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.
Right, I'm going to be slowing down my updating speed, if only because trying to keep up this pace of writing and posting is actually really difficult for me. I'll be reducing it to once a week on Sundays, sorry about this everyone but it's better for my state of mind this way.
To needmorecaffeine, thanks for your review, as for Ren's reaction… you'll find out
I would appreciate any responses that you have, please enjoy.
Chapter 27: - Searching for a Target
It was such a relief to now have a path forward now that Kamoshida had been defeated, true we only had a vague idea about what to do but that was better than having no direction at all. I was also rather happy about being able to keep working alongside the others of the Phantoms, now the only thing we had to do was locate someone who had a Palace and remove their distortion. But for the time being, it was best to focus upon school lessons in order to avoid anyone becoming suspicious of me.
"Like you heard last week, gym class is cancelled today, Instead, I'm supposed to give you some guidance," Kawakami-sensei stated. Her voice was drained of all energy and it really caused me to worry about her. "The gist is, don't go around talking about the incident. That's all. The police are still investigating Kamoshida-san, so I can't say anything myself," Kawakami-sensei advised. That likely wasn't going to happen, people would still go yammering on about it; suddenly Kawakami-sensei wrapped her arms around herself and looked at the ground, a somewhat haunted look appearing in her eyes. "As a teacher though, I'm ashamed for not having noticed that a student was suffering like that. I'm not defending him, but as a colleague, he just seemed like… well, a normal person. Honestly, it still doesn't feel real. I guess people can have multiple sides to them," Kawakami-sensei morosely admitted.
"The teachers have it rough, huh?" Morgana questioned. He was quite right as it seemed that the teachers who'd been completely blindsided by Kamoshida's true disposition would be floundering about; also, it seemed that Kawakami-sensei was genuinely upset about Suzui's suicide attempt, almost as if it was dragging up painful memories that she wanted to avoid thinking about.
"Oh yeah, I just remembered something I learned in psychology. They say that humans have several different personalities hidden in their subconscious," Kawakami-sensei admitted. My eyes drifted over to Ren who was looking at our homeroom teacher with interest, Ren was the perfect example of such a fact given his capacity to wield multiple Personas. But the same could be said of all of us, though it might be less different personalities and more that there were different facets of the individual. "Oh, to be clear, I'm not talking about multiple personality disorder. These different personalities can be a different gender or a different age from you. I mean, if you think about how gods and monsters in myths were first based on the human image. If you actually saw one of those personalities with your own eyes, it might look like a monster," Kawakami-sensei revealed. I allowed my lips to curl up slight at the fact that she'd just described a Persona. "Hm, you all seem more alert than usual? Did I finally talk about something that interests you?" Kawakami-sensei asked. A bright smile came onto her smile and it changed her whole face, making her look more lively. "Well, I'm just saying what I've heard. It feels like I just now understood what I learned long ago," Kawakami-sensei admitted.
The lesson continued fairly unchanged after that, notetaking and small bits of meaningless chatter filled the air at occasional points as I tried to listen to Kawakami-sensei's words. Soon enough the bell rang signalling break, I packed my stuff away as the others drifted out the room, I motioned for Ann and Ren to go on ahead while I pulled out a bento box. I stood up and walked over to the front desk and set the box on the table, causing Kawakami-sensei to look up at me with confused eyes.
"You still look tired Kawakami-sensei, this has food good for tackling that. Please eat it," I requested. With my piece said, I shoulder my bag and turned around, finding that Ren and Ann had elected to wait instead of going on ahead; I walked over to them as a soft sound reached my ears, but I didn't look back and instead followed the other two out the room.
Outside of the classroom, we found that Ryūji was stood there with a big grin on his face, we proceeded to gather around the blonde boy as Morgana wriggled around so that he could look out from the front of the bag instead of the back. Ryūji had his phone out and from the screen I could see that it was on the Phantom Aficionado Website, I wondered what he could possibly be thinking of by having that site open up.
"It ain't much, but we've been gettin' more postings on the Phantom Aficionado Website… 'I wanna make my friend apologise for no returning the stuff I lent him'. Ugh, deal with that yourself!" Ryūji exclaimed. I wanted to lecture him for discussing this so openly when I warned him yesterday not to; suddenly Ann drew our attention to two girls that had emerged from our class.
