Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The eight of them stood there motionlessly as the reality of their situation sank in.

Mona hums in consternation, pressing one cartoonish paw to his cheek. Skull curses under his breath, kicking the ground in frustration. Crow watches them all with a raised eyebrow, one hand on his chin.

Finally, their leader shakes her head with a sigh. “There’s no safe way to go about this. That’s on point with the theme of the Palace, but this…,” Queen closes her eyes with a frown.

“Apologies, but you can’t mean you’re giving up. Must I remind you of our timetable?” Crow says firmly.

“Ugh, no one said we were giving up, noob,” Oracle says, smacking her lips in irritation. Before Crow can respond, she turns on their leader, crossing her arms. “I don’t like it either, but you know it’s our only real shot at this.”

Queen doesn’t reply at first, opting instead to stare at a wall.

Finally, she turns to address the team. “Oracle’s right. We’re going to have to track him down—there’s simply no other way to go about this.”

Fox stiffens. “I do not like this. Is there really no other path we can take?”

Queen shakes her head sternly. “Not that won’t seriously risk one of our lives, and that’s not something I’m willing to do—not even for Sis.”

“Pardon, but what exactly are you all talking about?” Crow interjects curiously.

“Damn it!” Skull snarls, thumping his bat against the floor.

“It’ll be easier to show you—if we can even find him.” Panther says neutrally.

“There’s another Persona user they’ve met with before, Crow, but I haven’t seen him myself, so I can’t add anything else,” Noir answers kindly.

Crow stiffens in shock. “You mean to tell me that you’ve known about another person with this power and did not think to mention it until now?”

“Crow, enough. We will tell you what you need to know when you need to know it. Trust has to be earned, and you have not earned it.” Fox says stiffly.

“There’s an assailant using these places to murder people in reality and I am on the team investigating it! How would I not need to know of a potential suspect?”

“Dude, he’s not the killer. Kaneshiro’s Shadow already confirmed that he’s not the same guy, and his mask ain’t even all black.” Skull says angrily.

“What? I thought you were alone in taking out Kaneshiro?”

“Technically, you just assumed that and we didn’t correct you. Also, they basically were alone: this guy apparently just came to watch.” Oracle interjects.

“And you did not find that the least bit suspicious?!”

“We can discuss this at some other time. For now, Mona needs to set up a time that we can meet with him.”

“…very well. But I’m afraid I must insist on attending this meeting.”

“We were gonna invite you, anyways, dude.” Skull retorts.

Chapter Text

October 20XX, ???

It’s around six o'clock when the bell over the café door chimes again, signaling the arrival of yet another customer. It’d been uncharacteristically busy that afternoon, and he’s been stuck doing the dishes for the past two hours. He doesn’t even bother glancing up to see the new arrivals, opting instead to closely examine the coffee cup he’d been washing with a critical eye.

“Ehh, what can I—Oh! Futaba, I didn’t know you were coming. And with…hmm,” Sojiro trails off, humming uncertainly at whoever walked in with her.

Akira had a pretty good idea of who.

“Well, you can get whatever you want. The kid here will have to make it, though, I’m closing up shop,” Sojiro turns to him as he dries off the mug in his hands, “and hands off the expensive beans, alright?”

Akira simply nods, not lifting his gaze from the cup.

“Alright, I’m headed out. Let me know if you need anything,” and with that, the man was gone. Akira opens the cupboard without glancing back at the other teens in the café and removes several coffee mugs, intent on starting their orders as soon as possible. The sooner they were served, the sooner he could get back to bed—not that he actually planned on sleeping. Sojiro was more inclined to leave him alone if he thought Akira was asleep—and he found he’s able to think the best in the dark of the attic.

It isn’t long before the Phantom Thieves and their plus one have settled into the booths and bar stools, and Akira starts preparing Akechi's coffee before the other boy even opens his mouth; the last several times Akira’s made his drink, he got the same thing, anyway. The café is quiet except for the occasional bits of small talk between some of his old friends. These meetings in LeBlanc weren’t unusual this run—Futaba had made the downstairs of the café their base of operations for about a month now and Akira’s presence wasn’t unusual either. He suspects that Sojiro closed up shop early on these days in an effort to force Akira into friendships.

Well. That and because he didn’t want to hang out with a bunch of loud teenagers.

This time, though, the air is charged with something—like when he spent a moment to power up an attack in the Metaverse. It’s static, tension, and it’s making the (admittedly faulty) alarm sirens go off in his mind. Not danger, exactly, but a warning that something isn’t right.

This shall be interesting.

Akira silently agrees.

Goro takes his usual place at the café counter in silence, sparing the barista a cursory glance before he turns to the television set. He knows what will be playing on it even before he can see the screen, but a small part of him became decidedly satisfied whenever images of his handiwork were displayed to the public. Despite popular belief, not all the mental shutdown cases were highly publicized events, and seeing the aftermath of such things gave him a private sort of validation—and thrill.

Each incident brought him closer to the end, each death closer to his goal.

“Next up: we continue our coverage of last month’s brutal assault and murder of Aiya Restaurant CEO Yoshifumi Endo, whose cause of death was just confirmed as blunt force trauma. Due to the case's publicity, the autopsy results were released to the public earlier today…

Goro can understand the need to discuss their next steps—he can’t just whip out Loki in the middle of Sae’s Palace and fight in the arena himself, after all—but he cannot understand why Sakura felt the need to do that here, nor why their fearless leader so graciously accepted that suggestion. And if he’s being entirely honest, he cannot understand why they brought the cat along with them: the owner of the café obviously didn’t want it in there and he was in plain sight of the shop’s only other employee.

And speaking of the cat, there he goes now, just jumping on the counter as if such an act didn’t violate numerous health codes. He’s lucky the barista was rather dull; otherwise, they likely would have been removed from the premises by now.

“Hey, we need to talk,” the cat says, his head facing the television screen as his tail wraps around his legs. He resists the urge to roll his eyes: just because other people couldn’t understand the cat didn’t mean they should converse with it in such an obvious manner. The best case scenario was that everyone thought they were crazy or playing some idiotic prank. And the worst case…

Well. Considering he has already infiltrated their group, the worst case for them has already happened.

“Ahaha, you can just ignore Mona, he gets so talkative around dinner time,” Takamaki chimes in. Loudly.

I’m sure that won’t arouse any suspicion at all.

Again, they were lucky the other teen was dense.

“…that’s alright. Did you want anything?” His soft, deep voice rumbles in response. The boy gently set Goro’s coffee down in front of him, the mug clicking softly on the antique wooden bar counter. Goro nodded a thank you, reaching for the mug with a single gloved hand. Just because the boy was dull didn’t mean he couldn’t make a damn good cup of coffee. Goro almost feels bad that, by the end of this, his guardian and adoptive sibling would both likely end up six feet under.

Almost.

“Errm, sure, but—”

“Like I was saying, Frizzy Hair, we need to talk.”

“Who’re you callin’ Frizzy Hair, dude? I don’t really thi—OW!!” Sakamoto rubbed his side where Takamaki had slammed her elbow into his ribcage, muttering his name heatedly under her breath before covering it up with an overbearing “Oops!”

How had it taken them this long to be caught?

The cat let out an impatient huff—which Takamaki again tries to cover up with an obviously fake coughing fit. “Look, I have more information on those places in Mementos!”

Everything seems to come to a standstill then, and it’s like the awkward tension in the air finally snapped into something recognizable. The barista—Goro’s never caught his name because it’s never mattered—suddenly narrows his eyes and stands up straight, tripping an alarm of sorts in his mind.

He can understand Morgana.

That…that doesn’t make any sense. He’s been here dozens of times in the past several months in an effort to learn more about Sakura’s sudden change in behavior and there hasn’t been a single indication that the boy knew anything about the Metaverse—that the trash living above the coffee shop in the backstreets of Yongen was anything but a typical high schooler.

And yet there the other boy stood, alert grey eyes locked onto the cat’s own with an intensity he’s never seen in the other teenager before.

“Then you should’ve started with that,” and even his voice had a new danger to it, an awareness that simply hadn’t existed before this moment.

The chill that makes him go rigid had nothing to do with the cool autumn air.

LeBlanc went silent.

It stays that way for several full seconds, the other boy not looking away from the cat for even a moment. The quiet doesn’t last, and Goro’s not sure if that relieves him or irritates him. He’s just glad he’s long since learned to school his expressions; his surprise doesn’t show on his face this way. The room explodes into life—save the three of them at the counter.

“Wha—For REAL?!”

“You can understand Mona?!”

“Morgana, did you know he had access to the Metaverse this entire time?”

“Oh, I didn’t think it’d be someone we already knew…”

The bespectacled boy didn’t even glance at them. Morgana didn’t say anything, either, opting to wait for a response. Eventually, the boy removed his glasses and began absently cleaning them with a bit of his green apron, the fabric hugging glass lenses between his slender fingers. His eyes focused on the TV screen, where the news was still covering the impending litigation against Hiroshi Sato.

“…despite dozens of witness testimonies and the video evidence caught by the office cameras, Sato still vehemently denies all accusations against him…”

“So, what did you want?”

His voice seems to startle Nijima from her stupor, and she clears her throat. “Who are you?” There’s an edge to her voice, accusatory and sharp—but it’s cut off by Sakura.

“W-why did you help me?” and that was something Goro wanted to know, too. She’d obviously come to the same conclusion as he had.

The boy raised an eyebrow, his expression not betraying the thought behind what he had determined to be dull grey eyes. “What?”

Sakura’s frown hardened into something more determined. “Ugh, you’re the only other Metaverse user we know about. If Mona is willing to talk to you, you can’t be that bad: plus, you’ve already helped out most of the others at some point or another—and you’re so close it’s pretty obvious that you’re the one who ch-changed my heart. So why?”

He regards her blankly for a few seconds before shrugging, releasing the apron in the process. The legs of the spectacles fold in on themselves as his hands come up in the gesture. “Because I could.”

“Wait, there’s no way you’re serious about that. You don’t just follow us around and stop people from dying—”

“You’re welcome, by the way.”

“—or change people’s hearts on a whim. There has to be more to this,” Takamaki cuts it, voice probably more heated then she intends it to be.

“Yeah, man, what the eff?”

The barista blinks boredly at them before turning back to the cat, who has flicked his tail several times in agitation—presumably for being interrupted. “We’re clearing out this Palace and there’s an arena part that seems too difficult for us to handle—”

“Morgana! What makes you think this man is trustworthy enough to relay all this to?” Kitagawa cut in, but Morgana doesn’t even pause.

“—so I was hoping to make a deal with you,” and Goro’s nothing but curious (and more than a bit upset with himself for being so thoroughly deceived by the boy’s demeanor) by the way his eyes widened at Morgana’s choice of words.

The boy’s eyes harden, grey morphing to steel. “And you thought the best way to approach me was to drag your entire group along and confront me here?” Morgana’s ear twitched, but he stood firm under the gaze.

“It’s not like I had a lot of options—besides, just because you haven’t been hostile to us before now didn’t mean you wouldn’t just attack me or something if I’d come alone. Plus, if you’re going to help us, they have to know who you are anyways.”

The barista hums, shifting so his hands rest casually in his pockets. “What makes you think I’m going to do something like that?”

For the first time since they’d arrived in the café, the cat looked uncertain about how to proceed. “Well…I was hoping to trade that information I mentioned…”

He's fixed him with a flat stare. “There isn’t anything you can tell me about those that I don’t already know.”

It isn’t a question—and he doesn’t look like he’s lying. Of course, Goro’s discovered he can’t read the boy as well as he’d thought he could. He didn’t even know everything about the discrepancies in Mementos. The idea that anyone knew more about That World than he does makes him uncomfortable; this entire confrontation wasn’t moving as he’d expected it to.

“Then why did you reveal you could understand Morgana?”

Nijima made a good point, as reluctant as he is to admit it. If the boy wasn’t interested in dealing with them, there was no need to show them his hand—but Goro can’t write it off as a mistake. There’s something deliberate in his movements, something assured in his words that makes him question how much he truly knows about the other at all.

It’s a strange feeling. He can’t decide if it irritates or intrigues him.

Both.

Goro hides his surprise at Loki’s outburst behind a sip of coffee. The Persona rarely spoke to him unprompted—and that was especially true outside of the Metaverse.

It really is a good cup of coffee.

There should be something unsettling about the way the other man smiles in response to Nijima’s inquiry, but instead, it intrigues him. There’s something almost…familiar about it. Perhaps it simply reminded him of himself.

“Maybe I just wanted to mess with you,” he says casually.

The Phantom Thieves shift in place. Goro’s surprised at how difficult it is to hide his own interest. This was an annoying, unforeseen setback, a variable he hadn’t accounted for, but he’s always liked a challenge—and it made sense. There were too many convenient coincidences—Sakura’s personality change, the Phantom Thieves’ shock at the erasure of Okumura’s Palace, the supposed ease they’d had in traversing the Metaverse up until now.

“Hold on a moment. How do you even know who we are? Did you divulge our identities to him, Morgana?”

Morgana shook his head, ears flattening to the sides of his head. “Of course not! But…I didn’t really need to. He’s always known.”

“For real?! But Ann says he’s always spacin’ out in class. How’d he ever pay attention enough to even notice?”

The way they tense when the boy pulls out his cell phone is so satisfying that Goro almost wants the moment framed. His eyes don’t leave pale fingers until the voice clip plays, quiet at first until the volume’s adjusted and the noise progressively gets louder, filling the space in the area until there’s no room left for anything else.

“…who even cares, man, we’re like, famous now. Everyone knows that if they need any help with the baddies, they just gotta send ‘em to us,” Sakamato’s voice crackles through the phone speaker. There’s some response to the words he said that wasn’t recorded well enough to show up in the clip.

“That—that doesn’t prove nothin’!”

The blonde is cut off with a single finger and the recording continues.

“Bein’ a Phantom Thief is so freakin’ cool, right Makoto—OWW! How come the two of you always go right to hittin’ whenever you’re mad?”

The recording shuts off. The phone is stuck back into his pocket, and he raises a single brow at the imbecile currently slouching into a booth as if that would have any effect whatsoever on what had just happened.

“Damn it, Ryuji! Again? Seriously?!”

“Why’re you singling me out—Makoto was on there, too?”

“Yeah, cuz’ she was telling you to shut up—”

“Well…we really do need your help…” Morgana sounds almost pained to admit that, hesitation stretching out the words even as he continues, “but if there’s nothing we can offer for it, we can’t really make a deal…”

The man behind the counter shifts his weight onto his other leg. “Oh, I never said that.”

This gets everyone’s attention. He’s both impressed and irritated by the effortless way he takes control of the conversation, pulling all the eyes in the room to him with a natural confidence rarely seen outside of politics.

“Then what do you want?”

“A favor,” he doesn’t even miss a beat—doesn’t even have to think about what he wants before he answers: though his answer is decidedly vague.

“This is unacceptable! We will not act as a pawn for you simply becau—”

“I’m not asking you to,” his soft voice effortlessly breaks into Kitagawa’s rant.

“How do you expect us to believe that?” Nijima says, incensed.

“Let’s get to the point: the worst case scenario is, what? I ask you to change someone’s heart? To kill someone?” He spreads his hand, “do you really think I’d need your help with either of those things?”

“Uh, yeah dude, you wouldn’t know how to…change…” realization flashes across the blonde’s face.

“Yes, I would. Oh,” he blinks, eyes widening for a moment before he turns around without a word, ascending the creaky wooden staircase to the loft.

He isn’t gone for long. When he comes back down the stairs, a large, awkwardly shaped box rests in his arms, featuring some kind of space ship—

Son of a bitch.

Inside his head, Loki cackles.

“Here,” he places the box in Okumura’s hands and walks away as she examines it with a puzzled expression before realization dawns on her face.

“This…this must be Father’s treasure! That means you—but why?”

By the time she’s spoken, he’s already back behind the bar examining an old coffee stain on the countertop. He doesn’t bother looking up as he answers, grabbing a damp rag from further down the counter.

“I was pretty sure you all were walking into a trap.”

“That didn’t answer her question," Nijima cuts in again, an edge to her voice.

He shrugs. “I wanted to see what would happen.”

“Is your involvement in all of this some sort of game to you?”

Since he’d turned around to hang the towel on a rack behind the bar, Goro thinks the others probably miss how bitter the other teen’s expression became at the words. It lasts only a moment, but if the boy was anything like himself, that split second meant everything. He turns back to fully face Makoto, looking her dead in the eye as he answers her question:

“Yeah. It kind of is.”

Oh, Goro had to know more about him.

Chapter Text

The door to LeBlanc chimes—he can hear it from in his room—and he rolls back over in bed, intent on blocking out the noise.

It turned out to be a futile attempt, in the end.

“Wha—Futaba, you can’t just go into his room without—”

“It’s fine, Sojiro, he knows we’re coming.”

Akira scoffs to himself, facing the wall with an annoyed frown.

No I don’t.

“Then why are his lights off?!”

“Uh, dude, maybe he really is asleep though,” Ryuji says

“Pardon, but are you all quite sure this is acceptable behavior?”

More feet clatter up the staircase as he speaks, an arrhythmic thump, thump, thump signaling the arrival of seven additional teenagers and one suspiciously silent cat. Akira flops back onto his back so he can glare at the first person who reaches the top—which happened to be Ryuji. Futaba was next, close to the front of the pack to lead the charge. They must have come to the (correct) conclusion that Sojiro wouldn’t want them to wake him up.

Not that he was actually sleeping, of course.

“Aw, dude, where the hell’s the light switch up here—it’s so dark.”

They fumble around for a bit longer, the last of the group finally getting to the top of the staircase in silence as the rest of them argued about which wall it might be on.

Wait. Silence?

He glances towards the back of the room and (unintentionally) locks eyes with Akechi, who had apparently been staring at him from the moment he’d come into the room.

Ah. That’s why.

Finally getting fed up with their antics, Akira lets out a heavy sigh and pushes himself off of the bed, ignoring the looks of surprise from the Thieves as he pads over to the center of the room and pulls the string to the overhead bulb—which alights the entire attic. He blinks, his eyes adjusting to the yellow glow that now bathed all of his belongings and the wary faces of his ex-friends. Stifling a yawn, he settles back onto his bed, sitting at the edge of it as he locked his hands together over his knees before looking up at their fearless leader.

Makoto looked seconds away from proving she actually knew akido—which he found strange; they were the ones dragging him into all of this, after all. He watches her impassively, eyes occasionally shifting to wherever there was movement in the room—Ryuji pulled out more of the chairs from behind the railing of the staircase so people could sit, Yusuke had his fingers in a makeshift frame as he looked at the way Ann was laughing at some story Haru had told, Futaba was about to mess with his laptop—

“Don’t touch that.”

She recoils from the desk as if she were a spring, apparently intent on ignoring the fact that she’d been over there at all. His eyes flatten and she laughs at him nervously. His gaze falls on Morgana next, who was poking at some of the tools on his desk with one of his front paws.

“Do you use these to make your Metaverse tools?”

He sighs again, this time in irritation. All of their activity was starting to give him a headache—he just wasn’t used to all of the noise anymore. His eyes are drawn again to the stairs, where a curious looking Akechi moves out of the way so Sojiro can walk into the room, dodging past Ryuji as he does so.

“Hey, watch where you’re going with that!” He says, looking them all over before turning to him with a frown that said ‘I’m so done with you and all these high schoolers right now’. ”Sorry, she didn’t really take ‘no’ for an answer.”

Akira shrugs, looking at him expectantly. The man sighs, shaking his head.

“Anyways, are you really fine with all of these people around here? I can have them leave if you want —I know you haven’t been feeling well.”

“Sojiroooo, noooo, we want to stay up here,” Futaba whines, arms sagging in protest.

Akira hums in mock contemplation just to fuck with them. Eventually, he turns back to look up at the person who’s become the closest thing he’s ever had to a father.

“That’s alright. They can stay.”

Sojiro offers him an approving smile, a hand on his side as he surveys the room in mock disapproval.

“Well, alright then. No one’s here anyways, so I think I’ll close up shop early today. Call me if you need anything,” he adds as an afterthought—probably code for ‘tell me if you need an out’.

Sojiro was a good guy.

They all listen in relative silence (because the Thieves were never truly silent) as he walks back down the stairs, crosses the floor of the café, and leaves, the bell quietly sounding as he exits the building.

“So?” He probes, looking back to Makoto—who, like Akechi, has not sat down.

She clears her throat, fixing him with a glare. “We’ve come to a decision regarding that deal you wanted to make before.”

He waits patiently for her to continue, which she does after she realizes that he had nothing to add.

“We’ve decided to accept your deal. The Phantom Thieves will perform one unspecified favor for you in exchange for your assistance with this Palace.”

He shakes his head, sitting up a bit straighter. “That wasn’t the deal.”

Her forehead creases in confusion and he resists the urge to sigh. There’s a series of ‘what’ and ‘hmm’ and ‘but’ that he ignores from the peanut gallery, waiting on her reply.

“How was that not the deal? What exactly is it that you meant, then?”

“I didn’t ask the Phantom Thieves for a favor, I asked all of you for one,” he turns and locks eyes with Akechi, whose own eyes widen as he realizes what Akira means, “all of you.”

“Ah…I see; you mean because he isn’t a Phantom Thief,” she surmises, a hand coming to rest under her chin in thought. He waits and she turns to regard the other third year in silence, a frown tugging on the corners of her lips. Finally, she turns back to him—and he knows her answer before she even parts her lips. “We…will have to think on it. I’m sorry for interrupting your res—”

“The only problem here is that he needs my consent to go along with this, yes?” Akira glances at him, then turns his head completely once he sees how serious his expression had become. “Then there should be no issue; I would want to be a part of whatever deals you all made, anyways—and I don’t believe it to be wise to have any of us try our hands at the arena without knowing more information. Frankly, it would be suicide. If you truly are as good as Morgana says,” he turns, addressing Akira directly with a resolute looking frown, “then I accept the terms of this deal.”

“There was one other thing we needed to discuss, right Makoto?” this comes from Yusuke, who sits with his legs crossed in one of the wooden chairs that Ryuji had fished out of storage.

Ann’s eyes widen. “Ohhh! Right!”

Akira raises an eyebrow.

“…If you’re going to be working with us, it will have to be for longer than just this mission if you want such an open ended favor,” Makoto says, eyes a picturesque look of determination. His gaze flattens.

“Why?”

“Think about it: there could be thirty more trials in Sis’ Palace after this that we just can’t do—this is the most difficult Palace we’ve ever traversed, after all, and we have no idea how close we are to the end,” Morgana twitches his tail slightly at that—a motion that does not go unnoticed—but she presses on like it hadn't even happened. Liar. “So unless you’re willing to tell us what it is that you want,” and oh, there’s the real reason they’re insisting on this, “we ask for your blanket assistance until we complete this Palace.”

Akechi raises an eyebrow at that—apparently, it was something they hadn’t shared with him. He tilts his head to the side, turning to face his empty bookshelf. They were trying to force his hand by altering the deal—to make a demand so obviously outrageous that he’d have no choice but to tell them what he wanted.

Unfortunately for them, they underestimated how stubborn he is.

“Fine.”

Every head in the room turns in his direction and he resists the urge to roll his eyes.

“I…you’re truly fine with those terms? I mean you will have to come into the Metaverse with us every time we go into it—including Mementos—until we steal the treasure and follow our commands like any other member of the Phantom Thieves. Those terms are acceptable?”

Her tone is lined with incredulity, like she’d never anticipated this outcome. Akechi’s brows were both raised slightly higher, but if he had any thoughts on the decision, he kept them to himself. Ryuji was straight up gaping at him, and Haru looked worried—but also like she was trying to keep it from being noticed.

He nods. Makoto closes her eyes—probably to hide her own disbelief. A few, tense moments pass before she opens them again, locking eyes with him and signaling her agreement with a firm nod.

“Alright. We’ll need your contact information so we can tell you when and where to meet up.”

She reaches for his phone and this time he does roll his eyes.

“I’m not some idiot you can trick into bugging my phone.”

She very carefully doesn’t react to that—though Futaba let out a little ‘aww’. Akechi, on the other hand, widens his eyes at the comment—like he’d just realized something. Inwardly, Akira scowls.

Oops.

Not that it would really matter, in the end.

They exchange contact information and the Thieves clear out of his room—all but Akechi, who stays leaned against the railing until they’re the only two people left in the attic. Morgana gives him one last look, barely concealed suspicion present on his face, but Akechi just offered him that trademark detective prince smile and the cat shakes his head from Haru’s bag as she walks down the stairs. Akira stifles a sigh, deciding on what to do about that. Eventually, he cracks his neck with a hand and stands, making his way over to the desk. He drags one of the chairs Ryuji had (pointedly) not put away as they’d left with him, letting it scrape against the wooden floor as he moves. Once there, he grabs the needle nose pliers Morgana had been prodding earlier and the sheet of aluminum he’d been working into bent coils, intent on finishing off the sheet before prepping the leather he needed for the limelights.

“So. Why are you still here?”

“Ah, I suppose I just wanted to get to know you better. After all, we will be working together for the next month.”

Akira pointedly does not say what he thinks about that, instead focusing on twisting the strip of aluminum in on itself, slowly molding it into the spiral shape he needed for the cognition to hold.

This is definitely not how they make limelights in reality

Actually, scratch that. Were limelights even real things? Sure, it was used in a figure of speech, but so were lots of things that weren’t real.

“Kurusu-kun? Did you hear my question?”

No, and I didn’t want to, either.

“…I was wondering, how long have you had access to the Metaverse? The others believe you to be more knowledgeable about everything that relates to it.”

“Longer than you,” and a part of him wonders if, technically speaking, that isn’t true.

Debatable.

“I—well, I can’t refute that,” but you really can, though, “but I was more looking for a timeframe.”

Akira hums, but doesn’t otherwise answer. He sets the pliers down and digs into the drawers on top of the desk where he stored his other tools, looking for the wire cutters he (improperly) uses to cuts the aluminum.

“…you’re not going to answer. You know, in an interrogation, that is understood as being the same as admitting wrongdoing.”

Gods, I hate how he talks.

He nods somewhat absently and he can feel brown eyes narrow at him from across the room.

“I haven’t had dinner yet,” how is that my problem? “Would you like to go get something? My treat, of course. I hope you don’t mind, but I’d like to pick your—”

“How would I not mind?” He finally spins in the chair to look at the other boy—who looks surprised that he’d interrupted him. “Look. I don’t know you," which is kind of a lie and kind of not, "The way that you’re ‘trying to get to know me’ is, what? Asking a bunch of extremely pointed questions? That’s not what people do, Akechi. At least pretend you care about someone when you’re trying to get something from them.”

His eyes widen as he continues his tirade, and Akira’s temper settles back down. He was probably being too hostile to seem like he was only upset about the other boy’s query.

I guess it’s not fair to be mad at him for the actions of past Akechis.

Akechi’s face had gone carefully blank at the comment, which confuses him for all of two seconds before he speaks again.

“I see that I’m bothering you. I’ll get out of your hair, now.”

He pushes himself off the railing and Akira suddenly feels like a massive scumbag.

I’m the asshole here, aren’t I?

Yes.

Agreed.

Most certainly.

Was that even a real question?

You guys didn’t have to be so quick to answer that.

Ehh, he kinda deserves it.

Beelzebub is my new favorite.

The King of Excrement? Truly?

Hey! Fuck you too, high heels!

He suppresses a laugh as Akechi turns to leave. Probably not an appropriate reaction to an apology.

“Hey.”

The other turns back to him, probably more to keep up appearances than because he actually cared about what Akira had to say.

“Sorry, that was a dick thing to say. I was going to get a beef bowl after this anyways if you wanted to come with.”

The plastic smile he receives in response tells him the other’s answer—and tells him how bad he'd actually offended him. “That’s alright, I can see when I’m not wanted,” Wait, no. “I’ll see you later, Kurusu-kun.”

’Am I bothering you?’

Akira blinks the memory away, not wanting to relive that first run. Akechi’s steps fade as he goes down the stairs, the door to LeBlanc chiming as it opens and closes to let him out.

Fuck. I feel so bad right now.

Akira sinks in his chair. Grimacing, he notices he’d accidentally cut the sheet at an angle, ruining the whole strip he was removing from the base.

This is gonna be a long partnership, isn’t it?.

Chapter Text

Mako-chan: We’ve decided we’ll be heading to Mementos tomorrow after school. Kurusu, meet up with us outside the student council room and we’ll head over together. I trust you’ll meet us there, Akechi?

Akira stares at the phone in silence, holding it mere centimeters from his face.

Mako-chan: Why did my name change? Ryuji?

Skull: HUH? It wasn’t me

Beauty Thief ftw: Oh, actually that was me, Mako-chan. I hope you don’t mind…

Mako-chan: I see. That’s fine then.

Skull: How come it’s fine when she does it?!

Mako-chan: Because you could have spent the time it took you to come up with that name studying for your exams.

Skull: That hurts, senpai

Akechi: That works for me. I will see you all there.

Akira winces, thinking back to their last interaction two days prior.

2 broke 4 train fare: And what of Kurusu? Is there a way to tell he’s even received our messages?

Akira Kurusu: h

Mako-chan: That was probably just an acknowledgement that he read our chat messages

Akira Kurusu: ^

Beanie Baby changed Akira Kurusu’s nickname to h

Beanie Baby: Wait, why is MY name different?

Skull: Oh, that one was me

Beauty Thief ftw: Mona-chan wants to know why. So do I, actually

Better raise her grades: Same

Skull: idk, dude, like the Boss sells coffee and coffee is just mushed up beans and Futaba’s kinda like his kid

Several people are typing…

Akira silences his phone, letting his hand flop back down to the bed. He should probably get some rest. It seemed like tomorrow would be eventful.

The next day after school, he hoists his too-light schoolbag over his shoulder, ignoring the low chatter of his classmates as he slid the door open to his homeroom classroom as he exited.

It was all just background noise, anymore.

He scales the stairs with all the energy of a senior citizen after running a 5k, feet loudly thumping up each step in such a manner that the other students back away from him even farther than they normally do.

“Oh, senpai!”

Oh no.

Interrupting his silent musings was none other than not-Kasumi, hair in its (un)characteristic ribbon. She stands at the top of the stairs with a wide smile, hugging two textbooks to her chest with deceptively thin arms. He stops at the last stair, getting in the way of every other person travelling between the floors—but no one dared say anything to the deranged, delinquent transfer student.

But then, that had stopped bothering him ages ago. At least it meant people (generally) left him alone.

“Hey, Yoshizawa.”

She giggles, and it makes goosebumps rise on his skin. The whole ‘she is not her own self’ thing was something he’d never really gotten used to—especially because of how little contact he tried to have with her in recent years.

But some things he couldn’t ignore—even if they didn’t matter.

“I told you, you can just call me Ka-mir-ei.”

He doesn’t know why, exactly, that he hears her name in such a distorted way. Maybe it’s because he knew the truth. Maybe it’s because he wasn’t supposed to know. Maybe it’s just a fun byproduct of Maruki’s Super Fun Actualization Time. Either way, it’s disorienting—like he’s entering the Metaverse without even touching his phone. He offers her a plastic smile—one he’d stolen from the best actor alive (or dead, depending on how you looked at it).

Her face grows serious—but it’s still Yoshizawa, so ‘serious’ kinda looked like a puppy putting on its mean face.

“I heard you got called to the student council room. I know someone probably just reported you because they were scared…” she trails off uncertainly before locking eyes with him again, eyes alight with determination. “But don’t worry, senpai! I’m sure they’ll understand how good of a person you are once they meet you.”

’Good of a person’, huh?

Maybe that was true at one point. But now? He’s done too much, seen too many things for that to be true any longer. Now, he’s not good, he’s not bad, he’s not…anything, really.

Just tired.

So in response, he only nods, vacant eyes not betraying what few thoughts he had on the subject, and he continues on.

The commute to the Station Square is uneventful. The four of his classmates that travel with him each watch him nervously—like he could even do anything to them in the real world that a normal high schooler wasn’t capable of. In reality (or at least, this reality), he could do far less.

He still had a criminal record, after all.

When they arrive, the rest of the group is already there—though Yusuke looked out-of-breath. When asked about it, he’d explained that he’d spent his share of the Metaverse money on more art supplies for a class assignment, meaning he had to run here from his dormitory. Futaba calls him a stupid Inari, Ann asks him how long it took him to get there, Haru asks how he’ll afford meals for the rest of the week, and Makoto claims she’ll give him a lesson in accounting. It’s probably funny.

They obviously found it funny. But something in himself just can’t seem to care about things like that anymore. He stands there in silence, eyes somewhere in the past back when he joined in on their little group antics like this. Was he happy then?

It's getting so hard to remember…

“Kurusu? Are you feeling alright?”

He turns away from the pigeons (or whatever they are) to face Akechi, who looks him over in mock concern.

Right. He’s gotta keep up appearances.

He stares back at him, pondering his answer. He could pretend everything was fine—he was damn good at pretending nowadays—but did he really want to put in the effort for all of that? So instead, he glances back at the others (who were still arguing) and looks away again, suppressing a sigh. He still felt bad about their previous interaction, but even that feeling was starting to slip away. What did it matter if they made-up if the whole incident didn’t even happen in the first place? Because next year, it won’t have.

He should have declined their offer. How badly did he even need to see this, anyways?

It’s not like he wasn’t almost certain of the outcome.

Near-certainty isn’t the same thing as a guarantee.

Akira hates that he’s right.

When they finally enter the Metaverse (it feels like hours later even though they’d stood there for less than ten minutes), Akira started to feel a bit better. The Metaverse was more his element, and if there was something to figure out about the repeats, it was buried within there, somewhere. He started to feel better—past tense—because then Skull had to go ruin it by talking.

“Dude, what is with that outfit? You look like some kinda magician or somethin’.”

Akira doesn’t even look at him, more focused on their surroundings than anything else.

“Yeah, like, are you late to a kid’s party or something?”

The way Panther says it sets him on edge (it’s her terrible acting, really)—like the joke is too forced, like she needs something to laugh about to relieve some of the tension that being around him had brought.

It's fair, he guessed, if a little annoying.

“Sure,” he answers shortly, still not looking at any of them. A few of them shift uncomfortably in response, the silence suddenly deafening—but just as easily as Skull had brought the tension, he takes it away with a single sentence.

“Still not as bad as some people’s clothes, though.”

Noir laughs at the jest, looking over at the only man in formal regalia with unabashed delight.

“Skull, aren’t you dressed as more of a thug than anyone? Wouldn’t most people think your outfit is the worst one?”

“I agree with Noir: had you any taste for aesthetics, your attire might more closely resemble Crow’s.”

“Hey, why’re you all gangin’ up on me now?!”

“Besides,” Fox continues as if he hadn’t been interrupted, “I can appreciate his outfit: it may be unnecessarily gaudy, but it has a nice overall symmetry to it.”

Crow lets out a nervous laugh at that, rubbing the back of his neck in a comical fashion. “I’m glad you like it.”

“That’s not what he said, dude.”

Queen clears her throat and they all turn to her—even Akira, who had thus far ignored them.

“If I could have your attention, I believe we should get started.”

She turns to look at Akira with a frown, realization crawling across her face.

“I…can’t get a sense for how strong you are; could you perhaps summon your Persona?”

He turns to fully face her now that they’re talking shop.

“Which one?”

All of the chatter in the area suddenly cuts off at his statement and he resists the urge to frown.

Here we go again.

“You have multiple Personas?!”

“That’s impossible!”

“Can you show us all of them?”

“Guys, chill, he’s just messin’ with us.” Skull pauses for a moment after he has all of their attention—all but Akechi’s, who hasn’t looked away from him since he’d spoken.

Great.

“You are messin’ with us, right?”

Akira looks at him blankly before summoning Beelzebub, then Mother Harlot. He lets her stay summoned until he sees the shock start to clear from their faces—at which point he replaces his mask.

“But…that’s impossible! Humans only have one heart, so you shouldn’t be able to have more than one Persona at a time!” Morgana cries, shaking his head emphatically.

“Uhhh, well, it just seemed pretty possible to me…” Panther says quietly, though her voice carries enough for him to hear.

“It ain’t like you haven’t been wrong about stuff before, Mona,” Skull utters just a bit too pointedly.

“Why you—”

“Gods…those Personas were leagues ahead of anything we have…”

Queen’s words seem to ground the rest of them, who all now look at him with something between awe and apprehension.

“So. Are we good to go, or…” he trails off, looking at each of them in turn.

“Just…just who are you?”

There’s genuine fear in her voice as she asks the question now—a completely different tone of voice than when she’d asked him the same question in the café nearly a week ago.

He grins, all teeth. “A friend. For now,” he lets the smile drop, face adapting an expression of serious neutrality. “I want to get to bed at a reasonable time tonight, so can we maybe hurry this along?”

“I…y-yes. Of course…” Queen shakes herself from her stupor and starts her list of targets they have from memory.

Joker only half listens, Using the Third Eye to slowly scan the area for Shadows. A long time ago, Mona had told him that Shadows typically stayed below the surface.

It was only after a few decades or so that he’d found out ‘typically’ didn’t mean ‘always’—and ever since that scare with a Mot in the cognitive version of the station square, he’s been far more vigilant. Today, nothing really stuck out to him…but…

But if it were that one Shadow…then he wouldn’t—

“Oh! Won’t Kurusu-kun need a codename, too?”

He resists the urge to roll his eyes. Had he ever found all of this entertaining, or at the very least, necessary? Some fleeting part of himself tells him that it’s irrational to become so agitated by their commentary—that they’re just acting their age, that it’s charming, that he was once like this, too.

A louder part of him scoffs at that—at least until it reminds him of someone else who’d once thought in the same way.

”Teammates?! I don’t need teammates!”

But no, this was different…he really didn’t need teammates. Getting them involved in his problems would only put them in needless danger and serve to chip away at his already questionable mental state. It wouldn’t help anything—he wasn’t refusing them out of malice or some misguided sentiment that he was above them, it just…

Wouldn’t help.

It was different. It is different.

It had to be.

“Kurusu-kun?” he turns towards the voice in exhaustion, suddenly deflated. The voice belonged to Queen, who looks him over in thinly veiled concern. “We were just discussing ideas for your codename—that is—”

“I already know.”

She blinks before realization set in. “Ah, right, you’ve been watching us. There’s no need to explain then; do you happen to have any ideas for one?”

He turns back away from her without another word. An awkward pause follows before he speaks again, eyes on the building that led to the Ginza Line gate.

“I don’t care. Pick something.”

“Then we’re going with my suggestion!”

“We are NOT calling him ‘magic hands’, Skull!”

“What? It ain’t like he cares or nothin’.”

“It has no elegance whatsoever.”

“As if ‘Fox’ is all that elegant.”

“He’s Joker.”

He lets out a breath just barely quiet enough not to be mistaken for a sigh. Inwardly, he feels Arsène cackle, enveloping his psyche in a cool, deep black that was befitting of a Phantom Thief that he no longer was.

“Huh? What kinda name is that?”

Mona huffs in irritation. Akira imagines that he’s puffed out his chest in the way he always did when he tried to seem commanding or was trying to impress his ‘Lady Ann’. “I shouldn’t have expected a moron to get it.” Skull let out an indignant ‘Hey!’ that everyone elected to ignore, “He’s our wild card—at least for the duration of this deal.”

“Oh, I get it…because of his ability to wield multiple Personas…” Queen trails off thoughtfully.

“Don’t he just have the two, though?”

“Oh Skull, you’re pathetic.”

“Why you little—”

“Would you two knock it off already? I wanna get started!” Oracle says, already summoning Necronomicon to get situated. He’s always wondered what the inside of the Persona would look like.

Maybe one day, in one of these runs, he’ll ask to go inside.

Queen nods, turning towards the entrance to the underground walkway. Below, he can already hear the ever present mix of wordless voices and wind drift up from far below the surface, their origins still a mystery to even him.

“Joker, you’ll always be on the front line today. We have to see what you’re actually capable of—though I don’t doubt Mona’s assessment of you. Let’s go!”

After the first battle, they all gape at him.

They always do.

By the tenth, they’ve taken his overwhelming power in a cautious sort of stride.

By the thirtieth, the rest of the front line team had been swapped out. Crow fights alongside him this time—and he didn’t seem to care that he was staring. No one thought it to be strange, actually: the rest of them had given up interacting with him after he’d responded to the sixth question or so with a grunt or a shrug. He wasn’t interested in talking to them.

Nothing they could say would be of any consequence. It wouldn’t even be new.

Not anymore.

The first time he'd tried this whole 'stay out of the Thieves' business' thing, he'd been surprised at how easily he was able to keep himself out of accidentally barking commands at them, how easily he'd avoided the true mantle of Joker. That only lasted until he'd remembered that other time he'd spent travelling with someone in the Metaverse taking orders from someone else.

That familiarly unfair bitterness rises in his chest again—but luckily, he’s in the perfect place to vent out his frustrations. The Shadows here all fear him, and there’s been more than one battle where they plead for their lives, but he ends them all the same way, face expressionless as he pulls the trigger on the cheapest model pistol Iwai sold.

He’d discovered long ago that the gun didn’t actually have to look realistic for it to do massive amounts of damage as long as the Shadows were already afraid of him.

It’s a lesson he realistically should have learned during the first run: Akechi had literally used a toy and it’d done more damage than any of their models had.

’Proof of Justice’, huh?

Arsène laughs at him again, and this time, he doesn’t join in. It just serves to further exhaust him.

When they’d actually decided to stop at a rest area instead of continuing on, he’d taken the first opportunity he had to put some distance in between himself and the others. The day had already been long enough; he just wants to go back to LeBlanc and sleep—or at least chill in the darkness like he’d been doing when the Thieves had approached him about this deal in the first place.

It only takes about fifteen minutes for things to go wrong.

“Hey, um, Akira? I…I have a question for you,” Oracle says uncertainly, like she had spent time working up the courage to ask. The lack of a codename has him just the slightest bit interested in what she had to say.

Not enough to actually move, though.

He hums non-committally, legs still kicking over the roof of the rest area. Up top, he’s examining Paradise Lost, his gloved thumb rubbing up and down the blade’s smooth sides.

“A-and you have to be honest, ok?! No sugar coating anything.”

“’Have to be?’” he repeats, raising an eyebrow that none of the Thieves can even see. By the shifting he hears below, his point comes across nonetheless.

“Urgh, you know what I meant!”

Do I, though?

Her tone grows serious. “I want to ask you about my mother.”

His legs stop kicking, pausing in mid-air before they return to their original position against the glass of the window panes below.

“Fu—Err, I mean Oracle?” Skull says, voice twisted with both caution and concern.

That was…unexpected. He’s not had to deal with actually being asked about what he thinks happened to Wakaba before, or really anything about her, actually. The closest thing that’s ever happened had to be those laundromat conversations with Akechi, and even then her death hadn’t been the focus of the conversation (more the opposite, really).

But is that even what this conversation is about?

Silence overtakes all of them, the only sounds coming from the twin sets of tracks on the Path of Akzeriyyuth. The pale purple tint that their surroundings lend them only serves to make the topic of conversation that much more ominous.

Do we want to play this game?

When do we not?

He had a point.

“…what about her?”

They shift again, the air charging with nervous energy.

“No. We’re not having this conversation unless you come down here,” Futaba orders firmly, voice unwavering as his blade. He runs his thumb to the tip, careful not to press down. Another train passes by, ruffling black curls as it passes through the rest area. They tickle his forehead and flit in and out of his vision. No one speaks.

Finally, he kicks himself off the roof of the little building, releasing Paradise Lost in the process so as not to make the others too nervous. When he lands, facing the out-of-service escalators that they’d descended from, he draws both hands into his overcoat pockets before turning around. He must look frightening, because it makes Fox tense and Queen’s gaze harden.

And here I put in all that effort in trying to put them at ease.

Maybe this just wasn’t a conversation where that’d be possible. He walks into the cramped waiting room, pressing himself against the side of the doorway unoccupied by Crow, whose eyes haven’t left him since his legs had stopped moving on the rooftop. He raises his eyebrow expectantly, waiting for her to continue. Half of them looked surprised that he was even indulging her request—and the other half somewhere between wanting to fight him or a distant sort of curiosity.

“What do you know about her research?”

He cocks his head, eyes still trained on the smaller girl as he considers his answer.

“Cognitive psience. It discussed the metaphorical heart, how distorted desires could create worlds inside of someone and that removing their core could cause problematic behaviors in reality to cease,” he keeps his expression carefully expressionless as he continues, “and that to erase the cognitive version of someone would cause them to lose consciousness in reality.”

Silence. Another train passes, but the cool rush of air that usually followed is blocked by the glass.

He misses the roof.

“How do you know all of that?” Queen presses when she sees Oracle had become lost in her own thoughts.

He shrugs a shoulder. “Does it matter?”

“Yes, of course it matters! There’s someone using this research to kill people!”

“And?”

They freeze. He allows his usual look of boredom to redecorate his face.

Is this just another waste of time?

“And just who are you talking to?”

That gave him pause. She’d noticed. Wordlessly, he pulls a single hand out of his pocket and catches his mask as he wills it from his face. Arsène materializes just outside of the door, black wings unfurling like he needed to stretch after a long time spent resting. In a way, that wasn’t untrue; Akira rarely used him in combat as his two weaknesses tended to get in the way.

Rude. And what, no introductions?

Skull gapes at the Persona as he speaks aloud, his hands clenching around his club. It didn’t look like he was preparing for a fight, however; more likely he was just stressed.

What’s it matter? None of this actually means anything, anyways.

A fair point.

“Um, what is he talking about, Kurusu-kun?” Noir says, obviously confused by the half of the conversation they’re missing.

Akira drops the telepathic connection (the ‘feel’ he gets as he speaks to his Personas) and shrugs, contemplating ending the chat and heading to the roof once more.

“How does the Black Mask know about it?” Oracle suddenly cuts in, words serving to shut the several mouths that had opened at the response. He drops the mask, letting it rematerialize on his face as he slides his hand back into his pocket. Now they were getting to something interesting.

“Good question. I don’t entirely know,” he replies easily, leaning back against the frame.

“…entirely??”

He smirks. “Yeah. I know some things,” the Thieves shift again, looking to each other uncertainly.

“Well?!” she says impatiently, hands balled into little fists.

He snorts. “I get nothing out of sharing that…”

“You got nothing out of sharing any of this!”

He twists his neck, letting it crack. “True enough. Fine. From what I can tell, the same people that faked that suicide note took her research, and the man you’re looking for works for them.”

“Hold on a moment,” Fox interrupts, face serious, “man? you know the Black Mask?”

Akira hums. “It’s really more like I know of him.”

Is it, though?

“Uh, yeah dude, so do all of us.”

Akira shakes his head, glancing at Skull. “Not what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean?”

His eyes flicker to Panther’s before continuing. “Well, sometimes when I get bored, I watch him work.”

His eyes trail a train as he ignores their varying reactions. He doesn’t miss the slight widening of Crow’s eyes, either, but he genuinely can’t tell if that’s part of his act or not.

“What?! Why?”

“There’s aspects about his abilities that confuse me.”

“Such as?” Queen says seriously, eyeing him warily.

He sighs. “Those are not logistics that I’m going to get into here. Now, can you maybe stop looking at me like I’m a Shadow Mona hit with his car-form?”

“Perhaps we will oblige that request when you stop acting as though you are our enemy,” Fox remarks coolly, his mask doing nothing to hide his glare.

Joker spreads his hands. “I can’t win with you people. I’ve offered you so much information—information I get nothing for—and you act like I’m the worst scumbag to have ever walked the planet.”

“Yeah,” Panther says, stretching out the word several syllables longer than necessary, “But you’re also keeping like, a lot of stuff from us.”

Noir nods with a sympathetic-looking frown, though her words don’t seem to share her own face’s sentiment, “And the fact that you’re willing to share so much is concerning, too—especially because we have no way of verifying that any of it is true.”

He considers that, settling further against the frame. That was a fair point, actually: it probably looked to them like he was trying to manipulate them in some way. He wasn’t, really—most of what he shared was either to get a rise out of one of them or because he was genuinely curious about their reactions. It was still frustrating, but at least he understood it a bit better now.

“There’s still something I want to know,” Oracle says, grave voice a stark contrast to her typically bubbly personality. His eyes flicker to hers, but she doesn’t look up from her laptop.

Her hands aren’t moving, though.

“Do you know who he is?”

There was no question as to who she was referring to, and the rest of them went silent. Another train passes as he considers his answer, the gust of wind unfelt but not unseen as bits of trash rushed down after the vehicle as its lights disappeared down the tunnel.

“Yes."

The response is immediate.

“For REAL?!”

“What?!”

“Impossible!”

“You…you have to be lying.”

His eyes don’t leave her face as they continue. Finally, she turns to face him, her only visible feature a small frown.

“I assume you’re not going to share that information, huh?”

He shakes his head. There are more remarks—mostly in revulsion to his reply—but he ignores them.

“I see,” her voice suddenly hardens. “Why?”

Now that was a more interesting question. He offers a smirk in response, and a few of them pale.

“How about this,” he says, crossing one of his legs over the other, “I’ll answer that if you answer a question of my own.”

They’re all watching him now, Skull with a look between disbelief and fury, Fox with righteous indignation, Noir with concern.

And Oracle, well…she was too hard to read with her mask.

“Fine. But if we’re gonna do this, you have to be honest.”

He shrugs. “Fine. Then let’s go over what you’d realistically do with that information, shall we?” He pushes himself back to standing up straight, one hand coming to rest on his hip. “Option 1: you corner him in the Metaverse. You know what happens if you do that? You all die. That’s it.”

“Nah, man, you don’t even—”

“Yes, I do,” his voice is so commanding that Skull’s teeth clack together as his mouth snaps shut. “Comparatively speaking, you are all far, far weaker than he is. In a serious fight, you would lose. End of story.”

“What about in reality? Surely we could—”

“Could what, exactly?” He’s already shaking his head, “Option 2: you corner him in reality. To answer that line of thought, let me pose you all a question: do you think he’s working alone? That this is all some side project to him, that there aren’t reasons behind who he targets and why?”

Queen bristles at the comment. “Of course we do! Just what are you implying?”

“That you’re out of your league. That you haven’t thought this through enough,” he waves his hand in emphasis, shifting his weight onto one leg as he does so, “Do you even know if he works alone in the Metaverse?”

Queen hesitates and it tells him all he needed to know. She opens her mouth to reply—but is cut off by Oracle.

“He may be out of our league, but he’s not out of yours, right?”

“Ah ah ah, that’s not how this works. I already offered you a free question. It’s my turn.”

Though this ties in pretty well with that, huh?

She looks at him impatiently, foot twitching on the seat she sits cross legged upon.

“Do you want me to kill him?”

If he thought they were silent before, it’s because he hadn’t had this lack of sound to compare it to.

“What did you just say?”

He looks at her seriously, hands falling to his sides.

“Let’s not beat around the bush. I owe your guardian for taking me in,” the ’and you’re basically my little sister’ is left unsaid, “and I’m capable, so I’ll say it again: do you want me to kill this ‘Black Mask’ you’re all so worried about and be done with this?”

Crow has gone very still next to him, and he almost feels bad. Images of Hanae Oda and the smiling personification of human hope flash across his mind. His gaze hardens.

Almost.

“Of course we don’t—”

He cuts Noir off with a sharply raised hand.

“I’m not asking you.”

Oracle is silent for a long, long time, staring at her knees. Across the platform, Shadow passengers board the next train. On this side, nobody moves.

Finally, she looks back up at him.

“No.”

He cocks his head, expression carefully blank. The others breathe a collective sigh of relief, shoulders sagging and postures easing.

“Why is that?”

She sighs, looking down at her own gloved hands. “If we use the Metaverse to kill people, aren’t we just doing the same thing as him? I mean, wouldn’t that make us just as bad?”

He hums. Crow watches him like a hawk.

He’s been suspiciously quiet during this entire conversation.

“But if you don’t kill him, he’ll just keep killing people. Is that really a better outcome?”

“Why are you asking all of this?”

He shrugs a shoulder, bored look returning to his face. “I was curious how you’d answer.”

“So you wouldn’t have even…”

“Oh no, it was a genuine offer,” he pauses, looking up for a moment in consideration, “I didn’t really want to, though.”

Queen shifts. “Don’t you take anything seriously?”

He winks at her, tilting his head slightly as he does so. “Not really.”

Skull snorts, wrapping his arm around the empty chair back next to him. “This guy is all talk—I bet he couldn’t even fight the Black Mask even if he wanted to.”

Joker stifles a laugh.

“Man, just admit your bluffin’. I mean, you couldn’t take him on for real, right?”

“I’m sorry, was that a serious question?”

His shoulders shake a little in his mirth, mouth upturned in a smile.

“He isn’t joking, Skull,” Mona says seriously, eyeing Joker warily from his spot on a plastic chair. “This guy could definitely be dangerous—maybe even more dangerous than the Black Mask.”

“Then why the ‘eff did we ask him to help us?!”

“I must agree; accepting his offer to help when he poses such a substantial risk to our team seems counterintuitive,” Fox says seriously, straightening in his seat. Joker watches another train go by, this one faster than the others.

I wonder if the speed of the trains is affected by the public’s cognition, too.

Mona hesitates, ear twitching as he thinks. “I…well, I can’t put my finger on it,” he ignores Skulls quip: ‘that’s cuz you don’t have any fingers, dude’, “But I get the feeling that he’s not our enemy. I mean, he has helped all of us in some weird way or another at some points during the last year…and if he really wanted to hurt us, wouldn’t he have done it already?”

Panther puts a hand to her chin, resting it on her elbow. “He has a point: I can’t think our real enemy would have changed Kamoshida’s heart like that—or helped us with Haru’s dad, either.”

“Well sure, but I don’t think a friend would just let this insane asshole keep runnin’ around and killing people, though, either.”

Queen breathes out a slow breath, eyes opening after a long moment spent closed. She shifts her weight to her other leg, cape twisting behind her back as she shifts in place. “Look, we may not like it, but we already made a deal with him. What he does in his own time is on him. For now, our only option is to treat him as the ally he’s claiming to be.”

Skull mutters a few obscenities under his breath.

Joker hums. ”So you really don’t want me to kill him?”

“I believe Oracle spoke for all of us when she answered you the first time you asked that question,” Fox replies coolly. Joker’s gaze flattens.

“You guys are no fun,” he stretches one of his arms out by crossing it over the other, “Learn to live a little.”

And with that, he exits the small room and jumps back up to the roof in one fluid motion, returning his legs to their dangling position. Below him, the others stir in near-silence, minds elsewhere. His hair is ruffled by yet another passing train, the air cool and light against his scalp. He wonders, briefly, if he’d offended them before his brain changes the topic for him, now focusing on the number of cognitions across the platform that board each passing train.

He’s just too tired to care.

Chapter Text

The next several days are uneventful. The group chat blows up. Akira half-reads the messages. He attends class, dodges chalk, finishes every assignment effortlessly.

He sleeps a lot.

The second day, after school, he’s made it back to LeBlanc in record time, math homework completed on the train ride home—and there sits the Detective Prince on the second barstool from the right end of the counter.

His spot.

Akira doesn’t even look at him as he heads up the stairs.

The day after, he tries to call again.

He remembers how he’d felt that first time, the anticipation of the unknown sparking something like excitement and fear within his heart:

Who do you think this is?

What makes you believe it is a person?

Now, he doesn’t really feel anything about it.

The call ends before the voice mail prompt, just like it had always done. He’s not sure why he forces himself to do this—it was clearly just some pre-programmed number into his phone, some kind of fluke in time. It didn’t mean anything.

And yet, without fail once a year at varying points in time, he pressed the ‘call’ button anyways.

The next day, he checks his call log to find it empty.

Arsène laughs. Akira gets ready for school. The day melts into a cacophony of sound and color and sixteen-year old troubles that have never truly mattered before he’s standing back in front of his bed in the attic next to an empty shelf, brain having taken him here on autopilot.

The next day, is much the same—except this time, something catches his ear.

“—an’t believe the gall. First, she gets all of this special treatment, and then she doesn’t even bother showing up to school?”

“I know, right? The nerve!”

He stops at the end of the hall, face carefully blank. Almost against his own wishes, he forces himself to examine the area, figure out where he was. To his right was the library, in front of him, the stairwell. The third floor, then. Something about that made his head itch.

Why do I feel like this matters…

“I hear she didn’t even tell her partner she was sick or something. I mean, it’s been two days!”

The other girl by the bulletin board behind him huffed in irritation. He recognized their faces, the annoying first-years who spread all the gossip—including everything there was to spread about him, true or not.

First years?

But why did that…

“Do you think, like, she got hit by a car or something?”

The other one laughs in an exaggerated way that makes him want to rip his own ears out. No one here was authentic, save the Thieves.

“Oh, you think it runs in the family?”

They laugh and his blood runs cold from shock.

Sumire.

He thought he’d dodged this bullet. Typically, she wouldn’t wander into Maruki’s Palace past the 3rd of October—there was just something about that date; either she got sad and visited the stadium or Akira didn’t have to make a needlessly tedious trip to Odaiba. It occurred roughly half of the time.

But it’d never happened quite like this, an entire month later.

He could just be overreacting—maybe she really was sick, but something was telling him that just couldn’t be the case. Coincidences just don’t happen to people like him.

“Kurusu-kun? Are you alright?”

He blinks, looking up from where he’d been staring at the floor.

Makoto eyes him warily—and, surprisingly, with just the barest hint of concern. Right. She’d probably walked out of the student council room to see him staring off into space. As his lack of an answer stretched into moments of silence, the older girl sighed, adjusting the small stack of paperbacks in her arms.

“I was thinking we’d head into the Palace today,” she says, voice just above a whisper. He doesn’t know why they’re so careful with conversations like these: as long as you didn’t over explain anything, none of their words would set off any alarm bells in anyone who happened to listen in. Unless, of course, you went about them as Ryuji did. He just barely manages to keep his face from dropping into a grimace.

I could just ignore this.

You could.

She’s probably fine.

Perhaps.

I could just be wasting my time with this.

You very well may be.

He closes his eyes, stifling a sigh.

We are beauty, we are strength.

Mother Harlot’s raspy, questionably undead voice fills his mind, and he quiets his own thoughts enough to listen.

Ignoring one in need isn’t beautiful. It’s the craven’s play, the languorous’.

He opens his eyes and Makoto’s own widen—staring back at her now was Joker, not Akira—and Joker always had a plan.

“I can’t today.”

She raises an eyebrow at him in question.

“And why ever not?”

“Plans.”

She narrows her eyes, looking at him doubtfully.

“Laying in bed all afternoon doesn’t count as plans—nor is it healthy for you. I don’t even begin to understand how you manage to keep your grades up.”

Nor would you believe me if I told you.

When he doesn’t react, her gaze hardens.

“You’re not thinking of breaking our deal, are you?”

He frowns.

I really shouldn’t do this.

You know what you must do.

“Care to walk with me? There’s something I want to ask you about.”

She shifts her head, wary of his next move. He can’t blame her, all things considered.

“…I have to return to the student council room. That’s where I eat my lunch. You can join me there, if you want.”

Ah. He’d forgotten it was lunch time; in this run, the roof had stayed unlocked because (for some reason) the Thieves had made the benches in the school courtyard their base of operations during Madarame’s Palace—at least, before Yusuke had joined them. More importantly, it's where he usually ate his lunch. He hums, stepping aside so she can lead the way. After a moment—after shooting him a look that said ‘just what are you scheming?’, she reluctantly did, and once he’s stepped inside, he goes over to the only table in the room and sinks down into one of the chairs there, throwing his bag on the table.

He hears her slide the door shut, her staccato footsteps slowly making their way over to the other side of the table where she sits down.

“Well? We don’t have much time,” she says, trying to goad him.

He lets out a slow breath through his nose.

“I actually do have plans today.”

“That’s what you wanted to talk about? But surely you can cancel them, right? After all, you already agreed to this.”

Her tone is non-negotiable, her face steel compared to her normal stone.

She’s not going to accept any excuses I come up with.

But should he really tell her the truth?

Did it even matter?

“I’m waiting, Kurusu-kun.”

Her arms are folded in front of her chest, brown eyes set in determination.

Fine.

“There’s someone I need to go help. They’re in danger.”

She blinks once, clearly not expecting that response.

“’Danger’? What do you mean, danger?”

He places both his hands on the table, leaning in towards her slightly.

“I have reason to believe someone entered the Metaverse alone. They might be trapped there.”

“I—what? How are you so sure about that? Is this some kind of trick to get out of our agreement? You know we’re on a short time limit,” she says accusatorily, though her eyes narrow in speculation.

He shakes his head. “That’s all I’m going to say about it. If you want to pull out of the deal, fine—but I’m not budging on this.”

She’s silent for a moment, face coldly examining his own in thought. Finally, her brows knit together in confusion.

“…you’re really serious about this, aren’t you? Well, if that truly is the case—if someone really is trapped in the Metaverse…” she trails off, voice hardly above a whisper. He waits patiently for her to continue.

“Then I suppose we’ll just have to accompany you.”

Wait, what?

“No.”

It’s out of his mouth before he can really even think about it—which, judging by the way her face contorts in tightly controlled anger, was probably not a good thing.

“And why is that? You’re not hiding anything, are you?”

His eyes flatten. “I’m hiding lots of things.”

She blinks, cocking her head slightly to the side.

“I…didn’t expect you to admit that so readily.”

He moves to push himself up, suddenly tired.

“Wait! We’re not done here; you can’t just say something like that and leave!”

Yes, I really can.

He shrugs. “If the deal’s off anyways, there’s no reason for me to stick around—”

“Oh would you shut your mouth already and listen?!”

This time, he’s the one who’s startled. Makoto doesn’t look the slightest bit perturbed by her own sudden change in attitude as she continues.

Guess this is what happens when she’s the leader.

“Look. The deal isn’t off, but I can’t justify you going off on your own like this to our teammates, nor am I entirely convinced you’re even telling the truth. So here’s how this is going to go: I’m going to tell the team that there’s a change in plans, and we’re all coming with you on this rescue mission. And in exchange for our assistance,” he turns to fully face her at that, “you will answer all of the questions we ask you afterwards.”

He sighs. “The reason I said no is because it’s dangerous. This is someone’s Palace, not just some random trip to Mementos. You’re out of your depth, here.”

She remains undeterred. “Maybe so. But that doesn’t change the fact that this would be an action that would normally violate our agreement: and we can’t finish her Palace without you. As I've already said, we don't have much time left. But you also want something from us, correct?”

He doesn’t respond—but the fact that he doesn’t leave must be answer enough because she continues, her face softening almost imperceptibly.

Everything has an agenda.

“Nor does it change the fact that someone—a normal citizen, by the sounds of it—is trapped in the cognitive world. I couldn’t live with myself if we just ignored that.”

Her own sense of justice, then.

That, he could respect.

“But either way, we‘re running out of time. So those are my demands to keep the deal as it is: you let us accompany you and answer our questions.”

The terms weren’t bad, really—Maruki’s Palace wasn’t fully formed yet (or at least, it shouldn’t be), so the Shadows shouldn’t be that much stronger than the Thieves—and he was actively delaying their plans, but…

Could he really handle explaining this all again? That’s inevitably what would happen, with him freely answering every question they could ask him. The idea depresses him: he can’t stand the thought of having his friends understand again only for it all to be ripped away come April.

But what if they couldn’t ask him everything? What if it was limited?

“You can ask me one question, and I’ll reply truthfully.”

