Persona 5: Daywatch
Thursday, 28 July 2016
Early Evening
Shibuya, Central Street, Gigolo Arcade
Akira adjusted his grip on the pistol controller and gunned down another human player character wearing a fedora. A grenade warning bounced into his section of the screen from the left and he stomped on the pedal in an effort to dive for safer cover before it could go off. As if predicting his movement, pistol rounds chopped through his hit points and his portion of the screen dimmed.
Ryuji almost giggled with delight. "Oooh, man! It's The King! I 'been wantin' to go up 'gainst him for weeks!"
The runner stomped on the pedals to move, then lined up his long-arm controller. An impact played and his screen spiderwebbed with the bullet in the glass effect.
Ryuji clicked his tongue, but had a smile on his face. "'Least he gets ya honest and don't do that tea-baggin' shit." He lowered the controller, his grin undiminished. "You were doin' pretty effin' good there once you bought that dot sight. Ain't I right 'bout how easy that makes close range?"
Akira set his controller into the stand. "Real test is tomorrow." His phone buzzed in his pocket and he heard the same from the runner's. Guessing it was the Phantom Thief chat, he opened the messenger.
Ann's ID winked at the top. [Sorry, the shoot went long. Lighting and makeup couldn't make up their minds what to do about my hair. Is it too late to join you guys in Shibuya?]
[Yusuke and Makoto already called it quits and left,] Akira sent. [Have you thought about whether you want to upgrade anything weapon-wise?]
[That zapper is pretty unstoppable. I actually want to stick with it after we finish stealing Sakura's distortion.]
Akira shrugged. [It worked for Major Carter whenever she wasn't using the P90. I don't see why not.]
Ryuji leaned over. "Pft. I still think she'd look better with a good SMG."
"We can't afford another P90, Ryuji." Akira shot out a well-wishing to Hifumi, then slipped his phone in his pocket. "I'm calling it quits, tonight. Pretty low funds in both accounts."
Ryuji waved at him, then slid his credit card through the reader to get back into the game.
Thursday, 28 July 2016
Evening
Shibuya, Underground Walkway
Akechi Goro glanced up at the signs, then down at his phone for the map and directions to his next contact. At this point in the day, reasonable people should be off work and trying to settle down. Not calling his burner phone when he was still drowning with work for the Shibuya Cleanup… which the damned Phantom Thief was receiving credit for due to that obnoxious calling card.
As much as he wanted to solve another contact's problem, rent was due on the first of the month and he didn't have enough to cover his bolt hole as it was. The police were paying for each member of Kaneshiro's flunkies he could put behind bars. Until he could find somebody higher in the conspiracy, currying favor with the police was the best he could do.
"Oof!" Somebody snapped behind him as an amateur crowd-runner bulled through a gap just a little too narrow for him. With bodies shoulder-to-shoulder in front of Goro, the black-haired teen came to a sudden drop in speed.
The detective recognized that frizzy hair – the style of somebody too lazy to use a proper comb after drying. Amamiya, from the sedate cafe, adjusted the black-framed glasses on his face.
"Oh, my god! Is that the Detective Prince?" a girl shouted from somewhere behind.
Sometimes Goro hated having vapid followers.
Amamiya must have seen the brief, 'please not now' expression on his face, because he leaned closer to whisper, "Don't thank me, you'll pay me later." A beat later, he spun around, moments later exclaiming, "There you are!"
"Who are you?"
"Hold on a second! Don't you remember me from grammar school?"
A feminine growl of frustration rumbled through the crowd. "Idiot! Now I lost him!"
Goro smiled and made his way to the Yongen-Jaya line, then to his destination in the back streets. The interview with the old couple who lived there could provide photos of the strong-arm threatening their customers until they closed down, as well as the developer connected to the Conspiracy pressuring them to sell, but not prove a connection between them. After the short interview, he had to admit, "I'll look into it, but I'm afraid this isn't enough to bring to a judge."
The elderly couple gripped each other's hands and nodded, struggling to maintain a stiff upper lip.
Goro slipped out of the staff entrance. That coffee shop nearby should be a good place to go through the paper trail of the Kaneshiro clan's flunkies. After the jingle of the bell, the clink of dishes in the sink met his ears.
The proprietor stood and gave a tired for-customer-service smile. "What can I get for you?"
After a long week of fruitless searching for Palace owners to either turn over to the police or shut down, a post-middle-aged man who didn't care enough to fawn over the Detective Prince or mock the Defective Detective was refreshing. "This is the kind of evening driving men to respite. Could I get a cup of your dark blend, extra sugar?" He set his armored briefcase on the counter.
