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.

To needmorecaffeine, thanks for the review, regarding other characters, I already had some chapters which would be from Ren's POV, I had intended them to be 1st person though since someone else claimed switching from first to third is jarring… I'll have to think about it. As for the others, I'll see if I can do something, maybe relating to their own bond with Natsumi more. But I guarantee nothing.

To Guest, thanks for the review.

I would appreciate any responses that you have, please enjoy.

Chapter 28: - Mementos

"We've got a problem," Ren greeted. I raised my eyebrow in silent question at the boy's greeting; we were on our way to the train station to get to Shibuya so I couldn't imagine what had happened to cause a problem this early in the day. "Ryūji went to his first shift at Ore no Beko last night and… well he either quit or got fired. Apparently, he was forced to do everything by himself with no training," Ren admitted. I let out a small groan and shook my head, but I couldn't find it in me to blame Ryūji as that sounds like a really bad working environment.

"Knowing Ryūji, it could easily be either of them," Morgana admitted. Even our healer didn't look annoyed by the events, instead he was shaking his head sadly, as if exasperated by this turn of events; we were down a source of income, maybe not by much but still, although if the working conditions were truly terrible then I don't blame him for abandoning the job.

"Luckily, Sakura-san said I could walk around at night after I got back yesterday, so I'll be able to take the job in Ryūji's stead," Ren admitted. I wasn't particularly pleased to hear that he was going to be doing such a thing, he might be our leader but there was no need to burden himself with such stuff, he could rely on us to help him out. Truthfully, it wasn't much but this could dovetail rather quickly into an issue.

"Just don't overwork yourself Ren, taxing your mind and body won't do us or yourself any good in the long run," I advised. Ren nodded his head and we proceeded to continue on our trek to school, the train was cramped today so we were forced to stand up as the news continued to play over our heads. Morgana insisted on being moved closer in order to see the information that was scrolling by.

The news reported that Kamoshida was allowed to teach the way he had by the school – eh, technically true since Kobayakawa was scum – but it denied knowledge of the beatings. There was also a warning about the increase in pollen next week, that might have an interesting effect on Mementos and the Shadows down there. There was also an art exhibit likely about someone called Madarame from its' title started next week as well.

"People are really talking about the Kamoshida incident. No one in this car knows that we're the ones who did it," Morgana commented. Only he could be trusted to talk about our Phantom Thief activities in a public setting, so I let it slide when Ren gave me a look.

*Persona 5 Royal*

"Oh yeah, you've got exams starting on Wednesday. Don't tell me you forgot," Kawakami-sensei stated. Ryūji certainly fell into that category given his freak out yesterday. "Anyway, today we'll be talking about The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. Most theorise it's the oldest story in Japan; for some, it's the oldest science-fiction story in the world. But if you ask me, it's the oldest story in Japan about a terrible woman," Kawakami-sensei informed. That caught my attention. "I mean, Princess Kaguya gives her suitors absurd tasks, demands fancy gifts, then runs off to the moon. Some men lose their fortunes, some are humiliated and some even get serious wounds or go blind. Women like Princess Kaguya actually show up in a lot of stories from around the world," Kawakami-sensei explained. That didn't exactly line up with how I interpreted the story. "Now then, Amamiya-kun, you've probably heard that a woman who uses her wiles to lead people to their doom is a femme fatale. So, what's the literal translation of the phrase 'femme fatale'?" Kawakami-sensei asked.

Ren's eyes were darting about as he tried to figure out the answer, mouthing the words in order to understand their meaning before raising his head back up to look at Kawakami-sensei. He didn't seem particularly confident in whatever answer he had divined, but he seemed determined to go through with it from the steadiness within his grey eyes.

"Fatal woman," Ren suggested. Not quite the literal translation but it's accurate enough, Kawakami-sensei congratulated him and revealed that the phrase was technically French, she then went on to give more examples such as Morgan le Fay from the Arthurian legends and Queen Salome from the Bible. I took the opportunity to raise my hand into the air and Kawakami-sensei acknowledged me with a call of my family name.

"Kawakami-sensei, I feel I have to disagree with you about calling Princess Kaguya a femme fatale," I admitted. This surprised Kawakami-sensei as I lowered my hand to rest on the table. "Princess Kaguya had no interest in these marriages to begin with but given that the five suitors she tasked with trials were prominent nobles, Princess Kaguya couldn't turn them away as she had easily done all the others without bringing suffering upon the bamboo cutter and his wife. She designed these tasks to be literally impossible as a way to frighten these men off and leave her and her adoptive family free of consequences. The suitors could have easily decided to have left her alone after she gave her tests to them, they are the ones who chose to follow through with them, there by ruining their own lives. This happens in the opera Carmen, Carmen the gypsy is very much a femme fatale seducing José the guard to free her, but it is José who ruins his own life with his own choices. Princess Kaguya simply makes the statement 'overcome my trial and I shall marry you' there was no seduction involved. More so, when the Emperor asks for marriage, Princess Kaguya gives no trial simply a refusal with an ambiguous reason and when she does leave to the moon, she gives him an elixir of immortality. Princess Kaguya's return to the moon could either have been because she was a criminal who'd served her sentence, or a child hidden from a devastating war. Princess Kaguya simply returned to her home in the end," I answered.

"I suppose that is one way to look at the material, it all comes down to the reader's perspective," Kawakami-sensei decided. And honestly, she actually seemed rather happy about having heard my words given the slight gleam within her eyes.

*Persona 5 Royal*

We were gathered on the rooftop, since we wanted to discuss the possibility of a target and if not, then it would be time to introduce these guys to Mementos and continue our training. Ryūji was leaning back in his chair and scrolling through the various posts that had been put up on Mishima's site, but just looking at his face told me that the search wasn't going well at all.

"None of these posts are any good. Everyone's just bitchin' about their parents or their boyfriends. There ain't even a hint of a hint about a new Palace," Ryūji complained. It certainly wasn't going to be easy to locate another Palace wielder, I suppose I could use my eyes but that would mean a lot of aimless wandering around and potentially getting lost. I may have lived in Tokyo all my life but that didn't mean I knew all the little hideaways and secret passages, I'd be more likely to get killed, kidnapped or some other unspeakable fate than find a Palace.

"We can't get everything online… finding a post with a name and location is asking a lot," Ann pointed out. Her expression was quite saddened by the dim prospects we had of finding the next person. It was going to be difficult; we could search newspapers and magazines or listen to rumours on the streets as well as online, but we needed the full name in order to even start looking into the person.

"We don't really need the location; a name will be enough to at least probe if this person has a Palace since the Meta-Nav is capable of discerning who has Palaces. Heck if we could find the actual person, I'd be able to see if they have a Shadow," I acknowledged. Ann nodded her head, but the fact that there was nothing really concrete at the moment meant even that would be hard work.

"Guess we just gotta find one ourselves then!" Ryūji declared. That was something we could do but given how difficult it would be to get that kind of information, we still might not get any necessary information. Although, I suppose a dive into Mementos might potentially supply us with the possibility that a Shadow could spit out the information about someone who could have a Palace.

"Are you seriously suggesting we look for a target that even the police have overlooked?" Morgana questioned. Considering the fact that Kamoshida had been ignored by the police simply by people covering up for him, it was entirely possible that the same thing was happening with other Palace users. Covered up or they had enough social power to quash the rumours into nothing more than hearsay.

"Oh, there are plenty of those Morgana, trust me," Ren growled. We looked at the ravenette who was incredibly tense as his grey eyes stared off to the side with a far off look; thankfully he snapped back shortly after. "But I think we should hold off until we can get our exams out of the way, that way we'll have more free time," Ren suggested. At that, the door suddenly opened, all of us who were human shaped sat up straight and Morgana shot off towards the metal boxes attached to the roof and hid behind them. Since I had my back to the door, I turned in my seat and my eyes widened when I saw our upperclassman and the student council president, Niijima Makoto, stood there.

Niijima-senpai had brown hair that was styled in a bob cut with a blunt fringe and a French-braid styled headband that matched her hair colour. Her eyes were either red or reddish-brown depending upon the light they were viewed in. She was of average female height, being the same as me and even her physique was similar to mine.

