Archive of Our Own

It must be a twisted form of divine punishment. A cruel scheme to smite him with the hammer of judgement and bruise his ego enough to seek repentance.  As if this makeshift mirage prison spun to life by that narcissistic, depraved mimic of a counsellor wasn’t enough of a torment, now Goro has to fucking babysit on top of it all?

He should have seen this coming, really.  It’s about as predictable as the cycle of seasons. That utterly foolish, borderline braindead simpleton calling himself fearless leader just had to go play the hero again, and for what? Just to fall for the oldest trap in the book? He’s not usually this naïve. And yet he joined Maruki’s side all brave and self-sacrificial just to pay the immediate price in the form of a blow to the head and one of these odd fleshy cables attached to the nerves under his skin. God knows that that weird bastard is planning on doing with him now.

And thanks to all that, Goro is now stuck with Yoshizawa-san tailing him like some lost puppy searching for its mother. Not unlike his own shadow, rounding every corner in lockstep, breathing down his neck whenever they are forced to hide from a foe too strong for them to take on their lonesome.

She’s like a leech, insecure and clingy, probably blaming herself for what happened on top of it all.

Just great.

“Would you stop that?” Goro snaps at the younger girl, who has gotten a little too close in the past few minutes. So close in fact, that her shoulder is bumping against his when they walk.

She immediately jumps back in shock and flails her arms, cheeks bright red as she pipes, “I’m sorry, senpai!”

It’s almost a little sad watching her scramble backwards so frantically. She dusts off her jacket with trembling fingers, her entire face red like a tomato.

Obviously, her change in demeanor was to be expected after everything that’s happened and yet it feels to him like wearing a new pair of pants for the first time. Somewhat uncomfortable. Not unforeseen but still weirdly unpleasant at the same time.

Back when they were both faking their personalities, she used to be confident and eloquent. Socially skilled and adapt. But – then again, it was nothing but one grand theatre performance. Rehearsed lines and steps that weren’t even her own. There wasn’t even any active participation in the change. Honestly, just thinking about it makes Goro sick to the stomach. He’s dizzied with disdain at the prospect of facing Maruki again and he has to actively stop himself from running ahead to tear that bastard limb from limb.

He can’t really blame Yoshizawa for all this now, can he? He’s not heartless.

“You can stay close to me, but don’t – do that,” Goro sighs and gestures at where their arms were touching just a second ago.

“It won’t happen again,” Yoshizawa hiccups with a small, apologetic bow. “I’m just a little worried, with the security increased, there are just so many shadows around. They could jump us at any second.”

“I’m aware,” Goro says firmly. “Be quiet and follow me. The auditorium should be around here somewhere.”

“Roger!”

Even though her voice remains a little shaky, she seems to reclaim her spirit remarkably quickly.

They stealth their way through the hallways, hiding behind pillars and walls, not unlike two rats sneaking around to avoid being crushed under a heel. It’s almost like they’re in his father’s palace again. Goro mentally gags for a second or two at the thought, suddenly extremely relieved that Yoshizawa wasn’t part of the team back then to see his – temper tantrum, as the obnoxious cat called it.

Goro ushers Yoshizawa-san through a small, unassuming door into a narrow hallway and makes sure to quickly scan the area for any potential enemies or traps. The air is stale and stagnant, no footsteps or otherwise suspicious sounds of movement.

“We’re clear,” he announces and stands up to straighten his spine for a moment, rolling his stiff shoulders. “At least for now.”

Yoshizawa-san’s eyes dart from left to right, before she copies him and makes sure to stretch her leg properly like a true gymnast, pulling it up to her head in a manner that Goro would deem unnecessarily pretentious if he gave a shit or two.  

“What if we’re too late to help Joker-senpai?” she starts after a few moments of peace and quiet, pulling her lip up in an expression of worry.

Goro shrugs his shoulders. “It would be a tragic loss,” he deadpans, pointing down the hallway. “Now this way.”

“What is Maruki-sensei doing do him?”

“Who knows,” Goro scoffs. “Some fucked up experiment, perhaps?”

“You think so?” Yoshizawa-san gasps with wide eyes. “I – I can’t picture him doing something like that.”

He did it with you, he almost says, but bites it back before his tongue can betray him.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what this palace is all about. Really, it just requires a pair of open eyes and ears.

To Goro’s irritation, the girl seems genuinely freaked out about their situation. Understandably so. Perhaps, Goro could try and be at least somewhat encouraging. She won’t be of any use whining and moping around in a corner.  

“No,” he sighs and adjust his helmet. “I doubt he is going to hurt him. Remember, he said he just wants to help.”

“I guess…”

“Although he’s not doing an outstanding job,” Goro hisses, fresh anger flaring to life in his chest as he pictures the scene of Yoshizawa-san’s breakdown leading up to Joker’s capture again. Maruki’s condescending smile and the silken words of manipulation. Disgusting.

“He – he still wants the best for us,” Yoshizawa-san breathes meekly, looking down at her feet. “He’s just –”

“A manipulative, brainwashing egomaniac.”

“That’s harsh.”

“Trust me when I say I know what they look like,” Goro growls bitterly.

Yoshizawa-san shakes her head, visibly torn. “I believe we should hear him out again.”

“I don’t. Now keep up,” Goro commands sharply and picks up to pace, rushing to the end of the corridor to slip through the double-winged door into the next room. “Break time’s over.”

Yoshizawa-san follows him wordlessly.

There’s clearly something on her mind, probably a lot more than Goro gives her credit for. She used to voice her complaints and feelings just fine in her delusions, sitting in the safety of the counsellor’s palm. Goro can’t help but wonder how much of that was truly her. Her words, spoken be the mouth of her dead sister? Or her sister speaking with the lips of a puppet?

It makes him sick either way. At this point they’d have to nail Goro to the ground to prevent him from clawing Maruki’s eyes out their sockets.

Sighing into his helmet, Goro takes a sharp turn. “This way, Yoshizawa-san.”

She continues to follow wordlessly, keeping her head down, hiding in Goro’s shadow until they make it to a gaping hall with a long, wide staircase leading up to what it most likely going to be the most heavily guarded section of their path forward.

As much as Goro would like to avoid combat in their current state, it’s probably going to get difficult from here on out.

He turns to his mute companion. “Get ready to fight if necessary.”

“Alright.”

“Are you good on health and stamina?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Everything stable?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t lie,” Goro tuts and places a hand on his hip. “I saw you struggling earlier and I need you to work with me here.”

Yoshizawa blushes a deep red in heated embarrassment, it spreads over her cheeks and all the way up to her ears and down her neck. She looks utterly defeated, eyes dull and hazy. Pulling her shoulders up, she mutters, “Why – why do you ask if you know the answer, senpai?”

Goro bites his lip, fearing he might have gone too far for a second. “I just want to you to be honest,” he reminds her sternly. “I need to know if I have to work on the offence or defence here. We’re only two fighters, let me remind you. To survive this, we need to work strategically. No point in handling a liability.”

“I know.”

“Then just tell me if we should –”

The words get stuck halfway up his throat and he almost chokes on spit alone, when one of the patrolling shadows in white lab coats is alerted by the sound of voices and yells across the hall the instant it spots the two of them quarrel out in the open. That white, searing spotlight falls on them, burning through layers of skin as the alarm is sounded.

In seconds, there’s more shouting and cries of “Intruders!” and “Protect our Leader’s whereabouts!” echoing through the hallways.

In the blink of an eye, a crowd of shadows rushes them from all sides.

“Shit!” he snaps and lowers the mask on his helmet, vision going red at the visor slides over his face.

Yoshizawa shifts nervously, air hissing as she draws in a breath through her teeth. “Look at these numbers…”

It’s simple, now. Fight or flight.

And there are no openings in their enemies’ numbers he can spot in this short amount of time. Besides, Goro has been itching to tear some limps apart ever since they stepped foot back into this place. He fucking deserves this.

With a guttural growl, he pushes Yoshizawa-san behind his back. The edge of his vision blurs in a delicious haze of wrath and adrenaline; tunnel vision as the shadows close in. Hand on his sword, he’s reaching for the burning, sizzling sensation of Loki sitting at the edge of his mind. He purrs and hums to Goro in utter delight at the prospect of bloodshed.

