June 24th, Friday, 5 exactly from what I remember seeing on our previous customer's wristwatch. 25, 26, 27, 28 as the last period of time before my self-imposed deadline was over—not that I was thinking about that as I was too busy stalling over making a decision.

  The flower shop felt a little less secure than normal. I'll be honest and say that it became a bit of a safehouse in a complete twist of fate, different from the coffee shop where I pissed on my burning relationship with Sojiro and different from school where I felt like a complete nobody. I did not see the irony that I'd claimed to not need friends and clung to this place where my coworker treated me normally; previous Akira is somehow dumber than present Akira, though previous Akira had also come up with multiple plans and is still standing despite his best efforts to get himself killed, so let's give him some slack for being smarter than all his detractors thought and dumber than he needed to be!

  Anyways, the flower shop was a little bit of extra-normalcy that I was allowed. It was extra-normal because it was more than normal. It wasn't my new normal nor my old normal but a normalcy that I imagined was how Hanasaki herself felt. Another day, another shift where you didn't have to think about magic stuff. It's what I tried to maintain by being a little more proactive than I usually was. Moving around the 'art' and being a tiny bit more conversational with the customers evened out the moody excesses. This was definitely running away, if you're curious. I didn't want to think about the implications of my own decisions and ran away by working. It was a better coping habit than other people's. You've heard all sorts of weird stories and if I still had my computer, I would've skipped work to play video games instead.

  Standing around also gave me a better feeling than being at home sulking in a dark corner. Being around bright lights and movement and talking made me feel a little less like a criminal. I know that this was describing the yakuza atmosphere but I think that's another plus on my side that I don't think of myself as anywhere near those people.

  Eventually I left. I walked around. It wasn't dark yet so I didn't feel like going home. I had enough money for a bike but was hesitant doing Phantom Thief stuff at that moment. The streets were becoming cooler. The people stayed the same. Friday was me-day for many. I made it a me-day too. Money that I could save was stashed in my pocket. I dipped into it to buy a drink. It was a cola. I ate katsudon at another restaurant. It was okay. I went to another restaurant to buy more time and bought a coffee. I couldn't tell the difference between that and Sojiro's. Both were bad. Then I went out to the movie theater.

  My fist was planted on my cheek. The movie was kind of boring. It was something about the migrants over in an ocean in Europe. Somehow the romance hit me there. Somewhere there were people who risked everything for a chance of a better life. On the same oceans that carried Columbus and the Khan who'd died in the strait were these people. It was hard to feel sympathy for these people when I knew so little about it. They were starving. Millions starved. I could only be guilted so many times before hearing about a starving person lost its effect. It's what I said when reading through the fansite. Wifebeaters, scammers, all the dregs of society weren't solely at my feet to solve.

  Eventually my fist turned into a hand. My eyes lowered. I think it's when there were children on screen. I've never been robbed. I could imagine that it feels bad. My imagination went wild. Reminders of the layout that I'd sketched out repealed as the door itself sat as a centerpiece. Nothing behind there was important rather than the cognitive impact it'd have on Madarame. I emptied my head and looked back up.

  "All this leaves you so angry. It leaves you with an emptiness in your gut" the doctor on screen said.

  Initially I had the idea of just throwing a brick through a window. That was denied. Rifling through my memories confirmed that the room most likely didn't have a window in it. Throwing a brick through a random window wouldn't help in the same way that merely suggesting the door did either; it needed to be targeted to make sure that he knew without a doubt that his secret was violated. Any less and nothing would happen. I would've violated a law without anything to show. Whispering came from the seat behind me. After the movie finished, I discreetly tracked them at my peripherals: some form of white, blonde people.

  The door needed to be opened. If I couldn't get in persuasively, then there was another option.

