Chapter Text
Wednesday, May 25th
Museum of Vanity
After School
Joker stood at the entrance to Madarame’s Palace with the rest of the Phantom Thieves, including Yusuke. With any luck, they would be able to reach the Treasure today. If not, things in the real world would start getting very dicey.
They had a more immediate issue, though. Panther was the first to broach it, saying, “So, what is Yusuke’s codename going to be?”
“Codename?” the artist asked her.
“Yeah, all of us have codenames. It’s a lot safer to use them than to say our real names aloud in someone else’s mind. My codename’s Panther, and we’ve got Skull, Joker, and Mona.”
“I supposed that makes sense. Well then, what should my new name be?”
“It has to be Kitsune, right? It matches your mask!” voiced Panther.
Mona looked over at the artist and asked, “What do you think?”
“Hmm, how about ‘Da Vinci’?”
Yusuke was met with four unimpressed stares. “Absolutely not, man.”
“‘Clown’ might be a better one,” Mona muttered, too soft for anyone but Joker to hear.
“I’m with Panther on this one,” Skull said, “With your mask and that tail, you definitely look like a fox!”
“Why don’t we just go with ‘Fox’?” Joker suggested.
“Fox. That is… acceptable.”
“Perfect! Fox, it’s time to show you how the Phantom Thieves complete a mission!”
The five Phantom Thieves made their way back to the formerly locked building. Skull and Joker had been inside before, but Joker hadn’t made it past the first room, and Skull had gone only a little farther past there. Fortunately, the monstrous Shadow the dark-haired Thief had fought yesterday had not returned. There were no issues in the first lounge room, and they headed toward the security office where Skull unlocked the door. There wasn’t anything else of note in the office itself, but just across the hall from it Fox discovered something wonderful. There was another brochure stand set up against the wall. The artist plucked a brochure from the stand and rifled through it until he found exactly what they needed. He said, “It appears there is a map of this building in here.”
“Nice!” said Panther as she glanced over his shoulder at the brochure, “That’s going to make the rest of this a lot easier.”
Fox passed the map around to the rest of the group. Joker got a good look at it, noting that there was another gallery at the end of this hall, and one more plus another security room after that. Those were the only areas on this new map, and this building was the last one they needed to explore.
“The Treasure has to be close,” Mona told the group, “Probably in that last gallery. I think our chances of finding it are very good.”
“Let’s not get co*cky,” warned Joker, “Madarame could have any number of tricks up his sleeve.”
“Right, we’ll be careful.”
With their new map in hand, the Thieves ventured cautiously but fearlessly into the next gallery. Their high spirits were dashed, however, when they saw what was inside. The gallery was a large, wide open room, and it was absolutely brimming with laser traps.
Everyone but Fox let out a groan. The newest Phantom Thief glanced at his compatriots and said, “I take it you all have encountered these types of contraptions before?”
“Yeah, your old Sensei loves these damn things,” Skull grumbled.
“I see. Is there any way to get through them?” Fox asked.
“Not really, we just have to work around them,” Joker informed him.
“Yeah, it really sucks,” agreed Panther.
“At least there aren’t any enemies around,” said Mona, “Dealing with Shadows while navigating this maze would be hell.”
“The fact that there aren’t any guards is somewhat concerning,” Joker responded, “This feels like a trap.”
“You ain’t wrong,” agreed Skull, “But we don’t have any other choice, do we?”
“That’s true. Come on, there’s no time like the present.”
The Phantom Thieves headed into the maze of infrared lasers. For once, fortune smiled upon them. None of Madarame’s minions tried jumping them while they were inside. It’s not like they weren’t struggling enough just to not get lost and to avoid touching the sides of the narrow passages.
Their luck, as usual, was short-lived. It wasn’t until the Thieves reached the end of the maze that they realized the ‘exit’ didn’t actually lead out of the gallery. Instead, they were deposited into a small side area that looked like it was mostly used for storage. The only other place they could reach from here was the security office that was adjacent to the room they were in.
“But I thought this…” Mona trailed off. He fumbled with the map, scanning it intensely with a severe frown.
“Did we miss something?” Joker asked him.
