Phantom Thieves of Hope - A Danganronpa X Persona 5 Story.

Chapter 116: In Temperance, All Virtue Lies

Wicked Plan - Persona 5

Kaede and Makoto stood alongside Yui and their fellow Phantom Thieves just as the afternoon broke, watching Hayasaka talking to another music student with tanned skin and dark hair.

In the interim between then and now, Makoto had sent a message to the group chat, and almost instantly the others had rushed over to lend their support and to get in on Kaede's plan. Shuichi was the only one who was filled in on the full details in advance, though, so whatever anyone else had to do was currently anyone's guess.

But it wouldn't be in their nature to let such injustice stand.

The group were also joined by Ibuki Mioda, who was surprisingly angsty and on edge, and excited in a more aggressive way than usual. Clearly, after hearing the scope of the situation, she didn't want to stand idly by. As it happened, Kaede was planning on getting in contact with her for support anyway, so her showing up uninvited was a blessing.

A few minutes passed, and Hayasaka returned, looking satisfied for the first time since that morning. Kaede and the others smiled.

"I'm hoping that smirk of yours signals good news?" she asked.

"I'm not sure," Hayasaka shrugged, "but it's better than what we had before. We might have a shot after all."

"What happened?" Makoto wondered.

"So, that guy I was just talking to is a friend of mine from my class, and he was one of the people the staff picked to be part of the new band to replace us," he explained. "But he just told me that his band was assembled on short notice, and they're kind of scrambling to prepare for their performance."

"I guess Takeya kind of grabbed all of these guys at the last minute then," Komaru surmised.

"That in itself is suspicious, but we'll talk about that later," Shuichi noted. "What matters right now is that his band is struggling. We can use this to our advantage."

"Already way ahead of you," Hayasaka nodded. "I guess you could say we negotiated, but I told him the full story about what happened and how Takeya and Arakawa treated us. He's told me that he'll approach his new bandmates and give them the rundown. Depending on how it goes, they might let us take their place on the stage."

The mood among the group immediately began to improve, as the Phantom Thieves celebrated.

"Hell yeah!" Ibuki whizzed. "Pepino-perfect job, Rikuku!"

"Thank you, Hayasaka-kun!" Kaede beamed.

"Eh, don't worry about it," he rubbed the back of his head. "I wanna get on that stage just as much as the rest of the band does. Besides, don't thank me too early. There's no guarantee they'll actually let us give it a go."

"I think they will," Chiaki reassured him. "Your last two shows were super successful, after all."

"Regardless of whether we can get over this first hurdle, though," Toko pointed out, "there are still a lot of things that need to be covered if we're actually gonna pull this off."

"Right. Kaede, Fujimoto, and Hayasaka need to spend as much time as they can practicing and figuring out the composition," Makoto affirmed. "But there are lots of other problems that need to be handled in the meantime in order to make sure we do this successfully. That's where the rest of us come in."

He first turned to the Ultimate Musician.

"First off," he said, "Mioda-senpai. We'll need you to fill in for Seto-san on lead guitar while we figure out what to do about her situation."