What We Need Here/Is A Little Bit Of Panic (Persona 5 Genderbent Protagonist)

Shin Megami Tensei Persona 5:
What We Need Here/Is A Little Bit Of Panic

The day was going about as well as it ever had. He only had a pair of customers, who had each bought a single cup of coffee and then proceeded to spend four hours talking at each other about allegedly weighty issues of the day instead of, oh, hypothetically, finishing their coffees and getting a refill or, fantastic notion, ordering some curry. Well, annoying as it was, at least they weren't making any demands on his own time, allowing him to find distraction from all the other stuff that was going wrong in his life. Like the crossword puzzle he was doing now.

"Let's see, vertical is … name of a shellfish used in cultivating pearls," Sojiro muttered to himself. Well, that had to be --

"Oyster," said a quiet voice to his left.

Right, oyster, and that worked with what was already -- wait. Sojiro looked up and in the direction of that quiet voice.

Standing at the far end of the counter was a young person wearing thick glasses and a black student jacket over a checkered skirt, holding a heavy black bag in front of her in both hands. It was really only the skirt that told him that he was regarding a young woman; nothing about her face, or her short-cropped, curly black hair, spoke of femininity. "Right," he said, almost reflexively. "That was today that --"

His train of thought was derailed when the customers announced that they were finished and leaving their payment on the table, in the process offering him a bewildering compliment that he might have wanted elaborated under other circumstances. (Why was it good that his café was in an alley?) But he was just a bit distracted by the arrival of this latest complication to his already complicated life.
"So," he said once the other two had made their exit, after noting the way that his new arrival had not even glanced in their direction as they left. "You're Akira, then."

"Kurusu Akira," she agreed, and offered a small bow.

"Right," said Sojiro. "I'm Sakura Sojiro, and you're in my custody for the next year. When I heard your name, I was expecting a boy, and finding out that … well, never mind that now. Follow me." He turned toward the staircase with that last instruction.

"Yessir," she replied.

Sojiro paused, considered telling the girl that he worked for a living, and then decided not to bother.

She was quiet following him up the stairs to the apartment above the café, and showed no reaction to either the size of the unit nor how cluttered it was.

"So I'll be leaving every day after I lock up," he explained. "You'll be alone at night, but if you make any trouble, at all, I'll throw your ass out the next day."

No reaction to that, either. She almost seemed to be ignoring him as she slowly walked across the cluttered apartment to look out the window.

He coughed. "So, if I understand what happened … you and some guy were working together to bait and mug some other person, but things got out of hand and your partner ran off and left you holding the bag, right?" He prepared to get the same non-response that he'd already gotten, complete with a snapped demand for her to pay attention.

"Yessir," she said without looking back at him. "That's what happened."

In the course of his life, Sojiro had developed certain of his faculties. One of them, carefully and painfully trained, was his bullshit detector, and it was blaring quite loudly now. And that was odd because the narrative that he'd just repeated, and that she was ostensibly confirming, was what had been described to him by what he'd thought were reliable sources. And yet her manner was that of someone forced to repeat a lie. Something odd was going on here, and Sojiro had the distinct suspicion that it was going to further complicate the complication to an already complicated life that this young woman represented.

"Well, never mind that, now," he said aloud, deciding not to waste time reminding her of the carrot and stick of her probation. "I'll be taking you to Shujin, tomorrow."

That got a response. "The school that I'm attending," she said without looking back at him.

He took it as an encouraging sign. "Yes. There aren't a lot of schools who'll accept people in your situation, you know. So, we're going to introduce you properly. It's sort of a waste of my Sunday but be grateful. Time was, I had a lot of women competing to be sitting where you --"

That got a response that was less than encouraging. Almost fast enough to make him fear that her neck broke, she whipped around to stare at him with wide, frightened eyes, while stepping back so that the back of her shirt pressed against the glass of the window. Another step back and she'd be pushing herself through that glass. She was terrified enough to consider that option, assuming that she was considering anything right then.

"Passenger seat of my car," Sojiro said, as quickly and as clearly as he could. "I'm talking about the passenger seat, all right? That's all."

She didn't stop staring at him, but there was a slight noise that told him she had moved a tiny amount forward from the glass.

"Right," said Sojiro, stepping backwards towards the staircase. "So, if you want to get this place cleaned up, or if you want to get some sleep, it's all your call. I'm going to be finishing up tonight's business downstairs. Probably come up to let you know when I'm leaving. I won't come up unannounced. All right?"

"Yessir," she said. Same tone as she'd used every time before.

