Chapter Text
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 26: - The Phantoms
“Mmmm… so good…,” Sakamoto moaned. A look of joy upon his face as he dug into the food, it was the promised Children’s Day and the five of us were currently sat within what seemed to be an extremely fancy restaurant filled with people dressed in expensive clothing. We were cushioned within plush leather seats and sat in front of a table that was stuffed with food and peppered with drinks.
Sakamoto was dressed in a purple hoodie with red lining and the number '777' on the back, a black shirt with a yellow frowning face, dark pants and yellow sneakers. Takamaki was wearing a lavender blue button-up shirt under a red and white varsity jacket with an S symbol near the front bottom on one side. She has a white skirt, black leggings and red Converse shoes. She also wore big red round earrings. Amamiya was dressed as I had seen him on the day of my family’s death while I wore a baby blue long sleeved blouse, a knee length emerald skirt with a pair of green slip on canvas shoes.
“No wonder Ann-dono chose this place!” Morgana chimed. The cat was sat between me and Amamiya with the two of us occasionally slipping him pieces of the food; speaking of the food, it was rather exquisite and considering who my uncle was and what he had access to, it was quite a surprise that I’d found a place that sold such lovely food, true I didn’t have access to all those places but I’d been to a small amount so I knew the quality of the ingredients and skill of the chefs.
“Of course, it’s good. This is a famous hotel after all,” Takamaki commented. That was quite true, the Wilton Hotel was rather well known to those of us in Tokyo – it was why I had stressed the question of being sure to Takamaki when we got here – it was lavishly decorated but in a way that was tasteful and rather subdued. “This dinner buffet is famous even among part timers,” Takamaki revealed.
“Part timers?” Amamiya asked. He lifted his hand up from having fed Morgana a slice of fish and he was shooting Takamaki a curious look; it was no surprise that he wouldn’t be aware of Takamaki’s job given how new he was, plus the fact that all the time we spent together was focused primarily on beating Kamoshida and ensuring that he confessed.
“Huh? Didn’t I tell you?” Takamaki asked. She seemed genuinely confused, Amamiya simply shook his head to confirm he had been told nothing. “I do modelling work for magazines. Only once in a while, though,” Takamaki explained. The innocent perusal that Amamiya gave Takamaki was followed by a nod, likely a sign that he agreed with the image of her being a model. “Oh yeah, I heard that the police are coming to interview some people at school,” Takamaki revealed.
“Good. It’s about time something was done,” I stated. Over the two days of waiting, numerous news stations had run the Kamoshida arrest story with several interviews from Shūjin students, faces hidden but the uniform made it obvious, as a result my uncle had been pestering me about it; luckily, I kept my cool and simply told him I knew nothing about the incident.
“Yeah but… mine and Ren’s names are gonna come up for sure. People’re spreadin’ all sorts of rumours about us and Kamoshida. Maybe even Ann or you’ll come up,” Sakamoto pointed out. True, but it wasn’t like there was any evidence of the actions we’d taken so the police would have nothing more than speculation. “But we got ‘em pumped up! I keep hearin’ stuff like, ‘The Phantom Thieves really stole his heart!’. I think most people don’t believe it, but some of ‘em actually seem grateful. Look at this,” Sakamoto insisted. He stopped eating and pulled out his phone causing all of us to lean over.
“The Phantom Aficionado Website?” Amamiya asked. His tone was inquisitive and even I was curious about the thing Sakamoto was showing off, especially when there seemed to be several comments posted, all of which were expression relief, gratitude or congrats towards us for our actions in stopping Kamoshida; several of which Takamaki read aloud. “Who created this?” Amamiya asked.
“Don’t know. It’s pretty cool, huh?” Sakamoto asked. Takamaki seemed surprised, in a good manner, at seeing all these thanks which she expressed as feeling strange as she had just been desperate to remove her own issues; honestly, seeing these people so relieved by the removal of that beast caused my heart to ache in an odd manner. “Yeah,” Sakamoto agreed. Amamiya was smiling softly at the comments we could see. “Hey… what do we do now?” Sakamoto asked.
“What do you mean Ryūji?” Amamiya asked. Before we could get a response, Takamaki shot to her feet and revealed this place had a time limit which caused Sakamoto to jump up – question forgotten – as they both took off, leaving us to watch the rest of our stuff and promising to pick something up for us. When they returned, I couldn’t help but stare at Sakamoto’s dish which was filled exclusively with meat and Takamaki’s plate was no better since all it contained was desserts. Sakamoto taunted her about the calories that she was currently stuffing away in the form of cake only for Takamaki to snap about never eating this cake again… which was probably true since it costed all of us the thirty-thousand Yen that Amamiya had got for the medal.
“Um… I recall a promise to get us some food. Where is it?” I asked. Sakamoto proceeded to push a single plate piled with stuff as he admitted to just grabbing a hold of some beans. “Beans?” I questioned. There was fish, sweets, meat, rice, and all other sorts of food… and he simply picked up BEANS!?! What the heck kind of thinking was that?!
“There were some pretty bizarre things there too, so we got you a variety of those,” Takamaki added on. That didn’t make me feel any better in my silent opinion. “Fried bananas, preserved eggs and some kind of beans,” Takamaki listed. What…? Did me, Amamiya and Morgana really look like people who’d eat that kind of weirdness? Even Morgana seemed stumped by the fact that more beans were picked up. “We put so much on the plate that it got all mixed up, but it should probably still taste good,” Takamaki reassured. But it didn’t work.
