Persona 5: Daywatch

Friday, 27 May 2016
After School
Shujin Halls

Akira turned to the stairwell to the roof, Ann right behind him. He heard a not-hushed-enough whisper behind him, but grit his teeth and kept walking. Today should be the day they stormed Kaneshiro's bank, student rumors didn't concern him. Trotting up the stairs, he spotted Makoto already at the top landing, one hand in her pocket and the other pushing open the door.

Wondering why she was acting so wary, he stepped out the door, shielding his eyes.

Still in her track uniform, the upper-classman with curly brown hair knelt down before the planters, a basket of weeds beside her. She turned at the waist and gave the expected polite smile. "Oh, hello." Her eyes drifted to Makoto when she followed him through the door. "Miss President."

Makoto bowed her head. "Excuse us, we didn't mean to intrude."

About to jump out of the transfer student's satchel, Morgana hunkered down, only his ears poking out of the opening. "We can't have a Phantom Thieves meeting here while somebody else is around. Where else could we go?"

Ann twisted her finger through the end of a pigtail. "Well, we have to go to Shibuya anyway, right? Might as well meet there."

His phone buzzed as he jogged to the train station and Akira brought it out, expecting to see Ryuji clamoring for the location of their next meet. Instead, a text from Mishima stared back at him. "I'll be right down," he said before opening the messenger.

[Do you have some time? I need to talk,] the 2-D class representative sent just a few minutes ago.

Akira sent back. [Is this about the Shibuya problem?]

A minute passed before Mishima returned, [Oh, no. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt business. If you're already busy.]

[No problem,] Akira texted. [See you in class tomorrow.] With no sign of Ryuji, Akira sent a text informing their non-present member of the new rally location, specifying the Teikyuu walkway before the group filtered up the stairs and to the bridge. When the track star finally joined them, Akira picked his school satchel back up and they walked to a dead-end hallway to make the transition.

Friday, 27 May 2016
Early Evening
Kaneshiro's Shibuya

The instant the dirty, dark Shibuya of Kaneshiro's heart, a sensation of cold flickered over them, leaving them in their Phantom Thief attire. Makoto held up her hands, examining the knuckle dusters built into her suit's gloves. Her black leather bodysuit clung to her form, though not quite to the degree of the second-skin over Ann's generous curves bodysuit. Short spikes jutted from something like armor on her shoulders. "Wait, didn't that only happen when we entered the bank last time?"

Morgana drew a square rod. "We've all infringed on a part of Kaneshiro's heart that he guards jealously. We'll be treated as enemies from now on, no matter where in the Palace we are. Fortunately, this influence on his cognition is also what allows us to steal his distorted heart."

The rest of the Phantom Thieves assembled their weapons. Ryuji clicked his pump-action shotgun together, then handed it to the upper-classman. "And this is yours, Post-Apocalyptic Girl."

She took the weapon, but her face twisted like she bit a lemon at his proposed name. "You are not calling me that."

"You do need a code name." Morgana snapped open his crossbow, checked the bayonet, then locked it back.

Ryuji eyed Makoto, not quite hiding his eyes lingering on her chest and hips. "Uh… Shoulder Pads?"

Akira rolled his eyes. "That is not what you were looking at."

Ryuji clicked his rifle together. "No, but she'd'a smacked me if I said that."

Shaking his head, Akira turned back to the upperclassman. "Sukeban?"

Makoto's eyes narrowed. "I am not some gang mastermind!"

Ann braced a hand on one hip and leaned her weight on her opposite foot, with no sign she realized how hot the pose looked when she was in red leather. "Spike?"

Makoto glanced at her shoulders, one eye squinting for a moment before she focused back on the team. "I don't feel like that fits either."

Crossing his arms, Akira thought back to the sight of Makoto braced on her motorcycle-persona, flames pouring from the wheels and vents on the front and back. "Witch? Your persona looked tough as hell and you sure blew the fuck up out of those Shadows."

"Ugh," she said, shaking her hand as if trying to brush off the suggestion. "I'd rather something a little more… refined."

