Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

- ~ -

He pushed the file across the table, gloved fingertips being the only part of him to even touch the paper. His expression glowered distaste each time he glanced at it, like it had personally offended him. Like whatever he had hiding in the folder was the most shameful content he has ever had to relay.

Mori Ougai was a resourceful man. He always knew just what to do, when to do it, and how to best utilize all of his cards for it. Anyone who knew him by name would say the same thing: Mori Ougai is the reason the Port Mafia thrives.

So for a man like him to look so frazzled, the boy unconscious in the other room had to be something. Ozaki Kōyō was, quite frankly, worried.

She took the file from the center and fluttered it open, surprised to find only a single page inside, with most of its space taken by an enlarged photograph of the kid himself. Curly black hair that reached his blank, unconscious eyes held open for the photo with surgical equipment, eyes gleaming silver and somehow carrying such an aura of intensity that Kōyō had to fight the urge to bristle at just the sheet in her hands. She closed the folder, dumbfounded, and passed it to her left, where she heard the rustle of its opening and a soft gasp as whoever was next to her reached the same conclusion.

They had nothing on him. The strongest piece of information in there was his blood type, and considering how it was scrawled onto a yellow sticky note stuck atop the photograph, Ougai-dono must have only acquired that knowledge once he got his hands on the boy.

Also passed around was a plastic bag, completely transparent and carrying a few small items that were found in the boy’s pockets. It was mostly miscellaneous: a few snacks, a lone pencil, and strands of what seemed like stray cat fur. But there were some things of special interest as well. An ID card for a school that, when researched, didn’t exist; a handful of medicines and patches from a clinic that, when researched, also didn’t exist; and what seemed to be a smartphone, but a model that looked infinitely more advanced than what Kōyō had seen before.

Everything pointed to a fake identity, or maybe a cover-up—something that would require obvious burner items like the ones in the bag. The medicine was proven legitimate at least, and the phone, while of a brand nobody seemed to recognize, successfully unlocked with the boy’s fingerprint and was working fine.

(Almost. There seemed to be only one thing to do on his phone, and it was hidden behind a cryptic logo of a red eye. No matter how much they tried: employing the boy’s hand, face, blood , they couldn’t access it. It seemed only the boy himself would be able to.

Kōyō was afraid of that logo.)

The last item of his, Kōyō knew, was being held obscenely close to Ougai-dono’s chest; a fake gun, but one that had been meticulously modeled to look real, even down to its faux modifications. It had some wear on it too, concentrated in all the right places, like it had been used repeatedly as though it could truly fire. But at the end of the day, it was clearly fake, and Kōyō had yet to understand why the man was being so careful with it.

Once everyone was done examining the items, the bag was handed to a grunt at the end of the table, who took it out of the room. Likely back for further testing. It was a miracle they even got to see the phone at all, considering how much time it had been spending with the researchers.

"In any other situation, I would welcome such a surprise. It's not often I find myself stumped," despite his obvious brooding, the Boss said the words in that pleasant tone he always used. Well, Kōyō only called it pleasant because she had no other word for it. Both happy and angry were usually a stretch. "But this..."

“Have we figured out who he is yet?”

He looked over at the grunt who asked and strained a smile, “Our specialists are currently analyzing his DNA. It will take at least a day or two for results.”

“Thank you.”

“Yes, so as of right now, any discussion of the boy’s true identity will be completely useless. Instead, I’ll introduce another topic.”

He dug a hand into his coat pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. He took his time unfolding it, smoothing out the creases and flipping the paper upside down before laying it on the table. Kōyō shivered at the sight of that red eye. Now that it was enlarged, she could clearly see the black spikes protruding in a circle around the eye, like a ring of rocks or maybe buildings if looked at abstractly enough. The star in the center, acting like a pupil, was colored completely black, yet still managed to shine with a form of life that shouldn’t exist in a photograph.

“Well, do any of you recognize this?” he asked, and when nobody answered, he sighed, “It’s alright, I didn’t expect you to. After all, it doesn’t belong to anything—or, anyone. It’s not a design that exists in the system at all, underground or otherwise.”

“But it has to be the symbol for his group, right? Don’t see any other reason for it to be so secretive.”

“You could be right, Chuuya-kun . But the secretive nature may also just be because we’re unfamiliar with such an advanced phone model. We could be overthinking it all, and he’s actually not owned by anyone.”

“He has an ability, and a damn powerful one at that. He’s got to be in some sort of organization.”

“Another strong point. It would also explain why his possessions look so blatantly disposable.”

He tilted his chin up, indicating he was done speaking, and Kōyō took the chance before anyone—Chuuya—could try and catch her gaze.

"Do you propose we kill the—"

"No. Not when, as Chuuya-kun said, this ability of his has shown so much promise. His healing capabilities rival those of the Agency's doctor, and his subjects don't have to teeter between life and death for it. And I doubt any of you want to hear my thoughts on his combat prowess, in fear I'll never stop talking,” he sighed. “He really is a jack-of-all-trades, isn't he?"

"What should we do with him instead?" someone in the corner called out.

"I have arranged for an executive of my choosing to meet with him by the end of today. Preferably the one with the most experience in handling him." he sent a pointed glance at Chuuya, who deflated under it.

When he didn't look away, keeping his gaze locked firmly on the youngest executive, Kōyō piped up once again, "Arrange? Why can't we go speak to him right now? He's being held here, no?"

The man's smile thinned, and he turned back to face her, "He is in the other room, yes, but he is currently under heavy sedation, rivaling that of a medically induced coma. His condition gave me the chance to coordinate something with the Agency—after all, they were just as affected. Fukuzawa-dono and I have agreed for Dazai-kun to collaborate with us once again, so as to prevent any more of the boy's power from unleashing on us. We'll wait for him to arrive before we proceed."

Everyone voiced their understanding and scribbled into their respective notepads. Kōyō didn’t feel a need to do the same, and kept her hands poised perfectly on her lap.

“And how exactly did that meeting go for you?”

“Oh, absolutely terribly!” he exclaimed. “I don’t know how anyone can put up with those people.”

The meeting continued without any new information given. And slowly, as the discussions became further and further classified, people started to trickle out of the door and back to their own jobs, until the only people still in the room were the Boss and his Executives.

"Chuuya-kun ,” he turned to Chuuya, who had been staring down the boy’s file since he got it. Kōyō was unsure if he even heard anything said after it was placed in his hands. “During the interrogation, just know that you have my full approval to do whatever you deem fit for answers.”

“Could you elaborate, Boss?”

“I truly meant it when I said his healing capabilities were incredible. And thanks to that, the risk of losing him in the process is eradicated. Feel free to be… rough, if you think he’s withholding information from you.”

Chuuya straightened up and nodded. Kōyō bowed, elegant as always, and left the room.

- ~ -

The warm, golden light of a Patra filled his body, like the aura of a shining star.

- ~ -

Amamiya Ren woke to the sight of a tube in his arm, steadily pumping a clear substance into his bloodstream.

He didn't think; he only moved, lurching forward to rip the IV from his body and knocking over the drip bag as he flailed. The stand hit the floor with a clatter that reverberated in his skull, only making the sluggish beat beat beat of blood secreting from his inner elbow ache even more.

With a wheeze, Ren tossed the needle aside and pulled himself to a sitting position. After slowing his breathing to something a little more manageable, he noticed his glasses, lenses shattered, sitting on the nightstand, and reached over to take them. He didn’t put them on—they weren’t even real, and in their current state, wearing them would only reduce his vision—and just let them sit in his lap as he calmed himself down. God, his face hurt. He reached up to massage his forehead and winced.

Where was he? A quick look around said he was in some sort of clinic, but it didn’t carry the same liveliness that Takemi-sensei’s did. It looked almost uninhabited. The tables were obsessively clean and completely bare, lacking any sort of personality for him to assess. The computer on the desk was old, a model Ren didn’t think he would ever see again, and emitted a quiet, eerie buzz despite being turned off. Or maybe the sound was coming from the fluorescent lights overhead or the slew of monitors around his bed that tracked his body’s every function; he couldn’t tell. The blinds were open, and there were small glints of light where the sun caught on some medical equipment, but it was a cold kind of brightness that simply hollowed out the teen’s heart. The only indications of human life were the hushed voices seeping under the doorway across from Ren, but they didn’t provide him with the comfort he desperately, desperately wanted them to.

He didn’t remember coming to this clinic.

The last thing he could recall was a giant monster with tentacles slashing at him. He wanted to say it was Maruki-sensei, but after wracking his brain some more and actually remembering what happened in the fight, he refused to believe it. The monster had an air of horror that Ren just couldn’t see in his counsellor. Even its human version, which Ren had only caught the slightest glimpse of before things went down, lacked the nuance that made Maruki-sensei so painful to go up against.

Well, now wasn’t the time to think about that.

He flexed his legs and stretched. Good, at least he still had all his limbs. All his…

He gave his right arm a little extra attention, curling his fingers, flicking his wrist, and bending his elbow over and over again. It felt the same as always.

(He still couldn’t believe it worked. This was—this was crazy.)

When he was sure things were fine, he made to stand, but as he shuffled, he felt a prominent emptiness in his pockets, where his phone and Takemedic supplies once were. He groaned and slowly crept back into his blankets. He had no idea if the Metaverse even still existed where he was, meaning all the cognitive items he kept in his costume were as good as gone. He definitely couldn’t leave all of his real-world items behind as well. He hoped that whoever had his phone would bring it back eventually.

Speaking of his things, Ren snaked a hand down his cargo pants and checked the pocket by his shin, where he kept his airsoft gun. As he expected, it was gone as well. He wasn’t too mad about that one; his actual firearm was a Metaverse exclusive forged in the Velvet Room, but he liked to carry a second, physical one around as well. Just in case.

But the Metaverse gun was gone. And now, so was his only other option.

The Thieves would be heartbroken to know all their efforts to disguise its threatening aura—covering it in stickers—had gone to waste. Not to mention, Iwai-san would have his head if he found out it was gone.

Ren wondered how he was doing. He hadn’t had the time to visit Untouchable, or any of his once frequent visits, since waking up in Maruki- sensei’s new reality. A small part of Ren, the part he buried deep within once his counsellor revealed himself as the Palace ruler, craved to know what Iwai-san’s ideal life looked like, or Takemi-sensei’s , Ohya-san’s , and everyone else he had grown to cherish. Would he still be a part of those lives?

Did he really, truly want to find out?

The vibrant red spilling down his arm clashed with the thin, gray blanket almost vivaciously. Oddly enough, it was the only thing in the room that felt like home.

Ren didn’t have the time to further reminisce, as the door swung open a few seconds later and yanked him out of his thoughts. His heart rate spiked and, out of instinct, he fumbled his glasses back on his face just as two slender frames appeared in the doorway. Light poured in from the other room, giving them both a glowing aura around their entire bodies and shrouding their fronts in such meticulous darkness that it almost looked intentional. Not that they needed any extra help to look menacing. Ren felt a little dizzy.

The tall one wiggled a few fingers at him, "Remember us?"

"He better, or this’ll be a bore,” said the shorter.

He recognized those voices. His body flinched before he could restrain it.

They stepped out of the shadows, revealing faces that Ren also recognized. The brunette—Dazai, if he remembered correctly, though he didn’t have a first name to reference—scanned the room before eventually landing on Ren. Brown hair cast shadows on his eyes, blocking them from view. He stepped over the fallen IV stand and kneeled next to the teen, wrapping a cast-free hand snugly on his exposed forearm. It looked like he wanted to be reassuring, but the gesture only filled Ren with cold dread.

The redhead pulled a chair from the desk across the room and sat at the foot of the bed, keeping a clipboard tucked in his elbow and tapping a ridiculously expensive-looking pen against his knee.

Neither of them said anything for a long time. Ren swallowed his nerves back down.

“Is—is this an interrogation?” he mumbled, a little awkwardly, but he still wore his best smile.

“What do you think?” asked the redhead, irritation obvious in his tone.

“I would hope not. I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Actually, you caused us quite the mess, kid,” he frowned. “Do you not remember?”

Ren kept his eyes locked on the bed sheets. Someone sighed, and judging by the distance, it had to have been the redhead.

"Well, that’s for us to figure out. What's your name?"

"...Joker."

"He asked for a name, Amamiya-kun ,” the man next to Ren chimed in, oddly cheerful, and still clutching Ren’s arm. “Not a title.”

The shock must have been evident on Ren’s face as the redhead merely sighed, pulling a clear baggie from his pocket and shaking its contents until the teen’s Shujin ID card appeared at the top. He tossed it to the brunette, who caught it with ease and dropped it in Ren’s hand. His own name blared at him in thick, black lettering.

He swallowed the lump in his throat, but his voice still came out scratchy, “Why ask if you already knew?”

“Just standard procedure. That, and we don’t know if ‘Amamiya Ren’ is your real name or not.”

“It is,” the brunette said, swiping the bag back from Ren and setting it on his lap. The light seemed to block half his face, and Ren still couldn’t see his eyes. “He wouldn’t have responded like that if it wasn’t.”

His partner nodded, and for a while, all that could be heard were the sounds of pen on paper and the beeping of Ren’s heart monitor.

The silence quickly became too much, so Ren tried speaking again, "May I know your names?"

The brunette pursed his lips, then grinned. He looked so much like Akechi-kun with that TV smile of his. "Dazai Osamu, of the Armed Detective Agency!"

The redhead, who was eyeing Dazai-san up and down with a curled lip, eventually sighed and turned back to Ren, "Nakahara Chuuya. Port Mafia Executive."

Port Mafia. Armed Detective Agency. Ren’s mind latched onto those terms—the mafia. And a high-ranking member, too. Someone like that would definitely have a Palace. If needed, he and his Thieves could probably take the man down like they did Kaneshiro, though he didn’t want to chance it without knowing for sure if the Metaverse was still accessible—but they were hardly the most surprising piece of information the men gave in their introductions.

He squinted despite himself, and couldn't help the lilt of confusion in his voice when he spoke again, "Like… the authors?"

"Huh?" Nakahara-san leaned back. "Hell are you talking about?”

“The authors; Dazai Osamu and Nakahara Chuuya . You’re wearing their names.”

“...Okay,” he scrawled something in his clipboard with a curled lip, then set it back down on his lap. “Anyway—”

“No, keep going, Amamiya-kun !” Dazai-san butted in. “Chuuya here knows nothing about literature, you see, but I want to hear more of these authors you speak of.”

His partner scoffed at his words, but leaned in to listen anyway. At that, Ren was pitifully confused.

Were they testing him for a concussion or something? Ren straightened up just a little—he did feel slightly woozy, but certainly not enough to let it to show. But then, what?

“…Well, I don’t think there’s all that much to say? Not really, at least. They were famous Japanese authors from…” he frowned. “I—I don’t remember when. It was a long time ago, though.”

“Interesting…”

“You’re full of shit, kid.”

“Hey, you're the ones trying to cosplay as them.” he eyed them both up and down, lingering on the fiery red hair and the tan trench coat atop layers of bandages. “Actually, you guys don’t look like them at all. Are they just aliases, then?”

“Jeez, are you high? What'd the Boss even put you on?"

Dazai-san shuffled away, keeping his fingers locked firmly on Ren's arm, and heaved the IV stand up with one hand. He scanned the label on the bag, "It's Propofol. Was Mori-san planning a surgery?"

“Huh? You didn’t have to actually look, you know. I wasn’t being serious.”

“Answer me.”

Nakahara-san scrunched his brow, "I would’ve been alerted if he was. I didn’t hear anything about it, though."

"Meaning this was just to keep Amamiya-kun sedated. How reckless,” the man sucked in a breath, then whipped his head around to face his partner. “He should've been asleep when we walked in, but he wasn't. I wonder... is Mori-san just incompetent, or—"

"Hey," the shorter of Ren’s interrogators sent a firm shove into the taller's forearm. "Speak ill of the Boss again and I'll cut your tongue off."

He continued his rant—pouring out expletives and insults made of words Ren had never even thought of combining before—but was promptly ignored by the brunette leaning in closer to the teen. His mop of brown bangs fell from his forehead when he tilted his head down, leaving them to intertwine precariously with Ren's own curls.

"How did you wake up?" was all he said. All he whispered. 

For the first time since the man walked in, Ren could finally see his face in full, with dark eyes eating up the little light and warmth in the room and leaving only a frigid husk. The tangy smell of blood and antiseptic found its way into Ren’s nose, and it burned.

The teen bit back his nerves and plastered on a smile, "Does this mean the interrogation's finally begun?"

"The fluid clearly wasn't tampered with, and the blood on your arm is proof it was entering your system. I know the induced sleep from this drug is short lived, but if the dosage was consistent, then there's no reason for you to be out of sedation right now."

Nakahara-san 's eyes widened, and he quickly turned back to Ren, "What did you do? "

Ren glanced between the two of them, hopping from blackened voids for eyes to confused blue-grey, then sighed, "I—I don't know. I really, really don't."

They sat in silence for a few seconds, a contemplative, merciful break, before someone slammed a closed fist into the bedsheets. The air stayed just as icy, and any movement Ren made sent pricks all along his skin. For a second, he swore he could hear the rattle of cell bars and the drip of water in a prison toilet, feel the drag of a ball and chain on his leg and heavy cuffs in his arms, but the sensations were pushed aside when something much louder rang in his ears.

"This is bullshit," Nakahara-san stood up abruptly, pushing his chair a good meter away and causing an agonizing screech on the tile. He dropped his clipboard directly on the teen’s foot and stomped a few steps forward, hand conveniently out of view, and Ren braced himself for whatever was coming next.

He wondered what it would be. Would he get a repeat of last time? They already gave him the drugs, and he knew for a fact the man coming towards him could throw a good punch. Ren scrunched his eyes shut just as he saw Nakahara-san’s arm coming forward. 

Only when a pointed edge tapped his throat did he realize what was happening.

“You really don’t know how much trouble you’ve caused, kid, or how many enemies you’re making as we speak. You’re just here, babbling about authors and hiding your secrets while shit goes down because of you.” Nakahara-san snarled. “What’s to stop me from just killing you now, saving us all the hassle?”

His breath hitched, and the rise of his chest only sent him further into the blade. Its razor-thin edge bit at his skin, but the pain was the last thing on the teen’s mind.

Shit, Ren really could die here. The cold metal grazed the base of his chin as the man’s hand moved, and his mind unhelpfully supplied memories of how his only other interrogation ended. Maybe it would be a repeat of last time, but he didn't have the cushioning of a Cognitive being to save him now.

He looked over at Dazai-san, careful not to move his neck, and saw the man eyeing him with an almost bored expression, save for a quirked eyebrow and the horrifying darkness in his pupils. He didn't say anything to make his partner stop. Didn't even look at him, so Ren discarded his hope that the man would step in.

If his partner wouldn’t, then Ren had to say something to make the redhead pull away. He wasn't chained by a truth serum this time, was he? Dazai-san said there was only Propofol in the drip bag, which sounded like anesthesia, but Ren didn’t know for sure. And even if he did know what it was, he had no reason to believe the man was telling the truth himself.

Well, he had a feeling that even if he was drugged into being honest, the two men wouldn't accept the truth as a good enough reason, especially since his ties to the Metaverse felt weaker than ever. Especially since he himself had no idea what was happening.

His only option was to lie. No, not just lie, but lie well. He needed something believable, logical, but also crazy enough to warrant mercy in the eyes of a pissed off mafia executive. And people like that weren’t really known for being kind, they just wanted usefulness. Ren’s survival needed to be useful.

He calmed his breathing, sucked up every ounce of Guts he had left, and gave it a try.

"You… you've seen the beings I control. I can pull—pull them in and out of reality,” he began, carefully tilting his chin further down with each slow press of the blade into him, “but that's only because I'm the one keeping them confined. If you… kill me now, they'll be free to do whatever they want, and if you all would rather me sedated to unconsciousness after watching them fight once, then you would be fucked if you saw what they're truly capable of."

The silence was suffocating. The blade pricked even further into Ren’s neck, just enough to hurt but not draw any blood, and his heart monitor went crazy.

Finally, Nakahara-san slowly pulled the dagger away, which was good. He looked completely stunned, but a sideways glance at his partner revealed the same bored face as before, only now bordering on deadpan. They stared at each other for a few more seconds until the brunette finally blinked.

The air around Ren became warmer, and he slumped his torso in relief just as Dazai- san turned to his partner to speak, "I believe him!"

No, it was more like a squeal. Nakahara-san rolled his eyes and groaned.

- ~ - 

Chuuya... didn't know what to make of Amamiya Ren.

He had put the dagger to the kid's neck with every intention of pulling away at the last second, playing it off like an act of mercy or maybe a change of heart. After all, he wasn't one to go against the Boss' orders, and it wasn't like he expected any sort of answer from a disheveled, scared teenager anyway. But he definitely didn't think the boy would stare right back at him, intense silver eyes peeking through cracked lenses, and give a genuine reason as to why he should live, though one that, yes, made zero fucking sense when compared with the inherent nature of abilities. Still, Dazai seemed to have no issues with it, so he kept quiet.

Maybe the drugs were still screwing with the kid—which, by the way, Chuuya definitely didn’t forget that the kid managed to overcome one of Boss’ strongest sedatives. He just couldn’t figure out how it happened, and if the boy also didn’t know, he wasn’t going to waste energy on it. Dazai or the Boss would have an easier time solving that mystery. 

Speaking of Dazai, the freak of nature seemed to be having fun in his own bizarre way. His carefree demeanor was back and in full force, and he prodded at Amamiya- kun's brain with ease, testing his reactions to various topics. But Chuuya could tell that Dazai was also taking things seriously. The way he spoke, the subtle glances he gave to the redhead, and the speed with which he took in every tiny detail all hinted that Dazai was just as curious about the boy’s origins as Chuuya.

Either way, Chuuya wasn't going to let his small suspicions pull him from his duty, so he kept going. A few baseline questions said the boy was, in fact, lucid and answering as best he could if Dazai's cues were anything to go by. The teen didn't seem to notice the brunette tapping against the bed frame, or at least didn't deem it more important than Chuuya's onslaught of questions, allowing Chuuya to translate the morse code without issue. Dazai believed he was being honest with everything.

That only confused Chuuya more. The kid looked perfectly healthy, wore nice clothes—if a little tattered from the fight and whatever incisions the Boss had to make in them— and even had prescription glasses. He was clearly living a comfortable life, likely with his guardians. And yet, his knowledge of the world was nothing but inconsistent. When asked about anything related to Yokohama: the people, places, or pop culture from the extra questions that Dazai tacked on in the moment, the boy had nothing to say.

And when Chuuya mentioned the name H.P. Lovecraft, Amamiya-kun just rolled his eyes and began a second rant about literature. Dazai looked up at him when the boy said the word "Cthulhu," so he shelved that mysterious term away in his mind.

But he was rapidly losing patience, so while Amamiya-kun mumbled something about something, he made the executive decision to skip Lovecraft, his regenerated limb, his entire organization and the freaky symbol it used, to ask the only question he thought mattered anymore.

"What's your ability?"

The boy paused at that, "My what?"

Dear God. Even if the boy's cluelessness lined up with everything else they'd learned so far, this was just getting ridiculous. The boy could conjure up a massive, mythical being to both fight for him and heal his wounds, and yet he expected Chuuya to believe he didn't have an ability?

He desperately wanted to throw a punch or two, just to show the little punk that he wouldn’t be able to get away with such stupid claims. He even had explicit permission from the Boss to do so! But he didn’t, because Dazai rapped his knuckles on the bed frame once again and gave his conclusion for Chuuya to translate: Amamiya-kun was being truthful, and any attempt to force out a better answer would be futile. He genuinely didn’t know what an ability was.

It made no sense.

Chuuya did not have time to further dwell on it, as a whiny voice he was obnoxiously familiar with decided to make its debut.

"Wow, Chuuya is so impatient! Couldn't even wait to pop the question... do you handle all your missions so recklessly?"

Dazai leaned over to poke him in the arm once, twice, and Chuuya grabbed his finger and bent it backward before he could try it a third time, "Shut the hell up.”

The manchild yelped and twisted his hand in every which way, trying to escape, but Chuuya kept a firm grip and only pushed it further in the wrong direction. The squeamish expression on the brunette’s face pulled a smirk out of Chuuya, who was quick to fuel the fire with a few insults off the top of his head.

Their bickering quickly ceased when a faint voice piped up again.

"Ability…” the boy scrunched his nose and pouted, likely trying to think. Chuuya allowed him some silence as a courtesy. “My powers?"

"Yes," Chuuya let go of Dazai’s hand, uncaring for how the man pouted and caressed his finger with his thumb. "Your identification code doesn't matter; we can discuss it later. For now, just give me the name."

There was a beat of silence, save for the ruffle of blankets and Chuuya’s pen tapping against his wooden clipboard, and then—

"...Persona ."

- ~ -

Amamiya-kun?

Are you awake?

Chapter Text

- ~ -

The smell of coffee and curry was a staple in Leblanc. The regulars adored it, spoke nothing but compliments to Sakura-san about his skills, and the occasional new patron would always leave with an extra light in their eye and a takeout box of their second, third helping. He, himself, was grossly familiar with it too. Just sitting in one of its booths, or maybe the tall chairs at the island, was once enough to coat Maruki Takuto’s heart in pleasant satisfaction. Flecks of stray spice in the air would tickle his nose, and the TV mounted above the sink would play static at the most amusingly comforting times. A plate of curry would round the corner to be set in front of him, and for just a moment, his work was forgotten.

Maruki loved curry, and it made him weak. He ended up in a booth or a tall chair more than his own office at Shujin Academy. He told himself it counted as research. One time, he stayed in the cafe a bit too late, with his head in his arms and his torso drunkenly slumped on the table, and the place ended up closing without his knowledge. When he finally woke, a cup of steaming hot coffee and a plate of cookies were set primly next to his head, and the kid he had also become grossly familiar with was washing dishes behind the counter with a smile.

His gaze lingered on the cookies. They were the ones he had gifted the kid himself, as a thank you for participating in his study. They were each unwrapped and arranged in a cute little circle. He didn’t eat any.

When he tried to apologize—sprinting to the door and stumbling into every piece of furniture on the way—the kid yanked him back to his seat with a grip he didn’t expect from a teenager, and offered to sit with him and answer some questions for his paper. At that moment, even the cat was looking at him with pity.

He was weak, he was swaying, and it was pathetic. There was no reason for others to feel sorry for him. He wasn’t the one who needed help.

He made plans to swing by the next day, but couldn’t bring himself to walk through the door when he arrived.

- ~ -

When the smell of coffee and curry hit his nose, and he needed to pick between the booths or the tall chairs for the long-awaited talk, Maruki Takuto didn’t even blink.

Because the kid opposite him, Amamiya Ren, needed to rein in his tears and was doing it enough for them both.

- ~ -

“Sorry for the last-minute visit,” was the first thing Maruki-sensei said to Ren once they picked a place to sit, only after taking a few minutes to stare behind him. “How’s Yoshizawa-san holding up? I’ve been concerned about a potential relapse, considering her difficulties with accepting this reality.”

“Sumire’s one tough lady,” Ren ducked his head and sniffed. He wasn’t sure why he was trying so much; the man already knew he was crying. Still, he put on his firmest voice for his next statement. “Tougher than me, sometimes. She’ll be just fine.”

“...I would love for that to be the truth. If it were, then I wouldn’t have to do all of this. But people can’t maintain their strength forever, Amamiya-kun.”

In his bag, Morgana scoffed. Ren could agree with that sentiment.

The man did not get to undermine Sumire’s power.

Maruki-sensei smiled at the not-a-cat’s antics, then looked back at Ren, “So… getting down to business…”

An awkward silence filled the air as the man seemed unsure of what to say next. Eventually, he just pulled his cup to his lips without a word. Ren did the same. 

They took obnoxiously long sips, like they were, for some reason, trying to outdo the other at drinking coffee. Ever since Christmas Eve, when Maruki Takuto first gained his Godly power, Ren’s coffee-making skills had increased tenfold. Even Sakura- san had admitted that his coffee was the best he’d ever had.

He had put his all into making the drinks this time, but—he couldn’t say the same for the man across from him, who was gazing into his cup with stars in his eyes—his just tasted like ash.

“I just wanted to confirm with you one last time,” Maruki-sensei set the cup back down and leaned forward, pushing up his fogged glasses to conveniently conceal his eyes. “Is there no other way to come to an agreement besides—”

“We can’t accept this reality,” Ren blurted out the words just as he thought of them. His counsellor winced at his tone, and he fought back the instinct to bow his head in apology. After everything, he didn’t want to keep being polite.

“The… reality I created may seem distorted from your point of view, but it’s one where everyone is happy. If—” the man coughed. “If you just stay, live in my world, you’ll never have to suffer the pain of loss, or the pain of having people and things stolen away from you!”

“Like… what was stolen from you?”

Ren barely whispered the words, but the man tensed at them all the same. His eyes bugged out of his head and gained a watery sheen, his lower lip trembled inelegantly, his hands clenched around the edge of the table with a knuckle-breaking grip. It took a while for him to move again, and when he did, it was a pitiful deflate. 

With a slow, shaky hand, he reached up and removed his glasses, folding them elegantly and setting them next to his steaming coffee.

“So… you saw what happened to Rumi. I should have expected that, to be honest. You did tear through every nook and cranny of my Palace,” he chuckled.

“I… yes. I did, and I saw how much it made you—”

“Don’t misunderstand, Amamiya-kun. I’m not the one who suffered— she is.”

“You can’t just say something like that. You’re only discrediting yourself when you do.”

“I don’t care. Please don’t pity me for her sake—even after all she’s been through, she’s still found a way to live a wonderful life…” he looked over his shoulder, where The Sayuri elegantly rested on the wall. “In this world you guys call a ‘Distorted Reality.’”

“But,” Morgana peeked his head out of Ren’s bag, meeting Maruki-sensei’s gaze head on, “she doesn’t remember you. And you’re fine with that?”

“Yes. I am. She may not be in my life anymore, but at least her own life's a happy one now. And in my opinion, that’s worth it.”

Ren picked his glasses off his face and rubbed his left eye raw. His counsellor seemed to wait for him to put them back on before continuing.

“And—and I’m not doing this just for Rumi. I want all of you to live just as… happily as she is,” he trailed off, took a sharp breath in, and continued. “But for Rumi’s peace to last, I have to take a step back. I have to move on. After all that’s happened to her—to me —I just can’t drag her back into things.”

“Maruki-sensei…”

“My stance will not change. The circumstances that led to my gaining this power were… unique, yes —however, I now recognize it as being wholly inevitable,” he placed his elbows on the table and intertwined his fingers, then rested his chin atop his hands. “I truly am the only person capable of doing this; the guiding light meant to bring humanity to a better world. I promise you, Amamiya-kun, that every single person alive will be happy with the reality I’ve created.”

“It’s not true happiness,” Ren tried desperately to keep his cool, but he was exhausted, and so his temper started to writhe its way into his words. “You don’t get to just decide what people are supposed to feel. The way you’re doing this… it just isn’t right.”

“How can you say that? Hasn’t your group been doing the exact same…”

He wanted to cry. But there were already tears rolling down his face, and he couldn’t exactly cry twice at once. He settled for the next best option.

“...and under your own leadership, no less?”

“God, don’t you think I know that?! That’s what’s making this so hard!”

Ren slammed a stiff hand on the table. His left arm grazed the side of his coffee as he pushed down, and the force sent the cup toppling over in the opposite direction, sending his drink all across the table. He hissed and pulled away when the side of his hand landed in the liquid—what should have been scalding against his skin now didn’t even give him a reason to flinch. It didn’t hurt. He had no reason to flinch—which rattled the table once again and sent his empty cup rolling to fall off the edge. Nobody tried to catch it, and the sound of the shatter reverberated through the room a million times before it finally stopped.

Morgana nuzzled delicately into his thigh, Maruki-sensei sighed and pulled a few napkins from his pocket to clean the spill, and Ren couldn’t bring himself to look anywhere other than his own lap.

They sat in uncomfortable silence for too long, with the only sounds Ren could still hear being his own hyperventilations and the blood beating in his ears. The man in front of him made no effort to redirect, give him a chance to take his first real breath since their conversation began, so he sat completely frozen as stray drops of coffee fell off the edge and onto the floor next to them.

After what seemed like forever, Ren felt his fingertips twinge alive once again, and he quickly dug them into the table, turning his knuckles white, “You—”

“Amamiya-kun, what’s my Palace called?”

He almost froze up again at the interruption, but found it in himself to go with it, “...How did you know the Palaces have names?”

“Just a suspicion I had. The day I saw you, Sakamoto-kun, and Takamaki-san exiting Kamoshida Suguru’s Palace, I overheard one of you calling it the ‘Castle of Lust.’ It wasn’t hard to reach a conclusion about the rest. So, the name?”

Ren mulled over the man’s request, weighing the benefits, before sighing and shakily grabbing his phone from his bag, making Morgana squawk with how he was gently moved aside to reach it. He chewed on his lip and set the phone on the table, facing Maruki-sensei, who didn’t even look down at it until Ren tapped on the screen and pulled his hand back. He had to lean in to even read the words.

LABORATORY OF SORROW - MARUKI TAKUTO

“Sorrow, huh?” the man pulled back and chuckled. “And you’re going after me for that? I don’t see something as harmless as a little melancholy fitting in with your other, much more sinister targets; in fact, I’d go as far as to say that my Sorrow will only help you abolish sin even further.”

“That’s not what we want anymore,” Ren pushed his glasses up. “I—I just… I thought you would have known that by now, given your power to read our minds or whatever. Why are you still so hung up on this?” 

“Because…”

“If you really wanted it, why didn’t you just do it? Like, without asking me—I don’t even know why you still bother with me.”

He was pushing things, and he knew it. The last thing he wanted to do was give the man any ideas, any more of a reason to go against the Phantom Thieves. But he just needed to know. He willed himself to look up at the man, trying to lock their tired eyes together, but could only reach his eyebags.

(They fit him perfectly, slotting themselves in the space under his eyes like that was where they were meant to be all this time. They looked like they belonged on him, and only him.

They were ugly.)

“Amamiya-kun, you’re the only one I can’t bring myself to force into this, in fear of the burden on my conscience. I know you’re strong enough to guide yourself to salvation—you might be one of the few people on Earth who even can, and I don’t want to take such a power away from you. I just want to help.”

“So I’m—I’m just your exception? And not even for any good reason, but because you want me to do it myself? I told you I didn’t want any of this, but you’re still going to push?”

“That’s not it. There’s something you’re not getting,” he sighed. Ren pinched his own thigh, bunching the fabric of his pants, just so he could think about something else “....Let me ask you something: after everything you’ve gone through, after really considering all your options, do you have any doubts about your views? At all?”

“Of course not.”

“Have you thought of every outcome?”

“Where are you going with this?”

The man frowned, and without moving his head, strained his eyes over to stare at the painting on the wall once again. Seriously, what was so important about that painting? According to Yusuke’s ideal reality, Maruki-sensei had moved the original Sayuri to a museum under his mother’s name, leaving the one still in Leblanc to be only a replica. It really wasn’t as interesting as the man seemed to think it was; Ren fought off the urge to comment on it, as he had bigger issues to use his tears on, but it was still weird.

“Ah, well. That’s alright,” he muttered to himself, then craned his head over his shoulder and practically screamed his next words. “I guess it would be more apt to ask if either of you gentlemen have any doubts.”

- ~ -

The one good thing about his detective charade, Akechi Goro realized, was how well it had taught him to read people.

The entire time he stood by the Leblanc window, Akechi was sure that Maruki Takuto, the Palace Ruler and newest False God of Earth, knew he was there. The man turned back every so often, pretending to stare at the painting by the door, but occasionally flicking his gaze to where Akechi had been peeking through.

It didn’t really matter if the man knew or not. Akechi could still hear every word, so if the man had figured him out, he wasn’t trying very hard to hide their conversation.

Amamiya-kun was crying.

“You’re here, aren’t you? Akechi-kun?”

The counsellor looked over his shoulder one more time and shouted the words to the door. Amamiya-kun’s brow furrowed. Akechi took that as his cue to join.

He peeled himself off the wall and headed to the door. It usually swung open with hardly any force, but that didn’t stop him from pushing it with all his might and sending a rush of air into the cafe, enough to flip through pages of a magazine on the counter. The painting on the wall—The Sayuri, he recalled, though it was likely just a replica in this reality—even crooked askew at the wind.

He walked over to their table, leaving the door hung ajar, and stopped just as his foot grazed a piece of broken ceramic. He kicked it under the man’s seat.

“Akechi-kun…” Morgana whispered. He ignored it.

“You caught me,” he threw on one of his signature TV grins. The feeling burned, but he was a professional, so he didn’t let it show. 

Amamiya-kun still winced at the sight of it—well, the boy was a special case. Anyone else wouldn’t have a clue.

“Oh, call it a hunch,” Maruki smiled politely in return, then morphed his face into a smirk. “But honestly, how many openings did I need to give for you to finally show yourself?”

He wanted to be casual, like he wasn’t the reason the whole world was going to shit. Like he wasn’t trying to hold Akechi in his palm like a maggot.

He dropped the charm with ease, “Don’t piss me off further, you bastard. The others are cowards, but I have no qualms with fighting you outside of the Metaverse as well.”

The way the man’s chest puffed up and his smile shifted said he didn’t think Akechi would follow through with it. Which, yes. He wasn’t going to, but only because of the way Amamiya-kun’s glare bore holes into him.

“This issue doesn’t just affect you, Amamiya-kun,” Maruki turned back to look at the other teen. “Take Akechi-kun here, for example.”

Akechi stood a little straighter at the mention of his name. When Maruki paused, he glanced over to the other teen, who had done the same as him in his seat.

“What—” he coughed. “What about Akechi-kun ?”

“I know all about the bond that you two formed. That’s why I found it so… so tragic when I learned what happened in Shido Masayoshi's Palace.”

“ Hey ,” Akechi bit out. “Don’t pretend like you understand anything that happened.”

“I do, Akechi-kun. I had to. The only way to bring you back was to relive all your memories and find the exact moment you—” the man paused, then slung an arm over the back of his seat, trying to look unbothered, but the way his knee bounced restlessly oozed nervousness. “Believe me. I may be the only one, other than you and him, who understands.”

“Bring—bring him back…?” Amamiya-kun tilted his head, causing the freshly forming tears in his eyes to fall at an angle. “What does that mean?”

Maruki took a second, then looked up to meet Akechi’s gaze, almost like he was asking for permission. When he didn’t answer, the man only sighed.

“Say, Amamiya-kun… Didn’t you regret how things ended with him? You two came to a deep understanding of one another—yet, in the end, you had no choice but to leave Akechi-kun to his fate.”

Akechi dug a canine into his lip, knowing full well he wouldn’t be able to draw blood like he used to. In his current state, it just wasn’t possible.

“That’s why I created a reality where you two could have a fresh start,” The man dipped his head down until his chin was pressed against his chest. “Where you could be friends, be together , without anything getting in your way.”

Amamiya-kun stifled a sob.

“But that would mean…” Morgana whispered. “The Akechi-kun in the real world is…”

“My Metaverse counterpart fell when I fought Shido’s cognition of me,” Akechi butted in. “And as for my physical body… it likely went through a mental shutdown, and lost function. I am either dead or a vegetable in the original reality.”

“You… you knew?” the raven-haired boy whispered. His voice was completely scratched out.

“You’re right,” Maruki sighed. “I didn’t have enough control on my power back then, so I couldn’t do anything for your body in the real world. So instead, I revived the version of you from the Metaverse and gave it a vessel to occupy. A perfect replica, actually.”

Akechi’s whole life was in someone else’s hands. Wasn’t that familiar.

“And as such, you’re still able to use your abilities from the Metaverse in the real world despite your physical body. Though, I doubt you’ve ever tried,” he chuckled. “It’s not like you ever had a reason to assume you could.”

Okay, that was kind of a shock. He had been wondering why he could still feel the pulsing warmth of contradiction in his soul even after exiting the Palace. His chest burned, like it had been doing for the last month, and he was suddenly, violently angry.

“Well, Maruki-sensei,” Akechi snarled out the honorific. It didn’t seem to deter the man at all, “answer me this: how exactly does any of that matter?”

“Wait, what?” Morgana whipped his head back to stare at Akechi. “Akechi—”

“Don’t tell me you think dangling my life before us will have any impact on our decision. If Amamiya-kun is even half the righteous person you seem obsessed with painting him as, he’ll never let something that trivial get in his way.”

“Don’t speak for me, Akechi-kun,” the other boy asserted, probably louder than he meant to, as Morgana placed a paw on his side that he jumped at. “How—how did you even figure that out?”

“Well, I lacked conclusive evidence. But after I fought against you all, I noticed a gap in my memory that ended when I found you on Christmas Day. Not to mention the reappearances of the late Ishiki Wakaba and President Okumura… it wasn’t hard to come up with a theory. I’m surprised you didn’t think of it.”

Amamiya-kun scoffed, but it was watery, “Oh, my apologies. I can’t believe my first thought when you showed up again wasn’t that you were secretly… secretly…”

“I’m dead. Don’t drag it out like that.”

“I had a feeling the truth wouldn’t dissuade you, Akechi-kun,” Maruki chimed again, startling both teens and the cat. “But how about you, Amamiya-kun?”

Akechi added an extra edge to the glare he sent the other boy, just to make up for the soft, vulnerable look that the man next to him was definitely trying to do.

“Do you remember what he said a few seconds earlier? ‘You think dangling my life before us will have any impact on our decision?’ Well, if after all this time that’s how you see it, then I’m not going to keep arguing,” he sighed. “But you… you were my guiding light, the perfect muse, and you even managed to help me beyond my research. I have nothing but gratitude for you, and not an ounce of ill will. I just need you to understand me on this.”

The man suddenly stopped, despite how desperate he looked to keep talking. His mouth was open and air was coming out, but no words.

Eventually, he grunted. It sounded an awful lot like one of the raven-haired teen’s sobs.

“I’m going to ask you one last time, and then I swear to you, I will leave it alone,” he leaned forward, so his torso was practically splayed across the table. Akechi’s face scrunched at the pathetic sight. “Will you accept the reality I’ve created for you?”

He stopped. Amamiya-kun curled deeper into himself. Morgana buried the lower half of his face in the bag, and even Akechi sucked in a breath he didn’t need as he waited. They all waited for Joker, Leader of the Phantom Thieves, uprooter of society and enacter of justice, to respond.

But the hero never appeared, leaving the sniveling boy in his stead. And the look on the boy’s face—as his glasses slid down his nose from budding sweat and his bangs fell forward each time his head twitched, as he looked back up at the other teen with a trembling lip and a glaze of something casted over his eyes—told Akechi all he didn’t want to hear.

“Ah, but perhaps I shouldn’t demand an answer from you so suddenly,” Maruki mumbled awkwardly. He pulled his coffee to his lips and chugged, then set the cup down and grabbed his glasses while he stood. “I’ll be going now.”

Amamiya-kun stood up as well, “That’s—that’s it?”

“We can call a truce for the night while we sort through our feelings. I won’t do anything if you don’t. And tomorrow, if you come to my Palace with your group, I’ll take it as a refusal and fight you with everything I’ve got.”

“...Really?” the boy whispered. It was tired, pleading, completely broken. Like this, he was an open book. “You—you won’t do anything?”

“I promise. Now, goodbye to both of you—ah! To you as well, Morgana,” he chuckled at the cat glaring at him from Amamiya-kun’s bag.

He made to leave the booth, so Akechi shuffled his body until he was blocking the path out.

“You’re forgetting something,” he snapped. The two other men jumped at his tone, looked at each other, then back at him. Only Morgana seemed to understand, and he nodded gravely.

“Excuse me?” Maruki eventually asked.

He scoffed, “Not you.”

He turned to glare at Amamiya-kun, who shrunk under his gaze. He shuffled in place for a few seconds before his breath hitched and he dug a hand inside his jacket, while Akechi leaned closer to watch. And eventually, the boy pulled something out and tossed it at Maruki. It landed in the sticky, coffee stained section of the table. 

A calling card. The calling card.

The man looked between the two of them, then down at the card, leaning forward to peel it off the surface and flipping it over to read it, “Of course. I’ve heard your calling, thank you. We’ll pick this up tomorrow.”

He tucked the card in his shirt pocket, then turned to try and leave again. Akechi didn’t move, in case the man would bump his shoulder to pass and he would get a chance to shove back. But he didn’t. He froze, eyeing their standstill with slight terror, then tried to weave his way around Akechi without ever making contact. And when he finally got through, he turned his head away, bowed, and practically sprinted for the door.

It would have been hilarious if it wasn’t so stupidly suspicious.

Akechi didn’t believe for one second that the man was going to leave it be. He had dealt with enough rotten adults, lies, and false hope to know when a fight like that wasn’t over yet.

He made to stomp after the man, but paused when something caught on his tan jacket. Amamiya-kun’s hand. He turned back to the table and reeled.

The boy’s face was completely red, matching his bloodshot, puffy eyes that were still steadily flowing tears down his cheeks to catch on his chin. His lips were raw and bitten through, his nose was starting to run, his forehead was scrunched into rows of wrinkles—he looked like a complete mess. This was the world’s savior? The trump card that the rest of his teammates relied on more than anything? Wearing his heart so thickly on his sleeve like that, Akechi needed to wonder how the teen in front of him had managed the last year.

(The chest he had borrowed was hurting, like something was clogging its lungs, heart, throat. He chose not to acknowledge it.

He had no connection to this body, and his mind could manage just fine on its own. The ache didn’t deserve his worry.)

“Morgana, if you don’t mind,” Akechi started, not bothering to look down at the cat. He was surprised at how quickly the words left him. “I’d like to speak to him. Alone.”

Sitting between them, Morgana craned his head back and forth, then sighed, “Alright. I’ll give you guys some privacy.”

- ~ -

The walk back to his Palace was tiring.

It didn’t even count as a walk, with how Maruki’s feet were trudging hopelessly against the concrete, not even lifting up into a proper step. It was just one big slide back to his Palace. It was so tiring.

All he could think about was the Phantom Thieves. Namely, the Leader and the Detective.

Akechi-kun. His resentment burned like wildfire, unrelenting and almost unstoppable; Maruki would have to be a fool not to notice how much the boy despised him. Had Amamiya-kun not been there, he definitely would have left their little conversation with a few injuries.

The boy was one of the biggest driving forces for the Phantom Thieves’ interference. Had he not gone and requested their leader’s help, then Maruki would definitely have had his way. But no, he was suffering setback after setback while a group of naive teenagers went crazy in his Palace.

There were very few ways left to fix this. Maruki really didn’t want to use the poor boy as a hostage, but his reappearance was proving to be an issue.

Ah, and then there was Amamiya-kun. He was a far bigger issue, and Maruki had yet to find a way to counter him that wouldn’t go against all he stood for.

He reached the base of his Palace, where the half-built stadium stood in its place outside of the Metaverse, and began the trek to the top.

He had tried to understand the boy. After all, the poor kid had only carved his path through Maruki’s cognition out of obligation. It was just his job as a Phantom Thief: infiltrate the Palace, steal the Treasure, change the Heart. And he was the leader, the founder. Of course he would be the most stubborn.

His accomplishments were being tested, so he was fighting back. That’s just what it was, and it was written all over his face the whole time they talked.

Etched into his brain, carved along the walls of his skull, and then branded on the layer of skin atop it. It was all out of obligation.

He pulled his friends out of their ideal realities because he had built a life around sin. His entire character, the Persona he made for himself as Joker, depended on the small battles he won in a war where sinful nature prevailed. His friends weren’t the same; they were weaker, but he pulled them onto his back and carried them away from Maruki’s shining light all the same.

It had broken Maruki’s heart when he dove through the boy’s thoughts and learned the true reason for his delinquency and reputation. And despite all of the hardships he had gone through, from then to now, he still truly wanted to do good. Just like Maruki. 

They were so alike in every possible way. They both wanted people to be free of misfortune. They wanted it. He wanted it. Amamiya Ren wanted people to become free of suffering. And yet, he wouldn't take Maruki's offer.

But he was a good person, who wanted all of the right things deep inside his heart. A  boy like him deserved to be rewarded in life, given at least one win and yet, for some reason, he refused the offer every time. He lets evil and misfortune close the gates, and he becomes a prisoner once more.

So even after months of counselling, diving deep into the boy’s inner conflicts and having the same done right back to him—even after employing his Persona to learn of the life the boy wanted more than anything, Maruki still struggled to understand Amamiya Ren. He knew why the boy was doing what he was doing, but he had no idea how to make him stop, take a breather, find the correct path that he knew for a fact the boy wanted too. He was running out of options.

The man eventually reached the Mental Health Check center, bustling as always, and decided to personally oversee some trials to clear his mind. He walked through the halls, gently coaxing any subjects he came across to participate in the questionnaires, assisting in the rehabilitation of those who answered incorrectly, until he heard his name being called.

“Maruki-sensei! H—hey Maruki-sensei! Wait up!” someone bellowed from behind him, mingling with the patter of footsteps that steadily grew louder. He spun around to greet the voice, and came face to face with a short brunette man, wearing his white pantsuit all wrinkled and his grey tie completely messed up. He was panting heavily, and his body was keeled over as he clutched his side. Still, such a disheveled appearance, though unusual, only added to his strong-willed character. Maruki had no doubt that the man in front of him deserved a perfect life.

Amamiya-kun just couldn’t see it like that yet.

“Ah, hello,” Maruki smiled and bowed his head. The other man bounced on his heels in response. “Is something the matter? Should you have any complaints, please feel free to speak with a helper in a lab coat and—”

“It’s not that, Maruki- sensei! Did you see those people with the colorful masks and costumes?”

His smile faltered, but he strained it back to normal, “I did not see them. Why are you telling me this? Did they… hurt you in any way?”

“Oh, not at all! They actually did the opposite, they helped me so much!”

“How so?”

“They came and spoke to me when I was doing the trials. I think they wanted my help figuring out the correct answer—well, clearly I wasn’t much help, ‘cause look where I am now!” the man waved his arms all around, gesturing to the rows upon rows of Counselling Rooms that lined the hallway they were in.

“Sir, where are you going with this?”

The man’s grin dropped, and his face morphed into something far more melancholy. It made Maruki shiver. A face like that should be impossible to achieve after rehabilitation.

“Wait—sir, are you allowed to be outside your room? Did you finish your counsell—”

“When I told them my answer, even though it turned out to be wrong, they still placed their trust in me and followed my example. They ended up joining me up the elevator, when one of your lab coat helpers attacked them and tried to take me away. But they were so cool! They fought back, and the leader—ah,” the man scratched his cheek, “at least I think he was; he had a white and black mask on, and the others seemed to respect him. Well, he called out to me while fighting and told me to escape while I still had myself to rely on. He said I shouldn’t give up my morals for anything, not even salvation, because I was human and deserved to have them. And I don’t know why, but… the way he said it made me feel more at peace than I ever got to be in this lab. So I’m sorry, Maruki- sensei, but I don’t plan on giving up who I am anymore.”

