Remember, the name of the game is speed. It's now June 29th. I was tired from the palace, but awake at 1.

  The car rumbled as it passed. It was a nondescript black car with the windows rolled down. Smoke wafted out. Light conversation competed with a song on the radio. Eventually they got tired of it and changed the station to jazz. It took them a while to roll by. Getting caught with a hoodie and facemask in an alleyway wouldn't have helped my credibility. I'm like 90% sure that the Metaverse existing made it so that I'd never be caught but that was a former 100% confidence eroded by the weirdness around Madarame's palace.

  Pressing my nails into my knee woke me up. Then I got to work.

  Half-full spray cans were all over the attic back home. I had gotten to the point where I was getting paranoid about my payments being tracked and thus rationalized stealing from Sojiro. For thirty minutes I waited, watching as the private security guards were working when the lights of the neighborhood had turned off. Bright street lights guided me to the building right in front of Madarame's front door. One of those cans with all kinds of warnings about how you shouldn't huff the aerosol came out of my bag. Shaking it around like maracas made happy sounds come out of its little spout. It started spraying, swiftly creating free form lines that all pointed to a bright pink circle.

  Madarame was a famous man. Especially with all the lives he's ruined, I imagined that he had quite a bit of enemies. I figured that the calling card had to be bold enough that it'd stand out from the usual death threats. Vandalism against him was mostly justified, but I didn't see a good place where I wouldn't get caught. The neighbors had to take one for the team. The gigantic arrows that I sprayed out on the house would be unmistakable once morning came. As it was, the building was recessed enough that the patrols would most likely miss it, bright as it was, until the sun came up. I taped the paper in the center of my paint-based violence and left to find a place where I could enter the Metaverse without being seen.

  I felt like death in the morning, but it was the pleasant type of death where your senses were dulled to the point where the world was a warm, gray void. It was the type where you lost two hours of sleep after doing something important because you just had to game. Obviously I was well familiar with the feeling and thus unconcerned as I ate my breakfast. Kids actually started crying that they lost sleep in college, swamped with work and suddenly taking on real responsibilities. I was born in the fatigue, molded by it, and would either come into the working world head-on or have acute insomnia when I became 30.

  Sojiro shook his head at the television. "Barbaric. Of all the people that they're harassing, why is it him?"

  The news was playing a segment about Madarame again. In front of his house were a bunch of crude arrows pointing to a paper firmly taped down. The spray paint was over the windows and doors, not caring about imperfections as the author obviously was focused on the manifesto. Madarame himself had given the station authority to publicly release the card. Apparently he was too 'shocked' over the situation to give his own words after such a gruesome event. It became a rather infamous incident where the exact wording would be used for copycats in the coming months, a bit of a social phenomenon in the way that strange criminals with strong modus operandi did. Speaking of, isn't it crazy that one of my targets could technically have their palace closed because a copycat alerted them? There's literally no safeguard against that. Crazy.

  Anyways, it went something like this:

  "Madarame Ichiryusai. For years now you've sucked promising pupils dry with false promises with the premeditated intent to bring them ruin. Thousands have turned a blind eye to the careers, hopes, and even lives that you've destroyed. No more. Tonight your heart will be stolen. Use your ill-gotten gains as freely as you can cause it'll be the last time that you'll want to. From, the Phantom Thieves."

  I was under no illusion that the Phantom Thieves were going to be popular after this. Kamoshida at least completely deserved what was coming. Even if Madarame was a bastard in his own special way, it wasn't at the level of touching kids, and this whole infiltration had been messy from the start. The owner of the building that I vandalized was yelling into the microphone in rage before nearly bursting into tears. This was the collateral damage. The saintly feeling of dealing with Kamoshida wasn't anywhere near this heist. It had left when I attempted rupturing that guy's stomach.

  Still, I had gotten a bike and made a bit of a profit. The man probably still had decades ahead of him. Piles of victims were behind him. Finishing the heist was a matter of propriety, doing what I was paid for. That didn't stop me from feeling like grime. It's why I ignored any gossip that was happening at school. If the mainstream media had caught onto it then I was expecting it to be a hot topic, especially since it was purportedly the same group who dealt with Kamoshida. I didn't need the downer right before the heist.

  All of this was done with me having only glanced at the treasure room and without a hard set plan. That's what school was for! As Kawakami droned on, looking particularly dead on her feet that day, I was freely writing in my notebook. I didn't think that the sketch of the treasure room would be incriminating so I didn't even bother using codewords.

