Chapter Text
The vision was weird.
The sounds were somewhat muffled.
He was at school? Akira felt like he was in the Velvet Room, dressed in the faded prisoner garb, with chains on his wrists and ankles, but he was alone, and not fully aware of himself. Like he was only half-dreaming.
“I see you still haven’t fully accepted it,” sighed a voice from above him. “Very well…”
He hadn't accepted it entirely? What was that supposed to mean? How could anyone be… partially in a reality, but not entirely in it…? Akira felt himself waking up, but he didn’t want to. What was going on? Where the hell was he?!
Slowly, he woke up, rubbing his eyes. He felt sleepy, as if he were coming back from being on standby for a very long time. Something was different, though. It felt like something was missing.
A second later, it dawned on him.
There were no notifications. No data on the statuses of his systems. No startup messages.
Akira shot up with a gasp, blinking under the low light in his room.
Wait. No. This was wrong. He physically couldn’t gasp.
No, no, no, no!!!!
This was wrong. His chest was… what was it doing?! He was breathing. He tasted something strange, something natural . Something was thumping inside his chest, fast.
He got up and rushed to the bathroom, slamming the door behind him and looking up at the mirror.
Akira’s face was flushed, and his bangs were damp with sweat. His hands were shaking. He turned on the water and let it run for a second, splashing his face, then cupping a handful of water and rinsing his mouth to try and get rid of the weird taste in it. It felt slightly better, but didn’t get rid of the underlying feeling that something was incredibly wrong.
He looked at his own reflection again.
He was going crazy. He couldn’t be human. He wasn’t human.
He smelled the dusty bathroom air and tasted the slightly metallic water from the sink. All of that could be emulated, but there was one thing that couldn’t be changed about him. That no spare parts or software updates could ever give him.
He had to be sure.
Quietly, Akira crept down the stairs and into the kitchen, nodding at Sojiro, who was sitting at the table drinking coffee. He distractedly nodded back, wishing him a good morning.
He felt like he was dreaming as he stumbled towards the sink and opened a drawer, barely listening to Sojiro asking him if he wanted miso soup instead of curry for breakfast. Akira ignored him. He didn’t have time for this, he had to figure out what was happening to him, if this was a hallucination or a prank or something–
He picked up a knife and ran the blade across the palm of his hand.
Pain exploded from the incision point, and he dropped the knife in surprise.
He was bleeding. It was warm and thick, and it was definitely flowing out of his wound.
It was real. There were no more metal parts.
Akira looked at his hand, realizing he had severely overestimated his fragile body. He had barely pressed the blade to his skin, but the cut was deeper than he thought it’d be. Had he tried this any other day, it would have barely scratched him.
“Sojiro,” he called out in a small and detached voice, watching the blood forming a small puddle on the floor in front of him. “I think I’m bleeding.”
“What?!” He heard the scrape of the chair against the kitchen floor, and Sojiro rushing to his side. The old man grabbed his wrist and pulled it towards him, took one very alarmed look at it, and turned on the faucet, thrusting Akira’s hand under the stream of water. “What the hell were you thinking?!”
Akira opened and closed his mouth, but he couldn’t answer, instead cringing at the odd pain he felt as the water hit his wound.
He barely reacted as Sojiro pulled his hand away from the tap, hastily grabbing some paper towels and pressing them against the wound. Akira breathed in sharply, not used to the feeling. It hurt.
His pain had always felt sharp, and kind of the same every time. There had been different intensities to it, and he had been in a hellish amount of pain before, but the throbbing feeling had never been there, in time with a beating heart. It beat faster after he hurt himself.
Sojiro clicked his tongue worriedly.
“Damn, this looks deep,” he sighed, looking up when he noticed someone else entering the kitchen. “Hey, Morgana, I’m taking this idiot to Takemi’s clinic to have his hand looked at.”
Akira whipped his head to the side, looking to see who the hell Sojro was talking to, coming nearly face to face with a tall blue eyed stranger looking at him.
“Mona?!”
