Persona 5: Daywatch

Sunday, 3 July 2016
Morning
Department Store, Madarame Art Exhibit

Lights flare as the gaggle of reporters snap pictures of Madarame, the old man giving a humble wave and self-deprecating laugh. The shuffling pattern in the foot traffic shifted, and one of those young gofers in business casual slipped up to one of the cameramen getting the latest for a magazine article.

When the cameraman lowered his camera and leaned to listen, Madarame felt his hands curl. He slipped them in his sleeves, but couldn't stop the tightening of his fists when the vultures masquerading as journalists listened into whatever petty gossip the gofer mentioned, and all rushed for the front of the exhibit. He felt a sense of satisfaction when his own personal security shooed them away. When the day commandant approached him with a red-and-black card in hand, Madarame felt his sense of lofty superiority dim. "Yes, Kajioka?"

The stoic man held the card between his arm and side in such a way as to hide what was on it. "We need a moment in private, sir." They hastened to a meager employee conference room set aside for the art exhibit. Only after they were alone did he hand over the red-and-black card to the artist. "The good news is only about a dozen were found outside the museum just a few minutes ago. The bad news is we have no idea who placed them there. I already reviewed camera footage with the department store security manager, and the clearest image looks like a cat playing with this one at the entrance."

Madarame took the card, but when a brief hesitation to let it go stilled his chief of security, the artist looked his man right in his brown eyes. "What else?"

Kajioka swallowed, but to his credit held his ground. "The PR team informed me these have been found elsewhere in Shibuya, the earliest sighting this morning. Images are already circulating on the internet. We're trying to get ahead of the message with some bots in the more extreme conspiracy forums, but we can't bury this one. We lost too many personnel in the Shibuya purge."

With his old source for muscle and internet scrubbing gone, that meant this would get messy. Madarame looked to the card in his hands. Threats and blackmail came up occasionally, but every one asked for money first. A top-hat with a domino-style mask jutted below, stylized flames around one eye. The old man turned it over to read the cutout characters on the back in silence.

Sir Ichiryusai Madarame, the pitiful sinner consumed by vanity. Your talent has long ago withered. You use your authority to steal from the toil of your pupils, then crush the dreams you cultivated in them. Your punishment shall be visited upon you by your own hand. I, the Phantom Thief of Hearts, shall steal your distorted desires without fail.

Madarame tore the card in two, then crumpled the pieces in his fists as he whirled on his day commander. "Find them and destroy them! Every single one!" He threw the pieces at Kajioka and drew his flip phone, his hands shaking in rage as he hit one of the speed dials for the Madarame Foundation. "I want this extorting perpetrator destroyed utterly!"

Sunday, 3 July 2016
Afternoon
Madarame's Museum, Control Room

Ryuji craned his neck to stare up into the rafters where he knew the others should be. A glint winked in and out of existence. He pulled back and readied his shotgun, then looked to the upperclassman at the computer. "That's the signal, hit it!"

Makoto tapped into the keyboard. A rumble passed through the building as the lights flicked off.

The lights flipped back on less than thirty seconds later, giving the pair of Thieves a good view of five Shadow van Dammes rising up out of the ground outside. At least none of the guards in the core room itself noticed the catboy rising out of view on a winched hook, a wrapped, rectangular package in his hands.

When the track star swore, Makoto grabbed her shotgun, but brought it to her side and reached for her mask. "C'mon, hurry and grab on."

Ryuji blushed, but sidled right behind the student president and wrapped an arm around her waist.

Makoto hit the door switch with her shotgun, then yanked her mask. Fire exploded from underneath her, the sliding plates of Johanna rising up from beneath her as the armored motorcycle Persona formed. Flame flickered and armored glass enclosed them like a cockpit.

The Shadow Guards raised their batons and ran at them.

Ryuji swallowed, the thrill from having an arm around a hot girl evaporated at the growing army rushing to kill them. "Uh, Rider…"

Makoto hit the gas. Wheels made of flame roared and Johanna surged forward. Instead of trying to dodge the first Shadow van Damme, she slammed right into it, knocking the guard to one side like a bowling pin. Johanna blazed past the next one, turning to drift through the corner.

