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 83: - Fall of the Banker of Gluttony
After my birthday, things had returned to normal or rather better than normal thanks to my friends, we'd gone down into Mementos the next day and managed to deal that burglary ring. It was here that I managed to put my improved bow to the test and it was definitely much stronger than before, I'd had to practice a few times at night or in the early mornings before heading to school just to get my arm strength up to par with the improved draw weight. But it was worth it to see the enemies weak to Ranged Kinetic Energy disappear into smoke once again.
Of course, the time down in Mementos was purely a distraction attempt, since the next day was the ninth, in other words the deadline for what Kaneshiro had given us. Makoto had already told each of us that the pictures were gone, but until we were certain that Kaneshiro's heart had been changed, there was a lingering air of worry that couldn't be ignored. As if my thoughts summoned it, my phone went off with a notification from the group Chat.
Ryūji: The deadline's tomorrow… we gonna be okay?
Yusuke: The pictures are gone. He has no avenue to threaten us anymore.
Yusuke: That is, if we're able to trust what Kaneshiro said.
Ann: Don't say such scary stuff.
Natsumi: But it is a danger we need to be wary of.
Makoto: Natsu-chan's right, we can't relax yet.
Makoto: He may still end up being released from police custody.
Ryūji: For real!?
Makoto: That is, unless they have decisive evidence like a confession.
Natsumi: Which if the Change of Heart is any indication, they will have.
Ren: I'm sure it'll be fine.
Makoto: True, there does seem to be some movement.
Makoto: Sis actually sent me a message saying she won't be home tonight.
Natsumi: That could actually be a good sign.
Makoto: Indeed. There's a chance the police have found their breakthrough.
Ryūji: Oooh, does that mean it happened!?
Ann: The timing is perfect. I guess let's just hope for the best?
Ryūji: I'm gonna stay up all night watching the news to find out!
Natsumi: Sleep, Ryūji! We all need to be alert tomorrow!
Putting my phone down I set about getting ready for bed and could only hope that nothing would go wrong with this whole thing, especially if that mysterious Black Mask happened to be on Kaneshiro's side.
*Persona 5 Royal*
Even though I hadn't been able to see it, the report was buzzing through the air by the time me and Ren arrived in Shibuya, it seemed everyone had seen the news which covered a very interesting topic that day. Kaneshiro's arrest had already been confirmed and blasted across many news sources which was such a relief to all of us, especially with the caveat that Kaneshiro had gone and turned himself in.
"Did you catch the news report this morning about the mafia boss getting busted?" A student asked. He sounded completely disinterested though, as it wasn't bothering him at all. "Apparently, someone scattered calling cards all across Shibuya just before his arrest," The student added. The student walking beside him was sweating quite a bit, he had complained about it being hot. "Remember the Kamoshida scandal? They say the same thing happened, that someone left a calling card. Madarame too, if I'm not mistaken," He pointed out.
"Do you think it's the Phantoms?" The sweaty student asked. Well, that was how we kept signing the Calling Cards so it should be pretty obvious that it was us who had done it. "If so, I'm impressed. I can't believe they actually steal hearts!" He exclaimed. I wasn't sure if people would start believing in us more given how most of the people seemed confused by our method of getting criminals to confess their sins.
We kept walking and made it into class where we took our seats, Ann came in and seemed about ready to jump through the ceiling given how happy she looked at knowing we were successful. We'd have quite a busy day before we could meet up with everyone and discuss what had happened with Kaneshiro, our first lesson was with Usami-sensei.
"I heard that the leader of the crime ring that was causing trouble in Shibuya got caught. It seems like some of our students had been victimised by them, so we can breathe easy for now," Usami-sensei commented. Those victims really were able to relax a lot more knowing that the person squeezing every drop of money out of them had finally been stopped. "I'm thankful to the police for arresting the perp, even though they're just doing their job. By the way, 'perp' is police slang. You might have heard the stars in police procedurals say it. It's short for perpetrator. Speaking of stars, can you answer this question Amamiya-kun?" Usami-sensei wondered. She put up a five pointed star with the angles marked and labelled alphabetically. "The sum of angles a through e is the same as the sum of interior angles of a certain shape, one hundred and eighty degrees. Do you know what that shape is?" Usami-sensei wondered.
"A triangle," Ren answered. This was right, but Usami-sensei then warned us that we had exams starting next Wednesday, Ryūji would not be looking forward to that, and judging by the dejected slump Ann did into her desk, she wasn't either.
