Archive of Our Own

Honestly, there was Kurusu, the leader who should have been chosen instead of him. He knew his friends, he knew his targets and carried the weight of regrets as his second skin. He would have benefitted greatly from changing the past for the better, maybe avoiding the capture altogether and beating some godly projection before it could stir trouble and transform mighty humanity into willingness mob. The kid wielded hundreds of personas, fought like a seasoned old-timer and was a living representation of the Phantom thief figure. Who’d faired better if not him?

If not for the leader, then Sophia seemed like a plausible option. The girl was an AI incarnate, capable of downloading itself on any device and breaching almost any kind of program code. She had a solid body in Metaverse and could hold her line just well, not faltering against shadows’ hordes and guiding the team with her excellent, if not a bit strange, sense of smell. She could have traveled back, downloaded herself on Kurusu’s phone and helped the team face whatever they were facing. 

God, if Zenkichi was being honest, anyone on the team would have been better than him. He wasn’t young like them, he was an adult with police work and a daughter, a daughter with whom he had finally, after many years of self-delusion, reconnected. He sank his teeth into criminal scum as a wolf he has named himself on the day of his awakening, savoring victory over those who did whatever they pleased without care for the reality around. He felt accomplished, important, finally washing away the mark put on him by unfair life-toll and helping the police department cleanse their ranks of vipers. It was relieving to do his work without the need to constantly watch his back and measure every step in fear to provoke some influenced higher-up bastard and endanger his daughter. When the team bid farewells at the end of the summer break, Zenkichi had fully intended to fix remaining loose ends and be a better man in general. He had not planned to live a whole month of blissful happiness - if the police work ever can be called as such, - and then wake up a year and a half in the past, as if nothing that he’d done ever mattered. 

He almost broke a mirror in the bathroom, where he locked himself at four in the morning, fruitlessly trying to make head and tails of what the hell just happened and how it was even possible. His phone lied on the sink unblocked, showing him the date and not making the task even remotely easier. There was one unread message from the unknown number, and Zenkichi clicked on it, hoping for even a secondary distraction.

He didn’t get it. 

I’m sorry.
I didn’t want to go.
I wanted to see everyone again.
Please, help me stay, Wolf.

...Wasn’t it just fantastic? To be a living incarnate of a famous time-travel trope without a solid idea of how he could even change anything when he didn’t know said anything. Zenkichi sighed and willed himself to stay upright and not to collapse in a plump of limbs on the bathroom floor. He was an adult, damn it. 

Never before cold tiles under his feet came across as such an appealing sight. 

Screw it. He grabbed his phone and slid down on the floor, making himself comfortable and leaning his head on the bath’s side. Akane was asleep and no one else was there to judge him. 

“...”

Except maybe his persona. Now, when he was paying attention, Zenkichi felt the familiar looming presence of Valjean in his mind. Gladly he didn’t scorn him for sitting on the floor as a child in the middle of a teen crisis. 

Oh, no, wrong, now he definitely felt Vanjean facepalming on his behavior - which is impressive considering the persona’s palms and face were caged behind the steel bars, and yet the conjuncted image made Zenkichi laugh in the crook of his arm. He wanted to laugh louder, bolder, and he would have if not for Akane sleeping one wall away. 

God bless him, he was so damn glad Vanjean was carried with him in this dumb situation. It was better than be completely on his own in the world that, if he counted correctly, didn’t even hear of the infamous Phantom Thieves and lived on the borrowed time. Zenkichi tried to picture himself as a world savior and, surprisingly, managed to create a cool-looking poster of himself bringing justice and saving humanity as some sort of superhero. He bristled at the mental image again, this time not even trying to muffle himself or feel embarrassed in the face of unimpressed but accustomed to his attics Valjean. Pity, life wasn’t as easy as a movie-poster. Yet Zenkichi could at least try to make it a reality, though with much more effort applied. 

He spent another half an hour on the floor, lamenting on life and for some reason remembering his current police boss and how stupidly she wore her hair-bun and how he once remarked on it and ended up with the most boring paper assignment in his life. He thought a little more, purposely not addressing the main issue on hand. Who ever wanted to dive into problems when it was possible to postpone them? He felt justified to postpone anything concerning his current situation as well as he could because his brain was far from slow and pretty much capable to calculate many ways this whole mess could go wrong. His brain was also capable to calculate what it meant to have a persona so early in his life, even if “early” consisted of a year and a half. Thank you, brain, for working in the background mode even when it wasn’t welcomed.

