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 15: - The Alluring Dancer
"How exactly did you guys end up getting expelled… well, almost expelled?" I asked. It was the afternoon by the time myself and Takamaki had returned to the school and by the time I had managed to meet up with Amamiya and Sakamoto, alongside Morgana, they told me that Kamoshida was having them expelled as soon as he could and Mishima was being carted along.
"We stopped Mishima after he ran off when you and Takamaki when with the medics. He told us 'bout Kamoshida's abuse and how he called Suzui out yesterday. It was real bad and I went to confront him. Ren and Mishima followed, that's how we know Suzui's in a coma and I almost hit 'im but Ren stopped me. Kamoshida still decided to expel us though," Sakamoto explained. I wasn't angry but maybe slightly annoyed, yet I could hardly fan it to flames of fury, Kamoshida deserved to be punched. "We… er… also found out… Kamoshida forced Mishima… to leak Ren-Ren's record," Sakamoto admitted. One more reason to hate that vile teacher.
"I understand. It was reckless, but after what we saw, I can't blame you. I almost wish Amamiya-san hadn't stopped you even if it might have made him react worse," I admitted. Sakamoto's eyes widened whilst Amamiya shifted his stance, likely because I wasn't a violent person; looking around quickly I motioned for the other two to come closer. "Before Suzui-san lost consciousness, she managed to tell me and Takamaki-san… Kamoshida… sexually assaulted her," I whispered.
"THE HELL!" Sakamoto exclaimed. He lurched away from me as if I was diseased, his eyes blown wide with horrified disgust, and even ended up tripping over his own two feet; Amamiya stumbled back, his right hand flying out to support himself off the wall, his eyes wide yet completely unseeing as he was lost within his memories. "We can't waste time!" Sakamoto declared. He pulled himself up as the horror turned to rage. "We gotta hurry and go to that world and beat the shit outta that asshole!" Sakamoto decided.
"We're not beating him up. We're simply stealing his distorted desires," Morgana pointed out. But this meant they were decided, they now had the resolve to face down the possibility of Kamoshida dying. "Can I assume that you've made up your minds about this, about how he might suffer a mental shutdown?" Morgana asked. Mental shutdown, just like what was being reported on the news, could it be that is what was happening, but then how? Only Morgana and I should be able access the Metaverse without the Meta-Nav… or at least I hope it was only us.
"Yes," Amamiya stated. His voice taking on a steely tone as his eyes hardened into ice pits. "I was committed before Chiba-san revealed that fact, this just gives me extra motivation to ensure his distorted desires are dragged out and he confesses his sins. Suzui-san would have died, if he dies in the process… I can't say I care much about that possibility," Amamiya stated. Sakamoto gave a similar response.
"Alright then. We go then," I agreed. I looked at Amamiya for this part. "Do we head in today?" I asked. Amamiya was the leader of this group, so it would be up to him when we head inside of the Palace to attempt this Change of Heart; Amamiya looked at me but before he could answer, Sakamoto motioned towards me. "Yes Sakamoto-san?" I asked.
"I just wanted to know, is gettin' rid of a Palace hard? You've done it before, right?" Sakamoto asked. However, his brown eyes were not focused on me, instead they were focused on Morgana who was stood on a nearby table; I felt a flutter of nerves move within my stomach as I clasped my hands behind me as I nudged the ground with my shoe covered toe.
"When did I ever say that?" Morgana asked. Sakamoto was confused for a moment before proceeding to freak out about this fact and accused Morgana of pretending to know; I took in a deep breath at those words and decided it might be best to tell them the truth, at least about how I knew what I knew regarding Palaces.
"Yes. I have," I admitted. All three proceeded to look at me with wide eyes as I tighten my hands' grip. "I've dissipated a Palace before, stealing the Treasure works and the person survived it. Please don't ask… it's a little personal for me," I admitted. I had added on that last bit when I saw Sakamoto opening his mouth, I didn't feel like speaking about Ouvrard and what she put me through, especially not when we had more important things to focus on.
"Is it true you're getting expelled?" Takamaki's voice softly asked. We all turned to look in her direction and my heart hurt when I saw the saddened look on her face, she had her right arm wrapped across her front and the left raised to her face. "Everyone's talking about it," Takamaki admitted. Sakamoto didn't look happy about that bit of information.
"That asshole's at it again!" Sakamoto growled. He lifted his gaze to pierce into Takamaki after having dropped it to the ground when she first spoke. "So, you came all this way to tell us that?" Sakamoto asked. Takamaki lifted her slightly inclined head as the sad look on her face faded away to give rise to a determined one; behind her, the blue flames that had be naught but a candle in the wind blazed slightly stronger.
"If you're going to deal with Kamoshida… let me in on it too," Ann requested. My eyes widened at her words and the others were equally surprised by her words. "I can't just sit back and do nothing after what happened to Shiho!" Takamaki declared. I couldn't blame her for that feeling, the tear stain on my jacket and her blaming Kamoshida made me certain of how she felt.
"This has nothing to do with you… don't butt your head into this," Sakamoto insisted. His reasoning made sense given that we couldn't drag Takamaki into the Palace without a Persona, even if we had more people to protect her, it was too dangerous; but his words on the other hand were complete nonsense since it had everything to do Takamaki.
"But it does! Shiho's my-!" Takamaki began to argue. She stamped her foot down and swung out her right arm as if to brush passed Sakamoto's objection; but Sakamoto ordered her not to get in our way, Takamaki's mouth clacked shut as she looked at the ground, frustration on her face, she then turned and ran off, my lips pulled into a frown as I gripped my shoulder when Takamaki had leaned on me earlier.
"That was harsh," Morgana spoke up. I nodded my head in agreement, Sakamoto didn't have to be so cruel when he said those words, his motives were kind as Sakamoto stated we couldn't take her with us. "I hope she doesn't do anything too crazy. Women can be much bolder than men at times," Morgana admitted. Takamaki had always appeared level headed so I doubt it would be bad but it was still a worrying possibility.
"We just gotta hurry up and deal with Kamoshida," Sakamoto insisted. We certainly needed to act before Kamoshida went through with his threat to expel Amamiya, Mishima and Sakamoto or worse, caused another student to attempt suicide… or worse, actually succeed. I turned my gaze to Amamiya who nodded his head in agreement and looked at us.
"And on that, we should head into the Palace," Amamiya stated. A round of agreement came from us and with Morgana in the bag we headed into the alleyway that would allow us to enter the Palace, we stood facing the school as Morgana leapt out of the bag and onto some metal nearby; I felt a little nervous about doing this but also slightly excited as well.
"The moment we cross over, we'll treat each other like phantom thieves, so I hope you're ready," Morgana stated. I was still baffled by this whole phantom thief thing that Morgana kept mentioning and by how Sakamoto asked about it, he was as confused as me. "Those who covertly sneak in and stylishly steal Treasure, that is what we become!" Morgana declared. His eyes were closed and had this been his form in the Metaverse, I suspect a confident smile would be pulled across his face.