*Persona 5 Royal*
"Hell yeah! Kaneshiro finally confessed! People've been makin' a huge deal of it since the police announcement!" Ryūji celebrated. We all shushed him so that he didn't attract attention to our booth, had he really not learned anything from how things had gone with Makoto. I was getting a little bit tired of him just spreading this information around without thinking of the consequences of his lack of a brain to mouth filter.
"It's difficult to accept that the authorities are taking all of the credit for his arrest," Yusuke bemoaned. I suppose it could be seen as irritating that they were claiming to be the ones responsible for taking him down, but the thing was that I knew we had been the ones responsible for bringing Kaneshiro to justice; plus, I'm fairly certain that not everyone was buying the claim that it had been the police who were responsible for bringing him down.
"But people are going nuts about the Phantoms online though. Look!" Ann pointed out. She given pulled out her phone for us to look at, we could see that it was the Phan-site and there were many people celebrating that we had been able to stop the man who'd harmed so many people; it was almost quite morale boosting to see that people were supporting us as we kept doing our best to stop the people who felt they had the right to force others to endure suffering.
"It's all comin' together for us!" Ryūji exclaimed. It did seem like things were improving for our group, all we had to do was keep our heads on straight and keep moving forward with our heists whenever they managed to show up; whatever was down in Mementos would be something interesting to find once we managed to reach that large area that Rise had managed to sense.
"This is quite the turn around. All of a sudden, people are expressing their long-standing belief in us," Yusuke commented. The truth was, that actually didn't sit well with me; on the surface it was great, probably even fantastic that people were being so supportive of us. But the more I looked at it, the more I got the sense that something was wrong with just how sudden the mass of support was for us, I don't know why it set me on edge, only that it did for some reason.
"Yeah, that's a little surprising," I agreed. Ren, Morgana and Yusuke all gave me a shared look and if Makoto was here, I'm sure she would be sending it my way as well; I shook my head at them, because I honestly didn't know how to put my uncertain feeling into words. Hopefully I was just being unnecessarily paranoid about the sudden surge in our popularity and it would come to nothing.
"So, this is why Makoto told us to post the Calling Card anywhere that might stand out," Ann commented. I suppose that might have also been a reason for us to spread it out, but by spreading it out, that forced Kaneshiro to realise that his identity had been outed to just about everyone who had seen it given how public the occurrence of the Calling Card for him had been.
"Pretty smart move on her part," Ryūji agreed. That was Makoto in a nutshell, when she was acting with her head instead of impulsively, the plans that Makoto came up with were very smart. "Oh, where is our amazing Miss President?" Ryūji wondered. It had seemed that the blonde punk had just realised that we were lacking one member of our team at this point.
"To deal with Kobayakawa, apparently," I admitted. This drew everyone's attention to me as they seemed surprised and intrigued by my words, but there was also worry there and it warmed my heart to know how my friend was cared for. "She told me that she was submitting the report that Kobayakawa was forcing her to compile on our social activities, so she won't be able to come today," I explained. Suddenly my phone rang and I pulled it out, seeing the person we'd just be discussing, I quickly answered it. "Mako-chan?" I asked. I also put it on speaker so that everyone could hear her.
"Hello, I take it you've told the others. I just wanted to inform all of you that there is a special on TV about the Phantoms!" Makoto revealed. I allowed a small sound to escape me as confirmation that I'd told the others about her business; but it was the rest of what she had said that caused me to be surprised since I was not expecting something like that to actually happen.
"Really!? That's freakin' crazy!" Ryūji exclaimed. I couldn't even be bothered to shush Ryūji for his exclamation since it really was insane that such a thing had actually happened, I would never have guessed that something like it even would; everyone leaned in a little closer as if they could get more information out of Makoto by getting even closer.
"What did it say!?" Ann asked. I was also curious to know this information though I had kept quiet so that Makoto would be able to talk at her own pace; though with how excited Ann was, to the point that her body was actually vibrating with sheer energy, I also couldn't really blame her for wanting to know what had been discussed about us. The mere idea that we'd ended up on TV without Akechi or our targets being responsible for bringing us up was intriguing.
"They were talking all about our Calling Cards," Makoto answered. Ann briefly mimicked Ryūji when she made an exclamation that he normally did, that was quite an interesting thing for them to discuss. "Anyway, my apologises about today. I'll have to see you all another time," Makoto apologised. With that Makoto ended the call so I tucked my phone away as the rest of us focused on the discussion that was likely to take place.
"I hope all this excitement doesn't place us on the police's radar," Yusuke worried. It was a fair worry to have, but we already had much more dangerous people tracking us down; the police couldn't find Kaneshiro, but if Sae-kun or Akechi had been devoting their full attention to actually taking him down, well I wasn't sure how fast it would have happened, but they probably would have been able to do it. They were already coming for us, the only benefit we had was that both of them would likely be distracted by other cases.