A shadow turned the corner and began sprinting down the hall. The man let out a loud holler and slammed into Maruki’s shoulder, before running away with the shadow chasing closer behind, leaving the Palace ruler stunned in place.

Something crashed in the distance, and a few extra voices shouted, but Maruki could barely hear them over the blood pounding in his ears. This wasn’t how things were meant to go.

The Phantom Thieves…

If his subjects had simply been cognitions like most other Palaces, then Amamiya-kun wouldn’t have been able to wreak so much havoc within them. But they were real people, ones who hadn’t yet let sin be abolished from their minds and couldn’t be rereleased into society, so the Phantom Thieves were able to pull them back to ruin.

Did they not understand the severity of the situation? If all they wanted to do was revert the world to its original state, they would have simply come to Maruki without any distractions, but they didn’t. They chose to ambush innocent, unsuspecting people and for what? For fun? Validation? He couldn't believe the audacity of Amamiya-kun, suddenly parading around a new ideology that went against everything Maruki—everything he himself stood for as a Phantom Thief for absolutely no understandable reason. He wanted people to keep their personal morals now? What if they were harmful to others, or to the person themself? Weren't those the exact distortions the Thieves always fought so hard to eradicate?

Amamiya Ren had lifted Maruki Takuto back on his feet. He gave the man a chance, and built him a path which led straight to his goal. Maruki wanted nothing more than to return the favor, but he wouldn’t be able to if the boy kept meddling with forces he didn’t seem to understand.

He passed through the Twilight Corridor and into the Garden of Eden with his fists clenched tight around nothing. He couldn’t believe he was getting so worked up over a teenager’s outlook. It was just, as his counsellor, he felt the innate responsibility to guide him down the right path.

To save him. Bring him the salvation that he so brashly decided humanity wasn’t fit for. Against the will of his own heart, no less.

When Maruki finally reached the top of his Palace, he was exhausted. He stomped over to his office, a little brick room in the garden that, strangely enough, was modeled to look exactly like his space at Shujin academy, even down to the unwrapped snacks and teacups lining the coffee table. Signs of life, his students. The Thieves.

(He didn’t have the energy to ponder on what that said about him.)

He yanked his office chair from the desk and draped himself into the cushion, pressing his head into his hands and groaning. This was becoming a far bigger hassle than he ever anticipated. 

After a while of brooding, he thought back to his life before starting all of this. Before Shujin Academy, the Phantom Thieves, and well before his cognitive psience research actually started going anywhere. When he was just a stupid college student, scribbling theories into a notebook and fantasizing of the ways he would test them out.

Back then, he kind of wanted to be an author as well. He had always been obsessed with literature, specifically, the psychological aspects. He held nothing but respect for the classics, Japanese and otherwise: The Great Gatsby, Crime and Punishment, No Longer Human, as well as various forms of abstract poetry. The idea that a few words on paper could provide such a strong window into a person’s heart was one of the most beautiful, compelling ideas that Maruki had ever heard of.

He had even drafted his own book in college, as a side gig to keep himself from thinking about how stagnant his research had been. He had tried to weave his love for literature in with his love for cognitive psience but, over time, it became just another outlet for him to theorize. In that book, he thought up possible experiments to further delve into the psyche of it all, imagined a reality where such concepts were completely normalized and granted the wielder power beyond imagination, and created characters based on his favorite authors to test things on. And later, as life went on, he channeled into the darker, more malicious side of himself he was trapped in after losing Rumi, gaining Azathoth, and finding out his fairy tale claims about cognition really weren’t too far from the truth, until he created something so viciously full of misfortune that he spooked himself to salvation.

It was a world so horrifying that he couldn’t ever imagine it coming to fruition. A world that Amamiya-kun, in some kind of coping mechanism to fight off what he truly wanted inside his heart, seemed to think was exactly what humanity needed instead of a suffering-free reality.

(A part of him, the sliver of corruption that still hadn’t withered off after he broke free of that time, longed to hold the book in his hands once more, trace the words he'd scrawled inside, live through that horror one last time. As terrible as it was, when he was writing, he was happy.

It was an awful, selfish thought to have, one that forced him to keep the pen far away from his torch, and he knew it. He still wanted to, but he wouldn’t. Not ever.

If only Amamiya-kun had something like that to keep him from the corruption eating away at his heart's true desire for salvation, the way he had his book.)

He jumped from his chair with a startle. The book. It was perfect. 

If Maruki couldn’t find a way to understand the boy, he would simply make the boy understand him. He definitely had enough power to.

He scrambled to his desk and dug through all of his drawers, tearing through loose papers and other miscellaneous items scattered about, until he found it. A fat, black notebook, stuffed to the brim with cognitive psience and the story he weaved in between the lines.

It was almost perfect. It just needed some tweaks. He grabbed a pen from the cup on his table and brought it to paper. It lingered there, for only a few seconds, as the hand which held the torch tried to stop him. The pen didn’t fit quite right wrapped in his fingers, but he forced it to stay. He had to do this.

That night, Maruki Takuto made the preparations to go back on his word.

Chapter Text

- ~ -

Ren hadn’t bothered to get changed, brush his teeth, or even leave his seat after all he had learned, and had simply cried himself to sleep with his head pressed into the table and Morgana in his lap. But when he woke up again in the middle of the night, he found himself lying under a tree in the forest instead. 

His first thought was Maruki-sensei, and his second was that his ass hurt. His third was that he was starting to sound like Ryuji.

He circled back to Maruki-sensei. Did the man transport him into his Palace while he was sleeping? What good would that do him other than a surprise attack—one that, considering how Ren felt just fine and still had the warmth of his Personas in his heart, clearly didn’t happen?

Maybe he just woke up early, and the man’s plan hadn’t happened yet. If that was the case, then he didn’t have time to waste. He needed to act. He heaved himself off the tree trunk and to his feet, dusting off his cargo pants with a frown. His Metaverse costume hadn’t appeared at all. That was… unusual. Did Maruki-sensei no longer see him as a threat? It aligned with their truce, but couldn’t explain why he was stranded in the middle of nowhere, practically defenseless, the perfect prey for an attack.

(The man had broken his promise. This wasn’t like him at all. 

Ren fought off the urge to kick something, as the tan slippers he was wearing didn’t come with the same protection as his usual heeled boots.)

Whatever, it didn’t matter. He needed to get out. He looked back at the stump he woke from, checking if any of his belongings had fallen out, then picked a direction and started sprinting.

Were the rest of the Thieves somewhere in the forest too? Akechi-kun?

The longer he trekked, the more uneasy Ren felt. This part of the Palace was nothing like what he and his teammates explored through the last few weeks; the upper levels they had passed through traded the gloom, fog, and death of this place for fresh flowers, golden lighting, and a much more ethereal vibe overall. In any other situation, Ren would have even called those floors breathtaking.

Well, this place was too, but for different reasons.

After only a few minutes of running, jumping, and climbing the terrain, Ren was completely winded. It came as a surprise; he thought his stamina would only differ because of the Metaverse’s properties as a whole, but since he was already in a Palace and feeling so tired, he must have been wrong, and the differences were strictly because of his clothing.

Not that it had ever mattered before, since he’d never really needed his Thief skills out of costume until now. But still, it was good to know for the—

He felt the little air still in his lungs get physically sucked out when he heard voices. They were barely whispers from how far away they sounded, but he didn’t care. He skidded to a stop, spun around on his heels, and scrambled to follow, chasing after the sound of people he didn’t recognize but, at that moment, was more than willing to place his bets on. After a few minutes of desperate running, he reached a clearing in the forest and hid behind one of the larger trees, giving him a moderate view of the brick house in the center and a cluster of people aiming lights and firearms at a lone man.

His first thought was to jump in, but he stopped himself. The men holding the guns looked far too normal to be shadows, and he didn’t want to risk injuring any of the real people Maruki-sensei had brought to his Palace. Plus, the man they were aiming at, a tall brunette with a sling on his arm, didn’t look worried at all, with posture that Ren could only describe as if he was hiding an ultimate ace.

Two new men stepped out of the firing squad. A blonde in crooked overalls, and a lanky figure with long, black hair to match his eerily neat suit. The brunette they were cornering didn’t look deterred at all. In fact, though Ren could barely make it out himself, he had a feeling that the man was smiling. Did that mean things were actually fine? The guns didn’t drop, which was definitely bad, but nobody seemed to care when the three men began conversing casually. It just sucked that Ren was too far away to hear any of it, what with how important the scene in front of him looked to be.

He needed to get closer.

With careful, silent steps, Ren backed away from where he was leaning his torso on the tree trunk, then crouched and spun around until he was in his usual stealth position. After a few more collected breaths, he bent down to rest on a knee, angled his chest lower, and took off, darting from tree to tree without making a single sound. He was beyond relieved. It was a risk, trying any of his Thief skills out of costume, so he was glad that at least his stealth abilities were innate and didn’t have to be carried over, especially since hardly anything else did.

He dashed to the final tree in a blur, but stumbled in his landing. His body toppled forward, propelled by a gust of wind that appeared out of nowhere, but he maneuvered himself into a silent dive on a pile of leaves right next to him. Or, almost silent; he cursed under his breath when the leaves rustled beneath him. The long-haired man craned his neck around to look his way, but he lurched back into position just in time.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t completely innate. He never faltered while in costume.

His arms felt cold without his tailcoat. He wanted to miss it some more, and be pissed at Maruki-sensei for a little longer, but a sudden rumble by his feet startled him out of his head.

Right, he needed to focus.

He peeked his head from around the tree just as the long-haired man turned back to his conversation, and he let out a sigh of relief when they picked things up like nothing happened.

From his new position, he could hear them far better than before, but they weren’t saying anything that would be useful for his predicament. The most he got was a long monologue about strategy that Ren didn’t care for, with some choppy banter here and there, coming entirely from the brunette. His tone was casual, even slightly playful. It was the kind of wit that no self-respecting human being would say with that many guns aimed at them.

Ren frowned. It looked like the man was stalling for time. What was his plan?

The ground rumbled again, much more violently this time, and Ren’s knees buckled and he stumbled forward, crashing into the tree with a loud thump. A rush of pain shot through his shoulder and he hissed at the impact, but it was thankfully covered up by the sound of the earth shaking beneath him, almost like the forest was alive, trying to warn him of something. 

With a groan, he grit his teeth and heaved himself back up, rubbing the sore spot on his arm. He squeezed his eyes shut for a few seconds, trying to clear the dust out, and reopened them to focus on the people again, when something else caught his attention. A speck of red floating high in the air, about as big as the moon next to it. He wasn’t the only one to notice it; from the corner of his eye, Ren saw the long-haired man look up at it as well.

He blinked once, and the speck, now a ginormous boulder with a vibrant red aura around it, was floating just above the brick house. He blinked again, and it was soaring down to the men at rapid speeds, like a gigantic cannonball, crashing into the ground and pushing dirt, trees, and bodies a good hundred feet across the forest. Ren first yelped at the sound, then screamed at the impact and the sight in front of him, but his cry was lost in the rush of panic across the soldiers that it missed. People started running around mindlessly, the long-haired man and the blonde in overalls spun around to assess the damage, and the brunette by the house stood unmoving, smiling.

Ren's stomach lurched, his throat tightened, and he pressed himself further into the tree to try and stabilize himself. What the hell was that? Did that rock just kill those people? Did Maruki- sensei know about this? Did that rock just —

His head started spinning when he looked back at the brunette, still smiling, with his uninjured hand now resting on his hip. Ren was going to be sick.

Fuck, fuck, fuckfuck fuck.

Another set of rumbles started up again, doing nothing to help with his nausea. But this time, the shakes in the earth were periodic, coming in steady intervals that grew stronger after each one, like footsteps. They were coming from where the boulder hit the forest, causing Ren’s right ear to ache on top of everything else. God fucking damnit, he really didn’t want to see what kind of shadow was making all of that noise.

But it didn’t look like he had much of a choice. With a shaky, internal sigh, Ren reached into his soul, ready to tear out an opening for a Persona to manifest. 

Thankfully, he had still yet to be noticed, so he just needed to wait for the shadow to appear and he could plan an ambush. Eventually, the dusty fog that surrounded all the broken trees started to glow a deep red, the same color that had coated the boulder before it dropped. And in the center, a shadowed figure started to fade through the smoke, slowly coming forward until—

It was a human. Covered in that red glow to match his red hair completely. Was he… a Persona user? He didn’t have a mask on, so his summon must have been active, but Ren couldn’t see it anywhere.

The remaining soldiers calmed down eventually, swiveling around to point their guns at the new person. Someone fired, and the rest quickly followed, making Ren flinch. But the man was completely unbothered, continuing to walk forward with steps that made the ground beneath him crumble into small craters. The first bullet made contact with him, and suddenly every single soldier, including the blonde in overalls and the long-haired man, were glowing.

They were lifted just a few feet into the air and, less than a second later, slammed into the earth face first. The sound of cracked limbs roared from every single one of them, followed by harrowing screams. Their guns were dropped, and the glowing energy flung them back into the forest, where they exploded in a rush of fire. Ren choked on air as his jaw dropped.

What the hell was that? How was he able to use his Persona without manifesting it behind him? And just what Persona could grant him a skill like that? He tried to focus, thinking back to any instance where he could have seen that power used before, but he couldn’t find any. It wasn’t like any of the skill cards he kept in his costume, either, and he had at least one of everything.

He glanced back at the brunette, who was now scratching the side of his head with a displeased expression. Were those two enemies as well, then? No, they couldn’t be, or else the redhead’s attack would have hit him as well. God, just what was that attack?

“Let me set one thing straight,” the redhead’s voice boomed through the open field, making Ren startle. He stepped forward again, creating two new craters by his feet. “Once I’m done taking out the trash, you’re next buddy.”

The brunette rolled his eyes and looked to the ground on his right, “Give me a break, will ya? Ugh, I knew there was a reason today was gonna suck.”

“The—the hell?!” the blonde on the ground cried out, pulling Ren’s attention back to him. “I never heard anything about this in the strategic forecast!”

He rolled onto his back, pressed his hands into the ground, and sprung back up onto his feet, extending an arm forward to face the redhead like he was preparing to attack. Alright, so he was a Persona user as well. Ren leaned in, straining his ears as best as he could to listen in, and waited for the man to say his Persona’s name.

But he didn’t. Instead, his arm tensed up and started thrashing around as what looked like… vines? emerged from his open palm. Some of them dug into the earth in jagged patterns and bulged the dirt, others pierced through the air and shot straight at the redhead. Ren was frozen, shocked, as his brain tried to process what he was seeing. He couldn’t recognize that skill either.

And there was no summon behind him, nothing that could give him the power to accomplish that.

The vines kept growing, until they looked long and spindly enough to wrap around the redhead completely. And from the looks of it, the way the blonde maneuvered them around by shaking his arm, that was probably his plan. 

“Sorry, can’t let you do that!”

The sudden addition of a cheery, sing-songy voice was jarring. It was so out of place in the tense scene that, in some strange way, it was the scariest part. The brunette stepped forward until he was less than an inch away from the blonde’s back, and tapped him thrice on the shoulder with his whole hand. The third time, he let his hand rest there, until a sudden rush of sky-blue light emerged from both of their bodies.

The vines dissolved completely, Ren gasped, and the blonde froze in horror.

“A—a nullification ability?!” he spun around to face the brunette, arm still extended out like he was trying to summon more of his vines. It didn’t work at all.

“God, this is such a drag,” the man sighed and waved his hand around, causing the redhead to charge forward and leap into the air. The blonde didn’t notice, too busy gawking at the man.

“Hey!” the redhead hovered in the air, pulling his leg back, “Don’t go stealing my lines!”

He drilled his foot into the side of the blonde’s head, transferring the red over to his body, and kicked him all the way back into the forest, just shy of the destruction from the boulder. He slammed into tree after tree, carving holes into their trunks as he kept flying, until eventually he was gone.

It seemed almost cartoon-like, or maybe something from an anime. Ren couldn’t even blink, in fear he would miss whatever absurdity would happen next.

Backup eventually arrived, and they parked themselves a good distance away before aiming their guns. Some charged forward, others started shooting, and the redhead kept taking them down with ease as his… ally? partner? called out to him from a distance every so often. Eventually, all that was left were chasms in the ground, broken trees, and only the two men still standing. Even the long-haired man was down, seemingly locked in place by—again, that same red glow.

The two men dropped their attack stances and turned to face each other. They started talking, but it was slightly hushed and Ren couldn’t hear any of it. After a few minutes, the brunette turned to the side and extended an arm out, inviting the redhead to walk with him, and he did, heading into the run-down house as they continued to talk.

Once he was sure they were gone, Ren emerged from his hiding spot and trudged through the destruction to follow them. He stepped over limp, unconscious bodies hanging loosely from wherever their craters ended up, as well as bodies still writhing under the cage of that redhead’s power. But at least none of them were dead, right? Maruki-sensei wouldn’t let that happen.

They looked pretty fucking close to it, though.

He couldn’t take it anymore. He spun around and, as silently as he could manage, vomited into the earth. It left a bitter taste in his mouth, like coffee and ash.

Why was his counsellor just ignoring all of this? In his own Palace? His own reality? Wasn’t he fighting against things like this?

It felt like Ren was heaving forever. When he was finally done, he spat up whatever was left on his tongue and kicked some stray dirt on top of it, took a second to breathe, then crept over to the brick house and got back into his stealth position. He was slightly dizzy, but he had fought the top powers of the world in far worse conditions. He would not falter now.

He craned his head around the doorframe just in time to see the two men heading down the stairs. Only when he could no longer see the brunette’s hair peeking over the top did he inch forward, weaving through piles of dust and rotting wood to reach the top of the banister.

“Ugh,” someone’s voice echoed through the descending floors. Ren recognized it to be the brunette’s. “For crying out loud, this is the worst day I’ve had in years.”

His partner scoffed, “Yo, Dazai. You ever heard of Petrus?”

“Hm? The exorbitantly expensive wine?”

“The day you left the organization, I cracked open an ‘89 bottle to celebrate. That’s how fed up with you I was.”

“How sweet. I remember setting a bomb under your car that night.”

“Wait, what?! That was you?!” the redhead cried out. Ren stifled a tired laugh at the horror in his voice.

The rest of the descent gave him nothing else of interest, only some bickering between the two men that he didn’t care for, so he focused on the information he had already gathered instead. 

From what he had gotten so far, the brunette’s name—or codename. It would make sense, even if it was a strange codename to use—was Dazai, and he had a nullification power activated through touch. It wasn’t like any of the Persona skills Ren had seen before, but then again, the blonde and redhead were the same way, and Maruki- sensei was literally rewriting the Cognition of the whole world with his Persona. Maybe adults just had different skill sets?

Next, there was some sort of… organization that also had access to the Metaverse, one that neither Dazai nor the blonde man seemed to be a part of. And since those two also didn’t seem to be on the same side, Ren could safely assume there were at least three separate parties, outside of the Phantom Thieves, that were trying to accomplish something within the Palace. And whatever their goals were, they were clashing hard enough to warrant a fight that could level forests.

Finally, none of the men he had seen so far followed the same steps he did to activate their Personas.

Or… abilities. Ren still wasn’t sure why the blonde called them that. Surely he knew they were Personas, right? Ren had figured that out back in Kamoshida’s Palace. It was a piece of knowledge that slotted itself into his head on its own once he gained his rebellion, the same way he knew Arsène’s name without ever having to ask.

He ducked behind another banister when Dazai turned to face his partner. It was nowhere near big enough to properly conceal his body, so he just had to pray it was too dark for the man to see him. Thankfully, he wasn’t spotted, and after a few more teasing comments, the man spun around again to keep walking.

They eventually reached the basement which, unlike the rest of the floors, was spacious and fairly well lit. The two men headed to the center of the room while Ren lingered at the top of the staircase, sitting down on the first step and curling his torso in to peek through the stair rail. The redhead unhooked one of the lanterns on the wall and brought it closer, illuminating the one wall Ren was struggling to see.

When he could finally make out what was there, he screamed. Not out loud, only in his head, but he couldn’t stop the sharp inhale that did leave him.

There was a kid, looking barely any older than 13, stuck to the wall by a cluster of roots encasing their body. Their arms were outstretched by their head, their legs were wrapped in vines snaking all over them, and their head and neck were completely limp as they slept. It looked like some kind of fucked attempt at crucifixion. It was horrifying.

(But more than that, it was familiar. It was exactly how the man had dangled Sumire before him on the day he fought her Persona. Coiled tendrils wrapped around her arms and legs, neck left to lull forward without any support, eyes glued shut as her true self bore the brunt of the man's power.

Ren's stomach churned. His heart ached. Sumire...)

He really, really wanted to believe the kid was a Cognition, but that still meant his counsellor was at least thinking about something like this in the real world. Besides, the two men seemed pretty convinced that they were real.

The longer he stared, the more white-hot rage he started to feel. How did Ren and his team miss something like this? And just what the hell was Maruki-sensei doing to the innocent people he brought into his Palace?! He was starting to wish he did go and examine the “Counselling Rooms” instead of moving forward.

“Well, there he is,” Dazai said. “The Sleeping Beauty, awaiting his savior.”

The redhead scoffed, “Wouldn’t have gone with ‘Sleeping Beauty,’ but whatever.”

The men examined the scene for a few minutes, picking at the vines, fiddling with the doll on the chair in front of the kid, then pulled away to the side to discuss. Ren couldn’t hear a word of it. But eventually, they returned to the center, where the redhead hung back by the stairs as Dazai assessed things once more.

“Give me your knife,” the man said, extending a hand back to the redhead without even looking at him.

His partner was, understandably, a little suspicious, “Why?”

Dazai didn’t answer, only sinking a hand into his pocket and pulling out a knife anyway. Judging by the redhead’s face, it must have been his. The man waved it around for a few seconds, still not looking back at the other, then dropped his hand.

“God I hate you,” the redhead—it was the least of Ren’s worries at that moment, but he was really hoping that one of them would give him a name to use soon—grumbled, leaning back into the banister with his hands in his pockets. It groaned under his weight and sent the sound straight into Ren’s ear pressed on it.

Dazai stepped forward, undeterred by his partner’s complaining, and dragged the knife up the vines until he reached the boy’s neck. He pressed the blade into his skin, twisting the sharp edge up and down as the boy twitched in his sleep, and Ren felt his whole body tense up.

The room got quiet. It looked like both Dazai and his partner were waiting for the other to speak first. Eventually, Dazai sighed.

“So, you’re not gonna stop me?” he craned his neck around to look back, turning conveniently so that Ren couldn’t see his face.

“Well, my orders were to bring him back alive, but seeing his face again just reminds me of all the body bags my people came home in thanks to him,” the other man muttered. “Do what you want.”

“Alright, if you insist.”

Dazai tilted his head up as he stared at the kid. Slowly, he lifted the knife off his neck and brought it high above his head, spinning it around between his fingers for a few seconds, then slammed it down into the wall by his head. It cut through the restraints nicely.

Ren let out the breath he was holding in.

The redhead snorted, “Woah, you’ve gone soft. Didn’t think I’d see the day.”

Dazai hummed, continuing to hack away at the plants, “As long as Q is still alive, you guys need my ability as a countermeasure to his. You can call this a… precaution, to guarantee my safety.”

There it was again. Ability. Were they just trying to disguise their Personas under a different term? Why bother, when the man running the world they were in was a Persona user himself?

Though, they didn’t really have any way to know about that. The Phantom Thieves were the only ones so far who figured that out , even before learning that there was competition from these two and their respective groups. Ren felt a surge of warm pride for his team.

“Really now? I thought you would jump at the chance for an easy death.”

“Oh, absolutely. But why would I let you do the honors?”

The last vine was cut through and the kid—Q, apparently—fell forward into the crook of Dazai’s elbow, just barely missing the knife. The man pouted, turned around, and dumped him into the hands of his partner, who squawked at the sudden movement, but shuffled him onto his back anyway. He started to climb up the stairs as Dazai grabbed the doll from the chair, so Ren stood up and dashed his way back to the top and outside, wrapping his body around the wall once again and peeking through the door frame. He was careful not to look behind him. He wasn’t in the mood to throw up again.

It took a while for the men to reach the top as well, and he was getting cold, but it wasn’t the time to complain.

“Hey, Dazai,” he eventually heard someone say in a biting tone. “How about you give me that doll, you jerk?”

“No way! This doll right here is my insurance.”

Brown hair rose from the stairwell, followed by the top of a fancy hat.

“Fuckin’ asshole. I swear when we’re done with this I’m gonna—”

Something wrapped around Ren’s neck and, before he could even reach up to touch it, pulled him back and sent him flying through the air. He heard voices below, but couldn’t even scream in response as he was swung around blindly, for whatever rope—tentacle. He looked down and saw it. It was a tentacle—was latched onto his throat held so tightly that he couldn’t get a single word out.

Holy shit. Holy shit. What the fuck was happening.

He thrashed and flailed in the monster’s grasp, trying to get as much as he could out of the single breath of air still in his lungs.

Tentacles. He saw tentacles . They were lighter in color than the last time he had to deal with them, but the tears budding in Ren’s eyes were making it hard to see, so he wasn’t too sure. Was this the ambush, then? Took the man long enough, if he had to be critical, but at least this time he was the target and not Sumire.

(Maruki-sensei…)

Ren was just about to lose his vision when the monster let go, barreling him through the air to meet a wall headfirst. He tore a hole straight through it with his body, sending chunks of brick and cement dust flying, and fell onto his back inside the house, rolling further and further away until a broken plank eventually stopped him.

He coughed, trying to pull his body up with the little energy he still had in him. Air rushed back into his lungs, more than they allowed at once, and he wheezed out a pitiful sound as he finally heaved his body into a sitting position.

Something warm trickled down his face, the side of his neck, seeping between his fingers and soaking his sleeves wet. He blinked the spots from his eyes once, twice, then slowly lifted his throbbing head to check.

Blood.

For just a second, his heart somehow managed to both quicken and stop entirely at the same time.

Someone put their hand on his arm and he shoved them off, doing everything he could to retain his consciousness as he stumbled back onto his feet. He only lasted a few seconds upright before toppling to the ground again. His ears were ringing, his nose hurt, there was blood, so much blood there was never blood before it was all Cognitive injuries never blood—

(“Are you religious, Amamiya- kun ?” Akechi-kun had asked him one day—well before Shido Masayoshi, or Niijima-san , or anything like that.

Ren had bitten his cheek to keep from smiling, but eventually answered no. He’d left out his reasoning.

It was hard to commit to religion when he had the mortal depictions of every God and Demon throughout history in his back pocket. He was sure that if he really tried, he could, but they just weren’t all that omnipotent looking when they were the ones bowing to him. Though, he did have to admit that they were all, in many, many ways, his saviors.)

“... Persona.”

He whispered out the word, airy and light, making the blood gushing from his nose bubble between his lips.

- ~ -

“Oi, Dazai!” Chuuya sprinted back outside to find the man, who was standing outside the house and watching the abomination of an ability before them. He’d left the new kid inside with Q after he was pushed off. It wasn’t like either of them would be going anywhere. “What’s the plan?”

Dazai scoffed, ever the fucker he was, “What do you mean, ‘What’s the plan?’ With my gift, all I have to do it touch them with one iiiitty bitty finger and—”

Chuuya didn’t warn him about the massive tentacle that was soaring over to hit them, assuming that the man wouldn’t need his help with something as simple as dodging. Though, thinking about it again, the man didn’t really need to worry about attacks that couldn’t even touch him.

But this one did. It hit him. It rammed into the crook of his neck and sent him flying into a tree, pulling clouds of dirt all around him.

“Dazai!” Chuuya called out. Another tentacle appeared by his head, so he spun around and sent a firm, gravity-amplified punch into it, enough to shred through the whole ugly thing all the way back to the wielder’s arm. He went sprinting after Dazai the second he was done.

The man was struggling to get back on his feet, and was leaning his whole body on the tree for support.

Chuuya stopped a foot away from him and bent down, “Hey, are you okay?”

“Y—yeah,” he smiled weakly. The blood dripping from his forehead did not help his case.

“No you’re not,” he straightened up. “What happened back there?”

“Those—those tentacles are quite strange. I can’t nullify them with my ability.”

“No way…”

“There are no exceptions to my nullification, which leaves only one possible answer…” he trailed off for a second, looking over at the man. Chuuya did the same. “That power isn’t an ability at all.”

“What?!” Chuuya gaped, then forced out a laugh. “Come on, you gotta be joking, right?”

Dazai shook his head and pulled himself off the tree.

“If it’s not an ability, then just what is it?”

“Who's to say?” Dazai shrugged. “We’ll just do things the old fashioned way until we figure that out.”

Chuuya looked back at him with a raised brow, “Oh really?”

The man grinned, and slung his free hand on his hip, “How about operation ‘Shame and—'”

He didn’t get to finish his sentence, or maybe Chuuya just didn’t hear the rest of it, as a little flicker of blue caught his eye instead. 

The brick house exploded in cerulean flame.

- ~ -

Ren noticed Q next to him just a second too late, causing stray embers of his Persona manifestation to catch on the kid’s clothes. He wasn’t sure if the soul-fire hurt other people—it definitely didn’t hurt him, nor did it seem to hurt any of his teammates when they came in contact with him mid-transformation—but he didn’t want to risk it. So he pushed past the sour pang in his chest, the fragile rip in his soul that came whenever he didn’t choose a summon by the time his flames consumed him, to rush forward and pat the boy clean of fire. Then he picked him up and set him in the corner, hidden by a few planks of wood, and rushed out of the house.

The fire came just fine, which implied some sort of Metaverse connection, but his costume still hadn’t appeared. He still wasn’t considered an enemy, even after getting flung around like a ragdoll by Maruki-sensei—

He stepped out, and was immediately met with another tentacle slamming into his side. It tried to curl around his waist, likely to grab and toss him around again, but he weaved through the attack just before it could. He pushed it away, took a few steps to the side, then dodged its next three attempts with practiced ease, using the pauses in between to try and pick who he would summon. Another drop of blood rolled down his cheek. He pulled himself out of it; he could think about that later.

He ducked, then jumped, then ducked once more. He had yet to notice any weaknesses, but then again, he hadn’t actually done any attacks of his own yet. God, he sucked at navigation. Where was Futaba when he needed her? Morgana? At this point, he would even take Akechi-kun , even after all the yelling that nearly made him deaf.

He blocked another attack with the side of his forearm. It stung like Ann’s whip during training—nevermind that. He didn’t have time to reminisce. What he needed to do right now was search for a weakness. His head and nose still hurt like nothing he’d felt before, so his health was likely pretty low after the ambush too. Meaning he should also prioritize healing himself before he got close.

Alright. Attack from a distance while he healed. Nothing he hadn’t done before.

He ducked his hand down to his shin, checking the pocket in his cargo pants where he kept his spare gun, and wrapped his palm securely around the handle. Then, in one swift movement, he pulled it out and aimed it right at his target’s face. He faltered.

In the corner of his eye, he noticed the two men sprinting his way. The redhead was screaming something out to him, but he couldn’t bring himself to focus on it, as he was getting his first, real look at the monster that attacked him.

That… wasn’t his counsellor. That thing wasn’t even human.

It looked just like the long-haired man, and a glance at the empty crater where he last saw him told Ren that it was that man, but he stepped back in shock all the same. It moved in slow, clumsy shuffles, muttering incomprehensibly to itself as it drew closer. Its eyes were gone, leaving caverns of pitch black in its eye sockets, and its arms were divided into sets of four, writhing tentacles attached to each shoulder. Its neck was completely dislocated, swiveling in a full 360 both ways, alternating between each step. Everything about it screamed inhuman. A shadow.

His body sagged into itself in relief. Thank god.

“I saw you… I wanted to come talk to you… but work was making me busy…” it moaned the words ominously, twisting its neck around in another full rotation. Its voice didn’t carry the same distortion as a typical shadow, but Ren didn’t care. Finally, there was something in this whole place that he recognized. That he understood .

This, he could manage. He plastered on his signature Joker grin, the one which his friends always had to suppress their shivers at, and pulled the trigger.

His gun didn’t fire.

He waited, for the familiar recoil when a bullet eventually shot out, for the piercing sound that would always ring in his right ear after the fact, but nothing came. He tried again, then a few more times, but there was still nothing. His grin dropped, snatched from his face without warning, and he took a step back.

One more time, and nothing.

All over again, he became distinctly aware of the blood . It clung to him like a second skin, and was already drying in thick, tacky layers that crumbled with each movement. He smelled iron, so much of it, and his body itched like a thousand needles sinking into his skin. 

The last time he had felt this much caked on him, he realized, was when he first tore off his mask in April, marking the birth of Joker and starting this whole endeavor. He really missed his mask.

“Kid!” someone called out to him, voice sharp, yet he barely heard it over the sound of his labored breaths. His vision was starting to double. “The hell are you doing?!”

He followed the voice, as distant as it sounded, turning his head back to look at the two men. His lips flapped like a fish’s as he tried to explain, or maybe defend himself, just say something Ren —but he couldn’t get a single word out.

The redhead groaned, and turned to face the shadow, tossing his jacket to the brunette, “God—when I’m done with this shit, you’re coming with us. Hear me?”

He nodded. He couldn’t find it in himself to do anything else. 

The shadow took another swipe at him that he backed away from, leaving an opening for the man to step in front and charge forward. He pushed Ren aside—leaving him stumbling until he landed in Dazai’s outstretched arm—to grab hold of the tentacle and yank it into a straight line, giving him something to hold onto as he climbed atop a second one and began striding up. Ren watched in horror, admiration, as he leaped between them like a staircase of flesh to reach the source.

“Cool, isn’t it?” Dazai nudged Ren, who didn’t answer. He did notice, from a quick, slightly bothered glance at the man, that he no longer held the redhead’s coat, having tossed it somewhere on the ground. He ignored it to gawk at the fight again.

The redhead eventually landed by its shoulder and threw a couple of punches—quick, sharp blows, though the monster didn’t even react to them—before lurching his body backwards to send a kick straight into its jaw, making them both glow red again as the force pushed it high into the air. He dropped to the ground, cracking the packed dirt beneath him into another chasm, then shot up again just as fast to meet the shadow above them. He grabbed it by the neck, fingers wrapped so tight on its throat that Ren almost expected him to squeeze off its head, and pulled his free hand back like he was charging up. Then, without warning, he slammed a closed fist into its chest hard enough to break through skin and whatever monstrous innards it had. 

It was such a powerful blow that chunks of black matter emerged from its back along with his arm, and it let out a hollow, inhuman screech as its legs flailed. Its movements were wild and uncontrolled, but he held firm, the distraction giving him a chance to swing his feet up and push it into the earth. It came crashing down, sending dirt and debris all over, and leaving the haunting shatter of bone to ring throughout. It didn’t get back up.

The battlefield was silent, save for the faint buzzing in Ren’s ears.

“My ability…” a voice appeared, pulling Ren out of his stupor. He looked up to see the man staring down at him, still cruising through the air. The man’s eyes narrowed when they made eye contact, and he straightened up, evidently not planning to continue his train of thought.

He eventually lowered himself to the ground again, losing the glow as he trotted back to Ren and Dazai. Speaking of Dazai, Ren finally noticed the man’s arm slung around his shoulder, and promptly shuffled away.

“Alright kid, explain yourself,” the redhead put a hand on his hip and leaned forward. “Are you another member of the Guild?”

The Guild? Was that one of the new groups? He slowly shook his head.

“Then what the hell are you doing here? Spying on us like that, were you after Q as well?”

He frowned, and shook his head again.

“Wow, your interrogating skills need some work,” Dazai muttered cheekily, earning him a pummel to his unbroken arm.

The redhead looked up at his partner, then back to him and sighed, “Okay, we’re not gonna get anywhere like this. I’m taking you back with me; maybe the Boss’ll know what to do with you. What’s your name?”

He opened his mouth to answer, to feed them his codename and some cocky banter the way Joker always did when he was cornered, and tasted metal. He froze. His nose was still spewing, his glasses were tinted with smudges of crimson, his fingertips were ripped wide open and the line of exposed muscle traveled all the way down to his knuckles. He took one more deep breath in, and everything started to hurt again.

Even just clutching the gun proved to be a challenge, as his hand trembled and his hold on it started to slip atop the rivers of blood seeping down, staining the crevices, dripping along the barrel and pooling in a little collection on the ground.

If there was anything left in his stomach, Ren was sure it would come up eventually. Though, at this rate, and from how much metal he was swallowing, he seemed to be filling up pretty quickly.

“Kid? You still there?”

He felt a firm shove against his shoulder, then another, and it also hurt, but he couldn’t pull his head up to acknowledge it. Instead, he keeled over and heaved out a few, watery coughs.

When he opened his eyes again, his vision was full of spots. He felt sticky.

“God, it’s back up again?”

Could this even be fixed? The only reason he bled in Kamoshida’s Palace was because his body hadn’t made the switch from physical to cognitive, done when his Metaverse costume was activated. But he wasn’t the one who controlled when it appeared, the Palace ruler was, so it didn’t matter if he could still pull the flames out of his soul if he had nothing to show for it. Never mind healing, would he even be able to summon a Persona at all like this?

The rip in his soul ached. He felt their warmth, but it only closed him in further.

And he couldn’t even fall back on his gun this time. What the hell happened to his gun?!

“Alright, just take him somewhere else. I’ll deal with this.”

With a trembling grip, he slowly pulled his hand up to examine the gun and pick open the chamber. It was completely empty.

But that made no sense. The shadow had no way to know his gun was fake, so the basic rules of Cognition said that he should have had bullets. But somehow, he didn’t.

“Hey, what are you waiting for?”

Someone tugged on his arm, trying to pull him to the right, but he didn’t budge. They tried again, stretching his arm out until it was fully extended, but still, his feet had dug a place in the dirt for him, refusing to let him go. The ground shook yet again, something blew past his face in a rush of air, and then pushed his whole body back as his elbow flashed with pain. He toppled backwards to the sound of a hitched breath that wasn’t his own.

He hit the ground so hard that the shock rippled through his whole body, only amplifying the already excruciating pain pulsing through him, now with the added agony in his right arm. It took him longer than he’d have liked to gain control of himself again, even if it was minimal. But he couldn’t help it, not when he noticed a surge of teal light radiating off the shadow’s body as it stood back up, slowly enveloping it the way his flames would on himself. It was… horrifying. Was this what he looked like in his transformation? He shuddered, but the action only made his body sting more.

The light seemed to struggle, fading on and off, twisting the shadow’s body every which way like it was fighting to even stay in reality, until it was completely enveloped. Then suddenly, the light started to contort, growing steadily until it towered over even the highest trees in the forest, and faded away, leaving a cluster of sickly green mass in its place. The number of squirming tentacles were doubled, tripled, maybe even more than that, and the empty eye sockets were gone, likely buried under the heaps of added flesh. And at the very top, there were wings, eerily akin to a bat’s.

This was it. The shadow unmasked. Its true form revealed.

He couldn’t recognize it, despite having filled out the entire Compendium of Shadows, but he blamed it on the hot pain flashing through his arm and clouding his focus. He choked out a sob as another pulse of hurt coursed through his body, making Dazai look back at him. His eyes were wide, and he was slightly pale, crossing his free arm over his broken one.

Ren’s neck didn’t want to move. He forced it to anyway, though it was shaky, as he slowly turned to check. 

Everything up to his elbow was gone, slashed clean off and hurled somewhere into the forest. Only a mangled mess of drooping tendrils and blood remained attached to his body.

His mouth fell open in a silent scream. Dazai pinched his chin in thought, darting his gaze between Ren’s curled frame and the shadow. The redhead hadn’t noticed yet, but looked over when Ren finally managed to get some sound out and gasped.

“Holy—Dazai! Do something about that!” he lifted one arm to block a strike, and pointed at Ren with the other.

“And what exactly do you think I should do?”

“I don’t know!” he stomped hard on a tentacle trying to sweep him off his footing, then came running back to Ren. “Can you stand?

He reached forward, trying to hook his arm under Ren’s armpit and lift him up. He shrugged the man off immediately, but it felt more like a flinch. And it only hurt him more.

“I can—I can fix this!” he screamed, batting away the redhead’s next few attempts. He felt a second hand grab his head, and he craned his neck to try and bite it. Only then did the man pull away. “Don’t touch me!”

Dazai tilted his head, but the gesture was tossed aside in Ren’s mind when his partner scoffed again, “Yeah, okay. Just leave him here then, it’s less work for me.”

He made to rush back to the shadow, but was stopped by Dazai locking arms with him. They glared at each other for a few seconds, Dazai sneaking glances at Ren that he was too weak to think about, until eventually the redhead sighed and pulled his hand away, backing up with his partner until they were leaning on the nearest tree, watching him.

He didn’t have the voice to call them out on it, not when his arm was still spewing blood for his jeans to sop up. He needed to act, and quickly, or this really would be where he died.

(But… his costume… his gun…

His Persona…?)

He shook his head with a growl, one that came out much more animalistic than he intended. This wasn’t the time to doubt himself. 

“Messiah Picaro!” he called out to the very depths of his soul.

It was a painstricken, broken sound, closer to a whistle of air than an actual war cry. Another string of flames emerged from his chest, quickly engulfing the rest of him and for just a second, everything felt like normal. But then they reached his arm, blood y and amalgamated where his hand was fucking missing , and they poured over the wound like lava. It hurt. It never hurt before. Ren screamed as a wash of fresh agony swept through his body.

After what felt like forever, the flames finally lifted off of him to materialize his Persona above him, removing the fiery burn from his wound and leaving only the spikes of pain to linger. He was careful not to look at it.

Ribbons of light came together with his fire to shape its body, deep reds, greys, and blacks atop a metal frame. The sparkling gold accessories were the next to materialize: chains on its wrist, a ring of jagged points and large wings hovering behind it, and a matching headband of protruding spikes on its head. Finally, a checkered cloth draped over its mouth, and a set of black and red coffins appeared from the last flecks of flame to trail from its fingers.

It spun around once, cementing its manifestation in the eyes of everyone watching, and lowered itself to float by Ren’s hunched over frame. He could feel its worry melting off of it, and its roaring determination for him to cast a spell, take its power—do it, Trickster.

A hand fell on his shoulder, and he shoved it off. Behind him, someone fell to the ground with a whiny cry. He didn’t care.

Reverberate... Oratorio! he screeched silently, for Messiah Picaro’s ears only. And then, lifting his head up and taking in the biggest breath he’d gotten in days, he screamed, “Persona!”

Immediately, he felt a gush of energy wash over him. Strands of light formed by his knees, followed by pillars of rainbows that surrounded his entire body, blocking the rest of the world from view entirely. He could still hear the outside; the shouting redhead was making his ears ring, but he ignored it. The visceral ache in his body, his arm , vanished immediately as the blood and tendrils that had been spewing out of him slowly returned. They slithered across his skin, unraveling from their knotted state to disappear back within his wound. A final splash of light coated his limb, then dissipated in a flash to reveal his arm reattached, completely working, with his airsoft gun back in hand.

The spell was complete, and the barrier of color lowered to reveal him to the world again, clothes stain-free, arm as good as new, and a new determination burning through his heart. Messiah Picaro slipped into a battle stance behind him, sending a surge of confidence through their shared soul. 

(It worked. He still had a chance.

Before anything else, he traded his relief for fiery anger, giving his arm one last strain, and grinned so violently that he himself shivered at the feeling.)

He didn’t care anymore, not about the eyes he could feel on him from the men, or the rows of bodies lining the field he was about to barrel down, or the massive shadow he was raving to combat. After all he’d seen, done, become in these short few minutes, all he wanted to do anymore was fight.

He pressed his hands in the ground and raised his legs, mimicking Ryuji back in Shido’s Palace, and took off sprinting. Messiah Picaro followed close behind. He pointedly ignored the redhead’s next screech at him, but a quick glance at the two men revealed a sight he wasn’t expecting.

They were surprised. More than that, they were shocked. Like they had never seen something like this before.

He was just barely starting to understand why.

He dodged a tentacle swung at him, nodded to Messiah Picaro, and promptly split off, sliding under another one as he made his way to the soldiers. He left his Persona to keep circling the monster, weaving between its limbs and keeping it distracted while he searched through the destruction.

Agneyastra, he chanted in his head to trigger a charge-up, and looked above to where the sky was starting to turn gold. The real sky.

He felt the grass tickle the sides of his feet through his sandals, the wind catch on his face and hair as he ran, and gave himself the courtesy of finally figuring out what was happening.

He was in his physical form, unable to call upon his costume despite the visible threat on his life. The world around him screamed real life, and his gun no longer followed the rules of Cognition, now acting like a simple model gun. And yet he was here, fighting a shadow, summoning a Persona.

(“And as such, you’re still able to use your abilities from the Metaverse in the real world. Though, I doubt you’ve ever tried,” Maruki-sensei chuckled. The sound grated against Ren’s shaky breaths. Akechi-kun’s eyes were wide, but he quickly fixed himself with a scoff, though the man didn’t seem to care. “It’s not like you ever had a reason to assume you could.”)

He stumbled. Damn it…

It didn’t explain the fantastical powers that the other men seemed to possess, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care. It explained enough, and that was all he needed.

Wherever he was, it wasn’t the Palace. It wasn’t even the Metaverse. This was real.

- ~ -

“Holy shit… what the hell was that? What is happening?” Chuuya whispered next to him.

Dazai could agree with that sentiment wholeheartedly. Whoever this boy was, whatever his powers could be, was incredible.

At first, he was simply running in circles around Lovecraft as his hologram, ghost, whatever it was flew in the opposite direction. But then, he ducked under a tentacle and slid across the clearing to where all the dead soldiers were left, scouring the field until he eventually pulled a gun from the dirt. He fumbled with it in his hands for a few seconds, like maybe he wasn’t used to a model like that, but aimed it at Lovecraft anyway and rapid-fired with pinpoint accuracy, shredding off three of his tentacles all the way up to the shoulder. They bubbled and fizzed, and chunks of limb and black matter writhed in the air as they fell to the ground. Not a single bullet missed its target. Chuuya gawked at his perfect aim.

His summon, as Dazai eventually decided he would call it, continued to circle Lovecraft aimlessly without actually touching him. Interesting. Was it waiting for a command? The boy hadn’t said anything after announcing its name—Messiah Picaro. The Rogue Messiah. What could that mean?—so maybe it couldn’t attack until the boy directed it to. Regardless, it was a good distraction, keeping Lovecraft’s attention elsewhere as the boy rained bullets on him. 

After a while, when the boy seemed to finally run out, it began waving its arms in various directions that Dazai couldn’t make sense of. But then it dropped its hands and a rush of light appeared above them; a short glance up revealed it to be the sky, shining a brilliant golden hue and splitting the once-grey clouds to make perfect, circular holes of light. They didn’t do anything, not yet at least, almost like an attack was being charged up.

So it was capable of sentience. Or was the boy feeding it orders, only silently? Telepathy maybe? God, this was amazing.

Lovecraft flailed one more time, seemingly rooted in place while in his new form, and the summon dropped its hands just as the ring of spikes on its back shifted forward. Then, without warning, a blinding light descended from behind the clouds, closely resembling a comet from how Dazai squinted to make out its shape among the brightness. It was followed quickly by another, then another, and a good few more, aimed directly at each of Lovecraft’s now exposed innards. They burned straight through him, drilling holes through his body before finally dissipating once they hit the ground. The man screeched at the sudden onslaught. It was a vile, awful sound.

He would be so much more impressed at the sight if he wasn’t busy thinking of something else entirely. Something vital that he had just learned. Something horrible.

He snuck a glance at Chuuya. He wouldn’t tell him yet, or anyone else, for that matter. Not if his thoughts were correct and this new boy would, in fact, require the Mafia and the Agency to work together again in the future. He needed more information before he could even think about clueing the other man in. He turned back to the fight, where things seemed to be reaching their end.

Eventually, the attacks died down, and the sky returned to the dusty, sinister grey it was before. Lovecraft was gone, reduced to a bubbling black ooze mingling with the dirt. After a few more seconds of staring, Chuuya snapped out of it and started running around the forest, searching for Steinbeck. He came back with the man floating behind him just as the boy let his summon vanish. This time, there was no fire, or anything at all to signal that he was dropping his defenses. He had a feeling that Chuuya wouldn’t even have noticed if the boy turned tail and ran right then.

But he didn’t. How stupid.

The boy stumbled his way back to them, tripping over his own feet and swaying his arms absently. He looked completely dazed, scared, which would’ve been understandable had he been acting anything like a regular teenager, but he clearly wasn’t one. Save for a few attacks, the boy had evaded Lovecraft’s offense with ease, then handled a gun he seemed unfamiliar with perfectly, and eventually annihilated the man with enough force to accomplish a massacre. It took longer than Dazai would have liked to wait for the boy to reach them, and a sideways glance at Chuuya said he was thinking the same thing. But eventually, they were face to face again, and the boy spoke first.

“Please… just—” he clammed up, his mouth trembling, and pressed his hands together and held them to his forehead. “Please help me. I—I don’t know where I am, and my—”

Chuuya whipped his leg up and kicked the side of his head. It wasn’t that hard of a strike, but only because they both could tell he was seconds away from passing out on his own, and that even just a tap on the shoulder would have sent him into the dirt just as fast. He fell to the ground unceremoniously, completely unconscious. They waited a few seconds, watching, and Chuuya finally let his shoulders relax.

“Jeez, glad that’s over with,” he mumbled.

“Yep! It’s a shame I never got to use this, though,” Dazai sighed, yanking off his cast in one motion and tossing it to Chuuya, who stared at it in a mix of shock and disdain. “Hold that until we get back.”

“Hell no,” he turned around and launched it into the forest. “What the hell were you gonna ‘use’ that for?”

Dazai shrugged, fiddling with the detonator in his sleeve. He tapped the pad of his thumb on the button, and a good dozen trees blew up behind them. Silly Chuuya jumped, letting out a string of curses, then turned to give him a fierce glare he ignored.

“You were gonna do that while I was holding it, weren’t you?!”

He shrugged, grabbing the teen by the armpits as the Hatrack stood up, likely to fetch Q, “I don’t know, was I?”

“I swear…”

- ~ -

You’ll understand me eventually.

I’m sure of it now.

But still, I’m sorry.

Chapter Text

- ~ -

Nothing happened.

No, plenty of things happened. Outside, it started to rain. In the other room, faint chatter picked up again, the loudest voice also being the sharpest, pointed and of childish, feminine cadence. And within the clinic, Ren abandoned his own body to focus on his mind, biting back the army of Personas haunting the walls of his soul at only the single word uttered. His legs tensed, his knees sprung up to his chest, his head buried itself between them entirely on its own. And his lips clamped together, silent despite the creatures clawing their way up his throat for an attack he had no choice but to push back down.

For the first time since unlocking his abilities, Ren had to bury his other self. He had to hide behind his mask once again. 

