2025-11-26: My Hippolyta: Difference between revisions
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"I suppose you're the one who brought this rumor to Sergeant Suou's attention? You have my thanks." | "I suppose you're the one who brought this rumor to Sergeant Suou's attention? You have my thanks." | ||
He does place a hand upon his chin, as if considering the issue of the rumor. "Well, if she hasn't yet found the open car... then we'll have to search for it. Although-" He does look sideways at Katsuya, "-it would be quite illegal. I don't suppose you mind granting us an exception for 'extenuating' circumstances?" | He does place a hand upon his chin, as if considering the issue of the rumor. "Well, if she hasn't yet found the open car... then we'll have to search for it. Although-" He does look sideways at Katsuya, "-it would be quite illegal to actually enter it. I don't suppose you mind granting us an exception for 'extenuating' circumstances?" | ||
He's definitely enjoying this, even though it doesn't show on his expression. | He's definitely enjoying this, even though it doesn't show on his expression. | ||
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</poem> | </poem> | ||
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed. | <Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed. | ||
Revision as of 00:33, 30 November 2025
- Log: My Hippolyta
- Cast: Umie Akabane, Katsuya Suou, Goro Akechi
- Where: Eiji Kamiya's Palace
- OOC Date: November 26, 2025
- IC Date: August 16, 2012
- Summary: Katsuya receives a text from Umie, who needs help investigating a rumor about an alternative means of entering a Palace. On Umie's request to 'bring someone', he brings Akechi, which quickly turns out to be a good choice, despite Umie's initial misgivings. After all, when three very self-driven people brave a Palace of someone so depraved, they'll need everything they have to push through to the other side.'
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
----EARLIER----
One could write a soliloquy expressing Umie's feelings on the moment she saw the Old Maid's newest hit video.
"Goddamn paper bag-headed motherf--"
One could, but that doesn't mean one *should*, as Umie tries to browse the Dark Side message board on her laptop.
Umie can think of better ways to spend her time.... especially as she's lessened her hours as best she could to avoid running into the serial killer. (The shadow of rent can be forestalled somewhat with savings and konbini closeouts, but the risk of food poisoning, as well as meager loot from her Mementos and Kuzunoha job runs, means eventually, she'll just have to run into Sudou eventually and hope no coworkers get freaked out. But that's a story for another time.)
RIght now, Umie takes out a pen and paper, and begins writing.
----NOW----
Katsuya will soon get a text on his phone from out of the blue, as Umie texts tend to go.
> i'm testing the dark side palace rumor, meet me in akiyoshi building carpark
> maybe bring someone??? definitely feels like a palce in here
'It feels like a Palace', for Umie, unfortunately, means she's pacing about the entrance like a tiger in a cage. Already in her pale grey windbreaker with her dufflebag at her side, she's further modified her outfit with a baseball cap with the letter 'P' pressed over her head, a ponytail threaded out the back, as well as clear plastic rim glasses.
She's frowning. Reddish brown eyes glance around. There could be others trying to figure out of the rumor's true. How long as that post even been up?
Still, there's definitely a palace here. Something inside Umie absolutely *hates* the way the parking garage feels about now-- that same itchy, rotten feeling she felt when Myunghon took them close to where Kaneshiro's Palace could be entered.
<Pose Tracker> Katsuya Suou has posed.
----EARLIER----
Katsuya hadn't seen the video when it had come out: with a few exceptions, he's not the most social media-savvy (or internet media, really) sort of person. But it was also the sort of video where even if you're not online, the fact that you were mentioned in it does eventually find its way back around to you. In his case, it was fortunately Hamade.
It had not. Made him happier. At all.
The good news is that everyone at his work is 'good' so no one else said anything to his face. The bad news is that he'd gotten some looks from the detectives still officially assigned to the case. He had left work dreading whether he was going to be asked to report to the Chief. What if they thought he was still working on the Joker Killer case despite being dismissed?
...well, the fact is, this is how it is, but...
----NOW----
He'd been mulling over it -- the insult and the potential impacts this could have both -- when he'd gotten a text from Umie.
> What new Darkside palace rumor?
(a pause of about five minutes follows)
> Are you certain? This doesn't sound legal.
> You're going to try it anyway. In that case I don't have any choice.
Following that, he had called the only person he thought he could call if his aim is to keep Umie on the straight and narrow--
There's a funny feeling in the air, Katsuya notes, as he arrives at the carpark. "Is this...?" he asks Umie as he makes his approach, his gaze lifting as if trying to track something in the air around him. "It reminds me of Kaneshiro's Palace," he remarks, placing the only finger he can on the sensation that seems to be trying to crawl its way up his spine.
He turns to Umie, at last. "Akabane-kun, you have found the way in, then?" Of course she has, and he can quietly brood over how illegal this thing that she did was all evening to himself. Really, can't someone spread a better rumor than that?
<Pose Tracker> Goro Akechi has posed.
---EARLIER---
Akechi is made to eat some humble pie, courtesy of a Zombie-God.
He of course, despises the whole experience.
---NOW---
The moment Goro Akechi arrived in Iwatodai City, he turned off his smart phone. This was of course, for a very good reason.
(A reason of giving Katsuya no alternate options.)
"Yes... this is certainly the feeling of a Palace." Goro Akechi agrees with Katsuya, expression grave, before he smiles at Umie, "Why hello, Akabane-kun." There, proof they've become more familiar.
"I suppose you're the one who brought this rumor to Sergeant Suou's attention? You have my thanks."
He does place a hand upon his chin, as if considering the issue of the rumor. "Well, if she hasn't yet found the open car... then we'll have to search for it. Although-" He does look sideways at Katsuya, "-it would be quite illegal to actually enter it. I don't suppose you mind granting us an exception for 'extenuating' circumstances?"
He's definitely enjoying this, even though it doesn't show on his expression.
"Eiji Kamiya is the most vile sort of criminal that exists... but I'm lacking crucial evidence currently to see him put away for good. If we're going to do so... then we should be resolved not to flinch at the starting line."
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
Why, of all people, did Umie call Katsuya? Because it didn't sound legal.
> blame the rumor, not me
> not going to be the first or last to try it, might as well come on down
Umie's reasoning, at least to her, is logical.
Did she find a way in? "I didn't," Umie says, already handing her notes on the rumor to Katsuya as she begins to stride in. "But the rumor might've. Something about finding a car with an open door, and Midsummer's Night's Dream. I've jotted down the basics." As she does so, her eyes slip past him to Akechi.
There's a moment of recognition, as the wheels in Umie's brain begin to process furiously how to proceed. "... Akechi-san."
.... Ah, as if this couldn't get anymore awkward if they, by some stroke of (bad) luck, run into the Phantom Thieves. She, the person who claimed to be an ally to the Phantom Thieves, running around with a member of the police, as well as someone who's sworn to bring them in.
..... Yet, if she takes a step back and thinks about it, of course Katsuya would call Akechi, especially if he realized Akechi knew her. Why else would she have been able to give both his and Akechi's information to Jun? On top of that, Akechi has eyes, and he can read, and he'd likely read the Dark Side as well. So.
And two people won't be enough, even just to look around.
'Akabane-kun'. So he wants to play this game, does he? Her lips open, about to tease about his day out with Ren, when she reflects back on that day, and how the two seemed to truly enjoy their time-- enough that she wanted to step back out.
She lets out a sigh. "Yeah, that's me. I also told him to bring company, and..." There's a small half grin, as she moves to go into the carpark. "He sees you as trustworthy, looks like."
Katsuya may already be regretting that, as Akechi moves in on his target, while Umie takes a quick note of each car. ".... If you two sense it too, then, it's definitely not just indigestion on my part."
She holds up a hand, quietly motioning for them to split up, as Akechi explains further on this Eiji person.
Falling into a quiet mood, Umie keeps that seed of dread in the bottom of her stomach.
.... No, they're definitely better off to have Akechi here. If Akechi gets evidence and puts him away, that's a bonus. The Phantom Thieves, if they act, aren't necessarily stopped by that, are they? And if it does disrupt the palace, well. Less onlookers like Umie would be good, wouldn't it?
There's only one way to find out.
<Pose Tracker> Katsuya Suou has posed.
She's going to do it one way or another, so... he has to come to make sure she doesn't get into any trouble, doesn't he. They'll be lucky if this rumor doesn't create more work for the police, at this rate. What was the person who spread that rumor thinking, assembling it like that? It's a violation of personal property laws!
It has not yet, for Katsuya, occured to him that this was the reason someone structured that rumor like that in the first place.
But they're here, and he can tell that the rumor wasn't just a rumor. Even Akechi feels like there's a Palace here. It's just a matter of getting in there.
"Yes," he answers, nodding, "Akabane-kun alerted me to this. I am afraid I was distracted by other matters and did not see it sooner." Like, oh, a certain video. "I did some quick research on the way here. The Palace in question... yes, it is as Akechi-kun says," he explains, gesturing with his hands. "It appears to relate to Eiji Kamiya. There are a number of dark rumors about him..." Even Katsuya has heard of them. "But, there is nothing concrete," he finishes. "Beyond that... there is the rumor that Akabane-kun and Darkside mentioned."
Yes. That rumor.
He looks pained when Akechi says it. Pained. "Well... I suppose it can't be helped," Katsuya says, fidgeting with his sunglasses. "I will have to look the other way this time..."
Except, Umie hasn't found the car yet?
"You... haven't?" Katsuya says. He reaches up to fidget, again, with his sunglasses. "...I see... then we will have to--"
He turns suddenly to Akechi, as if remembering something. "Akechi-kun, is there not a phone application that lets you access the Metaverse? We could use that instead," he says, glancing back at the car park, "of looking around in there."
Of course, for one very important reason, he won't be that lucky.
AND SO
"I hope... that we don't run into anyone else in here," says Katsuya, ennervated at the very thought of committing a crime (even one like this).
<Pose Tracker> Goro Akechi has posed.
Akechi isn't quite convinced yet that Umie wasn't stalking them and that 'friend' who is his fan wasn't actually present.
That just goes to show you, he's definitely not right about everything!
"Why yes, we've become well acquainted with each other as 'colleagues' so to speak. He can't exactly rely upon the majority of his fellow Officers for backup during a Supernatural incident."
Or you know, for anything - that's the Sumaru Police Department... the Corruption really does run that deep.