“I don't think so,” murmured the cat. As he said it, he wandered back out into the gallery just far enough to get a good look of the room. After looking up, he said, “Oh there it is.”
Joker joined the feline and followed his gaze until he saw what they had missed. High above the opening to the storage area was a balcony. There was a doorway behind it, leading off into what Joker could only guess was the rest of the Palace.
The other Thieves quickly joined the two of them and saw what they were looking at. “Wait, how the hell are we supposed to get up there?”
“Why don’t we just grapple up?” suggested Panther.
Joker shook his head and told her, “No can do. See those lasers between the bars of the railing? No way we can get our grappling hooks up there without triggering at least one of them.”
“Damn, I guess you’re right.”
“What do you suggest we do?” Fox asked them.
Mona scratched his chin and said, “There’s a security room right near here. We might be able to get these lasers turned off from there. That’s how we got through the rest of this place, after all.”
The five of them approached the security office. So far, they had been fortunate enough to not encounter any Shadows. That changed the moment they stepped inside the office. Half a dozen guards were working at various consoles in the security room, all of whom looked up to see the Phantom Thieves casually waltzing in.
“Intruders!” shouted one of them, “Kill them all!”
The Shadows launched themselves at the Thieves, and the Thieves launched themselves right back. In the ensuing battle, Joker got to see for the first time how their newest member carried himself in a fight.
Fox was fast. He danced around their enemies with a grace that none of the other Thieves possessed. Like Skull, he preferred to use his Persona’s physical attacks and his own katana than rely on the ice magic he possessed. The slashes of his sword were deadly, eviscerating any of the Shadows it came into contact with.
He had Skull’s strength, but he also had Panther’s weakness. As they fought, a stray blow meant for Joker hit Fox instead, and the newest Thief went down hard. Mona fixed him up while Joker and the blonds mopped up the rest of the Shadows, and he staggered back to his feet.
“You alright?” Joker asked him as he got back up.
“Perfectly fine, thanks to Mona,” he replied.
“Good. Just do your best to not get hit by blows like that in the future.”
“I shall do my utmost to avoid them.”
“Thank you. We’ve all got each other’s backs; I’ll also make sure that none of you guys get hurt again.”
“We appreciate that, Joker,” Panther assured him.
The five Thieves hunted around the now-empty security office to shut off the lasers. After testing the different consoles for a few minutes, Fox flipped a random switch and they all heard the sound of the lasers powering down. Walking back out into the gallery, they were disappointed to find that only around half of the laser gates had actually been deactivated. Worst of all, the ones blocking their way to the balcony were still on, taunting them.
“Dammit, now what?” asked Skull.
Joker scratched his chin before saying, “Panther, Mona, go back to the security room and see if you can get the rest of these turned off. The rest of us will search around this gallery now that there’s some more wiggle room.”
“Got it!”
The feline and the feline-themed Thieves headed back, leaving the boys to explore the area. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to see. Like everything else in this wretched place, the floor and walls of the exhibit hall were stark gold. Joker and Skull took a closer look at the laser traps that were still on, trying to see if there was any specific reason why they didn’t shut off. Meanwhile, Fox walked the perimeter of the room.
The artist found something before either of the other Thieves did. “Hmm, do these paintings seem odd to you?” Joker and Skull joined him over at the far wall of the gallery. It was covered with huge paintings of different backgrounds. Fox said, “I can’t help but feel that there is something off about these.”
“Well, they’re the first pieces of art we’ve seen in here that aren’t portraits of Madarame’s pupils,” Joker told him.
“Yes, but there’s something else as well. It's as if this piece is made of glass, or plastic wrap…”
Deciding to test something, Fox reached out to touch the surface of the painting. He tried to press his palm against it, but that didn’t happen. Instead, his hand went into the canvas like he was reaching into a wall of water. The artist went rigid, then muttered, “...Most peculiar.”
Skull's reaction was a bit more explosive. He leapt back, shouting, “Dude, what the hell!?”
Fox retracted his hand, and both it and the painting went back to normal. Then, before the other two could stop him, the artist strode forward and walked right into it.
Skull cursed loudly as the new Thief was enveloped completely by the canvas. They could see him inside of it; he was glancing around with a look of great interest in his eyes.
