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 MCRDanime, I'm glad you're enjoying the story.

To Guest, thank you for the review

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

Chapter 38: - The Gallant Rogue

Perhaps activating the Meta-Nav inside the building was a bad idea, if only because the moment the sensation of moving into the Metaverse faded, the sensation of freefalling overcame me. I looked down and saw the ground of the previously barred courtyard – yes! It worked – was coming up fast; I quickly snapped my head around only to get an eye full of something completely unexpected.

"Kitagawa! Imagine you can land on your feet from this height, believe it no matter what!" I ordered. Somehow the artist had ended up falling in with us, no doubt being the source of the weight that had suddenly grasped us when we crossed over. "And don't let go of Ann!" I added on. Panther was currently being cradled like a princess by the blue haired boy; I looked around and found Mona flailing about, flipping my naginata around I held it by the blade and extended it towards the cat shaped thief. Thankfully he grabbed a hold of it and dragged himself over to cling onto me, I'm certain I felt some claws poking into my shoulders.

We got closer and I quickly organised my thoughts, feeling my body respond to the belief I held and straighten out so that my feet were pointed at the ground. Before I landed, I sharply stabbed down with my naginata, the tip caught in the ground which kept it up right and that support easily allowed me to safely twirl around the shaft until my feet reached the ground, I felt a grateful Mona slump against my shoulders and gently patted the cat on his head. Kitagawa on the other hand landed in a squat kind of position, pain on his face and Panther safely in his grasp.

"Well at least we're all alive," I commented. I looked up and felt instant relief upon seeing Joker and Skull were stood there staring at us with wide eyes behind their masks. "There was… an incident in the shack, I'll explain later. We need to get out of here, quickly," I explained. Given that someone without a Persona had followed us in, that created a great deal of danger for us on Kitagawa.

"I thought I was gonna die," Panther groaned. I looked at the girl who was still held in a motionless Kitagawa's arms, though it seemed Panther had realised where she was. "Hey, will you let go already!?" Panther demanded. She even went as far as to push Kitagawa back so that he toppled back onto the floor while she rolled forward. "Oh no! I didn't mean to push him so hard… are you okay? Wake up!" Panther exclaimed. She got to her feet and scuttled over to Kitagawa to stare down at him.

"Who are you all!?" Kitagawa asked. No surprised that he was confused since he was probably incredibly disorientated, had just fallen through the sky yet landed safely and we were all wearing masks and dressed completely differently to how he last saw us; but if we wanted to get out of here safely then we needed Kitagawa to trust us and there was one way to speed that up.

"Deep breaths, Kitagawa-san, it's just us," I calmly spoke. I even knelt down and lifted my mask so that he could see my face, spots of soft colour began to blossom on his cheeks as he looked over my Rebel's Armour; I waited until he had finished and his eyes returned to mine and realisation shimmered within his eyes.

"Chiba-san?" Kitagawa asked. He seemed rather confused but not so much that he was losing his head, instead he was processing everything that was happening. "You said not to let go of Takamaki-san, which means… that's…," Kitagawa spoke. His eyes drifted over to Panther and then immediately snapped back and I saw those spots of colour darken enough for them to be called a blush. "That means you two are…," Kitagawa spoke. He glanced at Joker and Skull as he tried to get the fierce blush under control.

"Amamiya Ren and Sakamoto Ryūji, since we were never probably introduced. Can you stand?" Joker spoke. He extended his hand to Kitagawa, but the boy seemed to ignore it and instead looked around a little more before his eyes came to land upon Mona who was stood at Kitagawa's feet; the painter blinked his eyes a few times as he stared at our healer in silence.

"I don't recall ever seeing this cat costume before though…," Kitagawa stated. He was taking that particular revelation awfully well; I'm not sure what Mona was thinking but he didn't seem annoyed by the comment. "What is this place?" Kitagawa asked. All of us exchanged nervous glances at this question, but we couldn't avoid it since Kitagawa had fallen into the Palace.

"This is probably going to sound crazy, but we're inside a place that represent Madarame's heart," Panther admitted. She looked incredibly fidgety as she said those words, not that I blame her since this would be a frustratingly uncomfortable conversation to have… I'd honestly prefer to be back in Kamoshida's Palace hitting my head against a brick wall so long as no one was being hurt.

"Inside Sensei's heart?" Kitagawa asked. He jerked up at those words and proceeded to climb to his feet, he looked around at this warped and gaudy museum, before focusing upon Panther once again with an incredulous look in his eyes. "I'm sorry Takamaki-san, but are you sure you're feeling okay?" Kitagawa wondered. It seemed he still didn't believe, even though the earlier scene should have proven something was wrong.

"She ain't lyin'. This is what that bastard truly feels. He's nothin' but a greed-filled money-grubber," Skull commented. Kitagawa's gaze snapped to Skull and narrowed into a sharp glare; the blonde boy on the other hand was actually rather relaxed and lightly swinging one of his legs back and forth with seemingly no care, nice to see that Skull could talk to the artist without making things hostile.

"Enough of this rubbish!" Kitagawa snapped. He also swung his left arm out as if to batter the accusation away with sheer will, but nothing he could do would change this situation and we didn't have the time for this; Shadows could arrive at any point and if we didn't bring Kitagawa with us then he'd be in danger, but if he didn't trust us then he wouldn't leave with us.

"Kitagawa-kun! Didn't it cross your mind that something wasn't right about Madarame!?" Panther snapped. She seemed irritated by the fact that Kitagawa was still denying the events that had taken place in the storage room, we had to do something quickly and Panther was our best way to convince Kitagawa to listen to us.