"Aha..." He chuckles, "... no it's definitely not whatever you had for lunch. I'm certain of it... I've been dealing with Palaces since before the 'Phantom Thieves of Hearts' revealed themselves. Though... certainly not in the same way."
Katsuya notes that he will have to look the other way and Akechi nods, "Then, we should begin our search. There are certain signs to look for to assist in the search-"
But then Katsuya turns to him, "Ah, you're quite correct! However, we'd need to deduce his keywords-"
As he pulls out his darkened phone screen and taps it with no response, then again- "... Ah. It would seem my phone is quite dead. I'm afraid I've been out all day and haven't had the opportunity to charge it."
How unfortunate!
AND SO!
"Let's see... yes this might be the one. The latch is up- and there's no telltale sign of a car alarm."
It is unfortunately- a luxury convertible. The kind Eiji Kamiya himself might drive. Opening the door, they may all be surprised when- the radio comes on, despite the rest of the car remaining dark.
"Well... that must be the Rumor. Let's see... we're to tune it to... '700' as I recall?"
Sliding into the driver's seat he turns the knob, he adjusts it until... static... white noise. Then the faint sound of-
...lostrate... up the Atheni... erriment...
A ghostly masculine voice, before it comes in far more clearly.
Ichika... my Hippolyta...
Akechi makes a certain... face of barely disguised disgust, at that. "How odd... perhaps the Rumor is affecting the Resonance of the Palace's Ruler... in a rather telling way." Before he clears his throat, and gets up out of the car seat.
"I don't suppose either of you have any acting experience?"
MONAD: A party led by Umie Akabane has begun the event Eiji's Palace.
(|========================== Monad - Eiji's Palace ===========================|)
-==== Round 1: Sight Unseen - Challenge Level 1 ===============================-
| Approach Options: Proficiency or Academics |
| Conditions: Clumsy - Proficiency Down L1 |
-==== Challenge ===============================================================-
A steady stream of faceless yet well-dressed people goes in and out of the huge
building ahead. Streetlights illuminate the path towards open sets of
double-doors; the building stretches tall, boxy and white. Lovely windows with
curtains on the inside stretch along each side of the building; huge signs
proclaim it the Kamiya Convention Center. There's a huge glass dome at the top,
and numerous further signs on the way in. They advertise stations and displays;
a restaurant first, a gift shop...
And of course, the biggest sign:
Kamiya Convention Center
<3 The Kamiya Wedding <3
Featuring:
Eiji Kamiya and Ichika Kawase
There's a dark patch in the lights beside a side entrance--the perfect entryway
if you want to approach in secret. But the lights are moving, and your opening
will only last so long. You can either rush on raw skill, or calculate the path
of the lights in order to get across without being seen. Either way, you'll have
to do it quickly, before they start changing up the spotlights again. ...Pay no
attention to the other entrance, where unhappy faceless Cognitions are being
herded inside. You could sneak there too, but it might not be recommended.
(|============================================================= Monad 1.1 ====|)
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
'I am afraid I was distracted by other matters...' 'The Old Maid video,' Umie wants to say.
The mere thought of it just makes her even more aware of how much danger that man's placed everyone around her in, from a curious and possibly malicious public. And not just her, but everyone else who was named. He's definitely trying to escalate things, but there's nothing that can be done now.
Just like there's nothing to be done about Umie being with two capable people, one of which has been--
"...." Umie regards Akechi's statement, brow furrowed slightly. ".... Huh. I guess, that'd make sense. It wouldn't be like you to just jump on a case like that immediately, just like you're not jumping on this one without evidence." Maybe the two parties have always known about each other. The timeline may not be what simply rises to the surface, after all.
'We could use that instead.' Oh, uh. That *is* right. Akechi is a 'Mask-san' as well. The white hat on Umie's head barely peeks out from one car, as she looks for, and then trains her eyes on Akechi.
He's going to say his phone is dead. It may actually be dead, but most likely? It isn't.
If he and Umie lock eyes, she'll just give him a flat stare of disbelief.
Look at her, saying absolutely nothing, even still.
Umie Akabane is a good person. Mostly.
-------
"Aw, I was hoping I'd get to hear one of you two do it," Umie teases, as the radio turns on. 'Ichika--'
"Why would rumors affect Mementos..." Where Akechi expresses disgust (perhaps at the subject), Umie's voice becomes hushed, disturbed at the thought of the two interacting. It can't be a coincidence, right?
(Like Umie, being in the right place at the right time at the aquarium, or a zombie lord knowing just what Akechi wouldn't want him to know, but neither of these would occur to Umie herself.)
Probably not the Ichika Umie knows of, she's sure. Still, this is a reminder: they'll be entering someone's mindspace, and be witness to the crimes of their soul. Her hand, partially covered by the white wrist sleeve, is held palm up towards Katsuya for her notes. "I'll do it."
An actor, Umie could be, but here, she recites the words solemnly, her eyelids slightly lowering. "Hippolyta, I wooed thee with my sword..."
In a fashion similar to the rumor allowing reckless persons to enter Mementos, the fabric of reality around them ripples and pulses with each word, replacing the drab grey concrete and dimly lit interiors for something more worthy of the convertible's level of refinement.
There is to be a wedding, it seems, with--
".... With pomp, with triumph, and with reveling." Her performance finished, Umie finally allows herself to look up, eyes widening at the second name on the sign above. ".... Wait. Kawase-san? The Thorn Boss of Kasugayama High? *That's* the person the radio mentioned?" (She had done her research while trying to track down Tsubasa, but she didn't think it'd come in handy like *this*.)
Well, again, nothing can be done about it now.
She gives the two a soft whistle, pointing to her mask as she puts it on, having exchanged the hat and glasses for it earlier. She's not taking any chances with how her own abilities work, even if she's sure they will be able to see past it, either way. She then points to her chosen path: a side entrance. She gives them a thumbs up. "Meet you on the other side."
And, the moment the two look away, she'll be gone.
(....... Umie Akabane is not exactly the best leader, but she tries, sometimes.)
MONAD: Umie Akabane has acted with Can you do this? toward Sight Unseen! Specialty! <Pose Tracker> Katsuya Suou has posed.
"It is as he says," Katsuya confirms. It isn't that he doesn't trust Maya and Ulala, either. Rather, it's simply that, when it comes to a matter such as this... perhaps it's better to avoid more chaos. So to speak, that is: he's seen how both woman operate. And as for Watanabe or Inaba, he's not sure if it's appropriate to call the former about this so suddenly on a Wednesday night (she has small children) for anything less than an emergency while the latter he feels is still being cagey about matters (and the police). If they're going to do something like 'that' to enter the Palace, then he needs to make sure he has someone he can trust and that the situation won't get stirred up further. And...
And, there's something else about this whole business. Something that gives him pause. Maybe it was that quick mention about a '700' one of the threads on Darkside. He's probably overthinking it, but...
No, it might be better to not have any of the women here, if he can help it.
(He's already given up even trying to dissuade Umie, because he knows how she thinks and acts by now.)
Alas, any hope he had of keeping from breaking and entering someone else's car quickly withers and dies on the vine. Akechi's phone is out of power. "I... see," Katsuya says. "Then, we have no choice." He doesn't suspect a thing.
It takes some searching. There is at least one instance with a misidentified car and a car alarm which forces them (or at least Katsuya) to flee into the shadows of the car park. They eventually, though, find what they're looking for.
"Yes, I think so," Katsuya answers, glancing over his shoulder as Akechi slides into the car and into the driver's seat. No one is coming, but it's not making him feel any better about the circumstances! "Yes, it was 700. Then," he starts to say, but doesn't continue.
Because the radio is picking up static.
"...Hippolyta? In the play, Theseus..." What were those lines again? He glances over at Umie, as if about to speak, himself, but Umie holds up a hand, and, to his dismay, Katsuya can't exactly say it's not a relief to let her take the wheel, so to speak. "Of course," he says, standing aside as she recites the lines. Alas, on this front, Akechi might have to content himself with Katusya's semi-obvious discomfort with what they're doing with another person's car. Thankfully, then reality twists.
And they're somewhere else entirely. "It worked," Katsuya remarks, because of course it did. "Where are we now? ...A convention center? I see..." he muses, glancing over at the sign.
He has a double-take at the name. "Kawase-san? Ichika Kawase? She's--" He glances, sharply, at Umie, as she spills a few facts more. "The 'Thorn Boss' at Kasugayama? I-- never would have," he starts, only to trail off.
There's no entrance to be had in the front: the crowds are too thick to push through. Calling out to them doesn't so much as cause them to turn a head: he might as well be talking to a wall. Umie calls out before he can try anything rash, and he heads to the alleyway which appears to be their way in. "We'll want to avoid those lights," he says, and no sooner has he said it than Umie has vanished. "Ah, Akabane-kun?! ...I suppose she did go on ahead," he finishes.
"They seem to be at regular intervals. So long as we time our approach," he tells Akechi, before he starts forward, "we should be able to make it."
MONAD: Katsuya Suou has acted with Academics toward Sight Unseen! Base!
<Pose Tracker> Goro Akechi has posed.
But how could he have ever predicted this, Umie? :) :) :)
Even turning his phone off, why would anyone ever do that? And even if he did, then perhaps it was to investigate - this aspect of it the Rumor.
Either way, you can't prove it, as he smiles in his faux affable way as he meets her stare, "Is there something on my face? You're staring quite intently."
Umie's recitation, as they enter, is met with a slow clap by Akechi, now changed into his 'Prince' Persona, complete with Tengu Mask, "Well done. Though I'd rather you not ever have to play the part of Theseus yourself."
'Kawase-san? The Thorn Boss...'
"I'll explain more once we're inside the venue."
And, they might both be surprised when Akechi becomes an inky smear as he moves behind one point of cover, to another, weaving a path around the lights. And charting a quick - efficient path inside by deducing the pattern of the lights.
As he goes, he holds up his fingers, in order to indicate the number of seconds before the lights go on and off.
Once they're past the lights, he waits until they're all through, before beginning in hushed tones.
"I suppose it is best that both of you know this now... before we go any further. Ichika Kawase was at one point engaged to be married to this man... and was pregnant with his child out of wedlock. However, Eiji Kamiya has quite the temper..."
He lets that linger, sounding uneasy, and forcing his voice into neutrality, "... when she expressed certain doubts regarding their upcoming nuptials and what it means for her future... he raped her, then beat her quite badly. Badly enough to put her in the hospital... where she miscarried."
His tone is rigid right now. "When her family went to the police, only for the evidence to end up 'damaged' in custody because his father, Gakuto Kamiya, a prominent businessman had already bribed them. They were convinced by the Prosecutor's Office not to go forward with the case..."
There's a look beyond anger in his eyes, just a flicker of it. Like he might stare at the Ruler through the walls and hate him to death with his stare, "... and Ichika Kawase was expelled from her former High School for the 'disgrace', labelled a delinquent. Undoubtedly the result of another bribe..."
He takes a sharp breath, "... so yes. I've made it my mission to see the man put away for his many- grievous and despicable crimes, in order to clear Ichika Kawase's name."
MONAD: Goro Akechi has acted with Second Coming toward Sight Unseen! Focus and Patra!
(|============================= Monad - Results ==============================|) -==== Sight Unseen - Round 1 ==================================================- Katsuya Suou Academics Success Academics Base Fatigue: 0 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Goro Akechi Academics Success Second Coming Focus and Patra Fatigue: 0 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Umie Akabane Proficiency Success Can you do this? Specialty Fatigue: 0 -============================= Party Conditions: ==============================- Starting Conditions: Clumsy-2 Final Conditions: -======================================== Party Result: Success: Reach Up! ====- -==== Reach: 1/6 |= | =====================================================- (|============================================================= Monad 1.1 ====|)
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
----EARLIER----
Umie's lips extend even further in a frown as she squints her eyes at him. It's impressive!
And yet, when he remarks on it, her face returns to normal, like nothing happened. "We're here to test the rumor anyway, so it's fine."
----NOW----
"Ah, right." After the brief moment of recollection of the play's events (hazy as they probably are), Umie's lips twist in a cheeky smirk. "I guess I took a bullet for the two of you, didn't I?"
No, she literally just was so focused on pushing ahead that she didn't think about who was speaking; hopefully, this will be the only bullet she'll take for her hastiness.
... But likely not. Katsuya would know Umie well enough to know; even as a tutor, there was a reason Umie persisted in her task with his little brother: for better or worse, she doesn't know when to give up. By the time Umie realizes what the designation of '700' means, it'll be too late.
Right now, ascending to the height of her momentum, there's no slowing her. As she turns to Katsuya to explain what little she knows, Akechi steps in, and Umie leaves the floor open, her expression solemn and she nods. "Okay."
There's something to be said about planning out one's path, waiting for the lights to establish some plan of attack.
Do you hear that? It's the sound of Umie Akabane just going in, because she-- oh no, that was close.
What Umie discovered was a path, alright, but hardly the most efficient one, barely arriving at her destination moments before the other two move with far more efficiency.
The inky blur that Akechi leaves as he moves draws a widened, soundless expression of surprise from Umie. Is that almost a glint of awe, there? Ah, but she's already turning her attention to Katsuya, ready to step in if he has trouble, but the man's experience and training lays well over the boost his Persona affords him.
"... Alright, I think we're okay, here." Umie adjusts her coat's hood over her head as she looks at Akechi. "..."
If there was ever a means to show the gulf between Umie and people like Katsuya and Akechi, it's now. The pallor in Umie's face nearly matches the grey in her mask as she listens (*forces herself to listen*).
SHe's glad for the hunched position she's already adopted, because the ground feels like it wants to slide right from underneath her sneakers.
It's not about her, but yet, her brain can't help but selfishly make the painful, logically unsound connection:
That could've been me.
That could still be me.
And her mind feels naturally drawn to this conclusion as the absolute truth.
"... Then it's good that you're here," she says, straightening.
If her hand goes to support her body against the wall, it's just a coincidence. "Let's get going, then. We'll find you your evidence, Akechi-san."
MONAD: Umie Akabane has drawn a new Challenge!
(|========================== Monad - Eiji's Palace ===========================|)
-==== Round 2: The Back Rooms - Challenge Level 2 =============================-
| Approach Options: Guts or Academics |
| Conditions: Boss - Add 1 Fatigue on failure. and Curse - -1 to Group Roll |
| (Per Character) |
-==== Challenge ===============================================================-
Finding a side entrance or a service door, one can find a way into the Back
Rooms. Screams rip periodically out of grates and rooms here in the back. It's
dingy, dreary, and dark here, full of doors to apparently nowhere and pitfalls
to the depths. Falling through one requires a laborious trek back up the stairs.
Every time. But the finery and glitz of the front areas, while nowhere to be
seen here, depend upon these back rooms and the Shadows in them.
Cognitions occupy each room. Unlike most of the Cognitions here, they don't have
blank faces; their faces are flowers with beautiful golden petals. Some are
seated on beds, mostly naked; some are in maid outfits, cleaning the rooms. All
of them seem unhappy with their lot, and all of them are chained at the ankle to
their work station. And then there's the ones who are being actively tortured!
It's a stressful area... but you can listen in on some of the /front/ rooms from
here, too. Alternately, if you can map your way out, you might have a powerful
advantage in the rest of the Palace...
(|============================================================= Monad 1.1 ====|)
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
"Mm." There's a doorway, Umie can sense it.
It activates something in the blonde woman's brain, as a chipped dark apricot fingernail traces the wall, testing it, reaching up towards edges too high up for her to simply lift herself up on.
".... There's a doorway." Her tone is flat, her attention pinpointed on an entrance that goes further in, despite her reaction earlier.
A few steps back, then a few more, and her sneakers fly across the ground and up the wall, her palms grabbing for the ledge and, joined by the next, hoisting herself up. The momentum isn't wasted; she's no blur, but her body is one with the practice of going from one obstacle to the next, with a quiet grace of experience.
Grates and passageways to nowhere greet them beyond; the screams leave little room for commentary from Umie, as she instead holds up a finger to indicate she's about to do something. Blue light flows from underneath her as her eyes close; Badb's appearance cutting the dark with white flesh that could be seen as tantalizing if it wasn't just a shade too blue, or the opera gloves, while lacy and feminine, stretched over talons a little too long.
Oh, how those red lips seem so eager in their want to shriek and call, in place of Umie's silence, or the cries of misery below.
".... This way." She's already moving, as if her body had just naturally resumed angry path it had carved to get to this location.
MONAD: Umie Akabane has acted with Bird's Eye View toward The Back Rooms! Automap!
<Pose Tracker> Katsuya Suou has posed.
He pauses for just that moment, interrupted briefly in his own count as Akechi makes his first advance. Is that the power of 'that method of Persona use'...?
Once they're inside, Akechi says, he'll explain further. He must have done more research into Eiji Kamiya, Katsuya figures; he has heard some dark rumors about the young man, about his temper precisely, but beyond that...
Well, Katsuya has only just learned about the Palace today, so he hasn't had the same opportunities, suffice to say. Once they're inside, then they'll talk.
Akechi does just that.
"They were... engaged? But... she's still in high school!" He pauses, thinking about Eiji's own age in that regard. "I suppose, they both are. And, it is not uncommon among some high class families to have long term engagements, I suppose, but..."
But Eiji Kamiya has a temper, as Katsuya is aware from some of the stories he has heard about the young man (office gossip is unbecoming, but a person hears things whether they want to or not). And, as Akechi puts it, at 'one point', the engagement had been in place.
Akechi explains why it no longer isn't.
"He..." Katsuya trails off, going stock still where he stands. He's a homicide detective. Most murders aren't a stranger killing a stranger. Often a murderer knows their victim, sometimes all too well. A 'domestic disturbance' can quickly turn into a different code altogether. When men get angry, women can die. Logically, he knows these things. He can even appreciate, at a distant remove, how fortunate Ichika is to be alive.
But all he can feel is a white-hot sort of anger.
"So... that's why I never heard about this incident..." he says at last, once Akechi finishes telling them the rest of it. There's a tension that hadn't been there before: on his face, in his shoulders. At his sides, both hands have curled into fists. "It's been said that young man," and perhaps never before has someone made 'young man' sound like a condemnation, "is involved with various shady elements. In the post on the Darkside, it even posited that he is involved in kidnappings. Yet, even so, I never--"
He closes his eyes, and then makes his feelings more transparent at last:
"...Some people have no place in polite society... Akechi-kun, I..." He pauses, thinking about the presence of a Palace and what it suggests may happen next. "I will help you find your evidence." Perhaps they can even solve this fairly. Legally.
It's then that he notices Umie, pressed up against the wall for the moment. "Akabane-kun! Are you alright? Hearing all of that..."
He doesn't know that it cuts closer to the bone for Umie than many women. He just knows that she's a woman, and hearing about such violence must rightly be distressing.
She, however, opts to press on. What can he do but follow? "A secret passage? Is this safe?" he wonders aloud, following all the same. Perhaps it will keep them out of the way of danger, he considers, in those faint few seconds before he hears the screams. He'll push aside even Umie if he has to, racing ahead to find their source.
But, isn't it obvious, Suou-kun?
"This is--" he has a half-moment to get out before it dawns on him what's going on in here. There's no averting his gaze from something like this. "This is police!" he calls in the next moment. "Please stay calm, and I will get you out of here...!"
They're not real. They're cognitions. He can't save them. He knows that. He can't do anything except witness this crime in progress. He knows that, too.
But sometimes, you have to go through the motions to make your way through something.
Without a word, the moment he can look and listen no more he turns, running after Umie.
MONAD: Katsuya Suou has acted with You're Under Arrest! toward The Back Rooms! Specialty!
<Pose Tracker> Goro Akechi has posed.
'Prince' doesn't look at Umie for a while, perhaps his analytical mind can tell what she's thinking- or at least have some idea. But he doesn't act to comfort her.
Of course he doesn't. He's too self absorbed on the thoughts of punishing this man, as if a 'warm up' for his own vengeance.
Just a taste.
"Indeed so, I believe he only proposed after she became pregnant with his child. Even for high schoolers... it'd be considered the 'right' thing to do."
He answers Katsuya, somewhat clipped.
"And yes, that's correct... I saw it in the post myself on the way. I believe it to be true... while I have no hard evidence, there were rumors along those lines that my informants on Port Island picked up..."
His eyes... something flickers, as he appears tense as Katsuya speaks of people with no place in polite society.
But he has one. An Ace Detective. A Celebrity.
"Thank you. This case is rather personal to me... for reasons that go beyond Kawase-san's pain."
