Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Even when he’d been pulled from his own head, when the horizons of his world have been expanded, the vibrant life of Shibuya always finds a way to grab Neku’s attention. Maybe it’s because his tie to it is metaphorical as well as quite literal. 

The streets, filled with people and gossip, are alive all around him in ways that he wouldn’t have noticed before he entered the Reaper’s Game. People show off how good they are at following the latest trends in clothing, talking and laughing with friends. They walk to and from gruesome jobs or explore around as tourists. 

People watching is a good pastime for him. He stands just out of the rush of people, connected to the crowd, but distant enough not to have his senses overwhelmed. If he stands in the right places, it's almost like being in the UG, able to interact with the world in small ways from a distance. (Of course, he can just go to the UG directly, but there’s something slightly unique about each experience, so he does both.)

He doesn’t just stare for hours. He listens, hearing random chats go by. People complain about society. Politicians make speeches. Teens crack jokes with friends. He never used to listen, always tuning out the rest of the world. 

But really, he’s waiting. Waiting for what? Well, for—

“Neku!” He turns his head to see Shiki waving as she approaches his spot near the Hachiko statue. 

He waves back, smiling a little. These meetups with his friends decorate his life now. Life is bigger. Brighter. Shiki, Beat, Rhyme, and even Eri—who he’s still getting used to—are the lights of his new life, despite how cheesy that seems. 

And then there’s Joshua, who’s a… friend, but that’s another messy issue entirely. Neku tries not to focus on that issue unless it’s actually in front of him. Instead he focuses on his schoolwork or anything else as a distraction. 

He goes to Kosei High School, the same school Shiki and Eri go to. It’s hard to get into and the academic work is top tier. 

At first, Neku had gotten in with his academics and artistic talent and had to keep his grades in order to keep the amount his family paid at a lower cost. But apparently this year some anonymous benefactor pays for his scholarship as long as he meets its odd requirements. He decided that he would just go with it (even if he does have some suspicions about who sponsors him).

Neku doesn’t share a class with Shiki or Eri, so he doesn’t know his classmates too well. Some of them make awkward forced small talk with him sometimes and seem nice, but some still treat him like they did before the Game. 

It’s his fault, too. As far as they know, he acted like an asshole and then suddenly changed into some entirely different person. After all that time he spent not listening to people, he finally uncovers his ears to rumors and whispers that he never realized were there. 

It kinda sucks.

But there’s still times he’s able to reach out to someone new. One of his classmates, Yusuke Kitagawa, always stays behind in the art room during lunch. 

Neku doesn’t really know that much about Yusuke, despite sitting next to him in class. He’s well known, being under Madarame’s mentorship and all, but what he’s truly known for is being pretty weird (even though their class is full of art students).   

When he happened to mention his classmate’s time alone to Shiki and Eri, it led to them convincing Neku to ask him to sit with them at lunch. The most surprising part? Yusuke actually agreed. 

For a while, hanging out with him was… awkward. At least for Neku, Yusuke probably doesn’t see anything as awkward. At the time, Neku hadn’t had too much experience going out of his way to make friends outside the Reaper’s Game (Shiki was basically a buffer when it came to getting to know Eri).

But as he got to know him, he finds that it’s way more amusing to just go along with whatever. If there’s one thing Yusuke’s got, it’s passion (even if it’s to the point of being stubbornness), and Neku kinda admires that about him. The guy’s pretty weird, but so are most people. 

And with a friend in his class, it makes projects much, much easier. 

“From now until the end of the school year, you’ll be working with a partner of your choosing that has a style that clashes with your own. This is part of your art history unit, and will be worth forty percent of your grade at the end of the year,” Neku’s art teacher, Hayashi-sensei, announces one day. 

The class quickly dissolves into chatter, with many people asking others to be their partners. 

“Before you go on making any promises like lonely singles on Valentine’s Day,” he says, getting the attention of the room once again, “You’ll be making a series of pieces that reflect whatever major events you wish to depict that happen over the course of the time you’re given, from personal events to national news. The goal is not to have yours be unique with the event itself, but the way you depict its effect on you. This means that any medium will be accepted within reason.”

An excited murmur sweeps across the class. Students who might be sick of painting are getting their time to shine. Neku’s never been that good with sculpting. He could do it if he tried, but he wasn’t interested in it overall. 

His teacher continues like he hadn’t heard the noise. “I know I said that they were to reflect the events, but think of it as less of your standard glass and more of a funhouse mirror. It’s different from different perspectives, but the point still comes across. 

“You can make as many pieces as you want, but more does not necessarily mean a better grade. Quality over quantity, everyone!” He locks eyes with some students in particular. “They must follow a theme. A theme that shows in both the event topics and your style as well.”

With a flair, the teacher turns to the chalk board and writes “3/5” at the top corner. He gives a dramatic pause, before adding the words “ART SHOW” next to it. “At the end of the year there will be a class-hosted art show, where you and your partners will explain both of your points of view on your project to the guests and to me. With that in mind, choose your partner!”

An art show? The prospect makes even Neku feel more excited. He looks to Yusuke next to him, who’s deep in thought, and taps his shoulder. 

“Do you want to be partners?” he asks when Yusuke looks over. “It’s better to work with someone you know, right? Also I have a few ideas on what we could use as our theme.”

Yusuke takes a moment of consideration before nodding, “I look forward to hearing what ideas you have to offer.”

Neku hasn’t done a project with someone else in a while, but working with Yusuke doesn’t seem like it’ll be too difficult. Maybe. 

“Great,” he says, “Are you free to start after school today?”

Yusuke shakes his head, “I’m not free for today. I don’t believe I will be for the rest of the week. I have to finish a piece before the start of Madarame-sensei’s upcoming exhibition this Sunday.”

Something in his wording makes Neku pause, it makes him suddenly focused, intent on paying complete attention to whatever the other boy might say. 

“Before then?” he asks slowly, “Why?”

“Ah, well…” Yusuke starts, but falters for a moment. “I help out with the exhibition and work on many projects at one time. If I finish this one it leaves time for the class project.”

Neku nods, saving this bit of info for later. The more he’s known Yusuke these past few weeks, the more he’s been able to tell the difference between his reasons and his excuses. There’s something a bit off about Yusuke’s situation, but Neku doesn’t have nearly enough information to know what it is, let alone try and actually do something about it. The only hints he gets are from everyday conversations and excuses he hears. 

“Speaking of the exhibition,” Yusuke continues, “Madarame-sensei has provided me with quite a few tickets in case I wanted to invite anyone. You can take others with you, if you’re interested.”

Interested? Neku’s mood very visibly lifts and brightens at the suggestion. Going to see art exhibitions is a luxury a student like him can’t really afford, this is an opportunity he has to take. 

“Sure,” he says, his laid back tone definitely not matching his excited attitude. Yusuke hands him three tickets and Neku sends a quick text to the group chat, knowing someone will respond sooner or later. 

“I’ll definitely be there—” is all Neku is able to say before the class continues with Hayashi-sensei’s booming voice and draws both of their attention. He’ll talk with Yusuke later. 

Chapter Text

The problem with waiting for something that you want to do is that time passes so slowly. Neku uses the time to really focus on his studies and hope that things move at least a little faster. 

Shiki and Rhyme are the only ones who could come along with him to the exhibit, with Beat not being too interested and Eri being busy. But overall, Neku’s glad to have a chance to introduce Yusuke to Rhyme, they both seem like they’ll get along great.

When Sunday finally comes, he waits at Hachiko for the other two. Shibuya is crowded and crazy like always, but there’s still a flow to it that he tries to tune in to, maybe it’ll calm down his impatience.  

He hadn’t really known what to wear to an art exhibit, especially one for a famous artist. Despite his best efforts, the habit of planning his outfit has been successfully drilled into his head by Shiki and Eri. Though per usual, he had just decided to do something casual. But with time to think about it, he’s started to doubt the outfit he’s wearing. 

Come on, where are they? He thinks, eyes glancing through the crowd for his friends. Finally he spots familiar brown hair and a beanie right beside it and calls out to the both of them. 

At his voice, Rhyme turns towards him, grabbing Shiki’s hand and dragging her along as they skip over. 

“Are we too late?” Rhyme asks.

“Nah,” Neku shrugs. He glances anxiously at the time on his phone, a habit left over from the Game. “I was just too early.”

“Wow, Neku! I’m surprised you dressed up today,” Shiki teases. 

Neku rolls his eyes, absently playing with his hair and starting to walk, “Can we just get going already?”

“Huh,” Rhyme says, studying his outfit. They put a hand to their chin like a dignified critic in deep thought for a moment, before dropping the act entirely with a shrug. “It’s just a jacket, I don’t see anything different.”

“I guess it’d look like that to most, but look. For one thing, he made an effort to put his hair in a neat ponytail instead of messy. Not to mention,” Shiki snatches Neku’s hand, ignoring any of his half-hearted protests. She turns his hand over, pointing to his dark blue nails. “He painted his nails! I only see him do that when he wants to dress up a little.”

Neku rests his forehead in his free hand, feeling slightly betrayed and very embarrassed. Rhyme’s curious smile gets even wider, much to his surprise, “You can paint nails? Are you good at it? Can you teach me?”

Neku shrugs, pulling his hand back and looking away. “Uh, sure, anytime. But first, let’s not be late to the exhibit.”

When they get there, it’s wall-to-wall crowded. The only thing stopping Neku from hopping into the UG to get past all these people is the fact that Shiki and Rhyme are with him. 

Rhyme, the expert at getting through crowds they are, grabs Shiki’s hand and Shiki grabs his. Even though they do this all the time, Neku’s still not very fond of getting yanked around through a bunch of people that are way too close.  

Once he sees the familiar sight of the back of Yusuke’s head, he takes the lead. He finds his classmate standing next to a blonde girl around his age. 

“Oh, you’re here! I’m very glad you could make it,” Yusuke says as they approach.

“Thanks for the invites,” Shiki says, taking in a few of the pieces on display. 

“Oh! I think I know you,” Rhyme exclaims in realization while turning to the blonde girl, “You’re Ann Takamaki, right? You go to Shujin too.”

She nods, “Yeah, I think I’ve seen you around. Beat’s your older brother, right?”

“That’s him,” they nod.

“Takamaki is the model for my next art piece,” Yusuke explains. “I invited her here to see Madarame-sensei’s work as well.”

“I’m still just considering the modelling thing, actually,” she adds. 

Neku nods, knowing Yusuke’s tendency to assume things. “Nice to meet you, I’m Neku Sakuraba and this is Shiki Misaki. We both go to Kosei with him.” 

She smiles politely, “Nice to meet you, too.”

Rhyme grabs Shiki’s hand, “I think I see the painting I was talking about earlier, let’s go check it out. Do you want to come with us Neku?”

Neku shakes his head, noticing how quiet Shiki has gotten. She’s always a bit more shy around strangers. Her attitude during the Game had not been very close to her true self, but Neku has always tried to be quick to understand. “Nah, I think I’ll stick with Yusuke for a tour.” He turns to Yusuke, “I mean, if you’re up to it?” 

“Of course,” Yusuke nods, making a broad gesture towards some of the pieces hanging up, “I know much about Sensei’s artwork, I can show you around.”

Neku waves as Rhyme and Shiki leave, turning in time to see Takamaki step up to a piece that caught her eye. 

“Oh, this is it— the painting I wanted to see in person.”

For just a brief moment, a shadow of a frown passes over Yusuke’s face, before being replaced with cold indifference. “…This one?” his voice and steps are hesitant as he moves toward it. 

Neku walks over with him, watching Yusuke’s face carefully. “What about this one did you want to see so badly?” he asks Takamaki.

She puts a hand on the side of her chin, tapping in a rhythm on her jaw as she thinks. “I guess it’s the painter’s anger? I’m not sure, but I sense this… strong frustration from it.” 

He turns away from Yusuke, studying the piece. It’s high quality, like would expect of such a famous artist. But there’s something familiar about it, like he’s seen something similar to it before. 

Anyways, he can see what she’s getting at. Some strokes seem almost rushed, pressed hard onto the canvas with force, all of it conveying great anger at something or someone. 

“To think such a cheerful and gentlemanly person could make such a piece…” Ann sighs. 

That’s when it clicks for him. Of freaking course Neku’s seen this art style before, it’s Yusuke’s . The more familiar parts are somewhat covered up to look different, but he can see it slip back to what he’s used to here and there. A glance up to Yusuke’s face tells it all, a solemn look almost completely hidden. 

But why would Yusuke’s art be here? It’s not even under his own name. 

“Something wrong?” Takamaki asks glancing between the two of them. 

Is it to give some attention to his pupils? No, then Yusuke would have been credited. 

“Don’t mind me,” Yusuke assures, “There are better pieces than… this one. Come now, this way.”

Is he just straight up stealing Yusuke’s artwork? Why would such a famous artist do that? What the hell would he—

“Neku?”

He’s broken out of his thoughts, apologizing for getting so caught up. They continue going around and looking at the various pieces. But Neku can’t help thinking back to Yusuke’s piece. He’s never seen him angry before, but he knows he’s not as oblivious as most make him out to be. 

Neku makes a silent note to himself to look into this whole thing later. When did I get so nosy? Rhyme must be rubbing off on me. 

The three of them meet up with Shiki and Rhyme again at another painting. They end up deciding to just look around together. Like he thought, Rhyme and Yusuke get along almost too well.

Shiki and Takamaki start talking about fashion after Shiki made a comment about wanting to use one of the pieces she saw as a pattern. Both of them are so caught up pointing out which paintings would make good designs that Neku decides that it’s better to listen to Rhyme’s conversation with Yusuke. 

“I like how the flowers on this face away from you, and how the tree’s shadow hangs just a bit too far. The whole thing is something very beautiful, but it hides something very dark,” Rhyme says. 

“A very keen observation,” Yusuke replies, “This one is actually part of a pair, one from the front view and one from the back. It’s a shame that the second one isn’t here.”

Why would the second one not be here? Neku thinks to himself. Was it lost?

“Someone took it?” Rhyme asks, their eyes moving from the painting to Yusuke. 

“That’s an interesting idea to jump to,” Yusuke blinks, a bit surprised, “But a correct one. One of Madarame-sensei’s former pupils took it with her when she left the atelier. I believe it was by accident, so Sensei doesn’t hold it against her.”

Rhyme doesn’t speak for a while, seemingly lost in thought. Neku tries to keep up the conversation, pointing to another piece and giving his opinion on it. 

Rhyme doesn’t say much to Neku until after the three of them have left the exhibit. 

“We’ll catch up to you,” they suddenly say to Shiki. 

“Oh, right now?” Shiki asks. Once again, the people around him know something that he doesn’t. “I’ll wait by Hachiko, okay?”

“Thanks,” Rhyme says, before turning to Neku.

“What’s that about?” he asks. 

“Did you notice it too?” they say vaguely. 

“Notice what?” He shrugs, not entirely sure where this conversation is going. 

“How Yusuke’s explanation for that stolen painting was off. I mean, why would a student just take one of his paintings?”

“It’s happened before, with his most popular painting,” Neku shrugs, the thoughts in his head slowly coming to an entirely different conclusion. “Maybe this was the same one that took that one.”

“I doubt it,” they sigh, “It sounded like since Yusuke said it was an accident, Madarame didn’t do anything like press charges. But if she never returned it, why did he not try to get it back? It’s his work, so why did he just let it go?”

It’s a good question. Why would such a famous artist just let a painting be taken? Especially since it’s part of a pair. It doesn’t make sense. What would he gain if he let it go? Wait a second… 

Neku’s eyes widen in realization, “It isn’t his.”

“What isn’t?”

“I mean,” he pauses, trying to think this whole thing through. It’s the only thing that makes any sense. “Earlier I saw a piece that looked like one of Yusuke’s. If Madarame stole his, who’s to say he didn’t claim any of his other students’ work? Maybe that’s why she took it back. And because she might tell others he’s been plagiarizing work, he let her keep it.”

Rhyme thinks for a long moment, “Do you think Yusuke is having his work taken against his will?”

“Definitely,” Neku says without any doubt, “He didn’t look too happy when we saw his work there.”

“Then we’re gonna help him,” they declare, picking up their pace. “Let’s not leave Shiki waiting too long. We can fill her in about this too.”

They both walk in silence for a moment before Neku asks, “Why tell me specifically?"

“Well, you’re his friend, aren’t you?” Rhyme tilts their head, “I needed to check in case I’m just bein’ paranoid.”

Neku hums, “Why are you so invested in this anyways? Not to be rude, but you just met him today.”

“It’s just… I have a feeling,” Rhyme admits with a sigh, “And it’s not a good one.”

Chapter Text

The next day after school is spent working on their project. Neku’s never seen where Yusuke lives and honestly it’s… something. It’s as large as he would think an artist would have for a house, but it’s appearance is like a shack that'll blow away in a light wind. Maybe it’s some type of aesthetic?

The first half of his time where he should be thinking and helping plan this project is taken over by him trying to justify living in such a rundown place when you have so much money. It’s not the most productive, so he tries to get his mind off of the topic with action. He suggests a few topics for their project’s theme, and they decide to brainstorm some more around those. 

After a while of coming up with sketches and discarding them in quiet, Neku decides that maybe they need conversation. 

“Hey Yusuke, let’s try to talk about something. Maybe we could get some ideas from that?” 

“I see,” Yusuke hums, “This endeavor may indeed bear fruit. What shall we talk about?”

Neku thinks hard for a moment, “What about school? Or- hm… What do you think of Shiki and Eri?”

“Those two? Shiki’s…” He pauses a moment, “She was quiet when I first met her, but I have heard that she was even quieter in her own class. She and Eri together are very energetic, and they let me offer my ideas about patterns to their design projects.”

“They do? Huh, they’ve never mentioned that,” Neku tries to recall any sort of passing mention of it, but comes up with nothing. “At least you’re all getting along, so that’s good.”

“Did you not expect me to?”

“I didn’t know if you would or not,” he shrugs, messing with a bit on his hair, “I barely knew anything about your personality before I invited you to sit with us.”

“Then why did you?”

Neku hesitates. “I just thought you could use a couple of people on your side.”

There’s a small pause in the conversation, a short silence as they both think of two different things. Neku hopes he got his point across, as he’s gotten very suspicious of Yusuke’s home life at this point. Not to mention the feeling that Rhyme had yesterday. Those have never been wrong. He needs him to know that he has people to go to.

“It’s very intriguing,” Yusuke begins, “Many do not ever notice my presence, so they tend to say whatever without worry. For as long as I have known you, you act nothing like I have heard from them. It’s actually refreshing, to have my expectations be averted.”

Neku doesn’t sigh loudly like he wants to, he just exhales slowly through his nose. Of course the first impression Yusuke had of him was negative before even meeting him. That’s all his own fault, but he’s getting a little tired of being reminded of it all the time. 

“I had gone through something a few years ago and had some issues until last year. I wouldn’t say I was the best person during that time.” He pauses. He doesn’t want to outright lie, so he wonders how much he can get away with saying. He’ll go for being vague. “Death kinda does that to you. I’ve changed, with help, but some of our classmates don’t realize that.”

Yusuke nods and the conversation lulls for another moment. Then his head perks up slightly, “I believe that I have an idea for our project—”

Before he can finish that, the doorbell rings. Yusuke excuses himself for a moment to answer it. 

He decides that if there was any time to act, it would be now. Yusuke had said that Madarame would be in his own room while Neku is here, so if he’s gonna snoop he has to snoop now. 

He sneaks carefully out of the room, going down the hall until he finds the kitchen he passed on the way in. This is his first stop because, judging by the way he eats at lunch and his unhealthy beanpole stature, Yusuke doesn’t eat well. 

Neku opens the fridge first. It wasn’t empty or anything, but it might as well have been. Nothing but condiments, sauces, dressings, nothing to make a real meal out of. To say that that’s concerning is putting it mildly. 

Next he moves onto the cabinets. Mostly dishes and silverware, nothing edible. However, he does spy one in the back corner with a hefty lock on it. With a quick glance around and some telekinesis the lock is no longer a problem, so he opens it up. 

Non-perishable food and snacks are crammed in there, so much so that Neku thought it was about to spill out. As his mind starts to race with all the things this could mean, he carefully puts everything exactly as he found it.

Walking out of the kitchen, he hears Yusuke’s voice. Walking in the direction of the front door, Neku finds the girl from Shujin there (Takamaki, right?) as well as two other boys wearing the same uniform. 

What are they doing here—? Neku’s thought is cut off when he’s startled by a touch on his shoulder. 

“Apologies for scaring you, Sakuraba-kun,” Madarame says, passing him by in the hallway, “Let’s see what all this is about, hmm?”

Neku nods, forcing himself to relax. He introduced himself to the man earlier on his way in. Never has he been more unsettled by the difference between what the evidence suggests and what he sees now. 

He watches it all play out from the background as Madarame asks about the yelling. The Shujin students notice him, the black-haired one keeping a suspiciously close eye on him, like he knows something. What does he want?

Neku’s attention is taken by the conversation as Madarame speaks. 

“…Forgive them Yusuke,” he says, “They must’ve heard some bad rumors and came in worry for their friend’s safety.” 

Safety, huh? Neku thinks, He’s a bit specific for a rumor they never described. 

Yusuke sighs, “…Understood, Sensei.” 

After asking them to keep it down, Madarame excuses himself. But not before leaning over to tell Yusuke something quietly. Neku tries to listen in, but he can’t hear anything, only taking in the way his friend’s grip tightens into a fist. 

“Don’t forget to attend to your guest,” Madarame says just before he departs to his room. 

Yusuke turns to him with no small amount of surprise, “Ah, Neku! I didn’t know you were there.”

“I heard you yelling,” Neku steps forward. He’s not exactly lying. “Everything okay now?”

Again he sighs, but then bows, “My apologies… to all of you. That was incredibly discourteous of me.” For a moment, his face lights up with an idea, turning to the Shujin students. “I think you’ll be able to believe in Sensei if you saw that painting.”

Neku knows what painting he’s talking about. While going on about his artistic passions during lunch, Yusuke had mentioned that Madarame’s maiden work, Sayuri, was what inspired him to become an artist. Neku can see why. 

“It’s so beautiful…” Takamaki comments as Yusuke shows them a picture of it from his phone. 

“I dunno anything about fine art, but that's impressive,” says the other blond. 

“It’s the most debated piece of artwork he’s created,” Neku explains, walking fully outside, “Apparently, it’s all about the woman’s expression.” 

If that “apparently” seemed flippant, that’s because it’s supposed to be. Personally, Neku finds that the artist’s original intention doesn’t matter as much as the meaning the viewer takes from it. However, this is where Yusuke and him have had many disagreements. 

See, Yusuke is trying to pursue what he calls “true beauty,” a beauty so grand that both artist and viewer can appreciate it with the same awe. 

However, Neku’s view isn’t exactly in line with his. If the focus is more on the interpretation of the viewer than the intent of the artist, it allows for newer and different ideas to travel back and forth. 

Usually at the end of these types of conversations Neku would just shrug, because neither of them are wrong. 

Neku smiles a bit as Yusuke explains his passions to the Shujin students. He likes to hear his friends talk about their interests. That smile is wiped off his face as a dark feeling passes through him. This whole rumor situation might turn out to be a big deal. No matter how much Yusuke tries to clear up everything, Neku saw that bare kitchen. 

“I’m sorry that you took the time to come all this way,” Yusuke turns to Takamaki specifically, “However, as you can see I am preoccupied at the moment. If you’ll excuse me.”

Neku’s not sure how to follow that quick end to the conversation. So he just shrugs and waves a bit, “It was nice seeing you again, Takamaki-san.”

He follows Yusuke back inside. Both of them settling down into the seats they both occupied earlier. But Neku still has some questions on his mind. 

“What rumors were they talking about?”

“Ah, that,” Yusuke hesitates, “Just some horrible nonsense spouted by someone online. I doubt it matters, for they are lies either way.”

“I see.” He doesn’t see. Really, he has too many very specific questions. But those need to be reworded in order to not draw suspicion. “Well, let’s get back to work—”

“Actually, Neku,” He sets down his sketchbook with a sigh, “Is it okay if we continue this another day? That confrontation earlier has put a damper on my inspiration for today, and there is a conversation I need to have with Sensei in private.”

A talk with Madarame? Neku thinks, Is that what he told him earlier? He has a bad feeling about that. 

“But what about that idea you had?” he asks. 

“We can talk about it over text later,” Yusuke faces away from him, putting his supplies away, “It would also allow more time to think on it overnight, wouldn’t it?”

“Alright, I guess, let’s try this again tomorrow?” he asks, a plan already forming in his mind. 

“I believe that will be fine. Thank you for putting up with me today.”

Neku smiles a bit uneasily, “Don’t worry about it, okay?” Picking up his items, he heads for the door, but hesitates. “Yusuke? Don’t be afraid to tell me things, alright? I can listen any time.”

Yusuke glances at him, turning back to his task, “I… I’ll keep that in mind.”

That’s all Neku knows he’ll get, so he nods. “Good. Well, later.” 

He tries to think that Yusuke will trust him enough to say something, but he’ll be prepared in case he doesn’t. That means mentioning all of this stuff to everyone else who knows (and maybe Eri, since she’s already a bit suspicious anyways). If he can get help, maybe he could pull this off.

Neku will help Yusuke. Somehow. 

He walks out of the front door, not expecting to see the Shujin students still standing outside. 

“What are you still doing here?” he asks, walking up to the group. 

“Oh, Sakuraba-kun!” Takamaki says, turning to him, “About that, we wanted to ask you something.”

“Yeah, it’s about Kitagawa. Since you’re friends and all,” adds the blond boy. 

Neku tilts his head a bit, what could they possibly get from him?

“The thing is,” she starts with a pause of uncertainty, “We’ve heard rumors online about Madarame abusing and plagiarizing from his pupils. We were wondering if you know anything about that.”

Those were the online rumors? This whole thing is bigger than Neku thought. But if that was the rumor, then that means these three already went to Yusuke to ask about it. That’s probably the worst thing to do first in this situation, since Yusuke is as stubborn and loyal as they come. 

That talk with Madarame… Neku starts to think, a terrible realization dawning on him, They might’ve just made this whole thing worse!  

“Look,” He tries to put it lightly, “You three don’t exactly know Yusuke. And it’s a bit rude to get into the business of someone you don’t know, right? So maybe you shouldn’t be getting involved—”

“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?” The blond boy raises his voice.

“Ryuji, let him finish,” Takamaki elbows him. 

“Why shouldn’t we get involved?” For the first time, the quiet boy with glasses speaks up, “Is that a problem?”

He gets elbowed too. “Stop butting in,” she says.

Despite the inquiring tone, Neku can feel the implied accusation in his words. Just the thought of that makes him feel sick. Okay, no more sugar-coating. “It’s only a problem if you confront him about it, one, with no evidence and, two, while the person you’re accusing of being an abuser is right there.”  

He shakes his head, “Please, just stay out of it. Since you obviously don't know what you’re doing.” 

The blond boy (who’s name is apparently Ryuji) scoffs, leaning back against the railing, “What, and you do, Mr. Expert?”

He huffs, an unwanted feeling rising from his gut. He pushes it back down. “Unfortunately, I do. I know how to have tact , unlike three complete strangers who randomly go to people’s houses and accuse them of things they found online—”

He stops himself from continuing. His words have too much of a bite to them, he realizes. They probably didn’t know how to even begin to approach this whole thing like he does, which is good in some ways — it means they haven’t had experience in it, and Neku wouldn’t wish that on anyone — and bad in most other ways. 

Neku softens his tone, “Sorry. Can you just stay out of this? For his sake, not mine.”

The silence that follows seems like a good time, so with that, he leaves. 

…Or at least, he walks around the corner a fair ways off. There’s no way he’s just gonna leave them there, so, after doing a quick visual and mental scan of the area, he goes to the UG and starts on his way back to the group. 

He finds the three of them (and a cat on the railing?) huddled around a phone held by the glasses-wearing boy. 

“No candidates found.” A robotic tone comes from the phone. 

What could that mean?

“Not a single hit…?” one of them complains. The group brainstorms ideas for whatever they’re looking for, something about a word relating to artists? 

With a confident look, the boy holding the phone shifts his bag on his shoulder and speaks, “A museum.”

“Candidate found. Beginning navigation.”

Neku’s barely able to process what that means, because in just moments, the world around him becomes tinted with red and a horrible feeling lodges itself in his gut.

Chapter Text

Traveling to the Underground is a normal occurrence for Neku. He has a city to help run, after all. 

The first time he did it (It was unwilling on his part , which should be noted. Joshua had brought him there to talk. Little did he know at the time that a supposedly simple talk would turn his life into what it is now) a nasty feeling had risen in his throat. He could feel the difference in frequency, which brought back too many bad memories of the Game along with it. 

Nowadays he could handle it a lot better. It’s just as comfortable as being in the Realground, like a second home. He feels like he should be more off-put by that since he probably shouldn’t feel that way, considering he’s not, well, dead.

The point is, Neku has never considered going to a higher frequency than the UG. If it was a push before, then this sensation was a shove off of a cliff. 

He takes quite a few unsteady steps back, watching the world shift red around him. 

That isn’t normal! he thinks almost frantically. The most change he’s seen going from the RG to the UG was the appearance of Reapers or Players or other small things unseen by lower frequencies. But now a tall, golden, and gaudy building rises from where the atelier once stood. Is this the museum they had been talking about?

He slowly becomes more aware of the weight on his back. Calming down, Neku lowers his head at the comforting feeling of his wings. They don’t ever disappear from existence when he goes to the RG, they just fade from visibility and become intangible, his mind mostly ignoring their existence unless prompted. (He’s pretty sure that this isn't the case for Reapers that are actually dead, but it’s just another thing that sets him apart).

They look more feathery than the normal sharpness that characterizes Reaper wings. Well, the black feathers are still sharp-looking, and they still follow the shape they were. Closing his eyes, he inwardly curses all higher powers for his stupid “enhanced sensitivity” to changes in frequency. Why does he have to be the outlier? Wack.

Neku takes deep breaths before taking note of his surroundings. There are figures where the Shujin students had been standing, now wearing odd clothing and making their way toward the building. The museum? He wonders, Are they the ones that made it appear out of nowhere?

They haven’t seemed to have noticed him yet. The weird cartoonish creature glances in his direction a few times, but doesn’t seem to actually see him and turns to follow the group. 

Can they not see him? Maybe he drove his own frequency up even higher in his earlier panic. He tries to turn his frequency back down to the RG (or even the UG, for goodness sake) but the most that changes are the wings on his back turning slightly lighter and translucent for a moment. What does that mean? He can figure that out later, when he has less to worry about. 

There’s something strange blocking him from going back down, like a gate with a big and hefty lock on it. Neku definitely doesn’t have the key, much less the energy to break it right now. This place feels like it sucks the energy straight from him. 

The world around him pulses as he looks around, an annoying and distracting thing to feel while he’s trying to focus. 

Leading up to what he assumes is the entrance is a long and crowded line of people who definitely weren’t there a second ago. Neku’s focus lingers on the crowd. Their voices can be heard from where he is, but no words can be made out in particular. Their faces slip from his mind as he looks from one person to the next. 

Where the hell am I? he thinks, glancing the direction they all ran off to. A flicker of movement catches his eye just before it disappears into an open skylight on one of the shorter roofs. 

That’s where they’re headed, huh.  

Neku decides to follow them further inside the museum, maybe he’ll find the answers with them. 

Except there’s a bit of a problem. A guard spots him as he tries to get past. As weird as it is proportion-wise, it’s still very large and very intimidating. 

Reaching in right his pocket, he pulls out a pin, any pin. He can easily tell which one it is and what it does by the way it hums in his hand. He’s always kept pins on him, a habit he and his friends have kept over from the Game. 

He’s gotten stronger since then, so he braces himself for fighting this… thing.  

The guard rushes at him, Neku dodging out of the way in time. Focusing, he calls upon the ability from the pin in his hand. 

Nothing happens. Knowing his luck, he probably should’ve expected it. This is a newer, weirder world. He’s going up against enemies he doesn’t recognize in an environment that gives him a headache. And he doesn’t even have a partner with him. Of course something he relies on doesn't work. The guard turns around. 

Shit. Neku decides it’s a good time to take his leave. Using his wings to his advantage, he leaps as far aways as he can. Unfortunately, he’s never been that good at using them, and stumbles a bit as he lands. He picks himself up quickly, ignoring the pulsing of the strange world around him, and runs like hell. 

“Did you see that stupid monument? This whole situation’s bullshit,” Skull complains, leg bouncing anxiously. “‘Sensei,’ my ass. Why does he even put up with Madarame? He’s gotta know that he’s bein’ plagiarized, right?”

“Who knows?” Mona shrugs, “Maybe he’s just in denial?”

The four of them rest in the lobby-ish area of the palace, alert in case shadows come around. They haven’t found a safe room yet, but they decided that they still needed a place to talk before exiting the palace. 

Akira stays standing as the rest sit around on the couches. It’s better for him to be on watch, so the others have more time if they need to get up and fight. He turns back toward the group, watching Panther’s face, deep in thought. 

“What’s up, Panther?” He asks, glancing around again to make sure nothing is approaching. 

“It’s just what Sakuraba was saying,” she admits, “He seemed to know what’s been going on.”

“If he knows, then why the hell is he keeping it secret?” Ryuji says, “Sounds shady to me.”

“I dunno, he does seem to care a lot about his friend,” Mona shakes his head, “Maybe he’s nice, despite that weird feeling…” He says that last part low, Akira quickly realizing that he may have been the only one who heard. He decides not to press it.

“See?” Panther nods, “That’s the thing I keep thinking about…”

“I get where he’s coming from,” Akira says, turning toward the conversation. “I mean, maybe we could’ve thought that whole thing through a bit better. Talking to the volleyball team didn’t get us anywhere during the rally. And Skull, what would Kamoshida have done if he was right there the whole time we were asking about it? It would’ve made the whole thing worse. So, I get it.”

The three of them stare at Akira with a look that he can’t decipher. It's not a negative look, just an odd one. “What?” he asks, taking another scan of the area. For safety’s sake, not to avoid their gazes. 

“Oh, nothing,” Panther waves dismissively, “But I agree, I think he might’ve been onto something.” 

“Hmm,” Mona hums thoughtfully, “I wonder what he meant by—” 

He’s cut off by the sound of rushing footsteps coming in their direction. Everyone jumps to their feet, turning to the sound. 

A loud clang comes from the hall leading to the gold monument. A flash of light follows the sound, right before something leaps around the corner. 

No, Akira realizes, that’s a person! And not just anyone, but the boy they just saw a few minutes ago. He’s still in his uniform, though he looks more disgruntled with his orange hair awkwardly falling out of the short messy ponytail he wore earlier. How did he evade the guards? Actually, much more importantly—

“How did he get here?!” Panther gasps. 

Running after him are shadows, shouting, “Unauthorized Entry!” and, “KILL THE INTRUDER!”

There’s four shadows in total, real mean-looking too. With a look shared among his teammates, they summon their personas. 

“Whoa why are you jumping to murder—!?” Sakuraba cuts himself off as he sees the group. “What the…?” 

Akira summons Archangel, planning to push the main two back. Skull covers him while Panther lashes out with her whip at the next closest one, keeping it from getting too close.

“Hey watch out!” Mona calls out. Akira glances up just in time to see the last one jump for Sakuraba…

…And just in time to see the boy dodge out of the way with speed no average human should have, swiping his hand out and releasing two giant pulses that throws all the shadows far back down the hallway they came from. 

Despite the display of whatever the hell that power was, he looks almost disappointed. Akira ignores that for now, this is the perfect time to retreat. 

“Let’s run!” Akira calls to the others, growing more wary of the sounds of the shadows getting their bearings. They all run back the way they came, making sure Sakuraba follows closely.

Finally making it to the entrance, Akira turns to him. 

“We’ll explain things when we go back to the real world,” he assures, noting how surprisingly calm he seems for being suddenly shoved into the metaverse. 

“The real world—?”

Akira activates the metaverse app before ever realizing Neku was saying something. 

As soon as they’re back, Ryuji turns to the Sakuraba. “What was that thing you did back there? With the weird dodging and stuff?”

Taking an unsteady step back, Sakuraba grips the railing like a lifeline, his face looks strained but relieved, almost. Ann takes a concerned step forward just as Akira wonders if he’s gotten hurt anywhere. 

After a moment with his eyes closed, Sakuraba runs a hand through his hair, toying with the ends of it. He grimaces, as if just noticing how unkempt it’s gotten. “T-That’s… a long story. More importantly,” he looks away distractedly. It’s odd how he seems almost quiet, but Akira supposes that might just be from shock or something. 

Sakuraba takes a deep breath, before continuing, “What the fuck was that place? Why were you all wearing those weird outfits? What the hell were those things that appeared out of your body?” he turns to gesture to Morgana, who had jumped up onto the railing, “Where the hell did that cat come from?”  

“That’s—” Ann looks ready to retaliate with her own questions, but she stops, looking off to the side. “…also a long story.” 

“Excuse you!” Morgana hisses, “I am not a cat!”

“Well obviously he’s not gonna know that just by lookin’ at ya,” Ryuji responds. 

He looks back over to where Sakuraba stands, staring at Morgana with a carefully calm look. Too careful, almost forced. He’s probably processing everything. Akira kinda feels bad, but not really. The last time someone was introduced to the metaverse, the stakes were a bit higher so he hadn’t realized the ridiculousness of it all. Now he has to stop himself from showing it on his face. 

“Not gonna lie,” Sakuraba sighs, “A talking cat somehow isn’t the weirdest thing I’ve seen in my life.”

Akira cracks a bit of a smile at that, “Not the reaction I expected.” 

“Yeah, you must’ve seen some pretty strange stuff if it makes hearing Morgana talk seem like it’s no big deal,” Ann laughs a little. 

Morgana huffs, still annoyed by being called a cat, “Whatever, we still need to explain things. Not to mention he needs to explain how he could use any sort of power without a persona.”

Sakuraba messes with the tips of his hair, “I’ll explain what I can, but maybe somewhere more private? You guys don’t want anyone finding out about things, do you?”

Akira perks up a bit at that. Has he already figured them out just by being in the metaverse? Just the thought of it makes him tense more than he already is. “When did you figure it out?”

“Sometime while I was running for my life, I guess,” he shrugs. 

Various questions rise about just exactly how he had figured it out as they begin walking toward the nearest station in Shibuya. But Sakuraba only answers that he’ll explain later. 

“We haven’t even properly introduced ourselves, huh?” Ann says, tilting her head. “Since I’m the only one you really know.”

Ryuji decides to go first, saying, “Yo, I’m Ryuji Sakamoto. The bratty cat in his bag is Morgana.”

“Hey!” Morgana peeks over Akiras shoulder, “Don’t speak for me, you—!”

“Anyways, I’m Akira Kurusu,” he interrupts what would probably be another petty argument. 

Sakuraba puts a hand in his pocket, but waves a little with his other one, “Neku Sakuraba. But, uh, just use my first name.” 

“It’s fine if you use ours too,” Ann smiles, “Now that that’s out of the way, where exactly should we head to?” She idly bumps Akira’s shoulder with hers. He puts his hands in his pockets, shifting slightly away in thought. There’s actually a few places he has in mind. 

“Well, what about that diner place on Central Street?” Ryuji suggests. 

For some reason, Neku almost stops walking. Ann slows down with him in surprise, causing the rest of them to follow suit. 

