↳ CHAPTER FOURTEEN:

STEAL IT, IF YOU CAN ↲

THURSDAY, APRIL 28| AFTER SCHOOL

"TOMORROW IS FINALLY THE DAY!" Ryuji exclaimed excitedly once all of them have gathered at the hideout after a more than normal day of school and they finally agreed to send the calling card the next morning.

He was sat on a nearby chair the wrong way round, facing all the other members of their little team. Whilst Ren was leaning casually on to a nearby wall and Morgana was sat comfortably on one of the many desks that were being stored on the roof with Ann and Kaori next to him.

"So we send the calling card in the morning... and carry out the plans by the end of the day, right?" Ann asked to clarify what Morgana stated earlier about the effects of the calling card.

The cat nodded in response, "Correct. The effect won't last that long..." He confirmed again, "Are you worried?"

The blonde only smirked at that, "Heh. Waited too long."

"Perfect."

"We're going to pull this off, no matter what!"

"So, who's going to write the card?" Morgana asked looking around the group of teenagers.

"Leave it to me!" Ryuji immediately shouted in responds with child like enthusiasm, to which Ann raised an eyebrow, "Why?" She asked.

Ryuji jumped up from his seat at that, slightly offended by Ann's question, "Why...? Why wouldn't it be me!?" He replied back at her irritated.

Ann rolled her eyes at the boy's childish behaviour, "Because this is really important," she answered, before mentioning towards Kaori with her hand, making everyone look at the brunette, who up until now stayed silent and sipped on some strawberry milk. "Besides we have Kaori here, she was a member of the newspaper club and she has a way better way with words than you."

At the mention of her name Kaori stopped drinking for a second and looked at the group of friends with an embarrassed blush on her cheeks, "Wow, that's really flattering Ann, but I'm really bad with pressure. And I haven't written anything in ages. It won't be any good. Let's just let Ryuji write it."

"Oh come on, It can't be any worse than anything Ryuji will ever-" before Ann could finish, she was quickly cut off by the boy himself.

"Hey! You heard her! Just lemme write it... C'mon, please?" He begged, almost sounding and looking like a sad puppy.

Kaori looked expectingly at Ann next to her, who in turn shrugged and turned to look at Ren, who up until now also stayed silent. He simply nodded and pushed his glasses up his nose, "All right."

Ryuji cheered in triumph, putting his fist up in the air, "Yeah, I got this!"

"Hey, are you sure about this...? If they find out our identities, all this work will be for nothing..." Ann reminded him.

Ryuji nodded with an excited grin on his face, "I know, I know!"

"All right, then! Tomorrow it is! You'd better not slack off on this."

━━━━━✿✶✿━━━━━

FRIDAY, APRIL 29| MORNING

𝐒𝐈𝐑 𝐒𝐔𝐆𝐔𝐑𝐔 𝐊𝐀𝐌𝐎𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐃𝐀, 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐔𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐁𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐃 𝐎𝐅 𝐋𝐔𝐒𝐓.

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, 𝐒𝐎 𝐖𝐄 𝐇𝐎𝐏𝐄 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐖𝐈𝐋𝐋 𝐁𝐄 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐘.

𝐅𝐑𝐎𝐌 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐏𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐎𝐌 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐓

Kaori scrunched her eyebrows in confusion and slight amusement as she finished reading the calling card that Ryuji wrote and had proudly placed in her hand once she arrived at school. It wasn't exactly a masterpiece of writing, making her kinda wish that she did write it, but the logo was kinda cute in her opinion and she had to respect the work her blond friend put into this.

The petite brunette put the card in her jacket pocket and looked up in time to see Ann approach the group of three with a slight unease in her step.

"Not bad, eh? I looked up a bunch of similar stuff online for reference." Ryuji exclaimed proudly as he saw Ann walk up to them.

Ann came to stand next to Kaori, rubbing the back of her neck, "Um... Yeah... I know what you wanted to say, but it sounded like an idiot trying to be an adult," she replied to his question, trying hard not to hurt his feelings.

"Your logo's a little lacking, too." Morgana said, poking his head out of Ren's school bag.

"Th-That ain't true!" Ryuji defended.

