- 𝐀𝐦𝐢𝐝𝐬𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐒𝐢𝐥𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞 -

Chapter 16 - Amidst Your Silhouette (pt. 1)

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ᴀᴜɢᴜꜱᴛ 15ᴛʜ, 1 ᴅᴀʏ ʟᴇꜰᴛ ᴜɴᴛɪʟ: 𝐒𝐮𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐀𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐭
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"Akira Kurusu, the show-runner for the Theater of Regret. You have committed multiple sins by losing thou in desires and guilt, deceiving your teammates and lying about how you truly feel. For those grave actions you have committed, we will steal thy desires and take back this corrupted heart of yours.
From, the Phantom Thieves of Hearts..."

"... Ah.." his voice faded within the sound of his cold breath once again while reading the card which was sent to him with trembling hands.

"𝘈𝘩𝘢, 𝘴𝘰 𝘪𝘵'𝘴 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘢𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘢𝘭𝘭."

-

Determined looks went through the Thieves' eyes before entering the other reality to finally accomplish their goal. They spent the other few days preparing physically 𝘢𝘯𝘥 mentally for the upcoming heist so they could give it their all today.

But although they were very well prepared, they didn't know what would lie ahead of them, so they still had a small feeling of fear.

The next step at the moment though was to agree on who fights on the frontline. Of course, Oracle would take on the Navigator role as usual, but everyone else wanted to fight this fight too, so it took a while till they finally decided.

Crow for the physical damage, Panther for magic attacks, Mona as healer and Queen for defense and healing if Mona falls unconscious. They also decided they'd switch places if one loses all their HP.

Once they agreed on the setup, they finally went inside. The security of the palace was as high as ever when the group entered, but that was to be expected.

Getting to the main stage, the lights went off as usually. And as soon as they came back on, a sinister laughter echoed through the hall; it seemed quite familiar.

Just like they figured, Akira's shadow; Joker, was standing right in front of the Thieves. "I see you made it after all.", the faked grin on his masked face made them very uncomfortable when he said that.

But he just went on with his speech as the group remained silent with serious looks on their faces, "I'm honestly surprised... Well then, I'm not going to make you wait around any longer, let's-" he then suddenly stopped talking, it seemed his eyes spotted something quite unexpected.

"...Let's... begin." the grin of the palace ruler faded and his face turned rather dark, it was now actually looking quite similar to the others' faces. But there was a reason why, it wasn't because they were about to fight, not at all. But instead, he saw 𝘩𝘪𝘮. He didn't believe that he was really there, 𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥𝘯'𝘵, so he just wanted to keep the show going.

And so the fight started.

-

To all of the Thieves' surprise, Joker summoned a persona. They didn't think it was possible since he was just a shadow, but apparently it was. The persona he summoned wasn't any though, it was his first persona, the esteemed gentleman thief Arsene.
But he didn't really look normal. It was like he was corrupted as well, he also looked way more powerful than usual. But the Phantom Thieves weren't going to run away in fear, they already agreed on doing this.

The 4 of them going to the front line, Oracle summoning her persona as well to go into it and navigate on the battlefield, and the others observing carefully from behind. Everyone had to be ready to attack, and that was how they were going to do it too.

"You better be ready!" Mona called out before summoning his own spirit of rebellion, Zorro. He arrived with a strong gust of wind right above the cat-like creature with rapier proudly in his hand. The persona of Mona was aiming at Arsene just like he was ordered to, they didn't want to attack Joker after all.
"Aye, Mi Jefe!" Zorro then said before casting the strong wind spell Garudyne on the corrupted persona;
It didn't do a lot of damage, but at least a bit.

Right after Mona's turn, Queen decided to butt in. Motorcycle sounds appeared along with her persona, Johanna, who she had just summoned and now drove in a circle before then letting the fist of the phantom star onto her. "Take this!!" Queen practically screamed with determination before driving right into the persona opposite them, causing some damage as well.

"Great work, Queen!" Panther then smiled warmly, that smile soon turning malicious though as she drew her whip "Carmen!", with that being said, some rose petals flew in and bursted into hot flames along with Carmen coming out of them. "Here I am Girlie! Whose ass do we need to kick?". Panther then pointed to Arsene in front of them, and her persona didn't even hesitate to attack. She cracked her whip and set it on fire before she then hit the enemy, also causing a bit of damage.

Being attacked with one attack after the other Arsene got thrown back "Uargh-" he shook his head and flew right back up with his wings though, it would take more than just that to get the now corrupted persona down.

While they fought, Crow was staring at Akira's shadow, who was staring right back at him in silence. But then, throughout the silence, a smirk went over Crow's face; "My turn", he said and then summoned one of his personas. "Come, LOKI!"

The outline of a smiling face with horns then suddenly appeared and Loki spawned after black swirls of magic flew around. "HELL YEAH! Epic entrance!"
"..." Crow just glared at his persona then quietly, and he knew automatically that he had to attack something, which he then did. Since Curse attacks would be pretty useless, he instead just used a physical attack, which also caused some damage. Loki then looked genuinely proud after he was allowed to fight, while Joker was still just staring.

He didn't even fight back, he just stared at Crow in disbelief as his persona fought for him.

𝘞𝘢𝘴 𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦?