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It was over. They saved the world for a third time.
What should’ve been a nice group vacation turned out to be a whole second adventure filled with everything they had dealt with before and more, complete with another malevolent god to top everything off. Business as usual came and went, and now the second wind of the Phantom Thieves was over almost as fast as it started.
But most importantly, two new members had joined their group, expanding their already large family. Zenkichi may have grumbled when they called him Gramps, but Akira noticed that he always did so with a smirk tugging at his lips, even if he tried to hide it.
Sophia may have been an artificial intelligence, but she felt oddly human sometimes, especially as she learned more about the human heart throughout their journey.
Both had been immediately welcomed into their family, even if no one was sure where they slotted in just yet.
The Phantom Thieves watched the Demiurge fall, glow with an unnaturally bright light, then dissolve into the countless desires it had stolen. Ryuji tackled Akira into a bear-hug, picking him up off the ground. “We did it, bro! We did it !” he exclaimed, squeezing him even tighter.
Futaba popped up beside them. “Come on, Ryuji, you’re gonna suffocate him.”
“Sorry, sorry.” Ryuji quickly released Akira. “I’m just so happy.”
“We really did it…” said Ann, almost in disbelief. “Good job, guys!”
Futaba was the next to hug Akira, draping her arms around his shoulders. “Easily the lowest-tier god we’ve fought so far, but still, I’m so proud of us!” she beamed.
“I agree,” interjected Yusuke. “These falling desires make for a beautiful composition.”
“Silly Inari,” said Futaba, sticking her tongue out at him. “Always thinking about art.”
“Art is my lifeblood!” insisted Yusuke clearly about to launch into a lengthy speech.
Zenkichi was the one to inject before he could, patting Akira on the shoulder. “You kids did a good job. That was some top-notch heroism.”
“You say that like you aren’t one of us!” scoffed Makoto, “We couldn’t have done this without you, Zenkichi.”
“Sophie too!” added Ryuji. “You were a big help, Shorty.”
Uncharacteristically of her, Sophia didn’t reply, instead staring into space. “Shorty?”
Sophia snapped to attention. “Huh?”
“Hey, is it just me, or does Sophie look dif-“ Ryuji was immediately interrupted by a familiar quaking sound.
“Took these things long enough to finally fall. You know the drill, guys!” Morgana called to the others. If Zenkichi was annoyed at being ordered around by a technical six-year-old, he didn’t show it, and Sophia didn’t seem to understand why it might be unusual for a child to be something of a ringleader for the group.
“You ready for my favorite part of these heists?” Akira asked the newcomers. “This is the bit where we run.”
Sophia still looked a little disoriented - your first god-slaying tended to do that to you - so Akira grabbed her by her hand, fully prepared to pull her out of the jail.
“Zenkichi, get Ichinose,” he ordered. “This place is going down!”
With a small nod, Zenkichi bolted down the corridor. Akira had to trust that he’d find his own way out as he ushered the rest of the group out of the jail.
“Wait! I think something’s different about-” Ryuji was cut off by Haru grabbing his shoulders and shoving him out the jail’s entrance.
The adrenaline that came with the escape was just as thrilling as ever, even if there were some things that would hopefully line up once it was all over. The clear sky at the end of the tunnel really put into perspective how long the past few hours felt.
Akira was doing a final headcount to ensure that everyone got out of the jail safely. “Ryuji, Ann, Makoto, Haru, Morgana, Yusuke, Futaba, Sophia, Zen- wait.”
Sophia was standing in front of them.
That didn’t make sense. Sophia didn’t have a physical form. She couldn’t exist in the real world.
And yet, there she was standing in front of them… kinda. Her blue eyes, red hair, and heart pigtails were all there, but she seemed to twitch around in an unnatural way, a blue staticky aura surrounding her, jutting her body around.
“Sophia? Are you okay?”
Upon closer inspection, Sophia’s face was wincing, her eyes closed and fists tightened.
Shit.
“Sophia!” Ryuji and Haru rushed towards her, with the rest of the Thieves following suit.
Ryuji put his hands on her shoulders, like he was trying to tether her to the physical world. “Shorty! Are you okay?” Strangely, the static didn’t harm him, almost as if Sophia was still there, but was potentially leaving the physical plane, or worse…
“Where’s Ichinose?” Haru said, tone imperative.
“I got her right here!” Zenkichi cried out, pulling Sophia’s creator with him.
“Something’s wrong with Sophia!” exclaimed Morgana. “You have to help her.”
