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 18: - Start the Infiltration!

That day, I walked towards school with Amamiya and Morgana as was becoming normal for the two of us. However, this time around the energy between the three of us was filled with a fair amount of tension but given what today was, it was no surprised that we were tense. Once school was done, we'd begin the infiltration to access Kamoshida's Treasure and hopefully give him a personality check… speaking of which, we had the displeasure of running into the arrogant man at the school gates.

"Good morning. C'mon, hurry up and get to class!" Kamoshida insisted. The fake smile firmly plastered over his face, up until he turned to face the two of us as I desperately tried to keep my face neutral and Amamiya went stiff. "Good morning," Kamoshida greeted. His tone had shifted from the false happy one to an arrogant one.

"Good morning," Amamiya greeted. His voice was low, but there was plenty of hidden venom in those words as he fought to keep his eyes from setting into a glare; he then moved forward to go around the man as I swung even wider to stay as far from the scum as possible; Kamoshida claimed Amamiya's 'admirable behaviour' wasn't going to do him any good once he was expelled.

"Amamiya-san, we should get moving before we're late for homeroom," I insisted. Amamiya tersely nodded and follow after me as I let a breath escape from me. "I can't wait to get started," I muttered. A hum of agreement slipped passed Amamiya's lips as we continued our walk until we reached the room we used. Upon entering a soft yawn escaped from someone and I looked over to see Kawakami-sensei stood at the blackboard, her eyes shadowed by what appeared to be exhaustion and the darkening rings around her eyes helped support that.

"Kawakami-sensei, are you alright?" I asked. That only caused my homeroom teacher to jerk upright from her slightly slumped state and she looked at me, but her eyes seemed unfocused until she had blinked several times which focused on me; well, I really don't think Kawakami-sensei was okay given how she had reacted at that point.

"Yes Chiba-san, I'm fine," Kawakami-sensei insisted. Like I was about to believe her after that display, but it was clear she didn't want the matter to be pushed, so I walked away to my seat; the other students filed in with Takamaki giving me and Amamiya encouraging smiles when she saw us and we proceeded to get through homeroom… only for a slight problem to hit when Kawakami-sensei asked to speak to Amamiya and they proceeded to leave the room together.

"Do you think Amamiya-san will be okay?" Takamaki whispered. I glanced over at the blonde before looking back at the door that our teacher and classmate had walked out off, other people were muttering about the event so there was nothing to be concerned about discussing it; I moved my eyes back over to Takamaki and saw Morgana poking his head out, also clearly concerned about what was happening.

"I don't think it's Kamoshida's doing, he's planning to expel Amamiya so won't push the matter until the meeting. But I wouldn't be surprised if this is connected to the expulsion," I admitted. Takamaki frowned slightly at my words, but soon enough both of them returned for the Japanese lesson we had first and Amamiya didn't seem worried or even concerned, more likely he was slightly irritated from the tension along his jawline.

During the lesson a buzzing came from my pocket, so I proceeded to slip my phone out and quickly opened it up in order to look at the notification. A Chat message and I was heavily betting that the person responsible was the punk of our little group; unlocking the object I brought the notification up whilst trying to split my attention between the lesson as I moved my pen into my left hand to continue note taking and avoid being called out.

Ryūji: So, I saw Kamoshida at the school gate this morning.

Natsumi: Snap.

Ryūji: He was just standing there looking at me with this shit-eating grin on his face.

Ren: He probably thinks there's nothing we can do about the expulsion and with Suzui-san's condition, he'll never be exposed.

Ann: Ugh, that's annoying… he's definitely mocking us.

Ryūji: Honestly, seeing that got me even more fired up about this.

Ryūji: We're definitely gonna pull this off.

Natsumi: We have to. For Suzui-san, Mishima-san, everyone in this Chat, and the school.

Ann: Yeah. I'm worried about Shiho, but I want to concentrate on our operation too.