Once again, he wanted to let her know that he was neither an officer nor a gentleman, but under the circumstances that was a bad idea. So, he made his escape.

And the day had been going so well, too.

---

The clank of chains.

The dripping of water.

Deeper darkness.

A moment, and then she closed her eyes again.

And then: "We know you are awake, inmate." A quiet female voice.

Similar, yet slightly louder: "Stop pretending! You are in the presence of our master!"

Eyes remained firmly shut.

"You're only making it harder for yourself, inmate!" said the second voice. A moment later, the sound of something firm striking metal, over and over again.

"Caroline, that does not seem to be working. And it annoys me more than it does the inmate."

For a wonder, the noise stopped.

"Very well," said the voice that did not belong to Caroline. "We'll try again later."

Silence, and darkness not so deep, and ultimately oblivion. What more could one ask?

 

The previous night at her other job had been a long one, and Sadayo would have preferred to lay in bed and recuperate rather than showing up bright and early at school for any reason. That the reason was standing beside the school's blancmange of a principal and being introduced to a juvenile delinquent who would be under her supervision made the whole situation that much worse. Just what she needed, really.

As the principal burbled his threats, which were quite novel, really, but she wasn't the one being threatened and so couldn't quite bring herself to take an interest, she studied the new student. It was disturbingly like looking at a picture of herself -- the way that the girl's hair seemed to go everywhere was really reminiscent of her own messy hairdo -- except that in actual pictures of herself at that age, humhum years ago, there had still been glimmers of hope in her eyes that hadn't quite gotten beat out of her by high school. Those were absent in this Kurusu girl.

That was probably good, though.

"Kawakami-sensei?" said the blancmange.

Sadayo abruptly realized that she had been asked to introduce herself and been in such a daze from her fatigue that she had completely ignored it. She coughed. "Yes," she said, not sure what she was agreeing to but wanting her agreement to be clear. "I'm Kawakami Sadayo. Um, be sure to read the school rules. Any violations will send you straight to the guidance office. And if by chance you cause any problems, I won't be able to protect you at all." What a weird thing to say. When had she been able to protect anybody?

And yet, behind those glasses, she had the strange feeling that she was seeing some sort of disappointment in the eyes of that girl. The whole thing was weird and kept getting weirder.

Deciding that asking for reassurance when she had just embarrassed herself like that was probably not a good idea, Sadayo pressed on. "Right, so, come to the faculty office when you arrive at school tomorrow. I'll show you to your classroom."

That got a polite bow out of the girl, at least.

"Sakura-san, please keep an eye on her," said the blanc-- principal to the girl's guardian. "If she should cause trouble outside of the school, it won't be --"

"Of course, of course," said the bearded man. "I'll be sure to remind her of the situation regularly. Well, if you'll excuse us both, I have a business to run, so we'll be on our way."

The weirdness continued. While the words were properly deferential, Sadayo had the distinct impression that Sakura was completely unimpressed with the principal. Which was understandable, because he wasn't all that impressive, but shouldn't he be pretending to make sure that the student followed his example?

---

"Heck of a situation," said one of her colleagues a few moments later, as they stood outside the school building beneath a covered walkway.

Sadayo shook her head. "I can't believe they pushed someone with a record on me. Well, I guess all the other female teachers do have seniority, so it does --"

"What is she like?" he interrupted.

"Eh?"

"What does she look like, this juvie we've been saddled with?"

The weirdness was never going to stop, it seemed. What did her looks matter? Despite her bewilderment, Sadayo nevertheless made an attempt to describe the student, giving just a bare bones level of detail, not mentioning any of the impressions she'd formed. Like how the girl had been hiding behind Sakura, as much as she could under the circumstances. And that flash of disappointment. None of his business, any of it.

"Got it," said Kamoshida, nodding firmly. "You don't have to worry about a thing. I'll be keeping an eye out for our little problem." And then he smiled, just like he had in the pictures from his victory all those years before.

Why did it suddenly seem so menacing?

Weirdness.

---

"Traffic's not moving at all," Sojiro grumbled, staring out at the traffic so as to avoid looking at the way that his passenger was all but hugging the passenger side door in an attempt to keep as much distance between the two of them as possible. It would have been funny if … no, it wouldn't.

"You'll be taking the train to school, starting tomorrow," he continued after a moment, just to fill the silent spaces more than anything else. "Think you can manage that?"

"Yessir," she said.

