Persona 5: Daywatch

Monday, 27 June 2016
After School
Shujin Roof

The heavy door swung shut behind Akira, and he blinked against the glare of the sun filtering through the intermittent clouds. Rain-stained roofing stretched out under his feet. stacks of chairs and desks off to his right sat next to the air conditioning units. Akira stepped out from the narrow shaded space over the door and let Morgana down. At first, he reached for his satchel for The Grand Inquisitor, but paused when he noticed the other student.

That girl with the curly hair knelt down in front of the planters, her back to him. In her PE uniform, she looked almost as nondescript as any other girl at Shujin. She knelt there, tending to something with bright green leaves after school on Shujin's roof, instead of out enjoying the sights and thrills of Tokyo like most the other girls. Haru dusted off her gloved hands and stood, pulling off the heavy white fabric. "Oh, good afternoon."

Akira glanced down at the planters, noting taller stalks with darker green leaves on the ones to the sides, and new shoots where he and Mishima messed up earlier. "Hi, Senpai." He pointed to the variety of plants. "Thinking of starting a farm?"

Haru giggled, the light sound reminding him of Hifumi. "Nothing so grand." Her eyes rolled up and she clasped her hands behind her back. "Although I likely have enough space in the plot on Father's grounds."

Akira coughed and wondered if she realized how much space that meant – even if it was a vacation house in the Ryukyu Islands. "I remember you said you got into this with Kiriko. Something about a club?"

Haru's eyes sparkled, and a smile lifting her whole posture formed. She stood straighter and clasped her gloves tight in both hands. "The Flowers and Gardening Club. Kiriko-kun started it. Something about connecting with her grandfather's heritage." She turned around, the focus in her eyes fading out as she saw something a long time ago. "We would grow daisies and snapdragons and lavender. Before the end, we even got a sunflower to bloom…" She pointed to the concrete wall. "…right over there. And it's true, they really do point at the sun all day long."

Akira let a smile spread over his face. It wasn't often people got excited about things they were talking about to him. However, the mention of the former favorite for the student council president just piqued his curiosity. "I've heard her name a couple times from the upperclassmen. What happened?"

The light shining in Haru's eyes dropped from a blazing fire to a pinprick smolder. "She was expecting a promotion in the Shujin Girls' Volleyball Team. Had a meeting with Kamoshida after school one day." Her brown eyes flitted from his to the ground and her toe twisted into the rough roofing. "I always assumed he told her she wasn't eligible for that starter spot she wanted." She shrugged. "Well, that's all speculation. The day after that, she stood up the Student Council Secretary. Stopped coming to all her clubs, didn't talk to her friends…" She looked down to the fine, rugged but soil-stained gloves in her hands and stepped closer, as if trying to get nearer to his eyes without daring to look into them. "This is hard work, to be sure, which is why all the other members dropped out." The upperclassman let out a long, heavy breath. "But these plants… they bloom so beautifully with just a little care. They're some of the few things I can nurture and grow."

The glow she said it with reminded him of their earlier argument about determinism, but he couldn't think of how to bring it up without sounding like a gotcha. "Well, uh… what flowers are those going to be?"

Haru's shoulders squared a little. "Oh, those aren't flowers. Those ones are scallions." She pointed to lower plants spreading over the bounds of their sides. "Those are thyme. The ancient Egyptians used them for antiseptics and relaxing muscle spasms. When it blooms, the pink flowers are beautiful."

Akira gave an acknowledging nod. "Maybe so, but the ancient Egyptians also worshiped the sun as a god riding a chariot high above the Earth, pursued by the serpent Apophis."

She tilted her head at him just a little. "Oh? You're an Egyptologist?" She pursed his lips. "Which one is associated with thyme?"

"I have no idea – just that the thyme leaf is associated with courage." Akira chuckled and rubbed the back of his head, trying to decide how to explain SG-1 to somebody who had never seen it. "Egyptian mythology played a pretty central role in Stargate. It's a science fiction show that replaces the magic with technology and gods with aliens." He looked over the variety of other plants, noting some with small, bright leaves and others with broad, dark green. "Do you want a hand?"