  I continued walking around as the streetlights began popping on. It was still early. Dregs of daylight reflected off windows and seared my stupid eyes. Another milder light was much more persistent. It ran down the rear windows of cars and felt more violent than any other violation. I turned and walked on a side street. Going fast didn't matter. Neither did going slowly. Tokyo had just enough distractions for me to live in the present. It was in a quieter part that I saw one of the few churches that it boasted. Capital city meant the seat of the gods. Though we allowed Christians and Hindus, I wasn't convinced that they kept welcome. I'd seen a few of their temples. Looking at them, as was the same with this one, felt like seeing a place that had the whole city sprout around from them. The streets had come from this place originally because these kinds of things couldn't be torn down like we'd done to the old growth forests. Out of place, in a way that seemed like both the equivalent of shrine maidens inside and everyone passing by were equally offended by its presence.

  A girl walked outside that made me offended by her having trespassed in there. Straight, black hair and slim eyes were the immediate tells, and her thin body reaffirmed that this was the Japanese beauty who'd be snatched up by some sort of beauty industry within a few years—advertising, broadcasting, whatever. A thread was worked through the left side of her hair. Her style in general sat her across from the general Japanese beauty (generally a very boring personality from what I've heard) by having an insanely unique style. The dress retained a suggestive shape. Does that sound wrong? What I mean is that you can bend a spaghetti noodle any way you want and it still looks like a noodle. Painted across it were freaked out triangles of every color. Nestled in her side was a shogi board.

  Everything about that reminded me that either I was cursed to have an interesting life or Tokyo was generally the place for freakshows that it wasn't uncommon to see things like this. More so I'm talking about how pretty women kept talking to me.

  "Um," she greeted, "do you have something to say?"

  Or maybe she was just weirded out by me staring.

  "Do you know how weird you look right now?"

  Her pupils expanded, bewildered. "Excuse me?"

  "You're dressed like that, looking like you are, in a church, playing shogi." I frowned, crossing my arms. "What the hell? Why not."

  "...why not what?"

  "I don't know. You know, ever since I've come to Tokyo, things haven't made sense. There's been—" I decided even implying there were supernatural things happening around me wasn't a good idea when the Phantom Thieves' anonymity partially hinged on people not accepting that. "A guy came into my job at the flower shop and started ranting about art stuff and called me an artist."

  "My apologies," she said slowly, each of her syllables alternating between apologetic and confused.

  "Yeah. You know, they say that the internet is making it that everything is the same, or that everything on there is fake, you know. The works. But, I mean, obviously not. I've felt bewildered since coming here. Some guy came up and started screaming at me when I was walking to school without me even saying a word and my mandatory therapist studies some kind of bullshit science field on the side. Heck, I've turned weird. I used to be the quiet guy who's shoved in the back of his room all day, which people call weird without remembering that we're most likely to have at least one murderer in the class also. Now that I'm here I've become weird. I literally live in a coffee shop."

  She blinked.

  "Which one?"

  I scoffed, pointing in the general direction. "Leblanc."

  "I've never heard of it."

  "It's another weird place. The owner is a grumpy old man. It's somehow open despite not having any customers. And…" I suddenly realized what I was doing. Stress was doing weird things to my brain. I don't even like documentaries. "Sorry, now I'm being the weird one. It's been a weird week. Guess I'm going nuts if I'm stopping people on the street to hear me rant. Sorry about that. I'll get out of your hair."

  With that said, I left for home. When back home, I watered my cactus and sat down.

  I needed to do something. I looked up to the heavens for inspiration and found a supremely suspicious ceiling that may have been force feeding me a dust mite's lunch for years. I cleaned it up. Then I was still dissatisfied.

  Feeling my arms made it more obvious that I was living a more active lifestyle. Real strength was behind my bicep flexing instead of the pathetic 0.1 magnitude earthquake that it used to be. Would real life strength transform into Metaverse strength?

  I looked up at my rafters for a long time before getting to my feet. No harm trying. That's what I thought. I did five pullups before collapsing against my bed. Then I got up and started pacing.

  The Metaverse was a handy tool. There was already a plan that had been fermenting since I thought about burglarizing the house. With a little of preparation, I could go in and out. The heart would come soon afterwards.

