AN: I honesty just really love this song and Lady Gaga herself. Plus this music video is pretty cool.
Akira, now known as Sylph, follows close behind the Phantom Thieves as they enter the Castle of Lust, Kamoshida's Palace. Ulgh! The name itself sent shivers down her spine. They use an air vent to sneak in, then transverse through the monument. The inside was seriously gaudy and seemed to emulate Kamoshida every corner and decoration. That was seriously sickening.
"Hold it." Joker says and they all stop at the bend of a corner.
"What is it?" Sylph asks.
"Enemy Shadow up ahead. We're gonna ambush it." The leader explains.
"Just follow what we do." Mona says. The girl nods and when Joker gives the "go-to", they all jump the Shadow.
It melts and turns into a pixie, and they began fighting. Sylph first uses her knife, then shoots a few rounds from the revolver pistols Joker gave her before they went in. Though the said gun was just a model, in the Metaverse it becomes a real gun since the enemy perceived it as such. They beat down the shadow and they do what Mona calls a hold up to negotiate with it.
"W-wait! I can join you-! Oh... You already have one of us." The pixie suddenly says, then she looks over to Sylph. "Oh, but she doesn't. So, I'll join you." She declares, confusing her as the Pixie rises into the air.
"Wait, what? But--" Skull says, but the shadow began talking over him.
"I am "Pixie", I am an existence that drifts about in the sea of humanity's souls! I am thou, thou art I... From now on, I will live within your heart! Call me whenever you are in need of me!" She says, then in a flash of blue light turns into a mask and is absorbed into Sylph's.
"Huh? What just happened?" The girl asked confused while touching her mask.
"No way... Sylph has the same power as Joker?" Mona exclaims.
"I never would have believed it if I hadn't seen it." Panther says next, and Sylph turns to the group leader, who looked just as surprised, while Skull was silent.
"You also can do this?" The raven haired girl asks Joker.
"Yeah, didn't know anyone else could too." He replies. "I can't entirely explain it, but basically now you can summon Pixie like your Persona." He then explains.
"Really?" The newest thief asks.
"Yep. If you play your cards right, and talk to the shadows, you can also gain more Personas from them. At least, that's what I learned so far." He adds next.
"Huh, that sounds pretty useful." She agrees.
They then move on, running into a another shadow, which resulted in Sylph using both Irene, then Pixie as her new Persona. Ending with her also gaining Silky as another Shadow turned Persona in her arsenal. The team then heads into a Safe Room, where they explained it to Sylph. As they left, Joker suddenly walks over to a book shelf, getting the others' attention so they walk over to him.
"Huh? You find something?" Skull asks as they look at the shelf contents. "Hmm? "Muscle Glory"... "Macho Muscle"... God, everything here's all about being ripped. Guy's totally obsessed with his muscles..." The boy reads then spits in disgust.
"...Gross." Panther groans.
"Talk about "being in love with yourself"." Sylph adds with disgust.
"Agreed." Joker says and they move on, heading into what looked like a library, sort of, there was only one shelf, and a shadow. The group quickly pounces, with Silky being practically effective.
"Nice work everyone." Joker congratulates. Sylph then notices a particular book on the shelf and goes over to it. Unlike the other books, this one wasn't side-by-side with the other books, it was placed on the shelf before the other books. She picks it up and looks at the title. The Queen Book.
"Hmm? Sylph, is something wrong?" Joker asks and walks over to her.
"It's just, the book here was placed differently than the others." She says and hands the book to him.
"Hmm... Could be useful." He said tucking the book into his coat. "Let's get going." He says and they get moving.
As they transverse the hallways, they find a strange door with golden bars over it. There seemed to be a switch to open it, but they needed a key first. So they had to find it. On their way, they run into a particularly powerful enemy, luckily Irene could hit his weakness. They also found two more rooms with book shelves, and each had an out of place too. The Beefcake Book and the Slave Book. Both titles were weird. They then find an actual library and got looking at the sections.
"Okay, let's see here... "The History of Kamoshida"... "Tracing Kamoshida's Steps"... "Kamoshida's Heroisms"... "Kamoshida's Law"...?" Skull reads. "The hell? All of these are about Kamoshida!" He then exclaims.
"What the-? Hey, is that an empty slot there?" Panthers points out.
"Remember those books we found earlier?" Mona asks.
"Yeah. Maybe this is where they go." Joker says then takes out the Beefcake Book, and places it in the empty slot. Nothing happens. "Hmm? Maybe not." He says and takes the book back out.
"It does seem a little too small." Mona adds.
"Probably because it's for this one." Sylph says as she was walks up with a bigger book in hand. "I found it on the desk over there. Take a look at the title." She says and hands the book over to Joker, who reads the title like she said. The King Book.
"King, huh? Makes sense." He says and inserts the book. It fit a lot better and they also heard a click sound.
"Cool it worked." Skull says.
"Odd..." Sylph then says.
"Hmm? What's up, Sylph?" Panther asks.
"I count only three cases in here, but we have an extra book." The black haired girl replies and it got Joker thinking.
"Beefcake...? Hang on." He says and they head back to the bookshelf with the muscle books. Joker inserts the Beefcake Book, at first it didn't go in, but then he found why. Something was stuck in the empty slot. He pulls it out to find it was a healing tonic. He then puts the book in its place and they go back to the library.
