Violet Sparks

After exploring Mememtos to try to find a path forward in the Palace, Futaba is met with some... weird side effects. Which was fine, she could deal with that. What she wasn't sure she was going to be able to deal with was the fact that Sumire was the one that offered to keep an eye on her until those effects wore off.
"And that’s when she realized that both of them were way too large, she was way too small, and she felt a lot like when she was piloting Al Azif.
“I think I’m in the computer.” She let out a humorless laugh. “Holy shit, I think I’m in a laptop right now.”"

Notes:

Fun fact, this was supposed to be a quick drabble to get me used to writing these characters for a much bigger project. That clearly is no longer the case. A lot of headcannons ended up in here, and it just kept growing. I also may have started Strikers, and may have gotten a little bit of an idea from there.
Another fun fact: The Makoto/Haru was going to be a lot more flushed out in the background, and already established, but I decided they deserved the gay panic, too. So I think I'm going to write their POV eventually.

Work Text:

“Wait, there’s some weird reading off to your left.” Oracle called out to the Monabus, prompting Joker to stop and swing the headlights down the direction she had called out. Not that they really needed the lights, with how glaringly bright this new area of Mementos was. “May want to check it out in case it’s related to Maruki’s palace.”

“Got it. Any shadows on the way?” He replied, starting down the path.

“No, and that’s definitely not a good sign.” Oracle responded, swiping through all the different displays in Al Azif and finding nothing out of the ordinary.

“Great, a creepy empty hallway with a ‘weird reading’ at the end. What could go wrong?” Skull grumbled.

“Well now that you said that, something is definitely going to go wrong.” Panther teased, causing soft laughter from Noir to also filter through the comms.

“I’m sure Oracle will warn us if anything starts to look weird!” Violet spoke up, their newest member's confidence in her causing Futaba to blush.

No, she shook her head as if to clear it. She needed to be Oracle right now. Futaba could have a gay panic when she was safely back in her bedroom. Right now, the Phantom Thieves needed their navigator clear-headed.

“That’s right!” Oracle announced with as much confidence as she could muster. “But maybe take it slow for now.”

“You run over one shadow and suddenly everyone tells you to slow down.” Joker’s fake pouting was obvious even to her.

“It’s… certainly a strategy for the earlier areas of Mementos.” Queen said. Futaba had to wonder if she was regretting letting Joker drive today. “But when we’re exploring new areas, it’s probably better to take our time, anyway.”

“It did paint a rather fascinating pattern on the walls.” Fox mused, and Oracle heard him quietly muttering to himself about compositions and colors or something artsy like that.

“And on my windshield.” Mona grumbled. “I’d like to avoid doing that again unless we have to.”

“I know, I know. In my defense, it was an accident. I thought I heard chains, so I wanted to get us to the next floor as soon as possible.”

“Fair enough, man.” Skull laughed. “I’m sure none of us want to fight the Reaper again any time soon.”

“Speak for yourself. Part of me is still convinced you’re all making it up.” Crow huffed, speaking for the first time outside of combat since entering Mementos.

They were all still clearly trying to get comfortable working together, which was part of the reason why Joker had them come to Mementos today. The other part being the weird tendrils all over Maruki’s palace that were blocking any sort of forward progress.

“As much fun as it is to mess with you,” Oracle started, smirking when she heard his little annoyed huff, “I wouldn’t lie about something that dangerous.”

“Hey,” Joker cut in suddenly, pulling her from any other jabs she could make at Crow, “is that a real dead end, or a fake wall? Looks kind of weird, but also not like the normal breakable ones, so don’t want to just run Mona into it.”

“And I appreciate that.” Mona replied.

“Hmmmm…” She started tapping away, seeing what Joker meant. There was something behind that wall, but none of her sensors could tell exactly what. Everything about this new area of Mementos seemed to interfere with her persona’s abilities, and it put her on edge. “It’s a breakable wall, but still different from normal. Sorry, all I can really say is ‘be careful’ for now, wish I had more for you.”

“Got it.” Joker suddenly sounded a lot more serious, and she really wished her stupid sensors could give her any more information.

Instead, all she could do was watch from Al Azif as the Monabus broke the wall, and send out constant scans to make sure no shadows were coming to investigate the sudden noise. Everything kept quiet, but it really wasn’t making her feel much better about the situation.

“We’re going to have to go on foot from here.” Joker announced, and Oracle dismissed her persona to join the others who were peering down the new path. It looked pretty much the same down the tunnel, just much narrower than the rest of the floor.

“Should we send a team forward to scout, and the rest follow behind?” Queen asked from beside Joker.

“I think that’s for the best, yeah. I don’t want to just leave anyone, and the last safe area was a few floors back.” Gray eyes swept over the gathered group, calculating. “The cramped space is also making me a little worried. Mona won’t be able to transform, and Oracle won’t be able to summon her persona.”

“Are we sure that whatever is down there is worth it?” Crow asked, looking down at Oracle.

She fought the urge to shrink under his glare, knowing it was just his default expression now that he wasn’t pretending to be some perfect “Detective Prince” in front of them. He simply wanted all the facts before diving headfirst into some weird side path in the weirdest part of Mementos. He wasn’t mad at her. It was fine, he was on their side for now. She just needed to remind herself of that fact a few more times.

And besides, this was what she was good at, this was her job in the Metaverse. Steeling herself, she brought up the simpler displays she could operate outside of Al Azif, her mask still in place since she hadn’t fully summoned her persona.

“...oh.” Something about the readings finally caught her eye, and she kicked herself for not noticing earlier.

“Did you find something?” Crow asked, his own eyes trained on the displays in front of her. Not that he could decipher any of the information.

“It’s not exactly the same, but the energy readings are familiar.” She hesitated, not wanting to bring up any bad memories.

“Familiar?” Noir asked, and Oracle wasn’t really sure how to avoid the answer anymore.

“Uhh, yeah,” Oracle dismissed the screens and pressed her fingertips together, the pressure and texture of her gloves helping to give her a distraction, “the readings are close to the energy released when Maruki messed with Violet’s persona.” She finished in a rush, looking up to see the others shuffle a little uncomfortably.

“Oh.” Violet startled. “Well, we should, ummm, we should take a look, then. Right?”

“If it is related to that man, then yes.” Crow pushed off the wall he was leaning against and stood next to Joker and Queen by the entrance. “Who do you want out front, Joker?”

Their leader took a look back, eyes meeting Violet’s for a moment. Whatever he saw there caused him to nod and turn back to look down the tunnel.

“Fox, Panther, Crow, and I will scout ahead. That should give both groups a mix of physical, magic, and healing skills.” Joker decided, those he called out moving to join him. “If anything goes wrong, Queen and Skull, get Oracle to the last safe area, the rest of us will regroup when we can. Violet, Mona, and Noir will cover any escapes or reinforce where needed. Understood?”

Oracle tried not to let that bother her. She knew she wasn’t a fighter, but it still sucked to have to hear the “get Oracle to safety” plan every time they infiltrated a new place where she couldn’t just retreat to her persona.

She watched as the scouting group made their way into the tunnel, then the main group after a bit. She was put in the middle, Skull leading them and Queen watching their backs. In the shuffle of everyone else falling into place, Violet ended up right next to her, and Oracle could see her constantly resting a hand on her sword hilt, only to cross her arms, drop them, then repeat the whole cycle.

“Hey, are you… okay?” Oracle asked, hating how shaky it came out. But her friend was clearly uncomfortable, and she wanted to help, even if she was awful at the whole “people” thing. “It’s super okay if you’re not. Joker wouldn’t be mad if you asked to sit this one out, or whatever.”

“No, it’s fine.” Violet sighed, hands falling to her sides and staying there. “I’m the one that made the decision to keep living as Sumire, I need to be able to face Maruki. It’s just… hard.”

“Yeah, I get that.” Oracle muttered before realizing how that could sound. “I mean, obviously I don’t understand exactly what you were going through. Are going through. I just mean, I know how much it sucks to have the perfect life given to you, and still choosing to not take it. Choosing your real, painful life instead. We all do. So I don’t totally understand, but I get part of it, at least.” She wished one of the sinkholes would open under her feet now, she hated that her mouth just moved sometimes before she could stop it. “Sorry, I’m bad at this.”

Amazingly, Violet just let out a soft giggle in response. “You’re not bad at this, don’t worry. You’re really honest and sincere. It’s nice.”

She was suddenly very glad for her mask, which covered most of the blush now painting her face. No one had said that to her before. To be fair, she knew she was honest, even when she shouldn’t have been. It was just hard to know when she was and wasn’t supposed to lie about things unless it was like, super obvious. But sincere? That was new, and she didn’t know how to deal with that compliment.

Luckily the background chatter died down all around as they traveled deeper down the tunnel, so Oracle didn’t have to try to come up with something to say in response. There still were no shadows appearing down the tunnel, but she did have to warn Queen about some opportunistic weaklings that kept trying to sneak up behind them. Hell, she almost felt bad for the shadows each time, considering how quickly Queen and Noir would tear through them.

The path itself was unnervingly straight, sloping down gently as they went. It felt too easy, especially for Mementos. Oracle knew this wasn’t a video game, but she still couldn’t help but feel like this was some dramatic boss approach or something.

“There’s a chamber up ahead.” She reported, her scans finally finding some sort of dead end. “Not very big, and I’m not detecting any shadows, but it’s the source of that weird energy signature.”

“Alright, hold back, we’ll check it out first just to be safe.” Joker responded, and their group stopped to wait. Not too long after, he gave the all clear, and the rest of them moved to join.

They entered a small room, probably around half the size of those weird chambers that tended to have a few treasure chests in them. The only notable feature was a single console next to a glass case full of more of those tendrils.

