Persona 5: Daywatch
Saturday, 13 August 2016
Late Morning
Shibuya, Central Street
Hifumi tugged her headscarf further forward to hide her hair ornament. The hustle and bustle helped her blend into the many, but with the morning rush hour ended, the crowds were thinning. That meant she had to be even more vigilant as to who noticed her. Still, that vigilance allowed her to spot a familiar head of rugged, uncombed dark hair. Peering through the crowd, the shogi player's breath caught in her throat when she saw that dyed-orange-haired girl clutching Akira's hand as they slipped out of an alley.
The shogi player tried to swallow down a thick feeling in her throat. Akira always held a spark in his eye when he looked at her, but he avoided saying what that girl from the cafe was to him and he didn't hesitate to take that girl's hand, to whisper soft, supportive words to her. Already the shogi player's nights were tormented by a dark voice inside that asked her whether she meant anything, or if she was just a passing fancy to a boy with a broken bird fetish. Just another doll to be toyed with before discard.
Hifumi shook her head. It wasn't fair to him to assume. But would it be fair to ask him face-to-face, putting him on the spot in front of everybody on the street? She followed the pair to a Gigolo Arcade, where they rendezvoused with Kitagawa-san at the entrance. They chatted, postures conveying some kind of focused, serious talk for a minute before they strode further up the street to a stairwell to the subways.
The cute girl with dyed hair clutched close to Akira as they navigated their way to a line to the east. Kitagawa-san, as he often did at school, spent much of the trip finger-framing things and missing the number of people turning arched eyebrows at him in response. They boarded the line to KFTV studios and Hifumi scrambled through the other set of doors on the train car to be sure to spy when they got off. To her surprise, they did get off at the station near mother's daytime work place. Hifumi made sure to keep a few people between them, matching the general flow of pedestrian traffic to avoid notice.
The trio navigated their way back to street level and the short walk to the staff entrance of the television studio, where they convened with a loud-mouthed boy with dyed blond hair and Makoto-san. Akira's tuxedo cat popped out of his leather travel satchel to the student's shoulder and meowed at them.
Hifumi took advantage of the cat's appearance as a distraction to slip up to a concrete pillar supporting the wall around the staff parking lot so she could listen in.
Exasperated, Makoto-san brushed her bangs back. "Ann's inside waiting for us. She thought you and Akira'd already gone in."
Akira retorted, "You guys don't think I'm that impulsive, do you? Ryuji's the one constantly going 'we're Phantom Thieves' in public!"
"Eff you, man." The bottle blond shot a hot glare at the frizzy-haired boy.
The cat leaped off Akira's shoulder and between them, then meowed reproachfully at both.
An awkward silence descended over the assembled teens standing by the staff-only vehicle gate. After a long beat, the cat meowed and paced to the gate.
Akira scowled at him and drew his phone, thumbing up an app, then activated it.
Something tickled at the back of her mind, an absence of something in the surroundings, but Hifumi couldn't be sure what. She peered back around the pillar, and gasped. Where there had been five teenagers around her age and a tuxedo cat, now six costumed boys and girls knelt and drew segments of firearms. A crossbow in the case of the shorter person in a catboy costume. Were these the Phantom Thieves Akira alluded to when he said changing hearts wasn't a one-man job?
A girl in black motorcycle leathers with spiked shoulder things and an iron plate over her face held her gloved hands up to her mouth and shouted, "They're here, Panther. Come get your gun!"
While the rest assembled a variety of firearms, a young woman in red jogged in from what should have been the staff parking lot but instead resembled a tended rock garden.
Hifumi's breath caught in her throat at the sight. Her mother wasn't the only one who complimented the shogi player as being far prettier than average, blessed with stature, fair complexion, and 'hair as long as the fabled Princess Kaguya'. All her years of quiet confidence imploded into choking doubt as the incarnation of feminine beauty strode out, clad in a leather bodysuit that made it impossible not to see mature curves from head to foot.
No wonder Akira never made a move, he already had someone.
The loud blond boy clicked the last pieces of a rifle together and looked down the protruding iron prods along the top. "Man, sucks that we still gotta worry 'bout that fog and monster wolf."
Jostling the stylish longcoat he now wore, Akira tugged at a strap on a gun too short to be a rifle, but much too big to be a pistol. "Hifumi hasn't called. It's not like we'll always have an in like that, if we hit a corrupt corporate board member or something there's near zero chance we'll have somebody on his inner staff to get us in to change his specific cognition. Might as well think of this as training for the future hearts we'll have to change."
