Good Day Readers! Obviously, I do not own anything connected to the Persona series in general or Persona 5 specifically, I DO own Chiba Natsumi and Anais Ouvrard, along with Natsumi's immediate family members and the original Personas that will be showing up on occasion.

I would appreciate any responses that you have, please enjoy

Chapter 75: - Death, Councillor, Magician

Takemi was busy adjusting her patient files, there weren't many since most people were terrified of her due to the reputation she had gained about her experiments. Not that she cared very much, the lack of patients gave her plenty of free time to pursue her experiments to the fullest extent in between each session of Amamiya showing up, though at the moment this was purely to keep Takemi occupied until her first morning session showed up.

"Takemi-sensei," Chiba's voice called. Takemi lifted her head to see the girl slipping through the doorway and coming to stand in front of her, Takemi was quite glad that she had been able to schedule this meet up between the two of them since Takemi wanted to do a check up on the sort of patients that she had gained because of the girl dragging that blonde punk here not all that long ago, but it felt like an age.

"Come on, let's chat in the back," Takemi insisted. She put her files away securely and then headed into the back through her door with Chiba being sat in the chair already as Takemi entered. "Before we start, have you needed the pills?" Takemi asked. The punk rock doctor made her way to the chair she used as she spoke, waiting for the answer.

"Only once, I think they did manage to help me out," Chiba admitted. Good, not that they had worked as Takemi had every faith in all the medicine she made that it would work properly, no it was the fact that Chiba had only needed one so far that Takemi was pleased about; she tucked the little bit of information away so that she could prepare later, just in case things went in an unexpected direction.

"Let's get started then," Takemi insisted. She quickly sat down on her chair and focused upon the girl who was quickly rummaging through her bag in order to find what she needed; Chiba pulled a book out and quickly flipped to the required page, this was certainly an odd relationship that the two of them had developed and all to let Takemi take care of one very stubborn individual. The world was a weird place sometimes.

"It seems like Ryūji has taken on the information I've given him, he's been bringing packed meals to school and I've seen that it definitely contains the foods that I recommended to him thanks to you," Chiba began. That was some very good information that Takemi had honestly not expected to hear, especially regarding the way in which Chiba's friend had reacted when brought here for the initial examination.

"Good, that's a single meal in six days which is more than I expected, but he's really taking on board the information," Takemi acknowledged. It looked like it had been the right call for Takemi to have Chiba take care of him, in her stead, perhaps the boy really was taking in the information that his friend was providing for him.

"Ryūji's really determined, although he's a bit reluctant to go to a physiotherapist, even back when it initially broke," Chiba admitted. Those words caused Takemi to frown instantly because that was very concerning from a medical perspective, the bone wasn't broken enough to cause shards to break off and get stuck in the muscles, but that would definitely explain why the boy was still struggling with this.

"Hmm, that's not good, if he didn't attend any physio the injury couldn't have been stressed to properly heal," Takemi worried. That was necessary to be done so that the limb could have properly recovered, Takemi leaned forward with a displeased expression upon her face. "Why didn't he go?" Takemi questioned. There did not seem to be any reason why the boy wouldn't go to physio after going through such an injury, it was ridiculous to think he allowed it to linger for so long.

"Guilt," Chiba answered. That caused Takemi to blink in surprise and she leaned back into her chair with widened eyes. "The injury he endured led to his sports team being dissolved because he had lashed out and received that wound," Chiba explained. Great, so some sicko had done this to a kid and Sakamoto was carrying around a guilt he didn't deserve. "Anyway, I've been doing some exercises with him more than the ones you suggested, some were of his own suggestion and others were some I thought up after watching some physiotherapy sessions," Chiba admitted. That caused Takemi to raise an eyebrow at this revelation.

"I'd ask how the hell you were doing that, but it doesn't matter, at least you're doing something about the situation," Takemi admitted. It was quite a surprise, but Takemi didn't need to focus on it since things were being deal with. "Still, you need to convince him to consider attending physio sessions, it's in his best interest," Takemi insisted. That was the major issue that they needed to solve for Sakamoto's sake.

"But it's expensive," Chiba pointed out. Takemi furrowed her eyebrows at this comment since it didn't seem like something that make sense since he was attending Shūjin which was a pretty prestigious school despite the depravity that was currently surrounding it. "Ryūji's family isn't well off as far as I'm aware, I don't know the exact details but I'm sure that they can't afford what, to Ryūji's mind, is an unnecessary expense," Chiba clarified. Well, that was certainly an uncomfortable bit of information.