“Woah, hey, Akira. How did you manage to cut your hand?”
“W-Why aren’t you a cat?!”
“What are you talking about, Akira? I’ve always been human.”
Akira stared at him, and at Sojiro, who were both looking at him like he had lost his mind.
(At this point, he would have liked for someone to tell him that he had.)
—
“So, what happened here?” Takemi asked, as he held out his hand for her.
“I was just going to use the knife this morning, and… it slipped.”
She raised an incredulous eyebrow at him, but didn’t argue with him. The cut was clear, long, stretching in a deliberate line. It was clear that this wasn’t the kind of cut that you would get just by dropping a knife.
Despite Takemi’s skepticism, Akira looked frightened enough for her to focus on helping him, telling him she was going to anesthetize his hand. He nodded, being too scared to argue, even after seeing her pick up a long needle and gently push it into one precise point at his wrist.
The liquid burned as it spread under his skin.
She sewed it shut with a thin thread. He could feel it pulling at his skin, but it wasn’t painful.
Normally, Akira wouldn’t have bothered doing that much for such a small wound, but with everything strange that had happened so far that day, he accepted the painkillers. He didn’t know how they would work on him, but if they would help him feel better faster, there was no reason for him not to take them.
“Thanks, doc.”
“It’s nothing… Odd things keep happening. You’re not the first strange case I had today.”
She sighed and looked away, writing something down, absorbed in her work. Although he felt slightly dizzy, Akira perked up slightly at the information. So there was something going on after all. Someone else also noticed it, even if they, too, couldn’t tell what it was.
—
It didn’t take long before Akira found out what it was. More than that, he found who was responsible for it, too.
Real, human pain was uncomfortable, but genuine emotion felt even worse.
Maruki was doing this. Maruki was the one who had taken Akira out of his body and forced him into a new world without warning. Maruki had turned his cat into a handsome human, brought Goro Akechi back from the dead, and dumped a blissful coat of paint onto the world, with nobody except Akira, Akechi, and Kasu- no, Sumire knowing any wiser.
Maruki didn’t have the right. Who did he think he was, to decide to play God with reality, claiming that it was best for everyone? Akira had a right to determine his own fate. Maruki didn’t have the right to take everything that made him himself and throw it away. He didn’t have the right to take away all of Akira’s loved one’s memories.
Memories, thoughts, feelings.
With an ultimatum from someone he thought was his kind therapist, flanked by Akechi’s sneers and Sumire’s unsure steps, he walked out of a Palace with a mission: to save the other Thieves from Maruki’s brainwashing.
Exactly as Akira was just an empty vessel without them, his friends were too. It wasn’t surprising, seeing Wakaba and Okumura walking around. They weren’t that different from his friends. The city was filled with dead people walking. Like corpses, whatever made them themselves wasn’t there anymore, replaced with perpetual smiles and hollow laughter that echoed through the frigid January air.
Ann and Makoto. Morgana, who had been by Akira’s side since the very beginning, once energetic and curious, had now been turned into a bland and uninterested young man, only existing to follow Ann around and call her pretty. Yusuke, who’d furiously denounced his former teacher, now painting with Madarame by his side. Haru, with her deceased father, who had once happily sold her to the highest bidder to be used like a toy.
Ryuji.
Near the end of the week, Akira went to see Ryuji.
He’d looked overjoyed at seeing him, different from the others. Even surrounded by other people, even with lots of friends, Ryuji’s face still lit up when Akira approached him.
Although he’d felt nothing except a hollow sort of anger for the past week, Akira still felt a rush of happiness and affection at seeing Ryuji. His smile and laugh still made him feel weak. He rushed towards him as he approached, tackling Akira in a fierce hug that warmed him up like hot soup on a cold day.
God, Akira loved him.
He felt his face heating up.
“Aww!” the blond exclaimed with a delighted smile. “It’s cute when you blush.”
“C’mon, stop bullying the transfer student, Sakamoto!”