“Something wrong?” she asks. 

“Let’s say someone I know…” Neku pauses, “…works there. Is there anywhere else we can go? Somewhere outside of Shibuya.”

“It’s not too late to go to our place!” Morgana says right next to Akira’s ear. 

He winces at the volume, “Ow.” 

“Sorry.”

“You live in Yongen right?” Ryuji asks, “That’s not too far off.”

“Yeah,” Akira nods, focusing on the approaching station. “Come on, it’s this way.”

Chapter Text

“What you experienced is a world called the metaverse,” Morgana explains, “In it are Palaces, locations that have been heavily distorted by someone’s cognition, by the way they see the world.”

The five of them currently sit around Akira’s room, a couple of chairs pulled out from the depths of the clutter still in the corners of the room. He should probably finish cleaning that soon, before Morgana decides to say something about it. 

Sojiro, surprisingly enough, left them alone with a promise to come back up and kick them out when it gets too late. Good thing he bought that studying excuse.

The more the four of them (Well, three, as Akira only chips in once in a while for extra clarification) explain the metaverse to Neku, the more he wants to know about the boy’s place in all this. 

It’s obvious that even though he doesn’t seem to know of the metaverse or have a persona, he has some sort of power that resides in him. What is it? he wonders, How did he get it? Is it strong?  

That isn’t the only thing curious about him. For some reason Akira feels like he’s seen him somewhere before. Tokyo may be a big place, but he could’ve easily seen him hanging out at one of the popular after-school spots. Something tells him there’s more to it than that, though. 

“So that’s what really happened,” He hears Neku mutter, “I heard about Kamoshida from a friend. They said that there was more to the rumors than people thought. I wanted to help them do something about it, but I couldn’t do anything. I mean, I don’t even go to Shujin.”

Both Ryuji and Ann let out small sighs at that. 

“The fact that you even thought about trying to help is more than I can say for most people,” Ann glances to the side.

Ryuji agrees, “Besides, that bastard’s long gone now. Hopefully for good.”

Neku nods, “Hopefully.”

“Well, if that’s all. How about we move on, okay?” Morgana begins softly, looking around to check for the mood before continuing, “Neku, about that power you used in the metaverse. It wasn’t a persona.”

He glances away before responding, “That’s right, it wasn’t.”

“So…” Ryuji drags the word out, “What is it?”

Neku fidgets and with his hair before beginning to speak, “You guys described the metaverse as existing alongside the real world. Well, what if I said there’s something in between them?”

“In between the metaverse and the real world?” Ann repeats.

Honestly, Akira has thought about if there could be other places like the metaverse, but those have always seemed like they would be separate from it, at least in his mind. However, those were usually late night thoughts that rambled on about this and that, so he can’t really count that. But in between here and the metaverse? That means Neku has a somewhat distant connection to it after all. 

“I like to think of it like radio waves. Each station is at a different frequency, but there’s still some overlap between them where you can hear both at the same time. What you call the real world is like just another station, the Realground, or the RG. It’s where you and I are from. Above that is where my psychs — the power I used — come from, the Underground, or the UG.” Neku leans back on the couch, “I’ve only ever been able to go up to the UG’s frequency, until today. The metaverse is way higher than what I’m used to, so I was kinda disoriented when I got there.”

“How’d you get into the metaverse anyways?” Ann asks, “You weren’t around when we went in.”

“I was, actually,” Neku looks away from the group, “I was spying. I was trying to see what you all were up to from the UG. I must’ve been a low enough frequency for you to take me with you. When I entered I kinda panicked and put myself up to a frequency you couldn’t see.”

“So depending on the frequency, we either can or can’t see you. But we can interact with you?” Morgana asks. 

“Something like that.”

Ann hums as the four of them think a bit on the info, then speaks, “You said you use psychs to fight, right? What does that mean?”

Neku hesitates a moment, before pulling something out of his pocket. “I can do stuff without these, but I’m more used to them,” he opens his hand to reveal brightly colored pins, “Each of these pins activate a certain psych that can be used in the UG. What they do can be from moving things to setting stuff on fire. They didn’t work in the metaverse when I tried.”

So he can pretty much do anything if he has the right pin for it? Akira wonders. That would be pretty useful, if only they worked in the metaverse. 

“I haven’t seen so many pins in one place since that pin craze a while ago,” Ann comments, “Actually they’re still pretty popular, but using them for stuff like this? That’s kinda cool!”

“It is?” he looks surprised, “I haven’t really thought about it…”

“What’s this UG place like anyways?” Ryuji asks. “You said something about bein’ invisible.”

“It’s basically the same as the RG, only you’re invisible to everyday people and can only slightly interact with objects,” Neku shrugs. 

“Is it like the metaverse, where it’s made from human cognition? Or is it made from something else?” Mona asks. 

Neku thinks for a long moment, before answering, “No, I think. I’m not completely sure, but it definitely has something to do with humanity. If you know how to, you can slightly influence how people act, generally speaking. Other than that, there’s nothing really worth noting.”

Nothing worth noting? Akira knows that’s a lie. Otherwise, how would he know so much about it? If that’s true, he won’t mind a simple question. “How’d you get your abilities?” 

“A lot of experimenting,” he looks around the room, able to tell that no one is satisfied with that. But when he continues, it's not with an answer. “If you want specifics, well, I can’t tell you that.” 

“What do you mean you can’t tell us?!” Morgana springs up in outrage, “We told you all about our power!”

“Don’t get me wrong, I would if I could, but…” He sighs, “The UG has rules, so it’s not exactly something I’m allowed to say.”

Akira’s eyes narrow at that. Something or someone is in a position that can make Neku not talk about this, even in private. From what he can tell, it doesn’t seem too much like a loyalty thing. Blackmail, maybe? Either way, his mention of not being allowed to say something instead of just coming up with an excuse must mean something. Maybe he’s giving hints? Could they get anything else out of him?

With a glance to the other Thieves, Akira nods to them. 

“Rules? So there’s somebody who’s not letting you tell us?” Ann asks. 

Neku glances away, making a face. There’s a pause as he leans back against the couch. A look settles on his face, a furrowed one that Akira doesn’t know what to make of. Neku crosses his arms, “If that’s what you want to think, go ahead.”

It’s not exactly a confirmation, nor is it a denial. He’s just dodging the question. Something’s changed here. 

“Are the rules like some sort of honor code?” Morgana asks, “Like in a top-secret organization?”

“Sure, if that’s what you believe,” he shrugs, dodging again, “What do you want me to say? It’s your choice to believe me or not, just like it’s my choice to lie or not. Either way, this is probably as far as this conversation will go. Sorry about that.”

Akira can tell what he’s doing, he can see the rest of the Thieves thinking about it too. The way Neku maneuvers through their questions seems off, though. Like he’s copying someone awkwardly. His simple sort of “no comment” response from earlier was different from what he says now, more honest. And at the end there, he seemed just a bit more sincere, like it his act was slipping. Just what exactly made him change his approach?

Finally, with a look to the Thieves, Neku uncrosses his arms, playing with his hair yet again, “I said earlier that I’d explain what I can, but this is it.”

There it is, Akira thinks, that’s the way he began.  

“Fine. We’ll drop the topic,” he decides, despite the looks both Ann and Ryuji give him. Morgana looks at him with something akin to an understanding (At least he thinks so. Akira’s only getting slightly better at reading cat facial expressions). 

“But it’d be nice if you decided to work with us on this whole thing,” Morgana adds knowingly. The big if in that statement goes unsaid. They’ll drop this if Neku helps them out, it’s only fair, all things considered. Otherwise whatever was keeping him from talking might not like the Phantom Thieves trying to investigate deeper. 

After a short pause, Ann catches on faster than Ryuji does, “R-Right! We all want to help out Kitagawa, so we should work together, shouldn’t we?”

Ryuji needs to be elbowed before he actually gets it, “Oh. Yeah, so whaddya say?” 

Even though each side is not even in the amount of info they have on each other, they can balance the scales. Akira can make sure of it, even if it’ll take a while. 

Neku looks between the four of them, obviously considering it heavily. His gaze finally stops on Akira, who offers a hand. 

“You with us?”

Finally, Neku nods, “Why not?”

With a handshake, the deal is sealed. 

Now that that’s all settled for the most part, they need a plan. 

“Let me help you in the palace,” Neku blurts out, surprising the Thieves just as they had begun talking about how to include him. 

Akira would be absolutely fine with letting Neku help them out in battle, and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t want to see what he could do. However…

“Will you be okay there?” Ann asks, beating him to it. “After we left the metaverse, you—”

“It was nothing,” Neku interrupts hastily, “I just wasn’t adjusted to it yet. I’m, uh, sensitive to changes in frequency… It even happens if I haven’t been to the UG in a while.” Why does Akira feel like that’s a lie? “I just need to get used to it, I can help.”

The four of them glance at each other with uncertainty. Sure, they’ve had people in the metaverse without a persona, but never someone who was actually sensitive to it. Who knows what could happen?

“Well, Morgana’s sorta our metaverse expert here,” Ryuji shrugs, “What do you think?”

Mona hums, “That depends on how Neku reacts to distortions within the palace. We know that being there for a short amount of time isn’t a risk, but our thief attire keeps the distortion from affecting us in the long run. I’m not sure time would affect it, but if we all get deep enough into the palace’s distortion, even I can’t exactly predict what would happen.”

“Then we can’t risk it,” Akira decides, turning back to Neku, a distant look on the other’s face. “I’m sorry. We’ll find another way.”

There’s a long moment of silence, Neku obviously caught up in his own head. “Fine,” he says, “Then tell me how I can help here, in reality.”

“We could have him be on look out,” Ann suggests, “So that we’re not caught out in front of Madarame’s place.”

Ryuji leans back in his chair, “Or he can make sure Yusuke’s doin’ alright and all.”

“That’s it?” Neku frowns. 

“No,” Morgana says, “Palaces are unpredictable, especially for those unacquainted with the ruler. I got captured in the previous one due to something along those lines before. We don’t know Madarame well, but any information that you provide will surely prove beneficial to our infiltration,” he says with confidence, then hesitates , “…I think. 

“So you want me to snoop?” Neku asks, “I mean, I’ll do it. But you’re gonna have to be more specific in what I need to look for.”

Ann hums to herself, “I think we’ll need to look into the palace more so we can decide on what we need.”

Akira agrees, “No use trying to guess.”

“Just try to dig up as much dirt as you can on that asshole,” Ryuji adds, “We’ll find some way to use it.

“Alright then,” Neku nods, his eyes determined, “I got this.”

Since a plan is now in place, Akira feels like a little bit of the tension has finally left his shoulders. Apparently, it’s even visible in his movements, as Morgana decides to comment on it. 

“Y’know, you look more relaxed than you did before,” he says while Akira gets ready for bed. 

“Do I?”

“Yeah,” he yawns, stretching out, “It’s like you were so tense before, and we could tell you were distracted by something. Now you’re more relaxed and focused.”

Akira simply hums in response. What is he supposed to say? He runs through the motions of setting out his uniform for tomorrow and getting into his pajamas. Going downstairs to the bathroom to brush his teeth and wash his face, he takes his time. 

He doesn’t dislike that Morgana saw through him so easily. Maybe it’s because he expected it, with him hanging around him all the time. But Morgana had used “we,” meaning he somehow knew that Ryuji and Ann saw this as well. 

The others noticing this is not going to do him any favors. Ryuji and Ann were the type to ask about it, whereas Mona can tell when he doesn’t want to say anything. More importantly, what if he got distracted at a critical moment? He’s the leader, he can’t afford that. 

Akira forces the thought out of his mind, That won’t happen. He just needs to get his shit together and stop zoning out whenever things feel a little too much like deja vu.

He can do that at least, he can focus on the moment rather than the past. Yeah, he can do that. And he has an idea, too. There’s a handy ability he can use any time he feels like he’s starting to drift away. 

Focus…

Akira looks up into the mirror, shocking himself into dropping his towel in the sink. His eyes glow an unnatural gold, highlighted by the very ability they represent. 

“Huh. I didn’t know they did that,” he muses to himself. Who knew using his Third Eye ability would affect his appearance? He’ll have to experiment with that tomorrow. 

He turns it off, the world around him brightens and his eyes return to normal. He dries his face and leaves. 

“You know,” Morgana says as he walks back upstairs, “I feel like something’s off about Neku.”

“Why’s that?” Akira asks, even though he can see where he’s coming from somewhat. There was something just a bit off that he could feel whenever Neku had been thinking heavily about something. It was almost like he was looking through whoever was the focus of his gaze. It was especially unsettling when it was focused on him. 

“Well, I don’t know why, but he feels almost… unnatural? No, that’s not exactly it,” he shakes his head, pacing around the floor, “It’s like how you can tell something’s a cognition. It’s a sense that I just know he’s not exactly where we’re from.”

Instead of mentioning that not everyone can immediately tell when something is a cognition, Akira just nods, “Think he’s from that UG place?”

“No,” Morgana says with certainty, but hesitates, “It’s like he’s a normal person, just… nevermind. Forget I said anything.”

Akira decides not to push the subject. Morgana settles down on his bed, curled up and still mumbling something to himself. 

It’s an interesting topic to bring up, especially right now, just before the end of the day. He thinks about the comment he made earlier, Morgana must’ve been sitting on this ever since they all met Neku. Despite how much he tried to play it off, it seemed to really bother him. 

He trusts Morgana’s instincts, they’re never led them astray so far when it came to the metaverse. Since this may be about another weird alternate realm, he’ll try to look into it, for Mona’s sake at least. 

“Hey, didn’t I tell you to forget about it?” Morgana calls from the other side of the room. “Come on, let’s just get some sleep.”

Chapter Text

The next day moves like it’s in slow motion. The clock ticks, each morning class drags on more and more. 

After being caught up in everything yesterday, today feels dull. The most Akira can do is barely listen to the lesson and look at the back of Ann’s head. Even Morgana can tell he’s bored from his place inside the desk. 

“If you bounce your leg any faster you’ll drill a hole in the floor,” Morgana comments. From then on Akira tries to make a conscious effort to stay still, though that’s basically a failed task from the start. 

“Why are you so jittery today?” Ann asks during lunch. She sits backwards on her chair, her crossed arms and hair resting on top of his desk. Ryuji leans back against the desk next to him, foot tapping on the ground in a constant pattern. Morgana’s tail flicks out of his desk, two blue eyes peeking up at him. All three of them look to him for his answer. 

“I guess I’m just worried,” Akira shrugs. Taking a bite of his food (Leftover curry. For some reason, Sojiro felt the need to give him some before he left), he turns away from the looks he’s getting and toward the window. 

In reality, he’s putting it lightly. He just needs to do something. Sure, Neku’s got everything covered in the real world, but Akira still feels like he needs to do something now. He knows exactly why, too. 

He saw the way Yusuke stiffened as Madarame talked to him too low to hear. He recognized the mask of polite obedience. He knows what it hides. He was convinced from then on that Madarame needed to be stopped, anything else was just more evidence to add to the pile.

His gaze snaps back into focus as Ann slides a hand over his wrist, a foreign gesture that grounds him back into reality. “Yusuke’s gonna be alright,” she assures, “We’ll make sure of it.”

“Yeah, man, we’ll get this all over with before you know it,” Ryuji claps a hand on his shoulder, another gesture Akira can’t help but focus on. “Plus, we have Neku with him and stuff, and they 're friends before we put him up to anythin’. He’ll be taken care of in the real world too.”

Akira leans back, slipping away from their hold. They don’t even know half of why he’s worried, but at the same time their comfort reaches it, making him feel less anxious. He straightens his posture and nods, trying to appear confident when he says, “Thank you.”

The conversation shifts to a different topic, and Akira finds himself out of focus again. The two grounding touches are gone. Now his mind is blank, the thoughts that he was distracted from are pushed to the side. But with that he’s suddenly reminded of what had occurred last night, and now is as good a time as any to test it.

Immediately his Third Eye pushes the dimmed world around him to the background, his friends highlighted to stand out. He wonders if they’ll notice. 

“And that’s why…” Ryuji trails off from whatever he was saying as he looks to Akira. So he can see his eyes change, who else can? “W-Woah dude! Your eyes!” Quickly, Akira shushes him, glancing around with his head down in case anyone had looked over. 

“Uhhhhh, Akira? Your eyes are kinda,” Ann gestures vaguely, “Glowing. Golden too.”

Morgana speaks up from his place in the desk, “Let me see!” After Akira leans back in his seat to let him see, Mona hums thoughtfully, “Your eyes… they remind me of a shadow’s eyes.”

The group is silent for a moment, before Ann pipes up, “Not that I don’t absolutely love ominous omens and all but, what is that supposed to mean? ”

“It means that this has something to do with the metaverse… probably,” Mona locks eyes with Akira, which reminds him to turn it off again, “Oh, your eyes are back to normal. Do you know why they change like that?”

Akira shrugs, realizing he should’ve planned an explanation, “They do that sometimes.”

“Even before you came to Tokyo?” Ryujis asks.

“No, definitely not,” he searches for a way to not make this sound too weird, “I guess it’s when I’m really focused? It lets me focus on specific things that would be easily missable…” 

“Wow, so things that happen in the metaverse can happen here?” Ann asks, taking a bite of her food. 

“Wait, what?” Akira asks, realizing that he should’ve assumed that they glowed in the metaverse, too. He did mainly use the ability there, after all. 

“Oh, yeah,” Ann shrugs, ”I assumed it was like how I can see better in the dark whenever we’re there. Or how Ryuji’s teeth are sharper.”

“Huh,” is all Akira can say. Really, he should’ve noticed. But maybe it’s because those changes seemed natural to what he knows of his friends that he didn’t think twice about it. He can recall sending Ann to look around some corners into particularly dark hallways to see if shadows had lurked about, but he never really questioned it. He must’ve subconsciously realized she would be the best for the job. 

Ryuji scratches the back of his head, “Over there, they’re more yellowy? I guess they stand out here more cuz they’re glowing and gold and stuff…” He trails off, realization dawning on his face, “Wait, is it like how Mona can talk in the real world?”

“You might be onto something for once.” Morgana crawls out of the desk, sitting on top of it as the rest move closer to shield him from sight. “The metaverse affects the real world on a broad scale, that’s a fact. But our connection to it might be strong enough to affect our daily lives,” he turns to Akira, “Be careful when your eyes glow like that. We’ve got no idea who might see and what they might think.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Akira says, pushing up his glasses, “I’ll be cautious.”

The rest of lunch is spent talking about things that would be cool to have in reality as well. Akira mostly stays quiet, watching his friends argue over which of their powers are cooler (apparently he doesn’t count because he can use multiple). At least to the outside viewer it would look like they’re talking about superheroes or something. 

After lunch, the school day seems to pass by in a blink. Then, the bell rings, and the day is done. 

Akira had already set up a meeting with the others to discuss a new hideout after school, so all he needs to do now is a “supply run” (which is basically going around the campus and emptying out all the vending machines) before he meets up with them. He’s reached the ones by the school entrance by the time Morgana decides to say something about it.

“Are you sure you need more MadBull? Don’t you have enough already?” he asks warily over his shoulder. 

Akira shakes his head. “This,” he puts yen into the machine with every ounce of determination he can muster, “…is life or death.”

He hears Morgana sigh, “Whatever you say, Leader.” He slips out of his bag and onto his shoulder before jumping on top of the vending machine, “I’m gonna go wait with the others. You’ll need the room in your bag anyways.”

With that, Morgana leaves. Akira almost continues what he was doing, but he hears someone giggle behind him. Immediately on guard, he quickly turns to see a short first year student behind him. At first glance, he might’ve thought they were a middle schooler, if they weren’t wearing the same uniform as him. 

“I didn’t mean to surprise you,” they say, idly pulling down their beanie, “I just thought your cat was cute. What’s its name?”

It takes Akira a moment to realize that they mean Morgana, still focused on how they possibly snuck up behind him (he’s usually more cautious than this). As well as how they don’t seem to be wary of him, despite all the rumors going about. “His name’s Morgana. And, uh, he’s not mine.”

“He isn’t?” They tilt their head. Something about them seems familiar. “Then why is he always in your bag?”

Still trying to figure out why he seems to know them from somewhere, Akira shrugs, “He likes to be tall.”

“I see,” the student nods in complete understanding, moving to stand next to him and lean on the next vending machine. Nothing is stopping him from leaving at any time. “Kurusu-senpai, right? Well, my name’s Rhyme. You know Beat? He’s my older brother.”

That’s why they’re so familiar, he’s seen them hanging around Ryuji’s friend, Beat. Akira isn’t very close to the guy himself, but he’s one of the few people to greet him in the hallway and treat him with basic human decency, which is more than he can say for a lot of people at school. He appreciates it, so he’s always thought he should try to get to know him better. 

“Need something from me?” Akira asks, avoiding their studying gaze. Maybe Rhyme doesn’t mean it like that, but he feels like he’s being analyzed.

“Nothin’ major. I’m a member of the student council,” Akira freezes up at those words, “And I’d heard that people were treating you poorly. I wanted to check on you.”

Akira shifts his bag a little nervously, “And that means?”

Rhyme laughs a bit, waving their hand as if to clear the air, “Nothing bad. I just know this school can get hard to deal with sometimes, so I just felt like I should let you know you’re not alone. But you know that already.” 

Akira stays silent, waiting for them to continue. They obviously came here to talk about more important things.

“You’re very quiet, y’know,” They say, “Not that it’s a bad thing. Are you the observant type? Seems like it. I’m sure you’ve figured out what I’m actually here to talk to you about.” 

Akira nods, “You’re here to accuse me of something.” Probably something to do with Kamoshida’s change of heart, too. 

“That’s not really it, unless you have something to be accused of,” Rhyme says simply, head tilted as they pause for an answer. When he doesn't respond, they continue, “I’m here to warn you. As you already know, student council president, Makoto Niijma, is getting very interested in you. She’s pulling out all the stops, so be careful of what you say and where you say it.”

She’ll find out, no matter what, he gathers from their words. Well, looks like he’s going to have a stalker at school sometime soon.

He glances down, trying to read their intentions. Rhyme’s attitude has been nothing but friendly this entire time and they don’t seem to be lying. They haven’t even directly mentioned the Phantom Thieves. Yet. 

“Is there something I should avoid saying in particular?” He tries, seeing if maybe he can figure out if they know anything. 

Rhyme tilts their head, folding their hands together and not breaking eye contact, “Just nothin’ that can be used against you.”

Akira has to give them credit for that one, he might need to be more specific at a different time. For now, maybe he can try a different approach. “Why warn me? I’m the local criminal, after all.”

Rhyme shrugs, “Really, I just had to. It was just that… I had this feeling.” They pause for a moment, a moment that’s too long for his liking. There’s the flash of a somewhat haunted look that crosses their face. Maybe he would’ve thought of it as something odd, or a bit ironic — someone who looks too young to be in high school looking like they have wisdom beyond what time can give — if it hadn’t been pointed in his direction. He doesn’t like the feeling it gives him, that familiar look he’s sure he has seen somewhere else. 

The moment passes and he tries to fill the silence, something he’s never felt the need to do before, “Is that all?”

“Pretty much,” They say, their friendly attitude back once again, “Later, Akira-senpai!” They wave as they walk away. Somehow he went from last to first name basis with them in one conversation, but he can’t bring himself to care much (even though he absolutely knows even more rumors will start because of it). 

It takes Akira a moment to continue with the vending machines, absently gathering more for his supply. He reaches his hand through the flap on the bottom to grab them when he notices something else on the ground next to it. A small white notecard with neat handwriting on one side. He picks it up to read it. 

Niijima-senpai is desperate to find dirt on you, however, I believe she is still a good person. Someone is using her, and I think it’s the principal. Good people often do bad things when they’re desperate enough, and I don’t want to see her fall that far.

I’ll owe you one,

~Rhyme ;D

Akira’s a bit surprised they managed to drop this without him noticing. He’s even more surprised that Rhyme would even trust him with this issue. Their relation to each other is distant at best, and there’s tons of rumors going around that would immediately paint him as a bad person. From this note, he can tell that Niijima is probably a friend of theirs as well, so why trust him with helping her?

There’s a few options he can think of as to why. Rhyme might’ve heard something from their brother and then decided to trust him, they know what his personality is like for some other reason (Spying maybe? Nah, they don’t seem like the type to go that far), or Rhyme knows he’s a Phantom Thief somehow. 

As he turns over the card, the last option seems more and more likely. The same cartoonish skull that decorates their beanie is hand-drawn on the middle of the back side. The words “For Akira” are also hand-drawn similar to the same type of lettering Ryuji had put on their calling card for Kamoshida. 

Well, shit. That’s too specific to be a coincidence. 

Akira knows that, as a group, the Phantom Thieves aren’t the greatest at keeping it secret. Mishima even found out pretty quickly. He knows this includes himself, but he had thought that his quiet nature would make up for it at least some. As far as he knows, he’s the only one Rhyme suspects, so hopefully he can keep it aimed only at himself. He has his doubts, though. 

Despite all that, is Akira seriously considering helping out Niijima, someone who’s actively working against him? Yes, the answer is yes. Having someone in the student council owe him a favor could be useful in the future, and his conscience would never leave him alone if he just let her be exploited. Either way, he’ll be talking about it with the rest sometime soon. 

He stops in his tracks when he hears a ringing in his ears, the familiar feeling of a presence he can’t exactly comprehend being present. 

I am thou, thou art I... Thou hast acquired a new vow. It shall become the wings of rebellion that breaketh thy chains of captivity. 

With the grand creation of the Suit of Clubs, thou hast obtained the winds of blessing that shall grant knowledge as new power...

The ringing dies down. A light sound, like a bell chime, signals the departure of the presence he felt. The first time this happened, he’d been panicked at first, but the chime of the bell always instills this great calm in him. He now knows what it means and can be comforted by this feeling.

There’s someone else out there who’s on his side. 

Akira leaves, spotting Ryuji and Ann leaning on the front gate, Morgana perched on the wall next to it. The three of them argue over something, including him in it as soon as he walks up. 

“Akira!” Ann says, grabbing him by the arm and dragging him to her side, “What do you think? We’re trying to decide if the walkway where we talked after the exhibit is good for our next hideout.”

Akira honestly doesn’t think that’s a good idea. Sure, if anyone comes across them they’d probably think they were just dumb highschoolers, but if someone ever listens in on their conversation their cover would be blown instantly. “I think it’d be fine if we all kept our voices down. But because we’re always dealing with, y’know, difficult people, our emotions might get the better of us. We’ll probably need a more private place that’s somewhere we can gather easily.”

Once again, the other three look at him with something he can’t describe, before returning to normal conversation agreeing that maybe they can go somewhere else. Akira always wonders what that’s all about, their gaze didn’t feel bad per se — they all looked oddly happy with themselves — but he still has no idea what it means. 

“Got any ideas, then?” Morgana sighs. 

Ann humms, deep in thought, “What about LeBlanc? We talked to Neku there and there wasn’t anyone to bother us.”

“That might not be such a bad idea…” Morgana nods, “What do you think, Akira?”

It would be fine, except… “LeBlanc’s open in the day.”

“Oh, right. Boss probably only let us hang around because it was later. If we don’t decide on a place today, we’ll ask.”

“Well, my place doesn’t really work,” Ryuji sighs, leaning against the wall, “My ma’s home during the day most of the time, since she has the night shift. Besides, you said we need to meet up quick, right? It’s kinda out of the way for that.”

They look to Ann, completing the rotation of ideas. She thinks very hard for a moment, before her face lights up with an idea. “How about my parent’s studio? It’s a small backup one on the way to Shibuya from here. Since my parents are out of town, no one uses it and I’ve got a key.”

“Oh yeah,” Ryuji says, “Your parents are some big time designers, right?”

“Yup. Their work takes them all over the place, so we’ll be able to use it for a good while.”

“Are we going with that as our new hideout?” Morgana asks. The rest of them nod in response. 

Akira sees no problem with the newly decided hideout. Shifting his heavy bag, he leans slightly towards Ann, turning in the direction station and using his free hand to make a sort of “lead the way” gesture. 

Ann leads them through the streets with confident steps, even as they approach an area full of office-like buildings. She leads them to one of the slightly older looking buildings, leading them up the emergency stairwell to the roof.

“Uh, you sure this is the right way?” Ryuji asks with some nervousness in his voice as they climb up the stairs.

Ann rolls her eyes, “Would you rather walk through a bunch of judgmental office workers?”

“Ya got me there.”

There’s two parts of the roof, the part they reach when they get up above the offices, and a door leading to a large room on top of the building. Ann takes a key out of her pocket and opens the door, swinging it open wide and flipping on a switch to the side. 

The heavy shudders lift over big wide windows that give a breathtaking view of the city below. Packed up equipment for a photo shoot sits at one end of the room, a rolled up backdrop on that side as well. The other side is like its own apartment. The furniture isn’t sleek and modern as Akira would’ve thought, but looks comfortable from repeated use. There's an open kitchen, a long unused dining table, and a big flat-screen television in front of the couches. 

“So this is our new base, huh?” Morgana says, looking around appraisingly, “I gotta say, it’s way better than that school roof.”

“It’s awesome!” Ryuji says excitedly. Akira can’t help but agree with the loud blond’s sentiment exactly. 

He walks over to the side with all the equipment, studying it from afar. He’s never been interested in model work or photo shoots. The most he knows is from watching the photographer take his picture at school and sitting through stifling family photos. Those aren’t exactly the happiest of memories in general, so he leans back, taking a large step away from them. He finds Ann looking at him, but before he can ask, she turns away, flopping onto the couch and kicking out her feet on the table with a dramatic flare.

“Make yourselves at home,” Ann says, dumping her school bag next to herself on the couch. “The bathroom is down the stairs to the left, then head down the hall and you’ll see it. If you’re quick no one will see you.”

“You got it,” Ryuji says sitting next to her. Mona jumps out of his bag and onto the coffee table (Akira couldn’t fit him in his bag anymore) just as Akira finally decides to shove down his restlessness, stop looking around, and settle into the chair next to the couch. 

He leans back into the cushions, already making himself comfortable. “Thought it’d be more minimalist,” he observes. 

Ann shakes her head, “We’ve had this furniture since before my parents made it big. They’re still fine, so we dumped them in this studio. It’s barely used anyways.”

“I never got that whole look, y’know?” Ryuji runs a hand through his hair, “What’s the point of having money if you don’t have a lot of things? It’s pretty stupid, if you ask me.”

“To each their own, I suppose. Anyways, we should get right to business,” Morgana begins the meeting, “Currently we have Neku getting as much info on Madarame as he does his class project with Yusuke. Any information will surely benefit us in the palace.”

“About that. I know we’ll never know until we go in, but what will that info be good for?” Ann asks.

“You guys remember the times we were stopped by different locks and mechanisms in Kamoshida’s palace, right?” Morgana scratches behind his ear, “About half of those needed prior knowledge on the target to get past. Some of them we could just guess, but others we only got past due to your experience with him.”

Ryuji leans back on the couch, “So to keep going, we’re gonna need more dirt on him? Like names and stuff?”

“Most likely,” Morgana nods, “We may need faces or even items of importance to Madarame. If we get stuck in there because we simply don’t know enough we’ll be in bad shape. That’s how I got captured during my original investigation of Kamoshida. They were patrolling that area too.”

“So there may be more shadows around those parts of the palace,” Akira concludes, “We’ll need to be careful.”

“But it’s still the same thing as last time, yeah?” Ryuji shrugs, “We get a route to the treasure, send a calling card, then take his treasure.”

“Mostly the same,” Morgana nods, idly scratching behind his ear, “But even though we have some experience under our belts, we shouldn’t get too cocky. Unexpected things may still appear as we go through the palace. Is everyone prepared for that?”

Ann nods, her gaze as determined as the rest of theirs, “We have to do this, I don’t want to see anyone else exploited by Madarame.”

Ryuji pumps his fist up in the air, “Hell yeah! We’ll take that shitbag by surprise!”

Akira nods, “Any last-minute second thoughts?”

His question is only met with steady resolve, so he nods, “Then let’s do this.”

Chapter Text

Despite having such vague ground to build from, Neku thinks he’s doing pretty well at gathering information. After receiving a text from Ann about what they may need, he was able to get the names of three past students of Madarame, as well as a general idea of what they decided to do after they left. 

After their previous session of working on their project ended with zero progress, they decided to switch to Neku’s dorm. Kosei is a very well off school, so the co-ed dorms are very spacious and nice, if a bit loud (lucky for Neku, he saved up enough to put up some sound-proof padding on the walls of a small room off to the side if he needed a place to focus). 

Though, they didn’t actually start again until yesterday. The day after that whole incident occurred, Yusuke had told him that he was busy. Despite the fact that this was a totally valid excuse, Neku couldn’t help but think back to the moment that Madarame had said something quietly to Yusuke. Even without any proof of that being the cause, he decided to buy him lunch for the day just in case. 

Alongside the previous reason for moving their work to the dorm, Neku had a different motive. He’s been starting to notice how differently Yusuke talks when he’s away from Madarame, so he thought that maybe it would be easier on him. 

As it turns out, he made the right choice. Three days after their first attempt and not only does Neku finally get some information, they’re able to actually get some progress on their project.

Brainstorming ideas with Yusuke narrows down their theme to one topic: humanity, or more simply, people. The specific characteristic they want to focus on is harder to decide. Probably because Neku’s focus on the project has definitely decreased. 

Maybe once this whole thing is all over he’ll be able to completely focus on the project, but as it stands, there’s no way Neku’s putting some school project over his friend’s safety. Especially since the work will be more spread out as soon as they have their topic down. 

But life still goes on, and unfortunately he has other schoolwork to do. In between keeping Yusuke out of the house with impromptu hang outs and excuses and his usual schedule, homework has been on the back-burner and probably will be for a while. Missing even a single day could mess things up, as being called away from school for a week at a time does not help his productivity. 

His worst subject is history. Not that learning cool facts isn’t fun, but the paperwork is just so boring to get through that some days he ends up falling asleep while trying to work on it.

Today is one of those days. After waking up from the brief three minute doze, he decides to take a break. 

He hears his phone ping with a notification across the room. Getting up, he picks it up off the chair where he left it charging. It’s a message from Ann. 

Takamaki

Hey 

Are you busy rn? 

Technically, yes. But he’d take anything over history. 

not really 

why?

Can you meet with us? 

Theres something blocking us in the palace and we need to get around it

blocking? 

you mean you cant steal his heart as is?

Not w/o some big real-world stuff  

and you’ll need me for that

huh

Neku pauses. He’s still a little annoyed that they didn’t let him help out in the metaverse or whatever, just a little. But they seemed to have some real concerns about what might happen to him if he stayed for too long, so he can’t really argue (not without mentioning that he’s not entirely a normal human being and it might not affect him the same). 

But maybe he could use this as an opportunity to prove that he could help. That he could gain their trust (or at least some of it). He didn’t need to read their thoughts to tell that they didn’t trust him completely, and he can’t exactly blame them for it. 

okay fine

where and when?

Can you head over now?

He looks over to his barely touched history homework and shakes his head. Anything to not have to deal with that.    

sure

Here’s the address to the hideout

Neku receives the location, packing away all his work. He decides not to change out of his school uniform despite the fact Shiki and Eri have hammered it into his brain that presentation is the most important for people he doesn’t know well (what’s even the point if they don’t know him?). 

After making sure he has everything he needs (including extra pins, depending on how this meeting ends), he grabs his keys and bag and opens the door to the dorm hallway. 

Surprisingly enough, the hall is quiet. The usual noises coming from the lounge area downstairs is very little. All he can really hear is a TV playing and the rustling of papers.

Coming downstairs he sees one of his older dorm mates (he remembers her introducing herself only as Neyume) sleeping on the couch. At the lounge chair next to the couch, the other upperclassman (Maizono-san, the scarier of the two) puts a silent finger to her lips as she flips through what he assumes is schoolwork. 

Making a conscious attempt to not make a sound, Neku makes his way to the front door. As he opens it he sees the familiar face of one of his classmates, Kishimoto, about to open the door himself. At the sight of Neku, he promptly ignores him and brushes past him inside.

That brief interaction could’ve gone worse. They used to be somewhat friends and, as most interactions with people went before the Game, Neku said something dickish to him and now he has a grudge. 

That type of situation happened a lot during his third year of middle school. He had pushed away the few classmates he was on friendly enough terms with at the time, and now any he goes to school with now are unwilling to talk to him.

But none of them matter anymore, now that he has new friends. What’s in the past should stay there. He’s got to live in the moment, right?

Neku’s thoughts are shaken out of his head just as he spies a familiar face near some vending machines. Speaking of friends…

Before he could even call out to him, Beat turns to look up at him, almost dropping all the drinks he’s holding in an attempt to wave.

“Hey,” Neku greets as he walks over, “Let me hold some of those before you drop them.”

“Thanks, man,” Beat says, handing some over, “Don’t you usually stay after school today?”

Neku blinks for a moment, then realizes what he’s talking about. There are times when he stays after school to collect his work for as the next week, since he won’t be there. 

“No, that’s on some Saturdays. It’s not a weekly thing,” He responds, glancing down to the four fruity and/or carbonated drinks he’s holding, “What’s up with all of these?”

Beat starts packing away the ones he’s holding (which is about two times the amount he let Neku carry) into his bag. “These’re for Rhyme. Our folks are lettin’ us move out soon. I’m no good at that convincing kinda stuff, so they’re the one who did the talking. Felt bad for not doin’ nothing, so I got their favorite drinks.”

“Where are you guys going?” Neku asks, handing over the drinks he’s holding to be put away, “Does Shujin have dorms?”

“Nah,” Beat picks up his skateboard, which was leaning against the machine. They start walking in the direction Neku was already headed. “Found some cheap apartment that I’mma help pay for.”

“Wait, you have to help pay for it? Didn’t they say they’d pay if Rhyme was coming?” 

“Rhyme just said that somethin’ changed. Our parents wanna make sure I’m bein’ responsible or some shit like that,” He shrugs, like he’s used to it. “Didn’t feel like arguin’ about it, since they’ve been acting weird, so…”

Keeping his gaze carefully on Beat, Neku nods. He himself isn’t close to his parents to even have an argument, but he can’t help but empathize with him in some ways. Sometimes you just don't want to put effort into something you won’t win.  

For a while, Beat had been saying he was fixing things, but then all of a sudden things took a downturn. The whole friend group has been helping keep the Bito siblings from having to interact with their parents for a while now. But it’s now to the point where they wanted Beat out of the house, and Rhyme had to promise to go with him to get them to compromise. 

“So,” Neku starts, deciding that now’s the time to change the subject, “Are these drinks all you’re going to get Rhyme? We could go pick out some snacks to go with them.”

Beat’s hand smacks his forehead, like he forgot about something. “Snacks! ‘Course they need snacks, duh. Yo, let’s go to that place around the corner. Haven’t been there, but Shiki said somethin’ about it.”

Neku glanced at the time on his phone, ignoring the familiarity of the action. He can make this quick, and it’s fine if the Phantom Thieves wait a few extra minutes. It’s not like they can tell how far away I am.

He follows as Beat leads him to whatever snack store that he knows about. He finds himself picking a few interesting flavors out for himself by the time they’ve finished finding ones for Rhyme.

When they part ways, Beat is skating off with a very obviously full bag. 

Not too much later, Neku approaches some nondescript looking office building. He’s not sure if this is where he’s supposed to be, despite the address matching the one Ann sent him. He decides to send her a text that he’s here anyways. 

