The Music of Freedom

by DemonSessama

Chiba Natsumi is trapped in a living hell and isolated from the rest of the world, though the latter is a choice of her own making, but a stumble into a bizarre world too strange to be real unlocks a power within that sings for her freedom. With this power Natsumi finds she can no longer be silent over cruelties committed and finds she might not be as alone as she believes she is.

70. Chapter 70

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 70: - The Banker of Gluttony, Bael

We were prepared for the sending of the Calling Card, hopefully if we were able to do this then Kaneshiro's attempt to blackmail us would fall flat on its' face, along with freeing any of the adolescents that Kaneshiro had imprisoned. I was already at the meeting place with Ren and Mona, which meant we were just waiting for the others to arrive; Ann and Yusuke got here and I was a little surprised that Makoto had yet to arrive since I had figured that she would have been here much sooner than this.

"Oh! Ren!" Ryūji called. We turned to look in his direction and I couldn't help the arching of an eyebrow when I saw that he was walking up to us with Makoto beside him. "So get this, I was talking with Makoto earlier and we came up with this insane move!" Ryūji revealed. I looked at my friend who seemed just a touch embarrassed if the faint tinged of pink on her cheeks was anything to go by.

"Insane, really?" Ren asked. A slight crook of his lips was the only indication as to whatever he might be thinking about this claim that, it was rather interesting to know what Ryūji could possibly have been thinking of that would classify something as 'insane' especially if it got Makoto's seal of approval to be used; I proceeded to give the girl a look as I hoped she'd be able to explain what was running through the blonde punk's mind.

"I mean… not in a bad way," Makoto commented. She still seemed a little embarrassed about the discussion, but it clearly wasn't something that made her upset our anything, I think it was more due to the newness of this whole situation. "It's a bit difficult to explain in words alone," Makoto added on. Honestly, that just made me even more curious to know what these two had been talking about.

"Don't worry, I'll take care of explaining! Alright, so the plan is," Ryūji began to talk. As he did I could almost feel the excitement coming off of him from how eagerly he described this move which admittedly was definitely meant to be called insane since that was truly the only way to describe it; yet the more Ryūji talked about it, the more I sensed something start to grow, I looked in Ren's direction and noticed his pocket was shining, when Ren took it out I realised it was Jose's star which was glowing brightly.

"That's just like how it reacted with Ann-dono and I last time," Mona admitted. Well that probably meant that we had another Showtime available to us, it was a relief to know that we had such powerful moves we could hold in reserve for dangerous enemies. "It doesn't react at all the other times, though… I don't get how this thing works," Mona stated. It was rather confusing as to why it was acting the way it was; I kind of wish Jose had given us some more information about it.

"Instead of granting wishes, maybe it offers a bit of support. As long as it benefits us in some way, I'm happy. Let's give it a try when there's an opportunity. Make sure to match my timing, okay?" Makoto admitted. It seemed that Makoto's theory was probably more in line with what we had seen, the star seemed to respond to heart felt desires that come from some place special… Metaverse stuff hurts my head at times.

"Yes ma'am!" Ryūji enthusiastically answered. It sounded rather similar – if a lot less scared – to the response he had gave in our infiltration when we chose Makoto's codename, which caused me to smile slightly at the scene; their friendship would be an odd one certainly, but I think it would be good, and not just for Ryūji if I was completely honest.

"All that's left is the Calling Card, right? We should send it," Makoto insisted. Her expression became deadly serious, much like her tone was, not that I could blame her since it was her first heist and this opponent of ours was particularly dangerous this time around; we definitely needed to take this seriously especially given the current issues that we had already dealt with in this infernal Palace.

"I would agree, but it will not be an easy task this time," Yusuke stated. That was quite true, there was a significant number of issues that we needed to overcome if we wanted the Calling Card to actually do its' job; it was totally necessary if we wanted to ensure that the people he was torturing were finally able to go about living their lives without his looming presence pressing down on them.

"Yeah, nobody actually knows him," Ann agreed. That was certainly one of the issues, unlike the previous two we had faced, they at least had some renown in certain areas, well Kamoshida did while Madarame was almost a household name in the art world before we revealed his lies; but Kaneshiro, nobody knew who the one causing all the trouble was so it needed to have some kind of impact to make Kaneshiro worried enough to have his cognition changed.

"There's so goddamn much I wanna write on the Calling Card too," Ryūji admitted. I couldn't blame for him for thinking that way, I certainly wished to air some of my own low opinions of Kaneshiro at him; but I think there was a far more significant issue that we had to deal with before even thinking about the composition of the Calling Card this time around.

"I think our more immediate issue is how to deliver the Calling Card," I pointed out. That was the major problem that we had to solve, far more than what we were going to put on the Calling Card, if we didn't know where to send it then someone could end up finding the Card before it was sent off and that was some rather damning evidence that could put whoever it was found by in a dangerous situation.

"Yeah, we don't know where he lives," Ann agreed. We don't know where he was full stop, there was no chance of us being able to send the Calling Card to any place of significance that would cause Kaneshiro to be effected enough that his cognition would manifest the Treasure; true we had some days to come up with a plan but I'd rather get this over and done with as swiftly as possible for everyone's sake.

"Hm? Why not use the same method as before?" Makoto asked. We quickly exchange confused looks at the sudden question, I could only speculate that she was referring to how we had sent the previous Calling Cards by posting them in a very public place which meant the target and those around them were forced to see it which meant that there was no chance of the targets just casually brushing them under the rug without anyone else being the wiser.

"What do you mean Makoto?" Ren asked. His eyebrows were furrowed together as he asked that, the major issue this time around was that there really wasn't a way we could do such a thing; I scarcely recall the way to where Kaneshiro was and something tells me a man smart enough to avoid tracking by everyone except Ohya was probably going to have moved bases by now as a mere precaution.

"Who exactly works on the Calling Card?" Makoto responded. There was something in her eyes when she said those words, even going as far as to stand up as if she was preparing to do something; I couldn't say exactly what she must have been planning but it was clear that our advisor's mind was already at work figuring out the way we needed to send this particular message to our target.

"Yusuke decides on the words and makes the logo while Ryūji puts the words together," I explained. I didn't exactly know why Makoto was focused on that information, but I assume that she must have had a reason besides it wasn't that big of a secret; Makoto sharply nodded her head and moved over to the two who were sat together at this moment.

"Good, I'll borrow those two for tonight," Makoto decided. With that, she seized a hold of both of the boys' arm and dragged them away, Yusuke looked rather bewildered but went somewhat willingly, even though he tripped over his feet a few times; Ryūji on the other hand was extremely confused and ended up struggling a bit before a sharp yelp echoed back to us from where they had disappeared beyond the café's windows.

The rest of us looked at each other, before those of us in human shape shrugged our shoulders and proceeded to leave; I'm sure they'd be fine.

*Persona 5 Royal*

I wasn't entirely sure what had been going on, all we did know was that Makoto and Ryūji had disappeared after Yusuke finished up his task, only the fact that Makoto had promised they'd be fine was known. Now on the next day, I knew what had happened and all I could do was stare at the shopping area of Shibuya alongside Ren and Morgana who were slack jawed and wide-eyed which was probably my own appearance at the mass of Calling Cards that decorated various parts of the shopping centre and even the train station in Shibuya.

We still had to get through school before dealing with Kaneshiro, but it was pretty hard to walk away from the scene that Makoto must have orchestrated to get a hold of Kaneshiro. It was pretty risky, but I have to say if this worked then there was no way that Kaneshiro wouldn't be affected by it. Once school had finished, we rushed to the café where we finally managed to meet up with the others.

"The Calling Card was posted all over Shibuya," Morgana admitted. Which was apparently true because Ann and Yusuke had made comments on how there was Calling Cards littered in just about every widely visited public place that they came across on their way to the train station; plus, there had been plentiful discussions about if from students, business people and other sorts of commuters on the train or those walking about the area of Shibuya about this Calling Card.

"A good idea, no?" Makoto asked. Our advisor had a rather satisfied smiled upon her face as she said those words, I couldn't really blame her either since she had magnificently solved the issue of where to send the Calling Card by ensuring the section of Tokyo was talking about it. "Given the theatrical nature of this one. Kaneshiro must surely have been contacted about it," Makoto stated. That was definitely a likely possibility, Kaneshiro had to have been contacted due to his name being pasted across the centre of his morbid business.