An in. For a brief moment, that dark voice inside asked if the only reason he sought her out in the first place was to get at her mother. A commodity to be sold in pieces for something else.
The girl in the black riding leathers spoke, and by now the shogi girl recognized the voice as Makoto-san's, "You're both right. We won't always have such a resource, but as long as Togo-san isn't able to change her mother's cognition, this palace will be far more dangerous." She flicked on an under-barrel light on her gun. It cast a cone of white through the mist encroaching through the front bailey where the staff parking lot should be.
The girl in blonde twintails and bold red leather stood very close alongside the blond boy in a plated black jacket and braced into a firing position like an action heroine. "Okay, Reaper. So what do I need to know about the new one?"
The boy dubbed Reaper stood straighter, the plated spine along the back of his jacket flexing along with his excited motion. "Oh, this baby's gonna be sweet. She's a Smith and Wesson Model 629, designed for competition shooting." He pointed at something Hifumi couldn't see with his body in the way of the gun. "It's got a counterweight under the barrel here that triggers on each shot, so it's got like no recoil. I bet if they had this piece in Gun About, you'd'a scored even higher than Joker when we were practicin' this mornin'."
Her nod seemed to be a signal for Catboy to advance to the gravel road inside. "Okay, everyone. We should have a healthy stock of restoratives and weapon upgrades for the challenges of this Palace. The route beyond the Hall of Interns had too much open space where the monster has the advantage. So today we'll try to scout a safe route past the Hall of Offering."
The girl with a long, bronze staff in hand raised a hand. "Why does that sound more ominous than the hall where we had to see Mitsuyo get fondled by her boss?"
Hifumi covered her mouth with her hand.
Catboy shook his head, making the shogi player reconsider whether it was a mascot costume. "Based on the limited scouting we did with Joker, there don't seem to be any wide-open areas that way. Even if the buildings rearrange, hopefully they'll still be close together." He glared up at the longcoated boy. "As long as someone doesn't go running off after cognitions. If you see Hifumi, do not go chasing her into the fog this time. It's even more agitated than last time."
Hifumi blinked. She didn't remember ever being in a strange hybrid of Shinto temple and Toyotomi-era castle. The more she saw, the less sense it made. Maybe it would be better to just step up and be out with the questions—
The Phantom Thieves began a light jog to a building with wisps of fog trickling over the tiled roof, as if it were a damn holding back a tide of fog eager to swallow up the world. Hifumi followed as close as she could while keeping behind stone lanterns or a copse of bamboo. The fine gravel shifted under her feet, but the fog seemed to swallow up its sounds as much as it dampened the conversation of the curious group passing under a torii gate, then into the first castle building. Not for the first time, she felt glad she wore gym-style shoes instead of heels or any of the other dressier things mother kept trying to push on her.
They veered to the left, pausing to read an etching above an open doorway. Catboy piped up, "Yup, Hall of Offering this way. Hopefully the Hall of Adoration isn't too far."
Akira grumbled, "With our luck, we'll stumble across the Hall of Correction first."
Curiosity piqued, Hifumi slipped after them, through a covered walkway that, at least intermittently, seemed to push back at the thick fog rolling through the grounds of the mysterious castle. They maintained moderate jog to another castle building, where they leaped up a support column and across the truss supporting the roof to a vent on the wall with the ease of anime ninja.
Refusing to give up, she returned to a door with a slotted deposit box jutting out of the wall next to it. It bore a sign asking for one million yen, but the door next to it slid open without resistance. Inside resembled a museum hall, crammed with exhibits of Mother, talking over each other about Mother's cleverness or beauty.
She knew Mother could be a bit… vain sometimes, but it never seemed this bad. Is this what Akira meant by a manifested cognition? Where were her awards for excellence at work, her degree in finances, or the whirlwind romance with Father? All those late-night tutoring sessions with Hifumi?
As much to stifle that gloomy voice inside asking about how far the apple fell from the tree as to keep up with movement she hoped was Akira, Hifumi rushed in.
The movement wasn't Akira.
A man in a white yukata with red, gathered pants stalked between the exhibits extolling mother's physical attributes. His cane would have lent him a sense of human weight, but his skin was black as the night sky between the stars. Even after she scrambled into what shelter existed between two glass-encased mannequins wearing dresses, he skulked about with that cane in both hands and a grimacing frown etched into his noh mask. "There's an intruder about," its gravely voice said.
"Give up your fake shit!" the brash boy from earlier shouted in the distance. A moment later, the fwoosh of fire sounded.