I’ll meet you around the back

He’s not sure what to think about that shady as hell response, so he just shrugs, following her directions. I guess they call themselves thieves for a reason.  

Ann is leaning on the wall just around the corner, waving when she sees him. “Hey Neku! Follow me, we’re on the roof.”

She leads him up the fire escape, telling him about her parents renting the room on the top as a backup studio. Out of all the secret hideout locations Neku thought that this vigilante group could have, he never actually considered anything this realistic. Duh, he thinks to himself, why wouldn’t they just use a place they already have access to? This isn’t some fantasy.  

When Ann opened the door to the studio Neku found that he was the last one there. He only gets a brief chance to look around and admire the view through the window before sitting down. 

“So,” Neku starts, “What did you all need me for? Something about a blockade?”

“There’s this door in the palace that won’t open,” Ryuji starts, “Most doors have somethin’ we can use to open it, like how that info you gave us helped us match up some paintings in there. Or some key we find lyin’ around. But there was nothing like that when we checked.”

Ann nods, “We ended up sending Morgana in yesterday to look and see if there was a matching one outside the palace.” She holds out her phone, showing a slightly blurry, tilted, floor-level photo of a door with some sort of peacock pattern on it. A very large industrial lock hangs off of it, interestingly enough. 

“Wait, you took this picture?” Neku looks at the cat. 

Morgana sits taller from his seat on the coffee table, “And? What about it?”

“I never—” He suddenly realizes that he’s about to say the wrong thing here as Akira sends him a helpful look over Morgana's head. “I just thought it was pretty impressive.”

“I’m glad someone recognizes my skill,” He doesn’t know how, but the cat looks smug as he continues the explanation, “The fact that the door from his cognition exists in real life means that he thinks of it as unopenable. If we wanna go forward, we’ll have to change that.”

Neku nods. He can see where this is going. They’ll need him to open it or something in front of Madarame so they can get in. “Alright, so how are we going to open it?”

Ryuji scratches the back of his head. “We have all our ideas down, but you’re pretty much the big part we don’t get.”

“Yeah,” Ann agrees, “After we came to the conclusion about how to open the door, we decided that our best bet was to ask you to do it. Another option is to have me take up Yusuke’s modeling offer.”

“I’ll do it, if that’s what you need to know,” Neku says, “Yusuke knows me better than you, Ann, and I’ve already met Madarame formally.”

“That’s great,” Akira nods. “Makes this a lot easier.”

Morgana gets to his feet, stretching, “Since that’s all decided, let’s get into the details of the plan.”

Chapter Text

Neku’s gaze is aimed down the street, where the run-down looking atelier stands. 

While making their plan yesterday, they all decided to meet up beforehand. Neku had arrived last to their meeting spot, overhearing a dying conversation about some reporter or something. They’re all far enough that they can’t be seen from the building, but close enough to easily access the palace. 

This may be the last time he ever steps foot in that place, hopefully. And soon, Yusuke won't have to either.

“Do we need to go over the plan again?” Ryuji asks. 

“Not really,” Ann replies, brushing one of her pigtails back over her shoulder, “You, Akira, and I are going into the palace while Neku and Mona are in charge of the door. That’s it, right?”

“Right,” Akira nods, looking around the group, “Everyone ready?”

With a round of nods and a chime in from Morgana, who peeks his head out of Neku’s dark blue art bag, the operation begins. 

“The coast clear?” Ryuji asks looking around. Neku scans the area mentally for onlookers, carefully avoiding the minds of the others. He’s made a habit of trying not to read people’s minds, especially people he knows (He can practically envision Joshua rolling his eyes at him. Not everyone likes invading the privacy of other people for no reason, thanks.)  

With a confirmation of the area being clear, he starts walking off towards the shack. He decides to glance back at a decent range, just in time to see the three Phantom Thieves disappear into thin air. 

There’s a surprising difference between watching them go into the metaverse and watching someone enter the Underground. It’s actually jarring, in Neku’s opinion. 

Watching someone go into the UG is only unnatural up close, with their body gone in a flash and a pleasant buzz ( Pleasant? Since when the hell has he thought of it that way?). But it’s different from further away. In Shibuya especially, they’re gone in a blink, gone with the shifting of the crowd or the passing of a car. Something always aids their disappearance. A person blocking the view, a door closing. Shibuya itself goes out of its way to hide those who want to be hidden, specifically those of the UG. 

To Neku, it feels like a sort of protection. Not to be amongst the clash of ideas for a moment, but to see them from an outside perspective. A shield against finding yourself lost or overwhelmed. 

The metaverse is much different than that. Fading out of reality, disappearing like you were never there in the first place? Warping the very air around you to mask any trace, any sign, that you once existed in that space? It feels wrong. The fact that you lived and breathed and thought and felt in that very spot is erased. Gone. 

There’s something about that which unnerves him to his core. Something about the metaverse and how it treats those who traverse it. It doesn’t hide your disappearance for protection, but for deceit. Maybe for reasons worse than that. 

It’s nothing like Shibuya. 

“One hell of a magic trick,” he mutters under his breath, continuing on. Morgana shifts in his art bag impatiently.

Yusuke greets him at the door. There's an oddly troubled look on his face, but he speaks before Neku can comment. “I’m grateful you asked to meet up when you did. I feel close to a breakthrough, but I’ll need your help to refine my idea.”

The two of them had agreed to space out their meetings once they finally settle on a solid theme, for their schedules’ sake. Though Neku isn’t sure what the result of today will be, or if either of them will really be able to focus on the project after it. 

He follows his friend inside, walking a bit slower and dragging out the conversation. “I’ll try to offer ideas where I can. I think I wrote some down during class yesterday, so we can go over those too.”

There’s a small pause as Yusuke stops, just outside the room they used last time. Neku stops with him, curiously looking up at him, “What’s up?”

“It’s nothing,” Yusuke replies, walking into the room at a brisk pace, leaving him standing in the doorway. “You seem normal today.”

“Normal-?” Neku’s cut off by the sound he was waiting for. His phone vibrates in his bag, accompanied by a loud beeping tune. “Oh, sorry.”

Carefully placing his art bag down out of view from the doorway, Neku twists to dig around in his school bag. As he exaggerates his looking for his phone, he pretends not to notice Morgana slipping out of his other bag. 

In truth, he’s still not too sure about taking the cat with him. Yusuke had said that Madarame would keep to his own room so as not to distract them, but that didn’t completely guarantee Morgana not being caught too early. Said cat did assure him that his Phantom Thief skills would not get him caught, but Neku was still unsure of how those tiny paws were supposed to unlock a door. But the cat has shown surprising dexterity so far, so maybe things will be fine?

Neku takes out his phone and turns off the alarm. “Sorry, I must’ve set my alarm to the wrong day. What were you saying?” 

“Do not concern yourself over it,” Yusuke waves him off, “I was merely thinking aloud.”

While he absolutely does not buy that, Neku’s not going to push it further. “Alright then,” he says, taking a seat, “When you brought up the theme ‘humanity,’ what were you mainly thinking of? Like social commentary and politics, philosophy, something else?”

“I was personally thinking along the philosophical approach,” Yusuke’s face settles into a look of deep concentration. “However that is the kind of thing I would usually focus on. It’s similar to my own personal project, in fact.”

“So is your ‘breakthrough’ about trying something new?” Neku asks. 

“Indeed. I was inspired by observing other artwork in class, since many of our classmates have work that is so different from my own. But I reached a conclusion earlier,” Yusuke nods like he just confirmed something, “Would it be okay to base some of our ideas off of your own artwork? Since this is about real-life events and not the type of subjects I usually paint, I think it would be best for me to learn your approach.”

His own art, huh? Neku can agree that there are some major differences in their art, but the most important is in how they both approach it. From what he knows, Yusuke looks to express something specific with each piece. But unless it’s a big project like this one, Neku’s never put much thought in the message he wants to convey beyond what’s happening in the moment. Perhaps that’s because of his inspiration from CAT, or maybe that’s just the way he is now. 

Usually Neku would be contributing even more to the brainstorming part of a project like this, but since he’s been dealing with the Phantom Thieves as well, he had decided to let Yusuke take the lead. Looks like that plan is out.  

“I don’t see a problem with that—”

Neku’s cut off by a noisy clatter coming from outside the room. Oh thank goodness, Morgana’s got the lock open. He didn’t know what he would say about his art bag not actually having all his supplies in it. 

“Wait, what was that?” Neku stands up, peeking out the doorway. 

Yusuke also stands, “It’s probably just Sensei. He may have simply knocked something over in his room.”

“Uh huh,” Neku says, not keeping the skepticism out of his voice. “Isn’t his room in the other direction?”

Yusuke considers this, “Well—” 

“I’m gonna check it out.” Neku steps quickly out of the room, following the directions Morgana had given him earlier to a hallway he’s never been in. 

“Hey, wait!” He hears Yusuke call after him.

When he gets there, he finds the door open like he expected. Morgana peers up at him, “Well? Is Madarame coming?”

“Not yet,” Neku glances back.

“What if you try causing a scene?” the cat suggests, “How good are you at acting?” 

Causing a scene? Neku can think of a way to do that. “I don’t think I’ll need to act.”

Yusuke comes into sight from around the corner.“Hold on, Sensei doesn’t want you wandering—”

“Yeah, yeah. Hey, what’s in here?” Neku asks, cutting him off and changing the subject. He doesn’t actually want to be rude, but he knows he’s good at it. 

“It’s just a storage area for old paintings,” he replies, his eyebrows furrowed. “One must’ve fallen, that’s all. Let us return.”

Neku doesn’t move. The door did have a big lock on it, so maybe… “Guess I should go put it back up then.”

“W-What?” Yusuke looks up, like the idea is too baffling to take seriously. Huh, so I was right. “No, that room is off-limits.”

“But it’s just a stupid storage room, right? Why is it important enough to be off limits?” Neku takes a few steps backwards, like he’s about to try and go in.

“It doesn’t matter,” Yusuke quickly responds, “Only Sensei can go in there.”

Cocking his head toward the room, Neku stays skeptical, “Only he can go in there? Doesn’t that sound like a little more than storage? Like he’s hiding something?”

He watches as Yusuke’s whole demeanor shifts. There it is. Now he’s made him mad. 

“What are you implying about Sensei?” He takes a few steps toward Neku. Almost there, just one more step and he’ll see it.  

“What do you think?” Neku crosses his arms. He knows nothing he’s said so far has been particularly pleasant, but he has to do it. He’s sensed Madarame close by for a while now, listening in but not stepping in. He must really think that door is unopenable, so he’s just being nosy.  

Sorry Yusuke. “There’s something he isn’t telling you, and it sure as hell isn’t for your own good.”

“You're making baseless assumptions!” Yusuke’s voice rises a little. Neku hears the shuffling of Madarame at the edge of his hearing. Fucking finally.  

“Then prove me wrong,” Neku walks toward the room.

“You can’t go in there!” Yusuke follows, “Besides, the door’s… what?”

“What are you doing there?” Madarame’s stern voice comes from down the hallway. The man stops, his eyes widen upon seeing the door open, before narrowing in a glare. “What did I tell you about letting your friend wander?” 

“S-Sensei…” 

Neku's unable to really listen to whatever is said next, as the sight before him confuses the hell out of him. The room is full of different size canvases, some too tall or too small for the image repeated across each and every one of them — Sayuri.

“The hell…?” Neku finds himself saying when he comes back to himself, connecting the dots and not liking where it leads. “What’s going on here?”

Yusuke turns around, his eye seeming to catch a glance of one of the paintings laying in the outside light. He quickly steps into the room, reaching up and turning on the light. 

“What the…!?” he stands still in shock.

“There’s tons of them…” Neku says, unable to keep from looking around at all of them. The amount is an even greater number than he originally thought. 

“Get out!” Madarame’s harsh voice cuts through both of their shock.

“Sensei, what is the meaning of this…?” Yusuke asks in bewilderment. 

Madarame schools his expression into one of great regret, but Neku doesn’t buy it. “I suppose I can’t keep quiet, now that you’ve seen this.”

When he begins going into the whole story of making the replica Sayuris, Neku can’t help but think he’s lying. He says he’s in debt, but also that he’s using the money to further Yusuke’s work? Who would buy these counterfeits? What did he even base them off of, if Sayuri was stolen? Yusuke may be convinced, but Neku isn’t.

“Psst, Neku! This one seems different.” Morgana hides behind one of the shelves, motioning to the covered painting in the center of the room with his head. Right, there's that too.

Neku glances at Madarame. “Yeah, right. I’m calling bullshit on that. What the hell are you talking about? None of what just came out of your mouth follows any sort of logic.”

Madarame’s face clouds with anger once again, “What would you know!?”

He decides not to respond to him, instead locking eyes with Yusuke and gesturing towards the covered painting. “He’s been lying to you, Yusuke, not me. If you want to know the truth behind what's really going on, you do the honors.”

Neku relishes in Madarame’s wide eyes when Yusuke glances at him suspiciously, before he pulls the cover off with only a moment of hesitation.

“Sayuri…?” Yusuke studies the painting closely, “This… This is the real Sayuri! But you just said a moment ago that it was stolen!”

“T-That’s a replica!” Madarame is quick to claim. Which is stupid, because any respectable art nerd would be able to tell the difference, especially with a painting this famous.

“No, it’s nothing of the sort!” Yusuke shoots him down. “This painting kept me going… It’s the reason I made it this far…”

Neku doesn't like that he has to see his friend look so dejected, but this is important. All he can do is offer support.

“Sensei…” Yusuke speaks again, “Don’t tell me…”

“It’s fake…” Madarame tries that excuse again, “Yes, a counterfeit! I heard there was a counterfeit spreading around, so I bought it!”

…Okay, now that’s some bullshit. What kind of idiots does he take them for? 

“Why the hell would a renowned artist buy a counterfeit of his own piece?” Neku rolls his eyes, “Sounds fake but okay.”

“You’re lying, Sensei…” Yusuke says with certainty, “Please, just tell us the truth.”

That unfortunately seems to be the last straw because Madarame’s apparently reported them to some sort of security company. Well, shit.

“Wait!” Yusuke tries, “Let’s talk about this—”

But it’s no use. When Morgana helpfully suggests that they run, Neku gets the hell out of there because he does not want to get arrested today. 

“We can escape into the metaverse!” Morgana suggests while Neku hurriedly grabs his bags, “I can take you with me!”

“Then let’s go, quick!”

Just before he began feeling the weird sensation of going into the metaverse, Neku sees Yusuke run into the room after him. He knows from an unfortunate experience that the distance he’s at is close enough to be dragged in with them.

Fuck. 

Chapter Text

The weird nausea Neku is currently feeling might be because he just got pulled into the metaverse. Or it could be because he's falling.

Wait. He's falling!?  

Alarm ignites through Neku as he grabs an arm of both Morgana and Yusuke, trying to slow their few-second fall with his wings. 

This works! …For the most part. Neku’s able to successfully land as safely as he can (which means he trips and lands face first into the ground while the other two stumble upon landing).

“Are you all okay?” he hears someone ask as he sits up. He's not sure who, since the sudden headache makes it hard to focus. It’s just like the last time he went into the metaverse, with the weird way the world felt and shifted around him, but about three times worse. 

“Maybe?” He answers, eyes closed as he attempts to power through the throbbing in his head. 

Once the headache dies down a bit, he takes the opportunity to stretch out his wings. It’s not often that he remembers to be consciously aware of them enough to actually move them. He runs a mental check for anything that might be wrong, other than the obvious feeling the world around him gives him in general. Seems like the only thing that got hurt when he tripped was his pride. 

Everyone’s looking at him. Does it look weird to stretch out something people can’t see?  

“Neku, who are these people?” Yusuke asks, curiously looking around. 

“It’s me, Kitagawa-kun!” Ann says, shifting her mask up so he can see her face. 

He looks at her with wide eyes as she puts her mask back on. “T-Takamaki-san? Then you two are…” He trails off, then glances at Morgana, “I don’t recall ever seeing this cat costume before though…”

Neku gets up, dusting himself off. He offers him a hand, “I guess you’d want to know what’s going on here, right?” He wouldn’t blame him for that. Falling out of the sky into a weird place where most of the people around you are wearing odd clothes? From Akira’s long coat that reminds him of an anime antagonist, to Ryuji’s plated outfit and intimidating skull mask, to Ann’s enviable biker jacket and leather red pants, Neku is absolutely sure that those three would need an explanation to show up anywhere.  

Allowing himself to be helped up, Yusuke agrees, “Yes… I think knowing where we exactly are would be helpful.”

Shrugging, Neku turns to the rest, wincing as his head hurts with the movement, “They’d be able to explain it much better than I can.”

The three of them look at each other, but Ann Speaks first, “We’re inside Madarame’s heart.”

Yusuke blinks, looking around, “Inside… Sensei’s heart? I-I’m sorry, Takamaki-san… but are you sure you’re feeling alright?”

“She ain’t lying,” Ryuji steps in, “This is what that bastard truly feels. He’s nothin’ but a greed-filled money-grubber.”

Yusuke glares, lashing out in retaliation. “Enough of this rubbish—” 

“Yusuke,” Neku says, trying to give a comforting smile when Yusuke’s glare turns to him. He’s not used to that look on his friend’s face, much less aimed at him. “Just hear them out for a moment, alright?”

Yusuke doesn’t respond, but when he looks back at the group of Thieves, Ann takes the opportunity to jump in. 

“Kitagawa-kun, didn’t it cross your mind that something wasn’t right about Madarame?”

“That’s…”

“You may not want to believe it, but this is another reality as viewed through Madarame’s eyes.” She gestures to the world around her, “...This is his true nature.”

Yusuke goes quiet, looking at the world around him in closer detail. Neku stands by silently as well, giving him room to come to terms with all of it himself. He can understand what he must be going through. After all, having to accept that the person who is supposed to love and raise you is actually not as good of a human being as you thought is difficult, especially if you’ve been fooling yourself for so long.

Neku frowns. It’s best not to linger on that topic, or else it’ll give him a worse headache.

“I have a hard time accepting what you all say as the truth,” Yusuke starts, “But if it is… If this repulsive place truly represents him, then the Sensei I’ve come to know doesn’t actually exist.”

“So you’ve snapped out of it?” Ryuji asks.

Yusuke shakes his head, “If I’m being honest, I wouldn’t normally believe you three and find you completely untrustworthy.” 

“Talk about harsh, man.”

“Though I am thankful for Sensei allowing me to live with him for so long… Earlier, when I heard the same thing about him from someone I trust, I felt like maybe I have been wrong.” He pauses, closing his eyes and taking deep breaths. 

“Hey,” Neku steps toward him, “You okay?”

“Just overwhelming emotions,” Yusuke sighs, still doing deep breathing exercises, “Nothing to worry about.”

The weird world around him pulses, making Neku wince as his headache flares more. Glancing away from Yusuke, he sees Akira looking around, eyes flashing a pale yellow. Neku’s about the comment on it when he takes a confident step forward, “We need leave.”

“Right,” Morgana nods (It’s like a bobble head, Neku thinks idly), “There’s no time to stick around here. The security level’s gone through the roof, so let’s get out of here!”

After making sure Yusuke’s alright, they all start on the way back to the entrance.

Since Neku hasn’t been in much of the palace, much of the sickening museum is new to him as well. After they explain them, he pays more attention to the paintings — cognitions — around him. There’s something about the distorted paintings of countless students, all so similar to another. Like Madarame didn’t care enough to distinguish between them before using them.

Yusuke seems unnerved by it too, as he stops before a student’s piece that’s slightly larger than the others. The frame is also different, an actual design carved into the wood. 

Ann sees his silent staring and explains, “This was one of the three paintings we had to change the plaques of to move on. Most of these just have names, but for some reason these have different professions on them.”

Neku glances at said plaque, recognizing both the name and the profession stated. That was part of the info I got from Yusuke.  

“Sensei, he…” Yusuke starts, “He talks about how Arima-san is doing, sometimes. Her and two others. When they were each still under his mentorship, he often said how they were some of his most promising pupils. I used to be jealous of them.”

Neku doesn’t comment on the “used to” part. Instead, he wonders aloud, “Do you think he’s keeping tabs on them all?”

“I… That might be true,” Yusuke says reluctantly. “Sensei’s always on the phone with someone or other when I hear him mention them.”

Neku grimaces, he can’t expect that to mean anything good. 

The group continues on until they reach a new room. A golden sculpture sits in the middle, so shiny and gaudy that it immediately attracts Neku’s attention. It looks like some sort of spring, with people captured within its water. It’s like they’re drowning…  

Neku has no time to linger on it, as he feels everything around him pulse. Two guards rise up out of the ground, blocking the exit they were heading to. Something in the air changes. The world around him feels tense and oppressive, constricting even. It’s coming from behind them , he quickly realizes just as a distorted laugh comes from the same direction.

They all turn to see an elaborately dressed Madarame, his eyes gleaming gold.

“What the—” Ann gasps.

Ryuji scoffs, “Talk about bullshit clothes! First a king, now some kind of shogun?”

So this is what Madarame’s shadow looks like, based on what the Thieves had explained. It isn’t a good look, that’s for sure. 

“Welcome to the museum of the master artist Madarame…”

“S-Sensei?” Yusuke questions from next to him, “Is that you? That attire… This has to be a misunderstanding!”

Neku stays quiet as Madarame looks like he’s going to break the truth to Yusuke all by himself. “My usual rugged attire is nothing but an act. Besides, a famous person living in that shack? I have another home… under a mistress’s name, of course.”

Behind him, Akira scoffs in disgust, “Some setup you’ve got.”

The palace ruler’s distorted laugh rings out once again, “Don’t make me laugh, boy.”

At that, Yusuke begins to question him, still holding onto everything even when the truth is right in front of him. Neku knows for a fact that he isn’t going to like those answers. 

He’s proven correct, as Madarame himself admits that the painting being stolen was all a farce to get more money selling the copies privately. That truth seems to drive Yusuke to his knees and the rest to his side.

Madarame doesn’t blink at his pupil’s distress, “The value of art is purely an illusion. What’s the matter with providing that illusion to eager customers?”

Every time Madarame speaks Neku wants to bang his head on a wall. “Plenty of artists do art for the sake of it. Hell, even CAT’s famous and they still do free murals for causes they support. Things like that are what gives art value, not your shitty scams.”

Madarame turns toward him, like his golden gaze is just noticing him. “If it isn’t the Sakuraba boy. I should’ve known you had it in with these thieves,” he spits out, “I’m disappointed. By the way Yusuke had talked about you, you would’ve made a good contribution to my collection. But you couldn’t keep in line.”

Neku pales. He feels like he wants to puke, and it isn’t just from the oppressive air around Madarame growing stronger. He doesn’t mean… His headache turns into more of a migraine as the world pulses around him strangely, not unlike a heartbeat. He tries to keep focused on the sounds around him, at the very least. 

Ryuji steps forward when he sees that Neku’s fallen silent. “What the hell is that supposed to mean!?”

Madarame ignores him. “…I’ll tell you both one thing. If you wish to succeed in this world, I’d advise you don’t rise against me,” the bastard says, laughing at the idea of their misfortune, “Do you believe anyone could find success with my objection holding them down?”

“To think…” Yusuke shudders, “To think I lived under the care of such a wretched man.”

“What, did you think I took you in out of the goodness of my heart?” the man smirks, “Plucking talented, yet troubled artists allows me to find promising pupils and take their ideas. After all, it’s much easier to steal the futures of children who can’t fight back.”

“You’re terrible!” Ann shouts, “How could you do this to them!?”

“Livestock are killed for their hide and meat! This is no different—”

“You are unforgivable,” Yusuke cuts him off. “It doesn’t matter what face you wear, I won’t forgive you!”

Yusuke rises as Madarame tries to speak once again, but he doesn’t let him get the chance. “How amusing… It seems the truth has proven to be stranger than fiction, hasn’t it?”

Neku pushes through enough to give a worried glance to him, “Yusuke…?”

“I wanted to believe it wasn’t true. I had clouded my vision for so long…” he continues, “But if freeing a friend from a future under your tyranny means accepting the amount of cruelty I have faced, then I will be blind no longer!” 

Almost immediately following Yusuke’s declaration, the weird air and migraine dissipates so fast that Neku almost stumbles from the whiplash. He would have, if not for seeing his friend clutch his head in pain. 

“Yusuke—!” Neku’s cut off by an arm held in front of him. He looks up at Akira, who is watching the scene with a knowing gaze.

“He’ll be more than fine,” is the only reassurance he gets.

With a burst of blue flame, a mask appears on Yusuke’s face. Pay attention, something within Neku whispers to him, Watch closely.  

With a bloody flourish, Yusuke rips off the mask. “Come, Goemon!”

He almost looks away as Yusuke bursts into flames, but as they clear, he sees his friend dressed in a different outfit. Oh and also there’s also a really powerful figure towering behind him what the hell. It fits the description he was given of a persona. Is this how they get one? That’s actually pretty epic.  

Yusuke holds his hand out in a dramatic pose, making Neku grin. His friend’s tendency to be overly dramatic can seem weird to other people, but he’s met more dramatic people and they were more annoying than endearing. Besides, after all of that, anyone deserves to be a little extra. As a treat. 

“A breathtaking sight…” Yusuke begins, “Imitations they may be, but together, they make a fine spectacle. Though the flowers of evil blossom, be it known… Abominations are fated to perish!”  

A blast of frigid air rushes at the guards, freezing them until they shatter. 

Neku’s eyes widen, “Holy fucking shit…”

Unfortunately, Madarame somehow just waves it off. “Who do you think you are!? The price of your insolence will be death! Where are my guards? Kill them all!”

Four guards burst from the ground at his command. Even with the little amount of tools he has, Neku prepares himself for a fight. He’s not sure what he can do without his pins (Joshua does always complain that he thinks too much like a Player, so maybe his reliance on pins is finally coming back to bite him in the ass), but he’s gonna do all he can.

“All of those children who adored you as ‘father’… The prospects of your pupils…” Yusuke takes a step forward, “How many did you trample upon? How many more dreams would you exchange for riches? No matter what it takes… I will bring you to justice!”

The guards burst and melt into six strange monsters (shadows?). With a nod to the other Thieves, Akira steps forward, the others getting into some sort of formation. “Let’s see what you’ve got, then.”

“Very well,” Yusuke grins, launching the first attack.

With one palace under his belt and one on the way, Akira likes to think that he’s got the hang of the flow of battle. 

He gives out easy to follow orders to his teammates, letting them do what the situation calls for. He knows how emotional his own awakening was, and he knows that he definitely wouldn’t have been so keen on following orders then. So he lets Yusuke cut loose, the most directions he gives being where to aim those icicles at. 

That leaves Neku. 

The most Akira really knows about what he can do is that his abilities are called “psyches,” but he had said that he couldn’t use them here. He’ll have to base this on what he already knows he can do.

“Neku!” he calls, quickly getting his attention, “We’re trusting you to keep them off our backs.”

Neku's gaze turns focused as he nods in response, before dashing off. Akira isn't sure what Neku went off to do, but he turns back to the battle anyway. 

“Asparas!” he calls forth, focusing his attention on the battle. Madarame has much more guards than he previously let on, so he focuses his attention on covering the weaknesses his allies can’t reach.

Akira’s so focused on knocking down one of the two blacksmith-looking shadows, that he almost doesn’t notice one of the winged ones speeding close behind him. Adjusting quickly, he turns to either try to block it or get to it first. 

But before he can even call for a persona, the shadow is sent flying across the room into a wall. Following the direction it came from, he sees Neku, arm outstretched with an annoyed look on his face.

“And stay down this time!” He shouts after it, then nods to Akira before running off again. 

Akira doesn’t waste time, now that he knows Neku’s reliable in a real fight, he can focus on taking down the shadows before him. But it seems every time he looks up, there’s another that wasn’t there before.

Madarame’s voice rings out from where he stands mockingly above, “I usually wouldn’t waste too much effort on petty thieves like you, but you’re too annoyingly persistent to let live.”

Two more shadows burts from the ground in front of Akira. He only just manages to jump back out of the way of a swinging hammer. More of the same shadows?  

“Group up!” he calls to the others, making sure to keep nothing in between his back and the wall. 

When they all gather nearby, he explains his plan (if he could call it that), “We need to find a way to retreat.”

Yusuke protests, “But what about Sensei- What about Madarame?”

Mona looks at him sternly, “Safety takes priority here!”

“We look for an opening,” Akira decides, because that’s really the only option they have. “And we all go. Leave no one behind, got it?”

The Thieves nod in understanding. Yusuke’s a bit hesitant, but he agrees. He looks to Neku, but he’s standing there with a focused look on his face. Light begins to glow around where he stands.

At first Akira thinks the change in the air is an awakening, but for some reason he knows it isn’t. Then a ringing starts in his ears, he feels an otherworldly presence as a girl’s voice speaks to him.

I am thou, thou art I... Thou hast acquired a new vow. It shall become the wings of rebellion that breaketh thy chains of captivity. 

With the new foundation of the Suit of Spades, thou hast obtained the winds of blessing that shall lead to a transformation...

The presence departs, the bell chimes. This is the first time this has ever happened in battle before. When Akira finally comes back to his senses, he finds that the entire group is surrounded by light. 

When the light dies down, all gazes — from their allies to their enemies — are drawn to the only figure still glowing. 

“Since when the hell did he get wings?” Akira blurts out, surprising even himself. Normal angel wings would’ve been weird, but black wings only made of some sort of feathery pattern? That’s incredibly specific for a reason he doesn’t know yet.

“You all can see them now? Oh, sweet, now I don’t have to convince you I have them,” Neku says. One of his hands reaches into his pocket, pulling out something small enough to fit in his hand without being seen. He flicks the small item up in the air, closing his eyes as he catches it and brings it in front of his chest.

A calm look overtakes his features as his head tilts downward as he starts to levitate.  

One of the faster shadows recognizes him as a threat, rushing toward him as the other shadows begin to move again. Akira’s just about ready to call the rest of them into action, but before any of them could blink, Neku’s eyes open and he with a flap of his wings, he dashes out of the way far before it can even try to strike where he once was. Three large spikes of ice stab through the enemy, taking the last of it’s life that the rest of them had trouble finishing off earlier.

Neku tosses another object into the air and catches it with his other hand, switching one of them for the next. A force surrounds one of the winged shadows before it slams into the other, both of them dissipating in inky black smoke.

The last two of those kind of shadows look at each other nervously before attempting to run, but are clotheslined by a barbed chain that appears seemingly from the ether. Finally, Neku lowers to the ground, looking to the rest of the group.

“Let’s run!” He says. And run, they sure fucking did.

Chapter Text

In all honesty, Neku’s good at doing. He can sketch something in his notebook without planning too far ahead, he can make quick decisions in the UG when it’s really important, stuff like that. He knows how to make himself live in the moment and get most things done. 

But now, as he stands further from the rest of the group, staring at the message notification that went off as soon as they all left the metaverse… 

1 new message from Almost-Blocked Number

Where were you just now?

…Neku has no fucking clue how to respond. What’s he gonna say? I was on another plane higher than the UG and watched one of my friends awaken to supernatural powers? No. Is he going to explain the fact that he was with the rumored Phantom Thieves who also have supernatural powers? Hell no. Not only would that be spilling his knowledge of the Thieves, but he’d have to also explain that he’s now in a pact with… well, at least one of them (he still isn’t very sure what happened on that front). 

And so, he tells a partial truth.

i’m at yusukes

why? 

Call it curiosity. 

That is so much bullshit that Neku doesn’t even blink as he sends his reply.

why do i find that hard to believe

I could never imagine the reason why. 

right

so you took unnecessary time out of your “busy” schedule to check on what i’m doing right now 

for zero reason?

No reason other than the goodness of my heart.

“If that’s what you want to call it…” Neku grumbles under his breath. It draws the attention of Akira, who gives him a curious look. He just points to his phone, “I’ll join you guys in a minute.”

He turns his attention to the new messages that were sent. 

Anyways, it’s interesting that you think I’m “super busy” all the time.

Even though there hasn’t been much going on for a small while. 

are you trying to say that you arent?

then what are all those excuses for?

I have no idea what you’re talking about.

i’m talking about every time i invite you anywhere with the others

There’s a difference between a reason and an excuse.

uh huh

sure

You would know this best, wouldn’t you? You said you were at your friend’s place.

But isn’t it really that you have plans with the Phantom Thieves?

Huh. He waits a moment for the words to settle in, before letting out all the nervous energy they ignited with a sigh. 

Neku is not surprised. He had tried to at least somewhat honor the Thieves’ wishes about not saying anything to anyone, but it’s pretty difficult hiding things from the Composer. Annoyingly enough, some part of him had known all of this was inevitable, that there was no point in trying to keep that promise. On the other hand, he would probably feel worse if he had just turned around and told someone right after saying he wouldn’t. 

At least it’s a text message and not a bullet, he thinks to himself only half jokingly, focusing back on the screen. 

u know what josh

Need something?

are u at wildkat rn?

No, why?

i actually do have plans with the phantom thieves

and we need a place to talk

i’ll text u later

That’ll be quite the conversation, won’t it?

pls tell me ur not gonna be too difficult about this

No ❤

I’ll see you tomorrow.

Neku sighs. Seeing as he didn’t state a time, Joshua is probably just going to drop in to talk to him without any warning whatsoever. Whatever, Neku decides to join back in the group.

“Sorry, got caught up for a moment.”

Akira nods in acknowledgement, “Who was that?” 

Neku can’t really tell if he’s suspicious or genuinely curious. He decides to tell a half truth again, “One of my friends wanted to know where I was.”

They quickly fill him in on what they’ve been talking about. They can’t go to that place they were last time to talk, as Yusuke’s very obviously too tired to go that far. They also shouldn’t go anywhere they would worry about being overheard, and Neku gave that shitty excuse about the diner last time… Well, this is where he comes in again, isn’t it?

“I know a cafe in Shibuya that isn’t too far. It’s on Cat Street. It should be busy enough right now that the people won’t hear us, but not super crowded.” And if it isn’t then we’ll just have to fix that with some minor mass manipulation aka imprinting.  

“Really?” Ann asks, a thoughtful look on her face, “What’s it called?” 

“It’s called Wildkat,” Neku gestures for them to follow, “Do you guys want to go?”

Akira has never been sure of what he should expect when going anywhere in Tokyo. Leblanc is cozy, if a little old school. But he’s heard of all types of places, and is coming to find that the comfortable familiarity of Leblanc might be the exception. 

Wildkat isn’t bad, though, it’s nice. It’s much more modern, but it isn’t stuffy or minimalist. There’s a table just outside and a few booths and tables spread around inside. This place is more open than the hole-in-the-wall cafe Akira lives above. The counter even has a display case full of food for people to see as they walk in. All of it is fitting for a place like Shibuya. 

The man behind the counter looks up as they walk in, greeting Neku. “Hey there Phones!”

“Phones?” Morgana asks from within his bag. Akira jostles it a little to tell him to quiet down. 

“I thought you’d know my name by now, Mr. H,” Neku responds conversationally, walking up to the counter. 

“Sorry ‘bout that, No-Phones, I’ll get it right next time,” the man looks to the rest of them. Something about his more-than-knowing gaze gives Akira a weird vibe. “New friends?”

“Yeah, I met them not too long ago,” Neku shrugs, gesturing between them in an introductory manner, “Everyone, this is Mr. Hanekoma. He owns this cafe and makes me help out sometimes.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Ann says politely, “Don’t mind us, we’re just going to talk and stuff.”

Mr. Hanekoma turns towards a door that presumably leads to a back room, “No worries. Just holler if you wanna order somethin’. As long as you’re paying, of course.”

The man disappears into the back and Neku leads them to a half-booth. Akira and Ryuji sit in the chairs on one side, while Neku, Yusuke and Ann sit in the booth. Akira looks around at the couple of people who were already here. It’s like Neku said, they all seem to be caught up in their own business, so he deems it safe to talk. 

“We should fill you in on the details of the metaverse,” he says to Yusuke. The others take over from there, since it’s now time for the repetitive part. He zoned out during all of this the first time, he can already tell he’s going to do it again. At least he’s already known for being quiet. 

There’s only one other person who isn’t participating in the discussion, which is Neku. It makes sense, the guy’s new to all this as well. But it can’t help but remind him of the weird thing before his confidant. It wasn’t an awakening. Despite the obvious absence of screaming, blood, flames, and a persona, there was a big difference between an awakening and… whatever that was. 

The air. For awakenings, the oppressive atmosphere of the metaverse is momentarily cleared away just before the flames rise. He isn’t sure if the feeling is limited to persona users, since he hasn’t experienced someone’s awakening without one, but there’s almost a feeling of anticipation that rises within him. A sense of familiarity and empathy that fills his being and resonates where his personas rest in the back of his mind. It could just be the feeling of sharing a similar struggle.

That thing that happened with Neku was… unfamiliar, to say the least. Sure there was blue and glowing lights and all, but it absolutely wasn’t an awakening. It very obviously was some kind of bond, as the whole thing did establish a confidant. But that bond carried something else with it, something unfamiliar and familiar at the same time. He can’t put a word on it just yet. 

But what’s even more odd is that it felt almost as if he had just been caught up in it. Like that power hadn’t originally been directed at him, but someone else.

Yusuke’s voice brings him out of his musing, “The Phantom Thieves who steal hearts… To think they truly exist. Or that I knew one.”

Neku shakes his head, “I’m not one of them, actually. We’re just working together.”

“Speaking of…” Akira says, coming back into the conversation.

Neku nods, “Right, more explanations.”

“Is this about that wing thing? I noticed none of the rest of you had them.” Yusuke raises a hand to his chin in thought, “I hadn’t been focused on it at the time, but your wings were truly stunning. Their likeness is similar to that of an angel, with their width like an imposing sign of strength. However they’re dark and jagged, contrasting the very ideal of the apure and peaceful freedom we usually perceive of wings. A fallen angel, a harbinger of rebellion. I can see why you include their imagery in your work so often.”

Are all artists like this? Akira wonders as he tries to process whatever just came out of Yusuke’s mouth.

Neku looks away, scratching the back of his head, “U-Uh, thank you? I honestly have no idea how to respond to that.”

…Or it’s just him.  

“Do not be concerned,” Yusuke nods like he’s confirming something, “It was a compliment.”

Ryuji snorts, “Dude, I don’t think that's what he was getting at.”

“Anyways,” Neku continues, “Ask away and I’ll answer as much as I can.”

“Let’s get the obvious out the way,” Mona pokes his head out of Akira’s bag on the table, “What was with that light show of yours?”

“It’s called a pact, which is made usually between two people in order to use pins in the UG,” he pauses to look at Yusuke, “The UG is the Underground, a place like the metaverse but at a lower level of mindfuckery. I’ll fill you in on the rest later.”

“Wait, so the reason your pins haven’t been working is because you didn’t have this pact?” Ann asks.

“It shouldn’t be that way, really” Neku shrugs, messing with his hair, “I’ve been using pins without an active pact longer than I have with one.”

That statement makes Akira wonder, how long has Neku been aware of this UG? There were probably people who’ve gone there before him, seeing as he had to get all this info from somewhere, but who else? Are there other people who know about it?

“Well it is a cognitive world,” Morgana hums, “If the time when you were limited to a pact left a greater impression on you, then your mindset could be a factor.” 

Everyone looks back to Neku as he physically ceases all movement. “That makes so much sense,” he puts his head in his hands, but Akira could still hear a muffled, “I hate that he was right.”