Ryuji laughed as one of his friends elbowed him. If Ryuji hadn’t been squeezing them tightly, Akira would have clenched his fists in anger. He knew that other person. They had punched Ryuji, in another life. In one that they were given that chance.
“When I what?” Akira blankly stared at Ryuji. Blushing? Him? Was that what happened every time his face was flushed? “Blushing?”
“What’s got into you, today, Aki?” Ryuji asked, with a small laugh.
He was still so… fond of him.
Were they still…?
Akira must have zoned out. He’d never done that before. The track team was asking Ryuji if he wanted to hang out with them after this, but the blond glanced at Akira and shook his head.
“Nah, I promised to hang out with this dude today. I’ll see you guys next time, promise!”
Ryuji waved them off with a bashful smile, then turned to Akira.
“C’mon, I’m thirsty. We can sit for a bit.”
Ryuji led them to his favorite spot for training, an area hidden behind the building. He gestured for Akira to sit down while he went to the vending machine to get a drink.
They sat side by side, taking sips from their respective beverages, Akira listening to Ryuji excitedly rambling about the next track meet.
Ryuji looked around for a bit, then passed one arm around his waist.
Akira felt his heart racing in his chest, an odd feeling in his stomach. He needed a moment to identify it as anticipation. He glanced at Ryuji’s face, the laid back smile on his lips.
They were really close. Had they always stood that close when they weren’t dating? He couldn’t recall.
Akira looked up at the blond’s eyes. Down at his mouth. Swallowed dry.
He was brought out of his musings by a huffed laugh. He looked up again at Ryuji’s eyes, noticing he seemed amused by something.
“It’s okay, Aki, there’s no one at school now,” he said, as if it would make him feel better. It didn’t, and Akira felt a pang of guilt in his chest as Ryuji’s smile softened.
Then he leaned in and pressed that smile against Akira’s mouth.
Akira kissed him back, one hand cupping Ryuji’s neck. He felt himself losing some of the tension on his shoulders. So they were still together.
The kiss deepened. Akira made a small sound at the sensation.
It felt different. It was wetter than Akira remembered it being. He felt a little short of breath. His heart was hammering inside his chest. It felt a little electric. It felt achingly familiar.
Akira felt the blond pulling away, and he chased him back to kiss him a little more. Ryuji huffed a small laugh against his lips, but happily obliged.
Eventually they pulled away for real, and Akira blinked, trying to understand everything that was happening to him. His face felt hotter. His cheeks were definitely warm.
Ryuji laughed, running his fingers through his own hair, seemingly embarrassed.
“Damn, you’re cute. I still dunno why you decided to date me.”
Akira felt a small twinge in his chest. His Ryuji knew. This Ryuji still felt insecure at times, and he still didn’t quite see his own value, but his Ryuji had been through so much by his side, he knew why Akira stuck around. They’d talked to each other a lot during the past year.
Being with this new Ryuji almost felt like being with a complete stranger. Kissing him felt almost wrong. There was almost an emptiness in Akira’s chest that he couldn’t quite shake off.
And he hated it.
He missed the Ryuji he fell in love with. He missed his best friend, who loved him being who he was, metal limbs and all. The Ryuji who’d opened his heart to him, and who listened to Akira’s story. The Ryuji who’d cried hearing about Wakaba, about life in Futaba’s uncle’s house, even when Akira didn’t have tears for himself.
This Ryuji loved Akira, but he didn’t truly know him. He didn’t remember anything about them. Akira didn’t know anything important about this Ryuji. They had never sat together and talked about Ryuji’s former friends, about his mother, about the future he was aiming for after losing so much because of Kamoshida’s cruelty.
Akira never understood why humans sighed, but at this moment he felt suffocated. He took a deep breath.
“Ryuji, do you remember how we met each other?”
“Of course I do, dud-” the blond started, but cut himself off quickly, frowning. He pulled away from Akira, seemingly confused.
“Ryuji, listen to me.” Akira insisted, looking firmly at him. “This isn't right. The track team. Your leg.” There was a quick flash of pain in Ryuji’s face, a spark of recognition, and Akira kept pushing. “We know each other because we fought together. Don’t you remember?”
