Persona 5: Daywatch

Sunday, 24 July 2016
Afternoon
Futaba's Ha'tak, Command Room

Fine white linens covered her shoulders and wrapped around the woman's hips, the skirt ending just above the knee. Matte gold scales covered her chest but bared her midriff. The molten-copper- haired woman's yellow eyes flickered, and a smirk twisted her lips as she stared down Akira. Her reverberating voice shook in their ears, "Bow before your god, Isis."

Ryuji gawked and he lifted his hand away from the shotgun hanging from a strap. "That's Futaba's Shadow? I thought the Palace Ruler was s'posed to look like some girl. That's a total babe!"

Ann slapped a gloved hand to her face. "Reaper!" When the lines of Shadow Jaffa lined up their staff weapons on her, she set her pistol on the floor. She came back up with her hands raised, but looked angrier at the runner than Shadow Jaffa.

Still under the effects of the Zat gun, Morgana groaned, the spark of consciousness missing when his eyelids fluttered.

Despite the others sinking to their knees, Akira stayed on his feet. He sidled a step between them and the Jaffa with an officer in gold armor on the left, eyes locked with the grown woman of Shadow Futaba.

The thin Jaffa in extensive, gold plate and wearing a bird-head-helm brandished the discharge pod of his staff weapon at the longcoated Thief. A gravely but muffled voice shouted, "Bow before your god!"

Keeping his hands up, Akira glared at the towering Jaffa in gold armor. "I bow to my God. Not to false gods."

The bird helm's orange eyes glistened, then the helm split and folded in on itself, the entire thing retracting into the collar. The Thieves gawked as they stared up at the face of Sojiro, bearing a gold stamp of the ankh of Isis on his forehead.

He squeezed the trigger in his staff weapon and a bright bolt of yellow plasma lanced into the transfer student's chest, leaving a smoking impact before he thumped to the floor.

Ryuji's eyes snapped wide under his skull mask. "J-Joker…!"

A Shadow Jaffa holding a gray, serpentine shape of the Zat gun in his hand shot the model with the crackle-snap of the stun weapon, then zapped the track star diving for his gun.

Futaba's Ha'tak, Holding Cells

Water in his nose and mouth forced Ryuji to thrash and swim, re-orienting himself until his feet hit stone and he got his head above water. A distant part of his awareness noticed he still wore the plated jacket of his kickass Phantom Thief getup. He slapped up his skull mask up to wipe water from his face as he coughed. A dim darkness surrounded him in the tall space, lit only by indirect amber light from a narrow opening above.

Another body plunged through the opening, forcing Ryuji to jump to the side. Yusuke's body splashed into the cistern, and the runner sloshed after him to pull him up. To his relief, the weirdo spluttered, but regained enough presence to stand up.

Something interrupted the light and Ryuji had just enough time to look up before another body crashed into him, driving the pair down into the water.

The runner stood and spat out water, lifting up the coughing, leather-clad form. When the model pushed away from him, he felt relief she didn't deck him and annoyance he didn't get to cop a feel. Damn, does Ann fill out that cat-girl suit!

Before either of them had a chance to say anything, something interrupted the light again.

Ryuji yanked himself and Ann out of the way before the familiar spike-shouldered body of Makoto splashed into the middle of the cistern. He had just enough time to pull her coughing body up before whoever was up above tossed down Morgana.

The artist helped the team leader out of the water coming almost to the tall boy's shoulders. Despite the annoying cat's whining to the contrary, as soon as he got onto the artist's shoulder, he shook himself off just like the cat he kept denying he was.

The scrape of iron on stone sounded above, and the guards above dropped a heavy metal grate over the sole opening to their wet prison cell.

Makoto looked across the other Phantom Thieves, then did a second head-count. "Wait a moment, where's Joker?"

Ann, looking like a drowned rat with her pigtails soaked, burst into tears. She reached out and the artist stretched his arms to draw her in.

Ryuji blinked. She cheatin' on Akira with the weirdo? The runner scratched his scalp, trying to think. He'd been focused on trying to pull Makoto's limp form away from the Shadows when Akira said he'd never bow to false gods…

Yusuke held Ann up while she sobbed, and glanced between the runner and girl in riding leathers. "The cognition of Boss shot him."

Morgana leaned against the artist's head, keeping on the shoulders standing up above the water. Despite just taking a full plunge, he looked damp instead of waterlogged. "I… I should have stopped us and concentrated like I always did to just find the Treasure the old-fashioned way. When Joker talked us through that camp, I got pulled along into the hope we could make this a dash-and-grab." His tail drooped. "Even somebody who wants her heart changed would instinctively react to protect her heart. Humans are innately possessive. I should have recognized a trap—"

"Stop," Makoto said, tilting her head up to keep above the water coming to her chin. "We even knew something might have happened there. Both of us tried to stand guard. The Palace Ruler got the drop on us."

Ryuji wiped water from his eyes. "Why'd Futaba's Shadow look like a total babe? Wasn't she some kid?"