He? Wonder who he’s talking about…  

“What else can we know about pacts?” Akira asks. 

“Other than the fact that it got rid of my migraine in there, not much. It’s between two people, but something weird happened this time.” Neku picks up his bag from beneath the table and starts rummaging through it, “I’ll look into that later. But in the meantime, do any of you want to order anything?”

“Oh,” Yusuke says, disappointment coloring his tone, “I didn’t bring any money.” 

“It’ll be on me,” Neku says, pulling out his wallet, “Don’t worry about it.”

Everyone asks for small, cheap things off the menu before they do the needlessly complicated movement of getting out of the way so Neku can get out of the booth. Akira just orders a coffee, hoping it’ll at least be half as good as Sojiro’s. 

He looks over to where Neku is talking with the cafe owner. He noticed how that line of conversation ended a little too fast, but he won’t comment on it. 

“So,” Ann starts up the conversation again, “What do you think Madarame is going to do? Didn’t you say he threatened to call the police?”

“Sensei spoke to me on the way over. He’s most likely going to take legal action against Neku,” Yusuke says gravely. “And judging by how it’s gone so far, he’ll end his career before it even starts.”

The entire mood of the group drops at this news, not like it was that high to begin with. Akira doesn’t really know him that well, but judging by the start of Neku’s confidant, he will soon. 

“What the hell…” Ryuji mutters with rising anger, “Talk about being way too on guard.”

Akira completely agrees, feeling a similar anger build up quickly. He refuses to stand around and let this happen, especially when it was their plan that made this situation happen. He’s not going to do nothing to prevent two people he knows from getting fucked over by some senile old man who’s let money go to his head. 

“Do you know when he’ll do it?” He asks, leaning across the table with intense focus, “When he’ll try to sue?”

“He won’t do it during the exhibition. It’d cause a scandal, or at least draw money and attention away, and he’d never want a loss that could be prevented like that. Though he may file as soon as it ends.” Yusuke looks down for a moment, but when he looks back up his eyes are full of resolve, “Please allow me to join you all in changing Sensei — Madarame’s heart.”

“Welcome to the team,” Akira leans back as the rest nod enthusiastically. He knows that if they confront Madarame’s shadow in the metaverse, he’s going to let Yusuke have the first and last move (that doesn’t mean he won’t be eager to get some of the in-between shots in). 

He doesn’t even try to hide his smirk as he says, “We’ll get him before the end of the exhibit, then.”

“Works for me.” 

Now let it be known that Akira does not jump in his seat because he is absolutely not caught off guard by Neku’s sudden appearance next to the table. No matter what anyone may say later on.

“Oh, Neku,” Yusuke says, like he’s used to this kind of thing, “How long have you been there?”

“Maybe two minutes, give or take,” he shrugs, like this is a thing that happens all the time. “So we have until the end of his stolen art show before he comes for my neck, huh?”

“You were here for that too?” Ann asks in confusion. 

“Nope,” he shakes his head, “I just figured that he would do something like that, going off of what he said in the palace.” 

“I’m sorry,” Yusuke says, “If I had realized sooner what kind of man he is, your future wouldn’t be in jeopardy. You even tried to warn me and help me, and yet I still turned away from the truth. All of you have tried to help me in some way or another, but I was too stubborn to realize. I’ve put a great burden on you all.”

“Don’t sweat it man!”

“Ryuji’s right, you don’t need to even say all that.”

Neku just crosses his arms, an unreadable look on his face. “Are all of your apologies out of your system, or do you need to keep going?”

His words seemed to take everyone by surprise. That’s… surprisingly mean.

Yusuke blinks, “…I suppose they are.”

“Good,” he nods, “Did that make you feel any better?”

Yusuke thinks very deeply, his hesitation and struggle very clear in his face and posture. Even after all that, and after the assurances, he still looks troubled. “Not really, no.”

“Then there you have it,” Neku shrugs, “This situation was out of your control from the beginning. If you blame yourself for it, nothing you do will make you feel any better. Because this isn’t your responsibility. It was Madarame’s responsibility to be your caretaker, you believed that, but he’s the one who failed. Take back your apologies.”

Despite his words, Neku’s tone definitely softened at the end. It was a very different approach than anyone Akira knew would’ve gone with. He honestly hadn’t known where Neku was going with this at first.

After a moment, Yusuke responds, “Then I take it back.”

A round of smiles go around the table, with Neku uncrossing his arms and moving to sit back down. He passes around all the stuff they ordered. 

Akira’s wary of the coffee in the same way he’s been of any cup that isn’t made by his guardian. Neku had promised that it was good, but he has standards now, which has completely ruined his previous disposition of eating and drinking pretty much whatever was placed in front of him. Cautiously, Akira takes a sip. 

It’s… good. He takes a breath of relief. It’s not the same as Sojiro’s (which he’s mildly concerned he’s already developed an addiction to), but there’s something about it that makes sense. Maybe something about the way it was brewed? He still has much to learn about coffee, but it just feels fitting for a cafe in a place as trendy as Shibuya. 

While Akira was busy becoming even more of a coffee addict, Neku started speaking again. “Besides, I’ve found that getting pissed at all the shit that’s been done to you to be a great form of self care. As long as you do something good with it.”

Morgana makes a face at that, “Why do I get the feeling that anger isn’t the best thing to use as long-term ‘self-care?’” 

“No idea what you mean,” Akira deadpans. 

“Seems fine to me,” Ryuji adds. 

“I don’t think there’s a problem with that,” Ann says. 

Akira is the one who’s able to hold the straight face the longest, and it’s surprisingly Yusuke who cracks first at their antics. 

Yusuke laughs like he’s surprised he’s doing it, before he settles with a smile, “There’s something about you all that’s familiar, in a way. I think we’ll get along well.” 

Akira quickly realizes two things: one, Yusuke laughs like that charming antagonist in the anime he used to watch as a kid. The second thing is that he almost let himself forget to do his leader thing. Time to break it down. Then he pauses a moment, remembering Rhyme’s warning. Time to break it down, but quieter.  

“Alright, our target is Ichiryusai Madarame. We have until the end of the exhibit, which is on the 5th. That means we have 16 days, minus two to send the calling card. Neku, are you joining us?”

“Count me in. I don’t think that distortion stuff shouldn’t bother me anymore. At least, I didn’t have a headache anymore.”

Akira smiles, “Alright, is all the info clear?”

No one says anything otherwise. “Then this meeting has concluded. No more serious stuff allowed.”

Neku finds that the Phantom Thieves usually end up hanging out like a normal friend group after meetings. It’s fun and familiar. He feels like he’s going to have to introduce them to his own friend group.

Somehow the conversation led to the main argument between Morgana, Ann, and Ryuji about which powers are best.

(He hears Akira say under his breath something about this being the second time they’ve done this. 

“Why does this conversation even need to be had twice?” Neku wonders.

“It didn’t end satisfyingly enough!” says Ann.

“Come on! We just didn’t finish in time ‘cause the bell rang,” says Ryuji, who is most likely telling the truth.

“You’re just mad that we didn’t include you last time, huh Akira?” Morgana says knowingly.)

All three of them refuse to let Akira join in, apparently for the second time. Neku supposes it’s because all of his comments are vague and not really tilted towards one side or the other. Yusuke is very obviously partial to his own element just as much as the others are partial to theirs. After only moments of debate, Morgana ends up loudly proclaiming that wind is the coolest and so the conversation about what’s best should be about the runner-ups.

All in all? Neku wonders if the Phantom Thieves are actually sixth graders. But despite his first refusal to be a part of this conversation, he finds himself answering anyways.

“Fire, of course.”

“See?” Ann brags, doing a triumphant victory pose. “I told you fire was cooler.”

Neku shrugs, “I’m a bit biased to fire. Pyrokinesis is the first pin I ever used, and I tend to have it as my go-to.”

“Isn’t that where you control things with your mind, though?” Ryuji asks.

“That’s telekinesis,” Morgana shakes his head condescendingly. “Pyrokinesis is controlling fire.”

“But Neku, didn’t you use ice against those things earlier?” Yusuke asks.

Absently picking at his hair, Neku looks away, “You already proved that ice worked well enough. I couldn’t break the aesthetic like that.”

(Someone says something under their breath about “artists” being “like that,” but he couldn't pinpoint who.)

“What about you, Akira?” Ryuji asks, “You wanna join my side?”

The boy in question only silently raises an eyebrow, as if he’s saying, “So now you want my opinion?”

Ryuji seems to have gotten this message clearly. “C’mon man, I gotta have someone with me!”

Akira huffs, dramatically tilting his head to make the reflecting light on his glasses hide his eyes. “Curse.”

To say that the rest of the Thieves are unreasonably upset by Akira’s answer is an understatement.

Ann wins with Neku as the tie-breaker. Fire power hell yeah.  

Soon they all part, and it becomes late enough that Neku is the only one left in the cafe. Other than Mr. Hanekoma, of course.

“You gonna explain what’s going on, Phones?” he says as Neku leans on the front of the counter. 

Neku groans, “I’m tired of explaining things. Can’t you just read my mind or something? I know you were listening in on our conversation.”

Mr. H shrugs, putting his hands in his pockets as he takes a break from wiping the counter. “Sure, but I don’t wanna read your mind and none of what I heard explains you knowing the Phantom Thieves. Or tellin’ them about the UG.”

“Right, well,” Neku stops. Why did he tell them about the UG? He could’ve just refused. He could’ve done a lot of things, at the time. “I met them on a plane above the UG.”

Mr. Hanekoma’s eyes narrow at that, but he doesn’t say anything, waiting for him to continue.

“They call it the metaverse, and they use it to change peoples’ hearts by stealing their desires.” Okay. Now it’s time to rationalize this in a way that would make more sense than him being a shitty liar or wanting to be on good terms with the people who promised to help him with Madarame. “If I was a normal person, I could probably get away with accidentally being pulled in, but they saw my wings today. Not to mention I had to fight some of the weird monsters that were there. They wanted an explanation, so I gave them the bare basics.”

Mr. Hanekoma nods understandingly. “C’mon kid, help me clean up.” 

Neku sighs, “You don’t even pay me.”

“You already have a job, Phones. That’s enough for a student.”

“I don’t get paid for that either!”

Mr. Hanekoma just laughs at his complaints. Neku gets to work like he was told, wiping down tables and such. It’s when he’s halfway through cleaning the table he and the others sat at earlier that Mr. H breaks the small silence they had.

“You made a new pact, huh?” he says conversationally, but he knows him a bit better by now. It isn’t a question. “Tell me about it.”

Neku pauses, the rag in his hand still against the table. “I wasn’t trying to do anything, just…” He stops to think about it. He had been doing what was asked of him, trying to keep any shadows off the backs of the Thieves and Yusuke. But it’s been a while since he’s fought with other people, and he fell back into a rhythm he hadn’t been in for a while now… 

“You forced a pact,” Mr. Hanekoma says it simply. Well, yeah, that’s true. But Neku’s been avoiding calling it that the entire time, and he hates that he has to actually face that fact now.  

Instead of answering, Neku focuses back on wiping the table. So what if he forced a pact? So what if he both forced a pact and fucked it up so badly it spread to the rest of them? Nothing he can do about it now. Just focus on the moment instead of the past.

“Don’t twist my words like that, Phones,” Mr. Hanekoma says in a half-joking tone. 

“Thought you said you weren’t going to read my mind,” he grumbles, wiping the table with a little more force than needed.

“I didn’t. That table’s probably clean by now, since it’s been ten minutes,” Mr. H says, walking over. “Who’d you make a pact with?”

Neku finally turns around to face him. “I’m not sure? I think it was supposed to be Yusuke, but then something happened and it sort of… spilled over? To the rest of them, I mean.”

“You put too much in it, huh?” Mr. H nods, “Not too bad for your first time. It shouldn’t’ve spilled over, but it could be that metaverse place.”

Wait, now he’s confused. “So you’re not mad that I forced a pact? Aren’t you the guy who told me how important pacts are?”

And of course, this makes Mr. Hanekoma laugh. Yet somehow, Neku feels a lot better. “It’d be another thing if you forced a pact to take advantage of it. Just stick with ‘em and you’ll be fine.”

“Take advantage of it?” Neku asks. How the hell does that happen?

Mr. H just grabs the damp rag Neku had set down and begins walking toward the back. “Active pacts between players are strong ‘n all, but ones between Reapers are stronger. Most of the time. You’d be better off asking Josh about it.”

Neku grimaces. Right, he forgot about that. Now he has to explain himself to yet another person.

“Yo, Phones,” Mr. Hanekoma calls over, “Come over and help me out with these.”

He still thinks he should be getting paid for this.

Chapter Text

The next day is a rest day, since post-awakening fatigue is a terrible thing to deal with. 

With nothing but righteous rage, bare hands, and the raw and unsteady power of a persona, awakenings can be especially gruesome to both the newly-awakened and the whoever is in their way. Akira can barely even remember the main part of his own awakening, only the violent fury he felt that was urged on by Arsene’s encouragement. 

He can guess that it wasn’t a pretty sight. No wonder Ryuji had been wary of him for a while. He isn’t sure he wants to know what happened. 

Akira lets everyone know about their day off when he wakes up in the morning. As he heads down stairs, he spots Sojiro standing behind the counter as usual. 

“Come sit down and eat,” Sojiro says, waving him over to the plate of curry out for breakfast. His guardian doesn’t always make breakfast for him, but Akira has come to really appreciate it when he does. 

“Thank you,” Akira says as he sits down. It’s only polite. He’s going to just dig in, but the look on Sojiro’s face makes him pause. “…Something wrong?”

Shaking his head, he looks down at him with narrowed eyes. “Your friend, the blonde girl, told me the real reason why all of you came to ‘hang out’ so late the other day.”

Akira looks away. He trusts that Ann didn’t say anything incriminating, so he just hums, “Did she now?”

“Listen kid. The next time you bring a bunch of friends over that late, warn me. I can’t go back to a closed café just to make sure your friends go home. Even for situations like this,” Sojiro scolds, his usual strict tone coming in. But when he talks again, it’s almost completely gone, “And, uh, about that other friend of yours. Well, I mean — she wasn’t very specific, but she said someone has a rough home life? Was that what all of you talked about?”

Akira nods slowly, “For the most part, yeah.”

“I won’t pry about whatever you all said, but,” he turns his gaze to the quiet television, “You found that futon when you were cleaning out the attic, right? Put it to good use.”

Quickly realizing what he’s implying, Akira grins, “I gotcha. Thanks Boss.”

Sojiro smirks a little, before it turns back into a frown, “It’s only a temporary offer. I don’t want another little punk like you driving up my bills all year.” 

“Sure, sure.”

“And don’t think I don’t know how you teenagers are. Don’t get any ideas about bringing over a friend for any reasons like that, you hear me?”

Akira’s smile turns more into a grimace at that, “Loud ‘n clear.”

“I mean it, kid,” Sojiro says as a last warning, “Now eat and get to school.” 

Akira does as he’s told and soon walks out the door with a goodbye. But just before he goes, he stops, turning around. “Thanks again. Really, I mean it.”

“Yeah, yeah. Don’t make it a big deal,” Sojiro doesn't turn around to face him, busying himself in the kitchen, “It’s the least I could do.”

Akira nods and walks out, not wanting to be late to school or anything. 

“The chief seems to be warming up to you,” Morgana meows as he waits for the train to school.

“Better late than never,” Akira shrugs. He can’t fault him for it, really, since he expected that kind of attitude from those who knew about his probation from the get-go. Unfortunately, it ended up being everyone that found out about his situation. That’s the part he can feel a little salty over.

“And he’s not the only one warming up,” Mona says before hiding back in the bag. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Akira asks, raising an eyebrow. Morgana doesn’t respond, making a noise somewhere between a purr and a laugh.

Huh.

When Neku wakes up that morning, he’s still tired. Not from getting a bad night of sleep or staying up late or anything, but from meeting so many new people and interacting with them consistently for a short while. He’s burnt out. 

Thankfully, Akira’s text in the group chat he got added into means that he can head straight home after school. There’s his normal homework to do, but other than that he doesn’t have any sort of big plans for the first time in a little while, if he ignores the probability of a certain someone showing up out of nowhere. All he has to do is go through the school day and he’d be home free. 

Lunch comes faster than he realized, and he spends it with his head down on the table.

“Is there something wrong, Neku?” He hears Yusuke ask next to him.

“He’s just recharging,” Eri’s voice comes from across the table, “When the Neku-meter runs out, he’s gotta rest.”

“Neku-meter?”

“That’s just what she calls it,” Shiki explains. Neku then feels someone poke his shoulder, but he doesn’t feel like looking up to see who. “Do you ever need to be alone for a little while after hanging out with friends? Neku gets like that but for a day or two at a time, especially if he’s around new people.”

“Then…” Yusuke’s confusion is audible, “Why is he here?”

“Because he doesn’t know what ‘rest’ means and still wants to keep us company.”

Okay, rude. She didn’t need to call him out like that.

Again he feels someone poke his shoulder. Looking up, he sees Shiki leaning over him with a smile. 

“He’s alive!” Eri cheers from beside her, but then makes a shooing motion with her hands, “Go on, find an empty classroom or something. Do homework or do whatever it is you artists do.”

Neku sighs, mustering the energy to respond to Eri’s good-natured teasing. “Designing clothes is pretty much the same.” 

“He speaks as well!” comes another cheer from Eri. Neku can barely even roll his eyes before he’s ushered out of the cafeteria. Which, in all honesty, he’s thankful for. 

Ever since over a year ago, he’s tried to be around people more often. But as it turned out, jumping from being alone all the time into being surrounded by people was not a good idea. The stress of the Reapers Game must’ve made him think that it was the cause of all the difficulty, but lo and behold, there was more. It isn’t that he hadn’t known how to talk to people (not including his bad habit of accidentally pissing people off), it had just been exhausting.

A good way of fixing that is to just listen to music alone, as simple as that sounds. Today isn’t too bad, if he’s being honest. Relaxing at lunch should be enough to make words a lot easier. 

Kosei is a big enough school to have a few abandoned classrooms on its higher floors, so Neku looks for the nearest one. 

Just as he’s debating going into the UG to sneak in without the nearby teacher noticing, he hears something. 

“Sa- huh? It started like that…” He glances in the direction of a familiar girl standing next to the stairwell. She faces him, but she’s obviously lost in thought, mumbling to herself. “Sakura? Sakurai? No, I’ve almost got it…”

As much as he’d really rather not talk to someone relatively new today, she obviously wants to talk to him for something. So, he approaches her gritting his teeth and trying not to sound like speaking is as much of a pain as it is. “It’s Sakuraba, actually.”

“Oh!” She says, startled like she didn’t notice him. “Right. I’m Hifumi Togo. Sakuraba-kun, you left this in the library.” 

She holds out a very familiar notebook. It’s not just any random notebook out of all the ones he has. It’s the brown and purple notebook Neku uses to keep track of things. Private, confidential, Underground things.

“Wait— You didn’t look inside, did you?” He asks her. Maybe he sounds a little too frantic because her eyes widen as she shakes her head.

“I didn’t look further than the inside of the cover, you have my word,” she assures, “My apologies. I was just looking for a name, even though I ended up forgetting it the moment my eyes strayed from the page.”

“It’s fine,” Neku says. She immediately forgot about my name, huh… He gestures awkwardly with the notebook in hand. It feels like he’s speaking in sand, but he does so anyways. “…I guess I’ll see you around, Togo-san.”

“Have a good day, Sakuraba-kun.”

They part ways and he escapes into the abandoned classroom. He feels drained from that alone, so quickly steps into the extra room. 

I think this used to be an old music room, Neku observes. Quite fitting, seeing as he plans to just sit in the corner and listen to music. Unfortunately, when he gets settled down, he finds that his phone is dead. Weird, since it was at least at 60% or so when he last checked. Oh well, he still has his old mp3 player.

The time alone helps out a bunch, and he feels almost refreshed by the time lunch is over. Throughout the rest of the school day, there’s something bothering him about that earlier exchange about his notebook. He ignores the thought as much as he can, but without anything to focus on during his walk home, it comes back up again. 

Neku hasn’t been to the school library in a couple of weeks, and yet he last saw his notebook a few days ago. What’s going on with that?

He pushes the thought to the side once again. That’s a problem for future me.  

Because right now, there’s a problem for present-Neku. The problem is that he has two options. Option one is to pretend he doesn’t see Joshua standing at the street corner up ahead and take a different route to his dorm, knowing that Josh would probably just meet him there and be obnoxious about it. 

Or option two, sigh loudly and continue walking forward to confront his destiny. Neku’s tried the first option before and it didn’t work, so he might as well get this over with. He hadn’t forgotten that Joshua wanted to talk to him, but he was hoping to at least make it back to his dorm first.

At Neku’s exaggerated sigh, Joshua gives a fake offended look, “And here I thought you wanted to spend time with me more.”

“Today’s a bad day.” Well, not as bad as it could be. Speaking doesn’t feel like he’s pulling his hair out all the while, so that’s great. And it doesn’t feel as difficult since it’s Joshua, someone he knows.

“Then I’ll make it a good day, since I’m walking you home, dear.”

Neku frowns, not feeling like taking the very obvious bait,  “What do you want?”

“It’s about your new friends,” Joshua starts, matching Neku’s pace as the traffic signal says to cross. “Hanekoma’s told me most of what you told him, but I’d like to know what you’re planning to do going forward.”

Ah, business speak for “Now that you’ve fucked up, what are you going to do about it?” Neku holds annoyance back for now, since this isn’t the time to be complaining about things he caused. 

“I don’t plan on telling them about the Game, if that’s what you’re thinking,” He says, but that answer is basically a shot in the dark. He has no idea what kind of answer the Composer is expecting. “If stuff comes up that blocks our progress I might have to explain small things about the UG, though.”

Joshua looks off into distance for a minute. Following his gaze, Neku sees him watching a group of teens from another nearby school walking home. He seems deep in thought. 

It’s another long few minutes of walking together quietly before Joshua nods to himself, “That could work.”

“What could?” 

“You working with the Phantom Thieves,” Josh puts a hand to his chin, “The plane you call the metaverse is still relatively unfamiliar. You can tell me about their activities within that plane and help me keep an eye on them by sending me weekly to monthly updates.”

“Wait, why do you need to watch them?” Neku raises an eyebrow. “If you told me to stop talking with them entirely, I’d be pissed at you, but they also wouldn’t be able to learn about the UG anywhere else.”

“Unlike other domains, I don’t care too much if a couple of people know about the UG, as long as they don’t know about the Reaper’s Game without having played it themselves. Even then, it’s up to the former player’s discretion.” The Composer looks off into the daily crowd of pedestrians. “Some… dislike the way I do things, since letting some winners return to life with their memories of the Game guarantees that there will always be at least a few people who know. I don’t think it’s a big deal, unless its one of my reapers being a blabbermouth.” 

Neku nods. This isn’t the first time the Composer has noted such a difference between Shibuya’s rules and the rules of other areas in Tokyo. In fact, he complains about them regularly. 

Glancing in the direction Joshua’s watching, he sees a person in a familiar kind of hoodie appear seemingly from the depths of the crowd. He can’t tell who it is from here, but he knows a Reaper when he sees one, even a low ranking one. They seem to see him as well, because they nod to him before walking off. 

Neku’s probably never going to get used to his position, but he tries.

“So what they know about the UG is mostly no big deal,” he concludes, “That doesn’t explain why you’re planning on keeping such a close eye on them. You want weekly updates? Really?”

“The public may not care for them yet, but we’ve all got our eyes on the Phantom Thieves. There’s a lot of potential with them.”

“Who’s we?” Neku asks, because he gets the feeling that he’s not exactly being included within that. 

Joshua rolls his eyes, “Only the entire Tokyo Underground. We all know they’re going to be big, but no one knows how much. No matter what, having their influence your area would be beneficial. Shibuya’s been needing something to shake things up a little.”

“Last time you tried to shake things up a little, I died,” Neku deadpans. Not only that, but you’re the one who killed me, he doesn’t say. They don’t need to get into that right now. “You sure this isn’t some weird competition between you and the other districts?”

Brushing his hair back, Joshua walks further ahead, “I only do things for the best interest of all Shibuya, but I guess it can be considered competitive. Reapers are territorial by nature, Neku.” 

“What is this, a nature documentary?” He grumbles, “And what do you mean? I haven’t really run into any problem outside Shibuya besides the classic ‘what are you’ stuff.”

Joshua stops, making Neku stop with him. There’s a frown on his face. “Other Reapers have approached you?”

“Yeah,” Neku frowns as well, “Why?”

“No reason,” Joshua waves him off, walking forward again, “You need to do more homework. Reapers are loyal to the place they died, simple as that. Just watch out when travelling outside of Tokyo and you’ll be fine.” 

Neku rolls his eyes, “So I should send you updates on what’s going on with the Thieves, got it. There’s still something bothering me, though.”

“Is it about that pact of yours?” Josh asks, “Don’t worry about it. I forced the pact between you and I and we turned out just fine, didn’t we?”

“That’s… debatable,” Neku shakes his head, “In fact, many people would say that’s straight-up false.” 

“Many would, but we aren’t like many people, are we?” the Composer says, “Stop worrying so much about every little thing. You still think too much like a Player. Pacts with Reapers are stronger, but you’ve also got to be more careful with them. Players form a pact out of necessity, so it’ll only truly break through erasure. Reapers will form a pact out of choice, even if it is a forced one. Breaking that without being careful could easily harm the weaker of the two.”

“I know that,” Neku says, even though he didn’t necessarily know the in-depth reasoning behind all of that. He knew the basics, because how could he not know this stuff, with his position.

He concentrates on the new bond formed in his soul. It feels different from the ones with his old partners, the ones now resting dormant. This pact feels cold, but still warm in a way. Like being under a blanket on a cold day. But then there’s the part that spills over, almost like it’s overflowing. 

It’s not messed up on Yusuke’s part, but Neku’s. For some reason, it feels almost like this second pact is being tied together through one strong point of reference. This whole situation is strange. 

“That’s why I’m worried about it,” he says finally. He isn’t sure how long he had spent in silence, trying to figure out this new pact, but Joshua doesn’t mention it. 

“Neku, unless one of your Thief friends is great at hiding it, you’re the only Reaper that’s part of both the original and spillover pacts,” the Composer says like it’s obvious, “None of them are dead, part of the UG, or even a hybrid like you. Our rules don’t apply the same way, even if that cognitive world is somehow influenced by you. Your true partner may feel the benefits of the pact, and maybe the rest if they’re particularly sensitive. But if something goes wrong, you’re likely the only one who will take the brunt of it.”

That… actually does make him feel better about the whole thing. He wasn’t sure what exactly Mr. H had meant about “taking advantage of a pact” but he’s starting to get the idea. Now he’s relieved that he can’t even do that accidentally. 

Neku slows down his pace as he realizes they’re approaching his dorm. He opens the door and walks inside but stops halfway through the motion. Joshua hasn’t followed him.

“Are you just going to wait until I invite you in like a vampire?” Neku asks.

“I figured you’d want me to leave,” Joshua crosses his arms, his tone light in a way that makes Neku frown, “Since today’s a bad day.”

“Forget that. Just come on,” Neku waves him in. Just because he started the day off in a bad mood doesn‘t he has to stay in it. And hanging out with Josh isn’t too bad, especially since he hasn’t seen him in a little while. He doesn’t mention that aloud, though. “I have to fix whatever the hell’s going on with my phone.” 

Joshua follows him inside the dorms, “You’re in a hurry to get me in your room, aren’t you?”

“I take it back,” Neku says, pointing to the door. “Leave. Get out.”

“I was joking.”

“You’re no longer invited to my birthday party.”

“Now that’s just cruel.”

The next day comes. The school day begins, the teachers ask Akira questions and belittle him if he doesn’t know the answers, the school day ends. Fun times. 

With the arrival of the afternoon comes the first infiltration with their newest members. Neku still hadn’t responded yet about the equipment, so Akira just decided it would be better to just pick up something random and adjust from there. He departs to Untouchable, letting the rest know that he had to grab something before the meeting. 

It's on his way back to their studio hideout that Akira catches the familiar sight of orange hair disappear behind the corner of the building. It looks like Neku just got here as well. 

“Hey!” he calls out as he goes around the corner. It seems like he wasn’t walking alone, as both Yusuke and Neku are on the stairs. 

“Oh, hello Akira,” Yusuke greets while Neku waves. 

Akira continues walking with them up the stairs, “So, I got the stuff you wanted, Yusuke. But you never answered my message, Neku, so I just grabbed what seemed reasonable for you.”

Neku raises an eyebrow, “What stuff?”

“Equipment!” Morgana chimes from his bag, “Weapons, you know?”

“Oh, uh,” Neku scratches the back of his head, “My phone is acting up, so I didn’t see your message. Sorry about that.”

Akira nods. Maybe the nav is installing on his phone? It never really messed things up for him, but maybe it happened for the others?

They get into the hideout and start the meeting, explaining the fine details of infiltrations to their newest members. Stuff like fighting is easier explained in the metaverse, but they make sure to explain to Yusuke things like conserving energy and not hurting himself while throwing around spells from his persona. Overall, the meeting isn’t very long.

“Any other questions?” Morgana asks. 

“You said that our deadline is June 5th, right?” Neku dips his head down in thought, “How long does it usually take you guys to finish infiltrating a palace?”

“Well, last time it took over a week, including time to take some breaks in between,” Ann responds, “Since we know what we’re doing now and we have more members, we’ll probably be faster.”

“So about a week, huh?” Neku leans back on the seat, “Well, I wanted to let all of you know in advance that I’m not going to be free on the week on the 29th.”

“The whole week?” Akira asks, “Why?”

“Kosei has specialized scholarship opportunities,” He explains, “This is a part of mine, a work-study for the whole week. And before you ask, I can’t tell you where I work. Only that I work with an artist that really likes anonymity.”

“And they don’t let you off for the afternoons?” Ryuji leans forward, “That’s gotta suck, man.”

“I get to skip school.”

“Nevermind, that’s awesome. Where do I sign up?”

“I doubt they’d take you, Ryuji,” Mona comments, “In fact I doubt you even have any artistic talent.”

“You wanna say that again, cat?” 

After calming the two down from their bickering, it’s decided that they’ll start to head into the palace. Akira’s confident that they all can get the calling card sent within the week, and if not, Neku gave them the go-ahead to do it without him. He’d rather not leave behind anyone, if he can help it. 

“And now the fun part where we go over codenames,” Akira starts off once Madarame’s palace fades in. 

“Before that,” Neku says, looking through his bag, “I figured I should bring a mask to fit in with you all better.”

The mask Neku takes out reminds Akira of his own. It’s an almost whitish purple with a feathery pattern going all around his eyes. On top of that is an interesting red pattern almost like Neku’s wings, except not quite. 

“Nice!” Skull says before Yusuke can even prepare to give a small speech on his opinion, “Are you really gonna be fightin’ in your school uniform, though?” 

“It’s just the jacket,” Neku tosses the uniform blazer into his bag, taking out a new one. “Despite what you might think, Kosei couldn’t possibly enforce a dress code for the students. My class is full of art students and two of my friends are fashion designers, if they tried to limit the dress code too much there would be riots.”

Akira can see the appeal of breaking the dress code, but with his instructions to stay inconspicuous, it wouldn’t matter what school he went to. 

Neku puts on a dark purple jacket with a white zipper, rolling the sleeves up past his elbows. “A friend made this for me for my birthday last year. She said it reminded her of ‘the old Neku,’ whatever that means.”

“She might have been referring to the purple,” Yusuke comments, looking amused for some reason, “From what I remember, the first time I saw you wear an outfit without the color purple in it somewhere was fairly recently.” 

“I’m entitled to wear my favorite color as much as I want. Besides, you haven’t even known me as long.”

“Even I can admit it’s a little excessive.”

“You don’t get to talk about what’s ‘excessive,’ Yusuke. Not since what happened with the Sea Project.” 

Yusuke frowns, “I followed the theme as directed.”

“You couldn’t have just used a picture for a reference?” Neku asks, “You had to go out and buy one?”

Akira just watches them talk, sharing a look with the other Thieves who also have no idea what they’re talking about. 

“Nevertheless, I won’t make the same mistake twice,” Yusuke declares, “No, I think I should borrow instead of buy.”

“That’s not the lesson you should learn from that.” Neku rolls his eyes, before refocusing on the rest of the group. 

“What are you even talking about?” Akira takes the chance to ask.

“Crab,” Neku and Yusuke both answer. They do not elaborate. 

“So…” Mona puts the topic back on track. “About those code names?”

It was fairly easy to decide Yusuke’s new codename due to his outfit. Neku’s is where they had trouble. Akira figures it probably won’t be animal-based like the others, unless they wanted to go off of Neku’s mask. Well, with those pins, Neku’s kind of like a jack of all trades, similar to himself. But probably not a master of none, according to his favoring of fire. 

“Ace?” Akira suggests.

Neku thinks it over, but nods fairly quickly, grinning like there’s a joke everyone is missing. “I think Ace suits me fine.”

“Now, about your equipment.” Akira hands Fox his katana and gun, and turns to give Neku his. 

He finds him standing frozen, staring at the offered firearm. Well. That’s not a good sign. 

“Are you okay?” Panther places a hesitant hand on his shoulder. Neku doesn’t answer, doesn’t even move. 

“It’s fake,” Mona tries to assure him, but even Akira can quickly see it won’t work. “It’s to fool the enemies into thinking it’s real. Since we know it’s fake, it won’t harm us.” 

Neku blinks, then slowly shakes his head, “I-I’m not…” He clears his throat, “I’m not fucking touching that.”

Akira nods and immediately puts it away, asking, “Are you okay with short-range weapons? It’s also technically fake.”

It takes just a moment, but Neku nods. It takes another moment of him trying to pull himself together before he asks, “What is it?”

“A machete,” Akira says, smiling because machetes are cool.

Neku gives a shaky grin in return, “Hell yeah.”

With new teammates Ace and Fox, they head further into the palace, teaching the two the ropes as they go along. With the pins Neku— Ace has, they find that he’s particularly good at being in the backup team with the one other person, picking off enemies that get too close. Akira notices that while he’s good with another person, he isn’t necessarily used to a team. He finds that his new teammate tends to stick to whoever is nearest.

Ace’s repertoire of attacks pretty much rivals his own in variety. Even after explaining what each of the pins he brought does, it’s interesting to see what he’ll pull out next. He’s quick to catch on to the system of weaknesses, and Akira mostly saw attacks similar to each of their own elements when the situation called for it. Like when he called out the electric weakness of a shadow and both Ace and Skull went in for it. The shadow stood no chance. 

Still, Ace seemed very obviously partial to fire. He and Panther made a good pair, roasting their enemies with no remorse. Once Panther reminded him to use his machete there was no stopping the two of them. One of them would go in close range and the other would use fire from a different side, switching off as they moved. If he didn’t know better, Akira would think Ace has been on the team the whole time. 

Fox is surprisingly strong for how skinny he is, but Akira decides not to question it. While Skull’s physical approach was more blunt and worked because of sheer force, Fox is more precise. He has a good eye in finding small weaknesses to leave shadows in critical condition. The only thing holding him back is his lack of fighting experience, which is understandable.

But that lack of training seems to almost disappear when Fox and Ace work together. Sure, there’s quite a few stumbles and all that, but Ace comes to watch his back and then they’d both be back to fighting like nothing happened. It was when they first worked together that Akira realizes that Ace had as much precise control over his psyches as Fox did his skills. If there weren’t any sort of troubles during battle, Akira wonders if they would even need to speak to fight in sync. That’d be pretty impressive to watch. 

All in all, he’s proud that they all can accommodate two new teammates in such a short time. They get through the palace a lot faster, with people taking breaks and swapping out, and Akira’s sure that they’ll be able to get pretty far today. 

They discover a safe room not too long after dodging a series of security lasers and decide to rest. Their new members get along well with the others, but it’s been particularly amusing to watch Ace and Fox get into any sort of in-depth conversation about literally anything, even in the middle of the palace exploration.

But Akira doesn’t pretend that he hasn’t noticed that Ace’s hands are still shaking. He saw how hard he flinched when Ryuji took out his gun to take down some shadows. After that he had let everyone except Ace know that they were going to try to limit gun usage today at least (Mona’s slingshot seemed not to affect him, which made sense).

So, after a moment of careful debate on whether or not he should bother him, Akira approaches. “Hey.” 

“Oh, hey,” he responds with a distracted hum, crossing his arms. Then he sighs, “I know what you’re going to ask about. I’m fine.”

“Really?” Akira raises an eyebrow, “You knew I was gonna ask how you were adjusting to the team so far?”

“Yup,” he deadpans, “I’m psychic.”

“And I believe you completely,” Akira leans against the wall. He looks out over the rest, chatting away and relaxing, “So? How is it?”

“The team?” Ace hums, “I’m not used to fighting with more than one other person, but I think I’ll get the hang of it. You guys are… interesting, to fight with. It feels different…” he pauses, but then clarifies, “Not in a bad way or anything. It’s just a different kind of flow to get used to.” 

“A different kind of flow?” Akira asks. 

He nods, explaining, “You guys find weaknesses to go after until something gives way. I’m used to sort of building up and releasing a big attack together. Both need a lot of focus, but in different places.” He stops a moment, then rolls his eyes, “And before you ask, I’m not going to tell you who I fought with before.”

Akira glances back, “And how’d you know I would ask that?”

“I told you, Joker,” Ace shrugs, looking to be in a significantly better mood, “I’m psychic.”

“Sure, sure. I’ll make sure to keep a healthy fear of your terrifying psychic powers,” Akira says, making his joking tone match. He decides now’s the time to ask. “You think you’ll be alright tomorrow?”

Ace uncrosses his arms, his gaze pointed almost stubbornly toward the others (who are all trying and failing at pretending they aren’t listening. To be fair, the room isn’t very big). Akira turns that direction as well, trying not to pressure him into saying anything with his stare. He’s been told that his eyes are “weirdly intense” and his glasses aren’t present in the metaverse to help diminish that.

Finally, Neku speaks, taking off his mask and letting it hang in his hand. “I figured about halfway through that you all would probably be using your guns a lot more, right?”

Akira nods, not denying it. “Normally. Didn’t want to cause something to happen in the middle of a fight.”

“I don’t want to lie and say that I’m fine with that, but I do get it. Stop holding back tomorrow and I’ll prove there’s nothing to worry about. Deal?”

Akira feels like that’s as good as he’s gonna get, “Alright. I felt like fighting more tomorrow anyways. No good to let everyone else do most of the work.”

Neku smirks a little, his wings shifting with his mood. (Either Akira’s quickly gotten used to those oddly-shaped wings, or the fact that they’re even there keeps slipping out of his mind for whatever reason. It’s strange.) “I was hoping so. Even without knowing what a persona even was before all this, using more than one seems unique.”

Akira huffs a little. “‘Unique’ is a word for it. Maybe we just haven’t met anyone else with the same ability. Plenty of people don’t have personas awakened.”

“It’s possible,” Neku agrees, pulling back on his mask. “I mean, I don’t have one.” 

Huh. He does bring up something interesting, about not having a persona and all. Akira wonders if he’ll ever get the right catalyst to awaken. He honestly thought Madarame would’ve been enough, since even Akira himself awakened just in defense against someone he didn’t know.

“It’s impressive, though,” Akira points out, stepping away from the wall. “You’ve kept up with all of us so far. Keep it up.” 