They follow Umie - they follow her into the rooms ahead. And then comes the sounds of suffering. From so many cognitions that-
... Katsuya bursts in, it's the reflexes of a good man, doing what he's supposed to.
He looks upon one that looks like Tsubasa... only with decidedly exaggerated feminine characteristics. The face is burned enough to make it obvious.
"Unfortunately, there's nothing to be done here. The twisted imaginings of a depraved mind."
Still, his gaze lingers on the one that looks upon Tsubasa, before he too moves forward.
He lets Umie field this one. Right now he's lost in thought upon what he's seen.
MONAD: Goro Akechi has acted with Guts toward The Back Rooms! Base! (|============================= Monad - Results ==============================|) -==== The Back Rooms - Round 2 ================================================- Katsuya Suou Guts Success You're Under Arrest! Specialty Fatigue: 0 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Goro Akechi Guts Success Guts Base Fatigue: 0 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Umie Akabane Guts Success Bird's Eye View Automap Fatigue: 0 -============================= Party Conditions: ==============================- Starting Conditions: Boss-0 and Curse-0 Final Conditions: -======================================== Party Result: Success: Reach Up! ====- -==== Reach: 2/6 |== | =====================================================- (|============================================================= Monad 1.1 ====|)
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
It may cut close to home, but Umie has never experienced violence, or found herself in a relationship with a monster that slowly unveiled itself after it became too painful to pull away. She refused Honjou at the beginning.
"I'm the closest you two have a Navigator here. I am technically the one who brought you two here, so it's my responsibility to see you two get out in one piece."
Katsuya's concern is appreciated, all the same, it seems; as Umie's voice musters up a response to bounce back off of it.
As well as to think, as Akechi is doing.
"But the same goes for you two. You two have more experience than I do," she conceeds, "but we've technically succeeded in our first mission. Evidence... that might require another..."
There's a scream.
"...?" Umie is pushed back by Katsuya's need to jump to action. She had taken the screams below, due to the strange flower faces, to be a further reflection of this man's heart, just like the walking ATMs at Kaneshiro's. "You'll give us away. If it's reflections of things he's seen or thought, it's happened already."
But her gaze trails down to the flowers below.
Could those people wait? How long are they going to have to scream?
'The twisted imaginings of a depraved mind...'
"This way," she continues on, refusing to stop for another second. "We're getting that evidence."
MONAD: Umie Akabane has drawn a new Challenge!
(|========================== Monad - Eiji's Palace ===========================|)
-==== Round 3: Safe Room Planning - Challenge Level 3 =========================-
| Approach Options: Understanding or Proficiency |
| Conditions: Checkpoint - Cleanse all negative conditions. and Fairy - |
| Subtract 1 Fatigue on success. |
-==== Challenge ===============================================================-
This Safe Room is a space of relatively normal Cognition, insulated from the
Distortion of the rest of the Palace. It's a nice hotel room with nobody in it;
there's a bed to relax on, a restroom if you want to risk it in here, a
mini-fridge... Who gets charged for the minibar, anyway? (No underage drinking,
kids!)
But there is more than plush carpet, air conditioning, and a balcony. There's
your party, for one, and you may be able to have success in revitalizing them by
taking stock and listening to how they feel about all this so far. Alternately,
you could make a plan for tackling the rest of the Palace. Either way, you
should be sure to use this reprieve wisely.
(|============================================================= Monad 1.1 ====|)
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
The screaming seems to never stop. Umie's face is expressionless, her body moving like a thing possessed.
Her face might as well be a mask all its own.
Her finger crooks towards a door, away from where the Badb in her wants to go, which is towards violence.
It's not the only thing that's bouncing in her mind, at the moment, however.
The door is forced open, and, when Umie realizes her senses were correct, she walks in.
Then, as if towards words they may or may not have said, she's whipping around and offering a wild-eyed response.
"_We're resting_," she yells. "....?"
She breathes a sigh and rubs at her eyes, smudging the mask instead.
That gets thrown aside in the next moment, allowing her to wipe away the sweat that's since collected there with her other arm. ".... ...... yes. Sorry."
"It was loud," she offers, as an explanation to a question that likely has not been asked yet.
MONAD: Umie Akabane has acted with Understanding toward Safe Room Planning! Base!
<Pose Tracker> Goro Akechi has posed.
"I think we could all use a break." He replies evenly, to Umie's yell... before nodding at her statement, "I believe we're all quite high strung at the moment."
'Prince' abruptly brings out his model gun. It looks like a toy - albeit an exceptionally high quality one. The kind of ray gun one might see on a Tokusatsu show.
He examines it. Then says-
"We should discuss our approach now that we are deeper into the Palace." He says, rather than attempting to discuss feelings because he's allergic, he instead distracts with a plan. Himself as well, "My plan once we find the Ruler is simple. To ambush him, overwhelm him before he can summon reinforcements- then interrogate him. I recognize that nothing we hear is admissible in court- however, he can direct us to where the necessary evidence exists without the man ever being alerted to it in reality."
He eyes that gun again, "Legal experts might debate about the ethics of this approach. Indeed- I do each and every time that I make use of the Supernatural rather than perform traditional Detective Work. However..."
He looks up at the other two, "... while I may criticize the Phantom Thieves... I do not believe the supernatural is fully off limits when dealing with criminals such as this. Only that one should not change someone's heart against their will."
Look he had to say something after all those TV appearances going Phantom Thieves This and Phantom Thieves That and that the Phantom Thieves are responsible for Cancer (Not that one.)
MONAD: Goro Akechi has acted with Warning Shot toward Safe Room Planning! Specialty!
<Pose Tracker> Katsuya Suou has posed.
Of course, once she became pregnant, that's when they got engaged. Katsuya nods, because that's... probably the right thing to do, even for two teenagers. Sometimes a teenage girl becomes pregnant: he knows this thanks to his work. Often, they terminate, or put the child up for adoption. Sometimes, though...
Sometimes, the reality is even worse than what one might expect, as he's quick to learn. And not only that, but--
"...So, that's true," Katsuya says simply. He touches his fingers to the bridge of his sunglasses, bowing his head as if in thought.
"If he is arrested... if the charges can be proven..." he speaks aloud, ruminating on the subject. Trafficking is one area where Japanese law can fall short compared to other countries, though. But it's the only law or authority he has to right these wrongs.
Glancing over at Akechi as he says this is a personal case for him, beyond what happened to Ichika, Katsuya pauses, as if to consider, again, what he knows about Akechi's life story. Then, at a remove, he nods.
"I understand. If you decide you need to leave, however," he says, just to give her that out if she needs it. Surely no woman needs to experience a mind capable of such things! Yet, she's also not wrong: if they run into a particular sort of trouble, they may well need her skills as a Navigator.
And they follow Umie into what might as well be a hell made manifest.
He knows. Akechi's right. Umie's right. There's nothing to be done. He'll give them away. He already knew that. But what he knows and what his heart demands might as well be foreign languages right now: neither can communicate. So he does what he feels he ought to, and then he runs, because there is no reason to be here longer than he must. Continuing to expose yourself to something horrible purely for the sake of enduring it, with no hope of mitigating it, is not an action that leads to a healthy state of mind.
So he runs after Umie and gets out of here. They move until the screaming fades, until it's just bitter memory. Umie, locating a safe room, ushers them both inside.
It's staggering, how different 'this' is from how different 'that' was. Like night and day, Katsuya thinks, sitting down heavily in a chair. And like night and day, one can't live without the other. "I agree," he says at last. "We need to rest for a moment, before we run into trouble." Continuing on like they are, they could get into real trouble. A Palace is a dangerous place: he remembers managing Kaneshiro's on his own, and he'd probably been fortunate that others had been exploring it at the same time. They can't assume it'll be like that this time.
And they have to think about what they'll do next.
"I agree. We need to think about what we're doing in here. I... am not as experienced with this as you are," he says, and he means both of them. "My foray into Kaneshiro's Palace was brief, and not complete. Yet, I know what the outcome might be if the Phantom Thieves are involved. If he is made to confess in the real world, then his fate is sealed and he will certainly receive all he deserves, but..." Katsuya, looking troubled, shake his head. "Is that really 'justice'? It's true that an interrogation can force someone to admit the truth, yet... I feel as if there is a difference between that and the confession I saw on TV. As you say, changing someone's heart outright, against their will... I cannot accept an outcome like that."
He leans forward in his seat, gazing down at the carpet. "Yet, I have my misgivings about an interrogation in here. Could we cause the same thing that the Phantom Thieves cause? This is a part of someone's psyche." He looks up at Akechi. "Is there anything else we could find in here that could point us in the right direction in the real world?" He shakes his head. "If this is our only option, then I'll accept it. But..."
MONAD: Katsuya Suou has acted with What is Justice? toward Safe Room Planning! Patra and Empathy!
(|============================= Monad - Results ==============================|) -==== Safe Room Planning - Round 3 ============================================- Katsuya Suou Understanding Success What is Justice? Patra and Empathy Fatigue: 0 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Goro Akechi Proficiency Success Warning Shot Specialty Fatigue: 0 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Umie Akabane Understanding Success Understanding Base Fatigue: 0 -============================= Party Conditions: ==============================- Starting Conditions: Checkpoint-0 and Fairy-0 Final Conditions: -======================================== Party Result: Success: Reach Up! ====- -==== Reach: 3/6 |=== | =====================================================- (|============================================================= Monad 1.1 ====|)
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
"Appreciated, but no," Umie soft;y responds to Katsuya, in a complete reversal of what she said before. The blade of her shoge is in her hand, the cord leading into the pocket of her coat, as if she was thinking along the same lines as Katsuya, right then. "The best and shortest way is through."
That may be the only reason she's gotten to here in this room now.
'I believe we're all quite high strung at the moment.' Umie can't bring herself to do much beyond affirm that Akechi's correct; she, likewise, doesn't feel apt to talk about feelings. Instead, she looks around with a paranoid eye; the bed is *definitely* not to be trusted. The mini-fridge could be hiding something. The balcony is a way someone can bring an ambush (no actually that would be very nice she would like to draw blood). She sits on the carpet instead, back against the wall, with one leg stretched, the other bent close to her chest. She could offer to bandage people, but a quick glance-over of the two reveals they've sustained no injuries. (Physical ones, anyway.)