"You truly are the brains of this Phantom Thieves operation! Ryūji, you should follow her example!" Morgana insisted. I couldn't disagree that it was absolutely because of her brains that she had managed to solve this little conundrum of ours; Makoto was proving rather invaluable in this heist and I'm sure that we'd be able to stop Kaneshiro with her aid more swiftly than we would have alone.

"Y'know I'm the one who went postin' it everywhere, right?" Ryūji challenged. That was a fine point, Ryūji had been the one to put the Calling Card up over the area, he had put into action the plan that Makoto crafted and that was worth its' own acknowledgement. "I even had to get all dressed up so they wouldn't notice me!" Ryūji revealed. Thank goodness, otherwise he'd be at risk from police coming after him.

"Come now, we don't have the time for idle chitchat. Let us get moving," Makoto encouraged. As much as it wasn't exactly idle chitchat, Makoto also wasn't wrong with what she was saying, we couldn't afford to keep hanging around and talking like nothing important needed doing, after all the Calling Card only lasted a single day and we needed to make the most of what remained.

"We're going up against a truly horrible criminal this time," Ann stated. That was a pretty big understatement, Kaneshiro was arguably the most vile enemy we'd come across since starting this whole thing; we needed to stop him for the sake of everyone else in Shibuya that weren't working alongside him – even if they were being extorted by himself as well – in this horrendous scheme he'd cooked up.

"That dick ain't gonna stop us now that we got our awesome new member!" Ryūji vowed. Despite his previously annoyed words, it seemed Ryūji hadn't actually been that annoyed especially when he happily threw an arm around Makoto's shoulders. "Makoto! You remember how all this works?" Ryūji asked. He seemed rather upbeat about this whole situation, but it was Makoto's reaction I was more surprised by.

"Once we claim the goal, the challenge will crumble and the Ruler's heart will change," Makoto recalled. She seemed rather relaxed despite the weight that was Ryūji's arm pressing against her shoulders and she also seemed rather happy, whether that was due to finally getting back at Kaneshiro or something else I didn't know; all I did know was that I was happy seeing the light in her red eyes.

"Wow, you got that quick! I think Ryūji's still struggling to comprehend it all," Morgana commented. That was a little mean to say since I think Ryūji did properly comprehend the whole method we used to disable a Palace completely; actually, now that I think about it, these two had been getting a bit more harsh in the barbs they were trading with each other.

"The old me is dead. Makoto the sycophant is gone… and the corrupt adults who controlled her are next!" Makoto declared. I drew my thoughts back from the concerning turn in Morgana and Ryūji's bizarre relationship, whatever was going on with them would have to wait until after we were done with Kaneshiro.

"Good to hear. It'll be fun seeing what chaos we can whip up with you at our side," I admitted. I just hope that it went as well as I wanted it to go, Kaneshiro had proven to be much more intelligent than any of the other Rulers and I was worried that something was going to happen when we got back inside the bank; something more than the giant monster fight that I was expecting to come.

"It's showtime people!" Ren declared. With those words, we stood up and left the café to the area that would provide us with the best location to enter the Palace.

*Persona 5 Royal*

We made our way to the Treasure's location, but we quickly encountered a problem, Kaneshiro was already down here along with what were most likely to be cognitions of Kaneshiro's most trusted members. They actually looked like some of the people who we had encountered in that horrid place where we'd first met Kaneshiro; there was also the major issue of the Treasure not actually being here anymore which was deeply worrying if it had somehow been moved then we were in a seriously bad situation.

"Is that Kaneshiro?" Queen asked. She was much further back than I was, so it made sense that she wasn't quite sure as to who it was; but all she needed for an answer was one of us to nod, instead she got several and even admissions of confirmation from each of us; it looks like we'd be having a fight this time just like before.

"He was waitin' for us!" Skull exclaimed. That he definitely had been which was rather worrying, the rest of the Rulers had done the same thing, but none were as confrontational as Kaneshiro was being; we moved in closer to the Ruler and as we got closer I realised one more major difference to this room. "What the hell!?" Skull demanded. Not that he could be blamed since it was quite shocking.

"A safe!? This wasn't here the last time we came!" Mona exclaimed. The place that Kaneshiro and his cognitive goons were stood in front of was a large metal wall with a dial – or dials – set into the centre of it and was constantly rotating, making it rather hard to determine what the possible combination could be just by looking at it; I couldn't even tell if it paused long enough to choose a number.

"It's probably a final security measure!" I realised. To think that he had something like this up his sleeve waiting for us, it was pretty impressive and more than a little unsettling about what we were going to have to force our way through if we wanted to reach the Treasure which was no doubt hidden behind the safe that had suddenly appeared to impede our passage.

"He changed the entire room so quickly… tch, I guess this Palace isn't a bank for nothing," Mona commented. It was also a sign of how quickly Kaneshiro could act, the creation of this vault must have manifested as soon as he finished reading the Calling Card or a little bit afterwards; I wouldn't be surprised if Kaneshiro had gone and moved his location in the real world, but we needed to find a way through the vault to get the Treasure.

"Greetings. Welcome to my private city bank," Shadow Kaneshiro greeted. As if we weren't already aware of how this was his personal bank, I wasn't impressed that we had such an arrogant enemy to deal with. "I'm surprised you made it here alive. It seems you are quite lucky," Shadow Kaneshiro stated. I scoffed at the words he'd said since luck had nothing to do with us managing to get through this challenge.

"Lucky? Don't be ridiculous," Queen chastised. She was right, we had worked together and worked hard in order to reach this location, saying we were lucky was practically disregarding all the effort that we had each put in to the actions necessary to reach this point; between fighting enemies and searching for clues we'd all done everything we could in our own ways to reach the centre of the Palace and now we had this pesky insect to deal with.

"We're gonna change your heart and make you confess everything you've done. That'll save all those people who're suffering 'cause of your shitty actions," Skull announced. It was good to see that Skull was actually focusing on the important reason why we needed to stop him. "Even the police're strugglin' to deal with you, so this'll make the public believe in us too!" Skull added on. Never mind.

"Those in power work the ones below them to the bone for money. Such is the hierarchy of the world," Shadow Kaneshiro commented. I gritted my teeth in rage, why was it that this one what irritating me so much, it almost felt like there was something about him that felt familiar and it was seriously annoying me in every conceivable manner. "Just accept your fate as a source of my wealth!" Shadow Kaneshiro ordered.

"We'll never agree to that!" Fox declared. That was absolutely not going to happen ever, we'd never just submit ourselves to suffering and believe we were meant to be the source of someone else's fortune; I'd rather settle for robbing this man blind and making sure that everyone he'd cruelly taken from got back what they were owed.

"And hierarchy? You have to be out of your mind," Panther spat. That was true, people believing there was some sort from pre-set order to the world were mad; there was no such thing as a hierarchy, no matter what kind as all people had to do was work hard and prove the fruits of their actions to show that they had achieved something and that could be with or without people; it wasn't always easy but that was exactly why we could reach out for help on occasion.

"All of that was forced on me too, you know!" Shadow Kaneshiro claimed. I raised my eyebrow at those words, not that I was ever intending to feel any kind of sympathy for someone who had done what he had to innocent people. "I went through shit until I crawled my way out of the dregs! Now it's my turn to profit on everyone else!" Shadow Kaneshiro declared. So, it was revenge that he wanted, but he was going after the wrong people, because teenagers were too young to have actually hurt him.

"Still! Don't you think you're getting back at the wrong people?" Panther questioned. She didn't seem to understand that such a thing mattered very little – if at all – to Kaneshiro, all he cared about was the making of his fortune; never mind who ended up getting caught in the foul web that we wove to capture people, he just wanted to get what he believed he was owed.

"Don't bother Panther," I stated. Panther darted her eyes over to me, likely confused as to what I could possibly be getting at with my words, but I simply focused on the Ruler with a sneer curling onto my lips at the cruelty we were faced with. "He doesn't care about whether they're right or wrong," I pointed out. All he cared for was doing whatever he wanted to, fulfilling his own twisted desires was the only thing that matter to him.

"What a pitiful man," Queen sneered. She couldn't be anymore right, Kaneshiro was nothing more than a weak-willed child who believed that he deserved to have good things happen to him due to the bad things that occurred his past; plenty of people had bad things, but not all of them lashed out horribly towards complete strangers who had never done anything wrong to them.

