Persona 5: Daywatch

Friday, 20 May 2016
Morning
Shujin, Class 2-D

Akira wrote a correction to his notes in the margin, reviewing for social studies in an effort to keep his mind off the hospital debacle the other day. Even beyond the hurt obvious on Ann and Mishima, he had trouble trying to push out the new mental image of Shiho yelling herself hoarse at the boy who took beatings for her. Most of the time the between-class banter felt oppressive, like summer humidity doing its best to choke him, but something about the burbling conversation flowed at just the right pattern for him to tune it out like a steady rain. It ended up feeling too close to empty silence, leaving him nothing but his thoughts.

The rear door slid open, but instead of Chouno in a dress with padded shoulders, a pudgy man with a receding hairline and conventional business suit walked in, a set of binders in his hands. He proceeded to the desk at the front of the class at a pace somehow combining the speed of a power-walk with the awkward gait of a waddle. Based on the fellow students covering their mouths, he guessed the others noticed too.

The black-haired man dropped his binders to the front desk with a heavy thump, whipped around, then took the chalk and wrote Hashida-sensei. He spun back around and spoke with a northern-dialect twang at a volume Akira previously assumed had to come from a bullhorn, "Listen up, you undisciplined ninnies! I am Hashida. From here on out, I will be the English teacher for Shujin Academy's second year students. The fact that I am entering mid-term does not mean I am going to take it easy on you. You will have your assignments posted on the school website on Monday. You will have your readings done before class lectures. You will have your assignments completed and handed in to your class representative at the start of every class. Understood?"

Murmurs of assent leaked out of the class.

Hashida roared with no sign the jump in volume took extra effort, "I said is that understood?"

"Yes, Hashida-sensei!" the class chorused.

He spun around, voice still thundering as he wrote on the chalkboard.

Akira took off his glasses to press against one eye. "Oh boy," he muttered. "We lose a gossip and gain a guy who thinks he's a drill instructor."

Friday, 20 May 2016
After School
Shujin, Hallway outside Class 2-D

Akira straightened the satchel straps over his shoulder. Without any new breakthroughs from Mishima or yield from Niijima, the only thing in Mementos would be the unending chain of petty yakuza gangers. He clenched a hand open and closed, then stepped out towards the library.

"Hold up, Akira!" Ann called over the bustle of students heading to clubs or home. He paused so she could come up alongside. When he stepped for the library again, she took his arm and steered him toward the front gates. "You mad about Ryuji's text?"

"Huh? No," he said, stepping closer to the wall so other students could walk past. "He's just gotta drop license paperwork off for his mother. That's why I wanted to hit the books for an hour. Mishima can hold the table if I'm a few minutes late."

Ann's eyes widened. "Wait, Yuuki? I thought this meeting was for us."

"It is." He paused and glanced around. Nobody looked like they were listening in, but if Niijima could get a recording of them, they needed to be more careful. Akira relented and motioned to the front, and they proceeded until reaching the grades. "Oh, shit. I forgot those were out today."

She stepped around the clump of students standing right next to the grades and scanned the second years. She stepped closed to him, brushing her pigtail off her shoulder. "You did pretty well."

Akira side-stepped to get his own view, his shoulders sinking once he spotted his name. "Holy crap my grades are down."

Ann glanced from him to the board. "Thirty-first is down for you? That's pretty impressive given that Shujin Academy is stricter about scoring than most schools."

"Academics have always been my thing," Akira said, seeing no familiar names ahead of his. Not seeing her name in his glance through the top half of the junior year, he stepped back out and they went their separate ways through the foot lockers and out the front gate.

When she came back alongside, heading for the train station, Morgana popped his head out of the satchel. "Where are we going?"

She clasped her hands behind her back, eyes on the signs above. "I need some time before the meeting." Ann straightened and looked him in the eye with her old intensity back. "And what did you mean Yuuki would save a table for our meeting?" She leaned close enough he could feel her breath on his face. "The PTs strategy meeting we all decided on yesterday?"

"Yeah," Akira said, cool as a northern breeze. "He already knows."

Ann's pace froze and he had to backtrack a step.

