Good Day Readers! Obviously, I do not own anything connected to the Persona series in general or Persona 5 specifically, I DO own Chiba Natsumi and Anais Ouvrard, along with Natsumi's immediate family members and the original Personas that will be showing up on occasion.

I would appreciate any responses that you have, please enjoy

Chapter 54: - Fall of the Forger of Vanity

It was the fourth of June now and just like with Kamoshida, there had been no new about any change in Madarame from Yusuke; I hadn't asked the boy yesterday since he had come to get away from that infernal house and his corrupt mentor. I was starting to wonder if I should ask Takemi-sensei for some headache medicine because it definitely felt like I was coming down with something.

A sudden buzzing cut through the meal I was preparing, I quickly set the knife down and cleaned my hands in order to get rid of any debris before scooping the object up. There could only be one topic that was being discussed in any of my Chats to night, so on pure reflex I pulled up the Phantoms group to see if we had any new information to work with.

Ann: The exhibition ends tomorrow… Madarame must have had his Change of heart by now, right?

Natsumi: This is exactly what happened with Kamoshida.

Ren: Let's hope this is a sign it'll end the same way too.

Ryūji: I'm sure it'll be fine.

Ryūji: So far nobody's come charging us with anything, yeah!

Ann: Except Yusuke said he'd wait to press charges AFTER the exhibition.

Ann: What should we do if someone contacts us about it tomorrow!?

Ryūji: Try asking Yusuke. He's still staying with Madarame, right?

Ann: Oh, that's right. Where is Yusuke?!

Ann: I wonder if he'll be okay with Madarame…

Natsumi: Good question… I saw him earlier yesterday and he was fine.

Yusuke: Sorry I'm late to contact you all.

Yusuke: It seems something will certainly be happening tomorrow; Madarame is on the phone as we speak.

Ren: What do you mean something?

Yusuke: I believe he is preparing for a media announcement. I didn't hear anything about pressing charges.

Ryūji: Guess we just gotta wait then.

Yusuke: Let us meet in Shibuya tomorrow.

Ann: Okay! See you then!

Natsumi: See you all tomorrow.

Ren: Tomorrow.

"I swear, the stress of the waiting is more nerve wracking than the stress of the actually heist," I muttered.

*Persona 5 Royal*

We were all gathered together in Shibuya, today had been the day that Madarame intended to bring the hammer down upon us for entering his shack. All of us seemed rather nervous, especially since Yusuke had just told us that Madarame had disappeared by the time that our Ice wielder had woken up that day and the old man could not be contacted.

"Yo, if this goes south, what should we do," Ryūji asked. His tone and face showed how much he was worried about that incident happening and given the worried looks that were exchanged by the rest of us we all felt that way; however, people suddenly started talking about something which drew our attention up to one of the jumbo screens that decorated the walls of Shibuya's buildings. On it, was Madarame, which caused Yusuke to bolt to his feet and step just slightly closer as he stared at the man who seemed to be holding some kind of press conference.

"I…I have committed crimes that are unbecoming of an artist. Plainly put… I, um… plagiarised work… I-I tainted this-this country's art world and… even Sayuri!" Madarame confessed. He then bowed his head down, but it did nothing to hide the gasping sobs that escaped his mouth. "H-How could I… I possibly… apologise to-to everyone for… for what I've done… aaaah," Madarame confessed. He was having a total breakdown thanks to the Change of Heart, much more so than Kamoshida had even if there was no mention of attempting to commit suicide, even he hadn't been sobbing as much as Madarame was.

"And that was from the urgent apology conference by Madarame that took place just a moment ago. After reporting to the association, Madarame has agreed to the police's request to turn himself in," The newscaster announced. All of us proceeded to exchange shocked looks that this had happened so publicly. "On top of charges of abuse to his pupils, Madarame is under suspicion of claiming their works as his own. Some doubt the validity that his maiden work Sayuri was stolen, believing it was used for fraud. This large scale criminal act has caused a great shock to the art world, and after the conference, Madarame was taken to a police hospital for interrogation due to his age. However. initial psych evaluations state that he is mentally sound and likely responsible for his actions. Also, a group calling themselves the Phantoms posted a dubious note at Madarame's exhibit, the police will investigate their relation to this case, but for now, did not identify them as suspects," The reporter continued.

