The next day, Ai Li went out with Shiomi Kotone.

For Ai Li, it doesn’t matter. As long as she can go anywhere with a beautiful and cute girl, it doesn’t matter.

But it was very troublesome for Kotone Shiomi. This was the first time she went out shopping alone with Ai Li. Although she had made various plans before, as for Ai Li's preferences... Kotone Shiomi had no idea.

"Um... Miss Ellie, is there anything you want to buy?"

"No, if there was one I would buy it myself."

“…”

That's true. Although they are both high school students, Ai Li is a magician and the president of a large company. She has already achieved more than one small goal. The financial resources of both sides are completely different.

"So... is there anywhere Miss Ellie would like to go?"

"HOTEL."

"Why?"

"Nothing, it's still a little too early... What do you think?"

"Ah, then, how about we go to the art exhibition?"

"An art exhibition?"

"Well, there's an exhibition of Madarame Ichiryusai's paintings at an art museum nearby. He's an honorary painter in Japan."

"……All right."

Although Airi wasn't too interested in painting itself - of course, if it was Eriri's comics, that would be another matter - but considering that this was a date, she naturally had to follow the girl's wishes, so she nodded. And Shiomi Kotone was also relieved, and then hurriedly took Airi to the art museum.

"Great! Then it's time for our Phantom Thieves to go out again! We must succeed this time!!"

However, just as Ai Li and Shiomi Kotone walked onto the overpass, suddenly, a loud scream was heard not far away. Hearing this sound, Ai Li raised her eyebrows, then grabbed Shiomi Kotone and pulled her to hide in the corner.

"What's wrong, Miss Ellie?"

"Hush."

Ai Li made a gesture in a low voice, indicating to Xi Jianqinyin not to speak for the time being. Then she leaned over to look at the place where the sound came from, and saw four young people standing on one side of the overpass. On the surface, they seemed to be just chatting, but a closer look revealed that these people were the subjects of Ai Li's investigation.

Amamiya Ren, Takamaki An, Sakamoto Ryuji and——who is that guy?

In addition to the three of them, there was another black-haired boy who looked about the same age and dressed very solemnly. He looked a little slender and gave people an artistic feeling. The bad boy Sakamoto Ryuji was also waving his fists and looked very excited.

"Okay, let's go!!"

Watching the four people turn around and leave, Shiomi Kotone looked at Ai Li curiously.

"who are they?"

"A member of the Phantom Thieves of Hearts."

"Are they the Phantom Thieves you're talking about?"

Of course, Shiomi Kotone was aware of this matter, but most people accepted Ai Li's explanation, thinking that it was just a prank to attract attention.

"Yes, the dark shadows we saw around the castle that day should be them..."

Having said that, Ai Li was silent for a while, then grabbed Shiomi Kotone's hand.

"By the way, Qinyin, are you interested in an unusual date?"

"……Why?"

So, the originally scheduled shopping date turned into a stalking operation. Ai Li and Shiomi Kotone followed the four people quietly. From what Sakamoto Ryuji said just now, it seemed that they were going to take some action again. This was also normal. Ai Li had learned from the surveillance that Sakamoto Ryuji was very dissatisfied with being robbed of the limelight by him in the Kamoshida incident. If they didn't plan to stop, they would definitely want to make a big news. Now it seems that they are going to take action again.

So the two of them followed, and finally arrived at... the venue of the Madarame Art Exhibition.

“They do choose people.”

Looking at the scene in front of her, Ai Li couldn't help but narrow her eyes, and Xi Jian Qinyin was also somewhat surprised.

"Are the Phantom Thieves planning to target Mr. Madarame?"

"It seems so now. After all, this painter recently held an art exhibition on Gengo Island and attracted a lot of attention. If we target him, it will obviously attract a lot of attention."

Ai Li whispered, and then she and Shiomi Kotone walked into the art gallery.

Frankly speaking, from Ai Li's point of view, she really had no interest in the exhibitions in the art museum. If it was a comic drawn by Eriri or Mashiro, she would still be interested in reading it, but Ai Li had no appreciation experience at all for such abstract art paintings that felt like a fool. Instead, Shiomi Kotone was fascinated by the paintings, nodding and moving forward, nodding and moving forward.

Then Shiomi Kotone's expression became a little strange.

"What's wrong?"