“…Thanks, I guess,” Ace glances at him, following toward the rest of the group. “You know, you’re a lot more chatty than usual.”

“It’s a skill of mine,” Akira shrugs, “C’mon.” Calling everyone together, he leads the discussion of their next steps. 

They have a palace to explore. 

Chapter Text

For the entirety of the first day infiltration with their new teammates, Akira had decided to hang back in a more supportive role. It’s not like he didn’t fight or anything, but he was pretty much using the time to try to evaluate where everyone’s at. 

But as much as it’s his job as a leader to know his teammates strengths and all that, Akira wants to fight. He’s got two new people he can show off in front of, so he decides to take that chance the second day of infiltration.

“So we’re just trying to get that guard in front of that control room, yeah?” Skull says when they get to the furthest safe room. Akira had stopped their infiltration there so they didn’t tire out their new members completely on the first day. Pacing is important.

“Yeah,” He nods, “We should get through this faster from there.” Partly because he’ll be actively participating again. He tries not to get cocky, but he feels much more confident about his skills within the metaverse, especially when he knows he has a team at his back. With luck, they’ll be able to send the calling card tomorrow or so.

They approach the guard. Akira knows that in order to make it through the next half of the infiltration, he’ll need to choose how he uses his energy wisely. Luckily, he’s not the only adaptable one on the team anymore, and he should be alright if he wants to show off just a little in a few fights.

The shadow distorts and grows into a more distinctive shape than the normal guard, and Akira makes sure his team is prepared. The fight starts quickly, with Fox quickly calling out the shadow’s physical immunity. A few close misses from the shadow and Akira quickly starts to get an idea; those physical immunities don’t really mean shit when a shadow is frozen solid.

He relays the command quickly, trusting Ace and Fox to be able to both freeze it and knock it down. They honestly weren’t able to get into the details about how baton passes work, but hopefully the two understood what he meant. (Not that Akira really knows the inner workings of it either. He’s halfway sure that when Mona first described it, he meant a boost in morale, not actual strength. But cognition’s kinda funny like that and he refuses to question it.)

In a show of expertise, Fox draws his katana as soon as the shadow was frozen, slicing through it with a devastating blow. Instead of a normal hold up, though, he gave Panther a baton pass, who made sure to give him an encouraging smile before roasting the shadow alive. When you’re cold and are suddenly put somewhere hot, it feels even hotter than it actually is. So why not dial that up to eleven?

She passes it on to Ace when she can’t hold the spell for longer, stepping back with her gun aimed on the shadow to keep it from getting back up. Like he said he would yesterday, Ace doesn’t even acknowledge it. 

He’s very obviously on board with this plan, surrounding it in flames that burn much brighter than normal until they die out, the paper-like shadow looking pretty burnt there.

“Joker!” It never ceases to amaze how freaking fast Ace is on the battlefield. Akira’s not even sure he saw him come over here. Anyways, high-fives are given and Akira feels the built up boost fueling his next moves. He summons Hua Po.

Normally, an Agi spell would not completely disintegrate the enemy into ashes, especially a stronger one, but damn does it feel good to see all the hard work in building up that baton pass put to good use. He gets why Panther sometimes has that satisfied smile on her face when she burns a shadow to death. It’s still incredibly intimidating, but he gets it. 

“Good job everyone,” Akira says after making sure everyone’s alright. No one has anything more than scrapes, thankfully. If they all keep this up, they’ll be able to keep going for a good while.

They make it into the control room, find out how to disable security, and continue on through the palace. 

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to jumping through paintings,” Panther comments, looking up at the large and different paintings. Akira nods, he can definitely agree. 

Skull glances, “I’d be kinda weird if you did.”

“If you did you could probably put it on your resume,” Ace adds, “Become the world’s first Professional Painting Jumper.”

“Thanks,” she shakes her head in amusement, ”but I’ll stick to modeling.” 

Fox suddenly looks interested in the conversation, “Speaking of—”

“Nope!” Mona says very adamantly.

“Alright, that’s enough standing around,” Akira takes his cue to get everyone on track before Mona says anything more, “Let's go jump in some paintings.”

And so they all head deeper into the palace (by jumping through paintings). Akira spies Mona glancing back the further they go, so he follows his gaze to Ace. Right the whole distortion thing. Even Akira’s starting to see more obvious ripples in the walls around them, they’re gonna hit something soon. 

And he’s proven right with the sight of gaudy gold pathways that go nowhere and make up the floor, walls, and ceiling. It hurts to even look at, with how bright it is. No wonder this place isn’t even on their map. 

Ace doesn’t look too worse for wear, but his face is scrunched up like something’s bothering him. Akira asks about it. 

“This place is just causing a headache,” He answers after a moment, “It’d probably be worse if none of you were here.”

“What do you mean?” asks Fox.

“The pact,” he answers, but then seems to realize that doesn’t clear everything up. “I mean it’s with Fox, which is why we’re so in sync, but it partially extended to the rest of you somehow. Otherwise, this place would probably drive me so nuts you wouldn’t even see me.”

“Wouldn’t see you?” Skull repeats. “What’s that mean?”

Ace seems to think for a moment, before he’s gone in a blink of an eye. Akira mostly manages to hide his surprise, but the rest aren’t so quiet in theirs. In another blink, he’s visible again. 

“I tend to accidentally drive myself up to higher frequencies when I’m stressed,” is his explanation for that. Honestly Akira had glossed over the fact that he mentioned being invisible because he assumed it was like the metaverse. 

But this? They could use this for something in the future. 

They move on soon, with Yusuke expertly picking out the correct Sayuri paintings. The world shifts around them in a different way than Kamoshida’s palace, but it still shows as much proof of how far Madarame is from reality. 

Soon enough, they reach it. The treasure. They make their plans on how they’ll grab it when it’s time. 

“What are you looking at, Fox?” Mona asks when he’s staring off at something in the crane’s control room. Akira follows his gaze to the wall, his eyes glowing as he tries to see what’s hidden there. It’s a door that blends almost completely into the wall. Quite unlike the man who tries to make everything grand and gaudy so far. 

“There’s something there?” Akira says, moving to try to find some sort of hidden latch or something. And… there. He unlatches it, and swings it open. Everyone leans in to peek inside. 

It’s a small room, with canvases stored in it. Some are blank, some are sketches, some are half-painted. The one that stands out to the thieves, however, is a drawing of Neku.

It’s unfinished, only the painted part moves around like the finished painting-cognitions they saw earlier, the rest is sketched in pencil. 

“What the hell…?” Skull says what they’re all thinking. 

“H-Hold on,” Ace takes a step back, his wings hanging closer to his body in a very guarded manner, “So if those paintings from earlier are supposed to be his pupils…”

“It’s likely that he’s still considering you for a new one,” Mona finishes.

“But he’s planning on suing me?” He shakes his head. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

Akira really doesn’t like what any of this implies. “Maybe he’s planning to offer his… ‘mentorship’ as a way out?”

“Would he do that?” Panther asks.

“I’m coming to believe he would,” Fox says with a deeply troubled look on his face, anger sparking within his gaze. “He’d likely approach with some story about how his security company wants to take action, but Sens— Madarame will say that he’s convinced them not to and he wants Neku to take his offer at being a student. Something that will seem to paint him in a better light, but is despicable blackmail nonetheless.”

There’s a moment where everyone is quiet, still absorbing the information. Akira’s anger simmers, but it threatens to boil over at any moment. But he can’t let it, he’s the leader. Besides, if he’s angry at this, then he can just imagine how pissed Fox and Ace are. 

And so Akira doesn’t let his anger boil, but he won’t let what happened to him happen to anyone else. Yusuke will be free from Madarame and Neku will lead a successful un-sabotaged life. Akira will make sure of it without fail. 

Ace moves to the front of the group, actually stepping inside the room proper, something the rest haven’t done. Akira gestures for the rest to fall back a bit, since he has an inkling about what’s about to happen. 

Ace looks up at the canvas and, with almost no movement or hesitation, sets it on fire. Most of the other Phantom Thieves are surprised, but Panther just cheers him on. At that, he turns, almost in consideration, then sets the rest on fire. Akira briefly wonders if he should be concerned that there are two arsonists on the team, but decides it’s better not worry about it. 

Ace turns around, the flames still burning behind him and casting shadows onto his frowning face. With a gesture of his hand, they cut out, leaving behind nothing but ashes and charred canvases. “Guess we should start heading out of here, right?”

Akira nods, a little impressed, before beginning to herd his teammates back to the nearest safe room, announcing that their infiltration is over. 

All they have left is the calling card. 

Neku should’ve expected that they wouldn’t send the calling card right away, judging by how much Akira values giving his teammates rest. It was a bit of a surprise, though, how fast they got through the palace. Looking up at the building from the outside and seeing the complicated twists and turns of the inside, Neku thought he might not be able to help send the calling card before the next Game. 

But the Phantom Thieves, for all they mess around, are surprisingly efficient. Despite this being their second time doing this, Neku thinks that they make it work pretty well. There’s been a lot of stuff he has to adapt to, when it comes to fighting shadows. 

Nevertheless, Neku‘s adjusted like he always does. It’s actually been a while since he’s seriously fought anything more than a random Noise that’s making someone’s day worse. He might be a little out of shape, but that doesn’t matter nearly as much as it would before. 

Neku spends his day off from the palace mentally preparing himself for next week and trying not to think about the painting from the palace. It doesn’t work completely, and he can’t help but think about the possible offer for “mentoring” Madarame might give. 

He’d honestly rather die again than be forced to accept that. 

When they meet to send the calling card the next day, Neku feels more than motivated to take on the palace tomorrow. He’s honestly more concerned about Yusuke, and makes sure to try and catch him after the meeting. 

Neku approaches with purposefully loud steps, prompting Yusuke to look up from where he stands just outside the door of the studio hideout, gazing off of the roof. They’ve all already parted ways for the most part, but Neku let Ryuji know he wants to talk to Yusuke before he needs to be dragged off to help with the calling card. 

“You ready for tomorrow?” Neku starts with. 

Yusuke’s brow doesn’t furrow further, but his face is still troubled as he answers. “I’m about as ready as I can be at the moment.”

“Same here.” Neku leans against the wall, “All of this seems kinda crazy, doesn’t it? Stealing hearts with the Phantom Thieves.” 

“It certainly isn’t what I expected when we began our project,” Yusuke agrees. He glances to Neku, “Though I cannot say that I expected you to sprout wings, either.”

Neku grimaces just a bit. He and his friends haven’t been leaving him out of things on purpose, but sometimes they needed space to talk about the Game. “I was planning on telling you about that sometime during the school year,” Or as much as he could explain. He’d need to leave the rest up to the others, who aren’t bound to the UG like he is. “But then this happened.”

“I see,” Yusuke says, the look on his face is more thoughtful. “If I am being honest, I don’t think I could ever be fully ready to rebel against my mentor. There’s a part of me that still feels indebted to him.” 

Neku glances at him, but he stays silent and lets Yusuke continue. 

“He did raise me, after all,” He says, “I used to feel that nothing could change that fact. Not even how he treated other pupils. It feels selfish, to go against all of that now.”

“Then be selfish,” Neku says, crossing his arms. “The whole thing about how wanting things to be better for yourself is ‘selfish’ is stupid.”

Yusuke sighs, “If only it were that simple.”

“If only,” Neku agrees. It never is that easy, but it doesn’t hurt to plant the idea. “The feeling of owing it to him, it takes a while to go away. Especially since you still live with him. So, focus on something else. Get angry, get pissed. Then go and do something good with it. It makes the doubt not really matter.”

Yusuke glances at him, “You have a point. I find myself thinking back to my awakening often, and it takes all my self-restraint not to go into Sensei’s room right then and there demanding answers.”

Neku nods, he can understand the feeling. “Then that’s what you’ll need for tomorrow.” He pauses, then smiles a bit. “And so you can roast him to hell and back when you work on the calling card.”

Yusuke laughs a little, “I will make sure the work of Ryuji and I live up to your expectations.” He starts moving away from the hideout, “Are you certain you don’t want to help?”

Neku shakes his head. He still has to prepare for the next Reaper’s Game. It’s not too much work, but UG stuff tends to tire him out fast. “I can't, sorry.” 

“It’s alright,” Yusuke says, pausing in his parting ways. “And thank you, Neku. I’m very grateful you became my friend.” 

Neku nods, a little overwhelmed at the sincerity in the statement. Yusuke never does anything in halves, does he? “…I’m glad too.” 

They both part ways, and tomorrow they might finally be ready. 

Neku is just a little nervous about this whole thing. See, when Morgana said they’d only have one day to do this, his traitor brain said 24 hours and started ticking down. Timers make him more than a little nervous, even fake ones in his mind. Can you blame him? 

But other than that he has confidence that they can pull this off. The Phantom Thieves have done this before, and Neku’s probably done more difficult things in his life. Probably. 

The plan goes like this. Morgana, Ryuji, and Ann are all going to the security room to control the lights. If something goes wrong, having three of them will be useful. Yusuke, Neku, and Akira are staying back at the crane. Neku’ll land on the other side of the lasers, invisible, and put the treasure on the crane to pull it up with the lights off. 

Neku would just pick up the treasure and fly up, but he’s, uh, still not very good at it. He’d end up making more of a commotion if he did that. 

The plan’s going well so far. Just crouching on the rafters above the cloth-covered treasure is giving him a headache, so he doubts it’ll be any difficult to stay at higher frequencies here. Yusuke stands tall next to him, looking at him with concern. “Are you sure you’ll be alright? We could always go for the Mona plan.”

Neku rolls his eyes a little. “It’s just a headache. I’ll be fine, Fox.” 

Akira comes up onto the rafters, checking in. “Ready?” 

They both nod. Neku gives a peace sign and vanishes, hopping down behind the lasers as he sees Ann in the security room. 

The lights go off and everything goes as planned. The painting hangs suspended above its previous place, just out of sight as the lights turn back on. Great, great. Now Neku just needs to make his own way out without touching the freaking lasers and everything’s fine. 

Making sure there’s enough room, he gives a cautious flap of his wings. He can’t fly, but he should be able to launch himself back up to the rafters with hopefully only some difficulty. Taking a step, Neku leaps. For a moment, he thinks he might not make it, but his reaching hands hold onto the planks with only a lot of strain. Damn he really has no upper body strength, does he? He really needs to work on that sometime. Beat’s been wanting someone to work out with for a while, I could ask.

“A little help?” he asks, making himself visible to the others.

Ryuji pulls him up just as Ann points out a window they can escape from. With the sound of approaching guards, they take the option, leaving Neku with little time to question why Morgana is carrying the treasure. 

In all honesty, Neku should’ve realized the “treasure” was fake, since his headache didn’t increase into a migraine the closer he got to it. Now that it’s actually so close by, Neku can barely even keep an eye on Yusuke throughout the encounter. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t paying attention, especially when Madarame digs himself deeper and deeper into a hole.

It just gets worse as it goes on. The bragging about using Yusuke’s mother, calling her and her work his own. It all gives Neku a rotten feeling. And it’s just as well that the piece of shit stole his most famous work as well. But then Madarame unveils the true Sayuri— if that even is the true name— and Neku’s vision tunnels in on it. 

Neku stares, the beautiful image of the mother and her child draws up an almost familiar feeling. It’s a feeling that tells him that everything that painting is and represents is important, that to Madarame, it’s his most valued. It’s so familiar that Neku wants to pull back from it, knowing exactly what it means.

“An entry fee,” he murmurs under his breath, everyone else so focused on several of Madarame’s other misdeeds to even notice him. Even without him being a Player, I can tell. His treasure would be his entry fee.  

Is that what a treasure truly is? It makes sense. What someone values most would obviously be the source of their desires being so twisted, it would be what’s protected at the center of the palace. But that means… With Neku’s position and his abilities as Conductor, he could just take it and save the Phantom Thieves time. It would be so easy, he has to do it regularly with the Players—

What? Wait a fucking second. No matter how much of an asshole, Madarame is an alive asshole. That means it’s too dangerous for Neku to even try. Not to mention that he hates taking entry fees anyways. What was that about…?

He shakes his head just as Ann is spitting insults at Shadow Madarame. “I can’t believe you’re treating both mother and son like their objects… You’re inhuman!”

Neku, who feels hyper aware of every little thing thanks to the treasure’s presence, feels something shift within his pact, making him look to Yusuke. “Fox?” he asks, hoping his voice carries the rest of his concern. 

“I heard that you destroy your ‘art’ once they outlive their usefulness…” Yusuke says, his glare at Madarame reaching even through his mask. Neku suddenly feels colder. “Did that include my mother as well?”

Why does Neku feel like he already knows the answer to this? 

The shadow has the gall to look smug as he answers, “She just happened to have a seizure in front of me. That’s when a thought crossed my mind; If I don’t call for help and leave her there, I could obtain her painting with no strings attached.” 

Letting her die…? Just the thought pisses him off. “The hell…?!” 

What kind of person would just leave someone there to die? All for a painting? All for fame? Maybe Neku’s a hypocrite. After all, he’s in charge of Reapers who erase Players and he still interacts with Joshua on (relatively) friendly terms despite the whole murder thing. But lives aren’t something that can just be thrown away, especially for deplorable reasons like that. It’s disgusting to just think about. 

Neku steps closer to Yusuke in support, stopping at his friend’s dark chuckle. “I thank you, Madarame… My anger now leaves no room for doubt. Every reason for me to forgive you has disappeared without a trace at this very moment!

“You call yourself an artist, and you wear the rotten skin of one well. But you are truly a despicable fiend who uses others for your own wretched desires… You aren’t even worth the art you claim to ‘create!’”

With that declaration, Neku finds that Yusuke took his advice from yesterday. When Shadow Madarame transforms into… whatever that is, anger colors his form, ready to battle his former mentor without restraint. 

And Neku has no plans of leaving his side. The pact means they’re partners now, right? It’d be stupid to leave now. 

Akira directs them through the fight as always, calling out what does and doesn’t work on the weird monster paintings. Neku’s still getting used to working on a team under a leader, but he does his best with what he has. 

They’re soon able to knock down all the paintings, getting Shadow Madarame into a hold up. Neku still feels… uncomfortable around the guns. But he still participates, charging energy into his left hand and holding it there with the threat of releasing it. 

Madarame spits out insults as usual, unable to do anything more when trapped in a corner. Then Akira calls for an all-out attack. All-out attacks feel just like fusion attacks, but with more people and less dropping moons. Being able to attack an enemy and move, knowing that someone else will take your place? It’s like synching but with more people, and it’s kinda cool.

What’s not cool is that Madarame is still standing, and that he’s returning to that disgusting painting monster thing again. That’s a pain in the ass.

Neku’s pretty good at not getting hit, for the most part. “Blocking” is not really part of his moveset, and his best strategy is simply “don’t be there when they attack.” So he feels like he’s pretty good at that. 

But it’s not that he never gets hit. Now, being in his position has its perks, which is basically that he’s very hard to kill. Unfortunately that doesn’t mean that getting knocked over doesn’t hurt, it just hurts a bit less.

Ann helps him back up, “I think he hit you with some weird ink attack. Be careful, Ace.”

When he looks down, he sees what she means. Black ink covers his left arm and his front, and Neku gets a bad feeling about this. The air bites a little colder than usual and he feels uncomfortable in his skin, what did that attack do?

Ann stays nearby, but she’s not the only one. Apparently his epic fail of a dodge was seen by everyone, and they stay close as they fire spells at Madarame. Neku doesn’t waste time getting back to the battle, but one of the eye paintings seems to have it out for him. 

He moves out of the way of some ice spell, his annoyance getting the better of him as he charges up one of his pins. “What the hell do you want—!?” 

He’s cut off as electricity courses through his body, locking his joints up as he drops like a sack of flour. For a moment it hurts so much he feels like he can’t breathe, but the spell soon leaves and he’s left on the ground wondering what happened. 

“Shit,” he gasps, “That… hurt a lot more… than I was expecting.” 

Yusuke’s voice comes from the other direction, “We need to finish this quickly!”

Even closer nearby is Morgana, who quickly heals him, “You okay?”

Neku exhales as he sits up, feeling a little better. “Now I know what a fork in a microwave feels like.”

“I think that ink makes you weaker to his attacks, so stay back for a bit until it wears off,” he tells him. 

Neku begrudgingly backs off enough that the rest don’t have to hover, but if he drops a couple of meteors on the paintings from far away that’s his business. 

Madarame falls. His previous gloating is replaced with fear. Neku watches Yusuke confront his mentor, feeling his friend’s cold anger even from where he stands. 

“Return to yourself in reality and confess every last one of your crimes,” He says, his voice leaving no room for argument. “Swear it!”

“You’re not going to kill me…?” Madarame shrinks away from Yusuke’s glare, “I-I swear it, alright!” 

When the palace eventually begins to crumble and the others wait in Mona’s car form (and isn’t that a sight. They’ve mentioned it once or twice, but seeing the cat turn into a van with his own eyes is… something), Neku waits for Yusuke outside it. 

Yusuke walks away from Madarame, his knuckles pale as he holds the Sayuri. Neku can’t help but feel bad for him. “Yusuke?” He asks as they both climb into the back of the car. The palace shakes more, and Neku has to change his focus to holding on as Akira drives them haphazardly through it.

“The destination has been deleted.”  

When they’re out of the palace and talking on the walkway, Yusuke seems much more relaxed. He talks openly about his relief that his mother would never have to know of the horrible things Madarame has done. 

Neku can’t help but agree with Ann, the painting is beautiful. 

“So what are you gonna do now?” Ryuji eventually asks. The Phantom Thieves… they want to inspire courage and help others. To try and get back at society… 

Yusuke has a clear answer by the time Neku’s just starting to form one. Neku isn’t… He isn’t the same as the rest of them. He doesn’t have a persona, he doesn’t have a great injustice that was committed against him (excluding his death). Sure, he used to be a self-imposed outcast, but that hardly counts since he was just an asshole. He’s not sure if he even fits in with them.

“Neku?” Ann asks, they’re waiting for his answer.

But does any of that matter? If he wants to help, then he should help. It could be that simple. It should be that simple. 

“Alright, sure. I want to see where this goes.” Neku crosses his arms, “I’m in.”

Neku receives a text before he goes to sleep that night. 

1 new message from Almost-Blocked Number

I take it the palace has fallen? 

He feels too tired to respond, but he does it anyways.

how did you know?

It was quite the disturbance.

like how you are to my sleep schedule rn?

Poor Neku. 

How will I ever find it in me to care?

i was planning on telling you some info

but since you dont care i guess it can wait until tomorrow

That depends on how important it is.

there’s someone else using the metaverse

according to madarame’s shadow, they have a black mask

Hm. 

Anything else?

uh

i guess madarame looked scared when he talked about it

like this person was going to kill him

Well.

Looks like the guard dog might bite early.

Neku actually wakes up a bit at that. 

you know something

Of course I do, what do you take me for?

tell me

I don’t have anything solid. 

But I can only suspect he might be behind some of the incidents lately. 

The ones that have been causing things to become busy within the UG.

Neku doesn’t ignore the use of “he” in that message. Joshua already knows who this is. 

shit. i need to warn the rest

Not yet. There isn’t enough evidence to be certain.

is that really the only reason i shouldn’t warn them about some killer?

Aw how sweet 💕

And they say there’s no honor among thieves. 

Joshua.

stop dodging the question

I’ll tell you when I find more, worry about the Game next week instead. 

For now I suppose there’s some detective work to be done until then.

i’m holding you to that

and dont think that i wont bother you all next week about it too

Fantastic. I can’t wait. 

The conversation stalls and Neku shuts off his phone, knowing that there’s something that Joshua is lying to him about. Whatever. It’s not like he hasn’t lied to him about things before. He’s tired anyways, so it’s better to think about that some other time. No need to dwell on things.

Despite the long and difficult day, Neku barely gets any sleep when he closes his eyes.

Chapter Text

Two days before the Game, Neku tries to find Shiki after school. In the rush of people heading off in all directions, he decides to get through the crowd the faster way. 

Starting at her classroom, he checks through the usual spots he knows she hangs out after school, trying not to cringe at the feeling of passing through people. He doesn’t find her at her classroom, on the roof, the room that the fashion students use for fabric, or near the teacher’s lounge. But eventually he finds her standing by the front gate. 

Standing next to her, Neku drops out of the UG, “Hey Shiki.”

Shiki shrieks. Her arms are raised over her face by the time she realizes it's just him. She glares at him and pouts, lightly hitting his shoulder. “That is so mean, Neku!” 

He scratches the back of his head, definitely not snickering. “Sorry.”

Shiki sighs in exasperation, but a fond smile creeps onto her face. “You don’t sound very sorry.”

“I know,” he smiles at her. “Anyways, I was looking for you.”

She tilts her head, pushing up her glasses, “Why?” 

“It’s about next week,” He starts, “Can you keep an eye on Yusuke for me?”

“Is he… alright?” She asks.

“He’s alright,” Neku nods, “Or… If he’s not then he will be pretty soon.” 

Shiki hums, looking down and fiddling with a button on her jacket. “Does this…” She stops herself, frowning. 

Neku leans against the gate next to her, “Does this what?” he prompts. 

She looks up again, before speaking all in one breath. “Does this have anything to do with how you and Rhyme said there might be something going on with Yusuke’s mentor and then you both didn’t say anything about it for like a week and then that calling card appeared on the news?”

Neku doesn’t even think of answering her with anything other than, “Yes, it does.”

“I knew that site was the real deal,” Shiki leans back on her heels, “I’m glad you got help for his situation. Do you want me to look out for something specific in Yusuke’s behavior or anything?” 

Neku blinks. He didn’t even have to say anything for her to think of the Phansite, she just drew that conclusion on her own. He’s lucky for that. There’s no way he’d be able to really lie to her. “Not really, I just— I was told that Madarame might act strangely, so that might affect him?”

“Don’t worry too much, Neku. He’s my friend too,” She takes out her phone, “And I feel like lately you’ve been worrying about a lot of things more. So with a stressful week coming up, I’ve decided to send you cat pictures the whole time.”

She holds up her phone, scrolling to show him the hundreds of cat photos stored in her picture gallery. There’s so many that it takes her a few long seconds of scrolling quickly to reach the bottom of the folder. 

Neku stares at his first partner with the most incredulous look he can muster, “That’s… so many cats…”

“And I’ll be sending you all of them.”

Well, he thinks, cracking a smile, there goes all my data this month.  

The next day, Akira finally decides to stop by the airsoft shop. Though things have calmed down, he had more important things to do than go and sell all the junk they’ve collected in the palace. 

So he walks into Untouchable with a separate bag full of stuff to sell. Iwai sees him walk in with the bag and leans back in his chair, sighing in exasperation. Akira smirks just a little at the reaction, but it falls just as fast as it came.

“I’d like to sell these,” he proclaims with a blank expression. He sets the bag on the counter, opening it up for the shop owner to take a look inside.

Iwai leans forward again in his seat, looking in the bag and pulling out the various items and treasure’s Akira’s collected. From weird sculptures to gems, the man looks over it all with a knowledgeable gaze. “Y’know, I’m not the kind of guy that asks questions, even about where a kid like you gets all this. But I do wonder.”

Akira pulls his best innocent look, which is barely different from his normal one, “How much can I get?”

After another few moments of judging Akira’s collection, he huffs, “I’ll take it for twenty-five thousand yen.”

Morgana purrs from inside his bag, “That sounds good to me!” 

However, Akira holds up one of the larger amethyst stones he collected in the last palace. They had some really good luck with this haul, not to mention some of this is from their mementos run. He thinks he can go for it. “Thirty thousand.”

“You’re trying to barter?!” Mona’s surprise is thankfully muffled by his bag. 

Iwai meets his declaration with a look, but Akira just gives him a blank stare. “Twenty-six.”

“Twenty-nine,” Akira challenges.

Iwai chuckles, crossing his arms. “You’re lucky I’m feeling charitable today, but I’m not gonna go higher than twenty-eight, kid.” 

Holding back a grin, Akira nods, “I’ll take that.” 

He scoffs, saying something under his breath that sounds like, “This kid, I swear…”

Akira leaves the shop with a satisfied look on his face and 28,000 yen in his pocket. He took a risk, but it worked out fine. Actually, it worked a little better than he expected. Maybe he can approach Iwai about the shady event that went down the other day. Holding the now-empty cloth bag, he sets off to his next tasks of the day. 

Later he’s going to be meeting up with Mishima, who messaged him about some phansite thing or whatever. But until then, he has the rest of the afternoon to spare. 

“Where are you headed?” Morgana asks when they get inside an arriving train. 

“Ryuji invited me to eat,” Akira responds, scrolling through his recent texts, including a brief conversation with Rhyme. 

A weird thing that happened today was finding a note that was slipped into his pocket. The front had a phone number and a message saying “Let me know if Niijima comes in contact with you!” and the back had that same cartoon skull drawn on it. It’s confusing, since he doesn’t even remember seeing Rhyme today. When did they have the time to do that?

“…causing a growing concern to rise in Shibuya. Many predict these scams will soon go out of control, demanding that the police take action to now protect these students. As of today, May 28th, there has been no official statement from the police department…”  

Akira’s eyes narrow at the news playing on the small screen as it pulls him out of his thoughts. A newscaster continues on, images of high school students are displayed next to the date. 

“Today’s the 28th…” he murmurs. 

Morgana’s ears pick up his words easily, “Oh right, tomorrow’s Neku’s work thing. We won’t see him for a week, are you thinking about asking him about it?” 

Akira shrugs, looking back down at his open messaging app. He figures he could probably reason his way out of even trying to look into Neku’s whole thing with the UG, but with Mona pointing it out the other day, he’ll let himself be a little nosy. He’s usually a curious kind of person, even if he isn’t allowed to act on it often. But this is one of the questions he actually knows where to find the answer. He just has to get to it first. 

He doesn’t tend to initiate conversation much, even over text. It’s more of a conscious choice to try breaking that habit than it is to follow it, and his friends don’t mind it. But he figures that Neku’ll be more willing to talk to him if he’s friendly, judging by how other confidants have gone so far. 

He sends Neku a direct message. A simple one, wishing him luck with his work-study. Shoving his phone in his pocket immediately after, he listens to Mona comment on this and that until the train arrives at the next station. 

Though it technically starts tomorrow, Neku’s responsibilities for the Reaper’s Game are (for the most part) done the day before. He takes entry fees today. 

And that’s why Neku wakes up this morning in a bad mood. Every time, the day before the game, it’s the same. He wakes up dreading the afternoon and goes throughout the school day pretending it doesn’t bother him. And to do that, he goes over what he has so far.

So far in terms of preparation, he received a list of the new 50 possible Players along with a summary of their basic information. That number keeps getting bigger and bigger as all these accidents keep happening. 

With the crime rate getting higher (something he really needs to talk to Josh about), he’s already told the wall Reapers to restrict certain areas. Then he double checked to make sure they were actually there and no Players would accidentally wander into a crime scene in those shady parts of town. 

He’s already picked a Game Master for the week, a Reaper named Honoka. She’s got a weird theme with flowers but an overall positive attitude about the game that somehow doesn’t creep him out. She passed even after checking in with Uzuki, who’d been promoted to Lead Harrier, one of the new positions within the Reapers that was created when it was brought to his attention that at least a third of the messed up shit from his three-week Game also affected the Reapers and they really needed to unionize or something. 

Neku has already put this Game’s information into his notebook. His handwriting is cramped and small on the page to save space. He doodles in the margins, practicing the few techniques Mr. H has tried to teach him. He flips through it during the school day, feeling the weight of the oncoming afternoon. 

Shiki and Eri don’t talk about the Game at lunch, of course, because Yusuke is there. They do briefly talk about his “work-study” but Neku changes the subject by getting Yusuke started on one of his art rants. 

Despite how casually they talk about Reaper’s Game on a regular basis, it took a little while for Neku to actually tell them he’s become the Conductor. Even now, he doesn’t really talk about it. And yet…

As soon as school lets out, Neku gets a blast of messages from their group chat.  

the whole circus

now its rhyme time: good luck this week neku!

& knuckles: u got this man 

& knuckles: whatever it is u do there

blood orange: Stay safe ok??

it’s red: We believe in u Neku! (*^^*)

it’s red: Knock ’em dead!!

now its rhyme time: no!

now its rhyme time: please don’t do that.

blood orange: I think he’s trying to do the opposite, Eri

& knuckles: hes gonna knock em alive?

now its rhyme time: that works. knock ‘em alive neku!

it’s red: Knock ‘em alive!!

blood orange: Seriously tho, take care of yourself this week 

blood orange: Don't forget about the cat pics! I’m starting today >:3

He feels his mood brighten as he reads through. His friends usually give him send off messages the day before a Game, and even though it’s another thing that happens every time, it always makes him feel better before he starts heading for the Shibuya River. He thanks them all.

Before he passes into the UG, however, he gets another text from Akira.

good luck on your work study.  

That’s honestly the last person he expected to text him about this, especially since the Phantom Thieves just think he’s doing some school thing. He can’t say he doesn’t appreciate it, though.

Just after receiving ten different pictures of cats from Shiki, Neku shuts off his phone. He walks into the pad past the Shibuya river, which has been refurbished since his Game (he complained extensively about the uncomfortable couches and such until Joshua finally did something. He counts that as a win). 

But now he has a job to do. No one is in the pad when he enters, luckily, so he passes through it without any problems. There’s a name to the room where Joshua had shot him the second time, probably something dramatic with alliteration, but he doesn’t care to remember. 

Neku stands in the center of it, his mask in hand. He had originally used it for this purpose, so that any Player who remembered the Reaper’s Game when they returned to life wouldn’t recognize him. That, along with a change in his clothes to something nicer and a change to the way he presents himself, is what disguises him. 

Neku looks up and calls forth the first potential Player. The soul of a Player is easy to transport. And since Neku knows where they are— waiting after having been told what the Reaper’s Game is— it’s even easier. In a flash, a young woman appears before him, either startled by her sudden change in scenery or his appearance. 

Taking a breath after a moment, Neku speaks.  “Hey there, Maki.” He says to her a little too casually than he usually would to a stranger. He once wanted to try making his voice deeper as a disguise, but it wasn’t something he could keep up. “Sorry to rush things, but I’m the Conductor. And right now I’ll give you a choice.”

In the end, she chooses to play the Reaper’s Game. Neku takes a deep breath in preparation. 

Taking entry fees for Players is easy, especially since the most recent thing on their mind is their death. It’s one of the reasons that Neku is the one who asks whether or not they’ll play in the Game, it prompts them to think about it and makes it even easier to pick apart their thoughts and find what is most important. 

All in all, it’s a simple and quick event. He searches within their minds until he knows what the entry fee would be, latches onto that piece of them, and pulls until it’s unwoven from reality. It’s simple. Doesn’t mean he likes it. 

It feels invasive and uncomfortable to know strangers that well, to see through them so easily. Even reading someone’s surface thoughts isn’t nearly as bad. Not to mention that he has to be reminded of how important these are to people immediately after, people who are either silent or loud in their newfound loss. He tends to send them away quickly, before he can see. 

Neku moves onto the next few, repeating in his head something he was told when he first became Conductor. This week might be worse for him than he thought, he should be used to this by now. 

Maybe it’s a good thing that he isn’t. 

The next four days pass by normally. The most normal it’s been in a little while. Today Akira finds himself on Central Street after school. Mishima had sent him some info, so he plans on suggesting a trip to mementos soon. 

It’s on his way to the nearest vending machine (despite Morgana’s complaints of “Not again!”) that he feels eyes on him. He sighs. Recently he’s been feeling watched, which technically isn’t very new. All eyes are on him at school all the time, making him on guard most of the day. But this is outside of that, which unnerves him even more. He hates looking over his shoulder all the time, even though that’s all he’s been doing since he got to Tokyo.

Akira doesn’t turn around or glance over his shoulder, but instead stops just outside the street display just outside the bookstore. Pretending to be interested in what books are on it, he sneaks a glance back the way he came.

Ah. The student council president. Looks like he was right to assume he’d gain a stalker. How fun. And honestly a little sad. Does she have nothing better to do with her time than hide behind upside-down manga as she stalks the local criminal student?

Focusing back on the book he’s holding, he realizes it actually looks pretty decent. He escapes into the bookstore, not only to buy it but to get away from her stare.

“Hey! What’s going on?” Morgana whispers as Akira opens his bag to put the book away.

“We’re going to the diner,” Akira shrugs, “Got a stalker to catch.”

“A what!?” Morgana exclaims like he wants to get them kicked out of the bookstore they were already leaving.

Back onto the street means that the gaze on his back has returned, but he ignores it. The diner isn’t overcrowded, surprisingly, but it sure isn’t empty. Good. He’ll need that.

As he sits down, Mona asks,” What was that whole thing about a stalker?”

“Any second now,” he replies. Sure enough, Makoto Niijima walks through the door. She takes a booth close enough to see both the exit and Akira. She’s smart.

“So what are you going to do about her?” Morgana looks over to her with a skeptical look on his face.

Akira sees an approaching waiter, easily forming an actual plan. He’s never actually talked to the student council president alone, and he doesn’t really know her very well. But he can probably pull this off. Probably. 

“Don’t tell me you’re going to do that thing where you piss someone off on purpose,” Mona says, dipping his head back into the bag.

“I don’t do it on purpose,” Akira whispers back, “Just this time.”

He hears a sigh in response just as the waiter comes over. “Welcome, what can I get for you today?”

“I’ll just take some of the tea, please,” he starts, then tilts his head toward Niijima’s general direction. “But you see the girl in the booth over there? The one with the same uniform as me and brown hair? I’d like to order her a steak.”

The poor waiter gives him a look, “You do know this isn’t a bar, right?”

“I do, ” Akira gives his best blank and innocent look, “Tell her it’s from me. She’s a friend.”

The waiter says something under their breath, but walks away.

“Why are you like this? And why is it only when it’s just me around?” Morgana pops his head back out of the bag. “There are easier ways of confronting her. You know, like something less expensive.”

“It’s for my stalker,” Akira explains, taking out that book he just bought to pass the time. This one’s about ghosts. 

Soon after his tea arrives, he glances over to see a waiter bring Niijima the steak. From what he can see of the gesturing and looks going his way, she got his message. As soon as the waiter leaves the student council president stands, the very picture of barely concealed annoyance, and walks over to his booth.

“Kurusu-kun,” she says instead of a greeting. “I didn’t realize you were here.”

Akira looks up at her, carefully keeping any reaction off his face, “I knew it.”

Her eyes narrow, “Knew what?”

“That you were following me.” He shrugs, “You came in right after me.”

Niijima stares at him, “What’s your game here, Kurusu?”

“Stalking takes energy. I gave you a snack.”

“A steak is far from a snack,” she responds, exasperated.

“And stalking is far from something the student council president should be doing,” he shoots back. “Isn’t it?”

“I wasn’t-“ she stops herself with a deep breath, “I was not stalking you. We just happen to be in the same place at the same time. Now,” She drops her hand on the table as she glares, “What do you want?”

Those rumor of her family being in law enforcement is so obviously true. Leaning over the table with one arm on it, blocking his exit out of the booth. An intimidation tactic he’s seen before. And despite the anxiety going up his spine at just the thought of that, Akira pushes on with the act.

“Nothing.”

“Of course you’d say that,” She frowns, “You’re very obviously up to something. I’ve seen you and your friends, what are you doing?”

“You’ve been watching us?” he asks, feigning surprise. “Did you get my good side?”

