Persona 5: Daywatch

Tuesday, 24 May 2016
After School
Shujin, Hallways

Ryuji twirled his pen between his fingers while waiting for the last bell to ring. Since Akira's text that they got the scumbag mafioso's name, he felt like he'd been riding a five-cup-of-Arginade high. The history teacher finally stopped rambling about the 80s slump, and the new class representative read off the end-of-day announcements and due dates. Even after a month, it still felt weird for some boring dude to end the day instead of Suzui-san, but her seat one ahead and two right of his remained empty.

The reminder dulled his enthusiasm when the bell rang and the other students sprang from their seats. Most days he would be with them, but somehow the reminder of the absence of the girl who had been his class rep since his start at Shujin sapped his energy. Even the junk in the trunk shaking each skirt getting up failed to perk him up.

Ryuji plugged his earbuds into his phone and put on some music to chill. The thudding beats helped get him to his feet and out of class, past some chick reading Fairy Tail.

Leaving his music going, he trotted out the front gates and paused to savor the sweet air of Free Tokyo. Leaving the trains at Shibuya station, his feet took him towards his line home before he remembered the mission and turned to ground level Station Square, passing a chick reading Fairy Tail.

Taking the stairs, Ryuji headed for the walkway in the Teikyuu building. Akira and Ann leaned against the rail, taking turns tossing words at his phone just for it to repeat: "Condition has not been met."

"Yo, dudes," Ryuji greeted.

Pausing to shoot him a long-suffering glance, Akira tossed out without looking up, "Location and keyword's all we need. Money bath?"

"Condition has not been met."

Ann crossed her arms. "Safe house?"

"Condition has not been met."

Ryuji tilted his head and looked at the two. "Uh, what exactly is this?"

A familiar, boyish voice let out a disgusted sigh before Morgana licked his paw and rubbed at his ear, "We only have his name, Reaper. The only location we know for sure that Kaneshiro has been to is the Spiral Hostess Club, but that didn't result in a hit. So we're still trying to figure out Kaneshiro's distortion."

Ryuji slipped his hands in his pockets. "Like a buried stash?"

"Condition has not been met."

"Currency exchange," Morgana tried.

"Condition has not been met."

Akira looked to Ann, at his right. "I'm starting to think we've gone through every possible synonym for money laundering. Wait, laundromat?"

"Condition has not been met."

"Ya don' think it's about the drugs?" Ryuji leaned closer. "Maybe a warehouse?"

"Condition has not been met."

"It's not drugs, Ryuji," Akira snapped. "And without a trail of bodies, I don't think he's the power-murder fantasy type. This dude's richer than a king and he's still ripping off high school students. Besides, Ann and I already went through all the names we can think of for distro facilities before you got here. It's got to be the money."

"What about insurance?" a familiar female voice said from behind him.

"Condition has not been met."

Akira snapped straight, looking behind the track star to the student council president walking out from behind him. "What the hell are you thinking, bringing her here?"

Ryuji sidestepped, just as surprised as the others to see upperclassman Niijima standing next to him looking like she belonged there. "Where da eff you come from?"

Akira slapped his palm against his forehead.

Niijima clenched her jaw for just a moment. "The wave of scams targeting Shujin students is part of my duty as student council president," she said in the same patronizing tone as teachers explaining a concept they thought everybody should know already.

Ann looked at her with narrow eyes, her arms crossed. "The acting principal tell you to find us?"

Akira looked back to his phone. "Can't imagine why you'd want to hang out with criminals." He looked down his nose and mocked, "I thought Shujin couldn't handle such associations."

Ann's arms crossed tighter. "Only suicide and sexual harassment."

When the student council president cringed, balling both hands into fists, Ryuji cleared his throat. "Dudes, I ain't got much to stick up for, but I don't think this is helpin'." He looked to her, remembering the cold shoulder the teachers and disciplinary committee gave him. "You prolly don't even know they're just usin' you, like Kamoshida used me to shut down the track team. Hell, I even feel sorry for ya. I got nothin' to gain hatin' on a pawn lettin' shitty adults push her around."

Niijima looked away and pulled in a deep breath. "I just want to help."