  Here's how it was laid out: past the golden arch was a short walk to a room that reformed itself into not being a mindtwister. Past that was a lobby. Then the circular treasure room. Inside the center was the treasure on a pedestal. It was surrounded by a cage of lasers that was open at the top. Standing between the lasers and the entrance was Madarame. I assumed that he wasn't moving since he was a metaphorical version of the guy who probably guarded his stupid desires with his life. There were patrolling shadows around the room which completely deterred any thought of bum rushing him like at Kamoshida's palace.

  Wrapping around just outside the walls were staircases that went up to balconies which overlooked the whole place. Both balconies were just high enough that I could throw my hook onto the rafters above, those thick enough that I could easily run along them. Other duties were inside of a security room that was to my immediate left upon entering the place. It boasted a laptop which let me open the shutters around the place (some of them) and turn off the lights (before the backup generator kicked in). Another security room was to my right, much higher than the first, with a mechanism to control a hook that lowered into the cage of lasers. I assumed that it was suggesting that was how the treasure would've been put inside of it, though then couldn't they just turn off the lasers instead? And did the treasure even have to be physically put anywhere? There also was an easy way to climb up to the rafters from there.

  All of this was sketched out within ten minutes before the shadows who were chasing me caught up. Thankfully they were more focused on appeasing their angry boss than searching around, giving me a chance to slip through a window that was up on the rafters. There were plenty of the things around, but this window was at the height where I could easily use it as an entrance and exit. Pretty convenient hole in the defenses.

  So there's the layout. You cannot tell me that there's an obvious path forward. Most of the planning took place with creating 'nots'. I couldn't use my persona to lower the hook with me on it because they dissipate upon leaving a certain distance away. I couldn't waltz in. The entrance to the room was styled to look like a painting, unfortunately lacking a gate, which meant I couldn't isolate a bunch of the guards. With the darkness from turning off the lights lasting for so little time, I couldn't just swing around while nobody could see. I couldn't distract the guards as there's just too many and, again, not a great way to block them. I couldn't lower myself from the balcony and snatch the painting as there's, again, way too many guards. I couldn't blind all the guards.

  It made me slightly regret going ahead bullheaded. Thinking of a plan was genuinely making me feel like I was overheating. The minutes draining away were making my fans whirr harder and harder and harder.

  Inspiration came from thinking about the treasure. The palace was more or less based on reality. Besides the strange room where everything was floating around, it followed a museum pretty well. Real world rules still apply. I could still see signs that directed patrons to the bathroom and outlets for nonexistent chargers. Sowing chaos was good.

  Infiltration plan: enter through the gardens. I had escaped from one of the windows in the rafters and rappled down with my improvised grappling hook. The only reason I traveled through the art gallery was to find the treasure. With that done, I had no reason to go through the tight hallways when security was at its height, and I knew the exact place where my hook could cross most the distance. No reason I couldn't use that as both my infiltration and exfiltration point.

  Stealing the treasure itself came with another dose of inspiration when we started talking about what samurai were actually like in class. No correlation really. We just mentioned the ladders that they used to scale over walls and it triggered something within me.

  My plan was created. Normally this was the type of thing where I'd want to immediately head out. Since the universe hated me, there had to be a note inside of my locker. This was the kind of generic stuff that I was glad to avoid. At least there wasn't a heart sticker or else it would've found itself on the receiving end of an Agi. Opening it up had me half-prepared for a death threat.

  "Come to the rooftop?" I mumbled, checking around to make sure nobody heard that.

  I could've ignored it. Whether it was going to be a threat or confession made me curious though, alongside how brazen it was. Most people were content ignoring me so hard that I couldn't miss that I was being ignored. Having a person attempt this tropey method of communication made me curious enough that I found myself pushing open the door.

  Let's put a little perspective. I've only been to the roof two times and this was one of them. There's flower beds there. A fence that surrounds the perimeter ever since the incident. Metal things that did things. It wasn't like the normal school roof that created such an atmosphere that it was practically its whole genre like the romantics and the gothics, roof-core. It isn't like that. The whole place was gray in the way that reminded you of the innards of a factory rather than the freeing, nostalgic, simple feeling of roof-core. Most days there's very little direct sunlight which beams down onto the school. Highrises and higherrises did that to a place, which is partially where the 'concrete jungle' stemmed from—the emergent a world of slowly growing solar panels, canopy where gleaming windows reflected the whole city for the CEOs, understory of apartments and everything that made the city move—but I preferred to think that the term actually meant to refer to how the place reminds you that someone smarter than us needs to come down because the management of all these threads is like a kid building their first computer. Wires, invisible waves, pipes, trails of roaches (coincidentally those came from rainforests), power lines, clotheslines all came together into a criss-crossing mesh of a rhizome. It only became obvious how complicated everything was when you got a higher view of it.

