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Chapter Text

The Phantom Thieves were very happy.

They’d only been in Maruki’s reality for over a week, (a month if they included the time before Ren had accepted Maruki’s deal), and yet Ren swore he’d seen them smile more times than in the past year combined. They moved differently now, with burdens vanished. Their laughs were airier, their smiles large and easy. And still, even as opportunity after golden opportunity opened up for them, they still all stayed friends. Just one look at Ren’s phone proved that. It was full to the brim with unread messages, all of them offers to meet and do silly teenage things. Although the Phantom Thieves were still technically active, Mishima hadn’t sent a single serious request.

The world, although still inexplicably in love with them didn’t need them anymore.

This didn’t seem to bother anyone, and after a while it ceased to bother Ren. Arsene, who had been indignant in the back of his mind when he’d first made the choice of forsaking reality, had quieted down to an almost imperceptible hum. Ren wondered if he would answer his call if he was to set foot in the metaverse again. He wasn’t sure he cared.

Because despite all his tainted nostalgia, he truly was happy. He could stay in Tokyo for as long as Sojiro wanted, which for the both of them might as well end up being forever. He had all of his friends, the respect of his peers, and-

“Lost in thought, Amamiya-kun?” the conclusion to his last thought had a wry smile on his face, even as his eyes were turned disapprovingly to his now empty coffee cup. “I’ve been waiting for a refill for quite a while,”

“Oh well, anything for the his royal Highness the Detective Prince,” Ren snarked, dutifully brewing another cup.

“Can you really not let go of that embarrassing moniker? Like I told you the other day, I’m not affiliating myself with the media anymore,”

While he waited for the coffee to brew Ren turned to observe Akechi. Since Maruki’s reality had started he’d been polite but not impersonal, a softer version of the Goro Akechi he’d known before Shido’s palace. Although he hung out with the rest of the phantom thieves as if he truly belonged, he more than anyone kept seeking out Ren. And Ren, still haunted by the betrayal in his eyes when he told him he was accepting Maruki’s reality, always chose him over everyone else.

Akechi didn’t seem to remember anything, or at least that’s what it seemed like. Sometimes his smiles looked a little too polished, akin to those he used to flash on TV, and sometimes his voice came out scratchier and strained, like it had when he’d revealed his true nature to them in the bowels of Shido’s palace.

But still, maybe Ren was just kidding himself, wishing somebody else remembered so he didn’t have to be alone in knowing just how slightly wrong everything was. It was actually easier than he’d thought it’d be. As the days passed the past was becoming unnaturally easy to forget. Just yesterday he’d gone to buy crepes with human Morgana and Ann and caught himself nearly forgetting that this wasn’t how it had always been.

“Amamiya-kun,” Akechi’s voice jerked him back to ‘reality’. He leaned slightly forward over the bar, a hint of uncharacteristic concern in his brown eyes. “I was joking before, but you seem rather distracted,”

Ren turned away so he didn’t have to look at him, instead busying himself with pouring Akechi a new cup. His inattentiveness had resulted in a slightly dubious looking conconction. Ideal reality or no, Ren wasn’t entirely sure that Sojiro wouldn’t kick him out if he saw it.

“I guess I am. Distracted, I mean,” he pushed the cup across the bar, still stubbornly refusing to meet Akechi’s eyes. “You used to call me Ren,”

Akechi flushed slightly. “Did I? Back then I suppose I was trying to get closer to you by dropping family names. Now that we’re on friendly terms, I didn’t know if it was alright-“

Too meek, Ren decided. The real Akechi wouldn’t admit to faltering at something as simple as given names. But then again, Akechi was more self-conscious about the image he projected than he’d ever willingly admit, so maybe this concern was in character for him after all.

“It’s alright,” he said instead of voicing any of his frenzied psychoanalysis.

“Alright then Ren. You can call me Goro if you want. Takamaki-san already does,”

Goro. Ren tested the somewhat unfamiliar name on his tongue and compared it with the boy in front of him who’d been known to him for so long as simply Akechi. It was odd, but Ren couldn’t deny the way his heart skipped a beat at his words.

“I’ll take this honour to my grave,” Ren said seriously. “And to answer your next question I think I’m just a little tired. I didn’t sleep well last night,”

“I wasn’t going to ask,” Akechi replied, the picture of innocence. “Was something bothering you last night?”

“You,” Ren said bluntly, just so he could watch Akechi’s eyebrows raise in surprise.

Akechi took a sip of his coffee, recoiled, and then casually leaned over to extract a couple of sugar cubes from the appropriate jar. “And here I thought you enjoyed my company,”

“The great Goro-sama’s visits are the best part of my day,” did that sound too genuine, too needy? Ren wasn’t sure if he cared anymore. Surely he could say anything to this new, friendlier version of Goro Akechi and he’d still never leave his side. Maruki had probably made sure if that.

Akechi just ducked his head, very obviously pleased and trying not very hard to hide it. If Akechi really was a cognition cooked up to satisfy Ren’s desires he really had the real Akechi’s mannerisms down pat.

Ren had asked him about their reality countless times. In the first few days Akechi would react when Ren would call Morgana a cat or Sumire by her real name, unlike everyone else, who seemed to not even hear him, but as time passed Akechi reacted without a spark of recognition more and more. If this was the real Akechi he, just like Ren, was slowly falling further into this world’s spell.

You wanted this, Ren reminded himself, realising he was starting to sound awfully self-pitying. At least here Akechi got to be alive, even if he wasn’t as free and unapologetic as he’d hoped-

“Ren?” Akechi snapped a gloved finger in front of his face. His lips were curved downwards into an almost adorable frown. “I’ll admit you’re starting to worry me. Are you sure you’re just tired? You’re rather pale, do you want me to call Dr Takemi?”

Ren shook his head. Physically he felt fine-had been feeling that way for weeks. Even during flu season, which had a tendency to creep up on him, he’d been in perfect health. He wondered idly how Takemi could even keep her clinic open with so few patients. But when Ren headed over for his weekly experiments-one of the last dredges of familiarity from his old life, she was always happy and smiling, like business was booming. Maybe it was. Maybe she had a whole line-up of patients, cognitions, shadows.

Ren groaned as a sharp lance of pain pierced his brain. He was prone to headaches when he tried too hard to think about Maruki’s reality. It just proved his theory that remembering his old life, even as wholeheartedly as he’d enjoyed it, led only to pain.

“Don’t,” Ren batted his hand away. Desperate to change the subject and fall back into the comforting monotony of this reality he searched for a distraction. “And besides, you’re hardly helping. It’s late and I know your apartment isn’t exactly nearby,”

“Ah about that,” Akechi blinked doeful eyes. “You have a lot of space upstairs, and as you say, it’s quite late-“

Ren’s mind reeled at the idea of Akechi willingly sleeping in Ren’s bedroom for purposes other than a convoluted murder plot. “I’m not sleeping with you,”

Akechi smiled smugly, the bastard. “I was thinking you could take the sofa, actually,”

“Charming,” Ren snarked, and because he couldn’t say no to Akechi, not after he stripped him of every freedom he’d ever had, he stole Akechi’s still half-full cup straight from his idle hands. “If you’re staying, that means no coffee for you,”

“I’m a paying customer,” Akechi protested, but otherwise didn’t demand it back. He slid off the bar stool and smiled his megawatt, half-fake, half-real smile. “Shall we, then?”

Reluctantly Ren cleaned up and followed Akechi as he strode up the stairs as if he owned the place, even though Ren had never invited him up there before. Akechi surveyed the room with an indecipherable hum, taking in the Risette poster on the wall, the old CRT in the corner, the small but proud cactus standing proud and center on his shelf. Although the place had once been a dusty mess, Ren had cleaned it up well. He thought it maybe even looked something resembling normal these days.

Akechi went straight to sitting onto his bed without waiting for an invitation. He was frowning, one of his silly, contemplative frowns that meant he was thinking intently about something probably useless. “I thought you’d have a futon. How did Boss even manage to get a mattress up those stairs?”

Ren shrugged. “Can you imagine Morgana and I sharing a futon?”

At the mention of his roommate Akechi stiffened slightly. “Ah. Where is Mona, anyways?”

“At Futaba’s, I think,” Ren said, probably a little too flippantly. It was hard to be worried about his friends whereabouts anymore, especially since nothing could ever go wrong. “He’ll probably crash over there. He doesn’t stay here so often anymore,”

Akechi smiled in response, scratching his chin in a manner that, if Ren didn’t know any better he’d describe as shy. “That’s good,”

“You have no idea,” he replied, and just because he felt like pushing his luck he went on. “Sleeping with a teenager is harder than a cat,”

Ren searched for some spark of recognition in Akechi’s eyes, only to find them almost glassy in quality.

“Cats, again? I have to wonder when you got so obsessed with them,”

“What can I say? I’m a natural cat person,” that was a lie. He used to swear by dogs until Morgana had practically forced that trait out of him.

Akechi hummed easily, but his eyes were still scanning the contents of his room a little too thoroughly to be considered polite. It was as if he was looking for something. He found it, lying pathetically on the chair Ren used for his workouts.

“Is that my glove?” Akechi’s voice was strangely pitched. Ren hadn’t heard him so genuinely confused since...ever.

“No,” Ren said defensively and then faltered. Wasn’t this what he wanted? To test Akechi’s memory of the old world? “I mean-“

“It is,” Akechi observed. “You wouldn’t own a pair of gloves so well made,”

“I don’t own them,” Ren said, and watched as Akechi’s gaze shifted from the lone glove to him. “You gave this to me, remember?”

Something in Akechi’s eyes sparked then, starting in his iris and then spreading until his eyes were wide open with pure realisation.

He remembers. Ren thought, suddenly so nervous he couldn’t speak. He remembers everything.

Akechi stood on shaky legs, still wide-eyed. He took one step closer to Ren. Then another.

Ren tried a smile, nearly giddy with anticipation.

Akechi’s brown eyes narrowed slightly, in the way they used to frequently whenever he was giving something ample thought. He opened his mouth. Closed it. Instead of words some pathetic sort of sputtering sound accompanied the clack of his teeth meeting.

“Goro,” Ren breathed, because Akechi really did seem speechless.

Akechi reared backwards and punched him in the face.

Chapter Text

Akechi, to his credit, did seem genuinely horrified at what he’d done. However that horror seemed more in reaction to the sorry state of the hand that had landed the punch and less so Ren’s smarting nose.

Which was fair enough. He’d probably deserved at least that much.

“Shit!” Akechi snarled, holding his bleeding knuckle to his chest like a wounded animal. “Why would you-“ he trailed off, the logical end to his sentence replaced instead with a litany of curses.

Ren reached out cautiously. “Do you need some ice for that?”

“What I need-“ Akechi hissed. “-is for you to tell me that this all a part of some calculated plan of yours to stop Maruki,”

Ren stared at Akechi’s dangerously crazed eyes and wondered how he’d ever fooled himself into thinking the Akechi that existed mere moments before had been the real one.

“What do you remember?” he asked.

“Fine. I’ll play this game. Shortly after you told me you were taking Maruki’s offer I went to Maruki’s palace myself. My memory of that is...not great. Next thing I knew I was waking up on the third nearly fully acclimated to this reality. Still, I had the vague inkling that something was wrong and that you were the key to finding out what. You’d call Yoshizawa-san by a different name than I’d remember, or refer to Morgana as a cat and yet nobody would blink an eye. I found that suspicious but it wasn’t until today that I decided to get answers. So I came up here and then, that glove-“ Ren thought it was impossible but Akechi’s scowl managed to somehow deepen in severity. “I should take it back. I’m not exactly interested in duelling with a coward,”

Ren ignored that last part, still inwardly reeling over the fact that Akechi was there and remembered, even if he was spitting and hissing at him like a particularly feral cat. He almost wanted to hug him, just to see how he’d react-except he knew how he’d react, and that was badly.

“You can take it back,” Ren said simply. “You’re here, anyways,”

Akechi recoiled, and Ren knew instantly he’d said the wrong thing. “Do you think I’m happy about that? You’ve trapped me and all of your so-called friends into a permanent hell of Maruki’s making!”

Having the magnitude of Ren’s decision laid bare like that stung a little. Making the choice had been hard at the time, and he still had occasional moments of regret. But his friends were so happy now, even if they didn’t really need him, and Akechi got to be himself without any guilt weighing him down. It had taken some time for it to stick, but the world really was better this way.

“You don’t regret it,” Akechi realised, nearly shaking in a strange concoction of panic and rage. “Of course you don’t, you-“

“Goro...”

Akechi’s almost inhuman screech suggested that that may have in fact been the wrong dialogue choice. Ren was too focused on Akechi’s eyes to come up with a proper sentence though. They were blood-red in anger, and reminded him intimately of how Akechi had made himself go psychotic back in Shido’s palace-how he’d put the proverbial gun to his head and pulled the trigger.

“You should have woke me up earlier,” the detective muttered, finally seeming to get some sort of reign on his rampaging emotions. “If you were going to trap me in some sick and twisted fantasy of yours against my will the least you could have done is let me know,”

“I did,” Ren reminded him, because no matter what magic Maruki’s reality worked he didn’t think he could ever forget the way Akechi’s face had fallen when he told him that he‘d accept Maruki’s offer. The look of betrayal in his eyes had persisted even as he broke off their deal and said goodbye.

“I tried to go against Maruki without you and your little thieves but he caught me. And instead of putting me out of my misery he planted me into his fake little world in order to make you happy. Did he think this a mercy?”

“My wishes aren’t the only ones being fulfilled,” Ren reassured him, and right on cue Akechi’s phone pinged, a sharp grating sound. “He made this world for you, too,”

Akechi didn’t look like he was going to check the message, but after two subsequent pings he pulled the wretched thing out of his pocket with more force than was perhaps necessary.

“It’s Takamaki-san.” he said dully. “She wants help picking out a present for Suzui-san’s birthday,”

Ren let out a ragged breath and relaxed. “See? I’ve always told you they want you around,”

Akechi threw his arms up in exasperation, nearly letting the phone slip out of his grip in his urgency. “They don’t want me. You want us to all get along, your own happy little family. This is you pushing your desires on them. It’s twisted, it’s perverse, it’s-“

“Of course I want you to get along with everyone,” Ren interrupted quietly. “But they’re all amazing people, and Futaba and Haru aside, they would have given you a second chance even in the old reality. And now you don’t have the guilt of Wakaba and Okumura’s death hanging over you. Goro this isn’t my wish. It’s yours,”

Akechi’s expression was unreadable. Silence persisted for nearly an entire minute before here finally broke it, staring at Ann’s message as if she’d personally come out of the screen and bite him. “Call me Akechi. You’re my underclassman and a coward. I could do with a little respect,”

“You should go,” Ren prompted, when he didn’t say anything more. “With Ann,”

“Are you insane?” Akechi sneered. “Oh wait, that was clearly a foolish question. Takamaki-san aside, I know nothing about Suzui-san. How on earth am I supposed to help her find something as mundane as a birthday present?”

“I don’t think she actually expects you to give any input,” Ren explained, slowly starting to relax as the conversation entered safer territory. “She just wants someone to keep her company while she shops. Maybe carry her bags,”

“Well that sounds even worse,” Akechi grit out. “And besides doesn’t she have the cat to do that for her?”

“He’d be more than willing but I think Ann would happy to hang out with someone different for a change,”

“Would there be any point in me hanging out with Takamaki, Ren?”

“Sure there would,” Ren shrugged. “She’s good company, and knows a lot of good places to eat,”

“That’s it?” Akechi spat out. “I wasn’t aware all your relationships were so shallow,”

Ren shrugged. “That’s just friendship, isn’t it? There doesn’t have to be ulterior motives,”

Of course before Maruki’s idealised reality Ren wouldn’t believe that himself. It seemed like every friend of his would contact him asking for help with their art or their modelling or their studies. But those problems-the real serious ones that had Ren fussing in the dead of night were gone. Maybe his interactions were shallower now, like Akechi said. But the friendship felt like more of a two way street when they were going shopping or to the gym or to the park just for the hell of it. It was a little strange, maybe even a little disappointing to not be needed so intensely, but seeing the smiles on their faces was nice in a whole different way. At least that’s what he’d tell himself.

“As if you can lecture me on friendship after you betrayed your little band’s trust,” there was his signature amount of bite in the words but Akechi was clearly starting to tire, his carefully controlled posture beginning to hunch in on itself under the weight of his exhaustion.

“You should go with her,” Ren repeated.

Akechi turned irritably on his heel instead of responding, which meant he’d piqued his curiosity. “I’m not staying here,”

“It’s late,”

“If I manage to get mugged in Maruki’s ideal reality then I don’t think it’s that perfect in the first place,”

It was only after Akechi left that Ren realised that his glove still lay on his chair despite his threats to take it back. He wondered if this was a sign of acceptance before snapping himself out of the delusion. The look in Akechi’s eyes may have been one of lethargy, but it certainly wasn’t the look of someone who was even close to giving up.

The needling notion that he’d made a mistake entered his mind again but it was chased away in seconds. In truth it was good Akechi had left. Ren had something he wanted to do.

When Ren was sure that Akechi was long gone he packed a bag. Bag slung over his shoulder he made his way to the attic door. He hesitated, eyes still caught on Akechi’s lone glove. Quickly, as if ashamed of the action, he stuffed it in his pocket and snuck out of Leblanc and to Shibuya station.

Chapter Text

Akechi didn’t know why he was here. The text from Takamaki marking this as their meeting point burned a hole in his pocket as he tried to force himself into a position that looked natural. He took the offending phone from his pocket and scowled at what he saw. Takamaki was two minutes late.

He’d arrived twenty minutes early.

He was nearly considering leaving entirely until he spotted Takamaki out of the corner of his eye, dressed up in her winter clothes and waving happily at him.

“Goro-kun! Over here!” she called, like they hadn’t just made direct eye contact.

With more than a little reluctance Akechi moved away from the storefront he’d been leaning against for the better part of an hour. Takamaki met him in the middle, smiling one of those big, wide smiles that seemed to adorn every face in Maruki’s new reality.

“Good afternoon, Takamaki-san,” he said politely.

Takamaki huffed predictably at his formality and then linked arms with him, less predictably. “How many times do I have to tell you to call me Ann?”

Akechi laughed and then winced at how fake it sounded. “I’m sorry. At this point it really is just habit,”

Takamaki grumbled but didn’t press the topic further, instead leading Akechi through the streets of Harajuku seemingly without aim. She was a surprisingly fast walker, and Akechi thought he could see a bit of the nimble-footed Panther in her long, quick strides.

“So how’ve you been?” she asked conversationally, pausing at one store to peer through the glass display.

“As good as always,” he replied vaguely and then threw his most disarming smile. “And you?”

“Oh, you know,” she said, just as mysteriously, and jerked away from the window so fast Akechi nearly tripped over his own feet. It was done so suddenly it was almost like she’d done it on purpose.

Akechi took a closer look at Takamaki’s face, now sporting a perfectly manicured frown.

It had been on purpose.

“Ren warned me that you have a tendency to hide behind that smile of yours, y’know,” Ann’s serious expression lightened. “And I’m a good actor. It’s easy enough to tell when you’re acting too,”

Akechi bit down on his lip in attempt to curb his rapidly growing irritation. “What a shame the beloved masses aren’t as insightful as you, Takamaki-san,” he said curtly.

He meant for his words to be sarcastic, and the momentary hurt that flashed on her face proved that she knew it. He relished in that expression for a moment, at the fact that he’d been the one to cause it, before being so overtaken with disgust for himself that he felt he could very well be sick.

“That sucks,” she said, instead of crying or yelling or hitting him or doing to him any of the things he deserved. “I’m sorry you feel you have to wear that mask with them. But with me, with Ren, with any of us, you don’t need to. We’re practically family,”

“I am not a member of the Phantom Thieves,” he reminded her, but his words, even if he didn’t believe them-because there was no way he could be a Phantom Thief in the real world having done what he’s done, rang hollow to his ears.

Takamaki surprised him again by laughing his admission off. “You know what they say. Denial is the first step,”

“Thats of grief, not Phantom Thieves initiation,” he said dryly, but her words coaxed a sort of ugly grimace of a smile out of him.

Takamaki seemed to take the bastardisation of an expression as a win because the conversation swiftly moved onto her best friend. “So? Any ideas for what to get Shiho?”

“I barely know Suzui-san,” Akechi reminded her. “I only interviewed her the one time in hospital for the Kamoshida case...” he trailed off, suddenly confused.

Akechi remembered that the wish Maruki had granted Takamaki had nothing to do with fame or fortune. Rather it had everything to do with her best friend’s health. In this world Kamoshida had gone to jail before the start of the school year, rendering him unable to do any harm to the students. From what Akechi heard from Ren Shiho Suzui was now apparently leading Shujin’s volleyball team to Nationals. She certainly wasn’t anything close to the weary girl Akechi had visited near the end of last April, that was for sure.

“Oh come on, you have to have some clue,” Takamaki spoke as if Akechi had never said anything about Kamoshida at all. “Girls are always all over you,”

“She’s your best friend,” Akechi said pointedly, deciding to ignore the topic of Kamoshida and his own popularity with his classmates for the moment. “Wouldn’t she prefer something you came up with?”

Takamaki’s usually bright eyes darkened a little, and the tips of her smile lowered. Akechi had gone so long without seeing genuine distress on another human being that it was almost terrifying to witness.

“I just don’t know what I can give her. She’s the ace of the volleyball team. She’s incredible. I don’t want to just get her something silly. I want her to know how amazing she is, and how much she means to me,”

“It sounds like you’re overthinking it. If she’s this great of a friend surely she won’t care what you give her?”

Not that Akechi had had enough lasting friendships to know that for sure.

“You’re right, she won’t. But that doesn’t mean I can afford to be lazy,” Takamaki agreed with an easy smile. “C’mon, Goro-kun, today we shop until we drop!”

“Don’t you have Morgana to be your pack mule?” he shot back dryly.

“Yeah well, him and the rest of the guys are great but sometimes it’s nice to hang out with a boy who looks after their appearance,” she let out a giggle as Akechi brushed the tips of his hair in a sudden burst of self-consciousness. “Don’t worry, it’s a compliment,”

“The media is ruthless,” Akechi reminded her harshly. “If I looked anything less than perfect they’d tear me apart,”

“I’m in the model industry, remember? Believe me, I know. And that’s not the only reason I wanted to hang out with you today, I want to get to know you better,”

“I...see,” Akechi found himself suddenly unable to look Takamaki in the eye.

“Apart from gatherings with the whole group, I never see you. Ren totally hogs you, so this is totally a special occasion. I know a good place, I should treat you,”

“That’s really not necessary, Takamaki-“

Takamaki shook her head with startling conviction. “No you’re going to let me do this. And you’re going to stop being so polite and call me Ann,” she tugged hard at his arm. “And I’m not letting go until you say it,”

The sharp pang of irritation Akechi expected himself to feel at her clinging at him was surprisingly absent, leaving him to swallow the angry protest that had been lying on his tongue. He contemplated Takamaki’s olive branch instead. She was looking at him intently. This didn’t seem like something she’d just leave alone.

Akechi straightened himself as far as he could go. “Alright, Ann. That wouldn’t be too bad,”

Ann’s ensuing smile sent a disgusting shot of warmth through him. “Okay! Follow me, you’re going to love this!”

They never did find a present for Suzui. But as Akechi was leaving, Ann had suggested them coming back in a few days time. And while he’d meant to reject her he’d only shrugged his shoulders and walked to the station with the sinking, crushing realisation that he had failed to prove Ren wrong.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

Akechi meant to head straight to his apartment, he really did, but in a moment of weakness that was really starting to become habit, he had ended up at Leblanc’s doorstep. Soft voices drifted in from the inside, warm and full to the brim with affection.

Akechi pushed the door open softly and then froze, letting the door slam shut behind with an indignant whistle.

“Ah...I’m sorry,” he fixed his eyes on Sojiro, avoiding the booth occupied to his left at all costs. “I thought the sign said open. I’ll-“

“Nah, it does,” his concerns were waved off but Akechi’s anxiety didn’t abate. “It’s just a slow day,”

“More like a slow year!” a chirpy voice perked up form the forbidden booth. Futaba Isshiki sat with her feet up on her seat. She had her phone in her hands, but twisted around to look at Akechi at Sojiro’s words,

And opposite her, there was-

“Akechi-kun. It’s been a while since I’ve seen you,” Wakaba smiled. “Normally I’m not here when you drop by,”

Akechi forced himself to look at her. She looked healthy, hair a strong shade of black, skin not completely unblemished but not beset upon by wrinkles. She looked very very real for someone that was almost three years dead. Although he could just saw about take in her face, he found he couldn’t look her in the eye. His gaze dropped to the floor like that of a scorned child.

“It’s good to see you, Isshiki-san,” Akechi sent an almost desperate look at the stairs to the attic, as if that would summon Ren to come gliding down them. Akechi hadn’t exactly been subtle entering Leblanc, surely Ren would have heard and come down to greet him? Unless of course, he wasn’t in?

“If you’re looking for the kid he’s out doing god knows what,” Sojiro supplied casually.

Akechi flushed. He obviously had been a little too transparent about who he was here for.

“Apparently he’s helping some Yakuza friends of his,” Futaba’s attention was back on her phone but she seemed to have little problem holding a conversation while flicking idly at the screen.

“That better be a joke,” Sojiro grumbled, with all the fondness of a parent who knew that it was, in fact, not a joke. “Anyways, what can I get you, Akechi?”

Of course Ren wouldn’t be available. Even if they didn’t need his help anymore his friends were still his friends. They’d call him up at ridiculous hours not because there was a crisis or their lives were in danger but just because they could, because they were friends and that was apparently what friends did.

Akechi on the other hand couldn’t remember a single time when he hadn’t meet Ren with an ulterior motive. Even in Maruki’s fake reality he’d known something was wrong with Ren, and had only met up with him every night to poke and prod at him until he revealed the truth. A fat lot that had ended up doing him in the end.

That being said, even if he’d always met Ren with selfish intent he couldn’t deny that he always enjoyed their meetings, even if they ended in petty arguments about small inconsequential things. Akechi guessed that would be their future unless they did...something about Maruki. Silly, meatless conversations that would be both utterly pointless and pleasant in equal measure.

It sounded sickly sweet. Like something that was okay in moderation, but damaging in multiple sittings. It didn’t sound like the world Akechi wanted to inhabit.

“Ah...” he came back to himself aprubtly upon realising that he’d been silent so long that Sojiro had repeated himself. “Just my usual to go, please,”

Sojiro tsked and shook his head. “Just because Ren isn’t here doesn’t mean you have to be in a hurry to leave. Why don’t you take a seat, trust me, you’ll enjoy it much more that way,”

Akechi’s laugh sounded dreadful even to his own ears. “Well, if you insist,” he slid into his usual spot at the bar counter.

“Why so far away Akechi-kun?” just the sound of Wakaba’s voice made him flinch. Maruki had got her on point. She sounded exactly as she had at the end of his gun, warbling on and on about her daughter she loved so much. He’d expected her to be crueler than that, to mourn her research more than the people she’d leave behind. He’d been given a cruel awakening. “We don’t bite,”

Akechi smiled awkwardly and then slipped into the seat next to Futaba. Sitting next to the girl whose mother he’d killed was undeniably uncomfortable, but it beat the prospect of sitting next to the mother herself hands down. Of course this way it meant he’d have to look her in the eye, at least until his coffee came and he could start pretending to be otherwise occupied.

“So,” Futaba drawled out. “Did you watch it?”

The abrupt question shocked him so much he forgot to readjust his metaphorical mask. “Watch what?”

Futaba pulled a face, reluctantly putting her phone down on the table and turning to face him. “Okay, I thought you were acting weird as soon as you came in but now I know something’s wrong. You watch the new Featherman R every Sunday as soon as it comes out,”

Akechi did his best to mask his surprise. She was right. Before Shido he’d been quite infatuated with the show, and in all honesty his admiration for it had never really stopped. But he’d stopped watching the show shortly after Shido gave him his apartment, scared maybe that Shido would see him watching a television series for children and call him weak. It was just another thing Shido had taken from him, along with his freedom, his youth and just about everything else.

“Are entrance exams stressing you out?” Wakaba asked softly. Akechi glanced momentarily at her and regretted it instantly. The soft concern in her eyes made him want to throw up the lunch he’d had with Ann.

“No,” he replied truthfully. “I have it under control,”

Luckily Sojiro took that moment to set down his coffee, allowing Akechi to end the topic there and hide his nervousness in his mug.

Futaba sighed from next to him. “How lame...you’re really boring when you mope, y’know?”

“I’m not moping,” Akechi snapped, and then cleared his throat. “I mean, maybe I am a little tired after all,”

A glint of realisation flashed in Wakaba’s eyes, and before Akechi knew it the cognitive scientist was leaning forward in interest. “Are you and Ren fighting, Akechi-kun?”

Akechi wanted to deny it instantly but the sheer mention of Ren’s name had the memories of yesterday flooding back. Their conversation back then had been...emotionally charged. The hand he’d used to slug Ren was perfectly devoid of any blemishes but he still felt the sting, like a phantom pain. He hadn’t heard from Ren since leaving, and he sure as hell wouldn’t be the one to reach out first.

Had he been too harsh on him? Akechi dismissed the thought as soon as it entered his mind. Ren had effectively trapped the entire world in Maruki’s sickly sweet reality. He deserved absolutely everything he had coming to him.

Ren should be feeling guilty, not him.

“Ah,” Futaba said gloomily, clearly taking his silence as an affirmation. “I figured that was it. He normally drops everything to hang out with you so I thought it was strange you came here alone,”

“I didn’t let him know I was coming,” Akechi felt the need to stress. “I was just dropping by,”

“That’s even weirder,” Futaba snorted, but any further remarks of hers were silenced by the door opening with a gentle jingle.

“I’m back,” Ren announced, with just a tad less confidence than Akechi was used to hearing from him. He had a familiar looking backpack hanging from his shoulder, which he jostled uncomfortably when he and Akechi locked eyes.

“You’re awful late,” Sojiro grunted, either oblivious to the growing tension in the air or deliberately trying to cut through it. “And what’s this I hear about you hanging out with Yakuza members?”

“Former Yakuza members,” Ren said immediately, and then raised his hands in defence. “I’m not getting into any trouble, I swear. Iwai is just looking out for his family,”

He had a mark above his eyebrow, Akechi realised quite suddenly. It was partially hidden by his hair, but the pinkness of it betrayed the fact that it was a recent wound, not quite healed all the way through. Like it had been caused in the-

Ren pulled sharply downwards on his hair and the cut disappeared from sight. “Goro,” he hid it well, but Akechi could practically sense the tension oozing off of Ren’s words. He’d caught him at a bad time. “You should have called. I would have made time,”

Akechi smiled pleasantly as Ren not so discreetly pulled off his backpack and nudged it into a corner. “All the more reason for me not to bother you. I wouldn’t want to get in the way of you and your...Yakuza friends,” he lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Is that where you got that cut from?”

Futaba emoted loudly from beside him. “Huh?”

“Why don’t we take a walk, Goro?” from the normally easygoing Ren it sounded almost like a threat. “It’s warmer out than one might expect, for February,”

“Going out again?” Sojiro huffed before Akechi could answer. “And you don’t even think to ask me about it. I better see you back before I lock up, and I expect you to keep him out of trouble Detective,”

Unlikely, Akechi thought to himself as he stood up from his seat.

“Come on, Sojiro, they know what they’re doing,” Wakaba’s gentle reprimands fell to the back of his mind. He was focused on Ren, and Ren alone.

Ren held the door open and then beckoned with a flourish. “After you,”

Akechi scowled viciously at him so as not to break character, but otherwise didn’t protest. Even though Ren had betrayed his wishes, his friends’ wishes, Akechi still trusted him more than anyone not to physically stab him in the back.

“So,” Akechi began impatiently.

Ren took an exaggerated amount of time to close the door behind him and wipe what looked like the beginnings of a spider web off the doorknob. Finally he finished and looked up at Akechi with innocent doe eyes. It seemed his earlier uneasiness had been covered up. “So?”

“You obviously asked me out here to talk,” Akechi took off in a random direction, and sure enough the sounds of Ren’s swift, steady footsteps matched his pace. “So let’s talk,”

Chapter Text

“I wasn’t sure whether to expect you at Leblanc today,” Ren admitted, not quite meeting Akechi’s eye. “I thought you might want some time to process,”

“Well it’s not the coffee’s fault that you’ve trapped us in a false reality,” Akechi huffed . “And I have been thinking. I’ve got little else to do,”

Ren’s face lit up almost comically fast. “How was your day with Ann?”

Akechi’s expression turned so severe that he later feared he’d get a permanent scowl. “You throw away everyone’s free will because you couldn’t let me go, and that’s what you want to talk about?”

If Ren was bothered by Akechi’s harsh words he didn’t show it. “Yeah, well we have plenty of time to talk about the deep stuff. But friends talk about other stuff too. Like what we did with mutual friends,”

“We’re not-“ Akechi stumbled at the end of the sentence, not sure if he was rebuking the idea of being friends with Ann or Ren or both. Regardless of context, the words itched at a certain spot in his heart he’d been keen to forget about. “How do you even know I went?”

“Ann told me,” Ren dug into his pocket and held his phone triumphantly aloft. “And I have pictures!”

Akechi hated the way he perked up like an eager puppy. “Pictures? I don’t remember any pictures,”

“You were too focused on your food,” Ren was swiping and clicking furiously, and Akechi jolted forward to grab his wrist, stopping just short of flinging the phone out of his hands. He still caught sight of himself, just an ordinary boy sitting on a park bench indulging in one of his favourite foods in a way one might call unseemly. The boy in the photo looked far and away from how Akechi felt. Betrayed, angry, self-loathing. The Akechi shown from Ren’s phone screen was none of those things. He looked just as ohappy as any sheep in Maruki’s reality.

“It was fine,” he said, mainly because he couldn’t bear to look at himself any longer. His blunt answer was probably not giving Ann enough credit for what had been a not entirely unenjoyable day. “Although Ann couldn’t find a present for Suzui-san,”

If possible Ren beamed even brighter, likely from Akechi’s use of Ann’s given name. He slowly put his phone back in his pocket and Akechi retracted his hand from his wrist in turn, already cursing his gross overreaction.

“How was the Yakuza?” he asked, because it was only polite to return a question about one’s day. And also because, less honourably, he was all too curious about the new wound lying beneath his hair.

Akechi could almost feel the light-hearted atmosphere seep out of the very air. Ah, touchy subject. Akechi’s survival instincts would back away from that one if he wasn’t so innately curious.

“Iwai’s left all that behind,” Ren sounded appropriately exasperated. “He just sells model guns,”

“And modifies them too,” Akechi grumbled, just because he could.

Ren surprised him then by looking a little irritated at Akechi’s constant attempts to paint Iwai in a villainous light. Stressed was one thing, but Akechi had never seen Ren look anything resembling upset with him, even after finding out all he’d done to his precious teammates. “Not anymore, Goro. I’m sure of it,”

“Ah yes, because Maruki’s perfect world means he doesn’t want for anything,” Akechi sneered. He hadn’t known it was possible to be even more disappointed in Ren. Like always the leader of he Phantom Thieves kept coming up with new ways to surprise him. “Can you honestly say that in an imperfect world he wouldn’t go back to that sort of lifestyle to protect his family? Or maybe even because he likes the thrill of it?”

“He’s been trying to leave that life behind for ages,” Ren responded dully. It seemed insulting one of his precious confidants had struck a nerve. “What sort of point are you trying to make? He’s happier in this reality. Everyone is,”

“Speak for yourself,” Akechi bit out. “And you can’t trust every person you meet in this new reality. Just look at someone like Madarame. Once a plagiarist and abuser, now a loving father figure absolved of all guilt. Don’t you understand how dangerous a person like that is let free?”

“The worst of the worst are in prison. Kamoshida,” he lowered his voice, like he knew his next words would bother Akechi. “Shido too. They’re being made to repent,”

Although Akechi had had more than a month to come to the terms with the knowledge that his father was set to rot in jail rather than in hell like he deserved, the simple reminder that the man was still alive always set his teeth on edge. And he knew Ren knew that too. As much as Akechi preached about being free from Shido’s hold, the sheer fact of the matter was that his name very much still controlled him.

Did Ren think he would be happy to hear Shido was in jail in Maruki’s reality like it hadn’t been the first damn thing he checked? Some ideal reality this was if Akechi’s greatest wish hadn’t come true. But he couldn’t voice these thoughts to Ren. They’d go back to talking about him and his issues like he was the insane one here. He was close to hitting Ren where it hurt, he knew that. The cracks were starting to show. If he just pushed a little more, he could...he could...

He didn’t know what he could do. He didn’t know why was so set on convincing Ren to break free.

“Are you saying Madarame and Okumura aren’t criminals, then? That the abuse your teammates suffered under their hands never happened and never will happen? People don’t change so easily, Ren, even with some megalomaniac poking around their brain and changing their cognition. How can you even-“

“Is this about you?” Ren asked calmly.

Akechi, who’d been directing his rant at the cobblestone pavement, slowly lifted his head to look at Ren. His expression seemed composed and all-knowing, but his eyes...there was a weariness in them that shouldn’t be present in an ideal reality.

“What was that?” it was getting quite cold out, and even Akechi’s red hot anger couldn’t stop the audible shudder in his words. He cursed the weakness but spat them out anyways. “You doom all your precious friends to a world they don’t want and you’re trying to pin this on me? I didn’t do this! This is all you,”

“You’re right,” Ren said placidly. It was like he was trying to soothe an irritated cat, which ironically made Akechi want to raise his metaphorical hackles even higher. “You didn’t do anything. Not in this world. Madarame, Okumura, you, this is your second chance. I always would have given it to you, by the way. It’s just easier, here,”

Akechi thought, then, of Wakaba. He thought of Okumura, of Shujin’s Principal, of all the faceless people he’d slaughtered or irreversibly injured. He wondered if Ren knew just how deep Shido’s conspiracy ran, how Akechi had been taking out targets months before the term ‘mental shutdown’ became first mentioned in the news. If he knew all that he’d done would he still be willing to give him a second chance? Did he care?

“What gives you the right to decide whether or not I get a second chance?” he was starting to regret not taking his winter coat, the weather had been quite pleasant when he’d been with Ann earlier. He was looking bitterly pathetic, all things considered.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Ren said instead of rising to his accusation. His eyes narrowed in concern, clearly taking in the shudder of Akechi’s arms. “Are you cold? We can go back inside-“

“Are you even listening to me?” Akechi wanted to punch Ren again. He wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake him until he started seeing reason again. But for some reason he couldn’t quite explain he restrained himself, and settled with yelling scorn from a distance. It wasn’t nearly as satisfying. “I asked you a question!”

“It shouldn’t have been my decision,” Ren agreed softly. “But it was. And I made do ,”

“Are you happier now?”

If Ren nodded easily right there, it would confirm that his actions had been wholly self-serving. While that wasn’t a good thing, as it meant the person most dear to Akechi was a selfish twisted bastard not unlike any of the criminals the Phantom Thieves had taken down, at least Akechi would know where he stood with him. He’d know that getting Ren to help him take down Maruki would be a lost cause. This Ren just hesitated, as if actually contemplating the question.

“I think so,” he said, which wasn’t conclusive or reassuring at all, and worse yet further kindled the flame of hope in Akechi’s heart, the hope that the two of them could wreak havoc in the Metaverse again.

“You think so,” Akechi mocked, reeling at the absurdity of it all. “What a joke,”

“It’s just confusing,” Ren sounded so honest, so vulnerable he nearly had Akechi fooled. “But seeing everyone else so happy makes it more than worth it,”

Ah. So, as he had suspected it all came down to his merry band of thieves.

“So is that your happiness?” Akechi didn’t even attempt to veil his disgust. “You clinging off others with no identity of your own? No dreams apart from theirs?”

Ren didn’t anger. He’d always been irritatingly composed. Akechi had been jealous, once upon a time. Now he couldn’t think of a being more wretched.

“Sojiro asked me if I’d like to stay here in Tokyo,” he admitted. “Forever,”

Akechi hated how his first feeling was of green envy. The idea that someone cared about Ren enough to offer their home up to him felt like a kick in the ribs. Next came understanding, and then a tinge of relief. So Ren did have aspirations separate from his friends, even if those aspirations were simply ‘stay by said friends forever’.

“I’m going to go out on a limb here and presume you said yes,”

“Got it in one,” Ren smiled bitterly. “I wasn’t really looking forward to going back home, honestly,”

Akechi tried to wrack his brain for information about Ren’s home life but came up empty. All he could remember the younger talking about was his arrest and early days in Tokyo. No mention of old friends or parents, which, as he was likely about to find out, was probably for a good reason.

“Humour me, Ren,” Akechi let the anger rush out of him in one fell swoop. “I think you owe me that much,”

“It’s not that exciting a story,” the ‘compared to yours’ went unsaid. “I live in Inaba. It’s a really small town, but you might have heard about it from-“

“-the serial murder case six years ago,” Akechi finished on autopilot.

“Yeah,” Ren said lamely. “That,”

Although the murders had occurred before Akechi had become a detective, he’d had an almost fanatic interest in the case ever since he’d read the police files years later. Although a man, a police detective, was arrested on two charges of murder, the method and murder weapon was completely unknown. The bodies had appeared hanging upside down from telephone poles after a period of rainy weather and thick fog. How they’d gotten up there was still a complete mystery. As far as Akechi knew the supposed culprit still hadn’t been properly charged, being jailed for other more minor crimes in the interim.

The inexplicable cause of death, the strange reappearances of the bodies... At the time of reading about it Akechi had ruminated often on the Metaverse being a component of the murders. Later Akechi thought he’d probably just been looking for somebody with a similar power, and trying to force connections that didn’t exist.

Although considering the town of Inaba apparently had Ren as one of its residents, his old theory could very well hold more weight than he thought.

“You’re not going to tell me you were involved, are you?” he asked suspiciously.

“I wasn’t even out of elementary at the time,” Ren reminded him. He sounded somewhere between resigned and amused.

“That’s no excuse,” Akechi muttered and then waved his hand dismissively. “But go on,”

“That was the biggest thing to ever happen in our small little town. I remember everyone talked about it, about the victims, the perpetrator, the fog...”

“That’s to be expected,” Akechi mused. “Those from a small town naturally have a small town mentality. There is little interest to be had other than their neighbour’s boring lives,”

“They’re not as bad as you make them out to be,” Ren didn’t sound overly confident in that fact. Sure enough his next words just proved Akechi’s point. “But yeah, after I got arrested I was home for a couple of days before the trial. And an hour after the incident it was like the whole street knew. Then the school, then the whole town, even the nearest city-“

“I understand,” Akechi said stiffly, because as much as he wanted to berate Ren for his weakness, he knew all too well what it felt like to be seen as society’s trash. “Your reputation is ruined, and you fear being treated poorly upon your return,”

“When I arrived here it felt like everyone at Shujin was talking about me. But all I had to do was step outside the school gates and I was a stranger to everyone. I could do whatever I wanted without people judging me. But back home...I know what Inaba is like. It won’t just be my school. All the housewives will be gossiping about me at Junes, the few available jobs will never take me-even with my record cleared...you get the idea,”

“I do,” Akechi’s feelings of reluctant empathy were suddenly overridden by a more powerful irritation. Because while Ren was mourning the loss of a peaceful home, his situation was ultimately different to Akechi’s childhood one. “But you’re exorbitantly wealthy. Don’t try to hide it, you’ve got more money than you know what to do with, especially with you keeping the cat’s share as well. You could move out if you wanted to,”

“I’m not that rich,” Ren said placatingly. Akechi didn’t even bother to mask his subsequent eye roll. “But I guess I could get a place somewhere, eventually,”

He didn’t exactly look comforted by this fact. Akechi wondered when Ren, who’d always hidden his emotions behind a mask, had gotten so easy to read. He looked oddly vulnerable, standing there in the dark. Akechi wondered if this sort of bumbling pathetic persona was also just another facade. With Ren, he really couldn’t tell.