Standard Kurusu answer. "Well, just … just don't make any trouble for me, all right?" Sojiro repeated. "I've got a -- I've got other stuff to deal with, and I can't have you adding to the problems. I'm not sure why I agreed to this … well, no. I do know -- that's how the adult world works. I owed someone a few favors, and they know your parents, so they asked her, and she asked me, and now here we are. I owed favors. It's probably how you got in your situation with that guy, too."

"Yes," she said, eyes fixed on the road ahead. "I owe him a lot."

It was the first bit of personal information she had volunteered since she arrived. Sojiro opened his mouth to say that there were favors you should avoid incurring, but he was interrupted by the radio. "Repeating the hour's top story: a subway has derailed at Shibuya station, causing serious delays for traffic throughout --"

Sojiro shut it off. The last thing someone who was going to be traveling by train pretty frequently in the not too distant future needed was this sort of news. He glanced at his passenger.

No reaction to the news at all.

There was something seriously wrong with this young woman.

Of course there is, he added silently. Why else would she be around me?

---

Apparently, the inevitability of this encounter and the necessity of its occurrence had finally impressed themselves on the inmate, who had at last arisen from her bunk and walked over to the doorway. Caroline found it frustrating that the prisoner only rested her hands on the horizontal bars rather than gripping the vertical ones as would have been appropriate, but now was not the time to address it.

"Good evening," said the master. "I am Igor. Welcome to My Velvet Room."

No response. Caroline prepared to chastise the inmate for her lack of polite response to the greeting, but a subtle gesture from Justine stopped her.

"This place exists between mind and matter, and only those bound by a contract may enter," the master continued. "I have brought you here to discuss certain important matters concerning your life." He paused, to graciously permit a reaction to this declaration, but when one was not in evidence, he proceeded forth. "This place reflects your consciousness, and so it is not surprising that it resembles a prison. For you are, indeed, a prisoner of fate, and ruin awaits you if --"

Now there was a reaction, but it was more inappropriate than Caroline could possibly have expected. This inmate laughed.

"R-ruin?" she managed to say when the first moments of hysteria had spent themselves. "What more can you possibly do to me?"

"I speak of the end of all that is," the Master replied. "Only by rehabilitating yourself can you --"

The inmate stepped back from the gate to her cell.

"The Master is not done addressing you!" Caroline snapped.

Apparently, the inmate did not care, for she slumped back onto the bunk, facing towards the cell wall. Caroline glanced furiously towards Justine, hefting her truncheon, but a not-all-that-subtle head shake dissuade her.

"You have not directly refused, and so I will continue to observe your rehabilitation," said the Master, apparently unfazed by any of this. "The night is almost done, and more will be explained at a future time, when perhaps you will be more ready to hear it."

Caroline thought she heard a faint chuckle come from the inmate's collapsed form, but she saw no motion in the darkness of the cell. It vexed her all the same.

 

When he heard the soft sounds of footsteps descending the stairs, Sojiro found himself surprised. He had half-expected the girl to refuse to go to school, or at minimum to draw out the process of her first morning's departure. Yet there she was all the same, wearing the same uniform she had worn every time she had come down here. (She did have other clothes, right? No, he shouldn't wonder about that.)

With what was probably intended as a polite nod, she walked past where he was working behind the counter, eyes firmly on the street entrance.

"Hold it," he said to her.

She stopped in her tracks, and oh so slowly made a half turn to regard him with an only slightly less apprehensive look than she'd had when he commented about the passenger seat.

Sojiro let out an annoyed sigh. "Look, I'm not going to send you out there on an empty stomach. Sit down, but try to get it finished before the customers come in, all right?"

A moment of hesitation, or perhaps consideration, passed before she turned and came over to sit behind the counter. He considered commenting on that -- then decided that any jokes about potential poisoning would probably not go over any better than the other one had. He ladled out some curry and rice and set the plate down before her. She regarded it with what he took for mild confusion.

"What? That's my speciality, you know," he said.

With a mild shake of the head, she set down to eating it. The first spoonful was hesitant; later ones showed the first hints of enthusiasm that Sojiro had yet seen from her. She might just have been obliging his request to get it done before they had to open, but it had the same outcome. In just a few moments, the plate was clean.

"Thank you," she said.

"You're welcome," Sojiro said reflexively. "All right, then, you'd better hurry, you'll be late if you get lost."

She nodded once again, stood, and headed to the doorway. Just as he was about to ask her to switch the sign from closed to open, though, she paused and stared up at the sky for a moment. Turning on her heel, she walked briskly back towards the stairway, and was up out of sight before Sojiro could say anything. Then, much more quickly, she descended again, with an umbrella clutched tightly in her right hand.