"Man, this is starting to get interesting… if we do it right, we can change people's hearts. With this power… we might be able to do more than just gettin' back at society. It'll be a big deal," Ryūji celebrated. He seemed quite giddy at having successfully taken down such a high profile target, I was just amazed that it had such an effect on the man in question; it was such a shocking escalation in reactions to the Change of Heart and made me wonder if there might be some other component to how a person responded to a Change of Heart.

"True. We can certainly do more than we initially thought," Ren stated. He seemed to be heavily scrutinising the screen that Madarame's report had just been on, I wondered what must have been running through his mind as he saw our second success; there were still more Palaces, but we clearly had a set methodology for how to successfully dismantle them whenever we came across our next target.

"As for me, I hope we just keep gettin' more and more famous!" Ryūji claimed. I didn't like that he was focusing so much on us getting famous, I know it was a prerequisite for us to get deeper into Mementos and hopefully restore Morgana's memories; but our primary goal should be helping people not getting famous. It was actually concerning for me that he seemed more concerned with getting famous than either of our goals.

"Something like this happening twice is massive too. It's too great a coincidence to occur normally," Morgana admitted. That was true, people would certainly be more inclined to believe in us now that a second Change of Heart had taken place, it wouldn't be so easy to brush it off as a rumour or prank which would ensure we'd be able to press deeper into the collective unconsciousness.

"If we continue doing this, we'll definitely be able to give courage to everyone who needs it," Ann admitted. However, our discussion was interrupted when I sensed something shift closer to us, I quickly looked over and saw that two men had suddenly shown up, one was dressed in a suit with sunglasses and the other wore a police officer uniform. They seemed to be talking but their positioning near us set off some kind of gnawing worry within my mind; my staring drew Yusuke's attention to them and his eyes narrowed slightly.

"We may want to quiet down a little," Yusuke quietly insisted. His words caused the other three humans and human turned cat to look over at the two individuals and I immediately saw Ryūji tense up as if he was expecting a fight to break out at any moment while Ren curled in on himself; I immediately moved closer to our leader and gently settled a hand on the space between his shoulder blades while shooting a worried look at Ann who was the only relaxed one.

"Do you know them?" Ann asked at normal volume. Yusuke must have known something about them for him to insist that we be quiet, but I couldn't understand why Ryūji and Ren had reacted the way that they did, Morgana had a concerned expression on his face, but he seemed more focused on brushing his cheek against the back of Ren's hair, hoping to try and soothe the boy as much as possible.

"You moron! Those're attendance officers!" Ryūji hissed. What!? Why were attendance officers hanging around in Shibuya on a Sunday! No one went to school on this day, since there was no school to attend, it didn't make sense for them to be hanging around near us on such a day and I didn't like how their presence was causing Ren to fold up like this; I remembered the Wilton Hotel and how the police officers there had upset him which caused me to drift a little bit closer to him when the two officers turned around.

"Hello there. May I speak with you for a moment?" The man in the suit asked. I don't understand why they had shown up or what they could possibly want with us, but it unnerved me that they were even here to begin with; I marshalled my cold mask to cover up the anxiousness that was pulsing through me, I didn't need to alert these two to my true feelings and instead focused upon trying to reassure Ren.

"Ah, yes! How can we help you?" Ann asked. Her tone had gone unusual, almost identical to how it had been when she was attempting to distract Yusuke while I was lock picking; I saw Morgana's tail puff up ever so slightly when he heard that tone and it curled in slightly as if hearing that voice was painful while I noticed the other three were all staring at Ann with Ren and Ryūji looking completely baffled while Yusuke had an eyebrow raised at the tone.

