Chapter Text
The world inside the display glass was void of sound.
Only Akira's rustle as he stood created a little noise, but there were no echos. The sound was mate and short, as if they were inside a vacuum chamber. As he took in his surroundings, it was obvious that they were still in Okina, the streets identical to the ones outside.
Akira looked up.
The sky was pitch black, not a single star in sight. No clouds, no birds, nothing.
"Just like in Mementos..." He whispered to himself.
"Look. Over there...!" Said Morgana, pointing towards Okina Station.
A faint glow radiated from the shopping center, the buildings in front blocking out the source of the light.
"That has to be it."
Akira nodded, and with renewed vigor, they rushed back the way they came from.
It didn't escape to him that he was still in his regular school clothes, no trickster attire yet. His previous experiences taught him that in any moment they would meet the source of distortion, he and Morgana would be labeled as unwanted guests and his Persona ability would return. But who would that person be? It really couldn't be Akechi, right? The new goal was to gather more information about this new... Palace? Or maybe a Jail? Or something new all together.
And find Akechi.
"I really hope the Meet-and-Greet is still going on...!" Morgana grieved as they came into a corner. As soon as they turned into the main street, all sound and colors came back to life. Garlands of beads hung from light-post to light-post, reflecting the warm light that bathed down from them. Pompoms and paper streamers lined the buildings across the shopping center, the roads and sidewalks filled with glitter. The air was alive with music. As Akira and Morgana approached the center of the street, they began to see groups of people.
"Shadows..." Morgana warned.
Indeed they were. Humanoid-shaped blobs of darkness. They were dressed like people, but their faces had no eyes, no nose. Just open, smiling mouths.
They sounded excited.
As they approached, the shadows didn't pay them much attention, sometimes they would even part to let him and Morgana through. The Shadows would exchange high-pitched words with one another. Some of them held on to rolled up pieces of paper, sometimes presenting the roll with pride to the surrounding Shadows. Their featureless faces laughed wholeheartedly, their pearly whites fully exposed.
"Something good must have happened." Observed Morgana.
"Something as good as meeting your idol?"
Morgana hummed, and climbed up a light post.
"I see something like a path...! There's too many shadows, I can't really tell if Akechi's down there too...!"
The cat went back down, and together they pressed forwards unto clusters of Shadows in the middle of the shopping center. After begging pardons and squeezing by, they reached stanchions and line dividers.
"Excuse me," Akira stopped a pair of toothy shadows that were walking opposite to them, "Is this the line to see Akechi?"
"You betcha!" Said one of them.
"But hurry! The meeting time is almost over!"
"Seven o'clock." Guessed Akira. "Thank you!"
They didn't need to discuss what to do from there. They followed the queued path.
"Aah, I don't think we're gonna make it...!" Cried Morgana as they followed the waiting line inside the train station.
They were running now.
There was no one else waiting, only more grinning Shadows making their way out of the station. Akira wished his trickster outfit would manifest already, that way he could use his grappling hook on the chandelier overhead and skip all the stanchions. They jumped over the sea of line dividers and finally reached a double, metal door.
Akira busted through like a madman.
"Watch it, boy...!"
Besides the door, a large shadow in a black suite glared down at him.
Akira bowed slightly, too anxious to properly apologize, and continued speed-walking further into the room. It was a spacious and tall room. It had glossy, wood floors, and a long, red carpet running through the center from one end to the other. A smaller group of shadows congregated at the opposite end of the rug. Akira felt the rush and satisfaction of finding a Treasure Room.
"I know how you feel, but starting a fight with a shadow right now would be suicide. We're almost there, so just try to calm down, okay?"
Akira was calm. So calm, that he could feel every hair pricking up his body. So calm, that he could hear his blood pumping through his ears. He felt jittery, sure, but he was cool.
As cucumbers. Yup.
Steps away from the group, they heard laughing.
"Thank you so much for coming, everyone." A woman said. "Please follow the exit sign, and be safe heading back home!"
"Crap! It's ove-?!" But Morgana's voice was cut through the Shadows cheering and applauding. Underneath the booming voices Akira registered a sweet tone.
"Thank you all for coming today. It was great meeting you."
His throat went dry.
The Shadows began to dissipate, chairs squeaked as they got pulled across the floor, and the clunking of a door opening resonated inside the conference room.
"Wait! Akechi, WAIT!"
Morgana jumped five feet up into the air, his scream recoiled within the walls.
All the Shadows turned towards them, and on the other side of a folding table stood Goro Akechi, body half turned away from them, mouth frozen in mid-speech. Eyes blinded with a white cloth.
"I'm sorry." The woman that had spoken earlier said.
She didn't sound sorry at all.
"But the Meet-and-Greet is over. It's been a long day for Goro-kun, and we should get going ."