Johanna caught a Shadow who tried to stop them and dragged it beneath the flaming rear wheel, spitting out dissolving smoke.

An army of guards ran out from the stairwell, batons raised. Makoto smiled and let out a roar as she charged through.

Madarame's Museum, Treasure Room Catwalks

Akira followed the team leader to the end of the catwalks. Ann climbed up the rope and out of the high, thin window at the top of the room's perimeter. Akira shot another burst from his sub-machine gun into the Shadow guards past the bend in the catwalks, but couldn't get a good angle to shoot the one closing on Makoto. "Coming up!" He grabbed the rope and shot up, then through the narrow window.

Yusuke, laying down to one side, pulled the trigger of his compact assault rifle, blasting one of the pursuing Shadows into dissolving smoke. He kept up the cover fire until Makoto pulled herself up to the window, when the two boys reached out to take her hands and pull her through.

Akira dropped back down to cut the rope so the Shadows couldn't follow them as easily. "That's not going to hold them for long."

Ryuji leaned over the edge, looking down the plummeting distance to the ground. "Ain't no way I'm takin' a jump!"

A masked Shadow face peeked up at the window and Makoto gave it one blast with her shotgun. "We need to escape somewhere!"

Morgana finished picking open a narrow utility door, the open shaft of a tiny elevator beyond. "This is the only other way, but I have no idea where this goe—"

Ann leaped in and grabbed the cables in the middle.

Akira followed her down to the roof of the elevator. Lacking any way to punch through its ceiling, he used his knife to pry the grate off an air vent. He slipped in as the others descended the cables. After several twists and angled elevation changes, he came to another grate. Like everywhere else in the Palace, red lights pulsed as if by the Palace Ruler's own heartbeat beyond.

He bashed the vent off and recognized the enormous room which once held a laser maze the first time they crossed the courtyard. "Watch the drop, there's only a narrow ledge before a long fall."

He squirmed out and almost missed, but caught the lip of the high ledge around the cavernous room. The scattering of paintings, all at odd angles, rankled his sense of neatness. Ann, Morgana, Ryuji, and Yusuke followed after, each dropping to the ledge before lowering to the main floor.

Makoto, struggling to get through the vent, shoved to get out and went too far. Her fingertips slipped on the ledge.

Akira dropped his gun to reach out. He caught her, but the impact sent both of them tumbling.

Makoto groaned as she got back up and retrieved her shotgun. "Thanks. At least Morgana's not acting like he's holding catnip like the last Treasure."

The team leader's eyes snapped wide as dinner plates. His jaw went slack and he gasped before throwing the tarp-covered Treasure to the ground. "Oh no!"

"What?" Ann raised her silenced pistol and looked around.

Morgana unfastened the straps wrapping the Treasure, then yanked off the tarp.

A crappy painting with swirly eyes blew a raspberry at them.

The pulsing red lights came to a sudden end. Madarame's Shadow stepped out of one of the paintings. Dozens of Shadow van Dammes stepped out of every single doorway around the huge room. Shadow Madarame clutched his belly from long moments of cackling. "I have incredible foresight, do I not?" He unhooked a strap and pulled a large, fold-over bag from his back. "Not even the Black Mask could have taken my greatest jewel and deepest shame."

He slipped the bag to his side, opened the flap, then pulled out the painting inside to reveal the Sayuri, framed in polished gold. The true one, with the mother gazing on her baby instead of a mysterious fog. A streak of pink paint dropped from the baby's clothing, through the woman's hand, to the bottom of the image.

Ryuji clapped his hands. "I effin' knew it!" He pointed to Akira. "You owe me five hundred yen!"

Yusuke slipped his rifle to his back by its strap, and drew the katana strapped to his hip. "How filled with avarice could your life be that killing my mother is but one in a long list of crimes, Sensei?" He spat. "Your charade will end today!"

Ann's breath came out in cold fog. "You stole… no, desecrated something so personal?" The leather of her gloves groaned as she tightened her fists. "I will never forgive you."

Ryuji kicked the fake painting at the Palace Ruler. "This shit's as fake as you, asshole."

