I'm back! I am very sorry for such a long absence, life in general. Here's the new chapter. Enjoy!

Chapter 17 King's Downfall

April 25th Shujin Academy, Morning

Ren yawned as he walked to school, he had spent a good enough time last night working on making lockpicks under Morgana's instructions in order to become a better thief. After failing the first two times, he was finally able to make one lockpick…. He really needed to get his proficiency up. At least on his way to school, he learned some important info about getting some yakisoba pan, they were sold out on Mondays but available on Fridays. It was a wonder why he couldn't get any.

"Hey," A voice came out of his bag. "Today's the day." Right, it was the day that they were going to steal Kamoshida's heart and bring his crimes to light. He mentally braced himself for the upcoming battle after school, he had gotten medicine and some upgraded weapons for the team. They had to win this.

"Yo! RenRen!" Ryuji quickly walked up to his friend with Kotone in tow. "Ready for after school?"

"I am…. Sakamato" Ren replied by calling Ryuji his last in response of being called RenRen.

"You're still going to do that, huh?" Ryuji frowned but it faded away. "We got the calling card out. It's gonna be so cool for everyone to see."

"Yeah, we're able to get in early, thanks to my Student Council perks." Kotone chimed in. "It was just after the Disciplinary members finished their patrol, giving us a good window of opportunity."

"They won't be able to miss it, just sit back and watch the show." Ryuji grinned in excitement as the three walked up the school's steps.

Ann noticed that the Shujin hallways were chattier than usual and louder, and all of them were focusing on one thing during the morning. There was a crowd gathering around the two bullet boards talking about the red cards with a message on it. She noticed that some members of the Student Council were there as well.

"A calling card?"

"I heard it was already posted by the time everyone got here this morning."

"How did we let this happen?" Makoto rubbed her head in annoyance.

"Yeah, I thought you guys would have caught this already." Kaz glared at the Disciplinary members who were assigned to look out for things like this while holding a card he picked out from the board. The card had a bunch of cut out letters and a logo of a smiley face with shark teeth wearing a top hat. He was rather annoyed that a stunt like this was able to occur.

"We swear it wasn't there when we were done with our patrol!" One of the members explained and went on how they didn't know who would be able to slip past them, anything to get him to understand that they were not at fault here.

Ann walked to the crowd to get into the reading view of the card's messages. "Sir Suguru Kamoshida, the utter bastard of lust." She almost cracked out of laughter upon reading the introduction, knowing full well that it was Ryuji's language.

"We know how shitty you are, and that you put your twisted desires on students that can't fight back. That's why we have decided to steal away those desires and make you confess your sins. This will be done tomorrow, we hope you will be ready. From, the Phantom Thieves of Hearts."

"... Wow." Ann whispered, talk about being melodramatic.

"Is that supposed to be a calling card?" Ayumi asked her fellow Council members.

"Sounds similar to Lupin." Makoto replied.

"And a terrible one to boot, whoever did this was trying too hard to sound sophisticated, but failing to do so." Kaz rolled his eyes as he pocketed one of the cards. He then straightened his tie, looking agitated. "Tch, what an annoying prank."

"We should clear out the crowd then remove the cards." Ayumi suggested and to which Kaz and Makoto agreed. Ann walked away as they unsuccessfully tried to clear out the crowd to her fellow phantom thieves who were watching the whole thing unfold.

"Not bad eh?" Ryuji said, looking proud of his work. "I looked up a bunch of similar stuff online for a reference."

"... yeah… umm" Ann was trying to find the right words so she wouldn't hurt his feelings too much. "I know what you wanted to say but it sounded like an idiot trying to be an adult." Morgana popped out of Ren's backpack.

"Your logo's a little lacking too."

"We probably should have proofread his message but sending this out." Ren did agree with Ann here. "I don't think a gentleman thief would use curse words."

"OK, y'know what? Th-that ain't true!" Ryuji quickly defended himself.

"The logo's kinda cute."Kotone wanted to give some praise to Ryuji as she was holding the same calling card that he made prior before tucking it away but he had a different reaction.

"C-cute!? It's suppose to be stylish! Kinda like a phantom thief logo!"