"It doesn't matter whether you're clean or dirty! Only the clever come out on top!" Shadow Kaneshiro declared. If that was the case, then we were probably going to be victorious in this fight. "The strong and the smart devour the weak. That is the natural order of things," Shadow Kaneshiro claimed. I was getting really tired of hearing people using those words to justify terrible actions. "You damn brats who think you know the world through the shit you read online will make the perfect prey," Shadow Kaneshiro decided.

"Then don't cry when we win," I mocked. There was no way we intended to lose to someone like this, for the sake of everyone he was currently hurting, those he had hurt too greatly for them to ever recover and those that he could have hurt if he'd been left alone or took too long, losing was absolutely not an option; all of us would do everything in our power to ensure that he was brought down for good.

"He is utterly hopeless," Queen commented. There was no arguing with those words, it was quite obvious that there was never going to be anything that we could say in order to talk Shadow Kaneshiro down from doing this; fighting him was the only way to get him out of the way so that we could take his Treasure and leave this place behind us.

"It's always the fools who get tricked! Fools who have to pay for their foolishness. And if those fools don't learn, well they have to suck it up and stay as plain, stupid fools!" Shadow Kaneshiro claimed. He really didn't understand that he had no right to take advantage of people the way he was doing; no one had the right to hurt others to the point that their lives weren't worth living, our Change of Hearts might cause our targets to suffer suicidal thoughts but we knew that we could talk them down from that act like Ann had already done, Kaneshiro stole everything even the chance to go back to whatever peace the people he hurt had once known.

"Will you just shut it already!?" Skull demanded. I could definitely do with him shutting up right now since Shadow Kaneshiro's continued prattling of nonsense and insanity was really starting to irritate my mind to the point where I just wanted him to transform already so that I could properly stab him with my naginata without risking anything bad happening to his physical self.

"I guess there's not much point saying anything to you fools!" Shadow Kaneshiro declared. Then why did he keep prattling on!? It was seriously annoying that we had to keep listening to his nonsense. "This is where my gracious lecture ends," Shadow Kaneshiro stated. Oh, so he was finally shutting up. Thank goodness, because I was reaching the very limits of my patience by now.

"Oh good, now we can get on to stomping you flat," Joker commented. I think we could all agree with those words since we were probably looking forward to making sure that this fool was properly dealt with, due to everything wrong that he had done since we ended up running across his path and even before the moment that we had met him.

"Now then I hope you're ready to work as slaves here for the rest of your lives," Shadow Kaneshiro claimed. Oh, there was no way such a thing was happening! I wasn't going to waste the rest of my life listening to this infernal beast, boss me about in such pretty terrible manner; I was getting more motivated to deal with him the more that he kept spouting off such nonsense right now.

"That's outrageous!" Fox declared. At least the rest of them were in agreement with my thought process, since I didn't need to look at the others much to see their horrified and angry looks at the prospect of suddenly becoming enslaved to such a monstrous individual; seriously did he want to keep piling reasons upon us to completely demolish him when it comes time for us to actually fight him.

"I'm gonna swarm all over you… and squeeze out every last penny!" Shadow Kaneshiro bellowed. He suddenly froze up and then slumped over, he twitched slightly and then his body suddenly jerked, first one shoulder was thrown back rather violently and then the other one took its' place; he slumped down and blood dripped from his face which was still tilted down. A sort of buzzing sound began to echo as Shadow Kaneshiro pressed his hands together a rubbed them.

The cognitions ended up becoming so scared that they proceeded to run away from Shadow Kaneshiro who was glowing red as his back began to bulge and move as if something was trying to escape from it; eventually it did revealing a pair of wings that were identical to the type of wings used by flies and when Shadow Kaneshiro raised his head to look at us, there were the typical fly eyes in a red colour.

"I can take care of this myself! Wassup you!? Now come get some!" Shadow Kaneshiro declared. His entire mannerism had now changed, I don't know why it had suddenly shifted but if this was how mafia people actually acted then I don't see what could be so intimidating about them since Shadow Kaneshiro just sounded ridiculous.

"You filthy fly on money… get the hell out of my face!" Queen ordered. It was a pretty appropriate insult to hurl at him given that he had literally become a fly due to his transformation; I don't know what we could possibly expect to face when he started attack us, but there was probably going to be some kind of money related assault that Shadow Kaneshiro was likely to throw at us.

"Gyahahaha! Aight, here we go, yeh pieces of shit!" Shadow Kaneshiro declared. Seriously, did he believe that his words were actually intimidating? Because they most definitely weren't "Heheheheh! Bein' young is such a crime! They're naïve, they're reckless and on top of that, they don't even realise how stupid they are. Now I couldn't just sit back and not cash in on those idiots, right?" Shadow Kaneshiro claimed. We were going to make him regret ever hurting the people he had dragged into financial ruin. "Time to roll out! Here he is, my guardian robot!" Shadow Kaneshiro announced. Shadow Kaneshiro twisted around to wave at the vault, which caused the centre door to hiss open, Shadow Kaneshiro took flight and flew in before I was able to see what he was known as. The door slammed close and each of the dials stopped spinning, the entire thing pulled back to reveal that the door had actually been the snout of a giant piggybank.

"I feel like I should be offended for the pigs," I commented. After all, he had been using their appearance to hiding important things across the Palace; Shadow Kaneshiro demanded to know if we were ready to die and then, claimed that the robot pig wasn't actually a pig and then proceeded to call it Piggytron after explaining it was basically a security measure.

"Dammit, I didn't expect him to have something like this up his sleeve," Mona worried. It was quite a surprise for us to be facing this kind of thing, especially since none of the other Rulers had anything like this waiting or us; I dearly hope we didn't have to deal with anything like this at any other point in a different Palace.

"Joker! Make sure you have us regroup if you think we're at a disadvantage!" Queen warned. It was a fair warning since we were facing off against something that was much bigger than we were used to dealing with in fights beyond the Ruler's altered state. "That thing's a giant… if it attacks us while we're low on Life Energy, we won't survive!" Queen added on. Which meant Skull, Fox, Queen and Joker would need to keep a close eye on their Life Energy the most since they were the primary Skill users.

"No weaknesses and no resistances of any type!" I warned. Whatever this thing was, it seemed like a typical enemy as opposed to the highly troublesome four paintings that Azazel had unleashed upon us or those annoying copies that he kept making before we wore him out enough; frankly that just put me even more on edge about whatever might happen in this fight.

"Go get 'em, Joker! This money-grubber's getting a one-way ticket to redemption!" Mona encouraged. Joker started us off by using Tam Lin, which spooked me a little, to lower its' physical defence. Knowing that was the right move, I proceeded to do the same but to its' defence against magic. This allowed the others to hammer it with whatever attacks they thoughts were most effective thanks to their own innate abilities.

Shadow Kaneshiro retaliated by having the giant pig machine launch some missiles at all of us. I damaged to divert one as Joker and Fox dodged. Queen was somehow able to create a barrier that bounced the attack on her back at the pig. But the other three ended up getting hit by the attack. To make things worse, the damn thing managed to get off another attack. This time with a set of guns on Skull, he managed to dodge but only thanks to Goemon's Trait kicking in.

Mona did the smart thing by healing us so that we could fight safely. I quickly used Terazi on the mechanical swine in the hopes of finding some way to break through the shell. Unfortunately, that didn't work, nor did Joker's attempt to use Anzu's Garula to do the same thing. The others followed up, but it was quite apparent that Ailments weren't going to work when Queen and Panther failed to make it succumb to either of their Spells. At least Fox's and Skull's Skills had dealt some more damage to the nuisance.

"Ya punk're really pissin' me off! Ya called my Piggytron a pig earlier, right?" Shadow Kaneshiro yelled. Because it is! Its' shape was literally a pig, it was a gigantic piggybank so what else were we going to do but call it a pig. "Were ya talkin' about me too when you said that? If you were… Imma tear ya all to shreds!" Shadow Kaneshiro announced. Whatever was coming was something liable to be the danger Queen had anticipated. "Go Piggytron! Super VIP Form!" Shadow Kaneshiro declared. The piggybank floated into the air before it's legs, snout, eyes, and ears pulled in as a hole opened on its' head; Shadow Kaneshiro flew out of the hole as the machine fell back to the ground and it started to roll towards us thanks to Shadow Kaneshiro's standing on its' head and walking it towards us.

