I'm not calling it an infiltration. I was doing a robbery. The day of the robbery was the 26th of June. Remember that I was in there around noon. I dunno. I was too stressed to remember tiny details like that.

  The first move was the most important in a fight. Not like I'm talking about fist fights like they're chess matches or whatever. What I mean is that fights can end with a single hit. You can kill someone by hitting them hard enough with a single punch. If it takes that little to kill someone, what do you think it takes to win a fight? Truth is that most of us aren't ready for another person to approach us maliciously. Knocking a person down can end it. Any weapon can destroy a life, making any weapon of mass destruction.

  When I say that the first move is the most important, it's because both people are trying to make it their last. When I was charging up those stairs with my weapon raised, he should've been running away or picking up an improvised weapon or at least trying to push me down. He's a guy built like a twig fighting against a bar of metal. Setting foot on the highest step seemed to wake him from the trance that he'd fallen into. His body lowered down upon realizing that I wasn't there to debate Impressionism with him. His arms reached out like he was going to strangle me. He fell down unceremoniously when my crowbar's blunt end smacked into his foreleg.

  The door was at the end of the hallway, a little indented into the wall. It made sense how Madarame was able to hide it for so many interviews. At the very corner of the house in a very specific fashion was a door with the exact same patterns as the palace. The clouds in the background weren't moving, but the colors were so striking that it looked like an alternate dimension peeking through the rafters. Now, let's be honest here, this is about the biggest tell that the guy has something wrong with him. He's all about playing the starving artist and being okay with his home having the curb appeal of a mountain of trash bags, only to declare proudly to the world that this room was important by having some fancy design on it.

  A gold lock that was about as big as my phone kept it in place. Option A was used. My foot drove into the door. Even with the biking and walking, it barely budged. Either I was extremely weak or the door was extremely high quality.

  I really didn't want to use the tool that I got for the job because I stole it out of the attic. Sojiro probably didn't keep inventory up there but I'd rather not have anything near me used for the dirty work. With no other option, the hammer came out as option B. Two heaves later and the entire section connected with the lock broke free.

  Also apparently it was a sliding door. It was kind of thick, okay? I didn't have trouble kicking down a paper door!

  Inside were a bunch of paintings. Shelves had paintings laying on their sides, where you could pull them out and take a quick glance. Three of the same paintings surrounded another one on the easel that was covered by a rag. I debated which ones were the most important. The covered one probably was either extremely important or just a painting in progress while the ones on the floor were pretty obvious copies. Do artists make copies of their own work? I have no idea. The logic that he was remaking his own art for whatever reason made me decide on taking two of the paintings with a woman on it. They settled underneath my arm as I reslung my backpack.

  "What…?"

  The guy was standing at the doorway with his mouth agape. I didn't put too much mind to it. He was blocking the way. My shoulder pumped straight into the center of his body and sent him stumbling until he collapsed against the wall. Maybe it was an apology, or some perverted sense of justice, but I made sure to get a good look of his face instead of running: cleanly swept blue hair, a thin and long face that would fit for an art critic, and dark eyes that I couldn't immediately tell the color of. I didn't expect to remember him if I saw him on the street or in the museum. I was expecting him to disappear in the long line of people who I screwed over without knowing it.

  I ran down the rest of the house while my free hand grasped for the phone. No cameras were anywhere from what I could see. There could be people outside. The only witness had been incapacitated. My thumb hovered over the button. At the front door of the building, the world started mixing together into an unrecognizable sludge. Little globs stretched out like pieces of gum stuck to the ground as they quickly started melding like taffy.

  It was a last second decision that paid off. Being in front apparently translated to appearing in the lobby. It wasn't hard escaping from there. I made it to the room with the skylight and threw my improvised grappling hook up there. After some thinking since apparently you can't climb up a rope with a single hand, I tied each painting with the bottom of the rope, climbed up, and then hauled them. Because Madarame didn't know his house was broken into yet, I was able to leap over the wall and walk back into the normal city before the guards had even gotten riled up. It was only when I clicked my phone out in the alleyway that the crowd of patrons started shouting.

  There really wasn't a great way to check that the area was clear but I didn't think my extraction plan ever could've been perfect anyways. It was a neighborhood which gave very few places where I could have complete privacy. Crossing my fingers worked anyways as I came out to the same dingy place barely long enough to drink in the normal colors of the real world. Sirens approached. With a few flicks, the colors drained out alongside the temperature.

  Maneuvering up the fire escape was painful as the Metaverse magic didn't want to cooperate when I was carrying the ungainly paintings. Then I had a genius idea: put them down and go up to get my bike. So I did that. If there was somebody watching then a person wearing a pig mask reappeared before fading away again. And then I tied the paintings to my back in another fit of genius so I wouldn't have to worry while biking. The ride back was uninteresting. At the shack? I'm sure that it was chaotic. But I'm not omnipotent.