"It'll be fine! No way they'd find out about that weird other world!" Ryūji insisted. I don't think Ryūji was really understanding just how much trouble we could end up in if people started to hunt us down; yes, people might not find out about the Metaverse without someone telling them somehow. But Makoto was evidence of just how much we could end up in danger if the wrong person overheard our discussions.
"True, but… do you remember what the other Kaneshiro said towards the end?" Yusuke reminded. All of our attention turned to the painter who had a grim expression on his face, I already suspected that this would be a problem for us to handle at some point; whenever we ended up coming into contact with this person or persons, that was bound to happen at some point if what the Velvet Siblings told me was true.
"About another Metaverse user, yes I'm worried about that too," Ren admitted. That was definitely another thing that we needed to keep an eye and ear out for, someone was definitely skulking around and causing trouble; if the mental shutdowns and psychotic breakdowns were caused by this individual then we couldn't afford to take whoever it was lightly. They had no restrictions of the things they would do while in the Metaverse, the damage to others they caused.
"He did say that we're not the only ones who are doing it," Ann agreed. She was fidgeting in place, clearly worried about the prospect of someone else being in possession of the power, not that I could blame her in the least since it was a rather worrying idea; Kaneshiro had implied that this individual was much more powerful than us, and if they had been behind the string of incidents then whoever it was had two years more experience than we did. That put us at a severe disadvantage.
"But this person is worse, they have no issue with killing people's Shadows," I warned. We needed to be reminded of just how much of a threat this person was, we couldn't afford to let such a maniac keep running about doing what he or she had been doing for so long, if we came across this individual. But I wouldn't recommend that we hunt for this person until we were confident in our abilities to stop whoever was behind it.
"Eh, not gonna let it bother me," Ryūji commented. I gaped at Ryūji in shock and the others weren't any better to in truth, how could the boy be so dismissive of something that was quite serious? "Far as we know, he was just pullin' that shit out of his ass," Ryūji added on. But Madarame had implied the same thing, as far as we knew Madarame and Kaneshiro couldn't have met each other, let alone their Shadows, so why would they both mention another person running around the Metaverse.
"I hope that's the case," Yusuke admitted. I was not about to even consider that not being a possibility, not after everything that I had been told by Elizabeth, Margaret and Theodore, we would have a fight on our hands against this other Persona User; whether they had allies or not was the currently mysterious part of the equation, at the moment all we had for ourselves was the fact that we could act as a team and overwhelm the individual in that manner.
"Anyways, in your face, Akechi!" Ryūji gloated. He really wasn't going to pay attention to the danger that was posed to us, barely restraining a groan of annoyance at the blonde punk, I reached my hand up to rub at my temples and alleviate the pressure that was starting to form there. "Now whaddya wanna do about our next target!?" Ryūji wondered.
"Don't get ahead of yourself," Ann chastised. At least someone had spoken up to get Ryūji to focus himself, we'd just finished one heist, there was no need for us to lunge into doing another right away. "Still, people might expect a lot from our next move considering how excited they're getting," Ann agreed. There was that fact as well, we needed to do carefully consider who to target next.
"We can't just pick any old schmo now," Ryūji commented. There was that as well, our targets had gone from one high profile individual to the next, so it was a matter as to who we could safely pick as our next target; they obviously had to be an actually criminal instead of just some random individual that got flashed up on the Phan-site. But the main question was who they could possibly be?
"There is no need to hurry though. Counting Ouvrard, we've claimed four consecutive victories, right?" Yusuke pointed out. We could certainly take our time, but I'm betting that the next target was going to walk across our paths some way at some point, the way the rest of them had ended up doing. "We should just lay low and wait for all this excitement to blow over," Yusuke insisted. There was that, immediately acting out again would put us in danger of being targeted more by the police.
"In that case, how about we have another celebration?" Ann suggested. For the time being that was probably the best thing for us to do, it was a great way for us to unwind after everything that happened during this Palace, plus we could keep things quiet by distracting Ryūji with it; he always seemed eager to have a celebration.
"Good idea! We can make it a welcomin' party for Miss President too," Ryūji agreed. At least he had refocused his attention on the celebration that we would have. "By the way that briefcase? It's pretty damn expensive! Let's sell it and drop the cash on our party!" Ryūji exclaimed. Once more, he got shushed, at this rate I was going to suggest we move bases, we would need somewhere a lot more private if Ryūji wasn't going to learn to be quiet.