"That's…," Kitagawa muttered. His eyes darted down to the gold pathway with a conflicted look within his eyes, hopefully he was remembering that had caused us to end up in this situation and it was altering his perception of his teacher; Joker stepped forward with a concerned expression upon his face, but it was filled with kindness as well.

"It must be painful for you, but this is the shack you live in, but viewed through Madarame's eyes which are twisted by a distortion. This is the true nature of his heart," Joker explained. His tone had been sad as he spoke and Joker gestured to the surroundings with both hands which caused Kitagawa to look at the world around us once more.

"This repulsive world?" Kitagawa asked. His lips were curled in disgust as he took in the horrid place, he then dropped his gaze back to look over the rest of us with questions shimmering in his eyes. "Just who are all of you?" Kitagawa questioned. No surprise he'd ask that and we would have to explain ourselves, but we couldn't afford such a delay as this.

"Now isn't the time. Given what happened outside, the Security Level will have increased too much for us to use a shortcut to get out. We need to get to our entry point and get out, Kitagawa-san's life is in danger," I insisted. Thankfully, my words reminded the other three of the danger we were all in given how they jumped and quickly looked at Kitagawa before gaining some version of an expression of concern or fear.

"Amazon's right! We've got to get moving before Shadows completely surround us," Mona added on. Thank goodness Mona had kept a hold of his senses as well, we proceeded to turn to the stained glass that would lead us out. "Since we have an amateur with us, we need to avoid fighting as much as possible!" Mona ordered. We quickly got moving with Joker at the front, Skull and Panther on either side with me and Mona at the back, Kitagawa was safely protected in the middle, we arrived in the area where we found the Will Seed

"So this… is the inside of Sensei's heart? A vain museum such as this?" Kitagawa asked. He gazed in pain at the pictures of the students, I wonder if he recognised any of them. "If everything you say is true, then the sensei I know doesn't exist," Kitagawa mourned. Skull ordered him to snap out of it, Kitagawa gave the blonde a pained look before looking back at the painting he had been focused on. "Still… he has kept me safe these past ten years. My gratitude for that won't just disappear," Kitagawa stated.

"We're not asking it to," Joker stated. He moved closer to the painter, his tone remaining gentle and soothing as he tried to help Kitagawa who was struggling with such a weighty revelation. "Simply don't close your eyes to the truth of what that man is," Joker insisted. Kitagawa suddenly let out a groan of pain and dropped to his knees and folded his arms over his torso.

"Are you okay?" Panther asked. She moved over to the boy and gently rested a hand on his shoulder, Mona immediately started to rummage through our medicines to see if we had anything for internal consumption; I quickly started to keep an eye on our surroundings with Skull soon joining me as well, we didn't want to be ambushed while distracted.

"I'm trying to be rational about this, but my emotions are overwhelming me," Kitagawa admitted. If his emotions were making him feel ill then it was no surprise that he was acting as if he was ill, I heard a heavy breathing echoing from behind me but now wasn't the time to coddle someone as much as Kitagawa needed the processing time; I turned my head to look at the boy on the floor.

"Maybe the sensei you know did exist at some point, but he's gone now. Be grateful to the man who raised you, but not the thief trying to steal your accomplishments," I insisted. Kitagawa lifted his head to look at me, but no words came from him; I could only hope that my words would be able to help him come to terms with what happened, after all it's not like I knew how Madarame could have been years ago.

"Here, lean on my shoulder," Joker offered. Our leader extended his hand to the boy again, hoping that he would accept the offer this time, either way this might at least motivate Kitagawa to get up soon, no one was here yet but that didn't mean they couldn't show up; Kitagawa drifted his eyes to Joker before slowly shaking his head.

"No, it's alright," Kitagawa insisted. He stood to his feet, still visibly in pain, but at least he was standing now if slightly hunched over, we kept moving and reached the corridor that would leader us back; but Kitagawa came to a sudden stop. "Ah, this painting?" Kitagawa questioned. He moved towards the painting of a girl in a sailor-style uniform.

"Do you recognise it? We were thinking these might be his past pupils or something…," Panther asked. Her tone was cautious and delicate, it seemed like apart from when I'd only suspected Kitagawa might recognise someone, this time he definitely did, even though the facial features were so blurred that we couldn't identify her in a crowd, there might have been something only Kitagawa could see.

"Yes, this is Mina, I haven't seen her in years," Kitagawa admitted. I briefly wondered what happened to her before shaking my head to dismiss the thought, anything could have happened and it was best no to entertain any routes for dark thoughts to rise up. "But… why are there paintings of them here?" Kitagawa wondered. This would be hard to explain, but we would need to do it.

"This place creates representations of the people in the life of the person who created it, based upon how the person perceives them. You yourself said it… 'we are our sensei's artwork'," I explained. Kitagawa looked at me and seemed to be processing the information; I saw the moment my words sank in as his eyes widened in horror and he stared at the other paintings that lined the walls behind our heads.

"Technically, those aren't actually paintings. They're the pupils themselves," Mona added on. I don't think Kitagawa needed the clarification to be made, but if anything, those words only heightened the look of horror on the boy's face and he took a small trembling step backwards as his left hand pressed more firmly against his stomach like he was trying to keep his insides within.

"Madarame saw 'em as objects, so that's what they are in here… oh, and uh… we found yours too," Skull admitted. I sharply elbow Skull and gave him a stern look after he yelped and turned to look at me; Kitagawa already looked like he was going to be sick or faint, so he really didn't need to keep hearing about the horrible things that we kept discovering about this place.

"We can talk more later. It's more important for us to get out of here," Joker insisted. Thankfully everyone agreed and we started to move once again and successfully reached the Infinite Spring statue; only for Shadows to spring up blocking our exit. "Not good," Joker hissed. Suddenly a malicious laughter came from behind us, we all whipped around and got an eyeful of Madarame's Shadow.

