"Screening Room Three. Go straight ahead, then turn left." The ticket checker glanced at the movie ticket in Tangze's hand, lazily punched it, and pointed him in the right direction.
Tangze looked at the man with black curly hair and glasses perched on his nose, took back the ticket he handed over, and asked, "Which way is the restroom?"
"Go right to the end of the hall." Seeing that Tangze was still standing there, Cognitive Matsuda Jinpei reminded him, "You should head in, sir. There are people waiting behind you."
Tangze took a breath, kept his smile in place, nodded, and walked forward.
A Palace was the most direct reflection and manifestation of its owner's desires and wishes. Even the original person could not control the appearance of their Palace. It was an unvarnished truth of the heart.
—From that perspective, the Phantom Thieves of Hearts might have been the strongest intelligence agents.
Just like now.
Of course, Palaces were not possessed solely by people whose desires had swelled into distortion. Those with powerful, resolute wills, or those whose hearts had been warped by trauma, could also produce Palaces—such as Niijima Yagami and Sakura Futaba in P5.
Furuya Rei clearly belonged to the strong-willed category. His Palace did not reveal any material desire at all. Instead, it was filled with regrets and memories, like a beautiful dream reserved for himself.
All it meant was that Furuya Rei never indulged in an irretrievable past, but he missed them every moment of every day.
Walking down the corridor, Tangze followed a group of faceless shadows into the theater with his ticket and took his assigned seat.
There was none of the usual bustle of a movie theater here, none of the hushed conversations before a show began. Only gray-black shadows sat silently