“If you don’t want your ‘good side’ in detention, I would suggest you go back to being the quiet transfer student, Kurusu,” Niijima snaps, “It’d make my job easier. God knows you and your friends have been loud enough.”

Her job? Well isn’t that interesting. Rhyme’s wisdom helps him once again.  “Someone told you to watch me?”

“No. That is none of your concern.”

“It is if the principal is telling you to stalk other students.”

Niijima steps back in surprise, “How did you…”

He doesn’t answer, instead tilting his head to the side. “I’m not the only one who’s noticed.”

She reorients herself, sending him a glare. “What do you mean by that?”

“Nothing,” He says, keeping his face slightly uninterested. “Careful, though. If I was anyone else, I might resent you for it.”

There’s a long and silent moment between them as Niijima glares at him and he stares back. Finally, she straightens herself out, taking a step away from the table. “I’ll be sure to remember that,” she states clearly. 

She walks back to her own booth, grabs her bag, and leaves. Akira waits a few moments, before unzipping his bag to let Mona know it’s clear. 

“It’s a good thing you scared her off, but won’t you get in trouble at school?” 

Akira shrugs, turning on his phone to text Rhyme, “I just wish she didn’t waste that steak.” 

“Akira. That is not your biggest problem here!”

“Yeah, yeah.”

talked to niijima.

Rhyme is quick to reply. 

thanks for telling me!

i was worried for a second i was wrong, but it you’re really reliable 

no problem.

Akira’s not even sure what he supposedly did, but they seem relieved. He must’ve done something right, so this whole thing is a job well done. I’ll just worry about that later.  

For now, he decides to focus on reading his new book and drinking the tea he ordered… Which is now cold. Well that puts a damper on his good mood. 

Chapter Text

Out of the 56 potential Players, 38 chose to play the Reaper’s Game over their Erasure. The amount that chose not to try for their lives back is kinda worrying. 

In the end, Neku can’t think too hard on it, because the Game week ends on Day 4. The last Players are erased before the timer even runs out. 

Neku leans on the edge of the foosball table, thinking over the news. He’s obviously upset that no one made it to the end of the week, but he could tell it was coming from the end of Day 2. Just judging by the Players’ scores and the rate they were getting erased, there wasn’t any other outcome. It sucks that he spent the past two days with the expectation that the Players were going to fail. 

“Seems like the new GM really delivers on her promises,” Uzuki’s voice rings out from where she sits on one of the couches. Her tone shifts to something mocking, “You actually picked someone good for once. A clean sweep in four days? I didn't think the soft little brat would have it in him.”

Neku glares at her in annoyance. Was the look on her face when she had found out he became Conductor priceless? Absolutely. Was it worth having to talk to her all the time now? Never. Not to mention all the other stuff he has to put up with, that made it double not worth it. 

She scoffs at his glare. “Take it as a rare compliment. If you’re finally doing something right that means there’s less chance the Composer will need to pick a new Conductor.” She mimes a gun with her fingers. It’s an almost silly gesture out of context (if you could describe anything Uzuki ever does as silly), but Neku knows well enough that she’d follow through on the threat. 

If she could actually beat him, that is. He honestly doesn’t know the answer to that question. He hasn’t fought any Reapers since his Game and he doesn’t want to any time soon. Especially not alone. 

“Be sure to tell your ‘compliments’ to Honoka instead.” And maybe if you talk to her she could tell you some gardening tips about getting that stick out of your ass, he thinks as he takes out his notebook. Whenever she gets here, that is.  

“No way. Like, she’s good at her job and all, but I’m not gonna set her off like that. She’s a people-pleaser, and an annoying one at that.”

“What a coincidence,” he replies completely deadpan, “That sounds just like somebody I know.”

“You better watch yourself you little—!”

Neku’s stops listening to whatever Uzuki was saying as his phone buzzes. He looks at it, surprised that it’s from the Phantom Thief group chat. He’d honestly been expecting something from Shiki or Joshua. Shiki’s been sending him cat pictures just like she promised, and he’s been pestering Josh for answers about that remark from the other day over text and hoping for an answer. With this week’s Game being so short, he hasn’t had the chance to even confront him about it in person like he’d planned to, they’ve only talked about stupid Game stuff (which is fair, but he’s still annoyed about it).

Mentally shrugging, Neku scrolls through the messages. Texts between the RG and UG tend to have an odd delay (if they go through at all), with bursts of several messages coming in at one time at random intervals. Most RG phones just wouldn’t work (with some random exceptions because the UG is inconsistent like that), but Mr. H had done something to his at some point.

Neku scrolls up to backread through all the messages. It starts with an update Yusuke sent on Madarame’s condition yesterday, with barely any notable changes. He scrolls quickly through the random conversations until he gets to the recent messages from today. 

Mementos? Is all he’s able to make of it before a sudden commotion drags his attention away. 

Honoka comes rushing in, her backpack rattling with whatever it is she puts in there. She takes a moment to catch her breath, and Neku takes a moment to wonder where the hell she found lime green overalls and how she manages to pull it off. 

“Sorry!” Honoka bows uncomfortably deeply, holding out a flower he’s gotten enough of from her to know is a purple hyacinth, “I didn’t mean to be late, I promise! I just saw that my babies were looking kinda sad and so I stayed reorganizing my entire garden to make sure everyone was getting enough light and I just lost track of time and I’m really really sorry!” 

“It’s fine, I didn’t wait very long,” Neku sits up, accepting the flower, “Were you able to find the last of them?” 

“Yes, actually! Hold on,” She digs through the front pocket of her overalls before picking out two items, “Here you are.”

She hands Neku two Player Pins. The ones belonging to the last two Players.

“It’s pretty creepy that you collect those, you know,” Uzuki decides to comment very helpfully. 

“Oh! Uh,” Honoka jumps suddenly, spinning around to face her, another hyacinth somehow already in hand as she bows. “I didn’t realize you were here too, Yashiro-san. I would’ve at least said hi.”

The look on Uzuki’s face is unimpressed at most, but she takes the flower anyways.“I’m here because someone is shoving his work on me for the last day with talking to the other Officers. Which means I’m the one deciding if you’re keeping your position for the next game and other things while he goes and does whatever.”

“Get Kariya to help you. And it isn’t a collection.” Maybe it’s a wasted effort to try and pick up Player Pins, but he doesn’t just collect them like some kind of serial killer. Each pin goes to one Player, specifically tied to them to use during their Game. He can’t bring himself to just leave them there on the ground after they’re erased. 

“Anyways,” he continues, picking up his bag, “I already said you could stay as GM for the next Game, so it’s up to her if she’s going to veto that. I’m going to go, since the Game’s over and I have a life.” Neku puts the pins into his pocket. It’s well known throughout the Underground that Neku’s still alive and goes to school. The day a Game week ends Neku goes back to his normal classwork, this time he’s just leaving a little earlier.

As much as he gets sick of being stuck in the UG for a week, he was hoping that it would last longer than just four days. There were some promising people in this group, and every Game there’s always at least one person that reminds him of someone he knows, or even himself. Knowing they’re all erased just… 

As Neku starts to leave, Honoka stops him with a tap on the shoulder. “Before you go,” she says, producing a flower in her hand from out of nowhere, “A sweet pea for the road.”

“Uh, thanks.” Neku takes the flower and puts it in his jacket’s chest pocket along with the other one. He’ll have to look up the meaning of this one later. 

He leaves the pad, aiming to go straight back to his dorm room for the most part. But as he gets closer to Shibuya station he sees a very familiar group near the entrance. 

He wonders what the whole group of Thieves are gathered for. Didn’t they say something about mementos or whatever in that text? Curious, Neku starts to walk over. 

He stops, though, as an uncomfortable feeling lodges itself in his stomach. That uncomfort turns to a wave of dizziness as the world starts to change and dim to red around him. No way…  

“Wait, is that…?” he hears Yusuke’s voice from further away. 

“Neku?” 

His head turns in the direction of the Phantom Thieves and he’s rewarded with another wave of dizziness to fight off. He tries to at least steady himself as the group approaches. 

“What’s with this stupid app and pulling me in from the UG?”  Neku grumbles. He wasn’t even close by enough to be pulled in normally. 

“What are you doing here?” Ann asks, “Didn’t you say you had a work study?” 

“It ended early,” Neku says, “I was walking over here when I was pulled into the metaverse.” 

“That’s weird,” Morgana says, his eyes strangely focused on Neku like he’s trying to solve a puzzle with the pieces on the blank side. “You were really far away, too.”

Neku shrugs, “Your guess is better than mine.”

“Now that you’re here, though,” Ann grins, and suddenly Neku’s a bit wary, “You should join us! Akira said he got some more requests from the fansite, and you might as well know what it’s like there now.”

Neku considers it. The past few days haven’t left him in a good mood, but… He thinks about Joshua’s comment before, when he’d mentioned someone else in the metaverse. Tokyo is a big place, but that person could still run into the Phantom Thieves at any moment. What if they’re powerful? What if Neku’s not here to help them? 

It’s not that Neku’s been holding back with the Thieves, per se. He just doesn’t know if he’s at the same level of the past Conductor on his own, simply because he hasn’t tried. He’s never had the need to. What if this person in the metaverse is on that same level and Neku’s not there? 

“Alright.” He nods, pretending that his paranoia isn’t running rampant in the back of his mind. Dammit, Josh. This is what happens when you don’t tell me things. “I basically don’t have anything else planned today.”

The group heads toward the station, and before heading down, Neku pauses to look up at it. Being closer to the station itself, he gets the same feeling he felt in the Palace. It’s like the metaverse is clinging to it, clawing into the fabric of reality and anchoring itself there. But this time it feels like it's on a much greater scale. The thought makes him feel uneasy for some reason.  He heads down into mementos. 

All the Phantom Thieves have their clothes changed in a swirl of blue flames as they enter, and Neku takes out his mask. 

“So this is what lies under Shibuya…?” Yusuke says, looking around the place with his hands held out like a frame. 

Neku crosses his arms with a huff, another unexplainable emotion joining his unease. Mementos climbs up the walls and warps the surface beneath, forcing it to bend to whatever it wills. It all feels so wrong. This is not Neku’s Shibuya, no matter what part of Mona’s explanation technically said it was. Not to mention this weird impression he gets from it. He’s not supposed to be here. 

“This place is creepy as hell,” Neku says instead of voicing literally any of his observations. 

“Wait until we actually get down there man,” Ryuji grins, “It’s nasty.”

“I’m not sure how that’s a good thing.”

After Morgana turns into a bus (still a weird-ass thing to experience) and they all climb inside, Neku finds himself next to Ann with Yusuke in the back seat. 

Ryuji was right, it got worse as they drove down. Luckily, Neku gets too distracted from the overbearing feeling by the fights they get into. Each time they all jump out of the van to go beat up a shadow it gets better. It’s not like he’s bouncing on his feet in excitement about fighting, but getting to move around is always refreshing. Neku can focus more on the present. Enjoy the moment, right?

“I’m surprised those flowers have stayed in your pocket,” Akira comments sometime after a fight. 

Neku looks down at the two in chest pocket, he’d hardly noticed them there. “They’re probably some weird special flowers, judging by the person I got them from.” 

“Like magic?” Yusuke asks, framing the flowers with his fingers.  

“Ooh, magic flowers.” Ann tilts her head like she’s imagining the concept. “Do you have an admirer?”

Neku snorts, “Hell no.”

“If he did, those would be odd flowers to give,” Akira, “The purple hyacinth means they want forgiveness, and the sweet pea means farewell. Generally, anyways.” 

“You know flower language, Joker?” Ryuji asks, throwing an arm around his shoulder. “Dude you can totally help me next time I want to impress a girl.”

“Yeah, no.” Akira shrugs him off with a smirk. “Let’s get back in the van.”

“C’mon man, just hear me out!” 

Each time they go back into the van, it takes Neku a while to try and get comfortable. He folds his wings as close to himself as possible, trying not to touch anyone. 

It’s still so odd to him how much bigger they are in the metaverse than the UG, not to mention the change in the pattern and the addition of feathers of all things. Maybe something about cognition and how wings are supposed to look?

“It’s so weird how I always forget those are there,” is all Neku hears from Ann before he feels curious fingers on the pointed feathers of his wings. 

Neku yelps. The place she touched ignites with violent discomfort and his body automatically flinches towards the window. His guard is immediately up, his body tense. He stays as far away from everyone else as he can get in such a small space. The eyes of the rest of them are on him as he tries to shake off the lingering feeling where her hand was. The van slows. 

Neku takes a deep breath, trying to calm himself down. He looks up, making eye contact with each of the Thieves, including Akira’s through the rear-view mirror. “Do. Not. Touch.”  

“I’m sorry!” Ann apologizes with a hand gesture that immediately reminds him of Shiki. Neku loses some of the tension in his shoulders. “I should’ve asked, I know. I’m sorry.”

“It’s-It’s fine,” Neku lies. It doesn’t feel fine, but he doesn’t blame her at all. “You couldn’t have known.”

The ride is awkward until they find a safe platform, where the conversation starts picking up like normal. Neku stays out of it mostly. This safe area doesn’t feel like a safe area in the palace, where it feels like a weight’s been lifted from his shoulders. It’s the same oppressive air, just without shadows. But Neku’s not really thinking about that right now. 

Within Neku’s entire lifetime, Neku’s only had one real group of friends. Shiki, Beat, Rhyme, and Eri— they get it. They know him, they know he always seems to still be adjusting. They know how that always frustrates him. If something happens, they all understand when it’s better to just get back to the conversation. 

But the Phantom Thieves… don’t get that. Even Yusuke, who Neku’s known for longer than the rest. It’s just… different.  

Neku can see they’re trying, though, and with two mess-ups like this, who knows what kind of conclusions they’re drawing? He’s never been concerned about what kind of impression he leaves on most people, but then again, he’s never had many friends before. This is so much more difficult than it used to be. 

Ann scoots over on the bench towards where Neku leans on the side of the opening to the rest area, making her intention to talk to him very obviously known. He decides to save her the time. 

“Did you want to talk to me about something, Ann?”

“Forget codenames already, Ace?” she teases, her smile is wide with something insincere about it. She still feels bad, he notices. 

Neku crosses his arms. “Wouldn’t dream of it.” 

“Good,” she nods, “I have a proposal! You and me go get crepes on Saturday, walk around Shibuya, friend stuff! It’ll be my treat.”

He thinks about it. That’s the day right before the exhibition ends. It’ll probably take his mind off of it, and he doesn’t dislike crepes or anything. But, he has a feeling… “Your treat? You don’t have to do that.”

“No, it’s fine!” Ann insists, shaking her head in a gesture eerily reminiscent of Eri. “I’m making it up to you, let me pay just for the day.”

He was right, she’s doing this because she still feels bad. “I’ve already forgiven you, it was an accident, and it’s in the past by now.” He pauses. How does he put this lightly? “Don’t feel the need to hang out with me just because you feel guilty.”

He can tell he didn’t succeed when Ann frowns, something stubborn setting into her eyes. Oh boy. “How about you try not to assume things? Now you have no choice but to hang out with me.” Her words are playful, but Neku knows that she’s serious about that. “We’re going to have the most fun and be best friends by the end of it, got it?”

Neku surprises himself by huffing out a laugh. “I hear you loud and clear.”

Saturday comes by faster than Neku originally anticipated. One moment he’s up late debating on finding a new nail color and the next moment he’s walking to meet up with Ann at a crepe shop in Shibuya. 

Neku isn’t nervous or anything, he just feels very acutely aware of how badly he could fuck this up. Which… fits the definition of being nervous. 

It’s not that he doesn’t know how to get to know someone or make new friends — he’s made a new friend the normal way before, just look at Yusuke — it’s just that, from his perspective, he’s not very good at it. 

That doesn’t mean he won’t try.  

Neku spots familiar blonde hair already in line for the crepe shop. Ann stands with her hair down, a short red jacket with a fluffy hood, a graphic t-shirt, and black jeans. The second she sees him she starts waving. Neku gives a short wave back as he makes his way over. 

“I’m glad you made it!” Ann says enthusiastically, “I knew the line was gonna be long, so I got in it as soon as you said you were on your way. We’re still not at the front.”

Neku takes a step to see where the front of the line is, they’re still a ways away. “This place must be good then, huh?”

“You bet. Shiho and I went here when it opened a few months ago, it was delicious.” She pauses. “I think you two would get along, actually.”

Neku can easily feel his nervousness fade as a small smile makes its way into his face. Ann has spoken highly of Shiho a few times since he met her. He fidgets with his hair. “You think so?”

“You remind me of her, sometimes.” She runs a hand through her hair, laughing a little. “Just… It’s something about the way you talk, or that look you get sometimes on your face. It reminds me of her. She’d like you!”

Neku raises an eyebrow, “A look I get sometimes?” 

“Yeah, it’s…” Ann’s smile falls. “It’s not a happy look. You kinda look away from everyone, not like you see something else, but that you know that something is there. It’s a little creepy, how similar it looks on both of you.” 

“I…” don’t know what to say to that. Neku scratches his head, does he really do that? Maybe it’s just when he thinks too much about something… Oh shit, is he doing it right now? 

“But don’t worry about it too much, you guys have a lot of positive things in common!”Ann says to snap him out of his head. “Like sometimes she can come off as kind of mean, but only because she says things bluntly. Like one time…”

Neku listens to Ann’s stories about Shiho as they slowly move through the line. She paints a detailed picture of her friend, from her blunt but incredibly kind personality to her favorite foods. Sometimes her face turns sad and she cuts herself off before starting a new story, but she talks about her most of the time. A lot. Neku’s not well versed in it, but he’s positive that Ann loves her friend. What kind of love is not his place to figure out. 

“I hope I get to meet her someday,” he says after they order their crepes. 

“Yeah, I-” Ann cuts herself off. “Oh my god, I’ve just been going on haven’t I? I’m sorry I’m like this, I just… went to see her in the hospital today.” 

“Oh,” Neku says rather dumbly. How didn’t he ever realize— “She was the one who…”

“Yeah.” 

They sit in an uncomfortable silence for a long moment. Neku feels very stupid. Their names are called for their orders, and they start walking to find somewhere to sit and eat them. 

“But enough about me!” Ann pastes a smile on her face. “I wanna get to know you, tell me about what you like to do, or your friends, or anything at all.”

Neku crosses his arms, what should he say? “You met Shiki at the exhibit. She became my first friend in… a long time, and she means a lot to me. I sometimes help her and Eri out by testing out her clothes whenever she needs a ‘short skinny boy’ for whatever project.” 

That gets a snort of real laughter out of Ann, which was what he was aiming for. “So you’re kind of a model, like me?”

“I guess?” he shrugs, “The only people who would think of me that way are Eri and some of the fashion students, and Eri calls me her ‘test subject’ so I’m not sure that still counts.”

“Eri?”

“She’s Shiki’s- best friend. I met her through Shiki, and we became friends that way. She’s a lot more… enthusiastic than Shiki, but she’s a really good friend.” It took a while for him to adjust to both of their appearances, but he’s perfectly capable of it by now. 

Ann nods, but then looks up like she forgot about something, “Right! I was going to ask how you know Rhyme. It always seems like everyone knows them, but you go to an entirely different school.”

“Oh, I know Rhyme and their brother Beat from around the time I met Shiki. We’re all close.” 

“Beat too?” Ann takes a bite of her crepe, “Mm, this is so good, you should eat yours!”

Neku takes her advice, actually starting to eat the crepe that slipped his mind. It’s sweet, like he expected. He had gotten a fruit and cream one, after Ann had recommended it (she had promised him it wasn’t too sweet). And he’s surprised by how much he actually likes it, enough that he’s marked the shop as a place to return to later. Maybe he could even add a decal to it one day. 

Ann continues their conversation once they find a place to sit down. “I know Beat a little, but only as Ryuji’s friend. What’s he like?”

“Beat is… Well, he’s a lot more laid back now than when I met him,” Neku replies, conveniently not mentioning the fact that they were, admittedly, in a very stressful situation. “He’s pretty good at telling when I’m in my head too much and snapping me out of it. Hm, what else? He likes skateboarding and tried to teach me one time. It definitely didn’t go so well.”

“Did you fall a lot?” Ann looks like she’s holding back a laugh. 

“Right on my face,” Neku grumbles a bit at the memory, but he can’t really keep it up. “I was fine. Beat was laughing his ass off though, so I guess one of us was having a good time. I’m never doing it again. ”

“Maybe that’s for the best,” Ann takes another bite to cover for her laughing. They find a place to sit down, taking their time to eat. Ann finishes her crepe first.

“What are some things you like to do?” she asks. “You seem like the indoorsy type.”

Neku shrugs a little, “I hang around Shibuya all the time, actually. I don’t really like staying in my dorm room unless I’m avoiding people or doing schoolwork, and even then I usually go to Wildkat.”

Ann grins and Neku starts to get the feeling that she’s planning something. “So… would you say you know Shibuya pretty well?”

Neku glances at her, “Yes…?” It’s basically part of his job to know every corner and turn of Shibuya. 

Ann stands up, dragging him up by the arm, “Show me what you like to do!”

Neku thinks about it for a moment. There’s a lot that he does around here, but not much that would be an interesting trip to bring someone on. Well… 

“What’s your opinion on committing a misdemeanor?” 

Chapter Text

She’s a little too excited about the idea of trespassing, Neku thinks as he leads Ann to a quieter part of Shibuya. She had agreed to this surprisingly fast. 

“I never thought you’d secretly be some kind of delinquent,” she says with a little too much enthusiasm. 

Neku makes a face. “I’m not a delinquent, don’t call me that.” 

Ann rolls her eyes as if he said something ridiculous. “I just meant that you didn’t strike me as the type.”

“Yeah, well…” Neku shrugs, looking away. “I do what I want, how I want, when I want… Even now.”

“Even now?” she asks, her confusion audible. 

“Yup. It’s different though.” Neku doesn’t elaborate beyond that. He turns around a familiar corner, his feet taking him straight to the front of a store. There’s a mark where the sign used to be, and just past the windows is an empty shell of concrete and drywall. “This is a place where I used to come to hang out a lot. They had all kinds of stuff and a bit of a cult following with how often their stock changed. Now they’re closing it down for some reason.”

Ann nods in sympathy. “It sucks when places like this are shut down.” 

Neku leans forward to get a better look inside the window. He can see the back door to the employees only room from here, it’s cracked. He takes a deep breath. He should be able to show her this place, he can’t get jittery and back out now. 

“It does,” he agrees, “But that’s why we’re here.”

“What do you mean?”

“C’mon,” Neku gestures for her to follow, “I’ll show you.” 

He takes her around to the back side of the store, which lies through a small alleyway. He’d been meaning to come around here himself soon, especially while the old owner still hasn’t sold it just yet and still comes around. There’s just been a lot going on these last few weeks. 

When they get around to the back door, Ann looks it over, “Is it locked? Can you pick it?”

“It shouldn’t be necessary,” Neku takes a step away from the door, “Try giving it a good shove or kick.”

At his instruction, she rears back and kicks open the door with her heel. It swings open with a scraping noise that grates his ears. 

“Wow,” she says in surprise, “That gave way easier than I thought it would.”

“They still leave the door unlocked even now, huh?” Neku mumbles softly to himself.

Ann glaces at him, “Did you say something?” 

“Just saying that there shouldn’t be any alarms or anything,” He says louder, taking the lead and walking inside. 

“Are you sure about that?”

“Positive. I checked last time I was here.” Neku looks around the inside of the back room. It’s so weird seeing it empty of everything. The small counter doesn’t have anything on it, there’s no bean bag chair in the corner, the table is gone. 

Ann steps inside, also looking around at the barren room. “You come here even though it’s closed?” 

“Only a few times,” Neku opens the door to the main store, “This way.”

Looking at the empty store is like looking at a black and white photo. All the color that came from all the different things they sold and people that came in here are all gone. The only thing left are the walls, a stool, and a few scattered objects.

One of the walls on the left is painted completely black, Neku remembers some clothes being on a rack over there, as well as a poster being on the wall. For now, it’s just what he needs. 

“Okay, misdemeanor number two,” Neku says before vanishing into the UG. 

Ignoring Ann’s sound of surprise, he concentrates. One of the perks of being Conductor is having a whole bunch of completely unnecessary abilities he’s able to do, like making things vanish into thin air and being able to bring them back whenever he wants. It’s a handy skill, but he tends to prefer not doing it if he doesn’t really need to, if only so he feels less abnormal.  

The handle of a decently heavy brown bag appears in his hand, its contents clinking against each other. He drops back to the Realground behind her.

Ann jumps again at his reappearance. “Jesus, Neku, you scared the hell out of me.” 

Neku scratches his head. “Oh really? Sorry,” he says, making sure to look entirely insincere. She rolls her eyes at him. 

“Where’d you even get that from?” Her gaze shifts to the bag. “Were you hiding it in the UG?”

It still catches him off guard whenever the Thieves bring up the UG, for some reason. It’s weird hearing them want to learn more. It’s one thing to know they know about it and be able to disappear whenever, but another thing for them to talk about it. Unless there’s something like a Game happening or it's a major topic in the conversation (which it rarely is) Shiki, Beat, and the rest tend to not bring it up seriously. It’s not hard to understand why.

Forget about that, he tells himself.

“It’s a magical bag,” Neku replies, keeping his voice completely deadpan. 

It gets a laugh out of her, which is good. He’s still doing things right. 

He looks over at the black wall before pulling out his phone with his free hand. “If you’re up for it, I’ve got a bunch of paints in this. I’ve been meaning to put the logo of this place up in here before it’s sold off to someone, wanna help?”

“I don’t know, I’m not really an artist.” Ann scratches her arm, unsure. “That’s actually how Shiho and I met, she told me my art sucked.”

Neku holds back a laugh. “It doesn’t have to be the next Sayuri, just make it genuine. You can have fun with it.” He pulls up the logo on his phone, where the letters form the vague birdly-shaped silhouette behind it. He turns it around so she can see. “The name of this place was Phoenyx.”

She looks at the phone, then back up to Neku. After a short moment, she nods. “Alright, where do we start?” 

“You might want to take off your jacket. Here, I have something so you don’t get paint everywhere.”

Neku teaches Ann the very basics before just telling her to paint whatever she wants. It starts from the idea to draw clouds and quickly spirals from there, the two of them creating a chaotic scene of a sky full of as many random objects they could think of, from food to furniture (leaving space for the logo in the middle of course). 

“What are you adding up there?” Ann asks as Neku pulls over the stool he saw earlier. 

“Your mask,” he explains, “I figure we should leave something of ourselves here.”

“Ooh, good idea! I’ll put yours over here.” She points to the corner she’s working on. 

It’s a while before they start on the actual logo. Ann decides to take a break, seeing as she doesn’t know how to do any of the technical stuff. 

“This was so much fun, but doing all this is making me thirsty,” Ann sighs, sitting down on the stool. “Maybe we should’ve gotten drinks too.”

Neku tilts his head in acknowledgment, setting down the can of spray paint he was holding before disappearing into the UG once again. Cure Drinks aren’t usually what he’d go for, but they don’t cause any bad effects when someone drinks them normally and they’re refreshing enough to be enjoyed casually. At least, if you could get past the weird and tangy aftertaste, which Neku can say definitely ruins it for him at the end of the day. 

He drops back to the RG, holding one out for Ann. With a look of surprise, she reaches out and takes it. “I can’t believe you can just make things appear out of thin air like that.” 

“You summon a demon.”

“Good point,” she shrugs, looking over the can. “What kind of drink is this?” 

Neku shrugs, turning back to pick up the spray paint. “To be honest? A magic one.”

“If life wasn’t as weird as it is recently, I don’t think I’d believe you at all,” Ann laughs. “Especially because you said the same thing as a joke earlier.”

“So you believe me now?” 

“Just barely.” 

“That’s close enough.”

There’s a moment of quiet before Ann makes a noise. “Wow, this is really good! I’m mostly relieved it’s not carbonated.”

Neku tilts his head a little as he works. “You don’t like carbonated stuff?”

“Nah, it’s not that,” she says, “Ryuji seems to be on a mission to get me to try all these weird flavored sodas recently and I’m starting to get sick of it.”

He breathes out a silent laugh through his nose, “Sounds like fun.”

“Maybe at first, but some of the flavors are gross. Ryuji thinks it’s funny, though.” He can practically hear the face she’s making. “If it sounds so fun then how about you try it out next time he tries to give me one? Share the misery.”

Is that… an invitation? To hang out with her and Ryui? Is he reading too far into it? Probably. She’s just joking around with him, he does that with his friends all the time. 

“There’s strength in numbers, the two of us can get him back and make him drink one really nasty.” 

“Ooh good idea! There was this one that tasted horrible that he admitted he never drank because he knew it was bad beforehand! Jeez, I was so mad—”

He lets her chatter wash over him, keeping an ear on the conversation enough to chime in here and there. But for the most part, he focuses on drawing the logo of the store. 

Neku’s work study excuse isn’t actually completely false. He does regularly work with and get advice and tips from a famous artist who doesn’t want people knowing their identity, it’s just that Mr. Hanekoma teaching him things isn’t why he leaves school for a week. 

The man’s also been really helpful in learning about not only art, but the UG and how it interacts with it. And that’s what Neku plans to do now. 

Imprinting with artwork is much different than imprinting on someone directly. For one thing, most artists already do it. How they convey their message and how it reaches out to other people is essentially the same as imprinting, just watered down a lot. Doing it intentionally with the goal of specifically passing along a message is a lot more difficult. Neku’s lucky that he has no doubts about what he wants to say, and that he had someone help him with saying it. 

He notices as he’s finishing up that Ann has stopped talking a short while ago. She’s looking over their handiwork with a proud look. Neku takes a step back to see the full thing, a silhouette of a rising phoenix pulling the stylized letters of the logo into the chaotic skies the two of them worked so hard on. 

Neku shifts where he stands, ignoring the prickling of his skin in favor of the happier feeling in his chest. And yet still, the irony of it all stays in the back of his mind. 

“So how about it?” He turns to Ann, “What were you thinking about when you were drawing it with me?” 

“You know, I was mostly thinking about how much this place must mean to you to make a mural here, and how much fun we had drawing all the stuff everywhere. Like when we both put butterflies in two different spots without realizing.” Ann laughs a little at that. 

Neku nods. “Well if that’s what it means, then what does it say? If the owners were to walk in, what would they get from it?”

“You sound so artist-y right now,” she comments before focusing back on the small mural. “I think it would tell them to stay. Is that why you wanted to make a mural for them?”

“Well, yeah.” Neku scratches the back of his head, looking away. This place is a great influence and everything, he thinks, knowing it’s absolutely not the full truth. Sure, his job as Conductor means helping Shibuya thrive and all, and usually he’d do that through recommending missions for the Players to help out businesses or people possessed by noise, but he’d be lying if he said it was only for Shibuya. 

It would be a dimmer world without places like these. 

Neku jumps a little as both of their phones go off at the same time. The group chat? 

The Pee Tees

Fox: I believe that Madarame may have undergone a change of heart.

Fox: I overheard him calling for a press conference for tomorrow, is it time?

Watching Madarame break down on camera and confess his crimes is satisfying, if Akira’s being honest. Not because he thinks an old man crying on television is satisfying, but because he knows that old man can no longer harm anyone again. 

They did good, and he’s proud of his team for that. It’s nice to feel like he can actually do something, to be more than just someone helpless to the whims of authority. 

Their group sits around the studio hideout, talking about Madarame’s confession. 

“You see that?” Ryuji elbows him in the side, a grin on his face. Akira huffs, shoving him back lightly in the shoulder. “C’mon, man! It was exactly like what happened with Kamoshida’s. The newspeople even mentioned us!”

“So that whole breaking down sobbing thing is normal?” Neku asks from where he sits on the arm of the seat Ann’s leaned back in. “Good to know.”

“Forget about that,” Ann suddenly leans forward, “They can’t call it a coincidence now. If we keep going with this we can inspire courage in so many more people!”

Morgana licks his paw, his tail flicking back and forth across the coffee table. “She’s got a point. Two odd events like this occurring so close together will be harder to write off.”

“We may have to be more careful though,” Yusuke leans against the wall closest to Neku. Those two never seem to be far from each other. “This much attention could be a bad thing later on.”

“Pfft, we’ll be fine,” Ryuji waves him off. 

“In any case, I must express my deepest gratitude to all of you. If it weren’t for you all, I’d still be lost amidst my own delusions and still being exploited.” Yusuke stands up straight, then bows, surprising the rest of them. 

“You don’t gotta be so formal, man,” Ryuji groans. 

“You were just as crucial in this,” Neku points out, “Don’t underestimate how much of your realization was your own doing.”

“Thank you,” Yusuke nods, ”I will take your words to heart.”

“By the way, have you tried talking to Madarame?” Morgana asks. 

“Oh yeah,” Ryuji tilts his head, “Has he mentioned anythin’ about that black masked guy?”

Out of the corner of his eye Akira sees Neku frown, looking a bit tense. Was it because Ryuji mentioned the black mask? Interesting… 

“I pressed him for answers, but it seems that he wasn’t in any state to talk,” Yusuke’s head lowers. “He didn’t seem to know much of what was going on, in any case. And I doubt we’ll be getting anything anytime soon if he’s sent to prison.”

“If he’s going to prison, where are you going to stay?” Ann asks, “Do you have anywhere to go?”

“The school dorms. I can stay there for free due to my fine-arts scholarship.”

Ryuji’s eyebrows raise at that. “Damn, both of you are that good at art?” 

“Which dorms are you staying in?” Neku leans forward, “There’s plenty of space in the co-ed dorms.”

“…I wasn’t aware that there were co-ed dorms,” Yusuke frowns, “The website only mentioned the separate dorms, so I assumed you were staying in the boy’s one as well.”

Neku tenses again, but scratches the back of his head as if to hide it. “Y-Yeah. They try not to mention it anywhere because the building is technically owned by some corporation or something and they’d have to pay more if more people lived there.”

“That’s a weird thing for a school to do,” Ann points out. “Don’t they like getting more money from students? And wouldn’t that pay off the building?”

“It might have something to do with whoever owns the building,” Neku shrugs, “So far there's only six of us there, and it’s pretty quiet whenever Neyume isn’t blasting music…”

“Then I’ve decided!” Yusuke declares. “I’ll look into transferring to yours starting tonight. What luck I have, I was afraid I would have to stay in that horrible place.”

Akira holds back his amusement. “Are the other dorms that bad?”

“Yes.” Neku and Yusuke both answer at the same time, causing Ann to let out a snort of laughter. Despite being entirely different in their personalities, they both do that a lot more than Akira would normally expect. 

“I haven’t stayed there myself, but the rumors about it are a nightmare.” Neku shivers. Akira can’t tell if that’s just for show. “It’s, uh, part of the reason I went out of my way looking for another dorm.”

“It’s a good thing Shujin doesn’t have any dorms, huh?” Akira feels the back of the couch dip as Ryuji leans back. “I can just imagine how many rumors would come outta that.”

Akira winces. It’s extremely likely that if Shujin had dorms he would be staying there instead of with Sojiro. For once he’s thankful for that drafty attic. And maybe he’s a little thankful for the coffee and curry he’s now addicted to. Just thinking about it now makes his stomach growl, drawing everyone’s attention away from the ongoing conversation. 

Ryuji stares at him. “Dude..” 

“Sorry,” Akira scratches his neck. “Had a light lunch today.”

Morgana jumps from the table to the couch, climbing onto the back of it and swatting at his face lightly with his paw. Ignoring the “Ow” Akira says in response, he shakes his head. “You need to eat better! I swear if I wasn’t here you’d be an unhealthy mess.”

Bold of you to assume I’m not already. “Yes, because the early bedtimes are the only thing keeping me from insanity.” Akira rolls his eyes. 

Ann perks up, “You know, if you’re hungry we could go get something to eat.”

The suggestion is a welcome one to their group of hungry teenagers, especially ones riding the high of a successful change of heart. Pretty soon they’re standing near the station trying to decide on where exactly they should go to eat. 

“Okay Akira, you’re the tie breaker again!” Ann announces. 

Akira blinks, staring at the others blankly. He hadn’t been paying any attention. “What are the options?”

“Ramen,” Ryuji gestures between himself and Neku, “Or sushi.” He gestures to Ann and Mona, who’s currently in her bag. 

He looks to Yusuke, who explains, “I am fine with either choice.”

Akira shrugs, about to pick one at random when he sees an officer in uniform and a one in a suit approaching. He freezes, his shoulders tensing as everyone else turns to them as well. 

Are they here for him? He didn’t do anything wrong, did he? Nothing that he could think of, at least, nothing in real life. 

“Shit,” he hears Ryuji mutter. “Attendance officers.” That makes him relax just a little. They’re probably not here for Akira specifically. Probably. 

“Hello there,” The man in the suit says. The other one seems to be eyeing Akira for some reason, causing anxiety to build in the back of his mind. “May I speak with you for a moment.”

“A-Ah , yes!” Ann says awkwardly. He could practically hear the rest of them wince at her acting. “How can we possibly help you today, officer sir?”

“What are you all doing here? Are you friends?” The man asks. 

“Yes we are,” Neku answers in a dry tone before Ann gets the chance to respond. “What do you want?”

The uniformed officer frowns, finally taking his eyes off of him and switching that suspicious gaze to a new target, much to Akira’s major relief. “What did you say? Watch your tone, kid.” 

“Do you need something from us or not?” Neku shrugs, seemingly unbothered by the stern officer. With both of the officers’ attention on him, Ryuji starts signalling behind them for Neku to stop… whatever he’s doing. 

“Just try to disperse before it’s too late, okay?” the suit says before his partner has a chance to say something. “There’s been some odd happenings lately, not to mention the stir caused by that artist on the news.” 

“Thanks for the warning,” Neku responds dryly. 

The two officers walk off and Ryuji immediately turns to Neku. “Dude, what the eff was that about!? I thought you were gonna get us in trouble!”

“That wouldn’t have happened,” Neku says with a confidence Akira can’t place. “Besides, did you see how he was looking at Akira like he was going to commit a felony right then and there? That didn’t look like a great spot to be in.”

Akira shifts on his feet. He’s not used to people noticing when he’s uncomfortable. “Thanks,” he says, because what else should he say? 

“Don’t worry about it.” Neku looks away, running a hand through his hair. “Where were we before this?”

“Akira was about to say he wants sushi!” Morgana jumps up. He’s technically right, but…

Akira smirks. “Actually, I was going to say ramen.” 

“Ha!” Ryuji grins, “In your face, cat!”

“Can we please just get going already?” Ann complains. 

“Ramen it is then,” Neku turns, “I can cover the cost for yours too, Yusuke.”

“Thank you, I am forever in your debt.”

“No, you’re really not.”

Akira trails behind the rest of them, listening to whatever the conversation has moved to now. Despite the rough little patches here and there, their first target as the actually established Phantom Thieves has gone well. And things are only going to continue from here. 

He can’t wait. 

Chapter Text

He stands in the darkness, shivers running down his spine. A light shines in the distance. The shadows reach out and loom above. They touch his back and bite at his heels. He finds himself walking slowly forward, not being able to speed up nor slow down.

There. The light that was so far is suddenly so close. The shadows recede from the streetlight he approaches. there are no surroundings other than the dark ground beneath his feet and the light shining down. He glances up to an eye, open wide in the and the source of the light. It intends to grind him to dust. 