Shadow Madarame glared at them, dropping the true Sayuri into its fold-over bag and returning it to his back. "Meddlesome vermin. Counterfeits are a natural part of the art world. I am the magnificent Madarame, who sells out at every venue. I hold all the power!"

He snapped his fingers and every single Shadow van Damme burst into a black puddle, then rose back up as an assortment of every smaller Shadow they had seen in the Museum.

Morgana shot a Koropokkuru in the eye with his crossbow. "Phantoms, hold the flanks!"

Akira shot a burst at the first available Shadow, though with the crowd arrayed around them he could have fired wildly and hit something. "Jack Frost!"

Gunfire roared and Captain Kidd blasted shredding winds over a wide arc of the encroaching horde, though the move had Ryuji panting.

"Panther," Akira shouted, firing into the crowd, "Take a power up and freeze 'em!"

She nodded and brought Carmen back from exchanging wide swings with her thorned whip.

Akira's dancing snowman slapped his hands to his curve-bent legs and threw a ball of ice at Carmen, who twirled her spiked whip around her. The ball struck the spiraling whip and burst, the swirl growing larger and larger, the chunks of ice growing into their own spiked balls. Carmen lashed out, the icy gale roaring over the mass of Shadows. The half a dozen spiked balls struck clumps of the monsters and exploded, leaving whole groups frozen solid.

The bursts of Yusuke's assault rifle came to a sudden end with his cry of surprise.

Zorro, already out, spun around. His eyes blazed and the same blue aura spread over Yusuke and the Shadow of Madarame attempting to drag him into one of the enormous paintings. They struggled for a moment before Zorro yanked them both out.

Morgana leapt forward, slashing with his bayonet as the apprentice regained his footing.

Shadow Madarame vomited a stream of pungent ink at the team leader, driving him back with a disgusted shout.

Yusuke dropped his assault rifle and ripped out his katana, slashing the Palace Ruler from shoulder to hip. "Is there anything genuine about you, Madarame? Why did you even take Mother under your tutelage?"

Shadow Madarame flicked a paint brush the size of the apprentice's sword from his gaudy gold sleeves and parried the next slash. "Are you truly so ignorant, Yusuke? Her talent and passion didn't falter even when her husband died. She learned from me, so everything she made was mine. Fate itself had spurned me for decades, but on that afternoon, it gifted me what I deserved all along. You would have done the very same if destiny dropped such an opportunity in your lap."

Yusuke roared and powered a downward blow which shoved through the makeup-caked Shadow and bit centimeters down through the shoulder. "How could you have defaced her last piece?"

Shadow Madarame fell back under the young artist's assault. "Don't feign ignorance, boy. It needed to be fixed anyway when her seizure started. All those parasitic critics said the same thing. With the babe erased, the reason for her expression became a mystery which drew them like moths to a flame!"

A bullet flitted into his chest, leaving a hole leaking black smoke.

Ann aimed for a second shot. She pulled the trigger, but Madarame leapt with shocking speed backwards into another painting. His image dashed into the background, but the same mirage touched every giant painting in the room.

With the Palace Ruler removed, the Phantom Thieves turned their focus on the mob of Shadow monsters.

Makoto blasted a pair of the weasel-dogs. "Where is he?"

Morgana wiped the ink from his face, bloodshot eyes blinking. "I… I don't know. For all I can tell, he's in all the paintings."

Ryuji bashed another one of the mummy-monsters with his bat. "That don't fuckin' help! Can't you scan for the real one?" He stopped to level his shotgun at one of the red fairies and shot it, then the water spirit behind it.

"It's not like I can turn into a radar!" Morgana shot a Koppa Tengu in the chest, then yanked a lever in the bottom of his crossbow to cock it again and slapped another bolt in.

Just when it looked like the tide was breaking, Shadow Madarame leaped out of a giant painting on the side of the room and vomited a projectile stream of noxious ink on Carmen.

Ann's next pistol shot missed and she stumbled and fell backwards, then threw up as her Persona dissipated.

Before she could give voice to her disgust, Shadow Madarame dashed at her with his giant paintbrush as if it were a rapier.

Captain Kidd slammed to the ground and scraped, leaving a long smear of ink as it rammed Shadow Madarame all the way to the wall, splattering ink across the painting he came from.

