Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

By all accounts, Goro Akechi is dead. At least, he’s supposed to be. Yet there he is, sat up in bed two years in the past with a tight spiral of arguing memories fighting for dominance at the forefront of his mind. He can feel Robin Hood waking up too, but where Loki is he doesn’t know, the presence of the darker Persona is nowhere near him and his mix of thoughts can’t decide whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

He spies the calendar on his desk across the room, neatly crossed out boxes leading to today, Thursday 10th April. A solid month after he started his pathetic pursuit against his father, but as far as his old (current?) memory serves, he’s only facilitated a small number of psychotic breakdowns so far (most of minor importance though noticeable for Shido). He’s also sure he’s maybe a week or so off from his first larger target and a month away from when he approached Shido in the first place - a stupid decision on his part he recognises now, and hopefully he can avoid causing any more grief for anyone else by steering clear of the politician for a while.

He slips from the warmth of his threadbare duvet, thanking whatever force it was that threw him back here that he woke up after he’d escaped the mess that was his old halfway home. While his apartment now isn’t nearly as nice as the one he’d gotten under Shido’s funding, it did and will continue to do him fine because the rent is cheap enough that he can pay for it with the money of the Metaverse - because fight enough shadows and they drop yen in piles. Nevertheless, he stretches out until his bones click; Robin Hood sounds like he’s trying to find Loki somewhere in Goro’s heart and he’s a little too disoriented to let his Persona know the other isn’t there.

At the corner of his eye he sees himself in the slightly cracked mirror in the corner of his room: he’s smaller than he remembers but he thinks that might just be because his sense of how tall children should be became overestimated as he got taller and was used to everyone being a similar height to him. His hair is also different, not by much but it’s noticeably shorter and he looks skinnier - food had been a small issue before Shido, he may have to expel a lot of his energy to get some more money from Mementos if he doesn’t want to starve.

The mark on his forehead causes him to shiver, it looks mostly like a slightly-too-big freckle but thin, dark lines spike out of it like he’d been electrocuted. A keepsake from his former (or a reminder of his future) life it seems, of course he wouldn’t get off without something; as much as he appreciates the second chance he knows whatever force had given it to him is going to make him work for it. He shifts his hair to try and hide it.

In the mirror he catches sight of something behind him that gives him pause: the prim uniform of the one Shujin Academy hangs from the door of his wardrobe and the book bag he always saw Kurusu carry that damn cat in sits on his desk chair too. This... this didn’t happen before, clearly, but he’s four days into his first year of high school, he’s fifteen yet he has the brain and experiences of himself at eighteen and if he hadn’t already had his mental breakdown before he died he might’ve had one now and honestly even with that things just aren’t making any sense and he is so sure he’s supposed to be dead right now but-

Alright, kid, focusing on the now, how about we do that. Let’s not freak out, everything is fine

Goro has to scoff, hypocrite, acting like he wasn’t freaking out about their missing trickster five minutes ago. Goro’s having an emotional crisis right now, and whether or not Robin appreciates that is apparently up in the air.

He closes his eyes, tries to ignore the flashes of less-than-pleasant memories, and takes a deep breath. He can do this, get dressed, take the trains (try not to take the wrong line), enter Shujin, and hope to everything that he can get through the day without looking at all out of place, or lost, or shaken, or- or any other less-than-normal mood he should feel on a midweek school day. Just... let this timeline brain take over for a while or something, that could work.

Realising after a second that he’s been standing in the middle of his room staring at a uniform, he grabs it to change. While the pattern of the trousers has never been quite too appealing to him, and the suspenders making the already tight white turtleneck hug into him further is a going to be something to get used to, he has to say that this uniform is much warmer than his old one, plus the fabric of the turtleneck is surprisingly cosy. He spends far too long deciding whether to button his blazer up before deciding against it and just leaving the room, not bothering to make his bed or clean the small mess he made while changing.

He could’ve done without the crammed nature of the train this morning, though the large amount of Shujin students is helpful for him when he almost instinctively gets off the train too early for his old transfer. The droves of chattering teenagers are his yellow brick road towards the strangely imposing structure of the Academy; what looks like a third year student is stood at the gates watching everyone’s behaviour, glasses almost slipping off his nose and a small notepad in hand.

“Good morning, Akechi-kun.”

His brain doesn’t supply him a name, rather a title as he passes the older boy, “good morning.” Current student council president, this one seemingly a little more uppity about the appearance of his school (if his current-new memory is correct) than even Niijima-san had been before she joined the Phantom Thieves.

It takes his memories a few minutes to dance around each other and provide him the right shoe locker, and that then gives him enough time to root around with Robin to figure out which damn classroom he’s in: 1-C, bottom floor, seat is in the middle of the third row but he can’t remember who sits in the seats around him for the moment. 

The chatter of students draws him to the classroom - a lively class then, great - several girls are sitting around a desk in the back corner, talking loudly about their love lives and other things just as trivial while a gaggle of young boys crowd by the blackboard laughing at a rather inappropriate drawing one of them has scribbled in chalk. Goro doesn’t know if he can deal with being a teenager again, but he also isn’t quite sure how he feels about being dead. 

Speaking of, he’s sure that he made the connection between his death and his current knowledge this morning, but that doesn’t stop his nerves from going haywire at the sight of Makoto Niijima on the desk behind the one he’s sure is his in the middle of the room. If she sees him she isn’t reacting, and after a second of his irrational fear toying with him, he realises he’s pretty sure only he died in Shido’s Palace (if his assumption about his mind-travel is correct), most likely the only person with any connection to the Phantom Thieves to have died definitely, so he’s almost positive she doesn’t know anything - probably has no knowledge of who he is, period - and when he sits down that point is proven by her lack of acknowledgement, her eyes barely lifting from whatever she’s writing in her notebook already.

Hey, kid, maybe you wanna, I don’t know, make friends with her or something

Uh- right, friend making. That’s a thing teenagers do, Goro doesn’t have much practice and he can feel Robin laughing at him (the audacity) as he tries to come up with a hundred and one things to say to the not-yet-Phantom-Thief that don’t involve her sister or the fact that the one fact he can remember right now is when the girl’s birthday is. The whole friend thing is strange in of itself, never having had any, but Niijima-san is obviously someone that could be helpful: not necessarily with the Metaverse - he isn’t quite sure he wants to take anyone with him at the moment, especially when she won’t have had an awakening - but she could be useful in making things more normal, less normal than they could be but she’s not the worst of the Phantom Thieves he could’ve been stuck with.

But how is he supposed to act? He didn’t have this problem this morning when it was just him (even if he did and apparently still keeps letting his thoughts run rampant) but now that he’s surrounded by people that are expecting some kind of personality from him his instincts are telling him to use his Appropriate-For-TV appearance and while that may work for the average person, he respects Niijima-san’s intelligence enough not to mock her with what she’ll clearly identify as a fabrication. In reality he... he isn’t entirely sure what he’s supposed to be like, he’s had a facade up for so long around so many different parties of people that each of them can’t even amalgamate into something legible for him to use right now. Fuck, his head hurts. When did dying become so complicated? When did he get so free with his thoughts?

“Niijima-san, correct?” His mouth is moving before he realises it, and in the bustle of awaiting a teacher, he’s swivelled in his chair to face her.

Her eyes seem to light up as she looks up at him, her face ever neutral though the corner of her mouth is threatening to pull upwards without her consent.

“That’s right,” she nods, hands clasping together on her desk, “Akechi-kun, I believe?”

“Your belief is correct.” Communicating similarly is a good start, probably, “I must say, I’m impressed you’re able to be writing with all the noise.”

She lets herself smile just a little, tucking barely loose strands of hair behind her ear, “my middle school was quite similar, so I’m used to it. Are you not a fan?”

He forces a chuckle, rubbing the back of his neck, “I’m used to solitude, just getting used to the new school, I suppose.”

“That’s understandable, I’ve read that high school holds the most important years of our youth so I hope you settle in soon.”

Of course, of all the people to try and research high school Niijima-san would be one of them, Goro wouldn’t be surprised if Sae-san had suggested for her to do it. 

He spins around as the classroom door is slid closed, Mr. Ushimaru, the social studies and 1-C’s homeroom teacher from what his brain supplies, walking in and sending the boys by the blackboard back to their seats with a simple eyebrow raise; the girls surrounding the back corner desk rush to their seats too, one of them slipping into the seat in front of him.

Classes drag on, most of the teachers jump right into lectures, because high schoolers don’t have time to get settled into their new school, it seems. Homeroom is simple, he gets the opportunity to talk to Niijima-san more and she happily tells him about some of the study techniques she’s already begun to implement (he’s not surprised she ends up Kobayakawa’s favourite in the future, she’s very devoted to her education), and he lets her talk because it means he doesn’t have to - he isn’t really sure what exactly he’d talk about no matter what weird subject Robin keeps trying to pull from the memory soup in his head. He’s thankful their timetable doesn’t have them set for PE today, he may be dealing with everything mildly okay now but the second he sees Kamoshida he’s going to have to hold off on going straight into his Palace to give him a psychotic breakdown; Kamoshida needs to be here for Kurusu to get his Persona, and he needs Kurusu and his team to be able to take down Shido - he’s not looking forward to the wait but at least Mementos is around to give him some people to change the hearts of in the meantime.

Lunch goes by in an equal flurry of eating and talking - Goro has to awkwardly admit to Niijima that he forgot to make a lunch this morning but is persistent in rejecting any food the girl offers to him, he doesn’t need her charity right now - and he stays a few minutes after the last bell toll to make sure his, mildly unnecessary given he knows most of this stuff already, notes are as organised as he can get in his single notebook. Niijima offers him a meek goodbye but he thinks just talking to her and letting her ramble claimed at least the beginnings of a friendship, an olive branch if you will.

On Friday things go by the same but Robin is getting antsier as the hours go by, wanting to be set free to kill a few shadows and for a moment Goro is glad Loki isn’t there or he’d practically have two petulant children crying at him to go outside. He honestly can’t believe the pair of them managed to keep up their badass farce for a whole year before they caved and just became teasing or whining voices in his head with the exception of Loki’s more psychotic tendencies; he really can’t believe they’re supposed to be extensions of him. His own brain is less frazzled and he’s able, or so he hopes, to control more wayward thoughts and actually provides more conversation over lunch that he actually brings food to this time (it’s minute given his limited funds but it’s something).

“So club showcases are tomorrow,” Niijima says at the station that afternoon, “are you looking into anything?”

He cups his chin with his hand, humming, he isn’t particularly athletic so the sports teams are out of the question and he’s not that well-versed in the extracurriculars at this school.

“Nothing comes to mind, why?”

“I was wondering if you’d like to check out the student council with me?” She looks like she’s trying to stop herself from bouncing on her heels, “I had planned to go by myself since introducing myself to them might make elections go a little easier but-“

“You’d feel better if you had someone with you?”

“Not necessarily,” she replies indignantly, crossing her arms with a small glare, “I was just curious if you wanted to join me!”

He chuckles, tugging on the sleeves of his blazer as a train pulls into the station. He hadn’t had time to do extracurriculars before since he spent most of his time either going after picked targets or doing detective work with Sae-san, so the offer to spend time doing something normal is rather tempting. Of course whether they introduce themselves to the council or not doesn’t determine whether their class elects them as representatives, but elections are in May (a week after sports team tryouts) and they have a good amount of time to prove themselves capable.