"Oh," said Sojiro. "It's not supposed to rain yet."

"It might," she answered without looking at him.

"Please yourself," he said wearily.

She stopped at the door, this time pausing to take a deep breath. Then she opened the door and was on her way, and it was only when she was gone that Sojiro remembered that he'd wanted her to turn the sign over. He went and did it himself, grumbling all the while.

Half an hour later, while listening to the news -- as always, lately, on the subject of all those weird accidents -- he noticed that the rain was indeed coming down. "Huh," he muttered to himself.

---

The weather report was effing useless. Looking at her phone confirmed this opinion, as it was currently cheerfully informing her that it was just overcast, with rain not expected for another few hours. As her hoodie was starting to get soaked through, this seemed just a tad bit inaccurate.

So Ann took shelter beneath the awning of one of the boutiques on the way to the school, hoping to have a bit of respite from the downpour while glaring at the lying weather report -- as well as that one weird app that kept reappearing on her phone despite multiple attempts to delete it. Well, whatever, she had other worries besides the possibility that her phone had been hacked.

Just then, a tall girl in a Shujin uniform and glasses walked past, under the spread of an unusually large umbrella. No one that she recognized, but that didn't mean much. Well, time to take advantage of everyone's expectations of herself.

"Hey!" she called out.

The other girl paused and turned to look at her, blinking behind those thick glasses. "Y-yes?" she stammered.

"You go to Shujin, right?" she asked.

"Yes," she said again, then elaborated after a moment. "This is my first day."

"Oh, a transfer student," said Ann, feigning interest. "Listen, would you mind if I shared your umbrella? I'm gonna get drenched otherwise."

Okay, so it was a pretty pushy thing to ask, but if everyone thought she'd do just about anything to get what she wanted, why shouldn’t she be a little bit pushy? Unfortunately, it looked like she might have come on just a bit too strong, what with the way that the new fish was half-way through a stammered reply.

Really unfortunately, Ann decided as a car pulled up to where the two of them were standing and the window rolled down. "Hey, Takamaki," said the source of all evil in a cheerful tone. "You two need a ride?"

Well, she would have wanted to avoid this, but it made for a less bad option, and so Ann opened her mouth to agree … then watched as the newbie turned to look back at Kamoshida with a look that would have befitted one of the non-final girls in a horror movie. And with a feeling like a switch turning on inside her head, Ann thought of a plausible sounding lie.

"Gee, thanks, Sensei," she said with what she was sure was wholly believable enthusiasm. "I'd love that! But I can't -- this girl is just starting here, today, and she got lost. I gotta show her the way there, on foot, y'know?" And she gave him a little smile. "It's the least I can do for a newbie!"

"A transfer student, eh?" he said, eyes now off Ann (yes!) but now on the other girl (not so much yes.) "Well. Take care, you two."

He rolled up the window and pulled away, and Ann let out a gigantic sigh of relief.

"I'm not lost, though," said the girl, finally finding her voice.

"No, but you don't know a shortcut that'll get us both to the main entrance and avoid the parking lot where that creepy perv Kamoshida is gonna be, surveying Shujin like it's his castle or something," Ann replied wearily. "You can thank me later. Let's go." She stepped under the umbrella and grabbed hold of it just above the part being held by the newbie.

"Okay," said said newbie, blinking rapidly.

 

Ann knew that it was probably really unfair of her to take this opportunity to vent about how unbelievably annoying she found it that she was the frequent recipient of Kamoshida's allegedly avuncular attentions and how even more unbelievably annoying it was that every other dumbass in the school apparently thought she was the happy recipient of said attentions and probably other things as well. "I'm so utterly not, though," she assured the recipient of her venting. She also knew that she should probably find out the newbie's name before going into all this, but meh whatever.

"Right," said the newbie, no longer blinking quite so rapidly but, yeah, still blinking.

"But I gotta put up with it, or my best friend -- really my only friend -- anyway, Shiho is on the volleyball team and I don't want her to lose her spot, and I'm pretty sure Kamoshida is enough of an asshole to take it away from her if I tell him to make like a tree and get lost."

"Leave," the newbie suggested.

Now Ann blinked, startled to be subjected to such a cruel request when she'd thought they were getting along. "Huh?"

"'Make and like a tree and leave'," she clarified. Oddly, her blinking had stopped as she did so.

"Oh," said Ann. She nodded slowly as she considered this. "Yeah, that would explain why mom and dad chuckled when we were watching that bit in the movie -- uh, I mean, thanks, uh …" She trailed off, hoping that her embarrassment wasn't too obvious.