"Phantom Thieves, huh? Not bad," Amamiya stated. A quick glance showed a small smile curling across his face; Sakamoto proceeded to claim that it sounded cool, he mentioned about the way to get inside of the Palace was by stating its' owner, real world location and the appearance it would have in the Metaverse… exactly how my eyes worked.
"How the hell's all this work? Someone make it?" Sakamoto asked. Without the ability to show them the Velvet Room, it would be difficult to explain about Igor and how he had likely made this app, so I kept my mouth shut; Sakamoto had pulled out his phone as he said that, Amamiya suddenly said 'of course' which caused me to look at him with a raised eyebrow. "That's kinda creepy, but eh, seems useful enough. We'll show that effin' Kamoshida!" Sakamoto decided.
"Let's go!" Morgana declared. Amamiya pulled out his phone and I watched as he used the Meta-Nav, feeling the strange sensation that came from entering the Metaverse wash over me.
*Persona 5 Royal*
"Alright! Time to bust on through!" Sakamoto declared. He seemed especially determined to get on with this mission – or heist I suppose since we were thieves, why did that make me feel excited? – the Palace rose like an ugly blemish across the breadth of my vision, however a sudden scream startled us from any more conversation and I twisted around.
"What is this!?" Takamaki's panicked voice exclaimed. I looked and saw the blonde haired girl moving towards us with wide eyes as she openly gaped at the sight; Sakamoto exclaimed her surname and she looked at us "That voice… Sakamoto!? And… are you Amamiya-kun!? And Chiba-san!?" Takamaki questioned. Her blue eyes darted between all of us whilst we simply stared at her in shock… had the Meta-Nav somehow dragged her in with us?
"Wh-Why-Why are you here!?" Sakamoto exclaimed. Stumbling over his words from shock, but at least he could speak since I was still trying to recover that ability and it seemed from their silence Amamiya and Morgana weren't capable of speech either; Takamaki raised her hands up to grip her head with a panicked expression twisting across her face.
"How should I know!?" Takamaki responded. She then lifted her head and looked at us with terror and annoyance battling in her eyes. "What's going on? Hey, where are we!? Isn't this the school!?" Takamaki demanded. Morgana blinked owlishly at Takamaki for several moments before shaking his head and looked over at Sakamoto as Takamaki proceeded to turn around looking at the bizarre surroundings she had suddenly ended up in.
"I see. Perhaps she was dragged in because of that app thing. If multiple people can enter with the person who uses it, it stands to reason it'll pull in anyone nearby," Morgana suggested. That was a serious downside, sure it allowed for multiple people to enter but if people with no chance to Awaken a Persona came in then they'd be in serious danger.
"Wait, so this is related to Kamoshida!?" Takamaki exclaimed. Instead of answering, Sakamoto insisted that Takamaki leave. "No!" Takamaki declared. Her face was filled with a furious determination as she stared at us with intensity; sadly, she was being rather loud and that could spell danger for us if she didn't quiet down soon enough.
"The Shadows are going to find us if you make a scene," Morgana whisper warned. However, that didn't help matters as Takamaki immediately freaked out over Morgana talking and proceeded to declare him a monster cat. "Monster?" Morgana repeated. His voice sounded so saddened hearing her say that, in fact he didn't even refute the cat part like normal.
"You better explain what's going on! I won't leave until you do!" Takamaki declared. Exchanging looks, we realised that we didn't have a choice, Sakamoto stated the obvious that we force her and so the four of us walked over and moved the struggling Takamaki – but given that Sakamoto had accidentally touched her in a not so appropriate place, I don't entirely blame her – back to the entrance of the Palace and pushed her out of the Palace's vicinity which should also force her out of the Palace due to its' proximity to where we entered.
"Right. Next time, we check our surroundings before using that app, we don't need to drag innocents into this world," I insisted. Amamiya voiced his agreement as Sakamoto nodded his head, Morgana grumbled about us not being careful with the app by checking it beforehand. "Morgana, this app is a mystery to all of us. Plus, it's not exactly the kind of tool we can use anywhere in Tokyo," I pointed out. Even though the Metaverse existed parallel to our world, it couldn't be access from everywhere, only Palaces and Mementos could let you slip in.
"Ah geez, Takamaki found out right when we were startin' off… we gotta deal with this fast!" Sakamoto exclaimed. With Takamaki having seen this place, there was the likelihood that she might go around saying things about it which would get us into a serious pickle since she had figured out who we were, any news of the Metaverse getting out would be too scary to consider the implications of what could happen to us.
"That girl's name is Takamaki Ann, right?" Morgana asked. We all confirmed this for him "Ann-dono," Morgana muttered. I still heard it and I proceeded to raise an eyebrow at him referring to Takamaki with such a respectful title while using her first name; but he had seemed rather… flustered by the cognition of her that had appeared the last time we had been here, so maybe there was something more going on that I wouldn't understand.
"I think we need to focus on our objective here," I insisted. I rapped the end of my naginata shaft on the cobble ground which ended up causing Morgana to flail and jump a little, causing me to raise an eyebrow slightly at his flustered reaction. "It's fine Morgana, just calm down and breath… now then, you're the phantom thief expert, what should we do?" I questioned. Morgana settled down and took a look into the building as I sensed the Shadows drawing nearer to us.
"The Shadows have noticed us. You better brace yourselves, got it?" Morgana warned. He then fully turned to face Amamiya. "We're counting on you, Joker!" Morgana declared. He jumped up with a little wave of his arms, but I was baffled by the name that he had used to refer to Amamiya and from the confusion on Amamiya's face and uncertainty on Sakamoto's expression, they felt the same way.
"Joker? That a nickname?" Sakamoto asked. Morgana explained – after chastising Sakamoto for referring to it in a lame manner – that it was a codename and we should be using those instead of our real names when within the Palace, likely to avoid the Déjà vu effect. "So, uh, why's he Joker?" Sakamoto asked. He reached up to rub at his blonde hair as he stared down at Morgana.
"Because he's our trump card when it comes to fighting strength," Morgana explained. Amamiya reached his hand up to ruffle through his messy black hair as he seemed to be thinking about it, before allowing a smirk to rest on his lips as he looked at Morgana; he really was a different person when in the Metaverse, or perhaps he felt comfortable in letting his true self out more in this place.
"Not bad," Amamiya stated. Morgana smiled in an almost preening manner as Sakamoto complimented the name, Morgana turned his attention to trying to name Sakamoto but decided on the rather insulting Thug – I know I said he looked like one, but that was just mean – Sakamoto disagreed and declared that he would decide it himself. "Please keep it down Sakamoto-san. The Shadows could find us," Amamiya pleaded.