Morgana shook his head in the distinct manner of a cat again, then tugged at the utility belt the Shadow guards were too stupid to take away from him. "A person's Shadow is always influenced by her desire. Didn't you notice Kamoshida was taller, or Kaneshiro thinner and with better hair?"

Yusuke released the blonde, then squeezed at his waterlogged coat sleeves, though with the water coming up above his elbows they just soaked again as soon as he let his arms down. "It would be logical to conclude the appearance of the Ruler's Shadow coincides with some deeply held idealization which the Palace also reflects. It would be interesting to determine if Sakura Futaba desires to escape the powerlessness of childhood, or if there is some aesthetic of adulthood she yearns for."

"Jaffa, kree!" one of the guards shouted from above.

A short burst of automatic rifle fire roared, answered by several of those snappy pulses from the staff weapons the Jaffa used to kill Akira.

More NATO high-velocity rounds traded fire with the zipping sound of the alien staff weapons, before the heavy thud of the last guard hit the floor.

Morgana hopped onto the artist's head and squinted up. "Hurry up and lift me to that grate!"

Ryuji interlaced his fingers, palms up, above the water so the artist could see it, then lowered them to his chest.

Yusuke nodded and hopped up, planting something which felt softer than track shoe soles in the runner's hands. They wobbled a bit before both guys steadied.

Booted feet strode into what must have been a large room above them, a hushed but familiar dude's voice saying, "…message from the Tokra just said prisoners."

Morgana stuck his stubby arm out of the grate and waved. "Right here! We're the prisoners."

Makoto raised her fists out of the water. "Can we trust them?"

Before anyone else could answer, the burly figure of a dark-skinned man looked down into the grate, then crouched and hauled the heavy grate out of the way. His eyes narrowed at the team leader for only a moment before reaching in and pulling the damp cat out.

Yusuke looked down from his perch on Ryuji's shoulders. "Ta—Panther-san, climb up next."

Ryuji clasped his hands to help Ann up, then Makoto. Yusuke took the burly man's deep reach and scrambled out. For a heartbeat, the runner feared they'd take off, but a moment later, a thin cord descended. Ryuji wrapped a hand around the end before he called, "Comin' up!"

The burly dude disappeared back from the narrow cistern-prison opening pulling the cord up even faster than he could climb. A moment later, the runner clambered out of the opening, greeted by the beefy, dark-skinned dude.

It wasn't until they stood there, less than a meter apart, that Ryuji spotted a gold symbol stamped on the burly dude's forehead. He jumped back and raised his fists. "Shit, another one o' them fuckers who killed Akira!"

He drew short when he spotted the sandy-blonde-haired woman and gray-haired man both point FN P90s at him.

The dark-skinned dude held a cool glare, steady as stone, at the runner. "I was once First Prime of Apophis. I seek to overthrow the Goa'uld and free my people."

The short-haired blonde woman held steady aim right on his chest. "We came here to rescue some prisoners at the behest of a Tok'ra agent."

Ryuji glanced around at the others, but none of the other Thieves seemed to have any idea what that meant. He lowered his fists. "We dunno what any o' that shit means! We just came to take down the Palace Ruler."

Makoto stepped closer, her hands up. "It appears we all have the same goal. If we help each other, it would be easier on both of us. Do you have any idea where our weapons are?"

The two people pointing P90s at them lowered their weapons. The gray-haired man glanced at a skinny American-nerd type with glasses. "Daniel?"

"Jack," he replied, as if that was a whole conversation. The mind-people in American Air Force fatigues dispersed, the two with P90s and the dark-skinned guy returned to a heavy door that looked the same stone as the rest of this strange pyramid. The guy with the glasses gestured at what looked like a treasure chest against the side of the prison room complete with manacles on chains against the wall.

The nerd tapped gems around the top of the chest for a few moments. It hissed with an ominous rush of air and the top split open. He reached in and handed Makoto Akira's PP-91 KEDR. Her breath caught, but she took it and reached out her other hand. Then the dork reached in and handed her the RMB-93 shotgun.

When she took it and lowered the weapon, a tension bled out of the room. Morgana reclaimed his folded crossbow and the other Phantom Thieves their weapons.

Ryuji pulled the bolt back on his SKS battle rifle to make sure the fire crystal-bullet Akira gave him was still there to turn it into the equivalent of a clip of incendiary rounds. The red glow gave him enough reassurance to set the bolt back, ready to fire, and he fell in next to the class president in a leather riding suit which was still too sexy to be fair. Especially with a fine booty like—

"Reaper!" Morgana snapped. Having the Thieves' attention, he said, "Unless they moved the Treasure, the Shadows brought us to somewhere low in the pyramid. We're tired, battered, and in no condition to rescue Joker at the moment."

Ryuji rounded on the catboy. "Is your brain still sparkin' from when those Shadows shot you with that stun gun thingy? Boss shot him in the chest! Joker's dead!"

"He's not dead!" The team leader shouted back at almost a yowl. His chin trembled for a moment before he thrust out his tiny chest. "I've been there with him since his first day in the Metaverse, there's no way a single blow could take out someone so stubborn!"