He didn’t want to, but it was the only way to avoid further suspicion. The look in Dazai-san’s eye, that flickered just a second longer than comfortable, convinced Ren that he was being sniffed out. It didn’t help that he had no idea what having an ability constituted, but according to Nakahara-san, his Personas seemed to fit the criteria. And he had seen for himself how Dazai-san’s “nullification through touch” ability affected other wielders.

Which meant he had to look like the man’s hand on his arm was affecting him.

If even an ounce of power, a single glint of blue fire, escaped him now…

He bit his tongue and chose not to think about it.

This had to work.

- ~ -

Nothing happened.

Chuuya was beyond relieved. The boy had clearly been preparing to use his ability, maybe to break out of the clinic or, at the very least, hurt the two of them. And after everything they went through, Steinbeck and Lovecraft and that Q, the last thing Chuuya wanted to see was that the boy’s powers also couldn’t be nullified by Dazai.

Amamiya-kun started to twitch, causing his eyes to bug out of his head. His breathing quickened, and apparently so did his heart rate, as the monitors around him went batshit crazy. It was an understandable reaction, especially since the boy had no way to know his powers were being nullified and weren’t just broken. It was even kind of refreshing, if Chuuya was being honest.

Watching someone break under the bastard’s ability felt like a new experience every single time.

Dazai and Chuuya watched on, as Amamiya-kun curled into himself, locked his limbs, and froze.

- ~ -

Eventually, the boy shocked himself into moving again, blinking his consciousness back into the room as he seemingly fought to push air back into his lungs. Dazai watched it all with a raised brow.

Wow, that looked fake.

“What the hell is happening?!” Amamiya-kun gasped out the words once he finally broke his head away from his knees, whipping around to face the brunette in horror. “Why can’t—why can’t I summon them?!”

Chuuya’s brows shot up, and he rushed to scribble something in his clipboard. Dazai wanted to lean over and take a peek, see just what conclusions the hatrack was coming to without his guidance, but found he couldn’t look away from the boy.

“Oh? You mentioned this before, but, ‘them?’ How interesting!” he smiled. “You have more than one of those, then?”

As he expected, his question went ignored. Instead, Amamiya-kun pointed a shaky finger at the IV stand, “What was… in there? How did you do—”

“Kid. Calm down,” Chuuya placed a hand on his ankle, which was buried under the blanket, but the boy flinched anyway. He kicked the man away desperately.

“Don’t touch me! You—” his mouth clamped shut, and for a second, things were calm again. He slowly craned his neck back to Dazai in perfect rhythm with his softened hyperventilations, then carefully darted his gaze down to the man’s hand, wrapped around his arm like it had been since they started.

He screamed.

“What did you do to me?! Bring them back!”

He clawed at the hand, trying desperately to scrape him off, but Dazai barely felt a thing.

“Ah, No Longer Human really is incredible,” he sighed, oozing fondness. “You know, I would even call it the most superior ability of all time! Don’t you think, Chuuya?”

He shot a glance at the redhead, who nodded.

“What?” the boy’s face scrunched up and he narrowed his eyes at Dazai. “What is that?”

“His ability. No Longer Human,” Chuuya proclaimed with what sounded like—pride? He didn’t think the slug could act. “Complete nullification of any other ability and all of its effects.”

“Chuuya! Don’t reveal all my secrets so easily,” Dazai pouted. The midget rolled his eyes.

The boy choked on air, which pulled their attention back to him. “That—you’re lying. It’s a book.”

That caught Dazai’s interest. It definitely wasn’t the reaction he expected.

It also pissed Chuuya off. Dazai caught him reaching for his dagger once more and tapped out a message on the chair that made the redhead drop his hand.

While that was happening, the boy looked to be collecting himself again. Dazai estimated at most a few more sentences before he played at another breakdown.

“That’s—that’s…” Amamiya-kun trembled, then looked over at Chuuya. “His’sa book, so yours is… a—a poem?”

Dazai sucked on his tongue, waiting. The boy had quite an interesting way of analyzing his surroundings. He seemed obsessed with literature, yet his claims and connections were nonsensical at best. It was cryptic, and at the same time, desperate. As if he was searching for some basis, no matter how outlandish it was, to understand either of them. Almost like a carefully encoded cry for help.

He called them authors. Was that his organization’s way of ranking people? And based on what, abilities? According to the boy, those were called “Books,” and “Poems.”

Oh, and just who were these people to be talking about the infamous Soukouku?

He watched as Amamiya-kun’s eyes glazed over, likely his way of focusing, until his whole body tensed and he started to flail.

“God, I can’t think like this!” the boy sobbed. “Let go of me!”

And there it was again. The boy’s reactions to Dazai’s ability or Chuuya’s threat on his life, as logical as they were, were so clearly fake. A pitiful attempt at acting.

And yet, when he spoke in trashy riddles, leading the Slug in circles, it was somehow the most genuine thing Dazai ever heard.

He didn’t get to analyze it further, as Chuuya’s chair screeched back again and his booming voice quickly colonized the room.

“Hey. Hey,” he waved a hand in front of the boy’s face. “Pull your shit together, punk.”

“You’re not making any sense!” he sobbed. He tried one more time to yank his hand away, but Dazai held firm. 

“No, kid, you’re the one who’s being ridiculous. If it were up to me, I would’ve gotten rid of you before this even started, but for some reason, my Boss thinks you’ve got value. That’s the only reason you’re sitting here still in one piece.”

Amamiya-kun sniffed and rubbed his nose. Chuuya only scoffed, “But that could change real fucking quick if you don’t cooperate. So stop being difficult. You’re lucky to even be alive right now.”

“Now, now, Chuuya,” Dazai leaned back in his chair, a placating gesture that did nothing to calm the other man down. “Let him have his little temper tantrum. Besides, I believe you’ve asked all your questions, haven’t you?”

Chuuya turned back to him, scanning his face with narrow eyes. Dazai simply blinked, as innocently as he could, until the redhead tilted his head up in subtle understanding.

Amamiya-kun let out another string of sobs, snotty and ugly, and Chuuya pinched his nose bridge and sighed. 

“I’ll get the Boss. You, stay here until I’m back.”

Dazai smiled and tilted his head, “I’ll be waiting.”

Chuuya nodded, then turned to the bawling teen, “And you, fix yourself. You’re to be in the presence of the Port Mafia Boss soon, and he’s a lot less lenient than I am.”

He gave Dazai another firm glare that he didn’t bother decoding, and collected his things to walk out of the room. Dazai waited—he watched carefully for the light to disappear and the door to slam shut—before dropping the grin and leaning back into Amamiya-kun. He had to give the kid some credit; he definitely had the Slug fooled.

It would take a lot more to convince him, though.

"You're a little liar,” Dazai whispered. “In every possible way."

- ~ -

“Ah, Chuuya-kun . I take it things went well?”

“As well as they could have, Boss. There were some mishaps, and not all of your questions were answered, but we got pretty far with him.”

“Excellent. Leave the clipboard here. Once Dazai-kun gives the signal, I’ll put him back under and review your work with the footage.”

“You weren’t watching through the cameras?”

“Unfortunately, no. I’ve been hosting meetings with the different factions all of today. Speaking of, I’ve scheduled you to stand in for my overseeing the newest shipments, as things with this boy seem just a little more important right now.”

“Yes, Boss. I’ll be there.”

“Ah, don’t leave just yet. Your appearance isn’t for another hour, and I’d like to speak with you.”

- ~ -

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh my, you calmed down quickly. I was expecting at least another minute of clumsy hysterics before we got to this point.”

The boy dropped his gaze, peeling off the mask of hopelessness he’d been wearing for something more meek. What a shame. Dazai wanted to toy with that farce for at least a little longer.

Oh, well. He still had a job to get done.

It did suck that he had to pick apart the kid in the Port Mafia buildings of all places, though, especially in one of its most guarded areas and directly connected to Mori-san’s office. But he would make do. He had to. After all, the unknown was the biggest threat to Yokohama, and the boy in front of Dazai was the definition of unknown. For his city to stay alright, Dazai would just have to broadcast his thoughts on Amamiya Ren for everyone working to protect it.

And that would start with Mori-san’s cameras hiding in every corner of the room.

“Amamiya-kun, let me explain the nature of abilities to you.”

The boy looked up at Dazai through his curly bangs, chewing inelegantly on his lip. Terrified.

“Alright.”

- ~ -

“An ability is just as alive as its host; it dies when they die. They’re intrinsically connected to the soul,” Dazai-san explained. Ren perked up slightly at the information; he had no reason to trust it, but it was better than nothing.

And it aligned with Nakahara-san’s assumption that he had one. Abilities really did sound similar to Personas.

“Would you guys…” he started. Dazai-san immediately shut his mouth to listen. “Call your abilities something like ‘Your True Self?'”

The man titled his head, “A true self? Huh, maybe. If looked at in such a lens, I guess you could call them that. Though, I prefer calling them an extension of the self, hidden only in the souls of the gifted until their awakening.”

Awakening… 

“Now, you said that if you died, whatever mechanisms you have trapping these creatures would disappear and they would be free to roam Earth. I think that’s a lie, and a pitiful one at that. Am I correct?” he raised an eyebrow. Ren opened his mouth to speak, but the man didn’t give him a chance. “I mean, for one, it doesn’t at all explain how you’re able to choose who you call or how you can channel their power like it's your own.”

Ren froze.

"But let's say you weren't lying, and that the beings you control would break free if you died. In that case, why would they bother coming to your aid? Why not leave you to die, thereby setting them free and letting them rule over all of Earth? I've never heard of anyone, much less creatures of that caliber, sacrificing so much of themselves to help their own captor."

A second passed, and Dazai-san laughed.

“Well, maybe I have, but you don’t seem like that kind of captor.”

“You don’t understand how it works,” Ren mumbled, suddenly afraid of speaking any louder than that. “You… there are certain things we have to do for—”

"What things? ‘We’ as in both you and your summons? Can you talk to them?"

Ren didn’t answer. He didn’t think Dazai-san needed him to.

"That’s… incredible. Do they need to be released to speak to you? Or can you communicate even when they’re not summoned?”

He pursed his lips shut and looked away.

“Aw, you won’t answer?”

Again, he said nothing. 

"Well, then. I'll just tell you a little secret instead," Dazai-san leaned in, going straight for Ren’s ear, and lowered his voice. "Dear Chuuya was never going to kill you."

He shivered.

“His boss is adamant you stay alive, and Chuuya is quite the lap dog for that man. You really didn't need to give us the information you did, even if it was in the form of shoddy lies, but I’m glad you did,” he pulled back and buried the hand not on Ren’s arm under the bed frame, where Ren couldn’t see it. His face glowered with intensity. “It just means I can’t half-ass this, and unlike Chuuya—”

Before Ren could even take in his breath, the man’s hand was millimeters away from his eye, clutching the needle from his IV like a dagger.

“I have nothing to stop me from killing you right now. Unless, of course, you can find something else to say that would be useful.”

Neither of them said a word after that. But Ren wasn’t scared. He was nervous, but not scared.

No matter how terrifying the situation was, how even just blinking proved to be too much as his eyelashes grazed against the sharp point when he tried, he didn’t feel the same rush of panic as when Nakahara-san held the actual knife to his neck. He knew he should have, the man in front of him was somehow infinitely more threatening than the other. Plus, while he still had his healing abilities, he wasn’t completely sure how they functioned now that they worked outside of the Metaverse. All he knew was that they could regenerate a limb a minute after it was hacked off, and he didn’t really want his next learning experience to be on a gutted eye socket.

Still, he wasn’t scared.  

Maybe it was because Dazai-san was the actual detective between the two interrogators. They had seemed to be doing some sort of “good cop, bad cop” routine at first, though that all went out the door when Nakahara-san did. But despite the sudden switch up, Ren truly didn’t believe the detective would do anything.

(The small, dark corner of his brain thought of Akechi- kun before he could stop it. Damnit. Maybe that was why he was feeling nervous.

If he was wrong…

Well, at that moment, he really needed to be right.)

Though, even if the man wasn’t going to kill him, he definitely didn’t look like he was going to pull away any time soon. After some nervous thinking, the teen eventually decided to just give him what he wanted.

He hoped whoever was behind the cameras was enjoying the show. He also hoped that the monitor they were watching it on would blow up in their face.

“They…need to be released. I’ve never been able to talk to them otherwise.”

“Telepathically, or by using your voices?”

“...Both.”

Dazai-san hummed, but he still didn’t move, “Show me. Summon one right now.”

It took everything that Ren had left not to flinch at how cold the man’s tone was, “That—it’ll be hard to do with you nullifying them.”

It was a last ditch effort, reliant solely on Ren’s prayers that the man at least hadn’t figured out that part yet.

“Ah, but…” finally, the man pulled away, but still refused to remove his hand from the teen’s arm. Ren idly wondered if his fingers were cramping by now, “that’s also not true.”

Come on.

“During the fight with Lovecraft, you were awfully focused. Though, I can’t blame you for that at all, you did seem like you were struggling at times,” he grinned. “That’s why you should leave those things to the grown-ups!”

Ren bit his cheek. He wanted to refute the man’s claim, since he only struggled because he wasn’t used to the environment, but eventually decided against giving out any more information than he had to.

“But there was this one time, just after your arm had reattached itself to your body. Do you remember someone reaching out to you? A someone that you might have rudely pushed away and to the ground?”

He sucked in a breath, and his eyes widened in realization.

“Yep, it was me! And it really hurt, you know? I’m not built for anything physical like that,” he whined, throwing a hand over his forehead for dramatic effect, but keeping his eyes trained on Ren, who was starting to shiver. “But when I touched you, your little summon that was flying around didn’t disappear. My nullification is always active, you see, so there’s only one possible answer to how that happened.”

Fuck, how could he have missed something like that?

“You don’t have an ability. Whatever power you have is nothing like the rest of us,” he leaned in. “You could have escaped whenever you wanted to, couldn’t you? Why haven’t you made a break for it yet?”

He was lost, scared, and had very much been robbed blind of all of his possessions. He mentioned the last part to Dazai-san in a shaky voice, and the man just laughed. Ren squirmed under the sound of it.

“Ah, yes. I understand; if I had a phone this fancy, I wouldn’t want to give it up either. We’re required to use flip-phones in the Detective Agency—to prevent tracing and whatnot. It sucks.”

He clicked his tongue, and the conversation stilled. Ren tried to redirect, argue, say something, but his voice box was pitifully dry.

- ~ -

Eventually, Amamiya-kun found some words. Good, Dazai was starting to wonder if he would need to be the one to speak again. "So... what? Are you gonna put me back on the drugs? Call your partner in to beat me unconscious?"

The statement brought unusual warmth to Dazai’s chest. He pushed it away, “I won’t be doing any of that. This may sound surprising, but I actually want to help you.”

“...You almost drilled a needle into my eye.”

“Believe me, if I wasn’t here, your interrogation would have gone so much worse. After all those lies you told, you’re lucky that all you got was a knife to the neck.”

“But—you weren’t any better. You almost—”

“You’re so noisy! Fine, jeez. If I give you something in return, will you shut up about it? I’ll even let you kill me if you ask!”

That got the boy to quiet down. He tilted his head in a contemplative frown, thinking. Dazai had a feeling it wasn’t about his offer to kill him. Unfortunate.

“Will you… let me go?” he eventually mumbled out.

So unfortunate. “Yeah, sure.”

A brief pause, then his eyes widened almost comically, sparkling with hope, and he leaned forward, “Wait, seriously? You will?!”

“When you give me what I want, absolutely. That was actually my plan from the start,” he winked. “Think you can do that for me?”

“I—” the boy trailed off, pursing his lips together, then continued. “What would you have me do?”

“Nothing too strenuous. I just want to see your powers in action. After that, I promise that you can leave.”

The boy hitched a breath at his words, but it wasn’t in a positive manner. Strange. Dazai couldn’t figure out why he was suddenly unhappy. Regardless, he mumbled out an “...Okay.”

“Wonderful! Now, I need you to—”

“But,” the boy interrupted, “if that was your plan from the start, then I want a different favor.”

“Oh, so now you’re demanding things from us?” Dazai raised an eyebrow. “Funny, I don’t think you’re in any position to do that. Piss me off, and I could still kill you very easily.”

“No, you couldn’t,” Amamiya-kun responded, much quicker than everything before then. His voice was still shaky, but his eyes, grey and intense, nothing like the gold he saw during the Lovecraft battle, were undeterred. “You can’t nullify my power. You’re outmatched.”

They stared at each other for a few more seconds, then Dazai tilted his head back and laughed.

“Guess you’re right! What’re your demands?”

The boy’s brows raised, but he recovered soon enough, “...My gun. I want it back”

Dazai tilted his head, “That old thing? It’s not even—”

“I want it back.”

“Okay, okay,” Dazai lifted his hands in the air and chuckled. “I don’t have it now, but I’ll keep it with me once we’re done with this. Whenever you’re ready, it’ll be waiting.”

“Alright… thank you.”

“My job is to help. Now, about the summoning…”

- ~ -

“Um… I hope you don’t mind, Dazai-san.”

The brunette opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by a wall of cerulean flames engulfing Ren’s body. A good number of the embers fell on the man’s bandages, sparking them alight and forcing a loud hiss from the man. So the fire does harm others. Ren hoped he wouldn’t be too injured.

He pushed the thought aside in favor of making a plan, wincing at the tear in his soul but pushing forward anyway. While he did get a lot of sleep in the clinic, he had a feeling none of it was actually restorative in the slightest. Which meant he likely had the same amount of spirit as he did at the end of the… Lovecraft fight. Casting Agneyastra repeatedly during it had definitely lowered his health pool though, which had probably dwindled even further thanks to bruises from Dazai-san’s hand on his arm and the gash where his IV had settled. His eyes were also pretty dry, and he probably still had some of those drugs in his system even if he didn’t feel them. He needed a Persona that could heal him without much cost.

He scanned his soul, searching desperately for one that fit the criteria. He really didn’t want to ask Dazai-san for his Takemedic supplies just to heal what, on the outside, looked like a cut and bruise, not after the man saw him reattach his own severed limb to his body with just a couple of words. So he continued on, searching and searching until finally, he found it. A Persona that he wasn’t even planning on bringing to fight Maruki-sensei, one that he had only summoned from Lavenza’s compendium for a fusion he never managed to complete.

Its skills were weak, yes, but they cost close to nothing. And best of all, it had the one power that Ren believed, if it worked, would save him.

“Arahabaki.”

Dazai-san gasped, making Ren falter, but he quickly regained control and pulled this Persona into reality. The flames lifted off of him and through the air in waves, weaving themselves together with translucent ribbons to materialize Arahabaki’s physical form. It was as beautiful as always. Ren would never get tired of the sight.

The Hermit Persona spun around once, cementing the last flecks of fire in its squinted eyes, and unceremoniously dropped to the bed. Ren pulled his knees to his chest before it could land on them.

For a few minutes, the whole room was silent, save for Ren’s slightly winded breaths and the soft, surprised chuckles leaving Dazai-san’s mouth every so often.

Finally, someone spoke.

“Trickster,” Arahabaki’s familiar, distorted voice echoed through the room. In the corner of Ren’s eye, he saw Dazai-san flinch at the sound of it, but he kept on laughing quietly. “Me is glad you are good.”

“Likewise. It’s good to see you again.”

- ~ -

Dazai adored surprises. It took an awful lot to catch him off guard and he knew it, so whenever he was put in a situation that could give him a scare, shock, extra ounce of adrenaline, he did everything he could to make it happen.

This time wasn’t too different. The only exception was that, for once, Dazai wished it wasn’t like this.

The machine-like deity on the bed was completely unmoving, but Dazai could feel the almighty power radiating from it. It pulsed in dangerous waves, like a frequency far too high for any normal person to be safely hearing. Everything about it screamed omnipotent. On a higher plane of existence than his lowly self.

But Amamiya-kun seemed unbothered; Dazai would even go as far as to say he was at ease with it. He conversed with the god like it was nothing, and it responded to him just as easily. No, not only that, it gave him respect.

(It called him a “Trickster.” By definition, a liar and a cheat. And yet, the way it said the word, Dazai would much rather define it as a king.)

Dazai’s hand twitched. He ached to reach out and touch the statue, see what No Longer Human thought of it, figure out which one of them would come out on top at the end of it all. But just as his arm raised, Arahabaki’s terrifying voice boomed from its unmoving mouth once again.

“And the mortal, Trickster? ” 

Mortal. Was that on purpose?

The statement felt carefully constructed, and directed entirely at Dazai, even if neither of them were looking at him. But what about Amamiya-kun? Did the statue, the god itself, not see the boy as a mortal?

“He’s not hostile, I don’t think,” the… Trickster responded casually. “And he’ll be important for this next step.”

Oh. Well, he expected as much. He braced himself to make the signal.

“Ah, before you sic the god on me, please do consider making it painless,” he whined. “I’m not interested in a death I have to suffer for.”

To die by the hands of Arahabaki. What delicious irony that would be. It really was a shame he couldn’t let it happen this way.

The boy’s eyes widened, then narrowed, and he curled his lip to the left, “I’m not going to kill you.”

“Aw, too bad.”

“Just…stay still for a minute, okay?”

Dazai narrowed his eyes, watching the boy fidget as if what he said was somehow too big of an ask, then nodded.

With that, Amamiya-kun pulled the blanket off his body and scooted to his left, so his legs were dangling off the edge of the bed and he was facing Dazai head on. His eyes, now the same, molten gold from the other day, bore straight into the brunette, locking their gazes together so firmly that Dazai nearly missed the deity lifting itself from the bed to hover behind the boy.

Slowly, he reached his left hand up to his forehead, thumb and middle finger on either side by his temples. He sunk his fingernails into his skin, paused, sighed, then eventually settled on peeling off his broken glasses instead of whatever else he was trying to do. Pull off a mask, maybe? But surely he knew he wasn’t wearing one, right? Dazai desperately wanted to pick apart the action, but the boy started to move again before he could.

“Persona,” the boy whispered. He pointed a steady finger at Dazai, and the god started to glow a transparent blue.

Its body split into three parts, with its head and legs spinning in the opposite direction from its torso. And as it flailed, the air around it seemed to concentrate in a growing ball of blue and black light. Amamiya-kun flicked his finger up, and before Dazai could even widen his eyes in realization, the ball was sent hurtling towards his chest. It peeled itself open once it made contact, wrapping the man in strings of light before eventually vanishing in the shape of a spiral.

There were a few seconds of silence, and Dazai was almost about to relax when his body jolted and the same light started to seep out of his bandages. It wafted back to its manifester, who graciously offered it to Amamiya-kun with that same aura of respect Dazai saw earlier, and the boy inhaled the gaseous energy without hesitation.

Once he was sure it was over, Dazai checked himself for anything new. He felt a small headache, and his body was slightly heavy, but other than that he seemed fine. He knew better than to believe that, though, so he glared at the boy until he noticed.

Amamiya-kun bristled and rushed to explain himself, “Don’t worry, I didn’t hurt you! I just… had it drain your spirit for me. Only a little—and you’ll get the points back after some sleep anyway!”

Maybe it was the fact that he was speaking nonsense again, but Dazai felt inclined to believe him. He eventually relaxed, and so did the teen.

“Alright, and how does that help you?”

“It lets me…” he snapped his fingers, and Arahabaki started to flail once again, “do this.”

This time, the light that the deity charged up was sent into the boy’s chest. And once it reached him, it exploded in a rush of green light and golden wings, enveloping him completely and hiding him from Dazai’s view.

Again, he wanted to touch it, but then the cold, orange eyes of the statue peeked around from behind the energy, and he focused on that instead.

The light dissipated after a few seconds, revealing Amamiya-kun with his back straightened, his shoulders relaxed, and an interesting lack of blood all over. Dazai glanced at the boy’s arm, which was no longer wounded, and grinned. He opened his mouth, ready with questions—if this spirit he spoke of could be restored through rest, why did he need to take some of Dazai’s after supposedly being asleep from drugs all day? Did the different colored lights mean anything? What exactly happened to his body inside the green energy that would make the blood already staining his clothes disappear?—but a rush of air passed by his face before he could even begin. He blinked, and suddenly the boy was walking to the other side of the room, footsteps light as a ghost’s. The bag full of his items had disappeared from Dazai’s lap and was instead bunched carelessly in his fist, and the glasses he had taken off in his show of magic were propped back up on his nose.

Arahabaki was gone. Dazai tried not to miss it.

Amamiya-kun heaved the window up and found purchase on the windowsill with practiced ease, crouching within the frame and balancing perfectly on his toes. He looked ready to go, his body was practically leaning into the fresh air, but he didn’t, instead turning back to look at Dazai, “You’re really not going to stop me?”

“Do you seriously think I could? I’m flattered!”

“...Okay. Make sure you sleep tonight. And make sure you have my gun for next time.”

“It’ll be waiting at the Armed Detective Agency. Do visit us.”

The boy adjusted his cracked glasses, then threw his body out the window and jumped. Dazai didn’t even hear him hit the floor, which could have been because they were so high up that the sound of body hitting concrete was too far away, but he had a feeling the boy could take care of himself.

He waited a few seconds, staring out the window with incredible fervor, before finally slumping back into his chair. He pulled a knee onto the seat, pressed his forehead against it, and just let himself think.

So many things were off, and he knew exactly where he wanted to begin.

Arahabaki. The ability singularity that the Japanese military exhausted so many resources into trying to lock away. The singularity that now festered within the Port Mafia’s current youngest executive, Nakahara Chuuya. The God, pulled straight from the textbooks by an unidentified teenager, Amamiya Ren.

That statement sounded like complete bullshit without all the bells and whistles. But Dazai saw it materialize into reality with his own two eyes, heard its terrifying voice ring distortion in his ears, felt its power carve holes in his body and drain away his spirit firsthand. He would be a fool not to accept it after everything.

(Was this how the others felt? When they fell victim to an ability? Fuck.

Dazai didn’t want much in life, but this? He needed more.)

And then there was the boy himself. He was a liar, that much was obvious, and whenever he did speak the truth, it was so flowery and complicated that the average person would just call it just another lie.

What did he have to gain by acting so strangely? Was it just a little quirk of his, or did someone teach him to do so? Could it be the same person or group that gave him and Chuuya the title of “authors?"

Not to mention his powers. From what Dazai had seen so far, the boy had offense, defense, and support in his grasp at all times. He also had the extra benefits of summoning another teammate with a separate conscience whenever he desired it.

Oh, and the fact that those teammates could be Gods .

Even if Dazai didn’t have proof confirming it, he would still refuse to call a power like that an ability. Such an insignificant label could never do it justice.

His phone rang once, then a second time a few minutes later, successfully breaking him out of his own head and pulling him back into the clinic. He gagged at the sight of it. It was too ugly to even look at! He just wanted to get back to the agency, submit his findings, and head down to his favorite spot on the river for a drown.

If only Amamiya-kun had taken him up on his offer to kill him. Well, he could always ask again the next time they met.

With a sigh, he heaved himself off the chair and trudged back to the door, the one connecting this ugly little clinic to the Port Mafia Boss’ personal office. It swung open easily, blinding him with sunlight from the wall-length windows.

“Ah, Dazai-kun ,” Mori-san didn’t bother to look up from his paperwork. “I was getting worried. Any longer and I would’ve had to come check in on you myself.”

Did Mori-san not know what happened? Dazai thought the man would have glued himself to the security cameras the second they walked in the room. Interesting that he didn’t.

Well, this was good. For a little while, he would have an advantage.

“Oi, what the hell were you doing in there? Why didn’t you give the signal?” Chuuya called out from the sofa. He had the boy’s file in his lap, unopened; his fountain pen in one hand, and the side of his head in the other.

“There was no need.”

“You mean you handled him yourself? What’d you do, stick something in his eye or whatever?”

“No? Why was that your guess?”

“How the hell am I supposed to know what a freak like you’d resort to?” Chuuya sighed. “Fine, what’s up with him? If he’s awake then you should still be in there!”

Dazai shrugged, “He’s gone.”

Elise-chan giggled from where she was lying on the Boss’ desk.

“What?!” Chuuya gaped, rushing over to grab Dazai by the collar. Ink from his pen leaked onto Dazai’s trench coat. “What the hell do you mean he’s gone?”

“Just that. He overpowered me and left.”

“How?! I get you’re scrawny, but even someone like you should be able to beat a punk that can’t use his ability.”

In the corner of his eye, Dazai noticed Mori-san leering from his desk, suddenly quite interested in where things would go. He fought the urge to roll his eyes.

There was no point in hiding the truth. As much as Dazai hated it, Mori Ougai could read him sickeningly well when he wanted to, and after everything Dazai just learned, he didn’t feel like wasting his energy to one-up the man.

That, and he knew from experience how high quality the cameras in that room were. The man would have figured it out eventually.

It would be awfully inconvenient to have to fill Chuuya in too, though, so he decided to omit the more… omnipotent details. He hoped Mori-san would have enough sense not to show him the footage later.

“He was lying. His powers weren’t nullified by No Longer Human at all. After you left, Chuuya,” Dazai looked down at the other man, who was slowly letting go of him, “he and I talked, and he summoned one of his beings to help him escape. I didn’t let go of him at all.”

Mori-san’s grin faltered, then widened. Chuuya’s jaw hit the floor. Even Elise-chan looked up from her scribbling.

“Shit… the kid’s a star actor. Fooled me good,” Chuuya mumbled to himself, spinning his pen with vigor as he looked back at his boss. Dazai snorted, earning him a fierce glare from the short executive.

“Even so,” Mori-san gestured for Dazai to sit. He didn’t. “You’re a capable man, Dazai-kun . I doubt you simply watched him leave once he revealed this to—”

“The Propofol didn’t work.”

Surprise was a look seldom worn by the Port Mafia’s Boss, if Chuuya’s gobsmacked expression at the sight and Dazai’s own history with the man meant anything at all, “Go on.”

“When Chuuya and I walked in, Amamiya-kun was awake to greet us. He wasn’t disoriented at all, so he must have been conscious for a good while before we arrived. I saw there were cameras in his room, and judging by your surprise, I can only assume he was awake the whole time and was hiding it from your view.”

“He was completely unconscious while I was running tests,” Mori-san said, eyes unusually narrow but lips still managing to curl in that signature smile. “I made sure to check. How, exactly, do you think he tricked my own eyes?”

“I don’t have an answer for everything.”

“My, that’s a surprise.”

“These are just theories based on what I saw. So far, I can say he’s virtually immune to both my nullification and heavy anesthesia, though I’m unsure how he does the latter. I have a feeling the only reason he didn’t escape earlier is because he wanted some answers himself.”

“What does this have to do with you letting him go, you bastard?” Chuuya grumbled next to him. “The Boss very clearly wanted him to stay here.”

“Come on Chuuya, don’t be stupid,” Dazai grinned when Chuuya’s eye twitched. “After everything we just found out, do you really think the Boss wants to get on his bad side? When he has no conceivable way to stop him?"

“So your idea was just to set him free? What if we never see him again?!”

“We will. I’ve given him an out, and he’ll definitely want to return the favor. He’ll find his way to the agency soon enough, and if we’re lucky, he’ll bring a few secrets from his own organization. When that happens, you guys had best stay on my good side as well, or I won't be sharing any details!”

Just as he finished talking, Dazai’s phone rang for the third time. 

“Ah, looks like I have to get back to work. The gun, Mori-san, if you don’t mind.”

The man blinked once, then smirked, “So that’s the real reason.”

Silly Chuuya’s face twisted when Mori-san pulled the boy’s fake gun from his desk drawer, sealed discretely within a paper bag for some reason. He must have found something in the toy, something that would warrant his protectiveness of it or how adamant the boy had been to get it back. Dazai would look into it later.

The man slid it across the table without fanfare, and Dazai snatched it up as he turned to leave.

“Wait, what? That’s it?!”

“It’s alright, Chuuya-kun,” Dazai heard the man sigh as he walked away. “It’s not ideal, but I’d much rather the boy on someone’s side than against us all.”

- ~ -

I can only help you so much like this, you know? 

Please remember that.

Take a step back, for your own good.

Chapter Text

- ~ -

Amamiya-kun had missed the deadline. He didn’t show up the morning after.

When they met up at Leblanc on February 3rd, Morgana was the one who let them in, teary eyed and frantic. He said the boy was gone when he woke up, and he hadn’t seen him since. The group waited in the cafe until they couldn’t anymore, watching the door for when their Leader would waltz in, cloaked in that faux confidence, ready for the heist. But he never did. 

The rest of the Thieves were upset, scared, shattering, but they went ahead and left for the Palace anyway, despite Akechi’s protests. Their reasoning was that they needed to make use of the calling card no matter what, and they would simply hope Amamiya-kun would come on his own. It was a stupid plan at best, and downright dangerous if thought about for even a few more seconds than they chose to do. Joker was their best—their only chance at destroying Maruki Takuto. Yoshizawa-san seemed to agree with him, at least, but voiced her opinion in the softest whisper Akechi had ever thought possible, and only after he had to call attention to her in a biting tone. But nobody heard her, nobody listened to him.

This was how the renowned Phantom Thieves of Hearts operated without their Leader’s babysitting? This was pathetic.

In the end, it became the one time the Thieves acted without a unanimous vote. Akechi stayed behind, sitting in Leblanc, drinking shitty coffee that he made for himself with tools he was unsure the names of. He didn’t get to see the moment where Maruki swooped in and regained control of their minds, but he had a feeling it was well before they could even reach the top.

The last he saw any of them, they were all living their best lives. Okumura-san and Sakura-san no longer had that look of burning resentment in their eyes whenever they noticed him, the one they would uselessly cover up with pleasantries and resolve and the weakest “we will stop Maruki-sensei!!” he’s ever heard. It was no wonder they were pulled back into Maruki’s mind control so easily.

Yoshizawa-san was avoiding him.

He knew he should have been pissed; the one other person who knew what he really was in this new reality, who he made promise to help him even if it meant letting him go, was a no-show. But he wasn’t. Because unlike Maruki, the man who pitifully paraded around his “understanding” of the raven-haired teen like it was all he had, Akechi no longer needed something in return—something he could exploit, like the man had done for his research, like… he had done up until their battle—to know he could trust Amamiya-kun.

The boy had taken down Shido Masayoshi. Almost single-handedly, too, if the Thieves’ constant fawning over the fight while in Mementos had meant anything. To manage all of that, and without his gaggle of goons behind him… even if Sakamoto-kun very adamantly claimed it wasn’t for him, Akechi was grateful.

Someone like that would not let this absolute non-issue stump him. Amamiya-kun was emotional, absurdly so, enough to let a puny threat on Akechi’s life break him to bits, but it was exactly what they needed. Those feelings were his offense, defense, the only way he could leave a battle virtually unaffected while his teammates lugged themselves around to rest. He wore his roaring emotions like a helmet; the tears that would arc down his face were his chinstrap. He pulled cheer and sorrow from his heart as easily as he did demons and they always came out sharper than any of their blades, more potent than any of their Personas. He ripped off the mask of inaction and sent his whole, unadulterated self at his target every time. 

To feel so much, so often, and to wield it so masterfully that it shaped his whole survival—it was the highest possible threat. Something so broken that not even Maruki could mend it—hell, from the way he spoke to the teen that night, Akechi had a feeling he couldn’t even comprehend it, and that scared the man. God, it was obvious; he had no idea how the Thieves missed it so blatantly. 

Amamiya Ren was what Maruki Takuto feared most, and therefore, was exactly what they needed to trump him. The boy had such an advantage against the Palace ruler that Akechi had no doubt he could even take the man down entirely on his own if given the chance. He would be a true fool to let something like that slip between his fingers. A weak-minded, brainwashed, fool.

(The next day, he noticed Takamaki Ann walking home with a girl in her arm, foreheads practically pressed together as they whispered giddily to each other. He recognized that girl. Suzui Shiho, the Shujin Academy student who made an attempt on her own life back in April. The girl whose misfortune likely founded the Phantom Thieves as a whole.

Takamaki-san noticed him as they strutted by, but she didn’t say a word.

Watching them go on to get everything they ever wanted, Akechi felt filthy. When he returned home, his new body curled into itself without him ever needing to tell it to.)

So he made a pact with himself; he was going to return to the Palace every single day and fight his way up the floors to help. The way Morgana had explained it to him, the reason the Phantom Thieves acted on the same day the calling card was sent out was because otherwise, the threat on the receiver would seem illegitimate and their Treasure would no longer materialize for their shadow to protect. But Maruki’s Palace didn’t seem to work that way. The first time he returned on his own, one day after losing the Thieves to the False God, it was still just as guarded. Like the threat from their calling card was still just as strong in the ruler’s heart, even after taking away all of their offense.

It was a sign. Joker was alright. And wherever he was, he was still so broken beyond repair and embracing it enough to make the Palace ruler view him as a danger. View all of them as a danger.

Akechi wouldn’t let this go to waste. He was going to trust the raven-haired boy, that he would push past whatever hesitation he’d been feeling and turn it into yet another one of his strongest weapons. Fight for true justice once again. He would do everything he could, so when this was over, Amamiya-kun would owe him back, and for however long they’d have left, they would be equal. 

(Friends. The one term that seemed to evade them both the most. The thing they both seemed so good at playing the part of, but never enough to convince.

God, he hated it—just thinking of it pulled bile from a stomach that likely didn't even exist in this mannequin of a body, but still. Takamaki Ann and Suzui Shiho made it look so nice.

Then again, those two were brainwashed. Perhaps that was just what it took.

Right, then. Never mind.)

He was ready. Maruki was stupid enough to give this new body of Akechi’s his original conscience back, and he didn’t care what it took, he was going to break free from the shackles of control.

Forever.

- ~ -

Fuck, he was weak.

What the hell happened to him? Why was Hereward so weak?!

He spat at the ground, more to get the taste of his pyrrhic victory out of his mouth than attempt to hack up anything physical, and glowered as the shadow melted into black ichor after far too long a fight. He never struggled like this before.

As he stomped his way to the next one, he wondered whether to blame this on Maruki Takuto or Amamiya Ren.

- ~ -

Mori Ougai was a slave for potential.

Before Dazai-kun took it away, he had spent the better part of all his free time tinkering with and analyzing the boy’s model gun, peeling away all the tacky, irritatingly teenage-esque stickers atop it to reach its fake components. That was what intrigued him the most, that it was fake.

According to Chuuya-kun , the boy pulled it out in battle and tried to fire it, then seemed completely horrified when it didn’t work. The shock even caused him to falter long enough to get his arm ripped clean off. Something must have happened for the boy to believe so firmly that it would shoot, and whether the gun itself or the boy’s stress levels were to blame, he still didn’t know.

What he did know was that there was something suspicious about that boy, and he was going to look through every clue he had.

Now, after losing the gun, he had chosen to occupy himself with the footage from the interrogation, playing it on loop at his desk. Namely, the little conversation that occurred after his Executive left things for Dazai-kun to finish off. He had a feeling such a plan would work wonders, but the extra factors—the boy being supposedly immune to sedation, and Dazai-kun allowing him to go free without discussing with them—definitely gave him something to look forward to when he first played the video.

But then, there was Arahabaki. The God. The crucial information that his former right hand carefully didn’t mention face to face. The reason why he, after only his first watch, was quick to label the footage as something higher clearance than even an Executive could get. It was something that he knew Chuuya-kun absolutely could not be allowed to see just yet, not if the theories he was starting to create had any merit at all.

The Arahabaki project that shaped his Executive did not include a god at all. It was an amplified ability singularity that entered the body of a human boy. At least, that's what the scientists said it was. But this new boy was able to summon a true manifestation of the God as depicted through history, communicate with it, and channel its power for his own benefit. If anything, the deity seemed to act as his vessel, not the other way around. Even more surprising was how eager it looked to do so.

Just the sight of it, even filtered through a camera lens and into pixels on a screen, was breathtaking. It came to existence within a torrent of blue flame and had a physical form of a statue—already more than the singularity from the Arahabaki project, which was simply a cluster of energy and could not be locked away or controlled no matter what. Its movements looked limited, and even it seemed to be under the constraint of gravity and such when its power was inactive. But even with all that, Mori Ougai knew that the sight in front of him was beyond human.

When it spoke, he felt like his ears were being drilled into relentlessly, and he half expect blood to start pouring down either side of his face. He could barely get through a second of hearing its voice without having to pause and take a breather. It was incredible.

Did Dazai-kun know of this? Was that why he waited until his partner left the room to have the boy call it into reality? Somehow, he didn’t think that was the case. The man didn’t do anything—no words with potential double meanings, no encoded text, and he had spent enough time in the man’s youth deciphering him to know when his surprise was genuine—to hint that the boy should reveal such a card to him, so the only other option was that the boy somehow knew to handle it this way himself.

And what good would using that specific deity have done for the boy other than to send a message? If it was truly an innocent coincidence—familiarizing himself with the victim of a case named after his own power, then making a grand show of exposing it before running away—then it was awfully convenient. Too convenient.

He was convinced; the boy knew something, and he needed to figure it out before any more surprises hit Yokohama. The Guild was enough.

So when the specialists he had testing the boy’s DNA knocked on his door, he welcomed them in with a smile. And when they revealed their findings, his grin only grew.

Amamiya Ren, or whatever his name really was, was completely undocumented. There wasn’t an ounce of information about the boy in the whole city or even the country. Not even his birth was recorded anywhere.

What a spectacular find.

Most members of the Port Mafia were relatively known by both the Government and the Underground. And those who truly were lacking in any official documents or identification only joined out of desperation, not because they had any immense asset they could provide for the organization.

But this boy… he was exceptional.

Whoever had him owned was truly lucky.

- ~ -

Chuuya’s head hurt. It’d been hurting ever since he left that interrogation.

He blamed it on that kid. That, and how much Dazai seemed to sop up his bullshit the whole time.

What was he missing?

- ~ -

?Maruki-sensei, is this you

Ren chewed his lip absently as he fiddled with his phone, typing into the only chat that still remained in his Metanav contact list—inconveniently nicknamed, “Genesis.”

The rest of his phone was completely disabled, and all other apps were deleted with no way to get them back, leaving only the Metanav. Ever since he left that clinic, he’d been spending all of his time testing its different functions, figuring out what was still viable. He quickly figured out that the answer was almost nothing. Its core functions were all still there, but they were completely unusable; when he tried checking his history, he found it desolate, like all of his previous escapades with the Thieves never even happened. When he tried to re-enter Maruki-sensei’s palace, putting all of the necessary keywords back into the nav, all he got was a big, fat, ERROR message. That had never happened before. 

And no matter how many times he tried, the result was always the same.

The only thing he could still use was the chatting system, the one that he and the Thieves would use when separated in a Palace. And even then, all of his usual contacts had vanished, leaving only Genesis. He had carefully put off speaking to them, but eventually decided he couldn’t wait any longer.

It took a while for them to start typing back, so Ren busied himself by dangling his legs off the side of the building he was sitting on and scrolling through the previous messages they had sent him. They all sounded just like Maruki-sensei, but none of them outright said it, so the teen had to take a shot in the dark with his first response.

After a few more minutes of nothing, he sighed and shut his phone off to stare down at the city. He was starting to worry that he was wrong. It was embarrassing enough to call someone the wrong name, even if he wasn’t sure who it was. But on the off chance that it wasn’t his counsellor on the other end, that meant an unknown third party was also playing the system, and he had to look out for them as well.

He just wanted to sleep. Maybe for the rest of his life, just so he wouldn’t have to think about these things ever again.

His phone pinged eventually, making him startle and almost fling one of his sandals off the edge.

Why do you have to be so stubborn, Amamiya-kun?

Okay, so he was right. That was either really good or completely awful for him. Probably both, actually. Another message appeared just seconds later.

That wasn’t your fight. You had no right nor reason to join.

Did he mean the battle with that tentacle monster? H.P. Lovecraft, was it? In Ren’s defense, he was attacked first, and from where he was being tossed around, the man looked an awful lot like Maruki-sensei when he captured Sumire.

And even if he wasn’t provoked, he couldn’t just do nothing. It was actively terrorizing the area, and enough people had already gotten hurt by then. The man’s words cut quite deep, and Ren felt the burning urge to say something about it.

.You just explained the Phantom Thieves’ entire operation in a sentence

?What did you do to me? Where am I

?Hello

The man didn’t respond for a while. Ren was almost ready to give up on him when the speech bubbles finally appeared again.

You’re somewhere very special to me.

I can only hope it does for you the good it did me.

?What

?What the hell does that mean

I understand your confusion.

You’re very familiar with my powers by now, right?

Ren rolled his eyes, not bothering to respond. The man continued without waiting for one.

The way I built our Earth was by analyzing the collective unconscious and perfectly replicating every detail of the planet within everyone’s cognitions.

Consider Leblanc. It’s still the exact same cafe as the original reality, only with a new layer of cognitive energy wrapped on top of it for me to edit how I want to. That’s what you would see instead.

But for this Earth… the only cognition I needed to analyze was my own.

The world you see is one I created from scratch while in college, where I had combined my budding theories with an old dream to become an author.

Since the night you woke in that forest, you’ve resided within the pages of my unpublished novel.

Wait, what? 

He was in a book?

His first reaction was to scoff, but a full body shiver managed to sneak its way before that, and he started to tremble. He wanted to call it the most nonsensical thing that had happened to him, but he lost the right to doubt stuff like this back in April. Plus… it made sense. It explained so much: the creepy forest that looked straight out of a horror story, the rampant use of famous author names for every person he’d met so far, the crazy powers that he couldn’t decipher at all…

The coil of dread within him was growing taut, swirling his stomach contents enough to send them splashing back up his throat. But he had to pull himself together. He hoped his nerves weren’t showing in his texts.

?Then, were you the one who woke me up in the doctor's office

I was.

You should be grateful, Amamiya-kun.

I had to pull a lot of strings to gain a skill that couldn’t be acquired naturally for my Persona.

In a way, you could relate it to your own rituals in the Velvet Room.

This could not be good for his heart. If his body shook any harder, he would slide off the edge of the roof.

?How do you know about that

I’ve filed through your memories more times than I can count.

I know everything about you.

And that includes your most recent conversation with the little girl named Lavenza.

.She is not a little girl

Right. She is your “Attendant.”

That was careless of me, I’m sorry.

He scrunched his nose at the obvious patronizing, but pushed on. He had questions that needed answers, so for the time being, he needed to play along.

Still, he had to stave off the urge to bristle with each message the man sent him. A whole other world , conjured up from nothing but words in his counsellor’s head. He could do that this whole time?

He even gave this world’s inhabitants their own superpowers. Ones that, according to what he’d picked up so far, were both painfully similar to his and as different as could be.

(“A true self? Huh, maybe. If looked at in such a lens, I guess you could call them that. Though, I prefer calling them an extension of the self, hidden only in the souls of the gifted until their awakening.”)

".And these “Abilities

?Are they your way of describing Personas

They’re how my past self, before gaining a Persona, hypothesized the Cognitive world worked.

Granting supernatural powers when a person reached their truest potential within themself.

It was just a gag theory at the time. I came up with it for my friends and I to laugh.

I never thought it would be true.

But it all worked out in the end.

This will only benefit you.

.You broke your promise

I know. But it was the only way to make you understand.

.You keep saying that

?Why can’t you just respect my choice

Have you been respecting mine?

.What you want will irreversibly ruin society

.Humanity should be free to make their own mistakes and recover from them on their own

That didn’t seem like your thought process a few months ago.

.You made that argument already

.And I’ve changed

.From the looks of things, so have you

Don’t say that.

.You have

.The man I knew didn’t lie, or break his promises, or hurt people

.He was honest, and wanted to earn the right to display his research the correct way

.He would hate you

I am behaving no differently than I did during our sessions.

.That’s rich

There was a lull in conversation, as Ren felt the words he desperately wanted to say evade him. It seemed like the man was feeling the same way, and for a while, his inbox was silent. He slammed his phone next to him, screen down, and lowered his head, kicking his legs off the edge aimlessly as he wracked his brain trying to turn his feelings into sentences.

Minutes of quiet passed, but nothing worked. Until eventually his phone buzzed once again, sending an uncomfortable crackling sound through the cement to clog his throat.

What do you think of my codename?

It really does make it seem like I’m one of you, doesn’t it?

He didn’t even bother opening to the message app, instead replying directly from his lockscreen. The tap of his fingernails on the screen, sharp and jagged from how much he had been biting them recently, echoed into the air like bullets fired.

.Absolutely not

?You may have worn me down during our last talk, but after what you’ve pulled now

.You will never be like us

He paused, wondering if that was a good place to stop. He was just about to shut his phone off again when Maruki-sensei started typing, and the little bubbles that appeared only filled him with even more anger. He rushed to type something out before the man could get the chance.

.And it’s way too fancy

.You sound pretentious

He shoved his phone back in his pocket with a scowl. Surprisingly enough, no new messages buzzed through his jacket.

He hugged his knees and pressed his forehead into them, thinking. Recollecting.

The world he was in… was different. That much felt obvious, especially after all he’d just learned: he couldn’t summon his costume, all of his Metaverse items were gone, and his spirit was no longer regenerating naturally after sleeping. And yet, it was still crafted out of Maruki-sensei’s own Cognition, so he had to have used some kind of Cognitive power to create it. Did that mean this place was related to the Metaverse in his reality?

How did Maruki-sensei do it? How did he manage enough power to achieve this? If he employed the Metaverse to make this world, did that mean everyone here was a shadow like in Mementos?

No. All of those men that ambushed Dazai-san… were humans. Real, physical humans. He was sure of it.

Which meant they were dead. Whether it was from that massive boulder that rocketed at them, or Nakahara-san’s ability locking them in the ground until they stopped moving, every single one of them was dead. And they didn’t dissolve into wisps of black smoke like real shadows and cognitions. All they did was die.

That whole night was fucked up. Even when he wasn’t thinking about it, he could feel it weighing down on him, stuffing his mouth, throat, lungs with cotton. From the tension to the action and the onslaught of information packed in between, it was no wonder why his brain had put it off until now. And whoever had stuffed him full of drugs the other night certainly didn’t help.

He didn’t even get to begin with all of that before his body jolted in realization.

He shot up straight in tune with his rapid inhale, and his back popped at the sudden movement, making his sides ache. His brain took a lot longer to catch up, but when he finally had the revelation, he let out a lone, silent sob, pouring air back out of him with no regard for when he eventually ran out and started to choke.

The man, H.P. Lovecraft, was a human. A human who could turn into a vicious, ugly, tentacle monster, but if that was just his ability, then he was still human. And now he was dead.

Ren killed him. He killed him.

No, that couldn’t be right. There was seriously no way. The Phantom Thieves of Hearts didn’t kill, especially not their Leader. That was their creed. Death was not who they were—who he was.

(And yet, there was nothing left. 

When the sky returned to grey and the remaining specks of Agneyastra finally dissipated, there was nothing left to say that the lanky, long-haired man would ever get to leave the forest alive.

But—but he did see black ooze. That had to count for something. Maybe the man just bled black, like Okumura Kunikazu.

A dead man.)

His hands dug into his pants, bunching both fabric and the flesh underneath in his palms as he started to shake. His breathing quickened, but it still couldn’t get oxygen into his lungs fast enough, pulling him into a cycle of constant inhales as he started to hyperventilate. His chest bulged painfully. 

