Persona 5: Daywatch

by Ganheim

Akira is banished to Tokyo by his own father. What begins as a near-suicidal quest for vengeance becomes a desperate attempt to turn the pieces of his life into an honest whole. Aided by clever strategists and opposed by supernatural puppeteers, one lost boy's quest for something greater clashes those who would think themselves gods over men, and demons within. AU elements.

109. August 20th, Temple Collapse

Persona 5: Daywatch

Saturday, 20 August 2016
Noon
Suginami-ku, Ogikubo

Akira side-stepped through the narrow walkway along the customer area of the ramen bar, following the track star towards the open spots in the back. Perfect. The aroma of savory ramen and sauteed vegetables left his mouth watering. "It sure smells good, but I'm not so sure about the full hour wait."

Ryuji laughed. "Dude, ain'cha pick up on the crowds all over the place? There might be no lines in bumpkinland, but they're in fron'na all the good places in the city." He settled into a chair and looked around, a distant quality to his gaze. "Y'know, I ain't been in this joint since we came here as a team. Sweat drippin' down my face, noodles slidin' down my throat… there ain't no feelin' like it."

Akira sat onto the narrow chair across from the tiny table between he and Ryuji. "Was it more about the exercise, or grabbin' sweaty guys?"

Ryuji kicked him under the table, though not with the force the practiced runner could muster. "C'mon, dude. I was in track, not wrestling. An' you ain't gotta make it sound all weird like that." He set his elbows on the table and wove his fingers together. "I been wonderin' how Nakaoka an' the others are doin' lately."

Strike Force, Assemble! sang out of Akira's phone. "Legal appeals, this is Bud Uronner."

An amused sigh floated out from the phone before Hifumi spoke, "You always know how to break the tension, Aki." A beat passed and she breathed in, an ominous air settling in. "I delivered the calling card, claiming somebody left it in her box. Mother was furious, but we can't afford to wait, correct? I can be up at the station for Mother in half an hour. How soon can you be there?"

"I'll be there in thirty minutes," he said, all trace of humor gone and his hunger forgotten. He jumped from his seat and locked eyes with the seated runner. "It's show time."

Ryuji's eyes widened. "But we ain't got our ramen yet!"

Saturday, 20 August 2016
Noon
Mitsuyo's Temple, Front Bailey

Ann clicked her gun-light on and squinted down the iron sights along the top of the competitive sporting pistol. Despite using nail polish to paint a crosshair on the light, an even circle projected onto the plaster-coated walls, even more stark given the swirling clouds churning in a sky-spanning spiral above. Lightning without thunder flicked from rolling cloud to rolling cloud as if to the beat of an angry heart. She turned off the gun-light. Yusuke and Makoto helped Hifumi check the rifle Ryuji loaned her, while the already set-up Futaba and Morgana stood in that restless manner like the kids in her class waiting for the signal to start running around the field. "Here they are," the blonde called when she spotted the dark jacket and coat of her other friends.

Akira slowed his jog to a trot, then stopped and braced his hands on his knees as he breathed heavy.

Ryuji was sweating, but kept his breathing in check as he came to a stop. "Yeah, an' we're starvin' 'cause he ran off before we could grab lunch."

The Thieves finished readying weapons and distributing supplies, then Hifumi summoned Dihya to map out the rearranged layout of the Palace before the Phantom Thieves headed in. At least the fog had reduced to thin wisps over the ground. It was enough to leave an ethereal quality.

A bunch of those shrine-keeper Shadows patrolled the Hall of Sacrifice, forcing them into battles twice. Past that, the covered walkway extended only part-way over what appeared to be the same huge swampy courtyard they split up in that day Hifumi awakened to her Persona. While polished-wood walkways wrapped around the perimeter against the walls, they were patrolled by dozens of those Shadow shrine-keepers so Morgana directed them off the walkway and straight through the mire.

About halfway through, Yusuke yanked Ann back a heartbeat before something slammed into the marsh ahead of her, sending a bigger spray of water than the couple-centimeter-deep puddles should have made possible.

Standing up out of the impact, leathery wings unfurled from around the larger-than-life Shadow Mitsuyo. She looked down her nose at them from her vantage point, floating a meter or so up from the mire. "I had hoped you selfish brats would have learned your lessons earlier. I shall have to punish you most severely."

Hifumi stepped up from the rear line, clenched fist raised. "The courage of man will not falter so easily!"

Shadow Mitsuyo spat out a laugh. "Courage, you say? Your infantile idealism won't save you from consequences. Children don't even know what's for your own good."

Makoto stood her ground at the front. "What 'courage' is there in fixing matches, and profiteering on the games of your own daughter?"

"Do you think the Togo's funds are unlimited? That I could leave her life, all our lives up to the whimsy of fate?" Shadow Mitsuyo tisked. "I wouldn't have fallen in with Kaneshiro's money launderers if I had all I needed."

Hifumi lowered her fist, but her back remained straight. "You were never at risk of losing your family until you started working at that despicable hostess club. I know why things became hard with what happened to Papa, but… you changed! No amount of control was ever enough for you. I don't even understand all of it. Why forbid me from dating, yet accept Ann-san without question?"

Laughing, Shadow Mitsuyo held a hand against her head. "Still insisting on playing the ignorant slut? Men are motivated by only two things: power and lust. Boys will fight each other just for the opportunity to think themselves your footstool, I make no profit on their violence. The paparazzi would trip over each other to photograph not one but two beautiful girls. I wouldn't even have to pay to put the Togo name to the front page. It would sell everywhere. Girls want to live vicariously through idols and could pick which ever one they wanted. Boys salivate just at the thought of a naked girl."

"Is that it, then?" Hifumi responded her voice almost a whisper. "Was I never more than a commodity for you to sell for the highest bidder?"

