Persona 5: Daywatch

Monday, 13 June 2016
Evening
Yongen, Leblanc

The jingle of the bell interrupted Akira's heavy footfalls. The restaurateur splashed sudsy water in the sink, the sound of the television was just loud enough to be audible above the sound of work. With the dimness of the light outside, the cozy ambiance of Leblanc's interior seemed bright.

Unlike evening of most days, a customer sat at the coffee bar. His familiar brown peacoat hung on the back of the chair, his steel briefcase ajar and a ream of paperwork spread out before him. Akechi turned a page in a printed packet thicker than his thumb, eyes still reading as he picked up his coffee mug for a deep sip.

Akira sat down at the closest seat available, the paper spread keeping him a chair away. "Evening."

Akechi's eyes flicked up from his papers for only a moment. "Amamiya-san. It's been a while."

Akira couldn't decide if that smile was genuine or the false sort on a person who didn't want to say go away out loud. "Working overtime again?"

Chuffing, Akechi paused for another sip of dark coffee. "You wouldn't believe the deluge of nonsense that a company's legal department can inundate you with." His lower eyelid twitched, then he took a breath out and in, back to all smiles.

Sojiro trotted closer, drying his hands with a threadbare brown towel. "What can I get for you?"

Akira dug into his pockets. "One cup of the decaf blend."

The restaurateur tossed the towel over his shoulder. "Sorry, kiddo. We're out of decaf today. Too close to closing to brew another siphon. A cup of regular?"

The transfer student couldn't feign displeasure at the news. Coffee smelled great, but tasted more bitter than medicine. And it was too late in the day to down caffeine. He couldn't understand why it was so popular. "Just a can of tea, then."

Sojiro looked like he'd been gut-punched for a moment. "Your choice." He retrieved a can from the fridge the transfer student helped stock that morning and handed it over, then gave a nod at the kid working on legalese. "Have a good day."

"Oh, it's not my day to be worried about," Akechi said with a just-a-little-too-wide smile. "But as Reverend Martin Luther King Junior said, we are tied together in a single garment of destiny. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

"Maybe," Akira said. "But even if there are natural laws as Locke suggests, they have to be discerned by humans and that makes one man's justice another man's injustice. The consequences society chooses to apply provide the force behind its morality. When man's only feedback to determine right action is the result, how can it be determined if there even is a true and objective right?"

Flexing a gloved hand, Akechi scrutinized the transfer students with red eyes just a shade dimmer than Makoto's. "Hume said that our very nature and interdependedness reveal the moral requirements of human life. Being the species of invention humans are, we construct some of what is right while some are results of what natural laws require humans to be."

Akira swallowed a sip of canned tea and decided an infuser might be a good investment in the future. "Didn't Kant write that what is just is defined by external actions?"

"He also wrote that lying corrupted human moral capacity and was wrong under all circumstances," Akechi said, capping his pen. "If something is always wrong, that has to indicate a deeper structure of right and wrong than just what the observable outcome is."

His phone buzzed and he slipped it out to read the incoming text. Akechi began packing his papers. "As interesting as our discussion on the knowability of justice is, I'm afraid that I have pressing paperwork downtown." He picked up his coffee cup and downed the rest of it before locking and hefting his steel briefcase.

When Akira noticed Sojiro standing back by the coffee bean jars, drying already dry hands, the transfer student tilted his head. "What?"

Sojiro set the towel down. "Oh, just a little surprised to see two young men going back and forth about moral philosophy. I don't think I heard that much enthusiasm when I took ethics back in university." He made change for the can of tea, and closed up the register. "Getting time for me to be heading out. Don't stay up too late."

Tuesday, 14 June 2016
After School
Shujin, Front Entrance

The haunting string instruments of the Goa'uld theme sang out of Akira's phone. With Makoto the only one he gave that ringtone, he opened the call as soon as he got his shoes straightened around his ankles. "Tokyo complaint department, if you have an issue I can get you to Keith Maipathi Waitbut." He followed the stream pushing him to the front gates.

The student president growled. "I've heard of people who prank call, but never people who prank answer." Papers shuffled on her side. Something heavy and plastic thudded against a wooden surface. "Um… you said before that you'd be willing to help me learn more about the student body. Since Yuuki-kun hasn't sent any new Mementos targets, would you mind? Based on our interactions thus far, we both have some learning to do about the main portion of society."

Akira pressed his lips together and stepped to the side to lean against the wall, out of the way of the stream of foot traffic. Now he felt bad for opening with a joke. Why couldn't she have a sense of humor? She had the same go-get'em attitude as he did in the Metaverse. "What were you thinking? Checking out a different arcade?"