He… he killed a man. Blackened blood was on his hands.

Was that why Maruki-sensei was so upset he got involved? At this point, he was finding it hard to believe the man truly had his best interests in mind anymore, but there was no other explanation. Was the man never meant to die there? And he…

He opened his legs and tilted his body down just as another stream of vomit escaped him. He hadn’t eaten anything since his last talk with his counsellor, so the only thing that came out was stomach acid, burning his throat and mouth as he retched. It fell a good 15 stories before splattering on the ground below, making a few people nearby jump at the sight and glare back up at him. He only shrunk further under their gazes, even if he could barely see them.

His hands were shaking, his rib cage rattled with every movement he made. His eyes refused to close even for a second, but his face stayed dry. He swallowed hard, reeling at how much bile managed to stay in his mouth, and exhaled, opening his phone just in time to see his counsellor send him another message.

I’ve implemented some safety measures in this world for you.

No matter what you believe, Amamiya-kun, my intentions are good.

You will be free to use your Personas.

His vision blurred. The ground below started to look much closer than it really was.

.I don’t need your help

You’ve been nothing but reckless so far.

(You killed a man, Ren.)

So yes, you do.

(At this rate, you’ll kill again.)

Listen to me, Amamiya-kun.

I want you to pull yourself out of the narrative.

Act as a bystander.

That was my plan for you from the start.

?Why

I put you here to show you just how cynical the world you want can be.

There was a pause, but the speech bubbles didn’t go away. Whatever he was writing next, Ren had a feeling, would either answer all of his questions or bring about even more.

I came up with this novel during the worst time of my life.

When I let Rumi go, I fell into such a deep state of misery and misfortune that I saw no way out.

But then I started expressing myself in this book, and only then did I see how horrible I was becoming.

The creation of the world you’re in pulled me out of that time. You could even say that it changed my heart.

I just know that watching it unfold will do the same for you.

That’s all you have to do: watch.

.This is another level of crazy

.I can’t believe you, Maruki-sensei

I’ll say this one more time. 

Do not get involved anymore. They don’t need you.

If you do…

Then I will forcefully rewind you and this whole reality to where you first started.

I’ll do this every time you go against my wishes.

And you will never be able to leave.

He nearly dropped his phone off the edge from the shock, but at least the knuckle-breaking grip he had on it was preventing that.

Holy shit. What the fuck. He wanted to puppeteer Ren through an entirely different universe just to prove a point? How was that any different than just forcing him into the new reality from the beginning?!

(His anger outshined the small part of him that had its interests piqued. The part that was still cruising through a breakdown.

So, all of him. But he let the anger win anyway.)

.I don’t need to hear your bullshit

.I’ll escape on my own, without your strings controlling me

.Don’t contact me anymore

He shoved his phone into the pocket farthest from his hands. It ended up being the one on the shin of his cargo pants, where his airsoft gun should have been instead. The weight was comforting, but he knew it wasn’t what he wanted.

He sighed. Overthinking it wouldn’t do him much good, especially if Maruki-sensei chose not to respect his desire for no-contact like he was expecting him to. 

He just wanted his gun back.

With one last groan into the open air, Ren swung his body around and planted his feet back on the rooftop, then made his way inside and down the stairs. If only he had his grapple, he could have just jumped off the edge and had at least a little bit of fun in this messed up situation.

He knew how to make them, but all of his previous attempts were shoddy at best, and those were using the most high-quality materials they could afford to buy. He didn’t even want to think about how poorly it would go if he tried to craft out of the cheap scraps littered on the ground. He chided himself for not asking Morgana to teach him more.

Morgana…

God, he missed the Thieves. It had been how many days? since he woke up in this new reality, but he had no way to know if time was passing the same for his friends. How long could it have been for them since his disappearance? Did they even notice he was gone?

Did Maruki-sensei do something to them?

His fingers itched to pull his phone back out and type a string of unsavory messages to the man, but he ultimately decided against it. He didn’t want to seem too desperate, too vulnerable, so soon after putting his foot down. Though, if he really was locked inside a book in the man’s possession, there was a good chance he was still being watched and having his mind read. Which meant his counsellor had full knowledge of his concerns but was choosing not to answer them.

Ren scoffed and kept walking. If the man wasn’t going to reach out first, he wouldn’t bother trying to get anything from him either.

He swung the door outside open and stepped through it, pulling himself into the city of Yokohama. It was beautiful. The streets bustled with energy, blending skyscrapers with quaint, little buildings that housed narrow alleyways between them. The people moved in constant streams of rhythmic flow, with faces that glimmered life in the morning sun. They were nothing like the Cognitions in Palaces, save for Maruki-sensei’s. These people were as real as could be.

His vision caught on the cluster of massive skyscrapers in the corner, towering high above any of the buildings. That was Port Mafia territory, apparently. The building he had scaled down himself was the one in the center, which was also the tallest and darkest of the bunch. How they were getting away with such flashy architecture was beyond him. Weren’t mafias meant to be underground operations?

Well, it was a storybook trope. But still. Sitting in that office, talking to Nakahara-san, it all felt so real.

He’d been saying that too much, that this all was real, and he knew it. But maybe that was just how reality would be until he got back.

If he even did.

He stared up at the buildings for a few more seconds, licked his lips, and tasted metal. He knew it was nothing, probably just the lingering taste of vomit, there was no blood, but his shoulders curled into themselves all the same. He quickly dropped his gaze, leaving his eyes trained on the pocket his phone was in. It traded whatever his body was trying to make him feel for something else. Pure, unfiltered hurt.

It wasn’t fair. None of this was fair. And it wouldn’t have happened—Maruki-sensei wouldn’t have achieved godhood, reality as Ren knew it wouldn’t be crumbling to bits—if it wasn’t for him.

He meddled. He disrupted the order of things, from his problematic high school to the entirety of Japan. His actions, trying to better the lives of humanity, had only put them in extreme danger.

But still. He couldn’t just sit by and let the horrid adults get their way all the time. Kamoshida, Madarame, Kaneshiro… Shido. He had hoped that the Thieves would inspire a new generation, and maybe even the older ones, to take their lives back and fight for themselves instead of kowtowing to a corrupt authority. Instead, he pulled people further into sloth, making them hopelessly reliant on his team while they wasted their minds praying for someone to take away their autonomy even further. Like that wasn’t what made them human.

Sumire was right. All those months ago, when she and Akechi-kun joined him for coffee and they debated the Phantom Thieves’ efforts together, she was right. He was just a worn-out safety net.

He was no hero. He had no business calling himself a defender of justice.

And now here he was, getting reprimanded and receiving ultimatums by the new False God of Earth. The god that he gave the throne to, because in the end, he was still no better.

He ended up being everything he fought so hard to rid the world of. He was just like Maruki-sensei.

But... he’s changed.

(He killed a man.

It didn’t matter if it was all in some fantasy book or whatever. He looked a man in the eyes and destroyed him.

But he had another option. Another chance.

If he just went limp, let Maruki- sensei do his thing and bring him back to the start, the man he killed would return to life and he could have a do over. He could find a way to handle things so nobody would get hurt. He could speak to Dazai-san earlier on, or rescue Q in secret and maybe prevent any of what happened from occurring at all. He could save every —

He sighed, willing his trembling legs to still. No, he couldn’t. Not when the last person from his world that he’d spoken to, made the promise to let life run its course to, was Akechi Goro, dead man walking.

He’s changed.)

(It still hurt.)

A shot of pain coursed through his right arm and he hitched in a breath, looking down with wide eyes to realize his nails were digging deep into his wrist, just above the vein. He let his hands go limp and they fell to his sides unceremoniously. He refused to think about that anymore.

He needed to find the Armed Detective Agency.

His phone buzzed, tickling his shin. Alright, so the man was reading his mind. And it only took him five minutes to go against Ren’s wishes. He didn’t bother checking the message.

Someone shoulder-checked him at the crosswalk, but when he turned back to look, he saw the man glaring back at him, likely thinking he was at fault. He groaned and kept walking. The streets were only getting busier, and the country boy in him was in no mood for city life.

How exactly did Dazai-san expect him to find the Agency, anyway? He didn’t give him an address or anything, just a cheery demeanor and a promise that his gun would be waiting for him. One that he was praying wouldn’t be broken.

He eventually decided to just ask around, receiving a few vague points in similar directions and, eventually, a scrawled-out address on a receipt, one that he seriously did try following to the letter as he navigated the city. Again, he was really missing Morgana, but this time it was just because he truly, truly sucked at directions. He never realized it before, but Morgana was probably the only reason he didn’t lose his way back home from school each day.

After a good half an hour of aimless wandering and fidgeting with the paper in his hands, he found the place. It was a charming building, with vibrant red brick and gold accents. It towered four stories in the air, but still managed to look tiny against the other, much taller buildings it was squished between. It definitely gave off the fancy Sherlock vibes he expected from a Detective Agency.

He shuffled closer and was about to swing the door open when he noticed that the signboard hanging above his head read Cafe Uzumaki. Oh, was he wrong, then? This wasn’t the Agency after all? That was... actually kind of upsetting. The place really did look the part.

He decided to step in anyway, to clear his head. Maybe a change of pace, a familiar ambiance or an air of freshly brewed coffee, would do him some good.

He pushed the door open, causing the little bell inside to jingle. And all of a sudden, he was back in Leblanc.

Or rather, the closest thing to it.

Warm light poured over his face as he scanned the cafe with widened eyes. It was small, definitely not big enough to warrant 4 stories of the building, but it was far from cramped. Rows of booths covered one side of the cafe, with plush, green cushions and wooden tables tucked between them. The other side housed an island connected to the counter, with tall chairs pushed neatly underneath in a perfect line. Booths and tall chairs. His stomach lurched, but the rest of him was too busy craning forward, further into the treasured atmosphere.

The smell of warm spice filled his lungs, wafting from the siphons and grinders behind the counter where the barista, a tall, old man with surprisingly stylish glasses, was fiddling with the sink.

Had Ren been even the slightest bit sleepier, had his Thieves been sprawled out along the booths or Akechi-kun been sitting at one of the high chairs, body pressed into the table and his favorite brew of coffee in hand, he would’ve thought he was home.

His legs moved on their own, leading him straight to the island and pulling out a chair for himself. The barista nodded to him and then the menu on the wall, to which he shook his head at.

“Thank you, but I’ll be leaving soon enough,” he smiled. The man nodded, and went back to drying cups.

They lingered in comfortable enough silence for a few minutes, allowing Ren to rest his head on the table without issue. He clumped his hair between his arms as he buried his face between them, and he felt his frizzy curls splay out in every direction because of it. His ears fell in tune with the clink of dishes and the soft music bleeding from the phonograph; it wasn’t a song he would play, and he knew for a fact that Sojiro would say the same, but it was doing its job. The gnawing in his stomach, still trying desperately to worm its way up, was being soothed. His next few breaths were labored, his eyes were prickling, and his body tensed and relaxed in his seat, but he was feeling a little better.

His hands fiddled with the paper, tracing the grooves where the woman’s pen had scratched the address on it. The rustling was the only sound he made.

Eventually, something slid across the table and pressed into his forearm, making him stir. He tilted his head slightly up, still hiding everything under his glasses within his arms, to meet the barista pushing a drink into him with a small smile.

It was just water, served in a tall glass with a plastic straw, but it was such a kind gesture that he felt awful about how he was preparing to refuse. He opened his mouth, but then the man gave him a look that reminded him of the vomit still on his tongue, and after a second, he accepted it graciously. It was gone in two sips, and only then did the man return to drying.

Ren set the cup down with a smile, feeling himself melt back into the comforting nature that was just short of Leblanc’s. If only he had a plate of Sojiro’s curry, too. He might actually have wanted to stay.

Just as he prepared to leave, the bell on the door started ringing again, making him startle. He nearly jumped up to greet them out of habit, but willed himself out of it just before he could, instead craning an eye over to see who it was that stepped inside. A boy with choppy white hair, looking barely any older than himself, clutching a stack of papers to his chest as he pushed the door shut behind him.

“Ah, Uzumaki-san!” he walked over and greeted the man behind the counter. Oh, this guy was the owner. “Do you know if Ranpo-san and Yosano-san are back yet?

“They’ve been here since this morning.”

“That’s good. And Dazai-san?”

Ren flinched at the name, eyes bugging out of his head almost comically. Nobody seemed to notice.

“He’s up there with the others.”

“Alright, I’ll be going up as well.”

“Wait!” Ren pushed himself upright, sending his chair sliding a good foot back. The owner winced at the sound, so he bowed his head in quick apology before spinning around to face the white haired boy. “Are you from the Armed Detective Agency?”

“Huh? Oh, yes I am! Why?”

He shuddered out a long breath that was trapped in his lungs, earning him a quizzical look that he ignored, “Could you take me with you? I have a—a case I need your group’s help with.”

The boy frowned, fumbling with the papers in his arms, “I—I’m not sure if this is the best time for us to take on new cases…”

“Please. This is important,” he clasped his hands together. When the boy didn’t seem to budge, he continued. “I’m… I’m familiar with the man you just mentioned—Dazai Osamu. I really need to speak with him.”

He chewed on his lip for a few seconds, then smiled, “Alright. Come with me.”

He swung the back door to the cafe wide open and motioned for Ren to enter first, which he did only after thanking the owner profusely for the water. He was really lucky the man didn’t ask for payment, since his wallet had been looking quite empty these days.

They climbed the stairs in relative silence, save for the boy mumbling some sort of question he didn’t hear, then immediately backtracking when asked to repeat it. It got a small chuckle out of Ren, but it was automatic, as his mind had gone elsewhere the second he was invited in.

What if this was all a trap? Learn about him, gain some of his trust, then lure him into captivity with an empty promise. It wouldn’t be the first time, he thought bitterly.

He knew he shouldn’t be doubting himself now, not after coming this far. Besides, he had a feeling Dazai-san knew that, if it came down to it, Ren could beat him without breaking a sweat. But he couldn’t help himself, and pulled out his phone to check the Metanav once again. He didn’t try to do anything on it, not that he even could, but just tapped aimlessly on the screen, relishing in the small reassurance it provided that at least he still had something.

If his hands gravitated to the search bar, ready to enter keywords and look for Palaces, they did it all on their own. He wasn’t worried.

(He whispered the name Dazai Osamu under his breath, to which the nav gave him neither a "Found" or a "Not Found." Instead, he got another ERROR.

He totally wasn’t worried.)

Eventually, they reached the right floor, and the white-haired boy knocked twice on the door by the handrail. Nobody answered, so he tried again, with a look of slight sheepishness as he glanced at Ren, who was now trying to juggle his attention between his phone and whatever could be inside. He got one more notification from Maruki-sensei that he rolled his eyes at.

A few more minutes of waiting, and pattering footsteps made their debut from inside. A feminine voice called out from the other side of the door, words far too muffled for Ren to make them out, and the boy next to him brightened at the sound. That had to be a good sign. He bounced on his heels as his body grew restless.

His head was starting to ache. Far more than the dull twinge he'd been feeling since he left the clinic. No way the drugs were still in his blood, right?

Finally, the door opened with a slight groan, revealing a woman with short, dark hair and a butterfly hair clip pinned to the side of her face. She looked between the two of them and smiled, full of warmth—

And Ren’s entire body slumped forward, toppling to the floor as his vision turned black.

- ~ -

Your friends are troublesome.

I’ll play nice for now.

But only because he can’t compete with me.

Chapter Text

- ~ -

God damn it, Amamiya-kun…

Maruki slammed a flat palm against the desk, making it rattle and sending his pen rolling off the edge. He didn’t have the time to deal with this. Not when his power levels were still recharging after brainwashing the Phantom Thieves a second time.

(He was still getting used to how much it took out of him. They were nothing like regular civilians, whose Cognitions, shadows, could be influenced on a massive scale without even denting into his spirit reserves. These were Persona users, people who had tamed the most vulnerable, chaotic parts of themselves, who couldn’t have their shadow controlled the way regular civilians could simply because they had no shadow left. Their souls were protected.

And since he could no longer influence their souls, he had to go for the brains themselves. But to force a Metaverse skill to work on physical matter… twice, too, on multiple targets, and so close in time to one another. He was lucky he walked away with any power left at all.)

All he could afford anymore were single, minute spells, no different to the ones that the Thieves channeled through their own Personas. He was in no shape to make significant changes to either reality. God, he had hoped his threats would at least spook a little sense into the teen. He should have known that it would be hopeless. The Leader of the Phantom Thieves had evaded not just the threat, but the promise of death twice, through foolishness, sheer will, and chance, and Maruki should have expected that to carry over to this new reality when he did.

Still, to have his bluff called so easily, and by a boy who didn't even know what he'd been dealt in this game...

His body slumped forward, landing his head directly in his arms. He could only hope the Dormina that he cast on Amamiya-kun would last long enough for him to regain some power. After all, the spell was cultivated from the last of his spirit. Now he really was powerless.

He squeezed his palm in itself, waiting for the familiar plastic of his pen to make itself known, but only found flesh. 

The door to his office swung open with a resounding thud, but Maruki didn’t startle like the perpetrator might have expected him to. He wasn’t blind; he noticed all the chaos happening on the lower floors. He was just intrigued, wondering if this would be the day they attempted to reach him. He craned his eyes over to meet the guest, clad in black and purple stripes, with a horrific mask and red lenses over his brooding eyes, then watched as he shut the door behind him. He twisted the lock on the doorknob slowly, carefully, and turned back to him.

“You’ve done something to Joker,” he faced the man dead on, face hanging low but golden eyes craned up to stare at him. “He’s missing.”

Maruki sighed, hand still trying to clench around a pen that had rolled somewhere across the floor. “What do you need, Akechi-kun?”

“Where is he.”

“That doesn’t concern you.”

“So you admit that you did something.”

“Did you have another candidate in mind?” he smiled politely, though he wasn’t facing the boy enough for him to see it. “Was I supposed to shift blame onto an even higher power?”

When Akechi-kun didn’t answer, he decided to give him his full attention. He craned his body over, so he was blocking the notebook from view. Unfortunately, he overshot, and ended up swiveling awkwardly in his office chair until his side bumped into the table, making him wince. He hoped the boy didn’t notice. 

Akechi-kun narrowed his eyes, shifting his weight to the left. “What are you writing?”

“A—ah…” Right, of course he noticed. He had been a detective, it was his job to notice that kind of thing. Maruki spun up a quick lie, one that he just knew would also get sniffed out, but would at least buy him some extra time to think of something. “Just… collecting my thoughts. You know, after Rumi—”

“Oh my god, I don’t care,” the boy swept a hand over his massive mask and grumbled. “That stupid sob story of yours is getting old.”

That made the Palace ruler frown. It was good that the boy was chasing a different lead, but he just couldn’t accept a statement like that being thrown at him. He slowly got out of his chair, ensuring that the back of it was still blocking his desk from view, and straightened up, “Excuse me?”

“I’m sure you heard it fine.”

Now that he was standing, Maruki towered over the boy. Well, not by much, but still enough to force him to tilt his head back up and push the mop of brown hair out of his eyes. Gold met gold once again, but now he could actually see it in the light.

He raised his hands, palms facing the boy, but his gaze still hardened, “You’re putting yourself in a world of trouble, coming here alone just to insult me. I won’t be entertaining this.”

“I don’t need you to. You know perfectly well I’m not like the rest of the Thieves, so I have no interest in losing the dirty tactics,” he unsheathed and raised his blackened sword. “My job will go much easier if you just sit and take it.”

His voice was scratchy, ugly, just like the criminal in the Black Mask’s, but with the signature lilts of the charming Detective Prince put in all the right places. The demeanor tucked itself snugly in the middle of them both, without leaning either which way. It wasn’t a tactic he’d ever used before, not in his interactions with Maruki, Ren, Shido, or all the others he’d wronged. To anyone else, it would have been terrifying. But it was hard for Maruki to take the act seriously when he’d seen—only through memories, yes, in some convoluted version of “first-hand” that he’d never bothered to make sense of—just how pathetic Akechi Goro could truly become.

Though, in a way, that only made this all the more risky. The last time he’d reached that shattered state of his, abandoning all rationality to dig his claws in the closest thing that could bleed, he’d been forced to rot in a crumbling engine room, alone. It was the poorest excuse of a gravesite that Maruki had ever seen.

He couldn’t let that happen again. The boy needed to atone, not suffer. He wouldn’t let him suffer any longer.

Akechi-kun took a step forward, followed by another, then a few stomps in rapid succession until he was sprinting. His footsteps thundered through the small office as he charged forward, serving as fodder for his growling scream to match. Maruki sighed, sliding his left leg back as he shifted into a ready stance, then shut his eyes and relaxed. The air shifted around him oppressively as the boy drew nearer, then the piercing sound of a slice through it rang in his ears and he very nearly flinched. He took a single step back, palms still lifted in mock surrender, and a steely thud landed next to him, followed by another growl.

He evaded the boy’s jump-slash with ease, blocked a kick with his own shin, circled him with practiced movements when he yanked his gun out and fired, all with his eyes sewed shut. It was more a graceless waltz than ever a battle, as Maruki too found himself following the awful rhythm from the boy’s footsteps, humming along to his exasperation, until he heard yet another stumble and figured it would be over soon.

After a few more dodges, weaving between the sofas that he could hear being steadily shredded over time, he opened his eyes. Almost immediately, he was met with another attempt to pierce through his stomach, but he backpedaled before it could ever graze him. He clasped his hands behind his back, and the simple action seemed to aggravate the boy even further.

“You piece of shit!” the boy curled his torso in as he screeched, then whipped around on his heels and sliced his sword between them. It was close enough for Maruki to feel the air get cut through. “Call out your fucking Persona!”

He sighed again. He was doing that a lot, “I told you; I won’t be entertaining this death wish you seem to have.”

“Oh really?! I thought you were all about granting flimsy wishes.”

The choppy laugh that escaped the boy did nothing to alleviate tensions or lower the killing intent that seeped off him, and he went for another string of slashes that missed their mark entirely. Sparks and embers began to curl off from his shoes with each pounding step, singeing black footsteps on the carpet beneath Maruki’s coffee table. They didn’t go unnoticed by the man, who was quick to lurch backwards for space just as the teen started muttering under his breath.

And then, a rush of blue flame colonized the humble office.

Akechi-kun’s body was quickly overtaken by the fire, pulling his own Persona straight from the cavern in his soul. Ah, the new one. Hereward, if Maruki remembered correctly. It was quite a relief to know a new one would be taking over; Robin Hood would definitely be missed, but he never enjoyed the sight of Loki, who had become the boy’s usual in the last month.

Still, Hereward was interesting in its own right. It brought an undeniable weight into the room, a force that felt almost oppressive. Like its very presence went against the very nature of his office in its entirety. Its tattered cape and mask fluttered in the waves of heat, spare embers rolling right off its metallic body to cluster in an arch by its hand. Its armor was jagged and angular, and it made hollow creaking sounds as the Persona moved its arm, clamping a hand down on the fire and cementing its presence with finality. The fire dispersed to reveal a pitch black bow, quickly pulled taut and aimed straight at Maruki.

“That’s impressive,” he murmured. “But you know it’s unnecessary. I’m not fighting you.”

“Bullshit!” he reached up and yanked the upper half of his mask, the lenses, the top of whatever carnivorous maw it was trying to imitate, clean off. Hereward quickly heeded his call. “I’ll kill you!”

Clumps of black and red energy started to accumulate at the tip of its arrow, and when it finally fired the thing at Maruki, the magic fought to keep up with it in a slurry of cursed power. It lurched through the air, soaring closer and closer to crease in his forehead until—

He sidestepped the simple Eiha with ease. At least the boy had enough decency not to look shocked. 

(What a pathetic move. The lack of refinement, of strength, on the boy's current Persona almost made him feel bad.

Its presence may be oppressive, but its power? Pitiful at best. He couldn't help but wonder why.)

Hereward raised its bow in preparation for the next attack, but Akechi-kun simply drew his sword back up and made it pause mid motion, “I’ll bring you down here.”

“You won’t. And you already know that, don’t you?” Maruki pressed on, tilting his neck back to narrowly evade a swing. “You've made quite a routine out of coming here, but you've never tried to reach me before. You were satisfied with just wreaking havoc, floor by floor, then running away. You didn't even fight that many shadows in the process, and yet now you come straight to the strongest force in the Palace. Why? What changed now?”

The boy didn’t respond as he started putting a little extra effort into his footwork. A little more grace, more charm, matching pace with Maruki’s own. In exchange, his arms flailed harder. Now they really were dancing.

“Are you looking for something, perhaps?”

“You know damn well who I’m—stop trying to turn this into one of your shitty counselling sessions!” 

“You’ve never been one to cope well with loss.”

“Shut up!”

He knew it was unfair, purposely antagonizing the boy, but it was the only way to get him to tire out and leave. Let him go back to his responsibilities. He needed to do this.

He just… also needed to be a bit of an asshole about it.

“It’s interesting. Even after all you’ve been through, you still call these Metaverse antics mere ‘jobs,’ no different than when you worked under Shido,” the boy flinched when he said the name, jerking his sword a little too much to the left. Maruki pressed on because he had to. “Latching on to familiarity is a very popular method to cope, but if it’s leading you to do things like this, I would recommend searching for a new one.”

He narrowly evaded another strike at his side and trudged backwards until he felt the back of the sofa press into his thighs, and his hands rushed to find purchase on top of it just as the boy keeled over. He coughed into his hand—it was a mental thing more than anything, Maruki knew. There was nothing in the modeled body, no muscle, tissue, or fluid at all, for him to physically hack up—and spat air onto the ground next to him, then lowered his sword to graze the floor..

He took another breath, then spoke with an even voice, “Don’t go parading that ‘holier than thou’ attitude with me when you know nothing about true loss.”

Maruki narrowed his eyes, “Is that really what you think? After all this time?”

The boy didn’t respond verbally, but he narrowed his eyes into thin slits. He was testing the waters, Maruki quickly realized. He just wanted to prod at him with his sword until he found what he needed.

But what was it that he needed? Information? He was there when the Phantom Thieves ripped through his Palace. Hell, he’d been doing it a second time on his own over the last two days. He knew exactly how much loss was holding this place together.

“I’m a counselor, Akechi-kun. I go through every day seeing loss, feeling it. And I don’t wish to label myself a victim, but in my quest to save Rumi, I lost—”

He snarled, baring his own fangs alongside the ones carved into his mask. “No, you didn’t lose anything, you brought all that shit on yourself . You had every option to see things through with her, but you left. You gave her up. You gave up everything.”

Maruki sucked on his tongue and let the words roll down his back. Either the boy was still prodding, angling his blade a little deeper for a reaction, or he was shattering, digging his claws without reason other than to reach what bled. He found he couldn’t fault the boy for either. They were the only two things he ever learned how to do.

(Maruki couldn’t figure out which one it was. Perhaps it was both. He’d never tried that either.

It made Maruki’s body tense and bristle.)

Akechi-kun took a dangerous step forward, “So you don’t get to speak to me about this fuckass ‘coping’ when all you can do is lie to yourself. Calling yourself some holy savior? The shit you’re pulling is sacrilegious at—no, there is no ‘at best’ about this. None of what you’re doing is right.”

“Are you really one to lecture me on right and wrong?”

He snorted, “I would think the skew in my nature would make my opinion invaluable. After all, if even someone as othered from humanity like myself thinks you’re fucked up, what does that say about you?”

Maruki fell silent. He just felt no need to dignify that with a response. That was all it was.

“But of course, if you still don’t think I’m worth your precious time,” the boy drawled out the words mockingly, “then bring Joker here and feed him the same bullshit you’re feeding me. He’ll say the same thing.”

“And is he really one to lecture me on right and wrong? You’re smart, Akechi-kun, you know that what he and I have accomplished aren’t too different. Even Yoshizawa-san had the same opinion.”

This time, it was Akechi-kun’s turn to be quiet. Maruki took the chance to grab his pen and slide back into his office chair, all while the boy’s glower stuck to him like a leech.

“But she hated it then, too,” he eventually said, “Your biggest pet project hates you.”

“Look, I know you didn't come here to stop me, so you’re free to leave whenever you wish,” Maruki clicked the back of his pen and brought it to paper. “I have more taxing things to deal with than you.”

“Like Joker?”

To that, Maruki only chuckled, “Yeah.”

They fell into uncomfortable silence as Maruki felt himself being eyed up and down, slowly, carefully. Almost predatorily. He fought the urge to turn back as best he could, but couldn’t stop his eyes from craning to the right to take another peek. The boy was unmoving, arms crossed with the hilt of his sword tucked in his left hand and blade facing the ground. He had one leg tilted away and to the door, like he was ready to turn and leave at any time. And that glare. He was either timing his blinks perfectly with Maruki’s, or he wasn’t blinking at all.

They remained just like that, hating each other’s presence, until Akechi-kun finally scoffed. He spared one last glance at the desk, where Maruki’s notebook was being carefully concealed by his forearm, then muttered something to himself and let the flames of Hereward melt back into his soul. Then, he spun on his heel and twisted the lock, swinging the door open with a single push.

Maruki’s next breath trembled when he took it in, but he let it out smoothly, “Ah, before you go, would you care for a snack? There’s juice cartons in the fridge, and I might have a spare cookie or two somewhere.”

“I’ll kill you,” and then, he was gone. Maruki slumped further into his chair without fanfare.

God. Why did Amamiya-kun have to make things so difficult?

(The low thrum of Azathoth buzzed in his chest, spurring his heart to keep pumping, and he knew that wasn’t going to change anytime soon. But still, it felt dimmer. Weaker.

He was weaker now. He had no choice but to let the… what was it he referred to himself as in his head? Right, the Fool do what he wished.

What a fitting name.)

Speaking of Amamiya-kun , Maruki sighed and pulled out his phone, then sent a string of messages to the raven-haired boy. Nothing incriminating, and certainly nothing that could hint to the teen that his powers were at an all time low.

Just something. Enough to make him relax, give him the strength to let things run until he regained his power. All he needed to do was wait it out, and things would be back on track eventually.

- ~ -

“Woah, this is some amazing intel we got here. It’s worth its weight in gold,” Dazai sifted through the papers on the table with one hand, skimming headlines and photographs and random clippings held in little baggies, as he fiddled with the paper bag on his lap with his other. “Now to figure out a way to maximize our efforts against the Guild. Do you think a bomb would work?”

“Nope,” further down the table, his colleague, Ranpo-san , mumbled through the straw of his soda. “Our comms would give us away and we’d be shut down.”

Dazai set down the small stack he was holding to clutch his chin instead, staring out the window for a few seconds before eventually sighing. “Yeah, you’re right. Then, what if we made use of Kenji-kun’s super strength?”

“That’d only lead to a stalemate and a ground battle.”

“Yeah, I guess that's true,” he groaned and slumped back, slinging an arm over the backrest of his chair. “How about using Atsu—”

“Dazai-san!” all of a sudden, Atsushi-kun came sprinting in through the door, pulling both of them from their discussion to look over at him. Sweat coated his face, and his arms clung desperately to his papers as he stared down his mentor. “You… someone was looking for you, but he—he…”

A few sheets fell from his grasp, floating gently down to the floor, where the boy stepped on them as he stumbled forward.

“Calm down, lad.” Dazai shoved the bag back in his pocket and walked over, placing a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Pace yourself, and tell me what happened. Who was looking for me?”

The boy took a staggered, heavy breath, then darted his gaze between the two men as he spoke. “It was a teenager. Curly black hair, grey eyes, around…around my height—”

Dazai inhaled sharply at the description. He felt Ranpo-san’s gaze fall on him.

Atsushi-kun’s jaw snapped shut, too, and he stared at Dazai’s wide-eyed expression with curiosity, “He… also said he knew you. And that he needed to talk to you.”

“Take me to him.”

His mentee nodded and spun around to lead him through the Agency to the clinic, where Tanizaki-kun was leaning against the wall next to it. The door was shut, but there was white light seeping out from underneath, and Dazai looked over to the two boys for an explanation.

“He was just sitting in Cafe Uzumaki when I arrived, and then started asking me if I could bring him with me to the Agency so he could talk to you,” Atsushi-kun started, eyes trained on the door. “I brought him up, but just as Yosano-sensei opened the door for us, he… passed out.”

“Did he look unwell while you were coming up?”

“I… don’t think so? He got here just fine. It was only when the door opened that something happened.”

“I didn’t see it myself, but I was the one who carried him in there,” Tanizaki-kun pointed a thumb at the clinic, “for treatment. He was completely knocked out.”

“Alright. Thank you for telling me, I’m going to check in on them,” Dazai strided to the door and rapped it once, earning him a quiet hum from the doctor inside. With that, he reached for the handle and pushed down.

In the background, he heard Tanizaki-kun whisper, “I fear for the poor guy in there…” and chuckled.

The door swung open without much effort, revealing the Agency’s clinic shrouded in fluorescent light. It was a clinic by name alone, with how few medical supplies were actually kept inside, traded in for different weaponry that were better suited for the doctor’s healing prowess. The only things kept in there for proper medicinal purposes were for Dazai, as he couldn’t exactly reap the benefits the doctor provided. But those things—bandages, syringes, pills—had now found a different subject to be used on, he noticed, and were loaded on tables all around the bed in the center, where Amamiya-kun laid asleep with a damp towel on his head.

His glasses were off and set on the table, just as cracked as last time, and his eyes were squeezed shut under the light. He fidgeted, just small flinches every so often, and his hands were clenched into tight fists. Dazai took a step forward, closer to the kid, which made the doctor turn around to face him with a smile.

“Ah, Dazai,” Yosano-sensei hummed, motioning him closer. 

“Have you done anything to him yet?”

“No, I was waiting for you to come talk to me before I started anything. Atsushi said you know him?”

“Yeah, we’ve met. I can’t really give you much, though,” he strided closer and rested his hands on the edge of the bed. “Amamiya Ren. Should be a second year in high school, so I’d say he’s around 16.”

“Huh,” Yosano-sensei pinched her chin between her fingers as she turned back to the boy. “From the way Atsushi was rambling, it sounded like the kid was real eager to meet you. I thought there would’ve been some history, at least.”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong, there’s definitely a story behind our meeting,” Dazai fiddled with a button on his coat, mulling over what to say next.

Some of his information would be better relayed from the kid himself, like his background and the organization he came from. And the rest of it, he suspected, would be of more use to a larger group of his coworkers, not just the one in front of him.

His arrival with Atsushi-kun also meant that Dazai would eventually have to reveal what happened the night he rescued Q. Including the Port Mafia’s interference, but especially including this lone teenage boy’s. His strength, his skills, the power he called Persona and the mythical beings that it brought about.

(The conflict with the Guild was proving to be an even bigger hassle than Dazai wanted, with how desperate he was to push it to the corner of his mind and focus on studying those beings instead. But he couldn’t do that, so he settled for the second-best option: pulling out a textbook, book of faith, or maybe a small chapter book that seemed even vaguely related, every chance he could. He wanted to learn everything about The Rogue Messiah, or, as Amamiya-kun preferred to call it, Messiah Picaro . Dazai latched onto that tidbit of information, that tiny difference in wording, like his death depended on it.

From what he had gathered so far, Messiah was a figure from countless different faiths and beliefs, one that seemed universally agreed on to have accomplished the exact same goal each time. And yet, Amamiya-kun’s variant of it seemed awfully comfortable with chaining itself to the term “Picaro” specifically, which was in stark contrast to how vague its historical counterpart remained. Not only that, it came with a definitive form—red, grey, and gold on a body of metal—that none of the textbook depictions matched at all, nothing at all like how the statue that Arahabaki materialized itself into was a well-known cultural artifact.

Dazai had tried to research Arahabaki as well, but a nagging part of his brain insisted that he already knew everything he needed to know. He let it be.)

“Dazai? Are you going to finish that thought?”

He looked back to the doctor, who was staring at him with a raised brow, “Yeah. I don’t think you should heal him. He is okay, right?”

“He should be. There’s no physical injuries, and his pulse and breathing are both stable. Body temperature is a little high, though it’s in the normal range for a basic cold. I haven’t run any other tests yet, but so far, it looks like he just passed out from sickness.”

The thought of a boy like this—wielder of power unimaginable to the common man, rearranger of everything Dazai thought he knew about the supernatural—falling to a simple cold was laughable. Enough so to make him certain that wasn’t the case.

He didn't say it out loud, of course.

“Alright. Don’t use your ability on him unless absolutely necessary. And make sure I’m there if you have to.”

At that, she tilted her head, “...I wasn’t planning on it, not for a case this light, but okay. I can do that. Why?”

“He doesn’t know if your ability would work on him,” Ranpo-san called out from the other room before Dazai could even open his mouth. The doctor gave him a look, to which he responded with a smile, before leaving the clinic and motioning for them to return to their colleague. Tanizaki-kun and Atsushi-kun followed close behind them, and a few others were already seated when they got there. Once everyone was at the table, they all turned to Dazai, who slumped into his seat and relaxed.

The anticipation wafting off the others was refreshing, but he pushed it aside to focus on the more pressing matter. As it was, Amamiya- kun’s ambiguous nature was far too dangerous to properly explain, what with how little Dazai truly understood about both his powers and his motives. He needed more information before he could do anything, which meant he couldn’t start telling his ideas just yet. As much as it disgusted him to even think about, let alone admit, most of the Agency really couldn’t compare with Mori Ougai when it came to educated theorizing.

(Dazai idly wondered how the man reacted to the camera footage. What weird, twisted plans could he be making right now?)

There was also the risk that would come from revealing what he did know, being the boy’s lack of an ability. The Guild had already managed to recruit Lovecraft, a man whose powers also didn’t stem from an ability. And with how much of an interest the Guild had in Yokohama already, the last thing Dazai wanted was for them to hone in on the Agency to try and fill Lovecraft’s spot. 

Yes, he and Chuuya had confirmed Steinbeck to have been unconscious the entire time, as well as killed off all other witnesses, but in case word had still gotten back to the Guild about Amamiya-kun , he didn’t want to lose the advantage they had over something like a loose tongue, his or anyone else’s. It was as the saying went: to trick your enemies, you must first trick your allies. But what could he get away with omitting before Ranpo-san began pointing things out?

Well, he had to try.

“Is that really your reasoning, Dazai?” Kunikida-kun started the conversation once he realized that Dazai had no intention of doing so himself. “That her ability just won’t work?”

“Hey, come on!” Dazai pouted, earning him a glare. “Is that really such an outlandish claim? It doesn’t work on me.”

“But that’s different. Does he even have a gift?”

“He does,” Dazai lied through his teeth. Interestingly enough, Ranpo-san didn't call him out on it, but he did shift in his seat. “And it’s because of that gift that we can’t take any risks with him.”

“What is it?” Yosano-sensei leaned forward. Dazai shifted his gaze to her.

“I don’t think I can explain it in a way that does it justice. You’re better off getting that information from him when he wakes up, so it's easier for all of us to understand.”

“But—I mean, aren’t abilities kind of confusing in nature? We don’t really need to understand it.”

“This is a special case, Tanizaki-kun,” Dazai turned to face him, “I’m confident that properly understanding his ability will be vital in figuring out his purpose here.”

The teen nodded and pressed back into his seat.

“Still, Dazai. You have to give us something to work with,” Kunikida-kun pushed his glasses up. “At least tell us why you’re worried that his gift will stop Yosano-sensei’s from working.”

“It’s not that I’m worried. I just want to know what would happen if she tried. Speaking of,” he turned to Yosano-sensei , who stared right back at him. “If it comes to that, you have to do it while he’s lucid. There is no other option.”

She nodded, “Sure, but is he going to be as cryptic about all this as you are?”

“Actually,” Atsushi-kun piped up, pulling Dazai’s attention to him immediately, “how do you even know him, Dazai-san? Why does he want to talk to you so bad?”

He shrugged, “I have a few of his things, and he probably just wants them back.”

“That’s… really vague. What things do you have?”

The chatter between coworkers died down at that question, as almost everyone looked to be just as interested in the answer as his mentee. Well, except for Ranpo-san, but only because—

“The bag in his pocket,” the man mumbled out through his lollipop.

Well, because of that. Dazai sighed and scrunched his face into a pout.

“Ah, this is such a pain!” he whined, yanking the paper bag from his jacket and dumping it in front of the group unceremoniously. “I already had to blab to the Port Mafia Boss, and now I need to tell you guys too?”

“You spoke to Port Mafia about this?!”

Kunikida-kun jumped up from his chair and slammed his hands on the table, leaning forward to meet a bumbling Dazai with his palms raised.

“Don’t be upset, Kunikida-kun! I had to! One of their Executives was with me when I met the kid!”

That got him to stop, but definitely not relax. Instead, he slowly sank back into his seat, dumbfounded, and went as limp as his uptight nature would let him. Yosano-sensei chuckled dryly, patting his arm, while Tanizaki-kun leaned forward.

“Was this when you went on that mission? But I thought Port Mafia wasn’t going to get involved in that.”

“Their boss never actually agreed to stay out of it. I think he understood the benefits of an alliance, but just didn’t want it to begin on our terms,” Dazai said. “He sent out one of his executives to cooperate with me on the mission, and we ended up finding the kid on our way. It was a welcome surprise, actually. He did all the hard work for me, and I got a lot of good intel.”

“Intel that you still haven’t shared with us,” Kunikida-kun grumbled, having snapped out of his stupor and was now eyeing the bag warily.

“Because I knew he would come back, and now that he’s out of the Port Mafia’s reach, he’ll definitely be more open with me. Ah, how’s this,” Dazai leaned forward, his half-proposition earning him a few raised brows, “You guys can help me come up with some questions to ask him, and I’ll relay all of my findings back to you at the end.”

His coworkers were quick to accept, making Dazai breathe out a subtle sigh. Atsushi-kun pulled out a blank paper from the bundle he was holding just as Kunikida-kun produced a pen, and the group got to work compiling a list.

Meanwhile, Dazai leaned back into his chair and turned to face the window, absently picking out the different voices while he stared. He followed everyone’s thoughts with ease, jumping between whoever was speaking, writing, or just tapping their fingers on the table, but his ears seemed to latch onto Atsushi-kun’s voice the most, listening to how he stumbled over his words trying to convince the others not to add some of their harsher queries.

He was just about to reenter the conversation when a tiny thump and clatter roared in his ear, having echoed into the room from all the way down the hall.

“He’s awake, Dazai,” Ranpo-san pulled the candy from his mouth. “Go check on him.”

Dazai nodded, pushing his chair back and swiping the bag to leave. The table quieted down, and they all looked up at him expectantly.

“I’ll bring him here to introduce himself, then take him back for questioning.”

“Okay. Here,” Atsushi-kun said, handing him the sheet of paper they had all been writing on. “Our questions.”

“Thanks,” he took the sheet and grinned, resting a hand on his hip. “Don’t worry, I know what I have to do with him. You trust me, right?”

Kunikida- kun rolled his eyes, and most of the others just laughed. But his mentee nodded furiously, pumping his fist in the air, and Dazai’s smile gained a little more warmth as he made to leave.

Just before he reached the door, though, he snuck a glance at Ranpo-san , who was watching him go. A few seconds passed while they traded looks, stone faced and unblinking, as everyone else muttered amongst themselves. But eventually, finally, the man nodded and turned back to his drink, and Dazai felt his shoulders drop ever so slightly. Ranpo-san was trusting him with this. With the boy. He was going to look past the cotton Dazai had fed the others and trust his plan.

Dazai’s smile shifted as he turned the corner and locked itself in a firm smirk as he made his way back to the clinic.

- ~ -

Ren woke to the sight of a syringe resting dangerously close to his face. Multiple of them, piled up together on a little table right next to his bed, each full of their own dosage of something that he didn’t want to think about. 

His hands were free, not bound behind his back with dirty cuffs like the last time he’d come so close to a syringe, so he quickly shoved an arm forward and tried to push them away. He missed, and his knuckles slammed into the table instead, toppling it to the ground and sending everything atop it all over the floor. He winced at the sound, ready to reach up and nurse the headache he was sure would grow at it, but found nothing. He felt fine.

Actually, he felt amazing.

It felt like his entire body had just gone through a full detox, wringing out all the pain and unease that was cramping him up and leaving the damp towel on his head as the only source of lingering discomfort. He quickly peeled it off and tossed it aside, then heaved his body upright until he was sitting cross-legged on the bed.

Wow. It was bitter on his tongue to admit, but those skills he learned in counselling had always been extremely useful in the Metaverse. For how pissed he actually was at the man, he really did have a lot to thank him for.

Then again, it was because of him that he needed to use those skills at all these days, so never mind. Ren was pissed again.

He scoffed, loud and full of irritation, just to get the last few drops of negativity out of him, then started to look around. There weren’t any monitors around him or tubes connected to him, but there were a bunch more tables, each carrying their own slew of medical supplies. The desk in the corner had some small decorations covering it, and messy stacks of papers could be seen all around. This place looked a lot more like Takemi- sensei’s than the last one. Well, except for the one wall. Ren did a full body shiver when he noticed just how many weapons were hung up on that wall, the chainsaw in the center reminding him just what he needed to focus on.

He was somewhere, his pockets felt empty, and drugs were, at some point, even if they’d been wiped from his system with the detox, involved.

He didn’t remember coming to this clinic.

(God, wasn’t that stupidly familiar?)

But what happened this time? Unlike how he just walked into Nakahara-san’s foot back then—a fact he was still a little huffy at himself for—he couldn’t think of any time where these new people had a chance to knock him out. The closest opportunity they had was when he was waiting with the white-haired boy for the door to open, but he really didn’t want to believe someone who looked that kind would do that to him.

Then again, the boy was just a character. Everyone but him was a character. Different slivers of his counsellor made for content, controlled entirely by a predetermined plot that he was disrupting just by being there. They were all threats.

He was going to have to do a lot of second guessing while here, wasn’t he? That damn chainsaw on the wall was proving it.

(He turned his attention inward for a second. He felt completely healthy, which was good; nothing had changed since the last time he was awake. But the real issue was that his spirit hadn't changed either, not even after that sleep. If that didn’t prove he was in the Metaverse, then nothing else could. But then, why was his Metanav acting so strange?) 

And just like the first time, his train of thought was interrupted by the telltale creak of the door opening, revealing a shadowed figure in the center. Only one this time, at least, but Ren had a suspicion that he would need to burn the same amount of energy humoring it regardless.

“Come on, Amamiya-kun,” the outline shifted, leaning its lanky weight against the doorframe. Ren could hear the grin within the words. “Was once not enough? Did we really have to do this whole song and dance a second time?”

Ren didn’t feel the same rush of panic as the last time he heard that voice in that way. He was wary, yes, but the panic had been swiftly traded in for annoyance.

“You need to stop knocking me out and dragging me to random clinics,” he grumbled, swinging his legs over the side of the bed to plant his feet on the floor. Once he stopped wobbling, he trudged his way over, kicking the syringes under the bed, to stand directly in front of the other.

The man still had a leg up on him in height, so Ren prepared his darkest glare as he looked up. He wasn’t expecting to be met with a face that was, Ren noticed from the new angle finally bringing light to the man, pouting?

“Street life’s made you cranky,” Dazai-san muttered as he moved out of the doorway, almost sounding hurt as he rested a hand on Ren’s shoulder. It was shirked off, but found its way back anyway. “Come on.”

Ren looked back up at the man, “How did you know I was on the streets?”

“Those are the same clothes I last saw you in.”

“You’re wearing the same outfit too.”

”Yeah, but this is a work uniform. Plus, you stink.”

Ren chose not to respond to that because, well, he really did. Instead, he just let the man guide him where he hoped was whatever secret spot his stuff was at. 

They passed by the entrance, where a series of desks were lined side by side, and Ren tried to stop, but Dazai-san just shoved him lightly to keep walking.

He frowned, “Where are we going?”

“We’re going to introduce you to my coworkers. You gave them quite the scare when you passed out, you know.”

“You’re the ones who did that to me.”

“No, we weren’t,” the man’s voice gained a slight edge to it, tiny, but enough to make Ren bite back his next remark. “Street life’s also made you delirious.”

They left it at that, giving Ren some time to think as he was pushed around. Was that the truth? Was it just because of his new living conditions? He’d felt completely fine up until the moment it happened, so for it all to catch up to him just a few seconds before he made any progress was stupidly convenient, leading him to suspect that Maruki- sensei had something to do with it. He would have to figure that out later.

Eventually, they reached the end of a long hall, where only one room remained on the left side. Faint chatter could be heard from inside, and Ren could vaguely recognize one of the voices to be that of the white-haired boy’s. He looked back at Dazai-san , trying to slow his pace, but the man had no intention of stopping and all but shoved him into the room. He stumbled to a stop by the doorframe, and immediately, all eyes were on him.

“This is him, everyone,” the brunette behind him said, making him jump. He kept his graze trained on the long table, though, darting between each person sitting around it, checking for immediate threats.

He was right about the white-haired boy after all, who was sitting at the farthest corner and giving him a nervous smile that he half-returned.

“Hello. My name is Amamiya Ren,” he bowed his head and said softly, because as suspicious as he was, they did care for him while he was unconscious. He should at least be polite. “Thank you for helping me.”

Besides, they seemed fine. A little strange, sure, and the man with the lollipop was the only one whose “uniform” even resembled a detective’s, but they seemed fine. None of them were outright scary.

(The Second Coming of the Detective Prince didn't look all that scary either. He literally ran a food blog on the side.

And Ren was second guessing once again.)

The room was silent after his introduction as the group started to size him up, from his unwashed hair to his hands stuffed in his pockets. But eventually, someone spoke again, and Ren recognized her as the woman who opened the door.

“Do you still feel sick, Amamiya?” she asked, smiling. Ren shook his head.

"I’m alright now, thank you. But could you tell me what happened?”

This time, the white-haired boy spoke up, “Uh, we were just about to enter the Agency when you suddenly fell to the ground. You wouldn’t wake up when we moved you, either.”

“That sounds… scary,” Ren nodded, “I’m glad you were there to help me.”

The boy smiled a little more easily this time.

There was another awkward silence after that, and the blonde man sitting in the other corner, posture looking the most respectable out of the bunch, started to drill his gaze through Ren instead of at him. It was enough for him to notice and shuffle under, but not enough to feel actively threatened by, so he returned the stare as best he could. It probably helped that he wasn’t wearing glasses to cover his glare, as the man eventually sighed.

“You can repay us by answering some questions,” he said, pushing up his glasses. “For starters, we need a little bit of information on your background and—”

“But that’s boring!” Dazai-san cried. “Don’t listen to him, Amamiya-kun , he’s just trying to hide what he really wants to know.”

“Take this seriously, Dazai.”

“Go on, tell them what your ability is!”

That definitely got their attention. The lazier stares sharpened, and the slouches straightened out. Everyone but the man at the very front—the detective cosplayer, Ren bit back the tiny part of him that was geeking out over the outfit—stared him down with their full attention, and he shivered.

“Ah, I can’t say the name without automatically activating my… it,” he winced at his delivery. “And I’m sure you guys would attack me if that happened.”

