Monday 16th May
Today was the day. Madarame knew his face, and Haruto knew all Yusuke needed was one last push before he could finally be free of Madarame's grip. Finally he could destroy that miserable man—then Yusuke could finally start beginning to live his life as he deserved to. He just needed to sort the Palace. Or so he thought.
Yusuke was being… strange, again.
"Is something wrong?" he asked, as they got let out for lunch.
"Oh no, not at all," said Yusuke, in a somewhat dazed, distracted way. "If you don't mind, I'm going to spend lunch doing some work in the art room."
"That's fine," said Haruto, though it really wasn't.
Yusuke seemed almost… lost—confused, perhaps? Has something else happened? But if it had then why hadn't he told Haruto? He knew he could tell him anything—Haruto had made sure of it, but… Hmm. This was very troubling.
He quickly retreated to a smaller classroom, where no one could see him messing around on his phone. He hadn't wanted it to come to this, but he had to check.
The MetaNav icon loomed large on the screen. He tapped it and whispered, "Kitagawa Yusuke."
"No candidate found," came the metallic voice from the phone.
Haruto exhaled heavily. No Palace. That was… something, at least. But something was clearly weighing on Yusuke's mind—something he clearly didn't want to talk about. Maybe he just had to give it time. And besides, soon he'd be erasing the source of most of Yusuke's troubles for good. He had nothing to worry about. Probably.
***
The Shadows had been putting up more of a fight today—not surprising considering Yusuke was finally beginning to seriously consider leaving Madarame—something he'd have noticed, consciously or not. But the fiercest fight couldn't change the fact that the Shadows in here were still weak in the face of Haruto's two years of experience, and he wiped the floor with most of them fairly easily.
In fact there was just one problem…
Wretched boy, croaked Abaddon, crawling along miserably behind him, your injury is costing us time.
"If I could heal it, I would," Haruto growled back, looking at the corridor up ahead.
All clear. He broke out into a light jog, ignoring the slight pinches of pain through his foot and the grumpy sigh from the evil frog behind him.
It couldn't be far to the control room now—he wanted to steal the Treasure with minimal interference, after all.
There was a door just up ahead. He stole through, and sure enough…
The control room. Finally.
There was no one inside—as he'd suspected, most of the guards seemed to have been monopolised for patrol duty—and he scanned the panels of buttons and levels for a suggestion of what they each might do. Ah. There was a locked cupboard over in the corner. That probably had instructions in.
He quickly glided over and carefully picked the lock—though he had more than enough experience by now to make it work in a few seconds. Then the cupboard swung open, and sure enough, a moment of fishing through various documents found him the instructions to the panel.
Ah, very interesting—so he could shut off the lights and get rid of all those pesky grates, could he? Well, that could be useful… had the mainframe not been programmed to override the lights in a matter of seconds. He could take out the mainframe itself but… that could prove more trouble than it was worth.
It seemed the control room wasn't likely to help him in stealing the Treasure.
There were some interesting bits in here about fire safety though—and if he set fire to the main gallery downstairs it would go up in smoke very quickly, if he timed it right… yes, that might be an idea…
He wandered over to the security cameras, only to find that—oddly enough-there seemed to be some movement already happening on the lower floors. Guards were running about left, right and centre. That didn't seem right—Haruto had been very careful, after all.
Then he heard voices—just outside this room, in fact. Shit. He needed somewhere to hide.
A few leaps took him up on top of the cupboard, and then another let him out onto the window, balancing carefully outside, just out of view of the guards that had now gathered within.
"I can't believe those fools on the lower floor haven't even caught the intruders yet," grumbled one of the guards. "Do they think this is a joke? Lord Madarame will have their heads once he finds out."
"If he finds out," said the other guard.
Intruders? Intruders? Wait-that couldn't be—But why would they target Madarame, of all people? Who did they think they were?
The heavy sense of dread that had been following him around since Saturday was settling ever deeper in his stomach.
He could sense it—the creature—even here. Perhaps even especially here. It would speak soon and then… Did it really have these people under its thrall? Was it trying to prevent Haruto saving Yusuke by using them as its proxy?
He had no choice now—he had to find them—find them and burn them—destroy them—
Haruto.
Clawed hands settled on his shoulders, a familiar, steady voice in his ears.