Ann: And I won't let myself get exhausted like last time.

Ren: Chiba-san explained that using our Personas will exhaust us no matter what, which means we'll need to pace ourselves, striking weakness as much as possible.

Natsumi: Which also means getting you as many Personas as possible.

Natsumi: I've already filled Takamaki-san in on the details.

Ryūji: The board meeting's May 2nd, right?

Ryūji: We just gotta take care of him before then.

Ren: My mind is made up. I'm ready for this.

Ryūji: Same goes for me.

Ann: Me too!

Ann: I'll do my best. No going in without me, okay?

Natsumi: No one goes in without the others, we're all in this together.

Ryūji: Agreed. So Ren, you better let us know if you're going into the Palace.

Ren: Obviously. I'm going to need everyone's help for this.

With that, I closed my phone down and proceeded to focus back on the lesson and the rest of the day. The end of the day would kick start everything, all I could do for now was wait.

*Persona 5 Royal*

School ended and so I started to make my way towards the roof in order to meet up with Amamiya, Takamaki and Sakamoto. We decided to head up separately in order to avoid people – Kamoshida – getting suspicious of us and what we might be doing. As I was about to head up the steps, I sensed someone approaching behind me, I turned around and was surprised to see the red haired first year from the train.

"Um… senpai, I was wondering, about that boy I saw you with… do you know the rumours about him?" She asked. I still didn't know this young girl's name, then again I had much more pressing matters to be concerning myself with since our little meeting; apparently she had been exposed to the information about the 'dangerous' transfer student and somehow she'd been able to connect that to Amamiya.

"I'm well aware of the rumours, but they're garbage nonsense. I'd advise you to ignore them and anything else anyone says about Amamiya-san. You've met him, albeit briefly, use that moment to evaluate him. Not the half stated, untruths of people who've never even spoken to him," I insisted. I then turned and proceeded to head up the stairs to where the others would be waiting for me.

I found Amamiya leaning against the metal box calmly with a fancy looking book in his hand which he was carefully leafing through, I spotted that the title was The Great Thief. Takamaki was messing around on her phone sat on a chair nearby with Morgana proudly sat upon the table's surface; all we had to wait for was Sakamoto now.

"I'm here!" Sakamoto's voice exclaimed. The door had swung open and cracked into the bricking of the wall, he scrambled over to sit with the rest of us; he looked like he had rushed up here along with being flustered but he didn't seem to want to speak about it as he proceeded to look at us. "Okay, so what do we do?" Sakamoto asked.

"I hope you all understand that our time limit is May second," Morgana stated. Takamaki surmised what our goal was to steal the Treasure, our first objective for the infiltration would be to determine the location of the Treasure; determine location, materialise the Treasure and then get it out of the Palace, those were the steps we needed to take to succeed.

"But wait, what even is a Treasure? I wanna know that before we do anything," Sakamoto asked. It made sense that they would be curious about the Treasure since they had never experienced it like I had, also from the words he'd said, Morgana likely hadn't either… and yet he seemed to be filled with knowledge that only someone who'd completed a Palace – apart from its' success – would be in possession of.

"A Treasure is the physical form of the Palace Ruler's distorted desires. In other words, it's the core of the Palace. Once we steal it, the Palace will crumble… I think," Morgana stated. That was another example of his oddly comprehensive yet somewhat holey knowledge, he knew some things but was unsure about other things.

"Oh, it'll crumble alright. I had to run for my life to get out of the previous Palace I was in. However, up until we can materialise the Desire, none of us will know what form it'll take," I confirmed. Takamaki turned pale while Sakamoto gaped and Amamiya stared at me with wide eyes; luckily, Takamaki recovered and asked where it could be found. "Good question. But all I can say is, no where I've already been," I answered.