He was as gaudy as his Palace, dressed in a traditional yellow kimono that seemed to sparkle aggressively in the lighting; the Shadow had make-up on his face, white face paint with red lips and three black lines around the eyes, which reminded me of the kind worn by a shogun, his hair was styled in a Japanese topknot look that closely resembles a paint brush and even his eyebrows were different, since they were bushier than his normal ones.

"What the-!" Panther exclaimed. I was in the same boat as Panther, this was quite a shocking sight to behold after seeing how Madarame dressed within the physical world, it was like looking at two completely different people; plus, just like his damned Palace, this Shadow was extremely aggressive on my eyes… what was with this guy and extremely shiny things.

"Talk about bullshit clothes! First a king, now some kinda shogun!?" Skull exclaimed. At least someone else had noticed the shogun like make-up that this Shadow was sporting, why was Ouvrard's maestro Shadow so normal compared to the freakish king and this wacky shogun that I was having to deal with? I hope the other Shadows I ran across were more normal looking.

"Welcome to the museum of the master artist Madarame," Shadow Madarame greeted. That was such a pathetic claim, if it weren't for the fact that he'd end up dying I'd probably give into the urge to put my naginata through his chest; he was such a horrible person and utterly impossible of creating anything worthy of being called art, yet he dared to call himself a master artist.

"Huh? Sensei? Is that you? That attire…," Kitagawa questioned. He had moved to the front of us and seemed stunned by the person standing in front of us, not that his surprise was unexpected as he was probably suffering whiplash thanks to all the events that were going on in front of us; Panther spat out a single disgusting as Kitagawa tried to collect his thoughts. "This… this is all one big lie, isn't it?" Kitagawa pleaded.

"My usual ragged attire is nothing but an act. Besides, a famous person living in that shack? I have another home… under a mistress' name, of course," Shadow Madarame admitted. So that was the truth, this was the way he actually considered himself to be, the way he spoke the word shack showed his utter contempt for that building; I felt my heart ache for Kitagawa at having to confront this truth so harshly and unexpectedly.

"That's some set-up you've got," Joker sneered. Those words were normally something that might sound complimentary, but the way Joker said it turned them into an insult; our leader walked forward and rested a hand on his hip. "I'd be almost impressed… if I didn't feel like being violently ill," Joker added on. An almost venomous bite to his words and his grey eyes were narrowed into a razor-sharp glare.

"Hahaha! How naïve!" Shadow Madarame declared. He was completely uncaring of the insults that were being fired at him by everyone else; I chose to keep my eyes on Kitagawa as I wanted to make sure that the boy didn't do anything that could put himself in danger, luckily he wasn't moving from his position and still holding his torso.

"If the Sayuri was stolen, why was it in the storage room? And if you had the real one, why make copies? If it's really you, Sensei… please tell me!" Kitagawa asked. It was quite likely that we'd actually get an answer out of the man in this world since he would believe we'd be unable to escape from him unlike in the physical world despite the fact that he had called his security on us, plus the mental walls would be down with us in here.

"Foolish child, you still don't see?" Shadow Madarame mocked. It was getting very difficult to hold myself back from – at the least – punching this man across the room. "The painting being stolen was just a false rumour I spread! It was all a perfectly calculated staging!" Shadow Madarame declared. Oh, that was disgustingly low.

"What do you mean!?" Kitagawa asked. I was still trying to work out the reason in my head, because I couldn't see any benefit to making up such a silly rumour and then painting an absolute boat load of copies which were stuffed inside of a room. He seemed to view himself as someone who deserved an extravagant life – truly deserving of the distortion of vanity – but what did copies of Sayuri do for him?

"Let me see… how does this sound? 'I found the painting, but it can't go public… you can have it for a special price, though'. Haha! How's that for preferential treatment!? Art snobs'll eat it up and pay good cash at that!" Shadow Madarame declared. Ah, so he made all those copies under that lie so people with more money than sense would do anything to get a hold of it and keep it hidden, thus allowing Madarame to perpetuate the lie as long as he had gullible fools to con.

"No!" Kitagawa cried. He collapsed to the ground, his left arm trembling as he barely kept himself from face planting into it, I darted down to kneel at his side as I pressed a hand between his shoulder blades; Mona also came over and tried to search for some medicine that would help Kitagawa as I proceeded to keep an eye on the Shadows threatening us.

"The value of art is purely illusion. What's the matter with providing that illusion to eager customers?" Shadow Madarame questioned. He had no respect for the craft that his students had given their all to cultivate. "Though I doubt a brat like you would ever come up with such a brilliant scheme!" Madarame lectured. Brilliant scheme!? It was something that anyone could come up it, it was also incredibly depraved.

"You keep goin' on and on about money this, money that… no wonder you ended up with this disgusting museum!" Skull spat. With how he was talking, I'm almost surprised that he wasn't in possession of a Greed based distortion, though perhaps his arrogant perception of his painting skills was above his obsession with money.

"You're supposed to be an artist. Right!? Aren't you ashamed of plagiarising other people's work!?" Panther questioned. I agreed with her words, the fact that he was perfectly fine with stealing the hard work of everyone else around him showed how little he cared about the painting world. Even though Ouvrard had tried to make me into her little songbird, she did respect the singing art and its' world.

"Art is nothing but a tool… a tool to gain money and fame!" Shadow Madarame declared. My hand on Kitagawa's back proceeded to curl into a tight fist as it trembled with my barely restrained anger at the selfishness of this man. "You helped me greatly as well, Yusuke," Shadow Madarame admitted. As if Kitagawa would be happy to know that he had helped to perpetuate this thing's existence.