"Buying and selling is the way of the world," Shadow Mitsuyo answered. "To deny that would be to hobble myself and give you to those who are less considerate than I." She snapped her fingers, and Shadows began to burst out of the mire around them. Her voice hushed and lip curled in a snarl, she added, "I'll not allow you to steal what belongs to me. Anything a woman owns must be bought with great price."

Then darkness erupted under her, transforming into a pillar of fire before it receded into a four-meter-tall monstrosity. Where Shadow Togo once floated, something like a fusion of ox, man, and suit of armor towered over them. Its guttural voice boomed, "Those who will not bring sacrifice, will be sacrifice!" It chopped a white gauntleted hand down and the smaller Shadows advanced.

The Phantom Thieves broke into two groups, dividing the Shadows into two flanks so they couldn't be overwhelmed from the uneven encirclement. Ann lined up with Akira, Yusuke, and Hifumi, leaving the others to handle the rest. She'd just have to believe in Morgana and Futaba-chan. "Any pointers, Hawk?"

Her red-garbed Persona manifested above her, its eye-patterned tower shields at the ready. "Those Garm could maneuver to put us all at a terrible disadvantage. Take them down before they can jump our lines!"

Ann yanked her sword and flicked it, the whip-sword extending through the air with the whistle of edged metal. She reached inside for Carmen's blessing, and a cold fog trailed her weapon. She slashed, her strike scratching against the headless soldiers and one of the giant dog Shadows. While not delivering any telling damage, it drove them back enough to give her room to summon Carmen proper. "Joker!"

Akira nodded, a determined glint in his eyes that sent a thrill through her heart. Too bad he was smitten with the shogi maestra. "Let's see what the twins beat into you, Sui-Ki!" The sword-wielding, purple-skinned oni from the bank twirled its blade above its head. Instead of shooting a bolt of ice at her, a shimmer of icy fog rippled around it, then around Carmen.

That invigorating sense like the first cold wind of winter shot through her. Ann let out a war cry and Carmen slapped her thorned whip into the ground. Instead of a weak flop, long if short-lived spikes of ice shot up as if driven from the ground by the force of the whip, radiating out in an arc in front of them, impaling red dogs and headless soldiers alike and plunging all the way to the bull-faced Shadow hanging back like a shogun behind his army.

An ice spike shot up and struck it straight in the chest, where it melted as if an ice cube pressed against a furnace. Thin gouges remained in what she started to suspect was a furnace, if with many little compartment openings.

"That was the strongest ice Carmen's ever thrown out there," Ann whispered in horrified awe.

Yusuke blocked a sharp spine-whip, yanked to bring his katana in line with the headless soldier before him, then thrust into its chest, dissipating the Shadow. "Goemon!"

His Shadow manifested and blew into his pipe, loosing bolts of lightning into a Garm and two other headless soldiers. "Excellent coordination," he said before one of the giant war-dogs landed behind him and reared back a claw for Hifumi before he spun about and powered a slash down, then up its body to dissipate it, "But there are more foes left to fell!"

Akira's sub-machine gun spat in angry bursts, taking down a headless soldier before drilling into another Garm bounding at him. He clashed against its clawed paw with his machete, then drew back and shouted, "Neko Shogun!"

That short man in samurai armor somehow both cute and threatening manifested, its short sword parrying aside the Garm's next clawed swipe before holding up its signal fan. An aura of foxfire shimmered around the war dog before it picked up and hurled into a pair of headless soldiers, bowling all of them over.

"Joker!" Hifumi shouted, "Boost Reaper!"

He fell back from the front without a moment's hesitation, turning to the other flank to call out, "Nekomata!" It blew wind into the skeletal pirate, who spread the shredding winds.

Ann swung her whip-sword back and forth, her blows too weak to kill the handful of headless soldiers remaining, but when it caught around a Garm's canine head it didn't leave a scratch. She breathed in and called on Carmen's power again, pulsing sharp ice into its skull. Already battered from Carmen's ice-spikes and maybe a burst from Akira's gun, it dissipated as smoke. She summoned her dancer Persona again as wind howled behind her, but didn't see any other Garm.

"Very well," armored bull-man growled, "I'll finish you myself."

The Phantom Thieves reformed their lines against the bull-man walking on what seemed more a set of slender, armored arms than legs astride a segmented-armor tail. Morgana's eyes grew wide with fear. "Oh, crap. I saw one of these deep in Mementos."

It clenched a fist at her and Ann felt heat and cinders fluttering up from underneath her. For a brief moment she wondered if she was about to die.

Then she stood beside Hifumi, Dihya in the inferno raging up where Ann used to be, tower shields useless against the flames roaring from below. Hifumi shrieked in pain and the model caught her as blood flowed from the shogi maestra's nose.

An eye-blink later, Ann stood on cracked glass, her arms empty but for the retracted form of the whip-sword in hand. Heat radiated up, but she didn't let that stop her from giving the beast her best counter-attack. "Carmen!"

The ice bolt crashed against Bull Man's furnace-like chest, slashing thin gouges but melting away before penetrating.

Morgana shot it with his crossbow, and the bolt stuck in the four-meter-tall beast's neck like a toothpick.

Ann stepped back, braced behind her sword. "Byakko, you saw this thing before? What's it vulnerable to?"

He retreated a step. "Bless energy, but I'm out of sacred rice!"

Bull Man grinned, teeth bared. "Harvesters of death, take these Thieves!" It snapped its fingers and a half-dozen headless soldiers burst from the swamp at its sides.

"Let me try something," Akira said from Hifumi's side. "Nike!"

The Greek goddess of victory coalesced and held up her bladed hoops.

A whistle from above was all the warning before a javelin made of pure light slammed into the towering, armored behemoth. It stumbled and fell to the ground.

Then another whistle and another javelin of golden light slammed into a headless soldier, disintegrating it.

