Persona 5: Daywatch

Thursday, 4 August 2016
Early Morning
Yongen, Leblanc

The door swung open and Ryuji looked up from his plate of fluffy rice and curry. Just because the coffee shop's main attraction was nasty didn't mean he couldn't take advantage of a good meal that always left him up for the Metaverse.

Doctor Takemi stood at the door, glancing over the handful of people stopping in for breakfast in the small cafe. Her eyes came to a stop on his table, then on the transfer student and finally at the back of the artist's head. After a beat, she paced up to the bar and ordered a coffee and rice omelet.

The bell on the door jangled when a new person pushed it back open, and the track star grinned at the hot blonde wearing what all men waited for summer for: thin, tight-fitting clothing. In this case, a yellow shirt and tight jean shorts. Ann flashed them a terse grin, her whole body just a little too wooden. "Hey, guys. Yuuki-kun stop by yet?"

Ryuji left his spoon on the plate and stretched his arms high to work out lingering sleep-fatigue in his back. "Nope. Told all you I shoulda just done this one, too."

Yusuke swallowed a spoonful of the last flecks of rice on his plate. "Did he not assist you with the one you created for Sensei? As long as it meets our aesthetic standards, I am sure it will work."

The Phantom Thieves ate and waited for the remaining members to arrive, with the breakfast rush departing before Mishima arrived. The class rep slipped an innocuous envelope to the weirdo artist, who gave a pleased nod before handing it over to the transfer student. When he just gave a "Hm," Ryuji snatched the envelope to check the calling card inside. The class rep nailed the look. The team waved goodbye to Mishima and headed for Futaba's home.

Morgana poked out of the transfer student's leather satchel. "This isn't a criminal we need to keep safe distance from, so we'll deliver this to Futaba directly."

Akira nodded, his jaw tense and a clench to his gloved fists. "We've done all the preparation we can. It's show time."

Once a pair of small children playing tag raced past, Ann sped up to close the distance with the others. "She wouldn't even let us into the bridge. How can we even make sure the real one reads it?"

Akira slipped the plain-looking envelope out of his leather satchel. "Same solution to both of those, that's why Fearless Leader said we deliver directly. This is the event horizon we both have to cross or we all fail."

Yusuke slowed down to come alongside the transfer student. "How do we convince her to open up her sanctum when she does not even allow Boss-san in?"

Morgana poked his head out of the satchel. "She knows we're Phantom Thieves, right? She doesn't need to know the particulars of stealing Treasure. We just tell her we need her to let us into her room or her heart can't be changed. She wants us to succeed. If she had the courage to come after us after hearing about Madarame, she'll have the courage to open the door and let us in. Then we give her the calling card and away to the Palace."

"Eff yeah!" Ryuji threw his fist in the air as they rounded the road to the Sakura House.

Thursday, 4 August 2016
Morning
Yongen, Sakura House, In front of Futaba's Room

The Phantom Thieves ascended the stairs and filed in front of the door with a star-field poster. Do Not Enter tape stretched across it, just as it had on the door of the command center. Ann glanced between the transfer student and runner. "Futaba-chan?"

Rustling rolled as a bundle of something fell inside her room.

Akira swallowed and stepped closer to the door. "I know you're still scared. But we need you to open the door and let us in or we can't change your heart."

His phone buzzed. The Thieves crowded around to read the text from Alibaba. [Not here! What about that master control crystal?]

The others turned to the transfer student, and he paused for thought before typing back, [There needs to be a crystal control access. Your Palace doesn't have any at your Treasure. Just open the door here and the one in your Palace will open as well.]

Long seconds of tense silence passed. A sound much like a girl's knees hitting the ground thumped.

Akira took in a long breath and lowered his phone. "Please, Futaba. If you have ever been brave, now is the time."

Silence ticked by.

Akira stepped closer to the door and placed a hand on it. "Don't give yourself time to withdraw, Futaba. Trust me. You know what you need to do. Act, before your old fears can sabotage your one chance for success. This only works if you are the one to do it. You came this far – it's just one more step."

The faint rustle of the air conditioning whirred.

Makoto glared at the transfer student. "I told you this was too much to force onto her, especially after what happened to the cognition of—"

The doorknob wobbled, clicked, then turned. The door drifted open and footsteps scrambled away.

The Phantom Thieves strode in, their eyes widening at the modest room, a bookshelf spilled over with books and bags of garbage piled all over the corners. Akira started picking up and aligning the books so the all spines faced out.

Makoto stopped next to him. "Biology, neuroscience, algorithm software. These are very advanced books."

Akira wiped dust off a worn book and pulled out a book on the shelf to start sorting.

Yusuke leaned to look at the portion of a bed not covered by trash bags. "Where is Futaba?"

Morgana hopped out of the transfer student's satchel, then up onto a trash bag next to the closet. "This isn't going to work, she's still throwing up a barrier."

A timorous voice came from the closet, "W-what barrier?"

Ryuji whipped around from a stacked set of trays of Featherman and Stargate SG-1 figurines. "She can talk!"