"Wow… seems like the 'lay low and wait' idea has gone completely out the window," Morgana commented. Yeah, Ryūji really wasn't a subtle individual and I think that was just going to end up hampering us if we couldn't get him to reign it in, Ryūji could be trusted to cover my back in a fight but not keep up with us trying to maintain a cover for what we were doing.
"So, we can count you out then, Morgana?" Ann asked. That was a bit of a mean thing for her to do, Morgana was just making a valid point that our whole intention to take a breather before diving back into the Metaverse and hunting for another of our major targets; Morgana seemed horrified by this suggestion from what I could understand given his cat form.
"Uh… what are you talking about? I was just saying we should try and keep our party on the down low," Morgana insisted. At least that might remind our more energetic individuals to keep themselves contained so that nobody ends up getting suspicious of us, especially if someone decided to question how we ended up getting a hold of a solid gold briefcase.
"Hahaha, that's the spirit. Well, I'm gonna let Makoto know!" Ann decided. She pulled out her phone and quickly dialled the number for our advisor. "Hi, Makoto? There's something we forgot to tell you! So- huh? Okay," Ann agreed. She pulled the phone away and pressed speaker. Clearly Makoto wanted to say something to the rest of us, so we shuffled a little closer to the phone in order to hear what Makoto had to say.
"Hello? I hope you remember we have finals next week. Yusuke and Morgana excluded, of course," Makoto pointed out. Oh yeah, summer holidays would be coming up soon, so we had our end of term exams to deal with. "If you wish not to stand out, you had best not get bad grades, okay? That is something I simply would not be able to overlook as student council president!" Makoto warned. I stifled a chuckle at her words, primarily because of how similar they were to Morgana's warnings. "For now, behave and concentrate on your studies. We can have fun once finals are over… understood?" Makoto insisted. She then proceeded to hang up on us.
"I think we probably should have expected that to happen," I pointed out. Ren nodded his head in an almost sage like manner, while our two blonde members seemed very disappointed by this.
*Persona 5 Royal*
Returning home, my phone almost immediately went off which caused me to jump slightly since I hadn't expected that to happen. I quickly pulled the object out to see what was going on in the Chat, I doubt anything could have gone sideways so soon after we had separated, but it was best for me to be sure about whatever it could be.
Makoto: This reaction is incredible. I'm honestly shocked to see it.
Yusuke: It is only natural that people are surprised. Even the police were struggling to catch him.
Ann: Yeah. By the way, how did everything go with the principal, Makoto?
Makoto: Yes, everything is fine, don't worry I didn't mention a word about any of you.
Makoto: I essentially told him I was unable to find any information.
Ren: I hope you didn't get into trouble for that.
Makoto: He attempted to threaten me regarding withholding a letter of recommendation, but such a thing doesn't bother me now.
Makoto: I've graduated from my role as the exemplary honour student.
Makoto: From now on, I'm going to be more honest with myself.
Natsumi: And you know that we have your back, no matter what.
Makoto: I do. It's a refreshing feeling.
Ryūji: What're you gonna do now? Wanna stay with the Phantoms?
Makoto: That's my intention, assuming it wouldn't be any trouble.
Ren: Welcome aboard.
Ryūji: It'd actually be a big problem if you didn't stick with us.
Yusuke: We should allow her to join us. It would be greatly convenient.
Makoto: Well then, I hope I can continue getting along with all of you.
As glad as I was that Makoto was now on board and we'd taken down Kaneshiro, the knowledge of this other Metaverse user, the sudden spike in popularity and the danger of being hunted down was causing me a bad case of nerves.
*Persona 5 Royal*
Given that we needed to make sure to study for the exams, primarily making sure that Ryūji and Ann would be able to pass, it was decided it would be best for us to meet up somewhere nice and that led to the agreement that we would meet up at LeBlanc. We all gathered at the intersection – bare Ren for obvious reasons – and made our way to the café, we stepped inside and found Ren stood there with the apron he wore when helping out hanging around him.
"Sup? We're here to hang out," Ryūji greeted. I almost felt the urge to face palm at his words since it was so ridiculous that he would forget the actual reason that we had decided to come here especially with such little time left before we could actually safely study; bloody Kaneshiro and his time limit meant we didn't have as much as we did last year… well as much as me and Makoto did last year.
"That's not why we're here! We need to study for finals!" Ann reminded. At least Ann had kept her sense about her which was a massive relief to me; I proceeded to look around and found that apart from those of us in the Phantoms, the place was entirely deserted which caused me to furrow my eyebrows because I'd never seen LeBlanc without Sōjirō stood behind the counter or in the kitchen making curry.