Madarame reached a hand for the painting to escape, but rebounded as if his ink splatter formed a solid wall.

Letting their Personas and the others handle the perimeter, Akira and Ryuji advanced on Madarame as Captain Kidd tore through the army of smaller Shadows. Ink splattered from the impacts of their bullet barrage.

Shadow Madarame roared in rage and dropped into an enormous puddle of flowing ink.

Akira tried to back away, but too late—the puddle grabbed him by the feet and raced to a clean painting as it re-formed into the gaudy Palace Ruler. His empty sub-machine gun fell to the ground. Madarame leaped into the painting with him.

Just like when they navigated the maze of paintings before, it felt like his entire world became an impressionist dream where depth was a suggestion and color blinded him even when he squeezed his eyes shut. Browns and blues and the queasy sense of motion like paint running, but in every direction.

Hot breath tickled against his ear as Madarame whispered, "Aid me, and you can have more money than you ever dreamed of."

Akira forced his eyes open. The gaudy form of Madarame's Shadow hunched over him, leering with expectation in his eyes.

Akira snatched the survival knife from his coat and plunged it into Madarame's makeup-caked forehead.

He laughed, that stupid top-knot swaying. "I am a god of the art world. Those with the connections make the rules, and here, I am a supreme being." Eyes burning with gold bored into the longcoated boy's. "Those good-for-nothings think they can barge into my museum and do whatever the hell they want. They all pivot around you, rely on you. You could send them away." He smiled, despite the knife still buried to half its length in his forehead. "You try to hide it, but you are like the iceberg, hiding a mountain of darkness under an innocuous mask."

Akira snarled. "You murdered Yusuke's mother just so you could steal her paintings. All you care about is yourself." He snatched for the knife and yanked it back out, not a sign of wound remaining on the Palace Ruler. "Why the hell would you have kept him around in the first place?"

Madarame's smile peeled wider across his face than any human should be capable of. "Yusuke might be able to feign ignorance, but you're not as good an actor as you think you are. You know exactly why I kept a four-year-old around. Nobody at that age has talent in art." He leaned closer, that hot breath reeking of turpentine. "You keep your friends close, and your enemies even closer. He couldn't be allowed to be on his own where he might realize the truth." He pulled back a bit in this strange space where distance seemed less real, and looked towards a vague impression of darkness where the battle went on. "Those insolent vermin need a whipping to make them understand."

Akira bared his teeth. "What makes you think I'd ever help you?"

Shadow Madarame turned that wider-than-human smile on him again. "I know your eyes. They are as lonely as mine used to be. No one would heed you. No one would help you. Everyone exploited you because you didn't have the connections to fight back."

Akira opened his mouth, then closed it. The echoes of the Institute rang in his head, and echoes of his sobs in the dark.

Shadow Madarame leaned even closer, that hot and vile breath tickling his ear again. "People sit up and take notice of those with wealth. People venerate you for the things you do if you have money. You could have wine, ecstasy, and women in abundance!"

Akira took the aged artist by the shoulder. "The only women worth it are the ones who can't be bought with money." He snatched for the painting bag over Madarame's shoulder and sliced his knife across the strap—

Crush all those who deny your greatness!

The knife finished severing the last vein-red cords binding the strap together. He threw the flap open and ripped out the gold-framed painting. Gripping the true Sayuri, Akira threw himself out of the painting. All at once, the confusing impressionism gave way to reality – as much as a Palace could. He stumbled out and hit the floor face-first.

Ann and Ryuji grabbed the painting, as well as him by the arms and hauled him up, then away from the giant painting.

Shadow Madarame leaped out after him, hands just missing the longcoated boy.

Morgana leaped, the Palace Ruler's brush in hand as he drew a sloppy line across the painting. Glancing around, Akira saw the same on the others in the room.

Twin balls of fire and ice slammed into the Palace Ruler in resplendent gold clothing, the explosion sending him flying back into the inked-over painting before dropping back to the ground.

Morgana threw the giant paintbrush away, then unfolded his crossbow and flipped out its bayonet. "Phantom Thieves, all together!"

