Panting, Karasawa straightened up and wiped the blood off his cheek, hissing softly.
The grotesque spider-like monster collapsed into a heap of blades and broken armor. Maru Denjirou, his hair undone and clothes in tatters, lay crumpled on the floor, groaning and begging for mercy.
"Out of the way, you classless scum," Karasawa muttered, nudging Maru's limp, mud-like form aside with the tip of his shoe as he stepped toward the inner room.
"No, don't—don't take it!" Maru's Shadow clutched Karasawa's ankle, tears streaking his face. "You can take anything else—money, treasure, just don't take that!"
Karasawa crouched, smiling faintly as he patted Maru's cheek with his mud-streaked dagger. "That's the face. That pain you're feeling—that's what you've inflicted on others. Feel it. Let it sink in. Cry louder."
With a kick, he broke free of Maru's grip and walked into the main chamber, ignoring the man's whimpering sobs.
Inside was a finely crafted wooden chest of drawers. Karasawa's expression turned wry.
Let him guess—this was the cabinet. The one from the manga where Maru, even after being fatally stabbed, managed to scratch out the name of his killer?
A poetic little rendezvous, he supposed.
He reached to the top of the cabinet and picked up the treasure radiating a faint golden light.
A folding fan, its surface covered in gold-leaf paper, with a lacquered mother-of-pearl handle and the character "Maru" shining in the center. The reverse side showed a samurai slashing down a demon.
"How fitting," Karasawa muttered, staring at the image with a hard-to-express emotion.
A collector of talismans depicting demons slain by blades… only to become a demon himself. If Karasawa hadn't intervened, Maru really would have been slain by a samurai.
Tucking the fan away, Karasawa pressed its tip to Maru's forehead.
"Remember this pain—the feeling of your most prized possession being ripped from you," he said, watching Maru's tear-streaked, pitiful face with distaste. "Repent for what you've done, Maru-san."
The elderly man stared blankly at the fan, then slowly sank to his knees with a long, shaky exhale.
His Shadow dissolved into light. Karasawa tucked the fan into his waistband, and with a running start, leapt away as the mansion behind him began collapsing in on itself.
The Palace, stripped of its ruler's twisted desires, was crumbling.
"Man, I did take some hits," Karasawa muttered, sprinting ahead of the crashing debris. "Wonder if healing skills work on this kind of damage. Having only one Persona isn't sustainable… I'm still solo. No party in sight…"
He'd need to put in more work. And maybe—maybe invest in some sort of vehicle for this world.
"You look cool kicking ass, but wow do you look pathetic when you're running away," he grumbled at himself, ducking as a rafter came crashing down behind him.
With his first heist wrapped up, Karasawa made it back to Café Poirot before lunchtime.
According to his experiments, healing skills could indeed restore his physical state—but only within the Cognition World. If he didn't top off his HP before exiting, he'd be stuck lugging the injuries around in real life.
And even re-entering the Cognition World later wouldn't heal them.
Luckily, most of today's wounds were on his torso. The only visible one was a thin slash across his cheek—nothing suspicious. He buttoned his shirt all the way up to hide the large bruise on his chest before pushing open the café door.
Immediately, he spotted Amuro Tooru behind the bar, furiously polishing a plate.
Though his expression remained unreadable, the screech of that dishcloth over porcelain radiated menace.
"Amuro-san?" Karasawa prompted quietly. "That plate is already clean."
Amuro blinked back to the present, clicked his tongue, and hung the sparkling dish on the rack.
"Bad mood? Something happen?" Karasawa slid into a bar stool.
If this were a manga, black aura lines would definitely be pouring off Amuro right now.
But instead of answering, Amuro shot a question right back at him. "Where were you this morning?"
Karasawa laughed awkwardly. "Aha, just went for a walk. Why so serious all of a sudden?"
Crap, crap, crap. Did the heist somehow blow his cover already? Please tell him he didn't get exposed after just one job.
"You didn't run into any trouble, did you?" Amuro's eyes gleamed sharp, scanning Karasawa like an X-ray. "Anyone suspicious following you?"
Trouble? Does nearly getting stabbed by Suwa Yuuji count? Or hiring a gang of punks to distribute calling cards?
Karasawa couldn't tell whether Amuro had found a flaw in his cover or was referring to something else, so he stayed quiet.
Then Amuro suddenly grabbed his face, pinching his cheek hard.
"OW—ow ow ow!" The not-yet-healed gash flared in pain as Amuro yanked at it, and Karasawa squirmed free.
Realizing his ward had been hurt right under his nose only made Amuro angrier. "What happened? Did you realize someone was tailing you?"
Karasawa blinked, unsure how much Amuro actually knew, and offered a vague answer. "It's just a scratch… nothing serious…"
Amuro didn't buy it. He yanked open Karasawa's tightly buttoned collar. "Don't lie to me. You weren't buttoned up like this when you left the house this morning."
The massive bruise—spider boss damage, thank you very much—spanned his chest and climbed to his collarbone, already purpling.
Amuro stared. "You were attacked?"
Karasawa adjusted his shirt and finally realized something. "Wait a minute. You weren't on shift when I left. How'd you know how my shirt was buttoned?"
"I got here right after you left," Amuro said smoothly, completely flipping the timeline. "I saw someone suspicious following you. I trailed them to see what they were up to—then I realized you were trying to shake them."
Karasawa blinked.
Wait… someone was following him? And he lost them?
Did that mean Amuro was tailing him, and someone else was tailing him, and when Karasawa ducked into the Cognition World, they both ran into each other?
That would explain a lot.
Whew. So this wasn't about the Phantom Thieves? Thank god.
Karasawa decided to roll with Amuro's version. "Yeah… I've been followed for a couple days now. Maybe even since I arrived in Tokyo. I'm not sure who they are."
He adopted a properly grave expression and flung the blame far away.
Given Karasawa's situation, whether it was the corrupt bigwigs who framed him, or some criminal organization tailing him, or some third party with other interests—it was all plausible.
Whoever the real stalker was… sorry, buddy.
The underage assault case? Yeah, you're taking that one for me.