When she gave him a stunned stare he nodded. "Me, and almost certainly you. He was too close to Shi… Suzui-san."

Ann let out a sharp breath, her lips twisting, but one corner turned up with a hint of relief in her eyes. "He was always as smart as he was sweet."

Akira double-taked. "I've never heard a dude described that way."

Now she let a smile crack across her face. "Yuuki always did figure things out for himself. Maybe with some help from me and Shiho."

Akira chuckled. "He did mention he'd'a never met you two if it wasn't for a chance meeting at a volleyball game."

"Was it?" She tilted her head a little and stepped closer to let another pedestrian past. Her smile relaxed and her eyes gazed at the distant crowds. "It's kinda hard to imagine him not being around. Yuuki and Shiho were the only ports of calm in Storm Shujin. He was even the first boy I brought home from school. Granted, that was with Shiho, but mom wasn't expecting him and she flipped."

Akira found himself faking a smile and laugh along with her. Something tickled the back of his mind and he realized faking his way through the day was the old Akira, the him who got in fights all the time and focused on just surviving his way until Inuri. Ann had his back all the way through the Kamoshida fiasco and never asked him to put up a front.

Her smile faded and she looked into his tense eyes. "What's wrong? Is it Shiho? I'm sure that was just—"

Akira shook his head. "Sorry, it's just that… to be honest, I've never really understood people who have parents they're all involved with. I didn't want anything to do with my old bastard, and my mother never wanted anything to do with me." He spread his hands. "So, to be honest, I'm always waiting for the other shoe to drop. To figure out what the game is."

Ann's eyebrows drew together as pity writ over her features, making his hackles rise. "Sometimes there's no game, and things are what they look like. My parents are working abroad a lot, but when they say 'I love you' I know they mean it."

Akira nodded, slipping his hands into his pockets. "So no chess?"

Ann rolled her eyes.

"What about stratego?"

Ann gave a brief groan. "You might have to come up with a new codename for Akira, Morgana. I think Joker is a little too on the nose."

Morgana sighed.

Akira's pace slowed down, the thought wheeling around in his mind. He hadn't brought that one in to Hifumi yet. "Actually… do you know anyone who plays stratego? Or chess or go or something like that? Morgana's game sucks."

"Hey!" The team leader stood up in the school satchel. "It's hard moving those game pieces with these paws."

Chuckling, Ann's eyes drifted back up to his. "It's a shame you didn't come last year. Kiriko-senpai had a chess club, but it disbanded when she stopped coming, so I have no idea who was in it." She slowed down and looked into a storefront advertising heating and air conditioning.

He wondered what memory she relived with that unfocused look in her eyes. Or if Shiho reminisced a lot, too.

Turning to him, Ann's intense blue eyes gazed into his. "How come you don't mention your parents very often? Didn't you have any good memories with your father?"

"Don't call him that," Akira snapped, before settling back and reminding himself she wasn't the enemy. "Excuse me." Face feeling hot, he turned to the advertisements to break her gaze. "He was always all about work. Kirijo, Isshiki, he didn't care who was footing the bill as long as he got to run his experiments." He felt his frown grow. "Cared more about those fucking numbers than any human being."

In his peripheral vision, he saw Ann clasp her hands, probably studying him in that matronizing way. Then she straightened. "Let's get some crepes. Chocolate always makes me feel better."

Friday, 20 May 2016
After School
Shibuya, Karaoke Bar

Akira set his school satchel down on the cheap pleather next to his class representative. "Thanks for reserving us a table. How are you holding up?"

Mishima collected his scattering of newspapers and print-outs into a paper folder. He looked to each of the three fellow Shujin students, his poise all business. "Hey, Ann, Akira-san." His brown eyes paused on the transfer student. "We'd better get to the mission. Drug kingpins don't wait on us, and there's less than a half hour left of the reservation." He nodded to the former track star, studying his eyes for a moment. "So how'd you meet Akira?"

Since the class rep didn't have that empty-as-shark-eyes look, Akira slid into the booth seat. "He's my gay stalker."