"Comin' right up, kid," Boss said.
Pulling his eyes from the restaurateur, Goro's eyes fell on a piece of paper under an empty coffee cup a couple of seats away. He leaned to look over it, recognizing a 314 Declaration of Neglect, part of the paperwork for minor emancipation. He glanced down at the summary field, where sloppy handwriting detailed two instances of the father breaking the child's nose with a clipboard made of ballistic-resistant plastic.
Goro reached to slide the cup and saucer off the name on the top. Kurusu Akira.
Water splashed from the washroom deeper in.
Goro returned to his briefcase and got started on that paperwork for Nakao Hiromi. She'd already confessed, but her cooperation opened up access to financial records the police normally didn't have thanks to privacy right laws. Already, the name Togo had come up several—
The washroom door swung open and the frizzy-haired teen from earlier stepped out.
Goro gave his for-show smile. "Ah, Amamiya-san."
Amamiya sat down with just a brief nod to the detective, then pulled out his wallet. "I think that's more than enough caffeine to get to the dorms."
Goro nodded at the paper. "Helping a friend?"
Amamiya's tensed all over for a heartbeat, then slouched into a too-relaxed slump. "I might say getting rid of a problem."
Boss set a cup down in front of the detective and retreated with the mastery of a restaurateur who didn't want to get involved.
Goro dug into his briefcase. "You'll want to use the correct forms if you want to get anywhere with a judge in family court. There are thousands of cases per year in Tokyo. Documentation of abuse goes on a three-eighteen. Ah!" Finding the three pages he sought, he tugged out the blank forms and handed them over. "The three-fourteen applies to non-present parents, like a father who stays at work for over twenty days a month. For abuse, witness statements do help, but for a realistic chance, you'll need medical records to back it up. Doctor's notes, X-rays of broken bones, reports of injuries from school officials."
Amamiya looked at the offered pages, but didn't reach out to take them.
"Think of it as paying back. For helping me shake that tail this evening," Goro said, only maintaining his for-the-cameras smile through sheer practice. "So who's going to be taking in your Kurusu friend? Japan is a bad place for people without parents."
A shadow seemed to pass over Amamiya's eyes as he took the new forms. "Sometimes no parents at all are better than bad ones."
A startled breath of a laugh shot out of Goro before he could control himself. Could Amamiya be so stupid? Or had Kurusu been feeding the sucker a line of bullshit? "Japan is a nation built on the Koseki system, a man without a family is no better than dust on the feet of the establishment. He'll be denied jobs, housing, loans, licensing. Even criminals are better off. If you want to help that Kurusu out, make sure he has a family who will write him in or he might as well leave the country."
A waver passed through those stormy grey eyes before Amamiya grabbed the forms, shoved them all together with the mis-used 314 into his leather satchel, and strode out with a clipped, "Thanks."
Feeling a bond beyond reciprocity, Goro watched the door swing closed, then reached for his coffee.
Friday, 29 July 2016
Afternoon
Futaba's Ha'tak, Barracks
Akira dove into the barracks, bolts from the stun weapons wielded by Ann and Morgana flying over his head. Unlike last time, they kept up the pressure, zapping another two as they dove into the room. He popped up and shot two Shadow Jaffa trying to line up on his friends, blasting both cognitive-wrapped foes into dissolving smoke. When the runner let out a war cry, he dove back for cover.
Bullets sprayed across the barracks, slamming into at least half a dozen Shadow Jaffa as Ryuji charged in with his machine gun blazing.
One Shadow Jaffa who slipped through the concentrated fire snapped open his staff weapon to blast the plate-jacketed runner in the side. Makoto smacked the staff's discharge pod down into the stone floor, then pummeled the Shadow Jaffa with her studded gauntlets, a last kick sending him flying into another Jaffa.
Bolts from the zat guns continued flying with their crackle-zap as their final member charged in. "Goemon!"
Akira sprayed fire across another two Jaffa. "Agathion!"
The imp in a gold vase shot a brilliant, undulating lightning bolt into Yusuke's Persona, the lightning soaking into and wrapping around the kabuki-level flamboyant fighter. He blew into his oversized pipe, bolts already crackling through it even before the cloud spread at the ceiling. Then lightning raked down across the remaining Shadow Jaffa.
The remaining Shadows merged into five pustules, bursting into a floating, upright gold coffin and four humanoids. One resolved into a woman in royal white linens, holding an ankh in her right. Another burst into a woman towering at least three meters tall, wearing dark leather armor, twisted goat horns jutting from her head and iron kopis held in each hand. Next to her stood a man shrouded in black robes but for his head, skin pale as a corpse. At the far end towered an owl-man, dark blue feathers draping over his shoulders like a shawl as his beak screeched.
