Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He slowly opened his eyes, his head was throbbing, he didn’t know where he was, he couldn’t even remember what had happened to lead him here. What had happened, and where was he? Light hit his face every few seconds as he sat in the passenger seat of a car. Right, right, it was starting to come back, his plan had worked, he had outsmarted Akechi and had survived the interrogation. But who was he with?

He lifted his head away from the window, and tried to move his head, trying to look who was driving the car, but everything hurt. A groan escaped his lips, and he leaned his head back up against the window.

“You’re going to be okay.” A woman’ s voice said to him, her voice, interrupting the previous silence, ruptured through his throbbing head. “I’m taking you back to Leblanc.”

A horrid ball of ice settled into his stomach. He shook his head; despite the shooting pain it caused him. He at least remembered the next part of his plan, even if he couldn’t remember much else. “No, no…. Need to get to Mementos.” Yeah, that’s right, he was going to go to Mementos, get healed up, and then take the fight to…. Akechi and who else? He hated this. The drugs and beatings hadn’t been a part of his plan. How could he have planned for that?

The woman scoffed next to him. “You want to go there? Right now?” who was this woman? Her voice was stern but laced with concern. There was something familiar about her voice. He knew that he knew her name though. Why didn’t he remember it? “No, Leblanc will have your guardian, and when the time comes, your other friends.”

He shook his whole body at that. He had done all of this, gone through that palace with only Morgana and Akechi, for the sole purpose of keeping them safe. He had to protect them. Nothing else mattered, not himself, not his future, not his relationships, nothing. “No…. Mementos.” He tried again.

She let out a long, tired sigh. “Absolutely not. You’re barely able to stand now, how would I get you there?” There was a pause, and he took the opportunity to enjoy the lessened pain in his head from not having to think or hear anything. Then she started talking again and ruined his almost peace. “Leblanc. Then we can figure out what to do.”

He didn’t want Sojiro and Futaba to see him like this. He was a broken mess of a human, whose plan to save everyone amounted to sacrificing himself. And it barely worked. All of his lies and half truths he had told everyone over the last months were going to be for nothing. They would be better off without him in their lives.

And now this woman, whoever she was, why couldn’t he just remember a single fucking name? Was going to drag him back there, and then the other thieves would come running, and he would have to explain himself. And he, the leader of the Phantom Thieves, couldn’t even stop her, his body, hell his mind was rebelling against him. He just had to get out of the car, when it stopped, and limp his way to Shibuya, yeah yeah, he could avoid all of this if he did that. He didn’t have to see any of them, face any of them. He could go, heal up, and then find Akechi and fight him, and then hopefully get a name for whoever was leading the conspiracy.

His eyes closed despite his mind screaming at them to remain open. He let his body go limp, as sleep tried to claim him. He had always loved sleep, but he couldn’t enjoy it this time, he had to get out of here when they stopped, and, and, and. And then sleep claimed him.

He woke to a door slamming. He jerked his head up and watched the silver haired woman walking into the backstreets of Yongen-Jaya. It was now or never. His head throbbing, and literally every part of his body rejected what he was trying to get it to do. He threw his hands at the door handle, after too many attempts, he got his hands around the door handle.

Come on, just pull it open and then push, you’ve got your whole body up against it, come on you stupid, worthless human being. He pulled his hands back, and barely kept them closed enough to pull the handle open. Elation spread through his mind at least, and then he fell out of the car. His upper body lay on the pavement, face first, while his legs remained in the car. He hadn’t thought this through.

He tried to get up, brought his hands to the pavement and tried to force him to lift himself up. All he managed to do though was to pull himself entirely out of the car. “What are you doing?” he heard the woman sigh. Well, that hadn’t worked, though now that he was on the ground, he decided it was never going to work anyway.

He groaned as she and somebody else picked up by both arms. He thought he heard the new arrival mutter something about a kid. If his mind was working, he thought he’d have known who the new one was. But his mind wasn’t working, it was tired, exhausted and dammit, his body hurt. And being dragged around wasn’t making anything better. They dragged him through the backstreets, his eyes closed and held down towards the ground.

He just wanted this to end. Wanted the pain and the throbbing and most of all, the guilt to go away. He would have to face them now, face the guilt and the lies that he had told them over everything. How he had broken every rule they had put in place. Would she even want to talk to him anymore? It was that thought that worried him the most. Something wet was falling on his face, but he found he couldn’t bring himself to figure out what it was, or even to deal with it.

There was the jingle of a bell, and smell of coffee and curry. It smelled like home, more like home than his family home back in Inaba had ever felt like. He blinked and he was being dragged up the stairs, and he thought he saw a flash of orange with big glasses. They gently, or as gently as they could when his body was uncooperative.

“I can’t stay here; it’ll draw too much attention.” The woman was getting ready to leave apparently. “I’ll be back tomorrow.” He thought that he saw her shoot him a look. “The drugs need to work themselves out of his system. Also, he wanted to go to Mementos, so keep an eye on him.”

The gruff voice of his mentor, Sojiro was his name came over them. No, he told him to call him Boss. “Thank you, Niijima-San. I’ll make sure he doesn’t go anywhere.” How had he forgotten his mentor’s name? How could he? After the man had given him a place to live? Had given him a job, had taught him how to make coffee and the best curry he had ever eaten? Had given him a chance when no one else had? He was such a piece of garbage. Couldn’t do anything right.

He didn’t hear the woman leave. He did hear Boss call down. “Futaba, come up here and keep on eye on the kid, I’m going to go and get Doctor Takemi!”

Somebody was standing next to him. He opened his eyes slowly and looked over. Futaba Sakura, eyes wet, red, and blotchy. Her arms were crossed behind her back. She knelt next to him with her arms crossed over her knees. Her eyes studied him, moving rapidly. “Ren…. What hap- happened?”

He couldn’t do this right now. He didn’t even want to. He couldn’t face it. He was ashamed of everything, the stress, the guilt. He turned away and stared at the window and the wall. More guilt spread into him. She didn’t deserve to be ignored, but he couldn’t talk about it right now. He flung his arm over his eyes. “No- No” he shook his head. He had to get it out, it wasn’t fair to Futaba, she had already been through so much. He swallowed.

“Ren?” she asked again. Fear and tears and sadness in her voice.

“Not right now.” He finally got out. “I’ll explain it later, ju- just not right now.” He turned his head and looked at her, begging with his eyes. A sudden thought came to him. He didn’t have to tell the others. He flung his arm off of his face and grabbed her arm. “Futaba, don’t tell the others, please.”

She shook her head, orange hair flinging around as she did so. And shook his weakly grasped hand off her arm “N- NO! Ren, you’ve terrified everyone these last few days! You disappeared! You died! You don’t get to come back from the dead and then ask me to not tell everyone else!”

No… no…. no, she wasn’t understanding. “Futaba, let me handle this, please,” he begged “You guys, everyone else doesn’t have to worry about me. You don’t deserve to have to deal with everything.”

“And you do?” She shoots back quickly. He closes his eyes and lays his head back down. He didn’t have the energy to argue right now.

He hears the door shut downstairs and Futaba jumps and moves to the corner of the room. Ren follows her and sees a cat sitting on the table. He hadn’t even noticed Morgana. Futaba grabs the cat and cradles the cat close to her chest. Morgana nuzzled into her, but his eyes never leave Ren.

There’s a flash of white and blue, and Takemi is pulling him up, looking over his wounds and cleaning them. “What did those bastards do to you?” she starts to clean his wounds, bandage them, and for the first time since he left that casino, his resistance gives way, Futaba won’t listen to him, he’ll have to come clean to the others, explain his lies and half-truths, and make them see why he had done what he had done.

The rest of the time that Takemi is there is a blur of white bandages, burning pain on his wounds, and exhaustion from being awake for days. What day was it?

Takemi leaves after a while, with a mention of pain killers and keeping an eye on his bandages. And it leaves the four of them in the room by themselves. “Kid” Ren can hear the shake and…. Was it disappointment… it was probably disappointment.  What else could it be? He was such a disappointment. His own parents wouldn’t even talk to him. “What happened?”

He doesn’t have to answer, because Futaba does for him. “He said that he doesn’t want to explain right now.”

He doesn’t have to guess about the emotion in Boss’s voice to know it’s anger. “I’m not sure that I care what he wants right now. He disappears on all of us for days, scares all of us with that announcement then comes back like this?”

“He’s going to explain everything, he told me while you were getting the doctor” Futaba said.

Thank you, Futaba. He could barely talk right now; how could he explain everything that had happened since the cultural festival. He would have to answer for everything, but not right now, and hopefully he wouldn’t have to repeat himself.

Boss scoffed again. “Fine, tomorrow, when all of that is out of his system.”

Ren finds it in himself to answer. “Tomorrow.” He agrees weakly.

“And don’t try to get out of it! Niijima-San told me that you wanted to go to mementos whatever that is. Knowing you it’s some Phantom Thieves nonsense, so none of that!” The anger had left Boss’s voice, and instead there was weariness and… Ren couldn’t figure out the other emotion. He probably could have if he wasn’t so worthless.

He nodded his head, the throbbing hurt when he did, but didn’t hurt quite as bad, the fog in his mind was a bit better as well. He felt like he could think clearer at least. How he had managed to convince Niijima was a mystery to him.

The conversation had moved away from Boss asking him questions, to him asking Futaba questions. “Do the others know?”

“Mmm. Not yet.” Futaba answered. Ren allowed himself a small bit of hope that she had decided to do as he had asked. It would be hard explaining himself to Futaba and Boss tomorrow, but it would so much easier than explaining everything to the others. “I’m going to let them know soon though.” She added.

The hope died in him. And he groaned. “I take it he didn’t want you to?” Boss asked after his groan. There was a pause. “C’mon, let’s go downstairs. Ren.” He called out. “Call us or send the cat down if you need anything.” He stopped and said, “I’ll get you some food and water soon.”

Eating would probably make him vomit, though water sounded nice. He heard the two walking down the stairs. Ren closed his eyes again, and slowly pushed himself up against the wall. He was still in his Shujin uniform, he should’ve probably taken it off and changed into sleep clothes, but getting out of bed and doing that seemed like an impossible task right now.

He laid up against the wall, trying not to think with the throbbing in his head and the aches and pain in the rest of his body, when he felt movement along behind him. Morgana had loafed just above his head. “Go to sleep Ren, I’ll protect you tonight.”

Even though he knew that there was very little that Morgana could actually do outside of the metaverse, the assurance that he wouldn’t be alone made him feel better. He never did good by himself. So, he allowed himself to go to sleep. He had a very long day, and what was probably going to turn into a second interrogation ahead of him.

He didn’t sleep very well. Though he figured with the sheer amount of drugs in his body, and the beating that he had taken from the police, that was to be expected. Ren should have been just happy to be alive, but instead the worry and guilt in his chest had bothered him all night. Today, odds were, he would have to face everyone else. He would have to explain himself. Explain the decisions, the lies, everything.

He did feel a bit better though. The fogginess’ in his mind was gone, his headache was still there, but far more manageable and more importantly, ignorable, than it had been last night. Without moving from his comfortable position, he dug his phone out. Luckily no one had texted him, which meant that either Futaba had yet to tell them, or they were waiting to see him before they did anything.

It was November 21^st. He pinched the bridge of his nose. He had been gone for that long? Had they announced his death yet? What had the others thought? He shook his head. He knew that he was going to hurt them. But it was necessary. He had protected them. He was still going to protect them. His plan had come back to him as his head cleared. He would find Akechi, fight him, and then defeat whoever controlled Akechi. After that? He didn’t exactly know.

He realized that he hadn’t even seen the damage itself. He stood up, slowly, and painfully. The leg that had been stomped hurt, and he hoped that it was only bruised, and not broken. It shook when he put weight on it, but he could still limp around with it. He limped his way to the stairs, and then looked down at himself. He felt and looked disgusting. He turned around and went to his laundry box. Pulled out a change of clothes and decided to take a bath.

He stopped immediately as he approached the stairs. What if Boss had customers? The police thought he was dead, but Akechi could still be keeping his eyes on everyone.

“Morgana” he called out. When the cat didn’t wake up, he called out again “Morgana”

The cat slowly looked up, blue eyes staring at them. “Go downstairs and see if anyone’s here.” He stopped himself from explaining more. He hoped at least that Morgana would just listen to him and not ask any questions.

To his relief, Morgan did just that. “Okay, Joker” the not-cat replied and jumped down and scurried down the stairs. A few seconds later, Morgana came back up the stairs. “Only Boss is down there, the sign says closed.”

So, Boss had either not opened up today, or he had but had closed up to get ready for everyone else. Everyone else. He would have to face them. Dread and guilt were clawing its way up to his chest again. He visibly shook himself. And pushed those feelings down. He would deal with that later.

He walked down the stairs and rounded the corner. Boss was standing reading the newspaper, or doing the crossword puzzles like he usually did, a plate of food, on the bar. “Oh, good, you’re awake, eat this” he produced a glass of water from the fridge. “And drink this.” His mentor ordered.

His stomach grumped at the smell of the curry, how long had it been since he had last eaten? “Thanks” he sat down and took the fork in his hand.

As he ate, Boss began speaking again. “You’ve got a lot of explaining to do today kid, and a lot of concerned, and probably angry people to explain it to. Not to mention Niijima-San. And of course, your girlfriend.”

The mention of Makoto made his head spin. He dropped the fork and pinched the bridge of his nose. He had hurt her; and he didn’t even know what they were. They had never really specified it, before everything they had been spending a lot of time together. And they had kissed at the cultural festival, but they had never actually sat down and put a name on it. Of course, what they could have been didn’t really matter now, especially with everything that had happened, he had definitely ruined everything with his lies and pushing everyone away.

Boss sighed at him “Get back to eating, you don’t want to do this on an empty stomach.”

Ren picked the fork back up, and in between bites asked. “When is everyone supposed to be here?”

“Futaba said in an hour. They’re going to come in one at a time though, to try to keep anyone off of their tracks.”

He had an hour to get ready then, and to figure out his story. Well, he called it his story, but once he got going, he would start talking and the truth would spill out of him like a mess. He would finish eating, and go and get a bath, get himself cleaned up, and then face the music for all of his lies.

