Will Seeds

Whilst the group was exploring the Palace, they came across a room with a gigantic statue of Kamoshida. Benches like the ones you'd find in a church were placed on the sides of a red carpet leading to the statue. Stepping into the room, their vision shifted as they could see a gym.

"Wait, was that... the gym...?" asked Ann.

"I get it... The gym's some kind of holy place for him. He's a god there." said Ryuji.

"Disgusting..." muttered Shiho with a scowl on her face.

"God, that bastard makes me so sick! Just you wait, Kamoshida...!" said the blond boy.

"I see... So you're the intruders. It seems my time waiting here has paid off..." said a voice.

A Shadow in golden armour appeared before the group.

"Just as that ape there said, this place is a holy ground for our great king Kamoshida. It is preposterous for miscreants like yourself to come waltzing in like this"

The Shadow turned into a large winged man, who was wielding a sword.

"You will pay for foolishly defying King Kamoshida... with your lives!" he shouted.

The Shadow lifted its sword and prepared to take a swing at Shin. However, the boy summoned Arsene, who crossed its arms and blocked the hit.

"Fay! Stand back with Shiho! Heal us if needed!" he shouted.

Morgana nodded his head and took a defensive pose in front of the girl.

The Shadow tried to hit Arsene, but he was just too fast. The Persona was slowly but surely covering the Shadow in wounds. Occasionally, Ryuji and Ann would pipe in with their own Personas, to deal some more damage.

"Are we even needed here...?" asked Ryuji.

"I don't think so..." muttered Ann.

"C'mon, let's get going!" said Morgana.

-INTERMISSION-

The group was now standing at the base of the castle tower. It was in a very bad state, since the stairs were broken, so they couldn't go forward.

"Man... Looks like it's in a pretty bad shape..." commented Morgana.

"Uhh, I don't think we're going any further this way..." said Ryuji.

"Should we check somewhere else?" asked Ann.

"Wait, look! Up there!"

The cat-like being pointed at a stone goat head that was holding a medal in its mouth.

"What about it? Are we throwing a rope over that and climbing it?" asked Ryuji.

"Phantom thieves do things a bit more stylishly than that... and I know just what'll do the trick."

Morgana strapped something on Shin's left hand.

"Good. It seems it fits properly." he said.

"So what's this?" asked Shin.

"That's just a little something I've been working on in secret. The grappling hook lets you zip to hard-to-reach locations in a flash. You'll see what I'm talking about when you test it out. Go ahead, give it a try.

The teen aimed at the goat head and flicked out his hand. The bolt shot out of his wrist device and pulled him quickly. In less than a second, he was on a still stable part of the stairs.

"Whoa! What was THAT!? You were all like, sh-shyaaah!" shouted Ryuji.

"I guess you really can do anything if you think you can in here." commented Ann.

-INTERMISSION-

"This majestic tower penetrating the sky represents the admirable King Kamoshida's most sacred place."

'Ew! Even if it's probably not what I thought it was, the way that Shadow said it...'

The gang was now in the tower since Morgana thought that the Treasure might be at the top. They had encountered this Shadow on their way up.

"It is not a place for children like yourselves! Prepare for your punishment!" said the Shadow as he morphed into a slimey being resembling a certain part of the male body.

"Kill it with fire!" shouted Shin.

"Carmen!"

"OK! We can keep moving now!" said Ryuji.

"I'm so fucking done with this place..." muttered the black-haired boy.

"Hang in there, Joker. We're almost at the Treasure."

-INTERMISSION-

"What is with this door? It's pretty freaking huge..." asked Ryuji.

"The Treasure is most likely ahead... We're almost there." said Morgana.

"Isn't there another way we can get in?" asked Shiho.

Shin looked to his left and saw a statue of a girl in who was wearing a white T-shirt and red gym shorts. The statue didn't have a head or arms, and the legs didn't go past the knees. Shin climbed the statue and hoisted himself on the ledge of the window above.

Dropping from the window, he could see that he was on the second floor of the room. On the first floor, Kamoshida was standing in front of a chair, with Shadows aligned to his left and right.

"How have you not captured the intruders yet!?" he asked.

"I apologize, my liege!" said one of the Shadows.

"I bet he'd never imagine we're in the same room as him. Come on, let's keep moving..." whispered Morgana.

The floor they were on was patrolled by only one Shadow, so going unseen into the Treasure room was easy. Kamoshida must've thought that they wouldn't find the room so soon. The second was patrolled by only one Shadow, so it was an easy task to slip into the Treasure room unseen.

The Treasure room was, ironically, a Treasury. The floor was completely covered with gold coins and other valuable items. In the center of the room was a white gaseous thing that was floating over some vases.

"Whoa! What is this place!? Holy shit! That Treasure thing has gotta be in here!" exclaimed Ryuji.

"Hey, what's that?" asked Ann, pointing at the white thing.