"At least I know how to take out the last one." Akira swung up his P90 until the new laser dot projector cast red on the sorcerer's chest. "Bye, Andras." One short burst sent it tumbling back into dissolving smoke.
Makoto summoned Johanna and sent a bolt of flame into the pale man. It fizzled out on impact.
"Captain Kidd!" Ryuji conjured his Persona, which brandished his arm-cannon and let loose a powerful pulse of concussive wind. The wind struck and reflected straight back into Kidd, making Ryuji stumble. "Ow, shit!"
The Shadow gave a thin grin to Makoto. "Allow Set, the God of Desert Storms, to show you true hellfire." He waved one dismissive hand.
A red bubble formed over Makoto and Johanna just long enough for it to shatter. "What the hell was that?"
Before the others had a chance to do anything, Set leaped up. What had been a normal-sized man in flowing, black robes stretched and transformed into a towering grey dragon. It opened its maw and roared out fire over the entire room.
Makoto zipped in between it and Ann to block the flames, but to everyone's surprise, once the roaring inferno struck the leather-clad rider, she screamed and lost concentration. Johanna vanished in a swirl of fire.
The gold coffin slid open just enough for a scaly, clawed humanoid arm to slip out. A nasal voice hissed, "Scurry away, little rats." The hand flexed at them and darkness zipped out from its shadow, flitting over the floor until roaring up under each of the Thieves.
Ryuji and Captain Kidd's roars synchronized, and the Persona unleashed a gale of shredding winds which slammed through the narrow opening, drawing a howl of pain and knocking it into the back wall.
Goemon leaped to power a slash down through the goat-horned Shadow woman in tight leather armor. It parried his giant axe-pipe aside and used its other kopis to chop up into the Persona's chest before kicking him back.
Akira sent a short burst at the dragon, which only grimaced at the attack. Baffled at how to tackle Set when everything they hit it with seemed to either do nothing or reflect back on them, Akira dove for what little cover the next raised stone bed could provide to get closer to Ryuji. "Any ideas? That dragon's tough as stone, and I'm sure that bitch sorceress reflected magic last time she popped up!"
"It's not innate!" Morgana shouted from his own cover, before shooting a crossbow into the goat-horned woman. "And don't pull out one of your Personas weak to bless magic until she's down!"
Ann popped up to shoot at the dragon. "Then I might be able to break it. Carmen!"
The buxom, graceful dancer in a frilly dress coalesced. She hopped over a bolt of fire from Set, then snapped her whip out at the feminine form holding an ankh. The end of the thorned whip struck an invisible wall just inches from the royal-white-clad Shadow and bunched up on it for just an instant.
Then, something shattered and the thorned whip finished striking out, cutting a black line across the Shadow's face. She held up her ankh and soft motes of light floated down over all four remaining Shadows.
The golden coffin floated back up, the lid cracking open again for the arm to lash out. Its fingers snapped and an explosion of white and purple crashed over the Thieves.
Wind seemed to hurt it, so Akira summoned High Pixie. "Knock 'em dead, Reaper!"
Ryuji grinned. "Eff yeah! Stay down, coffin dude!" The wind channeled from the armored fey filled Kidd's sails for a moment before it pointed its arm-canon and unleashed a torrent of thunderous, swirling wind.
The arm slunk back inside and closed the lid, allowing the shredding winds to batter the golden coffin, throwing it against the stone wall but not downing the Shadow.
Miss Goat-Horn slapped her iron kopis together and if it wasn't a trick of the light, her muscles rippled and expanded.
Zorro's eyes glowed and the bluish aura washed over the sorceress holding an ankh, then smashed her into the stone ceiling. She dropped to the ground in a tangle of nerveless limbs.
Akira popped up to shoot a burst into the dragon.
Set's dragon lips peeled back to bare teeth. "Your weapons are weak. This is the bite of the desert wind."
The Thieves dove for cover an instant before a cutting whistle roared out at them. Pictures and the wooden head-rests serving in place of pillows shattered.
The female with the ankh struggled up, holding the symbol of Isis aloft as motes of soft white light washed over the Shadows. They all stood straighter… or floated steadier, for the decorated coffin thing.
Ryuji growled. "If there's one thing I can't stand, it's bosses who effin' heal themselves! Drop dead!" He brought his gun to bear and pulled the trigger, letting a stream of lead at the Shadow in royal white linen. Zorro's aura glowed, grabbing the Shadow and smashing it into one wall, then the ceiling, then letting it drop and to the ground and dissolve.
