16th of April. Sometime in the middle of the night, probably, just past 12 if it's actually the 16th. Does time actually exist when you're in an alternate dimension? Whatever.

  "Can you please leave me alone?"

  I tried preemptively ending the meeting that I was dragged into. Just as boring, just as forced, with personalities that would be described endearing by those who didn't have to interact with them. On the left we had the cop pretending she was the good cop, on the right we had the cop on a hair-trigger who pretended she was fierce, and in the center is the mysterious benefactor who relished in being mysterious. Getting the bars of my prison banged everytime I tried speaking got irritating really fast.

  Bang bang bang.

  "Who gave you the authority to speak like that with master, inmate?" the kid with a baton, Caroline, yelled. Each smack of the baton rattled around the room like a maracas. I wished I could pluck it out of her hand and give her a retributive whack.

  "It's an attitude like this which continues to throw off the course of your rehabilitation," the kid with the clipboard, Justine, quietly said. Quietly didn't mean demurely. The yellow eye that wasn't covered in an eyepatch burned with passion.

  If it weren't obvious, I couldn't tell the difference between the two past their inflections and chosen accessories. I'm pretty sure they even had the same voice? Don't quote me on that. If I'm talking about them in the future, then know that there might be two, or it might be the other sister, that the brats had achieved that slim landing zone where I didn't remember them because they were annoying instead of remembering them better.

  Their master chuckled from his holier-than-thou position. Past the comically long nose, there was something about his permanent smile that stretched across his wrinkle-less face (because those weren't wrinkles rather than manufactured hills pinched in place) that gave me the creeps. If he ever stood up from that desk, I was sure those freakishly long arms would be accompanied by freakishly long legs. He looked like a puppet made by an amateur that ended up being more fit for a horror show rather than a comedy. The chuckle was so deep that I felt a little emasculated. I never said anything of the sort but I still felt as if he knew.

  "You freely use the powers of Persona and the navigator. As expected of a wild card, you've taken to them as a fish to water." He readjusted his hands. They sat flat on the table which gave me a good look at how gangly each finger was. "Yet is it not expected for one in rehabilitation to cling to every gift that they're given like a thirsty man to water? As you continue on with your trial, you stubbornly refuse to use every resource that's available to you."

  The baton suddenly struck against the bars again. "That's right, inmate! Is it that you're choosing not to accept help or just can't understand how to?"

  The other one said something that was drowned out by the ringing in my ears. How that could be achieved when her arms were the size of pvc pipes was a mystery. Chalking things up to magic was already becoming second-nature. That's really what separated a Metaverse noob from a pro.

  It took a moment to realize that they were waiting for a response. The baton raised again.

  I quickly said the first thing that came to mind. "I don't know what you're talking about."

  "Oh, but you do." Igor chuckled. Each breath made his shoulders rise then fall. Such an exaggerated motion made it look fake, like he was mocking me. "While your path diverged from the initial projections, I graciously considered it on course enough to still thwart the ruin that will befall the world. Now I'm wondering if that was a mistake. You freely spit on the face of the pedestals that'll take you to greater heights and thus stymy your own growth."

  "I still don't know what you're talking about."

  "Battling shadows," Justine said.

  "Recruiting shadows," Caroline said.

  "Visiting the Velvet Room," Justine said

  "Advancing your social links," Caroline said.

  "Understanding the cognitive world," Justine said.

  "Exploring the extent of your abilities," Caroline said.

  "Don't I already do half of that?"

  Justine sighed, shaking her head. "Not correctly, no."

  "Our master gave you free information and you didn't even use it! I bet that you just forgot about it when you woke up!" Caroline yelled.

  The two were going to continue until Igor raised his hand. Both resumed standing ramrod straight, staring directly at each other like nutcracker soldiers standing at attention.

  "Let us discuss these problems later, as despite your…" another chuckle, "bizarre circumstances, you're managing well enough that I can give a passing grade. I'd like to focus on the topic of your bonds."

  And that was exactly why I kept ignoring what they had to say. I nearly breathed out a sigh, only stopping because the girl would smack my cell again. "Can I get a serious explanation why my friends don't count?"

  "Because they're on the internet, inmate," Caroline said.

  "And though your bonds are strong, they have no inclination nor, if we're speaking truly, ability to shoulder the burden of your upcoming trials," Justine said.

  Then I'd say, "so?" and then we'd get into some kind of explanation where they'd hand wave towards a vague apocalypse, "ruin", before I'd ask exactly what that "ruin" was and shortly after would get kicked out of the dream because I irritated Caroline so much that she would do a drum solo on my bars. Secretly, I think it was also because I annoyed Igor enough that he wanted me out of there. Insanity is trying the same thing over and over again and expecting something different to happen, a wise man once said, or something to that effect, which meant that I wasn't insane because I was expecting the exact same conversation to carry out. The burden of changing the future was on them.

  "So?"

  Justine held out her hand. Her sister slowly lowered the baton back into resting position, though made her opinion known by giving me a monstrous stink eye.

  "What we are talking about are the bonds that can be created between two people under duress, oppressed in similar situations, those who can truly understand each other because they've been abandoned. Only one who has reached the lowest their life can become would understand the determination that can drive a person towards redemption. That is the bond we are talking about, inmate."

  She seemed pretty proud of her answer. Her chest stuck out and chin was raised like I was going to pat her head.

  "Sounds like a pretty shallow definition of friendship to me."

  It wasn't as if I popped a balloon and let it sputter out with a loud wheeze, which is what I was hoping for. Instead her body lowered back to its resting position, though there was definitely a slight pout in her normally impassive expression. "It's the opposite of shallow, inmate."

  "Nah, it's shallow because it's pretending that's the ideal of friendship or whatever, or that I even want to meet people like me." I raised my hands up. "I'm pretty happy with my friends. Why do I have to go out and collect these people who were also abused like they're Pokémon? Can't I just, I dunno, get social links with people that I already like?"

  "Because you're not 'collecting anybody'!" Caroline stomped her foot on the ground for extra emphasis. "It's sharing your experiences! They're the kind of people that you'd connect with in the first place!"

  "If it's meant to happen then why isn't it happening?"

  While that stumped the girls, it wasn't the enforcers who were pulling the strings. Igor finally let my little rebellion against his stupid Velvet Room end with another chuckle, steepling his hands underneath his chin.

  "A tendency is not a rule. An exception does not disprove a rule. A single man alone cannot hope to move the world by himself. Though your ability to avoid the gravity of fate is amusing, that sort of hedonistic belief won't claim victory. Ruin is fast approaching and it does not care whether you believe in it or not. It's because of your many…" once again he trailed off, chuckling to himself like I was putting on a damn comedy show, "peculiarities that many of my plans had to be moved up. With your confrontation fast approaching and no sort of help in sight, I've decided that you need a boon."

  "You hear that, inmate? Our master is kind enough to give you this despite walking out yesterday! Be grateful!" Caroline yelled.

  I ignored whatever Justine said. Most of the time she just seemed to be an addon for her sister.

  Finally, Igor snapped his fingers. The two moved over to the conspicuous giant that were covered by a burlap cloth, somehow stealthily existing at the far wall of the room. Opposing sides were grasped by the twins. With a shared nod between them, they yanked at the same time. Enough strength must've been in those supernatural muscles to make it flutter like a ghost taking off, flipping over with the burlap jellyfish sucking inwards. Only later did I realize that the cloth had never landed. Somewhere along the way it disappeared.