The noh-mask… spirit – it seemed wrong to call it a shrine keeper – went dashing off after the sound of battle. A moment later, the tinkling of shattering crystal sounded, then an out-of-place shriek of what Hifumi would have sworn sounded like a sci-fi energy gun. She heard Kitagawa-san's voice deliver a warning shout and the sounds of battle raged for long seconds.
When the fighting faded, Hifumi crept out and, keeping low, made her way to the familiar voices. She planned on calling out to them for help in this strange place, until she saw Akira and the others ringing a fox-tailed woman, their guns on her as the indecent vixen clutched her court robes closed. Akira reached to his face and motes of grey light burst into being above him, then gathered into another fox-tailed woman less wearing court robes than shrugging them off. The one at their feet bowed prostrate, said something the shogi player couldn't catch, and… faded away.
Long before the shogi player could collect her wits, Catboy picked up something from the ground where the fox-woman disappeared. "Good job, team. That ambush in the second half just proves the Palace is on high alert. We'll have to keep on our toes."
The Thieves nodded and moved on to an open door at the far end of the Hall of Offering. Now that she had a moment to breathe and look over them, she wondered how they got changed so quickly. She hadn't lost sight of them for more than a moment at the entrance, had she?
A white cone projected into the left by Makoto-san's gun-light, a red line to the right from Akira's gun as the Thieves crossed a short, uncovered path to another castle building with stone-and-plaster walls.
Another one of those black-skinned, noh-masked mockeries of shrine keepers paced along the covered walkway wrapping around the next building. Hifumi ducked behind a support column for what little good that would do as Kitagawa-san leaped, grasping the noh mask and ripping it off with the cry of, "Reveal your true self!"
The not-shrine-keeper collapsed into a tar puddle, then sprang up into three monsters: in back a red-furred, man-sized canine with a spiked collar and serpentine plates running down its neck and belly. In front, stood two headless soldiers in generic European-style tabards, holding whips that bore an unsettling resemblance to a human spine in their hands.
Guessing things were about to get dangerous, Hifumi ducked back behind the doorway. Despite the unreal scene unfolding outside, she found herself cheering the Phantom Thieves. After long seconds, the flame and lightning ended and the thieves gathered around the toppled, red-furred canine.
She could almost hear the smirk in Akira's voice as he said, "To the victors go the spoils."
The beast growled, "The snake's bite can still fell a samurai."
Sakura-chan barked, "We are the undefeated Phantom Thieves. Sixty hearts and counting!"
"If you contribute to the Thieves, you can return to the sea of souls," Akira said with a menace he never even projected as General of the Steel Legion.
"You let me go?" the furred yet scale-plated monster blurted. "Th-then take this."
It tossed something at Akira, who caught it, glanced to Catboy, then shrugged and slipped the thing in a pocket and lowered his weapon. The other Phantom Thieves followed suit and the furred monster let out a relieved breath… then faded away before her eyes. "Another black stone. I'll see what I can turn it into next time I visit the twins."
The gravely voice of another not-shrine-keeper shouted from the aisle behind her, "Intruder!"
Yelping in alarm, Hifumi dashed out from her cover behind the doorway and ran out onto the walkway. The not-shrine-keeper followed in hot pursuit, took his cane in both hands and yanked at the handle to draw a long, concealed sword. Hifumi could see the reflection of the terror in her eyes as it swung that sword down at her.
Gunfire and a voice roared in time with sprinting footsteps. Then something blunt hit her hard from one side.
She saw a flapping longcoat and splattering blood before she hit the covered walkway wrapping around the Hall of Offering.
Akira's gun tumbled to the deck and he parried one slice, but not a rapid reverse-slash flaying open his other arm and knocking an over-sized survival knife tumbling to the deck.
Hifumi's breath froze in her throat as she watched the not-shrine-keeper reposition his blade to impale her longcoated friend.
She almost missed the sound of flames and a motor until Akira hopped aside and Makoto-san on an armored bicycle flickering with flame ran down the not-shrine-keeper, leaving a scorch mark all the way to the exhibit inside she crashed into. Silvery motes of light washed over the longcoated boy, then rings descended and with a flare of light, the Roman riding a space ship disappeared and deposited Sakura-chan. "Ha! I knew there was a reason there were so many guards when we were all making our stealth rolls!"
Pale-faced and with a trembling in his eyes that she'd never imagined in the self-possessed boy, Akira stuttered, "Hi-Hifumi?
The other Phantom Thieves gathered around, Reaper retrieving the fallen gun and knife and handing them back to the longcoated boy, whose wounds had somehow closed. "You sure that's Hifumi? Her tits don't look as big as online."