  It was when I'd made it to my street that I paused, realizing that I specifically went through all this effort to keep myself hidden and left a bunch of little holes that could lead back to me. I'd seen detective shows and knew that those guys are crazy. Logic normally animated me, I think. With each pedal the steady beats of my heart gained rhythm until they were in sync with a pop song, and my thoughts lingering back in the crime scene made my imagination slowly start disentangling with reality. I started freaking out. I won't bore you with repeating all the same doubts that were flaring up tenfold as I swung around on the curb. The core worry focused on my bike: somebody could've seen it when it was up there; somebody next to Leblanc could've noticed that it had been missing for thirty minutes and just suddenly reappeared when my alibi claimed that I didn't leave.

  It's what made me carry my bike upstairs. Chucking it underneath one of the rags that held the junk Sojiro stored gave me peace of mind. If anyone asked then I would tell them that it was stolen and conveniently find it sometime in the future. Putting the paintings underneath another rag and dividing the incriminating evidence around the room in places out of sight mollified me. The tools looked like they were leaning on misshapen lumps and a bunch of the furniture was slightly moved, but I was hiding them for peace of mind more than anything else. I collapsed on my bed. With a deep breath, I sank into my cool mattress.

  Then I got up. Until I saw the door open myself, I wasn't going to trust that all this effort went to waste. Optimistically I imagined getting the whole infiltration route planned out in a single day. I'd break through, sketch out the easiest path forwards, then come back to finish the job. Criminals returned to the scene of the crime though. It made me waffle about, physically jerking my head back and forth as I threw around counterarguments again. The door should be open since I stole the painting. The painting may not be as valuable as I think it is. No matter what, the vandalisation of his house should radically change the cognition. I had no guarantee that it would last past the initial shock. No, seriously, going back immediately was a horrible idea: there'd be a cordon around the house, I'd be a teenager who didn't live in the area coming very near, it put a bunch more eyeballs that could see me as I went into the Metaverse.

  Back and forth, I eventually ended it with, "it's just a day." If he was feeling secure the day after some guy was attacked and the room forcibly broken into then he'd have a security of mind that I should stay well away from anyways, and I'd made a profit thanks to the treasure chests and statues anyhow. Plus it was better that I was seen leaving my room to fully solidify my alibi. Remember that I didn't have to worry about cars when traveling through the Metaverse! It was a stretch imagining that I could've woken up and committed the deed practically across town within thirty minutes. Sojiro seemed to not care that I was studying on the counter. He just continued watching the news.

  The next day I biked to Mementos early with the paintings hoisted underneath my arm. Let's say that I was paranoid about the PSIA barging through my doors to strip search me: it didn't feel good having incriminating evidence literally hidden by a piece of cloth away from where I slept. All night I just stared at the floor. Inside was a painting of a woman which, after a quick series of searches on my phone, was practically priceless. That stare she gave me felt incriminating as I got dressed, no matter if she was blinded. No more! No more, I said. Biking over to Mementos' mouth with the painting felt exhilarating. I assume that it was the same vibe that you got from exhibitionism. Shades of cars passed that could've seen incriminating evidence if I weren't invisible to them. The paintings leaned next to the Velvet Room's door. The twin at duty gave me a strange stare as I burned the clothes that I used with a few quick zaps from Pixie.

  This time I had no reason to risk looking incriminating. After school, I took the subway over to Madarame's place. Without even getting near, I scoped out the surrounding area until I found another alleyway that was a little further while remaining out of sight. Tapping the button made the world start shifting.

  First of all, I got an answer to an implicit question about the Metaverse's limits. The car that I heard after 'entering' the palace shocked me so badly that I tripped backwards and fell flat on my back. Despite definitely entering the palace, it didn't work the same as Mementos. Let me make this a little more clear: the palaces that I'd entered so far surely had people in the analogous positions that I was exploring, yet were empty. Unless the shadows were meant to represent people, nobody transferred into the palace. That apparently didn't apply outside the immediate palace grounds, learned when there was the sounds of a dog panting as I hid behind a trashcan. All sorts of questions came with the strange in between place, in the Metaverse yet in the real world. Could I still shoot them with a fake bullet? Could I possibly bring my costume outside of the palace's border? Would they see me disappear when I stepped foot into the actual palace grounds? The actual applications sounded niche as I repeated them in my head, though I admitted that I was literally thinking of this while my back and butt were getting grimy and my heart was thumping against a concrete wall.

  Furthermore, I got a pretty good view of the shack from where I was. Genuine police cars surrounded the front of the palace. Shadowy figures that looked much more human-like than the actual shadows were milling around. The lights were still on, making an irritating flash of red and blue wash over the area. Smoke came from around the museum's position which cloaked the area from the permanent moon. Normal cops were patrolling the streets.