“Right,” I stated. I grabbed a hold of my purse and swung it over my shoulder before rising to my feet. “If you’ll all excuse me, I’m going to get some proper food,” I decided. No way was I eating a mountain of beans and some weird as heck foods that had been randomly picked up; I’d at least want to eat all the decent food this place had to offer, it was highly unlikely that I’d ever come back here again.
“Hang on, I’ll come with,” Amamiya insisted. I looked over and saw him slipping Morgana into his bag which got thrown over his shoulder; the other two were so absorbed in their meals that they probably didn’t hear Morgana ordering them to look after our stuff, of course we couldn’t miss the order for fish to be picked up first by the cat.
“Have you heard, my dear?” A snobbish voice asked. We were at the fish table when that voice came, I looked up and saw a woman dressed in fine clothing talking to another woman. “The news about that Kamoshida fellow was absolutely dreadful,” The woman commented. Yet, her tone of voice spoke as if she didn’t really care about it at all.
“Ah, right. That teacher at Shūjin Academy, caught doing such indecent acts. Shameful, really,” The woman beside her spoke. Like the woman who had first talked, she was dressed finely but her tone made it seem as if she was speaking about dirt instead of something quite serious. “And they still haven’t managed to solve those horrible psychotic breakdown episodes, have they?” The haughty woman added on. “I wish they wouldn’t let themselves be distracted by such a tawdry scandal,” The woman insisted.
‘TAWDRY!’ I mental screamed. My posture growing incredibly rigged at that word, peoples’ lives had been ruined by that man and here someone was with not even the decency to talk about it as it was, a horrific nightmare; the psychotic breakdowns might be a terrible thing that wrecked more peoples’ lives, but if it was some kind of illness there wasn’t much anyone could do, but Kamoshida could be stopped… to be dismissed as something cheap, well that practically spat on the suffering of the children who he had victimised.
“Perhaps it’s a sign of how peaceful this country is. I honestly pity those poor Shūjin students though,” The arrogant woman stated. Oh, how false that sounded, Morgana softly commented about how Kamoshida was the talk of the town but this whole thing had disgusted me; the haughty woman suddenly seemed to notice us, so Morgana insisted we quickly grab some food. “Tsk, how did children like that end up in here? I certainly hope they didn’t bring friends. I prefer my meals to remain hooligan-free, thank you very much,” The arrogant woman stated.
“And we prefer our meals to remain snob-free, so kindly stay away from me and my friend here. We’ll all be happy then,” I cheerfully commented. The cheer in my voice was fake as was the smile on my face, the women gaped at me in shock, but it was clear they couldn’t do anything in response; Amamiya on the other hand grabbed my arm and pulled me away from the women before they could come to their senses.
“Glorious as that was Chiba-san, maybe don’t do that again?” Amamiya pleaded. I looked at the boy and saw that two emotions were at conflict within his eyes; I could understand his reasoning, but I couldn’t hold my tongue back in time at hearing how dismissive they were to the suffering of people and the insult they had hurled at Amamiya and the other two.
“What’s so bad about kids coming to enjoy a buffet?” Morgana asked. The cat and wriggled around in the bag so that his lustrous blue eyes could stare out at us while he remained hidden so that it looked like it was just the two of us chatting so long as no one hovered around long enough to overhear his meows. “Hm, I wonder how the other people here are reacting to the news. Let’s get some more food and listen in,” Morgana insisted.
To comply with this, we simply slid over to the desserts table that was right next to it, sat at the centre were three giant fountains of what I presume were chocolate, it was rather tempting to just grab a glass and fill one for each flavour. However, Morgana started to wax about the sweets until Amamiya poked him as subtly as possible to get the cat to shut up or we’d be unable to listen in.
“News travels quick. It’s already all over the internet. You know, the story about how Kamoshida got his ass kicked by some world-reforming heroes,” A man’s voice commented. Peeking out to find who was talking, I dropped my head back down when I realised it was a computer company president who was under my uncle’s thumb; I did not want anyone here getting the news of my presence back to him – this man was one of the few who knew what I looked like despite his reclusive nature – and then my uncle would pester me.
“It doesn’t sound like a serious story to me. Some of the details are pretty far-fetched,” The woman he was speaking to responded. She sounded serious, level-headed and not someone who got swept up in fabs, kind of like someone I’d once been close to… that made my heart ache a little as I hadn’t thought of that friend I’d lost in a long time, but now those memories kept pecking at my mind along with others.
“Don’t worry about it. We just have to do what they tell us to do. It’s all rumours made up by school kids, anyway. If it’s gripping news, who cares if it’s not true?” The company president commented. He liked to spin lies as much as my uncle did, it was horrible to listen to him speaking in such a manner about something that should be treated seriously and honestly; we had been the only thing that saved those poor people suffering at Kamoshida’s hands.
“So, they don’t believe themselves, but they’re making up stories to make the Phantom Thieves seem real,” Morgana seethed. Not that he could be blamed since we put in a lot of hard work and now to hear someone was using us… well it gnawed at me. “And they’re doing this in front of the actual Phantom Thieves,” Morgana gloated. Okay, that was actually pretty funny, even Amamiya cracked a smile at this.
However, it seemed Morgana’s preening got the man’s attention, so I ducked my head further and proceeded to start filling up on desserts, I had nowhere near as huge a sweet tooth as Takamaki – seriously that was a lot of cake! – but I didn’t mind having more of it than other stuff. We filled up on sweets and the man proceeded to head away to a meeting after calling Amamiya weird, thankfully Amamiya had blocked me from his vision.