Ryuji lifted his square-spiked club in the air. "Effin' awesome!"

Another whistle and a gold-light spike plunged into him, knocking the surprised runner to the ground with a pained yelp.

Yusuke tried to dismiss Goemon, but too late before another gold javelin slammed into the Persona. Then another fell into Marcus as it flew up and away, another into a headless soldier, then the next plunged into the swamp where Makoto was a heartbeat before her dodge, then the next into another headless soldier.

"Joker, stop!" Hifumi shook the boy clutching his head, but got only an agonized growl and trickle of blood from his nose.

Morgana picked himself up from the gold spike landing on him with a pained groan. "It's just like when he tried to use Apsaras to heal Reaper!"

Knowing one was coming for her, Ann braced under her retracted whip-sword as another light-spike plunged into one headless soldier, then another before hers landed. She would have celebrated the small victory if the last headless soldier didn't raise its spine-whip and unleash an eerie laugh that penetrated all the way to the bottom of her soul. Ann felt her sword and pistol drop from her hands before she turned to flee.

At last Ryuji got close enough to Nike to wallop her with his iron-capped club, knocking the Persona and Akira down.

A staff tripped her and motes of light shot into her with a feeling of pins and needles, but the brief sensation pushed out the overwhelming fear. When the model looked up, rings deposited Futaba and the girl stretched out a hand. "I gotcha."

Ann gave a shaky smile but accepted the help to her feet. Unfortunately, the confusion gave the armored bull-man enough time to recover as well, but with direction from Hifumi to avoid its strengths, the Phantom Thieves battered it down over the next few minutes.

Ann and the thieves gathered at a closed gate on the other side of the courtyard. She gave a relieved laugh. "Thanks, Oracle. I don't know what that was, but I haven't felt that scared since Kamoshida."

"Aw, you're good," the girl waved down. "I wonder if I can do that without having to fully summon my Persona, like you do when you go all icy whip on Shadows."

Morgana hopped up to the runner's shoulder. "It's good that we found two new powers among the Thieves, but it looks like you've got another mental block, Joker."

"A what?" Futaba blurted.

Still struggling through ragged breathing, Akira blurted, "Sorry, guys. It's like… that power was at the edge of my grip." He ran a hand through his hair in frustration. "I don't understand why she went berserk."

Ryuji finished washing down a dose of Takemi's powdered medicine by glugging down a canned energy drink. "Same thing happened when we were running 'round Mementos tryin' to get Kaneshiro's name. We'd seen Shadows heal each other, an' Joker picked up one." He gave a nod to Makoto. "This was even before you came in. Byakko was tired, so Joker tried to whip out one'a them water babes an' heal a stab I'd taken. Thought the crazy thing turned me to stone for a moment, but it healed all the effin' Shadows instead an' started fightin' all of us. I had to smack it with my baseball bat before Joker snapped outta it an' switched Personas." He slid his club across his shoulders – dislodging Morgana – and dangled the other arm on it.

Morgana sighed. "I think you can overcome that mental block with a realization with one of your confidants. Assuming you're actually confiding in anyone." He shook his head. "But that's something for later. We have one chance to steal Togo… er, Mitsuyo's Treasure." He turned to the gate Hifumi led them to and read the placard on it.

"This thing all things devours:
Birds, beasts, trees, flowers;
Gnaws iron, bites steel;
Grinds hard stones to meal;
Slays king, ruins town,
And beats mountains down."

Ann grasped the handle of her sheathed whip-sword to help fight back a shiver. "I haven't liked the rest of your mom's palace, but this is even darker than most."

"Should we not attempt to retrace one of our prior secured paths?" Yusuke pointed out.

Hifumi shook her head. "Mother's been setting ambushes all over the temple. I'm trying to guide us down paths with the fewest Shadows to conserve our strength for the final confrontation against her."

Makoto, tapping her gauntlet against her chin in thought, paused. "Beats mountains down… Is it time?"

The gate slid aside and Hifumi gave a disappointed sigh. "I can't believe mother's been harboring such despair in her heart. We read the Lord of the Rings together, I thought she understood the theme that despair is a sin for it attempts to judge a future that hasn't come when the present is yet to be lived."

Akira tugged at his longcoat. "I thought it was that evil can seduce anyone, which is why we have to look out for each other."

"It's a story of multiple themes," she said with a small nod.

Having been the only one to successfully block most of the damage from Nike's shower of blessed spears, Ann took to the front. Akira stepped up beside her, Ryuji on her other side. Foggy hills stretched before them, stunted and leafless trees dotting the muted landscape.

Saturday, 20 August 2016
Noon
Mitsuyo's Temple, Hall of Usurpation

Akira swept his P90 across the snarling dog statues flanking a gate etched with 'Hall of Usurpation'. The laser dot slid over them without any sign they were anything but statues. He kept his gun at the ready as he advanced to the gate and its placard with the team leader.

An angry growl rumbled from Ryuji's stomach behind him. "Sorry, dudes."

"Here," Makoto said, drawing a greasy, wrapped burger. "I was thinking that public cognition of it being filling should help if we had trouble and there wasn't enough medicine to go around."

"Mm-hm," he muttered in thanks before snatching it, tearing the wrapping open, and devouring the burger with huge bites.

Futaba wrinkled her nose. "Eww, even I have better table manners than that. At least close your mouth."

Morgana rolled his eyes and hopped up to the longcoated boy's shoulder. "Let him eat and let's the rest of us figure out this puzzle." He stepped up to read the placard.

"Voiceless I cry,
wingless I flutter.
Toothless I bite,
mouthless I mutter."

Hifumi crossed her arms to suppress her nervous wiggling. It reminded him of a little schoolgirl who knew the answer but had been told by the teacher to let someone else go. By God, it was adorable.