"That monotonous acting of hers never fails to send a chill down my spine," Morgana admitted. I had to agree since it was quite the… uncomfortable sound to hear coming out of my friend's voice; she was probably going to be setting off these officers' alarm bells if Ann kept talking in that weird tone which wouldn't be good for us if they decided we were the kinds of people who warranted a more thorough search.

"What are you doing here? Are you friends?" The suit wearing officer asked. I did not like the tone he was using, it reminded me of the tone that Niijima-senpai had used when confronting us on the rooftop some time ago; they had no right to be doing this to us. I moved around so that I was stood in front of Ren in order to protect him from the looks of these two men while fighting to keep my expression as placid as possible.

"Forgive me officer, but why are you asking us such questions? What we do in our free time is none of your concern so long as it's nothing illegal. For your information though, we'd just met up after the Madarame announcement having previously agreed to go for some tea together to discuss our exam results," I lied. My tone was thankfully steady as I spoke, all I could hope was that the story I was telling was believable.

"Well alright. Just make sure you disperse before it gets too late, okay? There have been some odd happenings lately and the news about that artist has caused quite the stir," The suited officer insisted. They had no right to tell us to 'disperse' when it wasn't even noon, frankly I don't like that they had just decided to approach us and boss us about like they had the right to do so.

"We'll be careful," Ann stated. Apparently not finding anything wrong with Ann's tone or my story, they proceeded to turn and walked away from us; the moment I was sure that they were out of sight, I dropped my calm mask and twisted around to face Ren who was shaking ever so slightly and I wrapped an arm around him once again to try and comfort him.

"It's still light out… man those guys must have way too much time on their hands," Ryūji commented. I nodded my head in agreement with our Electricity wielder, it was completely pathetic that they decided to take such actions against us; but I was far more concerned with getting Ren to calm down from his agitated state of being, otherwise he might collapse from how uneven his breathing was at the moment.

"Are you alright Ren? You're looking extremely pale," Yusuke asked. The artist had moved over and gently rested a hand upon Ren's shoulder as if trying to be reassuring, the other two also came over but they hovered behind us, likely concerned about how we might be crowding Ren and only suffocating him more. Eventually, Ren got his breathing back under control and full straightened his spine, but his skin was still paler than normal for him.

"I don't like police officers," Ren admitted. He glanced in the direction they were going with a deep frown upon his face as he said those words, we proceeded to pull back slightly but all remained close by in case Ren needed us quickly; such a nice day ruined by people barging in where they weren't welcome, I just hope Ren would be okay after that awful incident.

"From now on, we'll need to be even more cautious than before. Look at us! Right after the second Phantoms incident, both prior victims are meeting up," Morgana warned. That was a fair warning to make, especially since I was getting that same sensation of being watched like when Yusuke had been staring at us after our first foray into Mementos.

"Wait, you mean people might be listening to us?" Ann wondered. There was every chance that someone could be listening in on us – thus why I insisted on us using codewords instead of being so obvious – and hearing everything we said. Granted our current position would make it obvious if someone tried and it'd be difficult for them to hear us, but other locations wouldn't provide us with the same cover.

"Eh, it'll be fine. Look around. We're the only people worryin' about it," Ryūji commented. That was where Ryūji was wrong, I had started to look around and eventually my eyes had spotted someone who was watching us, thankfully the person staring at us hadn't seen me so I moved around to adjust my position so that the watcher couldn't spot my face and realise that I knew we were being observed.

"But we should be worried about it," I insisted. Everyone proceeded to focus on me and they took note of the serious look upon my face, we needed to be wary of being watched, now more than ever. "Not people, but certainly one in particular is watching us," I stated. I turned to glare right at the red eyed girl who was watching us, Niijima-senpai stared back with deer in headlights eyes as the others also glanced back.

"Who is that?" Yusuke asked. His tone was arctic as he said those words, at least someone else was realising the kind of danger that we would be under, although a quick look at the others showed that they actually looked angry at having been followed by the elder girl, Niijima-senpai did the smart thing and disappeared into the crowd which allowed us to turn back but I still felt her watching us.