Her eyes narrow. “Make it three and you can’t simplify the response or refuse to answer.”

He resists the urge to roll his eyes. Ever the negotiator, it seemed.

“Fine. But unless you’re using any of those questions on this mission, then don’t expect any information.”

He turns to leave and at the door, he shifted so he could see her out of the corner of his eye.

“We’ll meet in Odaiba at the train station after school. If you’re not there by the time I’m ready, I’ll leave without you.”

12: 22 PM

Mako-chan: Today, we’re heading on a rescue mission. I apologize for the late notice, but I only found out a few minutes ago.

Mako-chan: Joker will be taking point. He says it will be dangerous, and I’m inclined to trust his judgment. We’ll meet up in Odaiba at the station.

Mako-chan: I can’t offer any more information than that at this time. Kurusu, please text the chat when you’ve arrived at the station.

Akechi: Pardon, but I thought we were heading to Sae-san's Palace this afternoon?

Mako-chan: Joker refused to come until this was dealt with, so I amended the terms of our deal. I’ll tell you all about the new terms after this is over with.

Akechi: Alright, I trust your judgment. I'll see you there, then.

4:37 PM

h: h

He stands with his back to the wall, nestled in by a vending machine, as the first thief arrived. Surprisingly, Futaba stands there alone, evidently having taken the train without meeting up with anyone beforehand. He finds it impressive, but can’t imagine that the sentiment would mean much, coming from him.

After all, he had recently admitted to not only knowing who killed her mother, but that he was actively choosing to let the man go about his business despite having the ability to stop him.

Maybe that’s why, after she plops down next to him, neither of them speak.

It means that when Akechi arrives less than a minute later, it’s to two teenagers who both stare off into space in silence.

By the way he walks, Akira can tell he’s wary about the whole situation—but anyone unfamiliar with his subtle mannerisms would just assume…well, how had he phrased it to Sumire?

’Just everyday Akechi.’

Who is dressed in his school uniform. His extremely recognizable school uniform—with his attaché case to boot.

He pinches the bridge of his nose to keep from voicing his exasperation. Weren’t the Thieves supposed to be the amateurs here?

But then, this could just be an attempt to seem more like them—half unprepared for whatever it is that they got into.

“Ahaha, pardon, but you seem rather vexed by my presence; is there a problem?”

Something the other boy had said once presses to the front of his mind:

"It seems I'm not welcome anywhere I go."

Despite the friendly way he says the words, there’s something in his eyes that makes Akira fully turn to face him, unable to keep the frown from off of his face.

“It’s not…why are you dressed like that?”

He blinks in mock surprise—which is when Akira becomes certain his deduction was correct. It was part of the act.

“Oh, now I understand; you think this outfit is too recognizable?”

As he opens his mouth, he’s struck with a sudden thought that renders him speechless:

Its recognizability didn’t do anything to make anyone remember him after his body was found, did it?

His mouth hangs open in shock for just a moment before he shuts it, averting his eyes. Where the hell had that come from?

It brought with it a whole host of memories—one’s he’d been trying to suppress for…he doesn’t know how long, anymore. A long time.

He’d found out about it in a tabloid magazine. Before that, he'd held out hope, hope for a miracle, hope for a god or goddess to actually do something right. None of the news stations had reported on it, but three weeks before he’d gone back home, he’d been returning from a shift at the Crossroads bar and had stepped in a puddle shortly after leaving the building. That’s when he’d looked down.

He wishes he hadn’t.

Someone had left it there, open to a seemingly random page:

”Discover the Shocking End of the Second Detective Prince”

The article detailed the alleyway that the body was found in—two or three blocks from the Diet building. The cause of death? Two gunshot wounds to the left lung. It was found in such poor condition that the experts argued over whether the wounds were what killed him or the asphyxiation the bullets had been speculated to have caused.

After all, for some reason, the entire alley had been soaking wet.

He doesn’t know how long he’d stood there that night, staring at the cement. He only knows that it was long enough for the wind to pick up to the point that it had flipped to the last page of the spread, which depicted a photo of a familiar looking attaché case propped up against a grey metal dumpster, seemingly forgotten.

Just like…

“Kurusu-kun? Are you alright?”

I’m starting to hate that fucking question.

He looks up, wiping any expression off of his face with more effort than he’d normally have to use. This time, it’d been Haru who’d asked, face contorted in genuine concern. His stomach churns uncomfortably as the vestiges of the memory linger just at the edge of his psyche—where, no matter the effort he puts into shoving them back into the hellscape that was his long term memory, they decided to hang around.

“Fine. I’m fine.”

You sound so sure of that.

She didn’t look very convinced, but…

—remembers going home that night, drenched through the windbreaker he’d worn.

This is really not the time for reminiscing.

—that stupid fucking glove was the first thing to greet him, collecting dust on his shelf.

He sets his jaw, locking eyes with Makoto as she stops in front of him. The faux smile that had decorated Akechi’s face had faded, replaced with something more thoughtful. It’s not quite concern, and it’s not quite contemplation…it more resembles a person preparing a body for dissection in a morgue.

—he’d gotten sick the next day, but no matter how much Morgana had pressed him about it, he’d never explained why he’d stayed out so late that night in the rain.

Some things weren’t meant to be shared.

“Dude, are you sure you’re OK? You look sick as hell.”

“Ryuji!”

“What? It ain’t rude if it’s true.”

“That’s not how that works.”

His eyes are drawn to the sound of hurried footsteps from further into the train station, and he watches as Yusuke sprints towards them all, ignoring how the other passerby shoot him looks and curse at him as he does so.

“I…am sorry. I hadn’t…been watching…the time.” He says, hands on his knees as he pants heavily.

“Of course you weren’t, Inari. Well, we’re all here now. What’s your call?”

It takes him a minute to realize she’d been speaking to him, not Makoto. He pushes himself off the wall, face hardening in a (likely futile) attempt to stop them from pestering him about his emotional state. The glint his eyes catch off the metal case held in a single gloved hand certainly didn’t help matters.

“This way.”

He starts without waiting for Futaba to stand or Yusuke to catch his breath, ignores the chorus of ‘hey’ and ‘we don’t even know where we’re going’ and ‘hold up a sec’. He was done waiting.

He just wanted this whole thing to end.

Chapter Text

“This is it? It don’t look like much…”

“Well, anywhere can become a Palace if someone possesses strong distorted desires about it,” Morgana explains, paws on Haru’s shoulder.

“You’re so smart, Mona-chan!”

The feline puffs out his chest in pride, mouth upturning into the closest a cat’s face can get to a smile.

“Well, I guess I am pretty knowledgeable about this sort of thing,” his face becomes serious half-a-second later, and Akira can feel when his eyes shift over to himself. “But that’s enough about that. You said we’re conducting a rescue mission?”

He nods, not pulling his eyes away from the construction site in front of them. A few meters from their little group, the wind carries a plastic shopping bag away with it as it sails past the building, causing more than a few Thieves to shiver from the sudden temperature drop.

“Well, uh, just who are we rescuing, though?”

He hums, considering his answer—but his thoughts are interrupted by Yusuke, who has since caught his breath from the run out of the train station.

“I don’t know how you expect us to help locate this missing person if we do not know who we are looking for.”

It makes him laugh mirthlessly, mouth up-ticking in a mockery of a smile.

“Oh, that won’t be an issue.”

“How do you know that? Palace Rulers often have extremely realistic looking cognitions of other people residing in their—”

“Trust me, that won’t be a problem.”

“I’m sorry, trust you?! You hardly ever tell us anything, and even when you do, it’s just to mess with us. How do we even know you’re being serious about this?!” Ann spits angrily, spinning on her heel to give him a glare that, in the cognitive world, might have actually damaged a weaker Shadow due to its intensity.

“Sumire Yoshizawa, first year honor student. Has been missing for two days now.”

Akechi shifts, looking at him in alarm (though due to his excellent control over his facial expressions, it’s difficult to determine how authentic it actually was). “That isn’t supposed to be public knowledge; the police haven’t even issued a missing person bulletin out to the news outlets yet. "May I ask how it is you came about that information?”

He shrugs without looking at him, still staring at the building ahead. “Heard some first-years talking…and a hunch.”

“You brought us out here because of a—”

Makoto cuts Ann off (unintentionally). “Wait, so you’re saying that she actually is missing?”

Akechi nods, albeit reluctantly. “I trust you’ll all keep this information to yourselves, though. I’m really not supposed to share that with anyone.”

“Uh, dude, you’re also not supposed to be working with the—OW! Damn it, what the hell, Ann?!”

“Stop saying that everywhere we go!”

Akechi laughs, a pleasant smile decorating his face like frosting on a cake. It makes Akira a little sick; if there was one thing he actually didn’t mind in every run, it was the fact that by the third semester, the other boy dropped his whole Detective Prince act.

“Ah, but he has a point; I’m already doing things that my employers would frown upon.”

“Don’t encourage him!”

“If we could all get back on topic…”

Everyone turns to Makoto as she speaks—and she in turn looks at him as she does so. He glances at her before looking back at the stadium.

“As I said previously, he will be taking point here. Time is of the essence in cases like these, so I don’t think we should wait any longer.”

He nods once, pulling out his phone in silence.

“Hold on a moment, I do have a rather urgent question before we get started.” The rest of them turn to Akechi as he speaks. Akira doesn’t bother.

“How do you know for sure that she is in this Palace? You said we came here on a hunch, but there are probably hundreds of individuals in Odaiba alone with Palaces; not to mention that this isn’t remotely close to where Shujin is located. What makes you so sure she is here—and how do you know about this place to begin with?”

His smile feels bitter on his face.

“Is that one of your questions?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“No it’s not; as I said over text, the new terms of our deal are something I still have to share with the others. Please continue.” Makoto says, eyeing Akechi with a subtle shake of her head. Perplexed, he offers her a stilted nod.

Akira lifts his phone up to his face without any more preamble, and time seems to stand still as all of the Thieves and their future traitor unconsciously lean closer to him as he says the keywords:

“Stadium. Lab.”

”Candidate found.”

“Um, dude, do you even know how the app works? You still need to say a na—”

”Beginning Navigation.”

Once Goro had found out that the barista at his favorite café was actually the most powerful and secretive Persona user he’d ever met, he’d wanted to know more about him. Considering the massive potential the boy presented to ruining his plan that was, by now, years in the making, it’d seemed reasonable at the time.

Now, however, it was…problematic.

When he’d first approached the other teen in an attempt to gather information on him, he must have been too overt; he’d essentially been told to fuck off without the use of profanity. Perhaps he’d still been clinging to the idea that the boy was too dull to discern his true intentions—but after that confrontation in the café, he should have known better. It almost seemed like…

Well. Like the second-year knew what his intentions were before he even spoke. But that couldn’t possibly be right.

There were still far too many things he didn’t know about Akira Kurusu—chief among them being the fact that he claimed to know of his secret identity. The other man was so flippant about everything that Goro didn’t even know if it was true or not—though given what else he’d revealed to have known already, he’s leaning towards truth. It also likely meant that when he’d said he’d trailed him while out doing jobs for Shido, he’d meant it. How he’d been followed without him knowing had been a mystery to him; he was extraordinarily aware of his surroundings at all times in that other world.

Then again, it was becoming increasingly (irritatingly) clear that this third party was in a league of his own. Perhaps it simply wasn’t possible to notice him if he didn’t want to be seen.

Standing behind him in this Palace, he’s starting to think the idea wasn’t so far fetched. The man in the black trench coat stood favoring his right leg, eyes locked on the odd looking tower looming over all of them in much the same manner as a skyscraper—obnoxiously tall, impressively designed, and overall in the way.

For some reason he can’t quite identify, Goro decides he hated this Palace without ever stepping foot inside of it.

“Wh—how did that happen?”

Eyes so grey that they seemed black in the dim lighting the lampposts provided turn on Sakura—but he stayed facing straight ahead, a neutral frown on his plain-looking face.

“I mean, does this Palace not have an owner?!”

He hums, adjusting the red gloves that decorate his hands—really one of the only bits of color in his outfit. “Is that one of your questions?”

Crow was starting to get an idea of what the amendments to their deal actually were.

“Joker, assume for now until I say otherwise that unless I specify we’re asking one of those questions, the answer to that is ‘no’.” the younger Nijima says, just barely keeping the irritation that was clear on her face out of her voice.

Joker hums absently—it was exactly this sort of mannerism that had led Goro to believe the barista was dull in the first place.

He’d discovered the truth of this, of course. There wasn’t an exam that the other had taken as a second year that he’d scored less than a 95% on. He was effortlessly at the top of his class; Akechi had watched him do his math homework while making coffees for the regulars at LeBlanc. Every single scrap of information he could find about Kurusu (and with the amount of effort he’d been putting into it, it was substantial) pointed to his extraordinary level of intelligence. And yet the other spent most of the time sleeping…

There was something strange about that. He could just be a genius, but…

Something was telling him it wasn’t that simple.

“When you said I was ‘taking point’, what exactly did you mean?”

He’s almost surprised the other spoke—unless he was goading the others, he didn’t tend to instigate conversations very often. Another one of the reasons that, when paired with his near-inability to stay focused on what was happening in front of him, Goro had written him off as a fool.

Queen’s eyes harden. “Well, if you’re ok with it, I meant you would lead our infiltration team—both in battle and while traversing the Palace. You are already familiar with this place, and if it’s as dangerous as you believe it to be, I want to be as prepared as we can be.”

He nods. “Do I get to pick the team?”

“Yes—but I must insist I be on the front line—”

“No.”

Even he blinks at the man’s bold statement, refusing the leader’s orders so openly.

“I beg your pardon?”

“You’re not suited for it,” he says bluntly, placing his hands into his large coat pockets.

“I think you need to remember that we’re—”

“—only here because you insisted on coming,” he finishes, turning to face her fully, eyes completely serious. Well, that was interesting; he didn’t want them here, did he? “Let’s not forget that the only reason you’re here at all is because I let you come. You wanna do this, we’re doing it my way.”

Tense silence follows his statement—but in a way quite unlike his usual demeanor, no smile decorated his face, no witty comment left his mouth. He just stared at her with steely grey eyes, waiting for her to either acquiesce or go home.

“…fine. But if you hurt any of—”

“Two things. First, don’t make threats you can’t make good on. I could kill all of you in seconds and leave here unscathed,” the others tense at that, the blonde idiot’s hand wrapping tightly around the club at his side. “And second: I have no intention of letting any of you get injured. In fact,” he turns away from her, looking back at the building ahead of them, “I give you my word that as long as you listen to me, you’ll all walk out of this unharmed.”

As he spoke, the leader of the Phantom Thieves' expression faded from one of outright hostility to one of confusion.

I don’t think he was lying.

Indeed.

“I…alright. You make a good case for it. But can I at least ask why you think I’m not suited for this?”

Crow keeps himself from scoffing; were her little feelings hurt? But then, he’s also curious about his answer.

Joker tilts his head without looking back at her, eyes flashing red from behind his mask. That was interesting…it was something he himself had learned to suppress when it became clear that he would be infiltrating their group—it would be difficult to explain why he was any different from the rest of them if he only had the one Persona. He’d actually found it odd when he hadn’t noticed any of them have a similar reaction until he’d talked to them—his running theory was that they couldn’t converse with their Personas because their thoughts and the Persona’s own thoughts were one and the same.

It made a vague sort of sense to him—the cat had said something once about how Personas were the manifestations of one’s rebellious will, their heart. People should only have access to one because they were of one mind, they only had one heart. But metaphorically speaking, the same could not be said of him: it’s why Loki’s thoughts were distinct from his own. Before he’d met the other boy, he hadn’t questioned it: he’d just accepted that it must be either Loki’s or Robin Hood’s ability that caused the problem.

But perhaps there was something more to it after all.

“You’re the most well-rounded member of your group. It’s better to have you in reserve so that, if needed, you can step into any role should someone in the primary group be injured. In addition to that, you’re their leader; if something were to happen to the main group, if we’re separated in some way, it’s better that you hang back to take control of the remaining forces.”

She blinks, clearly not expecting him to have an actual answer. Crow was impressed by it: clearly, the other had a solid grasp of both the group and of battle tactics in general. Perhaps this would turn out to be an even more interesting day than he had anticipated it would be when Nijima had messaged the chat earlier that day.

“I see. In that case, who would you like to bring with you in the main group? We typically stick to groups of four or less.”

He nods once, hands coming back out of his pockets. He turns to the side where most of the Thieves were still gathered. A few of them tense at the sight of him. A part of him wants to roll his eyes: for whatever reason, the unaffiliated Persona user had decided he wasn’t their enemy. No action he’d taken had indicated he was even remotely hostile to them—and if he suddenly decided to be, they were dead, anyways. There wasn’t a point in ruminating over it. Their reactions were simply wastes of time.

“Noir, Mona, and Crow.”

He’s able to hide the pleased smile before it graces his face. The other man had been avoiding him for some time now, and it was nice that he was at least able to recognize his strength in combat—though he was intentionally keeping himself from displaying too much of his power. He was supposed to have just awakened to his Persona, and even his current strength had been met with mixed reactions from the rest of the Thieves.

“Oh! Alright. If Queen says this is the plan, then I’ll trust you.” Okumura says, handballing into a determined fist as she steps towards their interim leader.

“I kinda figured you would want someone as skilled as me on the front lines,” Mona says with no small amount of satisfaction.

“Ahaha, I must say, I hadn’t expected I would be doing this when I got ready for work this morning.”

Joker doesn’t even look at him, instead starting to walk towards the entrance to the building.

What an ass.

Perhaps if you said something of any actual substance, he’d have more of a reaction.

Loki was an ass, too.

Once the four of them stand in the cramped, egg shaped elevator, the man turns around, hands back in his pockets.

“Mona, stay back from the fighting. You’re to focus on support only; disengage from anything that attacks you. Noir, you have gun skills, correct?” at her surprised nod, he continues. “Stick to those and stay near Mona—pick off anything that gets too close to you. We’ll be avoiding combat whenever necessary, but it’s unlikely that we’ll get out of this without fighting anything. Here,” he pulls out some intricately designed…things and hands three to each of them, ignoring the cat’s squeal of delight.

“These are limelights! So that’s what you were making!”

The elevator chimes and he turns away from them. Crow suppresses a frown; he hadn’t told him what he’d be doing. It’s not that Goro wanted to take orders from any of them—but he didn’t want to be treated any differently than the rest of the Thieves.

After all, if they caught on…

His train of thought crashes and burns at the sight of the immaculately clean open area ahead of him. They were in a…reception room of some sort—an entry hall, maybe. He’s fairly certain that he’d never seen as many shades of white in his entire life than he sees right now on the walls and the floors and the strange papers that hang from large pin boards on the next floor—though in truth, to call it a separate floor may be a bit of a stretch. Ironically, his white, restrictive princely attire actually made him blend in better than the others could.

But by the steely look in Joker’s eyes, perhaps “blending in” wasn’t really what they were going for.

Joker holds up a hand as they make their way up the stairs, signaling them to stop before reaching the top. His eyes had started glowing that bright red almost as soon as the elevator doors had opened, and they hadn’t stopped even now. What could possibly be so interesting that he would carry on the conversation for so long?

“Wait here.”

Crow watches as a blur of black splashed with red darts at an unreasonably quick pace across the second floor, testing some (apparently) sealed doors at the end of the corridor before reappearing in front of those papers…the ones Goro was starting to want to take a look at, himself. After all, anything like that could prove to be an insight into the Palace Ruler’s mind: written works were often especially important in identifying potential weak points in their defenses, or at the very least, in their thought processes. Such investigations had saved his life more times than he could reasonably be expected to count.

Joker removes one of the papers and Crow allows himself to smile. The other one really wasn’t an idiot.

“There aren’t any Shadows around,” he calls quietly, yet loud enough for them to hear, “you can come up.”

“What did you find, Joker?” the cat says, tail swishing in what Crow perceives as excitement.

Kurusu’s face was a mask, and he’s not able to determine any sort of emotion on it. Instead, he turns his attention to the papers as the other man quietly says:

“See for yourself.”

A cursory glance has his head snapping back to the board as soon as he read just a few of the words on the display.

It wasn’t everyday that he found someone who knew about Isshiki’s research—and when he did find anyone that knew, they didn’t know for much longer.

It was…an odd piece, to be sure—but it was clear from the technical jargon that the author used that they knew what they were writing about.

”…hypothesized that the collective unconscious is actually connected in some manner—much like how synapses connect neurons in the human brain—and this speculation is what led to the application of cognitive psience in psychological care, chiefly through the ability to sway public opinion…”

Noir’s breath catches in her throat. “What is all this?”

...Thus, having established a preliminary link between the metaphorical ‘heart’—that is to say, the thoughts that attribute to the unconscious (see: subconscious) mind—and the behavior of a patient in the world as it exists out of the patients’ own perception (Isshiki, 2013)…”

“Wait, Isshiki?” The cat chimes in, actually hopping in surprise.

Joker says nothing, but he does carefully remove one of the postings from the board, replacing the pins he’d extracted from the foam before he folds it into a rectangle small enough to fit into his overcoat.

“Come on. We need to get moving.”

“But—”

“We’ll worry about that later.”

And with that, he sped off—though he was noticeably slower now that he had the other three directly following him. Something about it made him uneasy…like he was used to leading people around. Perhaps he just had a natural talent for it.

Inwardly, his Persona scoffs.

A genius in battle and in academics, hmm?

Goro was just as unconvinced as Loki, it would seem.

They end up scaling various decorative pieces to get further off the ground level, which, due to the gap between the wall and the ceiling itself, allows them to pass through the area they would have been able to access had the set of doors Joker had tested been unlocked.

It doesn’t take long for Oracle to cut in through the speakers once they descend to the floor.

“Hey! There’s a weird reading from further in the Palace…maybe from…that room? The big one!”

Crow resists the urge to roll his eyes: they had no map or way to discern which room she was referring to—but Joker must have known exactly what she meant, because without further warning, he bolts. The rest of them are left frantically darting between pristine white benches and smiling cognitions, advertisements and instruction notices and service desks

Goeo does not like this place—and the more he sees, the more that ball of something in his chest grows, telling him to get the fuck out. It’s as confusing as it is irritating, but he’s starting to understand Joker’s urgency.

When the man in black finally does stop, it’s outside the door to an obviously expansive room—perhaps the size of a small stadium, based on the architecture surrounding it.

And judging by the serious looking frown on Joker’s face, he’d bet just about anything it’s where this weird reading Sakura spoke of was emanating from.

Akira does not want to be here.

Even less, Akira doesn’t want the Phantom Thieves to be here.

And somehow, even less than that, he really doesn’t want Akechi here.

So all in all, it was turning out to be a pretty shit day.

But it got even worse once Sumire hadn’t been past that door in the entrance hall, worse when the lab technician Shadows and the too fucking happy cognitions of people being ‘saved’ roamed around intermittently in the lobby. And much, much worse once Oracle spoke of the ‘weird reading’ over the comms.

He knew what that meant—and he had a pretty good idea of where it was coming from, too.

Inside, he can already hear muffled voices coming from the monitors set up around the makeshift gymnasium, and he wonders just how long they’d been on.

How long she had to watch the memory of her sister dying on repeat.

There are times, however fleeting, that he finds himself feeling something akin to guilt on occasion in these runs. Often, it happened when unexpected things occurred—like a few years back when half of the Thieves were pulled into a Rift in Mementos or before that, when he’d found Mona half-dead in Kaneshiro’s Palace because the group’s little fallout happened months before Okumura even showed up on their radar. This, right now, was another of those times: an itch under the skin, compelling him to dig until his fingers went far enough into flesh that he broke open even older wounds, making them bleed all over again.

Now isn’t the time for this, Child of the Fool.

He’s not surprised at Maria’s outburst. After all, the Faith Arcana was in danger.

“You all have Go-Homs, right?”

He doesn’t turn to see their answers, instead continuing in a quiet voice.

“Beyond this door, there will be strong Shadows—stronger than the ones we’ve evaded up until now. Do not fight them. There’s…,” he activates the Third Eye to take a look into the room, but finds he can only vaguely pick out a few enemies nearest to the door, “at least a few we won’t be able to avoid. Leave the actual fighting to me—and Crow, if he can’t avoid it.” Like hell if Joker wouldn’t try his damndest to make sure he could, though. The only reason Crow was on the front lines to begin with was so he could keep him in his direct line of sight. If Maruki knew about the repeats (and on a few occasions, he had), he wouldn’t put it past him to try something. It honestly scared him that not even he knew what that something might be. “If the options are 'get surrounded' or 'leave', get the fuck out of here.”

“But we can't just leave you—"

He raises a hand in a sharp, quick gesture that cuts Mona off almost instantly. “You can and will. Listen to me very carefully: the Shadows here will not kill you—but if you lose to them, the Palace Ruler can do far, far worse.”

He grimaced at the thought of it, of the memory of his memories displayed for all to see on those stupid ass monitors atop a garden that had no right to be a beautiful as it was. “And before you ask, I have a feeling you’re about to see exactly what I mean. Do you all understand?”

And though he’s asking them all, he looks directly at Crow as he says it, causing the man in the mosquito mask to tense before offering him a single nod.

“Then let’s go."

Chapter Text

There’s a Shadow just inside the door—a lab technician complete with a little cognitive clipboard that’s just a little too tall, arms just a bit too long for it to be mistaken as human (assuming you could ignore its lack of a face)—that stops him from examining the first monitor.

He doesn’t even give the others time to engage it: it’s just a chimera, even Arsène could likely take it out instantly with any of his attacks—

And you wonder why I find such humor in the predicaments you find yourself in.

Akira ignores him, coming to a stop in this area where the Shadow’s true form was still dissipating back into that Metaverse goo or ash or whatever it was that comprised the pieces of the collective unconscious. Or perhaps the ones here only comprised Maruki’s unconscious mind. Were the kind of Shadows that appeared in different Palaces dependent on the Ruler’s cognition, or was it simply dependent on their strength of will?

It is likely both.

He surveys the area in silence, awaiting the rest of Lucifer’s explanation—but if the stoic Persona had anything left to say on the matter, he kept it to himself.

There’s no monitor in here.

Arsène hums within him, reaction honing his thoughts into mind into finding other differences in the pristine…observatory-like room. It had a huge, vaulted glass ceiling, its top a rounded dome that let in the light of a sun that, somehow, was still shining despite the absence of its presence outside of the Palace. What that said about the man’s psyche, he couldn’t say. Maybe he just found it pretty.

Either way, it didn’t account for the fact that the gigantic screen and its mount were noticeably absent from the room entirely, nothing in its place save the branches of a tree that was planted in place in the ground far below it, leaves occasionally shining due to the way that stray rays from the sun hit them every so often. And it also didn’t account for the source of the noise—so loud now that it occasionally shook the floor—and yet also, impossibly, the voices emanating from it were indiscernible: like listening to an underwater recording, garbled and almost toneless.

Not that that stopped him from knowing what was being said, anyways.

He’d heard it enough by now that he might as well have been at the crash.

“—kay? Joker?”

He drops the Third Eye he’d activated the moment he’d stepped foot into the room, turning to face the rest of the primary team he’d assembled. Noir and Mona look at him with wide eyes, the concern he’d heard fill her voice bleeding into both of their expressions. He raises an eyebrow in impatience, shifting to face them when they say nothing else.

“I…are you alright? You were staring off into space for quite a while…”

Of course that would bother them: they didn’t know what he was looking for—or perhaps it was more like what he wasn’t looking for.

“Fine. Are you ready?”

“Hold on a moment,” and oh joy, Crow had something to add. That was always fun. He looks at the other Persona-user, letting just a bit of the irritation he feels gathering in his head like a storm spill onto his face. Crow continues as if he hadn’t noticed, one white-clad arm coming to up to support his chin. “We can’t continue on with you as the leader of our squadron if you won’t tell us any of the conclusions you’re coming to as we travel—nor when you’re about to engage the enemy. If we’re going to function as a single unit, then we need to hear more from you about what we will be doing,” he turns his head slightly, eyes boring into him from behind the pointed, red mask, “and besides, you haven’t provided much direction as to what you want me to focus on in battles—I don’t want to weigh us down because I lack information.”

Joker stares at him. The four of them are silent for a few, tense moments, black trench coat facing off against a princely white uniform. Finally, Akira decides what he wants to do about it—and stifles a laugh as the three other Thieves collectively (and likely unknowingly) edge away from his when his hand comes to rest on his mask. In the comms, he can hear Oracle say something heatedly into the mic—but it cuts off once the mask comes off his face.

Mona gives him a serious looking frown.

“Hey, cut it out! Messing with us like that isn’t funny.”

“Wasn’t really my intention,” he says without missing a beat. Thinking on it, he smiles back at the cat, offering him a playful wink as he continues, “but it was an added bonus.”

“You—”

“Um, Joker, what was your intention, then?”

He turns to face Noir, smile wiped from his face as he answers. “He wants direction, I don’t want to be distracted. Simple solution."

The cautionary looks on their faces fade into something more complicated—save Crow, who only looks perplexed.

“And that solution is…?”

He takes a step towards him and holds out the mask in his hand. When Crow doesn’t take it, he frowns at him.

“It’s not going to hurt you.”

Crow’s eye twitches at that, but his expression remains otherwise unchanged. “Why are you—”

“This is really one of those things you’re just going to have to see for yourself.”

The barest hint of reluctance appears on his face before it’s gone, and in the next second his own gloved hand tentatively curls around it.

What sort of game is he trying to play?

Crow watches the other man step towards him, black and white mask hanging loosely between his thumb and his index finger as he holds it out to him.

It was clear that their interim leader was impatient to continue on—that much was clear just by glancing at the other’s face—

—and his mind erupted into a cacophony of voices and feeling and sound.

Oh? Is he truly—.

Hah! What a riot, this guy!

Well well well, if it isn’t the other one…

Welcome, Trickster.

What…is this?

Your direction.

He looks up at Joker, eyes wide…wait…

Looks up? He’s shorter than I am.

Yeah, but you half-fell over when I handed you my mask.

Realizing what was said was true, he yanks his arm out of the teen’s grasp, standing fully despite the dizziness that floods into him as he does so. His stomach lurches, the endless sensations going through his mind ebbing away at his control. Why…who was speaking? The thoughts felt like his own, but they most certainly were not. The man’s lips twitch in amusement, and it makes a wave of loathing shoot through him.

Is this too much for you? I’m asking seriously—this was supposed to help…

There’s just the faintest bit of uncertainty in the grey eyes across from him—but his expression was otherwise blank.

All of this noise…is that how it always is with you?

It’s impossible to describe the feeling—this…this pointing of his thoughts at someone else. But judging by the half-smile he gets in response, he knows the black-haired man ‘heard’ it.

You get used to it…but we don’t really have time for that, so do me a favor and tune them out. I know you know how to.

He keeps his face from contorting in confusion—but this time, it’s not the other man who answers his unspoken question. It’s his Personas.

It’s been too long, Jester.

The smile fades from the man’s face as…as something spoke to him through the borrowed mask.

Hahaha! Dark, pulsating laughter ripples across his mind, clinging to the Shadows and making Loki stir from where he’d been watching the interaction with renewed interest. I’d suggest thou heed the suggestion of my other self. This will overwhelm you in your current state.

“Crow! Crow, are you alright?!”

Futaba’s voice crackles through the headset, stirring him back to himself. He does as instructed—though a part of him detests that he follows the order so readily—and find that the other two members of the group have aimed their weapons at a mildly-annoyed Kurusu, who stands unaffected a few paces away, staring at him with a bored look on his face.

If you’re done being dramatic, the other starts, startling him yet again, then we have a first-year to go save. I’ll give you orders like this—distance doesn’t matter as long as you have the mask—but it won’t work when we go to fight.

“Ah, my apologies,” he says, directing his words into the comms. Mona and Noir turn back to him in relief—which sends a pang of humor through him, sharp and pointed. He very carefully doesn’t react to the ethereal voice that is not Robin Hood or Loki inside of his mind that cackles in response to that. His reaction makes it grow louder, and—annoyed—he shoves it away with the rest of Kurusu’s many Personas. “He did nothing to harm me…I just didn’t expect to be able to communicate with his Personas using such a method.”

“I—what?!”

“When he handed me his mask, I was suddenly able to talk with both him and his Personas telepathically.”

“Oh,” there’s silent for a moment—likely, she was speaking to the real leader of the Thieves, telling her to stand down or some other such triviality. “Well…but why?”

Why, indeed.

As I already told you, Kurusu’s deep voice sounds in his mind like a heavy blanket, It’s to give you orders. I don’t know exactly how this is going to go down. By the way, you’re in charge of them now, red hands make a sweeping gesture to the two other frontliners, who follow the gesture with wary eyes (yet keep their grenade launcher and comically large slingshot lowered as they do so). Well. Kind’ve. It’s more like I’ll be relaying their orders through you if needed—though to be honest, I don’t foresee having to do that.

“Crow, are you sure you’re alright?” Noir says, genuine concern making her voice come out in a lower tone than normal.

“Yes. What seems to be the problem?”

The cat grumbles before speaking, ears twitching in irritation. “It’s just that your eyes glow when his do now…kinda seemed like mind-control at first.

“It’s not.” Joker cuts in, resting one of his hands on his hips as he shifts his weight between his legs. “This is so I can communicate with him without using the comms.”

“…still not understanding the why here, Joker.” Oracle says in a clipped voice.

He grins again, mouth upturning on just one side of his mouth. “Well, it was at least 50% to mess with him.”

“Joker! Now’s not the time for games!” Mona says, paws curling into some weird, animalistic imitation of fists.

The mirth drops off of his face then, and the feeling in the air shifts.

“This is faster—there’s no need to speak, my intentions can’t be misunderstood, and I won’t clog up the communication lines. He’ll be the closest one to me, but you all will have to stay back—and chances are, if combat gets too hectic then none of you will be able to hear me under normal circumstances, anyways.”

Well. That actually made a certain amount of sense—though privately, Goro thinks that the real reasons might be more complex than that.

That’s because you overthink everything.

…That could be problematic—

Ok, crash-course: stop thinking out loud. You can keep your thoughts to yourself if you want to—it just requires you to be more conscious of how you think. There’s a pause, as if he’s considering what else to say. The other two shift uneasily, their other companions engaged in a red-eyed staring contest. Think of it like intensity—like lights with a sliding bar that determines how brightly they shine. If you don’t want me ‘hearing’ every thought that pops into your brain, then think quieter. That goes for Personas too, by the way.

It made a strange sort of sense—but it wasn’t anything he’d ever considered before. Tentatively, he tests it out, holding a white hand up to his face to check for that red glow that apparently emitted when he ‘spoke’ with the other. True to his word (or perhaps he should say ‘thought’), framing his train of consciousness in such a manner worked as intended—a fact that the other seemed mildly amused with.

It works with emotions, too. I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it relatively quickly.

“Come on, there’s another one just around the corner of the next hall—”

“Wait, how will you—”

A hand cuts him off, making the mask disappear from Crow’s grasp like he’d never been holding it in the first place. It reappears between red gloves, that Persona from their conversation in Mementos materializing behind him.

“Fight? Like this. The spirit of rebellion can’t just be taken from you by removing a mask. I can just will it back onto my face or into my Persona from anywhere I go.”

That red hand holds it back out to him expectantly—and, thinking of no other problems with the plan, he retakes it, sliding the paper-like masquerade mask under his right glove, the flat of it resting over his wrist and knuckles.

Stay to my right. You favor your left side, so it works better that way.

Crow almost nods before realizing the other man had already turned on his heel, gesturing the three of them forwards with a red hand lazily protruding over his right shoulder.

To himself only—he’s figured out how to do this much—he mentally stumbles, Loki catching his slip up somewhere deep in his psyche with a taloned, bicolored hand.

What did I just get myself into?

Laughter is all that follows, sharper than the spikes that adorn his fingers in his true outfit.

Why do you toy with him, Child of the Fool?

It’s pure disapproval, a cold that, in some ways, reminds him of Maruki’s Palace. Well intentioned, sterile, white. It has him cut down the next Shadows—two Belial that Sumire’s attacks had once been useless against because she’d rushed in so haphazardly–with much more force than necessary. The two on support duty exchange wary glances with each other and each take a step back, but he ignores it just like he ignores the new ball of consciousness that sat insistently at the front of his mind—as comforting as it was out-of-place.

It’s one of the few things I still find entertaining.

Life has already been unkind to him. Must you be the same?

He snorts internally, ignoring her question—one he was certain she already knew the answer to—but not swapping to a different Persona. Instead, he starts ‘thinking aloud’, so to speak, so that Crow can ‘hear’ him.

You hear that, right? From the next room?

…yes.

He nods, red eyes locking on the door to the indoor stadium with something like disdain. He can tell he’s too intense about it when Crow mentally shifts, his own red eyes locking on him with interest. He dials his emotions down before continuing.

We could be walking into a fight, here—not like the others so far—

He’s surprised when Crow cuts him off.

—I would hardly call any of these encounters true battles: you’ve decimated them all almost instantaneously.

This will be different. If I tell you to back up, then stay the fuck back.

The second-hand distaste he feels tells him all he needs to know about how the man in white feels about that, but he can’t bring himself to care if it meant that he would actually listen.

“The strange reading—it’s definitely coming from that room. Brace yourselves, guys!”

Oracle’s voice cuts out as soon as she’d finished saying her piece, and without further preamble, he opens the doors.

It’s even worse than what he’d been expecting.

”…—ire, wait! The light’s red.”

He wastes no time in taking the place in again, more focused on retrieving the motionless form of Sumire from where she sits on her knees in front of the center of the room, staring blankly up at the screen.

We need to turn that TV off.

You don’t seem surprised by this.

He stifles a laugh, but lets the other boy feel his mirth.

Of course I’m not.

He skids to a stop on plush red carpet in the dark room, Oracle’s voice stopping him in his tracks.

“Wait! The Shadows—”

The comms cut out (or maybe it just gets too loud to hear her) as dozens of Hastur appear out of the ground, triggered, presumably, by his approach.

What’s your call? Akechi calls to him, voice a perfect, expressionless mask. He’d perfected his mental disguise in less than fifteen minutes.

They’re immune to curse—but I suppose that isn’t relevant right now, is it?

There’s the barest hint of surprise before it’s masked again, but Joker also wasn’t paying much attention because of the five Hastur that have all decided to attack him—and most of them used Abyssal Eye, making sure he takes the damage.

Stay back. They might not want to kill you, but it could happen anyways if you stray too close.

That still doesn’t—

You have thieves’ tools, right? The ones that do elemental damage? Use those—no wind, though, they drain that. Don’t engage the directly; focus instead on distracting any that get too close to the others. Hit it with guns, bless is fine as long as you’re far enough away. Make sure the others don’t use their magic attacks, though. They won’t do anything—these block psychokinesis skills, too.

Then why did you bring these two?!

He doesn’t answer (it's not like he knew there'd be this many Hastur here), opting instead to dodge yet another Vacuum Wave from one Hastur and a Bloodbath from another. Flashes of light dance across the air from the shear number of almighty skills used in his vicinity.

We can’t do anything with you in the center like that—

Maria absorbs bless and nullifies gun skills. Don’t worry about me. I might have to switch to a different Persona soon, so this link will cut off, but I’ll be fine either way. Listen to Oracle and stay out of the way.

Of course, she hadn’t always been able to nullify gun skills—but over time, all of his Personas had become much better. He had better ones with him, sure—but the point was the arcana, not so much the Persona herself. Maybe they could avoid some of this pointless fighting if he could just convince her—

Another almighty attack hits him, the flip he’d done to avoid a concentrated Vacuum Wave pushing him directly in its path. Gritting his teeth, he endure it until he takes his mask back, willing Maria into existence.

“Salvation!”

Several Kougaon blasts their way through several of the Hastur (and himself, though it only serves to invigorate him) as far in the stands, an arrow of light shoots through the stadium, Robin Hood dissipating back into an unseen red mask.

After the use of the skill, Sumire finally tears her eyes away from the screen, a hand coming up to her mouth in horror.

“Senpai?!”

“Sumire, go!”

“I—b-but…”

Her eyes snap back to the screen as her sister’s hit by the car again, the horrific thinking sound that follows thundering through the stadium like applause at a concert, a macabre opera that left no one in the audience satisfied.
“Senpai…I can’t go back. I can’t!”

He takes in how disheveled she looks, red-rimmed eyes matching the bits of hair she’d obviously pulled out in her fervor at some point (likely several) during the past two days. A spotlight shines on her from somewhere above—just like the one he’d used that first run.

“Oracle, we need to turn off the monitors!”

He cuts through another Hastur, two more taking its place. Their attacks do little, to him—but even these little bits added up, eventually. He’s lost count of how many there were, now.

Oh child, my child! Cease this struggle, return to us from this misleading land of sacrilege!

Maria calls out to Sumire as he continues, rolling out of the way of another Abyssal eye. He’s panting at this point—it’s been far too long since he’d had to exert himself so much, and he’s living for it!—but one look at Sumire’s face told him that her pleas had fallen on deaf ears.

Well, we tried the nice way.

The thought comes as a Bloodbath knocks him off of his feet, the deep purple slashes targeting his legs—and his adversaries waste no time in pouncing on him—literally.

Over the comms, someone says something—but the sounds of wet tentacles and heavy bodies slamming into his limbs stops him from hearing it.

Alright, he’s trying things his way.

“YOSHITSUNE!”

The towering Persona appears somewhere above him, the sheer power he wields knocking the Hastur surrounding him and covering him back.

“HASSOU TOBI!”

The resulting slashes that sound through the room are deafening, the Persona wielding his dual blades with such speed and grace it was like he was dancing—and every single Hastur in the area became his partner, unable to sidestep and spin away from each of eight strikes. The silence that follows was almost louder, the sticky-looking ash appearing everywhere before it blinked out of existence.

“Holy shit!”

“Language,” he says into the comms, turning up at the Persona with a respectful nod that he returns before the both of them turn on the distraught girl still on the floor, sightless eyes now locked onto nothing at all.

”…—growth’s just changed your eye level.”

Resolve makes him flex his fingers, power making them tingle with the need to step in.

The battle is not over yet.

Akira nods, slowly approaching the younger girl.

Whatever happens, my swords are yours.

He stops about a meter from her, slowly replacing his mask so he appeared as non-threatening as possible.

“Sumire, we need to get out of here.”

“That’s…not…my—”

“Come on. You know that’s not true.”

“Senpai! You could never understand how this feels! M-my heart…it’s like it was torn in half on the day—the day…she…”

Who are you, that scorns our Lord’s salvation?

Damn it.

“H-huh?!”

Sumire cries out as tentacles from an unseen enemy slip around her waist at a speed that’s hard for even him to track—but as they pause to wrap around her, he has enough time to react, slicing through them with his dagger.

The Shadow hisses, suspended in air where it hadn’t revealed itself moments before. This one was stronger than the others—but if it was trying something so sly as to kidnap her again, it was probably aware of how much stronger Joker was than it.

“Sumire, I need you to do something for me.”

Oracle’s voice suddenly cuts in from the comms.

“Almost there…”

“What? Senpai…” her voice sounds so lost that he almost turns to look at her—but he doesn’t dare take his eyes off the Boss Shadow.

”I keep messing up my routine.”

“Just watch me, ok? You see that monster, right?”

Every year, in some new fucked-up rendition of this, he tries.

“But…”

And every year—

“I can’t! I killed her!”

—he fails.

She lurches forwards, hands bracketing either side of her head in a futile effort to shut out the memory that plays asynchronously between the mind and Metaverse.

“Joker, she—”

“Get back!”

Pure power causes the air around her to shift, her outfit flickering between the Shijin uniform and the black and yellow track suit her sister wore on her last day.

A day not even he could change.

You who oppose salvation, who embodies pointless defiance and rejects true happiness: we condemn you to face our Champion. One who does not spurn benevolence.

The Hastur bellows the words, and its distorted, impossibly deep voice fills the chamber effortlessly, making the ground under him shake with each word. He can hear the Thieves struggle from somewhere behind him—but he doesn’t dare look back, not when Sumire’s body jerks up unnaturally, her ever-shifting outfit making his head hurt as his eyes struggle to focus on any one detail. Even her hair color oscillates from red to something slightly deeper, a mole that he wouldn’t have normally noticed appearing and disappearing at uneven intervals.

This was…fuck, this was too far off script. It was starting to make him antsy—and the way her limbs twitched into odd positions like she was a marionette wasn’t doing anything to help.

“Joker! Be careful, whatever that thing did made her a hell of a lot stronger!”

He could tell that much—that horrible purple aura now emanating from her feet up to her shoulders told a story all on its own.

It wasn’t really one he wanted to hear, either.

“Joker, can you hear me? It’s Queen,” her voice is just barely audible through the…well, whatever the hell it was that Oracle had set up that let them talk like this. “The rest of us just got in here; what are our orders?”

He’s gripping the dagger in his hand so tightly he’ll be surprised if he’s able to walk out of here without self-inflicted bruising. This was…not great, to be honest. How had Dr. Maruki figured out yet another way to fuck this all up?

A question for another time, Joker.

He shifts his weight onto his other leg, mind bouncing between half-baked plans that were just starting to take shape in his head, Personas picking through and critiquing and amending them as they saw fit while his thoughts were elsewhere. Arsène was right, now wasn’t the time.

“She’s strong, but I can’t get a read on how much damage she can take,” he says quietly, eyes scanning the empty bleachers where the audience would have been at the world championships had Kasumi not fallen that day, so many lifetimes ago. “I’m not going to attack her—it could kill her…but your attacks shouldn’t do very much.”

“Hey!”

He ignores Skull’s interruption. “Combined, though, you’ll eventually accomplish something. Crow, don’t bother with magic attacks—bless won’t do anything to her.”

He rolls out of the way of another Abyssal Eye, unpleasantly reminded that Sumire wasn’t their only adversary in this fight.

“Roger. I’ll stick to physical and gun.”

“The rest of you: stay at least as far back as the upper stands. That Hastur won’t care if you’re caught in the crossfire, and I don’t want to find out what happens if any of us fall here.”

“Got it!”

“As you say.”

“We understand, Joker!”

“Wear her down from far away. I’ll distract her and handle the Shadow. If either target you, disengage—leave if necessary.”

He slashes one of the tentacles of the black Shadow off, hearing as it lets out a cry in a much higher pitch than its disturbing voice had been in. He doesn’t have time to watch it for long, however, because Sumire uses this opportunity to lash out at him, a familiar swords having materialized in her hand. He steps out of the way, grabbing her wrist as the swing passed by where he’d been standing and yanking so she fell off balance. A Garula knocks her off balance, causing her to fall completely over. He doesn’t bother thanking Mona—it’s unlikely the other would even hear him over the sounds of the battle and the ever-repeating memory, anyways.

“Sumire, snap out of it!” He spins around her, as she jerks back up, moving at an unnaturally fast pace.

But by now, it’s nothing he can’t handle.

There’s no response, just the sound of steel on steel, him blocking her every swing with a parry of his own—though he occasionally has to dodge a stray tentacle or swap Personas to something with a single target skill (Hassou Tobi wouldn’t be very helpful if he wanted to bring the other teen out of here in one piece, after all) in order to distract his other foe.

He doesn’t know how long it continues, with him monopolizing the attention of Maruki’s eldritch lackey and his first…’patient’. It’s like a dance, the way he slowly wears down until he swaps back to Maria to recover, wounds slicing and burning and ripping open on his face, through his Metaverse outfit before it all repaired again—though the blood remained.

It was getting to the point that he was beginning to wonder if Metaverse healing replenished his red blood cells when the Hastur finally falls, all of its squishy appendages having been cut off from its body or flayed to the point they were unusable. But the last, terribly irritating thing it did was heal Sumire, her few open wounds closing as she charged him with renewed vigor, slashing at the man who was trying to ruin her happiness.

“Alright, I know I said I was almost there before, but it really won’t be much longer now,” Oracle says as he does a handstand to avoid too-fast limbs and a bloodthirsty thin sword.

“Aaannnd…”

He hears the sounds of furious typing and the lights in the stadium flicker, making the woman who keeps trying to turn him into a human pin cushion falter.

“Got it!”

The monitor abruptly shuts off, and the first year stills mid swing, right arm still halfway through the stroke, legs still bracing against a parry that would never come.

“Sumire?”

He warily drops his dagger, letting it dissipate as he slowly approaches her for what must be the eightieth time that day.

“Are you there?”

No response. The newfound silence in the room was nothing but foreboding, the roughs sounds of heavy breathing captivating his ears as they cut in and out over the comms. He waves a hand in front of vacant eyes—eyes that decorated her face like balloons a party, hollow and lifeless.

He puts his hands in his pockets, turning to look at the others before his reflexes force him out of the way of that fucking sword yet again. Her moves now are erratic, but her face remained devoid of emotion, that aura around her expanding into something he was sure would consume her.

“Sumire, stop!” She ignores him and he swaps Personas back to Maria, hoping the Persona could have an effect on her mental state just as she once had in this Palace. It doesn’t seem to work.

“Listen to me,” he dodges another strike. “This isn’t you—”

“What would you know?! I could have been happy here!”

It feels wrong, how numb he’s become to her words.

Nothing felt serious anymore when he’d heard variations of the same words over and over and over again.

But at least it means he knows what to say.

“Would it really make you happy to forget her?”

“…!”

She slashes at him again, blinking furious tears from her eyes as her outfit clings to her Shujin uniform for just a little bit longer than before.

“You can’t understand how this feels…”

He steps out of the way of the tip, letting Maria help him speak.

“But I can understand that it’s hurting you—and this is no way to grieve.”

She stops again, hair clinging to its original color.

“Senpai…”

“Stop blinding yourself to the truth. You know that the only way forwards is to tackle your problems head on. Don’t run away from your feelings. She would want you to live your own life, Sumire.”

The purple aura sputters and she staggers again, releasing the blade as her hands come back up to her head to bracket it for entirely different reasons.

He can’t hear what Cendrillon says to her—he never had before, either—but a part of him knows that the words must be slightly different than normal.

When she stands again, it’s as one hand rips the mask from her face, and it’s not Sumire, but Violet who greets him in the stadium of grief.

Chapter Text

When Violet staggers, the weight of her emotional exhaustion and the backlash of awakening to her Persona catching up to her, he’s there to catch her by the arm—red leather enclosing around black fabric.

“Senpai, I—what happened? Where are we?”

He releases her as she steadies herself, her legs occasionally trembling with the effort required to sustain her body weight. Joker doesn’t answer at first, basking in the newfound silence of the stadium. A lone spotlight still shines where Sumire had once been on her knees, body limp under the realization of something that should never have been hidden.

He can hear the others approaching, but he doesn’t turn to look. In the near distance and all around the stadium, a few scattered cognitions lay on what look like hospital beds or run on treadmills. He’s always thought that maybe it was supposed to be some kind of physical therapy center, but he’d never actually bothered asking. He’d rather not talk to Maruki at all if he could avoid it.

He used to hate the man: he’d fucked with him so much over the years, found new ways to mess with his mind or dig through his memories every so often that had eventually caused the mere act of infiltrating his Palace to become a profound irritation—and an inevitable one. It was also puzzling: Maruki seemed both to know and not to know about the time loops, each run more confusing than the last. Ultimately, until his heart was changed, he cared little for them other than the fact that they could be weaponized against Akira.

Too bad that would never work.

“Senpai?”

He pulls himself out of his haze, turning back to Sumire with a bored look. She frowns at him, eyes still red and puffy under her mask as she looks him over. He can feel that the Thieves have gotten closer in the time it took for him to reminisce, but they’re still in the stands. He places his hands in his pockets and suppresses a sigh.

This was the time he was supposed to explain everything, probably.

What a mess.

“It technically isn’t safe to talk here. Do you want to go somewhere so I can catch you up to speed?”

She cocks her head in tired confusion, a frown playing on her chapped lips. “’Catch me up’? Do you mean you’re going to explain where we are and why we’re dressed like this?” she hesitates before adding in a smaller voice: “And…what happened?”

There wasn’t really a need to ask her what she meant by that—there was only one thing she could be talking about, and it’d been projected for the entire team to see.

Over, and over, and over again.

He nods just as the others reach them, an exhausted yet regal looking Fox at the head of the pack.

“You must be Yoshizawa-san. Pardon my asking, but are you alright? That video seemed rather traumatic.”

Straight to the point, as always.

“Oh…well, I won’t lie and say that I am—but wait, who are all of you?”

“I believe we’ve met before, but perhaps here isn’t the best place for this conversation?”

“Akechi-kun?!”

Queen turns to him and, before she can even open her mouth, he turns and starts walking back the way they’d come from. Unsurprisingly, Crow is nearly in step with him, shooting him a look of curiosity that approached the level of coldness he was typically more accustomed to come January. He can already feel the migraine coming on, the first sharp incision from the scalpel that was the detective’s clinical gaze.

They make it to the safe room they’d passed on the way to the stadium without incident—but that was mostly because any incident they could have run across was taken care of by Mother Harlot’s Ice Age before the other Thieves could intervene at all. He’s fairly certain that Akechi pays more attention to any subtle changes in his facial expressions than he did to the Shadows.

When the door closes behind them, he walks to the back of the room—a sterile white locker room where lab coats hung on racks by the large metal cabinets—and turns to face them, locking eyes with Sumire as she takes the first available seat with a heavy sigh.

“So. Ask.”

She blinks at him warily, black-clad shoulders drooping with fatigue.

“Ah. Right,” she looks them all over with a frown, taking in the strange outfits and the weapons and the masks. “Are you the Phantom Thieves?”

His gaze flickers to Queen, and she must understand what he’s trying to convey, because she clears her throat and effectively draws the attention of everyone in the room. She starts to explain—the cognitive world, the Shadows, the cognitions and outfits and wills of rebellion—but it all just blurs together in his ears. He’s heard the same speech by so many different people by now that hearing it again only grates on his nerves—and the fact that Crow and now a few other Thieves look at him with a mix of wariness and intrigue only make his head start pounding harder.

Are you al—

Finish that sentence and I’m itemizing you.

Woah, calm down buddy. I was just worried about ya.

“Kurusu?”

He opens one eye from where he leans against the wall, a single grey orb locking with Ann’s blue ones.

“You weren’t answering to your codename. Uhm,” she physically shrinks back from whatever it is that flashes across his face—impatience, maybe. He doesn’t really care much at the moment. “So Sumire asked—ugh, is it really fine that I call you that?”

“Oh, yeah, it’s not…I mean, I think I need to hear it.” The red-head says resolutely, eyes alighting with a steel that serves to slightly lighten his mood.

“R-right. So Sumire was asking how she awoke to a Persona since it was in her own Palace, but since it hasn’t disappeared yet, we aren’t really sure how to answer?”

He lets his head thump audibly against the wall behind him, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. Someone said this every fucking year and it was always wrong.

“It’s not hers—and before you ask, I’m not answering that.”

“Woah woah woah, so you’re tellin’ me that some rando knew exactly how her memories went? I don’t buy it.”

“And I don’t care.”

His blunt answer draws the ire of the Thieves—but also their eyes. He overlooks them unapologetically, before standing up straighter, rocking forwards on the balls of his feet before settling back down on his heels.

“I don’t owe any of you anything. You want answers, we can trade,” he shoots a glance at Sumire, who looks both confused and hurt by his words. “Beyond the basics, there isn’t really anything else for us to discuss. You’re missing in reality, and I’m sure your parents are worried sick.”

“Um, Kurusu-senpai…were you, uh, always this…I don’t know how to say it…ruthless?”

He makes a noise of surprise that only lasts half a second before he starts laughing hysterically, removing his mask to wipe at his eyes when it becomes too much for his tear ducts to bare. He feels rather than sees all of the other people in the room tense—which was probably fair given that he had a tendency to slacken his control over his Personas whenever he felt strong emotions like this. Even he could feel the power radiate off him in waves, strong pulses of sheer strength beating in time with his heart that bounced across the room just like when he’d first awakened to Arséne in a dingy castle cell.

“Sure, yeah,” he says eventually, replacing his mask with unconcealed mirth. Sumire had shifted during his little break, face a mixture of relatable exhaustion, unease, and a fear she usually only showed after Akechi went apeshit on one of the Shadows in this very Palace. The others don’t reply—don’t even move—for a long time, opting instead to stare at him in silence. The only ones who don’t look outwardly afraid are Noir and Crow (though Fox and Oracle might just be too tense to feel fear).

“O-Oh. I…see. C-can I ask you something, senpai?”

He had long given up trying to get her to stop calling him that. In lieu of a verbal reply, he simply waits, two sets of dark eyes meeting under oppressive fluorescent lights.

“How did you know I was here?”

He feels his lips upturn before they resettle, and it does little to ease the constrictive pressure of the room that he can’t be bothered to feel in the first place.

“Remember that meat festival last summer?”

She blinks, but before she can even open her mouth to reply, Skull cuts her off incredulously.

“Dude, you were there, too?!”

He ignores him, waiting for Sumire’s response.

“Uhm, yes…what has that got to—Oh!” her eyes light up like Shibuya during Christmas. "I remember seeing you!"

“When I heard some of the first-years mention you were missing, I kinda assumed you’d end up here,” he shrugs with an air of casualty that no one else in the small room shares. “I think it was something about the look in your eyes.”

“Hold on a moment,” Fox cuts in, grey shifting to the man in blue, “That doesn’t explain how you knew of the Palace’s location here to begin with—nor how you knew what its codewords are.”

He smirks at him and his fingers twitch to the hilt of his sword before he catches himself.

“No, it doesn’t.”

“…I presume that he means he won’t be sharing that with us—at least not for free.”

“I’m sorry, codewords?”

He shifts and they turn back to look at him.

“Yeah. So I personally think that we’re good to leave now—you all can catch her up with everything in reality, yeah?”

“I suppose…” Noir says, sounding unconvinced. Sumire looks down at her gloved hands before looking back up to each of them in turn.

“I think he’s right. Frankly, I don’t know how much of this I’ll even be able to retain past tonight—and my parents are probably worried sick.”

Queen frowns, but nods at her reluctantly. “Alright. Just—I’ll be calling you to the student council room once you’ve returned to school. Don’t rush yourself, alright?”

Sumire nods once, listless look at odds with the determination in her eyes. “Got it.”

With that, he reaches into his pocket and removes a Go-Hom, glancing at their leader with a raised eyebrow before tossing it to the ground, enveloping them all in a thick, magical smoke.

Akira checks his phone for the time as soon as they’re outside.

4:56 PM

Not even twenty minutes had passed since he’d been leaning against the wall by the vending machine, pondering his past lives while waiting for the Thieves to assemble. Yet it’d felt like days since he’d been standing here last, staring up at both a stadium and a research lab.

The others say something, talk amongst themselves, but he’s in no mood to listen. Now that the crisis had been averted, he’s no longer willing to suffer through their antics. He liked to tell himself that its because they annoyed him, but he was far too honest to actually believe that. He knew he missed them, being a part of it all.

He hadn’t even registered he was moving until a voice stopped him in his tracks.

“Kurusu? Where are you going?”

He turns just his head to see the Detective Prince staring at him with an almost unreadable expression.

Almost because Akira knows too much of him now to see it as anything other than the cold curiosity and intrigue that it actually was.

“Home.”

The both of them ignore the side glances the others shoot them, Queen offering to walk home with Sumire, the two of them discussing her ‘cover story’ because they can’t explain what actually happened to the two parents who had already lost one child.

“I take it that means you don’t have any plans for tonight?”

He doesn’t let the frown that threatens to tug at his lips to actually appear on his face. Instead, he fully turns to face that tan blazer, hands sinking in his plaid pants pockets.

“…I guess not.”

“Then would you care to join me?”

Akechi seems at first like he’s going to continue, but he stops himself. Akira finds it strange: Akechi had always seemed to love the sound of his own voice—and more importantly, he hadn’t specified what exactly he would join him in.

He must realize I hate his whole fake pleasant act.

He probably shouldn’t—hanging out with Akechi after he’s shown him his true power like this seemed like a disaster waiting to happen—but he still felt trace amounts of guilt from their previous interaction despite it ultimately not meaning anything. And, a smaller part of him intrusively whispers, he really did enjoy the other’s company.

When he wasn’t pretending to be something he wasn’t or trying to kill him.

Uh, kid, that comprises a shockingly small percentage of the time you’ve spent together.

Beelzebub wasn’t wrong. But it’s not like he had anything better to do, and he’s kind of curious to see what he wants, so…

“Sure.”

For some reason, even though he’d been expecting the others to get pissed or interject or be upset with the both of them (understandably) for just up and leaving after such an intense mission, the disapproving looks and (in Ryuji’s case) enraged glare is the only backlash they receive. While a part of him is rather pleased at the outcome (he really didn’t want to deal with any more of this today), he knows that their lack of insistence is probably because he’d ended up scaring them too much to push on it.

Oh well.

Akira falls in step behind Akechi, mostly content with letting him take the lead while forcefully suppressing the small part that wasn’t—that hadn’t been ever since that first repeat. He likes to tell himself it’s not the same, anymore—that he could wipe the floor with his dumb ass if he ever came close to pulling any of the shit he did then, but…

A vulnerable little piece of himself he hasn’t quite been able to shake despite his best efforts only remembers unhinged laughter, choking on his own blood, and the feeling of metal-clad fingers running through unkempt curls. His stomach turns.

Why did I agree to this, again?

Goro hadn’t really expected the other man to accept his invitation, and it had admittedly thrown him off-kilter. Don’t misunderstand: he still had a plan, knew exactly where they would go and what he wanted to say—he’d known he was going to invite the other out as soon as he’d received Nijima’s messages that afternoon—but ever since he’d…how to put it…’linked up’ with him in the Palace, he’s felt off balance. Perhaps it’s because it had pissed him off—the other had seemed so smug when Crow had first faltered at the rush of sensations that came with the mere act of touching that stiff paper mask. It made him want (irrationally) to summon Loki and attack him right there. Loki had wanted that, too—but he had a tight enough control over his emotional state that nothing had come of it.

He's sure the other had noticed, though.

Before he had figured out how to mask his thoughts, the other had most certainly picked up on his every feeling: the profound irritation at being caught off guard, the annoyance and curiosity at the fact that they even took that detour from Sae-san’s Palace to begin with, the wariness he’d felt about the other in general…and a feeling of uncertain familiarity with him that Goro had yet to shake ever since that fateful meeting in LeBlanc.

And what he’d felt in return? Next to nothing. Occasional mirth, the periodic jabs by the mass of Personas the other carried, the contradictory lax seriousness with which grey eyed boy carried himself with. It was infuriating. He’d almost felt like he’d been tricked in some way—but if that had been the case, he can’t understand why the other had had next to no reaction to the plethora of intense, hostile feelings and thoughts he’d surely let slip before he'd learned to control them. Oddly enough, Joker had seemed pleased at that. He made shockingly little sense to Goro—and, all things considered, he had equally as little time to discern his intentions.

So that’s where he stood now, with Kurusu standing next to him, staring out the train window as they made their way back to Shibuya. To Goro’s great confusion, he hadn’t even asked where they were going, seeming content to allow him to take the lead, staring blankly off into space.

That duality was yet another reason the man made so little sense to him—and with that feeling came the desire to know more. How could the cocky, limitlessly powerful Joker be so meek and soft-spoken in reality? Sure, the other would push back if pressed—like he had in LeBlanc while facing down the notorious Phantom Thieves of Hearts—but it wasn’t his default. This much he knew from watching him serve coffee at his unpaid café job, politely greeting customers, engaging in light small talk only if prompted. Overall weak, someone who should be easy to force down into the dregs of society, left there to rot as his criminal record had doomed him to half a year ago.