"Kurusu Akira."

"Kurusu," she repeated. "Nice to meet you. Anyway, this is Shujin," she said, gesturing as they started to approach the castle. Having done so, she did a double take towards the subject of her gesture, and asked, "What the what?"

"Um?" said Kurusu, blinking again.

"Wait, no, there's no way that this -- I mean, okay, we could maybe have gotten lost in the alley, except that there's only one turn there, so no we really couldn't, and anyway I'm sure that I would have heard if someone was building a castle somewhere in the neighborhood, and --" With that, Ann frantically drew out her phone to check the location on Can't-Come-Up-With-An-Alias-For-GoogleMaps, and let out a hiss of frustration when she saw that it wasn't able to identify that at the moment. "Aw, come on!"

"M-maybe one of the clubs at school built up some sort of façade?" Kurusu suggested. "The drama club, maybe?"

"We don't have a drama club, and how would they get it done in one night?" said Ann, eyes still fixed on the imposing edifice before her.

Kurusu started to shrug, realized that Ann wasn't looking in her direction, and instead muttered, "I dunno."

Unable to identify any way to go around the weird obstacle, and unwilling to go back the way she came, Ann finally shook her head. "Come on, we're gonna have to find a way through this whatever-it-is."

"Couldn't we just --" Kurusu said, pointing back towards the alley.

"Nope," said Ann, firmly. "I said I was gonna get you to school like this, so I'm gonna get you to school like this. No retreat! Come on!" With that, she marched up the drawbridge towards the gateway into the castle. Much more hesitantly, Kurusu followed along behind her.

Within, they found themselves in some sort of foyer, with a checkerboard floor in front of gigantic double staircases.

"Okay," said Ann, starting to find herself fighting off panic. "Well, we can't go forward from here, so maybe we should go up those stairs, or see where one of the side passages leads, hopefully to something that will get us past all this and --

"Well, well, what have we here?" said a voice from above.

Both their heads tilted up to regard the source of that voice, and then stayed there.

"Uh … Takamaki?" asked Kurusu after a moment. "Do you have a twin sister?"

"What?" asked Ann in a strangled tone. "No!"

"Oh." A pause. "Are you sure?"

Standing on the balcony above the foyer was a dead ringer for Ann wearing a leopard print bikini, cat ears and, as far as either of them could see, nothing else. Except then there was not, for she had fearlessly leapt forward to tumble through the air and land lightly as a feather on the floor just a short distance in front of the two of them.

"Yes, I'm sure! What the -- no, never mind that now!" Ann pointed at her definitely-not-twin-sister, stifling any weird notions about what her parents might not have told her. "You! Who are you?!"

"I!" said the double, pointing up at the ceiling with one outstretched finger, then drawing it down rapidly. "Am! Takamaki Ann!" This last declaration was punctuated by a jiggling motion from her chest.

"You're what the whatting what?" Ann just about shrieked.

"I am the real Takamaki Ann!" continued the vision before them, doing a little spin as she spoke. "The one who knows all the naughty little secrets deep within the heart of the fake Takamaki Ann, that she wants to hide so badly! The one who knows how lonely she is, how much she yearns to accept the love that Lord Kamoshida keeps so selflessly offering her! That is who I am!"

"Wha -- the love -- Lord Kamo --" After these abortive attempts to repeat the absurdities she had just heard, Ann found herself sputtering incoherently for a few moments, before she found her words once more. "You're not me!" she shrieked, no just about.

A broad grin lit up on the face of the double … but only remained there for a few moments before dissolving into a pout. "Man, I miss the old days, sometimes," she said softly, then shook her head. "Yeah, whatever." Finger snap. "Seize them!"

Things became very confusing for a moment, and then everything went dark.

 

When Ann regained consciousness, she found herself sitting up on a wooden bench and gazing blearily towards a set of bars surrounding a door made of the same black metal, through which she could dimly perceive a brick-and-mortar corridor. Looking around in sudden panic, she saw that Kurusu was on a bench beside her own, curled up in a ball, and breathed a little easier. Whatever the whatever was going on here, at least she wasn't going through it alone.

"Hey!" she said. "Wake up!"

"I'm awake," Kurusu said, without moving out of her fetal position. Her voice, which had never gotten all that loud in their brief acquaintance, was now almost inaudible.

"Are you okay?" Ann asked, staring at her. "Did you get hurt when they, uh, what did they do to us, anyway?"

"Chokehold," said Kurusu, still not looking up. "And I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be fine? What's one more jail cell?"

