A Thief's Passion

Melody's Mishap

Stepping out of the safe room, the thieves got back into action. The team encountered two Onmoraki and the strange tiger-lion shadow from before. Joker cast Eigaon on it, but it didn't work.

"Nue nullifies Curse, Riff! Why didn't I use fire like last time...?"

"Got it!"

Fox attacked Nue with his sword, Riff calling out "Fox...! The Onmoraki are weak to ice!"

"My apologies..."

Skull grinned and said "Watch this..." before attacking the sparking purple Onmoraki with his pipe and defeating it with a critical hit.

The shadow exploded, and Skull passed the baton to Fox, who took Riff's advice and hit the other with Bufu. Then, the baton was passed to Panther, who lit Nue ablaze with Agi. The battle was over...

"A couple hiccups, but we pulled it off like champions" Joker complimented, high fiving the team before putting the dropped yen into the earnings bag.

In the next room, there were more strange paintings. But... Some were blank canvases.

Fox made note of this, and Riff added "Well if the palace ain't gonna give us a path, we'll make it ourselves. Where's the paints?"

"Riff, no, those are Palace Canvases, we don't know what it'll do if you paint them" Joker shot down.

"Aw..."

"Let's take a closer look instead..." suggested Panther.

The team inspected and talked amongst themselves about the paintings. Joker, left without another option, climbed inside. Once he did, Madarame's voice echoed inside the paintings again. Joker skipped along inside the paintings, jumping out and pressing a button, which made another painting appear. Riff watched him go through the paintings flawlessly, activating more paintings, and motioning for the starting lineup to follow. Watching Joker's smaller form run around made Riff giggle. Mona guided her through the paintings after Joker gave the signal.

——

The next noteworthy part of Madarame's Palace was a large, open room filled to the brim with golden scenery. So much gold that it almost made Riff feel sick to her stomach. Or maybe it was the heavy distortions throughout the room.

"Shit... What the hell's up with this place?" Skull's voice broke through the eerie silence.

"There's so much gold...! It's hurting my eyes..." complained Panther.

Joker sighed and shook his head "...Greedy bastard... C'mon, stay close. The distortions are especially bad here, and it's not on our map, so we need to stick together"

Riff heard what he was saying, but it barely made sense to her muddled and aching head. It felt like a million migraines at once. What's worse is she didn't know where to look, everywhere was so gaudy and bright, plus the drop was so far she couldn't see the bottom. Her head was spinning... It was all so...

"Riff!"

She barely heard a familiar voice calling to her before she couldn't feel the ground beneath her feet. Was she falling!? When did she start falling!? Her vision blurred, but she heard the sound of a hookshot and felt someone grab her. They were swinging...?

"Riff, are you okay?!"

"J... Jo...ker?"

As soon as they hit ground, she fell over, her legs unable to hold her weight right now.