“I’ll go, I’m actually quite curious about it myself when you mention it.”

He doesn’t have to look at her as they step onto the train to know she’s smiling a little again.

By Saturday he’s got some kind of routine, even if Robin is still getting on his case about checking the Metaverse, he has the app on his phone leering at him to just go and let out some pent up energy. He wonders if the Metaverse will hold answers to exactly why he’s even here, or maybe he’ll actually find Loki, or maybe it’ll just help him feel a little more real and less like he’s in a body he shouldn’t be. He still isn’t sure if he wants all this to be a dream or not.

He quietly raids one of the vending machines at lunch, grabbing a Udagawa Water for Niijima-san and a Nastea for himself before taking what he can of Arginades and Waters of Rebirth to keep him replenished when he checks Mementos tomorrow.

Classes finish early as they do on a Saturday, but most students don’t leave, they either flock to the gymnasium, main hall, or upstairs. Niijima-san is going into her more professional mindset, steeling her features and marching up to the third floor to the student council room.

Goro remembers the Student Council President’s name by the time they enter the room and see him sat at the main desk: Aito Toshihiro. His hair is black and in a clearly self-done bowl cut, his uniform is pristine, not a thread out of place and his blazer neatly ironed.

Around the table is what Goro guesses is the Vice President, a brunette girl with her hair half up with the only thing missing from her uniform is the blazer, and the very small conglomerate of normal members, at the moment consisting of two people: a silver haired boy with scruffy hair and an equally scruffy uniform, and an exceptionally tall girl with ash brown hair and a uniform that looks a little too small.

The four of them looked up eagerly as he and Niijima entered, Toshihiro-san introduces himself even though Goro’s pretty sure they’ve both met him before during the first couple days of the week. 

“Hachi Suzuki, Vice President,” the brunette girl bounces up from her seat, her hand shooting out in greeting. After she shakes both Niijima-san and Goro’s hands she turns to the remaining two people in the room, “these are our other, free this afternoon, members: Maru Hayashi.” The scruffy boy salutes as he leans back in his chair. “And Kameyo Maeda.” Tall girl beams at them.

“Makoto Niijima.”

“Goro Akechi.”

They introduce themselves more as a formality than a necessity, bowing all the same. Toshihiro-san goes through a rundown of what the student council does, he and Niijima-san listen along, nodding at all the right moments like neither of them actually knew this information already. He reiterates to them that elections will be in the middle of May (Goro thinks he hears the boy mumble about them probably winning their class over by default) and then he checks his watch and says he’s checking on other clubs as he’s leaving the room. Strange boy.

“Prez is a little uptight, likes a good impression to be made,” Hayashi-san grins, pushing against the table with his foot to lean back in his chair, “every class has a representative or two sure, doesn’t mean the people chosen actually show up that often s’why we’re the only ones here.”

Suzuki-san rolls her eyes, walking around the table and yanking the boy’s chair back with a deadpan expression; she stares down at him for a moment before releasing her grip and letting him tumble onto the floor. Maeda-san snorts.

“The other representatives,” Suzuki-san starts, voice harsh and glare directed mostly at Hayashi-san, “have a bit more standing in their other extracurriculars, one is heading the drama club, another helps Kamoshida with the volleyball team, student council just doesn’t rank very high on their list of priorities.”

“I’m just here cause nobody else in my class wanted to do it, and I didn’t wanna do any other extras,” Hayashi-san shrugs, cross-legged on the floor now as if he hadn’t hit his head on the drawers behind his chair.

Maeda-san chuckles a little, rubbing the back of her neck, “I put most of my effort into making my pitch for my class I missed tryouts for stuff and now I’m committed; another girl in my class is my sub if I’m sick but she mostly focuses on computer club across the hall which is why she’s not just another rep.”

“Yes, thank you, for your meaningful contributions today, Maru, Kameyo.” Suzuki-san grits her teeth and the pair, second years if Akechi’s observations have led him to the right conclusions, smile back at her like younger siblings happily annoying their older sister. She turns to him and Niijima-san, tough expression falling into a softer one in seconds, “thank you so much for coming by, we weren’t sure how many first years would come take a look but it’s good to know we’ll probably have a couple of regular representatives in you two.”

Niijima-san smiles, “you all seem lovely, and hopefully one or both of us will be seeing you in May.”

“Well, see ya later Akechi-kun, Niijima-chan!” Maeda-san waves, “we hope you win your class vote!”

Goro offers a wave in return, it’s halfhearted but he thinks it looks real-ish and he can feign being tired if Niijima-san asks when they get out of earshot. 

He stuffs his hands into the pockets of his trousers and sighs. He doesn’t know if he’s tired or if the week has blurred so much that part of him wants to go back to being Shido’s psycho lackey or dead; he’d probably prefer the dead option, frankly.

They’re on the train within the next hour, Goro stood holding onto a pole while Niijima-san grabbed the available seat next to him; he could’ve sat, it’s quiet enough, but he doesn’t want to allow himself to get comfortable or familiar at the moment. 

Niijima-san addresses him, looking up and clearing her throat, “would you... like to exchange contact information?” The question sounds uncertain, one of her eyes closes. “You know, so we can corroborate our efforts to be our class representatives?”

Goro can’t say she isn’t awkward, but from what he understands she didn’t really have friends before the Phantom Thieves which means she doesn’t have friends now, and he set out to be friends with her in the first place so really this is exactly what he’s supposed to want. It just feels strange, making friends with a girl in the past who in the future is supposed to hate him, but he’s not really making the same decisions he did last time so ideally he should be fine, but who’s to say she’s not going to wake up in a few days and remember exactly what he did and then she’ll either try and kill him or leer at him for the next two years until the rest of the team shows up (and considering he tried to kill her boyfriend it might make things a little... awkward to say the least); but she’d only ‘wake up’ if she died in the other, what, timeline? He’ll go with that. She’d only wake up if she died in the other timeline if he’s correct, and while he may only know a bit about her, he knows her sister, and Niijima women aren’t exactly ones to get themselves killed, so really only a bad accident could kill her and frankly he wouldn’t wish the pain of dying on anyone, except for maybe Shido but he deserves to suffer for his actions instead of getting out of it through death.

Kid, she’s getting anxious and you’re just staring

“Of course!” He says in a sudden flurry, jolted from his thoughts by Robin and startling himself with his own rushed volume - there goes his Persona laughing again. Jackass. 

Niijima-san lights up again, her deflated expression she’d gained as his thoughts ran rampant disappearing almost entirely as he pulls out his phone and passes it to her. She’s quick to add her number, naturally must have it memorised like Sae-san.

“So we’re... friends now?” She sounds pathetically hopeful, Goro can’t even feel embarrassed for her because he knows if he were in this position he would’ve lapped up the opportunity to have someone to talk to that wasn’t Loki and later Robin Hood.

He pulls on a smile, he can’t decide how much of it is forced and how much of it is genuine but it feels less plastic than his made-for-television expressions. 

“Friends, wonderful.” He hesitates, swallowing and sending a quick text for her to register his information.

Her phone blips and she gives him a small smile, the train pulls to a stop, doors opening and announcer calling out her stop. “I’ll see you on Monday then?”

“See you on Monday.”

He watches her slip out of the train and wonders if it would really be so bad for her to remember him.

Chapter Text

Goro staves off his nerves until lunch time of the 13th, he spends the morning energising himself half-decent coffee - he notes he can’t make it nearly as well as Sakura-san can - and listening to Robin Hood psyche himself up, ready to stretch his magic muscles (his Persona’s words, not his) in some fights. Maybe they’ll find some people’s shadows on the first level and he can see how he feels about being a ‘good guy’ and changing their hearts; given Loki isn’t even here right now, he wouldn’t be able to give anyone a psychotic breakdown no matter how much he might want to.

He has no idea what kind of access Kurusu’s team had to the Metaverse, nor where exactly they usually entered from aside from an assumption that it was probably somewhere around the station considering they were never on the surface. Goro’s access point is still available as far as he’s aware, so he heads to the old diner in a back alley of the street his apartment complex is on and lets the Metanav do its thing.

Feeling the world melt away around him is the one familiar feelings he doesn’t resent so far; moving between worlds creates a warm sensation over his body as his clothes shift, he naturally closes his eyes to ward off any dizziness that can sometimes happen when his surroundings warp. 

Landing in Mementos he notices his clothes, he guesses with a missing Loki comes a missing black mask, instead, he’s stood in the gear Robin Hood had him wear when he worked with the Phantom Thieves. It’s not bad, per se, it is pretty useless for blending in given how dark Mementos can get (if he has his usual way down), but he can move a little faster given it’s not full armour, but the minimal weight is going to be something to get used to again.

The reds and purple of his surroundings feel more like home than his apartment, feel more safe than school, it’s familiar and comforting and he wants nothing more than to stay here until time catches up and he can become some Metaverse cryptid to Kurusu and his team. He sighs, stretching out his legs and surveying the surface of Mementos, his usual path is as clear as usual and he starts down the route towards to closest subway station to head into the depths; very few shadows spend their time on the surface, the ones that do are particularly weak and can be taken out with one or two bullets or a single melee attack, no need for his Persona - much to Robin Hood’s chagrin. 

When he comes to the escalator down into the local station, and starts heading down, he hears Robin laugh.

Let’s go kick some Shadow ass

He rolls his eyes, toying with the cuffs of his shirt and rolling his neck, “have a little class.” All he gets in return is a childish mimic of his scold; he really wishes Loki was here.

Unlike the surface, the depths are dark. The first layer isn’t the darkest, but going from the surface down to it there’s a noticeable difference; the change isn’t enough to be jarring, he’s experienced it enough to expect it. The one difference he can feel now, though, is how heavy everything feels. It’s strange, he’s used to there being some kind of atmosphere around like when it’s humid and hard to breathe in summer, but this, it feels like something is trying to chase him out - and not like the Reaper either, he’s only run into that thing once, nearly died, and never spent enough time in Mementos to see it again, but he remembers what the presence of that thing feels like, and it’s not this.

Ordinarily, Goro might be smart, he might leave Mementos straight away to try and avoid whatever fate this feeling is warding him away from, but he can’t go another day without doing something he knows he’s good at. Socialising has never been his strong suit, school is all but cheating at the moment given he’s learned everything already, and then sitting in his home or going out feels pointless, he has nobody to spend time with if he ever wanted to, and sitting in silence just makes him stew with his thoughts and the tight coil of his anxieties get worse. The Metaverse, fighting, it’s the only thing he’s good at right now, but even this place wants him out.

Maybe Mementos knows you’re different

“The Metaverse isn’t sentient.” He’s pretty sure it isn’t anyway.

He needs this, no matter what the Metaverse wants right now, he needs this and he’s going to go through with it until he can’t take the weight of the world’s collective distortions. 

The first path is the only one he feels like traversing today,  he can’t, off the top of his head, remember how many levels the path has, but he knows it’s the shortest out of the ones he’s been through. He’s never reached the end, doesn’t even know if there is an end to it, all he knows is that if the first path feels this way and it gets darker and heavier as they go down... he doesn’t want to go down.