"Hey Ren, where's Boss?" I wondered. It was such a weird thing that I really did feel the need to ask, there was just something so off about being in LeBlanc without the gruff barista being anywhere to be seen; I hope that he was okay since he had seemed to be a little off lately and I couldn't get anything out of him without seemingly like I was prying into his privacy. And after the way he respected mine on Tanabata, I felt even worse trying to do that.
"He headed out a little while back, something about a printer," Ren answered. That was very strange to be frank, I didn't think Sōjirō had much of an interest in technology, he always seemed like quite an old-fashioned individual; not meant in an insulting manner more as an acknowledgement of how he tended to be. He had a phone and that always seemed to be enough for him.
"Odd," I commented. Ren just shrugged his shoulders, apparently also confused with the way that Sōjirō had just ended up leaving the building, I suppose this did leave us with plenty of privacy to discuss anything that might be related to our Phantoms' activities; a heavy sigh echoed behind me and I turned to see Makoto with a complicated expression on her face, as if she didn't know what to make of this.
"Why am I here too?" Makoto wondered. I think there was pretty much a good reason for Makoto to be here, after all given the difficulties I had previously when exams had rolled around, I was going to take advantage of just about anything I could in order to make sure that all of the Phantoms managed to pull through; Makoto happened to have more knowledge than we did and I figured that was a good reason to bring her along to this.
"Because it'll be a miracle if I can get Ryūji to study. You will make it a possibility. I'm more confused as to why Yusuke is here," I admitted. Seriously, out of all of them, Ryūji was definitely the worst in attempting to get focused on the material, Ann was slightly better, but I'd still need all hands on deck to keep Ryūji attuned to the task we needed to complete.
"I thought it best to offer moral support," Yusuke stated. Fair enough on that reasoning as it was probably good to have more people around who might be able to provide us with a helpful perspective. "Besides, I do also need to study and LeBlanc as the perfect atmosphere," Yusuke added on. I nodded my head in understanding since it made sense his exams would also be coming up.
"I couldn't ask the last time I was here… but what is this place?" Makoto wondered. I was intrigued by the fact that Makoto had actually been here before, I looked at Ren who didn't seem surprised by the revelation Makoto had been here before; Ryūji turned around to face the older girl and threw his thumb over his shoulder to point at Ren.
"It's where this guy lives," Ryūji answered. Makoto was surprised by this bit of information which made me wonder if Makoto didn't know about the situation that surrounded Ren's current issues; I was wondering as to how this was going to go. "He's got complicated circumstances," Ryūji added on. Makoto seemed puzzled by those words which meant she really had no idea what was going on.
"I can explain those in a bit," Ren insisted. Makoto nodded her head in understanding, but I wasn't looking forward to hearing this story for the third time. "As for this place, it's a coffee shop primarily, but we do also serve food, our speciality is curry," Ren explained. Ren then told Makoto about what happened to him, I watched as Makoto's eyes seemed to go wider and wider while her skin went an extremely pale shade of its' usual colour.
"That's… that's terrible…," Makoto stated. That was pretty much the only way that it could be summed up, it always chilled me to know that there was someone that horrifically self-centred about things that he would be completely fine with tearing an innocent child away from the only home that he had ever known.
"Ann, Natsumi, Yusuke, and me are pretty much the same too. I mean, it's not as bad as this guy's though. There's just something we can't ever put up with. That's why we all became Phantom Thieves," Ryūji stated. It was pretty much the reason why our hearts had rebelled, each of us were put into unforgiveable situations that we refused to simply sit down and accept them; we fought back and found something quite irreplaceable, or at least I did.
"Hey, don't forget me!" Morgana yelled. He was quite right, none of us could forget Morgana, we would really be lost without him to help us in the navigating of a Palace and learning everything that we could about how to operate within the Metaverse; he was our trusty healer and navigator, Ren reached over to gently stroke Morgana in order to soothe the human turned cat.
"I know, I know. We're all part of the team," Ryūji stated. I didn't like the way that he seemed somewhat dismissive of how he had forgotten to include Morgana in the grouping of us being pretty much the same. "By the way, Makoto, ain't there someone you can't forgive either? Like, a heart you wanna change?" Ryūji wondered. Makoto merely smiled and brushed a lock of her hair back behind her ear.
"That's a secret," Makoto answered. I was surprised that there was actually someone beyond Kaneshiro that Makoto wanted to deal with, the only other person I could think of that she might want to stop would be the person who caused her father to be taken from her and Sae-kun. A look appeared on Ryūji's face as he focused on our advisor with quite a bit of intensity.
"Ooh, there's someone like that? You could just tell us, you know. You don't gotta be so cold," Ryūji claimed. Now that just wasn't right, Makoto didn't need to tell us everything about what she was thinking if she didn't want to and the fact that Ryūji just completely ignored whatever feelings or reasons Makoto had to keep such a thing quiet, if she even had anyone at all.