Morgana pursed his lips. "I should warn you that your Persona will seem a lot more powerful the first time you call it out than subsequent summons because you have no sense of finesse with it yet. It's like you lack the ability to hold back the first time. Even so, your persona was extremely strong." He tapped the crossbow's limb against his head as he thought. "Joker, what's the strongest piece in chess?"

Makoto smiled. "Queen. That has a nice—"

Bursting out laughing, Akira clutched his stomach. Especially in her Phantom Thief outfit, she lacked any shade of Hifumi's natural grace and dignity. After regaining control of his breathing, he stood up and wiped a metaphorical tear from his eye. "There's nothing queenly about you, Prez. 'Badass ranger' is the kinda vibe you got." He thought back through movies for an example. "Maybe something sounding outta Mad Max? Damn near everyone in that movie was badass. Nightrider?"

Makoto stood in silence for a few moments, her lips pressed into a thin line before she straightened. "That's true."

Ryuji slung his rifle, moving slow as he slipped the loop over his shoulders. "All our code names are super short, though. I mean, when we're in the middle of a firefight the last thing you want is some long name."

"True," Ann said, crossing her arms and tapping her chin with her finger. "Just Rider?"

"I think I would prefer Nightrider, but very well." Makoto took her pump-action shotgun in both hands. "So what's the strategy for the mission?"

Ryuji blinked. "Uh, strategy?"

The crack of Akira's gloved palm striking his face echoed in the sheltered hall.

Makoto's eyes widened as she looked across the junior students. "Have the Phantom Thieves been acting without any plans?"

Ryuji tweaked something on top of his rifle. "We run inta Shadows, we beat the shit outta them."

Akira sighed. "That's not a strategy, Reaper, that's what we do along the way. We recon the palace to figure out where the treasure is and what crap is in the way, disabling traps as necessary. Once we locate the Treasure, we send calling cards in the real world to make it manifest here so we can steal it and cause the change of heart."

Morgana nodded with a smile. "That's right! Our first step today will be to find a new ingress." He turned to Ryuji. "Right after Reaper returns home."

"Eff that," Ryuji snapped, squaring his shoulders. "I backed you all up every dive in Mementos while we were tryin' ta find that yakuza shithead's name. Why shouldn't I get to see this throu—?"

Akira poked him in the ribs and the track star stumbled backwards with a wheeze. "What exactly happened in there anyway? All we got was the audio."

Makoto cringed. "He took a few solid kicks to the ribs."

"I'm okay now—" he protested.

Morgana rubbed his head with his hands now equipped with opposable thumbs. "Reaper, you're still hurt. That means a vulnerability Shadows will exploit as soon as they figure out it's there. You all voted me to be the leader because you expected me to keep a level head. The objective choice is for you to hold back when you're injured, not charge forward."

When the track star clenched his rifle, Ann stepped forward, just a little sashay to her walk. "Reaper, we need to be at the top of our game to beat the Shadows and steal his heart. If you die here, what do we tell your mother?"

His jaw flapped twice before he clenched his fists, then slumped. "Fine."

He started to turn back for the Teikyuu building when Makoto dashed into his way. "Wait!" She swallowed, looking at everything but him for a long second before stopping on her new shotgun. "How do I take this apart to make it smaller?"

Akira came up next to her. "Yeah. There's no way she'd be able to hide that thing in her skirt."

She eeped, but Ryuji laughed. With the tension broken, he showed her how to disassemble it, then put it back together. He broke down his rifle, slipping the pieces back into the pockets inside his plated black jacket before drawing his phone and walking away.

That done, the remaining Phantom Thieves walked the short distance back to the bank. The front doors – or the shattered remnants of them – lay on the steps, a steel roller gate now blocking the front entrance.

Seeing their entry cut off, Makoto sighed "Sorry, everyone. I overdid it the other day."

Akira rolled his eyes. "You know… if you said that around my old bastard, he'd smack you with his bulletproof clipboard."

Makoto snorted a laugh. "Bulletproof clipboard." She paused to glance at Ann, noticing the other girl's unamused look. Makoto followed back to him, her eyes scanning his face, the trace amusement draining from hers. She clapped her hands over her mouth. "Oh my god!"