"I saw it!" the runner snapped back.

"He can't be gone!" Morgana shouted back, a tremble in his voice.

"Um, excuse me," the nerdy cognition of an adult in glasses and air force fatigues cut in. "We don't have the firepower to shoot our way all over the Ha'tak. Could you all finish this conversation when we're not surrounded by Jaffa waiting to shoot us all in the chest? Or worse?"

Makoto bowed. "You're right. We're sorry." She looked across the others and took a deep breath. "The Shadows have this round, but we gained a lot of valuable intelligence. And it's not like Medjed's threat has gone away. We still have to change Sakura's heart, but we'll never do it now. We need to exfiltrate and upgrade our gear to be better prepared for our next foray."

Ryuji grit his teeth, but the goddamn upperclassman was right. Akira or no Akira, Medjed was still threatening to crash the Nikkei 225 his mother's retirement was invested in, and bring down everything else. "I was hopin' we'd'a got a Palace with no effin' Shadows for once, but I guess that's stupid to hope for."

Futaba's Ha'tak, Medical Holding

Blinding white light faded from Akira's vision and for a terrifying moment, he thought he was in a stone coffin. He felt for the charred mess the plasma bolt turned his heart and chest into. It took a moment before his arm reacted, and even then it felt leaden. His red-gloved hand brushed over his stylish vest to the hole in his Phantom Thief clothing, but smooth skin met his leather-clad fingers.

A hum reverberated around him and the lid of the sarcophagus above him split, the upper two pieces swinging to the sides like bird wings and the lower two-thirds of the lid splitting lengthwise and sliding open. Meters above him sat what seemed to be a skylight in a high ceiling, showing a night sky. The artificial lighting he expected of a Ha'tak, a faint shade yellow, lit the rest of the palatial space.

Two Shadow Jaffa marched up and reached in, grabbed his arms, and yanked him out as if tugging out a kitten. The masked Shadows hauled him to a padded table where a pudgy Jaffa in extensive, gold plate armor stood. The hawk head glared down at him for a long moment before the shoulders gave a rolling shrug. The beak split and the whole golden helm folded in on itself to reveal the face of that one burglar guy scoping out Leblanc weeks ago.

"Isshiki?" Akira was so surprised to see the man Sojiro identified as Wakaba's older brother Youji, his weak fighting stilled for a moment. He looked to the gold ankh stamped on the cognition's forehead. "What the hell? Sojiro was the Palace Ruler's First Prime."

The pudgy man with a sharp gleam to his brown eyes smirked, as he and the other Shadows tightened straps over the longcoated boy. "First Prime thinks he can protect our god, Isis, from a desolate world too wild to deserve her. The fool! All he needs to make is one slip-up, and I will show just how dangerous this world is. Just as I do every day I execute a Jaffa fool enough to believe he can ever be free."

Akira struggled, but it took all his strength just to lift his head to look straight at the overweight man whose girth wouldn't even let the gold plates close against each other. He stared at that golden ankh on the fat man's forehead. "But that doesn't make any sense. The show only had one First Prime—that's it. The right hand of false gods…"

Finished with the last strap, the cognition Akira could only call 'Second Prime Youji' returned to the longcoated boy's field of view. "Your misconceptions do not concern me, only what I desire to learn." He gave a thin grin fitting a television villain. "I can make a god quake in terror." The smile showed teeth. "I shall relish… learning everything about you."

Akira spat at the cognitive man's face. He couldn't quite reach his own mask, but he concentrated on Pillar of Heaven, hoping sheer will would conjure his Persona.

His mask vanished in a puff of flame.

A growing darkness twisted into existence in the ceiling.

Second Prime Youji whipped his right hand down to his waist and unhooked what appeared to be a dull bronze rod with jagged thorns jutting from one end. He jabbed it into the longcoated boy's side.

Searing pain exploded through his body. Whatever electrical crackle it made was overwhelmed by Akira's howl of agony. It almost felt like his insides were trying to incinerate and race out his eyes and mouth. Then the rod withdrew and the boy fell slack in the restraints.

Second Prime Youji waited until the boy almost regained his breath before snapping, "Who gave you the codes to get inside or take the rings to the Pel'tak?"

Eyebrow arching, Akira looked at the man who in the real world looked like nothing more than an opportunistic burglar who couldn't even watch what he ate. "Codes?" His eyes flicked to the pain rod for a heartbeat. If a Persona could just get one good hit in…

The pain rod only touched him for a moment, but plenty long enough to prevent Makami from coalescing.

"I am a servant of the gods—your petty tricks are nothing before Isis' magic." Youji smirked and lowered the pain rod. "Brute pain could do, but the goddess of magic has… more creative means of extracting what she desires." He reached for a small box on a polished stone table just a meter from the padded one he was restrained on, and returned with two golden disks the size of a five-hundred yen coin. The first he pressed to his temple, a brief snap sounding and his wide jaw tensing before he straightened and looked down to the longcoated boy. "So, we'll start with the most painful thing which can exist. Your mother." He grabbed Akira's chin to stop him from thrashing, then pressed the other golden disk flat against the boy's temple.

