Error. Memories unclear. She sees the mother, she knows who she was. She remembers the way she would work late, tell her to wait until work was finished. No play. No time. Work was the most important thing and she...? She was not. She was unimportant. A burden. Distorted??? The remembering is agony, she doesn't push it. But then there's one memory that's clear as day in all of it's twisted glory. The visions of her mother, her body falling into traffic. Jumping? Jumping into traffic. Trying to... escape?? Futaba can still see the men in crisp black suits telling her about the suicide note, but everything after that got messy. There was so much blame, she was sure of it. It was her fault... hers...


There wasn't really home for a while. Futaba felt more like a bother than anything else as she fell into the custody of her uncle who cared very little for her. What was it? Money. She was just a paycheck. The world around her felt more terrifying by the day. Horrible feelings began to compound in her mind as her uncle did nothing to care for her and the false was hammered into her mind. Futaba knew, with all of her heart, that she was just a murderer. She'd caused the end of her own mother. The weight of that grew at little more every day and soon she couldn't handle life as it was. Even when Sojiro Sakura, a friend of her mother's, took her in and saved her from her uncle she felt... terror. The world was a series of unknowns and in every stranger's gaze she could hear every insecurity, every flaw she knew about her self being screamed back. It wasn't long before she became a complete hermit, hiding away in her room and choosing to learn through computers and books that Sojiro brought to her instead of attending high school. She was broken, but she felt... something. Maybe it was a desperation to escape the misery that was constantly hammering her down into the ground, but it encouraged her at least slightly to push through. Push to some discovery that would change something. There was also the natural curiosity that made the young woman wonder what her mother could possibly have been working on that was so important. The computer learning was easy enough, she found herself digging into the depths of the internet to find what she wanted. The great hacking group Medjed was of her making even if it spun out of her control. It was fun for a while being that powerful hacker that could claim whatever they wanted- except when it came to her mother's work. Things that should have been were not and most of her mother's research had been removed, deleted, hidden away for no prying eyes to find. The agony built, her mind buckled, depression settled deep into her being.


Suicidal thoughts crept into her mind in the middle of the night, a flickering monitor whispering of her worthlessness. Maybe if she hadn't existed her mother would have lived. Maybe if she died her mother could somehow live again. It started softly as those voices, but she felt her heart and mind twisting. Before long there were episodes where all around her she could see faces looking judgmentally at her and they were screaming about how she was responsible. Murderer. It was all her fault and she was better off dead, so why was she still drawing breath? Sometimes it was all that she could do to clutch her head and weep until the moment passed, but even that wouldn't last forever. Death stalked Futaba and she was just about ready to give in when she heard about the mysterious Phantom Thieves. Not so mysterious to her though, she knew that the boy who'd moved into the cafe was a part of it all. Fearing the worst and knowing she had no alternatives, Futaba proposed through a chat message where she masked herself as "Alibaba" that the Phantom Thieves steal her heart. It would have been easier if she'd made no effort. Resign herself to her fate, even. They needed her skills to bring down Medjed and if they stole her heart she said she'd do something about them... so they pressed. They wormed their way into her heart. Something to do with her mother's research, she thought. Following them into her own "cognition" she saw just how twisted her heart had become. Inside that place her mother was a great and terrible beast, but it wasn't always that way. Something in her heart whispered to her. Rebellion. Accepting her inner voice and awakening her own persona brought an end to her twisted cognition and unlocked the truth in her past that she'd managed to completely block out. Destroying the so called Medjed after that took her less than an hour of work.


Even though she worked, Wakaba was a kind (albeit stern) mother to Futaba. The child would beg her mother to go and play, but was told that her mother's work was very important and had to be finished first. After it was done, she promised that they would enjoy family time. The day that Wakaba passed she wasn't acting normal and the life had left her eyes before she fell into traffic. Those men who came after the incident speaking of a suicide note were suspicious.


Joining the Phantom Thieves was not a decision that Futaba made for some greater good. The young woman was not shy in admitting she wanted revenge on the people who had killed her mother and she knew being a member of the thieves could get her closer to that goal. Despite the selfishness she was welcomed. Socializing... that was a beast of a different kind. Maybe she relied a little too much on Akira, but he was like family and she'd never much experienced that before. A protective form that made her inherently feel safe. The rest of the thieves helped in their own weird ways too, so she was less of the hermit. Crowds were still terrifying, she still hated spending too much time outside, but she could actually talk to people so that at least was an improvement. All the while the phantom thieves advanced in their work and she was there to be tactical support. The role was easy for her, she reveled in the ability to observe over everything and tell people exactly what they needed to know.


Pieces began to fall into place as the phantom thieves did their work. The web was so expansive that none of them could have seen how far it reached until they grew closer to the end. There wasn't just one man behind all of the terror in the country, even if it could technically be traced back to Masayoshi Shido's machinations there were many hands moving the dreadful cogs into place... There was also Goro. He dared to fight at the side of the phantom thieves when he was the one who worked as Shido's lapdog. Even if he had his reasons, Futaba felt a kind of rage at his two-faced behavior. Acting as a friend even though he'd murdered innocents. Even though he'd been responsible for so much misery. There wasn't even time to properly hate him though, as much as she wanted to. The team had to put a plan into motion that faked their leader's death and then they moved in to take out Shido once and for all. None of them anticipated meeting Goro in Shido's cognition, but he was there and his deception was laid more bare than ever. He had his selfish reasons for what he did and still Akira was willing to forgive him and welcome him back into the team with open arms. Futaba wanted to hate him. Watching him sacrifice himself in his last moments made that impossible. The thieves went on with heavy hearts to bring Shido down, finally granting Futaba the revenge that she'd set out for in the first place... it felt empty, and the world wasn't getting any better around her.


Everything was a manipulation. Diving into the depths of Mementos, the collective cognitive world of the public, the thieves learn a terrible truth that a false God had been pulling the strings of humanity, acting through a number of events so that it could merge reality with the cognitive would. They all fell to it's awesome power at first, but Akira was strong enough to bring the thieves together and lead them to the final battle with the false god. The fight would erase the cognitive world, and in turn one of their dear friends Morgana. They all knew the cost and they fought. Fought so that humanity could make it's own choices instead of living like prisoners in the false god's realm before finally dissipating into nothing. Once it was over Futaba tried to keep true to her vows, that she'd finally go to high school and live a normal life.


Torn from her reality, a new adventure begins.