"You know that Phantom Thieves rumour about stealing Kamoshida's heart? I wonder if it's true," The long haired student questioned. The shorter haired one dismissed it as made up quite swiftly before questioning if the long haired girl was serious. "But look what happened to Kamoshida," The long haired student argued. This was dismissed as a guilty conscience over Suzui, who was again labelled as 'that girl'… some people were really rude. "Yeah, you might be right. I guess there's no way they really exist," The long haired girl agreed.
"More importantly, it seriously sucks that our school is gonna be known for stuff like this!" The short haired student whined. That was more important than someone paying for his crimes?! I seriously can't understand the way some people think sometimes; the long haired girl moaned about entrance exams before they proceeded to walk away from us.
"That's prolly a normal reaction for now, but… they'll see soon enough!" Ryūji declared. He had slipped his phone away, apparently done with scrolling through the website. "If we can take care of two or three fam-," Ryūji began to declare. However, realising what he was going to say, I quickly latched my hand out and clamped it over his mouth in order to silent his stream of words as my lips thinned into annoyance.
"What. Did. I. Say," I growled out. A raised eyebrow arced slightly in annoyance at him. "We aren't to talk about our social activities in a public place," I reminded. Grabbing his arm instead of his mouth, and resisting the urge to grab his ear like he was a petulant child who needed to learn manners, I dragged him up to the roof with others following after me. "Right, now that we're someone a lot more private than the school's blooming corridor, we can talk," I suggested.
"About those big shots… we don't have any leads yet, right? Plus, there's that rumour about you two threatening Kamoshida too," Ann pointed out. It was certainly going to be difficult to do anything that might even look possibly suspicious given those infernal rumours; we had to be extra careful if we wanted to avoid getting into trouble with anyone who was looking into the incident whether nosy students, Nakamura who ran the newspaper club – consisting solely of herself – or the police officers.
"Looks like you'll have to live a normal, honest school life for the time being," Morgana suggested. We certainly needed to do that, especially with our mid-term exams coming up in a few days which we'd need to prioritise. "Still, make sure you stay prepared just in case anything come up, alright," Morgana insisted. That was another thing that we needed to and that was exactly why we had to keep up with our training.
"In which case, me and Morgana will take you to a special training area tomorrow. It's that place you want to investigate Morgana, so we'll be able to help you out as well," I decided. Even without a target we'd be able to enter Mementos pretty easily, Morgana perked up and his tail flicked happily through the air at my words. "However, since we're doing this, we're going to need funding. I know the Shadows drop money, but we'll need a better stream of income than that," I suggested.
"Well, how about part-time jobs," Ann suggested. That was a pretty good suggestion to make. "We just put aside a portion of our money and the money we get from Shadows and give it to Ren to gather all together, that way when we need more medicine or better guns, then our fearless leader can just pop out and get it," Ann explained.
"Good idea, but should we all get jobs, I can just do it," Ren suggested. This boy did not need to go that far, we were all a part of this team so we should all get involved with providing the funds to it; Ryūji proceeded to hook his arm around Ren's shoulders and pulled him in close with an unimpressed look upon his face as, meanwhile Ren looked at the boy with widened grey eyes full of surprise at this action.
"Not a chance man, we're all in this together, so we all gotta pull our weight," Ryūji insisted. I nodded my head in agreement as Ann let out a cheerful agreement, causing Ren to allow a small smile to come onto his face. "Right, we'll all get jobs, 'cept for Ann since she's already a model, and I'll keep an eye out for info on any big shots that might be comin' around," Ryūji decided.
"And I'll try to dig up some dirt online!" Ann happily declared. I'm sure there were a bunch of rumours spinning around about just about everyone famous online, but Ann's modelling connections might give her a better angle in that side of the famous business' darker side; I wasn't entirely sure where I could look especially since I no longer lived with my uncle and hanging around him more would send the absolute wrong message.
"We went and formed the Phantoms group, but we can't even find a target," Ryuji lamented. He slumped down as if completely dejected about this fact, but we'd simply have to deal with it. "I guess somethings just don't go the way we want 'em to," Ryūji admitted.
*Persona 5 Royal*
Sat in Ushimaru-sensei's class, I felt a vibration come into my pocket. Mentally groaning about Ryūji's horrible timing, I pulled it out and proceeded to open it while trying to split my attention between this and the lesson to avoid that infernal torpedo chalk. I'd have to insist that the blonde boy not to pester us during this class, any other class was fine, but I wanted to avoid that damn chalk.