"Did Mr. Kamoshida do something wrong?" A girl in a turtleneck pink cardigan asked Kaz as she approached the crowd.

"I don't know Haru. But we got to clear the area." He replied as he tried to clear the crowd but more students kept piling in.

"Does this mean the rumors are true?" A female student asked out loud from the crowd.

"Wait a sec… Is someone gonna take something from Mr. Kamoshida?"

"What's with this weird logo? And who are these Phantom Thieves of Hearts people?" The questions kept piling up as the Student Council tried to calm them down.

"It got everyone excited, so it's all good. Yeah?" Ryuji moved his left leg around for a bit and right on cue, the man of the hour, Kamoshida approached the billboard, shocking all the students, they immediately cleared a path for him to read it. After a brief moment, his mood turned extremely sour.

"Who's responsible for this… !?" Morgana could only snicker.

"Look at that. A predictable reaction for someone who knows what we mean by distorted desires." Ryuji could only grin.

"I think it's hitting him pretty hard."

"I think I can see the veins on his head." Ren smiled a bit, glad that it was all going as planned.

"Did you do this!? Or was it you!?" He angrily started to accuse any nearby students nearby and they all started to scatter. Makoto and Ayumi quickly walked away with Kaz quickly held Haru's hand to help guide her away, following his two Council members, running past the four phantom thieves. The volleyball coach then noticed Ren and Ryuji standing together and walked towards them, he was too angry to even know that Ann and Kotone were even there.

"Was it you two!?"

"What if it was?" Ren asked nonchalantly with a hint of smugness underneath it.

"Tch, what garbage." He sneered then he shook his head. "Eh, it's not a problem. You'll end up expelled soon enough anyway." Then for a brief second, everything went dark with Shadow Kamoshida appearing in place of the real Kamoshida.

"Come… steal it, if you can!" Seemingly that he accepted the challenge then everything went back to normal. Kamoshida just stormed away, once he was out of hearing range, Morgana popped out of Ren's bag again.

"Judging from Kamoshida's response… I'm sure we had an effect on his Palace!"

"Does that mean the treasure appeared. We'll be able to get it today, right?" Ann asked.

"It's not just "today." It's ONLY today." Morgana warned "The impact of the calling card doesn't last long, and it cannot be repeated. This will be our one chance to steal the Treasure."

"One day's more than enough for us!" Ryuji happily replied.

"We'll meet up in front of the school in the alley as soon as school ends." Ren sternly told them, not wanting to waste a single one in order to steal Kamoshida's Treasure. They all walked off their respective classrooms and waited until the last bell rings.

It felt so long to wait for school to end and it was hard for them to focus on school work since going to the Palace was the only thing in their minds for the entire day. Once the bell rang, they got together and met up in the front alley as planned. They didn't need any confirmation to go, they all knew it and decided to go.

Begin Navigation.

[Life will Change instrumental]

The entire school turned into a giant castle in a blink of an eye and everyone was in their costumes and Morgana was in his bipedal form. The atmosphere was heavier than usual, perhaps it was the effect of the calling card that the Phantom Thieves had declared to his heart. It wouldn't be a surprise if all the guards in the castle were in high alert.

"Let's go! Don't let your guard down!" Mona cried out to get ready. Joker immediately pulled out his phone and the world around them changed to find themselves in a safe room. They ran to the throne room to see the doors wide open, much to their surprise.

"The hell's going on here?" Skull was shocked by the lack of security in a rather important place. "The door's just sittin' open, and there aren't soldiers around."

"This place is probably undermanned now that they all got assigned elsewhere." Mona replied, still looking confident as everyone looked around cautiously. "Either way, we win as long as we can steal the Treasure! Let's keep going!"

Right on que, they made a break for it, past the throne and straight into the Treasure room. Once they entered, they found a giant golden crown instead a floating hazy cloud. Mona got excited once they approached the treasure. "Aww yeeeeaaaaaaah! The Treasure has appeared!"

"Man, it's huge!" Skull gawked at the treasure. Lancer tapped it to see if it was real, then Mona hopped in excitement.

"What do you think!? It's just as I said! Now we can steal it! Ahh… this shine brings tears to my eyes…"

"...It kinda pisses me off." Panther frowned at the golden and red crown. "Why is it so pretty…? Isn't this Kamoshida's desires?"