Sharpness pricked his head—

Sunday, 24 July 2016
Early Evening
Yongen, Back Streets

Ann struggled to move one foot in front of the other. Golden light poured down from a clear sky. From the sound of it, the other Phantom Thieves shambled in much the same shock as her. At least while sneaking through the pyramid, those military cognitions acted like Shadows bursting into their true forms were ordinary. Dizziness nudged at her balance, but she relied on the adrenaline rush to push through.

But now, every time she closed her eyes, she saw that yellow bolt of churning nuclear energy zipping into the first boy she'd gotten close to since Yuuki. The one who didn't hesitate an instant to step in front of mysterious armored knights with swords. The one who bellowed at her when Kamoshida's Shadow was going to rape her, telling her to save herself even though she was going to give herself up to try to save him. The one who reminded her to keep her chin up because Shiho was still alive. The one who helped untangle things from Yuuki and saved her two closest friendships. The one who was as clueless about close family as Makoto seemed about common fun.

Her vision blurred, and she reached for the nearest Thief to steady herself as another sob shook her.

Yusuke held her with a patient strength until she was up to stand on her own maybe a minute later.

At that point, Ryuji lost his temper and punched a property wall. "Dammit!" He punched the wall again. "Fucking dammit!"

He reached back again, but Makoto grabbed his hand before he could bruise it any more. "Stop it!"

"Fuck all this!" Ryuji bellowed, his own eyes red. "He was such a pain in the ass! Why couldn't he just fuckin' shut up?"

"Reaper!" Morgana jumped out from the rear, standing before the members of the Phantom Thieves with un-distorted human bodies. "I—if he wasn't the type to rebel against tyranny… he never would have wound up in Tokyo, and none of us would be here."

Yusuke nodded. "He was true to what he believed was right. When I was uncertain about whether Madarame's heart would change, or whether we had done what was just, he reminded me, 'Better to die on one's feet than live on one's knees'."

"Shut up!" Ryuji jabbed a finger at the artist's face. "It was bad 'nuff with that fuckin' Teal guy actin' like it was some good thing. 'He died free' my ass! He died!"

Makoto motioned her hands down. "Ryuji, not so loud!"

"Joker is not dead!" Morgana's ears fell flat against his skull, a tremble in his tail. "He is too strong to be killed by one shot, even from a powerful palace cognition! No way could that happen!"

Ryuji took a lunging step at the team leader. "Whadda you know? You were out cold when it happened!"

Morgana straightened, though with his tiny frame in the real world it was hard to tell what he was trying to project. "We can't give up on Joker!"

Ryuji snarled, his fists clenched. "Ain't no givin' up, just what happened!"

"Enough!" Makoto shouted, sharp and clear in the stifling summer heat. Giving the others a beat to collect themselves and look at her, she added, "Bickering is pointless. It doesn't change what happened, or what we have yet to do."

"Nightrider is correct," Morgana said, his ears rising from combat position. "Things are running too hot now. I recommend everyone go home and get some rest. Cool down. We'll convene at Leblanc tomorrow at seven-thirty."

Makoto nodded and wiped her face, her eyes bloodshot despite never shedding a tear the whole trip out. She and Ryuji turned for the train station and walked off.

When Ann started walking, the artist fell in step behind her and she drew some comfort from the presence of her stoic compatriot. While he was the most recent one to join the team, he seemed so calm and collected, if too innocent for the world—a complete opposite to Akira. And right now, she didn't want to be alone.

The door to Leblanc loomed after she turned the corner, but once reaching it, her feet refused to go any further. She glanced up at the old lettering on the door's frosted glass panel, paint flaking in a couple spots. "S-shouldn't someone tell him? It wasn't the real Boss who did it."

Morgana darted between her legs to block the way. "Whoa. It's dangerous to involve other people in the Metaverse. The physical manifestations of a cognitive reality are so beyond the average person's life, he may call doctors on you."

A hand came to rest on her shoulder, and Ann looked over to the artist. His serene patience somehow smoothed over the trembling of her heart. She gave him a thankful nod and stepped inside.

Her breath caught in her throat when that familiar bell rang above her. She swallowed despite the sensation of a rock in her throat. With an old couple sitting at the far booth, she stepped in and sat down at the bar.

"Be with you in a minute," Boss called from the sink, sudsy dishes clattering.

The ever-industrious artist drew his sketch pad and flipped its pages.

Ann reached out to stop him. "Wait, what was that?"

He turned back a page and presented to her a high-detail sketch of Akira, sitting on the chair by the work bench. Biting his lip, he held his phone in both hands in his lap, his eyebrows drawn up and shoulders hunched. Yusuke took the pad back in his grip. "I call it 'Love is Fear'. He was waiting for a text back from Togo-san at the time."

It took a moment for her addled brain to pick that name out of memory. "Oh, the shogi girl he was blushing about when we were shopping for yukatas?" Ann pressed her fingertips against the countertop. "I couldn't quite tell if it was infatuation because she's pretty, or if they had a thing." She looked the artist in the eye. "You have her number to ask if they were…?"