"Natsumi's right. There's no way of knowing that until we go in and find out. But if I had to guess, I'd say he had it locked up somewhere in the depths of the Palace," Morgana confirmed. Sakamoto claimed we had to find the Treasure. "Pretty much. There's just a lot we won't know until we go in. In any case, our objective is to find the Treasure's location somewhere in the Palace. Make sure we go about this with time to spare so we can avoid any unforeseen circumstances. I expect great things from you guys," Morgana insisted.

With that, we proceeded to head out of the school and into the alleyway we had used before to enter the Metaverse.

*Persona 5 Royal*

"But daaamn…," Skull chimed. We'd materialised and I turned to look at the blonde, wondering what he was doing, only to see him staring at Takamaki in her revealing Rebel's Armour; Joker was busy handing Takamaki a gun which was larger than his pistol and looked like it need two hands to support, he also gave Skull a gun which had a long barrel that was curled into two cylinders.

"Hm? What's up?" Takamaki asked. It should have been kind of obvious what was 'up' by how Skull was ogling her, I was partially tempted to smack Skull across the head because he was acting rather rudely towards Takamaki – given everything she'd been through – or at least I thought so, it seemed like Takamaki wasn't even aware of the ogling.

"N-Nothing," Skull claimed. I gave him a side eye in disbelief. "I-I was just thinkin' we should choose a codename for you too," Skull covered. At least he had chosen something reasonably believably, we did need to select a name to give to our new member, although Takamaki was confused. "I'm Skull, Ren's Joker, Natsumi's Amazon and that's Mona," Skull explained.

"Judging by your costume…," Mona mused. He was carefully evaluating the possible names we could use for her, given her appearance perhaps a cat themed name would work, especially given her mask and the false tail she happened to possess, but it would also have to be something she was comfortable with as well.

"I mean, she's got that tail and stuff, so… whadda you think Joker?" Skull asked. I looked at our leader as he also seemed to be contemplating the codename conundrum, his right thumb and forefinger wrapped around his chin as his head was tilted to the side, I was surprised that he was thinking so hard about this, but maybe this one was harder than mine.

"Catgirl," Joker suggested. I swear, had this been a movie or anime then there would be a record scratch in the sound and crickets chirping, I could only stare at him with a flabbergasted expression as the cogs in my brain ground to a halt while trying to process what had just been said by someone who had seemed pretty insightful in previous interactions.

"We are not calling Takamaki-san that," I insisted. It sounded rather ridiculous when compared to the other names, even Mona had a degree of impressive connection to it, one could think of the Mona Lisa which would be a perfect compliment to our phantom thief expert, but Catgirl had a kind of childish vibe to it which wasn't something we wanted to covey.

"Definitely with Natsu- er, I mean Amazon, here guys!" Takamaki agreed. She had seemed horrified by the suggestion but appeared relieved that someone else thought it was a terrible name. "I am so not down with that!" Takamaki protested. Joker scratched the back of his head in embarrassment, perhaps realising how bad the name sounded.

"A cat-themed name would be good though. However, the Shadow Kamoshida has addressed that airhead cognition of you a kitten before," I admitted. Takamaki's face twisted up, I could see that even through the mask, at the knowledge I'd given her. "But maybe you could use that," I suggested. Takamaki seemed confused by my words. "Kamoshida sees you as a kitten, someone weak and incapable of protecting herself. So, what if instead you chose a codename from a predatory cat, a way to prove you can fight back," I explained.

"Yeah, that actually sounds pretty cool, shoving it in his face that I'm not the kind of girl he thinks I am," Takamaki agreed. A small smile appeared on her face and I could tell that she was thinking about the possibility of names to use. "If we're thieves, then how about Panther? That sounds pretty cool, doesn't it?" Takamaki suggested.

"She's a cougar," Mona claimed. He said it in a dreamy tone so I know he meant no offense by those words, but he really shouldn't have been saying such a thing to Takamaki, proven true when she kind of exploded and demanded he not call her that; I really hope the Shadows didn't realise that we were actually here before we had a chance to get inside.