"Niijima Makoto, our upperclassman. She's also investigating the Phantoms on our principal's orders," Ren answered. He seemed deeply annoyed at having a stalker but not as much as Ann did, in fact it even put Ryūji's shimmering fury to shame, Ann was deeply angry. "Ignore her for now, we're just friends hanging out, she's got no proof," Ren insisted. He placed a gentle hand on Ann's shoulder which caused the blonde model to deflate slightly but at least her anger had taken a back seat.

"By the way, Yusuke… you able to get anything out of Madarame?" Ryūji asked. His voice rather quiet so Niijima-senpai wouldn't be able to hear us which was a smart move since we needed to know if anything had been learned from Madarame. "Remember how he was talkin' about that suspicious person in the black mask?" Ryūji reminded. That was something that we needed to be concerned about, especially if we ended up running into this mystery person.

"Well… I pressed him for answers, but he doesn't even understand what happened to him to begin with," Yusuke admitted. That was a bit of a shame to hear, but I suppose there was nothing else to be done about it for now, if he couldn't recall anything about the black mask – even a sense of déjà vu – then we'd just have to be on our toes for whoever this stranger might be and anticipate this individual showing up eventually.

"It's not like he actually saw the goal being removed, after all," Ann agreed. I nodded my head in agreement, but I'd still held out hope for something to come from the incident, especially since the Velvet siblings had made it known that something strange was definitely going on, especially here in Shibuya train station; I was probably on edge about this whole situation and maybe a bit paranoid, but I felt better that way than dismissing it.

"It's rumoured that he may be sent to prison. In that case, gaining information will be difficult," Yusuke revealed. Yeah, because there was every possibility that someone would be recording the meetings and hear anything we tried to ask him, besides Yusuke was the only one who could reasonably get inside and I didn't want him to be involved with Madarame anymore than he already had to after all that he had been through because of that man.

"So, what're you gonna do now?" Ryūji asked. His voice louder but this was a rather innocent question so it didn't matter at all if Niijima-senpai had drifted close enough to overhear our conversation; besides it would be good to know where we'd need to find Yusuke if something ever came up and we needed to physically locate him instead of relying upon a phone.

"I'll be leaving that house. I can't draw in such a place anymore," Yusuke admitted. I don't blame him at all for deciding to escape from that shack after what he suffered, Ann wondered where he would go instead. "The school dorms. I can stay there free of charge thanks to my fine arts scholarship," Yusuke answered. That caused Ryūji to bolt upright as he looked at Yusuke with wide eyes.

"A scholarship!? Wait, you're that good?!" Ryūji exclaimed. I chuckled at his exclamation as I thought it would be obvious how good Yusuke was, given that Madarame was intending to use Yusuke's artwork in place of his own paintings; so, Yusuke having a scholarship wasn't even surprising to me, I'm just glad he had somewhere to stay that wasn't that blasted shack.

"Although Takamaki-san's house would do as well," Yusuke stated. Ann was stunned by this random comment and Ryūji immediately started up with Yusuke asking her to model for him again which only earned him a glare and an insult from the blonde girl. I shook my head at the insanity of these two while Ren hung his own but did seem to be suppressing a laugh at their words.

"Then again, now that Yusuke'll be livin' alone, it'll be easier for us to meet up whenever we want," Ryūji stated. That would be something good for us, since Yusuke wouldn't have to deal with someone looking over Yusuke's shoulders everywhere he went; we might have to avoid a curfew but that should be easy enough to be watchful of so long as alarms were set and we didn't spend too much time in Mementos.

"For the time being, we should wait and see what comes our way," Yusuke insisted. All of us nodded our heads in agreement since we could take the time now to at least relax for a moment and re-focus ourselves before taking on the next Ruler; though we had to do some hunting for such a thing before actually acting on such a thing, thank goodness for our training in Mementos.

"And it'll prolly take some time findin' a target as big as Madarame," Ryūji admitted. That was true, Madarame was such a high profile target that there were probably rather few people that would be more effective at inspiring people to fight back; honestly I couldn't even think of who to choose for our next target.