“I don’t appreciate you lying to me,” he said coolly. “Sure going back home bothers you but that’s just an excuse. In the end it all comes back down to your precious Phantom Thieves,”

Despite Akechi’s clearly mocking tone Ren seemed to almost relax at the mention of his friends, finally cracking an easygoing smile.

“Is that so bad?” he asked, and moved on before Akechi could answer in the affirmative. “Speaking of, apparently Yusuke has been wanting to go to an art showcase with you tomorrow but you haven’t been answering your messages,”

So that had been the irritating beep that had tried to interrupt his perfectly good crepe eating session with Ann. He’d silenced the stupid phone without even looking at the messages.

“I’m busy tomorrow,” he replied.

Ren raised an eyebrow, clearly surprised at the idea that Akechi had any kind of life that didn’t revolve solely around him.

“And you don’t get to ask why. The least you owe me is some modicum of privacy,” although, Akechi mused dully, privacy seemed like a moot point when Maruki could probably see into his very thoughts.

“That’s fine,” Ren was good at masking his curiosity, but Akechi was better at deducing it. “The showcase is running all week. I’ll tell Yusuke you’re free the day after tomorrow,”

Akechi didn’t bother arguing about it with him. He’d let Ren make any plans he wanted. He’d do it with or without his consent after all. Akechi was just the one who got to decide whether or not to even show up to them.

“So if it wasn’t the apparently peace-mongering Yakuza,” he began, and watched with a slight tingle of delight as Ren’s fingers stilled from where they’d been punching out a message to Yusuke. “Where did you get that awfully nasty cut from?”

“I tripped,”

Ren was a good liar but it was also the oldest trick in the book. Akechi almost wanted to laugh at the sheer idea that Ren could get away with a lie so transparent. He wanted to laugh so much that he did in fact, a sharp bark of a laugh that had Ren’s eyes narrow in almost imperceptible concern.

“You tripped? How dreadfully gauche. Perhaps you’ve forgotten the line of work I used to occupy? You don’t get a wound like that from kissing the pavement, Amamiya,”

“I didn’t think you saw a lot of real life bodies,”

“But I saw my own wounds when I’d come out of the Metaverse without having applied healing items,” Akechi smiled, knowing he’d hooked him. “So tell me, have you found a way into the Meta-“

“No,” Ren’s voice was frozen solid. Involuntarily Akechi felt a shiver run down his spine. And although he tried to shake the uncomfortable feeling off it only seemed to spread, coating every inch of him until he recognised it as the detestable emotion it was. Fear?

He was scared? Of Ren?

“You’re right, Akechi,” and although his words were warm his smile was anything but. “Once a Yakuza, always a Yakuza. I should have known better to get involved,”

Akechi wanted to say something, anything, but his usual fluency failed him.

“I think we should call it a night,” Ren said, allowing a little of the tension to seep from his voice. He’d seemed terrifying just seconds earlier, with a frosty voice and piercing eyes. Now he just looked incredibly weary. “We should talk again. Maybe earlier in the day,”

“I think we’ve talked enough,” Akechi hated how he couldn’t meet Ren’s eyes, as if afraid of his response. He couldn’t get Ren’s voice-his Joker voice, he’d used his Joker voice on him in the real world out of his head.

“You say that, but I know you’ll be back,” Ren smiled and it was him but it was also oh so wrong. “After all, you love my coffee the most,”

Akechi bit back a retort. He didn’t want the conversation to continue. He was cold he was tired and Ren, who used to be a...comforting person to be around was filling his veins with ice. Everything was twisted. Everything was wrong.

Only when Ren turned around did Akechi muster the courage to scowl at his back. As soon as he was out of sight he checked his phone. There was no telltale red glow, and more importantly, no way into the Metaverse.

It seemed heading to Shujin was going to be necessary after all.

Chapter Text

Akechi’s coffee machine was broken.

In hindsight this made sense. Akechi was spoiled by Leblanc’s superior blends, and so the coffee-maker he’d purchased years ago had sat lying in its own dust for months. Still though, the timing seemed suspect. Was it possible Maruki knew Akechi was back in his own frame of mind and had sabotaged his coffee machine out of sheer pettiness? Was that even possible? If so Maruki’s crimes deserved to be upgraded from forced actualisation to straight up gaslighting.

Akechi watched as the poor thing finally began stuttering out something even faintly resembling a brew. Maybe his exhaustion was making him paranoid. He poured the contents into a small mug and drank it in one go, eyes stinging at the bitter dregs sticking to his throat.

No, definitely gaslighting. Coffee in an ideal reality couldn’t possibly taste that bad. But still there was no way Akechi was showing his face to Leblanc for at least a couple of days, not after his talk with Ren the night before, so for the time being he’d have to make do.

Akechi poured another cup, leaning against his minimalist counter and watching the clock tick by with a focused intensity. It was 7:30. If he left now and took the train, he’d arrive at Shujin academy right before it opened.

Akechi took one sip of his coffee and chucked it into the empty, unlived in bin, mug and all. It made a loud clunking noise as it hit the bottom but didn’t shatter.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

Shujin Academy was blissfully empty when he’d arrived, devoid of all but the most hardworking students. Despite Akechi very clearly standing out amongst the uniformed students not one of them looked at him, too busy staring at each other ike lovesick puppies or whatever Maruki was making them see.

Akechi didn’t see a single staff member as he walked through Shujin as purposefully as possible, which was good, because he didn’t want anyone to realise that he didn’t really know where he was going. He’d been to Shujin a scant few times, but he’d always had a guide. He resented his past self for not being more diligent of his surroundings when they’d met Lavenza there.

“Akechi? Is that really you?”

Forget teachers, Akechi was pretty sure Makoto Nijima was a far more dangerous individual to encounter. He didn’t exactly need to fake a look of surprise as he turned slowly to face her, although he did need to adjust his smile so it didn’t look quite so strained.

“Nijima-san? What a coincidence meeting you,”

“I do go here,” Nijima reminded him bluntly. “And with entrance exams and student council president duties I’m normally in school well before classes start,”

“You seem to be working as hard as ever,” Akechi grit out. “I’m sure Sae-san would be proud,”

“I don’t mean to be rude, but is there a reason you’re here?” Nijima looked him up and down, taking in his sweater and slacks. He’d gone against dressing up as a result of tiredness and plain lack of care, but his choices were clearly starting to backfire on him. “Surely you’re not here on police business?”

“I’m supposed to be off work at the moment,” Akechi lied. In fact his past self zhad resigned from his job at the police department almost immediately after Maruki’s reality began, although he couldn’t imagine why. “But they called me in last minute, which is why I’m in such a...state,”

Anyone else would be mollified, or at least scared off by his citing of police involvement, but, Akechi would give Makoto Nijima this, she was not one of them.

“What files?” she asked suspiciously. “I can’t think of any reason the police would want to be involved with this school,”

That was probably the most laughable statement he’d ever heard. Shujin had been a hotspot for police activity after Kamoshida’s arrest and later, Kobayakawa’s death. As far as Akechi could tell the police seemed to visit near weekly to try get more information out of the students and staff-and that wasn’t even getting started on the media’s interest in the school either.

But in this world Kamoshida had been arrested before he could do real harm, in a much less public fashion. Kobayakawa hadn’t died, Suzui hadn’t jumped. There was no connection between the school and the police, nothing except-

“Ren,” he realised, apparently aloud with the way Nijima jumped.

“W-What about him?”

“His probation is ending soon,” he explained smoothly. “I need to transfer some of his records here to his probation officer.”

“I knew his probation was coming to a close, but I though he said he’d be staying here even after it ended,”

Akechi cursed Nijima’s persistence. She was student council president. Did she really have nothing better to do than interrogate him? As she spoke her arms moved of their own accord to rest on her hips. It was a position Akechi had often Sae take when she was deeply interested in something. Akechi had struggled to see the similarities between Nijima and her older sister back in their old reality where Nijima had suffered from countless insecurities, but here Akechi was getting reminded more and more of Sae the longer she spent with her.

“Regardless of whether or not he’s going home, his parents will need a copy of his medical files. They haven’t given up custody yet, right? So as his legal guardian they’re entitled to appropriate documentation,” Akechi didn’t know quite what he was saying, but he hoped the tight lipped smile he wore showed impatience and not nervousness.

“And they asked you to do this?” Nijima’s voice was steeped with doubt. Akechi was inches away from storming past her, but knowing her history with judo classes he didn’t think he’d come out of the encounter entirely unharmed.

“Well, I volunteered, honestly. His probation officer came by the precinct and when I heard it was for Ren...well, I thought it would be a welcome distraction,”

“Ren’s not here yet,” Nijima pointed out, still watching him warily. “He doesn’t come in this early if you wanted to see him,”

Ren was probably in fact the last person Akechi wanted to see right now, so this suited him rather well.

“I’ll take a photocopy of his files, that’s all. You can even watch me do it if you’d like,” that would be funny, Akechi thought. If the Metaverse app did indeed work in Maruki’s office and sent them to his palace. Nijima could hardly turn away from the truth then. It was an interesting thought.

“I’m quite busy with exams,” Nijima’s eyes narrowed. “As you should be,”

“My school starts a little later than yours. I’ll be there right after I pick this up,” this was a blatant lie. His school did start a measly ten minutes after Ren’s, but Akechi hadn’t shown up there in a week, and they didn’t seem to care. “So I am actually a bit in a hurry. Can you lead me to the nurse’s office?”

Nijima seemed to give up when faced the prospect of possibly sabotaging his academic career, shoulders slumping forward in defeat. She didn’t seem as bothered as Akechi expected, simply waving behind for him to follow her. Akechi was pretty sure the old Nijima would have rather swallowed poison than admit losing to him in any field.

The way to the office was almost embarrassingly simple, enough so that Akechi was kicking himself for having to rely on Nijima to find it. When they arrived at the unassuming door Nijima stood sort of awkwardly in front of it, wringing her fingers together in a manner he’d call shy if he didn’t know that she hated his guts.

“Excuse me?”

His harsh tone seemed to prompt Nijima to make her mind up. She straightened up almost instantly. “This is actually really good timing,”

“I don’t follow,”

“Ah...Sis was saying that if I saw you around I should ask you to have dinner with us. My father won’t be home tonight so we could do with the extra company especially. I know it’s short notice but-“

“No,” Akechi cut in and then winced at his own bluntness. The invitation had taken him so off guard that he’d forgotten basic manners. Although Sae had often taken him out for lunch at the precinct, those had been strictly as co-workers. Never had she extended he offer of him coming to her home, but then again from what he gathered she spent very little time at her home to begin with. “I mean, please give Sae-san my apologies. Today’s not a good day for me.”

Nijima nodded seriously, and then to his surprise broke out an easy genuine smile. “Another time, then,”

Once again Akechi found himself mystified by her response. He’d left her an easy out. All she’d had to do was mutter something about it being a shame and then walk off, secretly pumping her fist in joy at the idea of not having to spend a dinner looking at his perfect, smug face. So why was she bringing up the possibility of another day and smiling so sincerely while doing it?

It wasn’t possible that she simply...wanted him around, was it?

A small part of Akechi’s brain argued that it was impossible. That there was no way, even with Maruki’s seemingly limitless powers to create a Makoto Nijima that didn’t hate Goro Akechi with a silent, burning fury.

And yet here she was, waiting expectantly for him to nod his head or something.

“Quite,” he said eventually. Nijima still didn’t budge.

“We’ve been having a lot of study sessions lately.” she blurted out. “I know we’re from different schools, but Yusuke comes along too and since we’ll be studying for entrance exams anyway I didn’t think it’d matter. So you should come along sometime,”

“I’m quite busy these days,” he intended to leave it at that but the pesky conscience he was begrudgingly starting to develop protested loudly at the idea. “But maybe if I get a free evening,”

Nijima tossed him another one of those smiles he never expected to be directed at him. “I’m glad to hear it. Now I really do have to go. I’m going to trust you with these files but if I find anything going missing I will tell Sis about this,”

“I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen then,”

Finally Nijima left, and the tension in the air that had slowly been dissapitating came back full force. Around him the halls had gone quiet. Had they been like that when he’d first arrived with Nijima? It was so silent Akechi could practically hear the sound of his heart slamming in his chest. The subsequent ringing in his ears was enough to make him feel violently ill.

What was he so afraid of?

Before his instincts could stop him he found himself slamming the door open. It was dark, and a quick flick of the light switch revealed it as...empty, of course.

Akechi stepped inside, already feeling silly for hesitating. He made sure to close the door carefully behind him and then took in his surroundings. It looked exactly the same as he’d seen it last. A couch and a chair sat opposite with a table nestled in between. All the furniture seemed free of dust, despite the fact that they apparently hadn’t been used in months.

Akechi had come here for a variety of reasons. The first one was to attempt to access the Metaverse. Lavenza had been able to take a physical form in this room because of the difference in cognition. Akechi had been hopeful (but not terribly optimistic) that this perk would have carried over into Maruki’s actualised reality.

And yet, as Akechi turned his phone on no pulsing red light greeted him. He clicked his tongue in annoyance. Despite anticipating this turn of events he still couldn’t help the disappointment and frustration that gripped him. A stack of papers lay neatly in the corner of the room. Akechi had half a mind to shred them all to pieces just to take out his anger on something.

But he would do no such thing, because they were the second reason he was here. Maruki was supposed to have left Shujin in November. And yet despite it all traces of him still seemed to remain, namely the files on his research obviously deemed not important enough to bring with him when left.

There were names on the files, Akechi realised as he approached them, and dates. It became obvious pretty soon why Maruki had abandoned these copies. The latest dating for any of them was August. Akechi flicked through the separate files, some thin some thick until he saw a familiar name. He landed on Ann Takamaki first, fingers hesitating on the cover and refusing to go and further. Akechi was pretty sure he knew just about everything involving her experience with Kamoshida, and that this file wouldn’t reveal anything particularly scandalous or new. Still, he found himself unable to read it. This conscience thing really was starting to become a nuisance.

But if Ann’s file was here than surely that meant...

Although Akechi would refrain from reading Ann’s file out of a sort of respect, he’d do no such thing for the man who’d made the choice to trap them here. He started to search for Ren’s name amongst the files, but the stack was tall, and separated into two different piles. The sheer volume of the files at hand proved that the students really had trusted Maruki. It made how he’d twisted that trust all the more disturbing.

Hah. Like Akechi was one to talk. It’d only been a few months since he shot Ren in the head after all. He shook his head furiously to shake out the loose thought. Unhelpful. He went back to scouring the pile, finally finding the name he was looking for underneath all the others-

“Ah, Akechi-kun. This really is a strange coincidence,”

Akechi turned on his heel with the full intention of tearing Maruki to shreds. Somewhere between his corner of the room and Maruki’s the world turned on its head, twisting and looping until he found himself sitting politely on the sofa opposite the suddenly seated Maruki as if he’d invited him in himself.

Maruki was dressed in the same white outfit he’d worn in his palace, which was imposing enough in there but made him look a complete joke in the real world. Or rather that was what Akechi would like to believe, but the way the room was still spinning and how the lights had dimmed as if on his cue was nearly enough to trick him into thinking he was in the Metaverse anyway, just without his gear.

When he finally came back to himself a little he realised Maruki had been trying to talk to him, slow gentle words laced with concern. Even in his villain get-up he looked worried for Akechi, leaned slightly forward and repeating his name.

“I’m sorry, Akechi-kun, I didn’t mean to hurt you. Are you alright?”

Akechi couldn’t snap out that he wasn’t, because his head was still spinning. He dug his fingers into the couch beneath him in an attempt to ground himself, and focused on counting the tiles on the floor rather than look at Maruki in the face.

He’d known what he was getting into. Short of the palace itself this was practically Maruki’s lair. He’d half expected to meet Maruki. It’d been the third reason he came. Yet he’d expected them to be on more even footing. A rookie mistake, apparently.

Akechi didn’t wait for the world to stop swirling around him before launching off his seat, fully prepared to force a surrender from Maruki right there and then. Before he knew it he was seated again, legs pressed firmly together, back straight. He tried to move again, only to find, with increasing levels of panic, that he could not.

Maruki’s eyes were heavy with guilt, but clearly not heavy enough to set him free just yet.

“Akechi-kun. Please I just want to talk,” he sounded halfway between sincere and condescending. He sounded all the way pathetic and irritating. “You’re only holding yourself back by continuing to resort to needless violence,”

“I just wanted to talk as well,” Akechi lied. Although Maruki had clearly shackled every one of his limbs at least he hadn’t the hindsight to put a muzzle on him. He thanked small blessings.

“Seeing a spirited individual like you like this saddens me more than you know,” Maruki told him, still blinking those sad doe eyes. “If you promise not to hurt either me or yourself I can let you go,”

“Sure,” Akechi hissed. He didn’t want to make any kind of promise with Maruki, but with the power the man had it was clear that defeating him in the real world was a useless endeavour.

With a click of his fingers Akechi felt the tension in his body relax, every joint in his body going limp. He was quick to stand up into the most intimidating posture he could muster, but Maruki didn’t even blink an eye. As expected he saw right through him.

Suddenly the door seemed so far away. If this conversation didn’t lead to the result Maruki wanted, would he even let him go? Akechi really did wish he’d convinced Nijima to join him. Brainwashed or not, there was only so much she could see before realising something was off. But Makoto wasn’t here. It was just him and a madman.

“Did you know immediately that I remembered?” Akechi pushed down his ire at the man in favour of gathering information. He had a feeling that Maruki would answer any question he asked of him because that was just that insufferably honest. So as much as he loathed even being in the same room as the man he’d lean back on his suffocating prince mask for now, if only so he could truly understand the extent of Maruki’s powers.

“This might surprise you,” Maruki said, smiling like he was telling a colleague a funny joke. “But I’m not watching you all the time. I didn’t notice until I realised how sad Ren was and then I dug deeper,”

Everything else Maruki said fell apart in Akechi’s mind compared to his last sentence. “Ren? Sad?”

Ren had obviously been feeling some form of anguish when Akechi had socked him in the face and screeched at him. That was to be expected. But after the shock wore off Akechi thought he’d be conflicted over his decision. Or maybe confused as to why Akechi wasn’t obediently playing his role when he technically owed Ren his miserable excuse of a life. But instead Ren was...sad? For what? The loss of the smiling, submissive Akechi?

“Amamiya-kun cares about you a great deal,” Maruki’s voice grew gentler. “I think sometimes you forget that. All of his actions are made in your best interest.. he just wants you to be happy. And when you’re not, naturally, he’s sad,”

“You’re lying,” a little bit of Loki seeped out with his words. It seemed falling back to his old facade after so long was proving irritatingly difficult. “Ren wouldn’t be...”

Maruki waited patiently for Akechi to finish, and when he didn’t, moved on to answer his unvoiced thought. “Akechi-kun, although I don’t deny that the newfound happiness of his friends were a factor, the real reason he chose this reality was so you could be alive and together. Do you really think he would want to keep you at arm’s length? You avoiding him hurts him. He made the right choice, yet the person he wants the most avoids him,”

The way Maruki talked about him and Ren...Akechi turned away to hide the flush of his cheeks, which could very well be passed off as anger. What gave Maruki the right to be so intrusive in his and Ren’s private life? Using him as a hostage to force Ren to make a choice, acting as if Ren was entitled to being Akechi’s friend just because he wouldn’t let him die. The gentle concern he used when talking about emotionally manipulating Ren, the one person in Akechi’s life who he’d thought finally understood him was sickening.

“Dont act like he saved me,” Akechi stood up, lips curled into a snarl and shoulders raised. “I’d rather die than be here, you hear me? I’d rather die!”

From across the room Maruki sighed, and after a brief, almost patronising reluctance snapped his fingers.

Akechi was on his back then, counting the files on the ceiling. Every single one of them was so polished he could practically see them sparkle. Strange. Everything about this world was so strange.

“Please don’t say that, Akechi-kun,” Maruki’s voice sounded deadly serious. Akechi imagined his face was too but he couldn’t see it. He was still staring up at the tiles, feeling strangely out of place. “Never say that,”

“I can say what I want,” at least was what he meant to say, except all that came out was a muffled kind of mumble. His head felt like it was stuffed full of cotton, and the tiles on the ceiling were suddenly reflecting the room’s light at startling intensity.

The couch beneath his fingertips, his tongue peeking over cracked lips, the slow blink of his tired eyes, none of it felt real. It took every inch of strength in his body to move his hand so it lay in front of his eyes, but the light seemed to shine through even his solid flesh. His head continued to ache, pulsing and crescendoing in time to some unidentifiable beat. His heart, in comparison, sat completely still. Had it always been like this in this reality? A reminder that his existence in this world was a lie?

“I’m sorry,” Akechi distantly recognised the voice as Maruki’s. He couldn’t recall why the man needed to apologise. In his current state he couldn’t really care. “It just hurts me to hear you say that. I want the best for you and Amamiya-kun,
and your friends all do as well,”

“Don’t care,” he mumbled childishly. He tried to close his eyes but they sprung open again in moments, as if prompted by an irreversible force.

“I don’t want to force you to accept this reality,” Akechi didn’t know who Maruki was talking to, he was too busy counting the stitches in the fabric of the cushion by his feet. “You wild cards break out of it so easily. If I force you to accept it and you wake up a week or two down the line it could destroy Amamiya-kun just when he’s finally getting to terms with this reality. You need to be his ally. You need to take the second chance offered to you,”

“Don’t deserve...” Akechi trailed off, forgetting where his train of thought was heading in the first place. Out of the corner of his eye strange tendrils seemed to erupt from cracks in the floor. Akechi started through half-seeing eyes, fascinated.

“Of course you deserve this chance. Some people perform villainous actions purely based on their own greed. They have loving families and friends and throw them away for power. But you were born in an unfortunate set of circumstances and lost your way as a result of said circumstances,” the tendril nearest to him danced a little back and forth in front of his eyes. It looked almost like it was waving. “This reality is the reality you would have inhabited if you’d gotten the life you deserve,”

Akechi had so many thoughts. That that was a Freudian excuse, that Maruki had no right to judge humanity’s worth, that he’d still rather die than be a twisted part of his machinations. But all of those thoughts fell to the wayside as soon as he tried to force them into being.

“Was it really...a coincidence?” he asked, as those inky blue tendrils slithered ever closer. “You being here?”

Through rapidly closing eyes Maruki appeared to smile. The gentle expression stood stark against his surroundings, which had turned dark and ghastly seemingly without Akechi noticing.

“It really was,” he rubbed his neck almost sheepishly. “Can you believe I left some files here, months ago?”

“Fuck you,” Akechi spat. It came out so quiet he didn’t know if Maruki even heard him.

“You’re tired,” Maruki soothed, voice honeyed with sympathy. “I know we have more to talk about but you’re not getting enough sleep. Allow me to help you catch up on some,”

Akechi felt the weight of his exhaustion multiply in an instant. Despite his best efforts his eyes shut closed and couldn’t be pried open even with the best efforts his tired brain could muster.

Those tendrils came forward to lie on his forehead. Akechi suppressed a shudder. They were ice cold to touch, numbing but also strangely intoxicating.

“Dun’ need your help,” Akechi mumbled, with all the ferocity of a newborn kitten. “Get out...get outta my head,”

The numb feeling triggered a memory, of this very same scene not all too deep into Maruki’s palace. He’d gone alone. No Joker, mo thieves, nothing. Maruki had reprogrammed him just like he’d done to Yoshiazawa. Just like this.

Akechi was pretty sure he was panicking somewhere deep down. But the only part of him fully present didn’t feel scared, just resigned.

“Don’t worry. I won’t take away your memories I promise, I just want to help you to get some rest,” Maruki’s next words fell on deaf ears. “I just want to save you,”

Akechi drifted then. His dreams were horrifically pleasant.

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

Akechi woke up feeling more refreshed than he’d felt in months. This annoyed him. Despite the fact that he’d been lying on a couch for-he checked his watch, six entire hours, his back had nary an ache in it. And not one person had entered or tried to enter, although looking at the slightly disorderly appearance of his surroundings that was maybe pretty standard.

Maruki was gone, because of course he was. The slimy bastard couldn’t stand to sit down and answer questions for even a single minute. Akechi had gotten to ask him practically nothing. Of course that was mostly his own fault. Losing his temper like that...surely he’d known what would happen?

He shivered but that didn’t remove the feeling of slimy apparitions curling around his body. With the memory of what had happened on February the third fresh in his mind maybe that feeling would never leave.

The room was as bright and airy as it was since he’d flicked the lights on. The dark, grim appearance it had taken on had vanished with Maruki. If he was to go and tell anyone what had just happened to him they’d call him insane.

Akechi rubbed his sleepy eyes and forced himself to focus.

The pile of files he’d been rummaging through had mysteriously vanished, meaning either Maruki really was stupid enough to have left sensitive files about his test subjects out in the open for four months or he was trying to keep up appearances. Regardless it didn’t matter, because Ren’s wasn’t there anymore.

Relying on Maruki to understand Ren was a stupid idea anyways. Akechi already understood him perfectly. But details about his past, his future, his dreams. They were things you might divulge to a school counsellor if they asked. Akechi had certainly never thought to. And he couldn’t now, not with the way things were,

Akechi knew that if met Nijima on his way out there’d be more problems than not having Ren’s file on him, (namely the six hour gap he’d spent in the office) but he still opened the cabinet to obtain the proper, doctor notes. They were simple, paper thin folders that could let Sojiro Sakura know what blood type Ren was if Akechi eve rehot him in the head again and he needed a blood transfusion. Honestly gifting a copy to boss was probably the best thing he could do for the man.

Akechi was a little doubtful he’d find Ren’s file considering his tentative existence as a transfer student, but as he dug deeper into the pile his name caught his eye almost immediately.

“Ren Amamiya...”

From his pocket a soft beeping sound emitted.

“Candidate found,”

Chapter Text

“Ah, although I know all art can be perceived as beautiful, in this collection I must admit a certain preference for this one piece,” Kitagawa nodded to himself, showcasing the piece of artwork in question with long sweeps of his arms. “There’s a certain level of elegance and sophistication in it that few pieces can muster. The level of shading, the vibrancy of the colours...yes, I find myself truly inspired with one glance,” Kitagawa finally snapped himself out of his ramble and turned eyes on his companion. “Don’t you think so Akechi?”

Akechi tilted his head to one side.

Personally he thought the painting looked a bit like a misshapen horse.

It was the day after Akechi’s meeting with Maruki, and instead of bursting into Ren’s palace or even telling him about its existence, he’d gone home, failed to uncover a single keyword and then slept for another six hours. All in all it had been a pretty awful day. To make matters worse during the time he’d been sleeping Ren had given Kitagawa the go ahead to invite him to this exhibition. Which he was at. For some reason.

His logic in accepting the invitation at the time was that he needed to know more about Ren to discover his keywords. Why he was spending time with one of Ren’s friends instead of Ren himself? That part was less easy to logically explain.

Even though he’d had plenty of time to sleep on it Akechi had still woken up determined to avoid Ren. It had been two days since their talk outside Leblanc, but Akechi couldn’t stop thinking about the look on Ren’s face when they’d parted ways.

If Akechi had pushed a little harder he might have found the palace’s keywords. But it wasn’t like Akechi didn’t know the source of Ren’s distortion. It lay in this fake reality, or at least Akechi hoped so. If it turned out that Ren had had this palace for longer, maybe even before he’d met Akechi, he...well it wouldn’t be any of his business, but he’d find it hard to cope.

“Akechi? I would hate to rush your pursuit of this painting but my own wretched desire asks of me to show you my piece in this exhibition,”

Akechi hadn’t known Kitagawa well, in fact he’d probably made the least impact on him out of all the thieves, although that was merely due to the fact that he was wholly inoffensive, if a little odd. Ren was...Ren, and Sakura and Okumura he’d ignored with scholastic effort. Nijima and Yoshiazawa he’d of course known before their time as thieves, and Ann and Sakamoto had both made attempts to befriend him, although the latter in more confusing and aggressive ways than the former.

And Morgana was a talking cat. There would be something fundamentally wrong with Akechi (on top of everything else) if Morgana had failed to leave an impression on him.

So that left Kitagawa. Strange, artistic Kitagawa, who seemed less interested in talking and more so interested in framing his face between his fingers.

Despite him not leaving much of an impression Akechi remembered the boy looking different in the old reality. He’d used to be dangerously skinny, no matter how much curry Boss sent him home with in the evenings. His eyes had often been besmirched by bags, assuredly from staying up late at night to paint.

Now he had filled out, just enough so that he was on the healthy end of slim. His eyes were bright with wondrous curiosity, and his face pale and irritatingly beautiful. Kitagawa Yusuke was probably a more handsome man than Akechi Goro, and the fact that the teenager seemed oblivious to his own charms made him all the more irritating to deal with.

Inoffensive his ass. He’d only spent about fifteen minutes with Kitagawa and he already wanted to leave. He’d thought seeing the Phantom Thieves perfect and happy would be easy. And while Ann and Sakura hadn’t seemed much different Kitagawa moved with all the poise of somebody who had a loving and supporting mentor that doubled as a father figure to boot.

Madarame was ‘unfortunately’ too busy to attend the exhibition with them. That was good because Akechi didn’t know if he could pretend to play nice with a bastard like him. Although throwing a fit in the middle of this glamorous exhibition would be a sight, wouldn’t it? Seeing everyone in their smart wear and tea dresses stumbling out of his way as he tore that stupid painting of that stupid stupid horse to shreds would almost make this whole reality thing worth it. What would Maruki do if Akechi snapped and killed someone? Revive them? Kill Akechi? Sigh and remove his memories of the event? Akechi nearly wanted to try, except the single modicum of social etiquette he still possessed begged him not to.

So for the time being he was stuck with Kitagawa, trying and failing to get any degree of satisfaction out of the pieces of art that adorned every corner. It was almost strange how uncomfortable they made him. Although Akechi had never exactly been a patron of the arts he thought he could at least appreciate them. Now every piece he saw looked steeped in optimism, drawn with colours so bright they made his eyes hurt.

Kitagawa’s painting was no different, a bold splash of colour on a white canvas. It was certainly striking, and Akechi may even have liked it if it didn’t blend in so much with the rest of the exhibition. It was just another bright happy painting from another bright happy painter.

“Your silence is starting to alarm me,” Kitagawa confessed, and Akechi tore his gaze away from the offending painting to look at the concern starting to mar his handsome face. “Regardless of your lack of experience with art, I’d still appreciate hearing your opinion,”

Akechi turned to look back at it again. “It’s very...loud,”

“Ah, you find it garish, then,”

“I don’t know much about these things,” Akechi replied defensively. “It just strikes me as kind of shallow looking. Aren’t these paintings supposed to have emotional stories behind them?”

“Loud...shallow...unemotional...” Kitagawa spoke the words so reverently Akechi worried he could be mistaking them for compliments. “Everyone else I asked heralded this as my best piece,”

Akechi thought back to lazy sketches of Ann in the back of the Mona van, Kitagawa’s depiction of the fusion of Mementos and reality, the watercolour he had of Ren smiling coyly across the bar. Each of them oozed character, far more so than the pretty but empty mess on the canvas in front of him. It seemed to echo their new reality fairly well.

“That’s not true,” he said before he could think about it. “You’ve done better,”

Akechi thought he might be offended, but instead Kitagawa looked at him with something almost resembling admiration. “My mother painted the Sayuri, my inspiration in art. I suppose I had been hoping I too could draw a painting that would inspire others, and I was presumptuous enough to fall for the praise of art critics and believe that this would be the piece.” he shook his head sharply. “But you have reminded me, Akechi that my work needs to be admired by all, the common man included,”

Akechi stilled. “Did you just call me the common man?”

Kitagawa ignored him, still staring at his work with rapidly growing intensity. “I’ve grown tainted by praise. It’s clear what I must do. I must rip this apart and start again,”

“W-Wait!” Akechi had to practically lurch forward and restrain the artist as he made an intentioned lunge towards the offending painting. “I don’t think you have to resort to methods that drastic,”

Was Maruki making Kitagawa act in this manner to bring Akechi into closer contact with him? Would he be that twisted? The answer was yes, but given that Akechi had once witnessed Kitagawa blow his entire monthly stipend on jagariko he was willing to bet that the teen was just that odd.

As he watched Kitagawa calm down and lament his quickness to anger, Akechi began to wonder why he’d even stopped him. Akechi didn’t care about Kitagawa or his art. And he certainly didn’t care about any of the people in the gallery who might be traumatised by seeing a teen artist rip his own golden ticket to stardom to shreds. Akechi decided to blame his actions on Ren, as was becoming quite commonplace. After all, that was who he came to hear about.

“Ren told me you suffered from an art block quite recently,”

Nearly a full minute passed without a response. Kitagawa had flipped open a sketchbook and was stating at with intent. Just when Akechi was about to give up the idea of the artist ever answering him he spoke up. “Yes, after my...ah....” the loss of memories involved with Madarame’s incarceration tripped him up only momentarily before he was back on track. “...various issues began to make it difficult to produce art, even with the help of my Sensei. That is where Ren came in. In my time of need he appeared before me as my muse. This painting-“he gestured to the piece he’d moments ago been considering ripping to shreds. “-can be said to be my view of him,”

Now that he mentioned it, the painting actually did remind Akechi of Ren. Undeniably beautiful, yes, but also overbearing and ridiculously protective, even when you didn’t want him to be. Still, although the resemblance was there the painting was lacking Ren’s truly most deplorable features. Namely his cowardice and selfishness-disguised as martyrdom-disguised as good leadership. If Ren truly was Kitagawa’s muse for this painting, he’d painted him in an almost sickly positive light.

“Ren helped you, is that correct?” Akechi glared down at his gloves. “He seems to help an awful lot of people,”

“I believe it’s simply in his nature. Even on days when I do not mind discussing his life, or doing something less related to work, he is quick to steer the conversation back to me and how I’m getting on,” Kitagawa smiled fondly, but Akechi found himself unable to return the expression. He felt faintly sick. “It seems he isn’t truly happy unless he’s helping someone,”

Kitagawa had hit the nail on the head. Akechi had suspected for a long time that Ren truly did enjoy helping others. But there was a difference between being helpful and being ridiculously self sacrificing, and Akechi had more than enough evidence to prove Ren was the latter type.

Kitagawa spoke warmly about Ren’s blatant saviour complex. If all the thieves thought that same way without regard for their leader’s actual wellbeing then it was no small wonder Ren had grown distorted.

People didn’t have to be evil to have palaces. It was something that Akechi had been keeping close in mind since Ren’s name got a hit on the Nav. Although Ren could very well be a malicious, disgusting individual hiding behind a myriad of masks, Akechi thought it was much more likely that he was instead a broken one. At least that way they’d match.

“Devoting your entire life to helping people...” Akechi couldn’t get the disgust out of his voice. “Doesn’t that sound incredibly boring?” he wasn’t sure who he was talking to. Kitagawa seemed every bit as much a believer in Maruki’s ideals as Ren himself.

“From what I’ve heard there’s a certain sort of self-gratification obtained from helping others.” Kitagawa had turned from his painting to look at Akechi with serious eyes. “And if helping people is our leader’s wish he is entitled to it,”

“His wish...”

Akechi tried to think about what Ren had been doing during the week they’d spent in Maruki’s reality. They’d spent nearly all their time together, and now that they weren’t Ren seemed to be sneaking off to hang out with his shadier confidants or maybe even to the Metaverse.

Did Ren know he has a palace? Akechi couldn’t imagine why he’d try his name in the Nav, Morgana was always insistent that Persona users simply couldn’t get palaces and that Maruki was just a logical exception. Akechi certainly wouldn’t have guessed to try, or rather, would have been too afraid to. But even if Ren had access to his palace, what would he be doing there? He couldn’t very well steal his own heart.

But still, regardless of what he was doing those evenings where Akechi didn’t come to Leblanc the fact of the matter remained that Ren wasn’t hanging out with the Phantom Thieves. He seemed to message them regularly-they still had the group chat but turned down practically every invite to hang out from anyone that wasn’t Akechi. Was that what somebody obsessed with ‘helping people’ would do?

Although, as Akechi regarded Kitagawa with a steady stare, none of Ren’s friends seemed in great need of help. Their problems had gone from serious to mundane in a heartbeat. Ann’s biggest worry was what she’d buy Suzui for her birthday. Kitagawa’s was choosing whether he wanted his work to appeal to critics or the faceless masses. And Nijima’s problems probably centred around which highly profitable degree she wanted to pursue. If Ren ditched these expeditions with his friends because they weren’t interesting enough Akechi couldn’t blame him. They were so dreadfully ordinary they nearly put Akechi to sleep.

Akechi couldn’t help the tiny part of him that liked these outings though, despite their total lack of substance. They didn’t do much to make him feel anything other than empty, but they did make him feel something. And that something was a far better emotion than whatever he’d been feeling when he’d died in the engine room with his pathethic puppet of a cognitive double standing over him

“Are you alright, Akechi?” the concern in Kitagawa’s voice tore him out of his headspace. “You’ve been staring for quite a while,”

Akechi looked away immediately. “I’m fine, just, not entirely enthused by the artwork on display,”

Despite the fact that Akechi was pretty blatantly egging him on at this point Kitagawa still refused to anger. “It’s a fair remark. Looking upon my work again with a more critical eye I see many a fatal flaw I previously ignored. Truly it’s deplorable for me to even consider myself an artist when I’m overlooking mistakes as basic as this.” without warning Kitagawa suddenly grasped both of Akechi’s hands with his own, pulling the older boy uncomfortably close. Akechi flinched backwards but Kitagawa’s grip was surprisingly firm. “I have you to thank, Akechi. Like Ren, you have considerably opened my perspective,”

Akechi took pride in compliments, maybe a little too much, but even he knew that Kitagawa’s comments were a stretch. “I think you might be exaggerating my role here,” beat. “And would you awfully mind stepping away?”

“Nonsense,” Kitagawa declared, although to what part of Akechi’s statement he wasn’t quit sure. He did step back and release Akechi’s hands though, allowing him to release a breath he didn’t even know was holding.

“I’m sorry, Akechi. I’m finding myself quite overcome with inspiration. I simply must return to my canvas,” Kitagawa retuned to his sketchbook and and stared at it despairingly, as if acknowledging the futility of its meagre existence. “I need a large expanse upon which to cast my brush. Mere paper shall not do,”

Akechi merely blinked. He was beginning to become quite accustomed to Kitagawa’s antics. “Shall we go, then?”

Akechi expected Kitagawa to be so overtaken by his inspiration that he wouldn’t even respond. And yet the artist surprised him by sending Akechi a sharp smile and nod, brighter and louder and faker than Akechi had ever seen. Maybe he wasn’t quite accustomed to Kitagawa’s antics after all. Or maybe it was Maruki’s he wasn’t used to.

Akechi shivered involuntarily as the two of them stepped out in the icy thin air. Kitagawa offered his scarf but Akechi declined, if only because the bitter bite of the cold helped remind him he was alive.

-/-/-/-/-/-/

Although the morning was cold, a pale watery sun began to break through the clouds by midday, ridding Akechi’s body of frost and returning it to its usual, numb state.
It was a longer walk than Akechi remembered to the train station, but Kitagawa filled it with mindless rambles and anecdotes that Akechi didn’t even bother to half listen to. If nothing else it was pleasant background noise. Like so many of the Phantom Thieves Yusuke Kitagawa had a nice voice.

“Ah! Yusuke-senpai, Akechi-san!”

The familiar voice stopped Akechi so abruptly in his tracks that he nearly walked right into Kitagawa’s back. He steadied himself as quickly as he could and looked at the source of the voice.

He didn’t know why, but he hadn’t expected seeing Sumire Yoshizawa to hurt so much. She looked as she did back months and months ago, long hair tied up in a loose ponytail, smile bright and easy on her lips. She was dressed fashionably, in clothes her late sister had probably been fond of. The ribbon tying her hair together, Akechi knew, was a keepsake from Kasumi.

“It’s been quite a while, Akechi-san,” she beamed at him. “You look well,”

From anyone else he’d think it a blatant lie, but Akechi had learned early on that Yoshizawa wasn’t that ingenuine.

Akechi hummed out a response and keyed back in to his surroundings. Yoshizawa was standing outside a quaint looking cafe as if she was destined to be there. Her surroundings were busy, but not enough so that they could be called unhealthy or congested. The sheer scale of the coincidence of them running into her made his mouth run dry.

“I was just shopping in the area,” she said, hands free of any baggage apart from a small coin purse. “I’d love if you two could join me,”

“It’s a shame. This would be a serendipitous meeting except I really just depart. Inspiration aside, my Sensei has requested my return,” Kitagawa looked at Akechi and Yoshizawa in turn. “But I’m sure Akechi can keep you company, Kasumi,”

Akechi winced first at the name, and then at the insinuation that’d he’d be spending anymore time around Yoshizawa than necessary. It was not that he particularly disliked Yoshizawa, in fact he felt more of a kinship with her than any of the other thieves bar Ren, for more reasons than one. But the fact that he actually hadn’t minded spending time with her in the past-had maybe even begun to consider her a friend before all his had come around just made him feel worse.

This ‘Kasumi’ was not the Sumire Yoshizawa he knew. He felt sick just looking at her wretched face. The sharp surge of emotion that blossomed in him at the sight of her was unnatural. He wondered idly when he’d gotten so passionate about matters other than revenge. Not that it mattered much. After he took down Maruki, Kasumi would become Sumire again.

Not that Akechi would be there to see it. But still, it was a small comfort.

“Huh? Oh, I wouldn’t want to impose,” Yoshizawa waved her hands so fast Akechi thought they might fly off. “It was just a suggestion,”

“I’m sure it’d be good for Akechi,” Kitagawa said, and Akechi was dismantling any prior opinion he had of him and pencilling him in as his second least favourite thief, (the least being Ren). “Well goodbye. Thanks for enlightening me, Akechi,”

Kitagawa and Yoshizawa waved enthusiastic goodbyes. Still feeling faintly miffed Akechi participated in no such thing.

“Enlightening him,” Yoshizawa giggled beside him. “Sounds like you’ve had an interesting morning Akechi-san,”

“As interesting as staring at paintings of half nude figures can be,” he allowed, and then sighed. Although he knew it was time for him to make an excuse and leave, something was holding him back.

He knew the only thing waiting for him at his apartment was a broken coffee machine and a notebook with Ren’s name on it, full of the distortions his heart wasn’t. He’d tried a prison as a result of his run ins with the law, he’d tried a theatre to appeal to his flair for the dramatic. He’d even tried extremes on either sides, heaven and hell, purgatory and paradise. The fact that Akechi couldn’t figure it out made him uneasy. If he couldn’t understand something as basic as what Ren saw Tokyo as, was he really prepared for what the rest of his heart had to offer?

