Would The Phantom Thieves Be Able to Take Down Kira?

 

                                                                            VS

So something I've been thinking about for a little bit since I've been watching Krystalogy's playthrough of Persona 5 Royal, I wonder how things would've played out if Light Yagami was in the Persona 5 universe. I also watched Death Note for the first time around Halloween last year so I started to see a couple similarities between the two products.

Major spoilers ahead for those who have not beaten Persona 5 or watched Death Note.

So after Sae's palace you find out that Akechi was the true culprit or the person committing the massive mental shutdowns and psychotic breakdowns. In this scenario what if we replaced Akechi's character with Light Yagami from Death Note? Light Yagami acted as the vigilante, Kira, enacting justice on criminals by writing their names in the Death Note killing them. At first he only goes for people I think actually deserved to die like mass shooters, but it doesn't take all that long for him to start killing innocent people and people who commit petty crimes like thievery.

Light will start killing a few people before the game's start. When Joker, Morgana, and Ann make Kamoshida confess. Light is still killing people with the Death Note here and there, but not enough to start causing mass hysteria. It's still a thing people talk about occasionally as weird. In Madarame's palace there is no mention of a guy in a black mask. They make Madarame confess and he goes to prison. Light starts to kill a lot more people and the name Kira starts to pop up. Most believe him to be a myth.

A little while later Ann is doing one of her modeling gigs and gets to meet the famous model Misa Amane. After the shoot is over Ann hears Misa talking about her love of The Phantom Thieves. The two of them start talking and they become friends.

Around the time the Phantom Thieves start investigating Kaneshiro Light becomes more active. When they confront Kaneshiro's shadow he tells them they could make money with their power and says that he prefers to be taken down by you guys rather than the person causing heart attacks around the globe which puts them on alert, but they end up brushing it off.

Kaneshiro turns himself in as usual and The Phantom Thieves are starting to finally get some popularity. A lot more requests on the Phan-Site start popping up and The Phantom Thieves are putting work in Mementos. One night when Ann and Misa are hanging out they are approached by a couple of muggers. Ann and Misa run away into an alleyway, but another mugger blocks their path with his gun drawn.

"What do we do?" Ann panics

"Don't worry I won't let them harm you," says Misa. Misa takes out her phone.

"Are you going to call the police? I don't think they'll get here in time," says Ann.

"Mementos," Misa mutters.

The muggers suddenly disappear.

"What?" Ann says shocked.

"Let's get out of here," says Misa.

"Wait, what was that? Do you have the Nav Misa?"

"You mean this app?" Misa shows Ann the navigation app on her phone.

"Why do you have that?"

"You know about it too?"

"Y-Yeah," Ann shows her the Nav on her phone.

"Wow, you're like me. This was just on my phone one day. I was transported to a strange world and a strange man like these approached me and I said to myself I can't die here and then I awoke to a strange power. Do you have that power too, Ann-chan?"

"I do."

"Oh, wow. I never really try to use it though. This other world is scary."

"We should get back to the real world now. I think it's safe to come out," says Ann.

Ann uses the app to return them to the real world and the two of them decide to go home.

Since Akechi wasn't born in this universe, there are no mental shutdowns ordered by Shido so there's no fake Medjed to provoke the Thieves, but this is when Kira starts to get in the public eye.

After three weeks the police announce that they're going after The Phantom Thieves as they believe Kira and The Phantom Thieves are one and the same. The media reveals information that all of the people that The Phantom Thieves targeted eventually died later from a heart attack. After The Phantom Thieves made them confess Light wrote their names in the Death Note. Some people are now afraid of putting names on the Phan-Site while some believe Kira is just.

At this point the Phantom Thieves decide to go after Kira. Since they don't have his full name his name does not come up in the Nav. They ponder for a while on how to discover who he is. Makoto tries to get information from her sister Sae, but it doesn't lead to much. At this time Joker gets the texts from Alibaba. The Phantom Thieves deliberate on what to do like in the original and contemplate if the hacker might be Kira, but Makoto quickly shuts that down because "if he was Kira he wouldn't ask us to change someone's heart and he would've killed us already."

