Chapter Text
Goro is no stranger to walking the streets of Shibuya at night. The lights from the billboards and shop fronts keep things bright enough that seeing is no trouble. Sounds of radio jingles and the buzz of conversations make background noise, not pleasant but it fills the void of such a large space.
‘What are you up to?' The message pops up on his phone. He almost swipes it away but his finger lingers over the name.
Kurusu. Of course. He probably wanted to invite him out.
Goro lets out a long sigh. He's tired and on his way home after a long day of school and an even longer evening of discussions at the station. Still he needs to keep up the appearance of the ever friendly Detective Prince.
"Let me get home and change. Then I'll be on my way. Penguin sniper? ;)" He replies and snaps his phone shut to seal the deal. No backing out now.
Despite his exhaustion he finds his steps going a little quicker. His body is a little more energized. Damn, was he actually eager to meet with the other boy? No, just caught up in the chase. That's all.
Focus Goro. Keep the lies separated from reality.
He glances up from his phone and frowns. It's a familiar trek back to his apartment. One he takes nearly every single day. So why does he not find himself on the street he should be on? Had he taken a wrong turn? No, this should be where his apartment building is, thirty paces past the grocery store with the annoying flashing sign. He had definitely passed that.
The place he finds himself in is wholly unfamiliar though.
He turns around to trace his way back down the street and is met with an entire building blocking the way he had come, closing off any possible route backwards.
"That...that's impossible." Goro whispers to himself, unsettled despite the other people on the street's casual demeanor. He had walked straight down the pavement he hadn't made any turns, certainly not around a large building like that.
The hair on the back of his neck stands up as he feels someone watching him and he whirls around to see nothing of note but empty streets.
Empty.
Hadn’t there been people just moments ago?
A twilight evening walk through Tokyo has turned into pitch black night in a town that is looking more and more unfamiliar as he looks around. It can only mean one thing. The Metaverse. The question is, is it part of Mementos or some sort of massive palace?
He takes his phone out and sure enough the navi app is open, glaring at him with that red eye on the screen. Something that usually makes him feel so powerful now gives him a chill down his back. He’s about to try and click over to the screen showing more information when something…someone comes crashing into him.
He rolls to the ground, tangles of limbs and feathers and pink cognitive splashes against the metaverse ground. When his sight stops spinning he can see what ran into him. An Angel. Literally speaking..or figuratively? However that worked with Shadows.
He tries to shove the shadow off of himself but it clings to his arm and flaps its wings hard enough they drag across the pavement together for several feet. Goro feels the knees of his slacks rip and dirty.
No metaverse costume here. Stranger and stranger.
"It's you!" The shadow tells him in its tinny echoing voice. "Oh, thank heavens. Can you stop him?"
Before Goro can respond the rattling of chains can be heard once, a pause, then closer.
"Shit! Here? Really?" Goro curses, picking himself up from the ground. The Reaper inside of a palace was rare but not unheard of. Under normal circumstances he might have given the large shadow some thought. He'd fought and won against it on occasion but here he knows better than to be risking himself on unsure footing.
He turns to run, the Angel still holding onto him as they go, rounding into a narrow alleyway between buildings. Goro presses himself into the dip of a store's backdoor and holds his breath as the metal rattling gets closer.
Out of the corner of his eye he watches several other shadows run past the alley, away from their likely predator. Not all of them are fast enough to outrun the Reaper however.
Goro squeezes his eyes shut as he hears a strangled cry followed by words like a deep rich silk.
"You saw the intruder. Where is he?"
Another smaller distressed voice responds, "I didnt..I didn't see anything!"
"Are you lying to me? You would suffer the consequences of that?"
"For our Prince, yes!"
A long lamenting sigh as the struggling sounds fade away. Goro is expecting a sickening sound or more screaming but none of it happens. Instead, the figure of a Principality Shadow comes stumbling past the alleyway holding its face, muttering to itself. Black empty holes where it’s eyes should be.
"See…Can't see. Don't see anything."
Goro's stomach lurches. What the hell is going on in this palace?
The Angel peeks out of their hiding spot as the sound of chains dragging begins to retreat further down the street away from them. Goro follows a few moments after stumbling out of the alley and looking up and down the street. Quiet again except for slowly returning cognition of shoppers in the city. Like people coming back out after a pour of rain.
"We need to keep moving." The Angel urges, grabbing his shirt and pulling until he shakes her off.