She let out a short breath. "I think I had my fill of video games in that celebration tournament on Saturday."

"Still mad Ryuji called you too nerdy for video games?"

Flustered noises emanated from the phone for a few moments. "No. I enjoyed it, I just don't feel like more video games right now. I was thinking of another entertainment topic. Have you left for home yet?"

Akira looked out at the slowing stream of students fleeing Shujin for home or jobs. "I'm right at the gates. Should I meet you at the Aoyama-Itchome station?"

"That's fine." Makoto rushed out a door and into a wider space with more background chatter. "I'll meet you there."

Akira put away his phone and headed to the station entrance. A few minutes later, Makoto stepped out of the trickle of students still departing Shujin. She glanced right, then left to the transfer student leaning against the tiled wall a couple steps from the escalator. She brushed her dark brown bangs out of her eyes and stopped to recover her breath. "A-Akira-kun."

When the first thought that came to mind was what her hair might feel like, Akira grit his teeth and gave himself a mental kick. "H-hi." He put his phone away and slipped his hands in his pockets. "So did you have a destination in mind?"

She straightened her pleated skirt, her red eyes flicking back to his. "My first thought was the Toyo Cinema, but they only have a few recent movies. There's certainly excitement for those, but the favorites people talk about tend to be older ones that made a big impression."

Akira nodded. "Scarlet's on the way of my train transfer in Shibuya, not far from station square." He thought back about movies. "Should we get Ryuji in on this? Last time we ran together, he went on and on about movies."

Makoto's shoulders slumped. "I actually already texted him about it. He wasn't interested. Said he was busy practicing in Shibuya. Yuuki-kun's indisposed with an investigation of his own."

Akira rolled his eyes. "Practicing he says."

Those crimson irises burned into him, though from the small muscles in her face and neck he couldn't be sure if Makoto was angry or just annoyed. "He is by far the best marksman in the group. You can't say it doesn't work."

He shrugged. "Fair enough. What about Ann?"

Makoto's shoulders pinched up and her gaze fell to the tiled floor. "She looked stressed, and I haven't really thought of a way to apologize to her." She looked up at him, her eyes as intense as before but the brows drawn up together. "I never did take action before Shiho. Or even with Kiriko-san." She rubbed her arm. "I never even tried to talk to Ann, I just assumed those terrible rumors must have some seed of truth and left her on her own."

Akira pushed up his glasses to rub the bridge of his nose. "I'm starting to think Ann has a magical power to make people not talk to her. She's not the type to hold a grudge or she'd definitely have taken something out on me." He shifted his lean against the wall. "And probably turned Kamoshida into frozen little chunks." His eyes drifted up. "No, actually, she knew he'd suffer by letting him live." He shook his head and straightened his glasses. "Well, might as well get going."

The two hopped on the train to Shibuya, then navigated to the Scarlet music and movie rental company on central street. Makoto beelined to the dramas, then browsed down the other aisles. "There are a lot of romantic comedies here."

Akira scratched his neck, following a few steps behind and glancing over the gaudy covers of women in bright clothing none were brave enough to wear in real life. "Yeah, they're kind of like the Goa'uld." At her head-tilt, he explained, "Evil race of aliens trying to take over everything around them in SG-1."

Makoto picked up one movie to browse the back. "It sounds like you're not a fan."

"I get the point of comedies, but they've never been my cup of tea." He paused, scanning the titles for Key of Life, but the titles jumped where it might have been. "One of the chief problems of rom-coms is that they perpetuate some rather unsettling stereotypes when those behaviors are put into real life. Women who are vapid doormats and wait for somebody else to solve everything for them but still expect everything to be happy, for example. Or men who stalk girls and keep trying to sneak into their safe spaces like the onsen. And then typically following up with violent beatings that would put a real person in intensive care, if not leave crippling brain injuries."

Makoto's head tilted to one side, her crimson gaze searching his for long moments before their phones buzzed. They both drew them to check the group chat.

Mishima's ID sat at the top of the chat. [Sorry about being so late to get this to you all. I found the name of that one stalker girl at school. The one posting murder fantasies on her blog. They got SERIOUSLY disturbing, and I say this having spent the last month reading about Kaneshiro. Her name is Yumeko Mogami.]

Morgana hopped up to read over Akira's shoulder. "People may say things they don't mean, but if this was bad enough even your class representative felt sick then we probably better change her heart before talk online becomes action offline."