Kaori smiled softly at him, placing a hand on his shoulder in a comforting manner, "I appreciate it. I think the logo is cute," she said, trying to make him feel better, to which he only dropped his head and slumped his shoulders in slight disappointment, "Cute, wasn't exactly what I as going for..." He mumbled.

"Did Mr. Kamoshida do something wrong...?" A random student spoke from next to the bulletin board.

"Does this mean the rumors are true!?" Another one said.

"Wait a sec... Is someone gonna take something from Mr. Kamoshida...?" Another student asked worried.

"What's with this weird logo? And who're these Phantom Thieves of Hearts people...?"

At the sound of the many murmurs, Ryuji proudly put his arms behind his head, "It got everyone excited, so it's all good, yeah?"

Before any of them could respond the angry yells of the bastard himself could be heard through out the hallway, as he walked up to the board, making the group of thieves turn to look at the scene.

"Who's responsible for this...!?" Kamoshida angrily yelled at the sea of confused students.

Morgana smirked proudly at the sight, "Look at that. A predictable reaction for someone who knows what we mean by distorted desires."

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

"Did you do this!? Or was it you!?" Kamoshida shouted at a few students, making the crowd disappear in fear of facing his wrath, before noticing the suspicious quartet in the corner.

"Was it you three?" He asked walking closer to them with narrowed eyes, clearing excluding Ann from the group.

"What're you talking about?" Ren responded innocently with a fake smile, to which Kamoshida only scoffed and crossed his arms in front of his chest, seeing through the obvious bluff. "So, you're playing dumb...? Eh, it's not a problem. You'll be expelled soon enough anyway."

And after that Kaori swore that for just a split second she saw the Shadow version of Kamoshida smirking at all of them with unbridled cocky confidence, "Come... Steal it, if you can!"

━━━━━✿✶✿━━━━━

FRIDAY, APRIL 29| EVENING

As the clocktower of Shujin Academy struck midnight in the real world, the group now know as the phantom thieves of heart finally set their plan in the Metaverse into motion.

Even with tightened security measures, the quartet successfully infiltrated the treasure room, using the route they cleared before hand, without any further complications.

Out of breath, with crossed arms and hands on their hips, the four teens looked curiously at the treasure that had now materialised from a big shiny orb into a big shiny crown.

"Whoa, it really has materialised!" Skull said in awe and surprise, while they all took a few steps closer to examine it.

"So this is Kamoshida's treasure," Joker only stated with his arms crossed.

"It's hella huge!"

Panther looked worryingly at it, "How are we suppose to carry that away?" She asked, making Blossom tilt her head to the side. "We take turns?" The small girl suggested with a sheepish smile and a shrug, before being lightly pushed aside by a very much excited Morgana.

Purring, meowing and with stars in his eyes did the cat ran past his companions without a second thought and towards the crown floating in the middle of the room.

The group of four shared a confused and frankly worried look, once they saw the cat's behaviour, but shook it off as Morgana being just... well, Morgana.

The small creature jumped high into the air with his tiny paws outstretched, yelling treasure as loudly as he could, reaching out for the big shiny crown, only to land face first into the pile of coins as the crown was stolen away from him right underneath his nose.

"Go, go! Let's go Ka-mo-shida!"

The quartet of teens took a step back in surprise as they saw the man himself jump and grab the crown and make a run for it to the throne room.

Without a second thought the group quickly followed the bastard, Morgana lacking behind slightly due to his fall, until they saw him, standing with his back turned towards them, a smirk on his face and the crown in his hands.

"This crown is proof of my lordship over this castle. The core of this world." He said, dropping on to the ground next to him, before turning around, "I will allow none to have it!"

The thieves glared at him with pure disgust and annoyance, as the shadow version of Ann ran up to Kamoshida, coming to hug his side lovingly.

"Gosh, sir, you're making such a scary-wary face. But I'm shivering with excitement!" She exclaimed, making the real Ann's face contort in anger and shadow Kamoshida's blush, "Don't be impatient. We can have lots of fun later." He said to her, wrapping his arm around her waist.

Panther bawled her hands into fists, staring at the scene in front of her, "That rat bastard..." she said, "So this is how he sees me, huh?"

Morgana nodded with a hardened look, "Yeah, that's his one sided perception of how he wants you to be."

