"Hold up!" Ann called. She slipped between the desks, ignoring the handful of students who paused to watch. Hands wringing and shoulders hunched, she came to a stop between the two boys. "I need your help."

Akira looked up at the tall blonde who helped him fight through Kamoshida's castle to avenge Shiho. "Sure, what's up?"

Ann clasped her hands and bowed her head, her teeth clenching for a moment. "I… I've been trying to help Shiho through her physical therapy, but she had a bad reaction to one of the pain medications…"

The transfer student's hand clenched on the strap of his school satchel, but a wide-eyed Mishima beat him to the punch, "She's not back in the ICU?"

Ann recoiled as if the very prospect punched her. "No, no, Yuuki. She's okay physically." Her eyes fell and body tensed even more. "Given the circumstances. They've got her on a new pain reliever, but she's frustrated with the physical therapy. Her mom said some support might help her get through the month."

"Yeah," Akira's mouth blurted before his brain could catch up with all the reminders of his heavy school load and shift at the convenience store.

Mishima partially turned away, his shoulders slouched and his eyes on the floor. "I can't face her now. There's no way I've made up for—"

Ann grabbed his hands to bring his focus back to her. "Please, Yuuki." Her brows knitted together. "I can't do it on my own, and you were her soul mate. You're thoughtful and sweet. If anybody could get her through this, it's you."

His brown eyes flicked up to hers, to his feet, to hers, then to the transfer student before settling back to the floor. Akira sighed. "C'mon, man. Sometimes the path of redemption leads through peril."

Mishima forced his eyes up to the transfer student's, his face scrunched in pain before he let out a sigh and slipped his hands out from hers. "Fine."

She let out a relieved whoosh of air, then rushed them to the train station. A handful of other students and workers separated Akira from Ann and Mishima, but he could still make out the morose responses to her attempts to strategize through the forty-five minute train ride up to the hospital. "She really doesn't give up," Akira muttered before the doors opened and disgorged passengers.

Like before, Ann led them to the hospital, almost at a run. After checking in, they made their way through the ordered bustle to Room 248. Ann took point into the room of sterile white.

Shiho, her right arm still in a rigid cast, fumbled for the bed remote to prop up the head. Red-faced, long strands of her unbound black hair clung to her skin. She gave a lethargic smile and squeaked, "Ann!"

The blonde bent down to give a quick hug. When Ann stood and backed away, Shiho looked up to him and fought a grimace off her reddened face as she studied his for a moment. "You're that boy who wanted to become a doctor." She smiled and reached her good arm out when he stepped through the door.

"I'm glad to see you're out of a few of those braces." He paused, looking over his shoulder to see his class representative fidgeting just outside the door. "Come on," he said as he took a deep step to grab and yank Mishima in.

Like the flick of a light switch, the atmosphere in Room 248 changed. Shiho's forehead creased and her legs shifted under the covers, the braces catching on the sheet. Her eyes widened and she drew a long breath in through her nose.

"Bastard!" she shrieked.

Ann and Akira both drew back in shock.

"You let that monster…" Her arms trembled and she took Ann's hand. "You let him…!" Shiho dissolved into teary sobs, her right hand clenching Ann's. One of the machines bolted to the wall behind her started beeping.

Mishima stumbled the few paces left to her bed, but his hands froze in the air like he couldn't quite decide to reach out for her or up to shield himself. "No! I never wanted anything to happen to you, Shi-chan."

"Liar!" She hurled the wired remote at him, the cord bringing it to a short, anticlimactic clatter against the floor. "You threw me out like chum in the water!" Tears spilled down her face and her veins stood out against her pale skin.

"Shiho," Ann shouted, her own eyes welling up with tears. "Stop, this isn't you."

Drawing in a ragged breath, Shiho ignored her to screech at her once-boyfriend. "I hate you!"

Mishima, already wavering on his feet, turned and fled for the hall as tears fell.

Aghast, Ann stared at Shiho for just a moment before dashing after the Class 2-D representative. "Yuuki!"

