(Takes place between September and October. Spoilers for main story events and Kawakami's Confidant.)
"Candidate found."
"FOR REAL?!" Ryuji exclaimed, bolting up in his chair. Fortunately for the rest of the Phantom Thieves, their hideout of the empty Cafe LeBlanc meant nobody would turn their head at the sudden outburst.
"W-Wait, you're saying-" Ann began, her mouth agape.
Akira pushed up his glasses, remaining silent. The gang had initially planned to head to Mementos to clean up some lingering requests following their successful mission at Okumura's palace. After all, until Haru's father fully recovered, as was typical of a target whose heart had been stolen, they had the time to kill. The group had taken to the habit of leaving the Meta-Nav open for names as they talked during their meetings, just in case they got a lucky hit.
Sadayo Kawakami was not what Akira considered a 'lucky hit.'
"It looks like your homeroom teacher has more on her mind than she lets on," Yusuke added, not quite as phased as the rest of the group (as he had never met the woman himself, being a student to a different school.)
"But that can't be right!" Makoto said, staring at the phone incredulously, as if she was waiting for Akira to unveil some prank he had pulled on everyone. "Can it...?"
Akira did not have a sly grin or a wave of the hand for her. He merely kept his concentrated expression, frowning at the phone, his thoughts unreadable to the student council president.
"But she always seemed so nice..." Haru added sheepishly. "What could Kawakami-sensei have a palace for?"
"I know, she always seemed pretty lax n' stuff," Ryuji said, scratching his hair.
Ann played with her own hair in turn. "Now that I think about it, she has been taking more and more days off. We keep getting substitutes to stand in for homeroom. We probably see more of them than her now..." Ann faced Makoto. "Any clues, Ms. Student Council President?"
Makoto frowned. "All I heard from the other teachers was that her absences were just marked down as 'personal reasons.'"
The group matched Makoto's frown. That was an ominous sign if there ever was one. Without seeing much of her as of late, there was no telling what might have caused Kawakami to become so distorted as to create a palace.
Ann's bright blue eyes met the smoky grey of her leader's. "Akira...?"
Akira picked up the phone. "Shujin Academy."
"Candidate found."
The rest of the Phantom Thieves turned to face Akira as he kept his eyes locked on the screen. "Woah, you got that on your first try?" Futaba called out.
"I mean, it's not that impressive," Ryuji interjected. "Like, that's the first thing I would have guessed, too."
"Oh, really?" Futaba poked her tongue. "I guess it can't be that impressive, then."
The blonde-haired boy shot a glare at the little hacker gremlin that was bugging him, but Morgana intervened before they could get into a shouting contest. "Joker, are you sure you're up for another palace, just after our last one?"
The talking cat had a point - Okumura's palace had been the most strenuous and taxing thus far. It would be a safer bet to leave things be for now, stay with the requests in Mementos, and come back to it after the team as a whole had recovered. However, Akira was never fond of the 'safer bet' and he couldn't sit idle when his close confidant and trusted friend was seemingly in danger of becoming twisted by their own desires.
"Yeah," Akira announced, something alighting in his eyes. "We need to look into this."
The rest of the Phantom Thieves nodded in turn. The decision was unanimous.
"Now we just have to figure out what Kawakami-san perceives the academy as," Yusuke said. "I fear this might take a while."
***
Yusuke was not wrong. It seemed like hours had passed as the Phantom Thieves tried suggestion after suggestion to crack the final piece of the Kawakami puzzle. Most of the members were now distracting themselves with their phone, blending coffee at the counter, or fast asleep in Futaba's case.
"Did we try 'army base' yet?" Ryuji shouted from behind the counter as he rummaged for some soda in the refridgirator.
"'Army base.'" Akira said to the phone.
"No candidates found."
"'Army base?'" Morgana said. "Seriously?"
"Sh-shuddup, I used up all my good ideas, like, an hour ago!"
Makoto scrunched her nose in frustration. "What about 'lighthouse?'"
"No candidates found."
Akira pinched the bridge of his nose. This was going to take all day.
"Futaba-chan, please keep your feet off the seats," Haru asked politely.
Futaba begrudgingly moved from her favored 'gargoyle on a roof' posture to the super-lame 'normal person' variety. "Ugh, what's the big deal? My boots aren't that dirty."
Haru kept her composure. "This is Akira's residence and a respected cafe, Futaba-chan, not a playhouse."
"Candidate found."
Everyone seemed to shoot upwards with a jolt as the surprising sound from Akira's phone.
"Wait, what?" Ann exclaimed. "Kawakami-sensei sees the school as... a 'playhouse?'"
Akira's expression darkened. I don't like the sound of that.
Morgana frowned. "Interesting... We can read into that however we like, but we won't know for certain what it's about until we get there. Joker, you want to check it out tomorrow?"
Akira nodded. The sooner they sated their curiosity, the better.
***
The group of teenagers convened around the gates of Shujin Academy as the last couple of students walked away, the school day now over. Akira brandished his phone before them, the Metaverse Navigator app open. After checking that the coast was clear, Morgana eyed the rest of the thieves.
"Everybody ready?" Morgana said.
Everyone nodded, and with that, the team stepped into the Metaverse. Their jaws fell open as Kawakami's palace stood before them.
The school that was once made of sturdy brick and metal was now something from a children's playset, simply scaled up to match its proportions. Tacky plastic and wooden building blocks were the elements of the school now on display. The gate itself seemed to be made of some sort of fuzzy wire - Joker recognized it as the kind you would give a small child to twist and bend for amusement. The rest of the 'city' around them was much of the same, more akin to a model town resized to its normal proportions than an actual living and breathing cityscape. The gang could smell sawdust and wet paint in the air, no doubt the lingering effects of whatever had created this 'model world' they now inhabited.
As if to further sell the cognition of a playset, the group could spot other 'people' walking to and fro, but with wood or plastic instead of flesh and unblinking eyes. The 'residents' were merely life-sized action figures and dolls, their robotic movements and lifeless expressions unnerving to say the least. The dolls paid the intruders no mind, even despite the Phantom Thief costumes indicating that Kawakami, wherever she might be, saw them as a threat.
"Man, this is creepy..." Oracle muttered, already summoning her Persona as both an aid in their mission and as a means to shield herself from the weird doll people in case any of them got too close.
"Is this how she sees the students..?" Queen watched as a wooden boy marched out of the school's front entrance, a smile painted on his otherwise blank face. He seemed utterly oblivious to how fake the world around him was (or how fake he himself happened to be.)
"W-We can play armchair psychologist later, guys!" Skull yelled, clearly uncomfortable at the implications. "Let's just find Kawakami-sensei's shadow and we can ask her herself!"
Fox examined his katana, ensuring that it would be sufficient for the task at hand. "And then I presume we will have to face it in battle?"
Joker and Panther shared a nervous glance beneath their masks. Neither of them were exactly eager to face their own teacher in a death-defying battle, but it was how these heists usually ended up going.
"Um, if I may ask..." Noir said, glancing at their alien surroundings. "Is this a city that looks like a model, or is this a model city and we're small now?"
The group stopped and gave thought to the unsettling possibility that they had been perceived to be so tiny in the subconscious eyes of Kawakami.
"Well," Mona said, bouncing from one paw to the other. "We'll have to investigate to find that out. Let's go, Joker."
Joker twirled his dagger between his fingers.
I have a bad feeling about this...   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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