For some reason, pink dusted Haru's cheeks and she held her free hand to her mouth. "Oh, I don't want to make you feel like you have to work away just to be up here."

Morgana peered at him from the satchel hanging on his shoulder. "Trying to avoid studying in that noisy library?"

Akira shot a grimace at the team leader and said under his breath, "For your information, yes. At least this can be productive." He shrugged off his satchel and set it down against the wall. "I'm not going to roll up my sleeves, but a little hard work never killed anyone."

Haru gave a smile, a hesitant quality to it before she nodded. "Well, I shouldn't turn down gallantry."

He felt a little flutter inside at being called gallant, but pressed on. Some time with little but small instructions passed, before Akira finished watering a baby tomato stalk. "You mentioned this all started with flowers, but it looks like almost all of these are some sort of herb or vegetable. Why the change?"

Haru looked up from pruning one of the taller, leafing plants. Her lips drew together into a cute almost-pout as her eyes zoned out. "Well, the club advisor Gotou-sensei recommended we do something fruitful as well. When the first tomatoes came off the plant there," she pointed at a potted bush strapped to a bamboo pole, "I realized how… practical gardening could be." Her gaze fell. "This is the only place I can have a positive impact."

Akira hummed, and they fell into a pattern of work, chatting about the minutiae of plants and gardening. Then his phone buzzed. The transfer student brushed off his hands and leaned against the door to shield the screen as he checked the Phantom Thief group chat.

Ryuji's ID stood at the top of a new conversation. [Just finished a session with the school counselor. It wasn't bad, I feel ready for a good run.]

[Good for you,] Makoto replied.

Ann's ID winked in. [Told you it would get a load off your shoulders.]

Akira's thumbs stabbed over the virtual keyboard. [If the fangirling is done, did everyone forget what Mishima said?]

Ann texted, [He still thinks he needs to be hurting for what happened. I would take his disapproval with a grain of salt.]

[For real,] Ryuji sent. [He's already got another dude today, but you should give him a shot, Akira. It doesn't even have to be about Kamoshida. We spent most of the time talking about track and running. Sure, it was awkward at first, but isn't talking to any adult weird when they don't know you? He was real cool. I might even go back if we get another one of those mind blocks in a palace and feel all pissed.]

[Dear God, Ryuji, please don't out us to the public AGAIN,] Akira texted.

Three dots bounced next to Makoto's ID for a few moments. [A session could really help, Akira. Ryuji has an excellent idea about using it to help clarify another stumbling block in life if we have a Metaverse complication. Don't forget that Shujin made this mandatory for you, going would at the very least give Shujin's administrators less reason to bother you. You should give it a shot. Just one session.]

He stared into the screen for a moment. Three people he thought smart going to a shrink and saying it would do some good. Maybe not smart in the academic sense in Ryuji's case, but he was supposed to be a good judge of people. So why did so many of his friends think it was a good idea to see a shrink? Either Maruki was an active part of the system just waiting to grind them down or he was a stupid goon who couldn't help anyone. Jaw-jabbing didn't solve problems. It never had before.

Akira returned to the big tomato planters with Haru-senpai and resumed yanking weeds.

Monday, 27 June 2016
Evening
Shibuya, Untouchable

The front door squeaked as Akira pulled it open. He paused for the student president to step inside first, before following her in. Some college-aged guy stood at the counter window, setting down a couple yen bills for a set of dust masks, so Akira cleared his throat and angled his head into the other end of the store. The class president took his direction and they took the long way around racks of fatigues, green mechanic's jumpsuits, and black jackets. Along the way, he looked over the survival supplies like flashlights with red filter caps and combination compass-rulers. After a minute, the other customer took his change and departed.

Makoto beelined past folded tarps to the counter and set her disassembled shotgun wrapped in a clean white cloth. "Could I see the…?" She glanced back at the transfer student.