“Oh, it’s closing down,” Yoshizawa’s voice snapped him back to the present.

“Excuse me?”

“The Tokyo Pyschiatric Hospital,” she pointed a slender finger to one of the monitors displaying the news on the opposite building. Sure enough the facility was closing down, citing a lack of patients.

All around Akechi people had stopped to look, and were humming in abject agreement. Directly beside him Yoshizawa seemed less impressed, retracing her finger and frowning slightly. “It’s great that people are doing better now, but I wonder if a place that’s meant to help people closing down is a good thing. It feels like they’re focusing on the profit instead of the individual,”

Akechi didn’t feel like telling her that she had nothing to worry about, that literally nobody in Tokyo could possibly need medical help anymore, nor about the foul rumours that had long befallen that place . It seemed pointless at this stage.

And then Akechi’s thoughts caught up to Yoshizawa’s words.

A place meant to help people.

Akechi considered Yoshizawa. This perfect ‘Kasumi’ version of her was useless to him. He wondered if she’d recall her past as Sumire if he shoved those video tapes from Maruki’s palace in her face. Or was she too far gone for that?

“Is something wrong, Akechi-san?” when he didn’t reply she floundered further. “Umm...you’re staring,”

Around them the small, faceless crowd that had been gathering had dispersed. The billboard was now displaying some happy, soulless advertisement indistinguishable from the rest. Akechi couldn’t even bear to look at it for more than one second.

Akechi didn’t know what Ren’s palace would be like. He’d obsessed over it, it felt like all he’d been doing since his name had registered a hit on a Nav. He knew it was all pointless, thinking about what could lie inside wouldn’t prepare him for facing it, it’d just unnerve him. But still, standing next to Yoshizawa with the final piece of the puzzle in his hands made him uneasy. He should scope it out by himself. He didn’t have any restorative items with him. He just...shouldn’t.

And yet, as Yoshizawa’s expression became more and more severe Akechi’s resolve solidified. Going into Maruki’s palace alone had been a grave error borne out of a pathethic outburst. He wouldn’t make the same mistake again, even if it the difference was only one person.

“Yoshizawa-san, do you trust me?”

Yoshizawa’s eyebrows creased in confusion, and then subsequently softened in concern. “I...yes. I do,” her voice was steadfast and firm, and Akechi found himself wondering how much of that confidence was Kasumi’s and how much was Sumire’s before he banished the thought entirely.

Yoshizawa could enter the palace and run off to tell Ren, or worse, Maruki, what she saw. But truthfully Akechi had nothing to lose. He’d broken free of the illusion before, he’d do it again. And no matter how much time passed the distortion would never fade. Akechi could keep trying until it killed him.

And wouldn’t it, after this was all over?

Akechi scoffed a little at the futility of it all and took his phone out of the pocket. The Metaverse Navigator blinked innocently on his home screen. “Ren Amamiya,”

“S-Senpai?”

Akechi looked Yoshizawa dead in the eyes. The shock reflected back at him was entirely real.

“Tokyo,”

Around him Akechi could feel the very fabric of reality humming and twisting, waiting for the final words to seal its fate.

“What-“

Akechi took a deep breath, simultaneously hoping and dreading what came next.

“Psychiatric Hospital,”

In the centre of a busy side street Goro Akechi and Kasumi Yoshizawa disappeared. People stopped to look for a moment, pointing and staring in stilted, rehearsed surprise. In the next instant they’d moved on, the two teens already forgotten.

Chapter Text

All Akechi could see was white.

He didn’t know what he expected from Ren’s palace but this immaculate, expansive emptiness wasn’t it. It was almost, no, scratch that, it was painful, enough so that Akechi had to shut his eyes for a moment to block the light.

When he opened them Yoshiazawa stood next to him, dressed fully in her thieves outfit. She was looking around rapidly, only her gymnastic balance keeping her from tripping as she spun around with enough force to make Akechi dizzy.

Akechi glanced upwards and saw white walls. In front was a similarly white hallway with grey unfriendly looking doors running along the left and right. The hallway itself seemed to stretch, seemingly without end. If Ren’s cognition really spanned the entirety of Tokyo it made sense that Akechi couldn’t even begin to see the end of it.

“This is Senpai’s-“ what Yoshizawa was going to say trailed off as soon as she saw Akechi. “Akechi-san, your clothes...”

When Akechi looked down at his arms they weren’t covered in Loki’s black-purple garb. The sleeves were that of his winter coat, his gloves that of his winter gloves. And when he lifted said gloved hand up to his face it met cold, dead skin.

Loki , he whispered into the suffocating air. Robin Hood.

Akechi couldn’t even feel the barest hints of them brushing up against his mind. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt them.

Akechi’s hand fell to rest as his side, closing into a fist in poorly controlled rage. It was clear what was going on here. Akechi had been prepared to lose even more respect for Ren, but not in the first few minutes.

“That cowardly piece of trash doesn’t see me as a threat,” he hissed out, taking no satisfaction at the way Yoshizawa flinched backwards when faced with the sheer venom lacing his voice. “He thinks he has such control over me that he can-“

Akechi stopped himself before he could say something he regretted to Yoshizawa. If he really wasn’t able to summon his Persona then he’d have to rely on her (an idea he loathed) in order to make the slightest dent in Ren’s palace.

So although his rage still hummed underneath his skin he forced himself to adopt some sort of composure, digging his nails into suddenly uncomfortable clothes to ground himself.

“This is Ren’s palace, as I’m sure you’ve guessed. Although I discovered it’s existence yesterday this is my first time entering it,” he gestured to his clothes with a bit more anger than was probably necessary. “Otherwise I wouldn’t be so...unprepared,”

Yoshizawa’s eyes were wide. Hearing that her precious senpai had a distortion was probably unsettling her. That, coupled with the fact that Akechi was fully prepared to shatter her existence as Kasumi meant she was probably in danger of fainting. Which would leave Akechi hardly endangered considering all he had was his gun and a few useless items. Akechi wondered briefly whether Ren’s obsession with him would stop the shadows in this place from attacking him.

As if on cue one of the steel, unwelcoming doors creaked open. Out of it emerged a skeletal looking shadow, wearing a dirty white lab coat like a second skin. It turned disturbingly beady eyes on them instantly, and Akechi and Yoshizawa froze like rabbits in headlights.

“Yoshizawa-san,” he said sternly, as a horrible thought struck him. “You can summon your Persona, right?”

If she believed herself to be Kasumi, would her Persona even answer her call? And if not...they were relatively close to the entrance, but as Akechi dared to look upwards he found array and array of identical doors spiralling up like a staircase, leading all the way up to the highest point, where a sort of light shone faintly through what could very well be a small skylight or trapdoor. If they could find a way up there, it was very likely Ren’s treasure would be there. How easily Akechi came to that conclusion irked him. What kind of Master Thief showed his hand so easily? And putting that aside, could shadows jump down and ambush them from above if they tried to escape?

“Akec-no, Crow-senpai!” their enemy had gotten closer, and Yoshizawa fixed him with a determined look. “Please leave this to me!”

“Don’t get sloppy,” he warned. “I’ll support you, but it won’t be what you’re used to,”

“Why...” the shadow’s speech was so garbled Akechi could hardly decipher it. “Why are you back so soon.”

Yoshizawa looked pointedly at Akechi, but he shook his head. He didn’t know what the shadow was talking about. He’d remember infiltrating a palace like this, even if it wasn’t Ren’s.

“Leave,” it hissed, with a voice like creaking metal. “Leave!”

“Whenever you’re ready, or maybe a little sooner,” Akechi said to Yoshizawa with more than a little urgency.

The shadow began to take its true form, morphing into a grotesque hunk of slime that inched towards them, armed with lethal (albeit lazy) intent.

Akechi took one step backwards and watched as Yoshizawa moved to meet the threat.

“Come!” she yelled, with the sort of confidence he ached to match. “Ella!”

The Persona that emerged was not one Akechi remembered seeing before, but the relation to Yoshizawa’s Cendrillion was undeniable. This one was cloaked all in white, and would have sunk into their surroundings if it wasn’t for the almost ephemeral glow it gave off, like it was a holy, infallible figure. It towered over their enemy, and knocked it down before they even had the chance to strike.

So caught up in the battle Yoshizawa seemed to falter at the sudden lack of direction despite Akechi’s earlier warning. Of course after knocking an enemy down Ren normally decided what to do with it. Before Yoshizawa could reach a decision Akechi pulled out his gun and shot twice in quick succession. The shadow disintegrated into dust on impact, and Yoshizawa’s Persona flickered and faded in a manner that was not so dissimilar to it.

“Thank you for the assist, Crow-senpai,” he wouldn’t show it but he was relieved that she was still referring to him by his code name despite his obvious uselessness on the field. “But I had it under control,”

“It didn’t exactly look that way to me,” he said offhandedly. “Say, what’s your code name again?”

Yoshizawa balked, obviously hurt at the idea that Akechi could have forgotten her code name. But as expected Yoshizawa wracked her brain and came up blank. Her code name, a blatant hint of her true identity, lay just out of reach, likely just as Maruki intended.

“Well...that’s...”

“Your teammates decided on Violet as a code name for you,” he interjected smoothly. “And tell me, Yoshizawa-san, what’s that English for?”

It was almost amusing how fast Yoshizawa went pale, confidence rushing out of her face in an instant. Two hands moved to her face, one vibrating nervously near her lips, the other reaching over to clutch her head. “Ah...” she groaned. “My sister...”

Yoshizawa was the picture of distress but Akechi didn’t falter, not even to feel the slightest modicum of guilt for pushing her to this point.

“Your sister?” he echoed drily. “Is that really her name?”

Yoshizawa nodded frantically, but the action seemed to only cause her more pain. Her fingers tightened their grip on her head, the hand that had been poised over her lips moving to dig into her skull.

“Yes...” she hissed, and then, as if saying the very name caused her pain, croaked out, “Sumire...”

Akechi waited for her to elaborate but she seemed content, or rather, discontent, to stand hunched there with her nails in her scalp. Akechi was suddenly very aware of their location and how easy they would be to ambush. He couldn’t rely on Yoshizawa to cover him, not like how she was. He considered briefly the thought that they should have navigated to a safe room first before orchestrating this song and dance, but the idea of going any further in with a girl so brainwashed watching his back was enough to make him gag.

Deciding a change of approach was needed, and fast, Akechi thought back to the new Persona Yoshizawa had showed,

“Your Persona. I’ve never seen it before today,” Akechi mused. When Yoshizawa didn’t openly react he took on a harsher tone. “When did you get it?”

Yoshizawa opened strained looking eyes to meet his gaze. “Ah...that was..Senpai...”

“Ren?” Akechi asked sharply. “He was involved?”

Yoshizawa’s hands wandered from her skull to her ponytail, feeling down it to claw at the hair tie encircling it with anxious hands. “He...” Akechi thought he could hear the sound of her teeth grinding against each other in disgenious sycophancy. The noise was so loud he worried her teeth would snap. “He told me...he told me...”

Akechi could see the exact moment when understanding flooded Yoshizawa’s eyes, not little by little but all at once. Her eyes widened, her expression went from pained to somewhere halfway between betrayed and confused, and the hand that had been curled around her hair tie pulled it off in one messy motion, letting the red strands billow out around her like a crimson veil.

Had Akechi looked like that to Ren? Like the floor had been pulled out from beneath his feet and he couldn’t keep his balance? Had he looked that weak, that scared, that broken to him?

He hoped not, but if he had, it was no small wonder why he wasn’t being seen as a threat.

“He told me we’d get out of this reality,” Yoshizawa looked at him with eyes teeming with betrayal. “I don’t understand. Did we forget to send the calling card or-“

“Maruki came to Leblanc the evening of February the 2nd. He laid out some terms and Ren made the decision to accept this accursed fake reality,”

“But I just talked to him hours beforehand,” Yoshizawa frowned. “And back then he’d seemed sure,”

“The reasons why he chose this reality are irrelevant,” Akechi dismissed. “What’s important is that he disregarded everyone’s wishes for this fake happiness,”

Yoshizawa exhaled sharply. Considering everything, she was taking things fairly well. “I was wondering,” she murmured. “How could Senpai have a palace? But if he made a decision like this, then-“

“He’s no worse than Maruki,” Akechi confirmed, and then waved a hand around their surroundings. “Don’t you see the similarities? It’s a little emptier but the atmosphere of this palace is very clearly inspired by Maruki’s own,”

“Does he know?” Yoshizawa asked quietly. “Ren-senpai, I mean,”

“Of course not,” Akechi snapped. “What use would there be in telling Ren about his distortion? He’s so utterly devoted to this reality he wouldn’t lift a finger to help remove his own distortion. He might even directly oppose us, or get Maruki to wipe our memories,”

That last bit obviously struck a nerve if the wag Yoshizawa flinched backwards was any indication. “Would Senpai really-“

“He trapped us here, didn’t he?” Akechi gestured to their stifling surroundings, but the true meaning of his words were clear. “You can’t rule out what he’d do to keep us here. We’re better safe than sorry. Besides, when we send the calling card he can decide whether he’s for or against us,”

Yoshizawa cast her eyes at the ground. “So you’re serious about this? About stealing Senpai’s heart?”

Akechi faltered for a minute, if only because he hadn’t really given it that much thought. He’d spent every moment since he found out about Ren’s palace contemplating the source of his distortion, and cursing him for even letting it exist. The idea of stealing Ren’s heart had never truly occurred to him. He’d gone through palaces alone before, of course, but never like this, with nothing but his gun and wits to protect him. And although Yoshizawa was powerful she was still inexperienced. Although they could maybe get through it in one piece, navigating Ren’s palace would likely take weeks, more even. And that was saying nothing about the possibility of having to fight Ren’s shadow. If it was just the two of them they’d get solidly trounced.

Akechi needed his Persona badly. But no matter how hard he called for them Loki and Robin Hood stayed silent. They weren’t entirely gone-Akechi didn’t feel empty, just tired, like he’d been sapped of the energy to call them. He felt like he could sleep for years. He supposed he would do, once this was all over.

“I can’t go against Maruki on my own,” Akechi begrudgingly admitted. “I’ll at least need Joker.”

“But even with the three of us...” Yoshizawa trailed off, obviously still thinking about that achingly slow first day in Maruki’s palace, when it was just them against increasingly towering odds. “....can we really do it?”

“You’re stronger now,” Akechi pointed out, for argument’s sake, but he knew it was a moot point. “So you want to get the Phantom Thieves involved, then? How do you think they’ll react to the idea of having to steal their precious leader’s heart?”

“You’re strong, Crow-senpai, but I don’t think we have the luxury of doing this just on our own,”

“So you want to do this,” Akechi confirmed. “You have no issue with stealing Ren’s heart?”

Yoshizawa pretty face transformed into something unreadable. “I’m angry at Senpai,” her eyes flickered around her surroundings for a moment before settling on Akechi. “I was happy as living as Kasumi but he tore me out of it, and forced me to be my true self. And after he promised to break us out of this reality he brought me right back in it. Just as I was beginning to accept Sumire, he exposed all my doubts and weaknesses again.” her hands were trembling fists at her sides, caught somewhere between angry and terrified. “I know he must have had his reasons, but the fact that he didn’t talk to us about them...didn’t even warn us...”

“-It’s more than you can forgive,” Akechi finished. He felt the flicker of a smile coming on, despite himself. Was he relieved to hear Yoshizawa’s conviction? He’d expected her to just follow orders, whether they be Ren’s or his own. Hearing that she had her own motivations, her own stake in the battle was strangely comforting.

It was easy to forget, but Ren had robbed an entire nation of their true reality. Akechi wasn’t the only victim here, he’d condemned them all. Akechi honestly hadn’t expected Yoshizawa to be so righteously angry. It would be intriguing to see whether the rest of the Phantom Thieves, who had always worshipped Ren so reverently, would be quite as furious.

“Should we leave now?” Yoshizawa asked doubtfully. Although Akechi had no doubt that her sudden resurgence of memories had left her somewhat drained, she didn’t show it. She vibrated with a sort of anxious energy, torn between the desire to investigate Ren’s palace and the want to retreat and recuperate .

“I’d like to go further in,” Akechi decided, casting his gaze on a certain door amongst the array of others that glinted just a little different to the rest. “I sense a safe room nearby, and one of these doors may very well lead upstairs,”

Yoshizawa craned her neck upwards to look at spiralling walkway after walkway, each dizzyingly narrow with no steps connecting each. Ren would simply traverse them with his grappling hook, but Akechi had neither hook nor the confidence to move with the required grace outside his thief’s clothes.

But it was fine. Akechi rolled his shoulders in as casual a manner as possible, trying and failing to appear comfortable in his own skin.

Any time, Loki, he thought as Yoshizawa began to creep forward on his cue, with clumsily eager steps only saved by her inherent grace.

As expected he received no reply. The irony of a brainwashed Yoshizawa being able to summon an evolved form of her Persona while a clear minded Akechi couldn’t even bring out a spark wasn’t lost on him. Ren’s refusal to see him as a threat was affecting him and his Persona more than it logically should.

Yoshizawa slammed the first door they came across with accidental force, and they both winced back at the sound, Akechi grateful nobody was behind him to see his shudder. The room was thankfully empty, save for a small, rickety looking bed in the corner and a worn looking armchair. Their was a lightbulb over the bed but it was cracked, and flickered in starts that would be eerie if they weren’t so utterly pathethic.

“This place is...” Yoshizawa trailed off, seemingly stumped.

“It’s still technically a pyschiatric facility. The one in Tokyo was known for being massively understaffed. This one Ren has conjured could very well be reminiscent that,”

“To think, “ Yoshizawa went two shades paler. “I could have ended up...”

She didn’t finish that comment. Akechi was grateful for it. He didn’t want to think about the purpose of this place or the familiarity it wrought with just one single room.

Broken lights, threadbare mattress, dirty sinks. All of it brought Akechi closer to a place he’d rather forget.

“It was so clean on the outside,” Yoshizawa mused, wrinkling her nose at the layer of dust sitting on the beside table. “What’s this meant to mean?”

“It’s just one front Ren shows to society,” Akechi said vaguely. “It’s not...it’s not important,”

Yoshizawa cocked a brow. “I want to understand why Senpai’s like this. An eerie place like this...I can’t just ignore it,”

“I’m sure you can guess. It’s not a difficult metaphor to unravel, Yoshizawa-san,”

“Violet,” she corrected, with a little more bite than he expected. “And I guess you’re right,”

Akechi took in her and his surroundings for a minute before blanching. He felt unclean just standing in that room. “There’s nothing for us here, let’s move out. If all those identical doors are any indication I’d wager there’s a lot of rooms just like this one we have to get through,”

Yoshizawa didn’t say anything to the contrary, which was a relief, so they headed back out to the too clean hallway and began making slow, steady progress. Yoshizawa clearly wasn’t used to solo combat, but Akechi was a talented shot, more than good enough to cover her flank when she was attacking an opponent. The enemies that had attacked them had ranged from lone ones to pairs, however he knew that if three were to attack at the same time they’d find themselves at a very large disadvantage very quick.

Which was why Akechi was hugely relieved to finally reach the large, slightly more ornate double doors indicating a safe room. On Akechi’s cue Yoshizawa swung the doors open with none of Ren’s easy poise and stumbled inside. Akechi followed, more than a little tired. It seemed that moving about outside of his thieves’ outfit really was draining.

Thankfully the safe room itself was far more welcoming than the creepy patient rooms they’d encountered on the way here, all woefully the same apart from a stray treasure chest or shadow-if a little clinical. Akechi thought he caught the barest glance of the warm colours of Leblanc before the white sofas and low glass table took over his vision instead. Yoshizawa collapsed on the sofa, too tired to pretend at attentiveness, and so Akechi, despite his similarly aching limbs cast his eyes around for any clues.

The room they were in bore a certain resemblance to a consultation room one might find at a psychiatrist’s office. Although the walls were blank Akechi could easily imagine them covered with bullshit platitudes and positivity.

There was one item hanging on the walls in fact, Akechi realised. It was what looked like a clipboard, with only a few pages left in its sheath. The page it was currently on was torn a little at the top, like the aggressor had ripped out the ones preceding it and accidentally damaged this one in the process. It was patient list, Akechi decided, even though he’d received no evidence to support this sudden leap in logic. It was a patient list with only one name.

A name that was scrawled out and crossed over in black pen. It was so messy that Akechi couldn’t even tell whether it was Ren’s writing, let alone who the name belonged to.

He could guess, though. Akechi looked at his hands. They were bare after he’d taken his winter gloves off to aim better. The fact that they weren’t enveloped in Loki’s empowering garb spoke volumes about how Ren saw him. A patient. A pity project. Not a threat.

“What’s that, Crow-senpai?” she was suddenly very close. It bothered Akechi that he hadn’t heard her come up behind him. Maybe his Metaverse outfit affected more than just his lethargy.

“A check-in list for patients, I guess,” Akechi squinted at the date barely legible on the paper. “The year appears to be 2016 but the month could be a four. Or an eight,”

“Or an eleven,” Yoshizawa said helpfully, because what better time for Ren’s brain to institutionalise Akechi than in the month he’d shot him in the head.

Of course, that would imply that Ren had had the palace longer than-

Akechi ignored this thought. It was an impossible one. Palaces didn’t operate on time or logic. They could manifest years after a traumatic incident and that traumatic incident could still be the core of the palace.

It was Ren’s decision to trap them in this reality that had created this palace, maybe with the help of what Akechi had done to him. Regardless the palace was creepy and eerie and wrong, and although he could sense that they’d barely made a single dent in it he was more than willing to pack up and go home and avoid thinking about it for the rest of his short life.

Yoshizawa was too, evidently, if her slightly hunched posture was any indication, and so after they’d dealt with their scrapes with whatever little medicine they’d had they started to head back to the entrance.

They encountered quite a strong shadow lurking in wait by the entrance, but Yoshizawa and Akechi, fuelled by the adrenaline of being nearly home free, dealt with it with nearly excessive power. As Yoshizawa dealt the finishing blow Akechi needlessly unloaded his entire magazine on the wretched thing with a certain degree of relish. Twisted though it was, he’d missed this. And without a Persona, standing mercilessly over his enemy with a loaded gun was the closest to that rush he could get.

“I’ve been wondering, Crow-Senpai,” Yoshizawa chirped, as Akechi’s chamber finally rang hollow. “You’re way more scary than me. How can Senpai not see you as a threat?”

Akechi barked a laugh, kicking the shadow with his shoe as it dissapitated into dust. “Unsettled?”

“Not at all,” she said, surprising him. “It was a little surprising at first, but now that I’ve watched you some more, it’s actually kind of inspiring,”

Akechi turned to look at Yoshizawa’s easy genuine smile, and any scathing retort died on his lips, luckily along with the blush that had been beginning to form. Akechi didn’t deal well with praise, never had, yet he’d always fished for compliments like an overeager puppy. Receiving one like this unbidden, when he’d been expecting a sort of awkward dismissal was...something. It certainly was something.

“Let’s go,” he announced, before he could start lamenting about the possible repercussions of Yoshizawa finding him inspiring and get them attacked by a rogue shadow.

They came out exactly where they’d been, the exact same street, and unless Akechi’s eyes were playing tricks on him, nearly the exact same people. The only thing that had changed was the position of the sun in the sky. It was nearing evening.

“It’s getting late,” Yoshizawa voiced his thoughts. “I should get home, my dad will worry-“ she trailed off, as if realising what going back home meant.

“I shouldn’t have to tell you this, but don’t cause any major disruptions. Maruki probably has your home under some form of surveillance. I know it may be difficult but please live under the guise of Kasumi Yoshizawa for now,”

Yoshizawa looked pale, but she nodded her head determinedly. “I did that for months. I can do it again for a while. And as long as I don’t forget who I really am it’ll be fine. And I won’t forget. Not ever again,”

Akechi secretly doubted that. Forgetting was as easy as Maruki clicking his fingers, but he figured it was probably the least helpful thing he could say in the moment.

“Let’s take the day off tomorrow to plan,” his own suggestion surprised him. “We don’t want to haphazard roping in the Phantom Thieves, especially as tired as we are,”

Distracted, Yoshizawa nodded. “Yeah. That’s, that’s a good idea, Akechi-san. Umm, I’m going to...” she gave him a quick bow. “If you’re going in there, please contact me. And don’t go in by yourself. It’s dangerous,”

“I know it’s dangerous,” Akechi scoffed, and then felt instantly bad for dismissing her concern when she flinched backwards. “I won’t do anything reckless,”

“I’ll hold you to that,” she promised, before throwing a wave and dashing off into a slightly too urgent to be normal stride. So much for being non disruptive.

He wondered briefly if he should accompany her home but he figured that would look odder to anybody that knew him than her running pale through the Tokyo side streets.

So with Yoshizawa out of sight that just left him on his own, feeling more than a little empty. Although he knew he had to think about it eventually he put all thoughts of Ren’s palace out of his mind. It wasn’t as difficult as he expected. After all, apart from his inability to summon his Persona the visit had been uncharacteristically ordinary. For someone like Ren to have a palace so pathethic and predictable, when Akechi used to treasure his unique thought process and almost terrifying spontaneity was-

Well, it was something to think about later.

Akechi shrugged his gloves back in and took off walking in what he assumed was the general direction to home. He hadn’t quite been paying attention when was walking with Kitagawa but the area seemed faintly familiar enough for him to shut off and trust his instincts to do the walking for him.

With thoughts of Ren under a strict ban the ensuing walk was almost pleasant. Akechi filled his thoughts with mundane things, like his need to go buy groceries and purchase a new novel recently out. They were the sort of things Akechi had done in the free time he could catch between school and work and Shido. Now he had none of those the familiarity these thoughts brought him were no small comfort. They were things Akechi could imagine himself doing, when this was all over.

Not that Akechi would be doing much of anything once this was all over. He wasn’t particularly spiritual, so he didn’t have any grand expectations for an afterlife. Between his death in Shido’s palace and seeing Ren on Christmas Eve there was simply a gap in his memory best described as emptiness. That was probably what death, true, permanent death would be like.

Akechi didn’t have time to curse himself for straying from harmless thoughts to morbid musings as his phone began to ring incessantly from his pocket. Feeling more than a little irritated and tired enough to be lacking in all common sense, he answered without even looking at the ringer.

“Hello?”

The laughter on the other end of the call at his gruff greeting was caught somewhere between nervous and amused. It was a laugh Akechi had started to hear more and more, the closer he’d got with Ren.

“Hello to you too,” Akechi could practically hear his grin through the screen. “Had that great a day?”

“It was incredible,” he deadpanned. “What’s this about anyways? It’s not like you to call first,”

“Why, were you planning on giving me a call?”

Akechi said nothing.

“That’s what I thought,” Ren teased, but the air of reluctance in his voice was irritating. He wanted something, Akechi was sure of it.

“Spit it out, Ren,” Akechi was feeling remarkably impatient with him. Maybe a day of running around one’s subconscious did that to a person.

Suddenly Akechi was struck with a sudden fear. Did Ren know Akechi had been snooping around in his palace? They hadn’t seen his shadow, not even come close, but in their haste and exhaustion they’d been spotted by more than a few shadows who could have raised the alarm. Ren would know better about the effects a palace had on a person’s psyche, he had more experience in that regard, but ironically he was also the last person Akechi would plausibly ask.

The strange numb feeling that had steadily overtaken him during his walk was gone. He clutched his phone harder, gloves fingers aching when they dug too hard into the weak plastic.

“We haven’t really hung out lately,” Ren said conversationally. He was being uncharacteristically roundabout and coy about this. Akechi had yet to decide whether this was a good or bad thing.

“I saw you two days ago,” he reminded him.

“You caught me by surprise,” Ren corrected him in turn. “And I mean, it’s been a while since we went out. Not just to Leblanc.”

“I want to yell at you for a whole manner of things,” Akechi relaxed slightly at the topic of choice. “And I’d rather not do that in a public place. This might surprise you, but I can still feel embarrassment,”

“With some of the clothes you wear?” it was the sort of easy jab Ren would make months ago, back when he knew nothing about Akechi bar his job as a detective and back when he in turn had an honest, intellectual interest in Ren as a person as well as a Phantom Thief. Things were still complicated back then, and Akechi was woe to return to those times, but between them at least things had been easier.

“I believe that is the pot calling the kettle black. You often look like you’ve just rolled out of bed. In the evening,”

“It’s my look,” Ren insisted, which Akechi was pretty sure was bullshit. “Look, I just thought we could hang out like we used to. And talk about philosophy, or tv shows or your dumb dress sense,”

Akechi’s flaming retort died on his lips. “It’s smart casual,” he whispered.

“I never said you didn’t look good in it,”

Akechi could hear the blush in Ren’s words like a second heartbeat. The fact that Akechi felt inclined to do the same at the compliment was repulsive. But Akechi had been angry for so long. He was tired of it. Even if it was just for one evening, just an hour, if he could escape from any of it...

“Where-“ Akechi cleared his throat to give his voice a more confident undercut. “-exactly were you thinking?”

“What about the Jazz club? It’s been ages since we visited,” although Ren’s voice still sounded calm enough the slight inflection in it betrayed that he was pleased with Akechi’s response.

He was right. It had been an awfully long time since Akechi had went. He’d considered going during this awkward lonely week he was having. But since he’d gone that first time with Ren it’d been hard to stomach going on his own.

“That’s fine,” he said as cooly as he could muster. “I’ll meet you there, then?”

“I’m on the subway now,” Ren explained. “I’ll meet you halfway. Where are you now?”

“That’s unnecessary,” Akechi said, or at least that was what he intended to say before the words died in his throat halfway through. He’d clued back into his surroundings. He knew where he was.

“Akechi?” the alarm in Ren’s voice made him want to scream.

“Odaiba,” Akechi admitted, too tired to lie. “I’m at Odaiba, by the stadium,”

He hadn’t been to Odaiba since the last time they’d infiltrated Maruki’s palace. The palace itself had gone from barely tangible to almost fully opaque, a huge, terrifying piece of architecture judging him from above. He wondered if its stronger outward appearance indicated that its defenses had been fortified on the inside. Technically there was nothing stopping Akechi from going into check. Nothing but the last shreds of common sense he possessed firmly reminding him that that would go terribly terribly wrong.

Once again the memory of what had happened on his line infiltration snuck back into his brain. It would be worse if he went again. He knew it would be. No matter how desperate he was to break free, he couldn’t subject himself to that again. He wouldn’t.

“Stay there,” Ren’s voice shook a little but ultimately remained steady. “Stay right there I’m coming to get you,”

Akechi felt like a petulant child who’d strayed too far from his parents’ side. “Ren I’m not...I wasn’t going to-“

“Please stay there, I’m on my way,”

The line rang dead an instant later, leaving Akechi scowling at the expensive piece of plastic. He considered walking home by himself, but the sight of Maruki’s palace had left him feeling slightly unsteady, like he’d trip at the slightest bump in the road. So, rather than risk Ren seeing Akechi stumble over himself like a blinded fool he parked himself by the opposite wall and waited.

At some point during the wait his position went from a sort of casual lean to a slouch to a full on crouch against the wall. It was undignified and unflattering. If he had done anything like that at Shido’s business meetings the man might have had an aneurism and died on the spot without the need for any poorly calculated revenge plans. It was a funny image, funny enough to entertain Akechi and keep his focus away from the looming Palace, at least until familiar sounding footsteps arrived.

“You doing okay down there?” Ren’s tone was casual, but Akechi could hear the slight tremble that betrayed he’d been more than a little afraid. He sounded out of breath too, like he’d ran all the way from the station.

“Fine,” Akechi ignored the hand Ren offered and got to his feet with minimal wobbling.

Ren was dressed surprisingly smart, at least by his standards, a sure sign that he intended to go somewhere-with that somewhere not being Leblanc. He’d look handsome if it wasn’t for the fact that his cheeks were flushed and his breath a little short, although Akechi supposed it didn’t do all that much to detract from his objective attractiveness. What did lose Ren in all possible social stats was his insistence on not leaving Akechi alone.

Ren retracted his hand, looking almost childishly sullen at the rejection.

“What happened to talking earlier in the evening?” Akechi accused, just because he could. “It’s even later than our last ‘chat’,”

“I sent you a call earlier, but you didn’t respond. Guess you were busy,”

“I was,”

They started walking, Ren close enough to Akechi that it could be seen as a little more than friendly, but not too close so that he couldn’t pull away. That Ren was willing to compromise on these small details but not their fake reality was aggravating. Akechi would almost rather he take what he wanted instead of this play at being considerate.

Still, he was in no way scared or cautious of Ren like he’d expected to be or even ought to be after seeing his palace. Although the experience had certainly been unsettling, and more than a little eerie, none of it had been particularly shocking. Ren helped the entirety of Tokyo. The entirety of Tokyo bar Akechi didn’t need help anymore. His subconscious manifested a physchiatric facility with Akechi as the only patient. That was it. Simple, mundane. Easy to understand. Perhaps Akechi had been overestimating Ren this whole time-overvaluing his intelligence, his wit, his compassion. After all, his palace had laid bare his true self, hadn’t even made the barest attempt to hide it in fact.

Akechi knew even so that despite how easy it was to compartmentalise Ren’s issues and psyche based purely on the connection between the palace and real world events, it still didn’t feel real. The palace hadn’t felt like Ren, not in the slightest, and they hadn’t seen head or hair of his shadow. If Akechi wasn’t certain he’d said his name in the Metanav he’d think the thing had glitched and sent them to some other palace entirely.

“Enjoyed your busy day?”

They were on the train now, both easily able to get a seat despite what should have been a busy hour. Even so Akechi felt distinctly uncomfortable. Although Ren seemed to use the train to get just about everywhere Akechi had always preferred to cycle. He normally felt stuffy and more than a little claustrophobic on trains. The effect was lessened obviously in this fake reality, but the ingrained psychological dislike wouldn’t so easily go away.

Ren’s expression was quickly becoming one of concern as he watched him. His perceptiveness clearly hadn’t dulled a bit. Not wanting to have to fend off concerns about his health Akechi jumped to answer his question.

“Yes,” he remarked dryly, very pointedly not looking at Ren. “It was eye-opening. It was so fantastic I’m considering living in this reality for the rest of my life,”

Ren smiled at him, not reacting to the jab like he’d hoped. “Come on, this is our stop,”

“I’m well aware,” Akechi snapped, and so the two of them walked side by side into the cold evening air. Actually they were a stop early, but it still wasn’t too long a walk.

They made it to the jazz club with minimal distractions, which was strange for Ren. The times he’d seen him around Kichjoji he always seemed frantically busy, talking to familiar faces and running two and fro on countless errands. Here he only smiled politely at any waves he received, not even stopping to return the greeting. Akechi was grateful for this of course, he didn’t exactly want to be weighed down by his companion’s primal need for camaraderie, but it still felt like Ren was turning away a little part of himself by ignoring them.

Akechi wished it had taken them longer almost as soon as they set foot in the club itself. It was achingly familiar, similar patrons, the same friendly manager, the singer tapping the mic in anticipation of a song. And yet, like everything, the energy was ever so slightly different in some way he couldn’t possibly explain.

Although, he reasoned as him and Ren sat down, at the same table as that final night before the infiltration, it wasn’t like things would have stayed the same even if he’d survived their true reality. There would always be this palpable tension between them, a line crossed with no return. Whether it would have brought them closer or further was up in the air, but he imagined it would have felt something like this.

Akechi ordered for the both of them, a particularly sweet mocktail he knew Ren would despise. When the alarmingly green drinks arrived Akechi watched with no small degree of satisfaction as Ren’s face wrinkled in obvious discomfort at first taste.

“You’ve resorted to poison, then?” he lowered the glass from his mouth, staring at it suspiciously enough that Akechi was almost fooled into thinking he believed his words.

“Well a detective can hardly use the same murder method twice, can they?” Akechi bared his teeth genially. “I’ve had to resort to other means,”

“Evidently,” Ren grimaced, before setting down his glass and returning to his friendlier disposition as if nothing had ever disrupted it. “You still haven’t told me about your introduction to the fine arts,”

“Kitagawa made a painting inspired by you,” Akechi said bluntly, schooling his expression into something neutral when he downed his drink because he may have had a sweet tooth but there was such a thing as too much.

“And?” Ren leaned forward slightly. With his glasses just about sitting on his nose and his grin wide and easy he looked criminally charismatic. “Was it flattering?”

“It gave the impression that you are a person composed entirely of hope and joy and love and compassion and brilliance,”

Ren raised an eyebrow. “Do I get to defend myself here before you tear me apart, or-“

“I’m a realist not a sadist, Ren,” Akechi cut him off swiftly. “You do in fact possess several good qualities. You just seemed to have lost absolutely all of them in the last week or so,”

“I won’t deny that,” Ren said softly, deadly serious at the drop of a hat. “But it’s for the good of everyone,”

Akechi wanted to laugh at the return of this mantra again, but he didn’t. The music that was starting to echo throughout the clubs was doing wonders at keeping his rage at bay. It was almost disappointing that they couldn’t play at harmless banter for even a moment longer.

“Why did you bring me here, Ren?”

“You seem to like it,” Ren shrugged his shoulders casually. “And to be honest, so do I. Being here now is sort of nostalgic,”

Akechi could easily agree with that. But the view Ren had of the place, likely one achieved through rose coloured lenses, was undoubtedly different than Akechi’s.

“You may call it nostalgia, but I am far more inclined to call it bittersweet. After all, we can never have an evening like that again, can we?” even though Akechi knew it was pointless he lowered his voice into a drawl. “Unless of course, you choose to abandon this reality. Then I’m sure I could stomach seeing this place again,”

The ensuing silence was uncharacteristic of Ren, as was his tense, solemn expression. Akechi didn’t realise the reason for his somber disposition, not until he opened his mouth and his first words came flowing out. “You wouldn’t be...” he trailed off. “Never mind,”

Because of course. If Ren gave up this reality Akechi himself would cease to exist. That was the whole issue Ren was struggling to face. It was terribly unlike Akechi to forget, his impending death or disappearance of servitude normally invaded his thoughts at every waking moment. Overlooking the issue like this was almost embarrassing, and certainly did a great deal to move the tone of the conversation from tense to terribly awkward.

“Shouldn’t it be my decision to make?” he pushed, but by the downwards turn of Ren’s lips he knew instantly he wouldn’t get any meaningful response.

“It doesn’t work that way,” Ren reminded him, and so the conversation went around and around again. They had only talked a handful of times since Akechi had remembered but every time they had tread the same ground. Akechi felt like he’d had the same argument every day for a year, not once gaining the slightest inch of ground.

“Charming,” he sniffed. “Being favoured by that control-freak must give great benefits. Tell me, what else has he handed you on a silver platter?”

“Just....you,” Ren admitted. The acknowledgment that Ren practically owned Akechi body and soul was surprising. He thought Ren was still operating under the lie that Akechi had any free will of his own. “And well-“

“-the entirety of Tokyo?” Akechi finished, thinking of the sheer size his palace had offered. “He gave you anything and everything,”

“Yeah,” he didn’t sound very happy about it. “Life is good,” Although he made an attempt to smile afterwards, it faltered mere moments afterwards, a mask too well-worn for use.

Akechi battled against himself for a few seconds before making the executive decision to speak up. “I made a promise to myself, years and years ago,” he kept his time conversational but scathing, and found himself relishing despite himself the flicker of curiosity that burned in Ren’s eyes. “To not become like a certain person. No matter what,”

When Akechi didn’t offer up any names Ren dropped his voice to a whisper. “Your father?”

“No,” Akechi said. “My mother,”

Akechi did not like to often think about his mother, not because his time with her had been painful, but rather because it had been quite the opposite. She’d been the first person to give him affirmation and affection, and for years, even after her death, she was the only one. Times had been hard undoubtedly, but Akechi could barely remember those days in comparison to the brighter times, when she’d stayed at home with when he was sick all day, even cancelling her clients for the night so she could be by his side. He was well aware that he was viewing these events under a rose-tinted cloud of nostalgia, that for all she’d tried, it hadn’t been enough, not for either of them. And so Akechi tried to forget, but failed to frequently. It had been hard to forget, when he’d spent nearly every Saturday evening looking Shido in the eye.

If possible Ren’s expression grew even more solemn. Akechi hated it. Just like his Palace, just like his acceptance of this reality, it wasn’t like him. Or rather, it wasn’t like the perception he had of him. Akechi felt that there was a lot he didn’t understand about Ren that was only coming to the surface now, too late to help anyone.

“You’ve mentioned her before,” Ren recalled. He looked like he was going to say something else but refrained. It was aggravatingly considerate of him.

“It wasn’t my mother’s fault,” Akechi stayed firmly, because he felt he had to make that clear before Ren started getting ideas in his head that he was someone to be pitied (although it was probably too late to avoid that)-someone with two rotten parents instead of just one. “She was good to me, when it was just us, and when money wasn’t so tight. But the rest of the time, faced with jobs and bills and myself, it wasn’t easy. I remember her face when she used to pick me up from school. It would be tight around the edges, like she’d been holding back tears. All the other mothers used to ruthless to her, maybe because she was a single mother, maybe because she was poor, maybe because she was just prettier than all of them put together and their fragile egos couldn’t handle it. Regardless it got to a point where she wouldn’t even drop me off or pick me up anymore. It got to a point where she’d barely leave the house,”

Ren knew the ending to this story, Akechi could see it in his eyes. He was thinking of what to say, what response to muster that would deal Akechi the least emotional damage, as if he hadn’t already buried the knife into his chest to the hilt by trapping him here in the first place.

“She was wasting away, Ren,” he tried to keep his voice steady but he could hear a slight tremor, and knew Ren could too. The weakness made him clench his fists and continue with renowned vigor. “Stagnating. Living every horrible day the same, trapped in a never ending nightmare with only one way out,”

“That won’t happen to you,” Ren said, so quickly and confidently that Akechi could almost believe it.

Instead he scoffed into his drink. “Who said I was talking about myself?”

“I’m happy,” Ren reiterated, seemingly irritated that his adoration for this fake reality had been challenged. “We’ll both be. And even if we can’t, we have each other,”

“Inspiring,” Akechi groaned. “And why the sudden change of heart? Just a couple of nights ago you were clearly having doubts,”

Ren shook his head, but Akechi’s eyes were so focused on the acid-like colour of his drink that he only caught the tail end of the action. “I won’t deny I had doubts, and still do. Morally what Maruki is doing is all over the place,”

“Well I’m glad you’re not so far gone that you can’t recognise something as basic as that,”

“But it was wrong of you to die in that engine room as well, Goro. It shouldn’t have happened. I thought I’d feel better knowing you’re alive and safe, but you’re still worrying me,”

“You too,” Akechi admitted, although his worries were more focused on the darkness lurking in Ren’s cognition than his idiotic, self sacrificing tendencies. “Your thought process, your actions, they all put me on edge. I suppose you could say they’re a detriment to this so-called happiness you are so desperate for me to achieve,”

“Sorry,” Ren said, half genuine. “But it’ll all be over soon,”

Something about that wording struck Akechi as odd. Wasn’t it all over though, if they were talking about the acclimatisation of reality? Akechi had thought Maruki had achieved his goal on February 3rd. Was a second actualisation going to happen to weed out the people like Akechi still clinging to their present selves? If it did, would Akechi even survive it?