“Are you still able to hear us?” Joker asked their wayward friend. In response, Fox stepped back toward the frame and right back out into the museum.
As he did, Panther and Mona approached them from the security office. The blonde asked, “Uh, is everything alright? We heard Skull shouting.”
“Fox just jumped into a painting!” the other blond explained.
“...What?”
“Observe,” Fox told her. He walked in and out of the painting again, leaving Panther's jaw on the floor.
Mona crossed his arms and said, “This Palace just keeps getting stranger and stranger.”
“Still, I prefer this place over Kamoshida’s castle,” Panther replied with a shiver.
While they spoke, Joker was taking a good look at the other paintings. Most of the far wall was covered in different landscape pieces, and there were a few on the wall with the balcony as well. Actually, if they managed to get up to one of them that was next to that balcony…
“I have an idea,” he told the others, “Follow me.”
Joker entered the painting with the rest of the Thieves at his back. They were now in a forest of bamboo. He turned around and saw the frame of the painting, and beyond it was the gallery they had just left. The Thief tried walking backwards, but the frame never seemed to get farther away.
Weird, he thought to himself. After discovering that they couldn’t move away from the entrance to the painting, Joker tried going to the edge of the frame.
“W-Woah!”
With a sudden whooshing sound, the Thieves found themselves in an entirely different painting. This one was a desert, with rolling slopes of sand and an almost unbearable heat.
“Did we just move to a different painting?” Mona asked. He walked up to the frame off to their right and peered out into the gallery. “It looks like we’ve gone to a different section of the exhibit.”
“So, we’re able to teleport between these things?” Skull asked.
“I think so. All we have to do is teleport to the right one!”
Mona made it sound easy. The Phantom Thieves spent the next half an hour hunting through over a dozen different landscape paintings, trying desperately to get to the one they needed. Most of them had several different points that warped the Thieves between the multitude of canvases. There was the bamboo forest and the desert, but there was also a mountainside, a serene temple, a dark and foreboding cave, and worst of all, the deck of a pirate ship that was under attack by a vicious kraken. The paintings were a literal maze of confusing warp points and nonsensical passages. Eventually, Joker pulled out his trusty notebook and began sketching out a rough map of the network of art.
Once Joker gave in and started mapping out the paths through the canvases, the rest of their trip went by much quicker. After way too much time spent in the headache-inducing art hell, The five Phantom Thieves finally stumbled out of a grassy clearing and onto the balcony that would take them to the rest of the Palace. Here, the Phantom Thieves finally caught a lucky break. Just past the balcony was a Safe Room, which they gratefully rushed into. All five of them collapsed into the room’s hard, plastic chairs. Panther took off her mask and laid her head down on the table and groaned, “That gave me such a headache.”
Joker tossed her a bottle of water, which she gratefully accepted. He warned his team, “There might be more of those paintings to come.”
“I certainly hope so,” said Fox. When he was met with four confused glares, he explained, “Truly, we may be the only people ever to experience a painting from inside of it. Such novelty, such an interesting perspective!”
“I dunno man, the only thing I was feelin’ was motion sickness,” Skull responded.
The five Thieves spent the next fifteen minutes recuperating in the Safe Room before Joker decided that they were well-rested enough to carry on. He led them out and deeper into the museum, and they all hoped that the Treasure would be within their reach soon.
Visitors were never meant to be back in this part of the museum. It was another, larger storage area with hundreds of random paintings on racks shoved into the corners of the hallway. There were plenty of guards, too, so the Phantom Thieves had to take it slow and quiet. They slunk past any of the Shadows they could, and slit the throats of any they couldn’t.
“Hold up,” whispered Mona as he peered around a corner, “I’m smelling something around here. I think we’re near a Will Seed!”
“Do you know what direction it’s in?” Joker asked him.
“Hmm, I’m pretty sure it’s ahead of us.”
“Okay, we’ll keep an eye out.”
They ended up finding the Will Seed room at the end of the storage area. It was across from the door that, according to the map, led to the last gallery. There was a metal security gate in front of the door to the Will Seed, stopping the Thieves from getting to their prize. The five of them searched the area for around fifteen minutes for a switch to raise it until Mona finally found it behind a couple of wooden crates. He flipped it, and the gate slowly raised up.