Along the first path he fights every shadow he comes across, fighting enemies that range from Beguiling Girls to Menacing Owlmen. Nothing that doesn’t go down to one hit from Robin Hood, and nothing that causes too much harm to his person; he does drink a few Arginades as he traipses down one of the rail lines, he’s tossing an empty can at another shadow to start a fight when he sees the vortex at the end of the lane. 

He recognises the shadow on the other side of the vortex, it’s one of Shido’s lackeys - not the highest ranking one but not the lowest ranking either. Deciding between fighting it and interrogating it is easy, given if he did what the Phantom Thieves did the guy would end up dead before he could find the police and out anything he knows about Shido and his plan, so taking the information is honestly much safer for everyone involved.

Scaring information out of shadows is much easier than he expects it to be, then again, a lot of Shido’s lackeys are dangerously spineless without him as a shield. One threat of anonymously telling Shido he’s a mole for the cops and he starts talking like running water.

You’re still a dangerous little shit even without Loki here, huh, kid

He rolls his eyes as he starts heading back to the surface, “you’re complacent in this too.”

He manages to drag himself back to the top with only a couple detoured fights he felt like getting into, but he gets out, buys himself a shitty coffee and a mediocre muffin from the diner at his entrance point, and collapses into bed the second he gets home.

School passes in a blur the next day, he has minimal conversation with Niijima-san since she seems just as tired as him though she tries to keep herself awake with ice tea rather than the close-to-being-cold coffee he’s been nursing most of the morning.

The day after they both seem better rested, they spend lunch together in their nearly empty classroom around his desk. They hold a notebook between them and Niijima-san draws spider-diagrams as a way to plan out their plan of action for becoming class reps; he’s tried to tell her they don’t need to be this prepared, he’s pretty positive that even if they went in blind they’d have the best chance out of anyone, but she’s determined, he’ll give her that.

Mid week is when their late night conversations start, Niijima-san apparently realising he slept as much as she did and taking the opportunity to make both of their restless nights more interesting.

Niijima

Did you know that a bolt of lightning contains enough energy to toast 100,000 slices of bread

Akechi

I did not.

Why are you awake?

Niijima

My apartment is too quiet.

Why are you awake?

Akechi

Runaway thoughts.

It’s strange, their late night conversations are often completely detached from their conversations at school. He supposes that’s what happens when one of them hasn’t torn away her mask of perfection and the other is hiding secrets from a false start of a life. 

He enters Mementos one other time before the week falls into the next. It’s after a particularly dull few hours at school his memories wanted to liven up; he finds a random person’s shadow, apparently someone with a rather unfortunate view of her boyfriend, but an easy fight with a Waterside Nymph and pointless conversation later, and he thinks she should be fine.

The day the 23rd hits, things feel different. He wakes up at four in the morning from nothing, not a nightmare, not a noise, just the silence of his bedroom, of the street, but he and Robin sense something off. He’s so distracted that he looses focus during his morning classes and has Mr Ushimaru throw chalk at him which moves his hair and makes the people around him zero in on the mark on his forehead because if there’s one thing he knows about normal teenagers, it’s that anything less than pristine and perfect they find weird and ugly - not that he isn’t that anyway but he does hide in the bathrooms most of lunch so that Niijima-san can’t ask him about it. He shouldn’t have been that worried about it, it’s easy to write off as a birth mark but it’s more the attention that he hated, like people were looking straight through his lie and finding all the tiny secrets he’s still trying to organise in his head.

After school, after avoiding conversation all day, Niijima-san catches him across the street from the station, stopping him from crossing and instead pulling him under the overhang of a shop. 

She looks concerned though she tries to hide it behind the smallest of smiles. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“Okay, but, you’re not weird for having a birthmark, you know.” Straight to her point, she’s a Niijima so he doesn’t know what he expected, “our classmates are only going to talk about it for a day and then they’ll get over it.”

He squints at her, “I’m not worried about their opinion of me.”

She shrugs one shoulder, she doesn’t believe him and he knows it, “I’m just saying in case you did. Besides, a lot of people have strange birthmarks.”

“Do you?” He asks, raising an eyebrow.

She nods, taking a second to point just under her sternum, “it kind of looks like yours, though mine’s more of a line than a circle.”

Well that’s... interesting. If it means something, he doesn’t know what, he’s sure the way his mark is isn’t normal, but it wouldn’t be far from the realm of possibility that someone has a natural mark in the same way. It being Niijima-san seems mildly worrying but maybe she’d always had it, even in the other timeline. Yeah, it’s probably something she’s always had.

“Oh and feel free to call me Makoto.” She doesn’t let him answer before she dashes towards the station and disappears down the stairs.

He watches her go before blinking as her words catch up, Makoto, that’ll be something to get used to - he wonders if he’s supposed to let her call him Goro now.

Worry about that when you have to, someone’s staring at us

Goro blinks again but looks down the street he’s on: there’s a boy in a middle school uniform, though he looks almost high school age so Goro assumes he must be either thirteen or fourteen. The boy is staring, looks like a deer in headlights as Goro makes eye contact, and immediately that weird feeling from this morning returns; his eyebrows knit together, the child has blonde, slightly spiky hair, and a constellation of freckles connected like a spiderweb. There’s something familiar-

A face appears in his memories after a second of staring, things click together and despite the new face of freckles, the hair and the stance is something he recognises.

Ryuji Sakamoto bolts into the closest alley.

Chapter Text

Ryuji Sakamoto wakes up with heat dancing along his skin and a pained cry at the brink of escaping, calls for his name fading into the air like fairy dust carried by the music of the wind. 

He hadn’t exactly... expected to wake up, he’d sort of condemned himself to death the second he volunteered to go after the lifeboat; part of him, the young, terrified seventeen year old in him, had hoped that the rest of the team would either get to him in time or some mighty force would jump in and save him before he could burn to death in the remains of Shido’s Palace. He supposes now that some mighty force has sort of helped him, just not in the way he expected given he still died but he’s not exactly dead now.

Oh, dude, you’re so small

At least the Captain hasn’t lost his sense of tact (and at some point he’d freak out about Captain Kidd being Captain Kidd again given he and Akira put so much effort into get him to transform, but that point isn’t now).

His Persona’s statement makes him untangle himself from his sheets to run to the half-broken mirror hanging from his bedroom door. Black hair, several inches shorter, and a dark spiderweb of freckles all over his face almost makes him stumble back into his desk; he... he’s fourteen, he still needs to dye his hair and he needs the rest of his legs back, damn it. The freckles are new though, he’s never had them and they look so weird to him (though maybe that’s just because he’s never seen himself with them before) they’re all over his face, different shapes, sizes, some are closer together, some are further apart, but they’re all at least vaguely connected by lines that look like bolts of electricity; the faint burning sensation hovering over his nose makes him think this is what he gets for dying, like a reminder, or some other word he can’t remember right now in his tired and confused mind.

He notices begrudgingly, that even with his intact body, his bad knee feels like it’s aching, an issue he’s going to have to get over quickly if he doesn’t want people noticing a change in him. Maybe he should get a support for it while he gets used to it working properly again, that would mean he’d need money, which - given his current financial situation - might require a trip to Mementos if that’s a thing right now, and he doesn’t know how prepared he is to do that A) by himself, and B) as a fourteen year old who’s going to get noticed wandering around in the dark after trips like that much more than him at sixteen/seventeen did (will?).

He shakes his head to rid himself of the thoughts, grabbing the crumpled up middle school uniform from the end of his bed and hastily pulling it one when he realises he has a train to catch in less than a half hour. Trying to ignore how utterly unbelievable it is that he’s fourteen again and going to middle school, again, he snags his book bag from under his desk and tries to smooth out what’s already in there (somewhere in his brain Makoto is scolding him for how messy all his shit is so a small priority of trying to sort out his school life comes alive at the mere thought of getting chewed out by a girl who won’t even know him yet). He scrambles around his room a little, thankful his mother is already out on her day job by now since he almost knocks over his window cactus when he grabs his key and train card to shove in his bag too.

Miss Prez’ll be real disappointed if you don’t sort that out

“Yeah I know, jackass, I’ll work on it,” he mutters aloud without meaning to, biting his tongue and hoping he won’t do that at school before busting out of his room.

He slides past the kitchen counter, grabbing the box of leftovers his mom laid out for him and smiling at the sweet note she’d stuck on top of it. As he dumps his bag and grabs his shoes, a thought enters his mind and he freezes.

“Oh crap!”  

500 yen now means she’ll be off his back later.

The train ride is a familiar sort of crammed, luckily his middle school is one of the super early stops and he can get off before most of the Shujin crowd makes the ride worse. 

Walking down the main path towards his school,  he runs a hand through his hair and lets his thoughts run, mostly to his current situation. He died, he knows that much - he tries to ignore the burning over his face at the memory - he wonders what the others are doing, after what happened to him and as they are now: Akira’s in his hometown probably far away from any possible danger, Yusuke and Haru are still stuck with their shitty parents/parental figures... Futaba still has her mom, he thinks. 

As for before, he assumes his friends are still living their lives, and he wonders what they did when they realised he was dead. Did they cry? Be thankful he was gone? Did they tell his mom? He wipes his nose on his sleeve and tries to avoid thinking about it, he has his mom now, he doesn’t want to think about his mom from his past... future... whatever life having to find out he died to save his friends or even that he’d been lying to her about what he and his friends did for months. 

He groans, sniffling and digging the heels of his palms into his eyes until he stopped himself from caving; there’s no explanation for anything right now, for all he knows this could be a dream and he’ll go to bed tonight and either wake up back with his friends or not wake up at all. 

Just coming out of his thoughts, he barely hears the shout from behind him.

“Ryuji!”

Dudewatchout!

A force sends him tumbling forward with a loud yelp, he feels his nose collide with the ground and while there’s no familiar feeling of it breaking, the warmth of his blood filling and dribbling out of it is equally familiar though.

“Oh my god!” The force squeaks, it takes the young face of Shiho Suzui coming into his view and helping him sit up to recognise it, “I’m so sorry!”

After all the shit she went through in Shujin he almost forgot how bright she is as a kid, her hair is plaited and despite the crease in her eyebrows as she digs through her bag for something, she looks happy. He also almost painfully remembers their friendship breaking apart, as the sporty friends of Ann they usually saw each other a lot during practices and he remembers the few times he’s walked her home; when Kamoshida started his rumour mill, before he decidedly got Ann involved, the blonde had distanced herself from him and dragged Shiho along with her as if they didn’t already know what a piece-of-shit dad he had and as if they hadn’t seen his temper flare up before. It’s weird for them to be so close again, where she’d launch herself at him before school and he’d piggyback her to class, where they’d sit together at lunch and he’d playfully tease her about the very obvious crush she has on Ann while she’d try and probe him about his nonexistent love life, where things didn’t involve Kamoshida trying to pit the sports teams against each other for his coaching.

She tilts his head down a little, smiling apologetically again and pressing a scrunched up tissue under his nose as he tries to chuckle away her worries, “na, Shiho, I’m usually ready for ya, had a weird morning.”

“Bad dream?” 

“Yeah.” 