“I’m meeting with Maruki,” Ren confessed without Akechi even having to ask. He’d always admired that straight-forward part of him. “Two weeks from now. He wants to check in, I presume. But I also thinks he wants to say goodbye,”

Akechi wrinkled his nose. “Where on earth is he going?”

Ren shrugged. “His Palace, probably. I think he wants to take on a more observer kind of role. Less interference to make it more, y’know...” Ren gestured helplessly for a moment before calling it like it was. “Real.”

“Fascinating,” Akechi said sarcastically. “Did you know scientists operate under similar principles with regards to their test subjects?”

“What I’m saying is he won’t bother us after then unless something goes horribly wrong,” oh Akechi would make something go horribly wrong, he promised it. “And I’m pretty sure he won’t be available for us to contact after that date,”

Akechi wondered at first why Ren was telling him this, before the weight of his words fully struck him. Was Ren telling him this because he knew Akechi aimed to eventually steal his treasure or was it just something weighing on him that he wanted to share? It could hardly be the latter. Ren wasn’t exactly an expert at talking about his feelings.

But although Akechi didn’t know the logistics of sending a calling card, it made sense that it would have to be viewed outside of the palace in order to give time for the treasure to manifest. And by that logic stealing Maruki’s treasure would become horrendously difficult after February the twenty-seventh unless Akechi caused nothing short of a national emergency. In fact that date would be the perfect time to send the calling card, at Ren’s meeting with him.

The only problem then was that this revealed another, stricter deadline. If Akechi wanted to check out Maruki’s palace for changes before he sent the calling card-and he did, that meant he’d need to get Ren on his side at least two days before the deadline, although preferably a week. It was frustratingly tight timing, but at least it gave him something to go off of. Akechi could make a plan out of this. He would.

“Why are you telling me this, Ren?” he couldn’t resist poking the issue, even if it could end up damning him. “Don’t you realise I’m going to try even harder to break free from this place in the coming days?”

“I want to be clear with you,” Ren replied simply, but Akechi wondered if deep down he really was telling him this so he could steal Maruki’s treasure on time. Maybe subconsciously Ren wanted Akechi to break them both out without his help, so Akechi’s death wouldn’t be a source of guilt for him. He wasn’t sure if it was a comforting or depressing thought. “And I know you, Goro. You’re hardly going to walk up and shoot him,”

Akechi thought Ren may know him a little less than he assumed, if only because he had indeed considered assassinating Maruki several times in the past. The only reason he’d refrained was because he didn’t know what effect the man’s death would have on cognition, and also because Maruki held so much power that he’d probably knock him out before he could even think about lifting the gun.

“Don’t tempt me,” he warned, and then found himself fending off a sudden, ugly yawn. He made little attempt to cover it, despite their being in a public space. He was tired, the new knowledge he’d gleaned from both the day and evening’s events just sitting in his brain waiting to be pondered. And he would think over it. Extensively. But for now he was exhausted.

“Will we head home then?” Ren had been staring at Akechi since he’d yawned, the furrow in his eyebrows unreadable. “I’ll walk you, don’t want you falling asleep on the way there,”

Akechi stood up with a burst of energy he didn’t know he possessed, grabbing his coat off the back of his chair with an almost aggressive pull. “I’ll thank you not to coddle me,” he sneered. “And besides, I am older than you. Shouldn’t I be the one walking you home?”

Unexpectedly Ren lit up. “Would you?” it was hard to tell whether he was joking. “Morgana has been on my case about staying up too late. If he saw I was with someone he might be less annoying about it,”

They thanked the owner and stepped out into the freezing air. It felt colder than earlier, even with his thickest coat and gloves on. Still, despite the numbness something about Ren’s words struck a false chord.

“I thought Morgana stopped bothering you about sleeping early now he’s a human?” Akechi recalled. It was a small thing, but he remembered the complaints about the cat had lessened dramatically in early January.

“Yeah,” Ren didn’t seem too bothered about it. “But he’s started it up again,”

Did it mean anything? Was this facet of Morgana’s previous personality returning a sign that he was regaining his consciousness? Was it a mere coincidence, a result of Morgana’s unique circumstances, or even his proximity to Ren, a palace owner fully aware of the situation at hand? He was well aware that he was probably grasping at straws here, but he couldn’t get it out of his head.

“Hey,” Ren bumped his shoulder ever so slightly against Akechi’s, the move slow and deliberate. “What’s wrong?”

Everything, Akechi wanted to tell him. Everything was wrong. It was cold outside. He was a dead man walking. Ren had a palace and he had sent Yoshizawa away to be something she was not. Nothing was right in this world, not a single thing except maybe Ren’s not-a-cat yelling at him to go to bed on time.

But looking at Ren, at his eyes, so sincere and genuine despite all Ren had done, despite how the two of them had ruined each other in pursuit of their own feckless dreams, gave him pause.

“Nothing,” he ground out, and he rode with Ren on the train all the way home to Yongen-Jaya.

Chapter Text

Akechi woke from a dreamless sleep mercifully late in the morning, as was becoming tradition. Although he used to be victim to nightmare ridden nights that were only exacerbated by an erratic and unsustainable sleep schedule, since meeting with Maruki a couple of days ago he had slept for over ten hours each time he’d lain down, and relatively undisturbed as well. Ironically enough this made him want to sleep less. Although it was possible that simple coincidence was the reason his nights had been so peaceful, the idea that Maruki had somehow manipulated his sleeping patterns was a bitter bill to swallow.

Or perhaps he was growing increasingly paranoid. That too was very plausible.

Akechi took a long shower that never got cold no matter how he twisted the knob, and threw on yesterday’s clothes with his hair still soaking wet. There was milk in the fridge, likely four days old, and bread next to it, even older. Despairing Akechi instead picked up a stray apple, and tasted nothing with every bite.

It was still morning when Akechi threw away the remnants of his breakfast. His hair remained cold against the bare hint of his neck so he threw a towel over it as he navigated into the nearest chair and just. sat.

Everyone Akechi knew was at school. Without a Persona, without anything, he had nothing to do. It was ironic considering Ren had delivered him a deadline just the previous night. And although he knew maybe he should be planning for the infiltration, he barely had enough information to go on. Not to mention the fact that he didn’t particularly want to even think about Ren at the moment.

So that left him with nothing in particular to do. Hadn’t he used to...do things in his free time? Between school and shifts at the police station and Shido and Ren, there’d been something, right? Bouldering, Akechi thought distantly. Cycling. Going to stupid cafes to take stupid pictures for his stupid blog he hadn’t updated in months.

Akechi stood up with a sort of lazy determination. He wasn’t too sure about bouldering, but his bike was still locked at the apartment’s gate. A cycle would clear his head, and if didn’t, well he was officially out of options. Akechi gathered his damp hair into a small ponytail, pushing away the strands that brushed against his eyes. It felt like it had been ages since he’d left his apartment with the intent of doing something for himself, that he’d planned, even if it was just some excercise. Despite everything he even managed to conjure a spring in his step when he grabbed his helmet from its place by the door.

But it seemed fate (Maruki in poor disguise) wasn’t all too enthused at the prospect of Akechi making his own independent decisions, and so when he opened his front door (mostly) ready to face the world at large, said door halted in its opening, instead thumping against something outside on his mat.

Suddenly very wary, Akechi toed the door open further with his foot.

He wasn’t sure what he expected to see when it came to mysterious packages on his doorstep, but a small bouquet of flowers and a similarly petite box of chocolates-in the ever recognisable shape of a heart no less, would not have been his first guess.

The red item flashed at him like the Metaverse Navigator, teasing, sly. Slowly, almost robotically Akechi bent down to pick up the chocolates. There was a small card attached-with an unsettling resemblance to a calling card.

One side was blank. The other bore only a flaming top hat.

Akechi wanted to laugh at the insubtelty of it all. Ren might as well have signed his name himself. That almost hysterical feeling was replaced by a sinking repulsion as he took in the gifts, an unsteady feeling that only intensified with time. Tucking the chocolate under his arm despite his growing urge to drop them over his balcony, he picked up the tightly wrapped bouquet with his other hand. It was a nice floral arrangement, with bold, purple flowers Akechi didn’t know the name of, but the binding wrapping it all together was an ugly yellow. Akechi recalled that Ren used to work at the flower shop in the Shibuya underground mall. Had he made this himself?

As Akechi stared at the flowers he caught sight of one particularly pathethic looking one. It drooped behind its prouder peers weakly. There’d been an attempt to hide this imperfection if the way the other flowers were tastefully framed around it was any indication, but it didn’t change the fact it was there.

Akechi hadn’t seen a single wilting flower since he’d become aware of the fake reality. Seeing this one now, from Ren, felt like an omen, good or bad notwithstanding. It certainly seemed to progress a hypothesis he was clearly forming in his brain about Ren’s link to their true reality.

Somehow...seeing that miserable flower had calmed him down a little. He took his gifts off his doorstep and inside, throwing the chocolates onto his desk and eyeing the flowers conspiritationally. Throwing them out was the right thing to do to avoid giving Ren any mixed messages. And yet Akechi found himself looking for a vase. Predictably he came up empty, because Maruki could make flowers stay in season all year round but couldn’t conjure Akechi a glorified jam jar-and so the flowers sat awkwardly in a basin grabbed from his washroom. He propped this up precariously on the windowsill so it could catch the barest hints of sunlight that crept through his crack of a window.

Inexplicably the room seemed brighter already. He’d got flowers before. They were less common as gifts from admirers on Valentines’s Day than chocolate, and more useless too, but he’d never been able to deny finding them charming. And this bouquet in particular had him feeling considerably more...complicated, than any other he’d received before.

Contrary to what recent events might lead you to believe Akechi wasn’t an idiot. He hadn’t been sure of it before he died, but he now knew Ren had feelings for him of some degree, whether they be platonic, romantic or plain obsessive. He just couldn’t help but find it all insincere. Was it not likely that Ren thought this was the only way he could tie Akechi down, with gifts and compliments and promises of a deeper connection? Did he know that Akechi yearned for praise and attention like the very flowers he’d gifted him? Was he planning to take advantage of that very fact?

Because to himself, during particularly sleepless nights, Akechi would admit to having an...intellectual attraction to Ren. It was hard not to. He was smarter than anyone he’d ever known, and wittier too. He was agile, fit, and armed with a smile that could swoon and scare in a heartbeat-at least when he was Joker. And his downsides...his obsession with his friends, his self-sacrificing manner, his ridiculous belief that everyone could be saved...to another they may have seemed like more positives to add to the ridiculously large pile. Akechi thought differently. They’d been what stopped Akechi from falling in love with him, way back when they were just boy and detective.

(That was a lie. Akechi had had a very tiny crush during those times. Just a minor one.)

And he’d been right to look down on Ren’s flaws. It was those same flaws that had ruined everything. Ruined Akechi’s chance of killing his father and rotting away peacefully, ruined Yoshizawa’s chance to be her true self. Ren had ruined everything and yet Akechi still had his slightly lopsided flowers in a grey basin he found under the sink.

“Crazy,” he muttered, but he didn’t quite know whether he was talking about himself or Ren.

He didn’t get the chance to really think it through as his phone chose this moment to begin letting out a shrill, highpitched ring. Akechi started at the offending item with no small share of trepidation. It had to be Ren asking if he’d got his-

Huh. It was Yoshizawa.

“Hello?”

“Ah, Akechi-san! Um...I’m sorry, are you in class right now?” Yoshizawa’s voice sounded quite muffled, and if Akechi strained himself he could hear the sounds of meaningless chatter.

“No. But aren’t you?”

“Our class finished early, but that’s not the point!” Yoshizawa didn’t sound exactly panicked, which was good, but she certainly seemed a little flustered. “Um, I know you said not to tell anyone about Senpai’s-“

“Did you tell Ren?” he interrupted, and then felt stupid for it. It would be faster to let her go on with her stuttering then constantly questioning her.

“No,” he could almost hear her shaking her head. “I uh, it kind of slipped out in front of Ryuji-Senpai, but he’s his best friend anyways so I figured...if anyone deserved to know it was him?” her lack of confidence wasn’t exactly inspiring.

“I’m not exactly enamoured with your choice of confidant, Yoshizawa-san,” he couldn’t quite keep the disapproval out of his voice. “But do go on,”

“He was listening intently but it was as if as soon as I mentioned Ren’s palace and this reality he wasn’t hearing me anymore. When I finished he said he had training and left without really giving any response. That’s weird, don’t you think?”

“Yes, from what I know of Sakamoto I’d expect him to react with less tact,” Akechi admitted.

“But when you told me that this reality is fake, it made my head hurt. It resonated with me in some way. Ryuji-Senpai didn’t give any indication that he even heard me,”

Akechi glanced at the single wilting flower poking out from the basin. “I have a theory,” he began, not looking away from it. “Ren himself is completely aware of this reality. Him, the things he interacts with, are the closest things to our true reality here you’ll find. It stands to reason then that his Palace, a place created from his cognition-which knows this reality is fake, would exist as a bubble reflecting our true reality, not the fake one,”

Yoshizawa was silent for a moment, which was understandable. Akechi was pretty sure he’d lost even himself with that explanation.

“Maybe I should rephrase-“

“No,” Yoshizawa stopped him. “I think I understand. You’re saying that since Ren’s palace is a reflection of our true reality, people who enter the palace become aware this reality is fake, right?”

“Precisely,” Akechi confirmed, pleasantly impressed by her deduction. “People do not naturally question their own existence in reality. They conform to whichever one they are in at the current time. Real or fake. I didn’t ask you to go to Ren’s palace with me, which doesn’t exist in this fake reality. I asked you instead if you trusted me, an answer any sheep would respond yes to,”

“That’s kind of depressing,” Yoshizawa mumbled and then said, in a firmer tone. “And I would have said yes,”

“Pardon?”

“To your question about trusting you. I know you’ve obviously done some things you’re not proud of, but I never feel in any danger around you,” it was almost a shame Yoshiazawa’s earnestness was so misplaced.

“Perhaps you should,” he grit out without thinking, and then sighed when it seemed like Yoshizawa was gearing up to reply. “Putting that aside, if you wish to get the thieves involved we need a plan,”

“We have to get everyone into the palace to get them to remember. How do we do that? One by one?”

“No,” Akechi said quickly, and then remembered that he’d completely neglected to tell Yoshizawa about their new deadline. “We don’t have time for that. We need to get this palace done in the next two weeks,”

“Why? What’s happening?”

“It’s more to do with Maruki than Ren,” Akechi confessed. “And it’s unimportant at the moment. What is important is getting this done as quickly and painlessly as possible. Nijima mentioned you often hold study sessions. Is it possible to hold one soon?”

“I know they have one planned for Friday but that’s probably too late. If I say I have practice, I might be able to get it pushed back to tomorrow. But I can’t stop Senpai from coming too,”

“Don’t worry about Ren,” Akechi said darkly. “I’ll take care of him,”

Yoshizawa let out what could be best described as a nervous giggle. “Alright then,”

From his side of the phone, the high pitched chattering that had been ongoing during the duration of their call seemed to get a little louder.

“Where are you at the moment?”

“The bathroom,” Yoshizawa made an attempt to muffle the phone’s speaker. “I’m sorry, some of the other girls have come in,”

“You’re sure Ren isn’t listening?”

“It’s the girls’ bathroom,” Yoshizawa reminded him.

Akechi huffed derisevly. “Do not underestimate the depths of his perversions,”

“I don’t think Senpai would-“ Yoshizawa cut herself off with a hurried cough. “Um...did something happen between you two?” she asked uneasily. “Like, more than the usual?”

“I can’t think of anything in particular,” he lied and allowed himself a quiet congratulations for sounding remarkably unsuspicious.

Unfortunately it seemed to be for naught as Yoshizawa didn’t take the hint to drop the topic. “It’s just, you sound a little angry, and today’s-“

“Did Ren tell you he was leaving flowers?” he asked incredulously.

Yoshizawa hummed vaguely. It was pretty much a confirmation.

“Unbelievable,” he muttered, and then stilled. If Yoshizawa knew then who else had Ren told about his feelings for him? Did the entire troupe of thieves know about it? He could imagine many of them not being too happy about Ren giving flowers to someone who had both tried and failed to kill them and tried and succeeded at killing some of their parental figures. Still it was possible they’d overlook it, for Ren. They’d do anything for Ren, it seemed, except help him with his own problems.

“Are you going to give him something for White Day, Akechi-san?” it seemed to be something she’d mustered the courage to say. He wished he could have told her to save her breath.

“No,” it wasn’t something he even needed to think about. After all in two weeks time he wouldn’t even be around, let alone able to reciprocate Ren’s...gesture.

“That makes sense,” she sounded disappointed, but understanding. “This isn’t something you can easily forgive,”

Well there was that too of course. But Akechi hadn’t really begun to give a single thought to the process of forgiving Ren, purely because he didn’t need to. They’d take down Maruki and then Akechi would be gone forever. There was no discussion to be had over it.

“Precisely. Yoshizawa-san, if that’s all?”

“Ah, of course.” as if on cue Akechi heard the faint ringing of a school bell in the background. “I’ll talk to the others about that study group tomorrow,”

He hung up after voicing his assent, leaving him standing in the middle of his empty apartment. Suddenly after finding flowers from Ren he didn’t really feel like going for a cycle anymore. And he’d told Yoshizawa he’d distract him tomorrow. How on earth was he going to manage that? He knew Ren would probably hang out with him even if he had prior plans, he was nauseating like that, but it meant Akechi would physically have to invite him out. Invite him out after he’d trapped him in a fake reality and left flowers on his doorstep.

Akechi scowled at the very thought, but nevertheless brought his phone up to his face to at least devise a plan to invite Ren somewhere in a very platonic, passive aggressive way. At least that was his intention, but Akechi’s intention had started to develop a nasty habit of sabotaging itself halfway through execution, and so his fingers instead drifted over the expanse of his phone screen, away from the messaging app and towards the pulsing icon winking on his homepage.

He tapped. Stared.

“Loki?” he sounded almost timid. He’d never been timid in summoning Loki. He’d never needed to. But standing there in his minimalist, lonely apartment, he felt like a he was eight years old again, trying to wake his mother hours past the start of her missed shift.

Loki of course, said nothing.

“Goro Akechi,” Akechi tried.

“Candidate not found,”

He was instantly relieved only to thereafter be filled by a sort of crushing self-loathing. For him not to have distorted desires after all the blood his hands had spilled confirmed something he’d known for a long time. He truly felt no guilt from his actions, and seeked no forgiveness.

He thought of the way Wakaba had smiled at him in Leblanc just days before, like a concerned parent. He shuddered. Not out of regret or remorse, he told himself, but out of a natural fear of the dead returning to life. Akechi was many things, but he was not sorry. He was not a good person. He was not enough of a tortured, conflicted soul to develop a palace like Ren. He knew what he wanted, and he would get it, even if the road to that goal was murky. He didn’t hide from what he did.

He’d always known himself to be that way. Which was why it was surprising that he had almost wanted the Metaverse to call him out as someone who needed to change.

But of course, he wasn’t even alive. Who knew if he even registered on the MetaNav anymore? It was sobering. It was depressing. It was another dark thought in what was quickly becoming an ocean of them. He didn’t want to be in this reality a moment longer. He had to escape.

But to achieve that goal he needed a Persona. Allies were all well and good but what Akechi needed was Loki. He needed to feel the rush of battle in his veins, he needed to hear the satisfying smack the shadows made when he mercilessly threw them onto the ground. The Akechi who stood on the sidelines and let Ren drag him around had to go. But for that he needed Crow, his other self.

And to get him he would need to talk to Ren.

Akechi had told Yoshizawa he wouldn’t go into the palace alone. He’d practically ridiculed the entire idea. It was stupid. All he had was a gun and the healing items he used to use when he was killing goons on Shido’s payroll-and those were nothing compared to the ones Ren got from that strange doctor. If it was any other person’s palace it would practically be suicide.

But Ren wouldn’t kill him if he could help it. He’d done all this to keep him alive after all. He could hardly imagine his subconscious giving it up just because he entered without knocking first. He had a hastily made Goho-m in his pocket in case things went south, and even his sword but-

It was still a stupid stupid idea.

Akechi thought about purple flowers and yellow wrapping. For Ren to leave something like that considering what they’d both done to each other was bold and idiotic in equal measure.

Maybe he was rubbing off on him.

“Beginning Navigation,”

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

It was surprisingly warm in Ren’s palace, which was the only plus Akechi could possibly muster about the place. It looked the same as last time, white walls, grey doors and a ceiling stories high. Akechi didn’t know why he’d expected it to change but he was disappointed all the same. He spent an embarrassingly long time loitering in the sort of circular annex by the entrance, trying to think of a way to speak to Ren that didn’t involve him accosting the first shadow he saw with an impassioned ‘take me to your leader’. There was no guarantee that intimidation and aggression would be the correct answer, especially since he probably couldn’t take on more than one shadow at a time without a Persona.

“You...”

Akechi had done his best to hide from the shadows he sensed as weaker, only deliberately darting out when he came across one taller and seemingly more powerful than the rest. It was a risk to be sure, but he figured a shadow with lower authority wouldn’t even know where Ren was, let alone escort him there. So instead he’d tripped right into the path of a lone skeletal shadow with a labcoat and strange, ugly goggles with as much grace and elegance as he could muster (at present, none.)

“Amamiya Ren,” he said as firmly as possible. “Where is he?”

“Why do you ask?” the shadow growled. “You saw him hours ago,”

Akechi pasted the widest smile he could muster on his face to hide his sudden discomfort. “There was something I forgot to relay to him,” he said, feeling slimy in his own skin. “So if I could just...”

“You’re different,” the shadow accused lowly.

Akechi was momentarily surprised at its intelligence. His hand went down to rest on the gun hidden out of sight. “Am I?” he asked innocently.

“You’re usually less nice,”

Akechi’s smile froze on his face. Because of course Akechi was a merciless tyrant to Ren, he’d done plenty to promote that image. And if a cognition of him had to exist in Ren’s palace he supposed he’d rather it be the bloodthirsty Loki than the sweetalking Detective Prince. Still, the shadow’s description of his cognition left him feeling strangely bitter.

“Well sorry for making an effort,” he allowed a harsher tone to slip into his voice. “Where is he?”

The shadow grumbled in obvious displeasure but ultimately relented. It seemed as if Akechi did have some power here, even if it wasn’t in the traditional shape of a Persona. He didn’t know whether to be grateful to Ren or to curse him.

“In his usual room,” the shadow said, as if that meant absolutely anything to him.

“I don’t tend to pay attention to things that don’t matter to me,” Akechi leaned further into the perception Ren had of him, feeling a strange mix between relieved and faintly ill when the shadow beckoned him to follow.

They made no conversation as they walked down the hall, which suited Akechi greatly. They had only just passed the safe room he’d reached with Yoshizawa the last day when they came across a door that looked no different from the rest. When the shadow stopped in front of it Akechi had almost feared he’d been getting set up. And yet on closer inspection this door was different, the fact that it had a small almost unnoticeable keyhole being the most standout feature. Akechi watched with sudden wariness as the shadow turned a key in the lock, wondering what exactly they were trying to keep in. Or out.

Akechi waited for the shadow to knock or call out or anything, but instead they opened the door with one aggressive flick of the wrist, letting it swing open and leaving Akechi in full sight of-

Ren.

Ren’s shadow was on a similar sofa to the one that had been in the safe room. The similarities to that room ended there. Otherwise it bore more resemblance to the unlived in patient rooms, complete with a bed, a basic dresser, and a medical looking monitor that was currently hooked up to nothing but producing dubious results besides. It looked a little less dusty than the other rooms, like somebody had spent a period of time in it, but not recently. It was still far from clean. And further from welcoming. Who did this room belong to? Ren? Akechi’s cognition? Someone else entirely?

But Akechi couldn’t follow that train of thought to its logical conclusion, because he couldn’t pull his focus away from Ren. He was dressed in all-white, as seemed to be a key feature of the palace staff. But unlike them who were dressed in lab coats and suits, Ren’s shadow only donned a white top, baggy-like a sleep shirt. His trousers were similar, loose on his thin frame with no belt to hold them up. His skin stood too pale, even against the pure white of his clothes. Akechi thought of how he’d mocked Ren’s dress sense only the day before and shuddered. This...oppressive ensemble was far worse than any bad fashion choices Ren could make.

Akechi was almost too scared to lift his gaze from his clothes to his face, and for good reason. The smile on Ren’s face was unfamiliar and lopsided, haughtier than anything Akechi had ever known, like he was simultaneously pleased and aggravated at Akechi’s arrival. And those eyes...they were yellow alright, seemingly glowing against their blank canvas. Bags gathered just underneath them, but it didn’t stop them from looking disturbingly large.

Ren’s shadow brushed a skeletal hand through an almost spider-like web of black hair. There was a bracelet of sorts on his wrist, or a band of some kind. Before he could get a good look at it his hand fell back to his side.

“Back so soon, Goro?” his voice was Ren on a happy day, underlaid by the dark hum of Joker at his deadliest. Suffice to say the contrast was enough to send a shiver down his spine. “Won’t you sit down?”

There was a noise from behind Akechi, and he managed to tear his gaze away from Ren’s shadow for just a moment to confirm that the other shadow still stood tall just out of his peripheral, door closed and locked behind him. Akechi grit his teeth at the sight, but the shadow made no move to attack him.

Still, this really had been a stupid idea.

At further beckoning Akechi reluctantly sat opposite Ren’s shadow, on a stool obviously put out for visitors. He felt distinctly uncomfortable and exposed with his back to the shadow behind him, but Ren’s shadow in comparison looked positively elated. He swallowed past the sound of his heart beating in his ears and forced himself to look back at the thing in front of him.

“Except you aren’t Goro, are you? Not my Goro,” he didn’t sound particularly surprised by this. Or offended.

“Your Goro?” Akechi spat. “Does that hapless caricature like that nickname?”

Ren’s shadow leaned forward a little so he could rest his hand on his palm. “Not exactly. He’s not terribly agreeable on the best of days,”

Akechi snorted but said nothing. He feared if he looked at Ren’s shadow even a moment longer than necessary he’d lose control and try strangle him.

“You’re so similar to him.” the slight sense of awe in his voice seemed misplaced. “If it hadn’t been for your visits being so close together I’d think you were the same,”

“Our visits?” Akechi echoed.

“Just kidding,” the shadow opposite him whispered, a smile flickering at the edges of his lips. “I’ll always be able to tell the two of you apart,”

Akechi tsked instead of giving a proper reply. Ren’s shadow seemed to share the unique effect of rendering him speechless with his human counterpart.

“Why so silent?” yellow eyes blinked in a picture of innocence. “You must have so many questions,”

“I find you unpleasant to talk to,” Akechi said bluntly.

Ren’s shadow practically beamed, as if Akechi had paid him a particularly high compliment. “Really? I’m Ren. As far as I know I’m the only one you ever like to talk to,”

“That’s not true,” he bit back. It wasn’t entirely anyways. “And that was before he dragged me into this mess besides,”

Ren’s shadow’s shoulders moved up and down in a silent laugh. “But we haven’t changed. Patients have come and gone from this place, visitors, too, but I’ve always been here,”

“No shit you have been, it’s your palace,” Akechi’s words lost some of their impact when what Ren’s shadow was saying really began to sunk in. “So you’ve had this palace for longer then?” he didn’t want to ask, he really didn’t want to know, but his mouth made the words of his own accord. “When did it form?”

Ren’s smile took full form then. “November,”

Akechi tried not to flinch. Unbidden the memories came back. The sound Ren’s head had made when it cracked against the tile, the acrid scent of gunpowder, the vivid dark red of Ren’s blood blossoming out from the wound to cushion his fall.

And it had all been fake. Akechi had willed a cognition of Ren to die in the bloodiest, darkest way possible, and he had. And there’d been a rush. Undeniably. A small part, no, it was bigger than just a small part of him had enjoyed it.

“You told me you didn’t regret it,” their tone was scathingly curious. “Was that a lie, then?”

“It was the only way to achieve my goals,” Akechi grit out. “If that was the only way I could get out of here I’d do it again,”

Ren’s shadow blinked lazy yellow eyes. It was strange. Apart from a few quiet evenings Ren always seemed alert, even in the mornings-a side effect of having easy access to coffee Akechi assumed. That’s why he had always found it odd that Ren was so sloppy with his appearance, it wasn’t like he was too tired to do something with it. He was just lucky Akechi supposed, that bedhead suited him. Akechi’s own hair was nowhere near as compliant-although in this reality it was a fair bit easier to handle, the only commendation he’d give Maruki, and never to his face. Still he’d rather be bald than live in Maruki’s fake reality. Despite the truth of it, this mental image managed to disturb him enough to abandon all thoughts on the matter and focus back on the eerily calm not-Ren.

“It wasn’t just you, you know, if it helps,” he started. It did, but Akechi wouldn’t admit it. “The pressure on the thieves, getting arrested, having to fake my death. It was no wonder I ended up committed,”

Akechi frowned. Inadvertently or no, those really were all his fault.

“Committed?” Akechi looked at his glum, serial drama surroundings. “-to this place?”

“I’ve said too much,” for someone who had apparently overshared Ren’s shadow didn’t look particularly perturbed. “I don’t want to show weakness. Especially in front of you,”

A flame of rage ignited in Akechi unbidden. “And why on earth not? You’ve seen me at my absolute worst. It seems only fair that you lower your walls around me,”

Ren’s shadow tittered like he’d said something funny. It was an ugly grating sound.

“Isn’t that what we’re here to learn?” he was mocking him now, Akechi was sure of it, leaning forward a little so he was barely on the edge of his seat. “Trust? Openness?”

Akechi thought of the fake Yoshizawa telling him she trusted him with empty eyes. He swallowed through a dry throat and tore his gaze away. The real Ren wasn’t around to pick on his momentary weakness.

Ren’s shadow however, seemed to delight in pushing and prodding at his newly found buttons. The fact that Akechi had considered Ren’s shadow to be ill and weak just moments before was laughable. This...thing was undoubtedly a part of Ren, the tired, bitter part of him that seemed to love and despise those around him in equal measure.

“Look at me,” he commanded huskily. “We can’t run this session if you don’t look me in the eye,”

“I don’t understand whose the patient here,” Akechi huffed. Ren’s shadow had mentioned being ‘committed’ earlier. Did that mean he was a patient? But if so, who was the doctor? Akechi hoped it wasn’t him. He didn’t think his cognition was considering the way Shadow Ren spoke to him, but anything was possible. The sheer obscurity of Ren’s palace that was slowly being revealed to him stood testament time that.

Akechi looked at him, hating himself for obeying the order. “You’re not Ren,” he said, surprising himself. He thought he’d already come to terms with the fact that this mite was an undeniable piece of Ren, no matter how big or small. “I can’t possibly hope to understand you,”

Akechi thought he saw the faintest crack in Ren’s shadow, the slightest hint of sadness before it was smoothed over, like one of Kitagawa’s oil paintings on his canvas.

“I am Ren, though. You don’t like me this way?”

The tone, the words, all of it rubbed Akechi ever so slightly the wrong way. He faltered a little bit in trying to respond, before deciding that honesty was best. Ren’s shadow kept harping on about trust after all, so Akechi would throw him a bone.

“No,” he said bluntly. “I can’t believe this is all of him.”

“Well you’re right,” Ren’s shadow snuck a hand into the sofa cushions and emerged with a mask sparkling in his hands. His Joker mask. Akechi nearly jumped out of his chair in anticipation for a fight but from behind him the tall shadow who’d escorted him made a terrible keening sound and Ren’s shadow dropped the mask. It dissolved into smoke as soon as it left his hands. Akechi risked looking behind him, but the shadow looked perfectly normal-well, as normal as a shadow good.

“Hey,” Ren’s shadow reminded him. “Eyes on me, remember?”

Akechi didn’t even hesitate to lock eyes with him.

“There’s plenty more where that came from,” Ren’s shadow looked down at the spot where his mask had dissipated with an almost regretful frown. “But most of my masks aren’t appropriate for this world,”

“That’s bullshit,” Akechi snapped. “That’s why you’re nothing like him, Ren wouldn’t discard his personality just because society said to!”

He’d spoken without thinking again. His emotions were getting the better of him. If Akechi wasn’t so angry he’d be embarrassed. He dug his nails into the flesh of his chair underneath, taking inappropriate amounts of satisfaction from the gouge marks he left in the print. He had to calm down and think rationally. He had to get out of here alive, and with something to show for it too.

“But I am Ren,” Ren’s shadow sounded almost frustrated. “And I like it when you call me by my name. You haven’t done it once,”

Akechi could feel his cheeks beginning to burn up. “That’s because-“

“Would you rather call me something else?” Ren’s shadow’s smile looked pained, but his voice was almost suave. “Or for me to be something else?”

“You’re what you are,” Akechi dismissed. “The weakest part of Ren, not even worth his name,”

That got an eyebrow raise. “Oh? You hold me in that high esteem? Well, the version of me you have in your head, anyways. I’ve had these doubts and insecurities holding me back for longer than you think, you know,”

“I know,” Akechi knew that at the end of the day this was a culmination of all of Ren’s fears and anxieties taking human form. No matter how much he hated weakness, he couldn’t dismiss it so easily, not when Ren was its latest victim. “But he never let it stop him before,”

“I’m Ren, remember? You don’t have to talk like I’m not there,” his shadow smiled, but his eyes stayed dull. “For a detective you can be surprisingly obtuse about these sort of things,”

“You are Ren’s shadow,” Akechi said firmly. “Not him,”

That got a genuine flinch, and for a moment Akechi thought he’d pushed too far. But like earlier, like the Ren in real life, the hurt was painted over, revealing a porcelain face that was just a bit more cracked than it had been before.

“I don’t want to be a shadow,” he hissed dangerously. “You won’t call me by my name? You hate me that much?”

“Speaking with you is unpleasant,” Akechi said, feeling very foolish. “And thinking of the two of you as the same is difficult. You’re very different,” and yet, very much the same.

“Then call me Akira,”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me,” Ren’s shadow rose from his seat in one fluid motion. Akechi wanted to rise too but he found himself stuck to the chair, not as a result of any sort of curse or skill, but from pure sickening unease.

Akechi craned his neck upwards to view the shadow’s slender neck, his pale lips, those sallow, empty, gaunt eyes, and nearly shuddered out of his own skin.

“My parents said it was their second choice for a name,” he didn’t move any closer to Akechi, just stared. “Isn’t that funny? You could have fallen in love with a boy named Akira instead,”

Whatever spell had been over Akechi then broke, and he jumped to his feet with speed he didn’t even know he possessed. “Are you mocking me? The flowers, the chocolates, all of it. Was it just an elaborate prank?”

Ren’s shadow, this Akira, shrugged his shoulders loosely. “How would I know? I’m not the real Ren after all, am I?”

Akechi let out a breathless laugh. “You’re petty,” he realised. He wasn’t sure whether he wanted to laugh or cry. “Is that why I can’t summon my Persona here? Because you think I’m someone you can toy with? Someone who can’t hurt you at all?”

Akira’s face fell, his expression going from emotionless to deeply sympathetic. He took one step forward, and another. Akechi made no move to match his strides backwards. Soon enough he was in front of him, tipping his chin up with two icy fingers. The feeling that spread through Akechi’s body then reminded him of how he’d felt at the jazz club with Ren last night, or leaving the gallery with Kitagawa that same morning. Bitterly cold, so much so that he felt he could never get warm again.

Despite everything he leaned into the touch.

“Oh Goro,” he crooned, voice sickly sweet. “Haven’t you ever considered that the only one holding you back is yourself?”

“Stay back!” the shadow behind him barked, which Akechi faintly registered as a pointless order. He was hardly this close to Akira due to his own free will.

“Your treasure,” he found himself asking suddenly. “Where is it?”

Akira laughed, which was strange. Akechi didn’t recall saying anything funny.

“Like I’d tell you, Detective. I may not be able to protect much anymore, but that’s the only thing left with which I’m willing to try,”

Akechi’s mind ran circles. What was Ren’s treasure? The thieves? Him? some obscure trinket from his guarded childhood? It didn’t matter in the slightest and yet Akechi couldn’t stop thinking about the secret to Ren’s heart.

He opened his mouth to ask but found himself too shaken to even speak. Akira’s cold fingers slipped away and Akechi’s next breath felt like his first in a very long time. Akira took one step backwards, then a second one. For being the one who’d approached him he was suddenly looking very threatened.

“You could stay here, Goro,” those piercing yellow eyes of him were simultaneously soft and sad. “It’s safe here,”

Akechi made a show of looking at his lifeless surroundings. “The last thing I feel here is safe,”

Akira’s subsequent smile was fond. “He always says that too,” he dipped his head a little so Akechi couldn’t meet his eyes. “If you don’t plan to stay, you should probably leave me alone,”

“Hey,” Akechi said, surprisingly panicked at the prospect and not knowing why. “What happened to eyes on me?”

Akira didn’t rise to the bait. “We have different standards,”

“You’re pathethic,” it didn’t feel cathartic. It didn’t feel satisfying. “Throwing me out as soon as you show a shred of vulnerability? You’re an embarrassment,”

He’d waited so long to vent, to scream, to cry about the burden Ren had placed upon him. All this time he’d stopped himself from truly tearing Ren to shreds out of the faint respect he still had for the man, deep in his heart of hearts. For this Akira Akechi held none of that affection. And yet yelling at him brought no solace or relief, just an exhaustion and emptiness that soaked through his very bones.

At the very least he didn’t feel cold anymore.

“I can figure out where your treasure is anyways,” he mumbled, when Akira didn’t respond. “I suppose it’s on me for expecting you to be even slightly helpful,”

“I hope to see you soon, Goro,” Akira said softly. “I’ll always be here,”

“You won’t be,” Akechi promised. “Neither of us will be here come two weeks’ time,”

He turned and strode out of the door with such confidence even the shadow at the door seemed intimidated. He waited to be ambushed the entire walk back to the entrance, nearly willing it to happen and being almost disappointed when it didn’t. He had a gun full of bullets and a right mind to unload them in something. He was shaking in some mixture of anger and terror and pure adrenaline.

He continued to shake after leaving the Metaverse but this time as a result of the chill that seemed to persist over his apartment, as if Akechi had left the window open during his impromptu outing. Akechi took a mere minute to recollect himself, and before his thoughts could properly begin to make sense of themselves he flung open his door to embark on the bike ride he’d wanted to start the morning out with, what felt like eons ago.

Thankfully this time he left uninterrupted.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

Steered back home early by the growing darkness and insistent chill settling over the area Akechi’s cycle ended up being embarrassingly short. Tiredness was quickly setting into his bones, and so Akechi had resigned himself to another early night when he’d locked his bike to the his apartment building’s rack and headed up the stairs.

He almost didn’t have it in him to be surprised when he found someone waiting at his door, looking uncharacteristically panicked when they locked eyes. Ren and his shadow didn’t look as different as Akechi had believed on closer inspection. Bags were slowly but surely starting to form under this Ren’s eyes as well, coming hand in hand with the unavoidable sense of weariness that he seemed to emanate, only superseded in intensity by the worried looking expression on his face that crumpled to one of relief when Akechi stepped into view.

“Are you okay? “ Ren asked urgently, as if Akechi had come back from a life threatening surgery and not a routine bike ride. The considerable depth of his alarm concerned him.

“I am as fine as I possibly could be,” he begrudgingly replied. “Is there a reason I might not be?”

“No!” Ren insisted quickly. “I just...felt like I had to see you for some reason. Like something was wrong,” he had the audacity to look sheepish, then, rubbing a hand through hair even messier than usual. “Sorry to scare you,”

“You didn’t scare me, Ren,” he lied in return.

Akechi’s impromptu palace visit had spurred this on, Akechi was sure of it. He’d been so worried about what could happen to him in the palace itself that he had completely forgot about the effect his meeting with Ren’s shadow could have on reality. And as Ren was a holder of many special abilities, it wouldn’t be all too surprising for an increased awareness of events happening inside his own palace to be one of them. He’d been too hasty.

“I’m sorry,” Ren repeated, as if Akechi had ignored him the first time. “I tried call but...”

Akechi patted his pocket for his phone and found none. Ah yes. He’d left it on his bed when he’d gone out for a cycle. A risky move, maybe, but he couldn’t bare to even look at it after what had happened. If it had brought Ren directly to his doorstep the risk clearly hadn’t paid off.

Unless...

“Forget about it. You owe me a different sort of explanation,”

Ren’s expression rebuilt itself into something more innocent looking. “Ah?”

“Your...gift this morning,” Ren’s eyes widened as Akechi spoke which made him feel foolish. Was Ren really surprised he was bringing it up? “What was the point of it?”

“What kind of question is that?” Ren’s subsequent laugh was painfully awkward, and Akechi’s responding expression decidedly unamused.

“Ren,” Akechi said sternly. “The least you can do is explain,”

The harshness of his wording seemed to sap a little of the smile from Ren’s face. “Look at the date, Goro.”

Akechi rolled his eyes. “This reality may be attempting to rob me of my sanity but I’m not that far gone yet. I know the date,”

“So...”

“So??”

“You’re my friend!” Ren declared. “So it’s a gift for a friend,”

Akechi thought back to the chocolates lying on the counter and furrowed his brows accusingly. “In the shape of a love heart?”

“I love my friends,” Ren insisted defensively. “Don’t you?”

Akechi thought back to Ann dragging him around town and buying him crepes, Sakura talking about Featherman with bright, eager eyes, Kitagawa listening to him with inspired intent.

“Not really,” he confessed, but Ren was smiling as if he’d agreed.

“Look, Goro,” he began, calmer. “I like you.”

“I find your company not a complete waste of time on occasion as well,” Akechi confessed.

“I can sense a but coming on here,”

“And yet-“ Akechi continued, just to be a bitch. “I do not like you at this point in time. In fact, I hate you, more than anyone else on this accursed planet,”

Ren’s didn’t look all that surprised at the rejection, maybe just a little embarrassed. “Well, that’s about what I was expecting,”

“I don’t understand it, Ren,” he admitted. “I thought you were attempting to mock me by leaving this, but for a joke, you’re behaving awfully coy. Even if your feelings were genuine, surely you had to know this sort of timing is atrocious,”

Ren blinked heavy eyes. Their shade were nothing like his shadow’s ugly yellow, but otherwise the resemblance was striking. “Somebody told me I should confess to you. If not there and then, then on Valentine’s Day,”

“This someone...” Akechi swallowed through the sudden lump in his throat. “Would it happen to be Yoshizawa-san?”

That jerked Ren out of his bittersweet reminciscal. “Yeah. How did you know?”

Akechi thought back to their phone call in the morning and balked. “It’s not difficult to deduce. She’s the only one who has seen the two of us interact in a friendly environment,”

“That’s true,” Ren admitted, likely remembering the tension their past encounters with the thieves had been laced in. “But I don’t think she was the only one who noticed,”

“I didn’t notice,” Akechi said before he had the sense to stop himself. “I didn’t even think you thought about me like that until Maruki revealed I was your wish,”

“Everyone assured me you thought the same way-before November, obviously,”

The mention of that dreaded month seemed rather unnecessary in Akechi’s eyes. And yet, although Ren had given him the perfect opportunity to skim over the subject, he found himself wanting to make something clear.