Her winter school uniform was fairly standard but without the traditional blazer. Instead, she wore a black halter vest over a long-sleeve white shirt with a turtleneck that had a noticeable zipper making it different to the one I wore. She wore the regulation black and red pleated tartan skirt, black tights and black-brown ankle boots.

"This place is off-limits, you know," Niijima-senpai commented. She walked over to us with careful steps before coming to a stop shortly behind me, I could practically smell the tension that was coming off the two blonde members of our group, Ren looked confused as he glanced between them and the young woman who had suddenly interrupted our conversation. I kept my face completely blank as I looked at the woman.

"We'll get outta here once we're done chattin'," Ryūji protested. His tone was incredibly hostile towards our upperclassman, it would only serve to heighten any suspicions of us. "Anyways, what's Miss Council President want with us?" Ryūji demanded. Niijima-senpai's red eyes rove over each of us, with them resting on me for a moment longer than the others, before occupying the space that was roughly in the centre of all of us.

"The troublemaker, the centre of gossip, the Yamato Nadeshiko and the infamous transfer student. Hmm, interesting combination," Niijima-senpai acknowledged. She was clearly suspicious of us, certainly our combination was unusual, but she didn't have the right to make is seem like we shouldn't be friends; her words carried that undercurrent, whether it was intentional or not, it was there.

"Great way to start a conversation," Ann growled. Hostility pulsed through her tone as she leaned forward slightly, I focused on her more and saw the white knuckled grip she had on the area that she was sat on; if Niijima pushed in the wrong direction when one of these two blondes might just be set off, we couldn't afford that kind of scrutiny, otherwise our activities would be put in danger.

"By the way… it seems as though you got to know Kamoshida-sensei pretty well," Niijima-senpai commented. Her red eyes drifted over to rest on Ren so I darted my attention to him, his temper might not run as hot as Ann's and was practically arctic compared to Ryūji's, but he had displayed enough rage towards Kamoshida that I felt it necessary to at least keep an eye on him as well.

"Not really," Ren coolly answered. We certainly got to know the real Kamoshida well, seeing all of his ugly secrets with our own eyes, but the man he pretended to be for everyone else, we hardly knew him; I saw Niijima-senpai adjust her position as she gave Ren a sceptical look. She clearly didn't believe what the boy had told her, but it was the truth.

"I heard Kamoshida-sensei used a volleyball team member to spread details of your past record. Don't you hate him? Kamoshida-sensei, I mean," Niijima-senpai wondered. I saw Ren's shoulders tense up and decided to step in; I rose to my feet and moved to stand toe-to-toe with our upperclassman, our eyes clashing against each other as I clasped my hands in front of me while keeping my face carefully blank.

"If you have something to say senpai, then please say it," I requested. Niijima-senpai remained quiet for a few moments longer before taking a miniscule step backwards as she broke our stare off and returned them to the empty space they had previously occupied; I proceeded to take a step back in order to allow her retreat, but I didn't move too far nor did I sit down.

"I don't mean to offend. Many students have been shaken by what happened with Kamoshida-sensei. The rumours about that odd, calling card-esque posting aren't going away either," Niijima-senpai commented. She rested her chin on her right hand which was curled into a fist and the right elbow was resting on the back of her left hand which gripped the right side of her hip, appearing to be in contemplation.

"I didn't expect someone like you would care about that tactless stuff, Niijima-senpai," Ann commented. That was a good idea, if we showed an unimpressed or uninterested opinion of the calling card then we might be able to shake her suspicions of us from anything that would be too damning for us to deal with, to something that was a bit more reasonable.

"I dunno that it was tactless," Ryūji commented. I restrained my reaction to his words, was he really unable to realise just how dangerous of a position we where in with Niijima-senpai being suspicious of us and most likely investigating on Kobayakawa's orders. "Anyways, we done here? We can't leave if you keep talkin' to us," Ryūji questioned. Our upperclassman's eyes hardened as she stared passed me to almost glare at Ryūji.

"At least try to understand my position. Being forced to deal with this horseplay," Niijima-senpai insisted. I didn't like the way she had said those words, especially since she had insulted the hard work that we'd put into the whole Phantom Thieves existence; even if she didn't know, calling the situation horseplay certainly seemed to make a mockery of the suffering that Suzui had gone through.

"Horseplay!?" Ann demanded. I immediately moved over and clamped a hand upon her shoulder while giving her a hard look, it was cruel the way that Niijima-senpai had described what we were doing, but we couldn't afford to raise Niijima-senpai's suspicions any more than they already were; I felt Ann's coiled muscles proceed to relax slightly underneath my grip and her breath steadily rushed out her.

"Ah yes, by the way… it's been decided that this place will be closed off due to the incident. I heard some people are coming up here without permission, after all. I'm sorry to have interrupted you," Niijima-senpai insisted. She brushed back a lock of her hair as she spoke, she then pivoted around and walked away from us. We remained quiet until the door swung to a close behind her.

"What was that about?" Ann questioned. I removed my hand from her shoulder and the second I did, Ann shot to her feet and marched forward a few steps; her body was practically trembling with barely restrained emotions as she stared angrily after Niijima-senpai, Morgana took the opportunity to jump back down onto the table since the coast was now clear.

"She's looking into what happened to Kamoshida, likely on the principal's orders since Kobayakawa licked Kamoshida's boots more than anyone else in this school," I acknowledged. A scowl deepened the twist of Ann's lips, she was likely repulsed by the fact that someone was actually looking into the whole scenario, as if Kamoshida was worth caring about instead of allowing the whole thing to pass by without comment.

"The fact that she interrogated us means she's on to us. That girl seems rather sharp. We should be cautious of her," Morgana stated. A shiver made its' way up my spine at Morgana's words or rather the scenario that his words made me think of; of all the people for Kobayakawa to have picked, it was the only one I was actually afraid of.

"You have no idea how right you are Morgana. Of all the people to be looking into us, she has to be the worst," I admitted. Niijima-senpai was almost too smart, if we made the tiniest of errors then we were absolutely going to get caught which would put us into a world of trouble. At the moment, all Niijima-senpai had were suspicions, but that wouldn't be enough for her.

"She really pisses me off!" Ryūji snapped. Unfortunately for us, Ryūji's temper might just be the thing that undid all of us, we couldn't afford for him to lose his cool and blurt out something – the same was true for Ann but she had more restraint – incriminating; Ren moved over and settled a hand on Ryūji's shoulder to calm him down, but the blonde continued to tremble with his fury.

"We need to be careful, all of us," Ren insisted. His voice was level but the tone unmistakably the same one he used when acting as Joker, at that, Ryūji proceeded to relax but it was only minutely especially as his face continued to bear a sour expression; Morgana turned around so that he was facing the two boys as opposed to me and Ann.

"That reminds me… study hard. Especially you, Ryūji. There are bound to be traps that will need to be solved with brains. Keep in mind that everything you do in your daily lives has an impact on your abilities," Morgana insisted. That might be one of the few ways to properly motivate Ryūji to take his studies seriously… maybe.

"True, studying won't be so bad if we just think of it as helping us prepare to be phantom thieves." Ann agreed. At least she seemed up for the studying bit. "Speaking of our exams," Ann spoke up. The model turned her blue eyes to gaze at me. "How did you know all that stuff about Princess Kaguya and Carmen?" Ann asked. Ah, so she was curious about that.

"Well, I like to read so I've studied the Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. As for Carmen, well the songs in that were a part of my training with Ouvrard and she made me study the operas… Carmen… spoke to me in a way few of the others did, so I read the book the opera was based off of. I can loan it and the opera to you if you want to learn about her," I offered. The sparkle in Ann's eyes seemed to imply that she might be interested in such a thing. "You know, it's really funny, but Carmen, Phantom and Arsène all come from French book characters," I admitted. A small smile tugged at Ann's lips as Ren chuckled briefly.

"Man, this is so lame… I was all fired up about helpin' people, not about studyin'," Ryūji complained. That really soured the light-hearted atmosphere that we'd managed to get back after Niijima-senpai's unexpected appearance, but I could think of one thing that would definitely cheer our Electricity wielder up.

"We can still help people," I admitted. Everyone proceeded to look at me with confusion in their eyes, except for Morgana who was smiling… at least I think it was a smile. "I think it's about time I showed you guys the training zone I mentioned," I explained. With that, I grabbed my bag and left the rooftop with the others following after me. It was quite simple to bring everyone to the Shibuya station courtyard where we all stopped.