Akira bared his teeth. "We don't need your 'help', Madam President."

She straightened and her eyes narrowed on him. "Even though I have the name of one of the clan's ranking recruiters?"

Bloody eyeball app forgotten for a moment, Akira stomped one step closer, radiating indignance. "We already have the mafioso's name. Thanks for nothing."

"Yeah," Ryuji said, guessing Akira was just frustrated with their guessing game. "He's Kaneshiro Junya."

Akira's palm slapped against his forehead again. "Don't tell her, Ryuji." He refocused on the upper-classman. "You're not one of us. The ball's in our court now." His two fellow Shujin juniors cringed. "Okay, that was a bad choice of words. But like always you're a day late and a yen short. Leave this to the real problem solvers."

"Joker," Morgana reproached. "She already knows about us. It can't hurt to have another mind to put towards figuring out his distortion. As long as we don't bring her inside, she shouldn't have to worry about the danger."

"Makes sense to me," Ryuji said, shrugging his shoulders. "So we figure out where he hides out. Everybody has a home base."

"No we don't," Akira said.

Ryuji crossed his arms. "C'mon, man."

Akira spread his hands out. "What? If home is where the heart rests easy, I don't have one. There's a reason I learned to sleep with my back to the wall."

"What about Yoshida?" Ann straightened her school satchel straps on her shoulder, her eyes scrutinizing the transfer in that weird way that made him unsure what she thought or how he should take it.

Girls were weird.

Akira rolled his eyes to the overcast sky out the windows. "Come on. We played video games a couple times because he lost at Go. He woulda never stuck his neck out for me even if we did both go out hat-snatching. And he never faked like he would, just like he knew I would've never stuck my neck out for him." He shrugged. "But… I mean, that just made it easier for me to go other places." Akira looked at him and Ann, his gaze softening for a moment. Then they unfocused and the hardness returned to his face. "Then there's some folks who are like… anywhere they go, it's theirs. Like that douchebag chairman the old bastard would always roll out the red carpet for. It was like he owned anywhere he went and fuck on anyone who didn't bow fast enough."

Ryuji felt a tad dizzy trying to keep up. "Well… how're we s'posed to find some guy who's been stealin' from all of Shibuya?"

"Candidate found."

All four of the others – including the cat – gasped. Morgana looked from the active phone to him, "I don't believe it, Reaper. You're amazing!"

Ann nodded, her eyes still wide. "I've got to hand it to you, Ryuji. That was a stroke of luck like we've been waiting for."

"This freak's distortion is all of Shibuya?" Akira looked back to his phone, the creepy bleeding eyeball app filling the screen. "Geez. Now all we need is what he thinks of his distortion. A loan shark's stash?"

"Condition has not been met."

Morgana shifted, wrapping his tail around his feet. "Maybe it has something to do with shell companies? He owns plenty of places to hide his money."

"Real estate office?" Ryuji proposed.

"Condition has not been met."

Akira crossed his feet. "Money markets?"

"Condition has not been met."

Niijima held her right arm in her left. "It's possible that you all are on the wrong track trying to think of illegitimate places that organized crime ends up laundering their money. One of the things that most criminals, almost all regular people want, is to feel normal. What about something simple, where people withdraw money?"

Ryuji looked at the transfer student's phone. "An ATM?"

"Condition has not been met."

Ann stared at the student council president for a moment, then tried, "A bank?"

"Match found. Beginning Navigation. Target: Bael."

Akira tapped his phone and the home screen shone up at him before he slipped his phone in his pocket.

"Dude," Ryuji blurted, hands jerking from his pockets, "What the eff? We just found the king d-bag and you wanna back out?"

"No. But this is for the fixers, not the bean counters sitting back to wait for their orders from on high." Akira's narrow gaze fell on the student council president. "It's our turn now." He picked up his school satchel and walked away, leaving the upper-classman staring after them with her hand clenched on the railing.

Ryuji shrugged and followed the rest of the Phantom Thieves. Once they found a quiet nook to duck into, the transfer student slid his phone back out and hit the app.