Ann struggled for a few moments to find a response to that remark, then gave up on the effort once the screaming started. It was coming from down the hallway, a mixture of pleas for mercy and cries of incredible pain.

"Okay, I don't know what the heck any of this is, and I don't know who that crazy chick who didn't look that much like me was, and I don't know how anyone could possibly have sneaked up behind me to choke me, and right now I don't know much of anything if we're being honest and why not --" At this point in her monologue Ann got up from the bench and matched over to the bars to grab them and start trying to shake them. "-- but I've had about all I can take of all this, so lemme out of here, dammit!"

"Would you kindly be quiet?!" someone shouted in response.

Ann's eyes bulged. She hadn't really been expecting any reply to her plea, but that one was just bewildering. "Hello?" she called out again. "Is there someone else down here?"

"You have a lovely voice, young lady, but the fact that it is clearly tethered to a defective mind rather diminishes its appeal!" replied the voice that had answered. "I asked for quiet, and you answer my request with more noise! I am in the process of devising a clever plan to escape, and not only is your shouting an unwelcome distraction to my efforts, 'tis likely to draw down the guards upon us! Thus, let silence reign!"

"… did you just unironically use the expression 'tis?" asked Ann. "No, never mind that! Who are you? Where are we?"

There came a deep sigh. "Very well, since I will clearly not receive the quiet I so politely requested, some introductions are in order. I am Morgana, who infiltrated this palace in hopes of discovering its treasure with which to abscond. And we are, as I said, in the palace! Doesn't that clear everything up nicely?"

"No!" said Ann. "It doesn't! What do you mean, 'the palace'? And how do we get out of here?"

"What's this we?"

"What d'you mean, what's this we?" Ann retorted, glancing backwards. To her mild relief, Kurusu had roused herself from her collapse and silently walked over to stand just a bit behind her, blinking in confusion. "There's me and Kurusu in here, so obviously I mean --"

"Ah, so there's another one in there with you, who makes less noise. Hello, quiet person."

"Hi," said Kurusu.

"Hm-hm! I am somewhat better disposed towards you than I am to your associate, at the present, and so shall elaborate. A palace is a different world, separated from mundane reality and born out of the twisted desires of some individual, reflecting their hidden wishes."

Ann's eyes got big. "Huh? This is all -- I don't -- who's doing this, then?"

"That, alas, does not number among my collection of --"

"Kamoshida," interrupted Kurusu.

"Eh?" chorused Ann and Morgana off in the distance.

"What that girl who looked like you said --" Kurusu started to explain, speaking a bit more quickly but no less quietly.

"She didn't look like me!" Ann interrupted right back.

Kurusu didn't bother to pause. "-- she said that she accepted Kamoshida's love, so then this place must belong to --"

"My exalted self!" proclaimed a figure who stepped into sight on the other side of the bars, holding up his furry cape with one hand such that his chest and bikini briefs were in plain sight.

"Gahhhh!" shouted Ann, recoiling in what was less fear than abject disgust. "What are you wearing?!"

"The garments that befit my exalted self!" retorted someone who looked like Kamoshida in a crown. "And you shall refer to me as your Majesty, henceforth!"

"Oh, wow, wow, wow," Ann said, backing up further, not even really noticing that Kurusu was being pushed back as she tried to make herself unnoticed behind her. "I mean, I knew you were a messed-up guy, but I had no clue that you were this crazy!"

"Such insolence!" Kamoshida hissed, holding up a hand whose fingers flexed in spasms. "When my favored concubine informed me that there was an intruder within my domain who dared to ape her perfect form, I scarce believed that any would dare to do so! But now I begin to understand, for I also recognize your companion's features!" His trembling hand turned into a pointer. "This is your doing, is it not, Kurusu Akira? Your misdeeds now extend to this imposture!"

Ann heard Kurusu make a noise behind her.

Kamoshida's twisted face abruptly turned into a sick grin. "So then. Two prisoners have I, which suggests a fascinating dilemma. All-powerful I am, yet not all-present. I can only reward one of you with what your impertinence has won at a time, and refuse to entrust that pleasure to any other. Soooo then … which ever one of you pleads most winningly shall be set free, and the other suffer all the punishment. You may commence your begging at once!"

"Do you seriously think that either of us is going to --" Ann snapped at him.

"Pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease!" shrieked Kurusu as she flung herself on her knees before him, head almost touching the floor of the cell.

 

"Pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease!" shrieked Kurusu as she flung herself on her knees before him, head almost touching the floor of the cell.