"It transformed!? Don't tell me it's going to roll into us!" Mona exclaimed. I'm fairly sure that was exactly what it was going to do to us, especially when the damned thing actually began to roll even faster. Whatever was coming was likely to be akin to the volleyball attack that Asmodeus had used which meant there was only one thing that we could do about what was about to crash down on us. "Be careful! A big one's coming!" Mona warned.

"Everyone! Brace yourselves!" Joker ordered. We did the only thing we could by summoning the barriers that our Rebel's Weapons could conjure, the giant rolling pig gained more speed before shooting towards us; the pig crashed against my barrier along with all of the others, but I still felt the pain lancing across my body before it proceeded to return to its' initial position by jumping back over our heads in its' normal form.

"How's this!? Can't even speak 'cause of how scary my Piggytron is, huh? Gyahahahaha!" Shadow Kaneshiro cackled. I wasn't scared of it at all, there was no reason to be scared of such an attack despite the feeling of being flattened; because I knew that we could deal with it. Joker showed this by summoning Isis who used her Bless Magic to attack.

I attempted to use Gryva to do something, but while damage was done it hadn't really penetrated the tough metal casing. Thankfully, Captain Kidd's Trait had activated when a few of the others used their Skills which increased their ability to deal physical damage. It was slightly annoying that we had nothing like that for Magic, especially with neither me or Joker possessing a group raise to our magical offence. But we did what we could with what we had. But to make things worse for us, the damned piggybank transformed.

"Hm?! Is that bastard going to rush us again!?" Mona wondered. I think that was fairly obvious since it had moved into the same set up as before with Shadow Kaneshiro on top and it already rolling. "What do we do? Should we try distracting him!?" Mona suggested. I hoped that would work since we definitely didn't want to endure that flattening like sensation, well I certainly didn't want to.

"With what?!" Joker asked. That was the only issue, we needed something that Shadow Kaneshiro was going to be immediately infatuated with that it would catch his attention enough to force him to a stop; but for that to work we'd definitely need to play to his gluttony, I just pray that it wouldn't be to our detriment in the end.

"Something valuable! He's obsessed with money, so we'll sacrifice something that's valuable!" I suggested. Joker looked over at me and nodded his head in agreement, likely seeing it was our best shot at actually stopping the coming attack; especially when Shadow Kaneshiro was already speeding it up to prepare to crush us.

"Mona! You've got the best instincts for that, pick something and throw it!" Joker ordered. Mona did, searching through the supplies that we each carried until he pulled out a Bead; Mona didn't hesitate to chuck it towards the mechanised danger. Shadow Kaneshiro immediately focused upon the Bead and the spinning was stopped as it reverted to its' normal form; Shadow Kaneshiro somehow used his machine to scoop it up like the machine was a vacuum cleaner, the Shadow retreated back into his piggybank. We could make out the exclamations of excitement over the object, so we all shared vicious grins.

While Shadow Kaneshiro squawked about how amazing the bait was that we had tossed to him, the rest of us proceeded to do the smart thing by patching ourselves up. Or proceeding to weaken the pig once more, Panther helped by using Tarunda to drop its' physical offence while Queen used her newly made Ring of Gluttony to boost our defence through Vault Guardian.

"Oooh, this ain't half bad, yo! Maybe I can pick up a girl or two once I pawn this thing off." Shadow Kaneshiro commented. All of us looked at each other with grins on our faces since it seemed like he was thoroughly distracted by the move; even if his words were quite repulsive to hear, there wasn't much that this Ruler could do since he was so distracted by what he'd been baited with.

"Kaneshiro's completely engrossed… let's keep attacking him while he's off guard! It's only right that a money monger like him is destroyed by money!" Mona encouraged. With that one highly distracted fool, all of us started to pile on with the attacks, using Magic and Skills alike to deal as much damage as possible to the machine before Shadow Kaneshiro managed to regain his common sense.

"Dammit, how dare ya hurt my Piggtron to much!" Shadow Kaneshiro exclaimed. Well, it looks like he was back, but the tears in the metal surface were testament to what we had managed to achieve during his distraction. "My Piggtron's gonna lose? No, that's impossible!" Shadow Kaneshiro declared. I really don't think it was, but then the thing jumped to show its' back end to us and a hatch opened form which purple tinted gas came spilling out to spread across the field, I manage to get out of the way, but others didn't.

Panther, Fox and Mona were all trembling violently and curled in on themselves. When I tried to pull Panther up, all she did was curl in tighter as if she was trying to imitate a ball. Luckily, Queen proceeded to use a Spell called Energy Shower. I didn't feel anything but judging by the fact that the three who had been affected immediately perked up, as if the last few moments had never happened, proved it was some kind of cure for whatever Ailment they'd been struck with.

We quickly focused ourselves on continuing our attack upon the machine. Of course, the Shadow continued trying to take us down with missiles which started to cause burns, or the fear gas. But those were handled best by either Mona or Queen, or sometimes whatever supplies we carried with us if either of them was afflicted by the Ailments. Eventually, crackles and sparks of fire and electricity burst from the machine and its' legs collapsed underneath it and the Shadow got spat out.

"Wha- My Piggytron! That's it! I'll just deal with you busters myself, through the power of cash!" Shadow Kaneshiro declared. A giant golden vault suddenly slammed down after those words, when it cleared, two new enemies that were also flies appeared, one big with shields and the other smaller with a baton or something like that. "Ha, wassup! I paid these guys off, and now they're gonna clean you up! Ya like that?" Shadow Kaneshiro asked. This just became more annoying since we now had two new enemies to deal with. "They're super duper powerful! And super duper fly! Heheheh… a totally invincible wall!" Shadow Kaneshiro claimed.

"Ugh, how is this dealing with us yourself?" Mona questioned. It probably was to this annoying insect who just didn't know when to quit. "Hey guys! Their number may be growing, but we can't let that get to us! Let's do this!" Mona reassured. One thing that came from this was that I at least now knew what the name for this transformed Shadow happened to be; it was called Bael.

"They're both basically resistant to everything, except for the big guy who Drains Curse while the other one Drains Bless! Bael resists Melee attacks but Nullifies Gun! No weaknesses or immunities to others!" I revealed. We'd need to try and weakened them as much as possible; to aid us in this endeavour, Joker used Anzu to boost our accuracy with Phantom's Trait activating to boost its' duration.

Bael attempted the first move by using a multi-target Sleep Spell, not that it worked on me since it was done through song. It unfortunately got a few of the others, including Joker. Bael apparently had a move to deal Technical damage since the next attack he used woke Fox up and seemed to inflict some serious damage on him. The smaller fly flew up to Skull and used a strong Skill upon him, but the boy remained fast asleep. The big brute charged at me, but Goemon's Trait and the added speed from Anzu enabled me to easily dodge the attack.

Joker somehow woke himself up and shook off the sleepiness before managing to wake Skull up with that almost illusionary paper fan. With Skull back in gear, Joker pulled off his mask to reveal Take-Minakata and it unleashed a very strong electrical attack that bombarded the entire group. This revealed a very dangerous problem, just as the lightning bolt was heading for Bael, the bigger fly darted over and slammed its' shields overhead. The bolt hit those shields and was harmless scattered across the ground.

"What!? They blocked that?" Mona exclaimed. It most definitely had which meant we were in serious trouble with this issue, if they kept protecting Bael then we were never going to be able to deal damage to him and end this fight; especially since it seemed those shields possessed completely different immunity to the ones that the big brute innately had. And I couldn't see anything about them.

"C'mooon, I told you they're an invincible wall, right? Welcome to the power of cash! Booyah!" Shadow Kaneshiro claimed. We needed to find a way to pierce through these two guards, especially the bigger one since that seemed to be the defender unlike the other one; I gently pushed at the ring I wore which contained a fair amount of power for something that was so innocuous, it might be necessary to use it.

"Hmmm… that shield move is a real hassle," Mona commented. No argument from me on that note, very annoying to deal with and deal with it we had to. "We can try to take down those minions, but Kaneshiro's not lying when he says they're tough," Mona commented. Joker's attack hadn't seemed to do much and without multi-target Spells it'd be risky to focus on reducing their magical defence or raising our offence while they continued to attack us. "In that case why don't we just put them to sleep? If they're not awake, they can't get in our way!" Mona suggested. That was definitely the better route to go with this battle.