Ryuji stood up abruptly, looking away.
“I gotta go.”
“Ryuji-”
Akira followed him, but Ryuji didn’t look back.
Akira stood there at the school gates for a very long time, for so long that it was snowing by the time he decided to go home. He felt so detached from his own body, from whatever was happening to him, from this fucked up world that no one was aware of except for him and his worst enemy.
He went home, and shut himself in his bedroom. He sat down on his bed and hid his face in his hands, trying to fight the despair brewing in his chest.
Akira tried to take a deep breath, like he made Futaba do so many times, when she got anxious. It helped, but only slightly. He closed his eyes and took another deep breath, letting it out slowly.
He had to keep his emotions in check, because otherwise they were going to swallow him whole.
He hadn’t talked to Futaba yet.
He had to be okay. At the very least, he had to pretend he was okay.
Above it all, Akira needed to pretend, with all his heart, that he wasn’t affected by seeing Wakaba alive again. He couldn’t live with himself if he ever acknowledged the feelings in his chest. It was too much.
He should have been happy to see her, really. He should have cried tears of joy and ran to her arms the moment she walked into Leblanc, spent as much time with her as he could, but…
He saw her after he came back from Takemi’s clinic. She was… visiting Sojiro. She brought her daughter with her.
She’d looked him in the eyes, and introduced herself to him.
She existed only to follow Futaba around Tokyo and buy things for her, then have dinner at Leblanc and go home with her daughter, then do the same thing again the next day. She didn’t remember her research or the time she had spent trying to protect her daughter. She thought Akira was just a boy Sojiro was taking care of, just an orphan who lived with a man she was friends with. Maruki didn’t know enough about them to fill in the gaps. No one really seemed to notice how strange the situation was; Akira, somewhat close to Wakaba and her daughter through Sojiro, but still an outsider. Morgana, his friend, who slept on Sojiro’s couch, and nobody knew or cared why. It made Akira sick.
—
Akira woke up feeling exhausted the next day, but he pushed himself out of bed and forced himself to move. He brushed his teeth, and washed his face. He knew he had to eat something for breakfast. It was a lot of work, taking care of a human body. All of these repetitive tasks, that had to be redone in a few hours.
He got out of his room, quietly making his way to the kitchen.
He hesitated for one moment in front of Futaba’s room. She wasn’t there. Why would she, if she had her own home, with her mother? What was in this room now?
Akira really had to talk to Futaba, wherever she was.
Before that, though… He didn’t really know what would happen when his friends snapped out of this messed up reality. If everything they’d experienced and thought would immediately disappear. If there was a chance of one of them understanding what he was saying from the start, instantly restoring the original timeline.
Akira didn’t know what would happen, after he talked to Futaba. What would happen… What would happen to Wakaba?
Of course, that didn’t change anything about what he had to do. Wakaba made him brave. She showed him braveness. He would be brave too. He would. He had to.
He just needed to… say goodbye first.
He didn’t have to wait long to see Wakaba again, her dropping by Leblanc later that afternoon. She was by herself this time, but still wanted Sojiro’s curry for a late lunch. She said she would be bringing Futaba later for dinner, joking about how mad she’d be about missing Sojiro’s special dish.
Akira knew it was his last chance.
“Wakaba? Do you have a moment?” he asked when Sojiro went out to buy some cigarettes.
Her smile was the same.
He’d mostly avoided thinking about her until then. Sometimes he'd feared he’d forgotten her, that his memories weren’t as clear as before. That she’d eventually fade from his memories as time went on.
It was such a silly fear. He knew his memories were as good as ever, and when he eventually was reunited with his metal limbs and simulated feelings, he could access them whenever he wanted. For now, though…
“Sure. What is it?”