“If you had confessed earlier nothing would have changed,” he muttered. “I would have accepted and we might have had a month of fluffy, sappy times. You would not have converted me over to your side, or saved me or anything of the like. I would still have killed you in that room if it would have led to Shido’s downfall. I don’t hesitate when faced with my goals. So don’t feel guilty or anything for not trying to seduce me out of my evil deeds. It wouldn’t have worked,”

“I know,” Ren said. He was taking this awfully well. “That’s part of why you’re so admirable,”

“Admirable?” Akechi’s voice hit a higher pitch in his disbelief. “My willingness to murder to reach my goals is admirable? This isn’t a thing of the past, Ren. To get out of this reality I will do anything, sacrifice anything. I shot you, and you don’t even care?”

Ren shrugged carelessly. “It didn’t stick,”

“Your display of apathy is terrifying.” Akechi hissed. He hated how worked up he was getting in comparison to Ren’s casual air, but the proverbial dam had burst and it was too late to stop the ensuing flood. “I would do it again. Do you fail to understand this? I will kill you if you so much as get in my way,”

“I know,” Ren breathed, and just that quiet confirmation crushed Akechi. “I know,”

“Fuck,” the anger rushed out of Akechi like a waterfall. “Don’t just accept it,”

Ren sighed, long and low. “This is pretty unhealthy, huh?”

“It’s your fault,” Akechi felt the need to point out.

“I know that too,”

“You keep saying that but I don’t see you trying to make things better,” Akechi grumbled. “Either you deem me to be too weak to be a threat or you don’t care about your life anymore. I don’t know which one’s worse,”

“You’re not weak,” Ren said firmly, which wasn’t really what Akechi had been looking for him to get out of the conversation.

He wondered if a good shake might get Ren’s brain in working order. Another punch, maybe? He knew that he couldn’t though, not with the deadly serious look in his eyes, as if he thought informing Akechi that he wasn’t weak was more important than stopping Akechi from thinking he was suicidal, or just plain insane.

“I feel it,” he willingly admitted. “I hold no power in this world. That’s exactly why I can’t accept your confession, as a matter of fact. I don’t want to be reliant on a person with power over me. Not again,”

If Ren was disturbed by Akechi comparing their potential romantic relationship to his working relationship with Shido he didn’t show it, which was appreciated.

“I’m not sure the one with the power here is me,” he muttered to himself instead. Although Akechi heard it, it didn’t make a single lick of sense.

“Come again?”

“I never expected you to say yes or anything. So don’t worry, I’m not disappointed or anything like that,”

“If you believe I was worried-“

“But it would have been unfair of me to continue to lie to both of us. So, I’m going to say it straight out. I like you, and have liked you for months now,” the blush on Ren’s cheeks was so sudden Akechi was sure he had to have imagined it. Sure enough on the next blink it was gone.

Unbidden Akechi felt a flicker of warmth in his chest.

“If you’ve liked me for so long,” he continued, ignoring the unfamiliar sensation. “Why didn’t you just ask Maruki to program me to fall in love with you?”

Ren winced, and for the first time that day looked actually pained. “I wouldn’t do that,”

“And how am I supposed to know that? You damn the rest of society but give me special treatment? How on earth is that meant to be fair?”

“It’s not,” Ren agreed.

Akechi was getting pretty sick of him agreeing with his points all the time. Him fighting so hard for a fake world he barely enjoyed or believed in was starting to piss him off.

“I will never accept your feelings, Ren. Not because I don’t like you, because infuriatingly enough I am rather attracted to you-“

Ren smiled weakly. “Is it the hair?”

“I will never accept them because I will get out of this accursed reality if it kills me, and if it doesn’t then reality will catch up with me and I’ll still end up dead. You are only hurting yourself by playing into this fantasy. I am not going to be alive in a few weeks time,” saying it aloud seemed damning, somehow. It had been a relatively untouched subject, skirted around instead of pressed on with full force, even though Akechi knew it had to have been on Ren’s mind near constantly throughout the past week. Akechi knew that it had been the only thing on his besides Ren himself.

“You will be,” Ren said confidently. “I’ll make it happen,”

“Then you are my enemy,” Akechi matched his tone, despite the sinking feeling in his chest.

“Just like old times?” the quip was in such poor taste Akechi couldn’t find it in himself to be angry at Ren for trying it.

“You and your nostalgia again,” he sighed instead. “Holding onto the past like that isn’t exactly going to do you any favours down the line,”

“At least it’s something to hold onto,”

Huh. Surprisingly cynical of him. Just like his shadow had been.

“Just between you and me, Ren, I’m getting sick of this argument,”

Ren’s smile turned a little more genuine. “Me too. Are you free tomorrow?”

“What is it?”

“You seemed to have fun last night-sort of. And I feel like I always invite you out without any notice. So I thought I’d tell you in advance, so this time you can be the one ringing up an hour beforehand to cancel,”

“How generous of you,” Akechi remarked dryly.

He remembered what he’d told Yoshizawa about him taking Ren out of the equation so they could hold their ‘study session’. Embarrassingly enough he’d forgotten entirely about it until now, but Ren had unknowingly given him a not so subtle reminder.

“Is tomorrow okay? Ah, wait, Makoto was saying something about a-“

“Tomorrow’s fine,” Akechi interrupted, not at all smooth. Ren fixed him with an odd look but said nothing. “Tomorrow evening. I’ll meet you in Kichijoji,”

Ren looked a little blindsided by his initiative. It was a new expression on him. “O-kay...that’s fine, I guess,”

Darkly Akechi remembered what Sakura had told him, about how Ren would ‘drop everything to hang out with him’. He guessed this proved her theory. He didn’t feel all too happy about it. In fact he felt strangely guilty, like he was keeping Ren from his friends, when really he was keeping Ren from discovering that said friends were planning on conspiring against him.

Akechi truly was an awful person.

“One last thing,” he pulled his thoughts away from Ren’s palace and back towards ugly flower bindings. “Tomorrow. Is that a date?”

Ren’s eyes widened slightly. He looked a bit like an eager puppy trying to act cool. “Do you want it to be?”

“Agree to steal Maruki’s treasure with me,” Akechi said bluntly. “Then check back in,”

Ren broke out into a laugh then, a short huff of a sound before he covered it with his fist. Part of Akechi wished he hadn’t. It had been the nicest thing he’d heard all day-not that it was a high bar to clear. Even as the sound faded Ren’s grin stayed triumphant on his face. Akechi hated that expression something fierce, yet he couldn’t offer up anything more than a huff in protest.

“It wasn’t a joke,” he berated him, and then relented. “Do you want the flowers back?”

“Flowers? Me?” Ren cocked his head cheekily. “I didn’t send any flowers,”

“Ren, I am trying-“

“Keep them if you like. To be honest, I thought you’d throw them out, so I’m glad,”

“I considered it,” Akechi pointed out, but they both knew it was a moot point. “I still might,”

“Goodnight, Goro,” Ren said, despite the fact that it was the ripe old hour of seven o’ clock in the evening.

Akechi kept his gaze on the ground. “Night,”

He kept his eyes downcast until he ceased hearing Ren’s footsteps plodding rhythmically away. When that was over with he stormed into his apartment with perhaps more haste than was required.

He picked up the sad-looking flower arrangement from its sadder looking home and dropped it unceremoniously in the bin. He felt a little bad, but not bad enough to fish it out. The chocolates, he kept, if only because they were coffee-flavoured, and with Leblanc off limits and a coffee machine that wasn’t exactly reliable on the best of days sitting pathethic on his kitchen counter, he was getting a little desperate.

Satisfied that he’d made his point-whatever it may have been, Akechi ate a single slice of bread, brushed his teeth, and fell asleep before his head even hit the pillow.

He woke up at exactly 7am the next morning to see yesterday’s bouquet sat on his dresser in a vase he’d never seen before. Torn between throwing it against the wall or throwing himself out the window, he settled the matter by pouring it some water and researching flower care on the on the internet.

His phone buzzed with a reminder he didn’t remember setting, and his fridge was full of entirely fresh produce. Akechi took a carton of milk out of the fridge purely to let it rot and then headed out to go to school for the first time in the longest most perfect week of his life.

Chapter Text

Akechi hadn’t exactly been expecting an uproar to follow his appearance at school, but he’d expected something. Girls theorising in the halls maybe as to the reason for his absence, boys glaring at him from the corners of their classroom just to be petty. What he’d got was a few waves and greetings from classmates who’s names he barely remembered. No interrogations, no aggressive side-eyes. He’d made it to his regular desk without a single interruption.

He barely had anything more than a pen and paper with him, but none of his teachers called him out for his lack of preparation, or even called on him at all. He could even describe his classes as relaxing, if more than a little dull. He was only required to sit there after all, and the more interesting classes (of which there were only a few) warranted enough of his attention for him to stop thinking about Ren entirely. It wasn’t until after lunch-where he’d eaten through an unassuming bento he didn’t remember packing, that anyone even talked to him at all.

“Ah, Akechi-kun?”

His homeroom teacher was staring at him with warm hazel eyes as he passed the threshold of the classroom door. Her sudden call made him stop halfway out, leaving him stuck almost in limbo in the entrance to the classroom, blocking any potential peers from going in or out.

He backed up a few steps. “Did you need something, Sensei?”

She was a kindly looking woman, if a little sharp around the edges-with wrinkles around her eyes and a nose just a little more curved than the usual. Akechi didn’t have much of an opinion of her. She generally let him skip class for his detective duties which he appreciated, but ignorance wasn’t exactly an otherwise endearing character trait. In fact he was pretty sure he hadn’t had a single one on one conversation with her since the start of the school year.

“It’s good to see you around school again, Akechi-kun,” she smiled gently-too gently. “The class and faculty are glad to have you back,”

Doubtful. The few classmates who’d wished him a good morning had hardly stuck around to ask him much more than that.

“I’m still quite busy with work,” he lied, smiling in the most apologetic manner he could muster. “I’ll try my best of course, but I don’t know how frequently I’ll be able to attend class,”

His teacher nodded several times in quick succession. The bun holding her dark hair away from her face bounced with each movement but didn’t come loose.

“That’s all we can ask from you. Your grades are still as impeccable as always-“ were they? Akechi was pretty sure he’d missed at least one set of exams since November. “-so as long as you keep it up we can overlook your absences,”

Akechi bowed politely. “Thank you for your understanding, Sensei,”

She preened at his manners for a moment before hardening. Akechi braced himself. He knew that she hadn’t just held him back to compliment his work ethic.

“What you’re doing is incredible work of course, but have you given much thought to university?” she smiled at him but all Akechi could feel was ice in his veins. “You’re a bright boy and I think-“

“I’m very devoted to my current work,” he couldn’t stop himself from interrupting, not wanting to hear a word more. “So I think I’ll stick with what I’m currently doing, at least for the next year or two,”

His teacher’s expression morphed into one of faux concern. “I understand entirely, but you should consider perhaps a part time degree along with your work. In criminology, maybe or forensics or even law. College life is the pinnacle of a student’s growth, and I’d hate for you to miss out on it. In the right field, Akechi-kun, you could do great things, you could change the country as we know it-“

“Thank you,” he said, a little blunter than intended. “But I already am,”

“Well of course your work is-“

“It’s not about my work,” he found himself saying, even though he knew she wouldn’t understand. “It’s about something far beyond either of our comprehension. Thank you, Sensei, for your concern, but I will decide for myself what my future will be,”

She looked momentarily flummoxed before recovering, clasping her hands together and nodding with no shortage of confusion or enthusiasm. “Of course Akechi-kun. I know you’ll make the right choice for yourself,”

Unbidden Akechi thought of Maruki, about all his preaching about ‘making the right choice’ and sneered openly.

“Goodbye, Sensei,” he said, trying on a smile when seeing her clearly disturbed reaction to his uglier side. “You won’t be seeing me again,”

And before she could respond to his cryptic farewell Akechi turned briskly on his heel. As he walked down the halls a few of his classmates offered empty goodbyes. Akechi returned them, if only for the shred of normalcy they brought, and for the fact that he’d never see them again.

-/-/-/-/-/-/

“You know, always hitting bullseyes doesn’t make you special, Goro,”

From where he was doing an excellent job always hitting bullseyes Akechi‘s teeth grinded together so hard he thought he heard something snap. “Please be quiet,”

He threw another dart. A bullseye, naturally.

“Just because you have a fancy darts set but no skill to show for it doesn’t mean you have to be jealous of my innate talent, Ren,”

Ren grinned deviously at him as they changed over. He settled into his stance, arm up, shoulders back, with a deadly set to his eyes. As Akechi watched the smallest hint of pink came from the side of Ren’s mouth, a testament to the depths of his concentration. He threw the dart and his grin widened when he saw where it landed, right on the triple twenty.

“What was that?” Ren reared up for another throw and hit the same mark again, to Akechi’s veritable displeasure.

Luckily his next throw went slightly wide, else Akechi may have given up all pretences and beaten Ren within an inch of his life.

“Am I supposed to be impressed?” he mocked, finishing the round in two throws. “We’re out, but it’s no thanks to you,”

“You’re the one who wanted to play 701, “ Ren snarked. “You’d think you’d play a little riskier,”

They were, as one could probably reasonably infer, at Penguin Sniper, during what seemed to be quite a quiet night for the establishment. Ren had come in his trademark winter coat and gloves, but had taken them off to reveal the same colour shirt he’d been wearing for months. Akechi would think it was the exact same one, if he hadn’t got a peek of Ren’s wardrobe one day and seen it full of much the same ilk. Nevertheless Ren looked well, and had even put his glasses to the side, citing a difficulty in aiming with them on.

Akechi hadn’t seen Ren outside the Metaverse without his glasses before, excluding their switch at the cafe and that nightmare inducing day in the interrogation room (although technically, thinking about it, that had been in the Metaverse). His eyes were so similar to his shadow’s they made him shudder. Avoiding Ren’s gaze was difficult, though when he was looking right at him. Doubly so when he had to respond to him.

“I try to avoid taking unnecessary risks,” Akechi admitted.

Ren was eyeing him carefully, Akechi could feel it even though he was still fixated on the board.

“Not a fan of failure?” they both knew they weren’t talking about darts anymore.

“Are you?”

Ren huffed a laugh then, drawing Akechi’s attention back to him. “I guess not,” he was leaning casually on one of the pool tables, drumming his fingers on the green felt in a manner that wasn’t quite as irritating as Akechi felt it should be.

Akechi thought of Yoshizawa and their study session. He hadn’t heard from her since it had apparently started, although that in itself had been barely an hour ago. Ren at least didn’t seem like he’d been the recipient of any frantic messages from his friends, so that was a good sign. No news was good news, as people down at the precinct were fond of saying. Akechi thought that people down at the precinct had never heard of quiet assassinations.

Ren knocked his hand lightly against one of the cue balls. “Fancy a game?”

“Of billiards? “ he muttered. “You really are stupidly nostalgic,”

Ren shook his head exasperatedly. “You can’t just say that about every thing we’ve ever done together. There’s something comfortable about going back to things you know will work. And besides, it’s fun,”

Well, Akechi thought begrudgingly to himself, he could hardly argue with that.

He walked over to the table Ren was at. “Will you go first or will I?”

Ren seemed to consider the question a bit before speaking. “What hand are you using?”

“Excuse me?”

“You told me you’d use your left hand if I beat you when you used your right,” Ren said conversationally. It was an idle, throwaway comment, but it made Akechi’s throat tighten all the same.

“I did,” Akechi reminded him. “In the Metaverse,”

And what an embarrassment that had been. All of Akechi’s talk about duels and gloves and hatred felt so childish and empty now. It was stupid to wish to go back to the days when Akechi had implicit orders to shoot Ren in the head, but he’d had the gall to do outrageous things like give Ren his glove-which was practically an extension of himself. Their fight had been charged, Akechi had been as excited as he’d ever been whilst donning Robin Hood’s stringent mask.

This game of billiards had none of that. It was just for ‘fun’, as Ren would put it. The only thing Akechi had to lose was bragging rights. He grimaced at the notion that he too was growing nostalgic, and grabbed the stick-with his left hand, purely to put Ren out of his misery.

“At the time I thought you meant pool,” Ren admitted. “You surprised me that day,”

Akechi took the shot. It was good but nowhere near great. He was out of practice.

“You did remarkably well for being caught off guard,” he replied. Months ago his words would have been infused with jealousy. Now he wasn’t bothered. It was hard to be jealous of someone pathethic enough to choose a fake reality that catered to their every whim. Ren wouldn’t ever need to win a fight in this fake reality again.

“I adapt,” Ren’s expression grew decidedly less smug as the ball he was aiming for paused mere inches from the hole.

“You’re an embarrassment,” Akechi said bluntly, sinking it with ease and scouring the table for his next target. He found it, and banished yet another ball.

Akechi could see Ren wince out of the corner of his eye. “I missed once,” he stressed. “It’s not my fault that you’re apparently a god at this,”

A small piece of Akechi preened at the compliment before it was smothered away. “One mistake is all your opponent needs,” he grit out instead. He missed the next shot, but at that point it had practically been purposeful. He stood back from the table and waved meaningfully at Ren.

Ren missed. Painfully.

“At this point I’m more embarrassed for myself. Even with my non dominant arm I don’t know how I could have lost to...that,”

As if on cue the cue ball rolled sadly into the corner hole, having not brushed a single ball on its journey to its ill-fated destination.

Akechi glared at it as Ren placed it back on the table. “Are you doing this on purpose, Ren?”

Ren shrugged his shoulders, irritatingly carefree. “No, this ineptitude is all natural,”

Akechi didn’t know how Ren could be so uncaring about being incompetent at something, even something as minor as billiards. His own failures in home economics class tended to haunt his dreams more often than his Metaverse escapades. Even now, Akechi shuddered.

That fish...

Ren, Akechi supposed, could cope with these minor failures because he was perfect at everything else, and, more importantly, surrounded by love and support. He didn’t need to seek validation like Akechi. He had it, unconditionally.

A distant part of Akechi pointed out that wasn’t quite right. Hadn’t Ren feared returning to Inaba because of the scrutiny from his neighbours? And from what he’d heard, hadn’t his classmates treated him quite poorly his first few weeks in Tokyo?

Still, the specifics didn’t really matter. Ren had won all of his little friends over, and practically half of the city besides. He’d done what Akechi had been trying to do for so long as the Detective Prince-capture the hearts of the nation, and he’d done it by being genuine and honest and just himself.

Akechi scowled. He was just retreading the same song and dance. Regardless of how perfect Ren was he’d ruined it all in the end by trapping the world into a fake reality over some petty crush.

He angled the cue stick and jammed it at the ball with more force than strictly necessary. In a couple more turns, wherein Ren only marginally improved his game, it was over.

While Akechi cleaned up the table, Ren seemed to be busy analysing his perpetually severe expression. “What’s wrong?” he frowned. “Wait, don’t answer that,”

Akechi let the tension release from his body. There was no point in scolding Ren further. He knew him so well that he’d probably already predicted what he was going to say.

“I am willing,” he began stiffly. “to write this round off as a warm-up,”

Ren perked up instantly. “Oh yeah?”

His enthusiasm was infectious enough for Akechi to shrug off what was left of his feelings of spite. They played three more games, and although Akechi won them all by a considerable margin, he found himself able to forget, a little bit, about the fact he was meant to hate Ren.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

Yoshizawa: Everyone remembers now. They’re a little shaken, but they agree not to tell Ren-senpai if we investigate tomorrow.

I’ll be there

He paused, frowning at the message he’d just sent.

Good job.

Ren was waiting patiently with a wry smile when Akechi looked back up from his phone, and opened the door to the bustling streets of Kichijoji without having to be told. As usual the cold smacked Akechi full force, causing him to practically bury his face in his scarf like a squirrel going into hibernation. Ren, seemingly immune to the chill predictably raised an eyebrow but said nothing. Akechi had to at least thank him for not adding to his humiliation.

They were maybe only fifty metres from Penguin Sniper when the proverbial heavens opened, turning dry ground soaked in seconds. The rainfall seemed too sudden to be natural. Akechi knew that nature could be fickle, but he doubted it would turn from clear skies to stormy ones in an instant.

At the very least although it was very much pouring, the wind was still fairly calm. Unfortunately Akechi hadn’t brought an umbrella with him, as, like most other people on a clear evening, he hadn’t expected it to rain. Ren, however, seemed unsurprisingly prepared, and was struggling to open a cheap umbrella even as the rain pelted both it and him.

“Here,” annoyed by his considerable incompetence Akechi reached forward to help, only for it to suddenly open, narrowly missing taking Akechi’s fingers with it. Ren threw him a sheepish grin before swinging the umbrella over his own head.

Now dry he looked at Akechi expectantly.

Akechi returned his gaze with the most impassive expression he could muster-an action that ended up being for naught as a particularly large droplet landed in his eye just moments later, ruining the image entirely.

“We can share,” Ren said, very not casually, while Akechi rubbed his eyes, very not subtly.

“I don’t require your assistance,” he said. He’d had more convincing moments, he would be the first to admit.

He started walking towards their destination with a sort of dogged determination, one that wavered when the sky seemed to renew its onslaught with increased vengeance. He paused his stride to brush his rapidly dampening hair away from his eyes. Ren stopped just a little behind him, tipping the edges of the umbrella over Akechi’s head. It barely reached, and although Ren was clearly trying to keep his distance while staying under the umbrella, he was still too close.

“With all due respect,” he grumbled. “That’s a tiny fucking umbrella,”

“At least I brought an umbrella,”

“We can’t all be meteorologists, Ren,” Akechi smirked even though he knew Ren couldn’t see it. “Do you have a future of being a weatherman in front of you?”

Ren hummed consideringly. “I think it would suit you better, honestly. You’ve got plenty of experience looking good for the camera,”

The reminder of Akechi’s endless interviews and perfectly sculpted smiles ached, but only just. Akechi didn’t particularly want fame or prestige anymore, he’d be perfectly happy to live as a hermit for the rest of his life. Well, maybe not happy, exactly, but it’d be a happier existence than living for the cameras, which he was pretty sure he could never do again. The compliments, the attention...he’d lived for it, but in the end none of it had been directed to the real him.

“You shouldn’t sell yourself so short,” it came out a little sharp to be a mere tease. Akechi took a step too far forward and winced when the rain mercilessly attacked his point of weakness.

From behind he heard a sort of muffled snort, and the umbrella shifted to cover his whole head again. What was gone was the feeling of Ren at his back, and when he turned around he saw him standing awkwardly there in the rain, water fogging up his glasses so badly Akechi couldn’t even see his eyes. The umbrella he held was tilted forwards so it covered Akechi’s head securely but left Ren’s own open to the deluge. As Akechi watched, Ren’s relatively dry curls turned soaked in seconds, dragging down his head and sending water trails like tear tracks down his cheeks. He had a confident sort of grin on, despite the water assaulting him from all sides, and it was that expression that led Akechi to reach out and pull the umbrella from his unresisting hands.

Akechi pulled it closer to himself, first a little hesitantly, and then with all the assertiveness Ren knew him for, leaving the other boy standing there in the rain with his fingers closed around nothing. The smile in Ren’s eyes was diluted by the severity of the rain around him, but his amusement was clear.

“Do you plan to share that?”

“Relax. I’m not going to steal your 500 yen umbrella,” it wasn’t exactly a reassurance.

He blinked the lingering drops of water out of his eyes and pointed to the side of the street, where passer-bys stood huddled under the tarps extending out from storefront roofs.

“I’m not in the mood to run to the station,” he admitted. “Why don’t we wait out the rain?”

He started walking without waiting for Ren’s response.

“That could be a long wait,” he informed him, but he was right behind him all the same.

“Oh?” Akechi disengaged the umbrella as soon as they were under cover with a well practiced ease, dropping it into Ren’s waiting hands. “Are those your weatherman instincts speaking?”

“My weather app, actually,” Ren waved a phone screen that Akechi could barely catch a glimpse of. The weather was displayed on the top of the home screen, but was that a glint of red-

The phone went hastily back into Ren’s pocket. “Still,” he said, clearly trying to recover. “I don’t mind waiting it out,”

“How sweet of you,”

If that had indeed been the Metaverse Navigator app on Ren’s phone it was no surprise to him. He’d suspected Ren had it back when they’d talked outside Leblanc. His injury, the strange bag he’d brought inside, they were all easily explained away as being from a meeting with the ‘Yakuza’, but Akechi knew that nobody in Maruki’s perfect world would ever bring harm to Ren. The question was why Ren was going, and to where. Mementos seemed like an obvious answer, but the whys were lost in him. Had Ren wanted to see the affect actualisation had on Mementos? Was he just looking for stress relief? Had that day been an one-off and he hadn’t visited the Metaverse since, or did he have a palace to infiltrate, all on his own?

There were only two palaces Akechi could imagine Ren having interest in, Maruki’s and his own. And yet both were equally implausible for completely different reasons. He considered Ren’s easy grin, pasted on like another one of his masks, and wondered why Ren would feel nervous if all he was doing was going to Mementos to beat up shadows.

“You’re not busy tonight?” he prodded. “No Yakuza?”

Ren shook his head, clearly exasperated, but he didn’t seem angry at the term like he had just mere days ago. It unnerved Akechi a little, how quickly his passion had died down.

It reminded him of his shadow, bitter and resigned, talking about trust and openness while keeping his own cards close to his chest.

“Not tonight,” he confirmed, and craned his neck upwards, as if he would somehow be able to see stars through the rain clouds.

Akechi looked at him, illuminated by the bright lights of Kichijoji and made the decision to drop his pretences.

“You have the Metaverse Navigator, right?”

Ren didn’t even look at him. “No,”

Akechi didn’t even pretend to entertain the lie. “How’s Mementos?”

Ren shrugged uncomfortably. “The same as always,”

“What’s same as always? What it was before or what Maruki made it to be?”

Akechi waited for a flinch that never came. “The latter,”

“You should take me there,” he said, which wasn’t quite what he’d been intending to say. “Maybe a duel would get your head on straight,”

Ren laughed at that. It was a darker sound than Akechi was used to hearing from him. “Maybe it would,”

Despite the lack of hostility in his words they had the same affect as Ren’s anger all those days ago. Akechi felt solid ice in his veins just by standing next to Ren. He’d pushed him into a dark corner he didn’t know whether he could get him out of. It was in likeou. He never seemed capable of saying the right thing to Ren these days.

“One day,” he promised, and Ren turned to him to affirm with strangely empty eyes.

Akechi’s discomfort seemed to multiply with every passing second, and Ren wasn’t eager to break the silence. Normally Akechi navigated awkward conversations gracefully, but Ren in particular seemed to possess a certain quality that made him scramble to find what to say.

“Your flowers. I threw them out,”

It probably wasn’t the greatest opener, but it got the desired effect of shocking a bit of life in Ren’s eyes.

“You really did, huh?”

Akechi nodded. “But then I woke up the next morning to find them in a honestly pretentious looking vase on my dresser,”

Ren’s brows creased in genuine confusion. It was an unusual expression on him. Akechi revelled in it, just for a moment.

“You’re saying Dr Maruki-“

“Well it was either him messing with reality or you breaking into my home and fishing them from the bin. But I don’t think you would have gotten me fresh milk as well,”

“You don’t know that. I might have,”

Akechi swallowed down the sudden laugh that wanted to escape, thinking back to the vase of flowers waiting back at his apartment. They’d been the first thing he saw when he woke up in the morning, but he hadn’t even been surprised. He’d known somehow, that they’d be there, and wondered if Maruki was toying with him even now, trying to dissuade him from infiltrating Ren’s palace by highlighting his affections. It seemed silly, but Akechi was starting to learn his actions often were. For somebody in such a villainous role he seemed painfully swayed by sentiment.

Ren, of course, was the same.

“I think I’ll try drop them out the window next,” he muttered. “Maybe I’ll get lucky and Maruki will be walking by. A fitting end to a pathethic life,”

Ren was surprisingly ambivalent to Akechi happily discussing the murder of one of his confidants. “It’d be something alright,”

Let me save you, Akechi thought as he watched him, so clearly unhappy but trying to convince himself he was. He thought he could understand a little bit as to why Ren recklessly threw himself into danger time and time again to rescue his friends. Watching the people closest to you resign themselves to drowning was by no means a pleasant feeling. That very feeling seemed amplified in Akechi, if only because the person drowning in question was Ren.

And he’d been drowning for months. Since November. This hadn’t started with choosing the fake reality, it had started with a betrayal and an escape in a cognitive version of a holding cell in the middle of Tokyo. Akechi had gone to play darts and listen to jazz with Ren all throughout the month of January and had been too weighed down by the possibility of being dead to have ever noticed something wrong. He was just as responsible as the Thieves he so often inwardly berated for taking advantage of his kindness.

Ren had kept his glove, had kept his promise, and they’d still both failed each other.

But tomorrow Akechi would enter Ren’s palace with allies. He’d tear through the place Persona or no, and then he’d force Ren to see his distortion with his own eyes. And then they’d fight side by side one last time against Maruki.

And then...

Well, Akechi mused, taking in the sharp curves of Ren’s jawline, the way he looked with lidded eyes half closed in a mixture between exhaustion and amusement-there wasn’t much point in worrying about the future.

“You’re thinking too hard,” Ren observed in turn, and Akechi allowed him a scoff and a deflection before they returned to lighter, useless topics, earlier vulnerabilities abandoned but by no means forgotten.

It was almost peaceful, and if it wasn’t for the ice clinging to his skin that persisted even after the rain had long passed, Akechi would think that the reality they lived in really was perfect.

Chapter Text

A small pink figure was approaching him. Said small pink figure was approaching him at considerable speed. That small pink figure was Haru Okumura, and as she got closer Akechi got to take in the quite prevalent expression of severity on her face. To his dismay she continued to her trip down the proverbial warpath with him at the unfortunate destination. Although he kept his own expression neutral he noticed not entirely comfortably that her fists were clenched tighter and tighter with each passing second.

She came to a sudden halt just a few feet away from him.

Okumura hit Akechi with all the force of a swing of Noir’s axe. The sound of her gloved hand hitting flesh was unnaturally loud, but the crowds of faceless people milling around Shibuya’s crossing didn’t bat an eye.

Akechi didn’t give Okumura the satisfaction of lifting a hand to assess the damage, instead fixing her with a hard stare. To his mild disappointment it was a stare that Okumura very much returned, only multiplied several times over.

“Will I assume,” he began shortly, “That you attacking me is an indication that you’ve returned to your right mind, Okumura-san?”

Okumura let out a harried breath before composing herself, although the tightness in her eyes remained. “You assume correctly. Were you planning on telling anyone about this reality?” her gentle, soft voice stood at odds with her harsh words.

“Yoshizawa-san tried,” he pointed out. “Apparently none of you seemed to even hear her when she tried to explain. A byproduct of this reality, I would guess,”

A less sensible person would have probably continued the argument, but Okumura, despite her soft appearance, was not insensible. She made a humming noise of acknowledgment, as if ceding him the point.

“You’ve a lot of explaining to do,” she said instead, and then held up a gloved finger to stop his inevitable interruption. “And yes, I know you’ll wait until we’re all gathered to do so, but you’ll at least need to set out a place and time,”

It was a painfully fair rebuttal. “Did you have a place in mind?”

“The Shibuya Accessway,” she replied. “I know it’s hardly discreet, but-“

“It’s perfect,” Akechi assured her. “It’s not as if any of the mindless zombies walking around will tell on us, and Ren doesn’t exactly have a good reason to be there. So shall we aim to be there at say, around five o’clock?”

Okumura let out the softest of exhales, presumably thanks to him interrupting her. “That’s fine, but there’s a bigger issue,”

“Oh?”

Her iron clad facade shook a little, her eyes flicking from Akechi to the ground. “It’s my father, he...”

Dread unfurled slowly in Akechi’s stomach, a feeling that refused to abate the longer Okumura remained silent.

“What about him?” he asked as calmly as possible when it seemed like she wasn’t going to continue.

Okumura’s gaze flit to the ground. “He’s still here,”

“You mean he didn’t leave this reality?”

Okumura shook her head, a little more hysterical than he’d ever seen her. “Futaba-chan said the same about her mother and Mona-chan...well, he’s still a human,”

Akechi thought back to the singular glimpse he’d gotten of human Morgana back when he’d gone to find Ren that first day in Leblanc and inwardly shuddered. That aside, Okumura’s apprehension made sense now. Of course it would be hard for her to stomach teaming up with her father’s murderer-when her father was still very much alive.

He hadn’t considered the idea that things might be different than when Ren broke the thieves out of the fake reality back in January. Even so it didn’t really as come as that much of a surprise to him. It was still an unnecessary inconvenience, but it was one that could be explained. It didn’t mean they couldn’t get out of the fake reality. It couldn’t mean that.

“I...have a theory,” he started, holding back a flinch when Okumura’s eyes shot back up to meet him. “At the start of Maruki’s reality it was our cognition that was holding it up. Maruki shaped the reality according to your wishes, so when your wishes changed from wanting your father back to wanting the return to your true reality, he disappeared. Now, however, after the actualisation of our true reality, Maruki seems to have decided for himself what our wishes are. He’s in control, not us. Your father will remain alive because that’s what he deems best for you,”

Okumura’s expression was impossible to decipher. “I see,”

Had the world been changed beyond repair? Would the stealing of Maruki’s treasure damage the people it left behind? Akechi wouldn’t be there to see it, likely if all went to plan. If he opened his eyes after it was all over and was still standing there breathing in the polluted Tokyo air that would be the first sign that something had gone horribly wrong.

“Anyways,” he said, because he couldn’t bear to look at Okumura for a moment longer and was sure the feeling was mutual. “We can discuss it more later with everyone else,”

“Alright,”

If Akechi had been any other person in the world he imagined that Okumura might extend to him an invitation to go eat at a café or go shopping, to pass the time and then head to the meet-up point together. She was, as far as he knew, a nice girl like that, with lots of money to throw around. But Akechi had ruined her entire life, so frankly it was shocking enough that she’d settled the matter with just a backhand.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

Arriving early to a meeting with the Phantom Thieves was practically asking for trouble. It meant he’d have to sit through several, increasingly awkward conversations and have to re-explain himself to each new person who turned up a ludicrous amount of times. And yet arriving late would likely earn the ire of several members in particular, who would use his tardiness as a reason to distrust him right off the bat. So he’d have to aim a tad after the agreed time, so he wouldn’t be the last person arriving, but only just. He imagined that due to train schedules and unforeseen events and just general incompetence the Phantom Thieves (or at the very least Sakamoto) were often late to their heists.

Perhaps that notion had rung true for some of their previous missions, but they apparently all held their leader in an even higher regard than he’d thought, and so were all waiting for him by their little wedge in Shibuya accessway, leaning against the railings in a show of languidity that probably wouldn’t fool the nearest passerbys, let alone Akechi. The fact that said passerbys were all brainwashed was actually a benefit to their cause in that regard. Otherwise they’d likely end up alerting the station police about loitering teenagers.

Sakamato, who he hadn’t seen since their last jaunt in Maruki’s palace scowled at his approach, opening his mouth likely to come out with such dumb jab or insult about his calculated lateness. He didn’t even get the chance to speak, cut off by a Makoto who looked decidedly less friendly than the one he’d met in Shujin’s halls the other day, but simultaneously less creepy as a result.

“Now that we’re all here, care to explain what’s going on?” as if on cue, all eight heads swivelled to look at him.

“With what?” he asked lightly. “Yoshizawa-san can explain his palace, and Morgana can explain how Ren rejected our true reality. There’s not much to fill in,”

Both Yoshizawa and the still disturbingly human Morgana glanced every so slightly away.

“I think they were waiting for you,” Ann admitted, saving them both the embarrassment. She at least looked the same as when he’d seen her last, if maybe a little more determined.

“Yes, Morgana was quite vague,” Kitagawa agreed. “Although we asked what could have possibly led Ren to rejecting our reality, he said it wasn’t his story to tell,”

“It isn’t,” Morgana said, and the ridiculously sulky tone coming from such a mature body would have made Akechi snort if he wasn’t so full of a sudden appreciation for the monster cat.

He had forgotten somehow, that Morgana knew his secret too. He’d gone through the past week thinking that it was something shared between him and Ren alone. Knowing Morgana knew and was keeping it a secret...he was glad, but the way he wouldn’t look him in the eye, almost as if he pitied him, left an ugly taste in his mouth.

“He’s right. It’s Ren’s own weakness, he doesn’t want it to be shared,” he muttered.

Sakura surprised him by speaking up, he couldn’t remember the last time she’d spoken directly to him outside of battle. “But what if it’s something important? We can’t just take a quest without knowing the consequences!”

“It’s not important.” he confirmed, all too aware of Morgana’s sad gaze resting on him. “I can tell you that,”

Sakamoto huffed irritably. “Uh, yeah, dude that doesn’t exactly mean much coming-“

“He’s right,” Morgana interrupted coming to Akechi’s aid once again. “I can understand why Ren made the choice he made but it shouldn’t stop us. The Phantom Thieves should strive for the truth regardless of the cost,”

The group all made their own mumbles of assent, some more reluctantly than others. None of them bar Morgana and his infuriatingly pitying eyes even looked at him. They didn’t even suspect Ren’s real reason for rejecting their true reality. It made things easier, certainly, but he couldn’t suppress the tiny indignant part of him that bemoaned how quickly they gave up.

Akechi took in the group, all dressed up in casual gear with startlingly little supplies at hand. He was more than a little worried that Ren possessed just about all of their medicine, along with their sole supply of coffee and curry. He’d thought it before but to see it laid bare was almost insulting. Were the Phantom Thieves truly this incompetent in the absence of their treasured leader?

“Who’ll be giving orders then?” he asked, because someone had to. “You’ve never infiltrated a palace without Ren, have you?”

“If you’re trying to get us to say it should be you, forget it,” Sakamato’s eyes were dismissive, but his tone was a little more casual than Akechi expected. It was mildly surprising, he thought the second year would jump at the chance to try (and inevitably fail) to get under his skin.

“That would be stupid,” he agreed lightly. “What would be the point of me giving orders when my teammates don’t trust me besides?”

Almost as a single cohesive unit the thieves all shuffled uneasily under the truth of his claim. There were a couple of quick, hurried glances between certain members before Okumura stepped forward to meet his gaze head on.

“I nomanate Mako-chan,”

The others agreed easily enough, even Sakamoto and Morgana, who he’d expected to bicker fecklessly for the title. Nijima, to her credit, looked a little unsure, but gathered herself as well as one would expect for a student council president.

“I won’t let you down,” she said, and then looked at Akechi, almost as if she was daring him to say something.

“That seems agreeable,” his smile felt so strained it hurt. “Will we go then? We’re losing daylight-“

“Wait a sec,” Sakamoto cautioned. He scrunched his face up into a sort of pout. “Are we really doing this?”

Akechi blinked slowly. “Yes, Sakamoto-kun, we are ‘really doing this,’”

Yoshizawa, who had been awfully quiet up until then chose this moment to speak up. “I think what Ryuji-senpai means is whether stealing Senpai’s heart is really okay,”

“You’re having second thoughts?”

Sakura groaned exaggeratedly, throwing herself forward in a parody of exhaustion. “We never even had first thoughts. You kind of dropped this on us, y’know,”

“I’m sorry,” Yoshizawa said, but everyone knew she wasn’t talking about her.

“It’s just...going behind Ren’s back like this feels kind of wrong. I mean, even with Futaba-chan, she asked us to steal her heart,” Ann pointed out. “Ren’s not like her, or any of our other targets. He hasn’t done anything wrong,”

“He trapped our entire world into a reality of Maruki’s own making,” Akechi snapped, unable to keep his temper at the sheer incredulity of her logic. “I’d argue he’s done a lot worse than some of your other targets,”

“That’s different dude,” Sakamoto shifted uncomfortably, one foot to the other. He seemed to be favouring one leg at first and then, as if discovering the other was suddenly capable of carrying weight, evened out.

“Don’t tell me,” Akechi grit out. “That you are making excuses because you don’t want to leave your perfect lives?”

“Of course not!” Sakura yelped, so quickly nobody else even got a chance to voice their own dissent. “I was so surprised when I went home yesterday and Mom was still there...just looking at her, it hurt. It’s awful, but I wish she would go back to not being around. Seeing her...it makes me feel sick,”

Idly, Akechi wondered if his half-dead state of being invoked similar feelings in her.

“I must confer that I have a similar thought process to Futaba. Seeing Madarame now after knowing what he’s done to my Mother...although I do not hate the man, him acting so kind still puts me at unease,”

“It’s not like that at all,” Nijima said firmly, likely thinking of her own father brought back from the dead. “We’re just worried about Ren,”

Akechi felt suddenly foolish for the accusation. Of course that was their only reason. They were the selfless, heroic Phantom Thieves, who’d throw away their happiness for the sake of the world. He wondered where this selflessness had been when Ren had run himself so far into the ground he developed a palace. Perhaps it only showed itself when they deemed it necessary.

“Ren chose to stay in this reality after he found out what would happen if he didn’t,” Morgana once again responded before Akechi had to, although clearly with some reluctance. “I don’t think he’ll change his mind even after he finds out he has a palace. Futaba is an outlier. Most people aren’t so willing to admit they need help,”

“He probably already knows,” Akechi said without thinking, mind on Ren pacing in front of his door a mere half an hour after meeting his shadow.

“For real?”

“I don’t have concrete evidence,” he dismissed it. “And regardless, it’s not important. Even if he finds out and opposes us, we shouldn’t let that stop us,”

“We’ll just scope the Palace out. We can decide later whether we’re going to steal his heart,” Nijima sounded more like she was trying to convince herself of this than the team.

“That’s fine,” he only needed their help to carve a path to the treasure anyways. He’d have his Persona back by then, and could steal Ren’s heart himself if needs be. It would hardly be the first time he’d infiltrated a palace by himself, although the first time to do so with non lethal intent. It would all be for nothing if Ren suffered a mental shutdown, he reminded himself. That was all.

Makoto didn’t look all that reassured by his attempt at being agreeable. She cast a glance at Okumura before fixing her doubtful expression to one of composure.

“Alright,” she said sternly, taking out her phone with a renewed sense of purpose. “Let’s go,”

Chapter Text

Ren’s palace was the same as when Akechi saw it last, although he wasn’t sure why he was expecting it to be any different. It was still as dull and clinical and bleary as he remembered, although it at least had the upside of being surprisingly warm compared to the outside world.

The thieves had all seen the inside of Ren’s palace courtesy of Yoshizawa, so that at least saved them precious minutes of gawking uselessly at their surroundings. And yet when he turned to take them in, all dressed in their own spirits of rebellion, he found out that they were indeed still gawking. Not at their grim surroundings, but at him.

“Uh, dude? Don’t you think you’re missing something there?”

Akechi’s gaze fell from Sakamoto to his own gloved hand. Because, ah, of course, the situation hadn’t changed in a mere two days. Despite everyone else being seemingly able to summon their Personas, both Robin Hood and Loki were once again quiet in his mind.

“Did I forget to mention? I can’t summon my Persona at the moment,”

Nijima, who cut an imposing figure in Queen’s signature garb, turned the ends of her lips downwards. “You didn’t seem to have this problem before,”

“How astute of you to notice,” he grit out. “It’s been like this since the first time I entered this place.”