Panther started off with her Dormina that managed to remove the brute from being a nuisance. Queen proceeded to use her own Makajam to inflict some forgetfulness upon the other fly. With both of them detained by Ailments, I quickly used Terazi on the brute, dealing some very nice damage to it. Fox and Skull used Skills which had Ailment capabilities attached to them to attack in the hopes of inflicting them. Unfortunately, they couldn't, but Mona was able to seriously damage the smaller fly by using a Psy Magatama had we had picked up.

Bael used Lullaby upon us once more but most of us managed to avoid the Ailment. He then used that move again to deal out major damage to one of our snoozing members as the brute attacked. Luckily the smaller fly was too confused to do anything but buzz about like a pest. The ones who had been caught by the Sleep Spell were quickly cured thanks to some medicine we had. Panther proceeded to attack the forgetful fly with her Psy Ring since that was the one that seemed more dangerous with its' continuous variety of attacks.

Mona made sure to heal up our wounds before this went any further. However, when it got around to Bael's turn, he apparently got rather annoyed with our continued persistence as he proceeded to – somehow – make it rain money. The heavy golden coins thundered down on us like some kind of powerful storm and I was certain that I was going to be very black and blue by the end of this fight.

Eventually the rain did end and the little fly took its' revenge. It flew up to Panther and headbutted her so hard that I could see she was enduring the Forget Ailment. Joker quickly cured it with Baisudi and we all refocused on doing as much damage as possible to the enemies with the already established formula that had proven it worked. Causing Ailments and then striking at whatever weakness we could strike really was the best way to deal with these annoying flies. Especially while dealing with Bael's attempt to bury us with more coins.

There was a slight problem thought, well not with us. No, it came when Bael attempted to use his cash summoning ability for the third time, as I tensed up expected the typical shower of metal from the previous two times, there was a soft and almost delicate clink. When I looked, I saw that the cause of this, was a singular coin rolling about until it fell to the ground and no sign of anything else following it.

"Gah! I ran outta cash!" Shadow Kaneshiro exclaimed. And it was with that statement that both of the bodyguards proceeded to leave the battlefield clearly proving that no matter how much money had been thrown about, it was a very weak replacement for true loyalty like what the lot of us shared within this team.

Bael was so shocked by the fact that his seemingly endless supply of money had proven to have a limit. We proceeded to unleash all manner of magical attacks upon Bael's form as quickly as we could. The strangest thing was that the Ruler didn't even reacting to the consistent stream of attacks that we were sending at him. It was as if he had completely shut down after realising that he had no more money.

"I-I can't! I-If I don't have money… then I…," Shadow Kaneshiro claimed. It seemed that he wasn't as gone as we assumed, but he was still ridiculously obsessed with money; I was starting to get a headache from his obsessive behaviour. "Oh, I know, there's still money inside Piggytron! Gotta get back in there!" Shadow Kaneshiro claimed. He returned inside the machine and began to talk about how he was calm but then something started happening to the machine, it had apparently been so damaged by our attacks that it blew apart which forced both the Ruler and the money out onto the ground. The Shadow was back to normal and proceeded to climb up to drape himself over the golden bars that had clattered out

"Kaneshiro!" Queen yelled. I wasn't entirely sure if he was actually listening to us, he just seemed completely focused upon keeping us from taking his golden bars which were most likely his Treasure; I wasn't entirely sure if we could just pry him off the Treasure and take it, we did need to send him back to his physical form in order to properly ensure the Change of Heart took effect.

"I'm not gonna let anyone have it… this is my money…," Shadow Kaneshiro claimed. I gritted my teeth tightly at the words that he had spoken, because that money didn't belong to him at all, that money had been stolen from the people who he had ensnared in his disgusting web of pain! They were the ones who deserved that money – well the actual physical money he'd taken from them – to be given back to them.

"You stole it all from innocent people!" Queen snapped. Everyone knew that except for this disgusting individual; I really wanted to clobber him with my naginata, preferably the shaft, since he clearly needed to learn that this money never belonged him and frankly I definitely wanted to take it away from this selfish gluttonous individual and ensure the people who were suffering because of him knew that he had been stopped and they could finally escape their hell.

"Fine. I'll call off the debt…," Shadow Kaneshiro insisted. My mouth dropped open in shock at the words that he had spoken, or more accurately the tone with which he had spoken; it really didn't seem like he had comprehended that we had beaten him! Plus, there was the fact that this had never been about the debt he'd forced upon us, it had been about the people that had been hurt by the man.

"Fine? You're still soundin' pretty condescendin'," Skull commented. He really had hit the nail upon the head when describing the way that Shadow Kaneshiro was still speaking to us; I wasn't entirely sure what else could be said about the way that this Ruler was continuing to act as if he was still in charge after we'd proven that he wasn't all powerful or as in control as he actually thought he was.

"You're right… I'm a poor, ugly… idiot," Shadow Kaneshiro claimed. Well, at least he was actually admitting the truth now. "How am I supposed to live a normal life like this?" He wondered. Like what? Was he expecting us to understand what he was referring to with such a vague series of words. "It's all because of our society! Weak people can't lead a happy life, no matter what they do! I'm a victim too you know!? Yeah, none of this is my fault!" Shadow Kaneshiro declared.

"You stopped being a victim the moment you started to hurt others the way you have!" I snapped. There was no way that I would accept the portrayal that this man was trying to present to us, he dared to claim that he was suffering because of the society; he had proceeded to force people to suffer the pain he was implying he had suffered which was the most horrible thing I could imagine someone actually doing if they had really suffered such unfair cruelty.

"The more you talk, the more pathetic you sound," Fox sneered. I could not argue with those words since Shadow Kaneshiro was only getting more ridiculous the more that I heard him speak; I was really tempted to just grab the Treasure and get us out of here whether the Shadow had gone back to its' physical self or not… I was just exhausted at having to deal with someone whose mind worked in this baffling manner.

"I just wanted a place where I could belong! You get that, don't you!?" Shadow Kaneshiro questioned. Oh, that was low! Yes, we did indeed understand what it meant to desire a place to belong, but how dare he use that claim to try and build a repour with us, as if he was trying to convince us that we were no different to him.

"Bullshit!" Panther yelled. At least someone had actually said something that expressed my opinion on how messed up that comparison was. "All you did was surround yourself with people you could use, solely for some easy money!" Panther added on. Whereas we had surrounded ourselves with friends, people who had come to understand us and who we understood in turn.

"And you think you're the only one who's gotta deal with bein' labelled?" Skull questioned. Frankly, Shadow Kaneshiro was attempting to manipulate us into believing that we should feel anything like empathy for his situation just because it might resemble our own. "Me, and all these other guys, we're all fightin' against that!" Skull declared. We had certainly been fighting it, whether by actually fighting the Rulers in the Metaverse or simply by finding the people who could help us get through the more difficult times because of our own unique situations.

"We might know what wanting a place to belong is like. But we haven't ruined other people's places to belong in the process of trying to find ours. So don't you dare put us in the same boat!" Joker lectured. That was definitely the best way to describe the biggest difference between us and Kaneshiro; none of us had decided to lash out against those who were innocent towards the condition of our situations just… well I can only assume it was simply because Kaneshiro could.

"But don't worry. You'll finally have a place you belong. Somewhere you can make amends, for the rest of your life," Queen stated. That was the best way to ensure Kaneshiro was stopped for good and make sure that no one could be hurt by him anymore, along with allowing the people who had been harmed to finally feel that there was some justice done for their situation and maybe that they could get some of the stolen money back at some point.

"We're gonna do somethin' about that distorted heart of yours. Free of charge," Skull commented. At those words, the Shadow proceeded to turn around to face us, but he remained sat down on the gold bars with clasped hands, he somehow seemed completely composed which was in direct contrast to the way he had been so disarrayed beforehand.

"I'm glad you understand. Now hurry up and return to the real Kaneshiro," Fox stated. I didn't know if Shadow Kaneshiro had somehow become understanding to the words that we were saying to him; it wasn't like we hadn't convinced Rulers to listen to us before, no it was the look upon Shadow Kaneshiro's face that made me believe he didn't had been listening to us at all.