Makoto yanked the transfer student away from the bookshelf. "Stop cleaning and help with Futaba-chan!"

Akira set the book down and forced his gaze to the closet and not to the cluttered room. "As long as you keep something between you and the people outside yourself, you'll have an absolute barrier in your cognition."

The girl's trembling sounded in her voice, "E-even this closet is maintaining an insurmountable obstacle in the core of my cognitive world?"

Yusuke lowered the hands forming a frame at her computer desk. "She understands such peculiarities?"

Ann came to a stop next to the transfer student. "Futaba…? I have a question. If you just wanted our help to change your heart, why the cloak-and-dagger with all the Alibaba stuff?"

"Yeah," Ryuji said. "We're the good guys, we'd'a helped."

She mumbled, "…'barassed."

Akira slid his hands into his pockets. "It wasn't until Sojiro came for you that Social Services did anything to get you out, huh?"

"Y-yeah…"

Akira let out a rush of breath, then held out a hand at the closet. "Same reason why I never told Director Isshiki about my old… man. She was researching human cognition and I just assumed she was like everyone else in my life – too busy to help me." He straightened the satchel hanging on his shoulder. "I should have trusted her. She'd have done something."

"That's right!" Ann said, crossed arms clenched. "The mother Boss-san told us about is completely different than the one you worry about."

A sniffle came from the closet. "Even if… I killed—"

"No, Futaba!" Akira barked. When Ann shot him a warning look, he took a breath to steady himself. "You shouldn't blame yourself for what you didn't do. You didn't push her into the street. Somebody else shut down her mind."

Futaba's voice cracked, "I k-know what I did!"

Makoto nodded. "Between Akira's knowledge and my own research since starting your Palace, I've come to understand memory is not a perfect thing. It can be tampered with, by ourselves and by outsiders. We can know what we feel, but memory and imagination are inextricably linked."

Ryuji cleared his throat. "Uh, shouldn't we get to what we came here for? We gotta change her heart some time."

Akira forced himself to unclench his jaw. "Come on, Futaba. You're a fighter. I've been inside your heart – I know it."

Yusuke nodded, his voice as serene as his gaze was serious, "Don't think first – do."

A beat of silence passed. Then two.

Just when the transfer student in long sleeves thought she'd chickened out, the closet door threw open and Futaba burst out, her arms wide and eyes clenched shut. The striped sleeves of her casual black shirt reminded him of the prison garb he wore in the Velvet Room, but unlike the brilliant copper red of her Shadow, the real girl bore orange hair that could only have come from dye. "T-there… now steal it!"

Akira smiled and knelt to be sure her eyes were scrunched closed, not just fixed to the floor. He slipped out the envelope with the calling card and held it out to her. "See? There's the fighter who broke open the first and last doors to free her own heart."

When she stood there, tense arms trembling, Makoto gave a sigh mixing frustration and amusement. "We… don't exactly do it directly, Futaba-chan."

Her eyes snapped open. Seeing the envelope, she snatched it, backed into the closet, and slid the door closed.

Ann reached for the door. "Wait a sec!"

"It's all right," Morgana said, poking his head out of the satchel. "Her cognition's changed. Now she just needs to read the calling card, and we need to get back in the Palace before that cognitive Prime re-appears."

"D-do I need to come with you to change my heart?"

Akira gave a shrug. "It is her heart."

"With all the Shadows we gotta dodge?" Ryuji riposted. "No way! It'd be totally too dangerous for a dude to go in his own heart."

"Okay, Phantom Thieves," Morgana declared in his most authoritative tone. "It's time to finish this."

The others filed out, but Akira paused at the door to shout, "Read that card or none of the rest works!"

Thursday, 4 August 2016
Morning
Yongen, Sakura Home, Futaba's Room

Futaba clenched the envelope in her hands as the Phantom Thieves closed the door to her room. Her hands trembled as their footsteps faded down the stairs, but it took long, agonizing minutes before she could breathe without fearing each would be her last. She strained to listen for any sound, nothing but the air conditioner waiting for her. After long minutes more to gather her courage, she slipped the closet door open. Nobody remained behind to mock her, though the thought brought her to her computer to bring up the bug on Akira's phone. Instead of turning it on, she looked to the envelope he handed her as if presenting a diploma. It felt heavy in her hand.

She slipped the flap open and read the clipped-out characters glued to a black and red card. "Madam Sakura Futaba, the sinner who drowns herself in sloth. You have turned a blind eye to fifteen years of a mother's cherished love and spurned the gift of life, despite your blessings of intelligence and education. You shall climb out of the depths you have cast yourself into by your own hand. We, the Phantom Thieves of Hearts, shall steal your distorted desires without fail."

The ominous presence of her mother loomed behind her. "Worthless, selfish girl! How dare you ignore the mother you murdered to play hero against script kiddies!"

Futaba dragged in a shuddering breath, tears blurring her vision.

Her mother loomed taller than ever. "You must die. Just avert your eyes like you've always done, and I will kill them in your world." Then the presence faded, and for the first time her room felt more terrifying without the specter.