"I'll see if I can find some that are capable and not overly expensive. I might need to reach out to a few people and see if there's anyone who owes me or Cho-san," Takemi acknowledged. She still had some pull with certain individuals in the medical community that owed her, if there wasn't anyone then she was sure that some people would be willing to help out a friend of Cho's daughter since they couldn't repay the woman directly.

"Cho?" Chiba echoed. Takemi froze, before slightly kicking herself since she hadn't meant to say those words so brazenly; the idea had actually been to calmly bring up Takemi knowing Cho, but the cat was out of the bag now, so Takemi turned to the girl. Chiba was completely frozen and she stared at Takemi with very wide eyes, it wasn't exactly an uncommon name, but how likely was it that there were two Cho's in the medical community in Tokyo.

"That's right, I knew your mother," Takemi stated. Takemi figured it was best if she gave a brief explanation as to how a general practitioner and a pathologist happened to cross paths. "It was during one of her cases, she needed some help with some medical stuff and at the time, I was one of the best in the field at the time, so she consulted we. We found a lot of common interests," Takemi added on.

"How did you know that I was her daughter?" Chiba asked. She didn't seem unhappy at knowing that Takemi had been connected to her mum, but she also didn't seem pleased either which caused Takemi to furrow her eyebrows in confusion; if Takemi were to guess, the girl didn't know exactly what she was meant to be feeling.

"You look a lot like her, you also have some of her mannerisms," Takemi explained. Chiba nodded her head in understanding and set about packing her bag, especially since she needed to get moving back to that hellhole of a school she attended. "I'm sorry about what happened to her," Takemi admitted. Takemi didn't know what compelled her to speak but speak Takemi did.

"It's fine, thank you Takemi-sensei," Chiba stated. Chiba finished packing and quickly left the room which made Takemi wonder if she was trying to run away from her.

*Persona 5 Royal*

I decided now might be the best day to go and get a check up with Maruki-sensei, since I had my first visit to Takura Productions recently, it would be best to let him know what had happened even if it hadn't been much. Once the bell for school ended, I gathered my stuff and headed off, waving goodbye to the others as I went on my way to the nurse's office. I quickly knocked and entered the room.

"Good afternoon, Chiba-san," Maruki-sensei greeted. He always seemed so happy which was a little odd, it was almost as if it took something really bad to cause him to actually be saddened; but ever since the first session we had, nothing seemed to really upset him, I wasn't entirely sure how I felt that could be but, maybe the therapist was just really good at compartmentalising after the initial shock.

"Good afternoon," I responded. I proceeded to take my usual seat beside Maruki-sensei as the man flipped through what looked to be some notes of his, I couldn't really read them due to being in some kind of shorthand – makes sense, extra security – but eventually the man came to a stop and focused his attention on me.

"Now then, were you able to speak to this person who you wanted to talk to?" Maruki-sensei asked. It made sense that was what he would want to discuss, especially since I had come here explicably to talk about that incident; I was just glad that I could easily get started on what had happened, even if it felt slightly odd trying to come up with a way to explain it to Maruki-sensei.

"Yes, I have. She thought of a way that I might feel better," I answered. The words just didn't seem to be coming together easily for me to actually explain what had happened, so I needed to take my time in order to think about how to ensure that it was properly explained to the man; but Maruki-sensei distracted me when he suddenly leaned forward slightly with a rather peculiar look on his face.

"Good, I think we'd best move on to a different discussion for now," Maruki-sensei decided. I hadn't expected him to suggest we do that and such a thing must have been visible on my face, for Maruki-sensei carried on. "We've spoken a great deal about your aversion to singing, but you're moving forward in solving that issue. Which means I think we should speak about your family," Maruki-sensei suggested. I couldn't help the tension that immediately seized my muscles when he made that suggestion.

"What exactly do you want to speak about regarding them?" I wondered. I was very unsettled by the notion of discussing my family since it was still a sensitive topic for me; Ren was already trying to help as best he could, and I'm certain Makoto was planning something in her mind of the same variety after hearing what she had when they met up the other day. Did I really want to force myself to talk about that with another person?

"You mentioned that your uncle forbade you from crying over your family," Maruki-sensei reminded. My lips immediately curled into a scowl at the mention of Shido, he'd lost all rights to any kind of familial title after what he'd done. "There were also other things you mentioned and I'm a little concerned about what happened because of him," Maruki-sensei. His expression was wary, likely in response to the one that had come to rest on my own facial features.