"Shh!" Morgana hissed. "Keep quiet. Our first tool of defeating Shadows is not getting caught." He scanned the huge, ostentatious building. "It feels like his wariness has reduced. Our first entry must have coincided with something happening to him in real life. We'll still need to be wary, though."

Slipping around the perimeter, at one point at the back he stopped and cackled, rubbing his hands together. "Perfect. Somebody always leaves a window open." He climbed up the ivy and leaped into the window, opened it all the way, then disappeared inside for a few minutes before returning with a coil of thin rope in his hands. "Here you go."

Akira climbed up into the open floor-plan office. Rows of desks filled the center of the room, with wide file cabinets lining the walls. Curious, he checked for his name but found nothing where Kurusu should have fallen. Sakamoto was next, and his heart sank on not just finding a folder Ryuji with a -1 million yen balance on Ryuji, but more papers for his immediate family. The next page listed summary financial information for Sakamoto Youko at a dental clinic in Mitaka, and another with far smaller numbers for Sakamoto Hiroshi.

Seeing Ann come through the window next, he checked for Takamaki and found a folder labeled 'Takamäki'. On it were a series of transactions several hundred thousand yen each. "Panther, come look at this. I think he's got a file on your family, but it's misspelled."

She rushed closer, took it and read for only a moment before letting out a relieved breath. "That's mom and dad's clothing line. They changed their name to Takamaki when they moved to Tokyo. Exotic works better for products than people in Japan." Ann pressed her lips into a thin line. "It's still kind of disturbing to see that he's investing in us."

Akira blinked, then stepped back to let her put the folder back. "That's right, you mentioned growing up in Finland that time we all got out of Kamoshida's castle."

While Makoto climbed, the team leader stepped out to scout. Akira kept browsing until he froze at a familiar name. Togo. Pulling the folder out, he found a stack of sheets over a centimeter thick. The name at the top read Togo Mitsuyo, with amounts above a hundred thousand yen each time going into his businesses, noting transfers elsewhere, and amounts about eighty percent going back to a debit account in Togo's name. "He's got a lot of money laundering going on."

"None of that's his treasure," Morgana snapped in a hushed tone. He looked to their newest member coming in the window. "Let's go. Quietly."

He stood by the door, tail swishing back and forth before turning the knob and pulling it open. The rest of the Phantom Thieves followed him into a hallway with an arched ceiling and the same kind of beige wallpaper as the lobby. The hunched form of one of the shadowy guards paced away from them. Even from behind, he could see this one had a heavier guard uniform including a padded vest and white helmet.

Akira pressed his sub-machine gun wire stock against his shoulder and advanced only a step before Morgana snapped out a fist for 'halt'.

The leader lifted his crossbow and shot a bolt into a camera in the corner.

Akira grimaced. He hadn't even noticed the camera was there.

Morgana paced behind the guard until passing a conference room door, which opened. Another Shadow guard stood there, looking down at the team leader. It wore a padded vest like armored car guards, and a white helm with a full faceplate complete with glowing cyan eyes. The towering entity raised its meter-long Tonfa.

Akira leaped, catching its faceplate with one hand. Expecting the entire helm to come off like it did with the knights in Kamoshida's castle, he yanked up. The faceplate snapped off, smoke billowing from where its face should have been.

With a moan like wind passing, it fell to its knees, its shape shrinking as smoke poured out, clinging to the guard and wrapping around it.

Akira braced his sub-machine gun against his shoulder, laser dot drawing a line through the smoke.

In a blink, the murky dark faded and a muscular woman in a black catsuit stood up, a long tail held erect behind her and enormous hand claws extending from her gloves. An iron mouthguard covered her lower face, making it hard to tell whether she was smiling or snarling.

Akira shot her with his sub-machine gun, sending her stumbling against the opposite wall, and an instant later a crossbow bolt flitted into her stomach, bringing her to her knees. Makoto came up alongside him, shotgun held out and ready.

"Hold on," Ann said with an expectant grin. "This is gonna be great."

The team leader lined up his crossbow with the transformed Shadow's face. "Where is the control center for all those cameras?"

The catsuited Shadow looked at the guns pointed at her, then whimpered. "Security control is in B-1, and Surveillance is on the second floor. But both are locked by keycards. It would even be impossible for someone with my fabulous skills."

