Working With Phantoms

Suga's Lament

August 1st

Madran's POV

Madran found herself sitting on her house's porch with Elia. It was the late afternoon, and not much had happened during the day, aside from a Mementos request that wasn't incredibly eventful.

"Hey, mom, did you get an odd message a few days ago?"

"Huh?"

"Like, a text or call from someone talking about the past month."

"Well, if you're referring to the 29th, then yeah, I got something."

"Really? Everyone in both my and Akira's group got a text, too. I kinda forgot to ask you, though. Suga also suddenly left to the Velvet Room and didn't even come back when I left."

"Well, I've slowly become no stranger to these odd happenings, now that you're all involved with literal secondary worlds."

"Yep. Hey, speaking of that, isn't your birthday coming up in, like, four days?"

"Oh, yeah, now that you mention it, it is. Um, do you know what you want to get me?"

"Well, I mean, it's a surprise."

"Well, you know I don't like surprises."

Madran giggled and rolled her eyes.

"Oh no, woe is you..."

Elia and Madran both exchanged light taunts before heading back inside.

"Summer's really hot this year, huh?"

"I mean, isn't it always? Hey, was summer actually tolerable back in Oregon?"

"Oh, yeah, definitely. It wasn't this stupid hot mess we have in Japan."

"I mean, at least there's a buncha clouds all around."

"Yeah, the forecast calls for rain later today, so we may get something to do with those clouds."

"Rain's always fun. Hey, I need to go to the Velvet Room real quick, Marie said she wanted to tell me something later."

"Ok, well, be back soon."

"Gotcha."

Madran then left to the Velvet Room to see Sheila chatting with Marie and Kaguya while looking at her card collection.

"So, you don't just offer those rare cards?"

"Yep."

"Are you sure you can't make a... um... what was it called... Megidolaon card?"

"Yes, Sheila, that's very hard on both of us."

"Hey, Marie, I'm here."

"Oh, hey, Madran. Well, I forgot to tell you all something about my card collection."

Marie flipped through a few books, with Madran noticing that the cards for Wysteria were oddly nonexistent.

"Hey, what about Wysteria's cards?"

"I dunno, they vanished. I asked Wysteria and Suga, and they both denied having ever touched them."

"Odd. Anyways, about your other thing."

"Ah, right."

Marie showed Madran a massive amount of pink cards.

"These are all common cards that have skills that can be learned by anyone. Yes, even your chakra personas."

"Ooh, cool."

"Yep. I'm charging a couple thousand Yen, though."

"A couple thousand-"