Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

This story is a work of fiction. Similarities between characters or events to persons living or dead in your world are purely coincidental. However the story you have come to know has been distorted by the desires of a false deity. But the World Is open to many possibilities for the Trickster and the Seeker. Though they may be lost now, not all hope is lost.

By accepting the terms above you too will become part of the story. Will you accept?

>Yes

  No

-

Yu Narukami opened his eyes to the world smelling the aroma of strong coffee and spiced curry. He pushed himself up into a sitting position, dangling his, now crushed, glasses between his fingers. 

Figures.

Taking in his surroundings, Yu could see he was in some kind of cafe. A cafe covered wall to wall with exotic coffee beans, with a pot of curry boiling on the stove, and on the wall by the front door a painting of a woman looking forlorn at the baby in her arms. On any other day Yu may have considered admiring the painting or buying a cup of coffee however there was something far more pressing.

This wasn’t the TV world. The shattered TV on the ground behind him was proof of that. Which could only mean one thing, he hadn’t saved Nanako.

Against his better judgement and the protests of the rest of his team Yu knew he HAD to jump into the TV world after Namatame and Nanako there was just no way it could play out elsewise. Dojima didn’t understand, neither did Adachi. He thought the rest of the Investigation Team would, at the very least Teddie but they all protested. So Yu did the only thing he could. He went into the TV anyway.

And look at where he was now.

Without much opportunity to consider where he was, the door to the cafe banged open. Standing at the door was a middle-aged man, dressed in a white suit jacket and pink dress shirt, followed by a young girl practically hiding behind the man. “Who the hell are you and how did you get into my cafe?”

Looking at the TV on the ground then back to Yu the man’s eyes narrowed. “You know, be it not for the circumstances I was already in I’d call the cops on you. But I’m not in the mood to deal with those bastards right now.”

When Yu’s voice finally came back to him he blurted out the first thing that came to mind, and soon he would realize this was the wrong move. “Where’s Nanako?”

The man looked far less than impressed. His scowl deepend as he crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m done playing games. You can throw names out all you want but it won’t get you any closer to being let off guard. I’ll ask this one more time. How did you get in here and why did you break my TV?”

He didn’t know. He didn’t know and he didn’t know how to express this to the man. All he was planning on doing was saving his little cousin, his little sister, and putting an end to the murders in Inaba. Whatever he was doing here, however he got here, was far from planned. For starters, where even was he? This wasn’t Inaba in the slightest.

“Hey, um...Sojiro…” a quiet voice squeaked out. It was then Yu remembered the girl that had followed the man into the cafe. From what he could assume, the man’s name was Sojiro. That was good to know, maybe. Chances were he would be arrested if Sojiro called the cops. As unlikely as that seemed given the man’s graceful introduction.

“Sojiro his uniform isn’t from the area. Or Tokyo even. I think he’s from Akira’s hometown.” the girl spoke.

Now Akira was a relatively common Japanese name, or at least he assumed so since he knew a few, but considering the mention of a hometown Yu was suspicious. In Inaba, there was only one Akira. Akira Kurusu was the 11 year old kid he watched at daycare, and an extremely close friend of Rise’s. The Kujikawas were family friends and to Rise, young Akira was like a little brother.

This was fine and all but one, Akira was supposed to be back home in Inaba, not Tokyo. Secondly, the girl who knew him was no more than a year younger than he was. It wasn’t odd for Akira to have older friends, if the Investigation Team was enough of an indication of that. However an older friend from Tokyo was highly unlikely.

Yu had to confirm for himself. “Do you mean Akira...Kurusu by any chance?”

Something in the mood shifted. Sojiro’s shoulders squared out, taking a protective stance in front of  the girl blocking her completely from view. “How do you know the kid?” The words were bit out much like a protective father over his child. It became even more clear there was far more to the story than Yu knew himself. He’d never met Sojiro, but he cared for Akira almost the same way Dojima cared for Yu.

“I’m Narukami. Yu...Narukami. Akira-kun is from Inaba where I’m staying with my uncle right now. More importantly, how do you know Akira-kun if he’s never left Inaba?” Yu asked.

There was a flicker of recognition in Sojiro’s eyes before it quickly burnt out back into the protective anger Yu was getting far too used to. The man scoffed, replaying the words in his head once more. “You must think I’m an idiot, don’t you. If you’re the same Yu Narukami that I know you should know he was on probation for the last 7 months. But I think your story is bullshit. Narukami-san is in his 20’s and certainly isn’t a delinquent like you.”

“I can call his number! The real Narukami-san will clear this up for us!” the girl piped up again.

“Futaba-” Sojiro began, however Futaba was already in the middle of calling who she thought was the real Yu Narukami.

Somewhere else in Tokyo, a 22 year old Yu Narukami sat idly, wondering why when he picked up his phone there was another voice mirroring his. Surely this semester was looking to be quite interesting.

The situation was unreal. Futaba could confirm both the Yu living in his Tokyo apartment and the one sitting on their floor both picked up the phone at the same time. What it meant and why it happened, she couldn’t say at the moment. Besides there were far bigger issues than potential time travel, as interesting as that may be to research one day.

One step at a time, Futaba. Akira first, cool time travel shenanigans later. She, like many others, were desperate to hear any news about Akira. She hoped after they broadcast his “suicide” Nijima-san would appear at their door with Akira, like they planned and they could go onto taking down Shido. But the day had turned to night, and despite her watchful eye on the phone, it never left its place in the interrogation room.

Needless to say, Futaba was worried. Sojiro, despite it being a head scratcher, could deal with Narukami for now. She had work to do.

“Gonna check on something. See you at home.” Futaba declared, stepping out of LeBlanc despite Sojiro’s protests.

He sighed turning back to the confused kid on the ground. Though he pretended he didn’t care about the life story of all his customers, he remembered Yu Narukami had a cousin he called a little sister named Nanako, and she had a near death experience when they were younger. Her six years old and Yu in high school. Something told him through whatever happened to him, this was what Yu could have been talking about. Still, the TV part didn’t make any sense and he was far too tired to question it.

“Help me clean up the mess, I’ll room you for the night. The attic is empty for now, the kid used to stay there but…” Sojiro trailed off. He didn’t want to think about it. Hearing the news about Akira being arrested was a shocker to him. Almost gave the man a heart attack. When he found out the truth about Futaba and Akira, the kid promised him he would be careful, not take on more than he could chew, and more importantly to stay safe. Clearly that didn’t happen. What was he thinking going after Sae Nijima. On top of that, who even ratted the boy out? With all the confusing talk about cognition and Wakaba’s research Sojiro could barely wrap his head around it.

“What happened to Kurusu-kun?” Narukami asked, sweeping the broken glass into the dustpan. Right, he wouldn’t know about the arrest, and probation.

“The kid was here on probation, he was just arrested for some serious crimes. Despite everything, he was doing what he thought was right. But look where he is now. Justice system’s corrupt, that’s all there is to it.” Sojiro grunted. He didn’t want to think about the kind of shit they were doing to the poor kid. Sure the Phantom Thieves were labelled dangerous but Akira was a kid still. 

The high schooler’s lips pinched into a thin line. He didn’t mention anything about his uncle, or wanting to study to become a detective after graduating. There was a high chance if anyone had arrested Akira it could very well have been Dojima. Despite the claims he wasn’t the best father, Dojima was damn good at his job and for the most part he was fair in that regard.

Dojima of the future, he guessed.

“Akira’s a tough kid. I’m sure he had some kind of plan to get out of this.” Sojiro offered as reassurance. What Yu himself knew about Akira, Sojiro was right. The 11 year old Akira he knew was always finding ways to escape the daycare for frighteningly long periods of time, to return with a stray cat or two. He was ready to fight anyone who bothered Rise, he was a spunky, yet quiet kid. Had a fear of Teddie for some reason but otherwise Akira wasn’t that afraid of anything. Or if he was he never showed it. If Sojiro believed in Akira, then so would Yu.

Futaba burst through the door once again, paler than a sheet, gasping. Sojiro haphazardly set the TV onto the bar rushing over to the tiny girl. “Futaba? What’s wrong?”

“I-it’s Akira. He…” she stuttered, holding out her phone out to him, hands shaking.

On her phone there was a news broadcast playing. A man in a suit talked about the arrest of the teenaged leader of the Phantom Thieves before quickly switching the story off. “The young man in custody has just committed suicide.”

The saying goes, that sometimes a room gets so quiet you can hear a pin drop. A pin very well could have dropped in Cafe LeBlanc however it was masked by the loud echoing snap of the broom hitting the floor. 

-

For now, I’ll take you back. Back to a young man drifting light as a feather through the Sea of Souls. A single golden butterfly weakly fluttered its wings through the masses in search of this boy, knowing despite the circumstances it wasn’t his time yet. There was far more the World needed of him, but the boy made a mistake.

A mistake that was entirely fixable with what little power the butterfly had left. The butterfly left a trail of withering golden sparkles behind it as it settled upon the boy’s forehead. There was much to be done, and the Trickster was the one person he could trust.

The young man’s eyes blurrily opened. A muffled girlish voice spoke over him. He blinked, trying to focus his eyes, or open his ears to the vaguely familiar sound. His eyes focused upon the dangling copper ponytails, and soon, a very familiar face adjusted into view.

“Rise-senpai? Is that you?” the young man asked.

Rise Kujikawa giggled nervously, taking in the appearance of the awakened boy. The frizzy dark hair and sharp eyes hidden under an innocent pair of fashion glasses was far too familiar to her, though she’d never met the boy. It made her think of little Akira, who was definitely 11 and NOT the same person in front of her. Who’s matted hair clung to his sticky dark red forehead.

And yet, she was walking into a world of magic and horrors whenever she stepped into the TV at the Junes store. She was summoning a being of massive power and aiding her friends to take down Shadows and uncover the truth of a mysterious serial murder she’d almost fallen victim too. Nothing in the world made logical sense anymore.

Himiko’s own call within her heart only confirmed her suspicions. Her Persona strengthened her resolve to seek the truth, much like her beloved missing senpai would say.

“Akira-chan? Is that...you?” she asked the young man.

His eyes lit up as much as they could. “Right, it’s me. I...senpai why do you look so young?” Akira asked.

“Young? Shouldn’t I be asking what happened to you? You’re so old now, Akira-chan. You used to be so tiny and cute. Wait how old are you, should I be calling you chan anymore?” Rise asled.

At that Akira had to pause. He...he didn’t know. The last thing he remembered was walking home from his evening shift at Junes but everything else was blank. Like a long forgotten memory. The stickiness on his forehead burned. What was he forgetting, what happened to him?

A voice rang in the back of his mind. A calming, velvety voice whispering words of reassurance into his ears. “ The game isn’t over yet, Trickster. I will be here when thou calls upon me once again. Remember thy bonds. Only then, will thou see the truth. ”

Chapter Text

He finally did it. He finally was rid of that bothersome Leader. In hindsight, Goro Akechi should have been far more satisfied with his victory than he was. Shido was pleased upon receiving Akechi’s call, after all the deed was done and no one stood in the way of their plans anymore. No one but Akechi himself, though Shido wasn’t exactly aware of that part of the plan.

Yet all the same, leaving the interrogation room and Joker behind, entering that elevator to return home. Akechi’s victory didn’t really feel like a victory. He didn’t feel anything at all. The memory of his journey between the “interrogation” and his return home was a blur. If anyone asked him about it (purely hypothetically since no one ever would) he would tell them he didn’t remember.

In some ways, maybe this was his way of saying despite the fact he despised Joker and his band of friends he missed the man who had become his rival. Killing him while incarcerated was hardly a victory. There was no chance of him even being able to fight back. But this was the easiest way, or at least that’s what Akechi told himself.

Even so, he would be lying if he said that he didn’t expect Joker to suddenly show up out of the shadows, declaring he was still alive and their fight wasn’t over. Perhaps he would eventually reunite with his most hated rival in Shido’s Palace with the rest of those Phantom Thieves. They were always scheming some other plan on their own, weren’t they? They were able to evade being captured by the police after all. But deep down Akechi knew, what may just be what he wanted. It was entirely possible they never had some ulterior motive and Joker simply got caught and Akechi killed him.

This was the likely reality, but it didn’t make it any easier for Akechi to accept.

Opening one of his drawers, he found a single black glove sitting atop his secret Featherman collection. No one actually ever visited Akechi in his apartment so he didn’t know why he was so insistent on keeping them hidden away. It’s not like Shido would actually care if he owned one or two Featherman figures. 

Ten. He owned ten. He even had a signed one from Pink Argus herself. A strange woman. Loki couldn’t sit still for too long around her. It wasn’t much of a case so he never actually looked into why that was. In all honestly it was rather bothersome to have his Persona stirring while having a simple conversation with Takeba. But he didn’t have too much time to question it, besides it would have proved too suspicious if he spoke of Personas and the Metaverse with the young actress. 

However that wasn’t the point. What he was really looking for was his glove. Why he kept the one glove after tossing the other to Joker, he couldn’t really say. Without a pair it proved to be useless, especially within his line of work, but perhaps he was getting sentimental. Being called Joker’s rival by the man himself only excited Akechi in their little game of cat and mouse. And in the end the cat caught the mouse.

Feeling sentimental, princeling? It won’t do you any good anymore, the boy is dead. Loki chuckled ominously.

“I’m as aware as you are, however I can’t help but feel something is wrong. No one will check for a body, the document has already been signed. And still…” Akechi trailed off.

If that’s what you believe why not check for yourself. As you’ve said, no one will search for a body. The Trickster god suggested.

“And risk the entire operation? No, that would be a stupid move right now.” Akechi sighed. Truly he must have lost it if the one thing he could call a friend right now was a magical demon living in his heart. Honestly, and Loki wondered why he preferred Robin Hood during times like these.

Now that he was on his mind, where was Robin Hood? His other persona had gone silent since the Interrogation, almost as if he was never there to start. Yet the absence of the archer left a void in Akechi’s heart that he hated to admit was there. Sure Robin Hood was fabricated to gain the trust of the Phantom Thieves but despite that all he was still a part of Akechi.

“Robin?” he called out. No one responded. Not even a glimmer of recognition in his heart.

And there was Loki’s ambiguous chuckling again. Of course he would find the disappearance of the other persona amusing. Loki was never that fond of Robin Hood. A hero of justice who stole from the rich, gave to the poor, and followed a set path. Nothing like the chaotic god Loki was. No, they were two entirely different entities.

He’s gone, little prince. You no longer have need for him thus he’s gone back into the seal of souls. I’m your sole persona now.

Akechi opened his mouth to protest, but found himself unable to speak. In a way, Loki was correct. And it all made more sense. The emptiness when leaving the interrogation room, his robotic report to Shido. He knew he felt like he was missing something, and for a moment he would have accepted that answer to be the loss of his rival. But no, there was far more to it, more than he could ever imagine. So why, why didn’t it feel right? He didn’t need Robin Hood. He didn’t need that attic trash.

That moment Akechi decided. He needed to investigate. Grabbing his uniform jacket off the chair, Akechi left his apartment. The taxi driver gave him an odd look, seemingly unable to recognize who he was, when he told the man to drive to the courthouse. People who didn’t recognize Goro Akechi these days seemed fewer and far between, though without much more question he was on his way.

This pleased Loki more than ever. As if it were all a fun little game of hide and seek Akechi was going back to the damn interrogation room. He paid no mind to the persona, trying whatever he could to tell himself this was all for his own piece of mind. Akira wasn’t going to jump out and surprise him. He would be there, on the table where he left him. Dead.

Oh what a fool he was to think things would be that easy. 

His footsteps echoed off the otherwise empty halls. It was clear no one had been down there since the interrogation, what point would there be to check on a dead man. Unless your name is Goro Akechi. Almost as if it were a premonition, the lights flickered the further he traversed the hallway. Standing in front of the door to the interrogation room, hand hovering over the handle, he paused.

This was ridiculous. There was nothing to fear. The only thing that would be waiting for him were the bodies of the guard and Kurusu.

Go on then. Open it. Loki urged with a lilt to his voice, suggesting he knew more than Akechi did. Odd considering...whatever. He opened the door bracing himself for the stench of death and nothing of surprise.

The metal door scraped open. A wave of rot and, strangely enough, mothballs rushed through Akechi’s nose. The false detective coughed trying to rid himself of the acrid stench. Despite being used to murder he wasn’t really one to clean up after himself in the Metaverse. There was nothing to clean after all. A shadow would disappear before his eyes. Nothing like that would happen in the normal world.

What the other smell came from became glaringly obvious the moment he stepped inside. The first thing was that Kurusu wasn’t there, at all. Surrounding his feet in the room were moths scattered across the floor. Dead moths. The littered the room with no discernable origin considering how enclosed this specific underground interrogation room was. The body of the officer he shot lay in the same place he left it. 

What an interesting turn of events, isn’t it princeling? Loki asked. Akechi huffed out a sigh in response. If only Loki could disappear like Robin did sometimes. The attitude was grinding on Akechi’s last nerve, on top of the other issues presenting themselves more and more as the mystery unfolded.

Moths. Moths everywhere. What could it mean? Where did they come from? And why. There was no obvious answer that jumped out at him. Not like those cases he worked on with Sae-san. Or even the ones he glanced over with that meddlesome police officer that fostered him. He was jumping completely into the dark with this one.

There was no use dwelling on it, or even standing in the interrogation room any longer. If someone noticed him down here it would pose more questions than he would ever be able to answer, and only look worse for him. Sure he may be the saviour that caught the notorious leader of the Phantom Thieves but you should never return to the scene of your crimes. Suou-san taught him that early on.

Something shifted behind him. A weak fluttering of wings stopped Akechi from closing the door and leaving things as they were. Upon the seat Kurusu once sat was a single golden butterfly, struggling to take flight. Akechi watched the butterfly with an odd fascination, feeling as if he may have seen something similar before. It was right before summoning Robin Hood, yes Robin Hood not Loki, and...the butterfly spoke. He couldn’t quite remember what the creature said to him, but there was more than met the eye about this strange insect.

The creature’s wings slowed to a soft sigh before it disappeared from sight once more. A wild grin spread across Akechi’s face. “Loki, I believe we have one more case to solve. What happened to the attic brat.”

A swell of satisfied pride swept up in Akechi’s heart. Without a word Akechi knew his persona’s resolve. They were going to find Kurusu, if it was the last thing they did.

Chapter Text

The fact Rise was able to help Akira all the way back to her grandmother’s tofu shop was already in itself a major feat. Not getting caught on top of that was an absolute miracle. If she’d been seen carrying someone, as injured as Akira was, through the streets of Inaba while Nanako and Yu were missing it would only cause more concern and make things much harder for the police still in commission than there was already.

She had to wonder what had even happened to Akira for him to befall such a fate. Especially given his approximate age was around Yu’s and that he was clearly from the future because of this. Among that, the bruises that littered his skin and the unmistakable limp on his right leg, he’d definitely been beaten at some point. By who she would probably never know since Akira didn’t remember anything.

On the other hand, Rise knew Akira very well. She’d known him since the moment his family moved to Inaba. Their parents were something of college friends, and Inaba’s police force was always looking for more reputable officers, and Tatsuya-san was just that person at that time. Since Akira and Rise were young they had a lot of playdates, she was basically his older sister by the time he was 7. It was cute, it was still cute but if this Akira called her big sis she might scream.

That wasn’t the point she was trying to make. She knew Akira very well, so she knew if anything he was up to trouble. No one walks out of what he presumably came from without being in some sort of trouble, so she was worried. She couldn’t really do anything to change what happened, and that he needed to know the truth eventually. But if she could prevent that from happening even for a little bit she would be happy.

That wasn’t a good idea, she knew that but forcing it upon Akira would be a bad idea. Especially right now. They needed to work on saving Nanako before even thinking about what to do about Akira. As long as he could hide out above the shop and stayed out of anyone’s sight things would work out fine.

The one thing Rise forgot to consider was what her grandmother would say upon seeing Akira. And it quickly became obvious just trying to brush the issue under the rug was not going to cut it at all. Her grandmother ran over to her and Akira the moment she lay her eyes upon the tall teenage boy, ignoring the two customers inside. The first one she recognized as Adachi-san. She could recognize that terrible posture from a mile away. And the other was Teddie. Teddie was unmistakable in general. No one in Inaba would wear clothes that fancy every day while blissfully being unaware of their surroundings and dancing in a tofu shop.

“Rise-chan I’d come around to ask you if you’ve had any news about Nanako or Narukami. But, I guess you’re too busy for that right now.” Adachi said, sending a weary look to Akira. She could see he had a lot of thoughts going on in his head. Who the beaten teen was, why Rise wanted anything to do with him.

Akira lifted his head towards the young detective. Though his memory of the past year was absolutely shot he remembered how the murder case ended. It was all his father could talk about for a year after the true culprit was caught. The man standing in front of him. Tohru Adachi.

Whatever the man actually wanted from Rise was not about Nanako. Narukami-senpai maybe, but judging by what he knew, Adachi could very well be behind the disappearance of his senpai as well. 

Akira was a good kid, sure he was a pain in the ass when he was a kid but a little rebellion against his father didn’t hurt anyone. Especially if it just led to a stray cat or two being brought home once or twice. He never did anything actually criminal. Of course he wouldn’t, that would be trouble for his father. But never in his life did he want to punch a cop as much as he did as he watched the detective speak to big sis Rise in a sickeningly fake carefree tone.

Was it weird to call her big sis when she was the same age as he was? Not the point, stay on task Akira.

The boy sent Adachi a deadly glare beneath his glasses. In a scene of dramatic flare the sun peaked up from behind the clouds, casting a menacing glint off the polished plastic. Adachi, despite who he was, took a step back. Though the boy spoke no words there was a clear message behind in his expression. Stay away from Rise. 

For what reason, Adachi couldn’t place. He didn’t like how protective the boy seemed to be of Rise and it was much more than being the average fanboy. As he slumped his shoulders and waved them off the gears began to turn. What was an unfamiliar boy doing with mega idol Rise Kujikawa in Inaba?

“Hey what was that about? Adachi-san was just doing his job.” Rise asked, doing her best to balance herself and Akira.

“Believe me. He’s not.” Akira replied. Even through the haze of his mind he knew better than to call out Adachi in the open. There was no evidence against him, and any and all people capable of doing so were focused on the kidnapping of Nanako Dojima. 

But SHIT did he want to punch Adachi so badly. Fuck the police, as his detective father would say.

“Rise-chan what’s going on out here? What happened to the nice detective?” Rise’s grandmother asked, stepping out from the tofu shop. Her eyes immediately landed on the tall teenager leaning onto her granddaughter like a crutch, noticing how he shifted his right leg uncomfortably often. Like he didn’t want to put any pressure on it.

Once getting a good look at his face she understood.

“Good heavens, child, what happened to you? Come, Rise-chan, let’s bring him inside. Your friend can help you bring him upstairs.” her grandmother gasped, ushering them both inside. 

Normally she wouldn’t trust a complete stranger inside, especially given who her granddaughter was however there was a familiar aura about the boy she couldn’t quite place yet and turning him away from their door at such a dire time was downright cruel. The hospital was too far away for them to walk, it was unfortunate Rise-chan wasn’t old enough to get a real driver’s licence yet.

For now, they had to work with what they had.

Rise didn’t need to question which one of her friends stopped by for very long. Teddie bounced into view, thankfully out of his bear costume, about to start shouting her name when he too noticed Akira. The next thing that happened couldn’t be properly explained to her grandmother no matter how hard she tried.

Teddie, in all of his glory, honestly walked up to Akira studying the poor boy’s bruised face before sniffing it like he was some sort of dog. A look of recognition washed over Teddie’s face, and he opened his mouth to ask her a question before sending a look to her grandmother and closing it again.

“Teddie instead of being weird can you help me bring him up the stairs? I’m not strong enough on my own.” Rise asked.

With the combined efforts of a boy who’d grown a body inside a bear suit and the teen idol they carefully helped the hazy Akira up the stairs into the small guest room Rise’s parents would normally stay in if the entire family ever came to Inaba. Granted that almost never happened so there was no real reason for her to be worried about it. Besides maybe messing up her grandma’s nice white sheets. She’d have to buy her new ones afterwards.

In the absence of Rise’s grandmother for who knew how long, Teddie pulled a more serious face than usual studying Akira once more. Reaching over the not-bear removed Akira’s glasses, turning the plastic over in his hands.

“These glasses are the same as I make, how did you get them?” Teddie asked, going right into the important details.

Squinting at Teddie Akira tried to remember who he was for a moment. The voice was eerily similar to the dreaded Junes bear but that demon spawn was nowhere in sight. He would recognize that horrid suit from a mile away, since by then he’d be a mile away from Junes but that wasn’t the point.

He didn’t remember ever needing glasses. Or getting them for that matter. Sure his vision was not at all the same as normal but that was due to the circumstances that brought him here. Not the presence, or lack thereof, of glasses.