"/We/ don't need to do anything. I need to figure out what's going on here."
Goro turns to walk away, up the street in the direction he had been trying to go before. Now that he was certain he was in a palace he needed to shift focus. His expression pulling into the tight jawed grimace of the black mask. The mask he wasn't wearing for some reason as he took a look at himself again in a passing shop window. Still in his school uniform ripped and soiled from tumbling through the street. It meant this place didn't see him as a threat.
He'd show it wrong.
As he goes he can hear the flapping of the Angel’s wings behind him, still following. Fine, it can do whatever it wants as long as it doesn't get in the way.
As if to demonstrate this he reaches into his school coat and pulls out the would be toy ray gun. Small and silly looking but he knows it does damage here. He points it at an approaching shadow and fires ruthlessly watching it dissolve. The action causes cognitions to scatter across the roadways but the reaction is still limited even as he brandishes the weapon, pointing it in the air and demanding, "Who do you work for here?"
"Is it that Reaper? You seemed pretty scared of him?" A cognition flinches back away from him and shakes its head before hurrying on some predetermined path through the city, void of any real meaning.
He threatens another shadow, since the cognitions are useless. The form of a shopkeeper bursting into that of an Archangel and cowering from him. Much better.
"Please, your highness!" It pleads to him covering its face as Goro jabs the ray gun closer and snaps back, "Quit the bullshit royal terms. Tell me what this place is!"
"Shibuya! It’s Shibuya!”
“Don’t lie to me!”
The same thing the Reaper had said before that other helpless shadow was warped into losing its sight. He doesn't realize his hand is shaking until he feels someone reach out to steady it. The Angel that’s been following him. It’s grip is gentle as it wraps delicate long fingers around his wrist.
“They can’t lie to you here. They wouldn’t.” It tells him, urging him to calm down. He takes the words in, the way they match what he had seen happen back in the ally when they had been hiding. A deduction of a truth and the beginning of a thread of mystery that he wants to be wrong about.
“An intruder they’re calling Prince.” Goro laughs but there is no joy in it at all. It’s a laugh of irony and cruel fate. “What? Did they forget the Detective part?”
The Angel jumps startled as he drops the hand holding the raygun to his side. These Shadows pose no threat to him. Especially if they’re all bowing to him like this. Even if talk isn't cheap there’s no way he can trust them. It would be better to just wipe them all out of his way.
“So they can’t lie to me? Does that apply to actions too? Can I not be betrayed here? Stabbed in the back by all these monsters who’ll say pretty appeasing things to my face?” He reaches deep within himself for Loki. The persona heeding his call and rising to the surface of his skin like fire to gasoline. A strange feeling when he’s not cloaked in his dark metaverse outfit, feeling more exposed and raw here in his normal clothes. The once spotless and perfect uniform tarnished much like himself.
The Angel interrupts him once again drawing closer with insistence. A warning? A plea. “Words have power here, my Prince!”
He rounds on the persona snarling and feeling Loki boil in his veins, ready to unleash a curse.
“That isn’t me! I’m not your Prince!’ He screams and raises his hand to his face to rip off his mask and unleash a spell. When his hand meets nothing but skin he digs his nails into his face and scratches. More frantic as he feels the swell of Loki’s power drop away. It’s torn from his skin unpleasantly quick and leaving him staggering as if from a bout of vertigo.
He recoils and reaches for Robin instead but there’s an empty hole where the persona should be. A weight and pulley snaps. He is a carefully balanced scale broken and swinging uselessly his body crumbles and he finds himself on his knees looking up at the figure of the Angel. It is covering its mouth in shock. It reaches for him and he returns to the only thing he has left. The ray gun. Cognition, he tells himself. If he believes it’ll work. It’ll work.
“Leave me the hell alone.”
The Angel steps away and he swings the weapon in a wide arch surveying the rest of the shadows and cognitions staring at him from the commotion he’s caused. Their forms turned back into the muddy shapes of shopkeepers, all with eerie yellow eyes on him. Shadows ready to pounce
“I don’t need any of you. Stay back!” He scrambles to his feet, bent over and heaving for breath. He backs away from the shop fronts managing to get a good head start before he bumps into the neon blinking sign of a vending machine, a catchy tune plays from a speaker somewhere in it startling him. When he turns to kick it hard with the heel of his shoe he hears them advance on him.