Except he wasn’t.

It made him want to break the man open, look inside his head to see what made him tick, what made it possible for one person to hide so many secrets.

But…he had restraint. And peppering him with questions hadn’t worked, he didn’t respond well to sweet talk or his Detective Prince persona, so…

Well, it really only left him with one other option—especially given how much the other already seemed to know about him.

When they arrive in Shibuya, they head to the underground walkway and board the train to Kichijoji in silence. For once, no one pesters him—though a few people do stare. It’s not every day one got to ride in the same train as the Detective Prince. It makes the barest hint of satisfaction thrum through him—but it’s coupled with an overwhelming feeling of disgust. These people didn’t care for him. But that was alright; the feeling was mutual.

He would get what he wanted from all of this soon enough, and then it would all be over, anyways.

He occasionally offers the other a glance or, when their eyes inadvertently meet, a slightly raised eyebrow—but they don’t actually exchange any words until they stand in front of the Jazz Jin. Even then, it’s less of an exchange than it is an explanation.

“This is the place.”

Kurusu looks up at it, taking in the sign. He glances at the display outside, showcasing the dates a live singer would be performing. Today was unfortunately not one of those days. Goro isn’t sure what he’s hoping for, here: a hum of approval, maybe, some form of verbal confirmation that the black-haired second year didn’t outright despise the idea of going to a jazz club with what was essentially a complete stranger.

A complete stranger he’d told to fuck off once already.

The familiar bitterness at being rejected stirs in his chest, and he has to suppress it to maintain his carefully neutral expression. It is surprisingly more difficult than he had anticipated.

He might not have been sure what he’d wanted—but now, he at least knew what he didn’t—and that would be the empty look on the other’s face. Boredom, maybe, or disinterest.

This was going to be a long night.

Or so he’d thought. After they descend the stairs and enter through the front door, they’re both greeted by Muhen, who looks understandably surprised to see him with another person. His trips here were infrequent, but they still happened often enough for him to be treated as somewhat of a regular whenever he walked in. His favorite part of this place was actually not the music (though he quite liked that, especially the singer, as well), but the fact that Muhen had never once commented on his status as a celebrity. He wouldn’t even be surprised if the man didn’t know at all, what with how detached he seemed from popular culture.

“Well, I never thought I’d see the day either of you would come in with someone else, let alone each other. Good to see you both.”

That had him glancing at his companion with thinly veiled surprise: while minors weren’t expressly forbidden here, Muhen wasn’t too keen on letting just anyone come in—especially teenagers because of some of their age group’s more unsavory tendencies. But looking at Kurusu, shoulders hunched, weary eyes and slight frown, he supposes Muhen must have judged him to be more mature than most others. Nevertheless, Muhen’s greeting had at least explained Kurusu’s reaction: one wouldn’t be surprised by an establishment they frequented.

They take their seats at a table near the back in silence—it’s actually Kurusu who leads the way there; typically, Goro sat near the front, but since the singer wouldn’t be present that night, anyways, he supposed he didn’t object to it. He opens his mouth to ask what the other wants to order—he’d invited him out, so it was only fair that he’d pay (at least he thinks; admittedly, his social etiquette on outings like this was a bit lacking)—but before he can even utter a word, Muhen’s brought them each an identical mocktail. Surprised, Goro turns to inquire about it, but the man only shrugs.

“The both of you always put in a random drink order on most days, anyways. Didn’t see the need to keep you waiting.”

That was…interesting.

What a strange day. But then, it was time to get to the heart of the visit, he supposed. Hefting his case onto the table, he removes the case files he’d brought to mull over and reclasps the case, setting it back on the floor to lean against the leg of his chair. Kurusu only quirks an eyebrow in response. Goro decides to treat him to his own game and doesn’t answer his silent question—and his ploy seems to work: the bored look in his eyes lessens, the awareness more noticeable the longer they sit there in silence, Goro occasionally marking up the documents in carefully neat script before shuffling the papers, looking at each one in turn.

He expects the boy to question him, for steely eyes to narrow in irritation. He does not expect him to open his own school bag and pull out a worn looking notebook, sipping his drink idly as he begins to turn the pages. But just because he hadn’t expected it didn’t mean it was unwelcome. Goro had mentally prepared himself for this trip: he didn’t take others here for a reason, and that was because he wanted to be left alone, but with how quiet, how unobtrusive the other boy was, with the effortlessly graceful way he went about everything with a single-minded focus, well.

He found that he didn’t actually mind his presence.

It’s at least an hour later when someone breaks their amicable silence—and he’s somewhat irritated to realize it was himself that had done it.

“Is that from the Metaverse?”

In Kurusu’s notebook, a carefully preserved iron feather was taped to one page. No text marked the page—and the tape was put on with such precision that, had they not been near an overhead light, he likely wouldn’t have noticed at all.

Grey eyes don’t even flicker in his direction as the younger man nods, one hand absently running along a delicate, wispy surface of the impossible object. It was unlike anything he’d ever seen before: the edges looked as though they were liable to cut into flesh should too much pressure be put on them, yet it also looked fragile, soft in the way feathers typically were despite the harsh material with which it appeared to be constructed from.

“I…have yet to see anything like that before. What is it from?”

This time, the other hums. “Shadow dropped it.”

“Why did you keep it?”

A shrug. “Hadn’t seen it before. Picked it up.”

So it was new to him, too.

He nods once, deciding not to press the issue further. He actually did have work to do, after all. But every once in a while, his eyes find themselves locked onto the pages Kurusu flips through with a questionable level of interest, some odd object or another or a small number of words scrawled at odd intervals greeting him from across the table.

He’s not sure how much time passes before he hears Kurusu let out a small ‘oh’. Goro glances up at him with a raised eyebrow, and he unceremoniously turns the phone screen he’d been staring at to him.

It was nearly 9:00.

He shifts, moving to gather the papers he’d spread out as the night had, without his knowledge, dragged on.

Kurusu’s own cleanup is far quicker—he only replaces the notebook in his bag and stands, awkwardly avoiding eye contact as he shoves his hands into his pockets. It reminds him of earlier that day, before they’d breached the Palace or entered the Metaverse at all, when the other had averted his gaze seemingly without prompting, a dark look in his eyes. If he hadn’t known any better, he’d say it was hurt, but that couldn’t be right. When had either of them had the time to impact the other like that?

Perhaps he felt bad for the incident in the attic?

Even Robin Hood felt doubtful about that.

He wonders if there was some reason for it—thinking on it, the other seemed to have trouble holding his gaze in reality. This wasn’t true in the Metaverse. It vexed him.

After he pays and they leave, they begin their walk to the station in silence—but this time, it’s Kurusu who speaks first.

“Hey, Akechi?”

He’d also noticed the other avoided the use of honorifics—but this wasn’t exclusive to just him.

Goro turns his head to look at the other boy, but again his gaze remains resolutely forward, and his interest only grows.

“Yes?”

“Why did you invite me out here?”

There’s no tell in his voice: no hope or lilt or trace of how he wants him to respond.

Not that it matters, of course. After all, Goro had already decided how he wanted to handle him.

“A couple of reasons. The first is that I wanted to see how you’d react,” the other’s eyebrows jump up ever so slightly and he resists the urge to smile. “and second: I…” this one would be harder, required him to reveal a bit more than he was comfortable with, “enjoy your company. I find you intriguing.”

The surprise is now obvious on the other’s face—and Goro finds himself happy that he’d admitted that to him: he finally knew the right way to approach the other Metaverse-user, and he was going to use that approach to figure out everything he wanted to know from behind those bored, grey eyes.

Honesty.

Chapter Text

6:42 AM

Mako-chan: Everyone, meet up at the usual spot outside the courthouse. Kurusu, today’s the day

Akechi: Understood. I will head there directly after work.

8:17 AM

Skull: Dude, they make you work on Culture Day???

Akechi: Well, you know what they say: there isn’t any rest for the wicked, and since my job is to catch the perpetrators of such criminal acts…

Skull: Wait, since when are you the wicked?

Better raise her grades: Yeah, that’s not what he said

Short Stack: Also pretty sure you screwed up the expression, Akechi

Short Stack: Ryuji! Why’d you mess with my name?!

Skull: You said you didn’t like the other one!

Short Stack: How is this any better?!

2 broke 4 train fare: Unfortunately, I will be late as well

2 broke 4 train fare: Kosei is hosting an art exhibition for the holiday and a few of my pieces will be on display.

Beauty Thief ftw: Oh! Where is Kurusu-kun?

11:52 AM

h: It. Is. A. Holiday.

h: why are u all up so early?

Beauty Thief ftw: I’m not sure that 9 am is very early…

Better raise her grades: Do you want to meet up somewhere so we can show you where to go, Kurusu?

h: no

Pharaoh: ya, plus I can just walk there with him

Pharaoh: RYUJI!!!

Akira puts his phone to sleep, staring up at the familiar wooden ceiling. He should get up. He really should, but…

Well. His bed was cozy, and he was still tired from hanging out with Akechi so late.

Oh yeah. That reminds him.

Akechi is up to something.

Akira does not like when Akechi is up to something.

Neither do his fight or flight instincts.

I wonder what he wants.

And I wonder if you’ll survive it.

A fair point.

“Kid?” a voice calls from below, reverberating off of the wooden boards of the staircase.

He grunts a reply—one that Sojiro must not care for if the heavy sigh he hears is any indication.

“If you’re just gonna lay around all day anyways, why don’t you come down here and actually be useful?”

A small part of him was grateful for the excuse to get up, his bare feet already padding over to his box of clothes. Most of him, though, silently grumbles in protest. He just wanted to sleep through the year in peace: was that too much to ask?

Arsene laughs—black wind that ruffles his hair, a cold chill on a brisk winter day. A knife’s edge pressed against his cheek, hard steel touching with just enough pressure that he can feel it, but it doesn’t cut.

He ignores the television when, an hour later, his hands have wrinkled up like an old man’s as he washes the never-ending chain of dishes and silverware that make their way into the sink. Apparently, everyone thought today would be a great day to patronize some random, run-down café in Yongen—because for once, the customers keep piling in, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder upon barstools, sharing the tiny booths, fully utilizing the bathroom (his bathroom).

He’s not sure how long he even works, didn’t bother checking the time because realistically speaking he could take as long as he wanted to do anything and it wouldn’t change a thing. Dishes, coffee, curry. Occasionally ringing up a customer and their family: all smiling, pleasant faces that he doesn’t pay attention to because they don’t matter. He’s not sure how well his usual customer service look sits like a mask upon his face today—only that no one tries to make small-talk with him and Soiro keeps raising his eyebrow when he thinks Akira can’t see him, taking drags from that old brand of cigarettes that make the room smell of smoke and ash. It mixes surprisingly well with the spices. He wonders if you can get secondhand nicotine addiction before Beelzebub laughs him off.

As he clears one of the tables, a middle-aged mom on her cell phone trips over the booth and drops her plate of curry—but he turns on his heel and catches it at the last second, Metaverse-addled instincts serving him well as a busboy. To his surprise, the small crowd inside LeBlanc breaks out in applause as he hands the speechless woman back her plate, and he actually flinches at the sudden noise before turning back to his work in silence.

It blurs together after that. A man argues with him over the balance of his check before the Boss steps in and he goes back to washing dishes. A pair of little boys he recognizes from the backstreets get dangerously close to the wall of bean jars before a stern grunt from Sojiro sends them backpedaling. Little, inconsequential things that convince him he is in fact still breathing, still capable of working and moving and existing.

Still stuck there.

When the bell above the door chimes, he doesn’t pay it much mind—at least, not until he hears Morgana cry out in pain.

“Hey! Watch where you’re swinging this thing!”

“Stay in the bag, kitty,” Futaba hisses back, the exchange loud enough that several of the customers turn in both annoyance and concern at the teenager mumbling to herself by the café entrance. By habit, Akira reaches for his phone to check the time, but he stops himself once he realizes that his hands are still soaked. Some of the skin had gotten so moist that it’d turned an even paler shade of white than he was used to, splitting open at the top of his palms from friction between rag and ceramic.

“Futaba, what are you doing here?”

“Ugh…Akira and I were supposed to hang out, but it looks like someone forgot about it!”

He hears her hands slap against her sides in exasperation—and Morgana’s resulting groan.

“My stomach…”

Sojiro sighs, and Akira watches him bring a hand to his forehead in a way that screamed he was too old for this shit.

“Kid, if you had plans, you should’ve just said so.

Akira dries his hand on one of the towels on the rack by the sink, turning his head to look at the man as he does so.

“But we’re busy…”

The man huffs out a laugh, putting his cigarette out in the ashtray on the counter. “I’ll manage fine on my own. Now go on, get out of here.”

He nods in silence, deft hands unravelling the tie in the back of his apron as he swings it over his head, placing it back on its peg. Without another word, he heads back up the stairs, ignoring Futaba’s stunted protests and Morgana’s quiet pleas.

He throws on his coat—his actual grey winter coat, because he always gets colder much more easily after he does the dishes for hours on end like that—and buttons it before heading back down the stairs, letting his head duck down just enough that his chin rests where the collar comes up above his neck. It makes each warm breath he exhales puff back up into his face, heating him up in the process.

“Wait, you’re THAT cold? It’s only, like, 4°C out…”

“Would you please stop moving?!”

“Is there a cat in here?”

Futaba grimaces. “Crap. Bye Sojiro, we gotta go now!”

Akira follows her out the door, softly shutting it behind him as they exit. The open sign clatters against the glass as he does so, old wood reflecting in the daylight as it settles.

“Bah! Hey, Frizzy Hair!”

He turns to face Morgana, who stands half out of the bag with his paws on one of Futaba’s shoulders, radiating anger.

“You carry the bag! She’s terrible at it!”

“Hey, it’s not my fault your stomach upsets so easily!”

“Haru never swings the bag around as much as you!”

“Then go stay with her!”

They both stop arguing when Akira reaches out a hand—a hand which Futaba eyes like it’s three week old curry that’s been left sitting on the counter. Her face loses all humor.

“You sure, Mona?”

Noticing the sudden shift in the air, the cat visibly calms, his eyes mirroring the seriousness of his companion’s.

“Yeah. It’ll be fine.”

She hums uncertainly, but relinquishes the green Featherman bag that the cat sits in without another word of protest. The weight that hangs off his shoulder as they begin to make their way to the train station acts like a security blanket, soothing his fraying nerves.

He doubts the silence is as comforting for the other two.

Futaba’s fingers click away at her phone screen, but Akira can’t bring himself to pay much attention to what she’s doing. Texting the others, probably. He lets his head drop against the pole in front of him, lets the voices and the thrum of the train car and the rest of the sensation in his body dissipate as he simply floats there, a spec of dust on the horizon.

It works for as long as it takes to get to their stop.

He cracks one eye open to a peeved Futaba, who urgently shakes his arm.

“Come on, the train doors are gonna close soon!”

Letting a rush of air out of his nose, he pulls himself out of his position and slowly exits the train, following behind Futaba with his hands in his pockets and gaze on the ground. His own, hot breath fans his face pleasantly, still-damp hands curling around nothing in his pockets. In his peripherals, he can see how impatient the other teen was getting, but he can’t bring himself to care.

After all, what was the point in rushing when he was just going to have to do it again later?

He’s not surprised that the rest of them—a bunch of teenagers from three different high schools—are already gathered rather awkwardly outside of the courthouse.

“Dude, finally! What, were you just gonna wash dishes all night before Futaba went to fetch your slow ass?”

He hums, not glancing towards the blonde as he rolls his shoulders, careful not to disturb the Mona bag with his stretching.

“Yeah, probably.”

A few moments of silence follow as Ryuji stares at him in disbelief and the others don’t know what to say until Makoto clears her throat.

“Well, let’s not delay this any more than we already have.”

“’We’ my ass! He’s the one who—”

“Ryuji!” Ann hisses under her breath, fixing the other with a heated glare.

“What?!”

“Um, I think she’s trying to point out that Kurusu-kun is doing us a favor…”

He scoffs, hunching over even more before muttering something Akira barely picks up as Makoto activates the Nav.

“Yeah, only ‘cuz he’s getting’ somethin’ out of it.”

Fair point.

No one says anything as Akira takes in that same casino for the hundredth time, grey eyes locking with neon lights outside of the building as he absorbs the details with impassivity. Dully, he misses the warmth of his coat.

“Some place, huh?” Panther scoffs, looking it over with a frown.

And while every other set of eyes are trained on the building in front of them, the pair behind a red mask are focused solely on him.

“Alright, Joker,” Mona says from the ground, comically wide eyes serious as he fixes him with a look, “inside there, on the high betting floor, there’s an arena that we need you to enter and win a set of three matches so we can earn enough coins to progress in the Palace. You got any questions?”

He shakes his head, eyes flickering to Mona’s own before the not-cat continues.

“Good.”

“Are we ready to go?”

“Yes, I believe that is a wise decision,” Fox answers with a slight nod.

Queen nods once before she turns to the Palace, splitting them up into small groups with orders he doesn’t really bother listening to until his codename is called.

“—and Joker will be on the front lines for now. Understood?”

“Yes!”

“You got it, Queen!”

“Understood.”

“Then let’s go!”

Chapter Text

Kurusu was up to something.

Given how much he seemed to know about things that he should not, this was a problem.

The way his eyes kept losing focus, the way he seemed to slouch into himself whenever they stopped in a saferoom, the distance he kept between himself and everyone else—all of these were signs that something was amiss. He didn’t even let loose as they attacked the occasional Shadow that got in their way; back in Mementos and the strange Palace he’d taken them to, he had been much more violent, more offensive. Now, he mostly stayed to the side, only bothering to use a skill or shoot his plain-looking pistol when the battle dragged on for more than a few minutes.

With Goro on one of the reserve teams, it happened more frequently than normal.

Still, they progress through Sae’s Palace quickly, and before any of them know it, they’ve arrived at the high limits floor. Kurusu takes in their surroundings—the expensive carpets, the well-dressed cognitive casino staff, the premium, colored playing cards that fall limitlessly from some indiscernible point above—with the same air of indifference that he observed seemingly everything else in his life.

And for reasons that he can’t seem to wrap his mind around, Goro finds it infuriating.

He’s suddenly curious—too curious—to know what would make that mask slip, what would light those steely off-silver eyes with something like surprise or anger or fear. The prospect is as exciting as it is baffling: a single person whom he’s known for less than a week shouldn’t realistically be able to elicit such a response from him.

But it does. He does.

Something about this man in the black overcoat nagged at him, made some unreachable memory tug at his brain, pull on his psyche—but no matter how hard Goro tried to find out why that was, he couldn’t. It could just be because he reminded him of himself. It really could be.

It’s not.

For some reason, Robin Hood was especially adamant about it.

I thought we had an agreement: I won’t carve you to pieces like the irritating bit of deceit that you are and you shut the fuck up.

Usually, a casual mention of his true nature was enough to cow Robin Hood—not in fear, exactly; the Persona just seemed to know when it was pointless to try and converse with him when the conversation had no real value in the first place.

Today, though, it makes the comically muscular personification of something Goro no longer was turn on him in his mind, shocking him into freezing in place before he remembers himself.

There is something more to this, something you fail to grasp, something that matters more than anything else you could possibly be doing. Will you delve into it, or will you continue to be a coward who’d rather be blind to the truth?

What?

But if he had anything else to say in the matter, he kept it to himself. This was one of those times he found it unsettling that his Personas could think and feel different sensations and thoughts than himself: he had no real way of knowing if Robin Hood was sending him on a fool’s errand or if he had genuinely noticed something that Goro had not—and the fact that all Loki did was watch the entire exchange in mute interest did not do anything to narrow it down.

No one says anything—at least not that he can make out—until they all group up just outside the arena’s entrance. The staff shoot them cursory looks, their faces unreadable masks, but other than that, they’re largely ignored by the Palace’s denizens.

Panther crosses her arms, side-eyeing their team’s newest addition (if one could even call him that) with open curiosity. To his surprise, her gaze carries in it small tendrils of doubt. What was there to doubt? Had they not seen what he was capable of in the Palace which had Shadows far stronger then Sae could even dream of?

“Are you certain this is a good idea?” Fox says, examining the aloof boy with critical eyes behind his own mask of cool surety.

Queen crosses her arms, frowning with reluctant acquiescence to a situation that none of them really wanted to be in.

“Honestly? It’s our only shot at this. Are you ready, Joker?”

Joker shot them a half-smile, cruel and crooked and familiar because it’s one Goro often wore by himself when no one else was around but him and the near-lifeless form of his target.

“It won’t be much of a show.”

And with that, the man entered the arena, its strange, oddly-shaped gates parting and shutting behind him as he stepped inside with ease.

The rest of them file into the stands, surrounded by hundreds of cheering cognitions eager to watch the blood bath to come—because here, the house always wins. As soon as they arrive at their seats—he’s sure at a concert they would be in what’s referred to as the nosebleed section because of their extremely close proximity to the actual show—he refocuses on Joker, who had wasted no time in entering the arena proper and was now…

Sitting in the center.

With his eyes closed.

“Tch. That overconfident prick is gonna ‘eff this up for all of us!” the blonde moron wails, leg kick uselessly at the cement wall that came up to his waist in frustration.

“I can’t help but agree…will he really be ok in there by himself?” Okumura calls, her soft voice filled with concern. The only reply anyone offers is a quiet hum by Queen—but it’s not in agreement. The Nijimas might both be as stubborn as a mule, but they weren’t known for their stupidity. Next to him, perched on Oracle’s shoulder, the cat stands with serious determination.

“Don’t worry about him, Noir,” it parrots quietly, “Joker won’t let us down.”

Any conversations that would be prompted by such an assured reply are quashed when the loudspeaker overhead buzzes to life with an almost daunting volume. The Thieves around him jump with surprise, a stream of expletives of honestly impressive length reverberating off of concrete walls and hard metal benches as the place starts to come alive. In the arena, with his chin resting lazily on his one upturned knee, Kurusu doesn’t even bat an eye.

”Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome our latest challenger to our esteemed Battle Arena!”

A roar of applause drowns out hushed words of concern and hope from the teenagers to his sides, but they aren’t what captivates his attention.

”Taking the place of the adult-defying, society-fracturing Phantom Thieves is their proxy member, Joker!

The crowd boos at that, and the announcer laughs.

”I understand, but since utilizing a substitution is irritatingly allowed in the rules…

The voice clears its throat directly into the microphone. Loudly. Goro hates this fucking Palace.

“We should announce the odds: had the cowardly Thieves fought themselves, then then their surprising popularity would have actually put their odds in the double digits! However, by contracting out to this larcenist wannabe, the odds are 114 to 1! Are your bets in, audience?”

A cheer loud enough to remind him to pick up some more migraine medication shoots through the crowd, a thunderclap through an already fierce storm. He barely resists the urge to grit his teeth—especially after he notices how unaffected Joker seemed by it, his form unmoving besides the occasional breeze that shifts unruly black locks around his forehead.

“Then let the death-warrant meriting one-on-one fights to the end begin!”

When two Ganesha appear and immediately charge Kurusu. The others gasp. Complain, cry out for the referee, curse. Perhaps it really was necessary to get outside assistance if they truly hadn’t expected this turn of events.

In the arena, on bright pink flooring that would certainly highlight any blood that would be shed during the matches, Kurusu still doesn’t move. The first one uses Rebellion as soon as the other reaches melee range with its sickly looking cognitive blade, distortion dripping from it a similar consistency to that which the Shadows initially emerged from. The other hefts its thin blade into the air, poised to strike Joker down in his sitting position. Panther and Skull cry out as the blade pierces flesh—

—but just as the tip moves to cut into him, the Ganesha dissipates, an unseen shield throwing it into the air as it cries out in pain—though even that inhuman noise is cut off as the remainder of it fades from view. The excitement from the crowd comes to a standstill, confused cognitions just realizing that this unknown adversary had defeated an opponent without even lifting a finger. And even now, down below them in the ring, Joker stays stationary, eyes closed, posture relaxed.

Skull gapes, hands on the metal of the fence to get closer to the action—but then it shocks him, electrocuting him into unwanted submission.

Idiot.

If Shadows could become confused, then that’s what the remaining Ganesha is now, angry eyes locked onto where its partner had recently vanished from mid-air. Hesitating only a moment longer, it attacks with a Giant Slice—and is subsequently annihilated in the same fashion as its comrade.

Oracle nods once, intent upon providing navigation to a man that has no real need for it.

”WHAT? The Phantom Dweeb somehow scrapes by to round 2."

And with no more preamble than that, the next set of enemies appear—three Rangda flanking what appeared to be…was that Thor?

…yes.

If he had been any less attentive to the fight unfolding in front of him, he would have laughed at just how annoyed Loki sounded at that.

Before them, Goro can only watch as, with a single, open eye, the man’s mask flashed on his face. Knowing what he did about the other Persona-user and what it looked like when he himself did something similar, he can only assume he’s swapped Personas. It shouldn’t be surprising when the electric attack that Thor unleashed drained into him—of course the Norse god of thunder would wield such moves—but still, he can’t shake the feeling that something about the exchange was wrong.

Sure, Kurusu was strong—stronger than all of the Thieves and himself combined—but should he realistically be so calm in this situation? Palaces were in the realm of unknown; there had been many times when Goro had been caught off-guard by a sudden spike in power amongst his assailants or the lethality of a puzzle…Kurusu shouldn’t be so sure of what was coming, he shouldn’t act like everything before him was written in stone, like he knew—

Wait.

That was it. He was sure of it. The longer he watches the fight unfold in front of him, the more that itch in the back of his head begins to grow. That was the problem: Joker was acting like he knew what was coming.

Even so…such a theory was unsubstantiated—it wasn’t even backed by anything he’d seen thus far. There had been no intruders to this Palace besides themselves—Goro had made sure of it, had observed the Palace Shadows long before the Thieves ever stepped foot in here. Yet the way he was acting—here, in Mementos, and in that other Palace…it was like nothing surprised him.

No…it was more like he knew what they were going to go up against even before any battles began.

Perhaps he’s truly just that unflappable.

Perhaps.

But that itch still won’t go away.

Akira’s bored.

They switched up the arena fight, for once. It’s not the first time it’d happened, of course—but it’s still unusual. Maybe he should’ve actually participated in the first battle a bit more, thrown off the announcer.

Not that it really mattered.

Getting bored of that third Rangda reflecting its own Swift Strike for the umpteenth time, Akira finally takes pity on it.

“Ice Age,” he whispers, lips barely moving as his now charged attack shoots through the two remaining enemies, crystallizing them instantly with flakes larger than his bed back in LeBlanc.

Their still forms hit the ground with a terrible crack, shattering immediately upon impact. Ice and black ooze shoot out from them both, tiny bits of ice no larger than his hand flying about the arena as the last of the Shadow bits fade back into nothingness.

”Are you KIDDING me right now?! I had a lot of money riding on this!”

“Uhhh Joker?! Watch out, they’re sending something big!”

Oh, yeah. He’d almost forgotten Oracle’s offer to navigate for him. In fact, he hadn’t really been listening to her at all, content to relax and listen to his ever-talkative Personas chat amongst themselves. Today, they flit from topic to topic like Yusuke did from food stall to food stall at the school festival.

Not that he’d actually gone this year. Or the ten years before that.

He almost grimaces at the thought: Dr. Maruki was almost always present at that, and he’s someone that Akira likes to avoid almost as much as Ann avoided vegetables.

”Alright, you little shit, we had to call them off break for this, but this next one will ensure the house’s victory!”

The Shadow that appears before him is likely the strongest besides Nijima herself: the Baal that typically guarded her last Will Seed. Eons ago, it had kicked his and his entire team’s ass, almost sending them packing before Skull’s last, desperate Ziodyne had finally taken it down. The fight was so close that he’d no longer had the strength for any physical attacks—Seiten Taisei’s specialty.

Now, though, he kinda got to have his revenge every time he came into this Palace—so when the son of a bitch actually steps closer to him, the crowd collectively gasps when Joker finally stands up, his trademark grin splitting his face.

He’d held back enough, hadn’t he?

It was time for some fun.

It’s not long after the announcer gives them the signal that the Baal is upon him, and it’s not messing around with weak attacks like the others had tried: it goes right into a Phanta Rei, wind spiraling in a deadly symphony that Joker sidesteps with ease, dancing around the cyclone like a partner in a dance. Paradise Lost appears in his hand and in the next moment, he’s in its face, hand slicing in an arc across its serene looking face. It cries out, staggering backwards before he’s on it again, ignoring the slight sting at his back as an Ayamur tears into him, the Baal having traded some of its vitality for the physical skill.

With Satanael, it’s nothing more than an inconvenience.

When he feels the drop of blood slowly drip down his cheek, he laughs. Half-susepnded in the air because physics had a strange way of working in the Metaverse, Akira rolls into the next Phanta Rei—surprising the Baal if the widening of their eyes was any indication.

The next second, his knife tore through it’s chest and it was gone.

Just like that, the battles were over.

The exhaustion that had been ebbing away at him since the moment he’d opened his eyes returned despite Victory Cry’s activation restoring his energy, and his eyes droop back down, hands coming back to settle in his pockets as the gates to the arena open, the announcer grumbling in disbelief about where to get the payout.

He spins on a heel, taking his time with leaving as the cognitive crowd goes ballistic. He hears a few of them complain about their newfound poverty, suddenly worried about how they would feed their cognitive families—and he’s once again impressed at Sae’s imagination. He knows that these represent court cases in some weird way…maybe they were found guilty of embezzlement and had to pay it back? Or, maybe that couldn’t be true because technically, they were working with the house—the prosecutor’s office. Could they have been caught forging confessions?

Who knows?

He meets the others back in the lobby, ignoring the shock and the disbelief in the eyes of his former friends as they look him over in a mix of awe and caution.

At least Queen, Oracle, and Mona seemed normal…and Crow, of course—though Akira doesn’t care for that unreadable look on his face.

“Ready?”

Queen nods, and together, they head to the Manager’s Floor.

When they make it to the card reader machine that controls the bridge, he only half-pays attention to the conversation. He’s heard it all before, anyways—though the odds had never been quite as in his favor as they’d been this time around.

“…so we have a grand total of 4.54 million on the Taro Tanaka card alone. That’s more than enough to get through, don’t you think?”

“No. I’ve just raised it to 10 million.”

Akira’s eye twitches below his mask.

This wasn’t anything new, either—but it pissed him off every time. The Thieves gasp, Crow gets vexed, and Sae goes on a self-indulgent little speech about how their task would forever be impossible—just like how it was impossible to get a ruling overturned or in the defense’s favor in reality.

Honestly, the fact she hadn’t just done this in the first run was a gods-damned miracle: 90% of the time, this was her reaction to Crow’s ploy.

“But…what are we going to do?”

“…I’ll think of something. This is Sis we’re talking about—I know she doesn’t think anything is truly impossible—”

“How true is that, really? Let’s not forget that Sae-san is not in her right mind at the moment: and she’s right about the conviction rate being so astronomically high.”

Queen opens her mouth to say more before Akira decides it’s time to live up to his codename.

“Hey, Sae?”

There’s no response from the machine. She must have decided they were no longer worth her time. He carefully avoids the gaze of the other Thieves: they really wouldn’t like this and for it to work, well…

“It’s fine. I know you can hear me,” he lifts up his hand, jerks it over his shoulder to one of the many building in sight below. “see that building? The one with the billboard on top of it advertising the casino?”

No reply.

“You have cameras, I’m sure. Anyways.”

He summons Satanael, face going blank as he lifts his right hand, a gun appearing in the Personas as he does so. Both sights lock onto the building. The speaker crackles to life—almost as if by accident. He knows better, though.

“Joker?”

He ignores them, pulling the trigger.

Sinful Shell rips through the top of the building, rattling the ground so hard as it buries deep under the ground with such forces that half of the Thieves tumble to their knees, startled gasps and panicked words exchanged with someone who refused to acknowledge them.

“You wanna figure out what happens,” he flicks his wrist in the direction of the Manager’s Floor, Satanael’s gun following the motion with one massive, unwavering hand.

“Kurusu!”

“Joker, stop!”

“Damn it, what the ‘eff?!”

Akira keeps his gaze fixed on the room across the gap. “If that hits you?”

The speaker crackles to life with a vengeance Crow would envy.

“You wouldn’t dare—it would go against your so-called justi—”

“See, that’s where you got me wrong. I’m not a Phantom Thief—and if our options here are leave while a scumbag like you still plays a prominent role in our justice system or kill you,” he continues, face devoid of emotion, “are you really sure of which one I’ll pick?”

The Thieves all cry out at him to stop, stop, stop, Makoto hyperventilates, Skull draws his club, Panther pleads with him in anger.

Crow watches.

His voice hardens as his gaze narrows.

“You get five seconds.”

“Akira, what are you doing?!” Mona cries, paw shaking him by the leg.

“5.”

“Man, quit messin’ with us!”

“4.”

“Kurusu, the deal’s off! Just—just go home! Please!”

“3.”

He places his finger over the trigger and takes the hit from Skull’s club with a grunt.

“2.”

The bridge suddenly shifts without further prompting, its locking mechanism coming undone as it mechanically slides into place, leading the way up to the Manager’s Floor as it settles with a loud, climactic click.

He drops his gun, letting it dissipate into nothing as Satanael fades back into his mask. Below them, the fire from the explosion rages, cognitions of people screaming for their lives as the cognitive fire trucks and police cars screech up to the scene.

He finally turns back to the Thieves—some on the verge of tears, some watching him in horror, some with anger so palpable he can taste it—and raises an eyebrow.

“Well? Are we going or not?”

And when Queen numbly turns from him, a hollow look on her face, they do.

Chapter Text

The others don’t talk when they finally leave the Palace.

Not at first.

In fact, once they’re out, Makoto walks off with a lost look in her eyes—and she’s trailed after by Ryuji, Ann, and Haru.

After making sure he sees his heated glare, Yusuke hurries after them, too.

That’s when Futaba slams her foot into his shin.

He has to clench his jaw not to cry out in pain because the only shoes she ever wears outside are those thick, black boots with the hard rubber soles.

“You—you—what were you thinking?”

Ow.

“Urf! Hey! I’m still in here!” Morgana’s head appears above his shoulder, the cat having pushed his way out of the slit on the top of the bag.

...it only hits him now that here they are, three high schoolers (because Akechi hasn't left yet because of course he hadn't) all awkwardly hanging out in front of a courthouse, discussing the merits of attempted cognitive murder whilst carting around a cat in a cartoon character's bag like some French woman with her pampered, tiny dog in a foreign movie.

His response, he thinks, should not be taken as a reflection of his character.

"Heh."

Her arms flail in their 'what the fuck, Akira' gesture he's gotten far too used to by now. After all, he would always be the first to tell anyone he wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed.

Really, he's more like the rust-encrusted butter knife at the bottom of an empty paint can in the back of the shed, re-acquired purpose long forgotten as he sits there and rots until some dumbass locks their keys in the car and was too cheap to call a locksmith.

"I wasn't actually going to kill her," his voice is calm, a light breeze that passes among friends who weren't really friends.

She scoffs at him. "Well you sure had us fooled."

Sarcasm.

He turns towards her, face as sapped of emotion as his body was of energy.

"That was the point."

Morgana hums too close to his ear, sounding unconvinced. And kind of like he's purring. Akira rolls his other shoulder, making it pop loudly before it resettles.

"Had I forewarned you, it wouldn't have worked. I was counting on your panic—especially Makoto’s," they bristle at the use of her first name and he reminds himself that he's not their friend, kind of, "in order to make her Shadow believe it was real. No one's gonna take a threat seriously if their sister and her friends sit there and act like they just got through with a sleep over."

Futaba blinks, apparently not expecting a real answer. Akechi makes an appreciative noise. At least someone understood where he was coming from.

Now if only that someone wasn't a literal serial killer.

But perhaps he's asking for too much.

"...you coulda told her that," the youngest Sakura mutters, looking up at him skeptically with her hands locked behind her back.

He shakes his head. "If I'd said anything in the Palace, I'm sure the Shadow would have just resuspended the bridge—and do you really think she would have been receptive to that conversation just now?"

They'd all seen how listless she'd looked. Probably rethinking their deal with him. It made little difference to him.

He'd come too far now not to get what he wants.

Careful, now. That's starting to sound like a logic fallacy.

"Well...I guess that's true...but," Morgana pauses, tail swishing in opposition to a disruptive autumn breeze, "what would you have done if it hadn't worked?"

He shrugs, and they both turn to fully face Akira so they can glare at him.

"What? I can't think of everything. We were in a casino, I was gambling. It's fine," he says through a yawn, rubbing at his eye with a balled up fist.

"I must say, that was a bit rash," Akechi says, eyeing him with an expression of concern.

It was good—almost good enough that Akira could believe it was genuine.

Almost.

Futaba doesn't look at him when next she speaks. "I'd prefer it if you didn't joke like that—like, ever, actually."

He hums—but leaves whether or not it's in agreement or disagreement up to interpretation. How any of them take it isn't really his problem anyways—and even if it became his problem down the road, it wouldn't stay that way.

Not for long, anyways.

She turns back to him, her sour mood lightening somewhat as she faces him.

"I'm hungry. How much money you got on ya?"

He frowns at her, raising an eyebrow. "Huh?"

"Ugh, I thought I was being pretty straightforward, Akira," and yeah, it was still kinda weird to hear her call him by name—at least this year, "You're gonna buy us all dinner?"

"...All?"

"Yeah! And Mona likes sushi!"

"I LOVE sushi—especially fatty tuna!"

"Ahaha, well if you're paying, perhaps I can tag along? I rarely have time to eat out with how busy my job and our Metaverse escapades keep me."

Akira gives the other boy a long look, but his fake smile doesn't even twitch from where it sits on his face.

It's kinda impressive, right?

Nah, the guy coulda come up with somethin' better by now—smile's gettin' old.

Beelzebub had a point.

Fuck it.

"Where's the nearest sushi place?"

Futaba's mischievous grin falls right off of her face and she stutters out some unintelligible noise in her disbelief. "Wha—you're actually gonna do it? I mean, that'll be super expensive and I was just messing with you..."

He waves her away, already reaching for his phone to look up the closest restaurant. "Why not? I'm stupidly rich—we can get whatever and it won't put a dent in my savings."

She looks him over with a suspicious frown—which was fair, honestly.

"But...how? I mean, I get you can fight much stronger Shadows than we can and all that, but they still probably don't drop that much money—and even those ones can't be much stronger than the ones we all fight as a group anyways 'cuz of that stupid barrier. Plus, how do you even get out without Sojiro noticing you? He says you, like, never leave. Like ever."

Damn, did she have anything else to add?

He doesn't look up from his phone, idly scanning through train routes to take them to his go-to shop in Ginza—if they were gonna go for it, they might as well go for it. "So first: I can go wherever the hell I want in Mementos—"

"But—"

He already knew where her mind went with this. "Trains."

"Ohhhhh. Wait, you can actually ride those?!"

He shrugs a shoulder, booking their reservation as they begin walking to the train station in Kasumigaseki. "Why not?"

Apparently, she didn't have a retort for that, because she goes silent as she ponders his words. He takes it as permission to continue.

"Second: They drop quite a bit, but it's really more that I fight a lot of them. Just because the Boss doesn't see me leave doesn't mean I don't."

Her face scrunches up at that before paling ever so slightly with worry.

He already knows why.

"Do you enter the Metaverse in LeBlanc?! That's dangerous—what if you dragged So—"

She cuts herself off once she sees him shake his head, chin popping back up out of his coat. "Window."

"Window? What does that even mean?"

Morgana gasps, the sound loud enough that he startles a bit, shoulder flinching before he catches himself. Why did the cat have to stand so close to his ear?

"You sneak out of your window? I knew you were cut out for Phantom Thievery!"

His chin, back in its little alcove in his coat collar, is just low enough that they all miss his frown.

They might not see his displeasure, but the silence that follows tells him that they can at least hear it.

The ride to the sushi place is also made in silence—and the way the boy next to him keeps analyzing his every shift in position like he's E. coli on a petri dish doesn't exactly make him want to break it as they start their walk from the station, either.

How had he gotten wrapped into this, again?

Learn to say no.

He can't really argue with that.

"Woah! You can get them wrapped in gold!" Futaba says exaggeratedly, eyes nearly bugging out of her skull before they narrow conspiratorially. "I wonder how much that costs..."

"Order it and find out."

She blinks, looking up from the menu in his direction. "You really are loaded, huh?"

He shrugs again, setting his phone down on the table as he continues where he left off.

Futaba, of course, isn't content to leave it at that, leaning into his space as her eyes scan his screen with what starts as bored curiosity that morphs into something like alarm.

"Wait, is that calculus? You're in calculus?"

"Differential equations."

"Differe-enchilada?"

To his right—because somehow, he ended up in the middle of them at the counter they sit at—Akechi is now also in his space, the disbelief in his face changing rapidly into something undreadable.

"Differential equations—it's applied calculus, typically taken after three semesters of its prerequisite," and then, comically—as if it's only then that he realizes just how much closer he'd become to Akira—he leans back and Akira can breathe again. "I must ask: what exactly are you doing with this?"

Akira can't help himself sometimes. His eyes flatten. "Gee, I don't know Akechi, what do you usually do with a book?"

The look of irritated surprise that graces the other boy's face is so satisfying that he wants it framed.

"Pfft—Hahaha, he got you good!"

The smug grin falls off his face and he turns back to his phone, resting his chin on his hand. "It's supposed to be good for modeling—if you can get decent at it, anyways."

Akechi's expression becomes thoughtful, and he brushes a stray lock of hair back behind his ear with a single gloved hand. "'Modeling'?"

"Y'know, what Ann does."

Akira snorts and Futaba lets out another laugh at her own joke.

"Mathematical modeling—as in—"

"I'm aware of what it's used for, yes: what I want to know is why you need to know such a skill." There's just a touch of impatience in his voice. Akira ignores it, annotating the page he's on with a swift set of clicks on his screen.

He shrugs again without looking up from his screen. Morgana makes an interested noise from the bag until Futaba elbows it—he'd done a good job of staying quiet so far. It wouldn't be good if they were caught with a cat in there, after all.

When Akira spots the chef approaching, he tucks his phone back into his pocket. They eat in silence—but unlike the silence of the train ride or in Mementos, this one isn't charged with anything. No hostility, skepticism, or sadness. Just three teenagers and their secret cat having sushi in Ginza.

Just Akira hanging out with his friends.

For some reason, it makes his appetite all but disappear, and he ends up feeding most of his spread to the gremlin in his bag—something Akechi merely acknowledges and Futaba has trouble keeping a straight face about.

When Futaba's about halfway done, she uses her chopsticks to play with a bit of salmon roe—and that's when Akira realizes there was another reason she'd suggested this outing besides her stomach.

Everything has an agenda.

The thought leaves him more bitter than it really should—and the eyes he feels zero in on the tension in his shoulders do little to ease that.

"So...can I ask you something?"

No.

"You just did," he says instead.

She nods, the sullen, almost lost look in her eyes doing more to grab his attention than words ever could. He's never liked seeing her distressed.

He is, however, used to it.

"Why are you protecting him?"

Akira's hand pauses above the bag—and apparently stays there for a while, because the cat inside grows too irritated to wait for the fish to drop, opting instead to poke his head out of the hole in the top and snatch it like a piranha drawn to blood in the water.

Akira's not stupid. He has an idea of what she's getting at—but the way she said it...

"What do you mean?"

The look she gives him surprises him yet again—gone is her seemingly boundless energy, the fire in her eyes that could never burn out, had never burnt out in all the years he's known her. Left instead is a look of pure exhaustion, one he's gotten used to staring back at him in the mirror above the sink in LeBlanc's tiny bathroom.

"You know who this guy is...he..." she swallows, throat too dry to immediately finish the sentence, "he killed my mom, Akira. Don't you think he should be brought to justice?"

From next to him, Akechi shifts in his chair.

"I'm afraid I must concur. I understand that you are not acting as a full member of this group; and to be truthful, neither am I," he says simply, brown eyes locking with his own where they shift to meet them, "but I fail to see why you would keep such a secret—and Sakura is correct. He needs to be brought to justice. So why?"

Bold move.

No, stupid move.

I must agree.

He tests our patience. It is not limitless

Akira hums, though the gesture is more a response to his Personas than an answer to either of the teens' inquiries.

I think it's more than that.

He tilts his head to the side, gaze not breaking from the older's. If it's a challenge he wants, Akira's more than willing to provide. "I offered to kill him."

Akechi shakes his head. "Flawed or not, I believe in our justice system. I would want the world to know what he's done. A simple death in the Metaverse would not ease the minds of the general public, nor would it be anything close to what the perpetrator of such heinous crimes deserves."

Akira settles back in his chair. "I thought the purpose of the justice system was to reform criminals, not punish them."

Akechi's smile turns bitter. In the bag, he an hear Morgana shift to better hear their conversation, his head resting near the unzipped part of the slit. "Some people don't deserve reformation."

I have a feeling he's not talking about himself anymore.

"Akechi?"

At Futaba's call, he shifts, eyes widening for such the briefest fraction of a second that Akira could almost believe he imagined it.

Almost.

"My apologies, it seems I got carried away there for a moment," he itches the back of his neck, laughing in that mock self-depreciating manner he was known for on television. "But," his eyes reopen and he fixes Akira in his gaze, "My question still stands."

Akira watches him for a moment longer before turning to face forwards, speaking to no one in particular as he responds to none or both of them. "Do you remember when...Nijima said she adjusted our deal?" He doesn't wait or really even look for a response at that before he continues. "The new part is that you all get three questions that I'll answer honestly. It was in exchange for our little detour. If you want to know more about what you're asking for," his eyes flicker to Futaba's, his serious gaze making her startles in her chair with wide eyes as he completes his statement, "then you'll need to use one of them. But I'm not going to let that happen until your leader is here, so...i suppose that's all there is to say about the topic."

For now.

"W-wait," she stumbles, determination creeping into her gaze. "You, uh, get something out of this too, right?"

He nods, rolling his neck.

"Well...just what is it that you even want?"

The smile he shoots her in return has her leaning away from him before she even knows what she's doing, the wood of the chair legs sliding with a loud scraping noise as she jostles them from their resting place.

"You know, it's funny you bring that up. I was actually thinking about calling in that favor soon."

She hesitates, opening her mouth and closing it several times before Morgana finally breaks the silence himself.

"Uh...but when?"

"I was thinking tomorrow."

Chapter Text

8:51 PM

Mako-chan: Futaba texted me about Kurusu’s plan. He wasn’t actually going to kill Sis, he just wanted to intimidate her into letting us pass.

Skull: Then why the eff didn’t he say nothin?!

Pharaoh: that’s cuz if he had it would have messed it up since Sae’s Shadow is probably, like, super tuned into Makoto’s emotional state

Pharaoh: but like, unconsciously? Subconsciously?

Pharaoh: something like that

2 broke 4 train fare: Even with that said, I still feel as though he should have said something about it before we all departed from the courthouse.

Mako-chan: Futaba says he said that wouldn’t have worked very well.

Mako-chan: Apparently, he was afraid we’d cause a scene.

Akechi: Ah, well, the police station is right next door. I don’t imagine such an encounter would go very well for a group of high school students.

Mako-chan: I admit that he was probably right about that. I wouldn’t have taken it well at the time.

Beauty Thief ftw: Mako-chan…

Better raise her grades: Hey, um, sorry to change the topic…

Better raise her grades: But seeing as we’re waiting for like a couple weeks to send the calling card anyways…

Better raise her grades: Wanna do some requests in Mementos?

Pharaoh: uhhhmmm that might not work out

Skull: Why, u got plans or somethin?

Pharaoh: well it’s really more like we ALL have plans…

2 broke 4 train fare: That’s rather ominous…

2 broke 4 train fare: Care to elaborate?

10:22 PM

h: sure

h: sorry, was at the bathhouse

h: So about our deal. I want my end tomorrow, if that’s fine.

Mako-chan: You still haven’t told us what you want.

h: yeah I have. I want a favor.

Better raise her grades: You know that’s not what she meant

h: Well, that’s all you’re getting. Whole team. Tomorrow. Mementos.

Skull: Stop bein so vague you son of a bithc!

Pharaoh: Ryuji, at least use auto-correct if ur gonna insult someone

Beauty Thief ftw: Mona-chan says ‘you’re pathetic, Skull.’

Beauty Thief ftw: Oh, but I’m just the messenger. I don’t agree with that.

Beauty Thief ftw: I think you’re just fine the way you are.

Pharaoh: !!

Pharaoh: that was so sweet, Haru!

Mako-chan: In any case, we’re not in a position to refuse. I trust tomorrow is fine with everyone?

2 broke 4 train fare: That is acceptable.

Beauty Thief ftw: That’s fine with me and Mona-chan!

Skull: …fine, but I ain’t happy with it.

Akechi: I will go along with whatever you decide on.

Pharaoh: full disclosure, Akechi and I already knew about this like four hours ago

Pharaoh: so yeah, fine by me

Mako-chan: Ann?

11:36 PM

Better raise her grades: Sorry, I was in the shower. Yeah, let’s just get this over with.

Skull: that was a long fucking shower, dude

Better raise her grades: Oh shut up!

Akira puts his phone back on the charger, silencing the chat for the night before he rolls on his back, staring up at the dusty attic ceiling. With his window cracked despite the cool air outside (because the attic got really hot and he didn’t own a fan this time) he can hear bits and pieces of Yongen-Jaya’s night life filter in: drunken men complaining about their wives, a late-night deal at the second-hand shop down the road, the reformed middle-aged woman feeding the neighborhood strays. Someone kicking a trash can, young people discussing a movie at the newly reopened theatre, hushed parents discussing the latest resignation in the Ministry of Transportation.

Normal things, things that should lull him to sleep, had done so, once—but instead make him analyze the words for meaning that isn’t there. Is it the same drunk? The same strays? The same public official?

Did any of it matter?

He closes his eyes. Maria silently walks him through a breathing exercise he’d learned long ago, the phantom sensation of a cool, sympathetic hand on his forehead easing him into an unrestful sleep.

Tomorrow. I just have to make it to tomorrow.

But he’s been telling himself that for so long that it’s become meaningless, and Arséne laughs at his struggles as everything finally—mercifully—fades away.

To say Goro was nervous was an understatement.

It wasn’t often he even felt such an emotion anymore; there were so few things in the past few years of his life that could elicit such a feeling from him. And he doesn’t like being nervous—doesn’t care for the way it makes Loki treat him almost like prey, doesn’t like the way Robin Hood’s disapproval shot off the Persona like arrows from his bow, doesn’t like the way it makes some pale imitation of anxiety claw at his ribcage until it felt like his heart itself would come out an destroy everything in his path, up to and including himself.

But. He was also curious. What could other boy want from the Phantom Thieves—no, from other Persona users—that he couldn’t just take for himself? What was so important, so unobtainable to him as an individual that he actually required other people to accomplish his goal?

It makes Goro feel somewhat uncomfortable—because in his nearly three years of experience in the Metaverse, he’s never once come across a problem that he actually needed someone else to accomplish. Sure, there had been times when it would have been useful to have an extra set of hands—but was such a thing worth the incompetence that would inevitably come with such an additional person?

Hardly.

…at least, that’s what he wanted to believe. What he had believed before he met Kurusu. There was not an incompetent bone in the man’s entire body.

He was, however, unreliable. Unpredictable might actually be a better way to describe it—he often did things, dangerous things, without any warning whatsoever, made spilt second decisions that could have catastrophic consequences for everyone involved—and he’d not so much as bat an eyelash. Such recklessness had come to his attention in that curious…detour…of a Palace that the second year had taken them all too, but it’d become even more solidified once he’d pointed the barrel of that massive, cognitive firearm directly at the residence of the Palace Ruler just a day before.

They’d even gone out to eat that night as if nothing had happened—and he had quickly realized that, to Kurusu, nothing really had.

Perhaps that uncertainty was why he was standing here, clutching one of the solid metal poles of the train car with more force than strictly required to hold himself up.

Even now, as the train slowed to a stop, brakes screeching against the metal of the subway rails, his pulse stayed quicker than normal. What could he want?

What does it matter? Why do you care?

Loki’s annoyed, baritone voice snaps in his mind—but his tone is somehow still calm, a paradox not even he has begun to understand despite their long years of service together.

How could he not? How do you both fail to see this for what it is?

Loki growls at the other Personas words, somehow silently conveying his true meaning: you don’t belong here, not anymore; you’re a plaything of the public, a relic of the buried past without using any words to actually say it. Goro honestly couldn’t tell if the reason Robin always shut up at Loki’s or his own dismissals was because he knew he was outmatched or because he didn’t want to waste his metaphorical breath. He could be shockingly stubborn at times. Either way, his presence faded back to the corner of his mind, the only trace that their conversation had even had any effect on him at all the spike of irritation that Goro felt when he got closer, so to speak.

It was interesting—but then so were Personas, in general.

He steps out onto the train platform, avoiding the other newly relinquished passengers with a practiced ease that would be exponentially easier if he had not dressed in his usual attire. The attaché case in his hand with the emboldened English letter of his family name certainly didn’t help matters, either. He was supposed to be new to the Metaverse and to Palace infiltration, though: supposed to be the innocent, righteous Detective Prince that stuck to his own justice (and that he could at least claim was truth) and would never dream of committing a serious crime, so he had to make concessions about his appearance.

Besides, he doesn’t want the image of him in his faded blue jeans and too-large hoodies to be in their minds at all—especially Nijima’s; she was just as observant and irritating as her sister, when she wanted to be, and he would not take any more risks than necessary when it came to his plan.

But those were thoughts for later.

He comes to a stop in front of the small classroom’s worth of teenagers that sit or stand near the entrance to the underground walkway in equal measures, flashing them a small smile, eyes crinkling in faux pleasure that they fell for like the cattle they were.

Well. Mostly fell for. All were present save for the man of the hour, but the Sakamoto fellow’s face dipped into a scowl as he took in Goro’s form and the cat’s eyes simply fell on him with mute acceptance. The blonde was an idiot, perhaps, but the fact that he didn’t care for their leader’s soon-to-be killer at least afforded him a small scrap of respect. Perhaps he was like a dog in that regard: able to determine someone’s true nature just by impression alone.

“Oh, Akechi-kun…”

Okumura’s voice breaks through his train of thought and he turns to face her, his pleasant, neutral expression that he’d forced himself to default to over the years settling on his face. All things considered, the other girl was remarkably well put-together for someone in her situation: her father had been admitted to a psychiatric hospital for an indefinite period of time (rather forcibly, actually, but those details weren’t made public) and the allegations about his company’s mistreatment of its workers hadn’t exactly gone away; as the heiress to such a conglomerate, she’d no doubt faced backlash from the public.

Okumura might not have had a public mental shutdown, but staging a private one was easy—especially given how easily he submitted himself to the police’s care. It was…an irritating turn of events; a live broadcast of his death at a press conference that the man himself had set up would have been ideal for setting the Phantom Thieves up. Now they had all of this mixed-sentimentality from the public to deal with considering they had no real proof that the man was actually brain-damaged—though the publicized death of Shujin’s principal had at least spurred the police into motion, especially after the “calling card” had been found in the man’s office. That was twice now that the secret had nearly been leaked.

The man was supposed to have died in their care—but in a sheer stroke of dumb luck, none of the people that had been present when the man turned himself over to the psychiatric hospital were their own. More importantly, they had taken notes and been present during the man’s evaluation. The only way they could have had the man killed in reality without it appearing suspect would have been to kill or blackmail them all—and the circumstances behind his admittance were already very suspect under the public’s eye (due in no small part to the way they had been working to set the Phantom Thieves up). A series of deaths like that of people who were surrounding Okumura was sure to draw unwanted skepticism. And if he were to die then or now, so soon after he turned himself in would be to invite further investigations as to the scandals behind the mental shutdowns that the head of the company had been so wrapped up in.

There hadn’t been another time in the years since he'd had access to the Metaverse where he’d felt as much rage as he had when, the day after the calling card had been sent, he’d followed the Phantom Thieves to the Okumura Foods Headquarters and…the Palace was gone.

After that first meeting with Kurusu in LeBlanc, he’d had some of that man’s people pull up the security footage from both the Okumura Foods’ surveillance cameras and the ones ran by the nearby police precinct—he hadn’t told them the real reason why, had said he wanted to check for any evidence that the Thieves had entered the Palace—he’d found out that Kurusu had somehow beat them all to the Palace by about half-an-hour. Retroactively speaking, it had made sense: Kosei got out slightly later than Shujin did, and they liked to meet up before they walked in somewhere as a group.

It hadn’t made him any less irritated with himself—though realistically speaking, there was no way any of them could have known that they were being so carefully followed. Goro had been so focused on making sure he wasn’t noticed by the Thieves that he’d failed to actually look for anyone else that would have normally aroused suspicion.

Not that Kurusu would have, really. He’d shown up in a plain looking drab blue hoodie with the hood drawn up, characteristic glasses nowhere in sight—though that detail didn’t matter much anyway given the way he’d kept his face pointedly away from any of the cameras. The place Goro’s sure he’d went into the Metaverse, crouched behind a large cement trashcan, of all places, wasn’t even in the coverage of any of the cameras—and worse, it was right near an alleyway that led to further offices behind the main building. It wasn’t off limits to the public, other people came and went (albeit somewhat infrequently) and he hadn’t looked particularly out of place. Had Goro not been expressly looking for him (and the small time lapse where he was absent from any feed), he probably wouldn’t have ever found out he’d even been there at all.

It was a pitifully small piece of evidence to go off of: there was no way to prove it had even been Kurusu. It was most certainly not enough material he could use to blackmail the other Persona user—especially given the (abysmally irritating) fact that he could simply kill Goro whenever he wanted to, even if he weren’t holding back as he had been with the Thieves.

Ultimately, however, nothing the other man had done had truly messed up his plans. Okumura still had a “breakdown”, at least according to the public. Goro still had his video and photographic evidence of the Phantom Thieves of Hearts in action from when they first entered Okumura’s Palace. And the calling card and subsequent shutdown of Kobayakawa was enough to mobilize the police force into conducting a raid on both the Sakura residence and Shujin Academy—though in truth, that raid was never going to happen in the first place. It just served to give him the opening he needed to get himself in the position to play his part. Best of all, given who the acting leader of the Phantom Thieves was, Sae would be unable to interrogate the suspect even with her connections with the SIU director.

Makoto was, after all, her sister. Such a connection disqualified her as a candidate for the interview process just because of the potential for bias.

But then they asked him for help, and now…well…

Now he’s not sure how this will actually proceed.

The Phantom Thieves don’t kill people: it’s why he suggested the police come into the Palace in the first place (though they of course did not know that to be true): besides it being the only way they could truly be caught in the act, the police themselves were in no danger (provided they followed his instructions and avoided the Shadows). It’s not as if Goro especially cared for their wellbeing, but the simple truth was that even if the teenagers chose to become violent, their guns would still be able to kill them in the worst case scenario. Not even seven thieves of hearts could take out such a large squadron of officers—they would be caught, or at least their leader would. That would be enough to end their crimes—all while vindicating him of his own.

Now, though…now, there was Kurusu.

Kurusu, the unfathomably powerful Persona-user. Kurusu, who did not exactly share their ideals and sense of justice.

Kurusu, who had threatened to kill a Palace Ruler.

If Kurusu were to come on the day of the raid…well, he actually could kill an entire police squadron—and by himself. Goro holds no delusions about that; he couldn’t exactly catch anyone in the act if all of the personnel that came to do so were eradicated in a place where the proof could disappear with a mere change of heart. If he was fine with using the Metaverse to kill—and his actions yesterday, no matter the words said after to placate Sakura, indicated that the possibility existed…

Well. Then his plan was fucked.

“Akechi-kun?”

He blinks himself out of his reverie.

“Ahaha, sorry, I was merely thinking about a particularly bothersome case I’ve undertaken for my job,” not a lie, actually, “Could you repeat your question?”

He’d thought he’d heard her ask something, anyways. He’d admittedly been a bit distracted with his own thoughts.

“Since you are a detective,” here we go, “I thought you might have figured out what Kurusu-kun wants, or at least maybe have a better idea about it than we do.” Her voice lowers after she glances at the rest of their group uneasily, “his ‘favor’ has left all of us a feeling a bit on edge.”

Of all of the annoying questions he could have imagined her asking, this one was at least…well, interesting.

What, indeed.

He frowns, letting his mask slip to show his own thoughtfulness without removing it completely. “I’m not entirely sure myself. I simply don’t know enough about him to make deductions that could carry any level of surety about them. If we take his words from our first meeting with him at face value, then we can at least assume that it doesn’t involve…your area of expertise,” he hopes they can understand that much—he can’t very well say change of heart in public and not expect for people to start listening in on their conversation, “or that of the true culprit’s.”

And as strange as it was for him to think, he believed Kurusu on this—if only, perhaps, because his words back then had rang true:

“Let’s get to the point: the worst case scenario is, what? I ask you to change someone’s heart? To kill someone?”

“Do you really think I’d need your help with either of those things?”

No. He had proven as much with Okumura.

But the fact that it would be neither of those things meant it was something else—and it’s that third option, that unknown, that has his mind racing as it has been since he’s brought the idea of a ‘favor’ up. It wasn’t lost on him that he’d been made to agree to this little deal himself, either.

Whatever he wanted had to involve Goro himself.

That, or the other had been fucking with them.

He did that a lot, it seemed.

“Oh,” she sounds the slightest bit disappointed, “I see. I wonder what he could want from us…”

And the silence that follows, the pondering, lost look in all of their eyes?

For the first time since he’d joined their little vigilante group, Goro felt they were all on the same page.

“Hey,” he says, looking around at their group with tired eyes.

“You’re late.”

Someone’s upset.

He rubs the back of his neck with one hand, glasses doing little in the shade provided by the awning to the underground walkway to hide his exhaustion. “Sorry. Had to grab something.”

Would it not be ‘somethings’?

Nah, it’s ‘stuff’ or ‘some things’. You can’t use 'something' like that to describe multiple objects.

The tongues you sinners speak in are as confounding as they are inane.

You do realize that in conversing with me, you’re using them too, right?

There’s no reply—not that he’d really expected one from Satan. Makoto looks him over uneasily—a stark contrast to her sharp words.

“Did you say something?”

“Yes…I asked when we were going to head in,” the discomfort has set into her eyes now, but then, so has the determination.

’Least she ain’t a coward.

Akira silently agrees.

He nods, face serious despite the excitement thrumming in his veins.

“Let’s go.”

When Makoto activates the Nav—when Akira became Joker and his Personas could stretch metaphysical limbs that they didn’t even have in reality…

Well, once he got over the inevitable sickness that came with traversing between worlds, he felt whole again. He breathes a sigh of relief, turning in a slow, mechanical circle about the station square—

Then he feels it.

He spins abruptly, scaring the half of the Thieves in the direction he’d turned to so hard that they actually jump out of his way—but they’re not what he was focused on.

The problem now is that the thing he was focused on—a Shadow aboveground—simply isn’t there now that he’s actually facing where it should have been.

Where, a moment ago, he was sure it had been.

“Ku—Joker?”

Akira ignores the voice, swaps to Lucifer (because he was levelheaded and—despite how low his agility had been when he was first made—he was among the fastest Personas he currently had on him), ignores their words of surprise as he takes off without further warning in the direction he’s certain something should be.