  One of the cops got inside of their cars and drove off. I blinked so much that it could've been mistaken for a seizure. Cognition was a bit of a fickle concept for me to wrestle with. I followed the car until it turned out of my sight. I stared at where it disappeared to before appraising the cars again. Now that I focused, all the cars were perfectly parked. None of the psychedelic Metaverse shenanigans seemed to have any influence on the cops as it did on everything else. Radio chatter filtered up where I was. With the crowd no longer there too, it was an empty museum full of dead air and faux-justice. None of the cops were going onto the palace grounds and when they did, I somehow lost track of them.

  What this really brought to question was the singular place that seemed to break the rules in every way, the designation fields not requiring to be fully filled out, the name being given instead of found, having influence over all of Tokyo apparently. Mementos had changed in my head. Though I wasn't deliberating about it that moment, its privileged position started to become a central question. At the moment I was simply focused on if the cops would see me when I'd trespassed onto palace grounds.

  I was too scared of leaving my cover despite not having the Phantom Thief costume on. Simple problems had simple solutions: I left the palace, entered Mementos, climbed up to a nearby rooftop, left Mementos, then entered the palace. I still wasn't in my costume. Infiltrating it was still pretty easy. I was paranoid since I was unsure at what point I'd become invisible to the cops and went around instead. It was a little harder, making me have to make a few attempts at jumping off things like fire hydrants next to low parts of the wall, but eventually I had scaled over into the garden. It didn't take long before I dropped into the same room as usual.

  As I expected, the place's security had completely revamped. Stealing the vases were kiddy crimes. Breaking into the real place had made guards posted in every single room. Regular patrols with multiple shadows circled around. It reminded me of forced stealth sections, except this time I would actually die if I was caught, unlike Solid Snake who never really has to stealth and could obviously kick the entire room's collective asses. I was not a badass. I mean, I was a little bit of a badass, but not Solid Snake levels of badass. Remember the fight against the Reaper? That's what I imagined getting caught would be like and so I made doubly sure that every inch of progress wasn't wasted.

  It gave me plenty of opportunities to flex my new super sense however. Reaching out did the same process where the food coloring packet dissolved and made the whole cup colored. During the really boring moments, I experimented trying to reform the dye into a single part and got pretty good at that: it just took focus to realize that the coloring itself still had all the same properties as the packet.

  Now, here's the part where it's going to get weird. First of all, let's agree that these things that I'm sensing are 'souls'. Maybe they aren't. But I'm sensing something and I'm going to say that it's a soul for simplicity's sake. Now I made the comparison earlier that these things were dye packets because they dissolved to become a constant thing in the background after I analyzed them. A better simile for when I'm focusing on them is like I'm looking at a globe. These globes are gigantic, around the size of the Earth, with about the same amount of features inscribed onto it. Seeing so many souls let me slowly determine the parts which were common and those which made each one unique; let's imagine this part as if the entirety of the Americas were common to every soul while the rest were unique. More and more naturalistic study saw that many globes were mostly copy and pasted, with the equivalent of a continent having slightly different shorelines.

  From there I made the assumption that the similarities were between the 'types' of shadows. I haven't lingered on it much but there's not that much variety of shadows. When I was fighting in Mementos and the castle, the same eight or so shadows would be repeated. If I memorized the globe of a Pixie, then I'd be able to recognize a Pixie without directly seeing them. It sounds nice! But the big problem here is that there's no guide. Sitting there let me somewhat absorb the different souls but, look, do you make it a habit of memorizing the entire world? No, you don't. You don't know where the mountains are over there in Arabia and you don't know what the mountains in north Africa are called. I don't know it either! Now try relearning all of this with all the different shadows! I could also go out on a limb and guess that the specific contours said something about the shadow's abilities but I really had no proof about that either. Testing that theory would most likely be very, very scary. Naturalistic study only went so far and I wasn't about to have a palace's worth of security try jumping on me.

  It sounds pretty tedious, but keep in mind this was when I would be waiting for ten minutes anyways. It took me about two hours to make it to the doors. I crouched behind the closest bush as I stared at the courtyard.

  To put it simply, my plan had worked. The doors had a hole blown clear through the center with smoke floating into the air. It was a little more violent than I was expecting but it worked enough that I allowed a single pump of my fist and a drink when I was going back home. The problem was that there were multiple red shadows standing in front of it. I don't know if you know, but 'red' means 'danger' and 'danger' means I was not getting near it. Scanning those guards ahead agreed with my theory because their globes were way bigger than the previous shadows'.

  Another brief description seems necessary. Past where I hid was a straight shot towards the innards of the palace. Bushes surrounded the entire area, but the direct entrance which I needed to go through was bare. The shadows would alternate between which door they were staring at in pairs, making sure two sets of eyes were staring at the door and surrounding area at all times. With how small the actual hole was, it felt impossible to sneak through painlessly.