"Wha--" Ann squawked briefly, jerking away.

"That's a good start," Kamoshida mused aloud with an approving nod. "But I think you can probably do better. So then." With that, he snapped his fingers.

Two large, armored figures stepped into sight from the darkness of the hallway, stepping towards the cell door.

"Okay, how the heck did those guys just show up without making any noise?" Ann complained, on some level glad of a distraction from the sight of her only ally in all this groveling like that. As the cell door opened -- noisily -- and the pair of knights or whatever they were supposed to be trooped in -- also noisily -- she opened her mouth to object that they were making noise now, so why hadn't they then, but they grabbed her and lifted her off the floor before she could do so. "Hey!" she shouted again.

Making a great show of ignoring her, Kamoshida walked up to where Kurusu was crouched on the floor. "One last demonstration of how pathetic you are, little delinquent," he smarmed down at her. "Kiss my exalted foot!" And the red slipper on his supposedly exalted extremity slid under her face.

Kurusu had stopped shrieking once the door opened, but she was still making mewling noises interspersed with repetitions of "please" while tears were running down her face. Nevertheless, she seemed to hesitate as she stared down at the slipper, and her hands clenched tightly over the ground.

"Kiss. My. Foot!" Kamoshida snarled.

"Don't do it!" Ann shouted. "He won't keep his stinking promise, you have to realize that!"

Kamoshida's head snapped up to stare at her. "And what if I don't?" he said. "I am the King! I do what I want and what I want is GGGGGGGGGGGGG!"

Ann blinked in confusion as Kamoshida's face went into some of the weirdest contortions she had ever seen on a man's face -- and since she worked in the fashion business, and had seen a lot of photographers mid-breakdown, that was saying something. With a sudden realization, she looked down.

One of those clenched hands had punched up into the bikini briefs, which were of course much too small to be concealing a cup. Almost as soon as Ann saw that, though, Kurusu let out a hissing sound and her head darted forward towards the so-called king's left shin.

This time Kamoshida let out a roar of pain as he fell back. "You bit me! You bit me you fucking whore!" Unfortunately, whatever injury he had just suffered might have startled him but was far from incapacitating, for he promptly kicked Kurusu with his other leg, hard enough to send her flying into the wall of the cell with a crunching sound.

And yet no cry of pain was to be heard, and Kurusu looked up from where she was collapsed against the wall. "You think I'd let you?" she said in a voice utterly unlike any she had used so far. "She tried to help me. She tried to help me! You think I'll let you hurt someone else who tried to help me you fucking prick?" She echoed his tone for that last bit, but there wasn't any mockery in it. More like madness.

"Kill her!" Kamoshida snarled at the knights holding Ann.

They promptly dropped her, paying her no mind as she cried out, "Wait, no," while they began to troop towards Kurusu, who --

And then, again, things got a little confusing.

---

So you finally started to fight back, hm? Not waiting to be rescued like some delicate blossom. No crying out for help? Wonderful! I was starting to think you would never find your spirit of rebellion. But I suppose that it would only make sense that it would take opposing a -- cough cough -- "king" to draw me out to face you.

I am thou, thou art I. Thou who will perform all manner of scandalous acts in the name of thy freedom! Call upon my name and release thy fury!

The first blow struck her face and sent her glasses flying. But there was something else on her face, now -- a mask. Heedless of the assailants surrounding her, she reached up to tear it off, feeling the blood flow out of her face as she did. It hurt so good. And the name was not on the tip of her tongue, but further back, just waiting to burst out.

"IRENE," she said.

Yes! cried the voice, which came, she noted without much surprise, from a seven foot tall, black-winged woman in an evening gown. I am IRENE, the soul of steel! Will you beg me for my favors?

"No," she said, as a great coat took form around her and a knife appeared in her hand.

That was the right answer, child. They are yours, for now.

The implications of that trailing comment were lost on her right then, as she turned to note in passing that the armored figures confronting her were, in truth, jack-o'-lanterns wearing pointed witch hats and trailing robes. Convenient, as she suspected that her knife would not have done much against actual armor. Then again, being a dagger of the mind, perhaps it would have cut through that metal as easily as it went through the pumpkins while she was considering this. The sliced squashes disappeared into puffs of smoke. Convenient, as it left the floor clear for the next steps of her pavane. Everything was all so convenient, now.

"What?" gasped Kamoshida as he watched his guards slain. "What are you --"

"I am fury released," she answered, bringing the knife up to point at him. "If you have last words, say them now." In the distance, she could hear IRENE's voice warning her that fighting this creature was not like fighting those knights, but she ignored it on the basis that she hadn't fought anyone. She'd killed them out of hand.