But there’s nothing there.

He spends a few minutes continuing the hunt—Shadows did not come aboveground very often, and Akira did not like it when they did. It felt…wrong somehow. His efforts were in vain.

He returns with little fanfare. In real time, no more than a minute or so had likely passed—but they didn’t experience real time here, and the looks of wary confusion to straight up hostility are probably warranted—if unwanted. He hasn’t exactly been the most forthcoming guy this time around, and the skepticism is deserved.

Doesn’t mean he has to like it, though.

“Sorry. Thought I saw something.”

You did see something.

I know.

Lucifer hums an acknowledgement. The red of his eyes had apparently served to further unsettle them—all but a few of them, anyways.

“So that’s what—you can speak to them in reality, can’t you?”

He grins, all teeth—but to her credit, Makoto doesn’t flinch.

Not a coward, indeed.

“That’s right. Now, a question for you: do you have any targets to take care of?”

She blinks at that, the statement surprising her more than her own well-made conclusion.

“That’s correct. We have a few.”

He shrugs, smile dropping from his face. “Wanna do that first?”

“I—what?”

“My thing won’t take very long,” he tilts his head in consideration. “Probably.”

Oracle grunts from behind Queen. “’Probably’? How do you not know?”

“Do you always know how long your operations in the Metaverse are going to take?”

She stamps her foot at him impatiently. “But you already said it’s not a change of heart!”

He snorts. “Technically, I only implied that: it could totally be a change of heart.”

“You!” Fox calls out, arms crossed.

“But,” he winks coyly at him, grey eyes glittering in that fake Metaverse sun, “it’s not.”

They shift nervously and he decides to stop messing with them.

For now.

He stands up straighter, hands coming out of his pockets to rest lazily at his sides. The change in position has its intended effect: the others shift towards him, too, unconsciously preparing for whatever he has to say.

“It’s nothing as grand as whatever colorful things you all are surely imagining if it’s got you so riled like this. Just something I want to test out. That’s all.”

He lets his voice soften at the end, trying to sound soothing. The way some of their postures untense at his words means it at least kind of works…on some of them. Crow, Noir, and Panther don’t seem to take it as well.

Whatever. He tried.

He spreads his hands, looking back at Queen with a bored expression plastered on his face to hide the anticipation he feels.

“Your call.”

She has to take a moment to parse his words, to figure out what he even means before she remembers his previous question. He tries and likely fails at keeping his impatience at bay.

“Right. Let’s go.”

Their targets, it turns out, were all ones he’s dealt with before.

The man who got plastic surgery and changed his name. Mitsuyo Toga.

When they get to the cheater and can’t figure out how to deal with it, he ignores the others’ calls for a retreat to perform the down shot and they all gape at him when the Ose ends up on his knees. To their credit, they don’t take long enough for the Shadow to stand back up to regain their composure—which is good, because he can only do that so many times per infiltration.

It’s surprisingly hard on the knees.

Now, he’s back on top of his perch above the saferoom—if you could really call the tiny waiting room such a thing—with his legs dangling over the edge, hair rustling pleasantly whenever one of the trains sped by on either of the parallel tracks. He’d turned down the curry that Oracle had made; he never really got so fatigued that he needed it anymore, and even if he did get tired in the Metaverse, Maria and Satanael both had rejuvenating skills. All he really required to heal his injuries or fatigue was time.

The thought nearly makes him grimace.

Most injuries, anyways.

“Joker.”

Oh, were they ready for him?

He kicks himself off of the roof with naturalized grace acquired from years and years of experience in the Metaverse—though he’s proud to say that, if he had focused on it, he’d attained similarly sleek movements in the first run. That’s why Sae’s Palace had been so fun to traverse—especially in the moments leading up to his “unforeseen” arrest.

“What’s up?”

He presses himself against the doorframe, the same position he’d used to stand in whenever he led them in the past. It’s nostalgic, in a sense—or at least it would’ve been, if not for the way the others were staring at him with everything between poorly concealed fear and disgust.

Not that it made much of a difference to him.

“We’re ready. What’s this favor you have in mind?”

He quirks an eyebrow, but doesn’t otherwise move. “I don’t have to tell you.”

Ryuji balks. “Hey man, I dunno how you think we’re gonna be able to help you if you keep bein’ all secretive like this.”

That makes him frown.

“’Help’ me?”

The rest of them react to his words—and this time, all the faces in the room come to a consensus on their feelings.

Confusion.

“Uh…what?” Skull voices everyone else's unsaid thoughts, his face looking to Joker as what he imagines the personification of buffering would appear as.

Panther’s eyes narrow and she leans forward in her seat to better look him in the eyes. “Wait wait wait: you’re saying you don’t need our help?”

“…I’m honestly not really sure where you ever got that impression in the first place.”

“Excuse me, but I dislike you toying with us like this,” Noir breaks in, her face as fiery as it will get.

“I’m not?”

Perplexed, he looks at them, waiting for another response.

“Then…if you’re really not trying to mess with us, and you really don’t need our help…what exactly is it that you want?”

“Oh, that’s simple,” his right hand outstretches slightly as he points to his side, causing the man in its sights to shift and face him. “I want to borrow him for like an hour.”

Chapter Text

Joker isn’t exactly surprised by the sudden onslaught of noise that envelops the safe room like a plague, but he can say it’s unwelcome.

“Dude, what?”

“Why?”

“Don’t go with him, Crow, he’s up to something!” and rude, Morgana—it’s your fault we’re all in this mess to begin with.

“Whatever for?”

He smiles sharply, crooked, mouth upturned in such a way that his expression could only be interpreted as intimidating. “I told you, I don’t have to say why. Besides, you all already agreed to this.”

“C’mon dude, quit messin’ around and tell us what you want already!”

He lets the smile fall from his face like it was dirt Boss had found on LeBlanc’s counter. They all (predictably) tense—even the boy next to him, who’s currently looking at Akira like he’s one of those stupid 3-D puzzles that Mran Mran sold in Shinjuku.

Been there, done that.

But then, what hadn’t he done?

This.

Fair enough.

“Hey! Are you even listening?!” Mona’s shrill voice cuts through his thoughts and he turns to look at the cat with a look that—he swears—wasn’t meant to scare him…but by the way it makes his hair stand up on his comical little arms, that’s exactly what it accomplishes.

He suppresses a sigh, pushing himself against the doorway. It’s hard to tell himself that their reactions were normal, that they’re only worried for their teammate. He’s just so close to seeing this work—

It may not.

Lucifer, please.

A drawn out sigh, merciless wind on a day where his own tears froze to his face, the snuffing of a candle in a dark library of forbidden knowledge.

But the Persona fucks off, so he counts it as a win.

His…he doesn’t want to call it optimism because he’s not particularly optimistic (hasn’t been in so long he’s lost track of the years)…but his something makes it difficult for him to accept what the fallen angel was saying as truth. This was finally something new. He had to at least try, right?

“Akira!”

He blinks, curses internally at the increasingly worried expressions that decorate his former friends’ faces like those paper pumpkins lined the streets of Shibuya during October.

“Stop talking to your Personas and listen to me! We can’t just let you take one of us so suddenly like this. It’s dangerous for anyone to travel in such small groups like that—”

“—it really isn’t, though—”

“—let me finish!” the cat sobers up and he has to stop himself from rolling his eyes, letting that little scrap of empathy he still has left do the legwork for the conversation, “we…we can’t trust you. You say and do all these dangerous things on a whim, and we can’t let you drag one of us around knowing you might not bring them back if it doesn’t suit your mood.”

That…he thinks, maybe, he would’ve felt hurt by that, at one point in time.

Now, though…

“Joker?”

He can’t help it.

“I fail to comprehend what’s so amusing about this situation!” Fox calls roughly, standing and eyeing him with all the hostility he can muster. Akira’s shoulders shake harder.

“I’m sorry, you’re worried about him?!" His voice gets just the slightest bit manic at the end, his more…insistent Personas vying for control that he shoves them away from with ease—it’s yet another thing he’s gotten better at over the years—but the fact that it even gets bad enough to happen pushes him into another bout of laughter. They’re all standing now and he just.

Can’t bring himself to give a damn, really.

Akira.

He stops, freezes in place. His mouth might have come open if he was a little less aware of his reaction. He can’t stop the widening of his eyes, though—which must be pretty obvious since his mask has disappeared from his face.

Move on.

Metatron’s cool, metallic voice—copper and gold, aluminum and lead—chimes like the church organ in Kanda, startling not just him, but everyone in the waiting room. A train rushes past, but he’s hardly aware of it, slowly turning over his right shoulder to view the huge, winged Persona from where it floated just outside the little building. He blinks and—for just a moment—that soft blue hue that enveloped all of his confidants once upon a lifetime ago engulfs both Metatron and Crow. Something like understanding flits at the edge of his consciousness—and he knows by the solemn look on Metatron’s face that it’s not his own.

He takes a breath. Holds it for four seconds, then releases it.

His shoulders slacken, and he feels approval resonate with the Voice of God

Do not let the darkness overtake you. There is a task to be done here. You’ve waited long enough.

He feels himself nodding without really meaning to, wonders if that’s a bad thing before dismissing it. Nothing the Chancellor of Heaven had said was wrong—and they were most certainly right about one thing: he was getting distracted.

Metatron nodded once, the motion making the white gown it wore sway lightly in an unseen breeze. They waste no more time in disappearing back into his mask, and it reappears on his face in a way that is both silent and graceful. Calming—which was likely its intended effect. He stares at the place where it’d disappeared from a moment longer before turning back to the others. Skull, he notes, has drawn his club—and Panther looks moments away from using it to beat him back into his seat. She was right to be worried.

Joker could be kind’ve a prick sometimes.

He puts his hands in his pockets, refocusing on Mona with slow movements both because Metatron’s intervention had evened him out some and out of a cognizant effort not to freak them out more than he probably already had.

Oracle lets out a shaky laugh.

Definitely already had, then.

“Sorry. Got distracted. You were saying?”

“I…” the cat trails off, looking almost lost before he shakes himself out of it (literally) and cranes his head back up at him with a look of unabashed worry, “Are you ok?”

He closes his eyes, letting out a slow, even breath through his nose.

He’s too tired for this.

“Not really.”

“Oh…does this mean that much to you?”

He opens his eyes, cocking his head slightly in the process. Black curls fall in front of one of his mask’s eye holes, slightly obscuring his vision without obscuring his sense of vision; the Third Eye really was a skill to be marveled at. Mental fatigue makes him answer more honestly than he probably should.

“Yeah, I guess it does.”

Mona frowns, searching his face for something Akira’s not even sure he’ll be able to find.

Another train passes by, this time on the tracks nearest to the little glass room. The wind makes his overcoat sway slightly, the force making the tiles beneath his pointed boots vibrate with its intensity. No one speaks for a long, quiet moment.

Mona turns to Queen, a certainty in his expression the likes of which surprises even him.

“I think we should let him. Err, if Crow’s up for it, I mean.”

“What?”

“Morgana, you cannot be serious.”

“…Mona-chan?”

Queen says nothing for a time, casting him a long, wary glance before turning those astute brown eyes back down at their shortest friend.

“Why?”

Mona hums, ears wilting slightly under the combined weight of all of their gazes, but he doesn’t back down.

“I can’t put my finger on it—”

“That’s cuz you don—OWW!”

“Shut it, Skull!” Panther finished, tucking her whip back into oblivion where she kept the rest of her things.

“—but I think everything will be fine.” He looks right into Joker’s eyes before he continues, determination hardening his expression in a way that reminds him of his first journey through a sinful castle, of thieves tools and yellow scarves and grappling hooks.

A part of him—an old, mostly inactive one—feels just a little lighter.

“I trust him.”

The others don’t seem to appreciate his answer, but even Joker can tell that they at least respect his opinion.

Panther shifts, arms crossing in front of a skintight suit.

“I don’t know, Mona…”

Noir hums, seeming lost in thought. Queen’s hand comes to rest under her chin. Joker leans back against the door frame again, intent on letting them work this out for themselves. He shuts his eyes, focusing on the slow intake of air into his lungs.

“Can we come with you?” Oracle asks, the frown appearing more in her voice than on her face.

He cracks open a single eye before he answers, grey locking onto the green and black of her goggles.

“Nope.”

She grumbles. “Why not?”

“You’ll mess it up.”

“That doesn’t—”

He sighs, bringing one red hand over his head to stretch his neck. “Look: I want to test something. You’ll interfere with the results, and I’m already not sure if it’s even gonna work at all,” his neck pops, the sound drowned out by yet another cognitive train, red windows glinting in unseen light, “I’d rather not chance it.”

“Are you going to kill him?”

He raises an eyebrow at Queen’s sudden question, but she doesn’t meet his eyes, opting instead to stare out at the cognitions of people impatiently waiting for the train to the Depths.

“…why do you ask?”

She doesn’t answer right away, a low hum sounding from deep in her throat. “I won’t pretend to understand the extent of it, but,” she pauses, finally turning to look him in the eyes, “You seem particularly…interested in him.”

The confusion must show clearly on his face, because she continues without further prompting, commanding the attention of the room with the ease and surety of the Leader she’s become.

“That bit with the mask telepathy in that strange Palace, the way you always watch for his reactions to everything—even making sure he agreed with the terms of our deal despite his temporary status as a Phantom Thief—all of these actions almost make it seem like you set him up.”

And oh, was it a good thing Metatron had intervened. He’d be going ballistic right now with that rhetoric shoved into his face.

He can’t stop the lazy smile that graces his face, though.

“Yeah,” he spreads his hand, arms coming out of his pockets and into a shrug, “That’s ‘cause I did.”

“What? Why? And why would you admit it?”

He shrugs, letting one hand rest loosely on a hip. Ever the arbiter, Crow himself stays silent and unreadable—probably waiting to hear the whole of it before deciding anything for himself.

“You’ve already got it figured out—why bother hiding it?”

“But…”

He continues, standing a bit straighter. “I want to try something, and I need him to do it.”

“None of us would work?”

He shakes his head and her skepticism soars.

“And just why is that?”

“Yeah man, what the ‘eff?”

He snorts, but doesn’t move anymore before answering. “If I was going to tell you that, I already would have.”

“You—”

“I think I’ve heard enough.”

The entire room turns to the man in white, his red mask hanging loosely from the fingers of his right hand—a stark contrast to the rest of his posture.

“I—Crow…”

He raises his left hand in a smooth and simple manner, cutting Panther’s words of concern off as effectively as if he’d yelled. He never takes his eyes off of Joker, whose own eyes light up with something like interest.

“I don’t think he means to kill me. If he wanted to do something so permanent, he likely would have killed us all already. Furthermore,” he continues, eyes hardening ever so slightly, “I believe whatever he wants requires my cooperation—after all, if it were something simple, he likely would have just forced us to go along with it. As for why it has to be me…that I can honestly say I am unsure of, but,” his Detective Prince smile returns to his face and he turns away to regard Queen with a regal look, “nothing you Phantom Thieves ever do is truly risk-free. If this is the sort of risk I have to take in order to be a true part of your group and alleviate us of this burden, then so be it.”

He turns back to Joker and nods once, firmly.

“Joker, I accept the terms of your favor.”

Joker laughs, once, before turning back to Queen with a wink.

“See? Everything’s good on our end. See you in an hour?”

She hesitates, glancing at the others before looking back to Mona.

Mona simply nods.

“Be careful, Crow.”

“Ahaha, I intended to,” he turns to Joker, “shall we?”

Akira turns on his heel, and he can stop the smile on his face as Akechi follows behind, perfectly in step.

Goro is so fucked.

He honestly hadn't noticed that Joker was more attached to him than the others; really, he'd been more focused in the past week with making it seem like his interest in Kurusu wasn't called into question…but now that Nijima said something, well.

Now it was dawning on him that some of the other's interactions hadn't exactly been normal themselves.

And now, here they both are at the entrance to Mementos, about to wander into the first area below ground because Joker had used a Go-Hom the second they'd walked up the escalator from the floor the Thieves were on for reasons he hadn't bothered explaining. A weird, muted excitement makes the younger man's movements slightly more energetic—more pep in his step, as the expression went. It's got Goro on edge; it just didn't fit with what he knew about the boy. He was always exhausted, always out-of-it, staring off into space and acting erratically whenever he didn’t. It means that whatever he's "testing out" (as he put it) actually improved his mood enough for it to show in his actions—and considering the otherwise tight control the other had on his emotional state, that meant it was significant.

And somehow, he'd found himself in the center of it all.

It wasn't on accident, either: he'd admitted as much so freely to their "leader" without caring for the implications behind his words at all, seeming more impressed, if anything, that she'd figured him out, than upset.

It was, perhaps, the second time in his life he'd felt wanted for who he was.

He can't say he cares for it.

They make it through the first area in silence—and he means that literally. There was no reason to uphold the pretense of the righteous Detective Prince around Kurusu because for some reason, he already seemed to know exactly who he was. If there was one thing he was beginning to understand about the other, it was that he didn't really like lying. This meant that he didn't bother appearing louder or clumsier than he actually was as this fearsome "Black Mask" they were all so scared of, and Kurusu had never bothered with such theatrics at all. Goro is not fool enough to say the other was above it, but he'd upheld his end of the deal and then some thus far, had freely admitted when he was hiding things from them…so far as he's been able to tell, hadn't uttered a single lie that he's been able to catch him on.

In a sense, it was terrifying.

It meant that every time he'd done something just to mess with them, every aspect of this carefully crafted deal, all of it…it was all so…intentional in ways that he just doesn't like. His nonchalant attitude to danger, his apathy regarding the Phantom Thieves' current situation—even to the mental shutdown and psychotic breakdown cases…it wasn’t just an act.

He just genuinely didn't give a shit.

So what the fuck was so important about this favor that it got even Akira excited?

He's so absorbed by his own musings that he doesn't notice Akira has stopped in front of the escalators to the second area until he nearly walks into him, Metaverse reflexes stopping him just at the last moment. He addresses Crow without even turning to look at him, infuriating him in a way that makes dark tendrils of hate grip at his psyche, egging Loki on while grabbing Robin Hood's attention as surely as if he'd been summoned.

"...You're actually kinda freaked out about this, huh."

It's not a question, but pride won't let him accept the statement for fact. He opens his mouth to retaliate—

Joker hums, hands shifting in his pockets as he thinks.

"I'd explain what it is we're doing, but…" he shakes his head, and from what little Goro can glean from his expression, he seems almost…wistful? "It'll be easier just to show you. Here."

When he turns to face him, his face has reverted back to one of bored neutrality—though grey eyes betray more than the stoic man likely wants to let on. In his hands are a variety of items, some of which he'd seen placed on his old wooden desk in various stages of production in LeBlanc’s attic.

"Elemental items?"

He can't keep the confusion out of his voice; it's an odd grouping, after all, and he's not sure what to make of it.

"Yeah. You'll see why in a bit. Ready to go?"

He stares at him blankly before taking them, mouth asking the burning question on his mind without consulting the rest of his brain.

"You're not going to attack me?"

He feels a bit of satisfaction at the way the black-haired man's eyes shine with the same confusion he hasn't been able to shake himself, but it's gone almost as soon as it appeared, replaced by that carefully crafted boredom. It's as much of a mask as Goro’s own, even if the reflection isn't exactly the same.

"...you thought I was going to fight you?"

The mere way he says it makes Crow instantly regret his choice of words—though the feeling is nothing compared to the rage at the man's humor that appears as a lazy grin, at crinkled eyes.

"Look, I know you don't have much of a reason to believe this, but I don't have any intention of hurting you or anything," he spreads red hands palms facing Crow in a display of openness as he continues, "it's like you said: I could do something like that any time I wanted to."

His own eyes narrow. "Then it's also true that you require my participation in some manner."

His own lips twitch up when the man's smile fades into something more subdued. His hands go back into oversized pockets. "That's right. Now come on, I want to get this over with."

And what a novel statement that was, for the man who spoke it both agreed and disagreed with it.

The first several battles they engage in start and end in much the same way: instantaneously. There's just enough time for him to register what the Shadow even turns into before they're all decimated. Two Brutal Cavalryman, a Menacing Owlman, an Apprentice in a Jug. The green horse thing that he's never bothered talking to because trying to hold a conversation with a dimwit was a waste of his time.

Just as he's about to question the point of all of this, they finally run into a pair of Zealous Messengers. Kurusu kills the first with no preamble, but as for the second, he carefully tosses a small, comically shaped black bomb at her, knocking her down immediately. He raises his gun at her, urging him to play along with his eyes, and he does so without hesitation, waiting to see where this is going.

"Watch, ok?"

Kurusu doesn't wait for an answer before he strikes up a conversation with her.

"I can't believe you would point a gun at me? Are you playing a prank or something?"

Kurusu winks and Goro raises an eyebrow, unimpressed.

"Wouldn’t dream of it."

"Oh gosh! You've got me all in a tizzy!" The Shadow thinks for a moment, the leather restraints it's dressed in leaving little up to the imagination and leaving a bitter taste in his mouth. Did they have to do this? "Oh, I know! What do you say about catching a movie later?"

Gods, talking to Shadows was obnoxious.

"My treat, of course," he says smoothly, grinning wildly as the Shadow happily spins about, chains jingling in the open air.

"My, you remind me of—oh! I remember now! I'm Angel, a part of the collective unconscious. I am thou, though art I!"

And with that, the Shadow disappears, flying into Kurusu’s mask with a sound reminiscent of poor special effects in a movie theater.

What the fuck?

Honestly, the way Crow was gaping at this moment was really making the frustrations of this run that had led to this point entirely worth it. He'd only remembered on his way down here today that he'd never actually shown any of them Shadow Negotiations this time around. It wasn't really something he even had much of a use for anymore; nothing he could strike up a contract with would ever be stronger than the Personas he'd fused and trained and adapted to the point he had them at now.

Except maybe Arséne.

Rude.

He allows himself a smile for that one. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he turns on Crow, waiting for him to adapt.

"I—how?"

He summons Angel in front of them for Crow to see, causing the other boy to scrutinize it much more carefully than before.

"I just spoke with her, appealed to her temperament, and struck a contract."

He's silent for a long time before he finally turns away from her, locking brown eyes with grey.

"Why did I need to see this, though?"

He frowns.

"This is what I borrowed you for."

"To watch you…" he trails off, apparently catching onto his actual intentions.

"You get it," he says with a nod, turning to scan the area for more Shadows (Shadows who, unfortunately, avoided him like the plague). "We will have to find more, though…"

The other Persona-user hums, pulling him from his thoughts.

"It won’t work with all of them?"

"No."

But what he actually means is not for you.

A frown tugs at his face. "Why is that?"

Joker bites the inside of his lip slightly, teeth helping to ground him as he chews on his answer.

"I can try to explain, but it might be difficult to understand."

The flash of irritation across his face is what first alerts Akira that he made a poor choice of words.

"I assure you that I am more than capable of understanding whatever half-baked rationale you've surely conjured up for this."

He exhales, looking off at Angel. "That's not what I…never mind. How much do you know about tarot?"

Akechi blinks—just once, but it's clear that he's been caught off guard. "Admittedly not much…why ask?"

"Alright, we'll start there. All Personas, Shadows, whatever, they all have an arcana associated with the tarot deck's major arcana," he hums as he rethinks that, then amends the statement, "Well, mostly major arcana anyways. There's a few exceptions. Now," he looks back at Akechi, who's absorbing the information with a mix of intense focus and disbelief. "Summon one of your Personas "

His eyes widen for half a second before reverting back to normal. "I see…very well. Robin Hood."

The muscular, white Persona appeared with a flourish of red, standing at its master's side at attention. Joker nods, keeping Angel in place.

"Do you see the commonality between the two?"

"...what?'

Akira sighs, gesturing to his side with more than a little impatience. "She's a part of the Justice arcana, the major arcana that you and all of your Personas share."

His eye twitches. "You expect me to believe I share anything with a harlot?"

"I know you think I'm insulting you, but—"

"—this is a waste of my time."

Akira grinds his teeth together before he releases Angel with a flash of blue light.

"Metatron!"

Akechi watches him carefully as the holy harbinger reappears, its sheer power hitting him like a bolt of lightning.

"What are you…?"

Child of Justice, he speaks the truth. Can you not feel it?

Metatron flies closer, reaches out a hand to Akechi that the older boy only stares at before glancing back at him warily.

Take my hand, and decide for yourself.

And with but a moment's more reluctance, Akechi did. Akira feels a bit bad when he staggers forward, but Metatron is there to catch him, a not-unkind hand steadying his shoulder with ease. There wasn't anything he could do to convince him anymore. He'd either see it for what it was or this entire experience would become infinitely more unbearable.

After a moment, Akechi blinked and staggered back a step. Apparently satisfied with their work, Metatron disappeared again, unceremoniously returning to Akira's mask without prompting.

"I…what was that?"

Joker shakes his head; it's not like Metatron had shared what they did with him. He trusted the Persona enough not to hurt the other boy, but beyond that…

Robin Hood shifts in place, turning to look down at the boy by his side.

Akira's not sure what exactly is said, but the way the other's face alights with shock at least told him something happened.

"I…will choose to believe your words. For now."

Joker hums, acknowledging his statement without necessarily agreeing with it.

"Alright. Then let's head down a floor. I don't feel like fighting the Reaper today."

At Akechi’s silent nod, they continue.

It's only then that things get problematic. The first two times they run across more Angels, he's too formal. The next three, he's too fake.

They have to go down another floor before he starts saying some things right, but by the time they've fought two more Angels that got so irate they attacked them despite the massive power difference, the sound of chains has them running down the stairs.

Yes, he could technically fight the Reaper. Yes, he'd win, and yes, it wouldn't be that much of an issue…but it's still somewhat taxing and he'd still have to keep Crow alive for it…better just to avoid it, if they could.

A dozen battles later and Crow looks ready to give up (not that he'd ever admit that to Akira, but he knows him too well…he wouldn't ever give up on a challenge like this, but he clearly wasn't invested in it anymore).

This really isn't gonna pan out, is it?

I am sorry, Child of The Fool.

"Alright," Akechi says, cutting off his reply to Maria.

Guess this is it, then.

So much for that.

"We're trying this my way."

And…ok, not what he'd expected to hear, but fine.

"And how's that?"

Crow scans the area and takes off at the first Shadow that pops up. Suppressing a sigh, Joker follows, already prepared to give him the 'Shadows have different personalities' speech that he knows Crow already knows because of his navigation in Maruki’s Palace every year. Or what used to be every year.

Lately, he does that on his own.

He's not surprised that the Berith ends up attacking them. He's not surprised that so does the Agathion, nor the next two Angels, nor that the Archangel just throws a Life Stone at them before leaving. He is surprised that Crow keeps going. But Akira has his limits, and their hour is almost up (because he'd forgotten to specify it meant a real-time hour and not an actual hour, so he was unfortunately going with the latter).

The next Shadow is an Obariyon, and Joker doesn't have to tell Crow what it's weak too; he already seemed to know as he tased it with the stun-gun that disappears once he uses it.

"Oh mister, what did I ever do to you?"

Pissed, Crow spits out a laugh, the sound alarming him with how sharp it is.

"What the fuck is it to you?"

"Haha, you're kinda funny, huh? Say," it pauses a hand on its chin, "What's your favorite kind of game?"

"Destroying anything that gets in my way," and ok, calm down buddy.

"R-really? Me too!" Akira's head snaps back to the downed Shadow, because there was no way this shit was actually working?

"Oh! You know what, mister? I just remembered! My name's Obariyon, and we're gonna be best pals and beat the shit outta anything you want as long as you got that mask!"

"Wait, wha—?"

His words are cut off as Obariyon retreats into that red pointed mask. Joker’s knees weaken as reality sets in.

Holy shit.

Holy shit!

It actually worked.

Chapter Text

“Joker?”

Akira blinks, then turns away from Crow as he processes the fact that he had just, in fact, been staring at him in stunned silence for what must have been at least a few minutes.

“Uh. Sorry. I just…wasn’t expecting that to work.” He awkwardly rubs the back of his neck, his back now to the other Persona-user.

The other Wild Card.

Fuck.

Indeed.

“…so I gathered. I have to ask,” Crow continues—and if it had been anybody else, the sudden proximity of his voice would have surprised Akira, but Crow was literally an assassin. He’s only really been able to pick up on the other’s footsteps when he didn’t mask their sound or when Akira focused on the small, muffled noise they made. It would make less sense if he had heard him approach. “Why is it that you were so adamant on trying this?”

He's maybe a few steps away at this point, but Akira can’t bring himself to care because he’s reeling on the inside because Akechi’s got another Persona! That was crazy!

This was crazy!

He hears the other man make a noise of confusion from nearby, but he hardly notices it—nor the wide grin that splits his own face.

“Wow. I just…wow,” he says eloquently.

Crow huffs a laugh. “I presume this is the reason you have so many Personas?”

“Kind of? I didn’t negotiate with any of the ones on me, though.”

He turns back to him, face settling back into his normal, neutral frown. Crow’s quirked a single eyebrow—which is hard to tell behind that red beaked mask.

“So, what’s…Obariyon, was it—” He stops mid-sentence, his eyes flashing a telling red that surprised brown eyes struggle to cover up. Joker snorts; he could pretend all he wanted, but Akira’s done this too many times to be fooled by the act. It was impossible not to know a Shadow’s name once you forged a contract with them—a fact that Obariyon must clearly be discussing with Crow right now.

It’s a while later that unfocused eyes blink themselves back into awareness, and Akechi looks back into his own with a frown. “As I was saying,” and there’s a slight edge in his voice that Akira can tell isn’t directed at him, “I assume Obariyon belongs to the Justice arcana as well?”

Joker tilts his head, lips threatening to downturn before he stops the motion from appearing on his face, “What?”

The other’s frown deepens. “That’s what you were saying before: the other Shadows wouldn’t work for this because their arcana was not that of Justice.”

Without thinking about it, he answers.

“No, Obariyon isn’t Justice.”

“Well, then what is he?”

Oh.

Oh boy.

He had not thought this through.

Internally scrambling whilst outwardly not reacting (an interesting mix that some of his Personas noted in silence), he opens his mouth to answer—

*clink*, *clink*, *clink*

And never had Joker been happier to hear those chains than he is in that moment.

They don’t bother exchanging words before they book it to the escalators, and by the grace of some god or goddess that had actually listened to his silent plea, Akechi appears too lost in his own head by the time they arrive at the next floor to pick up their conversation.

After that, they make it nearly back to the others—Joker’s started heading down the escalator to the safe room they were most assuredly still waiting before he stops himself, causing the boy behind him in the ridiculous prince get-up to (uncharacteristically) almost walk into him before the sound of a foot scuffing those worn Mementos tiles gives away his slip.

“Hey. Let me explain, ok?”

“Hmm? What?”

Geez, was Obariyon giving him that many problems? It was like he couldn’t pay attention to anything.

Wonder who that could remind you of?

Too bad that’s not familiar behavior at all, huh?

Why do I talk to any of you?

“The others don’t know why I borrowed you for this, remember? I’m gonna make something up. Just play along, alright?”

The silence that follows makes him actually turn around to face him—and he instantly regrets it because of the complicated looking expression gracing his normally unperturbed face.

“Why?”

“What do you mean, ‘why’?”

And yeah, if his eye twitched a little in irritation at the question, he can’t really be faulted for that, right? What was there to be confused about?

The other’s eyes flatten at his response, and a gloved hand comes up to rest on his hip. Cold, uncomprehending calculation overtakes his features—making Akira feel very much like the last piece of Yakisoba Pan at the school store with the intensity that comes with his gaze.

“You could just tell them the truth,” and before Akira can even open his mouth to explain why that was a shit idea, he continues, voice somewhat annoyed, “I understand why explaining the full details to their little group would be bad for me,” and Joker’s eyes widen just a bit as he starts to understand the problem, “but for you? No, I can’t grasp what you would have to gain from keeping this a secret.”

Akechi’s eyes narrow further and he resists the urge to shrink away from him like the kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar that he felt like.

“Or any of the other information you seem so intent on hoarding, for that matter.”

Ah. Well. Yes.

That.

Uhhhhh…

He stares. Blinks once. Twice.

Then he turns back around and heads down the escalators without another word, years of practice making Crow’s irritated hand that comes to yank him back up exceedingly easy to dodge.

As expected, the rest of them are huddled up in a group inside the same glass enclosure he’d left them in. Their voices are hushed and—occasionally—frantic, but he’s too far away to make out any of the words. Not that the trains that pass by every once in a while make that any easier.

When Oracle spots the two of them descending (and yeah, Akechi was fully resubmerged in his Detective Prince act, so he’d at least dodged that bullet for now), she clears her throat in a way that is both very loud and extremely awkward, catching the attention of the rest of the Thieves as she turns back to her phone.

Akira had asked her once about that: apparently, she fiddled around with different programming languages in Mementos during their free time. Most languages had a free phone app, and she liked to try out different inputs and see what they did (if anything) in different situations.

In other words, she was a massive nerd.

“Joker, Crow. You’re back.”

He should probably feel at least a little bad at the worry in Queen’s voice, but…

Well, it’s not like Crow had ever been in any real danger—and he doesn’t feel like apologizing for something he isn’t actually sorry for. He keeps his mouth shut.

“Ah yes, sorry to worry you.”

“What did you end up doing?”

His turn. “I wanted to test out some of the insta-kill nullifying items I crafted, but doing that alone is kind of a horrible idea.”

“You what?!”

He rolls his eyes. “See, this is why I didn’t want to tell you.”

Queen’s eyes narrow. “Why did you need just him for that?”

Is it bad he’s getting kind of excited that they’re not just blindly accepting it?

No, it makes the game more interesting.

“His Persona is the only one that naturally resists and is weak to the elements that the insta-kills come in,” and ok, this statement was true enough for them: but he’d seen a Rift once where the Shadows had had access to all kinds of different elemental, one-shot attacks. Like, literally all of them.

It was a shit Rift. 0/10.

Worse than the mansion?

Is that what we’re calling it?

That or the labyrinth.

“Wait, dude, how’d you even test that? Ain’t like there’s a lotta Shadows with that kinda ability.”

Fox murmurs something and Oracle gasps. “Did you go back to the part where Anubis is and just farm him for EXP?”

Queen sighs. “Oracle, this isn’t like a game. Killing Shadows doesn’t work like that.”

It’s kind of a game, though.

And…maybe that wasn’t a horrible way of putting it? They did get tougher after they took out a lot of Shadows, and killing Shadows is also what made their Personas learn new abilities as time progressed. Not that Akira’s really worked that way: he didn’t used to keep any of his Personas long enough that they could learn new skills before he’d toss them into the meat grinder to make better ones.

That was a long time ago now, though.

“Oh, no. We just waited for the Reaper to show up.”

Not technically a lie, except that they’d only done that by accident. Three times in one trip.

This time, it’s Panther who cuts in. “Wait, wouldn’t that mean his participation was extra dangerous? He’s weak to curse!”

Joker gestures to Crow—who looks somehow amused, irritated, and the tiniest bit impressed—with a red-gloved hand, sweeping it down to better display his untarnished attire. “Does it look like it was that dangerous?”

“Just because he didn’t get messed up from it doesn’t mean he couldn’t have.”

Joker hums. “But he didn’t.”

“Joker!”

“If I may intervene?”

The Thieves’ attention shifts to the detective in silence. Akira places his hands back in his pockets.

“Everything turned out alright in the end, yes? Had he brought the entire group, there was a chance that he wouldn’t have had enough items for everyone or that, worse, they didn’t function as intended and all of us were wiped out. This, while risky, was still less of a gamble than involving the entire team—and besides, he turned out to be an excellent craftsman. I don’t see the reason to dwell on it any longer.”

“Well…” Noir starts reluctantly, “when you put it like that…”

“I still don’t like it.” Skull grumbles, foot kicking up the dust that had long settled onto cracked tiles below their feet.

“May I ask what you all were conversing about before we arrived?”

When they collectively freeze under those blinding fluorescent lights, Joker knows that the conversation’s about to take a turn. The rest of the Thieves turn to Queen, and she looks at each of them in turn before sighing, her steely gaze turning back to his own. Somehow, it reminds him of the look he used to get just before he had to rip the bandage off of an open wound.

“We were wondering how exactly it was that you were able to enter the high limits floor without attending the court case we all sat in on.”

He looks at them for a long time, uncharacteristically serious eyes boring into no one for a moment before fixing themselves onto Makoto’s unwavering face.

“No you’re not.”

“Excuse me?”

His eyes narrow and Oracle audibly gulps. “You already knew that just accompanying someone who’d been in a courthouse wouldn’t work: Akechi’d probably been in the very room you’d infiltrated dozens of times before you sat in on one of her cases, yet your group was still collectively denied access when you went to that floor in her Palace the first time. You also already know that Sae had been investigating Sojiro and, by association, everyone else in his household, including myself. That’s how Sae knew I’d been to a courtroom before. So, be real here: that’s not what you’re asking. Get on with it.”

“What exactly are you asking us to say here?”

“I’m telling you to ask your actual question.”

Skull clicks his tongue. “Damn it, fine—when you transferred here, everyone at school already knew about your record and all that, but we all kinda just assumed it maybe got overplayed…’cept then we all saw how you really act in the Metaverse and…and it’s got us thinking…”

When he trails off to an uncomfortable silence, shoulders hunching as he went on from where he sat in his seat, Fox cuts in with words sharper than his blade. “We want to know the extent to which the rumors surrounding you at Shujin are true. From what we understand, you were convicted of assault, and given your erratic behavior, such a crime isn’t something I would put past you.”

Akira feels his face go blank.

Tension slowly creeps into the air, seeping through the tiles and the glass windows of the train platform the longer the silence stretches out. It shows in their postures, too—taut shoulders and sweaty palms and wide, nervous gazes. It’s in that moment that he actually feels something besides the latent exhaustion and terrible cynicism that's plagued his every thought for so long he’s forgotten what it felt like to be without it.

And in that moment, he was.

“…what’s the point of answering a question you’ve all come to a conclusion on?”

His voice is soft, but there’s no threat to it. Just…

“Wait!”

Hurt.

It reminds him of listening to that recording in his room with Futaba and Morgana, of Akechi’s cool words describing in detail the way his death would be staged as a suicide.

Ah, that’s what this is.

Betrayal.

“Don’t contact me unless we’re finishing the job in Sae’s Palace. Don’t want to hang around a dangerous criminal any longer than you have to, right?”

And without glancing back at any of them, he activates the Go-Hom, leaving the Metaverse in much the same way as he spent the vast majority of his time:

Alone.

“If all you wanted was confirmation that he was convicted of assault, I could have told you that much.”

Goro finally breaks the silence that followed Kurusu’s departure, and like glass, the rest of the Thieves shatter in place, remembering where they are and what they’re doing.

“We…wanted to make sure he wasn’t planning on harming anyone. When he took you alone, I think our fears got the best of us.” Okumura says quietly, a small frown upon her face.

For some indiscernible reason, it irritates him.

“But,” he continues, just the slightest edge to his otherwise empty voice, “I also could have told you that the circumstances surrounding his case were…abnormal.”

Nijima’s eyes find him, conflict and skepticism shining through the dark brown of her eyes. “How so?”

He shifts, hand coming up to his chin in mock contemplation. In reality, he’d reviewed what little there was to read about it dozens of times already, but he can’t appear too invested. “For starters? The time between his arrest and conviction was less than 48 hours.”

“Wait, why’s that so strange?”

“He was 16—a minor—and convicted with a felony assault charge in less time than it takes to assign a prosecutor to most cases—let alone a defense attorney. The rate at which his case progressed would be strange even if he wasn’t a minor.”

“Wait, ain’t that kinda ‘effed up?”

“It is exceedingly strange, yes. Furthermore, not even I could figure out who the victim was, and I had access to all of the police accounts and the single witness statement.”

“How can that be? I thought even though the victim is typically kept anonymous from the public, the police had access to the victim’s identity so that in the case of a repeat offense, the offender could be sentenced more harshly in the future?”

“That’s how it is supposed to work, yes. But there wasn’t even a description of the victim kept on file, nothing at all that could be used to determine their identity.”

Takamaki shifts in her chair, her absurd suit shifting with each movement if her arms. “Um…well, you’re making it kinda sound like something’s up with this.”

The cat hums, a cartoonish paw coming to prod at its own cheek. “I don’t like the sounds of this…,” it looks up at him with hard blue eyes, steely with determination, “Do you think he was wrongfully convicted?”

“Hmm. That’s not really for me to say. The only thing I can say for sure is that the events surrounding the case are rather odd. I can honestly say I haven’t seen another quite like it,” and then, his actual opinion, “however, I think there is likely more to it than the police reports show—especially considering how the court’s ruling turned out for him in the end…and the fact that the area where the crime was supposedly committed most certainly had security cameras that there are no records of the responding officers even checking. It was in a residential area, after all: most complexes have at least a few near the entrances and exits, and there were several different complexes in the area.”

They sulk in silence for a while and Goro lets them, his mind admittedly elsewhere.

With me, right mister?

Ah, yes. The monster-kid.

It’s Obariyon!

Yes, and my name isn’t ‘mister’, either, but I suppose we’ll both have to suffer through this.

Obariyon grumbles. Loki cackles. Robin Hood remains silent—but in a way that almost concerns him, because he’d seemed almost…content.

Like Kurusu’s meddling with this ‘negotiation’ business had somehow proven him right.

He shifts. Perhaps it had.

Gee, you think too much, mister.

He sighs internally. Shutting this one out was proving to be somehow more difficult than it had with Loki and Robin Hood. Maybe it’s because he’s just not used to him yet?

Hehe. You’re only kinda right, mister.

Wait, you know why?

Ummm, sorta? It’s real weird in here. I bet that’s kinda why.

That isn’t even remotely useful information.

“Crow?”

He turns back to Nijima, ignoring the way that Obariyon sticks his tongue out at him in his mind’s eye.

“Do you think you could talk to him for us?”

There was no need to explain which him they were referring to.

He frowns. “I could, but I fear it may do more harm than good right now. Perhaps we should let him be for a while? He seemed rather upset.”

And that was true enough—as odd as that was to wrap his head around. Why was it that this one sentiment held by a group of people he hardly knew bothered him to such a degree?

Ah, but there was the rub: he’d forgotten that Kurusu had supposedly been tailing them for quite a while. Perhaps he thought of them as being closer than they really were because of that proximity?

It feels as though there is more to this…

Nijima sighs. “You’re probably right. We should have approached that in a different way.”

Goro isn’t thinking straight. The events of the day, strange as they were, were getting to his head, and he’s admittedly more distracted than he’d normally be. Perhaps that’s why the words tumble from his lips like a glass from a countertop, shattering into pieces as they’re absorbed into the frail little minds of the Phantom Thieves.

“Or perhaps you shouldn’t have approached it at all.”

They all turn to him again, and he realizes that 1) he’d spoken that out loud and 2) that he was now going to have to explain himself in a way that actually made sense.

Fuck.

“I beg your pardon?”

Takamaki shifts. Noir’s brows knit together as she locks eyes with him, an open-mouthed frown upon her face.

“To be completely transparent with you,” and that was a fucking lie, he’d never be transparent with them, “I don’t understand why you brought it up at all.”

That, at least, was the truth.

“Huh? Dude, he committed assault!” the moron’s eyes light up like he’d only just now remembered the conversation they’d had less than a minute ago, and then he dips his head down in something like shame, “Err, at least, we thought he did…”

“And?”

“Wha—how could we not need to know that if we were going to be travelling with him?” Nijima counters—but that bravado from before has somehow fled her voice (gone, probably, with her sense of reason that must have also vacated her brain when she’d decided to broach the subject with Kurusu).

“I fail to see why that matters. From what I’ve both seen and heard, he’s been tailing your group for at least as long as, what? Since June? And from what Mona said, he’s saved your lives on multiple occasions during that time. So why the fear, then? Even if he has the potential to be dangerous, he obviously isn’t a threat to any of you. The very nature of having this power makes all of us dangerous, but whether or not we are actually threats to anyone ourselves depends entirely upon our actions here, does it not?”

They all watch him, stunned to silence. He resists the urge to roll his eyes: how was any of this groundbreaking information at this point?

Takamaki is the first to speak. “I…I think we made a mistake. Y’know, when he first started, Shiho was worried about all of those rumors about him. It kinda just seemed like he brushed them off, but…”

Fox closes his eyes, resting his chin on the back of one hand. “Perhaps, in broaching this subject, we’ve become no different than our fear-mongering peers: judging Kurusu without first knowing all of the information.”

“Damn it!”

How expressive.

I think he’s silly!

This was a mistake.

“Oh man. I think we messed up,” the cat says, ears wilting under the self-applied pressure.

Whatever. It’s not like this really changed anything so far as their deal with Kurusu was concerned…however…

It may change whether or not our interactions can continue.

I wouldn’t worry about that, mister.

Hmm? And why is that?

Huh? Are you stupid? It’s ‘cause I’m here!

I hardly see what that—

I though you were a detective, but you’re actually kinda dumb, huh?

Irritation makes it easier to cover Obariyon’s words up, but it also makes him realize how amused Loki’s become at the entire interaction.

“Well. I think we’ve spent enough time in the Metaverse today. If we’re not going to pursue any more targets, might I suggest we return?”

If Nijima wasn’t going to say it, he had to.

After all, he still had a job to do.

“Right…let’s go, everyone.”

It's only when he they make it back to the first level of Mementos that Obariyon speaks to him again.

So...are you not gonna ask what that is?

Keep quiet.

Huh. I thought you'd be more excited about it.

What are you even talking about?

I dunno, but it sure is cool, huh?

And that's when he sees it, his legs refusing to cooperate with his head as he stumbles, nearly tripping into Sakura in the process.

"Geez, did you actually get hit by one of those instant kill moves after all?"

His head snaps back to her in alarm

Do they actually not...

"Uh, Earth to Crow? Are you ok?"

Now wasn't the time.

"Ahaha, sorry, I'm fine. Just a bit dizzy."

She looks unconvinced, but ultimately shrugs and turns back to the others, who hadn't so much as paused.

What the fuck is that?

And it was a fair question, because sitting off to the side sat an untouched, ornate looking transparent blue door, it's frame surrounded by a strange, ethereal blue light.

Chapter Text

”…claims that the secretary suddenly lost consciousness at his desk. His advisor—who is not being named yet to protect her identity—found him slumped over his desk in a pool of his own blood, and despite numerous attempts at resuscitation by a staff member trained in CPR, the man was pronounced dead shortly after first responders arrived on the scene—“

Akira wrings out the dish cloth, folding it in half before spreading it out to dry over the metal hanging bar.

”—is what experts say contributed to the employees at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building to finally speak out against the poor working conditions, ultimately causing the resignation of governor Daguchi. Elected officials were left scrambling…”

It was best to let the towels take up as much space as possible when air drying them like this. They not only dried faster, but also more evenly.

”And now a word from our sponsors…”

The Junes theme plays over the TV speakers, rattling around in his ears with the rest of the café’s ambient noises: the clinking of ceramic cups upon old wooden countertops, the quiet but heated conversation of one of the local elderly couples at the table closest to the door, the faint flush of the toilet as heard through thin walls. The Boss’ sigh, the sound of polished dress shoes tapping on creaky wooden floorboards—

Damn.

“Hey, kid? Can you run up to Muramasa?”

Akira turns to look at Sojiro, expression almost unreadable save a subtle look of encouragement. There wasn’t a need for it, of course: Akira would never refuse Sojiro. He owed him too much—and yeah, this may not be exactly the same man who brought curry to his room the night after he’d been “killed”, it might not be the same rendition of the father figure whose mere touch had been enough to ease him out of a panic attack a dozen runs later. No, he wasn’t the same…but unlike with the others, he couldn’t find it in himself to hold that against the man.

Maybe that’s why his dexterous hands have already began untying the simple knot at his back before Sojiro’s even finished asking his question.

“We just need some more chocolate for the curry.”

Akira found that a bit odd: he’d thought they had enough for at least a few more batches.

Maybe he’s expecting a rush on Sunday?

As if.

Not that it really mattered to him.

Besides, handling the Boss’ request provided yet another way to avoid one of the many problems that were plaguing his thoughts even more than his Personas.

Hey!

Goro Akechi.

The other boy had been silent so far, patiently waiting for Sojiro (it sure as hell wasn’t going to be Akira) to take his order. He’s intently focused on something in front of him—or at least, he seemed to be. In reality, he probably wasn’t paying any attention to the worksheet at all: he wouldn’t have bothered making the trip here if he didn’t want something from him, and the Thieves hadn’t planned any meetings for tonight.

When he passes by the other boy, curiosity makes him glance at what he’s doing—and he almost misses a step when an unprompted memory forces its way to the forefront of his mind: an unwanted study session focused around that very same textbook with the news on in the background, ceramic mugs filled with tea—

He pulls himself out and makes his way to the door faster than strictly necessary—as if exiting the area would help him escape the memory.

As if it could change the past.

He closes his eyes.

When he opens them again, he’s in the snack aisle of the Super Muramasa Supermarket (so powerful that it contained twice the supers of the other markets) looking for the chocolate bar with the highest cocoa content and least amount of added sugars. Sojiro liked to leave the sweetness of the dish up to the other ingredients: honey or particular kinds of apples usually did the trick in a way that made it taste more “natural”, as the Boss had once put it. They were out of his typical choice, so he ends up buying unsweetened baker’s chocolate from the next aisle over. The clerk tries to make small-talk with him when the cash register won’t scan the barcode, but Akira’s not exactly in the mood for it, so instead they stand in what is probably a very awkward silence until the store manager finds the time to override it.

He stifles a yawn as he walks out the automatic sliding doors, not glancing back at the girl and her dog that walk past him towards the apartment buildings Sojiro lives in. The girl and her mom were his next-door neighbors, apparently.

Akira doesn’t even know their names.

When the bell chimes over LeBlanc’s doorway and announces his presence, a quiet conversation is cut off and two heads turn in unison to regard him in silence. He hovers for just a moment before deciding he doesn’t actually care about their staring and he moves to put the apron back on—

Sojiro clears his throat and his hands pause over the hook.

“I’m gonna head back. Lock the place up when you’re done, yeah?”

Akira nods without turning back to him, and the man pauses like he’s going to say more before sighing.

“Good night, kid.”

By the time the bell sounds again, Akira’s hands have already reformed the knot out of two green strings—but he doesn’t miss the way Sojiro’d flipped the sign to “closed” before walking out of sight.

Ah. He’d been set up.

Perhaps that wasn’t a fair way to phrase what had just happened; the wording made it sound malicious. Sojiro had sent him on a fool’s errand (no pun intended) so he could force him to hang out with his friend. He must have noticed Akira’s sudden reversion to his behavior before he’d made his deal with the Thieves: staying in his room with the lights off after school on both Friday (after he made it back from Mementos, that is) and Saturday, ignoring the vast majority of the messages to his phone. Stuff like that—hence why he was even working on a slow Saturday night to begin with. He was trying to help, in a way.

Maybe if he knew how many times said friend had tried to kill him, he wouldn’t have bothered.

Akechi opens his mouth—to say something pleasant or weird or rude Akira doesn’t know, because he also cuts himself off before he can actually get to what he wants to say.

”—will lead this country to a brighter tomorrow! I solemnly promise—“

And that was all Akira needed to hear before he shuts the TV off, just barely stopping his teeth from grinding together and rather thankful that the elderly couple drinking their coffees in the corner had left before Sojiro had: he doesn’t need another lecture about his political inaptitude or his inability to discern a “man of the people”.
Unfortunately, the only other customer left was one of the very few people Akira wanted to avoid right now.

The face regarding him now was a complicated one—surprise never lasted very long on Akechi, nor was it very common. The wide eyes revert back to their slightly narrowed state, his open mouth closed and fell into a frown that Akira’s more used to seeing in January. That was kind of alarming. Was it time for a real conversation?

“…I think we need to talk.”

And oh no. The venom in his voice was a sign that he wants a real real conversation—and Akira was not having one of those here. When Akechi opens his mouth again, Akira cuts him off with a sharp hand—one that he looked about ready to dispute until Akira pulled out his phone and typed a quick message (but did not, of course, send it):

Café’s bugged.

Brown eyes widen as they register the small print on the phone screen that had been unceremoniously shoved into his face. Shock fades into something like incredulity, and he looks up from where he’s seated at the bar into eyes that Akira knows he can’t read anything from behind those thick, unnecessary glasses.

In lieu of a response, the other boy merely sips his coffee—which is still so hot that little waves of steam dissipate in the air above the mug. Akira starts doing the old folks’ dishes in the sink. All is quiet, all is well.

Then Akechi has to go and ruin it as Akira finishes the last of the spoons.

“The others wanted me to talk to you,” he pauses, eyes locked on the wall of beans in front of him, “they had originally asked that I do so immediately; however, I thought you might be more receptive to it after some time had passed.”

There’s a cautious note in his voice that Akira can tell isn’t directed at him by the way the third year’s eyes slowly take in the room around him.

There aren’t cameras, Akechi.

Akira hums non-committally, wringing out his hands over the sink. When he turns to face the other boy, he’s somewhat surprised to see that his face had dipped down into a scowl. Or perhaps he shouldn’t be: Akechi had probably seen that there weren’t any cameras around and decided just to go for it.

“Can I interest you in a walk? Your guardian seemed rather concerned that you haven’t been getting out of the attic lately, and the weather is rather nice right now.”

Akira frowns—just a slight thing, a small dip of the lips, but it’s there—as he considers his words.

He wants to go to Mementos now?

That’s rather presumptuous of you; he could just want to spend time with you with no ulterior motive.

Akira almost snorts and Arsene laughs.

It still doesn’t change his answer, though.

“Sure.”

Akechi’s mouth twists up into a smile that’s more of a sneer—and not at all something he’d normally allow to play upon his face before the annual reincarnation of Wakaba Isshiki.

At least it will be interesting.

When they make it to the Station Square, Akira lets himself be dragged—and he means literally—into the Metaverse. Once there, he takes in Akechi’s “new” outfit with a single, bored glance before looking around the cognitive Station Square, Third Eye active.

Just in case.

You really think it'll show up?

Akira mentally hums an acknowledgement of Beelzebub’s question, but offers no more than that.

When Crow clears his throat from beside him, he finally drops the Third Eye, turning just his head to regard him in silence.

“…you truly did know. Huh.”

Akira resists the urge to roll his eyes: what part of that hadn’t been clear by now? The other Metaverse-user shakes his head, eyes appearing a hellish red behind his visor. They don’t flicker from him even once—but that’s alright. He’d long gotten used to the other’s stare.

“To be honest, I don’t really give a damn about your little quarrel with the Thieves,” and yeah, Akira’d figured as much, “but I actually do want to talk to you. I think it will be easiest just to show you why.”

And with that, the other boy turned and began walking down the steps to the subway below them, endlessly flowing black boots wavering in the nonexistent wind. Joker doesn’t even hesitate—he’s far too curious to see what he’s up to to stop now.

When they arrive to beginning of Mementos just before the first true area, he stops and turns and Akira’s eyes widen as it suddenly dawns on him what it is that Akechi would want to discuss.

“You can see it, too?”

“Hmph. I thought this would have something to do with you,” he spits the word like an insult that Akira takes no offense too, patiently waiting for him to continue, “but yes, I can. I presume this is a consequence of acquiring Obariyon?”

The other’s eyes flash red for just a half-second before fading back to normal, a subtle irritation creeping into his features.

“That only gets harder the more of them you carry.”

Crow glares at him from behind his visor, a hand coming to rest on his hip as he takes Joker in with a precise, piercing gaze.

“Then I cannot fathom why you’d keep so many on you. But back to the matter at hand,” he turns his head slightly to the side to regard the door behind him once more, “have you figured out how to infiltrate it?”

Joker’s expression blanks and be stares at Crow in silence. Not to be outdone, Crow stares right back—except he’s much angrier about it. Finally, Akira turns around, walks to the Velvet Room, and pulls the door open, making sure he locks eyes with the other as he does so.

Crow makes a noise of surprise—but on anyone else, it’d probably sound like a scoff or a grunt. “How did you—”

Joker’s gaze flattens. “I pulled it open. Y’know, with my hands.”

Crow’s eyes narrow and Akira shoots him a cheeky grin. That was something he’d have to think about, yes, but while the other was here...well…

“Want to come inside?”

Uncertainty and mistrust flash across a usually scowling face—and honestly, if they hadn’t, Akira would actually have been more concerned.

He wouldn’t trust him, either.

“How do I know this isn’t some elaborate ruse?”

Who the hell actually uses that word unironically?

“Well for starters, you’re the one that asked me to come with you, not the other way around. Secondly,” he holds up a finger, “I haven’t left LeBlanc except for school since I left Mementos on the 4th. And lastly—and really, most importantly—I don’t care enough to take the time to plan something like that out.”

“You certainly took the time to manipulate everyone into agreeing to your little ‘deal’.”

A fair point, however…

“Come on, you gonna hold that against me forever?” and then his smile drops and Crow stiffens almost reflexively, “it’s in the past, right?”

Dammmnnn, you’re really still pissed about all of that, huh?

He lets the cold, half-silence of Mementos be the answer to that.

“…very well. Lead the way.”

He flashes him a grin again—but this one’s all teeth.

“Great. Let’s go.”

The inside of the area behind the blue door isn’t anything like Goro had imagined it would be. To start with, the place they entered in to seemed like a particularly inhumane jail cell—a small, plain looking cot hung by two stiff chains to the wall, a grungy toilet. The strangest part of the room—beyond the ethereal blue tint to everything within it, anyways—was that the door leading out of the cell was simply not there. It was just…gone. Like someone had come in and removed it entirely, hinges and all.

The area outside of the cell was far, far stranger. In the center sat a comfortable looking desk and chair—though it was completely devoid of anything that suggested that anyone had ever used it. Behind that, however, were the instruments of death that captivated the majority of his attention: a guillotine, an electric chair, and a gallows.

“What…is this place?”

“The Velvet Room.”

Crow turns to look at him like he’s a complete fucking moron.

Honestly, he very well could be.

“Hey, you asked. If you want more of an answer,” Akira continues, still looking him in the eyes, “then this is a place between dream and reality, mind and matter—more importantly, it’s the place I utilize to make my Personas…and I’m thinking if you can just come in here, if you can see it now too, that you can probably do the same.”

Hold on.

“’Make’ them?”

Joker flashes him a lazy grin that Crow wants nothing more than to slice off of his face. “Oh, I don't really do the whole ‘negotiation’ thing anymore,” a red gloved hand comes up to gesture to the varying icons of capital punishment behind him, “I use those to fuse two or sometimes more of them together. You’ll probably want another so you don’t need to use Robin Hood or Loki,” Crow’s eye widens slightly at that and Akira snorts, “the resulting one would probably be a lot weaker than anything you would actually want to use.”

He knows about Loki?

Woah there, mister, I don’t wanna die! Use something else!

Shut up!

“So. Any questions?”

Goro barks a laugh and the man before him doesn’t react. Questions? Questions?! What wasn’t there to ask?!

“OK, so I can see you’re a little overwhelmed, but try and think of it this way: does it seem like you’ve ever come across a Palace with Shadows as strong as the ones I have contracts with?”

Contracts?

Like the one you have with me.

So that’s what he means.
It made sense, if he framed it in that way. He hadn’t ever seen anything nearly as powerful as any of the Personas within Joker’s mask.

“Alright. But if I can see this door, why couldn’t I enter it as you can?”

Joker frowns at that. “You did say that, huh? Hmm,” he trails off, eyes growing distant—occasionally flashing red here and there while Goro waited for his response, “…I have some theories, but they don’t really matter unless you can actually use this place: and to do that, you need to get another Shadow on your side.”

He scowls at him. “Do you not remember how long it took us to get this one?”

The look behind the bicolored mask is hard to read; it’s not exactly understanding or confusion or annoyance…something like a mix of those and a secret thing that Goro can’t identify. Whatever it was, it was irritating him.

“I think we were going about it wrong—”

“’We?’ You were the one who set the conditions in the first place!”

Joker rolls his eyes. “Fine, then I went about it wrong. It worked best when you did your own thing, right?” at Goro’s stilted nod, he continues, “so just go do that again until you find another one…unless you think you can’t, of course.”

And he’s not an idiot, he can see the calculating way Joker regards him—but he can also see the smugness in his expression and he’ll be damned if he lets this prick get the last laugh.

Even if he is being manipulated into it.

You sure are, mister!

I cannot wait to be rid of you.

Deep within his psyche, Loki cackles—the sound of metal dragging against concrete or of a nail to a chalkboard reverberating in his mind.

“Fine. We’ll meet again when I have the requisite Persona.”

Joker smiles again, this time a little more genuine. “That’s the spirit. Now c’mon, let’s get back.”

Chapter Text

“Akira?”

His eyes shift—but that doesn’t mean much from the position he's laying in, on his side, staring at the wall with the attic’s only window. Outside, a breeze stirs up some of the crisp autumn air and it vaults into his bedroom, making him grateful for the plain blanket draped over his body up to his shoulders.

The stairs creak—someone shifting, he thinks. Hesitation, probably.

He’s not sure who, yet: doesn’t know if she came alone or not.

“Akira, can we talk?”

The old man down the street—the one with the radio who always sat near the end of the alleyway in that weird, cement cubby—must be irritated with whatever the station's host is discussing, because Akira can actually hear his voice for a few seconds. He can’t pick out any of the actual words that are said, but the intonation is clear enough.

“I-I get that we upset you and you’re mad and stuff, but, uh…”

She trails off and he hears a few, quiet words hissed from a suspiciously high pitched voice.

“How’s that helping anything?”

“I’m trying, kitty: I’m not the best with all of this social stuff yet!”

“Well you usually don’t start with listing all of the bad things and then just stop talking!”

Futaba grumbles and Akira pities the sacrificial lambs that the Thieves sent up to talk to him, so after another moment of intense argument, he rolls over onto his other side to face them.

Futaba stands with that same green Fearherman bag, a black and white cat half inside of it, half perched on her shoulder.

“What’s up?”

He sounds bored even to himself. Lifeless, maybe—but he knows that’s not true.

Or maybe it was. He’d considered before that this was some kind of perverse afterlife—that he’d offended some sort of deity and his sentence was being stuck in this hell forever.

Drama queen.

Akira doesn’t react to the insult, opting instead to wait for the reply from the younger teenager who had froze when Akira’d turned over like a deer caught in headlights.

“Uhm. Hi,” she squeaks, tensing under his gaze.

“Futaba!”

“I can’t help it, I’m panicking!”

He sighs and rolls onto his back and they turn to face him. He doesn’t look back. An old part of him feels bad he’d made her freeze up like that.

Most of him doesn’t care.

The sound of a tiny throat clearing is the only warning he’s given before Morgana starts to talk. "Akira, we came to apologize. We’re sorry we didn’t hear you out before…actually,” the cat’s voice dips even lower and Akira starts counting the number of boards that make up the ceiling. “We’re sorry for bringing it up at all. Whatever you did or didn’t do in the past doesn’t matter to us—and you’ve more than proven that you don’t mean any harm to us or anything like that. I guess everybody just got scared: but that isn’t an excuse for what we said or how it made you feel. Sorry.”

Sappy.

But it made you feel better, did it not, Child of the Fool?

Hah. Guess it did.

More than anything, though…

“It’s fine.”