  I spun around on my heel violently. C'mon, do I even need to say it? This was an escalation, no way around that. Breaking into a house was the same sort of thing that a criminal would do. Let's really talk about the Metaverse for a second: it's something bad if we want to call it that, but it isn't breaking the law. Destroying property and rummaging around another person's house is the kind of thing that they hung you for back in the olden days.

  I pivoted. I wanted to break into the house because it was simple. Otherwise I'd never consider the plan, but because I had the ability to, I was seriously considering breaking in. Really, let's go over how easy that it would be. I already had mapped out the house after watching so many videos. With the Metanav, I could dive into the palace and run outside so I wouldn't reappear right at the crime scene. Within five minutes the whole deal could be done with. There were little caveats that'd have to be worked out, but the entire plan was so simple that most of it had already been made on the spot. I sat down on my bed and started rubbing my face.

  Could I? Could I? Could I? It kept repeating in my head. You know when you're sick and you can't stop your thoughts from looping? I had the same problem there. I'd think about how my parents would look at me if they ever knew I partaken in more crime while in Tokyo. Could I? I thought about the rumors in school making me out to be a brainless thug wandering the streets for victims. Could I? None of these people were holding me back. Really. I didn't care about their opinions. Rather, it was my own self-image that kept burning my wrists as I felt myself held back. I wasn't a criminal. It wasn't my fault that I was in Tokyo. Bundles of my sheets squeezed through between my fingers. It was too much! This was the kind of thing that I worried about. Magic was making me consider breaking into a person's house. It sickened me, that I had the capability to do so, that I was tempted by my own capability.

  I guess through all this time, I still felt like I'd done a bad thing and that my penance was getting exiled. No, there's no issue with having some self-respect in thinking that my parents had gone too far or that I deserved to get revenge on the guy who beat the shit out of me and that I deserved to lose all my friends, lose contact with my parents, lose all my stuff, get jammed into a literal attic forgotten by everybody, have to deal with a crotchety old guy, get kidnapped on my first day which made me late, and whatever other tiny problems that I had directly because of getting exiled; but there was still a kernel whispering deep inside myself that I was a bad person who deserved some part of this.

  Going downstairs was meant as a way to distract myself. Sojiro had gone somewhere when I came back. A customer was sitting at the bar slowly sipping her drink. A lazy eye drifted over to me before continuing to stare into nowhere. Or maybe she was just interested in the machines. Either way, I sat down next to the witch. Sojiro didn't trust me with the machines, or the beans. Not sure which one was worse.

  I was sitting next to her because I thought she had a better experience with the things I was talking about than other people. You didn't get the reputation as a back alley doctor who stole organs for nothing. My fingers played with a dish that Sojiro hadn't come to pick up yet.

  "You're here late, miss…" I let myself trail off, my fingers twirling amongst themselves. "Er, have I ever got your name? Uh, I don't think I have. Or maybe I forgot."

  She glanced over to me again for an even shorter amount of time. Eventually she let out a puff of breath.

  "It's Takemi Tae. I'm surprised that he hasn't kicked you out yet."

  "It's not like I make it a habit of getting injured," I retorted without heat.

  Rubbing my hands down on the counter felt nice. It had the texture of wood without being all splinter-y. You know, with the grooves that real logs had while also still having that graininess that made it feel unique. If I could I'd make my desk out of old barrels, the ones that were on pirate ships. Those felt nice until you got stabbed in the thumb.

  "Really? I thought that you'd only come to beg for another excusal from school," she said.

  I tried not biting down on my cheek. "Nah, nothing like that. I just have a question or two. I dunno. Depending on your answers, I guess."

  She hummed. I know that I approached her and everything, but that doesn't mean I was ready to bare my whole feelings. Call me whatever but it's partially because she was a pretty girl. It's also because she wasn't there when I was at my best. Also asking this really pushed the boundaries of what I was comfortable with a single person knowing. Pretty sure in my situation a single person could call about a complaint that I might have been involved with and I get my butt shipped to Sugamo. Also the problem started shifting from banal (this pretty woman would know I'm pathetic) to embarrassing (I'm absolutely not going to play therapist with this random person) to moral (implying that I'm breaking into house is a bit more serious than a little bit of good natured revenge) to petty (I was damned if my secret would be leaked to this lady who probably partially hated me) which made me unwilling to fully uncloak myself.

