Chapter Text
The plan didn’t work.
Of course it didn’t work, none of them were expecting the police to drug him up, abuse him, make him go through hell-
It doesn’t matter, really. The plan didn’t work, Akechi is standing over a dead man with a smile that seems real, for once – Akira always wanted to know what Akechi was really like, underneath his smarmy layer of fakeness, but not like this, never like this – and he knows his fate is sealed just as Okumura’s was.
Underneath the fog of drugs, he feels like he’s simultaneously on a cloud and being crushed underneath a ton of bedrock. He can barely see, barely even think – though it doesn’t matter, because soon he’ll never do either again. He let down his friends (his friends who didn’t even flinch at gambling with his life, who didn’t even bother to try to come up with a less dangerous plan, who are so assured in his skills that they didn’t even consider that he’s going to die because of them-) and now he’s going to suffer the price, dealt out by someone who he almost could’ve called a friend.
Almost.
There was too much of a distant between them before, caused by their lies and deceptions to each other. Right now is probably the only time neither of them have been pretending - he’s got nothing left to gain, and Akechi has nothing left to lose.
He almost smiles. At least in his last moments he can finally see Akechi’s true self. If only it hadn’t turned out like this – it could make for a good bonding moment.
But he’s going to die, Akechi’s going to kill him, and there’s nothing neither of them could do to change that.
He blinks, and focuses back on the situation at hand – on his failure, on his final moments, on his to-be-murderer. He’s saying something now, some victory speech rubbing in soon to be lack of life. He can’t hear what he’s saying, the words running over him like water. He can hear his tone though – it’s far lower than normal, a timbre of poisonous honey. It’s far less charming than his usual tone, but far less grating as well.
There’s cold metal pressed against his temple, and the world swims in front of him. His eyes trail to the gun, before forcing himself to look into Akechi’s eyes. He tries to find something, anything, in them, but there’s nothing but blankness. The forced calmness of the drugs starts to give way to a layer of panic, and the world becomes clear for the first time since he woke up in the interrogation room. Akechi’s grin gets wider at his obvious panic, wider and more painful and wider and wider until -
“This is how your justice ends.”
- the bullet is shooting through his head and nothing hurts until everything hurts and his head is exploding in pain and there’s laughter he can’t hear and red he can’t see and and and-
Everything goes dark.
His head is still foggy when he wakes up, and there’s a feeling of wrongness aching through him. Something happened, something bad, but it alludes him like everything always does. He opens his eyes to an attic he barely remembers. It’s far messier now, and far more impersonal, with Sojirou’s junk spread everywhere and none of his belongings in sight.
He feels a loss in his gut. He never thought Akechi could ever actually shoot him, would ever betray him. He should’ve known better but -
He blinks.
Akechi shot him.
In the head.
At point blank range - a shot that no one could survive.
And –
This is how your justice ends.
He should be dead. He should be dead.
He shoots up, and falls out of bed with all of his non-existent grace, the memories hitting him harder than the bullet. The bullet that should’ve killed him, that must’ve killed him – yet somehow he’s still alive in Leblanc’s attic, with nary a scratch on him.
He tries to think logically. It could just be a dream but – no. The bullet definitely went through his head - he can still feel it if he concentrates hard enough – and there’s no way he could ever have dreamed up that expression on Akechi’s face. That smile was far more terrifying than anything he’s ever seen, and without the numbness the drugs, he shivers. Besides, a dream couldn’t explain how the attic – his attic – could’ve changed so much.
He stumbles down the stairs, wide eyed, to breakfast curry and an unfriendly Sojiro.
“Oh, so you are actually going to school?”
He remembers Sojiro say the same thing before, he remembers his mocking tone, his sneer. He remembers his room looking empty and desolate, with dust as far as the eye can see.
He remembers because it’s all happened before, on his first day at Shujin, and that must mean –
He’s back where he started.
He stumbles to the bathroom and tries to resist the urge to throw up.
(He fails).
Everything’s far too similar for him.
The walk to school is the same as always, with students surrounding him, gossiping about Akechi’s latest mundane interview. The path he takes is no different from any other day, and his uniform itches in the way he’s gotten used to.
At the same time, everything is far too different. The weather, for one, with the spring rain splashing against his glasses. There’s no talk of the Phantom Thieves, and students don’t stare for once, just let their eyes past straight over him. The way Sojiro looked at him after coming out of the bathroom – no sympathy in his eyes, and a harsh command to eat quickly so he can open up shop.
He’s not sure which one is more unsettling – the familiarity of the past, or the differences it contains.
He runs his finger along his bag as the world burns and crashes around him. It’s not the first time the world has fucked him over, but it’s the first time, in a long time, that he’s alone to deal with it. There’s no one on his side – no one to ask for advice, no one to create plans with, and no one to rely on.
For the first time, in a long time, he doesn’t know what to do.
He takes a deep breath and tries to think. The easiest plan is to just try again, pretending he knows nothing - that he doesn’t know that the plan will fail, that he doesn’t know how dangerous Akechi is or how drugs feel like coursing through your system. It’s technically the plan with the least risk – he knows how things will work out, after all but, well, if he fails . . .
Okay, another plan then. He could just, not go to the TV station on the field trip? That would change things, maybe Akechi wouldn’t have figured them out if he never met them. Unlikely, and, if it fails, he will still meet the same end. Or perhaps he could get Akechi arrested and see how he likes being –
He sighs and looks up.
He forgot how bad the rain was on his first day, it’s a wonder he didn’t drown the first time around. He can almost hear Morgana yowling about it from his bag – for a non-cat, he hates the rain in a very cat-like fashion.
He can’t care – can’t think - about that now, though. There’s a choice he has to make.
He sees Ann sheltering from the rain and stops.
If he waits with her, things will start the same. Kamoshida will pick Ann up, Ryuji will run into him, they’ll go into the metaverse, they’ll meet Morgana. He’ll be late, Kamoshida will threaten him will expulsion, they’ll change his heart. The Phantom Thieves will begin once again, with Akira as the fearless leader who will do anything for his team, who tempts danger and risks death enacting dumb plans that never would have worked.
He shakes his head, and keeps on walking.
If things start the same way once again . . .
They’ll probably end the same way, too.
He’ll figure out what to do just – later. Not now.