“Is this what’s messing with Mementos?” Skull asked, approaching it.

“Nah, this looks way too simple for that.” Oracle shook her head and approached, glancing over the console to get a better idea. “Probably just some sort of secondary control or something.”

“Can you hack it?” He asked, leaning over her shoulder now.

“I can, but I’m not sure it’s going to be what we’re looking for.” Oracle explained, finally tapping a few keys to bring the console online. “Maruki’s changes are closer to organic than synthetic. These tendrils aren’t so much a computer system as a nervous system, and this isn’t the brain. So at best, I’ll get the info from like, the ‘left arm’ of Mementos, you know?”

“Uhhh, yeah. Definitely!” Skull agreed, and Oracle fought the urge to laugh at how obviously confused he still was.

“Any information may be useful.” Queen came up to join her, glancing at the screen. “If you don’t think it will be too much trouble, I’d say we should take the time to see what you can learn.”

“Roger that!” Oracle gave Queen a quick little salute, grinning as Queen rolled her eyes and let out a little chuckle. It was always nice to get her to laugh, she was always way too tense.

Turning back to the task at hand, Oracle felt herself slip into “Work Mode”. While the actual monitoring system was more organic than she would like, the console itself operated close enough to a normal computer for her to crack it in barely any time at all. She scanned through the files, the lenses of her mask taking constant pictures to be stored in Al Azif’s database. All other information was being filtered out as she worked, she trusted her team enough to know she was safe doing so.

Overall, it wasn’t any new information, just more confirmation that Maruki was using Mementos for his own gain. She also confirmed that the main tendril controls could only be accessed by the main control hub. But otherwise, she was worried this detour was a dud. But just as she was about to call it, something caught her eye.

There were a few research notes scattered throughout the database, but most of them were things that they had already learned during their own time in the Metaverse. However, one was a little different than the rest, and the writing style made her think it wasn’t written by Maruki at all. Half the file seemed corrupted past what even she could recover, but she quickly scanned through what she could read.

“Did you find something?” Joker had come up to join her, and she pulled back enough to realize Queen was also still next to her, standing guard.

“I don’t think it’s Maruki’s work, but there’s half a research paper on altering one’s shadow in here. It’s hard to get a clear picture, but I think it’s kinda like what Shido had done to his shadow.”

“Why would Maruki have that?” Queen asked, looking at the screen with confusion.

“Maybe he gathered up any research he could on the cognitive world when he made this new reality?” Oracle guessed.

“It’s possible.” Joker muttered, also looking at the screen with furrowed brows.

“Regardless, nothing here is going to help us.” Oracle sighed, admitting defeat. “Or at least, we still gotta find the central control room.”

“Right, well, it was worth checking out.” Queen nodded, turning to move, and that’s when something crashed into them from above.

It was a shadow, but not like one any of them had seen before. None of Oracle’s scans had picked up on it, and even now, practically pinned under it’s form, her persona was still trying to tell her everything was fine.

A mix of shouts rang through the room as the others sprang into action, and Oracle hissed in pain as the shadow pinned her against the console that was now sparking and half-crushed. It was getting harder and harder to breathe as she was trapped underneath, and all she could see was darkness as the thing tried to smother her.

Was this… was this how she died? Oh god. Oh god , was Ren going to have to tell Sojiro? Was her dad going to have to lose someone else important to him? And how were the Phantom Thieves supposed to operate without a navigator? She had one job, dammit, and she needed to see it through.

Just as Oracle’s last hopes of escape were fading, the pressure on her chest began to slowly lessen. She snapped her gaze up to see Queen, a snarl tearing out of her as she braced one shoulder against the shadow’s form and pushed up against its weight with all she had.

It would have been the perfect time to escape, if not for her limbs suddenly giving out on her. Her chest still felt half-crushed, and her vision was going black around the edges. It didn’t feel like a panic attack, and somehow that was making it worse. Because that meant something else was wrong.

“Cendrillon!”

Golden light suddenly filled what vision she had left, and she heard the pained gurgle of the shadow above her. Well, the shadow was weak to Bless, that was good to know. A moment later it burst, black ichor covering the three unlucky enough to be pinned underneath.

Oracle could hear people approaching, and she let out a panicked cry when she realized everything was still dark. She sat up quickly, an awful feeling of vertigo rushing through her, and began roughly swiping at the lenses of her mask to try to clear them. She needed to see, she was useless unless she could see. She was the navigator, she needed to be able to fucking navigate them.

“-cle. Oracle!” She could barely hear someone calling out to her, but the lenses were still covered. She needed to clear them, why wasn’t the shadow gunk coming off?!

Her mask was suddenly pushed up off her face, and a blurry red and black figure came into view. Okay, okay, she could see. Not well, but it was something. It was better.

“Oracle?” Violet’s voice sounded so small and scared, and that was the last kick she needed to take a deep breath and give a shaky nod.

“I need to heal you, okay?” She looked up and squinted at the blur of colors in front of her. She knew that was Queen’s voice, but too many of them had dark outfits for her to figure out which one she actually was.

“Oracle, do you have your glasses on you?” Violet suddenly asked, and that helped confirm she was the one kneeling down next to her.

“Y-yeah.” She dug through one of her side pockets, grabbing her glasses from their case and slipping them on. The room came back into focus, and she flinched at seeing several worried expressions.

Queen knelt down, one hand extended with a glowing green energy. Agnes was humming gently behind her, and somehow that helped to calm her nerves. Queen slowly lowered her hand to Oracle’s back, and warmth began flooding through her body. Healing magic wasn’t exactly something she was used to, and she kinda wished someone would have warned her that she was going to be able to feel her body stitching itself back together as it was being cast.

“Sorry, I know it’s uncomfortable.” Queen apologized, and Oracle just let out a little whimper as it felt like a rib popped back into place. “Almost done.”

Her eyes flicked all around for anything to distract from the feeling, but when she saw the charred remains of Queen’s left sleeve, she furrowed her brow.

“What happened?” Oracle asked. Queen followed her gaze to her hand, sighing.

“The console exploded when that shadow fell on us. My hand honestly took the worst of the damage.” She dismissed, pulling her other hand back as well, done with her healing spell. “Nothing I couldn’t fix, don’t worry.”

“I’m sorry.” She muttered, looking down at the floor under her. Only, when she saw red and black smears all around, she flicked her eyes up to the ceiling instead.

“Why are you sorry?” She looked over to see Joker kneeling next to her, taking Queen’s place.

“I told you there weren’t any shadows in here.” She explained.

“And the scout team confirmed that fact, are you blaming us, too?” Joker gently pushed. Dammit, how did he always know how to turn her argument on itself? She shook her head. “We all missed it this time, but we’ll be ready for next time. Now we know there are weird stealth shadows that like to hang out on the ceiling.”

“I’ll work on figuring out how to scan for them.” She assured him, knowing she wouldn’t feel comfortable in Mementos again until she could.

“And we’ll do a better job of looking up.” He gave her a reassuring smile before getting back to his feet. As he did so, Oracle grimaced at seeing a long gash in his right pant leg. “We’re done for the day.”

His announcement left no room for argument, not that any of them would try. Even Crow relented without any fight. She may not like the guy, but she could admit that he was smart enough to know they’d be at a disadvantage with their navigator so shaken.

The trip back was thankfully quick since they were backtracking to a safe area they had already found. From there, the Meta-Nav let them slip through a shortcut that led back to the entrance. It was still a jarring process, but it was probably better for all of them if they didn’t try to think too hard about the pseudo-magical phone application that let them travel to and from the cognitive world.

Oracle was ready to be back in the real world after everything that had happened. She just wanted to put on her most comfortable clothes, eat a ton of snacks, and binge her Featherman comfort episodes. Only, as they stepped through the door into the real world, everything went fuzzy and she nearly knocked Yusuke over falling into his back.

“Must you push?” He huffed, not understanding what was happening behind him.

“Mako-chan?”

“Dude, hey, what’s the matter?”

Futaba groaned, grabbing onto Yusuke’s shirt so he wouldn’t move. It felt like someone was driving a stake into her skull, and like the world was spinning all around her.

“Shut up for a second, Inari.” Futaba pleaded, the spinning at least getting a little better with time.

“Futaba, are you okay?” She cracked one eye slightly to see Sumire with one hand hanging between them, concern clear on her face. When Futaba managed a weak smile, Sumire let her hand drop.

“Yeah, sorry, just got a little dizzy for a second. Maybe it’s the adrenaline wearing off or something?” She tried to laugh it off, finally straightening up and releasing Yusuke’s shirt. The world had finally stopped spinning, but the headache was still there.

“Normally I would agree. But considering the three of you who were attacked by the odd shadow are the ones having a difficult time right now, I’m not so sure.” Akechi spoke up suddenly, causing them all to look at him.

“What do you mean?” Ann asked, arms crossed.

“Ren, Futaba, and Makoto were all injured, and now they are the only ones experiencing any sort of side effects from our exploration. Maybe it isn’t related, but I think it would be best to be safe and assume something happened.” He explained.

Futaba fought the urge to point out all he had done was repeat himself in a different way, but the point had gotten across to the others, so she just let it drop.

“So, what, buddy up with the people that got hurt to keep an eye on them?” Ryuji asked.

“I think that would be for the best, yes.” Akechi nodded. “I’m sure you can all figure that out among yourselves. Let me know when we are planning on going back in.” With that, he began walking away.

“And what are you going to do?” Ren called out, and Akechi turned to look over his shoulder.

“I’m going to see if any other cognitive psience research has turned up. If some of Shido’s collection made it into Maruki’s hands, who’s to say there isn’t more?”

“Just don’t go into the Palace or Mementos alone to look, okay?” Ren sighed. “At the end of the day, we’re only going to win this fight as a team.”