Let’s go with that

He bites his tongue to avoid telling Captain to shut his damn ghostly mouth and manages to wrangle the tissue from Shiho’s grip so he can look up at her again. He takes a second to look around, normally when this goes down, Shiho would jump him and Ann would sidle up at his side with some kind of breakfast sweet in hand; whether she planned to share it or not always seemed to rely on what kind of morning she had.

“Hey where’s Ann?”

Shiho brushes her skirt off as she stands, pulling her socks back up over her knees before offering her hand to pull him up. When he’s back on his feet, she hands him his bag and picks up her own, shrugging it onto her shoulder before opening it and sticking her hand into her mess of stuff (though notably far more organised than his).

“She said,” she starts, dragging out the last word as she tries to find her phone, Ryuji has to stop her from walking into other students. She makes a satisfied ah-hah noise as she pulls the green-cased item out, “she said, and I quote, ‘I don’t wanna come to school today, the girls in class were being mean about my hair again’ plus this pouty picture I’m pretty sure Fuji-san took.” 

Fuji-san’s Ann’s guardian while her parents are away if he remembers correctly, Ann had rarely liked taking anyone to her house when it wasn’t for something school related - he’s pretty sure she admitted (will admit, he supposes, given the conversation happens after they become friends again) to him it was because the house feels too empty and that if she got too used to her friends being there she’d feel more lonely - so he’s only met Fuji-san a couple of times.

He laughs at the picture, Ann is glaring and pouting from the top of the staircase, uniform on and hair in a twisted ponytail, but her crossed arms and legs tell him she’s really putting her foot down on this one, no matter how childish she looks. 

“Damn, that sucks,” he says after a second, “you’d think they’d be more curious about her hair.”

“Like we were?”

“Yeah!” This may not be why he dyed his hair in the first place, but at least it could be a valid reason for his mom when she inevitably kills him for doing this without telling her, “tell ‘er we’re coming over later, I’m doin’ somethin’ dumb and I need her help.” He knows Ann knows how to dye hair given she chastised him for screwing the job up when he did it by himself the first time, so at least he shouldn’t look like a mess and this could help her hate him less later. It’s a win win situation.

Shiho looks a mix of concerned and excited, tapping out the response and probably leaving very little room for Ann to argue before she drops her phone back in her back and hops up onto the second stair to be just a little taller than him. 

“Sorry again, about your nose,” she frowns, taking the tissue and grabbing his chin to wipe blood away from his nose, she grabs the packet from her bag, scrunches up another to push under his nose again, then drops the packet into his bag rather than hers. “I didn’t break it, did I?”

He shakes his head, managing a lopsided grin, “you’d notice if ya did.”

She hums, “well okay...” They enter the school building, swap out their shoes and move with a small sea of students up to the third floor where their classrooms are. “Tell Mr Aiyazawa I say hi.”

“Same for Mrs Yagami, yeah?”

She smiles again, finally, “yeah, see you at lunch!”

He waves and they split to go to opposite ends of the corridor to their classrooms. 

Mr Aiyazawa is one of the nicest teachers Ryuji ever had, homeroom or otherwise, period. He’s a big guy, over six feet tall and slightly above average in weight, but he’s a bright guy, a dad to a first year at the school currently and a newborn girl he had over the spring break; his wife is the librarian at the school, though she’s on maternity leave right now. Mr Aiyazawa takes childcare leave off for a few weeks in July right before summer break if he remembers right, then something happened and he didn’t come back until January and he was much less bright then... Ryuji can’t remember what it was or if they were ever told what it was before they moved up to high school.

He shakes his head to rid himself of the memories, he hopes they won’t do that overtaking thing too often, it’s not... the nicest. 

He cracks his neck and greets Mr Aiyazawa as well as the guys in his class that are also in the school track team. Just get through the school day, that’s it.

Except it would be it if he could effing focus, but Captain Kidd is the loudest son of a bitch in the known universe and doesn’t know how to go through his two brains without making comments he seems to think Ryuji can’t hear.

Dude, I thought you were small now. Elementary school you was tiny

What is this?! You had terrible taste in TV shows- wait, this is when you were five, nevermind

So what is this guy talking about?

“I would know if you would shut up,” he growls, trying to be as quiet as possible but the girl next to him side-eyes him anyway.

Thankfully, Mr Aiyazawa cuts his mindlessness some slack, maybe something about him looks as tired or as frazzled as he feels. His next teacher cuts him a little less slack and he ends up getting paper smacked onto his desk that almost scares him out of it; he likes to ignore the snickers of his classmates. 

By lunch he’s promptly attempted to lock his tangled memories away from Kidd so he can quite trying to unravel it like yarn; the only time that was helpful was when he was called to answer a question he got wrong the first go around. He sits with Shiho in the courtyard, stuffing his face, much less gracefully than the girl across from him, with the leftovers he grabbed this morning while dodging any of Shiho’s attempts at finding out what ‘dumb thing’ Ryuji plans to do after school. He instinctively raids the vending machine or every magic restoring drink he can get his hands on and uses the excuse that his mom likes the drinks when Shiho asks him what he’s doing.

“Ryuji, what are we doing?” She asks, looking around the hair products isle of the supermarket they find themselves in now.

After school the shop is mildly packed, mostly with high schoolers looking for snacks for whatever it is they’re planning to do with their friends in their free time. Thankfully very few people from their middle school are in here, he wouldn’t be able to handle the questions, especially if it was his track team - most of them are probably in the arcade or at home, they don’t have overly worked parents like he and Shiho do (or, technically, very trusting, given the amount of stuff his mom and Shiho’s dad lets them get away with on a regular basis).

“I’m dyin’ my hair to make Ann feel better about hers.” He leaves out the whole ‘and to make myself feel more effin’ normal’ since she doesn’t need to know what kind of alphabet soup his brain has been all day.

Her face softens, smile growing, “aww, Ryuji, you’re so sweet! She’s going to cry, you know.”

He grins, blushing lightly at the praise and rubbing the back of his neck, “yeah, prolly, but she needs to come to school, so.”

Shiho finds most of the right stuff, he mostly remembers what he used when he did this the first time, but, given they’re middle schoolers, they have to go with the nicest of the cheap stuff. From there they take the train to the stop closest to Ann’s house, though it’s still a bit of a track to even make it there, luckily they don’t have to fight with security to get let in.

Their footsteps echo on the tile of the entranceway, even taking off their shoes doesn’t seem to take away the feeling that all of this is bigger than them. He forgets sometimes how alone Ann must feel, how alone she must’ve felt at Shujin, but he gets her, now and in the future. 

“So I hear you’re doing something stupid, Ryuji.” They look up the stairs and spy the blonde on the main landing, forearms balancing on the banister and dressed in a comfortable legging and sweater combination instead of the uniform they saw her wearing this morning.

He isn’t sure if he expected her to remember anything, or if he’s just desperate for this to not be some twisted dream that he wants her to remember. She doesn’t though, he can tell that much, he’d know if she was acting like she didn’t given her rather glaring lack of actual skill in that department.

He grins despite that, hoping that even if she doesn’t remember he can hold a friendship with her long enough that it won’t matter if she does or not, “yeah.” He follows Shiho up the stairs and points in the direction of the closest bathroom that he knows of, “we’re gonna need a bathroom.”

Like Shiho said, Ann does cry when he shows off the hair products he needs her help with, like the overflowing well of emotion she is, but she pulls herself together before Fuji-san can get worried (because she most certainly cries loud enough for him to hear wherever he is in the house). She sits on the rim of the bath behind him while he and Shiho perch on the floor thats covered in towels; Shiho sits with her phone in hand picking music to listen to as they get the job done. 

Ann is much more careful with his hair than he had been, he remembers how he slightly screwed up one patch and wore his track jacket with his hood up for a few weeks so no one could see the awful little part of his head he’d nearly ruined, he’d gotten his mom to help when he re-dyed it and did up his roots again. But Ann, she’s gentle, runs her fingers through his hair and tries not to pull it too much while they talk about how school went, she laughs openly when Shiho tells her of how she barrelled over him this morning, but still asks if he’s okay when she catches her breath; he keeps wondering where this gentleness went, if it was his fault, Kamoshida’s, or if it was just because they all grew up and got screwed over and left alone. 

Alright, dude, don’t freak out.

Ryuji takes a breath, suggesting a song to Shiho that they both know Ann hates while they love, he snorts at her utterly disgusted noises and lets her get away with a single pull of his hair before he complains.

He doesn’t know how long they sit in that bathroom together, shouting along to music and trying not to get hair dye everywhere; they do shitty harmonies, over exaggerated hand movements, and forgets she has dye on her fingers when she rebrands her hair. At least her hair is dark enough for it not to have much of an effect, doesn’t stop Ryuji from laughing his ass off though.

They finally end up in Ann’s room eventually, a towel over his head as his hair dries and she doesn’t want it all over her red carpet floor. She’s extra happy with him when he swims through his bag to find his wallet and hand her the 500 yen he owes her, he even gets a hug - he hasn’t had an Ann-hug in a long time, even after they made up and started being Phantom Thieves together. 

Shiho decides to stay over for the night, half to make sure Ann goes to school tomorrow, and half because she can’t be bothered to catch the late train back to her dad’s. So, he takes a late train back by himself, collapsing into an empty seat and checking his phone; his mom is home, she texted him asking if he was with friends so he quickly replies saying he’s on his way back before she can spiral in worry (like his mom in his other life). He enters his apartment with a tired huff, dropping his bag in the doorway as he takes off his shoes.

“Ryuji! Your hair!”

He gasps, head shooting up to see his mom cooking in the kitchen, his hands fly up and he scrambles to explain himself, “I know, ma! I know! But I have a reason I swear!”

His mom has always been a bit like Ann: very emotional, very loyal, that kind of thing, so she isn’t totally mad about why he dyed his hair (he leaves out the whole ‘I feel really weird with black hair ‘cause I died just yesterday when I was seventeen’ because he isn’t about to be sent to the hospital for insanity). She does ask him why his first conclusion to making Ann feel better came at the expense of him messing with hair, and he uses Shiho throwing him to the floor this morning as an excuse - but then also has to reassure his mom that he’s totally fine and it literally just resulted in a nose bleed.

So he saves face. Just barely.

The next day at school garners mixed reactions like he expected. He manages to catch Shiho when she jumps him in the morning, and thanks Ann for the cold breakfast sandwich she shoves into his face before they split for their classrooms. His classmates fall silent when he enters, all eyes on him as they had been on the walk down, nobody actively says anything though, which is better than the whispers from the train; he takes his seat and leans back in his chair to stare back at those watching him - some of them smile and wave, others turn back to their desks, which is a nice change from the active animosity and hate he’d grown used to at Shujin.

Other than that, nothing overly big happens. He has an itch to go into the Metaverse just for a second if only to see if he can still summon Kidd - which he assumes he can given the Persona is still in his head, but he thinks it’s valid for him to be a little worried about having to go through his awakening again given how utterly painful it was the first time. He avoids entering though, still unsure about it all and wondering if maybe he’d screw something up with this sudden chance at life if he goes in; so most of what’s keeping him out now is fear, but another part is because it doesn’t feel right going in by himself, without at least one member of the team... but Ann doesn’t remember, Akira isn’t here, who even knows what Morgana’s doing right now, and the others are scattered across Tokyo.