"Menu for her model shotgun." Akira set his satchel down on the ground at his feet. The team leader poked his head out, but stayed where he was. With nothing to deal with there, he turned his focus to the upperclassman. "Any ideas on what you wanted to do with it?"

Makoto took the stiff printed sheet from the shop owner and scanned it, pursing her lips. "If I already knew, I wouldn't have asked you to come along." She let out a disappointed huff. "The light seemed like a no-brainer, but it wasn't so clear until after that debacle with the lights out. Problem is, there are so many options it's too hard to make a choice."

Iwai chuckled and slid his lollipop to the other side of his mouth. "Be glad you don't have to pick for a rifle. People have been slappin' customizations on those since the days of muskets."

After a quick discussion on the 'hypothetical' uses of the different modifications, the two decided on a mounted holographic sight for quicker precision… and laughed at a few of the crazier modifications like polished faux-gold plating. Makoto took out her disassembled shotgun, wrapped in a white cloth, and set it down on the counter.

Iwai chuckled at the students and took the wrapped, disassembled weapon to the back. After some banging and the grinding whirl of drilling into metal for several seconds, silence returned and he returned, setting the re-wrapped package in the window. "You have strange taste in girls."

Makoto went stiff.

Akira couldn't let a prompt like that go. He whirled around and dropped to one knee, taking the upperclassman's hand as she stared at him in confusion. He completed the flourished gag with, "Only if you'll have me."

Makoto blushed and stammered. It took several moments before she jerked her hand from his.

Iwai lasted until a smirk played over the transfer student's face before he couldn't hold in the gruff countenance anymore and spat with laughter.

Morgana hung his head with a sigh. "Is it really so hard for you to take things seriously for an hour, Joker?"

Slipping his hands in his pocket, Akira stood, swallowing his mirth. Receiving a glare from Morgana and Makoto, even the shop owner held a scrutinizing gaze on him. For some reason, the last one sent tension down his spine. "Aw, c'mon, guys! What am I supposed to do when you all just assume that any girl I spend five minutes with has to be my girlfriend?"

Iwai swished his lollipop to the other side of his mouth. "I never said girlfriend. That one's on you."

Akira clasped his hands over his chest to mime catching a dagger and pulling it out. When the class president didn't so much as chuckle at his misfortune or theatrics, he huffed and turned back to the shop owner. "Fine. You got me."

Makoto set the cardboard-backed menu on the counter. "I think that will be all for today." She transferred the wrapped, disassembled gun model to her school satchel and shifted some books over it before paying. She shot Akira a momentary glare, her face still red before she strode out.

With his weapon already as customized as he could think to make it, Akira thought over the people he'd run into in Shibuya lately. "Seen Masa lately?"

That stick swung to the other side of the gruff business owner's mouth. A chuckle slipped out. "You just jump right to the point." He reached up a hand to adjust the brim of his gray baseball cap. "Haven't seen 'im since that police crackdown." He picked up one of those stress dolls and squeezed until its eyes and ears popped out. "Masa's a parasite, 'e's only dangerous as what he can attach 'imself to. Tsuda's always been the dangerous one."

Tuesday, 28 June 2016
Late Afternoon
Shibuya, Madarame Atelier

The front door of the aged shack creaked as it swung open. Ann gave a hesitant wave.

Yusuke squinted and lifted the hand holding a white jacket to shield his eyes from the intensity of the outdoors. The black polo shirt and blue jeans lent a casual air to the student whose stiff stance gave every indication but. Despite the text she sent him yesterday, his eyes still widened in surprise. "T-Takamaki-san! You really came." His dark gaze fell to the hot sidewalk. "I did not expect to actually see you again. Especially after I called to cancel that callous threat. I heard about some school's teacher resigning, but never imagined you were one of his victims." His shoulders slumped further. "You shine most brightly when you smile, but a true smile is a welling from deep within the soul. A forced act can never be beautiful." He looked up at her, timid expectation in his gaze and his right hand clenching a white jacket. "Unless you wanted…?"