Futaba sniffled. "N-no." She wiped her eyes and looked up at the bug on Akira's phone, her computer displaying No Signal. She pulled in a ragged breath. Her head swam when she tried to understand whether she deserved to live or die, but the Phantom Thieves… they were heroes. They saved people, even evil ones. She couldn't let them die. She slid away a razor blade and reached for her phone. There, on the second page of apps, was the creepy bleeding eyeball app she saw days ago before hallucinating a visit to a real Goa'uld mothership.

Well, what choice did she have?

Thursday, 4 August 2016
Morning
Futaba's Ha'tak

Futaba opened her eyes to the palatial setting of a mothership's Pel'tak. The polished, dark stone floors were unmistakable, though the walls were decorated with the green and maroon of Isis, complete with the ankh of the Egyptian goddess of magic.

A bolt of bright yellow plasma zipped through the air above her head and struck a floating, super-muscled masculine figure with tiny legs, wrapped in all black, and the big entity collapsed into dissipating motes of light. A boyish figure wearing a cat costume cried out at the same time and tumbled to the floor.

"Fuck you!" a familiar brash voice shouted. The hacker looked over to a running thug in a plated leather jacket and bearing a skull mask. He wound up with an aluminum baseball bat and swung at a man too fat to be a proper First Prime, his belly pushing out at the golden plates of his armor.

Futaba's blood ran cold when she saw Uncle Youji's face, and a sinking feeling pulled her to the floor when the gold-armored man twirled a staff weapon, cracking it across the plate-jacketed boy's head and knocking him flying. He then snapped a leg up with greater dexterity than any man of that girth should have, kicking a girl in black riding leathers and spiked pauldrons tumbling. Youji lined up his staff on what Futaba imagined she might look like in twenty years.

The Futaba woman-lookalike, on her back, pushed herself up enough to scuttle backwards. The panic in her glowing gold eyes contrasted against the royal Egyptian garb and proper red hair Kana promised Futaba when she dyed it back in middle school. She blustered with an echo-y voice sounding much like Futaba's, "I-I am a goddess! Strong! It is mine to decide if others live or die!"

That gold-armored likeness of Youji fired a pulse of plasma straight into the fallen goddess' stomach. Futaba dropped, breathless, from the sensation of a mule kick straight to her belly. The powered-up incarnation of her uncle tossed his weapon to the side and advanced to pick up Goddess Futaba by the throat with both hands. "Traitorous Tok'ra bitch. At least I get to make you suffer like you deserve."

A boy with frizzy, black hair and a long coat sprawled, unmoving next to an equally unconscious girl in a sexy red leather bodysuit. Both bore charred holes from plasma bolts. The dyed-blond in a plated black jacket struggled to lever himself off the floor as blood poured down his face and from his ear.

A thunderous sound roared from a shotgun picked up by a boy in a loose black jumpsuit, sweat pouring down from behind a fox mask. He pulled the trigger a second time, getting only a click.

Gold-clad Youji reached to a holster on his forearm and drew a Zat'nikatel, the stun weapon springing up like a rearing cobra before it discharged a bolt into the blue-haired boy, then the stumbling girl in black scrabbling for a pistol on the ground. "You wait your turn." He put his weapon away and lifted his freed hand back to the self-declared goddess Futaba's neck.

Feeling her own breath becoming shorter and shorter for some reason, Futaba crawled to the fallen staff weapon and picked it up. Air wouldn't push past her throat and her vision started to blur. The discharge pod snapped open with a crackle as she squeezed the trigger. A bolt of plasma lanced into the gold-clad monster's back.

Prime Youji dropped Goddess Futaba with a groan of pain and turned. Her vision sharpened just in time to see the rage twisting his face.

Terror turned Futaba's blood to ice, but a memory whispered in her mind's ear, "Fighters don't give up!"

Panic more than courage squeezed the trigger in her hand and shot plasma into the gold-armored mockery of a First Prime's belly. That drove him a step back and lit a dim but warm fire of hope and resolution within Futaba's chest. She shot him in the chestplate as fast as she could pull the trigger, again and again, until he stumbled back and fell to the floor, disintegrating like smoke on the wind.

Goddess Futaba picked herself up to her knees, slipped a Healing Device onto her palm, and knelt next to the little boy wearing a cat costume. A warbling sound resonated as light shone out and she swept it up and down his body. After he shook out the pain and grogginess, she moved on to the girl with the iron plate on her face.

Catboy retrieved, then folded a crossbow into a compact, squared rod before he handed a paper packet of powder to the thug with a skull mask. As the dyed-blonde shook the medicine powder straight into his mouth, Catboy paced to her with a weary smile. "Joker was right about you."

Futaba gawked. She knew that voice – she heard it occasionally around Akira after she had that… maybe-not-a-hallucination about visiting this Pel'tak. "You… You're the leader of the Phantom Thieves." She looked the short, round-headed figure up and down. He didn't look Egyptian, but she never thought she'd see her greedy uncle in a Prime's gold armor either. "Are you Bastet? Where's your sistrum?"