“Really?” Nijima asked. “Are you saying that if you went to Mementos you’d be able to summon it?”

Akechi knew his lack of response was telling. He hadn’t tried going to Mementos because he knew, deep deep down, that Loki’s disappearance wasn’t linked to Ren’s palace alone.

“I couldn’t summon my persona for a bit,” Yoshizawa cut in, just in time to stop the silence from getting too awkward. “It was only for a short while, but no matter how much I called for her, Cendrillion just wouldn’t come,”

Akechi didn’t agree, if only because doing so would be pretty much admitting his weakness. And like Yoshizawa had said, her inability to summon Cendrillion had persisted for only a short while. His own affliction seemed to be much longer lasting,

He fingered the gun at his hip, barely resisting a roll of the eyes when the thieves closest to him tensed. “I assure you I won’t slow you down. I’ve been at this longer than you all, remember?”

Sakamoto fiddled with his steel pipe in a manner that could almost be described as bashful. “Dude, that’s not really the issue...”

Ah, Akechi realised all at once. They didn’t trust him to watch their backs. It was stupid of the idea to never occur to him. It didn’t exactly come as a surprise, just as an another annoyance that they had to waste time trying to navigate.

“It’s fine!” Sakura blurted out, about two tones two loud. “He’s going to stay behind and watch your backs, right? Well, uh, I’ll be even further behind and I’ll be able to watch his! So uh, if anything happens-“

“If I wanted to kill any of you I could have done it when you were all still walking around Maruki’s reality like obedient little dolls. I don’t see what benefit this all has to me now,”

Sakura waved her hands furiously in front of her in an attempt to make her point. “Well of course I know that! But even though you think you’re so cool, without your Persona and my navigation, you might find yourself getting caught off guard! So it’s non-negotiable.” she snuck a glance sideways in obvious search of moral support. “Right?”

“Yeah!” Ann saved her when nobody else offered any words of encouragement. “Sounds like a great idea,”

Nijima brushed the sharp knuckles of her gloves together. She looked a good deal stronger than she had just moments before, donning Queen’s outfit obviously doing a great deal to boost her confidence.

“Mona,” she asked. “Can you sense the treasure?”

Akechi’s gaze swivelled to the Mona in question and huh-

“You’re a cat,” he blurted unintelligently.

Morgana’s little monster cat form bristled at the perceived. “Well...that’s...when we’re in the Metaverse we control what we look like, and so-“

Sakamoto let out an ugly snicker. “So your spirit of rebellion is a cat?”

“S-Shut up! And If it is, what’s so wrong with that???”

“Nothing’s wrong with it,” Akechi seethed, already cursing himself for dragging them all so off topic. Inwardly he was relieved that Morgana had reverted back to their ordinary-or what could pass for it form. Seeing them as a human was hard enough outside, he didn’t know if he’d be able to stomach him fighting alongside them in the Metaverse. “The treasure?”

Morgana sobered quickly. “I’m pretty sure it’s up there,” he gestured upwards, and the whole group craned their necks up in unison. The spiral staircase Akechi had noted last time was still there, although broken up by large wedges separating every twenty steps or so. There were several iron wrought doors situated along the path, at the part where the stairs and wall met. It was likely that they’d need to go through those doors to progress further up the staircase, and, unlike the predictable clinical hallways of the ground floor, there was no way of knowing what sort of challenge they’d prove.

“The actual start of the staircase is down at the end of the hallway we went down last time,” Yoshizawa pointed at the painfully long corridor. “From there on its only a few doors until we reach the apex, right?”

Kitagawa squinted at the stairs with a discerning artist’s eye. “Four doors. The number doesn’t exactly lead itself to perfect symmetry. The distance between is different as well. It’s...rather jarring,”

He was right, Akechi realised. Although it was a subtle distinction, the doors all held different sized gaps between them. With the corridor directly in front of them having identically placed doors on both sides, it felt strange for the ones on the stairs to diverge from the pre-laid pattern.

“Well if we’ve got a goal shall we get going? We can refine our plan better in the safe room down the hall. Standing around talking like this won’t do us any good,” Nijima cracked her knuckles with a surge of sudden confidence in her new position as leader.

And just like that, with Akechi trailing awkwardly behind and Sakura trying very hard to stay a safe distance even further back, they were off. Like last time, the shadows skulking near the entrance were all laughably weak, easily taken out by Nijima and the core of her team. Sakura threw out words of support every so often, but it hardly seemed needed when the Phantom Thieves were literally grinding their opponents to dust.

And the thing was, Akechi had expected as much. Ren wasn’t the only one with power. They couldn’t have taken Shido down if he was. But they seemed to move with a greater sort of raw speed and power than when they’d infiltrated Maruki’s palace. There was very little banter between them as they rhythmically tore their opponents to dust. Only cold, hard determination.

It was, Akechi mused, watching Sakamoto heft his shotgun onto his shoulder and pull the trigger with pinched concentration, nearly scary to watch. It was almost like they didn’t need their Personas, like they were imbued with enough strength themselves.

Speaking of their Personas, however, it probably helped that all seemed to have taken on a new form, much like Yoshizawa’s Cendrillion. Ren had probably spoken to all of them and spurred on their awakenings. Admist their little group Akechi was the only one who remained unchanged, although at this point he’d take even Robin Hood over this awful feeling of weakness.

“Um...Crow-senpai?”

He wasn’t at all surprised to see Yoshizawa trotting quietly along by his side. Although the thieves had made an admirable attempt to include her in their activities in the past month, it was more than clear that she was Ren’s friend first, and the thieves’ second. Even setting that aside Nijima probably still didn’t have a good handle on her abilities. It made sense for her to be off the front lines.

But still, to be talking to him out of all people...

“What is it?”

Yoshizawa snuck a glance backwards to where Sakura had buried her head in her display, somehow managing to walk in a straight line despite her eyes not even being in view. Akechi didn’t doubt that she was still listening though. She was too smart, and more importantly too nosy, not to.

“Something happened, didn’t it?”

“You’re going to have to elaborate on that,”

Yoshizawa let out a nervous chuckle. “I mean there’s this tension....” she waved a gloved hand around in lieu of hesitance. “And I know there’s something nobody really wants to talk about...”

“Ask Ren,” Akechi said immediately. “It’s about what I did to him, after all,” he thought back to Okumura’s face earlier that day, the way the rage in her eyes had done little to mask the genuine hurt lurking beneath. He thought of Sakura, close enough to hear him speak in even a whisper. “To all of them,”

“I did try,” that surprised him. He’d thought she was too meek to so obviously go after a sore spot. “He told me it wasn’t his story to tell,”

Akechi rolled his eyes. Ren was a gentleman even when he wasn’t around to hear about it. “Sure it’s not. Ask him again when this is all over,”

He wouldn’t be around anymore after all, she’d have no choice.

“Stop running away, idiot,” it was low-pitched enough to just be a mumble. Akechi was going to take it as a mumble, because turning around and facing Sakura wasn’t something he particularly wanted to do, and he figured she wasn’t exactly jumping at the bit to talk to him either.

“I don’t think his answer will change,“ Yoshizawa warned him, but she at least didn’t push the topic any further.

With (nearly) the full force of the Phantom Thieves behind them they reached the first safe room in almost no time. The small little waiting room looked near comically overcrowded with all of them stuffed in there, sitting on the stiff looking couches with uncharacteristic patience. Yoshizawa Akechi and Sakura were the last to enter, where they found Nijima digging pointedly through a bag on the coffee table.

Her smile was slightly pained. “We’ve a minor issue,”

Ann mirrorered her expression almost immediately. Now that Akechi was looking closer she looked surprisingly tired, even though he was sure she’d been dodging most of the enemy shadows’ hits.

“That’s the power of coffee, huh,” she whined, throwing herself back onto the couch and nearly squishing an indignant Sakamoto in the process. “I forgot we didn’t bring any with us,”

Okumura looked aplogetically at the ground. “I checked on the plants this morning but they weren’t in season. It’ll take a few more days before we can use them.”

“The hell?” Sakamoto snorted, “If this is a perfect reality and all that shouldn’t your vegetables be in season all the time?”

Privately, Akechi agreed.

“It’s my fault,” Ann sighed. “I guess I was so used to Joker having half a dozen flasks of coffee around that I-“

“It’s fine!” Nijima interrupted, as if the very mention of their leader was taboo. “We’ve got numbers. Violet can you go on the front lines next?”

“Of course!”

“Be conservative with your Persona skills,” she went on to warn. “But don’t hold back on using them if you’re in a pinch. Um. I guess that’s all,”

There wasn’t much need to plan anything else. They were, after all still a long way from the treasure. The thieves spilled out of the doorway and back into the somber grey halls. This time they were technically in uncharted territory, but their surroundings were so dull that it was hard not to think of it all as the same.

There was a proverbial light at the end of the tunnel however, or rather the beginnings of a spiral staircase creeping into view. Going up would probably plague them with a litany of new, irritating problems, but if it would get them out of their miserable surroundings Akechi frankly didn’t care.

The thieves were in relatively good shape when they started heading up the stairs, and their spirits too seemed well improved now that they were finally making progress. While his more agile companions leapt the stairs two at a time the unenchanced Akechi settled for slowing stalking upwards, eyes on the large wedge separating the next bit of stairs from their own.

Sakamoto stopped abruptly when he reached it, and the rest of the thieves were left to file in awkwardly behind him, jolted by the sudden halt of motion. The only place to go from here was a heavy looking metal door practically welded into the wall. Sakamoto looked like he wanted to fling it open and rush in head-long, so Akechi at least appreciated his attempt at restraint.

“Let’s go,” Nijima whispered, and so Sakamoto clumsily opened the door in a motion bereft of Joker’s considerable grace. He made to peer conspicuously around the corner-as if any enemies wouldn’t have been alerted to their presence simply by him slamming the door open near clean off its hinges, only to noticeably falter.

Ann twitched impatiently two steps below. “Um....Skull?”

Being the only one actually able to fit in the doorway with Sakamoto blocking the way, Morgana squeezed around his legs to see what had the boy so shaken.

“Huh...”

Sakamoto pushed himself off the doorframe and slipped properly inside, the rest of the thieves scrambling to follow him. Akechi and Sakura were the last to pass through the door, and he found himself nearly wincing at the sudden assault of light on his senses, about how everything had gone from grey to-

“Shujin...” Okumura breathed, confirming what everyone was seeing. “This looks exactly like...”

The school had been burned in his memory since that meeting with Maruki days ago. Even if he hadn’t had the thieves with him Akechi would have been able to recognise it from this corridor alone.

“I wonder what this means,” Sakamoto scratched his neck awkwardly. “I mean haven’t most of the Palaces we’ve been to stuck to their theme? I was expecting something more outlandish or creepy. Well, I guess school’s bad enough,”

“It’s not exactly like our school,” Nijima murmured. She sounded faintly ill. “Something’s different,”

“I agree,” in contrast Kitagawa sounded more intrigued than bothered. “Look over there. I don’t remember such crass writing being on display here before,”

Akechi turned to follow the point of his finger and felt his breath catch very suddenly in his throat.

Freak was emblazoned on the school wall in the harsh blocky writings of a teenager.

Murderer

Die

“This isn’t...” Nijima’s gaze flit over the wall, taking in more sentiments scrawled across practically every inch of space. “I never...”

“People used to talk about Senpai a lot,” Yoshizawa admitted quietly. Her voice trembled slightly but still held. “They mostly stopped after a few months but...”

“First impressions are important,” Akechi finished grimly. “Even if the rumours begin to fade you’ll always see that person as an enemy,”

“Always worried they’re talking behind your back,” Okumura realised.

Akechi ripped his gaze away from the walls to look at what else had caught his attention. Just like any normal school students walked the hallways in varied paces. Although their hair and general builds varied they all lacked any sort of facial feature that wasn’t a beaming grin.

“I take it back,” Sakamoto grumbled. “This is mad creepy,”

Akechi was inclined to agree. The familiar yet clearly tainted atmosphere of Shujin was far more haunting than the clinical halls of the psychiatric facility.

“Hey, Mona, Oracle,” Nijima was still fixated on the insults lacquered across the walls-likely ruminating in her failures as the precious student council president, so Ann was the one who posed the question. “Can you guys sense anything?”

“I don’t think we’re any closer than we were before,” Morgana confessed, face scrunched in concentration.

“All these cognitions seem non-hostile,” Sakura mused, stepping to the side as one of said cognitions walked past without a glance. “Except for...huh, there’s a small enough presence a little bit ahead, probably at the end of this corridor,”

“Non-hostile?” Sakamoto scoffed. He gestured wildly at a table helpfully unscripted with the words go die in scratchy ink. “This looks hostile as hell to me,”

“Perhaps if we had Ren in our company their reactions would be much different,” Akechi said, with a patience he did not feel. “You said there’s a presence coming from up north, Oracle? Maybe if we make our way up there we can get some light shed on this situation,”

Sakura scowled at him but mumbled an affirmation under her breath. Meanwhile Nijima had finally gotten herself back together, albeit with a harder set to her fists. It was a pity that there weren’t any shadows around, it looked like she could do with a good fight to relieve her frustrations. Letting her emotions get the better of her so early on could be fatal

They started walking towards the presence Sakura pointed out, passing more graffiti that varied from harmless, albeit crude jokes to straight out death threats. After they passed the first classroom Yoshizawa set her gaze firmly forward, not sparing a look at either side.

“It feels wrong,” she said of her own accord. “-to hear what they’re saying about him,”

Morally he supposed she could be right. It was akin to talking behind someone’s back, except what they were doing-trapaising through someone’s mind without their consent far blew it out of the water when it came to the immorality scale.

Still Akechi didn’t bother calling her out on her hypocrisy. It would be pointless, especially since he was the one advocating so strongly for them to change Ren’s heart. The rest of them were just being strung along by their own morbid curiosity.

“Hey,” Ann motioned, from the top of the clump. “Is that Ren?”

Akechi’s unenchanced vision took precious seconds to follow her finger, but what he saw at the end of it made his heart stutter in his chest.

It was Ren alright, but not the Ren that Akechi knew well. He had a slightly crumpled uniform on and peeling shoes. His hair was in a permanent state of disarray.

Behind glass lenses his eyes were cold and dead.

He sat at the top of the stairs leading down to the first year classrooms. Or at least where they would have led, because the only thing past the first few steps was a sort of inky blackness, a darkness Akechi was in no hurry to enter.

When Ren turned to take them in with those vacant eyes he could feel the thieves retract in confusion as one. They lacked the yellow tinge of his shadow’s but were otherwise a perfect replica.

Distantly Akechi noted that he was missing any sort of mouth. Stress lines curved and bent on the contours of his face, but no teeth or lips were at all visible.

“A shadow?” Sakamoto sounded like he was trying to convince himself more than the rest of them. “The eyes aren’t yellow...”

“A cognition,” Akechi corrected. Sakura murmured her affirmation quietly from behind him.

“Is that even possible?” Ann was very carefully looking not-Ren in the eye. “Can you have a cognition and a shadow?”

Akechi thought of Akira, and his ‘masks’ that slipped through his hands like mist. He wagered that Ren had more than this single cognition lurking within his own palace. And maybe more hostile ones too.

The cognition’s eyes widened in suprise when it looked past Sakamoto to see Akechi.

“Futaba, Yusuke, Goro? What are you guys doing here?” the sound of his voice travelled inexplicably despite the previously noted lack of mouth. His cheekbones stretched almost exaggeratedly outwards, as if he’d yelled the words.

“Goro?” Sakamoto mouthed, obviously appalled. “Since when does he call you that?”

“Hello Ren,” Kitagawa sounded all together unbothered by the whole ordeal. “Fancy running into you here,”

“I mean, it’s my school,”

He received a sagely nod in response. “Ah. Very true,”

A little perturbed by Kitagawa’s blatant time-wasting, Akechi picked the conversation back up again. “So, do you know how we can get through here?”

“Hmm? To leave the school you just need to go down the stairs.”

The thieves stared at the nothingness the stairs led to with appropriate amounts of trepidation.

“Why don’t you give it a try, Crow?” Sakamoto beamed, before wilting under the collective force of several disapproving gazes. “Was just a joke,”

“If our goal is to simply leave the school there are plenty of windows around. And the stairs to the second floor seem unaffected. I’m sure we can reach the roof at the very least,” Akechi muttered, more to himself than the others.

Ann winced at the mention of the school roof but didn’t say a word.

“Why are you leaving through the windows?” Ren’s tone was deceptively dull. “The stairs are right there,”

“See they’re actually not-“

“Will you let us through, Ren?” Akechi asked, ignoring the absence of the stairs for a moment.

“You don’t want to stay?” it was a typical non-answer. “I hate it here, but I still want to stay,” Akechi thought he could see smile lines in the curves of his cheeks despite Ren’s lack of a mouth.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sakura wrinkled her nose in abject disgust. “You don’t want to get expelled?”

“Pretty much,”

When no further elaboration came Akechi found himself beset by a sudden wave of frustration. This part of Ren’s palace appeared to be a very one time retelling of an important place in his life. He wanted to be at Shujin, despite the abuse he suffered from his peers, because the alternative was being shipped off to juvie. And so he’d grown to love it, despite the sheer misery it brought him.

That sort of complacency from someone like Ren...it made his blood curdle.

“I don’t think you’re going to get expelled for just walking out dude,” Sakamoto chuckled a little awkwardly. “Although the teachers do seem like they’re looking for any sort of excuse-“

“Not helpful,” Nijima grit out, and Sakamoto’s mouth snapped closed again with a reverberating clack.

Ren didn’t respond, almost as if he wasn’t listening. Akechi wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake him. He wanted to push him into the abyss he was sitting right beside, if only to see what would happen.

“So are we supposed to just find a way out of here?” Ann’s gloved hand stroked her chin in thought. “Or is there a key or something? Are you meant to be giving us something Ren?”

Predictably Ren didn’t respond.

“Maybe the one who needs to leave is senpai,” Yoshizawa murmured, echoing Akechi’s thoughts before they could truly take form. “There must be a reason for him being here,”

“If his school causes him pain all we have to do is take him away from there,” Akechi agreed. “But somehow I don’t think he’ll cooperate,”

“I intend on staying here for a bit,” Ren replied nonchalantly.

“How long’s a bit?” Sakamoto ribbed.

Ren didn’t even twitch.

“Dude...” Sakamoto crumpled. “Am I getting ignored?”

“Too bad Skull,” Ann teased but she looked concerned too. “Hey, Ren?”

He didn’t respond.

Yoshizawa inched forwards. “Senpai?”

“Uhhh...Ren?” Sakura asked from behind Akechi. “What are you doing?”

He turned then, not with the exasperation of someone finally relenting under persistent questioning, but with the almost bemused countenance of a friend.

“What does it look like I’m doing?”

“Ignoring me,” Sakamoto grumbled childishly.

Ren once again proved his point.

“Dude!” Sakamoto hissed, but Akechi’s mind was already racing a mile a minute to connect the dots.

“It’s those of us that attend Shujin,” Nijima breathed, reaching that same conclusion. “Ren? Can you hear me?”

This time they were prepared for the lack of response, although that didn’t make it any less baffling. When Kitagawa attempted to talk to Ren, his smooth, tuneful voice ever so slightly afflicted by confusion, Ren turned and responded to him like a normal person.

Him, Akechi, Sakura. They were the only ones he’d respond to.

“I just...” Ann’s expression twisted into something indecipherable. “Wouldn’t you think it’d be the other way around? That he’d ignore outsiders?”

“We’re all outsiders, technically,” Sakura supplied unhelpfully.

“We’ve done wrong by him,” Okumura whispered softly, gloves clasped together in her sudden rush of guilt. “We knew he was having trouble at school but we never did a thing to help,”

There was that look on Nijima’s face again, the severe frown of a student council president who knew she’d failed her students. Akechi wondered if she was thinking of Suzui, and her attempt to end her own life-or her classmates getting preyed on by Kaneshiro’s gang in Shibuya. Or any one of a dozen failures. Shujin seemed to have no shortage of them.

“After the first couple of months I didn’t really notice anything wrong,” Sakamoto looked a little sheepish, but mostly confused. “I would have noticed if-well, I’d like to think I would have,”

“I don’t think anything was wrong, per sé,” Akechi sighed. “He has a complicated relationship with school, and with his home back in Inaba. If he gets expelled he’ll be sent to juvenile detention there. So he wants to stay out of trouble, but he hates that he has to,”

“He hates having to adhere to the rules of this place just so he can stay with us, huh?” Sakura refused to meet anyone’s eyes. “It’s not that he’s ignoring anybody maliciously, he’s just blocking everything out,”

“Futaba?” the girl in question squealed when Ren spoke up. “What are you talking about?”

“Ren,” Akechi said seriously, refusing to flinch when those distant eyes and blank face turned on him. “Is there another way out of here? Apart from the roof, or the stairs.”

Ren extended a lazy hand towards the end of the hall, where a non-descript door blended in with the scenery. “Is that what you’re looking for, Goro? You’re going to leave me in this place?”

“Dude...” Sakamoto whispered. Behind him and Ann and Yoshizawa were scampering over time the door in question. Caught between keeping his attention on them or Ren, Akechi found himself faltering in giving an answer.

“I-“

“It’s locked!” Ann called back, pulling urgently on the door handle to no avail. “There’s no keyhole either, it just wont budge!”

“The door, Ren,” Akechi said, pushing down his growing nerves. “We need to get out of here.” nevermind that this Ren was a fake. He felt that telling him as such would lead to a confrontation they were ill prepared for. “We need you to open the door,”

“And why,” Ren began slowly. “Would I want to do that?”

“You appear unhappy here,” Kitagawa pointed out. “And your peers don’t appear to have taken a liking to you,”

“Better than back there,” suddenly Ren had Akechi’s wrist in a vice-grip. Suddenly his normal human hands looked more monstrous and animalistic by the second as they dug into his gloved skin. “Is that what you want to do, Goro? Send me back?”

Akechi thought of murders and electric lines and gossiping housewives. He thought of Ren sheepishly describing the place he’d grown up, the place that had mocked him and ostracised him for daring to be good in a world set against him.

But he also thought of the tired look on his face, the tension in his skin that persisted still even in this so called ‘perfect reality’. He could go home. He could save his money. He could move to wherever he wanted in Japan, or even outside of it.

Unlike Akechi, whose life had been written off the moment he’d pulled the trigger on that gun pointed at Wakaba Isshiki’s face, Ren still had places to go. A life that wouldn’t end if he just dared to expand his horizons just a little.

“Yes,” he said plainly. “I think that’d be good for you,”

He let Kitagawa wrangle him away from Ren just in time for his first attack-because Ren was not Ren anymore, he had ashen grey skin and sharp claws and violet wide eyes. He was a shadow, and he was a monster, and Akechi kept those sentiments close to his heart when he shot him in the place his heart would be.

The shadow stumbled but didn’t fall, all the while spouting some requiem of betrayal or loneliness or some bullshit that Akechi was suddenly lacking the patience to deal with. All the other thieves were shocked, still fixated on such a familiar, if odd being transforming into a gargantuan beast to actually work together on putting him down.

“Why did you say that to him?” Sakamoto hissed, as he dodged a swipe that seemed to come from no particular direction.

“This place isn’t healthy for him,” Akechi retorted. “To open the door we need to make him leave this place. Death can be a mercy, you know,”

“You’re wrong,” Nijima said quietly. She struggled to manoeuvre her Persona in the limited space they had, but still managed to land a decisive blow despite her contradicting words. “There’s always a better way,”

The shadow was weak. Easily felled, even by the reluctant thieves. What did it being so weak say about Ren’s psyche? That his desire to stay in Tokyo wasn’t as strong as he believed? That he was tired and close to giving up? That this was just one small part of an even greater problem?

The cognition of Ren disintegrated into nothingness like any ordinary shadow they’d faced before, but his defeat was accompanied by a distinct clink of a latch being undone.

“The door’s open now,” Nijima said uncomfortably. She seemed to be the only one capable of speaking in the aftermath of the sudden fight. Sure enough Akechi could see the exit that would take them back to familiar old white and grey. It would be almost a comfort to return to, after the unsettling atmosphere of the school Ren had conjured up in his mind.

It looked like killing Ren, or rather, his cognitions, was the key to progressing after all.

“There’s a safe room just past here,” Sakura intoned quietly. “We should save our progress there,”

Ann was still staring at the spot where Ren’s cognition had been sitting, legs kicking out into the void. She nodded at Sakura’s words, but Akechi got the impression she wasn’t really hearing them.

They were stupid, Akechi rationalised, to be getting so shaken by something as simple as this. Had they not infiltrated several palaces already, including one of their own? Was seeing stuff like this, disturbing, upsetting behaviours, really so new to them?

And yet, Akechi himself also felt ill at ease. Despite what he’s said to Nijima and the others, and despite what killing the cognition had given them, he couldn’t shake the feeling he’d made the wrong choice. Which was also stupid. Considering it had been the only choice Ren had left them.

“Let’s go back for the day,” someone suggested, distant, and although they were only slightly winded, and on a deadline stricter than almost any they’d ever faced before, everyone, in sudden altruistic harmony, agreed.

In an almost frantic blur they were gone from the palace, and in an even more spontaneous instant were headed home. Alone for the first time since that morning Akechi felt beset by a familiar icy feeling that Ren’s palace seemed to have warded off. No matter how much he bundled up when he returned to his apartment alone, he never did feel truly warm, even upon finally succumbing to his his newly mandated eight hours of sleep.

Chapter Text

The day after their traipse in Ren’s palace Akechi found himself in Insohikara park, not due to any particular need, but as a result of simply having nothing to do.

Inside his apartment he had to face Ren’s flowers, and Maruki’s groceries, and a slight draft that perisisted no matter how warm he wrapped himself. At least outside-although the draft remained-had a sort of weak sunshine, and the day was still young enough that the park was near empty, most people either at work or school.

Akechi wondered not for the first time if he’d been premature quitting school. He’d done so with the assumption that he’d be able to spend his now limited time in better ways, but save for crafting lockpicks (which he’d never been half as good at as Ren) and otherwise stocking up on supplies he was running dangerously low on productive activities.

He’d expected Loki to have returned to him by now, so he could spend these free mornings pummelling shadows in Mementos or getting a closer look at the inner workings of Ren’s palace. Those were two things he could still very well attempt, but without even a navigator he had to begrudgingly admit he wouldn’t get far. It would be awfully embarrassing for him to have gotten this far in life only to be taken down by a slime or a Pyro Jack on the first floor of Mementos.

“Akechi! What’s bonkin’?”

Akechi quickly retracted his last thought. Dying in Mementos would be far preferable to his current position.

Akechi swirled around to give Sakamoto the most unimpressed face he could muster. “What did you just say?”

There was a fine line between coincidence and stupidity, and Akechi reckoned that Sakamoto showing up for no discernible reason probably tipped over onto the latter part.

Out of all the thieves Sakamoto was probably the most open about his dislike of Akechi, something that could serve both as an advantage and disadvantage. He wore his heart on his sleeve, which meant his words could generally be taken at face value, but his sheer need to comment on every one of Akechi’s actions with malignant distrust was...exhausting to say the least.

The fact that he was calling out to Akechi at all was suspicious. If he was in his position he’d have simply pretended not to see him. Of course, that was assuming Sakamoto had even the bare minimum of restraint.

Dressed casually in a sweatshirt and tracksuit pants, he rubbed the back of his neck in a motion caught somewhere between sheepish and irritable. “I was just asking how you’re doing, man,”

Akechi didn’t deign to answer, instead taking in the duffel bag resting on his arm. “Aren’t you meant to be in school?”

An almost guilty look flashed across Sakamoto’s face, “The track team had a meet so we get to miss morning classes,”

“Ah the track team,” Akechi made a show of looking around his decidedly Shujin track teamless surroundings. “And where exactly would they be?”

“Well that’s-You’re not in school either!” he scowled, likely regretting calling out to Akechi in the first place.

“I keep atop of my studies,” he rebutted, carefully leaving out the part where he planned to never set foot in his school again.

Sakamoto let out an irritated huff. “Yeah, course you do,”

He was bouncing a little impatiently on the balls of his feet, feet that were encased in ratty looking running shoes. If Akechi didn’t know better he could really believe that Sakamoto had come here with the track team only to somehow distance himself.

Despite the other’s obvious irritation and fidgeting he made no move to leave.

Akechi took in the light sheen of sweat coating Sakamoto’s forehead and the slight tremor to his breaths and came to a simple realisation. He wasn’t simply slacking off school for the sake of it, he was training, separate from the track team.

“If you were going to spent your time running you should have just gone with the your team,”

Sakamoto toed the dirt and avoided his gaze. “Well, it’s not like I’m on it, really. Not yet,”

“You don’t want to take advantage of the opportunity Maruki’s given you to be the star of the track team?” it’s a fairly pointless question, and Akechi wasn’t quite sure why he was still nudging the conversation along. If he gave Sakamoto an out here he might actually end up endearing himself to the other boy.

Not, he reasoned to himself, that that was a priority.

Sakamoto’s response was almost hilariously exaggerated. “What would be the point of that? Shit’s sick,”

“I do believe we’ve finally found something we can agree on,” Akechi smiled tightly at him, not bothering to hide the twisted edges.

Sakamoto seemed to properly look at him for the first time if the way he jerked suddenly backwards was any indication. Akechi wondered if it was the pale pallor of his skin that was causing his discomfort, or his unabashed expression. Or, simply, whether the act of Akechi being alive was too much for him to cope with.

“So your wish was to...get out of jail?” he didn’t sound too much like he believed it, which Akechi could appreciate it.

“Where’d you hear that?” he asked back, genuinely curious.

“Ren said you came up to him on Christmas Eve and turned yourself in. Said that if it wasn’t for you,” he grimaced. “he’d be in juvie,”

That fit in line with the scarce dregs that stood out in Akechi’s memory. The shutter had rolled down with him on one side, with the sight of the Phantom Thieves’ terrified eyes on the other. After that, the next thing he remembered was Christmas Eve. What had happened in those days between, where Akechi had floated in limbo before Maruki had came and puppeteered him to life he could not recall.

“That’s true enough,” he allowed. “But getting out of jail wasn’t something I asked for. My only wish would be for my father to be dead at my hand,”

Sakamoto’s expression was almost hilariously pained. “Ah, that,”

“That,” he agreed. “Instead I’ve been informed he’s sitting out a prison sentence like a good little citizen. Isn’t it fascinating? Maruki will brainwash an entire nation and mould their minds to his own desires, but draws the line at murder,”

“Dude, has anyone told you you’re really difficult to talk to?”

Akechi’s mind caught up to his mouth and all the pent up rage he’d been gathering towards Maruki crashed into minuscule pieces. “Never so bluntly, no,”

“It’s just...” to Akechi’s complete and utter horror Sakamoto slung himself over the park bench he’d been hovering near, setting his bag beside him as if he intended to stay with a practised ease. “You’re different. From how you are on TV,”

“I find most people are,” he informed him brightly.

“Yeah, but even apart from the whole weird murder shtick. You were creepy, even before we knew something was wrong with you. Like, really wrong,”

“Thanks,”

“But now it’s like...” Sakamoto cringed, rubbing a hand over his face in lieu of words. “You act a little crazy, but you’re a lot more honest now,”

“I just don’t see the benefit in lying to myself anymore,” the words tasted bitter on his tongue. They weren’t exactly a lie, but he was hardly being truthful to the thieves about a lot of things. Not that they’d asked, mind you, but even if they did Akechi couldn’t imagine spilling anything.

“Huh,” Sakamoto looked like he was trying very very hard not to seem impressed. “So are you and Ren friends?”

“I shot him in the head,” Akechi reminded him, because that question was a can of worms he very much did not want to open right now.

“A cognitive version of him,”

Akechi floundered a little, because why did everyone seem so hung up on the finer details? “I didn’t know that,”

This time the blond teen in front of him definitely looked proud of himself. “You sure didn’t,”

Akechi wanted for him to elaborate but he just stayed there with that uniquely infuriating expression on his face. “So your point is?”

“It’s just...you treat Ren differently than you do everyone else,”

“Not that differently,” he said defensively and then relented. “I know him better than I know any of you,”

“Ren’s my bro, so I really shouldn’t be talking about this, but he likes you dude, like really likes you,” Sakamoto looked appropriately repulsed at the notion.

Akechi thought back to those forsaken flowers and dug crescents into his palms. “I’m well aware,”

“You are?”

Akechi raised an eyebrow.

“Huh,” Sakamoto’s gaze flit away for a moment, like he didn’t want Akechi to see the expression in his eyes. “I guess I should have figured that. I mean if you treated all your friends like you treat Ren then...”

“Then..?”

Sakamoto let out what could be best described as a cross between a nervous chuckle and a cough. Akechi had the distinct impression that he was being made a fool of, except he was pretty sure that Sakamoto, and the thieves as a collective whole were incapable of pointlessly malicious behaviours.

“Look Sakamoto-kun-“

He wrinkled his nose. “Man, could you not call me that? It makes me feel like I’m in school. Just call me Ryuji, you don’t have to be weird about it,”

It was very similar to what Ann had said to him what felt like weeks ago, but was just mere days in the past. The distinct difference was Ann had been living in a fairytale of Maruki’s making. Of course she’d be on first name basis with Akechi in this backwards world, in her eyes he hadn’t done anything wrong. And even in their true reality Ann had always been kinder to him than most. Given a bit more time, Akechi could imagine them approaching something eerily close to friendship.

But Sakamoto? He’d never been quiet about his dislike of Akechi, seemingly even before they knew he was Black Mask. Whether it was talking about the thieves or simply his legions of female fans, anything he did always seemed to irritate the younger blond.

So if Akechi was reading this right and this was meant to be a casual offer of friendship, or at least an alliance, then-

“Why?” he couldn’t stop the knee-jerk reaction. “There doesn’t seem much point in playing nice. We’ll go our separate ways after this. And besides, don’t you think it might hurt Sakura and Okumura to see you so familiar with their parents’ murderer?”

“You’re thinking too much into this,” the words were accompanied by a slightly too tensed to be casual shrug. “And if you were so worried about their feelings you and Ren wouldn’t be so...y’know,”

“I wasn’t particularly worried,” he leaned forward conspiritally. “And why don’t you spell it out for me, Ryuji, since it seems to be bothering you so much,”

“Shitting hell,”

Akechi just raised an eyebrow.

“You had something to do with it, right?” Sakamoto-or Ryuji, rather, had his heads nearly fully submerged in his hands, with only his eyes peeking out to stare at Akechi. “With him taking Maruki’s deal,”

“I didn’t force him to, if that’s what you mean,”

“I never said that you did!” Ryuji whined, throwing his whole body backwards onto the weight of the park bench. “You’ve gotta stop jumping to those ideas yourself,”

Akechi figured that was ironic, coming from him, but didn’t comment.

“If we get rid of this reality you’ll be right back in the detention centre, yeah?” this time his gaze was definitely suspicious.

Akechi could follow his train of logic. Maruki had granted him his ‘freedom’ and the ability to live a fulfilling life despite his numerous crimes. It must have looked strange to the thieves that he was pushing so fiercely to return to his grim fate in the original reality.

He wondered how they’d react if they knew he was a dead man walking. He entertained telling it to Ryuji, just for a second. But no, ultimately it would just serve to make them more suspicious. After all, who would fight so hard just to die?

Maruki, Ren, the world at large, they all underestimated how much Akechi would give up for his freedom.

“That’s likely the case,” he lied. “Why are you asking? I thought you’d be happy,”

All he got in response was a scowl. “It’s not my right to feel happy about that,”

“Well then, that’s that,” he suddenly found himself unable to meet Ryuji’s gaze, “None of you are going to have to see me after all this is done with,”

“You just keep missing the point, don’t you,” Ryuji muttered, and then got up off the bench in one slightly stilted motion. “Alright, come with me,”

“Come again?”

“I’m heading to the gym, was just warming up,” he waved vaguely at the bag on his arm, likely full of a change of clothes. “Instead of just standing around staring into space, maybe you should come with,”

“I don’t have a change of clothes,” he retorted, and inwardly winced at his poor excuse.

“Just say you don’t want to go if you don’t,” Ryuji looked amusingly put out. “But seriously, are you alright? If we’re heading in to the palace later we can’t have you passing out without even a Persona,”

“What?”

“You look...” he waved vaguely at Akechi. It was about as blatant an insult as you could get, but Akechi was too preoccupied to take offence.

He rested a pale hand on a paler cheek. It was cold. Ever since he’d left Leblanc’s attic that day with Ren staring sadly after him they’d been cold. Wrapping his hands around mugs of instant coffee or standing under the shower until his skin cracked did nothing. The last time his hands had felt warm were when they were wrapped around one of Leblanc’s mugs. Having the complexion and feel of death incarnate seemed to be a side effect of Maruki’s universe. He wondered if Isshiki and Okumura were having the same problem. But it wasn’t like he’s started feeling off until he became aware of the fake reality.

Although who was to say he didn’t look like a walking corpse then too and Maruki just made him see differently? It wasn’t like that puppet version of him before he remembered was any more real than the current him.

“I haven’t been feeling too well, lately,” he admitted before he could talk himself out of confessing weakness. “But when I enter the palace most of my fatigue seems to vanish. It shouldn’t be a problem,”

Ryuji didn’t make fun of him, just scrunched his nose up in thought. “I sort of thought it would be the other way around, but I guess maybe even without a persona you’re still enhanced in the Metaverse. That cat would probably know more. You should ask him. Ugh, don’t tell him I said that, it’ll go straight to his head,”

“Maybe I will,”

The issue there was that Akechi had been avoiding a talk with Morgana most of all. It was much too easy to think he was alone in his secret. Just because the cat wasn’t saying anything about why Ren chose the fake reality now, didn’t mean it would stay that way. And if anybody would know something about why his persona wasn’t responding to him it’d be a being born of the Metaverse himself.

Although truthfully the cat’s knowledge could be...lacking in times.

“Alright then, uh, see you later,”

With an exaggerated stretch and a slightly awkward wave Ryuji was off, half-jogging away from Akechi like he didn’t want to be caught with his back to him but was trying really hard to hide that unease. The relief Akechi expected to feel at his absence never came. If anything he just felt even colder.

Despite his efforts to stall, he still ended up being the first person at the hideout, purely from a sheer lack of anything to do.

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

Akechi wasn’t sure how the entirety of Shibuya crossing could fit into a psychiatric hospital, but Ren was nothing if not inventive.

In fact, he reckoned, squinting as he tried and failed to see the other side of the street, the crossing seemed to stretch even bigger than it did in real life.

“Um...” he didn’t have to look at the introverted Sakura to tell she was shaking. “Is it just me or is this kind of insane?”

Right on cue a sharply dressed businessman brushed past her, surprising her so much she nearly lost her balance. Like Ren’s imagination of Shujin, this area had cognitions of people, as many as you’d normally see on a busy day at Shibuya’s crossing. Maybe more.

They were lucky they (Akechi not included) were all dressed so ridiculously. Otherwise he imagined it would be fairly easy to get swept up into the faceless crowd.

(That, Akechi imagined, was the point.)

“It looks normal,” Nijima commented. He could still hear her fairly clearly despite the vast throng of people moving around them. Their chatter, incomprehensible and meaningless played at a low volume, like background music in a video game. “It’s big, but there’s no writing like Shujin,”

“It makes sense,” Akechi agreed, mostly thinking aloud. “At school everyone was talking about him but Shibuya is a big place. He can blend in much easier here,”

Kitagawa squinted behind his mask. “I guess a place like this can be considered beautiful as well,”

“Sorry-“ Sakura was still vibrating nervously just paces behind him. “-but I kind of don’t agree,”

“To be honest, I believe you’re right,” Kitagawa conceded the point, which was nice for Sakura but otherwise utterly useless.

“We should probably be on the lookout for another version of Ren, right?” Okumura mused.

“That stands to reason,” Akechi agreed. “But...”

As if on cue the amalgamation of people seemed to almost swell in size as it pushed towards them. The black and white sea of people was...disconcerting to say the least. Finding Ren in a crowd as large and as seemingly infinite as this would be as hard as finding a needle in a haystack-if the haystack was the size of Shibuya Crossing. The fact that the crossing had no discernible end in sight was a concern too. Unlike back at the school there were no doors, no windows and no exits. The grey door bolted into the whitewashed wall behind them was their only anchor to reality, and even that seemed to blend in with their surroundings. Tall, grey buildings that only faintly mimicked Shibuya’s skyline were studded all around them, but they had an almost translucent quality, and as Akechi watched cognitions walked through the buildings and into the other side as easy as could be. As Akechi watched the cognitions passing them seemed to phase through the wall like magic, allowing more to fill their place and continue the never-ending cycle.

While Akechi had been pondering Sakura seemed to have finally built up the confidence to scope out their surroundings, but even before she opened her mouth he could tell it wasn’t good news. “I can’t detect any cognitions like the Ren one at the school. In fact there’s so many people here that I can’t even tell any of them apart at all. It’s like there’s so many objects the system hit overflow levels and can’t render them all at once,”

“Mona,” Nijima announced, so suddenly and decisively that The cat in question nearly fell over in his shock at being addressed. “If we’re going to get through this place at all we need a veichle,”

“In this foot traffic?” Ann asked doubtfully. “If we stop to fight each cognition we run across or somehow try and manoeuvre around them we’d be faster off walking,”

“They don’t seem hostile,” Sakura commented. “It’s hard to tell for sure, but it seems they won’t attack unless they’re provoked,”

The sound of Ryuji banging his knuckles together made a resounding thump of approval. “Then we just have to hit them before they can even think of fighting back,”

“With the bus?”

“With the bus,”

Morgana twitched uncomfortably. He looked left, and then right. As a single cohesive unit the thieves seemed to nod their assent. He let out a sound somewhere between a purr and a growl of frustration, before turning into the familiar old bus with a flip and a hop. Two cognitions burst into black smoke under his wheels, but like Sakura predicted no shadows came out to attack them.

They clambered into the bus a little too slow to be called eager. It was a tight fit, because eight people in one minibus was still decidedly too many, but it somehow simultaneously felt too empty, aching from the absence of someone nobody wanted to bring up.

Nijima revved the engine and the bus began reverberating with a gentle purr. Even from his spot squished against the window Akechi could spot the slight hesitance in the fingers wrapped around the driving wheel. They didn’t have any direction to go to after all. Sakura seemed to be typing furiously at something in the seat in front of him, but her frenzied, frustrated posture suggested she wasn’t exactly getting anything good.

Getting over her momentary lapse in confidence Nijima pushed the bus forward with a purposeful slam on the accelerator. They jerked to life and jolted forwards in an almost comical fashion, turning more cognitions on either sides to smoke. Although the veichle seemed to be slowed by the cognitions in their path, it felt more like wading through mud or tar than human bodies. For such an intensely detailed area, the inhabitants of Ren’s Shibuya seemed as fragile as glass.

With nothing else to do but stare out the windows, Akechi began to catch minuscule differences in the scenery. The buildings, while close enough in shape and height to the ones in Shibuya proper, lacked distinct details, and seemed made out of the same gleaming white of the hospital’s halls. There was something decidedly plastic about it.