A memory from last year flashed through Akira's mind. The sight of a pink-skinned woman in a veil. But unlike Toshiro's once-bride-to-be, this woman didn't wear a wedding dress. She stood behind Akechi, tall and proud, a tight suit of pure white made her look sharp and dangerous like a dry, broken bone. Her pair of glasses couldn't hide the absolute revulsion she had for the newcomers that had so rudely interrupted her exit.
She pressed both her hands over Akechi's shoulders and turned him towards the open door behind the table. Akechi, soft and delicately, patted one of her hands.
"Ms.Hino, it's quite alright." His perfectly pleasant voice hummed out. "I won't fall apart from one last handshake." He joked.
On cue, the remaining Shadows laughed, and Akechi walked to meet Morgana and Akira.
Akira was stuck to the floor.
Frozen.
Time didn't slow down at all for him to drink up the new look of Akechi donned. All he could notice at the moment was the new length of his hair. It barely touched his shoulders now. Like a little bob. It encased his beautiful face perfectly.
Akira's mouth fell slightly ajar.
Morgana, besides him, laughed nervously.
"I'm glad you could both stop by today." Akechi smiled, squatting to shake Morgana's paws.
"Th-the pleasure is all ours, hahaha!" Mona said. He was shooting anxious looks at Akira, who was still out of commission. "Um, please excuse him, he's like, your biggest fan."
Akechi let go of Morgana and stood to face the other boy. He smiled at him, and Akira blacked out again.
Somehow, he found Akechi's hand and squeezed it tight. The idol made no remark of it.
"It's no problem. I get nervous meeting my fans too." He chuckled. "What are your names?"
Akira's breath stuck to his chest. His brain re-calibrated, realizing something that should have been obvious from the moment Akechi noticed them there.
He doesn't know who we are.
"Uh," Morgana pitched in, sweating bullets, "I'm Morgana, and that's-"
"Welp! Time is up, Goro-kun. We have to go. Now."
"But-!" Akechi and Akira's stretched hands were unlatched by the sudden explosive entrance of multiple bodyguard Shadows. Immediately, Akira took his battle stand.
"I'm sorry, Goro-kun, but we do have to go. You still have to work on your choreography for tomorrow's show, remember?" She finished in a sickly, sweet tone.
"Um-" Akechi looked around him nervously, towered by the massive Shadows. As if he'd never stood in front of, and/or completely decimated these kinds of creatures before.
"Let's go, Songbird." Ms.Hino called out once more.
At that, the idol faltered at last.
"I hope you continue to support me. Thank you for coming today." And with that, Akechi turned and left.
The door closed behind him and Ms.Hino, suctioning out every sound out of the conference room. It was deadly silent. Only Akira, Morgana and the bodyguard Shadows remained.
The two Phantom Thieves knew exactly what was about to happen next. They were surrounded, but one, two, three seconds passed, and the bodyguards did not attack. They didn't move.
Cla-clack!
The back door where Akechi and the woman had left opened slightly.
Ms.Hino's face peeked inside. A wicked smile spread across her face.
"You two just cost me precious seconds with my Goro. You are banned from every single one of my darling's shows and public meetings in the future." She said.
"The meeting is over. Time to take out the trash!" The woman laughed, and disappeared behind the door once more. It locked shut and Morgana said.
"Here we go."
Immediately, the bodyguard shadows burst into their true selves. Monsters that Akira had never seen before. Some of them dressed in black and white suits, others held on to musical instruments or were formed of instruments. But it didn't matter what they represented, their names were, or which affinity they held, because in his hand a sharp dagger materialized, and the heaviness of his black coat embraced Akira with power.
"Raoul!"
His soul drew darkness from within and devoured the monsters surrounding them. They didn't stand a chance. The Shadows melted instantaneously, leaving behind a mere 4000 yen.
"What a load of weaklings..."
Ignoring the money on the floor and Morgana's comment, Akira rushed to the back door, though he was only met with a secured lock.
"Joker, they're already gone." Morgana called out from behind as he began tinkling with his Perma-pick.
A shuddering sigh shook his whole body. He kicked at the door, knowing full well it would be for naught, but to hell with it. He definitely felt a little better as he returned to Morgana's side.
His teammate stood with his arms crossed over his chest. He looked more pensive than judgmental, and Akira was glad for it.
"We found him. We found the source of distortion, and you have your powers back."
Akira nodded.
"This is business as usual, Joker. Let's go back for now. We have a lot to discuss."
"We're returning tomorrow."
The cat eyed him cautiously but returned a curt nod his way.
"Let's use the rooftops to make our way back to the music shop. I don't want to risk it and find that the Shadows outside have also become aggressive."
As they ran across the bustling skyline of Okina, Morgana pointed out that the shadows indeed had become more anxious. Akira couldn't care less. He would gladly mow through them to get back to Akechi.
Akechi.