Ai Li doesn't know how to appreciate these postmodern psychotic works without naked girls, but her ability to read girls' expressions is first-rate.

"Oh, sorry, how should I put it..."

Hearing Ai Li's question, Xi Jian Qin Yin scratched his head and showed some confusion.

"Every painting here is great, but I always feel like something is wrong. It feels like the emotions expressed in each painting are very intense and completely different."

"Didn't the publicity say that? A talented painter with a variety of painting styles?"

"Even though that's the case, I always feel like these emotions don't seem to be expressed by Madarame-sensei alone. After all, these emotions are so vivid and intense. If they were concentrated in one person..."

"So you're saying that these paintings weren't actually drawn by Madarame Ikryusai? That's interesting... Oh, there's something interesting ahead."

Having said that, Ai Li suddenly noticed that there were a lot of people gathered in the corridor next to the exhibition hall, so she became curious and took Xi Jian Qinyin out of the exhibition hall, and then looked in front of her.

Then, Ellie saw hundreds and thousands of red letters covering the entire exhibition hall. Just like before, the content on the red letters was made up of words cut from newspapers.

"You are a sinner who has run out of ideas and is only good for show, Madarame Ichiryusai. You bully others by taking advantage of your power and stealing your students' ideas. You are an artist who does not hesitate to plagiarize. We have decided to make you confess all your crimes in person. We will take away your twisted desires, and the Phantom Thieves of Heart, 'Phantom', will stay."

“This, this is…!?”

Seeing the letter in front of her, Shiomi Kotone was immediately stunned, while Ai Li's mouth corners slightly raised, revealing a smile.

This is really interesting.

"Come with me."

At this time, Ai Li also saw Madarame Ikryusai who was yelling because of the notice letter. Not far behind him was the slender artist whom Ai Li had seen before. At this moment, he just secretly glanced at Madarame and then turned away. Ai Li also hurriedly grabbed Shiomi Kotone's hand and took her to secretly bypass Madarame Ikryusai and followed the artist to the emergency passage on the other side of the exhibition hall.

And there, the other three members of the Phantom Thieves were also waiting for the artist.

"Is that all?"

The artist looked at the three people and asked, and Takamaki An nodded.

“Great, the article turned out really cool!”

Then, the black cat lying on Amamiya Ren also spoke.

"By this time, the treasure should have appeared. The effect of the warning letter is about one day."

"good!!"

At this moment, Ryuji Sakamoto clenched his fists again and shouted.

"Let's teach him a lesson!!!"

Then, under the gaze of Ai Li and Shiomi Kotone, the four of them took out their cell phones. Then, the space around them suddenly began to distort. After a moment, everything disappeared. In its place, there was a magnificent art gallery in the darkness.

"This is... Shadow Time? They can actually enter this world outside of Shadow Time?"

Seeing this, Shiomi Kotone screamed in surprise, and Ai Li reached out to cover her mouth and pulled her aside. Then she saw the four guys dressed like thieves quickly slipping into the magnificent art gallery in front of her.

"here it is……"

"It should be Madarame Ichiryusai's spiritual world."

"So what are we going to do now, Miss Ellie?"

In response to Shiomi Kotone's curious question, Ai Li shook her head.

"We just have to watch."

“…watching?”

“That’s right…”

Ai Li briefly explained the research of "cognitive psychology" to Kotone Shiomi, and then continued speaking.

"Now you know that the three important research parts of cognitive science are the mutual influence between cognition and reality, how to change other people's cognition by changing the spiritual world, and artificial synthesis of Persona. The artificial synthesis of Persona plan of the Kirijo Research Institute seems to have failed, and now I suspect that the Phantom Thieves may have obtained the means to change other people's cognition by changing the spiritual world."

“Can this really be done?”

Shiomi Kotone felt doubtful, while Airi shrugged her shoulders.

"Who knows? If Madarame Ichiryusai really became famous by plagiarizing his students' works... well, this is not surprising. After all, art is very subjective. You can see that there are many different emotions expressed in those paintings, but to me, they are all the same mess of colors."

Of course, if you want to discuss with me which artist draws the most beautiful "fruit", then I won't be sleepy anymore.

"So what are we going to do?"

"Just watch. I want to see how they change other people's spiritual world and cognition. This will be a very interesting topic. And then..."

As she spoke, Ellie reached out, took out a gun from her arms, and then silently installed a silencer.

"And then we'll talk about then."