~Monday, April 18th~
Morning
"Bip! Someone's at the door," Sophia chimed.
"Thank you," Akechi said, dumping a plate of untouched avocado toast into the trash. Sophia had made the various chores that maintained his idol image much smoother from updating his food blog, managing contacts, and keeping track of social media trends.
Akechi opened the door to his austere apartment.
"Sae-san, isn't this a surprise." Akechi said, to the woman at the door. She wore an elegant black business suit and had long ash brown hair. "Good Morning."
"You haven't checked in with the Special Investigation Unit."
"Straight to business then?"
The prosecutor glared at him.
"I gave my eye witness report to the police on the scene then I had to check into the hospital for my dislocated shoulder."
"Yet you had enough time for a TV interview? Not good enough. As of last week I'm now leading the investigation into the Mental Shutdown cases and I expect prompt communication from my subordinates."
"So I've heard, allow me to offer a belated congratulations."
"Don't change the subject. You were at the epicenter of a Mental Shutdown; we have a lot to discuss."
Sae Nijima was one of the few investigators involved in the Mental Shutdown cases who were genuinely competent. The prosecutor didn't treat Akechi like a child or a nuisance instead Sae expected the same thing from him as she did from everyone else,
perfection. Which meant raving about a magic subway filled with ghosts was a surefire way to shoot his own career in the foot.
"I'd love to chat but I can't be late for my first day. I have a week's worth of studies to catch up on after all." Akechi said, flashing her an apologetic smile. "Perhaps we can catch up after class over some sushi?"
"I'll drive you to Kosei, we'll discuss the case in the car. Unless you seriously expect me to believe you're going to take the train?"
"You'll treat me to sushi one of these days."
"Unlikely." Sae began to walk away but paused at the door. "Do you have company over? I heard another voice."
"
Bip! Hello! I am Soph—" Akechi shut off his phone.
"Who was that?"
"Ah…" Akechi said, silencing his phone. "Are you familiar with my food blog?"
"No."
"Well, I'm considering branching out into tech reviews that was… a beta for an app I was given as a courtesy from an old case."
"That new
Emma app?"
"
Emma? Yes, yes it is," Akechi replied, racking his brain for tech news to weld his lies together. "Its development under
Maddice was stalled until recently but you can look forward to a summer release."
Sae narrowed her eyes. "Is that so…"
"It must be big news if even you've heard of it Sae-san,"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing, nothing!"
"Don't get the wrong idea. I only know of the app due to the SIU recently overseeing a corporate merger for
Madicce," Sae said, leaving the apartment. "Now hurry up or you'll be late."
The moment his superior was out of earshot Akechi let out a sigh of relief. He was lucky he kept up to date on trends or else Sae would have sniffed out his lies like the legal bloodhound she was.
Akechi pulled out his phone. "Sophia, remember what we discussed, only respond to my voice."
"Sae Niijima required assistance." Sophie responded.
"I see." Akechi said. Sophia was a curious program. As far as he could tell it had only one memory, a single directive: "Be humanity's companion.". That overriding prerogative made the AI rather naive, Sophia freely offered a peek at its own indecipherably complex source code. However the vague directive made Sophia fully capable of ignoring Akechi's commands. Sophia was not bound by the Laws of Robotics.
Did Clerval program Sophia? The data Sophia had on Mementos and Personas was obviously planted by that thing. Yet Akechi somehow doubted it, Clerval didn't treat Sophia as if it was his own creation and from what little he could understand of Sophia's source code it didn't match up.
There was too much that Akechi didn't know, couldn't even begin to know. The detective hated the feeling of being strangled by his own leads but to access Mementos he had no choice except entertaining Clerval and Sophia's whims. If it meant getting closer to the Black Mask then Akechi use whatever means necessary.
Putting aside his thoughts for the moment, Akechi prepared himself for a stressful ride and made his way to the parking lot.
Sae Nijima left no openings for small talk. Every minute of the commute the prosecutor grilled Akechi on every minute detail: exact time frames of every event, the breakdown victim's condition, and a record of every person on the train. By the time the car had arrived at Kosei Academy Akechi felt more tired than if he rode his bike.