Ryūji: The police are really here… I saw 'em at the entrance.
Ann: I saw them too! They were talking to the teachers!
Natsumi: Yes, alright, they were here.
Natsumi: Please stop freaking out about it you two.
Natsumi: Also, Ryūji, we are in USHIMARU'S class! Please stop texting!
Ryūji: We'll be fine Natsumi.
Ryūji: Anyway, that change of heart thing's seriously amazing, huh!?
Ann: I hope they don't find out we're responsible…
Ryūji: I'm pretty sure we'll be fine. There's no proof it was us.
Ren: It would be best not to worry. Worrying will just make us stand out.
Ann: You sound so sure of yourself…
Ann: But I mean, haven't rumours been going around about how you guys threatened Kamoshida?
Ryūji: This world's Kamoshida shouldn't know anything about what actually happened to him though.
Natsumi: Yes, he won't know. We all need to stay calm.
Natsumi: Panicking really won't help.
Ann: I guess that's true.
Ryūji: Man, I really can't wait to keep living this double life!
Ren: Then focus on your studies. And let us focus on ours'.
"Hey Amamiya!" Ushimaru-sensei yelled. Ah crumbs, here we go again, the teacher proceeded to throw some chalk at Ren, forcing the boy to practically throw himself into the wall beside him in order to dodge it; it smacked into the wall harmlessly and our disgruntled teacher proceeded to turn his attention back to the lesson. I let out a breath of relief and slipped the phone away as I refocused on the lesson to avoid being used as a target.
"Hey," Mishima's voice came. The lesson had now ended and I was packing away while Ren had stood to his feet and closed his phone down. "Have you seen the Phantom Aficionado Website?" Mishima asked. Well, this was going to be an interesting conversation and I wondered if my suspicion about him being responsible for the website would turn out to be true.
"I've heard of it," Ren confirmed. He seemed to be concerned about why Mishima was asking about it as he proceeded to slip his phone away into a pocket; I kept quiet while continuing to pack my bag and remained vigilant over this conversation. A quick glance over to my right and saw Ann and Ryūji were hovering nearby and they looked ready to charge in if things not messy.
"I'm the one who started it," Mishima admitted. Well, I hadn't expected him to come out and say it and it seemed neither had Ren from the surprise upon his face, suddenly Mishima got in close to Ren. "Um… you guys are the Phantom Thieves, aren't you?" Mishima suddenly asked. It took all of my self control not to react when he asked that, because it was so unexpected that he had somehow figured out the truth about Ren and so quickly as well; had we'd been too sloppy already or was Mishima more observant than any of us had realised.
"Please give me some space Mishima-san," Ren requested. The boy pulled back, looking slightly uncertain at those words. "Also, I don't know what you're talking about," Ren claimed. It was clear that he was trying to divert the boy but if the gleam in Mishima's eyes was anything to go by then he wasn't going to be distracted so easily.
"Hmm… if things really are as I think, I should keep it a secret," Mishima stated. At least we wouldn't have to worry about him potentially revealing things like that. "Kamoshida used me and I did some horrible things to you guys. This isn't much of a way for me to apologise for it. But, if there's anything I can do to help, just let me know!" Mishima explained. Nice as the website was, we shouldn't be letting Mishima getting involved with our actions as his Will of Rebellion wasn't all that strong so manifesting a Persona was out of the question for him.
"That's great, but this is a misunderstanding," Ren insisted. Mishima didn't seem concerned by the dismissal that Ren had handed him; I suppose that was at least one good thing about taking away Kamoshida's oppression, Mishima seemed to have become a little bit more confident within himself. I just wish he wouldn't have got involved in this whole mess so unexpectedly.
"It's not just Kamoshida… there are tons of evil adults out there. But I'm sure the Phantom Thieves will do something… they can't let this end after just one target. That's why I wanted to make a forum where people could post their problems. There are probably a lot of people who have high hopes for the Phantom Thieves' next move. So, I've also implemented an anonymous poll on the site," Mishima insisted. He then pulled out his phone and showed the website to Ren which I managed to catch home a glimpse. "Do you believe in the Phantom Thieves or not? I wanna work on this forum so eventually it'll be packed with tons of supportive posts. I'd really like to help out in the Phantom Thieves' acts of justice! Can I, please?" Mishima insisted.