“Senpai, look out!”

Yoshizawa-san’s voice is oddly muffled through the pulsing excitement in his veins, as she yells and pounced before Goro even has a chance to turn around. Like a dark lightning bolt, she rushes past him with an acrobatic flip to catch their attackers off guard. Her face red and panicked, she rips the mask off the shadow like Joker would any other day and it stumbles back with a confused cry, giving the two of them just enough time to sort themselves out and start the battle with the advantage they needed against two Bugs and three Loas.

Heart drumming in his ribcage, filled with that sudden, overwhelming thirst for brutality, Goro smirks wide like the blade of a cleaver. “Nice, Yoshizawa-san!”

An exceptionally elegant move all around.

The younger girl – now right there next to him once more – nods briefly as acknowledgment, staggering slightly on her feet as the adrenaline bleeds from her body.

It’s a quick battle.

With their hard-earned advantage, Yoshizawa casts a blinding white wave of heavy bless attacks that causes Loki to recoil with a feral hiss, like a vampire faced with the light of the sun. She hands the rest over to Goro. Teeth bared, he cries out for his persona, who then gladly burns the flock away with an almighty finish.

Round one ends there only for another group of shadows to crawl to the front lines.

Frustrated, Goro chooses to debilitate the strongest just in case, before it lunges at him with a precise strike to his right temple that almost costs him his balance and consciousness. Almost. Yoshizawa backs him up with a round of bullets for the shadow to swallow, which provokes the rest of the fray to go straight for her throat.

“Fuck!

Goro shakes the pain off and jumps at the one shadow closest to him, tearing at it with his ragged sword and claws, accuracy and elegance be damned. And yet, he can’t prevent the barrage of attacks against Yoshizawa-san, who cries out in shock, her voice a shrill shriek piercing through the vast hall. 

“Fucking heal yourself!” Goro barks and claws at his mask to rip it off his face. He summons Loki again to hunt the flock of attackers down, taking one, two, three strikes to the face in the process. He shakes it off. “I’m used to this shit.”

He stumbles back, feeling the hot wetness of blood pooling at his chin. Face to face with three different shadows, his eyes dart back and forth frantically to try and sleuth for a weakness. His ears are ringing from pain and hysteria and for a moment, he considers calling for Loki’s special aid – belly flaring in dark, cruel excitement at the thought.

To his frustration, the soothing sensation of a healing spell washes over him, unprompted and uncalled for. When he whips his head around with a hiss, he can just so see the faint silhouette of Cendrillion fade away as Yoshizawa-san readjusts her mask, eyes roaming over the dark blood splattered across Goro’s nose.

“I told you to –,” with a loud zing, he parries a quick attack from his right flank. “Work with me here!”

With the heat of his newfound frustration, Goro finds it in himself to will to life another almighty attack, searing hot as it rolls over the battlefield and decimates most of their opponents. Yoshizawa-san quickly follows up to take out the rest and with that, they make it out to see another day.

Just so.

The anger bubbling up in Goro’s bloodstream is inevitable. Turning around to face Yoshizawa-san, who is currently in the process of fixing the ribbon in her hair, his face twists into a raw visage of annoyance. Disgruntled about the disregarded command, he is ready to yell at her. His chest swells with a shout, but it quickly dies down into irritating indifference at the sight of the girl’s shaky legs and bruised face.

He bites his lip, watching her brush some dust and shadow guts from her coat, panting and focused on maintaiing an air of confidence despite it all. Goro can smell the fear on her and he’s not sure if it is a remnant of battle or the knowledge of what might come next.

Goro swallows thickly, suddenly very aware of his own intimidating appearance.

Even though the anger tastes sweet on his tongue, perhaps this might be one of those situations where he can focus on praise and positive reinforcement. Not that he’s any good at that.

It’s what Joker does best when he’s in charge. And everyone loves their encouraging, benevolent leader, don’t they?

They’re alive and well and perhaps her decision wasn’t that uncalled for.

Goro clears his throat, the sound awkward and forced. “Now I see where Joker has all these useful moves from,” he says and nods his head in approval. “Your agility is impressive.”

Acceptable start.

Her face lights up like a Christmas tree, utterly shell-shocked and pleasantly surprised at the lack of a heated lecture. She smiles and bows deeper than Goro is comfortable with. “Thank you!”

He is too used to being his own sole leader. Alone and free to do whatever the fuck he wants. Endanger himself when he needs it, when he knows the thrill of danger will be enough fuel for his weary bones to push through.

He doesn’t know if he likes having someone else by his side like this. Or – better put – anyone else but Joker. Everything was so much easier with him. They didn’t even have to communicate, it all just worked. Cogs in a machine, improvised steps and a choreography akin to the finest ballroom dance. He didn’t even have to think about moving.

And now, he has to burden himself with worry. The very last thing he needs on the battlefield.

He’s so – pissed about it.

It’s not like she’s some useless, thumb-sucking toddler. She seems rather capable, skilled and earnest. And yet – Goro feels uneasy whenever she throws herself into a fight. She can fend for herself, he’s seen it play out, but her mental condition isn’t quite as sound as he would like and he can’t rely on her judgement or willingness to follow orders. For now, at least.

At least she seems a little more high-spirited now, looking up at him all starry eyed because of a single compliment.

If it’s that easy then he can keep trying.

“Thank you for healing me,” he continues, pursing his lips. “But next time, do as I say. That could have ended badly.”

She nods eagerly. “Yes, senpai!”

With a sullen hum, Goro gestures down the hallway and signals Yoshizawa to follow him the rest of the way. Her heels are uncomfortably loud as they click, click, click in the sudden silence of their surroundings, echoing off the walls. Goro wipes some crusted blood from his chin as he tries to keep his composure. They slip through another door, down another hallway and past two patrolling shadows and then finally – they arrive at the auditorium.

Goro counts to three with his fingers, before the two of them break through the door with their weapons drawn –

Only to be immediately surrounded by a barrage of angry shadows yelling all over each other, without a trace of Maruki or their current damsel in distress in sight.

“Ah, shit.”

“Senpai…”

They don’t have a single second to react before they are stormed and swept off their feet by several attackers at once. No chance to run, no chance to retaliate, as a merciless series of blows forces Goro onto the ground. With a snarl, he loses his footing, hitting his head on the pristine white marble floor.

Blindly, through the shocking pain in his head and the blurry vision, he feels for Yoshizawa next to him and grabs her by the arm as he scrambles to his feet again. Vision hot red and obscured like a mosaic, Goro wills his shaking legs to move, trying his best to shove the girl away from the relentless assault, which proves useless with no place to escape to.

Yoshizawa-san summons Cendrillion in a panic, takes out two shadows with a critical physical hit, before ducking away from a streak of acidic curse energy. Goro retaliates quickly, commanding Loki to bring his sword down like a guillotine blade.

Another hit and a flash of blinding light leaves to room spinning. Everything just stops and for an endless moment, Goro is weightless.

A bloodcurdling scream brings him down to earth again.

Goro shakes the dizziness off, blood dripping from the tips of his hair as the world comes into focus again. He has just enough time to register Yoshizawa-san’s prone body on the floor, before two shadows are jumping him again and he’s forced to dodge to the side.

He strikes back once, then twice, breath coming in desperate pants as he continues to defend himself and the unmoving body next to him.

For a moment, it’s almost easier to fight alone. His limbs moving like blades themselves, teeth bared and claws finding fleshy substance. Like a knife through butter it goes. Left and right and left again. But after a while, he finds himself cornered. Overpowered and outnumbered.

With a growl in his chest he yells, “Yoshizawa-san, get up right now!”

No answer.

No choice.

He calls Loki to his side, rams his heels into the ground and cries out as he starts forcing the searing hot energy of blissful psychosis into his bloodstream. Into his skin, through his veins like poison it goes until Goro is numb to the pain and hungry for violence.

And so, he devours. Until nothing is left but his beating heart and a gaping hole in his chest where it sits. He doesn’t like that feeling, the low after the high.

But it’s worth it.