For a split second, the group looked unsure. But then they all turned to Dazai-san behind him, who chuckled and placed a flat palm on his curls, and the uncertainty was gone.

“Ouch, Amamiya-kun ! I thought we were close enough that you’d remember what my ability is,” the man whined. The words sounded innocuous, playful, but the tightening grip he had on Ren’s head seeped his true meaning directly into his mind. Pretend. “How cruel of you.”

So he wanted his coworkers to believe he had an ability to be nullified? A lie like that would only limit how much strength he could use here, but would definitely give him a hidden ace. But what about Dazai-san? How does this—

“Amamiya-kun?”

He needed to start thinking faster.

“Right,” he muttered. Fine, then. Keep your secrets. Either way, it didn’t look like he had much of a choice but to follow the man's plan. He took a deep breath, and turned back to the rest of them. “My ability’s name…”

From the very corner of his vision, he saw the Sherlock-Holmes-looking character peek open a green eye from behind his soda cup.

“Persona.”

He quickly pulled his focus away from that green eye as the dam broke, and all he had to block the torrent were his own outstretched palms.

His chest started to swell as echoes from his own soul rang in his ears, as every ounce of his energy went into both igniting the flame and extinguishing it. His knees weakened, but he covered up the wobble in his stance as best he could. And somehow, through sheer force of will, he kept his eyes open.

“It’s the ability to summon an alter ego and—” he pushed out the words while swallowing back the fire, “...channel its power into different skills.”

Someone hummed, and it sounded approving, but he didn’t have energy to waste on decoding it.

He took a few more seconds of tense stillness, finally overcoming the tear in his soul and burying his true selves back within, before silently motioning to Dazai-san that he was alright. The hand on his head retreated, and he refocused his eyes in time to see the crowd nodding at his explanation.

“S—Sorry. Having my ability blocked like that is still pretty new to me,” Ren glanced back at the brunette, who was wearing an unreadable smile that he chose to interpret as… actually, he couldn’t even think of how he wanted to interpret it. It was just… a smile. 

“Sure. Anyway,” the hand that just left his head was immediately slung over his shoulders instead as the man’s voice gained a pitchy cheerfulness. “Do you guys have any questions?”

“I have one, actually,” the white-haired boy chimed in, first facing Dazai-san but then turning to look at him. Ren didn’t notice his eyes the first time they met, but staring into him like this, they felt familiar. Golden, like what he’d come to expect back home. “Dazai-san didn’t really explain it to us, so I hope you can. Why did you need to come and meet with him?”

“Well—Well I wouldn’t call it a meeting. I’m just here for my things,” Ren paused, mulling over what else he could say, then plastered on a smirk, “and to piss off a certain someone before I’m taken back.”

As if on cue, a buzz rang from Dazai-san’s pocket, making a rush of air leave Ren's nose when the man pulled out his own phone. He watched the man tap at the screen with piqued interest before eventually dropping it to his side, and he wondered if he could even see the message, or if Maruki-sensei had added a safety measure to prevent that.

“Taken back?” the blonde with the glasses stared at him, then glared at Dazai-san . “Are you serious, Dazai?! First the Guild, then Port Mafia, and now this new group? Why are you dragging us into even more conflict over some boy?!”

“Hey!” Dazai-san grinned at the blonde man, then looked around to the rest of his coworkers, “You guys should have some faith in Amamiya-kun! His ability helped me a lot against the Guild.”

“Besides, you don’t need to worry,” Ren chimed in, which got everyone looking at him again. “You won’t even realize it when I’m gone.”

The words came out a little more dejected than he meant them to, but nobody seemed to notice. They did turn to him after his declaration, though, expressions demanding more.

“And why is that?”

“My people don’t need anything from you, and I’m only here for my stuff, not to cause trouble.”

The arm around him tightened, pinching his neck between the elbow, but when he looked up, he found Dazai-san smiling at him.

“I’ll be the judge of that, Amamiya-kun ,” the man chuckled, though it was airy and meaningless. Then, he turned back to his coworkers. “If there’s nothing else, I’ll be taking him now.”

The group nodded and huddled in together to start talking, their voices complete murmurs that Ren didn’t care enough to try and listen in on. Instead, he was focused on the detective guy at the very front, who was pouting around a lollipop as he stared at him and Dazai-san. Mainly Dazai-san, he realized, but it didn’t stop him from shuffling his weight awkwardly anyway. In the end, he didn’t have time to think much of it, as he was suddenly spun around and led out of the room. At least his yelp of surprise was fairly quiet.

He was pushed back down the hall, past the entrance, and back into the clinic, and only then did the man let him go. He immediately scanned the room again, searching for things he definitely missed when he had just woken up, and landed on three different things at the same time. 

The bed he was lying on earlier had Velcro restraining straps, five total for different parts of the body, and yet none of them were wrapped around him when he woke up. One of the fallen syringes had popped open, spilling its contents all over the floor. Finally, the wall of just weapons in the back was spotless, like its contents had gotten enough use and cleaning these days not to collect dust or bloodstains.

A tiny click stunned him out of his head, and he spun around in time to see Dazai-san pulling his hand away from the door’s lock.

“You’re really lucky that sounded believable, Amamiya-kun ,” was all he said.

“...Did it?” he tried to make his words sound sarcastic, a little cocky, and a lot like Joker. Instead, they were hopeful. He really didn’t want another group of people to end up on his case, nor did he feel like getting on this guy’s bad side. “Was I cryptic enough to please your detective friends?”

“I’d say so. I’d really appreciate it if you lost that cryptic attitude with me, though. I have some things I need to get done with you.”

“What things?” Ren asked, taking the smallest of steps back as his eyes instinctively flitted to the weapons. Of course, he had a feeling he would win any battle the man tried to start, but that didn’t mean he wanted to walk right into pain. “What do you want with me now?”

“Just a bit of questioning. We can’t have a total stranger staying with us.”

His leg inched back to take another step away, but faltered when he processed the words, “...I’m going to stay here?”

“I won’t be letting you go a second time. The only reason I did it once was to get you off of the Port Mafia side of Yokohama.”

Ren shivered at the bluntness, but carried on, “So you want me on your side instead.”

Dazai- san grinned, and it completely ate up what little light was left in the room. “That depends on how much I like your answers.”

- ~ -

I…

I can’t say that I’m not intrigued by how this is going.

So for the time being, I’ll allow you your fun.

Chapter Text

- ~ -

Seriously?

Ren pursed his lips as he watched the man in the suit open a secret passage with a library book. What a vivid cliche. Surely his counsellor could do better than that.

He was tempted to ask what ability was powering the feature, just to see what non-answer he would get. No one ever explains the gimmicks behind these mechanisms; at least in Kamoshida’s palace it could be written off as Metaverse magic, and it was corny then, too.

Then again, Ren had only solved that puzzle using his Third Eye, and Ryuji did not shy away from talking about how much it effin’ sucked, man! in the moment, so maybe those gimmicks did have some merit in staving off thieves.

Didn’t stop them, though.

He bit back his smile, not because he was wary of the people with him or anything, but because he really didn’t want his next bout of homesickness to stem from a memory of a rapist and abuser. Even if beating up his shadow had definitely made him feel quite at home.

“In here,” the man waved an arm through the door, and Ren hung back to let the others in first. Nakajima-san walked with purpose, determination that radiated off him even in the darkness of the hallway. His pace was quick, but Tanizaki-san kept up with it just fine, leaving Ren to linger in the backlines with his hands stuffed in his pockets once again.

Honestly, he had no idea what he was doing here, trailing behind two teens only a few years older than him to complete a mission he knew barely anything about. Well, when put like that, it sounded like something right up the Phantom Thieves’ alley, but it was proving to be anything but. He hadn’t expected Dazai-san to spring a job on him halfway through their interrogation, let alone an infiltration mission with someone whose name he only got a few minutes before they left.

(“You want us to do an infiltration mission?!”

Ren winced at the white-haired boy’s volume, but found himself agreeing wholeheartedly. This agency wanted him to run an errand for them? There was no way he earned their trust that easily. Barely an hour ago, he was lying to their faces! And he didn’t even do it that well!

Dazai-san ignored their looks of confusion, keeping his eyes trained on the whiteboard he was pointing at, and continued his explanation, “The Guild is in the midst of organizing an all-out ground assault, so you’ll sneak in while the Moby Dick is sparsely staffed and move to take control.”

“But… are you sure it's a good idea to send us out? I—I’m not sure if I could accomplish something like that, and he’s not even a member of the Agency.”

Ren nodded furiously, which made Dazai-san look at him. His gaze lingered for a while, enough to make the teen pull his legs into himself under the table, until he eventually looked over at the white-haired boy instead. Ren let out the ghost of a relieved sigh.

“For this type of job, a gifted with combat experience is uniquely preferable. And you’ve also been held captive on that ship before, giving you some insider knowledge that will definitely benefit you on this mission. As for Amamiya-kun…” the man trailed off, spinning his pen with his fingers, then grinned. “Well, with everything going on, and Kyoka-chan’s unique circumstances, I don’t see us finding the time to conduct a proper entrance exam. So why not kill two birds with one stone and spin this event into a specialized exam for our next candidate!”

Ren’s jaw dropped. He picked it back up seamlessly, but he had a feeling that Dazai-san noticed it anyway.

The boy next to him was a lot less subtle, jumping up from his chair and leaning his torso over the table, “What?! But what about Kyoka-chan’s exam?”

Ren didn’t know who this Kyoka was, or why her exam was such a big deal, but the silence that stretched out after that question told him it was a sore subject.

“...When she’s rescued, the President will likely make arrangements for her own exam to take place,” Dazai-san eventually said. “But right now, that’s not the issue. What we need to focus on is annihilating the Guild’s advances, and that’ll require Amamiya-kun’s pledged alliance.”

“So—we’re recruiting him first, then? Just like that?”

“Right,” Ren pulled his chin from his hand and took his elbows off the table. “I didn’t know about this.”

At that, the man tilted his head, “Really? Then, did you think the Agency was just going to give you a room to stay in for free? We’re not that chivalrous.”

“I know, but…” he trailed off. Honestly, he had been half-expecting the “free room” to be some sort of jail cell, where he’d get tried for fairytale claims about his powers. Or… maybe a manslaughter charge. It wouldn’t have been the first time, but now it actually had some truth to it. His next breath came out choppy and he shrunk deep into himself at the thought.

“In any case, I’m telling you now,” the man’s voice made Ren jump, successfully yanking him back out of his own head. “Either you join the Agency and grant us access to your gift, or you can head out now and get yourself killed. I hope you’ll take the first option.”

That felt a little drastic. Sure, he’d be homeless again, and that definitely wasn’t going to be healthy, but to say he’d be killed was…

Actually, this world was terrifying. Even just looking up to meet Dazai-san’s eyes now—eyes that, back in the clinic before all this, had ripped fragments of his life straight from his tongue with a glare darker than Niijima-san could ever achieve—was proving to be too much. He wouldn’t put it past these people to try and kill him on sight.

Ren opened his mouth to say something, he wasn’t sure what. As it turned out, his vocal chords weren’t going to let him say anything at all, and he was left flapping his lips like a fish. Dazai-san took that as his reason to keep going.

“You’ll get a lot of wiggle room with the rules surrounding ability usage if you join us, even if it’s just temporary,” the man leaned forward, pressing a palm into the table. “From where I’ve seen you end up, I have a feeling you’ll need that.”

That was… a good point, actually. Him not being able to manipulate his Metanav as usual meant that using his Personas would have actual, real world consequences. And as much as he enjoyed dodging the law as a Phantom Thief, he had a feeling it would be a lot harder to manage without the anonymity of the Cognitive world and with the random superpowers everywhere.

At Ren’s continued pause, Dazai-san sighed, “You know, should I decide to report you, you’ll find yourself in a world of legal trouble for the destruction you caused that night. You’ll be apprehended by—well, I don’t know who exactly, but I’ll bet the Port Mafia is just itching to get you back in their clutches after your escape. Joining us will grant you a safe place to stay and immunity from those potential charges you could accumulate. You’ll be completely protected until you’re… what was it again? ‘Taken back’ to your people.”

Another good point. From what he had pieced together, all the top powers in this city were made up of ability users, or “gifteds”, as Dazai-san had called them. The Port Mafia was one, and with how casually Nakahara-san and Dazai-san had acted around each other, this Armed Detective Agency was probably another. The Guild was also apparently hostile in ways that even a mafia couldn’t achieve, but that didn’t really matter if he was just going to piss them both off anyway.

Staying on at least one group’s good side would be critical if he wanted even a small chance at surviving and getting home. He knew better than to try and handle entire superhuman organizations on his own.

[It had taken a full team of Phantom Thieves, even with their Wild Card leader in the frontlines, just to win against a vengeful teenage boy. And with how fucked up Lovecraft had been, and how easily Nakahara-san kept up with him, Ren had every reason to believe these people would be on a whole other level.]

“Make a decision, Amamiya-kun. We’re running on the Guild’s schedule right now.”

Ren looked back up at the man, who was now stone faced to match his cold words. It wasn’t the kind of face he wanted to see but it definitely helped him speed up his thinking. After a few more, only slightly hesitant seconds, he nodded, and the man’s expression bloomed into a smirk.

“Wonderful! Now, Atsushi-kun,” he looked away from Ren and to the other teen, who jumped at the sudden shift in attention.

“Uh… yeah?” his words came out weak. They made Ren breathe out a sigh in minute sympathy.

Though, he wasn’t expecting Dazai-san’s voice to soften so quickly.

“I know this sounds daunting. After all, you’re going to have to accomplish all of this while also overseeing someone else’s exam,” he nudged his face in Ren’s direction. “But I know you’ll succeed. You’re the most qualified man for this job, after all. Will you do it?”

Ren turned to the other teen—Atsushi was his name, apparently—and tried to meet his gaze. The first thing he noticed was that he was shivering. 

His golden eyes were trained on the table, completely glossed over, and he had a knuckle-breaking grip on his own knees. His chest was fluttering, and yet it didn’t look like he was breathing at all.

Ren tensed up as well. He’s seen that look before, that pose, everything. He’s seen it on Ann, Ryuji, Yusuke, Makoto, Futaba, Haru—

Akechi-kun. Sumire.

“Dazai-san…” he started, not looking back as he slowly reached out to Atsushi. 

“Leave him,” the man said, startling him just before his hand made contact with the teen’s arm. “He’ll be fine.”

“He’s panicking.”

“He’s thinking. Leave him.”

Ren scoffed, but bit back his response, letting his hand fall uselessly to his side as he watched with a cautious eye on Atsushi, who was looking much smaller in his seat than he had been a moment ago.

He couldn’t help but wonder what it was that the teen was thinking about.

Eventually, Atsushi blinked the haze out of his eyes and straightened up. His hands were still locked onto his knees, and it looked painful, but he was slowly relaxing. He took one last, massive breath, and turned to face both Ren and Dazai-san. “I’m ready for this. I’ll do it.”

Dazai-san nodded, gaining a much prouder edge to his smile, “That settles it, then. Amamiya-kun , for this mission, you’ll be placed under the care of Nakajima Atsushi. I trust you both to give it your all.”

Ren had a sneaking suspicion the man didn’t trust him one bit.)

“Amamiya-kun?”

“Sorry,” Ren quickened his pace to a slight jog to catch up with the others. “Just zoned out.”

He bumped shoulders with Tanizaki-san before finally slowing down, though he still had to maintain a brisk pace to keep up with them. God, they were rushing. It was starting to stress him out.

“I had a question, actually,” he said next, hoping to alleviate some of his own tensions. “Why does a detective agency need all this stuff? Especially when it needs to be this hidden… aren’t you more about working with police and uncovering the secrets, not keeping them?”

He gestured vaguely around the dim hallway, making the other chuckle.

“We’re the Armed Detective Agency,” he smiled. “We have to have these things.”

“I thought the ‘Armed’ part was about your abilities.”

“No, we have guns and stuff, too.”

The teen said it so casually, in such a calm, gentle voice, that Ren couldn’t help but snort, “Yeah, I noticed. Gave me a heart attack first seeing all the weapons in that clinic.”

He didn’t get a response to that, as the telltale glint of a metal door appeared and caught the eye of both of them. Somehow, the other two began walking even faster, leaving Ren practically sprinting behind them. 

Nakajima-san pushed through the door without much effort, but when Ren moved to hold it open, he was surprised at how heavy it actually was. Heavy enough to make him wonder if the white-haired teen had some sort of strength enhancement ability. 

Actually, did he even know what Nakajima-san’s ability was? He really needed to figure that out before anything else.

He opened his mouth, ready to ask, but felt the words die on his tongue when he noticed what the others were looking at. In the center of the room, encased in massive metal walls of a military base that Ren didn’t even notice from the outside of the library, was a fucking attack helicopter.

Holy shit, that is awesome.

“This is our micro-assault fighter, the Night Crow,” a voice startled Ren from how blatantly he was ogling the vehicle. “The plan is for me to pilot this and deliver you guys to the airship.”

“You know how to fly a helicopter, Tanizaki-san ?” he asked, not bothering to conceal the awe in his voice. He got a strained smile and half a shrug in return, and Nakajima-san wasn’t even looking at either of them. The awkward silence after his outburst made him curl into himself a little, but another glance at the fucking attack helicopter he was going to ride in soon fixed him right up.

Because jeez, that’s so cool. Discreetly, Ren wished he could try flying it himself, but with how little experience he had in driving outside of not-cat-buses, he had a feeling it would only end in disaster.

“Alright, guys, listen up,” Tanizaki-san shuffled forward to pat the side of the vehicle. “This wasn’t supposed to be a two-man mission, so by the time you joined us, Amamiya-kun, the President had already requested the Night Crow for our arsenal. It only has one passenger seat.”

“But, how will we both make it on the ship then?” Nakajima-san asked. It was the first thing he’d said since they entered the library.

The redhead shrugged, already slotting his goggles over his eyes, “I’m not sure. Do you guys have any ideas?”

There was a stretch of awkward silence, which the two teens used to pass a few more sets of goggles between the three of them.

“Well, do we both need to be up there, anyway? Dazai-san , would you be okay with one of us operating on the ground?” Nakajima-san pressed down on his earpiece as he spoke, then fell silent before eventually sighing and dropping his hand. “He said we both need to be present on the ship.”

They frowned again, clearly getting frustrated, and Ren could only shuffle awkwardly in place.

“...Sorry,” he eventually said, thumbing one of his curls out from where it was trapped under the goggles. “I don’t know why he put me on this mission, if it was just going to cause problems.”

One more awkward pause, then a hand came up to Ren’s shoulder.

“Don’t say that,” Ren looked up just in time to see Nakajima-san’s soft smile as he spoke, before he switched to seriousness. “I believe in Dazai-san’s judgement completely, and if he trusts you, then so do I. I know there’s a reason he sent you out here.”

Actually, he doesn’t trust me at all, Ren didn’t say, and that’s why he sent me out here.

“I agree,” Tanizaki-san chimed in, already sitting in the pilot seat. “I’m sure you’ll do well, Amamiya-kun . You’ll definitely ace your exam.”

Right, this strange mission was doubling as an entrance exam. One that he was probably expected to pass with flying colors, despite having absolutely no idea what he was meant to do. Damn, he hadn’t had to think about this stuff in a while; the last time he’d ever needed to ‘prove himself’ like this had been back when Morgana first made the offer to train him and the group.

He darted his gaze between the two teens, who were back to frowning at the floor while they strategized. They had to think of something eventually, and, well, while Morgana loved to chide him for his reckless ideas, he never seemed to have any complaints in the few seconds after his plans worked. And Morgana wasn’t here now, saving them some time with the first half.

“Maybe we could…” Ren trailed off, feeling his cheeks heat up significantly when both teens looked at him. Never mind, this was a terrible idea. “Well, I don’t know if it’ll work, but I’ve always wanted to try that thing—in the movies, where the hero flies around in the helicopter by holding onto the ladder…?”

They stare at him for a few seconds, before both erupting in soft fits of chuckles. They were tense, definitely, and a little forced, but Ren felt the heat spread to his ears and neck all the same.

“That’s… ridiculous, but we don’t really have a choice,” Tanizaki-san grinned, making Ren look away. “Do you think you’ll be alright?”

“...Probably?” his old grappling hook had pretty much desensitized him to heights, anyway. “Actually, yeah.”

“Well, that’s good enough. Are you guys ready?”

Nakajima-san looked over at him, eyes questioning and slightly concerned. It was a warm look that Ren hadn’t expected to get from a complete stranger. He smiled slowly, earning him a fierce nod in return, and watched how the other teen turned back to the aircraft with a look of pure determination all over his face. It was hard not to feel a rush of energy within himself at the sight.

“Ready,” he said, watching the white-haired boy head over to his seat by the pilot and shuffling the duffel bag higher up on his shoulder. It rustled loudly under his movements; it was too light in his grip, like it was missing something. Someone.

This would be his first real mission without Morgana. Without his whole team.

He sighed, letting himself at least feel that much, then steeled himself just in time to see Tanizaki-san lift the helicopter off the ground. Still so fucking awesome.

If only Morgana could turn into a helicopter…

- ~ -

There was a slight downside to how Dazai had modified Amamiya-kun’s earpiece and microphone. Forcing it to always remain active meant that no matter what, Dazai was going to have the sounds of footsteps, wind, static, and mouth breathing ringing in his left ear. But the benefits definitely outweighed the drawbacks, as Dazai got a clear listen when the Night Crow took off and the boy started muttering to himself from where he was perched on the ladder.

“I have quite a few… I might need it early on… I should probably just chug one right now.”

There was a rustle, then a series of clinks, and then the familiar pops and crackles of a soda can being opened. It was quite impressive, the kid being able to down a full energy drink while hanging precariously off the edge of a helicopter. A few seconds of silence passed as the boy drank, giving Dazai more than enough time to start thinking.

(Amamiya Ren is a fidgeter, Dazai noted idly as he flitted his attention between the boy’s nervous hair-twirling and the questions in his hand. Amamiya Ren is a pitiful teenage boy.

Their positions in the clinic were very familiar, with the boy sitting on the cot and Dazai in the office chair next to him. This time, though, things felt a lot more relaxed. The kid’s posture was still tense, yes, but not as much as the other day, and Dazai no longer had that itchy chill running through his body. Most likely, it was because they were more familiar with each other than last time, but it was a lot more fun to blame Mori-san’s ugly medical office and the terrible aura it brought instead. So he did, whining all about it to the boy, who only let out soft nose-exhales in response. He wouldn’t look at Dazai at all.

Eventually, he turned back to the questions on the paper. They were all surface level asks, things about his family, his living conditions, his connection to the current threats on Yokohama. It was to be expected; his coworkers didn’t know a single thing about the kid. Dazai, however, very much did, meaning they had bigger things to talk about than stuff like this. He stuffed the paper in his pocket, ready to get started.

Well, technically, he could have started as soon as he shut the door. He was more than confident that the boy would have talked if he did. But he got the feeling that Amamiya-kun had something he wanted to ask first, so he had no issue with dragging things out until the boy found his words.

It took a long time, but eventually, he did, “Have… you been sleeping well?”

It seemed like an honest question, which made the way he had to bite out the words that much more interesting. Dazai leaned forward, curiosity sufficiently piqued. After all, he had been planning to discuss the exact same topic.

“No, unfortunately. I didn’t sleep at all after you left. You just left me with far too many things to think about,” he smiled. “But it was fine, a few energy drinks and my... spirit bounced right back.”

The boy’s eyes widened, and the hand toying with his hair dropped to his lap, “That’s… good to know, actually. Thank you.”

“You consider that a good thing? You must not care for my health at all, then. How wounding,” Dazai shook his head, then leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “Why is that a good thing?”

“I mean, I told you to rest, right? To regain your spirit? Caffeine works… similarly, but it’s not as effective.”

At that, he raised an eyebrow, “Ah, but if you knew that, why did you seem so surprised at my confirmation?”

“It was only a hunch, I didn’t have any way to prove it.”

“Is that right?”

“Yeah,” the boy narrowed his eyes at the ground, still unable to meet Dazai’s gaze. “It is.”

Dazai took a second, mulling over the logic behind that, and decided he needed a bit more context, “Explain this to me, all of it. And we don’t have a lot of time so make it quick.”

“No time…?” he whispered, mainly to himself, as he continued before Dazai could respond. “I… don’t think I can explain anything. I don’t fully get it myself. All I know is that it relates to my powers.”

“If it were only related to your powers, then I wouldn’t have been able to source any for you,” Dazai sighed, “At least try and make your story more believable.”

At that, the boy frowned, “That’s not what I meant. It’s related to my powers as in I can actually channel it in ways you can’t.”

“How, exactly?”

“My… summons,” he started, and Dazai noted how he seemed to shy away from actually using the term Persona. So there was some truth to what he told the rest of the Agency, in that saying the name would activate his powers automatically, “use spirit for their attacks. They, like, concentrate my energy, or whoever’s energy I take, into some kind of magic power for me to use.”

“So it costs you energy to use your attacks?”

“Most of them, yeah. But it’s pretty easy to get back. You proved it yourself that energy drinks are one such way.”

“Really now? How interesting,” Dazai tapped his chin, grinning. “And here I remember you saying you didn’t understand it.”

The boy opened his mouth to speak, then shut it again, turning slightly red. Not the kind of reaction one would expect from someone who just got caught in a serious lie. Dazai considered that enough proof that the teen was being truthful, and that all of these thoughts of his weren't concrete enough to be considered factual. “It’s definitely more complicated than what I can give you. I just… don’t really know how much more.”

“Anything is good, Amamiya-kun . I just need to know how much trouble I have to foresee you causing.”

Somehow, that seemed to get to him. Behind his curly bangs that had fallen forward with his head, Dazai found the ghost of a smile.

“…Fine. I can try answering some things.”

“Wonderful! First of all, explain to me what spirit is. Is it a kind of energy?”

“It’s not a kind of energy. It is energy, just… condensed?” he tilted his head, “It’s kind of like adrenaline, keeping someone from crashing in a fight. When I take it, they lose the ability to perform as well as they did before, and I get to keep going myself.”

“Are there any requirements to be met before you can take someone’s spirit?”

At that, Amamiya-kun stilled, thinking, “...Energy is energy. I can take spirit from anyone.”

“And how much, exactly?”

“Barely anything in the grand scale of things, and it also costs me some spirit to even try. It’s not a viable combat strategy.”

Dazai nodded, moderately intrigued at how the boy immediately shifted into a battle lens at the question. Especially when considering how many other uses a skill like that would have outside of combat. To render any opponent incapable of a fight before they could even try… “Very well.”

They fell silent for a while, enough for Amamiya-kun to start fidgeting in his seat. Just some simple tapping against his seat, and the routine hair-twisting until eventually, he started to speak again, “Is there anything else?”

“Of course. You’re a complete enigma, Amamiya-kun. A few moments of conversation won’t change that.”

The boy grunted, full of mirth, “Yeah, that’s usually how it goes.”

And this time, Dazai felt the silence that followed become something much more comfortable. The boy was starting to relax, bit by bit, as his posture slumped into something much more fitting on a teenage boy. He was even starting to kick his right leg back and forth, albeit slowly.

Things were inching towards a more casual dynamic. Dazai knew he had to follow through.

He leaned forward and grinned, “Penny for your thoughts?”

“Nothing really,” the boy said, voice a little lighter. “Just wondering what the hell I’m even doing here.”

“Quite a heavy topic. I prefer to skip past those thoughts. It’s a lot more fun to just stuff your pockets with rocks and dive into the river, you know. I should take you sometime.”

The boy tensed up at his words. Ooh, touchy subject. He opened his mouth, probably to ask about that comment, then paused and shut it again. He did so a few more times before any words actually came out again.

“I don’t mean… that. Just like—here,” he waved one hand in a vague circling motion around his bed, pointedly ignoring the provocation behind Dazai’s comment, the urge to pull something from the boy’s psyche. “You know by now that I’m not from Yokohama.”

Obviously, Dazai didn’t say, because the boy was just starting to give up information voluntarily and he was going to take what scraps he could get.

“And I wasn’t actually supposed to end up here at all. Especially not where you found me.”

That was a lot more interesting. To be in Yokohama involuntarily, especially in the same area of forest that Q had been held hostage in, felt like he was sent on a mission. But the way he sighed out the words made it sound like anything but that. Like he was tossed out.

Had he been discarded by his group? It couldn’t be that; what kind of organization would relinquish a power like his?

“And it wouldn’t be an issue normally, right,” he continued, verbalizing another thing that Dazai was thinking. Yes, he was a teenager, but he clearly had experience well beyond his years. Any attempt to discard him would definitely have fallen through. “But…”

“But it’s an issue now?”

He sighed, “Things are just different. What with my Personas—”

All of a sudden, the room sweltered with hot air as tall, cerulean flames burst through the boy’s skin. They soared up to hit the ceiling, crackling and roaring in Dazai’s ear as he stared with widened eyes. Once again, that part of him, ruled over by his ability, longed to reach out and touch the fire, let it seep past his bandaged limbs and figure out just what it really was. Would it hurt? He sincerely hoped not. Though, hope was too fickle a thing to trust these days.

But first, he needed to combat this somehow. If this show of power alerted the rest of the Agency, the groundwork he’d just laid out would disintegrate, and they would lose every hidden advantage they currently had. But with how the flames roared, the boy didn’t seem intent on stopping them at all, and Dazai physically couldn’t with his own power. His only option left was to—

Without warning, perfectly timed with Dazai’s next blink, the fire was gone. It left just as fast as it had sparked, seizing back the heat it had brought and leaving only the pitiful teenage boy and a charred medical bed beneath him. His eyes were wide, his chest was heaving desperately, his knees were curled inward to serve as a perch for his hands to latch onto.

“Sorry! Sorry, I didn’t mean to, I swear—”

He coughed, a pitiful wheeze to match how strained his breathing had become. Why was he breathing so weakly? What caused it? Was it the act of summoning a being, or the act of repressing it?

Eventually, the boy stopped, and he looked back at Dazai with a grimace, “I didn’t mean to start a summon.”

Dazai believed him. He let his back fall into his chair again.

“It’s fine,” Dazai lifted a placating hand, the one that, a few seconds ago, had been more than ready to send itself into the flame. “Does this happen often?”

“...Kind of?” he mumbled, already starting to close into himself. “It’s—I told you, there are certain things that need to happen. Saying the word and stuff. I wasn’t paying attention, sorry.”

Dazai decided to let the subject drop, because they really were running short on time, and he couldn’t afford to lose the boy now that they were actually making progress. He would just have to save his theories for testing on a later date.

“We can move past that for now. Amamiya-kun, tell me about your previous organization. What exactly did you mean when you said you would be taken back to them?”

“I don’t have a group,” he said, hand reaching beside him to smudge the ash all over the bed.

“I find that hard to believe, after what you told my coworkers.”

“Oh? I really am a good liar, then.”

For just a second, Dazai paused, but quickly recovered with a sly shake of his head, “Honestly, Amamiya-kun. You wound me so. I thought we were finally close enough to warrant some truth in our relationship.”

The boy smiled softly at the ground, but the bangs he was hiding behind did nothing to conceal his melancholy.

What practiced responses those had been. Immediately, Dazai knew he was going to enjoy picking apart this topic.)

The sound of sputtering rang through Dazai’s headset next, followed by a series of wet coughs and chokes that he scrunched his face at.

“Fuck…” Amamiya-kun bit out eloquently, voice echoing through his microphone. “How does Futaba drink this crap so much?”

Futaba? A name Dazai hasn’t heard from the boy’s mouth before. The hand tapping his pen on paper stilled, then quickly scribbled the name on the first line. Then he waited, in case anything else slipped, but only heard the rustle of cans once again as the boy started muttering about coffee. He had an excessively extensive knowledge on the drink, it sounded like.

“Dazai-san, we’ve entered visual range of the Moby Dick, ” Atsushi-kun’s voice started to play in his right ear, “Tanizaki-san has activated his ability, and we’re now waiting for our chance to—”

“HOLY CRAP!”

Amamiya-kun let out a strangled screech. It definitely wasn’t as loud as it could have been—considering how shocked it sounded, the boy likely had to restrain himself from getting any louder. He at least had the sense not to compromise the mission, it seemed—but it was enough to startle Atsushi-kun out of finishing his report.

“Amamiya-kun?! Are you alright?!”

“This is—!”

“There’s no time to talk!” Dazai could hear Tanizaki-kun in the background. “ The transport helicopter is docking, we need to get down there right now! ”

With that, communications on Atsushi-kun’s end went silent, and he switched his focus to Amamiya-kun’s active microphone. The sound of shuffling broke through the wind, which was likely them getting into position, and some stuttered breathing that he chalked up to lingering surprise at Tanizaki-kun’s ability.

“You ready?” he heard his mentee say, slightly muffled through the microphone.

“I—yeah.”

“Alright. You’re going to be closer to the aircraft when we get there, so you’ll need to jump first.”

“Got it.”

“Okay, in three…two…”

There were a few seconds of silence, save for the rush of wind that growled through Dazai’s headset, but eventually, the sound of a body hitting metal, followed by a string of curses in between quiet chuckles, started to ring true.

“Amamiya-kun?! ”

“I’m okay!” Amamiya- kun laughed out through the roaring wind. “You can jump now!”

A second slam came shortly after, then the telling groan of the aircraft’s door opening. The boy continued cursing to himself, evidently still freaked out about the entire situation, but something about it made Dazai frown. Simply feeling the adrenaline made sense; no matter what, pulling off a stunt like that was going to spike one’s energy levels. But compared to Atsushi-kun there with him, his behavior bordered more on panic than anything else. He was muttering incomprehensibly to himself, spewing words that Dazai could barely catch from how fast he was talking. He sounded excited, scared, and was being quite vocal about it. A perfect contradiction to how smoothly the boy handled his fight with Lovecraft once his arm was regenerated.

Atsushi-kun’s microphone fizzed in his ear, so he switched his focus to that.

“Dazai-san, we’ve made it inside.”

- ~ -

Ren climbed inside after Nakajima-san , who was already relaying their current position into his headset. He was about to shut the door, trying to block out the sound of wind that the other teen was currently screaming over to give his report, but faltered at the sound of footsteps. He turned back, already expecting the worst, only to see his mission partner break into a sudden sprint and leaving him to catch up. They climbed mountains of stairs and weaved through winding hallways while Nakajima-san continued to talk, navigating the airship and searching for something that Ren still wasn’t sure he understood yet. So, until they found whatever it was, he decided to turn his attention elsewhere.

His first instinct was to start thinking about Tanizaki-san’s ability again, because holy shit, that was so cool. Getting to be a part of it that first time, without actually having any idea what it was beforehand; watching that emerald green glow mixed with the floating kanji encase them completely—

And then seeing it from the outside, how the whole helicopter just vanished from sight in a rush of energy, a full blown illusion. It was incredible.

Briefly, Ren wondered if his Third Eye would let him see through those illusions. He would have to try that—

God.

“I am so stupid,” he mumbled to himself as he realized that not once, not since he showed up in this alternate reality, did he even think of testing out his Third Eye. Honestly, he could have saved himself a world of trouble had he even thought about it earlier. He could have sniffed out the danger in that mafia clinic well in advance, or even that dreary forest that caused all of this. He could have prevented—

(He quickly backed out from that train of thought. He knew exactly where it would take him.)

Well, better late than never. He looked around the creepy hallway they were sprinting through, searching for anything that could be worth the headache he always got after triggering Third Eye. But at a glance, there was nothing. Only some dusty metal floors and poorly-kept pipes could be seen, and he had a feeling they wouldn’t spark any color in his vision at all.

Then what else?

After darting his eyes around for a few more seconds, his gaze eventually caught on Nakajima-san. Well, that would definitely be helpful information, as the color he showed up as would give Ren a little more insight into his current choices.

Not that he could really change his mind now, but still. He waited for the right time, an especially long hallway that wouldn’t require him to watch where he was going, and squeezed his eyes shut.

“Focus,” he breathed out, no louder than the quiet gasps for air he had been making right before, then peeked his eyes open to meet the usual grey background and—

No, there was no grey. Instead, he found a whole world painted in red. Drenched in it completely, viciously, like someone had dumped buckets of blood over his eyes. He stumbled at the sight, tripping over his own foot and nearly tumbling forward, but caught himself just in time. He slowed down, trying to recenter himself, but Nakajima-san kept moving forward without so much as a glance back, and Ren just helplessly watched him go.

The other teen was highlighted in the vivid blues of the Velvet Room, at least, contrasting the chilling red light that coated the walls encasing them. He was the same color Ren’s allies had been whenever he used it on them, and Ren let himself relax just a little at that. It was more than nice to know his allies were actually on his side in this world.

But then he looked away, back to the ground, ceiling, walls littered in pipes that were all soaked in the dangerous red glow, and couldn’t help but shiver. No, it was more than that. He was shaking.

This ship was a maximum-level danger. The kind of threat that Morgana had expressly warned them all to come in as little contact with as possible. The kind that was second only to a Palace Ruler itself. And now he was trapped inside one such danger, with no conceivable way out.

But that didn’t make any sense. Why would the ship be the dangerous part? He’d never gotten a reading like this on something that wasn’t sentient to some degree. Not even Palaces reacted this way.

Ren brought a hand to his temple as the budding headache began, making it that much harder to think clearly. Great.

“Amamiya-kun?” Nakajima-san’s voice rang through the hallway, followed by his head peeking around the side of a wall. Ren waved a weak hand to him, and the teen quickly ran back to get him. “Are you alright? Can you keep going?”

“I’m fine,” Ren responded easily, already getting used to the throb in his skull. “Headache.”

“Are you sure? If it’s an issue, then we could probably find—”

“It’s okay, seriously,” he smiled.. “Let’s keep going.”

The teen eyed him up and down once, then nodded and continued forward, opting for a brisk walk this time instead of a sprint. Ren was grateful, as it gave him a chance to actually look around for longer than just a fleeting glance as they passed by.

Now, as he scanned the place, all he noticed was that it was completely devoid of people. Actually, not just people, but life as a whole. Everything was cold, empty, and a monotonous red when looked at through his Third Eye, meaning that while the whole place was still dangerous, there was absolutely nothing around that was worth his time. Each step they took made the metal bridges groan eerily underneath them, like they hadn’t even felt the combined weight of two teenagers in a long time.

There was nothing to hint that people were ever on this ship. 

It seemed that the other teen noticed it as well, as after leaping between a series of disconnected platforms to reach a metal landing, he turned to Ren to discuss it.

“Something’s wrong here…” he muttered, expression slightly somber. “You feel it too, yeah?”

Ren nodded, “I haven’t seen any people, and there’s nothing around to say anyone was even here before we got aboard. No supplies, weapons— it just feels uninhabited. And…”

He trailed off. Even if Nakajima-san was an ally, he still didn’t think it was a good time to reveal his Third Eye to him. Not when they had far more important things to spend their time strategizing for. Thankfully, his unfinished answer wasn’t pointed out.

“I know it’s supposed to be ‘sparsely populated’ right now, but it shouldn’t be this empty…” his pace slowed significantly as he began talking into his headset again, “Dazai-san, you’re monitoring our locations, right? Do you see anyone around us? Anyone at all?!”

A few terse seconds passed as the teen’s frown only grew, invading more and more of his face.

“Well—can you check?” he asked next. “If we keep it up like this, then we’ll just be wasting time until we can—

He stopped, biting his lips shut as he went back to listening.

“I understand,” he eventually said, then let his hand fall to his side as he turned to Ren. “We’re going to ignore the rest of this floor and head upstairs.”

He looked at Ren like he expected some kind of refusal, or maybe a series of clarifying questions, but Ren just nodded. It felt weird to do so; as a Phantom Thief, he didn’t usually skip over areas of a Palace, but that was only because the Metaverse didn’t have a time limit. Once they escaped the stress of the real world and entered a Palace, their only constraint became their own energy levels. But here, time was of the essence, and he didn’t want to waste any of it.

So now, when his teammate spun around and ran, Ren was there with him. They rushed through even more flights of stairs, across a few sets of metal bridges, until a series of doors came into their vision in the distance.

“There has to be someone here at least, right?” the teen breathed out between strides as they headed for those doors.

“I…” Ren panted, already winded. Running had always been Ryuji’s thing; even with his limp, he was leagues better than Ren, who specialized in the more subtle thieving skills, “...would think so? At the… very least, someone should be piloting this thing.”

They barged through room after room, into empty bedroom chambers and meeting offices, through even narrower hallways and storage areas. Ren scanned all of them, feeling his brain slosh around in his head with each bounding step and strain through his eyes, but he only saw  chilling red.

“Wait, so… what are we looking for, specifically?” he asked.

If Nakajima-san noticed the slight waver in Ren’s voice, he didn’t point it out, “We need to find a way to stop whatever the Guild’s plan is with this airship. The easiest way to do that would most likely be to find the gifted whose ability it is.”

Wait, this ship was an ability? The ship?!

Actually, now that he was thinking about it, it made sense. It was named after a book, and his counsellor had been pretty consistent with the naming trope so far. And since abilities were a part of the person, it explained why it had been categorized by his Third Eye despite being considered non-sentient.

But what did that say about the gifted controlling this ability? 

And since the ship as a whole was an ability, something that Dazai-san had called an ‘extension of the soul’ itself, would they really be able to seize control of it from them?

“…How do you know you even can?” he eventually asked. “What if it doesn’t work that way?”

“Then we’ll just try something else,” his teammate replied, not looking back. “There’s definitely a solution to this. Dazai-san wouldn’t have sent us out here if it was really impossible.”

It was a non-answer, but Ren’s breath was coming out too shallow for him to waste air pointing it out. He had bigger things to think about, anyway.

(Come on, a ship? He would have at least expected it to be an actual whale, considering the story of the real Moby Dick. And yeah, the ship was whale shaped, whatever. It still felt a little disconnected.)

Eventually, they reached a giant, arced door a few floors above, one that screamed suspicious even without the need for supernatural eyesight. They shared a look, then crept forward to press their ears against the wood. They couldn’t hear anything on the other side, which wasn’t a good sign, but there was bright light seeping out from underneath, which was more than enough to warrant investigation.

“Where is everyone?!” Nakajima-san sighed as he shoved the wood forward. The door swung into the room and sent a torrent of light directly into their eyes, coming from the glass walls, floor, ceiling, a stark contrast to how dark the rest of the windowless interior of the ship had been. 

Ren bit back a hiss at the sudden onslaught of light, bringing a hand up to cover his eyes as he tried to catch his teammate’s gaze from behind it. His vision was adjusting far too slowly for his liking, but he was at least able to make out his teammate’s frame. But the other teen didn’t seem affected at all by the brightness, and was instead staring inside with widened eyes.

“They’ve already evacuated,” another, much older voice rang out soon after, and Ren flinched at the sound. He peeled his attention off the other teen and looked to the center of the room, where a man with a white beard sat in a chair with his eyes shut. “Why would this be, you might ask? Well, it’s because the Guild’s plan has already reached its final stages.”

Nakajima-san was ridiculously tense beside Ren, “This is the guy who called down the Moby Dick from the beginning…”

That was more than enough to put Ren on edge too. So this was… the author of Moby Dick , Herman Melville. No, not the author, but the ability user—internally, Ren groaned, realizing just how often he would have to make that distinction now, but was brought back to the scene by his mission partner shifting into a battle stance. Alright, so they were going to fight. Immediately, he shut his eyes and willed his Third Eye to activate, just to figure out what to expect. Would the man be colored red as well? Like Nakajima-san implied earlier, would this become a fight to gain control of the ship itself?

“Come on…” he muttered, breathy, and opened his eyes. Nakajima-san was still colored a brilliant navy blue, the Velvet Room stamp of approval, and the rest of the room was still a horrific red, but then Ren followed the wispy tendrils of crimson that bounced around to what should be their source, sitting there in the center of the room and—

The man was highlighted in a bright, greenish cyan. The lowest possible danger level; he wasn’t a threat at all. Ren let out a strangled gasp at just how much of this wasn’t making sense.

But why? Why would such an easy opponent have… wait, what did Nakajima-san say he did? ‘Called down’ such a hostile, threatening ability in the first place? Ren let the colors bleed away, pointedly ignoring how the pricks against his brain were getting worse, and stared down the reimagined Herman Melville with just his regular eyesight.

“May I know your name?” Ren felt the need to strike up some kind of conversation, as even like this, without even trying to dig beneath the surface, the man looked harmless. Not at all like an enemy.

His clothes were fancy, in the ‘old-money’ way Ren expected most westerners to have dressed back in that time period, with even a small design of a whale printed on his cravat. In his left hand, he held a pipe, though it didn’t look like it was lit, and his right hand was wrapped firmly around the armrest of his chair. His beard fell over his mouth completely, concealing all movements beneath a thick bed of hair well enough to actually startle Ren when his voice rang out through it again.

“You wish to know who I am?” he tilted his head, brows slightly raised. “I would have assumed that, with all the efforts made in Yokohama by the Guild, you people would know very well who we each are.”

“No, I know who you are, um—Melville-san,” Ren responded, biting back the I’ve had to listen to Ryuji complain his ass off for weeks about reading your work that he wanted to tack on after . “Just… not in this context.”

What followed was a tense, slightly awkward silence. Fair enough. At least the man wasn’t asking for elaboration that Ren definitely wouldn’t be able to provide. 

A second later, he felt a slight nudge into his arm.

“I can explain things to you later,” Nakajima-san whispered, urgent, “since you never got a real debrief. But right now, we have bigger issues to discuss.”

Ren sighed, “You’re right, sorry. I can redirect.”

They shared a nod, and Ren turned to face the man again, who was meditating. Or sleeping, or simply hiding behind eyebrows that were just as bushy as his beard.

“What are you doing here?” Ren eventually asked, making the man crack open an eye to look at him. “Were you waiting for us?”

The man shook his head, “No. This is merely my station. Though it is understandable that you would think that.” 

Ren tilted his head, wary, but pressed on, “And why is that? Does it have anything to do with the Guild’s so-called ‘plan’ you mentioned?”

“You’re awfully direct with your words, aren’t you?” he angled his chin up, and Ren was promptly reminded of all his prior negotiations, how his target would first search for a grasp on him before making any effort to cooperate. It was mostly the shadows that followed this method, though, as the few real-world interrogators he’d met in the last year were more interested in carving lines through his skin above all else.

But this man, so far, wasn’t reading too much like either side. He’d given them freckles of information when they first walked in, yet was deflecting once they began a conversation. He had made no move to hurt them, either, and he likely wasn’t going to if Ren’s Third Eye analysis meant anything. Hell, the ship was more likely to develop consciousness and fight them than this man was.

(Actually, that very well could be a possibility. He didn’t exactly know how the ability worked, so anything was possible. He silently prayed that he didn’t just jinx it.)

But what was this man like? What would he want to hear?

Literally all Ren knew was that he was the reason this ship was even in the air and that he was a part of the Guild, which made him a bad guy. But other than that, he had nothing. How was he supposed to conduct a negotiation without even the slightest understanding of his target?

He really needed a navigator. That, or he really needed to learn how to do it himself.

After a few seconds, he settled on the most reliable tactic: cryptic honesty. It worked well most of the time, and if that wasn't what the man wanted, it was also the easiest to spin into something else. That, and he had a feeling that even if it angered the man, one quick sneeze on their non-threat of a target would be enough to finish the fight.

Right, he’d left the man’s question unanswered. He quickly started talking, “We’re going to be trapped in the sky together for who knows how long. I believe we could all do with a little honesty right now. As a courtesy.”

“We are not currently engaged in combat. Is that not courtesy enough for you?”

Fair enough, but it also gave Ren a chance to voice what he’d been wondering since Nakajima-san told him the man was a gifted.

He pretended to think about it, even bringing a finger up to his chin in faux pondering, then shook his head, “This airbase is your ability, right? We didn’t face any trouble getting up here, so either you don’t want to fight us, or you can’t, because that’s not this ship’s main function.”

The man was quiet. It didn't give away which one of the two theories was correct, but that didn’t matter.

Ren continued, steadily gaining confidence, “And if either one of those is the case, then the Guild likely has some sort of plan in motion to stop us that doesn’t involve you. So, if we’re bound to hit a dead end anyway, what’s the harm in being honest now?”

A few more quiet seconds passed, Nakajima-san looked desperate to say they wouldn’t be stopped but was holding his tongue, and then, the man nodded. Ren let out a minute sigh of relief; honestly, he didn’t fully expect the man’s answers to actually be truthful, simply because it would never be that simple. But he was willing to have a conversation, and that was enough.

Ren smiled, full of charm. It came naturally.

“The Guild has a many number of plans occurring at once, but the one you have just intruded on is by far the biggest. Their next attack will be one so grand that it takes all of their enemies down, along with this ship,” the man said without a single inflection, like the weight of those words meant nothing to him. “The Moby Dick will soon be no more.”

Next to him, Ren heard his mission partner suck in a loud gasp of air. He began a charge forward, but Ren caught his arm just in time. It didn’t make his next shout any quieter, “Explain yourself!”

He thrashed in Ren’s grip, but ultimately couldn’t get out. Ren winced at the sight, at the desperation radiating off the teen to just do something; this was his city, after all, and had they been back in Tokyo, back in the true reality, Ren would definitely be feeling the same way. As much as Ren also wanted to prevent disaster, he knew it was different when it became this personal.

But he was also the Leader of the Phantom Thieves, and he’d gained enough experience in strategizing to know when to back off. They weren’t going to get anywhere if they dropped the civility they only just crafted, so he held firm on the teen’s arm.

“No doubt your organization thought it best to strike when the ship was sparsely populated,” the man continued, just as unaffected, “but did you ever stop to wonder why it is so? Did you not notice something amiss when every single member of the Guild decided to abandon their most lucrative airbase?”

Nakajima-san slowly calmed down, enough for Ren to feel comfortable enough letting go. When he did, he was relieved to see the anger on his teammate’s face had been replaced with intense focus.

“It was to prepare for an attack directly into the city of Yokohama, using the Moby Dick itself as an explosive. It will destroy the city in its entirety to reach its most important targets. I’m sure you know what those are.”

Ren didn’t, actually, but from the set of interesting characters he’d met so far, he could guess. And a short glance at his teammate’s face, meeting his growing horror, only confirmed his answer.

“The Guild’s targets…” the teen whispered shakily, “are the Agency and Port Mafia headquarters.”

“Indeed. This ship is set to crash in under an hour.”

Nakajima-san brought a hand up to his mouth, clamping down on it as nervous sweat started to drip down his face. Ren decided to take the wheel once again.

“So you’re here to stop us, then?” he asked, not because he really needed an answer, but to slowly introduce his teammate to his own theory. His words made the man look at him instead. “I can’t imagine the Guild would take too kindly to us being here.”

“You would be correct on that. But I won’t be doing a thing to you while you’re here.”

Right, of course he wouldn’t. He wasn’t a threat at all to them, both in combat and in this talk. It was nice to have confirmation, though. 