Akira tapped his fingers on the gun dangling from his shoulder on a strap. "Animals cry, and according to animal activists they don't have a voice, but even if mosquitos don't need teeth to bite, they do need wings to flutter."

"You're being too literal about the interpretation," Hifumi prodded him, a look of confident challenge in her eyes. "You should have this. Yusuke said you grew up in smaller towns, that's closer to nature."

Akira crossed his arms and shifted his weight to his other foot. If Hifumi was going to challenge him, he couldn't back down. "Without teeth or a mouth it probably isn't an animal. A breeze flutters—" Her smile widened, that meant he had to be on the right track. "—zephyr, gale, wind?"

The gate slid into the wall and she gave that dazzling smile that sent his heart racing.

The moment would have been wonderful if a shrine-keeper Shadow wasn't standing on the other side of the gate. "Intruder!" It burst into a red-furred dog flanked by two Daji, one of the demons who brought down the Jin Dynasty locking eyes with him before swiping a hand.

Akira's vision filled with Hifumi, the sounds of fighting a distant thing for sensual moments until the crack of a club smashing a Shadow skull brought Mitsuyo's Palace back into focus around him. Ice crystals faded from the dissipating smoke where a Shadow used to be in the fusion of a Shinto temple and warring-states-era castle. The other Phantom Thieves had all moved around the limited space at the new Hall's entrance. Ryuji rested his club on his shoulder and shook his head at the longcoated boy. "Dude, why's it seem like every time a Shadow hits Joker with somethin' that ain't a straight-up face punch, he's down?"

Futaba looked straight at the bulge in his pants and sing-songed, "I'll bet I know why!"

The longcoated boy growled, but Morgana jumped in. "Speculation can wait until we get to a safe room. We do have a time limit."

The space within had a lower ceiling and polished dark wood flooring like the treasury tower, but broad halls and drooping-willow-like fixtures casting a dull grey light. Orderly rows of exhibits, like the fortified building with the memory of Hifumi kissing Kazuma, spread down the left and right walls. Almost monochrome paintings in silkscreen style enhanced the dulled sense, but some of the exhibits bore colors so bright it was gaudy. One depicted part of a grammar school centering on a dull-colored girl with a brown that resembled what might have been a third-grade Mitsuyo, with another girl with long black hair standing up and sharing a smile with the teacher in similar fluorescent colors.

Further down the broad hall, he recognized a younger Hifumi in the gold-trimmed white uniform of Ogawa Middle School. A backdrop implied the courtyard of a common school. An adult mannequin of Mitsuyo, one arm reached across her chest and her head dipped in shame, in a drab black dress stood back from a teacher in a bright green sweatervest. A speech bubble sign on a wire next to the teacher read, "She is the cutest girl I've ever had in my class."

Hifumi came to a stop next to him, her head tilted and one of the glowing optics dimming in a way that made him think of a squint. "Yamato-sensei. I don't remember Mother being so small or withdrawn, she just said, 'You're too kind' and we moved on to the next booth at the culture fair."

"This is her heart," Morgana said, leading the rest of the Thieves. "Based on the name of this hall, I'm guessing she felt replaced, maybe even attacked by the attention showed to you. It's not a logical feeling, but the human heart isn't always."

"What about this one?" Ann said, stopping at an exhibit in the center of the right-hand wall, almost twice the size of the others but lacking any bright colors at all. It resembled the office of that NHK director, but Mitsuyo's color-drained garb was different and she stood well back from the desk, the mannequin's head bowed and shoulders hunched. "Dismissed for family interruptions?"

Futaba's fist clenched around her staff weapon. "She let that animal have his way with her, and they sacked her when her husband caught a long-term illness?"

The optics on Hifumi's faceplate blazed bright red for a beat. "She… he what?"

Yusuke rested his hands on his hips. "Ah, you were not with us the day we searched the Hall of NHK. She aimed for a serious promotion by attracting the attention of one of its Board of Directors, and he threatened her job if she did not provide sexual favors."

Jaws tightening, Hifumi's hands clenched and unclenched. "That bastard put his hands on Mom and then fired her when she took off time to help Papa? That was the one time in her life I've ever seen Mom cry." She reached up to brush at the red knot in her hair. "It scared me almost as much as when the doctor said Papa had a blood clot."

Ryuji rested his arms on the club slung across his back. "Hey, uh, how come there's so many exhibits here 'bout shogi?"

Hifumi let out a breath and the longcoated boy pressed a hand against her back. She leaned into it. "Mother blames shogi for Papa's collapse. For taking him away from her." Her eyes drifted around the broad hall. "Maybe for taking away her career at NHK. She loved working there, being in front of the camera. It was as much her stage as the Ashikaga shogunate was for Kan'ami."

"Don't worry," Akira said, injecting more certainty into his voice than he felt. "We'll save her."

Saturday, 20 August 2016
Noon
Mitsuyo's Temple, Treasure Vault

The Phantom Thieves charged into the gaudy treasure room. A bolt of lightning flickered down from the clouds churning outside, reflecting on the polished dark wood floor. Morgana's crossbow swayed as he scanned left, then across the huge room fit for any palace. The lack of Shadows felt even more disturbing than the swirling storm outside, after a path through at least a dozen Shadow ambushes. Stacks of glistening gold koban wrapped with twine added an organized clutter to the jeweled or carved stone statuary. Deeper in the huge room, Shadow Mitsuyo floated in front of the golden pedestal holding whatever the manifestation of her Treasure was.

Thunder rumbled and Rider jerked, a gauntleted hand clamping on Joker's arm. They exchanged a look, Joker trying to look more confident than tense at her contact, but the team leader noticed him pull away from Rider and at Hawk even if it was a twitch.

Reaper stepped forward, club raised. "You're pretty gutsy, showin' up here without a ton of backup like you've been hidin' behind this whole time."