  There was already a solution in the fireworks that I used at Kamoshida's palace. The problem came with a deep suspicion that was starting to grow inside of me for quite some time before that. Cognition didn't mean that the place wasn't entirely realistic. I guess the best way to put it is that cognition had to be based on reality; if you're not following, then this means that the whole of the Metaverse may be operating on cartoon logic, but even cartoon logic had some sort of logic. I had a suspicion that using an obvious method of distraction after wreaking havoc on the palace and stealing vases would most likely have one of them realize it was a dupe. I had no way to prove this theory as it was more of a creeping suspicion. There's three possibilities: I'm worried over nothing and they'd get distracted by the fireworks anyways, testing it would make them wise up and be more prepared for the second attempt, and they'd immediately know that it was a trick.

  I think that it was how I saw the palace rather than the shadows proving themselves to be smarter. More legitimate traps and the shadows reacting to things I've done and cops outside were freaking me out. I was so stumped that I left the Metaverse. Checking around a corner once I left confirmed that the cop cars were real. Cognition's borders provided ample things to think about as I was drifting off to sleep.

  As I've said earlier, I've learned to keep my nose clean at school, which doesn't imply that I'm an angel but that I keep myself from sticking into stinking piles of drama that build up when you stuff a bunch of partially willing teenagers—and does this distinction of age even matter considering how much drama happens in workplaces too?—into a building. Filtering through gossip was one of such methods. That doesn't mean I was completely immune. Multiple times I've mentioned passing conversations. When it was about me, I tried ignoring it. When it wasn't, I listened out of boredom.

  Yes, even I was getting bored from being alone for so long. As embarrassing as it sounds, you can't dismiss that my obsession with the Metaverse was partially to give me something to do.

  "Have you heard?" one enterprising girl asked. I knew she was a go-getter from the gigantic round glasses that she wore. Only nerds who forged ahead with their nerdy identity were willing to wear such embarrassing things.

  "Heard what?" the ditz asked. I knew she was a ditz because she wore the blazer freely and had one button too little loosely hanging. 'Ditz' was a nice way to refer to, well, those types of girls. Y'know that gyarus aren't real, right? These are the non-exaggerated ones.

  Anyways! The nerdy girl said, "the Shadow of Shibuya! I can't believe that you haven't heard about it!"

  "Shadow of Shibuya?" The ditz tilted her head slightly, letting her long, black hair pour onto her desk. "I've never heard of it. Is it a movie? Are we going out to watch it?"

  "Not at all! People everywhere are talking about it. Look!"

  She gave the ditz her phone, which let the girl scroll for a little bit. Whatever she saw must've been convincing, perhaps 100,000 likes or so, because she actually looked impressed. "What is this? Some kind of ghost story?"

  "Maybe." The nerdy girl took her phone and turned it towards her friend. I couldn't see the images exactly since I was eavesdropping. It's not polite to stare directly at people you're listening in on. "I've been following it ever since it's popped up. I saw the original post back on Sunday and a bunch of people have come out with their own stories."

  The ditzy girl wasn't completely hopeless, as doubt tinged her tone. "So what's it all about? I'm all for a good ghost story, but I didn't take you as the type who believed that kind of stuff."

  "On Sunday in the middle of the street, people everywhere swore they saw a person riding alongside their cars on a motorcycle. The police got a bunch of calls about it to the point where they sent out a Tweet about it. Look."

  Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

  I double-checked for myself. Sure enough, there was a warning about some kind of "mysterious troublemaker" who was harassing drivers along with a promise that he'd be soon answering for his crimes.

  "Creepy. So you're saying that this is real?" the ditz asked.

  "I dunno. But it's gone on to yesterday and even today."

  The ditz now sounded completely in disbelief. "Aren't those like the UFO things? I watched a documentary on them. There's, like, one real one and then a bunch of copycats."

  "Who's copying a shadow motorcyclist?" the nerd said slowly as if her friend was dumb.

  "Not like that!" The ditz took some time, probably dredging up the memory of a documentary she half-watched half-browsed years ago. "It's like people now think about the thing and it becomes more common. Like, there's a UFO that appears over a city and then there's a bunch of people thinking they saw it 'cause they're, like, copycats."

  The conversation started becoming a back and forth as the nerd was trying to extract the exact meaning from the ditz. I'd lost interest and started brooding. The Metaverse wasn't completely disconnected from reality. The actual police were in front of the palace, though probably couldn't see it themselves. People saw some part of me when I was brazenly walking alongside them in Mementos. A question that I couldn't even begin to answer rang through my head like an alarm.

  What the hell was the Metaverse?

  After school I went to Leblanc. An infiltration plan had started to be made. Just like last time, the closer that I got to my goal, the more infatuated I became. What was a normal school day started becoming planned, with the scarce information that could be completely overturned the next day, to the point where it was leaking into my habits. I arrived late because I was so absentminded that I missed my stop.

  Sojiro was at his normal place. There was a woman at the counter. The television was playing the news, also normal—depressingly normal. Politics are about old guys jerking each other off and I'm under no obligation to have somebody comment on how a specific person whose name is crushed underneath its boringness is specifically being jerked off. Celebrities, politicians, artists, none of it matters to me. The only names that are important are my seiyuus.