"What're you bringin' us here for?" Ryūji asked. Morgana and I didn't answer his question, instead Morgana just pushed the blonde to do as he had instructed. "Alright, I've got the Phantom Aficionado Website up. Now what?" Ryūji wondered. The other two also had their phones out with me able to spot the website open for them as well, I was the only one who didn't have it up, but I had a different task to accomplish.

"We need to look for a post that has a full name in it," I explained. Ryūji claimed there was no information on big shots like he'd already said. "And this is training, we don't need a large goal, simply something that fulfils the requirements," I insisted. Ryūji grumbled at this but go to looking through the website with Ann and Ren also proceeding to start looking.

"'He won't listen to what I say'… no wait, there's no name on this one," Ann admitted. And since we needed the full name, we wouldn't be able to do anything about this even if it did turn out to be something that desperately needed to be resolved; however, the more we handled these smaller requests then we might get more known at a slower pace, or at least the website would become more trusted which would still help us.

"'Someone's bad-mouthin' me in online chat rooms'… this one's got a name," Ryūji suggested. That was a surprise, since it was online, I figured there would be a username instead of the actual name, unless someone was trying to get another person in trouble. Either way, this sounded like something that could be resolve or at least ignored by the victim in question without any detriment to their lives.

"Ignore those. Aren't there any posts about more serious trouble?" Morgana wondered. A fine point, we should try and focus on those who were struggling with unfair odds, much like what the four of us had been struggling with, given that they would be the most vulnerable to such abuses. They proceeded to look back at their phones and continued looking for someone who we could help.

"'I don't know what to do about my ex who's stalking me. His name is Nakanohara Natsuhiko'. Apparently, he's a teller at City Hall. How does that one sound?" Ren asked. That was actually quite a good find, stalkers could get pretty crazy depending upon their own mind set, it was probably worthwhile attempting to stop this individual in order to protect the man or woman who'd made this post.

"A government worker's stalkin' someone?" Ryūji asked. This target, however, got Morgana's seal of approval, so I looked down at my phone which had the Meta-Nav already open in hopes of successfully finding a target. "So, we're just gonna jump right into a Palace? Fine by me!" Ryūji declared. I allowed a stony expression to appear on my face and Ryūji paled slightly.

"We won't be overcoming a challenge today. For something like this we only need a name," I explained. My tone icy at I stared at the twitching Ryūji for a few moments longer before looking at my phone. "Are the two of you okay with this?" I asked. I, at least, remembered the unanimous vote decision; luckily the other two agreed to this. "Nakanohara Natsuhiko. Mementos," I spoke. Immediately the pulse of entering the Metaverse washed over me.

"Everyone disappeared!" Ann exclaimed. The people who had been flowing in and out of the subway had vanished along with all of the people who had been languishing around at the surroundings shops or just waiting for someone one. "It… kind of feels like I'm… walking on air?" Ann wondered. Mementos always had such an unusual sensation to it, the other Palaces felt more grounded, perhaps it was because of the difference in the source of the Palace's creation.

"Is this that Nakanohara guy's Palace?" Ryūji asked. The boy had already climbed to his feet as I put the information into the Nav, but now him and Ann were in the ready stances they had developed; Ren on the other hand was looking around curiously, Morgana of course was relaxed. I rounded the group to head for the station's stairs.

"Not exactly, think of it as everyone's Palace… well everyone without a Persona that is," I commented. With those words, I descended down the steps as Morgana encouraged everyone to follow me down while explaining how the Shadows were only lurking underground. Once I hit the platform, my Rebel's Armour immediately cloaked me in its' protective embrace.

"The hell is this place?" Skull asked. I turned to look at the boy, finding everyone had joined us. "Wait, our clothes changed!?" Skull exclaimed. Joker and Panther both looked down at themselves to take in their appearance and I saw Panther's pale skin rush even paler at the implication of our clothing having changed pressed itself upon her.

"The Shadows know we're here!?" Panther panicked. She looked around as if expecting an attack to come at any moment, I glanced towards the edge of the platform and saw, just like the last several times I'd been back here, the Velvet Room's door was absent. I yanked my mind away from Igor and Lavenza and focused upon the people I had to train.

"Since the moment we stepped in," Mona confirmed. Skull got mad at Mona for having not told them, Joker settled a placating hand on Skull's shoulder and I saw the tension leave the blonde, but only minutely. "We're still safe right here," Mona revealed. That removed the rest of the tension from Skull as everyone focused on Mona. "I've come to investigate a number of times. Shadows never come up to this floor. But it's a different story once you go down. This place is simply teeming with them," Mona explained.

"More importantly, what is this Mementos!? It's about time you start explaining. Both of you!" Panther demanded. Her colour had returned now and blue eyes darted between me and Mona with a stern look upon her face; Joker also looked at us while Skull impatiently tapped his foot as he waited for some answers to be forthcoming.

"As I said, Mementos is technically a Palace that belongs to everyone. Palaces like Kamoshida's only form under a case of extreme distortion, in other words the Ruler's perception of reality is so cut off from the truth of reality that their minds create a solitary Palace as a consequence," I began. Igor had been very thorough in explaining these things to me, so that I would be prepared for entering the Palace and Mementos.

"Since their perception of reality is generally parallel to reality, the general public has one gigantic, shared Palace. That's where we are now," Mona finished up. Panther did comment on how the place felt different to Kamoshida's Palace; it was still oppressive and creepy as always, but it also had a clustered feeling to the air, unlike the Palaces Kamoshida and Ouvrard had which felt a little clearer.

"When you say shared… you mean they're all put together? Even though they're just strangers?" Skull asked. It did sound odd that they'd be so connected to each other on a mental level despite the physical level being that we probably couldn't even tell them out in a crowd; but the mind was a mysterious thing that couldn't quite be understood by the simple examinations we currently had. Even coming into these places didn't help me really understand it.

"It's a collective unconsciousness," I stated. Igor and Lavenza were probably the only people who might have a true understanding of the world of the mind, the little they had told me was all I could pass on to these people who had come to join me in this topsy-turvy existence. Skull looked at me with an expression that screamed befuddlement… not that I could really be surprised by this, I tried to think of a way to explain without breaking the brains of any of the people here.

"Don't bother explaining that Amazon, Skull probably won't get it," Mona insisted. Since I hadn't been able to come up with anything that would explain the situation, I shrugged my shoulders in agreement with those words, it would be better to focus on what could be explained instead of trying to perform mental gymnastics to explain something like a collective unconsciousness.

"So, what you're saying is, using this place, we can even change the hearts of people who don't have a Palace?" Panther asked. Even though I had encountered the Shadows of People down here before, it was little more than random chance and I'd never actually got into a fight with them; they were much more placid than Ruler Shadows were even if they were angry at someone. So, the idea we could perform a Change of Heart on one was a surprising one to me.

"Correct! The steps to do so are slightly different though," Mona explained. Since I'd never actually performed a Change of Heart on someone down here, given I'd just come down here for training without a name, Mona would definitely be the expert this time around; at least I would be able to aid them with the fighting part.

"But this place looks pretty huge. Are we gonna be able to get around just by walkin'?" Skull asked. I had managed all this time with just walking, especially since I could only go two floors down and the second was comparatively tiny; Mona hopped off the barriers he'd been stood on and darted a small distance away from us before turning back around to us.

"It seems the time has finally come… Morganaa… transfoooooorm!" Morgana declared. He did poses like from Featherman or other shows of that type, he then jumped into the air and was surrounded by a cloud of smoke. What dropped down in Mona's place was a van! A large black van, with three yellow stripes on the hood with the middle one being the thickest and though they are symmetrical with one another, they weren't aligned with the vehicle itself, as the lines converge toward the left windshield. On the grille was a small golden emblem looking Mona's biped head. The headlights matched his eyes, with his ears attached on the front side of the roof and I just saw that his tail was attached on the back. "Come now, Panther, Amazon. Ladies first," Mona encouraged.

"Did you just turn into a van?" I questioned. The others seemed equally as baffled by the occurrence, Mona claimed this was due to cognition combined with extra training and it was similar to how our Rebel's Armour was formed. "What kind of nutty cognition allows a cat to transform into a motor vehicle?" I wondered.