"Welcome to the team Panther," Joker greeted. Panther settled down and gave a solid nod towards Joker. "Now, let's focus on Kamoshida!" Joker declared. At least that weird name suggestion had completely derailed him, I guess there was more than just shy and unsure or confident and level-headed to the raven haired Wildcard.

"It's game time from this point forward. I'll teach you guys the basics of infiltrating a Palace as we go. First step, Amazon, shortcut," Mona insisted. Nodding my head, I walked over to a nearby wall and pressed my hand against its' surface, creating a shortcut was easier done on a wall than thin air due to cognition of how doors were meant to be. "Amazon is creating a shortcut between here and a Safe Room via the Metaverse's cognition," Mona explained. Someone – Skull most likely or Panther – had probably been confused.

"I'll be taking us back to the Safe Room we found before Panther got grabbed by the knights. Once the door manifests, just walk straight through," I insisted. The door came into focus seconds later, so I grabbed the door and pulled it open; however, when I looked back I saw that Joker's back was turned towards us and he seemed to just be staring into nothingness. "Um… Joker! Are you okay?" I called. This caused the other three to turn around and finally clock how weird our leader was acting.

"Something wrong? You were just standing around all of a sudden," Mona wondered. Joker turned around, his eyes looking slightly unfocused as he glanced at us, he seemed kind of confused and perhaps a little sad as well if the sheen in his eyes was anything to go by; but the strangest thing was that I swear I could have sensed the Velvet Room's ancient song for a brief moment but now it was gone and there was no sign of a door at all.

"Why're you spacin' out like that? It's kinda hard to tell what you're thinkin' sometimes," Skull commented. A soft apology came from Joker as I felt the door trying to seal itself from the sharp tug backwards on my hand, I let out a small sound and this drew the others to my predicament of trying to keep the door open; Joker sprinted forward and through the opening before the other three quickly tailed him, I followed after and pulled the door close behind us.

"Next time, no hanging around when a shortcut is open, those things apparently do not like being forced open for long," I insisted. I could feel the strain pulsing up my arms at having strained to keep the shortcut accessible, I'd never had to wait before and I don't know if the self sealing would block us from using that method immediately after, best to avoid such things given the situation.

"Huh? What's up with this place?" Panther asked. The Safe Room was doing its' wavy ripple between Metaverse cognition and physical world fact. "Oh, this is that safe place you mentioned, right Amazon?" Panther realised. I gave her a nod to confirm she was right, Mona added on a bit more explanation to that. "I'm still not getting it even though you two explained it," Panther admitted. Mona handed something to Joker who slipped it into one of his pockets.

"Don't worry about it, all we need to know is that rooms like this are places we can catch our breath," Joker insisted. He then turned around and pushed the door open, he swiped his head from left to right before motioning for us to follow him as he slipped out into the hallway; we darted down the hallway for the door we had yet to pass through and Joker carefully pushed it open, revealing a dining room which was much more lavish in comparison.

"We have no idea what awaits us ahead… here you'd better take these. These fine tools have my seal of approval! Use them wisely, alright?" Mona insisted. He handed over six items with three of them being the same and Joker pocketed all of them; with that we proceeded to advance into the room, ducking behind a pillar to avoid being seen by a knight just around the corner.

A quick battle against three Pixies later, where Skull and Panther got to use their new guns, we were able to push onwards to another corner where we found another knight waiting. Another ambush, another battle, a trio of Wind Spells from Mona knocked down the three Jack-O-Lanterns and one All-Out Attack finished it off. We approached the door that would take us out only to find a knight standing right outside, Joker quickly pulled the door closed before it turned around and saw us.

"Another one huh? Okay, now that we've expanded our roster, let's try something!" Mona insisted. All of us proceeded to look down at the cat looking member of team. "It's a way for us to gain the advantage during a battle. I decided to name it after that thing you mentioned the other day, a Baton Pass. It'll be better to show you what I mean while we deal with this Shadow," Mona explained.