As one, their Personas descended on the Shadow of Madarame until he heaved and no ink came out. Madarame slipped to all fours and reached a trembling arm at the Sayuri in Ann's hand, desperation in Madarame's golden eyes for the first time.

The Thieves spread in a circle around him, their Personas hovering over them.

Madarame shrank back. "You can't blame me for this. No one cares for true art. All people want are recognizable brands!"

Ryuji held his bat back for a swing, and the artist beside him with his katana held high.

Madarame held his hands out at Yusuke. "I slaved for years, and they turned up their noses on my work. Spat upon it! Until those parasitic critics published that piece on the Sayuri—only then, they wanted more. The world doesn't value talent, only replication. I'm just as much a victim as you!"

Johanna, the only Persona not hovering over her host, blazed with red light. Makoto growled. "After everything you've done, now you're trying to say your greed is others' fault?"

Yusuke held up his katana, just waiting for an excuse to slice. "These past days, all you have spoken of is money. Art means nothing to you."

Madarame's Shadow trembled and he looked near to crying. "The entire world revolves around money, art is no different." He crawled another step closer to the apprentice in a fox mask. "Surely you understand. Being poor is just one step away from being dead. They'll only help the famous because they think they can get money from us, not because of any inherent value in anything we make."

Ryuji wound back his bat and the artist cowered. "A shithead like you who sold out art an' ruined his own peeps ain't got no room to talk 'bout bein' 'fraid of bein' poor. Lotsa people died 'cause of you!"

Morgana brandished his bayoneted crossbow. "Go back to yourself in reality and confess your crimes."

Yusuke took a shallow step closer, his katana still held up and ready. "Give back the art you stole, and let your students go back to art – every single one of them."

"All right!" Madarame peeked out from behind his gold sleeves. "You're… not going to kill me? The black mask would have."

Yusuke bared his teeth. "Even now, you still hide behind excuses?"

Madarame sat back on his heels, his form losing just a little bit of opacity.

Makoto lowered her shotgun and stepped closer. "Wait, the black mask again? Who is he?"

Madarame sat down, his body hunched in defeat. "A terrifying criminal who uses this world to accomplish anything he pleases. If he says you pay someone, you pay! It's madness to deny him. He can do so much worse than death."

Morgana's tail swished behind him. "Who is he?" He flipped the bayonet back out. "Tell us!"

"You ignorant idealists think you can hold a candle to the black mask? Even murderers fear him. He would make you beg for death!" Madarame's Shadow clutched himself as he faded away.

Makoto ran forward and reached to grab Madarame by the neck, but the last of him faded away. She growled.

Yusuke sheathed his katana and straightened the compact assault rifle hanging from his shoulder by a strap. "Is this the part where the Palace collapses?"

Morgana held the gold-framed Sayuri and rubbed his face on it with a thrumming purr. "Being human's awesome!"

A pebble-sized chunk of concrete fell from the ceiling, hitting him on the head.

More began raining down.

Ann grabbed the painting and led the panicked sprint out of the Palace.

Sunday, 3 July 2016
Early Evening
Shibuya, Madarame's Atelier

"The destination has been deleted," the synthesized voice of the Metaverse Navigator said.

The setting sun shone down on the street in front of the rusting shack as they scrambled to disassemble their model guns before someone spotted them. Akira looked over the assembled group. Everybody looked exhausted, all but Ryuji still trying to catch their breath after that mad dash out of the Palace. Still, except for Makoto who was holding her nose, they all seemed to have a weight off their shoulders. Akira tilted his head at the upperclassman with her hand clamped over her nose. "You okay, Senpai?"

"Joha'a took a beating," Makoto said, still hunched forward. A red droplet leaked out from between her fingers and began tracing down the bottom of her hand.

Akira checked his satchel, but they ran through what medical supplies he had before even reaching Madarame. Only wrappers and scrap paper from homework remained. "You're bleeding. Anybody have any gauze or paper towels?"

Ryuji checked his school satchel, but gave a shake of his head. At least he took her shotgun and disassembled it with a speed borne of knowledge and practice.

Makoto rolled her eyes and shrugged her purse off, then offered it to Ann. "'ould you 'et mine out?"