  Two gigantic velvet blue frames ascended high enough where their edges were becoming shaded in black, the mysterious spotlight neglecting their heads. At the bottom was a board with only a single hole punched through the center, a block under it giving support for whoever was shoved inside there—yes, whoever. The machine was so infamous that I understood what it was for just glancing at the slanted blade. Cranks at the side would lift them higher until gravity would carry the violence. Though bright blue inlaid into the edge reassured me that there was some magic work behind it, I didn't like the imagery of a guillotine being anywhere near me in the first place.

  Spindly hands gestured to the machines as if he were talking about a mediocre show. "Your power as the wild card has infinite potential. It being infinite does not mean that there are no drawbacks. Where there is take, there is give. For you to reach the heights that your power allows, you must execute your Persona."

  I nodded and gave a thumbs up. "That's great. I think I'll pass though."

  The baton slammed against my cell. "You didn't let him finish, inmate!"

  Igor continued as if I hadn't interrupted. "There is no reason to be so alarmed. Personas are mere facets of your personality, parts which can easily be recovered. Their loss is no more irretrievable than the ability to feel. It is only through this sacrifice that we can fuse, or discard, old personalities to create new ones. It's this process of discarding that gives the name, 'execution'."

  Now he waited. He patiently laid his hands on the table and continued staring. That immovable grin seemed to already know what I was going to say.

  I nodded again. "Thanks for the context. I really still have no interest in using that."

  Even through the blood rushing through my ears and Caroline finally wreaking havoc on my bars, I could hear the old man say, "you are an interesting one. Let's see if those convictions are strong enough for you to cross even the first step in your rehabilitation."

  Three days later I nearly had the entire castle sketched out. For those of you keeping track, from the day that I came in late for my first class with my Persona awakened to putting the finishing stroke on the giant paper, it was a busy week, a busy 6 plus however many hours I spent on Sunday hours of exploring. Coming home due to Sojiro's stupid curfew had put a damper on my pace and I felt like I could've blazed through the palace way faster.

  Though it was mind-numbing, waiting around still was faster than engaging into fights with every knight that challenged me. Hiding under tables let me catch my breath from previous fights while giving me an opportunity to gauge the enemy's strength. Other than strange auras that seeped through the creases of their armor, observation actually taught me a lot about the different yokai that crept around the castle. Size was, duh! More confident ones bullied others for seemingly no reason. Those who were more likely to get caught in a daze were weaker. I wrote 'Behavior of Enemies in Castle' in giant curvy letters on my notepad that got stuck on the wall next to my bed with a piece of tape. I liked reading them while I was drifting away on the hardtack mattress and stuttering lights.

  Once a pattern of behavior was found out, I purposely picked fights with the weaker ones. The single time I tried fighting the stronger one forced me to flee for the day when four enemies popped out of its body, surrounding me and smacking me around like I was laundry in a dryer. Weaker guys barely gave me pocket change, but the fights were so easy that I could knock out multiple quick enough that the assassinations wouldn't be noticed. The seventh day of infiltration, when I'd gotten the best at it, had me walking away with an entire 15,000 yen.

  Leaving the front side made the castle start becoming more trippy. One side had a cathedral, I climbed the outside of a tower, yada yada ya, these little details are hardly as important as when I was getting near the throne room. Rainbows started replacing the natural light, an indigo tint swarming the place. Statues of what the pervert thought were the best parts of a woman, from the crotch to the neck, were littered alongside statues in the shape of the king's head; boxes made mini-forts for some reason, storage for the otherworldly castle that reminded me of the mundane details in Spirited Away like the spirits needing futons. Blocks of the floor tore apart, moving like pistons. It made the floors more dynamic as nonsensical balconies without stairs leading to them became just as common as entire halves of the room breaking into earthquake-sundered pieces. I fully exploited the novel hiding spots. If the murky purple haze started becoming too annoying, I'd activate my new magic vision and perfectly see the guards quietly patrolling.

  To make sure that it wasn't a coincidence, I leapt on an unwary tiny guard who was alone in one of these rooms. The shadows that popped out were my guinea pigs. All of them were tiny girls. I'm not saying that they were young tiny, but that they could easily sit in the palm of my hand, and could easily make it there with their delicate transparent wings. These types weren't very threatening and were quickly reduced to the last member getting her head stuck between the business end of Bicorn's hoof and the compliant business partner known as the floor. My newest Persona was huffing in annoyance. He wanted to smash her head in.

  Leaning down got me a good amount of curses slung my way. Definitely not a young girl with a mouth like that.

  "You want to be squashed?" I simply asked. It must've dawned on her what situation she was in because she quickly became silent. "I can let you go, but you're gonna have to do something for me. I'd like for you to join me."

  Recognition flickered in her tiny eyeballs. It was hard to tell her expressions when the details I had to parse were the size of my fingernail.

  "Hey, I can't just join anybody! I'm a delicate girl after all! I need to make sure that you're good for your word." She was smirking like she had some kind of ace up her sleeve. "Soooo why're you here? I guess that it must mean that your real world is really boring. I'm right, aren't I?"

  She wasn't wrong. It'd be a stretch saying that the unreal world was good because it wasn't boring though. I'd prefer long and boring than short and exciting.

  "It is, but I prefer it to here," I said.

  "Eh? Well, I guess that's fine too. I like when things are slow too. It's better being alive than dead after all." She took a moment thinking of another question. "What about flavors? What is your favorite flavor?"

  Though I had no idea how this correlated to our compatibility, I'd already been preparing for a quirky personality when doing this. Remember, at the time I thought these things were yokai, which had the reputation of being flappable and whimsical at best. We weren't operating on the same plane. Perhaps having the same tastes would actually let us synchronize better too?

  "Sweet stuff, I guess," I said.

  "Hahaha! Sweet stuff!? Are you a child? I like it too, but it's way weirder that you like it, mister." She ignored my aggrieved expression as her next question came quickly. "And don't you think that this kind of flirting is weird? You're supposed to handle a girl more gently."

  I had no idea what to say to that. Nevermind that I've never flirted in my life, it was also impossible to parse if she was being genuine or not. I needed to hold a hand over my mouth so I could make sure that my whole face was hidden. "Er, sorry, but I prefer my women a little bit, uh, bigger."

  "How rude! I have plenty to use if I wanted to." To emphasize that, she brought up her hands to slide down her body. I'm sure that it would've been more impressive if she were anywhere near my proportions. She was wearing a leotard so it's not like I was thinking she was the image of innocence. "I wonder, do you think that I was meant to be down here, being threatened like this? Is it destiny? Or is it something else that brought us together?"

  "Destiny?" I snorted, letting my hand drop. "Come on. You just got unlucky. Simple as that. Um, maybe we can consider it lucky though, considering that we got to meet?"

  She raised an eyebrow. "Didn't you say you weren't flirting?"

  Blue flames started dancing around her body. Through Bicorn's hoof I could feel an oppressive heat that quickly made him step off. Floating above the both of us was the fairy girl, hands on her hips and cute glare hiding behind a cloud cover of blue.

