Ren was glancing around the door ahead, checking for Shadows with his Third Eye.
He felt a fluctuation behind him, but it didn't feel unnerving or dangerous, so he paid it no mind. His friends had his back. He would watch the front.
Nearby, Shiho noticed Yusuke's discomfort as he looked at the paintings on the wall with a cramped expression.
Instead of saying anything, she simply patted him on the shoulder and gave him a smile as she walked past him.
He blinked before smiling back and walking behind her toward the others.
The team snuck around the first floor of the Palace once more, deftly avoiding laser sensors and bypassing most Shadows.
They soon came across a hall they had rushed through before.
Ren looked at the walls, his Third Eye active pretty much all the time.
It didn't really bother him, but he had to learn to filter out a lot of information.
Why didn't he just stop using it?
He thought it was neat. That was about it.
The walls were lined with portraits, each with a plaque giving a name and a set of dates.
Ren stopped and turned around, realizing what these paintings represented upon seeing a portrait of Nakanohara, the man whose Shadow was the first to suggest Madarame as a target.
Yusuke was pale as he looked at the paintings. He understood the implications as well. Seeing Ren glance at him calmly made his stomach drop.
To him, Ren was someone who saw the world similarly to him.
He saw the symbolism and imagery here and understood what it meant.
It didn't mean he didn't hope it was just pessimism.
Stopping in front of a painting and glancing at it calmly, Yusuke let out a long, heavy sigh.
This one was a portrait of him.
"How lamentable," he muttered.
The group was silent before Orihime said softly, "Let's set this right."
"Yeah."
Ren felt his bond with the team grow.
His Third Eye caught strands of gentle blue energy wrapping around Yusuke and including him in the web that was the Aeon Social Link.
The team regrouped and reset their emotional states briefly, releasing stress through beating up Shadows.
'You guys are mean,' a voice rang in his head.
'Sorry, Onmoraki. They're pretty bent out of shape right now.'
'He called me an onion chicken!'
'Shut up, brat!'
'Wahhhh! Arsène! Byakko is bullying me!'
Ren turned his attention away from the chaos in his head.
Yu was right. Being a Wild Card meant having a lot of voices in your head, indeed.
The team soon came across a strange sculpture. It didn't really have anything profound about it other than the discomfort it invoked. But it was like an intense disgust from the level of the soul instead of a piece of art with shock value.
"The intention of the piece doesn't match the feeling it invokes," Yusuke said with a frown.
"Is Madarame really an artist?" Ren couldn't help but whisper.
Luckily, his voice was drowned out by Ann.
"Can we move away from this thing? It's giving me the shivers."
"Yeah. I feel like something is going to eat me," Shiho mumbled.
"Let's hea—"
"Oh, what do we have here?" a distorted, aged voice rang out.
Looking at the balcony above them, they saw Madarame's Shadow coming into the room, a guard on either side.
Unlike in Kamoshida's Palace, the Shadows here took the form of security guards.
"I was going to check on the thieves that my guards warned me were skulking around my museum, but it turns out to be Yusuke!" he continued.
"But what about the others? They aren't thieves, are they?"
He glared at the group with sharp eyes, gripping the railing on the balcony tightly.
Feeling encouraged by the presence of his friends, Yusuke asked, "Sensei, what made you become like this? Do you even love art anymore?"