We headed over to the meat dishes next and Morgana started to get distracted once again, this time I proceeded to prod the bag to get him to shut up, especially since there seemed to be an incredibly observant man standing at this table. Compared to the reclusive company president, this man was rather muscular and dressed within a sharp suit, he gave off vibes of, do not mess with, and I was trusting my instincts on this.
“When you really look at it, he’s just an ex-athlete who overestimated himself. He should have just accepted his lot in life and quietly done his job as a teacher,” A man spoke. Woah… someone whose opinion I actually agreed with?! Was the world ending, especially considering I’d been rather annoyed by the other two conversations we’d eavesdropped on so far.
“It’s not even an incident we can take seriously. The whole story is pretty ridiculous,” Another man commented. Can’t take seriously?! Ridiculous?! People had their lives ruined by this man! And these people thought that wasn’t something serious!? What? Just because of the calling card we’d placed? We were the only ones doing anything! But that didn’t diminish what he had inflicted upon children! The trauma they suffered and were still suffering was very real!!!! “We should probably look into it, but we can also just let the low-ranking scrubs handle it,” The man added on.
‘Ah yes, don’t dirty your precious hands!’ I sneered. Thankfully my blank mask was firmly in place after hearing those snobby women chattering away as if it was nothing, so I was able to keep myself composed. However, at that moment Amamiya changed, he suddenly pushed himself back and I noticed a kernel of fear in his eyes; concern pulse through me and I slid my hand over to lightly press against his left hand as a method of reassurance.
“Look into… I guess they’re investigating Kamoshida. They don’t sound very enthusiastic about it though,” Morgana commented. At that moment, one of them proceeded to notice us, this jolted Amamiya out and he set about gathering some meat, but the slight tremor in his hand and arm gave away the panic he must have been feeling. They talked about someone arriving soon and how not to keep him waiting before departing which caused Amamiya’s trembling to subside.
There was only one last place for us to stock up on food and eavesdrop upon some conversation, so we made our way towards the rice dishes. Once more, Morgana got distracted by the food but a swift poke from me and Amamiya, one after the other caused the cat to finally shut up about his current obsession with fine food.
“So, the rating for the news were really that good?” A female voice asked. Casting a glance out the corner of my eye, I saw a fancily dressed young lady talking to an elderly man in a suit, from the question it was likely that the man she was speaking to was involved in a television studio… oh blasted it! I quickly ducked my head, pretending I couldn’t see them as the person she was speaking to was another one of my uncle’s lackies. “It was because it was about that teacher who sexually harassed his students, huh? Was it, Kamoshida?” The girl pestered. At least she sounded repulsed by the incident.
“It’s all about how you frame it. You’ve got to cater to the idiotic public,” The TV station president commented. I sucked in a deep breath through my nose as I clenched, then relaxed my right hand and then it clenched again. “Ratings go up when you show them crude, sensational news and make it easy for them to understand,” The man added on. It was no wonder he practically licked my uncle’s shoes, these two were of the same depraved mindset.
“How can he be so insensitive? A student almost killed herself because of that Kamoshida,” Morgana mourned. These people didn’t care about that, it might as well be a world away what happened at Shūjin, so long as it didn’t affect them directly then they were more than happy to twist around the events as if they weren’t awful reality.
“By the way, do you think these ‘sudden changes of heart’ might be real?” The fancy girl asked. The man was about to answer but seemed to be distracted by something, so we quickly set about grabbing food at Morgana’s insistence. “So, because he had a sudden change of heart, he just confessed to all his crimes?” The fancy girl pushed. She sounded doubtful, but really that was no surprise, the man laughed it off and then walked away to a meeting.
“A sudden change of heart, huh? I suppose I can’t blame her for seeing it that way,” Morgana commented. That was true, not many of the students believed in us so it would be a sudden change to everyone. “But it’s shocking… so many of the adults here don’t seem like nice people,” Morgana commented. How true, these were the kinds of people who stepped on those they looked down on, uncaring about their pain, just so long as they themselves were not inconvenienced then it didn’t matter who was suffering.
“Yeah, they were all kind of cold for the most part. That woman with the second man and the girl with the last seemed slightly decent, but not by much since they didn’t really speak back against it,” Amamiya admitted. He shook his head sadly, the terror that had struck him when listening to those police officers had faded now. “They just didn’t seem to care at all about the suffering and pain,” Amamiya lamented.
“Let’s head back now, we’ve got some decent food,” I encouraged. We returned to our table and sat down but it was certainly with some moroseness on my part; I wasn’t even really paying attention to Sakamoto as he spoke to Amamiya as I went through the motions of eating my food; honestly my mind was spinning, two of my uncle’s supporters were here and for a meeting… I didn’t like the sound of that and just wanted to keep my head down, I hoped he didn’t come in here if he did show up.
Shaking my head, I pulled myself out of my distressing thoughts and focused on my food which was almost gone. However, now with my mind back I spotted something that I had previously missed. That being that while Takamaki happily continued to practically breath in cake, all three of the boys – cat included – were looking as if they had just overcome some incredible trial but it was still causing them a great deal of pain. Before I could ask what was going on, the two humans stood up and took off with Amamiya grabbing his bag to take Morgana with them.
“Did I miss something?” I asked. I hadn’t realised how much I had zoned out while thinking about the possibility that my uncle would show up, I wanted him as separate from the other facets of my life as much as possible, so I was rather confused by the sudden need for all three boys to just suddenly shoot off like there was some kind of emergency… they had looked a little pale and in some degree of pain.
“Oh, I just suggested that Ryūji help Ren and Morgana eat all their food. I’m too full to have done it and you were kind of out of it Natsumi. They got so full that they were practically bursting their stomachs,” Takamaki explained. “I’m going to get a seasonal tart,” Takamaki declared. She stood up with a radiant smile as I proceeded to raise a solitary eyebrow at her words.