Doing his best he tried to explain this to the boy and Rise. “I don’t know where they came from. I need them as much as you do.”

The irony of the statement didn’t fly over Rise’s head. She could see the ghost of a snarky smirk that almost made her want to push him off the bed if not for the shape he was in. He didn’t need to say it, but she knew that he was well aware of the near magical circumstances that lead to her involvement in the case.

Needless to say Rise wasn’t a huge fan of that at all.

“I see you become a wise guy when you’re older.” she softly ruffled his already messy hair. “Can you at least tell us the last thing you remember?”

“I was walking home from my part time job at Junes, but that’s about all I can tell you.” Akira replied, trying to swat her hands away.

“Really? I’m surprised you’d want to work there considering how much you hate that place.” 

“We both know it’s not the store itself, or Hanamura-san that I don’t like there.” Akira deadpanned.

From the corner of her eye she could see Teddie deflate, close to letting lose his affection towards Akira. Thankfully the bear could stop himself for the time being. Instead choosing to inspect Rise’s cellphone, in an attempt to figure out how to use it so they could call the others.

“You know, Kurusu-kun. Since you’re from the future that probably means you know who the true culprit is. Then again we already know that grizzly Namatame is the one behind it all. He kidnapped Nana-chan after all.” Teddie commented, pressing random buttons on her phone.

Rolling her eyes, Rise took the phone from Teddie’s ‘paws’, stepping out of the room so she could call Yosuke, or anyone who would really answer her. The best bet she had was Yosuke, despite knowing how uncomfortable he’d probably make it that the idol Risette was calling him. Whatever this was for the investigation. Worrying about Yosuke’s attitude would come later.

-

“Oh, you haven’t actually figured it out yet then.” Akira replied to the strange boy. He honestly couldn’t remember who he was. All he knew was he sometimes hung out around Rise and Yosuke most of the time, and Narukami whenever he was around. The voice was uncomfortably familiar but again he was sure it wasn’t the empty husk known as the Junes bear.

“It’s not Namatame?” Teddie asked, setting down one of the figurines on the desk, turning back to Akira.

Akira chose his words carefully. “I can’t tell you too much since going to the police and telling them who it is would be hard in my situation. But I can tell you it’s not him. It’s too easy of an answer.”

“Well considering you know, the true culprit has to have been caught! That’s beary reassuring Kurusu-kun!!” Akira cringed at the bear puns. It brought back too many terrible memories of the Junes bear. 

They sat in comfortable silence, waiting for Rise to return. Despite his usual bothersome demeanour Teddie wasn’t as clueless as most expected. He smelled something akin to the scent Shadows gave off in the TV world. The power emanating off of the scent was one familiar to Teddie. Close to something that alerted him of someone’s Shadow self but not so strong that he knew it was a Shadow. Considering where they were in the world right now, he knew. It was the smell of a Persona.

But there was another one that quickly overwhelmed him. It was also familiar but not half as common as before. He remembered something similar far back in April after the fog cleared in his world. He tried his best sifting through the muddled memories he’d made over the past seven months, almost to no avail.

The realization hit him when he remembered the name of the lady that had been thrown in. The one who’s family owned a booze shop, Saki Konishi. The smell of Death.

Akira himself was completely unaware to this, though Teddie was sure the pieces were going to fall into place for the boy soon. After all he strangely woke up in the past with very few memories of what led him to be there. Despite having his own lost memories, Teddie was almost certain he shouldn’t mention anything to Akira, or even Rise maybe. They were dealing with a lot so adding death to Akira’s increasingly worrying list of mystery was the exact opposite of a good idea.

It was for the best he kept this to himself for a LONG, long time.

Akira’s eyes drooped as a sudden wave of fatigue overtook him. He rubbed his eyes trying to keep himself awake with very little success. As sleep overtook the Trickster, he could have sworn he saw a shimmering blue butterfly flutter into the room.

Outside the guest room, Rise didn’t know what else she could possibly do. Yosuke was in the process of gathering the rest of their little team, which she supposed was good for the investigation but she hadn’t exactly told him what was going on, in the off chance her grandma was listening.

And now she was in the worst possible scenario. As if the world was playing a cruel joke upon them all, her grandmother reached the top of the steps. The stern look in her eyes made Rise want to look away, but that would probably only look more suspicious.

“So Rise-chan. Who exactly is that poor boy?” her grandmother asked. Of course she would be concerned. Not only by his condition but from her own status as an idol too.

“He was recruited relatively recently before I went on hiatus. My agent wanted me to help him get used to the idol life before he started training since Kanami-chan’s too busy with her rising popularity and all that.” Rise replied putting her acting lessons hopefully to good use. Considering her grandmother had yet to figure out what she was doing at Junes so often she was sure it would work out relatively well. Hopefully her grandmother would never figure out the truth, it would be hard on her old heart. “I don’t know what happened to him on the way here though. He doesn’t seem to remember.”

“I see. Perhaps this was his way of trying to ease you back into work as well. Are you sure you’re alright with it. Still. I hope the poor dear’s alright. What is his name?” her grandma asked.

“Oh uh. Ren. Ren, uh.” through the deepest corners of her mind she tried to create a new last name for Akira. The only thing that seemed to enter her mind was the Mama Mia script she’d been learning before deciding to go on break. “Uh Mama Mia.”

Maybe that wasn’t the best idea.

“Amamiya-san then. I will leave you and your friend to it then. Please don’t hesitate to ask if you need something.” her grandmother pat her on the head before heading back down to the tofu shop.

With a sigh of relief Rise reentered the guest room. Teddie nervously paced around Akira who had fallen asleep, and while she was glad he was resting it was no less concerning that Himiko nervously flitted around anxiously as well.

The young idol’s eyes rested upon the blue butterfly sitting beside Akira’s head. For a moment she wondered if this was what Teddie was so panicked about, a single butterfly. The strange creature seemed almost protective despite being such a delicate little insect. If she had the power to use her Persona in the normal world, Rise may have tried to scan it.

Without being able to do much else, at the very least she wanted to calm Teddie down. If her Grandmother heard the commotion and returned upstairs to the mascot’s freakout she could sense trouble incoming. “Come on Teddie, calm down. What if Akira-kun wakes up. He probably wouldn’t want you freaking out over something as small as falling asleep.”

“It’s not that Rise-chan. I’ve smelled something on both that strange bug, and Akira-kun.” Teddie whimpered. If not for the clearly foreboding sense of danger she would have smacked him for smelling Akira so much.

“Don’t leave me hanging Teddie, what’s wrong?” she asked.

The boy paused for a moment, carefully considering his next words. “Rise-chan I don’t understand myself but they smell like Death.”

-

Akira awoke in an unfamiliar room. Well he could barely call it a room , it was actually a blue limousine driving through a foggy trail. In front of him sat an old man with a large strange nose, smiling at him. Beside the man were a young man and a woman.

Everything about the room was blue. The seats, the walls, the clothes, the lights. Everything. Through the speakers, he could hear the haunting, yet strangely calming song drifting through the air.

“Greetings my young man, and welcome to the Velvet Room. A place between dream and reality, mind and matter. My name is Igor, a servant of Philemon.” the man, Igor, introduced himself.

“I am Margaret, the current attendant of the Velvet Room.” the woman spoke, blowing slightly to Akira.

“And my name is Theodore, Margaret’s younger brother, and an attendant of the Velvet Room.”

“The Velvet Room is a place only those who have forged a contract may enter. However…” Igor trailed off, staring into Akira’s eyes. Akira shifted uncomfortable in his seat, unsure of how to even begin. Velvet Room? Contract? He knew he was missing something but the last thing he expected was...well...an old man in a car and two unsettling albinos.

The strange man wordlessly summoned an array of cards onto the table in front of him. Turning the cards around the frown deepened, studying each of the cards. From the other side of the limousine, Akira was barely able to make out what was on them, though he quickly assumed they were Tarot cards.

Theodore tensed beside his Master, staring at one particular card. “Master, that’s...are you sure we should allow him on such a journey so soon?”

“I’m afraid the young man may not have a choice.” Igor replied, returning his attention to Akira. “The cards are not in your favour today, a great ordeal lies ahead of you, one that leads to the End. Though you are still a guest of this room, we will provide assistance to you to best we can.”

“However, that will be entirely up to you. Will you accept what you have forgotten, or will you turn your eyes and cover your ears to delay the inevitable?” Margaret asked.

For the first time since entering the strange room, Akira found his voice. “Narukami-san. He’s involved with this too, isn’t he?”

Margaret nodded, for once the elegant woman’s eyes betrayed her attempts at remaining completely professional. “Yes. Mr Narukami is my guest and if I had to assume anything he would likely be in your time period. Though safe for now his connection to the Velvet Room remains weak, much like yours. Our time here will soon be over. Please, Trickster. You must remember.”

Chapter Text

Makoto was more stressed than she had been in weeks. Her first indication the plan hadn’t gone the way they’d hoped was when Futaba never mentioned anything about the mission being a success, followed by the return of her sister much earlier than she had anticipated.

Not wanting to press, or make herself look more suspicious than before, she refrained from asking Sae anything about the investigation. From her older sister’s exhausted expression and the briefest acknowledgement Makoto was even there she could tell her Sae had a difficult time interrogating Akira. 

The mission was a failure, she was well aware of that. Makoto paced around her bedroom, unable to sleep or study for college entrance exams while trying to think of any possibilities Akira was alive and the mission was still somewhat a success. In actuality she was trying to convince herself Akira was still alive because he was their leader, and a dear friend she’d come to count on. What were they going to do about his death? They’d never actually thought about what would happen in the case Akira did die.

What were they supposed to tell his parents when Akira’s probation was over?

On top of that Makoto was worried about Futaba. This had been a plan she, Futaba and Morgana had created with Akira’s help so she could only imagine how it was for the young hacker. On top of that Akira had become something like a brother figure to Futaba so the loss definitely hit hard, especially after losing her mother in such a similar way. Futaba was always so quick to answer, yet for the past few days she’d gone radio silent.

Taking the role as acting leader, Makoto sent a message to the other Thieves to meet up at the Sakura residence the next morning. If anything she thought they should also check on Sojiro, since he was the man taking care of Akira.

The next day Makoto was hardly able to focus on the lesson ahead of her. Her worries for Futaba’s safety, and Akira were still running rampant in her brain. Embarrassingly enough she’d been called out by her homeroom teacher, scandalous for the Student Council President Honour student Makoto was. Yet still…

When the day was done the remaining Phantom Thieves convened in front of the Sakura residence. She hesitated at the door. Would Boss even answer it? She was almost certain Futaba wouldn’t be receptive about talking to them, despite the fact she wanted to try. 

“Mako-chan, just remember we’re doing this for Futaba-chan. You got this.” Haru cheered.

Sighing Makoto replined, “I know. I’m just worried about how Futaba will take this. Still, thank you Haru.”

The door opened to a rather tired looking Sojiro, judging by the dark bags under his eyes. His normally neat slicked back hair stood up in varying directions. In short, Sojiro looked as bad as the rest of them did. Of course he would, he cared about Akira like a son.

“Are you here to see Futaba?” he tiredly asked.

“Yes. Is it alright if we try to talk to her. I can only imagine how hard it’s been for the both of you.” Makoto replied.

“She’s locked herself in her room again, and won’t respond to me or even come out to eat. You can try to talk to her if you want, I hope she responds better to you guys.” Sojiro sighed, scratching the back of his neck.

Looking past Sojiro her eyes fell upon a silver haired teenager who seemed rather lost in thought. “Sakura-san who is this?”

Sojiro remained silent, looking at the boy expectantly. The boys hesitated, seemingly toiling away over something in his head before he finally stood up and held a hand out to Makoto. “Yu Narukami, nice to meet you.” he greeted.

Makoto’s lips pursed into a thin line. She’d heard of Yu Narukami before. He was a regular at LeBlanc who’d known Akira while he was in elementary school. He was a rather overbearing older brother type, especially to his young cousin Nanako, from what Akira mentioned before. On top of that he liked to play detective, having helped solved a serial murder case in Inaba about 5 years ago.

“Wait for real?! Isn’t Narukami-san like...40 or somethin’?” Ryuji shouted, shocked upon coming to the same revelation as Makoto.

Yu had no idea if he should be offended by that or not. Sure he looked and kind of acted like an old man sometimes but it didn’t hurt any less. When he realised they were looking at him for an answer all Yu could do was shrug. “First of all...no I’m 17. Secondly I have as much idea as you  on why I’m here.”

Makoto remained silent despite the many questions she wanted to ask. They all seemed unimportant compared to the task of Futaba.

“Is there any way we can talk to Futaba-chan, Sakura-san?” Haru asked.

The older man sighed scratching the back of his neck. “You can try but I don’t think she’s going to want to talk. She’s been locked in her room the past few days, refusing to come outside even to eat.”

“A lot of our plan was orchestrated by her and Akira so I can imagine it’s been very tough on her.” Makoto admitted. 

In the middle of it all, Yu sat uncomfortably, listening to their conversation. He still didn’t have a full idea of what happened but the only thing that he really needed to know, it seemed, was Akira was dead. Listening to a conversation so personal between close friends and the caretaker of another, felt wrong. But even so, Yu Narukami just wanted to make everyone happy.

Some may call it meddling. Others would call it overbearing, but after spending so much time in Inaba Yu knew that the one thing he was good at, besides changing and fusing Personas, was helping people with their problems. Yosuke would be able to vouch for him, if he was there.

Yu had to wonder if everyone had forgotten he was still in the room, if he should say something to make himself known. Seeing that Sojiro and those other teenagers were deep in a hushed conversation by the door Yu quietly rose from the couch. He tiptoed up the stairs, and stood before Futaba’s door. His hand wavered in front of the door, unable to move another inch. He was probably far from the person Futaba wanted to talk to but he felt like he needed to try. If anything for his own peace of mind.

Finally Yu quietly knocked on the door. On the other side, he could hear the young girl’s muffled groaning, “Go away. I don’t want to talk right now Sojiro.”

“Actually...it’s me. Uh, young Narukami. Can I...talk to you?” he asked. 

Normally Yu could handle long silences, he grew up around it since his parents were always so busy, and honestly he wouldn’t consider himself the most talkative person out there. Still the silence following his question was almost suffocating. 

Sure the Akira of the future wasn’t exactly the Akira he knew but he still cared about the kid. Or teenager as he was now. He understood how Futaba felt, almost too well. Nanako was...well he hoped she was still alive and the rest of the Investigation Team could save her, and he kind of blew his own chances at doing so.

So despite the silence that followed, Yu continued talking. “Listen, I know how you feel right now. I don’t know what you’ve heard about my cousin Nanako but I don’t think this is the way things went in your world. I...I just wanted to save her even though I didn’t know where that TV would take me. Now I don’t even know if she’s going to be alright since I’m here.”

He wondered if everyone else would be able to save Nanako without his power of the Wild Card. Sure he knew his friends were more than capable of holding their own against Shadows however without him as leader they were a little…lost. More than that Naoto was still new to the Persona business. 

No, there was no use in doubting his friends like this. They’d be able to save Nanako. The case could be closed without him…

Yu shook his head returning his attention to the closed door. “My point is, it’s not your fault for what happened to Akira-kun wasn’t any of your faults.” 

“What do you know? You saw the end of the broadcast. It was our idea for him to get captured.” a muffled voice questioned from behind the door. 

“Think about it. I’ve only known him for about half a year, granted he’s 11, but he’s still the most stubborn kid I’ve ever met. And he’s got the strong will to boot. Sakura-san mentioned something about the justice system being corrupt and from that I can only assume they’re trying to cover up something up with false news of his death. I don’t think any of us have the full picture here.” Yu replied, the Investigation Team wheels whirred in his brain. 

He’d spent the past few days looking into the popularity of the Phantom Thieves, and could instantly sense something off with the entire timeline of the Phantom Thieves. If they truly were blaming the mental shutdowns on the Phantom Thieves why would the first instance of stealing someone’s heart show up two years after the first mental shutdown. On top of that, it was impossible for Akira to be the leader even if it were true, which he knew it wasn’t. Akira may be a little bit of a shithead but he was 11, there was no doubt in his mind Akira could never actually kill someone. Both the kid’s father and uncle saw to that pretty early.

Futaba shuffled in her room, soon the door was yanked open by the short girl. Her eyebrows pinched together while giving him a once over. “You...make a very good argument. I think you could actually be of good help to us.” she said. Yu didn’t know if he should be flattered or not. At this point he was just happy to help someone else the best way he could, after flubbing it with Nanako and all.

Hearing Ryuji’s loud footsteps stomping up the stairs along with Ann’s not so subtle remarks about Ryuji’s lack of tact, Futaba began to think. Between the strange methods behind Yu’s appearance in Tokyo 2016 as a teen and the convenient broadcast of Akira’s death there was a possibility Akira was alive. From what it sounded like, supernatural means much like the Metaverse was what brought him over. She’d have to consider it later.

-

Yu soon learned Akira had some very odd friends in Tokyo. Not that his friend group was normal by any means, but the ‘alleged’ Phantom Thieves didn’t seem like the kind of people who would ever be friends under normal circumstances. 

There was a stuffy student council president who had questioned what Yu had been doing in the Sakura residence, a model, a boy who didn’t seem to have a verbal filter and was the butt of the joke constantly kind of like Yosuke, an artist that wasn’t even from the same school as Akira, a cat...and the heiress of Okumura Foods. He’d heard something about Okumura Foods before he left for Inaba, they weren’t a huge company back then. On top of that, Haru’s father had been the victim of a mental shutdown on live TV resulting in his death. 

That was something Yu would have nightmares about for a while. Seeing images of the bodies of Mayumi Yamano, Saki Konishi and King Moron had been one thing, but watching a man die on live TV was another entirely. Judging from that one piece of evidence, he could safely say Okaumura’s death hadn’t been any of these teens, especially Haru. She didn’t seem like the kind who would pay someone to kill her father at all. Sure no one knew she was one of the Phantom Thieves but had they known, the implications behind their accusations were only getting worse.

On top of that their methods sounded absolutely insane. Going into the minds of adults and changing their hearts by changing their cognition was...a sentence for sure. They also talked to the cat like they understood it. The cat had meowed at him for a good five minutes as he stared dumbly at it. Following that, Makoto had been kind enough to actually explain their methods enough. He could tell she was keeping something vital from him still, which was entirely understandable.

Really a lot of it sounded like the TV world. Going into some supernatural place and magically changing people, or saving them in his own case, seemed too similar for his liking. And if these Palaces were like the TV World then that could only mean they were also able to summon Personas. The Phantom Thieves were probably Persona users.

Geez was Igor handing Personas out like candy now?

Still, something about that reminded Yu of something. For the past few days he felt as though a part of him was missing. Like being thrown in the future had taken a piece of his soul away for not listening to his friends. To make that shorter, he couldn’t feel the call of any of his Personas. Not even Izanagi.

Yu observed the Phantom Thieves, who were trying to lighten the mood by talking about Featherman….damn you Featherman. His eyes caught the strange artist boy, Yusuke, who was also watching him strangely through his fingers as if making a canvas.

“Uh...can I help you?” Yu asked uneasily. The boy seemed to jump at the acknowledgement for a moment before reverting to his otherwise neutral expression.

“The way the light shone upon you while lost in thought was utterly perfect. I was considering using you as a subject for my next painting.” Yusuke replied.

Maybe it was best to leave him be.

“Dude seriously? That’s what you’re thinking about right now?” Ryuji very understandably questioned. Yusuke shrugged before producing a sketchbook and an array of expensive looking pencils seemingly out of nowhere before diving right into one of the blank pages. Ryuji stared at him utterly dumbfounded and speechless at what he just witnessed. Yu clasped his hands together, bowing his head. Never question a man and his interests.

Especially if it was Yosuke’s...special interests...in nurses...Yu shuddered at the painful thought.

The atmosphere was still generally much better than the foreboding sense of dread from a few days ago. even if it was mostly artificial with Yu around. Still, he felt that if anything they should get back to business. The assumption he had earlier about Palaces and the TV World had been nagging him for the past 10 minutes. He needed answers soon.

“Be honest with me, are you all Persona users?” he asked.

The idle conversations died down at his sudden question. Ann’s eyes widened in surprise, and on instinct she elbowed Ryuji before he could say anything. Everyone turned to Makoto in the next moment, the next closest thing to a leader. On the ground, fighting out of Haru’s grasp, the cat began to meow loudly once again. He could only watch in morbid curiosity as they nodded at the creature as if it were speaking to them before turning to Yu.

“I’m afraid we don’t really understand the question. Would you care to elaborate?” Makoto asked.

Now Yu was just going off a little bit of a hunch, but he was pretty sure they were lying out of their ass. And very bad at it. Maybe it worked on people who knew nothing about Personas or other worlds and all the magical mumbo jumbo he dealt with on the daily but this was lazy at best.

Not that his own attempts to throw Dojima off his trail were very good.

“If my assumption is wrong then you’re probably going to think I’m crazy, but then again you talk to a cat-” the cat protested very loudly, “but what I’m asking is if you go into some magical nightmare world and summon crazy demons out of your heart that you call a Persona?”

After another beat of silence, Makoto replied all too calmly, “We’ve never heard of such things.” Yu knew at that moment they were either trying to hide the fact they were Persona users from him, badly, or he really did just look like a crazy person. Maybe he was being too presumptuous and not everything supernatural was the work of a Persona.

Still he hoped to figure out what happened to Izanagi if anything. The other Personas in his possession were far more powerful than Izanagi however he was Yu’s true Persona, his other self. And if he couldn’t call upon his other self in this world, he was sure something very, very bad was about to happen.

-

Deep underground far from the Sakura residence, sat a lab long out of commission. Dust covered blackened consoles, machines unplugged from wall outlets. In the center of the room sat a large machine with green tubes protruding out of it in wild directions, half hidden under a white tarp.

When the last time anyone set foot in said lab was unknown exactly. Anyone who would remember the lab long passed away. The lab once belonged to a rich family, conducting too much dangerous research about Shadows and where they came from, what their potential was. And the production of artificial intelligence.

Those days were long over for the company, focusing on bigger better things for the world. Even so, nothing stopped a machine that should be out of commission from opening her crimson eyes.

Chapter Text

By all accounts Akihiko was having a terrible week. Activity in Tokyo PD had been ridiculously high since the death of Okumura, they were all desperate to find and possibly capture the Phantom Thieves. And he didn’t expect that to be handed to him by the hands of one called ‘Goro Akechi’, the second coming of the Detective Prince. That should have been something good, amazing even. It would mean all the Phantom Thieves business would finally end and Akihiko could have an honest break just to catch up with Mitsuru or Fuuka. Honestly either of them would have been great.

But things weren’t exactly that easy. He tended to rush into things without thinking, and was too impulsive for his own good, but Akihiko Sanada wasn’t an idiot. He knew something was wrong when he and several hundreds of other police officers followed the young Detective Prince into a magical casino with the promise of the Phantom Thieves right into their hands. The first thing that felt off, besides being transported to a casino from the courthouse was Caesar. His Persona had long been asleep since She passed, so the sudden buzz of electricity prickling his skin under his uniform had been nothing but surprising. Something in the air reeked of the atmosphere in Tartarus, and the Dark Hour in general.

Honestly, Akihiko hated it. He hated how wherever he was gave him the same overwhelming dread as that green tower from years ago. When he was younger he treated Personas and the Dark Hour like it was some kind of game. He wanted to get stronger but a fat load of good that did him. It took Shinji going into a coma and the girl he loved dying to finally pull his head out of his ass a little to finally see the error of his ways. He just hoped whoever these Phantom Thieves were had more sense than he did back then.

His hopes were quickly dashed out when he learned over the news the next day the Leader of the Phantom Thieves was a kid no older than Her back when the Dark Hour still existed. He was a kid and Akihiko felt somewhat responsible for having a hand in his arrest. Personally he didn’t do much of anything but being there was enough to make the man want to punch a wall. Maybe if he had considered the possibility of Personas being involved, or that the Phantom Thieves were a bunch of kids he could have done something sooner. The sudden appearance of the Thieves in a random highschool couldn’t have been just a coincidence.

Suddenly being relieved of his duties after the kid’s arrest was just a punch to the gut. Being told he was a liability for feeling sympathy for a kid they had little to no evidence on in the Okumura case was so absolutely ludicrous Akihiko couldn’t find the words to even protest. He stormed out of his director’s office without so much as a glance to any of the other officers, and later found himself moping on Shinji’s couch over it.

“You always hated working for them anyways. Why not ask Kirijo if you can have your other job back?” Shinji asked. 

Akihiko cringed at the thought of asking Mitsuru to work for the Kirijo group’s...secret task force. The only person, besides Mitsuru herself, willing to join the Shadow Operatives was Minato but the implication behind his reasons were far from out of the goodness of his heart, or even friendship with Mitsuru. Minato hated them after what happened, and Akihiko honestly couldn’t blame the man at all. Losing Minako was hard on them all, but it was hardest for her twin brother. On top of that Minato always hated him while he was dating Minako. Being in the same room as Minato was less than ideal.