A bloodcurdling scream rings out, high pitch and echoing inside his skull. It feels like his mind is getting torn to pieces just by the sound of it. 

“Let mE GO!” The scream says, letting out another harrowing screech.

And for a moment, he stays still like he’s supposed to. His feet do not move, the eye wears him down like sandpaper. 

Another scream, this time strangled by a sob. 

And he walks slowly forward. It feels like miles move under his feet. The light is far behind him. The darkness is suffocating. He could’ve been running a marathon and not be as out of breath. 

He stumbles, and he stumbles. He falls forward with a gasp. He hits hard concrete, staring up at an iron door and a small, dark, and barren room. 

Something pools around his hands and knees. It’s too dark to tell if it’s blood or water. It quickly grows until it covers the whole floor, and then it grows after that. 

He struggles to get up, but his ankles are bound. He looks back, there’s cuffs. He looks forward, there’s cuffs. He can’t move his wrists apart. 

The bloody water, the watery blood. It continues to fill up the room. He realizes something as he tries to take a deep breath. 

He can’t breathe. 

The scream rings out from somewhere in the room. Too loud and yet quiet compared to the sudden rush of static in his mind. He can’t breathe. The dark liquid keeps pouring. The bindings on his wrists, his ankles. They drag him down. 

The noise in his ears increases until it’s overwhelming. The water is up to his neck and rises even faster. He goes under. 

Surrounded in liquid darkness, he sinks. 

A hand grabs onto his wrist. 

Akira wakes up with a silent inhale. He’s long since learned how to wake up from bad dreams quietly. He lays there as the dream fades in his mind, calming his heart with deep breaths. 

That was a new one, from what he can tell. Fantastic. 

“…’kira?” Morgana mumbles sleepily from next to him. “You ok?”

Akira turns to face him, Mona’s head pokes up from the small ball he’s rolled himself into. “I’m-” Akira clears his throat. He can breathe, that’s good. It could be worse. “I’m fine. Just another bad dream.”

Of course, this doesn’t soothe his feline roommate in the slightest. At least it’s the truth. Akira’s had recurring nightmares since he could remember, and it was something he had to confess to Morgana early on once it became clear he wouldn’t be able to hide it for long. 

Mona lies back down, leaning into his side. “Can you fall back asleep?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Akira closes his eyes, “I’m fine.”

Even without seeing, he can tell Morgana is entirely unconvinced. Either way, Akira settles down to chase the coattails of sleep once again. He read somewhere that just resting your eyes, even if you can’t sleep, is better than staying up. 

Which is good, because Akira can’t fall asleep again for the rest of the night. At times like these, he’s grateful that he lives in a café. 

He drinks a cup of coffee when Sojiro shows up in the morning, another when the man isn’t looking (he notices anyways), and takes another one to school in a new thermos he bought. Sojiro gives him a look at the obvious bags under his eyes and the ungodly amount of coffee he’s drinking in such a short time span, but doesn’t ask about it. Instead, he says, “I don’t want to hear about you passing out in an alley, got it?”

Akira knows what he’s trying to say, though. Sojiro’s not too bad, really. He nods and heads out the door. 

“Isn’t today your social studies trip?” Morgana asks from his bag. Akira groans. He forgot about that. 

The TV station is exactly what he expected. Boring. 

“So sleepy…” Is one of the first things he says to his friends when they meet up, then he promptly zones out. 

He only comes to attention when he realizes someone else has walked over. Ryuji’s friend and Rhyme’s brother, Beat. He wears their school uniform more properly than Ryuji, but he’s obviously not happy about it. Huh, Akira didn’t know he’d also picked the TV station for the trip. 

“Man, I thought we’d get on TV, not listen to this boring shit,” he complains. “You’re from the country or somethin’ right? Any of your trips this bad?”

And suddenly eyes are on Akira, who didn’t realize at first that the question was aimed at him. After being silent for a moment too long and trying to play it off like he was thinking about something, he answers. 

“First year trips were more boring than this,” he barely holds back a yawn, “Worse if we went somewhere in town.”

Ann tilts her head. “Really? Why?” 

“It’s a small town,” Akira shrugs, “Only went places I’ve already been.” 

To be fair, Akira had a lot of free time to know the ins and outs of every street in his town. There were some places that even his classmates hadn’t been, but he knew every corner to the point where it wasn’t fun to go around anymore. Everything was so, so boring.  

Tokyo is the opposite of that, it's full of life and flair. Akira finds himself swept up in it sometimes, feeling like a bewildered tourist. But his old habits of learning every street and crevice always take hold soon after. 

Despite his circumstances, Tokyo is a breath of fresh air, and the metaverse always has him feeling high on oxygen. 

Akira is broken from his zoning out when a man in a suit shoves into his shoulder roughly, making him stumble and knocking the glasses off his face. Morgana barely holds back a yelp as his bag is jostled. 

“Hey asshole!” Beat steps up to the rude man, “What the hell was that!?” 

The man sneers and turns away from Beat as the rest of them pull him (and Ryuji) away from the scene before anything can happen. The man demands something or other from the newswoman who was speaking earlier. 

“What a piece of shit, thinking he can just do shit like that!” Ryuji picks up and hands Akira his dropped glasses. “You good man?”

“Yeah, are you okay Akira?” Ann asks. 

Again eyes turn to Akira as other students are being directed here and there to help out. “Fine. Thanks,” he answers, putting his glasses back where they belong. 

They all get assigned to tasks with helping around the studio. The people in charge seem to have no problem ordering them around and making Akira, Ryuji, and Beat specifically do a lot of the heavy lifting. Sometimes Akira’s sure that life has it out for him. 

As soon as they’re able to, the three of them escape off the set. Before leaving, Akira remembers to pick up his bag from where he left it far away from everyone. 

“We done here?” Mogana asks, poking his head up from the opening. At Akira’s nod, he perks up in excitement. “Can we go to that huge pancake looking place we saw earlier? Please?” 

“Sure, why not?” Akira shrugs, picking up his bag and trying not to jostle it much. Mona’s idea is much better than heading straight home, even if he really should take a nap. 

“Yes!” Morgana cheers, “That place looked delicious! Who makes a building look like food?”

“I dunno,” Akira shrugs again, “Keep your voice down, we’re catching up to Ryuji and Beat.”

Morgana heeds his caution. He’s not supposed to have a cat with him in general, not to mention in a TV station. He doubts that he would care, but better safe than sorry. 

Beat’s waiting in a hallway up ahead, Ryuji nowhere to be found. “Where’d Ryuji go?” he asks. 

“Bathroom,” Beat answers, “He was hella angry, too… Yo, you know what set him off today?”

Akira shrugs, taking a long sip of his thermos of coffee. He could reasonably guess that the excitement of their Phantom Thief exploits are making him jittery — hell, it’s been making Akira antsy (though that might just be caffeine) — but it’s not like he could tell Beat that. 

“Damn, I hoped you’d know since you hang out more than me n’ him.” Beat scratches the back of his head and fixes his beanie. “He’s been actin’ weird.”

Though Akira doesn’t know the details on how they know each other, it does make sense that people would notice how his teammates have changed in attitude recently. Especially if it was someone who actually knew them. 

“I’ll keep an eye on him for you,” Akira offers, since he’s already pretty much doing that. 

“Really?” Beat grins, “Ay, thanks man!”

He holds out a fist, and Akira only hesitates to return the fist bump because of the suddenness of it. “No problem.” 

Beat laughs. “You remind me of someone I know.”

Ryuji meets back up with them and soon so does Ann. They start planning about where to go afterwards, and a particularly adamant shove through his bag reminds him about Morgana’s request. 

“What about that…” he pauses, trying to think of Mona’s specific words. “That place that looked like a pancake? We passed it on the way here.”

“Oh, you mean Dome Town?” 

He can practically feel Morgana shrink away from the description of puke-inducing rides. Akira, on the other hand, is silently excited about it. He’s only gone to an amusement park maybe once or twice, and they were rides for children.

Then someone walks up to their group, asking if they’re from Shujin. He introduces himself as Goro Akechi. 

“Wait, ain’t you that detective guy?” Beat asks, looking like he’s trying to remember something. “My little sib was talkin’ about you. I think.” 

Akira’s eyes narrow slightly at the word “detective.” This Akechi guy looks their age, which is a little young to be in that line of work. But Akira could believe it, there have been young detectives before. Which means he needs to be cautious. 

“Really?” Akechi looks shocked in an incredibly fake kind of way. “I’m surprised you’ve heard of me. I’ve only made a few television appearances.”

“Uh huh.” Is all Beat says to that. About no one looks anywhere near impressed by this guy. 

“Anyways, I was just passing by, so I‘ve really got to get going. There’s a briefing for the recording tomorrow.” He pauses, “So are you all getting pancakes now? I’ve been hungry ever since I missed lunch.”

What?

“What?” Ann speaks his thoughts out loud. 

“Yeah, what are you talking about?” Ryuji asks. 

“Oh am I mistaken? Sorry about that.” He gives a light laugh. “No matter, I’ll see you all tomorrow.” 

They watch him leave and wait until his footsteps fade down the hall. 

“You sure Rhyme said he was a detective?” Ryuji asks Beat, “That guy’s gotta be some kinda startup entertainer. And not a good one.”

Beat shrugs. “Shit, I dunno. Rhyme tells me random facts all the time, so I can’t remember all of ‘em.”

They soon decide to leave for the amusement park. Now that he thinks about it, Akira is a little hungry. 

Neku takes the fastest route to his dorm. Two days ago, Shiki needed him to take some of her and Eri’s works in progress back to his dorm room because neither of them had space to store them at their homes. Shiki had promised that she’d be able to reorganize her stuff within the next two days, and he’d forgotten to bring the clothes with him to school. 

And so here he is, rushing to his dorm to bring them back before their fashion club starts. Rushing to beat the time is nostalgic in an incredibly anxiety-inducing kind of way. In other words, it doesn’t feel too nice. 

Even if it is slower moving through the RG, he has to so he gets Shiki’s message on time. She said she’d text him what she needed today, but it was too long to tell him in person. If he stayed in the UG there was no guarantee when it’d come through, even if he went back to the RG. That weird delay was why the metaverse thing was having so much trouble installing onto his phone. Probably.

So Neku rushes in between people in the crowds, but decides to take a different route. He knows his way through this part of Shibuya by heart, including any alleyways or shortcuts. 

Now if he follows this side street to the main one, he’ll just be just a block away from his dorm—

Neku crashes into someone while turning onto the street. The person stumbles with a yelp and drops something onto the ground, an oddly loud crunch ringing out. After regaining his own balance, he checks on the person he crashed into. A girl in a Shujin uniform, with short brown hair and intensely glaring eyes. 

“Sorry, I was in a rush,” he offers out a hand to help her up, “Didn’t mean to crash into you.”

The girl seems surprised by his apology, like she was just expecting him to just walk off after that. She takes his offered hand and he helps her up. “It’s fine.” 

Neku looks down, where her absolutely crushed phone lies on the ground. Shit, he did that? He picks up the smashed phone carefully and hands it back to her. “Sorry about this, too.”

“Oh,” she says, clearly upset about her broken phone. Yet, for some reason she schools her expression into something more blank. “It’s… fine,” she says a lot less convincingly. Then, suddenly, she switches topics. “You go to Kosei, right?”

Neku gestures down at his school uniform. “Wow, what gave it away?” 

“Has your school also been having trouble with students being tricked into jobs around here?” She asks, “I’m the student council president for Shujin, so I’ve been looking into it.”

Interesting… so this is the infamous Makoto Niijima, Icy President of Shujin that he’s heard a little about (mostly from Rhyme, since they are on the committee). Neku nods, he’d be a shitty Conductor if he didn’t know about the increased crime around here. Does that mean he has a plan for dealing with it? …Not exactly. He can’t exactly bust an entire crime ring by himself, even if that was one of his responsibilities (which it isn’t, thankfully). 

“Yeah, but I wouldn’t be able to tell you anything about it.” He pauses. That’s not exactly true. “Right now, at least.”

She stands straighter at that, “Could I contact and ask you at a later date? What is your name?”

“My name is Neku,” He says. “I guess if you want to talk, I could give you my phone— oh, wait.”

Neku crosses his arms, thinking. “Tell you what. Since I broke your phone, I’ll let you know where you can fix it.”

“What? N-No, no,” she insists, “You don't have to do that.”

Neku ignores that, already writing things down and ripping the page out of his notebook. “So you go to this address and show the barista at the café this note. He’s good with electronics, and should fix up your phone for free. Head there tomorrow and it should be fixed by Saturday.” Or for the cost of me having to work off my debt at his café. “I wrote my number at the bottom, so… If you want more info, I guess? I’m not sure what a student council president is supposed to do about organized crime but…”

A sudden spike of anxiousness reminds him that he has to go. Like right now. “I should get going. I’m still in a rush, so…” 

Neku escapes the interaction before Niijima can say anything else to him, leaving her bewildered. 

The next day is the day where they sit in on the broadcast. Akira’s mostly glad that it’s not going to be nearly as boring as yesterday. He wonders what this talk show episode will be about. 

When Goro Akechi walks onto the set, Akira almost has his eardrums damaged by all the cheering from the students who recognize him. And of course this “Detective Prince” brings up the Phantom Thieves. Akira can’t help but be on guard. 

And even more on guard when he has a microphone shoved in his face. 

“What are your thoughts on these Phantom Thieves, if they were real?” The announcer lady asks. 

Put on the spot yet again with no time to prepare an answer. “They’ve brought more justice than any cops around here, so I think they’re necessary.” Akira mentally facepalms. Why didn’t he just lie? 

Akechi has his polite smile fade into a more intrigued expression as the host expresses surprise at Akira’s response. Akira’s got to admit, the detective is good at controlling his expressions. But he knows a faker when he sees one, no wonder the guy goes on TV. 

“Such a strong acknowledgement…” Akechi puts a hand on his chin. “In that case, may I ask you one more question?”

“You just did, but you can ask another.” 

“Well yes, I suppose I did.” The crowd laughs while the host and Akechi give good TV-perfect chuckles. “My question is, if someone close to you, like your friend next to you, had his heart suddenly changed… wouldn’t you think it was the work of the Phantom Thieves?”

Oh, this one’s easy. “Not at all. It breaks the pattern of them only targeting criminals.”

“I see.” Akechi nods. His expression looks a little less fake. Interesting. “But two can hardly be considered a pattern.”

Akira feels the corner of his mouth pick up slightly. “Yet you can’t call this circumstance a coincidence, can you? Otherwise we still wouldn’t be talking about them.” 

“No, I suppose not.” Akechi concedes. 

The woman holding the microphone walks back to sit next to the host. The rest of the show continues. They watch Akechi make theories on how the Thieves stealing hearts is dangerous and listen to the host suck up to him. 

After the show, the detective approaches him before he can leave. Akira honestly doesn't care about all the waxing poetic about some philosophical thing he doesn’t know, nor does he care about the phone number he doesn’t ever plan to call, but he is concerned why a simple conversation was so impressive. Akira doesn’t trust any of it. 

And yet the chime of another bond rings in his mind. He’s got a feeling about what he’s getting himself into. And, for the most part, it’s not a good one. 

The next day, Akira can tell that Akechi’s words had left their impact on his teammates. Mostly because Ryuji was halfway to screaming about it in the middle of the school campus.

But other than that, it’s obvious that everyone is ready to go after another target, so they all call a meeting the day after that. 

“Yusuke,” Ann starts once they meet up with him and Neku, “Why are you still carrying that around?”

In his arms, Yusuke holds the Sayuri. For some reason. 

“Despite the comfortable furnishings and aesthetically pleasing decor of the co-ed dorms, putting my mother’s portrait there is less than ideal,” Yusuke dips his head in thought. “Maybe it’s that the colors don't feel right, or the passion never hits me no matter where I picture it. There’s some reason that I cannot let Sayuri stay there, nor will I allow it to be shoved in some storage closet ever again.”

Ryuji raises his eyebrows. “So what, you’re carrying it around ‘til you’re hit with some kinda artist urge?” 

“Yes, exactly.” Yusuke smiles, seeming pleased. “I’m happy to see that you understand me completely.”

“Uh, sure man.”

They somehow move from talking about potential targets to talking about how they are going to celebrate their takedown of Madarame’s Palace. 

“What about LeBlanc?” Morgana offers without his consent. “We could order sushi and eat it together!”

Though not entirely sold on the sushi idea, everyone seems enthusiastic about going to LeBlanc, and Akira can admit that it’d be nice to have his friends over for a more positive reason. None of them had even gotten to try the coffee or anything. 

Akira makes sure to text Sojiro in advance about their arrival, even though he doubts his guardian will see it. Sojiro’s not too much of a texting kind of man. 

He’s proved right when Sojiro seems surprised to see him come in early with others. 

“More this time?” he says with a bit of exasperation. “Where do you keep getting these strays, kid?”

Sojiro seems to be in a good mood, so Akira decides to risk it. “Same place I found Morgana.”

Luckily, Akira’s joke does get some laughs, and Sojiro isn’t really upset that he brought people over this time. 

Yusuke seems to have all his attention captured by the café around them, even when Akira serves them some coffee to try, he seems caught between the two. Akira decides to leave him to it, he’d say something if he had a problem. 

They head upstairs soon after. After everyone gets settled, Yusuke shows an article he pulled up on his phone. It’s about them, as the Phantom Thieves. Judging from the headline, it isn’t very positive. 

“We’re all over the news now,” Yusuke says, “Even people who believed in us previously are changing their minds, all of them influenced by the comments made on TV.”

“It’s because of that damn Akechi!” 

“Lower your voice, Ryuji, we don’t want to be heard.” Yusuke sighs, “But I agree. Those comments were most unfortunate to our reputation.”

“I’ve been thinking about that a lot.” Neku chimes in. 

“Have you been having doubts like Lady Ann?” Morgana asks. 

“No, not really. I mean, sure, there’s always a grey area in what the Phantom Thieves are doing, but I’ve got reasons not to be worried about that. No, what I was thinking about was his mention of a police investigation.”

“Right, he did say they were already looking into us.” Ann puts a hand to her chin, “But we operate in the metaverse, so it’s not like the investigation can be far along, right?”

Akira thinks about it, the police aren't even entirely sure of their existence, nevermind their identities. Still, the thought of the police on their trail makes him anxious. 

“Not exactly.” Neku crosses his arms. “Think about it. The Phantom Thieves started at Shujin, so the suspects for Kamoshida’s change of heart would be students or faculty that would have a motive. Anyone in the school could be a suspect. 

“But with Madarame, that could narrow it down. Faculty aren’t likely to be in Madarame’s circle or talking to his pupil, so it could be students. Specifically, students that were aware that the situation was going on somehow, maybe because of Yusuke directly or just with a friend who attends Kosei.

“And so every time we go out as a group and talk about being Phantom Thieves in public, anyone could see,” he gestures to Akira, Ann, and Ryuji, “Shujin students,” he points to himself, “A Kosei student, who happens to be close to,” he points to Yusuke, “Madarame’s former pupil.”

After a moment of silence as all of them think about his point, Neku sighs. “I’m probably overthinking this, but I figure it’s better I bring it up now than later.”

“Damn,” Ryuji looks down, “So we can’t even hang out in public or somethin’?”

“What? No, I never said that. I’m just saying that we’ve got to be careful.” 

“We’ll keep that in mind.” Mona scratches behind his ear. “But for now we should focus on finding our next target. Anyone get any leads?”

The answer to that is no, none of them can really find any big target that they can tackle next. Akira himself hasn’t really been looking, since he’s been a lot more busy recently. 

“Well if we just have to sit around until we find a target, then there isn’t much we can do right now. So…” Ann grins, “We should decide on how we’re going to have our welcome party!”

They decide on having hot pot and split up to get supplies, leaving Akira and Neku to set up as the others get ingredients. 

After Akira brings the pot back upstairs, they both pull out the portable stove and start setting up. 

“I’ve never had hot pot with friends before,” Neku mentions offhandedly, “Usually we go out and get ramen.”

“Like the other day?” Akira asks.

“Yeah, the place we all went to is actually our usual spot.”

“Our?”

“Shiki, Eri, Beat, Rhyme, and I.” He holds up a finger for each name. “Shiki and Eri go to Kosei, but the Bito siblings go to your school.”

“I’ve met both of them before, but I didn’t know you were friends.” Akira wonders how they even met in the first place. From what he knows, there aren't too many people from Shujin who are actually friends with people at Kosei. The overall attitude of Shujin is very enclosed, in a way. Most people stick with the friends they make in school. 

“I’m not surprised, Rhyme gets along with everybody and Beat…” Neku looks away, scratching at the back of his head. “Beat’s hard guy to miss. Do you have a table we can pull out somewhere?”

Akira shows him where the foldable table he found while cleaning up is stored. 

“Have you ever done something like this with friends?” Neku asks as he sets it up, “Back in your old town?”

“Not really, I wasn’t close with anyone like that.” Akira pauses. That’s not entirely true. “Well, sometimes I’d eat dinner over at my neighbor’s house after I finished babysitting.”

“Babysitting? I can see you doing that.” Akira raises an eyebrow at the comment, and Neku continues, “You just seem like one of those people I can imagine in any situation doing anything.”

“Really?” Akira hums, “I’m not all that.”

“I mean, I can only see myself later in life doing the same stuff I’m already doing now. And if being an artist doesn’t work out, I have a limited amount of options from there. There’s no way you’ll ever see me in an office job.” He pauses. “But you got the whole jack-of-all-trades thing going on outside the metaverse too.”

Jack of all trades, huh? Akira’s been called that quite a few times before, but he’s pretty sure that saying ends with “master of none,” right? Either way, it’s accurate. 

Neku frowns suddenly, but before Akira can ask why, the commotion from everyone arriving downstairs distracts both of them. 

“Hey, do you think…” Neku stops him before they head downstairs. “Do you think there was anything to that whole… thing with someone else in the metaverse?” He speaks carefully, like he’s choosing his words. 

Akira wishes he knew why Neku was so secretive, or at least whether or not he was withholding information out of malice. But from what he can tell, Neku wouldn’t actively hide something that could hurt them. He doesn’t seem like that kind of person, so Akira tries to trust his gut on this. 

On the other hand, that means that he’s not talking because of something else. Even though Akira doesn’t want to jump to conclusions, he has a feeling like it’s related to why Neku had such a visceral reaction to the sight of a gun. And that makes him worried.

“We’ll stay on guard,” Akira says, “And see if any other shadows have had a visit from this person.”

Neku sighs, a bit of annoyance in his voice. “I guess that’s all we can do.”

They walk down the stairs to meet the others, taking a look through the bags at all the ingredients they’ve gotten. 

The meal is delicious, they all have fun talking and eating as much as they want. In the end, Ann falls asleep leaning on the side of the couch and even Neku’s looking drowsy sitting next to her. 

“You know, this is a great opportunity to get to know each other better,” Yusuke says, “You all know every detail of my past so far, so it’s only fair.”

Akira can get that. If he had to tell a bunch of people about everything in his life, he’d probably want to know something about them too. 

Ryuji speaks about his history with Kamoshida first, laying out the full story.  Akira leans forward a little when the attention shifts from Ryuji to Neku.

“Well, I don’t really have much to say,” he shrugs. “I lived with my mom before I moved into the dorms, but we aren’t really close.”

“Do you have any siblings?” Morgana asks, seeming interested in learning about their more secretive friend.

“No.” Neku glances away. “Anyways, I used to spend most of my time out of the house and I still do. Had a lot less people to spend time with, though.”

Ryuji scratches behind his head. “Whatcha mean?” 

Neku frowns. “I just didn’t have any friends before, that’s all.”

“I would never would’ve guessed.” Yusuke looks down in contemplation, “You and your friends welcomed me so graciously, and I figured you had known Shiki and Eri for years.”

“I guess it feels that long, but it hasn’t been.” Neku crosses his arms. “Me and other people used to not mix as well, so… Before I met Shiki, I hadn’t been close to anyone for… a long time. It’s fine now, things are different.”

Something in his voice makes it clear that this part of the conversation is over.

There’s something about hearing other people share their experiences that makes it a little easier to share his own. But the only thing Akira can think to share right now is about his arrest, or at least the more detailed version. 

Of course, they don’t really need to know about everything. There’s no way he’ll tell them about all the confusion and fear of dealing with law enforcement who were determined to prove he was a villain.

No, that stays between himself and his nightmares. 

Fortunately, his friends take his burdens and turn it into more motivation. Motivation to continue to go after people who are abusing their power and hurting others. Akira’s done the same, he knows there’s nothing he can do about his situation now, but if he can stop it from happening to someone else then he’s already making things better.

When Ann wakes up, her comment about knowing them forever due to their similar backgrounds is something that makes him think. He can’t find it in him to disagree, because this is really the only group of people who he’s genuinely related to. It gives him a feeling of familiarity, and he can tell the others feel the same way, except… 

Except Neku’s looking away from the group, and Akira feels like he understands that in a different way. 

Chapter Text

It’s a surprise when Akira walks downstairs to find the Sayuri hanging on the wall. It seems Yusuke finally found the perfect place for it, and Akira can’t help but agree with that decision. There must have been something missing there before, because he feels like another thing in Leblanc’s atmosphere has finally slipped comfortably into place. 

He’s quick to start getting ready for the next day as soon as everyone leaves, and soon, Akira falls asleep. 

He has no dreams, instead feeling the familiar sensation of falling. Soon the feeling stops. He never feels the landing, but he knows he’s arrived when a haunting melody reaches his ears. 

Slowly his senses start to come to him, but before he even opens his eyes to move from the uncomfortable bed, a heavy feeling, almost like a weighted blanket, falls on him. Except he knows there’s no blanket on the bed in the Velvet Room. The feeling increases as he hears a voice whisper to him. 

“…closed— be… you… liste—“  

Akira isn’t sure what to think about that. The clearest words he could make out were “closed” and “listen,” so he supposes that it’s telling him to keep his eyes closed and listen to something? He decides to try it, because why not?

Keeping his eyes closed and steadying his breathing, Akira listens carefully. Now that he’s focused on it, he can suddenly hear an ongoing conversation loud and clear. 

“…than we ever anticipated.” Justine’s calm voice floats over to his ears. “Is… the Inmate’s bond with the Conductor something to be concerned about, Master?”

“Did you find something concerning?” Igor’s deep voice asks in response. 

“Well…” a pause, “It’s a lot stronger than we previously expected, Master. The Conductor’s bond is affecting other bonds somehow. The bond is otherwise normal, yet the effect itself feels…”

“—iliar…” The whispery voice from earlier finishes. “—an… mask…”

“Yeah, maybe the Inmate messed something up!” Caroline huffs.

Igor chuckles, “The Trickster’s bonds, his Confidants, are all the same in nature, they will either lead him to greatness or ruin. This one will be no different, should the Conductor not interfere with the Trickster’s rehabilitation.” 

“If you’re sure…” says Caroline. 

There’s a moment of silence. That feeling from before slips, just a little. It’s weighted grip loosens, its grasp soon to be pried away. Whatever that feeling is, it’s losing its effect… whatever that may be. 

“Justine?” Caroline’s voice rings in his ears, despite how it sounds like she’s whispering. “You look like you have something to say.”

“…What shall we do if the Conductor does interfere?” she whispers back. The feeling slips away more. “Or worse, Shi—”

“Shh!” Caroline hushes just as the heavy feeling releases its hold entirely. “The Inmate is waking up!”

Damn, he felt like he almost got something there. Whatever that voice was, it helped him learn about whatever this Conductor is. Someone he has a bond with…

Akira opens his eyes to blue walls, gets to his feet, and walks over to the confining bars as usual. 

“The prisoner has returned,” Justine announces. Somehow, the mystical beings of the Velvet room hadn’t noticed his listening earlier, so Akira decides to keep it that way and play dumb. 

“The bonds that you have reeled in are quite intriguing…” Igor says, his fingers tapping on the desk in a rhythm entirely disconnected from the melody that plays throughout the room. “Especially the bonds with those you fight alongside.”

Akira raises an eyebrow. He feels like he should be cautious. “…What about them?”

Igor chuckles. “Have you noticed? Your heart inspires theirs, and as you continue to deepen your bonds, they will become the strength behind your rehabilitation.”

He nods to Justine, who holds out her hands. With a wave of her hand, five cards appear, floating mid air. She shows him the picture on each of them, naming them as they pass. 

“The Magician, the Lovers, the Chariot, the Suit of Spades, and a bond not yet realized.” 

The last two cards are the odd ones out. The one for Spades doesn’t feature any people in the picture, instead having four blades, decorated with the spade symbol, stabbed into the cracked ground. There is a feather in the center of the sky, and he’s half sure that it depicts blood on one of the blades. The last card is blurred, but Akira can make out a face just underneath the weird shifting fog that covers it, he gets a feeling of steadiness when he looks at it, staying with him even as the card moves away.

“These are the Confidants of your teammates, Inmate!” Caroline bangs her baton on the bars. “You better make sure you strengthen them as soon as possible and don’t stay a weak prisoner!”

One of these bonds, or maybe one out of all his Confidants as a whole, is someone even those in the Velvet Room are concerned about. The Conductor. Akira’s not sure what to think about it, he’ll need more information about it before forming an opinion. 

Either way, he quietly thanks that random voice who helped him learn something. 

He wakes up the next morning, leaving behind blue walls and chains. Sojiro is in a good mood when he leaves for school, which is probably a good sign for the start of the day. 

His classes go fine. He’s only called on once all day and it was a relatively easy question. All in all, the day is going fine. Hopefully it stays that way. 

“Yo, Akira! You up for hangin’ out with me after school today?” Ryuji asked him when lunch rolled around. 

Akira nods, “I’m free today.” 

“Nice,” He grins, “Wanna run with me?”

“Alright,” He agrees, “Sure, I’ll go.”

Before coming to Tokyo, if someone asked him if he wanted to go on a run with them Akira would've looked at them strangely and denied them straight away. But working out and running with Ryuji is different from the stuff he’s forced to do in P.E. He enjoys it enough that when he feels like he’s dying at the end of it, he doesn’t regret it that much. 

But that says more about Ryuji than it does about Akira’s opinion of running. 

“I’m thinking we can go a different route this time,” Ryuji says when they’re done getting changed into their PE wear after school. “You feel me?”

Akira shrugs, “You got something in mind already?”

He leans against the school gate. “I say we go all the way down to the station, hook a right, then we go right again when we hit those ritzy apartments and head back, yeah?”

“Sounds good.” Akira isn’t actually familiar with the area beyond his normal route to school, but he’d probably agree to anything by this point so it’s fine. “You take the lead.”

“We gotta do stretches first, duh,” Ryuji elbows him, “C’mon.”

By the time they actually start to jog, Akira already feels tired. Great. Ryuji starts off at a slower pace than usual, explaining that they need to conserve energy since they’re running for longer. 

“Makes sense,” Akira agrees between breaths. Why is he doing this again? He hates jogging for long periods of time. 

Then Ryuji almost effortlessly starts talking to him about the newest volume of some manga that was just released. As usual, Akira is a little jealous that he can do that so easily. But listening to his friend talk about things he enjoys is fine with him, and it always helps distract him from the urge to give into tired muscles (he has a sneaking suspicion that Ryuji does it on purpose). 

Partway through they take a quick break like they always do, this time at the station. 

“This next half is a little longer than the first one,” Ryuji says, “So we might as well take a breather.” 

Akira, who’s still gasping and out of breath, only nods. The two of them end up leaning on a wall outside the station as they catch their breath, having a rare moment of silence as they watch people go by. 

“Huh,” He hears Ryuji say next to him, “She’s out today.” 

Akira looks up at him, then follows his gaze to someone standing still in the crowd. They have a small cart next to them, a seller of some kind? “Who’s that?” 

“I dunno her name, but she sells flowers outside of this station and Shinjuku’s, I think.” Ryuji pauses, chewing on his lip as if he’s debating something. Then after a moment, he continues. “I buy one for my mom sometimes, it’s cheaper here than the flower shop in Shibuya. Lasts longer too, for some reason.”

“Hm, yeah. That sounds like something you’d do,” Akira smirks. 

Ryuji leans back. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I mean it’s sweet of you to do something for your mom,” He responds sincerely. 

“Yeah, well,” Ryuji glances away, “I just think she deserves somethin’ bright to see sometimes. I dunno about all that flower meaning stuff you do.”

You’re something bright to see, Akira carefully chooses not to say. “Are you gonna get one for her today?” he asks instead. 

Ryuji sighs, “Nah man. What amr I gonna do with it when we gotta run back?”

“Walk?” He suggests, “And we go jogging again some other time this week?” His body will regret that suggestion, but sacrifices must be made. 

“I guess, but I left my wallet with our stuff and she’s prob’ly not gonna be out here selling by the time we’re done.”

Thinking for a moment, Akira stands up fully. There’s an easy solution to this. “Come on.” 

He and Ryuji walk up to the flower seller, who greets them with enthusiasm. “Hello there! Are you interested in buying some?” 

Akira brings out his wallet from his pocket, which he never leaves anywhere (even though Morgana has decided to nap with their bags and “guard” them). “Go ahead and pick one out for your mom, I’ll pay for it.”

Ryuji stares at him, obviously confused. “Dude. What.”

“Am I speaking another language now?” Akira jokes. “Buy me a soda later and we’re even.”

After a moment, Ryuji laughs. “Sure man, I owe you one.”

The time it takes Ryuji to pick out a flower is significantly longer than Akira expected as he carefully looks over the selection. Also a little unexpected, Ryuji turns to him for advice every once in a while about the meaning of one. 

“You seem like you know your stuff,” the young woman leans on the cart. Her green eyes look at him almost knowingly. “How about a test?”

He shrugs, why not? “Sure.”

“Those daffodils, what do they mean?” she points. 

“Unrequited love or respect.”

“Alright, what about that Gladiolus?”

“Strength, I think.”

“Okay then, how about this…” She picks up another flower. A pale yellow lily if he remembers right. 

“Joy, right?” Akira guesses. “Or devotion.”

“Almost,” she hums, “This is a very special kind of yellow daylily. Carefully grown and selectively bred in my own garden. I think that gives it a new meaning all on its own.”

Akira puts his hands in his pockets. “Which is?” 

“Something you’ll have to research on your own,” She turns away from him to put it back on the cart. “How’d you learn about flowers anyways?”

“Helped with my neighbor’s garden.”

“Neat!” she grins, “Have you been gardening for long?”

Akira thinks back, trying to remember how many years it’s been. Four? Five maybe? “A while,” he answers. 

She tilts her head. “Ever keep any flowers for yourself?” 

Akira shrugs. “Just one.”

“Geez, do you ever say anything more than five words?” She crosses her arms. 

Akira lets out a snort at that. Well, she didn’t seem too bad to talk to, probably. “I had a pot of marigolds that I kept near my window.” They were blooming before he came to Tokyo and will probably be dead or dying by the time he gets back. He wishes he could’ve brought it. The houseplant in his room (which he of course has named Deborah) just doesn’t cut it as much. 

“Marigolds, huh? A nice choice- oh, have you picked one?” She turns to Ryuji. “A pink carnation, how lovely. I’m sure it’ll be a great gift. Is this all you’ll be getting?” For some reason, she looks at Akira when she says that. “Since we have a kinship in flower language, how about I give you one on the house as well?”

Well, Akira doesn’t know if he has a vase or anything to keep it. He takes the offer anyway, “A sunflower, then.” That should make for a good memory of the day

On the walk back, he looks at the flower in Ryuji’s hands. It seems brighter than most carnations he’s seen in other stores, and if Akira didn’t know better he might think it’s fake. “Most people get more than one flower for gifts, y’know,” he comments. 

“Yeah, uh, I’ve been buying her flowers and stuff since I was little. Couldn’t afford much as a grade schooler, and now it's kinda stuck.” Ryuji shrugs. 

Akira hums, “I could’ve bought more.”

“Dude. I don’t think you realize how weird it is for you to buy me flowers for my mom,” He laughs, elbowing him lightly again. “It’s nice n’ all, but still weird.”

“Whatever.” He shrugs, being weird is something that is perfectly acceptable to him if it means doing something nice for his friend. “You still owe me a soda.”

They continue talking about whatever on the way back, soon arriving back at the school. Ryuji somehow ropes Akira into stretching, since they technically did work out today. 

By the time they head back in the direction of the station to go home, he sees Ryuji is right. The flower lady isn’t there anymore. They part ways on their different trains and Akira heads back to LeBlanc. 

He finds a vase in the pile of junk in the corner of the attic that he still has no idea where to put away. It’s a good size for the flower he bought, so he fills it up and sets it on the shelf. It looks nice. 

The next school day passes without incident. At least, until he gets told to come to the student council room after school. Those left in class turn to face him at this news, despite the fact that Kawakami tried to tell him quietly. 

“‘Lost item paperwork’ my ass,” Akira mutters as he walks out of the classroom. Everyone knows that reasoning is fake, and so he can only guess as to what the student council president could possibly be covering up. 

This is going to be a long talk, isn’t it? Akira prepares to try and get out of this as quickly as possible. It’d be difficult, considering everything, but maybe he could talk his way out of it? This is going to be exhausting. 

He opens the door with the perfect picture of confusion and innocence on his face. Makoto Niijima does not look very convinced. 

When he sits down, he tries to play it up just a little though. “You wanted to see me about a lost item? I’m sorry, I never reported anything like that.”

“Kurusu,” She says as a warning. But he speaks before she can continue.

“Or were you trying to apologize for following me? It’s okay, no hard feelings,” He leans forward with a thoughtful look. “Except for the steak. That hurt my feelings—”

“I’m just going to get straight to the point, Kurusu,” she cuts him off. “Kamoshida and Madarame. The Phantom Thieves. Won’t you tell me the truth behind it all?”

Akira leans back, deciding that this is something he has to get serious about, unlike last time. “I can’t tell you what I don’t know.”

“Really?” She raises an eyebrow, “But of course, there's no way you’d admit to such things.”

She takes out a piece of lined paper, the edge ripped up on one side. “However, I remember on June 11th there was a conversation I overheard from you and your friends. If I recall, Ryuji Sakamoto said, and I quote, ‘If someone else could help them, we wouldn’t be doing stuff as the Phantom Thieves to start with.’ Does that sound familiar?”

He didn’t exactly say it that way, is the first thought that Akira has in response to that. The second is, Wait. She heard Ryuji.  

“What are we going to do?” Morgana asks from his bag. 

Keeping his face passive, he tries to reason this all out. How can he get out of this when it is still plainly obvious that she knows that he knows she knows he and his friends are the Phantom Thieves? He probably can’t, but he’s going to try. 

“Can’t really remember every conversation I had that day.”

Niijima’s eyes narrow. “Oh, how unfortunate. What about when Ann Takamaki had said, ‘So you think it’s true? We’ll be okay if we keep doing this right?’ Does that ring a bell?”

Akira shrugs in response, his mind almost forming a plan. With a sigh, she continues, “…What could all of this possibly mean? More importantly, what is it that you and your friends do as the Phantom Thieves? Did you blackmail them? Is it hypnosis?”

He glances between her scarily intense eyes and the paper on the table, before something becomes clear to him. What is the point of all of this again? “What a great performance, Niijima-senpai,” Akira leans back nonchalantly in his chair. 

She looks at him with suspicion. “You cannot seriously be denying it still?” 

He moves quickly, snatching the paper from her hand and standing up to hold it out of reach when she reflexively tries to grab it back. He glances at it, and sure enough there’s hand-written quotes of each of his friends’ words.