"Um… well… I… do what you want… it's up to you," Ren answered. He seemed to be floundering, not that I really blame him since Mishima had sounded extremely enthusiastic about helping us, although I think there was a way for him to do more than just running a website where people vented their frustrations. Even if they were legitimate and could help us stop people who were untouchable or unreasonable, couldn't there be another way? A way Mishima could help more.
"Yeah, I will," Mishima agreed. At that moment, I sensed another strong yet still growing thing being formed, between Ren and Mishima, just what were these sensations that kept tickling at me? Strangely enough the resonance of this bond felt similar to the resonance that the Succubus had given off after becoming a Persona. "See you," Mishima spoke. He then proceeded to run off from us, I stood up as Ryūji and Ann walked over to join us.
"We heard all that," Ryūji admitted. Mishima had certainly been loud enough, thankfully most people ignored him and even if they had been looking, I could only hope that Ren's startled expression would put them off asking too many questions or getting too suspicious. "Geez… it was a little awkward tryin' to figure out when to walk over here," Ryūji admitted. A dejected expression settling over his face.
"So that forum is Mishima-kun's, just like you suspected Natsu-chan," Ann commented. I shrugged my shoulders with a small smile on my face, Mishima was the most obvious candidate from his computer capabilities and his suffering at the hands of Kamoshida. Although the fact that he had figured out who we were was rather unnerving to say the least, well more accurately who Ren was since he hadn't really been speaking to me even though he kept saying 'we' during that conversation.
"Has he figured out our identities?" Morgana worriedly asked. The cat stuck his head out from the area where he'd been hiding away, Ann reassured him by claiming Mishima was 'playing it cool' and it did seem as if the boy wasn't intending to give us away. Although when Ryūji suggested having a chat with him, the expression on his face was one that looked a little too similar to his angry face and I didn't like it.
"In which case, I'll do the chatting Ryūji," I insisted. The blonde boy looked at me in surprise, probably because my tone and expression were tense, more tense than he'd seen them outside of discussions regarding Kamoshida. "Mishima has been hurt enough and you aren't exactly subtle either. I can handle this better than you," I insisted. Mishima had always been quiet and shy, so bullies enjoyed picking on him, but I wasn't about to let that continue how that he was free of Kamoshida.
"I will say though… a forum where people can post problems may prove unexpectedly useful," Morgana spoke up. I saw the confused looked the others shot him, but I understood what Morgana was getting at; if people posted their problems on this site then we might be able to find our next target. Which Ryūji proceeded to remind us we had to look for.
"And we need to stay sharp until we manage to find one. Once we do, we'll need to head into an- Ow!" Ann began to speak. However, I pinched the skin of her arm in order to silence her and she looked at me before blinking in shock. "Right, we'll need to head out on one of our social activities so we should prep our equipment-," Ann began to amend. Thankfully she understood, but she got cut off again when Ryūji loudly cursed. "What's with you?" Ann asked. Then again, we were all giving him weird looks since he seemed so freaked out by something.
"Don't we have an exam comin' up!?" Ryūji exclaimed. Ah, so he had only just remembered about that and Ann immediately accused him of going to be struggling this time around with a dour expression upon her face. "It's not like you're any better! All you're good at is… English!" Ryūji accused. Not… exactly inaccurate unfortunately.
"I'd rather that than be bad at every subject!" Ann retorted. I sighed heavily, slightly annoyed by the silly squabbling that they were getting into, which Morgana was not helping by claiming Ryūji's Japanese was also questionable. But Ryūji immediately claimed it was questionable whether Morgana was a human or not and Morgana immediately challenged him to a fight.
"Enough you two!" Ren ordered. An annoyed look pressed upon his face as he looked between the blonde and the cat. "If an exam is coming up, then why don't we all study together, we might be able to cover each other's weaker subjects," Ren suggested. That seemed like a good idea so we each agreed to it and we proceeded to leave the school.