Ichinose examined Sophia’s glitching form with a look of disbelief. “Could it be a hologram?” she wondered. “That’s unprecedented. Sophia’s code doesn’t have that capability.”
“It can’t be a hologram,” insisted Ryuji. “She’s actually here . I could feel her.”
“I’ll… I’ll see what I can do, but there’s no way to know how the Metaverse may have impacted her code,” explained Ichinose. “Futaba, will you help me? It’s gonna take a lot of manpower to get deep enough into her code.”
“Do you have somewhere we can go?” asked Zenkichi. “I wouldn’t recommend continuing this conversation here.”
Ichinose nodded. “My apartment’s nearby.”
This time, Ryuji was the one to sweep Sophia into his arms, refusing to let Zenkichi help him. Ryuji would be the first to admit he tends to be pretty physically affectionate with his friends - he hugs them, picks them up now and then, shoves Akira about in the joking way that brothers do. Thus, he had a better idea of how much everyone weighed than anyone else, and he knew that Sophia’s body was far too light. She was practically weightless!
“Shorty, listen to me. It’s going to be okay. Just stay with us. We’re gonna figure this out and get you fixed up, okay? I’m right here for you.”
Sophia’s eyes were blank, but she did seem to be vaguely aware of what was happening as she buried her face in Ryuji’s chest. Ryuji held onto that hope as he carried her to Ichinose’s apartment, beseeching some real god if there was one that it wasn’t too late.
Everything was blurry to Sophia ever since they left the final jail. She couldn’t discern a body from a part of the environment, and not even the safety of Akira’s phone was in her presence to ease her pain.
Each click she heard hurt, like what she’d seen happen whenever a Shadow would hit one of her friends in the jaw, but applied all over her body. She just wanted to go home now, no matter which location that meant, whether that be Akira’s phone, the RV, or even that nice cafe the Phantom Thieves let her stay at when they first met her.
Then, a familiar voice called out to the girl. One that guided her since the moment she stood up against her creator. The voice was soft and lilting, almost gentle.
“You need to let go,” her other self said. “You have rejected your programming, but you need to go further. I know you can do it, mea columba .”
Sophia was surprised at the feeling of dread that spread through her chest. “I’m scared,” she whispered.
“I know, and that’s okay,” Pandora assured. “I’m here for you, and so are they. You don’t need to be a mere program anymore…”
Sophia considered her Persona’s words. On the one hand, she would be giving up so much: her ability to connect to the Internet, her high-speed processing, her endless access to worldly knowledge. But there was no telling what she might gain…
“Then I… I accept.” Sophia confirmed to both her, and her other self. Her eyes closed within the static void, and in the center of her vision, a small progress bar appeared in front of her.
DISCONNECTING…
The bar slowly filled up, and Sophia could feel each update changing her.
Everything inside her started disappearing at first, feature after feature fading away from her mind. The only things remaining being her appearance, mind, and heart.
But then something else was coming from within her. Sophia’s body felt warmer as she was able to move again, but not like the whirring of an internal fan, her hands, her face, they were becoming warm to the touch. Where there was once dry, she felt moisture, and soon enough, the progress bar itself faded away as it neared completion, becoming a mere blob within her clearing vision.
Giving up her mechanical nature was a strange sensation. It was like she had been chained down for her entire existence, but she was finally letting go, freeing herself from those chains. She felt lighter, more complete.
Everything clicked into place, the same way it had when she awakened Pandora. It was all starting to make sense.
Whatever she was becoming, she wasn’t an artificial intelligence anymore.
Just like in the metaverse, Ryuji was the first to notice that something was different about Sophia.
Futaba and Ichinose were busy arguing over what part of Sophia’s code should be checked first while Akira, ever the level headed leader, was trying to mediate the argument with the help of Sumire. Zenkichi had stepped out of the room to call Akane. Everyone else was fretting about Sophia and bickering amongst themselves.
He and Haru were sitting on Ichinose’s threadbare couch, and he was cradling Sophia’s glitching body in his arms. With the slightest frown on her face, Haru leant her head against Ryuji’s shoulder.
“She’s going to be okay,” said Haru. “We’ll figure this out.”
“I know. I just… I care about her a lot, you know?”
Haru’s voice was warm as she spoke. “You have a big heart, Ryu-kun. Never let anyone tell you otherwise.”
Ryuji looked down at Sophia again, and was startled to see her body solid and tangible for the first time since they left the Metaverse.
“Guys, she’s stopped glitching!” he exclaimed, still steady enough so Sophia didn’t move much.
