Working With Phantoms

Lurking Calmly

September 12th

Madran's POV

Madran arrived back from school to find Elia sitting with Chicory, who seemed to be nervously looking around the living room for no apparent reason.

"Hey, mom, is everything ok?"

"I dunno, ever since yesterday, Chic's been looking at various shadows around the house with some intense nervousness."

"Hmm. Hey, Chic, how are you?"

Chicory hopped down from the couch and walked over to where his leashes were kept. Madran, understanding what he wanted, put her bags down and went to her room to change out of her uniform. Then, upon getting back to the foyer, Madran put the leash onto Chicory and took him outside.

"Well, mom, see you soon!"

"Have a nice walk, Mad."

Madran then began to take Chicory on the usual walk they took, which entailed a nice 45 minute stroll around the rather large neighborhood they lived in. Madran then noticed that Chicory wasn't acting like his usual self on the walks, and instead was checking every shadow around them with his ears flattened.

"Dharma, do you know what's wrong with him?"

"He's looking at all of the shadows around him, as you can see, and looks almost ready to attack... remember how he was acting incredibly depressed the past few days after you told him and Elia about the assassin, and after he watched Okumura suffer a mental breakdown, he left to the Velvet Room? Perhaps, he has broken the contract, in one way or another, with his persona..."

"And, that would cause his shadow to appear once more, yeah?"

"Indeed. Why don't you ask him?"

"Hey, Madran, wait up!"

Before Madran could do anything, a voice belonging to Haru spoke up, with both Madran and Chicory turning back to look at Haru, who was running down the path after them.

"Haru? How'd you get here?"

"A lot of work. I had to ask multiple friends multiple times where you were."

"Uh, why not, say, Rosana?"

"She's busy, tryouts, I believe."

"Tryouts for what?"

"School sports."

Haru slowly caught her breath.

"I'm sorry for, uh, barging in on your afternoon like this. I... I just wanted someone to talk to."

"Yep. Is it about yesterday?"

Haru nodded.

"Everything's been thrown into chaos. By chaos, I mean, throwing a ball at a crowd of puppies."

"Oh no. That's... really horrendous."

"According to Yorick, you saw something that might relate to what happened to father."

Haru grabbed Madran's hand with a grip that seemed way too tight for someone her size.

"Please, tell me what you saw! I'll do anything for just a little more closure, a little more proof that we aren't to blame-"

"Alright, alright, calm yourself. Basically, there was this black-masked assassin with a persona who randomly popped up, killed your dad's shadow, and then escaped before I could get to him."

Haru nodded and looked down at the ground for a bit.

"I see... what did his persona look like?"