"Hm… when it come to me, it's gotta be this mask," Sakamoto decided. A grin coming onto his face. "Honestly, I actually kinda like it. What if we named me after this?" Sakamoto suggested. He seemed rather keen on his Rebel's Armour after having seemed unnerved by it the first time he'd be clad within it; plus, the idea to use his mask as the basis certainly played into his whole vibe in this world.
"Fine… why not 'Skull' then?" Morgana suggested. He seemed a little upset, but then again Sakamoto had challenged him to a fight after the Thug suggestion, Sakamoto proceeded to agree rather enthusiastically and Morgana proceeded to look at me. "What about Natsumi? What do you want to be called?" Morgana asked. He had succeeded and then struck out so maybe he was a little hesitant to try again.
"How about Tomoe? You know since you look like a warrior. Especially with those metal plates," Amamiya suggested. It wasn't a bad idea, but as I looked down at myself, I thought about my outfit which was pretty far from being anything like anyone in Japan would wear, let alone an Onna-musha, frowning slightly I shook my head to reject the idea.
"It's not bad, but looking at myself, I feel like it just doesn't fit," I stated. I continued to look at myself and I felt a few ideas, mostly French thanks for that Ouvrard, but none of them I liked so I continued to think until an idea hit me. "How about Amazon? After the tribe of warrior women from Greek Mythology," I suggested. Amazons: bold, strong, vibrant warriors who lived by their own rules as opposed to the rules of the other city states of Greece… just the kind of person I wanted to become.
"That sounds so cool," Sakamoto commented. I smiled as Amamiya gave an approving nod before our gaze fell to the only one left. "What do we do about this one's codename?" Sakamoto asked. Amamiya seemed uncertain himself and without referencing his cat like appearance, even I was stumped. "How 'bout Mona?" Sakamoto suggested. Swinging his leg lightly as he spoke.
"Well, if Joker thinks it's easier to call me that, I'll go with it," Morgana stated. I couldn't tell if he was happy or annoyed by it. "Alright. From here on out, we're Joker, Amazon, Skull, and Mona. We need to be absolutely thorough about using those code names from now on!" Morgana announced. Nodding our heads in understanding we proceeded to move into the Palace's entryway as I retrieved my bow and quiver.
"Alright! Time to steal this Treasure thing! Let's make a dash for it!" Skull declared. With Joker in the lead, we rushed towards the vent and with a little jump Joker grabbed a hold of the vent's edge before pulling and curling up so his feet entered first and then releasing the edging; Sakamoto was relieved none of the Shadows had found it yet, he clambered up as Mona leapt in with agile motions, I pulled myself up and carefully move in to avoid treading on my skirt.
We dropped down into the room and found that the door was open, that was a little unsettling since it had been closed the last time I was here, but the Shadows could have opened it in the gap between them. Joker began to head out the door when he suddenly dropped back, worrying about what was happening, I summoned my naginata and creeped over to peer around causing my eyes to widen as I looked into the entry hall.
"Hey, look! Ain't that-" Skull began to speak. However, he was suddenly muffled and I looked back to see Mona – bearing an exasperated expression – covering his mouth since he was being loud as usual; I looked back to the entry hall at the mass gathering of Shadows that stood before Shadow Kamoshida who was basically beefing up his security against us and wanted us dead if we were found. "Hey, Mona. Can't we just beat the crap outta him and call it a day?" Skull suggested. Very tempting, no matter how you look at it, beating Kamoshida to a pulp was probably tempting to all of us, there was one issue.
"Look at all those soldiers, idiot!" Mona chastised. He looked close to clawing his eyes out. "It'd be suicide. And I'm sure you don't want a repeat of last time. Besides, don't you want him to confess his sins? There's no point beating him up. We need to steal his materialised desires, the Treasure," Mona pointed out. Skull complied, although sounded reluctant, then proceeded to ask where the Treasure was located.
"Beyond some broken stairs, I think. I haven't explored that region, but I have everywhere else and it's not there. The stairs are in that direction," I commented. As I did, I pointed through the other door that occupied the hallway; we carefully started to creep backwards with me keeping a backward glance over my shoulder in order to prevent us from being ambushed by the knights.
We reached the door and Joker opened it, only to immediately dive backwards and behind the edge of the frame with the rest of us following, a knight had been right behind the door and from the clanking, it had turned around to look at us. That wasn't good as we were essentially pincered, the Shadows over in the entry hall were still detained by Shadow Kamoshida's blustering, but at any moment they could come our way.
"Dammit, there's a guard over here too… whaddya wanna do, should we kick its' ass?" Skull asked. He was trying to keep his voice low in order to not be silenced again but I could hear from the tremor in his tone that it was a struggle to keep it at the quiet level we needed to remain undetected by the Shadows.
"Hold on," Mona called. I glanced over at the cat creature who had a sparkle within his eyes. "This might be a good opportunity to teach you something," Mona decided. I wondered what he could be talking about teaching us, we'd basically filled them in on just about everything already. "Alright, Joker! Are you ready to take it down?" Mona asked.
"Of course!" Joker confidently declared. He darted out and swung his dagger into the mask of the surprised guard, prying it free – note to self, teach Amamiya how to use that weapon soon, this was getting too painful to keep watching – the Shadow split apart into a single Pixie, odd I would have thought there'd be more given the rising Security Level of this Palace.
"Before we perform an All Out Attack, we move into something called a Hold Up. I'll teach you their practical use now. Instead of straight up defeating enemies, there's something else we can do. Shadows are beings born from people's hearts, so naturally, they can talk too. In other words, you can communicate with them. Get it? If you talk to them when they're cornered, they might offer money or items since they don't want to die. In fact, talking has a better chance of scoring something great, as opposed to just offing them. Well then, let's do the first step: Knock all the enemies down and do a Hold Up!" Mona informed.
That was so laughably easy with the Shadow that had appeared before us that there was nothing for most of us to do; Joker unleashed a single Eiha Spell and the winged girl dropped like a ton of rocks. On Mona's swift instructions, me and him moved to either side of the Pixie and pointed our ranged weapons at her, Skull still lacking one – we need to remedy that soon – hovered at Joker's shoulder but his pipe was at the ready, Joker calmly pointed his gun at the Pixie, imprisoning her within a triangle of death if she tried to escape.
"Seriously!? You guys are the intruders that King Kamoshida was talking about!?" Pixie snapped. She seemed to be rather annoyed by us attacking her, but I suppose any normal person would be and Shadows reflected people after all. "It can't get worse than this… what're you going to do with me?!" Pixie demanded.
"I want an item," Joker calmly informed. His calm voice and steady gaze would have given anyone the impression that he had done this before, but his posture made it clear this wasn't the case; his grip on the gun was tight as his form was rigid, perhaps unsettled by the fact that he was threatening someone even if it wasn't exactly someone made of flesh of blood.
"Huh? So, you'll let me live if I just give you something?" Pixie asked. Mona clarified we would settle for money as well, then ordered her to cough it up. "But, this happened so suddenly… I actually don't have anything on me. I-I usually do though, you know!?" Pixie admitted. She sounded panicked when saying those words, likely because we were going to dissipate her since she had nothing.