Ryuji's eyes bugged out and he sputtered before pounding a fist on the table. "Don't effin say shit like that, dude!"

When Ann and Morgana both sent him disapproving looks, Akira held up his hands. "Just trying to break the ice. He was with us against Kamoshida." He looked to the track star, then jutted his chin at the class rep. "Most of us know each other, but Mishima-kun's our tech expert. Set up the Phansite and our special accounts."

Mishima rubbed the back of his neck and looked away. "Oh, I'm not some computer genius or anything. Just making use of what I learned in the Newspaper Club last year."

Ryuji slumped in his seat as the worst singing ever to come from middle schoolers leaked from the insulated room next door. "Man. I thought this was gonna be a real meet. It ain't like me or Ann's even good at singin'."

Ann crossed her arms. "This is a real meet. Mishima's one of us. Possibly the most important one."

Morgana cleared his throat. "Excuse me, Metaverse expert here."

She giggled. "Okay, fine. Second most important."

Mishima smiled and reached down at the guide-trapped-in-cat-form, who dodged away. "Is he like your mascot?"

Morgana swiped at the class rep's hand. "I'm not some pretty face." He smiled at Ann. "That distinction goes to the loveliest member of the Phantom Thieves."

Ryuji rolled his eyes. "Ugh. If I wanted sappy lines like that, I'd'a stayed at home with Mom's Korean soaps."

Mishima straightened in his seat, looking more than a little confused. "What about a mascot is sappy?"

Akira took off his glasses and drew a cloth to wipe the lenses. "Morgana's our leader. And he's not some pet cat, he's a person. The Metaverse twisted him into that cat form and he's helping us out so he can return to being human, too. Apparently not everyone can understand him when he speaks."

"It's because they haven't visited the Metaverse. Something about being there forces the mind to change, to open up. That's why I'm comprehensible to you, but sound like a cat to him and Boss."

Akira passed on the gist of it.

Mishima raised an eyebrow, his eyes sliding to Ann's. After a shallow nod from her, he clasped his hands over his folder. "Okay."

Ryuji balked. "For real? That's so crazy I didn't believe it at first and I snuck inta the Metaverse with 'em."

Mishima shifted in his seat. "I've known Ann for almost as long as Shi-chan. Ann wouldn't have become Shi-chan's best friend if she was a liar. Or crazy. If that's what she says happened, that's what happened."

Ann shot him a grateful smile. "Thanks, Yuuki." Her smile melted into a serious look as she scanned him. "How did the session with Maruki go?"

Akira felt his body tense. "You actually went to that goon?"

Ryuji scratched his head. "He don't seem that bad, Akira."

Mishima's hands curled into fists on the table. "Shujin did say sessions for all of us were mandatory, so I wanted to get it over with." He gnashed his teeth together. "He tried to say none of what happened was my fault."

Ryuji crossed his arms, confused by the sudden ratcheting up of tension around the table. "Dude, it wasn't." He jerked a thumb at his chest. "I know better'n anyone what would'a happened if you stood up to Kamoshida. My leg's still not back one hundred percent."

"I sent people to his office!" Mishima shouted with more energy than the transfer student had ever seen from him.

One of Morgana's ears twisted back. "Do you seriously think you could have stopped someone as big as Kamoshida alone? Did you not see the bruises on the rest of Shujin?"

"Yeah," Ann said, poking the class representative. "Did you not see how bruised the rest of Shujin was?"

Light glinting at the corners of Mishima's eyes, he snapped back, "I was the one who sent Shiho…" His speech hitched and he struggled to control his breathing.

"Hey!" Morgana shouted at surprising volume for his small cat body. "We need to get back to business. The additional names you've been finding for us have gotten us further in the yakuza clan, but we've been running into dead ends. Shadows may possess the knowledge of the conscious person, but even with less of the conscious inhibitions that doesn't help us if they don't know the real name of their bosses."

Nodding, Akira clasped his hands on the table. "And based on what I overheard from Leopard Print, we only have a couple of weeks before he might be sending the doc swimming with the fishes. Besides any other deadlines. That's not enough time to stumble our way through the whole clan."