Morgana lowered his crossbow, stroking his chin with his other hand. "There's always a way."

Akira shrugged, scanning the Shadow's posture for signs of how to talk it into cooperating. "Breaking into two security centers. Think you'd be up for a heist of the century?"

A feminine purr emanated from the felinoid woman. "You've got strength and guile. Count me in."

Makoto opened her mouth to ask what was going on when the Shadow on her knees burst into black streaks that zipped into Akira's mask, sending him reeling two steps back. Ann caught him before he could get far, and he shook himself of the passing sharp tingling sensation. He straightened his mask and looked down to the team leader. "Ready to go."

Makoto's jaw flapped open and closed twice. "What was that?"

Morgana gave a haughty chuckle. "Joker is capable of absorbing and using Shadows as his own Persona." He scratched his ear. "Or something to that effect."

Ann chuckled. "Yeah. He's like a Swiss army knife, a Persona for every occasion."

Akira took his sub-machine gun in both hands and aimed back down the hall they were headed. "Let's not put me up on some pedestal, I've got a couple and none of 'em are fast like Ryuji's Persona. Or as good at nuking enemies as yours. Even Morgana's can smooth over some of the damage our Personas take."

Morgana took point and started a quick pace down the hall, pausing at the corner before dashing to a wide alcove that ended up being an opening to a drab stairwell. It led down, but the team leader dashed down and came up only seconds later. "No access to the basement, and there's a grating locking the first floor."

Akira turned his sub-machine gun's red dot projector on and glanced up at the ceiling corners. "That works for me. The surveillance place should be here."

Makoto fidgeted with her grip on the shotgun Ryuji loaned her. "Why do I get the feeling that this isn't the first barrier we're going to have to overcome?"

Morgana held up a fist for 'shut up and pay attention', then led the team out behind a Shadow guard pacing past the stairs. He stepped to the left with Ann beside him, pistol raised.

Akira drifted to the right side of the hallway, waiting until Ann nodded behind her raised weapon before leaping up, planting a boot on the Shadow guard's back as he snagged its faceplate and pulled up, only to snap off like it did on the other guard. Letting momentum carry him, he hit the wall and spun around, raising his weapon as a thick smoke gushed from the manifesting Shadow.

A familiar brawny humanoid body greeted them as the red-skinned oni stood up, club across its shoulder with the same casual ease as Ryuji with a baseball bat.

Akira and Ann hopped back, both summoning their Personnas. The shape coalescing in front of Akira towered over the teens but not quite as tall as the smirking oni, a head like an owl and a shawl of large, dark blue feathers over his shoulders. Andras swept out a clawed hand, sending a trio of ice shards at the same time as Carmen sent a ball of ice exploding into the oni.

Morgana shouted, "Get back, Nightri—!"

Shaking the frost off its head, the oni made a downward swing at Makoto.

She fell backwards in her effort to evade, crawling backwards as she aimed her shotgun with one hand. The weapon thundered, but only caused the oni to pause its advance. It raised its club in one hand.

A thorned whip wrapped around its throat as Ann shouted from further down the hall, "No you don't!"

Akira recalled Andras, thinking through how well the other Personas and attacks seems to do to the physically sturdy oni. "Agathion!"

The blue-green creature hiding in a golden vase coalesced, then waggled its fingers and shot a lightning bolt into the oni, sending it stumbling and cross-eyed.

A whispy, pink-and-blue foxfire danced over the oni and Morgana growled with effort before the oni's stance faltered. Then the whole monstrous Shadow jumped like a spooked cat, its limbs flopping with a crunch. The oni crumpled to the ground and dissolved into smoke.

Dismissing his Persona, Akira looked down at the team leader. "Zorro can do that?"

Morgana panted for a few moments. "Not… usually. It's more of a support Persona, its most powerful abilities can only be deployed when the Shadows are stunned or compromised somehow." He looked to the newest Phantom Thief. "You froze."

Makoto looked away, red-faced under her iron plate of a mask. "Sorry. I saw what you were all doing and wanted to jump in doing the same, but… when it transformed and looked right at me, I forgot what I should do."

"Take some distance to give yourself some options." Akira reached out a hand to help her up.