“As much as it pains me to admit, I know.”

They watched him go, Ren letting out another heavy sigh as he leaned back against the wall. Ryuji moved next to him, steadying their leader against his shoulder before he could slump too far to the side.

“Is it that bad?” Ann asked quietly, eyes flicking between the three of them.

“It’s just a rather bad headache for me, at the moment.” Makoto admitted, rubbing at her forehead. Ren and Futaba just gave sad little nods in agreement, which earned a quiet laugh from Sumire. Futaba gave her a confused look, and Sumire rushed to explain with a blush.

“You two are really similar sometimes.” She motioned between Futaba and Ren. “I would have believed you were raised as siblings, not that you just met over the summer.”

“Destined to be siblings, clearly.” Ren huffed a laugh, then cringed.

“Okay, I think it’s time to get you home, yeah?” Ryuji prompted. “And as much as I trust Morgana to look after you, someone with thumbs should probably also tag along.”

“Hey!” Morgana hopped up on the railing, then onto Ryuji’s shoulders to snap at him. “And what is that supposed to mean?”

“Can you make a phone call?” Ryuji asked, already pulling Ren along. Ryuji grinned in victory when Morgana didn’t respond.

“Mako-chan, you said your sister is going to be rather busy with a case this week, right?” Haru asked, and Makoto just nodded, eyes still closed. “You’re more than welcome to come back with me tonight, then.”

“Oh, umm, yes, that’s… that’s probably for the best. Right. Thank you.” Makoto stuttered a response and began walking with Haru. Futaba glanced over to see an obvious blush on Makoto’s face, and she fought the urge to laugh.

But then Futaba was left with a sudden realization. The two people she was probably most comfortable around were just led away, both needing to be looked after themselves. Sure, she was okay around all of the thieves now, they were family. But, as stupid as it may have been, there was still a boundary in her brain between “would fight a god together” and “would be comfortable with you in my room for the night”.

Yusuke and her had an… odd friendship that consisted more of pestering each other than anything else most of the time. She was also pretty sure he would find every possible way to make her head hurt even worse.

Ann was sweet, but also had the tendency to hover when she was worried, and Futaba did not do well with hovering. The last thing she wanted to do was snap at someone who was honestly just trying to help.

That only left-

“I can go with you, if you want.” Sumire was fidgeting so much with the sleeve of her dress that Futaba was worried she was going to rip the cuff clean off. But she was looking at Futaba with determination, and Futaba found herself nodding before she really registered what was going on. “G-great! Let me just text my dad really quick.”

“Coolio.” Futaba responded and immediately wanted to smack her own forehead. What was the matter with her?

“Are you sure you’ll be okay?” Ann asked, and Futaba gave her a shaky nod before remembering her headache and hissing in pain.

“We will check in tomorrow morning.” Yusuke added. “I hope some rest helps all three of you.”

“Yeah, I’m sure a good night’s sleep is all you need.” Ann nodded as if to convince herself as well.

They all headed their separate ways after that, Sumire constantly shooting glances in her direction as they rode the subway back. Futaba just closed her eyes and leaned back, the lights causing pain to shoot through her head.

“I’m sorry, I know it’s really bright.” Sumire murmured to her.

“I’m suddenly really glad I don’t get migraines.” Futaba muttered back. “This is awful.”

“Yeah.” Something sounded off with Sumire’s tone, so Futaba cracked one eye open and leaned her head to the side to see her more clearly. “Kasumi got migraines.”

“Oh.”

“She always tried to downplay them, tell everyone they weren’t that bad. I’m the only one that ever had to see her curled up on the bathroom floor in the middle of the night, the pain literally making her sick to her stomach.”

“I’m sorry.” Futaba said awkwardly, and Sumire flinched, looking startled suddenly.

“No, I’m sorry. I don’t know why I brought that up.”

“You’re allowed to talk about her, if it helps. Or even if it doesn’t and you just want to talk about her.”

“Do you talk about your mom?”

Futaba turned suddenly, not caring about the pain in her head, and met Sumire’s gaze. She had no idea what that expression was, until she watched it break into horror.

“Oh my god. Oh my god . I am so sorry, I have no idea why I said that.”

Futaba couldn’t help but start laughing.

“We’re-” she wheezed a bit, “we’re so bad at this.”

“This?” Sumire asked tentatively, though she also seemed to be breaking into her own confused laughter. Anyone else on the subway probably thought the two were a little crazy, but for once, Futaba didn’t care.

“People? Processing grief? Having a normal conversation? I don’t know.” Futaba kept laughing, though she tried to calm down as pain kept pulsing through her skull.

“It’s just…” Sumire trailed off, her own laughter also dying down until only a small, sad smile was left. “Every time I talked to someone, after the accident and before Maruki, they’d get this sad look on their face. And if I mentioned Kasumi? God, then it was even worse . Yes, most of the time I was totally lost in my own grief, but there were times I just wanted to talk about my sister. To remember the good times we had. And it felt like everyone thought I was going to break if I did! So I’m sorry for getting defensive, and for bringing up your mother. That wasn’t fair of me.”

“Forgiven.” Futaba assured her, and the relieved smile she got in return sent all kinds of butterflies through her system. “And I’m sorry, too. After I lost my mom, it felt like I wasn’t allowed to remember her. I got… ummm… I…”

“It’s okay-”

“No, I want to say it. I got… passed around to other family members, but none of them wanted me, and none of them wanted me to talk about my mom. So I guess part of me just wanted you to not deal with that. Cause I know it sucks. Yeah.” Futaba finished, staring down at her lap and picking at a string on her hoodie to give her hands something to do.

“Thank you.” Sumire said softly beside her, and it felt like a victory.

They were quiet for the last bit of the ride, but it was comfortable now. Soon enough Sumire was leading them through the backstreets to Futaba’s home, and she realized she probably should have sent Sojiro a text to give him a heads up.

Well, it was too late now. She followed after Sumire, when a sudden thought struck her.

“Sumire, how do you know where I live?”

“I may have asked Ren.” She gave a sheepish smile over her shoulder. “When I realized that he wouldn’t be able to go with you today.”

“Oh, nice.” Futaba shrugged and just kept following after. At least she thought ahead, Futaba would have just kept blindly following after her. There was less light if she looked down, and less people to avoid eye contact with.

They made it to the house soon enough, and Futaba had never been so glad to be home. It looked like Sojiro was out, so she quickly pulled out her phone, turned the brightness all the way down, and sent him a quick text saying she had a friend over. Once he agreed to a sleepover, she put her phone back away and turned to lead Sumire upstairs. It wasn’t like she was expecting him to say no, he was still ecstatic any time she wanted to do something “normal teenagers do”. Not that she could really blame him.

“Sorry in advance, I don’t think I’m gonna be a great host or anything tonight.” Futaba groaned, rummaging through her drawers for some pajamas. “Do you need something to wear to sleep?”

“Yes, that would be great.” Sumire took the clothes offered. “And that’s absolutely fine. If you want to go straight to sleep, then we can do that.”

“Thanks.” Futaba went to the bathroom to change, find some meds for her head, and get ready to sleep. She found an extra toothbrush and passed that off to Sumire as she came back in the room, the other girl leaving to get ready herself.

Honestly, part of Futaba was so worried that she would be a mess at the idea of having to share a bed with Sumire. But she was so tired, and her head was still pounding so much that she honestly couldn’t find it in herself to panic. Instead, she just curled up facing the wall, letting out a little hum as Sumire joined her and wished her a good night. The other girl seemed to be sitting up against the headboard, presumably to make sure Futaba was okay through the night. She felt a little bad, but also reminded herself that Sumire was the one that offered to keep an eye on her. With that as her last thought, she drifted off to sleep.

XXXXX

Futaba woke up slowly, burrowing her face deeper into the pillow she was hugging and debating if she should just go back to sleep. Except, when her pillow let out a choked yelp, her decision was made for her.

She shot up, seeing Sumire muffling a laugh behind her hand, eyes wide. The light from her phone, which had fallen into her lap, was the only light source in the room other than the glow in the dark stars on the ceiling.

“Sorry, that tickled.” Sumire apologized, lowering her hand. She was speaking quietly, making Futaba think it was either really late, or really early.

“N-no, it’s fine. I was awake.” Futaba muttered.

“Right.” Sumire cleared her throat. “How do you feel?”

She took a moment to assess, and couldn’t help but smile. “Better.”

“Good!” Sumire beamed.

“What time is it?”

Sumire grabbed her phone, “a little after 2 in the morning.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve been awake this whole time.” Futaba pleaded when Sumire hid a yawn behind her hand.

“I wanted to make sure you were okay.” She responded tiredly.

“Well, I am. So you can sleep now.” Futaba reasoned.

“Are you going back to sleep?” Sumire asked.

Futaba thought about it, but unfortunately the shock of how she had woken up hadn’t quite worn off yet. “I may watch a little tv first, but I can put on headphones and sit at my desk.” She motioned to the other side of the room.

“I can stay up until you go back to sleep.” Sumire insisted. “Just to be sure.”

“Sumire…”

“Please.” Sumire looked over to meet Futaba’s eyes, and her worried look immediately stopped any other argument Futaba had.

“Okay.” Futaba relented, moving to the foot of her bed instead to grab the laptop she had stashed down there. It was one she had built to watch her extensive collection of Featherman media, and she gnawed at her lower lip for a moment before settling back down to sit next to Sumire. “Are you a Featherman fan?”

“I used to watch it a lot growing up, yeah.” Sumire answered, and she didn’t seem dismissive or annoyed, so Futaba pushed forward.