“A job’s a job Aki. If you need one, you may as well take it. You’re the one with ‘special power’ still.” Shinji sighed, turning back to his show.

Akihiko’s week went from terrible to downright awful when that dreaded newscast suddenly interrupted them both. He barely registered  his mug shattering on the floor as the death of the kid was broadcast on the TV. Criminal or not he was a kid and didn’t deserve to die. Shinji’s annoyed bark cut short when he noticed how green his brother looked. The silver haired man held onto the counter, trying to keep himself steady while the room turned fuzzy.

It was partially his fault. He wasn’t the one who cuffed the kid, or even remotely close to the spot Joker had been arrested. The closest glimpse he ever had to the boy was when he backflipped out of an entire stained glass window. Even so he felt somewhat responsible for the fate that fell upon the kid. Was he just cursed? It seemed wherever he went someone died to some Persona related thing. He didn’t even know if Joker was a Persona user.

Come now, master, of course he was. Why else would I have awakened?

Caesar was right but that really didn’t help. Shinji’s voice sounded muffled, like he was speaking underwater. The next day he wouldn’t remember what Shinji was trying to say. What he did remember was being guided back to the couch, the bright light from the TV broadcast being shut off, and how cold Shinji’s hands felt. A reminder of what could have been had Shinji not been saved by Her Persona.

-

That’s how Akihiko found himself sitting across the large conference table from an ever serious looking Mitsuru. Despite his better judgement, Shinji came along too. Likely he was still worried about Akihiko after the 20th, despite the fact Akihiko promised he was fine. Far off from everyone else on Mitsuru’s side of the table was Minato looking as sullen as he remembered.

“It’s good to see you again Akihiko. Though I wish it was under better circumstances.” Mitsuru spoke first.

“Yeah it’s nice to see you too. Have you been able to get in contact with Yukari and Junpei recently?” Akihiko asked, shifting in the chair. He wanted to put off the part where he had to ask her for help as long as possible. Especially in front of Minato, he would probably get a kick out of it.

Mitsuru shook her head. Yukari stopped talking to them entirely after becoming a model. She promised it was because she was busy between classes and her various modelling gigs. Both Mitsuru and Akihiko could see through her excuses. Yukari wanted nothing to do with the Shadow Ops. She’d never liked fighting Shadows, Minako had always been the one to encourage her throughout Tartarus and the Full Moon Operations, now that they were without Minako despite how she cherished her friendship with Mitsuru dearly, Yukari wanted nothing to do with Personas anymore.

Junpei on the other hand was hard to get in contact with. Even in highschool he was prone to forgetting his phone in the ramen shop, or dropping it in water. Junpei was incredibly unlucky when it came to cell phones. To be honest, Akihiko assumed Junpei was living his life with Chidori and coaching some little league baseball team on his free time. Or something like that. If his assumptions were correct, it was more fair to Junpei that they don’t actively seek him out, or recruit him into the Shadow Ops. It was better that way.

"Unfortunately I haven't heard anything from Yukari in a while. The last message I got from Iori was about a week ago however...it would be best not to bother him during this time." Ending on a rather ominous note Mitsuru didn't elaborate. Akihiko could only assume what happened to his underclassman, the Chidori theory being the strongest.

"Yamagishi is working on some maintenance on Aigis in the lab right now so they can't join us. It'll just be Arisato joining us today." Mitsuru stated, as if it hadn't already been obvious to him. It was nice knowing Fuuka and Aigis were around though, even if it was for maintenance. Minato, entirely tuned out of the conversation stared at his cellphone wearing a rather perplexed frown on his face. Akihiko didn't really feel like asking.

“Be sure to say hey for me.” Shinji replied, more towards Akihiko himself rather than Mitsuru.

Mitsuru hummed, in response. She leaned back in her chair, waiting for Akihiko to finally speak. It sucked Mitsuru was never really one to focus on the pleasantries, that was what Yukari and Junpei had always been good for. He couldn’t say too much since he wasn’t much better. Akihiko had to cringe at the memories of talking endlessly about protein and training he’d subjected the juniors to. With his obsession with getting stronger and training finally under control he wanted to forget the embarrassment he subjected onto them.

Now, considering fate put the four worst conversationalists in a room together, with one of them absolutely hating Akihiko’s existence it was a wonder how the room hadn’t exploded by the end of the day. Or that Akihiko and Minato weren’t already jumping at each other’s throats. On a normal day, Akihiko would have demanded Minato to square up for the things he said, but this wasn’t a normal day in the slightest. What started off at least semi-normal, albeit awkward and horribly paced, quickly descended into extreme discomforting chaos when Minato opened his mouth.

"Sanada why are you here?" he asked.

For a second Akihiko could only sit in confused silence. Was Minato serious? He was certain Mitsuru would have mentioned something before the meeting, she never would have brought Minato along otherwise. Though now that he thought of it even more, bringing the man who hated him more than living was quite possibly the dumbest move Mitsuru had made since the Marin Karin incident with the Nyx Avatar.

"Arisato we went over this before." Mitsuru sighed, wishing she’d asked Kikuno to clear her schedule earlier. 

"No I get it. He wants his Shadow hunting Persona party job back but something doesn't add up. You were part of the Tokyo Police so everything about the Phantom Thieves…" Minato trailed off. His grip on his phone tightened despite the attempt he made to attempt to reassure Akihiko.

"You need to get over your grudge towards Akihiko eventually, Arisato. You can't seriously mean to put the blame on Akihiko for something outside of his control again can you?" Mitsuru asked, ice lacing every word of her question.

"That's not what I said. Listen, regardless of how we put it the kid is still dead and it's still extremely suspicious that Sanada suddenly needs a job with the Shadow Ops. So forgive me for not being all trusting with anyone who has a Persona." 

Although he wanted to protest Minato didn't exactly have a Persona, he couldn't with Shinji in the room. Otherwise he'd be a hypocrite. In a twisted way Minato was correct. Given their past with Strega they couldn't trust anyone with a Persona, and the mental shutdown cases. Mitsuru and Akihiko shuddered at the memories of Okumura's mental shutdown. He looked just like the Lost.

Still, he was there for a reason and that reason wasn't to be verbally harassed by Minato Arisato. “I don’t have all the answers you want, but I can tell you that the Phantom Thieves are Persona users. I’m also sure that detective kid, Akechi, is one too since he’s the one who led us to them in the first place.” Akihiko explained. “Being in the alternate world awakened Caesar like during the Dark Hour. Obviously I didn’t summon him but I can tell you for sure whatever is causing the change of Hearts is the power of a Persona.”

“I see. That makes a considerable amount of sense now that I think about it. The circumstances leading up until this moment lines up to something Persona related. And you’re certain Akechi has his own power?” Mitsuru asked.

“I wouldn’t be able to tell you how else he led us into a casino from the courthouse.” Akihiko replied.

A muffled ping rang from under the table. Akihiko could have sworn his phone just spoke to him. Pulling his phone out of his pocket he found a strange app open, stanger was it was an app he’d never even downloaded onto his phone. The bright red and black eye stared back at him, pulsating with a strange energy. Logged into the map were the words ‘casino’ and ‘courthouse’. Sitting above both of them was an empty line. Akihiko frowned at the strange app, wondering both how it got onto his phone and what it was for. He hoped it wasn’t another virus. He was far too prone to downloading them despite Fuuka’s warnings and personal additions to his devices.

“What’s wrong?” Shinji asked, for a moment Akihiko almost forgot Shinji was there the whole time.

“This weird app just started talking to me after mentioning the casino which is already odd enough but on top of that I didn’t even download it in the first place.” Akihiko replied, placing his phone on the table for the others to see. “Can you get Fuuka to look at it later?”

Mitsuru nodded, “Of course, however you could always ask her yourself. Your intel on this case would be valuable to the Shadow Ops.” she replied.

With that out of the way Akihiko could practically feel both him and Shinji sighing in relief. It was a bonus he never had to ask, knowing perfectly well how awkward and uncomfortable that would have been for them all. Mitsuru herself even relaxed in her chair, though still keeping her eyes on Akihiko’s phone. Beside her Minato was still frowning.

“There’s something I don’t get about your story, Sanada.” Minato said. Maybe he spoke too soon. “If the Akechi kid was working with the police why was he working with the Phantom Thieves? And more importantly why doesn’t he just turn the rest of them in now? He’s doubling down on the ‘Phantom Thieves bad’ speech now so if they are an actual criminal organization why not just grab the rest and throw all of them in jail?”

As much as he hated to admit it, Minato made an extremely valid point. What did Akechi have to gain by letting the other Phantom Thieves go free? He had to know their identities. Whatever Akechi’s motive was, he supposed he would never know, and honestly, Akihiko felt better about it that way.

The door suddenly swung open. On the other side was Kikuno and some vaguely familiar looking young man with a tan school jacket. Her eyes were half open from an exhausting conversation, no doubt, Akihiko assumed after realizing who the young man was. 

“Kirijo-sama, I apologize for the interruption but he insisted he speak to you. According to his words, it’s ‘of the utmost urgency’. I tried to stop him but he was determined to push his way past.” Kikuno dully put, further affirming she was more than exhausted. 

The young man stepped out from behind the purple haired maid, with some form of a dubious smile on his face. Minato’s phone cracked on the table while he slammed the poor thing down, somewhere close to throwing down with the teenager right then and there. Honestly, Akihiko wouldn’t stop him if he did. No one would.

“Hello Kirijo-san. I hope I’m not interrupting anything too important. Though judging by your current associates, I’d guess not.” Akechi said with a smile. 

“It’s actually good that you’re all here. I assume you’re the ones who hold the same power as myself.” His gaze rested solely on Akihiko as he spoke. Undoubtedly, he recognized him from the police station somehow.

Crossing his arms over his chest Minato scoffed. Beside him, Shinji coughed awkwardly, his hands twitched towards his chest as a reminder of the events that played out 7 years ago. Neither of them spoke, and from the confused gleam in Akechi’s eyes Akihiko couldn’t say for sure if Akechi knew why they reacted the way they did. It may be for the best if he didn’t know Minato and Shinji didn’t have a Persona.

“What do you want?” Mitsuru plainly asked. 

“Has your friend not told you yet? It would seem as though the Phantom Thief’s body has suddenly disappeared. We’ve tried looking in the morgue, but no one can find his body. It’s as if he’s completely disappeared.” Akechi replied rubbing his chin, miming being lost in thought. The subtle shit-eating grin he sent towards Akihiko only made him want to punch him even more than before. Maybe he really would send Minato on the little bastard.

“And you expect us to do...what exactly?” Minato ground out. “What exactly makes you think we would help you in any capacity after what you did to the kid in the first place?”

The young detective let out a light hearted laugh despite Minato’s attitude, sending a chill down Akihiko’s spine. The disingenuity of the action was palpable, and incredibly uncomfortable. This was a kid who was willing to turn on his allies at the drop of a hat, as far as he knew. No matter what, he wasn’t sure if it was a good idea. 

“Well if you insist. I only wish to know what happened to Kurusu’s body. And you’re the only ones who can possibly help me.” Akechi gestured to Akihiko’s phone which still brightly displayed the pulsing red eye on screen. “You have all the means to help however if you don’t wish then that’s alright as well. I hope Public Security doesn’t know what you’ve been doing under their noses.”

Sighing, Shinji stood up, dragging his feet across the floor as he approached the door. The winning smile stretched across Akechi’s face faltered a bit at Shinji’s sudden exit, who barely regarded Akechi at all. “Why are you-”

“I’m not getting myself involved with this Persona shit again, I was only here for Aki. Just do me a favour and don’t get yourself killed alright?” Shinji replied, directing his final comment at Akihiko? Mitsuru? Akihiko honestly wouldn’t know until asking him later. 

The dumbfounded expression on Akechi’s face lingered for a moment before he plastered another fake smile over his face. “Well, what do you say, Kirijo-san?” 

Mitsuru quietly contemplated her response with her lips pressed into a thin line. The only thing he could really do was hope she would make the right decision for them, but regardless they were going to follow her anyway. She stood up, nearly as tall as Akechi was in her high heeled boots. Her expression remained unwavered under his gaze. “Alright we will agree to work with you.”

Both Minato and Akihiko shot up, nearly ready to start screaming at Mitsuru why she agreed to it, though were silenced by the icy glare she shot them, even more so on Akihiko’s end. “However, Akechi-kun, if you truly understand our line of work you’d do well to not cross any of us. Unlike your previous...allies...we don’t take well to traitors.”

The smile on Akechi’s face strained to stay pleasant, reaching for a handshake. Mitsuru refused to return the handshake in favour, leaving him awkwardly standing there with that stupid smile on his face. “Thank you, Kirijo-san. I won’t disappoint you.”

Despite the ‘reassurance’ Caesar still stirred within his heart. His Personas warning wouldn’t go unheard, don’t trust the man in the black mask.

Chapter Text

After days of seemingly constantly sleeping after his encounter with the Velvet Room, Akira finally felt ready to have a proper meeting with the rest of Rise’s friends. The ‘Investigation Team’ as they liked to call themselves. He had a solid feeling despite what she was telling him, after school they were meeting at the Junes rooftop to discuss the case, and he finally wanted in on it. Even if he couldn’t just outright tell them the culprit was Adachi, he wanted to help them get there however that happened. 

In all honesty, the rest of 2011 had been rather foggy for a lack of better terms. He knew after Rise, Shirogane-san and Nanako were kidnapped, and something terrible was about to happen to her. But with his insertion into 2011 and the disappearance of Yu, it was hard to tell how badly things were going to get messed up.

Picking his glasses up off the table, he set them on his face and followed Rise to Junes. He didn’t need the glasses, he established that part before, however something told him these glasses were a very part of his identity now. That things would be stranger if he showed up without the glasses than with them. He didn’t know why, but he had the strangest feeling that he wouldn’t like the reason whenever he found out.

-

Despite how small Inaba was in all honesty he didn’t know Chie Satonaka, or Yukiko Amagi all that well. After he started working at Junes he’d gotten to know Yosuke relatively well. He was rather annoying for a lack of better terms and had ‘foot in the mouth syndrome’, never knowing when to shut up. But despite everything that happened, especially with the shop, Akira couldn’t hold it against him.

However that was the Yosuke of the future, as it turned out, the Yosuke of the past was near unbearable. The 8 teenagers sat under a bright yellow umbrella in the Junes Food Court, talking rather openly about a murder case they were inserting themselves into, something near preposterous in Akira’s eyes considering how tight lipped his father and uncle were about their own cases. Then again this was a group of teenagers in an M rated Scooby Doo episode. What he picked up eavesdropping on his father’s conversations, the case ended up ‘unsolved’ because of the strange circumstances behind Adachi’s confession and they couldn’t actually convict the guy despite the fact he did kill two people.

Now how to put that into words Rise’s friends would understand, he was still trying to figure out. Thankfully, their conversation seemed to have made them forget Akira was even there. He almost sighed in relief over their apparent forgetfulness. In a way, it gave him more time to think about how he was going to say ‘no I won’t tell you who the murderer is.’

After the conversation had eventually drifted off into how the stupid Junes Bear wanted to smooch Yukiko or something, Akira felt someone watching him. He hadn’t noticed it before, but the first Detective Prince had actually been watching him for a while. Naoto tried to gauge Akira’s reactions, or lack of them, during their conversation. They were already suspicious of ‘Ren Amamiya’ who’d showed up mysteriously one day. The whispers about him traveled fast, especially since he was staying with Rise Kujikawa of all people. Though Rise revelled in the attention boys gave her under her idol persona, there were few Rise would actually extend her hand towards in a moments notice. Akira Kurusu, the boy she called her little brother, and Narukami. It was clear he was not Narukami-senpai so...but it was impossible. Kurusu was a child.

Akira coughed clearing his throat, “Can I...uh...help you?” he asked.

“I’m curious, Amamiya-san. How exactly do you know Rise-chan again?” Naoto asked.

Akira blinked in confusion, pointing to himself before remembering the entire alibi they created so people wouldn’t be suspicious of a boy from the future. But he also could have sworn Rise had actually explained to the others at some point his situation. Shooting a half hearted glare towards Rise, he deadpanned “You forgot to tell them didn’t you?”

“I thought it would be more believable if you told them yourself. How often do you hear ‘I come from the future’ from someone in your time, Akira?” she sassed in response.

Slowly the puzzle pieces fell together for the rest of the Investigation Team. Very slowly in the case of Kanji but that was a tale for a different day. A look of recognition flashed across Naoto’s face before settling back into complete utter confusion.

“Akira. As in Akira Kurusu? Detective Suou’s son?” Naoto asked.

“...Surprise?” he replied with a grimace. “Before you ask, Shirogane-san I don’t remember how this happened at all. Whatever landed me here wiped my memory for...some reason?”

“It’s not a surprise you don’t remember anything. You looked half dead when you got here.” Rise added.

He considered commenting about how he felt half dead but that would only make the situation worse. It looked like Naoto wanted to continue questioning him about it, but from the frown on Rise’s face and a closer inspection on his own Naoto could instantly tell that despite Rise’s work, the makeup wasn’t covering the bruises on his face very well. What was left of them at least.

“What was the last thing you remember, Kurusu-kun?” Naoto asked.

“Well I was walking home from my part time job in hell- Junes, no offense Hanamura-san. I vaguely remember someone shouting and after that, I was here. But judging by the fact I came here in a school uniform from Tokyo of all places, there’s a pretty huge gap in between then and now. Sorry that’s all I have for you.” he explained.

“I see. Well I think it wouldn’t be too soon to assume that whatever brought you here has done the same with Narukami-senpai of our time, would you? Otherwise he’d be trapped in...never mind.” Naoto cut themself off before revealing too much to Akira. Despite them all wanting to tell Akira about the TV World they had no idea if he would believe them, talking about a magical portal inside of a TV was no easy topic to discuss. Even with the circumstances with his arrival in their time.

“Are you talking about the nightmares inside the TV?” he asked.

Whatever goofy questions that had been dancing on the tips of Yosuke and Kanji’s tongues died off at the mention of the TV World from Akira. With a worried glance being shared between the members of the Investigation Team the bear, despite knowing how much Akira despised seeing him inside the costume, spoke up. “How do you know about that Kurusu-kun?”

Akira remembered the rumours well. It was all the older kids could talk about on their way home from school. His fathers had to beg Akira to stay home whenever it got dark, and that he wouldn’t trust strangers. All things he knew very well even before the murder cases happened. His dad was constantly busy at the station, always coming home late frustrated with the two detectives primarily working on the case. One of them would later be revealed to be the mastermind behind it all and he remembered how Tatsuya had taken that after the fact.

There were nights when he’d sneak downstairs after his parents had gone to bed, flicking on the TV to see if he would see whatever was appearing on screen. On those rainy nights he’d always be greeted to static, and maybe a blurry image on the screen, but the one time he actually saw someone clearly appear he wished he’d just gone to bed. He was very familiar with how people saw the Risette idol persona Rise put on and seeing that utter fanservice bait displayed on TV was needless to say, gross in his honest 11 year old opinion. Thinking about it as a 16-17 year old, it was still gross and wanted that purged from his memory entirely rather than whatever landed him here.

Some famous last words of his, far into the future.

“I’ve been inside the weird nightmare TV place before. It was right after you guys, well except you Shirogane-san, went looking for Rise and because I was worried about her I followed them in. That was a mistake. That bear is an abomination and no one believes me. You all saw it, and you still call me crazy.” he shouted pointing at the Junes Bear. It innocently cocked its head but Akira knew. He could still see it’s glowing yellow eyes staring into his soul speaking about how his existence was fleeting, rearing its massive paw into an almighty blow. Until it fell through the floor of whatever nightmare dimension it came from and he was back in a...strip club. That was another experience but most of that part had been forgotten after the nightmare Junes Bear incident.

“Wait that’s why you’re afraid of Teddie?? I thought it was just because he was a talking costume. Akira I’m so sorry I had no idea.” Rise vehemently apologized for all the jokes she’d cracked about his dear of the ‘ever so cute’ Junes Bear. It made a lot more sense in context, seeing as Teddie was pretty harmless when he wasn’t sending a Bufudyne at his enemies or being a demonic being crawling up from TV hell. 

For Naoto on the other hand, they had no idea what Akira was talking about. Well, they had a semblance of an idea. They were sure Akira was talking about Teddie’s Shadow but in all honesty no one ever talked about their Shadows besides saying that they faced them. Yosuke, Teddie and Yu were the only ones who had actually seen everyone’s Shadows before. Somehow Naoto knew it was better not to ask about it, lest they bring up more bad memories for Akira.

“The part about the bear isn’t the point. Is there anything else you want to ask me about?” Akira asked.

“Actually yeah. You’re from the future so you know who the murderer is right?” Kanji piped up finally grasping that, yes, the handsome boy with glasses was in fact Akira Kurusu in the future. Wait what was that part in the middle-

Akira sighed, surprised it took someone this long to finally ask the question he had been dreading for a second time. “Yes, but you realize even if I tell you, you have no evidence to back it up so going to the police would be a bad idea.” He left out the part where going to the police would likely get them killed because the killer was one of them, but he had faith in Naoto’s abilities that they’d come to at least a similar enough conclusion to back him up.

“What happened after the culprit was arrested?” Naoto asked.

“Pretty much nothing. There wasn’t enough evidence to support his methods, and considering what you guys do seemingly on the daily I think you can figure out for yourselves what that means. Point is, there’s not much to say other than keep doing what you’re doing.” Akira replied.

The nervous chuckle that passed between them all didn’t go unnoticed. Akira had a feeling that Yu was the one that kept them together as a cohesive group, and without that leadership they were starting to fall apart. Yosuke was a good manager, but that was for a department store, it was different than fighting the nightmares inside of the TV. And from what he remembered, Rise only provided support for them. The rest, as he’d mentioned before, he didn’t know very well but just through what he heard through Satonaka and Yukiko’s conversations earlier neither would be a good leader in the slightest.

Should he be dragging people who were his seniors? No, it wasn’t polite in the slightest. But at this point through the space-time shenanigans they were technically the same age so he considered it fair game with how exhausted he was feeling. He had to give them some credit, they weren’t used to fighting without Yu, so Akira dropped it from there.

As people started filing into the food court again, they decided it was a better idea to stop talking about a murder case in public, mostly due the the silent pleading in Akira’s eyes. He was a lot more concerned about not getting them caught than all of them combined, a thought that was highly worrying even in Naoto’s books. They didn’t know why they never thought about that before. They were talking about a murder case in the public very frequently. They supposed it was luck they had never been caught, aside from Adachi once or twice.

With an actual opportunity to talk more casually, they tried to keep quiet about questions about the future. For some reason Chie was very invested in what Yosuke’s future love life looked like, a question Akira neither knew nor cared about the answer for. He continued to shrug wordlessly, feeling his eyes becoming heavier as Chie continued to talk, and talk, and talk and talk...and talk. Or maybe he was starting to go through an internal time loop. He was so exhausted he didn’t know when it changed from love to meat. Or was that what she was talking about the whole time.

To quote a certain other boy we knew, he didn’t care.

“Chie just lay off the kid. He obviously doesn’t have any answer for you. I’m curious though. Why did you start working at Junes considering…” Yosuke trailed off, thinking this would be the thing that would help Akira out.

“It closed.” Akira stiffly replied, gesturing to the department store surrounding them. “Because of Junes.” he added noticing the dumb look on Yosuke’s face.

“Oh. Is there-”

“It’s fine. Hanamura-san. This doesn’t need to be a conversation.” Akira deadpanned.

Someone, Akira thought it was Kanji, coughed uncomfortably. They sat in silence for a good minute, unable to find a way to salvage what they’d created. He was really trying not to resent the fact his papa’s entire business was run to the ground thanks to consumerism but sometimes it was hard, especially with 2011 Yosuke in the picture rather than his own.

Yukiko soon excused herself so she could get to work at the family inn. Chie followed close behind, finding no reason to be there at all without Yukiko anymore. Akira almost felt bad for being relieved to see her leave but he wasn’t going to tell anyone else that. The exhaustion of being talked at didn’t entirely disappear once the two second years were gone, however.

Out of the corner of his eye he noticed something shuffle behind one of the many signs scattered around the food court. Whatever it was, was small, probably a kid considering the policy on animals in the building. Unless it was the Junes Bear, he begrudgingly thought. Still, he had to wonder why some kid was watching them. Or if it was his imagination from being so tired.

Akira yawned, trying his best to keep himself awake in case Naoto had any other questions for him, though he doubted it with the amount of people bustling around them now. His attention was soon drawn to a sparkling gold butterfly weakly drifting around the rooftop, circling over the door to the inside of the shopping mall. Akira shuddered looking at the butterfly, he had no idea why but it gave him an unsettling feeling. Where had he seen that butterfly before?