"Agreed," Akira said before adding the tallies to the chat.

Makoto nodded at him, but texted the group anyway, [I'm for it.]

Ryuji and Ann joined the chat, only a few seconds passed before they added their assent.

Mishima posted next, [Also got a couple requests on the Phansite for a Hayashi Matsuko. She's a college student who's been seducing male students and breaking their hearts. I got the feeling something more is going on, because one of the posters said she killed him. No way to follow up, though. Maybe it's just a guy with a glass heart.]

Three dots danced next to Ryuji's ID. [What a total bench.]

A moment of silence descended on the rental shop. Makoto even bit her lip to keep from laughing.

[Bench,] Ryuji sent.

A moment later Ryuji texted, [You know what? F my phone and its autocorrect.]

Akira glanced at the team leader, got a nod in response, then typed in, [Make that a yes from me and Fearless Leader.]

Ann's ID blinked, three dots dancing next to it for a couple seconds. [So can we do these names today, or would we have to wait until later?]

Ryuji sent back, [Wait, aren't you working today?]

[Uh, no. I'm still at Shujin studying with Akemi. I need to get caught up after all the time I spend on shoots or at Shiho's physical therapy.]

The team leader didn't give a committal gesture, but when he looked at Makoto, the upperclassman straightened. "I'm ready." She focused on her phone. [We can meet you at station square in five minutes if you want.]

Ryuji texted, [Sounds like we're all ready and willing. Ping us when you're here, Ann.]

Fifteen minutes later, they gathered in the dim lobby of Mementos. Ann leaned her head left and right to stretch out a muscle. Pistol in hand, she walked past the phantasmal blue door of bars with no sign she noticed it. "Ready to go change some hearts?"

Makoto gave a sharp nod.

Rifle in his right, Ryuji lifted his left fist into the air. "Eff yeah! We still got, like, two gangers left over from last time."

Mementos, Hayashi's Distortion

"Die, thieves!" Hayashi's Shadow floated above them. The enveloping ashen robes it wore made it look human. All four of its hands clasped at its front, fingers dancing through small, precise gestures. The six, mirrored spheres floating around it reflected the unnerving red glow of the shadow-pockets here in Mementos, their orbit speeding up and expanding. "Die, like the bastard who put poison in me! It's my right to infect them right back!"

Morgana backed up. "Everybody brace, it's going physical again!"

Akira grit his teeth and dismissed Pillar of Heaven, the floor-to-ceiling column of darkness and flame retracting into the carved obsidian. In its place formed Orthrus.

Ryuji smirked and Kidd just sped up. When the six orbs lashed out at them like enraged comets, the ship-surfing Persona juked left around one and flew up above another.

His smirk disappeared when a violet beam shot out from under Shadow Hayashi's hood and hit Captain Kidd square in the skeletal face. Ryuji's jaw dropped slack and his eyes glazed over.

Morgana bared his teeth, face twisted in anger and concentration. Zorro shimmered with wispy blue, the light blazing in its eyes as it focused all its psychokinetic energy into the single orb bearing down on him. It held out its sword and the empty hand, wispy blue energy roaring out of it against the mirrored orb.

It raced closer and closer, sending Zorro scraping backwards, the little feet leaving gouges in the carved obsidian. Unstoppable force came to a standstill against immovable object, and Morgana roared. Zorro's arms moved in time with his as they smashed inwards, shattering the mirrored orb into dissolving dust.

Akira fired burst after burst from his gun for all the little good it was doing. He wracked his brain for what would help when it resisted curse energy, fire and Shesha's radiation, much less shrugging off lightning. "Ryuji, snap out of it!"

Carmen danced out of the way of another hurtling orb, and flung an icy bolt at the floating Shadow in return. Ann stumbled, sweat dripping down her face.

Flames sputtered over the obsidian floor as Makoto rode her fiery bike-Persona over the pocket of Mementos. Fire spilled from its blazing wheels, but it couldn't drift out of the way of a mirrored orb in time. The meter-and-a-half sphere smashed into the Persona. Red flames gushed and thick metal panels buckled.

Johanna vanished in a flutter of blue flames, spilling her rider on the floor. Makoto leaped to her feet just in time for her vision to fill with another mirrored orb.

Akira threw himself against her, knocking her out of the way. "Sui-Ki!" The motes of light coalesced into the shape of an ogre and it spun its double-sword to parry when the mirrored orb smashed through it and kept going.

The direct impact sent Akira tumbling like a rag doll.

"Guys?" Ann called as Captain Kidd returned to the floor, leveling its hand canon at Carmen. "Things just got worse!"