Shadow Mitsuyo's blazing gold eyes narrowed. "Even a mediocre strategist knows when to use force and when to hold back."

Hawk stormed from the back. "Don't talk about strategy, Mother. You tried to turn me into a puppet just to turn others' eyes to you. You chased away my friends, you… sullied my honor as a shogi player. I know some of it was because you were hurt in the past, but… how can that excuse it? You and Papa taught me it was each person's responsibility to be more ethical than the society in which we are born."

The Shadow snarled, "Children are meant to obey."

To the leader's surprise, Rider was the first to fire a shot at the Shadow. Smoke floated from her shotgun barrel for a moment as she breathed heavy. "How dare you slander the honor of my father! You don't even know my family, the sleepless night after sleepless night Big Sis slaves away to investigate and build ironclad cases to put criminals behind bars!"

Shadow Mitsuyo turned up her nose. "To be slander, it must be false."

From the rear line, Oracle's staff weapon snapped open with the crackle of a charging energy weapon. "How dare a monster like you quote Babylon 5! The Minbari are too honorable for a greedy jerk like you to even reach their level!"

Shadow Mitsuyo waved off the little girl with a hand tipped in claws. "Your infantile idealism is just another thread for some puppet-master. If it wasn't me, it would be someone else." Her gold gaze fell on Hawk. "I keep those brain-rotting video games out of the house to keep you focused on what's important. I give you unlimited funds for books. Vetted tutors and personal trainers. I would have paid tuition at that artsy private academy even if you hadn't earned a full scholarship. I even paid for your braces—"

"All of those things help you," Joker bellowed. "Understanding that you need to invest in something you profit off of just makes you a less stupid tyrant."

Mitsuyo's gold-blazing eyes narrowed on the longcoated boy. "Fool. Everybody is for sale, the only difference is the price." Tension crept into her eyebrows. "Better to know what you can profit on and exploit it while you can than put it on a pedestal where it does nobody any good, just for time and fate to steal it away. Buying and selling is just the way of the world. It's what made Kaneshiro more powerful than any elected figurehead."

Reaper held out his club as if a spear to stab at her. "Only when good peeps don't do nothin'. That's why we're here. We're gonna change your heart jus' like we changed Kaneshiro's, an' the people are gonna finish things off."

Mother's Shadow grimaced. "You spit on me for doing what's best for me, but you hooligans are doing the very same! Killing you will be a mercy." She snapped her hands and enormous chests to the side popped open, Shadows pouring out and lining up to the Phantom Thieves' left and right.

To Morgana's pride, Rider and Reaper didn't wait for a command to start unloading into the Shadows streaming out of two chests the size of dumpsters on each side, the latter whining, "I shoulda known she'd'a called in backup like a cheap bitch!"

Hawk closed her eyes and summoned Dihya. "Foes of justice, fall before righteousness!"

A clatter sounded around them as if armor retracted itself from each Shadow, then Hawk fell to her knees, gasping for breath. Joker grabbed her by the waist to keep her on her feet, but she turned to him with a firm, "Help them."

Shadow Mitsuyo snarled and she snapped her fingers high in the air. "Dispose of them, mutt!"

The embossed wolf on the door rippled, then disgorged the giant cognition of the terrifying guard dog Hawk kept in the real world. It snarled just like his carved likeness and bounded in, bowling Joker over with huge clawed paws and snapping its jaws down on the cannon-arm of Kidd, drawing a pained cry from the runner.

Hawk spun about. "Antalas, heel!"

"Kill them, you stupid mutt!"

The huge cognition looked back and forth between Hawk and Mitsuyo, giving a whine but his teeth still locked around Kidd.

Hawk left the center to step into the right flank held by Reaper and Oracle. "You two, fall back and focus on Mother!"

Oracle twirled her staff weapon, bashing a snake-man before leveling it at a human-faced lion and shooting it. "Are you crazy?"

"Trust me! A good strategist knows the stakes of a gamble!"

Reaper swung his club off-hand, his right arm dangling, so Joker grabbed him by the good arm and hauled him up to the front line group with Panther. "Come on, Oracle!"

She took another shot, but when Hawk caught a Garm's clawed swipe with a twirl of her cape and cast it aside, the hacker fell back.

Hawk parried the serpentine arms of a snake-man, then injected a bit of fear into her command, "Antalas, help!"

The giant cognition of her dog abandoned Kidd to come charging through the Shadows massing on the right flank, grabbing a human-faced lion Shadow like a chew toy and shaking it back and forth, then hurling it into one of the enormous treasure chests. The Shadow dissipated, and knocked the lid closed. Oracle let out a whoop, but Hawk wasn't done. She raised her thumb and index finger to her mouth and blew a sharp whistle. Antalas spun about, knocking down another clump of terrified Shadows before he bounded to her side, then knelt his forepaw to let her vault up to his back. She had to lay flat against him, as close as his back was to the ceiling rafters, but Hawk directed the giant cognition of her dog to her mother. "Onward, faithful companion!"

The fanged cognition charged, bowling aside larger Shadows and destroying smaller ones.

Shadow Mitsuyo growled, tanking a bolt of lightning and parrying a machete from Joker before she kicked him into Ann, then caught the fanged muzzle of the cognition with both hands. It brought her to the ground, her stilettoed heels cutting gouges in the polished floor, but she still brought the huge cognition to a standstill. The cognition let out a wimper. Shadow Mitsuyo bellowed, "If you want something done right, you must be willing to sacrifice anything and do it yourself!"

She gave a yank and the cognitive guard dog stumbled, then the Palace Ruler blurred forward to grasp the base of its skull and give a mighty twist. The huge cognition let out a pained yelp before a crack, then collapsed to the ground and dissolved.