“Akira??” Rise asked, snapping his attention back. “You okay? You’ve been staring at nothing for the past 5 minutes.”

Had they not seen the butterfly? Looking back at the door, he found nothing there anymore. Strange. Maybe it was his imagination after all.

“Yeah. It’s nothing important. I just thought I saw-” he cut himself off noticing someone he was sure was real quickly passing through the door. The man’s dark hair that he’d always considered to be perfectly styled flew all over the place due to the near frantic pace he walked. The man was almost overly pretty by standards, decked out in a blue apron with dried flowers tucked into the front pocket. 

“Isn’t that your dad’s roommate? Is he alright?” Yosuke asked.

The unimpressed moment of silence silenced Yosuke from asking anymore stupid questions. Noticing the five teenagers and mascot all sitting together, Jun Kashihara strode over, failing to mask the worry on his face while Akira internally screamed for any form of mercy from whatever gods would listen to him. Sadly the gods couldn’t hear his wish no matter which time he was in. After all, what good was a god when that god held no power over his own domain?

“Rise-chan have you seen Akira? He ran off again and considering all that’s happened this past week.” Jun sighed running a hang through his hair, “Junes is the last place I’d expect to find him however it’s not that hard to find him if you’re around.”

“Sorry, I haven’t seen him in a while. We’d be more than happy to help you out though.” After a moment of consideration, she began to backtrack a little, “Maybe not Teddie actually.”

As Jun’s gaze fell upon Akira, he almost shrank upon himself. His papa hummed, narrowing his eyes ever so slightly at Akira. “Who’s your new friend?” he asked.

“Oh this is Amamiya-kun. He’s a trainee I’m helping out after he had a bad accident” Rise replied naturally, nudging Akira slightly while smiling at Jun.

He waved a little too quickly to be considered normal, while making a choked “Ngh.” Far from his greatest moment, Akira thought to himself.

Jun thoughtfully hummed again, “I see…”

Without much else to say, what was left of the Investigation Team, and Jun began their search for 11 year old Akira. Needless to say it was on the list of the weirdest things Akira had ever done. And he had been to a world inside of a TV before. Jun, Rise and Akira searched the shopping district while Yosuke and Kanji searched around the Flood Plains. Akira almost felt like asking why they weren’t calling his father, though the thought of being around both his parents seemed almost nauseating for some reason. On top of the fact he remembered clearly, Tatsuya being incredibly busy the weeks Dojima was in the hospital and the station was understaffed.

The entirety of the inside sections of the mall, and the back alleys of closed family shops were void of Akira. Naoto had nothing to report around the shrine, even with the aid of the fox that lived there. No matter which stones they turned or who they asked, no one had seen the quiet 11 year old anywhere.

“Hey, if you were 11 again where do you think you would hide?” Rise asked, as she walked back to Junes as dejected as Akira was irritated.

“I dunno. Honestly, I remember always going straight home because of my dad so I’m at a loss here. Was I always this annoying?” he replied.

“Well I wouldn’t call it annoying. Kids so stuff like this all the time, granted it’s weird we live in a city with the strangest serial murder case ever. You are a bit of an escape artist though. Remember when you used to sneak out at night to visit me before I became an idol? That was so long ago and you were so tiny.”

“Enemies here?! These readings….it can’t be!” a young girl’s voice spoke into his ears. Lights blared into his eyes in front of him. If he had the time to shield his eyes he would have been able to see the sea of-

Rise stopped notice Akira had frozen in place a few feet behind her. A glazed look covered his eyes as he stood in a paralyzed shock. “Hey...you okay? Akira?” she quietly asked.

As she reached out to touch his shoulder Akira violently flinched. He blinked quickly quietly asking himself what just happened. Rise’s hand snapped back to her side as she nervously scanned Akira’s face.

“Akira…” she started.

He began shakily walking back towards Junes without responding. Rise tried to push her worries down, with little success. Whatever happened, Akira didn’t even quite know himself and she didn’t want to press lest the situation got worse than before. Without much of a word they reconveined with the others, equally as they were.

“Kashihara-san perhaps Akira-kun went back home? I mean we’ve been searching for a few hours now and Akira-kun is nowhere to be seen.” Naoto suggested reasonably.

“I suppose so. Still, I couldn’t tell you what made him run out in the first place. It was almost like he was being compelled by something.” Jun sighed, shaking his head. 

The same sign that had shuffled before suddenly bumped again. An overwhelming wave of disappointment washed over the entire group upon realizing they never actually checked out the Junes Food Court despite it being the place they started. Walking over to the sign, Jun found the very boy they had searched so long before quietly squawking to himself before noticing his father.

“Papa!!” kid Akira shouted rushing to his feet once more.

“Akira,” Jun spoke, with a frighteningly calm smile that made both the child and teenage versions of Akira alike shiver in their boots. “What have we told you about running off on your own, especially given the situation right now?”

“I know,” the boy mumbled, “but the butterfly man told me to follow him. He also warned me of the bad man.”  The way his child self glared at him was enough of an indication who the ‘butterfly man’ was calling the ‘bad man’ which only played into the ultimate irony as Akira realised his younger self absolutely despised his very existence. Which wasn’t doing anything for his self esteem, honestly.

“Butterfly man?” Jun asked, completely unconvinced.

Little Akira nodded vigorously, seemingly unaware of his papa’s true feelings. “Mmhm! He wasn’t a man for very long because he looked really sick, but when I saw him he kinda looked like dad!!”

Akira began to frown the same moment Jun’s eyes seemed to stare off into space. To both of them, it sounded oddly familiar despite the ridiculousness of the description. Both for intensely different reasons, however they knew it would be important. For Jun it was a similar feeling, almost too similar, to when he met Eikichi and Lisa at Alaya Shrine. Knowing something was off, and the wave of sad nostalgia overtaking him.

Little Akira tugged on Jun’s apron, snapping him out of his thoughts. Naoto and Rise had a couple hundred questions, none of which Jun had the time or the answer for. On the other hand Yosuke and Kanji stood there with silent confusion, but no thoughts. As all things should be.

“Thanks for your help, I think it’s time we head home.” Jun said, turning to address mostly Rise, Akira and Naoto. “Oh and Amamiya-kun, take care.” After sending Akira a knowing smile he took little Akira by the hand and led him back inside the store. Akira had to note as they left his younger counterpart turned around to stick his tongue out at him.

Maybe they were right and he was a little bastard of a kid. 

The rest of the Investigation Team had the same idea as Jun. After all the excitement of the day they didn’t have the energy to theorize about Akira, or Yu. While Rise said her goodbyes to her friends, Akira looked back up at the Junes sign. Once again, the golden butterfly lingered over the store, flittering weakly around the sign. Upon noticing Akira staring in its direction, the butterfly disappeared.

As he and Rise entered the store, he could faintly hear the Junes Bear muttering to himself about the amount of dead moths he found all over the electronics section of the store. Akira couldn’t help but frown at the thought, at this point in the year the butterflies and moths should have already died or migrated. Honestly he didn’t want to look up butterfly facts for two hours later so it was better not to look too far into it. The entire way back to Marukyu Tofu, he couldn’t stop thinking about the golden butterfly.

Chapter Text

Something strange was brewing in Tokyo for the past 7 months, Yu Narukami knew that very well, though something over the past week  had gone from slightly strange to completely bizarre. A week ago, Futaba-chan from LeBlanc called him only to hear his own voice on the other end, and there was no real way he could possibly consider the reason for that. Besides his phone being broken, which was likely considering it was a flip phone from 2011 but regardless. He felt like his voice was...younger?

Yu sighed, pushing his books out of the way as he sank onto his desk. Maybe he was just stressed because of finals. His university classes, his part time tutor jobs, and trying to uncover the mystery of the Phantom Thieves was exhausting. Half of it was his own fault, especially the part about the Phantom Thieves, but Yu had always been invested in a good mystery. The identities of the Phantom Thieves, and their methods, he wanted to know so badly.

In retrospect, he could also tell he was getting a little too invested in the case, and he may have been neglecting some of his classwork to look into the Thieves. He called detective work a hobby, more than anything else he wanted to be an elementary school teacher, but nothing called to him more than a good mystery.

Inaba may have ruined him.

There were long nights when he and Naoto stood over an entire table filled with news reportings, stories from people who requested the Phantom Thieves change someone’s heart and it worked, upon dozens and dozens of conspiracy theories about who they were. He felt like he could say for certain, Masayoshi Shido was not one of the Phantom Thieves, what good would that do to his reputation if this was the man who condemned their very actions.

Now that it was truly confirmed the Leader of the Phantom Thieves, a teenager nonetheless, was dead Yu had no real idea what he should do. The identities of the other Phantom Thieves would probably be exposed soon, not to mention the Thieves themselves had gone nearly silent after the capture of their Leader. He had to wonder who the target they were after was, and how someone had figured out their methods quick enough to capture them.

Izanagi’s voice faintly rumbled in the back of his mind. Stay out of this the Persona said. After being quiet for nearly 5 years it was a lie to say it was only a little surprise. 

Here he was thinking of the Phantom Thieves again. Sinking further into the papers upon papers of unfinished work Yu decided he needed a break. His assignments could wait when he was already so distracted by everything else. 

About halfway out the door he realised none of his University friends would be willing to hang out with him right now. They weren’t as invested in the Phantom Thieves as he was, and finals were coming up pretty soon. He cringed at the thought of Naoto berating him for giving up on his schoolwork so the less they knew the better it was. After all they weren’t super involved in the case either. The Detective Prince Goro Akechi had come up and swept the whole investigation from right under their nose. Look at him now, he was the most popular person in Japan, maybe besides Shido, for the capture.

He really needed a break. Immediately. Too far from LeBlanc to justify going there at near closing time and desperate to see people, anyone really, Yu made way for the beef bowl shop in Shibuya. It wasn’t half as good as Aiya’s in Inaba but he made do with it. Again, Inaba had broken him, nothing would ever seem as comfy as that small rural town. The one thing stopping him from moving there forever was how there were no people for him to find, and talk to. Everything was much the same as he’d left it, except maybe Rise going back to Tokyo for her idol job.

The beef bowl shop was filled with customers still when he arrived. It was no surprise the place was criminally understaffed but even today, the shop seemed overcrowded. Looking behind the counter he found a rather bored looking college student pushing order after order out to customers rather than Akira frantically running around the entire shop.

Now that he thought about it he hadn’t seen or heard from Akira in a while. The last time they spoke, Akira had been acting rather odd to say the least. He’d practically begged Yu to tell Rise he was sorry for not calling while she was on break since he didn’t want to bother her, and all these other reasons that made less and less sense as his words dragged on. It was rather suspicious honestly, since Akira could have done it by himself if he really wanted Rise to know, but he passed on the message regardless since it sounded so important.

After November 18th, Yu never heard a word from Akira. No matter how hard he tried to ignore the sinking feeling in his gut, Yu could never shake off the idea something horrible may have happened to Akira and that was why he wanted Yu to pass his message onto Rise. He couldn’t do much but pray that Akira was alright, whatever he was doing.

“Sir, your order?” the bored worker asked loudly. Something about his voice seemed familiar but he’d never met the man in his life.

With a sheepish laugh Yu quickly fumbled out wanting a large beef bowl, which the worker paid little mind to before moving onto the other customers. Maybe he was just paranoid but he could have sworn the man called him a loser.

No it was probably just his imagination.

Pulling his old, battered flip phone out of his pocket Yu began to flick through his text messages. Embarrassingly enough, the TV World had somehow made it nearly impossible for him to own a smartphone, without his arm getting lost behind the screen. He didn’t want to think of the possible consequences of falling completely inside the red and black swirling vortex. The familiar sense of dread that came upon him whenever he tested the latest smartphones turned him off so he continued to use the same phone all the way back from highschool. Highschool wasn’t that far away from his life now, only about...five years.

Pushing away the thought of getting older, and greying more to the point where people thought it was necessary to call him ‘Gramps’, he sifted through his messages. Strangely enough, he found about a dozen missed calls from Naoto, and another 20 from Rise over the past week he’d never been notified about. For a moment, he considered it to be his phone getting too old to process so many calls, but thinking back to it things had only started getting weird recently. And that was all started with hearing his own voice on the other end of the phone.

Yu wasn’t about to bust out the theory everything was related to Personas, or magic, or demon summoning, whatever you wanted to call what he did on a regular basis but he couldn’t deny whatever was happening wasn’t normal. On top of the strange calls he’d been noticing a single black butterfly floating around his apartment. No matter how many times he closed his windows, and released the, admittedly, pretty little thing outside, it would always somehow find a way back in. Almost as if it were watching him.

Plugging his other finger into his ear, Yu attempted to listen to at least one of the messages he’d missed. His phone crackled, trying to be heard over the volume of the beef bowl shop. Though he knew the message was playing, there were only a few words that he could make out. One of them being Akira. Besides that, the message was lost to time.

He sat through message after message of garbled messes. Finally, he got to the last one, a call from about two hours. His final message from Rise rang much louder and clearer than any of the previous ones. Like the static and fog had been completely lifted from his phone.

“Yu, I have no idea what or where the hell you are but you better pick that phone and call me back the moment you pull it out of your ass. Don’t disappoint me more than you already have.” 

Message loud and clear. The bored looking worker cleared his throat holding the steaming bowl in his hands tapping his foot impatiently. “Are you going to eat this or not?” he asked flatly.

Maybe he could wait to reach his inescapable demise.

The bored worker rolled his uncovered eye at Yu, setting the bowl down on the table and slunk back to his work station for the next order. Weird guy, Yu wondered what made him so crabby, but that wasn’t really any of his business was it. Paying no mind to the heat radiating off of his food, Yu practically inhaled the bowl. As he expected, it wasn’t nearly as good as Aiya’s but it was a decent substitute. There was no meat dimension for him to get lost in.

Not that he’d even want to. Those rainy days after Aiya’s were a pain that would haunt Yu forever.

The bored looking worker was already standing by his table again by the time he was gathering his things. Looking into the boy’s grey eye he had to ask, “Have we met somewhere before.”

The worker shrugged, refusing to return Yu’s gaze. “Who knows. I don’t care.” Without a second thought, the man collected his money and carried Yu’s bowl off. Again...strange. As he left the beef bowl shop, he could have sworn he heard a little girl’s whisper. I am thou...thou art I…

-

Yu Narukami had always considered himself cool headed and ready for just about any situation. He’d lived to tell the tale of the weirdest serial murder case to ever rise in Japan, summoned the god of creation, and could see through the fog of lies created by humanity. If there was a bad situation, he prided himself in becoming the leader people could rely on no matter what.

There was one thing that utterly terrified Yu though, and that was anything to do with women. He had no idea how in the world he was supposed to make it up to her, or Naoto he assumed, considering the scale of her fury. After going home and listening to his messages in a much quieter space, Yu didn’t quite catch anything more than he already knew but it was obvious his fears for Akira were justified and both Naoto and Rise wanted to speak to him about it.

This didn’t bode well for him at all.

He stared at his phone, laying on the coffee table untouched, dreading the conversation that would follow. He really wanted to just spend a day to himself, and not have to worry about anything, and yet here he was. With a shaky gulp, Yu finally picked up the phone and called.

“ I’m not here right now, please leave a loooong message because I can’t trace your call if it’s too short. ”

It seemed as if his cop out caller was busy. That was a shame. Yu would have felt slightly better hearing something from the older Suou-san, but things were just not meant to be. He was only delaying the inevitable. His finger hovered over the call button once he got to Rise’s contact. He was ready for this...hopefully.

His cellphone began to ring. He really couldn’t turn back on this anymore. After the third ring his phone screeched out a horrifying noise, before settling back into the regular static and Rise’s grainy voice.

“ Senpai where the hell have you been? Naoto-kun and I have been trying to call you forever.”

“To be honest, my phone suddenly stopped working, and I couldn’t tell you why. I never received your calls until today. Sorry about that Rise-chan. What’s wrong though? I thought you and Naoto-kun were taking a break? And what’s this about Akira?” Yu asked, trying to keep the conversation civil and casual.

“ Have you not seen the news? The Leader of the Phantom Thieves died in custody?!”

“Rise-chan I don’t see what that has to do with Akira-kun.”

“ Senpai. I know you’re not this dense. Think for a moment, or grab that Orb of Sight. Whatever, I don’t care which of the two it is. Think about what we’ve heard about the kid. And then ask me again what this has to do with Akira.”

The same pit of dread that once infected his stomach when Nanako was in the hospital reared its ugly head once more. Rise was right. He was so focused on the identities of the other Phantom Thieves he never stopped to consider the one they already knew about.

He was a teenager, about 16 or 17. He transferred to Tokyo while on probation. And while they never released his mugshot, Yu could practically see the shaggy black hair and sharp grey eyes of Akira-kun. Standing in almost defiance against his sentence because he knew he was innocent. Whatever happened to make Akira do that...Yu didn’t even want to imagine.

Neither of them wanted it to be true, Yu knew that far too well. He remembered how he’d felt during the scare with Nanako, and would never wish that upon even the worst of his enemies, let alone a good friend like Rise. But the situation was all too real, all too coincidental to be anything else. The truth that he could no longer hide behind, all the days and nights of visiting Akira who grew jumpier and begged for Yu to stop asking questions. 

Akira had been the Leader of the Phantom Thieves.

Yu forced the thick lump back down his throat. “Rise-chan I’m really sorry it took so long to get to you. I know exactly how you feel because of Nanako. Is there anything I can do for you?” he asked.

On the other end he heard a quiet sniffle. “ You were supposed to watch after him. You were supposed to keep him safe, Yu.”

“I know. I should have stepped in sooner and I’m sorry. Deep down I think we’ve all known from the start it was Akira. I think he was calling for help before, when he told me to pass on his message to you. Neither of us really clued into what was really going on.” Yu sheepishly admitted.

“ Wait...what message? ” Rise slowly asked.

He could have sworn he called her and passed on the message immediately after talking to Akira. Granted it had gone straight to voicemail but he knew she received it. No one else could have the sugary sweet Risette voicemail message she had.

“You didn’t get it? I called you two days before the arrest. It should be in your voicemail.” Yu replied.

There was a quiet pause for an agonizing minute. “ Yu I’ve kept my phone on for the entire month in case my manager calls me. If you called I would have heard it. ”

He tried to think back to the day he sent the message to Rise. It was a normal Friday afternoon. He'd just finished his English class. The reception wasn’t so great in his apartment that day, his phone, the TV and his computer weren’t working as well as normal. He saw a lot more moths than usual that day too. They were covering the outside of his windows, flapping outside the door. He called the exterminator but by the time he arrived, the moths were gone. No, Friday November 18th was definitely a day stranger than others.

“Senpai I don’t know what’s going on with you right now but I really don’t have time for your jokes. Kashihara-san is coming by later and...I think I should tell him if he doesn’t already know.”

“Rise you can’t seriously be considering telling Kashihara-san his son is dead. ” Yu tried to argue, but it was a futile effort. He knew once Rise set her mind to something, especially when it came to Yasogami’s beloved English teacher or Akira, that she was going to do it. Rise was stubborn and he could normally appreciate her for sticking to what she believed in but in the case of someone dying, especially Akira, he wished she would think otherwise.

“If not now when senpai? At some point they’re either going to figure it. Whether it be through Katsuya-san, Tatsuya-san himself or just intuition, they will. And if they don’t? How do you think they’d react to their son not showing up after his probation ends because he’s been dead for months Yu? It’s for the best.”

“I know, I know I just think we need more time. Do we even know for certain if he’s dead? They had a plan Rise-chan I just know it.”

“Yu. This isn’t like Nanako. The power of friendship and love isn’t going to bring him back, no matter how badly I wish that were true. People live, and then they die. It’s just how it is. And keeping that from Akira’s parents longer than it has to be is just plain cruel. It’s going to suck for us all, I don’t even know how I’m going to get through it but consider this when you have the time. What would you have done if you never knew Nanako died?”

His cellphone clicked, and the line went dead. He continued to stare at the seemingly broken phone for a long time after Rise hung up wondering to himself, what would he do if Nanako had died before he got to her room, or if no one ever even knew she died because they weren’t there. What would Nanako have felt dying alone? would it be similar to Akira?

He still didn’t want to think about it. He wanted to deny the fact for as long as possible. Somewhere, out there, there was a voice calling his soul telling him Akira was still alive. What that part of his soul was he never knew, and never would know. The call of the Wild Card was a strong one but the strings holding them together were long since frayed. All thanks to what they call Justice.

The Wild Card could only take so much. Though they had Sealed the very being named Death, a Goddess shrouding the world in Fog, and fought against a false god of control, the ties that bound them were constantly pulled, and stressed beyond what a normal person should be able to. Humanity was fickle, they were always on the brink of ruin. But there were people who would keep their faith in humanity, perhaps not meddle in it anymore. However as weak as they were they still existed.

Likewise someone else would always be there to bring humanity back to ruin. The power of the Wild Card was strong, but every moment that passed the Wild Card weakened. Perhaps it was from the intervention of the true gods, or perhaps humanity willed it to happen. No one would be able to say for certain for a while. But the time will come eventually, worry not.

Time delivers us all to the same end, after all.

Chapter Text

The day after storming inside the Kirijo building, Akechi arranged another meeting between himself and the Shadow Ops. Kirijo’s maid, Kikuno as she told him at some point, kept a watchful eye on the young Detective Prince while he waited outside the building for Mitsuru and the rest to show up. The minutes dragged on to seem more like hours while he waited. His patience ran thin, though if he was really going to get the answers he so craved for, he knew he’d have to continue waiting as patiently as he could.

No more than 5 minutes later, Kirijo finally exited the building, alone. Akechi couldn’t keep his eye from twitching. Was she really so foolish to go with him alone into another world? He’d read up on the young CEO years ago, when Shido wanted her eliminated as well. 

Mitsuru Kirijo was truly an enigma to Akechi. It was one of the first jobs Akechi took for Shido. He was 15, newly awakened to his powers, and Shido being Shido, was a little paranoid about the Kirijos learning about the research on cognitive psience. Looking back on it now, it was a foolish decision to want to eliminate her before the researchers such as Wakaba, but neither of them truly knew what they were doing at the time. Honestly, Akechi was almost certain Shido didn’t even believe the true scale of Loki’s powers yet. 

He’d entered the Metaverse the same as always, ignoring the queasy pit in his stomach whenever the world switched, and set off to find the Kirijo building. At the time, Kirijo hadn’t even opened her branch in Tokyo, so he found himself in the port town of Iwatodai, surprised the Metaverse even expanded that far. The entire time he was there, he felt like he was being watched. Not just by one person, but many. The shadows that crawled around were nothing special, and paid nearly no mind to him, save for that annoying one with the twin pistols. Breaking into the Kirijo building, he expected it to be a breeze. A simple pull of the trigger would take the woman out and he could go on his merry way, reporting to Shido the job was done.

How wrong he had been. Rather than the Shadow Mitsuru, roaming the halls of her building, there was a Shadow? A tall woman-like creature cloaked in a royal blue dress, and spiked golden battle armour cracked her whip the moment Akechi came into view. His costume, already not super well insulated for something that was essentially a spandex clown suit, did little to protect him from the rapidly freezing air around him. Later in his years, he’d learn it was Nifilheim. Though not weak to ice, Loki despised it. Not wanting his first mission for Shido to end with him dead in a ditch by morning, Akechi ran from the Kirijo building. 

It was easy to deduce by then. The Shadow he saw in the building was nothing like the regular Shadows he’d encountered before. He would hardly call it a Shadow, that thing was a Persona and a powerful one at that. He never reported his true findings to Shido, simply calling the mission a failure. The disappointment from the man was immeasurable, but soon after he’d prove himself to be a worthy piece in Shido’s little game. The mental shutdown cases, Wakaba, and much later Okumura. Oh yes, Akechi was far past disappointing Shido now.

“Akechi,” Kirijo called out, “You’ve been spaced out for a few minutes. My assistant should be here soon, he seems to be running late.” 

“My apologies, Kirijo-sama, I was lost in thought. Are any of your other companions joining you? It would be more efficient if you were all here, don’t you think?” he asked, flashing his best Detective Prince smile. For whatever reason, it seemed to deepen the frown on Mitsuru’s face.

“Unfortunately the other members of the Shadow Ops are out on business today so it will be just us, and the one we’re waiting on. I even asked him to arrive early.” the woman lamented.

“I would have been earlier if I didn’t have a job, princess.” a new voice dryly called. Walking towards them was the otherwise uninterested red haired man he’d seen at the meeting he crashed the other day. The one who’d actually asked some rather understandable questions, clearly one of the smarter ones of the bunch. Or just incredibly suspicious all the time. He wore the uniform from that beef bowl shop down in Shibuya that seemed criminally understaffed all the time.

The detective laughed at the statement, "A job? I thought you worked for Kirijo-sama? Or was I mistaken?" Akechi asked.

"I do." Minato replied, looking the boy dead in the eyes. "She doesn't pay me."