  So it took me a while before I could ask. I wouldn't call it bold myself. But I felt bold.

  "You know what they say about the nail that sticks out getting hammered and whatever? I always thought that those people were stupid—the nails, I'm saying. Just, y'know, continue doing what you do 'cause you enjoy it. That's how I've always seen it. Then the whole thing happened and—I'm not getting into it. I'm just saying that I feel pretty hammered down right now." I blew out in frustration at the admission. "I still don't really know if it's a good thing to push against the law if you're doing the right thing, or if that really exists."

  She had a raised eyebrow, now turned towards me. I at least got her attention in that moment, and at the moment I just hoped with all my heart it wasn't negative attention.

  "I just thought that you'd know about that because, uh, you know. I'm just conflicted over it." Blowing out another angry breath, I started scratching my hair in frustration. Just a habit that I did sometimes. Don't look too much into it. "I guess I'm having problems because I've never thought about this kind of stuff before and I've never had to think of this stuff before. I think that I'm a pretty typical idiot kid so all this stuff goes right over my head. I kind of wish that it could continue going over my head, but I think that I'll feel bad if I don't confront it at some point. Shit just seems stupid. I hate all this ambiguity, this maybe, somehow, perhaps. I wish there was a crowning truth that I could believe in. But no, there's a bunch of stupid shit and stupid as shit people believe in the dumbest things."

  I'm not one of those people who can rant on without any input. When she didn't respond, I started feeling self-conscious and shut up. She didn't stop staring which didn't help that feeling.

  Eventually her shoulders shrugged as she did a slight laugh. Well, it was demeaning enough that what it meant was anyone's guess. I personally saw it as mocking, but maybe that's just me.

  "Most people don't think about that unless it's shoved in their face. That's the job for people with too much time on their hands—is what I thought when my college forced me to take ethics so I could graduate. It isn't useless when you're neck deep in it."

  "So you get it? What do you think about it?" I asked.

  She did that side-eye again. "I know about your circumstances, roughly. Some would take this as some kind of threat that should be reported to the police."

  "Threat? I know better than to threaten the person who gave me a free day off school." I started waving my hands in front of me. "Er, unless you're saying that I'm threatening to push the law somewhere else, which is, uh, not what I, what I was thinking about, and even if I was it'd be for society's benefit. It's like when you jaywalk to help a lady getting robbed."

  Tae chuckled, leaning forwards on the counter. Her elbows propped her head up. Something nostalgic came about the scene—maybe it was the wisps of coffee that were trailing up her chin or just a woman in soft lighting looking into the distance—which made me transfixed. Only when she was in the middle of the sentence did I realize she was talking. Don't worry. I could infer what she was saying.

  "I'd love to be the responsible adult here, but It'd be hypocritical of me to say otherwise. Before I was let off from the hospital, I'd add little accessories that were off code. Heh. I remember my boss' face when I dyed my hair." Chuckling to herself, she spun the cup around the saucer. Her next words were so quiet that I could barely hear them. "What I wouldn't do to help."

  I was going to ask for a clarification when she continued.

  "That's not what you asked. Very few people know the answers, and I've always had a suspicion that we're ruled over by people who have firm answers to strange questions." The way that her lipstick pronounced the smile into the edge of a reaper's scythe made the coffee shop seem gloomier as light trickled down her translucent skin into her mouth. "You want to hear a joke? I used to insist that they didn't have the answers to those questions either. That's what I thought. It was ignorance that made me say that: plenty of people have firm answers. I'd like to think that people know what's right. They learn how to be wrong."

