Working With Phantoms

Total Breakdown

September 11th

Madran and Elia didn't talk much about what Madran had seen three days ago, and Madran liked it that way. She wouldn't have to deal with several questions from Elia and then her friends, and she could just forget about it, much like it was just a weird hallucination caused by the palace's collapse. Despite this, she felt guilty for not telling at least Haru, but she didn't want what would be the last few days with her father to be sad.

"Madran, how many days will it be before you face this? Are you not going to tell even Philemon about that odd man?"

"I... well, I never thought of that. Maybe, he knows who that was?"

"We shall hope so."

Madran then went to the Velvet Room, where she found Philemon, Margaret, and Elizabeth all sitting around the table and chatting. She almost didn't want to ruin the calm atmosphere of the room, but decided against it due to Dharma's words.

"Hello, Madran. You seem... stressed?"

"Well, yeah. So, a few days ago-"

"Is this about when you suddenly turned around when we were leaving the palace?"

"Yep."

"This may as well be good. Go on, tell us more."

"Well, I ran into this weird persona-user."

"You... what?"

Madran sat down next to Philemon and continued her story.

"Well, he was in this fully black armor-like outfit with this black mask that was more like a horned helmet. His persona, uh, I didn't quite catch the name, but it appeared to have this, like, big sword of sorts..."

"Obviously, something else happened, yes?"

"Yeah. Well, do you want the bad news, or the bad news?"

"Two bad news? Hmm, the second one."

"Well, the guy managed to get away before I could catch him."

"Now, for the other?"

"He killed Okumura's shadow before I could stop him."

The trio stared at Madran with a collective shock.

"You're joking, right?"

"No, dead-ass. He pulled out this weird laser pistol thing and put a hole right through Shadow Okumura's head."

"My... this... this doesn't bode well. Have you told everyone else?"

"I haven't had the heart to."

"We have bad news of our own, if that's the case. Okumura is going to appear on the news soon, and from what I read online, it seemed to be important."

"Oh no..."

"You should ask when it will be at."

"Uh, when will the feature be at?"

"In 30 minutes."

"Which channel?"

"57."

"Oh god..."

"I know. If he is to suffer a mental shutdown, then there is nothing we can do."

"Philemon, can you, like, swoop in to save the day?"

"Once a shadow's killed, it's gone. It's not like a persona or a change of heart, which can become a shadow again under certain circumstances."

"Well, this is terrible. Okumura's going to die, and I can't do anything about it."