Work Text:
Bang
Bang
“His signal… is gone.”
No… I’m still here, dammit.
“I’m only getting… the weaklings…”
Who are you calling weak…
“Let’s go, Joker.”
Joker…
Don’t… Don’t leave me, yet. You can’t…
Don’t leave me behind, Akira, please…
…
Fuck.
Am I… really going to die here?
After all this time… just when I finally…
…
Goro closes his eyes.
A subtle warmth envelops Goro.
He slowly opens his eyes. A vast, empty blue enters his field of view.
Where… am I?
Goro tries to get up, only to realize that he’s not laying on anything. Rather, he is floating, like he were in water.
Can’t breathe… No, that’s not it. I don’t need to breathe here.
This place… it feels oddly similar to the metaverse, but it feels somehow different. I can’t quite put my finger on it.
He tries again to rearrange himself, but the “water” seemingly passes through his body, as though he were a ghost.
Guess I’m stuck in this position.
Goro stays in his laying down position, though he can’t really tell whether he’s facing “up” or “down”. He surveys his surroundings, only to come to the conclusion that there really is just a never-ending vastness around him.
What is this place? Last I can remember, I was fighting Joker and…
He pauses. After his fight with Joker (and crew), Shido’s pawn had shown up and ruined the moment. He was already weakened from the battle that just went down, when just his luck, his fake form showed up and spat in his face, revealing to Goro that Shido had long intended to dispose of him after his rise to power.
I should’ve never trusted that bastard… My plans blinded me from realizing that Shido never planned to keep me around. Forget about ace detective; I was just a fool.
Some more time passes. Goro really had expected something, anything, to happen, but he just continued to float there. With nothing better to do, he begins mulling over his experiences - more specifically, his experiences with Akira.
He really was… something. My whole life I struggled forward, keeping the masses out of reach while displaying myself as this determined, princely character. Yet, when he showed up, with a criminal record to his name, people went to him willingly, naturally. He had found his place in society with people he could trust, something I could never manage, and I even had the audacity to call him trash. Pathetic…
Goro laughs at himself. He had been lost in thought and hadn’t noticed until then that the color of his surroundings had changed. The already pale blue had faded further, turning into a softer, lighter shade of blue, closer to a soft white. The warmth surrounding him had become more noticeable, too.
When did the scenery change…? I really am losing my edge.
Just then, a hand reaches through the water, seemingly appearing from nowhere. It has long slender fingers with a certain gentleness to its form. As it reaches closer towards Goro, it very briefly flickers, looking like a long mechanical tentacle. Goro notices this, and immediately raises his guard.
Luring me in with a familiar hand? But I saw what’s really underneath that facade. What does it want from me? It doesn’t appear to be hostile but… something feels off about it. Why would it choose to mask itself with HIS hand?
…
Is it because we were enemies? No, that’s not it…
Is it because of our rivalry? That’s not quite it either…
Is it because we… became friends? No, it can’t be…
…
Or is it because…
Goro shakes his head with a sigh. The “hand” still extended towards him, waiting for him to make a move. He stares at it a moment longer, sighs once more, then finally decides to grab at the “hand”. A yanking sensation pulls his body out of the water, and everything cuts to black once again.
Goro’s eyes snap open. He is no longer in the boiler room of Shido’s palace. People are walking around, brushing past him speedily. He looks up and notices that he is back in the city. Snow is falling down lightly upon his face. He hears a group of familiar voices cheer out, the laughter of a certain someone ringing more clearly in his ears. Goro stiffens momentarily, then begins making his way towards the bunch.
As Goro pushes his way through the crowd, he notices the group has disbanded, but a certain prosecutor took their place and was now talking to the person he had been approaching.
“I’d like you to turn yourself in to the police, of your own accord,” she proposes.
Upon hearing this, Goro hastens his pace towards them.
“There’s no need for that,” Goro declares, interrupting the two.