One hand palms her upraised knee, the other resting besides her hip. Her eyes follow the ray gun instead; while she's seen it before in battle, this has been the first time she's seen it up close, in a setting where it's not being used. "...." It's almost kind of sweet, to be holding something that can't be mistaken for a real gun, and hold it with such conviction, like a hero from one of those shows she'd sometimes catch on TV, when her parents weren't around. Her own weapon, if she wields the one Akari made for her, looks more like a cosplay prop, but the other kyoketsu shoge is unmistakable in its purpose. It's those small notes, like Katsuya's love of cats and baking, that speak louder to Umie in these moments of dissonance.
These eyes slowly lid, the hard lines on her expression relaxing, as Akechi relates his own plan, and Katsuya collaborates.
It offers Control, and Umie responds to that, uncurling like a dry houseplant given water. "Me running around the Dark Hour for several years and learning how to escape from demons by myself," she offers, to Katsuya, "doesn't equal your experience. Mementos is a complete mystery to me, still, and this is my second Palace." Her other leg straightens. "There's another complication: that Dark Masked person. The moment this Eiji guy confesses, if he's connected to the NWO in any way, they'll want to shut him up. As much as I'd be fine with that... none of his victims will know, and whatever information he has will dry up, including leads on sex traffic rings he may be attached to."
But there's now even a way to solve that angle, as well, if Jose's 'gift' even works. However, it means exposing the Cardboard Dragon's own Ace card, as well as force someone to be a witness to the darkest parts of a person's soul. It was enough that one card was all it took for Umie to reverse her reservations on what a distorted desire was.
"To ambush that shadow... I can do that. Quite easily, in theory. As long as the enemy doesn't know I exist, or is distracted, I can be ignored," she offers. "They won't even know I'm there." She draws out the blade of her kyoketsu shoge from her pocket, jerking it upright to reveal a length of rope. "It's a matter of holding him in place."
She breathes out a sigh, a small smile as she settles her gaze on the toy gun again, if briefly. "... Thank you. Hearing you two's helped clear my mind."
"Just understand this much: even with what I said, justice is justice, for me right now. Whatever gets this to stop." The line in the sand is exposed there, where Umie's thinking deviates from Katsuya and Akechi.
(|========================== Monad - Eiji's Palace ===========================|)
-==== Round 4: Here Comes The Bride - Challenge Level 3 =======================-
| Approach Options: Understanding or Guts |
| Conditions: Kind - Understanding Up L2 and Reaper - Add 1 Fatigue. |
-==== Challenge ===============================================================-
The elevator doors open up to a ballroom. But no one is dancing; there are
tables and chairs on the side, but in the center there's a young woman with an
entourage of other Cognitions, with long, long black hair and red eyes. Red,
puffy eyes, as it happens. She is in a beautiful white dress--and at least a
trimester's worth of pregnant. The Cognitions around her vary from young women
to older, and the perceptive might recognize Ichika Kawase, her mother, and her
sister along with some others.
"He's... he's really good to me," she says. "He's had to discipline me a little
now and then, but that just proves how kind he is!"
"Of course, of course," her syncophants tell her.
"I'm really looking forward to this... I don't have any worries at all!"
"Who would? He's so dreamy!"
"Our son is going to look just like his father..."
The positive, glowing conversation continues. However, she still looks like
she's been crying. Whether it's the empathy to see what she's really feeling or
the bravery to call out the truth of what's going on, you'll have to get her
attention somehow: she has a necklace with the next Key on it, and she won't
give it to just anyone.
Of course, you could also just lie and tell her she's right. She might give you
the key for that, too.
(|============================================================= Monad 1.1 ====|)
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
The three finally exit the hideout with a plan; Umie, lagging slightly behind to find wherever she's thrown her mask to put it back on, comes out, closing the door and closes her eyes. "Give me a moment. I need to get another view of the space here." There's a limit to her sight, compared to someone like Fuuka; a bird's eye can only see so much, even in a cognitive sense. The only treasure or safety Badb senses is danger, but when a shape 'feels' unusual enough to Umie's 'sight', it may as well be a beacon. "... I think there's a shaft this direction. Something vertical. Not like ventilation, maybe... elevator?" Wouldn't that be nice, after what they've been through so far?
"Let's go there." At least Umie's not just walking that direction, as she's sometimes bound to do when it presents a goal to work towards.
As it turns out, Umie's guess was correct; it is an elevator: a nice plush one, with gilded doors and a panel with only one button. Where else would someone want to go, after all, except where this Palace's Ruler wants them to be?
And so, the resolute red-spectacled cop, the red-masked prince, and a short girl in a hoodie drawn up over her head ride up. "... This thing isn't going to suddenly go crashing, right? The guy who owns this place doesn't know we're here, so..."
*ding* The doors open to a luxurious ballroom, tiled floors shiny enough to pass reflections of the party leaving the elevator, as well as the bride and her chorus of syncophants.
Umie's walking speed increases; if neither Akechi or Katsuya have any inclination to stop her, she'll keep walking forward, eyes wide.
"... Kawase...-san...? No, this has got to be..." She looks back to Katsuya and Akechi with a raised brow. "Wait, can cognitions like this happen? I mean, she wasn't pregnant when I last saw her." That was a few weeks ago, but it was a few weeks at most.
It disturbs her that a cognition *could* be someone who looks like the person themselves; maybe, if the real Ichika was next to them, she'd realize the difference? ... Aside from the obvious things, like...
Her own face, and the wedding dress replaced with the wedding garb of another tradition, equally as pregnant, eyes equally as red.
The only way is through, she had said, but she's temporarily stunned, rubbing at her eyes to get the vision out of her eyes.
It may be up to Katsuya and Akechi to figure out a means to break the illusion and seek the way to the key.
MONAD: Umie Akabane has acted with Bird's Eye View toward Here Comes The Bride! Automap!
<Pose Tracker> Goro Akechi has posed.
The fact of the matter is, Akechi isn't used to 'teaming up' with anyone. He's having to wing it, in a sense on what a dynamic with 'allies' might be.
(He's basing it on his vast knowledge of Featherman.)
He does nod towards Katsuya, "I understand your concerns, fortunately as an expert in this realm I can tell you- we cannot. If the Shadow died, it would cause the phenomenon known as a 'Mental Shutdown'."
And indeed, that might be a surprise to Katsuya to learn it, if he hasn't seen it on the message boards, "But as you well know, a Shadow is powerful enough that it would be exceptionally difficult to kill them on accident... no indeed, it would have to be a very intentional act. Even wounds that would maim a person, a Shadow can regenerate rather quickly."
How does he know that one? Well, of course he's seen it before. :) Fighting villains!
"And I as well. My Persona, as I've mentioned grants me a certain degree of- camouflage, to resonance, by drawing on the narrative of Robin Hood."
Indeed this is even true. Unfortunately, his alleged alternate Persona feels very different and draws upon a different narrative.
He has to certainly be careful with navigators, to make certain that by growing used to one side of him - they won't gain an advantage over the other.
Coincidentally, Umie brings up that figure in the Black Mask that very moment-
"Well, you needn't worry too much about that outcome. I have it- well in hand what is to be done once he's in custody." Though he places a finger to his lips, "Though I'd rather not say how, he could after all, be listening this very moment."
Umie however, draws a line, and the Prince, gains a serious expression, "Very well. I suppose that it is on Sergeant Suou and I to persuade you that our 'Justice' can get the job done..."
What would happen if Umie helped the Phantom Thieves change a heart though? Well, he's hardly going to discuss that right now. :)
Up to the ball room they go, "Unlikely, it's his wedding, after all... if it's how his guests and staff gain access to this floor, then his cognition would desire for this affair to go off without a hitch."
But what they see, Umie stands transfixed, stunned by the sight of Ichika. Akechi seems less perturbed, despite his reaction earlier to Tsubasa.
Umie may not feel 'Prince' for a time, it's almost like he feels like just another Cognition who belongs in this place.
That's probably infuriating to know he can just come out of the crowd, and sweep someone off their feet just like in the adventure movies, if he so chose to do so...
"Pardon me... but might I have this dance, Kawase-san?" He asks, "I understand this is your wedding night. But nevertheless, if you would do me this great honor...?"
What a bold move... to request a dance with the bride to be- audacious even. As he takes her hand, he goes through the movements of the Waltz, he adds in a dip, and as he does so...
... he leans in and whispers, "Forgive me for bringing it up... but I believe your child was a girl, wasn't she? Except... the Groom...? He was rather uncareful... during his discipline, wasn't he?"
A small sleight of hand, will attempt to claim the key during this moment of confusion.
The bride's face looks rather confused, "H-How do you know about..." She stammers, from this vulnerable position, "... it was my fault. I... I didn't behave. I'm the reason-! I'm the reason our daughter died!"
"Is that so?" Akechi says, as he straightens her up, and takes a bow, "My mistake." As he steps off back into the crowd, trying to take the key with him.
MONAD: Goro Akechi has acted with Guts toward Here Comes The Bride! Base! <Pose Tracker> Katsuya Suou has posed.
"Even so..." Katsuya tells her, shaking his head. "The rules of this space are different from the others I have been in, and while you and I have both only experienced one Palace before, I have the sense that you had to explore the space more diligently than I did. I only follows on the heels of others," he says, because it's just fact. "But, talking like this will get us nowhere. We need to focus on the here and now. If we are going to find out what we need from this... young man, we must consider our target carefully."
But they can't go too far without killing the man in question. If the Shadow dies, so does the person, in a sense -- not that it's easy to kill a Shadow by accident, of course. Katsuya blinks as if taken aback, initially, but nods as if to indicate that he understands. "I see... so that is the connection between the two. The 'Mental Shutdown' cases... they predate the Phantom Thieves, of course, but I do wonder... Then again, if they had wanted to do so, Kaneshiro would be dead, and not in police custody," he concludes, shaking his head.
Umie's Persona grants her an enhanced field of vision. Akechi's allows him to maintain a degree of camoflage for his resonance. Katsuya's Helios, meanwhile...
[CONCEPTUALIZATION/]: Sorry, Suou-kun. Sometimes a Persona is just a Persona. Though, come to think of it, has our aim improved recently? It's no 'seeing the overview of the battlefield' or 'enhanced ability to disguise our resonance', though, is it?
Katsuya, ultimately, doesn't comment.
His gaze lingers on Umie's kyoketsu shoge. He's seen it before. "I see... with this Palace under his command, I suppose we have no choice if he won't cooperate." And he probably won't, Katsuya admits to himself. It's likely that in this place of supreme control, he'll be defiant. He might even attack them, if they don't approach him carefully. But it also doesn't mean that he appreciates that a sneak attack might be their only option.