Hawk fell to the floor and landed on one hand, her visor optics shining bright as if in lieu of open shock.

"Holy fuck," Reaper blurted. "She just killed her own dog!"

"I paid far more than that for a job shogi took away from me," she said, sneer pulling her lips back to bare her pointed teeth. She back-handed Hawk, sending the girl flying into Joker, then held a hand high and let it drop, as if signaling a distant army. "Burning volley!"

Flaming bolts rained down on them, Fox using Goemon to shield himself and Panther while Hawk gripped her armored cloak with her off-hand and pulled it around Joker and herself. The barrage continued for long seconds before the last fire bolt fell.

Oracle closed her staff weapon. "I'm guessing she's resistant to fire damage now."

Hawk stood, Dihya manifesting above her for a brief beat. "Even moreso than Rider. Everything else should still wound her, champions of light!"

The treasure chests which disgorged Shadows before were already opening. Morgana slapped another bolt in his crossbow. "Hit the Palace Ruler! Then watch flanks!"

"Here, Panther!" Akira summoned a purple-skinned oni which spat an ice bolt into Carmen, allowing the graceful dancer to hurl a massive trio of ice spears into the Palace Ruler.

Shadow Mitsuyo retreated back to the pedestal holding her Treasure, her enormous wings wrapping around her like a cocoon. Marcus' rays and Ryuji's bullets impacted without noticeable scratches.

Oracle turned to the Shadows coming up on the right flank with a whine, "Bosses with immune phases suck!"

Dihya hovered over the Thieves as they arrayed against the right and left flanks again. "Fox, switch with Reaper!"

The artist fell back from Morgana's side, but it only took a moment before the runner ran in and put his brute force to good show with a clubbed bash against the snake-man slithering up on the team leader, then stepped into the encroaching Shadows to press his momentum and destroy a Daji.

Morgana scanned his side to see whether Joker would do better to boost one of his flank, or the opposite, but spotted a Daji charging some kind of psionic magic too late. She ran a finger down her exposed cleavage, "Serve your lust, betray your fair-weather friends."

Joker's machete tumbled to the ground and his P90 fell to its strap.

Great. Just when he was about to ask for a boost. Seeing those eyes clouded over, Morgana leaped at Joker. Behind him manifested the agile, clawed cat-burglar from the bank. Nekomata swiped with her left claws, then right, forcing Morgana to parry and backpedal. The exchange went on for several attempted blows until Hawk came in from the Persona's side, trying to club it with the butt of her rifle held in her off hand. Nekomata deflected the clumsy blow, but the sudden move sent her claw into the floor, where it got stuck on a rough knot of wood.

"Zorro!" Morgana knew how to purge mind control, just not a way to do it that didn't hurt. The black-garbed champion of ladies picked up Joker, then tossed him into the ground. Nekomata dissipated.

Reaper cursed. "There's gotta be some way to cut down on all them Shadows!"

"The lids!" Rider shouted between shotgun blasts and fire bolts. "They're tethered up with ropes! Byakko, can you cut them?"

Morgana slashed back another Typhon before those snake arms could bite him, then leaped on top of a headless soldier, over a Garm, but the next headless soldier was faster and caught him with its sharp spine-whip, slamming him down into the middle of the mob.

"No, Byakko!" Panther cried out, then let loose a war cry. Three spiky balls of ice exploded into the Shadows around him, followed by a shout from Joker before that celestial serpent smashed through a handful of Shadows, its heads reared up and breathed beams of radiation on the remaining Shadows around.

Not one to waste an opportunity, Morgana rushed back through the corridor to the Phantom Thieves' right flank. "We need an opening!"

"Joker!" Hawk called out, Dihya suspended above her. "Boost Fox! His energy can harm the Shadows and Mother!"

Joker roared as if that could drive back the Shadows, and called out Raja Naga, which fed lightning into Goemon, who forked it into the Shadows. Well, at least one cleared flank was still something.

Then Joker bellowed again, followed by Fox as he directed a massive lightning bolt into the Palace Ruler. To the leader's surprise, she fell to her knees and sparks danced over her limbs.

They couldn't afford to pass up this opportunity, danger at the flanks or no. "Phantom Thieves, all in on the Palace Ruler!"

To his pride, all but Rider and Reaper, holding off the flanks, turned to dash against Shadow Mitsuyo.

They bashed and slashed her until she emitted a psychokinetic wave shoving them back, then her wings cocooned her. A fiery bolt from the hacker's staff splashed against them without leaving a singe.

"So much for your pride, you greedy hag!" Oracle said as she rejoined the right flank.

A wing knocked the artist back as the Shadow unfurled. "Greedy? Hag?" Shadow Mitsuyo snarled as she returned to her float. "For taking care of myself, as all people do? What do you think you selfish children are doing by using force to get what you want? My actions are an exchange." She raised a hand, darkness churning within the clawed appendage. "Life would teach you a much harsher lesson. At least my way is merciful." Her fingers snapped closed and the darkness puffed away as she called, "Mamudoon."

Dark circles traced under each of the Phantom Thieves, a gripping horror as time seemed to slow and their reactions slowed further. Morgana could only see the phantasm of a straw doll form in front of his eyes but knew each Phantom Thief perceived the same. A shadow of relief passed through him as he saw Panther shake off the curse magic and dive out of her circle. Darkness roared up and Morgana's last remaining substitute homonculus crumbled, same as the one he gave Fox and Reaper.

He'd run out before giving one to Joker. The light went out of those defiant grey orbs and Joker's body collapsed to the floor.

A Dark Place?

"The Demiurge has penetrated the sanctum," a feminine voice shouted. "I'll hold it off, Master. Please flee!"

Morgana's senses began to sharpen, but still no vision met his eyes. A dull sense of cold, and the distant sound of shattering stone blocks reached his consciousness, but he couldn't feel his arms or legs.