Ann handed Akira some rolled-up thing too stiff to be regular cloth and took the student president's purse, then dug around. She pulled out an empty packet, then offered the purse to Ryuji for him to jam the pieces of the disassembled shotgun in. She rolled her eyes at his lack of finesse, but set the student president's purse on the ground at her feet, then dug around in her own purse. "I should still have some left."

While she searched, Akira examined the rolled-up thing. It was white, made of familiar crisscrossing, heavy white fibers. He unfurled it and his eyes popped wide. "Hey, it's the Sayuri."

While Ann handed tissues over to the student president, Yusuke took position next to the transfer student to look at it. He sucked in a breath. "This is the true Sayuri!"

Ryuji took the other side, glancing from the unrolled painting to the artist. "You ain't gonna be all—" he feigned a melodramatic weepy face, "—Mom!"

Makoto barked, "'ow some tact!"

Akira nodded. "Seriously, Ryuji. Being vulgar's not a competition."

The track star crossed his arms. "Ya don't gotta bite my head off."

Akira handed the Sayuri over to the artist. "I think you have a better claim to this than anybody else does."

Ann handed the remainder of her tissues to the class president, then helped her shoulder her purse again. "Are you okay, Yusuke? I'm sorry your mother couldn't be here to see you receive it. I got the sense she was making it for you."

Yusuke let out a heavy breath and seemed more disappointed than anything. "I will survive." He huffed, though his lips turned down. "I think it is better Mother isn't here to have seen what happened with Sensei and the Sayuri. She never would have wanted things to go so far."

Makoto, still holding bloodied tissues to her nose, came to Yusuke's other side. "It's still a beautiful painting. At least it could return to you, even if it had to take such a route."

Ann came around behind and peered over Akira's shoulder. "In a sense, this is her true self-portrait."

Yusuke gave a nod and gazed at the image, his eye drifting down to the pink streak jutting from the baby's wrappings, across her hand and cuff, and off the bottom of the painting "The world will never know."

Akira shrugged. "That's not necessarily a bad thing. We may only have known your mother from those couple minutes in Madarame's memories, but she didn't seem like the kind of person to crave fame."

Ryuji crowded in to get a better look at it. "Hey, I've been wondrin'. If your Ma's name was Terumi, why'd he name this Sayuri? That one o' his squeezes?"

Yusuke gave a brief sigh and took great care to wrap the painting back up. "I doubt it's any particular woman's name. Most likely just part of his staging."

Morgana said, "Wouldn't the plagiarism have been obvious if he used her real name?"

Makoto let out a heavy breath through her mouth. "'ot necessarily. He could have claimed it was in tribute." She stepped back and looked the artist in his dark grey eyes. "'at you going to do now?"

Yusuke held the painting in both hands. "Return to Leblanc and study. Semester finals start tomorrow at Kosei."

Ryuji flinched. "Du-u-ude. You had finals and you still came out here to whack 'rame?" He threw a shaky thumbs up. "Good luck."

Morgana stopped in front of the artist, his tail flicking back and forth. "We shouldn't stick around so close to the scene of the crime, especially with an obvious injury. I think there's plenty more to talk about, but with one wounded and the other behind on his studies, I think we can follow up on this later."

Sunday, 3 July 2016
Evening
Yongen, Leblanc

The bell jingled above them as Akira pushed open the door and held it for the artist. While the Kosei student might have tried to conceal his pained wincing, he clutched his stomach as he got off the train, and by the time he slipped inside, his pace became a trudge favoring his right side.

Unfortunately, the business was not empty. An old man in a tweed suit sat in the middle booth with none other than Akechi Goro, their conversation halted by the sound of the bell. Already facing the door, Akechi looked up at the pair. "Oh my." He set his pen on the legal pad and got up. "Do you need a hand, Amamiya-san?"

The artist arched an eyebrow, but Akira interrupted the question with, "Just need to get him some rest."

When Yusuke stumbled, a pained grunt leaking out when his right foot hit the ground attempting to hold up his weight.