After a week of staying in his general, familiar area for middle school him, he finds himself absentmindedly wandering into the area near Shujin. He hasn’t come around here at all yet, didn’t know if he was going to, at least not until he started at the school... maybe he thought Makoto or Haru know him, but if they did why would they not come looking? Then again he hasn’t bothered to come down here either so that’s also his fault, whether he expects any reaction from anyone at all. He’s wandering down the street, trying to spy the differences in the area when panic in him spikes, but it’s not his, it’s Kidd’s.

Oh shit, dude

He looks up frantically and there’s a guy, he recognises him the second he spots him and he realises that the boy should not be wearing a Shujin Academy uniform. He halts in his tracks and makes it more obvious he’s looking, peering up the pavement and watching Goro Akechi have an actual conversation with the one and only Makoto Niijima under an overhang of a store across from the station.

As Makoto waves her goodbye, Akechi looks up.

And stares directly at Ryuji.

Chapter Text

Goro gives chase after Sakamoto the second he bolts, they dash through an alley that seems to have no end. His sights are set on Sakamoto sprinting down the endless path and doesn’t realise they’ve tripped into the Metaverse until the opressive weight falls against his shoulders and he notices that both of their clothes have changed.

He never realised just how fast Sakamoto is until he’s practically breathless catching up to him. He grabs his collar and slams him against the closest wall. Time for a fucking explanation.

Sakamoto squirms under Goro’s hold, he could probably get a good kick to his chest if he wanted to - especially with the shoes he wears as Skull - but the blond seems to be actively trying to avoid causing physical harm to him.

“PLEASE DON’T KILL ME!” His volume is abrasive against his ears, but the boy’s tone is highly panicked.

Goro glares at him, exhaling harshly out of his nose and letting go of Sakamoto’s collar, letting him drop onto his ass in the Metaverse alley.

“I’m not going to kill you.”

“You’re not?” Sakamoto squeaks. Goro doesn’t think he’s ever heard such a noise leave the mouth of the Phantom Thieves’ muscle.

He sighs, closing his eyes and seriously reconsidering his admission. “No. But I do want answers, Skull.”

He watches Sakamoto get back to his feet, the boy mutters something into the air and Goro can only assume he’s talking to his Persona given the faraway look in his eye.

He juts his chin out just a little, “how long have you remembered things?”

Sakamoto jolts, surprised out of his mental conversation and running a hand through his hair, “huh? Uh- I’ve been awake for a little while,” he admits, tugging on the sleeve of his leather jacket, “I know Panther doesn’t remember anything and I was trying to guess why I did.”

“Why didn’t you go looking for your other teammates if you’ve had so much time?” He huffs, folding his arms. He would really like to know how this boy has lasted so long without someone making sure he doesn’t look insane, “why didn’t you come looking for me? You should know I was active around this time.”

“I woke up on the 16th, dude! So not that long,” Sakamoto yells, “I’ve had a hell of a week so excuse me for not trying to seek you out when I didn’t even know if you were sane at this point or not.”

Goro rolls his eyes, “and you didn’t think to maybe check? The news would’ve picked up on psychotic breakdowns if I committed any more.”

Sakamoto scoffs, breaking out of his intimidated stature to return Goro’s glare, “any more?!”

“I woke up a little late to stop myself causing any, alright.” He halts, frazzled mind catching up because if Sakamoto remembers... “what happened to you?”

The boy blinks, “uh... like I said, I woke up last week? I’ve been trying to stop looking at my friends like they’re the people I know from the future?”

“I meant before. Before you woke up. Because I woke up after I died in the engine room and I thought that was the connection because Queen didn’t know anything.”

Sakamoto goes pale, hand moving to rub over his nose and the new freckles he’s not supposed to have.

“I-uh, I mighta died too.”

Goro finds that more surprising than he feels like he should; Sakamoto was always the one Phantom Thief he figured would die first in the Metaverse if any of that group were to die at all, but having it actually happen makes it feel wrong.

The blonde tries to laugh, but it sounds strained and forced, “We beat Shido’s shadow, bastard was tough but we did it, an’ then the Palace started collapsin’ before we’d grabbed the Treasure. There was only really one way out through a life boat but someone had to run to activate it and get it in the water-“ He runs a hand through his hair. “I figured I’d be the fastest, even with my leg, so I went for it an’ then the Palace exploded an’ I woke up bein’ tiny middle school me.” As if to prove a point, he holds his arms out to show off his smaller form.

And Goro thought getting shot by a cognition of himself was bad, burning in an explosion to save his friends is probably a little worse. Sakamoto won’t look at him, he’s staring at the station out of the mouth of the alley, the escalators leading down into Mementos and tapping at his leg.

So, what to do now

“Hush, you,” he hisses into the air. He sees Sakamoto’s curious glance but waves his hand, “not you, Robin.”

“Oh yours talk to you too?”

“He likes to. Apparently not having Loki around makes him more annoying though.” He finds himself pinching the bridge of his nose as Robin snickers.

Sakamoto’s head tilts to the side and a weird part of Goro suddenly associates that with something a puppy would do, it’s disgustingly adorable. “Uh... so the psycho Persona ain’t with you?”

“It seems so.”

“Any idea why? ‘Cause Seiten Taisei’s reverted back to Captain Kidd and I ain’t got any clue why he did that.”

Goro finds himself sighing, taking off back in the direction of the Mementos station and barely looking behind to see if his new companion is following. “Unfortunately I don’t have all the answers at the moment. By the way, does anything about the Metaverse feel different to you?”

Sakamoto is silent for a brief minute, considering his answer, “I mean it feels way more, like, humid than before, I guess?”

He looks back at the former Phantom Thief, raising an eyebrow, “humid?”

The boy splutters a little, “like how it makes it hard to breathe, I dunno big words, jackass, I’m in middle school!”

“Yes and clearly your brain never developed past that, did it?”

He expects Sakamoto to glare again, but he just seems to shrink in on himself somewhat and Goro has the urge to apologise because even his sadness makes him associate the moron with a puppy.

Aw, you think he’s cute

He growls at Robin again but tries to do it quietly as to not startle Sakamoto - why he feels so considerate all of a sudden, he doesn’t know, it’s probably because he actually has someone he can talk to about all the Metaverse crap with. He strangely can’t decide if he’d be more offended or annoyed if Sakamoto wanted to collaborate in some capacity, because he gets the unnerving feeling he will (maybe it’s the obvious attachments he can form with people, or maybe its the fact that the word special continues to reverberate through his mind).

He stops at the top of the station stairs and shifts his weight onto one leg with a hand to his hip. After a moment of heavy silence, he looks to Sakamoto, who is glancing down the Metaverse street with that faraway look back on his face.

“Would you like to accompany me and empty a few levels of Mementos?”

Sakamoto looks at him and his eyes flash down into the depths, “you mean kick some shadow ass?” He and Robin have a similar gravitation towards the use of profanity, and even though Goro had gotten used to many of the Phantom Thieves’ personalities, it still feels like it’s his first time really getting to know any of them. Still, he’s barely surprised by the vulgar language at this point.

He sighs nonetheless, “yes, if that’s what you’d like to call it.”

Sakamoto’s mouth quirks into a small grin as he dusts off his hands and grabs his melee weapon, a metal pipe it looks like he just picked up off the ground, he twirls it over his hand and slides down the metal banister of the stairs to disappear into the Mementos station. He’ll take that as a yes.

He follows behind, skipping some of the stairs and unsheathing his light-sword and twirling it in a similar manner to Sakamoto. 

They share a look and Goro tilts his head towards the escalators, “are you going to follow my lead or am I going to have to keep you safe from your own recklessness?”

Sakamoto shrugs, “you’re the Wild Card.”

It’s a strange statement, nothing he’s ever heard before, but doesn’t entirely feel out of place.

He quickly finds that Sakamoto is far from stealthy, his footsteps aren’t particularly loud but he’s not exactly trying to hide his presence from shadows. He trips over one of the tracks and almost face plants into a wall, and then he literally bounds around a corner and skids into a shadow hard enough for it to dissolve into a weak Beguiling Girl Goro takes out with two rushed gunshots and a glare at a sheepish Sakamoto.

“Sorry, I’ll watch where I’m going next time.”

He doesn’t. Like, at all. He physically barrels into another duo of shadows and he’s lucky they break away into Heavenly Punishers because they’re weak to Sakamoto’s favoured element and he dispatches that duo after a couple of hits.

Goro, a little embarrassingly, ends up initiating a chase to the escalators as they’re trying to leave because Robin - the little shit - decided it would be a good idea to remind him of the stupid word he’s so hung up on, and then the memory that was suddenly dredged up was replaced by a small army of shadows just watching as he walks into them. Sakamoto grabs him by the collar and bolts.

They come to a large chained door and Goro grabs his gun, firing a shot at the lock as Sakamoto tries to hold off another couple of Heavenly Punishers with a Mazio and his shotgun. He pushes at one side of the door to get it open, but his weight doesn’t budge it until Sakamoto is under his arms and pushing frantically as well; they trip over each other falling into the small station on the other side, escalators leading down into more of the depths. They push the door closed behind them as much as they can, with no chain to lock it back up they just have to hope no shadows decide to break through the steel.

“Okay,” he pants, “that one was on me. But were all of your friends as bad at being stealthy as you are?!” Goro is tired, he doesn’t usually run that much, because he knows how to sneak, and he’s sat on the half-broken rails of the little station.

Sakamoto groans, leaning back against the wall of the platform, “we didn’t have to walk everywhere, dude, we had the Mona-van like the whole time.”

“I know,” he snaps, “that’s not any better though, how in the hell did you ever get around your Palaces.”

“Akira usually took the lead and he was quiet, I guess I’m more used to following his lead than yours.”

“Well you better get used to it because I cannot keep sprinting everywhere.”

Sakamoto looks smug all of a sudden, “so you wanna do this more?”

Goro glares, “I never said that. Now shut up. Let’s go.

As they’re leaving (thankfully with more chosen shadow targets and less chaos), falling back into the same alley they entered from, Sakamoto snatches his phone from his hand - and even with him not having the brains of Sakura-san, Goro has a jolt of suspicion pass over him until his phone is shoved back into his hands with a new contact on his screen. 

He gave you his number oooo~

Robin’s tone is teasing, and if he wasn’t just a voice inside Goro’s head right now, he’d get the hardest punch Goro could muster. Sakamoto tries to smile, but he looks a little too sleepy to pull it off properly.

“Don’t care if you’re bein’ grumpy, but we gotta meet up more,” he yawns, “ya know, ‘cause we’re the only ones who know shit right now. Maybe we can find a Palace to take out or somethin’”

Goro purses his lips and smiles despite himself, patting Sakamoto’s shoulder and leading him down into the station, “I’ll think about it. Just, go home.”

Sakamoto hums, collapsing onto a train seat the second they get on one, “you be safe too.”

Okay, so, for a while Sakamoto’s going to be weird coming out of the Metaverse, maybe going back to his middle school level stamina (which, for a track team member - clearly a good one - should be a little more) affected him more than either of them expected it too. 

Goro makes sure he gets off at his stop anyway.

Chapter Text

As April tumbles into May, Ryuji still hasn’t gotten word from Akechi, but that’s okay, because he doesn’t expect one until the older boy has figured out what he wants to do this go around Metaverse-wise. Somewhere out there Mishima turns fifteen and Ryuji quietly hopes his former friend is doing okay, that the bullies from his middle school aren’t giving him too much trouble; maybe when they get to Shujin they can make friends properly.