Kirijo coughed at the statement but didn't bother trying to deny it. Akechi nervously laughed it off, suddenly not so sure he was making the right decision going against the Kirijos again. As terrible as Shido was a person, he paid his workers, even Akechi. It wasn’t like the Kirijos couldn’t afford to pay Minato either so...what was the point of working for her?

“I believe we should get going. What were you so insistent on showing us, Akechi-kun?” Mitsuru asked, completely ignoring the issue of not paying one of her employees.

Listen, Akechi may make a living murdering people for a megalomaniac but he knows workers rights. He may have shot a boy to death but he didn’t think someone should work for free, especially if it was to Mitsuru Kirijo of all people. He had to wonder why Minato wasn’t demanding to be paid but he supposed it was none of his business. He would make it his business in the near future.

“Alright, I should warn you that it will be rather...unpleasant the first time.” Akechi said, pulling his phone out of his pocket. “Please don’t stray too far.”

The bright crimson and black eye of the Metanav pulsed as the navigation to Mementos. Neither Minato or Mitsuru ever made any acknowledgement of the world shift between reality and the Metaverse, though he suspected it was to save face. As the subway station walls stopped rippling around them, Akechi realized nothing would ever phase Mitsuru. He acted surprised when Akira and the Phantom Thieves brought him to Mementos for the first time. His actual first time in Mementos had honestly terrified him, but Mitsuru and Minato? They all but looked around the drab green walls, and shining red subway lights before turning their expectant gazes to Akechi.

“So, there really is another world apart from our own. And that app on you and Akihiko’s phones was the one that brought us here?” Mitsuru asked.

A little unphased, but shaking it off otherwise, Akechi nodded. “This is Mementos, the world created through the cognitions of the masses. It’s a representation of humanity’s desires, if you will.” he explained.

“I see,” Mitsuru mused nodding. “And when did you learn about this cognitive world?”

“I awakened to my power relatively recently. I witnessed the true death of Kunikazu Okumura.” he replied, uneasy at both Mitsuru and Minato’s suspicious looks. “That’s not really the important aspect of this world. You’re both Persona users, aren’t you?”

Mitsuru remained eerily quiet, looking away towards the subway cars once more. With a sideways glance towards his employer, Minato spoke up, “She is. I’m not.”

Akechi assumed nothing in this world could throw him off as much as he’d been the first visit to the Metaverse. He’d assumed he was so adjusted to the magical weirdness of the world he could take anything, or maintain his pleasant detective prince persona. But this, somehow this rendered him speechless. Not only was this man unpaid, but he was in an organization whose primary goal was to destroy Shadows, without a Persona. 

He didn’t understand why he cared so much about this man’s situation. His goal was to use the Kirijo’s resources to find out what happened to Joker, not get himself involved in some domestic issues between a woman and her subordinates. Even so, he could feel Loki’s feral growls rumbling in his chest. His Persona’s rage crawled under his skin so much it itched. Nothing would quell the rage of his Persona no matter how much he insisted it didn’t matter to him either way.

The situation was all too much like himself and Shido.

“With all due respect, Arisato-san, then why are you here?” Akechi asked, ignoring Loki’s demands to be set free.

Minato shrugged with his hands still in his uniform pockets. “You don’t need a Persona to kill some Shadows.” he replied.

Previous Mementos missions against a giant tiger in ridiculous underwear, a purple toilet demon, and the Reaper itself came to his immediate mind. None of them were particularly easy even with Loki’s skills and his own special power. “I’d argue otherwise.”

With another shrug Minato brandished a very intricate pearl-white sword sporting wings around its hilt. Akechi’s immediate first reaction was to wonder how expensive it was, and how Arisato had come across the sword in the first place if Kirijo wasn’t paying him at all. Would she really go as far as to buy an expensive sword for the man she doesn’t even pay?

Had Kirijo had a Palace...the detective grumbled to himself.

Keeping Loki at bay (read as making sure Loki didn’t manifest on his own and slaughter Kirijo right then and there) Akechi pressed onwards deeper into Mementos. Behind him he could hear Kirijo whispering to Minato, earning a snort from the strange man.

“By the way, what’s with the costume? You like a clown.” Minato called. Something in Akechi snapped that day. No matter how angry Kirijo made him, her followers would be right in tow. Minato Arisato was an insufferable man and deserved everything Kirijo threw at him.

-

The deeper they went into Mementos the less murderous intent Akechi felt towards Kirijo and her lapdog, which is to say he was beginning to get more serious. The Shadows were oddly quiet for the day. Especially the Reaper who had yet to rattle his chains in Akechi’s direction. It was strange, never had they been this quiet before.

Kirijo hung back, examining one of the many swirling red portals leading to a potential mental shutdown victim of his, or someone with a stupid Mementos quest he to be dragged into when he worked with the Phantom Thieves. Part of him wanted to push her in to see what the woman would do, how she would react to someone’s Shadow, but the other part of him knew that Arisato had predicted that and hung around Akechi far too closely for his comfort.

Minato Arisato continued to prove himself as a mystery as time went on. Between the sword, the man’s apparent lack of Persona, his jabs towards Akechi’s costume and the incessant need to question nearly everything Akechi did to an excruciating detail proved to be dangerous. Not only to the mission but to Akechi himself. He could tell Minato wasn’t stupid, quite the opposite really. He hid his intentions well, too well for Akechi to truly gauge. Akechi was able to read most like an open book, that was his whole schtick being the detective prince. Sure half of it was through seeing their Shadows but he wasn’t stupid. He knew how to read people’s masks almost as well as he hid his own. There was a reason he never fully trusted Kurusu, even if the boy was now dead.

He shook his head. He was surrounded by fools and that was why he could never get anything done. Minato Arisato was no exception from this fact, and that’s what he was going to tell himself for the time being. Not until he understood the man more. 

“So this is how the Phantom Thieves changed all those hearts?” Mitsuru asked as Akechi approached her.

“In a sense, yes. The recipients of the documented changes of heart were on a much larger scale than these people. They had their own worlds, like Mementos, shaped to their own whims called Palaces. Madarame, Okumura, and even Nijima were Palace rulers.” Akechi replied.

The moment the words left his mouth Akechi felt yet another part of himself shrivel up and die. From the wary look Kirijo sent Minato he knew for a fact that the officer from the other day hadn’t told them who’s Palace they were in, something even more glaringly obvious the more he thought about how they didn’t know what a Palace was to begin with.

I could get rid of them now, little Prince. It wouldn’t be much of an effort on my part. Loki suggested. He forced himself not to growl like a feral dog at his Persona, to the mirth of the cackling Trickster god, before echoing off into the distance.

“That’s where the kid was captured, right detective? ” Arisato asked, or rather, spat.

“Yes. It was.” Akechi replied through gritted teeth. “Though the fact you can still locate is rather alarming. Her Treasure left the Metaverse so her Palace should have disappeared. And yet...”

“It still remains. We know that quite well, Akechi.” Kirijo finished coolly.

The apparent lack of her other Shadow Operatives became clearer as the words settled upon him. Once again he’d been played like a fiddle, by one of the most powerful women in Japan no less. The rest of them were investigating Sae’s Palace on their own then? While their Leader and the one person without a Persona searched through the subway maze of Mementos, huh? Loki’s laughter shrieked in the background as Akechi’s eye began to twitch under his mask. He was almost thankful for the red film masking his eyes or Kirijo may well have been more suspicious of him than she already was.

Forcing a smile onto his face despite the fact he was certain Kirijo and her lackey wouldn’t be able to see it the young detective choked out, “You’ve far exceeded my expectations, Kirijo-sama. I must say I’m rather surprised.”

“Your words are too kind.” she stiffly replied. “Now about the changes of heart. You said in your speech the other day that the Phantom Thieves were actually the ones responsible for the death of Kunikazu Okumura, despite the fact they never harmed any of their other targets previously. Not to mention they only surfaced this year. What exactly would be their motive to stay in the shadows for so long, merely change the hearts of their targets and finally kill Kunikazu Okumura?”

“I’m afraid I don’t have an answer for you, Kirijo-sama. I’ve shared as much information with the public as my directors will allow me about the case. Everything else is technically classified.” He replied, with a nervous smile. The woman’s eyes narrowed even further. Her white fur jacket billowed behind her when she took a step towards him. Ice crystals danced around the red woman with a gust of cold air. He recognized it quite well, as did Loki who growled from within.

“You mean to tell me you worked with the Phantom Thieves for over a month and you never got information on how or why they would target who they did. When they truly started, who their true leader is? Akechi-kun you can’t honestly mean to tell me the teenager on the news was the actual leader of the Phantom Thieves he only moved to Tokyo this spring.” Kirijo’s voice never raised above a yell, but the commanding tone in her voice was enough to get even him to begin to shake in his boots.

Through his countless years of lying and smiles to get out of trouble. Every moment spent learning how to conceal his true intentions and make up the most convincing alibis to justify someone’s death caused by his own hands, Goro Akechi found himself unable to find any words. Mitsuru Kirijo could see past every aspect of himself that he was trying so hard to keep from the world, all so he could finally avenge his mother and take out his good for nothing father. Everything he worked so hard to produce, fell from within his grasp like the sands in the hourglass trickling by. He had no answer, despite all he had rehearsed in his mind should she ever ask. Mitsuru Kirijo would see through him.

“Do you understand why I have agreed to work with you now, Goro Akechi? I don’t know what you’re planning on doing but I can assure you we’ve dealt with a power far greater than yours could ever hope to be.” Mitsuru declared.

Cursing the woman, and the quivering of his voice as he opened his mouth, swallowing back the metallic tang. “I don’t think I understand, Kirijo-sama.”

The wind in her back died down, her fur coat fell back down by her feet. For a moment he caught the glimpse of what looked like a gun strapped to her leg. Arisato, far off in the corner, swatted ice crystals from his face, an action that seemed rather ironic coming from the man who always seemed to have hair in front of one eye. Kirijo’s eyes softened, though it didn’t bring comfort to Akechi at all. As she spun around back to the swirling portal she said, “You will soon.” and nothing more.

And he wasn’t so sure that was a good thing. 

On the other side of the portal, Akechi’s day only turned more and more confusing. Rather than someone’s Shadow waiting on the other end to gloat or any of the nonsense he usually ignored as he killed his targets, the three of them found nothing there.

Akechi could feel the Shadow Operatives stares on his back while he slowly advanced forwards, wondering what could have happened to the person who should be there. Granted he had no idea who he was dealing with, he’d just picked the first one he’d seen and directed them towards it, before Kirijo decided she wanted to execute him on the spot. He spent the entire time pacing around, wondering, how this was even possible. For there to be the beginnings of a Palace without the Shadow being there. It was unfathomable.

“I don’t understand,” he whispered to himself. “It should be here…”

The possibility of it being himself and the room being empty because he was already there, or accepted Loki as his persona was ridiculous but a possibility entirely. He quickly shook the idea out of his head, almost scoffing at himself for considering it. The cat always prattled on about Persona users being unable to have Personas, even if their own desires could be distorted. If the cat believed it so, then he couldn’t really argue. Besides, the Navigator girl only had one before awakening to her Persona.

“It seems we’ve hit a dead end. I could bring you to another one, however from the look on your faces you’ve had enough for the day.” Akechi said, turning back around to the two Shadow Ops. “Once we leave Mementos you both should have access to the MetaNav. Do whatever you will on your own time.”

Kirijo seemed utterly unimpressed by his decision to cut their little Mementos Mission short, raising her overly perfect eyebrow at him. Though Akechi ignored the red woman, something far more interesting began to manifest itself beside her. Perhaps he wasn’t remembering correctly but he could have sworn when they met, Minato’s eyes were a dull grey not the shining azure blue too similar to the fire that manifested around their Personas. No more than a moment after he blinked, it was gone, as if the blue had never been there.

Minato shifted on his feet under Akechi’s stare, looking back towards the exit. He whispered something to Mitsuru, who nodded in agreement almost immediately. Without sparing a second glance to Akechi, the two adults disappeared through the exit. And Akechi could only continue to stand in the empty room wondering what he was getting himself into more than ever.

-

He tossed his briefcase onto the floor the moment he stepped into his dark apartment. After spending so much time in Mementos, Akechi almost forgot how much they wanted him back at the Prosecutor’s Office, especially after Sae was taken off the case. His excuse for being away was loose at best but they didn’t question him too aggressively, and as he passed by he refused to look at Nijima in the eyes. This was all to say, his day became much longer once he remembered there were other aspects of his job he needed to do.

The rest of his plans for Kirijo were cracking before his very eyes. She was a much smarter woman than he anticipated, her assistant following suit, and he could only assume the rest for the people under her grasp. She knew her opponents moves before they even met, she could see through his lies too easily. He needed to be far more careful.

Especially with Shido still breathing down his neck. The next bout of interviews, no doubt about his ‘daring’ capture of Joker once again, loaded up his schedule for the next few days so begrudgingly he knew he’d have to leave Kirijo alone. If he didn’t want Shido suspicious of his ventures at the very least.

Despite promising to leave Akechi alone, he knew the man was keeping an eye on him. At least at work and on TV. No matter how hard he insisted he was taking his time to be a regular student after all the interviews were over, he knew. For what reason, that Akechi couldn’t say, but he was tired of being under Shido’s thumb for so long. If only the elections would come sooner.

As he sank down onto the cough, his phone lit up the dark room. Assuming it was Shido, he reached over and grabbed the damn thing. The realization Shido had no idea how to send a text message hit him a moment too late. An unknown blocked number displayed itself brightly on screen, with nothing more than a rather ominous looking smiley face.

Throwing away all better judgement, Akechi opened his phone, finding himself in a secure text chat far too similar to the Phantom Thieves’ for his own liking.

[Unknown]: hi there :) i see you got my message

[you]: Who is this? How did you get my number?

[Unknown]: :( you want to ruin the surprise that early? that’s disappointing.

[Unknown]: but if you really want to know, it wasn’t that hard to find. you’re pretty famous, you know, your personal information is just about everywhere.

[Unknown]: buuuuuuuuut i did have a little itty bitty help from a friend :D

[you]: Enough of your games, who is this?

[Unknown]: alrighty, fine. you can call me Juno. but that’s all you’re getting right now ;)

[you]: What do you want with me exactly?
[Unknown]: not too much right now. just saying hi :3

[Unknown]: oh and as a warning, you might want to get better passwords for your accounts and phone and all that. they’re almost as see through as your plans. we’re watching you :)

Without much warning, his laptop flickered on, blaring a similar message to the ones on his phone. With the same unknown chat and the overly emoted messages from this...Juno...he read. Oh and maybe get some antivirus software for your laptop. It’s a wonder you’ve only been hacked once before.

Without much success he tried to demand more answers from Juno. It would seem the moment they gave him the antivirus warnings was when they decided they had enough fun messing with the detective. He stared rather dumbly between his phone and his laptop, considering their suggestions very seriously for the briefest of moments.

Slowly, the realization began to dawn on him. The words, we’re watching you plagued him over and over again mixing together with Loki’s unrestrained laughter. He launched his phone at the wall with a scream, cracking the screen.

Damn the Kirijo.

Chapter Text

“Welcome to the Velvet...oh. It’s just you. ” The malice in her sister’s words didn’t phase Elizabeth in the slightest. In all honesty she was actually kind of expecting to be such. She had left the Velvet Room, and abandoned her duties as an attendant with the small glimmer of hope she could change her Guest’s fate.

As for why she came back, she honestly couldn’t quite say yet. The flow of time never stopped, even for immortal beings such as the servants of Philemon, their littlest sister was enough of an indication of such. Though a small brat, she matured by the day and continued to hone her own skills for that inevitable day she acquired her own guest. Something in the flow changed one day.

Rather than a long continuous stream, time twisted and turned upon itself in the strangest ways. The path it followed proved near unending, confusing someone even as experienced as Elizabeth. Until the end of that path finally came into sight, the splitting paths converged together, taking her to the one place she hadn’t expected to set foot in for a long time. 

“Pleased to see you again, Master. Sister. Theodore.” she greeted each of the Attendants present with a quick bow. “May I inquire where our little sister and the musical duo are?”

“Elizabeth you can’t honestly expect to pretend like nothing happened.” Margaret shouted, her temper always flared up around Elizabeth. Theodore silently camouflaged himself into the deep velvet blue cushions in the limousine, as if that would protect him from either of his sisters’ wrath.

“I’m glad to see you well, Elizabeth. It’s been a while since you’ve set foot in this place. How has your journey been taking you?” Igor asked with an all knowing smile, ignoring the eldest sibling’s ire. 

“Very well, Master. I’m sure my sister will be glad for me to report that I didn’t intend to return so soon. I assume you’ve all noticed the strange occurrences happening in the human world yourselves.” Elizabeth replied, shooting her sister the snarkiest of smiles. Margaret gripped the compendium under her arm tighter, though her beautiful face remained stony.

Her Master’s usual smile never fell off his face, but she knew from the way he leaned back into his seat, producing the deck of Tarot cards he agreed with her. With a wave of his hand four cards settled upon the table, what Elizabeth saw was possibly one of the grimiest Tarot readings she had ever laid her eyes upon, aside from possibly her Guest’s. 

The Ten of Swords, the Tower, the reversed Ten of Wands and the reverse Death cards. She looked back up at her Master, ignoring the glare her sister continued to throw at her, as she gestured to the cards, “Whoever the receiver of this reading surely mustn't be too pleased with it.” she said. “Is it the current guest?”

What surprised her was when her Master grimly shook his head. “I’m afraid I’ve never met the young man a day in my life, however I sense the same power as the current guest and the ones that came before him. He is another Wild Card facing a rather strange ordeal. We have agreed to aid him the best we can, however our help only stretches as far as time will allow us and his own decisions.”

Another card weakly tumbled out of the Tarot deck, the familiar glow of her Master’s cards nearly dimmed completely out. As it fell upon the table, every one of the siblings and Igor himself gazed upon a rather damaged card of the Fool Arcana. Not even a moment later, it shattered and returned to the Sea of Souls, as if it had never been there.

A grim moment of silence passed over the four Velvet Room residents as they all came to a similar realization. Theodore finally spoke up for the first time since Elizabeth’s arrival, as quiet and tentative as Elizabeth could remember, “Does he share the same fate as Elizabeth’s guest?”

If not for her journey, she doubted she would have known what Theodore was really asking. Despite it being in another time, the story would be the same between her own and Theo’s guests. In the end, they were two sides of the same coin who shared the same fate no matter what. The bond between a Guest and their Attendant would never truly disappear, even in another time where they never had the chance to even have a Guest, it was still ever present. And Elizabeth supposed that was why Theodore never tried to stop her from leaving like Margaret had.

“I pray for the sake of the young man that he doesn’t.” Igor replied. With a flick of his wrists the rest of the cards disappeared back into the aether. The thought of the Fool card still weighed heavily on Elizabeth’s shoulders, perhaps because she’d begun her own Journey. If not for her sister’s prying eyes she could have seen the Fool arcana dancing over her own head, but alas. She would have to do with her mere imagination much like everything else they were denied having in the Velvet Room after her outings with Mr Arisato.

-

Margaret was furious their Master wasn’t doing anything about Elizabeth. Her sister took her place by their Master’s side as if nothing happened, grinning at her with that cat-like mouth and her piercing defiant gaze, as if to further piss Margaret off. This was ridiculous, she had no idea why her Master was so adamant about ignoring the fact Elizabeth abandoned him and her family for the sake of a single human boy.

Well now that she thought about it, her own guest was somewhere far away and she couldn't even begin to think about how to fix it. The eldest Velvet sibling’s resentful gaze returned to Elizabeth, whispering quietly to their Master with her Compendium open on the table. While they worked tirelessly in the Velvet Room to keep everything in place, their sister worked just as diligently to find a way to set her guest free, she supposed. Perhaps she would have done the same for her own if he’d made the same choice as the young man.

A greater question she raised quietly to herself was if she should look for her own guest, now that Elizabeth was back...but Elizabeth never liked listening to Margaret, or Theodore. Her goals were still set upon the boy who sealed himself away, even she could see that. The moment time returned to its normal place, Elizabeth would leave again, wouldn’t she.

Perhaps that’s why she resented Elizabeth’s choice. Even little Lavenza, who despite all her protests was still a child, was taking on more responsibilities and training her abilities. Though they were all made to be ones who ruled over power, there was a weaker link amongst them all. And as regretful as she was to say it, it was their littlest sister.

“May I offer you a word of advice, sister?” Theodore quietly asked.

“Of course.” Margaret replied.

“Your guest still has a connection to the Velvet Room, and we can assume his safety has been secured in some capacity. I believe being as cold to Elizabeth as you are would be counterproductive to our Master, our sisters, and your guest. You’re very lucky he is still alive,” he began, shrinking under Margaret’s firety gaze.

“I also understand why you are angry. She did abandon her duties and our sister is being thrust into her spot far sooner than our Master would like. However our duty as attendants is to help our guests, it’s written into our very souls and it’s why we never have more than one guest. You want to help yours as we want to help ours.”

If she had been anyone else, were she not an attendant of the Velvet Room Margaret would have missed the ‘we’ rather than ‘she’ when referring to the Seal. She’d always wondered why Igor refused to let Theodore have a guest after the events of 2009, though she never really thought of a reason to ask why. Mr Narukami would have been a fine guest for Theodore, as he had been to herself, and she was certain Theodore could have handled it.

Sometimes she felt as if their Master acted like Theodore already had a guest. If he had then it would have been before both she and Elizabeth did. Unless of course the flow of time had changed its course ever so slightly.

“You had a guest as well?” she questioned.

Her brother didn’t respond to her question right away. The distant look in his eyes as he looked upon the Compendium in his own hands, said enough. They all shared the same book, each one of them upon fully realizing their potential as a guest of the Velvet Room had an empty Compendium they carried with them nearly everywhere. Theodore was no exception. The whispers leaking out through the pages in a slurry of voices and languages suggested his Compendium was anything but empty.

“In another time and another place, there is a girl who shares the same fate as Elizabeth’s guest,” he replied. “She was a remarkable guest, just as Mr Arisato had been.”

Then things began to make sense. Theodore was never one to really take much action against his sisters. He was always their punching bag, both metaphorically and physically sometimes. Between the times Elizabeth had fed him dog food, or she herself demanded he do something utterly ridiculous for their own amusement. He never protested or even asked them to stop, Theo was their sweet naive little brother. So in the end it didn’t surprise her too much he never set foot outside the Velvet Room to try and save his guest like Elizabeth.

It wasn’t that they didn’t care about their guests. The situation couldn’t be farther from that. They were simply different than Elizabeth. Her personality and devotion to her guest drove her to want to save Mr Arisato, even if in the end she knew it wasn’t what he wanted. 

“If she was anything like Mr Arisato, I’m sure she was, little brother.” Margaret replied. 

“I...thank you Margaret.” Theodore stuttered before scurrying away back to the musical duo.

It left Margaret with a little more to think about before the next inevitable time the frizzy haired boy returned to the Velvet Room. Now knowing Theodore wasn’t the boy’s Attandenant that left very little open for interpretation. She thought of Lavenza, barely standing as high as her hips and a book too big for her to carry under one arm still. Lavenza who still wasn’t able to quick change through her Personas yet like they were.

Lavenza who was inevitably going to become this young man’s attendant one day very soon. For what reasons none of them ever could have predicted, but the absence of Master Philemon, and the growing anomalies in the timeline, Margaret supposed she would have to accept Elizabeth’s half-hearted apologies and work with the rest of the attendants to get to the bottom of their strange predicament and find her guest.

Truly, she hoped he was somewhere in the frizzy haired boy’s world. Or else things would be even harder in the future.

-

Clouds rolled in over Inaba long before the night hit, it didn’t look like it would lead to the strange fog again but no one was certain about anything in the weather anymore. If it rained for multiple days straight and the fog hit, then the worst was to come.

“It looks like it’s going to rain again soon.” Jun commented absent mindedly, staring out the window at the clouds.

“Mm.” Tatsuya tiredly hummed in response. In all honesty it was a surprise he was able to make it home for once. With Dojima out of commission and Adachi being Adachi, the murder cases and kidnapping of Nanako Dojima hit the worst stalemate they’d ever seen. It was less of a surprise how exhausted he was.

Turning around to his ‘roommate’ Jun asked, “Taachi, do you know anything about the boy staying with Rise-chan?” 

“Rise-chan’s staying with a boy?” was his response.

“Apparently. Her grandmother took him in after some bad accident. She says he’s a fellow idol trainee but Inoue-san says he’s never heard of him.”

“I’ll try looking into it when I have the time.” Tatsuya replied more alertly. “You know anything else about the kid?”

“Actually something about him is rather familiar. But I can’t place what just yet…” Jun mused. Something about the airu tone of his voice said more than Tatsuya expected. Even so he wasn’t nearly awake enough to ask him about it, he just wanted to sleep. 