Under the unwavering Valjean’s attention, Zenkichi extended his hand and snapped his fingers experimentally, calling for the live-fire of power, which he felt was lazily running through his veins. It answered and came as a loyal guard dog, igniting sparks of light on his palm and obediently morphing into something that resembled spear. Zenkichi thoughtfully hummed, twisting his hand-made creation until it flashed and disappeared without a trace. 

Superpowers, huh. He wasn’t that far from superhero now, was he?

He clenched his fists. He had it. He had this power with him right now and no one was the wiser. He could use this to completely destroy those bastards that hold Akane’s life hostage and repay them tenfold for his wife. His daughter would finally be free, he would finally tell her why he’d done what he’s done and reconnect with her again. He had no reason to wait one and a half years on the sidelines for the Phantom Thief to made a name for themselves, save the world and then came forward yet again. He could prevent Akane from obtaining a Jail and start dictating her own - wrong, distorted, brand of justice. Valjean was one step beside him, fully supportive of any decision he would make, ready to crush all obstacles as long as they threaten Zenkichi’s family. His daughter, the only light he swore to protect - put himself on his lowest, everything for her - as of now was still held hostage to keep him on a leash, because he was a rare species among the cops, the one who was capable to sniff the criminal out and mercilessly haul them under the accusing public light, to completely demolish scumbugs even before the officials schedule the trial. 

Zenkichi was better than a hound. He was a wild, unrelenting wolf, and this time he was finally free of his damned leash and could tread however the fuck he wanted.

“Well, Valjean,” he crookedly smiled through gritted teeth, the memory of bowing to entitled assholes resurfacing in his mind. “Remember what that kid liked to say?..”

It’s showtime. 

It wasn’t too late to surrender and order some takeout that Akane would undoubtfully love more than his poor cooking.

“Dad?”

Or not. 

For an embarrassingly long and agonized second, he completely forgot how to even speak to Akane. Before the whole fiasco with the Phantom Thieves happened, there never was an indication of her distaste of him, she never tried to put any distance between them and Zenkichi wholeheartedly believed they’d been a good, healthy family, and that he faired pretty well for a single father. He didn’t put work before Akane. He spent time with her and visited school activities. He was attentive to her interests and always tried to support them, no matter how strange they seemed from his grown-up perspective. He even loved most of the shows they watched together, enjoyed the heated discussions they held and felt a pang of pride every time the wide happy smile blossomed on Akane’s face. 

Things truly started to go sour only when the Phantom Thieves made it on air. Akane quickly became their fan, started buying merch with them when it first appeared on the market - Zenkichi didn’t chastise her for being sympathetic toward the thieves, mostly because he himself was nurturing jealousy and hope in his heart. The Phantom band was capable of doing what he was not, stand up to those whose crimes were hidden behind the authority’s veil. If he was put on the case back then, he would have done the same what he did in the passed - future - summer. He would have offered them a partnership, just as secretly hoping to get to the bastards who held his daughter’s life hostage, and finally to make them confess through a forced change of heart. Or, remembering the case with Okumura, even get rid of them completely. 

Akane didn’t know, of course. The longer the Phantom Thieves agenda lasted, the more Akane showed her contempt for Zenkichi’s work. Perhaps because of the thieves, she naively started to believe that there was always a way to hold the culprits accountable rather than bowing down to them, mindful of their influence and the public’s position. Zenkichi did not know at the time why Akane began to avoid him. Instead, he tried to understand her motives, what he’d done wrong, to comprehend her dislike of him specifically, and when in the Jail of her own heart he had finally heard the disgusting truth about himself, about how his daughter had been thinking about him all that time, he had barely found the strength to stand up and admit that perhaps, by bending over to higher-ups every time they even mentioned his family and trying to keep Akane’s life safe, somewhere along it all he... lost himself.

Yet was it thieves that finally put the gears in motion, or Akane just skillfully hid her true feelings from the moment he learned the truth of her mother’s - his wife’s - death?

“Morning, midget,” Zenkichi quipped, swallowing whatever stuck in his throat and very unsuccessfully trying to cover the pan with his body, “and before you enter the kitchen, can you please do me a favor, go back to your room, sleep some other thirty minutes, then come back and pretend you never see me cooking?”