He couldn’t spend too long thinking over it, because the next few cognitions they lurched over weren’t quite as willing to go down without a fight. The thieves tripped and stumbled out of the bus with none of their practised ease, none less so than Akechi, who, not blessed with a Persona’s innate balance and grace, landed flat on his ass. As the quartet making up their vanguard readied their weapons the reformed Morgana waddled up to him and stared with those hugely unsettling eyes.

“Here,” he said smugly, reaching out a small paw. It took Akechi far too long to realise that Morgana was offering to help him up.

He raised an eyebrow. Even sitting on the street he still came up taller than Morgana’s head. “You wouldn’t be able to pull me up if you tried,”

That predictably got a pout from the cat, and made him retract his paw so fast Akechi nearly laughed. He was distracted by another cognition sweeping past in their boring business suit, nearly stepping on his fingers on his way. Akechi glared at their back. He supposed it was fitting for these cognitions to have no awareness of where they were going, people on busy streets rarely did.

He pushed himself to his feet in time to see Ryuji slam a steel pipe into a shadow’s front with enough force to send it flying. It fizzled and faded under the pipe’s weight, and the shadows surrounding it do the same when faced with similar attacks from all around. Akechi fingered the gun at his hip. He hadn’t had to do a thing. In fact the thieves had been so confident Morgana had walked away from the battle to chat to him.

With the battle over the thieves went back on the road again, ready to repeat the process. He was a little unsure that they were moving any faster than they would on foot-any ground covered seemed to be periodically lost by random cognitions attacking without reason. There was probably some deep reasoning to that too. As simplistic as Ren’s palace was at its core, it seemed almost meticulously planned out, without a hair out of place.

“Doesn’t it seem strange-“ Ann was saying during a short reprieve in the van. “-that we haven’t heard from Joker’s shadow yet? It’s not like he can’t have noticed us, we’re not exactly being quiet here,”

Morgana rumbled in agreement.

“Maybe he doesn’t have a shadow,” Okumura mused. “After all, he already has a Persona,”

“That was the case with Dr. Maruki,” Nijima realised. “We never me his shadow, just the real person,”

Except the same logic didn’t apply here. Akechi knew that for a fact. It was...odd now that he deigned to think about it. Assuming Ren could still summon his Persona-and Akechi assumed he could, going by his admittance to entering the Metaverse recently, what reason did his shadow, that Akira, have to exist?

“Does that mean nobody’s going to stop us if we just up and take the treasure?” Ryuji didn’t look as overjoyed by this revelation as Akechi imagined him to be.

“We don’t know that,” Akechi retorted, just so they wouldn’t lower their guard.

He didn’t know why he wasn’t rebuffing their claims by telling them about Akira but somehow he couldn’t get the words out. He wasn’t sure revealing to the thieves he’d met Ren’s shadow was a foolproof method of gaining their trust-he had no evidence apart from his Metaverse travel logs suggesting such a meeting even took place. And besides, he’d promised Yoshizawa that he wouldn’t go alone. Telling her that he in fact, had gone alone was probably a quick and easy way for him to lose the trust of the one person who probably didn’t totally despise him.

Well, apart from Ren-

“I agree,” Nijima said, surprising him. “We should stay vigilant. Even if there’s no shadow present I’m sure there will be plenty of other obstacles to act as substitutes.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Ryuji grumbled, but he looked the tiniest bit happier at her words.

Akechi squinted at him for a moment before deciding he was wasting precious time just trying to figure him out.

The next time they tumbled out of the bus with significantly more poise, Sakura hung back to focus on something on her display. With the others dealing with the interruption, Akechi found himself and Kitagawa holding back to see what she was doing.

She was mumbling furiously under her breath, and Akechi imagined her eyes to be wide behind her futuristic goggles. All of a sudden she jerked her head backwards, eyes fixated on some point far away.

“That’s-“

The odd pitch of her voice caused the thieves on the front line to turn to her almost on instinct, and distantly Akechi could hear a cry of pain from Okumura as her enemy snuck a hit while her back was turned. But although her friends rallied around her to help her, Akechi didn’t. He couldn’t.

His eyes were stuck, staring at the same point Sakura was now pointing to with a shaky finger. Among the grey roofs of Shibuya skyyscrapers, the black and red of Joker’s ensemble stood clear. He was a distance away, far enough that if Akechi yelled at the top of his lungs he doubted he’d be heard over the scripted murmur of Shibuya’s sheep.

And yet his view of Joker was unobscured and almost obscenely detailed, enough so that Akechi could follow his hand’s movement from his side to his hip, and the glint of metal that emerged thereafter.

His eyes were hidden by the mask he wore, but Akechi could swear in that moment that Joker was looking at him.

And then his eyes shifted, looking over the mass of people pushing and pulling against an endless Shibuya, the thieves just brightly coloured spots in sepia monochrome. He raised his arms and set his shoulders with a cool, disciplined focus. Akechi had seen Joker gear up for a shot dozens, maybe even hundreds of times, but it had never felt so cold, so clinical as this.

Joker’s finger stroked the trigger, and then with a shot that rung out even amongst the sounds of battle, fired into the crowd.

Chapter Text

One moment they were wrestling with Shibuya’s endless crowds and the next they were in yet another grey hallway, marked as different from the last only because there was a stupid potted plant on one side of the wall.

Akechi scanned his surroundings for Joker, but came up empty. While he’d been busy getting his bearings the other had obviously made his escape. Who he did find were the thieves, with a quick headcount proving that they were all present, albeit in different states of dishevelement.

Akechi waited anxiously while they all clambered to their feet, forcing his expression to one of neutral displeasure and impatience rather than showcasing the confusion he felt.

That hadn’t been a cognition on the roof. He knew Joker, knew his style, his poise, his eyes. It stood to reason that there’d be a cognitive version of Joker in Ren’s palace, but in Shibuya crossing? Surely, just like his cognitive Shujin, the only Ren there would be a high school boy on his way home.

And in Shujin taking down the cognition of Ren had opened the door to the next floor. Cognitive Shibuya had seemed an endless scrolling maze. Akechi didn’t doubt that if they’d continued to walk aimlessly in one direction that it would loop, or otherwise never end. Which meant that the only way to get out was the way Joker-the real Joker, had got them out, by finding the cognitive version of himself in the crowd and killing him.

Despite what the other thieves had said about how there had to be another way to progress separate from killing the cognitions of Ren, it seemed Ren himself didn’t agree.

“Joker!” hearing Kitagawa’s normally composed voice raised high in shock was enough to spur Akechi back into action. He was facing a confused looking Sakura, and his yell was enough to clue the rest of them in on

“He’s not here,” she muttered, tripping over her words in her panicked haste. “He just disappeared!”

“But it was him, wasn’t it?” Akechi found himself asking. “It wasn’t a cognition,”

“I don’t know!” she replied defensively, and then hunched in on herself. “I...I think it was him,”

“What’s going on?” Ryuji and the rest of the thieves were quick to swarm them, and just like that Akechi felt himself clamming back up.

“Joker was here,” he said plainly. “He shot what was presumably a cognition of himself and left,”

He didn’t take any joy in the expressions that crossed the surrounding faces, even hidden behind their masks as they were. Confusion, sadness, fear, overwhelming guilt. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen them so solemn before.

Not since his last day alive.

“A shadow?” Nijima questioned, as if they all, her included didn’t know the answer.

“It was him,” Kitagawa corrected. “Those eyes can’t be mistaken. He was different from anything else in the palace,”

“Yeah,” Sakura mumbled. Her gaze was firmly fixated on the ground, as if she was too ashamed to meet their eyes.

It was a sentiment that seemed to be shared by most of them. Despite the deluge of questions that hung in the air, nobody seemed to want to speak them into existence. Maybe it was because they already had all the pieces of the puzzle, which were slowly beginning to slot together, at least in Akechi’s mind.

He didn’t like the picture it presented. He didn’t like it one bit.

“Standing around like this is a sure way to get us killed.” he said, as confidently as he could muster. “We should get to the safe room and head out,”

Almost immediately Morgana protested. “When I get back to Leblanc, I-“

“Are you stupid?” Akechi interrupted. “Do you think he’ll go back home where he knows you’ll be waiting? He’s a coward-“

“Hey, that’s-“

“-at the very least he won’t want to be ambushed,” he allowed. “If you go back to Leblanc now you won’t find him there. I’ll talk to him,”

Ryuji’s face twisted into an unidentifiable expression. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“I’m not going to attack him or anything,” Akechi grit out. “And even if you can’t take my word for it, I highly doubt Maruki would let me,”

“That’s not it,” Nijima placated him, but the look in her eyes was infuriatingly wary. “If he’s not at Leblanc how will you know how to find him?”

“I have some ideas,”

“You gonna share that with us?” Ryuji asked.

“I don’t plan on it, no,”

“It doesn’t matter,” Sakura interjected, pulling her phone out of nowhere. “I can listen in through either of your phones, track his location, everything. If anybody tries anything, I’ll know,”

Just what Akechi needed. A reminder of the complete lack of privacy his current life had. Maruki knowing everything about him was bad enough, but Sakura snooping in on his private conversations was somehow even worse. Not that he had private conversations with anybody outside of Ren, but, well, it was the priniciple of the thing.

“Not that I’ll be listening to you unless you give me a reason to,” could she tell that her words had set him on edge? She was supposed to be a complete social outcast. Her being able to deduce his discomfort meant it must have been plain on his face.

He’d forgotten that unlike the rest of the thieves he wasn’t wearing a mask. They were already on uneven footing. How was that fair?

“Akechi-san,” Okumura’s eyes were kind but piercing. Akechi remembered the awkward, stilted throes of the last conversation they had had and found himself fighting to hide a grimace. “Why do you think Ren will be more comfortable talking to you?”

“Because it’s familiar to him,” he answered easily. “At this rate he’s more than used to me giving out to him. And besides...” he thought back to Valentine’s Day, to the way he’d showed up on his doorstep without preamble. “I think he’s known I’ve been in this palace before. It wouldn’t be a shock to him,”

“He knew, huh?”

“We’re not mad at Ren,” Nijima stated, seeming to be speaking for the thieves as a whole. “He doesn’t have to be worried...or...or scared of talking to us after the choice he’s made,”

Next to her Ann let out a solemn sounding chuckle. “It’s strange. Before all this I didn’t even know Ren could feel afraid,”

“Our fearless leader,” Kitagawa agreed, tone stuck somewhere between melancholic and wistful.

“He’s only human,” Akechi pointed out irritably. “This sort of hero worship is what helped cause all this anyways,”

“I know,” Nijima whispered, head hung low in shame.”I know that now,”

Akechi took another scan of the thieves, all in various states of shame and horror. Again his anger rose unbidden.

“And stop feeling guilty. You could investigate this place behind his back with no problems but suddenly you hesitate when he’s aware you’re doing it?”

Ryuji’s head snapped up. “Dude you can’t be suggesting we continue-“

“Unless any of you can convince Ren to go with us and defeat Maruki, this is the only way we can get out of this reality,” he said bluntly. “So yes, frankly, I am suggesting that,”

If possible the thieves only looked more horrified, this time to the point of nausea. Frustration licked at his skin, a sensation that only grew as the moments passed without a response.

Yoshizawa eventually broke it, but all she could muster was a soft. “Crow-senpai...”

It did its job though, easing the tension that had been blanketing the hall, if only a little.

“I’m leaving. I’ll find him, I can promise you that,” he turned on his heel, ready to march to the safe room they should have been in while they were having this conversation. They were stupidly lucky to have not been attacked while they stood around yapping, especially since Ren knew they were here. In any normal palace the security levels should have skyrocketed. But of course. Playing by the normal rules would have just made things too easy, wasn’t that right?

“Crow,” Nijima said. Despite himself something in her voice made him turn around. “We were serious about just being worried. If you find him, let us know, okay? We just want him to get home safe. Both of you,”

Nice save, Akechi thought, but he couldn’t say it out loud, not when Nijima’s eyes were so irritatingly earnest.

“I’m pretty sure Maruki has gotten rid of car accidents. He’ll be fine,”

“You know that’s not what I meant,”

Yeah. He knew. Absentmindedly Akechi wondered what it was like to be as loved as Ren. Here were his friends, who he’d betrayed without even telling them why. And still they worried over him, admired him, trusted him unconditionally. Ren had been so cherished-maybe too cherished, and he’d tried to throw all that trust away for somebody said friends hated, somebody who’d pointed a gun to his head and fired.

Would his friends still be understanding if they knew just why Ren’s judgement had faltered?

He figured it was useless to think about it, but it was the only topic floating in his head the whole trip to Kichijoji.

Ren was waiting for him outside the jazz bar, just like Akechi knew he’d be. He was smiling, but the expression was so strained it made him wince just looking at it. He didn’t greet him, and Akechi didn’t try to either, which somehow lead to them sitting inside with their orders taken without actually saying a word to each other.

“I’m going to do us both a favour and not waste our time with small talk.” he said. “How long have you known?”

Ren, a little disheveled, like he’d run here as soon as he’d left the palace, smiled a tad lopsidedly. “Known what? How long I’ve had the palace or how long you’ve been in it?”

“And here I thought all along the latter made you find out the former,” Akechi raised his gaze from his drink to stare at Ren head on. “Am I wrong?”

“The time I found out about the palace, it was the day you were at Leblanc,”

Akechi scrunched his nose, trying to piece the timeline together in his head. “The day when you were supposedly hanging out with your Yakuza friends?”

“No-well, yes, but it was the day before that that I found it for the first time,” suddenly Ren looked the slightest bit uncertain. “The day that you...”

“The day that I remembered,” Akechi echoed, and then cursed, almost on reflex. “That’s a whole week ago!”

Ren nodded. “I didn’t know about you being there until later,”

“Valentine’s Day,” he finished, remembering how Ren showed up suddenly outside his door after the meeting with his shadow. “Shit, all this time I thought you’d been in Mementos, but you’ve been traipsing around in your own palace? How did you even figure it out?”

“I tried going to Mementos like you said,” Ren explained. “But I...I couldn’t summon Arsene. I thought it was worth checking,”

Akechi allowed himself to feel the slightest bit bitter over this new information. As far as he could tell Ren still had access to at least some form of Persona, if not Arsene. In addition he had a concrete reason for Arsene’s absence. If the palace was dissolved he’d return. Akechi himself didn’t have any such certainties to comfort him. The reason why not just Loki, but Robin Hood as well, eluded him was a mystery that always lay half dormant in the back of his mind. It was something Akechi had been loathe to give much thought. After all, he couldn’t think of a single positive reason why they wouldn’t answer his call.

“So you’ve been exploring ever since?” he asked, to distract himself. “I’ve only been on four separate occasions but it’s still surprising they never overlapped,”

“No, actually...” Ren twitched his fingers in a gesture of honesty. “I stopped going after a couple of days. I only went today because I thought you might need some help,”

“Help? We were fine, thank you,” Akechi bit out, before latching onto the more interesting part of his statement. “Why did you stop? Did the idea of seeing your own twisted desires scare you off?”

Predictably Ren didn’t look perturbed at the blatant insult. “No. I got stuck,”

“You got stuck,” Akechi repeated dryly. “You, the great leader of the Phantom Thieves got stuck? Am I supposed to believe this?”

“You’re going to have to,” Ren said simply. He sounded fairly honest, but then again Ren was one of the few people where Akechi could never tell if he was being in genuine.

A fight Ren couldn’t win...loathe as Akechi was to admit it, Ren was the strongest individual he knew. In the Metaverse they’d fought to a standstill-even if Akechi only used Robin Hood, and from what Akechi had heard from the thieves’ hasty retelling, had actually gone one on one with Shido’s shadow and lived. A shadow so strong that it led to Ren giving up a couple of days into encountering it didn’t bode well for the rest of them.

Hidden under the table Akechi’s gloved hand curled into a fist in frustration. If he had Loki, this mysterious shadow Ren had lost to wouldn’t be a problem. As he was, he could do little more than be moral support-and he did a terrible job at that.

That was assuming Ren had been stopped by a shadow. He seemed to be implying that this obstruction had come shortly after the Shibuya crossing. It seemed unlikely that it could be his treasure, considering that the palace looked a good deal bigger than just the school and Shibuya, but it was possible. Of course it was also possible that the obstacle he ran into was his own-

“You couldn’t face your own shadow. Was that it?”

“No,” and this time Akechi knew for sure he was telling the truth. The sheepish glint in Ren’s eyes couldn’t be faked even by him, “After all this time, I haven’t seen or heard from him once,”

It was surprising, but it had no reason to be in hindsight. Ren’s shadow hadn’t appeared to Yoshizawa and the others either, and they’d visited the palace several times at this stage. Even if they’d managed to evade him up until now, their little stint with the Mona bus in Shibuya could hardly be called subtle. It should have sent the security levels rocketing up.

“He’s not worth much,” Akechi muttered.

That coaxed a smile out of Ren, an expression Akechi hated to like to see. “Did he let you know anything juicy?”

Was he testing him? Akechi meeting Ren’s shadow was the catalyst for him coming to his door that Valentine’s Day, he knew that. But if Ren thought it was all a coincidence...

Akechi placed his elbows on the table and leaned forward ever so slightly, like he was telling a secret. Ren’s head inclined in to match.

“Not much. Just your abandonment and control issues mostly. And your alternate name,” he smiled thinly. “Akira, was it?”

Ren’s eyes widened ever so slightly behind his fake frames. He pulled back, just a little bit, but the slight upturn of his lips didn’t fade. “So you really did meet him,”

“Just the once,” Akechi admitted. “I’m sure he’ll be waiting by your treasure though. Any idea what that could be?”

“I don’t know. You’re the detective, aren’t you?”

“Always the Joker. Your friends-“ Akechi trailed off, confidence forgotten as he tried to figure out how exactly he wanted to approach this topic. “-they’re not mad at you, for some godforsaken reason. They’re worried,” he spit out the word like it was something unbearably reprehensible.

“Did you use your super deductive skills to work that one out?” he was joking, smiling and playing along like Akechi wasn’t trying to be a good person for the first time in his admittedly short and miserable life. His blasé attitude was making Akechi reconsider any niceties at all.

“I know because they told me, Ren,” he bit out. “They sucked up their pride and asked me, a person they all unanimously despise, to make sure you were okay. They did that because they...” malice coated his throat, stifling the words he so desperately wanted to let out.

Ren eyed him concerdedly. “They don’t despise you,”

The vice grip around his throat loosened. “That’s not the damn point and you know it,”

“Then tell me. Tell me what the point is,”

Akechi held Ren’s gaze, didn’t break it. “I know you don’t like the life you have in Inaba, but it’s not inescapable. You can get out of there, whether by waiting a couple of agonising years or by taking dubiously legal action. It will be tough. It’ll be hard work, and that’s what you’re scared of. Maruki isn’t giving you a world that’s impossible, he’s giving you one that you don’t need to lift a finger for. I know your school is messed up and everyone thinks you’re some kind of criminal freak but it’s not going to be like that forever unless you let it be. If you just bother to get through this rough patch, you’ll have everything. You’ll have all of it, a stable home, a cat, loving, genuine friends. And yet you’re throwing it all away for, what, the easy road in life? Social and financial security? The forced happiness of your friends as perceived by you?” he paused, intending for his next words to come out as disgusted. “...me?” but all he sounded was breathless, and faintly desperate.

“You can’t say they’ll still be here in a year or two,”

Akechi scoffed. “They would risk their lives for you. I wouldn’t have lost to you all if you didn’t work perfectly in sync,”

“Is that what you think?” Ren’s tone was casual but his mannerisms, cold and almost unconsciously detached, were not.

“Yes,” Akechi hissed. “I don’t get any particular joy out of saying it, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s true,”

“They’re good people,” Ren agreed, a glint of what almost seemed like pride shining from behind his glasses. “But there’s no guarantees,”

Akechi just shrugged. “There’s no guarantees in anything outside of this accursed reality. But all your beloved friends want out. Can you really still claim to be doing this for them? If you’re going to go to all this trouble to trap us here, at least admit that it’s for purely selfish reasons,”

“I never claimed not to be selfish,”

“You keep changing your story,” Akechi warned, and then relented. “When all of this started I thought maybe your friends knew about what was bothering you and were just ignoring it. But they genuinely didn’t have a clue,”

“They couldn’t have known. I didn’t really consider staying in this reality for the longest time,”

The idea that Ren was trying to shift blame onto Akechi-as if he could help being dead, irked him a little, but not enough to distract him. “You admit that it was a split second decision based on reactive emotion then? The wrong decision-“

“Goro,” Ren said softly. “You know we’re not going to see eye to eye on this,”

A split second decision...Akechi thought of the ledgers in one of the safe rooms in Ren’s palace. He thought of the date, scribbled out. He thought of Ren’s shadow, gleefully informing him that the palace’s formation date was not February, but November. The more Akechi thought of it the more the sickly feeling in his gut worsened.

This had not been a split second decision at all. It had been a slow descent, unnoticed by everyone around them. The crux of the problem wasn’t this reality, it never had been.

“Does that mean you’re going to stop us tomorrow?” Akechi asked, with as easygoing an air as he could muster. “Or are you going to trust your little roadblock?”

Ren didn’t answer his first question-which was an answer in itself. He’d made it clear through his inaction that he wanted the decision out of his hands. He didn’t want the burden of choosing a reality for all again, and Akechi couldn’t blame him. It was stupid that it had come to that in the first place.

“What stopped me won’t stop you,” it was the first time Akechi had heard Ren sound so confident about something in what felt like months. “If it’s you, you’ll be fine,”

“Consider me flattered by your faith in me,” he replied wryly. “Do you have any less cryptic advice?”

Ren laughed a little bitterly, hiding his eyes from behind the glare of his lenses. “You’ll be fine.” he repeated simply.

“Alright,” Akechi said, finding himself at a sudden loss. He reached into his pockets, leaving money enough for his drink and a tip on their table. Even with that done he felt himself linger, reluctant to leave a conversation that he hadn’t even been enjoying in the first place. “Make sure to message one of your friends and let them know you’re alright,” he said, just to fill the silence. “Else they’ll come to me begging for answers,”

Ren raised an eyebrow. “Would that be so bad?”

“Yes,” he said immediately.

The two of them got up, and Akechi found himself wondering if they were going to take the train home together again. As muffled as his mind was with the day’s events he was at least conscious enough to know that that was a bad idea.

But Ren, so aggravatingly in tune with Akechi’s every action made no attempt to accompany him, citing a need to buy some fancy nutrients for his houseplant. Akechi was pretty sure it was a bullshit excuse considering that it was late in the evening and there was a perfectly serviceable flower shop in the Shibuya mall, but it was just about believable enough to garner nothing more than a wry comment and a disbelieving look.

Out in the cold of the streets it was hard not to think of the last time they’d been here together. They’d played pool and darts. They’d walked to the train station in the pouring rain. A sliver of him, a minuscule piece that he was ashamed for, longed for that day again. He’d been so sure Ren didn’t know he had a palace, that he was oblivious to his own corruption and his friends’ betrayal. Now, discovering that he’d known all along Akechi felt a little like a child again, caught doing something they weren’t supposed to.

“Ren,” he said, just before they were set to part ways. “Answer me this. What you shot back there in the palace. It was a cognition of yourself, right?”

Ren looked a little confused at the sudden topic of conversation, but the expression only lasted for an instant before it was wiped over. “Yeah. The cognitions don’t seem to disappear permanently. When I first went through that school and Shibuya I had to do the same,”

The confirmation that Ren had also been killing cognitions of himself wasn’t comforting in the slightest. That same traitorous part of him that longed for easier days had hoped that they’d just been missing something, that Ren had found another way through.

But there was still a small light of hope in it all.

“Why, then?” he asked lightly. “You shooting that cognition was what let us get through to the next area. If you really wanted to stop us all you had to do was not interfere. We were getting nowhere fast,”

For the first time in the whole evening Ren openly hesitated. “I just...” he shook his head. “The first time I went there I spent the better part of a day stuck before I found my cognition. It’s not a normal room with a beginning and an end. It loops pretty much endlessly. It wasn’t until I got to higher ground that I even had the slightest chance of finding him,”

“Well sorry we don’t all have grappling hooks,”

“I know you would have ran into him eventually with Mona, but it could have taken you hours. Days even. I didn’t want you to be trapped there,”

Trapped, huh?

The irony of Ren being the one to say that was not lost on him.

Akechi allowed his lips to quirk up in a smile. “If you couldn’t stand to see us trapped, maybe we’ll begin to see eye to eye after all,”

-/-/-/-/-/-/

There were few shadows clouding the corridor leading between the Shibuya room and the next. It was little comfort with all of them so on edge. A fight would almost have been a welcome distraction.

Ren’s words from the day before ran a loop in Akechi’s mind, a constant reminder of the greater opponent ahead. He’d warned the thieves of the possible dangers, but there was little they could do to prepare other than bring their best weapons and stay on guard.

He was lucky they even came after yesterday.

Although after all that happened, maybe they just felt like they could no longer stomach leaving Ren and his palace alone.

The walk through the psychiatric facility’s grim corridors felt both very short and very long at the same time. Regardless by the time they approached the end of the corridor, marked by an iron wrought door that looked more than a little out of place, Akechi found himself wishing that the journey had taken just a little bit longer.

He knew the thieves had to be wondering what was inside, even as they almost wordlessly raised their weapons in preparation. With only his gun to support him, Akechi’s mind was free to race as they got themselves ready. First the school, then Shibuya crossing...what next? Leblanc, maybe, if the palace’s rooms were meant to reflect a typical day in Ren’s life. Or perhaps his home in Inaba? Or maybe not, since Ren’s palace was situated in Tokyo. But then again, did that even matter?

It was worthless to wonder. He knew that, they all did. And yet he couldn’t help it, even as Ryuji pulled open the door to reveal Akechi’s worst nightmare.

The room was small in comparison to the past concoctions of Ren’s mind, but spacious enough to fit them all in with space to spare. The walls around them were the same measly grey as the outside, but there was something different about this place, something both achingly familiar and oppressive.

Akechi remembered Ren’s words, the tainted edge of his smile.

If it’s you, you’ll be fine.

“Shit,” somelody said behind him.

Akechi didn’t respond. He couldn’t, not when the dawning realisation of his situation threatened to steal the very breath from his lungs. Not when everything was staring to slide too easily into place, the sterile walls, the windowless room, the needles on the floor.

...The metal table, the chairs on both side.

Akechi’s didn’t want to look at the boy in that chair. He forced his eyes to the ground. But like a train wreck he couldn’t look away from, his gaze finally lifted to confirm their location once and for all.

He hadn’t known what to expect upon entering the room.

But standing there gun in hand and faced with a scene ripped from his very nightmares, he found it hard to imagine a worse outcome.

Finally, delayed no doubt by the drugs coursing through his system, the cognitive Ren raised his head. From the other end of the interrogation room the only thing Akechi could see clearly was the glazed fear in his eyes.

Chapter Text

Silence reigned for a mere instant before the door slammed open a second time. Fuelled by a burst of energy Akechi didn’t know he possessed, the gun that had been shaking in his hand came up to point at the intruder’s head.

One shot later, and a cognitive police officer slumped almost comically to the floor.

“Ah,” he said, feeling faintly hysterical. “I guess that helps set the scene,”

And just like that the world was thrown back into motion, the thieves snapping themselves out of their shock to ask, to worry, to-

“This is the place, isn’t it Crow?” Ryuji’s voice was low, “This is the place where you put a gun to his head and shot him,”

“I...I don’t understand,” Yoshizawa’s admitted. Her words lay a heavier burden on Akechi than any others. Just a couple days ago he was refusing to tell her about what he’d done to Joker. Now she was getting a firsthand view. It was almost hilariously cruel.

“Back when Ren got arrested I tried to kill him in this very room,” trying to avoid the gazes of every thief and the cognitive Ren was proving to be quite difficult, so he fixated on the ceiling instead. “He tricked me by transporting me to the cognitive world, where I took out a cognitive version of himself instead of the real thing,”

“That’s...but....”

“That’s what,” he snapped, aggression overriding his common sense. “Spit it out, would you?”

He was being unfair. He knew he was being unfair. Yoshizawa didn’t know the details of what had happened that day because he had never told her. He had foolishly thought he could get away with not telling her-as if anything in his life had ever gone as planned.

“I figured something like this happened,” her voice was soft. She didn’t sound scared, only a little remorseful. “I just didn’t realise it was this bad,”

“Take whatever you’re imagining and multiply it by a factor of ten,” Akechi replied absently. “That’s how bad this is,”

Out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of Ryuji skulking up to the cognitive Ren and waving a hand in front of his face. There was an attempt made to follow the sway of the digits, before those eyes reverted back to their previous glassy state.

“He’s pretty out of it,” Nijima mumbled.

“He was like that back then too,” Akechi informed them, because he figured he might as well go all the way and give them a play by play rendition of the day’s events at this point. “They had him drugged up to his eyeballs,”

“Drugged?” Kitagawa echoed, aghast. “He never mentioned such a thing before,”

Akechi scoffed. “I’m getting the impression he didn’t mention a lot of things,”

“It’s our fault,” Nijima asserted. “We never thought to ask what they did to him, even though we knew he wasn’t feeling well the night he came back,”

“It’s not our fault.” Ryuji retorted. “I mean yeah, we should have made sure that he was okay, but we weren’t the ones who put him in that situation in the first place,”

As if remembering who the common enemy was, all heads swivelled to Akechi.

He wanted to snap something about how, actually, they were the ones who had put him in that situation-Ren getting arrested had been part of their master plan after all. But there was an easy rebuttal to that, the simple fact that in the end it had been Akechi who’d plotted against them, Akechi who had tried to get them killed, Akechi who had refused their goodwill even in his dying throes. In the end he couldn’t blame them for making him public enemy number one. Ren’s palace wouldn’t have formed without his actions after all.

“You’re not being fair, Skull,” Nijima scolded loudly. He kind of felt like he was eavesdropping on a mother berating her young child. “The circumstances were complicated,”

Akechi scrunched his nose at that because, really? That was the best defense for him she could come up with? Complicated? He supposed he should applaud her effort, but he didn’t feel much like encouraging that.

“Are we sure he’s a cognition?” Ann asked from behind him. “He looks pretty realistic,”

“Cognitions always do,” he reminded her. “What, are you going to say I tricked you? Took you from the cognitive world to the real one in a reversal of your own plan?”

“Nobody is saying that Crow,” Nijima didn’t sound angry. Just tired. Somehow that tone of voice was enough to shut him up.

“He’s a cognition,” Sakura mumbled. He had to strain to even hear her. “I can tell they’re different,”

“Is there a way out of here?” Okumura asked. “Can we try take Ren out the door?”

It became very quickly apparent that they couldn’t take Ren out of the door. They couldn’t even take him out of his chair. The furniture in question seemed almost welded into the floor, and Ren himself wouldn’t budge, as if he was stuck to the spot with glue. He just stared with that same hazy look in his eyes as Ryuji and the others tried to move him this way and that.

Like a doll, Akechi thought, hating the comparison as soon as he made it. Helplessly moving to the whims of those around him.

Akechi lifted his gun.

“Crow-senpai!”

Yoshizawa’s outburst brought the attention back on him, and he scowled as the thieves renewed their looks of suspicion.

“We still have other options,” Nijima said. “We could try visiting the real place and changing cognition,”

“That wouldn’t work,” he replied.

“Because this isn’t a place,” Okumura realised. “It’s a memory. It can’t be affected by the present,”

“Exactly,” Akechi hissed, “And even if it could be, this room is based off of the one in our true reality. Changing the cognition of Maruki’s reality likely won’t lead us anywhere,”

“There must be something we can do,” Kitagawa looked the calmest of the thieves, but there was a shudder in his posture that betrayed even his unease.

“He’s a cognition. Just like in the school and Shibuya. You didn’t have any problems there. Is it because he’s defenceless? Is that it?”

Ryuji took one step towards him, fury set fast in his bones. “I’d say that makes a pretty effing big difference, yeah-“

“Maybe this is a bad idea,” Sakura murmured. For a moment Akechi thought he’d simply misheard her. But when the other thieves paused in their frantic movements he knew she’d signed their death warrant.

Ann bit the bullet and asked. “This palace you mean?”

Sakura averted her gaze.

“I mean, Ren’s in pain. I want to help him,” Ryuji said, anger gone now the focus was off Akechi. “But doing this behind his back feels...”

“Let me remind you he already knows,” the fact that he even had to remind them pissed him off.

“That doesn’t mean he consented to it!”

That strain of self-righteousness was the perfect spark to send Akechi boiling over. “Neither did Kamoshida or Madarame or my father or any of your victims! The Phantom Thieves have never cared about the welfare of the criminal trash they dispose of. You keep the moral high ground by refusing to kill, but change your standards to suit your needs. You’re hypocrites,”

“You’re misunderstanding us,” Nijima said bluntly. “The Phantom Thieves only take on a case if we have a unanimous vote from all of our members,”

Akechi smiled, thick and ugly. “Well. It’s a good thing I’m not one of your precious Phantom Thieves, isn’t it?”

“Crow...” he wasn’t sure who the warning had come from. He didn’t know if he cared.

“Ren knew this part of the palace existed. He told me last night that he couldn’t get through it, but I would. That if it was me, I would be fine. I promised him not too long ago that I would shoot him again in a heartbeat if he got in my way,” his smile softened a bit at the memory. His false bravado seemed so stupid now. Several heartbeats had passed and the cognition was still sitting there alive. “Ren is trusting me to do this. He wants me to shoot that cognition. Maruki’s reality aside, he wants to get to the bottom of his own palace, he’s just too scared to do it himself. He’s trusting me to shoot that cognition and get us a step closer to that treasure. For once in your damn lives, try seeing it from his perspective,”

“I just...”

“What?” he didn’t think he could take Yoshizawa’s admonishment now. Not on top of everything else.

“I just wish you told me,” he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her look so resigned. Sad, certainly, but not so empty. “I know we haven’t known each other that long but I just wish you and Ren trusted me enough to tell me what was going on,”

Familiar guilt gnawed at Akechi’s insides, but there was no time to get lost in it. Trust...that’s what it all came down to in the end. Him and Ren had hoarded their own personal experiences away from others and bottled them up, only for them to burst open in that interrogation room. In some ways it had been nearly therapeutic. He’d gotten to finally express the anger and jealousy he felt everytime he looked at Ren’s face, and Ren had gotten to tell a story on his own, free from the influence of people who trusted him unconditionally, only for him not to rely on them back.

Ren shouldn’t have had to get to this point. His friends would have dropped anything for him. But they never got the chance to, and the Ren born in the interrogation room became more secretive, more lonely, until he was the sort of miserable creature that would trap everyone he loved in a fake reality out of fear of them leaving him behind. That part of Ren...it had to be cut out at the root.

“I’ll tell you,” he promised. “Not now, but I...I’ll tell you,”

“We need to discuss the situation outside of the palace,” Nijima insisted, even though there was no time, even though she had to know that the deadline was inching ever so slightly closer with each passing hour. “Before we do something we regret,”

Akechi shook his head, nearly choking on the laugh that ripped free of its own accord. “I don’t do things I regret,”

He raised the gun in one easy, practiced movement. Around him a cacophony of voices launched into action. He thought somebody might have grabbed his arm. He shrugged them off with a strength summoned from wells hitherto unknown.

The cognition’s eyes blinked with the slightest hint of recognition.

“Goro?”

He pulled the trigger.

/-/-/-/-/-/-/

Akechi wasn’t sure at what point he realised the sick feeling in his stomach wasn’t just latent anxiety. His trip home was a blur, just another faded memory in what was quickly becoming a heap of them.

The only thing clear in his mind was the vision of Ren’s cognition flying backwards against the wall, blood spurting everywhere like some twisted horror show. It had been exactly like Akechi remembered it, or was that just what he thought? How much did he remember of that day in the interrogation room anyways? How much did he remember of that day in Shido’s palace, of Christmas Eve, even of February the 2nd?

His head pulsed, a migraine stronger than he’d ever felt before. His skin was simultaneously cold and clammy to touch. His heart rate thudded out an arrhythmic beat. Akechi was just thankful, or maybe hateful, that it still beat at all.

He crashed as soon as he entered his apartment, nearly bowling over in his haste to get to his room. Even in there Ren’s flowers sat proudly on his dresser, mocking him with each wink of their freshly watered stems.

Sick, tired, and filled with an encroaching sense of dread, Akechi fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.

Chapter Text

When Akechi was eight years old he came down with a bad case of pneumonia.

He was bedridden for over a week, unable to go to school, or even leave his room. His mother had taken the a few days off work to sit by his bed with a washcloth in hand, rifling through his hair with the other in gentle soothing tones.

Back then he’d just been glad she was paying attention to him, even admist the pain he felt. He hadn’t known that once that week would pass he’d start to see his mother less and less, as she took up extra shifts to make up the time she’d spent off work.

In hindsight that week had been the start of everything going wrong, at least in his own eyes. The cracks in their idyllic life had cracked and splintered until they were too much for mother and son both to bear.

But then, when Akechi was an eight year old boy, still ignorant to the world around him, that week had been one of the best in his life.

Akechi felt a little like he did when he got pneumonia, except this time he didn’t have smooth fingers carding through his hair. There was no comfort to be found at all.

He lifted one shaking hand to the side of his bed, wrestling around aimlessly for his phone with his eyes still screwed firmly shut. When his sweaty fingers finally closed around the object in question he froze in place, thoughts struggling to keep up with the burning discomfort wracking his body. It wasn’t like he had anyone to call, not when he didn’t even know what the problem was in the first place. He hadn’t been sick in years, an ailment as severe as this just simply couldn’t be natural.

He unlocked his phone and stared at the dimly lit screen through blurry eyes. Even with his vision clouded a red pulsating icon stood stark against the rest. This sickness was something that had been culminating, worsening with each day he lived in this sick reality. The moments he’d spent in Ren’s palace-although they’d been exhausting without his Persona, had been the only times the chill left him. If he wanted to escape the burning sensation wracking his insides, the Metaverse was the only possible place to go.

Mementos was probably a no go, too embroiled in Maruki’s will to be at all safe. Maruki’s palace was even less of an option for that same reason. So that only left...

Before Akechi could even begin to think about how poor a decision he was about to make he’d navigated to the log through bleary eyes and set course to Ren’s palace.

When his eyes next opened from their long laboured blink he was on his hands and knees on what was starting to become a very familiar floor.

Already he felt the fever that had been gripping his body begin to abate, although a foreboding sense of dizziness remained even as he moved to push himself to a sitting position. The harsh white of his surroundings should have made his pounding headache worse, but with each passing second Akechi felt himself returning to a state even resembling normality. It was just a shame that it had to happen in a place like this, one so unnatural and abnormal as to be actually grotesque.

“Goro?”

Akechi wondered if hearing Ren’s voice was an oddly lucid side effect to his fever. An auditory hallucination, accompanied by a very real, very concerned looking Joker standing just a few paces away from him.

He was pretty sure somebody was laughing at him from up on high, because this had to be some sort of sick coincidence.

“Joker,” he acknowledged, staring blankly up at the thief in question from the floor.

He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen the man so clearly flummoxed. The hand he offered to help him up was almost comical in its hesitance. Instead of arguing Akechi let himself be pulled to his feet, so he could at least stare at Ren on equal footing.

There was the possibility that this Joker was just another cognition, but it’s sudden, spontaneous appearance at the palace’s entrance, not to mention it’s almost awkward expression implied that it was the real him. He didn’t know if he would prefer to see a cognition of Ren rather than the real thing. It was too early to tell.

Ren’s hand broke away from his. Dark eyes surveyed him from head to toe. “Where’s the getup?”

Akechi instinctively wrapped his arms around his normal clothes. “What are you saying?”

Ren frowned, clearly confused. “No, it’s just...You are Crow, right?”

Akechi stared at him for an agonisingly drawn out moment, taking in that bewildered expression for as long as he dared.

“You don’t know,” he realised, voice rising as he found himself taken by a sudden fit of hysterics.

“Know what?”

Akechi gestured to himself messily. “I can’t summon my Persona. I just assumed all this time you knew and didn’t say,”

“The van was the thing I saw in Shibuya,” Ren confessed. “I guessed you were there but I didn’t know for certain. I never lay eyes on you. But your Persona...do you have any idea what happened to it?”

So Ren had just assumed him and the Phantom Thieves were in cahoots. Was he really that predictable to Ren? Did he predict the thieves’ reluctant acceptance of him too? That was a stupid question, he mused. Ren had a ridiculous level of faith in them.

“I’d love to know,” he answered dryly, and then scowled. “But I don’t have a palace, if that’s what you’re implying. My desires aren’t contradictory in the slightest,”

Ren lifted his gloved hands up playfully. “I wasn’t suggesting they were,” his posture sobered a little. “But you shouldn’t be here without a Persona. It’s dangerous,”

Akechi scoffed. “Oh please. I can take care of myself. These shadows don’t seem in a hurry to hurt me besides,”

Ren averted his gaze. “I guess they wouldn’t,”

“So why are you here? Your twisted curiosity get the better of you?”

“Something like that,”

“You could have warned me, y’know,” Akechi muttered, because he suddenly wasn’t feeling much like beating around the bush. “About the interrogation room,”

“I didn’t think there was much point. Besides you got through it, didn’t you?”

He scoffed. “To the great displeasure of your friends,”

Ren cast a quick look around the place as if he somehow could have missed eight oddly dressed clowns. “Who didn’t come with you today?”

Akechi smiled thinly. “Let’s just say the last secret your palace had to hide didn’t go down so well,”

Ren didn’t flinch like he’d expected him to, instead latching on to a different subject altogether. “If they’re not coming with you, then why are you here? I know you can take care of yourself but coming here alone without even a Persona is...”

Akechi thought that was a bit hypocritical considering he’d been exploring the place alone himself, but considering the fact that he had multiple Persona at his disposal he was probably in a far better position than Akechi to fight back.

Akechi balanced the pros and cons of telling him the truth for a moment before reaching the ultimate conclusion that keeping up a pretense would be more trouble than it was worth.

“I’ve not been feeling in the best of shape recently,” he said lightly. “And yet, whenever I enter this palace I find my fatigue vanishing most mysteriously,”

Ren didn’t say anything, waiting for Akechi to continue.

“This morning I had a headache and was short of breath. So I thought this would be my best remedy,”

“You wouldn’t go here unless it was your last resort,” the tension in Ren’s expression had suddenly doubled. “It wasn’t just a headache, was it?”

“You’re wrong. Going to you for help would have been my last resort. And since you’re asking, no, I believe I was running a fever as well,” he replied lightly.

Akechi could track Ren’s thought process without even having to think about it. It was flu season, so Akechi’s illness could easily be written off to a seasonal outbreak. But the issue with that was people were simply not falling ill anymore, or were doing so in much smaller numbers. For Akechi, who never fell sick and had recently started avoiding others like the plague the common flu seemed farfetched. That logical deduction would lead him to two possible conclusions. One, that Akechi was being flippant about his health due to his not quite living status and had gotten sick as a result. Or two, that said not living status was not fit to live in Maruki’s reality for a prolonged period of time.

Akechi knew which option Ren would hope for.

“I’ve never tried entering a palace when I’m sick, I don’t know how it affects symptoms,” that was a lie. Ren had undergone infiltrations many times when he was ill or otherwise injured. He’d just been good at hiding it from everyone but Akechi. “But if it’s related to the reality I chose...”