  "Didn't anyone ever tell you how to treat a lady? Someone has to, and I guess I'm the best option since you've already helped me out. I'm Pixie, and I'll make sure nobody else has to suffer your boorish attitude!"

  The will o' wisp that swallowed her flew towards my mask, creating another Persona that I could summon. Disembodied giggles came from behind me, around me. Finding the place they came from was futile since she was now me/inside of me/mechanics too supernatural for me to understand. It confirmed that catching Personas was like a typical monster collection game with the gratuitous violence, but I didn't understand the why of it yet. Asking Igor didn't cross my mind because the creepy old man screamed manipulative bastard from the whole setup. You're really telling me that a creepy man you meet in your dreams who talks to you behind a desk is benevolent? Literally not how it works. He gifted me a guillotine.

  There were a few obstacles besides the shadows, such as a long platform with pendulum blades swinging on its face. I'm pretty sure that I could've gripped the edge and shimmied over to the other side, but I wanted to fully prove that these traps never made sense. Maybe I was high from not being detected for the two hours I'd been infiltrating that day. I ran forwards and sucked in my gut, raised my hands as the blades at both sides of me passed. It was exhilarating that I could be cut into like a choice steak with a wrong move. The little breezes that would slide past my outfit made it that much more exciting.

  Once on the other side, I went back and did the puzzle. It was the same as the one in the prison except there were little things missing in the statue's eye sockets that acted as keys. Pickpocket those from unaware guards (which was another ability that came with the magic as I'd never done it before) and stop the silly trap. The pendulum blades stopped at the apex of their swings. Done and done. There was a little more of the castle past that, ending in an ornate door that screamed 'IMPORTANT' in big shouty letters. Learning about vents being in the castle made me a little more prepared to seek out alternative routes, and the hole at the top of a box pile wasn't exactly inconspicuous.

  The throne room was there. My target was sitting on the central throne, glaring into nothing.

  Most importantly of my investigation, I found a shortcut. Down on the first floor was a fake painting that led into an elevator that reached straight to the top. It was kind of funny seeing something completely out of the time period, insulting that the castle had a literal shortcut, relieving that I wouldn't have to climb through all the extra stuff every time—I had mixed emotions over it.

  Thus began the second part of my infiltration, stalking. King Kamoshida didn't disappear for no reason. Just like his magical knights, he was partially real—not really real, since the whole magic world wasn't really real, but real enough that he had a routine that made sense with whatever whacked out logic these Metaverse shenanigans made. Laughing about something, snuggling a nearly nude girl that was obviously much younger than him, or just going down into the dungeons where he mocked the people getting tortured. Every part of his day was catalogued in my notepad. He wasn't real in the sense of being bound by real world physics, meaning that learning his routine would have me running around to find where he teleported to. Sometimes he walked in a mundane method and other times he was gone when I turned the corner. Yet I grit my teeth and beared with the boring new routine.

  Four days after that, I tapped the notepad in boredom as I watched the king heartily laugh again. Some poor sap in the cell was getting volleyballs launched from a cannon into his jaw. Over. And over. And over again. Each impact didn't even get a reaction anymore. The person, floating limply a good few meters from the ceiling by two chains around his wrists, would've been reduced to ground beef if it was in real life. I'm pretty sure there was something bad about letting a man hang suspended too but I didn't know much medical stuff. I'd long run out of experiments at that point. Big shadows are scary, magic shoots out of my hand, and the castle is finicky when it comes to the whole object permanence thing. Items that would get dropped by the dead shadows would be swept up the next day, as would my stickers placed on the dark side of the furniture. Locks wouldn't get relocked and the traps that I solved would stay. Surely there was a logic behind this, I insisted, giving up sometime in the dreary boring-ness of sitting still for around six hours.

  Thirty minutes passed before the king swept a hand past his cape and moved to the nearest guard. It was one of the weaker ones whose knees were shaking as his master's nose nearly touched the mask.

  "Has there been any sign of the person who broke into the library?"

  "No, sir!"

  The bare fist managed to crumple straight through the metal plate. None of the king's retinue reacted as he swept his hand back through the cape, giving a glare to the stoic masks.

  "What has my security fallen to? Some help! Every other day there's been gutter rats breaking in. All of you must love the stench since you're fouling yourselves in it!"

  None of them spoke. The king scoffed and continued walking.

  I stuck out from the stack of boxes that were shoved into the hallway's corners. Stretch, pop. If my schedule was correct, then he was going to the second floor so he could meet up with the girl and bask in her affection for the next hour. She'd giggle, ask him questions, where every reply was deep-fried in that awful smarminess. I tossed around the idea of pretending to get lost or picking up loot instead of listening in on that vomit-inducing mess. Unfortunately, that was too irresponsible and I had to listen to him flirt in a way too chauvinistic even for me—or maybe it's that I didn't want to hear sweet nothings in that tone of voice when it was from a guy.

  Just one more day of tailing him, I promised. Most of the schedule so far had been proven to be rigorous. As long as the security wasn't tipped off, the king would leave his throne room. It was during that time when he was visiting the girl that gave me the best opportunity. They were alone, guards dismissed and left to patrol the third floor. I could knock down some furniture inside to make a barricade and finish the job. Multiple different escape routes were planned out in class, depending on how many knights came in to assist after the deed was done. I absently created more situations as we went back up to the third floor. Eventually he sat back in his throne. I was in the vent, waiting. Nearly falling asleep honestly. The stalking was becoming a method to stall on the final step, if I'm being honest.

  "Psst!"

  It made me push back, prepared to do some sort of insane acrobatic trick and bolt for the nearest exit. I deposited myself on the boxes with half my mind already escaping.

  "Up here!"

  I looked up. Far above, sitting on a pole that had a banner of the king flying on it, was the same 'master thief' I'd seen from before. I could at least claim there was a little bit of remorse for leaving him behind but remorse alone doesn't really make you more sympathetic. Plus I still think that I was in the right keeping a wall between me and another monster. No matter how friendly it seemed, I would've never just trusted any big-headed cat when I was already surrounded by yokai. Since I wasn't sorry, I didn't think about apologizing. The only error I'd made was assuming that he lied about being a thief. Freeing himself was at least a better credential.

  "Oh, it's you," I said. "Sorry about leaving you behind. I wasn't really going to trust anybody in that situation and so I didn't trust you either."

  Yeah, I already reasoned that I wasn't really sorry and apologized anyways. I'm a dipshit.

  The cat's eyebrows were still furrowed, and I realized that being directly below him left me entirely open to an Assassin's Creed-style assassination. "At least you apologized. That still wasn't the behavior a proper thief should ever partake in."

  Glancing down showed that the guard that was normally patrolling had been taken care of. Asking about that would be useless so I didn't. It was still necessary to stay quiet so the king himself didn't hear us.

  "Honor among thieves, is that right? Well, I don't consider myself a thief."

  "See, that's exactly what I'm confused about." He laid down on the pole. "You've been coming back here everyday. You've stalked Kamoshida. What else would you be here for other than the Treasure?"

  "Treasure?"

  Realization washed in with each centimeter that their pupils expanded. I flinched when a black projectile landed just in front of me. He was trying to be serious. He was barely taller than my knees.

  "You're here to hurt King Kamoshida," Morgana summarized.