Thankfully, Ann has been quite happy at school recently, sitting with him and Shiho at lunch, ignoring the comments about her hair, and hanging out in the library if track and volleyball practice on the same day; sometimes either team will have extra practice over lunch and the two who aren’t busy end up sat in the grass or the bleachers to watch and cheer the other on. It’s been nice, it reminds him that what’s happening is real and that he’s okay - he still finds he keeps staring at Shiho’s smiles too long, or texts Ann random memes during class just to make her laugh.

His mom has been tired, working a day and a night job leaves her little time to sleep. The first time Ryuji hadn’t noticed, he’d been a dumb teenager too caught up in her praises, support and good cooking while being hung up on his own issues and goals with track to notice anything was wrong until she got sick. So Ryuji starts staying up a little later, sometimes if one of the girls is up he’ll call them and talk while he works, doing homework together until his mom gets back, from there he makes sure she goes straight to bed, promising he’s eaten enough for the day and doesn’t need her to stay up later to make food. 

He tries to teach himself to cook, at first he’s not very good, breaking several eggs and somehow bending a whisk to the point he can’t use it anymore. Ann starts organising group video calls so that Shiho can explain recipes and Ann can make sure he follows the actions correctly; they all start waking up so early that he makes a big enough batch of omelettes to box two for the pair of them and leave a good enough portion for his mom before he gathers what’s left and inhales it on the train ride.

When he starts keeping a journal he doesn’t know, he thinks it ended up being Shiho’s idea because she starts noticing how out of it he can get. He starts keeping notes of changes in the timeline, changes in people’s attitudes and anything related to that right at the back so it’s easy to avoid if he shows either of the girls the things he’s writing; the track team tease him at first when he brings it out at the end of practice to write a reminder in the front that he needs to buy new trainers because his are falling apart. 

On one page he adds a big, scruffy title about getting a job: 1) so he can get some money for Metaverse supplies, 2) so he can stop making his mom pay for everything because maybe if he saves up enough he can take her on a nice trip or something, and 3) so he can buy other useful things for either track, school, or home. Basically having money would be really useful and he has to stop relying on his mom because that’s probably stressing her out more than she’s already stressed already. His birthday isn’t until July, so he has a couple months to gather some ideas about where he can work the second he turns fifteen, but for now he’s going to have to be sparing and collect money from Mementos shadows like a gremlin. 

When he’s writing all this he tries to think about all the many lectures Makoto had given him when he asked how she and Akira had been managing the budget. He’s pretty sure his page setup isn’t exactly like the ones Makoto had shown him that one time, but it looks good enough and maybe he can ask his mom - or even Akechi if he ever texts him - to help.

Along with his new attempts at being organised, he finds a folder down the back of his bed and sets a bunch of stuff on top of it to flatten out the creases; he uses that to hold all the crumpled paper he’s had in his notebook. Yeah, that job will be useful for this, but what he’s got now is the best he can do.

Leaving school one Saturday afternoon, Shiho latches to his arm as Ann runs to the train station waving goodbye - she has some modelling thing her parents set up to do with her (the pair are back in town for the weekend so Ann’s making the most of it). 

“So, this sweet new cafe’s popped up in Yongen,” Shiho beams after Ann disappears, “wanna check it out? I didn’t go in because I was just in Yongen to meet one of the volleyball girls, but it looks really nice, oh and there’s some new clinic across from the convenience store, my dad’s thinking of checking it out since our usual doctor is being shitty right now.”

He feels his breath catch in his throat as she rambles, new cafe? New clinic? Is that too convenient? Is he getting his timelines wrong? Boss didn’t set up Leblanc until after Futaba’s mom died, right? And he doesn’t know much about Takemi-san, but Akira used to talk about her when Ryuji asked about the medication they’d been using in the Metaverse and he’s pretty sure she didn’t start her clinic until after she got kicked out of her old one or something? Maybe he’s thinking too much about it, maybe it’s a different cafe, a different doctor, or maybe the timeline has messed itself up all on it’s own and this is supposed to just help him and maybe Akechi sort their Metaverse shit out. That makes sense.

“Sure,” he manages to croak as Shiho keeps smiling. He makes a mental note to add a physical note to the back of his journal for the timeline change - does this mean he’ll see Futaba?

Dude, breathe, don’t think about it too much right now, yeah?

Yeah... that’s a good idea. 

He tries to keep his breathing in check on the short train ride to Yongen, thankful that the train is too loud and crowded for Shiho to really be able to notice his inner conflict about everything happening right now. 

Shiho leads him by the arm and he finds himself laughing at how strangely excited she looks at just the prospect of them entering a cafe. She laughs back at him and soon enough they come to the red exterior of Leblanc; he inhales quietly, psyching himself up as Shiho goes and opens the door.

The bell above the entrance rings as they come in and Ryuji catches the tail end of a conversation Boss is having on the phone

“I know, Wakaba, send her down before you head out but be careful.”

He gulps, trying to wipe his face of any suspicious expression because, holy shit, Futaba’s mom is still alive and she’s still working on her cognitive research stuff. 

He follows Shiho to the second table in, sliding into the booth and keeping an eye on Shiho’s bag that she sets on the opposite seat as she goes to the counter.

Leblanc isn’t as decorated as it was in the future, which is totally understandable (even though it’s not even supposed to be here at all yet): the shelves aren’t totally full of coffee beans yet and the small kitchen looks practically empty aside from a single fridge and oven. The atmosphere is still the same though, homely, warm, familiar; he misses the strange added scents each of his friends brought though: Akira and Morgana’s dual curry smell, Ann’s perfume, Yusuke’s paints, the damp yet weirdly nice smell of soil Haru would bring, Makoto always had a lingering aura of scented highlighters, and Futaba usually had some kind of strong-flavoured energy drink or soda. He misses it, he can’t convince himself he doesn’t.

He hears Shiho give a quick thank you to Boss - simultaneously insisting she can carry their drinks herself - and she crosses the short distance from the counter to their table and places a mug of coffee on her side while placing a glass with a clear, fizzy liquid and metal straw on his side.

“What’d you get?” He asks as she sits down.

She shrugs, “I kind of have no idea, I didn’t really know what was on the menu so I said surprise us. He took one look at us and gave me these... so I hope you like what he gave you.”

He takes a sip, cream soda, huh, “it’s good, I didn’t think a place like this would have anythin’ other than fancy coffee or somethin’.” More like he doesn’t remember Leblanc really having anything like this until after Ryuji told Boss he didn’t like how bitter coffee was.

She shrugs, and they get to pulling out their study materials. He tosses his folder onto the table and his notebook and tattered pencil case follow.

“Oh you got a folder!” Shiho smiles, pulling her own colour-coded separate subject notebooks to lay on the table.

He manages to smile in return, “yeah, I figure I should get used to organisin’ my shit before high school. I think I bought this ages ago since I found it in my room and I’m holding off getting anything else until after my birthday when I can find a job.”

She giggles, “aw, Ryuji, you’ve become so mature.” She sips at her coffee and looks delightfully surprised at whatever flavour Boss picked, “are you keeping up with track at high school?”

Now that’s a question. Part of him doesn’t want to, worried it’ll bring back far too many memories or fearing he’ll somehow manage to fall down the same path he did last time and get his leg broken again. But at the same time, he really likes track, and having started doing it again at school has been so good, because when he stopped exercising or doing anything after his injury he just got... really sad and annoyed at everything. So maybe with these memories he’ll be able to hold off on screwing anything up, plus Akechi goes to Shujin now, so there’s a chance if he does start to fall into his old habits Akechi can smack him upside the head and get him back on track. 

“Yeah...” he finds himself saying, “I think so. You and volleyball?”

She nods, “yeah, my mom has been looking into high school’s while my dad keeps pushing me to check some out myself. But I think my mom has her sights set on this Shujin place with some famous volleyball coach - my dad, of course, keeps telling her to let me choose, but she’s already telling me to look out for cultural festivals after summer and, I don’t know, I guess she thinks she gets a claim on where I go because I only see her for one weekend a month.”

Yeesh, Shiho’s always been close with both her parents but after their divorce neither of them have been close with each other. At the time, Shiho’s mom didn’t have a stable enough space for Shiho to stay with her so now she lives with her dad most of the year and tries to make the most of the weekends she sees her mom, no matter how... specific her mom gets about what she wants for Shiho.

“Which weekend you seeing her this month?”

“The last one, 24th and 25th is what she said.” She sips her coffee again and shakes her head, “but let’s just study, you know, it’s fine.”

He goes to argue, tell her she’s valid for being affected by her parents and their issues with each other because their divorce is still sort of new and she doesn’t have to be over it yet - the only time he remembers hearing them ever be unified was after she jumped off the school roof, and he doesn’t want to resort to that to make them get along again - but the bell to the cafe rings and he tenses at the new presence.

“Ugh, Sojiro~” The teasing whine makes Ryuji grip his pen a little harder, he still can’t help but look over as Shiho does too. Futaba bounds into building, sprawling over the counter with a dramatic groan, “The new place is so empty, when is mom letting me move my computer in?”

“As soon as she’s finished this strand of her work, Futaba,” Boss answers, smiling as he pushes the thirteen-year-old (oh my god she’s thirteen) off the wood, “besides, you’ve got your laptop can’t you deal with that for now?”

She pouts, headphones shifting as her shoulders come up to her ears, “I can but I don’t want to. Living with you is gonna be cool and all, but I want my stuff.”

Sojiro mimics her pout and folds his arms - jeez he’s such a dad a good one, not like Ryuji’s - Futaba can’t hold her expression for too long and eventually breaks out into giggles. Ryuji finds himself smiling, it’s like when he saw Shiho smiling for the first time since coming back, it’s weird and feels out of place, but at the same time, it’s wonderful and he wants to keep those expressions on their faces forever.

Ryuji grabs his journal and flips to the back, scribbling in that Futaba and presumably her mom are living with Boss now underneath where he’s written Leblanc’s existence down. Maybe having Akechi remember things has made the risk of Wakaba dying lower? But Shido’s the one that gets her killed so maybe they need to keep an eye on what’s going on with her. 

At least it’s clear Futaba doesn’t remember anything, that’s good because it means she hasn’t died in the other timeline, and because if she did remember she’d have to deal with the stress of knowing what happens to her mom; this way, Ryuji can take that stress and keep her bright and happy like she is now.

Try not to burn yourself out, dude, you can fix things but don’t try and do it by yourself

He exhales out of his nose, trying to keep his comments to himself because he’ll be fine and Kidd doesn’t need to worry about him. He kind of expected this too, the whole, ‘having to fix several of his friends’ situations’ because he knew they weren’t going to remember. He expects to have to make things right for them, because they deserve it.

He closes his eyes for a second and closes his journal, dropping it back into his bag to turn his attention back to Shiho and their subject of study. He actively tries to ignore the continued conversation Boss and Futaba has, drowning it out with his own conversation with Shiho and trying to stop himself from looking at the pair 

After a reasonable hour and a half he and Shiho leave to go home and despite the tense atmosphere he got being near Boss and Futaba, he automatically wants to go back to soak in the warmth of the cafe. He digs his short nails into his palms to stop himself.