He runs but a whole city is hard to hide from. Whether it’s as a celebrity or as an intruder in his own palace.
…
..
.
By the time Goro’s body stops running he finds himself in a back street, ducking down behind a row of closed food carts. He grabs a handful of napkins, using them to wipe the sweat and blood from his brow. He’s no stranger to the metverse’s cruel ways but he’s never challenged it without a persona by his side.
Then again he’s never developed a palace before either. At least, he’s fairly sure this is his own palace. His mind’s twisted version of Tokyo. It might be fairly interesting to investigate if he wasn’t cornered in it at the moment.
He pulls out his phone from his pocket, clicking the screen on and seeing the red navi app burning into the screen still. He flicks it away and opens his messages. His last reply to Kurusu staring back at him. There could have been a reply but there was no signal in the metaverse to even tell. His fingers hover over the keyboard debating on trying to get another message in by sheer luck.
"Don't wait up for me." He eventually types in place of his original plan of a call for help. Like hell he'll sink to asking the Phantom thieves for help.
—
"Stop staring at your phone man." Ryuji scolds Akira as they walk down the street. He nearly bumps into the back of Yusuke as the group stops at a crosswalk.
"Sorry." He mutters but doesn't put his device away. He's been staring down at his message history for days. Ever since he was stood up at the Penguin Sniper by one Goro Akechi, Ace Detective. He stayed there until midnight, waiting, playing darts by himself until he gave up and went home.
" I'm here."
"Did something come up?"
"Akechi?"
All left unread with no response. Very unlike the boy who usually texted back so quickly.
"Forget the guy, the one and only Phantom Thieves are taking you out for burgers." Ryuji slings an arm around his shoulders, nearly toppling them both over. This is quickly followed by a chorus of ‘Shh!’ from the rest of the thieves.
Thankfully no one is paying the group of rowdy teenagers any mind. Too distracted by shop windows and electronic ads playing on several large screens throughout the street. One of which, Akira catches playing a piece for a local talk show. Akechi’s smiling face plastered onto a banner next to the woman speaking. Akira slows to a stop to listen next to a few high school girls already doing the same.
“The Akechi interview was canceled!” One of them sighs in disappointment. “I was really looking forward to it. The shows in Tokyo are only worth watching when he’s on them. What a nightmare.”
“Navigation starting”
Akira nearly drops his phone as it speaks to him. He looks down just in time to see the Navi app declaring his destination with three keywords.
Akechi.Tokyo.Nightmare.
Akira’s phantom reflexes kick in instantly as he steels himself against the wave of vertigo that entering the metaverse causes. When it clears not only have his friends disappeared but so has the bright midday sun beating down on the pavement of the streets of Shibuya. Like someone had flipped a switch and replaced it with an ominous large moon floating in the night sky above. One that casts long shadows somehow even in the dark of night. Lights in the windows of tall buildings feel like dozens of yellow eyes on him, watching.
Before he can be in awe of the fact that his rival and potential love interest apparently has a palace his attention is caught by the sound of footsteps. He picks up his Joker coat tails and leaps up onto the top of a parked delivery truck crouching down low to make himself small. A group of shadows disguised as city residents walks by, absent of the living chatter a city should have they instead march on like zombies on seemingly predetermined paths. Simple enough to avoid.
He waits until the coast is clear and climbs down, keeping to the side of the road and as inconspicuous as possible. His dark outfit makes it easy to blend into the buildings.
He walks and it would almost be a relaxing night time scroll much like he took all the time if it wasn't for the shadows with their clay like masks giving away their true forms underneath.
He has always loved the busy city nightlife and here it is just as beautiful.
"So this is how he sees the world?" Akira mutters to himself trying to understand the cognition. Nightmare had been the keyword. Things didn't seem scary but he knew better than to let his guard down. Especially when it came to the Detective.
He hears a loud thumping of music as he draws closer to a set of stairs that lead off the street. A sign says it's a karaoke bar with a taped up poster advertisement announcing an event where you can 'Sing with your favorite Detective Prince.'
Akira holds a stifled laugh. Nevermind, no doubt if such an event happened in reality he would have attended.
Letting his intuition guide him and enters the karaoke parlor taking the stairs down. The closer he gets the louder the music and he can start to pick out other sounds as well. Bangs and thuds. The sounds of a scuffle. He picks up his pace and when he comes to the door of the establishment he lifts a heeled foot and kicks hard hoping to catch whoever is fighting inside off guard.
