"Joker, are you sure this chalk will work?" Ryuji said as he slid down the rope into the room they had been in before.
"It should, unless Iwai is bullshitting me," Ren laughed as he walked around the room, handing a container of powder to each of them.
When they all held them, the containers burst into blue flame and turned into small mechanisms on their sleeves. They tested them by aiming their arms and pushing the mechanisms down. The devices sprayed a special chalk in front of them, revealing the laser security system.
"Whoa, awesome!" Ryuji gasped.
"What the hell was that guy doing with this?" Shiho muttered.
Ren just shrugged.
"Didn't ask."
Orihime, who had come to Iwai's defense before, spoke up and awkwardly said, "That's probably for the best."
---
"Maybe we should have reminded the Trickster he only has Arsène," Justine absentmindedly said as she lost focus on the book she was reading.
A few seconds later, Ren appeared with an embarrassed face.
"I need to summon a few Personas."
Caroline struggled not to laugh at his awkward expression.
---
"Okay, now that Joker is ACTUALLY ready to go," Ann sighed in exasperation.
"It's good material for banter," Ren offered.
"You really let loose in the Metaverse," Orihime joked with a smile.
Ren blushed for a moment before deciding to be honest.
"I feel free here..."
The team quieted down.
"If I had ended up in the Palace alone that day... maybe I would have vanished into the Metaverse."
"Glad you didn't, buddy," Ryuji said as he patted him on the shoulder. "Who else is gonna fight with you?"
Morgana hopped upward and punched Ren in the arm. "What, you weren't going to stick with me? You'd have gotten caught in no time."
The girls quietly processed his words.
Shiho suddenly said, "That day saved me, Joker. Thank you."
---
The team snuck through the Palace. The Shadows were weaker than they were expecting.
"Must be because of the Mementos grinding," Ryuji suggested, offering his RPG explanation again.
The team also discovered that Orihime did, in fact, have a means to attack! It wasn't very strong, but if she pointed forward and gave a command, her hairpin would transform into a beam of light and strike where she aimed. It was a good distraction tool, but Orihime was upset she wasn't doing any damage.
Especially after—
"Dove and Joker look like they're having so much fun!"
She observed the two battle maniacs and their unnaturally synchronized movements.
"They really click here. It's kinda weird," Ryuji chuckled as he scratched his neck. He had just finished taking out some sort of weird Shadow that looked like a chicken, but also an onion.
"I'm kinda jealous," Ann pouted.
"I'm not," Morgana said as he pointed at the two, who were laughing arrogantly and swinging their weapons in glee, bouncing around the area.
"Are they playing with the Shadows?" Orihime asked before—
STAB.
"Never mind," she finished with a pale face as Shiho drove her spear through the chest of a Shadow, Ren finishing it off by decapitating it with his knife.
"Scary." She shivered.
---
The team soon found a safe room. There was a large garden nearby and a huge door. They decided to take a break before continuing because Ryuji was convinced there was a "boss fight" coming up.
"Look at how big that area is! How are we not going to fight there?!"
Ren didn't sense anything, but Ryuji's video game logic seemed to have been correct most of the time.
"Well, let's rest and heal up," Ren suggested as he sat down and placed a bento box for each person on the table.
"Did you make this, Joker?" Shiho asked in wonder.
"He sure did! He spent all morning working on it!" Morgana chimed in.
Ren was embarrassed. He wanted to do something nice for his friends.
And this was also practical.
It was a good excuse to—
"Thanks, Joker!!!" the team all said in glee as they dug into their food.
"This is sooo good!"
"Did you make this curry?"
"How is it still hot?"
"Joker, I want to start eating better. Can you teach me how to cook, please?!" Orihime asked with a smile as she ate the onigiri from the bento.
---
The team carefully approached the large door in the wide garden.
Thankfully, no Shadows appeared. It was quiet and peaceful. Odd for a Palace, but welcome nonetheless.
Ren and Morgana were observing the door with a frown. Ryuji had run up to it and was tapping random spots, seemingly looking for a way to open it.
Morgana's eyes widened briefly before he considered something.
"Joker. There was a door like this in Madarame's shack. I saw it. This design on the door here is the same."
Ren raised his brow. "So the doors correlate? What does that mean for us?"
Morgana paused for a second and responded, somewhat unsure.
"What if this door is some sort of cognitive lock? Madarame is convinced no one can or will get into that room."
Shiho was listening carefully with a furrowed brow.
"If that's the case, we just need to change his cognition, right?"
---
The team returned to reality with renewed conviction. They needed to prove, in reality, that Madarame's control was not all-powerful.
"But how are we going to do this?" Ryuji asked the question that no one wanted to consider.
---