"What's with the titles on this one? They don't have any rhyme or reason." Panther says. "Wait, what? This book has Shiho's name on it." She says next. Taking a closer look, all the books had female names on them. Including...
"... "Ann Takamaki: The Charming Doll". What the eff?" Skull reads and says.
"..."Akira Sakura: The Delicate Ballerina"?" Joker reads one.
"'Delicate'? Pretty sure that Persona of hers can beat anyone's ass." Skull states.
"No kidding. Ballerina I get, and I guess outside the metaverse Sylph doesn't look too tough, but that's not a word I would use to describe you." Panther admits.
"It's mostly likely how he views the female students. Let him think what he wants. It'll all the more satisfying to prove him wrong." Said the girl in question.
"Agreed." Joker says and inserts the Queen Book. Another click was heard. They then walk over to the last shelf.
"Now this one has the boy's names." Skull says.
"..."Ryuji Sakamoto: The Vulgar Ape". There's one for Skull here." Mona reads.
"..."Ren Amamiya: The Troublesome Assaulter". So this is what he thinks of us then?" Joker reads next then says.
"Dammit! Who does that bastard think he is?!" Skull exclaims angry.
"He'll get what's coming to him." Joker assures and inserts the Slave Book. Ass... Another click is heard and part of the girls' shelf moves, revealing a hidden room behind it.
"Whoa, it opened?!" Skull exclaims.
"Nice work with the books. Let's take a look inside." Mona says and they walk into the room.
"Ugh... What the hell is this room? There's tons of pictures of Suzui in here! Wait, they're all pics of her?" Skull notices.
"You're right. It makes it even more creepy." Sylph says while shivering in disgust.
"Panther, are you okay?" Joker asked when he noticed the blonde girl's mortified expression, clearly disturbed by the display of her friend.
"Yeah... Thanks. If anything, I feel even more motivated to do this now." She says.
"I'm sure this will be unpleasant, but we should search the room. There has to be something here worth hiding with such an elaborate trick." Mona says next. That does make sense.
The group begins looking around the room, made uncomfortable by the decor and photos, when Sylph and Joker found something on a bookshelf to the side. Grabbing the attention of their teammates, who quickly rush over to them.
"Is this... a medal?" Panther asks as Joker picks it up.
"That size, and the shape, I think we found our key!" Mona exclaims. "Remember that round indentation we saw back at that barred door? This must be what can open it." He reminds then suggests.
"Huh? What's this?" Sylph asked as she picks up a sheet of paper that the medal was laying on top of. "It looks like a map." She says looking over it.
"Can I see that?" Joker asks and Sylph hands him the paper. "Looks like we found the other half of the map. This must be the rest of the castle." He says.
With the medal key and second half of the map in hand, the Phantom Thieves make their way out of the library and back to the barred door. Using the medal, they manage to lower the bars and get through, the new map coming in handy with traversing through the new area.
Eventually, they came to a large room, that, strangely looked a lot like a church cathedral, with a giant statue of King Kamoshida at the front. The room changed for a moment, turning into the school gymnasium, before going back to normal.
"Wait, was that the gym?" Panther asked.
"I get it... The gym's some kinda holy place for him. He's basically a god there." Skull says.
"As sick as it is, it does make sense. He is the "gym teacher" after all." Sylph adds.
"So the gymnasium is where he is most praised." Joker thinks aloud.
"Ugh! I can't believe he actually thinks like that, especially after what he did to Shiho..." Panther says disgusted.
"And who knows how many others." Sylph adds.
"God, that bastard makes me so freaking sick! Oh! Just you wait, Kamoshida!" Skull swears.
"I see... So you're the ones who tampered with the library. It seems my time waiting here has paid off..." A mysterious voice says and a knight in gold armor manifests before them.
"Just as the ape there said, this place is a holy ground for his great majesty, King Kamoshida. It is preposterous for miscreants such as you to come waltzing in like this!" The shadow exclaims, then transforms into an armored angel figure with red feathered wings. "You shall pay for your foolish defiance... with your lives!" The shadow declares and the battle begins.
The five faced off against the shadow, Heavenly Punisher, which was difficult to say the least. The thing was high level with a powerful charge up attack. Luckily, with some help from both Irene and Arsene, they manage to knock it down and finish it off with an all-out-attack.
"Oh man... Didn't realize those things could be that tough..." Skull panted.
"Yeah... It looks like he's making a concerted effort to stop us now." Mona says. "Joker, I've helped you learn a few different things so far, but there's no time left for lessons. I'll compile a list of things to work for later." He adds and suddenly a bunch of shadow guards appear.
"Oh crap! More of them!" Skull exclaims.
"What do we do? Head back?" Panther asks.
"No, the Treasure is defiantly up ahead, there has to be a path to it somewhere." Mona rebuffs.
"I hate to say it, but we might have to retreat for now. That last battle was tough, and we need to recuperate before we advance further." Sylph states.
"I agree with Sylph we need rest after that." Joker agrees.
"Alright, fine. We fall back and rest. When we regain our strength we'll come back." Mona reluctantly agrees. "Let's go!" With that the group cut through the shadows and make their way out of the castle and back to the real world.