She jerked back. "What? No!"

Morgana popped his head out of the model's satchel and bared his teeth. "A snake like you doesn't even deserve to imagine Lady Ann naked."

Ann clapped her hand to her face, feeling a blaze in her cheeks. "Morgana." She straightened and looked the artist in his dark grey eyes. "Your text said Madarame wouldn't be staying late at the exhibit today. When will he be arriving home?"

Yusuke slipped his phone out of his paint-stained jeans and adjusted it until he could read the screen. "Another thirty or forty minutes." He looked to her, his eyebrows arched. "Why exactly was it vital that he be here?"

"We need him to see a door open," Ann said, before striding past the artist. She paused to slip her shoes off in the genkan before stepping up into the house.

Yusuke's confusion grew and it took a moment for him to remember to close the front door. "See a door open?" He rubbed his left arm just below the short, black sleeve of his plain T-shirt. "I don't understand. I fail to see how I can help…"

She glanced down at the team leader weighing down her school satchel. "We—I mean, someone I know can make Madarame change his mind, but to do so he has to see this one door open."

Yusuke looked at the front door. "This door? He opens it every day." He crossed his arms, his eyes unfocused for a moment. "Well, except when he is on a spiritual retreat."

Morgana scoffed. "Spiritual retreat, he says. He just hides out in resorts."

Ann shook her head. "Not just any door. It's got a lock on it."

Morgana hopped out. "It's over here. Just follow me." He bounded down the hall to the stairs.

Yusuke followed her until reaching the narrow ascent. "Ah… Takamaki-san. There isn't anything up there but Sensei's room."

She climbed up the creaky stairs after the team leader, most of them groaning under her weight. She grimaced at them and muttered, "I don't eat that much cake, do I?" A heavier wooden groan sounded from behind, and she turned with far too much relief to see the artist there at the second step.

His dark eyes widened. "T-Takamaki-san, I assure you there is nothing of interest on the second floor."

"We'll see." Ann turned back to pace up the ancient stairs as fast as she felt the old wood could take. Broken easels, stacked cans of dried paint, and other junk lined one wall, with a stack of blank canvases leaned next to a washroom door at the end of the hallway. One worn wooden door sat halfway down the hall on the right. On the left was a heavy door with a blue wing painted over the rectangular barrier. "It is just like the one in the Palace."

"Takamaki-san," Yusuke said as he came up to the top of the stairs, his eyes wide and footsteps hesitant. "We can't intrude up here."

She crossed her arms and tried to pick apart why the artist reminded her of Mishima. "Why not?"

"That's Sensei's room!"

She held her flat stare. "Yes, I believe that's been established."

Morgana pointed a paw at the plain wood door on the other side of the hall. "Actually, that is Madarame's room. Based on the exterior, this one is something else about the same size."

Ann followed the team leader's attention to the painted door, one of the few things in the house which looked like it had been replaced since the Second World War. A beautiful blue and gold wing painted across it, something unearthly about it as it neither quite fit feathers or the angled mosaic like butterflies Shiho liked so much. Even the lock above the brass doorknob stood out. Unlike the stacked metal plates she was used to seeing, this one had a smooth surface as if fashioned out of a single piece of metal by an artisan, and polished to a high shine. Being almost as big as both her fists, it had plenty of shiny surface to reflect. "I don't suppose you can get in?"

Yusuke flinched back as if struck. Even his pupils shrank like Mishima when he was summoned to the coaches' office. He hissed as if fearing being overheard, both hands twisting at the white jacket, "T-Takamaki-san, we can't intrude in Sensei's room. I d-don't even have a key!"

Morgana scanned the junk in the hallway. "Those cans won't be stable enough if they're empty. Here, move those canvases, I can stand on those."

"Here, help me," she called the artist, who stood in place with wide eyes as she hauled a stack of six cloth canvases next to the painted door. Ann managed despite his lack of help, though she shot him a momentary glare as the adorable team leader and certainly-not-mascot hopped up. "Think you can get it in… twenty minutes?"