While the others fought, Makoto dashed over the glowing runes. "Joker!"

His whole body burned and it felt like somebody lodged knives in every joint of his left arm. Knowing he couldn't control his sub-machine gun with one hand, he dug into his coat. "Rider." He hissed, but kept searching until his hands closed on the shard that guillotine turned Fuu-Ki into days ago. He pulled out the cylindrical shape glowing with green from within. "Here. Wind at least hurt it. If you can take that Shadow down, Ryuji should go back to normal."

"Wait," she searched her pocket. "Let's get you patched up fi—"

He grabbed her hand and shoved the glowing cylinder onto her palm. "Load that into your shotgun. Finish. The. Shadow."

She pursed her lips, then nodded. She pressed the green-glowing cylinder into her shotgun, then turned on Shadow Hayashi.

While Carmen danced out of Kidd's razor winds, Zorro split its attention between trying to distract Kidd without hurting Ryuji while hampering Shadow Hayashi.

Dashing to get close enough, Makoto leveled her shotgun at the floating monster bent on destroying everyone around it. "Enough killing and hurting for one day." She pulled the trigger.

A gale of whipping razor winds howled out of her weapon, sliding around the mirrored spheres and lashing into the towering Shadow.

The beam it held trained on Captain Kidd ceased as it stumbled back.

Makoto gawked at her shotgun until the mirrored orbs began swirling faster around Shadow Hayashi again. The biker-suit-clad girl pulled the trigger again and again, lashing gales roaring from her weapon until smoke gushed from the cuts and impacts on the Shadow from throughout the fight. Darkness bled away from it until only the shape of a college girl remained, coming to rest on the obsidian floor.

Shadow Hayashi looked up at the five Phantom Thieves surrounding her, tears leaking from her glowing yellow eyes. "It's not fair."

Morgana kept his crossbow trained on her. "It was bad enough when we thought you were just breaking hearts. What do you think gives you the right to go around infecting other people?"

"There's no cure." Propping herself up with one hand, Shadow Hayashi sniffed. "I'll never be healthy again."

Akira held his banged-up left arm. "Even if that were true, being hurt yourself is no excuse to spend your life going around hurting others." He knelt to look her eye-to-eye. "If there is sickness, let it stop with us."

Makoto lowered her shotgun. "Go to the police. If you cooperate, they'll be able to find the one who first infected you. That could help save a lot of other people."

Shadow Hayashi's head dipped and she sniffed again. "You… you're right. It's better to stop sickness than spread it. I… I'm sorry." Her form faded away, leaving a glint on the floor.

Ann paced closer and knelt to pick it up. "A charm bracelet. Looks like the kind that's supposed to have three… no, four little gemstones in it."

Ryuji let out a long breath. "Whoa. That was one twisted chick." He turned to Makoto. "Since we got a couple minutes before this place collapses," he turned on her with a calm air before dropping it with a sudden yell, "When the eff did you learn to make my gun shoot magic?"

Morgana rounded on her, folding up his crossbow. "Yeah!"

She turned the shotgun on its side and struggled for a moment to extract the green-glowing cylinder. "Akira gave this to me."

Ryuji whipped around on the thief in a longcoat. "Effin' sweet! How many more you got? Any that make stuff shoot lightnin'?"

Akira held up a hand when she tried to return it. "I'll let you hold onto that." He tapped his head. "I'm the one with a crowd upstairs." He gave them a moment to chuckle, but only Ann did. "And that's the only shard I've got. But if it can help out like that one did, I'll look into getting more."

Morgana collapsed his crossbow and stowed the squared rod. He looked between Makoto and Akira, his bright blue eyes holding fast on the boy. "Take that medicine. It'll help, though not as much as if you'd taken it when Rider tried to give it to you. The longer your mind processes the idea you've been hurt, the harder it will create pains that take time to recover from. The sooner you take that medicine, the sooner you can take advantage. Remember, everything follows cognition in the Metaverse." He let out a long breath. "And you two need to stop by the doctor once we're out."

Tuesday, 14 June 2016
Late Evening
Yongen Station

The train slid to a stop, the old car rattling around them. Akira couldn't help but notice Makoto clench her jaw and hold her stomach. When the doors trundled open, she stepped out and took a breath of the station air with the same heavy footfalls and rush of air as he associated with himself.

Still holding his arm to keep jostling of his shoulder from making that sensation of hot needles, Akira came to a stop behind her. "Doc's just a couple minutes away. How bad is it?"