All that’s left now is Yoshizawa-san’s lax body and scattered pits and pieces of shadows surrounding them. A bloodies, barren aftermath of a battlefield.

Goro swallows iron as he catches himself, swaying on his feet, lungs rattling and burning with every breath. Throwing his helmet off, hair stuck to his face, he stumbles over to Yoshizawa and bends down to grabs the girl by the shoulder, claws digging into her collarbone.

“Yoshizawa-san!” he barks impatiently, panting over her body like a guard dog. “Wake up, already.” He shakes her once, then harder a second time. “Come on!”

All he gets in return is a gentle mewl and a small twitch of her cheek. Not dead; that’s good. Unconscious and useless, not so much.

“Great,” he mutters. “You’re kidding me.”

He reaches deep into his mind, past Loki and to Robin, who’s been lying unresponsive at the back of his consciousness, slumbering. He pushes and pushes, pulls and tries to find a secure grip around his presence, but Robin Hood doesn’t budge; doesn’t even react. Loki’s own throbbing heartbeat sears too strongly. The wounds of his shutdown remain too fresh. A burning field that Robin doesn’t dare to cross – or even tread on.

And without him, Goro has no means of healing. No spells or any items he could use to bring Yoshizawa-san back.

“I told you to heal yourself, moron,” he hisses, not sure for whom to hear besides himself. “Now you’ve done it.”

He has a multitude of problems now. Handling the unconscious Yoshizawa-san, securing a safe place to hide and wait for her to regain consciousness and finding Maruki and Joker, since they are both clearly not where they left them yesterday. All while trying to shake off the piercing pain of his own torn skin and flesh burning all across his body.

“For fuck’s sake.”

He starts with scooping Yoshizawa-san up from the cold, hard floor with a grunt, his wounds oozing blood as he moves, abused bones popping and cracking in protest. The girl is as light as a feather, even with the amount of muscle she must have built over years of training. In fact, Goro is so shocked at the lack of resistance that he almost drops her again.

He makes a mental note and stores it away somewhere safe. A reminder to force some more nutrition into her, maybe then she won’t collapse as fast.

With his jaw clenched, he heaves the girl onto his back, growling colourful insults through his teeth as he secures her position. Her face and breath are entirely too close to his own and in her delirious state, she immediately tightens her legs around him. Not unlike a fucking sloth on a tree trunk.

“Urgh…”

He moves forward, his tired legs not quite strong enough to hold them both securely. But he manages, doing his very best to sneak to the next best safe room without getting spotted, which he realizes is as good as impossible. He is entirely unable to hide with Yoshizawa-san clinging to his back like a monkey.

There’s no way of hiding or taking them head on. And that leaves him with one last option.

He runs.

At the sudden, jerky movement, Yoshizawa-san’s head helplessly rolls from left to right and bumps into the side of his own. But he really doesn’t have the time to be pissed off about it.

Of course, the shadows notice him right away. He’s not really the likeness of elegant subtlety right now, stumbling across the hallway like some panicked rabbit on an open field. The enemies run after him and all he can do in retaliation is pick up his own pace, legs screaming in pain as he renews his grip around Yoshizawa’s knees.

One shadow catches him in the side, igniting the pain in his cracked rips once more. With a visceral snarl, he instinctively kicks his leg out, feeling substance give under his boot. “Fuck off!”

He is just able to trip his attacker up and run a few more steps as it tumbles to the floor. Unfortunately, two more take its place and pounce no questions asked.

Goro loses his balance and twists his body just in time to at least feather Yoshizawa-san’s fall and not crush her under his weight. His own head hits the ground, his ears ringing inside his helmet.

There’s no time for pain.

He pushes himself up, steps over the body of his companion and bares his teeth and claws at the two weaklings in front of him. “Get the hell away!”

He makes quick work of them both, suddenly a lot lighter and nimbler on his feet. Perhaps thanks to one last desperate surge of adrenaline, keeping his stupid, stubborn ass from fainting right there on the spot.

Panting, bleeding and blinded by fury, Goro picks Yoshizawa up again and sprints. Only a few more steps.

He throws himself against the door of the safe room with a shout, kicks the knob with his knee and finally stumbles into safety, knees buckling with the weight of himself and the sack puppet on his back.

Once the yelling and the footsteps have died down behind closed doors, Goro deflates like a hot air balloon and drags himself over to the small sofa on the other end of the room. With a grunt, he throws Yoshizawa’s body onto the plush cushions rather unceremoniously, before finally collapsing onto the hard, pristine floor tiles in front of her, trying to catch his laboured breath.

He leans back against the edge of the recliner, tipping his head to stare into the blinding, clinical overhead light on the ceiling. He lets it burn through his pupils until he tears up, trying to purge the tiredness from his eyes.

After a few minutes of nothing but burning lungs and muscles, Goro decides to scramble to his feet and search through the surrounding lockers for anything that might be of use for their mission going forward. A map, medicine, some form of protective gear, hell he’ll take half of a painkiller right now just to get Yoshizawa back to consciousness.

All he finds is some dubious-looking, expired drink of a bizarre pale-yellow colouration that he doesn’t dare to touch, alongside some small, white towels that he collects to clean some of the goo and blood from both his own face and helmet as well as Yoshizawa-san’s.

He’s in the process of cleaning his visor, tight-lipped and pushing through the pain in his ribs, when his companion stirs awake behind him. He can hear the shift and shuffle of her clothes against the fabric of the couch, but doesn’t move or even flinch.

“Finally,” he sighs instead without looking up. “Took you long enough.”

Yoshizawa sends a quiet gasp through her teeth. “Senpai!” she rasps. “Where are we? How long was I out?”

“An hour or so,” Goro says and shrugs his shoulders. “Admittedly, I don’t have anything to heal you with, so I was forced to wait. Not my favourite way to pass time, since I’m used to just pressing ahead.”

The girl rubs her forehead, eyes pressed shut as she tries to push the lingering pain down with a few dry swallows. “I’m so sorry,” she says, voice even more hoarse than before. “I messed up, didn’t I? Again…”

Her discomfort is on proud display as she curls her body into a ball. It radiates off her in waves, even a blind man would feel it deep in his bones.

“A little,” Goro answers.

“How –,” Yoshizawa starts, then bites her lip and slowly slides her legs over the edge of the recliner to sit up straight. Her wet, desperate eyes find Goro’s as he finally decides to turn his head. They’re deep and cool like the depths of the ocean, the crimson shine dull and defeated. “How can I make it up to you?”

Goro firmly shakes his head. “No need.”

“No, I insist,” Yoshizawa presses and leans forward, quirking her eyebrow at the wave of pain rolling over her at the jerky movement. “Anything.”

Goro draws his head back in mild disgust. “Yoshizawa-san, there’s absolutely nothing I want or need from you.”

But she shakes her head in adamant refusal.

“Hang on,” she mutters and turns around to rummage through the small pocket of her jacket. “Uhm – I have this.”

Next thing he knows, she reaches out her hand and unfurls her fingers to reveal a palmful of small, colourful candy balls. Goro quirks his brows, eyes darting back and forth between the expectant gleam in Yoshizawa-san’s pleading gaze and her outstretched hand.

He hesitates.

The candies remind him of the lacklustre, tasteless gumballs from the small gachapon machines that are scattered all over the city for cheap enjoyment and he would have probably mistaken them for the real deal, if not for the rougher, sugar-coated surface.  

The texture and colour stir something deep within Goro’s chest. Something small and dormant he keeps stored away behind his heart any and every day of the week, if he can help it.

He remembers. Just gazing upon the candy balls, Goro’s tongue suddenly prickles with the sour taste of them. A memory, unlocked in that exhausted mind of his.

“Mhm,” he hums, staring at the small marble-sized candy in her hand, utterly dumbstruck. “I used to eat these a lot when I was a child.”

“Really?” she asks, eyes going wide as she grabs his wrist with a surprising amount of force to pull him close and drops one of the little treats in his own hand. “What’s your favourite flavour?”

“Well,” he mutters and stares at the red marble in his hand, trying his very best not to let the flood of memory wash his composure away. Images of a pale, bony hand offering him a sea full of colourful candies to choose from. Only on the weekends. Always so rare. Always a secret, worth more than a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. “Blueberry, I guess.”