“Great. When you’re more awake, maybe we can watch some of the later stuff you might not have seen.” Futaba laughed a little awkwardly. “But I can put on some classics for now.”

“Sounds good.” Sumire smiled and scooted over, not quite touching but close enough that Futaba was very aware that she was there. “To both.”

“Awesome.” She muttered before loading up one of the old cartoons that aired when they were kids. Futaba usually preferred the live action shows, but something about the cartoons was comforting.

They had only made it through one episode before Futaba felt something slump against her side. She looked down to see Sumire, fast asleep with her head on Futaba’s shoulder.

Something inside her felt jittery all of the sudden. She guessed it was nerves, but she also felt weirdly calm. Maybe she was still too tired after everything to panic? But then, why did it feel like her brain kept jumping out of her own head?

She closed her eyes and tried to focus on what she could feel. Sumire was next to her, leaning into her side. The laptop was hot against her legs, and the sheets were soft when she wiggled her feet.

All of that was clear. She could feel it all. Except, the longer she focused on the feelings, the less she felt them. That wasn’t right.

Sumire was there. And the sheets were soft. The laptop was hot.

Sumire was… was next to her. The sheets were… under her. And the laptop was…

XXXXX

“Futaba?”

Futaba groaned as someone tried to wake her up.

“Morning, kid. Futaba in the restroom or something?”

What, was she so buried in her blankets that Sojiro couldn’t see her?

“No, sir. I’m not actually sure where she is.”

“Kid…”

“Right, sorry… Boss.”

Futaba laughed at that.

“...Futaba?”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m awake.” She yawned and stretched, finally opening her eyes to be met with a wall. She went to turn, except… she couldn’t.

Then she was being turned so suddenly her vision swam, and it took a moment to blink the scene in front of her into focus.

“Is that… a video call?” Sojiro asked, kneeling down to get on eye level with Futaba.

“Futaba?” Sumire asked, eyes wide.

And that’s when she realized that both of them were way too large, she was way too small, and she felt a lot like when she was piloting Al Azif.

“I think I’m in the computer.” She let out a humorless laugh. “Holy shit, I think I’m in a laptop right now.”

“La-language!” Sojiro stuttered, clearly out of his element. “Is this some kind of Phantom Thieves nonsense?”

“I think it may be.” Sumire gasped, then bowed in Sojiro’s direction. “I’m so sorry!”

“Why, are you the one that put her in the computer?” He laughed in disbelief.

“No, but I was supposed to be watching her!” Sumire groaned, putting her face in her hands.

“And what would you have done?” Futaba countered, floating closer to the screen. “We’ll figure this out. Can you text the others? And maybe plug in the laptop? I don’t know what happens if it runs out of power with me in here.”

“Oh god, right!” Sumire frantically followed Futaba’s instructions to locate the charger, and then plug in the laptop. Futaba jumped as soon as it connected, feeling a little like she had just chugged an energy drink.

“I’m going to make sure no one is at Lablanc.” Sojiro sighed. “I’m guessing I’m not opening up today.”

“I am so sorry.” Sumire apologized again as she typed away on her phone.

“No worries, kid. This is more important.” He smiled before leaving the room.

Sumire kept her eyes on the phone, and Futaba was suddenly annoyed that she couldn’t keep an eye on the group chat as well. She wished she could see Sumire’s screen, doing nothing was driving her crazy. She unconsciously leaned forward when Sumire started typing again, curiosity burning, when she suddenly felt like she was being flung across the room.

“Futaba?!” She was suddenly looking up at Sumire, and she realized she was in the other girl’s phone somehow.

“I’m sorry!” Futaba apologized, a lot of information suddenly shooting through her head. She did her best not to focus too hard once she realized it was the phone’s data. “Ummm, where’s my phone? I’ll try to jump there instead.”

Sumire grabbed the phone off the bedside table, showing it to Futaba, and she did her best to focus on jumping to that one instead. Except, as she started to move, it felt like shards of something were digging into her brain. She let out a yelp and fell back into the safety of Sumire’s phone, clutching at her head.

“Futaba? What happened?” Sumire turned the phone to see the screen again, looking worried.

“I think I’m stuck in here.” Futaba said apologetically. “Your phone’s code is… fucked. I’m sorry, I have no polite way to say it.”

“Wait, you’re stuck in my phone because it’s broken?” Sumire asked, voice higher than normal.

“I think so.” Futaba nodded. “I gotta ask, what does this look like? Like, am I full Vtuber, or am I a little png that lights up when I talk?”

“I… don’t know what either of those mean.” Sumire laughed, though she could hear the panicked edge. “You look like Oracle, and you’re just kind of… there? Like, I might have to ask you to move out of the way sometimes.”

“Ah, cool. Also, everyone is on the way to Lablanc now.”

“Wait, you see my texts?” Sumire asked nervously.

“Uhhh, yeah. I’m really doing my best to not look through any of your data, but I figured the group chat was okay?” Futaba explained.

“...yes, the group chat is fine. And thank you.”

“Yeah, I figure this is gonna be awkward anyway. So anything I can do to make it better.” Futaba shrugged, pushing back from the screen a bit.

“What is this like for you?” Sumire asked.

“Not that different from my persona, honestly. Probably why I’m not freaking out too much.” Futaba answered honestly.

“I’m glad.” Sumire seemed relieved. “But, I need to get ready if we’re headed to Lablanc. Are you okay if I leave you here for a minute?”

Futaba gave a thumbs up, and went back to the group chat. It was the one bit of data on the phone she felt comfortable giving her attention to.

>Ren: I’m sorry in advance for my room

>Ann: That’s concerning

>Haru: Did something happen?

>Ryuji: Trust me when I say, it’s gonna be so much easier just to show

Well that didn’t sound good. Ren liked to pretend he was all mysterious, but when pushed, he usually broke and let the rest of them in on whatever it was. And the fact that Ryuji was willingly keeping quiet as well made it even weirder. She started leaning towards the data stream unconsciously, giving it her full attention.

>Makoto: I may have an idea. And he is correct.

Oh no. Was something happening to them, too?

>Haru: “Too?” Are you okay, Sumire?

That was weird.

>Ann: What was weird?

Wait. Wait, wait, wait. No, she had to back off now. This was only going to lead to disaster. She managed to separate out her consciousness from the group chat, cringing when she saw the last text was from Sumire’s phone, and just consisted of “wait”.

>Sumire: Sorry, I think my phone is acting up again! Nothing is wrong with me, but something is happening to Futaba. We’re headed over now.

“Sorry. I didn’t know I could do that.” Futaba apologized as she registered Sumire looking down at the screen and gnawing at her lip.

“It’s fine.” Sumire assured her before carrying her out of the house and towards Lablanc. Futaba appreciated that she wasn’t shoved into a pocket, but all she could see was the sky above as Sumire carried the phone in her hand, so it wasn’t much better.

The two entered Lablanc, Sumire tilted the screen towards herself as she pushed the door open so Futaba couldn’t see inside, but something told her that Ann and Yusuke’s phones were downstairs, and Ren and Ryuji's were upstairs.

“Sumire, hey. Where’s Futaba?” Ann asked, and Futaba felt herself being twisted around again. “...huh?”

“Hey.” Futaba greeted, trying to sound casual.

“Are you so unwell that you are still at home?” Yusuke asked, brows pulled down in confusion.

“Uhhh, not really.” Futaba sighed. “I’m here.”

“Here?” Ann asked, moving forward to squint at the screen.

“Like, in the phone.” She explained, fingers pressed into each other to give her something to focus on. She was just glad that she could still feel the sensation.

“In the…”

“Hey, okay, we’re good!” Ryuji called out suddenly, causing them all to jump and see him leaning down the stairs.

“I’m suddenly terrified for whatever is up there.” Ann muttered, eyes flicking between the phone and Ryuji.

The four of them tentatively made their way upstairs, thankfully with the phone screen pointing out this time. Futaba didn’t want to have to constantly remind Sumire, but she had already taken a quick look at the camera on this phone, and the shattered lens almost immediately made her sick to look through. When this was over, Futaba was going to repair literally every part of the dang thing, how did Sumire deal with this?

Any other thoughts she may have had were halted upon seeing Ren’s room. It looked like every piece of bedding in the entire building had been pulled into the center of the room to form some sort of nest. And considering all the thieves had a tendency to gift Ren pillows and blankets to cozy up the attic, it was a lot.

And sitting in the middle of his new nest, was Ren. Ren, with two large black feathered wings stretched out behind him. He rose his hand in a sheepish wave upon seeing all of them, revealing that he also seemed to have feathers covering his arms from elbow to fingertips.

“Fascinating!” Yusuke was already halfway across the room, eyes flicking over Ren.

“Leave it to Inari to not freak out that our leader is now half-bird.” Futaba teased, getting Ren’s attention onto the phone screen. Something weird flashed across his expression for a moment, but it was replaced with obvious confusion quickly.

“You’re in that phone, aren’t you?” He guessed.

“Yep. And you look like you're cosplaying Howl.”

“I’m taking that as a compliment.” He grinned, motioning the three still near the stairs to come in. “Sorry, I made this before I knew what was really happening last night.”

“I was worried he was sleepwalking for a second.” Ryuji sighed, flopping down into the nest, too. The couch was stripped of it’s cushions, so it really was the only place to sit other than the floor. “Went full zombie for a second.”

“Pulled my blanket right out from beneath me…” Morgana emerged from a pile in the corner.

“Makoto and Haru are here.” Futaba announced, the text popping up in the group chat. “If you want to wait a moment so we all only have to explain once.”

He nodded, a moment later they heard heavy footsteps coming up the stairs.

“I’m sorry.” Makoto’s voice filtered up the stairs.

“It’s fine, I promise.” Haru’s voice followed.