"It's too late to escape," a nasal voice riposted with as much authority as the gentle man could. "But not too late to wrap up some hope and cast a torch into the darkness." Something shifted and picked him up. Morgana sensed the next words were to him, "Bring Man's champion back here."

Then Morgana felt himself be thrown, not just through space but through reality itself. Still bound, he collided with something hard and lashed out with his arms to escape his dark confines.

Mitsuyo's Temple, Treasure Vault

Morgana stumbled and clutched his face with his free hand. What was tha—?

Oracle bellowed a war cry and charged the Palace Ruler with enraged swings of her staff weapon.

Morgana blinked and shook his head. Leaving her hood down, Hawk scrambled to Joker's cooling body, tears streaming down her face. She pulled his body onto her lap as Dihya hovered above them, light streaming from behind her Persona's floating mask. One hand held his frizzy head and she pleaded, "Aki, come back."

Her Persona broke apart into silver motes which soaked into the longcoated boy.

Joker's chest rose and his eyelids fluttered under his mask before his red, gloved hand cupped her cheek. "Is this heaven?"

"She…" Morgana struggled to comprehend what he just saw. "She just revived him…" He'd only seen a Shadow use Recarm once during his first escape from deep in Mementos. After a lucky hit took down a powerful Shadow, another revived the first before it could be lost to the collective unconscious. He realized discretion was the better part of valor that day.

The flurry of Oracle's motion came to a sharp halt when Shadow Mitsuyo managed a parry and continued the motion to cut open Oracle's throat and send her tumbling back.

"Rider, heal Oracle! Joker, take her place and cut those Shadow chests!"

Rider's reply was a defiant shout as she swiped through a gaggle of Shadows on Johanna, then came about with fire gushing. Joker took the silent route, but between his weapons and Nike he pushed back at the Shadows disrupted by Johanna.

Morgana readied his crossbow despite its diminishing ammunition and let a bolt fly as close to the Palace Ruler's left eye as he could. "Come on, you ugly hag!"

Shadow Mitsuyo juked back, but turned her ire on the leader.

Morgana sensed the heat shimmering underneath himself a heartbeat before the inferno raged up, and when he dodged that another formed underneath his feet before the cinders from the first faded. Pillar after pillar of white-hot fire roared up and he had to put everything he had into staying one step ahead.

Just when he thought he'd run out of stamina just staying ahead of the Palace Ruler's powerful flames, a spiked ball of ice larger than him sailed into the great Shadow and exploded, coating her in frost and exploding with sharp shards.

Despite her frozen arms and legs, Shadow Mitsuyo wrapped her huge wings around herself, and Oracle came to a stop next to the leader. "Aw, man! Now she's gonna heal herself again."

Morgana turned to take in the silence where there had been a raging, two-front battle against every Shadow they'd faced in the Palace. "You're all better?"

Futaba brought her staff weapon to the ground with a confident tap. "Heh. Not just healed up, while you were distracting Evil Togo, we closed those Shadow spawners."

Morgana loaded another bolt in his crossbow. "Good work, team."

The wings unfurled from their impromptu cocoon and the Palace Ruler returned to floating above the floor as if gravity was beneath her.

Carmen shot a quick bolt of ice at the Palace Ruler, and it reflected straight back. Panther stumbled back with a grunt. "Looks like she's changed things up again."

"I see, now. She's reconfiguring each time she enters that shielded state. I'd avoid ice," Hawk said from behind them. She reached for her mask, but those optics remained. "Sorry, I can't draw out Dihya yet. But I wouldn't trust she's yielded her resistance to fire or curse yet."

Undaunted, Reaper leveled his machine gun. "Then we just gotta smash 'er down quick!"

Morgana wanted to slap a palm against his forehead at Reaper's lack of thought, but he wasn't necessarily wrong. As the arrayed Phantom Thieves let loose against the Palace Ruler, Shadow Mitsuyo responded with fire, ice, and wind the Thieves had to rely on Joker's boosting to match. He sent Rider to the back with Hawk to keep an eye on the vanguard and heal serious injuries, then strained to psychokinetically pick up one of the larger busty statues in Mitsuyo's likeness and hurl it at her, only for the Shadow to smash the heavy ceramic and go right back to exchanging blows with the others.

"We're tiring out faster than Mother is," Hawk muttered with a frown.

Rider's eyes darted back and forth as she sat astride Johanna. "We've fallen into a straight-on battle instead of trying to open up and exploit a weakness."

Hifumi's lips pursed. "If neither physical nor magical force will faze her, we shall have to create an opening." She called out with all the thunder of a general, "Joker, boost Zorro! Throw everything you can pick up at her from every angle."

Morgana wasn't sure what she was planning, but Joker deflected Mitsuyo's claws and backflipped for the room to change Persona without a heartbeat of hesitation. "Neko Shogun!"

Morgana felt strength thrum through him and closed his eyes to put all his concentration into his Persona. Jeweled statues, carved stone, and large shaped ceramic pots lifted up across the treasure vault. Most times he preferred to focus his concentration into one at a time to strengthen a throw, but this time he hurled everything Zorro could get a mental grip on with wild abandon.

Shadow Mitsuyo smashed ceramic, then caught and hurled aside a carved stone statue before a gold one half her size crashed into her left flank. Her parry against the next ceramic was late, breaking it but not in time to keep its shards from showering her, and far too late for the next stone statue.

"Joker, boost Reaper!" Hawk shouted, "Concentrate your wind!"

The boys bellowed in time with their Personas, and Reaper shot a cone of shredding winds that not only slashed at the Palace Ruler but drew back in pieces of flying ceramic and statues to assail her again. The combined assault knocked her back, and Morgana ordered an all-out assault while she was down.