"Thank you for the ride, Sae-san," Akechi said, reaching for the door.
Click. The door locked and Sae Nijima stared him down.
"Hifumi Togo and Yusuke Kitagawa testimonies lined up with yours but I discovered details omitted from the report sent by the police to the SIU. What I found was incomplete but there were stories of a strange subway and the Grim Reaper.
Akechi grimaced. "I didn't think bouts of hysteria were worth the SIU's time. I assure you Togo-san, Kitagawa-san, and I merely waited in the dark for rescue. If it should please you next time I'll double your workload with unreliable civilian irrationality."
"You're on thin ice."
The car unlocked and Akechi stepped out. The moment his feet touched the pavement, Sae Nijima drove off without another word.
The nerve of that woman, Akechi, glowered before catching himself,
not in public. However it was an undeniable fact that Hifumi and Yusuke were liabilities whose every word threatened to throw him into a psych ward.
Social Links be damned, Akechi would have to deal with them.
~Kosei Rooftop~
Afternoon
In contrast with Akechi's commute, the school day had gone perfectly to plan. Background research on his teachers and classmates ensured that Akechi knew exactly how to ingratiate himself into the school's social hierarchy. A few idle platitudes and well placed words regarding his last escapade were all it took to foster the Detective Prince as the darling of Kosei.
Now it was only a matter of dealing with one last loose end.
"Akechi-san." Hifumi said stepping out onto the Kosei's rooftop.
Akechi had easily managed to procure a key from a teacher with the excuse of needing a private area to take calls for cases. It was the perfect meeting place: private, easy to access, and most of all secluded.
"Togo-san, good to see you again."
"We need to talk about
that place."
"What place are you talking about?"
"Don't treat me like a fool! I know what I saw."
"Togo-san I talked to Kitagawa-san earlier and we came to the conclusion that the combination of head trauma and stress are likely to blame." Akechi replied evenly. Yusuke had been easy to convince, most people are when they want to be wrong. When faced with the impossible, apathy was the easy cure, Hifumi just needed the right push.
"Kitagawa…" Hifumi said, her voice dripping with venom.
"I think it's best if we put this in the past, don't you?"
Hifumi tapped her phone.
Beginning Navigation.
The rooftop melted away into a dingy metro station,
Mementos.
"How did you—without Sophia?" Akechi startled, both at the change of scenery as well as outfit, once again finding himself clad in mask and princely attire.
Hifumi flashed her phone revealing an app with a glowing red eye on the screen before opening her photo library: images of the Reaper, Mementos, and Akechi Goro in costume.
"Checkmate."
Akechi glanced at Sophia with yet more questions.
"What's your game?"
"Shogi. I outmaneuver people like you everyday. Don't bother trying to confiscate my phone, everything is uploaded to the cloud. If this happened to go public, then my testimony from the Mental Shutdown incident won't be seen as "hysterical", would it?"
Akechi scoffed. "This is hardly mate, to the public those photos are nothing but CGI, hoaxes made to slander a
real celebrity."
"But to the Special Investigation Unit?"
Akechi's hand drifted to his sword. "Where did you hear that?"
"This morning, your driver Sae Niijima."
Akechi couldn't help but clap. "I suppose the story of a highschool prodigy being hounded by the media for her looks would be something you of all people would recognize."
"The SIU is a public office, A few searches was all it took for me to put the pieces together."
"Well played. However, you overlooked one crucial detail, I have only reputation to lose while you on the other hand…" Akechi said, slipping off his mask. Herlock formed behind him and the butt of his magnifying glass slammed into the ground, the impact echoing through the station.
Hifumi Togo flinched but she didn't balk.
"Ah! No fighting!" Sophia said standing between them.
"We're not fighting, I'm not a murderer. This is merely illustrating the difference between us: I have the Persona, I am a detective pursuing justice, and you are a nosy busybody intruding into a criminal investigation. So I ask again, what's your game?"