"A king does like to wear his crown." Lancer tried to answer Panther's question. "But, it doesn't matter, it's his treasure and we gotta steal it to change his heart."

"Right," Panther refocused on the mission. "It's pretty big, do we have to carry it?"

Mona did not hear her question, his eyes were focused on the crown. "T-treasure."

Skull and Lancer slowly turned their heads towards Mona. "Uh, the cat's acting awfully excited."

"What's wrong?" Panther asked Mona with concern. "Is something…?"

Ignoring what she said, Mona jumped up into the air and landed onto the crown, rubbing his face on it. "Meeeeoooow! Mrrrroooow!"

"That's not catnip…" Joker quipped to which Lancer chuckled at the joke but Mona continued his strange behavior, keeping on meowing. Truth be told, it was rather cute.

"Come on. Stop this." Lancer walked over to pick Mona off from the crown and started petting him to calm him down while holding him. He was able to calm down and jump, looking disappointed in himself.

"Oh, um, yeah… Forgive me for displaying such an insolent display in front of the ladies…"

"That was completely out of character for you." Panther looked at Mona with confusion. His behavior was the most unusual. "What was that about?"

"I couldn't stop it either…" Mona was just as confused on why he did it as well. "To think I'd be drawn to human desires this much…" Mona suddenly had a thought in his mind and smiled. "Doesn't that prove I'm human!?"

"I don't know if that's definite proof." Lancer as she went over to comfort him by petting him even more. "Still, your meows are adorable."

"Hey! I'm not adorable!" Mona refuted but went back on task. "A-anyways, you guys need to carry it!" Mona looked at the four students and he was too small to be of any help in carrying the crown in the first place. Skull groaned and walked up to the crown.

"All you do is bark orders…" He groaned in annoyance to Mona as usual. "Still, this was easier than I thought! I thought for sure there'd be some sort of insane trap or something."

"Too easy, Skull." Lancer replied with suspicion with a huff. "If I know my heist movies, it all seems easy just to lure the hero so the bad guy appears and springs a trap!"

"It only happens in the movies, don't sweat it." Skull replied to keep her paranoia down and Lancer rolled her eyes.

"Way to jinx it."

"His Palace will disappear if we take this back, right?" Panther only stared at the crown with determination. "And Kamoshida will change too…"

"...That should be the case." Mona sounded very confident about it, and everyone moved to get around the crown, two people each side, they all reached their hands under the crown. Once they touched the crown, the full weight of the crown dropped on their hands. They all nearly fell under the pressure.

"It's heavy…!" Panther struggled to keep it up on her end.

"How can Kamoshida even wear this! It's way too big!" Skull cried out, feeling his arms burning.

"His head is big enough to store all that ego he has." Joker quipped as he struggled to get his footing.

"This sucks! ... This really sucks!" Lancer complained. Mona could only smile in satisfaction feeling accomplished of the work they all had done.

"To think it'd go so well… I've even found four Persona users in the process… My judgement was correct. I made the right choice in making a deal with you! Nyahaha!" Somehow, Joker felt his bond with Morgana was growing deeper.

As they started their way out of the treasure room, it was slow and painful, trugging as fast as they could to carry a large and heavy crown out of the throne with Morgana leading the group while on lookout. As they slowly made their way past the throne, a random voice rang out.

"Go, go! Let's go! Ka-mo-shida!" Suddenly a volleyball was launched at the crown knocking it off from the thieves' hands then something jumped over their heads as they were trying to process what just happened. They turned to see where the crown had landed only to see Shadow Kamoshida land in front of the throne. A bright flash of light appeared and the giant crown was now a normal sized crown in his hands. Then the cognitive Ann ran up and wrapped her arms around him. Kamoshida confidently held out his crown. "I won't let anyone take this! This proves that I am the king of this castle. It is the core of this world!"

"That rat bastard…" Panther looked at her other self disgust. "That's how he sees me, isn't it!?"

"I thought you killed her." Joker muttered.

"Yo, pervert." Skull readied himself up for an upcoming. "Were you waitin' to ambush us?"

"Yep…" Lancer sighed as she readied her naginata towards the King. "I should have known that it was a trap."

