A Name Carved in Rebellion
The world didn't change overnight. Even after Kamoshida's fall, corruption ran deep. But word of the Phantom Thieves spread like wildfire.
They were urban legends. Digital ghosts. Some called them vigilantes. Others, saviors. But the truth was simpler: they were teenagers who had been wronged—and had found a way to fight back.
Their next target emerged from a place Ren had never expected: art.
Palace 2 – The Plagiarist: Ichiryusai Madarame
New member: Yusuke Kitagawa
The galleries were silent, but behind each brushstroke lurked exploitation.
Ren met Yusuke Kitagawa, a gifted art student with piercing eyes and strange elegance. He was a disciple of the revered painter Madarame, a man celebrated for his masterpieces. But beneath the surface, Madarame hoarded his students' talent, passing off their work as his own. He drained their creativity. He had done it to Yusuke's mother. And now he was doing it to him.
In the Metaverse, Madarame's Palace took the form of a gilded museum—a labyrinth of vanity and mirrors. There, the Phantom Thieves battled sentient paintings, false beauty, and a man who had distorted art into chains.
Yusuke awakened to his Persona, Goemon, and joined the team. Together, they exposed Madarame's crimes.
The public's eyes began to open. But fame is a double-edged sword.
Palace 3 – The Blackmailer: Junya Kaneshiro
New member: Makoto Niijima
Makoto Niijima, the student council president, was everything Ren seemed not to be: polished, proper, law-abiding. But pressure mounted on her from all sides—teachers, adults, even her sister, Prosecutor Sae Nijima.
When Makoto confronted the Phantom Thieves, seeking answers, she was drawn into their world.
Their next target was Junya Kaneshiro, a yakuza-type who ran an underground extortion ring. His victims? High school students, blackmailed and broken.
In the Metaverse, his Palace was a grotesque bank that fed on people. Kaneshiro saw everyone as currency, every soul a loan to exploit.
Makoto's rage cracked her façade. "I won't be a pawn anymore," she screamed, ripping her mask free.
Her Persona, Johanna, roared to life—a divine motorcycle, fierce and unstoppable.
The Phantom Thieves raided the palace. Kaneshiro's empire crumbled. The students he exploited were free.
And Makoto? She stayed.
Palace 4 – The Hermit's Shadow: Futaba Sakura
New member: Futaba Sakura
Then came a different kind of target.
Futaba Sakura wasn't evil. She was afraid.
Sojiro's reclusive adoptive daughter, Futaba had locked herself away, haunted by grief and guilt. Her mother, Wakaba Isshiki—a brilliant cognitive researcher—had died mysteriously. Futaba believed she had caused it.
Her Metaverse Palace was a vast Egyptian tomb, and Futaba herself appeared as a Shadow—a spectral image of a girl buried beneath regret.
But instead of stealing her heart, the Phantom Thieves helped her heal.
Within the ruins of memory and loss, Futaba faced her past. Her Persona, Necronomicon, emerged—a spacecraft of knowledge, reflecting her boundless intellect.
She joined them not on the front lines, but as their eyes and ears—the ultimate hacker, navigating shadows with surgical precision.
Palace 5 – The Corpse of Ambition: Kunikazu Okumura
New member: Haru Okumura
The Phantom Thieves' growing fame drew darker attention.
Haru Okumura, the soft-spoken heiress to a corporate empire, was engaged to a man she didn't love—her father's political pawn. Behind his businessman smile, Kunikazu Okumura saw workers as disposable robots. His Palace was a cold, mechanized factory where Shadows toiled until they broke.
Haru's Persona, Milady, emerged when she chose rebellion over silence. She joined the Thieves to stop her father.
They infiltrated Okumura's Palace, fought to its heart, and stole his Treasure.
But something went wrong.
After the change of heart… Okumura died.
A mental shutdown. Sudden. Unnatural.
The public's love turned to suspicion. Were the Phantom Thieves… murderers?
Storms on the Horizon
Questions the Thieves couldn't answer multiplied. Who was really behind the mental shutdowns? Why did some people die after having their hearts changed?
The thrill of rebellion gave way to unease. The Metaverse wasn't just a tool—it was a battlefield.
But they couldn't stop now. Not when people were still being hurt. Not when the truth remained buried.
And in the distance, something—or someone—was watching.