Hifumi took a deep breath. "In the past week my life has gone insane. My mother is selling my body to a famous artist—it doesn't make sense why Madarame would want me! I was never a celebrity, not like you! My first interview with Good Morning Japan was in the
afternoon! My entire life has become a twisted theater!" Hifumi said, stamping her foot. "It all started when I heard that voice,
my mother's voice, right here."
"Totsuya-san's voice?"
"Yes. When Sophia-chan helped us escape the first time, I heard my mothers voice as we returned to the real world. It was different, cruel and cold, but over the past week with every passing interview it's become all too familiar to me. For that reason I cannot overlook this place."
"That's ridic—" Akechi caught himself, nothing was ridiculous anymore. Sophia's description of shadows had been brief, merely describing them as volatile beings formed from the emotions of humanity. The Reaper had colored his assumptions but Akechi couldn't overrule the possibility of shadow with human skin especially considering a certain benefactor.
The detective sighed. "Sophia, give her the rundown."
"Does this mean we're all friends?"
Hifumi looked at Akechi. "Partners."
"Associates, Sophia."
"Okay!" Sophia said and proceeded to rattle off the information on Mementos, Persona, and Shadows in all its frustrating vagueness.
"This abyss is inside humanity's brain… I would scarcely believe it if I wasn't standing in it," Hifumi said. "Then my mother's voice was a shadow?
"It's possible we still don't know—"
The rattles of chains echoed from down one of the tunnels.
Both Hifumi and Akechi went pale.
"We'll talk more elsewhere, Sophia, if you would?"
"
Keywords inputted. Beginning Navigation."
~
Back on the now abandoned rooftop, Yusuke Kitagawa silently regarded the empty space left behind by the two who had vanished into thin air before his eyes.
His phone buzzed.
Sender: Father, Subject: Artist's Block.
The apprentice looked down at his phone and a red eye stared back.
~???~
Reality came to a stop and both Hifumi and Akechi took a breath.
"Akechi-san your clothes!"
Akechi looked down and his attire and mask was unchanged.
"What the…" Akechi said, staring up at an enormous golden theater that now towered above the two of them. Massive posters emblazoned with the date
4/30 hung from the glossy gabled roofs promising the show of a lifetime at the
Amaterasu Theater. Despite its overwhelming opulence it seemed familiar to Akechi.
"Miss Togo-sama!" A voice called out.
Akechi turned to see a man in a mask. The thing was dressed as a stagehand but where its face should have been was a plastic mask. Patterns in the shape of eyes moved in faux emotion where there should have been eye holes. Akechi ascertained it had to be a shadow.
"Togo-sama, your performance is—are these two costumed people a part of the show? I wasn't aware—"
"Of course I'm part of the show! Why else would Togo-sama be talking to me? We have important matters to discuss, begone." Akechi said.
The stagehand's eyes flicked toward Hifumi.
"Y-Yes" Hifumi said, clearing her throat. "Ahem, lowly peon I demand you take us to where we need to go posthaste!"
"Hold on—"
"As you wish Togo-sama." The shadow said, marching them into the theater. The grandiose lobby interior was just as lavish as the exterior but faded as they stepped through a side door. They were led through a dark maze of passages filled with set decorations, busy stagehands, and makeup booths.
"This is moving too fast, we should retreat," Akechi said in a hushed voice.
"You seemed eager to use your Persona before. What happened to that ferocity?" Hifumi replied. "This gambit will pay off. I can feel it."
The group came to a halt at a door with a golden star engraved on it.
"Your dressing room Togo-sama," The shadow said bowing deeply.
Before Akechi could read the name on the door it burst open. Walking out of the dressing room was… Hifumi Togo. The other Hifumi was dressed in a gaudy black opera dress, her skin held an unnatural sheen, and she stared at them with piercing yellow eyes.
"What is the meaning of this," The other Hifumi said, her voice echoing. "I require no
understudy."
"M-My apologies—"
The shadow's neck snapped. In a blink the other Hifumi had struck, the shadow toppled and dissolved into nothing.