  I never really went to the roof. Call me superstitious. I'd rather respectful. Being around the place just felt wrong as did sticking around to the courtyard where it happened. There was no point being alone since my absence was just as keenly felt as my presence. It was better getting used to social isolation than trying to deny it. As you can tell by my lack of bitching most days, I've mostly acclimated. So I'm not like those manga protagonists that ate their lunches on the rooftop and I'm not like those movies made to have the entire theater burst into tears where the kid ate in a locked stall. Unfortunately I somehow became the one who was standing slouched on a rooftop while the cute girl had her hands clenched in front of her. Somehow I was more disappointed than if there was an ambush set up for me.

  Red hair stuck out like a fire on a torch. There was a familiar combination of red hair and red eyes that made me already start recognizing her. It's a pretty conspicuous combination.

  "Ah! You came!" she said.

  "Was I supposed to ignore it?" I asked tartly.

  "No! No, not at all!" she yelled, shaking her head. "I'm glad you came!"

  Finally deciding that I wasn't about to get my cranium shattered, I walked onto the rooftop fully. It was kind of inspiring how these kinds of urban areas used their space effectively. Planters, bits and bobs, everything that would've normally been spread out was centralized on a singular building. Standing there felt as though we had an audience of inanimate objects. I couldn't imagine that we weren't on the view of some sort of camera which took a bit of the romance out from the scene.

  Sticking my hands in my pockets was meant to be disarming. Truth is however, I was annoyed every minute that was wasted with this diversion.

  "I have places to be. If you could hurry up with whatever you wanted to say, then that'd be great."

  Little uneven blinks probably communicated surprise. Her voice, already kind of weak, had turned like a radio running into interference. At times my mind was the one filling in the sentence, especially when her mouth was obscured as she bowed. It was a pretty deep bow.

  "Thank you for helping me that day."

  It was about as much as you would expect during a thank you. Thankfully she wasn't the weird type to go all-in. The whole situation still made me vaguely uncomfortable.

  "I'm sorry, who are you? I recognize that you're the person that comes out of the therapy room but I'm not sure I've helped you otherwise."

  She stalled. She got up with a disappointed look.

  "That man during our field trip? The one who was harassing me? You made him leave. I'm thanking you because you made him leave."

  "Then why'd you wait this long if you wanted to say thank you? Were you scared? Didn't want your reputation to be stained by being seen by the scary thug?" I asked. She didn't respond, leaving me to assume that I had hit the bullseye. "Yeah. You're welcome, I guess. I have to go."

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  Some may have thought that I was the stupidest person in the world brushing her off so brusquely. Hanasaki was great because she didn't treat me like a criminal. The Metaverse was great because I had a goal besides my failing real life. Half-hearted apologies done in a private place so her precious reputation wasn't stained interested me less than the heart that had to be stolen. Isolation sucked, but people could suck more.

  There was a girl waiting by the door who I didn't bother with. Somewhere inside of me I was hoping that she'd spread a rumor and ruin the girl's reputation anyways.

  It took thirty minutes of prep time to gather the materials before taking a train over to Madarame's area. I'll admit ahead of time that I stole another thingie that I found laying around. I put the thief in Phantom Thief.

  Instantly there was my first obstacle in the flashing lights and plainclothes tough guys walking around. Using Mementos to discreetly get me onto a rooftop let me see that the security had been beefed up far beyond what I had to deal with at school. After the break-in kicking the hornet's nest, sending a calling card within the same week was throwing a rock after the hornets had lost me. Patrols were protecting the perimeter with a dogged determination. This time there were active cars that were circling around the entire circumference. Again I questioned what logic these things were bound by. Sitting there for a while confirmed that they were patrolling the entire palace. From there I couldn't confirm anything: at one point I believed they couldn't be human because they were too regimented, where there'd always be a headlight covering an entire street; then I believed they couldn't be human because there were clear mistakes in the timing as if they wanted me to break in.

  Raising the alarm so early would be embarrassing and probably deadly since my plan required some time to set up when I made it to the treasure room. Ideally I'd get there without being seen. Therefore, I needed a way in without lighting up the whole guard force.