"I don't think you need to be that concerned, Maruki-sensei," I admitted. The man proceeded to raise his eyebrow in a silent question, it might be good for him to know what I was getting at. "You see, I've moved out of the home that he has, to live in my own place away from his influence," I explained. Maruki-sensei's eyes widened, though I wasn't exactly sure what he was thinking when he heard that piece of information. "Also, recently I decided to cut him out of my life permanently," I added on.

"Well, that's good, but I'm curious about why you decided to keep a relationship with him so long if he had done such horrible things to you," Maruki-sensei wondered. Even now, I was still struggling to understand why I had allowed such a thing to happen for as long as it did; the reason I had just didn't seem like it made any sense now that I had blocked him from my life as much as possible.

"To be honest I thought it was because I wanted to keep some kind of connection to my mother, especially since I ended up forgetting their faces, but now I'm not so sure," I admitted. Maruki-sensei's expression became somewhat heartbroken when I mentioned that I couldn't remember my family's faces; but I'd long since decided to stop crying over that fact.

Thanks to Ren and our discussions over what happened, I was starting to remember the more important details about them, which I was thankful for, them being faceless figures wasn't all that big of a deal. Not when I was holding onto more important things like their sounds and their personalities, I could deal with not knowing what they looked like so long as I could recall those things.

"It's alright, but what made you decided to break your relationship off then?" Maruki-sensei questioned. It makes sense that he'd be curious about such an incident, but recalling what had been said caused my entire body to go completely still as my hands tightened into white knuckled fists as best they could while gripping the arms of the chair I occupied. "That's if you want to talk about it," Maruki tentatively added. At his words, I shakily released a long breath.

"Sorry Doc, it's just… that was a very unpleasant memory for me to recall, I shouldn't have reacted so extremely," I apologised. Maruki-sensei looked like he wanted to tell me off for apologising or reassure me for what happened, but I didn't let him speak. "Well, you see, he said some things that I can't really allow to just ignore when he said it. He essentially insulted my friends when he claimed they were useful connections," I explained.

"And you hated that?" Maruki-sensei asked. I think hatred might have been too light of a word to use when describing my feelings towards what had been said by Shido, but there really wasn't another word that could be used to actually describe what I had been feeling in that moment; in fact, just the memory of it running through my mind was enough to bring that dark feeling right back.

"Yes," I agreed. I needed to centre myself and focused on the Velvet Room's song just to calm myself down enough so that I could finally talk without ranting uncontrollably, Maruki-sensei didn't deserve that. "He claimed that friendship was a vulgar thing and said I should consider if they were worth the effort. I didn't even hesitate when I finally decided to cut him out of my life," I explained. Maruki-sensei's expression became revolted when I told him what had happened.

"I have to say that I think you made the right choice to walk away from him. He sounds like an extremely toxic individual and you are much safer away from him," Maruki-sensei insisted. That was an extreme understatement to be honest, calling Shido a toxic person; even now I didn't understand how someone like him couldn't have a Shadow, but I never saw anything. Maybe it was because he didn't feel anything at all, whether positive or negative, to other people in this world.

*Persona 5 Royal*

Morgana wasn't entirely sure what had caused Natsumi to send a message to him via Ren, but it had sounded almost like an emergency summons from the way it was worded. Morgana was slightly worried for Natsumi, to have reached out to him in such a sudden and almost worried sounding manner, it was why he quickly padded to where Natsumi's house was, to make sure the girl was completely okay.

"Hey Morgana, thanks for coming over," Natsumi greeted. Morgana looked at the girl for a while before deciding how he would respond, she seemed completely relaxed now, despite the way her message sounded, but he could see that there was something weighing upon her from how she was acting, by the light tapping of her finger against the desk… that rhythm, it happened to be one she used a lot and there was something else, something familiar about it, almost like he knew it as well as he knew his own bones.

"No problem, not that I can think of what we'd be able to do. We still don't know of any fortune teller," Morgana admitted. Well, that wasn't exactly true, there was one, but Morgana was waiting until he was a little bit more certain of whether or not the woman was the real deal from what Ren told him. But he figured that it was best to avoid getting Natsumi's hopes up, just until Morgana was sure of Chihaya's skills.

"That's fine, it's actually something else I wanted to mention," Natsumi admitted. Well that was interesting, so it wasn't related to their Arcana research, still it must have had something to do with the Metaverse since Natsumi had elected to inform him over the others in this manner; or at least that was what Morgana assumed since it appeared that Ren didn't know anything and if anyone was bound to know something then it would be their leader.