"God… pisses me off… that's your teacher," Skull spat. I'd never agreed more with the blonde than in that moment, this infernal Shadow was showcasing just how utterly depraved he had become and the way he viewed not only his pupils but also the very thing that had made him into such a famous man; I could only hope that we'd be able to get Kitagawa away from this horror show, soon.

"But what about the people who believe in you? Who think you're a master artist!?" Kitagawa pleaded. He was probably desperate to find any residual piece of the kind man who had raised him; but this was the worst place to search for something good, without a mask everything was twisted into something vile inside this world.

"I'll tell you this alone, Kitagawa. If you wish to succeed in this world, I'd advise you don't rise against me," Shadow Madarame warned. Not even giving an answer to the plea that had been issued to him, what a selfish and thoughtless man Madarame truly was; the fact that he had instead proceeded to threaten Kitagawa's entire future showed exactly what his prioritise were… I took a deep breath to try and cool myself down and keep focused on Kitagawa, but it was a difficult battle.

"Or what?" Joker hissed. He drifted closer and his presence seemed to almost loom over us, but instead of being an oppressive, suffocating and terrible thing, it was instead safe and welcoming, in fact it almost felt protective, like some giant black wings were gently cradling us from any harm. "Are you going to bury his chances the way you did with Nakanohara Natsuhiko!?" Joker questioned.

"Of course! Do you believe anyone could find success with my objection holding them down? Hahahahaha!" Shadow Madarame announced. I couldn't believe that he was willing to crush the hopes and futures of anyone who even tried to raise their voice against him and reveal the things he'd done, or those who just wanted to find a life away from him without him hanging over their heads like an axe blade.

"To think I was under the care of this wretched man!" Kitagawa mourned. He didn't deserve to have been raised by this terrible man, Kitagawa should have been cared for by someone that could properly nurture his incredible artist skill so that he could properly shine; yet instead he got this black hole, that would just eat and eat away at Kitagawa until nothing remained except a broken shell.

"You thought I took you in out of the goodness in my heart?" Shadow Madarame asked. I did not like where this was going and I moved to cover Kitagawa's ears, but he stopped me with his right hand yet stared unblinkingly at the Shadow. "Plucking talented, yet troubled artists allows me to find promising pupils and take their ideas… after all, it's much easier to steal the futures of children who can't fight back. Livestock are killed for their hide and meat! This is no different, you fool!" Shadow Madarame admitted. I had, had enough!

"Silence!" I ordered. I rose to my feet and stepped in front of Kitagawa. "You vile, twisted, depraved monster! How dare you take away the hopes and dreams of innocent children! Destroying their hearts all to pursue your own arrogant intentions!" I yelled. My naginata was trust out to point menacingly at the Shadow. "I won't allow someone like you to keep doing as you please!" I vowed.

"You are unforgiveable," Kitagawa hissed. I glanced back to look at the boy and found that his arm seemed to gain strength within it as he said those words, the trembling fading away as Shadow Madarame focused his attention upon the student he had so deeply betrayed. "It doesn't matter who you are… I won't forgive you!" Kitagawa declared. At least now, Kitagawa was finally seeing this man for who he truly was, the boy rose to his feet as I move back slightly so he could glare properly at Shadow Madarame.

"So, you repay my keeping you around for all these years with ingratitude? You damn brat! Men! Dispose of these thieves!" Shadow Madarame snapped. That wasn't good, we now had a fight coming without the opportunity or place to hide away Kitagawa to ensure that he was protected from the Shadows' attacks while we dealt with them.

"Get back!" Panther warned. Of all the time to need an Awakening, but we weren't likely to be getting one, Kitagawa's Will hadn't been strong enough when we entered and it wasn't like I could just magic up an Awakening, no matter how much I might wish to or the fact that I was the spiritual daughter of the one who bestowed Personas.

"How amusing…," Kitagawa calmly mused. This pulled everyone's attention to the boy who seemed to have recovered from his stomach pains as he let out a few laughs. "It seems the truth is stranger than fiction, hm? I wanted to believe it wasn't true… I had clouded my vision for so long… my eyes were truly blind. Blind and unable to see, the true self behind this one horrible man!" Kitagawa realised. A few heartbeats passed before he suddenly gasped and dropped his head towards his hands before rising back up with the hands gripping his hair as he stumbled about.

"Amazon! Is he awakening to a Persona!?" Skull questioned. Kitagawa began to scream in pain before dropping to his knees and clawing at the floor, leaving bloody marks on the floor; Kitagawa raised his head and I saw the echo of Shadow gold in his eyes, right before a traditional kitsune-style half mask appeared on his face.

"The answer to that, Skull, is yes," I stated. I quickly snapped my head towards Kitagawa to ensure that he knew what to do. "Kitagawa-san! You need to pull the mask off!" I called. I was surprised that we'd run into not only another Ruler but also a Persona wielder as well; I hadn't anticipated our gravity to move in such a manner to bring both of them to us and on the same day at that.

"Very well," Kitagawa agreed. He lifted his left arm and arced it over his head to grip the right edge of his mask. "Come, Goemon!" Kitagawa commanded. He pulled the mask off allowing the blue flames to surround him as he became clad in his Rebel's Armour. A black high-collared puff-sleeved jumpsuit with a striped sash worn across his hips, white motorcycle boots and bright blue gloves, attached to the jumpsuit was a white foxtail and in his hands was a simple katana.

Goemon was a towering Persona with an almost pompadour hairstyle for the black locks, Goemon had white skin with an ice blue edging around his face, red and cream curved just underneath the hair and the back of the skull; a massive white with gold detailing old fashioned pipe was held in his right hand. Goemon wore an elaborate Japanese outfit which was comprised of multiple pieces with a dark blue upper garment with lighter blue edging, the sleeves were pulled back and secured by braided bands of white and purple-blue fabric, a red underlayer was sealed close by a white and red braid with golden bells attached to it, maroon pants with a white and black patterned strip of fabric covered the lower layer. The black and gold Geta that Goemon stood on had massive heels that raised him a fair distance off the ground, white socks covered his legs up to just underneath the knee where the pants ended.