His ears curled down. "Wha? No! I'm… Well, my code name is Byakko." He looked around, eyes stopping on that frizzy black-haired boy clutching his head, while Goddess Futaba went to work on the blonde in red next to him. "Great, you're up, Joker! Get to navigation and let's steal this space ship!" That order given, he turned to the other side of the room. Despite the meters between him and the dyed blond, he thrust out his hand and called out, "Zorro!"

That larger-than-life figure dressed in black, muscled far beyond any body-builder but for his tiny legs, coalesced above Byakko. The floating entity held out a rapier more like a dagger relative to the bulk of his arms.

Silver motes of light swept over the bleeding blond in a skull mask, who then pushed himself up, gloves prodding his head at wounds now closed. "Thanks, Byakko."

Futaba's jaw drifted open as the boy shoved himself to his feet and stumbled to the navigation pedestal. "You guys steal space ships to change hearts? Being a Phantom Thief must be awesome!"

Goddess Futaba paused, knelt over the unconscious form of the boy with a fox mask.

"Foolish girl," snapped from over the speakers before a projection rippled into being over the far wall. Futaba's mother, in the dress blues of an American Air Force general, glared at her, and a flicker of sickly gold shone in her eyes. Her lip curled enough to bare teeth. "Blinding herself and then expecting everyone else to be the ones stumbling. You can't even face your murder."

Futaba drew back and sniffed.

The young woman in a sexy leather bodysuit came to her side, a Zat'nikatel gripped in one hand. She stood defiant at the holographic visage of her angry mother on the wall. "Hey! Futaba-chan's been struggling through a lot of pain."

General Isshiki Wakaba spat, her tone drenched in sarcasm, "Yes, what suffering."

The self-declared goddess rose from the unconscious body of the boy in a fox mask and looked the smaller Futaba in the eye. "Remember." She waved her free hand as if swatting a fly, and a shallow holographic projection sprang into being in front of Futaba's eyes. On it was her mother in the dining room, a binder of brain scans on the table. The woman reached down and patted her head.

Then another flick of the goddess' hand, and the sitting room replaced the dinky dining room. The door swung open, and the shuffle of fabric grocery bags setting down on the coat box heralded her mother's entry. Futaba set her laptop on the end table and raced to the entry hall to throw her arms around her mother. To her surprise, Wakaba wrapped her arms around the girl and drew her tight. After a tender beat, she took the girl by the shoulders and held her back to look her in the eyes. "I know I'm demanding on you sometimes, but you know it's because I want what's best for you?"

The Futaba in the holograph nodded. "Somebody at work being a jerk again?"

Goddess Futaba's hand lowered and the projection dimmed. "Was a single dubious note all it took to make you forget?"

Another hand-flick, and the projection sprang to life again with the sitting room, three suited men standing before her reading her mother's last letter. Her tears. Their anger, burning her fragile heart not a week after her mother jumped in front of that car. Fell in front of that car?

Eyes welling up, the real Futaba blinked. "B-but… I…"

A sudden quake passed through the Pel'tak and Akira clutched the navigation console. The projection at the front of the room flickered to the mothership's exterior cameras, showing clouds racing down.

A beat later it rippled back to the command center of a Daedalus-class battlecarrier. The industrial greys of the American space ship featuring late in the series projected an aura of inevitability around the sneering likeness of her mother. Lighting flared to throw General Isshiki almost into a silhouette. The woman in dress blues sat in the command chair in the middle, and her eyes flickered with gold. "That's right. You killed me. Now your atonement is at hand!"

The palatial command center around them shuddered and the lighting flickered. The rough boy with dyed blond hair snapped, "I thought you said you could fly this thing?"

Akira shouted back, "We're still not out of the atmosphere, shields and maneuvering are both limited!" The floor bucked underneath them and the longcoated boy grabbed his gold pedestal to stay upright while everyone else tumbled to the ground. He recovered and slammed his hands on the diamond-like control surface to get back to evasive maneuvering. "I'm already struggling to get this bucket of gravel through the air – I can't handle shields and weapons on top of it!"

Goddess Futaba growled but drew back her hand with the Healing Device strapped to her palm from the boy with the fox mask, rushed to the throne with stumbling steps and a hand over the plasma wound, then pushed a couple camouflaged buttons before returning to the boy. Two gold pedestals topped by flattened blue domes rose up from the polished stone floor.

Byakko struck a confident pose for such a short person. "Panther, Reaper, can you figure out the controls?"

Helping pull the tall boy with blue hair to his feet, the blonde girl nodded and rushed to the open pedestal. She placed her gloved hands on the blue crystalline controls. A blinding flash filled her vision. She jerked back. "Whoa, that was like trying to see every color at once!"

The tall boy paced closer as another impact made the Ha'tak tremble. "Perhaps I will be able to make sense of it." When she stepped away, he took her place and gripped the flattened blue domes with his spread hands. "Fascinating. Just with touch, I can as much feel as see the status of the entire vessel. I shall endeavor to keep our defenses from collapsing."

The dyed-blond just let out a cackle and gripped the blue domes at his terminal. "This is even better than the arcades! Twenty-one gun salute, bitch!"