“That’s not a good sign…” Ryuji was now sitting up, looking at the stairs with concern.

A few moments later, they all gasped at seeing Makoto, and the two girls’ eyes went wide at seeing Ren. Makoto’s left arm was in a sling, and what they could see of her hand was wrapped up in bandages. Haru seemed to be supporting her as she limped up the stairs, leading Futaba to believe it wasn’t just her arm that was messed up. She also was wearing a facemask for some reason, covering the entire lower half of her face as well.

“What happened?” Sumire asked, Makoto finally tearing her eyes away from Ren to look at Sumire, but her eyes widened again at seeing Futaba.

“Yes, I’m in a phone, whatever.” Futaba stopped anything Makoto may have said. “Why does it look like you got hit by a bus?”

“Oh, right.” Makoto slowly raised her hand to remove the mask, and they all gasped again. Silver painted the skin of her left cheek, extending down to her neck as well. “We all seem to be having rather bizarre mornings.”

“Well, the nest is big enough for everyone.” Ren joked, motioning for them all to join him. “Let’s try to figure this out, yeah?”

The others all joined, and Futaba had to admit there was something cozy about the setup. She just wished she could actually be there in person.

Haru helped support Makoto as she limped over to the nest, steadying her as she lowered herself down as well. Once sat, Makoto removed the sling and bandages, exposing more of that same silver coloration painting her arm and most of her hand. Futaba noticed she wasn’t bending her left leg too much, and she had a bad feeling about what that meant.

“It’s metal, isn’t it?” Futaba asked, as a thought crossed her mind.

“It seems like it, yes.” Makoto confirmed, rubbing at her shoulder. “It’s certainly heavy.”

“And you had Arsène with you yesterday, didn’t you Ren?”

“Yeah. I always feel better with either him or Raoul in rotation.”

“Guys, is there any way our personas are… bleeding over into this world?” Futaba took a shot.

“Okay, but your persona is a spaceship or whatever.” Ryuji scratched at his head, pulling a feather out of his hair and sighing as he tossed it away.

“My persona is basically one giant database, it just needs some sort of physical form for me to pilot. It doesn’t shock me that the closest real world comparison would just be data.” Futaba shrugged.

“I think she’s right.” Makoto agreed. “And since it’s the three of us, I have to imagine it has something to do with that console.”

“Morgana, have you ever heard of anything like this?” Ren asked, pulling Morgana away from where he was swatting at a feather.

“O-oh, no. Sorry.” He shook his head, padding towards the middle of all of them. “Your personas shouldn’t work in this world, I don’t know how they would even bleed over.”

“But what if the lines between are blurred?” Ren asked, his wings twitching behind him giving added effect. “Lavenza did say that was how Maruki was managing to influence this reality so much.”

“You’re right!” Morgana realized with a start. “I guess this would be the only time something like this could happen.”

“Can you contact Lavenza again? Maybe she knows something.” Haru asked.

“I don’t have her number or anything, but I can head to the Velvet Room to ask, sure.”

“Wait, you can just go there whenever you want?” Ryuji asked.

“I’ve told you all that before.” Ren chuckled. “Do you think I just stand and stare at the wall in Mementos? Or at Palace entrances?”

“I just thought you did all the persona stuff in your head.” Ann admitted.

“Yes, you do appear to be in some sort of trance each time. I assumed it was meditative.” Yusuke agreed.

“So you can ask her?” Makoto tried to get them back on track.

“Yeah, but the closest door is outside Untouchable. I’m gonna need some help covering all this up.”

XXXXX

Two hours later Ren, Ryuji, and Morgana came back, none looking happy. Ren shed the long coat he had on, along with the other layers they had used to hide his wings, quickly. They immediately began stretching and flapping, Ren letting out a sigh of relief as he did so.

“I don’t think I can do that again.” He admitted, going right back to his nest and going face down.

“Sorry, man.” Ryuji sighed.

“Did you find anything out?” Sumire asked timidly, clearly not expecting great news. Futaba pulled herself away from the browser she had opened on Sumire’s phone, having gotten the thumbs up to use the phone to watch some videos in the background to pass the time. She had gotten Sumire to put her on a stand on the desk, so she could at least see the whole room now without anyone having to hold the phone up.

“Good or bad news?” Ren asked, pushing himself up to sit and face them.

“Bad.” Makoto practically demanded.

“It’s going to get worse.” He admitted, flexing his fingers. Futaba saw little claws extend as he did so, and she was pretty sure those weren’t there earlier.

“And the good news?” Haru asked.

“After that, it’s going to get better.” He assured her. “Apparently, whatever that machine did to us caused our personas to get… stuck. Lavenza was certain that our personas would manage to free themselves again, but in doing so, more of the persona will manifest in us.”

“Would trying to summon them in the Metaverse perhaps speed up the process?” Yusuke asked.

“I did ask her, yeah. She said summoning would be impossible while we’re like this. Which also means we have to put Mementos exploration on pause.”

“Do we have enough time for that?” Makoto leaned forward, concerned. They all knew there was a deadline fast approaching.

“She said it would only be two more days at most. We may have to push a little harder the next time we go to Mementos, but we’ll manage. We always do.” His smirk was full of confidence, and Futaba hoped it wasn’t just an act.

“And Akechi is all good with that?” Futaba had to ask.

“Yes, he certainly had been absent from the group chat.” Haru pointed out.

“He’s being stubborn and trying to pretend he isn’t a team player. At least for this mission.” Ren added quickly. “I called him to give him an update. Apparently he got a lead on some more cognitive psience research, so he seemed okay with a few days to pursue that.”

“Then I think we can call this meeting adjourned.” Morgana announced.

“You don’t think we should stick together?” Ann asked.

“It’s going to be fine. There’s not much to do but wait it out at this point.” Ren assured her, giving her shoulder a squeeze. “We’ll check back in tomorrow, and see how everyone feels, okay?”

“Yeah, okay.” She seemed hesitant, but still got up to join the others.

“I’ll need one moment to re-cover my arm.” Makoto let him know, and between all of them they helped Makoto get covered and back down the stairs. Though really, that part was all Haru. No one wanted to believe Futaba when she said Noir had some of the highest strength on the team.

Soon enough Sumire was carrying Futaba back to her house, but stopped outside the gate.

“What’s up?”

“Do you actually mind if we stop by my house first?” Sumire asked, looking down at the screen. “I’d like to grab some clothes.”

“Oh, right, I guess I’m kinda stuck in your phone until this wears off. If you want to just go back to your place and stay there, that’s fine.” Futaba told her.

“No, I think it’s better we stay here. I don’t really want to try to explain this to my dad.” Sumire sighed.

Any apology Futaba may have had was interrupted by the world shaking all around her. She let out a small yelp before spinning rapidly around to see what the hell could be happening. It felt like the shaking was literally rattling her brain in her head, and she just needed it to stop.

“Dad, h-hi!”

The shaking thankfully stopped, only to be replaced with Sumire’s voice much closer and louder than it had been all day.

“No, that’s fine.”

Futaba realized the other girl was taking a phone call. She could feel where the other voice was coming from in all the mess of data on the phone, but she mustered all her willpower to not eavesdrop. It was an accomplishment she was proud of, the Futaba from before the Phantom Thieves would have listened in with zero hesitation. Now all she could think was how rude that would have been to her friend. Even if part of her still really wanted to.

“Okay, I’ll see you when you get back.”

There was another pause, and even without listening, Futaba realized she could feel the slight rumble of the phone as the audio came through.

“I’ll be fine, Dad.”

A long pause this time, the rumbling coming in quick bursts with odd pauses in between.

“...I love you, too.”

Sumire lowered the phone with a sigh, eyes on the screen but not really focused as far as Futaba could tell.

“What’s up?” She finally broke and asked the other girl.

“My father is going to have to work overnight for a few nights. He was… worried about leaving me alone.” Sumire admitted.

“Oh. Oh, I’m, umm, sorry?” Futaba stuttered out. How was she supposed to react to that?

“It’s fine.” Sumire shook her head. “I can’t even blame him, he doesn’t even remember the accident, he’s just… protective in this reality. But are you okay? You kinda… blurred for a moment?”

“When he called?” Futaba asked, running with the redirection, and got a nod in response. “It shook the phone. Like inside. Just kinda freaked me out for a second.”

“Oh! Let me turn the ringer to silent, then.” Sumire tapped the screen a few times, though she was gentle enough that it didn’t shake the inside of Futaba’s brain again.

“Maybe we can also grab some headphones? So it doesn’t seem like you’re just walking around with a call on speaker.” Futaba added as Sumire turned down the alley.

“Good idea.” Sumire nodded. “And definitely my… charger…”

“Nah, I have like a million, don’t worry.” Futaba brushed off, not fully realizing they had stopped. But after a few seconds of silence she focused back on Sumire looking confused at the phone. “Something wrong?”

“The battery is fully charged.”

“Okay? Was that not a charging station I was on earlier?” Futaba asked, assuming that’s what they dug out to put the phone on earlier.

“No, Ren doesn’t have one. Just a normal stand.” Sumire shook her head.

“Oh. Huh.” Futaba realized she hadn’t been paying too much attention to the specifics of the phone, too worried about accidentally breaching Sumire’s privacy. But now that she took a moment to think about it, it was almost like she could feel the power levels of the phone. And the fact that they were pulling from her. “I think I’m doing that.”

“What do you mean?” Sumire asked, starting to move again.

“I’m feeding your phone’s battery. Not sure how I didn’t notice that one before.” Futaba said, now over-aware of that energy feed.

“Is that bad?” Sumire asked, though Futaba noticed that they were approaching the platform.