  "...as you can see, there's a genuine fear in the community that these gangs are pressuring their children into joining. Police have responded, but there's fear that this isn't enough."

  It cut to a woman standing by the famous Shibuya Scramble Square with a facemask on, talking animatedly.

  "How can the police deal with this? If they're getting the children in the schools, then it should be up to the schools to get them before they even get near my kid." It flashed much further into the conversation. I never trust them when they do that. Makes me feel like important bits of what she says is getting censored. "These are gangs. If the police could effectively deal with them then we wouldn't have to be worried about our children at all. My son is at the exact age that they warned about. I don't want to worry about him going to school and coming out as a criminal."

  The anchor came back on the screen, looking back at me with that faux-concerned look that was probably set as his default expression. I'd imagine the curl of his eyebrows didn't come off even when sleeping. "This just shows the depravity of these men who use even innocent parts of our childhoods for their own gain."

  "But it isn't real!"

  Both of us jumped as the woman popped up from the counter with her hands raised towards the screen. Her bobbed hair was sticking this way and that, lipstick hastily put on. Red marked slightly onto her cheek. She had a youngish fashion that made me peg her as a real nutcase, another one. Guess it's more of a question of the type who'd visit a back alley coffee shop.

  "It's not real!" she continued. "None of this is real! It's just a rumor that was started without any basis in reality! I literally asked around to be sure and there was no exposé written by any journalist! There's been no incidents where a kid has been introduced into a gang by—ooooh. Should not have done that."

  She slowly sank back down onto the counter, wrapping her arms around her head. Sojiro gently nudged the coffee closer.

  "Don't yell so loud, miss. For your sake and mine."

  I decided that resting that day would be best and used it to wander around. I couldn't stop thinking about the palace. Here's the plan that I settled on: the whole place would have to get sketched out one way or another within this singular session. I wasn't getting past there cleanly. Waiting for too long risked Madarame feeling secure again. Speed was the game. No more break days. Preferably within the next two days, I'd have the treasure in my hands and the palace forgotten. After Okumura, I was done. With my new bike I'd never have to delve into palaces after this one. Flower picking would become my official job title.

  Having this huge endeavor ahead of me made me decide once again spending the rest of my accumulated Metaverse savings. My wallet was lighter as I walked out of a specialty hardware store, so legit it had a dedicated gigantic shelf with a million types of things you could screw into the wall, with a flashlight that looked to be the type Arctic explorers took with them. It had a handle that arced above the blocky base. That night I stood outside Leblanc with it pointed at the wall. The sun briefly made a cameo and left my eyes stinging.

  This wasn't made particularly for illuminating anything. I was hoping that the cognition of the public was dumb enough to think that it could blind people. With how little people actually saw one of these things in action—including me, who'd only seen it from an awesome video online—then it stood to reason that the public as a whole thought it was deadly. Otherwise I left myself with only 5,000 yen after this long buying spree and my snack addiction without the ability to sustain said snack addiction.

  The day of the infiltration was surprisingly calm. I ate breakfast and left without saying a word. I went to school and actually did the work. When I was walking into the palace, I felt more rested than the other times I'd done major operations. Police and questionable borders between worlds didn't matter. I made it back to my place within two hours.

  I felt the adrenaline start coursing through my body when I made it back to the same bush that I was staking out in originally. The same group of shadows were standing in the courtyard waiting for me. When the fireworks were going off in the hall, I ducked deeper into the leaves. Branches twirled around my arms as the shadows ahead started shouting.

  "You two go on ahead! We'll stay here!"

  I cursed to myself, trying not to make a move as the giants lumbered by. Their steps were loud enough that it sounded like an elephant stampede. Not a great atmosphere to keep my cool, though they ran by irrespective of my growing panic.

  It wasn't the end of the world. I started crawling forwards. I recognized that these weren't the same shmucks in the previous palace that called the entire barracks out when I made my distractions. Most likely they'd instantly recognize that it was bait and raise the alarm. I yanked past each decorative bush that tried snaking underneath my sleeve until I was right next to the door. Despite what the last guards had said, they were mostly focused on their allies. With a simple shuffle, I slipped around the corner.

  The alarm would most likely be raised, but I'd made it.

  Turns out the fireworks were effective.

  And there was a shadow who was standing right there.

  "Hey! You're not supposed to be here!"

  My sack flicked open with a deftness that I couldn't pull off with hours of practice in the real world. The flashlight spilled into my waiting hand, slightly weighing down with its bulk. Some pushback was built into the switch that fought against my thumb. Without any sound it turned on, bringing the sun to a permanent night.

