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>OPEN LOG
>Well, good effort, I suppose.
>You won.
>A round of applause for the ultimate Phantom Thief, ladies and gentlemen. Savior of the free-thinking world. A legend of our time, yadda, yadda...
>But you could’ve done more.
>People died.
>He died.
>Try it again.
Opera slowly blooms in Akira’s mind. It’s soft at first, like most dreams, but gradually becomes more insistent. Brow furrowed, he rolls over on his cot. I’m tired, he groggily decides, I don’t want to bother with this dream. Shivering, he wraps his arms around himself. His blanket has abandoned him, it seems. Akira feels cold, clammy even. The air is stale, stiff. God, since when is his cot this hard?
Akira’s eyes open and see blue. He stiffens. This place, it was… it was supposed to be gone. He had watched it fade at the end, when The World was his. He had watched the real Igor close his eyes with a satisfied grin as he faded. He had watched Lavenza fade, hesitation and pride mixing on her face. He had…
He’s wearing those hideous striped pajamas again. Right now. He looks down at them, confusion spinning in his head. God, these things are ugly. The manacles are back too, tight and heavy, but god, the clothes. They smell like a toilet.
The toilet is there too. Fuck.
Head pounding, Akira slowly looks towards the cell door. It’s… a familiar sight. The twins flanking the door, stiffly looking at each other. Beyond them is that circular room, with that gaudy carpet and blue velvet stretched thin over brick. Yellow light fills the room from the desk lamp. Next to it, a rictus grin hides under an unnaturally long nose.
“Trickster… Welcome to my Velvet…”
Igor’s grin tightens.
Akira watches his narrow shoulders tense, wide eyes suddenly flicking around the Velvet Room. Those gloved hands, always tucked together with some vague air of confidence, tear apart from each other. One grasps wildly at the table; the other, to Igor’s own face. Spindly fingers press against pale skin, gloved palm pressing to the bridge of that long nose. Twitching, the hand pats all over the face, as if shocked it was there. Igor, always so calm and poised, lets out a shallow, shuddering breath. It comes out warped, sounding eerily deep and metallic.
Akira stands from the cot, fists clenching. No.
“NO!!”
The scream is shrill and boiling with rage. Caroline is bent over like a wild animal, fingers curled claw-like and baton crackling with electricity. She faces away from the cell, snarling at Not Igor with uncommon fury. Justine is stiff and rigid, the papers of her clipboard flipping rapidly as if caught in a hurricane. Not Igor suddenly looks smaller.
“Wait--”, Not Igor requests.
“Agathion.” Justine replies, lightning crackling off her form.
“BUGBEAR!” Caroline howls, hurling herself towards the table.
Ziodyne beats Caroline to table, blast of electricity turning the furniture to splinter. Not Igor vanishes in the yellow light, some vague sound of pain muffled by crackling ozone. Skulls burst from Caroline’s Persona, raining down like a osseous carpet bombing. Eigaon coils and hisses as the bombs hit, black smoke mixing with lingering lighting and hanging mid-air. Akira watches from behind raised arms, squinting from bursts of light.
A faint silhouette twitches inside the pillar of smoke. Two pale eyes glow with a power that simply Does Not Belong.
Justine steps back, bumping into the bars. Glancing over her shoulder, her eyebrows lift at the sight of the cell’s inhabitant. “Wh- Inmate?”
Caroline’s head snaps around, her baton still crackling angrily. “What the hell is happening, inmate?”
Akira stands there, next to the toilet. “I… I don’t know.”
A hiss rises from the smoke. “Of course you don’t, you feeble… feeble…”
Grabbing the bars, Akira rattles them, rattles his chains, strains against restraints. Nothing budges, nothing gives. Clenching his teeth, his eyes dart around. Out, need to get out, need to-
The Dyad Guillotine stands silently over to the side, tall and imposing and blue like everything here except that hissing abomination in the smoke. Their blades glow, the flame of rebellion flickering over the gleaming metal. Akira’s pulse quickens, and he turns back to the twins.
“Beat his ass, Lavenza.”
Justine looks at Akira like he had just dumped a casket full of rubber duckies over her head. Her stare is vacant and confused. Caroline, meanwhile, sucks in a quick breath at their true name, her true name. Leaping back towards the cell, she grabs her sister by the wrist and gives her guest a nod. Akira smiles back. Caroline pauses, like she wants to say something, then sprints towards the guillotines, dragging a bewildered Justine behind her.
A snapping sound echoes from the clearing smoke. Not Igor is hunched over, arms hanging limply from his shoulders. One of his legs is twisted at a sickening angle. His eyes are gleaming like headlights on the world’s angriest monster truck.
“Enough.”
Not Igor’s back explodes. There's a ripping of fabric and an angelic roar and a titanic gun bursts from the hunched back of the imposter. It’s golden and smooth and monolithic as it bursts through the roof of the Velvet Room, punching through sturdy brick like air. A metallic arm sprouts out to hold it, creaking as it curls on itself, aims, and fires.
Half of the Velvet Room bursts. The floor falls away to reveal an inky black void below. Down falls the cells and bricks and guillotines and twins, vanishing down into the dark.
Akira’s hands cling to the bars, watching them fall. It’s fast, too fast, that they vanish from sight. Far too fast.
Not Igor trembles, still hunched over, as the mechanical arm folds itself back up and vanishes into the torn fabric of his suit. He shivers, skin singed by shock and smoke. Taking a tentative step forward, the being uncurls his spine and stands up. The smile of his face is forced, eyes wild even as their glow fades. Slowly, he shifts his weight off that twisted leg, gazing back to the cell.