When Alibaba calls off the case instead of not worrying about it this time they actively go to find out who Alibaba is since the police is still out for them and this person could potentially help them discover who Kira is so the events play out the same where they find out Futaba Sakura is related to Sojiro, they enter Sojiro's house and meet Futaba. After changing Futaba's heart Futaba looks into Kira. This takes her about a week, but she does deduce that he's in Japan, but unfortunately she can't find anything further. The Phantom Thieves aren't really detectives like the Investigation team from Persona 4. Futaba is just good at hacking and extracting data and Makoto as we saw during the Kaneshiro arc sucks at it. Even though this goes against how they typically operate The Phantom Thieves at this point are desperate so they declare war on Kira as a way to potentially get him to approach them.

This does not work however. Light is far more intelligent than The Phantom Thieves combined and actually I think a regular detective or investigation team can discover who they might be easily. Joker, Panther, and Skull all had ties with Kamoshida and there were rumors at the school that Joker and Skull threatened him and Yusuke is tied to Madarame. Light ends up finding out who they are before the Thieves discover who Kira is and Light kills them. The Phantom Thieves I don't think have a chance because as I mentioned before they are not really detectives and Kira is too careful. Akechi was suspicious from day 1. Leaving the pancake thing aside Akechi's whole personality comes off as fake. Almost nothing he says sounds genuine except the stuff about his past and him not liking the Phantom Thieves. Ryuji is better at acting than he is. When Ryuji caught Akechi reacting to what Morgana said he legit sounded like he didn't know what Akechi was talking about. Ryuji read Akechi from the jump.

Kira on the other hand is cool and collected and doesn't act overly nice. Even if they were to meet him I doubt any of them would suspect Light was Kira. So if I think if it was down to just The Phantom Thieves with no outside help I think they would lose, but if L also existed in this universe I think there could be a better chance. L doesn't mind getting outside help as we saw in Death Note. He'll deduce that Kira and The Phantom Thieves are two different people and he'll discover who The Phantom Thieves are quickly and recruit The Phantom Thieves to help take down Kira. In this instance The Phantom Thieves never declare war on Kira as L approaches them giving them a lead.

Once L is suspicious of Light he could ask the Phantom Thieves to look into it. Joker puts his name in the Nav and gets a hit. 

"Well, we know he has a palace at least," says Futaba.

"Let's find out what his keywords are and see what we can find in his palace," says Ann. 

"Is it a cemetery?" Makoto guesses.

"Candidate has not been found."

"How about a theater?" Haru asks.

"Do you have any ideas?" Ann asks Joker.

Choices include a playground, a concert, and a cathedral. The cathedral is the correct choice.

"Whoa, so he thinks something as a cathedral," says Ryuji. "What could it be?"

"The world" Yusuke answers.

"Destination found," says the Nav.

"This guy thinks of the world as a cathedral?!" says Makoto.

When they activate the Nav their clothes remain the same. They find the world to look relatively the same, but the when they go out into the street they that all of the people are dressed in robes and are faceless. When they try to talk to them they make remarks about being scared of God or others talk about how they kind of think the people who die deserve it. The palace is nowhere in sight and so they look around for clues and ask the cognitive people about it, but it leads nowhere.

"Look, up there," says Morgana pointing to the sky.

They look up and see a shadowy figure in the clouds.

"What? All the way up there?" says Ann. 

"That couldn't be the palace," says Futaba. 

"Given we're in the Metaverse, I highly doubt it's something common like a plane or helicopter," says Makoto.

"But how do we get up there? That's even higher than that flying bank," says Ryuji. "Do you think we can bring it down to us?"

"I'm not sure," says Morgana. "We better leave for now and inform L of what we found."

The Phantom Thieves leave the Metaverse and tell L of their discoveries. L looks more into Light Yagami telling them again that they'll keep in touch. They wait for a week, but L never contacts them again. Ann informs them that her friend Misa has heard of an online group that worships Kira. Futaba joins the site and pretends to be a member and praises Kira. Misa asks to join them. The team is reluctant, but Ann informs them that she already knows about the Metaverse and that she trusts her. They meet at Shibuya.