“No.” His daughter deadpanned, not allowing him to save his lost fatherly pride, and came rushing up to his side, craning her head to get a better look. “Did you add sunflower?”

“Yes? No? I think I did. I totally did.”

“You overdid.” Akane finalized and stepped away, leaving Zenkichi switching between looking at the eggs and looking at his retreating to the table daughter. She quirked a brow at him from the stool. “What?”

“Won’t you, I don’t know, help me? Lend your father a hand?” He helplessly required, not to trust himself with the breakfast anymore. Valjean was silently condemning him. Zenkichi offered him to take his place and finish the cooking in his stead. Valjean immediately fled the outer-mind as if he never was there.

Huh.

“Hmm, no.” Akane mischievously beamed at him, dangling her legs under the table.

How did he miss it? Was there anything malicious at all? What broke the camel’s back, figuratively speaking? Finishing the eggs and subtly watching his daughter now - which wasn’t as easy as it sounded, considering his miserable cooking skills, - Zenkichi couldn’t glimpse the disappointment and pain and sorrow that served as a foundation for her Shadow, which was etched in her otherworldly reflection so strongly, so vividly. 

Was she... hiding her torments and waiting for him to make the right choice? Or did she believe, before the thieves appeared and proved everyone wrong, that it was impossible to oppose those with power and influence behind them? He didn’t know. He had no way of asking her.

He was a coward, even now. But unlike a year ago - the year that apparently was erased, and he still had to ponder on how exactly it happened and who had sent him the message (though he had a hunch), - now he held a power to actually change things for the better much, much earlier. 

Maybe he could never be a good cop without some wicked powers, whatever. Maybe some more reasonable government worker - the elder Nijima sister, for example, - would berate him for abusing supernatural powers for his own end, but Zenkichi will somehow get over her disapproval. He will keep his family safe, not through whatever it takes motto as the last time, but through taking down the threat that weighed on them and went unpunished for far too long.

Zenkichi was a cop. And he was going to do his goddamn job, lock those vipers behind the bars and deny them freedom ever again!

He put a plate with fried eggs on the table with far more power than strictly necessary. And ketchup. And a knife. And a fork. And he forgot to make a portion for himself. And it was six in the morning and too damn early for Akane to ever be awake. And it was Saturday.

Akane calmly took the fork. “It took you too long.” And she wasn’t referring to his cooking (probably). She was referring to how long it took him to realize that it was Saturday. That she woke up too early. That he was cooking in a business suit and forgot to wear an apron. 

“‘Tis not bad,” Akane said after a bite. It brought Zenkichi out of his stupor. “I did a laundry yesterday, you have another suit for today. Leave this in the bathroom, I’ll wash it.”

Was she referring just to his general state of mind or actually praising his cooking skills? He huffed, then barked a laugh. Akane grinned at him. 

“Wasn’t it my turn to do the laundry?” Zenkichi asked, exasperated, and gracelessly slumped on the opposite chair.

“Well, duh, of course it was! But I decided to have mercy on you and do it myself.” Slightly embarrassed, she added. “You cooked for me after all.”

“I’m a bad cook.” He awkwardly scratched the back of his head. “You’re much better than me.”

Akane shrugged. “I like it.” She took another bite. “You just need practicing more. Want me to make you something?”

He glanced at the clock. “Nah, don’t bother. I will grab something on my way.” Halfway to the bathroom, he called back. “Why are you up so early!”

“Don’t shout you will wake up the neighbors!” She yelled back at him all over the apartment, not even trying to tone her voice down. “And I don’t know why you locked yourself in the bathroom and started laughing, but you did it too loud! Hey, actually, why did you do that? Did you finally realize that police work isn't for you?”

“No, I was speaking to my inner demon and he didn’t like my jokes!”

“Your jokes are nice! Just keep it down next time!”

“Thanks, girl, I will! Sorry to wake you up!” With a goofy smile on his face, he glanced at the mirror, where his yellow-eyed copy was glaring holes in him. “What? You heard her. I’m nice. And you, Valjean, are a dick.”

Even if Zenkichi almost fell down the stairs on his way to his car and didn’t go flying only by pure miracle, he still considered it a fair proof that the truth was behind him, and that his persona simply could not admit to being one in the wrong. Though given how easily Valjean had taken control and made him slip, Zenkichi wisely decided not to provoke his persona from now on. 

Which wasn't at all a guarantee that he won’t do it again.