Every single other Phantom Thief looked ready to verbally flay the plate-jacketed one, but before they had the chance, the blast of a shotgun rang out.
Makoto-san backed out of the Hall of Offering, her gun barking once more. "Ambush!"
Hifumi and the thieves looked after her to see four – no, five – of the not-shrine-keepers in grimacing noh-masks. She joined the thieves in fleeing across the winding walkway through the fog to the next castle building. Every step felt like the mist clung to her, pulled at her as if hoping to trip her so the pursuing things in noh masks could seize her.
They kept their lead until reaching the small door set low in the stonework. The first two not-shrine-keepers burst into inky black puddles, which then gave rise to a handful of headless soldiers, a towering two-and-a-half meter tall man wrapped in white vestments from head to toe and orbited by six spheres, and at least a dozen imps in straw.
"Rider, Oracle, the door!" Catboy shouted, leaping with Kitagawa-san and the others to tackle the growing crowd of folkloric monsters.
Makoto-san fell in next to the shogi player and read the placard on the door where tidy kanji etched out, "I can't be bought, but may be stolen at a glance. I am worthless to one, but priceless to two."
Akira paused between bursts with his gun to shout over his shoulder, "A tandem bicycle?"
"Focus!" Catboy said, manifesting a floating black-garbed muscle-man above him and sending the spectral swordsman at a headless soldier.
Were it not for the battle creeping up on her heels, Hifumi would have danced in glee. While she was a voracious reader, her mother's tradition when she was a little girl was to exchange riddles. Learning not to blurt out the answer had been a hard lesson in school and even then she remained the student who threw her hand in the air the instant she had the answer. Many students acted resentful and some teachers annoyed, but she basked in their acknowledgment until middle school when she discovered how much more… interesting boys were.
Sakura-chan bounced on her feet. "Oh, I know! MOBAs! Those totally suck when you're the only one trying to carry a team, but rock when you got good squaddies!"
Makoto-san crossed her arms, tapping a finger against the shotgun dangling from her shoulder by a strap. "Clearly not. Maybe an encryption? Cypher? Code?" Silence stretched and a few others looked at her. She stepped back with her hands up. "What? I can't be the only one who exchanged coded messages with other students in primary school."
Reaper rolled his eyes. "That is such a nerd thing, Rider!"
The lapse in his attention was enough for a lion with the face of a human to flick its tail and hurl several impaling spikes into the plate-jacketed boy.
Instead of telling the dyed-blond off for putting down a tradition she shared, if to get away with things under the noses of school prefects, she picked up his fallen rifle and peered down the sights on top until the giant, white-shrouded man's face – well, veil – loomed between the V-shape at the end. A crack sounded when she pulled the trigger and the man's head snapped back, then the whole thing dissolved into smoke.
Despite the still-approaching mob, her hands started to shake.
Sakura-chan looked torn between helping solve the door's riddle and abandoning it to help the fight. "Maybe something more metaphysical. Prestige?"
Stomach churning, Hifumi backed from the closing melee. "Worthless to one but priceless to two. It's love!"
The door slid aside and the thieves piled in. Hifumi had to strain against the fog that tugged at her limbs, the distant whispers that Mother wouldn't be happy. The snapping back of the white-shrouded man's head played in her mind and bile rose in her throat.
Sakura-chan aimed her staff out the door, what appeared to be a bronze staff unleashing a fiery bolt and shwa as the pulse lanced into a straw-covered imp, which dissipated into fading smoke. An impression of circuitry glistened over her suit as she tripped while turning to follow the others.
Kitagawa-san caught her and pulled her back to her feet, sheathing the katana too long to use in the narrow corridor.
When the corridor opened up to a broad display hall, Makoto-san paused at the corner to shoot a few gun-blasts into the monsters following. The Phantom Thieves barreled through what looked like the austere halls of the Shogi Federation's tournament building, though with straw imps and the occasional headless soldier still pouring through the door after them, they didn't have the chance to examine any of the displays of her father in his younger days. Sakura-chan was gasping for breath by the time Catboy shouted, "Here! A weakness in the cognition!"
Reaper threw himself at what seemed to be the front doors to Kanda Catholic Church, but the door-lever refused to turn. "Fuck!"
Makoto-san's gun barked as the variety of Shadows flooding in after them grew. Another spikey-tailed lion-lizard approached and Akira threw himself at it with a roar, his oversized knife glistening as he clashed blade-to-claw.
Heart thudding at his insane risk, Hifumi read the placard. "I may be given but never bought. I am desire of sinner, but the saint not." She took a breath. "Oh, dear Mother. Even saints seek forgiveness."