Goat-Horn growled and leaped forward, lashing first one iron kopis, then another down into the brawny Persona in black. Morgana cried out as his Persona crashed to the ground, shattering a stone bed before it dissipated in motes of light.
That member down, Goat-Horn turned its feral grin to Carmen and raised its kopis.
"No!" Yusuke shouted. Goemon charged it from one side as the artist himself charged her from the other side even though he only came up to her waist.
The goat-horned Shadow wearing tight leather armor threw its strength into parrying the Persona, using its right hand to bring Yusuke's two-handed slash to a dead stop.
"Y—Fox!" Ann shouted, halting her run to the team leader.
"Take down the others!"
Akira and Makoto slid to a stop behind the stone bed the team leader took cover behind. Morgana coughed blood over the floor. "T-they're too strong."
Akira's eyes narrowed and he thought back to his games with Hifumi. "When the flanks fall, the center falls." He glanced at Makoto and she gave a nod, pulling out some of Takemi's medicine.
With the leader in good hands, Akira dove to another stone bed for cover and shot the floating coffin Shadow. The bullets pinged off, but he summoned High Pixie again, on the off-chance Set was vulnerable to sleep. High Pixie blew dust into the grey dragon's face.
Set sneezed, then swept its head to bash the flying fey.
Carmen lashed out with her thorned whip, wrapping around the black leather-clad Shadow's left arm. Goat-Horn kicked Goemon away to give herself enough space to wrap her hand around the thorned whip and yanked Carmen closer, smashing her forehead against Carmen.
Ann tripped and her Zat gun blast went wide.
Gold Coffin slid open, flicking a bolt of darkness into the faltering High Pixie.
Ryuji roared and Captain Kidd coalesced, blasting a howl of shredding winds into the cracked-open lid. The Shadow gave an inhuman screech of pain more like the rending of metal.
The pause was enough for Akira to direct another shredding gale from High Pixie into the widened crack. Gold Coffin collapsed to the ground and dissolved.
"Hellfire!" Set bellowed. Heat washed out and it felt like the very air turned into an inferno. Even from behind cover, Ann shrieked in pain.
The longcoated boy dove over cover to Ann, shooting wildly just to try to keep the Shadows from concentrating on anything heavier. By the time he got there, she'd already righted herself behind cover. "Akira, I think I felt something when Carmen was in contact with miss leather and iron. But I need more ice to punch through."
"Jack Frost!"
"Carmen!" She called, her Persona taking the twin sword-sized icicles, breaking them with her whip as she spun it above herself. The swirl grew, ice shards lengthening and hardening, before the dancer lashed out. Goemon took a powerful chop to grab Goat-Horn's arm, allowing Carmen's whip an unguarded angle. Her thorned whip lashed around Goat-Horn's neck, then all the ice and snow swirling around the dancer howled down the whip.
Ice encrusted the leather-clad Shadow and it fell, still grappling with Goemon, to the floor.
"Berith!" His armored knight charged against the enormous frozen Shadow and it shattered into dissolving chunks.
Set snapped down and clamped his jaws over the armored knight, roaring an inferno of flames onto the Persona. His Persona incinerated, Akira fell to the ground, so overwhelmed he couldn't even cry out in pain.
Captain Kidd crashed against Set, cutlass biting deep into its neck as the whole bulk of the ghost ship slammed the grey dragon into the stone wall. Ann and Morgana peppered it with bolts from their Zat guns, though it growled it shrugged off the stunning effects the weapons had on man-sized targets. Ice, wind, and lightning rang out, before Akira's vision came back almost a minute later to see the mighty Shadow fall to the ground, then dissolve.
Morgana came to a stop next to Akira, one of Takemi's tablets in his hand. "Nice job, Joker."
Akira swallowed the tablet. After a few breaths, the feeling of having been battered by sledgehammers and cooked by blowtorches faded.
"It's not opening!" Makoto called from the door with the circuit sign next to it.
Ryuji pointed at another stone door set into the side wall. "Maybe that's another way in?"
Akira paced to it and punched in the open sequence. Another computer archive terminal sat there, like a side office. "I'll see if I can open it from here." He sat down on the chair and the other Thieves filed in. After several minutes, he could only confirm the words. "Security lockdown. The only way to override is with a master control crystal or something called 'root admin'." He scratched his head. "What the hell do plants have to do with communications?"
Morgana hopped up on the big stone desk. "Isn't there anything useful you can find?"
"Just more archives connected to Director Isshiki Wakaba."
