Monday 16th May
Today was the day. Madarame knew her face, and Renko knew all Yusuke needed was one last push before he could finally be free of Madarame's grip. Finally she could destroy that miserable man—then Yusuke could finally start beginning to live his life as he deserved to. She just needed to sort the Palace. Or so she thought.
Yusuke was being… strange, again.
"Is something wrong?" she 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 Renko, 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 Renko? He knew he could tell her anything—Renko had made sure of it, but… Hmm. This was very troubling.
She quickly retreated to a smaller classroom, where no one could see her messing around on her phone. She hadn't wanted it to come to this, but she had to check.
The MetaNav icon loomed large on the screen. She tapped it and whispered, "Kitagawa Yusuke."
"No candidate found," came the metallic voice from the phone.
Renko 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 she just had to give it time. And besides, soon she'd be erasing the source of most of Yusuke's troubles for good. She 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 she'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 Renko's two years of experience, and she wiped the floor with most of them fairly easily.
In fact there was just one problem…
Wretched girl, croaked Abaddon, crawling along miserably behind him, your injury is costing us time.
"If I could heal it, I would," Renko growled back, looking at the corridor up ahead.
All clear. She broke out into a light jog, ignoring the slight pinches of pain through her foot and the grumpy sigh from the evil frog behind her.
It couldn't be far to the control room now—she wanted to steal the Treasure with minimal interference, after all.
There was a door just up ahead. She stole through, and sure enough…
The control room. Finally.
There was no one inside—as she'd suspected, most of the guards seemed to have been monopolised for patrol duty—and she 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.
She quickly glided over and carefully picked the lock—though she 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 her the instructions to the panel.
Ah, very interesting—so she could shut off the lights and get rid of all those pesky grates, could she? Well, that could be useful… had the mainframe not been programmed to override the lights in a matter of seconds. She 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 her in stealing the Treasure.
There were some interesting bits in here about fire safety though—and if she set fire to the main gallery downstairs it would go up in smoke very quickly, if she timed it right… Yes, that might be an idea…
She 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—Renko had been very careful, after all.
Then she heard voices—just outside this room, in fact. Shit. She needed somewhere to hide.
A few leaps took her up on top of the cupboard, and then another let her 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 her around since Saturday was settling ever deeper in her stomach.
She 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 Renko saving Yusuke by using them as its proxy?
She had no choice now—she had to find them—find them and burn them—destroy them—
Renko.
Clawed hands settled on her shoulders, a familiar, steady voice in her ears.
You need to calm down. This fear is what it wants. We must find and interrogate them before we jump to conclusions.
Yes, Renko thought back, trying to calm her 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 she could work out whether or not they were being manipulated.
She leapt from where she was balanced on the window to the beams running across the ceiling, hopping over until she was able to maneuver herself out of the window and onto the roof. They were on the lower floor, weren't they? Time to go down.
She slid down the roof, then hopped neatly through the portal she'd created in those silly doors that blocked the courtyard. She 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 she—
"You."
Renko whirled around, already cursing herself for not scouting out the courtyard properly. The menacing form of Shadow Madarame smiled fiendishly at her. Smug bastard.
"What do you want?" hissed Renko, already looking around for an escape route.
If worse came to worst then she'd just have to portal out of the Palace altogether, but then she'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 her cornered—and he seemed to know it.
"Well then? Are you going to give in?"
"Not likely," Renko hissed back.
It was no good staying in here though—there were too many of them now, and there was no reason for her to die here pointlessly. She needed to leave.
In less than a second, she grasped for the nearest flashpoint, the sound of Madarame's gloating still ringing in her ears as she stumbled out onto the concrete, heart hammering away in her chest. But where exactly was she? She needed to—
An ear-shattering beep sent her lurching backwards, almost tripping over the verge as she fell back onto the pavement and she saw with horror that she'd only narrowly been missed by an on-coming car.
This is why she liked to plan her exits rather than just manifest randomly around Tokyo.
Picking herself up fully, she leant back against a nearby wall, breathing heavily. Her ears were still buzzing with adrenaline.
Let's start heading home, said Arsène, by her side immediately. You can think on your way back.
She certainly could.
She picked herself up, still shaking slightly from the strain of an unplanned exit, before turning and heading back towards Shibuya, where she 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 her knew Yusuke—Yusuke had told her 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 her directly, was it? Well, she 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—she 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 she would get them. She 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, Renko knew that she wouldn't be able to fully confront these students without them working out who she was and what she'd done—something she wanted to avoid at all costs. If any of them worked out she'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 her existing record. She couldn't afford to have them work her out. But equally, she couldn't afford to have them prancing about the Metaverse, interfering with her 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 she could conceal herself and they'd go strolling on by—revealing their identities in the process. Hmm. She hoped their masks weren't like her though—it could prove problematic if they covered their entire faces.
We'll have to wait and see, said Arsène. Tomorrow?
Tomorrow.