"I'm with Amazon! You turnin' into a van is totally different than our clothes changin'!" Skull exclaimed. Apparent the perception of 'cats turnings into vans' was extremely common among the rest of the people, it made absolutely no sense to me if I was honest; I know cats and foxes had shapeshifter qualities in mythology but this was just bizarre.

"Why a van though?" Panther wondered. For this, Mona had no answer although Skull openly wondered why he hadn't done this in the Palace; it would certainly have been helpful to have used this to escape the castle instead of running for the exit. Admittedly it had been chocked full of stairs but some areas had been pretty risky to get through with only our legs.

"I would have if I could! But that castle was cramped, there were tons of stairs and no way this, fits on top of a chandelier!" Mona protested. Skull walked over and proceeded move alongside the side of van; Mona might be right but still I really wish we could have had the option to speed up our travelling during that escape, especially since I couldn't open a doorway to the Velvet Room.

"Hey, Skull! Ladies first!" Panther yelled. Her pink clad hand latched around my wrist and dragged me over to the doorway, pulling me in while pushing at Skull to make room for us which he protested when the van suddenly bucked up like it was a horse instead of a mysteriously transformed cat; a loud yowling meow escaped Mona, but eventually he settled down which allowed Joker to slide in with all of us sat in the back row.

"All aboard! Let's go!" Skull cheered. It was slightly squashed back here, but nothing so terribly uncomfortable, however the vehicle remained very still instead of taking off which caused the other three to look at each other in confusion as a sinking feel pressed itself into my stomach; after all I'm certain there was nothing in the collective unconsciousness that had conceived of a living automobile.

"Why are you all just sitting back there? I'm a van, remember? I'm not going anywhere unless someone drives me," Mona pointed out. Joker found himself with the added job of also being our driver and relocated himself to the front, to reduce the squashed feeling and give us a back-up driver if things ever went south, I also relocated myself to the front to learn. "Now start the engine! You can't drive if it's not running!" Mona insisted.

I searched around and found a button near the steering wheel; it was wrong and Mona complained of being tickled so Joker tried lower down and we were rewarded with a purr that sounded somewhat engine-like. Skull claimed this was creepy, but it seemed appropriate, we set off down from the entrance to the first area.

"Man… this place totally does feel like a Palace," Skull commented. Panther agreed, commenting on how strange it would be to driving on tracks in the real world, since the rails were present even down here, she proceeded to focus on our need to locate Nakanohara's location, but where that place was, I couldn't be sure.

"Most likely in a segment of his own creation. Don't worry, it won't be the size of a Palace. Our next step is to find an entrance to that segment," Mona explained. The most pressing matter would be if we could find the entrance and Skull wondered what it could possibly look like. "I have no idea, but strong distortions should be a pretty obvious visual clue," Mona advised. With that, Joker got us moving off.

We rolled down the twisting and turning pathways of Mementos and occasionally ran across Shadows which looked like black vaguely humanoid masses with multiple white masks. We also somewhat literally ran over them, as when we found a Shadow, the Mona-van proceeded to somehow pounce upon them to tear the mask off. The Shadows down here only seemed to be Pixies, Slimes, Jack-o-Lanterns, and Mandrakes which meant they would be easy to deal with.

Although, there was one slight problem, when we first hopped out of the van to deal with the Shadows, the Pixie and Mandrake that had manifested seemed ready to fight. Right up until they saw me and then they let out shrill screams and ran away too fast for us to retaliate. This earned me several confused looks as I felt a burning sensation stretch across my cheeks… I think I might have been down here a little too often. Given the sudden abandonment of a fight, we piled back into the Mona-van and it proceeded to take off further around the level in search of our target.

We eventually found the entrance, it was fairly obvious since it looked like the tunnel was being pulled into a sinkhole that was stuck on the wall, the rails rose off the floor and were pulled into the sinkhole. We all exchanged nervous glances as Mona confirmed he sensed Nakanohara on the other side, with a dosage of uncertainty, Joker sent us forward and through the sinkhole. Once we landed, all of us got out of the Mona-van and he turned back into his cat form.

"Hey, something's there!" Skull called. Since it was likely Nakanohara's Shadow, we cautiously approached him. "Some front desk guy at City Hall became a stalker," Skull commented. We needed to be careful, this Shadow could develop into a Ruler if left alone which meant he was likely much more dangerous than the other Shadows of People that I'd encountered.

"I don't know how much evil he'd done, but we have to do something if he's bothering other people," Panther insisted. Agreed, him being a stalker could potentially dovetail into much more dangerous personality traits if his obsession was left unchecked; essentially, we could be staring at someone who could end up as another Kamoshida.

"Who are you?!" Shadow Nakanohara demanded. He was pretty non-descript if I was honest; black hair with an almost bowl cut shape to it, black framed glasses and a suit likely for his work, his eyes were the typical gold colour for a Shadow. Even though he looked fairly ordinary, we couldn't simply dismiss him, there was a presence coming from him that was akin to a Ruler's Shadow, if somewhat weaker.

"Are you that stalker!? Haven't you ever stopped to consider how your ex feels?" Panther demanded. Her expression had twisted into one of anger, no doubt remembering her own stalker and sympathising with the man or woman who was currently enduring Nakanohara's action. An expression of rage pressed itself onto the Shadow's face as he glared at Panther, likely not happy about her accusation.

"She's my property! I can do whatever I want with her! It's not like she didn't treat me like a plaything! What's wrong with me doing the same!?" Shadow Nakanohara responded. Oh, those were the wrong kind of words to be saying in front of Panther, her expression turned practically wrathful as she tightly gripped the handle of her whip.

"You can't treat someone like shit just 'cause they did it to you! What a load of crap," Skull snapped. He then proceeded to stomp one of his feet forward, a determined yet angry look upon his face as he glared at the Shadow. "We're gonna change the hearts of all the bastards like you!" Skull declared. The Shadow turned his burning gaze to Skull as tension boiled across his body.

"There are millions of people far worse than me! What about Madarame? He stole everything from me, but you're letting him off the hook!?" Shadow Nakanohara questioned. Well now, that was an interesting piece of information, someone he knew was supposedly a life stealing thief; that certainly sounded like someone who could be worth looking into… actually the name Madarame sounded familiar.

"Madarame?" Joker quietly repeated. A questioning note to his tone, but we never got the chance to ask for answers as Nakanohara's Shadow became wreathed in light and transformed into… an Obariyon? Talk about an unexpected surprise, even though that was supposed to be a Shadow, it had taken on the appearance of a Persona, could that be because it was still connected to the collective unconsciousness or was there some other reason?

"Get ready! Here he comes!" Mona warned. I quickly shook myself out of the shock that seeing that little dancing creature again had thrown me into, I hadn't seen that Persona since Ouvrard's Palace and now here it was again, performing that little dance as the others had. Hopefully this one would possess similar stats to the other Obariyons that I had faced.

"Now that I finally have what's rightfully mine… I'm not going to let you take it away! Look, this is a winner-takes-all world. Come fight me and I'll show you what I mean!" Shadow Nakanohara dared. I focused my Second Sight upon the creature, I needed to learn the information and learn it fast in order to ensure that my teammates were prepared for whatever this entity might throw out at us.

"It's weak to Electricity and Resists Melee Physical attacks!" I warned. Joker and Skull would be the best ones to handle this battle, but to start I proceeded to use Makakaja on Skull since he had lower magical stats than Joker did. A grin split Skull's face as he immediately blasted Electricity onto the little dancing imp. Obariyon was knocked down, but Joker suddenly held up his hand, stopping Skull and Panther from moving into a Hold Up position.

"Baton Pass! We can deal more damage that way and keep it on the ground!" Joker ordered. Skull nodded and darted over to our leader, slapping hands. Joker immediately brought out Koropokkguru and unleashed more lightning onto the Shadow. It stayed knocked down in that intense dizzy state, but when Joker tried to Baton Pass to Mona, there was no gathered power growing in his hand.

"I don't think the Baton Pass works if the enemy's already knocked down!" Mona realised. Joker frowned at this revelation, but there wasn't much that could be done. Mona took over the battle and quickly fired off a Wind spell. But that simply cleared up the imp's confusion, allowing it to climb back to its' feet. The little creature spun around as a large hammer appeared out of nowhere – last I checked Obariyon didn't use that kind of attack! – it swung down and smacked into Panther.