"Hah!" Morgana preened. "Watch the master at work. Just hand me those picks."

Yusuke arched an eyebrow when she unfurled the cloth pocket in front of the team leader. "Did you bring your cat to play?"

"Just go with it. He'll take care of things." As the leader got started, Ann turned back to the apprentice, then stepped in the way so he wouldn't freak out seeing a cat pick a lock. He hadn't retreated yet, but the way he held his right arm with his left looked just like Shiho before practice. Akira's words before echoed in her mind, "Take it from an abuse victim, I know he's getting abused." Well, confronting Yusuke to help him was just as good as just to keep him from interrupting Morgana.

Ann reached for the artist's hands clenching his jacket. He jerked away, but she clamped down on his cold fingers and refused to let him retreat to the stairs. "Kitagawa-kun, what's going on?"

"Nothing," he said, his eyes on the wall away from her.

Ann's grip tensed enough to make his teeth clench. "Don't bullshit me. I walked away from Shiho and…" Her breath halted. "And I will never forgive myself for that. I let Yuu-kun and Shiho get hurt for months, and never said anything because I didn't want to make anything worse. And you know what happened? Things got worse." She jerked at his arm to pull him and try to make him look at her. He didn't. "I am not going to do that again. I will never be that Ann again. So you tell me what you're so afraid of!"

"Everything!" Yusuke said, a momentary tremble in his arms before his dark grey eyes at last locked onto hers. "A world which spits upon artists who can't make art, and then excoriate artists who do make art for not being bright enough, or dark enough, or traditional enough, or modern enough. For Sensei, who made us drink and breathe art, but always found a way to be somewhere else when our empty bellies groaned. For art itself, taunting us with the terrifying depth of the human heart, and yet beauty like yours which refuses to let us look anywhere else. For my own trembling hand when I know what I must do, and for the canvas sitting there, blank!"

The sound of a car door thumping closed penetrated the thin walls of the shack.

Ann checked her phone. "Wait, we're supposed to have fifteen minutes left!"

Yusuke did his best to shrink in on himself. "Sensei's early!"

"Mayhe it honeone elhe," Morgana said through the lockpick in his mouth.

The front door rattled and swung open. Madarame's voice groaned out, "I'm home."

Ann's grip slipped open and Yusuke raced downstairs as if the whips of hell itself lashed at his heels. She looked over at the team leader and felt a droplet of sweat slide down the back of her neck. "What's taking so long?"

Morgana adjusted his twisted head until finding a point he could press his paws against the two picks jammed in the lock. "This is a strange lock, and I don't exactly have opposable thumbs in this body!" He bit one of the things and continued twisting his head and pushing the thing in his teeth ever so slightly. "Hall hin!"

Ann paced down the steep, creaky stairs as fast as she dared, then broke into a run the instant she hit the stable planks of the ground floor. As much to halt her momentum as to block the old man from proceeding through the hall, she grabbed the apprentice's arm. She tried to make a laugh, but the sound grated on her ears as much as it seemed to grate on theirs. "M-Madarame-san! How nice to see you!"

She didn't think it was possible, but Yusuke tensed even more under her arm.

Madarame's eyes narrowed and he lowered his hand from fixing on his indoor slipper. "What's going on here? Who are you?" His glower shifted to the apprentice. "What is the meaning of all this running and ruckus?"

"Sen… Uh… You see… Sen…"

Time to turn on the charm. Too bad Shiho wasn't around to see how much Ann's acting had improved. Disengaging from the panic-stricken apprentice, Ann spread her arms and twirled to put herself on display. She put on a dazzling smile to complete the effect. "In his amazing vision, Kitagawa-kun picked me out of the crowd and begged me to be his model."