The door lever turned in her hand and the Thieves rushed in after her. Sakura-chan flopped against one of the church pews of the sanctuary, shoving up her goggles to wipe at the sweat pouring down her face. Makoto-san and the blonde in red strode further in to rest against other pews, but at least Kitagawa-san paused to bow his head at the crucifix at the end of the shrunken sanctuary.
"Uh…" Reaper drawled, reaching out to take back the rifle clutched tight in her trembling hand.
Hifumi yielded the rifle to him, keeping her hand away from the trigger. Despite not having had breakfast, she still struggled to keep down bile for a few moments. "M-my apologies, Reaper-san." She clenched her hands to try to ward away shaking, and her voice fell to a whisper as her stomach churned. "I've never killed anyone before."
"Ain't no people out there. Those are all Shadows," he said, his breathing still a little heavy.
"Just calm down and breathe," Makoto-san said, her aplomb assuring the shogi player a little. "Shadows are emotions, fragments of the collective subconscious."
A hand on her arm brought her attention up to Akira. "H… Hifumi? What are… How are you here?"
Sakura-chan levered herself up from her pew. "She prolly followed Reaper. He's clueless."
"Dudes!"
As her higher and lower-order brain argued over whether or not she must have killed that man in white, Hifumi turned all her focus to the boy who fast became a fixture in her life. Something she could comprehend. She drew herself up to her full height. "What about that out there? Why were you so reckless?"
Despite his mask, she still saw his eyes tense underneath. "I couldn't let them touch you."
She reached out to take his free hand, turning it over to examine the slashes that remained in his sleeves even if his skin seemed whole now. "And so you thought you'd just throw yourself in the way of a sword? The things with whips? Those beasts with claws? Is your life worth so little?"
She felt it first in the hand both of hers held, then the trembling in the hand on her arm. "I-if anything h-happened to you…" Then the shine in his eyes welled over and tears streamed underneath his mask as he lost his composure.
Her heart breaking at the sight, Hifumi wrapped her arms around him and drew him close as sobs wracked the boy. She ran a hand through his hair… until it got caught on a snag. She extricated her fingers and continued brushing her hand over his hair, cooing until his panicked sobs faded and his breathing steadied against hers. It didn't matter how many minutes it took, she took solace in his human warmth. Even if it felt a bit selfish, she indulged in the soft touch of another human she hadn't felt in weeks.
Sakura-chan blurted, "Wow, is Control Emotion one of your Persona spells?"
Hifumi almost forgot the others were there, she was so focused on the sound of his breath and steadying beat of his heart. She felt a sense of disappointment when his eyes snapped wide and he jerked two steps away with an even deeper blush on his face than she had on hers. With Akira at her side, she finally had the chance to take a good look at the Phantom Thieves. Kitagawa-san seemed almost casual in his black jumpsuit with fox mask. Sakura-chan's black unitard glistened with impressions of circuitry and heavy goggles now resting on her head reminded the shogi player of the glasses she wore back at Leblanc.
Akira, always worth a second look, fit a slim, black longcoat and grey waistcoat that brought out his stormy grey eyes despite the avian-themed domino mask over his face. His red gloves were so bright in contrast they almost seemed to glow. She couldn't have chosen better for a dashing gentleman ensemble.
The rifle leaned against the back of a pew next to the loud, dyed-blond the others called Reaper. The metal plate fashioned in the likeness of a skull over his face couldn't hide the lascivious look in those dark eyes as he undressed her in his mind like all the dull boys at Kosei.
At least Makoto-san seemed to be trying to glare him into better behavior. She knew the Shujin senior was fit and graceful in a terrifying way when she chose to move, but she played the part of such demure, quiet confidence in the world outside. The tight-fitting black leathers and studded gauntlets felt like such an inversion, and yet also fit the athletic girl to a T. A new wave of envy and self-doubt crept through Hifumi and she deliberately skipped over the lounging girl in red leather who made her feel dull and inadequate in every physical sense.
In an effort to keep her sense of calm, she straightened and tried to effect the same composed cool she showed during her interviews. "So… you all are the Phantom Thieves?" She gave a small bow. "Togo Hifumi."
Reaper pounded a fist against the back of a pew. "You effin' told her? And you give me shit!"
Hifumi held up her hands. "Please, be calm. It wasn't that hard to piece together. You call me about Kitagawa-san, and days later his heart changes."
"What?" The artist in question lowered his finger-framing.