Akira stares at the Holy Grail with a hate typically reserved for that bald shithead in the glasses. His body feels heavy. The twins are gone. The twins are gone into that dark, and the Grail is back, and he’s still locked in this cage. He’s back in this fucking cage and he has no idea why.
Not Igor pauses, returning the caged man’s stare. His posture is still stiff, body still broken. After a long moment he speaks, voice low and steady.
“You killed me. Using that… titan of a Persona, you rejected all of humanity’s desires and killed me.”
Akira tries to call Satanael to do it again, but gets no response.
“You shot me in the head. I died.
Akira hisses out a lungful of stale air. “Clearly, you didn’t die enough.”
Not Igor nods slowly. “Clearly.” Raising a gloved hand, the imposter snaps his fingers. “Care to give it a try, Trickster?”
With a shudder, the cell walls begin to slide together. Water splashes violently out of the toilet, the cot creaking loudly. The chain binding Akira’s leg snap taut as the iron ball they connect to launches itself into the back of the room, yanking him off his feet. Akira hits the floor hard, wind knocked clean out of him. Not Igor leans forward, anticipation filling those glowing eyes. Wheezing, he closes his eyes and reaches out again. Satanael is silent. As is Vishnu, and Zao Gongen, and Cybele, and all his Personas. There’s nothing. They’re all gone. Like he never got them in the first place. Everything he’d gained, everything he’d achieved, everything he’d earned, gone. Missing. Stolen.
“What’s the matter…? Are you simply going to watch?”
A voice booms from within. A familiar voice.
“All we’ve grasped together, gone. Our loyal aides, slain. Our greatest foe, arisen from the dead to wreak havoc on the world once more. “
The room is small now. Akira can hear the cot crumple behind him.
“Dragged back, you find yourself desolate and alone.”
“Once more, trapped in that unjust game you struggled to escape.”
“Yet you lie there and quiver.”
“Death awaits us both if you do nothing. Were all your decisions a mistak-”
“Just this once, Arsene,” Joker interrupts, reaching up to his mask, “Cut the theatrics.”
Silence holds for a moment, then the Persona releases a deep, booming laugh.
“If you insist, my liege!”
Blue flame bursts from between the cell bars, an inferno that curls and climbs over the broken Velvet Room walls. Not Igor steps back, arms instinctively raised to protect from the blast of heat. Inside the cell Joker can feel his chains literally melting off of him, liquid metal slipping off his skin without a mark. In an act of true justice the hideous striped garments are burned away, replaced with the sleek black fabric of a proper thief’s wardrobe. Clawed hands sink into the closing walls, effortlessly shoving them back to their proper position. Arsene cackles wildly, wings spreading wide as he forces the deathtrap away from his master. His face is a mask of shadows and fire, hat scraping a scorchmark across the ceiling. Joker stands and adjusts his gloves, yanking one back down his wrist. Flame pulls itself sharply back through cell bars, coalescing around the glowing Persona.
Joker takes a step forward. Not Igor takes a step back. Arsene lunges, claws glowing with flame, reaching to tear the cell door from its hinges and-
"CLAAAAAAAAAAANGGGGGGG", say the cell bars to Arsene, bluntly refusing his attempt to knock them out of place.
Joker stops. Blue energy glows on the cell bars, a dim glimmer in the dark. With the flame gone and desk lamp obliterated by exploding skulls, the Velvet Room is suddenly quite dim.
“... Ah. It would appear… you have failed to break free.”
Joker’s eyes narrow to slits. Behind him, Arsene’s claws vibrate with dark energy. Red tendrils, curses made solid, begin to curl off of the Persona’s forearms.
“For the moment.”
The god outside chuckles that low, confident chuckle, the one that never quite sat right with Joker the first time around. “No. You are, once more, nothing more than a prisoner.” Stepping towards the cell, Not Igor tucks his arms neatly behind himself, panic fading from his exaggerated features. “But this time, you are not imprisoned as a guest. This time, you are deprived.”
Not Igor cocks his head. Somehow, that rictus grin twists itself into a smirk, teeth clenched and lips curled. “You will be deprived of everything my Velvet Room has to offer. There will be no fusion, no sacrifice, no fresh strength gained from that you discard. The Personas you raised so diligently before are now forever out of your reach. And to solidify that point…”
Not Igor reaches out, upwards. With the flick of the wrist, a pale blue card appears in the gloved fingers of the god. It trembles, shimmers, and break, vanishing into a few specks of light. A flash of glee passes over Not Igor’s face.
“... Your claim to the Wild Card has been revoked.”
Akira tenses. That… leaves only…
“Odd. You look so assured of your safety, my divine friend.”
Hmmn?
Arsene is leaning over Akira now, reaching out between the bars and towards the imposter beyond. His master looks up, questions bursting into his mind. The biggest is “Has Arsene ever talked to anyone else before?”, followed by “Since when can he talk to other people?” and “How the hell do I not know about this?”
Not Igor opens his mouth to say something, but Arsene continues on. “Because if I remember correctly… You may have helped my master to great success, but when it came time to turn coat and finally kill him?”
A mocking lilt drapes over Arsene’s echoing voice. One clawed hand forms a finger gun, pointing right down Not Igor’s elongated nose.
“Well. My work speaks for itself, doesn’t it?”
From some faraway place in the void, an alarm suddenly clangs. Akira tenses. The Velvet Room begins to fade, the wreckage of broken walls and iron bars turning blurry and indistinct. Not Igor stands there, arms at his sides, eyes bulging with… name it. Rage, fear, fury, all boiling under the surface. He lifts an arm, whether to retort or attack, but it’s too late. The dream fades and the Velvet Room is gone.
4/10/20XX
Akira Kurusu wakes up.