He finished eating quickly after that. He threw on a hoodie, threw the hood on and kept his gaze down, and then walked outside, and across the street to the bathhouse. The bath was nice and empty, and for the first time in days, he felt soothing peace. His aches and pains were still there, but he could ignore them if he didn’t move.

The bath was nice, it was really nice to get the dried blood and sweat off of his body, but the worries, regrets, and most of all the lies, nagged away at him. Only a bit more of this, then he would tell everyone the truth, and they would rightfully abandon him for breaking all of their rules that they had ever come up with. For betraying them all. It was what he deserved.

He got out of the bath when he felt his skin pruning. It was time. He took his time drying off and getting dressed. He brushed his teeth with his toothbrush that he had brought along. It was probably time now.

It was funny. How many times had he faced death in the last year? How many times had he been threatened with police action, expulsion, having pictures leaked, and everything else? And this was the most nervous he felt in the whole year. Not even days ago when he had been preparing himself for the plan, when there had been the very real possibility that he would die, he hadn’t been this nervous…. Or scared. He was afraid of their reactions. They would be angry. They wouldn’t want anything to do with them. They would abandon him like his parents had, like his friends had back at Inaba, like everyone had. And he would deserve it.

The windows had been covered, and the sign was still turned to closed. He hoped that Boss could afford the loss of revenue. He didn’t want Boss to hurt himself financially over him. He stayed a few steps back from the entrance. So lost in his thoughts that he didn’t notice the door open.

“They’re waiting for you, you know.” Boss’s voice said. He was standing right in front of him now.

All he could do was painfully nod. The ache in his leg had come back, as had the rest of them. “I know, I know” he repeated. “I’m just….”

“Scared?” Boss guessed when he didn’t finish. Ren nodded his head in agreement. Boss sighed again. “Look, Kid, I don’t know how they’re going to react, but I do know one thing, they all love you, whatever it was you did hurt them, but if you explain your reasoning, I imagine they will understand.”

He rubbed his eyes, and to his shame, felt wetness around his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

Boss’s hand was on his shoulder. “Don’t just tell me that, tell them that.” He pointed to the door.

Ren took a deep breath, willed his tears to go away, nodded his head and walked through the door.

No-one was in the café. He tilted his head and looked back to Boss. “They’re upstairs, let me go get them. Take a seat, you’re putting too much weight on your leg.

He looked down at his leg, it was shaking badly. His nerves must have been so bad that he didn’t notice it. “Okay.” He said as he took a seat in the booth closet to the door. If things went poorly enough, he could book it out of the room and run away. No, that wouldn’t do. He wouldn’t run away from this. He would do what he had known he would have to do since he had started himself down this path at the cultural festival.

There were jumps and yells from the attic. The pit in his stomach was back, as was the guilt. He didn’t have time to dwell on it as Boss led the group downstairs. After Boss, who had taken his place behind the counter, was Ryuuji, his best, and first friend since he had been sent to Tokyo. He looked upset at Ren, but he was wearing a small smile as he slid into the booth opposite Ren.

Ann Takamaki was next. Her two blonde ponytails swaying with each step. She stopped as she got a look at Ren. He tugged on his hair like he did whenever he got nervous. He was kind of surprised that he hadn’t pulled out his hair in the last few weeks. Ann grimaced and slid into the booth right next to Ryuuji. Had he missed something changing between the two of them? He supposed it was possible. He hadn’t spent much time with either of the two blondes the last month.

Yusuke Kitagawa was next, of everyone so far, he was the most unaffected and took a seat at the stool he usually sat at, the one closest to the Sayuri. He eyed Ren with something that he didn’t really recognize from Yusuke, but he always had trouble reading the artist.

Futuba came down and took a seat next to Yusuke. The next to come down was Haru Okumura. The fluffy haired girl nodded her way at him, but he didn’t fail to notice that his bruises and cuts caused the girl some distress. Another reason to feel guilty.

That left one last phantom thief, well technically not true, but Morgana would make his way down whenever he wanted to, and he already knew everything about the story he was about to tell.

Makoto Niijima was the last one down the stairs. Her face was a mixture of sadness and anger. Her lips were pressed into a thin frown, while her eyes were blotchy and bloodshot. Ren hoped she hadn’t been too upset with everything. Though if the roles were reversed, he would have been unconsolable. She stayed standing, away enough from him to make him miss the closeness that they usually had at these meetings. But her eyes never left him.

Ren tugged on his hair again. Hoping that someone else would start the conversation, but instead they sat there in silence for a few minutes.

“Sis is on her way.” Makoto was the one who broke the silence first. “She wants to hear this part of your story again…... she hopes that you’ll make a bit more sense than you did last night.”

Ren nodded his head, and then rubbed his wrists. He figured it was time to actually get started, better to get this out of the way before Makoto’s sister got here. Still rubbing his wrists, where the bruises from the cuffs continued to hurt, he said. “I’m sorry for worrying you, I… It had to happen the way it did.” He cringed at himself. He had all that time and that was how he opened this? He truly was useless; all he was good for was fighting shadows.

“And what the ‘eff happened?” Ryuuji demanded. He leans forward, like he’s going to come over to the table and make Ren explain everything. And Ren would deserve it. Though an unexpected rescuer saves him.

“Ryuuji, let him explain.” Ann says in a tone that calms him. She takes his hand and lays it on the table, and to Ren’s surprise it remained there. “Ren, can’t you explain in more detail than, it had to happen the way it did?” she asked. She wasn’t mad at him yet, but she would be.

“We’re going to wait for Sis to get here for that.” Makoto’s tone was icy, and she continued to stare at Ren. He deserved her tone, and her anger.

He was clutching his head again, like he had back in that damn room. “I’m sorry.”

“Stop saying that.” Ryuuji snapped. “Aside from the fake out death, that scared the shit out of all of us, none of us know what else you’re apologizing for.”

He nodded his head. Why couldn’t Makoto’s sister be here sooner, the quicker he got started, the sooner he got done, and he had a lot of stuff to do. Theres a ringing at the door, and Sae Niijima strolls forward. “Have we already started?”

“No, though we were waiting for you.” Makoto explains, he’s relieved to see that she hasn’t moved her attention from him. He’s missed it. Missed her attention, misdeeds her voice even. He closes his eyes while waiting for Sae to get settled.

“Your story became less coherent by the time we got to this point, and I wanted to make sure that I understood everything properly.” She explains to him. He nods his head, even if the movement makes the world spin.

Not that he would tell anyone that, they didn’t need to worry about him more than they already had. No, he was going to explain his side of things, then they would get mad at him and leave. And then he would be by himself again, and he would go on and fight Akechi. People didn’t want to be around him. He hoped that they were different, in fact if he was honest with himself, they were different, they were all good people who had chosen to fight for their own justice with him. But that didn’t matter, not really, they would see what a piece of shit, weakling he was, and they would run away. Like they had every right to. He couldn’t and wouldn’t blame them either. He loved them all too much for that.

“Ren?” Makoto’s tone is a mixture of concerned and impatience, like she couldn’t decide if she wanted to check on him to see if he was alright, or to try to rush him to get to the story. The selfish part of him wants her to come to him, but the reasonable part of his brain knows she won’t, not with the others here, and especially not with Sae here.

The hand clutching at his head is hard, but he starts the story. “After we decided that it would be best of the Phantom Thieves to disband-”

“After you decided that we should disband, you mean.” Yusuke corrected him.

Ren’s hands dug deeper into his scalp, he hoped he wasn’t giving too much of his pain away, he didn’t want them to know just how exhausted he still was. But he nodded his head. “Yes, right, after I decided that we should disband.” He sighed. “The second night of the cultural festival at Shujin. Akechi cornered me.”

October 26^th – Shujin Cultural Festival

The cultural festival had seemed to go well. The former Phantom Thieves were having fun, and despite the latent worries of them being discovered, Ren thought that things had gone well. Makoto had done an excellent job questioning Akechi, something that the two of them had talked about given that Akechi was the one who was investigating them. The boy had only given out a single hint that the police still had no actual clues in who the Phantom Thieves were.

That had been a relief to hear for Ren. Maybe now they could put all of this behind them. And they could all actually live normal student lives. Ann could go back to modeling full time, Ryuuji could go back to running and training and getting ready for getting into physical therapy like he mentioned, Yusuke and his art, and Futaba could start school next year. Haru could take over her dad’s company and make it something better now. And Makoto could figure out what she wanted to do with her life, and hopefully he would with her.

That would be nice. It would be so nice to not have the Phantom Thieves hanging around their necks, even if it was the only thing he was good at. He wiped his brow as he watched several people head back into the gym for the question game or whatever, and then there was supposed to be a dance.

Morgana was still in his bag, things were icy between the two of them, but they had gotten better after Ren promised him that the two of them would still explore mementos together. He couldn’t very well help Morgana after everything. He thought he could hear Morgana snore lightly though. It was pretty late; a lot later than the cat usually made him go to bed.

Kasumi was walking up to him in the exit of the practice building of the school, when a tapping finger on his shoulder made me turn around. Goro Akechi greeted him, that fake smile of his plastered over his face.

“I would appreciate it if you could gather your group and meet me in your coach’s office.” He said in a tone that made Ren’s blood go cold.

“Why is that?” he asked. And stuck his hands in his pocket for good measure.

“I think it would simply in your best interests to meet me and hear what I have to say.” Akechi explained.

And with that, the boy walked off, heading towards Kamoshida’s old office. Weird, and potentially dangerous. He had to find Makoto, and just as he was turning to find the older girl, another voice stopped him

“Oh, Senpai!” Kasumi Yoshisawa stopped him. “Are you leaving already?” She had a smile on her face. Really Kasumi was a sweet girl, but he wished that she could take the hint that he wasn’t interested in her in that way.

“I’m sorry Kasumi.” He answered quickly and he hoped in a polite way, but his mind was working a thousand miles a minute right now, and he didn’t have time for her. “I have to go.” He nodded at her and walked off.

He passed by several students, none of them Makoto though. He nearly got his phone out to text her, and then a thought stopped him.

Why bother them with this? They’re happy and having fun. Deal with it and then tell them.

To his short-circuiting brain, that actually seemed like a really good idea, he keeps the others safe and away from Phantom Thief business, exactly like he wanted, and he could deal with whatever Akechi threw at him.

Nodding his head to himself, he turned his body to the coach office and started walking. He nudged his bag as he did so.

“Morgana, wake up, Akechi wants to meet us.”

“He does?” Morgana poked his head out of the bag. “Where are the others?”

“We’re going to meet him and report back, I want the others to have as much deniability as possible.” That was why he was doing this, giving them as much deniability as possible. They all had such bright futures ahead of them, while he had nothing.

He arrived at the office. And stopped inside. Akechi had his back turned, hand on his phone when he turned around. “Oh, I thought I asked for everyone to meet me?”

Ren crossed his arms. “I decided that you're only getting myself and Mona for this.” He set the back on the floor and the cat jumped out of it.

Akechi’s fake smile faltered for a moment. “I see, so am I to assume that this is some self-sacrifice play on your behalf?” Akechi asked just as his fake smile came back. “No matter, you are the one I wanted to speak with most anyway.”

Ren’s expression remained the same, while Morgana just eyed the boy detective. “What do you want?” he asked finally.

Akechi frowned and threw several pictures down on the table. Ren took a step forward and frowned, it was pictures of himself walking away from Okamura’s headquarters. He swallowed but allowed that to be the only physical reaction he had from it. He kept his hands in his pockets and pursed his lips?

He shook his head. “And what are these supposed to show exactly?” he asked. Of course, he knew the answer, but he was going to make Akechi come out and accuse him if that what he was going to do.

“I have video evidence as well.” Was all he said, and then Akechi scoffed at him. “Please don’t feign ignorance, you and your friends can all go to that other world too, yes?”

Ren’s blood went ice cold, and he was certain his face had lost all its color as well. Morgana looked with big eyes from Akechi to Ren, but didn’t say anything. How had he figured this out? And wait, he had said ‘too’ like he could as well. With as even as a voice has, he could muster, he asked. “Us too?”

Akechi threw a hand up. “I am aware of that world too. I also know that when you travel over there that your appearance changes, I assume it’s to do with those powers isn’t it?” He pulled his phone out and continued his explanation. “I found out about that world about a month ago.”   

The app opened on his phone was the nav. “This app was installed on my phone without my knowledge.” Ren sighed while he continued. “When it activated, the scenery changed suddenly around me, it was quite the surprise, though based on these photos, you seem quite used to it.”

Ren bit the inside of his cheek, while Akechi continued his monologue. “You’re a phantom thief, and I’m betting that the your friends are as well. I can say so with conviction, because I have the same power as you.”

Akechi was a persona user. If he had been to the other world, he supposed that explained why he was still alive. In any case, Akechi was staring at him like he expected an answer, and Ren didn’t see much of a way out of this. “That’s right.” He agreed.

Akechi uncrossed his arms “So, you admit it then.” He paused “In all honest, I had been curious about you since the Madarame case, but to think it would end up like this.”

“I didn’t kill Okamura.” Ren defended their actions.

“I never believed you did.” Akechi crossed his arms again. When Ren didn’t say anything, he continued. “Because I saw another, the real culprit.”

“Who was it?” Ren asked finally after a tense silence.

“I couldn’t identify his face; he had a mask on his face of course. When I was taking these photos.” He gestured at the photos on the desk. “I entered that world too, that’s when I saw someone else moving about aside from the rest of you. He shot at me as soon as he noticed me.”

Ren didn’t believe any of this. Akechi muttered something about not dying here, but he was too focused on who he thought, no believed he was facing, the actual Black Mask that Madarame’s Shadow and Kaneshiro’s shadow had mentioned. Akechi was the black mask. The story was too convenient otherwise.

“This guy has a persona too?” Morgana asked.

And Akechi looked confusedly at the cat, his brows scrunched up. “Th- This cat…. I swear this cat just talked?”

“Mona, he taught me about the metaverse.” Ren made sure to tell ‘me’ instead of ‘us’ he still had yet to see any outward evidence that he knew the other’s identities.