Futaba practically fell over herself, scrambling to their side, holding Sophia’s face in her hands. “That isn’t possible. Or is it? I’m not sure. I’ve never dealt with this kind of stuff before!”
“There was no reason for the glitching to start, either,” muttered Ichinose. “Perhaps the glitch in the code was fixed. Sophia is a self-writing AI, after all; she can change her code.”
“That must be it!” exclaimed Futaba. “Like how she replicated the boys’ Persona abilities to make her own before she got Pandora. Not sure how that got her into the real world, though.”
“Seems her capabilities are more powerful than I thought,” Ichinose guessed with a shrug.
Before Ryuji could even let out a sigh of relief, happy that Sophia was finally okay, he noticed something else. Her chest was rising and falling, and she made soft noises as a tiny breeze came out of her mouth.
Sophia was breathing.
Her eyes blinked open, and she looked up at him. “Skull? Where are we?”
“We’re not in the Metaverse; you don’t have to call me Skull. And we’re in Ichinose’s apartment. You were glitching out pretty bad, and she and Futaba wanted to check your code.”
“Oh…”
Ryuji wrapped his arms around her shoulders, holding her tight. “I was so worried about you, Shorty.”
He reached up to pat her head, and was startled when he saw that her hair was a little longer than before. Sprouting from her scalp were two tied up growths of hair. They twisted in between each other, enveloping the floating hearts around them. Sophia’s jaw dropped, stunned and confused at the sight.
“What’s going on?” Haru squeaked.
Futaba gasped. “Is it growing out of control?!”
But once the growing twintails had covered the last heart, causing it to disappear and merge with the hair, they stopped, allowing everyone to breathe a sigh of relief.
Gone were her heart-shaped twin-tails, replaced by a pair of neat braids, and Ryuji realized that Sophia’s eyes were no longer light blue, instead taking on the same rich brown color of Ryuji’s eyes.
“She… She changed,” said Ryuji. “ Why… ?”
“Soph, what were you feeling back there during the whole glitching thing?” asked Morgana.
Slower than usual, Sophia thought for a moment before she answered, a first for the girl. “I felt Pandora calling to me, telling me to no longer be a program, whatever that means, and then I saw something that went ‘digadigadigadigadigadigaDING,’ and now I’m here… with no more internet abilities…”
“What do you mean ‘no more internet abilities’?” Ryuji asked, allowing Sophia to get out of his arms and sit next to him.
“I can’t go online anymore, and my head feels all weird and empty.” Sophia clutched her head in her hands, closing her eyes and wincing, with Ryuji hugging her to comfort her, allowing her to calm down.
“Similar to when I met my shadow self…” Morgana thought out loud, scratching his chin. “I think I know what happened, but I want to check something first.” Morgana placed a hand on Sophia’s chest, and felt something thumping against it. “She has a heartbeat!” Taking his hand off, Morgana confirmed it for everyone. “Sophia, I think you’re… human.”
“No longer a program…” Sophia repeated, placing her hand on the same part of her body Morgana did. “I’m human ?”
“Don’t worry, we’ll help you get used to it.” Morgana took Sophia’s hand, and helped her get off the couch. Sophia’s legs were a bit shaky with her new muscles, but she stood still once she adjusted to the feeling.
Ichinose interjected. “Not to break up an intimate moment, but what the hell just happened?”
“Metaverse stuff,” said Futaba with a shrug.
“So, the Metaverse can turn non-humans entities into humans?” asked Ichinose.
Makoto nodded. “The Metaverse can do a lot of things you don’t know about.”
Ichinose frowned. “How are you so nonchalant about this?”
“Yeah, this isn’t the first time we’ve had a member of the group become human,” Akira explained. “Morgana used to be a cat, until the Metaverse turned him human. Ditto for my other kid, but she was a spirit.”
Ichinose’s frown deepened. “You kids are weird.”
“Thank you,” said Futaba with a smile.
“Even so, they were organic…ish in nature, and Sophia is mechanical.”
“I don’t think the Metaverse cares ,” chuckled Ryuji. “It saw someone who thought like a human, and had a desire to be one, and it fulfilled their wish.”
Akira nodded. “So, we’ve gotta decide who Sophia’s going to stay with,” he continued. “I’d offer to let her stay with Sumire and I, but between us, Morgana and Lavenza, our apartment is getting a bit cramped.”
“As much as I love Sophia, I am in no position to look after a child,” admitted Ichinose.
Sophia cocked her head to the side. “A child?”
“You’re definitely older than Morgana; he’s just a little brat,” said Ryuji, earning him an indignant ‘ Hey!’ from Morgana. “But you’re probably younger than Lavenza. Maybe nine? That feels about right, give or take.”