The girl stumbled back, a gasp of pain escaping her as she crumpled over, Mona darted over to her with worry in his eyes. Skull charged at Obariyon forcing me to dart over to seize a hold of him. Footsteps echoed behind me, but I kept my focus forward. I pushed Skull back and pulled off my mask to have Phantom unleash a pulse of Gravity onto the imp. The attack landed right as I heard Panther's breathing even out.

"Remember what it's weak to Skull, don't lose your head!" I chastised. Stepping back, I allowed Skull to take the next blow. Or at least he would have had Panther not marched up and proceeded to have Carmen weave a sleeping spell over Obariyon. The Ailment stuck and Obariyon slumped down slightly as snoring sounds began to emanate from it.

"We might be able to take advantage of this! With it asleep, its' defences will be lowered!" Mona exclaimed. I'd never known if Ailments could be useful in combat, since I had none in my repertoire, but Lavenza had implied that using the right Skill or Spell after an Ailment could make the attack much stronger than normal.

"Skull, you go after me! Use a Physical attack!" Joker commanded. He then pulled his mask off and had Koropokkguru manifest once more, but a weakening Spell twisted around Obariyon. Skull proceeded to bring out Captain Kidd and the little imp was slammed with his attack. As a result, the shadow went flying backwards and smacked into the ground with more force than I think any of us were expecting from the stillness that came over us as we looked on in silence for a few moments.

Thankfully, Obariyon proceeded to knock us back to our senses by jumping to his feet and using a Spell. This Spell proceeded to raise its' Physical attack – I quickly warned the others about this – which made that attack it had more dangerous. Panther quickly used her Fire on Obariyon in an attempt to stop it from attacking us once again. It still stood so Mona used his Wind to try and defeat it, but this had the same results as before.

Without a group defence spell, we could only count on beating that Shadow before it could attack. Joker brought out his little leaf man again and brought lightning down onto the Obariyon. With the imp knocked down, Joker ordered all of us into an All-Out Attack, I could feel the Shadow weakening which meant we had to be getting close to ending this battle.

My theory was proven true as right after we darted back, Skull lunged forward and had more Electricity crackle into existence around Obariyon. This led to another All-Out Attack and the Shadow was finally defeated. Wispy flecks of darkness began to drift off its' slumped down body and into the air, eventually growing slightly larger until soon enough Nakanohara's Shadow had returned to the human form it was meant to hold.

"I-I'm sorry… please forgive me… I-I couldn't stop obsessing… n-not after this person I trusted used me and then disposed of me," Shadow Nakanohara apologised. That, that sounded pretty painful, but I suppose it does show that the world is a whole lot more grey than people prefer it to be, a bad person could simply end up being another victim of a worse person.

"We get it," Joker softly admitted. He moved closer to Shadow Nakanohara, likely trusting that he wouldn't try to attack; given his hunched over position, the Shadow probably wouldn't "You were betrayed but taking it out on other people won't help you. Now you mentioned a Madarame earlier. If he truly is worse than you, tell us. We'll change his heart," Joker pointed.

"I… was afraid of being thrown away again like some worthless thing," Shadow Nakanohara admitted. Panther realised that someone was forcing this man to suffer just had she had been made to suffer, her face softening to empathy briefly before it hardened into an expression of unforgiving steel. Even if he had more valid reasons than other people, what he did was still wrong.

"Still, you shouldn't have dragged an unrelated woman into your mess," Panther insisted. She was right, that woman had no business being unceremoniously dragged into the mess that was her partner's past, walking in of your own volition was completely different from being tossed into it without getting a word in edge wise about how you felt.

"Panther is right, forcing others to suffer as you have suffered will simply perpetuate a needless cycle of suffering. You must have the courage to stop the cycle with your own hands," I added on. Revenge begets revenge begets more revenge, sometimes simply stopping the desire to hurt someone does more good than getting that revenge. Of course, not every sin is so easy to leave to rest, some are worse than others.

"Yes, I know that now. I'll put an end to my love for her," Shadow Nakanohara agreed. I hope he could, emotions – I have realised – are not so easily stopped once they take root in a person's heart. "Hey, you can change people's hearts, right?" Nakanohara asked. We nodded our heads to confirm this was possible. "In that case, won't you change Madarame's heart? Before more people fall victim to him," Shadow Nakanohara pleaded. He started to glow just like the other two Shadows had upon defeat.

"Hold on! You gotta tell us more about him!" Skull demanded. But Shadow Nakanohara could say no more, instead he simply proceeded to vanish, leaving only a shining orb behind, but this was much more physical looking that the hazy glow that came from the other two Treasures "Damnit! We got a clue but nothin' more than a name, not even a full one at that," Skull grumbled. He kicked his foot against the ground with a small grumble escaping his lips. "Hey Mona, Amazon, what's that shiny thing?" Skull asked.

"It's the bud of a Treasure. Had we let it be, it very well may have blossomed into a Palace. Joker, this will make a perfect reward!" Mona suggested. Joker stepped forward and wrapped his hand around the orb, in response to the grip it proceeded to transmute into a string of pearls which I felt a power coming from just like the Breeze Ring.

"So, Nakanohara had a Change of Heart, right?" Skull wondered. Given the way he had spoken and the fact that he had vanished like the other two Shadows had done, it was incredibly likely that he had gone through the process; Mona even stated that it was 'most likely', but Panther looked a little unsure of whether it had happened.

"But how are we supposed to know if we succeeded?" Panther asked. A reasonable concern, given that we didn't have the same level of access to Nakanohara as we did to Kamoshida or Ouvrard nor was he a particularly well-known man, so the news was unlikely to ever pick up on his change. But there was one way, a pretty available way for us to check on him to ensure his change stuck.

"I could ask Mishima if he'd keep an eye on posts that come up, see if anyone responds about something having changed," I suggested. It was possible that someone would be able to make some mention of whether the change had occurred on the website; that was the only reasonable avenue for us to be keeping an eye on him.

"Yeah, the lady who posted the dude's name online. If he really does change, she'll prolly comment again," Skull agreed. Mona agreed with this point. "Either way, trainin' against Shadows down here's the best! It's great prep for our next target!" Skull declared. At least he saw the benefits of coming down here and doing these requests, if only he could do the same for the studying and exams.

"It's also nice to be able to give courage to the people who post their problems online," Panther admitted. That was another good thing to coming down here, we could at least reach out to other people who might not be suffering at the hands of famous people but were suffering all the same; so long as we could help people, that was all that mattered at the moment.

"On top of that, we can sell whatever treasure we get for some cold, hard cash!" Mona declared. Which would increase the funds we could have for medicine and weapon upgrades without relying on our jobs and the money we managed to nab off of Shadows; all the better for us to be prepared for the next heist.

"Sounds like things are goin' pretty great for us!" Skull exclaimed. However, Joker had been unusually quiet throughout the discussion, I proceeded to look over at the ravenette leader and saw that he had a rather concerned expression upon his face and he was lightly gripping his chin with his fingers. Something clearly had to be concerning him for him to look so unsettled despite how well we had been doing.

"But a lot of them ran when they saw Amazon, it makes me think finding any we could corner long enough to beat will be difficult with you alongside us. But I don't want to leave anyone out, otherwise we'll never be able to work together," Joker admitted. That had been a rather particular issue for me to deal with, I'd come down here so often that now the Shadows had proceeded to flee instead of fight unless they were of the aggressive variety.

"There's more to Mementos, but I've never been able to get down there, maybe with more people we could try again," I suggested. If we managed to get through the wall barring our passage, then we'd find a new area and that new area would contain new enemies who wouldn't be as likely to flee from us as the ones here would be.

"I actually wanted to take you guys down there anyway, let's go before we leave," Mona insisted. With that, we proceeded to leave the area and return to Mementos' main area with Mona quickly assuming his Mona-van form and we all piled in. "To get further down, we'll need to find the platform from earlier. Let's head there first," Mona insisted.

"Wait, you two have been there before, right? Don't either of you got like a map or something?" Skull questioned. I shook my head in response while slightly hanging my head, we couldn't make a map of this place because of how Mementos was created; it was a literally impossible task to map out this place permanently.

