The Children of Thieves

Gentle Madman

Kanashimi's Palace, here we come! Unfortunately I'd failed to learn from my mistakes. I focused all of my time into developing Kanashimi as a character and working on making his Actualisation as different to Maruki's as possible, that I overlooked designing his Palace aside from the lobby, Mementos, and that lab. So, once again, I more or less made this up as I went. But this was my final Palace, so I really needed to put some actual effort into this and not just skim over it so I could get to the parts I actually like writing. I needed to make this one a bang, so I hope I did that. Enjoy.

Unfortunately, there was no one else to help out, so Cho could delay it no longer. She contacted The Children of Thieves and told them all to meet her in Leblanc to discuss their infiltration. When she got there, she could tell that everyone was just as reluctant as she was to do this, apart from Tetsuya of course. So, Cho sat down next to Aina, and they began to discuss the task at hand. "Kanashimi told us that his Actualisation will be fully completed by the end of January," said Cho. "That gives us just 10 days to steal his Treasure. So we need to act quickly." Everyone nodded nervously. Tetsuya sighed at this. "Look, I know you don't want to fight this guy," he said. "And I know you're all trying to think of ways to steal his Treasure without having to resort to doing that. But as we've seen, this man cannot be reasoned with. His grief has utterly broken him, and manifested into that Persona of his! Fighting him will be unavoidable, I hope you all understand that!"

At Tetsuya's words, Cho's eyes widened. "That's like me," she said. "He allowed his grief to consume him, and turn him down this path, just like I almost allowed my self-loathing to do with me." Meishu grinned at this. "I see where you're going with this," he said. "You want to try to use that as a tool to reason with him!" Cho nodded, which got everyone's hopes up, until Tetsuya facepalmed. "I'm surrounded by total morons!" he muttered to himself. "Need a reminder of how unreasonable Aoife was!? Not even you could get through to her Kitagawa, and you're Cho's damn lover! And, that's when Cho still had some semblance of control over her self-loathing. But Kanashimi has allowed his grief to completely consume him! If Aoife was brick wall, then Kanashimi is going to be a whole dam!"

As much as Tetsuya's words stung, Cho couldn't help but think he was right. "I still want to try," she said. "I know that Kanashimi doesn't want to fight us either, so we have that on our side. I know that I can get through to him. I managed to with all of you!" No one could deny that, so Tetsuya relented. "Fine, fine," he said. "But you still must prepare should the conversation turn sour." Cho relented, then they refocused the conversation on the Palace once more. Eventually, they felt that they had stalled long enough, and headed off to Kanashimi's Palace. Once they got there, Blackbird immediately paid a visit to the Velvet Room and fused as many Personas as she could until she had her powerful collection back. Then, they headed down the lift once more.

After a long drive through Mementos, they arrived at the lift up to the lab. Once they got through the laboratory, they came to a long white hall, with a few Shadows in it. They dispatched them quickly, then ran down the hall, eventually coming to another room, one just as big as the Lobby. It had a large lift in it, and many different people standing around, waiting for something. Along the walls were a bunch of pipes that led to who knew where. There was a desk in the middle of the room, facing the lift, with a Shadow dressed as a receptionist manning it. As the Children of Thieves watched, more people would arrive in the lift, then walk up to the receptionist. They'd speak with them for a few seconds, before being directed to one of the pipes. After waiting in line for a while, they'd step through the pipe and away somewhere. "This must be how Kanashimi grants everyone their perfect worlds" Valkyrie pointed out. "But I don't remember this," said Matrix. "I remember being led down Yongen-Jaya following a sparkle, before coming to the subway and being offered my deepest desires." Everyone else nodded.