“Really? This is unbelievable. But it is true you know things I don’t.” He brought his hand to his chin. “Say, Morgana, were you also the one who instructed them on how to change people’s hearts?”

Morgana explained the process, which Ren thought was probably necessary, given that the cat was out of the bag. Still, he hadn’t heard or seen anything that incriminated the others, and that was the most important thing.

Akechi and Morgana talked for a bit, letting Ren plan his next move. Akechi hadn’t acted like he was going to sell him out, at least at this point, meaning that he wanted something. If he was the Black Mask like Ren thought, then Akechi wanted to lead him into a trap though.

“However, the police have decided that the Phantom Thieves are responsible.” He paused and let his fake ass smile appear back on his face. “I can’t overlook such a grave mistake; I offer a deal.”

“Okay.” Ren didn’t have any questions for him. He had experienced enough of these sorts of threats plenty in the last year to know where this was leading.

“I want you to cooperate with me in investigating the truth. If you decline then I think I’ll have to inform the police about all of you, along with that video I mentioned.”

“So, if you can’t get cooperation from me.” Ren said, “Then you’ll resort to blackmail?” He wished he could say he was surprised, with how much Akechi had talked about justice with him over the course of their meetings, he guessed he probably should have been. But he wasn’t, this all but confirmed to him at least that he was the Black Mask.

“Say what you will, but this is the method that I believe is correct. The justice I uphold will not uphold criminals who kill people at their leisure.” Ren remained glaring at him. “I’m sure that you’ve heard that Makoto-San’s sister, Sae-San, is the one leading the case, correct?”

Ren nodded his head. He and Makoto had spoken at length about it, especially before the disbandment of the Phantom Thieves.

Akechi had gone to explain how Sae intended on potentially forging evidence to prove them to be Phantom Thieves. “You will be found guilty if your caught, and it will be treated as a very serious crime.” Ren supposed it was a good thing he was by himself with Akechi. There was very little about the police that surprised him anymore, especially the lengths they were willing to go to win.

“I can no longer do this on my own, I need your help. In return, I’ll turn a blind eye to what you and your friends have done. I have some preconditions. That said, I ask that you disband the Phantom Thieves.”

“Were already disbanded.” Ren quickly said. “We did it after what happened to Okamura, decided that it wasn’t worth the risk to ourselves anymore to continue putting ourselves in danger.” In actuality, the others had been more than willing to continue what they were doing, it had been Ren who wasn’t willing to put them in more danger.

“But not yourself though?” Akechi asked just as quickly. “That’s why you came alone, isn’t it?”

Ren shrugged his shoulders. “My worst case scenario has always been something like this.” Ren found himself admitting.

“Dude, what the ‘eff does that mean?” Ryuuji’s loud voice pulled him out of the story.

He shook his head, the world shook for a moment after he did so, but he replied. “About what?”

“I believe he means your ‘worst case scenario.” Yusuke clarified.

Ren looked between the two boys blankly. “Did I really say that?”

“Yeah, dude, you did, so what’s that’s mean?” He couldn’t tell if Ryuuji was angry or not, he probably could have if he wasn’t still recovering from everything.

“Ren.” Ann said, pleading in her voice. “Please just tell us, I’m sure we all know what you mean, but...” she trailed off.

“It would be nice to have it confirmed. To make sure we’re not all jumping to conclusions” Haru finished. She sounded sad. Why would any of them be sad, hadn’t they noticed that he always was the last one in safe rooms, or the one trying to draw as much attention as possible?

He brought his hands down from where they had dug into his scalp and rested them over one another, just like he had whenever Sae had demanded his attention last night. “I honestly thought you guys knew. My worst-case scenario has always been to stay behind and get everyone else to safety. Whether it was in the metaverse, or here in the real world.”

He looked up, where Ryuuji sat with his mouth hanging open. Ann looked sad. Hello, everyone looked sad. Why would they look sad? He spared a glance at Makoto, who had sat down on the stool that she usually sat at when he was working. Her eyes were blinking rapidly, why would they be? Didn’t they know what he was doing?

“Anyway,” Ren continued. “After that, Akechi and I continued to talk, and then he re-offered his deal.” Ren didn’t keep the grimace off his face.

“No, not anyway!” Ann nearly screamed; Ren clutched his head as the throbbing pain in his head returned full force. He felt sick again. “When did this plan of yours come from?”

With a pained grunt he looked between Ryuuji and Ann. Did he really have to explain this? They looked at him expectantly, so he sighed, and willed his mind to steady itself.

“Remember back in Kamoshida’s palace when we got into that fight with Berith?” He still did. It still haunted his dreams all these months later, they had been fighting for most of the day and had been ambushed just had they had gotten into the crazy, shifting part of the last run of the tower. The Berith had come out of nowhere, and had knocked down both Panther and Skull, and had forced Mona out of the fight.

Ren had never been so scared, not for himself, no that had never even entered his mind. He feared for the others. So, he figured out Berith’s weakness, and forced him to the ground, and then forced that Berith to join his growing number of personas. Overall, it was an easy fight once it had started. But it was that fight that Ren’s own decision had come into focus. If the team ever faced an enemy they couldn’t beat, he would stay behind or provide a distraction and get them out.

“You’ve had this… this idea since April?” Ryuuji nearly screeched. Ren clutched his head again, he hoped he looked like he was just resting it. “What the ‘eff man.”

“Ren.” Ann said sadly. She shook her head at him “You’ve been holding this in ever since that battle? We told you it wasn’t your fault!”

Ren remained silent. He hadn’t agreed then, and he didn’t agree now. If he had been as truly great a leader as they all made him out to be, then he needed to be willing to make those sacrifices. “You guys put me in charge.” Was all he found he could say to defend himself.

“What does that have to do with anything though?” Yusuke asked.

“The leader must be willing to make sacrifices. It’s one of the few things I’ve learned from playing shogi with Hifumi. I learned that day in April that I wasn’t willing to make sacrifices when it involved you guys.” Ren explained. Probably more than he should have. “So, the sacrifices I make only involve me.”

“You didn’t have to put that on yourself!” Ann screamed again.

“Dude.” Ryuuji mumbled sadly.

The room was spinning again, he had to get a move on if he was going to finish. “Okay, so after Akechi threatened me.” And he fell back into the story.

He spared a look to Makoto. Her face had an expression that they would be talking more about his ‘worst case’ scenario plan later

“Considering this is you were talking about; I think you’ll come to a favorable reply.”

Ren knew what he had to do, he had to accept it. To save the others. To keep them safe, he would throw away his own promises to them, his own future. “I have my own condition.”

Akechi blinked; Ren had caught him off guard. “And what would that be?”

“Leave the others out of this, you have me, and I can handle any palace, any enemy that we come across. The others don’t have to be part of this!”

Akechi shook his head. “I asked for everyone for a reason.”

Ren stepped forward. “I have what’s called the wild card. I can use any persona that I want, me and Mona” he gestured at the cat who was staring at Ren. “Just, leave the others out of this. They don’t deserve to have to be dragged back into this.”

Akechi stared, and then gave him that damn fake smile he always wore. “Very well, I agree, I’ll await your answer.” With a smile, he added. “It was definitely worth coming today, for several reasons.”

Ren waited for a moment and discussed everything with Morgana, luckily it seemed like he also had come to the same understanding as he had in regard to Akechi.

He turned to leave. His hand on the doorknob. “Joker, why not let the others know, we could, maybe do this by ourselves, but we could deal with Akechi far easier if we told the others.”

Ren was already shaking his head. “I can’t tell them, I begged them to give up on the Phantom Thieves, begged them to walk away after Okamura.” He was still shaking his head. “Haru is still recovering from her dad, Futaba needs to focus on the future, Yusuke has finally gotten out of his slump, and Ryuuji and Ann are happy, happier than they’ve been in the whole time I’ve known them. And Makoto…” he stopped.

Ren turned around and looked at Morgana. “I can’t drag them back into this, you know I can’t. Especially now when Akechi has us cornered.”

“But what happens if this is all a ploy to get you in the metaverse? What happens if he tries to fight you?”

“Then I’ll beat him, he has one persona, I carry multiple, and they’re all very powerful.”

“I guess, I don’t like it Joker.” Morgana nodded his head finally.

“Good, now, let’s get out of here, I’m tired and ready to go home.” He opened the bag and put Morgana back into it, not believing that he had forgotten to do it earlier.

He left the office and made his way down the stairs. He moved a bit more slowly than he would have usually, everything in the last, he checked his wristwatch, in the last fifteen minutes was weighing him down. He was tired, and he was sure his shoulders were slumping more than they were usually.

“Ren!” a new voice called out to him. One that made him stop in his tracks. He turned around and Makoto was standing a few feet behind him. He smiled at her; it was an automatic response really. She waked up to him. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.” She looked up at his face, and something about his expression must have worried her. “Is something wrong?”

Yes, Akechi knows at the very at least about me, and probably about you and everyone else. He’s also probably the Black mask that we’ve been hearing about. I’m going to make a deal with him that odds are, will end with me and him fighting each other and –

“Ren?” She seemed a bit more concerned, and she grabbed his forearm. He managed another smile, though they were easier around her, and replied with as much confidence as he could. “Nothing’s the matter. What’s up? You said you were looking for me?”

She studied him for another second, and then a smile came to her lips. “You missed the start of the after party.” She spoke.

He had completely forgotten about the after party, he had so much he had to do now, get back and talk with the twins, fuse more personas, and get ready for what he assumed would end up being him, Akechi, and Morgana clearing out a palace by themselves, while also having to keep an eye on his back for Akechi and his inevitable betrayal.

“Oh, I guess I just kind of zoned out, you know how I get.” He finally answered, lest he fall back into his own mind again, which was never a pretty or pleasant place to be when he was by himself.

“You weren’t leaving, were you?” She seemed to realize that he had been walking towards the entrance of the school.

He had been. But he didn’t want to leave her, so he lied. “Uh, no, I was just going to get some fresh air. Thought I’d catch up with everyone later.”

“Oh.” They settled into silence for a moment. Ren found himself going back into his mental checklist he was starting, he would have to go to Takemi’s and buy medicine, and maybe make a trip to mementos and figure out what other medicine he still had from their time as Phantom Thieves.

“The dance is starting soon…” Makoto mumbled. She wasn’t looking at him anymore, her face was a bit redder than usual as well. “Would you uh,…. come to it with me?” Had Makoto Niijima just asked him to go to the dance with her? Ren had fallen into his own mental checklist and had only checked in towards the last part of her question. When he didn’t respond she added “Only if you weren’t doing anything else important or anything!”

Deciding now was the time to be fully checked in, and harnessing all of the Joker energy he had in the real world, he took her two hands, and with the first real smile he had the entire night, he answered. “I would love too, especially if it’s with you.”

The smile on her face was enough to light up the whole room. And his own smile grew as well. He was always so happy when he was with Makoto, and even with his whole world falling apart around him, he could spare enough time to go to the dance with her.

Morgana jumped out of his bag and said something about walking around until he was ready. Ren didn’t really pay attention, too focused on the girl in front of him.

“Great!” she exclaimed, and she pulled him towards the gym. The gym was dark and decorated sparsely, but just enough to know that a bunch of high school students had thrown it together. The music was fast paced and modern. It was only when Ren walked into the gym, or more like drug in by Makoto, that he remembered he had never really danced with anyone before.

They found a more secluded place on the floor in a corner of the gym, and she turned back to face him. Her face was as red as a tomato. “D- Do you know how to dance?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Not really, I’ve seen some on tv, but never had to do it.” He smiled at her. It didn’t matter if they danced, at least he was with her, and he was no longer worrying about the future.

“I should have done my research before I asked you.” She pouted, more to herself than to anyone or anything else.

The song ended, and a new one, a slower one started. Ren, still harnessing all of Joker he could, flashed her a smirk. “It’s not like it really matters anyway” he took her hands in his. “We can figure it out together. As study partners.”

The blush on her face, still visible despite the lack of lighting, got deeper, but she nodded her head at what he had said. She placed her arms on his shoulders. He put his hands on her waist, high enough that anyone who saw them would mistake it as just two friends dancing. He hoped they were wrong.

They swayed gently to the music, both staring at each other as they did. They took a couple of steps as well, but mainly stayed in the same spot, while slowly shuffling around in a tiny circle. Ren lost himself in her red eyes, those eyes that had once stared at him across from the student council table and cornered him into admitting he was a phantom thief. Those same eyes that had come up with all of those plans in the metaverse, that questioned him when he needed it. That had begged him to not put an end to the Phantom Thieves.

“You’re beautiful, Makoto.” He croaked out before he knew what he was saying. He closed his eyes in surprise at himself. Why had he said that? He opened his mouth to apologize, but Makoto cut him off.

With a smile she said. “And you’re very, uh,” she looked down like she was embarrassed “ve- very handsome Ren!” she finally got out.

She thinks I’m handsome! He would be riding this high from those few simple words from Makoto for the rest of his life.

How long would that be anyway? Especially now that he was facing Akechi and whoever controlled him alone.

Something in his face must have changed, because Makoto, whose hands were now around his neck, when had they gotten there? Started to speak. “Are you sure everything’s okay Ren? You’re spacing out more than usual.”

She was worried about him, he had to do better than this if he wanted to fool everyone, so he plastered his own face smirk. “Everything’s great right now” not technically a lie. “I’m dancing with a pretty girl, and she just called me handsome.”

He didn’t know where this confidence was coming from, but he enjoyed it. Usually, he would have just stayed quiet, but it felt like he had to get it out now. He might not have the chance later.

He watched with happiness as Makoto got another shade of red darker, and she took a moment to say “You know…. You know you can talk to me, right? About anything that bothers you?”

He could tell her it would be so easy, and he could have the back up of all of the Phantom Thieves. Morgana wanted him to. It would make life so much easier. But it would make theirs harder. And that wasn’t worth anything.

So, he smiled at her and lied. The first lie. “Nothing’s wrong.”

She studied him, like she didn’t believe him, but she accepted his lie. “Good, please do.”