  The effect was outrageous. The gold that was built into everything started glimmering like I had entered a dragon's hoard. Straight ahead became a white void. Straight ahead became a white pillar that sliced through the palace. The Metaverse somehow exaggerated the effect to the point where it was too bright for the human eye to comprehend. Pointing that at myself would probably require the same amount of self-hatred to do so with a gun. The shadow immediately started thrashing around, screaming. The screams sounded too real for me to enjoy. The flashlight was turned off as I started to run because otherwise it was too bright for me to see. Shouts came from behind.

  The hallways had traded out the previous tacky yet still somewhat tasteful gold and blue with a straight up tacky pure gold. Golden lights, counters, carpets, artwork, statues, and everything that you could imagine was made to look as if I had stepped into the richest building in the world. About everything you needed to know about Madarame was there. Statues of himself made out of gold were set in multiple different places. Some style was still inbuilt to the place. Tiles were still set in different colors and patterns in a slightly different shade of gold were inscribed into the walls so I wasn't walking through a sea of solid colors. I guess the guy really was an artist at heart despite being a piece of work.

  The first area immediately after the entrance was a gigantic lobby. More paintings were hung on the walls in a huge open area. Poles that surely had invisible lasers set up divided up the room. The only problem was that I realized that it was an art room through and through, with obvious shutters built on the top of the walkways.

  "Close the shutters! Close the shutters!"

  The shadow was screaming behind me as he ran. Since the gates weren't closing, I imagined that nobody heard him initially. Banking on that was bad however which made me recklessly run straight into the room. The few guards who were milling around started raising their batons in anticipation. Not nearly as many as there were patrolling the outer museum. All of them were glowing red.

  Walls of lasers were surely slicing the room into little pieces. The little trick that I never used turned on. Thief's Vision explained that Madarame had a sense of humor: every pole had three entrances and exits. Most only had two lasers turned on. This made an obstacle course through the room as some were hurdles, some were limbo poles, and I wasn't about to do a Mission Impossible flip through the ones that had the center laser turned off.

  Running gave me precious little time to plan. Everything was by reaction. The first I bent my back down between my legs to slide. The slide went way too far. My knees barely brushing against the lasers, I kicked against the ground. With the help of my back, I transitioned into doing a handstand like a dancer, and leapt straight over the two laser wall. The momentum made me do a frontflip, giving me a great view of the shadows that were casually running straight through the lasers. Landing made me come face to face with the only shadow who was guarding the paintings in front of me. Whatever snarky comment was about to come out of his mouth stalled when I leapt onto his shoulder and used him as a springboard over the only set of lasers that made a full wall.

  My feet skidded. Hanging crooked were the largest paintings I'd ever seen, the size of a semi-truck's load. All the lasers around these were turned on. The small horde of shadows that I attracted were surrounding me. The gates were coming down all around the room. From where I stood, I could see yet another mezzanine (I had to look up this word on Google because so many palaces had "raised platforms that were part of another floor but also part of that room") that led towards a new set of doors. These ones didn't have shutters. All well and good, except that I was already cornered. My knife futilely was held in front of me as I started backing up from the advancing line of shadows. I only knew something was wrong when my vision started wiggling.

  Remember earlier when I related being in the Metaverse to being underwater? Take away that analogy. This was actually like being underwater. Pressure pushed in around me. Each inch of my skin was reminded that it existed. It was cool, which let each individual current brush past me in detail. A filter washed over my eyes, tan. Each direction had a thick murkiness preventing me from seeing far much further than my hands. Black brush lines carved past my feet. Ahead was a little gate of bamboo. With it being the only place that I could clearly see, I walked further.

  Nothing became clear no matter how far I walked. Green stalks of bamboo, strangely blurry where they stood out from the surroundings, occasionally passed with their tiny leaves waving goodbye as they faded behind me. Simple lines suggesting movement below guided where I was going. I waved my hand in front of my face just as a reminder I wasn't dreaming. The whole place started wobbling like jello. Pushing past that wobbling space made my head throb.

  Eventually there was a very distinct golden floor that was to my right. I stepped onto it.

  Instead of coming out of the pool, I felt like I'd just been thrown into one of those bathtubs with weird things. Peanut butter, soju, jello, the kinds you do to get a lot of likes. I wasn't sure what kind of bathtub I jumped into for clicks, but I knew that coming out made me feel like I needed a shower. The painting behind me was still wobbling like the ones in Super Mario 64 which gave enough context for me to back up and look over them. The paintings hanging were a series of those old style ones with bamboo and mountains, super simple designs—you know the ones. It explained the tan color, though looking from outside made it seem to be more of a beige.

  "The thief has escaped! He's heading into the backrooms!" The guards below were scrambling for the locked gates, banging against them. "Don't let him escape!"

  I had traveled through multiple paintings and was now standing on the ledge that I needed to be on. Thinking about how close I was to getting beaten to death wasn't productive. Forging ahead was both more productive and made me feel better.