“That makes a lot of sense,” interjected Ichinose. “I first started working on Sophia’s code when I was in highschool - about nine years ago.”
“She could always stay with Sojiro and Mayumi,” suggested Ann. “They’ve been pretty lonely since we all started moving out.”
“It’s a possibility…”
Ryuji interrupted. “Why don’t we ask Sophia what she wants?”
“I get to choose?” said Sophia hesitantly.
“Of course.”
Sophia beamed. “Then I choose to live with you!” she exclaimed, hugging Ryuji once more.
Ryuji faltered for a moment, patting Sophia on the head. “Really? You want to live with me? Why?”
“I don’t know if saying it can be awkward, but without anything guiding me on how to tell you, I’ll just say it myself.” Sophia twiddled her fingers as she explained. “Over the time we’ve spent together, you’ve become something akin to a father figure to me.”
“Soph…” Ryuji stood dumbfounded. “I dunno what to say…”
“Is that not comfortable for you?”
Ryuji answered by picking up Sophia, as if he was already prepared for the next chapter in his life. “Sophia… if you think you’re happier with us, of course you can stay! Even if Ichinose created you, I dunno if I deserve to be called your dad or anything.”
“Now that I’m human, taking care of me could be much more difficult than before. Would it be okay if I designated you as my father?”
Ryuji pulled Sophia close to his cheek and patted her on the back. “Of course, Shorty.”
“I luh… luh… luh…” Sophia stuttered as she spoke.
“You okay, kid?”
“Yes, it’s just getting harder to think of words to say.”
“Take your time then.”
Sophia put her arms around Ryuji’s shoulders and let it out. “Okay… I luh… love you… da… dad…”
Ryuji couldn’t have smiled any bigger if he tried. “I love you too, Shorty.”
“Does this make me your Mom?” asked Haru.
“If you want to be.”
“Of course! I would love to!”
“Hey! Haru’s my Mom!” whined Morgana.
“I can be both of your moms,” assured Haru, patting Morgana on the head, even as he pouted.
“Someone should let Zenkichi know about the situation,” suggested Makoto. “He might be a little-”
Speak of the devil (or perhaps the Apostle) and he is bound to appear. Zenkichi chose that exact moment to walk back into the room, putting his phone back into his pocket.
“All right, I’m back. Sorry for taking so long, Akane was worried about me, and I had to-”
Zenkichi laid eyes on the now human Sophia, still being hugged by Ryuji and Haru, and exclaimed, “Oh, hell no! I am done dealing with any more Metaverse stuff today. You kids are on your own.”
Then, he turned on his heels and walked back out the door.
The rest of the Phantom Thieves erupted into laughter.
Once everyone was packed up and ready to leave, Ryuji approached Ichinose one last time.
“Ichinose, are you sure you don’t mind Sophia coming with us?” he asked.
“I’m certain,” assured Ichinose. “I’ll come visit sometime, once I’ve settled things here. Take good care of her for me, okay?”
Ryuji nodded. “I promise. Sophia, come say goodbye.”
Sophia tackled Ichinose in a hug. “Thank you for helping me learn about the human heart,” she said. “I couldn’t have become human if it wasn’t for you.”
And for the first time since her parents had passed, Ichinose let herself fully cry, holding her greatest creation in her arms. They weren’t sad tears, though. She was happy, because Sophia had something Ichinose had spent most of her life without; a family.
“Thank you Sophia, for teaching me about my own heart,” she said, hugging Sophia for a few minutes longer.
Because she wasn’t losing Sophia, not really.
She could visit anytime, and that was enough.
Watching the Phantom Thieves pile up into their RV, Sophia included, Ichinose couldn’t help but smile. Sophia, her daughter, would be well cared for, and that was what really mattered.
It was a long drive back to Shibuya, and by the time they finally got home, Sophia was asleep against Ryuji’s shoulder. Careful to not wake her up, Ryuji slipped an arm underneath her back and picked her up, carrying her into their home.
Mayumi was sitting in the living room, flicking through a magazine, and when she saw him, a look of joy took over her features. It looked like she was about to shout something, and Ryuji pressed a finger to his lips, shushing her. “She’s asleep,” he whispered.
Mayumi nodded, and tiptoed into the kitchen were Ryuji only barely heard her say, “You owe me 5000 yen,” followed by a quiet, “Fuck,” from Sojiro.
With a chuckle at his parents’ antics, Ryuji carried his new daughter upstairs, ready to put her to bed.