The little cat then proceeded to push the door open and motioned for Joker to move. Our leader darted forward and easily leapt onto the Shadow's shoulders, with one decisive pull the mask came away and Joker leapt backwards to stand beside the rest of us. As for the Shadow, it had reformed into five different Shadows! The group was made up of a Pixie, a Mandrake, a Silky, a Bicorn, and a Jack-O-Lantern.

"Okay, I'll show you an example first. You better watch closely!" Mona declared. He quickly summoned out Zorro and had it surrounded the pumpkin headed shadow in a veil of wind. "Ha! It's scary how good I am!" Mona bragged. He then looked at Joker and darted for the boy, a kind of pink glow surrounded his paw, he leapt up and slapped his paw against Joker's glove clad hand, transferring the pink glow. "The Baton Pass works by gathering our Persona's energy into our hand. With that energy, we can boost another person's abilities and allow them to strike a weakness with greater efficiency!" Mona revealed. Oh, that would be incredibly useful. "Now strike the enemy's weakness and give the Baton Pass a try!" Mona encouraged.

"Skull! You take the Pixie! There's something I want to try!" Joker ordered. Skull looked surprised but nodded his head, our leader reached his hand up and pulled off his mask. "Agathion!" Joker declared. From his mask manifested a Persona I'd never seen before; it had a blue head with red eyes but most of its' body was stuffed inside of bronze jar with two handles and a six pointed star on the surface. "Zio!" Joker commanded. The little spirit in a jar unleashed a blast of electricity right at the Bicorn.

I was a little confused as to how Joker had suddenly gained a hold of a brand new Persona – unless this was what Igor meant by cultivation – but more than that was something else. When I looked at Agathion, I had the strangest sensation that there was some kind of bond, a bond that linked it to Skull of all people. That made no sense considering it was Joker's Persona, but it was like there was a kind of resonance between Skull and Agathion.

The violent bangs of bullets firing jolted me out of my musings as I watched Skull drop the Pixie to the ground. He darted over and slapped his hand against Panther's, who happily received it. However, as her eyes fell upon the two remaining Shadows, I could see that she looked a little unsure, likely not knowing which one to strike.

"Panther, take the little flower creature out with your fire! I'll handle the woman in red," I insisted. Panther shot me a grateful look and she proceeded to do exactly as I told her, blasting the Mandrake with a fiery orb from Carmen; she then proceeded to perform the Baton Pass and the moment it flowed into my hand, I realised something; everyone's Soul Power had merged together, gathering into a cohesive whole and I could use that whole to power my next Spell instead of just relying upon my own reserves. "Sing Phantom!" I commanded. With a rattling wave of Gravity from my ominous Persona, the Silky dropped and we unleashed an All-Out Attack to clear them up.

"Great teamwork! I knew you guys would nail it," Mona congratulated. A bright smile curved across his feline face as he said those words. "Improving yourselves is important, but learning to fight as a team is just as vital to our survival. By coordinating our effort, we can take control of the battle as often as possible. Baton Passes will help a lot with that!" Mona added on.

"Plus, at the end of the chain, whoever receives that power can use it in place of their own Soul Power for a Spell, which will help with conserving our energy on this infiltration," I revealed. The others, Mona included, seemed ecstatic about my revelation as Panther jumped for joy while Skull threw an arm around the shoulders of a grinning Joker.

However, Joker suddenly turned his head and walked over to a nearby vase, he tugged on his red glove and then swiped it at the vase. Surprisingly enough, the vase turned into red petals and in his hand lay what looked to be yarn… made out of silk? Joker seemed surprised but shrugged his shoulders and tucked it away before we pressed on to the doorway further down the hall as Joker picked up something else from another ornament.