“I thought you said you were full,” I pointed out. All Takamaki did in response was give me a bright smile as if completely unconcerned with the look of disbelief that I was shooting her. “Do you have hollow legs or something?” I questioned. Or maybe being a model was much more exhausting than it looked, either way Takamaki was practically bouncing away; with a shrug I stood up and proceeded to follow after her to the desserts table.
There were still some sweets I hadn’t tried yet and the seasonal tart did look delicious so we each got one of them with Takamaki moving over to select some more desserts. It was kind of amazing how much of an appetite she still possessed, maybe she had hollow legs and an extremely high metabolic rate, either way she seemed quite happy to be picking out some more; in fact, she was a lot happier nowadays than in the past few months.
“Alright! Now I’ve got everything-,” Takamaki celebrated. She had just secured the tongs around a dessert when a woman beside her who was loudly complaining about something proceeded to move backwards; the sudden jarring caused Takamaki to lose her grip on the pudding looking confection and it caused the plate that the woman carried to tip from her hand and land on her dress.
“Hey! This was expensive!” The woman snapped. Well tough, it was her own fault since she had decided to jerk backwards so suddenly without looking at what was behind her. “You need to be more careful!” The woman exclaimed. What? Takamaki hadn’t even moved, as for the blonde girl, she seemed surprised and was silent as she blinked her blue eyes as if having difficulty comprehending what was happened while a worker came over to the shrilly screaming woman. “This girl just pushed me!” The woman accused. Oh hell no!
“Excuse me ma’am, but you bumped into her,” I spoke up. I moved around so that I was stood in front of Takamaki while keeping my voice steady and my expression blank, the woman looked to be seething in response. “She was standing there doing nothing. You lurched backwards without looking around. You’re the one who needs to be more careful,” I pointed out. This hag had no right to accuse Takamaki of something like that.
“Who raised those girls to be like that?” A voice questioned. I jerked my head in the direction but couldn’t find the source, all I could find was that the gathered crowd of people were looking at us as if we were the problem instead of this woman who had caused the mess by her own actions; it was this hag’s overreaction that was the problem.
“What are they doing here? Girls like that don’t belong,” Another voice commented. A small sound came from behind me, I reached back and gripped a hold of Takamaki’s hand which she quickly entwined with my own, the model already suffered because of ignorant classmates and she definitely didn’t deserve to suffer because of the worthless strangers that were currently surrounding us; why the hell did they think we didn’t belong here? Because we weren’t dressed in stupidly expensive clothing or decked out in an obscene amount of jewels.
“Don’t they have chaperones? Those children came alone?” A third voice questioned. I was sixteen and would be seventeen come July, Takamaki was likely in the same kind of boat or seventeen already but that didn’t mean we needed chaperones, neither of us were five and shrieking our heads off; that person clearly knew nothing about children if they thought someone of our age needed a chaperone to go out for food.
“I’m sure they’ve been spoiled rotten by their parents. Children today!” A fourth voice stated. My hackles rose instantly at those words and I went completely rigid, how dare they! These people knew nothing about us and dared to imply it was our parents’ faults! A tension appeared in the grip and I looked back to see a wide eyes Takamaki who was gazing at me in concern, she grabbed her plate and I seized mine as the two of us walked away from the crowd and back to our table.
“Are you okay?” I asked. My voice had taken on a soothing note as I abandoned my plate of sweets with Takamaki doing the same thing, her blue eyes were practically swimming with tears and she tilted her head back while covering her eyes with both hands; a soft shake of head was my answer. “They were wrong you know that, right. They had no right to insult you the way that they did,” I softly reassured.
“It’s not that,” Takamaki spoke. Her voice cracking slightly as her hands moved down slightly to reveal her eyes. “It’s just, I try so hard to ignore things like that because I hear it all the time but, I just… for once I couldn’t just ignore those hateful comments,” Takamaki admitted. Her voice sounding so sad and it matched the look upon her face. “Besides that, I also got you involved in it,” Takamaki added on. A new note had appeared within her voice as a pained expression came across her face.
“And you think I care?” I wondered. Takamaki nodded her head and I realised that she must have been scared, scared that I’d react negatively to the inclusion of insults that those people had decided to sling out. “I’ve long since stopped caring what people say. Only that parents comment got to me and you know the reason behind that. I’m more concerned with how you’re feeling,” I answered.
“That made me worry, actually. I thought you were going to find that guy and slug him for what he said, even though he probably hasn’t got a clue, but he still would have deserved it,” Takamaki commented. Footsteps were moving closer to us, but I didn’t bother turning around, not caring if it was a worker or another prissy guest. “What took you so long!?” Takamaki snapped. A quick glance back showed it was actually the boys and I saw Sakamoto quickly growing angry.
“Easy! Easy,” I soothed. I turned back around and gently grabbed Takamaki’s hands and began to sweep my thumbs over her knuckles. “They have done nothing wrong Takamaki-san, there’s no reason to take it out on them,” I reminded. Takamaki swallowed thickly and nodded her head as she looked down, seeming to be ashamed of having snapped the way that she did at them.
“What’s wrong Ann-dono? You were fine when we left,” Morgana pointed out. The boys had gathered around and I readjusted myself so that I could see them, all three had sat back down and all three of them were gazing at Takamaki with worry on their faces; I was glad Sakamoto had tossed away his rage so quickly upon realising how Takamaki wasn’t feeling well.