"Oh, what have you learned?" Morgana wondered. To have insisted to speak with him so suddenly must have indicated that whatever she found had been rather new, or she was waiting until she had more evidence to explain it to him; whatever it was Morgana was very curious to hear what this could possibly be for Natsumi to reach out to him with a very clear need to talk.

"Ouvrard, Kamoshida, Madarame, and Kaneshiro. Each time we've faced them, they've all transformed, but those transformed states have brand new names unlike normal Shadows. Dantalion, Asmodeus, Azazel, and Bael," Natsumi revealed. Morgana didn't quite understand why Natsumi was telling him this information, but he didn't want to just flippantly dismiss it since there had to be a reason that the young girl had made to mention such a thing.

"Those are interesting names, but what's so important about them?" Morgana wondered. He had to understand because there was clearly something about these names that he had to learn; he could feel something about it plucking at the back of his mind, an irritating little itch that seemed to crop up a lot, whether with Natsumi or more commonly within Mementos. There had to be something about all of this that would lead him a step closer to the recovery of his memory.

"Three of them have some connection to this book called the Lesser Key of Solomon which are all demons, Azazel's is a bit more disconnected, there's some vague references to him in it. But he's still considered a demon," Natsumi explained. Well, now that was quite a bit of interesting information that had been discovered; it didn't seem to ring any sort of familiarity to him, but that didn't mean this information was something that they did could just dismiss out of hand.

"Very strange, Shadows are stories created by people, which means these transformations must come from a similar source. Some Shadows are linked to Arcana that links to other people, so could it be that these demons somehow link to the Rulers," Morgana wondered. There was something odd about how these Rulers turned into something that born the name of a demon; Morgana believed there was likely something that they were missing about this situation, but he couldn't tell exactly what it was.

"I don't know, this is all starting to get rather confusing if I'm completely honest," Natsumi admitted. She even rubbed at her forehead, clearly showing some kind of irritation with the way this information was being presented to her; Morgana walked over and gently butted his head against her hand. It worked to bring a smile to Natsumi's face and she settled her hand upon Morgana's head to start rubbing gently which caused a small purr to start escaping him.

"I don't blame you; every bit of information we get suddenly brings more confusing information for us to trudge through," Morgana sighed. He managed to get it out in between the purrs that rumbled through him at the sensation that was always so nice to have; he didn't understand why it was so nice, but he enjoyed it and it always seemed like the others enjoyed it as well.

"You've hit the nail on the head there Mona, it's pretty irritating to think we just keep getting more questions than answers," Natsumi agreed. She pulled her hand back and rested the forehead against her fingers, clearly thinking about how confusing this entire situation was and Morgana worried about how to distract her from it.

"All either of us can do is keep move forward to find something that helps to clear all of this up," Morgana insisted. Natsumi allowed a strained smile to appear on her face which made it seem like those words hadn't done anything to settle the confusion that was bothering her. "How about some lock picking practice?" Morgana suggested.

"Sure, it'll be something good for me to focus on something else," Natsumi agreed. She stood from her position and walked over to her bed and reached underneath it to pull out the small kit she had for the lock picking session, it would be good for Natsumi to keep her practicing just in case she needed to use them again.

"Just out of curiosity, how many of these demons are in the Lesser Key?" Morgana wondered. If they knew how many there actually where then it might give them a clue as to how many levels there were to Mementos, because unless they were lucky then it was likely going to take them one Ruler at a time to get through each barrier separating each layer of the Metaverse's hub, a vague idea would at least let them know how much work might be left for them.

"Seventy-two," Natsumi calmly stated. She was busy setting up the lock picking set that she used, by securing a lock into the vice that she used to keep a lock stable while setting her lockpicks out beside the vice so that she could easily access them whenever she needed to do so; this meant that Natsumi couldn't actually see how Morgana was reacting to that revelation.

Needless to say, that he had ended up going completely still as his mouth proceeded to fall open in shock as he tried to process the fact there was the possibility of there being such an enormous number of Palaces cramped into the sole city of Tokyo. Natsumi paused and proceeded to look at Morgana and finally saw the horror that was on his face.

"Don't worry, there's not even ten Palaces in Tokyo," Natsumi reassured. Morgana slumped onto the table top in relief as Natsumi laughed slightly before focusing on her task of lockpicking.