"W-Wait, what? Oh… this isn't how I was planning this to go," Mona exclaimed. A briefly panicked look appeared on his face before he settled himself and tightened his grip on the slingshot he'd unexpectedly loosened in his shock. "Uhhh, if that's the case… I guess it's time for you to go to hell," Mona stated. I almost sighed in exasperation as that was liable to make the Pixie panic and cry for help.
"W-Wait!" Pixie explained. Oh boy, here we go! I tightened my grip on my bow and its' string, ready to loose the arrow the moment this Shadow tried to call for help, Mona claimed we were in a hurry. "No, wait up! Can't we work something out? Don't kill me, please! Won't you let me go?" Pixie protested. Joker seemed very conflicted by this as he gritted his teeth and his gun slightly trembled.
"You chose the wrong enemy, but if you abandon Kamoshida now, I'll let you live," Joker stated. Pixie looked happy at his words and then I felt something a strange kind of tingling sensation originating from Pixie who fluttered her wings and rose back to her feet, the last chains of the Palace seem to almost shatter as Pixie looked at Joker whilst Mona seemed to be freaking out since Pixie had been talking about something happening to her.
"Oh yeah, I remember now! I don't belong to King Kamoshida. I'm an existence that drifts about in the sea of humanity's souls… my real name is 'Pixie'!" Pixie declared. I felt sorry for the Shadows that they were forced to forget themselves thanks to the Palace, but somehow Pixie had regained her identity. "I'm Pixie! From now on, I'll live on inside your heart!" Pixie declared. And then the strangest thing, yes even stranger than meeting Morgana for the first time, happened.
Pixie was surrounded in blue light which then transformed into Joker's mask and flew at him, slamming into were his mask was resting on his face in a flash of light. Joker stumbled back a step as he reached up his left hand to press against the object, Mona was appropriately freaking out as Skull stared slack jawed, meanwhile I had pinched myself more than enough time to be convinced this wasn't some kind of crazy dream I was having.
"Wh-What the hell was that about? The enemy got sucked into Joker's mask!" Skull exclaimed. I don't think me or Mona considered berating him for being loud again, we were more focused on the insane impossibility that we'd just witnessed; Mona was too baffled by the sight to come up with any kind of idea all the while I stared at Joker who was tracing his fingers over the mask with his eyes closed.
"Intruders!? Halt!" A knight declared. I jumped to face it and immediately started to berate myself for losing track of our surroundings and allowing us to be ambushed like this; the Shadow proceeded to morph into a duo of Bicorns as Mona jumped back with his hackles practically jumping off his skin as Skull stumbled back with his hand going for his mask, but Joker beat him to it first.
"Pixie!" Joker declared. The Shadow we'd just defeated manifest from Joker's mask as if she belonged there which caused me to blink in confusion. "Zio!" Joker commanded. The lightning strike hit one of the Shadows, dropping it to its' knees, Joker repeated the move on the second one; meanwhile Mona was trying to process that Joker had transformed a Shadow into a Persona.
'A Persona is a Shadow tamed… I suppose that means Shadows could become Personas if convinced to ally with us. But you're only allowed one Persona per person, so how…,' I thought. As I did, we moved in for an All Out Attack, easily destroying the two Bicorns as I remembered something, something Igor had told me about my purpose as a member of the Triad. 'You! You're the Wild Card I'm meant to protect!' I realised. I looked at Joker with wide eyes as I recalled the unique nature of the Wild Card, capable of holding a seemingly infinite number of Personas within their heart.
"H-Hey, Mona! Amazon! What was that about!? What did Joker do?" Skull questioned. He seemed completely unable to comprehend what had happened, but without Igor's tutelage even I would have been baffled by this sudden occurrence; as it was, Mona was unable to fully understand the implications of what he'd witnessed even as he tried to puzzle it out before admitting he'd never seen it before.
"Is this… a good thing?" Joker questioned. He seemed concerned about the other two being so confused by the event, his hand stopped tracing his mask and proceeded to move down to hang at his side, he always seemed to worry about so much and I worried if he had a good family or not, or if his concern stemmed from the unfair branding as a criminal.
"Good? Joker, this is fantastic!" I insisted. Joker lifted his head to look at me as a smile spread across my face, without Igor I'd worried if I would ever find the Wild Card and yet he had found me instead. "You can use multiple Personas, giving you a unique variety of attacks, which can be used to strike an enemy's weakness if we don't have it in our Personas. Plus, if we're up against a Shadow that can attack your weakness, you can cover it simply by switching to another Persona. It makes you completely unpredictable unless someone has knowledge of all your Personas and their respective capabilities," I explained. Joker seemed bashful at my words as he rubbed the back of his head. "Mona really hit the jackpot by giving you the codename of Joker, a true wild card," I stated.
"Just as Amazon said, this ability will be a huge advantage in battles. Alright, try to do that even more if the opportunity arises! You better help out too, Skull!" Mona insisted. He was grinning widely as he spoke, showcasing exactly how happy he was with this expected development; Skull cheerfully agreed to hold up every single Shadow that we came across. "Hehe, I like you even more now! I really do have something special after all!" Mona declared. Continuing to look at Joker, I smiled slightly whilst raising my left hand to my chest in a tight fist.
'I found him, Igor, Lavenza. I don't know if you two are around to continue cultivating his power, but I'll do my job and protect him. I'll protect Amamiya as much as I can.' I vowed. With that unexpected but happy development, we turned to the closed door and proceeded through it into a hallway containing a barred corridor shooting off from it and another door at the end; with no way to lower the bars and them being impossible to climb we walked by them.
Having learned from previous spooks of the danger behind closed doors, Joker cautious opened this one and slipped through, the room was cramped with pillars and long tables with benches attached, but there was a slight issue of three guards being present. We took to hiding behind the pillars and then individually ambushing each Shadow and beating them, we managed to conduct a Hold Up and Joker seized a hold of a Bicorn mask.
"Joker, look a treasure chest. Let's open it!" Mona insisted. Shrugging his shoulders Joker walked over to the chest and proceeded to open it, he reached it and pulled out what looked to be a dagger made of silver. "Joker! Your weapon!" Mona exclaimed. Joker lifted up the dagger he held and all we could do was watch as the silver dagger flew into the dagger Joker held, causing the object to transmute into the silver dagger he'd just been holding.
"Our Rebel's Weapon do that," I spoke up. Joker turned to look at me as I rested my naginata against my shoulder. "When we encounter a weapon akin to our own, the weapon is absorbed into our Weapon and changed to take on its' appearance and attributes if it's stronger than what we currently wield. That's already happened to mine. It'll also happen to our Armour," I explained. Happily patting the reddish wood of my weapon's handle.