  An urge came from inside my head. Questioning it rebuffed my concern. Thus I cycled around the rooftops looking for one included in the palace's sphere. Eventually there was one.

  Before I describe the stupid plan, let me tell you that it legitimately seemed impenetrable: if there wasn't a headlight revealing the entire street then there was a flashlight swiveling around on the ground. Remember that there's only so many places that I could jump in without help because of the wall. Manpower really can solve everything. So too can magic, or at least that's what Pixie reassured me with. Standing at the far end of the rooftop already made my soles feel tingly. Falling here felt much worse than the infinite drop.

  A breath. With a running start I leapt. The mask tore off well before I reached the crest of my arc.

  Only a few fingers could be held within Pixie's two. Her wings made jingling sounds as I suddenly buoyed up, getting one last grace period before falling again. My arms braced in front of my head. The impact of falling a few stories onto a wall was pretty quiet besides my pathetic mewl. Continuing to roll deposited me onto a bush that was so kind to enwrap me in a gentle grip. There was some muttering on the other side, but I assumed that I was in the clear when there wasn't any other reaction.

  First plan worked. First try, either giving me good luck or sapping the luck for the rest of the infiltration.

  Entering through the gardens was easy enough. There were statues all over the place that let me see over the wild tangle of bushes that were only manicured in their appearance. Plenty of plants gave me the opportunity to snap off the driest branches cognition could afford. From the wings of angels that had Madarame's face on them I continued traveling until I made it to the wall of trees that blocked me from entering the courtyard. That wasn't hyperbolic either. It looked normal from afar, but getting near let me see that they were intertwining their arms together. It was a wall of branches, nearly all brown with few holes that let me see the gold inside. The magic started happening here.

  The branches that I gathered on my way to Madarame's shack were laid at the base of the plant wall. The remaining ones were chucked over to the other side. No wind. Smacking my lips felt particularly dry. The little flame protected by the lighter lit the tinder easily enough. I had no idea how to start a full fire so I just made four ones more or less spread out from each other. Already the one that I originally made was starting to spread. Getting my grapple hook up to the same place that I'd done before hooked it in place. Climbing up gave me a great view of the city, suddenly feeling the wind that picked up once I ascended from the rooftop. I got a great view of the spreading fires before walking ahead.

  The rooftops of the palace let me see far ahead into Tokyo. It seemed built for people to travel across as there were staircases and the teleporting gates to easily lead back to the treasure room. Whatever its purpose didn't matter. Obviously it wasn't intended to be an easy infiltration point for the treasure room because the hole was blocked by a hasty piece of sheet metal.

  Slow realization made me start to panic. Every single window that led into the treasure room, no matter how high, had been blocked. They knew! They guessed correctly that I used the window to escape!

  The rising panic was quelled as I did breathing exercises that I remembered from a shonen manga I forget the name of. The whole plan wasn't jeopardized. It just became a little harder. I backtracked through the whole route, individually checking into each window that was easy to jump into. Most I had to lift myself above the ridge to peek inside. The harsh blue glow stopped emitting when you got near enough, letting me see past a certain point. Most were at heights that I wasn't comfortable dropping down and wouldn't have an easy time climbing back up.

  By the time that I had started finding windows that'd work, there were thick clouds forming around the palace. From my height I started feeling the tickling of incinerated wood clogging the back of my throat. It smelled acidic for some reason, and clung to my eyes whenever a waft blew past me. They twirled around its highest tower, black, only able to be seen by the stars they obscured and spotlights that sank into them in the same way as a black hole. I was reminded of the evil lairs used by yesteryear, now only used tongue in cheek or in media that purposely copied older styles. I liked those. 90s shows were the peak of entertainment and would never be achieved again.

  I found a set of windows that were at the golden abyss. They came from nonsensical angles, some next to each other outside while facing in opposite directions once inside, yet were at much more reasonable places than some others. Most were in front of a platform of some type. The window that I chose was pressed into a tiny golden slab that struck upwards from a golden block. With my powers it could be reached with a leap.

  Of course things couldn't be that simple. When my feet touched on the ground, we started drifting away like a pool noodle. It was slow, but I doubted that it'd be within jumping range when I came back.

  Quick thinking saved the day. Jumping to the staircase gave me the anchoring point. Spinning the grappling hook and throwing it out stuck the pick's head to the windowsill. A tug got it floating back towards me. Finagling with it required me to come from different angles. Some needed me to get creative. Eventually it was floating a little aways from the foot of the staircase. This way it was within jumping distance when I was escaping with the treasure. There were still backup options too: those just required me to either parkour across the abyss with an infinite drop or fight my way back out the palace. No biggie.