"Seriously? You guys don't have tact. Especially with that incredible power," Shadow Kaneshiro commented. Tact? Why on earth did he think that we would need tact when we were literally breaking in? Of course there was going to be battles, the enemies weren't just going to allow us to get in without trying to stop us, especially when Shadow Kaneshiro ordering them to attack us. "These Palaces could net you load of cash! You could do whatever you wanted to people's hearts!" Shadow Kaneshiro pointed out. That was enraging and slightly confusing.

"We're not like you!" Skull snapped. That was quite true, we would never think to abuse a person's heart to gain something from the person responsible; I know Joker kept finding random objects that seemed pointless in making anything but he kept them anyway yet I never saw them again afterwards and the others had better ranged weapons, implying he was trading them for money but even then that was stuff we just randomly found. We didn't come in here for the mere sake of gaining money.

"Where do you find meaning in that naïve sense of justice?" Shadow Kaneshiro asked. People could call us naïve all they want, it was something we still believed in, these people thought they could never be touched and we finally had the opportunity to prove that they were wrong. "You know, there's already someone out there taking full advantage of what Palaces have to offer," Shadow Kaneshiro claimed.

"What?" Queen asked. That was pretty much my own thought spoken aloud, because… what was Shadow Kaneshiro talking about? A sudden chill random down my spine as I thought about something that had recently been said in a similar manner, by another Ruler. We'd never been able to prove or disprove Shadow Madarame's claim, but now someone was talking about something most likely similar to the mentioned Black Mask.

"I'll let you in on a little something. There's a criminal using other people's Palaces to accomplish whatever they damn well please. They don't care about consequences. Psychotic breakdowns, mental shutdowns… anything goes," Shadow Kaneshiro claimed. Oh gods, I had suspected such a thing was actually happening but to know that someone was legitimately causing the chaotic incidents was deeply unsettling.

"Is that… the same person Madarame's Shadow spoke of?" Fox wondered. It had to be, because if there was more than one person wandering around and committing these acts then we were in so much trouble that it was going to be more problematic than anything I could think of, except maybe being outed as the Phantoms though for entirely different reasons.

"Spill it! Who're you talkin' about!?" Skull demanded. I highly doubt that he was just going to tell us the information that we wanted; while Shadow Madarame had babbled about the information willingly, Shadow Kaneshiro was not being so forth coming since he was just being mocking towards us, likely a last ditch attempt to feel like he had won.

"Don't even bother. You are nothing compared to them… better be careful, a chance encounter with them could prove fatal," Shadow Kaneshiro ominously warned. And with that suitably terrifying claim, the Shadow started to fade away and he then vanished. That was also the moment that the Palace decided to announce it was breaking by trembling slightly and pieces started to fall down from the ceiling.

"We can think about that later! Grab the Treasure, there's no time!" Fox insisted. That we definitely needed to do since it was urgent that we get out of here, especially given our rather precarious position of being down in this location which would take too long for us to reach the entrance and escape from the Palace even if we were to use the Mona-van, there just wasn't much road for us to use.

"In that case, we should take that large one," Queen insisted. We really needed to use the Mona-van then because there was no way for us to be able to carry those gold bars out by ourselves; however, as we turned to the Treasure, we quickly found the usual problem had decided to rear its' head at the worst moment possible. "Wait, what!?" Queen exclaimed. No surprise since this was her first time seeing it.

"Mona!" Joker exclaimed. I really couldn't blame him since Mona was standing in front of gold bars, rubbing his cheek and hands over the Treasure while loudly meowing his joy over being near such things; I wasn't exactly sure why he kept doing this but it was starting to get rather concerning especially if we had to keep dragging him away when he was so enraptured with the Treasures.

"What's got into him!?" Queen asked. Mona continued to freak out over the bars and we really didn't have the time to wait for him to calm down nor explain the very confusing scenario to Queen; luckily, Skull decided to take charge and he seized a hold of Mona by the scruff of his neck and pulled the cat off of the Treasure.

"She said we're outta time, you alley cat!" Skull bellowed. With those words, our Electricity wielder proceeded to hurl Mona away from the golden bars so that he wouldn't get sucked in and hopefully return to his senses; as if it had actually worked, Mona proceeded to transform in mid-air to his vehicle form and landed safely on his own wheels.

"You shouldn't throw animals, dammit!" Mona snapped. While normally I would agree with our navigator on this statement, there were two issues regarding that stance: the first was that he had been losing his mind while we were in a collapsing building and we needed him to escape from it; the second was that, as Mona himself kept insisting, he technically wasn't a cat!

"Enough already! Let's get it in, everyone! Hurry!" Panther pushed. With those words, we set about moving, Panther and Fox pulled the back doors open as the rest of us dragged over the heavy gold bars and quickly stacked them on top of each other in the back; with that done we quickly piled into the vehicle as best we could with Queen at the wheel instead of Joker.

"Okay, all set!" Skull declared. By chance I found the map and managed to identify a route out that was directly connected to the underground vault, so Queen promptly stamped on the accelerator as hard as she could and we shot down the identified route, easily carrying us up and out of the collapsing building until we reached the front of the bank as Queen quickly angled us for our return point… but there was one problem.

"Wait, there's no road!" Mona remembered. However, it was a little too late for that as the moment Queen proceeded the words, the vehicle had stopped moving and all it took was me looking out the window in order to see that the reason why was we were currently suspended in the air far above the area near Shibuya's train station.

"We're all going to die," I morbidly decided. At those words, the van began to fall down through the air towards what lay beneath.

*Persona 5 Royal*

Amazingly enough, we did not die. Instead, we somehow manifested back in Shibuya with a sharp stinging pain shooting through my tail bone and its' surrounding muscles… in other words ooowwww! I heard Morgana started to say something, but I couldn't really tell what it was, not just because of the pain, but also because he was cut off by something hitting the ground and him letting out a weak meow.

"I think I cracked my ass," Ryūji commented. We all started to stand up and I knew that this pain was going to stay with me for a really uncomfortable amount of time and that the worst bit would be whenever I'd have to sit down or stood up, why the heck did we have to deal with a flying Palace and shoot out of it when it was partially in the air? We'd obviously fallen but clearly not enough to be painful, if this happens again, I'm hoping we remember to take the darn road… or invest in parachutes.

"Ann, are you alright!? Is yours cracked as well?" Yusuke asked. I looked over at the others since Ryūji was obviously fine – despite his claim – and Ann was already being checked on; it looked like Makoto was a bit wobbly on her feet as she stood up with Ren supporting her a little, I move over and saw that Makoto was actually smiling despite the sudden drop we had experienced during our escape… I'm starting to think our advisor might be getting attached to adrenaline.

"Of course not!" Ann exclaimed. I looked over at Ann and saw that she was blushing rather brightly as she made that exclamation, however the look on Makoto's expression was rather confused as she proceeded to stare at Ann with furrowed eyebrows before proceeding to look at the two of us with that same perplexed expression.

"Isn't it supposed to be though?" Makoto asked. Me and Ren both nodded our heads since technically yes there was meant to be a 'crack' running through people's rear ends, I think Ryūji might actually have been referring to his tailbone but the way he had actually said it was probably contributing to the confusion that was flying around us about this conversation.

"Urgh, that's not what I mean!" Ann exclaimed. She was turning red enough to match her Rebel's Armour which caused me to worry a little that she would end up spontaneously combusting from sheer embarrassment at what was happening. "More importantly, it's dangerous for us to just charge out like that!" Ann added on. It seemed then that Ann realised people were giving our group rather strange looks as they walked passed us. "Ack! Everyone's staring at us!" Ann squeaked. She was looking at the people who were walking by us with worry in her eyes.

"More like you Ann, you are the one yelling so much," I pointed out. She was the one that had been talking loudly about what was going on with us, yet the rest of us had actually been pretty quiet about the whole thing; Ann proceeded to give me an unimpressed look but all I did was shrug, since it wasn't like I was actually wrong or anything.

"Thank goodness nobody was hurt," Makoto stated. It was quite the relief that none of us had been more seriously wounded after our rather reckless escape from the Palace; it could have gone much worse that is certain, so I was going to take whatever luck we had. Suddenly, Ren jerked up as if he had suddenly remembered something and his eyes were wide with panic.