Nakajima-san’s eyes widened and he took another step forward, evidently having not reached the same conclusion as Ren.

“You can’t possibly be telling the truth,” he snarled, but his voice was still shaky.

The man was undeterred, “I am.”

“So you’re actually going to let us stop your whole operation? Just like that?”

“It is the Guild’s operation, not mine alone. My role was completed once I provided the vessel.”

“But—it’s your ability. You speak as if you don’t want this to happen, but if that were true, couldn’t you just end this yourself? Why not call it off?!” Nakajima-san said, and Ren was ready to chime in with his agreement, but the man only shook his head. Ren felt the other teen tense up next to him, as if ready to lurch forward and start attacking, and put a placating hand on his shoulder. “Well?!”

Despite how aggressively it was being asked, it was an extremely good question.

Just one that Ren couldn’t shake the feeling from his head that he already knew the answer to. It felt somewhat like a memory, but he’d never experienced anything like this before. His head ached, thrumming with the reawakened strength of his Third Eye, a power that never actually left him, but he had just been too blind to attribute the buzz in his skull to.

(Shadows that were highlighted in cyan had always been the easiest to negotiate with, to convince to join their team. They were the most willing to be on his side.

Shadows that were highlighted red were almost unstoppable. Sans himself, not a single member of his team has ever been able to handle one on their own.

He jolted. Fuck, this was bad.

He flashed his Third Eye once more, bit back the pain, and took in the shimmering cyan in all its dwindling glory. Now that he was looking, actually looking, he realized that he’d never seen an aura act this way. It radiated off the man in soft puffs of color, fighting hard against the crimson background that seemed determined to snuff it out. And somehow, it looked like it was losing.)

“...He can’t,” Ren whispered. “He can’t control it.”

“What?!” Nakajima-san whirled around to face him, eyes impossibly wide, then looked back at the man with more horror than rage. “Is that true?!”

The man nodded, face unreadable, “You’re an interesting one, boy. But you are correct. While the Moby Dick is my special ability, most of its controls have been established beyond my jurisdiction. Its very existence has become artificial, and what the Guild chooses to do with it now is out of my hands.”

The white-haired teen’s fists clenched, and he brought a hand up to slam into the side of his headset, “Dazai-san , did you get all of that? We need to abort this operation and retreat immediately, or Yokohama’s citizens will be—”

“You will continue as ordered,” the man’s voice rang in Ren’s ear without warning, making him hiss in surprise. “Do not attempt to retreat.”

His head throbbed from the sudden invasion of an extra voice, while his stomach dropped at the information he was receiving. And from the look his partner was giving to the ground, scrunched up face, strained neck and shoulders, he felt the same way.

“What…?” Nakajima-san whispered into his microphone, then gained some energy as he continued. “But Dazai-san, they’re going to crash the Moby Dick into Yokohama. We need to at least warn —”

“Then it’s up to you two to take control of the ship and ensure that doesn’t happen.”

The two teens gasped at the same time and exchanged a desperate look. What?! He expected them to hijack an unknown, uncontrollable, maximum-level threat on the fly?

A sliver of excitement sourced straight from Ren’s soul began to pulse through his veins, masked so perfectly within the growing unease that he almost didn’t notice it.

He was about to speak, but Nakajima-san beat him to it.

“You… you knew about all this, didn’t you?” the teen was still looking at Ren, but his words passed straight through him, through the wall behind him, all the way back to their navigator. “You knew this was how things were going to happen.”

And on the other line, Dazai-san sighed, “ It was only a prediction based on intel I couldn’t share with you. The point is, you now have less than an hour to gain control and stop this attack. I’m counting on you, Atsushi-kun. I know you can do this.”

The teen let a soft smile bloom on his face at the reassurance, enough to hold Ren back from mentioning his own reluctant involvement as well. That smile was gone just a second later, fading back into a tense neutral, so it wasn’t like he had missed much. Still, it was nice to see while it lasted.

“But—” he let his hand fall from his microphone, projecting his next set of worries onto Ren alone. “If not even the gifted who summoned it can stop it…”

“There’s a control panel in the office at the highest point of the ship, where all of its mechanics are handled,” the man’s gravelly voice made a reappearance, pulling their attention back to him. “Though I must warn you, it is… heavily guarded. As it is, I don’t see the two of you being able to handle this on your own.”

“You can give that warning to someone else,” Ren responded without thinking, letting the voice of Joker spill through at the prospected challenge before he could even consider who he was talking to. He blinked once at the silence following his response, then tensed up as he truly processed who he was talking to. “No, sorry, I mean—”

This wasn’t a shadow making mindless brags about its Cognitive powers. He wasn’t fighting in a Palace with airsoft guns and model knives. Up on his face, there was no mask.

This was a real man, giving him a real warning, about a real attack careening its way down to a city of innocent people. This was a promise of destruction, of death on impact.

One wrong move now, and he could die. Another one, and he could kill just as easily.

(And that was just it, wasn’t it? The real reason he was shaking so much at the prospect of this mission. He wasn’t a cocky person, but he also wasn’t one to discredit his power. So he knew it was unlikely that his Personas would fail him now. He would be safe.

For everyone else, though, it would be immediate death. Blood , on his hands, ash and jet fuel mixed in to make a muddy black ooze until there was nothing left.

When the sky returned to grey and the remaining specks of Agneyastra finally dissipated, there was nothing left to say that the lanky, long-haired man would ever get to leave the forest alive.

But—but he did see black ooze. That had to count for something. Maybe the man just bled black, like Okumura Kunikazu.

A dead man.)

Ren quickly became all too aware of how see through the base of the ship was. How much his legs were trembling where they’d been loosely planted on the glass. How fast a drop back down to earth, whether it was his body or a whale-shaped airship, would be.

Come on , get it together. Joker would never bend this easily. Odds like these were childsplay.

A haunting lack of domino mask against his skin screamed otherwise. A vicious lack of tailcoat and heeled boots whispered vulnerability.

This…

“If what you’re saying is true,” Nakajima-san’s voice startled him back to the scene. Ren did his best to stagger his breathing back to normal, but his heart refused to dislodge from his throat. “Then why didn’t you evacuate with the rest of the Guild? Why were you told to stay?”

“You misunderstand,” he shook his head. “I am the one who stationed myself here.”

“But why?”

He was quick with his next response, not even waiting a full second after Nakajima-san finished his question, “If the Moby Dick truly is destined to destroy the lives of thousands, then I figure the least I could do is go down with it. And if it’s not, then I’ll step outside once again and face all that’s happened because of my power. I will not move from here until one of those comes to fruition.”

Technically, the way he said it was the same way he’d said everything before that, in rich, poetic monologues delivered with minimal interest. This time, though, Ren knew it was different.

At his slightly rushed words, the way he angled his head down and shut his eyes again after saying his piece, Ren found himself leaning closer. His feet didn’t move at all, but the tremors in his legs slowly came to an end and the distance between them felt so much shorter. This man…

His lungs stuttered out their last shaky breath in his chest and he coughed, nearly doubling over from the force and how low his torso had bent forward, but he didn’t look away at all. He couldn’t. As awful as it sounded, as it felt to even think about in the moment, Ren couldn’t help but indulge in the spark of kinship that flickered between them. It seemed they were both stuck, simply awaiting the blood and black ooze they’d soon have to reap.

Or… not, he thought next as a sweltering feeling, the urge to break free, break out quickly burned away his melancholy. He would not let that happen. For either of them.

“We can trust him,” he eventually said, breathing out what felt like a plume of smoke before turning to Nakajima-san.

“I… think so too. We have to go through with this.”

Ren nodded, gave a short bow in gratitude to the man, then spun around on his heel to face the exit, “You have a combat-oriented ability, right?”

He just barely caught how the teen’s face hardened at what he was implying, “I do.”

“Then I’ll trust you’re good enough at your job to use it well. I’ll be in your care,” he willed himself to smile, then started a jog to the door. There was some more muttering behind him, what sounded like the tail ends of a one-sided conversation, but eventually he heard the teen’s footsteps chase after him as he headed back down the stairs.

They launched into a hushed conversation as they hurried up, where Nakajima-san explained everything that had been happening with the Guild and Yokohama. Well, everything he knew, at least. When Ren asked for more details about Q and all that happened that night, the teen only shook his head, saying that Dazai-san hadn’t given the rest of them a full debrief on it either.

It was a steady onslaught of information, but thankfully, Ren was more than able to keep up with it. It meant, though, that he needed to focus heavily, trying to fit things into the new timeline of this world and how he worked in it. So when he first heard a set of footsteps that matched neither his or the teen next to him, he glossed over it.

They kept walking, they were almost there and—

(Someone is here.)

His body trembled as a horrid chill circled through him. Immediately, he flashed his Third Eye in front of them, ignoring Nakajima-san's question to him in favor of scanning the area ahead. It was red, he'd grown accustomed to that by now, but then something started to move.

"Nakajima-san," he whispered, making the other teen quiet down. "Someone's here."

The teen gasped softly and turned to face the rest of the bridge, where their eavesdropper, clad in black and leaving the white of his cravat to jut out in the darkness, leaped forward and landed in front of them, blocking the rest of the path.

Ren quickly dropped into a defensive stance, and he felt his teammate do the same, "Who is—"

He didn't get to finish his question, as Nakajima-san was suddenly grabbed by a pitch-black tendril and slammed into the ground, and Ren had to discard his thoughts in favor of kneeling beside the teen in search of a healing skill.

“I’ve tracked you down, weretiger,” was all the new figure said, spat out like a slur.

Ren darted his gaze back up to the figure, still trying to process the new presence when his teammate jumped back up without waiting for a heal. Nakajima-san's body was tense and low, there was blood staining his hair and oozing through open cuts on his cheeks, but none of it seemed to matter to him as he started to scream their name.

“AKUTAGAWA!”

Chapter Text

- ~ -

“Nakajima—” Ren tried to call out, but was cut off as his teammate charged forward, leaving droplets of blood in his wake as he sprinted. On his last step before reaching the new person, he planted both feet on the ground and lurched up, launching his body high into the air just as a rush of blue light enveloped him completely.

His ability, the one that Ren still hadn’t asked about. Ribbons of kanji appeared next, orbiting the glowing ball in rings. They were too far away for Ren to read the phrases they were making, but he didn’t care. In that moment, he was more than content to just watch in awe. 

How beautiful.

A few seconds passed until Nakajima-san emerged again, having hovered in the air just above the new guy and shining enough light in his face to make him duck his head away. It gave him the perfect chance to soar back down and slam a—tiger fist?! Ren’s jaw dropped, locked in an open-mouthed smile. So cool—directly into the man’s forearm. Or, what should have been his forearm, as when the punch made contact with something, Ren noticed a glowing red shield blocking it, sourced from a snake-like black mass hovering between the two of them.

Nakajima-san scoffed—a sound of pure, unfiltered anger, one that Ren had to raise his brows at—and kicked his feet against the shield to jump back. His feet were on the bridge for less than a second before immediately rushing forward again, clawing at each subsequent tendril that Ren quickly realized were made out of the guy’s jacket, to reach him. He was blocked yet again by that shield, and another one of those jagged tendrils shot out from beneath him to try and pierce into his stomach, but he redirected it with his forearm just in time.

They traded blow after superpowered blow, completely silent as they eyed each other murderously between jabs and strikes, and Ren… honestly felt like he was interrupting something. Something only slightly abhorrent.

Nakajima-san aimed a deadly slash of his claws at the man’s face, and for just a second, it seemed like he made contact. But the loud huff that escaped him afterwards said otherwise, and before Ren could even open his mouth in warning, a set of three blades ripped out of the coat and surrounded his teammate.

Two of them latched onto his forearms and then each other, effectively pinning his arms to his sides as the third one looped around his stomach a dangerous amount of times. He barely had time to look down at his situation before he was flung upwards, left to suspend off the edge of the bridge.

“No!” Ren yelled out, taking a preemptive step forward. Save for the slightest glance that the new enemy gave him, he went ignored.

The restraints holding Nakajima-san visibly tightened, enough for Ren to notice from a distance, and the white-haired teen let out a series of wet coughs and chokes in response. His arms were trembling as he tried to lift them, claws extending and retracting. His captor seemed almost bored with the result.

Another flap of his midnight trench coat hardened into a jagged blade, extending forward just in front of his face like it was being charged up. And then, without warning, the blade shot forward, aimed directly for Nakajima-san’s stomach, and Ren’s stomach dissolved into his bloodstream.

No. A shot like that would kill him.

He had to do something.

“Persona!” he screamed out, a little weak from how shallow his last few breaths had been, but he craned his neck up and hollered anyway. And like always, his face sparked alight first, sending licks of roaring flame all across his vision that he welcomed.

The last thing he noticed before he had to shut his eyes was the blade missing its target, instead slashing a clean line along Nakajima-san’s hip and tearing through shirt and skin. He then heard a strangled cry of pain, but it was quickly overtaken by crackling fire and the sound of reverberated voices as his body grew hotter. This was always his favorite part of the transformation. Now, though, knowing his teammate was actively bleeding out, he couldn’t find it in himself to enjoy it.

Mainly because he just started a transformation without any idea what he actually wanted to do. And with powers both as universal and as situational as his, fighting without a plan was easily the stupidest decision he could ever make. As things started to slow down again, he racked his brain trying to come up with a plan. But healing Nakajima-san while he was still bound up would be pointless, and he didn’t have a good enough grasp on the enemy and his ability to just start fighting.

Fuuuuuck, he needed a navigator. He’d been saying that a lot recently, but it was true. Whatever, for now he would just have to hope his show of fire was good enough to redirect things.

When the flames cleared from his face and his vision returned, he was greeted by two sets of intense gazes boring into him. Nakajima-san, despite visibly reeling from the wound caking blood all down his side, still managed to stare him down with a confused expression. A hopeful glance at his outfit said why: once again, he hadn’t gotten his Metaverse costume from that transformation. He was still in his physical body, not the cognitive one. So to them, it probably looked like he just burst into flames and nothing else. That was… kind of awkward, actually.

He shook away the embarrassment and focused on the scene once again, pushing past the discomfort from the tear in his soul, waiting for him to call out a Persona. Unlike Nakajima-san, the new guy—right, his name was Akutagawa . Ren would analyze that later—was watching him with something more akin to a sneer.

“What a wondrous display of fire,” he said, but his voice was laced with disdain. “I’m sure that if I were anyone else, it could have actually served as a distraction.”

Ren narrowed his eyes, shifting into a defensive stance, “You don’t know what I can do to you,”

“I don’t know you at all. Are you with the Agency?”

Before Ren could open his mouth to respond, Nakajima-san let out a raspy holler and thrashed around in his restraints. The blade that had just sliced into his side was frozen next to him, still cutting into his flesh with every squirm. Rivers of blood and bubbly fat trickled down the length of it, dripping into a puddle by his captor’s feet.

“Amamiya-kun, you need to run!” he screamed out. Ren didn’t move. This time, though, it wasn’t out of fear. “I’ll catch up with you!”

“Amamiya?” Akutagawa paused, then deepened his glare at Ren. “So you’re the one.”

…Was this an opening?

Ren pulled his torso back upright, took a deep breath to stop his legs from shaking, and aimed a toothy smirk at Akutagawa, “Seems you do know me. I don’t believe we’ve met before, though.”

“Akutagawa, of the Port Mafia,” he took a step forward. “Surely you recognize that, at least.”

Port Mafia, like the one working in Yokohama? And this guy was trying to stop them from saving his own city from being nuked? Seems his gut feeling was correct; these people really were just even worse versions of Kaneshiro and Co., a bunch of distorted hearts causing nothing but suffering, a force to be eradicated.

“I do,” suddenly, it was a lot harder to keep the smile on his face. “Can’t say I like you guys that much.”

Just as Ren finished talking, Nakajima-san lurched his wrists up, grabbed hold of the black matter with both hands, and tugged, ripping himself free of the restraints. He dropped onto the railing of the bridge on both feet with an obnoxiously loud thud, nearly slipping and falling back but balancing himself just in time. Yet Akutagawa didn’t even look over. He didn’t look away from Ren at all, not even when his teammate sprinted back to his side. 

“You managed to escape our capture,” he began, taking another step forward with his hands in his coat pockets. It didn’t escape Ren how, at that, Nakajima-san immediately looked up from his wound to stare at him with wide eyes, silently demanding explanation that they really didn’t have time to go through.

And when he realized that just staring wouldn’t be enough, he choked out a hushed, “You… did what?!”

“Dazai-san didn’t tell you?” he mumbled in response, looking everywhere he could but the open wound spewing blood onto the bridge. They had bigger things to worry about, namely, finding an opening for Ren to summon a Persona and heal his teammate without being interrupted. 

“He—he said you had some sort of association with them, but not that you were a captive.”

“I’m fine now, so that’s not important,” he said, voice getting a little louder. Loud enough for their new enemy to overhear and roll his eyes at them.

“You escaped the Port Mafia to work with the likes of him?” he sneered, gesturing with his chin to Ren’s teammate. “What filth. Seems I’ll just have to kill you both, then.”

“Your fight’s with me, Akutagawa,” Nakajima-san growled, wiping his face and smearing specks of blood all over his cheek. “Not him.”

At that, Akutagawa’s frown morphed into an ugly snarl, and his pupils shrank to pinpricks within his bloodshot eyes. It was a haunting look, one that made his next set of stomps forward ring that much louder through the empty ship, “I don’t recall ever asking you for permission. Who I battle is none of your business.”

Nakajima-san clenched his jaw for a few seconds, then opened it to say something before he was easily interrupted.

“He wants to fight you, Amamiya-kun? How interesting,” Dazai-san’s voice started to ring in their headsets. “It sounds like little Akutagawa-kun still struggles with following orders.”

At that, Ren made a face. It made sense for the Port Mafia to be aware of him, what with both his arrival and escape from them being memorable, but to have specific orders about him? Not just that, but specific orders not to fight him, ones that Akutagawa was currently breaking? Did he really make that big an impression on them?

His expression morphed into a sly smirk that Akutagawa scoffed at, but said nothing about.

“In any case, you don’t have the time to deal with him right now. You need to keep moving.”

“I don’t think he’ll let that happen,” Nakajima-san murmured, likely so Akutagawa wouldn’t hear them.

“I’ll distract him,” Ren whispered back. If he couldn’t change a heart, he could at least pull the fight out of the guy. “You go ahead.”

“What?! No, you don’t know what he’s like,” the teen shook his head, then went right back to glaring at Akutagawa. “Besides, he’s here for me.”

“He’s here for both of us now,” Ren retorted, making his teammate bite his lip and frown. “And you know this mission better than I do; you need to be the one to go ahead.”

“But—”

His next complaint was cut off as another pitch black tendril—tentacle…? Come on, just how many weird tentacle powers was Ren going to have to face off in this world?—came soaring through the air to both of them. They pushed back in opposite directions just before it could reach them, leaving the ability to cut the space between before eventually looping back around to its wielder. 

Ren hit his back against the bridge railing—making his bag of soda cans rattle on his shoulder—just as Nakajima-san pulled himself into a standing position on the other side, and they sent joint glares at Akutagawa, who returned the latter’s in full force.

“I’ve grown tired of your babbling,” he said as Ren got back on his feet as well. Just in time, too, as he got to evade the next string of slashes sent his way. Actually trying to block now was not an option, with how easily Akutagawa cut through Nakajima-san just by grazing across his side, so dodging was the best he could do for now. 

A curt glance at his teammate revealed him using the exact same strategy. Though, he also seemed to be doing a lot more on top of that. He had one hand— paw? —back on his headset, and was nodding stiffly every so often as he clawed through the tendrils shot at him with the other. Playing as defensively as he could while he listened intently to whatever plan Dazai-san was cutting Ren out of.

Well, it didn’t matter right now. What mattered was that Nakajima-san was fighting with an open wound, he was starting to falter, and Ren had just been on his ass watching the whole time. Their opponent wasn’t even attacking him anymore, having moved to send all of his arsenal at Nakajima-san. So, as the teen shredded through a few more attacks with just one hand, and Akutagawa let out a string of infuriated insults, he turned his attention inwards.

“I can…”

His chest felt hot. Absurdly so, serving as a painful reminder of the tear in his soul waiting for someone to be called out. In the corner of his eye, he noticed Nakajima-san had shifted his attention onto him, and turned to face him back as his breathing grew heavy. The anticipation from his Personas rolled onto him in waves, the blood he saw spewing from his teammate’s hip flooded his mind, and he shut his eyes and pushed all of his focus to his true selves.

Only option left was to make a less-than-half-educated guess.

“Siegfreid…” he bit out the word through a clenched jaw, then exhaled out a puff of smoke as the familiar rush of fire encompassed him once again.

- ~ -

“You filthy mutt,” Akutagawa hissed at Atsushi, who was only half listening. “You’ve improved your acrobatics since we last fought, but don’t think that will be enough to best me now.”

Atsushi narrowly evaded the next bout of Rashoumon, feeling his patience stretch thinner and thinner. They did not have time for this, not when Yokohama was about to be nuked by the very vessel they were fighting inside. He kicked his leg up to block Akutagawa’s next attack, then slammed his foot back down to trap the blade against the floor and crouched to grab on and hold it still. The coil of tension that coursed through him was painful, causing the stream of blood to ooze even faster, but Akutagawa only narrowed his eyes. The action made Atsushi’s chest burn.

“We can’t be fighting right now, Akutagawa!” he yelled, watching how the other man’s brow furrowed even harder. “Don’t you understand the situation we’re in?! If we waste time now, we won’t even have a home to go back to when this is over.”

“Enough of your incessant blabbing,” he tilted his chin up, staring down at Atsushi’s lowered stance with obvious disgust. “I’ve come here to kill you, and that is exactly what I will do.”

He grunted, “Of course. I couldn’t expect you to listen to reason.”

Akutagawa scoffed, and without warning, yanked his ability back from under Atsushi’s foot. The force made him stumble, but he shifted his weight just in time. He waited for the next snarky comment to ring, or the next blade to try and slam into him, but for the next few seconds, there was nothing.

He opened his mouth to speak, to slice through the silence Akutagawa left him in that somehow managed to sound even worse than when he was talking, but a voice trickled into his head that made him pause.

“Atsushi-kun. Focus.”

While his stance didn’t change, still ready to charge back in at any second, his next breath out was a little calmer, “What does that mean, Dazai-san?”

There was a chuckle on the other end, and then, “Your examinee is about to show off his skills. You should watch.”

So there was more to it than just the fire. That was good. Not that the fire wasn’t impressive, but he’d been morbidly curious about it since the sudden show of blue flame, especially since nothing else seemed to happen after that. And his description of his ability back at the Agency definitely hinted to more than just some fire.

Before he turned to watch Amamiya-kun, though, he snuck another glare at Akutagawa, who also seemed to be staring down his mission partner. Tendrils of his ability were suspended in the air, dangerously close to Atsushi’s face, but he didn’t seem interested in attacking. Atsushi only let his body relax a little, enough to sink his torso down so his face wasn’t so close to the blade.

No one said a word as they watched the trembling teenager shut his eyes and start muttering to himself.

But then, just as fast as earlier, a surge of that same fire shot out from Amamiya-kun’s body, startling them both. The sound roared through the whole space, maybe even the entire ship, the same way it did a few minutes before. But this time, the flames didn’t just extinguish themselves after a few seconds; instead they fluttered off of him in waves, floating up above his head and condensing themselves into a cluster of cerulean energy. Atsushi squinted, trying to see through the light, and could just barely make out a figure in the midst of it. 

And as the light started to twist into itself, squishing and ballooning in different areas to form a body, wrapping ribbons of light around that figure became so much clearer.

It looked like a human man, in every aspect but his pinkish-red skin color. His armor, red and black chainmail patterned in checkers, clung to its head and torso, leaving his legs bare save for two pieces of white cloth wrapped just below its knees. On his back was a massive circular shield that looked like real metal, and in his right hand, the makings of a massive sword could be seen through the shape of the light. And once his body was fully formed, he pointed that sword forward at Akutagawa, angled in such a way so it rested in the space next to Amamiya-kun’s head.

Speaking of, Amamiya-kun leaned into the being’s battle stance perfectly, shifting his right leg forward and moving his torso slightly to the left so his face was tilted away from the blade. They looked like one.

“Impressive,” Akutagawa’s voice rang out, making Atsushi glance back at him. He was instantly greeted by a blade slashing into his face that he just barely dodged, leaving him with a thin cut across his cheek. “State your ability.”

Amamiya-kun didn’t answer. Akutagawa hummed noncommittally, and sent a handful more of his blades soaring directly at Atsushi. He grunted, hand still clutching his side as the pain finally started to kick in. But it didn’t matter. He needed to keep fighting, so he was going to. He would push himself as far as he needed to if it meant Yokohama wouldn’t be destroyed today.

Pulling his hand away and ignoring the sticky scarlet all over, he shifted his body lower, raised his arms up, and—

And then Amamiya-kun and that being were in front of him. In the blink of an eye they had moved twenty feet. But that wasn’t what stunned Atsushi the most.

The blades that had been careening over to him were seemingly frozen in mid-air, as if blocked by an invisible wall in front of the black-haired teen. His hand was up, forearm blocking his face where the brunt of the blades were trying to pierce, and his posture melted from tense to almost casual. Almost relaxed.

Atsushi made a soft sound of surprise, and in the distance, he heard Akutagawa do the same.

“Do you—” the teen grunted as another one of the blades recoiled off of him, but his sudden easy-going stance didn’t change. “Are you okay? Do you need to be healed?”

“I—” Atsushi started, but felt the words evade him as his gaze locked back onto the character hovering behind the black-haired teen. How he hovered majestically behind the teen, looking completely uninterested in the situation and simply observing all of Akutagawa’s attacks be blocked like they were nothing. Was that his doing?

“Wait, stupid question, of course you do. Okay, just give me a second and I can help.”

“How—” the words clogged his throat, choking him as he spat them out. “How are you doing that…?”

“Honestly?” he batted away another blade. “It was a lucky guess. I didn’t really know what that guy’s… ability classifies as. Seems it’s physical.”

…What the hell did that mean?!

He stared, slightly dumbfounded, at the seamless way Amamiya-kun deflected all of Akutagawa’s strikes, as if the attacks were mere inconveniences rather than the deathly blows that were the cause of his current wound. It looked like they’d reached a stalemate, with Amamiya-kun refusing to go on offense and Akutagawa having all of his negated. Akutagawa was getting visibly frustrated, taking steps forward with each attack, each of varying distance—like he wasn’t even aware he was doing so. Briefly, Atsushi wondered if this was his chance to make a break for it and run to the office, but his side flashed with hot pain again and he discarded the thought in favor of keeling over ever so slightly.

The teen in front of him must have noticed, because he looked back for a second, face pinched, then mumbled, “I’m gonna’ have to take another risk with this, so…”

He sounded hesitant. Scared, even. But before Atsushi could respond, or even open his mouth to say that trying something new in this situation was a terrible idea, he sucked in a massive breath, pulled his head back, and screamed, “Messiah Picaro!”

Suddenly, the pink-skinned humanoid vanished, and yet another burst of blue fire leapt off his mission partner to create a whole new being. One that, Atsushi had to say, was a thousand times more majestic than the last.

“Aw, that one again?” Dazai-san’s voice rang in his ear. Judging by Amamiya-kun’s lack of reaction, Atsushi could assume this message was only for him. “What a shame, I was hoping for something new.”

“He can have multiple, Dazai-san?!” he whispered into his microphone, letting the sound of battle and Akutagawa’s growing aggravation conceal his voice. “The way he spoke at the Agency made me think he only had one of these alter egos.”

He heard the telltale buzz of his mentor’s microphone reactivating, but a sudden crash and scream ripped his attention away and right back to the scene. The first thing he saw was Amamiya-kun keeled over next to him, curled into himself and coughing. A horrid pool of crimson was seeping out from the center of his stomach.

The teen was screaming. One long, continuous wail.

Atsushi made a sound of alarm, ripped straight from the back of his throat, and immediately dropped to place a hand on the teen’s back, leaving a bloody handprint beneath him. His skin felt like it was on fire, even through the fabric of his shirt. So hot, in fact, that Atsushi half-expected him to spontaneously combust again right in his grip.

“So, this is the extent of your power,” Akutagawa sneered. He hadn’t even taken his hands out of his pockets. “A shame.”

“Wh—what changed, Amamiya-kun?! ” Atsushi whispered, voice laden with horror. “You were fine a second ago.”

“Seems this one can’t protect him the same way the other one could,” Dazai-san said, sounding completely unaffected by the violence he was overhearing. “How interesting.”

The teen trembled, made a few garbled sounds akin to sobs, then spat out a glob of blood that quickly mixed with the rest spilling from his abdomen. Atsushi hitched in another breath at the sight, barely realizing how he hadn’t even exhaled the previous one, and could only watch as their blood seeped out of them at a matching pace to meet in the middle.

That was, until Akutagawa’s footsteps could be heard strutting closer. The sound filled Atsushi with indescribable rage, and he whipped his head around to send his fiercest glare to the Port Mafia’s Rabid Hound.

“Why are you doing this, Akutagawa? Why now?” he gritted out. “If we keep this up any longer, everyone in Yokohama will die.”

He let his hand drop from his side, shifted his leg back, and pushed off his knee to begin a charge forward, but was stopped by a hand latched onto his pant leg.

“Wait…” the black-haired teen sobbed out, voice raw and hoarse. The sound yanked directly at Atsushi’s heartstrings. 

The grip Amamiya-kun had on him was weak, and it would’ve been easy for Atsushi to kick him off and keep going. But one look at the being behind him, red and black and royal in some strange way that melded with his soul, convinced him to stay.

For a few seconds, nothing happened, only a prolonged staring contest between Atsushi and that ephemeral being’s single blue eye. Akutagawa seemed to pause in his steps, likely also interested in what was going to happen, but didn’t say a word.

And then, the being started to flail, turning almost completely translucent as their golden wings twitched and their arms soared above their head in a myriad of bizarre gestures. The sight looked almost omnipotent, terrifyingly so, but before Atsushi could say anything, he noticed a rush of colorful light seeping off their clear body and making its way to him, climbing up his arms, legs, along his torso and gliding right through the gash in his side. He sucked in a breath at the sight, how the strands of light wrapped around him completely, blocking the rest of the world from view entirely.

And the sight he was greeted with next was… beautiful, and nothing else. A kaleidoscopic sensation.

The pain in his body, his side, vanished immediately, and though he couldn’t see what was happening to him, he could feel the blood on his body crawling back up his skin to reach the wound. It was a sensation he could only describe as unpleasant, feeling the pressure of everything returning to their original state, but the pillars of rainbows that surrounded him made it hard to focus on the feeling. A final splash of light coated his side, then dissipated in a flash to reveal him to the world again, free of blood, pain, and feeling better than ever before.

What… what the hell was that?!

His mouth fell open as he examined himself, mixed between a smile and a silent scream. His clothes were clean again, all traces of dried blood gone, and once he was done feeling the skin where his gash used to be, he immediately spun around to check on Amamiya-kun’s condition as well. He caught a small glimpse of Akutagawa on the way, eyes widened, hands out of his pockets and stuck tersely by his sides. An expression of pure shock he’d seldom seen before on his face.

It took some effort to look away.

Once he finally pulled his eyes off to check on the teen, he saw him sitting up straight, free of all blood and injury. Even the bloody handprint he’d left on the teen’s back had vanished. His head was still spinning, trying to make sense of just what that power was that he used on them, just what his “alter egos” could actually do, that he almost missed how the teen stood up easily, looking completely unaffected by everything that just happened.

He made a small sound of wonder as he was hooked up by his elbow, then brought to his feet as well.

“You ready?” was all the teen said in warning—voice low and quiet, raw and hoarse, with the kind of scratchy undertone that only came after a long cry—before shoving him forward with all his might and leaving him to stumble a few paces. “Go!”

Atsushi didn’t need to be told twice. The second Amamiya-kun let out his command, he snapped out of his stupor and was already sprinting across the bridge, soaring past Akutagawa to reach the stairs on the other side.

He could think about all of this later.

“Wereti—” he heard Akutagawa call out, shock still evident in his voice, but the sound of battle kicked back up again and the man’s words were lost to the wind and the desperate slam of his footsteps.

- ~ -

Dazai leaned back in his chair, grinning. 

When he watched Amamiya-kun stand back up, fully healed, and send Atsushi-kun out, he hadn’t expected the next thing he’d do would be to start throwing punches. But the sound rang clear in his headset, of a fist meeting flesh and the grunt of pain that followed, and he barked out a single laugh. How comical!

Ah, if only the cameras in that area were a little more high quality. What he wouldn’t give to see this fight in HD. As it was, they were just shy of blobs on a screen, wriggling around each other in tune with the crashing noises from Amamiya-kun’s microphone. Neither of them were saying anything, or perhaps Akutagawa-kun was, and it was simply being hidden behind the teen’s heavy breathing. Either way, he had something much more interesting to think about.

It was intriguing how all Amamiya-kun chose to use were his fists, considering those other powers he’d told him about. Yet another testament to how sentimental he was proving to be, or, how little he wanted to be known about him.

(In the end, discussion about Amamiya-kun’s previous organization went nowhere. Verbally, at least. The teen gave no verbal hints as to who he was previously owned by, but it was clear that those people were dear to him.

The way his eyes softened between dodged questions, staring straight at the ground and fiddling with his thumbs; the way his voice inflected with a myriad of emotions on the things he did answer, keeping his words vague but his feelings stamped on his sleeve. He loved these people.

Whether it was a true bond, or just the typical bout of manipulation, he couldn’t exactly figure out yet. But whatever it was, it was definitely the source of his fond melancholy. Either he was finally realizing that he wouldn’t be returning to them, or something had already happened to this mystery organization of his.

Well, that could be considered a good thing. Less potential enemies for Kunikida-kun to stress over.

“Thought you said we were running low on time,” Amamiya-kun muttered, shifting to put his chin in his hand. Even now, after talking for quite some time, he still refused to look Dazai in the eye. Not that it really mattered, but it was amusing to see such a powerful and threatening anomaly to Yokohama shy away from basic eye contact.

Dazai made a show of checking the clock in the corner, “Oh my, you’re correct. Seems I’ll have to move on, then.”

The glimmer of relief that passed over the teen’s face was telling. He’d just have to pull some names after eliminating the Guild’s presence. He wondered what kind of face the kid would make then.

“Now,” he leaned back into the chair, “tell me some more about your Personas themselves.”

“…Like?”

He was curling back into himself at the very mention of his own power. It made sense, after the show he’d put on a little while before this with his fire. Still, though, with his obvious proficiency using it in combat, he shouldn’t be cowering away so much at the thought of using it casually. Did he not like his power?

“Well for starters, how many of them do you have?”

The boy hesitated, only for a second, then said, “Twelve.”

He definitely had more than that in his arsenal. Dazai had no doubt about it. But twelve was an awfully specific number to choose, especially when considering how he’d have to keep track of such a lie indefinitely. Why not choose a simpler number, like ten or fifteen? He could chalk it up to the kid just being stressed and just picking something random to say, but he’d seen him fool a Mafia Executive—the stupidest one, but an Executive nonetheless—with only a few sentences and with an immediate threat on his life present. There was no way he was faltering now.

Only other option was that there was something heavily contradictory about his powers. Maybe he could only hold twelve at any given point in time? If that was the case, how was he able to choose? Could he choose at all?

Or perhaps he could only bring out a maximum of twelve at once?

Dazai wondered how long it would take for the boy to realize that concealing information from them was a bad idea. For now, though, he'd just have to move past it to save time. Ah, the Guild’s schedule was making this so inefficient!

“Can you use multiple at once?” he asked, just to fill the space as he chose his next question.

Amamiya-kun didn’t answer verbally, but shook his head. Well, that eliminated his second theory, if Dazai chose to believe him. It opened up a thousand new questions, though.

“Alright, now. You summoned ‘Messiah Picaro’ while in battle with Lovecraft,” the full body flinch that Amamiya-kun did was telling, “but when escaping the Port Mafia buildings, you chose a completely different Persona, the deity Arahabaki, to aid you. Explain to me why you did so; do they have different skill sets?”

It was a gateway question. Logically, it made no sense for all of his Personas to have the same skills. But logic wasn’t always in the cards for gifteds, and this boy had power even beyond what’s been understood about abilities.

That wasn’t why he was asking, though. What he really wanted to know was just why exactly this unknown teenage boy from outside Yokohama coincidentally found his way to both halves of Soukouku, then made his grand escape using the most telling character in his arsenal. A being that was practically a slap in the face and a scream that someone knew something.

A reason to never let this teen return to his people with whatever information he’d gained during his time with them.

“Yeah, they do. They, um, specialize in different things. Messiah Picaro can do things Arahabaki—”

Hearing it come from the mouth of its wielder was completely different than saying it himself. Distantly, he remembered he was talking to the ‘Trickster.’

“—can’t do, and vice versa. Arahabaki was a better fit for getting out of that situation.”

He pursed his lips, then leaned forward, “So what you’re saying is that Messiah Picaro does not have that spirit stealing ability? Or that green healing power?”

The teen nodded.

“And Arahabaki has neither the glowing comet skill or the limb regeneration?”

He nodded again, giving the ground a strange look. Alright, that should cover all the bases. It was better to have Amamiya-kun outright agree to specific terms about his powers and potentially get caught in a contradiction than it was to just receive a yes or no answer. If those two Personas ever used each other’s abilities, he would know.

Still, for Arahabaki’s presence to truly be nothing more than a means to an end… that was a hell of a coincidence. Almost too much. He needed to know more, or at least why Arahabaki was so crucial to escape that specific meeting.

“Give me a rundown of your Personas' different powers,” he said, crossing one leg over the other.

“At this rate, I won’t have anything to keep to myself.”

He grinned, “That’s the plan. Now, tell me.”

“Elemental powers. Wind, Fire, Ice, Electricity, yeah.”

The way he ended his sentence was chilling in its own way. He was surprisingly good at hiding the lilt at the end, tone shifting up, implying more to say, but not good enough. There was more that he was purposefully hiding, that Dazai wouldn’t be able to nullify if it came down to it.

“Not water?” he asked, pointing out a hidden element from his phrasing. Hiding a power to generate and channel water would certainly grant him an advantage in whatever situation he could end up in.

The boy’s brows raised by a millimeter, and his expression turned thoughtful, “Surprisingly, no.”

Dazai’s brows raised too. Once again, if he was lying, then he just gave himself a massive disadvantage, forbidding himself from using what could potentially be one of his strongest powers. And if he wasn’t lying—which, by judging his expression and body language, Dazai was fairly confident he wasn’t—well, if not water, a basic element alongside wind and fire, then what could those hidden elements be? Earth? If he did have power over Earth, he would’ve said it before things like Electricity.

This boy made no sense.

“So instead of water, you have ice and electricity. Those don’t seem to fit your pattern of classical elements, though, do they?”

Amamiya-kun shrugged, “I guess not. I never really put much thought into that.”

“And what element would you classify that comet power as?”

There was a pause as his breathing turned heavier. He calmed down quickly enough.

“Wasn’t an elemental skill. Think of it like a stupidly hard punch,” he curled his hand into a fist and thumped it against the mattress for good measure.

Dazai furrowed his brow, “Have you ever even been punched, Amamiya-kun? They hurt, but they don’t damage like that at all!”

“I mean, they also don’t look like massive golden comets coming down from the sky,” the teen half-smiled. “Just think of it like a punch.”

“Alright,” Dazai hummed, tapping his finger against his knee before stilling his hand and continuing. “Now, what about your supporting skills? That spirit stealing one, and the healing ones.”

Another pause, a little less tense this time, then he said, “What about them?”

“Are they classified as elemental powers as well?”

“No.”

“So all it is is turning spirit into health. Nothing in between?”

“Yeah.”

Alright, a few more bases covered. He added them to the mental checklist of things the boy was shooting himself in the foot over if he was lying.

“Are you able to heal others? Or only yourself?” was his next question, one that he’d been the most eager to get to. It could definitely go either way, since the only other supporting skill that Dazai knew of—the one that drained his spirit out of him like he was a sponge held in Arahabaki’s omnipotent hand—would be useless if applied to Amamiya-kun himself, as it wouldn’t exactly be able to steal his own spirit. Perhaps the same logic applied to his healing skills, where they would be redundant on others that weren’t him since it was his spirit being used.

“Yeah, my healing works on others,” the teen said, and Dazai’s heartbeat quickened. “But I can only heal those who accept my support.”

What an interesting line to add on. He took a second to slow his heart back down again, mulling over the new facts in his head, then grinned.

“Oh? ‘Can?’ It sounds as if you’re only being allowed to use your powers, rather than being the one to control them,” he narrowed his eyes, still wearing his grin as he picked at word choice again. Amamiya-kun tensed. “Explain that to me.”

“It’s… what it sounds like. If I know someone doesn’t trust me enough to let me help, I can’t help them.”

“Is it a mental block?”

“No,” he said firmly, and Dazai nodded. “It’s real.”

Dazai hummed, then decided to get some specifics, “So what you’re saying is, if you tried to heal someone who didn’t like you—”

“That’s not it,” he interrupted. “They don't need to like me. They don’t even have to need my help. They just need to be willing to let me help them.”

“That sounds awfully poetic.”

“That’s just how it is,” he shrugged. “My summons can’t heal someone who I’m not sure is willing to accept it. Same way they can’t hurt someone I trust. It’s who they are.”

Dazai mulled over that logic for a few seconds. It sounded inconvenient, if he was being honest. Like some sort of parental lock on his powers that could both benefit him heavily and hinder all of his accomplishments. Being unable to hurt an ally was powerful, but being unable to heal someone who doesn’t want it felt illogical. Something like that couldn’t be trusted until he got to do further testing.

Then again, if he agreed to believe this, it meant that the Agency would gain access to these healing skills the teen had, either because the teen trusted them or he had to keep up the appearance that he did so. And after hiding this lack of ability from the others, this was the safest thing Dazai could do for them.

Plus, if he ever did hurt one of them with his powers, whether on purpose or by a slip up he suspected this teen would be prone to, it would be the definitive evidence needed that this group of his required immediate action.

“Well,” he hummed. “I suppose you did call them your ‘True Selves,’ no?”

Amamiya-kun nodded, looking almost relieved that Dazai was catching on, “I am thou, thou art I. Their power reflects my nature.”

“Oh my, how fancy.”

His nature, huh? Tricksters were known to be liars. Maybe that pitiful performance in Mori-san’s clinic was only him at his worst. Maybe he’d been lying this whole time, keeping just as meticulous track of his new webbed story as Dazai was.

He couldn’t wait to see how this turned out.)

- ~ -

Akutagawa wore a murderous look, highlighted by the redness on the side of his face where Ren’s fist first made contact, and further emphasized by the layers of shadow that the dimly lit bridge area was casting over his face. The bone-chilling glare was mostly directed at Ren, but it would occasionally flicker back to the stairwell that Nakajima-san had just vanished up behind him, an action that Ren was quick to shut down with another set of messy strikes. He was careful not to look directly at that terrifying expression.

The man had changed strategies since Ren got up close to him, it seemed. Instead of sending those sharp tendrils at him like before, he was shaping them into some sort of shield in front of him that, Ren remembered, he used against Nakajima-san as well. 

Not to say that he wasn’t still trying to stab him, but those attacks were scarcer, snaking around him and going for sneak attacks instead of aiming straight for his face. He seemed to be searching for an opening that Siegfried wouldn’t be giving him. But Ren wasn’t getting any room to attack either, as any swing he sent was instantly countered by that shield with its haunting glow, like it was chasing each of his limbs whenever they tried to do anything. Outside of that one lucky punch at the start, he couldn’t land a hit on the guy.

They were practically on top of each other at this point—Akutagawa didn’t even need to stretch a blade past his own bicep to reach Ren—and locked in a complete stalemate. Siegfried loomed over them both, an unwavering presence keeping Ren’s back warm and occasionally pulling Akutagawa’s focus away. Never for long enough to take advantage of, though. 

Until he felt a sharp tug at his soul. The makings of a skill casting that he never started.

“I grow tired of this, Trickster,” Siegfried’s voice, though barely a whisper amongst the sounds of his own racing thoughts and the pounding footsteps against the metal floor, pummeled its way to the forefront of his mind.

Wait, what? He spun around just in time to watch Siegfried shift its sword into both hands and slam it down, casting a skill of its own without Ren ever prompting it to. Was this—?!

Another three blades slammed into his back at once and were blocked, the impact making him stumble forward a few paces but leaving him unharmed overall. But instead of simply stopping once they reached him like all the others, they ricocheted off of his body and arched upwards, away from him and right back to Akutagawa, who barely got to open his mouth before they pierced straight into his flesh.

Two in his stomach, one straight through his left thigh. There was a harrowing crack of bone, followed by another, then another.

“What—” he gasped, keeling over as his own ability speared through him fully. Blood spurted out from each of the new wounds, sliding off his coat in thick layers to pool all around him. One hand rushed up to hold his chest as he coughed up crimson phlegm, and the other pressed against the base of the bridge as he hunched into himself. Ren could only watch in horror, taking a slow step back. It took everything in him not to collapse right then.

A small part of him was absolutely geeking out. Three High-Counters triggered in a row? The odds of that occurring were practically nothing.

The rest of him, though, was absolutely terrified. He hadn’t meant for any more injuries, he just wanted to stall this guy and buy Nakajima-san some time. And now his opponent was on the floor, writhing against his own ability that was still latched onto his innards. A horrid squelching sound rang true with his every movement, and whether it came from the dampened leather of his coat, or the muscle and fatty tendrils that his ability was definitely twisting into a mangled mess within him, Ren couldn’t tell.

(In the awful dim lighting, and against the complete darkness of his massive overcoat, the dribbles of blood were colored a putrid black.

For the longest time, neither of them said a word. The air grew heavier, dense with anticipation and fear, and as much as Ren tried, he couldn’t bring his body to do anything but wheeze.)

“…You—you scum,” Akutagawa spat at him eventually. Ren was thankful for the break in silence. The smell of iron and copper was sticking to his lungs. “Just what the hell is your ability? How did you just—take control of mine?!”

“I—I…” he tried and failed. 

Akutagawa growled in between heavy coughs. Ren’s body still wouldn’t listen to him.

“I didn’t mean for—” his throat closed up, making him choke, and he quickly decided long explanations weren’t going to work. “You have to let me heal you.”

“Shut your mouth,” the man flailed his arm in a straight line in front of him, sending flecks of blood to spatter all around the bridge. “Don’t even try to use your loathsome ability on me.”

Despite his rage, he didn’t send any more attacks to Ren, not even as he took a slow, shaky step towards him. Either he was too weak from the wounds to try—which Ren doubted, the guy was keeping up with Nakajima-san just fine, and that guy was a beast—or he finally figured out that his ability was no match for Siegfried's passive power. He was probably waiting for Ren to leave before he did anything else.

Which meant he definitely wasn’t going to trust him enough to let him use a healing skill. But Ren had to do something. He—he couldn’t just let him…

The nerves in his neck were slowly sparking alight again, and he frantically shook his head, “No, listen, you have to let me—”

“Keep moving forward,” The sound of Dazai-san’s voice in his head startled his next breath out of him, “You have an opening, use it to catch up with Atsushi- kun.”

His body shuddered against his will, and after collecting himself a little, he brought both hands up to fiddle frantically with the headset. Searching for whatever button Nakajima-san pressed on his to activate the microphone, so he could just talk to someone about this.

“Damn it… how do I…?” he muttered to himself, fingers steadily losing their dexterity as he ran them across the headset over and over and—

“Don’t worry about that, Amamiya-kun. Just talk,” the man said, making him pause.

“Uh… okay,” he took a deep breath and stared down at his feet. “Listen, I didn’t mean to, but my summon ended up—”

“I know what happened. I expect a full explanation of your actions once this mission is over,” the man’s voice was a careful neutral, but Ren couldn’t help but feel like he was annoyed, which didn’t make any sense. If he knew what happened, why did it seem like he wanted Ren to talk about anything else right now? “But for now, take advantage of this opening and go after Atsushi-kun. He’ll require your assistance with Fitzgerald.”

“…And just leave him here? Seriously?!”

By now he was pacing up and down the length of the bridge, hand twisting massive knots into his bangs as his glasses fought hard to stay atop his sweaty face. God , his head hurt. Distantly in his mind, far away from the rest of his current troubles, he dreaded when he’d need to break back into his stash of energy drinks, and just what the caffeine would do to his Third Eye induced migraine. Everything was catching up to him so quickly, he had half a mind to just throw his torso off the bridge railing and start vomiting up his problems all over again—

“Yes, seriously. You don’t have time to concern yourself over this.”

In the background, he heard Akutagawa cough again. At this rate he was going to hack up his own lungs.

“He’s losing a lot of blood,” he said—guessed, really, since he didn’t really have the heart to turn around and confirm it. “Any longer and—”

“Don’t talk about me in that sanctimonious tone,” Akutagawa hissed behind him, making him flinch. “Was this not what you wanted to occur? Or was the Port Mafia’s Fugitive just toying with me the entire time?”

“The Port Mafia’s Fugitive,” Dazai-san repeated. “Well, you can savor your new title later. Go.”

It’s your damn fault I have it, Ren didn’t say, and it’s not that simple. He hunched his shoulders in without looking back, perfectly hiding how his hand flew up to his microphone once again.

“I—I don’t want to leave him to die, ” he whispered, using too much air for too few words. A small part of it was because he didn’t feel like hearing Akutagawa berate him again just for showing compassion. But most of it was just because he knew if he tried to be any louder, his vocal cords would probably burst from the strain now so deeply rooted in his throat. “I didn’t mean to hurt him.”

Because yeah, the guy ambushed them for no reason, effectively slowing them from literally saving the city he belonged to as well. He also wanted to kill Nakajima-san, then him as well, and he seemed pretty adamant on getting that done. But even with all that, Ren didn’t want to hurt him.

And he had a chance here to fix it, right? He just needed to somehow get on this guy’s good side after stabbing him three times in a row. He’d gambled with harsher odds than this before.

The man went quiet on the line, but somehow, Ren could feel the other end getting cold against his ears.

“Port Mafia trains their warriors for these situations, as well as for the subsequent wounds they will gain. He won’t die from a mere stabbing,” he said firmly, and Ren almost laughed. This was crazy . “To imply something like that could be considered insulting to their craft.”

“Yeah, yeah, sorry,” he spun around to walk along the bridge again. “but he’s still bleeding out in front of me. You—you know how my powers work, what should I do?”

“I don’t need your help,” Akutagawa snarked, to which Ren couldn’t help the sigh of stress and exasperation that left him. He probably shouldn’t be antagonizing the guy he wanted to help, especially not the mafia member he was stuck a gazillion feet in the air with, but whatever. It wasn’t like the guy could actually land a hit on him.

Just look at what Ren did to him when he tried.