Madarame's dark eyes bored into the apprentice. Then his gaze flitted to her. For a long second, she felt not just stripped but dissected from her fluffy pigtails to her ankles. Then those brown eyes shot back to the apprentice. "I believe I made myself clear about bringing groupies to the atelier. You can never trust when one is really a no-good journalist snooping around."

Ann felt her hands ball into fists.

Despite his long-halted breath, Yusuke beat her to the indignant denial. "Sensei… I assure you I have absolutely no interest in her as someone of the opposite sex."

Now Ann felt her mouth drift open. She could've sworn she felt Carmen roiling inside her, begging to release the blizzard. "Excuse me?" She turned to the apprentice and even Madarame retreated a step. "Have absolutely no interest?" She batted a pigtail off her shoulder. "Oh no, you don't get to say things like that when you inspect me out of the corner of your eye like Taro or Akira!"

Yusuke opened his mouth, but she knew by the way he held his body what he was going to say.

She jabbed her finger at his chest. "And don't you say you never eyed me. A girl knows when she's being looked at. It's one thing if it's someone who likes you." She waved her finger in a circle in front of his face. "Like… all of you. It's something else if you're just trying to grade a girl like a slab of meat you need to price up for the market."

Her breath ended, but her whirling mind couldn't stop. She saw dozens of boys looking at her and Shiho, especially once she started in Shujin. Every single one of them inspected the girls like something to carve up and sell, their eyes stopping on her breasts or ass or some other part like the rest of her didn't matter. The worst ones even talked about them like she or the other girls were just dolls to pop parts off and attach to another girl's parts.

Only Yuu-kun didn't act like that. He didn't just look, but marveled like every square centimeter of Shiho was amazing. Or the way his eyes would close and he would just listen, as if the sound of her breathing alone was as spectacular as those bright, sparkling eyes, treasuring the way she moved and the words Shiho said.

A tone played from one of Madarame's pockets.

Metal thumped against wood upstairs.

Yusuke's whole body remained in that confused pose as if his brain hadn't finished processing the things she said.

Madarame's eyes snapped wide and a gasp drew in the old man's mouth. "No!" He shoved past, knocking Ann to the wall as he raced to the stairs.

Having taken harder blows dozens of times in the Metaverse, Ann sprang back and sprinted after him. As narrow as the stairs were, she had no chance to get ahead of him without throwing the old man down. "Incoming, Morgana!"

If anything, his climbing pace increased before he got to the stop. Slow steps brought him out to the hall and the teens followed him up. "A… cat?"

Morgana's ears pressed back against his skull. "Oh no, it's not working. The lock isn't enough!"

The tone played from Madarame's pocket again.

Ann clenched her jaw and took a deep breath. Akira wouldn't even hesitate. The others were depending on her. Letting out a battle cry to psych herself up, she dashed past the wheezing, kindly old man and threw open the door. When she turned, that kindly had evaporated from the old artist and her feet shuffled her backwards away from him.

Madarame's face twisted in surprise and anger. "Get out of there, thief!"

Yusuke rushed to the doorway as she stumbled and fell over a hard wood corner and onto other things just as unyielding. "Sensei, calm down and catch your breath. Takamaki is no thief."

That tone played from Madarame's pocket again.

Yusuke stepped inside and flipped the light switch before Madarame could stop him.

Ann rubbed at her hip as she stood. School uniforms were absolutely no defense against hard edges. It wasn't until she noticed Yusuke staring – and not at her – that she followed his gaze to the stack of paintings she propped herself up with. Her hand already on the stack of more than a dozen leaned up against the wall, she pulled to look and see the same painting all the way down. To her left stretched another stack of even more Sayuris. "Wha-?"

Yusuke took a step in, his eyes wide. She could almost see his brain throwing sparks. "How are there so many?" He turned from the model to his teacher. "Sensei, these are… you said Sayuri was stolen when Kamiya-san left years ago."

Ann turned to hold the stack and turn the next frame, then the next like pages in a book… except every one of them was Sayuri.

Madarame stomped a foot, the effect somewhat lessened by the old man's lack of strength and soft indoor slipper. "Stop that!"

