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It had only been a few days since Akira left for Tokyo. Yukiko had promised Chie that Sojiro would eventually warm up to their kid, not that she knew what the guy was like in the first place, but she trusted her wife. She had just gotten back from another day of teaching kung fu classes for kids, consisting of a multitude of both private lessons with a single child as well as lessons with multiple students at once when she discovered a text from Akira sent around when his school day should’ve been over.
Akira: Mom, can I talk to you about something? I promise it’s nothing bad.
Chie: Sure, anything you want.
She didn’t expect anything too mind blowing. A crush, a bad teacher, a bully…
Akira: I got a Persona.
Chie dropped her phone in the car. Due to its color blending in with the floor, it took much longer than it should’ve to find it. But once she had it back and was in her room (Yukiko was busy, thank god.), Chie continued texting.
Chie: Akira, you are literally one misstep away from prison. Please tell me you’re joking.
Akira: Weren’t you the one who said “Thankfully, this school has the lowest teacher rating in the country, so we shouldn’t need to worry about them caring?”
Chie: Fair enough. How did you get one?
Chie recalled the conversation she had with Akira years ago about her adventures in the TV World once he asked what a shadow was that time Teddie dumped a little too much information during one of their conversations at Junes. She did find it kind of weird how none of her friends had been called for any shadow related problems in the past few months, and if Akira had a Persona now, then that should be enough to warn someone, right?
Akira: So I get to Tokyo and I find this app on my phone. It looked like your typical spam app, so I deleted it. Then one day I accidentally tapped it trying to fake a call after this girl saw me talking to myself.
Chie: And your ear got caught inside the phone?
She should’ve figured this would’ve happened once phone screens became more advanced…
Akira: No, that’s not where it ends.
Akira went on to explain about arriving at a castle (That brought back some worrying memories) and seeing what was likely the shadow of his gym teacher.
Akira: I saw the guy getting punched in the face, and something just sort of snapped in me. There was this voice in my head telling me about saving him or whatever, and something was kinda bothering me on my face, so I tried to scratch it off like some kind of scab, and I don’t know what happened, but my Persona was right there. So I realize what it is and I’m thinking “What’s this? All of a sudden I have cosmic power? Oh, you’re fucked now!”
Then he went on about how he got a cool-looking outfit, beat up some mook shadows that sounded suspiciously like some of Yu’s personas, a talking cat that was definitely Teddie’s younger cousin or something along those lines, and how that all culminated in him being late for school that day.
Akira: The point is… should I go back?
Chie remembered how Tokyo was the one place in Japan where shadow incidents never seemed to happen. Not that she knew what anything like that was like in other parts of the world. What was that similar thing going on another continent over that sounded like the name of some kind of fighting game villain? Achoopas? Questions for later. The point was, with the recent mental shutdown incidents, someone had to make sure people were safe there, and she trusted no one in Tokyo more than her son.
Chie: Yeah, and bring that blond kid too. He might help.
That guy reminded her way too much of what Yosuke was like when they first met…
It was eventually discovered that Akira was a wild card like Yu, and over the following months, Chie put Akira in a group chat with the rest of the Investigation Team minus Naoto, who had also been suspiciously MIA at the time. From there, they eagerly awaited as Akira told them about every new member of the Phantom Thieves as he went along, knowing they could all keep a secret. They all had their favorites. Yosuke, as Chie predicted, liked Ryuji, and popped off when they started dating, shouting “I CALLED IT!”. Teddie kept telling Akira to tell Morgana to not give up hope on becoming human, and so on and so forth.
Some highlights of the journey were Akira and Ryuji’s first date, one of the palace rulers eventually becoming Akira’s own Nanako in the form of Futaba, the Hawaii trip where Akira “Might as well have met his long-lost cousin” according to Rise (Blue-haired girl bias, much?), Ann fainting upon getting a call from Rise as a prank, and Kanji admiring Yusuke’s “Non-comformative spirit”, whatever that meant, Chie wanting to train Makoto at her classes, Yukiko offering to talk to Haru with her stress of leading a large company, Akira somehow not knowing Kasumi Yoshizawa was dead no matter how many times they told him, and it all culminated when Naoto finally returned in December, not so coincidentally around the time of the election, with a concerning message.