"A breath-taking sight… imitations they may be, but together they make a fine spectacle. Though the flowers of evil blossom, be it known… abominations are fated to perish!" Kitagawa declared. He swung his arm out and a wave of cold air burst across the Shadows; I guess Goemon could wield Ice which was fine by us if we managed to get Kitagawa to stick around.

"Woah, this is impressive!" Mona exclaimed. Shadow Madarame wasn't impressed by Goemon's display and instead commanded more guards to arrive and kill us all; but with a Persona wielder having taken the place of one who I thought was completely defenceless that would make this fight a little bit easier for us.

"The children who adored you as 'father'… the prospects of your pupils… how many did you trample upon? How many dreams did you exchange for riches!?" Kitagawa questioned. Madarame's sole response to his student's declaration was a horrifically mocking smile. "No matter what to takes… I will bring you to justice!" Kitagawa declared. To think his Will of Rebellion would flare this much since entering the Palace.

"This I wasn't expecting, but I won't complain. Let's see what you can do Yusuke," Joker commented. A smirk was on his lips as he walked forward while twirling his knife, a Shadow turned into the goo and re-emerged as a blue skinned creature with an outfit one could describe as blacksmith like, with a which black apron and matching gloves and single boot that was capped in bronze with a heavy hammer in one hand; however it had a bronze mask encircling its' entire head with only one glowing blue eyes peering out and other bronze parts jutting out of its' body. The other four became black feathered humanoids with black wings sprouting from their backs, yellow and red suits with blue scrolls around their necks and white masks that had red markings and elongated noses. "Amazon! What are those things?!" Joker asked.

"The centre is Ippon-Datara, it's strong against Fire, Bless, Curse and Gravity, it also Repels Wind and Earth," I answered. Which did put us in quite the pickle since that was basically all the known Magic that the majority of us carried rendered ineffective; of course, I hadn't revealed the important part to them yet, which might ease any worry they'd be holding.

"Weakness?" Skull panicked. I had opened my mouth in order to give that information when Skull had cut across me, I let out a small breathy laugh at hearing his worry before turning to the blonde and giving him a large smile; hopefully seeing me grinning would allow the blonde to relax since he would know I wasn't worried about the coming fight so much.

"Ice," I cheerfully answered. Skull practically deflated at that information; I turned my head back to look at Joker so that I could pass on the rest of the information so our leader could properly plan. "The others are Koppa Tengu, it's strong against Wind and Gravity but weak to Ice and Bless," I warned. Joker sharply nodded his head and I could see the gleam within his eye as he started to mould a plan.

"Yusuke! Goemon can use Ice magic, I want you to focus on the centre enemy! Mona, Panther! You two are to heal wounds or try to use your Ailment and Support Spells! Skull! Focus on the Koppa Tengus! Amazon! Use your Support Spells to boost mine and Yusuke's magic! Then attack the Koppa Tengus!" Joker ordered. I hoped that Kitagawa would be able to listen to what Joker said and not get too injured since this fight would be a little more chaotic than the ones that inducted Panther and Skull.

"You are in the presence of Madarame-dono! On your knees, intruders!" Ippon-Datara ordered. I don't think that was likely to happen from any of us, any respect or admiration that might have been directed towards Madarame had promptly evaporated the moment that we realised just how depraved and twisted this man was; just like the last time, we would stand against this kind of corruption.

"I learned much from you, Madarame. In order to see authenticity… one must be dispassionately realistic. With Goemon by my side… I can now ascertain your true self without any reservations!" Kitagawa declared. Quickly pulling off my mask, I had Phantom boost Kitagawa's magic attack since his was the lower of out Goemon and Jack Frost. With that Kitagawa proceeded to unleash a Bufu Spell upon Ippon-Datara.

"Quickly gather your Personas energy into your hand and pass it to Joker!" Mona instructed. Kitagawa looked at the cat, confused, before looking at his hand. His eyes closed as if focusing and I sensed the power gathering. He quickly darted over and Joker clapped their hands together. Quick as Panther's whip strike, Joker's mask was off. Jack Frost appeared and its' group ice Spell surrounded all of our enemies.

The enemies went down and all of us pounced on them. Once our All-Out Attack reached its' end, we moved backwards. Panther proceeded to use Dormina on Ippon-Datara, thankfully sending the entity to sleep. Mona quickly activated his Atom Ring, unleashing the Frei Spell directly at the blacksmith. Knocked down by the attack, it also woke the Shadow up, but Mona quickly passed to Joker.

Another Mabufu was cast, knocking the others down and we attacked. Once we pulled back, they got up. One of the Koppa Tengu spun around and an enhancing aura surrounded Ippon-Datara. A warning to be careful came from Joker as we all braced ourselves. A different Koppa Tengu suddenly unleashed an aura that felt strangely enraging, it wasn't enough to concern me… up until it surrounded Skull and turned his eyes a furious red.

With an angry bellow escaping his lips, Skull charged forward and swung his weapon into Ippon-Datara. But the Shadow was able to dodge it. Skull was snarling in a manner extremely unlike him and he pulled back his weapon to attack again, despite Ippon-Datara preparing its' own attack with a wicked aura coming off of it.

"Skull! Get back here!" Joker ordered. However, he wasn't listening which really wasn't like him. Panther let out a cry before her whip snapped forward around his arm. I darted over to the model and began to help her pull the boy back to us despite his struggles. Kitagawa soon moved over and joined us in pulling, allowing us to get Skull back.