“I’m dead in our true reality,” Akechi said bluntly. “I’m not meant to be here. Maybe this is just my body’s way of telling me that,”

Joker’s mask couldn’t hide the way Ren visibly recoiled at that. “That doesn’t make any sense. There are plenty of people in this world who are meant to be deceased. People like Haru’s dad, Futaba’s mom, they’re all fine-“

“And how do you know for sure?” Akechi raised a conspiratorial eyebrow. “Do you often take dinner with the Okumura family? And don’t even get me started on Wakaba Isshiki. I know you’ve been avoiding the Sakuras since you found out about all this,”

Ren sighed softly, as if conceding the point.

“But Maruki’s reality is picture perfect in so many places. It doesn’t make sense that his cognitions of people recently...deceased would be imperfect. The core of this reality practically revolves around the concept of reuniting people with their lost loved ones,”

“That’s true,” Akechi admitted. It was easy to forget he was meant to be mad at Ren when he was finally getting to talk on the topic that had been bothering him for an entire week. Getting Ren’s perspective on things was almost always an eye-opener. “But go home and tell Wakaba Isshiki about the Metaverse and her killer and you might find her health changes,”

Ren stiffened. “You’re saying it’s about...cognition,”

“Like everything else in this wretched place,” he agreed. “After all I didn’t start feeling this awful until after I realised what was going on,”

“Even so. I’d feel better if you saw a doctor,”

Akechi levelled him with as stern a look as he could muster. “I’m not getting checked out by your quack doctor, Joker,”

“She’s not a quack,”

“From what I gathered when I looked into her,” he’d spent an embarrassing amount of time investigating Ren’s confidants before their foray into Sae’s palace. “Her medical practices would be best described as dubious more often that not,”

“She’s totally legitimate,” Ren insisted. “Mostly,”

Akechi huffed, biting down on his lip to stop the smile wanting to form. “It’s that mostly that’s got me so concerned,”

Ren quirked a grin at that. Akechi so desperately wanted for them to leave things at that. But the elephant in the room seemed to be growing more prominent with every passing minute. Any longer and Akechi feared it would crush them

“I know you won’t want me to, but I should really talk to Maruki about this,”

“I’m dead, in case you’ve forgotten. He may think he’s omnipresent but there’s still things even he can’t do. So if it’s all the same with you, or even if it isn’t, I’d rather you don’t,”

Ren didn’t bother pushing the point. “I at least want to take you to see Takemi,”

It wasn’t exactly a confirmation that he wouldn’t snitch to Maruki, but it was a promising start.

“I will not be doing that,” he bit out, and then made a decision on the spot. “Are we going to be standing here in the entranceway forever?”

Ren’s brow furrowed ever so slightly in confusion. “Are you saying...”

“You came here to see it, right?” his smile was all sharp edges. “What lies beyond that room. It would be a shame for you to leave empty-handed,”

“Together,” Ren clarified.

“I could go on my own,” Akechi reasoned. “But it might be faster if I had a Persona on my side. So what do you say?”

“Sure.” he decided easily. “As long as you let me take you to Takemi’s afterwards,”

“I don’t need-“

“What if you have the flu?” Ren asked, only half-serious.

“I don’t have the flu, Joker,”

“Can you say that for certain?”

“I haven’t been sick since I was eight years old,”

“Even worse,” his friend said brightly. “Your immune system is probably underdeveloped and susceptible to viruses. I read an interesting book about it once,”

“If I’m suffering the flu it’ll be a minor miracle. How about we leave it at that?” he gestured a gloved hand forward, already impatient. “Let’s not waste our time here,”

Ren pursed his lips but abandoned the topic willingly, instead digging around in his pockets for the right supplies to make the trip. Akechi hadn’t seen Joker up close in quite some time. But he had seemed different than back then. Joker had always been more brazen than Ren, more effortlessly confident. This Joker was nothing like the boy who’d confronted him outside Leblanc a week ago-or anywhere near as powerful as the leader Akechi knew.

Despite his bombastic clothes Ren struck Akechi in that moment as almost frighteningly normal.

Because they’d secured a route to the uppermost safe room available earlier there was no need for them to retrace their steps. This was a relief, if only because Akechi could barely bear to imagine stepping foot in the interrogation room again. With the thieves it was very much one thing. With the man Akechi had shot himself? It was decidedly another.

So Akechi was more than grateful to see the behind of that room, even if it meant they had to fight shadows on their way to the next.

The shadows in the palace attacked Ren as if he was any old intruder, not the man who’d inadvertently conjured the whole place. He fought as well as he always had, but Akechi found him stumbling sometimes, like he’d been expecting somebody to follow up or watch his back.

Arsene didn’t make an appearance.

With Ren’s vast array of Personas and Akechi’s support their trip was relatively easy, if slow. No matter how good Ren was he simply couldn’t move as fast as the thieves did as a cohesive unit. For his part Akechi could do little but attack flying shadows-and ran out of ammo embarrassingly soon as a result. He still had his sword, but figured that if he ran in waving it Ren might just abandon the expedition all together. There was no point in risking the operation just to shave off a scant few seconds.

They climbed the next flight of stairs and made it to the imposing metal door promising new horrors with minimal injuries. Ren didn’t falter at the sight in front of him, barely sparing a glance at Akechi before he pushed the door open with a sort of effortless grace.

The smell hit Akechi first, earthy and familiar. Before his eyes even adjusted to the light casting a warm glow on his surroundings he recognised it by the smell.

“Leblanc,” Ren breathed.

The door closed behind them, suddenly transformed into the simple door that served as Leblanc’s entrance. The bell tinkled as it shuttered, rigging unnaturally loud in the silent room.

Ren took a step forward and ran gloved fingers through the grain of the countertop. He seemed to marvel at the very feel of it beneath his fingers. Although he was trying to keep an eye out for enemies lurking in the shadows, Akechi couldn’t help but watch him. He fit the room like a glove.

Ren drifted towards the stairs to the attic, placed in this recreation exactly where they were in the real thing. No door blocked their progress, only the open space that assumably lead to the loft Ren called home. Akechi was too far to see it properly.

The familiar cafe was empty except for them. There was no cognition of Sakura, or even of Ren that he could see. It should have felt eerie for the shop not even to have a familiar regular dozing in the corner seat, but Akechi didn’t feel ill at ease. There was something comforting and warm about the place and by how the knot in Ren’s shoulders had loosened since they’d first stepped inside he knew he felt the same way.

In warmth alone it was a perfect reflection of the real thing.

“Should I make you a drink?” he’d drifted to behind the bar, smiling coyly at Akechi in a scene ripped straight from countless memories.

Akechi rolled his eyes. Without his Persona he couldn’t exactly detect the presence of any shadows all too well. But Ren wasn’t the type to lower his guard frivolously. If he was mostly relaxed Akechi felt like he could at least trust that they weren’t in immediate danger. He wasn’t convinced enough to slide into his usual seat in front of the bar, but he could at least tear his gaze away from the door for a few seconds at the time.

“This reminds me of a safe room,” he admitted.

It lacked some of the hallmarks of any safe room. Namely it wasn’t just another room playing the part of a location in a psychiatric hospital. Akechi had never come across a safe room that had deviated so strongly from the norm.

A safe room was a place where cognition was weak and the real world creeped in.

By that logic Akechi wondered if this place wasn’t actually the real Leblanc. The one Ren had abandoned, not the one outside the palace. Akechi soaked in the warm glow for a minute more. Their own little slice of reality.

“I wasn’t expecting this,” Ren agreed. He looked relieved though. Maybe he was glad he didn’t have to openly bare his soul in front of Akechi again, as if he honestly cared at this stage.

“But what does this mean? That your view of Leblanc isn’t distorted at all?” not a single thing was out of place. “That you find it safe here?”

Ren ducked his head. “This place...more than Inaba, more than anywhere, always felt like home,”

“I see,”

There was no cognitive Ren to kill, because in Leblanc Ren didn’t need to put on a mask. It seemed like the only place in Tokyo, in all of Japan even where he could just be himself.

“This was the final door then,” Ren was staring at the stairway to the loft. “I can see the apex from here,”

There was no door blocking them. Leblanc felt more like a detour than an unmissable cog in Ren’s palace. It felt anticlimactic almost, especially knowing how close they now were.

Akechi moved to Ren’s side to follow his gaze, swallowing at the peek of grey that could be seen from the base of the stairs. The walls were the same as in all the other halls but much further apart. The empty space left him more than a little uneasy and he hadn’t even stepped foot in there yet. Leaving this small, cozy corner of Leblanc suddenly seemed like a very unattractive proposition.

“If we go up there and find your shadow, what’ll you do?” he asked.

Ren just continued to stare at the stairs. “I don’t know,”

“Alright,”

Akechi knew he wasn’t strong enough to take down Ren’s shadow without his persona. He hated to have to rely on the thieves but if Ren was against them too he would need all the help he could get.

Maybe he could convince only Yoshizawa to help-except he’d burnt that bridge too, hadn’t he? By keeping her in the dark for so long until it was too late. He had to get the thieves back on his side. It was the only way, but his mind still rebelled against the idea of going to them and sincerely asking for help.

They’d probably reject him too after all that Akechi had kept from him. And wouldn’t that be embarrassing for all of them? They’d been perfectly willing to help until the interrogation room. He didn’t regret his decision to shoot the cognition, but doing it without warning hadn’t exactly won him any points with Ren’s friends. He’d been so focused on the immediate future that he hadn’t stopped to think about how much he was screwing himself over in the interim.

“Goro,” Ren said softly.

When Akechi looked over he saw his Joker ensemble had gone, replaced by the casual clothes he’d obviously been wearing before he entered. He looked even more at home in Leblanc with his usual wear and silly plastic frames perched on his nose. Was Joker disappearing because he felt comfortable here? Was it because he didn’t view himself as a threat? Had he given up? Did it even matter?

“Let’s go see Takemi,” he prompted.

“What?”

Ren smiled knowingly. “To check out your flu, right?”

Akechi bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself from snapping. “I don’t have the flu, Ren,”

“You promised me you’d go see her,” Ren reminded him, voice tinged with the slightest hint of smugness. “So come on,”

Ren came a little closer, enough so that their fingertips were nearly touching. Now that his Metaverse outfit was gone his hands were completely bare versus Akechi’s covered ones. He didn’t push the distance, but it was clear he wanted Akechi to take his hand.

Moving on a whim Akechi forwent the hand and grasped Ren by the wrist, practically tugging him behind him in a sudden burst of urgency to leave the place. The thought of visiting a doctor-which he hadn’t done in years, disgusted him, but the sooner it was over the better. Besides, maybe Maruki would see them acting all buddy buddy and stop paying attention to what he was doing. Akechi would do anything to avoid his interference for these last few days of his.

The way back to the entrance was quiet, a safe route having been secured in advance. Akechi didn’t openly complain when Ren proceeded to reverse their roles and start dragging him around instead, but he did do a fine job of making his displeasure known.

“I’ll buy you pancakes later,” Ren assured him as they sat packed in the train.

“I’m not some girl you can buy off with petty sweet treats, Ren,”

“You don’t want me to buy you pancakes?”

He scowled. “I can buy them myself,”

Takemi’s practice was empty when they entered, but the doctor herself looked busy, scribbling something rapidly down on a clipboard at the front desk. Akechi supposed that even though people weren’t really getting sick, business found a way to still be good.

“This that friend of yours you’re always going on about?” she asked when she noticed them, peering closely at Akechi’s face with an expression he couldn’t quite decipher.

“Haha,” Ren said dryly. “I think he has a fever,”

“I don’t,” he snipped back, and then elaborated as Takemi raised an eyebrow. “I feel much better now,”

It was true. Although he’d felt a definite chill coming out of the palace into the cool February air, it was a far cry from how he’d been that morning.

Takemi jerked her head in the direction of the examination room. “Come on, I’ll examine you,”

Akechi didn’t budge. He could hear Ren stifle a chuckle at his childishness, but it didn’t convince him to move. In fairness to the good doctor she seemed to take it entirely in her stride. She just looked at him a little oddly came a bit closer.

She brought a thermometer up to his mouth, staring expectantly at him. “Say ahhh,”

Akechi bristled. From over Takemi’s white coat clad shoulder he could see Ren smirking happily. He opened his mouth defiantly, glaring through narrowed eyes as Takemi took his temperature.

She frowned when reading the result, her eyes flicking from the thermometer to Akechi and back again.

“You’re running a light fever. Any headaches, dizziness?”

He thought to play it off before catching Ren out of the corner of his eye. If he lied Ren would probably delight in informing her of that.

“I’ve been having some headaches,” he admitted slowly.

Takemi nodded wisely, turning around for a moment to scribble something down on paper. Before he had a moment to think too hard about what was happening she had turned right back, pressing the paper into his chest.

“If the pain persists take that to your local drug store,” she glanced at Ren and smiled deviously. “I would offer you some of my home remedies but a certain guinea pig of mine has been slacking...”

“Guinea pig?” Akechi echoed incredulously.

Ren just raised his hands in collective defeat. “Alright, I’ll make some time,”

“I hope you mean that,” she replied playfully. “You know when you called up saying you needed me to take a look at one of your friends I thought you’d bring someone bleeding out of their ears,”

Akechi felt strangely justified by that. He managed to stop himself from turning to smile smugly at Ren, but only just.

“I’m sure if you did a more thorough examination you’d find stuff more to what you’d expect,”

Akechi’s good mood soured. He did indeed have a bruise that stretched from his hip to the lowest curve of his ribs from where a shadow had snuck past Ren’s defenses and knocked him down faster than he could shoot. Ren had thrown him one of Takemi’s weird medicines after but he hadn’t taken it. He’d been hoping Ren hadn’t noticed.

“I’m leaving,” he announced, pausing to nod stiffly at Takemi. Even if the drugs she pushed on Ren were...experimental at best, they’d helped them through a plethora of scrapes before. He felt he could respect her for that at least.

He stepped out onto the quiet streets, pulling his coat tighter around his body when a sudden breeze seemed to reverb from somewhere deep inside. As expected the good form he’d gained from gallivanting uselessly in Ren’s palace was waning. In a few hours or to he expected to be either throwing up his guts in some alley somewhere, or else slinking back to Ren’s palace like some...addict hankering for his next fix.

This need for him to be there was made all the more infuriating by his powerlessness. He couldn’t tear through shadows mercilessly like he’d done for so many years. He would probably barely be able to make it to the nearest safe room before being overwhelmed. He could admit that now. The shame was nothing more than a dull ache now.

He remembered Ren’s shadow, the almost pitying edge of his smile as he told him that the only one holding him back was himself.

Ren wasn’t robbing him of his Persona out of some twisted desire for control. He knew that. He’d always known that maybe. It had just taken him until he was dying to really acknowledge it for the first time.

It was strange. He’d been so sure that he’d vanish from this world after stealing Maruki’s heart but he’d given precious little thought to how it would feel like to do so. Like his death in Shido’s palace, he reckoned, except he could barely recall that day at all. What he really feared, was that death would feel like this.

Ren was saying goodbye to Takemi behind him, he could hear his soft tones through the door. Akechi clutched the prescription in his hand, finally bringing it up to his eyes for the first time.

An antibiotic to help break his fever, like she’d promised.

And then underneath, a gentle suggestion for some generic over the counter medication. To combat stress.

Moving on autopilot Akechi scrunched the prescription in his hand, taking clear aim of the nearest bin and drawing his arm back to fire.

“Hey, wait,”

Ren and his freakishly bad timing grasped his wrist, gently plying it backwards before he could even try and throw it.

“I told you I’d go see your doctor, Ren,” he said. “I said nothing about taking whatever she forced on me. Especially because the source of my illness isn’t natural. You know that, right?”

“Of course,” Ren quickly let go of him, but he didn’t otherwise seem offended by Akechi’s somewhat harsh dismissal. “But she’s right, you’re running a light fever.” Akechi ducked before Ren could even attempt to put a hand on his forehead. The fact that he was indeed feeling more poorly by the second was irrelevant. “You might be better off taking something for it anyways. It could help,”

“That won’t be necessary. This won’t be going on much longer,” he regretted saying it as soon as the words left his mouth.

Ren’s eyes dimmed a little. “Don’t go in there on your own,” he said in lieu of trying to stop him.

Akechi couldn’t promise him that, because he’d promised Yoshizawa that only to break it a couple of days later. There was nothing he could do to assuage his fears.

“I....I should go to sleep,”

“That’s a good idea. You should take the day off tomorrow too,”

Akechi shook his head. “I don’t have the time,”

“I’ll have to take you out for pancakes some other time then,” Ren said. It felt like a challenge.

“We’ll see,”

It sounded like a promise.

Akechi moved his hand and it’s crumpled contents to his jacket pocket, ignoring Ren’s subsequent triumphant smile. “Goodbye, Ren,”

He hoped that the next time he saw him would be with calling card in hand.

And deep down he hoped that he’d see him for long after.

Chapter Text

“Akechi, are you awake?”

Of all the things Akechi had woken up to in the past, missed calls from Shido, an alarm clock running late, even his neighbour coming to warn of a fire in the apartment above, nothing compared to opening his eyes to be faced with...that.

He wanted to close his eyes instantly, but then Morgana would probably try come closer and ask again, so instead he sat up in his bed, glaring at the intruder with as fierce a glare as he could possibly muster.

“What,” he growled. “Are you doing here?”

“Ren told me you were sick,” the terrifying man before him said. He narrowed his eyes. “You certainly look sick,”

“I feel-“ he cut himself off as a thrum of pain vibrated through his forehead. Maybe ignoring Takemi’s prescription out of stubborn pride hadn’t been his brightest move. It didn’t hurt as much as yesterday but it wasn’t pleasant by any means. “Well I’ll feel better when you leave,”

All he got out of Morgana then was a sort of stilted chuckle. “Funny you mention that Akechi...”

“What?”

“I was thinking that we should talk. Just a little bit,”

“No,”

“Akechi...” Morgana whined. He leaned forward a little on his chair, piercing him with those bright blue eyes of his. “We can’t avoid talking about this forever,”

“Can’t we?” he asked dryly before relenting. “And what exactly is this? Ren’s palace or the events of two weeks ago?”

“Both really. They’re related. Akechi, everyone wants to help Ren. And they want to understand why this happened,”

“They know why,” he hissed. “And if they can’t, they can at least guess,”

Because it had to be obvious by now. The general level of intelligence among the thieves....varied, to put it politely, but Nijima at least had to have guessed what was really going on. Isshiki’s daughter as well. After all, he’d died there on that ship. She probably confirmed that herself. They knew he wasn’t meant to be here.

“They still deserve to hear it from you,”

“They deserve nothing-“ he trailed off, realisation hitting hard and fast. “Are they...outside right now?”

Morgana stiffened almost comically. “Well they’re not listening, if that’s what you’re asking,”

“Like I believe that,” he paused, straining to hear any noise, “Are all of them out there?”

“Well...Ren isn’t,”

“That’s a yes then,” he grumbled, rubbing a hand over his face and scowling when it came away drenched in sweat. His sleep evidently hadn’t been as carefree as it had felt. “Do I at least get to freshen up before you all come to interrogate me?”

“We’re not-“ Morgana squeaked, only to change his tune when Akechi started to slowly ease himself out of bed. “Should you be getting up right now?”

“Fuck,”

He blinked off the sudden bout of dizziness through bleary eyes. He grabbed the edge of his bed and forced himself to get to his feet a little slower. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and scowled at the mess he saw. He’d never even changed before going to bed, so his clothes were rumpled and creased. He felt Morgana’s eyes keenly on his back.

He picked up his brush and coaxed his hair into something more manageable. Then he walked past Morgana and straight to his bedroom door.

“Akechi?”

He pulled the door open with as much strength as he could muster. He didn’t send anyone flying with the movement, which was a shame, but there was still a chorus of shocked faces looking back at him, all a little too close to his door to be natural.

“Akechi!”

“Nice of you all to come visit me at the bright hour of,” his eyes flit to the clock. “Four in the afternoon. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Ryuji tried to sneak an unsubtle glance around the doorframe and at his room. Akechi counteracted this by shutting the door firmly behind him, nearly squishing Morgana in the latter’s haste to leave the room and be reunited with the others.

“We were concerned about you,” Nijima said diplomatically. “Ren contacted us and said you weren’t well,”

“What exactly did he say?”

“Not a lot,” Ann admitted. Her disappointment was evident in tone alone. “I haven’t even seen him in person since...”

Nobody jumped forward to finish her sentence.

“But dude, I told you you were getting sick,” Ryuji didn’t sound smug at being proven right, just disappointed. “You could have just taken a day off you know,”

“That’s what I did yesterday,” Akechi reminded him. “Unless you went gallivanting around Ren’s palace without me?”

“No,” Okumura said. “We all could use a break,”

He scoffed. He was sure they did. “Well I hope you enjoyed it. We’re going in again today if I can help it at all,”

“We’re not sure that’s such a good idea,” Nijima said cooly. She glanced around her and the rest of the thieves were quick to nod in what he guessed was meant to be moral support. “We need to discuss this matter further, and I think you need more rest,”

“Oh so it’s my fault?” Akechi felt a bit like a child getting placated after throwing a tantrum, and the way Nijima seemed to be trying to school her face into a more gentle expression hardly helped.

“I just think we need to talk some things out,”

“And do we have to do that standing in my living room?” he cast a gaze around his cramped surroundings and scowled. “Why am I not surprised Ren gave you my address,”

“He didn’t,” Sakura piped up. “I did,”

Akechi wanted to cry, a little.

“We’re running out of time,” he reminded them, preparing to release the tangent that had been begging to be released for days now. “We can’t afford to-“

His eyes caught Yoshizawa’s.

Akechi didn’t often feel sorry. That wasn’t to say he didn’t know when he was in the wrong-he was pretty sure assassinating people on orders of his evil father in order to disguise a scheme wherein he himself would murder his dead father-himself not dead at this point of the scheme-was at the very least morally questionable. But he’d always been able to justify his actions. The people Akechi had killed had (almost) all been awful people, and died in service of Akechi’s goal. Or at least he’d believed that until everything had come crashing down.

But keeping the truth from Yoshizawa, that was something Akechi had done only to protect himself. There had been no grand reasoning behind it. Just cowardice.

“You heard Makoto-san,” she didn’t look upset. Just...tired. “Let’s sit down. And talk about everything,”

Akechi took a deep breath and looked at the thieves properly for the first time. They looked worn, haggard and about as bad as he felt. They didn’t exactly strike Akechi as a force that could take on an entire palace right now.

“Alright,” he rubbed a hand through hair that had mysteriously perfected itself. “I’ll put on the kettle then,”

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

He didn’t end up getting to make tea in the end. Kitagawa had dashed forward, claiming a background in tea ceremonies. Akechi didn’t doubt it, but the only tea he had in his apartment was the kind that came in a bag. So he let him run off to the kitchen, but only with Sakura as a chaperone.

Which, he thought, hearing what sounded alarmingly like shattering china from the opposing room, was probably far worse.

“I should-“

“No!” the remaining thieves shouted, as a unit.

They were all sitting down, or well, trying to. Ryuji was sprawled on his rug like a yellow eyesore, and Yoshizawa seemed to have too much nervous energy to even stomach the thought of sitting still. The rest though, and Akechi as well, sat.

“Alright then,” he sighed. “Are you going to come out and say what you want to say, or will we have to stay here until the deadline?”

Nijima and Okumura shared a glance he couldn’t decipher and Nijima nodded. “We’ve been wondering, Akechi. Is it true that Ren wants us to steal his heart?”

“What’s this? I thought you could overhear all our conversations,” he jerked his head in the direction of Sakura and the kitchen. “You know exactly what he said,”

“We haven’t listened to it,” Ann reassured him. He knew she wasn’t lying. “And besides, we want to hear it from you,”

“We went through it a bit, yesterday,” he revealed suddenly. He didn’t know why. His little excursion with Ren had felt private, something he was oddly possessive over. “He could have stopped me if he really wanted to,”

“He’s indecisive,” Nijima deduced. “He doesn’t want to have to make a decision,”

“Are you surprised?” Akechi stopped himself just short of snorting. “His ‘decision’ is the whole reason we’re in this mess anyways,”

“And we still don’t get to know what tipped his mind about it, huh?”

Akechi shook his head, trying to keep on an unaffected air but clearly failing. “You don’t need to know,”

Yoshizawa fidgeted from her place on Akechi’s pristine,stiff looking sofa. “You say that, but keeping these secrets...”

Her eyes bore into him with a gaze magnified a thousand times more than the people around her. “And you’ll hear about it later. But not this, not now,”

“Figures,” Ryuji snorts. “Well when we’ve got Ren back we can sit the two of you down and ask you together,”

Good luck with that, Akechi thought privately. His silence seemed to spell his musings out loud all the same.

“About that,” Yoshizawa pressed, scrunched up face the textbook picture of anxiety. “About after...what are you going to do?”

Several inquiring eyes turned towards him as one. From the kitchen Kitagawa and Sakura’s bickering eased out into silence.

“I suppose I’ll figure that out when I get there, won’t I?” he smiled as bright as he dared. “After all, at the rate we’re going there’s hardly going to be an ‘after’ is there?”

Nijima leaned forward. “We have time-“

“Time?” Akechi blustered. “Do you hear yourself? Do you know what day it is, Nijima-san? Do any of you know what day it is or has your torpid complacency blinded you to that? Too long spent in the fake reality knocked some screws loose?”

“It’s the twentieth,” Okumura’s voice was soft, but commanding. Akechi dropped the pretence immediately.

“We have a week,” he said, a little calmer. “A week to scope out where Ren’s treasure is, send out a calling card-and let’s be real, fight whatever is guarding it and maybe him too-“

“I thought you said he wanted us to steal his heart,” Nijima interrupted.

“Why do you expect me to know? You’re the ones meant to be his friends,” his head was tilted a little downwards, but he could just about make out her flinch. “And after that we have to re-establish our route to Maruki’s treasure, which may very well have shifted since last we visited, send the calling card and then fight him. And this is assuming there are no accidents that cause a delay, or that we might have to take a break day so we don’t get killed by a stray shadow while suffering burnout. Is it doable in a week? Yes. But we have to start now. Today,”

“We brought tea!”

Sakura had in fact brought tea in the wake of Akechi’s heated proclamation, with Kitagawa following on slightly shakier limbs. Akechi could imagine him easily dropping the saucer he was precariously balancing and spilling hot tea all over the rug of the apartment he didn’t care about.

Sakura placed a cup in front of him, some red brand he didn’t even know he had in his cupboard and stared at him.

“Thanks?” he tried. He wondered if Sakura had filled the drink with micro devices that were going to track him while he was sleeping. He thought it was better perhaps not to wonder.

“You’re welcome,” Kitagawa beamed, at total odds to the situation. “You really were a great help to me the other day,”

“Come again?”

“At the gallery,” he clarified.”You really served as a great source of inspiration for me,”

“Ah,”

“Ooh!” Ann exclaimed, jumping unsubtly on the chance to switch to a lighter topic. “Can I see?”

“I fear the true appeal of the image won’t translate through the screen. I must take you all to Kosei’s atelier-“

“You really don’t have to do that,” Akechi made a show of rising from his seat. “In fact, we should have been in Ren’s palace an hour ago,”

“Maybe we would have been, but someone was sleeping,” Ryuji seemed good-natured enough, but it still made Akechi’s hackles raise.

“Well then we’ll just have to start now,” he bit back, and had nearly got himself into a standing position before the obnoxious blaring of his TV switching on took hold and distracted him. “What are you doing?”

“Sorry,” Sakura said, not sounding particularly sorry at all. She threw herself onto the nearest armrest, struggling to settle into a position that bordered on vaguely comfortable looking and fiddled with the remote, flicking through his channels with a clear purpose. Her findings announced themselves with a loud blaring of a faintly familiar theme song.

Akechi momentarily forgot to breath.

“Is that-“ Yoshizawa began.

“Featherman R,” she replied smugly. “They do reruns on Monday mornings. And I know you didn’t see last week’s,”

“This takes me way back,” Ann mused, watching the screen with the slightest hint of a smile on her face. “I used to watch this all the time when I was younger,”

Haru nodded in agreement. “When I was very small, my father took me to meet the actors at the studio,”

Akechi closed his eyes at the mention of Okumura.

“Sheesh,” Ryuji snorted, “I guess that’s the life of a rich kid, huh,”

He could just about make out Yoshizawa’s voice next, “Actually, I think my father took me there once too. K-Kasumi and I,”

“Seriously?” Sakura nearly glossed over any possible bumps with an ease Akechi didn’t know she had. “The world is so unfair. You probably didn’t even appreciate it!”

Yoshizawa giggled. “To be honest, you’re probably right. It was never my favourite show.”

“I knew it,’ she whined, and just like that Akechi felt safe enough to open his eyes again.

“I know we need to move soon,” Nijima told him, voice partly obscured under the more boisterous thieves’ cries. “But leisure is important too.”

“The eff?” an indignant Ryuji proclaimed. “Where was that attitude during finals?”

“There’s a difference between taking time to rest and slacking off you-“

Akechi wisely averted his eyes as Nijima saw fit to strike fear into the heart of the limp blonde noodle on the floor. Naturally, he found his eyes drawn to the striking colours of the TV screen instead,

“I’ve never watched this before,” after coming back with the tea Kitagawa had at some point set up a vantage point right next to him. His smooth voice was impossible to ignore. “But the colours strike a bold composition,”

“Neo Featherman is known to have inspired the pieces of several renowned artists,” he found himself saying before he could stop himself. “It introduced a lot of concepts now popular in modern animation,”

“You’re really so weird,” Ryuji groaned, reminding him that he had an audience. He didn’t sound particularly cruel though, just a little disbelieving. And a bit in pain if the way he was rubbing his arm sulkishly was any indication.

Kitagawa was nodding though. And that genuine going in his eyes was enough to stop Akechi from snapping-or doing much more than sinking into the couch like an embarrassed cat.

Like a spooked animal. How had Akechi fallen so far?

Except he’d always been rock bottom hadn’t he? Ever since he’d walked in and saw that bathtub just a couple shades too crimson his life had been a never-ending string of misery. Just as soon as he found some solace, or the slightest bit of joy, it was taken from him.

Sat on his unworn sofa surrounded by noisy teenagers Akechi felt that this was one of those times. He could almost imagine a future like this, where he watched anime with Sakura in his apartment while Nijima looked on in disapproval and Kitagawa worked silently away on some masterpiece or another. Ann and Ryuji would be engaged in some fierce debate-over food, most likely, while Okumura and Yoshizawa fussed over Morgana’s proper, cat-like self.

And Ren would be there too. Sitting and watching them all with that small smile he sometimes let out when he thought nobody was looking. It would be so idyllic it made Akechi feel nauseous. And since Akechi was going to die-or return to being dead, he didn’t really know how it worked-in a mere matter of days, it was never going to happen.

“We asked Ren to come with us today,” Kitagawa said, as if he somehow knew Akechi was thinking of him. He probably had some sappy longing look in his eyes. Fucking pathethic. “He declined, but asked we confirm your good health,”

“You asked him to-“ he shook his head. “So what did you say?”

“That you’re mostly recovered but cranky, and taking the day off,”

“Cranky?”

“I wasn’t the one who sent the message. I’m not sure why Ryuji seemed to fit to mention it, cranky appears to be your usual disposition anyways,” because it was Kitagawa the whole thing came off disgustingly earnest.

“He’s probably in his palace, then,”

“Perhaps,” Kitagawa allowed. “I don’t see why that should concern us,”

“It should concern us, Kitagawa-“

“Yusuke,”

“Sorry?”

“You were a great help to me that day the gallery,” he said again. “I think it’s right,”

“Well, my point is-“

“We’re not enemies,” Ann reminded him. She’d appeared at his side in an instant. He didn’t know where from. “We thought it’d be nice to be together again. Just like old times.”

“Just like old times,” Akechi ran his tongue over the words. “I was never a part of that,”

“You’re so...” whatever Sakura said next was lost under the blaring of Feather Falcon’s battle against some evil or another. He didn’t bother asking her to repeat it.

“There’ll be more of these times,” Ann clarified.

Akechi was struck with the sudden urge to tell them everything. The reason why Ren had forsaken them, the reason why he wasn’t going to live long enough to see them all together as a group again. It sat there, right on the tip of his tongue, and it was only Morgana’s sad, human eyes that stopped him.

Because telling them this would only hurt them in the end. Akechi had wronged all the thieves one way or another over the months. Protecting the remains of their innocence-that at the very least, he could do.

They were here to escape, he figured, as laughable as it sounded. At home were deceased relatives and mentors brought back to life. Akechi had thought the thieves would be spending every spare moment they had left with them, but it seemed like the opposite was true. If only they knew it was the same with him.

They sat through an episode. And then another. Akechi let it all drift by him as people came and went, bemoaning his lack of snacks and bland living space. His phone buzzed periodically in his pocket, Ren inquiring as to how he was doing-and then the thieves’ group chat, where those at the apartment were instructing the rest what to buy at the corner store. It was calm. Almost friendly.

Too soon (not that he’d ever admit it) however the group were peeling themselves off his furniture in droves. Akechi mostly just sat and watched them go, at least until Nijima had started hovering around his seat, very clearly wanting to talk to him but having no idea where to start.

“Yes?”

“My sister was wondering if you would come for dinner tonight.”

He squinted at her. “Forgive me if I’m wrong but haven’t we had this conversation before?”

“She brought it up again suddenly. I understand if you can’t, after everything, but I really do think she’d like to see you.”

“Will your father be there?”

“No,” Nijima said quickly. “He’s working late tonight.”

“I see,” Akechi would have declined on the spot if he was there. He still should. He didn’t have any reason to play into Nijima’s game of happy families. He wasn’t pretending for anyone anymore. The prospect of sitting around the dinner table with Nijima and a brainwashed Sae was...well...

He hadn’t seen her since that day on Christmas Eve. He wondered how much she’d changed. Masochistically he wanted to know.

Nijima was probably expecting him to decline. They weren’t friends, far from it in fact, and she was likely counting on him to come up with an appropriate excuse to not interrupt the limited time she had left with her family. But her eyes as she waited somewhat impatiently for a response were expectant, nervous. Was she worried what her sister would say if she declined? Or did she just want to poke around his brain a little more?

“Tell her I’m quite busy with my studies,” her lips turned downwards slightly. “But that I’d be happy to attend for a little while, if she’d have me.”

Nijima blinked.

“Oh.” she said. “Right. Great. That’s great. I’ll see you at seven, is that okay? You know where the house is, right?”

“I do.” he decided not to tell her that he only knew because Shido had had surveillance on her since the SIU director had appointed her to the Phantom Thieves case. “I’ll be there. Do I need to bring anything?”

Nijima seemed surprised at the question, aprubtly shaking her head. “No, no. That’s fine.”

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

He brought flowers.

He wondered if it was the people-pleaser in him, the little attention-seeking root that couldn’t be quashed. Sae was a brainwashed husk of a woman. She wouldn’t care if he showed up at her door holding a rotting carcass. But after the thieves had been more than a little forcibly ejected from his apartment, Yoshizawa had pulled him aside and asked him to accompany her to the mall.

Akechi had expected an interrogation, and when one didn’t make itself known-Yoshizawa instead choosing to entertain them with empty but easy drivel, had thought she just didn’t possess the resolve to bring it up.

But as time passed he realised she was waiting for him to tell the truth on his own. And having to start that conversation was infinitely harder than her dragging it out of him. So, Akechi had ended up being the cowardly one.

She knew pretty much all the details by now from the others and so was hardly in the dark. All that was left was an explanation, and maybe an apology.

But instead they shopped, her poking around for a gift for her father, and Akechi getting a bouquet tastefully wrapped in gray silk. The arrangement was nice-perfect even. But he recalled the more bold wildness Ren’s bouquets had used to emanate and found himself missing them.

When Yoshizawa saw the flowers she had smiled. “Are those for Senpai?”

“Why would I be getting him flowers?” belatedly he remembered their talk on Valentine’s Day and bit back a sigh.

Her smile dimmed a little. “Have a nice night senpai. I hope you didn’t mind us all coming over. And that you feel better.”

“I do actually.” it was surprising. The cold chill was still there, and would likely get worse in a few days time if left unchecked, but it was nothing compared to the unbridled agony he’d been feeling the previous night. “And it’s...fine.” he said lamely.

She bowed and left.

Which in turn led Akechi to stand alone on the Nijima’s family doorstep just a crack past seven. When he reached over to ring the doorbell the door opened before he even had the chance to make contact. Makoto-because she insisted he call her that in front of her sister (who was apparently under the impression that they were significantly closer than they actually were) waved him in and stared dumbly at the flowers instead of taking them.

“Akechi-kun, there you are!”

Sae was as beautiful as she had been in the true reality, all strong curves and glossy grey hair. But what made the difference was her face, complete with a fuller, healthier complexion. He’d forgotten what she’d looked like without dark shadows lidded under her eyes. It was almost painful to imagine her having to revert.

He’d developed a soft spot for Sae, somehow. He couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment he began to see her as a person instead of a tool for him to use him, but he knew she’d used to take him to sushi. Ask him about his studies, and his hobbies or lack thereof.

All things Makoto had desperately wanted for herself.

Sae gratefully took the flowers, tucking them into a vase he swore wasn’t there just a moment before. Dinner is already steaming on the table, some thick pasta dish that smells too brilliant to be anything but fake. He couldn’t recall either of the Nijima siblings being any good at cooking.

But he sat down and the three of them eat with the head of the table missing. Makoto and Akechi both draw their conversation away from their father as much as possible. Akechi didn’t want to talk about him and he imagined that now Makoto knew what she had to do to him she didn’t either. He was surprised Makoto was letting her father stay out instead of spending the last bit of time they had together with him, but maybe it was easier for her to pretend things were normal and that he just didn’t exist.

Akechi could agree and follow that logic-which was why it was so infuriating to him that he was indulging them. He nodded along to all of Sae’s questions, offered surprisingly truthful answers to the ones he could, politely chuckled at all her jokes. For the first half of dinner Makoto stared at him like he’d grown a second head but as time passed she too seemed to relax a little in the oddly comforting atmosphere.

It was a trap, he reminded himself. An ideal world meant to coax them all into a false sense of security. But he couldn’t find it in him to stop.

“I have an announcement to make,” Sae said suddenly in a slight lapse in conversation.

Her voice was the most serious it had been all night. And her posture was just every so slightly twitchy.

“Sis?” Makoto asked. Akechi similarly tensed up, even though he had no idea what to expect.

“I’m thinking of making a career change.”

“What?” that was him this time. The slip up was at odds with the polite, more measured facade he’d been acting out, and he found himself scrambling to correct himself.

“What?” it seemed perfectly needless considering Makoto appeared just as shocked as him. More even. He snuck a glance over and noted that her mouth looked to be stretched into a permanent expression of shock.

Sae stood up, like she was an entrepreneur presenting her new product to them, her seated, slightly befuddled investors.

“I didn’t want to worry you by telling you before giving it more thought, Makoto,” she looked at him next. “And I thought it’d be imperative to tell you as well, Akechi-kun, since we work closely together.”

Not recently, Akechi thought privately. He’d been staying away from the precinct by feigning a need to study for too long. Even Sae’s addled mind touched by Maruki’s cold brainwashing could probably parse he was making excuses. Maybe that was the real reason she’d brought him here.

“I became a prosecutor because I thought that was the best way to look after our family. But recent occurrences have made me waver,” she glanced away as if lost in thought. “In spring of last year, there was this boy.”

Akechi frowned. He wasn’t sure where she was going with this story.

“He was charged with the assault of a powerful man. The trial took place in Okina city. At the time I was there on business and decided to sit in on the trial,” a pained expression momentarily crossed her face. “Whoever this boy had crossed, he was powerful. The witness...she spoke against him, but anyone could tell she’d been pressured. She was a mess on the stand.”

Akechi swallowed against a growing sense of dread. A boy, charged with the assault of a powerful man. And where exactly was Okina city again?

“It looked like the end for the defendant, but his attorney was good.”

Akechi blinked. “What?” he blurted loudly and then flinched at the sound he’d made. “I mean, sorry, continue.”

“He wasn’t cowed by the dirty tricks of the prosecution or any pressure from the higher-ups. He found evidence, evidence that the court couldn’t ignore that the witness had been bribed. And from then on the case fell apart. The boy was saved from juvenile detention in the end.”

So that was the happy beginning Maruki had cooked up for Ren then? It seemed a new addition, but it made sense considering a lot of his pain seemed to stem from his hometown and the people who shunned him for the crime they thought he’d commuted.

Akechi wondered how that factored in to Ren ending up in Tokyo. A visit to the Sakuras, his family friends? Or maybe Maruki didn’t plan for Ren to stay in Tokyo at all, where he might be able to interact with Akechi and the others and accidentally pull some free willl loose. Perhaps he simply intended Ren to stay in Inaba with a family who now magically cared for him.

The idea was scarier, somehow, than an eternity stuck in bliss without him. Than certain death. He wouldn’t allow it to happen. He couldn’t.

“The man who’d filed the claim was apprehended along with his co-conspirators. It’s no easy job to be a prosecutor. It’s honourable, and needs to be done. But I think I’d like to try something different.” he’d never seen Sae look at all nervous, but that’s the only way to describe how she looked when she turned to face them. “I’m looking to become a defence attorney. How do you two feel about that?”

Makoto’s response fell on Akechi’s deaf ears. Was this what Maruki thought would make her happier? If things were different and Ren really had been acquitted at that trial would she make this decision?

It suited her, he thought bitterly. That was what hurt so much about it. He couldn’t wave her whims off as another byproduct of Maruki’s illusions. Who was to say that in the real world, she wouldn’t eventually follow this same path?

“Akechi-kun?”

She looked happy. Not loopishly, like some of the other people he passed on the street but healthy, confident. Real.

He was opening his mouth before he could even stop himself.

“Sae-san. I think that sounds like a great idea.”

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

Up past his palace’s Leblanc was a more under-stated hallway. Less steel doors and burning white floors and more soft carpet underfoot and the occasional plush seat scattered around. It was still grey and profoundly miserable, but just a tad bit wider and more seemly. A waiting area for the less insane, Akechi imagined. There were doors in the walls like every other floor, warm wood ones, the kind you’d see in your local doctor’s office. They had little placards embedded to them but the names were all wiped clean.

He counted every door he could see and came up with eight.

At the end of the hallway was the more familiar imposing door he’d become familiar to seeing. He could almost hear Morgana’s nose sniffing in anticipation. The fact that the treasure could be so unbearably nearby was a thought that had never occurred to him. He’d known they had to be close. But not this close.

Although considering they still had one immediate obstacle in their way it was probably remiss to celebrate too soon.

A shadow stood at a reasonable difference from them, armed with the usual lab coat and clipboard fair. He could see them, Akechi knew-had seen them from the very moment they’d opened the door. But he stood there, waiting for them to approach.

“There’s something different about this guy,” Sakura warned, as they tensed up and prepared for attack. “I think he wants to talk.”

As if awoken by her words the shadow did indeed begin to talk, in a low, tortured drawl. “The doctor is very busy,” one tendril of a limb pointed towards a sheet pasted messily to the wall. It was full of names and times, most of them crossed out.

Except, of course for eight.

“But if you would enter the room with your name on it. Dr Amamiya will see you now.”