  It was pretty much a ringing endorsement, or as far as an endorsement somebody had ever given me. I left soon after. I wasn't sure what was keeping Sojiro but I didn't want to be caught finangling with his customers. Walking around I decided that the problem couldn't be what I asked Tae because otherwise I'd be assuaged. She was a responsible person, a smart one, and was hot so she was probably right. I still doubted myself. The time for doubts was over however. Sometimes we were given the time to doubt ourselves and other times we were meant to continue moving else we'll be paralyzed for the rest of our lives.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  Planning began in lieu of sleep. On Sunday I'd make sure that Sojiro saw me go upstairs. For extra guarantee, I'd do the stupid thing where I'd put a lump of pillows underneath my blanket. It made sense since I actually liked curling up while sleeping. The next part would require experimentation. Since I had already hyped myself up, I continued planning as if it weren't a question. So let's assume that I had made it over to Madarame's shack: what next?

  Now, here's where I got stalled. Would the door stay open for a longer period of time? The answer to those questions was nowhere within reach so I opted to be safe. The door absolutely needed to be open in the cognition. For that to happen, there needed to be a dramatic event. Committing to doing a crime already stained my hands. Why not go further? Therefore, I decided that stealing something from behind the door would absolutely rock his cognition.

  Then came another question: leap into the Metaverse when inside the shack, leave and then enter the Metaverse, or wait until later? There were a lot of points on both sides and I decided on waiting until later. Let's briefly go down the list without much explanation: I'd never hopped to a palace inside of the real world location, I didn't want to deal with getting surprised by the guards getting agitated when I was already inside, I assumed that the shock would be enough to keep it open for a good amount of time, leaving would give me time to get rid of anything incriminating, and I was planning on scouting out the rest of the palace in one go anyways. Screw the security level. I had another trick up my sleeves that would also need experimentation.

  The only thing was that I absolutely couldn't let anyone see that there were magical shenanigans. Leaving this part as flexible as possible was by necessity: if there were people outside then I'd need to enter the palace no matter what, and if there were cameras then I'd need to escape on foot until using my trick.

  Let me strip it down for people to understand: set up the fake Akira after pretending to take a nap, use my patented technique, arrive at the house, steal whatever was behind the door, break into the house, run outside, use my patented technique, temporarily leave, come back and map out the palace that'll be really scary yet manageable with my other patented technique. Easy! Making the checklist that I'd need to complete on Saturday made me surge back to pure confidence. Forget the doubts, I thought to myself. By Sunday I'd have Madarame's palace mapped out. By Monday I'd have his heart stolen. By Tuesday I'd be well on my way to the money that I wanted to have. By Wednesday I'd be thinking of the way past Okumura's stupid palace.

  I went to bed, satisfied. I woke up. I ate curry and passed on coffee for breakfast. I got a drink instead while walking to school. I didn't learn anything during class. School was okay. Therapy didn't happen. Walking out gave me the same feeling as during the first heist. I was getting excited again. A way forward! I repeated it as I sold another statue and got another 20,000. Immediately my stash was dipped into for another bike. Looking it over gave me another sense of accomplishment. It felt like a drug. I was determined to complete this palace.

  If you were curious why I didn't keep selling the statues instead of doing more palaces, it was a logical conundrum: fencing fake sculptures good enough to trick art aficionados was not the kind of attention that I wanted on me. No infinite money glitch. Especially since Madarame's heart was going to be stolen in the near-future, the less people who knew about it the better. Staying low was paramount

  The first check was entering Mementos. I wanted to do it the same way that I'd initially entered except during a more crowded time of day. The question was simple: how 'invisible' did entering a Tokyo-wide palace make me? If I completely disappeared, then I'd have an easy way to leave the crime scene. If I didn't completely disappear, then I'd have to be more creative in my exfiltration. Standing inside my room in Leblanc guaranteed that there'd be no witnesses unless Sojiro had installed a baby cam in my room when I wasn't looking.

  Pressing down on the button made the same unfamiliar surroundings take over. Gray drenched the world. Breathing deep brought that familiar buzzing that the Metaverse seemed intent on inflicting onto me. Walking downstairs without hesitation was meant to be a kind of resolve that I was done with being freaked out with things. Because I was the universe's punching bag, getting to the bottom step nearly had me hit the back of my head on the stairs.