Panther glared at Kamoshida, "Gross! If you think everything will bend to your will, you're sorely mistaken!" She yelled at him.

"You've got it all wrong!" He replied back at her, making the girl take a step back in confusion.

"All wrong? How so?" She asked.

Shadow Kamoshida smirked and gripped the crown next to him, making it shrink into normal size. "I didn't make anyone yield to me. They did it themselves." A red glow began forming itself around the bastard, making him look sickly pink. "People, who wanted to ride my coattail came to me of their own accord. Adults who want to share in my accomplishment, students who have the drive to become winners... They willingly protect me so that we all may profit from it. But there are too many idiots who don't understand that. Like you naive brats and that girl who tried to kill herself!"

The glow began to grow stronger and the group of thieves all took a step backwards with the exception of Panther.

"Crap. This doesn't look good." Skull mumbled, while Blossom nodded along with terror in her eyes.

The girl with pigtails held her head low, "True, she's a total idiot... Letting you manipulate her, trying to commit suicide..." she said with a hint of frustration in her voice, before rising her head up again continuing to glare at the man in front of them, "And I'm even more of a dumbass for not realizing that...! But no matter what kind of fool someone might be... They don't need your permission to live their lives!"

Anger filled the man's face, "Drop the attitude, you mediocre peasant! There's no wrong in using my gifts for my gain!" He yelled at them, the glow becoming stronger by the second, "I am gifted! A cut above the rest! I am nothing like you worthless cretins!"

With the last words spoken the shadow Kamoshida started to painfully transform into something else. His screams and yells filled the room, his skin turned into a hot pink and his body bended in strange and painful positions all the while.

"That's right. You're not even human anymore." Mona stated while the rest of group only stared, "Possessed by your warped desires-"

"-You're a demon through and through." Joker finished.

The transformation now finished the pink demon Kamoshida laughed like crazy, "Exactly. I'm the demon who will rule over this world!"

━━━━━✿✶✿━━━━━

Fighting a demon version of your abusive gym teacher wasn't exactly how someone would imagine spending their Friday night. But here Kaori was avoiding Volleyballs left and right, her body shaking in fear, chanting, "This is bad." over and over again underneath her breath for only herself to hear.

Another round of volleyballs hit the group, making them loose their balance and fall harshly to the floor, only for them to get back of again.

"This guy is crazy!" Skull exclaimed. Blossom looked over to the rest of the group, as Kamoshida was strengthening himself with his gigantic wine glass, all the while getting praise from the fake Ann.

"This is bad." Morgana stated to Joker, to which he only nodded and both of them took out self made smoke bombs, throwing them to the ground, cutting the demons vision off for a second and giving them a chance to breath and strategise a plan.

The five of them gathered behind a pillar in the throne room, crouching down and voices kept low so Kamoshida wouldn't immediately hear them.

"It's the treasure that we're really after, remember?" Morgana explained to the four teens once more. He then pointed towards the upper floor balcony, which overlooked them, "Look! We can steal it from there."

Panther peaked at the balcony from behind Mona with a worried look, "But we can't just take it like this. He'll just-" before she could even finish her sentence another ball came flying towards them, only missing them by a few inches, proving the point she was trying to make.

"Looks like it's my time to shine."

Everyone turned to look at Skull with surprised looks on their faces as he said that.

"Skull..." Joker only let out, while Mona smiled brightly, his plan beginning to form itself.

"That's right show us your ape-like agility." The cat creature said happily.

The blond quickly glared at it, "Don't call me an ape!"

"Be careful." Joker said, changing the topic back to the task at hand.

Skull looked from Mona back to Joker, a small smile forming itself on his lips.

"Please don't die." Blossom added, her voice trembling and slightly higher than usual. Skull looked over at his childhood friend and nodded at her, reassuring her that he'll be fine and that she will be too.

"I won't hold my breath." Panther spoke up as the last one, making Skull protest in reply, only for her to roll her eye and smile in amusement, "But I'll be counting on you."

"You betcha."

Another ball came flying towards them, this time destroying the pillar the thieves hid behind. A cloud of dust filled the room for a short period of time and once it settled, four figures stood proudly lined up before the demon king with hardened looks on their faces.

"So, you finally decided to show yourselves," the pink demon spoke, before noticing that one of them was missing, "Huh? Where is Sakamoto?"