“Yeah, sorry you guys. I had a run-in with some woman a few seconds ago,” Takamaki admitted. She proceeded to wipe away her tears, but she also seemed to be slumping down in her chair, as if trying to avoid being spotted. “She bumped into me, but then said it was all my fault when she dropped her plate,” Takamaki explained. I noticed tension was present in Sakamoto by his hiked shoulders and Amamiya was also tense, but this was more difficult to spot.
“Sounds like a real bitch,” Sakamoto commented. An apt description for the woman, she had been truly horrific to deal with, the unnecessary explosion she had tossed towards Takamaki and complete twisting of actual events were horrible things, all because she couldn’t find it in herself to apologise for making her own mess.
“Natsu-chan tried to de-fuse the situation. But everyone, the restaurant workers and other customers, they were all looking at us with this disapproving expression,” Takamaki added on. I blinked in surprise at the nickname she had used for me, it had been a long time since someone called me that, but it was equally nice to hear it again; I turned my attention to the others.
“It’s no surprise they think we’re out of place here,” I admitted. This place was so ritzy, full of people who had more money than they probably knew what to do with; but that translated to an unfounded arrogance that they were superior to us, they naturally looked down on four ordinary children – and a cat – who had never been here before, I bet these people came whenever they could manage.
“It always feels like this,” Amamiya hissed. A dark look had appeared within his grey eyes, I wondered if his hometown had made him feel outcast as well, or if he was just referring to how the lot of us didn’t fit in with Shūjin as a whole; either way, he was right that it did feel like there wasn’t a place we could possibly fit in… well except for right here with these people I had unexpectedly found.
“Hey Morgana, Natsumi,” Sakamoto called. I quickly focused my green eyes on the blonde as Morgana proceeded to poke his head out of the bag. “Anyone could have a Palace, yeah?” Sakamoto asked. I didn’t know where this conversation was going but it was likely something important, Sakamoto’s expression was as serious as when we’d been planning to bust into Kamoshida’s Palace.
“My, look at that table,” A female voice commented. Amamiya immediately threw his arm over Morgana to hide the cat from view since we had technically smuggled him into the restaurant, I used my long hair to cover up the glance that I was shooting the woman, she happened to be stood with a man and both of them were staring at us. Sakamoto was glaring at their backs while Takamaki and Amamiya kept looking forward, away from the couple.
“Come now, pay them no attention. I’m sure they must not normally have the chance to eat such exquisite food,” The man insisted. Well, that was quite true as we would probably never be able to come here again, unless we happened to win a lot of money or get famous, but the tone that he spoke with was quite disparaging and after that hag, I really didn’t need to be hearing anymore insults.
“I can only imagine what their parents must be like,” The woman sneered. I felt a cold rage pressed itself upon my face as my eyes narrowed into a glare, Sakamoto proceeded to vocalise his rage at the insult as the clicking of shoes indicated they were moving away from us; where did these people get off insulting our parents? Just because someone acts a certain way doesn’t mean it’s their parents’ fault! Some people are just nasty. I hissed in a deep breath and tried to relax, which was actually quite difficult.
“Let’s find somewhere to talk that’s more private,” I insisted. From the looks on their faces, all of the humans present agreed with my words and Morgana let out a soft agreement; we all gathered up our stuff as me and Takamaki finished off our desserts and with that done, we would all be able to leave this place, such a nice outing had turned so awfully sour.
I led the group out of the restaurant and we proceeded to wander around for a bit, doing our best to avoid the other customers since none of us wanted to get involved in another debacle. Eventually we reached a quiet area with windows set on two of the walls that overlooked the sprawling expanse of Tokyo beneath our feet, I came to a stop and turned to face the others with Takamaki leaning against a pillar as the two boys stood to the side with Morgana back in Amamiya’s bag although his head was poking out.
“To answer your question Ryūji, yes. Anyone with a strong distorted desire can have a Palace,” Morgana confirmed. I’m glad that Morgana had remembered what conversation we’d been having before that horrid couple had proceeded to interrupt us with their crass comments; I wanted to know what Sakamoto could possibly be up to with bringing up this question.
“Same for them havin’ a Change of Heart if their Treasures gets stolen?” Sakamoto questioned. He was really taking this seriously, his expression and posture showed that, his brown eyes were flitting between me and Morgana as he knew we were the only ones who’d have the answers that he needed to hear; although in this case, I was the only one with the answer.
“Yes, that’s what happened in the only case I have as evidence,” I confirmed. It was a curiosity as to where Sakamoto could be going, but I trusted the boy would bring it up himself if we simply gave him the time to do so; Sakamoto looked like he was absorbing the information that we’d given him and Takamaki suddenly adjusted her position to face the blonde.
“Why are you bringing this up all of a sudden?” Takamaki asked. Her blue eyes had lost their sad cast as she now had something more important to devote her concentration to, but I hoped she’d be okay after we finished this conversation given what we had discussed before the boys proceeded to show up. Sakamoto suddenly gained a dark expression as Amamiya reached up to massage his temple as if he had suddenly gained a painful headache.
“We had trouble earlier too. These selfish shitheads who just looked down on everyone else. Slammed me out of the way of the elevator because they were ‘in a hurry’. Pushed me even further back so I couldn’t get in. I was just wonderin’ if we’d be able to change those kindsa people too,” Sakamoto admitted.
“You mean… you wanna continue as the Phantom Thieves?” Takamaki asked. Her eyes were wide as she stared at Sakamoto while I felt my heart skip a beat slightly, I had never thought that they’d willing decide to keep going with this without knowing for certain that there was nothing Palace around; I had held the small fear in my heart that they would walk away from this or be too scared to try again.