"The Man with the Black Mask," he remarks, frowning. "I heard a rumor about a powerful Persona-user lurking about in Kaneshiro's Palace. ...So you're saying you have a trick to manage him from killing Kamiya?" He nods, though, as if to accept in the moment they can't hear the plan. "I see. Then, we'll have to trust that this will keep him from being silenced..."
Whatever they do, as long as it stops Kamiya and the human trafficking, it's justice to Umie. Katsuya, in spite of that, exhales a breath: it's not quite a sigh. "I see..."
So even 'underhanded methods', with that in mind, could be 'justice'. Is he just being too stubborn, thinking about how to to it with clean hands, too? At this point, he's already gone off the straight and narrow by even contemplating a 'shakedown' within the Palace, considering how it seems to relate to the real man and how it could alter his mind, but...
"I'm ready to keep going, if the both of you are," Katsuya, the oldest person in the room, says. If they wanted to, he'd be willing to back out now. But...
From this safe room, it's easy enough to find an elevator, which they all climb aboard.
"I don't think so," Katsuya tells Umie. "If he were aware of us, I think we would know. We haven't even encountered any Shadows." Indeed, it's a smooth ride up, and they arrive to disembark into a luxury ballroom.
The bride, Ichika Kawase, is here. She looks unwell.
And pregnant.
"This is--" Katsuya utters, initially shocked. "Kawase-san! You cannot truly say such..." He trails off, blinks, then glances at Umie and Akechi. "No, this is a cognition." He shakes his head. "...I had thought a 'cognition' had to obey reality, but, when I think about it, there's no reason for that to be so. Don't we all have unrealistic views of some of the people in our lives?"
He pauses, though, as Umie appears to be rooted to the spot. ...He was right, he decides, to call on Akechi and not one of the women. He can see the way that Umie is struggling as it is, he thinks to himself, unaware of her own deeper reasons to have such a strong reaction to these circumstances.
That key on Ichika's neck appears to glitter with meaning. "To get somewhere deeper in this Palace, I suppose we would need a proper key."
Akechi, meanwhile, is on the case. "Akabane-kun, stay right there," Katsuya says, following to link up with Akechi. ...Who is attempting to have a dance with the bride-to-be.
Most of what Akechi says, he can't hear. But-- not a son? A daughter? A death that this version of Ichika blames herself for, since she's the one who didn't behave.
"Kawase-san! The one responsible for a crime is the criminal, not the victim!" he calls out suddenly, unable to keep this thought in check any longer. "He is the one who decided to commit it! Not you!"
It might not matter in this place: this is Eiji's congnition, not Ichika's.
MONAD: Katsuya Suou has acted with You're Under Arrest! toward Here Comes The Bride! Specialty!
(|============================= Monad - Results ==============================|) -==== Here Comes The Bride - Round 4 ==========================================- Katsuya Suou Guts Success You're Under Arrest! Specialty Fatigue: 1 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Goro Akechi Guts Success Guts Base Fatigue: 1 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Umie Akabane Guts Success Bird's Eye View Automap Fatigue: 1 -============================= Party Conditions: ==============================- Starting Conditions: Kind-2 and Reaper-0 Final Conditions: Kind-1 -======================================== Party Result: Success: Reach Up! ====- -==== Reach: 4/6 |==== | =====================================================- (|============================================================= Monad 1.1 ====|)
MONAD: Goro Akechi has drawn a new Challenge!
(|========================== Monad - Eiji's Palace ===========================|)
-==== Round 5: Weakness Shifter - Challenge Level 3 ===========================-
| Approach Options: Guts or Academics |
| Conditions: Heartening - Guts Up L1, Kind - Understanding Up L2, and |
| Mindnumbing - Academics Down L2 |
-==== Challenge ===============================================================-
The back rooms loom again, as the group finds their way into the upper floors of
the horror show. Where outside has been lovely white walls and red carpeting,
now it's dingy gray on black and brown, with screams echoing from below. You
don't see the workers or those in torment this time, though. There are bones in
places, but surely, they came here in a good way! Instead, a Shadow awaits
before the stairway out of this awful place.
The good news is that there's finally something the party can /hit/ in this
terrible place.
The bad news is that it changes its weakness every round, requiring a little
more strategy than a normal fight.
Good luck!
(|============================================================= Monad 1.1 ====|)
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
----EARLIER----
It's not as if Umie is experienced in groups; her tendencies to walk off or struggle to remind herself to think about her teammates is still developing.
"Wasn't there some reports in the news about things like that?" Umie may be mixing it up with similar-sounding news reports. Tatsuya had warned about that to some effect, but the timeline, like it happens many times with Tatsuya, doesn't add up. But Akechi had also made that quip about turning into a Shadow the time he pranked Umie with a coffin-- it's something that could have been a mistake, but if he knows... Just how much does Akechi know, about everything?
Katsuya's comment on timelines draws a soft sigh from Umie. "From what I've experienced, they aren't the type to do that." Katsuya's already figured out his own logic, thankfully, allowing Umie to abstain from revealing anything that could give away just what amount of contact she's had, as well as her bias.
Meanwhile, Akechi's own comment on his persona's abilities draws Umie's curiosity-- is that a small smile? "... Maybe I'll get a chance to see it." She's always wondered what it was like, to see things like that from the outside.
"I'll have to take your word for it." Akechi definitely wouldn't lie, would he? (Umie suspects he would, but sees no reason he leave anything to chance.) Katsuya, meanwhile, she definitely wouldn't see lying to her, even if he did have a reason.
'I suppose that it is on Sergeant Suou and I to persuade you that our 'Justice' can get the job done.'
"Consider it my challenge, yes." Umie takes Akechi's serious look and Katsuya's exhalt in stride; she knows very well how intensely Akechi feels about what a 'change of heart' does, and Katsuya's adherence to his own code. "Not that this is a threat," she allows. "This is making the assumption that the Phantom Thieves would even know about this place. There's likely a *lot* of Palaces out there that we don't even know about." It'd be a shame if someone told Joker that the Dark Side boards existed. It'd also be a shame if that someone told Joker *how* to get to them. (Umie only did the former. Whoops.)
Yeaaaah they're probably already onto this place.
----NOW----
It's weird, to have to follow this logic. This isn't a booby-trapped dungeon from an action-adventure movie. The intent isn't automatically to keep people *out*, unless the narrative supports it. "... Honestly, could use some Shadows," Umie grumbles dourily. "I don't think I have it in me to scan this damn place again; head's beginning to pound as it is."
And she's seeing things, but that's... just being Umie Akabane.
Umie realizes she can't feel Akechi's presence by her as her hand lowers from rubbing her eyes; Akechi will, if and when he looks up, see a clean look of surprise on Umie's face as he plays the salacious prince, taking the passive bride (now Ichika) on one last waltz.
The key comes away in Akechi's deft hand as he leans in, so smoothly that the cognitive bride does not even realize what's happened, due to the bombshell Akechi has left in his wake.
In the background, a hand is pressed over Umie's lower face, angled under her nose, like she's thinking. At least she's following Katsuya's orders to stay put.
_That smarmy bastard, how can he be *that* good at this_ (The dip, she means, not the stealth, that's something she accepts)
Katsuya is objecting too--
"... Y-yes," Umie jumps in. "What Katsuya-san said." What did he say? What the heck did Akechi say to Ichika?
Cognitive Ichika, that is, who is now weeping on the tile floor; with this version lacking the spark and vigor the real one has, Katsuya's words cannot reach her, only providing another thing to deny as the party, key in hand, departs.
<Pose Tracker> Goro Akechi has posed.
"I believe I do." He answers Katsuya, on having the answer to the man in the Black Mask. "Though it will require a certain degree of cunning to outwit him at his own game."
In fact, it will take all of his cunning, to outwit himself.
He is a rather good dancer, isn't he? Certainly he wouldn't be taking lessons right now - especially not from Yua.
As he reappears out of the crowd, key in hand, he tells Katsuya and Umie both.
"I know it's difficult to wrap your heads around the idea... but these Cognitions are not real. In a sense, our mind's conception of other people turns them into 'objects' within our own minds..."
As he then muses aloud, "Perhaps the human psyche cannot help but to objectify that which is not itself in order to make sense of the world around us."
After a few moments, he indicates, "Let's move on, try to stay on the fringes so we don't draw suspicion..." As they skirt the ballroom, he pushes open a side door, and they leave the ballroom into the Hallways.
There are more cover points of well - crates with airholes. Don't think too hard about that one.
There are also more screams! Surely it's easy to ignore them, now that he's pointed it out again right?
Oh look! Bones. Easy enough to let slide.
Then as the wails reach their peak, a Shadow of a Thuggish looking Individual, chained to another on the ground with a checklist doesn't wander, it stays in place- making it catching them an inevitability, "You shouldn't be here!"
Shadows flow, and as it finishes, it becomes- a spherical mass of faces, with far too many teeth. They match the screams below.
Depraved Abductor - *~Choronzon~*
"Well, I suppose I was thinking this was far too easy..." A hand to his mask, as azure flames burst, "... Persona!"
As an array of talismans erupt, beams of light- and the creature seems stunned.
However, as it gets up, there's a mild shift in hue within it's aura...
"... Akabane-kun, something has changed, hasn't it?" And as if to experiment, he tries again, this time with a Kouga spell doing very, very little.
"... I see. I believe it's adapting to our attacks- shifting it's strengths and weaknesses accordingly. Take care when you follow up!"
MONAD: Goro Akechi has acted with Second Coming toward Weakness Shifter! Focus and Patra!
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
"I get that," Umie grouses, at Akechi's back. "But I don't like the idea that I'm going to be running into someone and trying to prove to them that I'm not an 'Other'--"
Objects. Umie takes a breath. "We're staring at a translation into a space we can navigate. A painting is an object, but it doesn't mean it has no value." She points to the key, in Akechi's hand. "An object is one thing; to objectify, another."
But this is no space to be having conversations like this, especially when Umie can't quite itch where this concept, as well as Akechi's explanation, as simple as it is, feels... hollow.
But Akechi is correct; they need to keep moving.
"... Yeah, this place is getting to me," she allows, drawing a finger to itch behind her gray mask.
...
Ah, so this is why the concept disturbed her. Like with the flower-headed people and the walking ATMs from a palace ago, it was easier to disassociate herself from them as people, if simply for her own mental safety.