Flicking an ear, Morgana looked up to the transfer student. "Do you think that Niijima could—?"

"We don't need that lapdog's help," Akira ground out. "We can't trust her. We'll just have to find some other way."

Mishima slumped. "I'm even asking Ishikawa and the rest of the Newspaper Club for help – for a 'personal project' of course. But these are some dangerous adults. To be honest, unless one of us is very lucky and stumbles across something, I don't know if we'll be able to find the name of a mob boss even the police can't corner."

Ryuji sighed. "For real. What we need is a good, old-fashioned muckracker."

Morgana's eyes widened. "Of course!" He rounded on the transfer student. "Akira, you said some detective kid knew an investigative journalist?"

Not recalling a name, he dug around in the satchel until finding the business card. "Ohya Ichiko. Maiasa Newspaper."

Mishima leaned closer to look at it. "Really?"

Akira handed it over. "Why?"

Mishima turned it over and read the hand-writing on the back. "Well, I have no idea what Crossroads means, but Maiasa is one of the bigger newspapers in Tokyo. Three or four of the members of the Newspaper Club who want to become investigative journalists read it religiously. They've got kind of a trashy tabloid section, but their investigators are supposed to be top-notch."

Ryuji crossed his arms. "Think we can trust her?"

Akira slumped against the padded booth seat, then brought up his phone and began typing up an email. "No choice. Doc gets shit on in the neighborhood all the time, but her skills are the real deal. And that's not even including all the thousands of people that gang has on the hook in Shibuya. Stakes are too high to walk away."

The booth phone rang, so Ann stood up to check the phone next to the booth. After a moment of listening, she said, "Thanks." Covering the microphone, she looked around. "Our reservation's up. Should we extend it?"

Ryuji checked the time on his smart phone, then sighed and slumped again. "Man. Happy hour's almost over. Let's just go." He looked to the transfer student. "Well, if we can't trust a name from president hoity-toity, do you think we can trust that journalist?"

"I think you should go for it," Mishima said, the conviction in his voice drawing stares from the others. He rubbed his neck and looked down to his folder. "I mean, even doing the best I can, I can't find the names you guys need. And if you already know someone in danger, it would just be threatening her to ignore any new avenues forward."

"I agree," Morgana said.

Ann added a nod.

Akira took the business card in hand and added the data to his contact list. Just to add some bait to the offer, he mentioned Murakami's name in the email for help and hit send. "Okay, guys. Now it's up to her to respond." Standing up out of the booth, Akira checked the time on his phone and gave a brief wave to the class representative. "We've got under four hours to take a run through Shadowland. Good luck on your end."

"You too," Mishima said, taking his folder crammed with news articles in hand.

Friday, 20 May 2016
After School
Mementos, Path of Aiyatsbus

The creature collapsed to the ground, its humanoid torso limp but its spider-like body twitching. Black poured off it like fog from dry ice, muck dissolving underneath it until all that remained was the huddled body of Shadow Takenaka. His gold eyes shone even as he held his legs close and wept. "P-please, just… don't hurt me anymore. I-I didn't even do it myself, I just passed along the orders."

Ryuji settled back on his heels for a moment, lip curling in disgust. "Tch. You make a livin' roughin' up customers at shops that don't pay you and you want us to go easy on you?"

Morgana pointed his crossbow at the now-cowering Shadow. "Your days of stealing from the poor and beating up the week are over. You're going to pay all of it back."

Shadow Takenaka gasped in terror, his glowing eyes widening. "Bu… He'll kill me! He was never merciful before, but he's been absolutely ruthless since he started paying off that minister!"

Hope clashed with six failures this day alone. Akira lined up his sub-machine gun with the shadow in a fine suit. "Who is 'he'? Your boss?"

Shadow Takenaka gibbered at the gun for a moment before nodding.

Akira aimed just a few centimeters from the Shadow's head and squeezed off a single shot. "What is his name?"

"Kaneshiro!" the Shadow said, bowing on his knees and clutching his head in his hands.

Heart rate jumping, Akira took a step back. At last, a break in the investigation. Just not enough. He clicked his firing selector up. "His full name!"