Morgana cleared his throat. "There's going to be some adjustment period as you define your own fighting style. We had to stop Ryuji from charging in—"

"Like yesterday," Akira interrupted.

Ann chuckled. "True enough, but it's not like you don't have a lot of the same problem. Either way, he settled in beside us." She looked to the girl in black leather. "You just have to be careful to act with us."

The upperclassman nodded, but Morgana gave them no extra time to chat. He cocked his crossbow and slid along a wall to a steel, divided door with top and bottom halves locked shut. A magnetic card reader sat against the door frame.

Akira tapped his sub-machine gun against his frizzy-haired dome. "I think that's a bit beyond my ability to pick."

Morgana looked up the tall wall of the hallway, following the lines with a squint. Then his eyes dropped back to the doors and he trotted past two bland office doors before coming to a heavier steel door. He hopped up to grab the handle, the rattle of a locked door greeting their ears. Putting away his crossbow, he switched for his lock picks.

Akira and Ann fanned out around him to cover his flanks, with Makoto joining them after a brief moment of trying to decide which direction to worry about. After a few moments of scratching, the knob clicked and Morgana pushed the door open. A small utility room with huge air ducts lay beyond.

The others followed inside, but Makoto fidgeted. "What can we do here?"

Akira pulled her in. "I nominated Morgana the leader because he's got good ideas. He wouldn't have asked us to come in here without a reason." He looked up at the piping, and across at a water heater. "You… do have a reason?"

Morgana fiddled at the bolts of a panel by one of the large, squared air ducts snaking up to the ceiling before disappearing to all three walls shared with other rooms. "Did you forget the passages we snuck through in Kamoshida's castle? Everybody's mind has seams connecting one part to another, it's just how they're conceptualized in his Palace." With a tinking of bolts falling to the floor, he pulled the panel away and jumped inside, disappearing upwards.

Akira followed, hearing the leather of Ann's boot soles and a moment later a heavier thump of something covered in rubber. He crawled after the team leader through the cramped air duct for what felt like ten meters before Morgana stopped at a vent and chuckled. Not at the right angle to look through the slits, all Akira could tell was white light came from the other side. "What?"

Morgana pulled out another tool and slipped it through one of the slits, a quiet ratcheting before he slipped it to a slit at another corner. "This is that surveillance office. Get ready to rush out and hit hard, we're only going to have the element of surprise for a moment and only one can fit through this vent at a time."

Akira glanced back, and spotted the glint of light from Ann's and Makoto's eyes as they nodded. When he turned back to Morgana, he gave the same acknowledgment and tightened his grip on his sub-machine gun.

The team leader slipped his tool into a slit and unscrewed the last corner.

The team burst out of the vent, Morgana taking a wild shot with his crossbow as the others came to their feet.

While only one Shadow guarded this room, it had the same heavy helmet and faceplate as the others. It wore a thick, yellow padded vest over its considerable girth, no sign it noticed the bolt sticking out. Its body bulged and seized, black oozing out to cover it like an obsidian cocoon. Akira blasted bullets into it, but too late.

The pulsing black exploded, revealing the unraveling coils of a fat, leathery-skinned serpent. Its grey hide undulated over muscle. Milky eyelids blinked over gold eyes with slit pupils and it reared up at the arrayed Phantom Thieves. "Who daress tresspass on the domain of Lotan? Your penalty shall be grave, and penaltiess are meant to be paid!"

Makoto sidled closer to the transfer student to whisper, "He was about to grab a keycard from a reader behind him before we dropped in."

Akira nodded, then refocused on the rounded face of the bulging leviathan. "I guess you've got a lot of back-pay for all Kaneshiro's extortion, then. Nekomata!"

Motes of light gathered with a pop as the small Persona appeared behind Lotan's sinuous form, allowing her to strike with her oversized hand claws while Ann and Morgana summoned their own Personas. Carmen's ball of ice shattered against its hide and it ignored whatever wispy wave Zorro threw at it.

Lotan roared, rearing its head back as cutting winds whipped around it, slicing at the Personas attempting to tangle with the leviathan directly. Akira squinted against the wind, his long coat shielding him from the worst of it at his distance, but cringing against the feeling of slashing wind blades on Nekomata.