How easy is it, to stretch that idea over things that would register as human, like bones and cries of pain. What happens when you forget to lift it?
It's too easy to 'Other' people.
--------
"Oh *thank goodness*, I need to wrangle something down." Akechi is quick to blast with holy light, but then, something seems to have changed.
"... Huh." Umie, the person who said she was the closest thing they had to a navigator, looks at Akechi...
... and shrugs. "... I mean, there's one way to find out, right?"
(This is not her forte, it seems.)
"Well, let's try the opposite, then." The goddess of death and war appears over Umie, projecting swirls of black like an inversion of Akechi's earlier attack. "Katsuya-san, you got fire, right? I got some water. We'll make this work."
Oh god, Umie, stop _smiling_.
MONAD: Umie Akabane has acted with Academics toward Weakness Shifter! Base!
<Pose Tracker> Katsuya Suou has posed.
"Yes," Katsuya agrees, on the subject of Black Mask. "There isn't anything we know about him at all." It would be very difficult to work out a tactic that worked, but perhaps Akechi knows a thing or two about how things work that he doesn't that he can use to his advantage in protecting Kamiya.
"Was that appropriate...?" Katsuya does wonder to Akechi, as the latter finally rejoins them after claiming the key. Is he referring to what he said, or what Akechi did? Perhaps it's both: the cognitive Ichika is on the floor and weeping.
They're not real, Akechi reminds them both. Katsuya lifts a hand, readjusting his sunglasses the once. "That is so, yes... but, at the same time, I'm reminded of the thought from some psychologists that perhaps, we don't have an 'accurate' picture of the people in our lives, but simply model them the way we'd like to believe they function. Aren't cognitions the same? Yet, even if they're inaccurate, they're still a window into the way that we think about other people, and they can still allow us to emphasize with each other," Katsuya says, thinking out loud.
Even so, it's hard not to treat them like they are real. He has more experience with this sort of thing than either of them, though: perhaps it's the sort of thing one gets used to, in time. ...Come to think of it...
"Akechi-kun, come to think of it, how long have you been aware of Palaces and the behavior of the beings within them?" It's an honest answer: it's not as if he's had a chance to ask before, after all. There have always been more pressing matters at hand than, say, Akechi's past as a Persona-user. The Phantom Thieves only made their appearance on the scene recently, for instance: but is it that Palaces are new, or simply that no one made a lot of 'noise' about them before?
It's not a question that Katsuya has had the opportunity to ask after or investigate with everything else going on, anyway.
But they should find a way around the room rather than press on this way (Katsuya agrees, they probably could start to run the risk of alerting Eiji). The environment out here, though, is already showing signs that it's not going to be an enjoyable passage up.
"Are those--" They're bones.
Katsuya has had better days.
Just like he couldn't save the women before, there's no point in investigating these deaths. What, instead, does this suggest about the mind of Eiji Kamiya? Human lives are discarded, brushed aside into the corner not to be considered again?
There's someone else here. "You--" Katsuya starts, as the man yells that they shouldn't be here. "No, you're not human being, are you!"
He is, of course, a Shadow. Umie expresses a sense of relief at the fact, which treats her to a bewildered look from Katsuya as he goes for his gun. "What are you saying, Akabane-kun?" He pauses. "Are you... unable to tell?"
Perhaps that's just not how her Persona works.
"...Then, I suppose we'll have to do it this way. Helios!" he calls out, summoning his Persona in his own flash of blue flame; flame is hurled at the Shadow from Helios' hands, one fireball after another.
"Yes," he answers Umie, now that it's already obvious. "I also can use lightning!"
Just Zio, but that's not nothing. Is this what they call the academic approach? The scientific method??
MONAD: Katsuya Suou has acted with Academics toward Weakness Shifter! Base!
(|============================= Monad - Results ==============================|)
-==== Weakness Shifter - Round 5 ==============================================-
Katsuya Suou Academics Failure
Academics Base Fatigue: 2
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Goro Akechi Academics Success
Second Coming Focus and Patra Fatigue: 1
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Umie Akabane Academics Success
Academics Base Fatigue: 1
-============================= Party Conditions: ==============================-
Starting Conditions: Heartening-2, Kind-1, and Mindnumbing-2
Final Conditions: Heartening-1
-======================================== Party Result: Success: Reach Up! ====-
-==== Reach: 6/6 |=====| =====================================================-
(|============================================================= Monad 1.1 ====|)
(|========================== Monad - Eiji's Palace ===========================|)
-==== Round 6: The Missing Piece - Challenge Level 1 ==========================-
| Approach Options: None |
| Conditions: Revelation - The best result. |
-==== Challenge ===============================================================-
Up the stairs...
Your group has secured a path to the top floor, where the groom and bride's
suites await. There is a Safe Room in the bridal suite to return from later, a
room even more opulent than most of the rooms here.
...Except that the bedroom is locked behind iron bars, a prison for all its silk
and feathers.
A family portrait of the Kawases is here on the wall, consisting of two older
adults who must be the mother and father, and what should be a brother and a
sister. They are labelled: Mother, Father, Toshiaki, Ririka, and Ichika. All but
Ichika have been x'd out with red ink. There is a message scrawled below:
she is only mine
A photo album rests on the counter of the vanity. It's open to a lovely set of
pictures, of Ichika a little older with a child, and a woman who resembles Eiji.
'My mother and my wife, as it should have been.'
The rest of the pictures are of fake, but relatively tame family photographs.
That's the only one in which Eiji's mother's face can be seen, though.
In all the others, her face is blackened out as if by spilled ink.
Additionally, there are papers: names and companies, and then the places those
people were actually sent. The papers are sufficiently bizarre as to look
obviously fake... but the information on them is real. You might be able to save
some people with these.
(|============================================================= Monad 1.1 ====|)
<Pose Tracker> Goro Akechi has posed.
'Was that appropriate...?'
"If it were the real Ichika Kawase, then I'd consider it highly inappropriate... but as it's the Ichika Kawase that only exists as a despicable man's fantasy... I don't think questions of 'appropriateness' are particularly warranted." He says to Katsuya in reply. "Let us say a man upon the street were to harass a woman- in their mind would then exist a 'Cognition' of the woman in question. A- caricature of their sexual desire for them. I highly doubt that anything about it would be... 'appropriate.'"
His eyes linger upon 'Ichika Kawase' in her current state with some... intensity, "Indeed, I consider that one's existence to be the greatest of this man's sins."
Whereas Umie posits on the notion of objects- and objectification based on his own prior statements, "But should it have value to us, when it only exists within someone else's subconscious mind?" Is his reply of Umie.... though it begins to verge into addressing Katsuya's point as well. "A cognition cannot even be perceived by the person who created it. Eiji Kamiya has no conscious conception of this place. It is like attempting to place value upon an opinion - that you yourself do not hold. That they are not even present consciously to make it - much less defend it. A painting in a sense has far more value than any cognition. ... Though we're getting rather philosophical here. It'd be best to just move on."
He would be extremely frustrating in a Philosophy class, wouldn't he?
However, Katsuya asks a more pointed question, "Hmmm, I awakened six months ago, and at first I was only aware of Mementos. However, in time I became aware of Shadows that did not exist within it - that the Meta-Nav-"
The Meta-Nav which they didn't use today, "-responded to. It was shortly after I visited my first Palace, and began to work out Cognitions. My first experience was a man who would 'slay' certain Cognitions, however... they would always return in short order."
Well that does explain some things...
-=-=-
As Umie indicates there's only one way to find out. He seems faintly exasperated, "Very well. I'll do my best to announce the shifts within it's resonance, though it's rather not exactly my forte."
It is interesting that he has that skill, right?
But he seems to be able to sleuth it out.
It comes to pass that it becomes, "It's aura indicates it's now weak to water!" But Katsuya, "Ah wait-! Don't use Zio right n-!"
You see unfortunately in many elemental systems, Water and Electricity are opposed.
There's an ephemeral noise, of Zio being reflected right at Helios.
(That cat may be a little extra frizzy for a bit)
Fortunately... Choronzon gets held up in short order from Umie's Aqua spells and- well, it gets executed in short order.
"There... more tiring than I would have liked but- I think we can move on."
The Back Rooms slope up into a staircase, that leads to a servant elevator- a back entrance into-
*DING*
The bridal suite peels open, and they're all treated to a bed in a gilded cage. A portrait of the Kawases - with all of them X'ed out.
An even more possessive photo of a family that never was- and hopefully never will be.
"Well... I'm glad I didn't overindulge before we entered here- as I've witnessed few things as nauseating as this.."
Moving up to one of the Photoalbums, he moves it aside, for... papers, "These are..." He places a hand upon his chin, "... they don't seem real, but the information correlates rather well to what I'd heard of his operations... could it be?"
He murmurs, before handing them over to Katsuya, to examine himself. "We should confirm this... it would be inadmissible in court. But that doesn't mean we can't utilize this to find evidence of his human trafficking operations..."
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
"... Hm. So, in theory, if I had a Palace, there'd be representations of you two, but as how I see you, and vice versa." Akechi's words seem to appeal to Umie in their logic, even if she very much doesn't want to admit to it directly.
Except, when she recalls the intensity in Akechi's gaze, and lays it across previous things he's said... "Going through places like these, I guess your mind has had to think that way as a matter of survival," Umie allows quietly, as her eyelids lower. "Just as someone who deals with demons like they were humans would be dead in no time." Is that her, discretly offering some commonality, perhaps as an apology?
Meanwhile, Katsuya asks another question Umie had already kept herself from asking, despite her own curiosity. "It'd be weird if things like these just started happening recently, but... it's not like I was going around telling people about the Dark Hour." ... Then again, there was a voice inside her that was very adamant about her saying nothing, especially from the beginning, when she may not have known any better.
"... Six months?" There's a quick glimmer of surprise on Umie's expression, but she quickly dismisses it. Half a year would still be a lot of experience, even alone. Fox had surprised her with the vague insinuation that he had been a Persona User for an even shorter amount of time, but working within a group must have its advantages.
Being a coward has its consequences, for an Umie Akabane.
-=-=-
"Then we'll make do." She takes the setback in stride, but when Katsuya's words to her seem to implicate her own weakness, that bloodlust arrives quickly with irritation and anger as its friendly companions. "I can tell something's changed; I'm just as clueless as you guys as to _what it is_," Umie grumbles, like Katsuya had questioned her honor as a person.