The command center trembled behind her mother's likeness. A pulse of gold glowed from General Isshiki's eyes. "I hate you!"

A mighty blow struck the pyramid ship ascending through the skies and the floor jumped underneath them.

Akira struggled to keep his feet and hold his hands on the controls to keep dodging blue beams from the ship higher in orbit. "Bullshit! Director Isshiki loved her daughter!"

The girl with twin pigtails and red leather paced closer and put a hand on Futaba's shoulder. "We've seen glimpses of your memories, and Joker's told us about how much your mother loved you. What made you think she could ever hate you?"

Futaba's eyes couldn't meet those stark blue ones. "When a person acts like you're lower than trash, they don't need to say it. She might have tried to act nice, but I saw. The mask slipped every February and October."

Akira tensed. "Wait a second… that's when the chairman came around for project approval."

The small hologram in the middle of the room sprang to life again, showing Isshiki Wakaba power-walk through the flat's front door, tossing her keys and stepping out of her shoes as if she couldn't bear even to break stride. The small projection Futaba stepped up to the door to the dining room to greet her mother, but projection Isshiki flashed a snarl before she stormed with a stiff pace to the bathroom.

The mothership shuddered from another direct blow. "Die!"

Goddess Futaba stood, a hand out to help the girl in black leather to her feet, then paced to the real Futaba. "Remember, without averting your eyes this time." She swept a hand and the holographic screen in front of Futaba changed.

Papers covered the modest dining room table. The young Futaba in the projection poked her head out from the hallway. "Mo-o-om! You're always working and I'm always stuck at home."

Wakaba scratched a signature in one of the papers, set it on another stack, then pulled a stack of pale orange sheets and started reading through them. "I'm too busy right now. I'm close, so close. If I can just finish this project, I won't have to let him touch…"

The real Futaba sniffed and shuffled in embarrassment. "I just…"

Projection Futaba threw disposable plastic cups and shrieked, "You never do anything else! That research is more important than I am!" She grabbed the whole bag of cups and hurled it.

"See?" the real Futaba mumbled, a tear tracing a new track down her cheek. "I'm a horrible daughter."

Another blow like the fist of an angry god struck the Ha'tak, with a distant, metallic groan. The boy in the fox mask called out, "The shields have collapsed!"

General Isshiki snarled, "I could have made the scientific breakthrough of the century! You took my life from me!"

"Don't listen to her, Futaba!" Akira shouted from the navigation station. "That's an amalgamation of your fears and second-guessing. It's not your true mother!"

Despite one hand pressed over her charred wound, Goddess Futaba reached through the projection to grab the real one's face, forcing her eyes back up. "I said without averting your eyes. Remember everything." She waved two fingers in the air and the recording backed up.

Projection Wakaba batted aside the bag of plastic cups, set down her pencil, and grabbed projection Futaba's hand. Instead of a yell or smack, she pulled the girl in and wrapped her arms around her. "I'm sorry I haven't been here for you, Futaba. You've been so much better behaved than the vice director's kid, I've been taking that good Isshiki behavior for granted." She patted the girl's head. "But it's almost over. Once this is finished, we can go anywhere you want." She brushed a tender hand down projection Futaba's cheek. "But this research could have era-changing consequences. I can't hand it over to Kurusu – I have to be the one to finish it, even if it costs me my life." She drew projection Futaba back in.

Another blow pounded the mothership, throwing everyone stumbling. General Isshiki howled, "Your pathetic life is meaningless!"

Ann knelt down next to the real Futaba, her eyes flicking to the holo-screen at the end of the room. "There's no way that mean piece of shit is your mother. She treasured you."

Goddess Futaba's golden eye glow dimmed. "I wish Mom was alive again."

The real Futaba surged through the projection, dissipating it, and hurled her arms around her facsimile like she'd longed to do with her mother for almost two agonizing years. "I do, too!" She sobbed. "But M-Mom's gone! I can't un-hear the a-angry words she said to me those nights she came home… her eyes bloodshot before she scrubbed herself raw in the shower." Futaba hiccuped as tears streamed down her face. "I also can't forget the time power went out and we roasted marshmallows over a gas stove on the balcony as snow fell. I don't know what's real!"

"My death was your fault!" General Isshiki roared.

The Ha'tak quaked around them. Yusuke called out, "The ring is losing structural integrity. We will start losing pieces of the ship soon!"

The girl with the iron plate over her face stumbled closer as the Ha'tak shook. "Did she ever abuse you? Ever raise up her hand against you?"

"N-no."

Plate-mask Girl pointed at the screen with her screeching mother. "That's a figment of your imagination, conjured up by fears, isn't it?"

Goddess Futaba looked down at the real thing. "Would a mother who held you with such tenderness have written such a letter?"

"Look back," The blonde girl entreated. "At every birthday and exam score day. Did your mom ever say such horrible things?"

Tears streaming down her face, the real Futaba tightened her arms. "No. Even when I threw a tantrum, she waited for me to calm down." She sniffled and looked up at the beautiful, powerful woman with copper-red hair. "You're the real me, aren't you? The one who remembered all those tired smiles and refused to let me die no matter how hopeless things looked?"