  Past that initial hurdle? Most of the place was fine. They must've not had radios because the next few rooms were seldom patrolled. Singular guards were expected to hold down entire areas that were bigger than the shack the place was based on. I was given the same reign as I once did, slowly taking down the tall room with more strange paintings and back areas that had even more paintings of victims just placed on carts to collect dust. I imagined that those people who were hung up had achieved enough infamy to give him a bunch of money while those sitting in the back were failures. Each set of ten paintings loaded up carelessly on a dolly made me sick.

  Nothing much other than slow stealth happened until I opened a certain door. I expected for there to be maybe another gallery before finding the treasure room. At the end was a bright golden arch, leading into a place that looked to be immersed in heaven. An actual arch was right next to a floating staircase twisting in the air.

  It was like that painting with the stairs that were weird and going in a bunch of directions. You know the one. In a void of pure gold were a series of staircases which led into arches. Random blocks floated around which were supposed to suggest that the place was still a building even while shoji screens streaked across like rafters holding the unreality up. It was bright enough that I had to squint past my mask. Portraits of students were hanging, though their familiarity was driving me crazy. I'm pretty sure that the place was having repeats.

  It was gorgeous really. I had to stand there for a while to appreciate the view. The staircase in front of me led to a dead end. Shoji screens spiraled downwards infinitely towards a horizon point that I couldn't see. Shimmering shards slowly flitted from below. I could only see them against the darker blocks, though they must've been partially responsible for how eye-searing the place was. Above was a gigantic block with equidistant rectangles carved out from the monolith. That also rose to infinity with smaller pieces of debris circling around it like the sun. What should've casted a shadow over me was bright all around, even in the corners of the indents. No shadows existed, neither the normal nor dangerous ones. Below were multiple entrances that the staircases led into, each emitting a bright blue that immediately caught my eye as being the most distinct (other than the paintings) from the near-burned through world. Gold bars, gold facades, gold bricks, gold bones, a color that I could appreciate and sink into. If I were to redesign my room, then it'd be gold; that's what I learned standing amongst the rich place.

  Traversing was mostly done through staircases. A few had tiny platforms and rarer still were plain cutoff points that forced me to lift onto a ledge. Eventually I reached a wall that obviously had wallpaper hovering over an opening. Tearing it off revealed one of the blue entrances. Skeptical, I slightly stuck my hand in. It hurt my eyes looking directly into it. I slowly reached my foot down it and stepped down.

  I missed the step. I started rolling. Back out of the gold void I was spat out, disorientated from the rapid changes in colors like I jumped out of a hot tub into a cold shower. The stairs gave me individual jabs as I seemed to get caught on every single corner. At the very last second I reached out to stop myself. No way was I rolling off and finding out if the void had a bottom.

  The worst injury I'd gotten so far was because I got blinded and missed the step. Reveling in the shame felt a little good.

  Eventually getting up, I rubbed my ribs as I took in the area. I stood on a platform that had a rising staircase into an entrance and a staircase down into another entrance. On the front of both staircases was the painting that I'd stolen. Apparently I was on the mark about the painting being important because similar ones were on easels next to their respective staircases. One had a blue shirt while the other painting had a red one.

  I looked from one to the other. Obviously this was a puzzle. Choosing the entrance with the correct painting would take me further. Don't take that to mean that I actually knew the artwork. I've seen it three times: when I initially stole it, another time to see what I stole, and once more to look at its price online. My memory was pretty good so I confidently walked up the staircase with the blue shirt.

  I was spat out on the other staircase. Since the stairs went up, I only stubbed my toe upon leaving the blue veil. That meant I was wrong. Apparently the painting had a red shirt. I walked back down into the blue void.

  Once again I fell down half the staircase. Upon picking myself up, I growled and walked down to the platform to double check. The paintings were the exact same. They could've swapped around when I took the wrong one and swapped back when I made the same mistake. That makes sense! So I took the staircase with the red shirt again. Once bitten, twice shy. I stuck my foot down to fish around for the next step. There was nothing there. Guesstamating where the next step was, I slowly lowered down.

  It must've been Madarame's deep hatred of me down to the soul that I once again was tripping down the staircase.

  The puzzle was puzzling. There was another staircase opposite to the two, but going through that just brought me back to the junction. The next attempts were trying to reset the puzzle through different methods. Standing on the platform for some time before going into the blue shirt door got me once again stuck in the loop. Couches were there too. Surprisingly comfy. I sat around hoping that the puzzle reset before entering the red shirt door. Nada. Some more platforms were available within jumping distance. I leapt over the tiny gaps with sweaty palms. Eventually I started checking underneath the furniture as if the solution would be hidden like forgotten change.

  "Hey!"

  I glanced up where I started. A contingent of guards were staring over the edge of the platform where the entrance was.

  "Shit."

  There wasn't too much space between me and them. They moved as a unit, running in a single file line down the staircases. I couldn't find humor, coming at me one step at a time with their stubby legs, while I was still stressing over a puzzle. The two paintings were in front of me. As a last ditch effort, I wanted to grab the red shirt one and throw it over the edge. My fingers barely had a chance to brush the surface before it transformed into a glowing orb and flew over to the blue entrance behind me. It slowly brightened until I was staring into a brilliant gold, some different shade than the surrounding gold.