"I just made it easier to find you." He arrogantly replied thinking he had the advantage. "I'll dispose of you myself. Right here, right now."

"That's our line you sexually-harassin' D-bag!" Skull took a step forward, the King only smirked.

"What a selfish misunderstanding…" This ended up enraging Panther even more.

"How is it a misunderstanding!?" Panther stomped her foot. "You were doing things that you kept secret from others!"

"The people around me were the ones who kept it a secret." Kamoshida smuggly explained, trying to justify his actions. "Adults who wanted to share in my accomplishments, students who drive to become winners… They willingly protect me so that we all may profit from it."

"Profit!?" Skull sounded shocked.

"Right…" Lancer grimmanced. "So they can ride his coattails"

"There are too many imbeciles that don't understand that!" He continued "Including naive brats like you and that girl who tried to kill herself!"

Panther only seemed to relax herself and calmly replied to his statement. "True, she's a total idiot… letting you manipulate her, trying to commit suicide… And I'm even more of a dumbass for not realizing that…! But no matter what kind of fool someone might be…" She gripped his fist tightly. "They don't need your permission to live their lives!"

"Drop the attitude, you mediocre peasant!" Kamoshida was losing his patience with the thieves now. "There's no wrong in using gifts from my gain! I'm a cut above all other humans!"

"Above…" Lancer scoffed and pointed her blade at Kamoshida. "More like a lowly demon who put down on other people to make himself big." He only started laughing, dark energy started to surround him.

"That's right. I'm not like you…" His voice was more distorted and pulled the fake Ann closer to him. "I am a demon who rules this world!"

The dark energy completely engulfed the two and something started to grow in size and changing. Everyone only looked up in awe as it grew, Mona almost fell after leaning far too back before Lancer caught him.

"What the Hell?" Skull said what everyone was thinking at the moment as a large shadow cast over them. Before them lay a huge red demonic looking being with four arms, with the right side having a glass full of wine with the fake Ann in it and a golden knife, while his right side has a golden fork and a riding crop. His eyes were bulging out of his head like a lizard, with the treasure back to its giant size resting on his head, and a purple slithering tongue moving around. He had a golden chalice in front of him that was filled with pairs of female legs and a bunch of cognitive creatures chained to him.

"I'm allowed to do whatever the hell I want!" The King proclaimed.

Joker steeled himself, he had it with Kamoshida's narcissistic ramblings, and flung his arm out. "You're wrong! We will steal your treasure!" Everyone readied their weapons for a fight.

[Blooming Villain]

The monster roared with its eyes moving around in different directions before focusing on all five members. "You goddamn, no-good shitty brats! Haven't you been taught not to point at people!? Huh!?"

"Look! The Treasure's over there!" Mona pointed out the crown on top of the king…. Which was pretty obvious. "We should catch him off guard and steal it! Let's attack him and wait for that opportunity! Finally, we can take on Kamoshida himself… Everyone, let's do this!"

"Alright! I've been waiting for this!" Skull cracked his neck from side to side and summoned Captain Kidd to buff Joker up who in turn summoned Jack Frost who cleaved at the Shadow. But he could react, Skull summoned his Persona again and charged at him. Captain Kidd swung his boat around to make contact to the Shadow's head.

"Trieu! Kouga!" Lancer yelled out then the golden lady on the elephant appeared and blasted several bless magic from her swords. Kamoshida only grunted in pain as a series of light barrages cut his skin.

"Carmen!" A barrage of fireballs rained down on the Shadow

"Zorro!" Mona jumped in the air to summon his Persona as it shot a gust of wind at the target as it was burning.

The wind from Zorro's attack caused the flames on Kamoshida grow larger causing even more pain on him and burned him even more taking in the flames and the wind attack.

"Ack! Damnit!" The Shadow cried in pain. "Need… Healing!"

"Keep up the pressure!" Joker commanded. "Don't let him breath!"

"Got it!" Skull acknowledged as he smiled confidently. "You'll pay soon enough, Kamo-Shitbag!"

"How long have you been waiting to say that?" Lancer chuckled at his play on name insult.

"Too long."