"I don't know!" Shadow Takenaka wailed. "He's only 'Boss' to most of his underlings. I've never even heard his lieutenants call him anything but Kaneshiro-sama."

Snarling, Akira lifted his sub-machine gun.

Ann dashed forward and shoved the muzzle away from the Shadow. "Enough, Joker."

Morgana paced to the transfer student's side, folding up his crossbow. "He's being honest about not knowing more. Remember that Shadows are distortions of a person's inner self with inhibitions removed." He looked to the cowering form with glowing eyes. "Go back and make up for all you've done."

Shadow Takenaka nodded, then faded away, leaving nothing but a money clip.

Ryuji picked it up, disappointment clear in his frown. "So do we go after that other name, see if we can get more dirt on this Kaneshiro dude?"

Morgana put his folded crossbow in a pouch. "We've been at this for hours. There's something I want to check down that escalator, but I think we're too tired to hunt more Shadows today."

Clicking the safety back on his sub-machine gun, Akira nodded before following the others out of Takenaka's tiny corner of Mementos. The swirling distortion slowed behind them, and Akira joined the others in the cat-bus. His arm throbbed and every joint ached, but he refused to whine about strains the whole team had to deal with. Men didn't cry.

Morgana stopped and popped out of his mini-bus form, leading them down a dark and still escalator. He fiddled with one of the pockets on his utility belt and drew a small but bright white LED lamp and clicked it on.

Akira snapped into a ready-to-fight pose when the team leader leaped half a meter in the air.

"There it is!" Morgana dashed into the gloom, his lamp spot dancing over the concrete wall.

Akira led the three human members of the Phantom Thieves onto the concrete ledge ahead. A security light cast a bloody pall over the space, leaving long shadows on a couple benches and a stand with no stop markings or schedule information. Transparent plastic walls separated the rest stop from the surrounding platform.

Ryuji chuckled. "Whoa, it's like one of those mini-stops that they used to have!"

Akira followed their diminutive leader to a steel door set against a concrete wall along the ledge's left side. "There is what?"

Morgana shone his light against the steel door, centered on its lock. "One of those shortcuts I told you about earlier. Looks like a simple pin-tumbler. You should be able to pick that open." He turned to Ann. "Relax. Places like this are like safe, Shadows even avoid coming here. For some reason."

"You're really flaky for a leader, y'know that?" Ryuji trotted down the recess in the concrete subway tunnel, shotgun in hand. The pop of tiny stones grinding under his steel-toed boots sounded loud against the comparative silence of Mementos here. A subterranean breeze carrying the phantoms of disapproving whispers blew. The track star whipped around on the ball of his foot, shotgun up, but only darkness greeted him. He glanced to the team leader, then back to his own weapon. "I outta get a light for this. They make 'em for real-world guns."

"Really?" Ann said, looking at the profile of her pistol as she slouched against the wall. "Think they make lights for small ones like this?"

Letting his shotgun slip down on its strap over his shoulder, Ryuji paced next to her. "Oh, sure. Real police even use 'em. I dunno if it's for makin' it easier ta see, though. Whenever I saw it on TV, they were shinin' lights in perps' faces."

"Huh," she responded.

Akira slipped the rake pick to the next pin, pressing with the tension wrench until he felt the cylinder give. His arm screamed in pain from the feedback as they fought Shadows earlier, but Akira refused to give in and ask for help. He tapped the pick on the next pin.

Ryuji took his shotgun in both hands and trotted down the recessed space. A minute later, he turned around and paced back. Then turned again.

Akira grit his teeth. "Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Would you relax?" Sweat from the pain beaded his face.

Ryuji spun around on the ball of his steel-toed boot. "Well if you wouldn't take forever…"

"Reaper!" Ann chastised, "You're not helping."

Morgana left the model's side to close on the door. "What's the problem with the lock?"

"One of the earlier pins slipped once I started on number five, and that one slipped when I went back." Akira twisted the torsion wrench in his fingertips, feeling no give. His arm protested every little motion. Refusing to give up, he wiggled the rake pick until the cylinder rotated a fraction of a degree.