"Ryūji! If Makoto doesn't want to tell us then she doesn't need to tell us," I chastised. I made sure to put my best scowl on and it worked as Ryūji took a small step back with rather wide eyes, at least he was taking on what I had said and seemed to be ready to back down. "If you ever want to tell us Mako-chan, know that you can," I reassured. It was best to make sure Makoto knew this, in response she gave me a small smile, but it seemed to carry a trace of uncertainty.
"That aside, do you have any intention of studying for the exams?" Makoto questioned. The smile was gone and she focused her attention on Ryūji with laser like intensity; I furrowed my eyebrows at the sudden change in conversation flow but kept my mouth shut, it made sense that we should actually focus on the reason as to why we were standing in LeBlanc in the first place.
"Not really," Ryūji admitted. I started to massage my temples at this response as I tried to think of something to say that might convince Ryūji to go through with the studying that we really needed him to do, because now that he was friends with Makoto along with me and Ren, Ryūji having bad grades would be really suspicious.
"It's fine if I leave then?" Makoto questioned. I snapped my head over to Makoto with my mouth gaping in shock at her words, I wasn't exactly sure how the others were reacting to this because I was now desperately thinking of ways to convince Makoto to stay with us; even if Ryūji wouldn't study, the rest of us would and we could definitely benefit from having her here to help us.
"No, no, I'm just joking! Please teach us," Ryūji begged. He had slumped down as he made that plea; in response to his words, a rather satisfied smile came onto Makoto's face and I grinned. Way to go Makoto! She had successfully made sure that Ryūji would be joining us in the study group. Once Ryūji rose up, we moved to a booth and settled ourselves down along with all of the revision materials.
"Hmm, what was this term? It's 'phobia' so it's a fear of some kind," Makoto muttered. Ann proceeded to lean over to look at the phrase that Makoto was describing; without seeing it myself, I wouldn't be able to translate it, but Makoto was right that the inclusion of phobia indicated it was a fear of some kind, it was the what that was the real question.
"I think it's a fear of open spaces. You don't hear it that often, though," Ann explained. Makoto seemed surprised by this, but Ann did have quite a good grasp of the English language, so we could definitely rely upon her translation of those words into our native tongue. "Leave vocabulary and long sentences to me. I suck at proper grammar, though," Ann advised. A smile came onto Makoto's face at those words, though I couldn't exactly tell why.
"Even if we study English, it's not like I'm gonna use it in the future," Ryūji stated. Everyone turned their attention to Ryūji with varying looks as to what they thought about his words; honestly while plenty of people would claim such a thing about some school topics, I felt like they were actually wrong since they were making one assumption that was pretty wrong of them to make.
"You don't know that. None of us know what the future holds, so we don't know what we'll need," I pointed out. Ryūji didn't seem placated by my words, but it was the truth; the future could change in any number of ways and we didn't have the ability to see how it would flow. Who knew what skills we would actually need to have in the future at some point.
"When it comes to Ryūji, his Japanese is questionable too," Morgana commented. That got the expected response from Ryūji which caused me to rub my nose, they were certainly snapping at each other a lot more lately and it looked like even Ren was getting tired of it from the look that he ended up shooting the Wind and Electricity wielders.
"Explain the writer's feelings? What point is there in that?" Ann wondered. At least this was probably something that I could actually answer, seeing as my dad was a literature professor, so I had quite a bit of experience with coming to understand the messages that people were trying to put into the stories. It wasn't actually that dissimilar to music to be honest.
"They want to know if we're understanding the message that the story is trying to tell. Take Mikoto Nami's works, Shadowed World and Fall of the Goddess, both of those are about staying true to yourself and not being led astray by others," I explained. Ann seemed to take onboard my words from the way she tapped her pen against her cheek with a thoughtful expression on her face.
"It's impossible! I can't memorise all these formulas… ain't there a good way of cheatin'?" Ryūji complained. He stretched up and slumped into the chair, I highly doubt there was any such way of cheating and knowing Makoto she would never allow such a thing to happen if she could help it. Makoto allowed a sigh to escape from her as if she was handling something that was quite taxing.
"Let's take a break," Makoto suggested. That was probably the best for us to do; we couldn't just revise over and over again without eventually hitting some kind of a wall that prevented us from absorbing the needed information, Ren put his pen down and seemed to be preparing to stand up, though I wonder what our leader could possibly be planning on doing.