“Not sure. I’ll poke around, see if anything raises a red flag. Check back in once you grabbed your stuff, yeah?” She was feeling her focus turn towards the phone, interest piqued.

Anything else that Sumire may have said faded into the background as Futaba focused on the task at hand. She was still avoiding any personal data if she could, not that the call and text data had anything to do with the phone specs anyway, but otherwise she let herself fully integrate with the phone for the first time.

It was easier than she would have thought, though it felt less like her persona now that she wasn’t keeping herself separated. But it still felt comfortable in a similar way, so she wasn’t too worried about it.

She lost herself to the task, not sure how much time had passed before she felt something change in the data, and she noticed audio was coming in. Part of that audio seemed to be her name, but she just let out a hum and continued focusing.

“-taba, are you there?”

Something about the audio was pulling her away from the information all around her. Why did it sound so distressed? She let out another hum, and pulled back from her hyperfocusing. It took longer than she would like to admit to realize it was Sumire calling her name.

“Hey, sorry.” She apologized and turned her focus back to the screen.

“You’re still there?” Sumire asked, and Futaba blinked a few times when the image refused to come into focus.

“Yeah, I’m here. Just got a little too focused.” Futaba shook her head when the image remained fuzzy.

“Okay,” a relieved sigh came through the headphone microphone Futaba realized was now connected, “okay. Are you hiding somewhere? Because I can’t see you right now.”

“Huh?” Futaba shook her head more aggressively and suddenly realized that she hadn’t actually separated herself from the phone’s data. “Oh. One second.”

She wasn’t really sure what the rules were in the phone, so she just tried to focus on what “her data” was, and separating that out from the rest. It took a few moments to accomplish that, but eventually she managed, and turned her focus to giving herself a physical form again.

“Oh thank goodness.” Sumire muttered once she was finished, and Futaba suddenly realized that the image had been so fuzzy before because she had been looking out of the front camera on the phone. Now, in whatever state she was in, she was allowed to just look through the screen for whatever reason.

“I’m… not sure I should do that again.” Futaba admitted.

“Did something happen?” Sumire asked, moving to sit down at a desk. Futaba realized that they were in an unfamiliar bedroom, probably Sumire’s.

“I think it’s more the fact that something could have happened. I think I was just kind of,” Futaba waved her hands around, trying to figure out how to explain when she wasn’t even super sure herself, “becoming part of the phone?”

“What?” Sumire yelped, looking extremely worried.

“It’s fine!” Futaba rushed to reassure her. “I just won’t do a deep dive again. As long as I keep my data and the phone’s separated, we’re all good!”

She really hoped that she sounded sure. Because even though this should have been her expertise, she was lost. Futaba had spent years learning what she needed to in order to look into her mother’s death and her missing research. But that did not include knowledge on people fusing with their persona, becoming sentient data, and getting stuck in a broken phone. Nothing could have prepared her for this.

“If you’re sure.” Sumire still sounded hesitant.

“Definitely!” It was the hardest Futaba ever had to work at reassuring someone, that was usually Ren’s job after all, and she really hoped it was working. Because if Sumire started panicking, Futaba would join in, she knew that. She was really trying to channel all her Oracle Confidence at the moment, praying it would be enough.

“Okay. Okay, I trust you.” Sumire nodded firmly, and Futaba shot her a thumbs up, not trusting her own voice at the moment. “I have everything I need, we can head back now.”

“So this is your room?” Futaba asked, mostly as a way to change the topic.

“Oh! Yes.” Sumire flushed for some reason, but from what Futaba could see, the room was perfectly clean. Even her bed was made. There were a few photos scattered around, mostly of Sumire and her dad, and a few that looked like they were from gymnastics competitions.

“It’s nice.” She said, not really knowing what else to say.

Sumire bit her lip and looked off to the side, seemingly thinking about something. She took a deep breath before looking back to the phone with a sad smile. “It’s pretty much a copy of Kasumi’s room. Or, it would be, if she had a room here. She always made all the decisions for us, and I would just go along with whatever she wanted.”

“You, uhhh, you said something like that earlier, too. That your dad ‘didn’t remember the accident’. Sumi,” Futaba forced herself to continue trying not to panic over the spontaneous nickname, “does your sister not exist in this reality?”

She just shook her head sadly, either not noticing or not caring. “I’m an only child, according to him.”

“What? Why?” Futaba sputtered. How was that a ‘perfect reality’? To just forget about your own kid?

“I guess so that my dad didn’t have to remember the pain of losing her?” Sumire let out a dry laugh. “And because I think Maruki is letting me know that I still have a choice.”

“Huh?”

“The pictures around the house, some of them aren’t me.” Sumire admitted, moving so Futaba could better see the ones hanging above her desk. That’s when she noticed the girl on the podium in the center picture had brown hair, and her features were just different enough from Sumire to let her know who it was. “I think he wants me to know that I could go back, if I really wanted to. It must just be easier to erase one of us than to have to constantly rewrite reality.”

“That’s bullshit!” Futaba snapped, her anger at the whole situation finally boiling over. “How can he sit there in his stupid palace and think that he’s helping anyone?”

“He’s coming from a good place-”

“No! No, don’t try to defend him!” Futaba felt frustrated tears forming, but as much as she hated when that happened, she pushed on. “You’re in pain! I’m in pain. All the Thieves are suffering right now. Why? Because we don’t want him fucking with our brains? We all suffered, we all fought and cried and bled to fix our shitty lives. And now he’s going to come in and just rewrite it all?” Futaba would be pacing if she could, but she had to settle for floating back and forth across the screen. “Would it be less painful to just forget? Of course! But then what the hell did we go through all that shit for? He’s not allowed to just take that away! That’s not fair!”

Futaba felt herself shaking from her outburst, embarrassed but not regretting what she said. It needed to be said, she thought. Except, when she saw tears building in Sumire’s eyes, she thought that she may have gone too far.

“Thank you.” Sumire sniffled, a watery smile slowly forming on her face. “I don’t regret fighting, I know it’s what’s right for me. But part of me is just so worried that I’m being selfish by making my dad remember her. So it’s just so nice to hear someone else is as frustrated as I am with this whole thing.

“Because I don’t want to forget Kasumi. I don’t want to forget how much I hated her hovering, even if it was coming from a good place. I don’t want to forget how mad I was at seeing her outshine me at every turn. And I don’t want to forget how much I loved her, even if she drove me insane. She was my sister, and my best friend. And I refuse to let her go away, ever again.”

“Yeah.” Futaba wiped at her eyes, trying not to get lost in the determined expression on Sumire’s face, and laughed sadly. “I know that if everyone knew what we were planning, there would be plenty of people who would see us as the bad guys. Hell, I would have been one of them before all this Phantom Thieves stuff. And that really isn’t fair. It isn’t fair that nine kids and a cat are about to decide the fate of reality.”

“I guess it’s too much to expect life to be fair.” Sumire sighed, though her smile seemed a little more relaxed now.

“Yeah. And sorry for the yelling, not sure where that came from.” Futaba laughed awkwardly, rubbing at the back of her neck. “That sounded more like a mix of Ren and Ryuji. Kinda out of character for me.”

“I don’t think so. You’re braver than you give yourself credit for, Futaba.” Sumire stated, and Futaba felt her brain go fuzzy. “Futaba?!”

“Huh?” Futaba blushed.

“You went blurry again for a second. Are you sure you’re okay?” Sumire was leaning closer, which was very disorienting when Futaba was this shrunk down.

“Yep, totally fine! Think I just sneezed or something!” She forced out a laugh, internally cringing at how fake it sounded.

“If you’re sure…”

“Totally sure!” Futaba insisted, the proximity making her brain fuzz slightly. It was taking everything she had to focus on not letting it show. That was not a great sign. That meant it was taking conscious thought to keep this form. She guessed this was what Lavenza meant by “it was going to get worse”, and she just hoped it wasn’t this bad for the others.

“...okay.” Sumire didn’t sound convinced, but she seemed to be letting it go for now. “I think I have everything I need, we can head back to your house now.”

“Great!” Futaba winced at how high her voice was. Wow, she needed to get a hold of herself. “Was thinking maybe this was the time to start Featherman?” She offered, both as an out, and hoping that Sumire wasn’t just being polite earlier.

“That sounds great.” Sumire smiled, standing up and carrying her out of the room. “I could use a relaxing day after everything that’s been going on lately.”

“You can say that again.” Futaba muttered.

“You’ll have to let me know which series we should start with.” Sumire told her. “I think I stopped on whichever season ended with Feather Crane being introduced.”

“Wow, you’ve seen more than I was expecting, that’s after they changed Owl to Crane.” Futaba fought the urge to flap her hands in excitement. “And you left off right before one of my favorite seasons. This is going to be great! Some people were mad that they made such a drastic change, but Crane is great, so I don’t know what their problem is.”

“That’s good to hear! I do remember being interested in where that story was going. Growing up, Featherman was probably the only thing that was my choice, not Kasumi’s.” Sumire still flinched a little every time she said her sister’s name, but she seemed to be trying to talk about her more. Futaba couldn’t help but think that was progress. Sumire kept going with an awkward laugh. “I made her watch it until we ended up with gymnastics practice at the same time that it aired. I may have cried the night I realized that I couldn’t keep up with it anymore.”

“Hey, no shame.” Futaba assured her, thinking her own reaction probably would have been the same. “I only stopped after I lost my mom, and that’s cause I stopped doing pretty much anything. And hey, now you have a ton of content to catch up on!” She added in a rush, not wanting any pity from that statement. It was just a fact, and she was glad when Sumire also seemed to realize that.

“True, the one good part of falling behind.” Sumire laughed, the tension from before finally seeming to be gone.