Yoshizawa-san’s dull stare flickers with life and delight, as she sorts through the small pile in her hand with one finger.

“Hey, that used to be my –,” she starts but cuts her own high-spirted voice off, as something shatters and breaks like frail glass behind her face. A shadow claims her delicate features. She turns a sickly pale then and with her shoulders drooping, she picks a blue marble and carefully hands it over. The light in her eyes dies as quickly as it flared up just a moment ago. “I mean – it used to be Kasumi’s favourite, too.”

Great.

Now he’s made her sad, when he didn’t even mean to be obnoxious this time. It was supposed to just be an honest reply and he somehow open a floodgate anyways. Perhaps that’s just in his nature at this point in time.

Awkwardly, he pops both candies into his mouth at once, trying his best to let the situation pass without having to interfere.

He bites down hard and the balls pop between his teeth, spilling the familiar sour taste over his tongue. He feels the effect immediately, his brain and heart rewiring and his skin prickling with new energy as the metaverse works its senseless magic. It doesn’t change the taste and Goro still pulls a face, which seems to be at least somewhat amusing to Yoshizawa, who giggles quietly at the sight.

But the spark of amusement passes quickly and as Goro chews wordlessly on the sour candy, she is quick to go back to sulking. She keeps her eyes lowered in what Goro can only assume is a mixture of shame and desperation.

He can’t really use any of the two.

Unfortunately, Goro has never been good at – comforting anyone. Most of the time, especially in public when he has to hide behind his fake smile, he would just make use of some shallow comment that appears nice on the surface but doesn’t fix anything in the moment. And to be honest, he never really means to anyway.

It’s in that moment, when – curse him to the high heavens and the darkest pits of hell – he thinks about Ren, with those gentle eyes of his and the smile he carries around like some sort of consolation prize. The way he keeps every twisted word saccharine, serves it with a smile and some advice from the next best magazine he read the day before. How he always tries to relate to the entire world – the people around him, choosing his masks anew every day. And how he always makes it fucking work out in the end.

That’s how it’s supposed to go right? That’s how you fix people.

It always looks so easy, but Goro knows he wasn’t made to mend. And even his best attempts end up in failure.

But – perhaps there is no harm in trying. He really has no other option, when he wants to save Joker and work on putting a stop to this entire circus show any time soon.

“My mother didn’t like the flavour of blueberries,” he says after a while and rolls his eyes up to the ceiling. “So, she always gave it to me.”

It’s the best he can do for now, really. He can only hope it works the way it’s supposed to.

Yoshizawa-san smiles at him. “How efficient!” she chuckles lightly, obviously forced, but better than nothing, “You’re not wasting anything that way.”

Goro’s chest twists in an unwelcome surge of nostalgia. His throat is raw and dry. Uncomfortably so.

That’s what she always used to say.

“I suppose so,” he says tonelessly.  

Yoshizawa doesn’t seem to have the capacity to answer, so they fall into awkward silence once more, chewing on their candies to try and regain at least a little bit of strength. Leaving the palace now is out of the question. They have to retrieve Joker and fast, or else – who knows what might happen if Maruki successfully brainwashes him on top of his merry band of thieves. It will surely mean ultimate actualization and Goro is not going to admit defeat so easily.

He is also not going to let anyone take his own sweet victory from him. If he cannot put Joker in his place, no one else can either.

With a drawn-out sigh, Goro gets up from the floor, pops his shoulders and drags himself over to the door, ready to leave and search the rest of the palace. He shoots Yoshizawa-san a quick glance, and gestures toward the exit, but she seems hesitant to move.

Her fingers dig deep into the soft leather surface of the recliner with a soft creak and she stares down at the floor tiles. “Uhm,” she starts breathily and her legs twitch a little, as she quickly debates whether she wants to get up and follow him or stay behind and wallow in her own misery for a while longer. “Crow-senpai?”

“Yes?”

She purses her lips, gathering some courage before she speaks up again, “Can I ask you something kind of personal? It’s okay if you don’t want to answer.”

He sighs again. Louder this time, in a petty way. Perhaps more at himself than anyone else. After all, he started this fire himself, didn’t he? And he might as well see it burn all the way to ambers.

“To answer, I need to hear it first,” he says. “Out with it.”

Yoshizawa pinches the material of her leotard, fingernails scratching her own skin raw in the process. “Your – uhm – mother passed away, right?” she mutters, swallowing half the words down before they can escape. “When you were young?”

Goro blinks at her, taking a second or two to process what she said.

It’s a bold question. So bold in fact, that he’s almost weirdly impressed that she was brave enough to pose it. Especially to him.  

He huffs through his nose, but keeps his voice levelled as he responds, “Yes...?”

He’s not quite sure how she even knows about that. He’s never once mentioned it to her personally or with her present to potentially overhear some details. There’re not many people who were made aware of his mother in the first place. So, really there can only be one logical answer. Only one group of people who might have spilled the secrets from their hearts, thinking Goro was gone for good and wouldn’t come back to haunt them about it – only one idiot who cares enough to remember.

Goro feels the anger under his skin, before he has even pictured Ren’s sorry little face in his mind. The idea of him talking – gossiping – about Goro behind his back, long after he perished like the fool he is, makes him dizzy with some odd, obsessive sense of madness.

It’s a warm incarnation of wrath. Not as searing; not as edged and ragged. As much as he wants to hate everything about the fact that his name and story have been passed on without his permission, it leaves him brainlessly satisfied.

Although he could very much do without the pitying look in Yoshizawa’s face. She’s the last person he needs it from.

“And when that happened,” the girl in question continues, treading carefully over words she might regret voicing later. “How did you –?” she swallows and sighs, then sucks in more courage through a shaky breath. “How did you – go on?”

He understands the question she leaves untouched and cold in the back of her mind.

How did you live with that guilt?

She’s entirely too polite – and undoubtedly scared – to voice it. Too anxious and ashamed to admit it to herself or suggest it to Goro; the fact that the lingering guilt remains in the both of them. Albeit hotter and fresher in one than the other. It makes him wonder just how many details Ren dared to reveal about his past.

Goro tilts his head carefully, weighing the potential impact of his words. “I was too little to even consider it, for once. The world didn’t stop for me and everyone around me seized control the second they pulled me away. All I could do is let them wash me away,” he grins darkly, not a trace of actual joy on his lips. “But deep inside, it was anger that kept me going. Pure wrath was all I ever really knew.”

All I know, he doesn’t say. Because really, it’s quite obvious, isn’t it?

“I simply directed it all at the right person,” he adds, balling his claws to fists. “It felt good for a while.”

“Oh,” Yoshizawa-san breathes for a lack of a better response. It’s clear that she doesn’t quite grasp the concept of it all. “I see...”

Now that he thinks about it again, Shido isn’t that far removed from Maruki. While they couldn’t be more different in motivation and demeanour, at their core, the both have a crippling messiah complex to quench with active manipulation of easy, pliant targets. Intentions be damned. It doesn’t matter to Goro anyways. It’s the means to an end that count.

Maruki used Yoshizawa-san not quite unlike Shido used him in the past. Although, unlike his father, the doctor never called the cruelty by name; promised joy instead. Perhaps he even thought he was doing the right thing.

Then again, Goro is convinced his father thought the same thing. They’re all warped in the same twisted spiral of the weapon they call love.

“Have you ever tried it?” Goro suggests after a few minutes of silence, eyes narrowed as he watched Yoshizawa squirm in her seat.

The girl looks up through her bangs. “What?”

“Getting angry.”

She shrinks back into her shoulders at the mere idea. “No, that’s not normally something I would do…,” she admits meekly.

“I can tell,” Goro growls sharply, crossing his arms “You let me treat you like shit, you know that?”

Yoshizawa doesn’t answer. Of course, she doesn’t. Vulnerable as this palace and the crooked ruler have left her, she’s not going to fight back with two broken arms.

“Don’t let people trample all over you like this,” Goro says and continues to stare holes into her forehead, trying to get her to look at him, which she doesn’t. “Not me or Maruki or even Joker.”

“Senpai never gives me –,” she bites her lip. “A hard time.”