The door swings open and Akira steps in with a dagger held at the ready gripped tight. The music is still playing like a muffled heartbeat but the room is empty. Well mostly, the dissolving remains of several shadows are freshly scattered around. The furniture in the room looks like it's been through a blender. Someone was definitely here only moments ago. Is probably still there.
Akira grins, this was going to be so interesting. Some kind of boss shadow? A cognitive figure? He shouldn't be so thrilled at the prospect but by the time he hears the creak of a floorboard behind him he's rearing to go. He keeps his back to the assailant letting them think he hasn't noticed. Stepping further into the karaoke lobby and leaning over to inspect a piece of broken chair.
When the attacker jumps onto him he reaches back and grabs for them. His hands latch onto arms trying to choke him and he uses his weight to lean and toss them straight over his shoulder into the pile of rubble.
The body that lands there lets out a pained groan and stills. That's when Akira gets a good look at them. Him. The ripped white button up, the stripped tie wrapped around bloody knuckles, the long matted honey colored hair.
"AKECHI!"
The shout stirs the body back to life and Akechi tosses an arm over his eyes like he doesn't want to see him. Too bad Akira is way too in deep now to just walk away.
He kneels down and gets a closer look now that he's sure the source of the fighting is right here next to him. Grabbing hold of Akechi's wrist he pries it away from his face with a great amount of mumbled empty threats directed towards him.
This threw several wrenches into his theory of Akechi being a metaverse traveler. A threat. It validated that he was much more vicious than he let on though. No use in keeping his own identity a secret either now.
"Hey, stop complaining. I'm here to help." Akira tells him gently, pushing his mask up into his hair to show him who he is. "It's me."
Or maybe that's the wrong move to make because Akechi tries to sit up instantly and pull away from him like a wounded animal. He doesn't get far though as he gasps open mouthed and takes a shuddering breath holding his side. Fresh red inking its way through already stained white right over where ribs should be. The contrast of it makes Akechi look even paler than he already is.
"You're the last ..person I want to see.." Akechi rasps out leaning heavily back onto the broken bits of wood before his eyes close again.
Any smug reply Akira wants to give slips away in the wake of panic. He grabs Akechi by the shoulders and shakes him. No response this time. His head just lulls to the side until Akiras hand comes to cup his cheek supporting it from laying at an odd angle.
He digs through his pockets for any healing items he can find. He hadn't exactly been expecting a trip into the metaverse this afternoon, all he has is a few snacks that might at least stabilize Akechi if he could get him to eat.
Before he can attempt anything he hears the sounds of respawning shadows. They need to move, no doubt the area wouldn't stay safe if Akechi had been ganged up on already once before.
He slips an arm around Akechi's back to lift him away from the rubble and one underneath his knees to get him off the ground. He's heavier than he looks and Akira’s movement is significantly slowed carrying him. Before he makes his dash out into the open again he needs to think. Where would a safe room be in a palace like this? Somewhere Akechi would feel safe? His home? Akira had no idea where that would be. The police station? Absolutely not.
A place Akechi felt comfortable when all of Tokyo felt like a nightmare. A refuge away from it all. Akira perks up just as a shadow floods out of one of the karaoke rooms zeroing in on them. He takes off out the ruined door he came in by and turns to head towards the train station. It's a long way but if they can catch a working train he can figure it out.
"Hold on for me, Akechi." He whispers to the man in his arms. "We'll be there in no time."
…
Akechi wakes up to something cold and wet on his face. Then liquid in his mouth which he promptly spits out before he can choke on it. It's sweet and cold so at least he knows it's not blood. His head is pounding and when he cracks his eyes open he has to shield them despite the light only being dim at best.
He feels like he's been run over by a bus which isn't far from the truth at the amount of shadows he's had to fend off every time he's gotten cornered. Shadows that with his personas would have been no more annoying then flies but without…
He sees a dark figure loom across his vision and tries to sit up. A hand comes out to push him back down and this time he doesn't fight it.
"If you're going to kill me, get it over with already." He taunts because at least his mouth is working. "And if you're that Angel again. I said leave me the fuck alone."
"Calling me an Angel now, huh?" Comes the reply in a voice he desperately wishes he was imagining.