“I’ve been thinkin’… we put a lot of work into changin’ Kamoshida’s heart, but nobody believes in the Phantom Thieves. Plus… those guys who had no other choice but to just deal with it are thankin’ us. Us, of all people,” Sakamoto explained. True, nobody did believe in us not that they could be blamed for the lack of belief and yet the people who knew the truth of Kamoshida were now free to live their lives however they felt and they were expressing that gratitude towards the – to them – faceless people who had saved them.
“But… that means we’ll have to fight Shadows again,” Takamaki pointed out. This was the thing that I was sure would have driven them away, fighting for your life wasn’t something that endeared an activity towards others; I could do it for… actually I didn’t know why I had taken so easily to the fighting bit, but none of these were the kinds of people who could, even hair-trigger temperament Sakamoto. I turned around to look out the windows we stood surrounded by.
“There are more people,” I admitted. I could feel everyone’s eyes on my back as I stared out the window, from this high place – through my Second Sight – I could see the Palaces; they were fainter at a distance so I couldn’t determine more details beyond the colour, but I could see several of them. “People who possess Palaces and will continue hurting people,” I added on. Turning around, I faced the four people I found. “It took me a long time to find out Kamoshida’s keywords to enter with my eyes. But the Meta-Nav changes that, I can get in easier and probably quicker. I am going to continue to stop these people. I can’t just leave others suffering. You guys don’t need to keep doing this with me. I won’t hate, resent, despise or even be angry. This is a dangerous thing, but I can’t look away… not anymore,” I admitted.
“Natsumi,” Amamiya spoke. I was surprised to hear my first name from the boy as he moved slightly closer to me with Takamaki and Sakamoto doing the same thing. “You told us that you had previous experience with Palaces. I think it’s right that you tell us about it. I know it must be painful but… I think that we deserve to know what happened to you. It was clearly something bad, I don’t think you’d be so driven otherwise,” Amamiya pointed out. And he was right, so steeling my nerves, I drew in a deep breath ready to tell them.
“Her name is Anais Ouvrard. She was… my singing teacher,” I confessed. I never thought I would bring up the ability I possessed to other people, but I doubt they would abuse it the way that Ouvrard or my uncle had intended to. “I used to love singing, but she made me hate it. It felt like… my voice didn’t belong to me anymore. She was obsessed with turning me into a singer, but a singer whose voice belonged to her. Her sin was Attachment. She trapped me and I… couldn’t be in that cage anymore,” I revealed. Surprisingly, a few hiccups choked out of my throat and once finished, I covered my mouth to suppress the sobs that threatened to escape me. Although the tears slipped down my face and hand.
I don’t think I realised that I had such emotions choked up inside of me regarding Ouvrard and her treatment of me. I’d always focused upon my uncle and what he did to me, perhaps that was a silly mistake to make; I’d ended up burying my emotions towards that woman. Warm hands appeared on several places: shoulders, cheeks and my free hand as a warmth started to circle around my legs.
“I know what that’s like. To feel as if something that should rightfully be mine is coveted by someone else. You don’t have to hide that away Natsu-chan,” Takamaki soothed. Her fingers swiped over my knuckles in reassuring, constant patterns as Sakamoto happened to be almost massaging my shoulders which seemed to be relieving the tension there. “I’m not stopping. You’ve done this alone for too long, it’s time that stopped. Besides, if we ignore people who are in trouble, I’d go back to being the same as I was before,” Takamaki decided.
“Hell yeah! We’re not stoppin’ now!” Sakamoto declared. He was being loud, but the words were vague enough that if anyone was listening in, they’d have no clue what we were talking about. “I’m not gonna let you hog all the fun Natsumi!” Sakamoto added on. A small snort of amusement escaped me and Amamiya’s hands delicately trailed to grip my hand and pulled it away from my mouth.
“Just like you Natsumi, I can’t simply ignore wrongs being committed. Kamoshida would never have been stopped and something tells me it was the same with Ouvrard. They’re the kind of people who have more power than the people they brutally victimise, they’re the people who will get away with anything and everything because the police can’t or won’t touch them. But we can stop them, especially if we work together,” Amamiya encouraged.
“Don’t think I’m walking away from you guys now that I’ve found you. I’ve got something for all of us to look forward to,” Morgana practically purred. He had mentioned Mementos, whatever he wanted to do down there it, it could end up helping us in the end; Amamiya released one hand while still gripping my hand with the other, he wrapped an arm around Morgana and lifted him up to set the cat upon his shoulders, making Morgana feel more included. “You’re under my tutelage. There’s nothing we can’t accomplish as phantom thieves!” Morgana declared.
I was relieved that they were sticking around. True, my fights through Ouvrard and Kamoshida’s Palaces had been difficult when alone, but they weren’t something I couldn’t overcome, but to know that they were sticking around – sticking with me – even though they had no need to… well it made my heart swell with a buoyant feeling that almost brought more tears to my eyes.
“Taka-,” I began to speak. However, a sudden tightening on my hand caused a small squeak to cut me off, I looked down and found Amamiya’s hand placid, while Takamaki’s grip was white knuckled tight, it didn’t hurt but the shock had been enough to cut me off. “Yes Taka-,” I began to speak. But the hand tightened once more, which cut me off once again.
“Oh no. If we’re doing this, no more surnames! You’ve got to use our first names, got it Natsu-chan. You’ve already done it to me a couple of times, so just do it consistently from now on,” Takamaki insisted. I blinked my eyes in surprise… I couldn’t recall ever having used Takamaki’s first name beforehand, but she seemed rather adamant that I had. I took in a deep breath and focused on the four individuals around me.