In the next week, he and Shiho are too busy to go to Leblanc again, but she expresses a desire to go back and bring Ann next time so he nods along and agrees without much restraint. Most things he expects happen, but what he doesn’t expect, is a lunch time text from a much awaited contact:

Akechi

Where’s your school

Sakamoto

Dude, you know how creepy that sounds

Akechi

Just give me the location

He sends over the map link immediately.

Akechi

I’ll be around there after school tomorrow, let’s have another attempt at a Mementos path.

Oh sweet

Ryuji is very much in agreement with Kidd and his excitement right now.

The next day, Thursday - he thinks it’s the 15th, days have been going by real fast - he’s distracted during class and at lunch, his leg bouncing anxiously (and let’s ignore the fact he bites his finger while eating). He sees Shiho and Ann exchange several concerned looks, but he tries to ignore it in favour of thinking how he’s supposed to, like, impress Akechi enough so that he sticks around because Ryuji is totally positive he can’t do anything by himself right now. 

After school he makes sure Ann goes home first, then tries to take off right after but he really has to stop forgetting how Shiho is about her friends.

“Ryuji.” She grabs his sleeve and stops him where he stands, placing herself in front of him and conveniently right in his direct path to where Akechi is, “you’ve been acting weird since we went to Leblanc... did I say something? Did I stress you out with my problems or something? I’m so-“

He waves his hands frantically, “no! Oh my god, hell no, you’re always allowed to complain to me, I promise! I’ve just been distracted by personal stuff, which I gotta deal with right now, so I’ll call you tonight!” And he gently slides her out of his path and dashes off.

“Wha-hey!”

Her voice fades as he sprints away, they both know he’s faster than her but he doesn’t think that’ll stop her from trying to follow, but by the time she’d catch up he’ll be in Mementos. Akechi rolls his eyes as he takes off too, slipping into a side alley and yanking him down the same alley as the world slips away into the dark palette of the Metaverse.

He sighs in relief, and stretches his arms upwards as he cracks his back, Akechi stretches his legs and huffs about being more discreet which, okay, he could’ve split from Shiho a little better but he’ll call her tonight (probably) and if he forgets he’ll call her tomorrow, it’s fine. They do a quick maintenance check on their melee weapons (he makes a point to try and remember to go to that airsoft shop at some point) and just as he’s checking on the ammo in his gun he hears a noise.

“Ryuji?” The voice is shaky and quiet and Ryuji spins so fast he nearly makes himself dizzy.

But Shiho’s stood a few feet behind them, mouth agape and arms wrapped protectively around herself as she stares between the Metaverse around her and him and Akechi in their Phantom Thief getups.

Well shit

Chapter Text

Goro cannot believe what’s happening right now. Sakamoto, the absolute idiot, has somehow managed to not only rouse suspicion in his friend in their normal lives, but has now dragged her into the Metaverse, something that is very hard to make a person forget.

“Uh...” Sakamoto stutters, mouth agape and eyes wide under his mask, “Shiii- no!” His hands fly to his hair. “Oh my god! How did you get in here!? No- wait- never mind, let’s just get out.”

Goro pats at his pockets before he realises something and tries to refrain from ripping out his hair. Instead, he sighs and hides his face in his hands, “we can’t.”

His companion whips around to face him, “what do you mean we can’t!?”

“You dropped your stuff when we ran in here so you don’t have your phone,” he looks up and glares, disappointed that he probably doesn’t look quite so menacing without his darker Metaverse gear. “And because you still don’t understand the concept of being discreet, I dropped my phone in that alley after you bumped into me!”

The blonde’s arms shoot out in his direction, “wha- you pulled me in!”

He can’t argue with that. He points at the girl instead, “and you pulled her in!”

They both end up looking at her again, “um... can one of you please explain to me what’s happening?” She sounds less shaky than when she called out to Sakamoto, but as someone who puts up many fronts, Goro can see through hers. She’s terrified, rightfully so, her muscles are tense and she’d probably be trembling if she wasn’t trying so hard not to.

“Okay, uh, c’mere.” Sakamoto reaches forward and takes the girl’s wrist, pulling her towards him to the point she fully latches to his arm. “Stay close to me and we’ll find a safe place to talk and then I’ll tell you everythin’, I swear. Just, avoid names, call me Skull, him Crow, and we’ll - uh - we’ll call you somethin’”

“Doe.”

“Huh?”

He waves his hand dismissively, “she looked like a deer in headlights. It’ll do.”

She makes eye contact with him for barely a second before hiding back behind Sakamoto, “um... okay, I can deal with that.”

Goro does a quick scan of outside the alley, it’s clear so he waves them to follow after him, “we’ll have to find a physical exit of sorts. Make our way into Mementos to circle back to a first level platform, like the one in central station you’ve used before. The closest station should be good enough, but we still need to find a safe room for this little explanation you owe so Mementos is our best option since there aren’t any reliable safe areas on the surface.” 

He doesn’t know if Sakamoto knows all this or not, if this is even Sakamoto’s first time in the Metaverse without a portable way of escape - it’s certainly not Goro’s - so he over explains it all anyway, Doe will probably find it comforting that one of them knows what they’re doing, scared people are usually reassured by someone else’s confidence.

At the mouth of the main alley, there’s a hole in the floor down into a level of Mementos, it’s not a far drop, so he takes it without assistance from Robin and turns to look up at Sakamoto and Doe, who both stare down at him, uncertain.

He sighs, “do you want to get out or not?”

Sakamoto groans but drops down after a second, his landing is loud but Goro isn’t sure what he expected when his companion wears shoes as heavy looking as Sakamoto’s look. They share a look and get closer to the opening as Doe sits down on the ledge and slips off, easily landing in their combined grip and saving her the trouble of potentially spraining an ankle since she’d most likely land the complete wrong way (not that Sakamoto was any better, but he had extra help from Kidd).

They have to be more careful than they usually are, Goro’s footfalls are practically nonexistent, and he notices that, after his heavy fall, Sakamoto’s seem to be much lighter than they usually are too. He’s being conscientious, with Doe being here, clearly someone he’s quite close to, Sakamoto is doing whatever it takes to keep her safe. Perhaps Goro misjudged his lack of discreetness, it’s more recklessness, since they both have Personas, there’s not much they have to truly worry about, whether they get caught by shadows or not (now, being ambushed or cornered is a different story, but thankfully that hasn’t happened yet), but what with Doe’s civilian status, they can’t risk that. Goro might not know her, but he’s not about to let a fourteen-year-old die on his watch - that can go for Sakamoto too.

He does have to give Doe some credit though, she’s practically invisible when she’s focusing on her movement rather than the prospect of all the unknown around her. Her steps barely crush the gravel below them and she’s made a clear effort to keep her surroundings accounted for, stepping over train tracks as carefully as she can when the situation warrants it; she hides against walls and crouches without needing to be told, it’s hard to tell at this point if she’s following Sakamoto’s lead or if he’s following hers. 

She darts into a corner with a squeak when Goro engages in a fight with a shadow they can’t afford, shooting it from a distance to get it’s attention, it melts down into a Bringer of Misfortune, because of course it does, and he can barely do anything with Robin’s magic. The pair of them rely on physical skills and only a few of Kidd’s Zios, Sakamoto hits hard though, it’s exceptionally helpful but once the shadow has dissolves back into the floor, and they’re picking up what yen it dropped to stow in one of Sakamoto’s many pockets, Goro throws a Dia at him.

Doe’s staring at them, mouth agape again, when they walk over to her little corner, “what was that?”

Sakamoto chuckles sheepishly, letting her check him over despite his lack of injuries, “that’s another thing you gotta wait for, links with this place, so I’ll tell you, promise.”

She huffs but seems sufficiently calmed, she looks over at him and Goro makes a move to continue going forward but she gently grabs his wrist and he does his best not to look surprised.

“You okay?” The question throws him off like her touch did, “I saw you do the magic sparkly stuff on Ryu-Skull, but you didn’t do it for yourself.”

Sakamoto is smirking at him from behind her shoulder, and he tries to put on a smile as he looks down at this fourteen-year-old middle schooler trying to get him to take care of himself. The question strangely makes him feel the same way his tentative friendship with Makoto and his sudden partnership with Sakamoto has been making him feel, there’s no words his usually intelligent mind can come up with, he’s never had this kind of support circle before, and Doe has literally only just met him but she’s still... concerned.

He clears his throat, “I’m fine, I didn’t use my Persona all that much, and Skull’s attacks take physical energy he needed renewing.”

She nods, letting him go and returning to walk alongside Sakamoto, before long she’s giggling a little though, the noise filling the empty railway tunnel

“I can’t believe you wield a lightsaber.”

Sakamoto snorts and tries to hide his laughter behind a hand while Goro roles his eyes and convinces himself he isn’t smiling.

“It works okay, just as well as Skull’s brute force moves.”

The pair of them are cackling like the children they are but Goro honestly doesn’t have it in him right now to scold them and tell them to shut the hell up, they do die down on their own after a second or two though, dropping them into a silence torn between comfortable and tense.

They come to a stop at a crossroads, doors on either side of them, he looks towards his companions, both of which shrug.

“Your call, man,” Sakamoto says, melee weapon already in his hand and Doe already traipsing back into the tunnel they just walked through to be out of the way of danger.

Goro nods, heading towards the door on their right and hauling it open with his gun drawn already. The corridor ahead of them is empty, strangely so, and he’s about to turn and wave the other two towards him when there’s a slam and a scream. He slams into Sakamoto’s side and they see Doe just inches away from a sword piercing through the very clearly unstable ground, cracks spread out along the section of floor like Goro’s and Sakamoto’s little death keepsakes as the shadow steps back, sword in hand aiming for another swing at the defenceless girl.

“Doe!” He and Sakamoto are yelling at the same time but Sakamoto is faster, sprinting and sliding as the floor caves and she goes falling.

The blonde skids onto the floor, rolling onto his stomach to snag her hand and hold her up over the several feet drop it is to the next path (Goro can tell it’s a new path by the change in colour and lighting). With Sakamoto preoccupied, Goro takes care of the shadow by himself, taking a tough hit that lands him on his ass for a few minutes to get wailed on enough that the floor crumbles again and he needs to waste another few minutes healing himself back up; he vaguely hears Sakamoto’s reassurances to his friend as he dissolves the attacking shadow.

“I ain’t lettin’ you fall again!”

Goro looks around, the noise hasn’t drawn anymore danger thank god, but he isn’t sure how long Sakamoto can hold the weight of his friend for. It’s a long drop from this level to the next and she will definitely either break many things or die if she drops down there. He stretches very quickly, exchanging a quickly thought out plan with Robin in his head before calling out.

“Skull! Swing her out of the way!”

“Crow, what are you doin’?!” The other boy is panicking, is voice strained as he tries to shift and pull her up, maybe if he was his old seventeen-year-old self he’d be able to, but flimsy, short, track-star Sakamoto doesn’t have the upper body strength developed to get her over the threshold.

The only way forward is down.

“Jumping down, I’ll have Robin catch me and then you can let go of her.”