NAOTO: I’M SO SORRY I COULDN’T TALK TO YOU ALL SOONER. THINGS GOT COMPLICATED AT WORK, MY CONTACTS GOT CUT OFF FOR A WHILE, IT WAS A MESS THE WHOLE WAY THROUGH.
Chie was the first to respond to that.
Chie: Hey, don’t worry. I’ve heard how hard government work can be. Akira’s gang is covering it all.
NAOTO: AKIRA? THE KID YOU ADOPTED?
Chie: We’ll catch you up to speed.
Once done, Naoto agreed with what the rest of the IT had to think about the Tokyo situation. Christmas, New Year’s, and Valentine’s Day rolled around, and the Phantom Thieves had killed two gods. Chie couldn’t have been more proud of her son.
Chie started counting down the days until Akira’s return ever since he was let out of jail, and on that fateful day in March…
“Akira!”
“Did you miss me, guys?” Akira asked in Chie’s arms.
“Of course not, that’s why I’m hugging you right now.” Chie replied with a squeeze.
“Mom…”
“I’m kidding.”
“Have you gotten taller?” Naoto asked, clearly self-conscious about her never hitting a growth spurt.
“Your hair’s a whole lot fluffier, too!” Kanji said, giving Akira as many headpats as possible.
“So, how’s Ryuji?” Yosuke cheekily nudged Akira in the shoulder.
“Yosuke, stop.” Akira spoke for everybody remembering Yosuke’s brother and fellow autistic, Akira perked up, his head pushing Kanji’s hand back. “Wait, Teddie, hold on.”
Akira dug into his suitcase that was definitely larger than what he went to Tokyo with, and pulled out a kumade with his bear costume (which Teddie eventually grew out of, the design now mainly being used as Junes’ mascot) on it.
“Wait a minute, is this… me?!” Teddie snatched it out of Akira’s hands and stared at it in awe. “It’s perfect…”
“I dunno how Haru found it, but I had to take it as soon as I saw it.” Akira watched as Teddie held the item close to his face.
“It’s like looking in a time traveling mirror… tell that fine lady to give my utmost regards.” Teddie bowed, still looking at the kumade.
Yu walked over to Akira and took his hand. “Hey, kid, come on. We got something waiting for you at Dojima’s place.”
What Akira found was a huge welcome back party for him. With Nanako and Ryotaro having made a whole buffet of food for the Investigation Team and their new Persona user.
“It was the least I could do for my fellow wild card.” Yu calmly told Akira.
Nanako was ecstatic to see her cousin again, with Akira more than happy to hug her as many times as she’d like.
The amount of food Akira gorged on during the party, however, put him in a food coma that made him wake up the following morning apologizing to everybody for making them freak out.
The first few days back did give Akira trouble to adjust to his home again, and the separation didn’t help. Sometimes Chie would offer to comfort Akira if he needed something since he didn’t ask as often as he did before he went to Tokyo.
But a week in, that would all change.
“Hey, Akira!” Chie came into Akira’s room as he was texting a friend. “Naoto and the others are still working on getting everything back to normal, but we did get our first TV World shadow reading in years. There are a lot due to how long we were gone, but I was thinking, now that you have a Persona…”
“We could go shadow hunting?”
“Yeah! Come on, what do you say? Yukiko got the TV set up and everything!” Chie pointed out the door with her thumb.
“You know what? Why not?” Akira made one last quick text to his group chat before he got off of his bed.
Like any… most… okay, some Inaba persona users, there was a large flatscreen TV in the basement of their house. Used almost exclusively for travel to the TV world. Though in his youth, Akira would sometimes use it for typical leisure before his parents had to use it for “Work-related activities”.
“Are you sure we can’t see your shadow dimension, Akira?” Chie jokingly pleaded, knowing what Akira told her about the end of the Metaverse.
“Unless some brand new Metanav-like app comes out, no.” Before their first journey as a family began, he turned to Yukiko. “Hey, did Teddie ever get that… thing sorted out with his body while I was gone?”
“You’re better off asking him or Yosuke.” Yukiko quietly confirmed. A while back, it was discovered that the reason why Teddie hadn’t been able to fit into his suit anymore was because his body had become more human than shadow, costing him his ability to merge his human form with his suit in order to be able to fit into its more compact shape. “We were lucky he was still able to make the exit TVs after that incident.”