You need to calm down. This fear is what it wants. We must find and interrogate them before we jump to conclusions.
Yes, Haruto thought back, trying to calm his buzzing thoughts. Yes I… understand.
Good. Now hurry. If they're raising the security level like this, it may prevent us carrying out our plan regardless.
Alright. Time to find these intruders and work out what the hell it was they thought they were doing. Then he could work out whether or not they were being manipulated.
He leapt from where he was balanced on the window to the beams running across the ceiling, hopping over until he was able to manoeuvre himself out of the window and onto the roof. They were on the lower floor, weren't they? Time to go down.
He slid down the roof, then hopped neatly through the portal he'd created in those silly doors that blocked the courtyard. He liked mental blocks that manifested as physical barriers—they were so easy to mess about with. Things like healing blocks, on the other hand, were far more frustrating.
They were around here somewhere, weren't they? So then he—
"You."
Haruto whirled around, already cursing himself for not scouting out the courtyard properly. The menacing form of Shadow Madarame smiled fiendishly at him. Smug bastard.
"What do you want?" hissed Haruto, already looking around for an escape route.
If worst came to worst then he'd just have to portal out of the Palace altogether, but then he'd have to leave the brainwashing until tomorrow, and that was less than ideal.
"So you're the menace that's invaded my museum," leered the Shadow Madarame. "Thinking of stealing the Treasure, were you?"
Shit, guards were arriving from all angles now. Madarame had him cornered—and he seemed to know it.
"Well then? Are you going to give in?"
"Not likely," Haruto hissed back.
It was no good staying in here though—there were too many of them now, and there was no reason for him to die here pointlessly. He needed to leave.
In less than a second, he grasped for the nearest flashpoint, the sound of Madarame's gloating still ringing in his ears as he stumbled out onto the concrete, heart hammering away in his chest. But where exactly was he? He needed to—
An ear-shattering beep sent him lurching backwards, almost tripping over the verge as he fell back onto the pavement and he saw with horror that he'd only narrowly been missed by an on-coming car.
This is why he liked to plan his exits rather than just manifest randomly around Tokyo.
Picking himself up fully, he leant back against a nearby wall, breathing heavily. His ears were still buzzing with adrenaline.
Let's start heading home, said Arsène, by his side immediately. You can think on your way back.
He certainly could.
He picked himself up, still shaking slightly from the strain of an unplanned exit, before turning and heading back towards Shibuya, where he could finally catch a train to Yongen.
Well. That could certainly have gone better.
More importantly, though, what the fuck was going on back there? Had the Metaverse intruders really managed to get into Madarame's Palace? How? And why? They didn't know Yusuke—practically no one but him knew Yusuke—Yusuke had told him as much! The creature-that loathsome demonic little cretin—had to have put them up to this—had to have had some hand in it.
So now it was going to try and interfere with him directly, was it? Well, he wouldn't have that. But how to deal with these idiots?
It wouldn't be strictly fair to kill them just for unknowingly taking the creature's word on how the Metaverse worked—he wasn't that cruel. But if they'd agreed to help it—if they really understood what it was trying to do, well… Then they deserved whatever they got. And he would get them. He couldn't have interference now.
They shouldn't be too hard to track down if you exert some effort—but they'll most likely hear of you in the process. And you don't want that celebrity getting wind of you regardless. He could cause serious problems for us if he decides we have bad intentions.
Arsène was right—and even more frustratingly, Haruto knew that he wouldn't be able to fully confront these students without them working out who he was and what he'd done—something he wanted to avoid at all costs. If any of them worked out he'd been using the Metaverse to cause the mental shutdowns and passed it onto the police, it could be lethal—they didn't even really need proof with his existing record. He couldn't afford to have them work him out. But equally, he couldn't afford to have them prancing about the Metaverse, interfering with his projects.
…Or potentially ending the world as they knew it. That was important too.
If they really are intent on stealing Madarame's Treasure, then they won't have succeeded today. We should check back on them tomorrow. That may yield us some answers.
It was a good point. With any luck he could conceal himself and they'd go strolling on by—revealing their identities in the process. Hmm. He hoped their masks weren't like his though—it could prove problematic if they covered their entire faces.
We'll have to wait and see, said Arsène. Tomorrow?
Tomorrow.