“I can tell, god. You can’t even say shit,” Goro spits back, throwing his hands up. “And it’s not about intentions alone.”

She remains quiet for a while, a defeated puddle of self-loathing and insecurities where she sits curled up on the recliner. Goro doesn’t let her off the hook though. He continues his merciless staring until he’s convinced his gaze must have burned through flesh.

After a few moments, Yoshizawa shifts and dares to look up at him, pouting like a child in what Goro assumed is some form of defiance. It’s not very conniving. “I can say – shit.”

“Congratulations,” he barks dryly. “What else can you fucking do, Sumire Yoshizawa?”

It’s harsh. He knows it is. Beating her when she’s down. But Goro genuinely, truly wants to know what and who this girl is beyond gymnastics and planned refinement. Beyond the ribbon and that irritating kindness that sometimes reminds him too much of himself. Beyond the things that tie her to her dead sister.

He wants to know who that person is that she hates so much.

He wants her to give him a reason to disagree.

But all she can do is lower her head in compliant defeat. As if Goro has all the power in the world over how she holds herself.

It pisses him off.

“Nothing?” he snarls and takes a challenging step forward.

Nothing, still. She doesn’t move.

“Why aren’t you angry?” he is almost yelling now. “Come on, talk back for a change!”

But talk she doesn’t and Goro fears he might have overdone it. He wouldn’t be surprised if he succeeded in smothering the very last of what little spark remained in her. He’s always been the one to finish the job.

This won’t do at all.

“Oh boy, this is worse than I thought,” he sighs and brings a hand to his temple to rub his blooming headache away. Then, he takes a few more steps forward and seizes the girl by the elbow, mindful of the claws, keeping the pressure light but grounding. “Follow me.”

Yoshizawa stumbles forward when he pulls, her eyes wide and hazy with confusion. “What?”

“Heal your sorry ass and let me show you how to deal with this,” Goro says and clicks his tongue, ushering her toward the door. “I promise, it’ll make you feel better.”

Yoshizawa-san swallows a few times, throat dry as she rasps, “I’m not so sure, senpai…”

“What you need is to vent a little,” Goro growls, his grip tightening as he waits for her to summon Cendrillion. “It’ll make you feel a lot better, trust me.”

For some strange reason, it’s not hard to trust Akechi-san.

Perhaps it’s a little naïve, partly foolish too. Based on the stories she’s heard not that long ago – even from her kind-hearted and forgiving senpai, who tends to downplay the impact of Akechi-san’s choices quite a bit – she probably really shouldn’t. She is aware of the lies and the betrayal now. But she finds herself weirdly indifferent to it all.

She understands it’s nothing personal between the two of them. To her, his presence has been nothing but grounding. Like a pinch to the arm that stings just long enough. Not quite a slap to the face yet.

Its easy to follow him.

It’s easy to listen. More so than with anyone else she has ever met. Way easier than it was before, when they would talk on occasion at the tv station whenever she would visit her father at work. He used to be nice, he would smile a lot more. So much so that it lost its meaning to her over the course of the summer.

Now he doesn’t smile. He doesn’t laugh, nor does he start a conversation just to flash his pearly teeth and offer facile advice on skin care and food.

She finds herself at ease. Like she doesn’t have to prove anything anymore.

Akechi-senpai’s expression is levelled under his helmet, an odd contrast to the bold grip he has on her arm. He leads them through doors and hallways, scans the areas carefully, before finding the next best corner to hide behind. Then they move on to the next room. Rinse and repeat.

Sumire isn’t quite sure what her senpai is looking for and at this point it would be pointless to ask.

She doesn’t question any of the sharp turns and grunts of disapproval at empty, deserted rooms and corridors. Nor does she ask him for a coherent answer on where they are headed. She doesn’t have to anyway.

Akechi suddenly stops, so abruptly that Sumire almost bumps into him. He scouts the area, sniffs the air and smiles. “This should do.”

They are looking upon a moderate amount of shadows, scattered across the long hallway in front of them. No packs or groups, just lone creatures in lab coats pacing back and forth like remote-controlled robots, eyes on their clipboards. They seem to be on the weaker side too, pulsing with a mild, inattentive aura.

“Nothing more than punching bags,” Akechi smirks and Sumire can feel the hair on her neck rise at the dark tone in his voice.

She looks up at him, blinking expectably.

“Now, listen,” he starts and turns to stare down at her, voice rough and sharp like a drill sergeant at a boot camp. Sumire is suddenly very aware of the fact that he is about six inches taller than her. “Don’t use any magic this time. In fact, don’t call Cendrillion at all. You want to take these weaklings head on.”

“Head on?”

“Yes,” he says and grins wider. “Trust me, it feels a lot better this way.”

“Okay?

“If it helps – you can always imagine facing someone you despise.”

Sumire bites her lip, her stomach twisting and churning at the thought of unconditional hatred. “I don’t despise anyone,” she mutters and shrugs her shoulders. “Not like that, at least.”

Not quite like you, senpai, she doesn’t say. Although sometimes I catch myself whishing I could.

“How funny,” Akechi-san growls, his lips twisting into a cruel visage. Some odd emotion that Sumire cannot quite place. “Because you sure do hate yourself a lot.”

Oh.

She shrinks back as the words hit her like a strike of lighting, trying to find some rebuttal that makes it seem like she has some dignity left. She finds none besides, is it that obvious?

“Maybe,” she says.

Akechi scoffs, “Is that also unwarranted?”

Sumire doesn’t answer, feeling like she’s walking on hot coals.

“Yes, I thought so.”

It’s a little scary how easily he can read her. Like an open book. Word for word he drinks in and spits back at her. And yet he lacks the venom to deal a killing blow.

“There has to be someone else though,” Akechi continues with a sigh. “You can’t just tolerate every single person on his planet.”

“I don’t know…”

“What about Maruki?”

“I don’t hate him.”

Akechi seems to find that amusing for some reason. “Yes, I forgot how much of an idiot you are,” he grunts. “Then let’s say me?”

“I don’t hate you either. At all.”

“Big mistake”

“I uhm –,” Sumire feels her cheeks heat up under his steel gaze, shifting from foot to foot. “I need a second to think about it.”

Akechi clicks his tongue impatiently, a sharp tone that is somehow louder than she thought it would be. “No, we’re done with that,” he mutters, eyes flashing dangerously. “You know what? How about we just go for it and whatever comes to mind in the heat of battle will be your answer.”

Sumire stands up a little straighter and tries her best not to look intimidated. “Ah – alright.”

“Then get ready for an ambush.”

Akechi throws himself into a fight before Sumire can even so much as speak a word of agreement. She follows him, led by his sharp cackle and the heat radiating off his sword and claws, copying him as best she can.

He lunges with his sword. She does it too, her arms wobbly and her fingers sweaty around the handle of her rapier. He guides his sword like he would a whip. Short, ragged cuts and slices. Messy. Uncontrolled. With no pattern behind the movement. And when Sumire tries to follow his example, her shoulders ache as she twists and bends her arms at odd angles even a gymnast wouldn’t approve of.

Akechi kicks a shadow in the face. She tries to mirror him, her heel catching the creature at an awkward angle, as she throws her leg a little too high up.

Habit. 

She doesn’t even have time to chase her own satisfaction, let alone imagine anyone’s face over the twisted grimace of the feral Bugs in front of her. She simply tears the shadow down like her senpai does until there are no more enemies to fight.

She is left with nothing more than a crick in her neck.  

Akechi pulls a disapproving face. “You were stiff as a board out there, it was sad to look at,” he scolds. “You need to loosen up and let go a little more.”

“Loosen up, how?”

“Like I did…”

That’s easier said than done.

Violence looks effortless on Akechi-san. Even without his special abilities to fuel him, he fights and breaks like it’s second nature to him. Sumire can’t help but wonder if he’s always been like this, if a small child could harbour this much anger in his body. She catches herself asking what a psychotic breakdown feels like; to lose control over yourself like this. To stop thinking. Act on instinct. How liberating it might be.

She swallows the sudden surge of envy that bubbles up to her head, realizing that she too wants to break free like he can. She’s a little jealous of his beautiful anger and – for the first time she truly wishes she could feel the same way. Force herself to really lose it for once in her life. Just a for a moment.