Sparks gushed from behind General Isshiki, and Reaper shouted, "Fuck yeah!"

The pyramid shuddered around them, but the boy in a black jumpsuit and fox mask needed just one hand to steady himself. "Shields are back up!"

The real Futaba's grip fell slack when her bigger facsimile began floating up. "Accept not the curse put upon you by those of black hearts."

Isshiki howled with rage, "It was your fault!"

Even as more voices, both accusing and soft, emanated from around her, the unsettling likeness of herself spoke, her echo-y facsimile's voice cutting through the whispers, "You knew from the beginning and let fear crush you. Will you die as the heartless ask of you?"

The fire within Futaba's chest blazed. "Never! I'm going to trust my own heart and never back down again!"

"I am thou, and thou art I." The copper-haired Futaba smiled and burst into blue motes of light, soaking into the real Futaba.

Blue flames blazed over the hacker, but instead of consuming her in merciless heat, her sloppy clothes were replaced with a skin-tight black bodysuit glistening with circuitry all across it. A heavy metal band formed around her head, unfurling into a set of heavy red goggles locking over her face.

General Isshiki slammed her hands onto the arms of her command chair. "I wish I had never birthed you!"

Futaba caught her feet as the Ha'tak rocked underneath her, then she pointed a finger at the main holo-screen. "Keep your forked tongue behind your teeth. No matter what you say, I'm gonna live! My life is mine!" She strode up the steps and hopped into the throne sized for a body a few times her own, its arms feeling warm to the touch. "Divert power to weapons! All cannons, fire!"

The Ha'tak quaked from another blow, but from her direction and Reaper's aggression, a rain of plasma lanced into the Daedalus battlecarrier trying to blast her mothership out of orbit. Sparks gushed from an exploding station behind General Isshiki before the transmission cut.

The mothership rocked around them, the sound of shearing metal piercing their ears.

Byakko's huge blue eyes widened. "The Palace is collapsing! But we're in space, how do we escape?"

Feeling more alive than she could remember despite the cracks creeping through the stone walls of the Pel'tak, Futaba adjusted the front holo-screen to show the altitude. A pyramid inched up above the blue line between atmosphere and the black of space. She switched it back to exterior cameras. Plasma fire lanced into the grey Earth ship as it broke apart, but a chunk of golden ring floating through the view showed her Ha'tak wasn't far behind. "The hangar! Pair up and escape on the Death Gliders!"

A stone facade on the ceiling cracked and a metal girder plunged through. It would have crushed the tall, blue-haired boy if he didn't dive out of the way. Fire sputtered through the opening and more cracks spread.

Futaba waved a hand over the right arm of the throne, bringing a grid of holographic keys into existence, then she punched in an escape sequence. "Pile in, everyone! I'll ring us straight to the hangar!"

The Thieves threw themselves to the throne and a set of rings snapped up around the gold seat as the Pel'tak collapsed, stone falling and fire rising until the transport rings flared.

In the cavernous hangar, things weren't much better. A rack of twenty docked Death Gliders sheared loose and crashed down behind them, crumpling the rack beneath and knocking those down into the next row below.

Akira leaped up onto the nose of one of the alien two-seat fighters with the grace of an acrobat, his tailed coat flapping behind him. "Anybody else who's played a flight simulator, jump in the pilot seat." He held out a hand. "Who's never done it?"

A fuel tank exploded far down at the base of the hangar, playing yellow light over his fearless face.

The girl with the iron face-plate leaped up and grabbed Akira's hand for dear life.

Futaba jumped up and scrambled onto another fighter.

Panther grabbed the blue-haired boy and they hopped into the next Death Glider. When the blond in a leather jacket saw everybody else already strapping in, he threw himself into another fighter as Akira's detached and aimed for the black expanse of space.

Futaba waved her hand over the controls to bring them to life and begin the launch procedure. Autopilot projected a safe course through the collapsing hangar onto the cockpit canopy and her Death Glider detached from its docking cradle. Another explosion filled the world around her with fire.

Thursday, 4 August 2016
Late Afternoon
Yongen, Back Streets

The exploding mothership blinded Akira's eyes for a moment. After a moment of unnerving silence and the strange sensation of being motionless and yet twisting in every direction, the sounds of Tokyo intruded on his ears. Blinking in the sunlight of a hot day, the narrow streets of Yongen clarified around him as if he just stepped out of a dark room. Yusuke and Ann helped each other to kneeling, Makoto fumbled for a wall, and Ryuji squinted as if he had the same trouble seeing as everyone else even if he already stood on his feet.

Akira's eyes fell on Futaba, but the orange-haired girl no longer wore the weird circuitry-suit. Her body splayed over the ground, limbs in no particular direction, wearing the same over-sized black shirt and striped, thigh-high socks as she had back in her room at the start of the day. "Futaba!"

He rushed to the hacker, his throat too tight to breathe and eyes too hot to stop tears from welling up. He scooped up the slight girl, her frame feeling too light in his arms for a human being. "No. Not another Tosa." He shook her as much as he dared – which wasn't much – to try to get some sign of life from her. "Please, Futaba-kun, wake up."