Akira blinked. He hadn’t expected her to answer so quickly, and he remembered that he needed a reason to talk to her. She didn’t know him. “I was thinking about Sojiro’s offer to take me in,” he said slowly, not meeting her eyes. “Maybe we could go somewhere else and talk for a while?” he tried. It was the best excuse he could think of. “I’d like to know more about him… from someone who has known him for longer.”
She seemed surprised, but she quickly accepted. He didn’t know where to go, but ended up choosing Inokashira Park. It’d be quiet enough, which he couldn’t guarantee for anywhere else.
They sat on a bench, under the comforting shade of a big tree. The air was cold and crispy. It was lightly snowing.
Wakaba told Akira stories, in the same passionate tone of voice in which she used when talking to him for hours in her lab. Funny stories. Kind stories. She didn’t remember working with Sojiro, but she talked about him with the same admiration as he remembered.
Her voice, though. Her smile, and her laugh. That was the same. She was still kind. She still liked talking to him.
She talked and talked for what seemed like hours until she finally ran out of stories to tell, and looked at Akira expectantly. “What’s wrong?” she asked, frowning. She must have been expecting an answer from him, but he didn’t know what to say.
No, that was wrong. He knew exactly what to say. What mattered was that he couldn’t say it.
Akira would never get a chance like this again.
He’d never be able to talk to her again, and it wasn’t fair.
This new Wakaba wasn’t her, in any way that mattered. It might have looked like her and talked like her, but Akira knew that she wasn’t real, no matter how much Maruki tried to convince him. She’d never made him coffee the way he liked it, or gently brushed his hair and told him “good night”. Her eyes never lit up in joy at his curiosity.
She never gently woke up a machine that looked like a boy and asked in a soft voice if he knew where he was.
She didn’t know him, and he missed her like a limb. She was right there, but he still couldn’t talk to her. All of what she was, all of what she knew, was gone. This wasn’t the woman who’d spent days and nights awake working on her research, building something to keep her daughter safe. It wasn’t the mother Akira had nearly murdered Akechi to avenge.
Isshiki Wakaba was gone. She had been for a long time now, but only in that moment her loss felt final.
Akira looked up at the darkened sky. At the flakes still falling down and landing gently on his head. The reddish hue of a cold sunset.
The evening stars weren’t alight. It felt like they never would be again.
“Is there something wrong?” Wakaba asked again, tilting her head to the side. “You look a little sad.”
He shook his head, looking away from her.
“I remembered my mom,” he ended up saying, which wasn’t true, but it wasn’t a complete lie. He felt a lump forming in his throat, making it hard to talk. “Sojiro told me she passed away.”
She did. And yet, Akira was about to lose her again. She’d been given back to him on a silver platter, and he’d pushed the opportunity away.
Was he really doing the right thing in refusing Maruki’s offer?
His sight blurred, and his chest felt impossibly tight. He didn’t want to cry in front of her, so he bit down on his lip. It hurt.
He wasn’t ready for when Wakaba put her hand on his head, and gently ruffled his hair.
“You’re such a sweet boy. I’m sure she'd be proud of you,” she said, looking him in the eye.
Akira’s breathing crumbled, like his lungs had been ripped from his chest. He let out a small whine, let his head fall onto Wakaba’s shoulder, and let himself break.
Warm tears ran down his face, and he couldn’t stop it. He tried to breathe, but could only sob.
He blindly reached for the sleeve of her blouse, and he gripped it, too unsure to go in for a hug, too desperate for her to be there not to try and reach out.
It must have felt odd to her, this boy she barely knew, the adopted son of her good friend, clinging to her for dear life, sobbing and crying like a child. But to him, this was something else, she was as close of a mother as he would ever get, and he would never have her back.
She was taken aback, awkward and quirky as she was, but she was a mother, and she hugged him, the crying child she didn’t know, gently shushing him and stroking his hair. Akira cried harder, burying his face into her shoulder. It felt like the only thing he could do.
There were so many things he wanted to ask her. How could someone use the Metaverse to mess up reality this badly? What should he do?
Would you have loved me like you loved Futaba?
Will I ever see you again?