Joker led his group into the dark room. In its center was the Seed, glowing green and staring eerily at the intruders who had violated its sanctum. To his left, the dark-haired Thief watched Fox make the shape of a frame with his fingers and peered through them to inspect the Seed. He said, “I assume this unsightly blemish is one of the ‘Will Seeds’ you mentioned?”
Mona nodded and explained, “Yes, they’re manifestations of intense concentrations of distortion. Not only should taking them weaken the Palace, but each one also shows us a vision from Madarame’s past. They should be able to help us better understand how exactly he became distorted."
“I see,” said Fox, “I assume we should take it, then?”
“Exactly.”
Joker strode forward, and after waiting a moment for the other Thieves to collect themselves, cut the Seed from its vine.
Wednesday, May 25th
Ichiryusai Madarame’s Memory
After School
The Will Seed room melted away, replacing itself with a museum gallery. Madarame was standing in front of them, still old but considerably younger than he was now. There was another man next to him who wore a suit and had short, salt-and-pepper hair. Both men were facing away from the Thieves, staring at a painting on the wall.
Behind his mask, Fox's eyes went wide. “Sen-Madarame?” he stuttered.
“He can't see us,” Mona told him, “This is his memory, so we can't interact with or change anything.”
“I see,” the young artist replied. Still there was an edge of unease in his voice.
The Thieves strode up to stand beside Madarame and the other man. From there, they could see the painting the two men were staring so intently at: the Sayuri. Somehow, Joker wasn't surprised.
“It truly is a beautiful work of art,” the man next to Madarame suddenly said, “You've outdone yourself, Ichiryusai.”
Madarame bowed his head and replied, “Thank you, Akiko. I put my heart and soul into this piece.”
“That is plain to see. It’s just unfortunate that the birth of this piece coincides with such a horrible tragedy.”
“Indeed,” Madarame muttered, turning his head away. He was now looking at Joker’s shoes, which for him however many years ago was just a random spot on the ground.
“How is the boy?” asked the other man, “I can’t imagine how hard it must be, losing your mother at such a young age. What will happen to him?”
“I… I don’t know,” Madarame admitted, “She hardly ever mentioned the father. I believe he is… he is already dead.”
The man in the suit shook his head and said, “Such a shame.”
“I’ve been looking after him for now,” Madarame told his friend, “But I’m not a parent. I don’t… I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“I have faith in you, old friend,” said the man next to Madarame, Akiko, “Besides, money shouldn’t be a problem now that your artistic spark has been revived!”
Madarame’s fists curled. He said “Yes, I swear I will not fall into another rut. I will do anything to ensure that I don’t.”
“That’s the spirit,” Akiko replied, oblivious to the tension in Madarame’s body or the dark look in his eyes. “Although I must say, the woman in this painting… she bears a certain resemblance to…”
“Grief can be a powerful motivator. I wanted to finish the piece before her passing, but she went so suddenly…”
“I know. Still, even though this work couldn’t be used as gift, it certainly makes a beautiful memorial.”
“Yes, I suppose it does,” replied Madarame. His face was stormy, with a multitude of different emotions Joker couldn’t describe waging war across his features. His friend, too absorbed in the masterpiece on the wall, didn't notice.
The pair of men lapsed back into silence. As they watched the Sayuri, the world slowly faded back to black.
Wednesday, May 25th
Museum of Vanity
After School
“...That's it?” Skull asked as the Thieves found themselves back in the Will Seed room, “They just talked about a painting!”
“And a funeral,” Joker solemnly reminded him. He glanced over at Fox, who was staring off into a darkness with an unreadable expression that was unnervingly similar to the one Madarame wore at the end of his memory. Joker asked the artist, “Fox, do you think…”
“They were talking about my mother,” he replied, “With the timing and her resemblance to the Sayuri, it would be difficult to imagine them speaking of anyone else.”
“It’s strange seeing Madarame so conflicted,” said Panther, “I've never seen him that unsure of himself, not even when he was threatening to call the cops on us.”