"I chipped a nail." the other Hifumi muttered, extending her pinky, a thin crack ran down the finger. "Now then
understudy, what right have you to interfere when
my big day is at hand?"
Akechi stood still. The detective wasn't certain he could reach for his mask or his sword before the imposter could strike. Any social faux pas would spell death. Moreover a nagging feeling of familiarity had washed over Akechi as the fake Hifumi spoke.
"That voice…" the real Hifumi said, her mouth agape.
"Mom?"
The imposter's face cracked.
"You're no understudy, you disappointment." the imposter sneered. "You embarrassed me when you ran out of the studio of your exhibition with Madarame-san."
"Mother I don't—"
The other Hifumi removed her porcelain face revealing the visage of Totsuya beneath.
"
Silence. I know you don't want to and I don't care. I am the star, you are wasting
my spotlight, dragging your feet, with your shogi nonsense but I don't need you anymore."
"No…"
"Isn't that right Hifumi?"
In her mother's hand, the mask's yellow eyes snapped toward the real Hifumi. "Yes
mother, of course
mother, anything for you
mother."
Hifumi fell to her knees.
"Now, rid me of this burden
." Totsuya said, adorning Hifumi's face over her own.
"As you wish
mother."
The porcelain puppet erupted into ooze and shadow. From the bile a floating conjoined mound of oversized heads each resembling Hifumi's own rose above the backstage. Totsuya grafted at the hip to the top of the abomination, leering down at them. The monster roared and lobbed a mass of swirling curses down at Hifumi.
"Herlock!" In a flash Herlock appeared taking the attack in her stead.
Akechi grimaced. "Sophia navigate us out!"
"
Beegiigin—Error, must exit! C-C-Cognition is too strong here!"
Akechi glanced at the entrance but the moment his gaze shifted Totsuya snapped her fingers and the stage doors slammed shut, sealing them inside. "Audience members are to remain seated for the show."
"Herlock,
Psi!"
With a wave of his magnifying glass Herlock sent a psychedelic barrage into the beast. The Monster was unmoved and untouched.
"Good girls don't need thoughts," the abomination echoed in a choir of hundred Hifumis'. The monster retched puking out another blast of curses.
Herlock barely managed to sidestep, the attack went wide, melting a set of gilded decor. Akechi still felt sick to his stomach from the last hit, he couldn't take another.
Now or never Clerval, Akechi thought, reaching up to his face. Herlock vanished and his mask reappeared heavier with the weight of a new name. The monster reared back preparing the deathblow. The detective gripped the side of his mask and uttered a word he despised.
"Please,
Gurr!" Akechi yelled as the curses descended. A skeletal harpy exploded into existence slashing apart the dark energy. "Tear it apart!"
Gurr screeched and tore into the sky weaving between blasts raking its claws into the screaming facsimiles of Hifumi. Akechi ran underneath the monstrosity, slicing whenever the abomination strayed too close to the ground.
The abomination was losing steam but Totsuya was still smiling.
Akechi's eyes went wide. "Look out!"
The mass of curses bore down onto Hifumi and Sophia. Before Akechi could think better of it Gurr threw itself in the path of the incoming attack.
Gurr dissipated with the explosion and Akechi collapsed, his attire gone with his Persona. Waves of roiling agony pinned the detective to the ground.
"Pathetic!" Totsuya jeered.
Akechi cursed his moronic decision but a feeling he couldn't ignore moved him into action.
Hatred. Akechi despised rotten scumbags like Totsuya and most of all he hated Hifumi Togo: he hated the guile that had dared to put him on the backfoot, and most of all how she could be cowed by this disgusting freak, by someone other than him.
Pushing through the pain Akechi struggled to his knees. "Get up! After you have the gall to outplay
me I refuse to watch you die to an inferior knockoff."
Hifumi stood up. "Mother—"
"Children should be seen not heard."
The monster reared its many heads and darkness swirled around it for another attack
"I won't—"
"Don't worry, your corpse will still be beautiful enough to paint."'