The two talked about the seasons Sumire had seen, Futaba filling her in on any of the important plot points that she may have forgotten about over time. It was really nice to be able to talk about her interests like this without being judged. She knew Ren would sit there and listen to her as long as she spoke, but she also knew that he wasn’t that into the series overall, so she always felt bad. So to have someone who was clearly interested, so much so that she had to reign herself in several times on the subway when she almost swatted someone with her hand as she gestured, was a really good feeling.

Eventually the two did make it back to Futaba’s house, and Sojiro stopped them as they started to make their way up the stairs.

“Ren gave me an update.” He sighed, looking at the phone. “Just let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

“Will do.” Futaba assured him. “He told you it’ll wear off soon, right?”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to worry in the meantime.” He told her.

“Right…” Futaba muttered, embarrassed but happy at that declaration. “We’ll, uhh, we’ll let you know if anything changes.”

They went to her room after that, Futaba letting out a yawn and stretching a bit out of instinct, feeling tired all of the sudden.

“Futaba?”

“I forgot to detach myself from the battery…” Futaba realized, their earlier conversation distracting her. “I can pull energy back from it, I did figure that out earlier. But you’ll need to plug the phone in while I do that. Still don’t know what happens if either of us runs out of juice.”

“That’s not good.” Sumire worried as she went to plug the phone into the charger near the bed. It was a good thing both of their phones used the same cords. “I think I should just leave the phone plugged in until this is over, then.”

“Probably for the best, yeah.” Futaba agreed, letting herself relax slightly as the buzz of energy from the charger rushed through her. “Do you want to get changed? You can also grab a shower, if you want, since you’re staying until this is over. I can chill for a little bit if I need to.”

“Is it really okay to leave you alone?” Sumire worried at her bottom lip again. “Especially after earlier?”

“Yeah, as long as you’re cool with me watching something on the phone again.” Futaba assured her, hoping a second alone would help her ground herself a bit. She normally wasn’t around other people for this long, it was kind of exhausting.

“Okay, I won’t be long.” Sumire assured her, leaning out of view suddenly, but Futaba could hear the sound of her rummaging through her bag. She left a moment later, after checking in with Futaba one last time, but eventually she managed to convince the other girl that it really was fine.

True to her word, she was back in the room after only about 15 minutes, wet hair hanging loose, and wearing what appeared to be Halloween pajama pants and a bright pink t-shirt. It was kind of a lot. And Futaba found it really cute. If she didn’t think she was hopeless before…

“Alright, Featherman time.” Futaba immediately pivoted, needing the distraction.

“Yeah!” Sumire cheered, moving to the bed and grabbing the laptop.

Futaba instructed her on logging in and finding the right folder, and soon enough the main theme was playing through the speakers. Sumire then moved so that she was sitting next to the table Futaba was set up on to try to get it set up so that they could both see. Which ended up being a bit of a lost cause. No matter how many adjustments Sumire made, it always ended up with one of them having an awkward angle on the screen.

“I have an idea, but tell me if it makes you uncomfortable.” Sumire said, and Futaba was both terrified and very curious. Especially when she saw how red Sumire was. “I can rest the phone on my chest.”

“...oh.”

“It was dumb, I am so sorry-”

“It’s fine.” Futaba had no idea what she was doing. But maybe she wasn’t the only one with… feelings? “That could work.”

“R-right.”

Futaba watched as the phone was lifted, and then there was a bit of awkward shuffling around to make sure the charger stayed attached. The one blessing was that neither could see the other with how they were now arranged.

The embarrassment of the situation was lost pretty quickly for Futaba at least. She couldn’t see Sumire at her current angle, and it wasn’t like she could feel anything trapped inside the phone. Really, the biggest things to get used to were the soft background noise of Sumire breathing, which was honestly drowned out by the show pretty quickly, and the gentle movement of the phone along with the movements of her breathing.

It took all of one episode before Futaba couldn’t hold back her commentary anymore. It was after the third tangent she had gone off on that she forced herself to stop and apologize.

“Just tell me if you want me to be quiet.” Futaba muttered a little embarrassed. She just hoped she would actually be able to shut up if that’s what Sumire asked. “Hard to tell when people want me to, sometimes. Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.” Sumire sounded a little confused. “I really don’t mind.”

“Sumire…”

“I promise.” She assured her as battle music kicked in on screen. Futaba really hoped she wasn’t just trying to be polite about it, but continued on now that she had permission.

The episode ended, and Sumire spoke up suddenly. “Why do you think you’re so bad with people?”

“Huh?”

“You’ve said it more than once. But I’ve never noticed anything when you’ve talked to me.” Sumire mused.

“I guess I just… don’t get them.” Futaba forced herself to explain, it only felt fair at this point. “Like, people don’t make sense most of the time.”

Sumire paused the next episode as the intro theme began to play, so Futaba kept explaining.

“People love to say things like ‘think about how they feel’ or ‘put yourself in their shoes’, but that just never meant anything to me? Like, how was I supposed to understand how someone else felt? I barely understand how I feel half the time.”

Futaba found herself on a roll, and kept going before she could think about stopping. It probably helped that the phone was facing away from Sumire so she didn’t have to see her reaction.

“And- and, I feel like there’s all these rules and expectations that people have, but no one ever explains them!” She threw her hands up in frustration. “How am I supposed to know how to act or what to say when I can’t just read the manual?”

“I never really thought about it.” Sumire murmured, sounding sad.

“That’s fine, most people don’t.” Futaba reassured her. “It’s when people get mad at me for not understanding. Or for assuming I was going to read between the lines. Cause I just don’t get it sometimes.”

“I would never blame you for that!”

“And that’s why you don’t suck.” Futaba laughed so Sumire knew she wasn’t too down about the whole thing. Just because she was practically diagnosing herself didn’t mean she wanted pity. It was just nice for people to understand. Especially people she cared about.

“I appreciate that.” Sumire was laughing, too, and moved to restart the episode. “But you can always tell me if something doesn’t make sense. I don’t think I’m an expert or anything, but maybe I can help?”

“Thanks.” Futaba blushed, and made herself focus on the show just to be safe.

X XXXX

They were making good progress through the season when Sojiro knocked on the door.

“S- Boss, hello.” Sumire greeted, and Futaba chuckled at the quick correction.

“Hey. Wanted to check in to see if you wanted some dinner?” Sojiro asked.

“That would be wonderful, thank you!”

“Great, I’ll bring some curry up.”

“Awwww, no fair, I want curry.” Futaba groaned, not being able to eat or drink all day was annoying.

“Tell the freeloader to make you some when you’re all better.” Sojiro rolled his eyes, but laughed.

“Ohhhh? Freeloader? What did he do?” Futaba practically demanded. The group chat had been pretty much dead all day, with the only exception being a video of Morgana hunting the scattered feathers in Ren’s room.

“He stole all my damn silverware. I went to serve a customer and couldn’t find a single spoon.” He grumbled. “Can’t go back to normal soon enough.”

Futaba let out a laugh and immediately went to call him out in the chat.

>Sumire: F: The silverware, Ren? Really?

“I’m sure he’ll return them as soon as this is all over.” Sumire offered.

“Yeah, well, I’m using plastic in the meantime so that magpie stops stealing them.” Sojiro huffed and left.

“I thought he was supposed to be more of a raven.” Sumire murmured, and Futaba couldn’t help but laugh.

>Ren: I have a right to remain silent.

>Ryuji: And I have a right to not stab my ass every time I sit in the nest

>Ryuji: Please put them somewhere else

XXXXX

Their marathon continued after that, Futaba giving Sumire the go ahead to just eat her dinner in the bed so that they didn’t have to take a break. And while Futaba still liked her alone time, there was something nice about getting to watch her favorite show with someone. As time went on, Sumire had started making little remarks and jokes of her own, and that helped to keep Futaba comfortable to keep talking herself.

Futaba felt herself relaxing more and more as time went on, allowing herself one day off from all the Phantom Thief drama. Or as much as she could have a day off when she was stuck in a phone because of said drama.

It was only in one of her favorite episodes, the one where Toucan and Crane get separated and have to work together to make it back to the rest of their team, when Futaba realized something was wrong. It was just after a fight, when the two girls hugged, that Futaba would normally start flapping. She was a chronically online, gay teenager, and she liked her ships, sue her.

Except she realized that she didn’t have any hands to do so. Well fuck.

She focused on her own data, like she had earlier, but realized she was having trouble determining where she ended and where the phone began. Well fuck.

“H-hey, Sumi?” Futaba fought to keep her voice calm. If Sumire started panicking, then Futaba knew that she would as well.

“Yeah, what’s up?”

“Can you talk to me for a little bit?” Futaba pleaded, needing something to focus on other than the current situation.

“Talk?” The phone started to move, and Futaba realized she was looking through the front camera again.

“Don’t!” Futaba pleaded.

“...Taba?” Sumire sounded terrified.

“It’s okay. I promise.” Futaba could tell how desperate she sounded. “It’s just… I’ve seen these episodes so many times. So even though they’re my favorites, it’s not going to totally hold all my attention, you know? Please?” Futaba hoped she sounded convincing.

Luckily Sumire started talking pretty quickly after her plea.

“I loved gymnastics at first. When it was just a bunch of kids running in circles and jumping off of the equipment. Even back then I was way more interested in the ribbons near the floor area, I would just pick them up and run around the whole time. I loved seeing what shapes I could make in the air.

“Then it became an actual competitive sport, and I started hating it. Not gymnastics itself, I guess, but more of how everyone praised Kasumi endlessly. Back then I thought routines had to be perfect to score well, so I just assumed she was better than me.

“I think that really held me back from finding my own style. Ren’s been helping, which is great, but it’s still really hard to just forget about all that. Especially when I had it repressed for so long.