"Gyah… slaves! Clear them out!" The Shadow commanded the chained beings who all moved to launch several volleyballs at them. They all felt the strikes on them, it was one of Kamoshida's spikes that he loved to use on his students but several times over and everywhere. When the slaves launched a second volley, they scattered and hid behind cover.

"Damn!" Lancer cursed as volleyballs kept being thrown at them. She switched to her Winchester rifle and fired back at them to stop the barrage. It allowed Kamoshida to stick his fork into the chalice and ate one of the legs from it.

"Oh god, I hate the implication there." Panther muttered in disgust, but shocked to learn that it ended up healing himself, undoing the damage they inflicted on him.

"He healed himself by eating from that!?" Mona was surprised by the new development. Knowing full well that it would pose a problem if Kamoshida continued to eat from that, Joker readied his knife.

"Panther, Lancer! Use your guns and give me cover!" Joker yelled as he made a dash towards the chalice.

"Joker! Wait!" Panther cried out worried about his risky move to attack head on but relented and grunted in frustration as she pulled out her Tommy Gun and started firing at the slaves to stop them from attacking.

Lancer took several shots at the arm holding the crop duster that was just to command the slaves to attack. Noticing his intention, Kamoshida swung his knife and fork at him, Joker quickly dodged his attacks with style, twirling, flipping, and spinning. As he reached the chalice, he did a flip towards it and slammed his knife downward as he landed. He followed up with several slices while moving more flameboatingly before jumping away while firing a couple of shots at the cup.

"Hey! You don't know what this is worth, so stop touching it! Don't do it anymore, got it? I've warned you!" Kamoshida was pretty more mad than usual when Joker attacked the chalice.

"When someone tells us not to do something, it makes us want to do it even more!" Mona smiled in reply. Then Kamoshida turned his head to use his tongue to whip it to the group. Everyone flew back after being hit by it and all covered in drool.

"Gross…" Skull said as he quickly shook the slime off of him.

"Guys… he's doing something." Mona warned the group as they recovered. Kamoshida decided to take a drink of wine and red energy emerged around him. Mona quickly took guard. "I sense that his power increased!"

"We need to destroy the wine glass and his chalice so he can't heal nor get stronger!" Joker commanded the group of their targets to fight the fight. Then Kamoshida attempted to slam his knife on them but they were able to split up by jumping away but they felt a strong gust of wind coming from the knife's impact.

Lancer pulled out her rifle and took aim at the glass and fired a couple of shots, she was able to crack the glass a bit. Noticing what she was trying to do, the King ordered his slaves to launch a bunch of volleyballs at Lancer. She quickly rolled to the side, barely dodging the attacks. While he was distracted, Panther ran up and jumped to get her whip to destroy the cup. The Fake Ann fell along with the broken glass and spilled wine in front of Panther. She simply smirked as she fired Tommy gun on her fake self, satisfied that she gotta kill her cheap copy again.

"How dare you!" Shadow Kamoshida was not happy that his Princess was killed again. He threw his slimy tongue at Panther for payback. Lancer jumped to push Panther only to be wrapped, her entire torso squeezed tightly as she lifted in the air.

"Ewww! Gyahh!" Lancer was more concerned of the slime from the tongue as she being squeezed. She tried to use her weapon slice her way out but the pain was too much for.

Joker immediately rushed in and impaled his knife deep into the tongue cutting halfway through, it was enough to hurt the King to loosen his grip. He was able to catch Lancer as she fell.

"Caught you again?" Joker teased at a confused Lancer, noting their volleyball a bit back. She suddenly turned red as she remembered and quickly got out of his arms.

"Ummm y-yeah, th-thanks." Lancer stuttered through her words while maintaining her blush. "We… should destroy the chalice next."

"Don't worry." Joker grinned as he pulled out he prepared his next Persona. "Skull buff me up!" He commended his friend.

"You got it!" Skull's mask burned up for Captain Kidd to appear, with a spin of his boat, red energy surrounded Joker, he felt stronger, like he could hit even harder. The trickster put his hand on his mask.

"Orpheus-Picaro!" The metallic being appeared behind him. He pointed at the Chalice. "Smash it to pieces!" He lifted his harp, and slammed on the cup a couple of times, each blow sent a shockwave to go through the room and each time, the cup's cracks got larger, with one final swing, the chalice shattered into pieces. It seemed to have an effect on Kamoshida as he slumped down as he screamed in agony.