His stomach twisted and the world bled as everything warped together into a freakish mish-mash collapsing in on itself. Then lines straightened, though the sky was overcast and dark as twilight. Wind blew bits of paper through the streets, no bright advertisements or street lights to brighten the gloom. Looking down at himself, Ryuji was disappointed to see his Shujin uniform. "Aw, man. I was hopin' for that sweet jacket and steel-toed boots."

Akira scratched his head and looked down at the catboy. "Weren't we always in those thief outfits everywhere in Kamoshida's castle?"

Morgana drew a squared metal rod. "That was while we were inside his treasured domain, a place his subconscious innately tried to push out everything he couldn't control. It's possible this isn't the 'inner sanctum' of Kaneshiro's Palace. Until we've crossed some sort of boundary or threatened his psyche in some way, there won't be any of that friction which causes your transformation."

Akira snapped his fingers. "So like an immune response, until his subconsciousness perceives us as a threat, we're just unimportant static?"

Morgana squinted, teeth clenched in discomfort. "Basically. Some personalities have an extremely narrow field of importance, and others are hostile to even the faintest traces of something happening outside their direction." Morgana pressed a button on his metal rod and it popped open into his crossbow. "In any case, we've gotten into the mafioso's Palace. Our mission is the same as before: secure a route to the Treasure, send the calling card, and change his heart."

Ryuji clicked his RMB-93 shotgun together and slipped his school bag back behind his arms. "Awright! It's time to do this!"

Akira unfolded his KEDR's wire stock and nodded to Ann, then followed Morgana out into the windy street. For such weird proportions, the catboy moved like an anime ninja, zipping from cover to cover.

Akira, the second one out, was the first to freeze on the cracked and dirty street. When Ryuji got out of the little alley, he realized why. Despite the dim twilight, small groups of honest-to-god ATMs on stubby legs stood along the sidewalks up and down Shibuya's central street.

One of the bits of blowing paper slapped against Ryuji's shotgun and he reached out to take it, noting the rectangular thing was more colorful than it appeared from a distance. When he picked it up, he saw the two-thousand-yen bill's portrait of Naha's famed gate. "This is the best Palace ever!"

"Focus, Reaper." Morgana peeked out from behind a delivery truck sitting on cinderblocks, its wheels gone.

Giving catboy a dirty look, Ryuji walked up to one of the ATMs, noting its screen had a partial display for a withdrawal. "What the eff is this?"

The machine gave what Ryuji would've sworn was a resigned sigh, and then a couple yen notes spat out of its cash slot. Confused, but not enough to look a gift horse in the mouth, Ryuji bent down and picked them up, then smiled. "Hey, sweet. Easiest ten thousand I ever made."

"Ryuji!" Ann jogged closer, wary like she expected the machine to explode or something. "You can't just take money from a strange… ATM… person… thing."

"Why not?" Ryuji blinked at her.

She took a step closer, her pretty blue eyes blazing. "Because—" She stepped in front of the ATM and it gave another dejected sound before spitting out another note. Ryuji reached around her for it and she snatched it from under his hand. "It's weird!"

"Hey," Ryuji leaned back against her, almost pressing forehead to forehead with the dumb blonde. "These guns that I got for you ain't free. That flashlight attachment you bought and folding wire stock Akira got cost dough, so why not? It's just financin' Phantom Thief stuff."

Akira kept his KEDR up like he expected an ambush at every moment. The dude really needed to smoke a blunt and chill. "Okay, so there's creepy ATMs with feet everywhere, but shouldn't there be a bank somewhere?"

Morgana looked up at him. "Well, Reaper, this Palace appears to mirror Shibuya so far. However, I think we can safely assume Kaneshiro's Palace isn't a bank. At least not at a real one. It wouldn't be a distortion that way. The heart of his Palace must be something else."

Ryuji growled at the talking cat-boy the others elected leader. "Do you know how many buildings there are in Shibuya?"

Ann rolled her eyes clear enough for him to see through her mask. "There's a big one six blocks this way."

Morgana transformed into the bus and Ryuji groaned about the lost opportunity to grab for blowing yen notes along the way until they reached an insurance building his mom frequented, though the lights in its sign and lobby were out. The doors lay on the floor as if both rusted out of their hinges years ago, more of the ATMs resembling hunched people scattered inside.