So confused he felt dizzy, Akira took a step towards the Angel of Shujin. The girl once as optimistic as she was pretty shook in rage. He took one step closer, "Suzui-san, hold on a second. Mishima just—"

"Fuck you!" she snapped, her ragged hyperventilating descending into incoherent sobs.

Several footsteps raced into the room as Akira struggled to sort out the impossible juxtaposition before him. Before he could hope to say anything, a gruff woman shouted, "Out!"

Feeling the room start to spin, he stumbled out as nurses and a doctor came in, trying to placate the raging girl. The hallway stretched out with no sign of Ann or Mishima, so Akira paced the last direction he saw Ann run. The image of a red-faced Shiho, spittle flying from her teeth, messy hair splayed over veins standing out on her skin made her look more like a yama-uba.

It… wasn't right.

Akira crossed himself and prayed that Mishima didn't do anything he'd regret. "You see which way they went?" he asked the Phantom Thief leader hiding in his satchel.

Morgana stood up and scanned the halls. "I think they went that way," he gestured with his chin.

The haunting tones of a string instrument playing the theme of the Goa'uld rang out of Akira's phone and he pulled it out to see 'Principal's Lapdog' on his caller ID. He grimaced, but Ann was hot on Mishima's heels. If he could trust anybody with the class rep, it was Ann. Besides, he might as well try to see if he could at least make some progress on the yakuza investigation. "Carrie Ann Crowe's Mystery Meats. You hit it, we grill it."

"That's disgusting." A beat passed. "Is this Kurusu?"

"Don't call me Kurusu!" Akira took in a brief breath through his mouth. "My name is Akira."

Morgana hung his head, disappearing back into the satchel.

After a moment of distant helicopter noise from her side, Niijima came back, "I've been talking to my sister. It took a while to get enough into her good graces to spill details, but I managed to get a few."

"You know who the don is?" Akira opened the first door he came across, hoping for some privacy, but an old man looked up at him from the bed. "Sorry, wrong room," Akira said before backing out.

"Not specifically," Niijima said, her tone cool. "The police have been tracking at least a dozen suspects, but the problem is they all have enough plausible deniability to be impossible to build a case against. However, the dominant yakuza group in Shibuya has been dynamic enough that Big Sis is positive he lives and works there."

Akira slipped into another hospital room, only for a middle-aged lady to give him a confused look. "Sorry, wrong room."

He dashed for the next door and opened that to see another elderly man sleeping on the hospital bed. Still, the room had its own water closet, so he closed the hall door as quiet as he could and slipped into the WC, closing that door too before he wrinkled his nose against the stink of old people farts. Privacy at last, he re-focused on the confusing teacher's pet blackmailing him into the job already in progress. "He's in Shibuya? That's it? There's gotta be a quarter million people who live there. Much less the million people around Tokyo who come in during the day."

"Joker!" Morgana reprimanded as he stood up from the open satchel.

"I didn't have the luxury of cross-examining her! But if Big Sis says the guy lives in Shibuya, he damn well lives in Shibuya!" She groused for a moment. "All of the most likely candidates own and personally inspect several businesses there, including… establishments of ill repute."

"What, like a bank?" Akira snarked.

Niijima sighed. "Banks are legitimate, certified institutions, Kurusu-kun."

"That's what they said about medical research in Unit 731," he snapped back.

Morgana reproached, "Joker, we need her help. We haven't even started trading names of criminals whose hearts are about to change."

"What's that?" Niijima said before a frustrated growl. "Never mind. Anyway, this yakuza clan's been harder to track down than others since the latest leader took over ten years ago. Reorganized it and threw the police off almost every murder and assault pattern they were using to close in on them. Fraud, prostitution, and racketeering seem to be their mainstays now. A lot harder to stop when the criminals are technologically savvy."

Akira looked down to the team leader, who shook his head to indicate those details weren't enough for a distortion. "Okay, that's a start, but don't you have a single name? One of his lieutenants who got off on a technicality or something?"

She let out a pleased huff, something smug and superior about it. "As a matter of fact, I did get the name of one of their recruiters."