They danced for the rest of the song, and the next one. When the second song ended, he found he didn’t want to end their closeness. Being around Makoto made him forget all of his problems, it would be so easy to just tell her.

No, he wouldn’t allow himself to go back down that trail of thoughts. It wouldn’t do him, or anyone else, any good. He looked down at Makoto. At some point, her arms had gone around his neck and the respectful distance that they had put between themselves had disappeared. They were practically on top of each other now.

The infamous Shujin rumor mill was going to have a field day with this. The Student Council President with the delinquent. Scandalous. He could just hear them now. But he didn’t care what anyone said, he had stopped caring back in April after that hellish first week. He hoped Makoto felt the same way.

They continued to dance, and when they stopped, they stood off in a corner, hands still entwined as the festival and the dance slowly petered out. They got back out and danced to a few more slow songs, but it was scheduled to end at 10, so everyone could still make the last trains. When the clock hit ten though, he found he didn’t want to leave her side.

They walked, hand in hand towards the school’s entrance. He really didn’t want this to end. She looked so happy, and she glanced up at him every so often, mostly when she thought he wasn’t paying attention, and that smile of hers was so genuine. He was going to protect her and protect them all.

They came to a stop right off of the steps outside of the school, they were the only ones out there. “I guess I should head home.” Makoto said, a bit of sadness, but also some residual happiness in her voice.

Not wanting the night to end just yet, he blurted out. “Let me walk you home!”

Her smile came back again, which meant mission successful. But she shook her head, so maybe not mission successful? “Thank you, Ren, but you’ll miss your train.”

He shook his head. “I can walk you back to your apartment, and still get back to Leblanc in plenty of time.” Morgana walked slowly up to him and he allowed the cat into his bag. He thought he heard snoring from the bag as he lifted it around his shoulder.

“Please?” he pressed a little when she didn’t answer him, she was probably mentally calculating if he could manage it.

She looked up at him. “Okay, come on, I don’t want you stranded.” She held out her hand for him to take, which he happily did.

The walk to the station was quick and spent in a companionable silence. They got onto the train, and conversed quietly about school, the festival, and life in general. When they got to the front of the building she stopped and turned to him. “Ren, I can go the rest of the way. Please let me know when you get home.”

Her hands found his shoulders again, which was odd, but he wasn’t going to complain about that. She did look nervous, and her face was red again for some reason. “I promise I will.”

She nodded her head, looked off to the side for a moment, and then jutted forward, caught his lips with hers, his heart was pounding harder than it ever had before. He took a hand and cradled her face with it, and then she pulled back, still red.

“I- I had a lot of f- fun tonight, Ren. We should do it again.” She wasn’t looking at him. He really wanted her to.

“Yeah, I did too,” he stuck the hand that had been holding her face into his pocket. “Let’s go out sometime.”

“Ye- yeah, that would be nice.” She blinked. And checked the time on her phone “Ren you’re going to miss your train!”He checked his wristwatch. Yes, yes, he was. His feet moving before he could think he called back. “Text me when you get inside!”

The run back to the station was easy enough, though he barely managed to get on his train. The ride was spent in silence, as he lived through the high of kissing Makoto, letting the memory play again and again in his mind.

Akechi’s threat though, and his so-called deal, reared its way in his mind as he made the short walk to Leblanc. He pulled out his phone as he locked up the café and texted Makoto that he had made it home, and then he texted Akechi three words. “Let’s do it.”

“After I walked Makoto home, I went home, and texted Akechi that I agreed to his terms.” Ren finished that part of the story. The room was spinning and he felt every little ache and pain in his joints and in his muscles. He looked down onto the table and tried to will the spinning to go away, his head was throbbing again, just like last night.

At least he could think clearly, even if thinking hurt his brain. Had he taken any of his pain killers yet today, and when was the next time he could take them? He was gripping his head again. They were asking him questions, but they were all muffled from the pain.

One wasn’t though. “Ren, what happened after that? When did Akechi ask you to change Sis’s heart?” Anger was prevalent in her voice, directed at him or at the situation? It didn’t matter in the end, he had still decided to do it and broke the Phantom Thieves inaugural rule.

“We met the next Friday; I forget the date.” He paused and took a breath, trying to calm himself, his nerves or whatever the hell was wrong with him. “It was right after the bounty was put on us.”

“After I lost my shit with everyone.” Ryuuji muttered to himself. Usually, Ren would interject and tell him not to worry about it, but he didn’t know where he stood with everyone right now, so refrained.

“Your fine, everyone forgave you already.” Ann said as she said rubbed small circles into Ryuuji’s back. Ren sighed, he wished someone would do that for him right now.

I don’t deserve it.

“That’s when he told me about changing Sae’s heart.” He nodded at the prosecutor, who was sitting next to Makoto on the stool. “We discussed it at length, I didn’t want to do it, but he was going on about how Sae hadn’t done anything yet, but the higher ups were really pushing her to figure everything out. He implied that there would be fabrications, and that everyone would turn a blind eye.”

He trailed off. The pain in his head overwhelmed him. It had taken over his entire mind, he couldn’t talk like this anymore. Luckily, while he had a moment in his head trying to will the pain down, Sae had spoken. He barely heard her.

“He was right. There’s been a lot of pressure to find the true culprit behind the crimes, even if there was forged evidence involved, they would have taken it.” She sounded ashamed. But she at least hadn’t done anything terrible like the other palace rulers had. Well all of the other palace rulers aside from Futaba that was.

Ren had to finish though, and through the pain, he continued as Sae finished. “He also implied that…. That they would go after the prosecutor in charge of the case after everything.” He waited for some response. When there wasn’t he looked up. Sae was looking at him with a bit of confusion in her eyes, while Makoto was back to blinking rapidly again. This was hard for her. He guessed he had just told her that her sister was going to be killed, so that made sense.

“You didn’t mention that when I interrogated you.” Sae said, her eyes narrowing at him as he caught her eyes.

He shrugged, an involuntary response, which did his body no favors on the pain front. “I, uh, didn’t remember it until this morning. My mind was foggy when I got to this part, I think”

“Why would your mind be foggy? I mean I can tell they beat you. But that was it right?” Ryuuji asked, his loud voice. Ren winced.

He held a handout to his best friend. Were they still friends? “Ryuuji, please try to be quieter.”

A hand shot over the blonde’s mouth, through a muffled voice he responded. “Oh, ‘eff, sorry Ren.”

Ren looked down and was trying to get back on track when Sae started speaking. “To answer your question, the police injected him with drugs to compel him to tell the truth, though when they start to wear off it causes some degree of fogginess in the mind.

“Why would they do that?” Makoto asked, more shocked than anything.

“We should change the hearts of everyone who did that.”

Yeah, including the bastard that stepped on my head. Asshole.

“Let’s get back to it.” Boss’s voice came over the group and they instantly quieted up. Just like they did back in the metaverse when he would announce something similar.

Ren didn’t want to continue. The next parts of his story included the two lies he was most ashamed about. “Uh, Akechi made it seem like that he didn’t know keywords in your palace, aside from the part about the courthouse. I volunteered myself and Morgana to figure it out.”

Makoto’s voice was cold when she asked him the next question. The one he had been dreading “Is that what that conversation on the roof was about?”

Ren sadly, and with as much shame and regret as he answered the girl he really liked. “Yes, yes it was.”

“Is this when you two asked me to not come up to tend to my plants at lunch?” Haru asked. He had needed to get Makoto alone, mainly because he enjoyed spending time with her, and when he was with her, he felt like he was going to be okay, and second because he thought he would be able to keep them off from the truth if he talked to everyone separately.

“Yes.” Makoto answered for the two of them.

Chapter Text

Ren looked down at his bread as he and Makoto sat on some of the extra desks that had been left up on the roof of the academy. It was a weirdly warm day for November, which meant that they could eat up here without having to wear jackets. Haru’s plants grew and sat in the background, looking healthy and well. Makoto ate what looked like some curry leftovers from her dinner last night. They had been sharing more lunches and meals just like this since the cultural festival.

They had yet to really talk about their pseudo date at the cultural festival. And the kiss. Ren promised himself that once he resolved the situation witch Akechi, he would sit Makoto down and explain how much he liked her. And of course, how much he wanted to be her boyfriend.

Honestly, though, being with her and spending time with Makoto was the only time he felt like he wasn’t drowning under all the pressure he had placed on himself. And here he was, going to sully his time with Makoto and bring his lies up here. “It’s still hard to believe that were being treated as criminals.”

Maybe she was giving him an opening. “Yeah.” He crossed his arms as he agreed. “I don’t understand it either.” He did understand it, if he was right, Akechi and whoever was controlling him had baited them into changing Okamura’s heart.

“Still though, to think that our justice system is so corrupted.” She held a hand over her heart, in the way she did when she didn’t know what she was feeling.

“Well, I’m living proof that our justice system doesn’t always work.” He smiled at her. There was a lull in the conversation “Ryuuji at least apologized for how he acted at the meeting.” He tried to change the subject, but not too much, he still needed the information. Even if it was going to physically hurt him manipulating Makoto to get it.

She took a bite and once she swallowed, replied. “Yes, but he was right on one thing, we couldn’t let Haru get sold off.”

“No, we couldn’t.” He really didn’t want to do this, but the conversations he had had with Morgana, and unfortunately, Akechi, had forced him to invade this safe space of his with the phantom thieves’ business. “Hey, you mentioned that you thought that your sister was the one in charge of investigating us, right?”

There was a pause and then Makoto nodded her head. “Yes, I believe I did.” She looked up at him with a bit of suspicion in her eyes. She must know that her sister has a palace or at the very least expects it. “Why?”

He swallowed and tried his best to not seem nervous. “Well, I was just wondering if she had said anything about the case.” At least that wasn’t a lie. He thought of saying something else, but then thought better of it. He didn’t want to give away how nervous he was.

She put her hand to her chin, in classic Makoto thinking expression. “She doesn’t really talk about work anymore, and she doesn’t bring her laptop home anymore.” She narrowed her eyes at him again. “Why? Do you think we’ll have to deal with the investigation?”

He shook his head. There was no we in what he was doing. He was doing this by himself with the expressed purpose of keeping the others safe and away from the police and their own brand of distorted justice. “I doubt it. But it’s always good to keep your eyes on potential problems.”

“I thought you were the one who wanted to disband the Phantom Thieves.” She reminded him. He didn’t want to even think about that fight again, so he pushed it out of his mind and replied.

“I did, and still do. But the police are still looking for us, anything we can have ready or have a plan for is something we should do.” Ren hoped his reasons made sense. He wasn’t entirely sure if he would have thought this way before Akechi’s ultimatum, but he needed something to give to Akechi.

That seemed to make sense to her, either that or she was just tired of arguing with him. “She’s- she’s been speaking a lot more about not leaving things to chance, and how she would do anything that was necessary.” Makoto answered slowly. She placed a lid on her bento box and took one of Ren’s hands in her own.

“You’ve been acting different.” She paused for a second. “Sin- Since the festival.” She looked upset. He had to fix that, even if he was going to lie.

“I’m fine.” He lied, it was becoming easier and easier to lie about this. He stopped and realized that she was implying something else. “It- It has nothing to do with the kiss! I’ve just been going through something, nothing major though” he said quickly, hoping to calm her nerves at that.

She clenched her jaw, and she stared at him like she didn’t believe him. “Ren, whatever is bothering you, I can help you, we, we, the team can help you. Please I should have pushed harder at the festival, but-”

He had to get this under control, he couldn’t let her find out, couldn’t tell her, especially now with the target being her own sister. It wasn’t fair to her to ask her to change her own sister’s heart. He was going to spare her of that. Spare her of having to see whatever kind of distorted desire or shadow her sister was.

So, he grits his own teeth. Her hand was still in his, so he covered her hand with his. “Makoto” he said and clacked his teeth a few times. “I promise everything is okay, I’m just trying to keep an ear out for things if they don’t stay that way.” He shook his head. “I’m a bit more paranoid about everything right now, with Okamura and the investigation, but we’re going to be alright.” He reassured her. I’ll make sure you and the others are alright.

The twinkle in her eyes told him she didn’t believe a word that Ren had said. But the shifting in her mouth showed an inner battle. “Ren, if there was anything that bothered you. You would tell me, right?”

He didn’t want to lie to her. If it had been anything else, he would tell her in a heartbeat. But it wasn’t fair of him to have forced an end to the Phantom Thieves, just to bring them back. He could deal with it, and then he would explain what he had done. He would have to, for his own increasingly guilty conscious. He nodded his head and said three words. “I promise, Makoto.” The third lie.

“You lied to me.” Makoto said, glaring at him. She looked down at the floor. “I knew that there was something wrong at the festival, and I knew” she emphasized the second time she said knew. “There was something wrong that day.” She looked up at him, her glare meeting his apologetic and guilt-ridden gaze. “Why couldn’t you just say something? Why did you have to put yourself at risk?”

He didn’t have an answer, at least not one that she would have wanted to hear. He looked down at the table. He was still clutching his head. The room had slowed its spin at least.

“Ren, we’re a team, we would’ve have dropped everything to help.” Haru said sweetly, not as mad as Makoto, but more disappointment in her voice? Why was that? He internally sighed. He hated disappointing his friends.

“Yes, and besides this did not just concern you, but all of us, you should’ve come to us.” Yusuke agreed, applying his usual analytical mind that he had to lay out why Ren was wrong. Or why he thought Ren had been wrong. Ren wasn’t wrong. He could see that, even if the others were mad about it.

Ren shook his head at all of the comments. They didn’t understand. Couldn’t understand. He was a delinquent. It was on his record. He was never going to beat it or get passed it. It would always be a weight around his neck. He didn’t have a future. Not in the way that they all did at least. He would drag the rest of them down for the rest of their lives. It would be better for them if they abandoned him and went back to their lives before they met him.

Makoto had been silent for a bit, and when he looked up, she was glaring at him again. “You broke our first and main rule.”

He could hear Ryuuji’s and Ann’s surprise. They must not have put it together. He had the moment he had decided to do it. Morgana had agreed though, and considering that the cat and Ren were the only active members currently, on a technicality he hadn’t broken any of their rules. Though based on the looks on everyone’s faces, he couldn’t very well say that.