These people were all over the place, Hifumi wasn't sure if that made them easier or harder to deal with than her usual interviews. She lowered her hands to try to project an aura of calm authority. "Then you call me about Madarame-san. Days later, even Kitagawa-san starts asking me about his mentor. A week, maybe two later and Madarame-san's heart changes. Then when Mother…" She paused for a steadying breath. "When Mother became too much for me to bear, you came again to save me. And now you're trying to save her, too, right?"
Makoto-san cleared her throat. "I think you might be mistaken about a couple things. First, we didn't change Fox's heart."
Before she could continue, Kitagawa-san stepped into the conversation with a smile visible beneath his kitsune mask. "Did you all not, in a sense? I would not have awakened to my inner self without your efforts." He laid a hand on the girl in red leather. "Especially you, who most directly saved my life and gave me no choice but to look upon the truth. I would never have lived to draw out my Persona were it not for your courage."
Akira-kun looked down to Catboy. "She's… This one's not a cognition, right?"
The girl in red leather tilted her head. "This one?"
Catboy hopped onto the back of a pew and waved off her question. "We saw a cognitive Hifumi the first time I followed Joker into Togo's Palace. Anyway, this isn't a cognition. She's the real Togo Hifumi."
Despite just having his arms around her moments ago, Akira shouted, "We have to get her out of here!"
"No shit, Sherlock," Reaper spat.
"Reaper!" Makoto-san's voice thundered in the scaled-down sanctuary. She shook out one hand as if to cast off irrelevant thoughts, then looked through the slits in her metal face-plate. "Well, the Palace is on high alert, but we're all here, so may as well. We all go by code-names here to help prevent the subconscious of the target from mapping aggression onto our real-world selves. I go by Rider. This is Oracle, Fox, Reaper, Joker, Panther, and our leader Byakko."
The short one perched on the back of a pew like the feat of balance was nothing gave a small wave. His eyes narrowed on her for a moment and he sniffed. "I don't think that your presence alone could cause a Palace to go on high alert, it didn't do so when Panther or Reaper were caught in Kamoshida's castle." He rubbed his chin with his free hand. "Something has to be riling up Togo Mitsuyo in the real world. Can you think of anything that would trigger an anxiety episode this early in the afternoon?"
Hifumi clapped her hands over her mouth. "Afternoon? Oh, no. Mother is going to be furious with me. I was supposed to be up at the Many Landscapes Studio for a costume shoot! But when I saw Akira-kun sneaking around with Sakura-chan…"
Reaper perked up. "What sorta costumes?"
"Down, boy," Panther threw back. "Sorry about him."
Hifumi swallowed, self-consciousness making her throat feel tight just being around the better-looking girl. "So… what do we do now?"
"We've got to get her out!" Akira shouted, his gun clenched in both hands.
Byakko waved him down with his free hand. "We find a new route out of the palace. From the stir that happened earlier, they'll definitely have stepped up the guard around the Hall of Offering. The beast might even be there. We'll have to find a new route to the entrance." Byakko hopped off the pew and paced to the door to press his ear against it. After a beat, he opened the door and poked his head out, then ducked back in. "One Shadow. Joker, Reaper, and Panther? With me."
The Thieves all nodded, Oracle finishing off a bottled water before she got up. They readied their weapons and all headed to the door. Akira had a pained look on his face that his mask couldn't quite conceal before he settled behind his gun like the cover of an action book and trotted out. The nimble leader flitted forward, quick as a wind, and yanked the noh mask off the not-shrine-keeper. Was that what he meant by a Shadow?
Makoto-san fell in step next to Hifumi, her crimson eyes flicking about as the other thieves arranged themselves across the faux-marbled promenade. "Try not to worry too much, Togo-san. We'll do our best to get you out safe."
"I have faith in you." Hifumi bit her lip a moment. "To be honest, I'm less worried for myself than Mother. She used to be such a smart, supportive woman. It wasn't until Father's collapse…"
The battle ahead concluded and they all resumed walking.
"Joker told us," Makoto-san said with a soft smile that reminded her of their cordial discussions over a shogi board. She paused for an explosion of ice ahead. "He's been beside himself, trying to get us to this change of heart." That crimson gaze swept out. "The problem is that we don't know how to get back to the Hall of Adoration. Or past this cognitive beast that keeps blocking our progress."
A Shadow rounded the corner and what had been a quieting conversation ahead snapped back into a flurry of activity. Akira reached for his mask and summoned one of those indecent vixens from earlier, and the floating woman danced as if unaware her archaic Chinese-style court robes were falling off. An aura of foxfire spread over the red-furred monster the size of a man and it seized as if every limb was jerked in an incompatible direction, then fell down and dissipated like smoke on the wind.