“Ann, Ren, Ryūji, Morgana. Thank you,” I admitted. All three of them proceeded to smile at me as Ryūji rested an arm over my shoulders, surprisingly content to do so. “If we’re a team now, we should decide upon a name for our… social activities,” I insisted. The group looked at each other, so I raised my fingers to massage at the bridge of my nose. “If we’re doing this, we’re being smart about it. No openly talking about this. Chat, yes. Homes, yes. Anywhere else, no unless we’re sure it’s safe,” I insisted. The trio looked at each other and proceeded to nod their heads in understanding, but I wondered if they truly understood it.
“Heh… even if you guys are still fledglings, this means we’re an actual organisation now,” Morgana stated. Ann agreed to this description of them, only me and Morgana – at least I hope so – had plenty of experience with the Metaverse, so we’d essentially be handholding these three through the next Palace, but if we got to practice in Mementos then they’d be able to get stronger much faster which would save us all some time.
“Alright! It’s settled! We’re gonna catch all these shitty adults by surprise and make ourselves known to the world!” Ryūji declared. He definitely hadn’t understood my earlier words about being discreet, but at least the vagueness was still there so no one would be able to understand what we were talking about; but if this kept up, then it was going to become a serious problem at some point.
“Are you okay with continuing on as our leader?” Ann asked. Her blue eyes were focused on Ren who proceeded to look at her with surprise gleaming in his eyes, he likely hadn’t expected this to end up happening; but it was no surprise to me, Ren had proved his capabilities quite well during our foray into Kamoshida’s Palace.
“If that’s what all of you are okay with?” Ren responded. Why wouldn’t we be okay with it? Ren had more than once proven how capable he was at being a leader, how he took all the information, all the different compatibilities of our little group and his own unique flexibility to create battle plans that would work while allowing us individual autonomy and trust in our capabilities; I could think of no one more perfect to guide us.
“No objections here! I can’t handle all that responsibility stuff,” Ryūji stated. That was quite true, I would be very worried if we had Ryūji as a leader, while I could trust him to support and stay loyal to us and his emotional insight would be helpful alongside his motivational energy, his temper and straightforward approach to things might end up getting us in trouble if he had been the one leading us.
“Where’s my say in this?” Morgana complained. That was a bit hypocritical of him given that he had been the one to initially nominate Ren for the position of leader when Ren had been terrified of accepting it. “But Ann-dono made the recommendation, so I’ll allow it,” Morgana agreed. Well, at least he wasn’t going to be complaining about it, I’d have to thank his devotion to Ann for that.
“I see no reason to change it. You’ve done a fine job already. Besides, should you need aid then me and Morgana will be there to support you,” I reassured. Ren looked at each of us and proceeded to nod his head in agreement to the decision that he would be the one to lead us in the up coming battles, all Morgana and I could do was stand at his side and support him as best we could.
“As for a name… I went with Phantom Thieves of Hearts last time, but don’t you think a real name would be cooler?” Ryūji insisted. I actually liked that name, it perfectly described who we were and it had a certain type of mystique to it, after all if I didn’t know about the Metaverse and Treasures then I’d be very curious as to how stealing hearts was even possible, even with the evidence of Kamoshida’s turn around being presented to me.
“Ooh, I’ve got it! I want it to be something both cute and luxurious sounding,” Takamaki claimed. I looked at the girl, wondering what she was going to say. “Let me see, how about The Diamonds,” Ann suggested. This was shot down as it being too like a little league baseball team name, which I had to agree with, even if diamonds were a rare thing that thieves stole by an enormous frequency, the way it sounded was a little off to how the name Ryūji had chosen sounded.
“Well then, here’s my suggestion,” Morgana spoke up. Oh, this should be good, seeing as Morgana seemed to be our phantom thief expert. “How about Tilefish Poêle?” Morgana suggested. I blinked in confusion as Ryūji only asked for clarification as to what that could possibly be. “That’s what I ate earlier. It’s commemorative, no?” Morgana explained. This was also shot down, a bit more aggressively than Ann’s, but I had to agree. I took a breath in order to let my opinion be heard since we seemed to be hitting dead ends.
“You know, even though that… letter, was awful, I really liked the name we were given. And, even though it sounds arrogant given my Persona’s name, if we want to shorten it then we can just use Phantoms,” I suggested. They proceeded to look at each other as I lightly scratched at the back of my head, awaiting their response with no small amount of trepidation.
“The Phantoms. I actually quite like that name,” Ren agreed. All of the others proceeded to let their agreement be known and it caused a smile to appear on my face. “It isn’t arrogant either Natsumi, you just took Ryūji suggestion and put a new spin on it. I actually think it perfectly fits with our intentions,” Ren reassured. A warmth started to blossom under my skin at that.
“Well, now that the name’s set, who’s our next target?” Ann asked. A good question, even though I could see the Palaces that occupied Tokyo, I couldn’t see who they belonged to, I would need to find their physical location first of all but that could take some time; there was also the risk of the Palace Ruler being made suspicious by a group of teenagers randomly wandering about near their house.
“There are tons of rotten adults and all. Why not just stick to targeting big names?” Ryūji suggested. Yes picking a rotten adult was obvious, but even if they have a certain degree of fame, there wasn’t likely to be any evidence of the crimes they committed since it would be like with Kamoshida, getting buried by other people; we’d have to rely on rumours and small bits of news, if only there was a way for us to gather that information in one place without people’s lives being endangered.