Beyond the door lay a large cylinder shaped room that stretched upwards, the staircase's railings were broken in places despite the fine carpet that stretched across it's winding length. We climbed up the stairs until we couldn't move any further thanks to the rather large broken gap that stretched between and up the rest of the stairs, to make things more awkward was that down the hallway was a Shadow and the false sunlight of the Metaverse streamed quite heavily through the windows that lined the rather open corridor.

"Damn… there's one here too…," Skull muttered. He was rather annoyed by this event but it was something he'd have to deal with if he wanted to see this infiltration through. "Oh well… guess we just gotta ambush it from behind again," Skull commented. He sounded like he was tired now, although I guess it could get rather repetitive what we were constantly doing.

"Well sure, if you want to go about it the orthodox way. But there's a more stylish route!" Mona declared. Once more the cat looking entity drew our confused attention. "See those couches on the sides of the hallway? Hide behind those so you can get closer to the enemy. Once it's in range, jump on it and rip its' mask off!" Mona insisted. Had it not been for my experience in Ouvrard's cavern, I'd think he was joking.

"Whoa… that does sound pretty damn cool," Skull admitted. However, Panther protested about the fact that this wasn't a movie. "Yeah. But Amazon says this place primarily works off of thought, so if we think we can do it, we can do!" Skull explained. Panther looked at me and I nodded my head to show that he was right in what he'd said.

"Joker, with your poise, you should be able to pull it off. Give it a try!" Mona insisted. Speaking of our leader, he looked a little nervous as if not sure about how to go about doing what had been asked. Yet, despite his reservations, he crouched low and darted forward, nestling himself within the shadow of a chair; with more skill than I would have thought, Joker darted from shadow to shadow until he met the back of the knight and promptly jumped up to tear off its' mask.

Enemies we were used to popped out and we made fine work of the Baton Pass to get passed it. Yet, instead of bringing out Arsène to deal with the Pixie, Joker utilised his gun, certainly it lessoned the usage of Soul Power but it was a little odd, especially since I couldn't actually see the demonic gentleman of a thief hovering anywhere around Joker unlike the other three which I could see.

"Sweet! That totally works!" Skull exclaimed. Even Panther seemed energised by the fact that the Shadows seemed incapable of seeing us when we were in hiding; it would certainly be handy if the others could master this technique since we could avoid unnecessary battles if we end up being low on Life Energy or Soul Power and if our supplies are low as well.

Panther and Skull quickly slipped into hiding at the nearby corner and warned us of an enemy just around it. A quick dash between hiding spots and Joker had the mask off within seconds, we kind of had to given the tight confines and the door being in this section of hallway, there was a large risk of being spotted at that point. A battle against two Mandrakes and a Pixie was easy enough to get through, after Joker pilfered more items from ornaments, we opened the door.

On the other side was a square-ish shaped room with a small square room sealed off in the centre by bars that cut through every arch that could be used to access it. Mounted on two of the pillars on the side we entered were what looked to be ram heads with ominous red eyes and chains with handhold dangling from their mouths.

"Look! There's something in there!" Skull exclaimed. I looked at the punk and found him pointing into the centre, I focused my eyes and saw that there was a table in the centre with some old paper on top of it. "But the bars're blockin our way in," Skull pointed out. Whatever was in there must have been important enough for it to be sectioned off, which meant we had to get to it.

"If he's protecting it this securely, it has to be important. That means there should be a way in and out of there," Mona stated. He then turned to face me with a hopeful look in your eyes. "I know you said they allow you to perceive things made of the mind, but do you think your eyes could be of use here Amazon?" Mona asked. I'd never had to use them like this before, so I couldn't really give him an answer.

"It couldn't hurt to try," I responded. Dismissing my naginata in a shower of blue fire, I moved slightly away from the others and took a deep breath, focusing exactly like I did to enter a Palace or Mementos; my mind cleared but I couldn't think of exactly what to focus my mind on in order to try and find the way into the barred room.