"It's just... floating there." said Shiho

"Hehe... That's the Treasure. We finally found it!" said Morgana.

"I doubt we can grab it as it is." said Shin.

"That's correct. We'll need to make it materialize before we can steal it."

"What do you mean...?" asked Ryuji.

"Desires have no physical form by nature. Hence, we'll need to make the real person aware that their desires are in fact a Treasure. Once they're conscious that their desires might get stolen, the Treasure will finally show itself." said Morgana.

"But how do we do that?" asked Ann.

"We warn them. Tell them, "We're going to steal your heart." Once we do that, the Treasure will appear for certain! ...I think!"

"So we're gonna send a calling card!? That's totally what a phantom thief would do!" said Ryuji, excited.

"Our infiltration route is secure. All that's left now is to pump out the calling card in reality, then come back to take the Treasure!" said Morgana.

The group fell silent as they mulled over Morgana's words.

"This is it, huh?" said Ann, breaking the silence.

"Let's do this." the black-haired boy said.

"That's the spirit! Once we send out the calling card, there will be no turning back. Just let me know when you're ready. We'll head back to the hideout and send out that calling card!" said Morgana.

"You wanna head out now?" asked Ryuji.

"I want to explore some more." replied Shin.

In actuality, Shin intended to search for the Will Seeds. Since he had the grappling hook, he could feel assured that he'd get to the Will Seeds.

The first Will Seed he found was the Red Will Seed of Lust, which was in back in the chapel where they fought the winged Shadow. Shin grappled up to the rafters and went through the hallways. He had to grapple over a gap and was met with a door covered in vines. He cut the vines with his knife and opened the door, where he found the Will Seed. It looked like a skull whose insides glowed an ominous red.

The second one was the Blue Will Seed of Lust, which he found in the sewers of the Palace. He had to fight another weirdly shaped slime-like Shadow before he could get the Will Seed.

For the third and last Will Seed in Kamoshida's Palace, the green one, Shin went back to the base of the tower and had to grapple around till he found a small window he could go through.

With all the Will Seeds gathered, the Crystal of Lust was formed. With it, one could heal others. Although Ann and Morgana already can heal others, and Shin with certain Personas can do that too, Ryuji can't, so Shin gave the Crystal of Lust to him. After all, more healing power is never bad.

When they exited the Palace, it was already evening, so the group went on their ways. Back at LeBlanc, no customer was in the cafe. Sojiro was preparing to go home when Shin returned, so he just locked the door after he got in and went on his way.

"If you have nothing else to do, let's clean up this room." suggested Morgana.

And clean he did. The two had discovered a still-alive plant in the corner of the room, which they decided to take care of. Since they were cleaning the room already, they took care of the big bookshelves next to the bed.

Shin found many books on difficult subjects there. He took a few to have a read if he has time on the subway to school.

Besides the books, when he was digging through the stuff put to the side, he also found a CRT TV. Sadly, without a tuner, they couldn't watch anything on it.

The odd part was that even after all this physical effort, not to say exploring the Palace earlier, Shin only felt slightly tired.

'I wonder what changed. The day I arrived here I felt tired even if I only walked around a bit. It can't be the training. Barely a week passed since I started it. So then what...' he wondered.

What he forgot to take into account, however, were the Personas he had. Among other Personas, he had a Jack-o'-Lantern, which had the passive ability to resist sleepiness. As such, Shin would need less sleep than usual. In fact, anything he does would consume less of his stamina.

Doing his training regimen as per usual. it was pretty late into the night when he got in the bed. Morgana already mentioned going to bed earlier, as he should've been dead tired, but Shin just shrugged him off, saying he was fine.

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This chapter's additional info is on... the piece of shit whose Palace the group invaded this chapter...

The fucker is a former professional athlete and Olympic volleyball champion who later became the volleyball coach of Shujin Academy. During his time as a teacher, the bastard's fame was used as a means to give Shujin Academy and its students more publicity, be it for scholarships or college applications. His ego, inflated by the clear favoritism of Principal Kobayakawa caused him to blatantly predate other students. One of the causalities was Ryuji Sakamoto, whom the asshole purposefully goaded into having a violent fit on him by spreading his undesirable family history around the school with the intent of ensuring that his own team stays on the frontlines, allowing him to break Ryuji's leg in an apparent case of "self-defense" resulting in the subsequent disbanding of the team.

He sexually harasses his female athletes while subjecting male athletes to brutal physical abuse which he justified by labeling it as "training." The cognitions in his palace heavily imply that his usual methods of abusing his athletes are physically assaulting them with his fists, spiking volleyballs directly aimed at their faces and denying them water or rest even if they need it. Presumably, due to the abuse, the sounds of students screaming or other weird noises (which are implied to be of students having orgasms when being molested by him) can be often heard near the PE faculty office.

This fucker pisses me off so much. He's only a teacher and he has the balls to do all the shit he did in the original. Like, the other targets are, at the very least, remotely relevant.