"
SHUT UP!"
A shockwave threw the abomination back.
Will you concede before the battle has even begun…?
Hifumi glared in defiance, eyes glowing yellow. "No! I'm making my move!"
There is use being demure…
Clutching her head Hifumi screamed.
The enemy is at the gate…
A red-white mask branded itself on the right half of Hifumi's face.
I am thou, thou art I
With both hands Hifumi wrenched her finger's beneath the edges and in a torrent of blood ripped off the mask. Blue flame illuminated the backstage. Hifumi strode from the blaze clad in a black and red outfit, a cross between a kimono and military uniform. Waiting for her command, a six armed female samurai wielding bow, sword, musket, and spear stood at the ready.
Our contract will be sealed in blood.
"Marshall to war!
Onna-Musha!"
"You dare—"
Bang! Onna-Musha shot her mother in the mouth. "I will not hear another lie slip from your lips! You have awoken the sleeping dragon and incurred its wrath! My fire will cast your foul matrimony into purgatory!
Agi!"
A raging inferno stripped the flesh from the warped copy.
"Agi!"
The fire's blaze was blinding, the screams deafening.
"AGI!"
The flames burned until all that was left was a pile of ashes. In the center of the devastation Hifumi's mother knelt desperately clutching pieces of shattered porcelain.
"M-My stardom—"
"I refuse to be denigrated to a prop in your pathetic puppet show! I am Hifumi Togo, Shogi Third Dan, and I reject your twisted mockery of me."
"You ungrateful wretch!" Totsuya screamed and the sealed doors burst open waves of shadow stagehands flooded the room. At Totsuya's command they transformed en masse into a horde of monsters that surrounded Hifumi.
Hifumi breathed heavily before letting out a scream. "I welcome all challengers, scatter before me!"
"Psi!" A mind-bending discharge broke through the line.
"We have to go!" Akechi yelled, his costume flickering in and out of existence.
"A strategic retreat,
Onna-Musha" Hifumi said, directing her persona. Onna-Musha scattered any remaining shadows in their path as the trio retreated.
"
Understudy—Hifumi! I need you, don't you dare run!"
"Left, Left, Right, Left, Right!" Sophia said, directing them through the winding corridors, the shadows hot on their trail.
"Up!"
"Up?" Akechi said, looking up toward a distant skylight. The detective's eye darted to a forest backdrop. Wires extended from the prop to the ceiling where a mechanism operated via pulley and sandbags hung next to the window. Akechi threw Sophia on top of the prop, grabbed the side and pointed to the pulley. "Togo-san!"
"On it!" With a slash of spear and sword Onna-Musha pushed the encroaching shadows back then with her musket blasted the pulley plummeting the sandbags to the floor. Hifumi leapt and grabbed Akechi's hand as the prop rocketed them upward toward the skylight.
At the last moment the trio jumped off the backdrop to the skylight.
"Gurr!" The harpy manifested grabbing them in its talons and burst through the skylight showering the backstage with a rain of shattered glass. Gurr flapped its wings struggling to gain altitude from the weight as Akechi fought against his weariness to keep the Persona in existence. "Sophia!"
"Beginning Navigation"
Gurr dissipated as Akechi's strength failed and the three went into freefall, a horde of shadows massing beneath them. The moment before they could fell back through the skylight the world lurched and reality twisted.
~Kosei Academy Rooftop~
Evening
Akechi and Hifumi groaned, pulling themselves off the ground. Once again they found themselves on the rooftop of Kosei Academy. The empty school now bathed in the dying light of sunset.
Akechi dusted himself off. "Sophia, explain. Why did you send us to that place?"
"Bip! Data analyzing, still parsing, sorry."
"Hifumi, are you alright?"
"Ugh… I-I'm fine, just a bit weary." Hifumi replied, still struggling to stand.
That place, that app, and a new Persona user. Akechi needed answers but for now he supposed it would have to wait.
Akechi offered a hand to Hifumi.
Took a bit longer then I wanted but this part is done