Yusuke straightened and turned to a sketch of her. "The Venus of Shogi? That is possibly the most sought-after commodity in Kosei. She is not in my class, so I have never had the opportunity to ask even were I inclined."

Sojiro shook his hands over the sink before taking a towel and striding closer. "Hey, there." He rubbed at his knuckles and gave them both a close look. "I don't see the kid with you. You have a fight?"

"Y-yeah," she said through a nervous laugh before she could stop herself. She braced her elbows on the counter and covered her face. As if Shiho hadn't already said her acting was terrible before.

"Hey," Boss said, his tone sympathetic. "The kid's got a temper, to be sure, but he doesn't hold onto mistakes you don't keep making. Life's been rough with him, but he's more the 'once bitten, twice shy' type. If you're trying, he'll meet you halfway." He swung the towel over his shoulder. "He's even been pretty helpful to me, and I was tougher on him than he deserved his first week here. A nice girl like you? No chance would he hold it against you."

Ann felt herself choke up.

She feared she'd lose herself in another ugly sobbing fit before she felt warm tension against her finger. Ann glanced up to see Yusuke there, his hand against hers, pinky wrapped around hers. A small tremor passed through her and she turned her hand to clench his. Akira hadn't been around as long as Shiho, but he'd always been there no matter how annoying or personal her problems.

"Two small bowls of curry," Yusuke said, straightening his back.

Boss gave a nod and smile. "Good idea. You'll need to keep your strength up when he gets in."

Yusuke's eyebrow twitched and his shoulders slumped just a little. "I do not anticipate that for… some time."

From their feet, Morgana chirped, "Well, you guys might have given up, but I am going to go hold the fort in case Joker busts out on his own and comes back. That's just the kind of thing that stubborn jerk might do." He padded off for the stairs.

The restaurateur wandered into the kitchen, leaving a silence she could only tolerate due to the cool presence of Yusuke beside her. He took his hand from hers and drew a pencil from his pocket, then turned pages again. He paused at the rough sketch of a girl with long, straight hair. Her legs were tucked under her, a tree trunk rose behind her.

Ann braced against one elbow on the counter. "That's Togo-san, isn't it?" She'd looked up a couple public releases of the girl's photo spreads while helping Akira shop for a yukata, but pre- and post-production could do a lot to change a person's look. This simple sketch in a Kosei girl's uniform still made her out to be striking. "She is pretty."

"She does match many of the hallmarks of Japanese beauty," Yusuke acknowledged. "Though she pales in comparison to you."

Ann's face heated up. "S-so was this at school? That looks like a Kosei uniform."

He nodded. "This was the second time I had noticed her. She used to avoid the usual lunch crowds, but she started eating in the courtyard where I would spend lunch break." He huffed, one corner of his lip turning up for a moment. "I remember Akira mentioned he asked her to look out for me while you were investigating Madarame. For all his temperamental faults, I don't think he realized how thoughtful he could be." He straightened, his face going taught for a moment. "I have been untruthful."

"Huh?"

Yusuke avoided meeting her eyes. "I told you I had not the opportunity to ask her for her number. That is not true. She was always the one to initiate dialog with me, usually to query about my health or whether I felt safe, but I could have asked her then."

Sojiro set down modest-sized bowls of steaming curry before them, the small spoons clinking when they hit the counter. "Eat up. But don't forget the time. I don't know where you have to get home to, but the trains have a different schedule on Sundays."

"Hiroo isn't that far," Ann protested before he returned to the kitchen. She picked up the spoon, intending to straighten it so she could push it aside, but now that the savory aroma sat under her nostrils, her stomach clenched and demanded some. "I never even invited him. Any of you, actually. Akira thought nothing of letting all of us into his home."

Yusuke scratched down another couple lines on the bento in Togo's hands. "I am not so certain he thought of it as his home. It is not traditional to have nightly nightmares in one's home, is it?"

Ann swallowed a heaping spoon of curry, the flavor much deeper and spice milder than she expected from its fragrance. "He had nightmares that often?" She poked at the curry. "I thought most of that went away after waking to your Persona." She left the spoon in the curry-rice bowl and wrapped her arms around herself. "I was starting to have them a lot about Kamoshida, especially after he started changing his route to Shujin to find me and 'offer a ride to school'. But after Carmen, it was like… those worries didn't all go away, but the question couldn't keep me up, or give me night terrors any more. I had an answer."

The artist swallowed, then hummed in thought. "Interesting. I had thought I was the only one to be blessed with such a peace from gaining my Persona. I wonder if we are unique, or if Akira was the exception to the rule."

Was.

Ann's spoon fell to the bowl. She felt like crying again, but the shuffling of the old lady going out past her caused her to tense up instead.

Yusuke reached an arm around to wrap around her shoulders. "We cannot let today dishearten us. Akira saw worthiness in this quest, and would undoubtedly want us to complete what we began." He took up his spoon again. "And no sense letting good food go to waste. It has committed no sin."