But there is no denying her lack of boldness. She wasn’t moulded to sting and bite and – she knows it’s no loss, no reason to mourn. Still, she craves just a small taste of it.

“I don’t – really think this is my style.”

“Tch,” Akechi huffs and rolls his eyes to the side, avoiding hers. “I guess not.”

There’s a sudden flash of fear flaring up in Sumire’s chest. A fear of being left behind; given up on. A fear of falling behind. It wouldn’t be the first time. She should be used to this, right?

But she doesn’t want to be.

“Crow-senpai?”

Akechi cracks his shoulders in some odd display of intimidation. “Yes?”

“Can we try again?” she asks carefully, looking up at her partner with wide eyes. “I think I might have an idea about what we could do.”

Akechi quirks his brow and shoots her a rather sceptical look. “Sure, alright,” he mutters and it sounds more like a question than an answer.

“I need your help with it, though…”

That seems to awaken something close to interest in him. His eyes gleam sharply and his cheek twitches a little. “Oh?”

Sumire balls her hands to fists, determination blooming in her ribcage, as she pulls her senpai down a little to discuss her plan of action in small whispers. Akechi doesn’t fight it, lets her grab him by the arm and manhandle him however she pleases, knowing full well he could swat her away like a fly if he so desires.

“So, what do you think?” she asks, her chest swelling with a sense of rare, eager pride at his following, somewhat stunned silence. She can see the cogs turning in his brain, lip pursed as he ponders her suggestion.

“I see,” he growls, his voice thick and satisfied like it would be after a fine full-course meal. “Let’s do it, then.”

At the sound of his (barely there but still prominent for his standards) enthusiasm, her fingertips prickle with giddy anticipation. Perhaps it’s the lingering effect of the sour candy; or maybe it’s simply his own trigger-happy attitude bleeding out and onto her, but for some reason, Sumire feels oddly passionate all of a sudden.

She carries that passion into the next battle.

Another group of weaker foes; easily crushable, as her senpai puts it with a purr in his tone. It’s contagious, that mockery. It comes to him so easily.

She wants this.

She wants it too.

As Sumire falls into a secure position, she calls out, “Crow-senpai!”

Akechi’s head whips around and he releases a hissing breath as he nods. Like a guard dog on command, he rounds up the shadows and drives them together into one flock, circling them like a vicious wolf would a lame sheep.

Sumire binds them together. No escape now.

His eyes meet her across the field. Gleaming, blood-red pools of vicious entertainment.

“Hunt them down now!”

“Dance with me, senpai!”

Her skin prickles and heats up as the metaverse bends and shifts and warps to their will around them. Hot and sudden, the air shifts and the floor gives and her feet are lighter than ever. The entire palace paves a way for the force of their united attack.

Akechi leads the dance of destruction. She follows, light on her feet, her mind floating somewhere high above.

She times her attacks with his, but doesn’t copy his viciousness. Side by side they reign, Akechi sows the chaos she is quick to harvest seconds later. It’s messy and ill-considered. Wild and not at all the style she is used to. But that’s exactly what makes it work. So efficiently destructive.

Never before has Sumire’s routine been this – messy and imperfect. So unlike Kasumi’s. And so utterly fulfilling. There is elegance in her own violence, a taste of strawberries in the blood she draws.

Her senpai’s guiding presence is right there with her, behind her, next to her, in front. Wherever she needs him.

And as she jumps and twists and slices, with a clean hiss of her rapier and a pretty flash of her long, red ribbon, she sees herself in the shadows. She sees Kasumi. She sees her trainer, her teachers and advisors. Even senpai. Maruki and her father. Everyone who’s ever paved a make-shift path for her feet to tread. She locks eyes with them and – zing – destroys the image before her. And she doesn’t know if it’s good or healthy or if this is only making things worse, but it makes her feel – better.

It makes her feel okay.

She doesn’t hate them. There’s no such thing in her heart; she can’t force it either. But she realizes, maybe for the first time, that her life is not theirs to control.

“Ready for the finale, senpai?”

“Give them hell!”

When she takes his hand, there’s a shock to the touch, like he’s charged, infused with the burn of a lightning strike. His energy pulses and beats to the rhythm of her own heart. She can hear music in the waves of heat and the ripping of flesh. And they follow it, locked in their own waltz.

By the end of it all, there’s nothing left but contentment. It aches and it stings, but it feels like it belongs.

Sumire is panting, trying her best to catch her breath as her legs shake with the effort to keep her upright. When she turns her head, looking up at her senpai through her sweaty bangs, she is surprised to see him smirking behind that helmet of his.

“So,” he says and pats her on the back so hard she has to focus on not falling over and faceplanting into the floor. “Do you feel any better?”

She huffs out a small chuckle-turned-wheeze. “Yes, I feel – surprisingly good.”

“What did I tell you?”

“I feel so good in fact,” she adds and huffs out a laugh that’s a little too close to the ones she’s used to from Akechi-san by now. “I kind of want to keep going.”

Her senpai seems to find her newfound eagerness all too amusing. A wry grin cuts through his features. “We can do it a few more times while we continue our search. Can’t forget about our poor leader now, can we?”

“Right, Joker-senpai comes first.”

They run into a few more shadows – perhaps pushing their luck a little far on the way – all of which they eliminate quickly and efficiently with their new move. They clear the hallways, find a new part of the map and figure out a secret passage to another, smaller auditorium on the second floor.

It’s in this very hall, hidden away safely behind another long corridor full of high-alert security guards, that the two of them find not only Maruki himself, but also Joker, his lifeless body suspended a few feet in the air behind him. There’s a couple more appendages growing out of (or – into) his neck and back now.

When the two of them barge through the double-winged door with the force of a tornado, the doctor visibly tries his very best to keep his composure, but Sumire can see the slight panic in his eyes.

And she would be lying if she said it doesn’t feel – surprisingly good.

They must be quite the sight to behold. Hair messy, sweat on their foreheads, faces red and raw and angry. Eyes flashing with pure, hot bloodlust. At least that’s what Akechi-senpai looks like. Sumire can only hope to look about half as intimating as her senpai.

“Doctor Maruki!” Sumire calls out. “Please hear us out!”

With Akechi’s grounding presence behind her and his searing gaze on the back of her neck, Sumire feels oddly at ease. The prickling in her skin feels like a fuse to a firework; still unlit deep inside of her chest.

“How did you get here?”

“We don’t have time for chitchat,” Akechi spits. “I suggest you give us back our leader or this might get ugly, Maruki-san.” Then, with a sharp smirk, he pats Sumire on the back. “Isn’t that right, Yoshizawa-san?"

Sumire straightens her spine, trying her hardest not to choke on spit alone as she nods. She focuses on gathering as much anger as is still left in her weary bones. “Yeah!” she shouts heatedly. “We won’t take no for an answer.”

Akechi huffs, seemingly pleased with her words, as his hand wanders to the hilt of his sabre.

Maruki seems confused at their commanding tones and radiant tenacity. He tilts his head, carefully scanning them like he would one of his experiments. Sumire feels the heat prickle on her neck once more at his pitiful expression; at the way his eyes dull when he looks at her, like he’s already decided she’s worth mourning again. Like he’s already made up his mind about Sumire Yoshizawa. 

Sumire shuffles a little closer to her senpai, who continues to radiate heat like the sun itself. He doesn’t move, but doesn’t pull away either.

“Violence is not my thing.”

The snap of fingers echoes through the hall and with it, a large, pulsing shadow manifests in front of its ruler, standing on guard to protect him and the captured Joker from any outside force. It’s dripping inky blankness onto the floor, as it groans and gurgles viscerally, staring down the intruders before it.

“Well, too bad for you,” Akechi hisses, his voice a vicious knife. “It’s ours now.”

Sumire’s heart is beating so fast it’s making her nauseous. Chest tight, fingers numb, she stares down their opponent, trying to swallow to sudden, unwanted pang of fear.

“Stay close to me, Yoshizawa-san,” her senpai growls as he draws his sword.