"Nice," Joker commented. With that we proceeded to move to the door out of the room, which guided us back into a more castle like hallway with a wide and tall corridor that had neat brickwork making up the floor; best of all though was that there was a Safe Room right across from us, Skull commented on its' appearance but had forgotten its' name completely.
"A Safe Room," Me and Mona simultaneously deadpanned. It was pretty annoying that he had forgotten the only place we could actually rest in this place whenever we needed to take a quick breather; Mona reminded Skull that we could strategize inside of it, so we proceeded to duck inside the room which had a chequered floor with a table and chairs at the centre with some more wider couches dotted about and gaudy red fabric that hung down.
"Aren't there even more Shadows here than before?" Skull pointed out. That was an unfortunate truth as the larger number of Shadows were a noticeable presence; with the increase in Security Level, even if a few ambushes had dropped it slightly, and our prior run amok visits then the raised presence of Shadows was expected but incredibly irritating, nonetheless. "Just gettin' this far's been a real pain in my ass!" Skull stated.
"How? We've hardly expended Soul Power. We've fought a Pixie, Bicorns and Jack-o-Lanterns, all of which we managed to down with a few strikes," I pointed out. Joker now had Curse, Electricity, Wind and Physical abilities to use to attack along with some Healing Spells for support; we were actually doing alright since we had run into enemies we'd fought before so the two most inexperienced members weren't thrown off.
"Yeah, but… isn't it kind of ineffective. It's great that Joker can help us with the slamming of weakness, but what if we end up against somethin' without weaknesses we can exploit, or against foes with multiple weakness but none that overlap," Skull pointed out. His expression was a bit uncomfortable as he scuffed at the stones with his boots.
"It'd be great if we could pass on our follow up move from striking a weakness to someone else, kind of like how a relay passes a baton," Joker admitted. That made sense, I'd run into more Shadows than these two, so I was aware of the different varieties of danger we'd soon be facing down the further we moved into the Palace.
"It's all because you guys provoked Kamoshida, you know," Mona pointed out. He was flat on the floor when we stepped inside but had recovered and pushed himself up. "Still… he seems to be awfully on guard," Mona admitted. Skull turned the conversation towards how we were meant to steal the Treasure. "Don't be hasty. First, we need to secure an infiltration route," Mona stated. Skull was confused by this.
"We need to reach the Safe Room nearest the Treasure's location. With that, we'll be able to use the Metaverse's cognition based reality to create a pathway between the entrance and the Safe Room, but that can only be done to Safe Rooms we know," I explained. However, Skull stared at me as if I'd suddenly started to speak in French… I'm certain I didn't since only he was looking at me like that. "We need to find the Safe Room nearest the Treasure and then we can teleport to it from the entrance," I simplified.
"It's basically our pathway to the Treasure's location. But honestly, I think we'll need a little more manpower in order to accomplish this," Mona admitted. His expression was a little down as he stared at the ground with an uncertain expression on his face, no surprise there as we could do with other methods of attack in order to consistently strike weakness but with Fire, Ice, Bless, Psy and Nuke as the only attributes we didn't naturally possess, we'd be majorly reliant on running into Shadows with multiple weakness in order to let Joker convince them to join us in the hopes of finding those elemental attacks.
"Hey, you say you don't have your memories and all, but somehow you still know about that kinda stuff?" Skull questioned. He then lifted his head from gazing at Mona to look between me and Joker. "Do you think this thing's really got amnesia?" Skull asked. Mona seemed too earnest, he seemed to believe in just about everything he said, I honestly don't think he was faking the amnesia bit, maybe the distortion warped his memories of a personal nature, but his experience remained.
"I believe in Mona," Joker affirmed. I was glad that our leader believed in the cat creature and even Mona seemed happy about being trusted by Joker; Joker simply looked down at the cat creature with a smile upon his face, Sakamoto pointed out that Mona could still end up being nothing more than a stray cat which Mona rejected but he sounded so desperate for that to not be true, just how much was he certain he was human? And how much was it mere wishful thinking?
"I also trust Mona, he's not done anything to harm us or lead us astray," I pointed out. Skull shrugged his shoulders at this and I returned my attention to the issue at hand. "We need more manpower, more medicine and a ranged weapon for Skull," I pointed out. We were in a sticky situation at the moment, but we couldn't just hover around and do nothing with Joker, Skull and Mishima under threat of expulsion. "Besides that, there's something you two ne-," I began to speak. Fully prepared to bring up their lack of capability with their weapons, however voices suddenly cut me off.
We listened in on the discussion and heard two guards talking about a princess who they had suspected was an intruder but now they were taking this princess back to Kamoshida. Skull was concerned but my eyes widened as I connected the dots in my head and dropped down beside Mona with panic on my face.
"Mona, you're the stealthiest of us all! Can you go out there and check who the princess is? I think I know and that worries me, but I want to be sure," I requested. Mona agreed and quickly darted out the door as I stood up and pressed my finger against my mouth as I looked at the door, nervous about what might be happening.
"Stuff like the castle and that navigation app are mysterious… but Morgana's got 'em both beat," Skull stated. Me and Joker were quick to point out he should be using Mona's codename. "Crap! Sorry!" Skull exclaimed. I waved it off as did Joker, we were liable to slip up on occasion right now since this was still new to us, it was best to make sure we kept each other in check. "What was I again? Oh yeah! Skull!" Skull commented. I took a deep breath so to not give into the desire to twist Skull's ear at that comment.
"This is bad! It's likely what you feared Amazon!" Mona exclaimed. He darted back into the Safe Room and I gritted my teeth, summoning my naginata to my side, I darted out of the room. "It's your friend! Ann-dono! She's been taken by the Shadows!" Mona yelled. The sound of footsteps indicated that the other two were now chasing after me as I ran back to the barred hallway, a hallway I had only been down once and never wanted to go down again but that was likely where Takamaki had been taken by Kamoshida's Shadow as I heard Takamaki's fearful voice crying out.
"How?! We sent her home earlier!" Skull exclaimed. There was one way and one way only which Mona pointed out, the possibility that somehow the Meta-Nav had been downloaded onto her phone. "Oh no, don't tell me it got put on hers just like mine and Amazon's!? Dammit! We let her out for her own safety and she just came back in by herself!" Skull exclaimed. I figured I might as well tell them about what I knew since Takamaki had landed herself in some serious hot water now.
"Takamaki-san has the potential for a Persona, technically everyone does but it's tied to their Will of Rebellion. If they don't want to fight, it never emerges as a Persona. Takamaki-san was like that until today! Suzui-san almost dying sparked a fight in her heart! If the app is drawn to people with powerful a Will of Rebellion, it makes sense it would stick to Takamaki-san," I informed.
"Could we trigger her Awakening like we did with Skull?" Joker asked. I gave the vague sign of maybe. "If it's linked to Suzui-san, then if we can convince Takamaki-san to fight for her sake, then it might just work. She could fight back against the man who caused her and her friend so much pain. There's no more fitting justice than that," Joker decided. We had arrived at the hallway which had been barred but was now open, so I threw out my arms to stop everyone from advancing. "Amazon?" Joker questioned.