  Without much reason to lie, I just agreed. "Yeah."

  "You can't do that!"

  "Why not? He did it to me. And he isn't real."

  Morgana smacked his hands (paws?) over his face. "Did anybody teach you anything?"

  Technically Igor did, but he did it in the way that I described: some kind of pseudo-mystical way that left my head spinning despite being asleep. I could pick out the nouns, some not even proper—shadows, Metaverse, Mementos, Persona, palace, distortion, Thief's Vision, cognition—and not much else. Igor may have provided hints but I'd like to emphasize that teaching through hints was like taking a book, blacking out the entire story except the introduction and ending, and claiming that was reading. Some shows tried insisting that an old mentors' favorite method of teaching was the proper way; I vehemently disagree. It wasn't as if I was suddenly going to realize what a 'palace' meant while sitting around.

  So I don't think it was entirely wrong for me to say, "no, not really. Now while I'd love to stay around and chat, I've got to continue trailing Kamoshida."

  "W-Wait! You can't do that!"

  "Why not?" It wasn't meant to come out whiny but I'm still a teenager, damn it. "You got stuck in that cell too. That means you're on the king's shit list too. What're you going to do? Call the guards on me? Fight me and attract guards? Make a ruckus and attract attention over here when you could be caught again too? Thought not. Now unless you've got a better reason, I'm going to continue doing this and, yeah."

  I didn't even have time to pivot on my heel before he let out a shout of frustration. The sudden sound was both grating and horrifying. Getting caught out by the king's four guard entourage would probably be a dead Akira.

  "Fine! Since whoever taught you didn't tell you anything, I'll do it myself!"

  I shot finger guns at him and said, quietly, "you're up, then! What's so important that I can't give this guy a piece of my mind?"

  "Because if you beat him up too badly, then the real person a shadow reflects will lose their desire!"

  'Lose their desire' was so unhelpfully vague that I asked for clarification. The cat refused to give it because he didn't want to give information for free to the person who left him behind. Thus began a back and forth where he kept refusing my insistent requests until being finally broken down until we got stuck on another proper noun. It's as tedious as it sounds, so I'm not going to make everyone suffer through the one, two, syllable back and forth.

  So, to summarize, let's imagine that the cat said something like this:

  "The Metaverse is another dimension that's made up from the collective unconscious (didn't get an explanation for that one other than "people's collective desires" so I had to run with that). Without a Metaverse Navigator, like the one on my phone, it was impossible to actually enter this place, meaning that my first day in must've been through an unknown mechanic or the app being open. Palaces are the tumors of this invisible brain, where people who have desires so twisted they create their own spot in the Metaverse that represents how they see the world. Shadows patrol these places to protect the tumor that powers the palace, the culmination of their twisted desires: a treasure. The ruler is the person's shadow that represents their truest desires while the treasure is the source of their distorted desires. If you take out the shadow, you destroy that person's ability to desire. If you take out the treasure…"

  "...then you take out their ability to feel like the world is," I gestured to the giant castle we were having a conversation in, "like this."

  The cat seemed annoyed that I managed to extract so much information. Many of those proper terms finally had a definition that I could attach to them. Furious notes were sketched out in a bunch of my notepad's pages, giving me more to work with than general supernatural shenanigans.

  With a gigantic underline around the remaining nouns that Igor gave, I shoved the notepad in my pocket with a nod.

  The cat's ears flicked. Even if he was mad, there was a pleased purr underneath his words. Maybe he liked explaining things. "Are you satisfied?"

  "I've got a few more questions, but I get the gist of it. I can't kill the shadow because the real guy'll just lay down and die if I did that. Teaching the shadow a lesson won't do anything either since he'll still be going around acting like a dickwad in real life. The best revenge would be erasing the thing that kicked me around from existence entirely while at the same time making it so the real guy isn't tempted doing that to other people," I said, nodding to myself.

  The cat cringed. "Is that really your motivation?"

  I laid a hand over my gut. As I already said, even now thinking about that incident still makes an unnatural wave of anger flush over my face, constrict my chest, makes those spots where they beat flare up into a sunspot. Back then the heat was worse. Red would creep into the edges of my vision and the presence of Arsene was looming over me without putting effort into the summoning.

  "Yes," I simply said, letting the hand go limp. That hatred that made my stomach do flips still hadn't receded. "And what's yours? Are you sneaking around here like a thief for the good of humanity?"

  His cringe answered that question.

  "It's better than sneaking around as an assassin," he weakly retorted.

  Ending the macabre business was at the forefront of my mind. Going back to normal school days sounded vastly more appealing than skulking about a magical alternate dimension for weeks.

  "So let's say I wanted to steal the treasure. What's the process?"

  For a moment it seemed like he was going to withhold that information too. What won out was probably realizing that I already had most of the puzzle pieces already. One more couldn't hurt. His tail flicked around as he stood up straight, back rigid. That bulbous head really was impossible to take seriously.

  "Alright. Listen closely because I'm only going to say it once: the treasure manifests a single time. That's it. You do it right or you never do it again. Since the host is usually not even aware that their desires are distorted, you need to bring it to the real one's attention. This is done with a calling card. Call it plainly that you're after their secret and they'll feel threatened about it being revealed. It's a cognition like any other so—"

  "So it'll only last as long as they feel that the threat has weight?"

  "Exactly! Even if they think that it's a prank, some part of them still takes it seriously. But you never know when they'll dismiss the threat."

  "Therefore it's best to give them the calling card when I'm ready to do it." I nodded to myself. "The palace will be at top security to defend the treasure and the ruler will probably be defending it too. Er, I don't have to worry about anything else, right? No transformation, no inner beast that's going to be released and defend the treasure, nothing like that?"

  "...probably not?"

  I'm sure I was making some kind of exasperated expression with the way that the cat puffed out his chest.

  "Okay. Is that all? Calling card, slip past the security, nab the treasure, run out, and hope that I don't get shanked in the process?" I asked.

  "The palace will collapse shortly after you take the treasure, so make sure that you've done everything with it."

  "Calling card, slip past the security, nab the treasure, run out, and hope I don't get shanked in the process." I gave a little bow. "It's been a pleasure doing business. I'd offer a hand in friendship, but I doubt that you'd like working towards my revenge, and if you're a real thief then you wouldn't settle for me taking the treasure for myself."

  "You're right about that. I make it a policy not to work with heartless people like you. Don't blink, or else that treasure will be mine instead." Morgana frowned, glancing up into the vent that I was inside. I couldn't parse if he knew that the treasure was inside there. "When are you taking it?"

  A knight walked up the staircase. He was a patrol that searched through this room and the floor below. If the shadow (I knew the word now!) had the sense during any single step to slightly look upwards, he would've spotted us casually chatting.

  "The day after probably. What's your name anyways? Feel I should know the name of a fellow thief."

  "Blegh. Don't compare me to you. You're opportunistic, not truly in it for the love of thievery. I can tell since you asked me for my name." The cat bowed. His forehead nearly touched my shoes. "Call me Mona. I'll call you the Idiot."

  "The Idiot," I repeated flatly.

  He snapped up with a smarmy grin. "You like it? We shouldn't say our real names here in case the palace's ruler is listening, so it's better to get used to codenames. It completely fits you!"

  Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

  "The Idiot implies that I'm stupid, yet didn't I ask for help? An idiot is an incurious person."

  "The Fool would've never asked. The Idiot asks because he doesn't know. Since you still don't know all the ropes of the Metaverse yet, the Idiot is a good title for you," Mona said.

  Still annoyed, that's where the conversation was cut off. I tried entering the vent at the same time as he did. We stared at each other. We both had the same idea. I won the battle because his puny little body couldn't yank me out once I already was in the hole. We silently walked across the perimeter of the room, approaching the door that was at the back. The slight creak didn't alert the guards because the king was too busy screaming about intruders again.

  Another thief moving through the castle explained some of the erratic behavior. I avoided any of the chests that were scattered around because I thought they were traps. I bet the smaller thief had no such qualms, not even speaking of the amount of guards we collectively had taken out.

  Past another set of doors was a rainbow corona floating, clouds of fog, dust, intermingling. Mona didn't even bother hiding his greed, a line of drool dripping down the corner of his mouth. It's hard to pretend that I was any better. The vault was indescribable to the me of then. Treasure, genuine treasure, spilled out on the floor. Salivating was the least of my worries as a surge of greed overtook me. What if? Nobody would miss it. I was robbing an asshole. It literally was from the cognition of a guy's head. Why did the shadows drop money? Their money was real! These were genuine gold coins! Scooping a few got an unimpressed look from the cat.

  It's only after I picked it up that I realized there was no way that it was actual gold and even if it was, I had no easy way to exchange piles of gold. I still took one as a souvenir though.

  We left through different exits. The new information spurred me on, and I walked home with the formations of a plan swirling around, competing for headspace against the superfluous revelations to the nature of the Metaverse along with homework that I absolutely had to complete if I wanted a decent grade in history.

  So I did my homework when I got home. Then, after getting permission from Sojiro to go out past curfew to buy some essentials, I bought stuff and got to work.

  That large piece of paper ended up being the best foresight of the whole operation. With it I had the whole genealogy of the plans that I'd made with differing amounts of information. The final one, threading together everything that I knew, was created at the back of the page. Contingencies were made. Routes written out in permanent red marker. I traced out the exact places where the tools would be used and the most probable places that I could hide if something went down. This was the greatest problem to plan around: I only had one shot. There was no more sneaking out when I was caught and waiting for the heat to die down; if I was caught, then I'd either have to fight through or try to slip away with a backup plan. Planning became messier and messier until the absolutely final set of plans was written out as a numbered list. It took a long time and I had to set five alarms to make sure I woke up.

  The next day couldn't be left for rest. During class my foot was bouncing and my jaw was trembling. The girl in front of me, who'd been the first to run out when the girl leapt from the roof, still looked out the window with eyes that seemed locked and loaded to start crying. The volleyball members stood out by having the newest fashion of purple blotches blacking out their smooth skin. No, it couldn't wait. The fury burning in my gut wouldn't quench until I hurt him. Getting more supplies after school and doing last preparations in the Metaverse, I hurried back home and spent the rest of the night double checking over my notes, then memorizing them. Doubly making sure that I wouldn't be caught unprepared, I wrote down the multi-fanged plan into my notepad. Despite stress making my legs kick in bed, I fell right to sleep at exactly midnight. Another barrage of alarms made me wake up earlier than normal.

  The day of infiltration had made getting dressed with bleary vision. Running down the stairs nearly made me trip. Sojiro was giving me that strange side-eye stare that he loved to do, his aged face not moving as I shoveled in the curry that he served up. While I couldn't say that I'd have it anywhere else, he demonstrated how curry and coffee was a hearty breakfast. I admitted that at the time despite the coffee tasting like butt.

  His mouth slightly hung open before he shut it. The television was on, playing the news.

  "You seem like you can't wait to get to school," he said.

  I brandished some money from my pocket and put it on the counter. "I'm going to pick up something special for lunch. It's going to be awesome."

  With the store barely opening and all the dishes done by yours truly, all he had to do was sit there reading the paper. It gave me his undivided attention when the pages folded onto his lap. "Something special?"

  "I want to treat myself, so I'm going early to pick up a Samanco for my lunch."

  Sojiro actually recoiled. "You like those?"

  "And it's going to be my whole lunch!"

  "You're going to eat ice cream for lunch?"

  "Why not? It's good for the soul." The television was talking about the mental shutdowns. I never paid attention to what those were. The disgusting cup rose. "To a few weeks of being in Tokyo!"

  The man just stared at me for a while before picking up his mug and lifting it. "To a few weeks of you being my tenant. You can think of a better excuse to fool around outside than buying lunch though."

  That made me pout. "I'm actually getting Samanco though."

  And I did. Though I didn't save it for lunch, and I may have eaten the most unhealthy breakfast in my life, save for the time that I ate two bowls of Golden Crisps with chocolate milk. Unwrapped, I snacked on the delicious fish as I worked on reusing the candy wrappers, in an inconspicuous alleyway so nobody would see me retaping everything together. Since I could very well be fighting for my life, I also bought a smorgasbord of stuff that probably would make a bodybuilder slap me on the back in satisfaction, or whatever bodybuilders did when showing satisfaction. Fruits, yogurt, granola, and some yellow protein drink would hopefully give me the energy to sprint through the king's castle. I stuffed towels and paper in there to insulate the materials as best as possible so they wouldn't clank around as I walked; if there were ever a worse time for my bag to be making noises, it'd be when everybody at school thought I carried around a knife.

  I was absolutely not emotionally ready for this. I couldn't stop my heart hammering against my chest. The ice cream sat uneasily in my gut, the last bit of slightly soggy waffle crust hanging in the plastic. Shrugging up my bag made the added weight more noticeable. Out came the notepad, thumb nervously caressing the paper.

  For those who aren't in the know already, I can't really recognize faces. No idea why. Maybe my parents dropped me and were too embarrassed to admit it. The fact is that the person who caved in my chest was invisible to my memory as was the bastard who got me banished to Tokyo in the first place; those features that I mention are merely facts, the exact details which could construct a mental map of his features rolling into the past. It had taken another hour of stalking as I painstakingly waited for him to be standing still long enough for me to get a good look at him. What resulted were very rudimentary sketches of my target's face.

  I'm pissed at the guy. Since me taking his treasure would 'steal his desire', it felt right that I could confirm my suspicions about his real identity. Don't pile on me for double-checking. Even if I had an inkling what muscular person in the school would feel as if he was a king, it didn't hurt to proofread my own stuff. Especially since I already threw away my early chance of becoming a model student at Shujin, it felt right that I went the whole mile with this palace nonsense.

  Fluttering in my hand was an approximate visage of a human being. Square jaw sketched in thick brushes that slid out from his skeleton, extremely light stubble at the bottom of his chin represented by tight punches into the paper, eyes that I had to imagine without the curls that came with his resting glare, and hair that I messily started shaving inches off my pencil with how careless the swipes were. It was hitting that area between 'uncanny valley' and 'child's drawing on a refrigerator' which meant it barely passed the limit where I'd be able to recognize the actual article. It wouldn't get any rewards and I ripped it up during lunch.