"I'll get some coffee going for brainpower," Ren decided. He managed to get out of the booth, although I noticed Ryūji disgusted expression at the possibility of drinking the coffee. "I have a soda for you Ryūji, don't worry," Ren reassured. Ryūji relaxed at those words, Ren moved to the back of the counter, as he went Ren flicked the TV on, probably so we could focus on something else.
"And that was the follow-up report on the suspect, Kanehsiro. Now, Akechi-san," The reporter spoke. Hearing that name drew everyone's attention, I was also mentally counting down to when Ryūji would go and explode over something that the high school detective was bound to say. "This case is said to be the result of the Phantom Thieves' actions, but in actuality, is this true?" The reporter questioned.
"Considering how a calling card was scattered about, I believe there's no mistaking that," Akechi agreed. The countdown was getting shorter now and I could already see Ryūji tensing up. "The question is what the Phantoms actually did," Akechi admitted. Well, that explanation was not about to be coming anytime soon, I knew that for certain. "If they tampered with a suspect's heart, it casts doubt on the authenticity of any confession," Akechi claimed. Hey! That confession is one hundred percent authentic and the police will confirm it with all the facts Kaneshiro is likely to admit.
"So then, by tampering with hearts, the Phantom Thieves are fabricating crimes that may not exist?" The reporter asked. There was no fabrication even occurring, not one little bit, everyone knew about the phishing scams if people actually pay attention, the police were already investigating the situation, so they knew it was a real crime.
"We can't deny the possibility. There's no doubt that the Phantoms are exposing hidden injustices in society. However, if this is done by sidestepping the law, their way of thinking is very dangerous," Akechi explained. I was starting to get just the faintest bit annoyed with this whole thing; they didn't seem to be thinking of the fact that Kaneshiro was a criminal. He had been hurting people and no one could do anything about it at all.
"So, in a way, they're outlaws," The reporter surmised. I wouldn't be surprised if people did think that we were people who committed crimes, that was likely to be how people decided to see us, especially since we weren't exactly going around showing our faces and our methods were rather unknown to people; frankly I wanted to keep it that way, but I didn't want people to see us as dangerous monsters.
"Yes. They're no different than the criminals they target. This cannot be overlooked," Akechi agreed. All that got was an 'I see' from the reporter, I wasn't exactly sure how to feel about this, but Ryūji definitely did have very concrete feelings as he turned back around with a thunderous expression on his face.
"'I see' my ass. Why the hell're we bein' treated as the bad guys?" Ryūji demanded. Probably because Akechi had made it his goal to bring us down which meant that to his perspective, we were the bad guys since we were his opponents. I doubt that we could do anything about this without putting ourselves in danger so there seemed to be very little reason to get all wound up about this situation.
"Just let them say whatever they want," Ann advised. That was probably the best thing for us to do since it was much safer to us to simply ignore them. "More people are starting to understand that what we're doing is right, after all," Ann pointed out. There was that; the more that people supported us then the better that we'd be especially if they continued to ask us for help in dealing with requests.
"When I'm walkin' around in town, I hear a lot more people talkin' about us too. And the forum's been full of hype! Do you think we made it big time?" Ryūji admitted. People certainly had started to bombard the Phan-site with much more frequency, though more so in the case of comments rather than actual requests, they were still a little rarer.
"Don't get pompous over dealin' with some street thug. Save it for after we deal with a bigger target," Morgana chastised. I wasn't exactly sure we could call Kaneshiro a street thug, he was definitely a whole lot more given the crime wave that had been engulfing Shibuya due to his actions; but Morgana was right that we needed to keep our heads on straight so that we could continue to work at our best.
"We just gotta take down a bigger one, yeah. That was the plan from the start, anyways!" Ryūji reminded. The real question was exactly who we could possibly start considering as our next target, taking down Kaneshiro had been incredibly huge, so we needed to find someone who could actually be even bigger than that and was still guilty of criminal actions, along with being in possession of a Palace.
"True, it may be best if we start thinking about it," Makoto agreed. The clearer an idea of our next step that we had, then the better it would be for us when the time finally came for us to actually get back to our Phantom Thief activities; it might be wise to narrow it down to occupation first and then start focusing on individuals who worked that job and fit our profile.
"I bet we'll find one in no time. The wind's blowin' in our direction and everything! I feel like we won't lose to anything right now," Ryūji boasted. I did not like the way that Ryūji seemed to be thinking after we managed to bring Kaneshiro down, it was getting very worrying; it was actually starting to resemble the way that Mishima was acting and that was deeply unsettling.
"To paraphrase 'pride comes before the fall'. Don't get too big of a head or we'll be in trouble someday," I warned. The rest of us would need to keep him in line so that he didn't end up doing anything reckless on this side; otherwise, we might end up in a situation similar to the one we had been in with Makoto, except it might be much worse.