Panther untangled her whip and immediately started to use it. She rapidly struck the ground in front of the Shadows, keeping them at bay and distracting them. I quickly joined her, using my own arrows to keep them away from us. Although the angry sounds behind us might have been making me miss more than I'd like to admit.

"He's not listening to us! This is the Rage Ailment! It makes him aggressive, not willing to listen to others and drops his physical defence!" Mona warned. That wasn't good, I knew most Ailments only by information and had never seen them in practice before. "I'll see if we've got anything," Mona stated. We needed to do something before Skull's thrashing ended up getting someone hurt, namely the rest of us.

"Snap out of it, Skull!" Joker ordered. I quickly shot a glance over my shoulder in time to see that Joker even went as far as to slap the boy across the face, but for just a moment I swear the image of a white paper fan manifested just before the blonde's cheek was struck, it vanished almost as quickly and Skull's red coloured eyes quickly cleared up, as his angry expression managed to relax properly.

"Wh… what happened?! My head felt all cloudy and shit," Skull admitted. I pulled out another arrow and quickly attacked the Koppa Tengu that had tried to come near us; the others quickly climbed back to their feet. "Alright you jerks! Payback time!" Skull declared. Captain Kidd quickly manifested and a blast of Electricity tore up the air as it hit one of the Koppa Tengu. Thankfully it was destroyed making things a little easier for us.

Unfortunately, the Ippon-Datara took the opportunity to attack. The same hammer attack that Nakanohara's transformed state had used on us swung out. It slammed into Kitagawa, driving the air from his lungs and he dropped to his knees with a dazed expression upon his face. A hiss came from Joker and he quickly moved over to Kitagawa. From a pocket, he pulled a capsule and forced Yusuke to swallow it. Thankfully this perked the boy up again.

Taking advantage of the breathing space, I quickly used Phantom to boost Kitagawa's magic again. Mona took the opportunity to patch up Kitagawa's wounds with a little of Zorro's magic. Skull took the opportunity to blast apart another Koppa Tengu thus reducing our enemies once more. Panther decided to use Tarunda on the Ippon-Datara to make things easier for us if it managed to retaliate.

"I'm fine now," Kitagawa insisted. He still sounded a little breathless, but at least he was up as footsteps indicated. A blossom of ice soon twisted around Ippon-Datara. But the damn thing hopped away just in time to avoid being struck which caused an annoyed sound to escape from Kitagawa. It wasn't held by one of the two remaining birdmen deciding to extend the Sukukaja boost on Ippon-Datara. Worse, was when the second one attempted to use the same Rage inducing ability upon Mona.

"You'll have to try harder than that to get me!" Mona mocked. There was a collective sigh of relief upon seeing Mona be unaffected by the Ailment. Joker didn't languish for long as he darted forward and used Jack Frost to eliminate the remaining Koppa Tengus in one hit. Sadly, the Ippon-Datara managed to dodge the attack once again.

"Joker, we either need to lower its' speed or boost our own!" I advised. A 'got it' came from Joker. Instead of Baton Passing, I saw his mask glow and then Slime appeared. The same helpful aura on Ippon-Datara surrounded Kitagawa who seemed surprised by the act. The blacksmith proceeded to pounce, using its' Sledgehammer attack upon up once more.

But with impeccable grace, Kitagawa backflipped away from the attack, easily avoiding the attack. He landed on his feet and pulled off his mask. Goemon manifested and with a puff of his pipe, chilling ice surrounded Ippon-Datara and knocking it down. On Joker's order, we all dove in for an All-Out Attack. With one well placed sword stab from Kitagawa caused it to dissipate into smoke.

With our enemies gone, Kitagawa slowly began to approach Shadow Madarame who backed up, seemingly in fear of the boy he had previously viewed as being weak. However, Kitagawa's Awakening had clearly exhausted him as he soon crumpled to his knees with a small groan of pain coming from him. Shadow Madarame proceeded to stamp his foot forward as he glared down at the boy.

"Yusuke, you've just thrown your bright future down the drain. I'll destroy every chance you've ever had of becoming an artist! You'll forever rue the day you dared defy me," Shadow Madarame threatened. With that, the man proceeded to slink off with his tail between his legs, Kitagawa rose to his feet suddenly.

"Get… back here!" Kitagawa demanded. He tried to chase after the man but soon ended up back on the floor, breathing heavily as he tried to get himself back together, Panther called out to the boy. "Why can't I move!?" Kitagawa questioned. We drifted in to gather around him as Kitagawa rose up onto his right knee and gripped the left knee which was currently up right beside him.

"Awakening Goemon and then fighting severely drained you of energy, you must rest and eat in order to recover," I explained. A look of anger appeared on his face, yet I didn't feel that it was towards me and instead it seemed to be directed at himself; though that was only speculation since I couldn't feel any heat coming from his gaze.

"What a disgrace I am!" Kitagawa hissed. Ah, so he was angry at himself for falling down like a house of cards even though he was literally a newbie at fighting in the Metaverse; I shook my head lightly at his ridiculous expectation that he'd be on our level for the very first instance he'd be involved in such an event. Joker walked up and clapped a hand onto Kitagawa's shoulder.

"Hardly, this happened to all of us when we awakened, now we need to get out of here," Joker insisted. Skull and Joker aided Kitagawa of getting his feet back under him, we shuffled out into the reception area and set Kitagawa on one of the couches; it would be best to let him recover before we proceeded to finish up our little escape.

"You've known for quite some time, haven't you?" Panther asked. It had become glaringly obvious that Kitagawa was not as blind as we had all expected him to be regarding the crimes that Madarame had been committing; then again, given his own victimisation at the man's hands and his observational nature, it would have been unlikely for Kitagawa to be wholly ignorant of Madarame's true nature.