“Hey, Makoto’s right!” Ryuuji yelled again. Ren flinched in response, but he continued yelling all the same. “We were all supposed to agree before changing someone’s heart! And you just decide you get to do it by yourself! What the fuck?” Ren was pretty sure that was the first time he had ever heard Ryuuji actually say fuck he idly thought while Ryuuji continued to yell at him.

The ‘dudes’ and ‘bros’ and ‘betrayals’ coming from the other side of the table felt like they were getting further and further away, to the point where he barely heard them. He needed a break, he spared a single glance at the clock on the wall, he had been talking for a while, and it looked like he could probably take his pain medicine. And he could get away from them for a bit. That would be nice.

Maybe it would lessen his pain to the point where he could finish this damn story. He was about to stand up when Makoto started speaking. Like always, whenever she spoke, he stopped whatever the fuck he was doing and listened.

“Ryuuji, while I also have complicated feelings about this, being he decided to change the heart of my sister.” She sounded like she was fighting down emotions as she said the words. He wished he could comfort her, but he had been the one who hurt her. Hurt them all. “But it sounds like Akechi wanted specifically to change Sis’s heart. Even if Ren had come to us and told us everything, I’m sure we would have still had to do it.”

Ryuuji made a noise that made it sound like he didn’t think that was a good enough reason. “I understand that. But I want to know why he” he flung a finger his way across the table. “Gets to decide that he gets to ignore our own rules!”

Ren had had enough of this. Couldn’t they all see why he had done what he did? “I did it because I could.” Ren muttered, emotion dripping in his voice.

“‘Eff dude, you did it because you could? What does-”

“I did it” Ren’s voice was becoming more and more harsh, and darker. He could see it but couldn’t stop it. Maybe he didn’t want to. “I did it because I have been collecting all these personas since Kamoshida and I’ve been. And I’ve been.” He repeated twice still trying to come up with how to explain what he was thinking. It came to him. “I knew I could handle a palace, fuck, I could probably solo a palace if I had enough time. But I knew I could do it. I knew I could handle Akechi if push came to shove. And I most certainly knew that I didn’t want you guys to be put in the same room with the Black Mask that kills people!” He finished off the last word with a shout, louder than he had ever really been with them.

“And what about what we wanted?” Ann shouted at him. “You think we wanted you to take all the risk in dealing with him?”

Ren’s mind was barely working now. He had had his outburst; his emotions were all over the place. He needed those damn painkillers upstairs. But how did he get up there during all of this? And how did he respond to Ann?

She did have a point, he supposed. He had been so focused on keeping them protected. Really what he wanted, he supposed. That the thought had never crossed his mind that they might want to know. Well of course he knew that they would want to know, but he hadn’t really been thinking clearly in the last month. He wasn’t thinking clearly now. Would he ever think clearly again?

He let his head fall back into his hand. He tried to subtly, though he supposed it was obvious with how his body continued to betray him, that he was rubbing his head. The throbbing in his head was still there and only getting worse.

A tense silence fell over the team. Ren just stared onto the surface of the table. His mind a mess of thoughts that he was trying, and losing, to bring under control.

“….. Ren?” He looked up slowly, trying to keep the spinning world from getting any worse. Futaba had tears in her eyes as she looked over the booth, situated between Anna and Ryuuji. “You came to me and …. And asked for a bug for a phone and you wanted me to teach you how to use it. That was for Akechi, wasn’t it?”

He nodded his head. This was where more of his lies were going to come to the front. He closed his eyes. He could tell this next part, and then take five minutes. Yeah, that would be what he would do.

He heard Futaba mutter “That makes so much more sense than what you said.”

“Why don’t you tell us why you needed to bug Akechi’s phone.” Makoto’s stern voice, and there was a softness there as well? He didn’t fucking know anymore. Usually, he could tell people’s moods so easily.

He tried to will the memories to come, and his mind rebelled, but he brought the memories to the front of his mind after a bit and began to speak. This story, and then a break.

He sat on Futaba’s bed, in her clean, but still very cluttered room. She at least had the light on along with her computer. Futaba was typing away on her computer. Nothing seemingly bothered the girl. Futaba was so different than she had been just a few months ago. While not quite outgoing, she could work in the café now and was friends with the other thieves.

He wished he didn’t have to involve her in this. He and Mona had tried to figure out different ways to get at Akechi’s plans, but the more they talked, the more they decided that they needed a bug to be able listen in to his conversations. And there was only one person’s whose opinion he trusted on that subject.

The girl seemed to be content with the silence, and she was playing some game on her computer, occasionally cursing, but other than that, said nothing. Ren had a game plan for this conversation. Though having to come in with a plan for a conversation with one of his friends bothered him, it made him feel little better than Akechi or the police.

He shook that thought off him. Physically. He wasn’t like Akechi. He was doing this for them after all. Her match came to an end, as he saw the loading screen back to the matchmaking screen, he decided to put his plan into action.

They had figured out Makoto’s sister’s key words and were planning on scoping it out the tomorrow. However, despite the near constant meeting with Akechi since the cultural festival, he and Morgana still had no idea what he was planning. Bugging his phone was the only option they could think of. If he said what he was planning, then they could plan around him.

“Say, Futaba, you wouldn’t happen to have a bug that you could put in your phone to record what you say do you?” he asked as nonchalantly as he could. He hoped it was enough.

The orange haired girl didn’t respond, and Ren thought that she just didn’t hear him. However, she turned her game off and swiveled around in her chair. Her head was resting on her knees. “Mmm. Yeah, I’ve got them, but like why?”

Ren had a lie prepared. “I’ve been thinking about writing a book about my life experiences from being sent here and thought it would be cool to have a recording of my thoughts when I’m on the phone with other people.” It had sounded better in his head.

“tsk tsk tsk,” she breathed through her teeth. “You are like, so weird for that. Who wants to record themselves talking on the phone?” she asked with a small gremlin smile.

He put his hands in his pockets, his book he had been reading lying beside him on the bed. “It’s a legitimate concern to have, I don’t have a perfect memory!” He tried to act hurt by her words.

Futaba shook her head. At him. “I would say you just need better memory.” She squinted her eyes at him. “Isn’t Sojiro having you write in that journal for the police, why not use that?”

He hadn’t expected these many questions about his story. He managed to smile. “Oh, yeah well, I’m definitely going to use that, but it’s always better to have more sources to remember.” He lied again.

She stared at him, and then let out a “Fiiiineee” and leapt off the chair. She went to her closet, the same one that she had hidden in when they had changed her heart, and started pulling box after box out, throwing it over her shoulder as she did so.

“No, not it” then a box that he assumed a keyboard had come in was thrown his way. “Not that one.” A mouse box. “Oh, this was a cool GPU.” Another box was thrown. And there were more and more and more as she went through the closet.

He watched with mild amusement. Futaba was getting a bit more social, but she also was still Futaba, all her gremlin and eccentricities still there. And Ren wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. He hoped she wouldn’t be too hurt when he told her what this bug was actually for.

She turned around, small box in hand. “Here, this is one of the better ones I’ve got. She stuck the box out. “It’ll even let you take control of your phone if you lose it. Access apps, that sort of thing.”

That might come in handy. He looked up from the box. “You mind teaching me how to do all that?” He didn’t know the first thing about this. Life would be easy if she’d taught him.

“Yeah, sure, come here” she sat down at her desk, already pulling up the program to run it “Luckily for you this was designed to be run on potato computers, so that piece of junk laptop you got fixed up will run it.”

“That’s good” he said. That laptop had so far been had sat on his work desk back at the café, mocking him for its lack of uses. She spent the next twenty minutes or so going over the basic functions, showing him how to use the bug, and its other features like how to control the phone like she had mentioned.

Overall, it was going to be a big help when he went up against Akechi. Now he just needed to figure out how he was going to get hold of his phone. Maybe he would have Morgana knock into him when he had it out or something. He could come up with a plan later.

Futaba was booting her game back up, and he assumed that he had probably bothered her enough for the day. Though before he could stand to say his goodbyes, Futaba turned around. “You’ve got Makoto worried about you.” She spoke. No question no nothing, just a blanket statement.

He tugged on his bangs. “Oh? Did she tell you that? Or was it just your great detective skills?” he asked, trying to turn this conversation into a joke. He didn’t really want to talk or think about why he had Makoto of all people worried.

She bent her head down in a ‘are you kidding me look’ “Ren, I literally bugged Leblanc, how do you think I found out?”

“I thought you’d stopped that.” Ren replied.

She shrugged her shoulders. “I did for the most part, but were not talking about me, were talking about you. So, are you okay?”

Unlike other times when Makoto had asked the question, there was a much lesser urge to tell the truth. So instead, he plastered that fake smile of his on his face. “I’m fine, just trying to get through school and everything.”

Futaba looked down, and for a moment she looked like that shy, socially scared girl who she had been four months earlier. Then she looked up, a look of determination, and a glare that looked suspiciously like she was copying Makoto’s. “You’d tell me if something was wrong right? You’ve done so much for me; I want to be able to help you.”

He thought it might kill him to lie again, but he did it anyway. “Futaba, if I had something that I couldn’t handle, I’d let you and the others know. You guys are more family than my own family.” That part was the truth. It was why he was willing to lie to them to keep them all safe and protected from Akechi and his cabal.

The smile on Futaba’s face was a real one, and she turned around with a “Good.”

He had gotten away with yet another lie, and he was that much closer to figuring out what Akechi had planned. Now time to go and talk with Morgana about plans.

“I thought you writing a book about your life was a weird reason to bug your own phone.” Futaba mumbled. “You could’ve told me the reason, even if you didn’t want me to tell the others, I could’ve helped you!”

Ren shook his head, and the pain was still there, and the world was still spinning. He wondered idly if this was just a fact of his life now. “I didn’t want you near him.” It went unsaid that he didn’t want her near the man who had killed her mother.

He looked down back at the table. Another tense silence filled the room. And Ren’s world was still in complete turmoil. His body ached, his head throbbed, and he was still dizzy. His emotions, usually kept so well under control and in check that he didn’t even have to worry about them, were out of control. Guilt, hate towards Akechi and the others, self hatred, everything bothered him. He held his head in his hand.

“Guys” he said slowly, trying to keep his voice calm and even. He had no idea how well he did. “I need to take a break. Five minutes, please. Let me go upstairs and take some medicine.” He didn’t hear a response from any of them. Either they didn’t respond, which was unlike them, or he was so in his own head that he didn’t hear them.

He slid himself out of the booth and stood up. The world spun around him, but he thought he could manage the few steps to the stairs, then he could sit down, take his pain killers that Takemi gave him, and finish the rest of the story.

He didn’t even make it a step. Suddenly, his leg, the one that had been stomped on, and the one that had been shaking erratically buckled, and then gave out. He landed on the ground with a thump. He did hear his friends call out his name.

He felt wetness around his eyes. No, he couldn’t do that right now either why did it have to do this right now? Why couldn’t it have held at least until he was upstairs? “I’m fine.” He let out weakly. He repeated it again, not sure why he was anymore. “I’m okay.”

There was movement, just as he was repeating the words, and Makoto was in front of him. All of the others were around him too. Makoto’s eyes were full of concern, as was her voice. “You’re not okay, please, please stop lying.” She demanded of him. And for the first time in a month, he merely nodded his head.

“Futaba, he said he needed medicine, right?” Makoto asked behind her. He thought he heard Futaba answer, but he was too focused on trying to get his tears stopped. It wasn’t working. “Go and get them please.” She said in that motherly tone she usually used when talking to Futaba. It was one of the reasons he liked her so much.

He felt her arms coming around him. “Ren, I’m going to pull you up get you back in the booth, can you handle that?”

He looked at her dumbly. No, he didn’t want back up at the booth. He wanted to go upstairs and get his medicine. He must have taken too long to reply, because she just sighed and said. “Ryuuji, keep him steady.”

He felt Ryuuji’s hands on his back as she helped him to his feet. He tried to walk towards the stairs, but Makoto was still holding him, and easily stopped him. He wondered if he had even actually made the effort or if his out-of-control brain told him he did.

Makoto gently set him down on the booth, and scooted him up against the wall, which Ren happily leant against. He could still feel the tears coming down his face, he just wanted away from all of this.

He felt Makoto take a seat next to him. At least he was close to her. Futaba appeared by the end of the booth. “Here they are.” She set down the bottle on the table. “It doesn’t look like he’s taken any today.”

“Kid, I thought I told you to.” Boss said from the other side of the bar.

Ren weakly shrugged. “I don’t remember.”

A long sigh escaped Boss’s lips. “Give the kid a break.” Boss said again, to the others this time. “I mean, look at him.”

Ren wondered just how bad he looked. He looked down, his hands were shaking badly, and there was now a glass of water. “Here.” He felt Makoto’s hands turning his over and placing a couple pills in them. “Take these and take a break, maybe go to sleep for a bit?”

He shook his head at going to sleep, he just needed five minutes to collect his thoughts, and to get his emotions under control. He brought the pills to his mouth, careful to go slow so he didn’t drop them. The glass of water wasn’t as easy. He brought it to his lips, but hands shook so bad that he spilled a lot of it on the table.

He looked down at the water on the table, and rage filled his heart. At himself, at his actions, at Akechi, but most of all, at his failures. How could he hope to get better and fight Akechi if he couldn’t control his emotions around his friends or control his own body and his emotions?

“Fucking useless.” He muttered. At least he had the painkillers in his system. That would at least take the edge off.

“What did you say?” Ryuuji asked.

“I said that I’m fucking useless.” He wiped his eyes and stared out at Ryuuji. “I can’t even make it a step before falling down, or drink a fucking glass of water.”

“You’re putting too much on yourself.” Ryuuji said.

He closed his eyes. He waved the boys’ words off. “Just give me a bit, and I’ll finish up.”

“Take as much time as you need.” Makoto said.

He did close his eyes and promised himself. Five minutes. Then he would start the next part, when he learned about Akechi’s plans to kill him. Then…. Then…. Then he was asleep.