  Leblanc wasn't completely empty: a couple was sitting in the corner and Sojiro was behind the counter. Even with the faded surroundings I knew there were people there. Dark gray silhouettes were flat, or pressed against the walls like physical shadows, active with how they would shimmer in movement. Stepping upstairs and coming back to the real world gave me a chance to come back down.

  Nobody seemed surprised. I went to the bathroom and went back upstairs. This time I went out the front door and back. Returning to the real world let me see Sojiro warily glancing over to where I might've been.

  "What's wrong?" I asked.

  There was still an incriminating element to his eyes that seemed reserved for me. The information weighed in his head as if wondering how nefarious my reason for asking would be. "I just thought I saw another person enter. What do you want?"

  "Something strong and to go, I guess. I want to start working out, so," I didn't have anything else, shrugging in resignation of coming up with a better excuse, "yeah."

  He provided the coffee and I entered Mementos again while walking to the subway entrance. Those shades wandered around with the same animation as a bunraku performance. Limbs were forgotten in these bodies as was any method of distinction. Populated streets became walls that made me wary of crossing through them, worried that it'd out me to the public somehow. Instead I would find chinks in the crowd and hurry past. Thankfully cars didn't pass though I got the fun experience of occasionally hearing a dopplered horn screech by.

  Standing at the mouth of the subway filled in the world again. I went down the steps with my plan ratified: people saw something but it remained a distant something they couldn't put their fingers on. Finding the limits to that was impossible without a test dummy so I marked it down as only when there was no other option. Therefore, this was how the Phantom Thief would transplant himself across the city while Akira Kurusu was provided with an alibi: disappear when taking a nap in my room and reappear back inside my room when the crime was carried out. Everything hinged on Mementos not leaving a nasty surprise but I was relatively confident in my transport being consistent.

  Next was double-checking. The thing about Okumura's palace that had left me puzzled was the feeling that I was out of my depth provided by some kind of sixth sense. With the Thief's Vision already in my back pocket, I was pretty sure that the 'feeling' was more than a gut feeling. If it were merely a feeling of my Personas or something giving a warning, great. If it were something more then it was another advantage that I could use when I leapt knee-deep into the palace. Standing in Mementos' entrance gave me a delicate moment to reorient myself and think about what I was trying in the first place. Recreating that feeling was possible if I went back to the strange space colony yet I was looking for a more universal confirmation.

  The problem came with figuring out how to recreate it. Nothing in Madarame's palace had given me the same fear that could permeate through floors. Looking around Mementos was kind of a last ditch effort that would test if it was universal. Glances were afforded at both ends of the place as I touched my toes. Originally it was self-consciously searching if the twin who cruelly made fun of me was still there.

  My heart seized when I caught sight of her. It was like a phantom limb extended outside my body, cradling something that I could barely recognize the silhouette of because once my hand lifted from the figure, I couldn't piece together the whole. I knew it was there still or at least its general location. Sorry that this will sound fake, but it's hard to explain a concept that has no equivalent outside of the Metaverse. Once my 'fingers' brushed against this thing, it turned into a definite form. Once my 'fingers' lifted, it expanded. Her presence felt like it was some kind of gas that spread through the entire floor when I released my focus. Think of a glass of water. Maybe a packet of food coloring instead of the typical colored dust. Once my focus lifted from it, the packet broke into a tasty color.

  That was my centering point. Now that I had a lock on her, released into this water coloring, multiple things became apparent: that we were in a glass of water in the first place and that I had a phantom limb. Stretching it out below confirmed there were more 'food colorings' below that I couldn't see. It was shocking enough that I was locked mid-stretch.

  Suddenly it became clearer, snapped in my head by a lifetime of reading shonen manga: this was my scouter. That feeling in Okumura's palace was the kiddy accidentally kicking out into the deep end of the pool. Recognizing what power felt like in the first place made me more sensitive towards it. And I suddenly understood that my mysterious benefactors weren't merely there because of living in between dimensions, or however the stupid spiel of theirs went.

  The worst part was the smug smirk from her.

  "The hell are you things?" I mumbled.