Yusuke swallowed, took in a breath, then stepped in between her and the old man. "There has to be some kind of logical explanation for all of this. Sensei, please…"

Madarame wavered on his feet in the hallway for a moment, before he took the step to bring him to the doorway. He reached out and leaned, his other hand clutching his chest, still regaining his breathing from his run up. He stroked his thin beard. "I…" He let out a breath, his face tilting down and eyes closing for a moment. "You've already seen, I suppose there's no more I can do to protect you from the shame." He sucked in a breath. "I never wanted to tell you this, but… I'm deeply in debt. I've been selling these copies through a connection to scrape together enough money to further your talents."

Yusuke's eyes repeated a pattern of scanning up one stack of Sayuris, then down the other, and touching on the cubbies of other paintings and supplies along the right side of the room, before starting the whole process over again as if he still couldn't believe his eyes. The hand holding his jacket clutched tight.

With him in greater shock than the middle of her diatribe downstairs, Ann prodded the first thing which didn't sit right with the story. "Wait, the real Sayuri was stolen."

Madarame let go of his chest. "That's right. Kamiya always blamed my strictness. I always wanted nothing but the utmost for my pupils, and not everyone can measure up to such high standards." His face pinched in pain. "It's all my fault. Fame has a terrible cost, and as much as I wanted to protect my students from it…"

"No," Ann shook her head. The words all sounded fine, but rubbed her brain the wrong way. Like discovering a puzzle piece which fit, but had a different color than the surrounding pieces. "I read about Kamiya Hideki. He committed suicide in jail the night before he was gonna go to prison. Said he was innocent right up until his final day."

Madarame's eyes flicked to the stacks of Sayuris. "A curator approached me, offering to buy several, knowing full well they weren't the original. I attempted to recreate the Sayuri, but only managed these… replicas," he spat.

Yusuke reached a hand out at his teacher, pain and empathy etched in his face. "Sensei…"

That sense of a puzzle piece in the wrong place grew, like a thorn in Ann's mind. She reached up and twirled a finger through the tip of a pigtail. "How could you make copies of a painting that was stolen? The police never recovered the Sayuri."

Madarame's mouth flapped open twice before he managed, "I… used a detailed photograph from an art book."

Ann shook her head. "My parents may work in fashion instead of painting, but connoisseurs have a mega eye for detail. They could pick out the difference between seams sewn by Papa and Mama. There's no way the kind of people who buy paintings would be fooled by something made from a copy of a photo."

Yusuke wavered on his feet.

Madarame stamped his, the hand clenching the doorway squeezing tight. "What would a little tramp like you know? I've been fighting through the cut-throat world of art longer than you've been alive!"

Yusuke spun on the old man, his eyes narrow as he stepped between him and Ann. "Don't speak such thoughtless things about Takamaki-san. Her virtue is as beyond reproach as her fortitude."

Morgana leaped up at a painting on a sturdy easel off to one side, covered by a cloth. His claws caught and dragged the thin covering off.

Tuesday, 28 June 2016
Late Afternoon
Madarame's Museum

Akira swept his sub-machine gun around as he moved into the small control center crammed with computers and administrative desks. The others filed in behind him and they spread out to look for the security terminal so they could turn off the sector's security. After a minute of checking, he came to a stop at the computers along the back. "Here it is." A password input screen replaced the screen saver.

The others came up behind him, and Ryuji groaned at the computer screen. "Aw, man! How the eff we gonna get in now? We're already in 'rame's head."

Akira tapped a gloved knuckle against his lip as he wracked his brain. "He doesn't seem to have a favorite squeeze. And he's been careful with preventive measures, so it's not like he's got any kids to start with, much less favorite kids to name things after."

Makoto set her shotgun down on the desk next to the keyboard. "If I may? One of the most common security problems I've had to speak to since joining Student Council has been easily broken passwords." At the transfer student's step out of the way, she sat down and typed Password 1.