He doesn’t let Sakamoto get a word in edgeways before he sprints past and jumps down the hole without a second thought. He falls freely until the ground gets too close and then his mask is ripped off and Robin is catching him in his arms - he’s absolutely positive if the Persona could feasibly grin properly he would be - but as he’s placed on the ground, he keeps Robin out because he’ll need the extra help saving Doe. He surveys the new level, eyeing a door at the end of the tunnel they can go through first before he looks back up where Doe is holding the back of her skirt protectively and looking between him on the ground and Sakamoto still murmuring whatever comforting words he can to her.

“Okay!” Goro yells up, Robin dutifully behind him ready to do his job, “I’m safe, let her go!”

Sakamoto’s face twists, “are you sure!?” 

Even from here Goro can see how laboured his breathing is getting from the strain of holding Doe, plus the absolute anxiety Goro is getting from the two of them being up there with little way of seeing oncoming attacks or defending themselves is astounding.

“Yes!”

Several expressions cross Sakamoto’s face, and several squeaked noises echo down from Doe, he hears very careful reassurances from Sakamoto but Goro catches sight of the path cracking again. He tries to call up but he isn’t fast enough and the ground beneath Sakamoto practically turns to dust; he springs into action, zipping into place as they scream. Doe falls into Robin’s grip and Goro manages to snag Sakamoto in his arms without absolutely toppling over.

“Oh my god, are you okay?” The concern rolls off of him without it meaning to, but his nerves are on fire and Ryuji’s panicked breathing isn’t doing anything to solve that.

The other boy takes several deep breaths as Robin places Doe back on the ground and disappears, she sits where she was placed and just stares wide eyed at the wall for a few minutes as she catches her own breath.

“Y-Yeah, I’m good,” Ryuji wheezes, fingers digging into Goro’s shoulder for a second, “just had a second to suddenly reevaluate my entire second shot at living,” he adds, much quieter Goro almost doesn’t hear.

He exhales, placing the smaller boy back onto his feet though the fhand on his shoulder doesn’t leave for another couple seconds.

“I’m not about to let you die and leave me here by myself, Skull,” he says simply.

He slips from Ryuji’s grasp and goes to Doe, offering her a hand to hoist her to her feet. He legs are shaky and he’s worried he’s going to have to carry her, but she squeezes him arm (much tighter than he’d expect from someone of her stature) and hums before getting steady and letting go

“Let’s never do that again,” she whispers.

“Well I hope not to do it like that again specifically,” Goro says, “but that is one way to get through the path doors we can’t unlock.”

Ryuji considers it for a moment but nods, then looks back up and groans, “ain’t we supposed to be getting up to get out?”

“Yes but at least from here we can find the right escalators, find a safe point, and avoid getting lost.”

“Yeah,” Doe gulps, reaching out for Ryuji’s hand - Goro really hopes she doesn’t pass out anytime soon, “let’s please not get lost.”

They manage to avoid getting into anymore of those situations as they make their way along the level, Doe stays close, not daring to stray too far now, but she still gets out of the way when he and Ryuji engage in fights - thankfully ones they starts -  but they pass through several more shadow swarmed levels until finally, finally, they find a safe zone by level five. The collapse into the seats of the station and one look at Doe tells them she wants that explanation they owe her, and now.

So Ryuji goes on the longest tangent about Mementos, Palaces, shadows, Personas, and cognitions Goro’s ever heard; he’d lost count of how many times he stuttered or said ‘like’ about halfway through his ramble on distorted desires not necessarily being evil, but sad and depressing ‘and stuff’ as he’d put it. Doe listens intently, tilting her head at the parts that Ryuji has to back track and re-explain, and nodding at all the seemingly right moments, 

“So, when people’s thoughts get too much their cognition creates a place where those thoughts and desires manifest, and if it gets out of hand really bad things can happen to the people surrounding them?”

Goro hums, he’s never heard anyone quite reiterate it like that before, but Doe is an interesting case to him and he really can’t wrap his head around her character, though it might be because he’s never met her before, so doesn’t have a prior experience with her to back up his responses.

“Yeah!” Ryuji responds to her when he doesn’t, “and Crow and I take out weaker shadows in here to stop normal people’s desires from getting distorted to the point they grow outta here-“ 

He goes on to explain the prospect of a ‘change of heart’ that can happen in Mementos or in a Palace, and she seems to understand that just as easily as she does everything else, asking the right questions about what happens after and only pausing slightly when Ryuji says how they usually repent or admit what they did themselves. 

“And these Personas are manifestation of you guys?” She then asks, “the rebellion against these distortions letting you, I guess, fight back and do these changes of heart?”

Goro nods, “essentially. They can be called our ‘true selves’ though they practically have a mind of their own more often than not, we can talk to them in the real world easily enough but the only place we can summon them is here.”

Doe turns to Ryuji, “that why you’ve been zoning out so much?” She accepts his nod at face value and messes with her braids enough that she has to redo them, “okay, I think I... kind of get it. Can we go home now?”

Ryuji takes the lead on the ‘fast travel’ back to the top, exiting out of the little station to face the closest wall and watch a map made of whatever the hell kind of vines and plants Mementos is made of. It shows where the main exit station is though the furthest they can go is the end of the first path below it, meaning they’ll have to go up three or so levels of (hopefully) weak enemies to finally get out and get back to their stuff. 

Goro and Doe watch as Ryuji stretches up to tap at the top path, then the wall beside the map shifts and the familiar, dark uphill track straight up to where they want to go appears. Doe seems confused but at this point probably doesn’t want to ask more questions about the workings of Mementos, all she needs to know is the path has no enemies on it, no diverting paths, and is literally a straight road to the area they want to be at; she seems to relax when he tells her as much. 

The trek up would have been so much easier with that damn cat van, and Goro is honestly considering bringing something with wheels in to see what happens and if it’ll make any of these exhausting walks easier. They get to the top though, coming out of the wall into the bottom of the first path with a door still closed as if they hadn’t already gone behind it.

He and Ryuji try their best to avoid actual fights on the way up, the enemies are weak, and any that engage get taken down by about two gun shots, but they’re both very tired, the kind of tired a Dia isn’t going to fix; Doe isn’t any better, her previous stealth getting sloppier the closer they get to the exit.

When they make it up Ryuji busts through the door without giving a shit, the three of them breathing in the normal real world air as Mementos melts around them and they find themselves in the station closest to the alley. 

They make their way back their as fast as possible and, thankfully, their stuff hasn’t been jacked by a homeless guy or greedy teenager, so Ryuji throws his bag over his shoulder and Goro picks his phone up off the concrete.

Doe yawns, squeezing her eyes shut in an attempt to stave away exhaustion, “is it normal to feel this tired when you come out?”

“Yeah,” Ryuji rubs his cheek, Goro almost laughs at just how young the pair look. “We’re usually pretty tired comin’ out but since you don’t got a Persona you prolly feel worse.”

“Exhaustion aside,” Goro interrupts, biting the inside of his cheek when their dopey, innocent eyes focus on him, “please, for the sake of all of us, avoid mentioning what happened today to anyone. We’d like to dodge unsavoury ears from catching wind of our future operations.”

She takes a second, but nods, “‘kay... I need time to process everything that happened today, but I’m not going to tell anyone.”

“Glad you understand. Care to introduce yourself before we part?” He asks mildly, sliding his phone into his pocket when he sees it has no bad scratches or cracks.

She shifts closer to Ryuji, he thinks she does it subconsciously and he can’t really blame her after everything that she’s been told; Ryuji places a hand on her back and offers her a small smile as she swallows and clears her throat.

“Shiho Suzui.”

Right. The girl that jumped from Shujin’s roof, he should’ve remembered her, perhaps the entire Mementos problem distracted him enough to not recognise her.

“Goro Akechi. It was lovely to meet you, Suzui-san,” he says, smile another strange mix of plastic and sincere, “perhaps we can talk in less stressful circumstances next time. See you then as well, Ryuji.”

He realises he’s said the other boy’s name out loud when the sunshine grin covers the blond’s face and he gives a little wave with, “yeah, you too, Goro.” And Goro doesn’t feel the need to violently rip the name away from him.

Goro doesn’t trouble himself with worrying about Suzui over the next few days, Ryuji’s the one that goes to school with her, so that’s his job at the moment (it’s also his job, period, because he’s the one that got the girl involved in the first place). It’s not like he gets much chance to worry about her anyway, Makoto dragging him to finalise their small speech and presentation for becoming school council reps. 

They do said presentation a day before Suzui gets in contact again. He thinks it goes off without a hitch, Makoto, as usual, if professional and holds herself highly, her social awkwardness leaving her in the face of speaking in front of more than one person. Goro just puts to use all the skills he learned 

“Oh that went great!” Makoto ends up gushing when the room is empty and they’re free to pack up. 

He can’t help but smile at her just slightly, a strange feeling overcoming him at the sight of a girl he’s used to seeing stressed one hundred percent of the time actually proud and confident about something as simple as a small group speech. He does - quietly - share her sentiments though, the normal high school life is coming together quite nicely.

Suzui does eventually get into contact, chatting into a group chat Ryuji put together for the three of them complete with childish nicknames Goro doesn’t know how to change, there’s also apparently an inside joke in there somewhere.

Footie Pyjamas 

Okay, I’ve thought about everything and I wanna talk about it. Meet at Leblanc tomorrow after

Sanic

Yeah you got it, we’ll see you then.

So apparently Ryuji agrees for both of them without consulting Goro, but at this point he doesn’t particularly care and just wants to know what exactly Suzui wants to talk about. He made it clear she couldn’t tell anyone, so if this is about negotiating that deal then he may have to reconsider working alongside Ryuji, as troublesome for him as that may be. He just can’t risk Shido caching word of all this cognitive business, because he’s sure that man will find a way to make people die with or without Goro’s involvement.

He shakes his head to rid himself of those thoughts, Robin is oddly quiet today and while the silence of his own mind isn’t unwelcome, it does feel strange to not have the constant prodding of his Persona. 

Ryuji is on the same train as him when he gets on, looking up from his phone and grinning with a wave and a nod at the open seat next to him, Goro drops into it without question. They don’t bother filling the dull silence, Ryuji tapping away at his phone either texting his mother, Suzui, or another one of his friends, and Goro finds himself scrolling through the new set of emails from the student council, congratulating him and Makoto for becoming their class representatives and giving them a quick run down of when meetings are for the next month. 

Leblanc is empty as they enter, noises from the back telling him Sakura-san is behind there but the silence is eery, like any noise would sound like shattering glass. He shares a look with Ryuji, who shrugs and slips into the booth closest to the door, he sighs, sliding into the opposite seat and running a hand through his hair.

Ryuji goes to say something but Sakura-san appears from the back with a soda bottle and a mug of coffee in his hands. He comes over and places the two drinks in front of them without a word... they didn’t order- 

And he’s sitting next to us

The first thing Robin says all day and it’s because Sakura-san, indeed, slides into the booth next to him and before he can get a word in edgeways the bell at the door rings. A woman, dark hair, rather punk look juxtaposed by the lab coat she wears, enters the building and eyes him and Ryuji before flipping the cafe sign to closed and sauntering over to sit next to Ryuji, legs crossing and cheek pressing to a fist.

“So,” Sakura-san starts, hands folding under his chin as he props his elbows up on the table, “wanna tell us what’s going on?”