Dark smoke gushed and the last thing to fade were her wings, but the Palace Ruler shrank down to the battered woman in a showy business dress and pencil skirt. She clambered for the gold pedestal with her Treasure, only for Fox to slam his katana into her path. Shadow Mitsuyo sat back, tears trailing from her gold-blazing eyes. "It's not fair. I gave my body for my career, and that was taken away. I gave my heart for my husband, and he was taken away. Nobody ever credited my hard work at mathematics or management, that just pricked men's egos. The only thing people would praise me for is how beautiful I was."

Fox stepped forward, sheathing his sword. "You treated your daughter like a pawn. A daughter is supposed to be the most precious thing a mother can have. My mother didn't even live long enough to speak with me, but I know she loved me from the painting she left behind."

Hawk shook off whatever trepidation she had and jogged forward, crouching to one knee in front of her mother's Shadow to try to look her in the eye. "Mother, you should have gone to the police. You should have gone to Papa. You could have even come to me, I'd have heard you out."

Shadow Togo levered herself up to all fours, then slumped back onto her legs. "Oh, Hifumi. You were twice as hard as everyone else. You were more kind than the world deserved, and you always wanted to help. But when you came along, everyone forgot my beauty for yours. 'She's the most adorable girl I'd ever seen' they'd all tell me, no matter how long I'd spent on my eyelashes." She reached out and ran her fingers under that dangling red knot in her hair. "We'd spend all day together, reading or watching Endeavour and brushing hair. Then you followed your father into shogi."

Panther paced closer, her pistol in one hand and her retracted sword in her other. "Was that why you started hating shogi? Your daughter started to choose her own path, and it wasn't yours?"

Shadow Mitsuyo gave a disappointed sigh, then ran her hands through Hawk's hair and let the red knot threads fall. "When Hifumi came along, I was forgotten for her. I tried to be proud, she was my baby. But when she won that grade school tournament and defeated not only her fellow students but every single teacher at that school, they started calling her 'genius girl' and looked at me with pride." Her hand cupped the back of Hawk's head. "I struggled my whole life and nobody ever called me genius."

Morgana stayed quiet and slipped around the others to get to the gold pedestal, where a grade-school certificate proclaimed Togo Hifumi the most brilliant shogi player ever to attend. Numerous signatures with well-wishing or other praise filled the margins. A few mentioned the surprise of such a 'brilliant beauty'. He took it and hopped down to the Thieves circling close around the Palace Ruler.

"All my life, people took from me and gave me so much less in return. I couldn't even sell my body for the fame I wanted," Shadow Mitsuyo said as she looked Hawk in the eye. "Even after Kaneshiro's men discovered me working at that hostess club, he didn't give a damn about me. Only how much of his money I could hide from tax assessors."

Hawk squeezed a hand on her mother's shoulder. "I'm so sorry I wasn't there where you needed me, Mother."

"No," Joker said, kneeling next to her. "You were dying under her boot. She could have gone to you and talked things out any time." He turned a harder gaze to the Shadow. "Instead you chose to give in to jealousy and hurt everyone who had what you didn't. Hifumi's your daughter, not your puppet to use."

Shadow Mitsuyo sniffed. "You're right." Her hand slipped from Hawk's hair. "I was a horrible mother. I got so lost in missing out on the things I wanted, I wasn't there to give you the life you deserved." She looked up at the others. "If you can change me, please… change the man who made me trade my body for my job. Sugimura Morihiko. He won't change himself."

Morgana folded his crossbow. "Leave it to us."

Rider, staying on her feet, looked down her nose at the Palace Ruler. "Go back to your self in the real world and make it right."

Shadow Mitsuyo's eyes welled over and she faded, her last words, "I'm sorry."

Thunder clapped outside, drawing a jump from Rider before the enormous wood beams around them started to groan.

"Time to book it," Morgana shouted, holding the signed certificate in hand as he dashed for the balcony. He tied off the longest cord he had and slid down, the rest of the Phantom Thieves following him down the outside of the leaning tower. Cracks split the walls of the other temple-castle buildings, great chunks of stone and masonry falling down. Groaning on the tower became wood splitting and Morgana abandoned the cord about four meters up, transforming into the Citroen just before touching down.

The transformation surprised Oracle so much she lost her grip and smacked into his roof. She must not have been badly injured, because she popped up and cried out, "What the hell happened?"

Panther touched down on the roof and scrambled down. "We'll explain later, get in!"

The rest of the Phantom Thieves descended and loaded in just as columns wider across than a man's torso gave way and the whole tower tipped over towards them. Reaper tripped on the way in, dropping several bundles of stacked gold coins and a jeweled statuette he was carrying in his left hand. When he reached back for them, Joker shoved the runner. "Forget the trinkets, let's go!"

Being the last person on, even before Joker closed the side door, Morgana spun his wheels and took off at a screech. Lightning flashed, as if just to highlight the dark shadow of the tower descending on them.

Sitting at the left side of the front bench, Hifumi peered up through the window. "Oh, no. At an acceleration of nine point eight meters per second per—"

"Never tell me the odds!" Oracle declared from the passenger seat.

The Phantom Thieves shrieked as the shadow of the tipping tower darkened and Morgana reached into all his desperation for the last shreds of speed to escape through that gate straight ahead.

AN: Hifumi's first use of Recarm uses roughly the same words, diminutive reference included, as Jesus in Mark 5:41 when he revives the daughter of Jairus. Jesus spoke Aramaic as would be the common tongue of the place and time, but I've never believed in any special power of one language over the meaning behind them and so gave Hifumi's line the same entreaty in the narrative's language.

The first version of this chapter had Hifumi speak about Sheakespeare and the Globe, but Japan's theater tradition stretches back well before English, tracing to the 1400s with the versatile actor Kiyotsugu Kan'ami who is credited with first creating what would be recognized in the modern day as Noh theater.