  To make our confrontation all the more dramatic, the person that I considered as the prime suspect was greeting students at the top of the entrance's staircase. Again, I couldn't recognize if he was the coach or not (and see how this stupid condition complicates things?), and it was only from the casual outfit that he wore, a t-shirt and jeans no other teacher attempted, that I could assume. My back smacked against a wall, just in case anyone tried to see what my notebook had. Holding it up let me pretend I was blocking the sun. Square jaw. Muscles peeking through the shirt. Wide shoulders. Curly hair. A smile that couldn't be good-hearted. Little details—could it be that he was only greeting the girls who were walking in? Did he lick his lips because of the surprising early-morning heat or because that girl looked fine (and she looked fine, coming from someone who could say that completely legally)?

  This person had made a shrine around a girl who jumped. My entire world warped around this person. Inside his head my blood would've leaked. He might've made a girl jump. And if he did it, I wonder! I wonder what it could've been about! The man who had statues appreciating women's figures—actual women, the ones he should've been going after—probably didn't blackmail her, or bully her. I could assume. The prison that was down there with criminals who looked my age was probably metaphorical too. The library, the throne room, and all the tiny details I ignored became questionable in what disgusting part of his head was represented with it.

  For the first time, I was at the same level as Kamoshida. We weren't thinking of killing each other. No knights were around to hold me back. Each student that walked in either praised him or meekly bowed—as not a single student, not even the back of the room slackers that I recognized from my class, ignored the hulking presence that stood like a perversion of a shiisa. Here he was, able to smile a bronze-lipped smile that soaked in every affection that was thrown his way.

  His real self never abused me. I wanted to keep myself at a distance. Remember, that girl isn't your responsibility and it isn't your responsibility to save the students who would gleefully smother your name. They wouldn't care if it were you in their shoes. It made me feel a little better. That simmering hatred slid underneath my skin.

  "Good morning, Kamoshida-sensei," I greeted.

  His hands went to his hips. An open pose, confident. That genial smile never wavered. "Ah, the transfer student! I've been meaning to talk to you but never found the time. How is that bruise? It looks mostly healed."

  Touching the spot made me recognize that it had. The pain had mostly faded.

  "Almost all better."

  "Good, good. It was from a—" he looked up in thought, though I got the impression that he was pretending to think—"sports injury, right? You skipped school so you could play? Normally I'd encourage that kind of go-getter attitude, but you realize that you're not doing any favors with me by skipping school, correct?"

  "Favors?"

  I was hoping that asking for clarification would make his day worse, if only slightly. Asking made him seem even more cheery however.

  "I'm the coach of the volleyball team. We always need more athletically-minded people. Not troublemakers. If you can straighten yourself out, then maybe we can see about letting you blow off steam the correct way," Kamoshida said.

  Without needing to lie, I said, "I'm not interested anyways. Basketball is way cooler."

  One of his bushy eyebrows twitched slightly. Jackpot. "It's not as if you'd sway the school in any case."

  "Why'd I need to sway the school? I just like basketball. Working together with a team against another group of people is always such a rush!" Just to play it up, I tapped the bruise. "Even the injuries are worth it. Can't really say the same about all the volleyball players. They always look dead on their feet in class."

  It was more than a jackpot. Finally I managed to break that fake smile that he'd been wearing the entire time. If his shadow really reflected his true self, then only the malice that stretched cheek to cheek in that moment was allowed to leave his palace.

  His voice was low and surly. It broke against me, turning the air hostile. "I make sure to get them the training they need to succeed. That tiredness comes from a dedication towards doing the best they can on my team while remaining competitive in their studies. There's a reason that everybody I admit remains as some of the top students in Shujin Academy and goes on to a good college. It's an opportunity that they fight for."

  He said it directly, staring straight through me. The meek students who just wanted to enter slid right by with surreptitious glances thrown back when they were past the front door. Those who weren't brave, or the stupid, were gathering around the sidewalk. I got tired of being at the front row for the school's limited attention span, so I just let the conversation go.

  "True enough. Hey, I'm not saying anything. Just that I'm passionate about my sport," I said.

  Kamoshida laughed hollowly. It was short, breathy, and the way that his lips just twitched back up said it wasn't wholly real. "It was bad of me to get so worked up over my own sport too, especially since I'm the adult here, but you have to understand that it's my investment. They're my team and I don't like to hear their accomplishments minimized. I'm proud of every single one of my players."

  "Thanks for indulging me, Kamoshida-sensei," I said with a bow.

  "Keep your nose out of trouble, Kurusu-kun. You never know who's watching.'"

  With that frosty farewell, I walked into the school. Before class started I had to deal with people peeking into the class like it was a zoo exhibit and whisper loudly to themselves. Inane things like:

  "I can't believe the transfer student was threatening Kamoshida."

  "Do you think that he's going to get expelled?"

  "How can we even learn when there's a guy willing to pick a fight with a teacher sitting next to us?"

  "Kamoshida was really big for not punishing him."

  These whispers didn't even stop when Kawakami came in to start the day. At that point I stopped caring. Pouring over my notes took all my attention, double, triple-checking to make sure that everything made sense. If I could check inside my bag, then I would've been rummaging to make sure all the tools were still there. When I was forcefully trying to quell my nerves, I started thinking about my Persona. When vivid images and voices that sounded as if they were next to me shut that down quickly.

  Let's go over the plans: I'm not a thief in the sense that Morgana wants me to be, but I am absolutely a burglar. Detailing the plan came with that in mind. I didn't necessarily mind getting caught in combat if it were against the small fry. Those shadows that emitted red flames were beyond my skill level, which meant the game was keeping as many of those types far away from my infiltration routes. Therefore, I needed a distraction. The urge to check the distractions that I'd made the previous day needed to be suppressed. I double, triple, then past-countable checked my tools. If the distraction wasn't good enough, then there were a few options: hope the elevator that I had found was safe, run past or scale the side. Scaling was the last resort, as I didn't have the tools to make it safe. Running past all the wary guards would be better than risking falling, being spotted halfway up, or the many ways that climbing up a giant wall was a bad idea. Going up the elevator was assuming that the secret room wouldn't have guards.

  Then came part two: steal the treasure. I was expecting guards in front of the treasure room, and perhaps the king himself to be keeping vigil. Plan A was setting up another distraction outside which lured the guards away. These were expected to be smarter than the average fair since they were guarding the most essential part of the palace, so I was hinging instead on Plan B: kidnap Kamoshida. Our brief fight that we had when I just awakened told me the man relied on his guards for combat. If the king was in the same room and I saw an opportunity, I'd press a knife against his throat and blackmail the guards to give me the treasure. If even that couldn't be done, as it was possible that Kamoshida had a safe room he'd be hiding in, then Plan C comes into play: scale around the whole perimeter. A window was punched inside the treasure room as these were the unwary sort who didn't expect vengeful burglars breaking in. Since it would be a much less intensive than climbing the whole damn castle, I considered it easier to accomplish than Plan D: fighting the guards. Absolutely not. These would be the head honchos of the castle. I'd rather bury this whole incident behind me than get caught in a tango as dangerous as that.

  The final part was the exfiltration. And it's the part that I'm proudest of. Therefore I'm not going to spoil the actual genius part of my plan.