"Wait! Where's Mona?!" Ren panicked. I felt my shoulders go rigid at the reminder that our navigator had not actually said anything since that first moment before he'd weakly meowed; the real question was where was he right now, I was certain that he should have said something by now and he had sounded close by when he ended up speaking up previously, but the fact that he was silent now was concerning.

"Oh dear" Yusuke stated. I looked at the painter, wanting to know why he had said those words, before anyone could ask, Yusuke answered us when he raise a hand and pointed, the rest of us turned in that direction, seeing that Mona's weak meow had been because a golden briefcase had landed on his head! I think my heart must have stilled in my chest at the sight of poor Morgana being buried underneath the briefcase.

"That briefcase," Ryūji commented. If I could actually move at the moment then I probably would be shaking the blonde punk like a ragdoll at the moment, because seriously! Morgana was stuck underneath something that was likely extremely hard and heavy, he was probably serious hurt! Unfortunately, it seems Morgana's situation had rendered my body into a statue from sheer shock.

"That's what you focus on! My cat is under there!" Ren snapped. He ran out into the street and lifted up the briefcase; it promptly got thrown at Ryūji who scrambled to grab it, Ren's actions managed to jolt my body back to life and I followed after him to check on Morgana who was completely limp in responding to any of Ren's gently prodding to elicit some kind of response.

"It appears to have been the cause of Morgana's demise," Yusuke morbidly stated. That was really unnecessary! Ren even went so far as to rip his glasses off so that he could glare at Yusuke for that comment, as for me I was gently running my hand across his chest area when I felt something. Just faintly there was a rhythmic rise and fall of an area under my fingers, I quickly grabbed Ren's hand and pushed it against that spot, causing the boy to almost deflate in relief.

"He's not dead!" Ren yelled. He then gently scooped the cat up and we proceeded to retreat out of the road before any cars started to move towards us, the rest of the Phantoms followed us as we retreated to a slightly secluded area underneath a tree with a small wall near it; Ren proceeded to sit on the wall as he gently stroked the still unresponsive Morgana.

"You guys think this is Kaneshiro's Treasure," Ryūji wondered. I think it was pretty obvious that the shiny golden briefcase was the real form of the shiny gold bars we'd dragged into the Mona-van during our escape from the Palace; I'm just surprised that it was something like a briefcase since I had been expecting something… well not a briefcase that was certain.

"Where should we open it?" Makoto wondered. That was a fair point, we'd need someplace that was secure enough for us to safely open the object up without risking anyone from Kaneshiro's group seeing us actually doing such a thing, I'm not entirely sure of such a place apart from one of our homes but that came with the risks of a family member walking in except for mine and Ann's, and Yusuke's but he had other dorm members and staff which might be worse.

"How about at karaoke?" Ann suggested. I couldn't help the grimace that immediately came onto my face at that suggestion, I don't think it was a good idea for me to go anywhere near such a place after what happened last time; I'm still certain that my ears hadn't fully recovered from the assault that they'd been forced to endure the last time that we had gone to one.

"We'd have security cameras to worry about there," Makoto pointed out. Well, I'm glad there was a logical reason for why we couldn't go to a karaoke place as even though I'm sure the others would agree not to put me through any torture, I didn't particularly want to force them not to go just because I wasn't going to be comfortable listening to people forcing songs to cry.

"Plus, not after last time. My ears can't take that kind of abuse again," I added on. I still said it because I needed to say it, I could practically feel my ears hurting already at the mere prospect of having to go through with such a thing again; the others gave me sympathetic looks with Yusuke likely understanding the most, I'm sure he took offense to seeing really ugly or bland paintings.

"Oh, I got the perfect place," Ryūji suggested. He had suddenly perked up at saying those words and it definitely pulled my attention away from the issues of going to karaoke, since it seemed that something was going on in our Electricity wielder's mind and I was a little curious to know what place he had in mind for us to use as our safe haven to open up the briefcase and see if it had any contents at all.

"That's right," Ann agreed. I looked over at her, rather confused as to what she could possibly be getting at, did she have some kind of mind reading ability? Because I didn't have any clue as to what Ann could possibly be referring to when she made her agreement; a quick look showed that both Makoto and Ren were puzzled by the blonde model's words as well.

"I was just in the mood for some coffee too," Yusuke added on. Oh, now I understood, it was pretty clear from that saying exactly where Ryūji had been suggesting we go to, I just don't know why he hadn't said it in the first place; a heavy sigh escaped from Ren and I looked over at our leader curious to know what he was going to say in response to those words.

"LeBlanc it is," Ren commented. Comprehension dawned upon Makoto as she realised where we were going now – student council benefits I'm guessing – while Ren proceeded to shoot the other three an annoyed look that had no real heat to it. "You lot are using me for the coffee, I know it," Ren muttered. Well, I certainly think he was right with throwing that accusation at Ann and Yusuke. "At least we can fix up Morgana," Ren stated. He was holding Morgana quite close to his chest as he moved towards the train station.

Our journey to LeBlanc was fairly calm as we had stuffed the briefcase into one of our bags in order to avoid receiving weird looks. The only one we really got was when we reached LeBlanc and Ren had to ask for the first aid kit from Sōjirō, though he agreed when Ren showed him Morgana. We retreated up to the attic where the seating area was quickly set up like during the hot pot party, Ren and Ann sat side by side as they tended to Morgana who seemed to be rousing; Ryūji was sat on a chair while Yusuke sat beside me as I focused on the lock. Makoto was walking around looking at the attic.

"This place is oddly calming," Makoto stated. She turned to the table, but I wasn't really focused on her since I had my head pressed against the briefcase and one finger gently turning one of the rotary dials to try and hear it click into place. "Have you learned anything new?" Makoto asked. I didn't want to move away from my work just in case it did manage to click into place, but I didn't realise it.

"It's sealed by a rotary lock. We'll need the combination to open it," Yusuke stated. I was grateful that Yusuke had decided to answer her and leave me to my work, although I ended up being interrupted anyway when Morgana suddenly yelled in pain; that caused me to jerk my head up in order to look at the cat who was being fiercely hugged by Ren while Ann patted what she could of his head.

"A rotary lock, hm?" Makoto commented. Hearing those words caused me to look over at Makoto as she came over to my seat; Makoto turned the briefcase toward her and quickly rolled the dials before stopping, she then pulled on the latches which sprung open easily. "I knew it," Makoto claimed. I blinked in shock at what had just happened and needed a moment to organise my thoughts.

"How did you know it?" I asked. As intelligent as Makoto could be, there was just something about what had happened that made it feel like it was highly unlikely to have been a lucky guess and it's not like any of us really knew Kaneshiro to have used any personal information he might have used to make the combination to this briefcase.

"I simply memorised the combination. I saw him open and close it so many times, after all," Makoto admitted. Oh, well then, exactly how many times had Kaneshiro opened that briefcase of his in front of Makoto in the time it took for us to catch up to her in the taxi? It was a little eerie if I was completely honest, but at least she managed to get it open for us.

"W-Well that's… scary. But amazin' too!" Ryūji admitted. He seemed to be paying attention to us now that we had managed to get into the briefcase without needing to do something extreme like cutting the latches off somehow if we couldn't figure out the combination, once more Makoto's brain comes to the rescue in this heist.

"Urghhh, that burns. Hey, hurry up and open it," Morgana insisted. The Nuke master of our group nodded as the two first aiders and their patient turned to face the briefcase while Ryūji slid himself closer to us, Makoto opened the lid and we immediately saw that the contents were money, a lot from the looks of it.

"H-How much is this?" Ryūji asked. More than we'd ever see in our lives probably unless we managed to become rich or something; either way it was certainly a sizeable sum of money… but something wasn't adding up about this Treasure. It was meant to be what started Kaneshiro's obsession with money so how could a briefcase full of money have done that, unless it wasn't his like the way Sayuri had started Madarame's distortion, but it technically didn't belong to him.

"I believe one stack is one million yen… hm?" Yusuke commented. But he seemed to realise something, I reached out to one of the stacks and took it out to examine it hoping that would clear up any issues I had any maybe solve whatever it was that Yusuke had noticed that seemed to interest him. The moment I looked at it I knew exactly what the issue was.

"One, two, three… uhhh, there's thirty of them in here!?" Ann exclaimed. No wonder Yusuke had been interested which definitely made more sense now that I was looking at the money closely; since all the others were distracted, I handed the stack to Ren so that he could look at it and understand the issue we now had.