"I'm no fool. Strange people have been coming by for years and the plagiarism was an everyday affair. But… who would want to admit that the man they owed their life to was doing such terrible things?" Kitagawa admitted. A fair point, even when something is so terribly obvious, it can probably be difficult to see through to the truth if you have significant emotional attachment clouding your vision.

"Why didn't you leave, Kitagawa-kun?" Panther asked. Apart from the fact that his entire future would have been crushed into smithereens the moment he tried to break free, that seemed like something that might terrify most people into staying unless pushed to some kind of extreme measure, much like Nakanohara had been.

"Well, he is the one who painted the Sayuri. On top of that, I owe him a great debt," Kitagawa admitted. That caused me to raise an eyebrow, with how much he adored painting I'd have thought he'd be concerned about never being able to truly show his artwork as his; yet it seemed he had put other reasons before that, though they were much weightier than the one that I had thought of.

"You mean 'cause he raised you?" Skull asked. That would explain why Kitagawa chose to stay around, that kind of a debt must have been immense to carry around with him; Kitagawa gave a shallow nod, but his eyes remained firmly on the ground, as if he didn't want to look any of us in the eye as he explained his situation.

"I… never knew my father. I was told my mother raised me by herself, but she died in an accident when I was three," Kitagawa admitted. I felt my heart clench for him, losing his only family like that was terrible. "That's when Sensei took me in. I heard he helped my mother while she was still alive," Kitagawa added on. That caught my attention as Panther parroted the 'heard' portion. "To be honest, I don't remember much about my mother either. I did everything I could for Sensei. I thought of him as a father… but he changed. To think he would treat the Sayuri, the very foundation of his art, like that!" Kitagawa snarled.

"A lot's happened to you, huh?" Skull realised. It certainly seemed that way, we had all gone through a lot, but Kitagawa had been through more than any of us; hopefully now that he had realised how Madarame truly was, he'd be able to fight back and maybe find a way to be free once we properly took Madarame down.

"When you mentioned plagiarism… deep down, I knew you were right. That's why I so vehemently denied you… I was simply running from the truth. I'm sorry," Kitagawa apologised. I smiled at his words as he finally looked up at us, at least now he had made amends for his somewhat rude attitude towards us when we tried to talk to him about this and the threatening us with the police, though Skull did have some of that blame as well.

"You've suffered at his hands, but he cared for you at one point. I can understand why you denied us. But now you have this power, not only to fight in this world but to travel here as well," Joker responded. He moved to stand in front of Kitagawa and extended a hand to him. "We have knowledge of that power and this place, we'd welcome any help you can give and it would allow you to get back at Madarame for everything he did to you, Nakanohara and the rest of his pupils," Joker offered. Kitagawa blinked up at the boy who smiled back. "What do you say Yusuke, want to join the Phantom Thieves of Heart?" Joker asked.

"I'm grateful for the chance to face what I have been denying all this time," Kitagawa accepted. He gripped Joker's hand and they shook as Skull complained Kitagawa was too serious. "I take it from the name that you are the thieves who I've heard rumours about," Kitagawa questioned. But, before any of us could answer, Madarame's guards proceeded to appear behind us.

"Oh crap!" Skull yelped. Of course they show up now of all times, well at least Kitagawa seemed to have mostly recovered from his exhaustive first fight since he had sprung to his feet as well, but he seemed to not fully grasp our danger even though the rest of us had dropped into our fighting stances and called our weapons back.

"Talk later! Run now!" Mona insisted. We all proceeded to obey and shot out of the room, although Kitagawa seemed to choose that moment to notice his change of outfit and almost got distracted by it until Skull grabbed his collar and kept dragging him along until we escaped from the Palace.

*Persona 5 Royal*

After escaping from the Metaverse, with the rope I'd brought removed and rolled up to come with us, all of us wasted no time in running away from the shack and back to a restaurant that was still open at this time and that would be crowded enough that we could talk without being overheard easily unless someone lingered and that would be pretty obvious.

We all sat down and quickly ordered some food with was quickly devoured, as we ate, each of us proceeded to take turns telling Yusuke about what had happened regarding primarily Kamoshida while I briefly explained the whole Ouvrard incident. The look in Yusuke's eye was quite intense and for a moment I wondered if he had been able to connect the dots regarding the things I had implied in the conversation we had and what I told of Ouvrard, eventually Ren finished up the story and the food was finished.

"I see. And because of that, the P.E. teacher had a change of heart just like the music instructor," Yusuke mused. We all nodded to show our agreement with his words, Yusuke seemed contemplative for a moment before looking at each of us in turn. "The Phantom Thieves who steal hearts… to think they truly exist," Yusuke admitted.

"I know it must be hard to believe, but you saw with your own eyes the truth," Ren stated. Very true, seeing such a world would make it hard to dismiss us as not existing, Yusuke's disbelief was understandable since that seemed to be how everyone else was treating us given the comments that kept popping up on the Phan-site.

"Indeed. I have to believe your words. Especially after seeing a world like that," Yusuke agreed. A smile curled my lips slightly as Yusuke turned his head down and seemed to be thinking for a moment before he raised his head to look at all of us. "So, your plan with Madarame-sensei- with Madarame is to force a change of heart, correct?" Yusuke asked. My smile faded at his words but not from annoyance or anger.

"Take your time to change your way of speaking, you're trying to overcome a behaviour that was learned over a decade. That's probably difficult to do," I reassured. Yusuke gave me a smile that was rather strained, even though he had accepted it, he stilled needed the proper time to process the events. "As for your question, yes, we intend to remove the Treasure which is the source of Madarame's Palace and the literal representation of Madarame's distortion of Vanity," I explained.