“Don’t get me wrong, I want to improve, and to reach the top. Both for myself, and for Kasumi. She’ll always be with me, and I don’t ever want to lose that. I guess I’m just getting used to being okay with the good and the bad every time I think about competing.”

“That sounds so complicated.”

“It really is…”

There was a pause, and Futaba almost had to ask her to keep talking when it became too long.

“Do you want to hear about the Featherman fanfiction I wrote when I was a kid?” Sumire asked so rushed that Futaba thought she misheard for a second.

“Fanfiction?”

“Sorry! I just don’t know what else to talk about, and I'm sick of bringing down the mood. I figured this was… safe?” Her voice was a little high pitched, probably from nerves.

“Literally nothing would make me happier in this moment.”

She heard a sharp laugh followed by an awkward mix of a hiccup and a snort, and she couldn’t help but think that was somehow endearing.

“I always found it a little annoying how Feather Hawk was always the main focus in the earliest seasons. Don’t get me wrong, I like his character a lot! But even back then, I remember other kids only focusing on him, or him and Owl. And I always got a little sad, because the whole cast were all great in their own ways.” Sumire explained.

“Yeah, I get that.” Futaba hummed, knowing how online fandoms loved their “Protag/Best Friend” ships. Almost as much as their rivalry ships.

“So I had the idea to separate the team, and focus a little on each of them as they had to make it through wherever they were trapped. I’ll be honest, I didn’t have a ton of the specifics flushed out back then.”

“No, it’s great!” Futaba insisted, immediately seeing the potential. “Did you have any ideas for the tests or whatever the rangers had to go through?”

“I did, yeah.” Sumire admitted. “Swan had to fight an opponent who was smarter than her. And who had more time to prepare.”

“Ooooo, put the clever one at a disadvantage and see what happens?”

“Exactly! I always wished they had focused on the fact some of her best moves were all spontaneous. She was so smart, but she really shone when she let her emotions drive her.

“For Argus, I wanted people to have to depend on her. She always seemed really strong to me, but she got reduced to the token female side character most of the time. Those were the two sections I had really started to plan out, I was struggling with the others.”

“Well, I have a laptop and a ton of thoughts and opinions on the classic seasons.” Futaba could feel her data jittering around in excitement. “If you wanted to maybe come up with the rest?”

“You want to help me write fanfiction? Now?” Sumire let out a surprised laugh, but Futaba watched her open up a blank page through the blurred camera.

“Why not? It’ll keep both of us talking.” Futaba reasoned.

“Fair enough.”

The two spent the next several hours making notes and coming up with ideas for each ranger, bouncing ideas off of each other as Sumire typed. As an added bonus, the constant clacking of keys was a great background noise to focus on when a sudden idea caused a lapse in conversation. Eventually they started coming up with more and more ridiculous plots, laughter ringing through the room.

A knock came at some point, Sojiro poking his head in after a moment to tell them that he was off to bed. Probably also a hint to maybe keep it down a bit. Futaba appreciated when he did that, she definitely had kept him awake more than once before she was told how much noise carried in the house.

“Maybe-” Sumire took a deep breath, “maybe we save the crazy plots for next time, yeah?” Her voice was still full of laughter, and Futaba adored how that sounded. The thought made her embarrassed, but it wasn’t like data could blush at least.

“Yeah.” Futaba agreed, jittering starting up again at the thought of “next time”. “Where were we?”

They continued on, actual ideas and plot points being discussed again, though a few of their wild ideas could be toned down a bit to actually work. Good progress was made, and before they knew it, a full outline had been finished on the laptop.

Futaba felt… something, and after a moment she realized it was fatigue. Which was weird, since it wasn’t like she should be able to get tired like this. She double checked, and the battery was still plugged in and feeding her power. Maybe it was more of a mental thing, then, since she had been focused on keeping her sense of self all afternoon?

“Taba…” She blearily registered Sumire’s sleepy voice, followed quickly by a yawn. Doing a quick check on the phone, she realized it was well past midnight. It was no wonder Sumire was tired, she had also stayed up super late last night watching over Futaba. Not to mention all the stress of today.

Futaba felt her own conscious slipping away, and her last thought was that she really hoped she got to read Sumire’s story.

XXXXX

The first thing Futaba noticed was how warm she was. It felt like she was under a million blankets, and she made a little noise of protest and squirmed around a bit. That’s when she also realized that something was practically on fire against her hip.

She groaned and went to try to move whatever that was, but found that her arms seemed to be trapped to her sides. Her breath sped up out of panic as her eyes shot open, but the sight that greeted her helped calm her down a bit.

Sumire had cuddled into Futaba’s chest, and had wrapped her arms around her in a bear hug that was stopping any sort of movement. Between that and the blankets covering the two of them, no wonder she was practically on fire.

...wait.

“Sumire.” Futaba said, both to wake her up, and to confirm that this was real. The other girl just muttered in her sleep and pulled Futaba closer, bending her back in a very uncomfortable way. “Oww, oww, Sumire, that hurts.”

“Hmmm? Futaba?!” Sumire shot up, looking down at her with wide eyes

“I’m… I’m really here, right?” Futaba asked, sitting up as well.

“Yeah.” Sumire was grinning, and Futaba couldn’t help but mirror it. “You’re really here.”

Then Futaba was being tackled to the bed in a tight hug, the wind knocked out of her for a moment. But that was fine. That meant she had a body and lungs to be squeezed half to death by Sumire.

Sumire pulled back, releasing Futaba and looking at her with an expression she didn’t understand. Then a hand came up to rest on her face, and Futaba maybe had an idea. She watched as Sumire’s face approached her slowly, eyes flicking between her eyes and her lips as if to constantly ask if it was okay.

And when Futaba couldn’t take the anticipation anymore, she rushed forward. She was definitely a little too enthusiastic at first, but eventually the two managed to settle into a much more comfortable, gentler kiss.

They pulled back, and Futaba couldn’t help but chuckle at seeing the dazed expression on Sumire’s face.

“Wow. Wow, okay, I really… we really… wow.” Sumire stuttered out, letting out a breathy laugh.

“Yeah. We really.” Futaba agreed, not having any better way to describe it herself.

“I’m, umm, I’m really glad you’re okay.” Sumire smiled softly before her eyes widened a bit. “You are okay, right?”

“Yeah, I think so.” Futaba agreed before breaking into a sudden yawn.

“It’s still early. We can go back to sleep if you want.” Sumire offered.

“Probably for the best.” Futaba agreed before grabbing whatever was still burning against her hip. She pulled Sumire’s phone out from under her shirt, realizing the phone was still on and opened to the browser she had been watching videos in earlier. No wonder the battery was on fire.

“I’m fixing this thing.” Futaba declared, fighting against the lag to get all the apps closed. Eventually she succeeded and put the phone on the table.

“You don’t have to do that.” Sumire assured her, moving to lay down with her head on Futaba’s shoulder. When Futaba made a little noise in surprise, she started to pull back. “Sorry, too much?”

“No, that was a good noise.” Futaba admitted, blushing. It was probably better to just be honest, but that didn’t make it less embarrassing. “Just not used to all this.”

“Okay.” Sumire laid back down, resting an arm across her waist as well. “But promise me you’ll tell me if you’re uncomfortable.”

“Promise.”

“I just… it’s nice to have the constant reminder that you’re here.” Sumire admitted. “That you’re okay. That Maruki didn’t fuck something else up.”

“Did you just say ‘fuck’?”

“...no.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell Ryuji.” Futaba laughed, scooting so that she was more comfortable with Sumire nestled into her side.

“I’m just really glad you’re not in a phone anymore.”

“Would have been weird to date a phone?” Futaba joked, eyes getting heavier.

“Very.” Sumire let out a tired chuckle. “You want that, right?”

“To date a phone?” Futaba blearily asked.

“To date me.” Sumire corrected.

Futaba rested her own hand on the arm wrapped around her, and patted it in a tired act of reassurance. “Yes, I want to date you so bad.”

“Good. In case it wasn’t clear, I want to date you, too.”

“Awesome.” Futaba grinned, and let herself drift off to sleep with a tired grin still on her face.

XXXXX

“-did what?”

Futaba could hear Ryuji’s loud voice as she pulled Sumire up the stairs by the hand, anxious to see the others. Sumire waved quickly to Sojiro as they rushed past, and he shook his head with a quiet chuckle. He had come in to wake them up when it was getting late into the morning, and definitely found them cuddled together. Futaba had a feeling a “talk” was coming soon, but she would worry about that later.

“It was an accident!” Futaba reached the top of the stairs in time to see Makoto huffing, arms crossed and blushing as Ryuji laughed.

“Futaba!” Haru was the first to notice her, and the others quickly turned their attention to the two new arrivals.

“You’re okay!” Ann looked relieved, then noticed that Futaba was still clutching Sumire’s hand. She smirked and raised a single brow, but otherwise didn’t say anything.

“Yep, back to normal.” Futaba did drop Sumire’s hand then in order to spread her arms out and spin once as if to prove it. “How about the others?”

She could see that Makoto wasn’t all bandaged up today, and she seemed to not need any help to move around. Ren also seemed to be feather-free as far as she could see, and those all seemed like good signs.

“Yep, all normal here.” Ren gave her a thumbs up, and Makoto agreed.

“Good.” Futaba declared, moving to actually get to sit in the nest this time. “Now what’s going on? What was an accident?”

Makoto groaned, but moved to sit down with everyone else. “I may have put a hole in Haru’s floor.”

The room broke into laughter, a few immediately demanding more information, and Futaba couldn’t help but grin and lean into Sumire. There was still a big fight ahead, sure. But this is what they were fighting for. To mess up and get better and move forward with the people they cared about.

And there was no way they were going to lose.

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