  The promised time had to come eventually. I raised my hand and asked to use the bathroom. Running across the campus gave me plenty of time to pretend that I'd visited the little thief's room, walking back to my seat with water still dripping down my fingers. Was this the best way that I could've done the deed? No, but I figured that my plan was startingly simple, and within that was also leaving too little evidence to pin it on me without a camera. Maybe it was a straggler during lunch. Maybe it was the people manning the student store. Maybe it was another person who used the bathroom. So many things happened when there's about 500 people, more, whatever, inside of the same building.

  I did it after lunch. From then on, it was just waiting for us to be released. I could imagine what happened when the first go-getters (go-getter as in going-to-get-to-home) found the paper. I chose a less flashy vehicle for delivery so most people would've just glanced by. Then comes one person who was there to read a paper underneath the giant one that I purposely pinned in the center of the notice board, giving extra time where anyone could've been behind the calling card. From their reaction, more gather. More gather around. Considering the vultures that inhabit Shujin, it wouldn't take long for the gossip to reach every corner of the school. It'd be around the time that Kamoshida would be getting ready for volleyball practice when a student would get his attention.

  "Who's responsible for this!?" he yelled, whipping around trying to find the most culprit-y person in the crowd.

  The fireworks were beautiful. His thick eyebrows were nearly covering his eyes with how far down they were slanted. Frazzled hair bounced against his forehead as he would lean down to a student's height, implicitly threatening them with his ugly expression. The snarl was nearly the same when his shadow had beaten me up, Students backed away as if from a wild animal. Those who remained frozen had his ire directed like a shotgun blast.

  "Was it you?" The blonde girl in front of me who looked at him in determination. "You?" The blonde guy who had a terrible slouch. "You?" The meek blue-haired boy who walked around with permanent bruises staining his glassy cheeks, despondently watching as Kamoshida nearly grabbed him by the collar. "You?" The proper girl, whose red eyes looked disturbed as her personal space was intruded. "You?" A girl who shied away with her arms clutching her chest as if he were about to rip her apart. "You?"

  Me, the most suspicious person in the crowd. Despite standing far back from the board, he had approached me as I was trying to leave. Leaden breathing leaked down my nostrils. It smelled like old seafood. Apparently scrunching up my nose was the wrong answer as he moved for my bag.

  I didn't have the strength nor preparation necessary to resist. My things spilled out onto the floor.

  "Kamoshida-san!" the school president screamed. She imperiously walked over yet remained a respectful distance away, beyond where he could swipe. "This is a gross violation of the school's rules!"

  He ignored her, obviously. All of them were looking at me. I don't know how they would've expected a delinquent to act, but I bet they would've expected that I do something other than stand there, frozen, wondering what had gone wrong. Something to release the nervousness came out. Half-bitten words, shaking, anything that would keep the dancing in my chest still.

  Each towel was subject to him picking it up and raising it up like a banner. The candies rolled out and fell onto the floor.

  "What's the deal with all these towels. Huh?"

  When I didn't answer, he moved on to the only notebook I had. Even if it wasn't the same size as the paper that had been put up, he hurriedly flipped through it without reading the text. When that had nothing, he went into my binder. Unclipping all of the pages and letting them fall in a flurry to the ground. Seeing them made him grunt.

  "English?"

  Now, there was no proof that this was what saved me, but I'd like to believe that alternating my suspicious writing in English and Japanese made him take a few more seconds than normal to read, letting multiple staff members hurry down the stairs and hallways. People sometimes smaller than the students, gathering around us with flashing cameras, pushed past the perimeter that was made around us. My belongings were stepped on as the most hurried came up to Kamoshida's shoulders.

  Principal Kobayakawa was suspiciously similar to one of our regional mascots—tubby, simplistic, memorable enough to be drawn from memory to good effect. His bald head led down to a cascading wall of fat always covered in the same monochrome tan two piece suit. The faux-politeness was at least better than the outright hostility of the students. "Kamoshida-kun! What are you doing?"

  That seemed to snap him out of it. Blearily, I recognized that my teachers didn't go over to their 'side'. Sides, yes. Most of them had gone over to support Kamoshida getting up. Three had made their way over to me and were speaking.

  "Kurusu-kun, are you alright?"

  Most of them were teachers. Kawakami and the biology teacher, Hiruta, were at both sides of me. I didn't recognize the third guy. A flash of shame came through me. Here I was about to do a heist and I got so scared that I stopped moving.

  "Well enough," I said with a sigh.

  Kamoshida slowly stood up. When he was at full height, he was staring directly at me with accusations clear in his eyes. You did it, he insisted. Normally this would be happenstance. It's hard to deny that it could've been his cognition influencing the real world though. Perhaps his shadow recognized me. In either case, he was getting all the attention while the teachers repeated inane questions. It reminded me of coaches on each side of a boxing ring, as my own coaches repeated that I needed to stop goading him.

  The principal picked it up from there. He turned from their little whispering group with his hands clasped, the best smile he could manage called up. "We're sorry for the trouble. With an accusation like that, anybody would be aggravated, but it's inexcusable to have this happen in front of the entire student body. I'm sure we can say that Kamoshida-kun merely became emotional from the strange libel that was posted up there."

  I didn't want it. I didn't want to waste time. Every second wasted was closer to Sojiro's curfew. This wasn't my fight and I caused it in the first place. He was going to taste my revenge anyways. I raised a hand and said, "I understand. Really, I just want to go home and do my homework."

  A shining star flared in his pupils, disgustingly happy. "If this doesn't show why it was the right idea to let in a struggling student into our school, then I don't believe anybody would ever be convinced. You've shown real maturity and restraint here, Kurusu-kun. It doesn't have to be said, but if any incident happens that we can help with, then you can be assured to have the support of Shujin Academy."

  Kawakami of all people looked like she wanted to say something snippy. That was cool.

  The gaggle of teachers dragged Kamoshida away. Whether it was actually to punish him I couldn't say. When I crouched down to start picking up my things, a person walked forwards in the crowd, the blonde guy. He kept that awful hunch and strange bow in his leg.

  With a grateful nod, I stuffed everything back in. Something close to crying in relief was pounding on my chest, proving that all my paranoia was being paid off in dividends. My notes relating to the Metaverse were written in broken English. My notepad, with the most incriminating evidence, was hidden inside my pant's waistband.

  It was the materials that I had specifically prepared for the heist that I was most scared of being found out. With Sojiro clamping down on time as hard as he was, I needed every second possible. Going back home to rearm myself was not feasible. Getting caught, just the same, would destroy my life. Inside those many plastic wrappers was a harder texture than they were supposed to have. Careful tears made it so that tape could be applied, only a tiny strip showing these were open candies if you paid close attention. None of this would hold up under scrutiny, yet it held. Take that, doubting voice in my own head!

  The blonde guy threw me a skeptical look when he picked up a Black Thunder. Obviously I didn't pay too much attention to the texture either. These new candies would be much harder than whatever was in the packet previously, as I was focused on keeping the proper size and shape rather than texture. "He knew" repeated in my head as I continued shoving my papers back into the binder. Act normal, pretend that it's normal how my candy was way harder than the chocolate goodness I'd eaten this morning. He slowly handed me the hard candy bar, glanced at the teachers behind me, and nodded.

  "Do you think that it was him?"

  "Why wouldn't it be? Kamoshida was probably right about to find the drugs before the principal interrupted."