... Wait. Katsuya meant... right. "... Oh, uh, yeah. I can tell when something's a shadow or a demon, more or less," she amends while itching her lower cheek, looking slightly embarrassed as the battle concludes. "Wouldn't have made it to my 20th birthday otherwise."
It could have been a lot worse. Umie's already moving ahead. "Yeah. Let's get going before anything else shows up."
-=-=-
At least they've made it to this point. Maybe. Umie's senses of the environment beyond her eyes are burnt, but she'd have to guess this Palace isn't going to include 'Euclidean geometry' as one of the last tricks hidden up its sleeve.
Talking a quick look around, while keeping close to the walls, Umie is naturally drawn to the room that is blocked. Moving to the iron bars, she squats in front to try to take a look. "Hm, no lock." Alas, squeezing through is out as well; the space is narrower than her head, and she's no contortionist to see how far her body could get in.
Her attention goes back to the portraits. Umie quickly steps to them, her lips making a thoughtful sound. "... Huh. That's Ririka Kawas--" Oh. OH. Umie palms her face. "I guess I never thought of the possibility that they were related." Taking her mask off temporarily so she can use it as an impromtu fan, she looks at the other photos gathered. ".... I guess they have a brother, too."
The message, however, draws Umie to lapse into silence, the mask stilling in her hand.
"Some men only want what they can't possess."
Looking aside to Akechi, Umie tilts her head. "Mm? Found something?"
'Could it be?' "Huh..." Umie tries to peek around Akechi (and perhaps Katsuya, damn tall people). "Probably a lot more than we could get by overwhelming his shadow, I think. And even then..." Her lips split in a curved grin. "It'd be enough to prepare some pointed questions you could ask the groom, wouldn't it?"
<Pose Tracker> Katsuya Suou has posed.
"Even so..." Katsuya hazards, though truth be told, what Akechi did right there, with all this in mind, is hardly the same as the lust that would have planted her as a cognition in the first place. "..."
So they can't even be perceived by the one whose mind creates them? "That is... quite interesting. I suppose we all have those blind spots about the people in our lives. There is a lot we can never hope to know about someone, even if we try our best. What was that saying, something along the lines of 'a person is a universe unto themselves'?" Katsuya muses, getting philosophical himself. "But even so, even if these images are not real, I do still believe they reflect something of the mind that created them..."
But now is hardly the time to delve into the extended philosophical debate this requires, and so, the topic is ultimately abandoned. Besides, the things that Umie says are not wrong: dealing with these would have forced Akechi to harden his heart, in the same way that he's learned how to treat with demons and not manage them the way he might another human.
Instead, Katsuya ends up asking a more directed question about Akechi's level of experience and gets an answer! To judge by the look on his face, it's not the answer he expected. "Six months...? I see. So the phenomenon has not been around long, and you yourself until fairly recently had involved yourself with only that. Thank you," he finishes. For a moment, he had been wondering how much more experience Akechi has, and, there he has it: how quick it is for someone to become a specialist. But of course, in his position, Akechi would also be afforded more flexibility to pursue the supernatural.
It does explain some things. Including, as Umie notes, Akechi's mindset about these things...
-=-=-
So, they'll have to do this the hard way. "We have no other options, then. We'll have to do our best," Katsuya suggests, before doing what he can in his own approach to the puzzle this enemy presents. "Er, well--" he starts, as Umie flashes a bit of irritation his way. "I only meant that..."
She's realized it too, and explains where her own limitations lie. "I, I see..."
He has the ability to use a few elements now with Helios and not fire alone. Such as Zio, which as it turns out for Katsuya and Helios, to be famous last words. As one attempt falters, fresh off a new change of 'barrier', he swaps from fire to lightning. ...Too late to catch Akechi's warning. "It's--?" Katsuya utters, just as the spell flies back in his (well, more Helios') face.
Water, as it turns out, is the correct answer here. Fortunately, it's water that finally does the 'trick' and settles this particular matter for good.
"Yes," Katsuya answers, once it's all settled. "Fortunately, it looks like the way ahead is clear." It's onwards and upwards from here, into the bridal suite.
"..."
"...Akabane-kun, I would leave that alone."
Katsuya has a lot of questions, to judge from the look on his face. And concerns: quite deep ones at that as he inspects, for example, the photograph of the Kawases. "What sort of mind...?" he wonders aloud, out and out frowning as he turns at last from the photo albums in his search for some evidence. Umie proposes an answer to it: some men only want what they can't have.
"That is... true, and yet..."
Akechi finds something, at last. Some papers, that seem to correlate with the trafficking accusations that Akechi had heard about.
"So this is... I agree, we'll have to confirm whether these are accurate in the real world," he says, looking them over. "If they are true, we'll have to call in other officers. This is beyond our capacity to handle alone." A raid doesn't work with a single cop and a junior cop, to start with, and that's not getting into some of the other jurisdictional problems involved here. He'll have to confirm and then go through the appropriate channels, lest he cause more harm than good.
<Pose Tracker> Goro Akechi has posed.
"Indeed so... and the same goes for myself. So far - it rather seems impossible for a Persona User to have a Palace, but would it not follow that a 'Palace' is an aspect of one's own cognitive landscape, made manifest?"
In other words, he's suggesting that a Palace likely already exists in each of their minds. It's just - it's not a physical realm.
Or is it?
Look Wakaba Isshiki's work was kind of a trip for a middle schooler to read.
"Just so. That is my belief as well. That human consciousness gives rise to these places naturally, as a manifestation of our inner world. The question is... why? Why have these places become traversable dimensions for some, and not others? The best I can tell is... they only come to be for the most 'distorted' of individuals."
But what then of distortion.
"... Yes." Is his answer to Umie. Neutral - abstracted. If it's an apology well... it's hard to say whether he understands it. "The only way to survive constant exposure to these places is... to compartmentalize them."
He's become an expert of putting his boxes inside other boxes - tucking things away, only to draw upon them when necessary.
"Are you surprised? I spent much of that time figuring out the Metaverse on my own." He answers her, before nodding to Katsuya, "Indeed... I thought - it was a mystery that only I had access to - so I spent a great deal of my time attempting to solve it. Honestly, I wasn't even aware that other Persona Users could travel to the Metaverse until... the Phantom Thieves of Hearts made their debut. Then... other Persona users found their way within... and more like myself came to 'awaken'. Which... only begs more questions."
He places a hand upon his chin, "I suppose that means the man in the Black Mask has been doing this for far longer than even myself. Though it's hard to say whether we simply were unaware of each other- or if he's been following my progress for some time."
-=-=-
"Hm? Oh. Yes. Her younger sister. It's understandable that you'd think they weren't - but their separation is due to Ichika Kawase's ostracization from polite society in Iwatodai City."
Before he then glances at the X'ed out face of the brother, "Toshiaki... he perished on a hiking accident. A sad fate... and yet this man is jealous even of a dead siblings..."
He places a hand upon his chin, then-
"Sergeant Suou... I believe it might be wise in this case to... go outside the normal chain of command."
Beyond his mask is a grave expression now, "I would say the wiser course would be for us to investigate this on our own- then, once we've confirmed more of the information, we can turn it in to an SIU Prosecutor to act upon it... rather than your department. If that bothers you... well, it isn't the Sumaru City PD's jurisdiction... and from what we know of Tatsumi Port Island - a great number of their officers are compromised as well... so we can hardly turn it over to them..."
In other words... Justice may only be done, by going over the heads of the Police... what a thing to argue to a cop.
<Pose Tracker> Katsuya Suou has posed.
A dead... brother?
"..." Katsuya's silence only prolongues itself.
As Katsuya ruminates on what they might do, Akechi interjects, suggesting they go outside the normal chain of command. Of course, they should investigate first to confirm this is an actual lead, but...
It's not simply a matter of jurisdiction, though. "So you are saying that..." They had spoken about this before. The Sumaru police were certainly compromised, even if Katsuya couldn't know to what extent or who might be involved. "Even outside the matter of jurisdiction, we should not, no, cannot go through normal channels? ...Even over criminal actions taking place in Tatsumi Port Island..." One might be able to see the war being waged within through those few small hints on Katsuya's face alone. "...So we should go over their heads, to ensure that there is no NWO..."
He comes to his conclusion at last, then nods. "...Unfortunately, what you say makes sense, and has merit. We should... investigate on our own. Then, if it is valid..." Katsuya shakes his head. "...I do not like doing it this way, but it may be the only way forward. If the NWO is involved, without any information to the contrary, I think that we must... go to the SIU."
Shaking his head again, he trails off, looking up at the ceiling as if in deep thought on the matter still.
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
<poem> 'Akabane-kun, I would leave that alone.'
Umie pulls back, at Katsuya's voice. "Right, right." Is she really that predictable?
".... Wait." Umie stares at Akechi, eyes wide. "You mean..." She had assured herself, against the musings of Mai-chan and Akechi's earlier theories on what was possible with changes of heart (but not that the Phantom Thieves would do it, she reminds herself), that whatever lay in her heart, it wasn't the same as someone like Kaneshiro.
"Why would Persona users..." She drifts off, then waves the question off with a hand, realizing these thoughts may be better for another time. "I think you and I are going to have a lonnng talk about what you know and learned, Akechi-san. Preferably after I've had a nice spa day to prepare my blood pressure." No, Umie *still* hasn't forgiven him about the coffin switcharoo. (.... It *was* fun interrogating demons with Akechi, though.)
The rest? That's not too outlandish.
"It's not an insult," Umie relates to Akechi now, with a smirk, "it just feels like you've been at it longer. Maybe that's just the Detective Prince magic, eh?"
'That is... true, and yet...' For Katsuya, Umie's temporary burst of wry humor is dulled, replaced with a quiet nod, her gaze drifting downwards. "... You're a good person, Katsuya-san." In fact, there was a reason Umie asked Katsuya to be here, and it--
It definitely wasn't because he knew his departments.
"I didn't ask you here because you knew how to do paperwork." Indeed, she's realizing how fortunate it was for Akechi to be here; she can't speak in the language of Laws and Rules in a way Katsuya could understand. "Just like that battle earlier, we work with what we have."
She rolls her shoulders, and sighs. "Anyway, give me something to do, you guys. Otherwise I'm going to be right back at those bars trying to get in because they're *there*."
Yes, she really is that predictable.