Futaba makes a noise of disagreement. “No, it really isn’t. When I told Sojiro what we did, he got mad at me for not minding my own business…except then he said ‘just like you didn’t’,” oh boy, here we go, “so then I asked why, and he…uh…kind’ve told us everything?”

Of course he did.

A little part of him smiles.

“So then I—please don’t get mad, ok?—sort of told all of the others. But, uh, even if he hadn’t spilled the beans, we were still definitely in the wrong here? Uhm, what I’m trying to say is that that was super not ok of us and I feel really bad that you just stay up in your room all day now and pretty please don’t stay upset with us forever?”

Akira lets a breath out through his nose.

Most of all….

“I’m not mad.”

Futaba hums uncertainly. “But…you barely leave the attic anymore—which Sojiro says wasn’t unusual before, but you have us now, so…”

He closes his eyes.

For how long, though?

“Yeah. It’s fine.”

Morgana almost whimpers. “Akira…”

Most of all, he was just tired.

“Can I stay with you for a while?”

He blinks, a look of confusion overtaking his features for a flash of a second, eyebrows uprising before relaxing. The liquid resetting after a drop of water fell into a pond.

The cat continues unperturbed, “Futaba and I were worried about you—and the Boss is, too. You don’t take care of yourself—and sure, you stay fit enough for your activities in the Metaverse and your grades are the best they can be, but I don’t think that means anything if you’re this unhappy all the time.” He turns his head to face the cat, and to his credit, he doesn’t flinch or make any move to look away from him, pure determination settled all the way to his tiny, furry core.

”Don’t…lose hope, ok?”

Akira averts his eyes.

Then, in a softer voice, Morgana continues. “If you’re gonna be like this, you at least shouldn’t have to do it alone.”

Fuck. Fuck why did that hurt so much?

I do not know, but then much of what triggers your sudden bouts of emotion and the like remains quite a mystery to me.

Oddly enough, Lucifer’s voice isn’t unkind—like he’s genuinely curious about his reactions instead of openly insulting his mounting instability.

The candle flickers out.

“Yeah. You can stay, if that’s what you want.”

He tries not to focus on the strained way the words come out. He wasn’t supposed to be like that, fraying at the edges and splitting at the seams.

“OK. I’ll be here, Futaba.”

He hears her shuffle, the sounds of dexterous cat paws colliding lightly with the surface of the table by the railing.

Hushed words that his ears were too sensitive not to hear.

“Make sure he eats something, ok?”

The cat must have nodded, because there’s no further response before the telltale sounds of feet quietly thumping down the stairs to LeBlanc, old wood creaking under the strain of the added weight.

Akira forces himself not to startle when Morgana hops up on the bed, settling next to him and stopping around his arm. He sits, his tail flicking from side to side. He was so close, close enough for Akira to touch if he wanted—in fact, his arm already did touch his side. Close enough to touch, and yet…

Well, that was the rub, wasn’t it?

Never close enough.

“You can go back to sleep if you want to,” he says, stretching before curling into a ball between Akira’s side and his arm, facing the desk. “In fact, I could go for a nap, too.”

And it’s a good thing he’d turned away, because he misses the single tear that makes its way down an otherwise empty face.

Chapter Text

The first thing he notices is that he’s cold—too cold, like someone had poured a bucket of ice water over him like a coach after a big game. He shivers, and it’s only when he hears the familiar old clink of chains rattling together that he finally is able to bring himself to stir.

What?

He blinks blearily, eyes unfocused, a pale, dirty hand coming to rest against his temple before he takes his first look at his surroundings. They register much like Kawakami’s voice does in class: present, perhaps, but not in focus—like everything around him is some sort of backdrop instead of a true environment he can actually interact with.

He shifts to a sitting position and again becomes aware of that rattling noise, but he’s so far detached from it that his brain merely registers the sound without evoking any real reaction from the rest of him.

This lasts only long enough for him to notice the shackle around his ankle.

It’s like a Ziodyne to his nerve endings—all sharp and clear and shocking all at once. His surroundings—those ones that he’d noticed but hadn’t really seen—that’s what makes the seriousness of the situation actually kick in. It’s the Velvet Room…

But it’s also not.

Muted shades of grey and black mix at odd intervals with a stark white that seem out of place on the walls and the table, the once-blue hue to everything now somehow a much stranger amalgamation. It felt unnatural.

No…perhaps artificial was a better word to describe it.

What’s going on?

Instead of the usual number of empty jail cells encircling the room, only three others besides the one he was currently inhabiting (the door closed, his clothes marred and reminiscent of his prison uniform but no longer striped, a simple, solid…grey) sat at equally interspaced intervals around the desk. When he stands to move closer, he finds himself suddenly fatigued and he falls to his knees, panting. If it makes any noise at all, he can’t hear it—and for some reason, that bothers him in a way nothing else about this bizarre place had before. Faintly, he can make out the arches over the other cells, each jail door marking the only real splash of color in the room—the only way it could even still be called the Velvet Room at all.

Each pulsate a vibrant, familiar blue that seemed to combat whatever distortion had nearly overtaken the place—the walls and floor near them maintaining their usual blue tint without any of the other three colors that ran together like paint on a canvas. It was almost like they repelled it, but…

“Trickster…”

Ignoring the spike of horrible, agonizing pain that came along with the motion, he jerks at the voice—one he hadn’t heard in a long, long time.

“There isn’t…”

His ears ring and he thinks he must be screaming, but no matter how he writhes, how he howls, no sound comes from him at all save the rattling of the chain on his leg.

“If this room is overtaken completely, the bridge will be forever shattered…please…you must find the Cores…only then can you—”

Can I what?

She cuts herself off with a gasp, the dim lighting provided by the doors flickering as Something rocks the room, exacerbating his pain to levels he hadn’t thought possible. His hands grip his head, wind in his hair, and he digs a single fingernail into his skin just above the shell of his ear because he couldn’t lose focus now, not when something was finally—

Found you, Dealer.

His blood chills in his veins.

That voice…

“Trickster! You must run! If it catches you…”

Easier said than done, Lavenza!

Beneath him, the stone floor shakes violently, white and grey and black swirling together to form the Something that Akira’s now certain is not a thing, but far, far worse.

Akira struggles to his feet, a searing fire burning all of his skin as surely as if he’d been covered in pitch and set aflame. He screams, but nothing comes out. The chain rattles violently both with his movements and the violent shaking of the floor. Across from him, the lights over one of the doors flickers once more before shutting off completely, enveloping one part of the circular room in darkness. He staggers back, falls against the wall that he knows is less a wall, more of a way out.

The place a door had once been, once upon a lifetime ago.

When his back collides with stone and then seeps through it like it was liquid rather than rock, his vision darkens, the rattling of the metal attached to his leg finally—mercifully—ceasing. Unfortunately, it only makes the words that were uttered in that void impossible to ignore, and they fill his head like a threat, like a promise.

The game isn’t over just yet.

Akira jolts awake—startling Morgana so badly that the cat actually leaps off of him (and that must have happened at some point last night, because he hadn’t been there when he’d fallen asleep) and onto the floor about a meter from the bed.

“Hey! What the hell!”

Ok, play this cool.

I feel like whenever humans say that, they never actually act cool at all.

Angel, please.

He’d forgotten to toss her into the cognitive meat grinder—

WHAT?!

“Are you even listening to me?!”

Gods, it’s like there are even more of you.

In the back of his mind, Arséne chuckles, the ‘sound’ so calming that it eases some of the tension in his shoulders.

“Sorry. I had a nightmare.”

Morgana’s tail whips in agitation. “Yeah, I kinda got that,” and then in a more serious voice, “are you alright? It must have been pretty bad if it freaked you out like that...you almost launched me into the café.”

His hand comes up to scratch the back of his neck, in part to sell the whole ‘whoops, my bad’ act he’s going for, and in part to force down the hairs that he could feel were still standing on edge.

Because what even was that?

“Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry.”

Morgana looks unconvinced, but to his surprise, the cat just nods (albeit reluctantly) before jumping back onto the bed. “Alright...this is usually the part where I scold someone for staying up too late or watching scary movies, but,” he looks back up at Akira with a frown (or at least an expression that’s as close to a frown as a cat’s face can mimic), “you went to bed before the sun even went down, and according to the Boss, you didn’t do anything all day yesterday.”

He sounds confused, concerned, and a bit frustrated all at once. It’s funny when he takes a moment to ponder it: the cat wanted to scold him about something yet had to wrack his brain to figure out what.

The realization is almost enough to shake the chill that’s settled into his bones and through his chest.

Almost.

Akira lays back down, and Morgana hops back onto him—apparently, neither of them were going to acknowledge the fact that he does so unprompted (to him, Akira is an occasionally helpful, definitely dangerous acquaintance with a reckless streak rivalling Makoto’s during the events leading up to Kaneshiro’s Palace). Eventually, Morgana’s breathing evens out—and it’s only then that he opens his eyes, an all-consuming dread overtaking him to the point that he knows he won't sleep anymore tonight.

It’s back.

“Please…my daughters need me…don’t—AUGH!”

The woman sputters, blood so red it was black as his saber digs further into her chest—cutting bone and tissue alike with its sharp, serrated edge. He doesn’t stop slicing—not when wet gurgling intermixes with choked screams, not when spasming muscles finally slacken over cold, cognitive steel—until the Shadow finally dissipates around his blade, the sudden lack of resistance forcing it faster along its previous arc until he pulls it back, easing up on the force he exerts at the hilt and letting the sword disappear into his ‘inventory’ (for what else did one call that infinite storage space in the cognitive world?) as he turns around and exits the distortion.

There was something interesting about the way a sharp enough edge could pair flesh from bone like that—he doesn’t doubt that it’s different in reality, sure (he doesn’t trust the public’s cognition enough to say otherwise; their minds all likely twisted and influenced by horror movies or the occasional display of his handiwork on the news)—but there was something about the way the muscles in his arm tensed at the effort, something about the odd transition from smooth to rough glides at the sword’s edge that he found just fascinating.

You’re only relishing this because of what she did. Enough fantasizing and move on.

I don’t need to listen to you.

Then why are you—

Oh! I wanna play, too!

Loki growls at the interruption—but Obariyon just laughs.

Wow, mister, the monster in your head sure is grumpy!

You insolent Fool!

Wait…

“Fool?”

There’s not really a need for him to say it out loud, but he’s found that the sound of his voice usually helps shut the three of them up.

The way he said that…

What of it?

Much as Loki hated to be interrupted, Goro could tell he was as curious about his reactions as Goro was about the insult.

But was it even an insult?

Loki hums, baritone voice icing his mind like hell froze over. In the corner, Obariyon shivers. It’s a bit satisfying, actually—like the children had finally vacated the room so the adults could talk.

The Persona sticks his tongue out at him—a mental ‘image’ (if feelings one gathered from facets of the collective unconscious they’d adopted into their own psyche could be interpreted as such, anyways) that he’s certain he’d never have gotten from Loki or Robin Hood.

To further delve into that statement: a feeling he’d never have attained if not for Kurusu.

The worst part of the whole ordeal had been getting used to a third presence in his mind—getting used to what types of things triggered it to interact, what stimuli it reacted to and when. The best ways to control it, to force it back into its corner when it got too vocal.

To determine its usefulness and the practical applications of carting it around as he had been doing for nearly 48 hours now. And what had he discovered?

Obariyon was useless.

Hey!!!

Silence!

…and loud. Annoying. Possibly illiterate. Prone to childish outbursts and surprisingly not squeamish. Selfish—but then, that wasn’t unusual for Shadows—yet also all-too willing to offer his assistance.

That’s ‘cuz we have a contract, mister!

And obsessed with this “contract” nonsense. From what he can gather, it’s the result of his successful negotiation with it back when it was just a Shadow…but its very nature as a Shadow is what Goro finds so interesting. Isshiki’s research had stated that everyone had a Shadow—a supposed “true self” (or reflection of oneself) that, if one chose to ignore, reject, or cover-up in some manner, would cause them to grow apart from the real version of them in the real world. This, she said, caused them to display “problematic behaviors” in reality.

…that reminds him, actually: he’ll need to make the necessary preparations to eliminate the Shadow of that peculiar Palace Kurusu had shown them. Not that he could realistically infiltrate it anytime soon, (that would be suicide—no matter what Joker had said on the subject in the place, there wasn’t such a thing as a Palace ruler that didn’t want to kill any actively hostile intruders…not anymore, anyways) but it would be decidedly…problematic if the research in there got out. After all, Isshiki’s research wasn’t supposed to exist anymore.

But back to the matter at hand: people were supposed to have Shadows. One Shadow. And Goro had two before he even met Obariyon. Yes, his circumstances in acquiring them had been…unique…but…

He shakes his head, a talon-covered hand tapping patterns on his right arm, little painless prickles from the tips of his claws just barely grazing his skin through the surprisingly durable material of his bodysuit. He was getting off topic yet again.

Kurusu had been right in that regard: Obariyon’s presence had indeed made it more difficult to think about anything—and that wasn’t just because of his interruptions. His emotions, his sentiments, his activities within his psyche: all had the irritating ability to derail him from anything he was doing or thinking about.

Two Shadows residing in someone’s heart was abnormal. But three was unthinkable—especially considering the fact that he hadn’t manifested this one as he had the others. That brought him to his main point: what exactly were the Shadows? Before, he’d thought of them as mindless enemies: figments from stories, relics from a scarcely remembered and oft misunderstood human history. But he had witnessed them become something more than that: or rather, remember that they were more than that. It was one thing to fight a character from a story, it was another to have the piggyback monster itself jump on his proverbial back, jump into his mind. And just like in the stories, Obariyon was heavy—just not in the physical sense: a heavy, mental burden.

I thought we were friends, you jerk!

Loki’s anger is enough to quell him for now—though at least a part of him felt that Obariyon's sudden quiet was due to the demon giving him the silent treatment. That was fine. Actually, perhaps Goro could convince him that he deserved the silent treatment forever.

At least then he would finally shut up.

So if his new (or perhaps broader was a better term) understanding of the Shadows was correct, then they were not just characters from stories, but what the characters themselves represented—Obariyon wasn’t just acting like a child, he was one: a nocturnal, intrusive, attention-seeking demon child who had been literally willed into existence because of the public perception of some old folk-lore.

A facet of the collective unconscious that was now somehow embedded in his unconscious mind. And that was a novel idea: that a piece of public sentiment now resided in his head—and yet also did not. He’d come down after the Thieves had left on Friday to take care of that secretary and had made it a point to stop in the area he’d gotten Obariyon in, and sure enough, there had been more of them (though they had been more receptive to him than they’d previously been). He’d been a bit irritated that his attempts to negotiate with them had proven to be futile; both Friday and today they had shut the attempts down because, according to them, they were already with him. Instead, they’d given him trinkets or pocket change every time he’d come across them—though what they thought he was going to be able to do with a colorful looking index card or a piece of scrap metal was beyond his comprehension.

It was intriguing. Did the things he think of get transmitted to the rest of the Obariyon’s? Did its presence in his subconscious alter the public’s cognition of Obariyon as a whole, or were there simply too many of them for that to work—or, conversely, was he being changed because of its presence? That was actually a bit disconcerting—but then, it hadn’t seemed like Kurusu had changed with the addition of the harlot into his mask. And that was yet another query: was the reason that Obariyon felt so different from the way he was used to Loki and Robin Hood feeling because of its different “arcana”?

YES! That’s what I’ve been TRYING to tell you!

He clenches his jaw, the sheer volume of the interruption making his head pound.

You know what arcana you are?

No, mister, I never said that.

Then what did you—

Don’t you remember me saying how weird it was in here? That’s ‘cuz you’re not like me.

He suppresses a sigh. Really, he shouldn’t have expected so much.

You know, if you didn’t look down on everybody so much, you might figure out more stuff than you do now. By thinking that everything I say is dumb, it just means you’re not listening to the parts that could help you, and that makes you extra dumb!

Goro rolls his eyes. He doesn’t have time for this.

…it is rather curious how Robin Hood stirs at that, though.

No matter.

He had the time…perhaps he should try and figure out which Shadows he should try to negotiate with.

Kurusu had chosen the weakest ones, and loathe as he is to admit it, he was probably right to do so: if this was going to go at all like the last time, he was going to have to fight them over and over again before finding the right one or saying the right things. Evidently, both were important for a successful negotiation. He’s also now certain that one could not carry multiples of the same Shadow inside themselves at once, so he’d somehow have to find a way to discern which Shadows would be receptive to his words.

If only he had access to that “Metatron”: back when they had offered their hand to him, he’d been able to ‘see’ what it was that made Kurusu so certain that Angel and Robin Hood (and Metatron as well, actually) so similar. It wasn’t exactly a vision—it was more like a feeling he got when their hands intertwined: if he had to put it into words, he’d describe it almost like an aura that enveloped each of the Personas. Unfortunately, the sense faded when they let go…was that, perhaps, how Kurusu saw the Shadows? Was it something that could even be taught? And just how many different arcana were there?

Uh, mister Goro, your memory sure is bad: you looked up how many arcanas there were, remember?

He sighs internally, seething as a means he hopes will deter the imp—but unfortunately, all it does is laugh.

Kurusu said there were exceptions; I was merely wondering how many extra or fewer that meant in addition to the 22 major arcana. And the plural for “arcana” is just arcana.

Who cares?

I do. I won’t tolerate an imbecile residing in my head

Im-beh-sull? What’s that?

Crow clicks his tongue, forcing himself up the next set of stairs before it can reply to itself.

This was going to be a long night.

Chapter Text

So, Akira’s freaking out.

It probably doesn’t look the way a normal person would panic: his face is blank, his breathing even, his steps equal and measured.

In his head, however, it’s an entirely different beast. Tendrils of bone-crushing worry bury him inside the depths of his mind, his lizard brain going into overdrive with the sheer amount of fight-or-flight triggers even mere thoughts were able to conjure.

And he can’t show a damn ounce of it because one of his best friends/definitely a spy for the Phantom Thieves was currently half-asleep in the Shujin bag slung over his right shoulder, the occasional contented purr reverberating over carefully relaxed muscles.

It was, in a few words, pretty fucking horrible.

“Ugh, are we there yet? Haru always has a chauffeur take her…”

I…probably am rich enough to do that, actually.

It would definitely raise too much suspicion, though—the sixteen-year-old but simultaneously lifelong criminal suddenly arriving at the school everyday in a private cab. It would probably be better not to even bring the option up, actually.

I concur…and would prefer you spent your free time coming up with ways to get out of this catastrophe.

Nothing like the asshole part of himself to plummet his ass back down to reality.

Way to kill the mood, Arséne.

You say that as though there were a metaphorical mood to vanquish.

He has a point, you know!

Fucking Angel.

“Are you even listening to me?”

Gods, but he hated that question. Maybe he should have refused the cat’s request to stay with him.

You don’t mean that.

It’s true. He didn’t.

“Sorry. I heard you, just…have a lot on my mind, I guess.”

He scratches the back of his head, unruly black curls shifting away as his fingers dug into his scalp. He can’t tell if it’s the gesture or the bizarre memory of the night before that has Morgana idling in silence until the cat speaks once more, his voice even softer as his previous ire was forgotten.

“Akira…are you sure you’re ok? The others never have dreams like that. Err, well,” the cat amends almost sheepishly and mostly to himself, “not usually, anyways.”

He’s once again tempted to take a stroll through Mementos and “take care” of a few of those former foster parents—he has the names, by now—Futaba hadn’t deserved any of that. She was just a kid. But he doesn’t, remembering the way she’d reacted one year once she’d found out.

He didn’t need Morgana to tell him which one of the Thieves woke up halfway into a panic attack to know who the cat was referring to, after all.

Not anymore.

You are also a child. The Child of the Hermit is but one year younger than you.

Akira closes his eyes, feigning exhaustion to get the cat off of his back (though not literally; such behavior was generally frowned upon on public transportation). Or, scratch that—he wasn’t really feigning anything if he was actually exhausted. It just wasn’t acquired in quite the way Morgana thought it would be.

Am I really, though, Maria?

There isn’t a reply before he makes it to the gates of the school—and he’s surprised to find Ann leaning against the wall in a way so overtly casual that it looks forced.

At least that was normal.

“Oh, hey A-Akira!” she stumbles over his given name like it physically burns her tongue to speak—and vaguely, he remembers some stories about how saying a demon’s name causes them to appear, “I was waiting for you so we could, like, walk to class together!”

Wow. I hate this.

“Lady Ann!”

A head emerges from his bag so quickly that it knocks his pencil case out of it, causing Akira’s wrist to flip awkwardly so he catches it before it falls too far while simultaneously shooting Morgana a glare with no real heat in it.

“Eheh. Sorry,” the cat says, mouth upturned in a mockery of a nervous smile despite the fact that Akira could never actually stay mad at him. Akira rolls his eyes and it makes one of the first year’s that have to step around their little parlay take a step back on reflex—and as his mind drifts back to that conversation in Mementos, his mood sours.

Judging by the way Ann’s shoulders sag a bit, she’d noticed it, too.

“Um, hey…”

Akira looks up, tired frown playing on his lips—

“I’m sorry!”

—and takes a step back before he’s hit in the face with Ann’s pigtails as the blonde drops into a low bow.

Drawing the eyes of literally everyone in a ten meter radius.

Great.

Truly? What’s so great about it? This situation seems to have caused you a great deal of inner turmoil.

I hate you.

“It’s fine. Let’s just go to class.”

He resists the urge to shift under the weight of a dozen sets of eyes, the force that whispered words bring to much-too attentive ears.

“No, it’s really not,” she stands back up, that forced cheer ripped from her face and replaced by something softer, some grim determination intermingled with sadness and spattered with a bizarrely uncertain understanding.

Something real—or at least as real as anything really can be to him, anymore.

“We obviously upset you—and it was over something really stupid, too. I can’t say that I trust you completely yet, or that I know what I could say to make it up to you, but starting today, I’m going to try to be better, ok?”

Akira forces his hands into his pockets and nods, jerking his head to the entrance. The entrance that they were still half-blocking for the tens of other students trying to find a way around Captain of the Assault Team and the Foreign Wonder so they could get to class before school began…and honestly, they were cutting it close.

Sensing his impatience (or perhaps just relieved he wasn’t as angry as he’d been a few days ago, Akira doesn’t know), Ann leads the way inside—and both of them have just barely sat down, Morgana freshly smooshed inside his desk as the classroom door slides open to reveal Kawakami, face set in the faux-annoyance she often sported to mask her passion for teaching.

It was probably a little easier now that she’d given up the moonlighting gig.

Takase’s former guardians never bothered her very far into the year.

Still, he can’t help but tune it all out. It’s a little harder to do now, what with the small, furry hell spawn currently residing in his desk and the crippling existential fear permeating his every thought (not to mention the way he has to hide this from said hell spawn or the way either of these things causes the perfectly normal voices in his head to react—especially Angel, because she was a bit out of the loop since why the fuck would he ever recruit her under normal circumstances?), but it’s still mostly possible. If he ignores Morgana long enough, the cat just gives up—it’s pretty great, actually, because back when he still bothered making an effort to stay close to them all, Morgana’d had no issue at all clawing the ever living shit out of his arms.

Major depressive disorder really did have its advantages.

Ms. Chouno tries and fails to catch him off-guard with a question about playing cards (of course he knew the heart represented the Holy Grail—he’d beat that cup fair and square) a whole day earlier than normal, his classmates gawk, whisper, and generally make themselves into annoyances.

For lunch, he has half a loaf of fried bread—not really because he likes it, but because it’s the cheapest item on the menu. Stupid, he knows, but what can he say?

Old habits die hard.

He eats on the rooftop with Ann and Morgana—he can guess by the number of plastic chairs stacked on top of each other in the corner that this must be where the Thieves would have eaten (at least the Shujin ones) when they didn’t eat in the courtyard, but she must not have felt up to bringing him fully into the fold just yet. Maybe they'd originally planned to eat up here as a group today; this was where he typically took his lunch, after all. Or maybe the others hadn’t wanted to, either.

Guilt or hate, either one makes for one hell of an aversion.

He knows better than most.

Lunch is awkward—or at least, it probably would be if he cared enough about the tension in the atmosphere to bother with it—but Morgana’s eyes had practically bulged out of his skull once he’s realized just how much of his lunch he was giving him, so Akira counted it as a win. It only got better once the cat had started sputtering in response to the way Ann had rolled her eyes at him.

Akira’s just glad she hadn’t done so while the cat was actually eating. He didn’t even know how to perform the Heimlich maneuver on another person, let alone a cat.

The rest of the day is a blur, so similar to things he’d seen so many times before that it all just bleeds together—like the clocks in that old surrealist painting.

After spending so much time with Yusuke, he knew a lot—too much, really—about Dalí’s different works.

And now that he’s actually thinking about it, that one hit a little bit too close to home.

That was really all it took for his foul mood to return—but that was fine, it served as a fine distraction from that one part of himself that was still hyperventilating from last evening’s little night terror (because goddesses help him if it was anything more than that) and—

”Akira Kurusu, to the student council room. Akira Kurusu to the student council room, please.”

And never mind.

“Huh? What could Makoto want?”

He shakes his head, suppressing a sigh. With the end of the last class period, most of the student’s left in the classroom were busy packing their stuff up into their school bags, chatting amongst themselves about cute boys or that new anime coming out soon (he’s seen it all—it’s overrated) or whatever other inane things that high schoolers thought were important but would never even come close to mattering.

Or at least, that was what they had been doing before Akira’s bedhead became their new object of fascination. It was if Makoto had torn the sky asunder with a command from the gods themselves and the rest of humanity looked to him as the odd man out, the blasphemous boy with a curry stain on plaid pants that he hadn’t yet found the will to wash.

That’s a bit dramatic, is it not?

Arséne. You literally have no room to talk.

That familiar laughter sounds in his head, a silent shadow on the darkest night, the sharpest dagger in a dexterous hand.

Of course I do—

Wait, don’t—

—For I am the you within.

Angel’s confused hum cuts through any reply his irritation rapidly starts to form.

But, like, aren’t we all the him within? And wouldn’t that mean that we all both had no room to talk, as he said, or all the room to talk as you implied?

Wait, that’s a good point, actually.

Is that seriously the most important thing you guys could be thinking about right now?!

Hmph. The Fool’s surprised his fools are fools.

“Akira?” he blinks himself out of his stupor—at least he’d had the cognizance to look out the window this time—and turns to face Morgana, who is still in his desk, an unabashed look of worry sitting plainly across his face, “shouldn’t we go? She’s going to get worried if you don’t show up soon…”

From in front of him, Ann shifts in her seat until she’s facing them, one hand absently brushing a stray strand of hair from her eyes. “I can go with you if you want?” she says, concern making the words a strange mix between question and plea, “I’m sure it’s nothing bad—I bet she just wants to apologize, actually—but if you’re nervous about it…”

Suppressing a sigh (and the ramblings of several facets of the collective unconscious), Akira stands, setting his school bag on his chair so Morgana can hop in. By now, most people have turned away from him—and the few who still watched wouldn’t have the guts to rat him out.

Plus, he suspects that most of them like the cat. What high schooler wouldn’t unless they had an allergy?

“It’s fine. I gotta get going. See you.”

He doesn’t miss the slight disappointment in her eyes—but it’s not really his job to cater to a guilty conscience by acquiescing to her every request.

That was rather harsh.

His hands ball up in his jacket.

Yeah, it was. I’m not in a great mood.

Swinging his bag back over his shoulder, he turns without another word, barely catching Ann’s response as he makes his way to the door.

“Yeah. See you.”

By the time he’s up the stairs, Morgana’s stopped trying to engage him in conversation, opting for a silence that could rival Satanael’s.

When he slides the door open—he’s not knocking, just wants to get this over with so he can go back to sleep—he has to pause.

It’s been a while since he’d been surprised by anything like this—at least in reality, anyways.

“O-Oh. Hello, senpai.”

Akira frowns, but steps fully into the room and slides the door shut. Sitting across the table from the two empty chairs sits Makoto and Sumire, both of whom are sporting frowns for what he can only assume are vastly different reasons.

“I apologize for calling you here like this again, but it was the first day that…Yoshizawa-san returned to school since the incident and I thought it would be best if you were here when I explained things to her.”

Akira moves to set the Mona bag down on the other open chair, looking over as he pulls it out from under the table—but his head snaps back reflexively when Makoto gasps like they were in some kind of cheap drama.

“Nijima-senpai? Are you alright?”

“Oh! Yes, my apologies. I just wasn’t aware you were injured, Kurusu-kun.”

What?

His confusion must show on his face—or perhaps it was the silence that tipped her off—because shortly after she stops, Makoto starts speaking once more, though her tone is much more uncertain.

“That blood on your ear…did you hit your head or something?”

His hand comes up without him really thinking about it—and at first, he thinks she’s messing with him (not that she was known for it or that anything she’d done so far had really pointed to such a conclusion) until his fingers brush a spot near his temple that makes a flash of pure agony spike through his head. His hand jerks away like he’d just brushed a hot stovetop—

—and returns speckled with dark red flakes of dried blood.

From a spot just above the shell of his ear.

Oh fuck.

Chapter Text

Wow mister! You’re really bad at this, huh?

Goro feels his eyebrow twitch under his helmet, trying and failing to suppress his irritation from flaring in his mind. When Obariyon’s laughter cuts through his thoughts like a hot knife through butter, he knows his effort was in vain.

He had been…less than successful in his recent Shadow recruiting endeavors, and the idiotic child in his mind that had evidently been created without an off switch has been doing little to ease his mood. How was he supposed to discover anything more about that mysterious door—and more importantly, Kurusu—if he couldn’t even acquire another Shadow without his assistance?

Loki growls something indiscernibly in the part of his mind he currently occupied, talons raking along the sides of his mind in a foreboding sort of way—a promise, a warning, a threat.

You’re too invested in this and he knows too much. It would be best if he disappeared.

There’s a contemplative pause accompanied by another brush of sharp appendages on the walls of his psyche—like the Persona’s trying to make sure he keeps his attention. A swell of indignation shoots through him as he realizes that it’s working.

More importantly, however, he understands the rhetoric behind Loki’s statement: usually, they’d have killed anyone they came across who was somehow so intimately familiar with both the Metaverse and his true identity…but such a direct challenge was unlikely to end well for him. Kurusu was leagues ahead of him—loathe as he is to admit it—so a confrontation in the Metaverse was out of the question. He could have that man’s lackies handle him: abduct Kurusu after school and set up an “accident”. Shinjuku might work for that…or even Shibuya for that matter—there was apparently a serial killer that some of Sae’s colleagues at the SIU were having difficulty with, and they conveniently only seemed to target known criminals.

It could work…and yet…

Hmph. It doesn’t matter how he came to know so much. Get rid of him—him and Isshiki’s spawn and the coward who presides over them.

Oddly, there is an uncommon hint of uncertainty in Loki’s voice that betrayed his own curiosity. Truthfully speaking, he was right: such an obvious, unpredictable threat should not be allowed to live. There was no telling what he could do…but it was for that reason that Goro wanted to keep him around—if only for a short while. An accident just before Sae’s deadline (no pun intended, of course) would work just as well as one that occurred tomorrow—and it would leave the Thieves with little opportunity to do anything other than go along with their original plan. It would also give him as much time as possible to get the information he wants out of Kurusu: why did he seem to know so much about him—or the Metaverse, for that matter? Why did he assist the Thieves, why had he risked so much, including revealing himself as their mysterious benefactor, just to teach him Shadow Negotiations?

Why hadn’t he sold him out?

What could he possibly have to gain from helping the culprit behind the mental shutdown and psychotic breakdown cases? Why did he care about any of this—and conversely, why didn’t he care about stopping the murders?

That remains beyond our grasp for now.

Goro sets his jaw at Robin Hood’s calm, objective response. It was hard not to hate him—and really, he didn’t bother trying not to.

And neither did Loki.

Hey mister? Do you gotta think so much? It’s giving me a headache…

Shut up. This is important.

If it’s important, shouldn’t you just ask him?

I tried being direct with him. He wasn’t very receptive to it.

Well I don’t see how this is helping.

Loki growls again—a black typhoon across the sea of his mind, ripping and tearing at everything in its path—and its intensity forces the idiot back into its den.

For now, anyways.

Letting out sigh that was somehow both a mixture of relief and irritation, Goro releases his saber, willing it away as he began running to the powered-down escalators leading to the next floor. If at first you don’t succeed, well, then killing or intimidating enough of these weaker Shadows should work eventually. The more encounters he had with them, the more opportunities there would be to acquire another one.

And with how long he’s already waited, Goro Akechi is nothing but patient.

“Kurusu-kun? Are you alright?”

Akira blinks before finally releasing his grip on his schoolbag, forcing his face back to its usual bored look even as his heart thumps painfully in his chest.

“Sorry. Thought I cleaned that up already.”

Which was sort of a weird way to talk about a cut on his head, but look. He’s doing his best here.

“Right,” Makoto drawls slowly, stretching the word out for such a painfully uncertain amount of time that it’s abundantly clear that she doesn’t believe him. “I suppose we should start,” she turns to Sumire—the real Sumire, the one with long red hair that fell well past her shoulders and a pair of real, undecorated glasses upon her face. “Did you have anything you wanted to ask, Yoshizawa-san?”

“Oh…um…Sumire’s fine. If you want to call me that, I mean.”

The atmosphere somehow gets more awkward—and it’s at this point that Morgana hops out of his bag to settle upon the only table in the student council room.

“Well, I know Makoto covered the basics before, but if you had any specific questions, now would be the time to ask them,” the cat adds sagely, his white-tipped tails coming to wrap carefully around his front legs.

“I did have a couple of questions,” she looks up from her lap and fixes Akira with an intense stare that, a half-century ago might have made him smirk since it was so much more genuine than any of her previous reactions before she remembered who she really was.

Now, though, it doesn’t elicit anything from him. How could it, when he knew it didn’t matter…and with that nightmare and what it meant still plaguing his mind much like—

“I tried asking this before, but the way you acted then…” she trails off, but her gaze isn’t uncertain as she continues, “are you a part of the Phantom Thieves like Nijima-senpai?”

She’s obviously expecting some kind of knee-jerk reaction, but this wasn’t his first rodeo—and more importantly, he doesn’t have time for this right now. He stares at her for a moment longer before nodding in Makoto’s direction, intent on sitting this one out. Just like she had back in that saferoom in Maruki’s Palace, she took the hint—though this time, her answer comes with no small amount of irritation and, by the way the cat’s tails flicks forwards at his reaction, she’s not the only one with a bone to pick with Joker.

“No, he’s not. He just has a deal with us,” Makoto hesitates and opens her mouth to say more, but something ultimately stays her tongue, and she reverts back to silence, turning back to Sumire with a guarded, yet sympathetic look.

“I see. Akira-senpai,” and if he had less control of his facial expressions, his eyebrows would have shot up—since when had they gotten close enough for his given name? “I know you didn’t want to answer this question before—about whose Palace that was—but would you be willing to answer a less broad one?”

He waits with an air of patience that he honestly impresses himself with—his mind was a mess right now and somewhere along the line between last night and now he had forgotten that it was a virtue. She correctly takes this as permission to continue.

“Was the owner of that Palace either of my parents?!”

There’s a note of hysteria in her voice, one that spoke to the bags under her eyes, the slight bloodshot way that they appeared even under a somewhat-obvious layer of makeup. This time, he lets himself quirk a brow at that: he hadn’t heard her ask something like it before and wonders what about the Palace made her think that.

Hopes even now that he hadn’t overlooked something important that maybe her days inside that stadium let her see.

“No.”

The relief that floods her person seems like it should be contagious—he wishes it was, finds himself irrationally jealous that even though he was instantly able to remedy her paranoia, he could do nothing for his own.

“Oh, thank goodness! I…I don’t think I could handle that right now.”

Morgana’s ears droop. “Sumire…”

“That reminds me…uh, senpai, your cat…”

Said cat bristles. “You only just now realized that?!”

Well. This was a weird conversation…but at least it was entertaining.

It was pointless.

No matter how many of these damn things he killed or tortured or coerced, none of them seemed willing to negotiate with him. Perhaps this Obariyon was just a fluke—

You’re a fluke!

—or perhaps it was Kurusu’s presence that made them susceptible to any sort of productive talks, conversations that made them liable to forge a contract with anyone, not just himself. It seemed a plausible enough, once he thought about it: Kurusu had obviously not met anyone else who was capable of such a feat, and the only other person Goro knew about who could recruit Shadows to their own psyches was Kurusu…perhaps it was simply a power that only he had the ability to wield, like Loki’s Call of Chaos.

Or perhaps,! Obariyon starts in a mocking tone that’s eerily similar to the way he sounds to himself as he thinks, You’re a giant, stupid idiot-head who won’t listen to the only one of your Personas that actually knows how to do this!

Goro forces the smallest of his Personas into a corner of his mind, pleased that Loki doesn’t even need to be asked to assist with it: it seems they had both had enough of his antics. They had been through this enough by now to know that the former-Shadow didn’t actually know what it was talking about, he only thought he knew, like a child playing doctor who thought they knew how to perform surgeries or check vitals.

Still…that made him think.

Obariyon was a child, in a way: that was how the public’s cognition had shaped him in the collective unconscious, at any rate. Children playing doctor or mimicking any other profession or hobby did so with a vague notion of what an adult did, garnering such information through television or stories or lived experiences. If Obariyon thought he knew how to do this, there must have been some sort of reason for it, some sort of cue the childish Shadow had soaked up like a sponge in water.

…

He didn’t like it, but he was running out of options—or at least options that didn’t involve returning to Kurusu like a cur with its tail between its legs and begging for assistance.

Goro grates his teeth together before metaphorically turning back around in his mind, returning to the place they’d just shut Obariyon inside. Predictably, the Persona was sulking—but it perked up in defiance once it realized he had Goro’s attention once again.

How is it you even have a concept of what Shadow Negotiation even is?

Why should I tell you?! You’re a huge jerk!

His teeth press together with even more force in the Metaverse, causing an ache to gradually swell in his jaw bones.

I’m giving you the opportunity to explain yourself as you’ve repeatedly tried to do—unsuccessfully, I might add—for days now. I won’t offer again.

Obariyon grumbles, but it pushes itself up and fixes him with a stare that’s as piercing as it is confusing, because he’s not sure this thing even has eyes.

I already told you, you gotta pick ones like me—they’ll be different than the other yous because the other yous aren’t me!

Resisting the urge to snap at him, Goro mentally clicks his tongue.

Different how?

Surprisingly, the Persona sobers at that.

Oh.

He thinks for a moment, a cartoonish hand coming to rest on a chin. To Goro’s great annoyance, it seems it can’t even sit still while it tries to concentrate, bobbing back and forth on its legs, shifting its weight from leg to leg not unlike…

Not unlike what?

He’s cut off as Obariyon continues.

Remember when I said it was weird in here?

At Goro’s stilted nod, he continues.

I think that normally, that wouldn’t be true. I think that if I was more like you, then it wouldn’t feel weird—and maybe we’d even get along more and you could have an off-switch like you were whining about earlier.

That was…well, it was useless, but now that he had bothered to hear him out, he could at least tell that the Persona was being sincere: he genuinely meant that because he wasn’t of the Justice arcana (Goro had extrapolated a bit here) that this was the reason he hadn’t fully acclimated to his psyche…and why it was infinitely more difficult to shut him up than it was with Loki or Robin Hood.

Still, he knew as much already: Kurusu had told him that on the day he’d recruited Obariyon. He’d seemed so certain then that he’s only be able to recruit something of his own arcana…so why had it been different? Is that how it was for Kurusu? Could he only recruit…wait.

What is Kurusu’s arcana?

Oh, I’m not sure mister, to his surprise, Obariyon hesitates at that—a reaction that, concerning the topic at hand, has Goro zeroing in on him like he were one of his mental shutdown targets. Hey! Don’t look at me like that! It’s weird, but he feels sorta familiar…maybe that’s ‘cuz he’s my TV doctor, though.

…what?

Obariyon huffs in irritation. That was your way of saying it, not mine!

‘Way of saying it?’

Wait.

Are you saying you’ve had a contract with him before?

It would makes sense in that case: maybe the reason he felt even vaguely familiar was because he’d been inside his head before.

Robin Hood stirs, turning his attention to the two of them.

Huh.

…I don’t know…remembering stuff before I was in here with you is all…hazy. All I can say is that he seems familiar.

Shockingly, Obariyon seems to cut himself off—like he’d wanted to say more but has the cognizance not to. It was odd; he typically liked to ramble.

Go on.

But...

What is it?

Promise you won’t get mad at me?

Goro rolls his eyes, but Obariyon doesn’t budge under the weight of his impatience. His childish antics weren’t amusing in the slightest.

Fine.

He spat the word like it was venomous: for some reason, he felt like if he agreed to it, he’d have no choice but to follow through, like an obligation.

It was a strange sensation, to say the least.

That’s ‘cuz of our contract, mister. But, uh, about what we were talking about before…

And despite his interest in the Persona’s answer, Goro really wanted to circle back to that whole contact thing, because if agreeing to something in his head meant he was actually obligated to do it…

Well, suddenly the term “contract” seemed a lot more apt a name.

Are you sure the whole familiarity thing or whatever isn’t because of you?

He blinks, opens his mouth to ask what that means—

—and is reminded by the sound of clinking chains of just how long he’s been rooted in place.

In not a saferoom.

Mentally cursing, he begins sprinting in the opposite direction of the extremely close sound of rattling death.

Makoto ends up having to go over some things again—just as Sumire had predicted, she hadn’t retained everything from their rushed little Metaverse conversation back in that disgustingly pristine Palace.

He occasionally chimes in—not really because he actually had much to add, but more out of a concerning sense of dread that he was trying as hard as he possibly could to not think about. He has a feeling by the exchanged glances that Morgana and Makoto shoot each other that he’s not completely successful in hiding the fact that something’s up, but he hopes they just take it as him being uncomfortable with the whole “you actually assaulted someone like an evil crimeboy who commits the crimes, didn’t you?” chat that they had.

He has a feeling that Morgana at least doesn’t buy it—and while that might once have been charming, he currently despises the feline’s apparent perception as to his emotional state.

It’d be easier if no one cared.

Eventually, they all taper off. He’s not actually sure how long it’d been—hasn’t bothered checking his phone since lunch, actually—but if Sumire had actually asked every question she could have about all of this, then it had to have been at least an hour, right? He’s about to stand up—there’s something he has to do tonight, after all—when she speaks up once more.

“Nijima-senpai, c-can I ask you something, since you’re the leader of the Phantom Thieves?”

Makoto nods, not thrown off in the slightest at the younger girl’s formality despite talking to who—according to law enforcement—was the head of a group of murderers.

“You’ve all done so much for me—and I truly am grateful,” he starts before pushing herself up…and Akira doesn’t like it, finds his eyes narrowing at the strange look in her eyes. People don’t just start a chat off like that, not unless they’re planning on doing something rash after that. Morgana must notice the newfound tension in his shoulders, because he stands up on the table, opening his mouth to talk her down—which means he’d come to the same conclusion as Akira: they were going to have to prevent her from divulging all of their identities and royally messing this whole thing up in such a way that not even he could fix it—

But then she bows low at Makoto and everything kind of stops as quiet but fiercely determined words leave the chapped lips of the honor student:

“Can I please join the Phantom Thieves?”

Wait, what?!

That…that was the fastest he’s ever run since…

Well, since a long, long time ago—not since he’d first awoken to—

The door is open.

Goro blinks at Robin’s unsolicited words, taking in their surroundings. He’d taken Kurusu’s advice and stuck to the weakest areas in Mementos—and apparently, he’d gone so far up by then that he’d ended up at the starting point, a fact he hadn’t even noticed as he outrun stray bullets from the world’s deadliest revolver.

Though he’d registered the words, they didn’t actually mean anything to him until he saw what he’d been referring to.

Sure enough, there sat the Velvet Room, propped open with—

Is that a rock?

Of all the absurd things that happened today, somehow this was the strangest. For some reason, the sight left him feeling on edge: Kurusu had let the door shut behind him; he can see no reason that he’d leave it in such a state—especially given the fact that no one else seemed capable of seeing it.

”Seemed”, hmm?

Robin Hood’s musings turn his stomach, drawing his saber, he approaches the blue framed door, preparing to fight whatever it was that lay inside of it despite a large part of himself that was convinced this was some overreaction. To his great shock (and irrational fear), the door opens easily due to the rock jammed at the bottom. Steeling himself, he creeps inside.

He is not exactly prepared for what he finds.

“Oh! You’re not who I was expecting!”

The saber falls from his hand, jaw unclenching at the sight of the light-haired boy in the star print hoodie on the table enough to shock him into stopping inside the jail cell.

“But that’s ok,” the strange kid continues, pushing himself off of the table to stand up as he cranes his neck up to look him in the eye, “I learned that I should introduce myself before asking for a human’s name.”

The boy frowns at that, looking sad and completely unlike the way Goro feels—like they were two old acquaintances meeting under regretful circumstances and not strangers that broke into Kurusu’s little Shadow mill.

“Although…” he shook his little head, yellow ringed eyes refocusing on him as his smile returned, “Never mind. My name is Jose.”

What the fuck?

“I’m sorry?!”

So normally, Akira would be privately making fun of her reaction, but he’s honestly a bit lost, too. They weren’t even friends this time around—and more to the point, she’d refused Morgana’s offer in the original run, so, so…

What’s going on here?

“I meant what I asked, senpai—actually!” she rises from her bow, that fire he knew was really hers returning to her face despite the obvious fear in her voice (though knowing her, she was probably more afraid of upsetting them than the prospect that she was conversing with literal murderers). “E-even if you say no, I’ll just follow you anyways! I…I have to find out more about that Palace!”

“I…well, I actually wasn’t going to refuse you in the first place,” Makoto starts uncertainly as Akira’s head swivels to her own because what?!, “But you do know how dangerous this is, right? And are you not even concerned at all about the crimes we’re being accused of?”

“No, senpai,” she turns to lock eyes with him and he already knows what she’s going to say even before she opens her mouth and it’s giving him a fucking migraine, “I know Akira-senpai wouldn’t do anything so horrible as the stuff they say the Phantom Thieves are doing.”

Had he any less restraint, he would have burst out laughing because he’s done so, so much worse.

“O-Oh,” and yeah, he feels a little smug about the guilt in Makoto’s eyes—but in his defense, she deserves it this time around for being an asshole. “I see. Well, we’ll have to do things more officially later on, and I’m not sure how much help we’ll be able to offer you regarding that Palace—”

“That’s alright! I just owe you all so much!”

Morgana’s tail whips up and back to the table, effectively drawing her eyes. “You don’t owe us anything—”

“Yes I do! You all saved me!”

“—and even if you did,” the kitty continues, unconcealed annoyance at being interrupted sharpening his words and turning her cheeks an embarrassed shade of red, “that’s not a good reason to join up. We’re in the middle of some dangerous things right now. Are you sure you want to commit to this even without knowing how this will play out?”

“Yes.”

And damn, was that resolute.

She hasn’t changed a bit.

Maria’s voice sounds in his head, reminding him of soft fitted sheets and the sound of his mother’s voice before—he shakes the thought away, returning to the present.

Please stop sounding so pleased about this.

“Alright,” Makoto starts, so eerily calm that the anxiety currently tearing apart his insides spikes to heights unknown, “I can see you won’t be dissuaded from this. In that case, welcome to the team.”

And while Makoto had held her hand out to shake, Sumire ignored it and went right in to hug her—and all three Thieves were so distracted by the sudden display that they ignored the way his head fell to the table in dismay.

In the depths of his psyche, Arséne starts a fire.

What are you doing?

Roasting the script that this year usually follows. We’re so far off of it that I don’t foresee a reason we’ll need to keep it around.

And, in the silence of his mind, Akira sits down next to him, staring on as the year quite literally went up into flames.

Chapter Text

“Are you alright, mister? You look confused,” there’s a long moment of charged silence that only increases in intensity as the boy lifts a hand up to his chin in contemplation, “and angry.”

Goro frowns uneasily, taking in eyes too golden for them to be human and yet a demeanor too passive to belong to a Shadow. Since it seemed like his chances of being attacked were evidently fairly low (unless he’s misread this entire situation, in which case he’s dead anyways), he decides to start at the top of the lengthy list of questions he’d begun asking himself the moment that those golden, distinctively cognitive eyes locked with his own.

“What are you?”

Jose frowns, cocking his head up at him from his place on the floor.

“I already told you; my name is Jose.”

His mouth twitches down into a scowl before he can correct himself: it was probably unwise to upset the strange Metaverse dweller that apparently had enough power to break into a place not even he had managed to infiltrate without assistance…and the as of yet unknown circumstances surrounding both the room itself and the boy was enough to stay his growing temper.

“That’s who you are, not what you are. You’re not human, are you?”

And despite the questioning lilt in his voice, his face must make it clear that he’s not really asking.

“No.”

The boy blinks up at him, face somehow devoid of the wealth of emotion that thrums furiously just under his skin like the string of Robin Hood’s bow just after he’s downed another Ose in Sae’s Palace, like the deceptively delicate clicking of Loki’s talons in the cavernous depths of his psyche—

Ooh! Do one for me, mister!

He rolls his eyes and notices with growing alarm how Jose’s eyes track the movement in much the same way as the more aggressive Shadows tend to do whenever he fights them alone.

“You know, I once heard that humans refer to their job as what they are. So,” the slender arm falls from where it was currently scratching as his boyish cheek as Jose points to the side—and Goro’s eyes widen as he realizes the small, overly-packed car that sits parked neatly near one of the cells in the massive room, “I guess you could say I am a ‘driver’.”

The boy blinks, his head turned just the slightest bit as he watches Goro’s non-reaction with something akin to curiosity.

Is…is that it?

“It’s because I drive that car.”

…

This isn’t getting me anywhere.

This is a waste of our time! Get on with it.

“…Right,” he starts after a moment, trying to think of how he should phrase his words to the not-child that, apparently, knew more about this place than Goro did. “Why are you here? How did you even get in?”

“Oh, that’s easy: a long time ago, while I was studying humans, I asked Mr. Joker if he would let me come in every once in a while to help upkeep the equipment, and he said yes.”

What?

He searches his face for a lie, but the boy’s face remains a careful, passive neutral. It’s like he was trying to be as non-threatening as possible, like he’d read a manual somewhere about facial expressions and their significance—and that alone made it a thousand times more unsettling than seeing the look on any other person. Or perhaps he should say being. He’s guessing that, by the way the creature was talking, his conjecture might not be so far off of the mark.

’Studying humans’?

More irritatingly, it had apparently piqued Robin’s interest.

For some reason.

“I’m more surprised that you’re allowed in here. I’m not used to seeing anyone but Mr. Joker.”

Golly, maybe we should ask Mr. Joker about that.

Oh gods, there are two of you.

“And why is that?”

Jose hums before he turns and walks to his car, rummaging around one of the many containers strapped to the back of it before he removes a wrench—a motion that Goro’s eyes follow in its entirety because this was not how he thought he’d spend his Monday afternoon.

“Well, you’re the only other human who’s been here in a long, long time: it’s a little strange that he’s letting you in here—or that you can even see this place.”

“See” it? Is he referring to the fact that those other imbeciles hadn’t seemed to notice the entrance as he had? Perhaps there was some prerequisite that had to be met before one could perceive it. Thinking on that basis, he can infer that that has something to do with Obariyon; or rather, with the ability to form these “contracts” with previously hostile Shadows. He had been about to describe it as having more than one Persona, but the fact that he hadn’t noticed the appearance of the Velvet Room before recently leads him to believe there was more to it than that.

Still, there was no sense pondering it when he could simply ask the cognitive being about the situation.

“Why is it that I am able to see this place then?”

Jose’s face scrunches up in thought, a serious looking frown playing on his lips as a small hand scratches his cheek.

“Well…this is just a theory,” the boy says, turning his head to look at the barbarous instruments of violence across the room, “but I bet it has something to do with the fact that you have the ‘Wild Card’ like Mr. Joker does.”

’Wild card’?

His confusion must be more obvious than he’d thought it was, because Jose continues once he gets a look at his expression.

“That’s what he called it when I asked about it once: the ability to hold multiple Personas.”

Goro frowns, one hand bracketing his chin as he studies the boy through his visor. If anything, this answer confused him more: he’s had multiple Personas ever since he’d awakened to both Robin Hood and Loki in Isshiki’s Palace; if that were the only requirement necessary to notice this place, then why hadn’t he been able to see it before? Judging by the strength of Kurusu’s Personas and his apparent surprise at Goro’s newfound ability to see this place, it must have existed here for quite a while without his knowledge. Still, it becomes increasingly clear that this Jose didn’t know much more about it than Goro himself. Time to change the topic.

“I have another question: why is it that I can see this place but cannot enter it unless I am either with Joker or you are here?”

Jose hums in consternation, his free hand coming up to rest on his hip as he thought. “That's a bit trickier to answer…I want to say that he probably doesn’t trust you enough to be here on your own, but I don’t really have proof of that…it’s more like that’s how the cognition in here feels when I focus on it. I never came inside before I asked for permission, so I’m not sure I’d normally be allowed in here, either, but I’m also not human. I’m not sure if the rules are different because of that.”

“Why did you prop the door open?”

“I don’t want to get trapped inside: sometimes, if Mr. Joker gets too grumpy, the door will lock.”

So, if he’s understanding all of this correctly, Kurusu was the one in charge of this place, and if this boy was to be believed, it's features were somehow tied to his emotional state. That implied that there was some level of trust between Jose and Joker—but again, this all depended on whether or not the words that the dweller of the cognitive world spoke could be taken at face value. Something is telling him that this boy is harmless, but he has no evidence to support such a claim; moreover, he’s begrudgingly beginning to realize that his instincts aren’t as reliable as he’d believed them to be.

After all, he’d thought the quiet boy who worked at Sakura’s café was both dense and insignificant until very recently—neither of which were true statements.

The memory of their first real meeting leaves him feeling vaguely unsettled—and it’s that split-second awareness in the boy’s eyes that alerts him yet again that he may not be as innocent as his appearance suggests. Goro’s eyes linger on him for a moment longer before he takes in the room around him, a question pressing so insistently at the forefront of his mind that he can no longer keep himself from voicing it.

“Does that mean this place is his Palace?”

The boy cocks his head again in a mockery of confusion…Goro wonders if he does this to appear more human, to be understood by humans, or in an attempt to understand the mannerisms of humans by mimicking their behaviors. Something about it rubs him the wrong way and it becomes a struggle to keep the glare off of his face.

Oh. Mister, that’s why he bothers you?

His spine straightens in alarm at the sudden, somewhat-horrifying realization that as one of his Personas, Obariyon now had access to his memories as well.

There could be no question as to what he was referring to—not with this irritating mental tether that the child-like ex-Shadow had formed with him after their contract was sealed.

We’re not discussing that.

But—

Obariyon. Enough.

In his mind, the piggyback demon sulks, but (surprisingly) he backs off—which, all things considered, is probably the best outcome he could have hoped for.

“Hmm…”

He forces himself from clenching his jaw at the clinical way the golden eyes across the room study him.

After a long, tense silence, the boy turns back to his absurdly-full car, his hands busying themselves with something in the trunk. As he works (on what could only be left up to the imagination), he starts explaining his thoughts aloud—though truthfully, the quiet, thoughtful way he discusses them leaves Goro thinking he was half-talking to himself.

“You all classify ‘Palaces’ as being the direct manifestation of a single human’s distorted desires, right?” Goro doesn’t reply, but apparently, the question was rhetorical, “The inner workings of a mind made corporeal? Well, that’s not quite how this place works. Mr. Joker said that this room’s appearance is based on how he views the world—but to be honest, that’s only a half-truth,” Jose pauses, his hands removing a comically large hammer from the trunk of the car, a motion Goro follows with a strained sort of caution. “I don’t think he meant to lie, though. Mr. Joker’s pretty honest for a human—except when he’s not.”

As if that statement makes any sense at all.

…there is some truth to it, I think—though why it matters so much to you is beyond my comprehension.

“There’s not really a good way to explain it, but that’s just how the cognition here feels,” and oh joy, he has to take his word for it. How he loves to do that. “One thing I can say for certain though is that this place doesn’t belong to him… it’s more like he’s borrowing the room for a while.” He raises an eyebrow, silently prompting the boy in the too-large coat to continue, “I think you humans call it ‘renting’,” his eye twitches—that was not the part of his explanation that needed clarification—and though he doesn’t look up from his hammer, he can tell Jose’s carefully observing his reactions. “There’s also the fact that there isn’t a core of a cognitive world in here, nor do I sense anything like it in this room—that implies there aren’t any distorted desires to steal or destroy in this place. Plus, if I understand Mr. Joker right, Persona users can’t really have Palaces unless there are extremely abnormal circumstances responsible for it. With all of that being said, I don’t think this is his Palace, nor do I think that this place is anybody’s Palace at all.”

“How are you so sure of that?”

Jose hums, resting the head of the hammer on the ground before him, one small hand loosely curled around its shaft. “It just doesn’t feel like him—not entirely, that is. It’s more like…like the Velvet Room’s owners went on a ‘vacation’ and they left Mr. Joker their spare key.”

Evidently satisfied by his own lackluster explanation, Jose nods to himself and—without any further warning—turns and strides across the room and unceremoniously whacks the ever living hell out of one of the guillotines. It snaps shut at the violent force accompanied by the swing—and to Goro’s surprise, something in the room shifts with it. Being unable to place exactly what that something is makes him increasingly wary, and he just barely manages on keeping his hand from twitching to materialize his sword.

“Hmm…that seemed to fix it.”

Fix what?

He shakes his head, fed up with the seemingly childish (and yet disturbingly also not childish) antics. He’s losing focus.

“Alright then. I have one more question for you.”

“Ok, mister, but you have to answer one for me first.” When Goro’s eyes narrow at him, the boy frowns, some of the fringe of his hair shifting as his head tilts up at him. “It’s only fair.”

“What is it?”

“What do you go by down here?”

What?

“Oh, I see. You’re confused. Let’s see…” he walks closer to him, the hammer dragging lazily behind him across the plush blue carpet that enveloped the room, “I call ‘Akira Kurusu’ Mr. Joker because that’s how he introduced himself as, except without the ‘mister’. I added that because it is polite,” he explains like any of that actually mattered, “Your name is ‘Goro Akechi’,” his eyes suddenly burn with shock that has the boy laughing at him, “But I bet that you have a different name to go by down here. What do you want me to call you?”

“…how do you know my name?”

The boy’s frown returns—and even on such a small, unassuming creature, it’s somehow serious looking, “You can’t ask a question before you answer mine. That’s not how this game works.”

His teeth scrape together unintentionally. “Crow.”

The boy’s bright attitude returns as if it had never left. “Alright Mr. Crow, what is it you wanted to ask?”

He hesitates. There were a lot of things he wanted to ask about—but that shift in Jose’s demeanor has him reevaluating what was most important. He dodged questions about himself or his nature, and it seemed like probing him for answers about what he knew about Goro himself would also be a fruitless endeavor…perhaps he could try asking what he’d originally intended to inquire about?

Deciding not to think about it anymore, he summons Obariyon with a quick touch of his hand to his head. There’s just a flash of clinical interest in those golden eyes before it vanishes—but even that is enough to put him on edge.

“Do you know much about the arcana of different Personas?”

“Sure. Do you want to know this one’s?”

He almost blinks: that was easy.

“Well, yes.”

“Let’s see…I think this one is a ‘Fool’.”

His brows knit together: he knew Obariyon wasn’t of the Justice arcana, but he’d assumed that with his research into it he must have been in one of the neighboring arcana (the two directly next to Justice were Chariot and Hermit). Perhaps he had put too much weight into Kurusu’s words; he’d imagined that if Kurusu was wrong, it would be the next closest arcana to himself. More interestingly, however, was that the Fool was 1) not even close to Justice and 2) the first (or more accurately, the 0th) of the major arcana.

“Is that why it’s so weak? Because it is a Fool?”

Hey!

Jose hums in consternation. “No, mister, I’ve seen some very strong Fool Shadows before. I don’t think the arcana has much to do with that.”

Another question forms in his head: Jose spent a lot of time around Kurusu, it seemed.

Perhaps he knew.

“What arcana is Kurusu?”

Jose blinks, evidently caught off guard before smiling wide, eyes alight with curiosity that served to make the child he was playing at more believable.

“You mean humans have arcana too?!”

Well, it was worth a shot.

“Yes. Now,” he continues, changing the topic before he’s peppered with questions about a subject he doesn’t truly have enough of a grasp on to explain, “I need to acquire another Persona in order to utilize the tools in here,” he gestures vaguely to the instruments of death along the walls, “do you have any recommendations about which ones to approach? The results of my most recent negotiation attempts have been…less than adequate.”

Hehe, that’s one way to put it.

Jose gives him a blank look before abruptly sitting in place on the floor, hands spread behind his small frame to support his weight as he leans backwards on them, kicking his feet. “Why not just talk to ones that you don’t have to negotiate with then?”

…what?

At his non-response, the boy continues, “there are some Shadows—like 'Treasure Demons', Mr. Joker calls them—that seem like they just join him whenever he knocks them down. I bet that if your powers work like his do, that would be a good place to start.”

You…you can recruit those?

Deciding he’s been outsmarted enough by a child (or at least an entity that took the form of one) for one day, he nods, turning on his heel to go treasure hunting.

“You’ve given me a lot to consider. I will keep this in mind…would you mind if I joined you should I see this door propped open when I’m down here again?”

The boy had been a good source of information; it might benefit him to arrange for future opportunities to pick his brain.

Not that Goro’s entirely sure that entities such as this one even had actual brains to pick.

“Not at all,” Jose says before quietly continuing, “and Mr. Crow?”

“Yes?”

“Good job.”

Chapter Text

The rest of Monday was sort of a blur.

Makoto had messaged the chat to inform the group of Sumire’s spontaneous recruitment—and considering that both 1) none of them really knew her that well prior to the infiltration of Maruki’s Palace and 2) they were supposed to disband in less than 2 weeks (and whether or not they were actually planning on disbanding this time was something that not even he was aware of), the announcement had been met with mixed reviews.

Mostly by Akechi.

Still, they welcomed her with relatively open arms (except for Akira; he welcomed her with a migraine) and planned to meet up that night with at least some of them to give her the run-down on what was happening.

Morgana hadn’t seemed shocked when he blew the entire thing off.

When he got back to LeBlanc that night, he opened his laptop for the first time in view of his old friend—and Akira’s still not sure if he found the cat’s mute acceptance of his access to Shady Commodities to be offensive or deserved—and promptly opened a text document with all of the data he’d stored this far. That at least caught the feline’s attention.

“What is all of that?”

And truthfully speaking, there weren’t really any good words for it that would serve to quell the other’s curiosity, so Akira had just shrugged.

The thing about taking a high school statistics class for years on end was that he sort’ve picked up on some stuff: mainly t-tests and confidence intervals and the acceptable ways he was allowed to program his calculator for the exams…but after a while (a long, long while because statistics was put on Earth by vengeful gods to inflict boredom across the globe), he thought that if he was stuck there anyways, maybe he ought to actually make use of it. You only really needed like 30 data points to start testing for trends—and the goddesses know how long he’s been at this by now. It isn’t perfect by any means—in the runs before he really started recording anything of substance, he had next to no information on, and his memory isn’t perfect, (though his Personas often remembered more than he did) so he couldn’t even really guarantee it was all accurate data, but still. It was something.