That pragmatism reminded her of Akira again, if with fewer rough edges. Her stomach certainly agreed with him, so she polished off the modest bowl of curry-rice and paid. The artist didn't object, but given the number of stupid wrong examples Madarame taught his pupils, she supposed he had learned to take every opportunity for nutrition with neither question nor objection. Since their routes wouldn't diverge until Shibuya, they took the train there in a companionable silence which kept the cloud of melancholy pushed aside until it came time to find their separate lines.

When Ann closed her eyes and still saw that yellow bolt of nuclear flame slam into Akira's chest, her hand reached out to snag the artist's sleeve.

Yusuke came to a stop and looked down at her grip, perplexed, then back at her.

She stepped closer, not trusting herself to have enough control to speak above a subway whisper. "Could… you walk me home?"

He took her hand from his sleeve, but held it tight instead of pushing it away like Akira had when they last talked about Shiho. After a beat, he said, "I am not worth the worry I have caused. But… if you wish… I shall walk with you anywhere."

Monday, 25 July 2016
Morning
Yongen, Back Streets

Makoto stepped off the train, holding her bulging school bag in both hands. The thin straps dug into her fingers, and she decided Akira had the right idea in getting a bigger, more comfortable satchel for use outside school. A breeze blew down the alley as she hustled to Leblanc, her phone buzzing in her shirt pocket. She ignored it, having already exchanged at least eighty text messages from Ryuji after making the mistake of agreeing to 'do him a favor' on the way to Leblanc this morning.

She strode past Leblanc to the closed theater. While the overhang's shade did little to provide cool respite from the Tokyo summer, the team couldn't come to a consensus on what to tell Boss. At least the summer heat also cleared the streets so they didn't have to worry about being overseen.

Yusuke, leaning against one of the locked doors and scratching away at his sketchpad, seemed to be the only one relaxed. Ann leaned next to him, her arms crossed and jaw tense. Morgana paced.

Ryuji leaned against the inside of the corner pillar, a black canvas duffel bag slung over one shoulder, something heavy weighing down one end, his foot tapping. As soon as he noticed her approach, he stood up. "You—?"

"Yes, I have your box." She joined them in what little relief the shade could provide, opened her stuffed school satchel, handed the track star his ammo box from Untouchable, and distributed medical supplies. That was the rest of their stock. If anything happened, they'd need to go back to Doctor Takemi… and who knows what loose ends Akira left to be cleaned up.

Ann checked the streets to be sure nobody was looking, then hit the Nav.

The Phantom Thieves paused to assemble their weapons, the track star taking longer to put her new shotgun together and then work on his own gun, what seemed like a bigger rifle to Makoto. "What is that, anyway?"

Ryuji clicked the box magazine into the bottom, then stood with an unsettling grin beneath his skull mask. "The RPK-74. 'Been the crown jewel of my collection since I got it to commemorate makin' it into the track team. This baby's a Cold War gas-fed—"

"We have a mission," Morgana interrupted, checking his crossbow before folding it back up. "You can wax poetic about guns later." He looked over at the class president. "You ready to go, Rider?"

She slipped the Saiga shotgun's strap over her shoulder and nodded. The hardness in her gaze reflected in the others. From their current point in the dunes, the catbus stood too much risk of getting trapped in the sand, so they walked towards the gleaming point of the pyramid.

With the temple still patrolled by dozens of cognitive guards, the Thieves slipped through the supply entrance at the back. Dashing from one minuscule hiding spot to another the way Akira showed them yesterday, they followed Morgana inwards and upwards towards the Treasure. Several levels up, they halted at the sound of a single set of thudding, heavy booted footsteps stomping through the halls and into a side room.

Makoto, with Morgana perched on her shoulder, leaned to listen in.

A nasal man's voice shouted, his voice distorted but volume amplified, "Round up another two squads! The prisoner says there are thousands of soldiers out there to assassinate our goddess!"

The plaintive voice of a Shadow Jaffa already inside the room whined, "But that's impossible! The Stargate hasn't even been used in weeks. The prisoner must be lying!"

"I know that!" the nasal voice bellowed. "Clearly, the Second Prime has failed to break him, but nobody can resist a god's magic for long. Until he yields, we must scour the desert for the escaped prisoners."

Makoto's breath caught in her throat. They were the only prisoners who lived yesterday, but even the Shadows knew the Thieves escaped. Is there another cognition? Or could it possibly be Akira? But how?

Morgana lay a hand on Makoto's head, a silent gesture to hold still until whatever his next signal was.

Heavy boots stomped, and a stocky man in a gray, avian-style breastplate stormed out. He marched deeper into the pyramid.

Morgana waited until the stomping faded before he took away his hand from her hair, then leaped down and dashed into the small side room.

Racks and racks of long, gold staff weapons or those hand-held grey ones coiled like a rearing cobra filled the room not taken up by a table scattered with gold tools and other less identifiable odds-and-ends. The Shadow guard hopped from the meager stool he sat on, but Morgana shot forward to tear off his facemask.