Makoto and the others gathered around. "Did this happen because of that spectacular Palace collapse? Was it destroying the cognition of her mother?"

Morgana's ears twisted back and forth as he strained to find an answer. "Cognitive constructs come and go, sometimes so fast they don't register to the conscious mind. It shouldn't have harmed her, but everything about her Palace and Awakening was unusual."

Yusuke shielded his eyes. "Could it have been enough to put a physical burden on her? It does not appear that it would take much."

"Yusuke!" Ann hissed.

"Akira?" Makoto shifted her focus to the trembling transfer student. She reached for Futaba.

Ignoring the wetness on his face, Akira tensed his arms around the hacker. "Wake up, Futaba."

Ann held to shade her eyes from the sun. "What's wrong?"

The surrounding conversation and ambient city noise faded as he hyperfocused on the hacker failing to respond to his jostling. "Please, Futaba. Don't die on me." Her head lolled to one side like a puppet with its strings cut and he adjusted his hold to support her.

Ryuji sank down to one knee, scrutinizing the transfer student. "She's breathin', dunno why she ain't up an' yellin' at us." He pointed at the transfer student. "I think he's havin' a panic attack. I 'seen it in dudes before a big meet. When tests an' run time an' stuff all piles up."

"What's going on down there?" The Phantom Thieves looked down the alley at a trio of old men shuffling down one of the pedestrian streets.

Morgana growled for a beat before he looked at the gate to the Sakura house. "Reaper, Fox. Get them inside. Panther, go scope out Leblanc. Text us if Boss leaves or anything unusual happens. Nightrider, go get the doctor."

Makoto nodded. "I'm not sure if she does house calls, but I'll do my best." She took off at a strong jog.

"Please, Futaba," Akira said, his vision blurring with tears. "Please wake up." When strong arms grasped his, he felt more like he floated with them than walked under his own power through the gate and up to the hacker's room.

Akira set Futaba down on her futon with as great care as he could manage, Yusuke helping lay her down. At that point, Makoto returned with Doctor Takemi and the team leader sent the team brawn to back up Ann.

Akira let out a relieved breath when the medical expert stepped in. He shifted to stand up, but something pulled at his shirt. He looked down to see Futaba held an iron grip on a fistful of his black undershirt. He let out a breath and sat down, turning his attention to Takemi. "We can't figure out what's wrong with her, doc."

Makoto gave a vigorous nod. "That's right. She just plowed into him and collapsed."

Takemi knelt down at the head of the bed and set her black medical bag down next to her. "Did she hit her head?"

Akira shot a glance at Makoto, who gave a subtle shake of her head. "No. I wasn't expecting it so she kind of knocked me off-balance and landed on me."

"Well, you relax. I don't need you developing an episode while I'm trying to examine her," Takemi said, kneeling down at the futon. She spotted the fist anchoring the transfer student in place, then sighed. "All right, sit down there and I'll examine the girl. How exactly did you come across her in the street?"

"Uh…" Makoto looked like a deer in the headlights. Then, fast as a snap, she straightened, her expression becoming a mask of composed calm. "She just… ran out of the house. Ran into Akira and knocked him over. We've been worried sick about her."

Takemi lifted the hacker's arm to feel the pulse at the wrist. She stared at her watch for long seconds, before setting the limb down and pulling out a pen light from the large front pocket on her white coat. She pulled Futaba's eyelid open, shined it in, then let the eye snap shut and repeated on the other. After putting the pen light away, she took a stethoscope from her black bag and held it over the left side of the girl's chest. She listened for a few moments, then moved to another spot on her chest. After another few moments, she looked Akira in the eye. "Can you help me roll her on her side?"

Every muscle in his fingers and legs burned in pain, but Akira helped the doctor so she could slip the stethoscope onto a point somewhere at the upper back, beneath the shirt. He lowered the girl back to the bed when the doctor stood up.

Takemi took the stethoscope from her ears and let it dangle at her neck. She reached for the small, black bag she set against the corner of the bed, stuffing the scope in and pulling out a pressure cuff. She slid it onto Futaba's arm, paused to feel for a pulse again, then puffed it up and read the gauge while feeling for a pulse.

Once the doctor slid the cuff off, Akira managed, "S-she okay?"

"No ocular or respiratory abnormalities," Takemi said as she wrapped up and packed the cuff, then drew something in a hand grip with a ball on the end. She brushed hair away and rolled the ball across the hacker's forehead. "Her pulse and blood pressure are both high, but her temperature is well within normal range for a young teenage girl. It looks like she's underweight, lacks muscle tone, and shows minor signs of chronic malnutrition, but nothing severe." She looked at the transfer student. "Did she say anything?"

Makoto spared a glance to the transfer student, who returned a lost expression. She coughed into her fist to try to ready herself. "I'm afraid not."

Frowning, Takemi took a sanitizing wipe from a pack in her coat pocket to wipe at the hand-held roller thermometer. "I'd have to see her medical history to draw any firm conclusions, but respiration is normal. It doesn't seem like she's in any physical danger. It looks like she depleted her reserves."