"That would hold no meaning in this place. The layout changes every time you enter," Mona revealed. Panther was naturally shocked by this fact since we'd have to search the floors every time we came down here. "This place is the fused cognition of a countless number of people. It's constantly shifting. Even so, our destination should be pretty close. I'm counting on you Joker," Mona stated.

"We're looking for a train platform, that will take us down to the next level," I revealed. Joker nodded his head; with a purring engine we shot off back into the winding tunnels, my eyes were searching through the murkiness to locate the doorway that would get us to the platform. Soon enough we found it and hopped out the Mona-van onto the raised section of stone that connected to the elevators heading down.

"Hold on a sec. You guys hearin' something?" Skull asked. As he did, we all stopped and I heard the telltale sound of something that had become pretty routine to my ears whenever I came down here. I looked over to see a cognition of a train roll up in the barred area across from us. "The trains're totally runnin'!" Skull exclaimed. He looked rather scared at seeing such a thing happening down here, then again I'd been pretty spooked the first time it had happened to me.

"We don't need to worry about them, I've never seen them running on whatever section of the track we're on," I reassured. Skull visible slumped down, his relief was that palpable, but at least they all knew we weren't going to be run over by a train at some point while exploring this unusual world. Joker wiped his forehead as Panther sighed loudly with relief.

"Still, I thought this was a Palace! Why are there working trains down here?" Panther wondered. A good question, honestly though I figured it was probably some cognitive derived factor; after all this was connected to the subway so that probably affected how the whole thing ended up forming into this complex, ever shifting warren of insanity.

"Maybe this is how the public views this place? I don't know," Mona answered. With the others reassured, we proceeded to descend down the escalator to the next area, finding the small stretch of platform with trains buzzing passed on either side. "Alright, there it is! The thing I want to make sure of is up ahead," Mona insisted. We carefully made our way over to the dead end with its' pulsating wall.

"What is this place? It's kinda creepy," Panther acknowledged. She was right, this place gave off an even creepier ominous feeling that the previous two areas of Mementos; I honestly wondered if this would be a recurring thing, the further down we went the more this oppressive feeling would start sinking into my bones. I really, really hope not, I don't think I could take it for very long if that was the case.

"And a dead end at that. Why's it even exist?" Skull wondered. I didn't understand why there was some kind of mysterious barrier that didn't let anything through had manifested two levels down into the collective unconsciousness of, at the least, all of Tokyo. I knew there was more beyond it, but the darn thing wouldn't budge, I even used Phantom on it… nothing.

"Now hold on… just watch. This is most likely not an ordinary wall. If my hunch is correct…," Mona commented. Instead of finishing, he hopped forward and pressed his paw against the wall; a sudden rumbling shook the platform and I immediately dropped into a fighting stance as I snapped my head about, fearful that a massive Shadow was approaching. Instead, the diamond shape at the centre of the wall slid up and the portions that surrounded it rotated away into the walls around it.

"It opened!" Panther exclaimed. Beyond were the escalators I'd seen before thanks to my eyes, but I was rather surprised to see that it had suddenly decided to open up. That was when the Meta-Nav proceeded to chime in with a message about a new area being confirmed and updating guidance information.

"See!? It's just as I though!" Mona declared. He must have suspected that the wall wasn't the true end just like I had, though Panther was confused by those words. "That wall wouldn't budge when I came here by myself before. But it'd be weird for the deepest part of Mementos to be some normal place like this, wouldn't it?" Mona explained. It would indeed have been weird, at least now we knew there was a way to remove the blockage.

"So you were thinkin' there's gotta be more?" Skull suggested. And the Meta-Nav had happily confirmed such a thing, the next area was likely to be more dangerous than this area; but with five of us – one a Wild Card – we were probably going to be able to handle it. Well, so long as we didn't do anything too dangerous in whatever battles we encountered down there.

"Yeah! Now that Kamoshida's Palace is gone and people are actually starting to talk about us… I knew something had to have changed down here!" Mona revealed. Why would the dissolution of Kamoshida's Palace have affected the barrier here in Mementos? The two were rather disconnected to each other and dissolving Ouvrard's Palace hadn't done anything. Unless it had to do with the small number of people who believed in the Phantom Thieves, that would make sense.

"How deep is it? Should we try going further down?" Panther suggested. Not a good idea, we weren't quite prepared yet for heading into what could likely be a dangerous area, we should give Joker some time to ensure we had everything ready before diving in; additionally, entering an unknown area after getting into a fight that had been draining would leave us vulnerable if the Shadows down there had any significant level of power.

"Let's not. That's not why we're here today, remember? We've already accomplished our goal. We should head back and I'll explain more once we're home," Mona responded. I'm glad that our cat shaped thief wasn't willing to do something risky just to try and figure out what was further down in Mementos; clearly the phrase about curiosity and cats wouldn't be striking Mona any time soon.

"Besides, the Shadows down there will likely be more powerful than the ones up here. We should take our time and be cautious," I advised. This would stop Skull from recklessly diving in; he did seem wary about pushing in further and from the pursed lips on her face, Panther must have been thinking along the same wary lines.

"Agreed, we know about Mementos now and can come back any time we need to for training and the requests," Joker agreed. With that, we proceeded to turn around with the intent to leave, I walked over to the nearby 'wall' – blocks made of black stone and red spiderweb like patterns – and I created a shortcut for us to pass through.

"Hey look!" Panther warned. We all looked over and my eyes widened in shock when I took in the sight. There was a young, small boy about a head taller than Morgana stood beyond the scanners. He had grey hair in the shape of a half eggshell, yellow eyes like Lavenza and Elizabeth, and ears that were very round and unusually undefined in shape. He wore an oversized white-greyish raincoat and boots with stars and moon motifs, black leggings and gloves; there were also goggles around his neck.

"Hmm," The boy murmured. He was standing in front of glowering flowers held within a bubble and behind him was a blue object that looked like a toy car with a lot of stuff tied onto it. Just who was he?! I'd never seen this boy – or anyone else for that matter – here before! How did he get here?! "Maybe it's this one…," The boy commented. Suddenly the flower transformed into a drink which the boy proceeded to take a sip of. "Ooh! Tasty!" The boy exclaimed. I think my brain officially broke at that.

"Hey, what's he drinkin'?" Skull wondered. I had a deep urge to sarcastically answer 'Flower Juice' at that question, but I was too shell shocked to actually open my mouth, all I could do was follow after the other four as they proceeded to approach the boy; since his eyes were like the attendants, I wondered if he was their brother… but that would be pretty awkward to just bring up in front of strangers.

"Oh? Hmm, I thought I felt something strange for a second. So, who're you guys?" The boy asked. He seemed as perplexed by our appearance as we were by his, I had wondered if he might be a prospective attendant for the Velvet Room but he would likely have known me – Elizabeth had after all, and she left – so that pushed that theory into the furnace. But who was he to have such similar golden eyes and to not be a Shadow?

"We should be asking you that!" Mona exclaimed. The cat shaped entity jumped into the air, waving his arms slightly to emphasise his point, his ears were twitching wildly in response to the emotions that he was feeling; However, the boy didn't seem unsettled by the wild actions of Mona, his eyes remained calm and steady as he focused on the cat entity.

"Good point. Sorry about that. It's customary for a human to introduce itself before asking another human for its' name. Thanks for reminding me, Misterrrr… um, Tanuki? No, um… hmmm… Cat?" The boy commented. That was an unusual thing to say, as if he wasn't a human, but the second part had me fighting down a smile at Mona being called a Tanuki only for it to be amended to what he actually resembled… although, now that I think about it, Mona did resemble a Tanuki somewhat.

"What took so long to come up with 'Cat'!? And I'm not either of those!" Mona protested. The little cat creature was very put out by being referred to as another animal before being addressed as a cat once again; but what else were people supposed to think when they saw him. However, the boy didn't seem bothered by Mona's outburst.

"My name is Jose. I'm looking for flowers," The boy admitted. At least we now have a name for him. "I'm pretty surprised to see normal humans running around. I didn't know people could just come here," Jose added on. We were just as surprised by the presence of someone without a Persona, heck there wasn't even a blue fire around him, something I only saw around those of the Velvet Room. "Although, I don't think I've ever seen a human with wings before," Jose commented. His golden eyes were focused on me when he said those words.