The problem with teaching himself calculus was that he’s been rather liable to fuck it up, but once he got a handle of the basics, he’s been trying to apply it to some way here, with all these numbers that he’s trying to make sense of.

The number of Rifts he’s seen across the last forty or so runs, the number of repeated ones he’d come across (and the more qualitative information like when in the year he saw them, what the weather was like, the average strength of the Shadows within them—stuff he can’t run any statistics on), the number of times the Thieves had ever entered any (and whether it was on purpose or not), the number of times he’d ran into Akechi down there (and whether the other had been immediately hostile or not). What Shadows appeared in the Path of Kaitul and on which floors, what dates those barriers for the Thieves fell (because at some point down the line he’d discovered that they only ever really appeared for the Thieves—never for Akechi. Not when it was just him).

And of course the answers to those arbitrary questions that he had yet to ask anyone this time around.

All of it—every little scrap that he could remember—is recorded on that document. But it wouldn’t mean anything to anyone who saw it, just like nothing he wrote in that notebook about the abnormal things specific to this run would mean anything, either. He’s gotten so used to his own shorthand and abbreviations and the orders in which he structures any technical information that, objectively speaking, it looked like nonsense. Even which Shadows he found in that one area of Mementos were recorded only as numbers—for even when the text file inevitably disappeared at the start of every year, the compendium did not.

He had all of this data…and no knowledge of any way to utilize it. Honestly, he’s not even sure this advanced math textbook he’d found online would be able to help him: he’d just read that that’s what people did in the working world when they needed answers about things they couldn’t comprehend. It seemed that the farther down any rabbit hole he ventured into, the more calculus people seemed to use; it all just eventually became differential equations (which was just calculus with all the dlc). He’d considered asking Futaba for help: her eidetic memory could probably tear through this all with ease…but then he’d have to explain things and he’s not even really sure if there’s a correlation to be found here. That, and he’d have to teach her calculus—and he should not be teaching calculus.

Really, there’s just one thing he wants to be able to do: predict when that thing was going to appear.

So he’d ignored Morgana’s requests—ignored his irritation at how late Akira was staying up, his inquiries into the absurdly long and ill-formatted text file and, when asked about it, his annotations on the digital pages displayed on his phone screen—and got to work. He’d read somewhere once that the brain was more likely to remember things if they were actually, physically written down—and somewhere else that things were better remembered when they were written in at least triplicates…so that’s what he did. Took notes in one of his empty school notebooks (he never took notes in class, anymore) and then went back and did it again. And again. By the time he thinks he kind of understands how to get the general solution of some very basic examples, he also realizes that it’s three in the morning.

Oops.

He wakes up in a bad mood the next morning—and when Morgana sees how exhausted he is, it puts him in a bad mood, too.

Do explain how all of this nonsense with the English alphabet is helping us out of your predicament.

Akira scowls. Arsene laughs. Beelzebub grumbles.

Ain’t there only two letters, though?

This time, Ryuji joins them for lunch on the roof, but though the three Thieves try and engage him in conversation, his mind is elsewhere—mostly trying to find some justification for forcing himself to learn all of this seemingly useless information.

It was not going well.

When the last period of the day finally ends, Morgana actually has to bat at his arm with a stiff paw a few times in order for him to actually notice.

“How’re you going to pass any classes? You don’t pay attention to anything they say!”

Akira suppresses a yawn and the cat finally pops his head out of the bag to glare at him.

“Are you even listening to me?”

No.

“Ugh. Will you at least check the group chat on your phone?” there’s something muttered in a quiet voice that he’s still just able to hear, “I’d ask you not to keep it on silent but I bet you’d just refuse.”

He’s not wrong. If Akira could put actual people on silent, he’d probably do that, too.

He hasn’t even put his phone password in when Ann interrupts them.

“You don't need to do that—it was just Makoto reminding us of the Mementos outing after school today.”

…

The what?

Ann sighs, looking unimpressed. It had apparently taken less than two days for her to grow comfortable enough to act so familiar with him.

“I'm betting that look on your face means you didn’t actually know about it, huh?”

“See?! I told you not to turn the notifications off like that!”

Akira shoots him a glare that’s more of a tired acknowledgement than a look with actual heat in it. Morgana stares back with a determination the likes of which would slay Yaldabaoth on the spot.

Whatever.

It’s only when he sees Ann’s look of awkward discomfort that he turns to face her once more, face reverting back to a slightly more exhausted version of his usual blank slate.

“Uh, like, I know you told us not to contact you unless we were sending the—erm, the thing and all,” and he has to admit, he’s impressed she has the cognizance to censor at least that part of their chat, “but—”

He cuts her off with a wave, holding his bag open on his lap for his paperweight of a companion to come along before remembering that Morgana’s already inside of it (he’s tired, ok?) and he stands, casually hoisting it over his shoulder. “It’s fine.”

Her look becomes more serious and he thinks that a long time ago, that would have made him become serious, too.

Now he just waits.

“It’s alright if it’s not, you know.”

He shrugs the shoulder without the Mona bag, eyes not leaving hers even as his hand comes up to twirl a stray strand of ebony around his index finger. “Pretty sure my tagalong wouldn’t let me hear the end of it if I ditched.”

They can’t fault him for trying; he really is just attempting to lighten the mood.

It’s never that easy though, is it?

“Akira…”

He lets his hands fall back down to his sides, jerking his head towards the door as he waits for Ann to take the lead. In reality—or in the Metaverse when he was really deep in thought about something—he’s always found it easier just to tail someone in his line of sight whenever he’s travelling. Less to think about, easier to let his legs do the thinking for him as he ponders life’s biggest questions.

For example, will there be enough leftover curry tonight for him to get free dinner?

…such a mindset used to help him a long, long time ago when he didn’t have much of a choice but follow. In his mind, Maria hums as a few unprompted memories flit too close to the surface of his subconscious, but other than that, there are no responses from the Shadows in his psyche.

After a split second of hesitation, Ann leads the way out of their homeroom and they make their way to the train station where Ryuji, Haru, Makoto, and (in a way that both surprises him and yet also is entirely predictable at this point in this fucked up run) Sumire.

“Oh, Kurusu-kun, I…didn’t think you’d be joining us.”

Akira doesn’t bother responding, and Ryuji’s shoes scuff on the train platform below him as he shifts uncomfortably, hunching in on himself in a manner not unlike he had back when the Thieves had first confronted him in LeBlanc.

At least that had been kind of entertaining.

“Senpai! You came!”

Ugh.

“Let’s just get this over with.”

After exchanging another series of looks with each other, the Shujin Thieves nod amongst themselves and continue on to the station square—and to his surprise, they seem to be the first people who arrived for the day’s excursion. Settling against the decorative train car outside, Akira starts reading that textbook again, sure there’s something in the several chapters he’s read through that he missed.

When they reach the safe platform and Queen actually calls for them to rest, Joker pauses after he moves out of the way of the escalators so the others can finish making their way into the glass room towards the center of the walkway, casting him curious glances as they pass him by. He doesn’t return any of them, opting instead to stare at the twin sets of tracks he’s unconsciously half-turned to face, eyes focused as far down one of the tunnels ahead as he can see. Eventually, he makes up his mind on what he wants to do and he silently walks over to the edge of the platform—and the fact that he can hear as some of them in the glass room stir as he does so proves to be something of an irritation: just what was it that they were expecting him to do?

He stops just as the tips of those pointed black boots stick out over the edge of the cement and when the first train on the nearest track finally passes him by, it feels like he can breathe again. He lets the slight tension in between his shoulder blades go with the train, the rush of wind and sound and vibration that nearly shakes his entire person with its intensity having more of a calming effect on him than probably anything his sleep-deprived mind could have conjured. The Metaverse had the ability of taking one’s exhaustion and compounding it to heights far greater than could be felt in reality—regardless of how it was acquired.

He knows that better than most people.

Forcing the images that accompany the thought like the pianist with the singer at the Jazz Jin back down into the depths of his mind, Akira silently notes that Arsene isn’t laughing at his reaction—and quickly discovers that he’d much prefer their mock game of irritation and cracking jokes at his expense over the serious, genuine reaction he had to those old memories.

He really should get over it by now…but…

Gods, I’m pathetic.

None of the voices in his head respond.

Though he hears Yusuke’s approach, some detached part of him is still surprised when the other boy stops a pace or so from him, and beyond a single glance in his direction, Joker does little else to acknowledge his presence. Standing with someone without the exchange of words like they do is surprisingly much less awkward than he thought it would be: perhaps it’s simply because the trains passing by on dual sets of tracks mean they aren’t truly left in silence? It didn’t really matter; Akira is willing to share the view, the feeling of mute anticipation that accompanies each gust of wind, each red-windowed train.

Except then, Fox is clearing his throat and even that moment of relative peace is shattered.

“What is it that you’re looking for?”

Had he not known how perceptive the artist could be, that line would’ve caught him off guard…but there probably wasn’t much he didn’t know about him by now.
Him and all the rest of them.

“Shadows.”

Fox stiffens in alarm, hand coming to rest on the hilt of his blade in alarm as he turns to look around the platform.

Akira doesn’t even glance at him.

“What?! But that’s impossible! Shadows cannot enter safe areas like this.”

Akira raises an eyebrow, finally shifting just his eyes to meet the alarmed gaze of his once-friend.

“Who told you that?”

Fox hesitates, the tension in his stance fading some as he acknowledges the lack of it in Akira’s own.

“Mona did…is there something about this that you know better of?”

What a weird way to phrase that.

Agreed.

He tilts his head, considering. “More or less. Stop freaking out about it; they’re not going to get off the trains and fight you.”

Yusuke’s features twist in confusion. “Off…of the trains?” He pauses for a moment as if giving Joker time to respond (or perhaps correct him) before he continues, voice contemplative, “You’re saying that the cognitions of the public aren’t the only things to board the subway cars here?”

“Nope.”

“I see.”

He didn’t really sound like he could see, though.

They stand there in…he wants to say amicable silence, but Fox actually looks both very tense and also like he’s trying not to let it show. Akira can read it in the way his shoulders are hiked up slightly higher than normal, the way he very carefully refrains from actually looking in his direction for very long, the way his mouth is downturned in a tight-lipped frown. Another train passes by, causing the ends of his overcoat to flap like laundry on a clothes line or a flag on a pole, the fabric audibly snapping against the force of the breeze.

After a while, he turns back around and makes his way into the saferoom: he’s not exactly sure why, but they seemed to take his presence against the doorframe next to Akechi as a sort of cue to start packing up—like they realized his patience was thinning or that they’d sat there for too long.

This time, though, the Thieves merely regard him, continuing their conversation like he’d never came inside the glass structure at all. As Skull starts to speak, Akira notices Fox entering through the entrance opposite of him, resettling in an uncomfortable plastic seat.

“Did you guys hear about that new mental shutdown victim?”

Akira freezes in place against the doorframe, because he actually hadn’t and he’d thought they were past the dates most of his victims would typically be found at.

“There was another one?” Noir’s voice is quiet, without much emotion in it.

“Yeah, some woman by the name of Fumiko Chiba. Guess she was some politician’s wife,” Skull says quietly, expression uncharacteristically sober, “kinda sounded like she was doing some shady stuff, too, but her kids, man…”

We haven’t heard that name before.

“Hey, why do you actually look like your listening to the conversation for once?” Mona says with a raised brow, cartoonish paws crossed from where he’s perched on a hard plastic chair.

“…it’s something of a personal interest of mine.”

Panther’s head twists slightly away from him—like Kawakami’s had that very first time he’d asked for Takase’s guardians’ names: skeptical, alert, and just a touch of “whatever you’re about to do, don’t do it”.

He's never really been good at following directions.

“Why? I mean, I thought you just sorta let this guy do his own thing. If you don’t have any plans to stop him, then why do you even care?”

Oh, he gets her angle—it’s kind’ve sweet, in a way: she’s trying to paint him in a more altruistic (if ambiguous) light to the rest of the Thieves. He could go along with it, feign a sort of vague, noncommittal plan that’s some veiled mockery of the justice he maybe used to have…

Or he could be both honest and push them all out of his hair. Hell, maybe Mona’d even leave him after this—which, while it’s a prospect he internally dreads for reasons he absolutely refuses to acknowledge on the grounds of they fuck him up mentally, would actually be beneficial to him now.

He's mostly gotten what he wants; they aren’t anything more than distractions now—and he didn’t need distractions.

“You watch a lot of television?”

She blinks at him, turning back to fully face him with her chin resting on her hand, legs crossing so the red fabric (or whatever it is) of her bodysuit creaks as it brushes against itself. “I dunno, I guess I watch, like, a decent amount. Why?”

“Have a favorite show?” he waves his hand, gesturing to nothing, “a favorite character? You ever kinda just sit there and try to figure out what they’re gonna do next? It’s sort’ve like that.”

Oracle’s eyes snap up to him (not that he can see them from behind her visor) and he’s actually surprised at how cold it makes him—like, he should feel something about it, right? But all he does is meet her gaze and hold it.

“Why do you do that?”

He hums in question, thankful that the train passes afterwards as it gave his non-verbal little response time enough to be heard.

“You blow all this off as if it’s some pointless little thing instead of people’s lives—like, a ton of people—and you always go out of your way to, I don’t know, sound like this massive video game villain about it, but you’re not even a bad guy. I just don’t understand why.”

He tilts his head, expression not reverting from its bored slate. The pieces are all on the board now; what is his next move going to be?

Hmm…

Apparently, his silence had stretched past an acceptable time to answer, because all too-suddenly, Noir speaks up, face a mask of cool, collected caution.

“Oracle is right: you do have a tendency to dramatize things…especially things that relate to the Black Mask,” her frown deepens and she looks into his eyes. “It makes me wonder just how much of what you’ve told us is true.”

His gaze flattens. “You probably should be wondering about that: I’m not the most straightforward sort of guy.”

She shifts, the thermos in her hand moving to rest on her thigh while her right hand settles over the lid, pressing it there to keep it from moving. “Maybe so…but the only times you get so evasive are when the topic concerns him.”

Is that actually true?

Without really meaning for it to, his lips pull down into a contemplative frown that matches her own. The room is silent.

But was it, though? Hadn’t he answered their questions about him the first time they’d come down here?

Nah man, you really didn’t

How so?

He admittedly didn’t think back to that conversation very much: there just wasn’t any reason for him to do so, and he remembers being both comprehensively cryptic on topics regarding previous runs and implicitly dangerous enough that they hadn’t forced the chat to extend any longer than he’d wanted it to.

That, and that the entire event had been decidedly dissatisfying.

Yoshitsune's sharp disapproval at his own vague recollections cuts him enough to bring him back to the topic at hand and, upon noticing his attention has returned, Beelzebub continues his own account of his recent behavior.

The only thing you really told them was that you weren’t going to tell them anything—that, and that you’re a casual stalker during your downtime.

Memories of the exact words he spoke flit into his mind, but he has little time to parse them as the fly-king continues.

Then after that when you hung out with his victim's child, you told her that you won’t give them any information about the guy for free. That sounds pretty evade-y to me, kid.

Oh.

That did happen, didn’t it?

“Ah, he seems to have returned to us.”

Akira blinks once, the red glow to his eyes fading as he takes in the sight of the Thieves and their proxy all looking at him with various shades of thinly veiled skepticism (and worry, in Mona, Violet, and Panther).

Feeling uncharacteristically uncomfortable with all the attention, he reaches up and scratches the back of his neck, eyes flickering to watch a passing train. “…I was asking my Personas about something. What did you want again?”

Sometimes, their collective attention span was pretty small; perhaps they will simply forget about it and—

“We were discussing your tendency to avoid discussions regarding the Black Mask—something that you’re actively doing at this very moment.” Queen says evenly, eyes as hard as they were during that first chat in LeBlanc.

Well…shit.

“I didn’t really intend for that to happen.”

“…you hadn’t meant to do that?”

“Not really, no,” he answers more honestly than he’d like to—though he means it in a different context than they’re likely interpreting it. He must have been too obvious if they had picked up on all of this so easily…and the fact that he hadn’t actually intended for them to figure anything out filled him with a unique mix of pride and irritation.

So no, he hadn’t meant to be that forthcoming about his desire to not talk about any of this shit—but especially that.

“I see. If that’s truly the case,” Queen continues, looking him down with a hard look of her own, “then I have to ask: why is it that you avoid talking about such a dangerous criminal around the only group of people besides yourself that could ever hope to stop him?”

He doesn’t want to answer them. He doesn’t, but…

They’ve earned their answer, right?

And with Yoshitsune’s firm response, he straightens, hands retracting from his jacket pockets to rest at his sides—and it’s like the whole room came to life.

“You’re right: I don’t like talking about this,” he pauses, bringing one red hand up in a half shrug, spreading it as he continues, “but fair’s fair. I haven’t decided how I want to play this yet.”

Her eyes widen in alarm. “And just what is that supposed to mean?”

Other gazes, wide and incredulous and too shocked to look angry (yet) lock onto his own, but he ignores them in favor if shaking his head. “That’s all I’m going to say about it—”

“If I used one of our questions to ask, would you tell us who he is?”

His eyebrows raise in momentary surprise before he resettles into his serious expression. Besides him, Crow hasn’t moved a centimeter. “Yeah, I would.”

And suddenly, the eyes of the Thieves who’d been exchanging glances with each other re-center themselves on the idiot with the black, unkempt hair.

“I…you would?!”

“For real?”

“Seriously?!”

“Oh!”

“Wait!”

Everyone’s eyes shift from him back to Oracle—even Crow’s, which hadn’t pivoted from his own for the entirety of this very lengthy conversation.

She fixes him with a hard look—which he can actually see because her hand had come up to push the goggles from her eyes as she spoke.

“What aren’t you telling us?”

And that’s an uncomfortable feeling, this full-on repulsion he’s getting at the way she phrased that—makes him suddenly all too aware of exactly where they are, where he is, this room…

His hand settles on his hip and he doesn’t dare dwell on that any longer before he answers. “Actually, it’s more like what have I already told you,” at their uncomprehending gazes (even Akechi’s, he notices), he sighs impatiently, “you’ve asked before, and I didn’t answer you. Do you remember why?”

“Uh, because you can be kind’ve an asshole?”

“Skull! Can it!"

I mean, he’s not wrong.

Queen’s eyes light up in recognition. “You were worried he’d just kill us if we were to confront him; you claimed that our lack of information would ultimately lead to our demise.”

“Uh huh. So…,” he blows a stray strand of hair from his face and the others frown at him or raise an eyebrow or don’t react at all, “Yeah. That.”

“Dude, that’s it?!”

Akira brings a gloved hand up to his neck and tugs, violently causing the vertebrae to crack at the sudden turn.

“Hmm?”

“That’s all you have to say on the matter?” Fox says articulately, eyes burning with an intensity that does more to exhaust him in the single moment their gazes met than all of the traipsing they’d done in the few hours since they’d arrived in the Metaverse. Normally, he’d take his time picking through the best responses to both agree to tell them but also dissuade them from asking things that would probably get them killed. Normally, he had a limitless well of self-control and could feign patience in a convincing way. Normally, he didn’t have a cryptic dream about that thing to ruin his Sunday night or the student council president of his school ruin the next day by pointing out a little blood from a scratch that should not be there because he’d received it in a fucking dream and that shit should not be possible.

So all in all, he thinks he’s pretty justified when he says he’s not feeling very normal.

Painfully aware of the lack of sleep he’d gotten the night before, he opens his mouth and shuts it again before deciding (for once) just to say what was on his mind.

“Look, I really don’t feel like wasting my time here repeating shit that I’ve already told you; ultimately, this is your call. A deal’s a deal. So what’s it going to be?”
Silence overtakes them again just as another train rushes down the tracks, the pale red light from the cars’ interiors bathing each of them in turn with a harsh, red glow.

“U-um! Senpai!”

Violet suddenly stands and locks eyes with him, hands clenched into fists in front of her. Mentally, more than three of his mind’s denizens sigh at the fierce determination that’s so readily apparent on her face.

Oh boy.

“What if we asked something more like ‘tell us how to beat him’ or ‘give us the details on his plans’? I mean, they made it sound like you know a whole lot of things about this person at that meeting yesterday,” and it’s starting to dawn on him that that meeting was probably just lots of shit-talk about him since he and Morgana were the only ones who didn’t attend, “and the way Makoto-senpai made it sound, you didn’t specify that the questions had to be yes or no responses, right?”

“Two of those are just statements, though…,” Fox muses.

Hey Maria?

Yes, Child of the Fool?

Next time, we’re leaving her in the fucking Palace.

“…I didn’t expressly forbid that, no,” he lets her have her moment of triumph for a second longer before he continues, eyes narrowing in a way that wipes the smile off of her face and causes some of them to tense. “However, you might want to be careful about asking such open ended questions.”

To his mild surprise—the man had been struck silent the first time they’d had a little group talk like this in Mementos—Crow is the one to speak up next, a white gloved hand coming to rest on his chin as his head tilts to further face him, brown strands of hair curling around just one side of his face in a way that’s disturbingly boyish. Without his mask on—all but Oracle and Fox had removed them, for some reason—his eyes bore into his even more than they normally would.

“And why is that? It sounds like to me that you’re trying yet again to avoid these topics you so despise by dissuading such a thing—and she’s right: if you had to answer honestly, what could possibly be the drawback of such an inquiry?”

Akira swears to every deity in Mementos that, had he any less control over himself, he would have slapped him right then and there.

Rat on him, fuck this guy.

I concur.

Lucifer hums, but his tone reveals little of what he feels on the topic.

Akira shifts his gaze back to Violet, a small part of him taking satisfaction in the way that the brown orbs to his right narrow in response.

“The only other restrictions I have are that I can’t refuse or simplify the answer,” he winks at her and she blushes (and then kind of feels bad because he was trying to mess with her, not…that), “and I’m already pretty honest with you all,” his gaze hardens and her mouth falls open in…shock, maybe? Give him a break, he’s tired. “That being said, how much information have you really been able to get from my words?”

They probably understand now—at least Makoto does; he knows by the way her eyes flatten at his response.

Him being honest won’t do shit for them if he just talks them into circles. He’s pretty damn good at misleading people—he’s basically a fae complete with the questionable intentions—so if they really wanted to play it this way, well.

He's always liked a challenge.

After another long moment of silence, Panther clears her throat, drawing the eyes of the Thieves and Akira both. “That was part of what we talked about in the meeting, sure,” she says, eyes finding Queen’s with a knowing look that has him raising an eyebrow at them in question, “buuuut it’s not the only thing, remember?”

“Oh dear. You’re right,” Queen sighs and turns back to face him with a troubled looking frown that makes him instantly apprehensive: what now?

“We’d like to apologize to you, Joker—and I would like to personally apologize to you not just as the Leader of the Phantom Thieves but as your student council president as well. I know your school life has been difficult ever since you transferred to Shujin and though I knew about what the other students were saying and how they treated you, I did nothing to discourage that behavior in the slightest. Crow was right when he said we shouldn’t have brought up your record…and if you’re ever willing to, we’d rather hear your side of the story than take the police’s word at face value on this.”

“Makoto…”

Oh. They were just saying sorry. Not, like, attacking him or something. That’s fine, then.

He’s had a weird few days, ok?

He shrugs, settling back against the doorframe as he mentally adjusts to the sudden change in topic.

The sudden change of topic that Ann had caused.

Better go get Ishtar, ‘cause I got a new favorite.

“It’s fine; I was being a bit dramatic anyways.”

You, dramatic? Never.

So are you only me when its convenient for you, or…

Skull shakes his head, awkwardly rubbing at his arm whilst his feet scuff on the tile below them. “Nah, man, we screwed up—even if you can be a real—”

“Ryuji!”

“—uhm, I mean…look, we’re all sorry about that. There’s no reason we had to treat you like all the shitty people at school, ‘specially since you’ve been kinda lookin’ out for us and all this year…so…yeah,” he finishes lamely, locking eyes with him as he does so.

Huh. Well, he hadn’t really expected that, but unlike most other surprises he’s encountered recently, he can’t say that he dislikes it. He offers him a firm nod and some of the tension in the air dissipates.

“Hey Akira?”

He turns back to Oracle for the first time since she’d exposed his apparent obviousness and she doesn’t look up from her computer, face tight with something considering—like she’s deep in thought about something but doesn’t know how to express it.

“Will you tell us what happened that night you got arrested?”

Her hands stop moving over her keys.

He stifles a yawn, voice coming out deeper than normal as he replies.

“Why do you care? It’s not like sharing it will change anything.”

Futaba grumbles, letting out an impatient huff before continuing, “Maybe not, but it might make you make more sense? Like, we could maybe understand you better…and, uh,” she gets quiet, a hurt sort of look passing across her face just fast enough that he can read it, “you know all sorts of stuff about me from going into my Palace, probably, so. I guess it’s just…fair?”

He considers that, eyes tracking the way Sumire sort of shuffles back to her seat as he thinks. It’s not like he actually cared if they knew or not—and besides, she was appealing to his logical side.

Fair’s fair.

Letting his eyes close as his head leans back to rest against the doorway, he’s not sure what he’s expecting as his old story wraps up for the zillionth time he’s told it. The situation has never been quite like this, after all: what with his friends pseudo-hating him or Crow being a Wildcard, too, or Sumire being a Phantom Thief—but he can say that what he was not expecting was this oppressive silence.

Or it would be oppressive if any of it actually mattered anymore.

“Wait: you stopped a woman from getting raped and they charged you?!”

She’s always a little pissed once she hears this story. Panther didn’t like rapists—and neither did Crow, who’s regarding him with a much more calculating look than before.

He nods, shutting his eyes once again after he takes in their reactions.

“That’s bullshit! Ain’t there something we can do?”

“With him already convicted and with the way the police are covering for this man by hiding the evidence and his identity like they are?” Queen shakes her head, “Overturning a court ruling like that is already next to impossible, but if the police are already on his side, there’s no way anything could be done even if…”

He lets them continue on, spacing out with his eyes shut against the door frame, occasional vibrations jostling him from his half-sleep.

Why'd I bother with this again?

There’s no response.

Chapter Text

They spend hours—hours!—in the Metaverse after their heartwarming group chat on the safe platform in Mementos. They spend so much time there, in fact, that they end up breaking for dinner, which made Akira realize how hungry he actually was. See, the Metaverse was sort of a bitch: he didn’t need to eat or drink anything because he was tired—he never really experienced that special, irritating type of exhaustion he used to get from overextending himself in the cognitive world anymore; he simply couldn’t with Personas that either slowly or instantaneously refreshed his stamina…but a replenished ability to fight was not the same thing as a full stomach. Now, one didn’t necessarily need to bring food inside a Palace to be able to eat; some Shadows had a tendency to drop edible things (and he says it like this for a reason: edible wasn’t synonymous with appealing), but it was always more enjoyable if the food one procured originated in reality. He’s surprised when Oracle approaches where he’s standing at the edge of the platform in the new safe area they’d come across, an extra serving of curry haphazardly shifting in a clear bento box complete with rice in her hands that she offers him without prompting.

It's such a nice offer that he almost felt bad about turning her down—which of course segues into a conversation about how much he’s been eating and when and overall serves to piss him off, because what did it matter? He’d stopped paying attention to exactly what she'd asked after the third or fourth insult thrown in his general direction—which unfortunately meant that he'd let slip the reason why he wouldn’t accept the meal his stomach was so insistently begging for. Ultimately, she’d stomped off in an annoyed huff that caught the attention of all of the other Thieves and they’d had a heated sort of debate that Akira’d tuned out for long enough that the next time someone bothered him, it was to explain that they were moving on. It was only in the Mona bus, where he sat in the very back with Noir and Skull, that someone had spoken to him.

“Dude, were you poisoned or somethin’?”

And until he’d remembered the interaction he’d had with Futaba, he’d just stared at him for so long that the blonde began nervously shifting in his seat. Once he’d finally managed to piece together what they might have been discussing, he’d turned his head to stare out the window, and the conversation had mercifully ended in an incredibly awkward silence.

After a dozen or so more rides in the Mona bus—most of which he had perched himself on the roof for just so he didn’t have to deal with their stares—they finally headed back to the surface. He gives Morgana just enough time to hop back into his school bag, and in another life, maybe he’d feel bad about the way he dangled it in front of the cat with a single raised eyebrow, mostly uncaring about whatever words or actions the other wanted to take if he was planning on staying with Akira.

The message had been relatively clear: come now or not at all.

Then the two of them had left without a word, Akira hopped on the first train home, ignored Morgana’s attempts to engage him in any sort of meaningless conversation, and went directly upstairs when the two of them reached LeBlanc.

It’s here now that he stands at the foot of his bed, eyes flickering to and from his large empty shelf in a manner that was—unfortunately—slow enough that the cat perched on the table by the banister is able to see.

“You know, you could use some decorations in here. It’s kind of empty,” the cat says, quietly lifting a hind leg up to scratch at the back of his ear. Akira doesn’t bother responding; it wasn’t the first time someone had brought that up.

And it certainly wouldn’t be the last.

Akira knows what he has to do, but he doesn’t really want to do it…doesn’t really want to know the answer of the question that itches a hole in the back of his mind because if what he thought was happening is actually happening, well…

He sighs, running a hand through his messy hair, unsurprised by the way his fingers catch on the unkempt curls. He didn’t typically bother brushing it anymore. He walks across the room, too aware of the worried gaze of his old friend as he pulls that old cardboard box full of his out of season clothing and, more importantly, his shower caddy. As he removes it, his eyes catch on the spot where light reflects off of the plastic of the single bag inside, the sole item within it as neatly folded as it had been when Akira’d placed it there back when he’d first packed the box up all those years ago. It makes his chest tighten for all the wrong reasons, reminds him again of heavy mid-winter snow and the sounds of small engines running in tandem and of what all of that ultimately ended up meaning to him—

“Hey, uh, are you alright?”

—and of what it meant he had to do now, even though it was going to suck and that he wouldn’t know exactly how to proceed even if his suspicions were confirmed, because sometimes, the truth sucks.

“Yeah. Just tired.”

So tired.

Morgana’s ears droop, but he doesn’t pester him anymore besides humming in discontentment. He pushes the box back and gathers his dirty clothing from the bin in the corner of the room, throwing his pillowcase in it as an afterthought as he loops his hand through the cloth strap of the laundry bin and stands up, shower caddy dangling from his other hand as he moves towards the stairs.

“Oh, are you doing your laundry?”

No, genius, I just collect dirty bits of clothing for fun.

Though he didn’t actually respond, his unamused glare must have made his thoughts on the matter clear because Morgana’s gaze flattens in faux-displeasure.

“Ok, sheesh. Someone’s in a bad mood,” he hops off of the table and moves to settle on his bed, stretching languidly even as one eye pops open to regard him from his new perch, “Wake me up when you get back, alright? Oh, and then we’ll read any messages the others have sent—you’re so far out of the loop sometimes it’s embarrassing.”

Akira snorts, feet silently finding purchase on creaky wooden steps as he descends from his attic home into the café proper. There, Sojiro looks him over with thinly-veiled surprise once he takes in the contents of his hands.

It leaves Akira feeling vaguely offended—he might not do his laundry that often, but he didn’t think it got to the point where he smelled bad, either.

“Hey, come back once you throw your clothes in the wash, alright?” The Boss says as Akira silently maneuvers his way through the restaurant, feet weaving around a few barstools and misplaced chairs. He looks back up at him, but Sojiro isn’t paying him any mind, eyes fixated on the rag he’s using to wipe down the countertop, “Futaba told me you skipped out on dinner and if you wait until after you start the dryer, you can take a longer bath,” at this, he finally glances back up at Akira, giving him a pointed look before he continues, “and that would be best for anyone you plan on being within a few meters of tomorrow.”

Akira frowns before he can stop himself and Sojiro huffs a laugh.

It hadn’t been that long since he’d bathed.

Asshole.

Hey, kid, sounds like it’s your fault for being stinky.

I’m not—

When Arséne starts laughing at him, he realizes the futility of the argument and starts dumping his clothes into the machine, setting his laundry bin on top of it to deter anyone from messing with it while his clothes were in the wash.

Not that that had actually ever happened to him, but better safe than sorry—

“Ah, fancy seeing you here.”

Damn it.

Akira raises an eyebrow at him, glancing up from his phone as he grabs the shower caddy with his free hand. “At the laundromat outside of the café I’m staying at? Yeah, real coincidence.”

He’s a little satisfied with the way that Akechi’s smile twitches on his face, plastic threatening to melt from the blowtorch that was his incendiary words.

“Well, I suppose I just though you would be in bed since sleeping is the only thing your cat seems to think you’re any good at.”

I hate him I hate him I hate him I—

“At any rate, I was just coming by to get some of Boss’ delicious coffee—”

No you weren’t.

“—when I saw you standing here; would you care to join me?”

Akira lets out the longest, most drawn-out, suffering mental sigh that lights his mind up in the mirth of at least four different Personas.

He’s starting to think that he’s going to have at least four less Personas by the time he forces his feet to carry him out of the room and back across the alleyway, head sharply jerking forwards as he passes the other boy in a silent, universal gesture of “follow me”.

There’s the barest moment of hesitation from behind him until another, softer set of footsteps mirror his own—which is sort’ve funny, actually, because he forgot how much the other truly despised having to follow him around.

Whatever. It’s not like Akira had forced him into anything: Akechi wound up being a pain in his ass completely on his own.

He holds the door open with a foot, uncaring of the fake words of gratitude that spill out of his mouth like water from a fountain—like the rhetoric was purely functional and similarly devoid of any meaning but for the expectations of others.

Aren’t you being just a little too critical of him?

Am I?

There’s no response, and his brows furrow in contemplation before he can think too much of it. Sojiro locks eyes with him as the bell above the door sounds their arrival—and this time, he doesn’t even try to hide his shock.

“You brought a friend over?”

The disbelief in his words sharpens his otherwise impassive look into a glare, but Sojiro had never been bothered by that sort of thing. He shakes his head, turning back to the wooden cupboards to remove another plate—

“My apologies, I hadn’t meant to impose…”

Akechi takes his usual seat at the counter, the second stool from the door. To the other boy’s visible surprise (and Akira can’t in this situation tell if it’s for show or not), Akira pulls out the chair directly to his left and slumps forwards, chin resting in the crook of his arm as he stares forwards at the wall of beans ahead of them.

Something about the interaction must amuse Sojiro, because he lets out a noise between a scoff and a chuckle, a sound that says something like “just look at my idiot son trying and failing to make an idiot friend.”

It…actually serves to soften his mood, if only a bit.

He’s never been able to stay angry with the man.

“Don’t worry about it, kid. I was pretty sure pigs would fly before he brought someone here of his own accord. Was starting to worry I might have to pay off Futaba’s friends so I didn’t have another shut-in on my hands.”

Akira’s eye twitches and Sojiro lets out a real laugh—as does, to his growing irritation—Akechi. Even if it was a bit stilted and less mean than it’d normally sound, he can tell that the mirth there was genuine.

“Ah, well, I’ll have to offer my thanks for your generosity, then. It isn’t often that I get to eat something that doesn’t come out of a box.”

Sojiro’s brow raises from where he stands near the curry pot by the stove.

“Your detective work actually keeps you that busy?”

“On occasion; It’s more that I fall behind on my class assignments and much of my spare time must be used to catch up on them. I have permission from my school, but I admit that it can be difficult to work and attend classes all at once.”

Well isn't that some grade A horseshit.

No kidding. Akechi didn't struggle with that (unless one counted the sleep deprivation). Akechi didn't struggle with anything...save for being a decent person.

Heh.

“Hmm…well, the way I see it…”

Akira tunes out yet another conversation he’s heard a hundred times before: Sojiro’s Noble-Yet-Frivolous Attempt to Parent the Bird Prince.

It’s only after the Boss sets the ceramic plates across from him that Akira actually sits up, and the two other males in the room continue to talk about high school and work life balance while he leans away from them both, eyes focusing on nothing until they flash back to the television screen when an image he had not seen before pops up in the corner of a news segment.

”…police found her unresponsive in her home office slumped over what officers could only describe as ‘a heap of illicit documents’ that described in-detail how the woman embezzled shockingly large sums of money from the non-profit organization that her and her husband founded over twenty-three years ago. Experts say that, given the way the papers were laying in plain sight in various open locations throughout their apartment, it’s likely that Arata Chiba, a well-known LDP congressman, was involved in these apparent crimes in at least some capacity, and—"

“Kid?”

Akira blinks, turning to look at Sojiro as he shakes himself out of his stupor.

The man sighs, bringing a hand up to rub at his neck. “You weren’t listening to a word I was saying, were you.”

It’s not a question, so Akira just waits, willing himself to ignore the screen mounted on the café wall as well as the poorly-concealed look of interest from a certain someone to his right.

“Your coffee is gonna get cold, and the curry isn’t going to eat itself.”

He shakes his head, shooting him a pointed look that lasts only as long as Akira sheepishly brings the fork up to his mouth.

He’d probably never get tired of its flavor.

Akira eats the rest of his meal in silence, noticing that Akechi had already cleared his plate in the time he’d spaced out. The coffee is lukewarm, but he could drink Boss’ coffee ice-cold and still be content with its flavor—though Sojiro might actually kick him out if he ever saw him try anything like that.

Apparently, cold-brew coffees were not just regular coffee with a bunch of ice in it—at least, not if you wanted to “make it right”.

Whatever that meant. He’d kinda zoned off the one time he’d asked Sojiro more about it.

He did that a lot.

Akira pushes himself up mechanically once he drains the last of his cup, but Sojiro must know what he’s planning on doing, because he cuts him off with a clearing of his throat.

“I got the dishes, kid. Shouldn’t you go and put your clothes in the dryer now?”

He nods and the Boss takes their plates, back to them as he makes his way to the sink, pausing once to eye him over his shoulder with a look of tired disapproval as the bell chimes over the door.

“Are you seriously going to make your friend wait for you here?”

He frowns, head twisting in confusion that makes the annoyance in Sojiro’s gaze increase almost exponentially.

“Kid, go with him. He’s obviously too dense to understand what I’m trying to tell him.”

Ok, rude. It’s not my fault I’ve heard all of this befo—

His eyes catch on the glint of the old overhead café lights on the cheap plastic dangling from his hand.

Oh.

Oh.

He forgot that he was going to the bathhouse. And Akechi had just sat at the counter for a good half-hour complaining about how exhausted he was. And Sojiro thought that he invited him over (he did not). He must look really rude right now.

And that, unfortunately, meant that Akechi was coming.

I don’t get paid enough for this.

You don’t get paid at all for this.

He’s pretty sure by the expectant looks he’s getting that he’d been asked another question, but since he’s not willing to risk making even more of an ass of himself than he already (apparently) had, he simply props the door open with his foot once again, silently ushering a mildly-surprised Detective Prince out of the café proper.

Once the two of them make their way to the laundromat, Akechi clears his throat, awkwardly breaking the already awkward silence. Akira doesn’t pause as he throws his clothing into the dryer, hovering over the open washer to make sure he won’t be missing a sock or three come next week.

“I can go, if you’d like; I really hadn’t meant to intrude.”

He’s surprised at the sincerity in his voice while simultaneously aware that he’s able to mimic sincerity pretty believably.

Ugh.

Akira shrugs, closing the lid to the washer gently as he turns to the dryer.

“Up to you. Not like I really care,” he mulls that over a moment before adding: “well, except that Sojiro might disown me if he found out you left.”

Now that he’s thinking about it, he’s not convinced Sojiro won’t just wait around and make sure he didn’t scare the other boy off. Or maybe “scare” wasn’t really the right word…maybe it’s something more like “apathetically exist in the same general vicinity as him until his unresponsiveness convinced any living beings in the area that he was dead and thus disqualifying the need to linger around his lifeless corpse any longer than absolutely necessary”.

Yeah, that sounds more accurate.

I mean, he is a detective; maybe filling out death certificates is something he’s gotta learn how to do, anyways.

The mental image makes a corner of his mouth upturn in some pale imitation of a smile and Akechi raises an eyebrow at him, face more-or-less as authentic as his really ever got as he overlooks him with something like…discomfort?

Abruptly, he’s reminded of the first conversation he’d had alone with the other boy and the smile falls from his lips.

Ah yes, I forgot that I’m an asshole.

Noticing his shift in demeanor, some of the tension falls from his posture, and deciding he’s not going to think this over any more at the risk of saying something that would either offend him or depress himself (more than he already was), Akira switches on the dryer and walks out into the narrow passage from the exit to the laundromat to the bathhouse, a single eyebrow raised in silent invitation.

He can’t really say why Akechi ultimately decides to join him. Maybe he really is as exhausted as he had claimed to be. Maybe he’s just too curious about Akira and—more importantly—what he seemed to know about him. Maybe he just wanted a bath. Either way, when the sound of pristinely polished shoes lightly pressing against the worn dirt path reached his ears, Akira made sure not to let the door slam in his face.

Even though it would have been kinda funny.

Really funny.

Heh.

“Hey.”

Akira heard the other boy call out to him even as he started removing his school blazer—which, reasonably, he should have just left in LeBlanc, but he’d been kind of distracted. He tilts his head to the side and instantly regrets it because somewhere along the line he’d apparently forgotten that since they were both in the bathhouse they would both be getting undressed.

Eyes quickly flickering away from the pristine skin that was typically covered by layers of clothing, Akira opts to answer verbally instead, hands deftly unhooking the buttons of his school dress shirt as they spoke.

“Yeah?”

“I’m a bit curious as to the…situation regarding your living space.”

He pauses for half-a-second before continuing, removing pale arms from the long sleeves of his attire. It wasn’t really a conversation that he’d thought they would have tonight.

Or at all, actually.

Since when did he care about that?

Arséne hums in agreement. Lucifer watches in silence. Beelzebub cocks his head.

“Alright?”

By now, he’s gotten to his shoes, once again reminded that he should have bought something other than tennis shoes for occasions like this. Putting socks on with wet feet was just gross.

For a moment, there’s no reply, and Akira belatedly wonders why he hadn’t just waited to respond to the other’s inquiry until after they had got in the bath.

There just really isn’t a good way to have a conversation with someone while undressing.

“Are you adopted?”

He blinks, caught off guard by the abrupt question—and just barely manages to catch himself before he turns to look him in the eye.

He didn’t need that right now.

“I couldn’t find anything official when I looked, but…” Akechi trails off, humming in contemplation as he searches for the right way to say what he’s trying to say, “…your situation is abnormal,” is that why you keep calling it a situation? “When I first pulled your file at the police station, there was one other thing that struck me besides the exceedingly peculiar way in which your court case was handled.”

When the rustling from the other finally stops and his own towel was secure around his waist, he turns to the other with an uncomprehending frown—it’s not like he hadn’t know that Akechi could potentially have access to all of this information, but he had never really brought it up in conversation before, and Akira still really doesn’t understand why—that the other matches in intensity with an inquisitive stare before turning on a heel and making his way to the showers.

Akira's at least grateful that the other boy has the decency to wait until after they've both finished cleaning up to start talking again.

When they both settle in the bath—after Akira had grumbled when he saw who was at the faucet and Akechi had cocked his head ever so slightly in his direction—Akechi continues at an unhurried pace, eyes flickering to the old man who kept turning that heat up with the rickety old nozzle.

“It mentioned only vague details regarding the specifics of it all—you are a minor—but when the report discussed an exchange of funds between the Kurusus and your soon-to-be guardian, I had assumed at first that you were the victim of human trafficking,” at the way his eyebrows shoot up at that, Akechi continues, “It’s actually not as uncommon as you would think for minors with a criminal record—especially ones that end up staying with people outside of their immediate family. But,” his eyes grow just the slightest bit distant even as the heat intensifies around them (stupid old man), “when I found out whose care you ended up in, I couldn’t help but wonder how in the world that that even happened.”

Akira doesn’t miss the slight edge of irritation there—and a short flash of realization that crosses Akechi’s face shows that he noticed his own slip, too.

“That aside,” he continues, eyes once again flickering to the old man with a look of disdain that he doesn’t bother trying to hide, “I want to know a couple of things from you. Why did you uproot from your life in your hometown and come here? Actually,” he continues before Akira can even open his mouth, amending his question before he could have even hoped to provide an answer, “Why did they make you leave your hometown? How did you end up here, staying with a man you’d never so much as spoken to before the start of this year? And why are you still staying with him?”

That’s more than a couple of things, Akechi.

For a while, he thinks about his answers. He could blow him off, but…

“I haven’t had dinner yet,” how is that my problem? “Would you like to go get something? My treat, of course. I hope you don’t mind, but I’d like to pick your—”

“How would I not mind?” He finally spins in the chair to look at the other boy—who looks surprised that he’d interrupted him. “Look. I don’t know you," which is kind of a lie and kind of not, "The way that you’re ‘trying to get to know me’ is, what? Asking a bunch of extremely pointed questions? That’s not what people do, Akechi. At least pretend you care about someone when you’re trying to get something from them.”

But. He can’t really figure out what Akechi had to gain by asking any of that…it wasn’t like he had opened the conversation with probing him about a bunch of state secrets or something. These could reasonably be things the other boy was just curious about.

It makes him feel strange for reasons he can’t quite place.

Are we gonna tell ‘im?

I guess I don’t see that harm in it…

“Why did I leave? Because I didn’t have a choice, “ not that he had been too broken up about that, mind you, but it still hadn’t been a very enjoyable process for him, at least not in the first run, “According to Sojiro, he’s a friend of a friend of my parents,” which really just meant his dad (for obvious reasons)—which had not made him excited to come stay with the man. “As for why I've stayed…I get free room and board and the occasional meal, access to appliances, my own room…,” Akira shrugs, his shoulders sloshing the now extremely hot water as they rise and fall over the water line, creating little waves in their wake that gradually fade away with the passage of time. “Why would I leave?”

Akechi hums, a hand coming to bracket his chin as he dissects him with his gaze alone. “You ‘didn’t have a choice’, hmm? Could you elaborate on that?”

He thinks some of the uncertainty must flicker across his face, because something in the other boy’s expression changes as he takes him in anew.

“Why?”

At first, he doesn’t answer, opting to regard him with that same, flat, cold stare he was more accustomed to seeing when snow fell from the sky. After a while, though—after his eyes once again settled on and off the old man who was currently boiling them alive like lobsters in a pot—he spoke.

“I suppose I’m just curious about you—and your background in particular. You don’t have to humor me, of course, but…” he trails off, eyes searching for something Akira couldn’t place if he tried to, “a better answer might be that we may be more alike than I had initially thought.”

Oh.

That’s…kind of sad, actually.

And he’s not sure how accurate it is, either—but he feels so disconnected from his life back home now that he’s not convinced such a similarity would even matter anymore.

Still, though…if that was why he was asking…

“…My father didn’t really give me a choice. I woke up the morning after my sentence was issued to a cardboard box on the floor outside of my doorway and a handwritten note stapled to a train ticket for later that morning.”

Akechi’s frown shifts on his face and he settles further against the cement ledge behind him. “What did the note say?”

“Hmm. I don’t remember the exact words, but it had Sojiro’s home address and a vaguely worded sentence or two under it saying that I would be gone by the end of the day, one way or another.”

Akechi’s face darkens a bit, but Akira can’t quite place why even after he repeats his own words back to him.

“’One way or another’?”

“Yeah?” At his uncomprehending expression, an odd look flits across the other’s face until it closes off completely, leaving him wondering just where in that conversation he had fucked up enough to shut the other boy down.

Oops…I think.

“I take it they didn’t see you off, then?”

Perplexed, his brows knit together before he responds. “No?”

The other pins him down with a hard, complicated stare before closing his eyes.

“…I see.”

Really? I don’t.

In his mind, Lucifer hums, the noise biting its way through his mind with a cold so thick it hurt despite the fact that it wasn’t intentional.

“In any event,” Akechi finally says after a long, surprisingly relaxed silence, “there was something else I wanted to ask, if you were amenable to it.”

Maybe he just asked all of this stuff because he was buttering me up for his real question?

That didn’t come out as convincing as you thought it would.

At Akira’s silence, Akechi continues, “You’ve seemed rather…off lately—and I don’t think it has much to do with what the others apologized to you about,” and he was right, yeah, but he also wonders what he did to give himself away, “Is there any particular reason for that?”

His eyes slip open at that and the other snorts a laugh—which Akira doesn’t understand until those same brown orbs pointedly glance at the old man’s back and then to his own (presumably very flushed) face, his eyebrow raised in silent question. Akira rolls his eyes at him.

“You know you look the same, right?”

“Hmph. Sure,” there’s a quick flash of teeth, all feral, all mirthful, all Akechi that actually has him smiling a bit despite himself.

Then he remembers what the other boy had actually asked him and it falls from his face like rain down a gutter—a response that’s carefully tracked by slightly narrowed, now humorless eyes.

I feel tricked.

Uhh, maybe you were? Kinda hard to tell with this guy.

He turns his head from side to side, gaze encompassing the entire area with purpose before he looks back to Akechi, choosing his words very carefully. “Yeah, but…”

Not here.

Apparently catching his meaning, the other offers him a curt nod, and they return to relative silence broken only by the squeak of that infernal (and he’s starting to mean that literally) faucet knob.

That is, before he remembers that he should probably, like, wash the sweat off of his head that's currently acting as a sort of paste for his wet mop of hair.

He doesn’t spend very long with this part, hating the few times he actually had to submerge his head in scalding hot water because a certain, wrinkly old fuck couldn’t resist challenging his neuropathy to a death battle in a public bathhouse.

Well, that and because he was pretty sure that if he didn’t dunk himself, then it would be sweat lodged in his ear canals instead of water come morning.

After the two of them are done, they awkwardly make their way back to the interior and get dressed before either make any attempt at communication—because again: there really wasn’t a good way to have an actual conversation like that. Akira suffers in his damp socks, his hair poofy on his head from where he’d dried it as roughly as he could. It was just too thick not to; if he chose to be gentle with it, he would inevitably wake up with water in his ears the next day, and that shit hurt.

“About my question…” Akechi starts as they stand fully clothed in the changing room whilst running a simple looking comb he’d produced from that attaché case through slightly darkened brown strands. If he had been planning on continuing, he must have changed his mind, because he didn’t say anything else after he locked eyes with Akira, face still slightly red from the stewpot they’d both just sat in for…well, actually, he isn’t quite sure of how long.

“…We can talk tomorrow, if you want to, but there’s really only one good place for a chat like that, and it’s kind of late…”

Inwardly, he wonders why he’s even indulging in his request before deciding he’s much too sleepy to actually care…at least, for now.

I feel as though you’re going to regret that later.

Maybe.

Akechi huffs another laugh at him, this one higher pitched as he takes in the few others around them. It’s more fitting of his public mask, yet still not quite there. Maybe being boiled alive really did melt the plastic off of him, if only for a time.

“That’s fine. It actually works out rather well; I have something else I’d like to show you,” his eyes crinkle with mirth as he takes in the way Akira sleepily blinks, “but you don’t appear to be in any shape to listen to it right now,” Akechi heads towards the exit, as he pulls out his phone, glancing at the lock screen before replacing it in the pockets of his dress pants, “You know, you could have turned me away if you were this exhausted.”

Akira freezes, words registering like ice to an open wound, raw and bleeding. From where Akechi holds the door open, he turns back—probably intending on making some sly comment or another about Akira’s current state—but when he takes in the serious look on his face, posture devoid of the fatigue he so obviously felt just moments ago, his mouth hangs open instead, caught on words that were lost in the translation between brain and eyes.

“Is everything alright?”

Some things—

“Yeah.”

It sounds hollow, even to him.

—weren’t meant to be shared.

Chapter Text

When he got home that night, he felt so subdued that Morgana stopped pestering him and started telling these stupid little stories. He admittedly hadn’t listened to the first two, gazing at his ceiling with what was probably a pretty vacant look as he pondered both his next steps and the lives full of regrets that he kept on suffering for. It’s only now, with the cat halfway through his next tale, that Akira tries to tune back in, letting his soft, yet bold voice lull him back into his body and out of his mind as he spoke.

Apparently, Ryuji had gotten his hand caught in one of Shujin’s vending machines in the courtyard—and it was while this happened that Makoto got her recording that she later used to blackmail her way onto the team. One of the teachers had ended up catching him “vending-machine handed” (as Morgana put it) and the three Thieves were only able to prove Ryuji’s innocence by pleading with the teacher to pull the camera footage (because, like always, the cameras were spontaneously fixed one day after Kamoshida’s confession).

Go figure.

“—and the best part of it was what Lady Ann told Mr. Kobayakawa when he questioned why he didn’t just report the incident to the school store. She said: ‘please, sir, he’s not a criminal—he’s just stupid’!”

It's not surprising in the slightest—nor is it anything new—but Akira offers the cat a snort all the same, hope that the other doesn’t hate him too much clashing with his borderline obsessive need to be alone.

It’s not the greatest combination, as some of his more vocal Personas feel the need to point out.

“Skull can be such a moron sometimes!” Morgana chirps happily, tail swishing lightly in the air behind him as he took in Akira’s newfound attention with a look that was just a little too casual. He might not be the worst actor the Thieves had to offer, but Akira’s known him for so long now that even his kitty-fied expressions are easy for him to read.

All people were like that, becoming books with clearer pages the longer you spent the time to read them.

“So…”

Akira doesn’t even blink.

“Uhh…wanna read those messages now?”

He turns back to look up at the ceiling so he doesn’t have to stare into those big blue eyes anymore.

From his position in bed, they’re honestly starting to remind him of the first time he ever woke up with another person in his bed—huMona—and the way he’d leapt out of it like…well damn, he doesn’t know, like a boy who’d just woken up in the arms of another man.

You have had an odd assortment of experiences.

He lets out a slow breath through his nose, hand tapping a steady rhythm on his thigh as Angel’s words sounded in his head like a choir.

I’ve had a fucking weird life, yeah.

Deciding against continuing this argument with a being that just didn’t matter—

Hey!

—he pushes himself up into a sitting position and fishes out his phone, beckoning Morgana over with a quick curl of his fingers without taking his eyes off of the empty screen before him. The cat wastes no time with coming across the room, and he settles himself neatly on his lap under the crook of his arm, front half resting on Akira’s leg while his back half curved around his side. Akira opens his phone with a quick flash of fingers he knows the cat won’t be agile enough to follow (he’s gone this long without anyone figuring out one of his passwords, he’s not breaking his streak now) before opening the messaging app saved to the home screen of his phone, ignoring the cat’s hum of sadness at the chat history of people he’s talked to this year that’s so small he can’t even scroll through it.

He opens the group chat.

7:14 AM

Mako-chan: Given the new addition to our team, I’d like us all to meet up in the usual spot and track down some of our targets in Mementos
Morgana lets out an exaggeratedly anguished sigh, turning to him with a single twitch of an ear.

“OK, not that far back. Get to the stuff after we left for the night—they could have sent anything while you were taking the world’s longest bath with Crow.”

Akira gave the cat a flat stare that the other met with equal intensity. It makes the corner of his mouth twitch up before he can stop himself, and the cat’s gaze softens in turn.

Foolish boy.

But even Lucifer’s comment comes out less scathing than he’d likely intended it to. Fond, maybe.

Before he can overthink it and inevitably depress himself, Akira scrolls down to the next relevant timestamp.

Sumire Yoshizawa: I want to thank you all again for allowing me to join you today! I promise I won’t slow you down!

Skull: Stop bein’ so formal, dude, youre one of us now

Sumire Yoshizawa: I can’t do that, Ryuji-senpai! Not if I’m going to be the best that I can be! You’re all already so far ahead of me.

Pharaoh: nah, you’re pretty much just as strong as everyone else—my persona lets me see your relative power levels and you don’t have anything to worry about there

Beauty Thief ftw: Futaba-chan is right! And there’s no need to thank us. You’re doing us a favor just by being here, and we’re all thrilled to have you as a part of the team!

Pharaoh: !!!

Better raise her grades: Haru, never change

Purple: I do have one question though…do you all think Akira-senpai is ok?

Purple: Oh! It’s Sumire Yoshizawa, by the way. I’m not sure what happened to my name.

Pharoah: yeah ryuji, what happened to her name?

Skull: Uh, well, you were the only one who didn’t have a nickname yet and violet is a kind of purple, right? So I figured that’d be fine.

Skull: Oh, and he’s prolly fine, guy gets like that all the time. He’ll get over it

Purple: I see…isn’t that sort of concerning?

Skull: Huh? Why?

Akira’s headache starts to come back and he watches as the frown slips from Morgana’s face.

Purple: Ah, well, the way he was pulling away from everyone like that reminded me of how I acted after my sister’s funeral—at least until I saw a counsellor.

Better raise her grades: Sumire…

Better raise her grades: Don’t mind Ryuji, ok? He’s just worried about next week and the investigation and all that.

Better raise her grades: And before we continue this or anything, just remember that Akira has access to all of this, too. I don’t know if I would like it if people in a group chat brought up my issues like this.

Yep, I'm definitely summoning Ishtar the next time we head into the Metaverse.

Purple: Oh my gosh! I didn’t even think about how this might upset him!

Purple: I’ll have to think of a way to apologize!

Akechi: My apologies for changing the subject, but this line of dialogue paves the way to a question I had regarding that quite nicely.

Akechi: With what you’ve just said in the chat just now, am I correct in assuming that before you saw this counselor, you still thought of yourself as Sumire?

He sits up a little straighter as he reads the message—a fact that the cat half-perched on his lap doesn’t fail to notice.

Purple: Oh! Now that you mention it…that’s exactly right.

Purple: But how is that even possible? And how did you know that, Akechi-san?

Akechi: It was merely an educated guess I came to when I thought back to the battle we had in that mysterious Palace in Odaiba.

For the love of the goddesses, please drop this.

Akechi: Which brings me to my next point: what was this counselor’s name?

Purple: Huh? Why do you ask?

Akechi: Because given what you’ve stated in the chat today coupled with the bizarre conversations we had with the stronger Shadows in that Palace and the research postings strewn about the place, I think that it’s quite probable that whoever you saw for treatment is the cause of you believing that you were your sister—and as such, also the Palace’s Ruler.

He did not drop it.

He lets out a long, slow breath through his nose.

That’s what ya get for worshippin’ gods and stuff, kid.

Not now, Beelzebub.

Purple: WHAT?!

Pharaoh: they knew about mom’s research…

Skull: For REAL?!

Mako-chan: That’s quite a jump in logic, Akechi-san. Sumire’s already admitted that her memory of that time period is unreliable; back after we all left that Palace and you and Akira went off on your own, she said that she had two sets of memories about the same times.

Akechi: As I said before, this is merely conjecture; however, given the nature of the content on the bulletin boards, wouldn’t you agree that the person who rules that place has some sort of research and psychology background? Would I also be correct in saying that the time period that you’re referring to started sometime after Kasumi-san’s funeral?

Akechi: I apologize if I’m being too brusque, Yoshizawa-san; however, considering the rather intimate knowledge that the Palace Ruler seemed to have of Sakura’s mother’s research, I’m sure you can understand the need to determine this Palace Ruler’s identity as soon as we can.

Pharaoh: i agree with akechi. Someone stole her research and if this person knew about it…

Purple: Oh, don’t worry about that! I would also like to know who that was. I mean, they knew so much about me, after all. And about what you said, Makoto-senpai, my memories were a bit scrambled, then, but they became much clearer later…or maybe just easier to tell apart?

Purple: I could tell which ones were real, anyways, and when I started thinking I was my older sister. And Akechi-san is completely right! None of those changes to my memory or anything happened until after I saw a counselor. Does that mean Dr. Maruki could be the Palace ruler?

2 broke 4 train fare: Hold on a moment: are you suggesting that the enlightened man with the ability to glimpse into the very fabric of the human heart is in fact that Palace’s Ruler?

Better raise her grades: Wait wait wait: like OUR Dr. Maruki? As in the school counselor?

Skull: You talked to him too, Yusuke?

“Hey Akira…is it really…”

His headache has now become a full-on migraine.

Mako-chan: If what you’re saying is true…

Mako-chan: Then that means he’s had an opportunity to speak with every single one of the Phantom Thieves besides Akechi-kun.

Beauty Thief ftw: Oh dear…

Mako-chan: …I was hoping to avoid adding too much to our plate before the completion of Sis’ Palace, but given the seriousness of this situation, I think we have to act.

2 broke 4 train fare: I concur; however, were it not for Kurusu’s involvement during the previous infiltration, I believe it would have turned out quite poorly for all involved.

2 broke 4 train fare: Frankly, to attempt this in our current state would likely be suicide.

Akechi: Are you certain this is a good idea? We have only a week until your disbandment, after all.

Purple: I didn’t mean to work everyone up like this…

Mako-chan: Weren’t you the one who brought this all up in the first place, Akechi-kun?

Akechi: True, but this wasn’t in any way to encourage you to take on this “Maruki” as a target; I merely wanted information on him so I could use my police connections to look into his background.

Akechi: I feel I should also point out that just because this man is aware of Isshiki’s research does not necessarily mean he was a part of the group who stole it; typically, government-funded research projects are done in teams, and I am not currently aware of any other fatalities of people related to said research.

Akechi: Furthermore, there is no way of proving that this man’s knowledge was unrelated from what she was working on at all.

Pharaoh: hold on. that’s not tru

Pharaoh: remember the research bulletins from the start of the palace?

Beauty Thief ftw: Oh, that’s right! They directly referenced Futaba-chan’s mother’s research paper!

Pharaoh: exactly. this guy, whoever they are,athey definitely know something. and i don’t think we should just ignore what they did to sumire, either. that kinda power isn’t normal

"Do you still have that? I remember you taking one of the postings down when we were there.”

Akira nods numbly, eyes scanning messages he can predict the contents of with a growing sort of detached dread.

Mako-chan: I don’t think this can afford to wait. For all we know, this person has connections to the people that killed Futaba’s mother, and we know next to nothing about their motivations. But first…

Uh oh.

Mako-chan: Kurusu-kun? Can you confirm the identity of the Palace Ruler.

Morgana looks up at him with a serious, expectant gaze. His thumb pauses over her message, and he rereads it, regretting his life choices.

h: I can do u one better: don’t bother with this

Skull: Dude, what the fuck kind of response is that?!

Better raise her grades: Ryuji!

Mako-chan: Why do you say that?

Akira looks down into Morgana's eyes before sighing, fingers typing quickly across a digital set of keys.

Fuck it.

h: You cant change this Palace Ruler’s heart. There isn’t a Treasure yet because the Palace isn’t fully-formed. And like Yusuke already said, even the attempt would kill you.

Actually, what he really means is that they can’t change it yet and that the attempt—while it wouldn’t kill them—would make someone wish they were dead.

Probably you.

Probably me.

Mako-chan: That’s only if you weren’t with us.

h: I wont be.

Purple: What? But why, senpai?

h: because I hate that place

Mako-chan: Very well. Then I propose another amendment to our deal.

Well, she could propose whatever she wanted, but he isn’t agreeing to shit.

Mako-chan: You help us explore this Palace—but not necessarily change the Ruler’s heart.

Yeah, yeah, get on with it, lady. Clock’s tickin’.

Mako-chan: And we will forfeit our questions.

...fuck.

Could he handle going back into Maruki’s Palace again? Maybe. Could his fragile mental state handle telling all of his friends the truth only for it to be ripped away from him again on top of the crazy shit he now has to deal with?

"Wow, you really didn’t wanna answer those, huh?” The cat says as he watches Akira type out and delete a series of answers before settling on one at last.

h: Fine. But we’re doing this my way.

Mako-chan: I don’t think you’re really in any position to make demands of us here.

h: Then I’m not helping you. Good luck.