Hifumi blinked. She looked back to the girl in black leather. "Um… excuse me if I am misunderstanding something, but when Fox-san mentioned inner self, he spoke as if that was a singular thing. How did Ak—Joker just… call out one of the folkloric entities that have beset you within this place?"
"Oh." A smile spread over the martial artist's face. "Joker is kind of a rule-breaker. He can negotiate with Shadows to get them to give us supplies, or join him as a Persona. Even Byakko isn't sure why, and he's our Metaverse expert."
Hifumi gave a nod before looking around the hall around them as they resumed walking over the faux-marble flooring of what resembled the Shogi Federation's tournament headquarters. Busts depicted Father in various expressions from intense concentration to laughter, and paintings scattered over the walls showed austere men, many with subtle sneers and leering gazes. It reminded her of the last time she played a qualifying round, and the whispers in the halls how her body was the only reason she was there.
Sakura-chan pointed her staff-weapon at one of the windows, beyond which rolled fog. "Hey, Byakko? If the palace is at such high alert, how come there's almost no Shadows here? There aren't any spawning all over like when the beast raised the alarm."
"Cognition," Byakko replied, keeping his crossbow ready. "Remember that safe rooms are spaces that palace rulers believe to a subconscious level they have no power over. Togo Mitsuyo must believe a place like this is important, but she doesn't control it. That's why all the Shadows have come from outside."
"It does resemble the Shogi Federation's tournament hall," Hifumi said. "She met Father in a place like this while she was working for NHK's culture and entertainment section."
Kitagawa-san stepped into the conversation for the first time since the scaled-down sanctuary. "I do not imagine that the tournament hall has a Catholic church nestled within it."
"I'm pretty sure it was the catholic church I attend at Kanda. It was where Father grew up and where Mother was baptized after she agreed to marry him."
"Show yourself!" Panther shouted from ahead as she pounced on a not-shrine-keeper rounding the next corner, tearing its noh mask from its face and hopping back off as it plunged into an inky puddle.
Hifumi bit her lip in worry as the four at the front spread across the hall and battled the shogun sporting a cat-print flag attached to his back, and three headless soldiers with spine-whips.
"Captain Kidd!" Reaper shouted as if born to do battle. A skeletal pirate riding a boat coalesced above him and fired a swirl of tearing winds at one of the headless soldiers, knocking it down and then taking the momentary initiative to charge, smashing into another headless soldier and dragging it until smashing into the next headless soldier, driving them both into dissipating smoke against the wall.
"All in, Zorro!" Byakko shouted as the armored shogun raised his signal fan, catching him unguarded and slicing through his legs. The thieves circled as it tumbled to the polished faux-marble floor.
The shogun with a cat pawprint on the banner on its back stabbed its tanto in the ground to steady itself. "You fools think you can stand against Togo the Great?"
Panther cut an imposing look, her pistol lined up on the shogun's face. "Only the over-confident think they are invincible. We have taken down kings in castles and yakuza because we stood together and never gave up."
The armored shogun settled on one knee. "It is not the strongest but the patient hunter who takes the prey."
Akira brandished his oversized survival knife. "The Phantom Thieves stalk in dark and shadow. The question is whether you want to be part of the hunters, or the hunted. Join me."
Straightening out of its winded, slouched posture, the shogun said, "I can not join a brute. Riddle me this—"
"Goddamn it," Reaper grumped.
"—If my price is shown on a chess board, one grain of rice on one square for my first day, two grains on the second square for my second, and so on, what king could afford me?"
Akira scratched the back of his head, consternation clear on his face.
This time Hifumi didn't hold back. She leaped to his side.
He interposed as if fearing the Shadow would surge at them any moment. "Stay back, Hifumi!"
She rested a comforting hand on his shoulder. "I'll stay behind you, but I'm already in this with you all. Let me help." She shifted her focus to the flagging Shadow. "There are sixty-four squares on a standard chess board. If you start at a single grain, two to the power of zero, the last square would have two to the power of sixty three. There aren't that many particles in the whole solar system."
Akira took a beat to breathe in, then nodded with a grateful smile and slid further between her and the shogun. "No king has the wealth to pay such a price." Akira brandished a confident, playful smirk. "Besides, nobody'd be able to stack that many grains on a chess board."
Reaper clapped one hand to his skull plate mask, then resumed a combat-ready posture.