"Wings? Amazon doesn't have wings!" Skull exclaimed. He even leaned back to look at my back as if he would see these mysterious wings that Jose was referring to; not that I blame him since I moved my left hand back to pat at my shoulder blades as if I would feel them. But there was nothing there, like I suspected, but Jose had sounded so certain and his eyes sparkled with confusion.

"But then what are those big shimmering blue things growing from her back?" Jose wondered. I could feel the eyes of the other three on me as Skull delicately poked at my back, causing me to fidget; okay, this was starting to get incredible uncomfortable. I focused on Jose and quickly decided to turn this whole thing away from me and onto the thing that was much more important mystery standing right in front of us.

"Flowers, you say Jose. Why are you looking for them?" I asked. This, thankfully, dragged the gaze of all my teammates away from me and back to the mysterious boy; he didn't seem bothered by the sudden attention that I'd dunked him in. He stared at me for another minute and seemed to be looking slightly behind me before dragging his eyes back to the rest of the group, who waited for the answer to my question.

"I'm collecting as many of 'em as I can 'cause I'm studying humans," Jose admitted. That was an unusual thing to say, I know the Metaverse – Mementos especially – was beyond the concept of what most people understood; but to claim to be studying humans via collecting flowers from the collective unconscious was beyond strange. I was trying to understand how flowers could help him understand us.

"Studying humans? That's why you turned a flower into a drink?" Skull asked. Jose gave this a positive confirmation. "Drinkin' flower juice counts as studying?" Skull questioned. I could just image the thoughts running through his mind about how drinking these flowers helped Jose with studying, probably wishing the flowers could do the same to him.

"Hey, could you guys help me with my research?" Jose asked. That earned Jose a collective confused look and Panther asked the simple question of 'how?'. "By collecting flowers for me, pretty lady," Jose answered. I saw a small smile make its' way onto Panther's face. "I wouldn't ask you to do it for free, though. I find all kinds of stuff you can use while you're exploring. I'll trade you some for that stuff for more flowers," Jose offered. That could actually be helpful, the stuff in Mementos was unusual but its' constant shifting meant we might not find it unless we went in every day, which wasn't exactly feasible.

"Whaddya think? Should we try an' get him some flowers?" Skull asked. It didn't seem like a particularly dangerous thing to do, especially if they were something we'd run into anyway whilst down here; plus, if Jose was offering to trade them for somethings he found, then it might be useful, especially if it was rare stuff like Soul Drops or other things that restore Soul Power.

"Seems like it could do us some good, but we don't know this kid… we gotta be careful," Mona warned. He might be unusual, especially given that he claimed I had wings that no one else could see, but I don't think there was anything wrong with helping him out; though Mona's caution wasn't something that could be easily dismissed either as we didn't even know what Jose was. I had my suspicions sure, but that wasn't capable of being confirmed.

"Oh, I'm sure he's fine. Let's give him a hand. He seems like he could use it and it shouldn't be too hard to pick flowers while we're exploring, right?" Panther insisted. Skull proceeded to ask if Panther had any other reason behind her suggestion. "Hehe, he called me pretty lady," Panther admitted. A smile on her face as she said those words, which caused Mona to slump down with his ears pressed flat against his skull and he bemoaned this revelation.

"I don't sense any animosity from him, also the stuff he sells might be useful to us at some point. And as Panther said, it won't be difficult to find them while we're exploring," I admitted. At least this would put two voices for helping Jose even if one of those was motivated by the fact that she had been called pretty by the young boy in front of us. Said young boy was looking between each of us with wide eyes but I couldn't determine anything beyond that.

"Alright, we'll help out Jose," Joker decided. I breathed a sigh of relief, glad to know that he had decided to help us out with the flower hunting; Skull shrugged his shoulders as he seemed completely unbothered by this decision, however one quick look at Mona showed that our cat-like healer wasn't exactly pleased if the narrowed slits of his pupils were anything to go by. Mona leapt into the air, deftly securing the attention of everyone else.

"Wait! Wait! Hang on a second! We still don't know who this kid is?!" Mona protested. He said those words right as Jose proceeded to thank Joker for the off of aid, once Mona landed on the ground, he turned to stare at Jose with a particularly heated look. "Don't go thanking us just yet, bud!" Mona declared. I scratched the area of skin behind my ear, more than a little confused about why he was so against us helping Jose.

"Aw, are you tired, kitty? You seem grumpy," Jose wondered. Mona took great offense to this, jumping up off his feet like a cat when frightened and his fur proceeded to stand on end as he protested being called a cat and being grumpy. "O-oh, okay. Then, are you hungry? I learned hunger can make a person turn grumpy. Here, you can have this," Jose wondered. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a cookie.

"Thanks, but I'll pass," Mona answered. Skull decided to take the cookie to reassure Jose after chastising Mona for worrying the mysterious boy; with the cookie pocketed, Jose proceeded to climb into the front seat of his toy like car and looked at us with a seemingly happy gleam within his eyes. He must really like those flowers.

"I'll be looking for flowers around here, so stop by and say hi if you see me," Jose insisted. It would be beneficial, I just hoped we'd be able to locate him easily enough. "Oh and I guess just gathering flowers would be kind of boring, huh? Since you humans seem to enjoy playing so much, I'll come up with some fun games for you" Jose admitted. What kind of game was he thinking of making us play down here? "Ah, I also remembered something humans like to say to each other: Good job!" Jose stated. And with that, he took off into the depths of Mementos.

"Who in the hell was that?" Skull asked. A fine question, he was certainly an oddball and I really couldn't completely rule out if he was a possible attendant, perhaps Lavenza and Elizabeth had gone through the same training process in other parts of the collective unconscious before they could take on that mantle properly. Though, that would be rather difficult to explain without them being able to visit the Velvet Room.

"If he's studying humans, does that mean he isn't one? And he said something about Amazon having blue wings, but…," Panther commented. She proceeded to look at my back the same way that Skull had done earlier before pulling herself back around. "I'm really not seeing anything," Panther admitted. At least she hadn't pushed the wing thing too much, but it seemed I had another question to ask Igor whenever I managed to get back into the Velvet Room again.

"Well, he didn't feel like a Shadow. I wouldn't say he's dangerous, at least, for now," Mona stated. That was true, there was no sense of animosity from him and he didn't even give off the usual sensation that the rest of the Shadows gave off, I really didn't feel like Jose was any kind of threat to us and if he could give us some items to help then there was nothing wrong with helping him out with this little studying he was doing.

"Anyways, if we see any of those flowers he wants, I guess we can grab 'em for him," Skull suggested. We agreed to this and proceeded to turn our backs to the gates in order to head back to the physical world, we had done a fair bit today and would be tired when we left, plus with our exams in the next few days we would need to rest and be refreshed for when that event proceeded to roll over us.

"I totally forgot!" Jose's voice sounded. We turned around with wide eyes – his return had been sudden and rather startling – to see Jose running up to us, looking rather out of breath. "There's something I've been meaning to give to all of you. The thing is… I picked up something strange while I was exploring earlier. Here it is," Jose explained. He reached into his pocket and pulled something out, it was a blue star that seemed to glow with a strange light and it gave off an odd sensation.

"What's this Jose?" Joker asked. The saying 'if looks like and talks like' can never be applied to the Metaverse, plus the odd sensation that it gave off was unlike anything I had ever felt before. I reached over and gently prodded the star which caused it to tilt slightly and I felt something run up my arm; it was soft, full of promise and seemingly infinite in whatever this star contained inside of it.

"It's a star. At least, that what it looks like, so that's what I call it," Jose admitted. So, even he was clueless about what it could be. "Humans make wishes on stars, right? That's so interesting. Stars granting wishes. So, this star is going to grant your wishes," Jose stated. An interesting thing to claim when he didn't even know what it was.

"Our wishes!?" Mona exclaimed. Even he seemed surprised by this, how could Jose seem so certain that something like this would work – how it could even work, I wasn't going to question – when he didn't even really know what it was. I looked at the boy with a confused expression upon my face as I tried to puzzle out what Jose could be getting at with hie words.

"Or, it would be nice to think that," Jose finished. Ah, so he didn't really except it to really grant our wishes, but it could clearly do something from what it gave off. "I'll give this to you. It's so sparkly and beautiful, you want it too, don't you? It's a 'sign of our friendship'. I know what that is. Off I go now. Good job!" Jose cheered. He proceeded to hop back in his car and take off once again.