  "You'd better wipe that tongue of yours clean, inmate. You're already on thin ice with how rude you've been with our master these past months." Her riding crop smacked against the ground and pointed at me. "Listen up! This alongside finding more palaces than we've expected you would've managed has got me feeling generous, so clean out your ears, 'cause I'm not repeating a single thing: what you're feeling right there is the ability to scan. Scanning can work with you as far as you allow it, though having a Persona user who is specialized with scanning will always trump whatever your meagre amount of talent will be able to manage. Most likely your own ability will cap out at the same threshold that other non-specialist scanners that we've seen. You hear that? You have greater capabilities that you can stretch your powers out to!"

  "And you won't tell me how to do that."

  Her head craned upwards to the superior expression I was starting to hate seeing anywhere else. Having it happen to you by a genuinely smug person really did sour it completely. "The best course you could have would be to befriend a person who already is a natural scanner instead of wasting your time sharpening your own mediocre ability."

  Going down a single floor strangely had her signature fade out. Ahead though? Focusing hard made the phantom limb overly obvious to the point where I was unsure how I'd missed it before. It sprouted from an unknown place and had no definite end. Despite not fully comprehending it, the results were recognizable when the first piece of food coloring was touched ahead of myself. It required me to stand still and wouldn't be battle-ready by the next day. This was another Jenga piece to add to the tower however. Latent energy swirling around me had fundamentally changed the way that I perceived the Metaverse. It's like how understanding gravity's mechanics probably made ancient humans see the whole universe differently. It's hard to explain, in the same way that Dragon Ball didn't bother explaining how 'aura' felt because it felt essential and I felt stripped when leaving the Metaverse. I walked home, smiling.

  The last piece that'd guarantee my success was already bought. I'd planted the seeds with a few more people along the way, but my reach wasn't all that large. I had to hope that the rumor was scary enough to spread. After checking, double-checking, triple-checking that there weren't any cameras around and then checking, double-checking, triple-checking that there wasn't anybody who'd walk around the corner to see me at the last second, I picked up my bike and went to a place where the anxiety wouldn't kill me. Giving an excuse that I needed to check the bike's equipment and that I'd use one of the tarps mollified Sojiro.

  I put my hand on the frame. I entered the Metaverse. It wasn't exactly the same model as my old one, but I'd think that I would notice if it came with a mecha shift feature. It looked like a bastardization, something that would make a bosozoku have a stroke. Some tiny engine (and it had to be an engine, with pipes running into that steel block and one gigantic pipe sticking out like a factory) was strapped inside the hollow triangle underneath the seat. There was a gigantic spotlight attached between the handlebars. It had been rumbling ever since I'd entered.

  Going back to reality didn't shove the Metaverse aside. I was too excited to think of anything else. I tried more pullups and gave up. I drank a drink and then bought another one. I walked. I bought everything that I'd need. I visited another district. Nothing stuck. I went home and couldn't go to sleep.

  Some of you are probably confused. I've already said that it could be accused by a normal person that I seem to be bipolar. Those who are gracious and sympathetic would probably say that the stress would get to anyone. Those who are gracious yet skeptical of the Phantom Thieves would probably say that I was out of my depth, which wasn't a mark on my character other than being greedy enough to continue getting myself entangled. Those who aren't gracious of any stripe may say that my problems were self-inflicted. Even I, recalling this time, could admit that it's cringeworthy how wishy washy I was. Complicated situation aside, the only time that I felt genuinely confident was when my perceived opponent was on the backfoot.

  Some of you are probably also confused. That's it? That's the preparation? Yes, it is. This is a little more opaque for those of you outside the magic business, but there are genuinely times when it's like this. With the information that I had at the time, it seemed like the only greater preparation I could've had would be personally meeting the man himself or getting more money to buy tools. Stalling makes you more anxious. Resolving to do something illegal meant forging ahead before my nerve was lost.

  I fell asleep and woke up at some point. Last second prep came with using another chunk of money for refilling the fireworks that I was using. At noon exactly I went out for my run. I came back to the cafe sweating. Acting didn't even come to mind. I didn't sleep either. I went a little faster than normal. My feet hurt.