“True, the version of Madarame we just saw seems a bit more subdued than he is now,” agreed Mona, “I wonder why the Will Seed would show that, though.”
Fox looked over and asked him, “Didn't you say that they usually show events that are critical to the formation of one's Palace?”
“That's what we assessed based on what we saw in Kamoshida’s Palace,” the cat told him, “But we don’t really know for sure.”
Joker had to admit that the Will Seed's memory was strange. The death of Fox's mother could have certainly been an influencing factor in the formation of this Palace, but then why wouldn't the Seed have shown them the funeral? What was so important about Madarame talking to a random gentleman while looking at the Sayuri?
Panther told us that Madarame’s hidden room was full of copies of the Sayuri, Joker thought, that painting might be more important to Madarame’s psyche than we realize.
They could deliberate all they wanted, but the Thieves wouldn't find any answers standing around here. Knowing this, Joker led the group out of the Will Seed room and toward the final gallery. Past the door was a short hallway that went… somewhere. Past a certain point, a golden glow shone in the corridor so strongly that none of them could see through it.
“What the hell is that?” asked Skull, “I can't see sh*t!”
“Keep your guard up,” ordered Joker. With no small amount of trepidation, the five of them stepped into the golden light.
“What the eff is…” Skull trailed off as they walked through. When he saw the next room, his jaw hit the floor.
On the other side of the bright glare was not the final gallery. Joker's first impression of the space was that it reminded him of a surrealist painting. The Thieves had stumbled into a gargantuan golden void, filled only with scattered walkways and arches that spidered off into infinite nothingness. Doorways filled with the same gold light littered the paths, but there was no indication which one might lead out of this hellhole.
“T-This place definitely isn't on the map,” Mona stuttered as he studied the brochure they found earlier.
“No sh*t,” Skull told him, “Where the hell even are we?”
“Perhaps this is some sort of defense mechanism?” suggested Fox.
Panther hummed and said, “I guess that makes sense. How are we supposed to get to the other side, though?”
“For now, let’s follow the path we're on,” responded Joker, “Hopefully, we'll figure something out as we go along.”
Single file, the Phantom Thieves began making their way along the gilded walkway. It was just a little too narrow for Joker’s liking. He glanced over the edge; there was nothing below but a few criss-crossing walkways hundreds of feet away.
Let's hope we don't end up fighting in here, he thought to himself, it's a long way down.
The five of them carefully walked down a set of stairs and finally came across something that wasn’t gold. Sitting on easels in the center of the walkway were two copies of the Sayuri. They stared at the Thieves with the mysterious expression the painting was famous for, which wasn’t at all comforting for the group of intruders.
As they got closer to the pieces of art, Fox’s eyes narrowed. He said, “The Sayuri on the right… it’s a fake.”
“It is?” Panther asked.
Joker took a closer look at two paintings and saw what Fox was talking about. On the Sayuri on the left, a single branch of a cherry tree arced across the painting behind the woman. On the right, the branch wasn’t there. It was clear that they were different, but Joker wouldn’t have known which one was the fake if Fox hadn’t pointed it out.
Suddenly, the fake Sayuri crumbled into ash and drifted away. Joker watched the dust float away, and before any of the Thieves could question what happened Fox said, “It seems the path forward has been revealed to us.”
“Where?” Mona asked him.
The artist pointed past the remaining painting to where the path ended. About fifty yards away the walkway split into two, with both new paths running opposite of each other before they both abruptly ended at gilded archways. The arch on the right was filled with the same golden glow as the doorway that led the Thieves in here in the first place. The arch on the left, however, was glowing blue.
“The light in the leftmost arch changed color the moment the false painting vanished,” explained Fox, “I believe that by discerning the truth of these pieces, we have earned the right to progress deeper.”
Joker thought about it for a moment before saying, “It’s worth a shot.” With a wave of his arm, he directed the Thieves toward the arch and into the blue light. It deposited them on another walkway with no indication that they had made any progress. There was, at least, one thing that gave Joker hope; there were three Sayuris standing in a row in a small alcove to the side.
Joker let Fox take the lead, and the artist quickly moved over to the paintings to inspect them. Behind him, Panther leaned over to the leader of the Thieves and quietly said, “I’m glad he’s with us. There’s no way I could tell which one of these was the real one.”