Somehow, the simple fact that she has Akechi-san by her side, sword and anger bared, is enough for her muscles to untense. Her heart falls into a steady rhythm and she breathes deeply. “Yes, Crow-senpai!”

Maruki takes a few steps back, his face riddled with that same kind of melancholy Sumire saw on him the first time they talked about the death of her sister. As if he knows everything that’s in her head; as if he has every answer to the questions she asks herself night after night.

Well, if she knows anything now is that – he doesn’t. Sumire doesn’t doubt now that Maruki-sensei has answers, but they sure as hell (as her senpai would but it) are not the right ones.

Hastur attacks them first – forcing them to leap away from a sudden surge of wind. Sumire keeps the tension in her muscles, tucking and rolling like she would at the end of a floor routine, while her senpai vaults across the hall with the feral sloppiness of a wild animal. And somehow – it’s just as dignified.

Locking eyes across the distance, they frantically scramble to their feet, before jumping the shadow from both sides, following their newly acquired script as if they’ve done it it for decades.

Rapier and sabre cut the air with hissing and singing, squelching and roaring where they meet matter. The air is crackling, Sumire’s hair stands on edge, the entire room filled with the static of an entire thunderstorm.

“Show him what you’ve learned, Yoshizawa-san!” shouts Crow from the other side of the battlefield, just as Sumire flicks some of the shadow’s blood-like inky black fluids from the tip of her blade. “Don’t hold back!”

There is something in him that she just knows to trust. Something close to instinctual. It’s almost odd. Sumire has never caught herself acting out of instinct before. She’s so prone to overthinking every single move, every step of her routine, every little ingredient she puts in her food. Every single word that comes out of her mouth.

But not now.

Now she nods, panting and swallowing her fears as she charges the opponent together with her senpai. And when they fall into that familiar dance; that pattern they’ve memorized, she doesn’t need to pretend anymore. With Akechi growling and hissing in her ears, she sees the battlefield clearly. A focal point in a haze of anxiety. 

“Showtime!”

Red ribbon dancing in the air, swords screaming and blood roaring in their ears with their dance of deception. And when it does, Sumire doesn’t even need to put in the effort. She doesn’t have to pretend. She can picture the faces clearly when she makes her moves, facing nothing but the cold hard truth.

That perhaps – love and hate are confusing and she carries both in her heart just as much as Akechi-senpai does. That it’s justified. That – even though she is grateful, the final blow to the creature and the disappointment in the doctor’s eyes is the benediction she’s long earned.

They don’t bargain. Eyes burning with protective perseverance, they demand.

“Hand him over,” the rumble of Akechi-san’s command is dark. Acid, as he spits it fangs bared. “Or else.”

Sumire nods diligently. “Please, we need him back,” she adds, calmer yet stern. “Don’t make us hurt you.”

“I wouldn’t mind it, you know,” Akechi-san smirks wide and takes a step forward. A thread. A warning. “Cleaning up the mess.”

Sumire doesn’t say anything, her stare louder than the silence.

It’s her senpai, who runs and cuts Joker-senpai’s limb body from the restrains once Maruki caves in and sets him down. Sumire watches at first, fingertips cold and numb, as he hacks at the fleshy cables with a disgusted grunt, nose scrunched at the scent of burning skin.

Shaking her head free, Sumire rushes to their side and ducks under their leader’s arm to steady him from one side, Akechi from the other. And together they drag his unconscious body out of the palace, no words spoken between them. No looking back at the ruler they leave behind.

Sumire calls Cendrillion to her before they exit through the main gate and makes sure to push all the remaining energy she has into a cure spell. It tingles in the air as it washed over Joker and he responds with a string of slurred words she doesn’t quite catch right. Akechi-san mutters something under his breath, before shoving a yellow candy into Joker’s mouth with no warning. Joker wiggles like a worm on a hook at the sudden acidic flavour on his tongue and his eyes flutter open as the sour candy pops like a gunshot between his teeth.

“Come on,” she breathes gently and renews her grip on his body as he struggles to stand on his own. “Let’s get you home.”

A wall of cold, fresh winter air hits them when they slip through reality and back to Tokyo. The air is biting on Sumire’s cheeks and nose, heavy in her lungs. Grounding. It feels good to finally breathe it in, as if she’s been holding it the entire time. Like diving into cold water to wake up from a long dream.

Ren sways on his feet as they let him go, holding his head and groaning at the bright light and the barrage of noises from the nearby streets. It looks like he has a headache, exhausted to his last bone. But even so, he smiles through the pain, bangs messy as the silver eyes gleams from behind. “Hey guys,” he rasps. “Good to see you.”

“Senpai!”

“Took you long enough.”

Ren clears his throat, a shadow of discomfort on his face. “So, what happened?”

Akechi-san looks at Sumire, before answering, “Bastard got you, so we came to your aid. You’re welcome, by the way.”

“Mhm, thank you.”

“He didn’t do anything to you, did he?” Akechi-san asks poignantly, eyes narrowed in a mix of disgust and suspicion. “Your head isn’t messed up?”

“I’m fine,” Ren answers with a flustered smile and rubs the back of his neck like he always does. “Thank you for your concern.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Akechi-san scoffs. “We need you to talk your friends into helping us, is all.”

“Sure, sure…”

“I’m glad you’re alright, Ren-senpai,” Sumire beams up at Ren. “I was so worried!”

Ren seems to find the situation incredibly amusing for some reason. His smirk widens and with a teasing wink he looks at Akechi-san. “Can’t you be nice like her?” He guides a warm hand up to gently pat Sumire’s head. The firm pressure is a welcoming anchor to her still somewhat muddled mind. She still feels like she’s floating a little, looking down at the scene instead of standing in the middle of it all.

“No,” Akechi-san spits back.

Ren sticks his tongue out at him, before he turns to look at Sumire, ruffling her hair. His face twitches into a more serious expression. “Although, well,” he starts, pursing his lips. “I have to say, I’ve never seen you this – fired up before. I mean, I’m not sure if I was imagining it, with being brain-wired and all, but I swear you seemed a little – uhm, different."

Sumire nods eagerly, a surge of pride bubbling up in her belly. “Senpai suggested I should try it more,” she explains enthusiastically. “It worked out pretty well.”

“Yes, I had a feeling,” Ren huffs and shoots Akechi-san a quick look. Something that clearly says I should have known. “I don’t have to worry about anything here, do I?”

“Like what?” Akechi-san barks with a challenging undertone. “She is old enough to make her own choices, I believe. She doesn’t always have to listen to you.”

This time it’s his hand that lands on her head. The pats are awkward, stiff and a little too forceful, but Sumire takes it with a smile anyways, trying not to let the moment fade. Her senpai only smiles victoriously. Like this was some kind of battle to be won.  

“Guess that’s true,” Ren admits with a tired sigh, his smile never wavering. Always wanting to put on the brave face for them.

Sumire smiles back. Akechi-san rolls his eyes.

They fall into a quick, hushed conversation about future plans, before Ren finally cracks under his headache and calls it a day. He excuses himself with a small bow and a thousand more thank yous, before making his way to the nearest subway station on wobbly feet to get back to Leblanc and sleep off his two-day imprisonment.

Sumire can feel the awkward tension rise like the tides between her senpai and her at the sudden absence of their trusted leader. Somehow, in a mere matter of seconds, their shared connection from before has bled into the concrete of reality, leaving them – or at least Sumire herself, oddly empty. Cold and restless. It’s as if their masks have obscured their truths once again and Sumire cannot help but feel like she really doesn’t know the boy next to her.

She never did, even though it felt nice to pretend.

Sumire turns to look at Akechi-san. At his narrowed eyes, cold and calculating, empty of the gleam and shine she used to see in the spotlight of the tv studio. Dull and untrusting of the world around him. Every muscle in his body tense and taut like strings on a violin.

Her chest tight and heavy, Sumire realizes she doesn’t want this to end. Not yet. She doesn’t want to go back to anonymity. Not hers and not his.

When she looks up at him, feeling smaller and more stupid than ever before, it’s the lingering surge of adrenaline that guides her tongue and mind to voice the idea in her head.

“Senpai,” she starts carefully, shifting her weight from foot to foot. “Do you have somewhere to be after this?”