"Kurusu, if you're here to steal my heart you're going to find it sadly missing." Goro tries again to sit up and this time he's allowed to lean against his makeshift bed which appears to be made of chair cushions and a tablecloth from…
He glances around recognizing the decor and the music floating through the air. They're in Jazz Jin. Kurusu seems relaxed enough that he can guess that there are no threats around. A safe room? Interesting choice.
"No beating around the bush then." Kurusu sighs as he leans in close to examine what appears to be a makeshift bandage wrapped around Goros' middle. The boy sighs and adds, "I didn't even get to make a dramatic reveal of 'I know what you are, Akechi." Then Kurusu laughs like it's some kind of reference he should understand.
Goro is far less amused. “How long were you planning on letting me think I had the upper hand?” He snaps at him, jaw tight, teeth practically grinding into each other.
Kurusu looks at him through thick lashes unblocked by the mask sitting on top of his head. Identity exposed like he’s taunting him as Goro sits there in the tattered remains of his school uniform.
“As long as it took for you to not interfere with the changes of heart I suppose.”
That’s the answer that sends him over the edge. Goro reaches out and pushes Kurusu away with as much of a shove as he can manage, crawling up onto his knees and grabbing onto a nearby table to force himself standing.
“Me?! Interfere with you? After all the hoops I’ve had to jump through because of your little games.” He picks up a shaker of salt from the table and throws it in Kurusu’s direction just because he can. The smug boy catches it in his hand and sets it aside as Goro continues, “The years I've put into making sure everything was perfect. The amount of times I’ve had to prove myself again and again when all he ever talks about is you!”
“Akechi, careful, I had a few healing items but you’re s-”
“Shut up!” Goro counters but his wrath is fizzled out by his lack of energy. He slots himself into a chair to sit with at least a little dignity. He doesn’t need the fake pity.
To his credit Kurusu does stop talking. Out of the corner of his eye Goro watches him still, his shoulders hunch forward and his mouth falls into a thin line. He's over thinking something for sure.
Then the boy stands up and grabs the empty cup from the floor, The one he evidently used to pour something into Goro’s mouth earlier, and takes it over to the counter of the bar. Slipping behind it easily Kurusu reaches for a bottle of fruit juice and pours more into it. He takes a sip himself and Goro is very aware that those lips are where his own had been moments ago.
Kurusu’s eyes meet his own and Goro swallows, mouth dry. Caught staring and God the smug look on his rival's face makes him want to punch him.
He breaks the silence only to force the upper hand in his favor. "So where are the others? Off scouting through my palace streets?”
It doesn't work. That grin only widens, not giving him any satisfaction. "So confident it's your palace?"
Of course it's his palace. It seems to be a special hell of Goro’s own making, designed just to torment him and dangle fake achievements in his face. He doesn't tell any of this to Kurusu though. Instead, he just fixes him with a tired look. "We both know that's the case."
The other boy relents and Goro watches Kurusu’s own expression fall a fraction of an inch, his chin tucked down into his high collar. "It's just us." He admits then. "I was the only one that fell in."
"Fell in?" That meant that he wasn't there on purpose. Wasn't there on some planned operation. Goro can't help but laugh at the very circumstances. His chuckle dark and deep until his stomach pains him for it and he chokes to a stop holding his side. The blood on his shirt is dry and not flowing freshly anymore but it's still not completely healed. He sinks into his chair a little, leaning back against it.
"This really is a nightmare. Being stuck with you." Goro says idly.
"Call it making up for the date you owe me." Kurusu counters easily. Their conversation rolls into something inevitable like it always does.
"Dates? Is that what you think they were?" Back in reality Goro would have played along, encouraging the delusion for his own gain. There was no point in that now.
"Am I wrong?"
Goro doesn't dignify him with an answer. An omitted truth isn't a lie after all. Instead. he redirects his energy to the problem at hand trying to keep control of the conversation. "Let me see your phone."
"What for?" Kurusu asks as he comes back around the bar counter. He hands both the cup of juice and his phone to Goro with ease.
Goro takes them both, downing the juice having been more parched then he realized. Either the sugar or metaverse bullshit energizes him a little. He presses buttons on the navi app but none of them respond to his requests. Same as his own phone, the return button missing entirely from the spot it should have been.