If only they’d had more time. If he had proven to her that he was good at protecting Futaba. If he had had the time to show her he had a heart.
But this Wakaba didn’t know him at all. Not even those two weeks Akira had with her before. Their past was gone. He would forever be the machine she built to guard her daughter.
Torn asunder, he learnt about pain in a way that broke him into pieces.
—
Akira’s greatest strength was to keep going even after getting broken. It was never staying down after he got hit. So, he swallowed his pain, went home, and as soon as he saw Futaba, he went to talk to her.
She was a bit alarmed.
“Have you been crying? Your eyes are red.”
He blinked, surprised. He had forgotten what happened when humans cried.
“It’s not important. We have to talk.” He shook his head, pulling her aside.
She followed him with a suspicious frown on her face, probably thinking he was a bit crazy, and he couldn’t blame her. She didn’t remember him.
She didn’t remember their promises to each other.
She didn’t remember the night she spent awake fixing him while Akira writhed in pain, half the artificial skin on his hand and arm having melted halfway through when he burned himself on the stove. Misfiring impulses of pure agony that were threatening his processor with the overload of data and programs trying to communicate with each other.
The water damage was also extensive.
His motor system went offline. He couldn’t get a reading on his sensory system.
He knew he was whining in pain like a wounded animal.
She didn’t understand how he could be in so much pain, but even so, she had been doing her best.
Akira knew how bad it was.
He’d been apologizing to her over and over again, because he had been fairly sure he wasn’t going to be there next morning to protect her. Because he was pretty sure she was wasting her time trying to fix him.
They made it, despite his odds. Together, they survived that night. She used every bit of her genius to bring him back.
She risked everything by sneaking out of home to buy spare parts for him. She stole money from her uncle’s wallet for him.
She had learned how to be brave. She asked for help from the Thieves, to change, to heal. She challenged herself and made friends. She tried new things. She learned how to trust people. She loved the person she was.
This girl didn’t know any of those things.
This girl didn’t even remember him. Not like that. He was just a boy living with Sojiro.
“Don’t you remember?” he asked gently, knowing how fragile she was. “Those men who worked for the government. The ones in black suits.” Futaba flinched minutely, but it was gone in the next second. He had to try harder.
“You’d stay up all night helping me. Fixing me,” he added quickly, seeing her confused face. A part of him wished she’d remember him. But he knew it wouldn’t be enough. “Your mother…” his own voice shook, and Futaba’s expression was conflicted.
“What are you talking about?” she asked, her voice weak.
“Your uncle.” Futaba took a sharp breath. “When Sojiro came to get us. To take us home.” She stared at him, speechless. “This isn’t right. This isn’t how things happened.”
Futaba looked away, clearly upset.
“I… I should get going.”
He let her go.
—
Akira closed the door of his bedroom behind him and nearly collapsed onto the bed. It had been the same, every time he talked with one of his friends. The feeling of being too overwhelmed to try to do anything else. He wasn’t interested in talking with other people, he didn’t want to go out and check on the new stores. He didn’t feel like reading a book, or even doing his homework.
He knew what he was doing. He had seen it in Futaba before. He was isolating himself. He didn’t feel like doing anything.
Akira closed his eyes. Part of him just wanted the world to go away.
He pressed down on his injured hand. The flash of pain was real and grounding. He took a deep breath. He couldn’t give up. He was still himself, and he wasn’t staying down. He’d spent a fair amount of his short life being yelled at and beaten, his only company slowly drifting away in her own grief. Palace Rulers aside, he had someone trying to shoot him in the head and send his body to be destroyed. Nothing life has ever thrown at him broke his spirit.
Maruki and his cheap shots at guilt tripping him would never work. Maruki, who believed he was helping the world by taking away the things that made them human. Maruki, with his massive Palace that was visible even in the real world. Maruki, who Akira had once trusted.
How wrong he had been.