  I didn't have time to be embarrassed with the shadows closing in. I ran headfirst into the gold void not even thinking if there was a staircase on the other side.

  Instead I had to skid as I immediately ran out to the edge of my platform. I had been transported to a series of floating blocks that gave me the perfect view of the guards emerging from their own entrance. Despite taking the steps professionally, they were still bulky figures that had to mind falling over the edge. I had enough time to leap between the gaps between the paintings to get a single glance at each. Now four were in the game, making guessing just a little bit harder. Choosing the wrong one was probably bad. However, and don't make fun of me, I had no idea which one was real. I wasn't dumb enough to not see the differences. The problem was that the differences made each painting look legitimate enough that I couldn't tell.

  The guards had made it to one of the ledges that you needed to jump over. The first one sheathed his baton and leapt up to grab on. His buddies weren't helping, just urging him to move faster. Without any way to tell, I just pointed to a random painting. It turned into a glowing orb and impacted the next entrance.

  Don't need luck, I urged myself. Because it's true. If I thought about how much luck was involved in my continued survival then I'd probably have a nervous breakdown. I ran into the next area confidently. My hands beat against my thighs as I looked over the selection of paintings. Technically it was easier than the last batch. Two had blue shirts which disqualified them from the running. So it was a 50/50 between the two that had red.

  Again I had no idea about which was the real one. Somewhat vainly, I activated my special thief's look, or whatever Igor called it. The wall behind the paintings lit up.

  It was because of the nerves that I didn't realize there was another fake wall. I didn't even think about taking the treasure that was inside since the bane of my existence was there: another painting. My head was turning into knots. It must've been especially bad because I could hear voices start chipping in.

  "May I suggest that we choose the painting that was hidden? It would be obvious to rig the game against us."

  "Forget about that! Choose the one to the left! The painting was so badly hidden that it must be a red herring!"

  "I remember! The one to the right! Right!"

  "Shut up!" I yelled. "If you're not even gonna agree, then shut up!"

  My finger drifted between all three of the red shirt paintings. Eventually I settled on the one to the right for no reason other than instinct.

  "That one!"

  An explosion of black clouds left behind a guard. The surprise didn't go both ways. Immediately upon appearing, its baton was headed for my gut. I barely had time to raise up my arms before getting knocked backwards. My heel felt as though gravity had been multiplied a thousand fold. Tingles ran up the ridge straight through my spine as the nothing below registered. The strange feeling overtook the pain in my arms from my bones nearly having bent in half.

  Its follow-up swing at my jaw was ducked under. Once again my purchase was proving to be amazing as the flashlight swung free. I dramatically threw my sack to the side as the flashlight was aimed at his stupid face. Bang! Each detail was put under the power of technology, those red eyes somehow being the only thing I could see past the wall of white, a color that had overtaken the grandiosity of the void. Sympathetic tingles were working up my arms as I prepared my attack. I could hear the sad whinnies in my head. None of our opinions mattered. It was a creature of darkness and hate that probably didn't even have real emotions.

  My mask flew off in a shower of flames as Bicorn formed next to me. It was facing away from the writhing shadow. With an ease that'd probably disturb some people, its hooves raised up and kicked out with the same speed that you'd slap someone. I ran to the edge as the shadow fell off, watching as it splattered into a black smudge on a block far below.

  The first shadow emerged from the doorway that I came through. Bicorn faded away as I pointed to the painting that had been originally hidden. It turned into another orb of light and flew out of sight. The shadow let out a frustrated shout as I ran ahead.

  There was a doorway down the staircase from where I stood, not where the orb had gone into. It was the only way out, so I just went down it. This time I actually caught myself before falling down the stairs, back at the beginning junction that had given me so much grief. The doorway which was standing against the staircases was glowing gold, ready for transportation. The shadows who were still climbing the ledge had their backs to me, slowly funneling into the same doorway. I could see as the shadow that was chasing after me yelled something, probably to the effect of, "he's back there!" which was transferred between the long line of shadows, choked up on the teleportation points as the messenger would bump into the teleporter and they'd start arguing, and basically I felt a little stupid thinking that these shadows would be smarter than the knights.

  Feeling a little daring, I backed up at the very edge of the stairs. My palms scratched against my outfit. I took a deep breath. I ran and leapt. People always say don't look down. I looked down to see the banners fluttering, the drop that had no end, the spotlights which shined straight towards me, and the only shadow that was being cast in the entire place following underneath me. Though the Metaverse shenanigans didn't catch me when walking blindly, it allowed me to gracefully catch myself on the landing.

  There was still a ticking time bomb that was a squadron of shadows following behind me. I shoved ahead into the void, anxious sweat making the yellow light refract into my eyes.