Akechi rushed to take the artist by his other arm, pausing to let him hand the rolled-up painting to the transfer student. Between he and the transfer student, they managed to help the artist up the stairs. Akechi slowed after stepping off the last step, his bright brown eyes sweeping over the space and stopping on the easel with the beginnings of a painting of Ann. He chuffed. "Interesting. I didn't expect to see an art studio above a coffee house." He led the artist over to the bed.

Akira weighed the likely consequences of telling the strange boy with a steel briefcase downstairs the bed was his. But with the state Yusuke was in? He'd look like a selfish ass. There were too many Kurusus like that already. Coming to Tokyo was supposed to be an opportunity for him to be a different person.

Yusuke looked at the bed through heavy, lidded eyes and collapsed on it without even shedding his shoes.

Akira set Yusuke's school satchel down next to the bookshelf, but straightened the bag on his own shoulder.

Akechi straightened, no smile on his face at having accomplished some good deed as the transfer student would have expected from helping a limping kid to bed. He turned for the stairs, but slow enough to take another scan of the room. His bright brown gaze came to rest on the shogi board set up on the table in front of the couch, a ruffled sheet and pillow on one end. "Painting and strategy. Not a set of hobbies one would normally put together."

Akira shrugged, well aware of the leader peering out from within his bag. "Everybody needs a safe house, however temporary."

Akechi gave a smile, something which might have looked perfect to cameras, but seemed stiff and practiced. "You know, most people would call that home and assume it was permanent."

Pebbles popped as a car drove past outside. Akira wondered if the fashionable shaggy-haired boy knew about the transfer student's situation and was prodding him. Akira gave his own larger-than-real smile and struck a pose, miming putting on one of those straw hats, "Don't they say home is where you hang your hat?"

Akechi gave a polite laugh.

Somehow, Akira felt like he'd just moved a shogi piece forward and his opponent moved up a counter. "Anyway, thanks for the help." He set the rolled-up Sayuri on the table next to the shogi board. "Everything should work out after a cup of coffee." He extended a hand to the stairs.

Akechi nodded, his smile unwavering as he turned and trotted down the creaking stairs. He slipped back into his booth seat. "Excuse me… So, how many days would it take for you to get your hands on a copy of a quarterly expense report?"

Akira sat down at a bar chair near the coffee siphons so he could keep the pair of customers in the corner of his eye. The house blend in the middle siphon was empty, so he asked, "One cup of your darkest, please."

Sojiro busied himself with that, then settled down at the register with a book. The other customers talked about financial paper trails for a little while before Sojiro set the book down and checked the time on his phone. He slipped it back in his pocket, then held his hands against his back with a groan. "Not to rush, but it's closing time, folks."

Akechi dotted his last sentence, then capped his pen. "We'll be getting out of your hair, sir."

Akira looked at the last sip of coffee lightened by a shot of cream. For all the supposed rejuvenative powers of coffee, he still felt just as tired and achy as when he came in. He downed the rest and got up as the pair of legitimate customers left. "You need help closing up?"

Sojiro opened up the register. "No offense, kid, but you look even more tired than I feel. And there's something else weird in your eyes. Something happen today?"

Shadow Madarame's whispers echoed in his mind, "I know your eyes. They are as lonely as mine used to be."

Sighing, Akira picked up his cup and took it to the sink to wash it out. "Just another day, same as all the others." He pulled out his phone, but his thumb wavered when he brought up Queen Togo. He switched to the text messenger and sent, [Good luck on your finals.]

Sojiro shrugged and wrote the totals down in his phone. "Fine, it's really none of my business as long as you're not getting in trouble. Just put a lid on the pot and push it in the bottom of the fridge, okay? My back's not up to hauling that thing around tonight."

Akira trudged to it. Once the restaurateur left, Akira turned off the stove. The pilot light cast a dim blue around the tiny kitchenette. He stared into the steady light.

"You can have wine, ecstasy, and women in abundance."

Shaking his head, Akira headed to the bathroom to wash himself. When the water got to the coolest tepid it was going to, he splashed himself in the face, then turned it off and went upstairs to change to drop himself onto the couch.

AN: Madarame was by far my favourite villain in Persona 5. He's logical (if to his distorted desires), driven, capable, but also has some really unsettling points. Think about it: if he didn't have a point about people wanting recognizable brands, would fanfiction exist?