Akira didn’t want his friends hurt and traumatized. He didn’t want to have to leave Wakaba behind in this blissful hell. He didn’t want to take his friends away from their happiness, however false it may be. However, he also couldn’t bear seeing them trapped in something they never asked for. If they decided to stay in this reality, it was fine by him. But he hated seeing them having their right to choose, one of the very things that made them human, taken away like that.
This couldn’t go on.
Akira took himself and his hardened resolve to the shower, then to the kitchen to say goodnight to Sojiro, and then to bed. Tomorrow, he was going back to Maruki’s Palace and telling him that he wasn’t accepting this reality.
And nothing was going to change his mind.
—
“So? What’ll it be, Kurusu-kun?”
Maruki’s voice was neither calm nor angry, but more firm. He stared at Akira expectantly, and he remembered everything that had happened to him in the past week; the puddle of his blood on Sojiro’s kitchen floor, each of his friends’ worried and uncomfortable faces when he reminded them of their real lives, talking to Wakaba in Inokashira Park, Futaba’s voice breaking as she told him that she had to leave. He remembered feeling alone and miserable as he laid in his bed every day, hoping beyond hope that his friends would remember him.
“No,” he said, staring at Maruki right in the eyes. “I won’t accept it.”
There was a long, incredibly heavy pause. Akira thought he heard the sound of glass breaking, and then, something very strange happened.
An odd feeling spread through his body, as if he was being smothered by a heavy blanket. It didn’t take him long to realize what was happening, though. What Maruki had done to his body was slowly becoming undone. Bone became metal. Veins became wires. His breathing slowed.
He had once again crossed the line that separated life and machine.
“Joker-senpai… say it isn’t true!”
Akira gripped his knife and looked up. He had almost forgotten about Sumire.
“Please… you’re not going through with this! Please let me continue living as Kasumi!”
Her voice was desperate, but Akira pushed his feelings aside. “You can’t keep running from the past,” he said firmly. “This isn’t what you really want.”
Sumire shook her head fervently and balled her hands into fists. “No!” she shouted, glaring at him. “Shut up! I won’t let you do this to me!”
There was a flash of blue flames, and Akira heard Akechi groan from behind him.
Sumire was now in her Phantom Thief attire. In a flash, she leapt down from the platform she had been standing on and landed gracefully in front of Akira, brandishing her rapier with shaking arms.
“I don’t want to fight you,” she said, sounding as if she were on the verge of tears. “But if you’re going to force me to live as my sister’s murderer…”
Akira straightened his back and reached for his mask. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But I can’t let Maruki do to the world what he did to you.”
The fight was short and brisk. Akira held back against Sumire as well as he could, trying not to hurt her, but she seemed more determined than ever to live under Maruki’s reality, and although her fighting was sloppy and frantic, the hits that she did land were heavy. Not even two minutes had passed before she slumped to the floor, defeated.
Maruki stepped towards him and Akechi, shaking his head. “It’s clear that you’re unwilling to let Yoshizawa-san have her way,” he said, disappointment in his voice. “Unfortunately, she’s in far too much pain to be fighting right now.”
He snapped his fingers, and what happened next nearly made Akira lose his grip on his dagger.
Several massive tendrils erupted from the floor, wrapping themselves around Sumire’s wrists and lifting her into the air. Akira could hear Akechi make a disgusted noise behind him, and for once they agreed on something; the sight in front of them was truly revolting.
Something else was happening, though: what appeared to be black slime was bubbling underneath Sumire, and in a flash of blue flames, her Persona appeared, but different. Cendrillon’s gentle blue and gold had been replaced with harsh red and orange, and her face was no longer soft and kind, but angry and hateful.
“I can’t go back!” she shrieked, clutching her head. “I refuse to go back! I’m happy here… this is where I belong!”
“It looks like we have to fight it!” Akira shouted, turning to face Akechi. “Are you ready?!”
He nodded. Akira looked back at the furious Persona in front of him and tore off his mask, feeling a rush of energy as Satanael appeared behind him. He’d almost forgotten what it felt like to fight. To do what he was built for.
“Good,” he snapped. “Keep up. And don’t embarrass me.”