Akechi, that had been Akechi.
He was alive. And he was there. With his once sweet, patient tone, and his characteristic princely personality. He was all too perfect and that made everything entirely wrong with Akechi. The Akechi that Akira knew wouldn't want to be an idol anymore. The Akechi that he knew would have rather spent time alone and in peace than be paraded in front of hundreds and having to shake every single hand in the room. The Akechi that he knew... would have recognized them! Akira bit down hard, grinding his teeth together.
Everything. Everything was wrong and it was all that manager's fault.
Morgana stopped to peek at the alleyway below.
"We're clear."
"He gave me his right hand to shake."
"Huh?"
"Akechi," Behind the mask, Akira was back in the TV station, bright lights and fake smiles. "When we exchanged contact info for the first time, he gave me his left hand. His dominant hand."
"O-okay...?"
"That woman... She doesn't even know he's left handed. She's clearly the one controlling him-" Vile, black and rotten, rose to his throat. Again, someone was playing with Akechi's life and this time he couldn't even fight for his freedom.
It made Akira sick.
"She turned him into what she wants him to be... And she doesn't even know he's left-handed."
Morgana stared at him with his big, blue eyes. He looked unsettled, as if Akira was being the mad one here. When it was that lady that had completely taken the true-Akechi essence out of Akechi...!
"I honestly forgot that Akechi was left handed..." The cat confessed. "But that's minuscule, Joker- Wait, hang on...!" The cat must have noticed Akira taking a big gulp of air, expanding his chest, ready to retaliate on that extremely inaccurate comment.
"Think about it! You're letting your feelings get the best of you, and I get it, okay?" He definitely didn't, but Akira didn't really want to start a yelling contest on the rooftop. Or any. "And of course, that lady doesn't know Akechi and is controlling him, it's perfectly clear. But we found him. And we're going to get him out, but we need to get ourselves out first, understood??"
Both Morgana and Akira were out of breath, wildly staring at each other.
They hadn't had an argument this heated since last spring. When Akira was so upset about Goro Akechi that he hyperventilated himself to the floor and shivered until his mother found him. When Morgana, in his normal-cat form, so helplessly could do nothing more than scream to Akira to get up and feel better already. The day after, Morgana gave Akira a piece of his mind. That day, Akira realized that Morgana, too, could cry. Tears of anger. Tears of impotency. How dare Akira keep all that anguish inside him without Morgana knowing? What good was Morgana for if not helping his favorite Thief?
On the rooftop, on this brand new bubble in the Metaverse, the Akira of the present recovered his bearings. The creature in front of him had once been his mentor, then an accomplice and teammate, but today, Morgana was his family. Just like he had been that eventful evening back in April. And Morgana might not be human, but he was imperfect and that made him human enough to justify his actions, or inaction, and not fully know how to handle things when they were out of his depth. Such as the things that were being said and happening on this very night. So Akira's vision cleared, and he saw his beloved partner for what he was. Scared. Scared of losing him to Akira's very own fears and dark imaginations.
Joker took a deep breath, and exhaled.
"Alright." His voice was back to normal, controlled. Just how it should be, just how it should have been from the start. "I'm sorry."
The cat searched in his face for something that he didn't find.
"Okay." Morgana said, turning to the alleyway. "Let's get out of here."
Akira followed him silently all the way to the music shop's storefront. There, they pressed their hands over the glass and fell through it like before. Akira and Morgana stepped out the other side. Their appearances had changed back. Akira was a normal student, and Morgana was just a normal cat.
"It's late. Let's go home." Morgana said.
Akira followed him, letting the cat walk ahead on his own. There wasn't much more Akira could do to alleviate Morgana's mind from their argument. He said sorry, and he meant it, all he could do was keep his feelings over a certain someone in check... Which would be hard because in the next few days, Akira knew, he would be doing nothing more than obsessively thinking, acting and reacting over that certain someone's well being.
Goro Akechi.
Goro Akechi.
His pretty new hair cut.
His sweet, princely voice.
It was a lie. It wasn't right.
"Oh." Akira remembered something.
They were waiting for their train back to Inaba. Morgana sat next to him, looking away pensively. He turned to Joker.
"What is it?"
"I should call, uh... Endo-san."
"Oh, yeah." Said the cat, and then went back to staring into the distance.
Akira felt a pang in his heart, but chose to ignore it. Morgana's indifference wasn't coated with disdain, he could hear it in his voice, see it in his posture. Instead, he began to wonder which words he should use to calmly communicate to Endo-san that they had found her... whatever Akechi was to her. If he thought about it any longer, Akira knew he wouldn't have the guts to call her at all. He jumped to the deep-end, and keyed in her phone number.
"Endo's speaking." The other side of the line demanded.
"It's Kurusu." Akira said, mimicking Endo-san's cordiality. "We found Akechi."