Makoto watched Ren sleeping form, his chest rising and falling slowly. He had been in so much pain at the end there, how long had he felt that way? She shook her head. She was happy he was alive, he was here, they were going to get his side of things, and then figure out how to deal with his enemies. No not his enemies, their enemies.

She looked back to the others. “What do you think so far?” She asked the reassembled Phantom Thieves. She had her own, complicated feelings, but she wanted to see where everyone else was as well.

“I’d never known Ren could lie so much.” Haru said, looking ahead at the boy sleeping on the table. “He was always so truthful and serious about everything.”

“Yes. Yes, he was.” Yusuke agreed. “He never outright lied like this to me.” The blue haired artist paused “In truth, I thought him incapable of it.”

“I don’t like what he said about staying behind.” Ann was saying. “Doesn’t he know that him getting hurt or being forced to leave him behind would hurt us?” Ann sounded close to tears.

“I don’t think it mattered to Ren.” Makoto admitted , she tried not to think about it. The team had never been in that bad of a spot where she thought that would have thought that would be an option. Makoto wouldn’t have allowed it either. They either succeeded together, or they failed together. They were a team. But apparently Ren didn’t view it that way.

“He doesn’t trust us.” Ryuuji finished his thoughts. “He doesn’t tell us any of this because he didn’t trust us to handle it.” Ryuuji sounded like he was having trouble saying the words.

Didn’t he trust them though? Makoto didn’t think that sounded like Ren, it didn’t sound the Ren she knew and had come to love. Nor did it sound like Ren who had come back from the dead. The one who looked at her with such sorrow and guilt in his eyes whenever he admitted to lying and manipulating them.

“That’s not it at all.” Boss’s voice boomed over them. “It’s not that he doesn’t trust you. It’s that he would rather take on everything himself to keep you safe. That’s why he didn’t tell us.” Boss sounded upset, not at anyone, but at the situation.

“We could’ve helped him!” Ryuuji said. “I just wish he had told us, maybe he wouldn’t have to end up in police’s hands if he did.”

“It’s not even that we could have helped him. We wanted to help Ren. He’s done so much for all of us, and to think that he feels this way about himself.” Haru said quietly.

“And this didn’t just concern him, why would he be so worried about us and not himself?” Yusuke asked no one in particular. Makoto had an answer for the artist, but it was one she didn’t like to even think. Ren obviously didn’t care about his own life and placed everyone else’s safety above his own. She just wished she didn’t have to have heard Ren confirm it.

Ren’s tired, sorrow filled voice came over everyone surprising everyone. “It’s simple. All of you have a future, I don’t.” She threw her eyes at him, his eyes were open, and they were still red and blotchy, but he was no longer crying. “It’s simple math, protect anyone who has a future, and then worry about yourself.” He continued. He let out a half chuckle, half scoff, and broke eye contact with her. “Let’s be real for a moment guys, I don’t have a future, I’m going to spend the rest of my life working in beginner level jobs because of my bullshit record.” He didn’t continue, and instead started to clutch at his head again.

It was breaking her heart to hear him talk like this about himself. Didn’t he know and understand the impact that he had had on all their lives? The impact he had on her life. She wasn’t lonely anymore! Because of him. Didn’t he see that? Could he see that? Or was he too distorted?

“Your worth more than you think Ren.” She spoke. They caught each other’s eyes again. She was still mad at him, but she was coming to find out that his actions were based on his own feelings of worthlessness. And she couldn’t find it in herself to be too mad at him over everything, oh they would be having a talk about proper communication, but she couldn’t blame him for how he felt he had to handle it.

How long had he felt worthless? He had helped her when she had felt useless, when she had had her breakdown back in June, why hadn’t he asked for help? Her heart broke even more when she gently shook his head in response to her previous words. She would work on that and his feelings.

A single answer came to her mind to her unasked questions came to her it was one she despised, and she would make sure was. Because he doesn’t feel like he deserves help.

Ren broke eye contact first and his head was back in his hands. “After our preparations, Mona and I met up with Akechi and infiltrated your palace.” He was looking at Sis now. “Uh, we made met with your shadow and then decided to return to the real world.” He paused as he clutched his head. His teeth were gritted in pain again. “It was after we got home, that night, that Morgana and I checked his phone.” He blinked. “Oh, I forgot, during the infiltration we bugged his phone.”

“How’d you manage that?” Yusuke asked. Makoto looked over; he had a hand on his chin as he listened to Ren’s story.

“Oh.” A small smile came to Ren’s face, how she had missed them. The scampering of feet on the stairs made everyone look up. Morgana had decided to face the group now. “He” he pointed out at the cat. “Got underneath Akechi’s feat when he thought he smelled treasure. His phone just happened to be in his hands.”

“So, you tripped him?” Ann asked, a small smile on her face.

“Yeah, his phone went my direction, and while he was untangling himself from Morgana, I bugged his phone.” The smile dropped as he looked back down at the table. “That night though, when Morgana and I checked his phone. We caught that the bug had recorded a phone call.”

Ren had had a long day. First school, which was awful, especially now when he was lying to all his friends. And then he had to turn down all of his friends’ offers to hang out, the worst one being Makoto’s own attempt to ask him out on a date. That had hurt to say no to, but he had tried to assure her that he was just busy that day, and he would and wanted to spend more time with her.

Fucking Akechi and his people trying to kill the Phantom Thieves and distracting him from the important things in his life. Then there was the palace. Sae Niijima didn’t do anything in half measure. A massive casino had awaited them, built in a mockery of justice. They had made quick work of the shadows at least, and Ren’s new personas and Akechi’s own persona had made things easier, though he thought that Akechi was holding back.

They had been confronted by Sae’s shadow and had been told to work their way to the managers floor at the top of the palace, where the treasure was assumed to be. Akechi had wanted to continue, but Ren had a way of handling palaces, they secured a route inside, and then began the actual infiltration. He had called it a night.

Ren slouched on his chair as he waited for his computer to boot up. Morgana curled up in his lap. It was harder, he had to admit, running through a palace without a full team, and he was more tired than he usually was, but Ren thought that they could get through it. The shadows hadn’t been a problem, in truth it had been his own paranoia when it came to Akechi.

He was afraid every time he turned his back to him that that sword of his would be stuck through his chest, and he would fail. Though Morgana had done a good job keeping an eye on him as well. But still it had been a long few hour.

His computer finally got to the home page, and he opened the application that Futaba had somehow remotely installed onto it. Someday he was going to make her explain how she could just do that. Even with an old, barely put together laptop like the one he had found in the trash.

The app finally booted up, and he found that there were a few recorded files already. He found the one dated to right after they had finished up in the palace. What he heard sickened him. It was a report on his progress made with the Phantom Thieves.

“Of course, it’s still unfortunate that their leader refuses to allow his lackeys to work on this.” The man sneering, smug voice said.

“Yes, but once their leader is dealt with, the others will retaliate, and they’ll be easily enough to deal with.” Akechi’s own voice sounded different. Gone was the fake happiness that he always had, replaced with a sinister undertone in his voice.

“This plan of yours seems overly complicated though. Why not take him on in the metaverse?” The man asked. Ren leaned forward. He had been wondering the same thing. There had been a few times tonight when it would have been easy to get an easy hit on Ren, but Akechi hadn’t done it.

“While I most certainly will try if the opportunity presents itself, my previous hypothesis that he was the strongest of the thieves has been proven accurate. As such, it is my concern that even if I can get a surprise hit on him, that he might beat me. So, I believe our current strategy to be the correct one.”

“Very well, you understand these matters far more than I do.” The man said. “You’re sure the boy doesn’t expect you?”

He could hear the smile in Akechi’s voice. “I’m quite certain, he has bought my story about helping him out of my own sense of justice. That won’t be an issue.”

Well, at least Ren had him beat there. Akechi had bought his act with such easiness that he had been afraid that Akechi hadn’t truly believed him. But it seemed like he had. Ren had to take the small wins here and there, otherwise he would go insane from everything he was trying to do.

The conversation continued. “Good. Just make sure it gets done. I want the Phantom Thieves handled before the election.”

“Of course. I will ensure that it’s handled before the end of the month. By the election, the leader of the phantom thieves will be dead, and you will be Prime Minster.” Akechi had something else he was saying, but Ren didn’t notice it. All he was focusing on was the word dead.

Akechi means to kill me. I’m going to die. I’m going to die. I have to tell the others. They can still help. He reached out to his phone that was lying on the table. He could still explain everything and -. He stopped and pulled his hand back. No, he couldn’t. Especially now. He looked down on the table. “Morgana, we need to figure out a game plan.” He took a deep breath trying to calm his nerves.

It wasn’t working. The fear, panic and desperation of wanting to live. He had been by himself, purposely so to protect his friends. His hands were shaking. He blinked rapidly, trying to come up with a way to stay alive, and come back for his friends. He blinked again. His mind was blank.

“Ren?” he heard Morgana, but it felt far away, like he was hearing him from behind a wall or something. It was then he realized that his breathing was ragged and …... and…. He couldn’t think clearly, everything was foggy. His mind was repeating the same thing over and over again.

I’m going to die, and no one will ever know.

He jumped to his feet. He didn’t know where he was going, but he was getting away from that computer and …... and everything. He was outside the door of Leblanc before he knew where he was going, everything was blur, and he thought he heard Morgana calling his name. He didn’t turn around, everything in his body was screaming at him to get out, to get away, to run as far as he could and not face anything.

He was on the metro, where he was going, he couldn’t remember, nor cared to think about it, he needed to calm down, but every time he took a breath, and started to make some progress on that front that thought would come to his mind.

I’m going to die.

Ren blacked out a lot of the travel, he would later tell the others during his explanation to everyone that he had been so in his own head that he hadn’t noticed where he was going. He was walking in a park when he finally came to. Inokashira Park to be exact. He grunted to himself at his realization. Of course, his body would take him to a place that reminded him of home. Or at least the closest he could come to.

For the first time in months, he thought of his parents. They hadn’t talked to him since he had been arrested, and the discussion they had last hadn’t been a good one. Filled with ‘You’ve ruined your mother and I’s lives’ and ‘I’m sorry I raised you this way.’ He involuntarily balled his fists in his hands.

He loved his parents, and he was sure that they loved him, but how could he reach out to them now? Would they even want to talk to him? Did he want to talk with them? They had cast him aside when they thought he had become a problem child. Would they care that their eldest son was going to be killed for doing what he thought was right.

He was crying, he realized as he felt wetness on his face. He was so weak, having a panic attack, then bringing up memories better left repressed and not thought about. He then found himself leaning up against a tree, bawling his eyes out as he tried to get his feelings under control. He had repressed everything so far; he could continue to do it a bit longer. He forced those feelings and his fear of death and his abandonment back down, he would cry and feel bad about his life later.

Resolving slowly replaced the feelings of worthlessness and panic. He had his friends, no, not just friends, his family, to protect, he had Makoto to protect, they were more important than himself. They always had been. Akechi and whoever was controlling him would rue the day that decided to go after his friends. He would make sure of that. No matter the sacrifice. A plan started to take form in his head. An absolutely insane one, it would be dangerous, probably suicidal even. His friends would hate it, hell he hated thinking about, but that resolve remained. He would make any sacrifice. Even himself.

Ren finished the last thought with exhaustion. He had slept for a bit, but it hadn’t done anything for him. Though the world wasn’t spinning like it had been, there was a small win there. He allowed himself for a moment to look at everyone around him, who stared back at him with mixture of shock and terror.

“You…. You knew that he was trying to kill you?” Ann was the first to speak.

Ren nodded his head. “Once I heard that, and after a small breakdown, I came up with a plan.”

Ryuuji was the one who, as usual, interrupted him. “Dude, I don’t really care about your plan right now, you thought you were gonna die and you still didn’t tell us?” The accusation was clear. Ryuuji didn’t think that Ren trusted them. Not that Ren had given any of them any reason to think any differently to, with how he had been acting. But he did trust them…. didn’t he?

Shaking himself from that thought, Ren replied. “Once everything came into focus for me, it didn’t feel right just telling you about my lies.” Ren admitted. Was that really the best reason he could come up with? That it didn’t ‘feel’ right?

You are fucking useless.

“Dude…” Ryuuji seemed stuck between being angry with him and being angry at the people who put them all in this position. Which Ren supposed, included him. “You could’ve come to us at any time, but you chose not to because you don’t trust us?” he finally shouted. “I trusted you! And what you didn’t trust us?”

Ren started to shake his head, and a retort came to his brain, he started to say it, but Makoto broke in. “I think it’s best if we stop for the day, Ren can finish this another time. When he’s feeling better, and when were all a lot more sound of mind.”

That wasn’t an option. Ren didn’t have the time to spend another day talking about this. He had to get out, get to Mementos, take his drugs, and then bait Akechi into a fight. So, he shook his head.

“No.”

Makoto’s gaze shot over to him. “No?” she questioned him. Her hand stopped rubbing his back and withdrew, he missed it.

“I’ve got things I need to do, like getting to mementos, and” he stopped, did he tell them the rest of his plan? He probably couldn’t away from them if he did, but they already knew everything, so his original plan had basically collapsed already. “And then I’m going to bait Akechi.”

Makoto’s eyes narrowed, and she shot him a glare that he had long since grew immune to. “You’re not going by yourself.” She said with enough sternness in her voice that if he was anyone else, they probably would have followed along.

But Ren wasn’t anyone else. He was the leader of the Phantom Thieves. He was the wild card. And most of all, he was Joker. “I didn’t go through all of this, lie to everyone, just for you to get involved now.” He shot back.

Her glare only deepened. “I think we’re all pretty involved now Ren! We were involved when you didn’t tell us!” Makoto said, her voice getting quieter and quieter as she did so.

He shook his head. “Out of the question.”

“Nuh, huh.” Ann said. Making both of them turn and look at the blonde. “You don’t get to get yourself killed, come back to life, trauma dump of all of this, this, this shit about you not ever thinking about yourself and your worst-case scenario! It’s not fair to us! You go on and on about wanting to protect us from Akechi, but did you ever think that maybe we would have wanted to protect you?”