Mona shrugged, "Who knows? Maybe he ran off with his tail between his legs."

Panther continued, "The four of us are more than a match for the likes of you!" She said confidently, before raising her whip and summoning her persona. "Carmen!"

The remaining three saw what she was doing and quickly followed suit, calling out to their personas, making, with the exception of Mona, their masks disappear in a blue flame, before attacking the bastard demon with their strongest attacks.

Kamoshida shrieked in pain, glaring at the teenagers in front of him with intense hatred in his eyes, "You fiends! How dare you!" He yelled out to them, before taking a lower body half from his shiny gold goblet in front of him and eating it, making him fully recover from the damage he has taken before.

He whipped his tongue around violently in an effort to attack them back. He swung it towards them, aiming it in the direction of where Panther, Blossom and Mona were standing.

Yet while Mona was skilled enough to dodge and avoid getting hit, the two girl didn't get so lucky and were knocked back quite a bit, landing on the cold stone floor.

Blossom was the first to get back onto her feet of the two, picking up her small top hat that had fallen off and then helping the other girl to her feet, all the whilst the boys destroyed the golden trophy and it's contents of Kamoshida with two simple shots of their guns.

Everyone back on their feet again, the four prepared themselves for Kamoshida's next attack that they knew for sure was going to be ruthless and stronger than the previous ones.

The pink naked demon threw a volleyball high into the air, then jumped after it and hit it with all his strength towards his enemies.

The group of thieves tried to withstand and block the attack with all their power, but were ultimately bested and blasted away from its impacted. With only a slither of health remaining and a stubborn desire in his heart Joker tried to stand back up again, only for him to find out that he couldn't, ending with him passing out from exhaustion.

Everyone's eyes widened in shock as they saw it happen, yet they couldn't do anything about it since they weren't in any better condition than him.

Blossom tried to crawl back towards her teammates, but found herself much weaker than before, almost passing out as well. Panther and Mona got back up again with a bit of a struggle, trying to continue fighting.

Kamoshida was pleased with himself and readied another gold metal attack, aiming for Blossom this time, who was objectively the weakest of the bunch.

Her golden eyes widened as she saw the incoming attack. She continued to struggle to get back up to escape the attack. And even though she tried over and over again, her muscles wouldn't move and she fell back down over and over again.

The ball came flying closer, she closed her eyes, already having partly excepted her fate, having made peace with the fact of possibly dying by the hands of a demon version of her teacher, only for her to hear a familiar glass cracking sound, making her eyes reopen again.

"PERSONA!"

As her eyes reopened she could make out a familiar figure having placed themselves in front of her protectively, alls the while an unfamiliar, be it extremely cute, persona blocked the incoming attack for her.

Blossom looked at the person in front of her with wide eyes, as he turned around and checked up on her making sure she was okay. He held out his hand to her, which she took with a small smile on her face, and helped her stand up again.

Standing side by side, Panther and Mona came to stand besides the unlikely duo and the four of them shared a look and nodded at each other. Before throwing another round of attacks at the demon king, weakening him severely and creating a perfect opening for Skull to knock the crown of his head.

With the crown on the floor, Kamoshida weakend and all of the phantom thieves back in the action, they were only a simple all out attack away from winning.

Backed into a corner and beaten by a bunch of teens Kamoshida turned back from the naked demon to a regular naked man, trying to flee the scene by running to his balcony and looking down by it.

"Right now, you're seeing what Shiho saw," Panther spoke up with a cold tone in her voice. Her distaste towards the person in front of her very much apparent, "You're cornered with nowhere to run. Now do you see how she felt?"

Fear filled Shadow Kamoshida's eyes as he pleaded for his life, "I had my hands full trying to live up to their expectations, too!" He defended himself weakly.

Only for Skull to lash out at him, "That still doesn't justify the things you did! Quit making excuses!" He shouted at him with clear anger.

Panther stared at the man, summoning her persona behind her and letting it creat a small fire in it's hand. "Will you jump?" She asked, "Or will you die right here and now?"

Kamoshida fell to his knees, "D-don't, please! Don't do it!" He stammered in fear, making the girl even more angry and let her persona throw the fireball into his direction, only missing him by a hair.