Makoto pressed an ice pack against her wrist. "Maybe there's something useful in there."
Akira brought up Final Letter Reading and began the playback.
Saturday, 6 September 2014
Evening
Shinjou, Isshiki House
A small apartment's sitting room faded in. Bookshelves crammed with thick tomes lined the walls, the two stuffed chairs native to the room shoved against one shelved wall. Futaba sat in one, Wakaba's cousin Hiroto sitting next to her, and a lawyer from the Blue Cove research center sitting on a folding chair next to them. Three men in suits stood before them, the one in the center reading from a letter ostensibly found in Wakaba's desk. "I should never have had Futaba. She wasted hundreds of hours away from my research."
Hiroto leaned to the lawyer to whisper, "Is this really necessary?"
"Most of the materials in Doctor Isshiki's office are classified," the lawyer replied at a normal speaking tone. "But as her listed kin and the subject of familial notes, Isshiki Futaba is legally entitled to possession of personal communiques."
The suited man took in a breath and continued, "My projects could have changed the future of humanity, were it not for the petty trouble she caused me. She ruined my career and ruined my life."
Tears long since run dry, Futaba hiccuped and sobbed. Her legs drawn up, she tightened her arms around them as if doing so could make her vanish into nothing. Hiroto reached over, but as soon as his hand brushed against her shoulder, Futaba shrank away as much as she could on the small, stuffed chair.
The suited man on the right pushed his glasses back up on his nose. "Based on my summary analysis of the unclassified logs and material kept, it is my professional opinion Doctor Isshiki suffered maternity neurosis."
The suited man on the left pointed a finger at the shaking girl. "You were always causing trouble for Doctor Isshiki! She could have made the biggest contribution to science since Einstein, if it wasn't for you! You killed her!"
Hiroto fidgeted with his hands, glancing between the suited men from the research center and the lawyer.
Friday, 29 July 2016
Late Afternoon
Futaba's Ha'tak
The holographic projection flickered out, more voices babbling over each other, "Murderer!" and "You killed her!"
The holographic screen flickered back on to show another Egyptian-styled computer data center. Two masked Shadow guards holding staff weapons flanked a tall, thin man in the golden armor of a top-ranking Jaffa. At this point, Akira didn't find it surprising to see the face of Sojiro, bearing the golden stamp of Isis on his forehead. His expression twisted with an anger which fit the lines of his face, but not the world-weary yet low-key kindly man he'd come to know. "Thieves," he spat. "I will not permit any threat to come to my god. The Tau'ri, the other System Lords… all of them would destroy her, if given the chance."
Ryuji took one stomping step at the screen. "That was fuckin' sick even if that's how it went down. I 'member my old man blamin' me an' ma for ruinin' his life too, but he was the sack o' shit who never made nothin' of himself."
Makoto sounded like she wanted to throw up, "W-what kind of suicide note was that?"
Akira's teeth ground. "Maternity neurosis my ass. Director Isshiki was proud of her kid, no way would some condition have just skipped ten to fifteen years."
First Prime Sojiro sniffed, disdain writ across his posture and features. "Delude yourselves if you want. Death is the way of the world. That is why I can never permit anything to get inside. Isis must be forever cut off."
Akira stood from the tiny stool. "Air can be dangerous, but that doesn't mean you should choke your children to death! The more you cut her off, the worse things become!"
"You think I should expose her to all those who would see her die?" First Prime Sojiro slammed his gold-armored fist on his desk. "Next you're going to tell me I should put her out of her misery, that just ending it would be the kind thing to do! I am not Second Prime – I shall not endanger my god!"
Yusuke shook his head. "No wonder she has a Palace. The desire to shut the world away, the desire to break free, the desire to die to balance the scales, the desire to live. Truly twisted by injustice inflicted on her. Tortured and betrayed by those who should have given her a home to grow up in!"
Seeing the tremble in the artist, Ann stepped closer and took the artist's arm.
Makoto cleared her throat. "I'd like to punch whoever orchestrated that into red paste, but this isn't helping us. If we're constantly running into obstacles because she thinks she can never get out and nothing can ever get in, we may need a change in cognition like with Madarame's door." She tapped her gloved fingers against her chin. "If only it was as simple as having a key for a lock."
Grabbing his P90, Akira paused. "A key that works on everything… the Tok'ra had spies who could get anywhere. Even the Dial Home Devices have master control crystals. We'll have to make her aware of it so it changes her cognition, but we just may be able to make a master control crystal that can override the computers here!"