"We'll be entrusting that to you again Ryūji," Morgana commented. It had been Ryūji who found the post for Madarame and the Phan-site to begin with so it made sense to leave the looking for a target up to him, besides he'd be able to keep an eye on other requests that came up which might be good for us to use as training in the meantime.

"Anyway, we should just continue on as normal students while we look for our next challenge, okay?" Ann added on. That was the best thing for us to do for now, continuing on as ordinary people who had nothing unusual to hide, it was the only way to throw off any nosy individuals and Niijima-senpai from looking at us too closely

"Alright. Guess it's just more prep 'til then," Ryūji agreed. He looked a little down at the idea of having such a break between now and whenever our next target would show up, but it was for the best; we needed the break in order to focus on our everyday lives and the people in them, otherwise someone might get suspicious of what we were always doing.

"Makes sense to me," Ren stated. At least our leader was on board with the whole wait and see plan – not that we had much of an alternative – we had come up with. "Just be careful not to draw any undue attention to yourselves and stay safe," Ren added on. That mention of undue attention immediately brought our uninvited observer to the forefront of my mind.

"And our stalker?" I asked. We needed to deal with her following us around as she was, we wouldn't be able to go to Mementos at all if Niijima-senpai kept following us since that would risk her seeing us disappear; we'd at least confirmed that only those with a strong enough Will of Rebellion or physically touching us could enter Mementos, but that didn't mean they couldn't see us heading to the other side if they actually paid attention.

"Disperse, do whatever you want and we'll Chat later," Ren insisted. We all agreed with those words and proceeded to separate from each other, I headed along the path that would take me to the surface as I tried to think about what to do for the rest of the day; suddenly a call of my name came and I stopped, turning around I saw Ann running up to me with an slight bounce in her step as she caught up to me.

"Hey Natsu-chan, I got this flyer the other day and was wondering if you wanted to check it out today," Ann explained. She held the flyer towards me and I took a hold of the piece of paper; but before I could look at it, my phone suddenly went off. I reached for it with Ann proceeding to make a similar motion, I opened the Chat quickly as I was concerned that something had happened to one of the boys.

Yusuke: You have my gratitude.

Ryūji: What're you so polite for all of a sudden?

Yusuke: I truly am thankful to you for making me come to my senses.

Ren: You're exaggerating.

Natsumi: I'm just glad you're safe.

Yusuke: I most certainly am not exaggerating. I must express my gratitude earnestly.

Ryūji: You're one of us now, man. We'll be counting on you, mkay?

Yusuke: Of course.

Ann: And if anything comes up, we won't hesitate to lend a hand.

Yusuke: Thank you.

Yusuke: Well then, see you.

Shaking my head at Yusuke's unusual manners, I tucked my phone away and proceeded to look at the flyer with a bit of intrigue which heightened when I saw it was for a cooking class here in Tokyo. There was writing on it that detailed the different types of recipes that were available for people to take part in; I was curious as to how Ann got a hold of this flyer, but it didn't seem too important at the moment, not when Ann seemed to be bouncing in place with excitement.

"I just thought that we could go together, it talks about working in pairs to make something," Ann pointed out. She tapped the section which was running down the corner and in a bit of an awkward position for reading. "What do you think about going to it?" Ann asked. She seemed a little nervous as she waited for an answer to come from me, which caused my lips to tick up slightly at her actions.

"Of course we'll go Ann, it seems quite interesting. Plus, I could do with learning some better ways to cook," I agreed. Ann smiled, big and bright at my response and as she quickly looped her arm through my and quickly began to guide me towards the lesson's location as we chatted about everything not related to being the Phantoms.

Those topics mainly consisted of school, Shiho, music from me and fashion from Ann. When we reached the cooking class, we were actually allowed to choose what to cook for our first lesson and Ann begged for chocolate crepes.

It turned into a rather fun experience despite the ingredients getting on our clothes on occasion.