Morgana stared up at the steel door. "Make sure you keep constant pressure with the tension wrench."

Akira snapped, "I got it." Holding the twist, he moved on to the sixth pin and nudged it with the rake pick until he felt it slide up and the cylinder rotated open with a click of the bolt disengaging. "Man. Takanobu made it look easy." He pulled the door open and slipped the picks out, handing them back to Morgana.

Ryuji wasted no time hopping through the door and clambering up the ladder, keeping his weight off his left leg.

Morgana sighed and hung his head. "I was going to say ladies first, Panther."

Ann flashed him a toothy smile. "You're such a gentleman, Byakko." She stepped into the utility space and climbed up next. Morgana followed, and Akira took a few deep breaths to wrestle down his pain before clambering up after them. His arm throbbed and sweat beaded over his face.

When he came to another concrete landing only a couple seconds later, Morgana hopped up and had the next steel door open in seconds. He stowed the picks and tugged the heavy door open with a smug chuckle.

Ryuji gawked. "For real? There's no way the ladder was that long. We were four levels down!"

Akira stepped across to look through the doorway, the blood-red lighting of the lobby greeting him. "Huh."

Ann gave him a sidelong glance clear enough for him to make out despite her mask. "You're sure unflappable. We just found a one-story ladder climb that took us up four levels of subway."

He shrugged the shoulder that hurt less and stepped out into the lobby. "I'm beat. And it's not like it changes all those Shadows who didn't know shit. 'Kaneshiro' isn't even enough to punch into the Nav."

Morgana followed the others out of the staff door and pushed it shut. "Mishima did give us three. That still leaves us two names to follow up on next time. After ten people's Shadows, and a possible partial for our target, I'd say that's not bad."

Ryuji sat down against the lobby floor and began disassembling his shotgun. "That don't help us get into that mafia shithead's castle."

Ann sighed. "Doesn't, Reaper. And even if we didn't find the boss's leader this time, that's ten people who are going to have a change of heart." She pursed her lips. "I wonder if they're going to be okay. Yakuza are supposed to be real tight-knit."

Morgana hopped closer to her, eyes wide. "That's brilliant, Panther." He turned to the transfer student in a long, dark coat. "They're going to have a change of heart anyway, why don't we send their names to the cops? That girl's sister might even be able to find out somebody else higher up in the clan, and we could trade!"

"Only if we let her in on the meetings." Akira growled. "Like we need that lapdog's help."

Ann rounded on him. "Wait, we have somebody else with more names? Somebody in the police, even?"

Akira winced. "Niijima said her sister was a prosecutor, technically not a cop."

Ryuji slid the stock off his shotgun and gathered up the three pieces. "Who cares? We need all the help we can get."

Morgana looked about the group. "We're not going to figure this out while we're all exhausted from fighting Shadows. Let's talk about it tomorrow. We can figure it out after we've all had some rest. As the leader of the Phantom Thieves, I'm calling today finished." He turned to Akira. "You especially, you need to have the doctor check your arm."

Ryuji stood and trotted off.

Ann pressed fists against her hips, eyes staring into the distance. "Niijima-senpai…" After a few moments, she shifted her weight to her other leg, then focused on the transfer student. "Can we trust her?"

"No," Akira bit out against the diminutive team leader's protest. "Back at Inuri, we used to pull all kinds of pranks against the fuzz. Quick wits and quick reflexes were the only things that saved us, and sometimes even that wasn't enough. But every guy who got suspended without getting directly snatched by Kung-Fu Cop? Blabbed to somebody. Every person who learns we're the Phantom Thieves is another mouth we need to hope stays shut." He looked her up and down, this time for unspoken clues instead of the ridiculously hot costume. "Why, did she know something about Kamoshida?"

Ann twisted her fists against her hips, eyes narrowing and drifting away again. "I don't know. But it's hard to imagine that somebody as high up as the student council president wouldn't." She turned and strode up the stairs to station square.

Akira sighed. "Back to the rat race." He drew his phone as the team leader fell alongside. "I should probably also pass that name to the reporter in case she can find out anything else for us. If she can help us learn what his distortion keyword is, we're golden."