  I took a deep breath to savor the clean air. Infiltration completed, escape route secure. Now I just had to actually take the treasure.

  Twice the alarm must've been at the DEFCON OH SHIT level yet the guards weren't present at the places where I'd expect them. There was only one entrance into the treasure room. No guards were blocking it. Emerging on the other side didn't have an ambush.

  It's around here where the nerves started beating past the adrenaline. Those staircases that wrapped around the side had raised shutters, letting me put bricks underneath them. I had a metal bar (stolen, sorry) that would've blocked the door to the rafters, now not going to be used for that. I used it to beat against my thigh as I anxiously waited to see if my plan would be carried out. I'm not an arsonist so I don't know how fast fires spread. Standing at the balcony overlooking the treasure let me see the covered painting, because of course a painting was his treasure. The guards below, while alert, still sometimes had wandering attention. It was interesting to watch. Some would yawn like a human while others had their heads drift like they were falling asleep.

  At about three minutes, the alarms started ringing. Sprinklers created rain. A second set of alarms that had the whole red cones for them started spinning when the droplets started splattering against the ground. Alarmed cries came from below. My back rested against the wall as I waited.

  "What are—damn! I knew that it was a mistake not updating the building to code. How is there a fire?" Madarame was shouting intelligibly before shaping up. "Can somebody shut off this infernal racket? Guards! Go find the fire and deal with it. Another one of you shut off the alarms and the lasers until this is dealt with. You have my permission to! The computer will listen as long as you have my permission."

  "But sir! The Phantom—"

  "If you're so scared about the Phantom Thieves then do your job and guard! Your lives are meaningless past protecting my treasure, understand? We've cut off the alternative escape routes so just block the path ahead. Close the shutters too if you're so cowardly! But if you value your wretched lives in any way, do not question me! I am the owner of this museum! I am Madarame, the artist who is unquestionably the greatest of Japan! If he bites, then he'll see that Madarame's legacy will last to eternity while he chews at the root of an infinite tree!"

  Self-aggrandizing aside, this was about the best case scenario that I hadn't planned for. I was initially hoping that the fire found the backup generator or ate the building itself. Only turning off the infrared lasers let me sweep down and have a few seconds of leeway longer. The cage being disabled and sounds of the shutters behind me were reminders that this was my first and only chance. Hopefully the surprise would prevent me from getting surrounded. I regretted sending the calling card early once again.

  I swallowed my regret. This was the moment. Failing here would mean failing all the effort that I'd put in and all the victims that he'd hurt. And maybe I'd die too. Raincheck on that one.

  The plan was to make a homemade grappling hook jankier than before. Tying it to the bottom made a trapeze person's rope. The pole was a multi-tool: first it'd make my fully realized tool then it would've been used to block the door behind me.

  Holding it made me terrified because I knew it was wrong. The cloaked treasure was wide. Definitely too wide that one hand couldn't keep hold of it. It was also slightly lower than I thought it'd be. My breath was quickening. My initial idea had been to swing down with my feet on the bar and hand wrapped around it like Tarzan. But the treasure wasn't small. It was too large for a single arm. The soles of my feet probably wouldn't have the friction or hook to keep on the rope without a hand grappling too.

  The pickaxe's head snagged onto the hook above the treasure. I tugged on it. The rope looked like it was the exact length for another method. Madarame was pacing around, nervously checking outside every so often. My palms couldn't slip on the rough rope yet the sweat making it a weird texture made me even more nervous. It couldn't be helped. I needed both hands if I wanted to grab the treasure. I was shaking. Imagining it was so scary that my heart was doing palpitations that felt like jumping jacks. Going ahead was more an automatic response. I didn't want to think.

  I transitioned towards an awkward handstand where the rope was being held while I turned myself upside down. It took a bit of shifting but eventually my feet hooked on the pole. Let's go down the reasons that this was a bad idea: the rope could loosen, the hook could slip, the impact with the treasure could make either happen, I could slip and fall, countless other worst case scenarios. Being upside down just made those symptoms feel worse. The alarm pounding against my brain started fading into a monotonous tone. I mistook the water running down my cheeks as tears. The water made the pole more slippery. It made metal more slippery. It's only a single story, I think I whispered. My hands climbed up the floor then the railing. One latch and I'd fall.