“Eh, the guy’s been a lot happier since then.” Chie slyly shrugged. “I don’t think I’ve seen him flirt with anyone lately as far as I can remember.” Once Yukiko was already in the TV, Chie scratched the bridge of her nose. “I’m really proud of the guy. Both of you have grown up a lot since then.”
“Hey, it helps to have another otter stick you can rely on.” Memories of Akira’s visits with Teddie and Yosuke flooded his mind, “You too, mom.”
Without further explanation, he gave a running start and dove headfirst into the screen.
Going into the TV World was a lot like going into the Metaverse, except Akira was falling instead of standing still. Once he landed in a typical superhero pose, he found that the area was just as Chie described it; big, yellow, and murky.
Being in his phantom thief duds again felt like coming home to a renovated house. When he saw his parents, his shoulder sagged upon remembering that they didn’t have any.
“Yo, Yukiko, check out Akira’s costume!”
“Why didn’t we get those?…” Yukiko joked jealously.
Chie started gushing to Yukiko about everything Akira told her about how his shadow dimension worked. “So what would you make my codename? Maybe something like Dragon, Cleats, Master…”
“Steak.” Yukiko and Akira said in unison.
“Stop.” And in one word, Chie firmly quieted the rest of her family.
They began their trek to the location where the reading was. Upon seeing the entrance to a subway not unlike the one Akira had described as Mementos, the entrance to the subway was blocked by a black sea of masks and flailing arms.
“Ah, here’s the problem.” Chie confirmed to the others. “It’s like a clogged toilet in here.”
Some of the arms started pulling themselves out of the pile and towards the Amagi family.
Chie pushed her masked son in front of herself. “Alright, kid. This is your moment. Show us what you got!”
“Okay, guys, you don’t need to be so pushy about it…” With that, Akira, ripped off his mask as he always did, bringing out the Persona he used during his final battle, Satanael. Launching an Eigaons at the first shadow that crawled out, he was stunned at how different the shadows here were to the ones in the Metaverse. Just as he was about to charge at it with his knife, the shadow jumped at Akira, smacking him in the face as it smothered him more than the Investigation Team did when he got off the train.
While Akira was covered by the unfamiliar shadow, he yelled at his moms, “Hey, can you two cover for me while I’m busy here?”
“Right, sorry. You just looked so cool doing it!” Chie and Yukiko took their traditional battle stances and summoned (I forgot what they were)
Chie jumped up to stomp on the shrinking puddle of shadows, her cleats burying themselves in the mob before she bounced off of it and back onto to ground. Once safe, Yukiko set fire to the oil-like mound with Maragidyne. One such shadow that was close to her pressed a finger on her foot, making her jump.
With the remaining shadows burning away, Akira finally managed to cut the shadow into dust with his knife, and just for good measure, fired a few rounds into the last few shadows, clearing the path.
“I still can’t believe you have both a knife and a gun!” Chie squealed, not noticing her wife’s situation.
“Ah, get it off! Get it off!” Yukiko stomped her foot on the ground rapidly, putting out the lone spark that had landed there. Akira fired a single bullet at the lone shadow, finishing the job.
“Well, that’s a new path just waiting to be explored, but it’s getting late, and we should probably tell the others about this.” Yukiko said as she analyzed the new subway in the TV World.
“Cell service isn’t good here either, isn’t it?” Akira guessed, not even bothering to pull his phone out.
“Yep. What say we celebrate with your favorite beef bowl and call it a night?” Chie was already licking her lips at the thought.
“Ah, finally!” Akira jumped with excitement. He dashed to the exit TV, with a rumbling stomach soon to meet the same fate as the shadows he just fought. But before he did that, he turned around at the last minute to run up and hug the two of them.
“I love you, moms.”
“We love you too.” Chie ruffled Akira’s always fluffy hair while Yukiko kissed his forehead.
“We really have raised him well, haven’t we, Chie?” Yukiko smirked at her wife once Akira was out of the TV World.
“Sure did better than I thought I would…” as Chie scratched her nape, her hand paused once she felt an all-too familiar pair of lips hit her cheek.
“Yukiko, you are so lucky Akira already left…”