“Like a celebrity? Or a CEO?” Ren asked. Those were the kinds of people Ryūji meant, but my thoughts had immediately leapt to politicians before violently quashing that thought, I didn’t want to go into those people’s heads unless it was absolutely necessary so sticking to someone like the people Ren had suggested was likely better for everyone’s mental health. Besides I never saw a Shadow over my uncle and he was the worst, if he didn’t have one then whoever did was likely more monstrous than I had any imagining of… scary thought really.
“Yeah, something along those lines. If we go after some bigwig, it’s gotta get on the news, right? Don’t you think more people would believe in us if we did that?” Ryūji wondered. Getting people to believe in us, to see that someone was willing to stand up against those in power who abused it, it might just cause their own Will of Rebellions to flare, not enough to get Personas but maybe enough for them to stand up for themselves against those who would hurt them.
“That’s not a bad idea… for you, Ryūji,” Morgana teased. It was an excellent idea, Ryūji took offense to this comment but he didn’t seem overly agitated if I was honest, these two poking fun at each other given their wildly opposing personalities would likely become a staple of our group; but I’m sure nothing bad would come of it, these two weren’t acting out of cruelty after all.
“True. If we become better known… we might be able to give courage to a lot more people,” Ann agreed. A smile was on her face, likely thinking that maybe she could save more people from ending up like Suzui or herself, I’m sure there were people stuck in bad enough situations out there, ones that might even mirror mine. “I don’t really like the idea of just picking someone out of the blue though,” Ann admitted.
“Let’s narrow it down to someone we can agree on then,” Ryūji suggested. Definitely a necessity, if we couldn’t all agree on someone to go after then we’d just end up dissolving into bickering and time wasting over who to agree upon, if we were given a selection of individuals whose crimes were known to us and could narrow it down to one individual then that would certainly save us some energy.
“Hm, so we need a bigwig we decide on unanimously,” Morgana commented. That was essentially what we needed, but the main problem still remained of getting knowledge about their crimes, some people could be really sneaky so that even the victims weren’t aware of the crimes being committed against them. We had to find a source of reliable information, or even multiple sources to properly corroborate information, in order to decide upon our targets.
“I like that unanimous decision part! It’s like we’re making some kind of pact!” Ann exclaimed. However, I immediately spotted a very big problem with this decision-making process, I don’t mind choosing our target in a unanimous fashion as it would solidly ground us and our alliance, but if it bled over into other things… well at that point it became a lot more dangerous than these guys might realise.
“But also dangerous,” I spoke up. Everyone proceeded to look at me as I threaded my fingers together. “If we make all our decision as a team, then things could go downhill in dangerous situations where we might have different ideas on how to react. I’m fine with the decision being unanimous when it come to our targets, but in battle or other dangerous situations, I suggest Ren has overriding powers to ensure our safety. In other words, if he orders it then we do it, no matter what,” I suggested.
“That’s a good point, but I’ll at least try to limit it to extremely dangerous situations. I’ll also make you guys aware when I give such an order,” Ren agreed. The other three nodded their heads in agreement, I’m just glad our lives would be in trustworthy hands when we ended up in a dangerous situation, even if Ren was limiting himself at least we had something that would protect us.
“Now then, this is the official formation of the Phantom Thieves organisation!” Morgana declared.
*Persona 5 Royal*
Returning home, I pretty much collapsed onto my bed due to the sheer exhaustion I felt over the events of today. Good food, sour surroundings and an extremely big decision was made; it had been a mentally and emotionally trying series of events, but something good had come out of it. A chirp from my phone had me opening up the Chat.
Ryūji: The Phantoms, huh… I’m liking the sound of that!
Ann: I hope we can really help people.
Natsumi: All we can do is try Ann-chan.
Natsumi: How people react is all up to them.
Ann: I’m curious about that Phantom Aficionado Website too.
Ann: I wonder who made it.
Ryūji: No clue.
Ren: A victim of Kamoshida’s maybe?
Ren: That seems the most likely.
Natsumi: I’m betting it’s Mishima-san.
Natsumi: I went to middle school with him and he was skilled in computer sciences
Ryūji: Seriously?!
Ann: Oh wow, that’s unexpected.
Ren: I wonder if it is him.
Ren: I suppose this would be him making up for leaking my criminal record.
Ren: Not that I blame him. Kamoshida gets that pleasure.
Ryūji: More importantly, you see the survey on there?
Ryūji: I dunno how I feel about it.
Ann: Yeah, there was this approval rating thing, but it was only at six percent.
Ren: We don’t even class as an urban legend.
Natsumi: I’m sure that will change.
Ryūji: Yeah, I bet it’ll go up tons if we keep taking down big targets.
Ryūji: It’s pretty damn exciting if you try and think about it like that.
Ann: You know, you’re actually right.
Natsumi: But until we find a target, let’s keep training.
Natsumi: It won’t do to slack off.
Ann: Um… how do we do that?
Natsumi: We’ll look for a target tomorrow.
Natsumi: If we can’t find one, then me and Morgana will show you.
Natsumi: Until then, take some time to relax and fully recover.
Ann: Well then, let’s keep working hard from this point on!
Ren: Definitely!
Natsumi: Oh!
Natsumi: I took a picture!
Natsumi: Here you guys go!
Natsumi uploaded a picture.
Ryūji: Where are you Natsumi?
Natsumi: Behind the camera.
Natsumi: Obviously.
Ann: Next time, include yourself.
Ann: It doesn’t look right without you.
Ren: Yeah, you should include yourself in the next shot.
I grinned slightly at the words before closing the Chat, even though we would be facing more danger in our pursuit of this cause, we would have each other to rely upon. And who knows, maybe we’ll stumble across more Persona wielders.