With the star left, everyone proceeded to focus upon it as Skull wondered if what Jose said was true while Mona completely doubted something like that would even be possible. Even so, he suggested we try and make a wish. This led to a series of ridiculous food related wishes from Skull and Panther that each called petty. Nothing came of this, so Joker pocketed the star and we proceeded to leave Mementos.

*Persona 5 Royal*

"Mementos, huh? I still don't really get that place. Oh and what was that wall thing we saw at the end?" Ryūji asked. We were stood outside the station by the tram like structure, I could feel the fatigue pressing upon my shoulders already. Ryūji was slumping down harder, Ann rubbed at her eyes as Ren barely stifled a yawn with his hand.

"I'm not entirely sure, but that wall must've been there for a reason. If Mementos' is the public's Palace though… it might be affected by the general public's belief in us," Morgana suggested. That had to be the only way to open it up, which would require increasing people's recognition of us, bringing our existence from their subconscious to the forefront of their minds. The best way was to get a well-known target and stop them.

"Why do you know so much about it, Morgana?" Ann asked. A fine question, he had more knowledge than I did, but I'd never seen him wandering around in Mementos nor heard of him from any of the Shadows and they could be pretty talkative depending upon what they felt like. Before Kamoshida's Palace, I had been all alone in my investigations, so how had I missed this human turned cat all this time?

"My memories are a little foggy in that regard… however, I need to know what lies in the depths of Mementos, no matter what," Morgana admitted. The Depths? A shiver crawled up my spine when I heard that, as if some instinctual alarm was going off within my mind. "Mementos is not just everyone's Palace, it's the source of all Palaces. It used to be that Palaces like Kamoshida's with one ruler simply didn't exist. So, if we do something about the greatest cause of distortions, I'm certain my appearance will…," Morgana trailed off. His gaze looked down at the stones beneath our feet.

"You wanted someone to save you too," Ann realised. It was something that we all had to realise in that moment, Morgana might be a confident and methodical healer with great insight into the collective unconsciousness. But just like the rest of us, he was someone who wanted to be heard, seen and helped. Like us, he was someone in trouble with no way out that could be taken without help.

"I-I just needed pawns!" Morgana protested. He stood on his feet and seemed agitated by this claim Ann had made, but I don't think any of us were buying what he had just said; not only did he care about Ann too much to ever seen her as a 'pawn', but he wasn't the kind of person who would sacrifice others to achieve his own ends, the chivalrous sword wielder that was his Persona was evidence of the core of his heart.

"I see… so that's why you came pokin' your nose around with us," Ryūji commented. Even the person who he mostly had verbal sparring matches with understood, Ryūji's brown eyes softened as he looked at the cat. I moved over and began to gently run my fingers down Morgana's sleek black coat, causing a soft purr to start emanating from the cat, despite the small grumbles emanating from his lips.

"I'll help you. I hope you can regain what you've lost," Ann decided. Her tone was sweet and considerate, no doubt thinking of her best friend currently lying in a hospital bed. Morgana's vivid blue eyes were closed as he gave into the petting and started to push his head harder into my hand. Ren gently rested his own fingers on an area that I wasn't stroking.

"You said our bond was give and take. So long as you continue to help us, we'll continue to help you," Ren pointed out. I wasn't sure where he got that line from, but whatever it was seemed to relax the cat as he sat down once again while shifting himself so that he sat closer to me in order to allow me to continue with my easy stroking of him.

"I'll… be relying on you guys," Morgana admitted. At least he had said it, we would need to trust and be trusted in, especially if we wanted to give hope to the people in a hopeless situation. We'd only accomplish such a thing by working together, which meant we had to trust each person to do their jobs while endeavouring to successfully complete our own tasks.

"By the way, Morgana… are you a boy? Or might you be a girl?" Ann wondered. This led to a brief detour as Morgana insisted that he was male, he certainly viewed himself as such and his Persona supported that but given my own Persona and the fact that Morgana was typically a girl's name, I couldn't blame anyone for being confused. Of course, Ren lightened the atmosphere by bringing up his transformation into a van which drew laughter from each of us.

"Anyway, we now know that we can perform minor changes of heart in Mementos. If we come across any eye-catching leads, it may be worth dealing with them for a bit of combat practice," Morgana insisted. His expression was serious as he said that which effectively refocused us on our mission, of course given what we found on the website, there was a problem that needed to be addressed.

"Otherwise, we can keep training at my home whenever we can, best not to let a low number of challenges cause us to get rusty," I advised. With so few requests for help, we needed to keep on top of our skills if we wanted to stay in our best form. The Shadows certainly wouldn't become weaker as time went on meaning we couldn't afford to let that happen to us.

"There weren't any other outstanding ones though," Ann admitted. Her expression had gone glum as she folded her arms and looked at the ground, it was exactly why I had suggested the training at my home; Ryūji pushed himself up with a grin on his face as he looked at his fellow blonde. A sinking feel appeared within my stomach at his expression.

"I bet we'll get tons of 'em if we can change someone fa-," Ryūji began to speak. Realising what he was doing, I was about to react, up until Ann violently jammed her foot into one of Ryūji's, causing him to be silenced as he gripped his foot and jumped up and down in pain. I relaxed back into my previous position as a small grin tugged at my lips.

"How many times must you be told, Ryūji?" Morgana asked. Even Ren looked unimpressed by the Electricity wielder continually almost blowing of our cover. "First, you need to find a way to get through your exams," Morgana reminded. We all agreed… but I swear it felt like someone was staring at us.

*Persona 5 Royal*

Returning to my home, I set my bag down and went about making some food for myself while plucking the book and recording of Carmen from their resting places and setting them into my bag so I wouldn't forget them. As I went through the preparations, my phone buzzed so I quickly opened it to look at the Chat.

Ryūji: Man, that Nakanohara guy was a piece of cake!

Ryūji: If we can take down some kinda big target next, we're totally gonna get famous.

Ann: Hey! We're trying to help people, not get famous!

Natsumi: Although, given Morgana's desire to push deeper into Mementos, we do need to make an effort to affect the public's perception of us.

Ren: Meaning getting famous will help us, help Morgana.

Ann: Well, when you guys put it like that…

Ryūji: Besides, if people don't know who we are, how're we gonna give them any courage?

Ren: Our main focus should still be helping people in need.

Ren: All else is secondary.

Natsumi: Well said, leader.

Ann: I'm just wondering, should we really be doing this at all if we don't have a reason like with Kamoshida?

Natsumi: I think we'll have to play it by ear for something like that.

Ryūji: What?

Ren: Meaning we evaluate the scenario as it plays out before us.

Ren: Sticking our noses into other people's business might not be appreciated.

Natsumi: Plus, there's a person's perspective to think about.

Natsumi: We might see something wrong when there isn't anything there.

Ryūji: I dunno, man. If someone's in trouble, it's only natural to wanna help 'em out!

Ann: I mean, I agree with that.

Ann: And I guess, I was glad we were able to solve the stalker case.

Ryūji: Plus, what good are our Personas if we don't use 'em for good?

Ryūji: Don't you guys agree?

Ren: Yes. I want to help people.

Natsumi: I shall not blind myself anymore.

Ann: The same goes for me.

Ryūji: We don't got much time to be arguing over this either. That Madarame (?) guy bothers me.

Ann: Yeah, but no getting carried away, you understand?

Ann: And don't do anything to stand out, like fail all your exams.

Natsumi: Ann, I think that won't raise any eyebrows.

Natsumi: Now passing all of them would.

Ryūji: Oh crap! Speaking of that, I haven't studied at all…

Ryūji: What about that star? The one Jose gave us.

Ryūji: Wonder if that could help us ace the exams…

Ren: Nothing is that magical Ryūji.

Ann: Yeah, I somehow doubt that.

Ryūji: Hell, I'd settle for just not failing.

Natsumi: Studying will solve that easily.

Ann: Besides, bargaining isn't gonna help you here. We wouldn't use it for that in the first place.

Ann: Maybe you should do as Natsu-chan suggested and put some actual effort in? You've still got time.

Ryūji: Fiiine…

Setting my phone down, I returned my focus to the food as I ran through what I needed to focus on studying for the upcoming exams.