Akira looked over Lotan as it twisted, evading a thrust from Zorro, then shrugging off Carmen's spiked whip. Nekomata was agile enough to dodge the Shadow beast as long as it didn't cast large spells like that, but they needed something else to really hurt it. "Agathion!"

His Persona dissipated, motes of silvery light coalescing before bursting into the green-skinned imp hiding in its golden vase. It waggled its fingers at the leviathan, looking silly but sending a respectable lightning bolt into the Shadow.

Lotan whipped around and let out a bellow, pounding winds smashing the floating Persona against the beige wallpaper, leaving an imprint where "days since last workplace accident" used to be.

Akira fell to one knee.

Makoto's shotgun barked twice before she lowered the weapon. "Johanna!"

Blue swirled underneath her, the same steel-armored bike as before assembling itself and lifting her up, one panel sliding open and a black clamp taking her shotgun.

Akira couldn't hide his jealousy. "It even has a gun rack. All it needs are cup-holders."

Flaming wheels blazed over the floor, leaving a scorched trail as Makoto let out a long roar, popping her motorcycle Persona's front wheel up at the last moment to catch and tear a blaze down the leviathan's side, gushing flames as it went.

Unsure whether the flames or brute physical power had more of an effect, Akira called in another Persona. "Pillar of Heaven!"

Distracted with trying to swat Zorro or crush Makoto, Lotan didn't even notice the column of churning fire and darkness extend from the tall ceiling. The leviathan bellowed at Morgana's persona, sending it flying into the wall and the leader sprawling to the ground.

As if gaining a second wind from the success, Lotan twisted its bulky, muscled body, slamming back against Johanna, sending it skidding across the ground.

Carmen threw a blue orb that detonated in a cloud of ice shards, but the leviathan didn't even flinch as it drew up and unleashed another slicing wind storm on the dancing Persona. Ann cried out as she collapsed to the floor.

Hand clenching on his sub-machine gun in rage, he rushed to her as he directed his Persona. A ball of flame the size of his body flung out of the churning column, smashing into the leviathan's head and knocking it into the bank of screens lining the wall behind it.

Straightening, Lotan looked down over Akira and Ann, drawing in breath for a heavy attack.

Flames blasted at its hindquarters and Makoto drove right up onto the leviathan, fire billowing down at it from every vent on her bike-Persona. "Just go down already!"

Lotan rolled, tossing her off. Makoto's Persona dissipated and she tumbled over the floor.

Zorro plunged down from above, burying its sword to halfway down the blade in the muscled behemoth.

Lotan snarled and its milky eyelids slid closed, centering another storm of slicing winds on itself. Carmen backed off, but the storm battered Zorro and flung it into the ceiling.

Helping his blonde classmate stay steady on her feet, Akira asked, "I think it's immune to Carmen's ice. Can you damage it with physical blows?"

Breathing hard, Ann looked from it to him. "That's not what Carmen's good at, but I'll do my best."

Zorro zipped in and out as Morgana ran up to the longcoated Phantom Thief. "This could go on for hours. You and Rider both have Personas with the power of fire. I think you can combine your efforts for a stronger blow that might finish it off."

Akira glanced at his sub-machine gun, then up at the huge leviathan. "How?"

"Instead of trying to blow something up, send your flames to her," Morgana shouted over the howl of winds and kawoosh of fire. "Her Persona should know what to do to convert that into an even more powerful blast. The only problem is your conscious relationship and whether you trust each other."

He looked over at the girl in a black leather riding suit. She blackmailed the only friends he had, but they had a common enemy now. That should be enough. He nodded to the team leader.

"Rider!" Morgana cupped one hand around the side of his mouth. "Let your Persona feed on his flames!"

She swung around to avoid another slam from the beast. Incredulous, she shouted, "What?"

"Pillar!" Akira called, and the column undulated for a moment before sending an oblong burst of fire at her.

She hunkered down on Johana, its red tracery glowing brighter. The instant before it collided, the red dimmed. Yellow flames exploded over her, splashing against the leviathan. Its roar almost drowned out her cry of pain.