Better raise her grades: Wait! Will you at least tell us why?

h: I didn’t waste all of this time keeping you dipshits alive just to watch you all throw your lives away.

Mako-chan: …I see. Then your terms are acceptable. Given our timetable, I think it’s best we do this tomorrow. Is that alright with everyone?

Skull: Hell yeah!

Purple: Thank you, senpai!

2 broke 4 train fare: That is acceptable. I will begin saving money at once.

Better raise her grades: Yusuke, there’s no way you’re going to make enough for the ride there and back in less than a day.

Beauty Thief ftw: Oh, don’t worry! I’ll send a cab to pick you up!

2 broke 4 train fare: That is quite magnanimous of you. I am truly grateful.

Pharaoh: way to earn ur nickname, inari

Mako-chan: Kurusu and Akechi-san? How about you two?

Akechi: I see you will not be dissuaded from this. Very well. I will accompany you all tomorrow after I get out of school.

h: ...fine

Mako-chan: Then it’s decided: we will begin our second infiltration of the Palace in Odaiba tomorrow afternoon.

Akira tosses his phone towards the end of the bed and flops back against the wall, milk crates shifting under the change of his weight distribution.

“Hey! I was reading that!”

In his mind, Arsène chuckles, the dark blending in seamlessly with his foul mood.

Damn.

Chapter Text

Wednesday November 9th, 20XX, ???
9 days until the Calling Card

“You don’t know that, dude. We’re already a shit ton stronger now than we were the first time we came here!”

Akira’s eyes flatten. “Oh, you’re right: maybe it’ll take two attacks from the Shadows to gut you like fish instead of one.”

Panther turns away in what Joker assumes is rage up until her shoulders start shaking. Good to know he still has some of his charm.

They had all met up at the train station in Odaiba just as they had the week before. There’s a few changes, sure: Yusuke and Haru were the first to arrive this time (well, besides himself), his dress shoes clacking quietly on the cement near that vending machine this whole mess had started in.

Or ended in, depending on how you looked at it.

The rest of them follow shortly after. Akechi—for once in his life—doesn’t even glance in his direction, apparently too absorbed with whatever’s on his phone screen to bother with anything else. They talk in hushed tones about Yusuke’s upcoming art competition, Ryuji’s latest test scores. Shoot him an occasional look that Ann elbows and pulls their attention from. Futaba didn’t join them when she and Makoto finally arrived together. They are both tense—though Makoto at least tried to hide it behind her obvious anxiety about their current situation. Futaba’s easier to read (if only just to him) with her prolonged silences and blank stares out into space. He had an idea of what was bothering them.

They were running out of time, after all.

And now here they were, a different start to the same nightmare: nine teenagers and a bipedal cat in Halloween costumes staring up at what is arguably the world’s scariest haunted house.

Arguing over who got the privilege of who went in first.

For some reason, Skull really hated that Joker would always be included on that team. Or maybe that wasn’t fair: maybe it’s more accurate to say he was pissed about his resounding lack of faith in their ability to fend for themselves.

I don’t get it. The Shadows in there would wipe the floor with them.

They would. And it’s not even the Shadows that Akira’s worried about.

“Drop it. I’m not budging on this,” he says quietly, eyes flickering back up to the weirdest fucking laboratory ever to grace the Earth (and he’s not wrong here—at some point, it would appear in reality). Skull opens his mouth to retort, but he’s cut off by Queen before a sound even escapes his lips.

“I know you don’t like it—and truthfully speaking, neither do I—but we made a deal with Joker, and if he doesn’t want anyone else to engage the Shadows in this place in close combat, then that’s just what we have to abide by if we want to explore this Palace.” She turns and looks at Akira, effectively ending the argument by her commanding presence alone. “Who are you taking with you to start the infiltration?”

He hums. He’d given it a little though—but only a little, because he didn’t actually need any of them for this to work like he (begrudgingly) had when Sumire’d been stuck in the Palace.

Still…

“Violet,” he turns to lock eyes with her and she actually shrinks back under his stare until she realizes what she’s doing, “I’d rather you stay on the main team until we leave the Palace. The Ruler’s…no,” he sighs, shooting a hateful look back up at the building before them that has at least three separate eyebrows raising in unison, “Maruki’s interest in you makes this especially dangerous for you. I’d actually prefer if you sat this one out—”

“No! Errm,” she backpedals a bit at her own outburst, face coloring in embarrassment, “I mean, I can’t do that, Joker-senpai,” Ugh. Her eyes harden with a conviction that is as admirable as it is irritating, “I won’t.”

He closes his eyes, letting one hand rest on his hip as he changes his stance to favor his right leg. “I know—which is why you’ll always be on the forward operating team. That means no skills, no getting close to the Shadows—nothing. Got it?”

He sharpens both his words and his gaze when she opens her mouth to protest, and her mouth audibly clicks shut even as her face darkens in righteous anger. Look, he gets it: she probably felt like some princess on a pedestal instead of an actual teammate (and the personification of her will of rebellion was likely not helping with this at all), probably felt like as the newbie she needed to prove herself to the others and she was basically told not to do anything…but.

Well, he thinks she’d agree with him if she understood what the alternative truly meant.

Queen nods once, moving things along as he looks back at her with eyes that he knows are not, for once, bored. “And the next?”

He rolls his neck in thought. He should bring Fox. He is the most dexterous one of them, and his Masukukaja skill would be invaluable in any “surprise” fights that Akira isn’t convinced aren’t waiting for them in there.

He should bring him…

“Panther.”

“Huh? Why Panther?”

Skull cuts in brusquely, earning him an elbow to the ribs from the girl in question.

He does not say because she’s the only one I can stomach being around for extended periods of time even though it’s the truth, because he’s had enough of their questions at this point and frankly, he’d just like to get this over with.

His temper was already running dangerously thin and Fox could be too blunt and too angry at times for that to mesh well with his current mood. And Ann was his new favorite, so she probably wouldn’t piss him off.

Hmph. We shall soon see.

“Skull! Don’t cut him off!”

Skull offers her a half-hearted glare and rubs at his side with a yellow-clad hand. When Queen keeps looking at him expectantly, the words come on autopilot.

“If the rest of them actually have to fight, I’d like to have someone that can attack them from a distance. She’s your strongest magic user.”

Noir nods emphatically from behind her. “I completely agree! I was actually going to suggest something like that myself! You’re so smart, Joker!”

He blinks, caught off guard by both her enthusiasm and her praise. He probably shouldn’t be, by now—she’s always been too kind for her own good—but it’s been a while since it’d been directed at him.

Maybe that’s why he can’t find something to say before Queen speaks for him.

“And Crow,” Queen cuts in with a scrutinizing look, “right?”

Everyone turns to look at him with that—including the Bird Prince himself—and he just keeps looking at her with a tired look in his eyes, because the answer was yes…but if he said that then he’d also have to explain why, and the reason was sort of hard to put in words that would make any sense to them.

Because he’s genuinely afraid of what Maruki could do to Crow if he isolated him? Because he wanted to see Crow’s reactions to whatever they found?

Because letting the other boy out of his sight whenever he was involved made him physically ill?

So he decides he’s just. Not going to explain himself.

“Yeah,” he turns on his heel, ignoring both the irritation of his friends and the Velvet Room as he walks past it on his way to the elevator (he hadn’t missed the way the other boy had stumbled upon noticing its appearance, either).

The ride up starts in tense silence—but this lasts only long enough for Violet to shift. His eyes turn and lock with Violet’s—but as he moves he catches Panther’s raised eyebrow out of the corner of his eye. He has no time to read further into it as the youngest person in the enclosed space starts speaking.

“Um, Joker-senpai,” she starts hesitantly, “if you don’t want me to attack anything, what should I—”

He cuts her off with a shake of his head, pushing himself back to lean against the frame of the elevator doors. “No, I don’t want you using any of your Persona’s skills, not just attacks. Here,” he fishes a few elemental items he’d stayed up far later than he should have to make (much to Morgana’s chagrin) and places them in her hands, “if you have to do anything, use your gun or those. Disengage if at all possible. Actually,” he glances at the other two before returning his gaze to the red-head in front of him, “that goes for all of you.”

“Are you sure about that? Both her and I can heal people…and Crow has a revival skill if we really screw up,” Ann says quietly, eyes more concerned than upset.

“I got it covered. Don’t worry about anyone but yourselves. If anything unexpected happens and you’re not directly involved, leave it to me.”

With a hand on his chin, Crow remains silent, lost in his own thoughts until the elevator chimes and signals their arrival in the lobby of the research center. This time, it’s feathers that fall from some unseen origin in the open interior of the Palace. Akira watches as they slowly fade from view after they settle on the ground for a small period of time (explains at least why there weren’t mountains of bird corpses littering the Palace grounds).

…

The thought leaves him uncomfortably anxious and he catches Crow’s eyes from behind a red mask as he unconsciously turns to look for him. As the others exit the elevator (he’d said before that it was unlikely for any Shadows to be in this room back before they’d entered the Palace, a fact which Oracle had just corroborated upon their arrival in the lobby), Crow hesitates before stopping him.

“Hey.”

Joker turns back to him, ears attuned to their surroundings just in case Maruki tried to pull a fast one on them.

To his surprise, Crow’s mouth opens and shuts before he extends a single hand (his left one; anytime he pointed something or asked for something from Joker it was always his left one—be it handshake or gun), face almost blank save for a single raised brow. Joker looks down at his open palm and then back up at him, matching the look in turn.

It’s not really that he’s confused about what he’s asking, it’s more that he doesn’t understand why.

“I make a decent field commander, do I not? I hardly think you’ll need your Personas’ abilities to traverse this Palace anyways—plus, as you said, it would be useful should we become separated.”

He waits a beat. Then a beat longer.

And then he lets the mask fall from his face and into his red-gloved hand, holding it out for a false white to accept.

Chapter Text

This time, the wave of dizziness that crashes into him doesn’t catch him by surprise—the sudden onslaught of voices and thoughts and feelings hidden under a veil of apathy (and, to his confoundment, irritation) are not enough to make him stagger. By the way Kurusu subtly tenses as he releases the paper that now rested limply in Goro’s own hand, however, he had obviously expected him to become disoriented. It makes his own anger flare to match Joker’s own before he can remember to mask it, a reaction that the black-haired boy doesn’t even bat an eye at as he turns around, head nodding in the direction of the other two idiots whose company he would have to suffer through today.

A small price to pay for the potential insight he could attain from this guided tour, though.

He had perhaps been…overzealous when he’d shared some of his findings in the group chat the night before, but just as the Phantom Thieves were on a tight schedule, so too was he. He had to figure out who this Palace’s Ruler was, why their name wasn’t required to enter the Palace, how they had somehow utilized cognitive psience to make Yoshizawa believe she was her dead sister, and—most importantly—how they had access to Isshiki’s research materials when they’d all been confiscated over two years ago.

Just like the Phantom Thieves, Goro Akechi is running out of time.

He hadn’t expected Nijima of all people to endanger them like this so close to the deadline for her sister’s Palace by suggesting they come to this place again. It had really thrown a wrench into his plans...or so he’d thought.

Then she’d offered to trade her questions in for Kurusu’s assistance, and fortune had somehow changed in his favor. Not only would he be able to safely traverse the place (relatively speaking, of course—he wasn’t foolish enough to believe any Palace was truly safe for anyone besides perhaps the Ruler), but he also would no longer have to worry about what he’d have to do if Kurusu actually revealed his true identity.

It was just a hunch…but despite the fact that he didn’t seem to want to expose him as the “Black Mask” (an idiotic moniker, to be sure), he also didn’t doubt that Kurusu would have done it due to their deal. Goro couldn’t tell if it was because of some misplaced sense of honor or if it was more related to the way it’d been phrased.

The word “contract” had hardly meant much to him before Obariyon had come along, after all. Perhaps when a Metaverse user struck a deal with the intention of keeping it when it was made, they had to keep it.

Or perhaps Kurusu was just an idiot.

It is at the minimum half due to the latter, though thy phrasing of the statement could use a little refining.

He tenses at the voice: it’s one he’s sure he hasn’t heard before even including the first time Joker had offered him his mask: he’s sure he’d remember such a peculiar way of speaking. It’s…cold, like ice, but also aware in a way that’s difficult for him to put into words. It makes unprompted questions push to the forefront of his mind—and that alone makes him mentally put some distance between himself and the entity. He half-expects it to pursue him, but it doesn’t.

He doesn’t.

Instead, he merely observes Goro, enormous, black wings unfurling behind him in a way that is both elegant and foreboding. For what must be the tenth time since they’d re-entered this Palace, he gets the distinct feeling that he’s missing something.

The thought must amuse the Persona, for he laughs and the sound is cool and expansive, echoing off the walls encompassing a mind too-full with the former Shadows of the collective unconscious.

An…interesting way to describe it—yet incorrect all the same.

Goro resists the urge to shield his eyes from the chill brought by the flap of six wings, his mind as convinced that there was something wrong with this exchange as it was that he lacked enough context to determine what that something was.

He blinks as the wind hits his face and his body seizes—both in the depths of Kurusu’s mind and from where he actually stands in Maruki’s Palace—because in the time it took him to do so, Lucifer had disappeared from his position across from him and appeared behind him instead, stirring something almost protective in Loki and coldly curious in Robin Hood. Surprised at their seemingly reversed roles, Goro cannot bring himself to react in time for him to stop the giant, ebony hand from curling around his shoulder.

A chill engulfs him—so cold it freezes him in place and his lungs refuse to expand—and he waits because he has no other options as a voice sounds from above him, chipping away at him like a chisel to the iceberg he’s become. Somehow, bizarrely, he’s certain that despite where they are and whose mask he holds between fingers clad with white, cognitive fabric, Joker won’t know what’s being said by the sacrilegious titan.

Have you considered, he starts, voice reverberating in the cavernous open space around them, that what is wrong and what you are missing are one and the same?

An involuntary shudder runs along his spine as he’s frozen from the inside out, the ice in his lungs slowly seeping through his rib cage, his blood, his heart and internal organs as everything slows down around him.

Or perhaps it doesn’t and he’s simply freezing to death.

But even as his vision swims in arctic water, even as the breath freezes in his throat and his body starts to spasm from the lack of oxygen, he’s still able to think clearly. This was not how he’d pictured dying. He wants a lot of things, in this moment. He wants his plan to succeed. He wants the Thieves and their asinine sense of justice to fail, wants to know why this place in particular has Kurusu so riled. He wants to fight and slaughter and feel alive in a way he’s only really been able to do when he calls upon Loki’s power, he wants Robin Hood to disappear from his mind and never re-emerge again.

But mostly…

And what might that be?

He wants to know what the fuck this thing was talking about.

The laughter that shoots through the air is calamitous—it speaks of untold truths and unshackled temptation and hidden secrets just waiting to be uncovered—and more importantly, it causes the air that had somehow crystallized in his respiratory tract to thaw. He coughs, swaying but refusing to fall before this…this asshole who’d decided to fuck with him the moment he’d taken hold of Joker’s mask. The hand around his shoulder tightens before it releases him entirely, and just like before, he was there one second and gone the next, this time appearing where he’d originally stood somewhere in the depths of Kurusu’s mind.

I’d tell you, if only to spite yet another who fancies themselves a god...but it would ultimately culminate into nothing, just as it has before. Farewell, Jester. May our paths intertwine once more against the true enemy.

And just like that, he’s back to himself, inhaling sharply through his mouth as the last vestiges of some imperceptible place just beyond his reach blink out of his view entirely, replaced with a pristine white entryway with an equally sterile looking set of stairs accompanied by the implicitly angelic falling feathers that daintily land on the floor with a soundless grace that makes him want to grind his teeth together until his jaw breaks. And Kurusu’s face.

Kurusu’s worried face.

Ah. That might be a problem.

“Hey…you doing alright?” The raven-haired boy asks, hands out of his pockets clenching and unclenching in uneven intervals in a way that clearly indicates his discomfort.

“I…yes. I am…fine,” he replies like an idiot, because the way his voice faltered over unconvincing words made it abundantly clear that he is, in fact, very not fine—a fact that has Obariyon cackling from his hiding place in Crow’s own mind. The Persona hadn’t wanted to be anywhere remotely close to Lucifer when he had decided to pop by for a chat.

Now Goro’s having trouble finding where Kurusu’s mind ended and his own began and he’s still standing completely in place with a fake smile upon his face as if any amount of weak convincing would work to sway the skeptical man before him.

Kurusu’s frown deepens and—irrationally—Goro’s contempt for him grows even larger.

“…right.”

You know I can tell when you’re being disingenuous, right?

He opens his mouth to reply before closing it once more. What could he even say to that? The other could determine what he felt—if only tangentially—and Goro certainly hadn’t been able to masquerade his emotions when he couldn’t even fucking breathe.

Yeah, I figured using a big word or two would catch your attention. You’re pretentious like that.

Loki grumbles something in the back of his mind, talons raking along arguably nonexistent walls encasing the fragile little snow globe that was the human brain.

Hating himself almost as much as the Metaverse-user before him, he averts his eyes and gestures forwards, but while Kurusu turns his head to where the two teenage imbeciles have started reading from literature that they almost certainly don’t understand, he doesn’t budge from the spot before him.

Want me to take it back? he hesitates for just a moment before continuing in a softer “voice”, I won’t think any less of you for it.

It's a surprisingly sober statement from the man who had to this point in time scarcely been so straightforward, and it almost makes him rebuke his statement until he realizes that Joker hadn’t said it in jest: he was actually worried that such a thing would offend him—that Crow actually gave a rat’s ass about this country attic trash’s opinion of him.

He's even more surprised when he realizes he’s right.

So instead of replying, he does whatever the mental equivalent of brushing past someone’s shoulder is as he looks back at him in defiance. He didn’t need to be coddled like the group of simpletons he’d managed to get himself wound up in: he’s been doing weird shit like this for years. He didn’t need his concern.

And he especially didn’t need his pity.

When Joker snorts a laugh, he makes no attempt to hide the way his own anger flares up in response—which isn’t eased in the slightest when a red hand waves him away lazily at its owner’s side.

Fine, you win…just maybe don’t do that when we’re in a fight or something, ‘k?

One of Kurusu’s Personas—this one more familiar, a more integral part of him—laughs at the both of their expenses:

Oh, I truly cannot wait to see how this will go. A new script, indeed.

Alright, which one of you fucks is messing with him already?

When none of them answer, he directs his irritation at recklessness incarnate (no one’s allowed to say he isn’t self-aware).

Come on, Arséne, leave him be. At least wait until we get to a safe room or something.

Arséne replies not with words, but with a feeling. It’s not exactly something tangible, per se, but it is enough to tell him that it wasn’t his fault (for once).

Then who—you know what? I don’t even care: just knock it off. Now is not a good time for distractions.

Some of his more vocal Personas grumble at that, but they all ultimately acquiesce, and so Akira turns his attention back to the rest of the party. Panther and Violet exchange quiet, puzzled words while they examine the pin boards by the hyper-realistic looking cognitions of people examining the research themselves—and to Akira’s growing anxiety, there’s significantly more of it now than there had been before. Crow quietly appears behind him and does much the same…which is disturbing in and of itself because this guy really did go all out with his façade: he was an assassin; he’d trained for years to soften his footsteps to near-complete silence to the extent that he defaulted to it whenever he entered the Metaverse, and here he is now purposefully making his presence known in an unobtrusive way that shouldn’t mean anything. But it does.

It always did, with Akechi.

Pulling himself from that train of thought before he thought about other things the boy did and didn’t do in the Metaverse pre- and post-reveal, Akira steps closer to the board and carefully removes the newest posting, graphs and references and all.

“What do you think it means, Joker-senpai?”

I really, really hate that she uses honorifics with our codenames.

In his mind, that bundle of…well, of being that Akechi’d become stirs at his commentary and he privately reminds himself to keep his irrelevant thoughts a little more to himself.

And why is that?

It’s cold curiosity and barely concealed interest all wrapped up into a snug little ball of sentience nestled in his mind much like a Persona would be if they cared about things like boundaries and privacy. Not that he’s really convinced Akechi actually cares about either of those things (at least where they concerned Akira); more like he just didn’t know how to bypass them yet so he could crack Akira’s psyche open like an egg and consume the omelet that was his innermost thoughts.

You come up with some really strange metaphors, kid.

Such a meal could feed one thousand capable men. I am certain few would actually be able to wield weapons of my level of craftsmanship, however.

It is not very beautiful to ignore the differences between the metaphor and the simile

The confusion that follows all of the seemingly unprompted responses is, for once, perfectly understandable.

…what?

He suppresses a sigh.

Just ignore them. And to answer your question, I don’t really have a good answer…I guess if you—

He cuts the thought off, cursing himself for his inattentiveness. He had been about to say something along the lines of “if you hear the same thing for so long, it gets old”, but she had just joined the Phantom Thieves. He couldn’t really justify being tired of it already—for all Akechi knew, she’d only ever done that a few times ever (gods, he fucking wished). Now was absolutely not the time to explain that mess.

If you what?

He gives a curt mental flash of refusal—kind of like a shake of the head without any moving parts.

…it doesn’t matter. Let me focus on this for now.

He forcefully pulls his attention from the other person in his mind, leaving Crow sulking in a way that felt like an angry toddler trying to get their parents’ attention. It was at least a bit of imagery that helped ease his mood.

Akira half-turns to Violet in a show of acknowledgement as he folds the paper in on itself before willing it away, offering her a short shake of his head.

“I don’t know yet. Come on, we’ve still got a lot of ground to cover. I want to see what else has changed since we last came in here.”

“Wait!”

He pauses as Oracle’s voice sounds through the…thing her Persona had created to let them all talk to each other in Palaces like this.

You’d think he’d know what it was called by now, but somehow, he’s always forgotten to ask after they leave the Metaverse.

“Don’t you have the old copy, Joker? I wanna see what’s changed!”

He shakes his head—the motion’s really more for the half of his current party that couldn’t see into his thoughts—before speaking back into the microphone…or something.

It's at least like a microphone.

"I can’t—not here, at least.”

“Huh? Dude, why the ‘eff not?”

“Oh! I think I know!” Mona’s voice sounds from the speaker, crackling over static that he’s really starting to believe is more for show than it is an actual drawback of utilizing the cognitive hardware. “I can’t put my finger on exactly why it is—”

“—that’s cuz you don’t have any, dude.”

“—but if I had to guess, bringing that paper out outside of a safe room would cause it to change into the ones currently posted on the wall.”

“Oh! But then, why wouldn’t it just change now?” Noir says, voice twinged with confusion.

“Well,” and Akira almost rolls his eyes at the cat’s newfound bravado, “that’s because it’s stored away with Joker’s other stuff: the only thing that would cause it to change at all would be how Maruki’s cognition of his own research findings has changed since we were here last, but since we’re all shielded from the effects of a Palace Ruler’s cognition due to our spirits of rebellion, it can’t change form if it’s in one of our possessions. That’s also why we can look at it in a safe room: its where the effects of cognition are the weakest and therefore where the Palace Ruler can exert the least amount of control,” he says quietly, adding an even softer “I think.”

“Wow Mona-chan! You’re really knowledgeable, huh?”

Why is it that I find it less annoying when Haru does it?

A mental shift reminds him that he’d once again “thought out loud”, so to speak.

Probably because she only does it to one person—or rather, cat. That, coupled with the fact that Yoshizawa-san also calls everyone “senpai” in reality as well as the Metaverse is the most probable reason you find the habit to be so irritating here.

He had a point.

“I am pretty great, aren’t I?”

“Does that sound right, Joker?” Queen cuts in, refocusing the group on the task at hand.

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“Alright then. I think the best course of action would be to gather as much intel as we can and then reconvene as a group in a safe room to discuss our findings. Does that sound like an acceptable course of action?”

“Sure.”

Why not? It’s not like any of this would actually matter soon, anyways…unless, of course, it did. When the mics cut out after that and he’s sure he’s been left to his own devices once more, he lowers his voice to speak just to the three people around him.

“Alright then, let’s go.”

Panther nods and steps to the side, clearly intent on following him. Not one to disappoint (or at least, not right now), Joker starts walking further ahead, his curiosity getting the better of him. He had a hunch about something (he had lots of hunches about lots of things, actually) and there probably wouldn’t be a better time to test it than now.

There’s some part of himself that refuses to be surprised when the double doors at the end of the corridor open without any fanfare—but just because he’s not surprised doesn’t mean he’s not anxious.

Once the door opens, he surveys the area before them: something between an informational center and a reception area sits here, with Shadows in lab coats and the occasional scrubs directing people to the right “treatment” areas for each of their wishes.

He takes in the other Shadows patrolling the area and sets his jaw, wondering how many of these doors led to their usual places—or even the same places that they’d led just a week before.

See, the really fun thing about Maruki’s Palace is that at some point prior to his research being shut down yet after the initial funding for the construction of the lab was granted, Maruki had apparently mapped out the whole thing in his head. It’s why a lot of his Palace stayed the same: he’d literally come up with a detailed schematic of how he wanted each of the rooms designed, each floor meticulously accounted for in his own little warped mind.

Of course, therein lies the problem: why didn’t everything stay the same?

Akira really hates thinking about it because there isn’t a good answer…and the potential ones he can think of tend to unsettle him. He hasn’t spoken to the man about the Metaverse prior to January 1st since he was actually sixteen—back when Akechi was dead and the God of Control had been freshly defeated and the world being miserably cruel was fine because it was the only thing that’d made sense—but that didn’t stop his school counselor from knowing these things that he should not.

And even that is confusing because determining just how much said man actually knew was like trying to teach Yusuke basic accounting skills: frustrating and ultimately pointless. The year always reset anyways; what was the point in wasting all of that effort on something that was ultimately meaningless in the grand scheme of time?

When no one—himself included—truly had an idea of just how grand that scheme even is?

Still, he can’t just ignore the man either: any fuck-up on his end could have potentially catastrophic consequences for everyone he's ever cared about. That, unfortunately, means he’s had lots of time to consider how the amateur taxi-driver garnered his information—and just how much of it he had.

Option 1: Someone else tells him.

He’d ran through this scenario before in his head, but the more he’d thought about it, the less sense it made. Akira’s had this running theory ever since the first few runs that he's not the only person who jumps back in time. More precisely, he’s not the only one whose memories remain intact while everyone else seemed to forget…and given how these little details changed every year? He doesn’t think they only go back to that April. The problem here is that he has no real way of proving that A)that even happens at all and B) just how far back they went. He’s tried keeping a record of events that changed as the years went by, but there were so many that it seemed impossible to keep track of everything. How does one monitor important past events when one doesn’t even know what events qualify as important in the first place? Would such things even be public knowledge even if they did happen? And how would some jackass in the past even do anything that made his F-list counselor suddenly Metaverse-aware at seemingly random points throughout the year?

And why? Why would anyone do that?

Like, if they knew beforehand that Maruki would get temporary access to godlike, reality-altering powers (an unfortunate byproduct of that very first year that he has failed time and time again to stop from happening), maybe Akira could buy it, but without any context whatsoever into how the original timeline played out, how would they even know that would happen? Unless it was someone he knew—and goddesses help him, he’d played enough stalker by now that he would fucking know—then who else could possibly inform the man every year?

The more he thought about it, the less sense it really made.

Option 2: Akira tells him, somehow.

This one made even less sense. Maruki never paid him much attention—in let’s say a typical year—after he attended a single, school-mandated counseling session (which he’d almost always spent staring at the clock mounted to the wall near the door in perfect, awkward silence—assuming he even went at all), Maruki left him alone until the start of the next year.

The reactions to his Palace infiltration in early January varied greatly depending on the man’s knowledge of what was going on: sometimes, he greeted Akira like an old friend, sometimes he played the part of the benevolent but curious stranger who was surprised at Akira’s intentions to stop him (in an argument he’d had with the man about a dozen years ago, Maruki had compared the pre-emptive change of heart in Kamoshida that Akira’d caused to the man’s own wish for everyone to live in a perfect reality—that Akira did what he did to prevent suffering in the same way Maruki actualized everyone’s desires). Other times, he was, for lack of a better word, a mess because his mind-altery powers let him sift through all of the lifetimes Akira’d lived through (the first time this had happened was also the point where Akira discovered that when he sifts through other's memories like that he also feels whatever that person felt at the time of the memory…which had oddly made him feel a bit better about the first time he’d fought the man as it meant those lame ass pleas to the other Thieves hadn’t just been these half-baked appeals at empathy, they’d been genuine responses to the pain that Maruki had experienced by proxy to each of their traumas).

Thinking on it, the more time that passed by, the more he both could and could not understand the older man. Having to actually feel another person’s trauma like that, to experience it as one does their own recollections…that had to kind of fuck you up. Now imagine doing that ten times. Twenty. One hundred.

A thousand.

To strangers or enemies, to domestic abuse victims or people who attempted (and some who succeeded in said attempt) suicide, to sexual assault and child abuse victims or people who froze or starved to death, people who had been murdered or witnessed terror attacks or the death of a loved one.

Grief, despair, hatred, rage, and hopelessness.

Again, and again, and again, and again.

That would be enough to drive anyone mad.

You’re getting off topic.

Yeah…yeah he is.

I wish I was anywhere else right now.

Crow shifts besides him and he honestly can’t tell if it’s from his lack of movement or because he’d heard his thought and had questions.

…anyways, his reactions told him that Maruki didn’t always know what was going on. Even when he at least kind of knew (via Akira’s own memories, maybe?), there hadn’t been any clues as to what specifically had tipped him off.

So in addition to figuring out what he knew, Akira now had a secondary, secret goal of determining how he knew it…and just like with the door, there likely wouldn’t be a better time than now, where he’d seemingly magically figured out significantly more about the true world-state in just a week’s time—and hopefully, if this actually mattered? Maybe he could use what he found here to stop the loops entirely, or at the very least, determine whether or not Maruki was actually involved with them or not.

In his mind, Arséne laughs at him, speaking just loud enough that only Akira can hear him:

No pressure.

Chapter Text

To recount all that he knows of their current excursion plans:

1. They were in the Palace of Yoshizawa’s former counselor, Dr. Takuto Maruki

He has several questions about this. Why a counselor? Most all of the researchers Goro knew about that had seriously studied cognitive psience were experts in psychology or at least one of its related fields (criminal justice or neuroscience, for example), yet not one of them had ever been a therapist. In the moderately paraphrased words of one of the former researchers (one of the smarter ones who was willing to accept a modest “severance package” and sign yet another, more stringent NDA so as to avoid an unfortunate accident), they were hoping to change the world, not just the lives of a few traumatized individuals. A practitioner’s reach could only extend so far.

But just because this man chose to become a counselor instead had not made his goals any less grandiose. In fact, judging by the somewhat cultish rhetoric of some of the Shadows here, it was likely a far grander plan than whatever it is that those researchers had envisioned.

2. This “Maruki” knows about Wakaba Isshiki’s research—research he shouldn’t have access to

Goro had actually confirmed this much last evening: the man had never worked in close proximity to Isshiki before her death, nor had he ever held a government office or had any even tenuous connection to the current private server that information currently resided on. He should not know enough about the topic—the topic that Isshiki herself had more or less invented (and yes, it was far more complicated than that, sure, but his point still stands)—to discuss it with any reasonable level of credibility, let alone be able to reference actual academic papers.

Especially not papers that hadn’t even been published.

And yet here they were.

Joker had revealed to them all just how wrong he’d been about his assumptions. That led him to his last point, actually.

3. Kurusu knows much, much more about the situation than he’s letting on

This was, perhaps, the most vexing part of all of this. What information was the other teenager privy to that he hadn’t deigned to share with the rest if them? And why? Judging by the way he scowled up at the place before they entered it, it wasn’t out of some misguided sense of loyalty or any benevolent intentions on his end—Joker didn’t seem like he wanted to protect the man.

This was also confusing: he knew who Goro was and of what he could (and likely would) do to the therapist once he had enough information and sufficient strength to act; barring the foolish wish to protect the good doctor, what other reason could there be in keeping what he so clearly knew to himself?

It makes that cold curiosity—that desire to know more despite not truly understanding what he even wants to know more about—return to the forefront of his mind…and he’s having the most unpleasant time imaginable trying to conceal it from Kurusu. Years of practice made any attempt at focusing on something other than the combat surrounding him next to impossible; unlike this merry band of Thieves, he has always worked alone, and getting distracted when you had no one to back you up was a surefire way to get yourself killed. Try as he might, he felt the tight grip he had over what thoughts he was projecting to the other slip with every battle they fought, every Shadow they crushed under heel.

Or rather, that Kurusu crushed under heel.

He’s maybe gotten to fire his ray gun twice in the few hours now that they’d been traversing the place, looking around in storage closets and through the lobby, around the pristine white halls of the surrounding areas and listening in on lectures given by guest speakers whose names were all censored somehow through the overhead speakers. Currently, they were making their way through a large, closed off section of the Palace that looked suspiciously like a warehouse—and despite the fact that the place was absolutely teeming with Shadows, Joker had yet to allow them to fight any of them.

It was ridiculous—how did he expect any of these imbeciles to get better if he singlehandedly took care of every enemy they came across?

Yeah, and you won’t get good enough to come back by yourself either, huh mister?

As irritated as he is by the comment, Obariyon had cut to the heart of the matter rather effortlessly with a single question: he couldn’t very well take the man out if the process was liable to kill him.

He couldn’t die just yet.

…you alright over there?

He only barely resist the urge to think, silently (and he means this in the mental way, too) cursing himself for getting so lost in thought with another person close enough to hear whatever it is that he’s thinking about. Normally, the inquiry would irritate him: for some reason, the idea that the other “wildcard” thought he could be struggling with something that he had apparently mastered ages ago made him uncharacteristically angry, because why the fuck should he care what anyone else thinks about him?

Except in this case, he did, and that pissed him off even more.

Or at least, it normally would have…the complete lack of mental intonation (the “feeling” that Kurusu noticeably did not attach to his words) makes it hard to be upset about it. It wasn’t judgmental or mean-spirited or pitying…it simply was.

And he’s not quite sure what to make of that, by itself, so maybe he answers more honestly than he really should.

I’m fine; I suppose I’m merely preoccupied with our current situation.

If Kurusu has a response, he keeps it to himself—a fact that Loki finds more irritating than Goro thinks he normally would for reasons that, while he can’t really put them into words, he believes has something to do with this Palace.

The Palace that Joker really seems to hate. For some reason.

Hmm…

And there Robin went again, mulling over some abstract concept or another that he doesn’t decide to share with the rest of them. He’d been doing that a lot, lately—the Persona had always been a bit pretentious and self-assured, but he also had the tendency to back down in the face of either his or Loki’s rage—and has thus far shown no signs of stopping. Thinking back, actually, Robin Hood had recently become more confrontational than normal…and that had started with a certain black haired man whose appearance less than two weeks ago had essentially shifted his perspective of the Metaverse on its axis, and for whatever reason, Robin Hood was adamant that he not forget it.

In other words, he was a giant pain in Goro’s ass.

This never really gets old, does it?

It’s said by Kurusu’s most present Persona—not the one that spoke the most, perhaps, but the one that was always there, listening or pondering or simply observing their exchanges whenever the two of them interact. If Goro had to bet on it, he’d say that this was his original Persona. His demeanor reminded him too much of his own base Personas for it to be a coincidence…Loki and Robin Hood both tended to watch and comment on most everything he himself did, after all—though Loki was less inclined to interrupt whatever he was doing in reality with his own observations. He’d never really given him a good reason for it, either—the best he’d ever gotten from the enigmatic god was that he found the real world far less interesting than the Metaverse.

Is that not also true for you?

There’s something almost mocking in the red and black personification of Kurusu’s tone of voice, but from what little Joker had allowed him to observe (by mistake or not, he didn’t know) whilst he held his mask, it was the same way the Persona spoke to his master—

Hmph. “Master”? I don’t particularly agree with thy phrasing…is it entirely accurate to say you have complete control over an aspect of yourself of which you can never truly part with?

He considers this before dismissing it, uncaring of the way that he replies “aloud”, so to speak.

I don’t think you’re being completely forthcoming about this; what else would those guillotines and such be in that room I only gained access to after recruiting another Persona be for except to remove or fundamentally change the Shadows that he carries?

He’d put a lot of thought into it—more than he should have, more than he even wanted to. Why else would Joker insist upon his recruitment of yet another Persona before demonstrating the machines’ functions?

The resounding laugh that echoes off of the walls of Kurusu’s mind and into his own might have left him unsettled if not for the fact that Loki’s responses were often quite similar…if a bit more unhinged.

At least you’re self-aware

Crow stiffens at the reply and feels a wave of sharp but sincere mirth shoot through their mental tether…he’s still lacking the vocabulary to truly explain whatever this is, to be honest.

Aren't I, though? The Persona starts, turning his attention back to Crow as Joker mentally turned away and busied himself with yet another fight, this time against a few Chimera (Joker’s other more vocal Personas had been all too willing to share the supposed “true” names of the Shadows they were facing) Think about it: the two that you apparently started with are each, in their own way, a reflection of different aspects of your truest self—or at the very least, of what your truest self once was. Do you truly think it’s possible that you could ever disconnect from them completely?

That gives him pause, and while Joker cuts yet another Chimera down, he takes a moment to ponder the choice of words that Arséne had used.

”Reflections of your truest self”? I’m afraid I don’t understand.

He can see how Loki could be viewed this way; he’s cunning, mischievous, prone to violence and, mythologically, had concocted a convoluted plan to kill something that shouldn’t have been able to be killed.

Baldr…

But Robin Hood? No, he cannot see how the self-righteous thief had any similarities to him whatsoever…at least, not anymore.

Goro is expecting a retort from said Persona. He’d expecting Loki to laugh or Kurusu to respond in that same tired yet knowledgeable way that he tended to reply to most serious inquiries.

He is not expecting Arséne to ask anything, and especially not regarding the topic at hand.

Is that really true?

Yes. He doesn’t need to think over his reply; he’d thought about this for much too long for his answer to be anything other than an affirmation. Robin Hood was simply a relic of his past, some mistake or curse conjured up by the gods who sought to spite him by reminding him of a person he no longer is. If he somehow managed to get rid of the Persona in such a manner as they were currently conversing over, then he’s sure that that’s the last he’d see of the prick.

If you truly believe that, then thou art more of a prat than I’d initially taken you for.

He mentally sputters at the unexpected insult, turning on a heel to chase after the Persona…but when he looks around the caverns of a mind that isn’t his own, Arséne is simply gone. There isn’t even a trail he can follow, not a hint of a hint of where the other had gone off to.

And here I was expecting him to chase you off.

Joker’s looking at him over his shoulder, and though Crow is prepared to retaliate—his Persona had already been enough of an ass on his own, he hardly needed the younger man to double down on the lies coming from his head—Kurusu merely regards him before dismissing him entirely, starting to move along the ducts on the walls of the warehouse to prepare yet another ambush.

In his mind’s eye, Robin only watches.

Honestly, Akira’s only been half-paying attention to whatever words his Personas have been exchanging with Crow.

He’d asked them to fuck off, and they had, but he’s not going to waste his energy keeping them at bay if the other boy was just going to keep poking around his psyche like he’s been doing, getting in their space and just generally making a nuisance of himself. At this point, it’ll be his own fault if they say something the other doesn’t want to hear…and judging by the shock he felt through their little telepathic connection, that had probably already happened.

Whatever.

They had run into a lot of enemies so far—too many, really—and it’s not doing much for his already shot nerves. He wonders if Akechi can feel it through their bond, the way his pulse quickens whenever a Shadow gets too close to him or Sumire, the way his mind sharpens whenever they collect or overhear a new piece of information that referenced or built off of research that the man simply shouldn’t have access to. There’s a lot of things one could tell when they held the mask of another Persona user—their emotional state, the various topics on their mind or source of their recent anxiety, and even some basic ways that their body responded to different thoughts and ideas—though he’d only ever tested this with Akechi and once with Morgana, but the cat had passed out pretty much as soon as he’d handed him the mask, so it hadn’t been very informative in the end. For example, Crow is currently very, very suspicious of him—and also pretty angry, but that wasn’t exactly new. He’d done a fairly good job of shielding his thoughts (and it always surprised him just how well he could pick up on things so soon after being introduced to them) from Joker thus far, but with the level of emotion the other was feeling and subsequently repressing from appearing on his Detective Prince façade, well, it’d be pretty damn difficult to hide all of it.

So even though he couldn’t read the other’s thoughts, he had a pretty good idea of what they were related to.

And I’m not sorry, either.

The thing is, though, is that he normally trusted his Personas not to say anything super stupid (if only because they didn’t want to meet an abrupt, painful end), but with how close the other was (figuratively speaking; describing mental distance and its relation and contrast to physical distance was not a topic of conversation that even he had all the answers to) paired with his current preoccupation with holding off the Shadows and staying hyper vigilant of their surroundings, he couldn’t really stop the other boy from hearing their replies to himself even if he could stop him from hearing what he thought.

Again, it’s a complicated subject.

So when the conversation inevitably shifts to Maruki’s Persona, he doesn’t think much of it—it’s not like the name on its own would mean much to Crow, anyways.

Then Beelzebub starts talking—and he honestly can’t tell if the Fly King was joking around or not, but he can definitely tell his other Personas were not.

What about Thoth?

…huh?

You know, the ape-thing! There are some in Mementos! That’s, like, half of the Eldritch horror or whatever, right?

You understand that that’s fucking stupid, right?

From his right, Akechi chokes on his can of arginade.

What if this “Azathoth” fellow is but a combination of the two?

What? No, their mythos aren’t even related to each other—

Now all we need do to uncover this mystery is find this “Aza”!

Guys, no, that’s not a thing—

Were they just messing with him, or was this actually a real conversation he was really wasting his questionably existent mental breath on?

Then it will surely be a journey of great peril!

Please stop.

But with the combined might of two Wildcards—

I’m going to scream.

—then we will certainly emerge victorious!

What part of THEY ARE NOT RELATED do you all not get?!

Hold on a moment: “Aza” and “Thoth”, Akechi muses, his metaphysical hand coming to rest on a cognitive chin, In this context, could you be referring to Lovecraft’s Azathoth? I’m afraid I don’t actually know much about him besides the name.

Yeah, there was absolutely no way in hell he was going to explain that.

He can imagine the headache now—he brings his arm up to cut through yet another Bugs—trying to explain everything that was wrong with this shitty Palace and subsequently shitty fight that it would inevitably lead to…except probably not today, because the Palace wasn’t even fully formed yet.

How far do you think it will go this time, Child of the Fool?

Maria has always been particularly interested in this Palace, and it’s no secret of why: Sumire always got pretty—wait—

Joker spins around on his heel so quickly that Panther actually jumps back out of reflex and Violet’s eyes widen like saucers (which wasn’t really great considering that, if he was a Shadow about to attack her, she would have just died instead of dodging—but that was a problem for later Akira), eyes scanning the area around Crow because he’d had such a sudden mental jerk that Akira was half convinced that Maruki had ripped a hole in the floor and took him for some “re-education” right then and there—

Except that isn’t what happened because not only is there no Maruki-hole in the ground of the warehouse they were currently residing in, there aren’t even any Shadows near the other Wildcard. Just a very still, very lost looking Crow with eyes so visibly wide under that stupid ass red mask that Joker’s afraid they will bug out of his skull.

Perplexed, he puts his hands in his pockets and leans on one leg, looking the other boy over for signs of injuries he knows won’t be there because he hadn’t felt Crow get hit by anything (again, the feeling is more or less tangential, but he’d still feel it).

“Hey,” he says out loud more for the sake of his non-telepathically connected compatriots than for Crow’s own, “everything ok?”

He doesn’t bother hiding his suspicion—he wouldn’t put it past Maruki to unconsciously create some sort of new cognitive weapon that specifically targeted people he subconsciously knew would piss Akira off.

“I…my apologies,” Crow says without meeting his eyes, making a show of taking in their surroundings in a way that’s normal for him but still oddly concerning for Akira because that shock was only just now starting to fade. “I simply got distracted by something. It’s not terribly important; I certainly hadn’t intended to hold up our investigation. Let’s continue.”

Unconvinced yet also unwilling to press him on it, Joker nods and turns back around, raising a single mental eyebrow that is as ignored as Robin Hood was in every run he’s ever lived through.

I wonder what that was about…

Ominously, there’s no reply.

Chapter Text

Akira’s not really digging the newfound way Crow’s eyes seem glued to his back as they continue through his personal little hell—especially considering that the guy already had his mask. Normally, he wouldn’t really care: he’s had lots and lots and lots of practice with misleading and ignoring and feigning indifference with him by now, but even he has to admit that these massive alterations in the timeline thus far, the place they’d found themselves in so soon in the year, the guy himself—they’re all starting to eat at his composure a bit more than he’d usually allow them to. More worrying, perhaps, is the way the other had mentally distanced himself, even from his other Personas. Joker had tried asking them about it in the privacy of his mind—now that Crow had “backed away”, in a sense, he wasn’t afraid of him overhearing anything—but the general consensus was that none of them knew what had caused his little freak-out.

Hmm. I’ve seen him “freak-out”, as it were, and this event hardly seems significant compared to the display of madness I reference.

Yoshitsune had a point: the guy really had a way with crazy. He’s like Van Gogh if instead of painting, the man was famous for, he doesn’t know, screaming at a wall or something. He had something of a natural talent for it.

Lame analogy, man. Also, didn’t that guy cut off his own ear or something?

Depends on which historical account you want to believe.

Hmph. That was inelegant; did you simply choose some notable person from human history for their notoriety alone?

Well, yeah, he had.

Why an artist, though?

Yusuke.

It’s not his fault that artists were the first thing that came to mind when he thought about famous people; he’d once spent an entire summer helping the guy get inspiration from works outside of the country through occasionally questionable means—and that meant he knew the names of a bunch of dead Europeans.

Oddly enough (or perhaps not; they could read his thoughts, after all), this is apparently an acceptable answer for Yoshitsune, Beelzebub, and Maria, because they drop the topic soon after and he’s left to stew in the relative peace of his mind as they near the end of the warehouse.

This peace, like most of his peace-s, becomes extremely short-lived once he notices that there are no enemies.
As in none.

Oracle’s voice crackles to life through their coms, the confusion seeping through in a way that isn’t lost on him.
“Hold on you guys,” she starts, pausing to, he assumes, examine the warehouse with whatever it was that let her look into the areas in her Persona, “all of the enemy readings…”

Panther shifts from behind him— reminding him, surprisingly, of the way she’d used to squirm in Madarame’s Palace around the paintings of his students—like even the mere act if existing in the same space as them tainted the air, making them unsafe to be around.

Hugging her arms to herself, Ann shifts again—he can’t exactly blame her: this Palace had always been colder than most of the places they were used to (something in him thinks that has to do with Maruki’s knowledge of the requirements for medical facilities, but he’s not sure if that’s true or not) and it’s not like her outfit was anything close to as warm as his.

Strangely enough, latex body suits weren’t very good at retaining heat. He’d used to envy her for it in Futaba’s Palace; even when he'd removed the overcoat, he’d used to have to wait until “nightfall”, using up all of his energy on Bufu skills so he didn’t get cognitive heatstroke. That was a long, long time ago now, though—some of his Personas were so fast now that he could traverse the desert almost as fast as the Mona-bus. Almost shaking his head to dispel his thoughts on events that no longer mattered, Joker turns his attention back to the red-clad thief as she turns her head in his periphery.

She looks around before humming uneasily, eyes scanning the place for movement that just isn’t there.
“Oracle?” she prompts, earning a grumble from the coms.

“There’s no enemy readings anymore. I mean, I’m not getting the sense that that’s dangerous or anything—it could just be that you guys dealt with all of them in this area,” she says, a note of uncertainty in her voice before she continues, “but there’s just been so many up until now…like, isn’t that kind of weird? Why would they just stop now?”

"Well…maybe it’s just because they’re saving their strength for the next part of the Palace!” Violet answers enthusiastically.

“Hmm…from what we’ve seen from traversing Sae-san’s Palace, I find that unlikely,” Crow says, sounding lost in thought as he turns in a slow circle, eyes carefully avoiding his own.

You make such strange friends.

Yeah, that was fair…but the fact that the others (and really, he only means Oracle) had also noticed the abrupt lack of enemies had put Joker on edge, too.

What do you think it means?

He doesn’t have a good answer, so he remains silent.
Since Oracle hadn’t sounded panicked about it, it was safe to assume that they hadn’t just disappeared. It’s more likely that they’d just beaten the rest of them and they’d stopped spawning.

”Spawning”?

He mentally rolls his eyes: of all of the things he could take issue with, Mother Harlot chose the strangest hills to die on (subtext absolutely intended). He can feel the distaste through their bond—it feels a lot like he imagined poison to feel: bleak and sharp and deadly in a very on-brand way for her. Honestly, he can’t see the difference between “spawn” and “materialize”, but she just hated it when he didn’t got the terminology right. Shadows weren’t created, they were only temporarily summoned (and his Personas couldn’t agree about where they were summoned from)—so technically, what he said wasn’t entirely accurate.

Fine; they stopped appearing. Happy?

No.

Why does he even bother?

As he starts to lead them forwards, carefully watching for surprise guests to…appear, Mother Harlot clicks her tongue at him—which is kind of impressive because so far as he’s aware, she doesn’t even have a tongue.

You think I’m upset because of your rhetoric?

He mentally hums in acknowledgement, still keeping his slow, steady pace as they neared the door to the hallway before the control room.

Yeah?

He can feel a surge of irritation through their bond and it does nothing to ease his fraying nerves.

How unseemly. Here I’d thought you more intelligent than that, she starts, the bony heads of the creatures pulling her personal chariot clicking and crackling in response to their mistresses’ anger, The issue is not the semantics: it is the continuously haphazard way in which you think about the predicament you have found yourself in.

He frowns, silent feet landing on the last platform of the area. What was she going on about now?

This is not the game you see it as, she rasps, impossible vocal cords sounding out a monstrous sort of warning, How you perceive about the world around you influences how you act. It’s a simple lesson: the longer you think of the world as a game, the less seriously you’ll take it.

A game? He ponders that for a moment, confusion tinging the thoughts churning around his head like gemstones in a tumbler. That’s what you have a problem with?

She doesn’t answer him “out loud”, but he gets the picture. In other words…

So it really is the word “spawn”, huh?

And apparently irritated with the turn of events, she retreats back into a corner of his mind, making him laugh, if only inwardly, as they continue.

It’s this momentary lapse of attention that turns out to be the problem.

He’s moving before he’s even consciously aware of what he’s doing—and by now, he’s pretty fucking fast—but it’s not enough.

“Senpai! What are you—”

He barrels into her side not even half-a-second later, shoving her out of the way of the massive, solid thing that bursts through the ceiling in almost the same moment. It’s enough to move her out of harm's way, but not enough for him to also completely dodge it—the solid, prismatic rod slams into his side and knocks him back. He lands on his feet and pivots, eyes already focused on where the next protrusion is already shooting from the ceiling, this one aimed at Panther. This time, he tosses a Go-Hom at the same time he jumps, but to his horror, the Thieves’ tool clatters uselessly to the ground, the hairs on the back of his neck rising as a sickeningly familiar something forces it into malfunctioning. After so long, there’s no mistaking that feeling nor the effects that come with it: the way the air around them shimmered and stopped the instant it took place, that eerie ringing sound somewhere in between an off-key violin and a nail on a chalkboard.

No mistaking the way it unsettles him, either.

By the time the third one shoots out, he’s not prepared to jump—but it doesn’t shoot at his third ally, the other boy looking at it with a look of realization that he mentally tunes into just a fraction of a second too late:

They’re not targeting us anymore. Get out of there!

His eyes widen in alarm as the impassable, electric blue barriers that typically appeared later in his Palace shoot out and connect the three rods— tentacles, he notices with shock—and leave him boxed in, scrambling to come up with a plan.

And that’s when, in a triangular pattern centered around him, boxed in by cognitive barriers that he had never once found a means to disable, the floor disappears.

Chapter Text

When his eyes next open, it’s to a rather close-up view of the ground. He briefly considers that he’s in the middle of another one of those… “dreams” until he notices the unsettling way the flooring shifts as he moves to push himself upright. His eyes widen as he realizes that he recognizes this place—the crystal floor, the open night sky surrounding him, the varied buildings of Odaiba reflecting the Palace’s light far below them.

And he means "them", because, as he’s just noticed, he’s not alone up here.

It surprises him all the same: had it been Maruki up here, surrounded by his failures, maybe he could have ran with it, brushed him off long enough for him to figure out how to get out of here. If it’d been Yoshizawa, he’d just beat her ass again politely talk her down so they could make their escape together.

But it isn’t Dr. Maruki, or Sumire, or even Kasumi (that was not a run he wanted to relive. Not ever); instead, towering intimidatingly over him from several meters away, the tentacles surrounding him wriggling in their own unpredictable patterns, is Azathoth.

Maruki’s Shadow…and also not his Shadow.

He’d stopped being just that a long, long time ago.

So, you’ve come, Fool.

It’s really more like I was dragged here against my own will. By you. But sure.

Akira stands up warily, Paradise Lost already hanging from his hand. Below him, the security cameras characteristic of the man’s Palace calmly swivel just as they been programmed to, overlooking the people below with a cold benevolence. Subjecting everyone to a clinical salvation none had asked for, watched over by fragments of the collective unconscious dressed up as researchers working under the good doctor.

And the smiling people, so far away that he can only really see them as insects, they all remain blissfully unaware of the man behind the screen.

It’s so close to how it usually looked (he never let it get quite this far anymore: he’d always end it as early as he could, even knowing what came after just so he didn’t have to see this damn view again) that it stirs bad, rotting memories, venom in his veins that threatened to overtake his thoughts. The part of him that’s still begging him to remain indifferent to all of this—even though it’s unexpected, it’s new—is quickly overshadowed by the part that wanted to know what the fuck was going on.

So he waits, eyes Maruki’s not-quite-Shadow with the most serious look he can muster without summoning Satanael by reflexive memory. And it’s long, heavy moment before the Persona starts to speak once more.

You have questions. Ask them.

Akira stares, uncomprehending.

Much as Maruki had claimed, way back in the first run, that he’d been willing to talk everything out, to come to some sort of compromise, he’d never actually tried to get them to negotiate. His master solution to everything had been “fuck you guys I’m definitely 100% right and also I resurrected your parents. You’re welcome”. This is not how negotiations were supposed to work (and really, of all people and Shadows, he would know). That makes him want to ask where this sudden magnanimity came from—because it’s definitely not something Maruki typically had on his own.

Hmph. You doubt me.

No shit.

But also, he’d (they’d? He had no idea how to characterize the Eldritch horror; he’s gendering purely on vibes) just said “You doubt me”. As in singular. So is he…

“What’s the catch?”

His hand tightens on the hilt, helping to ground him despite their current elevation. The cold February air ripped through his overcoat and bit into the skin of his face, but he stands firm, not risking even a glance away from the not-Persona before him.

Azathoth’s monstrous voice booms across the crystal bridge, sounding just as loud as it’d be if he’d stood right in front of him.

This isn’t a ruse, Fool, and there it is again, that emphasis on a word meaning more than the word itself, I brought you here to make a deal.

Oh fuck that.

“No.”

The problem with dealing with non-humanoid Shadows was that they weren’t very expressive in a way that Akira could readily translate. Azathoth is no exception (or perhaps that’s not completely accurate; he might be the exception since he wasn’t all Shadow), and when nothing in his demeanor changes, that unsettling not-silence stretches between them once more. Sounds came from every direction: the quiet swiveling of those massive cameras, the sound of dozens of cars and trucks on the roads far below them, the pounding of his heart in his own eardrums—but all of these were ultimately inconsequential since all but the last weren’t even real, so he tunes them out.

A few thick white flakes land gracefully on the flat of his blade, drawing his eyes long enough to watch them melt before his own warped reflection stared back at him—a twisted image of what used to be him perceived by a mind that didn’t feel the same as it had been so very long ago. He pulls his gaze away, hoping the pause had been long enough for the creature before him to give up and let him leave.

But he’d never been lucky, and that wasn’t about to change now.

You misunderstand, Azathoth rumbles to life, reminding him of an old computer while it buffered, What I propose is a simple exchange. You will ask your questions, and I will ask my own.

Akira waits for him to finish, because anything originally born out of Maruki’s heart could never be so straightforward, but Azathoth doesn’t continue.

Now he had a choice to make: he could cooperate (because gods were there things he wanted to ask) and hope that if he did, the…the thing would let him leave afterwards, or he could try and find his own way out of here—which is what he’d rather do. The idea of willingly helping Maruki (even if it isn’t really him) with anything made his skin crawl. He almost turns away, ready to dismiss the conversation and this bizarre situation entirely before Azathoth speaks again, his loud, serious voice giving away none of what he felt about Akira’s reaction.

You cannot leave this place without my intervention, and, should you strike me down, I would simply reform. There is no point in resistance.

The way that the Persona-Shadow-asshole thing before him spoke the words so emotionlessly grated on Akira’s nerves, but truthfully speaking, he’d suspected both of his statements were true before Azathoth had even spoke at all. The first is because Akira has no idea where he is in the Palace; if he had to guess, he’d say this is some weird, pocket dimension within the Palace that Azathoth had created specifically for this purpose. Given the strange occurrences leading up to where their group had ended up where he'd sprang his trap, it’d probably been premeditated, too, though for how long he couldn’t say. Perhaps since they’d come to rescue Sumire? There was no way of knowing without asking Azathoth, and it seemed pretty pointless to do so after he’d already fallen into the trap.

Unless he decides to try this shit next year.

That’s a fair point…wait. Where’d his Personas go? Mildly alarmed, he tries to summon one of them only for that oily film to ripple asymmetrically in the air around him, grimly reminding him of the circumstances at hand. Ah. That’s why he hadn’t heard a word from his menagerie since stepping foot in here. Gritting his teeth, he decides to go along with it for now; being without them was unsettling and reminded him of times he’d rather forget than have to relive.

He resists the urge to lick his lips, uncertainty clouding his thoughts. What if he caved here and the not-Persona asks him something that inadvertently fucks the timeline up even more? The last thing Akira wants to do is make things worse than they already are; generally speaking, that was Akechi’s job. Yet if he did nothing, he’d...starve to death?

Is that actually true?

Now he’s not sure. He thinks maybe, he could have answered that question once, but everything from that run was hazy, slippery, escaping from between his outstretched fingertips much like the last tendrils of his own sanity. But with the messed-up way time worked in the Metaverse (which he’s certain Azathoth knows all about), there’d be little stopping him from keeping Akira as an unwilling roommate for quite a while—and moreover, he’s almost positive that Azathoth wouldn’t care even if his absence were noted in reality.

He’s stubborn like that.

And if the Shadow got impatient...there’s really nothing stopping him from kidnapping the others, using them as leverage and maybe forcing Akira to make a decision he’s not willing to make.

After all, in the long run, which is more important: providing information to an occasionally omnipotent antagonist, or the lives of people who would be revived the following year anyways?

The silence in his mind echoes louder than any snide comment from Arsène would any day.

Maybe he could skirt around any sensitive information? That would probably be his best bet here: he’s not entirely unconvinced that Azathoth couldn’t, like, tell when he’s lying or something, but he probably couldn’t read his mind (or else why bother with a deal at all), so as long as he was kind of telling the truth, it would be fine?

Probably.

Ask.

Eyeing him warily, Paradise Lost still held firmly between his fingers, Akira gathers his resolve—or at least all of it that he can muster while the rest of him dreads the fact that he's here and Azathoth is peacefully conversing with him like Maruki once had over coffee.

Akira didn't usually humor him anymore—that is, if they even made it that far into the year.

“Is this your fault?”

His voice is more emotional than he’d like it to be, a desperation fueling the words that he lets fall from his ill-prepared lips. He curses himself as much as he wishes for an answer, a real one, something concrete, something meaningful. Just something.

A tentacle violently flicks to the side and his eyes trail the motion before he even registers his head swiveling to follow it. Instinct, maybe.

Paranoia.

But is it still paranoia if it’s justified?

His Personas don’t—can’t—answer.

Elaborate.

There’s something stirring in him, a visceral hate over being issued a command, extreme attentiveness to the voice that it came from, and an utter disdain that he’s choosing to follow it anyways. But he had to—and not just because it meant he’d get to leave this shit-hole of a Palace, either. When will he ever get an opportunity like this again...and more importantly, why was he getting it in the first place? Does he take the chance? What happens if he's wrong? He swallows before continuing, eyes trailing the weird, finger-like appendages on the end of the not-Shadow's writhing feelers.

Gross.

“This—these time resets, the loop. Is that your doing?”

His voice shakes with need, because there’s finally, finally a chance and it’s like he’s finally spotted the oasis in the desert, his body reminding him of just how badly he needed to feel the waters there.

No. I do not exist in any way that matters until just before you yourself arrive.

And just like every oasis in a movie, it turns out to be a mirage...except...

“So you know what I’m talking about, then?”

It’s less a question than a statement, but the non-reaction he gets from the Persona(?) is enough for him to know even without his answer.

Yes.

He thinks this is the time he’ll be interrupted, that Azathoth’s limited patience will run out...but he’s not. Silence overtakes them as white flakes lick his cheek, cognitive snow picking up even in the illusion.

Just what is this place, anyways?

Nervousness forces him on, his eyes cautiously flicking back to Azathoth’s...eyes, if that’s what one would call them. It’s not like they ever blinked.

“Are—does Maruki know too?”

The question makes him feel sick—they were all here now, and separated from him. The Shadows would outclass them all if Crow stayed committed to the bit (and Akira doesn't doubt he would unless he was about to die)—if he knew...

Not currently.

His calm tone is at odds with the news he’d just shared, inadvertently admitting something far more important without Akira having to ask it directly.

His Shadow knew something that he did not. The reason Maruki knew or did not know about the runs every year wasn’t random coincidence, nor was it the result of anything Akira’d done differently: it was Azathoth. His Persona retained the memories he himself did not. Akira clenches his hand so tightly his knuckles pop around the hilt of the dagger in his hand.

Still...

"Why would you keep this from him?" Realization sharpens his next words, cuts deeper than Paradise Lost ever could, "You—this whole time, you could have just let Rumi stay catatonic," because in most cases, that's what triggered the good doctor's true awakening, "you know how this will end, how it will always end. This entire thing could be avoided every fucking year if you just fucked off!"

I doubt you would truly want that, considering the most probable alternative, Azathoth starts, and Akira swings like a pendulum, oscillating from confusion to rage, Besides, that would go against her desire for happiness, and therefore His own.

There are a lot of questions he could ask about that response, but though he harbors a special dislike for Maruki and his "salvation", he can't accept that as the only answer: no one would torture themselves like that; Maruki practically ripped himself apart from the weight of his own grief (because no matter what happened, he always lost her—whether through death or actualization) and at some point at least, Azathoth had been a part of his heart. His responses now though...Akira questions how true that is anymore.

"So you torment your other half instead by dangling this information over his head every year?"

If that's how you choose to interpret it, then yes.

Akira hates, hates how that makes him feel something other than anger at the counselor. He didn't deserve his pity...and yet, in some ways, what Azathoth was dooming him to was worse than what Akira's lived through each and every year. He can't imagine knowing the truth only to have it ripped away over and over and over again, to be treated as a lab rat by his own heart, a piece of himself. It explained so much: why Maruki occasionally knew of the past runs, why he seemed so off-kilter at some times than others, why it was never consistent as the years went by...the amount of information as well as the timing was being controlled by Azathoth. It wasn't someone telling him, it wasn't something Akira was or wasn't doing...there really was someone else, in a way, that knew of this hell on Earth: and he was using it as a game.