She'd kill him the same way.

Kamoshida's face, already twisted by shock, now distorted with anger. "You. Wretched. Peasant!" And one huge hand came up, looking a bit like someone preparing to spike a volleyball.

 

What our protagonist looks like.

Mundane form:


Note that her hair is not actually that long as of the current chapters. She grows it over the months of her war.

Thief form:



Both images by an artist who goes by eikaeikiaka.

 

Okay. Reviewing quickly, Kurusu was a superhero or something, and those guards had been pumpkins or something, and now Kamoshida was going to try and beat the hell out of her or … no, there was no alternative for that last bit; that was really what was about to happen, Ann decided. So, either Kurusu was about to get beat up, or she was about to stick a knife in a crazy teacher who was nonetheless still a teacher.

Neither of those options sounded all that appealing!

Ann did not normally think this quickly. It was a bit sickening if she was being honest but why bother. But while looking around desperately, her eyes seized upon a device that might get them both out of this without jailtime. She seized it, decided that there wasn't enough time to take a deep breath, and charged at Kamoshida's backside, knocking him off his feet thanks to his laser focus on Kurusu.

From the look on what she could see of Kurusu's face, the newbie-slash-superhero(?) seemed a bit surprised by this development, so Ann didn't waste breath telling her to follow. (Something told Ann that she wouldn't have done so, rendering this whole thing kind of pointless.) With the hand that wasn't holding the device, she grabbed hold of the collar of Kurusu's fancy schmancy coat and dragged her along as she ran out through the still-open door, slammed it shut behind them, and locked it with the keys she'd grabbed.

"Okay!" Ann gasped with a grin, looking at the still bewildered Kurusu. "Isn't that better than stabbing him?"

"No," Kurusu replied.

"Well, that, that is an opinion," Ann said, doing her best to sound agreeable.

"You venomous bitches!" shrieked Kamoshida, running up to the bars and grabbing them as he glared murderously at the two of them. (Ann was more than a bit freaked out by the way that his hands seemed to be deforming the bars slightly.) He began to describe in extensive and decidedly NSFW detail what he was going to do to the two of them when he got out of the cell.

"Let's got out of here!" said Ann, backing away from the bars quickly.

"Wouldn't it be simpler to just stab him through the spaces between those bars before he can do all that stuff?" asked Kurusu, staring at Kamoshida speculatively.

That got the so-called King to back away from the bars, though he kept right on uttering sexualized threats.

"No, see, that would be murder, and murder is wrong," Ann gently explained, as though to someone she realized might not be familiar with these concepts. (And given the dubious expression with which Kurusu was receiving them, she wasn't all that mistaken about this.) "Anyway, we've got to get out of here so we can tell everybody about what a dirtbag he is!"

"I know of a way out," said a familiar-sounding voice from further down the hall.

Ann whirled. "Wait, really? You -- OMG, you're a cat!"

For indeed, the occupant of the cell adjacent to the one in which they had lately been imprisoned was occupied by a small creature who greatly resembled a --

"Okay!" interrupted the voice which sounded like it should be coming from a much taller person. "I am only gonna say this once, both because I hate repeating myself and because it should be damn well obvious that it's the case, but I! Am! Not! A cat!"

"Are you sure?" asked Kurusu, looking at him skeptically.

"Yes, I'm sure!" wailed Morgana, if that was indeed his real name. "Now, lemme out of here and I'll show you the way out of the palace!"

"Guards! Guards!" shouted Kamoshida, having apparently run out of depraved tortures to inflict on the two of them.

"And you might want to do it quickly!"

Kurusu glanced at Ann, who was still holding the keys, and nodded sharply. For her part, Ann would have preferred to discuss the options here, with an aim towards maybe not trusting the weird cat-like creature based on whatever weird impulses were occurring to the murderous probably-not-a-superhero, but the thoughts of escape convinced her. She unlocked the door, and Morgana quickly walked out, making little squeaky noises as he did.

"Ah, the sweet taste of freedom returns to my mouth!" cried the allegedly-not-a-cat. "Now, follow me to the exit!" With that, he dashed off down the corridor, his legs turning to cartoon swirls apparently attached to his lower body. With a shrug, Kurusu followed closely.

Ann stared a moment at their backs. "My life makes no effing sense anymore," she said dazedly. Then added, pulling at her hair, "Agggh, and now I'm talking like Ryuji does, too!" With that, she dashed off after them.