Zorro and Carmen settled into a pattern of taking turns to flit in, stab or slash, and flit out. Makoto returned to shooting small bolts of fire into it at a distance, and her gutsy runs where she drove Johanna right up onto it to gush flames over its body. Akira gave up on trying to hurt it with darkness and pounded the beast with fire for minutes as the group wore it down, until at last a blow penetrated its hide and smoke gushed out from the stab, then its mouth, then smaller cuts from earlier in the fight. Lotan withered and at last dissipated into fading smoke.

Feeling like he ran two marathons back to back, Akira accepted Ann's help to steady him. Where the last ooze dissipated lay a metal rod as long as his hand, with a diamond cross-section and random squared nubs jutting out. He picked it up before joining the others at the card reader. "You… okay? You don't look burned." He handed her the nobby metal rod.

Taking the dropped rod, Makoto pursed her lips and examined it. She passed it to Ann. "Think this is a key?" When the model shrugged, she turned to the transfer student. "What exactly was that fire thing?"

Akira clenched his free hand. "Hey, it's not like I wanted to burn you. I was trying to help…" he glanced to the team leader, "what exactly was it? Strengthen her Persona?"

Morgana sighed. "I'm sorry, I should have realized this would be likely to happen. Your Personas can enhance each other, at least for brief periods, but to do so successfully requires a bond of trust that goes beyond conscious necessity." He glanced between Akira and Ann. "That's why I didn't bring up the possibility in Kamoshida's castle even after you acquired Andras, even though it could use ice just like Carmen. Your interests were aligned, but you didn't truly… have that bond until after defeating Kamoshida's Shadow."

"But we both wanted to pound Kamoshida," Akira snapped back.

"Joker." Ann sighed and pressed her hand against her back, one eye squinting. "Ease up."

Makoto turned back to the bank of monitors… at least the quarter of them that hadn't been smashed in the fight. "Well, we've incidentally hampered the surveillance capabilities in Kaneshiro's bank." She scanned the control station in the middle, the whole thing bent from a collision from Johanna's steel plating, but still functional. "It looks like there are two separate camera circuits."

Ann looked from the damaged monitors to the blinking lights on the control panel. "Think you can turn them off?"

Makoto rubbed her chin, then reached out, flipped a couple of switches, turned a dial counter-clockwise, then tapped a button. Her finger glanced off and she shook her hand. "Looks like that one's stuck." She looked for another few moments, then repeated much the same sequence on a different set of switches, dials, and tapped another wide, green button. This one depressed and three of the monitors went black, white text stating, "No feed."

Akira smiled. "So how far do you think we can get, fearless leader?"

Morgana looked askance at him. "You're wavering on your feet and trying to press on? Panther might still have some stamina left since Carmen couldn't use ice magic, but this was Rider's first major fight. We don't have a lot of stamina left to go, so I'd rather not risk running into any other surprises." He collapsed his crossbow and pointed to the wall. "We know there's a control center in basement one, and there's a vault two levels below that. If that keycard doesn't get us into that control center, it'll let us do something else once we can get in."

Grimacing but conceding the point, Akira twisted a dial-style switch against the wall to unlock the surveillance office door and the Phantom Thieves made their way back to the dark streets.

Ann yawned into her hand, then shook her head. "Sorry. I feel like I need a long, hot bath after all that."

Makoto stretched one arm up, wincing. "You're telling me."

Morgana looked over the Phantom Thieves. "I know you all want to get this done as soon as possible." His gaze fell on Akira. "Some more than others. But I think we did pretty well today. We didn't find a safe zone, but did disable half of the cameras and any traps linked to them. And we have two different kinds of keys for some future area. Just like with Kamoshida, making sure progress will be more important than trying to rush. Does anybody have anything the doctor might need to look at?"

Ann shook her head, her blonde pigtails tousling. After a moment, Makoto gave the same. While sore from repeated blows and a couple of his Personas being pounded by the leviathan's cutting winds, Akira knew he wouldn't have any bruises that would show beyond the school uniform tomorrow.

"Good," Morgana said, his little white hands on the pouch-lined belt on his hips. "Then let's break and get some good rest for the night. I have something I need to look into, but I'll meet you at Leblanc this evening."