"We'll decide on that eventually. We need to overcome our exams first," Makoto insisted. I was glad that Makoto was attempting to get everyone to focus on what was more important at this moment in time; Ren came back over and set down the drinks of coffee that he had prepared. "Now then, break time's over! Let's get back to-," Makoto began.
"That reminds me! The celebration party. Weren't we gonna do it after exams?" Ryūji cut in. Makoto confirmed this, but I honestly thought that Ryūji was just stalling so that he didn't have to do more studying, Makoto wasn't going to let that happen. "Where should we go? I feel like I'll study better if I got something to look forward to," Ryūji insisted. If that really worked, then I suppose there was no reason to stop the conversation.
"The last one was a buffet at a hotel. We haven't gone anywhere since," Morgana pointed out. That was only because we didn't exactly have the funds at the time to provide a big party since there wasn't a chance that Sayuri was going to be sold, Yusuke deserved to preserve the painting in whatever way he wished to do so.
"Hm!? A buffet?!" Yusuke questioned. He seemed rather intrigued by the idea, but if he had been through the things that we had been at the Wilton Hotel then I doubt he'd be so fascinated, it was just annoying and I never wanted to go anywhere near that place again if I could help it; none of the others seemed to have caught on to Yusuke's focus at what our first celebration had been.
"Where would be good?" Ann wondered. She seemed to be thinking rather hard about what the celebration could be for us, hopefully this would be sufficient motivation for both her and Ryūji to pay attention to the exams that we needed to power through. "Hey, what about fireworks!? A firework festival!" Ann suggested. Everyone seemed to perk up at hearing those words and focused on Ann.
"Oh yeah, it's that season, huh!" Ryūji agreed. He wasn't wrong as a firework festival did typically happen around this time of year, I don't know why people thought to do such a thing in summer but it was probably one of the best times for it to be done; it would be nice to spend some time hanging around with my friends without any of the stress that came from my birthday having a chance to potentially sour it.
"That sounds good to me," Makoto spoke up. It seemed to be that everyone was seemingly on board with the idea of attending the firework festival for our celebration, there could certainly be worse things that we might end up doing; though I had yet to speak to my opinion, I turned to focus on one of the ones that hadn't said anything yet.
"It's hard to ignore a buffet, but I'll take the beauties of summer," Yusuke complied. The painter was probably going to be very disappointed if we ever informed him of what had actually happened at the buffet. "Still, I demand that we feast during the festival as well," Yusuke insisted. I think I had an idea of what had caused Yusuke to say those words and well… I wasn't exactly pleased to hear this had happened.
"Are you out of money again?" I questioned. Yusuke proceeded to look to the side, as if concerned about whether to answer me or now, with a loud groan I dropped my head into my hands and mentally counted down from ten so that I kept my composure; once done, I lifted my head to focus on the others. "I've got nothing against it," I agreed. Better to focus on something that I could actually control unlike Yusuke's deplorable spending habits.
"Do you guys own a yukata? Will you wear a yukata!?" Morgana questioned. I looked at Ann and Makoto who exchanged their own looks, there probably wouldn't be anything against going to the festivals in our yukatas; I'd have to make sure that mine actually fit or look at getting a hold of a new one just in case, since I wasn't able to do that on my birthday, honestly it might be nice to dress up a little for the celebration.
"Doesn't a fireworks festival sound good? You think so too, right Ren?" Ryūji wondered. All of us turned our attention to our leader who also hadn't spoken as to whether he thought this was a good idea, I don't think we wanted anyone to feel uncomfortable or have a different idea; luckily from the smile that was on Ren's lips, I think that he would be willing to agree to attending the firework festival.
"It certainly sounds like it'll be fun, we have something like that at home when the summer festival is over," Ren explained. There was a happy gleam to his eyes and I smiled as well, it was really good that Ren would be able to look forward to something without ending up sad as he recalled the fact that he'd been taken from Inaba.
"Alright, fireworks festival it is! Let's look for a good one!" Ryūji declared. That was probably the one issue, we really needed to find out if there was a festival going on within easily commutable distance so that we could actually go to the display without running the risk of it interfering with anything else that we might have planned for the next day.
"Studying comes first though. I won't let you off it you fail any of them. Are we clear?" Makoto firmly reminded. We definitely needed to refocus ourselves on the studying without getting distracted; I adjusted my position and pulled social studies closer to my so that I could find some way to take this information on board given it was my weakest subject.
"Y-Yes ma'am," Ryūji complied. I was, now more than ever, glad that Makoto had joined the team, because at least she would be able to keep the blonde punk properly focused.