Morgana hopped up on the hacker's computer desk, pushing aside a mouse and waking up the two main screens. The team leader ignored the scrolling text behind him. "Most of this might be the after-effects of her Awakening. There were just so many unusual factors, it's hard to guess which one might be primarily responsible. I mean, who ever heard of somebody entering her own Palace?"

Inaba, Amagi Inn

Yukiko let out a sudden sneeze, then reached for a box of tissues under the check-in desk.

Yongen, Leblanc

Akira lifted his shoulders, a lancing pain cutting off the attempted shrug.

Takemi's brown eyes shifted to the transfer student. "How often have you had panic attacks?"

Akira snapped, "Never," at the same time as Makoto answered, "They've never been this severe before."

The doctor reached for his wrist, but Akira jerked his arm away. "I'm fine, the patient was Futaba. Is Futaba."

Brown eyes bored into his for long, tense moments. "Anxiety can build over time if it's not handled in a healthy manner. There are some prescriptions I could write after I review a couple things at the clinic."

Akira shoved his hands in his trouser pockets. "I don't need lobotomy pills."

Makoto sighed and stood from the desk chair. "Our priority should be Futaba-chan. Is she going to be okay?"

"I'll decide who's the priority here." Takemi gave the teenagers a steely look. "It looks like she's just got exhaustion. How soon can you get her mother or father here to give a summary on her medical background? This might just be fatigue or it might be more serious."

All three of the Phantom Thieves cringed. Makoto looked the transfer student in the eye. "We will have to talk to him about this, sooner or later."

Morgana tensed on the hacker's desk. "Even if that might risk him figuring out our identities?"

Akira worked open his jaw, a pop sounding. He rubbed the tense muscles. "You're probably right, Makoto-senpai." He looked down to the hand holding him with an inhuman strength. "You go get him. I'm kind of locked down."

She nodded and rushed out.

As the minutes ticked by, Akira couldn't stop his mind from conjuring visions of a sobbing, tear-struck Hifumi in a quaint, traditional home, hunched over the body of her mother. He could almost imagine her pained wail, "It wasn't enough to kill Futaba? You killed my mother!"

Makoto returned with Boss a few minutes later. "It's all right, I explained the situation to him and he locked the restaurant."

Sojiro looked at the doctor, then to the girl lying limp but for her hand clamped on the transfer student's shirt. The restaurateur let out a breath and clapped his hand over his aproned chest. "Oh, is this it?" Hand on his hip, he fixed a gaze at the transfer student. "What was she doing outside?"

"Is this—?" Akira jerked to his feet, the girl's hand at last releasing its grip. "She's collapsed and unresponsive!"

Sojiro shrugged. "It's like she runs on batteries. This happens every now and then. I guess it's the lack of exercise."

Lips pressing into a thin line, Takemi stood. "Fatigue would explain most of her physical symptoms, but she shows signs of malnutrition. Your daughter's clearly not been taking care of herself. How old is she? Thirteen?"

The restaurateur rubbed the back of his neck. "Fifteen."

"Fifteen?" Takemi stood with an arched brow, and stepped into a lecture about the underdeveloped musculature, premature aging, and other dangers of not taking care of children. Her questions about Futaba's medical background came rapid-fire and the three Phantom Thieves shrank back. After what felt like fifteen minutes and an ultimatum to bring her for a full, proper check-up the instant she woke up, Takemi stormed out.

Morgana stared after the doctor. "Yeesh. Women can be scary."

Makoto, having crossed her arms back before the rant started, uncrossed them to shake out her arms. "How long is she typically out for?"

Sojiro knelt down to brush his hand over the top of her head. "Sometimes hours, sometimes days. Futaba's a lot like her mother. She does everything on her own terms." He took off his glasses to rub the bridge of his nose. "I'm going to go close up the store properly. Don't you kids worry, I'll make sure she has plenty of rest."

Makoto nodded. "Of course, sir." She stepped out, but drew her phone and opened the Phantom Thief chat.

Now that he knew Futaba's life wasn't in danger, Akira found his horrified gaze drifting around the disorganized dump which was her room. He started reaching for one of the lumpy bags before Makoto snagged his arm and pulled him along.

AN: The conflict with a person's Shadow always implied a level of divided mind, especially if you've read Jung. I preferred the way that Persona 4 handled it, but there's a significant difference in the focus of Man Versus Himself in that game and Man Versus Man in Persona 5. I did my best to find a good middle point that I'd always hoped Persona 5 would have taken. Using the framing of Stargate SG-1 and the hidden parasites allowing traitors to hide anywhere just added tools to that end. Amusingly, the issues I had with the end of Futaba's Palace were largely dealt with in the changes they made in Royal, but by the time I got my hands on that this arc was already written. And if any Phantom Thief deserves a cool space ship, it's Futaba. Tell me what you think.

There are also a few common points some may notice between the third-hand observations from Futaba and what Akira observed with Shido. Some people will use any tool for power, and from everything in the game I'm positive he used abuse to condition the people around him.