"They all pleaded with you the same way!" She exclaimed desperately, "But you still took everything from them without hesitation. All to satisfy your selfish desires!"

Carmen disappeared from behind her, the Panther like mask finding itself back on Ann' face as she held her head low, "But if I killed you here, we wouldn't have proof of your crimes," she slowly rose her head once again, "You will confess your sins and you will spend a long, long time atoning for them! You will endure just as much pain and suffering as your victims."

Kamoshida nodded slowly, staring at the group of teenagers before him. He slowly bowed down before them, in particularly Ann. "You win. I lose. I'll return to within my real self. And I promise..." before he could finish his sentence he disappeared into a white glow, leaving no trace of him behind.

The group of five started to think that they could finally take a breath, until all of the sudden the castle started shaking and falling apart violently and at a rapid pace.

Skull grabbed Mona and the crown, and Joker followed behind quickly, only Panther stood still at her place, staring at the place the shadow version of Kamoshida once was.

Blossom noticed that and gently took her gloved hand in hers, gently tugging at it to make her notice to leave. The blonde did notice and smiled softly at the brunette, "I know," she only said before the two of them began running after the boys hand in hand.

━━━━━✿✶✿━━━━━

After running for their lives and returning to their boring old selves, the group found themselves at the same alley way they entered from in.

Ann panted heavily, bending over slightly to catch her breath, "That sucked," she complained in between pants.

Ryuji however didn't seem to mind as his first instinct was to pull out his phone. "Look at the Nav!" He said, to which the others also took out their phones and looked at the MetaNav app.

"The destination has been deleted," It said out loud.

Kaori tucked her phone back in her pocket and let out a soft huff, "So, it's true. We can't go there anymore," she said, though it was unclear if it was sadness or happiness in her voice.

"What about the Treasure!" The now cat again Morgana yelled, gaining the attention from all of them.

The teens looked around the alley way, only to find something on the ground not too far from them, but it was not a crown, rather an Olympic gold medal.

Ren picked it up and let the whole group take a look at it.

"...A medal? Wait, where'd that crown go?" Ann asked in confusion.

"What's goin' on...?" Ryuji added in his confusion, while Kaori only stayed silent and looked at the medal with a confused and slightly curious look.

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

Ren put the medal safely in his pocket as Ryuji let out a scoff, "An Olympic medal... So, that perv kept clingin' to his past glory and couldn't let it go..."

Ann shock her head, trying to stay at the topic at hand, "But... This means that Kamoshida's heart might have changed, right?" She asked the black cat.

"Probably," Morgana replied simply, leading to Ryuji getting frustrated again.

"Our expulsion's on the line here!" The blond yelled at the cat, making Kaori next to him put her hand on his shoulder trying to calm him down.

"This is the first successful example for me too," Morgana began, "However, there's no doubt that this has effected Kamoshida's personality quite a lot. The entire Palace disappeared, after all."

Ryuji sighed, not entirely satisfied with the cat's answer, "Ugh, I feel all antsy! Ain't there a way to check now?" He asked, gently pushing Kaori's hand off his shoulder.

"We'll know soon enough," Ren spoke up, making the two girls nod in agreement with him.

Morgana sensed the darkened mood and decided to speak up again as well,
"Come on, why the gloomy faces? Be happy! We completed this with great success, you know," he complimented, to which Ryuji let out another tired sigh.

"We just don't know if everything's OK, yet..." the blond explained on the behalf of everyone, but mostly himself.

"I'm pretty sure it'll be fine. Remember how Kamoshida's Shadow said that he's returning to his self in reality?" Morgana said, "Suguru Kamoshida was a scum. Still... He did seem to regain his conscience somewhat at the end..."

Ren nodded at that, "I'm sure it worked," he said with a small amount of confidence and a smile, reassuring his new friends.

Mona hummed in agreement, "There are definitely those who have been saved thanks to what you've done." He added.

The remaining three nodded, Ryuji the only on to speak up, "Yeah. Anyways, I guess we gotta wait. It all boils down to what's gonna happen to Kamoshida... Or if we're gettin' expelled for real.."

"Let's be patient," Ren told them, earning a tired, but heartfelt nod from each of his friends.

"...Alright. Come on, let's go home."

━━━━━✿✶✿━━━━━