"Up ahead is the place where you'll see the cognitions of how Kamoshida sees the female members of the volleyball team. Just… brace yourselves okay," I warned. With that, we headed up to the door at the end of the hallway and we heard Takamaki apologising for touching the armour with Skull stating that Takamaki didn't understand what was going on. "Neither did you when you first came here, none of us did," I commented.
"Let's hurry! We have to save her!" Mona insisted. Joker rushed up and pushed open the door, allowing us to step inside the room which was hued in a disgusting pink atmosphere with red curtains draping down to the ground; strewn about on the ground were cognitions wearing the faces of the female volleyball members, all dressed in revealing clothing and positioned in a manner that was likely supposed to be provocative.
"This is effed up? Is that what he thinks of the girls on the volleyball team!?" Skull demanded. I grimly nodded my head in agreement, this was the horrific truth of how Kamoshida really saw the girls who were on that team; it wasn't just Ann that disgusting filth saw as an object of desire, but likely every female student he'd come across, thankfully a sudden jump from Mona which had all four legs stuck straight out to the ground despite standing on only two of them distracted my gaze.
"Hey?! That's-!" Mona exclaimed. He silenced himself with a small cry, I looked over and saw the Real Takamaki chained to a golden cross, surrounded by two knights and one knight captain, behind the Shadows were Shadow Kamoshida and that infernal cognition of Takamaki that I'd destroyed… oh yeah, I forgot cognitions respawn after a little while if you destroy them; we rushed over as Skull called out to Takamaki.
"Just when I was about to start enjoying myself," Shadow Kamoshida grumbled. Takamaki's expression slightly brightened by the sight of our arrival, but she was rightly confused by what was going on; however, Skull didn't answer Takamaki about what was going on, instead deciding to focus on spitting an insult towards Shadow Kamoshida. "How many times are you going to come back?" Shadow Kamoshida questioned. His expression was deeply annoyed by our return.
"As many times as we please! Now let Takamaki go!" I ordered. I dearly wanted to call out Phantom and start tearing these Shadows apart, but with Takamaki cuffed to the cross there was no way I could guarantee that she wouldn't be harmed by any flying shards of rock or gravity wells; Shadow Kamoshida sneered before turning to look at Takamaki who continued to struggle against her bonds.
"I bet you're just like those thieves. You came because you're pissed at me, huh?" Shadow Kamoshida commented. I curled my left hand into a tight fist at his self-satisfied expression. "But, ah… I forget that chick's name, but it's your fault she jumped, you know," Shadow Kamoshida stated. My jaw proceeded to fall open in shock at the audacity of this man, Skull looked ready to rip Shadow Kamoshida apart, so I grabbed a hold of him to stop that as Joker went as still in a statue, but the tightly clenched fists were the only indication of his rage as Takamaki stopped moving to gape at Shadow Kamoshida with a horrified expression on her face. "You were so reluctant to throw yourself onto me that I had her take your place," Shadow Kamoshida. I was glad we'd all known this beforehand, otherwise I'm not sure what would have happened to the Shadow.
"You bastard!" Takamaki cried. Her blue eyes shone with a furious light yet the blurring of tears in her eyes showed her feelings, however the knight captain moved in closer with his sword pointed threatening at her; Takamaki proceeded to gasp in fear as her misting eyes focused on the weapon pointing at her; Skull cried out and tried to surge forward.
"Take one more step and I'll kill her on the spot!" Shadow Kamoshida declared. I swiftly tightened my grip on Skull's jacket and pulled him back slightly so that the Shadow wouldn't follow through with his threat as I also tightened my grip on my naginata, I looked at Joker and Mona both of whom had looked incredibly fearful. "Just sit back and enjoy the dismantlement show," Shadow Kamoshida stated.
"No! Don't!" Takamaki cried. Her voice was high pitched and fearful as the two ordinary knights drew their swords to cross underneath Takamaki's chin; Shadow Kamoshida's disgusting face took on a disturbing perverted look as he wondered about starting with Takamaki's clothing, even worse that infuriating cognition giggled like a pathetic airhead and claimed Shadow Kamoshida was a perv, but she didn't seem disturbed by this comment.
"H-Hey, what are we gonna do?!" Skull questioned. He seemed completely worried about what to do but with Takamaki imprisoned, we couldn't recklessly move without endangering her; even Mona saw no way forward as he sadly shook his head despite the painful expression upon his face. "Takamaki!" Skull cried out. He strained against my grip, but I refused to let go and he didn't put enough force to try and pull himself free.
"Is this… my punishment for what happened to Shiho?" Takamaki softly questioned. Her expression was saddened as she looked down at the ground, Kamoshida seemed pleased by this saddened image that Takamaki was portraying. "Shiho… I'm so sorry…," Takamaki apologised. The tears were just starting to spill over her eyes and I couldn't stop myself anymore.
"You can't give up!" I called. I pushed Skull back behind me as I stepped forward with a fierce expression on my face. "Didn't you say it was his fault!? That you wanted to get back at him for what he had done to Suzui-san!" I challenged. Takamaki looked at me whilst blinking her bright eyes at me. "He's right there! You can avenge Suzui-san right now! But you have to rebel! Fight back! If not for your sake! Then for Suzui-san!" I insisted.
"She's right! You can't give up! Not now! Or are you just going to listen? As he keeps spouting that nonsense! You won't even try and pay him back for Suzui-san! You called her your best friend, all you had at this rotten school!" Joker dared. Takamaki blinked her eyes a few times, but instead of the tears falling, she took in a deep breath and seemed to compose herself now, her tears faded away as her face took on an expression of determination.
"You're right! Letting this piece of shit toy with me… what was I thinking!?" Takamaki declared. She started to struggle once more, pulling at her bindings as much as she was able to and wriggling her wrists to try and find a way out of the cuffs; Shadow Kamoshida started to say something, but I had no interest in his garbage words and neither did Takamaki. "Shut up!" Takamaki ordered. Her head whipped over to look at Shadow Kamoshida, her expression turned into a vicious snarl and yet somehow it didn't impair her beauty at all. "I've had enough of this! You've pissed me off, you son of a bitch!" Takamaki declared.
Right at those words, Takamaki lurched forward with her mouth opening into a silent scream as her eyes turned Shadow gold. Smiling at the sight, I knew what was coming, Takamaki began to writhe as best she could whilst being cuffed harshly to the cross, her head swaying from side to side as sharp choked cries of pain escaped from her mouth, but eventually her head proceeded to hang forward as she stopped moving.
"I hear you, Carmen," Takamaki agreed. Her head snapped up as a blue fire blazing across her face before fading to reveal a red cat shaped mask. "You're right. No more holding back!" Takamaki declared. Quickly pulling out my bow, I fired off four arrows, one for each cuff and shattering them without wounding Takamaki's wrists or ankles; I called out what she needed to do and Takamaki's right hand flew up to grip the left side of her mask.