  "Hey, I'm going to take a nap," I said.

  Sojiro didn't look away from the television. "Make sure that you don't sleep the day away."

  If he were more rude, I could've expected him to say something like, "how is that my business?" I was glad that he didn't.

  Stuffing the rags underneath my blankets was the most stressful part of the whole operation, if you'd believe it. I was constantly shifting around the lumps so that it looked as human-like as possible. I laid down next to it to make sure that it looked around my size. Realizing that the pillow wasn't indented, I got a book from my desk and laid it down. About three revolutions of adjusting the tiny details then stepping back for a good look passed before I finally took out my phone, then for good measure I adjusted the blankets around. Then I also may have ruffled the bed around so in Sojiro's mind, if he came up, could've thought that he missed me walking out and was reading in bed, maybe.

  The grayness wasn't any more comfortable than any other time. Not exactly surprising however was that even these supernatural incidents became easy to fade into the background when you had nothing to call attention to. With how much time I've spent in the Metaverse, I was getting used to that jelly feeling that solid surfaces had. Though initially uncomfortable, eventually you learned the little details that made it nice. I visited the ocean once. The warmth was nice. Something about the Metaverse really brought out small details, which made me feel like I had an eagle's eye. The pebbles that laid beneath my bike's wheel were obvious as the changes to my new bike.

  Mounting the bicycle made my heart palpitate. One last look over made me feel cooler than I probably was meant to. Slightly pressing down on the pedal, unchanged from my normal one, made the engine rumble.

  "It worked," I said. My smile grew. "It worked!"

  Think about what's cool about motorcycles: the rush of air, the ingenuity of humanity turned into speed, how your arms could reach to your sides (do not do this) and brush past the entirety of the world eating your dust. Now think about what's cool about bicycles: well, they're not really cool per se, but I think that they're cool because they do the same things except with a little bit of exercise. This was doubled with the feeling of genuine effort on my part making me turn into a jet engine. Those little novelties that I mentioned were so easy to spot in Mementos turned into indecipherable smears as the road became my toy. Shades of cars were lost behind me as I turned street corners on a dime without feeling like my center of balance was being affected by gravity. Wind rushed through my ears without the coldness I've heard motorcyclists describe. Each turn of my hand on the handlebars made the engine respond with a defiant roar. For those five minutes that I was crossing the city, I felt like a genuine badass.

  Sobering reality hit me like I was doing the ice bucket challenge. In front of me was a facsimile of Madarame's shack. Each splinter of wood could be counted and it wouldn't fully embrace the amount of lives he's ruined. My fingers nervously tapped on the bike's handlebars. With a little bit of creativity I was able to find my way onto a nearby fire escape and climb my way to the top floor, where my bike was placed. My hands nervously played on my hips. I'd dressed for the occasion. A cheap pig mask that I fished out of a garbage can still smelled like tuna no matter how much I washed it. The hoodie and jeans were so nondescript that it'd take a genius to see any details. I'd give them away anyways. The backpack that I got was from another pawn shop, ludicrously cheap for the hole that was torn through the back and would find a great life in an incinerator if I could help it. Black gloves that I traded from one of my homeless friends clenched tightly.

  Going back into the real world seemed to wake up my senses. My heart hammered. My head felt woozy. The brick that I'd taken fit snugly in my hand, ready and waiting for my command. It wound up over my head. I didn't even think to check if there were people around. A scream came from down the street as it flew through the front window. From my backpack came a tiny crowbar that I found laying around one day and stole. Well, it wasn't stealing. Really. It was in an alleyway and I thought it would be useful. It's not a crime taking forgotten items or else I'd be a criminal for taking that twenty dollars that was laying around in a dressing room long ago.

  My crowbar cleared the window of glass before I hopped inside. I could say that the man's facade worked well just from the front room I was in. The place stank that specific stink only old buildings had while the appliances looked like they hadn't been deep cleaned once in their lives. Without much preamble, I started running through my planned route. Straight ahead were stairs, where a hallway led straight into the special door. That was my target.

  I was at the bottom of the stairs. At the top was a person.