The short shogun with a pawprint emblem on his banner barked out a laugh and stood, ripping his tanto out of the floor. "Wisdom and the resolution to cheer. As long as the stars can shine in your eyes, let neither mercenary or retainer falter at your side. I shall be your mask of conquest!"
Then it exploded into black ribbons that soared and snaked through the air to Akira's domino mask. He stumbled back as if punched and Hifumi grabbed his arm to hold him steady. He patted her hand to let her know he was steady again and she hesitated a beat before withdrawing, missing that brief contact. Her shock must have shown on her face, because he gave a soft smile. "I'm fine, Hifumi. It's one of my Personas now."
"No time to waste," Byakko said in as much command as that child-like voice could muster. He broke into a dash that the rest needed to jog to keep up with. A traditional-style sliding door sat in the wall ahead, so they came to a stop and read the placard. "I never was, am always to be. No one ever saw me, nor ever will see. I am the confidence of all, who live and breathe on this terrestrial ball."
Reaper tipped his head back and let out a grunt. "Why's this dumb place gotta have all these effin' puzzles?"
Hifumi raised a hand to her headscarf, feeling the hair knot her mother first tied in her hair as they riposted riddles at each other. "It's a way of bringing people together. It's like exercise, for the brain."
Akira's smirk directed at the loud blond, a bit more pointed than last time. "No wonder why it looks like you pulled a muscle every time."
Reaper's lips pulled back and he bit out, "Eff. You."
Hifumi poked the longcoated boy in the side and gave what she hoped was a look of mild reproach.
Panther crossed her arms, her hip thrust to one side. "The future?"
Sakura-chan scratched her head. "But don't we see the future?"
Makoto-san perked, that light of recognition in her eyes. "Oh, confidence of all! When people unite behind a policy like Toranosuke-san is always making speeches over. The future is too vague, the answer's tomorrow!"
Wood and gears clunked under their feet and the door slid aside. Hifumi beamed a proud smile at her compatriot from another school. "I knew you all could do it."
Trees dotted what looked like the largest castle courtyard she'd ever seen, the twisted shapes of Japanese maples reaching for the inky night sky of this fantasy realm. While no wind blew at the foliage, fog with an ethereal glow churned through the space. It stood out from the dark stone foundations of the massive castle wrapping around them, throwing sharper contrast on the bone-white plastered walls soaring even higher.
Reaper gawked at the hostile zone ahead. "Shit, man. This even head out or in?"
Byakko's ears folded against his skull in what might have been embarrassment. "I think… both? There's more than one gate out there."
"You think?" Akira's panic wormed into his tone, "We're trying to get Hifumi out of here before one of those contaminating palace effects you're always on about gets her! I don't want her turning into a cat!"
Byakko almost pointed his crossbow at the longcoated boy. "I'm doing the best I can, here! Navigating through fog is dangerous even in the real world! It can carry all kinds of hazards in the Metaverse!"
Reaper's glove groaned on his metal-capped club. "Maybe if you could do somethin' effin' useful like turn into a map or radar or somethin', we wouldn't be effin stuck here with a useless cat leader!"
Makoto-san stepped between them. "Gentlemen! I understand the anxiety of the situation, but you all need to set an example for Togo-san. She's already lost in her mother's distorted heart."
Despite her intention of reassurance, the reminder of her mother sent a cold chill down Hifumi's spine. Mother was always the manager of the household, the disciplinarian, and she worked herself to exhaustion juggling not only her two jobs but managing Hifumi's shoots and interviews. Intended or not, she'd take Hifumi's deviation from schedule personally.
Sakura-chan waved them off. "While you all are getting your knickers untwisted, I'll take Marcus scouting." She jogged out onto the short landing and tapped that button on her bracelet, a stack of rings transposing her into a Roman riding an angular spaceship. It soared up and out, but the glowing fog clung to her Persona like a sticky gelatin. Instead of flying free above its level, the fog churned at her like an angry fire. A hum resonated out from the Persona as it struggled, lost altitude, then dipped beneath.
"Sakura-chan!" Hifumi shouted, too shocked by what happened in an already fantastic world straining her brain to the breaking point to remember her code name. She broke into a run after the fallen Thief. Hifumi may have been envious of all the attention and contact she got from Akira, but that didn't mean she could just let the poor girl be killed by a palace even if it was her mother's!
AN: re: "is Control Emotion one of your Persona spells?" Futaba is kind of a nerd-of-all-kinds cliché, and was somewhat designed to be so to the point of being named after 2chan, but it seemed too good an opportunity to pass up another reference to Shadowrun. We'll all pretend they're playing 4th edition instead of the mess they turned 5th ed into.