Friday, 29 July 2016
Early Evening
Yongen, Theater
Akira took in a deep breath of the hot, humid air of Tokyo in July. Despite the torrential downpour, it still felt hot and thick under the theater overhang. At least that tight band-around-the-head headache which started to form the longer they were in the Metaverse was gone. He closed the Nav and searched on the browser. "Here it is, guys." He turned the phone to show a picture of the prop used on the show as a master control crystal.
Yusuke squinted at it, humming for a long while. "I see. It resembles the fingers of the Lady of Victory that Hirama-san constructed for the last culture fair."
"Wait," Ann blurted. "You're saying people at Kosei can make stuff like this?"
"Kosei is a fine arts academy," Yusuke replied with aplomb. "Painting was only its most famous due to Madarame's interaction with the school. We also have sculpting and music. The former, in particular, was Hirama-san's area of focus. Metal and recycled plastic."
"Excellent," Morgana crooned from down on the pavement. "Call up a priority order. Let's get this done tomorrow."
Yusuke flinched back a step. "T-that would be impossible! I'm in the painting program, he is in the sculpting program. I don't even have his number." He looked to the blonde. "Yours was actually the first number I ever received from a person of my age."
Ann blushed. "M-me?" She straightened. "Wait, you don't have any contact info for your classmates?"
"No," he said, as if pointing out last week's weather. "When group projects came around, the other students would tell me I was too 'weird' or 'crazy' to cooperate with. I had to do all of the work myself or risk a failing grade."
Ann's teeth ground. "Those… Arg!"
Makoto cleared her throat and unfurled her collapsible umbrella, having learned her lesson the last time the Phantom Thieves didn't check the weather before going in. "Well, Yusuke-kun, could you get in contact with somebody from the sculpting program as soon as possible, and get them to make a mock-up of one of those master control crystals?"
The artist nodded. "It is no guarantee, but I would be more surprised if there were no sculptors in the dorms."
Akira sent an attachment of that image, then a couple more for size comparison to the group chat. "Okay, guys. We're low on smoke bombs and some other stuff, so I'm going to go shop around for parts."
Makoto, the only other one with a two-person umbrella, nodded. "I'll make sure he gets to the dorms without getting soaked like last time."
Morgana tilted his head. "We're not low on smoke bombs. I've got six."
"Well, the other stuff," Akira shot back.
Morgana sat. "Do not go sneaking into anybody else's Palace again."
Makoto, about to step out, turned back. "Again?" Her gaze bored into the transfer student.
Akira sighed. "All right, fine. I don't care about the materials – we can pick up junk tomorrow. But fabricating that letter and the whole 'blaming Futaba for something she couldn't possibly have had control over' sounds exactly the kind of thing my old bastard would do. He told me my mother was killed in a hit-and-run just to test an EEG. I just… I want to go apologize. Tell her we're close and still working on it. Tell her not to give up."
Makoto let out a breath. "We're already—"
Ann broke in. "Want me to keep tabs on Boss?"
Yusuke's expression mellowed. "I second the motion."
"Why would you…?" Ryuji started, then glanced at Ann. Up and down her curvaceous height. "Oh. No wonder."
Ann punched him in the back, then stepped back with a satisfied calm.
Makoto stared into the transfer student's grey eyes for long seconds before she gave a nod. "See you later." She held up her umbrella and paced out into the rain, then had to step back to remind Yusuke to come with her. Ryuji and Ann walked off as well.
With them off into the downpour, Akira let the team leader in his travel satchel and turned for the Sakura home.
The gate unlatched with a squeak so loud he could hear it over the pounding rain, and the old lock on the front door provided him little challenge after all the practice he'd gotten in the Metaverse. He shook off the umbrella under the overhang, then slipped off his wet shoes. "Sakura?" He listened for a bit, with nothing but the sound of the rain outside, then realized that wasn't specific in this house. "Uh, I mean Futaba?"
Still no sound met him but the downpour outside. Morgana paced into the hall, paused to shake off a hind leg, then canted his head to listen upward. "I think she's here, just not responding."
The two advanced upstairs to the door with a poster bearing a star field and Earth's point of origin. "Futaba-san?" Akira ventured, coming to a stop two steps from the door.
Something thumped against thin plastic and cardboard inside. After a moment of muffled shuffling by the door, his phone vibrated and the hacker's ID appeared. [It's impossible, isn't it?]
Akira leaned against her door frame, a little unsettled by the lack of proper writing compared to her earlier texts, when she at least pretended to be normal. "We just came across a little slow-down."
[You don't have to lie to me. My heart is too distorted to be changed. You should go change that girl's mother. She doesn't deserve to cry herself to sleep every night]
His heart seized in his chest and ice surged through his veins.