"No way… This was from when I won the national…" He looked devastated as if he lost something close to him. It allowed the team to surround him with all their guns pointing out him.

"You think you can get away with doing such a thing? Do you realize who I am!?" He was complaining loudly. "I am Kamoshida! Don't you get it!?"

Joker only rolled his eyes in annoyance at his pathetic whining. "I know. So what?"

"Huh?" Kamoshida was shocked by his defiance and repeated himself. "Like I keep saying! I am Kamoshida! I am KING!"

"Any man who says I am the king is no true king" Lancer quoted a line from a show she saw long before as she aimed her Winchester.

"You look down on everyone… but you're seriously lame right now." Skull replied in contempt at the so-called King.

"We came all this way to steal that!" Panther followed up after as she glanced at the crown. "Will you just give it up and hand it over?"

"Silence!" Kamoshida barked back, still determined to keep his crown. "I won't let the likes of you have this!"

"You still have the energy to say things like that!?" Mona was getting annoyed by the king's stubbornness "Then we're going to up our game as well!" Everybody jumped back and lunged at King Kamoshida for an All out Attack. They jumped all around the room striking Kamoshida with everything they got, blades, whips, anything from every angle. After the assault, Kamoshida was injured but he was still standing.

"I'm the king…!" He moaned and complained even more, "If I'm not, then who is!?"

"Well, we have an Emperor, I'm pretty sure he outranks you, so we'll be fine." Lancer sarcastically replied.

Mona only frowned, frustrated by the slow progress they were making, "We won't get anywhere with brute force."

"Right," Joker agreed as he eyed at the crown sitting on top of the king's head. "We should aim for the Crown."

"Of course… TIme for Plan B." Mona nodded. "Look at the terrace!" The rest noticed the second floor above Kamoshida. "While the others are drawing Kamoshida's attention, have someone go there! Let's steal the treasure without him noticing!" Both they could do anything, the giant beast swung his knife at the group, they scattered before regrouping.

"Okay, then who are you going to send?" Lancer asked as she reloaded her rifle. "I don't think I can, I don't like the way he's looking at me."

"Ugh, same here as well." Panther agreed.

"Say the word, and I'll do it Joker." Skull was ready to step up to the plate.

"No, considering your history with him, he would keep an eye on you." Joker declined Skull's offer. "Mona should do it, Kamoshida doesn't know him well enough and he's the smallest one here, less noticeable."

The not cat nodded in agreement to Joker's reasoning. "Leave it me!" He jumped. "Make sure he's distracted so he doesn't see me!"

"Got it!" Lancer acknowledged as she pulled out her level action rifle and started firing, pulling the level as fast as possible at the shadow's face. The rest followed up by firing from their respective guns to distract him from noticing Mona sneaking a nearby pillar.

The monster only shook off the attacks with annoyance. "Blah, enough! Time to bring in the big guns! Slaves! Bring over you-know-what!" He slammed his cropper and the slaves ran past the Phantom Thieves, completely ignoring them.

"Time for my killshot from when I was active and rockin' it! Killshot… as in I'll make the kill!"

"I have a bad feeling about this." Lancer worried as she raised her spear to guard herself and the rest guard themselves. Then a bunch of slaves ran to Kamoshida holding a giant volleyball, they tossed it high, which the Shadow jumped and spiked the ball with all his might at the group. A large explosion engulfed the entire room dealing damage to every Thief knocking them all to the ground.

"Shit!" Skull cursed as he staggered up.

"Come on," Joker whispered. "Hurry up Mona."

"You're misunderstanding it all! I haven't sexually harassed anyone! They came onto me because they wanted to get on my good side!" Kamoshida made more excuses.

"Oh, that's bullshit." Everyone replied at the same time.

Mona climbing close to the top of the pillar. "Alright, he still hasn't noticed me yet."

The Phantom Thieves continued their assault on the King to keep him distracted. Lancer and Skull charged their Personas to hold the giant shadow down, while Panther continued throwing fire and Joker summoned Jack Frost to freeze him at the same time.

After he recovered from the assault. "Wait! Is there one less of you? I knew it! They're missing! Where'd they go!?