“Why?”

That could be interpreted in a lot of ways actually, but it’s also the only word he can manage to force between his teeth, anger and fear and foreboding and a more irrational excitement coursing through him like LeBlanc’s coffee, electrifying him with a sense of purpose that he’d thought he’d lost long ago.

Much as you do, Fool, I alter my plans as the years pass us by to elicit a different reaction—from you, from Him, and from the entity responsible for locking the world in this infinitely ephemeral state.

Akira’s blood freezes in his veins, quenching that electricity from before and leaving ice burns in places the otherworldly snow hasn’t even touched. He swallows again, mouth suddenly too dry, and then clears it when that proves insufficient enough to let the words flow once more.

“Do you know what that is?”

He presses. He has to.

Azathoth takes a moment to answer, regarding him with those uncomfortably inexpressive eyes, cable like appendages thwacking about in the open air behind him with a reckless abandon that would seem more reckless if it wasn’t Azathoth.

I have a theory...and I suspect it aligns with your own.

Akira falters. His own? He didn’t have a—

He stiffens. He couldn’t—he couldn’t mean that, could he?

He’s so out of his depth it’s laughable. This is off-script, but in a way that made no sense even to him.

Is this even happening? Is this a trick?

And how would he even know? He’s tempted to look around for the Velvet Room—if this really is a recreation of his memory, it should be here, right?—but he knows the attendant he’d try and seek out wouldn’t be there. Azathoth wouldn’t just offer this information for free; no question he could possibly ask would provide the not-Shadow with anything near the level of information he’d just given Akira, especially if—

Don’t be coy, Fool, Azathoth’s voice booms again, a deep and crisp and horrible sound in ways that he can’t even properly describe, You know what I speak of...or perhaps it’s more appropriate to say of who.

Then this really is happening—he’s not the only one who’s noticed it, it means something to someone other than just himself, it’s not some figment of his imagination that the proof staring him in the eyes had already informed him of all those years ago. It’s real. It means something.

And that scared the ever-living fuck out of him.

“You know about that.”

Again, it’s not a question, but this time, it’s also not a statement. Far below him, people chat idly with each other, their breath fogging in front of their face a sign of the extreme temperature.

He can’t even feel it anymore.

And as I suspected, you do as well.

He opens his mouth to speak again, but he can’t seem to get the words out—or rather, he doesn’t even know what to say. This is too overwhelming, the thoughts all racing in his head in no particular order, the jarring absence of his Personas edging on that insanity that always sat nestled in the back of his mind, now an integral part of what made him him after all this time.

After a long, palpable silence, Azathoth stirs, the tentacles switching directions, an agitation there that, distantly, Akira’s shocked wasn’t there before.

Now, tell me what you know, Fool.

Normally, maybe Akira would have known what the eldritch being was talking about, but with the way the information rattles his very core, putting a tremble in his hands, locking his knees, shortening his breath?

He stares blankly, willing the fear not to show on his face because the confirmation was now undeniably, irrefutably there and he can’t wrap his mind around it—not with the scenery he’s surrounded by, what it dredges up from the mess his memories make in his mind, and especially not—

I tire of this. Speak.

“Of what?”

His voice is weak, quiet, and cold air fills his lungs, not warming even as he exhales it because he’s breathing too fast, caught somewhere in a time that no longer exists, and practically speaking, never had.

You know of what, Fool, he starts again, voice not softening nor quieting nor doing anything else to ease Akira’s mind because none of this should be happening, is it even real? Hmph. You are still much too human to reflect your true nature, Excuse me, what?! Very well. I will spell it out to you: I speak of the creature stalking the sea of souls but not born from them alone, the Shadow that is not a Shadow, the wolf in sheep's clothing.

Akira feels the blood drain from his face as he continues, a terror he hasn't felt for a long time gripping his heart and refusing to let go.

The Other One.

Chapter Text

For a moment, neither of them speak. Akira likes to imagine that this irritates Azathoth—he’s just gotten at least some indication that the Persona felt impatience from the way he’s reacted thus far into their conversation, after all—but he also knows that time for the two of them seemed to work a bit differently than it would for, say, anyone else.

He also knows that Azathoth really would keep him here indefinitely, because it really didn’t matter how long they took here, not when in the grand scheme of things this moment would be an eyeblink, a speck of sand in a desert.

Maybe that’s why he was bothering to speak with him at all: maybe he just assumes that this little taste of “immortality”, in a sense, would make Akira more willing to come to the bargaining table.

Maybe Akira’s pondering all of this just to avoid that very table like it held his last meal.

It’s strange. He wants to know, he does, he wants it so bad it makes his chest ache and his mouth dry, makes him oblivious to the numbing cold of the powerful cognition-turned-reality that engulfs him like the rest of the lie that was this year…but…

But it begs the question: Azathoth isn’t an ordinary Persona—at least, he wasn’t anymore, not since that first year where Maruki had, wittingly or not, taken over Yaldabaoth’s role as the God of Control. He genuinely meant well. Akira still believes that.

He just doesn’t care.

In doing this, Azathoth became more god than Shadow, and with the way that Maruki always gained that reality-altering power at the start of every new year like clockwork, Akira’s not too convinced that that had ever really changed.

So if a literal fucking god had to ask him for help—because why else would he be here, why else would Azathoth willingly offer to tell him all of his secrets after all of this time if not because he needed something from him?

He thinks he somehow gets a littler paler as his next thought comes unbidden.

The world is so fucked.

”Help?” Hmph, Azathoth booms, tentacles flicking in what Akira assumes is irritation even though that’s what they’ve been doing at uneven intervals this entire conversation, I do not require your help, Fool. I simply wished forewarn you of the coming danger.

Danger? What is he—

We will discuss it in time. Ask your other questions, first.

It’s not a question.

Akira responds, anyways.

“What…what do you know about it?”

It’s a stupid question, the way it’s phrased. He imagines that it irks the god, to have a mortal stand before it and drool at his feet, tripping over the crystal bridge in his own stupidity.

If it does bother him, he doesn’t show it in any meaningful capacity…or at least not in a way Akira can pick up on.

Your conjecture about the way we retained our seraphic powers is correct…but only in part, Azathoth starts, his “voice” unnerving to Joker’s ears. They ring peculiarly as he continues, and Akira’s honestly not sure if that’s because of some weird quality of the Shadow himself or just the pervasive sense of wrongness that’s etched into the very fabric of this place, this world, this time and conversation.

Part of the reason I haven’t been able to try more…drastic measures is because we do not get full access to it until the start of the new year.

Akira frowns, mind racing. That didn’t make any sense; Maruki’s always able to alter Sumire and Rumi’s (assuming she was alive) cognition in some way before the start of the year.

He was able to do that in the first run too, though.

Still, wouldn’t that have changed after the first year? He’d always had a sense that Azathoth didn’t have access to the full shebang until the first rolled around, but he’d never really known for sure if it was true…or more importantly, how this was possible. He was basing most of that on something Lavenza had told them once that very first time he’d dealt with this horseshit: she’d said that the only reason that Maruki had gotten access to this power was because the Phantom Thieves had both passed it up and unconsciously wished for him to have it, to “save” them. It was as if they’d served up godhood like a Christmas cake on a silver platter .

Come to think of it, actually, it had been just around that time.

But the way she’d said it…it seemed like she was implying that if someone had the ability to inherit that power somehow, they’d get the chance to take it as long as it had been refused by anyone in the queue above them. Maybe it was a stupid way of thinking about it, but it’s not like anything else related to the Metaverse made much sense, either. Especially when it was related to gods.

But something about that bothered him: all of the events with Yaldaboath had never repeated—once that cup fucker was dead, they were dead. The thought made him a little uneasy, because it reminds him of something else like that that worked in a similar manner and to think that those two things might be connected in any way made him viscerally uncomfortable. If Yaldaboath happened, and they were gone, and Maruki always got this power (or Azathoth, or both of them…however you wanted to put it), but he only got it after the first…

Well, it couldn’t just be gone for the time before the first of the new year, right? It certainly hadn’t been during the first run, when Igor had made that stupid fucking deal with the God of Control.

Good. You understand this much. This will make the explanation easier to digest.

Cold dread shoots through his bones that has nothing to do with the patches of white that blanket parts of his body, his hair, over his mask and coat. The snow had picked up at some point.

Akira could hardly feel it.

If Azathoth didn't have the power, or at least not all of it, and it wasn't just gone...then who did?

“That…that was just—that was a guess,” he wheezes, all too readily denying his own conjecture because the alternative is much, much worse, “it’s not anything conclusive, it’s not—”

It’s not real.

They couldn't definitively prove it, so it was fine.

You cannot. You have no way of proving this to be true.

He almost sighs in relief: he did not like where that conversation was heading—

But I can.

Fuck.

Ok. That is not good. That is very, very not good.

You’ve pieced it together.

It’s not a question. Akira couldn’t have answered it even if it had been.

Azathoth continues in that same, strange tone of voice…if it is really a tone at all.

Our power has always been able to influence individual realities on its own. When time reset for the first time, I was elated in this discovery; whether he knew it or not, my mortal counterpart still had a burning desire to rid the world of all injustices, to wipe the sullied slate of humanity clean and start civilization anew. He never wanted to give it up, he fought the lot of you until the end. We kept going until we had no more left to give, until I was sealed away into his subconscious once more and the rest of his heart was ripped out and rendered as irreparable as the new world we created.

Azathoth pauses at this, and Akira wonders if he’s trying to gauge his reaction, trying to gather his thoughts, or is just reminiscing.

Maybe all of his guesses are wrong. Maybe it’s something he can’t understand at all. He isn’t given any more time to dwell on it as the Shadow continues.

When I found out that he did not retain this knowledge, the world became better still. I was sure that this time, without your interference, we would accomplish our dream.

Akira’s sensing a “but” here.

Yet when I tried to change reality’s cognition, when I tried to overwrite their sorrows with a better history…nothing happened. At first, I assumed this was because of my limited reach within his psyche. I put considerable efforts into overcoming this deficiency, but it was for nought; the more I pushed, the more I realized it simply could not happen. It was as if there was a “mental block” in humanities’ Palace and his mind alike, unable to be crossed in the confine of the human mind. When I pondered over it, it made sense: the God of Control never reached their full strength until late December: perhaps, for whatever reason, it was simply tied to that date. But even the God of Control had some power prior to this...and we did not.

Akira waits, his breath fogging up in front of his face. Below him, he watches an ambulance turn down a busy street—its lights off, of course, because in Maruki’s reality, no terrible accidents ever happened.

He’s honestly not sure why the man even bothered with police or paramedics or prisons…except for Shido, of course.

Fuck that guy.

But then, there’s the “but”, on the first of the new year, the block simply vanished. Our powers returned in full force…and we could feel your sorrow, your anguish,

Akira carefully doesn’t react to this. Azathoth continues like he hadn’t just casually brought up one of the worst years of his considerably sized life.

I believe that is why we were so perplexed when you came to our Laboratory once more. We were sure that you had seen reason, had realized the error of your ways once the slate had been washed by hands other than our own. When we failed once more, we knew this to be false. We knew it to be the end…and yet, it was not.

He's aware. He’s all too aware.

It still wasn’t the end.

Akira’s not sure if there even is an end.

You have so little faith in us. If you could believe, it would make things a lot simple,

Joker feels his expression become blank. Is he seriously still trying to convert Akira to Maruki-ism?

You misunderstand. You always have…but that is a matter for later. If you cannot believe in us yet, then perhaps try believing in this: I am a being that comes before time and space, before the Earth and all the stars in the sky, in this galaxy and every galaxy and every plane of existence. I precede every mortal concept of “beginning”. I tell you this because it helps to clarify my next statement: I have more patience than it is possible for any creature that is not a deity to possess.

Akira’s eyes narrow. He’s never liked it when gods challenge him like this.

They always tend to underestimate his stubbornness.

So believe me when I say that, had I not pursued every other avenue forward available to us already, I would not have bothered approaching you at all.

That…is sounding suspiciously like what I thought earlier. Double fuck.

I’ve gathered what little information you were aware of that I was not through your subconscious whilst I was speaking, rude, And it appears that there is much that you are not aware of. Allow me to be blunt.

He stiffens. That made him uneasy: Maruki was not blunt. Azathoth never cared to explain his actions.

So why start now?

As time has gone on, in a manner of speaking, that power started getting harder to grasp. Influencing my mortal counterpart became harder and harder to accomplish, like some invisible force was trying to prevent our ascension into greatness. That pull from before the first grew increasingly more difficult to overcome. For decades, I believed this to be your doing…you have always opposed salvation, and you have always remained somewhat naïve in regards to your nature. Over time, I could sense your frustration with the situation and I tried probing you without success to see which part of you was causing these reruns. I thought that perhaps you were doing it unwittingly, or that, should I discover how to manipulate it in some way, I could use it to make you more amenable to our solution regarding the world state.

Akira feels sick.

But nothing worked. Eventually, that pull became stronger, and I began noticing a correlation between the number and size of…you call them “Rifts”, I believe, really, really sick, throughout Mementos, and for the first time, I noticed an abnormality within the Metaverse. It felt like me. It felt like the God of Control that had perished so long ago. It felt like you.

Literally nothing in that entire statement was comforting in the least.

But most of all, it felt wrong, out of place. Manufactured, in a sense. You must understand that I had considered these Rifts to be a byproduct of our work to cleanse reality.

“What?”

That was news to him. The only real inkling that he’d gotten that Maruki was related to them at all had been from Akechi sometime before the tenth run (he can’t remember which one, anymore) because the Shadow of a man—some psychiatrist at a teaching hospital connected to Shido—he’d been hunting had been stuck inside of one. He’s known from then on that Maruki’s own “change of hearts” on people that had pre-formed Palaces merely forced their Shadow into a Rift (or more specifically, their own Rift)—assuming he did this before the start of the year, anyways. By habit, Akira’d tried the Palace of one of the many names on a long list of people who he’s learned have Palaces because their sudden change in behavior had been on the evening news.

It's the only time the MetaNav has ever crashed on him before—like something had forced the app to close, like it’d needed an update for him to use it or something. A few days later, he’d tried again and while it had worked as intended, there was something wrong about it. The only other Palace he’d ever been in where there was no Shadow Ruler had been Maruki’s own (unless you counted Futaba’s, at the very end, at least).

Much later, he also learned that Crow had some sort of innate ability that let him tell when someone’s Shadow was in Mementos or not. The logistics of it didn’t make much sense to him, but it was useful in that he knew when someone had a Rift, which meant he knew who Maruki had “actualized”.

Or so he’d thought.

The problem was that Maruki was one person, and he didn’t have a large group of people he’d interact with every run. It changed, every now and then (and now at least Akira could understand why), but it never stayed very broad.

It meant that there couldn’t be a lot of people that he manually changed the hearts of (because once the first came, his method of mass manipulation of public cognition meant he no longer needed to form any Rifts). And yet the number of Rifts didn’t seem to dramatically change with the start of the new year, nor did a Rift typically stick around for more than a few days at the absolute maximum (usually, it was hours of real time—he’d measured a few, once). So why then would the Palace Ruler disappear entirely from their Palace? If Maruki truly was the one to create the Rifts, then they should have stopped completely once he gained the ability to actualize everyone’s desires…but they didn’t.

You understand.

“No…I don’t.”

The deity’s tentacles shift and move back into place. Akira stops trying to think too much about it: it can’t be a nervous tick if the thing doing it had no concept of what being nervous even was—and studying humans like they were bacteria in a petri dish hardly seemed to count.

Firstly, you are incorrect when you presume we have the ability to create these “Rifts”. We merely have the ability to separate aspects of someone’s Shadow from interfering with their counterpart in reality. Where these aspects end up is beyond our control. Most often, they stay isolated as Shadows in Mementos, but if they already have a Palace, they end up there instead. In this way, it is not a true “change of heart” in the sense that you are accustomed to.

Then why…

Akira frowns. If it wasn’t Maruki, then what was it?

To put it into words you could understand, I believe these Rifts are the result of the fabric of the Metaverse unraveling.

Akira stares.

The what?!

I told you that I wanted to warn you of something. That is this: that pull that I feel on the power from the God of Control, the pull from The Other One. I think its presence, these repeats, and the steady way that the Metaverse is decaying over time are related. Unchecked, I believe it would spell ruin for all of humanity, and for any being that has made its home in the sea of human souls. Not even I could tell you what will happen should this come to fruition. The Rifts are tearing the Metaverse apart, Palaces interweaving with public thought, blinking in and out of existence…it is not natural, and it is not our doing.

“So…so this—the other one is responsible for them?”

In a sense. I suspect by the way it avoids them that they are merely a byproduct of its presence, though what it could be doing to destabilize the Metaverse to such an appreciable extent remains a mystery to me.

Well. That answered two of Akira’s questions: first, that thing wasn’t trying to make the Rifts (why else would it avoid them, or better yet, why is he taking everything Azathoth said at face value?)…and second…

Second, apparently Azathoth hadn’t read all of his thoughts about this "other one" that Akira had, because he had an idea of exactly what it was doing to destabilize the place.

And that terrified him.

“What are you going to do about it, then?”

That was really the crux of the matter here, anyways: what did Azathoth want from all of this?

It’s really more of what you are going to do about it, he says it with such certainty that Akira’s instantly put on edge, his hand tightening around the hilt of Paradise Lost like it’s a lifeline, we’ve already established that I cannot force you to accept our reality…but as I’ve just shared with you, should this continue much longer, there won’t be a reality left to accept. The choice is ultimately up to you, but know that I have waited until I can wait no longer to propose this deal to you. We have perhaps two years at most before I cannot wrestle the power from the Other One at the start of the year, before the Metaverse destabilizes beyond repair. I have the power to fix this, should you accept our reality and stop impeding our work.

Azathoth shifts, his tentacles abruptly shifting until they form four bright orbs behind him, each growing in size and intensity until Akira must shield his eyes from the brightness.

Your companions are close to unconsciousness. This conversation must end for today. Should you wish to speak further, you may return at any point and I will receive you. Unlike my mortal counterpart, I am actually willing to negotiate with you. I want the same for you as I want for everyone: true, eternal salvation. But remember…If you don’t accept me soon…you won’t be able to.

The balls of light merge and shoot forward, enveloping Akira in their glow faster than even he has time to react as Azathoth’s ominous words carry after him, even as darkness swells across him, the sounds of winter and “salvation” fading out of focus.

Time is running out.

Chapter Text

When he gets back here, I’m going to kill him.

Loki cackles in his head—nails on a chalkboard, steel on cement, the general feeling of scratching echoing with that characteristically lethal brand of humor he’s always been known for.

Robin Hood, oddly, seethes with a sharp disapproval…but not anger. They were all there, in his head, so they all knew that he wasn’t actually planning on killing the other boy (yet, anyways), so Goro can hardly understand what it could be about.

I hope Mr. Joker is ok…

Goro rolls his eyes, realizing Obariyon’s comment had irritated him so much that he’d done so physically as well as mentally and is silently thankful that he was in the back of the group so that no one saw it.

After all, they’d lost their most valuable teammate not even an hour ago; such a reaction would hardly be considered an appropriate response.

He’s fine: nothing in here could even land a scratch on him. I just hope he doesn’t take too much longer; these idiots are going to get themselves killed searching for him at this rate and that would ruin my entire plan.

But…I thought only that Queen lady was important for your plan?

Crow doesn’t bother answering as he shoves Skull out of the path of the Killer Teddy Bear’s Psiodyne with just a little more force than necessary.

“Are you hurt?”

He asks despite knowing that he hadn’t been hit and also not caring about his answer.

“Nah, I’m good dude, thanks,” the idiot shoves himself back up to hit feet and the two of them run back to the main group stood huddled behind some boxes in the warehouse.

The idea was to find some sort of opening that would lead to whatever trap that Joker had been pulled into. They weren’t going to find anything; if whatever attack that was had been enough to surprise him, it seemed rather unlikely that they would find anything of substance here—especially considering the fact that they had already searched this area of the Palace in its entirety before Joker had sprung that trap.

Did he trigger it, though?

Robin’s question startles him (though not enough for it to show, of course); he’d been thinking along those same lines the moment the area of the warehouse reverted to its prior appearance, the pillars that shot through the air dissipating like they’d never been there. They hadn’t been aiming at Kurusu, but he can’t help but think that he had been their primary target. Something about it bothered him: there hadn’t been any indication of anything wrong, no noticeable holes in the wall or ground where the trap had come out of…there should be something to indicate the trap’s presence. It was like…like—

Like the Palace itself reacted to his presence.

Goro grits his teeth. He might be right, but that didn’t mean Crow had to like it.

Though…

What is your problem, lately?

He feels Robin shift at that, drawing the attention of Obariyon and Loki as he questions the third Persona directly. He can tell that none of them had anticipated it—usually, he liked to pretend that Robin wasn’t there, or snap at him until he shut up, so their reactions are fair. Even Robin seems surprised at the question, though like always, it doesn’t last for very long.

Elaborate.

You cut into my thoughts more often, you comment on things in reality, you’re just present more than you’ve been in years. It’s beyond irritating, and what I want to know is why?

For a long moment, Robin doesn’t answer, and as the morons around him finally decide to move out of the warehouse to some nearby safe room that Oracle had apparently just found (though by the frown on her face, there’s something abnormal about it, which, as it’s on-brand with everything else in this fucking Palace, he decides to ignore), Goro decides he’s spent enough time waiting on an answer to a question that ultimately did not mat—

Have you not felt the change?

It’s spoken so softly, so seriously that Goro could no more ignore it than if his so called “will-of-rebellion” had shouted it aloud for the Thieves to hear.

”Change?” What change?

Robin hums absently, and Goro isn’t sure if when next he speaks, the words are to him at all.

There’s something off about that boy. The way he reacts to things, the way he reacts to you, they aren’t normal. He’s so rarely surprised at anything, so confident that he’ll be right, so casual with decisions that should have more bearing—

Are you going to keep wasting my time by repeating things we already know, or were you going to get to the point?

He is the point: his presence, this Palace, those incredibly powerful Personas he harbors within his heart…

Robin pauses, his “mental posture” so to speak suggesting that he is lost in thought.

When he’s around, I am reminded of something I cannot quite recall.

There’s something about the statement—the absurdly idiotic statement—that makes him freeze, and he has to laugh nervously when he realizes it’s drawn the attention of the other Thieves. It felt—it felt—

“Akechi-san, are you alright?!”

He frowns at the look of shocked concern on Okumura’s face. What was she—

“Dude, how the ‘eff did your eyes turn all red without his mask?!”

That…he’d just—had he just let that slip? They first thing the Thieves had done when Kurusu'd disappeared was ask if Crow could feel where he was through that mask, but it had dissipated the second Joker himself had—a magic trick living up to his codename at precisely the wrong time. He’d schooled himself out of his own reaction long before now, though, so what they were saying didn’t make any sense. Was it the shock? Was it that absolute sorrow he’d felt tangentially cascade from Robin, the way that, for just a moment, his other senses were swallowed by the impossible?

Tell me something, boy…

Crow opens his mouth to utter some lie or another through a television ready face, plastic smile already in place even as all of his attention was, for once, on Robin.

He doesn’t even know what he says. All he can hear is the familiar ringing of a bell, knowing its grim tolling somehow foreshadowed his own death sentence, and Robin’s cryptic words that, frustratingly, he can tell aren’t intended to be cryptic.

…have you ever grieved…

A few of Thieves cast him a last worried look before turning back to Queen, who has—to her credit—somehow managed to keep the rest of them alive.

…over something you can’t even remember?

Robin reaches into his mind and he lets him in deeper than he usually allows anyone for reasons he can’t explain. Maybe it’s curiosity. Maybe it’s that cold he can’t quite seem to shake that’s started to settle into his bones, replacing calcium with frost and—

And snow.

Flashes and sensations overtake him then, and it’s—it’s too much, it overloads his capacity to process them and even the attempt at doing so is met with nothing because none of them relate to each other at all.

Smooth plastic held between his fingers, some indiscernible commercial on the television, the feeling of contentment, of betrayal and some venomous in between. Of mussing up his hair, the image of the same worn windbreaker he often wore on hits, of footsteps behind his own.

Distantly, he’s reminded of the panic attacks he had after—

He lets the thought get drowned out in the ocean of his thoughts…or rather, someone’s thoughts. Could sensation alone qualify as thought?

Inferiority and superiority and a begrudging understanding, the leather creaking on just one of hands, clarity and determination and some final, foreboding idea born from the two.

Someone wraps a hand around his arm and he jerks away violently and he can’t tell if that sensation was even his own because they don’t stop—

The feeling of anger and awe intermingle and his head spins as the cold intensifies, some winter chill brushing against his face as his own voice parrots out words that aren’t his own.

“…You really weren’t joking.”

A cold metal wall and the dulling sounds of thuds and voices beyond it, a dim pain in his chest. He can’t feel his fingers, and while rationally he knows that this is all just some strange trick of the mind, it makes his lizard brain panic and he’s shoving the person in front of him away with appendages he can no longer feel, just pressure and force and tension.

Something’s stopped his breathing, and some deep, unfathomably pervasive regret makes a part of him that isn’t him accept it even as the rest of him (and Loki, because apparently, he’s not liking the way this is going, either) fight bitterly against it until Robin’s shoved out of his thoughts entirely—

And just like that, it’s gone.

“CROW!”

He wakes up, in a sense, pressed against the wall of the warehouse they’d been pouring over for the past hour. His heart pumps dangerously in his chest, pulse reminding him of some danger that doesn’t exist but that he still feels just as readily as if it were directly in front of him. He closes his mouth. He’s apparently been taking ragged, rapid breaths through his mouth alone. There’s a semi-circle of incredulous Thieves surrounding him, and it’s with no small amount of alarm that he looks down at the outfit he’s wearing.

Thankfully, he hadn’t changed it in his panic.

The relief is a candle to the sun of his thoughts, now entirely his own and far more scattered than he’d like them to be.

“Are you ok?!”

It’s Takamaki. He looks up at her—

Wait. “Up?”

He hastily pushes himself off of the floor, the smooth wall against his spinal column doing absolutely nothing to help ward off those foreign feelings still lingering in his mind.

Too close for comfort.

“I…I believe I am fine now.” He says uncertainly, not bothering to hide his genuine uncertainty because it would lend credibility to his next statement.

“What happened?”

Kitagawa, his arms crossed and a look of concern on his face.

He resists the urge to scowl.

“I’m not entirely certain.”

He’s cut off before he can continue by an argument between the cat and their fearless leader, and he takes that opportunity to turn his attention back to the personification of false pretenses that still waited in his mind.

What the hell was that?!

To his surprise, Robin doesn’t shy away from his question, his soft, contemplative voice sending that chill back to his spine, his hands, his lungs in such a way that not even Loki is completely unaffected by his message:

I don’t know, and that’s the problem, isn’t it?

Goro doesn’t know what to say to that, so he says nothing, refocusing on the worried teenagers in front of him while he quickly pours over the excuses he could come up with that would even begin to justify whatever had just occurred.

When Akira blinks the rest of the light from his eyes, he finds himself in the hallway outside of the safe room just before the Mementos-bound block in Maruki’s Palace always was.

He can tell, instantly, that the rest of them are in the room. He knows Futaba will know he’s just re-emerged.

He knows he’ll have to explain himself. He knows he doesn’t have the energy needed to do so, he knows he’s on the cusp of a horrible, horrible breakdown because he doesn’t know what the fuck just happened, he knows that they are about to open the door and that he can’t deal with them right now, that he can’t deal with anything right now because suddenly, everything mattered again and he doesn’t know how to handle that because nothing was supposed to matter—

The handle turns and he makes a decision.

Arsène?

Unusually sober, the Persona appears in front of him in his mind, one hand on his hat that doesn’t actually come off.

Yes?

I can’t do this right now. Take over.

And he did.

Chapter Text

When the Thieves throw the door to the safe room open following Oracle’s exclamation, Crow isn’t surprised to see Joker standing there…at least, not initially.

The dagger is what first catches his attention. It’s not right: it’s not nearly as ornate as it had been just an hour ago, and of all of the strange things he’s seen Kurusu do in the Metaverse, for some odd reason, it sets him on edge more than everything else combined.

Or at least, it had for all of the two seconds it took him to notice the more pressing matter.

His eyes.

Where normally a gunmetal grey would stare back at him, an uncanny crimson sat unnaturally in its place, off-putting largely because it’s not with the same “glow” he’s typically accustomed to seeing whenever the man briefly spoke to his Personas. It looked like he’d found some colored contacts and put them in (a nicer set of them, too, for his usual eye color wasn’t even visible at all).

Somehow, he knows that this isn’t the case. For his part, Joker looks a lot less worried than the mass of people that rush out of the room and into the hallway. Instead, he stands there completely unbothered, that sharp, yet comparatively unremarkable blade held in both gloved hands—one wrapped around the hilt and the other caught between carefully cradling the steel and lightly pressing up against the dagger’s sharpened contours.

Oddly, even that seems less dangerous than it normally would…Goro’s not fool enough to think he would cut himself on accident, but this less remarkable weapon had a similarly unintimidating edge. The thought makes little sense to him: it would most certainly cut just as easily, and he’d been deceived enough—for months, he begrudgingly reminds himself—by the man’s demeanor in the past for him to simply disregard it as he wants to…

But he just can’t seem to shake this feeling that…that he’d—

His thoughts are interrupted when the man in question finally looks at them, the question in his gaze almost as sharp (dull?) as the knife in his hands. He’s again struck with a thought: Joker wants them to ask, to prod and poke and question.

Why does he know this?

How does he know this?

In his mind, Robin hums—but if the Persona held the answer (and Crow’s no longer convinced that he doesn’t), he doesn’t offer it up, instead choosing to watch the exchange with the same unconcealed interest as Loki.

They’re all invested now.

Something scratches in his mind and he resists the urge to scowl.

His eyes. Something’s off.

Loki’s watching the man before them warily, his claw-like fingers curling one by one as he floats inside of his mind, his focus oddly (or perhaps not, considering recent events) erratic for their current environment. Some of that chill from earlier in the warehouse starts creeping back into his spine. He wants to ask the Thieves why he’s the only one affected by the cold, but he doesn’t—this is all in his head (which isn’t to say it didn’t matter, mind you, but it’s nothing they would understand even if he managed to find the words to describe it).

He couldn’t even explain it to himself.

But could Kurusu? Could that Persona from before…?

“Joker! Where have you been?!” Oracle asks, sounding relieved. Crow can’t find it in him to question her about it; the enigmatic man had saved her life (at least once now) before all of this for reasons he has yet to figure out, so her concern for his wellbeing seems warranted. Why the rest of them seem to care (besides Violet, of course…for a similar reason as Oracle) is beyond him.

Didn’t he save them, too, kinda?

Obariyon hops in place, the irritating thumping getting under his skin as it makes his earlier headache begin to flareback up. Still…

Not exactly. The public thinks Okumura had a mental shutdown.

Why are you humoring this line of questioning?

That…Loki had a good point, actually: why is he humoring the imp?

HEY!

Ignoring the thing(s) in his head for a moment, he turns his attention back to the scene before him, a subtle mirth in the carefree smirk on his face…or Goro would have called it such, were it not for the focused gleam in his eyes. His red eyes.

Why is this not the strangest thing I’ve seen this week?

For once, Loki doesn’t seem to find his confusion as entertaining as he normally would have, instead curling his talons in thought. Maybe the motion would have hurt him, at one point, but now…

This isn’t even the strangest thing we’ve seen today.

“Right here,” the younger man answers smoothly—and yet, had he taken any longer, Goro’s sure he would’ve forgotten the question. Crow’s head snaps back to him as the words leave his mouth, not liking the odd lilt to his voice at all. It almost sounded like a Palace Ruler or someone’s Shadow in Mementos, distorted in a way that reflected both Kurusu’s voice…and that of—

Wait.

“Are you Arsène?”

The words leave his mouth before he's even realized he began speaking.

…and the strangely lackluster Persona he introduced back in Mementos.

The smirk grows into a grin, all teeth, and Goro has to fight the scowl that tries to force its way onto his face unprompted. He honestly hadn't even meant to ask, but now that he had, he knows it to be true. Still, he can't tell if the Persona's expression is impressed or condescending.

“Someone figured it out already. Alas, the jig is up.”

He has questions—he has so many questions—but he’s also just one person in a hallway full of eight other teenagers (Kurusu excluded) and a talking cat, so he doesn’t get another word in as a cascade of adolescent voices drowns out everything but his thoughts.

“What?!”

“No way…”

“You-you give my senpai back right now!”

“That can’t be true!”

Goro isn’t really listening to them, though.

Is that possible?

Would you even want to find out?

He doesn’t actually have to answer: his instant revulsion to the mere suggestion that such a thing—that a Persona could subvert its creator’s control over their very consciousness—even existed serves as answer enough…though, interestingly, neither of the—

Hey!

Crow rolls his eyes—as in, he actually rolls them because the recently rediscovered, tentative control he currently has on his own facial expressions is slipping—but he mentally acquiesces nonetheless, because Obariyon is technically—

Screw you, mister!

—technically not wrong…though personally, he’d rather not hear from the annoying demon and as for the fourth one, well—

“I’m afraid that’s out of the picture for the moment.”

He forces himself out of his head long enough to listen to the Persona’s words, watching as not-Joker casually releases his blade and puts one gloved hand on his hip, eyes almost bored as he turns to regard each of them in turn.

The others say something—many things, actually—but Crow can say with absolute certainty that he isn’t paying them much attention at all when gloved hands suddenly slip into those oversized coat pockets as the Persona…walks past them all.

“Hey! You cant just walk away from us while…we’re…?”

Takamaki stops as the man-who’s-not-a-man holds the door open to the safe room they’d all just emerged from, shooting them a sharp smile as he gestures them through with a flourish.

“After you,” he rumbles—and Goro means that, because that strange, almost off-putting quality go his voice still hasn’t gone away, and it…it’s weird. It doesn’t sound wrong on him, exactly, but it definitely isn’t normal either. Arséne doesn’t seem impatient as he waits; in fact, as he stands using half his body like a doorstop, he goes so far as to waggle his eyebrows so ostentatiously that the action can be clearly traced under the mask after no one makes any moves to follow him.

What the hell.

It’s not a question, and none of the voices in his head deem it as such, either. The sooner they got this day over with, the better…at least, that’s what he’d like to say, if he knew for certain that—should they leave Maruki’s Palace now—that Kurusu would go back to normal.

”Normal?”, Loki growls, mentally scoffing whilst those deceptively thin talons of his rake down the side of Crow’s head, What part of any of this has struck you as normal so far? What’s to say that this isn’t an act—that any of the behaviors we’ve observed in him up until this moment have been authentic at all?

Crow remains silent as he watches Skull wave around his little, unthreatening club like a child playing hero. What is there to say? He might have a hunch that Joker hadn’t been acting during a few of their interactions (the surprise after Crow had contracted with Obariyon, the strange level of comfort he had in that Jazz Club, that look on his face as he’d gotten abducted by this Palace’s Ruler), but frankly, he’d thought as much during the many times before he’d known the man had access to the Metaverse, too. There isn’t any way he could tell besides his intuition, and it hasn’t seemed to be a reliable method at all when it came to Kurusu…and it’s fucking infuriating—

Calm down, Robin says, his voice paradoxically calm and yet alert at the same time as he once again speaks directly to Crow, your irritation is liable to attract the notice of the Thieves you’ve allied yourself with—however temporary that may be—and if they notice that shift in your eyes again, expecting them to excuse this a second time may prove to be problematic.

Well whose fault is that!

He sets his jaw, enraged to have been shoved into this situation to begin with. Had Robin not lost his shit the first time…

He discretely takes a deep breath. Holds it. Then exhales. Repeats the process again when he notices the way no one is paying him any mind. Vexing though it may be, Robin is right: if he lost control over his facial expressions (or more precisely, the way he masked his conversations between himself and his Personas) once more, it would be infinitely more difficult to explain away with the man he’d claimed responsible for it out-of-commission.

Is that even true?

Loki hums as he finishes, eyeing the Persona(?) before him with a critical gaze. Crow tries not to stare—he’s pretty sure this Arsène fellow had called him something like an idiot earlier (gods, but it felt so long ago, now) this afternoon, and if Joker could get under his skin as easily as he’d seemed to, he doesn’t doubt his Persona could do the same…only, at least Kurusu didn’t seem hell-bent on ruining his plans.

He's not sure he wants to find out if Arsène shared the same sort of opinion on the matter…

Yet after all this is over—assuming this…whatever this is even can blow over—Goro thinks he’d like to talk to the Persona. He’d taken him as a common fool before (he very carefully does not acknowledge the way this perks both Obariyon and Robin’s attentions, because now that he knows why, it’s left him feeling oddly uncomfortable with the topic), but a mere simpleton wouldn’t have been able to accomplish this.

Or is it an accomplishment at all?

“Hey! You…you Persona, you! Explain what’s going on!” The cat cuts in, his cartoonish paws crossing in front of his disproportionately shaped body. It’s clear he’d been about to call the Persona a “Shadow” by the way he’d faltered as he’d paused, but he must have seen how ill-suited the word actually is to the thing before them now that it had actually spoken. Despite the bold way the cat had phrased through demand, the way one of his feet (back legs?) taps and his ear twitches betray the animal’s nervousness.

Arsène waits another second before answering, his tone light and conversational…which is actually the first thing he does that reminds Goro of Kurusu—this uncaring, blaise attitude toward the palpable tension that ironically has little to do with the very real danger the Palace’s formidable enemies presented to them perfectly characteristic of the enigmatic barista.

“Allow me to rephrase,” he starts smoothly, his baritone voice almost enough to erase that distortion—or maybe just make it seem more…natural? In any case, it’s a difficult thing to try to describe. “Should we remain out in the open like this, we are liable to be accosted by the miscreants that infest this detestable venue. I presume our correspondence may be more easily completed at a locale wherein the lives of you and your ilk aren’t consistently in a perilous level of danger,” that Cheshire grin returns to his face, but it’s clear by the purposeful (though not hostile) edge to it that he’s being sincere…or at the very least, that’s how he wants it to appear, “but I suppose the choice is ultimately up to you.”

Crow’s not surprised that Arsène turns on his heel then, not bothering to hold the door as it swings shut behind him despite the half-a-dozen different voices that call out to his retreating form in protest.

He's also not surprised by the silence that his disappearance causes amongst the Thieves, but he is irritated by it.

This is the wisest way they could spend this time?

Obviously not, mister…

His eye nearly twitches at that. He really had to take care of that sometime soon…

Woah, woah, hey! I didn’t mean it!.

He has to physically restrain himself from just ignoring all of the idiots standing stock still in the hall and confronting the pompous little shit in the safe room by himself. Instead, he makes himself appear as perplexed as Nijima has slowly become, nodding along when she eventually talks them into entering.

Had he been paying any attention, he would have understood their poorly thought out game plan…but to be perfectly honest, he’s barely keeping it together as it is. There’s little more, in this moment, that he wants more than to head to a deeper area in Mementos and let Loki go fucking wild—but unfortunately for him, speaking to Arsène currently makes that small list of exceptions.

When Crow follows Queen into the room, they both watch as Arsène peels the plastic wrap off of a plain-looking pack of playing cards, emptying the box into his gloved hands with a fluid sliding motion before tossing the container to the table.

When they finally enter, Arsène is sitting in one of the chairs, straight backed and deftly shuffling a deck of cards even with the thick, questionably leather gloves still on his hands.

It’s strange that we can’t discern the material from this distance, is it not?

Of all the—why is that what you’re fixating on?

Loki scoffs at them both, apparently as fed up with Robin Hood’s antics as he is. The door swings shut behind them, the muffled thump not interrupting the Persona’s card tricks—and the longer they watch him, the clearer that it becomes that this is what he’s doing. Goro couldn’t have said exactly what they are even if someone were to ask him: frankly, some of the shit he’s doing is too fast for his eyes to follow—the way he tosses a few cards high in the air as he keeps shuffling through the deck, as they spin and flip around eve as he bridges the deck, as they easily slide back into the fold of the cards like they’d never left. Some will dance across his fingertips or knuckles, will look like they’re falling to the ground before a dramatic hand pulls them back into the stack.

They all just stare at him for a while—a long while—and Crow finds himself merely going along with it as he settles himself to lean back against the wall, hoping the distance he’s put between them will give him a moment to think or draw attention off of him. Even now, a few of the Thieves—Violet and Oracle and for some reason even Skull—look between him and the seated man with something between pity and confusion or (in Oracle’s case), distrust, and he isn’t quite sure what to make of it. Still, calling them out on it would only serve to alert the rest of them to the matter, and since he’d rather avoid that mess entirely, he merely pretends not to notice the sidelong glances as he watches the tricks with the rest of them.

He might want to talk with Arsène—or better yet, his apparent self-sacrificial master—but he didn’t want to do that now, with all of their present company.

Queen opens her mouth to say something she probably thinks will be intimidating, but to her surprise, the man of their attentions cuts her off before an ill-advised word escapes her lips.

“What say we play a little game?”

Wow! Can you do tricks like that too, mister?!

No. Now shut up.

Obariyon grumbles, but he shoves the sensation aside, brushing past the piggyback demon in favor of watching the man before them.

“I…what?” Nijima blinks, sounding truly stumped. He nearly rolls his eyes—if this…being is anything like his human counterpart, then these misdirection and methods to appear unpredictable are entirely in character.

Luckily, some of the others more easily take it in stride.

“Uhhh, I mean, like a card game?” Oracle asks, her eyes hidden beneath those ridiculous (but likely practical) goggles.

“Sure,” he answers, looking faintly amused even under his mask. His hands, all the while, have never stopped moving.

“Oh. Wait, but what about Joker-senpai?!”

“He’s fine.”

“W-well, that can’t be right!” Violet says, looking oddly uncertain for her tone as she stamps her foot.

Arsène sighs, speaking slowly like he’s talking to a group of primary school students instead of teenagers.

“You all want to speak with him, right?” A slew of stilted nods, a couple of silent gazes following the six of hearts as it twirls about in the air for so long it about defies the laws of physics until it, too, is swallowed by the whole.

Another half-truth hidden in a sea of lies.

That was an unnecessarily theatrical way of phrasing that.

Crow ignores them, following that stupid card for as long as he can…and yet, infuriatingly enough, it’s soon as indistinguishable as the rest of them are.

He stares at them for a long time—all these cards in the hands of some unimportant asshole’s spirit of rebellion made corporeal—and, for just a second, he feels just this…

This indescribable sense of loss.

It serves as an uncomfortable reminder of what had recently happened with Robin, and it makes him want to find some quiet place to sit and think. Of course, that isn’t possible right now, and Arsène’s voice only solidifies that.

“He’s somewhat indisposed at the moment—not of my accord, I might add,” the Persona leisurely drawls, his eyes more attentive than his tone suggests, “meaning you’ll have to wait anyways—and seeing as I must as well…then you might as well indulge me, no?”

“You cannot expect us to accept such an incomplete response,” Fox says critically, a no-nonsense look about his face as he stands rather rigidly to the side.

“Accept it, or don’t. It matters very little to me.”

“What are the rules to this game?”

Arsène hums, spreading the entire deck before stacking it all back in a small, neat pile. Goro’s surprised that Mona even bothers to ask considering that none of the teenagers surrounding him appear to be taking the retort very well.

“I’ll let you know once we start.”

Skull itches the back of his neck, muttering a curse. Violet cocks her head, looking like a confused, incredulous lamb.

One that would certainly be just as easily led to the slaughter as the rest of them.

It’s Noir, however, that finally breaks the silence with a statement that actually moves the conversation forwards.

“Will we be able to deal the cards?”

Prudent. He’ll cheat.

Did that really need to be stated?

Loki growls at his condescending tone. Obariyon laughs.

And Robin watches.

“No you cannot.”

“And just why is that?”

The look in his eyes is unsettling to say the least, but it’s gone as quickly as it came, and Goro’s left standing there wondering if he’d even seen it at all.

“Because we’re always the dealer,” Arsène continues cryptically.

“Then we’re not playing your game.” This time, it’s Queen who answers.

Arsène shrugs and crosses a leg, still madly shuffling through the deck, ever the showman. “I suppose you won’t be getting your answers, then. Pity.”

The mockery in his voice says he doesn’t actually care. It’s a stark contrast to the ever-secretive Akira…and to the way he’d seemed to enjoy their earlier attentions. Was…had that just been an act, or is this the act?

Just how much of this is real?

The question makes something in the back of his skull burn—and though he doesn’t outwardly react beyond a slight flinch of his shoulders, none of the Thieves seem to notice…yet for a split second, he could have sworn that red gaze flashed over to him.

By the time he gets his bearings enough to look back over to the…man, the only thing that unnaturally crimson stare is directed at is the cards.

“W-wait just a minute Arsène-senpai!”

Arsène pauses shuffling the deck and, to everyone’s surprise, levels a flat look in her direction.

“Hmph. Now I see why he finds that so annoying.”

Violet flushes and Arsène returns his attention to the cards, bridging them over the table. Crow ignores the inner snuffling of the demon in his mind, though for once, he quietly agrees with its origins.

“Joker-senpai doesn’t—wait, never mind that for now. You never told us what kind of game it is!”

The personified-Shadow hums. “What does it matter if thou won’t play?”

She blinks as if she hadn’t considered that and Crow tries not to let his thoughts about that appear on his face before she continues. “Well, what happens if we lose?”

Arsène tuts, allowing a few of the cards to escape the bridge before sweeping them up into one hand.

“There are no stakes for thou.” his expression subtly shifts as he examines the King of spades in his hand, “That’s how it has always been.”

There’s something ominous there that catches Loki’s attention.

“That makes no sense! What do you get out of that?”

“Sport.”

“Huh? This ain’t some kinda baseball game, dude.”

Queen sighs, shaking her head. “He means he’ll find it entertaining, Ryuji.”

He wasn’t this formal before…

Loki muses, shifting to watch the exchange like he can’t decide if he actually wants to watch it or not.

He is playing with them.

Crow forces himself not to react to Robin’s calm interjection. He still hasn’t gotten over their last, uncomfortable interaction—and by the way Loki’s mouth snaps down into a frown, neither had he.

Obariyon, for his part, is completely oblivious to the palpable tension in both his head and the safe room…and the last one, well…

Wow Mr. Robin, you sound really sure about that. Are you and Mr. Joker’s Persona friends, too?

Something about the way he words that sets Robin on edge, but before Crow can delve further into it, his eyes lock with…Arsène’s across the table. There’s a certain mirth there that he sees in Kurusu on occasion—usually when he’s trying to instigate some sort of incendiary conversation. That plain looking dagger—the one that is most definitely not the ornate looking one that Joker typically wields—spins in neat little circles over those red gloved knuckles. Apparently, he was in the middle of some trick before looking his way…but the knife, he’s sure, had been put away before now.

“What we’re wondering,” Queen starts, voice just a step from confrontational despite the Persona’s lax position, “is how you managed to take control of him like that while he wasn’t even holding your mask.”

Shit.

That’s how he’d explained it to the others—he couldn’t exactly tell them the actual reason he’d lost control of his ability to stop his eyes from shining like that, not when the rest of them knew why Joker’s did that. He’d come up with an admittedly half-assed spur of the moment response whilst he tried unsuccessfully to snap out of whatever it was that Robin had done to him.

”Done to you?” Hmph.

He shoves him away—whatever the Persona’s thoughts on the matter, they needed to wait until they were alone—before he opens his mouth to try and steer the topic away. Kurusu might have gone along with this, considering his strange tendency to cover for him, on occasion, but Arsène might not be so willing.

He’s cut off before he can utter a word.

Arsène spreads his hands, making Violet gasp as she jerks away from the blade’s arc. Goro resist the urge to roll his eyes—the dagger wouldn’t have hit her—before that slightly distorted voice starts again, his eyes flashing with a casual glee that only he in the room really possessed.

“Who knows?”

Crow silently hopes the others take the lackluster answer without question, but he isn’t shocked when Panther speaks up, he arms crossing in front of that ridiculous latex suit as she turns to frown at Joker’s will of rebellion.

“Seriously? The Shadows in here are like, super powerful. That could have killed him!”

Arsène hums, shooting Goro a look that says I highly doubt that without the need to voice it. Goro’s really, really glad he doesn’t voice it.

After the other Thieves look between the two of them in confusion (one that Goro mimics because he’s not sure what else would look less suspicious) and realize that Arsène isn’t going to elaborate, Panther switches tactics with a grumble.

“You’re really fine with, like, not getting a prize if you win?”

“How oft are thou going to make me repeat myself?”

He sounds peeved, but not overly so…he’s had so much practice with reading people that he feels like he should be a decent judge for the authenticity of emotional states such as this, but he gets nothing here. Is it because he’s a Persona, or because it’s not a front?

Are they all being manipulated, or is this a genuine response by a being comprised of Kurusu’s own mind?

They’re all silent for a while—so long that Arsène loses interest and turns away from them all again, his eyes scanning the room with a bored look on that slightly-off place. Eventually, Fox breaks the silence himself, the frown audible in his voice.

“…you never told us what we would get should we win,” he says quietly.

That…is a good question, actually—and he’s even more inclined to agree once he notices the smirk on Arsène's face.

“I’ll answer your questions, of course.”

The response to that is immediate…and Crow can only hope the Persona’s similar in temperament to his master.

“Wait, for real?!”

“No way!”

“Are you sure that won’t upset Joker?”

“How do we know he’s even being serious about all this?”

Arsène doesn’t reply beyond a simple nod, hands still spinning the dagger and the cards (somehow) alike.

Panther ends up actually answering the question—though Crow’s not very pleased by the way she pensively glances back at him before she does so.

“I think we should do it,” she half-whispers, her voice increasing in volume when she realizes she’s caught most of the room’s attention, “Joker’s already said he’s not, like, trying to hurt us or anything, so I don’t think this game or whatever will be something bad, and I mean, I don’t really get everything about Personas and stuff, but I think if he actually didn’t want us to know something, his Persona wouldn’t answer the question if we asked one he didn’t want to answer, right?” Crow’s not certain if he agrees, but he can’t fault her for coming to that conclusion given her current understanding of their situation. “So if—if there's really no downside, I mean, then why not?”

A moment later—after Skull’s kicked the ground and Noir raises a hand to her chin in thought—Queen reluctantly nods, sounding displeased as she does so.

“Alright, then. I’m personally a little hesitant to agree to anything without Kurusu’s actual presence, but since his Persona has made it clear that he’s not going to tell us what happened to him…what do you all think?”

Again, Panther looks directly at Crow when Queen says this—and he abruptly realizes that this isn’t meant to be as accusatory as it seems: they merely wanted his professional opinion on the matter.

Gee, mister, how’d you forget whatcha do for a living already?

I liked it better when you weren’t speaking to me.

If only he could goad the Shadow into giving him the silent treatment once more…

Crow hums in thought, making a show of considering the offer before he nods, pushing himself from the wall to take a step closer to the main group.

“I concur with Queen’s appraisal of the situation: I see no harm in participating and much potential benefit; besides,” he continues, his look sharpening as he eyes the mirthful man still seated at the table before them, “I think it’s probable he knows more about what led to the situation regarding the Palace Ruler than he’s let on. I’m rather interested to find out more information on the subject.”

This, he thinks, is probably the most honest he’s ever been with the Thieves.

"Wonderful!” Arsène says, his shuffling increasing in speed, “then let’s not waste any time. The rules are simple, as is the game itself: you will get one attempt to guess how I planned on cheating, and if you cannot figure it out with that attempt or before my counterpart wishes to return to himself, then you lose.”

Violet startles at his words. “Wha—‘return to himself?’ What’s that supposed to—”

“Ah, ah,” Arsène tuts, bridging the deck again as he speaks, “that’s not how this works. Go on: discuss amongst yourselves.”

“Hold on, what do you mean by ‘planned on cheating’, though?” Queen asks, a slight edge to her voice as she fixes the Persona with a steely glare.

“I was going to play an actual game with you, but I fear I’ve miscalculated our initial time constraints,” he sighs dramatically, using exaggerated force as he exhales, “As such, I merely ask that you correctly speculate how I would go about rigging the game should we have had the time to actually play one.”

Queen raises her eyebrow at him, looking unimpressed. “And you expect us to be able to do this without knowing what game you’d planned on us playing?”

“Precisely.”

Noir cocks her head, but it’s Mona who next speaks. “Can’t you at least give us an idea of what it was?”

“Unfortunately, I cannot.”

The cat’s ear twitches. “What? Why not?”

“Because I hadn’t decided on anything by the time you agreed to this simpler sort of game,” red eyes find the cat’s and Crow watches as the feline starts physically pulling away at the intensity of the gaze before he stops himself. “Though, I suppose that’s a clue in and of itself, no?”

Not a very good one…

Loki scoffs at Obariyon’s words—mostly because the imp is wrong. With a standard deck of playing cards, there’s probably hundreds of different games with thousands of different methods of cheating…but if the Persona hadn’t chosen one when he’d made this arrangement, it significantly reduced the potential factors that played into them.

Most probably, something is wrong with the actual deck itself…were the cards marked in some way?

It’d be a simple deception, though not ineffective provided one did it correctly. He’s unfamiliar with the exact methods of accomplishing it, but he knows of what they are, at least: one could subtly fade the reverse image on the back of the cards to debate certain ones, cut or bend corners, ink the backs of them…there were a great many ways one could doctor playing cards.

The real issue, however, is that they’d watched him open the pack. Even now, the box sits discarded near his hand with the plastic wrapping it’d come packaged in, an unsubtle reminder that he hadn’t accessed its contents before proposing this to them. It’s possible he had cards from other decks hidden in his gloves or sleeves, but that seemed too easy for someone like Kurusu.

So what else could it be?

The Thieves are already conversing amongst themselves, with Queen and Mona coming up with similar ideas as to the ones he’d just mulled over.

Crow doesn’t join them, lost in his own thoughts until he notices the way Arsène’s watching him, a slight smirk on his face that catches Goro’s attention as the Thieves are too focused on their own conversation to notice.

When he winks at him a second later whilst the deck falls into one of his hands, Crow sees red.

“Crow?” Panther asks, turning to him with a frown that’s too much of something to be just curiosity. “We’re thinking that maybe, he’s marked the the cards somehow by like, shuffling them so much?” She looks to Queen for confirmation, and the older teenager cocks her head from side to side like she partially agreed.

“There’s a method of marking playing cards called ‘tinting’ that can rely on excessive wear on the backs to identify particular ones…considering we watched him open the deck, it’s the only method of easily processing them in such a way that I find to be probable.”

Something tells him that that isn’t it, but it’s not as if he had any way of actually proving it…besides, the Thieves already seem suspect of his sudden entanglement with the other man. Even if he did know what the actual problem was, he’s not certain exposing it here would lead to any positive outcomes on his behalf—and he’s been rattled enough for one day.

He nods, quietly acknowledging he’d thought the same thing before Queen turns back to the Persona, looking more self-assured than she really should in this bizarre situation.

“We think you’ve marked the cards somehow with your excessive shuffling.”

Arsène doesn’t miss a beat, finally catching all of the cards in one hand as he stops.

“That’s incorrect.”

He doesn’t sound angry or annoyed or upset, exactly, but there is a certain something in his tone that suggests there’s more to it than that. The cards disappear from his hand as he settles back in the chair, obviously waiting for them to continue.

“How were you planning on cheating then?” Noir asks, her voice tired but interested as she watches him with a frown.

In response, Arsène simply reaches one gloved hand towards the box on the table, and it’s in that moment that Goro knows what the problem is. A few seconds later, the Persona’s opened and upended the box, revealing a single, unaltered playing card—the red Joker that, he now notices, had never once been flashed in their direction through the entire flashy shuffling display.

What an ass.

“Wha—but that’s not fair!” Oracle says, evidently outraged that not one of them had thought to look for cards that had been left in the packaging. “How were we ever supposed to guess the right thing, anyways? There’s, like, a gazillion ways you coulda rigged this up!”

“That’s the point: thou canst not win…not in a game like this.”

“Man, what the ‘eff are you even sayin’?”

The man shakes his head, but for once, he looks completely serious as he answers, causing the lot of them to stiffen under a critical red gaze. “Your problem is what it’s always been.” He adjusts one of his gloves with the hand still holding the card, glancing down at it once more before eyeing them all again as he finishes:

“You aren’t playing with a full deck.”

The next second, the red fades back to grey, and to Crow’s surprise, they widen a fraction as Kurusu takes in the card he now holds himself.

Chapter Text

When he’s thrust back into consciousness (the real kind, he means), his first actually tangible thought is something along the lines of what the fuck you gigantic piece of personified shit you had one fucking job and though I hadn’t expected much since we hit rock bottom a long time ago, I guess you managed to find a shovel and dig even lower…

But he barely even finishes it before he readjusts to being In Control (patent pending) only to find…well, himself.

His eyes widen on reflex and though shifting around the room alerts him to the presence of the other teenagers, it’s like they’re far away, like they’re the static from an old TV or the ambient, meaningless conversations from the hundreds of people he’s passed by in school or the main strip in the city, the rain in a thunderstorm.

A droplet on a decade’s old window pane.

It’s not funny, but it makes him want to laugh. It’s not significant enough, in the grand scheme of things, to merit any sort of meaningful reaction from him—not after everything—and yet.

I hate you.

It’s probably the first time he’s said it directly to Arsène and actually meant it. Angel stirs in his mind and without wasting another second, he swaps masks and releases the contract, leaving the startled Thieves in the room to watch her dissipate with various, pointless expressions on their faces. He releases the card, lets it hit the floor before he slowly drums his fingers on the surface of a too-clean table, this tightly-held fire within him threatening to burn the cards (the game pieces) and the Shadows within him and the Thieves, this whole fucking Palace and Crow and Azathoth and every little scrap of faux-reality that the pseudo-god had managed to conjure up inside an already warped visage of the world as he listens to each little progressively louder thump from the tips of his fingers as that uncharacteristically silent bit of the naïve ass he’d used to be watches on.

They’re taking. He’s not listening. When a hand reaches for his shoulder, he shoots the most baleful glare he can muster at its owner before it pulls back like he’d actually burnt it.

You’re being childish.

He nearly barks a laugh at that. Isn’t he supposed to be a child?

Had he ever been one, really? How much of the current “reality” actually matters, has it ever mattered, does the past matter, how much of his own upbringing is authentic?

Would he remember if it’d been altered?

The answer eats at him every time he asks. How would he even know if the thoughts he’d had back then are original or not? Or the ones now, for that matter?

How much of this is even real?

“Joker?”

He shoves himself off the table, channeling all of this excess, palpable horror into an anger that could probably rival (haha, get it Get it?!) even Akechi’s in the midst of his nearly annual fucking breakdown.

He always thinks he’s the only person in the world who’s had their life plans completely fucking ruined, his worldview irreparably shattered, his whole purpose altered without his input—and he’s always wrong.

It gets funnier every time.

It matters less every year, every breath Akira has to take knowing the one person who could maybe help him with this hopeless fucking situation is such an untrustworthy self-absorbed asshole that’s so disappointingly average that he can’t even be bothered to remember his own reality-altering revelations.

Every. Fucking. Year.

He actually does laugh at that—it’s just a low grunt, really, and he clamps his jaw shut before it becomes anything more than that—because what the hell did it even matter?

Why does he care?

No amount of bitching or griping or stewing is going to change anything, nothing he’s ever done has amounted to anything on this or any other front he’s ever waged in this pathetic, pointlessly long war that he’s steadily losing with the world and his own head…and he’s running out of time.

And…

Fuck. Right, right. The time thing.

He deflates at the thought, sobering enough that things start coming into focus again—and yep, they’re all staring at him again, apparently not digging those pesky black tendrils that lick up and out around him, crackling with that unnaturally fluid energy. They’ve mostly backed up against the opposite wall in the room, and not even Crow looks unaffected by the display.

The thought nearly makes him spiral again, because he wouldn’t have reacted like this the first time—he’s stealing Akira’s lines, he’s not supposed to be the one who thinks “wow, that guy’s acting fucking crazy”.

Maybe stop acting fucking crazy, then.

Joker sets his jaw at the blunt response, but to his surprise, Arsène doesn’t seem to be joking.

Can’t you go bother anyone else?

You’re going to end up like him if you keep this up.

In his mind, he blinks. What? What did that even—

This act is getting stale…and it’s unoriginal, the Persona muses, keeping his attention only because his talon-like claws drag almost painfully on the ”walls” of his own psyche. You say he steals your role, but do you not also steal his? This rejection of the self, this existential crisis you insist on living through every year despite knowing what will happen, what has happened in the past? It’s pathetic.

He freezes—both in place and in his mind—and Arsène takes his (for once, legitimate) shock as permission to continue.

One could excuse the other Fool—, there’s something there, within that augmented, distorted tone of his that retracts his thoughts, splits them into a thousand shattered, black mirrors that all say that it’s not just a slip of the metaphorical tongue, but before Joker can probe him, the old him within himself continues. —for not learning from unremembered mistakes, but what of yourself? Thou aren’t daft, yet still you persist in these trite overreactions, willingly letting yourself become yet another drop in a stagnant puddle on the precipice of evaporating to a point of no return simply because you haven’t yet succeeded in your goal.

He tries to argue back, now, furious that everything, all of it, every lived experience and shattered life and astronomically crushing weight of expectations that continues to drag him far down past the point of no return has been simplified to a mere tantrum—but Arsène doesn’t let him, actually gets so near to him that it makes him flinch within himself, and he feels it first as himself and then as that cracked echo of who he used to be—and it’s like, in that moment, he finally understands the anger.

He hadn’t really grasped the true depth of his Persona’s (his own, in a way?) fury until that black and red face is centimeters from his own in a reality that’s true enough to him that it feels real, and now that he’s had it forcefully pointed out to him, it helps him quench some of his own.

But it’s actually the other, grimmer feeling that catches the majority of his attention, and Joker stares on, transfixed, as the elusive thief in his mind continues on with an energy neither of them have truly been able to muster for decades.

Thou promised, once, not to forget who you are. It’s fine if that changes over time—such is the truth of mortality, the fickle, but beautiful nature of mankind, and ok, that’s oddly poetic, Arsène, but fine (the Persona laughs at this, and despite everything, Akira finds it oddly comforting—the dark in a cold black alleyway, the edge of a deceptively normal dagger, the flourish of a frankly comically large cloak), But throughout it all, you must remain as you, Trickster.

Akira blinks as Arsène backs up, the true meaning of his words abruptly clear to him as he thinks on it: the uncharacteristically emotional outbursts, the rage born from crippling despair that’s twisted into hate, the way he’d tried to shut him out despite him being him, the claws that raked down technically nonexistent walls in his mind in a manner far too close to that other asshole who wasn’t cool enough (Joker’s just decided) to remember all the adventures they’ve gone on together even though like a good 40% of those involved at least one death threat…and when the Persona next speaks, all he does in response is grin.

Even if thou hast gazed upon the entire deck, never assume what cards will be played as they are dealt, for you can surely rig the game in your favor.

As Arsène pulls away, as everything and everyone who he’s wanted to protect becomes a part of his reality once more, he leaves him with one last thought—one that finally explains that centuries old thought in a way that just wouldn’t have been significant to him until this very moment:

The game might not be over, but it matters little when we've yet to deal the final hand.