The Shadow Jaffa shape bulged and distorted into a black pustle, then burst into one of those feathered blue lion-monsters. The Thieves surrounded the Shadow, and it shivered. "W-wait, don't kill me!"

Makoto's finger trembled in the trigger well, but she maintained the presence of mind to begin the interrogation despite Akira not being here to swiss-army-knife them if things went sideways. "Where is the prisoner?"

"M-medical holding, twelfth level." The feathered Shadow bowed its feathered lion head to the ground. "That's all I know!"

Morgana lowered his crossbow. "Very well. Return to the sea of souls."

The trembling Shadow bowed, then dissolved just like the ones they held up for trinkets in the past.

Ann paced up to one of the racks with the gray, serpentine shape of the stun guns. "I wonder how effective these would be against Shadows." She slipped one out of what reminded her of her iPhone charging cradle. It snapped open when she squeezed it, then gave a test fire at some of the other weapons. It discharged the same tiny lightning bolt the Shadows shot at them in the command center above.

Morgana folded up his crossbow and took another little stun gun from the bottom of the rack. "Well, we're in the same Palace as the Ruler whose cognition created them, so they should be effective here. The only question is whether they'll be as effective in Mementos, or another Palace where the Ruler had never seen the show. Even then, the force of your certainty should have some influence."

The Phantom Thieves made their way out, then up through the pyramidal ship. While Akira was their most eager mask-snatcher, Makoto found herself just as able as Yusuke and Morgana at it, so long as they got the drop on the Shadows tromping around the halls.

Makoto keyed in the same sequence of button presses Akira used into the crystalline control panel next to the doors. Six rooms and two more Shadow ambushes later, they came to a luxurious space with polished stone floors and delicate maroon curtains. A restraining table sat in the center of the space, one Shadow guard standing over the longcoated boy strapped to it as a projection of a Japanese middle school lit up the wall.

The Shadow jerked and swelled into a black pustule, before bursting into three. The lead Shadow looked like a thin woman in fancy white linens and a gold headdress, flanked by a pair of the ice-casting owl men like Makoto'd seen Akira summon a few times.

The owl-headed sorcerers sprang first, hurling bolts of ice at the Thieves.

"Carmen!" Ann called, bracing behind her stolen stun-weapon in a pistolier's stance as her Persona braced behind its thorned whip, stretched between both of its spectral hands. It shrugged off the ice headed at it.

Ryuji took one ice bolt to the chest and returned with a growl. "Captain Kidd!"

His skeletal captain riding a floating shipwreck coalesced, then blasted wind at all three Shadows.

The owl-men sorcerers crossed their arms and slid back, but the pounding winds which struck the gold-adorned woman reflected back straight at the Persona.

Makoto growled and summoned Johanna. If Kidd's magic didn't do anything, maybe a satisfying ram would.

The woman in ceremonial whites leaped, a faint rush of air as she evaded Johanna.

Growling, Makoto swung the back end around, the flaming rear wheel scorching a long line in the floor as it drifted into one of the flanking owl-men, knocking it to the ground.

By the time she returned to the team's line, the other owl-man was already down, and Ryuji unleashed a long burst of gunfire into the female Shadow.

Morgana locked out his bayonet. "All together!"

The Thieves rushed the downed Shadows, disintegrating all three.

Dismissing their Personas, the Thieves converged on the restraint table with Akira. While he still bore the longcoat with a hole in the chest, he looked uninjured. And yet his eyes were clamped closed and his body twitched.

Ann looked up at the wall projection. "What exactly is that?"

The view – as if a first-person camera – lowered from the bike racks to a beat-up smart phone with a crack in the screen, a text message with the caller ID labeling it as from Fumiko. [Take a bus,] was all it said.

One of Akira's deep sighs sounded. "So much for dinner or breakfast," his voice emanated from the wall.

Makoto squinted for a moment. Fumiko was his mother's name, according to Shujin's paperwork on him. "What would she be sending him a text to take a bus for if he had a bike? And why would that have anything to do with food?"

The other Thieves shrugged. Morgana leaped up, locked out his bayonet, and cut the straps to free him. Still no response apart from the occasional twitch from Akira. "Joker!" He poked the longcoated boy in the arm with a finger.

Ryuji snapped his fingers over the longcoated boy's face. "Dude! Get the eff up, it's time to go!"

Akira's finger twitched. Couldn't have been conscious, though. It wasn't the middle finger.

The view on the projection wall came to a stop in the rocks near a traditional-style resort tucked into the foot of the mountains. After locking the bike's wheels, the first-person camera climbed rocks and slunk into the resort inn as night fell. The last of the guest room lights went off, then the view of the screen crept over a rustic wood veranda and to the main building.

Makoto slung her shotgun over her shoulder and clapped her hands in front of Akira's face.

Morgana folded up his crossbow. "He's caught by something in the Palace Ruler's cognition. Fox, carry him out. Reaper, up front. Make sure nothing interrupts us. Rider, grab whatever's on that table next to him in case it's related. Let's go find those cognitions who helped break us out. If they're the helpful good guys Joker was talking about when we met them yesterday, they may be able to tell us how to get him out of this dream trap."

