Chapter Text
“Guys… we may have a problem.”
That was the sentence that sent them all in this hellscape of a palace.
Of course, it was Mona who gave them this information.
“What?! How is there a problem?! We were just going to go through Shido’s palace and change his heart like we always do! Where's the problem there?!” Ann was shocked and furious at the fact they couldn’t go any further. She said it herself, she wanted to get through this asshole's palace and beat the crap outta him.
“Well, Panther, as you can see, there is a keyhole here. And we have no key. There weren’t any enemies who dropped keys, Joker searched this entire palace with Fox, and yet no key! Oh what are we gonna do, what are we gonna do…” Mona trailed off towards the end, scratching his head and thinking.
“Perhaps we could check the walls in all of the rooms? There may be a hidden door. We can regroup back here afterwards.” Yusuke suggested. They all nodded and murmured in approval.
“Allllrighty then! I’ll keep track of you guys! If any shadows come your way I’ll inform the closest people to you. There are too many rooms in this damned place, so divide and conquer!” Futaba shouted, pumping her fists in the air. “I’ll stay here with Mona, ‘cause he can’t reach high places and I’m not super useful in case a battle happens.” She added with a sheepish smile.
“We should all take different floors! That way we know where we should be super easily!” Ryuji suggested with a prideful smile.
“Skull, there are only five floors if you include the deck.” Ann said, rubbing her fingers in between her eyebrows.
Ryuji’s eyes widened and he awkwardly laughed, “Half of a floor then?” he asked
“Sure, sounds good. Skull, Fox, you take the deck. Panther, Noir, take the second and third levels. Queen and Joker, take the fourth and fifth. Mona and I’ll stay here. Report back if you find anything useful.” Futaba instructed. They all split up into their various groups and descended accordingly.
“So, Joker, do you wanna do this together, or split up and each take half of the floor? I say half of the floor each, but if we do it together we’ll probably get more accuracy.”
“Separate will do fine, Queen. We can switch afterwards to cover each other's ground if it’ll make you feel better. We can do the same thing on the fourth floor too.”
“That would, thank you, and that’ll work. Please be as thorough as you can, we don’t want to have the carpet pulled out from under our feet, now do we.”
“No we don’t. You should be thorough too.”
They split up, Akira taking the east half and Makoto taking the west one. If he was being honest, Akira really didn’t think the key was in here. He had searched on his hands and knees for anything with Yusuke whilst the others cleared out enemies on the floors above so that they only encountered one or two along the way, so they had a lot of time to look in every nook and cranny. Although it never hurt to be careful, he did kind of think it was overkill. Shido even knew about his own palace, so he might even have his own key, just sitting in a desk drawer. Akira sighed as he ripped a vent off of the wall and peered inside it. It was much too flimsy for even someone as light as Mona to walk in, but he could barely see a piece of paper inside it.
“Persona.” He said in the empty room. Arśene quickly appeared by his side, a small breeze brought by her wings ruffling Akira’s hair. He pointed to the vent, and Arśene reached her hand in there, gripping the paper and dropped it into Akira’s hand. He smiled at her and she nodded, disappearing with a nod.
The paper had gotten a tad crumpled in his Persona’s hand, and when he unwrapped it it wasn’t very wordy. The only words on it were;
Akechi Goro Palace
Television
Party
Akira quickly read these words and then promptly stared at them in confusion. According to the paper, Akechi had a palace? Akira quickly called up Futaba.
“Oracle, I have something really bizarre we could probably try out. I’m coming up right now and I don’t have anyone with me.” Akira relayed a quick message and then continued running to where Oracle and Mona were located. He ran straight to the room and the door clicked open for him.
“Heeeeyy Joker. So, whatja find?” Futaba asked, just barely glancing away from her console to check who it was. Mona was standing between her and the door, standing guard against any shadows who might come in. Akira tossed her the piece of paper. She opened her hand so the paper fell right in her palm, unwrinkled it and held it to the side with her left hand whilst she typed and relayed messages to the others. “Well this sure is bizarre, isn’t it?” She asked. Makoto burst through the door right after, closely followed by Ann and Haru. While they stopped to catch their breath, Yusuke and Ryuji came through, toppling the girls over. Akira and Futaba stared at them as they scrambled to get up. Once they had all stood up and caught their breath, Futaba read out the paper to them.
“Well, it seems kinda important. I mean, its a palace for fucks sake. And if it was thrown out, doesn’t that make it all the more suspicious. Like after Akechi got shot or something they had no more use for it anymore? I think we should at least try it out.” Ryuji was very vocal about his opinion on the matter.
“I agree.” Ann stated. “Weren’t Akechi and Shido related? If they both had palaces they both knew about, it makes sense that Shido could hide something in Akechi’s palace, or at least have Akechi do it for him. He knew Akechi wouldn’t give it to us because he hates us! There, problem solved.” Ann said.
Of course, Makoto rivaled this claim. “But Akechi wasn’t loyal to Shido. They hated each other, perhaps even more than Akechi hated us. Why would Shido trust someone like that with something that seems this important?” No one blamed Makoto, they all knew she was just anxious about wasting time.
“Even not, it shouldn’t hurt to try. After all, no one else found anything, correct?” Yusuke asked. It was a unanimous no from the group. “Then this is the only lead we have. If we need anything else, we could perhaps try and check Shido’s office, but we should at least check this one out.”
“Alrighty then! We just need to find a T.V., so we should be able to get in there today.”
“I wonder what a mind as delusional as Akechi’s could have as a palace.” Haru wondered aloud.
“Well, we’re about to find out.”