"Ha! Too late!" Mona proudly cried out on top of the balcony then he quickly jumped and knocked the crown right off the head.

"Noooooo!" Shadow Kamoshida cried out in agony as the crown fell away from him. "My precious! My Precious!"

The shadow just slumped down with no motivation to fight anymore as all the Phantom Thieves surrounded him with their guns pointed at him again.

"One more time!" Joker cried out. "For all out attack!" Everyone jumped at him at the same time, striking him with all their might, every hit filled with determination and justice for everything that the king had done to the students. As they were finished, the giant shadow evaporated back into regular sized Kamoshida.

The Crown appeared before the group, but as they were about to take it. Kamoshida quickly rolled over to grab it and made a dash for it, only for him to run to the balcony, he was desperately looking a way to run

"Nowhere to run." Lancer smuggly stated.

"I'm sure you can run somewhere." Panther mocked him. "After all, you're a great athlete."

"It's always been like this… all those goddamn hyenas forcing their expectations on me…!" He complained, trying to make excuses. "I'm doing this all for them! What's wrong about demanding a reward for that!?"

"That gave you no right to do what you did to the team." Joker countered back

"Now you're making excuses?" Skull followed. "We'll do something about that distorted heart of yours."

Panther walked towards the fallen king. "Scared? Right now you're seeing the same view that Shiho did. I'm sure she was scared too… expect she had no choice but to jump… What will you do? Will you jump…? Or would you rather die here?"

She tore off her mask and Carmen appeared behind her, large fireballs appeared in each hand. Kamoshida only whimpered in fear and gripped his crown tighter as he moved back a bit.

Mona crossed his arms. "Do you want to finish him off? It's your call." The others looked at each and nodded to let her decide his fate.

"No please wait! I beg you… just forgive meeee!" Kamoshida pleaded for his life.

"Shut up." Panther had enough of his bullshit. "I bet everyone told you the same. But you… you took everything from them!"

She then launched her fireballs at him, only to miss him by hitting the spot on the wall right next to his head. Panther missed him… on purpose?

Kamoshida looked at where the fireball had landed and lowered his head. "I accept defeat… You want this? Take it."

He threw it to Joker, who caught it with ease. Kamoshida started to cry. "Go ahead and finish me off… You do that… and my real self will go down too…"

Skull scratched his head, Joker tilted his, and Lancer only took a deep breath, all contemplating if they should finish him off. At first, they were reluctant to take his life but they didn't care since Kamoshida had no regard for Shiho's. Mona noticed Panther clenching her fist hard.

"You have the right since you won…"

She held her left hand up and sent the second fireball straight at Kamoshida

Skull yelled out. "Ann!"

"Ann, Wait!" Lancer cried out, but the fire ball landed right next to Kamoshida. Kamoshida turned to look at the burn mark, and Carmen returned to Panther as a mask. "If his mind shuts down, he can't admit his crimes."

Everyone let out a breath of relief as Mona rubbed his nose, "You're kind, Lady Ann…"

"Codenames" Lancer whispered

Kamoshida fell to his knees and started to cry. "I've lost. You're through when you lose… What am I - what am I supposed to do now?"

"Atone for your sins…" Joker coldly answered the man. After all, that was their mission from the beginning. Kamoshida nodded as he looked up from the ground to look at the Phantom Thieves.

"All right…" Kamoshida started to smile, like he changed. "I will leave now and return to my real self…" Then he started to fade away in a flash of blue light. "I'll make certain that I-"

But once the king disappeared, the castle started to rumble. Mona looked up to the group. "Hey, just so you know, we don't have time to waste."

Skull moved his mask up on his forehead, as he looked around the room. "This place is about to collapse!"

"You should have told us that!" Lancer replied as lifted her mask up

Joker and Panther put their masks up on their forehead. Everyone was freaking out that the castle was shaking as huge blocks of rocks and bricks started to fall all around. Mona just decided to sit on the ground and licked his paws and then rubbed his ear. For a being claiming not to be a cat, he was acting quite cat-like.

Man, that would be cute right now, if this shit isn't happening Kotone thought.

Ryuji started to run towards the exit. "Run!"