*Persona 5 Royal*
After leaving the school, me along with Ren and Ryūji went to the underground walkway in Shibuya that had articles for part-time jobs. Ren couldn't wander around at nights, so he took the convenience store job at 777, while I took the job at Rafflesia flower shop and Ryūji signed up to the beef bowl job. Ryūji still seemed to be hobbling about, so it seemed like a good idea for me to make a brief detour to a certain sketchy doctor.
I stepped into the waiting area of the office that Takemi-sensei ran and the punk rock doctor looked up at me with a raised eyebrow as I walked over to her. She folded shut a manila folder and set it off to the side as I came to a stop in front of her desk; if we were going to keep going through the Palaces then something had to be done about Ryūji's leg to ensure it didn't have a persistent effect upon him and therefore a ripple effect upon our work… especially if we had to run again.
"You said that it might be better for someone Ryūji knows to help him with his leg. I was wondering if you'd be willing to teach me how to do that?" I asked. Takemi-sensei leaned back in her chair and looked at me with an intrigued gleam within her brown eyes, but I couldn't exactly tell what she was thinking at the moment.
"Why me? You could go to any other general practitioner and yet you choose me, the one with a sketchy reputation. So, why?" Takemi-sensei asked. She was right about that, an ordinary general practitioner would be better in terms of not having to deal with that politician sound doctor again, but there was a lot more pros I had in mind that outweighed the fact that I'd have to be dealing with that single con.
"Because, you already know the issue and it seems like you'd be willing not to press sensitive questions about Ryūji's history. Besides, while you might have a sketchy reputation around you, that doesn't mean you're a bad person… probably more misunderstood. That, I can relate to," I admitted. Takemi-sensei blinked her eyes in surprise, but she stood up and grabbed a clipboard before pointing me towards the exam room. I went in and proceeded to sit down on the stool in there.
"Right, I know you and that curly haired friend of yours aren't really sick and that the two of you were listening in on my conversation the other day, so what are you up to?" Takemi-sensei accused. Well, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that she figured out that we'd been eavesdropping on the conversation since we hadn't exactly been subtle – maybe I should look into that – but her tension wasn't something I'd anticipated.
"I already told you; I want to help my friend Ryūji. His leg is still causing him pain and the two of us along with our friends are going to be doing more faster movements in a short span of time, he's also doing individual running exercises. That means his leg will be enduring more stress than it's had to for a year and he hasn't had any treatment for it in that time. I want to avoid him continually getting hurt," I stated. Takemi-sensei stared right at me in silence, as if she was attempting to understand something on my face, I simply stared back until a small huffing laugh escaped from Takemi's lips.
"Alright kid, I'll start gathering some information. Come back in a few days and we'll talk then," Takemi-sensei insisted. We quickly exchange contact information since we'd need it in order to get talking to each other, I then departed from the clinic and proceeded to leave the rest of the area to head back towards my home.
'I hope that Takemi-sensei can get enough information for me to start helping Ryūji.' I thought. Of course, that was based on if she could access medical texts since that man seemed pretty determined to prevent her from getting any work done; if he was just being rude because he didn't like her then I wouldn't suggest targeting him, but if it turned out that he was a legitimately dangerous individual then it might be advisable to stop him.
"Oh, excuse me!" A female voice called. Jerked out of my musings, I looked up and saw a young woman running up to me; long copper coloured hair tied into two ponytails with pale skin, but the sunglasses prevented me from seeing her eyes. She was wearing pink pearl earrings with a white turtleneck over which was a short-sleeved blue shirt with a navy skirt and black leggings and black furred boots. "I was wondering if you know where Café LeBlanc is, my senpai told me it's an amazing place for coffee but I'm completely turned around," The woman explained.
"Sure. It's down this road, in one of the side alleys, near the bathhouse and laundromat," I explained. The woman must not have been from around here despite her accent sounding somewhat similar to other voices I heard along with my own voice; a bright smile came onto her face at my words which seemed a bit extreme for such a simple thing but maybe she was just one of those people who happened to be cheerful in almost any situation… Hikaru was like that.
"Thank you so much," The woman cheered. She turned to take off but stopped and then pivoted back around, she planted her feet so that they were shoulder width apart and extended both of her arms so that her hands face me as she waved at me. "Bye-bye!" The woman chimed. She then turned and started to jog into the street while I stood blinking in surprise at her bizarre stance even though she seemed comfortable doing it.
'There was something familiar about that stance though.' I thought. Like something I had seen a while back was nipping at me mind.