With one decisive pull, Takamaki tore the mask from her face as blood spewed out, the blue fire swallowed her form before proceeded to flow backwards and into her Persona. Takamaki's rebel armour was, rather form fitting and revealing at the same time, it consisted of a skin-tight red latex catsuit with a cleavage cut-out and zippers down the front of the suit and her sides, pink gloves, dark red thigh high boots and a clip-on tail on the back of her catsuit.
Her Persona Carmen was a very tall woman with fuchsia coloured skin, she wore a long flowing red ballgown with black gloves and black-red boots. The dress was mostly light red with alternating black and gold trim along its many layers, with it having a black corset with red heart designs and it showed a generous amount of cleavage. Her gloves and boots shared the same colour and heart designs as the corset with several roses growing out of the base of the corset.
Carmen was a brunette with spiralling pigtails, reflecting Takamaki's own hair style. Her face was covered with a black cat like mask with floral designs along the top and sides and her shoulder pads matched the design of the mask. She also had a cigar in her mouth and a black choker around her neck, there were two figures that seem to be men in tuxedoes and red bow-ties, but their heads were metallic pink boxes, with glowing heart designs for eyes and speakers for mouths. These figures were physically attached to Carmen via a pair of thorny vines that connect to the roses.
With fury blazing in her eyes and now free of chains, Takamaki charged at the nearest Shadow who numbly watched the towering Persona loom over them. With a rather well executed kick, Takamaki separated knight from sword and chased after the weapon by running and jumping for it. She grabbed a hold of the weapon and proceeded to bring it cleaving through the cognition that bore her face. Just as with my attack, the cognition dissipated in black smoke but the sword shattered in the process rendering it useless, Shadow Kamoshida fearfully stumbled away as the knight captain moved forward.
"You know what? I'm not some cheap girl you can toy with… you scumbag," Takamaki snarled. She tossed the broken blade aside and then her hands became wreathed in blue fire, allowing a whip to manifest in her hands instead, her true Rebel's Weapon; I stepped forward to stand beside Takamaki, tapping a finger on my weapon's shaft as the boys also stepped up. "You stole everything from Shiho… you destroyed her… now it's your turn! I will rob you of everything!" Takamaki vowed.
"How dare you! Enough of your insolence!" The knight captain ordered. He and the two knights proceeded to melt into the black and red goo, but instead of immediately emerging as whatever Shadows were contained, the goo spiralled together into one big puddle before shooting up right into a Shadow I'd never seen before; it was a massive purple skinned humanoid with corded grey-black horns protruding from its' head, a triangle tipped tail danced behind it as red eyes stared down at us, yellow gloves and boots covered its' limbs and a white bearded covered its' chin, however other that the limbs it was completely naked and sat on what looked like a toilet… Shadows disgust me sometimes.
"No, I've had enough of you! No one's going to stop me now! Let's go, Carmen!" Takamaki responded. I was worried about what Takamaki might do, this thing was giving off an aura of power I'd not seen since Tam Lin and Setanta but it was also much stronger than either of them. Moving forward I grabbed a hold of the girl before she could do anything too risky. "Chiba-san, what are you doing?" Takamaki asked. Her blue eyes moved to look at me as I moved forward to stand in front of her.
"Give me a moment, I need to see this thing, if I don't then we could be in a lot of danger," I insisted. I focused my eyes on the creature that had appeared before us, relaxing my mental walls as much as possible to allow all the information to flow into my mind and I learned the Shadow was actually called a Belphegor and it was much more powerful than I anticipated. "This thing is strong! Stronger than we are! Even worse is that it resistant to Electricity and it'll send Curse flying back at us while healing itself with Gravity!" I warned. Skull would be unable to use magic and Arsène could only use his Skill as a result, I was stuck with only Phantom's Earth and Support magic.
"Is it weak to anything?" Joker questioned. There was a slightly nervous note within his voice but I could hardly blame him; with two Elements useless, another basically useless and the fact that Belphegor had set its' giant toilet right in front of the only way out, we weren't going to be able to flee from it which would be the smartest move and I had been out of Goho-Ms for a while so that meant no way to escape.
"Fire! But only Fire!" I answered. It just had to be one of the Elements we didn't possess that was it weakness, sometime I wondered if my luck was absolutely terrible or if there was someone trying to mess with me; to be facing down a powerful Shadow that held only one weakness and was basically immune to most of our own Elements, it certainly felt like someone was trying to mess with us.
"How dare you deny King Kamoshida's love, you selfish lass!? Pay for this insolence with your life!" Belphegor ordered. Love… that was so disgusting a though to be heard spoken that I felt my stomach turn violently; Kamoshida didn't know the first thing about what love was, not with the way he treated Suzui and Takamaki, nor with the way he envisioned the female volleyball students acting towards him.
"That dirtbag just sees women as sexual outlets! Don't make me laugh with that 'love' bullshit!" Takamaki snapped. She had every right to say those words after all she had endured. "C'mon, Carmen! Let's give 'em hell!" Takamaki encouraged. Immediately, fire sprung to life around Carmen who grinned with an almost charming sadistic edge to it as she hurled the fire at Belphegor, the attack hit the Shadow and it dropped to the ground while I gaped in shock at what had just happened.
"Get it!" Joker ordered. I motioned for Takamaki to follow us as we darted in, attacking the Shadow with all of our strength, I noticed that Takamaki didn't know how to use the whip and settled for harshly stomping on the Shadow or clubbing it with her handle. "Fall back!" Joker commanded. He grabbed Takamaki's arm and pulled her away as the demonic entity writhed back up onto its' floating toilet.
It gathered power to itself and from its' aura I knew what was coming, I grabbed Takamaki and pulled her out of the way. Joker jumped backwards while Mona and Skull also dodged out of the way as shards of ice proceeded to skewer the area where we'd all been standing. I had only pulled Takamaki away due to worrying her affinity might be akin to mine, Takamaki let a soft thanks escape her.
Focusing back on the fight, I tore my mask off releasing Phantom. The ghostly entity manifested and quickly used Makakaja to increase Takamaki's attack, with her the only one able to hit the weakness, giving her more power was the best idea. Skull charged in and tried to hit Belphegor, but the infernal creature dodged as Skull near enough fell over himself from overswinging. Thankfully he didn't and managed to scramble out of the way as Mona unleashed a Garu spell.
The spiralling winds didn't even seem to tickle it, but we didn't have time to dwell on it. Joker brought out Bicorn and proceeded to have it charge at the Belphegor, impacting the demon in the chest. We had to be cautious of Joker's health if we wanted to avoid him collapsing from over exhausting his Life Energy. Joker glanced over at Takamaki who didn't seem to know what to do after all the others had attacked.