Akira wrinkled his nose again at the pervasive smell of elderly degassing. He'd have to change as soon as he got to the loft. After a few moments of nothing but the smell, his shoulders rising and pinching together, he held out his left hand, jostling the satchel. "And…?"

"I want to stand in the meeting, personally evaluate the justice of the Phan—"

Akira clapped his free hand on his head. "Have you never seen Key of Life? Fuck, the whole reason why you know about us is because of a fuck-up with operational security."

"Operational security?" she shot back, incredulous. "This isn't a government project."

"Whatever. Let us handle the job on our end, and you get information we can use on your end," Akira snapped, then hit end call.

Morgana sighed. "Joker, you're going to have to stop being so short with people. I don't actually think it's a dangerous thing for her to see one of our meetings. She already knows Ann and Ryuji are members, and if we can convince her to want to help us we won't have to worry about her after we change this mafia guy's heart." His eyes narrowed. "Remember? Networking?"

Akira spat from between clenched teeth. "She blackmailed us. Threatened the only people in my life who weren't complete bastards."

Morgana wrinkled his nose against the smell and sneezed. Taking a moment to recover, the team leader looked up at him with narrow eyes. "Joker, I was there. You tried to choke her. It makes sense for her to want to do some evaluation for herself. You didn't exactly give her much to trust us with, and it's not like I can make a case for the Phantom Thieves to her. At least leave out the blackmail part when we talk to the others."

"Fine." Akira slipped his phone back into his jacket, straightened the satchel, and strode out into the quiet hospital halls. "Where did you say Ann and Mishima were?"

The guide-trapped-in-cat-form looked out from the satchel, scanning the four-way hall intersection for a few moments before pointing a paw. "That way. I can hear Lady Ann's voice."

After a few moments of walking, Akira came to a waiting area filled with bland beige furniture. Mishima cried into his hands, his shoulders shuddering. Ann sat next to him, rubbing her hand in circles against his lower back. Akira stood there for an awkward moment, wondering what to do. Things were so simple at Inuri when he didn't need anyone and nobody needed him. What did you say to somebody you wanted to be able to see the next day?

Staring at the class representative, Morgana hopped out of the satchel, his tail standing straight up. "Hey!" Akira and Ann stared at the team leader, who shrank back as his ears curled down. "I mean… it does no good to sit and stew over a terrible situation that may have extenuating factors."

Akira nodded. "He's right."

Mishima's eyebrow quirked up.

"Flogging yourself isn't going to change the past, Mishima-san." Akira sat down at a nearby chair and clasped his hands. "If you didn't sneak a duplicate pack of cards up your sleeve, you've got no choice but to play the cards you're dealt."

Ann's hand came to a pause, still resting on the class rep's back as she sent a narrow gaze the transfer student's way. "Akira…"

"Hey, I'm just trying to remind that forward's the only way to go in life," Akira said, opening his mouth to continue when Mishima lifted his head to look in his eyes.

Voice cracking, Mishima said, "Please, just go."

Morgana's ears curled down against his head.

After a few moments, Akira looked Ann in the eye. "Can you make sure he gets home okay?"

She nodded and Akira turned around to return to Shibuya.

AN: Just the fact that Shiho didn't snap her neck or die on impact from jumping off the top of a three-story building is amazing, but that still means she's going to have extensive injuries and require months of physical therapy. P5 showed her walking around on the rooftop for her closure, but realistically it would be unlikely for her to ever walk again. I'll be trying to depict the most sensible middle point, and it will involve wheelchairs for at least much of the rest of her life because nerve damage and spinal injuries do not fully heal. Even though she lived, Kamoshida's act took away the healthy life from an innocent person and that's something many people have to come to grips with. Mishima was a direct part of the Shujin-wide system that enabled Kamoshida, and that's something that I never thought the game resolved. It's one of the dangling threads I want to deal with in Daywatch, and making Shiho his girlfriend (ex or not) is part of that by not allowing him to just wash his hands of 'a girl he never knew'. With them having a close relationship, he's thinking of her every day.