  I let go.

  The arc was way less exciting from the outside I'm sure. Being there, being the one who was hurtling towards the floor with only my flimsy balance keeping me safe, made my arms lock up in a hugging position. The droplets splashed against me as I rushed past them. The treasure got larger, larger. The floor got nearer. I wished that I was facing the opposite direction. It slammed into my body, my arms wrapping around it instinctively. Only when I was going upwards did I wonder how I was going to get off.

  Something must've taken pity on me because my body seemed to go on autopilot when I leapt off the rope. Twirling, I lost comprehension of where I was. I did one flip, two, everything caught in a whirl of gold, before landing perfectly. I slipped on the slick floor. The treasure was still in my arms.

  Grabbing the rope when it came back didn't register in my memory. I must've gotten it because the pickaxe and pole tied around my waist, overlaid over one another like a belt buckle. The rope kept the painting firmly in place on my back. Like coming out of a dream, everything seemed to pop a little more when I started running. The paintings of students stared judgingly as I beat down the slope. The gate that was supposed to stop me had been stalled by the brick, letting me slide underneath it. It worked so well that I didn't pick myself up. It reminded me of my childhood park, a stone slide built into the hill, sand dusted over it so the cardboard pieces could easily slide straight down. The treasure was the perfect sleigh that kept the momentum even when I reached flat ground. Leaning with my weight made me able to influence the path, preparing for the sharp turn towards the exit door.

  The remaining guards were standing with their backs to me at the only exit, still unaware. Even Madarame didn't notice, which spoke about how nervous the guy was. A cupped hand protected the lighter from the rain. The guards barely had a chance to notice me as I slid on by, flickering payloads left behind that exploded soon after. Those who were unaffected had to deal with their clamoring comrades, eventually collapsing into a pile of thrashing limbs as their batons started accidentally whacking each other.

  Crackles fought over the alarms to take precedence. Apparently the place had a PA system.

  "Attention! The Phantom Thieves are escaping from the central exhibition! Every acting guard head over there and cut him off!"

  I got up well before the treasure room's exit, somehow transitioning from laying flat down to running at full tilt. Leaving from the golden arch that teleported me to the original puzzle brought me into a familiar situation. I emerged, seeing that somehow guards had already gathered in every direction: from the golden arch that led deeper into the museum, from the pathways, and from ledges that I'd never touched myself. The one at the head of the line shoulder checked one of the floating paintings that then hit my escape window like a marble. It started floating further away.

  I was obviously not immune to panic. For a second I stood there. My body once again took over. I beat feet, ignoring the guards who were winding up their batons next to me. I ducked underneath all of them and leapt towards the nearest piece—a floating block that had a banner of Madarame hanging off it. The pole that was sticking out would normally, definitively, definitely not support the weight of a man. Leftover moisture smoothened out my grip on it as I bucked in and out for a little more momentum, letting go at the apex of my arc. Improvising happened, for some reason my powers thought that the paintings hanging off the wall were easier platforms than the wall they were hanging off from. My foot caught on the frames, leaping for one after the other, flinging them free to float into the void. From there on it became free form. Anything large enough for my soles was game.

  The lightning bolt that nearly took off my head nearly made me miss the statue of Madarame. Specifically here was a sprinkler built into a free floating piece of roofing above me. A few fireballs tore straight through the shoji dividers as I smashed through another one. Leaping onto a solid pathway let me keep even pace with the window, even as I had to duck low to avoid the projectiles that were doggedly trying to knock me off the path. Puffs of horrible smoke flew up like factories were set up in the void. Wherever there were windows gleefully spat out the smog. They stood out like tears in the world, ruining the eye-searing colors with their ugly contortions. Gigantic battleships floated alongside the little crumbs of gold, statues of Madarame's laughing face glaring through the heavy clouds as a little jumping spider chased his window that was probably moving slower than a child's rollercoaster. Behind me, blocking my view, were projectiles of every element that shot out too quickly for me to predict their arc.

  Every extra second was begging for something to go wrong. With a sharp shake of my head, I leapt towards the window. Pixie appeared to grab my hand.

  Through the smog a fireball leapt. Spinning around protected our payload and gave me a good view as I fell. Outside became apocalyptic. Trading out the gold for red had made a vicious color that consumed the world. Through the smoke I couldn't see the twinkling stars of the Metaverse's city. Even the universe didn't make lights so bright they could pierce past our disasters. Coughing became my only mark of surprise as I fell into the roaring demon below.