Now if only he could get his dreams to stop showing him that strange black butterfly. The one who always seemed to laugh and mock him for living in ‘blissful ignorance’ whatever that was supposed to mean. Ugh whatever. He was becoming way too much like Katsuya. Worrying about butterflies all the damn time.

Regardless, a boy who didn’t seem to exist that Rise-chan was protecting. Whatever her motive was, he hoped it wouldn’t lead to anything as bad as the Dojima case. Even if he hated Ryotaro, he hoped whatever gods would listen, the little girl would be alright.

Perhaps for Tatsuya Suou, the gods would listen this one time. Only time would tell.

Long after the two men had gone to bed, on a stormy midnight, the TV flickered on to static. If anyone were awake to see, they’d barely make out the image of a young man with a tattered tailcoat.

Chapter Text

Journeying to the world between dream and reality always makes it difficult to differentiate what is a dream and what is reality after you return. Perhaps you’ve once had a lucid dream where it felt so real you thought you were caught in a forgotten memory. Or maybe it was a dream so fantastical you knew it couldn’t be real. After all, summoning your other self from the depths of your hearts couldn’t be a simple task for everyone. This is why there are very few Persona users across the country. Not everyone wields the potential for greatness, even the potential to have a Persona.

Thankfully for our dear Trickster, he was one who could harness the power of Personas. And even more, he had the power of the Wild Card locked away in his heart. That power longed to break free, no matter how much the Trickster’s forgotten, the truth will be seen if he reached out to it. After all, you can only cover your eyes for so long.

-

The clouds hadn’t cleared out of the sky by the time morning broke. Akira, awakening to a splitting headache, found himself once again alone in the guest room over Marukyu Tofu.

He stumbled out of bed, landing in front of the mirror. The person who looked back at him was nearly unfamiliar. Dark bags hung under his eyes, the mysterious bruises hadn't completely cleared up yet but at least they weren't purple and blue anymore. Under his bangs hid the equally disconcerting rusty red mark that he was sure no one wanted to know the answer of its origins.

He picked the pair of fake glasses off the dresser and put them on. It didn't help his appearance, but he had to admit. They did make his eyes less sharp. Having them on his face almost felt right. Like they were meant to be there.

Maybe he was just a fashionista who got beaten up for being a dork or something? He shook his head, ruffling his hair in the process. Things like that needed to be taken one step at a time. He wasn't going to suddenly figure out all the answers to his questions.

Deep in the Sea of Souls, Akira personally couldn't hear it, but a dark chuckle reverberated through another. Oh how foolish the children of Philemon were. His plan was going to reach fruition in due time, or perhaps sooner than he initially thought.

Akira shook the chill out of his spine. After the constant plague of nightmares and his, admittedly uncomfortable, encounter with Rise's friends earlier that week...and seeing his papa. He needed a break from thinking. 

It was probably his recent dream that compelled him out the door. Rise's grandmother called after him, though her calls fell onto deaf ears. He truly felt as if his legs carried him down the shopping district, passing by all the shops who's doors and windows were being boarded up. That would be the fate of his Papa's shop soon enough, he bitterly thought.

In no time he stood in front of the powder blue shop. He asked his papa a while ago why he chose to paint it blue as opposed to the regular brown coloured walls like the other shops. It was a little brainless on his part, since soon after he realized it was the same colour as the Kasugayama high uniform, the whole reason Jun made it that colour.

He never explained why the shop had been called Legendary Weed though. While the shop was Jun’s, the name had Tatsuya written all over it. After all, Jun was far more dignified than dirty, biker cop Tatsuya. Maybe it was best to leave it unknown. Take a page out of Narukami's book.

Akira stood outside of the shop, his hands stuffed in his pockets, with fleeting confidence. He wanted to see his papa so badly, but how exactly were you supposed to explain you were someone's son from the future with no memory of how you got stuck in the past. Sure his family was a magnet for the weird but time travel and amnesia was a step above Tatsuya making a rancid cake shaped like a pile of sludge for his uncle's birthday.

It's just papa. Everything will be fine. The little voice in his head told him. And it was correct. His papa, even if he didn't know he was his son, wouldn't bite his head off. He only ever saw his papa truly get angry once, and it was more chilling than outright loud and terrifying. There was nothing to worry about.

Taking a shaky step towards the shop, he noticed Naoto lurking around the corner. It wasn't for him, or at least that's what he hoped.

Naoto also had him on edge for some reason. He didn't know Naoto all that well before, since they didn't grow up in Inaba like Rise, nor did he work for them like he did with Yosuke. Yu kind of liked inserting himself into everyone's life so he was stuck with that. He knew Naoto worked with his father, but beyond that they mostly kept their work to themself because they were a prodigy of some sort.

The Detective Prince as they called themself. 

"Silence. Nothing you say will change my mind. Everything you stand for dies in this room and then...your precious friends." a vaguely familiar voice spat.

Both the familiarity and the declaration knocked the wind out of you, as if you'd been gut punched. Just where the fresh hell did that come from?

Naoto rushed forward to attempt to help. They didn't expect Akira to flinch away from them. His fogged up eyes under the plastic glasses were enough to make Naoto step away.

"Hey Ku- Amamiya-kun are you alright?" Naoto asked.

"Y-yeah. Yeah. Sorry Shirogane-san I don't…know why that happened." Akira shakily replied. "Just...don't touch me please."

Naoto compiled without any protests, going as far as to step even further back from Akira to give him more space. Something he'd forever be grateful for despite not understanding why.

This idea was horrible. If Tatsuya was around it would make the situation worse for some reason. Maybe it was the idea of cops? But why would he hate cops? Well, maybe not hate them. He’d liken the idea to being morbidly afraid of the thought of his own father finding him, and the reason not time travel anymore. 

If he remembered right then Tatsuya would be at work right now, thankfully. It would just be Jun in the shop and the younger version of himself. 

It would have been so easy to just walk inside and say hello, but fate had a different path for him. Greasy little Adachi rounded the corner, catching Akira's eyes with a feral glint. 

"Oh Amamiya-kun. Just the guy I was looking for." he sneered, closing in upon both him and Naoto. "I have some questions to ask you. Why don’t you come down to the station? You probably know where it is, right?"

Akira began to sweat, his clenched palms grew clammier as the seconds passed. How did Adachi know? He hadn’t given away that much, maybe his attitude towards Adachi earlier was enough to raise suspicion out of him. But he could argue that could be tied to being approached by a stranger. The greasy smile never left Adachi’s face as he firmly grabbed Akira by the shoulder and started leading him out of the shopping district. 

Behind them, Akira heard the bells of Legendary Weed chiming as the door opened. 

Naoto tried their best to direct Adachi away from Akira before things could blow up horribly. But it wasn't meant to be. 

-

Tatsuya hated to admit it, but without Dojima around they seemed to get work done a lot...better. He wasn't going to criticize the man for the way he did his job, after all Dojima was still one of their better detectives but the way he raised Nanako just rubbed Tatsuya the wrong way.

Maybe this was coming from the fact he had a son of his own but even the dimmest of people knew you don't leave your six year old daughter at home alone for days on end. And putting the amount of trust Dojima had in Nanako to do everything by herself while he was out, before Yu came into the picture, was likely the reason she got kidnapped in the first place. A bitter thought, but one that seemed more and more likely as the other officers really thought about it.

Now he was also responsible for telling Dojima not only was his daughter missing, but his nephew was as well. Between Nanako’s case, the mysterious murders, Yu Narukami's disappearance and (by strange happenstance that morning) the new Arisato case it was a wonder Tatsuya was able to get home to Jun and Akira every night. Something that couldn’t be said about Dojma before shit hit the fan.

The part that didn't add up was why he was being called to an investigation for a boy, living hours away from Inaba no less, who died mysteriously the previous year. He didn't know who placed the file on his desk before he arrived that morning, nor did any of his superiors he asked have an answer for him, which was the part that felt the most off about the whole thing.

From what he read in the file, one of the police officers in Port Island was close to the kid, which wasn't a good reason for him to not be on the case. If anything Tatsuya felt it was a reason for him to be on it but Officer Kurosawa didn't pick up the phone when he called earlier so it was a mystery destined to be kept that way for a while longer. 

Regardless of the semantics behind it, Tatsuya couldn't help but feel like someone was trying to get him off the case and as far away form Inaba as possible without sending him to Sumaru. His immediate first thought was Adachi, since he was a bit of a slimy little rat.

But that seemed a little unfair of him to assume since the moment Dojima was admitted in the hospital Adachi went from being a bumbling idiot who couldn't work a case to save his life, to some ace detective that'd been hiding his true talents from them all. 

It was jarring to say the least, and suspicious to say otherwise. Really, for someone to go from throwing up at a crime scene to throwing himself into finding the young daughter of his partner as quickly as flipping a light switch something had to be up. Unfortunately he  didn't have the time or amount of sleep to properly think it over so he waved the idea off for the moment to dive back into the case files he was given.

Unfortunately the words on the pages quickly began to blend together before he could really begin to understand the case. His focus was still on Nanako, Yu and the mysterious boy staying with Rise Jun told him about the other night.

While it was already confusing Rise's grandmother, despite being an incredibly kind woman was still concerned about the safety and privacy of her young idol granddaughter, would take in a random stranger the fact he didn't seem to even exist was worse.

Even though he promised Jun he'd look into it the likelihood of that happening any time soon seemed extremely unlikely. Maybe he could ask Naoto to look into it themself later. Even if they weren't allowed to work on the murder case anymore that didn't mean the poor kid had to be on coffee duty.

Tatsuya sighed leaning back on his chair, trying to massage out his growing headache. Speaking of coffee he needed one badly. Or a decent night's sleep. The futility of that was ever present, and the possibility of him actually going home, less than likely. If these notes were anything to prove someone would be shipping him off to Iwatodai any day now.

He picked up his phone, hovering over Katsuya's number, grumbling to himself. Maybe he could ask his brother to help him with the case. Granted, Katsuya was also busy with his own issues. He was in the process of trying to foster some kid who was being treated badly by the system or something, Katsuya never went too far into it. And Maya wasn't about to spill the details no matter how much he knew she loved to talk about everything and anything.

He set the phone back on his desk. As he was reaching for his lighter, flicking the thing was still a nervous habit he hadn't purged from himself quite yet, Adachi burst through the glass door towing a rather tall teenage boy (one that was trying to hide the fact he was limping, mind you) behind him.

His eyes narrowed at both the teenager and Adachi. "What are you doing?" he asked.

Adachi jumped in surprise, like he never noticed Tatsuya in the first place. "Oh Suou-san. I can't talk too much right now, I'm bringing this guy in for some questioning, nothing to worry about." he replied a little too casually for Tasuya's liking. “He may be connected to Nanako-chan’s disappearance, you know how it is.”

The top of his lighter flipped open and back closed again. They already knew Namatame was the prime suspect in Nanako’s case considering he literally disappeared into the night with her one day, and it wasn't likely he would turn to a teenager for help. Mitsuo Kubo was a testament to that fact on its own. Something wasn't right.

"Do you even have the clearance for questioning after what happened with your last blunder? I can take the kid from you." Tatsuya suggested. He was lucky in highschool he'd always been called stone-faced by Lisa otherwise he may have betrayed his suspicions of the other detective.

"Well I've been given all the responsibilities Dojima-san was supposed to have while he's in the hospital so technically yes." Adachi replied. "Besides, don't you have your own cases to be working on?"

He supposed that was a fair enough explanation about questioning but still. 

A pit began to grow in Tatsuya's stomach as he studied the expression of the boy Adachi brought in. He was definitely trying to hold himself together while being in handcuffs. Something about his slouched demeanor seemed to imply that he may have been through this before, which was not a good omen for the kid. If Adachi got his hands on the kid’s record, in the chance there was one, his life would essentially be over before it even started.

For a moment the kid's eyes met his own. Sharp slate grey eyes hidden under a pair of glasses that were almost too familiar for him to be comfortable with, but still so foreign he was unable to put his finger on it. The boy looked away before he could put any more thought into it.

"We all work the same cases but whatever. Sorry for holding you up." Tatsuya dismissively said, trying to forget the familiarity of the strange boy.

"Thanks Suou-san." Adachi said, beginning to push the boy towards the interrogation rooms. "By the way you should probably ask someone to watch your place when you're gone. I found him loitering outside that flower shop. The one your... friend owns.”

As Adachi disappeared behind the corner Tatsuya couldn’t shake the unsettling feeling off. The same uneasy wave that came over him whenever he tried to remember what happened the two weeks he went missing in high school crashed through his entire body. He wanted to ignore it but something even more glaringly important came to him.

How did Adachi, who wasn't there all morning, know Tatsuya was going to Iwatodai?

It wasn't his business in the end, and nothing would likely come out of it since, after all, he was just a kid. A kid who could possibly be lying about his identity but still a kid regardless. Tatsuya wasn't going to lie, he definitely did some things that shouldn't have landed him a job as a detective in his youth. But with the help of Katsuya, Yukino's friends and Baofu, his record was cleaned off. Mostly from technicalities since he didn't even remember doing most of what he got in trouble for.

His hands still felt dirty from a crime he wasn't sure if he even committed. Breaking into buildings, stealing a blimp and possession of a dangerous weapon...okay maybe those were probably. Jun always insisted that was how they met even though he didn't recall pushing him out of a blimp, well, ever. And he did have a rather large collection of swords. But the murder part, that was just ridiculous. There was no way in hell he ever killed someone.

The JOKER phenomenon was a strange one and Katsuya always refused to elaborate on the time he went missing. What he knew of it was it lined up with the time ‘he ran away from home’ and ever so conveniently lost a rather large part of his memory. What he knew was he made a bunch of terrible decisions he was still paying for, and Katsuya always refused to answer his questions.

The black tattoo burning on his arm was ever a reminder of this fact. 

His phone shone on the desk, teasing him to talk to Katsuya. It...could technically be a work related question if he really wanted to frame it that way. The Arisato case also lined up exactly with the JOKER murders in Sumaru.

The more Tatsuya thought about it the more he realized just how strange of a year 1999 had been for everyone. The murders, his time away from home, the sudden explosion in Iwatodai and the fatal car accident on the Moonlight Bridge all correlating to the same time in the same year was too much to be written off as coincidence. Not that he wanted even more work to give himself but he decided then, he was going to find out what the connection to all of this was.

Taking a look at the clock, he realized he wasted a lot more time than he anticipated. Adachi should have been done with the kid already, and being in a higher position than Adachi it did give Tatsuya the right to ask for his report if he really wanted to.

He held his lighter tightly in his hand, flicking it open and shut as he slowly made his way towards the interrogation rooms. Every single one had their doors open, as they had been that morning, rather untouched.

That was very strange.

Turning back to the office he asked one of his fellow officers. The only person who wasn't busy was an upstart detective, a silver haired man barely older than Baofu was, named Nijima.

"Adachi? I haven't seen him all day. Did he come in earlier?" Nijima asked.

Without even sparing a response for Nijima, Tatsuya took off back towards the interrogation rooms. A little further at the end of the hall was Dojima's office. Being an ace detective he was further away from the grunts like Tatsuya or Nijima and honestly, it remained better that way since no one liked hearing him scream at Adachi all the damn time.

The door was open, which already wasn't a good start. Dojima had one of those doors that self closed and locked itself usually. Fancy and it barely worked half the time when they needed it to, but it looked broken. Maybe it never closed on its own because Dojima liked slamming the damn thing open all the time and busted the door off its hinges or something.

Inside the office was equally unnerving. The handcuffs lay on the table, appearing to have been opened without a struggle, or a pick. The window was wide open, large enough for a person to have climbed out of if they really wanted to. But the oddest thing was the TV in the back corner of the room, ominously flickering on and off with static. 

Tatsuya slowly approached the TV, surprised to find when he looked down it wasn't actually plugged into anything. Which didn't explain why it was able to work, if anything it raised more questions than he anticipated.

His head ached trying to wrap his mind around it. Well, maybe not just from that. Similar to whenever he tried to remember anything about his time missing his head throbbed, almost as if to tell him to leave things alone. There were times when Tatsuya could put it off, but other with so much riding on his involvement with so many different (yet possibly related) cases, he couldn’t look past this. 

Faintly, someone sparkled gold right by the television plug. It wasn’t the plug itself, but no matter how hard to stare at the sparkles nothing took shape out of it. He shook his head trying to ignore the strange sparkles.

"Suou-san? Is something wrong?" Nijima asked, poking his head into the office.

He flicked his lighter open once again. A small but bright flame flared to life. It weakly swayed with the wind from the window, but refused to be snuffed out. The voice who called to him every so often reached out again. 

I am thou...thou art I…

Tatsuya snapped the top of his lighter shut. "Make sure no one else comes into Dojima's office. You're in luck, Nijima-san, you've got a new case."

"I do? But what does this have to do with Dojima-san?" Nijima asked.

"Adachi came in earlier to question a suspicious teenager. He interrogated the kid in this room, and as you can see, the kid isn't here and neither is Adachi. There's no sign of struggle and the window and broken door seems a little too convenient." Tatsuya explained. "Keep this between us though, Nijima-san. I think we have a cockroach on our hands."

-

The maze was darkened by its blue glowing stone walls. Behind the iron bars of each empty cell water dripped from leaky faucets. In the distance he could hear the faint rattling of chains against the floor. 

Akira shivered from the cold. He'd wandered through the maze for a while now. Minutes melting into hours thanks to the inability to tell time in this strange world. 

He stopped in front of the only open cell. Standing inside was a figure with glowing yellow eyes. A tattered tailcoat fluttered weakly in an invisible wind. The figure stumbled forwards, revealing a boy mirroring his own face, much like the Rise who copied his big sis' features.

"My Trickster…" the boy whispered. Even it's voice copied his own.

Akira stumbled away from the boy, as the whispers of other voices flooded the maze. They all called to him at once, begging for their trickster to return. He had no idea what it meant, but the voices continued to call. They continued to flood.

The boy reached out to him again, but once more Akira flinched away. A somber expression never left the copy’s face as he retracted his hand from Akira. Until the day would come when he saw the truth and reforged the bonds he has forgotten, this was all the Trickster and his companion would do.

Now don’t get the other wrong, he wasn’t like the Shadows the little Investigation Team had seen before. A pact had already been formed, even if only the thin threads remain. One day though, his vow would be renewed.

And until then, I shall be the captain of that story. But let us be patient until then, memories are a delicate thing you cannot rush. Memories have destroyed worlds and reforged others, it is up to Akira Kurusu to decide how this world gets shaped in the future.

Chapter Text

As the days continued to pass Yu began to grow antsy. He was tired of sitting around and doing nothing. Yu Narukami was a man of action who loved helping people, especially ones with huge problems on their hands that he insisted he could fix. Naturally he wasn't as capable as to bring someone back from the dead but he could at the very least help someone cope with the loss of a dear loved one.

After all he was also dealing with a rather large important himself. Nanako was...well he hoped the others were doing something and she was still alive. He couldn't really say for sure since he was so far away. And on top of that he had trouble reaching Izanagi.

He felt useless in the situation even though it wasn't his battle to win. Normally Yu would leave things be but after coming to Inaba he realized he was a huge people pleaser. He was embarrassed to say that he almost felt like he needed to help Akira's friends or he was going to lose his mind.

The easiest would be Futaba by technicality. She refused to talk to anyone, even her own friends, and the man who took care of her. By the huge technicality of staying in the same home as her for ‘safety’ reasons, he still assumed she would be the easiest to get through to.

The other problem with this though, was he revealed his knowledge of Personas a little bit too early. Now, with what very little trust they had in him already, he had even less of that thanks to that blunder. How was he supposed to know they didn't like mysterious, kind of suspicious, Persona users who loved playing detective? One could argue he was more in the line of the Scooby Doo Mystery gang but such a comparison may have been a little too American for them, since Featherman was still the popular cartoon of the time.

From what he knew, meaning what he eavesdropped on, they were betrayed by a "detective prince" and this was the reason Akira was dead. 

Curse his unending optimism. Part of him wanted to reassure him that Akira could possibly still be alive, but the possibility of that happening was so small since the likelihood of surviving being murdered in custody was very, very slim.

Also, knowing someone was using the same title as Naoto to perform such a crime was unsettling. He knew Naoto would never kill anyone, it was against their principles and didn’t look good on the resume of someone who was planning on continuing detective work after high school, or in general really. Granted, this was the future and he bet Naoto was still the same person as they had been before. Killing someone, especially Akira, was out of the question.

He did some digging on the imposter Detective Prince. On one hand, it seemed it was the public calling him that rather than starting the trend himself. He was a third year student at one of the many prestigious high schools in Tokyo. The name he couldn’t quite remember off the top of his head. Besides that and being praised for the arrest of the Leader of the Phantom Thieves there wasn’t much on him. No known family, his birth date was only given through deduction on his school year. Goro Akechi effectively didn’t exist outside of that little bit of knowledge.

The potential argument against that was that he really wasn’t well versed with technology. At most he has Windows Vista since he never made the change to 7, a flip phone because Smartphones were too complicated for him and at most he could Google something but he wasn’t about to dig into someone’s personal life to that deep of a detail no matter how awful they were. It’s not like he knew what ends of the deep web hid all the secrets of the world.

No he wasn’t making excuses. Shut up.

He snuck out of the house while Futaba undoubtedly clicked away at her computer upstairs. Maybe that was a bad idea since he didn't have a key to lock the door and Futaba was alone. Maybe he could worry about the semantics later and leave things be for the time being.

He let the wind carry him wherever it pleased. Having nowhere to go, his restless legs wandered until his trek took him to a beef bowl shop in Shibuya. Was his reality really that predictable? Beef bowls? It wasn't Aiya's but it would have to do with what he had. Besides, he wasn't going to run all the way to Inaba like this. That was way too suspicious.

The man working behind the counter looked up. Familiar dull grey eyes met his eyes for a moment, flashing with a momentary recognition that could have been missed otherwise. Or perhaps it was his imagination. Not a moment later he groaned loudly before trudging over to the door.

"Listen, kid. My paycheck is on the line if I let another highschooler skip class for beef bowls. Go to school." he demanded.

"Sorry, but I don't go to school here. I'm on vacation to see my..." he paused trying to think of a valid excuse and one that wouldn't offend Sojiro too much if he read his mind later. "Uncle. My uncle." 

Well despite being a stranger it was better than anything else he could come up with. Sojiro was also technically a better “uncle” than Dojima despite the hostility earlier. That was a can of worms he wasn’t going to open right now.

The very bored looking worker's eyes bore into his own for another moment before sighing and letting Yu in. He grumbled quietly to himself about hating kids and their shitty excuses loud enough for Yu to hear. Something told him that the man wasn’t trying to hide his annoyance at all.

And to that, my friends, he would be correct for this one time.

To make the poor man feel slightly safer, he slid into one of the booths out of sight from the door in case people actually did care. He doubted they would and the man was just paranoid. After all, the place was empty despite it being close to lunchtime on a weekday. If he was expecting customers to start pouring in at any moment he doubted it would cause an issue anyways, since it would be his own break. Yes, the man was just paranoid but Yu still went along with it so the guy wouldn’t have an aneurysm on the spot.

As if the world wanted to prove him wrong, a moment later the door swung open with a happy little jingle. A pair of footsteps walked inside and took a seat in the booth behind him. The bored looking worker, who hadn't paid any mind to Yu since he sat down, walked over to the booth behind him before doing a double take. He looked between Yu and the person in the other booth several times in disbelief. 

"Is something wrong?" a voice identical to his own asked.

Yu, as quietly as he could, choked on his saliva. Spooky, he had a voice doppelganger. The worker quickly gestured for Yu to come over, which he did despite everyone’s best interests unknowingly sealing his fate into one of the most confusing, complicated afternoons he had ever had the displeasure of living through. When he turned around to finally get a look at his voice thief, he realized they had more in common than just their voice.

"Are you…" Yu began.

"Me?" the other finished. 

In the other booth was a man around his early 20s with silver hair in a bowl cut, and grey eyes. Every feature that could possibly match was identical to his own. If someone told him that it was just a mirror sitting in the seat he would have believed them, until the man moved his hand to save it in front of Yu’s face. Unable to completely process what he was experiencing, Yu remained frozen in place gaping like a fish out of water.

The beef bowl guy continued suspiciously glancing between the two, quietly stewing to himself. Shrugging he pulled his phone out of his apron and began looking through it as if nothing interested him anymore.

The other Yu blinked with an easy laugh, cutting through the tension like he was a hot knife cutting butter. "Well that explains the stares from Sojiro-san and their weird call from Futaba-chan." he said cheerfully.

"Wait...wait you're act ually me?!" Yu exclaimed, nearly sputtering to get his own words out through his surprise.

"Yup! You got it! It's probably related to that 'I am thou, thou art I stuff'. You know how it is" the older Yu replied.

Yu nodded uneasily, his gaze wavering to the bored worker whose head snapped up from his cellphone, seconds away from throwing it across the room to pretend he had never been on it in the first place. His expression fell back to a neutral face of displeasure once he saw the smirk the elder Yu sent him.