Morgana leaped up to the transfer student's shoulder to read in. "That poor girl. This might be related to the changing cognition. She's thinking everything is closed off. We can't let her think we've abandoned this."
Akira nodded. He would have to take care of Hifumi later. The self-loathing and deflection reminded him of himself the week his mother told him she never wanted him. He crouched down next to the door and spoke through it, "It's not over, Futaba. You're too strong to let this one day bring you down. You took the worst the world could throw at you for a year, and you're still here. Fighters don't give up."
[I'm not a fighter. I'm not strong enough to live with my own heart. That's the weakest.]
"No, it's not, Futaba!" Akira took in a breath. Besides the neighbors, coming off too strong could end up having the wrong effect on her. "Your own family wasn't there for you when they should have been. Social services, family court, the Blue Cove research group. They failed you. My…" Akira let out a long breath, willing the trembling in his hands to stop. "My old bastard is a world-class master at inflicting pain, at hurting people and making them think there's no way out and it's their fault. I'll bet he was the one who forged that letter they read to you not a week after your mother died."
[You don't need to lie.]
Akira lifted a hand and started to clench a fist, then lowered it and forced a breath out. "We found a memory center, Futaba. We saw what happened when Director Isshiki – I mean, your mother – died. You didn't do it."
[She would never have been there if it wasn't for me.]
Sliding down the door frame, Akira tried to think how to talk some sense into her. "You had nothing to do with Director Isshiki's death. Something else did that."
[She was suffering before that. Because of me.]
"No, she wasn't," Akira barked through the door. "Director Isshiki talked about you to the other staff who had family. She never regretted having you. She was proud of you!"
[She called me a mistake. I ruined her research, the most important thing in her life.]
"That was a fake letter, Futaba. Think." Akira inhaled, then exhaled. Having only lived at the Blue Cove research center for a few years, he didn't have that much material to go on. "What kind of a neurological condition is just going to wait for ten to fifteen years before suddenly driving her suicidal?"
[Maternity neurosis can jump months. Mom was strong, but she couldn't hide the signs all year. she'd get twitchy and paranoid and disgusted a couple times a year. Her true face came out.]
"Director Isshiki was proud of you, Futaba." He swallowed against a thick feeling in his throat, hundreds of memories of his mother having been forced to the surface earlier. "A mother who hates you isn't going to defend you or praise you when you're not there. Director Isshiki would put the verbal beat down on anyone who ever talked crap about you. She had to be a tough broad to lock horns with my old bastard and come out on top every time. And you're just the same."
[You're not making sense.]
"Careful, Joker," Morgana murmured from his perch.
"The world told you that you didn't matter after Dir—your mother died. But you persevered despite them," he said, his voice maybe a bit louder than necessary to reach through the door. "You didn't give up when your cousin didn't do his job of taking care of you. You took care of yourself when your uncle didn't. You heard about the Phantom Thief and tracked us down. When your whole world became stifling darkness, you threw a rope into the dark." Akira shifted to press a hand against the door. "We caught it, Futaba. If you don't know how to get out of the dark, we'll pull until you see a way."
Moments of silence passed. Morgana wavered on the transfer student's shoulder. "You might have gone too far."
A tense second passed. Then his phone buzzed again. [How can you say that like you know?]
Akira leaned his head forward until his forehead pressed against the poster on the door, keep out tape wrapping over it. "My mother told me she never wanted me. Sent me back to my old bastard. I thought there was nothing to live for, so…" His eyes drifted to the sleeves over his scars. "I did it. Down the road, not across the street."
Morgana fell off. "You what?"
[Why are you still here?]
Akira's lip quirked. This past week proved how wrong he was, thinking Isshiki's kid was on easy street with how often the director spoke in glowing terms of her daughter. "At first, I wanted to try again when I first woke up. But the Shinjou South Mountain Hospital called Father Motoori. He told me about a kind of story I'd never known before. The redemption of sins, the defeat of death. A God who didn't just make children and abandon them, but loved and dwelt with them, and sent prophets to warn them when they tried to turn away. Father Motoori didn't take my canned answers to make him go away. He stayed there with me for hours until he knew I knew there was something worth living for. Until I knew there was an Akira worth becoming." He took in a long breath. "And if someone can find an Akira worth saving, there's sure as hell a Futaba worth saving."
His phone buzzed, but this time it was Ann. [Boss just kicked us out. He'll be on his way any minute. If you're still in his house, get out!]
"Just… Hold on, Futaba." Akira shifted to get his feet under him instead of sprawling across the hallway, but held his satchel open. "Time's up, fur ball."