The controls for the local area's security replaced the login screen.

Akira scrunched his eyes shut and rubbed his forehead with his free hand. "I know he's not Mishima, but holy shit that's stupid."

Tuesday, 28 June 2016
Late Afternoon
Shibuya, Madarame Atelier

As the old man gasped, his pupils shrinking to pinpricks, Yusuke turned to see what the noise was about. Then, he gasped as well and took a step closer. "This…" He whirled around on his teacher. "You said the real Sayuri was stolen!"

"It was!" Madarame gabbed. He shook his head, and when that tone sounded from his pocket started patting at his clothes for his phone. "That's a replica!"

Yusuke swept his left hand at the standing piece, but his posture stood even straighter as he shouted back, "Rubbish! This is the painting which has inspired me, haunted me! This is the Sayuri!"

Madarame stomped a foot. "It's a counterfeit! I… I bought it!"

Ann scrunched her nose. What had been a mysterious thorn in her mind now seemed more like a stink in the room. "You're seriously trying to sell this as a counterfeit? We had tons of knockoffs in fashion, the ones that aren't handed to the police for evidence are destroyed. What's an artist who's made it to the big-time doing buying counterfeits?"

Madarame straightened, all trace of the weak old man gone. He turned his most venomous glare on her. "I could understand this kind of stupidity from some slip of a girl." The glare slid to the apprentice. "But I raised you better than this. After all I've done, after all I've given you, would you really turn against the man who taught you in the greatest pursuit of mankind?"

Yusuke took in a calm breath and stepped between Ann and his teacher. "A dispassionate eye shall discern the truth." He pointed a hand to the standing painting. "And that is the painting which has driven my career since I thought to hold a brush."

"Don't you try and twist my words back on me," the old man raged. He took in a quick breath and straightened, his flip phone in his hand, far more collected than she'd ever seen him. He hit a button and the tone ended. "I see that bimbo gaijin has already gotten her claws in you. No matter. The police can take their time with both of you."

Ann's breath caught in her throat.

From the pale, wide-eyed look on Yusuke, he seemed just as shocked, but found his control much faster. His hands curled closed and he fixed a steady gaze on his teacher. "Sensei, be reasonable. Takamaki-san has done nothing wrong. Neither of us have. There is no cause to speak ill of—"

Madarame's glower remained unphased. "You can explain it to the police. They'll be here in another minute."

Morgana shouted, "Don't just stand there! Retreat!" He led the charge out.

When Ann grabbed Yusuke's hand to haul him out, Madarame stood out of her path but shouted, "There's nowhere to run!"

She ignored him and ran down the groaning steps, but by the time they got to the ground floor, the front door flew open and two men in black private security uniforms stood beyond.

A sensation of ice water ran through Ann's veins as she imagined those rent-a-cops arresting her, throwing her in a sham trial, and kicking her out of her home just like Akira faced. Worse than having to wait a few days to see Shiho… never seeing her best friend again. Her parents going broke and selling the apartment. The courts sending her to some strange, far-away city. Would she have rage boiling underneath like Akira if she didn't have Shiho? Or would she even make it that far?

Her phone thumped against her thigh and Ann clenched her jaw. She wasn't out of options yet. She reversed her run back up the stairs, but crashed into the apprentice in the narrow staircase. She snatched her smart phone out of her skirt pocket and hit the Metaverse Navigator.

AN: Haru, being on the outside, had a different perspective on Kiriko. The game shoehorned Haru in too long after the audience made emotional connections, if she was ever going to be relevant she needed to appear and act regularly. It felt odd for the developers to drop the ball like that when they did it right with Mitsuru in P3 and Rise in P4.

Iwai was a great character who I always thought would be right there to throw snark right back if game Akira wasn't so passive.

Sometimes I think two different writers did Yusuke: the one who blackmailed Ann, then the one who joined the PTs and helped them the rest of the game but acted like a whole different person. In Daywatch I wanted there to be a clear sense of that being the same person on a path of growth.