"Oh! I should introduce you to my friend, beef bowl guy!" older Yu exclaimed, gesturing to the poor man.

"We're not friends. You just like coming here to bother me and-" he deadpanned in reply before cutting himself off. The man grunted quietly to himself, shaking his head.. "Just order your food and let me suffer in peace."

"Two large beef bowls for me and my friend here, please." older Yu said, winking at Yu despite the fact the worker had definitely heard them call each other ‘me’. Either he was choosing to ignore it or it wasn’t the weirdest thing he’d ever witnessed. Honestly Yu was willing to guess the first option.

The annoyed man rolled his eyes at them. "Whatever." and stalked off to fetch their food.

The older Yu gestured to the seat across from him, inviting him to sit. Realizing he was still standing, reluctantly he sat down, though not without questioning the odds of this happening to someone else. The answer to that was exactly one, but he wouldn't know that for a very long time.

His older self took this in stride, which wasn't too much of a surprise he supposed. His smile was still rather unsettling to say the least. He wished his other self would maybe chill out a little bit. The enthusiasm for the situation couldn’t be because of him, or Personas.

He opened his mouth to say something but found his voice caught up in his throat. Taking the opportunity upon himself, his older self began to speak instead.

"You're probably wondering who the true culprit was." he began, right to the point.

"Oh well...I guess? Is it not Namatame?" Yu asked.

"I wish it were that easy. You'll have to go through at least two other people before getting to the true mastermind." the older Yu replied cryptically.

He could feel his energy drain at the suggestion of two more fake out villains. He already had to deal with Kubo and apparently Namatame now. But maybe that wasn't a surprise either considering Kubo was a fake anyways.

"I can see your surprise, and worry. Don't worry, little me. You'll be fine as long as you've been talking to Marie." older Yu reassured him, patting Yu on the shoulder.

He stiffened in place, which made his older self pause his friendly pat. Maybe he’d been too forward? Or maybe it was weird considering that was himself in the past. Oh he should probably apologi-

"Who's Marie??" Yu asked.

"Oh." He was overthinking things again. "The other girl from the Velvet Room. Kind of emo, writes bad poetry. Brown hair?"

Yu went completely silent. He wracked his brain trying to remember any brown haired girls with terrible poetry. No one came to mind, and he was sure the only woman in the Velvet Room was his attendant, Margaret.

Actually there was the piano woman who had dark coloured hair but whenever he tried to speak to her she mentioned she opened the door to people’s souls or something to that effect, all the while she continued to sing. Unless he was supposed to be taking her out of the Velvet Room, which he was sure he wasn’t because the amount of time her and the piano man continued their song was an egregiously long amount of time he had no right to interrupt.

"Who?" he asked again, slower this time so the other was aware of how crazy he sounded. More so than their whole situation already.

"Oh dear...it's worse than I thought…" the older whispered.

"What's worse??? Who's Marie?!" Yu shouted.

"Please shut the hell up." the worker deadpanned. He didn't realize the man had arrived with their food, and dropped the two beef bowls on the table. "If you need me...don’t.”

Once again the man disappeared, this time pulling out a pair of old headphones from under his apron and stuck them in his ears. From across the room he could hear the man's music crackling through the old headphones. No matter how old they were he knew they were too loud for him.

This guy had to be lucky to not have hearing damage. Oh to be in your mid-twenties and able to blast music in your ears with your fancy iPhones or whatever. You crazy kids and your modern technology.

"You really don't know who Marie is?" older Yu asked, slurping his beef bowl rather unpleasantly.

"No. The only two people in the Velvet Room are Igor and Margaret. Sometimes there may be a little girl who bursts in out of nowhere and a stressed man who all look similar to each other but there's no one named Marie who matches your description." Yu replied, pushing his beef bowl around with his chopsticks. 

His older self hummed into his food. Seeing himself but older threw him off quite a bit, especially to see he'd become… this . His current self wasn't much better in some regards but he promised he was trying his best. Even if it did end up with some people calling him annoyingly persistent. Besides that their inconsistencies in Velvet Rooms was more of an issue to worry about.

Older Yu's eyes softened as he set the chopsticks back on the table. "Listen, we'll figure it out together alright. I dealt with the Inaba situation once and I can do it again." he said.

Reaching into his pocket, the older pulled out a shining orb, the size of a regular bead, but held more power than any bead possibly could. If he reached out to touch it he may have heard the answers to all the questions he had, and it wanted him to do so. But the orb disappeared back into his other self's closed hand and into his pocket once more.  

"What was that?" Yu asked. 

"You'll find out one day." his older self cryptically replied before diving back into his beef bowl as if nothing ever happened. 

Quietly, Yu began to eat his own beef bowl once again. He doubted if he asked any questions the other would actually answer him. He needed to find a better name for him too. Other than just 'other Yu', or 'older Yu'. 🅱️u was almost an option but it didn't seem right for the situation they were in. So for the time being he decided to call the man ‘Narukami’ as his friends had when they first met.

That could be a thought he could entertain later since he was certain this wouldn't be the last time he saw the man. 

The other man off in the corner, despite his reluctance earlier, watched them intently. Maybe he saw the glowing orb his other self had, or perhaps he'd actually been watching the whole time. He held his cellphone, a flip phone Yu was surprised to notice, in his hands. His headphones still rested, clamped over his ears, though they seemed less loud and aggressive as last time. 

Someone about him was also weirdly familiar. Had he met the man in the past and forgotten him or something? Probably not since he'd be a few years older than him, he assumed. It was a little hard to tell since the man was so short he could have been a middle schooler were it not for the bags under his eyes aging him about 10 years, and having a job at a beef bowl shop.

Grumpy, yeah he was about to call this guy Grumpy, noticed he was watching and sulked over once again, pulling his headphones off his ears. Almost immediately he could hear the music crackling through his headphones again. The song had to be as old as the phone, an aggressive beat thumped through. It was Lotus Juice.

"You done yet?" Grumpy asked.

"Yeah I guess. I wasn't actually hungry when I came here. I wanted to clear my head and I guess it helped." Yu replied, pushing the half eaten bowl his way.

Grumpy shrugged and picked up the bowl anyways. "You're not the first person to feel that way, kid. But glad whatever's bothering you stopped or whatever."

His bored gaze turned to Narukami, who had actually finished his food. When he finished it, Yu didn’t know since they were talking nearly the entire time. It must have taken all the useless stats he had to finish that beef bowl so quickly.

"Are you ready to leave?" Grumpy asked less pleasantly to Narukami.

"Only if you come with me." his older self replied, winking at the man.

A little taken back, and flabbergasted, he had to wonder if he had always been like this. Was he that flirty with strangers he never met? Especially ones that sounded like Yosuke? 

The answer to that question was yes. He was always that flirty. Very exclusively to people who sounded like Yosuke. He should have noticed the trend sooner than this but he was a Fool. A poor, silly Fool.

"I don't get paid enough for this shit." Grumpy grumbled in response, snatching up the bowl and disappearing into the kitchen once more.

He wanted to know what the backstory was, why the other Yu was so familiar with the poor exhausted man, and why the man was so hateful of working for the beef bowl shop. Well one answer was very obvious from the start, because anyone working in a beef bowl shop at the age Grumpy was they would resent the world too. Especially if all of the guy’s customers were like Narukami.

Even so, he couldn't help  but pry into why the man was so familiar. It was a nasty habit he really had to get rid of sooner or later. "Do we know him?" Yu asked the other, pointing in the direction of the grumpy man.

Narukami shook his head, scratching at his chin. "Not really. I come here often enough that I recognize him but he's never told me his name. I'll figure it out one day." he replied.

"Because he feels familiar?" Yu asked.

"....oh I guess he is. I was thinking more because he's handsome." the other replied sheepishly.

They stared at each other in perfect serene silence for a long moment. Yu’s eyes threatened to turn towards Grumpy, hoping the poor man wasn’t anywhere near them, yet he couldn’t avert his eyes from himself. The other was equally as embarrassed, not all the right reasons.

"...I’ll just...leave you be.” Yu sighed, standing up so he could pay poor Grumpy and leave. He patted his front pockets, then the pockets of his jacket, his back pockets...he didn’t have his wallet...right.

Narukami smirked, pulling out a credit card seemingly out of thin air. The thin silvery plastic glinted mockingly in the lights. “Don’t worry, what kind of man would I be if I didn’t help out my younger self?”

Yu didn’t know how he held his tongue and refrained from sassing off Narukami, but he somehow made it out of the Beef Bowl shop ignoring the incessant chattering from himself at the grumpy worker, who could be heard groaning loudly as the door shut. The happy jingle closed off his journey for the day, something he hopefully would be allowed to forget in the near future. 

He had a lot to think about. Mainly who Marie was and why she was so important to his Journey. Having never seen or met her he could only hope it wouldn’t have any negative consequences on how everything turned out in the end. Otherwise...he shuddered trying to erase the thought from his mind. Praying to the gods, his unending optimism cursed him yet again, hoping everything would sort itself out regardless.

The walk back was as slow and mindless as the journey to the beef bowl shop had been. Somewhere, sometime after the bright lights of Shibuya Crossing had disappeared and the vast crowd of businessmen and students disappeared behind him, he felt it again. On his way he tried to ignore the chilling feeling someone was following him, but he couldn’t ignore it for a second time.

Slowly he turned around, checking over both of his shoulders, carefully scanning every bush and garbage can like he was still stuck in an episode of Scooby Doo and not in a mashup of Freaky Friday and Back to the Future, yet he found nothing there. Nary a stray plastic up on the ground, or even one of the street cleaners that came around every hour to sweep the streets. Despite his fears he took the time to admire the changing colours of the leaves on the trees. It may have felt a little late in comparison to usual but 2016 produced a rather vibrant orange.

The wind whistled around him again, whispering in his ears that he was being paranoid. Realistically there was nothing to worry about in such a populated place like the outskirts of Shibuya or Tokyo. And to top it off, this was his hometown and he’d been perfectly fine walking the streets at night before. HIs imagination was simply running too wild again and he couldn’t calm his nerves over Nanako was all.

With one last quick scan of his surroundings, Yu shrugged and went back on his merry way. His hopes that his meddling wouldn’t have any consequences on the future was another forgotten worry. Back to the Future was a movie after all, while what he was living was reality. It’d all work out in the end.

-

“Target remains oblivious. I’ll leave the rest to you, Mona.”

Chapter Text

Perhaps he'd severely underestimated the Kirijo Group, and he was just a fool of a 15 year old when they'd first 'met'. Honestly in the few days he'd been working on them he learned nothing about Kurusu or gotten anything of value done thanks to the infuriating unpaid emo man and the head of the Kirijo group herself. She was too 'busy' and had 'far more important issues to take care of', which in all honesty was a funny way of saying she wanted to faff about with the head of the Nanjo Group instead, so it left Akechi with time to think to himself.

And thinking was never a good thing for Akechi. It always awoke Loki from his apparent slumber to mock the boy for wasting his time. 

You could always go searching on your own, Princeling. Whoever said you were tied to the Kirijo woman's schedule?

In that regard Loki was correct. He didn't have to wait for them, however to not raise too much suspicion about his true intentions he was far more careful than that. Especially with their own version of Wakaba's daughter on the other side of a screen. 

Juno, as she called herself, was far less skilled as Wakaba’s child, and far less discrete as a person. While the original Mejed was methodical and careful not to have her whereabouts traced, Juno was far less than that. If anything she was begging herself to be caught. 

With the little hacking knowledge he still retained after making the fake Mejed, he easily found where the hacker was located and not to his surprise at all, they were in the heart of the Kirijo Group’s Tokyo branch. Of course they were. He'd already known they were working for the Kirjo so it shouldn't have been a surprise at all.

Now the greater question was what was he going to do? There were little places he could go to do his own work, and if they tracked his phone there was no point in trying to. Unless of course, he went somewhere his phone didn't work anymore.

Yes that was the perfect plan, they would know he was in the Metaverse but it would take time to follow him.

"Sae Nijima. Courthouse. Casino." he called into the MetaNav.

He waited for a second, expecting his room to melt away into a sea of red and black waves, then find himself at the entrance of a lavish golden casino. He continued to wait, yet nothing changed.

Conditions have not been met.

He stared at the blinking red eye on his phone puzzled. He left the casino alone after getting what he wanted. And he doubted the Phantom Thieves were fools enough to go back into the Palace alone. Besides the calling card only worked for 24 hours, Nijima wouldn't fall for the same tricks twice, especially if she knew the Leader of the Phantom Thieves was captured, and now dead.

Tightening his grip on the mildly cracked screen he repeated the same words as before, grinding out the words more aggressively than the last time. “Sae Nijima. Courthouse. Casino . ” However he was met with the same message as before. The robotic voice of the MetaNav found no condition that would allow him back into the Palace.

How peculiar...the Palace has disappeared. Perhaps the Trickster had made it out with the treasure... Loki chuckled to himself suggesting something impossible. The bait they'd laid out for him was a rather large briefcase that had never been reported on Joker when he was captured, given that they split up it was impossible he passed it off to one of his incompetent teammates....unless it was the cat.

Curse it. Curse it all . Curse Joker, curse the Kirijo and curse this massive waste of his time. He promised himself he would lay low to stay out of Shido's radar but as it turned out he was about to entangle himself into something he never anticipated, even further.

“Damn it all.” he muttered to himself.

Setting his phone down on the table, Akechi grabbed his coat and rushed out the door. Ignoring the vicious cackling in his head, he needed to know what happened to Nijima's Palace. If it had been before...or after Joker's supposed death. Something deep in his gut told Akechi it was further from the former.

It was a gamble he was willing to take. Knowing those words were one and the same with what Kurusu had been thinking before going into Sae’s Palace for the last time left a bitter taste on Akechi’s tongue. What he would give to not be compared to that friendship toting idiot who got himself killed. There was no way in Hell he was going to allow himself to receive such a fate.

Friendship? Teammates? Hugging each other and stroking their egos to feel better about their pitiful existences? No, he wasn’t joining in with the Phantom Thieves sob stories, even if they allowed him to in their current situations. He was nothing like those filthy children at all. ‘

He was carving his own path, it was his path that he chose. So he would tell himself time and time again on the taxi ride and all other days to come.

-

Sae Nijima was having a rough week all things considered. With the fallout from half the force she still trusted thanks to the kid's death, and her constant growing migraine thanks to...well she had no idea what was causing that besides stress, the week was going awfully by all means. She didn't feel half as brain dead as before which was a win.

But in the end, that didn't matter. Someone had to have given the kid a gun because there was no way he simply strolled outside, stole a gun, walked back inside the interrogation room and killed himself. And the other person she'd seen walk towards the room after her was Akechi.

She huffed a frustrated sigh. Being taken off the case she had no right to meddle within it anymore, even if it was her case to begin with. All her duties had been thrown onto Akechi, even though he said he wanted to take a break and focus on his college entrance exams. Perhaps that was why Makoto was so stressed recently as well.

In all honesty she could have been a lot kinder to her sister in the recent months, the stress of work had turned her into a bit of a monster, though Makoto really was no better. She had her own problems to work out, and came home later every passing day until the day the Leader of the Phantom Thieves died. Sure she...suspected Makoto had been one of them, however since her sister never cracked she'd never know the answer.

Rifling through the pages of a new brainless case she couldn't help but wonder what happened to the other Phantom Thieves. She simply couldn't believe they were all high schoolers, teenagers, and far less one of them was her sister. The organization as a whole went silent which made full sense, yet she had the sinking feeling they'd rise from the ashes once again at some point just to prove her wrong.

Speaking of rising from the ashes, the door to her office slammed open. The familiar tan coloured figure of Goro Akechi stood on the other side. His normally clean cut appearance, maybe besides the greasy looking mullet, hardly the neatly pressed, distinguished Akechi someone would see on TV. Without the point of a camera in his direction Akechi was quite the mess.

He stalked into her office, his eyes near manically flickering around the room as if to look for hidden cameras before clearing his throat and trying to compose himself. His hair was actually greasy, somewhere between stuck to his face or upwards in different directions like he’d been trying to pull his hair out.

"Sae-san. It's good to see you again so soon." he began. "I didn't expect to see you for a while."

"There was work to be done, you know how I function. What are you doing here? I could have sworn you were 'taking a break for your studies'?" she was always one to cut right to the chase, and that was something Akechi admired about her in the beginning. She took the situation too far and he supposed that's what formed her palace in the first place. He mentally shook his head, there was more that he came for than to reminisce about the past. Actually, he didn’t even want to reminisce about the past at all. His mission had no need for pointless sentiment towards her or anyone else.

"All trivial work, I'm afraid school has always been too much of a breeze for me." he replied, forcing his best detective prince smile out of himself. "If you're not too busy do you mind if I ask you a few questions about the day the Leader of the Phantom Thieves died?"

Her eyes narrowed slightly at him strangely enough. Had she already begun to suspect him? He hoped not but at the same time he left quite the trail behind him now that he thought about it.

"If you're willing to make an equal exchange of information, sure. I doubt I know anymore than you do. You were the last one to see him alive after all." she replied. The suspicion in her tone didn't set his nerves, or even Loki's at ease. The Persona stirred within him once again, buzzing inside like a colony of ants crawling under his skin. It was uncomfortable to say the least.

"Of course." he slowly replied. "It's only fair after all."

He sat down in the small plastic chair opposite to Sae. One thing he noted was an old withered notebook resting on her desk that hadn't been there before. Of course Sae always could have brought another one of her notebooks from home, however the age of the book looked like it nearly predated himself and Makoto, given Sae was only 25 he doubted it was actually hers. Which could only mean...

Her eyes followed his own, sweeping the notebook underneath one of the casefiles before he could ask about it. Her eyes narrowed even further.

Snapped his eyes back up to Sae he cleared his throat, grimacing. “Have you experienced anything…strange at all? Since the day of the interrogation?”

His eyes bore into hers waiting for either of them to betray their emotions to the other, however both were well versed in keeping appearances. Akechi was so used to the spotlight it was easy to fool anyone into his false detective prince persona, while Sae had been in the job for so long she could wait it out until he broke. Neither would draw any closer to breaking soon so she relented. 

Sighing Sae relayed the same information she had to the Director days before. About her headaches and a bout of temporary "floaty" fogged thoughts. Makoto had been oddly helpful those days, perhaps still trying to prove herself to Sae, or maybe she was a Phantom Thief and she knew this was a change of heart. Regardless, she shook off the thought, all the while Akechi's intense stare grew more relaxed. 

Strange, he was never this tense usually.

"You're awfully concerned about my well-being, Akechi-kun. I must thank you for the concern whenever you make your comeback." she casually stated, hoping to coax just a little information out of the young man. 

“It’s no problem of mine really. You can’t blame me with what is going on in the world right now.” he replied. The smile on his face grew more strained than before. He fidgeted with something in his pocket, something the refined detective price never seemed to do in her entire time knowing him.

"Alright then if you don’t mind answering my own question now. Does being here have anything to do with the fact our supposed dead prisoner has disappeared?" Sae asked. He thought he'd be ready for whatever she asked him, yet he found himself surprised by his former superior yet again. Had it not been for the situation he was facing he would have complimented her and acknowledged her observation skills.

Instead he felt his heart nearly stop. Even Loki went completely silent by her question. Deeper in his soul, he almost felt Robin Hood stir, he almost made his own appearance. But the Persona remained distant as ever.

Swallowing the remaining saliva in his dry mouth he slowly asked, "How did you know he was missing?"

"So you do know after all. The other day the Director noticed you sneaking in and rushing off into the basement. At first I assumed you forgot something down there but couldn't figure out what." Sae began to explain. Under her sharp gaze the younger detective turned more and more pale as he realized every step he took was a mistake leading to his downfall.

"I had to ask myself, what could you possibly be looking for in a dead man's grave...unless you weren't entirely convinced he was dead. Which was strange considering the report of his suicide came from you yourself. After all you were the one who invited the guard in weren't you?

"I checked the records for the man myself, only to find he wasn't actually a guard who worked here. He was private security for someone however whoever he worked for never stated their name. Only then did I grow more suspicious so I decided to check the cell myself. You must know what I found there, don't you?"

Perhaps it was from feeling like his back was against a wall, or being compelled to tell someone who uncovered so much of the truth on their own, he slowly nodded. "Nothing. You found nothing like I had in the past."

"That begs the question, where did Akira Kurusu's body go, Akechi-kun? Do you have any ideas?" she asked.

"I don't."

"I actually find myself here in an attempt to figure this out myself. You're the only possible person I can think of who can give some insight. You were the last one who questioned him before I had. Is there any chance Kurusu told you anything that may suggest what he was about to do?" Akechi smoothly asked, sinking back into Detective Prince mode. 

Oh little Prince...if you come back from this I will be most surprised. Loki sighed. He ignored his Persona's jeering once again, trying to keep his eye contact from the woman who could see through his entire disguise. Her arms simply crossed over her chest as she leaned back into her chair.

"There was one rather strange fact I noticed. He was rather insistent I take his phone with me and show it to someone. The 'true culprit' as he put it. By the time he said this the drugs had worn off and he was coming to, which suggested he knew what was happening at the very least. It was almost as if he knew someone else would be coming for him, since there was no one else to show the phone to besides..." she trailed off. 

The clock in the corner of the office ticked on as her neutral expression turned into one of understanding, surprise, then fury. "He was talking about you wasn't he?"

Well...looks like she wasn't as foolish as you thought...

"Sae-san now think about what you're saying. Why would I-"

"Empty your pockets." she interrupted him. " Now. "

He stared at her blankly. Why did she want to see his pockets? He pulled out an extra pair of black gloves, his house keys, his wallet and a pen Kurusu had given him as a joke. The closer he looked at it laying on the table he noticed the emblem on it was rather familiar...it was the crest of the Kirijo Group. Averting his eyes he emptied the last of the contents in his pockets. Nothing incriminating lay inside so he had to ask himself why Sae wanted to see them.

"Empty the one inside your coat as well." she demanded.

He frowned, reaching for the pocket on the inside of his school jacket, freezing when he realized it was not empty. Throughout the entire weeks after he killed Kurusu...he forgot to take the silencer out of his pocket.

"You must have realized the same thing I have then." Sae said. "Normally I'd turn you in immediately....however you have the entire force wrapped around your finger. No matter what I do I'll be the one who takes the blame instead of you."

Akechi had no idea what to say. He opened his mouth to say something. Perhaps defend himself, tell her it wasn't true, but the evidence heavily weighed against him. Even if she was right she could easily go to someone else who did have the power to arrest him. And there were MANY who would be more than willing, even just in Tokyo itself. So while his mouth lamely hung open no words came out.

"Here's the one thing I would like to know. What exactly compelled you to do this? I hardly believe it's petty jealousy." Sae asked.

Reaching inside and pulling the silencer out, he dropped it on the desk while picking up the rest of his things. "I did what was asked of me. Nothing more, nothing less. You wanted to know why I've given up the act of a Detective Prince? Because it's no longer necessary to keep up the act."

"You have all the evidence you need against me, but you're right. No one will believe you because of who really runs this show. My only suggestion is to quit while you can, Sae-san. You were a target as well."

He shakily turned heel out the door and left. How he did without getting stopped by Sae once again he had no idea. All he knew was Sae Nijima had more answers than he did, and it was likely she wasn't willing to share anymore with him now that she knew the truth.

The ride back to his apartment went in silence that he would have called blissful before, but now more than anything he begged to hear the voices of either of his personas. He wouldn't get any help from Robin Hood, but as time passed Loki made his presence known.

The Trickster god remained by his side regardless of his actions. Even though he was far from the most comforting presence in the world, that time had long since passed the moment his mother died. To think this had all started out of a child's revenge scheme against a father he never knew.

He hoped it was all worth it in the end. Kurusu, Wakaba, Okumura, the dozens of others he'd killed, Sae. It better have been worth it to see Shido fall before his very eyes.

Taking his phone back off the table, it blinked to life the moment he touched it.

[Juno] : that couldn't have gone any worse lol.

[You] : Excuse me?

[Juno] : kek you just admitted you're a murderer and all you have to say is eXcUsE mE wow you ARE really bad at this

[Juno] : I'm sure you're confuzzled so I'll make it easier on you. we heard every word of it. check your things again because ;)) anyways have fun cleaning up your messes!! see you monday :)

Immediately the pen popped into his mind yet again. The Kirijo group had been following him even then, had they? He pulled the pen out of his pocket, throwing it onto the ground and crushed it under his shoe.

"What am I going to do now..." he whispered to himself.

And yet, there was no one to answer his call.

Is that regret I hear in your tone, little Prince? With just his luck Loki’s voice spoke up and began to taunt him in the depths of his own mind again. With his own dramatics out of the way he could see why his Persona decided to ramp it up on his own. Knowing Loki was a mere extension of himself did no favors for his already damaged ego.