“Listen to him,” the man stated, in such a no-nonsense tone that Ren nearly shivered at the sound of it. “There is nothing you can say to him in the time you have left that will convince him to accept your support. Now, Atsushi-kun needs you up ahead. I can guide you to his position, but you need to move now. Hesitate, and you won’t just be killing Akutagawa-kun, but all of Yokohama.”

And at those words, something in him—in every part of his body: muscles, organs, bloodstream, a little thing just barely holding itself together—shattered. Because of course it would be like this. Of course it would be up to him, yet again, to determine the fate of the people.

He was getting sick of being the one thing above the highest possible powers. The one thing to decide the flow of battle, or of the will of the public, or , in recent events, of life itself. This wasn’t fair; he didn’t ask for this, not for Akutagawa to get hurt or Yokohama to get nuked or Lovecraft to—

He heard a sigh through his headset and startled. But as unwelcome as the man’s obvious exasperation was becoming, he was grateful for the interruption as his hands shakily dropped from his head. He couldn’t afford to send himself down that train of thought. He shifted his rage elsewhere. Trying to reach past this stupid fantasy world, where the blood really shouldn’t matter but for some reason, it did.

He was honestly starting to miss Maruki-sensei, with his lies and his deceit and his obsession with Ren and this fucking book he trapped him in, because at least back when they were civil, he never put something like this on the table. At least the people whose fate they were deciding back in Leblanc weren’t going to die. Here, there was nothing like that. All he could decide here was which potential loss he’d have to deal with. The larger, or the lesser. 

Well, when looked at like that, the answer would be obvious to anyone. It was just a matter of saying it out loud.

“He’ll…” he swallowed back some bile. “You’re sure this won’t…?”

Seemed he really couldn’t do it. He just hoped his message was clear enough, because his throat was effectively refusing to let him try again.

There was the slightest of pauses, but the man’s voice rang out so steadily right after that Ren almost overlooked it, “Yes.”

He frowned between labored breaths.

Ever since he reactivated his Third Eye in this reality, he had been idly wondering just how much of Dazai-san’s guidance was even trustworthy. After all, in just the time he’d known him, the man had been either the perpetrator or accomplice to knocking him out, drugging him, nearly jamming a needle into his eye, drugging him , forcing him to lie about his powers, and now trying to convince him to leave Akutagawa to bleed out for the greater good. Everything he did was suspicious, and so far, there was no certainty of a Velvet Room stamp of approval like Nakajima-san’s aura held for Ren to be willing to look past it. So until he could get a proper reading on the man’s aura, he had no way to fully trust his navigation.

But… it was just so much . Like a chain reaction of bloodshed that wouldn’t stop no matter how much he healed, how many times he pulled out a Persona to fix things. From that first night to now, it was like these people, him included, just couldn’t stop bleeding. And no matter what he did from here on, these people were going to keep bleeding. 

He just wanted someone else to take charge. Someone else to trust with the big decisions, if only for a little while. And no matter how much it hurt to think about, the very fact that he was in this world said it couldn’t be Maruki-sensei anymore. This was the next best option.

So no, something this serious couldn’t be cemented with a simple Yes. And yet, he found himself reaching up for it, wrapping chubby, childlike fingers around it anyway.

He turned around to look at Akutagawa again, pushing past the bile that immediately coated his tongue at the sight. The blades were still inside him, still pierced clean through his body, but they were plugging all the holes effectively enough. There was still blood , so much of it dribbling from the corners of each plugged wound, but it definitely could have been worse. If the mafia member had opted to panic at all, then he might have died on impact. His eyes were shut, and though his face was still pinched, it seemed like he was making a real effort to stay relaxed.

It was then that Ren realized the man hadn’t screamed once. He’d barely let out anything more than coughs and grunts. In some horrid, fucked up way, it was actually kind of professional.

“…A—Alright,” he eventually said, not looking away. He would just have to be quick. 

After he said the word, he got the immediate feeling that the man was smiling on the other end.

Well, if he was, it didn’t show in his voice, “Good. Now go.”

Ren couldn’t bring himself to look away from his impaled opponent as he sprinted past him, up the stairs, and everywhere else that Dazai-san told him to go.

- ~ - 

Atsushi sprinted up the final stairwell, taking the steps two at a time until he reached the top, where only a single door remained. He jiggled the door handle furiously, expecting it to be locked, but was surprised to feel it twist open without any pushback. The door swung open easily as well, revealing a narrow, dimly lit hallway that, unlike the rest of the Moby Dick that he and Amamiya-kun explored, actually looked lived in. There was even a long, lilac carpet decorating the floor, one that he wasted no time scrunching up under his footsteps as he continued on.

As he ran down the hall, he pressed a hand over his exposed hip, where the wound Akutagawa had given him had since been healed over. His shirt was free of blood now, but in complete tatters and barely hanging on over his shoulder, so he peeled it off and wrapped the remaining fabric around his hip, just in case Amamiya-kun’s power somehow faltered and the gash reopened.

(His power. That was incredible.

He made a mental note to ask about it when the mission was over. For now, though, he could only hope that whatever else the teen could do wouldn’t be too surprising. Dazai-san didn’t really give him much else to go off of, after all.

Ah, speaking of, Atsushi pressed a hand to his headset and activated the microphone. Now that he and his teammate were separated, he needed to leave his on at all times to feed Dazai-san information on his end, the same way his mentor told him Amamiya-kun’s own headset had been wired to work.)

Just as he brought his hand down from his head, he heard a voice, barely audible over the sound of his footsteps, but it was there. His breath immediately caught in his throat, and he slowed his pace tremendously as he crept over to the door it was coming from.

“My dear Zelda, how are you?” the voice rang out through the hall, making Atsushi tense up. He recognized that voice. Of course Fitzgerald would be the one guarding the controls to the ship. “Ah, you laid off another chef? My darling, you realize these people come from only the classiest European restaurants, right? We’ll run out of options at this rate.”

There was a drawn out pause, one that Atsushi paused his movements during to avoid disrupting the silence, then Fitzgerald chuckled, “Well, when you put it that way, I understand. Incompetent scum like that should simply perish. Let’s hope the next one will remember your distaste for cream cheese.”

Atsushi crept further down the hallway, closer and closer to that faint voice at the very end, before finally stopping just a few inches away. There was some quiet again, and he leaned forward to hug the door as he tried to listen in.

“Yes my dear, she’s still studying hard in London,” there was another chuckle. “Of course I haven’t forgotten. Not a moment goes by where I don’t think of it.”

He couldn’t wait any longer. He grabbed hold of the handle and twisted, then swung the door open. It creaked eerily in his grip, as he made sure only to open it enough to fit his body inside. He slipped into the room as silently as he could.

Before anything else, he scanned the area, flicking his gaze over the square rug with the same colors and patterns as the one in the hall, then the single chair sitting in the middle of the room, right opposite the massive oak desk, before eventually landing on F. Scott. Fitzgerald, the man behind all of this. His back was facing him as he stared out the enormous window, but Atsushi had a feeling the man knew he was there.

“Zelda, I may have to cut this call short now. I have a visitor,” the man sighed into his phone, confirming it. “Take care, my love. I’ll—we’ll be home soon.”

There was a click as he snapped the phone shut, but he didn’t bring it back to his side immediately, instead letting his hand linger in the air. The two of them stood in silence for a long while until the man finally let his arm drop.

“You’ve returned, boy. So soon, as well. It’s like you never left us at all,” he began, eyeing Atsushi through the reflection in the window. “But what brings you here now, I wonder? Perhaps it is this?”

Still not facing Atsushi, the man produced a second device from his pocket and faced the screen behind him. On it were the controls to the entire Moby Dick, including, in big, bold letters, an option to cancel its current mission. 

But that wasn’t what stole his attention. Just below it, taking over the entirety of Atsushi’s mind the second he laid eyes on it, was a timer. Just over half an hour left until the airship they were on slammed into Yokohama.

Atsushi let out a massive breath, then took in another, “So you’re the one piloting the Moby Dick.”

At that, Fitzgerald finally spun around to look at him properly. He wore a sickening grin, “Of course. I couldn’t possibly entrust such a task to Melville, especially not now, when he’s the one who led you up to me.”

The man began to walk forward. Instinctively, Atsushi lowered himself into a defensive stance. It made him laugh.

“Let me give you a piece of advice,” he stopped just before his legs could bump into the back of the chair, and dropped the control device face up on the cushion. “If you want anything to get done, you have to do it yourself. Tell me boy, do you know how much the Moby Dick weighs?”

Atsushi opened his mouth to respond, but was cut off by a cocky sigh as Fitzgerald leaned forward and draped his torso on the back of the chair.

“It has a total mass of 29,000 tonnes. And so, when dropped from an altitude of over 6,500 feet, it would explode with the force of 140 tonnes of TNT.”

The man tilted his head, smirk only growing, and Atsushi felt a pit of fire bubble in his stomach at the sight. That…

“That’s butchery. We won’t allow such an atrocity to happen to Yokohama.”

He shook his head and sighed, “So you still need some guidance. Then, another piece of advice: don’t let the values of others affect you. You’re only here because the Agency told you to return, after all.”

“What?” he whispered. That fire grew tenfold. “That’s not true.”

“Don’t deny it, boy. I foresaw your arrival well before you reached the ship. I know what you’re doing here, why you’re here, and that you’ll never be able to see it through.”

Huh? But how could that…

“…You predicted I was coming?”

“The Guild has quite the wonderful strategist on our side,” he tapped the side of his head, “able to produce a certain number of precognitions based on information given to her. And besides, even an idiot could figure that much out, what with your previous interactions with the Guild members and prior stay on this ship.”

Atsushi’s fists clenched at his sides, and he faced the man with his fiercest glare, “I will stop you.”

“My, will you? I look forward to it.”

The man pushed himself off the chair and took a few steps back, leaving the control device flat on the cushion. Then, after shooting Atsushi another dark grin, he spun back around and sauntered over to his desk with his hands behind his back. The control device sat unguarded only a few feet ahead.

Atsushi felt the itch to run forward and grab it, now that Fitzgerald had his back turned and likely wouldn’t react in time. It would be so easy, right? Especially now that he’d been healed up, he honestly felt better than ever. And he was fast, he’d proven that himself on the sprint up here. If he could just—

“Stall.”

Dazai-san’s voice rang true in his head, and for a second, Atsushi couldn’t tell if it was really him through the earpiece or just his mind trying to convince him not to go for it. 

“That said,” and then Fitzgerald’s voice invaded the room once again, pulling Atsushi back to the scene in time to watch the man run his hand across his desk. “I’m a busy man, and I’m sure you have your own things you’d like to return to as well. If we have to fight over control over the Moby Dick, why don’t we keep things simple?”

“Just for a little while, Atsushi-kun. Your teammate’s on his way.”

He still couldn’t tell if it was really his mentor speaking to him, not when his eyes were trained so heavily on that control device on the chair. How it was burning through numbers on the timer like they were nothing. Either way, it didn’t matter. The man turned back around, and he lost his chance. This really would need to be handled with a fight.

“Let’s do it this way. On the count of three, we’ll both run towards the control device. Whoever reaches it first will be crowned winner of our battle; if it’s you, then I will relinquish control of the Moby Dick and my entire operation. If it’s me, though,” he placed one hand on his hip, then lifted the other up to point straight at Atsushi, “then you will agree to join me in my quest to find the Book. Does that work?”

Atsushi didn’t say anything—what?! So they weren’t going to fight, and instead have a simple race?—but his eyes widened and his head twitched once, an action that the man seemingly took as a nod.

Slowly, without breaking eye contact, the man raised his arm up even higher and pointed a finger in the air.

“One.”

What should he do? Should he take the man’s deal and run when he does? If Amamiya-kun really was on his way, then waiting out the challenge and earning a few extra seconds would definitely help him get here in time…

Fitzgerald lifted another finger, “Two.”

…No, what was he thinking?! He couldn’t possibly trust this man to stick to his word! Why play fair when your enemy’s rigged the game from the beginning?

He just needed to make a dash for it and run before the man could react. And so, just as the man started to lift a third finger, he pushed off his left leg and sprinted forward, hand extended out to grab the device. He got there in just one massive leap, very nearly colliding with the chair itself as his fingers grazed the device. He curled his hand inward and the device nestled into his palm, he had it—

“Three.”

His stomach lurched into his throat, leaving the space where it once was to fill with hot pain as Fitzgerald’s knee rammed into his abdomen. 

For just a second, it was like the whole world froze around them. The timer stopped going down, the ship stopped moving, the only thing left was how his body convulsed horrifically against the man’s leg, torso molding itself around it as a set of arms locked his back in place, nearly snapping him in half at the waist.

It hurt. More than a single scream could ever do justice to. But he didn’t even get a chance to try, as less than a second later, the man let go of him and he rocketed backwards into the wall. His body cut through the concrete easily, slamming broken bricks into his limbs while shards pulled blood from every crevice of his body. His head reached the wall last; once, twice, impact on impact until the destruction finally calmed down, and when he hit the floor again, his vision was completely black.

It took him a while to amass enough strength to blink color back in his eyes, but when he did, the first thing he saw was Fitzgerald tutting at him.

“It seems you really do need all the advice I can give you,” the man sighed, swiping the control device from off the cushion and pinching it between two fingers, before slipping it into his pocket. “Then, a third tip: It’s easy to predict the actions of someone given an opportunity too good to pass up.”

Atsushi barely heard it, and if the man said anything else after, he definitely didn’t hear that. His ears were ringing, his eyes were glazing over, drifting to the wall behind him that his body had obliterated on impact. And his stomach lurched again. Not because of the pain, blood, or the ugly sight of Fitzgerald leering down the control device he held, but because he knew, despite the agony in his body, he couldn’t stop now. 

He pulled his torso up onto his elbows, ignored the man’s pointed gaze, then heaved his back atop his knees. His head stopped spinning, and the adrenaline pumping through his veins worked to mask the agony as he lifted his neck to make eye contact.

And when he finally got back onto his feet, only letting himself sway a little as the ache started to clear up, the man made a sound of acknowledgement.

“Impressive. Seems there’s still some wind left in your lungs. Spending only 10,000 may have been insulting.”

“Sp’h—” Atsushi tried to speak, but felt a rush of bile and blood clog his throat before he could even get a full word out. The man watched, wearing a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, before chuckling and pulling out a wad of paper from his pocket.

“Then, how about 100,000 dollars?” he waved the paper around—checks, Atsushi noted between flashes of numbing pain coursing through his body. All of them were checks. “All from my personal portfolio. Do you think that would be enough?”

He coughed, “Spend—n’ding…”

There was a snap, and then, “Oh, that’s right! I haven’t yet introduced you to my ability, have I? Then, let me show you just what I can do. Witness…” with a flourish, and in a single, clean motion, he tossed the checks high in the air and let them float back down all around him. “The Great Fitzgerald!”

A rush of air formed around him as the checks faded into ribbons of kanji , circling his body entirely and filling the entire room with a blinding yellow light. Atsushi squinted, trying to see through the brightness and make out Fitzgerald's silhouette, but eventually had to cover his eyes just as the light enveloped the man’s body completely. He didn’t know how long it had been until things finally calmed down, only that when his eyelids stopped burning and he could open his eyes again, the man had changed.

Now, he was covered in a golden hue and sporting vivid green markings all across his clothes and body. All the money was gone—Atsushi could only assume that the man somehow absorbed them as part of his ability—and somehow, he managed to stand even taller.

“For however much money I spend, the amount of power I can use scales in turn,” he looked down at his hand, flexing his fingers, rotating his wrist, before eventually closing it into a tight fist and looking back up. Stripes of sparkling green around his eyes sharpened his gaze abhorrently. “You should be honored. I haven’t had to use this much capital at once in quite a while. Let’s hope you make it worthwhile for me.”

With that, the man let out a roar of laughter and pulled his fist back, launching forward to meet Atsushi head on. He needed to dodge, or at the very least bring his tiger fists up and attempt to block, but…

He couldn’t move. His arms were glued to his sides. His legs, still as weak as they were and oozing small, sticky drops of blood all over, had dug into the floor and wouldn’t move. He heard footsteps, choppy and frantic, but they weren’t his. He couldn’t move.

(The patter of footsteps was ringing in his ear, echoing all around the room, down the hall, and anywhere else his mind was too preoccupied to think about. It was so loud.

A sudden flash of light appeared in front of him, strings of gold looping into each other in a circle before exploding in a rush of multicolored sparkles. And for just a second, he could’ve sworn he saw licks of a familiar cerulean flame coat its circumference. But then it was gone, just as fast as it came and taking away all indications that it happened at all. He wanted to question it, but his vision was still spotty from how Fitzgerald’s power had blinded him, and he couldn’t bring himself to wonder.

He grunted once, feeling his balance sway, and fell back onto his knees.)

So he shut his eyes and waited, letting himself go limp as he waited for the next avalanche of pain to take over his body. He waited for Fitzgerald’s scream of superiority to finally end, and for the fist to reach his stomach. He waited to rocket even further backwards, out of the room and into the hall where another collision against the wall would likely amplify his pain further. There was nothing he could do but wait.

And eventually the man’s scream did end—obscenely, painfully close to his pounding ears. But instead of pain, of consequence, all that happened next was a gasp he didn’t make.

“What the…?”

Nothing occurred after that, and after another second, Atsushi peeked his eyes open to see the man’s closed fist less than an inch away from his face. But it wasn’t making contact, in fact, it didn’t seem like it even could . It was just… frozen in front of him, unable to move any further. He looked between the fist and the man, trying to process just what was happening, what he could’ve done to prevent the attack still clearly trying to reach him. The rest of the man’s arm was shaking, like he was trying to break past whatever invisible barrier was blocking him from—

A barrier. The attack was… blocked , the same way Amamiya-kun had blocked Akutagawa’s blades from reaching him. Did that mean…?

Atsushi was brought back to reality by a sudden slam, followed by a heavy grunt and a rush of air that pushed off of his face. He refocused his vision just in time to watch Fitzgerald tumble backwards, steadily losing the golden glow and green stripes on his body as he soared past the chair to slam into his desk. It crumbled completely under his weight and how fast he’d been launched into it, sending clouds of dust all around him. For the longest time, there was silence.

Well, Amamiya-kun’s power didn’t do that. All it did was stop the attack, not repel it back onto the enemy. Then what happened? Did Atsushi do that? He couldn’t have, right?

“That—” the man eventually wheezed out, barely loud enough for Atsushi to hear. His voice was laden with confusion. “My—my power…?”

He had no idea what was happening anymore. But his body was steadily losing the adrenaline, the pain was surging back into his nerves at full force, and he decided that, just for a few minutes at least, he couldn’t care less.

The footsteps kicked back up again, much louder than before, and he let himself hope that the source was—

“Nakajima-san! ” a head of curly black hair craned around the doorway, followed by glowing golden eyes behind glasses that did nothing to cover their omnipotence. But they weren’t threatening. Not at all. They were the safest thing he’d come across since he got on this ship.

What did feel threatening, though, was the being that turned the corner after he did. Standing tall behind Amamiya-kun was a woman, resting all her weight on one leg as the other wrapped around it seductively. She was completely naked, save for the massive brown serpent that coiled around her body, between her legs and over her chest, boring its horrific slitted pupils straight into him. And the skin that was exposed, colored a pale, almost ethereal shade of cream, was sewn against rich, dark snakeskin all over. Atsushi eyed her up and down, turning red not from embarrassment, but intimidation, as she stared right back at him with a gaze that made him feel two inches tall.

“Can you stand?” the teen’s hands scooped him up by the armpits and brought him to his feet, then shuffled him back to lean against the wall. He nodded, making the teen slowly pull away from him, when he found he couldn’t look away from that woman.

If she was another one of the teen’s alter egos—Atsushi eventually managed to pull his gaze away and darted his vision between them, between their matching eyes of otherworldly gold —then he definitely saw the resemblance.

Chapter Text

- ~ -

(“Hey wait a second!” Dazai exclaimed, making the teen jump. “Which category does your spirit stealing skill count as? Support or Attack?”

“Uh…” he shuffled in his seat. “Attack.”

“Then, if it worked on me… does that mean… you didn’t trust me?! You’re so cruel!”

Amamiya-kun scrunched his nose. Dazai added a little more tooth to his grin.)

- ~ -

“In… his pocket…” Nakajima-san pointed a shaky finger towards the other end of the room. He was starting to sound a little better, at least, giving Ren a chance to breathe before he needed to heal him again. “Controls.”

Ren made a sound of acknowledgement, then turned and flashed his Third Eye across the room. As always, the Moby Dick was painted a vicious scarlet, and the man currently pulling himself off of the broken desk on the opposite side of the room was no different. But that wasn’t what he was searching for. 

A flash of brilliant gold quickly caught his eye, its glow seeping out of the man’s pocket, and he ignored the drilling ache behind his eyes as he let the colors melt away with his next blink.

So that was his target.

Before anything else, he dropped his duffel bag by his teammate, then casted another Tetrakarn on Nakajima-san and then himself, letting Lilith go translucent and sway her hips in ways no one was really looking at to trigger the magic. Once the strings of gold finished wrapping into themselves in front of them both, he spun back around, took a breath, and sprinted forward.

The man was up on his knees now, but he seemed distracted, and a huge cloud of dust and splintered wood covered everything but his silhouette. If Ren did this right, he could just dash in, grab the device, and get out before the man even noticed him. He kept his footsteps silent despite his sprint, a trick he honed for himself after breaking up one too many arguments about the decibels Skull’s footsteps could reach, and reached the desk in record time, dropping to his knees and snaking a hand into the man’s pocket to fish out the first thing he felt inside.

His hand got caught on the seam as he tried to pull out the little rectangle. Damn, he really underestimated just how much his Metaverse body boosted his abilities; he never would’ve faltered in his thievery as Joker. He tugged harder, managing to pull his hand out, but now the device was stuck. This wasn't good, this really wasn't good.

One last time, and something latched on his arm. He froze.

In less than a second, before Ren could even blink out the dust starting to settle on his eyelashes, the man was upright again, planted firmly on both legs and latching his absurdly massive hand onto Ren’s arm with a bone breaking grip. It hurt, it felt like his muscles were going to burst in the hold, and he could just barely amass enough will to look up from his ragdolled legs and lock gazes with his current captor.

The only thing he could think of as the man bore manic blue eyes into him was that holy shit, this guy was tall. He tried to think of anything else, but the thought was only further punctured into his mind as the man yanked him up by the bicep, promptly ripping him out of his pocket, and pulled him closer to leave his feet dangling in the air.

“And who the hell are you?” he growled in Ren’s face, voice raspy. A few seconds of terse silence passed as the man eyed him, then his Persona still standing by the door, “Our strategist never foretold you.”

Instead of answering, Ren kicked his foot up and slammed the base of his shoe into the man’s stomach, pushing forward with all of his strength. The man didn’t even flinch, his grip didn’t falter at all, and Ren’s leg dropped back down limply.

Alright, so that wasn’t going to work. He’d just have to be more subtle, then. Like a Thief. Like Joker. He took a deep breath, careful not to look the man in either the eye or the pocket, and focused all of his attention on his free hand hanging loosely by his side.

Fitzgerald’s gaze shifted after his weak attack, glowing even more maniacally as he let out a low growl that pulled a full-body shiver out of Ren. He lifted his arm even higher, pulling the teen further up off the ground and sending his fingernails almost straight through skin and into muscle, and reared his free hand back in a closed fist. Then, without warning, he sent it soaring forward, directly to Ren’s stomach, and it took every ounce of his willpower not to cover it with his own free arm instinctively. Not when he was so close, he could almost dig his pinky into—

The sound of nothing rang through the room again. The fist collided with a Tetrakarn, frozen just an inch away from his hip, and the man let out a single grunt as his body tensed to absorb the shock steadily rippling back into him. He doubled over from the pain, causing Ren to get lowered back to the ground ever so slightly, and he immediately swung his legs forward to wrap around the man’s waist, locking him firmly in place as he dropped his torso as far as his trapped arm would let him go. His other hand slipped back into the man’s pocket effortlessly, and by the time Fitzgerald straightened up again, it was like he hadn’t done anything at all.

Alright, he’s still got it. He made sure not to let it show on his face.

“I assume you’re the one who caused my attacks to backfire, then. And you’re trying to steal control of the Moby Dick as well?” Fitzgerald rasped, eyes narrowed into slits—or maybe they were shut completely. All Ren knew was that he was relieved to lose sight of those horrifyingly blue irises.

It let him focus on the sight in the corner of his eye instead, the blur of white and shift in the air that was rapidly approaching. The man surely noticed as well, but before he could even turn around to face the attack head on, Nakajima-san was in front of him and slamming a tiger fist directly into the side of his face, sending him stumbling back a few paces and, unfortunately, pulling Ren along with him. They crashed into the broken desk again, side by side, and Ren’s head slammed against a piece of wood and bounced back painfully, making him yelp. He didn’t have time to nurse the wound, though, as he felt Fitzgerald’s grip on him falter ever so slightly, and his other hand moved on its own to yank the fingers back and free his arm.

He scrambled back to his feet just as Nakajima-san stepped closer. He looked ready to strike again: torso low, arms bent, and fingers curled in, but Ren stepped forward and blocked him off with a hand on his shoulder.

“We need to run,” he whispered hurriedly, and a little dizzily. “Now.” 

His teammate struggled in his grip for a second, “What?! But he has the—”

“We still have time. We can get it later,” Ren asserted, shifting his voice from a murmur to a stage-whisper loud enough for the man to hear behind them, one that he hoped would still be subtle enough not to warrant suspicion. His left pocket felt heavy, and he adjusted his stance accordingly. “Come on.”

“No! We can’t—” he cut himself off, either because he finally noticed what Ren’s expression was trying to say, or the shock from whatever hit he’d taken before Ren showed up was still reverberating through him.

Right now, it didn’t matter. What mattered was that he could hear Fitzgerald chuckling, low and eerie, behind him, and they needed to get out right now. 

He shifted his hand from his teammate’s shoulder to his wrist and tugged. Thankfully, it was easier to move him than expected.

They shifted their stances in unison, and Ren was relieved to feel Nakajima-san spin around and run first. Every square inch of his back felt hot, aching from the looming threat of danger. From Fitzgerald’s fiery gaze he felt carving a hole straight through him. It sent shocks of discomfort rippling all throughout his body, further boosting his urge to get up, get out of here, he’s going to—

He only made it a few paces forward when, without any warning at all but the little voice still chanting its unease in his mind, a surge of red hot agony seeped under his shirt, his skin, through every vein in his body and eventually up to his head, instantly burning away all discomfort to make room for pain.

“Wh—?!” his teammate began, but the rest of the sentence went unheard as for just a second, his hearing was completely cut out.

Something had slammed flat across his back, rough and slightly spiky and most of all, painful. The force sent him stumbling forward, and he could just barely catch himself from limply dropping to the floor. His breath left him all wrong, like his lungs had been physically shifted by the impact, and all he could do was wheeze pitifully until he could regain feeling in his chest. Feeling that just wasn’t returning to him.

Behind him, Fitzgerald hummed. Ren forced his neck around to find the cause of his current anguish: a slab of splintered wood in the man’s right hand. Between labored breaths, he felt silent relief that he at least couldn’t see any of his own blood staining it.

“So that power is not indefinite,” the man began, tossing the piece of wood aside, but the sound was blocked by the pounding in Ren’s ears. “But it does work on multiple targets, including yourself.”

Ren tried to take off in another sprint, but was stopped by a sudden force against his neck that he quickly realized was his own shirt collar being tugged at.

“How fascinating,” the man stepped even closer, moving his hand up to grip the back of Ren’s neck and yanking him back until he was flush against the man’s side. “And I don’t believe I recognize you at all. Just how did you escape the eye of our strategist?”

Ren struggled against the fingers bunched around his throat, clawing at skin and prying them off one appendage at a time, but it was useless.

“Ah, well. Now that you’re here, I could make good use of you.”

The hand on his neck tightened, promptly shutting down his frazzled attempts to struggle, so he instead sent a desperate glance to where he’d left Lilith by his duffel bag. Originally to protect Nakajima-san as he recovered, but considering how his teammate was now just a foot away from him and staring at his current situation in pinched worry, that strategy seemed to have fallen through. He locked eyes with it, gold meeting gold, and felt the telltale echo in his ears start to ring true.

‘Take my power for yourself, Trickster,’ it whispered for his ears only. ‘Bring this man to his knees.’

Its sultry, reverberated voice bounced through his head, laced with determination and concern. He opened his mouth to respond, then shut it just as quickly. Nakajima-san grunted ahead of him, flexing his claws as he locked eye contact with Fitzgerald, who only tightened his hold on Ren in response.

“I wouldn’t do anything rash if I were you,” his voice rumbled mockingly. “Like this, I could kill your friend before you even reached me.”

And he was right. With the hold he had, the way his thumb and forefinger were pinching inward painfully, if Ren so much as twitched incorrectly now, his neck could snap.

‘I can’t,’ he said to Lilith with his eyes alone, watching it do the one thing it could do without a direct order: sway. ‘I’d be completely open while I cast, and Nakajima-san can’t cover me like…’

Like the Phantom Thieves, who could cast a skill from across the room and follow his unspoken directions like being by his side was their true calling and could always somehow read his mind. The Thieves who were now dimensions apart from him, leaving only the few stragglers on this airship for him to work with.

He would just have to handle this himself, then. He couldn’t wait to get home.

“Ah, and who’s the lovely lady?” Ren couldn’t exactly see who the man was looking at as he made the comment, but with how Nakajima-san glanced back at Lilith, still swaying sultrily and absently without an order, he could guess who he was referring to. “Seems she hasn’t done anything but watch. Perhaps she’ll be just as easy to capture as you.”

‘Then, if not me, you must call for another. Let the flames of your rebellion surge free and protect you, Trickster.’

He knew that already. Of course he did. I am thou, thou art I; all of his Personas’ thoughts and ideas were his own, just sourced from the corner of his mind he’d relinquish control of while one of them was active, and then directly relayed back to him.

So yes, he knew what he had to do, even if he technically wasn’t the one who thought of it. He didn’t have much choice but to do exactly that. He thanked Lilith all the same.

Before anything else, he took a few long, shaky breaths to slow his heartbeat, and mulled over his next steps.

Technically, he could escape whenever he wanted, especially since the man admitted to having no idea who he was or what his powers were. Now that he was calmer, he slowly, carefully, and as subtly as he could manage, rolled his neck around in the man’s grip. It hurt a lot, feeling the skin on his throat stretch and shift under the man’s fingers—but it was bearable. He could manage.

Which meant he could afford to hold out a little longer. Just long enough to pry some information from this man.

“…What do you want,” he whispered, doing his best to add a rasp of fear into his voice, making it pitifully hoarse.

“Well, before anything else…” 

Ren felt a second hand snake up the back of his head, cutting right through his tangled curls before ripping the headset and microphone out of his ears painfully. Once it was fully off his head, along with the little signal receiver, he heard a sharp crunching sound behind him, making his face scrunch up. A few more, and then the headset was tossed in the space between them and Nakajima-san, squished and shattered. His eyes widened at the sight.

Fuck, he didn't think about that. Dazai-san had been quiet since he arrived in the office, so he’d completely forgotten about him. This might have been a bad idea.

"You as well," Fitzgerald grumbled, voice dangerously low all of a sudden. "Off."

The white-haired teen hesitated, then slowly pulled off his own headphones and unplugged the wire, setting it and the receiver on the ground in front of him. Ren just knew the man was grinning.

“Now. Your name, boy,” he jostled Ren at the neck, making him sway limply.

It took him a second to process the demand, but when he did, immediately, his chest sweltered with hot pride. He pushed the feeling back down, as this was evidently not the time to get cocky.

“My—” he cleared his throat and immediately, as if on instinct, the man’s thumb and forefinger closed in further, trying to pinch his throat completely shut.

It remained like that, steadily cutting off his oxygen supply, until eventually the hand relaxed just enough to let him breathe again. The action felt mocking, like the man was blessing him with a chance to speak again, “Well?”

Unable to lock eyes with the man himself, he chose the next best option to land his gaze onto. He stared down his teammate with his fullest attention, feeling the corners of his lips curl upward when the glare was reciprocated, and spoke in the clearest voice he’d managed all day, “Joker.”

Fitzgerald let out a breathy exhale at that, then another, until it crescendoed into a massive guffaw. It hurt to listen to.

“Well, Joker,” he lowered his voice to a chuckle, “it’s simple. See, before you arrived, the weretiger lost quite a hefty challenge against me,” he jutted his chin out far enough for Ren to catch it in his peripheral, making Nakajima-san flinch. “And yet, I don’t see him keeping his word as the loser to join my side in search of the Book. Perhaps your life will be enough of an incentive for him.”

The Book? Ren vaguely remembered hearing that term in Nakajima-san’s briefing, thrown out just before Akutagawa showed up. All he knew was that it was the reason the Guild was even in Yokohama, and that Nakajima-san was a character of interest to Fitzgerald because he could somehow locate it. 

He also knew, from a more secretive stream of information, just how meta it really sounded, what with this whole world itself technically being a book already.

But he didn’t really know what it was, what it could do, or why it was so important to these people. And he sure as hell wasn’t about to ask now; even if he was stalling this for information, he knew well enough that the hostage wasn’t the one who should be asking the questions. Not unless they wanted to get sniffed out.

“You’re trying to destroy Yokohama in the process!” Nakajima-san growled, swiping his hand through the air and promptly pulling Ren back to the scene. 

“I’m not trying anything, boy,” the man snarled, voice now laden with disdain. “The very airship you stand within is proof that the pieces are already set in place; all you have left to do is dig through the rubble when it’s over.”

“I’ll never help you.”

“I don’t believe you have a choice in the matter. Unless, of course, you’d like to add your first tally to the death counter a little earlier than scheduled,” once again, he squeezed hard on Ren’s neck to emphasize, enough to make Nakajima-san shrink back. “Civilians often claim that seeing death happen in real time is a lot more painful than simply witnessing the aftermath. I’m sure you don’t want to test that theory out.”

Ugh, that mocking tone of his made Ren’s skin crawl.

“Now, if you would just sit quietly for the rest of the trip, I’ll have a task ready for you soon. Ah, in fact,” Ren craned his eyes as far as they could go just in time to see the man’s grin sharpen and his free arm start to shift, “why don’t we see just how long we have left?”

And that was his cue. He didn’t get much information out of that, but oh well. He’d much rather stay alive and uninformed than die with too much going on in his head.

Just before the man could slink a hand into his pocket for the control device, Ren squeezed his eyes shut and exhaled a breath of pure smoke. Behind Nakajima-san, Lilith vanished in a flourish of cerulean, catching everyone’s attention long enough for Ren’s own sputter of flames to spark alight uninterrupted. His face was first, like always, giving him a few seconds of warmth only around his eyes that he could pretend came from the domino mask still refusing to appear, then seamlessly traveling down both up to his hair and down his whole body in a cascade. 

Fitzgerald ripped his hand away with a stuttered gasp, then took a single step back as the fire surged high, hitting the roof of the office and splattering around in ripples. Ren didn’t waste a second of his newfound freedom, not even waiting for the flames to die back down before moving. He sprinted forward and grabbed his teammate’s wrist, pulling a pained yelp from the teen and promptly reminding him that his soul fire hurt these people, then fixed the teen with a sorry expression and tugged fiercely on his arm to get them running.

“Wait—” the man called out, and he ignored it.

“Go, go, go,” he chanted, mostly for himself than for Nakajima-san. With his teammate grabbing the still intact headset off the ground, and him swiping his duffel bag on the way, he swung them both around the corner and they kicked off in a fierce sprint down the narrow hall, scrunching the lilac rug beneath them and forming small bunches of fabric for them to leap over to avoid slipping. 

They actually managed to get pretty far in the time they had left. Ren let his teammate go ahead of him, mainly for the fact that his tiger limbs made him much faster, but also because—

The wall next to them exploded. A single, eardrum piercing bang—followed by chunks of metal and stone sent flying in every direction. Hitting the other wall, the ground and ceiling, and rocketing straight into the two of them as well. The impact made Ren stumble, causing him to trip over a ruffle in the rug, but Nakajima-san caught his arm just in time and pulled him upright again. They kept running, and Ren pushed down the screams that were threatening to burn his throat.

Alright. Seems like the man found out. At least they had a little bit of a head start. Only question left was, where do they go from here?

An earth shattering roar hit his pounding ears next, screeching out words so raspy that they just ended up completely incomprehensible. He craned his neck around just in time to see the man step out of the hole in the wall, glowing a vibrant gold with shimmering green marks along his body. His eyes were milky and bloodshot, and his pupils so thin that, from the distance he was steadily setting between them, Ren was hesitant to say he even still had any.

“You,” he growled out, voice echoing ominously through the hallway. In less than an instant, before Ren could even blink, the distance between them was closed. It turned out that Ren was right; the man’s pupils were now nonexistent, leaving only a sea of red and white to drown in. “Give it to me.”

He lurched his hand forward to grab Ren, who just barely managed to duck and evade it, leading it to slam into the wall instead. He scoffed, yanking his arm back from the palm-shaped dent in the cement, and took another heavy step towards them, face twisting into one of pure malice and rage. 

The look nearly made Ren’s legs crumple under his own weight. The sight of that clenched jaw, bulging veins encased in green lines, the way he was practically vibrating as he got closer to them, made it that much harder to shove his screams back down to his lungs. The man was so fast, it felt like the little space still left between them was only still there to taunt him, toy with him, and even then it was steadily diminishing. He was almost—

And then Nakajima-san pulled on Ren’s arm just a little harder, sending him crashing forward through the door at the end of the hall and straight into a handrail. He grabbed onto the bar with both hands and bent his torso over the edge to slow his momentum, hearing his teammate quickly slam the door shut behind them and kick off in a sprint yet again. 

He really, really wanted to take a second to breathe, but his ears were still ringing from the exploding wall a few seconds earlier and he was promptly reminded that the door behind him would be no different. And so, with a sound more akin to a whimper than anything else, he pushed off the railing and jumped down the stairs to catch up.

And he was right; a few seconds after he reached the end of the stairwell, he heard the telltale sound of an explosion right above him, followed by a series of harrowing shrieks and curses. He had never been more grateful for his silent footsteps than in that moment, and pushed off with all of his energy to reach his teammate much farther up.

“You have it, right?!” Nakajima-san called out over his shoulder once they turned the corner, loud enough for Ren to hear but quiet enough to get drowned out by Fitzgerald’s stomps and snarls nearby, keeping their position hidden.

Ren nodded, completely winded, then when he realized the teen couldn’t see him, he choked out a hoarse, “I got it!”

The device felt so heavy in his pocket. He never realized before how much he took the bottomless, weightless pockets of his tailcoat for granted.

“Then what are you waiting for?! Stop the ship!”

“Maybe when we’re not running for our lives!” he hissed out, sneaking a glance behind him. “I’m not going to start pressing buttons until we’re safe enough to properly look at it.”

His teammate grunted and looked back ahead, nodded once, and they continued their desperate sprint in silence. Well, almost silence. The sound of the white-haired teen’s footsteps clanging against metal floor rang painfully loud, making Ren wince on multiple occasions, but he supposed it couldn’t be helped. After all, a frontline fighter didn’t often need to exercise stealth, and he had a strong feeling his teammate was just that.

Though still, hearing two sets of exorbitantly loud stomps, one right in front of him and the other not too far behind, was doing nothing to soothe his racing heart. At this rate, breaking into his stash of caffeinated energy drinks would probably just give him a heart attack before doing anything remotely replenishing.

He looked back again, he couldn’t help it, only to find nobody there. No one had turned the corner after them, which would’ve been relieving if not for the fact that he was sure the man would soon. He would come charging down, footsteps powered by that terrifying gold and green all over his body, and try for another deathly blow before Ren could blink again. Or maybe he wouldn’t; they had no way to know, and that only made it more terrifying. This ship was a fucking labyrinth ; the only confirmation they had that the man was even still anywhere nearby was the myriad of shouts and growls and slams and every other horrific sound that had joined the cacophony echoing all around them.

Everything was going wrong.

Another minute of running passed, sprinting in what felt like circles as Ren tried his best not to focus on the noise , and they reached the bridge. He didn’t even realize it until he stepped on Nakajima-san’s ankles, earning him a look only barely hidden under the other’s visible stress. He nudged his chin down in distant apology, then turned to get a full, miserable look at just what had made his teammate stop so suddenly.

The first thing he noticed was the apparent lack of Akutagawa anywhere. The second thing was the massive puddle of blood dripping through the tiny holes across the bridge’s base. The third was the crimson handprints along the guard rail, traveling in the same direction they were heading only to be cut off at the crossroads at the end of the bridge. Out of morbid curiosity, he craned his neck forward and to the side, and saw that the prints had turned left. The path on the right was completely clean.

“What happened here?” Nakajima-san muttered. Ren hoped it was a rhetorical question, but the way his teammate’s eyes were boring into him, demanding an answer, said that wasn’t the case. “Akutagawa…?”

“We just fought,” he eventually bit out. “You know how fights get.”

“Hm. Well… don’t step in it. We shouldn’t make any footprints.”

They crept briskly around the puddles, tiptoeing between splotches and making both soft and heavy leaps over the larger stains. Ren, very pointedly, was looking everywhere but at his own feet. It wasn’t like he needed to watch his step, his balance and coordination could be impeccable when he wanted them to be; he could do stuff like this with his eyes closed and—

“Looks like someone died here.”

And just like that, his focus was shattered. He tried to concentrate again, but the broiling pit of something in his stomach was steadily clambering up his throat and all he could do was shudder.

“….No one died, or else you’d see a body,” he hissed in response, just to try and get that something out. The words left him a lot faster than he meant for them to, but only because he was right; if Akutagawa did die here then there would be a body somewhere on the ground. Akutagawa was fine.

He had to be the one to tell it to himself this time, since Dazai-san’s voice had crackled out when his headset did. Akutagawa was fine.

And they had bigger things to worry about. Namely, the surge of crashing noises, explosions, and whatever else that was happening somewhere around them, bouncing echoes making it impossible to tell where. Nakajima-san cast worried looks in every direction, but ultimately wasn’t panicking, saving Ren from having to do the same. But they were running out time, especially with how stupidly fast Fitzgerald seemed to be when he was covered in that green and golden glow.

They needed to do something, either to stop him right then, or get him off their trail. But confronting him now would just be them waiting out the timer, only serving in Fitzgerald’s favor. They also didn’t have enough time to plan out some fancy distraction to lead him astray. Splitting up would be a bad idea too, because…because…

Fuck , he couldn’t think like this. The stench of iron was getting to be so much, steadily plugging his nose shut until he had to start staggering his breath through his mouth, and—

On his last step off the bridge, his foot landed right in a puddle of blood. The force made it splatter, with quite a bit of it landing high up on his pant leg and staining it a deep crimson. Staring down at it, he shuddered out a shaky breath, then another, ignoring Nakajima-san’s look of concern and gentle tug on his arm.

Everything was going wrong. He couldn't... they wouldn't get to...

(It was still too dark here. The stains on his pant leg were drying a horrific black.

Ren knew the only reason Akutagawa's body wasn't here was because he'd moved himself, he knew it, but that didn't stop him from staring back down at the putrid mess all around and letting his first thought be that there was nothing left.

When the—)

It took longer than he wanted to admit, longer than they could afford to waste, but he eventually managed to calm down. Interestingly enough, it was a lot harder to do so without Dazai-san in his ear telling him to man up in his strange, roundabout ways. His body eventually stopped quivering, and then he went to work on his face.

Thankfully, he was an adept multitasker even when he wasn’t trying, and his eyes quickly lit up in realization the second they were done scrunching into themselves. As his brain caught him up on the barebones beginning of an idea he’d created without realizing.

He should stay calm more often, he noted idly and with very little humor.

“Hey…” he whispered. His voice couldn’t seem to get any louder than that. It caught his teammate’s attention anyway, so it was fine. “Do you think we could use this mess as a decoy? Send him down the wrong path? It would buy us some time.”

He lifted his foot out of the puddle and let it hover, then looked away as he pointed to the droplets falling from the sole of his shoe. Nakajima-san looked between him and the puddle, then sighed.

“…I don’t know. At this point, I’m starting to wonder if he’s even still searching for us, or if he’s just out breaking things now,” Nakajima-san responded. As if perfectly on cue, an abhorrent growl rattled in the distance, barely muffled at all by the unknown amount of winding walls and doorways between them. Some garble followed next, words mixed with more explosions to become an undecipherable mess, and a full body shiver coursed through Ren.

In this maze of an airbase, the last thing they needed was an actual eldritch horror on the prowl, with those sickeningly white eyes devoid of pupils, of any semblance of rationality. Ren’s shoulders curled in. Until they could somehow pinpoint Fitzgerald’s location, or at least keep him in one place, they would never be safe on this ship.

Fuck , he needed a navigator. He was starting to wear himself out with how much he’d been saying that.

He pulled himself back into the present. Nakajima-san was right, there was no way to ensure the man would even end up on this same bridge to see the blood. Or perhaps he already knew exactly where they were. Perhaps he was simply bashing through the walls around them, circling them like prey, waiting for them to step into his claws.

No. The man didn’t exactly seem… sane , when he tried to swing at Ren in the hallway. He looked well beyond angry, and ridiculously protective of the control device. Like a Palace ruler once their treasure manifested, wild and aggressive and uncaring about anything else but destroying the threat on their livelihood. If he knew where they were, he wouldn’t be wasting time expecting them to come to him. But that only meant he’d search harder and harder, and would most likely stumble into them by chance, which they really couldn’t afford to let happen.

At this point, and as his ears continued to ring with the onslaught of explosions in the background, Ren had a feeling that any sign of him at all would send the man charging through guns blazing. And—

His breath hitched, as his mind that was once racing with a million thoughts finally locked onto something. And he could work with that.

If they lured him here somehow, to this very bridge and this very sight, they could control where he ended up afterward, buying them enough time to hide somewhere far away that they could at least be a little more sure was safe. Yes, that could work.

The bait would have to be something convincing, enough to make the man come this way without any doubt, as well as make him believe this mess they were surrounded by was actually related to them and not just some random mishap.

It would have to be him. Him from a far, far distance, at least. And as long as it got him off their trail, got him careening down the wrong lead long enough to successfully steal the Treasure in Ren’s pocket, he was okay with it.

Alright… yeah. They could do this.

He spun around again, trying to catch the gaze of his stressing teammate and relay his plan, when he glanced back down at the blood involuntarily and winced. 

…Right, he’d nearly forgotten just who those crimson handprints belonged to. Just who he would be sending into Fitzgerald’s rampage if this worked. Just who it was that had ambushed them only a few minutes earlier and tried to kill them in a similar fit of rage, and just what shape he had left the battle in.

This wasn’t revenge, Ren wouldn’t do something like that. It was either one or the other. Them or him.

(“Hesitate, and you won’t just be killing Akutagawa-kun, but all of Yokohama.”)

It was a stupid plan, not to mention reckless and dangerous; it was one that could easily fail, if perhaps the man was currently closer than they could outrun or more mentally stable than Ren was estimating or any other of the thousands of variables going into this, but it was better than nothing. 

So, refusing to give himself a chance to start doubting this, Ren spun around on his heel and made a beeline for the bridge railing, shrugging off the hand that tried to grab onto his shoulder in the process. He didn’t bother with dodging the blood this time, and kept his footsteps as firm and level as he could manage until his stomach was flush against metal. He felt the cold seep through his shirt, his skin, then eventually let it escape through the whistling breath he exhaled next.

He shut his eyes, focused on the rip in his soul and felt the mangle of beings within him hungrily rise to attention. Mouthing out the word, he felt the warmth on his body once again as the fire erupted and his call was heeded, then the sudden cold as the flames lifted off of him to form the vibrant body and armor of Siegfried once again.

Another thundering blast rang out through the ship. It felt louder than all the others. Like the perpetrator was getting closer.

‘Trickster…’ Siegfried voiced directly into his mind, its distorted tone carrying the usual omnipotence, but now with an added hint of remorse. ‘I must apologize for all that my actions have caused you today.’

Ah, with the High-Counters? Ren shook his head at his Persona, very purposefully ignoring all the crimson that spanned his vision as he did so.

He was no stranger to reassuring his Personas’ actions after the fact, and by proxy, his own regrets. He never knew why it worked this way—it was probably thanks to that corner of his mind that, again, he relinquished for his summons to take over once they were pulled out of his soul. Maybe that specific part was what housed his insecurities, too.

Well, the why didn't matter. After all, it was a lot easier to justify these things to someone else than it was to convince himself—even if the one he was talking to was himself, but whatever—so he was comfortable with the arrangement.

'You helped me. And I won’t fault you for following your nature,’ he exhaled deeply through his nose, feeling himself start to believe it, then squeezed his eyes shut and pointed a finger to the center of the bridge, ‘Now, Siegfried…’

The warmth hovering at his back shifted, and he braced himself for the health drop.

Brave Blade! he called out through a gritted mental tone, voice booming for Siegfried’s ears only, and kept his eyes locked shut. A second of silence passed, leaving only the shift in the air to prove that anything was happening at all, and then came a single, ear-shattering ring of destruction.

He heard the screeching sounds of metal being shattered, snapped, sparking, followed by the telltale groans and rumbles of the rest of the bridge beneath his feet. The noise lingered for so, so long, pounding at his ears over and over again until his head felt numb and his chest was painfully tight and finally, it was over. He let the lingering echoes of destruction slowly fade out, then peeked an eye open and peered through the smoke to survey the damage, where the bridge had been effectively snapped down the center.

Or, more aptly put, shredded down the center.

His first thought as he scanned the sight, eyes lingering on the frayed metal beams protruding in every direction, then on the licks of orange flame along the edges that had somehow found a way to persist without any possible fuel, was that he would hate to be on the wrong side of an attack like that.

Nakajima-san made a stutter of surprise behind him, now the only sound left as the ringing stopped and Fitzgerald suddenly horrifyingly quiet out there, then scurried over to him with a look of indignation and slight terror on his face, “What are you doing?!”

“Trust me,” Ren mumbled, not once looking away from the makings of the hot mess he was most definitely causing for himself.

“I…” his teammate trailed off, and Ren finally tore his gaze off the bridge to look at him.

There must have been something in his expression, maybe his eyes, because after a tense second, his teammate backed away and turned to face the railing himself. Slowly, he brought his tiger arms up above his head, and slammed them into the metal as hard as he could, producing a sound that, surprisingly, rang just as loud as the Brave Blade. 

He even kept going, after a quick glance at Ren for confirmation, bashing the beams into a disfigured pulp and sending echoes all throughout the ship. And as his teammate was busy making noise, Ren let Siegfried dissolve back into his soul, pulled off the shattered railing and sucked in the largest breath he’d taken since being dropped in this airship, then threw his head back and screamed.

He didn’t call for a new Persona, he didn’t say a single word through the whole thing. It was just a long, harrowing wail, one that burned his throat and twisted his lungs harder with every second it carried on for. And it was definitely nowhere near the volume that Fitzgerald had been reaching with his own shrieks, but it would have to do. 