"Thirty million yen… even after splitting it, we still each get over four million!" Makoto exclaimed. Ren took the stack and proceeded to look at it, almost immediately his head dropped down in a state of despair since he now understood what the massive issue with the money actually was; we were going to have to burst everyone's excitable bubble, especially since they were already planning what to do with the money.

"Holy shit… it's gonna be deluxe pork soup combo for me from here on out!" Ryūji declared. Morgana told him to think bigger than that, Ren's head lifted up and I saw that he actually seemed saddened by what he had to do but someone needed to do it and I couldn't marshal the will to destroy their bubbling energy; nor did it seem could Yusuke which left our leader as the only one who seemed willing to do it.

"But it's fake," Ren bluntly stated. The energy of the other for seemed to be completely freeze as they went stiff before turning to look at Ren with equally matching wide eyes, I looked at Yusuke who had a strained expression on his face, clearly not liking where this was going but they really did need to be informed of the truth.

"What?" Ann asked. In response, Ren proceeded to hand her the stack of money I'd pulled out, Ann took it and lifted the stack up to eyelevel, her eyes widened in horror when she realised what she was looking at. "Children's Bank!?" Ann exclaimed. She even went as far as to throw the stack back onto the rest of the money which caused Ryūji, Makoto and Morgana to lean over to look at it themselves.

"F-For real!?" Ryūji questioned. He seemed very disbelieving as to what he was seeing, no doubt his dream of eating only certain ramen bowls was sinking faster than the Titanic probably ever did; it was quite a disappointing reward to get after the gold medal from Kamoshida's and the true Sayuri from Madarame's even if we didn't end up selling one, it still had more value than this pile of false money.

"I guess this represents… how everything he did was an act to make himself seem tough?" Makoto commented. The others started to fall into despair, while I focused on the case, it was rather interesting that something as worthless as the money was inside something so shiny as a golden briefcase, so I pulled it closer towards me.

"Well at least it feels like we totes busted this case," Ann tried to be optimistic. There was that, at least with Kaneshiro's Treasure taken we could be assured of his Change of Heart and now we only to wait for it to actually happen but at least now the people that he had been forcing to suffer would be able to get their lives back on track.

"I don't understand, is busting a case good or bad?" Makoto asked. I wasn't sure how it could be a bad thing since we were successful in dissolving the Palace so it could only be good; instead, I focused back upon the briefcase and scratched my nails on it, despite being short the length was enough for me to know one thing, this briefcase wasn't gold plated or anything like that.

"Both!" Ann cheerfully answered. Makoto started to laugh which distracted me a little from my next test which was to hold up the briefcase in my hands as I looked over at my friend who was laughing bright and clear; I smiled, pleased to see that Makoto was feeling free enough to actually express how she was enjoying herself

"To think the reward for the Phantoms is feeling they 'totes busted' the case. How funny," Makoto giggled. Despite how happy Makoto was, I couldn't focus on it for much longer as the briefcase was actually starting to feel pretty heavy in my arms; I'd held gold ornaments before because of Ouvrard and Shido so I had my answer as to what exactly the object was which caused me to put it back on the table surface.

"Guys, I feel like I need to point out that the briefcase is solid gold. That should fetch a pretty decent amount," I revealed. I rubbed at my arms trying to relax the muscles which had likely been strained by the holding of a rather sizeable amount of gold; everyone's heads cracked towards me in shock at my revelation of the fact that while the money was worthless, its' container was most certainly not.

"Alright then, let's sell it! Glad we got that sorted!" Ryūji rushed out. There wasn't any reason not since it would be extremely strange for any of us to keep a solid gold briefcase and at least this way some of Kaneshiro's ill earned gains could be used for something that was actually worthwhile, or at the very least able to feed us a nice meal we might not be able to get otherwise.

"By the way Morgana, have any of your memories returned?" Yusuke asked. That was an interesting question, some anime claimed it could work like that – though if I'm completely honest I have my doubts – so maybe the shock of the impact could have caused something to come back; unfortunately, one look at Morgana's face gave me all the answer that I needed from his downcast eyes.

"No, not at all," Morgana answered. That was sad, we didn't seem to be any closer to identifying anything from Morgana's memory which meant we would have to keep going into the depths of Mementos to find the answers to Morgana's missing memories; I hope we'd be able to find something to get some answers for our healer.

"C'mon, did that hit to your head make you forget even more?" Ryūji wondered. Ren sharply jabbed Ryūji because that was rather unnecessary, it was clear that Morgana hadn't forgotten any of us which meant all he'd really got from the hit to the head had been a painful lump that was likely to hang around for a few days.

"It's easy for you to talk. You're not the one who lost your memories," Morgana stated. I agree with Morgana, Ryūji didn't know what it was like to have his entire life wiped from his own mind, sure Morgana remembered somethings but not enough to really make sense of his own life, any of Morgana's memories were likely quite precious to him and he was still desperate to regain what he had lost alongside making new ones.

"You have amnesia?" Makoto asked. We looked at Makoto who was staring at Morgana with horror on her face as she realised what the conversation had been about; we hadn't been able to tell her this aspect but it wasn't like we had much of an opportunity since we had been more focused upon getting through the Palace and stopping Kaneshiro than filling Makoto in on everything, unless it was important to the success of the heist.

"Something like that. He does remember searching for Treasures though," Ann admitted. That was really all he could remembered apart from all his knowledge about the Metaverse and him having previously been human, I still wondered at his abilities and the way his eyes made me think of the Velvet Room which he clearly didn't know anything about; I really wish there was some way to contact Igor as I didn't want to distract Ren from his Cultivation with my own personal enquiries.

"Hm, I hope your memoires return soon then," Makoto stated. It was something I know I wanted to happen as well and maybe the rest of us did as well; all we could do was keep pushing forward with our investigation of Mementos in the hopes of jogging Morgana's memory in some way. "So… what happens next?" Makoto asked. I'd say this was the easy yet most stressful part of the whole situation we had.

"First we wait for Kaneshiro to have his Change of Heart," Morgana stated. As I said, stressful, because the lack of information we would have about the way our target was reacting to the change we'd caused would just make everything worse; I hadn't realised how wonderful it was to have Yusuke watching over Madarame and able to supply us with regular updates despite still being stressful it wasn't anywhere near as nerve wracking as Kamoshida's had been.

"It's gonna be big this time. People're gonna make a huge deal out of it, for sure," Ryūji claimed. I'm certain that they would, with Kaneshiro being an infamous criminal that people knew of even if not his name before today and the theatrical way Makoto and Ryūji had arranged for the Calling Card to be delivered, well we certainly could expect lots of people to be talking about it even before the Change of Heart came about.

"Hey, you know what Kaneshiro said at the end there? About that criminal using the Metaverse?" Ann spoke up. That caused the atmosphere in the attic to become much more sombre as we all focused on the blonde model, it was something we definitely needed to think over since this was the second time someone else being in the Metaverse had been mentioned; if this person was as dangerous as I feared then we needed to do something about whoever this was.

"Yes, I was bothered by that as well," Yusuke agreed. At least other people were speaking up about the unease that they were feeling about this mystery criminal; if this person was behind the events that had caused all those accidents that had been happening, then we needed to seriously consider confronting this person and stopping the madness that was being caused by these cruel actions.

"No point mullin' over it now. Let's wait and see how Kaneshiro's Change of Heart goes first. We should prolly just lay low for a while," Ryūji encouraged. All of us turned to stare at Ryūji with wide eyes, slightly open mouths or just one of those; as for our Electricity wielder, he seemed a bit confused by the stares that he was receiving from us, as if he really didn't know the words he'd just spoken.

"I never thought I'd hear those words coming from you," Makoto commented. It was very surprising to hear such a thing coming from Ryūji of all people, he was arguably our most reckless member so to hear him suggesting that we do something sensible was quite the shock for all of us, even the one who knew him the least knew how strange it was to hear him say those words.

"Maybe your good sense is rubbing off on him," I wondered. If it did, then maybe my concerns about Ryūji continuing to blurt out our secret would be unfounded; Ryūji launched an exclamation at me, but I didn't give him a response, instead I grabbed my bag along with everyone else and we proceeded to depart the café with me heading back to my home.

At the very least I needed to get in touch with the Velvet siblings as soon as possible, this Black Mask was very dangerous.