“His fascination with the Sayuri has certainly come in handy,” he replied. Taking a closer look, Joker saw what the difference between the replicas was: the eyes. The woman on the left had rounder eyes, the one in the middle had more square-like eyes, and the one on the right had her eyes closed entirely.
It only took a moment for Fox to declare, “The middle one is correct.” He placed a hand on the easel, and the two fakes crumbled away. Looking down the path, Joker saw an arch at the end of the walkway start shining blue.
“Come on, let’s keep going,” encouraged Joker. The five of them passed through the next arch, and continued on.
The rest of the Thieves’ time in the mismash of gold and paintings was another long, grueling slog. After half an hour of hunting down copies of the Sayuri, everyone’s eyes were strained from all the shiny gold. Much to Joker’s dismay, the Thieves were not alone in the gilded void. A handful of Shadows patrolled the narrow walkways. Fighting them head-on would be impossible without someone falling to their death, but Joker had an idea to avoid frontal confrontation altogether. Whenever the Thieves came across a guard, Joker would sneak up to them from behind and with a solid kick, he would punt them off the walkway entirely. This particular plan never went awry, but the threat of getting spotted kept the Thieves on edge the entire time. Meanwhile, the differences between the fake Sayuris kept getting less and less noticeable. Fox never failed to identify the correct painting, but the alterations were so tiny that it exceeded even Joker’s ability to determine which one was real.
This culminated with the Phantom Thieves coming across five exact copies of the Sayuri standing in a row. As hard as Joker tried to find the real one, they all looked exactly the same to him. As usual, Fox walked up to the artworks and silently inspected each one.
It took the artist several minutes longer than usual to figure it out. The other Thieves watched him pace back and forth between the five paintings, occasionally stopping at one of them to inspect it more closely. Joker even though he caught him once or twice sniffing the paint to try to determine… something.
At long last, Fox turned away from the Sayuris with his arms crossed. With a frown, he told the others, “None of these are correct.”
“For real!? How can you tell!?” Skull asked him.
“The thickness of the paint,” explained Fox, “Most of the pieces here have their layers applied too heavily.”
“That's amazing that you can tell the difference,” Panther told him, “They all look the same to me.”
The artist told her, “It's a skill I've gained through a life of devotion to art. Being able to perceive the slightest details of a work of art is an ability essential to my trade.”
“We’re glad to have you, Fox,” Joker said, patting the artist on the shoulder, “This Palace would have been a lot harder without you.”
“I’m glad I could help,” Fox replied.
Mona drew their attention by clearing his throat. He said, “I hate to break it to you guys, but the paintings are still there.”
Joker and Fox looked over at the art. Sure enough, the five false paintings were still standing on their easels.
“I don’t get it, Fox figured it out! Why are they still there?” Skull asked.
Panther hummed for a moment and suggested, “Maybe there’s a real one hidden around here somewhere?”
“Where?” Skull shot back, “The only things here are the path we’re on and this wall.” He jerked his thumb behind him to a gilded wall that ran the length of the path on its left side. Joker looked up at it and realized that it was actually another walkway that drifted off further into the void.
Silently, Joker agreed with Skull. The wall was completely blank, where were they supposed to hide something? Unless there was something wrong with the wall itself…
The dark-haired Thief activated Third Eye and found something. A patch of wall near the paintings stood out in stark contrast from the rest of the area. Joker approached it and wedged his knife where the glowing patch began. He assumed that it was a panel he would have to pry off, but the knife plunged straight through the wall instead. Tearing his arm away, he discovered that there was a small alcove in the wall hidden behind a sheet of golden-wall colored paper. He ripped the rest of it away to reveal that there was indeed another Sayuri hidden inside.
“Hey Fox, can you check this one out?” Joker asked.
The artist told him, “Certainly,” and moved over to take a look. He inspected it for around a minute before finally confirming Joker’s suspicions by saying, “Yes, this one is real.”
The other five paintings turned to ash as soon as he said it. Panther turned to Joker and asked him, “How’d you figure out where that was?”
Joker’s only response was a shrug, and the Thieves quickly pressed on.