Ren didn’t have an answer for her, all he could do was look at her, at a loss for words. What could he say? Was she right? Had he been so focused on his own wants, namely protecting them, that he had ignored what they would have wanted? Was he such a bad friend? No, he couldn’t be, he had done all of this to protect them, why couldn’t they see what was so clear to him?

“Ann” he said. “Everyone” he said as he looked from person to person. “I don’t have a future, I’m worthless, if push came to shove-” he didn’t get to finish what he was thinking.

“Stop it! Please just stop it!” Futaba bawled from the other side of the booth. “Can’t you see that you’re the only one who views yourself that way.” She sniffed “You’ve done so much for me, you’re the brother I always wanted, and then you disappeared, and…. And we thought you died! All because you’ve gotten it into your stupid head that you’re worthless.” And then she started bawling, or at least, trying to keep herself from looking like she was.

He looked down at the table. He had made her feel like that, his actions, his lies, his manipulations. What was wrong with him. He felt Makoto get up and she went over and gingerly sat down next to the girl. “He’s fine, he’s right there.” She murmured to Futaba.

“Ren-Kun, we all care about you, when bad things happen, we want to support you. When Akechi came to you that night, we all wanted you to come to us, not because you would’ve burdened us, but because standing for each other is what friends do.” Haru said kindly.

Ren nodded his head slowly. He understood what they were saying, he truly did, but he had done everything he did to protect them, he didn’t want to be a bother.

“You’re not a bother dude. Couldn’t be.” Ryuuji responded to him. He must have said that last bit of this thought out loud.

“I ended the Phantom Thieves because I….” he took a deep breath. Things were bubbling at the surface of his emotions, all because they had made him sit down and think about them, instead of what he would usually do. Which was to repress them and hopefully never think about them again.

“I thought you would abandon me. Like everyone does.” He finally admitted. He swallowed and shook his head, the tears in his eyes, so recently gone, trying to force their way back out. “Everyone does when I fuck up, my parents, my friends back home…” he trailed off, not having the will to listen to them agree with his assessment.

“We would never abandon you!”

“How foolish of you to think that!”

“You’re our leader, and more importantly our friend!”

“Dude, your like, my best bro, I don’t know how you could think that! Even with all of this extra shit.”

“Ren, you’re like my brother, your family to me and Sojiro, I would never let you stand by yourself, I know what that does to people.”

He felt a presence and two arms pulling him off the wall and into a hug. Makoto whispered to him. “I love you, Ren, we all do. We shouldn’t have put so much on you, I shouldn’t have, but please let us stand with you now, we want to.”

Just being in her arms, his girlfriends, or whatever the hell they were, was enough to break his already weakening will. The words from the others though, were what truly broke him out of it. He should have known. How had he been such a fool to think that they would leave or abandon him? When had they changed hearts together? When they had all done so much together. Maybe he hadn’t needed to do all of this together.

He pulled away, but Makoto kept her hand on his, slowly rubbing the bruises around his wrist. “Thanks guys.” He wiped the tears away, and for the first time in what felt like months, showed a real smile. He could face this, face his own fears. It wouldn’t be a quick fix, these feelings of his might never go away entirely, but with his friends. No, his family, he could make the effort to.

“Not to ruin the moment, but I still want to know more about this plan of yours.” Sae said. He felt Makoto literally jump away from how close she was sitting next to him. Her hand still held his though.

Ren nodded his head. “Well, I mean, after we figured out his plan, Morgana, Akechi, and I worked the rest of the way through your palace, all the while we came up with a plan to use your version of the metaverse to trick him.”

“We spent a bunch of time I the metaverse.” Morgana said. “We scoped out your version of the police station and hoped that it was the same.”

“You bet Ren’s life on a bet?” Yusuke asked for all of the Phantom Thieves.

“Uh, no, what I meant was-” Morgana started to say.

“Relax, what he meant was, that by the time we had to use the metaverse, we hoped that her memory of what she saw would be so recent that Akechi wouldn’t know the difference.” Ren explained, trying to save his cat from the verbal abuse and questions that they were sure to hurl at him.

Ren continued the story, buoyed in his attempts to by the continued presence of Makoto’s hand on his. “Once we cleared the palace, it took us about four days or so, Akechi came up with some bullshit about how Sae-san was planning to raid Leblanc and take all of us in, and he thought that it would be better to wait to change her heart until the last minute, to try throw the investigation off.”

“That was about the time you started spending all of your free time with us.” Makoto narrowed her eyes at him, but her hands never left his.

He nodded his head. He had no reason to lie anymore. “Yeah, that’s right. I wanted to have good memories with all of you, in case the plan didn’t work.” He didn’t need to elaborate. “We fought your shadow, pain in the ass by the way.” Ren added.

Joker stopped, his knife clenched tight in his hands, as he approached Sae Niijima’s shadow. Sae’s shadow was kneeling on the ground, a hand to her chest while the other one steadied herself on the ground. She regarded Joker and the others weakly, and with cold sadness in her eyes. “So, I’ve lost.”

The usual cockiness was gone from her voice. Joker wiped sweat from his brow, while Akechi caught his breath. He had used up a lot of his energy in the fight, and hopefully the traitor wouldn’t have the strength to try to attack Sae. Even so, Joker made sure to put himself in between Akechi and Sae, with Morgana behind him.

“Morgana.” He called out, keeping his eye on Akechi. “Go get the treasure, we’ll make sure that nothing happens to her.” He ordered.

Makoto’s sister was broken. Looking at the dark reflection of Makoto’s sister, made him remember all the lies and bullshit he had said to get this far. Pity and sorrow filled his heart. All the other shadows that he had faced had had some sort of closure with the people that they had hurt. All except for this one. Makoto wasn’t here.

“Makoto loves you. You know.” Sae’s shadow looked up.

“How do you know Makoto?” she asked, and then looked down. “I suppose it doesn’t matter, if she’s fallen in with you, then she’s lost. I’ve failed as a sister.”

Ren shook his head. “Makoto loves you” he repeated himself “And she appreciates you, and all you’ve done for her.” He closed his eyes. “If she were here, she would want you to know that she wishes you were back to your old self, who you were before…. Before this.” He spread his arms out and around the casino.

“Joker, it’s a shadow, certainly this doesn’t matter.” Crow sneered at him behind his mask.

A glare from Joker shut him up. And he went back to Sae’s shadow. “She would probably want you to remember your justice, why you became a prosecutor.” He stopped, caught his breath and spoke. “But I’m not her, you should tell your sister that yourself.”

“I found it!” Morgana came running with a silver case in both hands. The treasure.

Joker smirked and took it out of Mona’s hands. “Good job.” He turned to Crow.

Crow was smiling at him. If Joker hadn’t known what was coming, then he would have thought it was just a normal, relived smile at having accomplished their mission. But Joker knew what this was, it was a predatory one, one that showed his true plans for Joker.

“You remember our deal, correct?” Crow asked, still having that smile plastered over his face. “You help me change Niijima-San’s heart, stop being Phantom Thieves, and in return I get rid of the evidence.”

Joker gave a single nod. “Yes. Back to your real job huh?” He hoped the barb was friendly enough.

If it wasn’t Crow didn’t seem to care. “Oh, yes, I imagine that things are about to get very interesting.”

A huff of breath from Mona pulled Joker’s attention to his friend. The cat was staring wide eyed ahead. “I’m sensing a lot of enemies surrounding us! Joker! We need to get out of here!”

Joker took a step towards his cat. “Can you tell how many?”

“How did they find us here?” Crow demanded angrily.

Joker stopped and made eye contact with Morgana. “Morgana take the treasure, and get out of here, you guys split up, I’ll distract them!” He shoved the treasure into Morgana’s hands.

“You’re just going to distract them by yourself?” Crow asked, incredulousness in his tone at Joker’s actions.

Nerves and fear were sprouting from his chest, but he kept them under control. But he didn’t trust his voice, so he only nodded at Crow.

Morgana played his part well. “Look Crow, I don’t like it either, but once Joker gets his mind set on something, then theres nothing we can do to change it!” Morgan turned around, the treasure pulled close to his chest. “Be safe Joker, and I’ll see you again!"

“Yes, my friend. Be safe, and fight true.” And with that Crow nodded his head at him, and ran off in the other direction.

Now it was all on Joker to pull this impossible plan off. And he turned to run back down into the lower floors of the casino. He hoped that this wouldn’t be the last time he was free.

“After I got back down, I fought a couple of battles with some shadows, Arsene came back and talked about how he would return soon, and then Kasumi showed up as a phantom thief.”

“Wait what?” Ryuuji asked quickly as he perked back up into the conversation. “You mean Kasumi Yoshisawa? The honor student?”

Ren shrugged, and bit through the pain. “Yeah, the honor student, she stumbled upon some weird palace, during the time when we were clearing Okamura’s palace.” He cocked his head at the questioning stares he was getting from the others. “I told you all this right?"

Makoto shook her head, though this time it was just in disappointment, and not anger. “No, Ren, I don’t think you did.”

Ren scrunched his lips up at that. He was certain he had told them, at least he meant to. “Well, sorry about that, I thought I did.” He sighed and rubbed his head. “She fought with me for a bit, and then I made her leave, it was a whole deal.” He paused as he thought about events that felt like a long time ago, even though they only had happened in the last three days. “Then I made a stylish exit, jumped out a window, and then got captured by the police.”

He gestured to his body and its state, trying to make a joke of it. “I was interrogated by the police, got hit a few times, one guys stomped on my leg and then stomped on my head.” He threw in as much lightheadedness as he could all the while smiling. “Then-“

Makoto’s hands gently squeezed his, stopping his recollection. “You’re allowed to be bothered by this Ren, it’s okay to not be okay. You don’t have to pretend anymore, not to us.”

Ren’s smile fell at Makoto’s words, her thumbs rubbed small circles into his hands. He was trying to repress what happened in the police station. But look where repressing his feelings had gotten him before. He bit back some tears that he didn’t want to shed right now. “Okay.” He said quietly. He knew she was right. He was trying to repress what happened, but he could no longer do that now. He’s not ready to talk about it yet, but when the time was right, he would talk to them all about it, or at least Makoto about it. “I’ll be fine, I promise. I’m not right now, but I will be.”

“I still don’t understand why you needed me to take the phone.” Sae said. She narrowed her eyes at him. “You didn’t seem to remember why last night.”

Ren narrowed his own eyes in thought. He knew why now, it had been the key to the plan, but why didn’t he just tell her last night? An answer came to him, one that he didn’t like the implication of. “Well, I didn’t remember last night, I just knew you had to take the phone.”

“The phone was used to transport Akechi into the metaverse.” Morgana answered Ren. “I was sitting upstairs, keeping an eye on the cameras that Futuba’s program had gotten us into it. When I saw the two of your talking, I sent a message to his phone that activated the nav, and it sent him into your palace. Once there, he killed Ren’s cognitive version of him, I sent him back.”

“…. I see.” Sae finally said. She seemed lost in thought. “How did you manage to use my palace world, if my heart had been changed?”

“That’s something I’ve been wondering as well.” Makoto looked between Ren and Morgana.

The two shared a look. “Oh, yeah, we didn’t actually change your heart.” Makoto’s eyes went wide. While Sae tilted her head in a questioning look. Ren shrugged his shoulders. At least he could do that again. “I thought that once we got back, we would talk about it.”

“So, the treasure you had?” Sae asked.

Morgana answered. “A simple briefcase that we bought and brought to mementos!”

The group falls into silence. Not an uncomfortable one like the previous ones had been, instead it’s a silence that’s comfortable, that’s one feels the happiness of them getting back together. Of getting the Phantom Thieves back together. However, now Ren was of a bit more stable mind. “I’m sorry.” He apologized. “I should have come to you the moment Akechi cornered me. It wasn’t my decision to make.” He turns to Makoto. “I’m sorry about all my lies to you. About everything really.” He turns to Futaba. “You too, Futaba” and then to them all. “I should’ve just told you all.”

“Yeah, you should’ve”

“You take too much on yourself.”

“Just don’t do it again!”

“Kid, don’t pull a stunt like that again, you nearly gave me a heart attack.”

Makoto rubbed his hand, and she gave him a glance. A glance that said We are going to talk about this later. Ren nodded his head at her, and the exhaustion that followed him around all day, especially from the start of his explanation.

“So, what’s our plan now?” Ryuuji asked suddenly. “You said you wanted to bait Akechi into a fight in mementos, right?”

Ren shrugged and struggled to keep his eyes open. He leaned into Makoto’s side. “To be honest, I hadn’t really gotten that far yet, I was too busy trying to get through the Akechi trying to kill me to think that far ahead.” He brought his left hand, the one that wasn’t being held by Makoto. “I’m not really in any condition to fight him right now.”

“We’ll take a few days, give Ren plenty of time to recover. Futaba, see if you can use the bug in Akechi’s phone to see who he’s talking to.” Makoto said. “Everyone else, we should all go about life like everything’s normal. Act confused in case Akechi confronts any of you, but if he does.”

“Let me know.” Ren’s voice was hard. “Even if I’m still in pain, I can live through it if it means getting to take a shot at him.”

“We’ll just hope that he’s got better things to do before we act.” Haru said.

He heard a sigh from behind the counter. “While I’m not going to kick you out, it’s getting late, everyone, if they’re going to be acting normal like you plan to, should be heading out now.” Boss said.

Ren turned around, ignoring the pain in his back. It was dark outside. Had he been talking that long? Or had he fallen asleep for that long? He shook his head. It felt lighter, hell his whole body did, it was like a weight had fallen off of his shoulders.

“I agree.” Sae said. “You all need to act like normal teenagers, and students. Once we come up with a plan, then we can act.” She held up a single finger, mainly pointing at Ren. “Not before that.”

Of course, Ren no longer had any plans to act by himself, at least not right now. He nodded his head. “Agreed.”

However, he had one last thing to say before everyone headed out. “Guys, one thing. I was alone when I came here, to Tokyo. I was planning on keeping my head down and staying under the radar and being by myself.” He managed to smile again. “I’m happy fate had other plans, and I consider you all family.” He chuckled. “I’m not sure what possessed me to say that, but well” he held up his hand in a ‘not sure what I was thinking way’

“You’re my best bro too man.”

“Get some rest, Ren.”