"Takamaki! Use your fire!" Joker insisted. Takamaki looked rather unsure, but I gave her a firm squeeze to her hand, Takamaki swallowed thickly before pulling off her mask and allowing Carmen to bombard the Belphegor with fire once more; just like before the demon was unable to dodge them and was knocked down from the force of the blow and it striking its' weak point.
"Don't you know even a beautiful rose has thorns!" Ann declared. She was the first one to initiate the All-Out Attack as she lashed out with her whip – it was as badly handled as Joker and Skull's weapons – to strike first. The rest of us darted in and used our own weapons to unleash a cacophony of attacks to weaken it. However, the Shadow pulled itself back up once more and Joker had us all fall back to avoid being attacked immediately.
The Belphegor rose up and I sensed a concentration of energy surround the Belphegor and focus within it. Whatever that energy, it didn't hurt us, but it might prove to be dangerous to us if we allowed Belphegor to utilise it. I quickly had Phantom manifest and unleash a Tera Spell at Belphegor which knocked it around a bit. But I couldn't really tell how much damage we were doing, the only advantage we had was Takamaki's fire.
"Dammit! We're getting nowhere!" Skull cursed. His lips were curled into a snarl as he said that. Joker utilised another physical attack to slam Belphegor as Mona healed up his body before the Life Energy drain became too much. "Just go down already!" Skull snapped. He then charged forward and managed to land a blow to Belphegor, but it shrugged it off and instead allowed its' red eyes zeroed in on Takamaki.
The girl raised her hand up to her mask, but I felt the concentration of energy flare up as it turned icy. Panic spiked through me as I realised that it was targeting Takamaki, having identified her as the most dangerous threat. Pivoting towards her, I quickly started to run towards Takamaki, even if I did raise her magical defence with Phantom, it wouldn't matter much as she'd be seriously injured and we needed Takamaki in fighting fit condition to win.
"Samakaja!" I declared. Immediately my magical defence rose as I pushed Takamaki out of the way, preventing the ice from striking her but it slammed into me instead. A scream tore from my throat as I felt myself be engulfed in a chilling embrace that had me go flying back, the pain was bad much more than anything I'd ever taken from Lavenza.
My back harshly hit the floor and I'm sure I went skidding backwards, cries of my codename and surname rattled the air as I felt arms loop around me. Yellow danced in my blurry gaze as I stared up at the reddish ceiling of the Palace. Belphegor should have been attacking us, but screeching – like metal on metal – came instead of physical pain although the sound was a torment upon my ears. A sensation of warmth came as I felt two more sets of hands press upon me, although one set felt a little small and oddly shaped, as the icy pain faded.
My vision cleared and I saw both Takamaki and Joker leaning over me with worry fading into relief at the recognition they must have seen in my eyes. I spotted Carmen, Pixie and Zorro above them, meaning that Morgana had to be the other person. The sensation of healing surrounded me on three sides indicating Carmen could heal as well. Looking further back, I saw Skull fending off the Belphegor as best he could.
"Phantom!" I cried. Against the calls of the other, I called out my Persona and had it used its' Earth magic to give Skull a bit of breathing room. The punk turned around and gave me a grin and thumbs up, my body was still shaking as I pushed myself upright, but I wasn't going to let them endanger themselves anymore.
"Amazon! Don't push yourself anymore!" Joker ordered. I felt a warmth appear on my shoulder and saw his red clad hand tightly gripping that area, his face held some worry as I sensed Morgana's paw pressing against me through the fabric on my legs. I really shouldn't be making them worry after I took that attack so foolishly, even if it was the best thing to do since I was closest to Takamaki and we needed her more than anyone else except for Joker.
"Takamaki-san, have you got enough strength for one more Fire Spell?" I asked. Takamaki gave me a firm nod before quickly going through with the attack, I yanked out some medicine and quickly choked it down, feeling my Life Energy flow back into me as my body got to repairing the scuffs I'd taken thanks to that accursed Shadow.
Joker led the others into a charge against the downed entity, I remained still after he gave me a hard look, but I refused to simply wait. Preparing my bow, I drew the string back with my left hand and released the arrow. It sliced through the air and plunged deep into the violet skin, the four stopped and looked back at me in surprise as I prepared another arrow. They turned back to the attack as my arrows peppered the Shadow.
To be frank, the combined assault and one last powerful fire attack from Carmen just before my support spell ran out, reduced the Shadow to empty smoke and allowed my arrows to clatter to the ground. I could feel gasping breaths escaping me and from the looks on the other faces, they felt the same way, exhaustion from over usage of their power had clearly drained all of them, especially Takamaki.
"Oh shit!" Shadow Kamoshida exclaimed. The Shadow released how dangerous this situation was and proceeded to flee, Takamaki called out, but she had expended so much energy that when she tried to move and call after him, all she could really do was slip to her knees, I immediately dropped down beside her and place a hand on her shoulder in order to support the girl.
"Why'd you come here, man!? And more importantly, how!?" Skull questioned. Even though those questions were important, now didn't seem like the best time to be asking them given how exhausted Takamaki currently was; Mona proceeded to chastise Skull for the way that he had spoken to Takamaki, his furious expression softened as he proceeded to look at Takamaki with worry in his blue eyes.
"Are you alright, Ann-dono!?" Mona asked. That address caught Takamaki's attention as she raised her head and proceeded to repeat it back to Mona, before immediately swinging to wonder how Mona was talking and if he happened to be alive, she then also proceeded to wonder where we happened to be. "J-Just calm down. Everything's going to be okay; don't worry," Mona reassured. But it didn't seem to work as Takamaki reached her hand out to press against Mona's rather sizeable head.
"How am I supposed to calm down!?" Takamaki demanded. She then used Mona's head as a prop in order to push herself upright onto her own feet, but she was still hunched over and was barely supporting her upper body by pressing her hands against her knees. "H-Huh?" Takamaki exclaimed. She bolted up right, as she looked down at herself, likely noticing her Rebel's Armour. "Why am I dressed like this!? When did I-!" Takamaki began to panic. Her hands pressing against her red clad form and probably trying to cover herself up, before crossing them over her exposed chest and dropping back to the ground in a ball. "Ugh! What's with this!?" Takamaki exclaimed.
"Breathe Takamaki," I softly encouraged. I reached out a hand again, firmly pressing it against the girl. "We'll explain everything, but not here," I insisted. Quickly looking around, I saw nothing remained in the room before looking back over at Joker. "Giving the situation, I advise a retreat back to the physical world, more Shadows will be coming soon and Takamaki's in no fit state to fight. Plus, that Belphegor exhausted me," I admitted.
"Agreed. We fall back, Amazon can you support Takamaki-san?" Joker asked. I nodded my head and immediately looped one of the blonde's arms around my shoulders before standing up; Skull let out a complaint about being forced to fall back after just starting. "Skull, Mona, cover our backs!" Joker ordered. With that we proceeded to move out of the Palace with Takamaki trying to help me carry her to the escape.