Akira jumped a line to an ATM where a front desk clerk should be. It made the same resigned sigh and offering of bills, but the transfer student waved his KEDR in the air. "Okay, where is Kaneshiro Junya?"

A synthesized sigh passed out of the ATM. "Please, just take your money and go. That's all we're good for."

Ann looked around the room. Her hand clenched on the Grach held against her side, but at least she kept her finger out of the trigger well. "I can't believe this is what he sees people like."

Morgana came to her side, definitely checking out her ass. Not that it wasn't fine. "Well, his distortion was a bank, and of all Shibuya. In its own perverse way, it makes sense for him to view everyone in it as his patron."

Ryuji scoffed. "Then where's the chicks, cool cars, and other stuff rich dudes buy tons of? What's the point of money except to do stuff with it?"

Akira took the bills and examined them like he expected test answers. "Well, despite their financial options, the wealthy spend far less of their income on food, housing, even cars and boats. They tend to dump it into sheltered financial markets that keep it away from the poor." He pocketed the cash from what should be a receptionist. "And to some degree, I get it. That sanitized account I made was supposed to be savings for an emergency, but I keep having to drain it for the doctor's visits."

Ryuji walked up to another ATM-person just standing in the middle of the lobby and it shuddered before extending more yen notes. "Huh. Three thousand." He waved his hand in front of its bill slot and another bill spat out. "One thousand."

"Reaper!" Ann stomped closer.

"What?" he snapped back. "I'm just seein' what's here."

Morgana trotted closer and waved, using his crossbow to extend his reach. The ATM spat out another thousand-yen note. "Does this mean he thinks people always have more money?"

Ryuji shrugged and took the note. "Makes sense for a rich dude. Seems like they always think everyone always has more money." He ground his teeth, fist clenching over the bills in his hand. "Like the bank that kept houndin' ma after she left pops."

Akira punched the ATM and roared, "Where is Kaneshiro?"

"Kaneshiro is a higher person. He leaves no tracks," its melancholic, synthesized voice said.

Ann sighed in that girly way like she was watching a limping puppy.

Akira kicked one of the unused chairs, sending it toppling. "Why is everything in my life one step forward and one jump back?"

Ryuji began to reconsider his praise back when he told the transfer student he was awesome for letting everything roll off his back.

Morgana switched his grip on his crossbow. "Let's not lose sight of our objective. However repulsive – or just weird – Kaneshiro's distortion is, it doesn't change the plan. Secure a route to his Treasure and change his heart."

Akira's lips twisted for a moment before he turned for the street, then scrambled back to right the chair, and head back for the street. "Let's scope out this twisted Shibuya. Reaper, where's the next sky…"

After waiting several seconds for Akira to finish his sentence or do anything, Ryuji walked out after him. "Dude, you miss out on sleep or… whoa."

Easy as a balloon, high above Shibuya floated an enormous disk. A series of concentric rings covered its bottom, the weak wind swirling through Shibuya converging up into its center like a vacuum, sucking up all the money in the borough.

Akira stared up, mouth hanging just a little open. "Byakko, you don't happen to be able to cognition yourself into a helicopter to get us up there, do you?"

Catboy looked up at the transfer student with a glare. "It's not like I gain new powers for each Palace I infiltrate. There wasn't exactly room for the minibus in Kamoshida's Castle."

Akira's lips pressed into thin lines. "That thing might as well be in Ha'tak up in orbit."

Ann came out behind them, staring up at the floating disk. "Well, how the hell are we supposed to get up there?"

Ryuji looked down to Morgana's crossbow. "Hey, don't ninja in anime have grappling hooks 'n stuff?"

Morgana glared at him. "Ninjas in anime can also duplicate and fly. Any crossbow capable of launching something as heavy as a grapnel wouldn't be able to get it as far as that flying palace." He stared up at the flying disk for a long moment before letting out a sigh. "We've reached a cognitive block, everyone. Let's reconvene in the real world and hope we can figure out another way in."

AN: The "grapple" in the game was a neat plot device, but it's got a lot of issues trying to work from a gameplay gimmick where your teammates teleport after you to a more realistic narrative.

Thanks for reading and reviewing!