“You’re my family too.”

“Ren-kun, stay safe, and know that you’re one of my best friends.”

Everyone headed out, well everyone except for Makoto, Sae, Futaba, and Boss. Sae stood and walked towards the door. “Come on Makoto, I’ll drive us home.”

“Uh, sis?” Makoto said quickly. “If it’s all the same to you, I would rather stay here and keep an eye on Ren.”

He had never seen a woman turn around so fast. “Didn’t you just get done telling everyone to act normally? And you want to stay here?” The question is clear. “With a boy?”

“I can wake up early and come home and get clothes.” she said quickly. “Please, sis, I need this.”

Sae studied her sister. And Ren allowed himself the low hope that she would allow Makoto to stay. She nodded her head. “Very well. No funny business and be safe.”

“Thank you, sis!”

Sae chucked good-naturedly to herself and left Leblanc. Leaving the Sakura’s and the two.

“I’m going to close and go to bed. Stay safe you two.” Boss called out and headed towards the door.

“Yeah.” Futaba said with an evil glee in her voice. “No funny business!”

The door was shut and locked. Leaving Makoto and Ren alone. He laid his head on her shoulder. Something he wouldn’t have done earlier, but he was pretty sure he knew what the two of them were now. “I’m sorry Makoto.”

He turned his hand around and gave her hand a squeeze. She stared at their hands for a second. “You hurt us all, it’s going to take some time to get over it.” She said finally. “I want you to hear my story, you’ve been going on and on about why and how you did this, and I appreciate you doing all of this for us, but you need to hear how it affected us.”

Ren looked at her and nodded his head. He probably wasn’t going to like what he was about to hear.

Makoto tapped the screen of her phone for the fourth time in the ten minutes that she had been sitting alone in the student council room. Nothing. She gulped and forced the dread from her chest as tried to pull her attention back from the worry, and back to the studying she needed to get done. Entrance exams were coming up after all.

She went back to the study booklet; one she and Ren had bought a few days earlier. Her thoughts fell back to Ren. He wasn’t answering his phone, he wasn’t at school, it was like he fell off the face of planet.

She swallowed again and thought.

Ren promised me that he would tell me if something was wrong. He promised.

Another voice in her head replied to her thought. He didn’t even convince you, you just wanted to ask him to the dance.

She shook at that thought. Everything would be okay. He would show up soon and everything would be okay. Yeah, that would be the case. Soon Futaba would call them and tell them that Ren had just been in his head and had come back after getting through whatever he was going through the last few weeks.

She went back to the booklet and sighed. She knew of all this. So, she put it in her bag, and went to get another booklet, bought at the same time as the one she was going over now, and stared at the paper at the bottom of her bag. A research paper assigned by her social science teacher a few weeks earlier. She tilted her head at it and pulled it out. It was due at the start of last week.

That would have been back when Ren had seemed to be losing his mind, and she had been so worried about him, he wasn’t talking to anyone, he wasn’t even reaching out. He had isolated himself. Was that why she had forgotten to turn this in?

She stood and determined to turn it in, she had never forgotten to turn an assignment in, and she wasn’t going to start now. She just hoped that the teacher was still in the faculty office. Luckily for her, the man was.

He was sitting at his desk, going over some paper or another. She walked up to him.

“Oh, Niijima-san, what can I do for you?” he asked with a smile.

In response she handed him the paper. “I was just sitting down to study and realized I forgot to hand this in.”

Recognition lit in the teacher’s eyes. And he took it gingerly out of her hands. “Oh, too be honest I thought I had just lost it.” There was relief in his voice as he turned away from her and placed it on his desk.

“I’m sorry” was all she found it in her power to say.

He waved a hand at her. “It’s not big deal, you’re an excellent student, you’ll get into any college you try for.” He turned his attention to the tv in the background. The tv presenters were talking about the Phantom Thieves, and the search for them and how it was going. “Wish those Phantom Thieves were more like you.”

She didn’t say anything, not trusting her own voice. She did wonder what he would say if he knew that he was talking to one of the Phantom Thieves.

“We have breaking news. The SIU has just announced that the leader of the Phantom Thieves has been apprehended and is currently in question. Current statements seem to show that he is a teenager, and that he lived in the Tokyo area.”

A hand went to her mouth in shock. The dread that had been threatening to overwhelm her came close to her. She fought back tears. Her phone was buzzing like mad. “That’s too bad, to know that someone that young could get involved in something like that.” He said more to himself than to anyone else.

She didn’t respond, but did manage to pull her hand back from her mouth. She had to get out of here and get somewhere private. “… Ex- Excuse me.” She went to bow but the teacher called her back.

“Wait, some students dropped this off for the student council, could you take them?” she nodded her head and grabbed the stack of papers and made a hasty retreat from the faculty office. She walked up the stairs and back to the student council room. Her phone continued to buzz and when she got back to the room, she allowed herself to check it.

There were several notifications from a newly made group chat. She clicked on the notification and scrolled up.

Skull: HAS ANYONE SEEN THE NEWS WHAT THE ‘EFF IS GOING ON?

Panther: Yes, has anyone seen Joker? He still isn’t answering my calls… or texts

Fox: He isn’t mine as well…. Could he have been taken into custody?

Oracle: Sojiro is a wreck, and Ren still hasn’t come home. Please has anyone heard from him?

Noir: How could this happen? Akechi said that they had no leads!

Makoto stared at the chat. She swallowed again and bit back the tears that were threatening to pour out of her. If Ren was in trouble, it was up to them to help him. It was up to her to make sure that the others knew it as well. She was the advisor; she could lead them for at least until Ren came back. She typed a text.

Queen: If it is Joker, we’ll have to be careful, continue to act like normal, let’s meet though soon, tomorrow, give it today, and we’ll figure out a plan to save him.

Oracle: Sojiro is offering Leblanc as a hideout.

Noir: Alright, I’ll keep Ren-kun in my thoughts, we’ll save him and if he goes to trial, I’ll get him the best lawyer money can buy!

Skull: That’s our Queen, I’ll be on standby, hope this is just the police talking out their ass.

Makoto knew in her heart that it wasn’t. That they had Ren. Ren the boy who hated police stations and anything to do with them. Well, anything to do with them except her. Her breath caught in her throat. What were they doing to him? What were they going to do to them?

Was Sae involved? How was she going to react? She had a palace, she was so distorted that if she was, she would never listen to anything Ren had to say! She pulled her phone up and put the paper on the desk.

She probably needed to go home, walking home would give her a bit of time to think everything over and come up with a plan. Yeah, that’s what she would do. Walk home, come up with a plan, to save Ren. She went over to the table, gathered up her papers and bag, threw it over her shoulder and walked out of the room.

The walk to her apartment was spent in her own mind. She went over option after option. Did they reach out to Akechi and see what was going on? No, something with how Ren interacted with him, and how Ren talked about him made her think that he didn’t trust the detective. And if Ren didn’t trust him, then neither would they. Did she just do the absolutely crazy thing and ask Sae when she got home that night?

If she came home that was. Odds were if they had gotten Ren, Sae would be extremely busy. So, that probably wasn’t going to be an option. Would she need to change her sister’s heart, to convince her to save Ren? Would that have to be what she would have to do.

It made her heart ache. She didn’t want to have to change sis’s heart, had wanted to try some other way, but if it meant saving Ren from the police, she would do it. Even if it would eat away at her. It also meant telling the others that her sister had a palace. For Ren though, she would do anything.

Nodding her head at herself, she resolved to tell everyone tomorrow at lunch. When the Shujin students of the Phantom Thieves would be meeting and discussing how to help Ren. Then she made the mistake of turning on the news.

“We have another breaking report! Just hours after announcing the arrest of the Phantom Thieves leader, he appears to have committed suicide.”

She dropped her phone out of her hand, and it fell uselessly to the ground. Everything shattered around her. She fell to the couch and sat there, as the commentator droned on more about it. She was shaking, she was sure, and tears spilled out of eyes as the realization of what they had just said hit her.

Ren was dead. Ren, the sweetest, nicest, most responsible boy she knew was dead.

Defeat piles onto her, her grand plans of changing Sis’s palace leave her mind, nothing makes sense. Everything is wrong. Then she cried in a way that she hadn’t cried since her the police had come and told her about her father.

She wept for a long time after that, for the loss of everything that she had lost, everything had fallen a part. Her hopes, her plans for the future, her want and almost inexplainable need to be with Ren, it was all gone.

She wiped away the tears, and they just continued as she continued to weep. She sat on the couch in that state for she doesn’t know how long.

She needed to calm down. Makoto took a few hard breaths and managed to stop her crying. Her phone was buzzing incessantly on the floor, but she didn’t have the will to pick it up and look at who or what was being discussed.

Ren’s dead, and there’s nothing you can do to fix it. The thought appears in her head, and then she’s bawling again. Her phone continues to ring and buzz, and she continues to cry. Ren was dead. Who was going to lead them now? What had even happened? Was this why he had been acting so weird?

Makoto had been worried that Ren was acting weird because of the unspoken thing between them. She had hoped for it to be a spoken thing soon, but now that would never happen. She weeps and she weeps, and she weeps.

The door opens and shuts, and Sae’s home. She needs to get ahold of herself. Her tears stop and she takes a few shaky breaths, she can’t let Sis know that she knows Ren and is so upset because of his death. She must know about Ren, maybe she had even interrogated him. The thought scares her, her distorted sister with Ren, who was powerless to protect herself.

“Makoto?” She hears Sis call out, but she’s not really listening. She’s staring forward, imagine Sis tearing into Ren, and Ren who is just there, and taking all the blame for them all. Like she knew he would. Theres a hand on her shoulder, and Sis is gently shaking her. She looks up, her ruby eyes meeting her sisters. Somehow, they’re warmer than they’ve been in a long time.

“Oh, Sis!” She tries to start in a happy, cheery tone. “I didn’t hear you come in!”

Makoto watches Sis’s reaction, she shakes her head at her obviously bad attempt at lying. “Makoto, I know everything.”

Makoto is certain that whatever little color that had come back to her face is gone again, and she looks away from her sister. Her lips were trembling again, she was not going to cry in front of Sis. She was not going to let her call her useless again.

So, Makoto doesn’t say anything, she doesn’t trust her own voice to say anything. “It’s okay, Makoto, your friend, he explained everything.”

She looks up at the mention of Ren. She finds herself not thinking about her next words. “Is…. Is he actually-”

Sis shakes her head, and hope and relief sours through her chest. “He’s alive.” She says finally. “He’s resting at the café.”

He’s alive, He’s Alive. He’s alive. The hope in her chest is strong and alive again, the color seems to come back to the world, and everything feels like it’s going to be okay.

He’s okay and he’s going to have a plan, and they’ll be together and – wait, if he had been arrested, how was he back? How was he okay?

Sae must have seen her question on her face. “I interrogated him, he explained everything, including your role in the Phantom Thieves.” She sighs. “I think… I think he has a lot of explaining to do. To you and to your friends,”

Makoto looks at her and asks “Wh… Why?” what could Ren possibly explain, he had been arrested and put through so much, and Sae had obviously played a part in saving him.

“He was arrested doing Phantom Thief business.” She finally said and closed her eyes. “In my palace.” She added.

Sis’s palace? How had Ren found out about that? And if he had been running through her palace, why hadn’t he told anybody? Why hadn’t he told her?

She goes to ask Sis, but she holds up a hand. “I’m not sure I quite understand what he was saying, he was pretty incoherent by the time he got to me.” She explains. “Let him explain, and when he does, I want to be there as well.”

Makoto nods dumbly, happiness mixed with confusion and anger as she processes everything that Sae was saying. “He’s alive. That’s all that matters.”

“I would like you to explain so things I had some questions about, but not tonight.” Sae stands and she smiles at Makoto, a smile that’s more real than any she’s seen from her sister for a long time. “It’s late, and you look like a mess, go take a shower and go to bed.” She stops and says something that Sae hadn’t told her in a long time. “I love you Makoto.”

“I love you too, Sis” She smiles at Sae who walks away and into her own room. She would get her answers about everything tomorrow. She would just have to be content with the fact that Ren was alive, and that he had a lot of explaining to do tomorrow.

Ren tried to lift his head off of her shoulder to look at her, but her hand, which had curled around him and was running her fingers through his hair, kept him still. He had never really thought about how his actions would affect everyone else. He was just so focused on keeping them safe, and then on staying alive. “I’m sorry.” He croaked out. “I should have told you everything, from the beginning.”

Makoto hums at him, her hand still running through his hair in a comforting motion. “Yes, you should have, I won’t lie Ren, thinking you died, it nearly destroyed me, I thought everything was over and that there wasn’t point to anything, and then learning that you had done all of this, gotten yourself in that position because you thought you didn’t matter.” She trails off.

She gently pulled his head back, and she looks into his eyes and she smiled at him. “But your alive, and I guess that’s all that matters.” She narrowed her eyes, and her gaze turned into a glare. “Never again though. I don’t want you to have hold onto these feelings and think that you must hold all the burdens for all of everything for us all. I want to share your problems with you. We’re a team.”

He smiled and nodded his head. “Never again.” He agreed. He would talk to her next time he faced something like this. “Anything big like this happens again, I’m coming straight to you.” He meant it now at least. And he hoped he would be able to bring himself. “We are a team, you and me, and everyone else.” He speaks.

She rests her head on his. “I could get used to this.” Ren continues anyway. “Spending my time with you.”

“I could too.” She says with a smile.

“Then let’s do it more, once we finish this fight we’ve got, let’s go out on a real date, like we should have done a long time ago.” He says with some nervousness.

“That sounds wonderful Ren,” Makoto replies. Then she pulls him up from the booth. “Come on, let’s get you upstairs, you’re probably exhausted.

Ren smiled and let her take the lead while dragging him up the stairs. They were okay, he and his friends were okay. Now that they were back together, there was nothing that could stand against the Phantom Thieves. Nothing whatsoever. He would never allow himself to feel worthless again. He had friends who cared about him, he had a family on Sojiro and Futaba who cared about him. And now he had a girlfriend who would kill him if he thought like that. They would figure out what to do next, and then they could live in peace.