The Price of Fame
The city buzzed with whispers. Billboards flickered with distorted headlines. The Phantom Thieves had become a phenomenon. Heroes to some. Menaces to others.
But for Ren Amamiya, fame felt like fog creeping in under the door—distorting, suffocating, and eerily quiet.
After Okumura's sudden death, their missions no longer brought celebration. They brought doubt. The Thieves had always danced in the shadows. Now, the spotlight burned.
And their enemies had begun to move.
The Casino and the Trap
Target: Sae NijimaThe Beginning Returns
Everything converged at a place of chance and temptation: a casino shimmering atop a distorted version of Tokyo's courthouse.
It belonged to Sae Nijima, Makoto's older sister. A brilliant prosecutor twisted by the system she served. Her obsession with justice had calcified into something else—winning at all costs.
Her Palace was a rigged game. The chips were lives. The dealer never lost.
The Phantom Thieves planned their most daring heist yet: infiltrate her Palace, steal her Treasure, and expose the rot at the heart of the justice system. They synchronized their moves with real-world events. It had to be perfect.
But it wasn't.
Ren was captured.
The Interrogation
Truth in Chains
Handcuffed. Drugged. Beaten. Alone.
Prosecutor Nijima sat across from him in the sterile room, voice sharp, eyes weary. She demanded names. Motives. Evidence. But Ren gave her something else—truth.
He told her everything: about Palaces, about Shadows, about hearts stolen and lives saved. About corruption wrapped in smiles and lies dressed in suits.
She didn't believe him. Not at first.
But then… she began to.
The Betrayal
Enter: Goro Akechi
Among them had walked a traitor.
Goro Akechi, the charismatic teenage detective idol, had joined the group under the guise of justice. His insight was razor-sharp. His smile disarming. His motives—dark.
He was the son of Masayoshi Shido, a powerful politician who had shaped Ren's downfall from the start.
Akechi had been the one orchestrating mental shutdowns. He had killed Okumura. He intended to kill Ren.
And for a moment, he thought he had.
The Counterattack
What Akechi didn't know was that the Phantom Thieves had seen through him.
Futaba's brilliance. Sae's grudging belief. Their combined plan allowed Ren to fake his own capture. Akechi walked into a trap of his own making.
When he shot the "Ren" in the interrogation room, it was only a cognitive double. The real Ren had already slipped through the cracks.
Akechi was locked in the Palace's cognitive control room. There, he faced his worst reflection—a twisted Shadow of himself. Father's puppet. Society's weapon. A child built from rejection and rage.
They fought. Only one left that room.
The Phantom Thieves mourned him… and moved forward.
Eyes Toward the Kingmaker
The truth was now unavoidable.
Masayoshi Shido—the man who smiled on television, who promised order, who painted hope on banners—was the one who had destroyed Ren's life.
He was the puppet master behind the mental shutdowns. The architect of political manipulation. The face of control.
And the next name on the list.