“This paper isn’t proof,” He says simply, tapping on the paper. “You could’ve just made this all up.”

“You know if you stick to that claim, it’s your word against mine,” Niijima argues. 

“Yeah, if you take it to the principal or the authorities,” Akira concedes, “But then what’s the point of this conversation? It’s my word versus yours, like you said, and everyone with a brain would favor you. So why not go the winning route from the beginning?”

She crosses her arms, studying him. He waits as long as he needs with a blank face until she huffs. “Fine, fine. You got me, Kurusu, I needed you to do something for me. But I can still use this evidence to prove—”

“If you’re really that desperate, go ahead,” Akira leans against the table on one hand, setting the paper back down with the other and sliding it over. He mentally squares his shoulders. 

“But you know what this looks like? It looks like a student council president under stress. The student body doesn’t trust her and the principal wants something from her. So she turns to using someone who has it worse. She turns to blackmailing someone who’s already at the bottom—someone who, before this, was going to hang out at the arcade with a friend.”

A lie towards the end there, it comes out as second nature. But if that added onto the end makes her feel at least some sympathy for his situation, then it’s fine. Maybe, if this all goes well, he’ll actually decide to go to the arcade. 

When he looks back up to Niijima, she isn’t looking back at him. Instead she looks off to the side, a contemplative and troubled look on her face. Akira sighs. Rhyme was right, and this would all be so much easier if the student council president wasn’t clearly a good person at heart. 

So he straightens. “And… if you’re under that much pressure and you did all that just to get some help from the Phantom Thieves…” 

She looks up at him in surprise and shock at his words. “Are you serious?”

“…I heard there’s a website where you can request something from them. It’s called the Phansite,” He continues with humor in his tone. “I’m confident they’ll take whatever request you might have.” 

She blinks, then shakes her head with a little reluctant amusement. “Right, well. I guess I might have to do that.”

There’s a pause. Niijima looks to be analyzing him once again, before she folds her hands in front of her. “You’re dismissed, Kurusu.”

“Thank you,” he says sincerely. Grabbing his bag, he leaves the room with a tiny wave. 

When he exits, he leans against the closest wall. “Holy shit,” he whispers in disbelief. 

“How the hell did you pull that off?” Morgana says incredulously from his bag. 

Akira thinks over the past few minutes of his life and gives the most honest answer he’s ever given in his entire existence. “I have no idea.”

Chapter Text

Neku is at Wildkat paying off his debt to Mr. H when he gets a call. It’s from a certain student council president. Did she already decide?

Makoto Niijima had called him yesterday, asking to meet with him and discuss what he knows about the crimes and blackmail involving students. 

They met up at the station, spending an awkward few minutes with Neku denying any payment for the whole phone repair thing (he broke it in the first place, he thought it was obvious that that was supposed to be making up for it). But then she got down to it surprisingly quickly, immediately asking for what he knows. 

“I’ve heard of two ways they ‘recruit’ students,” Neku told her, trying to frame it like he heard a rumor. 

“The first way,” he began, “Is through job advertising posters. They basically say they’re looking for help wanted by teens, have a phone number to call, but no other information about the job itself. Obviously, it’s a scam.”

Makoto’s demeanor had shifted as soon as he started talking. “I’ve seen those around. Putting out a notice that they’re not legitimate may reduce how many fall victim.” She said the last part more to herself. 

“Maybe,” Neku shrugged. “The second is recruiting done in person. Sometimes I see some guys in the alleys, apparently asking kids if they want a job.”

“They’re that direct?” She frowned. “Where do they do their recruiting?”

“Usually on Central Street, sometimes heading towards 104, and occasionally on the way to Tower Records,” Neku listed off the routes before realizing it’d be hard to explain how he knew the specifics. “I’m not sure when they show up, though.” 

“Do you know what these jobs might entail?” she asked with a sudden intensity. 

Neku crossed his arms, turning away from her gaze. “I can’t help you there, but it’s probably something extremely shady. Whatever it is, I’ve heard of kids being forced into debt because of it.”

She took a moment to think over his words, her eyes moving from him to the darker walkways near them. Then, as if deciding something, she nodded. “Thank you so much— uh,” She stuttered, “I just realized I don’t know your surname.”

He scratched behind his head, reluctant to say. He hadn’t given his family name to her for a reason, and now that he knew she was such an… intense student council president, it was safe to assume she was the type to google him. Which is not something people do when meeting new people in most settings, and also kinda creepy. “Right. It’s Sakuraba. But you’re not from my school, so it’s fine if you call me Neku.”

Niijima raised her eyebrows, but after a pause she nodded with understanding. “Well thank you for helping with my phone and with the information…” She hesitated, just slightly, before saying, “…Neku-kun. I’ll make sure to—”

“Can I ask you something?” He interrupted. “Why are you of all people looking into this?”

Makoto straightened, her posture defensive. “I’m concerned about the safety of students, who wouldn’t be?”

“Most students who are concerned, student council or not, go to the authorities. If not them, at least an adult . And if that isn’t an option, they go to at least someone for actual help. You are actively looking into this alone when you’re in the targeted group,” Neku pointed out. “That’s insane.”

She glared. “I don’t believe I asked for your opinion.”

“You’re getting it anyways.” Neku shoved his hands in his pockets. “This is stupidly dangerous. Without actual help, you’ll end up getting yourself in the same situation as the ones you’re trying to protect. Aren’t you supposed to be smarter than that, Prez?”

“Don’t act like you know me,” Makoto snapped. She stopped, taking a breath to presumably calm herself down, but she didn’t seem much calmer to him. “If you believed that doing something about this was really so insane, you wouldn’t have given me information.”

She had a point. He shrugged, “I think it’s not very wise for you to try this without help, at least.”

Makoto scoffed, “What, and you’re offering?”

Neku tilted his head and stayed silent. Was he offering to help? To be completely honest, he didn’t want to touch the situation right now. Niijima was way in over her head, and trying to step into something that sounded… a lot like how he joined the Phantom Thieves. He couldn’t do it alone, and even then having just two people look into it would still be pretty bad. But add a few more and also supernatural powers…

Besides, she was right. If he thought this was impossible he would’ve just denied her outright. Ugh.

She glared at him for a long time, but he refused to budge. Neku has had weird coincidences happen to him before, but running into Makoto Niijima, who was kinda friends with Rhyme and needed help with something so major, had to win him some sort of prize. So he offered silently, knowing he was probably one of the few people who both would actually offer it and could actually do something helpful. 

“Why would you offer to help? What’s in it for you?” she asked finally. 

“It’d suck if you went and did something stupid because I gave you the information to do so,” Neku shrugged. “You act like you’re on a time limit. If you went to me—some kid who you happened to run into—for information about this then who knows how else you’ll try to get it. If I help you, you don’t have to do any of that.”

“You are making a lot of assumptions.” Her capacity to glare at him seemed endless. Great, this wasn’t working. Time to keep doing it anyway. 

“But am I wrong?” He replied, “I don’t know you and I’m not trying to act like it, but you don’t come off as a person who would act this way unless there was a really good reason.”

She stayed silent as she thought it over, but it was clear she didn’t buy his explanation. Fine. 

“I’ve also been looking into this on my own,” Neku admitted. His way of “looking into it” required a lot less contact and was generally safer than anything Makoto could do, but it’s not like she knew that. “That’s how I learned the stuff I told you, people are getting into some serious trouble because of this. I have my own reasons to act stupid and reckless, just as you have yours. But it’d probably be more beneficial to both of us if we were just a little less stupid and a little less reckless.”

Makoto’s demeanor shifted entirely. She seemed to look at him with more consideration than she had before, there was less defensiveness in her posture. He wasn’t sure what in his words sparked this change. Neku was sure he got it through that he wasn’t just someone criticizing her actions, though he would probably never understand what image she really had of him at that moment. He at least hoped it was a more positive one. 

In the end she said she’d get back to him on it, that she needed to check on another lead first. Neku supposes that this call today is the result of that. 

Rhyme walks into Wildkat just as he finishes talking to Makoto. They wave at him as they walk in. “Hey Neku! Is Mr. H here?”

“Hey,” he waves back, “He stepped out for a second. He should be back before I take a break, did you need him for something?”

“Not at all. By the way, you owe me nails on your break, Neku,” They call out to him as they sit down. 

“I owe you what?”

“Nails,” Rhyme holds up a bottle of nail polish. “You promised.”

“Oh, right.” That may or may not be a hazard. Earlier on the phone, Makoto had asked where he was and then told him to stay there in that really intense, somewhat rude way of hers, so Neku can only guess that she’s on her way. “Could we reschedule?”

Rhyme shakes their head. “Nope. I’ve got a feeling that I’m right where I need to be.”

Neku walks up to their booth, “A normal feeling or a weird psychic feeling?”

“The weird one,” Rhyme smiled. 

Leaning against the table, Neku thought about it. Honestly, having Rhyme help him with this whole situation would make it all easier, if Neku ignored the fact that he absolutely did not want them involved with this at all. If anything happened to them, he wasn’t sure what he’d do… 

But Rhyme’s weird future-feelings tended not to care about Neku wanting to keep them out of investigating organized crime. 

…He should at least have some time before Makoto gets here. 

“See? You have to make sure to use a steady, fluid motion like this. It keeps the paint even,” Neku explains. He talks through his actions the best he can, not exactly sure how to go about teaching this kind of thing. 

“You’re really good at this,” Rhyme comments with a hum, examining their now maroon nails. 

“I’m good at solid colors,” Neku shrugs, “I can’t really do anything fancy though, so tough luck if you wanted something professional.”

“No, no. This is perfect.” Rhyme shakes their head. They examine their nails in closer detail. “So what’s up? You look like you have a lot on your mind.”

“Uh…” Neku glances to the door, at this point he’s expecting this new problem he got himself into to start at any moment. His phone on the table pings as if on cue.  

Rhyme, nosy as ever, peeks over his phone at the notification. 

“Wait, is that from…” They pause. “Makoto Niijima? As in Niijima Niijima? As in my senpai and the president of the student council for a school you don’t even go to?” they ask. “I was barely able to convince her to eat lunch with me the other day, when did you two meet?”

He checks the message, it’s just saying her train got delayed. “It’s a long story that’s way too much of a coincidence.”

By the time Neku’s done explaining, the jingle of the door opening rings in his ears, and he isn’t even able to get Rhyme’s thoughts on the whole thing before the instigator herself walks in. 

“Oh,” she pauses awkwardly in the doorway.  

“Hello,” Rhyme greets, “Funny seeing you here. Great place, isn’t it?”

“Well I haven’t had the chance to really try it.” Makoto walks over to them.

“Well, why don’t you sit down with us?” Rhyme scoots over to make space. Makoto throws Neku a look, but he silently waves her off. 

Makoto sits down. “I didn’t realize you two knew each other.”

“I could say the same,” Rhyme responds. “Neku was just telling me about it, too.”

“Really?” Makoto glanced at him. “What did you say?”

Neku crosses his arms. “I told Rhyme about what you’re looking into. I trust them.”

Before Makoto can even respond, Rhyme speaks up. “I want to help. I have a bad feeling about what might happen if I leave you two to do this alone.”

“What if I’m not here to accept your help?” Makoto says. “I might need more time to think about it.”

“What if, huh?” Neku gives her a knowing look. “I think if you wanted more time to think, you wouldn’t be here. We both know you’ve made your decision, and if it wasn’t a yes then why would you waste your time with me in person?”

Makoto holds her gaze up for a long and challenging second. Then it drops and she sighs, “Fine. I want to ask for your help. That other avenue I wanted to try didn’t work out as well as I had hoped.”

“Why don’t we get started then?” Rhyme drums along the table. “So you plan to help students who are suffering from blackmail. Why are you doing all of this yourself? Why not leave it to the authorities?”

At the familiar question, Makoto glanced at Neku, who simply raised an eyebrow. I told you so, he doesn’t say. But he definitely thinks it very, very loudly. 

“Quite a few students have already come to the student council about the problem, as you know,” she addresses Rhyme, “And I feel like since they entrusted me with this very delicate situation, it should be handled with the same respect.”

Neku really doubted that, but at this point he didn’t feel like pushing. “So you want to do what? Take down all organized crime?” 

“I’m not naïve.” Makoto scowls. “But in order to deter them from targeting the students, I need to do something.”

“Maybe student awareness?” Rhyme suggests. “If you’re clear with everyone about what is going to happen to them if they take that shady job, less students would get tricked into falling victim.”

Makoto nodded. “I was thinking of bringing that up at the next student council meeting. But other than that I need more, like names.”

“I gave you info on their methods, how about that?” Neku asks, but he can’t help but be a bit critical. It just makes no sense. “If you want to prevent people from falling victim, giving out that information could help them avoid it. Job done, right? Why do you need names?”

Rolling her shoulders back, she somehow sits up even straighter. “I will admit that I’ve been giving some of your words thought. About going to the authorities, I mean. The police are investigating to no success, and no proof I have now or can reasonably get will make the police take my case. However, having pulled off two stunts already, it may be enough to get the Phantom Thieves to go into action.”

“Really?” Rhyme asks, some curiosity in their tone. “You’re going to them? Even after all your efforts?” 

Makoto sighs, “Rhyme, please. If nothing else, this is for the students of Shujin Academy. I’m willing to ignore anything else if they’re able to steal the heart of the leader of the whole operation.”

“Hm. I guess when all else fails, getting help won’t,” Rhyme says in that light tone they always use when recounting a saying Neku’s never heard of. There’s this tension here, and it makes him wonder what he’s missing here. 

Neku sits back in his seat. “No wonder you want names so badly.”

The way Makoto’s attention focuses on him, her interest peaked by his comment, Neku gets the immediate feeling he said something wrong. Not wrong as in he’s incorrect, but wrong as in he won’t like where this leads. 

“Neku-kun,” she starts. That’s the first time she’s used his name this entire conversation. “You seem very familiar with how they operate, care to elaborate on that?” 

“Neku himself has been helped by the Phantom Thieves,” Rhyme jumps in. Of course they figured that much, it probably wasn’t hard. “He might be our best chance at getting them to take our case.”

“Hold on,” Neku crosses his arms. This conversation is moving too fast. “I never said I was in on the ‘running to the Phantom Thieves’ plan.”

“Oh, you’re not? I’m sorry for assuming you would ask them for help,” Makoto said with a sense of something similar to politeness in her tone, the kind that is incredibly fake for the sake of a point. He takes some (admittedly petty) satisfaction from knowing she does it worse than Joshua. 

Neku’s absolutely in on the plan to go to them, he had that same idea as he offered his help. He just doesn’t like where this conversation is going. 

“You were the one who got them involved in the recent Madarame case, didn’t you?” Makoto doesn’t really ask. “You go to Kosei with his former pupil, you’re even in the same class. Are you friends?”

Rhyme looks at her with wide eyes. “Niijima-senpai…”

“In the same class…” Neku couldn’t believe it. “You looked me up?” He asks slowly, hoping she gets the message about how not okay that is to do to someone you just met. 

It’d be one thing if she just googled him. He has social media, artworks and pictures he’ll show off now and then. He wouldn’t be bothered if it was just that. But how did she even get to the school records needed to know they were in the same class? There’s nothing like that on the school website. 

He has an uneasy feeling at the thought of someone looking through the names in his class list until they found Sakuraba and got more info than he wants anyone to have. 

“I admit that it was originally so I could gauge if you were trustworthy, and I do apologize for breaching your privacy. But I found that your connection was worth looking into.” Makoto has the decency to look like she feels ashamed. (Okay, he’s being harsh and she probably does regret it. Still, let him be bitter about it for a moment, then he can try to forget about the whole thing).

Taking a breath, Neku sets aside his growing dislike for now. “So say I am able to tell them we want some mafia boss who’s scamming kids and ruining their futures to have a change of heart. I doubt you want to just sit on the sidelines while they do whatever.”

“You’re right,” Makoto says. “I want you to take me to meet them.”

“No.” 

Makoto turns to Rhyme, caught slightly off guard by the sudden objection. “What do you mean?”

Rhyme makes eye contact with Neku, shaking their head so slightly that he could shrug it off as just moving. But he knew better. They turn to Makoto. “Neku can look into getting a name. I’ll meet with the Phantom Thieves.”

Neku sighs, laying back on the hard concrete of the roof of his dorm. Makoto is a difficult person to deal with, but she isn’t unreasonable. Rhyme’s plan is mostly the one they’re going with, but Neku is positive something will go wrong. 

Still, he trusts Rhyme and he’d rather they went to the Phantom Thieves than going out of their way to dig into illegality. Beat would kill him if something happened to them, and this is the much safer option. 

Still, Makoto had insisted that she would meet the Phantom Thieves in person. Neku did not think it was a good idea in the slightest, and they still didn’t agree by the time they parted ways. 

The wind is stronger up here, and there’s not a single cloud in the night sky. It’s not quiet, but it is quieter. He’s changed out of his uniform into a hoodie to feel a little more comfortable on the concrete. His legs swung over the edge of the building, his shoes getting scuffed on the short overhang. 

He kept thinking. He had no desire to go to Joshua about any of this, not like the Composer is answering his messages anyways. Josh was likely to not give him a name at all anyways. Still… Neku figured he would at least try it. He pulled out his phone, sent a text and didn’t worry about waiting for the response. 

Other options… He could probably lurk around shady people and look for a name in their thoughts, or maybe he can see if the Phantom Thieves have anything they can pull (he’ll have to talk to them about what Makoto wants anyways, so he might as well ask them to help). 

What a mess of a situation he’s gotten into. But he can do it, all of this can be fixed. He’s seen it happen with Madarame, all he needed was help to do it. 

Neku sat up as he heard soft steps approaching, then the door to the roof slowly swung open. It was Yusuke, of course it was. He releases the tension he didn’t know he had. 

“I figured it would be you up here,” Yusuke says, making his way to him. 

“Sorry,” Neku scratches the back of his head. “Was I making too much noise?” 

“I did hear your footsteps above my room earlier, but they were hardly distracting.” He sat down next to him. “Do you spend your time up here often?”

Neku nods. “Often enough. It’s a nice place to think.”

“I see.” Yusuke turns his sight to the city below, and they spend a few moments in quiet. 

The dorm isn’t the tallest building around, but that’s partly why he prefers it. It’s a little closer to reality than something like the top of the 104 building. Keeps his head from being in the clouds. 

“Have you been painting anything lately?” Yusuke asks. 

Neku shrugs. The last time he made anything was with Ann, which was over a week ago. “Not recently, I’ve been busy. You?”

“What have you been busy with?” Yusuke asks, completely ignoring his question. 

“I’ve got a lead on a new target, so I’m gonna bring it up to the others before Rhyme starts getting any more bad omens.” Neku keeps his voice light, trying not to have any of his real feelings on the issue come through his tone.

“Rhyme? They’re involved?”

“It’s a long story, I’ll have to tell you along with everyone else.” Neku pauses. “Now what’s really up with you?”

“I…” Yusuke stops for a moment to think. “I haven’t been painting much lately.” 

The gravity in his tone surprises Neku. This is something that’s really bothering him, isn’t it? He continues, “Not since the start of the exhibition. I’m afraid I may not be of much use in the beginning of our project.”

That’s a pretty long time for him, as far as Neku knows. “Don’t worry about the project right now, quality over quantity remember? No use pushing yourself to make something unsatisfactory.”

Neku stops in his reassurances, the project isn’t the problem here. Considering his words… “Artist’s block?”

“Something like that… I’ve been thinking about everything Madarame has done, and I feel as if something has tainted my view of art as a whole,” he admits. “I was hoping you might have some advice.”

Neku leans forward, looking down at the street below. This is… not any normal kind of artist’s block, considering everything that happened. It’s not a lack of ideas or motivation, it’s a change in Yusuke’s foundation. 

The wind blows, a stronger breeze. 

“You might have to readjust your definition behind why you do art.” Neku suggests. “And if you can’t give yourself a satisfying answer you should go out and look for it. Talk to people and all that.”

Yusuke puts hand on his chin. “It’s that simple, isn’t it?”

“Not at all. It might take getting a lot of opinions and thinking about it, or it could take just one person that you can really listen to. Either way, I think you should try with different people, like our friends.”

Neku leans back on his hands, staring up at the starless city sky. Yusuke is quiet, probably deep in thought. Not that Neku doesn’t also have a lot to turn over in his head. 

First he needs to meet with the Phantom Thieves hopefully before Rhyme does, then he needs to convince them to actually go after this target, then they’ll need to find a name and whatever other information they can find to actually go through the palace. And all while keeping Makoto Niijima away from what’s happening. 

It’s a lot. Neku’s just glad that a third of the way through that plan is getting other people to help. Still…

“You know, you were right earlier,” Yusuke interrupts his thoughts, following Neku’s gaze to the sky. “This really is a nice place to think. My solution has come to me with your input. Thank you, my friend.”

Neku’s still not used to such sincere thanks from anyone. It takes him a moment before he responds. “…Any time.”

Still, if the next few days would pass a little faster, Neku wouldn’t complain. The sooner out of all of this, sooner people get helped, and the sooner he doesn’t have to deal with any of it.

Chapter Text

When Neku wakes up in the morning, there’s light streaming in through his window onto his pillow, and he’s woken up before his alarm. 

Yesterday left a bad taste in his mouth, and he isn’t sure why. He couldn’t even entirely focus on giving advice to Yusuke last night, his mind had kept wandering back to the event before. Hopefully Yusuke didn’t notice. 

Neku got up out of bed, his gaze landing on the purple headphones he left on his shelf, gathering dust for months. 

He left for school without them. 

i sent a request on the fansite btw!

the one about the students wasn’t from miss president? that was you?

consider it from both of us!

alright, then there’s two problems.

name ‘em. 

one is that we’ll need a little more than “it’s probably the mafia”

two is that I barely got out of being blackmailed by her.

I am not meeting with Makoto Niijima. 

that’s fair. but let me address your problems in reverse. 

makoto won’t blackmail you. she’s on my side.  

and you know that i’m on yours, right?

just because you’re on my side doesn’t mean she is.

that’s why i’m there! i can be a mediator, and you don’t have to bring your entire team if you don’t want to. 

I'll consider it. need to talk to the others first.

great! next issue. 

do you know neku sakuraba?

why?

he’s a friend of mine, and i figured he met with you for yusuke’s situation. 

he was very worried, and then it was all over the news.

if anyone i knew would contact you for that, it would be him.

yeah I know him.

great! he’s helping me and makoto! 

if you have his number, you should contact him.

he’ll help you out with the name thing, he’s very reliable! 

and i *really* don’t want him doing stuff out there by himself.

sure I can talk to him.

thank goodness! 

also if ryuji’s on your team, can you tell him that nothing he says or does will stop me from getting involved? 

i’m in this because i want to be

word for word. 

you’re too good for this world, kurusu

i mean it!

Akira is sure that he’s never heard Rhyme say something they didn’t mean, which is what makes the last comment hit more sincerely than he expected it to, even over text.  

Soon they’re in the studio hideout again, comfortably seated in front of the view of the city skyline. He explains what had happened in the student council room yesterday, then reads out all the important stuff from his messages to the rest of the team. “So, thoughts?”

“A mafia boss? This is definitely the target we’ve been looking for.” Ryuji grins. “C’mon, it’s perfect for the Phantom Thieves.”

“I agree, but the meeting with your student council president does concern me,” Yusuke says. 

“Yeah, I was thinking about that,” Ann chimes. “I’m all for the target, but I don’t know about the meetup part.”

“I say we should do it.” Eyes turn to Neku, who leans against the armrest of the chair. He’d been kind of quiet today. “And we send Akira alone.”

Morgana tilts his head. “Wait, why?” 

“Because I’ll be there—not as a Phantom Thief,” Neku shrugs. “And all of you can be nearby or something. Mona can be in his bag, too.”

“I see. Makoto gets to meet the Phantom Thieves like she wanted and we can keep most of our identities hidden from her,” Yusuke concludes, then chuckles. “Neku can even be hidden in plain sight!”

“Rhyme said they’d be there too,” Akira adds. “I think they want to talk about something.”

“With you, Neku, and Rhyme there, that’s basically three against one.” Ann considers it. “I say we hear what they both want to say, it could help with the target.”

Ryuji frowns. “I just don’t see why Rhyme’s gotta be all up in this shit. Don’t they got enough on their plate with the student council and the school newspaper?”

“Right, I forgot,” Akira lied, he’s been waiting for the right moment. “Rhyme told me to tell you that nothing you say or do will stop them from getting involved. They’re in this because they want to be.”

He shakes his head. “Ugh, I figured.”

“Think of it this way,” Akira says. “You can be there to keep an eye on them.”

“…I guess you’re right, man. Beat would kill me if anything happened.”

“Well we have a bit of a plan in place for hearing out Makoto,” Morgana steers the conversation, ”What about this mafia guy?” 

They were all made aware of how bad the blackmail situation is at the beginning of their meeting. It’s… kind of hard to stomach, really. Listening to rumors around school doesn’t do it justice. Hearing how bad it gets, kids being forced into trafficking…

It brings the mood down just thinking about it. 

It’s silent for a moment before Ryuji speaks next, bringing the mood back up in the group. “Hey, when we go after this shitbag, we’ll be helping so many more people, right? Not even the police can catch him, but we can.”  

“And we will!” Ann adds in. 

“We would still need a name, however.” Yusuke put a hand to his chin. “With all that information we know and no name to be seen, he must be a hard man to catch.”

“Can’t you turn invisible, Neku?” Ann tilts her head.

“Well, yeah,” Neku crosses his arms, ”But I don’t have the time to be hanging around crooks all day playing PI and waiting for them to slip up.”

That’s what they need, Akira realizes. Maybe not a private investigator, but someone who does investigate. Akira reaches into his pocket and pulls out his wallet, digging through it until he finds a business card. 

“I think I’ve got our new lead, everyone.”

It takes until the next day for the reporter to get back to him, and they meet the evening after that. 

The red-light streets of Shinjuku are bright and gaudy. Signs everywhere fight hard for his attention, and Akira feels the most like a lost tourist since he first got to Tokyo. 

Ryuji and Neku are with him as backup. The moment Akira had mentioned where he was meeting Ohya they both insisted he didn’t go alone. 

Now he can see why. People on all sides of the street are making promises and offers and doing just about anything to get him inside their establishments. 

And Ryuji is wearing his damn uniform. Sure it’s just the pants, but it’s still obviously from Shujin, which has been in the news a lot lately. 

Ryuji resigns to lay low outside the bar when they arrive. “Neku, you staying?”

“Yeah, I—” Neku’s eyes obviously catch on something, and Akira can almost visibly see the air leave him. He follows his gaze to a sticker on the wall outside the bar, a stylized skull and crossbones. It’s not something Akira would have noticed if Neku hadn’t been so obviously staring at it. Does it mean something? he wonders. 

“Actually,” Neku starts, his tone a little distracted. “How about you go inside first, Akira? I’ll come in separately, and then you can signal me in case something happens.”

It’s an alright plan, Akira sees no problems with it. He decides not to ask why he changed his mind like that, but he makes note of it. 

There’s been something off with Neku these past few days. He hadn’t been talking in the group chat at all, and when their last meeting had dissolved into just hanging out he left pretty quickly. Akira wouldn’t claim to know him well or anything, but it’s all very different from the Neku he’s known until now. He’s a little worried. 

Akira shakes his head to clear his thoughts, turning around to the door of the bar. He readies himself. He doubts that this meeting will go terribly. Something tells him, just a small feeling, that he might form a new bond today. He pushes open the door. 

When Neku walks into the bar, Crossroads, he immediately feels the slight pressure of being forced to stay in the UG. He figured. 

Akira seems to be in one of the private rooms with the reporter, so Neku sits down at the empty bar. The bartender’s eyes are on him, but they aren’t unkind. 

“Two kids in one night, huh? What kind of fate is that?” She shakes her head, putting out her cigarette on the dish beside her. She towers over him, yet still comes across as friendly, if a bit stern. “You want some water, honey?”

Neku wasn’t planning on getting anything, but he thinks better of it. He takes a breath and nods. “Sure.”

As she does her business, Neku takes in the atmosphere. It’s nice. The lights shine fuzzy and the corners are pitch black, but it’s nice. Even for a bar here, it seems like it has a sort of elegance to it under the dim surface. 

Still, he definitely doesn’t feel like he belongs here, and for some reason it’s not just because of the adult atmosphere. Maybe it’s just Shinjuku as a whole. Reapers are loyal to where they died, huh?  

She soon slides him a glass of water. “What brings you here? Your friend in the back?” 

Neku finds it surprisingly easy to talk. “Yeah, he’s new to Tokyo. I didn’t want him to come here alone.” He winces. “No offense.”

“None taken, boy.” She smirks. “There’s no one dead or alive who knows more about that than me.”

“Guess a bar means you see all those types of people, doesn’t it?” Neku takes a sip of his water. “You probably have to talk to a lot of weird types.”

“Talking’s about a quarter of it in this line of work,” she tells him, “Seventy percent is listening, and the other five is throwing people out.”

Neku finds himself smiling at that, despite himself. “I hope I’m not part of that five percent.”

“Keep yourself in check, and you won’t be.” She teases, but her face falls into something serious after a minute passes. “But honey, you don’t look so hot. You’ve got stress written all over you. What’s wrong? A lot going on?”

Neku can’t help but grimace, letting out a sigh. Maybe he needs a break if he’s that easy to read from a stranger. “Something like that. It’s alright though, not so bad now that there’s more friends helping out.”

“That’s a good attitude to have.” She smiles. “Keep it up, you seem like a good kid.”

A minute passes, maybe an hour inside of Neku’s thoughts. “How do…” he hesitates, trying to put it into words. “How do I… keep it up?” 

“What, being with people?” she asks, almost magically seeing right to the heart of the matter. At some point she had put out her cigar. “If you need a break, take one.” 

Neku glances back towards the room Akira disappeared into. “It’s not that, not exactly. I still like hanging out with my friends, I like listening to them and helping them out…”

“So you’re having trouble with someone who isn’t a friend?” She raises an eyebrow. 

Neku frowns. He’s put up with people who aren’t friends before. He found common ground with Joshua of all people, and now they’re… friends or something similar. Still, somehow the bartender’s words hit the nail on the head, even though he isn’t sure why. 

“Sort of? I don’t think it’s too bad, though. She’s stubborn, but so am I, and so we keep… clashing. Even though we’re both trying to work together.” 

It’s vastly different from any other time Neku had to work with others. He and Yusuke work well together, and whenever he clashed with his former partners it was usually because he was uncooperative. Now he’s trying, and on some level he can tell that Makoto is trying, but something isn’t lining up. All this momentum he’s had since his Reapers Game feels like it’s slipping. 

“Everyone’s got different expectations, kid.” She leans on the counter, “Even if you have the same goal. You came in expecting to sit here waiting for your little friend, probably with the bare minimum of talking. I expected to have a busier night of adults, not two teenagers. But we adjusted those expectations to talk. That’s what everyone does, most of the time. 

“So what are you expecting that she’s not giving you?”

Neku frowns. What expectation was he refusing to adjust? 

“And what do you think she expects you to do?”

Why did she look me up?  

“Oh.” The suspicion at how easily he offered to help, and even how she basically tried to give him a background check before she accepted. The weird intensity in her gaze, like she was constantly dissecting his actions and reactions. 

That’s the difference between this and when he tried to work with others, it’s almost comically obvious. She doesn’t trust him. Not in the slightest. He underestimated how much that blatant distrust made things difficult. 

It’s funny, almost, how similar they are. Or how similar she is to how he used to be, to what he tries not to be. They’re not the same, Makoto has Rhyme at least, but the comparison feels accurate in some way. 

Maybe that’s why he keeps getting so frustrated, because of that familiarity. He can trust Makoto to work towards their shared goal, even if they don’t get along well, but she can’t do the same for him. 

“Thank you,” Neku says sincerely, “for the advice.”

“It’s no problem, honey.” She lowers her voice just enough for it to be noticeable. “It’s not every day that I get to offer some advice to Shibuya’s Conductor.” 

Neku freezes. He had tried to ignore the Reaper sticker on this place until now, but that’s because he figured the bartender would just be a normal person. 

“Oh don’t be like that,” she says at the look on his face. “You’re alive and young, you’re allowed to go wherever your handsome little heart takes you.” 

Neku hesitates at the alive part. “Who are you?”

“They call me Lala Escargot around here, but I’m no one important—to the Reaper’s Game at least. I just keep my ear to the ground and make sure no one gets in my five percent.” She smiles at him again, and Neku feels a little calmer. 

“You’re this Game’s guardian.” Like Mr. Hanekoma, Neku thinks. No wonder it felt so easy to open up to her, it was that similar sense of feeling ready to open up and talk for hours. Comfortable in a way that’s unusual for him to feel around strangers. Neku should probably feel more concerned about that, but it’s hard to really care. 

“Something like that, though I’d never be as…” She frowns. ”…involved as Shibuya’s.” She glances over to the room Akira had gone in, it seems like they’re finishing up their conversation inside. “If anyone from Shinjuku ever gives you a hard time, you come to me. Alright honey?”

Neku nods. “Will do.” 

Akira walks out, giving Neku a thumbs up. The reporter, a woman with short black hair and a loud obviously drunk voice, walks out after him and immediately asks for another drink. With a small wave to Lala, he follows Akira out of the building. 

“So Junya Kaneshiro is the name of the guy we’re looking for?” Ann asks, leaning against the planter. 

Yusuke’s phone pings, signaling a correct entry. “Ah. At least we know he does indeed have a palace.”

“This is gonna be tough,” Morgana sticks his head out of Akira’s bag. 

He spent all night last night making all kinds of things for the palace. Things like Goho-Ms and lockpicks (he’s still not sure how the former works, Morgana says it’s a cognition thing. Better not to question it and ruin its effect).

All the preparations might seem overkill, but they’ve got a lot on their plate. Scoping out the palace and then meeting with Makoto right after, it’s a tight schedule to coordinate (especially with how hard it is to keep track of time in the metaverse). Hopefully both activities give more insight to the situation, making any hypothetical palace exploration tomorrow easier on them. Akira’s eyes keep drifting down to his phone screen. 

Mona keeps talking. “Our unfamiliarity with the target means that the palace could be anywhere.”

“Do we just gotta name every place we know then?” Ryuji’s shoulders slouch. “That’s a pain in the ass.”

“Perhaps we can figure out what it is first,” Yusuke suggests. “Then we may be able to find out where it is by association.”

“That’s a good idea, Yusuke!” Morgana meows loudly in Akira’s ear, a paw adamantly tries to get his attention through the fabric of his bag. “Let’s think of ideas.”

Akira doesn’t look up from his phone. “Bank.”

“Candidate found.”  

Ryuji’s eyes widened. “Holy shit dude, how’d you know that!?”

“If he’s extorting people for money, it makes sense.” Neku crosses his arms. “Still one hell of a guess.”

Akira shrugs, sending off another text. “I like heist movies.”

“You must be excited to participate in one, then.” Yusuke correctly assumes, not that Akira’s going to confirm that. Instead Akira shrugs again. 

“He is,” Morgana says, like a traitor. He gives a smug look in response to Akira’s glare. 

“I guess we better find out where it is, first,” Neku says. “So something he thinks of as a bank, right?”

“Could it be an actual bank?” Ann asks. 

“No,” Mona shakes his head. “Then it wouldn’t be a distortion from reality.”

Ryuji groans. “Damn, this shit is hard.” 

“Maybe we’re thinking inside the box on this one.” Yusuke puts a hand to his chin as he thinks. “We’re on too small of a scale, lacking ideas that match the passionate madness of a palace. This ‘bank’ is representative of his extortion of innocents, we must think to that extent.”

“So instead of a deposit,” Ann starts, “it’s like a place for him to withdraw money?”

“And if he’s taking money from his victims, then it’s wherever his victims are,” Neku adds. “Which means…” He frowns deeply, like he doesn’t want to say it. 

Ryuji taps his foot impatiently. “Which means what? How are we gonna find out what people he thinks are his bank in all of Shibuya?”

“Candidate found.” Yusuke’s phone chimes. 

Everyone looks at each other in confusion. “Huh?” Ryuji scratches his head. “Did I say something right?”

Neku leans over to look at Yusuke’s phone. Somehow his frown gets deeper. 

Yusuke clears his throat. “The place Kaneshiro thinks of as his bank is…” Akira watches carefully as Neku steps back, a troubled look on his face as his bangs cast a shadow over his expression. 

“All of Shibuya.”

“Hey everyone!” All eyes turn to the voice that called out in the distance. There in the crowd near the station, waving at them brightly is…

“Rhyme?” Neku sounds incredibly caught off guard. 

“We were just about to check out the palace too…” Ann says. “That was close.” 

“Rhyme said that they’d get here early,” Akira murmurs. ”But I didn’t know they meant now.”  

“I can go talk to them,” Neku says suddenly. “I can distract them and meet you guys in the palace in a few minutes.”

No one seems to disagree with that course of action, but when the rest look to Akira for the unanimous agreement, he has trouble making himself agree. 

It’s not that he doesn’t trust Neku to distract Rhyme and meet them in there, it’s that he’s still concerned over Neku’s reaction to the keyword. Somehow, he gets the feeling that sending Neku off will put off that conversation longer than Akira wants. His gut instinct is usually right. 

But seeing how tight of a ship he has to run today, Akira nods. This’ll save them time, in the long run. Hopefully he can try to bring it up sooner rather than later. It always seems like the right time to talk to Neku just before something happens. 

Neku soon goes off to greet Rhyme, and as soon as they're turned around, the rest of the Phantom Thieves discuss the practicalities of jumping into the metaverse from the middle of the crowd. 

However, Ryuji ends the debate by impatiently tapping the confirmation when it’s clear that it’s dragging on too long. 

The world turns red, and when Akira glances back to check if Rhyme is distracted, he locks eyes with Neku. 

Akira hates being right sometimes.

Chapter Text

Hey so I wanted to get out an update on this fic. It’s been a long ass time, I know, how are yall doing? How’s the kids? Congratulations or sorry that happened. 

So here’s my update. Went through seven tons of shit and now i have room to write again. With that comes me going back to this fic.

I love this fic, I really liked the ideas going into it and the care and attention I was aiming for… Buuuuut there’s four major problems with it.  

1. I started this before i played p5 royal
2. I started this before neo twewy released
3. the way I write has seriously changed over the years. if you read any of my other stuff I’ve been developing a different style. very specifically, the way I write Neku, even younger and more dickish Neku, is not like this anymore. 
4. considering those points, I don’t think I want to continue this in the way that was originally planned. (theres a few other factors but that is my own personal beef with this fic. So)

I’ve been debating on a rewrite. But there’s a catch. it’s not really a rewrite because the entire setup of that crossover will be nothing like this. Character relationships will be explored, yeah, but it’s gonna be very different because of the circumstances. 

Me posting this rewrite announcement is NOT an indicator for that coming out anytime soon btw. There’s some other things that need to be set up beforehand. Let’s just say I have a… prequel to that in the works. I’ll post it when I’m entirely done with it.

Sorry to everyone who waited half a decade for this to update. I hope when the time comes and the new persona crossover comes out it’ll live up to your expectations but more importantly my expectations. As my first fic that blew up this gave me a shitton of stress, but I’ve learned to better manage that.

TLDR: Don’t cry. New twewy/persona crossover eventually, ok? Coming when it’s done and no sooner. 

See ya. :D