"Had I faced reality sooner, this may have been avoided. I must put an end to this for the sake of the others, whose futures as artists were robbed as well. That is the most civil thing I can do for the man who was… in some manner, my father," Yusuke admitted. I don't really know if he could have stopped Madarame's distortion, but thinking about what-ifs wouldn't do us any good, all we could do was focus on the only thing we could do right now.

"Just be warned, he may have a mental shutdown if we screw up. We have ways to avoid that, but they aren't fail-safe," Morgana warned. He had popped out of the bag that this point to remind Yusuke of the danger that would come with pursuing such a decision; we at least knew what to do to avoid the process but even then, we could end up making a mistake simply by accident.

"Madarame is a man who has the art world under his thumb. He has connections to many organisations. If someone like me raises my voice, it'll only be snubbed out… we have no option but this," Yusuke determined. Just like with Kamoshida and Ouvrard, we were always seemingly pushed into a corner with no way to do anything in the physical world; but that worked for us since we had a way to confront them in private.

"It's a deal then!" Morgana declared. Ann was happy about Yusuke joining us and hoped he got along with the rest of us, Ann wouldn't be an issue and maybe me and Ren… but Ryūji on the other hand was an entirely different matter; speaking of our Electricity wielder, Ryūji insisted he not slow us down as Yusuke promised to do his best.

"We're grateful you're lending us your power Yusuke," Ren admitted. He then proceeded to turn his grey gaze to me with a certain sparkle within them and I could just tell what he was going to say even before he opened his mouth. "By the way, I assume we'll be meeting at yours' tomorrow Natsumi?" Ren asked. Everyone proceeded to look at me with only Yusuke being confused as I allowed a grin to spread on my lips.

"Naturally, we've got a newbie in the ranks. We need to be prepared before heading back in and he'll need a day to recover after what he went through. Training might be fine but absolutely no heading into the challenge," I insisted. We'd certainly need to have him get used to wielding his katana, at least this was a weapon I actually had more familiarity with thanks to my father's training.

"I wonder what's going on with the real Madarame. Yusuke, me and Natsu-chan were in a pretty tight situation," Ann spoke up. That was a fair point; we'd barely managed to escape from the shack and what with Madarame's security company having been contacted about our presence, it was likely that things could get worse for us because of that.

"Actually, I contacted him before we came here. He believes that I continued pursuing Takamaki-san and Chiba-san. And it appears he knows nothing about what happened in his Palace," Yusuke revealed. We all breathed a sigh of relief, mainly that Yusuke wasn't going to be harmed by Madarame when he ended up going back. "He was complaining to the security company how they couldn't even catch two high school girls. However, he's still furious about it and said that he's going to take legal action against everyone," Yusuke revealed.

"When is he going to do this?" Ren asked. His voice was sharper than necessary, but I think the panic overrode his normal manner of speaking; my heart felt like it was encased in ice upon hearing those words, that was a terrifying thing to hear that we'd be prosecuted for this, even Kamoshida hadn't been willing to go that far to stop us from confronting him.

"Only once the exhibition ends. Any scandal during the show would be his loss," Yusuke answered. A collective sigh of relief escaped all of us as Ryūji slumped down in his seat while Ann flopped backwards into the backrest, I relaxed as well feeling my muscles stop being stone like while Ren reached up to rub the bridge of his nose.

"Good, that means we don't have to speed up our timeline, we'll need to be on guard when we go back in though," Ren admitted. It was a relief that we didn't have to rapidly accelerate things thus leaving us flopping about in a mad panic trying to get the whole situation sorted with someone who barely understood how to use his weapon or Persona.

"It is good, but we need to be careful when we approach our transfer site. If we're spotted then we'll just have a repeat of today," I warned. Everyone understood what I was implying thankfully, Morgana allowed a concerned rumble to echo from him; this caused Yusuke proceeded to look over at him with more focus than he had previously expressed towards Morgana.

"By the way… what is this?" Yusuke asked. Well, I had been expecting this question to come up at some point, I'm just surprised that it ended up taking so long for him to actually speak up about Morgana's presence; I looked at the others wondering who was going to explain Morgana until Ren cleared his throat which caused Yusuke to focus upon his leader.

"This is Morgana, he's a human who was so severely distorted that he ended up trapped in the form of a cat. That's why he can talk, but only to other Persona wielders, all others only hear a meowing cat," Ren answered. An intrigued glimmer appeared within Yusuke's eyes and he focused upon Morgana once more who almost seemed to be preening slightly at the attention that the artist was directing at him.

"Do you wish to draw me? You better bring out the best of me, in that case," Morgana stated. In response Yusuke decided to order some black bean jelly… only to complain about having no money.

*Persona 5 Royal*

We decided to separate with Yusuke heading back towards the shack, I could only hope that he would be okay being near Madarame after what happened. I had barely even stepped into my phone before Ryūji decided to blow up the Chat – well I assume it was the blonde boy – I pulled out my phone and quickly opened it up.

Ryūji: Legal action? This ain't funny.

Ren: Agreed, we need to get the Palace done before Madarame does anything.

Natsumi: Yes, but due to today's actions, Madarame's Security Level will be increased.

Ann: We have to be quick yet careful, avoiding drawing any attention to ourselves.

Ryūji: Yeah, if the police hear about this, they'll totally get in touch with the school.

Ryūji: We'll get expelled for sure this time.

Ann: School would be the least of our worries. We'd end up arrested.

Natsumi: Yeah, unlawful entry, defamation, assault with a deadly weapon if they ever find out our battles.

Ryūji: Guess that means we really can't afford to eff it up this time.

Ann: Yeah, from here on out is what really matters. Let's do it!

"Bloody hell, this has become quite the chaotic mess," I muttered.