"Hey everyone. It's such a great honor to meet The Phantom Thieves," Misa says.

"Nice to meet ya," says Ren.

"He's Joker," Ann introduces. "This is Fox, Oracle, Skull, and Queen."

"Code names? Totally cool!"

"It's really nice to meet you," says Makoto. "Shall we get going?"

They re-enter the Metaverse. The shadowy figure still floats in the clouds above. This time however they sprout angel wings and float up into the air. They soar the skies and into the clouds until they come to a massive cathedral floating in mid air. They land at the bottom of the stairs and climb up to the door.

 

When they enter their wings disappear. Misa dons a black bandage like mask covering the top half of her face and a skin tight suit. Her melee weapon is a ball and chain and her gun is a gatling gun. Her persona is Filibus. Filibus knows all bless attacks and has Marin Karin as a support skill. The shadows take form of angels and the cognitive people are in robes and are constantly praying. They find what appears to be a holy book on a podium. They read it and it confirms that Light is Kira.

"Yeah, this signifies it. Light Yagami is Kira," says Ryuji. "This bastard seriously thinks himself as God!"

"If he truly possess a power where he can kill people like that I can see how," says Yusuke.

"So, we pretty much all agree to go after Light?" Ryuji asks.

Everyone nods their heads.

"All right, we got out infiltration route," says Morgana. "Let's go back and make preparations."

After leaving the palace they report to L and say they will go after him and make him confess. They travel through the palace. The mini bosses on the way are the angels they encounter in the Mementos real world fusion from the original story. They eventually reach the treasure room where they meet Light's shadow. Light's shadow looks just like his regular self, with the exception that he has a pair of black wings protruding from his back.

The Phantom Thieves contemplate on the calling card. Futaba hacks the TVs in Tokyo with a video message much like with Shido. They meet in the Shibuya Station Square for the heist. Upon entering they find themselves surrounded by police.

"W-What? What's going on?" says Makoto.

Misa starts laughing.

"I won't let you hurt Light," Misa says.

The police close in.

"Misa, you set us up? You knew Light was Kira all along?"

"Knew? I was Kira too. Now take them away."

The police get closer, but they put the cuffs on Misa.

"What?" she says.

"Sorry, Misa, but we knew you couldn't be trusted," says Ann. "L told us you had been seen with Light before our investigation."

"We figured you might be working with Kira and L told us he needs a name and a face to kill his victims, so that's why we never told you our real names," says Makoto. "L found out Light was sending his investigation team to arrest us, but he intercepted them and sent his own instead. L sends his regards."

"Well then, shall we get going?" says Yusuke.

They proceed to the Cathedral and treasure room where they find a golden spear. Shadow Light steps forward gives a monologue ending with "I'm the god of the new world" and transforms into a massive winged tentacle monster. The Phantom Thieves defeat it and flee the palace. Entering the new world they find that the treasure turned into a black notebook with the words Death Note written on it.

"What is that, a notebook?" Yusuke asks.

"Let's go back to the hideout for now," says Makoto.

At Leblanc they open the Death Note and read the text. 

"Is this how he's been killing people?" says Futaba.

"A notebook that can kill anybody by writing their name in it. That's truly freaky," says Ryuji. "I don't think we should keep this."

"This one's a fake. I highly doubt it will work," says Makoto.

The Phantom Thieves turn in the fake Death Note to L and await for the change of heart. Kira goes on TV and confesses to the public that he was Kira and that The Phantom Thieves were innocent. He also reveals that Misa was acting as a second Kira and was killing people via mental shutdowns disguised as heart attacks.

That concludes my take. Now another route I could've gone is if Light was chosen by the fake Igor instead of Akechi and he was killing people via mental shutdowns and psychotic breakdowns instead of the Death Note. In that scenario I'm not quite sure what would happen. There are a lot of things that wouldn't happen and to take into consideration that I just don't have the energy to think about right now. If you guys have any ideas on how that would go let me know in the comments.