She straightened, but a twitch in the muscle below her eyelid betrayed her struggle to keep everything inside. "It's not so bad. You're the one who jumped in front of a giant bludgeon."

"To help you," he said, a corner of his mouth quirking up. "Besides, Sui-Ki took most of the impact."

"So did Johanna," Makoto said, following him to the Takemi Medical Clinic.

This late in the evening, they found Takemi snoozing at her desk. After a sharp knock at her window, she took Makoto back and gave a prescription for painkillers, anti-inflammatories, and no heavy exercise.

Akira sat back in a chair and texted Hifumi, taking the few minutes to reminisce as she did homework and he waited for Makoto's examination to finish.

The door to the exam room swung open. Takemi followed the student president out. "Okay, boyo. Your turn."

[Talk to you later,] he promised. Akira followed the doctor into the back and submitted to the usual examination. The exam was quick and almost wordless, but the situation went from unusual to red flag when she got up and locked the exam room door.

Takemi tapped her clipboard against her nose, masking her lower face and highlighting the narrow glare of her brown eyes. "When we made our agreement, I thought I'd be patching you up from one fight. Now you're carting in more battered friends, all of them bearing the bruises from leather-wrapped batons—"

"We're not dealing with the yakuza any more." Akira straightened his glasses to try to give the impression of calm so she'd go about her business and let him leave.

Her fingers only clenched tighter on her clipboard. "Then what?" She stormed closer, towering over the student seated on her exam bed. "What are you stupid, crazy kids getting into that's bringing you into my clinic day after day with bruises, exhaustion, and in your case in specific an unmistakable look of guilt?"

Scratching started at the door, and the transfer student thought he heard Morgana's voice.

Takemi ignored the scratching. "I've seen injuries like this before when the yakuza would offload people they didn't want to have records of treatment. Torturing mothers and middle-aged men who owed ten thousand yen. Beaten without breaking the skin and shedding a drop of blood so there's less clean-up." She crossed her arms, her shoulders pinched up. "It always escalates." Her gaze fell away. "And I'm already cleaning up one child. I can't handle this sudden deluge." She sat in her chair as if she couldn't hold her body up for a minute longer.

Pushing his own pain aside, Akira focused on the doctor. Where she had been vibrating with tension before, now enervation sagged every muscle on her frame. "Is Masa still bothering you?"

"No," Takemi groused. She crossed her arm. "It's… strange. He had somebody shadowing me most days since I got here last year. They disappeared last Sunday."

Akira straightened his glasses. "So that midnight visit line worked?" He mimed holding his sub-machine gun.

Her head dropped back as she let out a long breath. "That would only have been a temporary measure. Masa's too ambitious not to push if he thinks he can get away with it. He's got gang muscle and knows it." She pulled herself upright and tapped a key to bring the computer out of sleep mode. "That must have changed when Kaneshiro turned himself in. I'd like to think he got nabbed by the police sweep of Shibuya, but that feels too much like naive optimism." Takemi stood to retrieve a threadbare sling from a box in the corner, then settled herself back in her chair. "But even if he's really gone, that only solves one problem. A doctor can't treat her patients if there's no trust. Without knowing what's injuring you kids, there's very little I can do to treat you."

Biting his lip, Akira fidgeted with the uniform jacket in his hands. The doctor may be intelligent, but she was too rational and grounded in the regular world to believe he was taking a bruising from monsters in a supernatural mind world. He looked down to break eye contact. "I… I've never been good at just walking away from things. I have to believe that's a good thing. Before I got shipped up here to Tokyo, I stopped a drunk from abducting a woman off the street." He took a breath as he thought of Ryuji pulling him back in Kamoshida's office. "I know I'm not perfect and sometimes I need to tone it down, but I can't walk away from people everyone else has already abandoned to a slow, painful death." He reached his good hand out for the cloth sling.

Takemi tossed the sling at him. "You need to give your body a chance to heal. I'm certain there are microtears in your tendons, if you don't take your wounds seriously, you'll wind up with permanent damage." She picked up a pen, clicked it open, then scratched out a bill for today's treatments. "If you're not going to tell me how you and your friends are getting beaten up, we have nothing more to say here." Her hand wavered just a bit. "Getting the chance to save Miwa doesn't mean anything if I have to sacrifice four other children to do so."

She thrust the clipboard at him and Akira fumbled out his wallet to pay for this session.

AN: I can't claim to have the brilliance to come up with a fake name like Keith Maipathi Waitbut, that one was stolen from Collin Mochrie on Who's Line Is It Anyway?