“Yeah, I tried that already.” Kurusu admits with a disappointment of his own, watching Goro struggle for a moment before taking a seat across from him at the table. Only when the screen is out of the other boy’s sight does Goro flip through some of the other apps. He brings up Kurusu’s messages looking to dig for information. Sure enough there is a group labeled “Phantom Thieves” right under the most recent messages. A glance into it shows talk of a planned outing for burgers. Nothing interesting.
No, what does catch Goro’s attention is his own personal message history, pinned to the top of the list and giving a red ‘unsent’ flag next to the latest messages. Ones that his own phone had not yet received.
Kurusu had really been worried about him? There would be no point in faking a private message out of concern after all. What did that mean? What does it matter when they’re stuck? He exits all the apps and slides the phone across the table to Kurusu.
The boy takes it and gives him an even look, “I've got nothing left to hide, Akechi.” The open ended question of asking him to return the trust hanging in the air. Goro doesn’t know what more Kurusu is asking of him. He’s already sitting in the metaverse’s manifestation of his brain. Isn’t that enough?
He manages to find the one piece of information that might be useful to divulge in the current situation. “I’ve lost my persona.” A statement of a fact.
Kurusu’s expression only softens and Goro hates the way it makes his chest feel like it’s stuffed with cotton. He watches several other pieces fall into place though and he’s expecting it when Kurusu follows up with a statement of his own.
“So you do have one.”
One. Good he still has something he can hide up his sleeve and keep away in his heart just for himself. He had been planning on relieving Robin to the thief anyhow. This just sped up the time table.
“Did.” Goro snaps back quickly.
“I'm sure we’ll get it back to you.”
God, how can Kurusu be so confident even here like this. It’s got to be a facade, a joke.
Goro moves to stand up from the table, breaking the spell of it being just another evening at the jazz club between them. There are no singers or waiters here. The cozy warm atmosphere is just his mind’s wishful thinking. He’ll go get his own damn juice, and put some space between them again.
He doesn't make it far before Kurusu is trying to get up and follow and he turns holding out a hand to stop him, nearly brushing his palm over the front of that silky gray vest as Kurusu comes close trying to talk some sort of nonsense to him.
“I’ve heard of situations like this before. Where rejecting a part of yourself rejects your persona. Did anything happen like-”
“Nothing happened.” Goro cuts him off firmly, hopefully confidently. He manages to keep his voice steady and calm as Kurusu graciously shuts up and lets him speak. He forces one of his Princely smiles. “I fell in just like you did. I couldn't defend myself and you see the results of that here. It’s fine.”
Before he can measure whether Kurusu buys it or not there is a startling loud pounding on the door of Jazz Jin that causes them both to jump from their quiet conversation. Goro’s body tenses and the pain in his side keeps him from stepping back instead falling forward into Kurusu who isn't expecting his weight and the both of them tumble down together.
“Let me in! Please! Hurry, He’s coming!” Something screams from the other side of the door pathetically sobbing.
Goro does grab Kurusu’s vest this time, keeping him firmly there under him, knowing his bleeding heart would be the end of both of them. He presses a finger to his lips and shakes his head sternly even as the wails continue this time accompanied by the dragging metallic sound of chains.
Kurusu gets the memo and doesn't move, simply frowning up at him.
Goro pretends he doesn't feel the hands settle at his sides. Pretends his own hand doesn’t shake balled up in Kurusu’s vest.
He’s fine. This is fine.
He doesn't remember when it ends, just that silence returns after what feels like an eternity of screeching that makes his ears buzz. He stares pointedly at a spot next to Kurusu’s head to avoid looking directly at him. The lights of Jazz Jin flicker and the music returns with a scratch and skip of a track.
He rolls off of Kurusu, body aching from the tension it has been holding. He’s going to need so much juice to get back to walking without pain.
Kurusu sits up and offers him a hand but he swats it away instead asking for help in his own way. “And in the hypothetical situation you were speaking of earlier. How did the user get their persona back?”
If he can get Robin and Loki back he’s confident he can deal with this Reaper and he has a feeling dealing with it is the key to escaping this place.
“Easy. We have to find the palace owner’s cognitive self.”
Right. Easy.
Goro picks himself up off the floor, pretending to check himself over to avoid the thought of what his cognitive self might even be. Nothing good that was for sure.
Then he goes over to the door, peeking out of it to make sure the coast was as clear as it sounded for them. All he sees is the withered remains of another shadow at the doorstep but then something else catches his eye.
He could have sworn he saw coattails disappearing around the corner of the street.