Akechi goes oddly quiet, almost like he’s stopped breathing for a minute or two. He doesn’t look at her, instead he stares ahead into space. His face is nothing but a clear canvas, uncanny as she observed him. “Why?” he asks flatly.

Sumire swallows dryly, heart racing. “You asked me what I can do before,” she mutters, sounding less determined then she would like in this moment. “I am very good at cooking and, well I can – I can make you a bento. If you let me invite you over for a meal, that is…”

There’s little hope for a feathered rejection, much less a positive reaction. She expects him to glare at her in utter disgust; perhaps even disdain. Some form of twisted amusement perhaps, at her delusional ideas. He might spit insults at her, shove her away, call her names, leave her in the dust.

Sumire hates herself a little bit for deeming it all possible. Especially when none of it happens.

Akechi-san’s features remain levelled. Only his lips twitch ever so slightly; not a smile, but not a frown either. And when he speaks it’s free of scorn and mockery. “You really don’t have to…,” he sighs.

“I want to!”

He shakes his head. “Yoshizawa-san…”

Something about the sound of her name, in the here and now, outside the confines of the metaverse, ignites a small flame inside of her. Some heat that is yet unknown. Or perhaps the last spark needed to ignite a jaded firework.

“I’m Sumire,” she protests fiercely. “So, call me Sumire, senpai.”

Akechi-san blinks. Still a as a tree trunk he stands there, eyes narrowed at the sudden, unexpected outburst. “Yoshizawa-san, I really don’t –”

“It’s Sumire!” she shouts this time. “It’s my name and I don’t want to forget it again! So, please use it!”

There’s no flinching, no shock or confusion in her senpai’s eyes. No annoyance, no sigh, no fed-up remark or warning. There’s only a smirk; that smirk that can kill just as easily as the tip of his blade can. No doubt about it, Akechi-san looks all but pleased. “Did you just get angry at me?”

Sumire breathes in deeply through her nose, the cold air burning through her veins. “A little bit,” she hums.

Akechi-san merely chuckles in lieu of a response, sounding oddly light-hearted. As if she just told him a moderately funny joke.

It dawns on her slowly, processing the look his features and the lack of an answer. “Oh,” she blurts. “You did that on purpose!”

“Perhaps, I did,” Akechi-san replies cryptically and offers her a nonchalant shrug. 

Something about the aloof tone of voice and the utterly unimpressed expression on his features is oddly amusing to her. Paired with her own cluelessness and the overall absurdity of the situation, she can’t stop herself from laughing.

“You’re funny, senpai,” she giggles into her fist. “I like spending time with you.”

Now there’s that hint of disgust behind his stare. “That’s a first.”

“Oh, don’t sell yourself short,” she says. “Ren-senpai loves to spend time with you too.”

“Yes, he’s an idiot.”

“We should all spend time together soon!”

“Hard pass.”

“But you’ll join me for a meal, right?” she asks once more, eyes big and demanding as they bore into his. “I can show you how to prepare it!”

He hesitates – and for the first time, Sumire is able to read more than empty prose in his face. There’s a story now; short but inevitable. Lines and lines of unspoken dialogue.

Like some hidden chapter in a history book, something opens behind his eyes. A gateway to something that isn’t rage or impassivity. Something rarer and truer than she is used to. It’s overwhelming like this, unannounced and fleeting.

When Akechi-san speaks, none of that reflects in his tone. It’s undeniably – empty. “I don’t have much time.”

Somehow, Sumire can’t help but believe that’s a loaded statement. Though she cannot quite grasp the why of it all.

“I’ll make it a quick one,” she insists and purses her lips. “Come on!”

She doesn’t quite know what magic is at work here; which spell she cast for the air to shift in her favour. If it’s her newfound confidence, his exhaustion, a clouded mind or a mix of it all. All she knows is that’s it’s something new and odd, something she won’t forget for the rest of her life.

“Alright, but make it quick. I won’t stay long.”

Through all her excitement, Sumire didn’t account for the sheer awkwardness that now arises from her father coming face to face with Akechi-san in the hallway. Unannounced, no less.

They’re in the middle of peeling their shoes off their feet when he peeks his head through the door, eyes narrowed in his usual protective suspicion. Some of which melts away when he recognizes the face and statue of the media celebrity he’s met a couple of times on set.

It helps that Akechi-san keeps his face pleasant and his appearance prim and proper, the tone saccharine and innocent. Although something inside of Sumire withers at the lie. At just how easily it comes to him still.

“I haven’t seen you in quite a while, Akechi-kun,” he says as greeting, as the two of them slip into the living room. “What brings you here?”

“Your daughter was so kind as to invite me over for a self-made meal,” Akechi smiles back, feigning an air of professional courtesy. “Though I assume it would only be appropriate to thank you for the hospitality as well.”

“I see,” her father smiles back at the two of them. “Well, no need for that. I’m just happy to see that Sumire has made a new friend. Her happiness is mine, after all.”

Akechi bows, clearly at a lack for words, perhaps even regretting his decision to agree to her plans and tag along. Even Sumire can feel the heat of embarrassment creep up her nape right about now.

It doesn’t get any better when her father narrows his eyes and asks, “He – he is a friend, right dear?”

The implications are not lost to her or Akechi, who immediately shrinks away a few inches and looks so utterly horrified and disgusted by the idea alone, that Sumire finds herself wishing the floor would give and swallow them all for the rest of time.

“Dad, please,” she whines and buries her face in her hands. “He is my friend, yes and you’re making him uncomfortable.”

She can’t even be sure about the friend part, but it’s about the easiest explanation of whatever their relationship may be defined as at this point in time.

Akechi has fallen silent, his eyes two pools of endless, empty void as Sumire ushers him into the kitchen, face searing hot and glowing red like a tomato.  

Her father locks himself in his study (thank goodness), as Sumire and her senpai claim the kitchen for the afternoon, gathering all the ingredients and equipment they might need.

They chop the vegetables, boil what needs to be boiled in a big pot, fry the egg sheets to perfection, form the rice into all kinds of interesting shapes and – as to Sumire’s suggestion – stamp out small hearts and flowers out of ham and fishcake.

Sumire smiles at Akechi-san, as he is in the middle of arranging some carrot stars on the rice balls. “Isn’t this so cute, senpai?”

He mutters something under his breath that sounds a lot like, “I didn’t sign up for this.”

She tries her best to ignore it and overshadow any doubt with a pinch of enthusiasm. She wants to ride this unexpected high for as long as she can, knowing it won’t last forever. “Which face would you like on the onigiri?”

He grimaces at the seaweed sheet in her hand. “Face?”

“You know, for the face in the rice balls,” she explains. “I have a lot of stamps. How about the kitty?”

“I don’t really see the –,” he starts, but wavers when he meets her hopeful eyes. He sighs, swallows and bites his lip. “Whatever. The dog.”

“Are you a dog person?”

“As opposed to?”

“Well, cats…”

“Liking one or the other is senseless when you can enjoy both equally.”

“That sounds like you, alright.”

She makes two rice balls, one with the face of a cat and the other with the face of a dog and places them side by side into the box. “Now they’re friends!” she proclaims proudly.

There is no denying that the entire process of bento-making and the aftermath of actually trying the food together, shaped into cute hearts and pink flowers is one of the most awkward and oddly inappropriate experiences of her entire life.

Akechi-san handles and guides his chopsticks so carefully, it seems like he’s afraid they might break and the way he only half-sits on his chair, ready to jump up and run at any moments is enough of an indicator to tell Sumire that he really doesn’t want to be here. That he would rather go and leave it all behind this very instant.

She knows.

But he tastes it anyways. He endured the process, her father’s barrage of questions, the heart shaped salmon and the discomfort of a home that has yet to recover from the loss of a sister.

He sits and finishes his box in the presence of a girl, who still doesn’t know who she is. He waits patiently for her to finish, too.

And Sumire can’t deny that something deep inside of her has been selfishly yearning for a moment like this. Something to replace the aching void in her chest. If only for a single second. Something that’s real, undeniably so. Something that can sting and bite, something that might even hurt a little.

And when she takes a bite, it tastes like it did only a few years ago in the company of her sister.