Akechi fell back onto his chair, defeated, glaring at the wall as if his Persona could manifest in front of him right this second to further strike him down. No, his other self continued to laugh. “I’m far past the point of regret. I walk my own path no matter where it takes me, you know this already.”

He glowered at the wall, perhaps expecting the paint to begin peeling off the walls and melt into the abyss like the Shadows of Mementos. Loki fell silent once more allowing him a moment of peace. 

Let’s think of it logically. You’ve just been found out for the murder of at least one person. More than one person knows this because you’ve been followed for an unknown amount of time by one of the richest families in Japan…and an extremely dangerous one at that. Far more dangerous than your scumbag father despite the fact he is running for President of the entire country. He may be willing to allow you, who was a 15 year old boy, to become his personal magic hitman. But at some point where was it supposed to stop? After he became President you didn’t know what would happen to you, would he be disposed of if you didn’t kill SHido quick enough? Likely. You had too many crimes under your belt. 

So he could get disposed of by Shido, get disposed of by Sae and whoever else she could scrape up from the police force, or get disposed of by the Kirijo Group. All if she didn’t think fast enough how to get himself out of the mess he made.

Killing one of them through the methods of a mental shutdown but every single one of them? No, that was too hard. It would be suspicious of so many people of power were killed off after Okumura. And besides Sae, which the public didn’t know about, none of them were targets of the Phantom Thieves. With the death of their Leader it would be suspicious to plant fake evidence. 

Akechi sank further into his seat dragging his hands across his face. There was another option he hadn’t been desperate enough for quite yet. He wasn’t at the point of needing his last resort plan quite yet. But only the gods knew how close that day may be.

Something banged against his door. The loud smacks shook against the walls of his apartment. Akechi himself jumped from the noise. Grumbling under his breath he stalked towards the door, wondering what could possibly be making such a horrible racket. It was late in the day and he was going to get a noise complaint if this kept up.

As he swung the door open Akechi barely had the time to react to a fist colliding into his face. The loud obnoxious knocker didn’t even apologize for punching him in the face as it settled in. If anything she let out a mildly satisfied huff crossing her arms over her chest.

“You…” Akechi growled.

“Well…you’ve been busy. Let’s get down to business, who are you working for?” Maya Amano was not someone who radiated an intimidating aura. She was someone who could be defined as painfully optimistic. Rarely anyone could catch her with so much as a scowl on her face. So when he saw the positively murderous gaze she cast upon Goro Akechi, he knew he was completely utterly fucked. Perhaps his last resort was quickly approaching.

Chapter Text

The man that took her in reminded her of the technicians at the lab. He was cold, and treated her like the robot that she was. He didn't know about her purpose like the technicians did, but it wasn't hard to figure out.

She had limbs that rocketed off her body at breakneck pace, bullets for blood, guns for fingers, and carried a large axe on her back. That was all he needed, and frankly all he wanted from her. She was a weapon of mass destruction just like Kirijo-sama had said once before.

Labrys didn't know how else to describe the man besides physically. That was actually quite easy. He was a man in his late 40's to early 50's that had clearly gone bald at a younger age than most. Quite frankly the only hair he had left was a fleeting goatee on his chin. He wore tinted yellow sunglasses from being in front of cameras and behind a screen all day.

The man was clearly an important figure. She frequently heard him talking to men and women in pressed suits and perfectly coiffed hair. He was a candidate for the next Presidential election from what she heard, and one very high in the polls. All the other contenders may as well drop out after his popularity boom thanks to some thief dying.

She had no idea who the Phantom Thieves were even after hearing the news stories, from what she gathered they must have been bad people or else they wouldn't have been arrested. The Leader of them was a kid which should have been surprising. Labrys was a robot, so the fact left her unable to compute rather than surprised.

If a child was the main source of all the problems in Japan why didn't they fix things sooner? And how could they cause so much trouble for so long without the help of something more powerful. Or perhaps someone. 

The aura in the office was oppressive. Somehow more so than the darkened basement of the old Kirijo labs. At the very least people pretended to like the Shadow destroying robots, there was the one scientist who actually cared about her.

That was until the woman died of course.

Of course, being a secret weapon that could destroy the soil of the very land he was trying to win over, she wasn't allowed to go outside. Only catching a small glimpse of the outside world in the dead of night, Labrys supposed she was used to being trapped in a building still. This one was much nicer than the lab, it had something called a Nespresso Machine. She didn't know what coffee was but it was pretty cool. Of course she also didn't have taste buds so it was more like she was dumping a liter of hot liquid right into her core components.

Not the best idea on any of their parts.

If people caught wind of Labrys' existence there would be chaos. The only people who understood her true power were the Kirijo and they were out there. So more than ever the man wanted her to stay inside, make no fuss and lay low. For some reason that was a common theme between herself and the bald man though whenever she asked he never provided an answer.

Her sensors picked up the growing agitation in his voice the last time she asked. It had been right after he got off the phone with someone named "Akechi" and he was already in a heightened state. Upon trying to shift her questions towards who Akechi was the man smiled. He calmly replied that 'Akechi' was a simple nuisance that would be dealt with.

The same coldness as the office leaked into his words when he spoke to her about Akechi. Whoever he was the man hated him. It wasn't like he was only a thorn in his side, or some annoying kid that called him Mr Clean and slapped his bald head. No there was something in the way he spat out the name with such malice and hatred that was so mechanical component chilling she refused to bring it up with him.

-

The man walked up to her carrying a bag. He placed it in her hands without much explanation. Looking inside, there was a tan jacket, and a generic black skirt inside waiting for her. 

"Our preparations for you are finally complete."

Labrys looked up at the bald man, shuddering at his greasy little smile. "I need you to do something very important for me, Labrys. Follow Goro Akechi. Don't let him out of your sight."

Chapter Text

As a child Akira had always been fascinated by bugs. Considering he lived above a flower shop it wasn't so unlikely that he would see them crawling around the house. The other kids thought it was creepy but he was exposed to them as long as he could remember.

He used to watch as the little ones got trapped in a spider's web, struggling to escape their inevitable fates. Despite how unfortunate it was for the little bugs, that was also a part of the circle of life. Creatures lived and died for the purpose of being a bigger threat's food.

And now for himself, he was the butterfly in a spider's web. Akira had been inside the world of the TV before so he knew how it felt. He knew how suffocating the air was slowly filling the jail with a thick fog. It was the same way Rise's club had been back then. 

Something about the fog wasn't natural in the way a spider's web was. He could feel something stirring deep within, something banging against the walls his mind subconsciously built the day he woke up in Inaba. Even he couldn't deny the existence of a mental block that would somehow lose him possible months of his life and somehow bring him back to his childhood.

 The web was more of a bigger picture however. While trying to navigate out of the blue walls of the prison he found an exit but once he stepped out there was a thicker layer of fog and the distant gurgling of an unseen foe waiting to pounce. Even if he wished to look for a way back, or even explore the deeper parts of the TV world he wouldn't be able to get that far anyways. This world was dangerous. far more than he realized.

Trickster... a voice whispered to him, disjointed by the lack of connection between himself. The syllables broke from each other creating a garbled incomprehensible mess. Whatever the voice was trying to tell him fell onto deaf ears without the rest of the context.

Glancing around the yellow hued skyline, he saw a faint shadow in front of him. It wavered and disappeared into the wisps of fog before he could make out what it was. If he could guess anything Akira would say it was likely a person, but what would a person be doing in the world of shadows?

The only people he could think of were his senpais. Rise, Naoto, Hanamura and the others. But if that were true they wouldn't have run away from him. Their jobs were tied to the TV World as much as his was and he was aware of that part as well. He didn't live with the memory of the Junes Bear's shadow seared in his brain for nothing.

Akira turned around to re enter the jail. As he put his hands in his pocket they brushed against something plastic. Pausing mid step Akira pulled out the object to find the glasses he'd woken up with in his pocket. They were a little bent out of shape from his journey and what possibly happened beforehand but otherwise usable. At first he thought nothing of them since the glasses didn't match a prescription at all. But something compelled him to put the glasses on.

Once the glasses rested on his face he felt like something clicked. The weight of the glasses were a familiar comfort he couldn't place anywhere specific with what little memories he held. He knew the glasses were his, though, and they looked damn good on him.

Squinting through the lenses, and trying to work around a crack in the left one, something else became obvious. Something far more important than the fact he remembered wearing these. The world looked all the more clearer. Akira spun around to look back into the thick fog, or where the fog should have been. 

There was no fog in sight. The path before him was a winding yellow cobblestoned road with various structures holding stage lights and microphones overhead. He could see, well, everything, in front of him as if no fog had ever been there. The one thing reminding him of the fog was the stale smell of humidity.

"Here Kurusu-kun. They'll help remind you of home." said the blonde boy that inhabited the Junes Bear costume. Teddie was less terrifying without the suit on, but still a major pain in the ass. But with his current problems going on he was grateful to receive such an important gift before being sent away from everything he'd ever known for a year. All because of something he never even did-

Akira felt a little lightheaded. he chalked it up to being a side effect from the glasses, but deep in his heart he knew this wasn't true, he already established the glasses didn't fix any part of his eyesight except for the fog within the world of the TV. He cradled his head in his hands trying to shake off the feeling before he accidentally passed out and became Shadow food.

The empty headed feeling persisted without relenting. Maybe he would float off into oblivion and be eaten alive. Perhaps that was his fate. His eyes clamped shut begging the feeling to go away. Upon opening his eyes and the falling colours fading away he saw a figure in the distance again. This time it was more visible. 

From where he was it definitely looked human now. There was a blot of red and black, then brown at the top. So a brown haired person, likely a man, wearing something entirely red. Even in 2011 that was quite the fashion choice. Yukiko, who was known for wearing various pieces of red clothing didn't even dress herself in such a manner, and she wasn't exactly known for being exactly 'normal'.

As he tried to squint and get a closer look the person took off again.

Akira had to stare after the person for a moment. Who was watching him?? And what were they planning on doing about him?

Against his better judgment, like most of his decisions he seemed to be making, and without the proper safety measures Akira took off after the red man. It was an effort to keep up. His legs still had problems keeping up with his brain. He stumbled along the path to where he saw the man last.

Akira found himself at a crossroad. To his left, where he saw the man go, he could feel the overwhelming presence of danger. It was different from the rest of the TV world. While he knew Shadows lurked in the fog with the glasses to light his path he knew he was in less danger than before, but this was different. There was still order to the shadows of the fog, unlike the chaos that screamed from the left path.

To his right he felt a calming presence that had no business being in the TV world. It lured him in with a false sense of security, practically telling him this was the only path he could follow. Filling him with empty promises of security and safety, both of which he could immediately sense weren't true.

On one hand he could go back the way he came, forget about the man and never speak of it ever again. Or wait until Rise and the others showed up to inevitably save the day. This was the fate awaiting him and Nanako, it was his part of the play in a game he never signed up for. 

And on the other hand the man was clearly trying to tell him something. Like the wings of a butterfly fluttering in his chest the same feeling stirred again. The one he couldn't place but didn't shy away from. It seems it had made the decision for itself and began to carry Akira towards the left path.

As he moved forward, the fog lifted more and more. He no longer smelled the stink of fog and shadows, replacing it with dust. Like a construction site newly blasting away at the rocky surface of the Earth. It was all so artificial and fake, mixing in with the scent of smoke.

As he delved further in, he paused. Reaching his hand out, his fingers brushed against a thin veil of dull golden sparkles. The ruffle of wings snapped his attention upwards to find a group of small pale yellow butterflies flying over his head, leaving the veil of sparkles.

Something moved even further up. In the shadows of the dark orange sky shot out something purple.

It sent the butterflies scattering away in an instant. The veil of gold slowly disappeared along with it, leaving all but a white shimmering screen.

Come Trickster. Do you not wish to seek the truth? A voice beckoned him forwards. The voice was deep and familiar. Once again, unable to place where, he assumed it came from his experience. It knew of his predicament like the others before it. Like the right path, it lured him in with the false promises of the truth. Using words it knew would interest the teen.

Akira walked forwards, pushing through the veil and continuing down the pathway, unable to notice the trail of thick purple sludge he left behind.

 His footsteps painted the dark gray asphalt for a long while until he finally noticed this wasn't the same road he'd taken to get there. Akira whipped around to find himself in an abandoned alleyway littered with colourful graffiti all depicting what looked like an octopus with many eyes. A brick wall blocked off the path behind him, trapping him within this new environment. Unable to turn around and return the way he came, he persisted forwards.

The city was eerily quiet, not that there had been much noise in the TV world. Cars were left abandoned on the streets, dusty and decrepit  likely being there for a long long time. A few turned over on their sides with their windows smashed open. He could see colourful rubber balls and bicycles on the streets as well, equally as untouched as the cars that weren't flipped over.

Continuing through the city he realized there was a distinct lack of...life. The trees were singed, there weren't even birds or squirrels running around and bothering him. The TV World had a ghost town within maybe? It didn't seem all that surprising with all that he gathered from his own experiences before.

His journey came to a full stop as he passed by an abandoned drugstore under the name "Satomi Tadashi". For one, the name was far too familiar for his liking. While the TV world was a bit of a geographical mess he was certain it still took place in a fake version of Inaba, and from the stories he heard from his papa and father as a child he was certain the name came from their hometown of Sumaru city.

The other thing keeping him from moving anywhere else was the gaping hole in the ground like everything had been lifted out and pulled away. Peering down into the hole it greeted him with the dark abyss. Like the TV world, he could hear the low gurgling of an unseen danger. You didn't want to fall into the hole for two reasons, the monsters in the dark and the fear knowing you would never climb out.

Akira stumbled back away from the hole. "I have to get back.." he whispered to himself, not that anyone would be around to hear him.

The question of where the other man went didn't even occur to him as he turned tail to find a way out of the uncanny version of Sumaru city. He stumbled through the streets ignoring the searing pain shooting up his legs the more he moved. His only priority was to get the hell out of there.

Being focused on his escape he didn't notice the rustle of branches on a dying bush. He didn't hear the snickers of the little monster following him. And he couldn't catch the flash of white whizz past his eyes until it was too late.

The little snowman should have seemed harmless but given the surprise of a sentient snowman jumping out at him Akira fell backwards onto his ass, his legs giving out on the last bits of balance he had left. More of the snowmen. and a similar looking pumpkin headed demon carrying a lantern popped out of nowhere closing in on the teen.

This was the end, he was fucking stupid and should have just stayed in the jail. He was going to die he was going to die he was going to die-

The whirr of a motor would prove him wrong.

It all happened in an instant. The whirr of mechanics quickly tuned to the familiar sound of the roar of a motorcycle. The monsters turned their bodies to the source of the sound, a split second before the shiny black motorcycle flew over Akira's head and crashed into the monsters. 

The man in red's wheels ground to a stop watching the monsters turn into puddles of black smoke. A lone snowman cowered in fear, having missed the mechanical beast by mere inches. 

"Eee please don't hurt me ho!!! Master sent me-hee after the Trickster ho!!" the little snowman pleaded. 

The man stared at the shaking snowman beneath his blackened helmet. He pulled a scratched silver Zippo lighter out of his pocket, slipping it open. Seeing the flame shoot up, the snowman screamed again, turning around and fleeing into the shadows.

Before he could even sigh in relief, the red clad man spun around quicker than Akira had ever seen. gasping at the long sword suddenly pointed in his face.

Where did the guy even get this from????

"You. You're the Trickster?" the man asked. His voice was alarmingly familiar, deep like a stereotypical anime villain laughing in his evil little cave. He could imagine being called a brat by the mysterious man.

"Y...yeah I guess...I don't know I don't remember anything I promise. I don't know how I got here." Akira verbally vomited, praying he could at the very least not have a sword in his face.

With his free hand, the man opened the dark visor of his helmet, leaning down to take a closer look at Akira's face. Akira's face paled even more as he took in the familiar sharp brown eyes and eternal frown of his father, Tatsuya Suou.

He was younger than his dad of course, but far less clean shaven and much worse smelling. He didn't have too much time to reminisce or relax as the Other Tatsuya studied Akira's features. Tatsuya nudged at Akira's legs with his sword, humming while Akira hissed in pain flinching away.

"You're not a Shadow. Your eyes aren't yellow. Who are you?" Tatsuya asked.

"I...Akira. Kurusu. Uh..." he sputtered, unable to form words. "Nice...sword."

Looking down at the sword, he moved it away from Akira's face though it didn't look like he was going to put it away any time soon. "So...Kurusu. If you're not a Shadow and Nyarlathotep is looking for you, what does that make you?"

"Um...sorry who?" Akira quietly asked. He flinched under Tatsuya's fiery gaze igniting further. "I DON'T KNOW. All I know is one moment I'm being shoved in TV jail and the next I'm here okay!! I don't even remember how old I am anymore. Please don't kill me, dad."

It wasn't often he got to see it, but this was one of the few times Akira ever saw Tatsuya falter. He turned away to clear his throat upon hearing the words 'dad' come out of a stranger's voice.

Turning back towards Akira he huffed before, reaching his hand out towards Akira. "If this is a trick, you'll be next." he swore while pulling Akira back to his feet.

Akira nodded quickly, watching Tatsuya tuck his sword away back into...well some pocket of space that he couldn't explain. Maybe it was like how in video games people just pulled useful things out of absolutely nowhere despite it being a bag the size of a fanny pack.

Ugh that had been one of Tatsuya's...his Tatsuya's worst phases...

"There are more demons out there. You were lucky to have been found by the Jack Brothers instead of anything worse." Tatsuya grumbled, climbing back on his motorcycle.

Rooted in place Akira nodded again, unsure of what he was supposed to be doing. Tatsuya, rolled his eyes turning around back to the dumb kid that somehow ended up in his eternal hell. "Are you getting on or not?"

"Oh. Uh...okay." Akira stuttered, quickly jumping on the back of the motorcycle. It reminded him of the old days when he was a kid and his dad took him for joy rides every so often. That had been long before he got arres-

The thought was abruptly started by Tatsuya taking off full speed down the road. The scene was vaguely familiar though. He'd been to Sumaru a few times to visit some of Tatsuya's old high school friends, Anna, Eikichi and sometimes Lisa. Lisa was practically a mom to him, half because it was impossible for his dads to have him otherwise (not that anyone really cared in Inaba...besides Dojima) but for legal reasons he was still technically the adopted son of Lisa Silverman and Tatsuya Suou. Regardless he still called her Aunty rather than mom because no one could possibly replace his papa.

They were going to the Silverman manor, that he was sure of. An egregiously large fancy house, traditional Japanese in nature, despite the fact the Silvermans were the absolute opposite of Japanese. He was told not to question it as a kid, and he never did, but given the time to consider it he wasn't sure if this was actually okay. Maybe it was the reason people didn't like Lisa all that much. 

Or maybe it was other things.

The motorcycle ground to a stop in front of the abandoned manor, looking just as battered and beaten as the rest of the city. As Tatsuya wordlessly led him inside, he wasn't surprised to find out that the place was completely empty.

"So...uh...Tatsuya," saying the name out loud felt so wrong on Akira's tongue. "What exactly happened here?"

"Played a game, almost died in a fire, tried to save the world from a demon. Failed. Refused to forget everything, almost caused the apocalypse again and came back here to live out the rest of my days." Tatsuya replied.

He pulled a can of...something, out from a cupboard and offered it to Akira. Akira stared at the lukewarm dirt caked soda for a moment before gently pushing it back towards Tatsuya. "I...think I'm good...thanks."

"About this...apocalypse..." Akira started.

"How about we change the topic. What exactly are you talking about with this ‘TV world’?" Tatsuya asked.

"Well...I assume I'm from the reality you...left. There's another one of you. And he's kinda my dad...and back when I was a kid there was this murder case that took place in a TV. I really couldn't explain it if I tried." Akira replied. 

The faint squeak of a mouse made him jump as a little gray mouse ran past him and up Tatsuya's leg into his hands. "Ah. Mousekichi there you are. This is Akira. I'm pretty sure he's a demon but I'm playing along." Tatsuya loudly whispered to the mouse.

Akira laughed nervously...shuffling slightly closer inside so he could sit. In what Akira assumed had been the living room of the Silverman's there was a table with an empty glass and chipped chinaware all set up around it. On the seats surrounding the small round table were a sack of potatoes wearing sunglasses. A smiling rock and an empty dried out fishbowl.

"...what's that?" Akira asked, pointing to the table.

"Those are my friends, Potatatsuya, Rockya and Fishko. The fish died a few yearsish ago but the bowl counts still." Tatsuya replied nonchalantly, still petting the mouse in his hands.

"I....see....how long exactly have you been here?" Akira asked.

Tatsuya looked up from the mouse, staring off into the distance blankly for a few moments. "About a decade, give or take. Hard to tell because everyone's dead."

Hoo boy. Akira collapsed onto the nearest chair, feeling a little light headed once again. Tatsuya shouted, shooting over to Akira's side, ripping him off the chair without explanation.

"You SAT on Jun!!!" he shouted.

Sure enough, when he looked down there were a couple of paper flowers sitting on the chair. Part of Akira wanted to tell him it was just a bunch of paper flowers, but the way Tatsuya's eyes drained of whatever life they had in them kept Akira's mouth shut about it.

"Sorry...Jun..." Akira mumbled. When he got out of this mess he was going to have a serious chat with his dads about this other world and apocalypse and whatever. Not that either of them would remember probably if this one was banished to live in the apocalypse.

Tatsuya made his best attempts to unwrinkle the paper flowers that had been crushed under the weight of his unwelcome guest’s behind. Though he wasn’t satisfied with his work there was nothing else he could really do about it. He placed them carefully back down on the chair, roughly dragging Akira over to the stained mat, shoving him down to sit. He then climbed over the table, avoiding the chipped plates, sitting across from Akira.

Under Tatsuya’s unwavering gaze, Akira felt like a little kid again. His father wasn’t by any means a bad parent, overbearing and protective a bit for sure, but he also let Akira do basically anything he wanted within the limitations of the law. Even though he was certain Tatsuya didn’t even listen to the law. But if Akira ever did anything that was worth the stern fatherly look he was never prepared for it. 

Tatsuya had a good way at looking intimidating even when he didn’t want to be. But with the context of having not seen a human being in a solid 10 years it was understandable, even if it struck fear in Akira’s heart.

“So. You mentioned I was your father. Care to elaborate?”

Akira gulped, trying to keep eye contact with Tatsuya. He should have stayed at the prison.

-

Naoto shrank under Rise’s surprisingly intimidating glare. They’d known Rise mostly from her appearances on TV, and her music, both of which were extremely cutesy and sickeningly sweet. They didn’t take Rise for much of a fighter (or a thinker to be completely honest) when they first met because of their opinion of her from the TV and their interaction with her in the nightclub. Paired with the fact she was a Navigator and not a fighter at all they assumed she didn’t have a single intimidating bone in her body.

Despite being the Detective Prince, Naoto was prone to being wrong sometimes. Their expertise was in criminal cases and detective work rather than interpersonal relationships and understanding the nuances of social interaction, especially with people her age. They didn’t have any siblings, biological or otherwise, so they didn’t understand the bond between Nanako and Yu, or Rise and Akira. The second was the far more important one in this matter.

Though it wasn’t the younger one from their era, Akira had gone missing between the time Naoto had spoken to him, and Adachi picked him up. Needless to say Rise was absolutely beside herself knowing Akira was missing while there was a serial murderer out in the wild and Akira was already in rough shape. 

From their own observations they could see Akira had been beaten horribly by someone much stronger than he was. Multiple times possible, or so severely it looked like he’d been beaten on multiple occasions. Multiple people were an option and it was possible with objects.

The most worrying part about it was the mark on his head that looked alarmingly a lot like a bullet wound. Not many people were able to survive a shot to the head, especially where it had struck him. As far as their observations went they concluded with one explanation. Akira should be dead.

So the fact he was missing did not make this any better.

There was only one possible solution. 

“Assemble the others. We need to go into the TV World. Now. ” Naoto commanded. They weren’t in the best position to be giving orders, Rise still looked like she could set something on fire with her gaze, honestly reminding Naoto of Yukiko more than the usual Risette they knew. But regardless, she pulled her phone out of her pocket, keeping her eyes on Naoto.

“Hey, senpai, I know you’re probably working but can you get the others to an emergency meeting in the Food Court. I’m sure your dad will understand.” Rise said. “Naoto-kun and I will meet you there.”

Chapter Text

Hi, it's been a while. To put it simply, I got super burnt out from Persona and just, didn't feel like making content for it anymore. I've spent a long time away from it, but recently I've rekindled my love for the series.

Looking back on the AU, I really didn't write all that well. I was taking on way more than I was able to handle without a real plan so I never actually got into the real plot. That's my own fault for being so ambitious. It's been 3 years since I last updated, 5 years since I initially started the AU. And I think I'm ready to finally continue. Which is to say, I'm restarting the fic entirely. If you've stuck around for this long I thank you for your patience, and for anyone new I hope your prepared for MC Swap.

-Amiyayaya/Hel