It hurt to keep going, but he did, if only to reflect that taut wounding in his cry. To make it seem like he really was bleeding out on this bridge, the way he had been not that long ago. To make himself even more of a target. His voice cracked as he reached the end of his air supply, and he cut himself off with an abrupt squeak before staggering out a few heavy pants. He could only hope the man recognized his voice.

And now that it was done, with Nakajima-san startled out of his own pummeling and Fitzgerald dead silent, they needed to leave.

Without even giving himself a chance to catch his breath, he quickly headed back to the puddle he first stepped in with Nakajima-san following him, eyes blown wide as he watched Ren slip his sandals off and, after a second of hesitation, press the blood-drenched soles into his shirt, dabbing them dry.

The crimson was not coming off at all, but it did earn him two large footprints embedded on his stomach. He scoffed, giving up and just hugging his shoes to his chest, and pushed himself back into a brisk walk on his bare feet, striding straight into his teammate’s shoulder. They gave each other a look, Nakajima-san opened his mouth to say something, and—

Footsteps. Obnoxiously loud, terrifyingly loud,  steadily thundering their way over. They were reaching a volume so incredible that they could only be described as he’s already here . Ren’s breath was immediately punctured out of his lungs, and between the first few flashes of panic that washed over him, he noticed Nakajima-san’s lips snap shut and teeth clack together.

“…We got to go now. If we’re lucky, he’ll follow the… that, instead of us,” Ren whispered, shoving his teammate down the path leading right, the one completely free of blood. “This way.”

Thankfully, his teammate was pliant under his pushing, leaving the only person who still needed convincing to be himself. And he was a good multitasker, so he just did it while he ran.

Akutagawa was fine. And he would continue to be fine even with this new plan, even if Ren just led the seething shark of a man straight to him, because Akutagawa was Port Mafia and Port Mafia trains their warriors to handle things like this. Insinuating otherwise could be considered an insult to their craft.

Dazai-san had better be hoping he was right. Because Ren seriously was.

- ~ -

Oh wow.

Dazai couldn’t make out much through the pixelated camera feed, only a sudden rush of yellow light right after this Siegfried dug its translucent sword into the ground, completely blinding the camera before eventually dissipating to reveal a bloody and beaten bridge under their feet.

Was that another one of his ‘stupidly hard punches,’ then? How interesting.

If only he could reach them, he would’ve loved to prod at either of their brains for their thoughts on the power. As it was, with Amamiya-kun’s headset completely out of commission, he would just have to wait for Atsushi-kun to plug his own headset back into the receiver before he could do so. 

He used the down time to scribble a few more things into his notepad—the woman with the snake was named Lilith, he’d picked up from how Amamiya-kun whispered it to himself on the way to the office, and she had a power to deflect attacks back onto their perpetrator—then tap away at his keyboard to alternate between cameras, and lastly, switch headsets entirely, slipping on a new one calibrated to a completely different target up in the air.

It took a few seconds, leaving only a buzzing static to echo through his ears, but eventually, he caught the drone’s signal. It was deathly quiet.

He started out in a whisper, lest he startle her too much, “Kyoka-chan, can you hear me? It’s Dazai.”

Still, only silence.

“We’ve successfully negotiated with the Special Operations Division,” he continued, eyes still glued to the camera feed on the Moby Dick. “We can get you out of there. If you can just tell me what all you see in front of you, I can walk you through how to pilot the drone back to the city.”

He trailed off after that, giving her time to process until eventually, he heard a rustle. His ears perked at the sound, but he still didn’t say anything, letting her make a few more quiet movements before wheezing out a weak, “…No.”

It was so weak that it didn’t even sound like a word, more like a squeak than anything else. He exhaled a long breath into the microphone, then tore his gaze away from the feed to focus on the nothing happening in his ears.

“If I can be honest, Kyoka-chan , we have no logistical reason to come to your aid. You’re not one of us yet, after all,” he pulled his arms off the keyboard and crossed them over each other, then leaned back in his seat to stare at the ceiling. “You haven’t even passed the Agency’s Entrance Exan, to the point where we’ve already recruited someone else since your capture, and are administering his test before we can even begin with you.”

He let the words linger, straining his ears to try and pick up anything at all on the other line.

“…Exam,” she eventually whispered. It wasn’t a question; it was barely a statement. It carried so much.

“A test of heart and character,” he tacked on immediately. Good, she was willing to listen. “A way to assess your helping nature; if you’re willing to put the lives of others before your own, even those of complete strangers. It could be preplanned, or completely spontaneous. But as of right now, you haven’t passed it.”

“I won’t pass it.”

The most assertive thing she’s said since they started this conversation. Well, he expected that kind of reaction from her, as well as that kind of answer. After all…

“I understand. You don’t believe that a former assassin is capable of becoming a good person,” he hummed, “despite how much you want it to be so. Is that it?”

More rustling, the sound of a hitched breath, then another, and another. Noises clogged and riddled with shame. Once again, he expected that reaction.

If someone had come up to him a few years ago, pulling the same truth in his face, he would’ve been the same way.

“Well, for both of our sakes, I hope you’re wrong.”

- ~ -

Atsushi could tell that this kind of running wasn’t a common practice for Amamiya-kun , with how much he was quietly wheezing, so falling back in step with him for support once they were far enough away came easily.

“No… we need to keep moving,” the black-haired teen coughed out once he realized Atsushi had slowed down. Another set of explosions rang out, as if trying to prove the teen's point, so Atsushi did his best to ignore them.

“We don’t even know where we’re trying to get to,” he pointed out. “So until we figure that out, we shouldn’t tire ourselves out for nothing.”

A beat of silence passed, as Amamiya-kun was busy either mulling over the logic in his head, or trying to get enough air in his lungs to articulate a response, then he nodded, “Alright. Where… should we go?”

He was probably asking because he thought Atsushi knew the layout of the ship. But despite having been on the Moby Dick before this, Atsushi really didn’t know it as well as Dazai-san claimed he did. Most of the knowledge he did have he’d gotten from this very investigation, he realized right then. But there was one place he could probably figure out the way to from here, a place that held the man who, honestly, he couldn’t imagine completing this mission without returning to.

“I think we should go back to Melville,” he turned to face his teammate and said.

He expected another few seconds of silence as his idea was pondered over, but to his surprise, Amamiya-kun nodded furiously, “Absolutely. He… he should be a part of this.”

“Alright, we’ll head there directly. Are you okay with speeding up?”

“Y—Yeah,” he nodded again. Behind his curly bangs, Atsushi could just barely make out a twinge of pink on his cheeks. “I’m… usually a lot faster.”

“Is it your headache? If it’s still bothering you—”

“No, it’s like,” he scrunched his nose, then gestured vaguely to his clothes. Extremely vaguely, to the point where Atsushi had no idea what he was talking about. He didn’t elaborate, either, which only made it more confusing, and so they continued to just stare at each other until he eventually shook his head. “Nah, never... mind. Just know I’m usually a lot faster.”

Atsushi blinked, then shrugged and looked back forward, and they continued the rest of the trek in silence. At least they were going a lot faster now.

It still took a while, though, with the incessant amount of winding walls they had to work around. But eventually, they found the massive arced door once again, pulling relief out of them both. They didn’t press their ears against it like last time, but they did look down at the light pouring out from underneath, if only because it was completely different now. Rather than the blinding white from earlier, it was now a warmer orange tone, similar to that of a sunset and promptly reminding Atsushi that he had no idea what time it was. More importantly, he had no idea how much time was left . 

Without waiting another second, he shoved the doors wide open, now a little more prepared for the onslaught of light that poured onto them. His teammate hissed at it all the same, and they shut their eyes in unison.

“I will never get used to that…” he muttered, and Atsushi hummed in agreement. No amount of preparation could’ve readied him for that burn on his eyes.

He let his eyelids shine a bright orange for just a few more seconds, steadily getting used to it. And once he could finally squint his eyes back open, he was met with the piercing gaze of Herman Melville once again, the light from the sunset encompassing him completely and casting a regal shadow on the ground in front of him.

“You’ve returned,” was the only thing he said to them, eyes remaining locked onto Atsushi.

He returned the glare to the best of his ability and kept it there, but it was hard to win against all of that light. To his surprise, though—and a small thump echoing through the room—the man looked away first. He darted his gaze to the floor beside Atsushi instead, and when he turned to look as well, he saw Amamiya-kun slumped over on the floor, panting heavily as he pawed at his duffel bag.

“Um… are you sure you’re doing okay?” he tilted his head. The black-haired teen jerked his arm at him and gave him a shaky thumbs up, but his gasping breaths made it hard to believe him. 

He eventually got the zipper open on his bag, revealing an absolute collection of energy drinks, and ripped two of them out from the top layer. Then, to Atsushi’s slight horror, he popped both tabs open at the same time and chugged them one after another, not even giving himself a break in between.

Even more terrifying, though, was how he pulled out a third can with his free hand before even finishing his second. He didn’t break eye contact at all, and was somehow managing to look at him like he was the one being weird for staring.

“That’s—well…” ridiculous, he held back from saying, as a glance at the see-through floor and the rolling waves they were soaring above reminded him that he had much more important things to stress over. “Uh, if you’re going to keep drinking, can you give me the control device?”

He nodded, then released the can from his lips with a soft smacking sound and began digging around in his left pocket. It took longer than Atsushi would’ve liked, to the point where he was entertaining the thought that his teammate actually didn’t have it at all, but he eventually pulled out the device with two fingers and let Atsushi’s next breath come a little easier.

He poked at the screen first, posture visibly relaxing the longer he stared—which had to be a good sign, right?—then tossed it in Atsushi’s direction and went back to his drink. Atsushi caught it with ease and braced himself for what he would see, then stared down the numbers for himself—the timer still ever ticking down, the distance tracker dwindling by what felt like hundreds of meters per second in his hand, and every other overwhelming aspect of the device’s UI—and for less than a second, his heart stopped.

Just over fifteen minutes remained on the clock. And with the control device here, in his hand right now, the Moby Dick would never get to reach his city. 

He breathed a sigh of both relief and disbelief, though it came out more like a stuttering laugh than anything else. And when he glanced back down at Amamiya-kun , who was smiling at him with what looked like warm pride, he found his own jaw locked in an open mouth smile as well. 

“We—We did it…” he whispered, mainly for himself than anyone else in the room. 

Speaking of which, he turned back to Melville again, who had been watching them both with a careful eye, and slowly stepped forward. The man watched his every moment, face carefully neutral, until he stopped right in front of his chair.

“Would you like to do the honors?” he tilted his head to the left, hoping his face looked just as warm as he felt. “Since you helped us?”

He didn’t get an immediate answer, so he just extended the device forward. The man looked between him and it, leaving a long few seconds of silence that neither of them bothered to try filling, before nodding once and taking from his open palm.

“Thank you,” he said curtly, then brought a finger up and, without hesitation, swiped right on the slider, stopping the timer with so many minutes to spare.

The Moby Dick started to rumble at their feet, and if Atsushi had any less balance, he would have fallen flat immediately. As it was, he just barely bent his knees in time to catch himself, and in the background, he heard his teammate make a small groan of surprise. He didn’t turn around to check on him, though, as rumbling ended just as fast as it began, and the only thing left was the sound of silence as the Moby Dick held stagnant above the water.

The man handed the device back to him without a word. He didn’t say anything either, and his legs led him back to Amamiya-kun’s side without him ever telling them to. He couldn’t stop smiling. 

They did it.

For the longest time, the world was quiet. That was a complete lie; the blasts and the screams and the curses and the unrelenting sounds of horror had only gotten louder, so much louder out there now that the ship had stopped, but he couldn't find it in himself to pay them any mind. His head was startlingly clear, despite the roiling aches that still coursed through his body, and only when his leg bumped against his teammate’s crouched figure did he snap out of his stupor and blink back to the situation. He felt the tears threaten to spill, just barely blurring his vision, and the other teen lifted a palm up for a high five that he wasted no time in giving.

“Congratulations,” the black-haired teen said in a soft voice that he was grateful for. His head was so clear that any noise at all sounded like a joyful scream in an empty room. “Well, we can probably call this a safe room if you want to rest for a while. Drink?”

He grabbed one of the cans from his bag and stood up to offer it. Atsushi took it with a slight nod but didn’t open it, letting it roll around in his palm and cool him down instead. When pressed against his wrists and forearms, the ache dulled just a little.

“Yeah, we can rest.”

…What did he mean by a ‘safe room?’ Technically, nothing about the Moby Dick was safe.

“It’ll be a productive rest, though, because I have questions,” he clasped his hands together, startling Atsushi back out of his thoughts. Right, of course. They had bigger things to talk about. “For starters, what the hell was that?”

It took him a second to figure out what he was talking about, then Atsushi huffed out a breath through his nose, “That was Fitzgerald’s ability, The Great—”

“Gatsby?”

“…Fitzgerald. The Great Fitzgerald.”

Amamiya-kun seemed to visibly deflate at that, and Atsushi couldn’t help but furrow his brow at the string of muttered exasperations the teen made next.

“That’s so stupid,” he eventually closed off with, then, “Fine, whatever, what’s it do?”

So they were just moving on. Alright. Atsushi launched into an explanation, one that slowly became weaker as he kept talking. His head had been a little busy ringing when Fitzgerald gave him the rundown, so he wasn’t entirely sure if his memory was correct. He was about to trail off, say something about his recollection being fuzzy, but was cut off by the teen’s hum of acknowledgement.

“No, yeah, that checks out,” Amamiya-kun nodded—half smiling, half frowning. Now that Atsushi was looking at him again, he noticed that the teen's posture was back to its absurd tense state.

“…Meaning?” Atsushi asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Oh,” he shook his head, wearing a faraway look. “Nothing. It just sounds like something a rich freak’s ability would do.”

Well, by that logic, yeah. Pretty much.

Still, it was a little strange. Were these weird cryptic tendencies just quirks of his?

“What about you, Melville-san?” the black-haired teen spun around to face Melville before Atsushi could say anything else. “What’s your ability?”

The man, who looked like he’d been meditating since giving Atsushi the device back, peeked open one eye at being named, then the other, before tilting his chin up at the question, “You are standing inside of it.”

“But you said the airbase was artificial now, so what did your ability create that became this?” he continued, then lowered his voice to a grumble that Atsushi could only hear because he was so close to him. “This one had better make some sense.”

Make… sense? Why was he talking about abilities like he knew some secret pattern they followed? Was he saying that—

Melville’s voice rang out again, startling Atsushi out of his thoughts, “I was under the impression that you Agency members had access to our records.”

“Sure they do, but I’m a—uh,” he flitted his gaze over to Atsushi once again, but unlike the slightly darkened look he’d given him a few seconds earlier, this one just seemed unsure. After a second of faux pondering—really, after everything that just happened, it wasn’t even a question anymore—Atsushi nodded. It made the teen smile, and he turned back to face the man, “a new hire. Like, stupidly new.”

“And they sent you on a mission like this?”

Amamiya-kun’s grin gained a little more tooth to it, “Hey! I’m pretty skilled, you know.”

He could switch emotions so rapidly, it made Atsushi a little dizzy. Or maybe that was just the weariness. He brought the can up to his neck and let the chilled condensation ground him a little further.

“I don’t doubt that," Melville replied. "You’ve proven it yourself by putting an end to the Guild’s most well-secured plan.”

The black-haired teen nodded, then opened his mouth to say something. He was cut off by Melville lowering his torso in a seated bow.

“And I sincerely thank you, both of you, for doing so. There may not be any way for the Moby Dick to return to its original grandeur, that of the glorious white whale,” he lifted himself back upright. The rest of him was still completely stone faced, but his eyes held some mirth in them as he watched Amamiya-kun for his reaction. “But at least it is no longer doomed to a fate of bloodshed on foreign soil, and there are not enough words to describe my gratitude for that.”

“So the Moby Dick is a real whale?!” Amamiya-kun gawked, having seemingly ignored the rest of the man’s heartfelt thanks.

“At one point in time, yes.”

“…Hell yeah,” he pumped his fist in the air, and at this point, Atsushi was just lost. He eventually decided that it wasn’t important enough to waste the little energy he had left on. Right now, it was just a lot easier to call him a strange guy and move on.

Besides, after all that just happened, hearing the teen engage in banter so confidently was comforting. It also took the weight of indulging conversation off of him, as a sudden wave of weakness encased his body, too much for the soda can’s cooling properties to remedy. So he let the subject drop along with the rest of him, slumping to his knees as he finally let his stomach slot back into place.

“Oh, right,” Amamiya-kun stepped forward and crouched next to him, placing an arm on his bicep and using the other one to point at his bare chest and calves. “Those cuts don’t look good. Should I heal you again?”

With a small wheeze, Atsushi nodded, staring right up into his teammate’s vivacious golden—

No, his eyes were grey now. Were they always grey?

That couldn’t be. Sure, he was pretty dizzy right after Fitzgerald’s attack—heck, he was pretty dizzy right now—but not enough to just make up a whole new eye color on his teammate. And besides, that alter ego of his had golden eyes too. The whole reason he noticed it on her was because he had them too.

Amamiya-kun nodded as well, then brought a hand up to pinch his chin in thought. After a few seconds, he nodded to himself and dragged his hand even further up, pressing his thumb on one side of his temple and his middle finger on the other, perfectly covering his eyes in his hands.

“Arahabaki,” he said, then gasped softly and all but kicked himself away from Atsushi, an action he was more than grateful for once he saw the fire start up. He could still feel the aching burn on his wrist where he grabbed him earlier.

The fire consumed the teen as usual, but that didn’t make it any less breathtaking to watch. This time though, he found his gaze gravitating over to Melville instead, watching how his eyelids opened just a little wider to observe the spectacle for himself. It gave him some warm pride to indulge between aches. 

And eventually, when the fire floated off of the teen as usual and started to form the body of an entirely new, well, Persona , he drew his gaze back to the sight. Amamiya-kun pulled his hand up off his eyes, and—

A shimmering, ephemeral golden gaze stared back down at Atsushi. He shuddered.

Ah. He wasn’t making it up, then. They just changed color depending on whether or not his summon was active. That was… kind of terrifying, actually, but at least that proved he wasn’t going crazy.

He didn’t get to see it long, though, as just when the last licks of flame settled on the being’s form, the one he’d forgone witnessing the creation of in favor of gawking at those golden eyes, he was immediately enveloped in a flurry of pale green light, like a firework had been set off in front of him and completely blinded him. He tensed up, squeezed his eyes shut, and did his best to just let it happen.

This healing didn’t feel the same as the last kind, which made him wary at the start, but he eventually melted into it. This one was softer; instead of pressure and discomfort and vibrant rainbows like last time, this one simply smoothed out the cuts on his flesh until they glued themselves back together. The feeling of restoration was the same, though, and when the light finally settled and he could open his eyes again, he felt like he was at the top of his game once more.

That was, until he looked back to his teammate and flinched violently at the glowing orange eyes hovering behind him, attached to a translucent green deity statue that, once it became fully solid, hit the ground with a thundering slam. He shuddered out a breath, the air toppling to his feet like lead, and found he just couldn’t look away from it at all.

Like all the others he’d seen, this one oozed a suffocating amount of omnipotence. But all the others had directed that omnipotence elsewhere, whether at Akutagawa or Fitzgerald or that bloodied bridge, making it easier to be in their presence.

This one was just staring at him, pushing all of its larger than life aura right onto him. It was beyond creepy.

After a few seconds of terse silence, Amamiya-kun looked between him and the being, smirked, then nudged his head in Atsushi’s direction. Somehow, that made its gaze grow even deeper, and he had to repress a full body shiver at the sight.

And then, without warning, a booming voice echoed through the room. He flinched again.

“Hello,” the voice said, loud and distorted, reverberated and slightly reserved. A voice that came from none of the humans in the room, leaving only the statue’s unmoving mouth to be the source. Melville raised a brow in the background, and Atsushi’s jaw dropped.

“…They can talk?!” he hissed at his teammate, who snorted. He wanted to shift his gaze to glare at the black-haired teen, but the statue’s orange eyes somehow flashed brighter than the sunset surrounding them, and his attention was no longer his to manipulate.

Its face hadn’t moved at all, and yet, it looked like it was expecting a response. Somehow.

“Uh—hi,” he said lamely, and Amamiya-kun hummed lightheartedly. That was not filling him with much confidence. How do you speak to something with this kind of aura? “Tha—thank you for helping me.”

“Welcome. Me glad to do my job.”

“Right…”

And the conversation hit a dead end immediately. The only sound left between them was the jovial exhales that Amamiya-kun was making, lips pursed in a smile. 

Atsushi was about to open his mouth again, maybe think of something to say along the way, when the statue suddenly lifted itself off the ground and turned to face his teammate. He breathed a sigh of relief.

“Trickster, what is next? ” it asked, and Amamiya-kun paused, exhaled a long breath, and looked over at Atsushi. Something in his posture shifted. Became a little more rigid.

“Future steps?” he asked, voice strained like he had to physically push the words out himself. Atsushi frowned, about to ask if something was wrong, but a glimmer of orange caught his eye once again.

…And the statue was back to staring him down. He blinked and looked away, then did his best to ignore its piercing glare. Yes, future steps. They should be thinking about those now, their future—

“Ah!”

Right, he’d been so caught up in the moment that he’d completely forgotten to report this back to the Agency! Heaving himself off the floor, he pulled the headset and receiver out of his pocket and plugged the wires back in. He cast a quick glance over at his teammate, who had suddenly straightened out of his frigid slouch and was watching him with pursed lips, then scrambled to set it back over his ears. There was some light static as the signal reconnected, not enough to hurt but it definitely got annoying after a few minutes until finally , the line went quiet and Dazai-san’s gruff chuckles could be heard on the other end.

“You did well, Atsushi-kun. I just wish you’d reached out to me earlier,” his voice buzzed through Atsushi’s head. The joy at hearing his mentor again must have been obvious on his face, as it made Amamiya-kun perk up just a little, and his ability vanished beside him. “I would’ve loved to get to know this Arahabaki a little better.”

“Thank you, Dazai-san. And I’ll try to remember to contact you sooner,” he responded, a little sheepish, and fiddled with the tattered shirt on his waist.

“Well, just make sure you don’t lose me from here on. This mission is not over yet.”

“…Not over?” he asked, steadily losing his smile just as his teammate stepped closer to listen in. “What else is there, Dazai-san?”

A beat of silence passed, and if it wasn’t for the sound of his mentor’s slow breathing on the line, Atsushi would’ve thought he lost the signal again. So he was waiting for them to figure it out. He looked to Amamiya-kun for any ideas.

The first thing he noticed was that the other teen was frozen. His shoulders had rocketed up, burying his neck deep within them; his eyes were pitifully wide, and his hands were twitching by his sides. His chest was puffed up and stuck like that, keeping a single breath trapped for what must have felt like forever to him, until eventually, he gasped back to life and dropped his gaze to the floor.

“…Akutagawa,” he slowly whispered out, voice weak. Nothing like how it had sounded a few moments earlier. “He’s still somewhere out there, injured—no, he’s more than just injured and…and we sent Fitzgerald right to him.”

...So that was what he'd been so worried about. Atsushi didn't know what exactly happened there, but if that blood meant anything at all, then it definitely wasn't good.

He sucked in a breath, then slowly nodded and turned his attention back to his mentor, “Is that it, Dazai-san ? We need to find Akutagawa?”

Before he could get an answer, he felt a sudden weight drape on his side— a mop of curly black hair tangling with his sideburns as Amamiya-kun pressed an ear on his headphones to listen in. He let it happen, mainly because the other teen was starting to shake and probably needed the support.

“Well, I was just going to tell you to confront Fitzgerald,” the man hummed, full of mirth, “but assuming they’re together, yes. Once you’ve subdued the man, we’ll send out resources to take all of you back to—”

“You said he’d be fine, Dazai-san,” Amamiya-kun interrupted, voice still weak, but tone accusing. “You…”

And on the other side, Dazai-san sighed, “I know what I said, and I meant it. Now head out and complete your mission so we can bring you home.”

His teammate’s breath was coming out in stutters. Atsushi hummed, pushed a black curl out of his eye, then readjusted his microphone.

“Alright. We’ll head out now.”

Chapter Text

- ~ -

Since speaking to Maruki earlier this god awful day, Akechi left and returned to the Palace multiple times—trading out gear and resources each visit home and going through his usual routine of slumping by his front door and clawing desperately for physical rest in the little time he allotted himself peace. In practice, it was no different to how he once handled dozens of Mementos targets in a row, only returning to reality to see if Shido added any more to the list while he was gone and getting hit by a metaphorical bus in the process.

But it was different this time. This new body tired so much more easily than his original. 

Logically, that shouldn’t be possible. It was like Maruki said: the Metaverse ‘him’ had been revived and placed in this body permanently, so he wasn’t making the actual switch between physical and cognitive bodies the way he did with other Palaces, which had been the thing that really tired him out. He was chained to this body and this body alone, dragging it along with him into the Palace and dragging it back out when he was done. When looked at in that lens, he shouldn't be feeling any physical strain at all.

But logic had been thrown out the window when his revival occurred. When he was placed into this body by the very man fucking things up for everyone else as well. The man who could pry into his mind, learn every last detail about him whenever he wanted. 

The man who now held the controls to every part of him but his brain. And even then, should Amamiya-kun not return, that could very well be forced away too.

It meant only one thing: the Palace ruler was toying with those controls on purpose, locking him in some sort of forced dependency, trying to keep him away.

Fat fucking chance. If he was this desperate to push him out, it only meant there was something he was nearing. He grit his teeth, heaved himself off the ground, and dragged the ball and chain that was his body back to the stadium once again.

He fought his way up the floors, through the various answers in the psychological exam, and down the rows and rows of Counselling Rooms which the Thieves skipped past during their own infiltration.

He wasn’t going to leave a single clue behind. Honestly, the fact that the Thieves had opted to skip past any part of this Palace to begin with was simply absurd. He refused to make that mistake himself.

Interestingly enough, he never saw the Palace ruler again, not during any of those mini investigations. Not even when he eventually scrounged himself back up to that nurses office to try and get more out of him. And with all the efforts the man had undertaken to make himself known to Joker, Violet, and the rest of the Thieves, for him to start avoiding Akechi was telling in ways he knew he would have to figure out soon.

But there just wasn’t enough time. Not if he was to keep working alone.

He looked past it for the time being, as he had more important things to think about.

(It was a trashy, sickening sort of heartwarming, to peek through the window slit of the very last Counselling room and find a sniveling Shido Masayoshi. The real man, not a shadow or a cognition, with his torso sprawled out pathetically on a table and hands flailing as he wailed his apologies so loud they could be heard from all the way down the hall. Screams from a voice so familiar, but in a manner so completely unheard of that Akechi couldn’t help but have been drawn to the sound.

On complete instinct, his hand trailed down his body to his gun holster at the sight. This was his chance. A way to finally twist things back in his favor, if only a little. But a flicker of movement in the corner, followed by a quick glance at the shadow who was overseeing Shido’s ‘Counselling,’ pulled a shiver through his body so visceral that even after multiple tries, his fingers just couldn’t grip onto the handle correctly.

There was no way Hereward would be able to handle a shadow of that power level. Not in its current state; in every aspect but experience, it was somehow weaker than Robin Hood had been when he first awakened years ago.

Even with all of the strides he’d taken in trying to further refine it—barrelling into a shadow for experience and leaving with barely his life left—it was still weaker than anything he’d ever been saddled with before. To be limited to the least powerful possible curse skills, the flimsiest physical skills, and no support or debuffing capabilities whatsoever, 

Perhaps he could simply snipe the man through the window and escape. That way he wouldn’t have to deal with the shadow at all. He scrambled to check his pockets, searching for a Goho-M, but only came up empty. Seems he’d already bled his supply dry trying to evade certain death on his way up here. Meaning that he wouldn’t have any way out if he tried this.

Meaning he couldn’t try at all. And his shaky hand still couldn’t hold the damn gun right.

He sent another fierce glare through the window, straight into the back of that vile man’s head, and Shido visibly trembled. His next cry was his loudest by far, sending globs of snot and drool and tears down his face as he shook his head rapidly, muttering incomprehensible garble to himself and grabbing blindly for the shadow in front of him.

If Akechi were anyone else, maybe someone as mindless as those brainwashed Phantom Thieves, then he might have been satisfied with the sight. A remorseful Shido Masayoshi, one who would probably take every chance he could to apologize to those he wronged. The kind of Shido that he himself requested come to fruition with his last few breaths.

Akechi loved it—watching him debase himself with those pitiful cries, sobbing without a single thought other than he deserved the pain he was experiencing… it was everything—but it still wasn’t enough. Until the bastard keeled over and died, using his last breath to apologize to his own mother for turning into something so vile, it would never be enough. Hell, he could just cry himself to death in this very Counselling Room if that was what it took, because at least that sounded agonizing to undergo.

Oh, maybe if Akechi distracted the Palace Ruler long enough, that could actually happen.

It wouldn’t be a bullet to the skull, but at this point, slowly pulling his trembling hand away from his gun holster with every last drop of energy he had left, he knew he had to let go of such a childish goal. After all, he had bigger things to concern himself over now, and if he could succeed in that, then he wouldn’t be around to see Shido’s death anyway.

Whatever it was that would eventually get him, Akechi could only hope it would hurt.

And so, with a pitifully weak resolve he refused to acknowledge any further than he needed to, he let his hand drop. It landed limply by his thigh, then ragdolled in a swinging motion as he trudged away from the door and back to the elevators, tail tucked shamefully between his legs.

He decided, right then, that whoever was responsible for his Persona’s weakened state, for the second chance to complete his lifelong mission that he’d just been forced to surrender, he would resent them with every fiber of his being for the rest of his time in this fuckass world.

And just before stepping out of the Palace, he gave its Ruler—the one who was most definitely watching his every move from a suspicious distance, who was probably running his hand along the spine of that dumb notebook of his like petting a cat—a good view of his middle finger.)

After another busy day, skipping the first half of school to enter the Palace, then the second half to recuperate, he parked himself outside the gates to Shujin Academy once again and let the crowds of students he didn’t care for ripple past him. The crowds of students he would need to care for eventually, too. Takamaki-san, Sakamoto-kun , Niijima-san, Okumura-san, all strutting past without sparing him a glance like the mindless zombies they’ve turned into—when it became evident that he was a little too early, he decided to just let his mind wander.

He’d been holding himself to that vow well, directing every ounce of his vitriol directly to the one he believed was responsible for Hereward’s state. If that man had read his thoughts even once in the last few days, then Akechi sincerely hoped he came away from it crying.

But that wasn’t what he needed to focus on at the moment. After some heavy trial and error with Hereward—learning its limits, learning the consequences of testing them, and coming away from it all with a newfound distaste for the scraggly being currently within him—he knew he could no longer handle this alone. Not if he wanted to make good use of his time.

Above all else, he needed to train Hereward. And while he could do that in the real world—Maruki did tell him that he alone could use his Persona outside of Mementos or the Palace, and besides, Maruki would likely clean up any casualties he made—it wouldn’t get him anywhere in the long run without shadows to fight against. But if he spent all of his time training in, say, Mementos, he wouldn’t be able to properly explore things going on in the real world. After all, since the man was so hellbent on avoiding him in the Palace,  it proved he didn't have anything left to hide there. Whether that meant he was keeping those secrets close to his chest, or he was planting them somewhere out here, he didn't yet know.

And to figure out which one it was, he needed more Persona Users. Or, at the very least, people he could trust to work outside of the Palace while he focused his energy on infiltration and strengthening Hereward back to fucking normal.

But he wasn’t about to approach a civilian, so he came here instead.

A flash of red crossed his unfocused vision. If he were anyone else, it would have startled him—it looked so much like blood. He didn’t have much practice with real blood. That was the whole reason he was going to train in the Palace instead—but he wasn’t anyone else, and transitioned back out of his head seamlessly to be met with his target scurrying past him, nearly tripping over her own foot as she set out down the path he just came from.

Yoshizawa Sumire, who he watched leave with his chin tilted up. Who, after letting her have a short head start, he kicked up a slowed version of his usual walk behind, boring his eyes into her back and watching her unconsciously shrink under his glare. She, like the rest of the Thieves, hadn’t acknowledged him when she walked by.

She led him down a winding path, eventually taking him in a direction he didn’t come from himself as she headed down to the station. Her shoulders were unnaturally tense, and when she stopped at the entrance, it was more of a halt than anything else.

But unlike the rest of the Thieves, it actually intrigued him. He got the distinct feeling that this one mattered.

Maybe it was because, out of that ragtag group that just walked by him, he minded her company the least. Or maybe because, other than Amamiya-kun, she was the Persona user that could synergize with him most in battle, which would grant him an impeccable advantage in battle should he manage to get her back on his side. If he really looked into it, there were thousands of potential reasons as to why she would be the first one to come to.

He let the thoughts pass, slowing his walk even more and watching her sprint off to catch up with Takamaki-san under a different awning right outside the station. He already knew why this one intrigued him.

The day after the Thieves were brainwashed, after Amamiya-kun’s indefinite vanishing, she was the only one who made an effort to escape his every approach. Today, she was the only one who flinched when she passed him at the gate.

She knew something.

- ~ -

Never let it be said that Takamaki Ann was not a patient person. Mostly because she knew that’d be right, and her flaws were hers to point out, and hers alone.

As she stood there, waiting for Shiho to respond to her texts before getting on a train to the yet to be defined shopping location, she couldn’t help but fidget in place. Volleyball season was over now, and her best friend was the biggest screenager she'd ever seen—there was literally no reason for Shiho to not see her messages. Groaning, she reopened her contact and sent a string of emojis, originally random, but eventually turning into an alternating pattern of the angry devil and the running woman.

One, because she was pissed off. The other, because her leg would not stop shaking; she had half a mind to just take off sprinting and catch her best friend herself. And honestly? It wasn’t even because of her impatience anymore.

It was at first, definitely—Takamaki Ann was not a patient person, there, she admitted it!—but that feeling had eventually passed to make space for wariness and anger. Somewhere in the last few minutes, she’d gotten the unshakeable feeling that someone was watching her.

But that couldn’t be right, right? Sure, the transit system could be dangerous, but nothing has ever happened to her before. She’d never been stalked, sought out, or anything like that. The most that ever occurred was Yusuke approaching her to be his model last year, but nothing about that situation had ever been scary to her, and the actual act of being painted was completely harmless! She even got a beautiful portrait of herself and a friend for life out of that! Not to mention how wonderful his guardian was to her, she felt nothing but safe around them both.

Then what was this? Why did she get the incessant feeling that someone was staring her down, leering at her with intentions she couldn’t begin to comprehend?

It was a good thing that Shiho wasn’t here with her, then. Shiho should never have to deal with something like this, ever. The last of her impatience promptly burned away, and she focused all of her energy onto the footsteps echoing around her.

Most of them passed by without obstructing her, and for just a little while, everything seemed fine. But Ann could still feel those eyes on her, a gaze that felt like it was staring right through her instead of just at her, and she really didn’t want to know where exactly it stopped on her body before it was satisfied. Her heart was starting to race; she should get out of here. She could always find another way to get to Shiho. She should—

She couldn’t move. 

It was almost funny. In the face of something like this, she was powerless.

To make things worse, that gaze she felt on her was still there, growing hotter and hotter, full of something that honestly, didn’t even feel perverted. It just felt… wrong . Like something that shouldn’t exist in this world at all. Something obstructing her very right to exist here.

Damn it, why couldn’t she move?!

She heard footsteps again. That shouldn’t be surprising, she’d literally stationed herself by the entrance to the, well, the station. But this was different. She just knew these ones were coming from her leerer. And they were getting closer.

There was an officer nearby, she knew that much. If it came down to it, she could always—

“Excuse me… Ann-senpai? ”

—wait, she recognized that voice!

Oh, thank god, it wasn’t some creep. Tough as she was trying to be, she had absolutely no way to defend herself if it was. This was the best possible outcome, elevated further by the fact that it was one of her favorite people on the planet.

“Kasumi-chan!” she stuffed her phone in her pocket and spun around, bumping sides with the first year cutie she and her friends had gotten close to since running into her all alone at the shrine on New Years. 

The girl smiled, “Hello. Are you… free to talk?”

“Absolutely! I haven’t seen you in forever!”

And she was serious. It’d been days since they last crossed paths; it felt like that perky red ponytail was always running away from her in the halls, or ducking behind corners after school before she could even approach. She missed the girl.

The redhead giggled, her gaze stuck to the ground, “Sorry about that. I’ve just had a lot going on these last few days.”

“Oh don’t worry about it, I’m just glad you came to find me. Have you been here long?”

“Not too long. I missed the train before this, so I’m waiting for the next one.”

“Then you should’ve come to find me earlier!” Ann huffed playfully, crossing her arms and tilting her chin to the side in a pout. “I mean, look at me. I’m hard not to notice.”

She gestured vaguely to her hair, then her uniform, as Kasumi-chan brought a hand up to chuckle into.

“You’re right, I definitely noticed,” she shook her head. “And I would have, seriously. But I was just a little preoccupied.”

“Oh, was some asshole bothering you? I swear, they want us to think Tokyo’s transit system is safe, but I know better,” she really didn’t, but she’s heard stories. And so, she craned her neck to look past the redhead, searching for any suspicious looking guys who could’ve been harassing her friend, but was pulled back by Kasumi-chan’s hand on her arm.

“It was nothing like that, Ann-senpai, but thank you for your concern! I just noticed someone that…” she looked around, then back at her, “well, he’s not here anymore, so it doesn’t matter.”

“If you say so,” she mumbled, slowly backing off, then turned her full attention back to the redhead. “But seriously, the gang misses you. Come back to us.”

Kasumi-chan blinked at her—distantly, Ann couldn’t help but notice how the girl’s sparkling scarlet gaze made her shiver. How this was the source of her earlier discomfort. She kicked herself, then perished the thought. She was just being crazy: she nearly called the police on her friend just because the girl had a piercing gaze! Ignore it, Ann, she’s fine—then relaxed her shoulders and gave Ann a sweet smile, “I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you.”

She’s fine. Ann nodded, then smiled her brightest smile. Kasumi-chan did too, but she was looking at the ground again. And yeah, Ann said she’d look past the girl’s piercing stare, but a small part of her was still relieved it was being directed somewhere other than her.

“You better! Shiho loves you, you know. It's probably all the athletic talk you guys get up to; goes flying over my head whenever she tells me that stuff. So now that she’s got you, she sure as hell won’t be letting you go.”

“R—Right! All of our athletic talk! I, um, love doing it as well.”

“Aw, no need to be shy! Just cause she wants to sink her claws in you forever doesn’t mean she bites,” Ann giggled, then felt a ticklish vibration by her hip.

Ah, she got a message. She pulled it out of her pocket and tapped on the screen, then felt her smile grow even further at the message. Speak of the devil…

“Hey, Kasumi-chan,” she began, making the girl tilt her head, “would you want to come hang with me and Shiho at my house today? We’re supposed to be having a girl’s night, but I don’t think it really counts as one if there's only two people.”

There was a beat of silence—the redhead narrowed her eyes ever so slightly, nearly forcing Ann to take a step back out of a survival instinct she didn’t think she had—and Ann felt the sudden urge to keep talking. God, that stare of hers.

“W—Well, it won’t just be at my house. We’re also planning to do some shopping first, and that’ll probably take up most of the day. Plus, Shiho just texted she’s already at the Underground Mall—which, I swear she didn't tell me beforehand that she wanted to go there, she's lucky I love her so much and—oh, here I’ll call Morgana and see if he wants to carry our bags,” she rambled, voice getting a lot faster the more she spoke, and she was speaking a lot. Why was this so embarrassing all of a sudden? She stopped herself, took a breath, then slowly continued. “Do… do you want to? It’s cool if you don’t, I was just, yeah.”

She trailed off. It was never this hard to invite someone out, why was she so nervous now?

It was those eyes, and she knew it. Jesus Christ.

But she also knew better than to point it out; Kasumi-chan couldn’t control what her resting face looked like, meaning that Ann had no business mentioning it. She pursed her lips into a smile, willed back any other embarrassing rambles she had locked and loaded, and waited for the redhead to answer.

She didn’t. She kept staring. The air was getting colder, and Ann was going to lose her mind. Did she say something wrong? Did she do something wrong?

The silence persisted, leaving the blonde shuffling awkwardly in place until eventually, finally, Kasumi-chan blinked back to reality and squeaked.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, then lifted her arms up. Just like that, the weird air had vanished. “You don’t have to worry about me, I wouldn’t want to intrude on your date night.”

And just like that, Ann relaxed again. If they could still joke around like this, then things were probably fine. She was overthinking this, clearly.

“Girl’s night. I just said it was a girl’s night. You’re as bad as the others!” she laughed, giving her a light shove that, somehow, made her stumble. Thankfully, Ann’s arm hadn’t moved from where it made contact with her shoulder, and she caught her just in time. “Shoot, sorry.”

She tugged gently on the girl’s sleeve, using no more force than she’d used to push her. And unsurprisingly, it led to the same result, as Kasumi-chan tripped forward this time, directly into her collarbone with a small squeak.

Or, it should’ve been unsurprising, but after a second of trying to digest it, it definitely wasn’t. Especially because, Ann noted, that the girl in her arms was shivering.

Never mind, things were clearly not fine.

Weren’t gymnasts supposed to be, like, crazy light on their feet? No, even beyond her being a gymnast, Kasumi-chan was the most physically coordinated person that Ann knew. What could have her so frazzled?

“It’s… um—”

She never stuttered, either. Ann was getting a little worried and, gentler than gently now, lifted her by the shoulders to stand her up again. She flashed a smile of gratitude as it happened, but it was directed at everything but her.

Once they were both back on two feet, Kasumi-chan took a breath, shifted her weight, and looked up at her. That sparkling scarlet gaze made her shiver once again.

“It’s okay,” she patted down her skirt and Ann frowned.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, thank you. Please don’t worry, I’ve just been a bit distracted these days.”

“…Is that why I haven’t seen you much recently?”

“Yeah, I didn’t mean to avoid you—or the others, for that matter. I should apologize to them soon…” she trailed off, fiddling with her fingers by her stomach. “In any case, I’m sorry Ann-senpai. I haven’t been fair to you guys.”

“Bah, Senpai this, senpai that. Now you have to come with me and Shiho,” she grinned, putting a hand on her hip. If Kasumi-chan didn’t want to tell her anything, she wouldn’t make her. But she could definitely offer help. “By the time we’re done with you, you’ll be calling me Ann-chan like there’s no tomorrow!”

She pumped a fist, expecting at least a smile from the giggly first year, but got nothing. If anything, Kasumi-chan shrank away from her.

“I’m sorry, I can’t today,” she murmured. “I’m trying to find… someone. We had made plans for…uh…”

“Plans?” Ann tilted her head, narrowed her eyes, and then it all clicked. So that’s why she was acting so strange! Ann’s first reaction was pure relief—thank goodness it wasn’t anything bad—and her second was to squeal. “OMG, do you have a date?!"

“What?!” Kasumi-chan exclaimed, but it was drowned out by Ann’s gushing. She felt a thousand eyes glance over at the two of them, but she was far too pumped to care.

“This is revolutionary—is he coming to meet you here?!” immediately, she went back to surveying the area, now with a much hungrier energy than before as she scoured the crowds for anyone she deemed suitable for her favorite first year. “Do I know him? Can I meet him? How do you know him? I need to tell Shiho I’ll be late, okay—”

“It’s nothing like that!”

“That’s what they all say!” she threw her head back, laughing, and Kasumi-chan made a sound of exasperation. “So? Who is it?!”

The redhead bit her lip, suddenly looking very focused; Ann could practically hear the cogs turning in her head as she thought over the question. Was this how she flustered? Honestly, Ann expected something a little… cuter, or something easier to make fun of. She looked more like she was taking an exam than thinking about a special someone.

A long stretch of silence passed, enough for Ann to start squirming as she fought off the urge to go back on her phone, but eventually, Kasumi-chan sparked back to life.

“It’s… senpai,” she eventually said, but instead of embarrassment, she looked up at Ann with such fierce determination that Ann felt herself getting embarrassed instead; like it was somehow shameful how—well, how she had absolutely no idea who the girl was talking about.

“Um, Kasumi-chan , most of us are your senpais. That doesn’t narrow it down at all,” she twirled a stray curl by her ear, then realized that there was a stray curl by her ear. Damn, she should fix her hair before meeting up with Shiho. She shook her head and pulled herself back to the present, where the redhead in front of her, for some reason, looked like she’d just been slapped in the face. “But—but it’s cute you went for an older guy! Is he a second year? Third year? Whatever he is, that’s a score for you!”

She winked. The redhead continued to gawk.

“You don’t—?” she stuttered—again, she was stuttering. Whoever this boy was, he’s certainly got her in a chokehold. Ann felt herself getting more and more curious by the second. “You know him, Ann-senpai, he’s our friend. You know him.”

“I know a lot of people! Why’s this got to be a guessing game…” Ann pouted, fiddling with the ends of her pigtails. “I suck at these, Kasumi-chan. Just tell me!”

The redhead held her tongue, keeping her lips pursed shut. But where Ann expected there to be a shy, sheepish smile, there wasn’t one, only a look of confusion, shock, and traces of unadulterated hurt. A look that made Ann immediately regret her demand, in case asking directly was too stressful for the redhead, so she pursed her lips shut and started to think. 

A senpai of Kasumi-chan's, that she was friends with…? Yeah, she still had nothing. 

As much as she loved the girl, they didn’t really have much in common, especially when it came to people they hung around, and especially considering how popular the redhead was in her own year. Their only real point of connection was their little Shujin group plus Futaba, Yusuke, and Morgana: there was Makoto, Haru, herself, and—

“RYUJI?!” she took a step back and all but screamed his name, making the redhead and several others around them jump. “Oh my god, Kasumi-chan, do not go down that path. As your honorable senpai, I have to put my foot down on this.”

The silence that followed was both tense and telling, as both girls widened their eyes at the same time, to the same degree as well. Oh god, Ryuji could not handle her. Ann wasn’t sure he could handle girls in general. She needed to stop this before her favorite first year ended up in the trenches over someone like him .

She opened her mouth, about to say something, when Kasumi-chan burst into laughter.

“I—Oh my goodness, Ann-senpai, that couldn’t be further from the right answer!” she clamped a hand over her mouth and keeled her torso over, laughing. It sounded real.

At the sight, Ann felt a massive weight kick off of her shoulders, and she couldn’t help but laugh as well. Oh thank god. Sure, she made fun of Ryuji a bunch, but that was all in good fun. She didn’t hate him enough to be fully okay with killing him when he inevitably fucked things up with Kasumi-chan.

Thankfully, her worries were cleared up. Jesus, that gave her a heart attack.

“Then—” she snorted, “then I got nothing. I’d say Yusuke, but he’s not your senpai and, honestly, I thought he was joking every time he said he liked women. He’s a better option than Ryuji, though, so I guess I can tolerate the matchup.”

“It’s, ah, it’s not him either…” she trailed off, voice steadily losing the bubbly giggles. There was an awkward pause, as Ann waited for her to keep talking the way she clearly looked like she wanted to, until eventually, the redhead looked back up at her with impossibly wide eyes. “Do—do you really not know? You’re not just kidding? He’s our friend , Ann-senpai, you have to know.”

Just like that, what little semblance of normalcy they'd created was gone, and Ann was back to floundering under that sparkling scarlet gaze.

“Uh—um, I’ve already listed every male friend I have that knows you. Just give me his name, I’m bad at these games. Please?”

“No. No, I can’t,” she shook her head desperately. “I can’t say it. Just—I’m just being safe.”

…Safe?

Before Ann could get another word in, the girl lurched forward and grabbed her forearm, leaning in way closer than she expected. Her voice now wasn’t much higher than a whisper.

“But he’s in—in your class? Right? You get it?”

“…Pretty sure you don’t know anyone from my class. But that's a good thing, the boys there are all douches. Except for like, Mishima I guess…” just as she said it, Kasumi-chan’s face crumpled into itself painfully, and she instantly wished she could take it back. Though, she really didn’t know why she felt that way. After translating what she said in her head, she couldn’t find anything untrue. “Uh, Kasumi-chan, are you sure you’re—”

Someone bumped into the redhead’s side, making her stumble again. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the woman who did it had the audacity to spin around and glare at them before disappearing in the crowd.

“Hey!” Ann called out, but her voice was immediately drowned out by the hustle and bustle of the Tokyo transit system kicking back into gear. People started to flood both in and out the door, up and down the stairs, and Ann had to pull them both further into the wall behind her to avoid getting squished.

What’s going on? This kind of flash mob only ever happened when—

“Shoot, the train’s here!” she exclaimed, pulling her phone back out of her pocket and grabbing the redhead by the arm. “You said you’re taking this one too, right? Do you see your mystery boy anywhere?”

Kasumi-chan shook her head, eyes downcast, face scrunched up like she was going to cry. She didn’t even look around to check. Something—no, everything about that brought a sour pang to Ann’s chest.

That’s it. She’s going to kill this guy.

But first, she should focus on the girl in front of her.

“Hey, whoever he is, he sounds like an idiot for ditching a pretty girl like you,” she tapped the underside of the girl’s chin with her knuckle, tilting her face up. “You should just leave him behind. My offer still stands, by the way.”

Shiho would probably know what to do about this. They’d have a better shot at comforting the girl if it were both of them. She slowly pulled her hand away, and almost instantly, the girl’s chin sunk to face the floor again. 

At this point, with how confusing everything she’d seen and heard had been so far, Ann didn’t know what she was expecting anymore. So, she decided not to expect anything at all.

“Come on… you look like you need a break. Join us.”

But somehow, despite odds that were, honestly, not that strong to begin with—she wasn’t expecting anything, sure, but she was still hoping that the girl would open up to her!—Kasumi-chan managed to leave her fumbling yet again.

Ann could only watch with a slightly dropped jaw, as the first year cutie’s startlingly piercing eyes started to drip tears on the concrete, her body started to pull away, and she spun around on her heels to sprint back down the way she came from. At least she didn’t stumble…?

There were a few giggles surfacing in the crowd around her, but at this point, Ann was too dumbfounded to pay them any mind.

She just made a girl run away from her, crying, and she had no idea what she did to cause it. Was this how it felt to be Ryuji?

Chapter Text

- ~ -

Alone in a poorly lit room, hunched against a desk littered with monitors and camera feeds sending an array of color across pale skin, a thin man found he could only grin into his bitten thumbnail at what he was witnessing.

“Oh my,” he purred, lips curled so far up that they stretched the wispy skin on his face, teeth moving past his nail to sink deep into his own flesh. They certainly got their job done quickly. The Moby Dick had halted in its journey much earlier than predicted.

It was as intriguing as it was irksome, with potential to become either his biggest point of interest, or his most troubling issue for the future. His predictions were very rarely wrong, and never with this much of a difference to the actual outcome. The Agency members had managed to steal control of the entire ship from Fitzgerald with, in comparison to the expected occurrence, hardly any pushback at all. This drastic of a shift in events was not something they could ignore. He simply had to understand its cause.