Morgana paced through a tight circle. "You… tried to kill yourself?"
Akira shook the satchel. "No time. We need to get out before I get sent away for breaking and entering."
Morgana glared, hissing, "We are not finished here." He hopped in.
Akira rose and dashed down, jamming his feet into his street shoes. He popped the still-damp umbrella open. He had just enough presence of mind to close the front door behind him, but as he stepped out to the street, a familiar white umbrella he remembered seeing in Leblanc's umbrella can came around a corner.
Akira opened his stride until he got to the last turn to Leblanc. Sure enough, Sojiro had closed and locked up. Still, he only kept one change of clothes when he stopped at Yusuke's dorm last time, so Akira let himself in, let the team leader out, then headed for the bathroom to brush his teeth with the new brush Ryuji's mother gave him.
Morgana sprang the ambush as soon as the transfer student stepped back out. "Were you planning on telling the rest of us you survived a suicide attempt?"
"Nope." Akira trotted upstairs to exchange the laundry. Group chat said his window AC unit should be arriving on Saturday, so he only needed one day of spare clothing.
Morgana leaped on top of the workbench. "How could you keep something like that hidden from us?"
Akira unzipped his rolling closet and pulled out the first available shirt to hide the broken-down P90 in the bottom of his day satchel. "I believe that falls under the business clause. Specifically, Nunya Beeswax."
Tail swishing behind him, Morgana grumbled. "Come on, Joker. This is important!"
"You're right," Akira said, folding a set of pants before adding them to his bag. Tone flat as a windless sea, he continued, "My privacy is important."
"This would be important even if you didn't nominate me to be the leader of the Phantom Thieves!" The diminutive leader retorted. "You're our friend."
Akira whirled around. "Did it ever occur to you that I don't want this to be something everyone thinks about when I come up? I already don't like being the weapon you all rely on because I can fucking consume and spit out weakened Shadows in the Metaverse like Kirby. But apparently hurting people is a Kurusu legacy I can't get away from. At least, this way, I can lessen the overall suffering of humanity by fighting alongside you guys." He tugged off his current shirt and tossed it into the laundry basket.
Morgana watched as the transfer student changed, his eyes unfocused and darting around. "That was why you tried to kill Kamoshida…"
Akira paused, then buttoned his pants. Even though he knew he didn't feel for Shiho how he used to, it made his insides clench. "Nobody else should have to walk through the dark valley I did." He sat down on the bed to yank on a fresh pair of socks. "Doesn't matter. I'm here now."
Morgana sighed. "Being alone is what was driving Sakura Futaba to think death was her only release. Being alone was what made you try."
Akira struggled with his other sock. "I believe I told you to drop it."
Morgana stood. "Joker, I don't want you to make yourself alone. Because despite your words to the contrary, you're still trying to make yourself alone. Yes, we do rely on your combat prowess, but your knowledge and perceptiveness are just as valuable. And even outside, Lady Ann, Fox, and the others rely on you. We all want you in our lives. You're. Our. Friend. We'd still be there even if it turned out you had a wart." If the light wasn't playing tricks, it seemed like a smirk crept across his cheeks. "And maybe that pretty shogi player."
Socks on, Akira jumped to his feet. "Don't you dare tell her!"
The rain droned outside.
"If you're honest about caring for her," Morgana said, "you're going to have to tell her about yourself."
Akira shouldered his leather bag. "The fuck do I want to tell her my fucked-up problems for?" Turning back around to align the rolling closet with the wall, his eyes fell on the small poster of the Virgin Mary. He crossed himself.
"Because that way, she'll know you're serious."
Akira pulled out his phone. "She gets shit from too many people already. She shouldn't have to deal with my shit too." It was late, but not too late to send her a short text. [Good night. I hope you are okay.]
Her ID lit up right away and three dots danced, disappeared, then danced for quite a few seconds. [Can I see you tomorrow?]
[For Queen Togo? Anywhere, any time.]
[I'll text you as soon as I can get away from Mother. Probably not until after 11:00. Meet at church?]
That sounded like a rally point before heading elsewhere. [I'll be there. Tell me if you need anything.]
[Just you.]
AN: Being able to muck with cognition represents a lot of potential in intelligence gathering as well as interfering with their regular personality. It works both ways, as they explain in the game even if there's almost no showing of the crossover.
The Koseki system refers to Japan's family registration, which each household maintains. People with strong families to sue the courts or employers can have solid backing, but those without are easily left to fall through the cracks. Goro would have intimate personal knowledge of the failings of such a system, having been bounced through Japan's foster system.