Nodding, she swiped the jeweled box and a rod tipped in metal claws.

A few Shadows interrupted them on their way to the desert, and another patrol of Shadow Jaffa once at the dunes, but after what felt like tense hours, they came to the desert-camouflaged Air Force tents.

Given the number of guns and suspicious glares the Phantom Thieves got, she was glad the burly, dark-skinned man was the one who spotted them at the edge of the camp. "General O'Neil," he called into the camp, then advanced with his staff weapon held upright, but tight in hand. He waited until his grizzled, white-haired compatriot arrived before continuing. "It appears the mercenaries have encountered difficulties."

O'Neil's grip on his large sub-machine gun clenched. "This is why only monsters send children to do a man's work."

Ryuji switched his light machine gun to his off hand to point at the grizzled general. "We ain't got no adults to rely on or none o' us would be here. Joker didn't even hesitate to throw himself in fron'na Kamoshida's troops to save my ass, just like he jumped in fron'na the bastard to stop him from raping her," he jerked a thumb at Ann, "when he didn' even know her. Joker's own parents kicked his ass to the city when he got strung up on fake charges 'cause he don't back down when shit's hittin' the fan. So don't tell us to sit back an' wait for some crummy adult to fix things for us! However fucked up Joker is, at least does his damnedest to make shit less effed up than when he came 'round. So if you ain't gonna help us save our friend, get out 'the way!"

Morgana hopped to the fore before either could escalate. "We rescued him from deep in the pyramid, but he won't wake up."

Teal'c turned the longcoated boy's head, his eyes widening a fraction of a centimeter at the gold disk on his temple. "A memory recall device."

The grizzled man parted Akira's frizzy hair with a thumb to get a better view of it. "You idiots didn't disable it before taking him out?"

Ann's voice cracked when she shouted back, "We don't know how!"

Yusuke stepped between them, his gaze steel for a moment. "Joker is our technology expert."

O'Neil clicked his tongue, but looked around. "Water tent."

The dark-skinned monolith of a man nodded, then looked over the teens. "This way." He led them to a tent near the western edge of the camp and held the heavy brown canvas flap for them. Inside sat boxy liquid containers in metal frames. Teal'c lifted one of the heavy, cubic containers and set it aside the one it was stacked on to form an improvised table.

Ryuji helped the other boy lay down the longcoated teen on the water containers, but when the burly man set down another box, the runner asked, "Whaddya doin'?"

"If you did not deactivate the memory recall device before removing him from the medical holding facility…" Teal'c said with firm but even tone, "…the only way to bring him out of the forced recall is to use the master device to enter, then convince the locus of his consciousness he is in a memory he must escape from. Any door or full gate should serve as an exit point, but if you do not escape before the next memory begins, you run the serious risk of neural damage. But if you attempt to force him out instead of escaping with you, there will usually not be enough left of his mind to try a second time."

Yusuke stepped forward. "I shall go."

Ann yanked him back. "You can't take that risk, Yu—Fox. I'll do it! I've been his friend the longest."

Teal'c looked at them, an analytic spark in his eyes. "Being his friend will not reduce the risk to either yourself or to him."

"He doesn't exactly have much attachment to the past," Makoto said, remembering the darkness which clouded his expression as he told the Thieves about his life before coming to Tokyo. "There's too much suffering in it. That's why it should be me. More than anyone else here, I'm responsible for adding to his. If anybody's going to run the risk of brain damage to save his, make it me. I have too much to apologize for to let him die here."

Teal'c nodded, then gestured to the other water-crates set out as an impromptu table. She took a deep breath and pushed her mask up so the man built as a brick house could access the side of her head. There was just enough time to hear circuitry crackle to life, before pain spiked through her skull.

AN: I've gone back and forth on whether I like or dislike Ryuji as I played Persona 5. He's swift to jump to wrong conclusions, but as confused as he often is, very little actually brings him to a standstill. His talent for jumping to a conclusion is part of what makes him so ready to always get going and go all-out. Makoto, at least prior to her awakening, suffered decision paralysis daily because she was so aware of the multitude of options around her and her desire to think through the consequences. He annoyed me by still acting girl-crazy even by the end of the game, but he is a 16 or 17-year-old and not everyone's going to have Makoto's iron self-control. I was thinking (or hoping) until the shit P5 pulled after Sae's Palace that Ryuji was going to be the traitor, beguiled by a seductress from the Conspiracy. I didn't dislike him then, but it would've been a vulnerability that made sense. The 'traitor' was never close enough to betray like the game tried to play it off as, just turn them in.

There's an element of the show where the Goa'uld show little creative spark, though that's worked on as the show goes on and explains they're so used to having the advantage that they don't need to be clever most of the time. Human minds have their own limits: the Palace is wholly Futaba's subconscious construct and the most painful part of her life is her mother, so the pieces of her Palace would assume the same must be true of anyone else.