  "Man, I would've wanted to see that!"

  "Of course it's Sakamoto-san who helps him. Trouble attracts trouble, after all."

  He looked exasperated by what the cheap seats had to say. The teachers finally took the hint, shooing away the last remnants of overly curious kids and tearing down the paper from the billboard. I blew out a breath of air.

  "It never ends, huh?" I asked lightly.

  The guy looked surprised that I talked to him before smiling. It was a goofy one. "Yeah! They've got nothing better to do."

  Once my bag was full again, I thanked him and hurried out. I felt bad that so many, a handful, helped me as if I were innocent. In context Kamoshida was out of line, yet in another it was totally understandable. It was a slimy feeling, knowing that I was the one who typed up that paper in a span of fifteen minutes the previous night.

  "Suguru Kamoshida. We know who you are. We know what you've done. Your arrogance is inexcusable. Using the school as your sock puppet and all those inside as slaves has gone on far enough. No matter that a complete list of your crimes could most likely never be listed out, the ones that you've already done have blackened your soul and twisted the world.

  Therefore, it is the duty of us, the Phantom Thieves of Heart, who reject your nihilistic view of the world, to steal your heart so you will never harm another person again. You, whose world has been twisted into a mockery of the real one, will feel the weight of your sins. Within 24 hours, your heart will be stolen."

  Have I mentioned that the motif of Kamoshida's palace is butts, thighs and titties? Picture frames had vaguely pornographic paintings with scantily clad…butts, thighs or titties, sometimes varying it up by having multiple at once. Statues were either of Kamoshida himself or just a vulgar torso of a woman. I know that I've given an aside before, but I want to put special attention here to the palace of butts, thighs and titties that was ruining my virgin eyes when I needed to sidle alongside them, keeping my hands wrapped around the cold stone.

  Despite my fears, there wasn't a literal army patrolling through the first floor. Nevertheless, the plan was going to be carried through.

  Cracked out of the candy packet came a tiny six-sided pillar with a black stick poking out—a firework. Finding these in the city wasn't overly difficult. Being a teenager had advantages, since it was already assumed that I was buying them for delinquency. Finding them wasn't too hard since I'd already done this sort of thing back home, which had similarly strict rules on who could use them. Plenty of places provided them as rainy day requests when asked. I understood how stupid it was openly asking around for semi, technically illegal contraband when I was on probation. To make it even more stupid, I'll admit that my chemistry teacher back home was a cool dude who taught me a lot about how these things worked. With a little finagling, I had a firework with a shorter, homemade fuse and packed with more fun. Never underestimate a tiny fuse; when I was putting it in place at the foot of the stairs to the dungeon, I had full confidence that it was going to take at least five minutes for it to blow and full confidence that the next one that I set up further down into the dungeon would take more like six, maybe seven. The last one was at the door leading to the basement. Leaving the door ajar, I used the pillar as a foothold to leap up onto one of the many flags soaring above the room.

  Finally came the time for bubbling sparks to erupt. Little suns flung from the red tube. They bounced around like bunnies, fading away just as fast. Hundreds of these were shot out, leaping from the walls in a dizzying pattern that enchanted me.

  Soon they started pouring out from all the exits. From the stairs a cascade of metal, from the stairs without seeing the other firework, from the door below me with their swords brandished in preparation. Whatever words those guards shared weren't of interest to me. According to Morgana's advice, I had a singular mission to worry about. So in that stance where I was crouched down like a frog, I leapt to the nearest ledge. An imperfection in a pillar gave me the perfect spot to hold onto.

  It was a game of leapfrog until I made it to the staircase. None of the guards thought of looking up. Just enough time passed when they were alerted again, this time from another set of explosions that had come down below. There were two options, if you weren't paying attention: walking the entire way and going through the elevator. The former seemed safer as I doubted the whole castle's security was beefed up as much as the entrances and area around the treasure; if I were the one designing the patrols, I would focus on making the easiest areas to access like the elevator hard to use rather than the long hallways of the second floor. However, the elevator was a secret and there weren't any patrols in there normally, and a time limit was pressing down on my back.

  I decided to take the long way around. If everything went to plan, I'd make it out within the hour anyways.

  Losing much of the decoration had made the place seem creepier than normal, somewhat morose as I ran down the empty hallways. Empty, yes. Completely empty. I knew that the firework was a genius plan and I'm not willing to diminish myself, but I was never under the illusion that it was that good. From the moment that I stepped onto that staircase, the guards had thinned down to a level where there were merely weak stragglers that I could assassinate. I didn't, in the interest of conserving my energy, but I could've.

  Approaching the throne room made me the most paranoid since first entering the palace. The front door was open. Nobody was there. No guards in front of the treasure room, nobody standing behind the pillars. I hesitantly walked in and did a closer inspection. Identical statues of torsos sticking their butts out held up the mezzanine. Rose petals fluttered in my face and tried crawling into my mouth. The red carpet led straight up to a tiny platform raised above the floor that had the throne—a generic thing with plush red and a golden trim. Two balconies stared out from both wings of the throne. For once, the lighting finally seemed welcoming, an orange unnatural from the few chandeliers and tall candelabras with their inconsistent, flickering flames. A smell I didn't even want to describe wafted from the seat of the throne.

  In the very far back was the door I was looking for. Hesitantly pushing it open granted me a burst of cool air, nobody on the other side. The treasure was entirely undefended.

  Manifesting above the dragon's horde was the mist that had congealed into a solid form: a crown, golden arches protecting a red dome, with gems encrusted into the band, emitting a gentle aura that transitioned between all the colors of the rainbow. It was, just to put this out there, larger than I was. If it weren't for the iron bars protecting the balcony just in front of me, then I would've tried my chances of leaving through there.

  Stepping onto the gold was painful. Each step twisted my ankle as the mountain of little coins wasn't made as a floor. Constantly readjusting my weight would be impossible while carrying the crown. Trusting my Metaverse magic, I gently tugged the floating thing. An explosion of gold flew into the air as the magic was lost. Buried into the pile, it needed a good amount of tugs before it came free and rolled onto the floor. Turning the crown over took a good few nudges until it was laying on its side on flat ground.

  Let's be clear: there was no way I was gracefully carrying out real gold that was larger than me out of that entire palace. I wanted to be like those pictures of people building the pyramid, before completely abandoning the idea when picking it up nearly broke my back. Instead I pushed it along like a dung beetle, my back pressed against the cold steel to roll it along. Shimmying with it was way less cool and way more possible.

  The light of the throne room greeted me with open arms. It perfectly lit every miniscule detail of the staircase that I had to climb down. Controlling the fall was essential to keep the noise down. My hands gently wrapped around the frame, testing the weight a little, and started with a light push. So the first step, phew! I had to balance on the other foot, lean my foot against the railing, and search for solid ground before lowering. It left me in some kind of painful diagonal that would've qualified as a yoga pose if I weren't heaving the most weight I'd ever supported in my life. Giving a second push was faulty thinking. My sweaty hands slid off the frame.

  When the crown fell down, I didn't try stopping it. The multiple bounces punctuated my failure. With my vision clear, I could see that I had an audience waiting at the entrance to the room.

  "I'll have you licking every scrape you caused to my crown clean, you peasant."