'Pathway to enter the barred room in Kamoshida's Palace.' I chanted. My mind focused as my eyes drifted open, when they did, I saw the footprints pressed into the red carpet that lay beneath our feet. They led right up to the second ram head and congregated there a lot, I reached out and pulled on the chain which caused the red eyes to turn off.

"Uh… nothing happened Amazon," Skull pointed out. I decided it would be best to ignored him for now and instead proceeded to follow the trail of footprints up the rest of the pathway and around the corner, walking down to the next corner I turned and saw more ram heads, I walked to the second one along from my position and quickly pulled the chain there. The eyes went out and the bars proceeded to retract.

"Well done, Amazon," Joker congratulated. However, his words of praised were ill timed as the moment I relaxed, I felt a strain press itself into my eyes and I groaned in slight pain, moving back slightly as I reached a gloved hand up to cover my eyes. "Amazon, are you okay?" Joker asked. His tone was filled with worry as hands in gloves – then again that was everyone but Mona so it didn't narrow it down – rested on my shoulders as I breathed deeply.

"I'm fine, I think my eyes didn't handle the unexpected strain well," I admitted. With a few calming breaths, I managed to ease the pain that throbbed within my eyes and pull away from the hands which had belonged to Skull. "Let's see what we found," I insisted. We walked in, although Panther and Mona hovered near me likely worried about a relapse; what we found on the table was quite surprising, but it was also very fortunate.

"What the hell? He had it all locked up and shit, but it was just some old map?" Skull questioned. He apparently hadn't realised the significance of such an object being in the Metaverse, I pulled out my notebook as Joker examined the map we'd discovered; Mona leapt up onto the table in order to get a better look at the object.

"You're hopeless Skull. Don't you realise how vital a map is?" Mona pointed out. I proceeded to lay the map I'd sketched beside the map that we had discovered and pulling over the sections that displayed the dungeons and the ground floor. "They're a definite match. Having this will give us a better grasp of the topography of the Palace. It's a true necessity for a phantom thief. This should make securing a route much easier," Mona pointed out. With such a thing, at least I'd be able to stop sketching so much, that took up a surprising chunk of time.

"Wait, does it say where the Treasure is on there?" Panther asked. She eagerly leaned over Joker's shoulder in order to get a better look at the paper, speaking of our leader he started to flick through the sheets that we had available to us with a stiff look on his face before shaking his head and laying the map down with a dejected sigh.

"No, it looks like this map is incomplete," Joker admitted. The map being here was a good thing as that at least meant we'd be able to observe the layout of the next area before we reached said area, but the downside was that we couldn't rely on it this during our infiltration once we reached the end of what the map showed.

"Well, there might be more of it lying around deeper in the Palace," Mona reassured. That meant that we'd need to search all the rooms we came across if we wanted to find where the rest of the map was located; Skull agreed and suggested we start checking when possible for the missing portion, Joker rolled the map up and handed it to Mona but then Joker fixed a gaze that seemed to be worried upon me.

"Are you alright to continue on Amazon?" Joker asked. He seemed rather concerned about the reaction that using my eyes had caused on me, nothing like this had happened when practicing with Igor or when I had first used them in Ouvrard's Palace, but that might be because the information reached out to me instead of me having to search for it… when I thought back to it, there had been a slight ache to my eyes when entering the Metaverse for that first time.

"Yes. I'm fine Joker," I answered. Joker's expression of concern only intensified and it was supported by all the others sharing worried glances. "If it gets worse, I'll tell you. But we need to stop Kamoshida as soon as possible, a little bit of soreness in my eyes isn't a good enough reason for us to fall back," I insisted.

"Alright, but if it does get worse, we're pulling back. We might need to stop Kamoshida, but I'm not going to let you guys endanger yourselves for that. We have fourteen days, if we need to stop then we stop," Joker insisted. With that he walked out of the enclosure with the tails of his coat flourishing behind him.

I smiled slightly at his worry before tailing after him with the others following after me as Mona pulled out the map to examine it.