And everyone followed, running through the entire Palace as fast they could, dodging falling debris. Ann looked back behind her and started to scream. "We're gonna die! We're so gonna die!"

Morgana, somehow was now in his cat form, jumped on Ann's head.

"Hey, what the-!?" Then the cat hopped his way across their heads to Ren's shoulder.

"No fair, you jerk!" Ryuji called out to Morgana who just looked back and meowed. They kept on running but then Ryuji suddenly felt pain in his right leg and fell straight to the ground.

"Ryuji!" She ran towards him until he held up his hand.

"Heh… It's just been a while, so I just tripped, is all." He slowly got up but saw the ceiling collapsed and stood up quickly and ran again. They kept running until they saw a bright light at the end of the hallway and ran straight towards it.

The next moment, they all found themselves at the Shujin alleyway, all breathing from their recent escape. Ann was the first to speak up. "That sucked."

"Yep." Kotone leaned back on the wall to catch her breath.

Ryuji pulled out his phone and was shocked to see what was on it. "Look at the nav!" The students pulled out their phones to see.

"The destination has been deleted." The Metaverse Navigator gave an update.

"...It's true. We can't go there anymore." Ann told everyone.

Mona asked another important question. "What about the Treasure!?"

With a smile, Ren pulled out a gold medal out of his pocket. Ryuji was confused. "What the…?"

"...A medal?" Ann was out of the loop as well. "Wait, where'd that crown go?"

"What's goin' on…?" Ryuji crossed his arms and turned to look at Morgana.

"It means, that was the source of Kamoshida's desires." He answered. "To him, this medal is worth as much as that crown we saw in the Palace."

"An Olympic medal…" Ryuji thought for a moment. "So, that perv kept clingin' to his past glory and couldn't let it go…"

"He does love to mention that in school." Kotone agreed. "That's why it's just Shujin, cause there everyone knows who he is but outside, he's a nobody."

"But… this means that Kamoshida's heart might have changed, right?" Ann asked if they actually succeeded in their mission.

"...Probably." Morgana did not sound too confident in his answer.

Ryuji stomped his foot forward. "Our expulsion on the line here!"

"This is the first successful example for me too." The feline reasoned but tried to reassure them"However, there's no doubt that this has affected Kamoshida's personality quite a lot. The entire Palace disappeared, after all."

"I wish we could see him change." Kotone shook her head.

"Ugh, I feel all antsy!" Ryuji was still worried considering how much was at stake. "Ain't there a way to check now?"

"I am worried too but we'll know soon enough." Ren nodded toward Ryuji.

"Right…" Ann sounded down. Morgana got annoyed and looked at everyone.

"Come on, why the gloomy faces? Be happy! We completed this with great success, you know."

"It's like you said, this is the first time for all of us." Kotone kneeled at Morgana.

"Yeah, we just don't know if everything's OK yet…" Ryuji pointed out the uneasiness of the situation.

"I'm pretty sure it'll be fine." Morgana stretched out his back. "Remember how Kamoshida's Shadow said that he's returning to his self in reality? We all know Suguru Kamoshida was a scum. Still… He did seem to regain his conscience somewhat before he disappeared."

"I remembered that." Ren nodded. "So it must have worked."

"There are definitely those who have been saved thanks to what you've done." Morgana at least told them the immediate benefits.

"Yeah…" Ann looked more relaxed again. Ryuji seemed to relax again as well.

"Anyways, I guess we gotta wait." He crossed his arms as he looked to Ren. "It all boils down to what's gonna happen to Kamoshida… or if we're gettin' expelled for real…"

"The best we can do is wait. For now, let's just go home." Everyone just agreed with him and decided they had to wait.

The entire group dispersed, each going their separate ways to go home. At that point, there was nothing more they could do, they had to wait to see if Kamoshida's heart did change

I did it! I finally finished Kamoshida's Castle! It took me so long to accomplished this.

And yes... a lot has happened in my absence, Scramble has been released in Japan and the English dub of Royal is finally out. I am currently playing it, so don't expect me to add Royal content in the Fic anytime soon. Though I am interested in incorporating elements of them later down the line. I won't touch on Scramble until or if it gets localized.

That's all I have to say for now. I hope to see you guys next time... Soon, I hope.